Game On, Your Move

Chapter 11: Simon Says

In preparation for Operation Stone and Wand, as Harry christened it, the Room of Hidden Things became a war room. Every morning, they reviewed the latest version of their battle plan. In other words, Harry acted out their movements by moving two Gobstones on crudely-drawn maps of Little Hangleton and Malfoy Manor, following an evolving schedule of what needed to happen when.

Tom couldn't help twitching every time a Gobstone vibrated, but so far, no incident. In the meantime, he'd taken on the role of identifying flaws in Harry's grand designs, something he'd taken to with great aplomb.

"I've got it," Harry said, nudging forward the affectionately named Harry-Stone and Riddle-Stone. "We don't need to go to Hogsmeade for the Knight Bus after all. We can use my cloak or Disillusion ourselves, go to Hogwarts' Apparition point, and Apparate to Little Hangleton directly."

"Are you good enough to Side-Along someone?" Apparition was one skill that Tom hadn't yet mastered, given limited opportunities to practice at school.

"Uh, good enough," Harry said, which didn't ignite much confidence. "Morfin Gaunt lives over here, so we should land here so we can walk the rest of the way. That way we won't alarm him by appearing right on the doorstep." Harry-Stone and Riddle-Stone came to a rest on top of a lopsided house nestled in stick figure trees. "I estimate it will take us an hour at most to get the stone, and we should be able to get back to Hogwarts with a few hours to spare before dinnertime."

"An hour at most? We're stealing a treasured family artifact. My uncle is not going to hand it over."

Harry's nose scrunched. "I really doubt he can detain us for long, but if we need two or even three hours, we still have more than enough time to get ready for the ball. So far so good?"

Tom bit his lip. Ideally, he would've liked more time to talk to his uncle, but he supposed family bonding would be tricky if he planned on stealing from him. "Very well," he acknowledged.

"All right, moving on to Malfoy Manor then." Harry deposited Harry-Stone and Riddle-Stone on top of a poorly rendered manor house. "You said that your Portkey activates at seven o'clock in the evening with a window of an hour to use it, and the opening dance starts at half past eight. So that gives us an hour and a half to corner Grindelwald and steal his wand."

Breath bated, Tom waited, but no more was forthcoming. "That's it?"

"That's it. If we can execute this sequence as I described, I'll be the Master of Death."

"You're overlooking one major point."

Harry clapped a hand to his forehead and sighed. "I know, I know, but I actually did think of a solution. We'll kidnap a Potter and stash him somewhere."

"Excuse me?"

"Maybe my great-uncle Charlus, he has an invitation. We need to knock him out until I get the wand, and then revive him. Hmm, that does make things far more complicated timing-wise..."

"No." The way Harry talked, one could take him for a felon. Tom's respect for Voldemort dropped a few more notches. In fact, he was currently regretting his own life choices in letting Harry lead the planning. "That's not what I meant. You truly have the most ridiculous ideas."

"Don't worry, I've done this before, and the wizard I impersonated survived the ordeal just fine. And this time, we won't even need Polyjuice Potion, because I already look like a Potter —"

"We are not kidnapping any Potters," Tom said firmly.

"Now's not the time for your unpredictable sensibilities. I need to get inside the Manor." Harry paused. "I mean, I guess I could go with Walburga, she did offer."