Facing Danger
Chapter 26: Plans and Promises (Year 5)
By Anne B. Walsh
Amanda Smythe sat down in an empty desk, her eyes downcast. One foot joined her on the chair, and she wrapped her arms around her knee, rocking gently back and forth.
“What did you do to Mr. Padfoot?” Luna asked, shutting the door behind herself. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“You probably never will again.” Amanda’s voice, though quiet, filled the room, as if she were the size of Hagrid or Madame Maxime. “What do you see when you look at me, Luna? What do you see?”
“You are different,” Luna said, perching herself on the corner of a desk a few rows away from Amanda. “You and your brother. You have a brightness around you that I haven’t seen before.”
“And you probably won’t ever see that again either.”
“You still haven’t answered my first question.” Luna leaned forward, letting her eyes rest on Amanda. “What did you do to my mate’s Pack-father?”
Amanda’s head snapped up. “Don’t call him that!”
“Who?”
“Draco! Don’t call him yours!” Green eyes locked onto blue-gray, hot fury slashed into cool calm. “You made a stupid pact when you were babies, who’s to say he still wants to be held by it now? Who’s to say he still wants to play that game? Why can’t he make his own decisions?”
“He can.” Luna swung her leg idly back and forth. “But he is honorable and he respects me. If he truly wanted to move away from me, he’d tell me so himself. And you still haven’t answered my question. Why are you trying so hard not to?”
“Because it’s none of your business what I did!” Amanda slammed her foot down onto the floor and stood up. “Why are you questioning me, anyway? What right do you have?”
“I saw you doing magic in the halls,” Luna said, still sitting, still swinging her leg. “Doing magic on a guest of the school, someone who used to be a teacher, who’s still the father of students. I don’t want to get you in trouble, but I will if I have to.”
“Try it.” Amanda sneered. “Just try it. No one can prove I did anything, it’s your word against mine, and I’m innocent until proven guilty.”
“Unless I show my memory in a Pensieve. Or through my pendants.”
A red head tossed scornfully as its owner turned away. “You could have tampered with it. It doesn’t count.”
“Amanda, what are you afraid of?” Luna asked softly. “You didn’t hurt him. I know. You gave him an idea, or a dream. Nothing bad. Why are you so afraid to tell me?”
Amanda whirled on Luna. “I’m not afraid!”
Luna unfocused her eyes, then let them converge on Amanda again. “Yes,” she said. “You are.”
Amanda’s hands fisted, and she whirled and slammed one into the wall. “Fine,” she said shortly over her shoulder. “Let me tell you a story, then. Once upon a time there was a girl with a curse on her family, a curse her grandfather put on her father when he broke with the family line. A curse that meant either she or her brother was going to die young. Young like us. Young like not even getting a chance. And one day, she was trapped. Trapped with her brother, and with the boy she loved. She had enough magic to save two of them. Only two.
“If she saved the other two, her love would probably break his heart over her, and her brother would never forgive her. At least, that’s what she told herself.” Amanda’s voice could have etched glass. “And why should she save herself and her brother, when one of them was still doomed to die anyway?”
“So she saved herself and her love,” Luna filled in. “What happened then?”
“They married. They had a family. They were happy, sometimes.” Amanda flattened her hand against the wall. “But every so often, he would just look at her. Just look her up and down, like he was trying to measure her. And she knew what he was thinking. ‘Do you ever wish you’d gone another way, made a different choice? Do you ever think about your brother, about the frightened look on his face, about the way he screamed your name just before he died?’”
Luna shook some hair forward and began disentangling a knot in it. “Did she?”
“Did she what?”
“Did she ever wish that, or think that?”
“How should I know? It’s a story. I didn’t write it or make it up.”
“No.” Luna twitched a few strands of hair free from the knot. “But I think you may have lived it.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I know.”
Amanda ignored this. “I’m not even seventeen yet. How could I get married and have a family?”
“Your body isn’t seventeen yet.” Luna looked up through her hair. “But your soul doesn’t fit like it should.” Her eyes traveled slowly up and down Amanda. “I’ve always known you had a difference about you, but a lot of people have differences about them, so I never knew what yours was until I thought about it. You’re not in your body the same way I am.”
Amanda goggled at her for a moment, then burst out laughing, a trifle shrilly. “You... are so far round the twist you can see yourself coming.” She got herself under control and shook her head. “I didn’t do anything to Professor Black. I just opened the door to see what he was doing, and if he was all right, but he was working, so I left without saying anything.”
“I know you’re not telling the truth.” Luna finished working the knot out of her hair and tucked it behind her ear. “But whatever you did, it didn’t hurt him. And Draco likes you. It isn’t more than a friend liking, not yet, but he knows it could be more. He doesn’t want to say anything, because he thinks that if he doesn’t talk about it, maybe it will go away.”
Amanda sat back down, her forehead wrinkled. “You’re not angry?”
“Maybe a little.” Luna pulled forward another handful of hair to work on. “But you haven’t done anything that you shouldn’t do, at least not yet.”
“You don’t know that,” Amanda said half under her breath.
“If you have done anything that you shouldn’t, I don’t know about it,” Luna amended. “And I like you. I would like to be your friend. I think we could help each other. But we can’t if we’re going to be fighting over Draco.”
“So what do you suggest?” The words were only half-sarcastic.
Luna smiled as a thought came to her. “We could have a Challenge, I suppose. A fight between us, and the winner gets him.”
Amanda laughed again. “I might like that, but it wouldn’t be fair to him,” she said. “He has to be able to make the choice.” A thoughtful expression drifted onto her face. “What if we had a different kind of challenge?”
“What kind?”
“The kind where we take turns being... whatever it is we’d like to be to him. Let him see which of us he really does prefer.” Amanda’s tone had the faintest touch of gloat in it, but was otherwise firm and sincere. “What do you think?”
Luna wrapped her hair around her hand and considered it. “Would we tell him?”
“I don’t think so.” Amanda chuckled. “If he figures it out, then we’ll tell him about it, but until then we should keep it to ourselves.”
Luna nodded briskly. “How long would we have? A month? Three? No, two, to make up for the summer, when I see him and you don’t.”
“Two months sounds adequate to me. Shall we agree on terms, then?”
“Yes, I think we shall.” Luna drew out her wand and flicked it at the blackboard, and a piece of chalk rose up, ready to take notes. “So we don’t accidentally forget anything we agree on,” she said blandly. “Or accidentally remember it wrong.”
Amanda smiled. “Are you sure you were Sorted correctly? You have the intellect of a Ravenclaw and the instincts of a Slytherin.”
“The Hat was a bit puzzled when I insisted on Gryffindor,” Luna agreed. “But it came around in the end. I knew it would when I started to tell it how Daddy’s been studying some of the ancient legends of the Founders, and that he thinks it might not be Gryffindor’s brains in the Hat at all...”
“If you have July and August,” Amanda interrupted politely, “I should have May and June, yes?”
“Yes. Which would give me March and April, and you January and February...” Luna paused while the chalk caught up with their words. “Should we declare the rest of December neutral, and begin at the first of the year?”
“That seems fair. And we’ll want to have it clearly defined what kind of contact we can and can’t have with him, both in and out of our times...”
xXxXx
It was, in one sense, fortunate that Draco Black was sleeping soundly elsewhere in the castle, for it meant he was unable to hear two intelligent and ruthless young witches planning his future for him.
In another sense, it was thoroughly unfortunate, as was his twin’s similarly sound sleep.
xXxXx
Remus jerked awake, panting. Beside him, Danger’s even breathing continued unchanged. For one instant, he envied her, but then recollection of what she’d done to get herself into this state intervened and put things in perspective.
I don’t think I want to drain my magic just to get a night’s sleep.
Though after a few more dreams like that, it might start looking good.
He slid out of bed, replacing the covers over his spot, and assumed Animagus form, padding around the bottom of the bed to curl up in the moonlight. Full moon had been two nights ago, and the slightly out-of-true circle comforted him with the familiar message that the curse had come and gone, done its worst and left him in peace for another month.
Of course, its worst is hardly as bad as it once was. An appreciative breath through mouth and nose, tasting the clean-hair-baking-bread scent that was his mingled magical and mundane sense of Danger. And under normal circumstances, she even drags me out of dreams like that one.
Not that it made much sense... it has no right to be bothering me like it is...
He tried to recall the images of the dream that had disturbed him so. Two came to mind quickly—Draco’s face, shifting from fear and sorrow through blankness into a sneer Remus had seldom seen his son wear, and a long and slender wand, vaguely familiar and dripping with blood of different colors.
Those didn’t come together, though, except by accident. In fact...
Remus reached into Danger’s magic and found her dreamsculpting power. A moment’s concentration, and he was within the dream again, in his lion body. He sniffed carefully, first to one side, then to the other.
Ah-ha. I was right. This isn’t one dream at all. It’s two.
But why am I having two dreams simultaneously?
A deeper sniff, and he sneezed and sat down hard, shaking his head in distaste.
Not to mention, why am I having dreams that don’t seem to be mine?
Better explore quickly, before I forget too much about it.
He moved off into the passages of the first dream, the one featuring the wand. The walls around him dripped blood as the wand had, its color ranging from a bright fresh crimson to a sullen ancient brown, and he changed quickly back to human after verifying that the general scent here was the same sickly-sweet half-rotten odor he’d caught in the original moment.
I don’t like this at all. And it’s only the first one.
Maybe I should start sleeping down in the Heart of Hogwarts like Harry...
xXxXx
Sirius finally set his quill aside, yawned, and stretched.
Two good-sized chapters of two different stories. Maybe I’m getting my touch back.
Time for Valentina Jett to make her big return to the publishing world, what say?
He cracked his back, then climbed onto the bed behind Aletha, draping an arm over her to stroke Meghan’s cheek. His daughter made a sleepy noise of contentment and turned her face into his caress, and Sirius tightened his arm around his wife’s shoulder in a half-hug.
What would I be doing right now without you two in my life... I don’t know, but I don’t think I want to find out...
He drew his wand, conjured a light blanket over the three of them, and closed his eyes, tucking the wand back into its pocket by feel and instinct.
We’ll get through this. We won’t enjoy it, but we’ll make it.
And someday, I’ll see my son, and hold him in my arms.
Someday.
xXxXx
Remus pulled himself free of the dream, shuddering.
That was horrible. If I never have to be in that mind again, it will be too soon.
Thank God I’ve been able to shield Harry from it so far.
But he must be shielding me as well, or I should have been having these dreams long before this...
Or maybe Danger’s been shielding me. I’ll have to ask her when she wakes up.
Now for the other dream. And maybe to take care of some unfinished business.
He closed his eyes again and dived into sleep, falling through darkness with whirling fragments of color, until at last he landed lightly on a chill stone floor.
“Oh, that didn’t work so well, did it?” said a mocking voice behind him. “Shall we try it again?”
Remus stood up and turned around in the same motion, and his fingernails dug into his palms.
Lucius Malfoy, his clothing disarranged and a contented smile on his scarred face, sat on the edge of a bed. A bed to which was chained a sobbing girl, her face hidden in her arms but her wild mass of brown hair making her identity obvious.
Calm, Remus, whispered the voice he almost always heard as Danger, even when, as now, her actual sense in his mind was shut down in sleep or unconsciousness. Stay calm. It’s only a dream.
But if she’s in it—if he’s pulled her in somehow, used her blood bond—
He can’t have. She’s in the Heart of Hogwarts, remember? She’s safe.
Yes. Remus felt his heart rate slow, consciously slowed his breathing, relaxed his stance. Safe.
“No,” another voice croaked nearby as Malfoy reached for Hermione. “Leave her alone—”
Remus forced himself back to some semblance of calm, reminded himself firmly of the other occupants of the Hogwarts Den tonight, and only then turned to look for the voice’s owner.
Draco crouched in a far corner, his clothing torn, hate and terror warring in his eyes. “Leave her alone!” he shouted again as Malfoy stroked Hermione’s arm, eliciting a little whimper of fear. “Stop it!”
“And why should I do that?” Malfoy asked without turning, seemingly devoting all his attention to his hand where it touched Hermione’s skin. “Why should I stop using her for the purpose for which she was made?”
“You bastard!” Draco flung himself out of the corner, hands poised to strike—
And a magical shield manifested across the room, throwing him backwards into the wall.
“You still have not learned, it seems,” Malfoy said, disdaining even to look at his son, who was gasping open-mouthed for breath. “I am the master here. Not you. You exist on my sufferance. As your sister and your brother do, or did, on my Master’s.” He glanced up idly, towards the only door out of the stone-lined room. “I wonder if he has tired of them yet. The girl, perhaps, but somehow I do not think he will be done so quickly with Harry Potter...”
As though it had been timed—and this is his dream, so it probably was—a young man’s hoarse yell of pain and anger echoed down the stairs visible through the door. Hermione shuddered once, as though she’d been struck, and Draco pushed himself half-upright, his whole body shaking in rage.
“Stop it,” he demanded, his eyes fixed on his father. “Make them stop.”
“How?” Malfoy finally turned to meet his son’s gaze, his face innocent and wondering. “I have no such power.”
“He listens to you. You said so yourself. You said if you asked him to do something, if you gave him a good reason, he’d do it. Ask him to stop... what he’s doing. Ask him now.”
“Again, why should I?” Malfoy turned back to Hermione, his hand moving forward from her arm. “I find myself comfortable where I am...”
“I’ll do what you want.”
A moment of total silence.
“I’m sorry,” Malfoy said in the politest of tones, but Remus could see the twisted smile beginning to spread over his face. “I don’t believe I heard you correctly, Draco. Would you repeat what you said, of your kindness?”
Draco snarled silently at Malfoy’s back, then slumped, weariness and defeat in every line of him. “I said I’ll do what you want,” he said tiredly. “I’ll be what you want. Your son again. A Malfoy again. Just... stop hurting them. Give me your word, the word of a Malfoy, that they won’t be hurt again, and I’ll do whatever you say.”
“I can make no promises for the Potter boy,” Malfoy cautioned. “The Dark Lord’s whim rules.”
“Just do your best.” Draco grimaced once. “Father.”
“Ah, excellent. I do believe I shall.” Malfoy stood up, patting Hermione’s shoulder once more. “As for the girl, disposition of her fate will be in your hands.”
Draco blinked. “My...”
Malfoy picked up something metallic from the top of a nearby table and flipped it towards Draco, who caught it neatly in one hand, then stared at it.
It was Hermione’s dagger, the blue gem in the handle dulled by a pattern of cracks running through it.
“One small pain, and then she need never suffer again,” Malfoy said, gesturing grandly to the bed. “Or you could turn it on yourself, but then your siblings would have no savior. You could even try to attack me.” His wand was in his hand, too fast for the eye to follow. “If you wished to witness her further torment, and then be forced to do what you have already agreed to. The choice is yours. Make it quickly.”
The memory of an old, old dream slipped into Remus’ mind—Hermione’s pleading, terrified face, the handle of the knife against his palm, and the knowledge bitterer than any poison, that this was mercy and not betrayal—
Not again. Not ever again.
Not even if they are just dream-figures.
He does not deserve the satisfaction.
“Enough,” Remus Lupin said aloud, and his voice shook the dream-world like the voice of God.
xXxXx
Rubeus Hagrid unlatched his front door and stepped inside, bracing himself against Fang’s exuberant welcome.
Might’ve been nice to bring little Grawp home with me, but he’ll be fine where he is now. Not even a giant’s likely to fight a dragon just for fun.
He chuckled as he poked up the fire. I’ll have one over on Charlie, though. The great dragon expert, never noticing my little Norbert was actually a little Norberta.
The kettle went on the hob, and a thick slice of bread on a toasting fork. Nice to see her and Grawp taking to each other that way. ‘Course, he figured out pretty quick how she could protect him, and once he learned where to scratch her and what sorts of animals to bring her, she was his...
Hagrid settled back on the bench, rubbing Fang’s head with the hand not holding the fork, his feet on the hearthstone.
Probably have visitors tomorrow. I wonder what they’ve been getting up to while I’ve been away? Likely nothing as exciting as me...
xXxXx
Lucius Malfoy spun around, his face astonished. “You!”
“Me.” Remus made a tiny gesture of negation with one hand, and the room and its other two occupants vanished. He and Malfoy stood alone on a featureless plain. “I’ve come to speak to you about a matter of a life.”
“Whose life?”
“Yours.” Remus smiled, letting some of his inner lion show. “And the fact that you owe it to me.”
“I owe you nothing of the sort!”
“Oh, but you do.” Remus summoned the appropriate memory and set it in motion around them.
Malfoy watched through slitted eyes as Bellatrix ran from the room barely ahead of the wall of water she’d conjured. The memory-Remus created a net around himself, sent it shooting upwards to the ceiling, then leaned down and pulled Danger and Arthur Weasley into it alongside him. He glanced at the memory-Malfoy where he floated limply on the surface, swore under his breath, and Summoned the Death Eater as well.
“Bellatrix left you behind,” Remus said quietly. “I would not.”
Along with dream-Malfoy came a huge wave, and dream-Remus barely kept hold of the net as he blasted the top of the door away. He threw the net into the next room, guided it to a soft landing with his wand, then leapt after it, conjuring a panel behind him to keep the water safely within the room he’d left—
The memory-dream faded, and Remus and Malfoy stood again amid softly glowing gray.
Malfoy’s face contorted. “Very well,” he ground out. “I acknowledge the debt.”
“By the power of a life debt owed, then, hear what I would charge you with.” The exact words Remus wanted came easily to him after what he’d seen. “You will honor the lives of my children as you do your own—no, better than that, for you might lay down your own life at your Master’s command, and their lives you will not. You will keep them alive, and you will not harm them, nor will you allow another to harm them if it lies in your power to stop. If you disobey this charge, my gift of your life is forfeit.”
“You have no children,” Malfoy snapped. “This command is meaningless.”
“I have by law a daughter,” Remus countered. “And she has by blood a brother. They have also by love a brother and a sister. I charge you with those four lives, and with the lives of their four closest friends, with whom they have sworn their oath of friendship. You will guard them as I have commanded, or you will die by your own magic as you should have died tonight.”
Malfoy twitched a shoulder, as though throwing off an unwanted hand. “Eight lives for one is too much. The bond will not hold.”
“If it breaks, then no penalty shall apply to you. But while it holds, you will honor it, or you will pay the price.” Remus never let his eyes waver from the other man’s. “So I speak, so I intend, and so let it be done.”
He waited just long enough to feel the magic snap into place before departing the dream, leaving Malfoy to vent his rage on an empty world.
xXxXx
The Captain lay just inside the entrance to the Den from the Headmaster’s office, his black eyes peering through the crack in the stone to the room beyond.
Dad said Mr. Weasley’s going to be okay, but Ron and Ginny still aren’t back, and Luna’s asleep. And I don’t think the Pack will be up for anything today except maybe going down to see Hagrid.
So that leaves me.
Some part of his mind marveled at himself. A mere five years ago, he would have been horrified at the idea of spying on a private conference among adults, especially about something as important as a war. Of course, that same five years ago, he never would have believed himself capable of an Animagus transformation, and that was the least of the strangeness which had overtaken him since.
I guess I’m growing up.
The office, as far as he could see, was empty. Most of the portraits were snoozing in their frames. Fawkes wasn’t on his perch behind Dumbledore’s desk, but a single bright feather lay in the tray beneath it. Captain wondered idly how often phoenixes molted, and what they looked like when they did. Or did burning take care of that for them?
The door opened, jolting him from his thoughts. Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape, and his parents entered, with Mad-Eye Moody and Kingsley Shacklebolt close behind, already in conversation.
“...major upheavals,” Kingsley was saying. “But I think it’ll settle out to Scrimgeour in the end.”
“Well, could be worse.” Moody Summoned a chair and sat down with a grunt, pulling his hip flask free. “Scrimgeour’s competent, and not a complete fool.”
“No, but he is a Ministry man through and through,” said Mum acidly. “He’ll look with suspicion on anything that seems to threaten the Ministry and its power, no matter what that is.”
“No, Alice, it’s more than that.” Dad crossed to Fawkes’ perch and picked up the feather, stroking a finger along it idly. “He’s learned the hard way that what you are often takes a twig seat to what you look like. Why do you think he’s been so careful to preserve his face? There were a lot of people in the Auror Office I had trouble recognizing after twelve years. Not him.”
“It’s why he antagonizes Sirius,” said Kingsley. “Sirius made the Office look bad. That’s the one sin Scrimgeour can’t forgive. And why I don’t think we should necessarily tell him everything we’re doing.” His eyes flickered towards Snape.
“Agreed,” said Professor McGonagall. “Especially since any spies the Aurors may try to send into the Death Eaters will probably be found within their first week.”
“Day,” Snape corrected coolly.
“You would know better than I, Severus.” Professor McGonagall looked around. “Where is Albus, anyway? This is the time he asked us to meet him...”
“He’s in the reading room,” said a voice from above Captain’s head and to the left. A portrait, Captain assumed, from the way everyone’s eyes gravitated that way. “Said he needed to calm his nerves with a book.”
“The reading room?” Moody frowned. “Didn’t know he had one.”
Professor McGonagall had a peculiar expression on her face. Peering closer, Captain decided it was made of about half amusement and half annoyance. “He doesn’t,” she said in clipped tones. “Pardon me a moment.”
Crossing the room, she knocked briskly on a door beside the main entrance. If he’d been asked, Captain would have thought it was the door not to a room, but to...
“Yes?” called a voice from within.
“Albus, it’s time,” Professor McGonagall said firmly, as Mum covered her mouth and Dad raised an eyebrow at Kingsley, who shrugged. “Do come out of there.”
“Ah. Just a moment.” The door opened from the inside, and Professor Dumbledore emerged, ducking his head to clear the lintel. “Good morning, Alastor, Severus. Kingsley, Frank, Alice.” He smiled at McGonagall. “Really, Minerva, you must tell all my secrets to the world, mustn’t you?”
“All you need to do if you want privacy,” McGonagall said with a strong sound of forced patience in her voice, “is change the password on your door. Why you insist upon hiding behind your coats...”
“I find it quiet, congenial, and less distracting than the office.” Dumbledore bent down, and when he straightened, he had Fawkes on his wrist. “Besides, there are excellent magical precedents. But enough of that. Has Rufus been officially asked to take over Cornelius’ position, Kingsley?”
Kingsley nodded. “He’s accepted, too. No surprise either way.”
“What of the Department of International Magical Cooperation? How are they taking the news?”
“That their head was actually his own Death Eater son, Aged into looking like his father, and playing all three sides?” Moody said sarcastically. “Not so well. Percy Weasley’s moved back over there, though, and he’s getting things in hand fairly well. Born bureaucrat, that one.”
“A shame we didn’t believe him last year,” Dad said. “Why we didn’t have another look at his story after we found out he hadn’t been mistaken about Igor Karkaroff attacking him...”
“Because Barty Crouch the Younger was useful as a spy about whom I knew,” Dumbledore said, letting Fawkes sidle onto the perch before taking his seat behind his desk. “I was able to keep our most vital secrets from him, while seeding several pieces of disinformation into Voldemort’s ranks.”
Dad nodded.
“Dumbledore, I have to ask,” Mum said. “Did you know Dolores Umbridge would be there with Harry in the Atrium? Did you plan for that?”
“I did not.” Dumbledore sighed, rubbing the fingers of his right hand. “Harry had seen her rendered unconscious, and I admit I did not look farther than what he told me, even after Remus’ story of rescuing Arthur Weasley from the room Bellatrix Lestrange flooded. I should have recalled that the two incidents happened in the same place, that Dolores had therefore either been removed or removed herself before Remus happened along, but I did not...” He sighed deeply. “I see less and less, it seems.”
“You try to see too much, and always have,” McGonagall said sharply. “Stop blaming yourself for a foolish woman’s refusal to see what was in front of her eyes. If she’d had a Knut’s worth of sense, she’d never have tried this in the first place. Now. We need to plan, and we need to plan well. Now that You-Know...”
Dumbledore looked at her.
“Oh, all right. Now that Voldemort has lost the element of surprise, what will he try to do next?”
“Create it again, from another angle,” Kingsley said. “He can’t surprise us by existing now, so he’ll work up some plan we won’t think of.”
“Probably go after Muggles,” rumbled Moody. “It fits his ideology, and the wizarding world’s forewarned now. Muggles won’t be. Besides, it’ll amuse him to see us trying to hush it up.”
“I’m sure Rufus will be explaining things to the Muggle Prime Minister this very evening, if he has not already done so.” Dumbledore sighed. “Under normal circumstances, Cornelius would have gone with him, but these are hardly normal circumstances. I doubt he will be able to take on any duties at all for some weeks.”
“He at least told us who killed Andromeda Tonks,” Mum said. “Not that I felt guilty blaming Lucius Malfoy for it, but it’s better to know the truth. I certainly hope the Ministry’s going to take a long, hard look at itself soon.”
“Why don’t we focus on winning the war first?” suggested Dad. “Not that a long look at the Ministry wouldn’t be a good idea, but if it comes at the price of letting Voldemort have the place, I’d rather do without.”
“Might not be so much of a loss,” Mum muttered. “All right, yes, enough from me for the moment. What do we know?”
“The Dark Lord’s priorities at the moment are to secure his power base within the ranks of the purebloods,” Snape said, startling everyone, including Captain, who had half-forgotten the Potions Master was there. “He hopes after that to either intimidate or bribe the half-bloods to rally to him. There has also been talk, recently, of reviving the ancient rituals of purification, by which even a Muggle-born could become acceptable to those pure of blood.”
“Rituals of...” Mum’s eyes widened. “Dear God. Please tell me you’re joking.”
Snape shook his head minutely. “The Dark Lord holds himself up as a model in that regard.”
“Well then. Something else to cover in class.” Mum pretended to make notes on her hand. “Why killing all your Muggle relatives is generally considered a bad idea.”
Captain gulped. He’d heard the stories, but he’d always thought they were made up, ways to scare kids off to bed or insults status-hungry purebloods traded. To have his own mother confirming them as true...
“Caught a few in my day who were trying that,” Moody said, nodding. “Some of them even had a pureblood family tree all faked up, ready to go.”
Kingsley shook his head slowly. “Sad,” he said. “Such a waste. If you’re so set against your Muggle family, why not just forswear them, then have yourself adopted by some pureblood family desperate for children? A formal oath and adoption makes you just as pureblood as the rituals do.”
“Because many purebloods will not take adoptees, not even those who are willing to sever all ties with undesirable relatives,” said Snape, his tone icy. “They will have what they call true purity, or they will have nothing.”
“Then in only a few generations, they will indeed have nothing,” McGonagall said. “The more fools, they. Shall we continue with our discussion? What needs doing immediately, Albus?”
“We must convince Rufus to secure Azkaban, first,” Dumbledore said, sitting up straighter and pushing his glasses up his nose. “It has been broken into once already, and if the dementors leave Ministry employ, as I fear will very soon happen, it will be even less safe than before. Perhaps the prisoners should be moved to other facilities, less public and better guarded.”
“If he agrees to that, I’ll start believing your publicity, Dumbledore,” said Moody with a rough chuckle. “What Frank said earlier, about image... Scrimgeour won’t want to abandon the idea of Azkaban, the perfect prison, no matter what the current reality.”
“Agreed. But still, for the good of all, we must find some way to reach him.” Dumbledore steepled his fingers. “I expect results very soon from the envoys we sent to the giants this summer, and I can hope they are good. Our liaison with the werewolves reports limited success, but very few flat failures, so I doubt we need to fear any overall defections. We should, however, look into the possibility of securing goblin help.”
“Goblins help only themselves,” said Moody dourly. “They’ll support the side that will give them the highest payoff in the end.”
“Then we must ensure that joining us, or staying neutral, will give them a higher payoff than joining Voldemort’s forces,” Dumbledore rejoined.
“That shouldn’t be too hard,” said Dad, chuckling. “The last time I looked, a Death Eater’s idea of interracial diplomacy was ‘hitting the nonhuman scum once instead of twice.’ I think we can offer better than that, don’t you?”
The adults all laughed, and Captain found himself smiling. War or no war, they were going to be all right.
“I believe that the next few months may be less terrible than what we recall,” Dumbledore said when the laughter had died down. “Lord Voldemort has lost many followers, as well as the possibility of hearing the fullness of the prophecy, unless he cares to try to extract it from my mind.”
Or mine... Captain shivered. Or Meghan’s, or Luna’s, or any of ours... our only safety is that he doesn’t know, and he wouldn’t ever suspect, that Dumbledore told the biggest secret in the war to a bunch of teenagers...
“He is also injured, and Harry Potter has defeated him once more. I am not certain of this, no more than I am certain of anything, but I think it entirely possible that he will take the next few months to recoup his losses and seek new advantages. Of course, he could always decide instead to strike as quickly as possible, before the Ministry can fully mobilize, but in the end this will be a war of attrition.”
“Whichever side gets tired first, loses,” said Mum, nodding. “And that’s based on which side has more resources, more people, and better morale.”
“But how can he really think he can win?” Kingsley said, frowning. “The world’s an awfully big place, and even if he wears us down, there’s treaties and compacts in place all over for times just like this. France and Germany alone—”
“He’s probably looking to put a puppet Minister in place to start with,” Moody interrupted. “Then infiltrate the other countries’ Ministries. Imperius some officials, suborn others, until he’s in control of most of Europe. He could come out of hiding at that point, declare himself openly. Probably completely openly—Muggles as well as wizards—and you know what that would do.”
“Panic,” Dad said. “On both sides. Muggles will start killing anyone who even looks odd, and wizards will be trying to find some way to keep themselves safe. There’ll likely be agitators planted to make it worse. The Ministries won’t be able to handle it.”
“And in the end, it comes down to what it always comes down to,” Mum said grimly. “Any order is better than chaos.”
“Precisely.” Dumbledore’s eyes were bleak. “What is it our friends in the Muggle world say? ‘The best disinfectant is sunlight’? We must keep him in the open at all times. Force him to make his true agenda known. He can accomplish a great deal by terror, but I do not think he can win that way.”
“There’s another Muggle saying I like,” said McGonagall. “‘All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for the good to stand by and do nothing.’ If the governments of the rest of the world decide that he’s not their problem, or that they can pay him his Danegeld and he’ll be on his way...”
Moody snorted. “Not likely. We’ll swat him before it gets to that stage. And I know, I know,” he added, waving an irritable hand in Dumbledore’s direction. “It won’t be as easy as that. It’ll take time, and lives, and pain. But I do think we can do it. Us, ourselves, without screaming for outside help.”
Captain shook his fur and rippled through one complete change, invisible to visible to invisible again. Now you see me, now you don’t.
Watch out, Voldemort. Watch out, Bellatrix Lestrange.
Or better yet, don’t watch out. Don’t ever think about the damage one cute little invisible monkey could do.
Like opening the latch on a hideout door, to let in a whole army of Animagi and DA fighters.
He grinned once, then settled in to listen some more.
After all, Dumbledore had promised the Pride wouldn’t be left behind again.
We should know what we’re going to be a part of.
Happy (late) St. Gertrude’s Day!
I thought of having a fun F&G prank here, but I think it’ll be better as a kick-off for next arc. Besides, this gives me a chance to ask my readers for some input. Which do you prefer, "Deck the Halls" or "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"? No, you don’t get to know what for.
I hope this was satisfying enough to be worth the wait. I’m horrifically behind on NaNo and the original short I’m working on, but I’m going to try to fix that tonight and today. Encourage me, please? You know how by now.
See you next chapter! And yes, Dumbledore likes to read exactly where you think he likes to read. Couldn’t resist.