We'll somewhere more sheltered

Chapter Nineteen

The Silver Doe

        It was snowing by the time Hermione took over the watch at midnight. Harry's
dreams were confused and disturbing: Nagini wove in and out of them, first through a
wreath of Christmas roses. He woke repeatedly, panicky, convinced that somebody had
called out to him in the distance, imagining that the wind whipping around the tent was
footsteps or voices.
        Finally he got up in the darkness and joined Hermione, who was huddled in the
entrance to the tent reading A History of Magic by the light of her wand. The snow was
falling thickly, and she greeted with relief his suggestion of packing up early and moving
on.
        "We'll somewhere more sheltered," she agreed, shivering as she pulled on a
sweatshirt over her pajamas. "I kept thinking I could hear people moving outside. I even
though I saw somebody one or twice."

        Harry paused in the act of pulling on a jumper and glanced at the silent,
motionless Sneakoscope on the table.
        "I'm sure I imagined it," said Hermione, looking nervous. "The snow the dark, it
plays tricks on your eyes.... But perhaps we ought to Disapparate under the Invisibility
Cloak, just in case?"
        Half an hour later, with the tent packed, Harry wearing the Horcrux, and
Hermione clutching the beaded bag, they Disapparated. The usual tightness engulfed
them; Harry's feet parted company with the snowy ground, then slammed hard onto what
felt like frozen earth covered in leaves.
        "Where are we?" he asked, peering around at the fresh mass of trees as Hermione
opened the beaded bag and began tugging out the tent poles.
        "The Forest of Dean," she said, "I came camping here once with my mum and
dad."

Harry, I'm sorry,

         "The Dumbledore we thought we knew didn't want to conquer Muggles by force!"
Harry shouted, his voice echoing across the empty hilltop, and several blackbirds rose
into the air, squawking and spiraling against the pearly sky.
         "He changed, Harry, he changed! It's as simple as that! Maybe he did believe
these things when he was seventeen, but the whole of the rest of his life was devoted to
fighting the Dark Arts! Dumbledore was the one who stopped Grindelwald, the one who

always voted for Muggle protection and Muggle born rights, who fought You-Know-
Who from the start, and who died trying to bring him down!"
        Rita's book lay on the ground between them, so that the face of Albus
Dumbledore smiled dolefully at both.
        "Harry, I'm sorry, but I think the real reason you're so angry is that Dumbledore
never told you any of this himself."
        "Maybe I am!" Harry bellowed, and he flung his arms over his head, hardly
knowing whether he was trying to hold in his anger or protect himself from the weight of
his own disillusionment. "Look what he asked from me, Hermione! Risk your life, Harry!
And again! And again! And don't expect me to explain everything, just trust me blindly,
trust that I know what I'm doing, trust me even though I don't trust you! Never the whole
truth! Never!"
        His voice cracked with the strain, and they stood looking at each other in the
whiteness and emptiness, and Harry felt they were as insignificant as insects beneath that
wide sky.
        "He loved you," Hermione whispered. "I know he loved you."
        Harry dropped his arms.
        "I don't know who he loved, Hermione, but it was never me. This isn't love, the
mess he's left me in. He shared a damn sight more of what he was really thinking with
Gellert Grindelwald than he ever shared with me."
        Harry picked up Hermione's wand, which he had dropped in the snow, and sat
back down in the entrance of the tent.
        "Thanks for the tea. I'll finish the watch. You get back in the warm."
    She hesitated, but recognized the dismissal. She picked up the book and then walked
back past him into the tent, but as she did so, she brushed the top of his head lightly with
her hand. He closed his eyes at her touch, and hated himself for wishing that what she
said was true: that Dumbledore had really cared.

What's Nurmengard?

         "Yes, I --- I did." She hesitated, looking upset, cradling her tea in her cold hands.
"I think that's the worst bit. I know Bathilda thought it was all just talk, but 'For the
Greater Good' became Grindelwald's slogan, his justification for all the atrocities he
committed later. And . . . from that . . . it looks like Dumbledore gave him the idea. They
say 'For the Greater Good' was even carved over the entrance to Nurmengard."
         "What's Nurmengard?"
         "The prison Grindelwald had built to hold his opponents. He ended up in there
himself, once Dumbledore had caught him. Anyway, it's --- it’s an awful thought that
Dumbledore's ideas helped Grindelwald rise to power. But on the other hand, even Rita
can't pretend that they knew each other for more than a few months one summer when
they were both really young, and ---"
         "I thought you'd say that," said Harry. He did not want to let his anger spill out at
her, but it was hard to keep his voice steady. "I thought you'd say 'They were young.'
They were the same age as we are now. And here we are, risking our lives to fight the
Dark Arts, and there he was, in a huddle with his new best friend, plotting their rise to
power over the Muggles."
         His temper would not remain in check much longer: He stood up and walked
around, trying to work some of it off.
         "I'm not trying to defend what Dumbledore wrote," said Hermione. "All that 'right
to rule' rubbish, it's 'Magic Is Might' all over again. But Harry, his mother had just died,
he was stuck alone in the house ---"
         "Alone? He wasn't alone! He had his brother and sister for company, his Squib
sister he was keeping locked up ---"
    "I don't believe it," said Hermione. She stood up too. "Whatever was wrong with that
girl, I don't think she was a Squib. The Dumbledore we knew would never, ever have
allowed---"

The chapter ended here and Harry looked up.

   Neither Dumbledore nor Grindelwald ever seems to have referred to this
brief boyhood friendship in later life. However, there can be no doubt that
Dumbledore delayed, for some five years of turmoil, fatalities, and
disappearances, his attack upon Gellert Grindelwald. Was it lingering affection
for the man or fear of exposure as his once best friend that caused Dumbledore
to hesitate? Was it only reluctantly that Dumbledore set out to capture the man
he was once so delighted he had met?
   And how did the mysterious Ariana die? Was she the inadvertent victim of
some Dark rite? Did she stumble across something she ought not to have done,
as the two young men sat practicing for their attempt at glory and domination?
Is it possible that Ariana Dumbledore was the first person to die “for the greater
good”?

         The chapter ended here and Harry looked up. Hermione had reached the bottom
of the page before him. She tugged the book out of Harry’s hands, looking a little
alarmed by his expression, and closed it without looking at it, as though hiding something
indecent.
         “Harry ---”
         But he shook his head. Some inner certainty had crashed down inside him; it was
exactly as he had felt after Ron left. He had trusted Dumbledore, believed him the
embodiment of goodness and wisdom. All was ashes: How much more could he lose?
Ron, Dumbledore, the phoenix wand . . .
         “Harry.” She seemed to have heard his thoughts. "Listen to me. It --- it doesn't
make a very nice reading ---"
         "Yeah, you could say that ---"
         "--- but don't forget, Harry, this is Rita Skeeter writing."
         "You did read that letter to Grindelwald, didn't you?"

It was poor little Ariana dying

   No doubt those determined to keep Dumbledore on his crumbling pedestal
will bleat that he did not, after all, put his plans into action, that he must have
suffered a change of heart, that he came to his senses. However, the truth seems
altogether more shocking.
   Barely two months into their great new friendship, Dumbledore and
Grindelwald parted, never to see each other again until they met for their
legendary duel (for more, see chapter 22). What caused this abrupt rupture? Had
Dumbledore come to his senses? Had he told Grindelwald he wanted no more
part in his plans? Alas, no.
   “It was poor little Ariana dying, I think, that did it,” says Bathilda. “It came
as an awful shock. Gellert was there in the house when it happened, and he
came back to my house all of a dither, told me he wanted to go home the next
day. Terribly distressed, you know. So I arranged a Portkey and that was the last
I saw of him.
   “Albus was beside himself at Ariana’s death. It was so dreadful for those two
brothers. They had lost everybody except for each other. No wonder tempers
ran a little high. Aberforth blamed Albus, you know, as people will under these
dreadful circumstances. But Aberforth always talked a little madly, poor boy.
All the same, breaking Albus’s nose at the funeral was not decent. It would have
destroyed Kendra to see her sons fighting like that, across her daughter’s body.
A shame Gellert could not have stayed for the funeral. . . . He would have been
a comfort to Albus, at least. . . .
   This dreadful coffin-side brawl, known only to those few who attended
Ariana Dumbledore’s funeral, raises several questions. Why exactly did
Aberforth Dumbledore blame Albus for his sister’s death? Was it, as “Batty”
pretends, a mere effusion of grief? Or could there have been some more
concrete reason for his fury? Grindelwald, expelled from Durmstrang for the
near-fatal attacks upon fellow students, fled the country hours after the girl’s
death, and Albus (out of shame or fear?) never saw him again, not until forced
to do so by the pleas of the Wizarding world.

How long will it take to make, anyway?

"How long will it take to make, anyway?" said Harry as Hermione,
looking happier, opened the book again.

"Well, since the fluxweed has got to be picked at the full moon and
the lacewings have got to be stewed for twenty-one days ... I'd say
it'd be ready in about a month, if we can get all the ingredients."

"A month?" said Ron. "Malfoy could have attacked half the Muggle-
borns in the school by then!" But Hermione's eyes narrowed
dangerously again, and he added swiftly, "But it's the best plan we've
got, so full steam ahead, I say."

However, while Hermione was checking that the coast was clear for
them to leave the bathroom, Ron muttered to Harry, "It'll be a lot less
hassle if you can just knock Malfoy off his broom tomorrow.

Harry woke early on Saturday morning and lay for a while thinking
about the coming Quidditch match. He was nervous, mainly at the
thought of what Wood would say if Gryffindor lost, but also at the
idea of facing a team mounted on the fastest racing brooms gold
could buy. He had never wanted to beat Slytherin so badly. After
half an hour of lying there with his insides churning, he got up,
dressed, and went down to breakfast early, where he found the rest
of the Gryffindor team huddled at the long, empty table, all looking
uptight and not speaking much.

As eleven o'clock approached, the whole school started to make its
way down to the Quidditch stadium. It was a muggy sort of day
with a hint of thunder in the air. Ron and Hermione came hurrying
over to wish Harry good luck as he entered the locker rooms. The
team pulled on their scarlet Gryffindor robes, then sat down to listen to
Wood's usual pre-match pep talk.

"Slytherin has better brooms than us," he began. "No point denying it.
But we've got better people on our brooms. We've trained harder than
they have, we've been flying in all weathers -" ("Too true," muttered
George Weasley. "I haven't been properly dry since August") "- and
we're going to make them rue the day they let that little bit of slime,
Malfoy, buy his way onto their team."

Excuse me?

"This is the most complicated potion I've ever seen," said Hermione as
they scanned the recipe. "Lacewing flies, leeches, fluxweed, and
knotgrass," she murmured, running her finger down the list of
ingredients. "Well, they're easy enough, they're in the student store-
cupboard, we can help ourselves ... Oooh, look, powdered horn of a
Bicorn - don't know where we're going to get that - shredded skin of a
Boomslang -. that'll be tricky, too and of course a bit of whoever we
want to change into."

"Excuse me?" said Ron sharply. "What d'you mean, a bit of whoever
we're changing into? I'm drinking nothing with Crabbe's toenails in it -"

Hermione continued as though she hadn't heard him.

"We don't have to worry about that yet, though, because we add those
bits last ...

Ron turned, speechless, to Harry, who had another worry.

"D'you realize how much we're going to have to steal, Hermione?
Shredded skin of a boomslang, that's definitely not in the students'
cupboard. What're we going to do, break into Snape's private stores? I
don't know if this is a good idea ..."

Hermione shut the book with a snap.

"Well, if you two are going to chicken out, fine," she said. There were
bright pink patches on her cheeks and her eyes were brighter than
usual. "I don't want to break rules, you know. I think threatening
Muggle-borns is far worse than brewing up a difficult potion. But if
you don't want to find out if it's Malfoy, I'll go straight to Madam Pince
now and hand the book back in -'

"I never thought Id see the day when you'd be persuading us to
break rules," said Ron. "All right, we'll do it. But not toenails, okay?"

Moste Potente Potions?

"Moste Potente Potions?" she repeated suspiciously, trying to take the
note from Hermione; but Hermione wouldn't let go.

"I was wondering if I could keep it," she said breathlessly.

"Oh, come on," said Ron, wrenching it from her grasp and thrusting it
at Madam Pince. "We'll get you another autograph. Lockhart'll sign
anything if it stands still long enough."

Madam Pince held the note up to the light, as though determined to
detect a forgery, but it passed the test. She stalked away between the
lofty shelves and returned several minutes later carrying a large and
moldy-looking book. Hermione put it carefully into her bag and they
left, trying not to walk too quickly or look too guilty.

Five minutes later, they were barricaded in Moaning Myrtle's out-of-
order bathroom once again. Hermione had overridden Ron's objections
by pointing out that it was the last place anyone in their right minds
would go, so they were guaranteed some privacy. Moaning Myrtle
was crying noisily in her stall, but they were ignoring her, and she
them.

Hermione opened Moste Potente Potions carefully, and the three of
them bent over the damp-spotted pages. It was clear from a glance
why it belonged in the Restricted Section. Some of the potions had
effects almost too gruesome to think about, and there were some very
unpleasant illustrations, which included a man who seemed to have
been turned inside out and a witch sprouting several extra pairs of
arms out of her head.

"Here it is," said Hermione excitedly as she found the page headed The
Polyjuice Potion. It was decorated with drawings of people halfway
through transforming into other people. Harry sincerely hoped the artist
had imagined the looks of intense pain on their faces.

I don't believe it

"Well, I'm sure no one will mind me giving the best student of the year
a little extra help," said Lockhart warmly, and he pulled out an
enormous peacock quill. "Yes, nice, isn't it?" he said, misreading the
revolted look on Ron's face. "I usually save it for book-signings."

He scrawled an enormous loopy signature on the note and handed it
back to Hermione.

"So, Harry," said Lockhart, while Hermione folded the note with
fumbling fingers and slipped it into her bag. "Tomorrow's the first
Quidditch match of the season, I believe? Gryffindor against Slytherin,
is it not? I hear you're a useful player. I was a Seeker, too. I was
asked to try for the National Squad, but preferred to dedicate my life
to the eradication of the Dark Forces. Still, if ever you feel the need
for a little private training, don't hesitate to ask. Always happy to pass
on my expertise to less able players ..."

Harry made an indistinct noise in his throat and then hurried off after
Ron and Hermione.

"I don't believe it," he said as the three of them examined the signature
on the note. "He didn't even look at the book we wanted."

"That's because he's a brainless git," said Ron. "But who cares, we've
got what we needed -"

"He is not a brainless git," said Hermione shrilly as they half ran
toward the library.

"Just because he said you were the best student of the year -"

They dropped their voices as they entered the muffled stillness of the
library. Madam Pince, the librarian, was a thin, irritable woman who
looked like an underfed vulture.

Wait till everyone's gone,

"Nice loud howl, Harry - exactly - and then, if you'll believe it, I
pounced - like this - slammed him to the floor - thus with one hand, I
managed to hold him down - with my other, I put my wand to his throat -I
then screwed up my remaining strength and performed the immensely
complex Homorphus Charm - he let out a piteous moan - go on, Harry -
higher than that - good - the fur vanished - the fangs shrank - and he turned
back into a man. Simple,
yet effective - and another village will remember me forever as the hero
who delivered them from the monthly terror of werewolf attacks."

The bell rang and Lockhart got to his feet.

"Homework - compose a poem about my defeat of the Wagga
Wagga Werewolf! Signed copies of Magical Me to the author of the
best one!"

The class began to leave. Harry returned to the back of the room,
where Ron and Hermione were waiting.

"Ready?" Harry muttered.

"Wait till everyone's gone," said Hermione nervously. "All right . . . "

She approached Lockhart's desk, a piece of paper clutched tightly in
her hand, Harry and Ron right behind her.

"Er - Professor Lockhart?" Hermione stammered. "I wanted to - to
get this book out of the library. Just for background reading." She
held out the piece of paper, her hand shaking slightly. "But the thing
is, it's in the Restricted Section of the library, so I need a teacher to
sign for it - I'm sure it would help me understand what you say in
Gadding with Ghouls about slow-acting venoms..."

"Ah, Gadding with Ghouls!" said Lockhart, taking the note from
Hermione and smiling widely at her. "Possibly my very favorite
book. You enjoyed it?"

"Oh, yes," said Hermione eagerly. "So clever, the way you trapped that
last one with the tea-strainer -"

Paradiso: Canto XIV

For I have seen all winter long the thorn
  First show itself intractable and fierce,
  And after bear the rose upon its top;

And I have seen a ship direct and swift
  Run o'er the sea throughout its course entire,
  To perish at the harbour's mouth at last.

Let not Dame Bertha nor Ser Martin think,
  Seeing one steal, another offering make,
  To see them in the arbitrament divine;

For one may rise, and fall the other may."



Paradiso: Canto XIV


From centre unto rim, from rim to centre,
  In a round vase the water moves itself,
  As from without 'tis struck or from within.

Into my mind upon a sudden dropped
  What I am saying, at the moment when
  Silent became the glorious life of Thomas,

Because of the resemblance that was born
  Of his discourse and that of Beatrice,
  Whom, after him, it pleased thus to begin:

"This man has need (and does not tell you so,
  Nor with the voice, nor even in his thought)
  Of going to the root of one truth more.

Declare unto him if the light wherewith
  Blossoms your substance shall remain with you
  Eternally the same that it is now;

And if it do remain, say in what manner,
  After ye are again made visible,
  It can be that it injure not your sight."

So that thine own opinion I commend

Thus was of old the earth created worthy
  Of all and every animal perfection;
  And thus the Virgin was impregnate made;

So that thine own opinion I commend,
  That human nature never yet has been,
  Nor will be, what it was in those two persons.

Now if no farther forth I should proceed,
  'Then in what way was he without a peer?'
  Would be the first beginning of thy words.

But, that may well appear what now appears not,
  Think who he was, and what occasion moved him
  To make request, when it was told him, 'Ask.'

I've not so spoken that thou canst not see
  Clearly he was a king who asked for wisdom,
  That he might be sufficiently a king;

'Twas not to know the number in which are
  The motors here above, or if 'necesse'
  With a contingent e'er 'necesse' make,

'Non si est dare primum motum esse,'
  Or if in semicircle can be made
  Triangle so that it have no right angle.

Whence, if thou notest this and what I said,
  A regal prudence is that peerless seeing
  In which the shaft of my intention strikes.

And if on 'rose' thou turnest thy clear eyes,
  Thou'lt see that it has reference alone
  To kings who're many, and the good are rare.

Because that living Light

That which can die, and that which dieth not,
  Are nothing but the splendour of the idea
  Which by his love our Lord brings into being;

Because that living Light, which from its fount
  Effulgent flows, so that it disunites not
  From Him nor from the Love in them intrined,

Through its own goodness reunites its rays
  In nine subsistences, as in a mirror,
  Itself eternally remaining One.

Thence it descends to the last potencies,
  Downward from act to act becoming such
  That only brief contingencies it makes;

And these contingencies I hold to be
  Things generated, which the heaven produces
  By its own motion, with seed and without.

Neither their wax, nor that which tempers it,
  Remains immutable, and hence beneath
  The ideal signet more and less shines through;

Therefore it happens, that the selfsame tree
  After its kind bears worse and better fruit,
  And ye are born with characters diverse.

If in perfection tempered were the wax,
  And were the heaven in its supremest virtue,
  The brilliance of the seal would all appear;

But nature gives it evermore deficient,
  In the like manner working as the artist,
  Who has the skill of art and hand that trembles.

If then the fervent Love, the Vision clear,
  Of primal Virtue do dispose and seal,
  Perfection absolute is there acquired.

Here are Illuminato and Agostino

Of him were made thereafter divers runnels,
  Whereby the garden catholic is watered,
  So that more living its plantations stand.

If such the one wheel of the Biga was,
  In which the Holy Church itself defended
  And in the field its civic battle won,

Truly full manifest should be to thee
  The excellence of the other, unto whom
  Thomas so courteous was before my coming.

But still the orbit, which the highest part
  Of its circumference made, is derelict,
  So that the mould is where was once the crust.

His family, that had straight forward moved
  With feet upon his footprints, are turned round
  So that they set the point upon the heel.

And soon aware they will be of the harvest
  Of this bad husbandry, when shall the tares
  Complain the granary is taken from them.

Yet say I, he who searcheth leaf by leaf
  Our volume through, would still some page discover
  Where he could read, 'I am as I am wont.'

'Twill not be from Casal nor Acquasparta,
  From whence come such unto the written word
  That one avoids it, and the other narrows.

Bonaventura of Bagnoregio's life
  Am I, who always in great offices
  Postponed considerations sinister.



Here are Illuminato and Agostino,
  Who of the first barefooted beggars were
  That with the cord the friends of God became.

Hugh of Saint Victor is among them here,
  And Peter Mangiador, and Peter of Spain,
  Who down below in volumes twelve is shining;

Nathan the seer, and metropolitan
  Chrysostom, and Anselmus, and Donatus
  Who deigned to lay his hand to the first art;

Here is Rabanus, and beside me here
  Shines the Calabrian Abbot Joachim,
  He with the spirit of prophecy endowed.

To celebrate so great a paladin
  Have moved me the impassioned courtesy
  And the discreet discourses of Friar Thomas,

And with me they have moved this company."

Paradiso: Canto XII

Paradiso: Canto XII


Soon as the blessed flame had taken up
  The final word to give it utterance,
  Began the holy millstone to revolve,

And in its gyre had not turned wholly round,
  Before another in a ring enclosed it,
  And motion joined to motion, song to song;

Song that as greatly doth transcend our Muses,
  Our Sirens, in those dulcet clarions,
  As primal splendour that which is reflected.

And as are spanned athwart a tender cloud
  Two rainbows parallel and like in colour,
  When Juno to her handmaid gives command,

(The one without born of the one within,
  Like to the speaking of that vagrant one
  Whom love consumed as doth the sun the vapours,)

And make the people here, through covenant
  God set with Noah, presageful of the world
  That shall no more be covered with a flood,

In such wise of those sempiternal roses
  The garlands twain encompassed us about,
  And thus the outer to the inner answered.

After the dance, and other grand rejoicings,
  Both of the singing, and the flaming forth
  Effulgence with effulgence blithe and tender,

Together, at once, with one accord had stopped,
  (Even as the eyes, that, as volition moves them,
  Must needs together shut and lift themselves,)

Out of the heart of one of the new lights
  There came a voice, that needle to the star
  Made me appear in turning thitherward.