Standard Disclaimer :: All things Harry Potter belong to JK Rowling and affiliates. This fanfiction is a non-profit venture written for the enjoyment of myself and my readers.
Dedication :: To KaiDASH, Seratin, Lutris, Zeitgeist, Vira and my friends from DLP, for putting up with my insanity, for reading early drafts, and just being there. Also, to all those who reviewed/favourited/alerted me or my story here on FFnet, cheers. Props to DLP for the feedback, too - anyone reading this who hasn't devoured their C2 on this very site must do so now. It's the first community on the list, for a damn good reason.
And a very special thank you and shoutout to the reviewers here on this site who have reviewed for every chapter. So props to Vitrify, lunaticxxx, ceo55 and Melnivone.
Preface :: A few reviewers on DLP were quick to point out that my chosen number for the remaining wizarding population was too low - about a thousand - and given how things go in this chapter I've been inclined to agree. I've retroactively edited bits of my previous chapters to move the population up another thousand and some change, and the Muggles get a few extra hundred to balance out too. But yeah, just a head's up that from now on, the wizarding population is over two thousand instead of over one thousand. Cool? Sorry that I had to do that, but much like JKR, I suck at numbers, so yay.
Previously :: Harry and his friends quickly rallied to discover all they could on the newest arrival in Granford, Theodore Nott, especially after the reveal that Nott was in Liliford, and was responsible for paving a path to its destruction. Meanwhile, Stanthorpe was sent out to check on Liliford and Aaron Fortess revealed his name's meaning to Harry, all the while assessing his nature after learning that he was in fact a wizard. Soon after, Harry, tired after a few days lacking proper sleep, almost killed Nott in a fit of rage, quickly brought down to earth by Neville, the latter citing the as-yet-unexplained St Mungo's lockdown, over a year ago, as an indicator of how Harry was reacting. Harry took the chance to leave Granford and seek support with Astoria, learning that her own misgivings about her husband's activities are starting to catch up, and that she wants to join Harry's side. Harry left her to mull over it some more before going out and securing Amos Diggory's vote on the upcoming Wizengamot vote, but the joy was short lived with the announcement that The Burrows, home of Bill Weasley and Harry's godson Teddy, was under attack.
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Chapter Seven of Sixteen: Instinct
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I apparated directly in front of a burning house. I pushed through the ward boundary and immediately felt the heat from the nearby flames wash over my face, scorching and searing my skin and making my eyes water and sting. The feeling brought back memories, of events awake and in nightmares, of a burning hospital trapping me in with the flames, pushing and burning and constrictingevery movement with thick, billowing black smoke. St Mungo's had burned that day, only a little over a year ago, and now The Burrows were burning. The Burrows are under attack, Susan had said, but I hadn't heard from her since. Amos Diggory was heading for the Ministry to get extra help, but I was on my own here; I had to be in the thick of it, especially with all the lives at stake. My godson lived here with Andromeda at the Weasleys, and dammit all if I'm not going to walk through fire to save him and all of them too if I have to.
I spotted two figures on the grass as I approached the house, one of them sprawled out and not moving, the other crouching beside, his wand in his hand and waving over the body.
My Healer instincts kicked in and I bounded forward. "Leave it!" I called. "I'm a Healer, okay, and whatever you're doing might make it worse!"
The man stopped and snapped his wand up to point at me. Now that I was closer I could make out his features illuminated by the flaming wreckage at his back. His hair was auburn, long and shaggy, and he had impossibly broad shoulders for his skinny frame. This would have to be the first time I'd seen Isaac Aquilla outside of meetings, and he looked more comfortable in jeans and a T-shirt than the ostentatious plum robes of the Wizengamot. Recognition hit his face the same time it hit mine. "Harry? Harry Potter?"
"Move," I ordered, kneeling on the grass beside him. The unconscious person was a woman with dark hair and I didn't know her; she was just a patient now. She was alive, that much was evident by the unsteady rise and fall of her chest. My Diagnostic Charm told me the problem immediately. "Smoke inhalation."
"I think she hit her head too," Aquilla said, his face worried. "She's one of my neighbours, and when I saw her house on fire I came to check, and got her out. I kept trying to revive her -"
"Enervate won't work here," I told him calmly. "And my spell said she's not concussed, so we focus on the lungs first. I need a moment." I used my left hand to push on her chest, letting her body do the rest. Her mouth opened and she exhaled a breath of smoke. "Hold her down, by the shoulders." Aquilla rushed to comply, and watched with wide eyes as I stuck my wand at the tip of her lips and a conjured up a thick jet of blue liquid to pour down and stick to the back of her throat. "This will stop it burning on the way up - it's all down her trachea now. Won't hurt her or anything. Okay..." I cast a glance at Aquilla. "Make sure she stays still for this."
I hadn't done something like this in a while, even recreationally believe it or not. My wand hand was steady, though, and all my hours of tutelage under Pomfrey, Hunt and everyone else in between came rushing back, reminding me over and over, the right spell, the right wand movement, the subtleties of the magic... I focused on that, not on the fire blazing on the grass, bringing back a whole new set of memories and experiences not worth remembering...
I stuck my wand in the woman's mouth, murmured the spell's incantation, and pulled. There was no other way to describe it; the spell was invisible and inaudible, and worked on nothing but feel. I felt myself reaching down and grasping something wispy and immaterial, something that wasn't even supposed to be caught. And I pulled out. Pulled the magic, pulled my wand, and just pulled. Time seemed to slow as grey smoke emerged from the woman's mouth, sizzling a trail through the air and to the tip of my withdrawn wand. The smoke coalesced and formed into a ball the size of a Quaffle, and the night air compressed it, going from Quaffle to Bludger to Snitch to nothing in a matter of seconds.
Time sped up again as a gush of flame sparked off the house and missed Aquilla's head by inches, the flaming beacon in the night reminding us that yes, it was still there, and yes, it was still on fucking fire.
"Mobilcorpus," I said with a little flourish of my wand, and the woman, now breathing normally yet still unconscious, floated above in the air as directed by my wand. "You're a licensed portkey creator, right?"
Aquilla nodded. "Yeah, how did you know?"
"I just do. Look, do I have to go past the ward boundary to portkey?"
"Yeah, it's the same for all over, except the market, for convenience's sake."
I stood, and he did the same. "Make a portkey to the new St Mungo's, and take her there now. I have to check on the rest of the town." The woman floated beside us as we walked briskly back over the boundary line, Aquilla creating a portkey out of one of her shoes as we did.
"Never seen you like that," he said to me. "In your element."
"Guess it shows I'm not the best Wizengamot player, eh?"
He shook his head. "You've never been that intense at the meetings. The portkey's good to go, too."
"Okay, now the Ministry probably already knows about the attack, but you gotta -"
Isaac Aquilla slapped the portkey down on the woman, activated it with a wave of his wand, and watched as she disappeared in a flash of blue light. I was too busy watching him in surprise to stop him. "This is my town, Harry. I'm going to help you save it."
A notch of respect for him went up in my book. "Good. Thanks, Aquilla."
He gestured over his shoulder to the burning house. "I think, given the circumstances, you can just call me Isaac."
"Gotcha." I grinned at him. "All right, we gotta stop this fire, first and foremost -"
"I already tried," said Isaac. "Water spells didn't work."
That made me frown and examine the burning building from our safe distance all the more. The flames were eating it alive, but they weren't forming any visible shape, or lashing out uncontrollably. Not Fiendfyre, then. But I still had to try, so my wand spurted a burst of water directly at the flames, and under my control the jet of water turned into a perfect spiral, circling the house, and pushing in -
- and the water just evaporated on it. And, when I tried again, it did the same. Literally, none of the flames went down. Nor did they even twitch at the mud I conjured, the gust of wind, another burst of water and a mix of all three. The final spell I tried was a simple Finite, which again, did nothing.
Magical fire wasn't exactly uncommon, but I knew only one flame that stayed burning forever like that. "There's no way that's Gubraithian Fire," I said in disbelief. "Everlasting Flame? It would've taken a while to even conjure, and to use it now... Shit, we need to get going, and fast. If this stuff's on the rest of the town..."
"Then they could be fighting some losing battles," finished Isaac tersely. "Now we go."
And go we did, circling around the everburning ruin, which had hidden another few houses from view. Isaac pointed his out and said, "I was having dinner when I heard the commotion from the town. Everyone around me evacuated, but I went to get Jane - that woman you saved. I don't know about the rest of the town."
The trail from the half-dozen houses bunched together led up a dusty incline, and from the top of it we could see all of The Burrows, especially the burning parts.
The market square, a large patch of grass bordered by concrete stalls and room for plenty more, was completely alight, and figures darting back and forth in the distance, trying to contain the flames. From around the square grew the rest of the town, houses bunched together in little pods like Aquilla's and his neighbours, each pod having been built as time went along, and progression started from the inside out, the furthest away being right on the border of the ward boundary line. The pod where Bill, his family, George, Ginny, and Andromeda and Teddy lived was ringed by trees just beyond the market, and only one of the houses was burning. It didn't look like Bill's, but it still wasn't the best of signs.
We pounded down the hill, Aquilla and I, pushing into a throng of wizards ineffectually trying to douse the flames on their homes. "It's Everlasting Fire!" I called at them. "Save what you can before everything burns!"
A few of the wizards seemed to follow my advice and gave up, running for their lives towards the ward boundary to their east, indicated by the edge of the trees just before the farms. The other wizards continued their efforts to stop the fire, right up until a great creaking sound drowned out the crackling flames enough to get everyone's attention. Startled cries and shouts went up and were muffled in the sound of the house's roof collapsing inwards, taking down the rest of the place in a great inferno of flame, smoke and noise. One man, thick and bearded, cried out as shrapnel sliced across his arm, and I found myself there before I realised, running my wand up and down the wound. A bright flash of white light began to stitch it together, and I turned away and let the magic do its thing.
The other wizards, six in all, were standing around with gormless expressions, and I snapped at them, "Don't try to fight what's already lost. Lives can't be rebuilt, so get out of here!"
"Easy for you to say," one of the wizards snapped back. "This fire is fucking everywhere, and there's dozens of those things still walking around."
Oh dammit. "What things?"
A familiar dull and droning moan echoed in the fire-choked night air. Isaac jumped beside me and turned his wand, pointing it to the three figures shambling in the shadows of the flames blanketing a high-storied hodgepodge home. The moaning and groaning, the shambling and shuffling, the walking and hungry dead.
"'Ow the 'ell did those blighters get 'ere?" the wizard I was healing demanded, stepping away from me and bringing his wand around to bear, not at all impeded by the recently healed over cut. He didn't even thank me, either, but I had bigger concerns now.
"Good question," I said. "How did they get out here? No way we could've not seen them coming."
"They showed up in the square," the first wizard explained, scowling. "Portkey'd right in, if you can believe that."
Aquilla had said those wards were down in the market, so it was entirely possible that... Dammit. This was a major attack on a major wizarding community. If this wasn't related to the Wizengamot issues in any way I would be be fucking amazed.
"You were there?" Isaac asked.
"Aye. There were a dozen of the things coming out of nowhere, eating all those setting up the night's dinner rations." The man's face, plain and pale, took upon a haunted look, and all of his bluster from before melted off of him. "I don't know how many died right away, but I ran. The fires started right after. The one in the market might've been an accident, but these others... Everlasting Fire?"
"I think I saw a jar hit that house before it went up," another said, a wizard barely out of his teens.
"Everlasting Fire in a bottle," I commented. "Not good. They throw it, the houses go up and can't go out, and with zombies walking around..."
"I saw Aurors show up," the thickset man I'd healed said, "They were dealin' with 'em in the square."
"But some up and walked away, obviously..."
Maybe because they heard me referring to them, but there was a groan, a reminder that the zombies from earlier were still coming our way. All right, time to take action.
"All right!" I said, raising my voice to rally the wayward wizards. "You all remember how to kill a zombie? Form up, don't cross spells, and aim for the head!"
It wasn't the most coordinated effort, but there were only three zombies approaching from a far distance, and eight of us taking shots. I dropped one, the big one in the middle, but many of the other spells in the air had chosen that same target, and their spells burst into the grass, the trees and the side of another, priorly untouched, home. The youngest wizard took down the one on the left with a conjured spike through the eye, while the third one, wearing a wizard's robe, took spells from four wands before one actually hit the head, rolling it off the skinny zombie's shoulders and onto to the grass. Knowing that the head being intact like that still meant it was active, I cast the final spell to turn it into a messy explosion of brain matter and skull.
"Merlin," the first wizard breathed out. "That was Smitty's head you blew up."
Err, sorry. "You all did great," I told them, clasping the teenager who took down one on his own by the shoulder.
The heavyset man snorted. "Yeah, Lobell's got a cooler head than the rest of us, that's for sure."
I pulled my hand away, as an old memory flittered in my mind, and echoing screams rang in my head... But I didn't tell the kid I was there when his father died. It wasn't important, at all. There was a bigger fire to fight now. "Yeah, good job kid," I told him. Chip off the old block.
I shook my head to rid myself of the memory. "I'm going to go help Bill," I informed the group. "You can all come, or go help the others, or the Aurors, or whatever you need to do. Be smart, stick together, don't even try to dispel the fires, and remember, aim for the head."
We broke off. Apparently the fact that Harry Potter was on the case meant the others wanted to deal with more local threats rather than trekking up to Bill's pod of homes and trying to make sure The Burrows's leader was alive and well. Only Isaac decided to follow me, and I traced the path we were going to take for him. "If the market's filled with Aurors, zombies and fire, we don't want to run through that gauntlet. We go around here on the left, not too close to the homes and not too close to the trees, because we'll have fire near one and maybe walkers hiding in the other."
Isaac nodded. "You got it, Harry. I trust you."
The route we took reminded me of the Quidditch Cup incident in my fourth year. I could hear the screams and smell the smoke, but I was shrouded in darkness as we edged the leftmost boundary line, ducking under branches of leafless trees and jumping over fallen sticks and debris littered in the dark. A few people darted by us to pass the ward boundary and apparate away with loud cracks, and once or twice I glimpsed a shadow or two in the brush. The melancholy moaning of the ravenous undead occasionally pierced the air, sometimes sounding horribly close, other times sounding blissfully far.
Horribly close turned out to be the right of it, as Isaac found out. He was walking behind me when I heard a thick smacking sound, like the full force of a body thumping into another, and when I turned, a zombie was scrambling to grab ahold of Isaac's leg, though finding itself handicapped by the lack of its left arm. Isaac kicked its nose and teeth in heartily, but it was my Flinging Hex that threw the creature into the nearest tree, and one, ever-reliable, Piercing Curse finished the job, killing the zombie and making a nice big hole in the tree behind it.
I walked over and offered Isaac a hand, and he took it, hoisting himself up with my weight. He patted down his jeans and arms, maybe checking for bites, maybe just getting rid of the accumulated debris from the forest floor. "Thanks for that," he said. "You now definitely, definitely, have my vote on the bill."
I laughed. "It'd be great if these things would happen more often, if it gets me votes."
No more zombies met with us along the rest of the way to Bill's, but a familiar face apparated into the woods just past the boundary line. He was illuminated by the tip of his wand; Ron, his eyes bloodshot but expression alert, taking in the scene wearily. His attentions were on the flaming house neighbouring his brother's, but when I scuffled my foot on a fallen group of leaves, he turned. As quickly as he had his wand pointed at me, it was already pointed away.
"Harry," he greeted. "Had no idea you were around."
To him, I'd left Granford hours back to deal with the Ogdens and then visit Astoria. It was almost hard to believe I had been talking with Theodore Nott in that cell, so close to completely breaking, just earlier this afternoon. I also remembered a plan to get some sleep, but the adrenaline of battle was fuelling me now, and sleep would come later. Jaded as I was to being awake so long, I knew it would be just glorious to rest my head on a pillow somewhere...
But The Burrows was still being attacked; sleep would come later. "Who's back at Granford?" I asked Ron.
"Ernie and Terry are awake, and with Abe, and Su's watching the police station," he replied succinctly. "Neville's off with Susan, offering help to the Ministry workers at the square. I needed to go see if Bill was all right, you know, so..."
"Yeah, we're doing the same." I hooked a thumb over my shoulder and pointed it at Isaac. "Ron, Isaac, Isaac, Ron." The two shared nods of acknowledgement, and I strolled forward. "Right, let's move."
That sorted, Ron, Isaac and I left the secluded forested area and jumped right back into the thick of things, coming up on Bill's house and the four surrounding it. Now that I was closer, I could see that the house aflame wasn't in fact Bill's, or even George's or Ginny's. The other two houses in the pod belonged to the Stebbinses and the Mayers, two of the other families who had founded the place. Mayer's house was the one on fire, and a few of the flames came dangerously close to catching on the roof of George's, which would then get to Bill's...
"Hey!" I shouted out as we got closer. There were a dozen wizards and witches standing before the house, wands out and ineffectually combating the blaze. "It's Everlasting Flame, so -"
A cross between a growl and a moan spat into my ear, and I instinctively ducked my head and jumped away from the noise. Good thing too, considering that where I was just standing soon became the resting place of the zombie that spooked me, its head mashed in vertically and the rest of its body following suit, split onto two parts on the grass.
"Yeah," said a voice. "We noticed."
I looked to it and found myself looking at Ginny, her hair a little longer, and singed, than I'd seen last but otherwise looking no worse for wear. Her wand was out and pointed towards the pulp where that zombie just was, maybe because she thought she hadn't overly killed it enough. She wasn't smiling, but there was a visible relief in her eyes at mine, and Ron's, presence.
"Nice of you to join us!" George called out from his spot combating the flames. Even if he didn't have the bright orange hair sticking out in the night, the lack of one of his ears made George noticeable from a distance "We've got a nice bonfire going," he said with cheer. "So who brought the marshmallows?"
"Ron forgot," I called back. To Ginny, I said, "If you're trying to control the Fire, water won't work."
She nodded. "What do you suggest then?"
"Get a vessel, a jar or an urn, to put it in. Enchanted Everlasting Fire never dies, but it can be contained, kept away from growing and spreading. You just gotta push it, control it, feed it, let it come to you. I've, uh, never dealt with it, but I know enough people working together can get it locked down." I looked back to Mayer's burning home. "Though it might be a lost cause, this one."
"We are not losing The Burrows," Ginny said fiercely. "The fire in the market is just the normal kind, and the Aurors should be dealing with that now, provided they got all the walkers. If we can contain this flame, here, we can do the others before everything is lost."
I almost forgotten how much heart and soul Ginny had poured into The Burrows. Her family was nearly all gone, and Ron and Bill were busy helping me to be there all the time for her and The Burrows. Bill was the leader, and did a damn fine job, but Ginny made sure things were still running, because that's what she set herself to do. That's what she had to do, to her. It was like me, with the Wizengamot and Granford and everything else, but in a smaller scale. But, what she and Bill and George built here was still a cog in the overall machine, and what would seem like an isolated, tiny, little slice of the world compared to mine was just as important in its own way. The Burrows was one of those places where children would grow up to play their own parts in the future of all humanity, especially the smallest ones, and that had sanctity had to be preserved.
"Did Bill get out?"
Her expression softened. "I think so, yes - he was taking Fleur and the kids to Shell Cottage, and said he'd back as soon as he could."
"And Teddy?"
"He and Andromeda went with them too; they're fine," she promised.
"Okay," I said, clapping my hands together. "We have to do something about these fires, so -"
"We'll be vulnerable when we're concentrating on that," interrupted Ginny. "You and Ron can make sure we don't get hit from behind, by zombies, or..."
"Or... Who?" Or what?
She leaned in and lowered her voice. "Earlier, before the Aurors showed up, we were dealing with the undead at the market. Now, the fires started soon after, and I saw somebody throw a bottle of flames at Smitty's house. He was standing there, on the outskirts. And he was wearing a dark cloak."
I thought back to tromping in the woods with Isaac, to the dark figures glimpsed in the shadows of the trees. They weren't Dementors, I knew that much, with the lack of cold and mind-numbing depressive memories and all. But still... more attackers, more intrigue. Maybe we'd get lucky and catch one, figure something out.
"I didn't see his face, or even if was wearing a Death Eater mask, but when he saw I noticed him, he bolted. Ran for the ward boundary. Harry, I shot five Stunning Spells into his back, and he didn't go down. Five. They just absorbed right into his cloak." She sighed. "He activated a portkey just behind the wards, and that was it. I don't know who he is, or even if it was a he in the first place..."
"Gin! Now!" George's voice shouted, breaking the reverie. Ron and Isaac had joined George and the others in fighting with the flames, and me and Ginny caught up with them, so close that I could feel the heat stinging at my eyes again. "On three! One, two, three!"
You can't control any fire like this one with any conventional spell. This was burning eternal, enchanted to be forever as is, the purest, most primitive form of power to combat the darkness. You can't cast the Imperius on a tongue of flame and order it to move as you tell it to. But what you can do is a lot like what I did to Aquilla's neighbour - then, I had pulled. Now, I had to push, to bend and to shape, to work with twelve people in one concentrated effort. George led us like an opera, and the magic caught onto the flame with an invisible force. True to the name, the Everlasting Fire didn't go out or even shrink at the manipulations of air removing it from the house and into nothing. Ginny was the one to create the vessel, and the torrent of flame we pushed and bent and twisted as we forced it travelled into the wizard's hat floating in front of Ginny's wand tip. It may have looked older and rattier than the Sorting Hat, but it also looked solid, and I knew without a doubt it would hold the Gubraithian Fire.
Good thing too, because I was forced to drop my control of the fire when a glimpse of a cloaked figure caught the corner of my eye, and I was soon running across the grass.
When the dark shape noticed I was going towards him, he ran down the hill towards another pod of houses right next to the boundary line. Ron and Isaac followed after me, each calling out. Ron's strides were steady and long with his height, but Aquilla outright sprinted, catching up beside me, taking one look at the figure I was perusing, and running ahead, wand in hand.
"Stop!" Isaac cried. "Stupefy!"
The spell hit true, slamming into the figure's back. But, like Ginny had warned, the spell simply did nothing. It hit the cloak, but somewhere between the material and the body, the spell fizzled out. The second Stunner went wide and hit a tree, while the third finally prompted the cloaked figure to stop. Slowly, carefully, the figure turned around, and held up its right hand. I couldn't see the hand itself, just the long sleeve concealing everything but shadows.
And then the sleeve barked, something small and impossibly fast tore through the air, and a spurt of blood exploded out of the back of Isaac's neck.
In the after-echoes of the gun firing in the night, I heard a choking sound come from him. He collapsed onto the ground instantly, and by the time I got there I didn't need a Diagnostic Charm to tell me Isaac Aquilla was dead.
The cloaked man, or woman, raised the sleeve again. But I wasn't caught by pure surprise, or slow to react under pressure, so I had a blue, dome-shaped shield coalesced in front of me by the time the second bullet spat out of the gun hidden in the figure's sleeve. The bullet crashed into my shield and shattered like it was made of glass, and the same fate was in store for the next three, fired out one after another, bang, bang, bang. Perhaps realising my shield was making the projectiles useless, the figure turned his gun over my shoulder and towards the approaching Ron, who was quick enough with his own shield to block it. And so, while the figure was busy, I dropped my shield and rushed forward, unleashing a wreath of purple light from my wand. The light formed into a lasso by the time the figure realised and decided to turn tail, my lasso chasing behind.
"We can't let him get past the ward boundary!" I shouted to Ron. "Come on!"
I jumped over Aquilla's body and started running again, feet pounding at the earth and my breath heavy in my chest. Aquilla was dead, a part of my mind registered, numb with surprise but at the same time urging me onwards, to uncover the man or woman in that cloak. Somehow I doubted I'd like who would be hidden by it, especially if they were wielding a pistol as their main weapon. The implications could be staggering to consider, but since there was only one way to be sure... I ran faster.
The houses were coming up closer, this pod probably the only group that hadn't been lit aflame, but signs of people rushing to leave were seen here and there - doors wide open, belongings strewn on the grass, abandoned by panicky and fleeing citizens. The cloaked figure made a beeline for the big Victorian house looking mightily out of place with its top half sticking out of a large tree, and if I were to guess, he'd be running through the house to the back door and out to the boundary line from there. The door was already half off its hinges before the cloaked man smacked it open further, bolting through. But Ron and I were close, and at my gesture, Ron sprinted to the door while I went around the side.
I was passing by the side of the house when I heard a great crash from the inside, a murmured curse word from Ron, and the snarl of a zombie.
My blood froze and I immediately rushed to the nearest window, peering into a once-fancy looking parlour room, complete with grand piano in the corner, now in ruins as Ron went toe to toe with a faceless zombie; literally, the zombie's face had been mostly burned off, leaving a snapping maw, a charred-broiled spot where its nose had been, and one eye visible through the burnt flesh of its forehead. Ron had his wand in hand, but it was pointed at the floor and the zombie was determined, diving forward in slow motion. Ron acted with a knee to the zombie's chest, pushing to the grand piano. He walked forward and raised his wand.
"Harry, I've got this!" Ron called out, although I wasn't sure if he saw me watching or not. "Go get him!"
The back door of the house audibly slammed open, and I was running again. I turned the corner and there the cloaked figure was fleeing across the grass and into the trees. He wasn't running anymore. Something, maybe Ron, maybe the zombie back there, had injured his leg, and his gait was forced, his run half-hearted through what was probably quite a bit of pain.
I took advantage of this immediately, summoning up the purple lasso of light again. It lashed out and lit up the darkness with a bright magenta tint, and by the time the figure turned around and noticed, it was too late. It caught around his legs with the lasso end, the other end snapping into his back. He went down in a heap, and at an angle so awkward it cracked something in his upper body. When he hit the ground, he stopped moving, but I didn't take any chances. I pulled him towards me with a burst of magic, keeping him as far away from the ward boundary as I could.
The pistol, the one he had used to kill Aquilla, gleamed silver in the darkness. Curious, I picked it up off the grass from where it had fallen.
Time seemed to slow down. I recognised it; old, well-used, and I'd seen it in the hands of a woman who died, some Muggle I barely knew who called her gun The Preacher. Marge, this woman, had been killed by a zombie, but her gun had been picked up by...
Oh.
And then I removed the cloak.
And really wished I hadn't.
His face was harsh and pockmarked, his hair dark and receding at his temples. He had the look of a man not too old and not too young at the same time. He'd been through a hell of a lot of action, I'd heard, but apparently if I were to ask, he'd claim that nothing bad had ever happened to him.
Until now.
It was Warren, one of Aaron Fortess's deputies back in Granford. A Muggle. He killed Aquilla, and he was one of the group throwing Everlasting Fire around.
He was also very much dead. My spell had broken a part of his spine in the fall, and even if that hadn't of killed him, the bite mark on his leg from the faceless zombie back in the house would've eventually had him succumb. My spell had killed him, yeah, but he had still been infected, and, now dead, would come back to life very soon. So, I snapped my wand and drove a Piercing Curse through his brain before he started walking around again. And then he was very much dead all over again.
"Shit," I cursed. Standing there in the dark, before the body of a Muggle, and not just any Muggle, a Muggle from Granford. The place I was trying to save. Fuck. I'd been afraid since Aquilla's death that there was a Muggle under that cloak, but one of Fortess's deputies? Again, fuck. And even though I was tireder than tired, and felt like I could barely lift my wand, I knew what I had to do. What I needed to do was deal with the body, deal with the other zombies and burning homes, gather my friends, and just try to contain everything -
Ron's cry of pain shook the sky, and I abandoned Warren's body to bolt into the house I'd last seen my friend in. Not Ron, I told myself. Please not him.
When I burst into the house's parlour, I found Ron on the ground, his hands pushing against the faceless zombie's neck, trying to keep the thing's teeth from his neck, and while it looked like he was succeeding in part, there was still a mighty struggle going on.
"Ron, roll on top of him!" I yelled, and he rushed to comply, kicking his legs out, grasping the zombie's own with them and just rolling over, careful not to get bitten in the act. "Move back!"
Ron kept his hands pushed at the things chest but moved his head and neck as far as possible, and that was all I needed. With a wave of my wand, all I could muster, a burst of energy upturned the grand piano in the corner of the room with an unhappy creak, flipping over itself sideways before crashing onto the floor. Oh, and the zombie's head in between. Ron's entire upper half was splattered with the blood of the zombie's upper half, crushed into a pulp by the grand piano.
Ron stepped back from the body - well, the legs and the formless bloody mash leaking from under the piano - and the ruined piano and looked at me. "Thanks."
"What happened?" I asked, peering around at the ruined parlour.
"Knocked my wand out of my hand," he replied shortly, picking up the offending stick from the other side of the room. With a wave of it, the blood cleaned off his face and neck, but still clung to his shirt - once black, now crimson.
But I was still worried, and Healer me asked, "Did you get bitten?"
"No," he said.
"Did you swallow any of its blood?"
"Harry, no, I'm fine." He shook his head exasperatedly. "Did you get him? The cloaked man?"
"Yeah. It was Warren."
Ron pretty much summed it up with the following, "That's not fucking good."
..::..-.-..::..
"So how does this change things again?" George asked, frowning.
"I can think of a few ways," said Neville, rubbing his arm. He'd been cut during the night's events, and had been healed up already, but the itching sensation would persist for a while. "If the Wizengamot gets wind of this, the Muggle prejudices will go up, and will probably never go back down."
George raised an incredulous eyebrow. "Despite the fact the attack involved portkeys, enchanted cloaks and Everlasting Fire?"
"If only it were that simple," I muttered to myself.
It was nearing dawn when we finally got the last fire contained and the last zombie had been put down. It had been a tough night, to say the bloody least, and Ministry workers poured over the wrecked Burrows like ants, gathering bodies, taking stock of the losses, and keeping the now homeless citizens calm and away from unstable, half-burnt, homes. Myself, Neville, Susan, George, Ginny and Ron were finally taking a moment to ourselves up near Bill's house, from where we could see the entire town trying to pick up the pieces after last night's attack. Nobody had been injured too badly among us; burns and cuts and George had a broken arm, but nobody had gotten bitten, thankfully. The real injury of the night was sheer exhaustion; I definitely didn't think I had it in me to even lift my wand, let alone cast any spells.
But there were still things to talk about, because there always was.
"What did you do with his body?" Susan asked. "Warren, was it?"
"Emphasis on the was," I said sardonically. "I burned him. Leaving him there to be found and identified as a Muggle would've been disastrous, and sending him back for Fortess to be found would read more like a message, more than anything else." I sighed tiredly. "But, at the same time, if they realise Warren never came home, they might get paranoid, think he's been captured... God, what a fuck up. Burning seemed to work best."
Nobody had any arguments to that. Ginny scowled at the grass, Ron crossed his arms, and Susan let out a little yawn, leaning towards Neville for a lack of anywhere else to lean; Neville coloured, but seemed too tired to do anything but hold her steady against him.
Bill walked up then, looking just as tired as the rest of us but carrying himself a bit more dignified. He had arrived in the middle of the night, while the Everlasting Fire had still been raging. He'd made sure we were okay before going off to deal with the Ministry, where he would've had to appear strong for everyone else's sake. "I'm glad you're all all right," he said, patting George on the shoulder and smiling at Ginny.
"Fleur and the kids?" she asked, and in a small voice, she added, "Teddy?"
"All fine, promise," Bill replied. "I'll keep them at Shell Cottage for as long as needed."
Ginny looked content with that, but her voice was fearful as she said, "How many died?"
Bill's confident posture evaporated: his shoulders slouched and his hands began fidgeting near his robe pockets. "Nearly a hundred."
No spell could've hit that hard, and trust me, I've been on the receiving end of more than a few hard hitters.
"... twenty hungry zombies released right in the middle of the market square," Bill continued, "Nearly the whole town was out getting their rations for the night, and when they just appeared, some even portkeying in right on top of people, it was chaos. I got my family out just after the fires started - when everybody ran to their homes or towards the boundary, the cloaked men threw those bottles and, well, more chaos, more panic. The walking dead still pottering around, and..." He grimaced. "Well, you were there."
"Did you catch any of them?" Neville asked. "The cloaked men?"
Bill shook his head. "Everyone was too busy with the undead, and when I got back, there were still a few fires up. But some of the cloaked men did a bit of damage before leaving. I saw one curse some people in the back -"
"Wait, there was one with a wand?" I clarified.
He peered at me curiously. "Yeah, but come to think of it, he was the only one... And..." It dawned on his face then, the realisation I accidentally gave. "One of the Aurors had a hole ripped through his chest, a wound that looked like it was caused by a Muggle shotgun. A few of the others said they saw what sounded like bullets whizzing through the air. I wouldn't know otherwise if not for when Dad brought home that rifle when I was seven... Why would there be bullets?"
"Because there were Muggles under those cloaks," I said severely. "Apart from our wizard friend, they were from Granford, Bill. I, uh, killed one, and I recognised him. He was one of Fortess's deputies, a man named Warren."
"Oh." Bill's face went carefully blank.
"Bill, I'm so sorry, I am. I know I should've seen this coming, or acted faster, or just been doing something, but -"
"Stop blaming yourself," Ron cut in. "Bill knows the circumstances as well as we all do."
"Maybe not us," George muttered, gesturing to himself and Ginny.
"I know the Ministry hasn't gotten that information yet, at least," said Bill, looking at me as he spoke, before turning back to the others. "I just talked with Robards - he's down at the market."
I peered down, and sure enough, I could see the Minister's entourage and the man himself walking through and observing the damage, assessing losses of life and losses of resources, more than likely the latter than the former. I didn't feel like going to chat with him, as much as I probably should've.
"He's not eager to hand over support right away, to say the least. He says we have to be sure there's no zombies around, and the fire damage is too irreversible to simply jump back in and rebuild right away. He's trying to help, but at the same time, he thinks we're already beyond it."
Bill just confirmed for me why I didn't want to talk with the Minister. The passive nature, while giving him a bit of neutrality necessary for his job - nobody wanted a repeat of Fudge - was beginning to grate on me. I couldn't tell you what, but it felt like there were a lot more things he could've been doing than he was, and that didn't make him a very useful ally at present.
"A lot of people lost their homes, and they're angry." Bill looked toward me again, very seriously. "They'll want retribution. Harry, I want retribution."
"I know, and we know who was behind it all." My face fell. "And when they discover that Muggles were involved, momentum will build, the Wizengamot will get pushed even more, the purebloods claiming that they're working in the best interests of wizardkind."
"But the attack's obviously been backed by a wizard," said Neville, frowning. "In some capacity, everyone will have to realise that."
"For all we know, the cloaked man with a wand Bill saw was Draco Malfoy," George spat.
That made me think for a second, about a wizard in Granford I knew was under the pureblood agenda's payroll. I'd have to talk with him soon...
"Blame will go back to the Muggles, somehow," Susan remarked to George. "There can be a claim that the Muggles were all under Imperius, for example, but that doesn't change who the purebloods will say orchestrated this." She waved a hand around the group. "Us. We'll be so desperate to push the disclosure bill that we'll look like we'd do anything. Even attack our own."
Ginny snorted. "And if you went to the Wizengamot and claimed there was a massive conspiracy to make it look like you were responsible?"
"Then they'd look paranoid, and crazy," George said, peering at me, Susan and Neville. "Crazier, anyway. Politics!"
"Wonder when it'll get to the point when the purebloods don't even have to go out and destroy Granford," I pondered. "Enough fearmongering and a few average wizards could just destroy the place."
"The purebloods will get there first," Neville said shortly. "Nott's still locked up back in Granford, just waiting for the opportunity..."
"And have the Wizengamot handled at the exact same time, and get away with everything," Susan finished. "And it's not like Robards is going to step up now and save them; not without risking further death."
Enough of this. I balled my fists at my sides. "Things are dire, I know, but there are things we still have to do, and now." I pointed to Bill. "Bully Robards into getting the wards bulked up a bit, and add the anti-portkey spells in the market square. I didn't think of it before, because I didn't think the Death Eaters would have the sheer gall to attack their own kind, but I was wrong, and I don't want to be again." He nodded, and I turned to Ginny and George. "I know that if I ever needed it, you'd both help right away."
"Too right," George said, while Ginny nodded.
"But you're needed here, with your brother," I told them. "The Burrows will be rebuilt, and they'll need all three of you more than ever. Not only that, but if someone decides to come back and finish the job on the place, or get at Bill or his family, I need you both there to protect him, instantly." They both looked at me as if there was any doubt, and I felt very comforted. "Ginny, with Teddy -"
"I know," she said determinedly. "He and Andromeda will be fine. Better than fine."
I could count on that. Ginny had been a caretaker to Teddy Lupin, my godson, for the last year. I'd been reneging on my duties as godfather, but Ginny had appointed herself a de-facto godmother to cover for me and to honour Tonks and Lupin. She'd die for Teddy, no doubt about it.
"Do you really think they'll attack again, Harry?" Neville asked. "I would've thought this was a message more than anything else."
"But Bill lives here. And so does Hart, and Diggory lives just down the road. And Aquilla... he lived here too."
It was possible that The Burrows was attacked with the hope that a political enemy or two would be killed in the process. Not specifically, because if the Muggles were tasked to outright murder somebody who was a known political enemy of people like Selwyn or Parkinson, it'd raise more suspicion. But if Aquilla or Diggory or Hart were to just end up dead, by sheer coincidence, it would help them quite a bit.
"The evenstall's broken now," I said quietly. "Aquilla's death puts us down to nineteen, and we lost one of ours... He said I had his support before he died. He was a sure vote." And, in the brief time I knew him, a good man. He died helping me, and he died helping The Burrows, his home. His death was another harsh hit, and given who was behind it, and given the ramifications of everything else going back up from there, things were spiralling out of control.
And Astoria. God, Astoria wouldn't be getting her seat. She would be put in the corner, locked up by her husband for more time. I promised to show her so many things, and now that the evenstall was broken, those promises were nothing. I felt the urge to get her out of there forcefully, to thumb my nose at Malfoy, but I couldn't afford to do that. There was still a chance that Malfoy himself was valuable in some way, and I got the feeling we had another confrontation under the guise of a visit to Malfoy Manor coming up.
"We can't help but be prepared," I told the group. "Bill's sacrifice bought us some time to get into Granford, but Aquilla's death has changed things again. We need time to regroup and plan, and think of a way to delay so I can deal with Fortess and Nott and Malfoy. Susan -" She pushed herself off Neville's shoulder and stared at me, alert. Neville, on the other hand, looked disappointed by the loss. "Can you meet with Ogden and tell him to delay the meeting, to push it as far back as he can?"
"Harry, in emergencies like this one, there's a better chance the meeting would be brought forward rather than being pushed back," said Bill.
"Not if we invoke some kind of mourning period, for Aquilla and The Burrows, or if enough of the members petition to focus on rebuilding first."
"I'll try everything I can," Susan promised.
"Remind Ogden he owes me for his family, and that if they get threatened again, they're safe."
"Will do."
"And will Stark be a problem? Is he still breathing down your neck?"
Susan grimaced. "He'll never stop, Harry, but Wizengamot business has nothing do with DMLE work. I'll just have to remind him of that."
"Good. We have to get back to Granford right away," I said, gesturing to me, Neville and Ron. "We need to get a hang of things over there again, see who's going to act first." I yawned. "But I'll need to sleep first. Barring direct emergencies, I'll need it before anything else happens. I know you'll all take care of things for a couple of hours without me. Pre-emptively, I just want to say... thank you all." I paused. "Oh, and I got Diggory's vote last night. Before the attack."
"You did?" Neville asked, a small grin forming on his face.
"Yeah." I'd almost forgotten before all of this, that I had gained a little victory in securing Diggory's vote for our bill. But the looks on my friends' faces, seeing the ray of light in the clouds, shot a trill of victory through me. "Thanks," I said again.
The group nodded, slapped each other on the shoulders, shook hands and generally shared sentiments wishing good luck, and to me, a good sleep. I needed it all, especially after the past few days. My friends were sticking by me despite everything, and I trusted them.
And when I got back to Granford soon after, the thought reassured me into a blissful, long-deserved, slumber.
..::..-.-..::..
I woke up in the middle of the afternoon, and while that sounded like I hadn't had that much of a rewarding sleep after being up as long as I had, it was enough. My mind felt rejuvenated, and although the aches and pains of last night's battle caught up to me as I tromped down the stairs of Abe's inn to the ground level, the pub, I could grumble and groan in my head with perfect clarity. The pub was, quite surprisingly, empty. It's not like I was expecting some kind of late lunch rush of patrons - or any patrons at all - but this time today Aberforth was usually at his bar, polishing a glass or two and somehow managing to be on top of all the town's news while doing so. I ignored the sick little twist in my gut I felt at the emptiness.
Ernie burst through the door then, out of breath and visibly surprised to see me. "There you are!" he exclaimed. "I was about to come wake you. Stanthorpe just came back."
I bolted out of the pub. Stanthorpe had volunteered to check on Liliford, Granford's long-destroyed sister town, just yesterday afternoon. If he was back now, he would've been driving nonstop, taking abandoned roads and detours to throw Dementors off his trail...
A crowd had gathered in the main square when we got there, all gathered around Stanthorpe's white pickup truck. Ernie and I pushed through, and saw that the truck was parked on an erratic angle and looked battered, white paint splattered in both blood and oil. I've seen cleaner corpses, honestly.
Stanthorpe himself was leaning against it, and he looked like he'd added a bit more grey to his hair overnight, his whole body racked by nervous shakes. He was talking with Aaron Fortess, with only one of the leader's deputies, Juliet, present for the interrogation. Something was said in a low voice, but it wasn't low enough. A whisper started up in the crowd, followed by another, and another, and soon, the entire crowd was rumbling.
"Did he say Liliford?"
"- mistfiends, 'e said. Can you believe tha'?"
"And Warren's not been around, either."
"Didn't he go with him?"
"Shit, is that his blood on the truck?"
"Liliford's gone!"
"We're so fucked."
After a moment, Juliet led Stanthorpe out of the ruckus and towards the town hall, while Fortess gestured to a few of the others, again talking in low, furiously fast, tones. One of the men was Lucas Meadowes, the very easily bought Ministry operative who looked as tired as I had, like, say, he'd been up all night. Fortess's own expression was strained, and I knew it wasn't because the news of Liliford finally hit them all.
"We got some things done when you were sleeping," Terry muttered, sidling up in the middle of me and Ernie. "Ron went and put monitoring charms on Nott's cell, and he's watching from a distance now - we were watching earlier, and Neville's got the late shift. Nobody's been visiting, except to give him some food."
"Let's just hope they don't smuggle him a wand in the rations," Ernie said under his breath.
"The whole town's been pretty normal today," continued Terry. "But I think it's forced, like Fortess wants it all to appear business as usual, despite the fact quite a few people look tired or injured... and that guy Warren's missing."
"Has Fortess confronted any of you?" I asked. "Or is anybody following you around, or...?"
Ernie shook his head. "Abe's said nobody's tried listening in at the pub, with magical or Muggle means. Fortess and his best have been ignoring us all day, which is really about the norm. We've been keeping an eye out."
"Juliet called me a waste of space this morning," Terry said cheerily. "I think she's warming up to me."
"How so?"
"She didn't even glare at me this time, or pat her rifle."
"Probably too tired to," I said; I could easily imagine Juliet running around in one of those dark cloaks last night, throwing jars of Everlasting Fire at houses and gunning down panicked wizards and witches. Juliet's devotion to Fortess was a well known fact, and if Warren was there at The Burrows, she would've definitely been there too, because they both followed Fortess, who was being led around the nose by the wrong kind of people.
The crowd around us started to disperse, but the restless whispering never ceased, a buzz of angry bees with us all in the midst of it.
"And they have no idea how lucky they are Stanthorpe didn't lead the Dementors back here," said Terry.
A hand reached out and cuffed the back of Terry's head. I wasn't surprised to see it was Abe, not one bit. "Keep it down," he snapped. "Ever had the idea we shouldn't talk about this in public? Come on, let's go back to the pub."
Sometime on the way back, our party of four became five. Su Li emerged from out of the shadows and stepped beside us as if she'd always been there, and nobody commented. Her idea of a proper greeting was, "Ron's watching the police station now. Neville's working out on the farm. Nothing else to report."
"Thanks Su," I said, and that was that.
When we got back, Ernie and Terry set about scrummaging up some food for us from what little we had on hand, while Abe, Su and I converged around the bar. Abe stood behind it in his usual spot, and Su and I took our seats on barstools. I drummed my fingers on the bar while Su played with a straw, idly twirling it around in her slim fingers.
"We should've seen this coming," Abe said gruffly.
I snorted. "What, Stanthorpe coming back? The Muggles may know about Liliford, but I'm not convinced Fortess didn't already know. If he can be manipulated into attacking The Burrows, he will be told some things."
"Not what I meant, but you're getting there. No, I'm sayin' we should've seen the attack coming. Any attack."
He'd been thinking about this a lot, in his own frank way. He shared a good running theory about the pureblood agenda's plan to make it look like we broke the Statute of Secrecy, and although I had an idea of his insight, I still needed to hear it. "Go on," I said, and he did.
"Well first off, Fortess is corrupt. Not a theory anymore. That bitch Juliet's involved too."
As much as it pained me, yeah, it was way too likely. "You don't need to tell me twice. Though... It could've just been Warren on his own, the attack. Maybe Juliet too. We've got no proof otherwise, and he might've be an easier target to corrupt than Fortess."
"But we assumed they would go for Fortess in order for it to make your job harder. If Fortess's second-in-command was making decisions behind his back, it would be too easy for us to go to Fortess, tell him about Warren's treachery, and save the day somehow. No, they went for Fortess. I don't doubt that now."
"You were here for a year," I said sombrely. "And you're the first to doubt him."
"The signs all point to it."
"But he... We've been here a week, and we went out on scavenging trips he planned. He's good, Abe, damn good, and the best this town could ask for. I know desperate times could make him take desperate measures, but him being corrupted so easily? It's just -"
"Unfair," Abe finished gruffly. "But so's life. Nobody's incorruptible. Think about it."
I realised he was right. Fortess's story was only one example, and I only needed to look around at the people in my life to realise how easily people could lose their own morals, their own integrity. Astoria had betrayed her husband, despite never wanting to do so, simply because of her crippling loneliness. Ogden was pushed into acts he'd never abide by because of his family, and he would go very far in order to protect those he loved. Robards, our dear Minister, was corrupted by his own passive nature because, after all, despite his threats and his promises, Aquilla still died, and all the Wizengamot members were just as in danger of suffering the same. Even I wasn't incorruptible, especially given everything... and things to come. Before this is all over, I'd have cross a line or two, do something that would be hard to reconcile with... But I'd do it anyway. There would be no choice; I just knew that.
"You said we should've seen the attack coming," Su said to break the silence. "Elaborate?"
Abe nodded at her, but he spoke to me specifically. "We assumed the plot to give Granford better crops was just for the sake of breaking the Statute, but at the same time, we were thinking about it all wrong. The crops could've showed up on their own and been obvious to any wizards, but we were convinced that it was Fortess himself that had been corrupted into accepting them in the first place."
I frowned. "Because of Liliford, and there being a feeling of resentment. Fortess would see Liliford's good fortune and want the same for his people."
"So why destroy Liliford outright? Because they didn't need them anymore? No, it's because they were using Liliford's destruction. As a way of convincing Fortess into accepting their help. At first, they pit the Muggles against the Muggles, and after there's only one group of Muggles left, they'd spin Liliford's destruction to us. The rest of wizardkind. Creatures out of our control destroyed Granford's sister town. This rogue wizard offering his services would paint himself sympathetic, maybe even imply that the fact the crops at Liliford were growing so well meant the rest of the wizards let them be destroyed by the Dementors."
"So they pit the Muggles against the wizards," I said, and it all made terrible sense.
"After that? Well, I think you saw that last night. The Muggles become pawns in an attack. Muggles with wizard support killing other wizards while believing they're killing the bad men who let Liliford be destroyed. And back in the Wizengamot... Well, it hardly needs to be said. Muggles versus Muggles, Muggles versus wizards, wizards versus wizards. And when the dust settles... The purebloods'd win."
"So Fortess has been properly manipulated into attacking, and the purebloods have their ammunition against us next time we step in a Wizengamot meeting. And Nott's in place already, just waiting to open the floodgates. But what happens now, with Fortess? Is he left to flounder, or will there be another attack?"
Abe shrugged. "If he's that far gone, it wouldn't shock me, but he is still Aaron Fortess. And there's a chance he knows he's in over his head, and... We'll see."
I smiled to myself. He'd been the first to nail Fortess down as corrupt, but there was always hope, and Abe, gruff old bastard that he was, still had some. Circumstances were still more than a little stacked against us, but the sliver of hope felt good for the moment.
From the back room, we all heard Ernie swear, very loudly, and more than once. Directed at Terry if I were to guess, and probably related to the lunch they were rounding up. Abe sighed at the commotion, left the bar and headed out to scold them, leaving me and Su alone.
She broke the silence first. "You remember the lockdown? Stupid question, but it's possible that you've repressed it."
"I've been thinking about it more lately," I admitted. "But yes, I remember."
"That was a bad day."
Well said, Su, I thought.
"I went home afterwards," she continued. "My family had a house at Leadworth. My mother, my father, my little brother. As soon as I got you settled and made sure Neville was all right, I went home. Only, well, the outbreak had hit there. My mother, my father, and my little brother were zombies, Harry. I found them wandering around, half-eaten by each other. So I killed them. And burned them." That was all that she said, exactly as she said it. There was no break of her voice, no nothing in her eyes. Just words, just direct, just Su Li. "And then I went back to work. There was work to be done. And there was work the next day, and the next, and the last year after that. I just went back to work."
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked softly, reaching out and placing a hand on her arm.
She didn't draw her arm away, but her fingers kept playing with the straw, twisting it into a spiral shape. "I went back to work, Harry, because I had to. There was a serious attack last night, and I know you're feeling like the odds are stacked against you, but you know there's always something you can be doing. That's why you started going out with Kingsley's team, that's why you joined the Wizengamot, and that's why we're here now. So, I went back to work. You need to do the same. So, what are you going to do?"
I knew the answer already, but Su's speech had made that answer into an action, a vague notion turning into something I needed to do now. "I'm going to talk with Draco Malfoy. I'm going to get some answers out of him for once. Afterwards, I'm going to prepare for the next meeting, in every way possible. If Draco can't give me what I need, then I press Nott for answers again. That's what I'm going to do."
Su nodded her head. "Then go to work."
"Go to work?" Abe parroted, coming back into the main area, Ernie and Terry in tow. "You leaving?"
"Draco and I need to catch up some more," I said, flicking my wand out of its holster and into my hand. "I'll need you all to cover for me again, maybe for the next two days. I can be back here as soon as possible, but Nott's not going anywhere until after the meeting, if I had to bet. The purebloods would want to time this perfectly, and I'm going to use that against them."
"Sounds like a plan, yeah," said Abe. "But you're not leaving so easily."
"Why, exactly?"
"Because you can't keep running off and having us cover for you without expecting somebody to notice eventually," he said bluntly. "You need to leave? Go on a supply run."
"Auror Strong leads the other Ministry operatives on little runs, doesn't he?"
"He's always successful too," Abe said. "Thanks to your little box out by the bus station."
"Then Fortess won't mind sending him out, and if we were to go with... I like this idea. That'd give us - me and Neville definitely - a legitimate excuse to be gone for a few days, and we'd bring back the supplies from the drop box Hart's team picked up in Cardiff."
"But what if you're needed here?" Ernie wondered.
Abe waved him off. "He still has that cloak of his, and like he said, he can be back if need be. He'll just have to do what he has to invisibly." To me, he said, "Go see Malfoy and get what you need. I heard you're friendly with his wife? You trust her?"
It was easy to believe he'd heard from one of the others - Ron and Neville knew the most about mine and Astoria's friendship, Ron completely all right with it because he actually liked Astoria, and Neville quietly disproving about the whole thing. "Yeah, Astoria and I are close. If Malfoy won't spill, she will, especially after hearing about the attack. She's on our side, but not completely, and not yet... But yes, I trust her."
"Well then don't wait around here anymore," Abe said forcefully. "I'll talk with Strong and set that up for you. Like the tiny girl said, Potter. Get to work."
From her stool, Su Li smiled enigmatically and continued to twist her straw in her hands.
..::..-.-..::..
Malfoy was home; I knew that instantly when a house elf answered the door, and not Astoria.
"My Lord and his wife are currently dining in the parlour," the elf told me. "They are not expecting any guests, so unless this is an emergency..."
I growled. "Tell Malfoy today might be the day I'll call in my debt. That will get him out here."
The elf bowed low. "As you wish," he said, and with a snap of his fingers, he was gone. As quickly as he'd left, he was already back, gesturing me inside. "My Lord will receive you in the parlour."
I nodded stiffly and let him lead me through the foyer level, straight through to the big doors under the balcony. The big doors opened up to a dining room with a long, opulent table sitting in the middle of it, and the elf led me off to the side room, a small door opposite another - the kitchens, if I had to guess - with a short hall leading to it. The parlour room at the end of this hall wasn't particularly large, but had an intimate feel, the kind of room that would make people feel at home by just look alone: the colours were all warm browns trimmed with an impressive silver, and the furniture was dark and plush, gathered around a large, crystal, tea table. Tapestries of a great battle on a field of grass took up the walls, both heartstoppingly beautiful and bloody all at once.
Draco and Astoria were seated across from each other when I came in, the latter with her back to me and the former pointedly ignoring me despite the fact he could see me. He was sipping at some tea calmly while Astoria's shoulders tensed; she knew I was here and she was scared, but for who exactly I couldn't say.
"Heard the news?" I said. "The Burrows were attacked last night. Somebody portkeyed in a pack of zombies in the middle of a busy crowd, and a whole bunch of cloaked somebodies were running around throwing jars of Everlasting Fire. Pretty rare find, the latter anyway, but not quite out of reach for somebody with the right amount of gold. I've been thinking a lot lately about how your gold seems to end up everywhere, Malfoy. After the war your reluctance in being associated with people like Selwyn or Parkinson is well known, and I thought it might've carried over to this vote... But again, you do seem to be giving out a lot of gold lately. I'm just curious: if I tracked the Everlasting Fire, would I find your gold at the other end?"
"You'd find exactly what you'd want to find," said Draco. "My elf told me you wished to invoke the life debt? If you would please get on with it..."
"You had to have known this attack was coming, or something similar was coming in the same capacity. You had to have known."
He rolled his eyes. "I know a great deal many things, and Potter, you're not asking me a question. That's how you intend to call in the life debt: you ask the question, and I answer honestly."
"Aquilla is dead because of your friends! A hundred more are dead!"
"All victims of a senseless attack perpetrated by mysterious, unidentified, figures. Though I'm sure that their identities will soon be revealed."
I scoffed. "Because the pureblood supremacist crowd will suddenly have that answer, no doubt."
"All evidence that must be brought forward will be in front of the Wizengamot, because that is how things must go," he said silkily. "You might be wanting to break the Statute, the ultimate set of laws, for your Muggles, but we follow it because that's what is done. So, if evidence that threatens it must be brought to light, it will be. Now, Potter, what is your real grief with me, today?"
"Not just today, you asshole. I've been here to see you more than once, and you didn't say anything." He'd had his wife relay that Granford was the next target, but as for himself, he hadn't said squat. "I threatened you, via Harper, and you didn't say the attack was coming. You don't seem to grasp just how easily I can destroy you, Malfoy. Your gold, your seat, your manor, your everything -" Your wife. "- and I could take them all. You bailed out of Voldemort's service because you were scared, and this is no different. If you're scared, tell me, and I will help you. Because as scary as your Death Eater associates may be, I am much, much, scarier if you piss me off anymore. No more games, no more misdirection. I want you to pick your damn side. Now. Today."
Draco Malfoy calmly put his tea down on the table, stood from his chair, and took two steps towards me. From her seat, Astoria finally turned around to watch him, her eyes wide and her lips pursed. Draco soon stood before me, only slightly taller. His expression was cold.
"I have said it once, but it bears repeating. You, Harry Potter, are in over your head," he said. "Do you honestly believe that because I turned on the Dark Lord that I would turn on this? A lot of work has been put into the Wizengamot by my associates and I. You have seen me at the meetings, and have I ever indicated that I want the Muggles to live? Ever? I turned from the Dark Lord's service because he was a mad man too obsessed with you to work on what he should've been: completely wiping out the Muggles for good, and bringing forth the magical-only utopia. To remove all impurity from the world and leave only those that would cherish and create beautiful things for millions of years. Now his work has been mostly completed in a roundabout way, but there are still some of these impurities who remain, bundled together behind their walls and hoping that they'll be protected from what's coming for them. The Ministry got to them first, helping them out as they could, so we couldn't just destroy them, no, not without you and your lot getting in the way..."
He shook his head. "But I digress. You are under a mistaken impression that I wish to be a Muggle-loving saviour, but you are so wrong. Magic wills out. That's why The Stigma all but destroyed the Muggles, and that's why myself and my friends are working towards a better future, all the while you putter around and fail to achieve anything. But do you know the truly funny part? You put everything into helping the Muggles, even if it'll kill you. But for us, it only takes one vote to shoot down the bill on the Wizengamot so you could do things legally. One vote. You need two-thirds majority, but we have a third for ourselves, and if we just get one more, one person who's scared of the Muggles, like MacMillan, or one person who wants our gold, like Zabini, and we win. The magical utopia that's coming will not shrivel like you predict. No, it will thrive. And you can't do a thing to stop that."
There was a pause, but it might as well have been a gaping chasm for all the time it gave me to think. And I only had one prevailing thought:
I was wrong. I'd underestimated Malfoy's own heritage, his own personal disdain for the Muggles and all those he doesn't believe as "pure". Leaving Voldemort was the exception for him, not the rule. One exception and I thought I had him where I'd want him, that he'd collapse under the pressure again and help me dismantle his own agenda. Back when I thought he used Astoria to tell me Granford was in danger, I was wrong, I knew that right now. Astoria had been relaying her own concern for Granford because that's what she was concerned about, even if this was before we rekindled our friendship and she revealed that she didn't want the pureblood agenda to succeed. Malfoy had nothing to do with that. I was very, very, wrong.
But he wasn't done yet. "You think you're smart for spreading some rumours about Burke or trying to convert Gale? You'd do best to stay away from Gale, Potter, because I know the game you're playing. Let me tell you what we could do in return to your people, shall I? We could have Stark fire Bones from her job for gross misconduct in aiding you. We have ledgers on a business deal Patil and Brown made with Death Eaters back in the war to save their own skin. Hart could find himself having an accident on one of the many dangerous supply runs he leads teams on. And then there's you. When we say that the Statute of Secrecy has been broken and that you are behind it in order to start a chain of events to get your disclosure bill passed, it will not be a hard sell. I could even claim that you used the Imperius Curse on the Muggles, easily so in fact. Remember how the Ministry didn't persecute you for using it during the war? Well, they would now, trust me. And there are so many things I could take from you, too. Your visits as my personal Healer are a pretence, and the fact you don't even work at St Mungo's anymore could get you fired and your Healing license revoked. Your self-appointed task to check up on me for the DMLE? You trespass my home and stalk me out in public, so that'd be gone too. You are desperate, for anything, but the fact is..." He took in a great breath, and his voice was cold as ice as he said, "You don't seem to grasp just how easily I can destroy you."
Silence reigned in the parlour for a moment. Shock and incredulous surprise coursed through me, and every instinct was screaming at me to retort back, to outright destroy Malfoy before he got a chance to destroy me. The shock made way to that anger, and right there and then I wanted to take as much as I could take, to put him through what his friends, and him, were putting me through.
"If you intend to call that debt, do so now," Malfoy said firmly. He waited for five seconds while I said nothing, just staring and doing an impression of a goldfish. The words came to me eventually.
"I'm going to end you," I said quietly. "One day soon there'll be a reckoning."
"But this is not that day, I take it." He shook his head, scoffing under his breath. "Potter, Potter, I don't want you in my house again. If you appear, I might just have to call the Aurors, and nobody would want that, would they."
Not now, I told myself, though my fingers hurt I was curling them in my palms so hard. Take him by surprise. Make him watch his friends crumble around him, and make him beg for mercy when all's said and done.
"I'm going to my study," said Malfoy. "Things to do, letters to write concerning a certain Healer..." I moved aside for him to pass by, and he gave me a mocking tip of the head in return. "Astoria," he said, but the moment her name passed by his lips, he suddenly looked shocked.
And there it was. Draco was so busy telling me off that he'd forgotten she was there.
Astoria Malfoy, once a Healer-in-training, once a prospective Wizengamot chair, and now and entirely my friend. Wife of Draco, who did not involve herself in his business but still heard enough to know she didn't want him to truly succeed - she wouldn't betray him before, but also didn't want the disclosure bill to get shot down and the Muggles to be killed. Her nature prevented her from wanting to even stand by and do nothing, especially after the whole lot of nothing she'd been doing lately, at her husband's behest.
Astoria was frozen in her chair. Today she wore a blue gown that clung to her frame like water, with darker blue trimmings on the sleeves that contrasted with her light, soft, hands. Her honey-blonde hair was down past her shoulders, but a butterfly red pin kept the back in place and created a sort-of elegant bun. Her blue eyes were sparkling, not in a good way, directly at her husband. She was looking at him like she'd never seen him before, like the partial imprisonment, the lies and the sport he played with the zombies in his home were all precursors to a part of his nature she hadn't truly understood, until now. It was the second-most beautiful expression on her face I'd ever seen, that horror and dawning realisation that ultimately, her husband was a bad man.
And she just saw exactly how bad he could be.
Draco tried to recover, clearing his throat and nodding stiffly to her, like she was a painting on the wall. "I regret Healer Potter's words made me say such things," he said, "But his continual presence will only make things worse, dear, so if you'd please lead him through to the foyer? The house elves will take it from there."
At first, Astoria didn't move an inch. But then, slowly, she nodded her head.
"Thank you," said Draco, ignoring me completely as he turned away and walked from the room, footsteps poised and quiet.
He left the two of us alone. "We need to talk," I said, reaching forward and grasping her upper arm gently. "Please, and now."
Just before, I had wanted to take something from Malfoy so badly, but now I realised he had gone and done the job for me. Aquilla was dead, Malfoy and his friends all but claimed responsibility, and Astoria had just come into the understanding that because the evenstall was now broken, she wasn't getting her seat, and she wasn't leaving the Manor anytime soon. She was on my side, all but ready to help me take down her husband. With one final appeal, I could get that from her. I could get that from her right now.
The door to Draco's study was locked shut when we passed into the foyer, Astoria drifting beside me as if in a fog. I led her to the library on the opposite end of the hall, and begun the familiar trek down twisting paths of bookshelves into the secluded spot she called her own, and lately, had invited me to do the same.
When we got there, she didn't sit down, and I didn't either. Her back was to a bookshelf full of her favourite books, and I sat on the reading table itself, watching her downcast face go through the motions - the denial, the anger, the sadness, the uncertainty of what was coming next.
So I made the next move.
"I made a promise," I said to her, pushing off the table and towards her. "I can get you out of here now, if you want. We can plan to get you out later, when you feel up to it. You can tell me to go fuck myself and stay with these books for the rest of your life."
She said nothing, just staring a hole at the floor.
"I'm sorry you had to see it like that, I am, but I've been trying to get you to understand this entire time, and, please, please know that I didn't want it like that. It just happened, and nobody was more surprised than me when he said all that, but -"
"Harry," she whispered. Her whole body was tense as she moved her neck, her head tilting up to face mine. "Don't talk."
I remembered something she said just yesterday, just before the attack on The Burrows and just after I'd broached the topic of saving her.
"You just said you were calmed by me, by all this... So just stay. No politics talk, just us."
And I suddenly realised what she meant. I realised it because I wanted it too, but never tried to think about it. The whole time I tried to save her, I thought of her as my friend first and foremost, but I'd forgotten the connection we had back in Hogwarts, that almost flittered into something else... Before Sarah, who I'd laughed and loved and lived and died with. But it's been a year now. A year since Sarah died in front of my eyes. That hole, that yearning for any kind of emotional connection in the middle of this everything, the rock in the middle of the raging sea, reaching out for me to grasp...
I grasped it.
With a light step forward, I got as close as I dared to Astoria. She didn't say anything, or even move. The next step, that last step, was mine, and she wouldn't take it for me. A year. It'd been a year since I'd been this close to someone I'd cared for.
And my every instinct screamed at me that I wanted to be closer, and then I was. I cupped her face towards mine with one hand and snaked the other around her back. My lips met hers at an awkward angle at first, and once my memory got working again and I realised it was truly happening, I got into the rhythm of it all, focused on the warmth, and just moved. My hand moved away from her face and joined my other around her back, and hers were moving too, up and down my side and sending shivers down my spine.
When I pulled back moments later, her most beautiful expression was on her face: she was smiling, half shy and half coy, her eyes searching mine. I felt I could almost read her thoughts because I was having them too; the want for more clashing with the need to think, the need for more warmth with the want to take a step back and think things through. The want and the need for more, just more, won out, and my body pushed hers against the bookshelves, and we were kissing again -
- a darker part of me, dormant but still there, told me, whispered to me that I was taking something of Malfoy's, that what I was doing with her, with Astoria Greengrass, was a move that could yet win me the Wizengamot -
But that was overruled by the tingling warmth of our bodies pressed together, a pleasant feeling of opportunities that could've been and ones wasted, or paths not taken. Of the feeling that I, no, we were taking that path now and despite all that was raining on us, it was the right thing. Here, today, against the bookshelves of Malfoy Manor's library, was bliss, and nothing else. Astoria and me, and it felt like all I needed right now.
The moment was soon lost as quickly as it came, making me wonder for a second if it had even been there at all. The look on her face when I pulled away, eyes closed like she was bathing herself in whatever light she could in an environment of nothing but darkness, was pleasant to look at, but a reminder that I had bigger issues right now. She was burying herself in the feeling because she had nothing else; I didn't have that luxury. I felt charged, alive, and the urge to go out and do what had to be done overtook me. Malfoy's words, taunting and cold, echoed in my ear, and Astoria's sweet scent tingled on my skin and made every threat and challenge from her husband seem beatable, even for a second, and that was enough.
"Astoria," I murmured. "I have to leave."
And the look that passed over her face made me feel like I'd taken a life jacket from a drowning man, and I let her go before it started to get to me. I wanted to awkwardly reassure her I'd be back, because I would, and at the same time I wanted to thank her, because I was thankful, but I didn't say anything else. I left her with nothing but a sliver of a promise in the air.
When I left the manor, minutes later, I walked down the garden trail with more than a few fleeting thoughts of Astoria floating in my head. Thinking of Astoria made me think of Malfoy, and beating that smug look off of his face never seemed more of an appealing prospect than right now. And unlike the last time he sent me packing down this same path, I didn't feel quite as lost. No, I had a plan.
It was time to strike back.
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To Be Continued in Chapter Eight: Intention...
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Post-Chapter Notes:
- Next Chapter Tease :: Harry's new connection with Astoria propels him into action, enacting a risky plan in order to get an advantage over Malfoy, with deadly results. And a zombie or two, because why not.
- Wizengamot Scorecard :: Updated, as of this chapter:
- Pro-Disclosure :: Harry, Neville, Susan, Antioch Boot, Brown, Patil, Hart, Diggory.
- Anti-Disclosure :: Malfoy, Parkinson, Bulstrode, Selwyn, Gale, Harper, Burke.
- Swing Votes :: MacMillan, Smith, Zabini, Cuffe.
- Former Members :: Bill Weasley (Resigned), Isaac Aquilla (Dead).
- Member Count :: Nineteen.
- Status :: No longer evenstalled.
Thanks for reading!
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