Chapter Nine
When Harry woke up the next morning, he wasn't alone. Ron was standing over him, beaming from ear to ear like he had just won the lottery or something.
"It's about time you wake up," Ron said, unable to stop smiling. "We've got so much to do today."
Harry took his time getting ready while he listened to Ron go on and on about how the previous evening had actually transpired.
"And I just rolled with it, mate. I got down on my knee, asked the question and she said yes. It was amazing. You were right. There really is no point in waiting anymore."
Harry made them breakfast while Ron continued, even going into unnecessary detail about what occurred when they made it back to their apartment. "Okay, maybe that's a good place to stop," Harry eventually said. "I'm kind of eating here."
Ron laughed nervously. "Sorry about that. I got a bit carried away. I'm just so happy, and excited, and I literally cannot wait to marry her."
"Have you told your family yet?" Harry asked, as if it were still a normal question. Only, it wasn't.
Ron's features darkened. Thinking about his family wasn't what it used to be. His father was definitely involved in something with a direct link to the fact that his best friend was no longer a wizard. How could he just see past that? "I just did," Ron said seriously, unafraid to look Harry in the eye.
Harry knew he wouldn't be able to speak, even if he tried, so he just continued with his breakfast. Once they were both done, Ron Apparated side-along with Harry straight into the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Dean and Seamus were sitting in their own cubicles, obviously curious as to why Ron arrived with the biggest grin on his face, particularly when he was with Harry.
"I have news, gentlemen," Ron said, addressing the two Gryffindor Aurors he had worked with day in and day out for the past five or so years. "Although, I am not privy to tell you just yet. Luna would kill me."
Harry just shook his head. Clearly, Ron was enjoying all of this a little too much.
"Is Kingsley in?" Ron asked.
Seamus responded. "Waiting in his office."
As Ron escorted Harry to the Minister's office, each man became very serious. This was not a time for fun and games. Whatever Harry could figure out from the source himself would prove to be very useful in the long run. Of that much they were sure.
"Ah, Mr Potter. Mr Weasley," Kingsley said, inviting them into the office. Harry walked straight in and took a seat while Ron hovered at the door.
"I have a case to attend to," Ron explained. "I trust everything will be fine here. Unless, I can send Mr Thomas down."
Kingsley looked from Ron to Harry before he looked at Ron again. "No, I'm sure Mr Potter and I will be fine. Won't we?"
Harry said nothing. He sat very still, remained facing forward as Ron closed the office door.
"I've got him well trained, haven't I?" Kingsley said rather proudly.
Harry didn't react. He just sat back and waited.
"You're probably wondering why I called you here," Kingsley began. "I'll give you a clue: it has nothing to do with the Cloak of Invisibility."
Even though Harry was intrigued, he didn't show any interest.
It seemed to annoy Kingsley. "Do you even care? Or are you so far gone from the Wizarding World; it doesn't even matter to you?"
Harry considered his response but he was sure he would sound too emotional if he were to open his mouth. Of course he cared. He'd never stopped.
"Well, anyway, I want you to know that I was quite intrigued to hear that you stopped by the Weasleys for dinner," he said, his voice cold and calculated. It was very unlike the Kingsley he remembered, and he wondered where it had all gone so terribly wrong. "Getting reacquainted with those you left behind. I'm not sure that is such a good idea."
"And why is that?"
"Because we both know you're never going to be a wizard again, Harry. It's as simple as that. Whatever Hermione thinks she's found; there is nothing she can do to get your magic back."
Harry could tell this was his opportunity to query the whole thing but the truth of Kingsley's words had thrown him. What had he ever done to deserve to be treated this way? Somehow, he managed to gather himself. "About that. I've been meaning to ask; whatever it is you did to me; am I still supposed to be able to perform Legilimency?"
Kingsley stared him down, trying to determine if he was telling the truth or not. The younger man gave nothing away. "That is interesting. If it were actually true."
Harry leaned forward. "You'll have to forgive me because I'm not nearly as good as I once was," he said seriously, meeting Kingsley's gaze. If Kingsley caught him in his bluff, it was over. Harry had to guess right. His unnoticed perusal of Kingsley's desk had to count for something. "It's happening at the Zuri, isn't it?"
Kingsley swallowed. How could he possibly know that?
"Am I right?" Harry asked, leaning that bit further forward. "Because I see the sign with its name, right out front."
Kingsley checked the clock on the wall of his office.
"What? When next are you having one of your super secret night meetings, huh, Kingsley? I'm starting to feel a little left out, you know? You need something so desperately from me, and yet you haven't even invited me to the party."
Kingsley made an executive decision when he rose to his feet and stepped around his desk. "You should not be able to perform any magic," he said strongly.
Harry sat back, putting what little distance he could between them. He sensed a bit of panic in Kingsley's tone. "Something must have gone wrong then."
"No. We definitely performed the ritual correctly. Aberforth made sure of that. It cannot be."
Aberforth? Harry stopped breathing, more out of sheer shock than anything. Now, how on earth was he supposed to get anywhere need the truth if Aberforth Dumbledore was involved. Did he even want to?
"Show me your hands," Kingsley demanded.
Harry didn't move.
Kingsley grabbed hold of Harry's arms and turned his hands palms up. He studied them closely. "Harry, you better not be lying to me," he said, looking back at the young man. "This is very important. You cannot have magic, do you understand? You cannot. It's too dangerous."
Harry frowned. "For who?"
"For who else, Harry?" he asked, releasing Harry's arms and moving back around the desk. "Did you learn nothing from the prophecy?"
His frown only deepened. "The prophecy? The prophecy is over, Kingsley. I defeated Voldemort. One cannot live while the other survives. That's over."
Kingsley raised an eyebrow. "I'm not talking about that prophecy, Harry."
That made Harry's breath catch. There was another prophecy?
"Did Dumbledore really not tell you about the second prophecy? Or, I suppose, the third? Fourth, fifth; does it really matter?" At Harry's silence, Kingsley smiled. "What do you think this is all about? Do you think I wanted to do this to you, to the Wizarding World? Of course not. But it had to be done."
That just confused Harry.
"What have you spent these years thinking about the Order?"
Harry didn't want to believe a word he was saying. There couldn't be another prophecy. No. He refused to believe it. How could there be another one?
"We're doing this to protect you."
Harry shook his head. "No, you're lying. You're lying!"
"Why would I lie?"
Harry stood up quite suddenly. He started to turn. He had to go; he had to get out as soon as he could.
"Think about it, Harry," Kingsley continued. "All Dumbledore did, he did to keep you safe. Why would any of that stop just because the war was over?"
Harry stopped listening as he stormed out of Kingsley's office, his head suddenly bombarded with everything he had spent years suppressing. All the Battles he had fought came flooding back. His mind paid close attention to the happenings of the Astronomy Tower. He had to put his hand out to the wall to stop himself from falling over.
"No," Harry whispered to himself. "He's lying. You aren't meant for anything more. You're fine. We're fine."
That was where Ron found him, hunched over and breathing heavily. Harry also looked sickly pale as Ron rushed to him.
Harry put out a hand. "No, stop. You hate me, remember?"
Ron fought between his head and heart. In the end, his head won and he remained upright. "Do you need to go to the washroom?" Ron asked, keeping his voice curt.
Harry managed to regain control enough to stand up straight and look at Ron. Whatever he conveyed in that one look was enough to let Ron know that sending Harry in to Kingsley was both a good and bad idea. Harry didn't say a word as he and Ron made their way to Hermione's office. As usual, the witch was poring over some file, deep in concentration. She put everything aside when she noticed the looks on their faces.
"What? What?" she asked quickly, sensing some urgency.
Ron shut the door and did the wards and enchantments as quickly as he could. "Tell us then," he said to Harry as the two boys claimed the chairs opposite Hermione's desk.
Harry composed himself. "There is another prophecy," he said softly. "There's always been another prophecy."
Ron and Hermione each sat back, contemplating this news. "Involving you?" Hermione asked.
"Involving the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord, I suppose."
"So, Harry," Ron said, sounding defeated. "You'd think that the magical world would be done with you after the last one," he muttered, clearly irritated. "What else did Kingsley say?"
Harry looked at Hermione. The concern in her eyes was quite overwhelming. "Aberforth led whatever ritual they performed to take my magic away."
"Aberforth?" Ron sounded disgusted.
Hermione looked thoughtful. "That's probably because Dumbledore wasn't around to do it himself."
"So Dumbledore knew about all of this?" Ron asked, the irritation still in his tone of voice. "I mean, of course he did. How could he not have known? Why didn't he tell you?"
"Why didn't he tell Harry a lot of things?" Hermione muttered. It was strange for the boys when Hermione didn't defend Dumbledore. Despite his shortcomings by being very obtuse with the way he went about implementing his plan to defeat Voldemort, she remained adamant that he had cared about Harry. And not just because he needed the green-eyed wizard as the climax of the ultimate plan. That apparently wasn't over.
"What do you know about the prophecy?" Ron asked Harry.
"Nothing," he said sadly. "Absolutely nothing. Kingsley claims that he thought I knew about it all along, but he knows I didn't. I didn't find out about the first one until our fifth year and even then Dumbledore wasn't the one who told me first. I had to find out it existed when we were in the Hall of Prophecies."
The Trio descended into painful silence then. There was still so much they didn't know. What if Kingsley was telling truth? What if everything the Order was doing was to prevent something really terrible from happening? Should they even be getting involved?
It was Hermione who broke the silence. "We need to get our hands on that prophecy," she said, looking at Harry. "Do you suppose Professor Trelawney is the one who made this prophecy as well?"
Without answering, Harry continued with his thoughts. "When Voldemort tried to kill me when I was a baby, he gave me powers, and a future. Because of that, I was able to escape him as many times as I did. My powers were his. The Order just took them away. What if they were marked to perform evil once Voldemort was gone?
"Or maybe I never actually had any powers of my own, you know? Maybe I just survived off of my mother's blood protection for all those years. That makes sense, right? It was Voldemort's own powers that defeated him. All I ever had was love, right? The power he knew not. Love. Never any magic. This was the way it was always supposed to be. I was just supposed to live as a Muggle. A squib. That was all the great Harry Potter would be, if it had not been for that damn prophecy.
"And the thing is that prophecies aren't all necessarily fulfilled, right? Voldemort did this. He marked me as his equal and he killed countless innocent people trying to defeat me; trying to defeat himself. So it's better those powers are gone. They were never really mine to begin with. They were just there to fulfill that first prophecy. The whole reason for my stupid scar, and my entire life, was to defeat him, and I did it, so it's better if what he bestowed to me was taken away."
Sensing the path Harry was taking himself down, Ron spoke up. "Look, I think that Hermione is right. We need to get our hands on that prophecy before we make any assumptions, or even decisions." He looked at Hermione, the worry on her face surely mirroring his. "Do you reckon it's here, in the Department of Mysteries?"
Hermione answered, looking like she was coming out of a daze. "A lot of Prophecy Records were destroyed in the Battle of the Department of Mysteries," she explained. "And plus, if the prophecy Kingsley is talking about does concern Harry, he is the only one who can retrieve it from the Hall."
Ron leaned forward. "Well then, my dear friends, are we about to go on an adventure or what?"
Harry removed his glasses to wipe them on his shirt as he and Ron waited for Hermione to return from the washroom. It had been a long day, and a long night, but none of them could dispute the fact that it had been a very successful one. They had discovered a lot, and accomplished a lot.
And one of those accomplishments was the retrieval of the Prophecy Record sitting on the table in front of them. The Trio returned to 87 Bollinger Rd after their exploits at the Department of Mysteries and found themselves in the living room with the spun-glass object as the elephant in the room they were determined to put off talking about.
It had been rather easy to get Harry into the Hall. After Hermione had gone into planning mode, the boys had watched in utter amusement. She had managed to plan every minute of their attempt to steal the prophecy and it had pretty much gone off without a hitch. Unlike every other plan they had ever tried to implement before.
"It was almost too easy," Ron pointed out as he and Harry still waited, each of them not wanting to start with the Prophecy Record without Hermione. "I can't help but think that Kingsley knew you would try to find it, and so he let you."
Harry sighed. "Well, if that's the case, then there's definitely something he wants me to know."
Ron nodded. "I suppose Hermione's plan was rather fool-proof as well," he said. "Hitting the Hall during the shift change was a good idea as well. Although, we got a little lucky, I reckon. Nobody anticipated that Unspeakable in row one hundred and four. The way you and Hermione ducked between those two shelves was quite brilliant."
Harry eyed him.
"Whose idea was that, by the way? Because you guys were awfully close in there. Kind of pressed up against each other, weren't you?"
Before Harry could say anything to him, Hermione returned, still drying her hands on her jeans. Yes, Hermione was in jeans, and Harry couldn't help noticing that she looked good. Very good.
"Shall we?" Hermione said, sinking into an armchair and letting out a long, somewhat relieved breath.
Harry shook his head. "Not yet."
Hermione looked at Ron, silently asking a question. All the redhead did was shake his head. When they had arrived at the house, Ron had worried that Julia would find them sitting with the Prophecy Record but Harry told them that she was visiting her mother and grandmother in Manchester for a few days. Ron was relieved by that, but not nearly as much as Hermione was.
The witch did not want not to like Julia, but it just couldn't be helped. In her mind, it seemed that Harry had chosen Julia over them. It just didn't sit well with her. Not yet, at least.
Harry made them wait another fifteen minutes before he picked up the Prophecy Record. He held it in his hand, staring at it and feeling the all too familiar weight of it.
S.P.T to A.P.W.B.D
Harry Potter
Professor Trelawney and Professor Dumbledore. Of course. Harry sighed.
As soon as they had located it, it became painfully clear to the three of them that this prophecy involved only Harry. That didn't bode well for him, in the great scheme of things. Not that anything before actually had.
Harry enclosed the orb in his hand and closed his eyes. Within seconds, the prophecy was presented to him, shocking him into deep silence. Ron and Hermione sat and watched in amazement as the light shone on Harry's face. From his facial expressions, he clearly was not enjoying what he was seeing. He even cried out at some point and it took everything Hermione had not to rush to him. Ron put his hand out to make sure she remained where she was.
When Harry opened his eyes, they looked considerably darker. Whatever he had seen or heard would stay with him for rest of his life. There was no doubt about that.
"Harry?" Hermione asked, sensing his utter distress. "What did it say?"
Before Harry could open his mouth to speak, the front door burst open and, suddenly, the Trio were no longer alone.
