Facing Danger
Chapter 25: Debts and Payments (Year 5)
By Anne B. Walsh
The Atrium of the Ministry of Magic echoed to the tinkling of falling water from the golden fountain at its center and the tuneless humming of the person sitting beside the fountain’s basin, rolling a glass ball back and forth on the floor. He wore a rumpled Hogwarts uniform and round-framed glasses, and his black hair was in disarray, as though he had been through a windstorm. He showed no awareness of being watched, or of anything besides the orb beneath his hand.
This is a trap, whispered the watcher’s internal voice of caution. Both the boy and the prophecy, alone and unwatched? Bait, they are bait, they can be nothing else—I should leave at once, Dumbledore is already here—
"Well!" said a female voice from the other side of the Atrium, sharp under its veneer of sweetness. "So this is where you got to!"
Harry Potter stiffened for an instant, then snatched up his ball and scrambled to his feet. A wordless moan escaped him as he backed slowly away from the woman at the door, shoving his free hand repeatedly in front of him.
"Oh, hush," Dolores Umbridge said impatiently, coming forward just enough that both Potter and the watcher from the shadows could see her. "You’ve been very naughty, and you know it. Running away from the nice safe room where I left you, breaking into all sorts of places, stealing Ministry property..."
Potter whimpered, hugging the orb to his chest with one hand while the other continued its warding-off motions.
"Now, now, there’s no need for all that." Umbridge advanced on Potter, a smile breaking free on her face. "Just give me back what you’ve taken, and everything will be all right again. I’ll bring your family here, and your friends, to see you. Wouldn’t you like that?"
Potter continued backing around the fountain, his eyes showing fear and incomprehension in equal measure.
He seems not to understand her. And he has not spoken a word since she arrived.
I wonder...
Cautiously, the watcher reached out along the mental bond he normally kept blocked. He had last done so only a short time before, and he had found, as promised, cacophony and confusion.
Could it have taken effect so quickly?
It seemed it could. The mind he now touched seethed in wordless terror, with no coherent thoughts of any kind present. Even in the mind of the most frightened Muggle he had ever used his Legilimency on, a few fragmented thought-forms or memory images had existed. There was nothing here except an overwhelming fear of Dolores Umbridge.
But no, wait... memories, there are memories, though not many... a bewildered boy awakening in a place of blank white, wandering through a series of rooms, every one stranger than the next, until finally...
The entrance hall, the Chamber of Time, and the Chamber of Prophecy. A sequence much on my mind lately. And I felt him in my thoughts, and followed him to his own mind—
Where he had encountered the spell-induced chaos for which he had bargained through his triple agent, the chaos which seemed to have had its desired effect.
Could my line of thought have survived his mind’s destruction, and taken him to my goal? I had intended to have my Death Eaters use him for fetching the prophecy, but to have him bring it to me on his own...
The watcher withdrew his mental contact and smiled.
I will use it to taunt Dumbledore, before I kill him—that his champion was so weak that Umbridge’s spell destroyed his mind, and I am so strong that a thought of mine survived that spell and guided Harry Potter to his doom...
Reaching into his robes for his wand, he stepped from the shadows into the light. It was time to claim what was his.
xXxXx
"If you do not stop, Mr. Potter, I will have to use magic on you," Dolores warned, though secretly she was delighted that nothing she was saying could garner a response from Harry Potter. She had known that the spell she had developed might well drive him mad, by forcing him to constantly doubt his senses until he retreated within himself, but she had never hoped it would have that effect so quickly.
And even his escape from custody can be explained by his present mental state. He is a child again, and children do wild magic when they feel threatened. He felt threatened by being locked in, and therefore his magic melted the lock on the door of his room to release him. He must have struck me down from behind when I was speaking to Bartemius as well, but I have no doubt his subconscious desire for punishment was behind my quick revival…
She would have to remind the Healers at St. Mungo’s to keep up the anti-magic spells on Potter’s room, or perhaps to keep him under calming potions at all times. The potions might be a better idea, now that she thought about it, since they would have the knock-on effect of concealing any possible return of his sanity that might result from the lifting of her spell.
"Really, Mr. Potter," she said aloud, reaching for her wand and delighting in the fresh spasm of terror in the boy’s eyes as they followed her hand. "Do be reasonable. You can’t possibly escape me, not here..."
Movement to one side caught her attention. Someone was here, stepping from the shadows, here was her first chance to share her triumph—
Dolores froze as the paper-white skin, the noseless face, the slitted red eyes, registered in her mind. It could not be. This was a hoax, someone trying to frighten her, possibly one of the boy’s friends. She would not allow it to succeed.
"You are on Ministry premises after hours without permission," she said, pleased to hear her voice firm if a bit squeaky. "Identify yourself and state your purpose here."
"I am Lord Voldemort," said a soft, cold voice, "and I have come here for Harry Potter."
Dolores felt a shiver pass through her, but managed a good sniff once it was past. "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? Ridiculous. He’s been dead for fourteen years, as anyone with any intelligence knows. And Harry Potter—out of the question. As you can see, he’s quite ill and needs the immediate attention of a Healer." She nodded towards the boy, who had retreated around the edge of the fountain and was peering at both of them warily from around the robes of the witch.
"‘Ill,’ is he?" mocked the voice, as the tall figure advanced on her too smoothly to be walking. "And when did he first fall prey to this illness? When you pointed your wand at him and spoke the incantation to scramble his senses?"
"When I—how dare you!" Dolores backed away a few steps, hoping the fear in her voice sounded like indignation. "Harry Potter was a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the school for which I am High Inquisitor, and therefore he was under my protection and guidance! How dare you insinuate that I might have harmed a student for whom I was, for whom I still am, responsible?"
The laugh chilled her spine and sent her backwards three more steps. "I dare to insinuate only what is true. You see, I gave you the idea for what you have done. Is it so surprising I should know what it is under those circumstances?"
"You—you—"
"I owe you a debt of gratitude for delivering my young enemy, and the prophecy which will tell me how to deal with him, into my hands," the voice went on, its owner now gazing up at the Fountain of Magical Brethren with a thoughtful expression. "And I find your creativity and energy refreshing. Would you be willing to join me, to take my Mark? I will give you the power to control any or all of those around you, to tell them precisely what they may and may not do. You could be Minister of Magic for Life, or take any other post you wished." Red eyes fixed on hers, caught and held her as surely as any spell. "What do you say? Will you join me?"
Half of Dolores yearned eagerly towards what she was hearing, while her other half fled shrieking from the horror of that half-human face. Neither half could find dominance, and so she stood trembling, unable to speak, unable to move, able only to stare into the eyes of the Dark wizard she had denied was alive and discover there the one unthinkable truth—that she, and the Ministry through her, had been wrong.
It cannot be, her mind repeated over and over. It cannot be.
"I see." Was there a trace of regret in that cold, quiet voice? "You wish that you could still believe I did not exist, that you could somehow forget you have seen me." A thin-lipped, predatory smile, and now his voice and face held nothing but the implacable certainty of a glacier moving steadily forward. "I share that wish, as it happens. Let me help you make it come true."
His wand flicked up and pointed directly at her chest. "Avada Kedavra!"
Dolores Jane Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, Hogwarts High Inquisitor, died before she could believe that it was happening.
xXxXx
Lord Voldemort lowered his wand and watched as Harry Potter tiptoed around the back curve of the tasteless golden fountain. The boy was staring open-mouthed at the motionless figure of Dolores Umbridge lying on the floor.
Somewhere in his broken mind, he retains the association of her with pain and fear. I wonder if the same holds true for me?
"Harry," he said quietly, and the boy looked up at the sound. Wide green eyes blinked once, twice, three times, and then Umbridge’s body drew his attention away from Voldemort once more.
It would seem not. Perhaps I can convince him to give me the prophecy without my having to harm him—he might be useful, if he is trainable. Even if he is not, he will be amusing to have around. I can dangle him as bait for his so-loving family, allow them to "break my defenses" and reach him, and watch them discover that their prize is already lost to them before I step in and take them captive as well...
Potter was circling Umbridge warily, nudging her with his toe, looking more and more puzzled as she failed to react. After a few nudges that verged towards being outright kicks, he gave up on Umbridge and looked back over at Voldemort, his face open and curious.
"Yes, I did this," Voldemort acknowledged. "Do you know what you should say to me?"
Potter wrinkled his forehead, frowning, as if he were wondering what the strange sounds coming from Voldemort’s mouth could be.
"I will accept a material token of gratitude in lieu of any other," Voldemort went on, allowing himself a chuckle at the gloriously ridiculous nature of this scene. It would be a gem among the tales his followers told their children, the crown jewel of the collection, and there would be many of them. "What about that ball you carry?" He pointed to the object, held loosely in Potter’s left hand.
Potter clutched the ball possessively to his chest.
"Come now," Voldemort coaxed, moving a step closer.
Clapping his other hand around the prophecy as well, Potter growled and backed away.
"Very well, give it to her, then." Voldemort motioned with his wand to Umbridge, lying in her undignified sprawl on the Atrium’s dark wood floor. "Consider it an offering to the dead, if you like."
Potter frowned again, looking from Umbridge to the orb and back again.
"I will stand back here." Voldemort took three large steps away from Umbridge’s body and Potter. "You see, I cannot possibly reach you from here. I will not harm you." Not yet.
Keeping one eye on Voldemort at all times, Potter edged forward until he stood beside Umbridge. Slowly, he knelt and placed the prophecy on her chest. It began to roll as soon as he took his hand away, and he tugged her robes into a fold on the side it had rolled to, then repeated the action on the other side when the orb began to roll that way instead. Finally, the prophecy lay in a nest of cloth, and Potter stood up with an expression of satisfaction. Humming to himself, he hop-skipped to the fountain, where he sat down on the edge of the basin and began to splash in the water with both hands.
Voldemort waited a few moments, until the boy was fully occupied with his childish pastime, before he allowed himself to come forward and claim the first of his prizes. In his hand at long last rested the prophecy, the full prophecy, which would tell him if the boy were fated to kill him, in which case Potter must die immediately, or whether their lives were in some way linked, in which case Potter would live a very long time indeed.
I wonder if I can split his soul artificially, to make a Horcrux for him? Perhaps a Killing Curse deliberately understrength would do the trick...
But there will be time to think of that when I know if it will be needed or not.
Let me find out.
He laid his wand against the globe and split it precisely open with a small, neat spell.
Then he screamed.
xXxXx
The sound of smashing glass as the halves of the globe fell to the floor snapped the spell shielding Harry’s mind, and he snatched his pendants from his pocket with his left hand while his right came out of the fountain basin in a rush of water clutching his wand. It worked. It worked. Whatever I’m doing, it worked...
Voldemort doubled up, shrieking in agony, as fierce red flames clung to his wand hand, charring and withering the flesh on the bone. Harry paused only to throw the pendants over his head before he was on his feet, wand trained on Voldemort. Too bad I didn’t tell the fire to burn his wand too—not a problem, I’ll just get rid of it the old-fashioned way—
"Expelliarmus!"
xXxXx
Through the pain, he saw the boy leap up, saw the flash of gold around his neck and the gleam of polished wood in his right hand, and knew he had been played for a fool.
You will not win this time, old man. No one can make Lord Voldemort look foolish with impunity. You have won a battle, but I shall win the war here and now.
He shoved his wand forward roughly, with none of his usual grace. It would do the job just as well.
"Avada Kedavra!"
xXxXx
Harry had just time to wonder why he was so sure of what to do if he didn’t know what he was doing before the spells collided. A shock ran through him, his wand quivered madly in his hand—he brought his other up to support it, just as a golden ray of light shot outwards from the place in the air where the green and the red spells had collided, connecting his wand to Voldemort’s—Voldemort’s red eyes widened, and he tried to yank his wand away, clasping his still-flaming right hand with his left—
No you don’t. Harry clung tighter to his wand, following Voldemort’s movements with his own, keeping the beam constant between their two wands. If you want this thing broken, then I want it to stay right where it—
Voldemort gave a convulsive yank to his wand, and the outer edges of the light shattered, but a thinner beam remained. The shattered light hovered for a moment, then shot outward, forming a loose cage of gold around Harry and Voldemort. The Dark Lord hissed like an angry snake—exactly like an angry snake, Harry realized, recognizing the Parseltongue oath as one Sangre had only used once in his hearing and Siss never—and slapped again at the flames on his wand hand.
I did that, Harry recognized dimly, through the throb of power in his head. I put the fire inside the prophecy ball, after I melted a piece of it to let the prophecy out. And I told it to burn Voldemort’s hand just the way Dumbledore’s was burned the summer before last...
And as though thinking of Dumbledore had brought the man near, the crooning, heart-filling song of a phoenix filled the air around Harry. It took him only a second to trace it to the delicate lines of light webbing him in. Hold on, the song whispered to him, don’t let go, keep fighting, help is near...
With a shudder, the thread of light between the two wands developed a definite midpoint, a bulge at its center, and Voldemort hissed again, this time in triumph. Before Harry had quite grasped what was going on, the golden bead was moving down the thread towards him. His wand began to shake harder, until he thought it might well come apart in his hand—
So make it stop. Push back.
Harry set his jaw, planted his feet, and pushed with all his will at the bead sliding down that magical thread, just as he might have pushed at his opponent’s arms during a hand-to-hand combat practice. The phoenix song throbbed around him, his pendants lay warm against his chest, and the bead shuddered to a halt, but Harry was out of strength—he could only fight Voldemort to a standstill, he couldn’t do anything else on his own—
Don’t be on your own, then. Get help.
Harry reached out through the pendant link, searching for the scent of roses, the feel of soft red fur beneath his hand, and beyond that all the other senses that were the combined magic of the Pride—
He touched Ginny’s magic, and felt the shape of it, and began to laugh. As he traced her link to Ron, and Ron’s to Hermione, and Hermione’s to Draco, he laughed harder. By the time he had followed the links from Luna to Neville to Meghan, he was hooting aloud, barely able to keep standing upright.
They’re hardly even thinking about me. Little flashes, little worries, but then they’re back to whatever they’re doing. He tapped Ginny’s sight, and was rewarded with a momentary flash of a scale model of Hogwarts, with tiny figures moving about it, like the clay house she’d modeled when they were planning Graham’s rescue—
Planning. They’re with the DA, planning. Talking about how to fight the war. Because they’re not worried about my winning this battle. They know I can, they know I will—
So how can I not?
The laughter had brought him new strength. It was easy now to hold the light-bead still, and not quite easy but entirely within his ability to slowly push it the other way, towards Voldemort’s wand, clasped tightly in his charred and blackened hand—
He’s fighting back, Harry registered dimly, he’s trying to push it towards me again, but it was only an instant later that the bead touched Voldemort’s wand, and touched it again, and then sank into it without a trace. Voldemort stared wide-eyed at his own wand, then lifted his head to glare at Harry, but before either of them could speak, something began to emerge from the tip of Voldemort’s wand, something round and gray and made entirely of smoke—a person, Harry realized when he saw an arm join the head and chest, it was the likeness of a person, a woman—
Of Dolores Umbridge.
"What is the meaning of this?" demanded the smoky Umbridge, hands on her hips. "Harry Potter, I demand an explanation—"
Shrieks of pain interrupted her, coming unmistakably from Voldemort’s wand—they went on and on, barely stopping between bouts, until Harry wanted nothing more than to cover his ears, and then a second figure began to emerge from the wand, female again, about the same age as Professor McGonagall—
"He killed me," the woman said gravely, regarding Voldemort. "He said I didn’t deserve to call myself a witch, that my blood made me a disgrace to the word, and he killed me."
A young man pushed himself free of the wand. "I told him he was crazy, that I wouldn’t join his army, and he cursed me, I thought it was the Imperius until I saw the color—"
A young woman. "I was just passing through, I saw men in masks waving sticks around and making people fly, and then the green light hit me—"
A boy younger than Meghan. "He told me I didn’t deserve to have the letter—I said I’d give it back to him, but he just laughed and pushed me down on the floor—"
Harry lost track of the figures that shoved themselves through the tip of Voldemort’s wand, of the stories they told, of the screams and the frightened whimpers that punctuated the arrivals of the ghostly people, until the moment that one of them raised its head and looked at him, and he knew its face.
"Cedric," he whispered, and almost took a step forward, almost held out his hand to the other boy.
"Don’t, Harry, don’t break the connection—" Cedric dropped to the ground and stood up. "Keep holding on," he said in his echoing voice. "You’re almost there. Thank you for what you did for me."
"It wasn’t enough," Harry said, feeling the tightness start in his throat. "You still died."
"That was my own fault. I should have known better than to run like that. Harry—" Cedric looked decidedly uncomfortable. "Don’t be too hard on Cho, all right?"
"Hard on—"
But the new figure emerging from the wand caught all of Harry’s attention, and whatever Cedric had been saying about Cho was lost. A woman with long hair, a young and familiar woman, who smiled with love in her eyes as she looked up at him—
"Mum?" Harry breathed.
"Hello again, Harry," Lily Potter said.
"Again?" Harry blinked. "What—"
"You’ll understand soon." Lily came forward, the other ghosts making way for her, to stand beside Harry. "We’ve seen each other already once tonight. But you gave up those memories, to trick Voldemort into thinking you had lost your mind, because the only things in your head since he’d touched you were the ones you created for him to see..."
An image fluttered through Harry’s head. Standing in front of Dumbledore, waiting with a sinking heart for the precious memories to be pulled from his mind, the memories he’d never wanted to lose—the only moments he would ever remember sharing with his parents—
"You’ll get them back," said the latest figure to emerge from Voldemort’s wand, grinning openly. "A bit second-hand, but better that than none at all, right?"
Harry nodded dumbly, staring at his father. Why is he holding—
Another memory. He was lying in the center of a blast of wind, using his body to shelter a naked baby, who stared at him with wide gray eyes in the middle of a brown face—
"You used Marcus to help you," James Potter went on, bouncing the baby in his arms slightly. "Well, Dumbledore did it, but he couldn’t have if your soul hadn’t touched Marcus’. He was able to disguise your mind with that kind of fearless innocence, because your soul had been in contact with a soul that held that."
"So I suppose you could really say that Marcus won this battle for you," Lily finished.
"I think we should say we all played a part," Cedric put in. "Working together."
Lily laughed. "And I think you are an irrepressible Hufflepuff," she said. "Harry, we can’t stay much longer, but we don’t need to—do you see?"
Harry tore his eyes away from his parents, from the crowd of smoke-colored ghosts, from a half-frightened, half-furious Voldemort, and saw.
"Dumbledore managed to roust out almost the entire Ministry," James said. "Not to mention Rita Skeeter, and a few slightly more reputable types. What say, people, shall we give them a show?"
The shades growled agreement, hungrily.
"We love you, Harry," Lily said softly. "Break the connection on three. One, two, five—"
Harry bit his lip to keep from laughing and snapped his wand sharply to the side. The connection vanished, the light-web disappeared, but the figures of Voldemort’s victims remained, crowding in around him, so thick that he almost disappeared in their midst—
A wave of exhaustion rolled over Harry, and he dropped to one knee, half-hearing a small Apparition pop beside him. Then an arm was around him, holding him close. "Almost done," Moony told him under his breath. "Only a little longer. Can you stand back up?"
"Think so—help me?" Harry steadied himself on Moony’s outstretched wand arm, and together they rose to their feet, just in time to see the rapidly eroding smoke-figure of Dolores Umbridge waft towards the stunned and silent Ministry observers, avoiding Albus Dumbledore, who stood between them and Voldemort with no expression at all on his face.
"Cornelius!" Umbridge’s voice shrilled. "Cornelius, do something!"
Cornelius Fudge seemed unable to pry his eyes away from Voldemort. Behind him, Percy Weasley and Kingsley Shacklebolt were wearing identical small, smug expressions. Harry almost laughed, but fought it back—he was tired enough that if he started, he might not be able to stop. Instead, he leaned into Moony’s shoulder, half-turning so that he could rest his head—
"Down!" he bellowed, and threw his weight against Moony, knocking his Pack-father to the floor as a spell zoomed past overhead.
"Master!" shrieked Bellatrix Lestrange. "Master, I’m coming!"
Harry got his head up just in time to see a black-on-black blur appear beside Voldemort and disappear again with him in tow. Dumbledore’s spell whisked through the area an instant too late—
Or maybe not. Harry smiled, remembering a long-ago Memory Charm fired at a Disapparating foe. Dumbledore usually hits what he aims at. Maybe he was trying to get them late. Wonder why?
"Are you satisfied, Cornelius?" Dumbledore asked as Kingsley offered the Minister a hand up. "Lord Voldemort has returned, as I tried to tell you months ago. Not only that, but he is regaining strength at an alarming rate. He orchestrated the breakout which removed his best men from Azkaban; he is building his army with both willing and unwilling, both living and dead..."
Fudge seemed not even to hear Dumbledore. Instead, he was staring at Umbridge’s body on the ground. "He’s killed Dolores," he said in a conversational tone. "She’s dead."
"She is." Dumbledore held out a hand. "I am sorry, Cornelius."
Fudge ignored the gesture. "It’s awful, I know, but I’m rather glad of it," he said vaguely. "She was always willing to go to more extreme lengths than I was. There were times I was afraid of her... did you know she killed two people to make sure I’d be Minister again?"
Footsteps sounded behind them, and Harry half-turned to see members of the Order beginning to crowd into the Atrium. Professor McGonagall was in the lead, Moody behind her, Charlie and Tonks behind him, but Harry’s eyes were starting to unfocus and he couldn’t recognize whoever was behind the newlyweds.
"Vilias was the first, of course," Fudge continued, still in the same calm tone. "I couldn’t be Minister while he was still Minister. But the other was a Healer, the one who was investigating the death... Dolores didn’t tell me until after I’d been confirmed in office, she said everyone would blame it on Lucius Malfoy, no one would ever have to know..."
Tonks went absolutely white, all the color bleaching from her face and hair.
"But now she’s dead, so I can tell the truth," Fudge concluded. "Will it make trouble for me, do you think, Dumbledore? I couldn’t very well give up the office, not after being there less than a week, people would have talked, and it wouldn’t have brought them back..." He sighed. "But I do suppose I still should have told someone."
"You bastard!" Tonks shrieked, her voice cracking on the last word. Charlie grabbed her and pulled her wand from her hand, holding her back with his other arm around her waist. "She was my mother! Not just some Healer—my mother! Andromeda Black Tonks!"
"Yes," Fudge said, nodding to himself. "Andromeda. I had thought it was some silly pureblood name, but I couldn’t recall it."
"It’s not silly!" Tonks screamed. "Don’t call it—" She choked, shaking all over, her hair turning phone-box red, as Charlie pulled her into his arms and the rest of the Order closed around them, most shooting looks at Fudge that should have felled him on the spot.
"Do you understand now, Cornelius?" Dumbledore said quietly. "Your hunger for power, your distrust of your true allies, has lost you everything. And lost many people their lives as well—you saw just now how many have died by the hand of Lord Voldemort alone since his resurrection. How many do you think his followers have killed? And what of those they ‘merely’ torture, or toy with? How many lives have already been destroyed, and how many more will be because of the head start you have given the Death Eaters by refusing to believe that their leader had returned?"
Fudge was shaking his head, back and forth, back and forth, still staring at Umbridge’s body, his face starting to twist in lines of true fear.
Dumbledore sighed. "Percy," he said. "Can you... assist the Minister to his office? I fear he is unwell. I will meet you there to explain things better."
"Yes, sir." Percy moved forward to tap Fudge on the arm, and Dumbledore crossed behind him to speak to Kingsley. A flash went off, and Harry turned his head to see Rita Skeeter’s photographer snapping furiously, Rita herself beside him, muttering to her acid-green Quick-Quotes Quill.
"I think this is one story we won’t object to her covering," Moony murmured. "Let’s go, Harry, we’re finished here."
"Okay." Harry leaned into his Pack-father. "Where are we going?"
"Wherever Dumbledore has that emergency Portkey of yours set—and I’d prefer if you could remember about it next time, please, and save us all some trouble. Though I suppose it worked out for the best, what with getting Voldemort out in the open."
"Still not worth it." Harry fumbled inside his robes, pulled his pendants free, and located the little carving of the phoenix by touch alone, his eyes no longer wanting to stay open. "Not with Marcus..."
"We’ll discuss that some other time." Moony’s hand joined his on the phoenix. "Go ahead, Harry-kins."
Harry half-smiled at the old, old pet name. "Denward bound," he said as clearly as he could manage.
The jerk-behind-the-navel feeling of a Portkey jolted him, then he was flying through the air through a whirl of strange sounds, but Moony’s arms were still around him, holding him safe. The worst that could happen to him now would be to collapse when they arrived at their destination.
One of these days I’d like to have an adventure where I don’t fall on my nose the instant it’s over... d’you suppose that’s possible?
Anything is possible, little Wolf, murmured Moony, his voice vibrating through his hand where it gripped Harry’s around the Portkey. Anything is possible.
xXxXx
"...immediately. Get me everything. Stories, rumors, anything at all, even if it seems impossible, if it concerns the subject I want, get it for me."
"Yes, my Lord." The man bowed and disappeared through the door.
Lord Voldemort leaned back in his chair, glaring across the room at an inoffensive piece of statuary.
Potter’s wand and mine are brothers. That is the only thing which could explain such a reaction. And he was able to find the strength to turn my wand against me, which can only mean that the magical core of the wand ‘likes’ him more strongly than it does me...
Could the feathers have come from Dumbledore’s phoenix? Phoenixes are ‘light’ birds, but I doubt the feather of a phoenix which had never met either me or Potter would be quite so adamant about choosing him over me, no matter what spells our wands have performed. Dumbledore’s phoenix, though, knows us both. It took a strong dislike to me in my school days, and I have no doubt it has an equally strong liking for Potter.
Potter. He infuriates me. Voldemort’s lip curled in a sneer. Such a perfect little ‘light’ wizard, with never a ‘dark’ thought in his head. Dumbledore’s darling, Lupin’s obedient pup, a model student and son, and now he will likely be the darling of the press, just as he was before.
And if he has the ability to handle fire that the orb seems to indicate he has... Voldemort hissed under his breath at the sight of his ruined right hand. Then I must reopen another of the questions I thought resolved long ago. I was so certain that Snape was giving me information Dumbledore had deliberately fed to him, a blind to conceal the truth... but is it perhaps a double blind, telling the truth in such a way that everyone will think it is a lie?
Whatever it was, he would be keeping his researchers busy for quite some time.
It was well that most of the men he had lost at the Department of Mysteries were fighters.
It was even better that one of those he had specially sworn at the beginning of the summer had not been present at all, while another had wriggled free of his bonds and made his way safely out of the Ministry before the Aurors arrived to take them all into custody. He had not stopped for such petty things as freeing his comrades.
Lord Voldemort approved. If he had had time, of course, it would have been another story. But he did not know when the Aurors would arrive, other than ‘soon,’ and he chose to return me one fighter for certain than risk bringing me none at all by trying for more.
While the Ministry searched for Death Eaters in panic-stricken circles, he would work silently, behind the scenes, on the targets he had chosen first but been denied access to for lack of opportunities.
That would soon change, now that the younger Crouch had joined the father he’d been impersonating in death. It would be a simple matter to place a new spy in the Order, one Dumbledore knew nothing about. And once that was done...
Once that is done, the world is mine. I need merely ask for it, and it will fall into my hands.
He looked at his right hand and scowled. Or perhaps I should say into my hand.
Potter will pay for that. Just as he will pay for everything else.
xXxXx
Aletha lay asleep on the bed in the guest suite, Meghan cuddled close to her mother’s chest. Sirius looked at them both from the desk and smiled sadly, blinking hard to control his tears.
He’s in the best possible hands, he didn’t feel any pain, and it’s not as if I really knew him...
The familiar phrases held only drops of comfort, not enough to ease the raging pain inside of him, and Sirius tapped the DictaQuill in his hand twice with his wand and set it on the parchment.
"Chapter One," he said quietly, so as not to wake his girls. "In Which Marcus Leaves Home and Discovers a Curious Contrivance."
Valentina Jett is about to branch out into children’s books. With a brave and witty young hero named Marcus, who never gives up and always saves the day with his clever answers...
He kept speaking, telling the story as it had come to him while he held Aletha and tried to stave off his own tears. By the time Marcus had met the strangers on the other side of the Curious Contrivance and was busy explaining to them the rules by which his world worked, Sirius was so deep in the tale he barely noticed the door opening.
But when Chapter One of Through the Gate was finished, Sirius set it aside and unrolled a fresh scroll of parchment. "Once upon a time," he said, watching the quill scribble the words in his handwriting, "in a kingdom called England, there lived a young boy named Dafydd Beauvoi, the younger son of a Norman noble and his wife, a Welshwoman though she carried also the blood of Denmark. Dafydd was a beautiful boy, with his father’s fine bones and his mother’s fair coloring, but he was lonely, for his father’s great concern was Owain his heir, and his mother’s great love was Angharad her daughter, and neither had much time to spare for little Dafydd.
"And so one day he went exploring, and in a stream he found a girl of his own age, seven years, whose red hair spilled over the shoulders of a kirtle as green as her eyes. And as they bragged as children will—Dafydd was the son of a lord, the girl the granddaughter of a baron—Dafydd let it slip that he could make the arrows of his bow fly anywhere that he wished, merely by willing it so. The girl coaxed him into coming to her home, where her black-haired father laid a carven stick in Dafydd’s hand and bade him wave it in the air, and as the boy did so, sparks flew from it, for the stick was a wand, and young Dafydd a wizard.
"Thus began the great magical House of Beauvoi, famed in song and story..."
xXxXx
Neville had excused himself to spend the night with his parents in the Defense Professor’s suite, seeing for himself that they were both all right. Luna had slipped off on business of her own; Meghan, of course, was with Padfoot and Letha; and Mrs. Weasley had taken Ron and Ginny back to Headquarters with her, to wait for news of their dad from St. Mungo’s. So the Pride who would den tonight was only three Warriors strong.
"Just like old times," Harry whispered as Hermione lay down beside him. "Really, really old times."
"I remember the first night we did this," Draco said from his other side. "I was scared I’d fall out, so you gave me the place by the wall."
Hermione giggled. "And then you were scared we’d squash you, so we promised to stay on the other bed... how long did that last?"
"About an hour," Harry said, interrupting himself in the middle of the last word with a huge yawn. "’Scuse me. Then you scooted over and got right beside us, and they found us in the morning all cuddled up like we’d always done it..."
"And now we always have," Draco finished. "If you define always right."
"Go t’sleep..." Harry yawned again. "Talk ‘bout def’nitions in th’morning."
"I’ll hold you to that, now," Hermione said with laughter in her voice.
Harry smiled, inhaled a long breath full of his brother and sister’s scents, and let go.
xXxXx
She closed the door gently. Draco would be sure to read the story, as he read everything his Pack-father wrote. She was less sure he would understand what was meant by it, but that could be explained. What mattered was that he know the truth, know why she was doing what she did.
She turned around and stopped dead at the sight of what was waiting for her in the corridor.
"Hello, Amanda," said Luna Lovegood, her eyes half-lidded but penetrating. "We need to talk."
Author Notes:
Yeah, I think one more chapter ought to wrap this segment up. Maybe I’ll even get it done before NaNo—would you like that, folks? Somehow I think you probably would...
Let me know how you think I handled everything, and if there are any missing loose ends, and what you’d like to see in the remaining two story arcs. I might not get it in, but if it fits,
I’ll sure try!