Harry Potter and the Stranded Mists of Spring

Chapter 7 - A Man in the Shadows

Harry couldn't wait. He tipped the vial containing Ginny's memories into his pensive as soon as he entered his drawing room. He waited just a moment, watching them swirl in the basin. He prodded and stirred them gently with his wand and went in.

Harry landed at the top of the stairs in the dungeon he remembered at the back of the main hall on the first floor of the Hidden Palace. It was dark. Just as dark as he remembered.

Memory Ginny and memory Ron were directly in front of him and they instantly lit their wands. Ginny pulled out her broom, enlarged it and started flying, taking one of the canisters with the potion which needed to be delivered as an aerosol with her. Harry jumped on the back of her broom, behind her, eagerly waiting to see whatever it was Ginny saw. The room was just as Ginny described it from above; rectangle closest to the stairs, then more irregular in shape, more like a cave in the back, with the exception of one impossibly flat back wall. It was odd really. Harry strained in the darkness trying to get a better look. He was distracted by it so much he almost missed it.

Harry pulled himself from the pensive feeling something akin to shock, trying to come to terms with what he just saw. Ginny's attention at the time was on the women as it should be, and they were mostly gathered in the center of the room. But back in the corner, around the protrusion which separated a space almost long enough to be considered a short corridor there came a brief, blinding light. It was indistinct, as though somewhere someone briefly opened and closed a door. Except the light didn't quite flow into the room. Something was blocking it. In that fraction of a second, a dense vapor flowed into the dungeon through the corridor, obscuring his view of it further. But there was something else, Harry wasn't entirely certain that he saw.

Choosing to go back in, Harry played the memory again, freezing the image just as the light appeared. There it was again. There was a man in the shadows, he was sure of it; tall, lean, Harry caught sight of the edges of his robes as the figure disappeared through the door.

Harry watched the rest of the memory, but nothing else stood out to him at the moment, with the possible exception of Esme, looking vacant and eerily calm. There was something unnerving about seeing her that way, causing Harry to wonder if he'd missed something more.

Harry viewed the memory one more time, but the thing of significance that stood out to him most was the shadow of the man he saw.

"I have to tell someone," Harry decided.

"Would Master like me to fetch someone?" Hermys offered.

"What? Oh no, Hermys. That's okay. I'm seeing the family tomorrow. It can probably wait until then."

"Yes, Master Harry." Hermys stood patiently holding a steaming vial of potion.

"That is for me, isn't it?" Harry guessed.

"Yes. Master has been very active today. It is important to rest. Healer Gudgeon makes sure Hermys knows," Hermys told him.

Harry nodded and sighed. "Yes of course. You're right. Just give me a moment to put this away."

Hermys waited.

Harry meanwhile placed Ginny's memory carefully back into its vial, corked it, and set it on a shelf, before moving the pensive back into its cabinet.

"Now, Master?" Hermys asked when Harry was done.

"Now," Harry agreed.

Harry dutifully drank his potion. The next thing he knew his eyelids were growing heavy and it was all he could do to pull himself up the stairs where he went directly to bed.

^^^

The next time Harry opened his eyes there was daylight streaming in through his window letting him know it was now Sunday morning. For a moment he lay in his bed, wondering what woke him. That's when he heard the tell-tale sounds of Hermys softly leaping up the stairs. Harry heard it when his house-elf slowly pushed open his bedroom door. He waited for a moment, hesitant to open his eyes. When he did, as expected, Hermys was standing beside his bed.