Chapter Five

Chapter Five

The list of 78 items had grown to 342 by the first week of December, although about half had been crossed off as completed or scratched out as plans changed. Hermione, Bill, and Harry had come up with what they hoped was a workable plan, and they would put it into effect on the Winter Solstice. They'd chosen that date for several reasons, not the least of which that it was the dark of the moon.

Bill stretched his long legs under Hermione's dinner table and sighed contentedly. "That was a good dinner, Hermione. Thanks." He yawned and stretched until the vertebrae in his neck popped. "I will not be sorry when this next bit is done. I don't mind collecting information. But breaking into the Ministry is... I hope Dad never finds out."

"He shouldn't, unless something goes badly wrong," Harry replied, looking up from where he was doodling on a piece of parchment. "Hermione's plan is a good one. We all agreed on it."

Hermione began clearing the remains of their dinner off the table. "It helps that Fudge has been so much of an idiot. He's reduced Ministry security to three Aurors who have to patrol the entire building, since he took off the Anti-Apparition wards."

"Bill, you don't think he's onto us, do you?" Harry asked slowly. "It looks like he's playing right into our hands."

Bill sighed again, this time much less contentedly. "That is one thing that I would give a great deal to know, and we won't know until we do it."

"Let's go over the plan again as soon as I get the kitchen cleaned up," Hermione broke in. "We might see something we overlooked."

"More likely we'll outthink ourselves at this point," Bill replied. "You can't plan for every contingency."

"But the entire point of Arithmancy is to reduce the number of possible actions in a situation to one," she objected.

"That doesn't work when you're dealing with people. People do not act logically all the time, and you can't factor that into your equations. Anything with the human factor has a certain amount of randomness." Bill leaned forward. "The more human factors, the more unpredictable things become. In chess, there are a limited number of moves that can be made in each turn, and you can use Arithmancy to predict the most likely reaction to each move. Master chess players often will have their actions planned out three or four moves ahead. But if they're playing someone who doesn't react as they expect, it throws them off their stride."

"That's why I can sometimes beat Ron at chess," Harry agreed. "He's better than I am, but I'm ... not predictable."

"Exactly," Bill said.

"But..." she began.

"Hermione," Harry said gently, "we know you're nervous. But we've gone over this as much as we can. It's only going to be another two weeks. We've done everything that needs to be done. So we have to wait."

Hermione looked over at Grim, where he sat completely oblivious to the conversation going on around him. "What are we going to do if this doesn't work?"

Bill grimaced. "Depending on what part of it fails, it may kill him with backlash."

"Or kill you, since you're going to be casting the spell," Harry added.

"Thanks for reminding me," she said sourly. "I've been trying not to think about that. But seriously - if we can't do this... wouldn't he be better off dead than... like he is now?"

"What would he want?" Harry wondered aloud. "Death is so... final."

"Harry has the right of it," Bill said. "There are times when Death is a release - when existing becomes too much to bear. But we don't have the right to make the choice for him."

"Do we have the right to condemn him to a life like this?" She pointed at Grim. "Look at him, Bill! He can't do anything without being told, step by step. He's not human any more! Do you think he wants to live like this?"

"I think that as long as there's a chance of reversing the spell, Grim would want the chance at it. He's not in pain - hell, he's probably in the best shape of his life now."

Now that was probably true. Grim was no longer cadaverously thin. Regular meals had allowed him to regain most of the weight he'd lost. Regular baths had turned his matted hair thick and silky. Best of all, the welts had healed with a minimum of scarring. But his eyes were the same: dead and empty. They were the eyes of a man who has seen too much to remain sane.

She shook her head. "I don't know, Harry. I think I'm going to hope that it works."

~*~

At ten o'clock at night on December 21st, Hermione quietly Apparated into a small room in the first sublevel of the Ministry of Magic followed shortly by Harry and Bill. Harry had spent the last few nights here under his invisibility cloak making notes on the security routine. The Aurors who patrolled the building had just finished their rounds and would be sitting around playing Exploding Snap for thirty minutes. At that time, they would draw lots to see which one of them would check the sublevels. The other two would check the remainder of the building.

Each of the three friends carried a bag with twelve unbreakable jars that had once held various delicacies. Harry had saved them from his birthday party, and the three had spent a week casting every protective spell they could think of on them. Their shoes were treated with a Catfoot spell that minimized the noise their footsteps would make. Harry had his cloak, but the other two were making do with Chameleon spells that would allow them to blend in with their backgrounds as long as they were relatively still.

Bill had brought along a couple of fireworks and some other things which he would use as distractions if they had to run. He'd also dyed his distinctive hair an unremarkable reddish brown - a precaution against possible recognition. Hermione's hair was pulled back into a tail, and stuffed down the back of her shirt to keep it out of the way.

The Souljar room was only two corridors over, and Hermione blessed Rita Skeeter for all her help. Wands out, they traversed the halls. Bill led the way and Harry played tail-guard. When they got to the room, Hermione cast the two quick spells that muffled any alarms and unlocked the door. Quickly they entered and Hermione locked the door behind them.

It was a relatively small room, obviously a laboratory. Immediately to the left of the door was a set of shallow shelves containing beakers, pipettes, and other paraphernalia. A ceramic-topped workbench with a sink ran the length of the left wall, with cabinets underneath and more shelves above. On the wall opposite the door was another, deeper, set of shelves. The right wall was bare except for a heavy metal hook in each corner. A thick chain hung from each hook (coiled neatly on the floor in the case of the lower hooks), and at the end of each chain was a metal cuff. Hermione blanched and turned her back on them.

The Souljars stood neatly in rows in the left rear corner of the workbench, and Hermione cautiously approached them, her wand out, checking every inch of floor and countertop for alarms or other traps, and doublechecking when she didn't find any. Bill followed suit, casting spells to reveal hidden guards, or listening devices, again finding nothing.

"This is insane," Harry whispered harshly. "No traps. No alarms. No wards. It doesn't make any sense! But let's not quarrel with Fate. Let's do this and leave."

Hermione looked at the jars and swore quietly. "None of them are labeled! So we take them all and puzzle out who's who later." She looked again. "Three rows of twelve... that's thirty-six! But only thirty-four were auctioned..."

"We brought some spare jars, just in case," Bill muttered back at her. "Harry will just have to be very careful doing the Invacumar spell. It's a very good thing that our jars are bigger than these."

The Souljars, in fact, were rather smaller than they'd expected - about the size of a man's fist. They were a uniform deep cobalt blue in color which effectively masked the contents from view. Their lids were also glass, and a ring of wax around the join made for an airtight seal. She picked up the leftmost jar on the front row and handed it to Harry.

He set his bag of jars on the floor and took one out. "I suppose we'd better make the jars match, just in case."

"Let me do that," Bill said. "You're going to be doing all the actual work." A couple of moments later, all the jars they'd brought with them were twins to the Souljars. Bill had also thoughtfully added numbered labels.

In short order, they had it down to a system. Hermione picked up a Souljar off the shelf and handed it to Harry. He then picked up the next empty jar, checked the number, and transferred the contents with the Invacumar spell. The numbered jar was handed to Bill who packed it carefully in one of the bags. The empty Souljar went back to Hermione who carefully returned it to its former location. A heartbeat later, she picked up the next jar.

"Thirty-three..."

"Thirty-four..."

"Thirty-five..."

"Thirty-six." Harry finished and sagged slightly. "Do we chance Apparating out of here?"

"We can't," Bill replied as he packed the last jar. "We've got to cancel all the trap detecting spells we set."

"And the spells in the hallway," Hermione added.

Harry looked at his watch. "We've only got five minutes. Let's move!" He picked up one of the bags. The other two followed suit. Two minutes later, they Apparated out with a great sense of relief.

Back at Hermione's house, the three established the strongest wards, warn-offs, and privacy spells they knew. Bill rubbed his temples wearily when they were done. "If anything can see what's going on here, then we deserve to get caught," he declared.

"I don't think I'd go that far," Harry replied from where he'd sprawled on the couch. "I don't want to wind up in one of those jars."

Hermione set the tea kettle on. "We're not going to do anything until we've had some tea and recovered a little. We'll make stupid mistakes if we're tired." She sat down at the kitchen table and rested her head on her arms.

For a little while there was silence broken only by the sound of breathing and the quiet bubbling of the kettle. When Hermione rose to pour the tea, Harry got up and began lining up the jars in the order they'd been stored. He contemplated them silently, nodding his thanks when she handed him a mug.

Bill joined him, mug in hand also. "So here's our unplanned complication. How the hell do we tell which is who?"

"Well - there's all kinds of possibilities." Harry scratched an ear. "They could be in alphabetical order. They could be in the order in which the procedure was applied. They could be in the order in which they were auctioned. Or it could be random."

"I don't think it would be random," Hermione said slowly. "I'd think even Fudge would want some way to keep track of people, just in case."

"I've got an idea," Bill said. "I think Harry pegged it when he said it could be the order in which this was done. And ordinarily, you might think that this one," he pointed at jar #1, "would be the first one. But if you remember how they were laid out on the workbench..."

"The one in the corner would be the first one! Number twenty-five!" Hermione finished.

"Exactly."

"Which still leaves us with the same problem."

"I wish we'd thought to search the rest of the lab. I'll bet there's some kind of record somewhere."

"McGaven's too much of a scientist not to keep notes - and I remember him saying that he's the only one who could do this Soulstriking and make it work."

"Would he keep that kind of record in his lab or in his office?" Hermione asked. Then she thought about it. "Never mind. He'd want it in the lab for making notes."

The three friends exchanged a long look. Harry said it. "Back to the Ministry."