Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

A Matter of Time	By : AdaraB Category: Harry Potter AU/AR > Het - Male/Female Views: 7796 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns everything in the Harry Potter universe. I own nothing and I make no profit off of this story.

Chapter List
- 28
- 29
- 30
Chapter 29 - Revelations

“Have you finished yet?”

“Hermione, that’s the seventh time you’ve asked me that in the last two hours. If you keep it up at this rate I’ll never finish.” Ron said patiently to his girlfriend. He had two pages to go but if she asked him if he has finished one more time he seriously thought he might curse her so that she would be silent until he did finish.

Hermione stopped pacing and sat back down in her chair across from him. They had all agreed that they wouldn’t discuss the journals until everyone had finished reading them so that they could all be as objective as possible and know everything they possibly could. It was eating Hermione alive that she had to wait until everyone had finished reading both journals. The only people she didn’t have to wait for were Ashleigh and Draco as they had already read them. She honestly didn’t know how they could stand it. They had read the journals before they had even presented the copies to their Gryffindor friends and yet they refused to talk about it until the others were finished. They both just sat on the sofa they had required talking quietly to each other. Looking back at Ron who still had his nose in the second journal, she decided that he really needed to learn to read faster if only to save his girlfriends sanity.

“Done.” Ron said as he closed the copied journal with a resounding thowp.

“Finally! Do you think it’s necessary to wait for Harry and Ginny to arrive?” Hermione asked Ashleigh.

Ashleigh just shook her head in disbelief. She knew that Hermione was chomping at the bit to discuss the journals but to start the discussion before Harry arrived; the person the discussion most concerned was out of the question.

“Hermione, you know we can’t do that. This is Harry’s life we’re going to be talking about here. Don’t you think he’d be a little ticked off if we started the discussion without him?”

Sighing heavily she replied “Yes, you’re right of course. He would be angry. I just hate all of this waiting around. I feel as if I’m about to explode!”

“Why do you feel as if you’re about to explode?” A voice from behind asked.

Spinning around in her chair, Hermione spotted Harry and Ginny who had just walked through the door to the Room of Requirement. The question had come from Ginny.

“I was about to explode because I want to talk about the journals and you two weren’t here so the discussion couldn’t begin.”

“Well we’re here now so let’s talk.” Harry said as he required another sofa for Ginny and himself. They sat down and made themselves comfortable.

Hermione immediately sprung up from her chair and started pacing again. “Okay, from what was in the first journal, it seems as though Ashleigh’s first idea of the intent to kill was the entire bases of the Avada Kedavra. It sounded as though the intent was the sole reason that the spell worked at all. The second journal however, even though it was a continuation of the first, focused on the fact that the spell was meant to stop all function of bodily organs. I think if you were able to concentrate on a specific organ than the spell would be much easier to cast given that you are only concentrating on one part of the body instead of the entire thing.” She said to Harry who looked thoughtful.

“I agree and I think we need to test it out. I really don’t want to accidentally or purposefully kill some innocent creature but I can’t go into battle and not know the outcome of this theory. I hate to say it, but better some innocent animal than me or someone I care about.” Harry said.

Everyone nodded in agreement. They had all made the same deductions from the translated journals and had all come to the same conclusion that they would have to put their theory to the test if they wanted to know if it would work at all. They had to have it ready if they were to use it in battle.

“The question now is where do we do this, here or in the forest?” Ashleigh asked.

The Room of Requirement would probably be the best idea as the room could produce life like replicas of people and animals but it was more likely that they could be found out. No students went willingly into the forest since Aragog died. The acromantulas no longer stay in the nest that was built for them but do stay within the forest boundaries. This would make it more difficult to practice in the forest but there would be no students lurking about. Hagrid would give them no problem.

“I think our best bet would be to do it here. There is a better chance that we could be found out by other students even with requiring the room to seal itself but it would be better than fighting off acromantulas.” Draco said. Everyone nodded in agreement, Ron going pale with the thought of facing the enormous spiders once again.

“So…what part of the body should we concentrate on?” Ginny asked tentively. “The heart?”

“No, not the heart. I think it would be too difficult to destroy as it is basically a person’s life force. We need an organ that will enable us to defeat Voldemort but will be easy enough to destroy.” Hermione said. She had already figured that the heart wouldn’t do but she was at a loss when it came to what they should aim for.

“The eyes.” Ashleigh said.

Everyone just stared at her for a minute while they digested what she suggested.

“But that wouldn’t harm him very much would it. I mean, sure he won’t be able to see but he’s got his Death Eaters to tell him where we are and to protect him.” Ron said; confused as to why Ashleigh would suggest something so trivial.

“Think about it Ron. How is Voldemort able to perform Legilimency?”

“By looking into a person’s eyes.”

“Exactly, if he can’t see Harry’s eyes he can’t see into his mind…”

“Voldemort won’t be able to see what my next move will be!” Interrupted Harry. “He may know more spells than me but it will put us on the same level, it will give me an edge I’ve never had before.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Their practices were not going well. Harry had requested a replica of Voldemort for each of them, making sure to request that ‘he’ not fight back. Not one of them had been successful in ‘killing’ Voldemort’s eyes and they couldn’t figure out why. There is something they are missing but they just couldn’t figure out what.

“I’m going to ask Dumbledore what he thinks about all of this. I should have told him about this already.” Harry said; looking defeated after their tenth day of practice.

“Why didn’t you?”

Harry considered Ginny’s question before answering. “I wanted us to figure it out for ourselves. Dumbledore always has the answers and for once I would have liked to hand the answer over to him.”

They all looked at him like he was crazy.

Ashleigh walked over to him and put an arm around his shoulders. “Harry, you will be handing over information to Dumbledore. Has he come up with any sort of solution that even came close to this?”

“No.”

“Well then, it’s something new isn’t it?” Ginny chimed in. “Besides Harry, you’re seventeen; you can’t be expected to know all the answers can you?”

“I suppose not. It’s almost noon anyways. I’ll ask Dumbledore for a meeting and I’ll let you guys know when it is. In the mean time we’ll discontinue practice; we could all use a rest.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ashleigh and Draco were walking down to the dungeons and talking about what they wanted to accomplish during the rest of their weekend. Draco was going on about how he needed to finish an essay for Potions but Ashleigh had other ideas.

“Draco, do you think the essay could wait until later?”

“What did you have in mind?” He asked, remembering the last time she had asked him to postpone work.

His libido was crushed when she asked him to teach her how to fly. Although he’d had other things in mind, flying was indeed a good alternative. He’d been dying to see how she was on a broom and if she would actually be a natural born seeker.

“Ready to get those beating skills honed, eh?” He asked with a smarmy grin.

“Oh, shut up and teach me to fly already.” She responded as she grabbed his hand and led him to her room to retrieve her broom.

Once they were out on the pitch, Ashleigh experienced her first wave of fear of flying. It wasn’t the heights so much as the falling part that worried her. She placed her broom on the ground to the right of her as Draco did the same with his.

“Alright, place your right hand over your broom and command it to hover beside you by saying ‘up’.”

Ashleigh followed his direction but was discouraged when nothing happened.

“Don’t worry about it not responding the first time; there is rarely anyone who gets it up on the first try. The last person I remember accomplishing it is Harry. Try again and put more of a demand in your voice, you have to be firm with it, let it know who’s riding who.”

Ashleigh turned back to her broom and took a deep breath, trying to focus her energy. The next time she spoke the word ‘up’ it was forceful and with meaning and the broom shot up into her hand.

“It worked!”

Draco smiled at her shell shocked expression.

“Of course it worked! Now, take hold of the broom with both hands and straddle it.”

When Ashleigh made herself as comfortable as possible Draco continued with his lesson.

“Push off the ground softly, hover for a moment and then lean the handle down so that you can touch back to the ground.”

Ashleigh accomplished these next tasks without any problems.

“Alright, what’s next?” She asked eagerly as she sat astride her broom, feet touching the ground.

“Now, we fly. You need to be very careful until you get a feel for your broom though. The Firebolt isn’t called the fastest broom in the world for no reason. One little twitch could send it off at a hundred miles an hour. It takes very little to maneuver it. Just a slight pull in the direction you want to go will be enough. That’s what you’re going to practice now, at a slow speed of course.”

Draco spent the next hour teaching Ashleigh how to maneuver and control her broom. He thought she was doing exceptionally well for a beginner. Maybe she inherited some of the flying abilities that Harry did after all.

Rain clouds were moving in from the west so they made a day of the flying and went back inside to finish up on some homework. Draco finished his Potions essay while Ashleigh finished her assignment for Transfiguration. They were sitting comfortably beside each other on her plush couch when a house elf popped into existence, handed Ashleigh a letter, and was gone a second later.

The letter read:

Miss Grey,

Please join me in my office at six o’clock tonight to discuss your findings. Bring Mr. Malfoy with you as I am sure he is reading this over your shoulder at this moment.

Albus Dumbledore

Ashleigh looked over her right shoulder and smirked as she saw Draco trying to get a glimpse of the letter and outright laughed at his expression when he finished reading it. Dumbledore really didn’t miss a thing, she thought while wondering if the portraits where his own two dimensional spy’s around the school. It certainly would make sense if they were.

“We’d best go to dinner now; we have forty five minutes before we have to meet Dumbledore.” She said, turning to Draco.

“I suppose you’re right.” He conceded as he got up from his seated position and stretched his back. He made a face as he straightened up again.

“I do believe that you are a bad influence on me.”

“Oh and why exactly is that?” She asked in mock indignation.

“Because you’re teaching me bad habits that are reflecting on my perfect posture that I’ve worked so hard on. What will my parents think?”

“They’ll think you’ve finally got that stick out of your ass. Now come on or we won’t have time for dinner.” She said laughingly at his pouty look. Grabbing his hand, she led him out of her room and up to the Great Hall where they sat at the Gryffindor table amongst their friends and chatted quietly about their upcoming meeting with Dumbledore.

“Do you think he’s got any ideas on where we went wrong?” Ron asked.

“He’s got to. He said he’d send for us when he had information about it.” Harry replied.

“Well it certainly didn’t take him long did it? I mean, it’s only been a few hours. Maybe he’s got a book that will uncover secrets about the Unforgivables as well. It really wouldn’t surprise me if he did since his own knowledge is so vast. I can only imagine what his library is like.” Hermione said in an excited by low voice.

Everyone smiled at Hermione’s musing. They all knew that she would do just about anything to get her hands on a library like Dumbledore’s. Throughout the rest of their dinner, they continued to throw out questions about what Dumbledore could possibly know about what they found and their theory of how it works.

When the time was ten of five, they left the Great Hall and made their way up to Dumbledore’s office. Harry stepped up and spoke the password ‘Puffskein’. The gargoyle immediately began to move and they all stepped onto the moving staircase one by one. As the staircase came to a stop, the door magically opened and they all walked into the office and made themselves comfortable in the extra chairs that Dumbledore must have conjured previous to their appointment.

Looking at the clock on the wall, Harry noticed that it was five fifty-nine so technically Dumbledore wasn’t late. At exactly six o’clock on the chime, he wafted into the room with a flourish and seated himself behind his desk as the door closed behind him.

“Lovely that you all could make it. I apologize for not being here for your arrival but there were a couple of third years that thought it would be funny to put a fizzing whizbee in the soup that belonged to another student. It happened just after you left. I’ll never forget the sight of noodles and vegetables spiraling through the air and into the hair of those sitting by.” He said with a sparkle in his eye that looked suspiciously mischievous.

“Harry gave me copies of the journals you translated Mr. Malfoy as well as the originals and I must say that you did a marvelous job in your translations. They are spot on. I have read through them and have come to the same conclusions that your studious minds have come up with. I can only be disappointed in myself that I did not see it before. However, I do believe that I can be of use when it comes to altering the spell to do what you wish. When you were casting you were focusing solely on the eyes correct?” He asked, looking at Harry.

“Yes.” They all replied in unison.

“I believe that is where the problem may lie. You see the eyes do not act on their own accord, no organ does. I believe that you need to focus on the brain. I’ve only thought about this a small amount of time but I do have a knack for being right about these things. The brain controls all functions of the body, so to control just a small part of it you must attack the brain. In the case of the eyes, you need to attack the optic nerve.”

“That’s it! I should have thought about this before after having to take biology so many times. Of course you’d have to attack the brain!” Ashleigh replied after realizing her mistake.

“Don’t fret about it my dear, I have done the same and am much older and more experienced than you so I have much less excuse than you. However, you will need to brush up on your biology as you will need to know exactly where the optic nerve is located in the brain so you can concentrate on it properly. Now, I suggest you all head to the library as I know there is a good book on human anatomy that I am sure Miss Granger will have no problem finding.”

Taking that as their queue to leave, they stood and exited the office. On the way down the spiral staircase they passed Filch who was still grumbling about the daises spouting out of his head and third year Hufflepuffs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That night Dumbledore sat in his office contemplating what he’d learned from his students that day and how they had come across those journals. He had been searching for them for the past sixty years and had not even heard a whisper of their whereabouts. He could only ascertain that Mr. Malfoy either had them in his family home or was able to obtain them through a contact on the dark side. At that thought, he certainly hoped the young man covered his tracks well.

“Severus, you may come in.”

Opening the door, Snape walked into the Headmaster’s office and took a seat in the only extra chair that now graced the headmaster’s office. After declining a lemon drop, the Headmaster got down to business.

“What news of Voldemort do you have?”

“He knows about her.” Was all he had to say.
- 28
- 29
- 30
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

A Matter of Time