Cambiare Podentes: Invocare

by Jordan Grant

Monday, May 4, 1998 7:00 p.m.

Six more weeks, Harry thought, glancing around at the Gryffindor common room. Six more weeks until summer. Is that why everyone is acting so strange? Funny, I've never seen the prospect of summer vacation have quite this effect, before. Maybe it just seems different because this year is my last at Hogwarts?

That wasn't it, though, and Harry knew it. In the first place, why would summer make everyone depressed? Of course, it always depressed Harry, but he was different. The others had nice homes and families to go to when school let out. Families they had missed during the term.

Besides, the sombre mood wasn't some generalized discontent; it had a focus. Worse, that focus seemed to be him. He'd caught the mood first at dinner. Seventh years looking at him, and then away, quick little glances full of worry, though masked the minute he seemed to notice them. It wasn't just the Gryffindors, either. The Ravenclaws had been doing it, too.

And now, it was going on in the common room. Those same distressed peeks when they thought he wasn't looking, and not just that, but whispered conversations in every corner. Conversations about him, or so it seemed to Harry.

No, it was more than a mere seemed. He'd had enough experience of people gossiping about him to have a fairly good sense for it.

Harry grabbed a sleeve as Ron passed by, and yanked him down to sit next to him on the sofa he'd been occupying alone. That was another thing. For all this apparent concern people were showing him, not a single person had bothered to actually come talk to him about whatever was on everybody's mind. Harry was sick of it.

"What is going on?" he murmured against Ron's ear. "Why do people keep looking at me like they think I'm about to die?"

Ron made a noise of distress, halfway between a strangled groan and an attempt to force a laugh.

"What?" Harry demanded. "Talk."

One word came croaking out his friend's mouth. "Trelawney."

Abruptly releasing Ron's arm, Harry leaned back against the back of the couch. "Is that all? So she predicted my death again. Big deal. She's only been doing it weekly since third year." Then his eyes narrowed. "Anybody who's taken Divination has heard it all before. Dozens of times. Why spread it around now?"

Ron gulped back a rush of air, his red hair flying wildly as he shook his head. "I heard it didn't happen in class. Um... Neville went up to her classroom alone, and she acted really weird, not like her usual weirdness either, and..."

Harry laughed. "It's Trelawney! She's mental no matter how you slice it. Get a grip, Ron! I'm not going to die!"

"But that's just it," Ron blurted out. "She didn't predict you'd be squashed by the whomping willow or poisoned by Slytherins or any of her usual lines. It was more this spooky, really creepy stuff all about You-Know-Who killing you on your nineteenth birthday. Except she called him the 'Dark Lord,' just like Snape always does."

"What else?" Harry pressed, because by then, Ron was doing a good job of looking anywhere but at Harry, and that could only mean one thing. There was something more to the story.

His friend cleared his throat. "Something about some old rite called Cambiare being the only solution, and how apart from that, he'll kill you for sure and reign over the rest of us for ten thousand years. The rest of us being purebloods, by the way. Muggleborns and half-bloods are going to get the axe, one and all."

Harry blew out a long breath. "Okay, well for the sake of argument, assume she knows what she's talking about, unlikely as that is. I'll just do this Cambiare."

"Yeah, well that's part of the problem," Ron admitted. "Word of this actually started going around this morning, and a bunch of us skived off classes to hunt up the spell in the library. We couldn't find a single reference, not even after we got the Ravenclaws to help."

"Restricted Section," Harry advised.

"Hermione's there, now. I... er, I lent her your invisibility cloak. And... well, you know. She's snuck in there an awful lot, so we figured she'd stand a better chance than you or me of finding anything, if it's in there."

"And the reason nobody thought to tell me any of this?"

Ron looked away again. "Well, we just thought it might be better to know what we were talking about, first. You know, find out what this Cambiare even is."

Harry crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back. "That makes sense."

"You aren't mad?"

"No." He felt his lips curving into a smile. "It's really sort of nice, everybody looking out for me. And besides, we're still talking Trelawney."

"Yeah," Ron agreed, but he didn't sound so sure. "It's just that Neville said that she was really, really dodgy about the whole thing. Didn't speak in that whiney little voice she uses all the time, but some deep, dark drone that she kept repeating. And afterwards, when he asked her to explain what she'd been going on about, she didn't have a clue what he was talking about. Like... like she'd been possessed, or something, and didn't remember her own words."

Uh-oh, Harry thought. That sounds bad. Really bad. Reminds me of third year, when I heard the crazy old bat actually give a real prophecy, not to mention what I saw in Dumbledore's pensieve, fifth year...

"Let's see what Hermione comes up with from the Restricted Section," he decided, keeping his voice level so as not to alarm Ron any further. Ron, or anyone else, he realised. By then, most everyone in the common room was quite obviously trying not to be noticed as they listened in. "And I think I'd better talk to Neville for myself. Is he in our dormitory?"

Harry ignored the stares as he headed there, Ron in tow.

~

Monday, May 4, 1998 7:16 p.m.

Neville sighed, and shoved a piece of parchment across his bed, his hand shaking. He glared briefly at Ron. "I worked on it all day, once I was given a chance to think about what I'd heard. I suspect I don't quite have it perfect, but it's nearly so."

"Wow," Harry had to say when he glanced down at the neatly inked words. "She said all this?"

"Over and over."

Harry nodded, and read the prophecy out loud:

When the marked one marks his nineteenth year,
the Dark Lord's triumph shall appear.
When one who should have died now dies,
The Dark Lord's glory shall arise.
Ten thousand years he'll rule the land,
his minions given open hand,
all others given unto death
for tainted blood the only test.
And yet remains a ray of hope,
Salvation in a lightning bolt.
As he still lives, all is not lost,
vanquish dark by powers crossed,
ancient rites of ancient days,
and spells that none alive can say.
Cambiare is the key,
else unto death yield sky and sea.
Invoke the rite not just in name,
for only truth will evil tame.
His life oft saved though hate did glow,
by one the Dark Lord used to know,
and now to him all will must go,
lest twice-filled powers never flow.

"Well, that certainly clears it all up," Harry quipped when he finished reading. Shifting on the bed, he cast Ron a glance, then passed him the paper. "So Trelawney didn't explain this, not at all?"

"Harry, she doesn't even remember saying it, even though she repeated the whole thing three times in a row. Then she sort of shook her head, all jittery, like she was coming out of a trance, and she looked at me and said, Did you come for that tea I promised, dear? But nobody had even mentioned tea! I went back for a book I'd left behind!"

"So what made you think this was worth mentioning to anyone?" Harry questioned. "Last time I checked, you were only taking Divination to avoid Seventh-Year Potions. Not that I blame you; I sometimes wonder if I should have ditched those torture sessions in the dungeons, too. But seriously, Neville. You think Trelawney's an old fraud, don't you?"

"Of course I do!" Neville hotly disputed. "That's just it, Harry. I can't explain, you had to be there, but it wasn't Trelawney saying those words. Something else was talking through her mouth, and you can call me a nutter all you want, but that's the truth!"

"Nobody's calling you a nutter, Neville," Harry sighed. "I just had to know, that's all, if you were starting to fall for all her claptrap, or if this prophecy concerned you in spite of it. 'Cause, see..." he cleared his throat. "I heard her channel something else once, too. A real prophecy. And it came true."

"Oh Merlin, Harry," Neville moaned. "Your birthday's the same as mine, isn't it? July 31st? It'll be your nineteenth. If we don't find this Cambiare spell before then, you're doomed, and all of us with you!"

"No, no, let's not jump to any conclusions," Harry cautioned. "When she uttered that real prophecy in front of me, I misinterpreted it completely. In fact, it was word for word true but the way it was worded, I took it kind of backwards. So there's no telling what any of this means, not yet."

Ron had been poring over the parchment the whole time Harry and Neville had been talking, but Harry's last comment had him looking up. "I hope you're right," he commented, his whole face twisting with concern. "I seriously hope you're right."

"Why?"

Ron's shaking finger indicated the last few lines of hand-written text. "Who's one the Dark Lord used to know, Harry?"

Harry shrugged. "You think I have Voldemort's social calendar handy? I have no idea."

"Yeah, well you ought to know this much. Who's saved your life, oft, like it says here, even though he's always hated your guts and always will? Who, just by coincidence is also one the Dark Lord used to know!"

"You can read anything you like into poetry!" Harry scoffed.

Neville was a bit slower to catch on, but it didn't take long. "He means Snape!"

"Yeah, I mean Snape!" Ron snapped. "Now listen: Cambiare is the key, else unto death yield sky and sea. Invoke the rite not just in name, for only truth will evil tame. His life oft saved though hate did glow, by one the Dark Lord used to know, and now to him all will must go, lest twice-filled powers never flow." He paused, looked Harry in the eyes, and said, "Whatever this Cambiare turns out to be, you have to invoke it with Snape to make it work."

"Let's hope it's an ancient form of Avada Kedavra, then," Harry muttered tightly. "Not that I necessarily believe your reading, or the damned prophecy itself, for that matter. I suppose, though, we'd better track down this Cambiare and find out just what I might be stepping into, here. What's keeping Hermione?"

"You know what it's like searching the Restricted Section," Ron sympathised. "Come on, let's play a round of chess, get your mind off things."

"I have a Potions essay to finish," Harry growled. "Explain the significant interactions between various classes of dragon's blood and oil-based reagents, taking into account the implications of cauldron metallurgy."

"Glad I dropped Potions after the O.W.L.s," Neville admitted.

"Me too," Ron chimed in.

"Yeah, yeah, I've just got Hermione for moral support, and she's sneaking around the library tonight. So let me get to it, then. And Ron? Could you do me a favour? Tell everybody in the common room just to lay off it for a while. Tell them we don't even know what the stupid prophecy means, and until we do, there's no sense looking at me like I'll never see another August. All right?"

"Yeah, all right," Ron agreed, nodding as he left the dormitory, Neville in tow.

Harry flopped onto his own bed, fetched his essay in progress, and chewed the end of his quill as he tried to get his mind onto dragon's blood.