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Go ahead. Sue me. Like I have anything to take. Also, I'm not trying to take anything from you, so you'll just look like a big bully.
But, hey, if you must.
It's not mine. And I'll stick to that story, even if they question us seperately.
Oh, and I might have stolen the gist of Fred and George's scene from the pilot of Veronica Mars. I love that show.
Now, about the winner of the “Cup Contest”. My friend JT and I were talking on the phone last night, and he said, “I just couldn't come up with anything. I mean, what am I supposed to say, 'Have a *insert the solution here*?'”
So, of course, my response was, “That's brilliant! I'm gonna use it!”
Thank you, JT. You rock. You are not uncool in any way and you win the grand prize of my eternal respect.
One day in mid-February, Mr. Bones approached Harry after dinner.
“You seem to know something about what I'm on to,” he said.
“What are you on to?” asked Harry. He could feel excitement filling him, almost like he knew what was coming.
Mr. Bones pulled Harry aside, into the shadows under the stairs in the entrance hall. “Professor McGonagall brought some of our things here, including the box of my sister's personal effects. One of the items in the box was a record book of our family with instructions for passing all the heirlooms to the next of kin. There's a spell, you speak it, and it summons them all to you.”
It sounded good so far. Harry said so.
“So the problem is that two of my siblings died within two weeks of receiving this book.”
Harry nodded. This was a problem. At this precise moment, Ron wandered by.
“Harry, what're you...” he began when he saw Harry behind the stairs, but Harry ducked out and pulled him under with them.
“We need a more private hiding place,” he said. “Come on.”
Ron, Harry, and Mr. Bones headed upstairs to what had been Snape's office the year before. It was empty of everything now, and Harry shut the door. No one would want to come in here.
Harry repeated what Mr. Bones had told him to Ron. Ron frowned.
“So if we do this, Voldemort will know what happened. It must have happened before.”
“And there are still some people here who might be persuaded to give up the teeny piece of information that the Bonses are staying in the castle,” added Harry.
“And if Mr. Bones summons the cup, You-Know-Who will think the Order is onto him. He'll attack.”
The situation did look grim. Both Harry and Ron knew that if Voldemort realized what they were doing, he would increase whatever the guard was on the Ravenclaw horcrux, and maybe realize that the Slytherin horcrux and the ring had been taken.
The prospects were fairly dismal.
~~~~~
A week later, Ron and Harry were heading to the Order meeting when Ron turned to Harry suddenly and said, “You-Know-Who doesn't seem to be keeping too close an eye on the other Horcruxes, does he?”
Harry thought about it. Voldemort had given away the diary, and he hadn't even noticed that the locket and the ring were gone yet. “I suppose not. But they were still guarded.”
“But, since the cup is the only one he seems to be watching...What if no one was watching? Say, next time there's an attack or whatever? Maybe he won't even notice?”
“I think eventually he'll see that it's missing, Ron.”
“Not if we put it back.”
The audacity of that statement was incredible. “How do we do that?”
Ron grinned. “Simple.”
~~~~~
Although they were technically allowed to leave the school at any time, Harry, Ron, and Hermione had never felt the need. Until now.
The next morning, they donned their cloaks and walked to the road into Hogsmeade, where they could Apparate away to Diagon Alley. One loud pop later, they were in front of Fred and George's shop.
Diagon Alley was nearly deserted. Only a few stores seemed to be open, and only Weasley's Wizard Wheezes seemed to be doing any business at all at the moment, which was too bad, because Harry did not want to be seen.
Thankfully, Hermione had put the Invisibility cloak in her bag, and she now threw it over Harry. “Ron and I won't really get that much attention,” she whispered.
They walked quietly toward the shop, opened the door, and stepped inside.
The shop was virtually unchanged from the year before. The shelves were nearly bare, though probably not from lack of merchandise. Fred and George were busy with customers, but looked up and saw Ron and Hermione. Fred finished what he was doing and ran over to them.
“Brilliant! We need some demonstration testers for our new round of Skiving Snackboxes – The Cramping Capsules. Hermione, would you mind maybe...”
“Later,” whispered Harry. “We need a favor.”
~~~~~
“This is so cool,” muttered George.
“Wicked,” more like, chimed in Fred.
“How long will it take?” asked Ron, “because we don't have forever.”
“Well, we could set you up now, but it would be better if we had some time. More efficient. Smaller. All that stuff,” replied George thoughtfully.
“And remember,” said Harry, “you can't breathe a word to anyone.”
This was the part that worried him most.
“No problem, mate,” said Fred, “It's not like we need any more people coming after us. Anyway, Ginny and her Bat-Bogey Hex would be firmly on your side.”
~~~~~
Ron went back to Diagon Alley alone five days later after George cornered him in an Order meeting with a terse, “It's ready.”
He returned to Hogwarts carrying a small bag, which he handed to Harry in their dormitory when they were alone. “We'll need this when we go,” he told Harry.
~~~~~
They approached Mr. Bones the next day about the possibility of taking “a little trip” to get the cup. Mr. Bones wanted to do it there, but Harry was sure that was a bad idea. He didn't want anything traceable to Hogwarts, just in case.
So after breakfast, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Mr. Bones walked down to the gate, and each of them grabbed firmly onto Harry's hand. With a very uncomfortable squish, they were standing in the graveyard in Little Hangleton.
Harry ran, with Ron and Hermione, down the hill toward a path he knew a wizard named Bob Ogden had walked more than fifty years ago. He followed it past the cottage where Merope Gaunt had grown up to a grove of trees that was hidden from view of the town, and also of the large mansion on the hill above.
They sat on the ground in a circle, and Harry turned to Mr. Bones. “Now,” he said.
Ron nodded, and Harry pulled out the bag. “Okay,” said Ron, “here goes.”
He tapped a small black box labeled with a number one with his wand, and it flew away toward the house. When it was about twenty feet from impacting with the third floor, it suddenly and silently exploded, blasting a could of Peruvian instant-darkness powder into the air, sealing the doors, and casting an Unbreakable Charm on the house.
Whoever was inside was now trapped inside.
Ron got out two more small green boxes and set them in a row on the ground. He turned to Mr. Bones. “Ten minutes until they can see again, at the very least,” he said. “You need to hurry.”
Mr. Bones nodded. “Recupare,” he muttered, and suddenly he was surrounded by a huge pile of...well, stuff.
Ron groaned. “We have to sort through all this?” he asked.
“Don't whine, Ronald,” snapped Hermione. “Hurry!” she began digging through the pile, looking for a cup.
It was Mr. Bones who found the cup they were looking for. It was exactly as Harry remembered it, right down to the large, ornamental, 'H' inscribed on the side.
There were nine minutes left.
“Okay,” said Ron, “now what?”
They stared at the cup.
Nothing occurred to Harry.
When there were eight minutes left, Hermione decided to start reciting every charm she knew that might have the power to destroy an object the size of the cup.
When there were seven minutes and fifty-two seconds, Ron told her to be quiet.
At seven minutes and forty seconds, Hermione told Ron he was an idiot.
Ron shut up and glared with seven minutes and fifteen seconds remaining.
Harry continued to stare at the cup. Despite what Dumbledore's portrait had said, he didn't have a clue what to do with the thing.
“We could melt it,” said Ron.
“What?”
“It's a cup. Cups contain liquids. We could...I dunno...melt it.”
Harry considered. “It doesn't sound right.”
“How about we smash it?” asked Hermione. “It worked last time.”
“Smash it with what?” asked Harry. The cup did not look easily smashable.
“Well,” said Ron, “what're we supposed to do? Snake venom? Dragon tooth? Have one of those plants that kills you when it cries cry at it?
Hermione frowned. “You know, Ron, that's not a bad idea,” she said. “If we put the cup right in front of the Mandrake's mouth, the cries should be loud enough to eradicate anything that's remotely living.”
There were six minutes left.
Ron grinned. “Really?” he asked. “I was joking!”
Hermione glared at him. “Hurry!” she said. “Apparate back to the school and get us a Mandrake and some earmuffs!”
Ron stood up, turned in place, and popped away.
Harry, Hermione, and Mr. Bones were left with nothing to do but wait and listen to the sound of Death Eaters bumping into walls in the nearby house, waiting for Ron to return.
He returned with two minutes left, panting and carrying a potted plant with purple leaves and four pairs of earmuffs, which he quickly handed out to everyone present. When he was convinced that no one could hear, he pulled the plant out, exposing the baby at the root.
The baby began screaming. Immediately, several birds fell from a nearby tree and landed on the ground nearby. Ron put the cup in front of the Mandrake's mouth, and it began to shake. For a second it flashed with a yellow light, and then it was still.
Ron shoved the baby back into the pot and recovered it with dirt off the ground. When the vibrations of the baby's screams stopped, he gave them all the thumbs up and re-covered the pot.
There were thirty seconds left until the Instant Darkness Powder Mega-Bomb wore off.
Ron quickly used a Sticking Charm to attach the cup to box number two and then poked the box with his wand. The disappeared with a small pop.
Next he poked box number three, which rocketed off toward the house, shooting sparks behind it. When it impacted, it exploded with the force of a small bomb, casting a Memory Charm on everyone inside and lifting the Unbreakable and Sealing charms on the house.
He turned back to the others. “Let's go.”
They walked down the hill until they could no longer see the house, and then Apparated back to the school.
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