Facing Danger
Chapter 37: Stories and Straight Talk (Arc 6)
By Anne B. Walsh
Author Notes:
Yes, I'm back. Die of shock if you must, but please review first.
"Oy, Will, wait up!" Charlie Weasley hurried across the rustic-built room towards one of his coworkers, who turned at his call, revealing a bearded, scarred face with a permanent red glow to his cheeks. "You remember how you were looking for some way to improve those fireproof robes last month?"
"Sure. Can’t have the Minister of Magic getting his arse singed off, right mess that would cause." Will chuckled. "You found something?"
"You could say that." Charlie pointed at the woman by the fireplace who was just shaking the last of the ashes out of her brown hair. "A neighbor of ours does a spectacular fire-protection charm. Seen her pick up salamanders bare-handed."
Will nodded, looking impressed. "Sounds like just the thing. Introduce me?"
"Of course." Charlie led the way back across the room. "Will, this is Gertrude Granger-Lupin, but she always goes by Danger. Danger, Will Robinson."
"Remind me again why we were happy to get rid of Binns?" Draco commented as the elder members of the Pride filed into the History of Magic classroom.
Neenie the cat jumped down from Ron’s shoulders onto a desk at the front corner of the room, from there onto the chair, and transformed. "Because now you four might learn something from this class without having to copy my notes all the time," Hermione answered.
Draco scowled at his twin. "I wasn’t asking you."
"You didn’t say any names." Hermione’s smile was a bit shaky, but real, and she met Draco’s eyes without any sign of fear.
"Because we were tired of having an hour and a half every couple days where we were bored out of our skulls," said Ron, dropping his bag and Hermione’s onto a desk between her and the rest of the room. "We didn’t stop to think that a new Professor would mean we’d actually have to work in this class."
"Let’s be fair, she’s starting us off easy," said Harry, sitting down beside Ron. "All that stuff about history and legend and myth, and how they can get mixed up and change each other."
Draco took the seat behind Ron, and Neville set down his books on the next desk over. "What were you looking so surprised about last class?" he asked his friend. "All she was saying was that there was some people in the middle of the fourteenth century who wanted to be sure stories only got passed on in their proper forms."
"It was just—Luna asked her about that when we first met her. Some Suppression or other."
"The Similarity Suppression of 1348," Hermione recited quickly. "And Professor Jones said there was never really any ‘suppression’ as such, that it was more a matter of these people wanting to be sure that the stories they told their children didn’t give them unrealistic expectations about the world. Which, if you look at some Muggle fairy tales, might be a good idea. I mean, if you think hard about stories like Snow White and Cinderella, what little girls are learning from it is that they’re supposed to grow up and marry the prince..."
"Cinderella?" Ron repeated, Neville frowning from the row behind. "Sounds like an illness."
"Not quite," said Harry, laughing. "She’s a witch named Ella, and her wicked stepmother takes her wand away and makes her sleep on the hearth, so she gets covered in ashes and cinders."
"Ella’s stepsisters had to put Shrinking Charms on their feet to fit into her magical dancing shoes," Hermione added, "so they could dance like her at the masked ball and fool the prince. But even with the magic in the shoes, they were still clumsy, and that’s how he knew they weren’t really Ella."
"Oh."
"You two don’t know that one?" Draco said, pulling his battered Bagshot out of his schoolbag. "I used to hear it all the time when I was little."
"You had a subversive house-elf," Hermione pointed out.
"True enough."
"I think she’s doing stories with every year," said Ginny in the common room that night. "Probably because we haven’t ever had a proper professor and she doesn’t want to overload us to start with."
"She’s split us into small groups and given us each a story to research," Luna added. "We have to present it to the class next week and explain what events in it could be historical and which are obviously invented, and what true events could have inspired the invented portions."
Draco looked a bit alarmed. "Are you two in the same group?" he asked.
"Yes," said Ginny, giving him a flat look. "Along with two Hufflepuffs. She let us do some picking, but she made sure none of the groups had only one House in them."
"Good." Meghan was curled up in an armchair with her Potions text. "What story are you researching?"
"It’s not one we know," Luna said, rummaging in her bag until she found the scroll she was looking for. "It’s called ‘The Gift of the Phoenix.’ Do you want to hear it?"
"Yes, please," said Harry, setting aside his Charms homework with alacrity. Neville capped his ink, Meghan marked her page, and Neenie, nestled in Ron’s lap and pointing out the important passages in Intermediate Transfiguration with a paw, sighed but nodded. Ron closed the book, put it on the table, and sat back in his chair, and Luna began to read aloud from her scroll.
Long ago and far away there was a kingdom, where ruled a well-meaning but foolish king. If he had ruled alone, his reign would have foundered, but his queen sat by his side, and she was both wise and good. Though she wore a veil over her face, and thus by the custom of the country she was not truly present, petitioners knew that she was listening and judging them well. She would counsel the king as to whether he should extend the scepter of justice towards them, to smite them with its magical fire, or the orb of mercy, to bathe them in its healing glow.
What they did not know, what only the king and the queen knew, was that the veil over the queen’s face served another purpose than hiding her features. It was a gift from her mother and an artifact of ancient magic, for when she looked through its weave, she saw those who told the truth haloed in the blue of the sea and those who lied surrounded by the dirty red of dried blood. Thus she knew which parts of each story she heard were true and which invented, and she whispered her findings into the king’s ear to help him make his decisions.
But though the people of the country loved their king and their queen, one man did not. He was the king’s vizier, and he hated the queen, because he knew that without her presence at the king’s side, he could long ago have become the power behind the throne, ruling the land in all but name. He hated the queen’s wisdom and goodness, he hated her sweet voice and her strong magic, but most of all he hated her companion, for the queen was one of those rare human beings who had befriended a phoenix.
The phoenix drove the vizier to distraction. It watched him whenever he came near, as though it knew what was in his heart. More than this, its presence meant that no plan to kill the queen could be successful, for no poison was swifter than phoenix tears and no assassin could defeat the strength and valor of the fire’s bird. But the vizier was cunning, and he knew that the phoenix had its own cycle of life. For ten long years he waited and watched, until at last he saw the phoenix beginning to grow old, and then he acted. He hired an assassin, he taught him the plan of the palace, and he gave the killer deadly poison to smear along the blade of his dagger.
And thus it was that the king sat on the floor of his throne room, weeping over his dead queen. The assassin’s body lay cooling nearby, but his death would not redeem the life he had taken, and the king’s grief was past bearing. The queen’s phoenix, too, mourned, but through song only, not through tears. The creature seemed to know that this wound was beyond its healing.
But then the phoenix, its feathers gray and drooping, took wing and flew to the king’s throne, from which it lifted two objects: one was the scepter of justice, the other the orb of mercy. "What are you saying, valiant bird?" the king asked hoarsely. "That there was neither justice nor mercy in this killing? With that I believe I can agree."
The phoenix landed on the other side of the queen’s body with its burdens and tugged gently at the veil the queen still wore. "Yes, there is no more need for this," said the king, and unhooked the veil and lifted it away, so that he might gaze upon the face he loved once more. "What good did the truth do you, my dear?" he murmured. "What good has the truth done either of us?"
A single phrase of phoenix song filled the air. From within it, the king thought he heard a gentle voice speaking: The truth has not deserted you yet, it breathed. If you are willing to make a sacrifice, it may yet survive.
"What must I give?" the king asked in a whisper. "What is required?"
First, the three treasures of your kingdom. The veil, the scepter, and the orb.
"Done," said the king instantly. "What more?"
Your own body to endure the pain undergone by the one who has left you.
"Done. What more?"
The knowledge of three things: that this life will be torn away from you again in as many weeks as it might have lived years without this happening, that the feathered singer shall burn to ashes at that same time, and that from those ashes no new chick will ever arise. For this is the greatest gift of the phoenix, to give up its own immortality to reclaim for a short while the life of one mortal companion, and such is the only way a phoenix may ever truly die.
The king stared at the phoenix. "You must not do this thing," he said. "I loved my queen most truly, I had hoped she would live to grow old beside me, but not even the full term of her life is worth the sacrifice of your endless years! Take my life instead, if it may restore hers, but do not let yourself be destroyed for such a small gain!"
The phoenix trilled as if it were laughing, and burst into flame even as it made the sound, the fires reaching out to touch the veil and the scepter and orb. The king cried out in pain and clutched his chest, where it seemed a ghostly dagger had stabbed him. And from within the fire and the pain, the voice spoke once more.
Had you spoken any other way than you did, you would not have gained what you sought, o king. But you did not snatch at the prize but spoke with a thought to another, even in the midst of your heartbreak. More, you offered your own life in place of that other’s. For this, you and your queen both shall live until her companion’s next burning day, whenever that may befall.
And when the king could see again, the phoenix lay a wrinkled chick in its nest of ashes; of the three treasures of the kingdom, there was no trace; but neither of these interested him, for his queen was stirring, and the bloody wound in her breast had closed as though it had never been.
The king had the faithless vizier imprisoned for his treachery, and together he and his queen ruled in wisdom and justice for years. But when the phoenix which accompanied the queen began to lose its feathers and sing more softly than it had in years gone by, the two set the affairs of the kingdom in order and went hand in hand to the highest balcony of the palace, one which looked out over the sea. There they stood side by side, and the phoenix perched between them and sang its death-song, and when the music had ceased the ashes of the three wafted out to the ocean on the breeze.
For a few seconds, no one moved. Ron could feel Neenie purring in awe. Finally, Draco whistled long and low. "Impressive," he said.
"And hard to sort out," said Ginny. "I mean, not the bit about the queen coming back to life, I don’t think even a phoenix could do that, but what did happen?"
"I’d guess she nearly died and the phoenix saved her," said Neville. "But it’s only a guess, mind you," he added hastily as Ginny threatened him with Ron’s Transfiguration book. "I could be wrong."
"What I’d wonder is, if that’s all that happened, why did the story start?" Harry said. "To explain where the kingdom’s treasures went? And where did they go, really?"
"Maybe the assassination was a cover-up for a burglary?" Ron suggested.
Neenie made a skeptical noise, and Draco frowned. "Isn’t that usually the other way around? Seems like the people would be more important than the things..."
"What if the phoenix needed extra magic to help the queen, because she was so badly hurt and it was so close to its burning time?" asked Meghan. "The way I used Hogwarts’ magic to heal you, Harry, when you fell at the Quidditch match your second year. That could be why it burned the treasures, and even why the king hurt, because the phoenix took some magic from him too."
"I like that," said Luna, unrolling the scroll to a blank portion. "Say it again, slower, please?"
"Won-Won!" squealed a voice from behind Ron’s chair as Meghan started to repeat what she’d said.
Ron jumped. Neenie yowled and dug her claws into his robes. "Er, hi, Lavender," he said, looking around.
"I missed you over the holidays!" Lavender was leaning over the back of his chair, beaming at him. "And then it’s like you’ve been hiding from me ever since we got back! Did you get my necklace? Did you like it?"
"Er," Ron repeated. The necklace, a gold chain from which dangled large letters spelling out "My Sweetheart," had entertained the Pride greatly for most of a day, until he’d threatened to provide Fred and George with the recipe for Harry’s mum’s liquefied slugs potion. "Look, Lavender, can we go somewhere private for a minute?"
"Of course." Lavender smiled sweetly at the rest of the Pride. "You don’t mind if I steal my Won-Won for a while, do you?"
"Not at all," said Harry, entirely deadpan.
"Though I think I may ralph-ralph if she calls him that again," Draco muttered just loud enough to be heard.
Neenie hissed at him mildly, then leapt onto Ron’s shoulder and disposed herself around his neck.
Ron blinked at her. "Who said you were coming?"
A paw hooked under his pendant chain and pulled it out, and a point-eared head ducked under it. I did, Neenie informed him. Unless you’d really prefer to do this all by yourself. She’s probably going to cry, you know.
Ron glanced over at Lavender, who seemed puzzled by the behavior of the cat. Good point, he said. And thanks.
Neenie rubbed the top of her head against his jaw. Anytime.
"I didn’t know you had a cat," said Lavender as they climbed out the portrait hole. "Did you just get her over Christmas?"
"No, she’s been around for a while. And she’s not my cat, exactly." Ron surrendered to a small, wicked impulse. "She’s the cat who walks by herself. But not all places are alike to her."
Lavender gave him an odd look as they turned into an unoccupied classroom. "What does that mean?"
Neenie sighed. It means—don’t say this aloud—but it means she’s a little like Cho. A flicker of memory washed across Ron’s mind, of Harry and Hermione in the kitchen of the Hogwarts Den. Cho cared about Harry, but she didn’t bother to find out about the people Harry cared about. You may not be Pack, but you are Pride, and maybe Lavender should have noticed that.
Ron shrugged, feeling the slight prickle through his robes as Neenie hung on against the shift in her perch. "It’s just a thing I read someplace," he said in answer to Lavender’s question. "Listen, Lavender, about that necklace—"
"I’ve seen that cat before somewhere," Lavender interrupted, leaning forward to look more closely at Neenie. "Her eyes are a funny color, aren’t they? I mean, if she were human, it’d be perfectly normal for her to have eyes that color, but for a cat..."
She broke off and clapped her hands over her mouth. "She’s not a cat, is she?" she said around the interlaced fingers. "I remember at the DA meetings—and I’ve barely seen Hermione except in class, she isn’t even sleeping in her bed—"
Gold star for her. Neenie nodded deliberately towards Lavender.
"Hermione! It is you!" Lavender stared at Neenie. "Did you have an accident? Are you stuck like that?"
"No, she’s not stuck," Ron said. "It’s just... easier for her this way."
"Easier? Easier how?" Lavender frowned. "Wait, I thought I heard... just before holidays ended, there were girls who got attacked or kidnapped or hurt, but they were rescued..."
"It’s left her a bit spooky around people," Ron said, Neenie’s quiet purr never faltering in his ear. "She can handle them better like this. Boys especially."
"Except you." Lavender looked from Ron to Neenie and back again, her lower lip beginning to quiver. "Because you... did you..."
"Help her?" Ron finished. "Yeah. Mostly by accident."
Neenie smacked his ear with a paw.
"Oi!"
Next time, I’ll use claws, Neenie said tartly. Don’t run yourself down. A raspy tongue washed the place her paw had impacted. Let me do it for you.
Oh, you’re a big help, Ron grumbled silently, watching Lavender, who was watching Neenie. "Look," he said awkwardly. "Lavender, I’m sorry about this—"
"Don’t be." Lavender stood up, pushing her chair back. "I can see how things are. She’s special, she needs you, and I—" She sniffed once. "I’d better just go."
Ron started to get up. "Lavender, wait, I—"
Lavender ran out of the room, the sound of quiet sobbing lingering behind her for a moment.
Ron dropped back into his chair. "Buggered up again, didn’t I?" he said.
Neenie flowed down into his lap and changed into human form. "Not really," Hermione said, laying her head against his shoulder. "You were polite and truthful and you did apologize. But it still hurts her."
"Why?" Ron shut the door with his wand, putting his other arm around Hermione. "I didn’t say there was anything wrong with her."
"No, but you said, or as good as said, you want me instead. Which is the truthful thing to say and she’ll be glad you were honest with her someday, but tonight the only thing she knows is that she’s been rejected." Hermione straightened Ron’s collar absently. "And that hurts."
Ron sighed. "I’m just glad it’s over with." He looked down, caught Hermione’s gaze, and grinned at her. "I like snogging you better anyway."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Why am I glad you didn’t say that in front of her?"
"Because it’s Meghan who likes doing Healing spells, not you?"
"That could be it." Hermione produced a sound like a human purr as Ron twined a curl around his fingers. "So though I realize I may regret asking this question... why do you like snogging me better than snogging Lavender?"
Ron considered his options and decided he hadn’t been smacked enough lately. "Same reason I hate it when Mum buys stuff at the secondhand shops," he said airily. "Never know where it’s been."
They were somewhat late getting back to Gryffindor Tower.
"I can’t believe I’m encouraging my sister to sleep in the same bed as her boyfriend every night," Draco muttered under his breath as he buttoned his pajama top.
"We all have to believe weird things sometimes," Harry said, tossing his robes into the laundry hamper. "Like Luna getting angry with you over something you haven’t told us."
Draco jerked around to face his brother. "How did you—"
"Meghan heard you yelling at each other back at Headquarters. She thought it was weird enough that she ought to tell me about it. And I realized I’ve been thinking you were acting strange for months, but I’d always forget or something else would come up before I could ask you about it."
"But this time you didn’t forget." Draco stared at the floor between his bare feet.
"No. This time I didn’t forget."
"I don’t suppose I could ask you to forget again for another month or two?"
"Why?"
Draco jerked his head towards Ron’s drawn bedcurtains. "She’s been through enough for one winter, don’t you think?"
"So it’s bad."
"No, I’ve been hiding from you that I can end the war by pulling a secret weapon out my arse. Yes, it’s bad! Why the hell do you think I’ve been keeping my mouth shut about it?"
Harry took a step back and bumped into his bed. "I didn’t know," he said, pulling his pajamas out from under his pillow. "That’s why I asked." He shot a glance of his own towards Ron’s bed. "If you just wanted to tell me..."
"No." Draco flipped back the covers and got into bed. "Everybody or nobody."
"Luna knows."
"Luna’s the one who told me."
"Something she Saw?"
"Yeah."
"Something about you?"
"Yeah."
Harry paused in the act of pulling off his uniform shirt. "Just remember," he said after a moment. "Seers can be wrong sometimes."
Draco turned onto his side. "Not this time," he said indistinctly.
Harry didn’t pursue the matter further.
"Let us get a few things perfectly clear, ladies and gentlemen!"
It was the first regular meeting of the DA in the new term, and Professor Longbottom was walking up and down the room, pausing every so often to look at them sharply. Harry had the impression she’d given this speech many times before.
Probably she has. Neville said she used to do some of the first-year classes for Auror apprentices, the ones they have at St. Adomnán’s College. He covered a smile. Have to ask Padfoot if she has her speech memorized like Snape does...
"Standing up to your opponent and shouting a challenge sounds very good in stories! Engaging in a duel, wand to wand and face to face, makes for excellent photographs! But you will not be fighting in stories or photographs, ladies and gentlemen! You will be fighting in a war, against wizards who do not care that you are young and who do not care about fair play! They care only that you are fighting back, and they will hurt you and kill you if they get the chance! Therefore, your primary job is to not give them that chance! Boot!"
Terry Boot jumped at being so suddenly addressed. "Professor?"
"What is your greatest ally in a fight?" Professor Longbottom threw the words at him, as if watching to see if he’d dodge.
Terry brightened, obviously sure he knew this one. "The element of surprise, Professor!"
"And what does that mean, Boot?"
"It means..." Terry paused, furrowing his brow. "It means a lot of things, Professor. It means if they don’t know you’re there, they can’t fight back. It means if they don’t know what you have, they won’t know how to stop you. It even means we’re kids and they won’t think we can fight."
"Ravenclaws," Professor Longbottom said, shaking her head, but Harry could see the smile working to stay hidden. "Right on all counts. But surprise only lasts so long. Usually until your first contact with the enemy. Who knows the other thing that lasts that long?"
Ron put up his hand. "Your plans," he said when Professor Longbottom pointed at him.
"Good, Weasley. Why?"
"Because the other bloke’s got plans too, and they run into each other and get all..." Ron stopped short and looked down at his lap. "Er, scrambled up," he finished a bit weakly, before adding in a whisper, "No need for claws, was there?"
Neenie rumbled a brief, smug purr at him.
"Very good." Professor Longbottom turned and looked at one of the walls, and it developed a large blackboard. "Here, then, are the rules to keep in mind when your battle plans go out the window. Which, as Weasley’s just reminded us, they will, as soon as the battle gets started."
She waved her wand at the board, and the chalk in the tray rose up and scribbled a short list on it.
1. Keep your friends alive.
2. Get your objective.
3. Don’t die.
"Any questions?"
The DA looked at the list in silence for a moment. Then Blaise raised his hand.
"Yes, Zabini?"
"Why isn’t number three number one?" Blaise had his arms tucked across his chest, not quite defiant but well on the way. "We can’t do anything for our friends or our objective if we’re dead."
"A fair question. Let me answer it with one of my own. Why are you fighting at all?"
Blaise frowned at this, as did most of the rest of the room. Near one wall, though, Susan Bones let out a soft "Ahhh."
"Something to add, Bones?" Professor Longbottom said briskly, turning to face the girl.
"I think so, Professor." Susan flipped the end of her plait over her shoulder. "If we didn’t think what we’re fighting for was important enough to risk our lives over it, we wouldn’t be fighting for it, would we?" she asked Blaise, letting the end of the question widen out to the rest of the DA. "We’d let it go, or we’d run away. But we’re not, we’re fighting back, and that must mean we think what we’re after is worth more than our lives."
"And fighting to save your friends is just good sense," Selena added from her seat beside Roger. "Because the more people you have on your side, the more people can help fight and protect you. Besides, if you’re not willing to fight to help your friends, or..." She glanced at Roger. "Or whatever, then you’re not much of a friend."
"Or whatever?" Roger muttered.
"We’ll talk about it later," Selena whispered back.
"Excellent." Professor Longbottom beamed at the DA. "Good answers, all of them. However." Her smile lost its joviality. "In a real battle, if you have to think, you are already dead and you just don’t know it yet. If you want to keep your friends alive, get your objective, and not die, fighting has to become instinctive to you. In order for it to become instinctive, you have to practice until you drop, and then get back up and keep practicing." The smile was now shading towards terrifying. "And any set of exercises I help Potter develop for you will have that attitude attached."
Harry stifled a nervous swallow. He knew what Padfoot and Moony were capable of setting up for practice, and he’d been through their idea of "you’re done when I say you are"—he’d copied it for several of the games he’d had the DA run in the first term—but Professor Longbottom was not only older and sneakier than his Pack-fathers, she’d actually taught Padfoot as an Auror apprentice.
That’s what she’s treating us like, is apprentices. And she wouldn’t if she didn’t think we could handle it.
It was a compliment, but one Harry thought he’d just as soon not have received.
But I haven’t got much choice. Whether we want to be or not, we’re in a war. The better we fight, the sooner it’s over.
And the fewer people die.
Professor Longbottom glanced at him, and he nodded and stood up. "From now on, everyone gets some type of special training, along with general fighting skills," he announced. "The listings are on the wall up here behind me." A thumb jerked over his shoulder indicated the four scrolls of parchment tacked to the wall, under Hermione’s respelled parchment with the DA membership list on it. "If you really can’t stand the category you’re in, see me privately and we’ll talk about swapping you out, but let’s try and keep that down. We’ll still have full meetings for everyone, but the smaller groups will have their own meetings as well." He grinned, letting a bit of Wolf show through. "And some of them will be right after Quidditch practices."
Groans filled the room. Harry only grinned wider. "Nothing says the Death Eaters can’t attack when we’re tired," he pointed out. "So get your homework done before Quidditch, because you might not have time after. Slytherins, come on up and check your categories. Hufflepuffs, you’ll be next..."
Alice Longbottom walked wearily into her quarters and sat down. "Yes, please," she said, not bothering to look behind her.
"That bad?" Frank asked, as he began to massage her shoulders.
"Not exactly." Alice leaned into the movements. "They’re eager, most of them. Hungry for fighting, for glory. That sort scare me."
"As they should." Frank dug his thumbs into a knot of muscle. "They’re the most likely to run out and get killed."
"But there’s a little core who aren’t that way." Alice hissed, half in pain, half in relief. "Neville and Harry and the rest of their Pride, and a few of the others like the Pritchard girl and her boy. They know what they’re in for, they know it’s not a game. They’re not eager, but they are ready. And that scares me even more."
Frank sighed deeply. "Wars are fought by the young, love," he reminded her. "We oldsters stand by and do what we can, but this is their time."
"It shouldn’t be," Alice whispered. "Not this soon. Not our boy, not his friends... oh, Frank, why us? Why now?"
"If we knew that, we’d be wiser than we are." Frank kissed the back of her head. "All we can do is prepare them as best we can."
"And know it won’t be good enough." Alice swallowed against the lump in her throat, remembering the endless string of funerals she’d attended during the last war for young Aurors she’d mentored. "It never is."
"It’s better than doing nothing at all, which is the only other option." Frank resumed kneading the tightness from her back. "Try to think in terms of the lives you’ve saved, rather than the ones you didn’t."
"Harder to count those," Alice murmured. "But I’ll try." She heaved a sigh of her own. "In any case, Harry barely needs my help running the DA. He had his four specialist classes all planned out before he came to see me, he’d portioned out most of the students to them, and he’d even approached the house-elves about working with them in some capacity..."
"Medics to the left, please," Harry called out. "Flying Squad to the right."
The chattering crowd of students parted down the center, most of the younger ones moving to Harry’s right, their left. He took a moment to breath a silent sigh of relief at having come up with something that would keep them mostly out of harm’s way without making them feel as though he’d made up a job for them.
We’d try and get them out of the castle if we could, but it might not be possible, and at least the way I’ve got it planned they’ll have help.
"Say hello," he said when the noise had died down a bit, "to your new partners."
A wave of cracks heralded the arrival of nearly half the Hogwarts house-elf contingent, most of whom were beaming. Squeaky cries of "Good evening sir!" and "Hello miss!" filled the air, along with surprised exclamations by the students.
"Everybody calm down," Ginny said from her place sitting on the dais beside Harry. "You’ve all seen house-elves before."
"Yeah, but this looks like the kitchens exploded," quipped Michael Corner, making most of his friends snigger.
Ginny sighed with barely contained patience. "Some of the Hogwarts house-elves have graciously agreed to help us in the event there is fighting here in the castle," she said. "If you don’t want to work with house-elves, that’s fine. Come up to the front here and cross your name off the list, and we’ll reassign you to either skirmishers or artillery."
A few of the Flying Squad members shuffled their feet, but no one actually moved.
"Great," said Harry, bringing his hands together. "So as soon as I’m done talking, you’re going to get to know each other, and when you think you’ve found someone you can work with, students come up and write your partner’s name beside yours so we know who’s with who. Then we’ll get to some preliminary training."
"As you saw just a minute ago," Ginny took over seamlessly, "house-elves, unlike wizards, can Apparate at Hogwarts. Like wizards, they can take passengers Side-Along. They happen to be just the right size to hide under a wizard’s robes." She grinned. "And Death Eaters are a little short on imagination. So when they see us appearing and disappearing, they’ll think we’ve found some way around the Anti-Apparition wards on our own."
"Medical squad, your job is just what it sounds like," Harry took the conversation back. "Your partners will be taking you in and out of the active fighting areas, to help treat the wounded and get them to safety. You’re responsible for them, and for yourselves and the people you’re treating. Don’t let them down."
Matt Smythe, who’d been muttering darkly a few moments earlier about being "shunted off," looked surprised and hopeful at this description, and Elayne Kreger smiled timidly. Graham pressed Natalie’s hand, Tessa Mallory bounced on her toes, and Dennis Creevey grinned from ear to ear.
Of course, he always does that.
"Flying Squad, you’re the ones who’ll be most responsible for our deception holding up," Ginny said to the other side of the room. "You may notice you’re all either old enough to Apparate or you look like you could be. That’s for a reason. You’re meant to be seen."
"Why, so they can take our heads off?" said George.
"Wouldn’t be much of a loss with you," Ginny shot back, making everyone laugh. "Like I said earlier, we want the Death Eaters to think we’re doing this ourselves, because the instant they know we’re using house-elves they’ll start working out how to fight against elf magic, or they’ll go home and order their own house-elves to help them this way. We’ll have a general spell over the medics to make them harder to spot, but you lot will be popping in and out of battles in full view."
"You’ll be the ones everybody expects to save the day," Harry added. "So try and be up to it, all right? Now go on and start getting to know your future partners. It’s nice to be friendly with the people who’ll be saving your life."
We’re mad if we think any of this is really going to work, he mused as the students in front of him started sitting or kneeling down and smiling awkwardly at tea-towel-clad house-elves. All we’ll probably do is slow the Death Eaters down a little. Confuse them a bit, keep them from killing us all at once. String it out longer. Make it last.
"The harder we are to kill, the less they’ll think we’re worth it," Ginny murmured over her shoulder. "If we can confuse them enough, we might be able to make them give up and go home."
"Do you really believe that?"
"No, but I had to say something."
"Thanks a lot."
"I’ll tell you what I do believe." Ginny swung her feet up onto the dais and turned to face Harry. "I believe that we can do this. That we can defend ourselves and our school and our friends. Maybe that we can even win. But I know, for a fact, that we won’t win if our leader doesn’t believe it’s possible."
"Great." Harry sighed. "How did I get elected leader again?"
"The way I heard it, it was that or stay out in the snow and freeze."
"Not what I was thinking of."
In his office, Albus Dumbledore looked up from the scroll he was studying, half-covered with short lines in a familiar semi-tidy handwriting. "Intriguing," he remarked to Fawkes, who was preening a wing. "I believe I may have another little job for Harry and his Pride. But not yet, no, not quite yet." He waved a hand at the calendar on his wall, which flipped over three pages. "They need time to recover and train, to build their confidence, and I should continue my research to be sure I know what I am asking of them."
His free hand rested on the lines which read:
A curse once on your best-loved gift
Should start your thoughts in proper drift...
Author Notes:
I've been waiting literally years to use the joke in the first bit. Hope it was worth it.