They appeared a good ten miles from the Notts' likely decoy manor well after midnight. With the location known, it was little effort to adjust the Portkey to arrive a safe distance away. They crossed the last few miles by broom, slowly and cautiously and close to the ground.
They stopped frequently to cast a number of detection spells, both to get an idea of what they were up against but also to avoid stumbling into the ambush on accident. The Aurors were good and would be on high alert. Harry and George had to be better.
The Muggle-repelling wards greeted them just short of two miles out, the first sign of wizarding activity that they had seen. It was followed by the first proximity ward half a mile further on. It was a simple, straight-forward one – anything else would have taken too much effort to cast for something that would be essentially useless against him, Harry figured – and they slipped past it easily once they knew it was there.
The area was unpopulated, not that it was a surprise. The Notts might not have cared, but the DMLE couldn't get away with baiting a Dark Lord in a populated neighbourhood.
They slowed down even further and proceeded cautiously after that. The first sign of Auror patrols appeared soon after and then, rising tall up ahead, the wards they had been expecting.
One full mile out and strong enough that they would have passed as perfectly respectable family wards anywhere else. Someone had put a lot of magic into setting up the trap. The wards themselves were almost invisible, but Harry could feel the force of them against the hairs on his arms and neck even from that distance.
They slowed down a bit away and finally came to a stop, both craning their necks to stare at the dome of magic. George made a low whistle. "Those are temporary wards? That's up there near Malfoy level. Pretty confident they'll lure you in and not just scare you off, aren't they?"
"We did manage to get through the Malfoy wards with no trace, and everyone knows it." Harry hesitated. "Of course, we don't have the ward details and a ready-made plan this time, and they know we're coming, too. At the very least they're expecting me. It could be a way to wear me down."
"That just means we won't have to be quiet," George murmured. The look in his eyes was familiar to Harry; the intent focus that the man sometimes got when faced with a particularly interesting puzzle. "If we can find out what sort of opposition we're up against ..."
The Aurors on the other side of the wards would be safe for now, but that wouldn't help the patrols outside. As one Harry and George turned away from the wards and started to cast one careful, insidious detection spell after the other. There were more effective spells out there, but they had deliberately picked the ones intended to remain unnoticed even by the most sensitive of wards and defences.
They moved outwards with extreme caution and for that reason, perhaps, it took a while to find the first Auror patrol – though, in the Aurors' defence, they were as close to invisible as a group of five people could be. The patrol was clearly on high alert. Harry honestly wasn't sure he would have spotted them if they hadn't been searching for them.
Three of them moved with the silent efficiency of trained fighters. The last two, both significantly younger, looked like trainees or only recently graduated Aurors to Harry.
Look better trained than we hoped, George mused through their bond. Older ones at least.
Veterans, Harry agreed. They had the age and the cautiousness for it. He wondered if it was the same for the rest of the patrols and the Aurors inside the wards. He couldn't imagine the Notts would accept Auror trainees as their last line of defence.
They followed the patrol silently for an hour to learn what they could before they continued their careful sweep of the surroundings. In the end they found three patrols outside the wards and a fourth group stationed inside the wards, based on fragments of conversations they picked up.
Harry had hoped to find someone to Imperius into revealing the finer details of the trap, but none of the Aurors were ever alone and the alternatives – Stun the lot of them, for one – was asking to raise the alarm. One missed check-in and their cover would be blown.
Two hours later they were gone again the same way they arrived and just as carefully unseen.
"It's an expensive operation," George concluded the following evening at Grimmauld.
They were still careful not to let anything about George draw attention. He was in the shop come opening time, just as he always was. A little tired, maybe, but he had been up most of the night, struck by inspiration for a new prank, and that was worth a little misery in the morning, if anyone should wonder too much.
Harry had spent the day organising what they had discovered and by the time George appeared, there were a number of maps and ward notes.
"Fifteen Aurors outside the wards, maybe more we don't know about, and an additional team on the inside. We don't know how many Aurors are in the manor, but we can probably assume there won't be trainees in that bunch."
George's eyes flickered across the maps where they had marked the patrols they had seen. "They won't be able to keep it going for long. Fifteen Aurors minimum, probably twenty, and three shifts a day. That's a solid percentage of active-duty Aurors, and if they want to keep it secret, too ... bloody miracle they've managed to keep it quiet enough that Bones hasn't heard about it. Everyone trusts Hufflepuffs."
He glanced up and met Harry's eyes. "You know they didn't even put that sort of force into the fight against Voldemort."
"Half of them were Voldemort toadies to begin with." Harry shrugged. "And he would have slaughtered the lot of them regardless. I'm a safer target."
"Might be safer if you weren't," George said, a considering look in his eyes. "Might be safer if they thought twice about going after you."
Harry thought about the patrol, about Susan and the Aurors he had known, about Moody and Tonks and Shacklebolt, and let out a slow breath. "Maybe."
If it had just been himself, there would have been nothing to consider. With George to think about as well ... the Aurors were innocent for the most part, but George was a friend. George was family, George was a follower, Harry's with everything that implied, and if it came to it, Harry would see the world burn before he willingly let it harm his family.
George changed the topic before the silence could grow awkward, his point made. "We have a couple of things at the shop that would have been useful, but the patrols are too scattered. Even if we got all of them, all we'd need is one missed check-in or Auror to sound the alarm and we're done for."
"Stealth, then?" He paused and traced the ward-line with his fingers. "The Notts will run at the first sign of fighting, and we need to take down the wards to get close to the manor. I'll need to raise wards of our own to keep them trapped, far enough out that whatever else we cast can't interfere with it."
"Fair chance the Aurors will spot it. Not arguing," George said, "we definitely need it, but some of them looked like pretty experienced Aurors. The trainees will miss it, they won't notice that close to the Nott wards, but the older ones? They have to have learned this sort of thing."
"Stealth for as long as it'll work," Harry conceded. "Hopefully we'll be able to get to the Nott wards without being spotted. After that ... they'll know we're there, anyway, once the wards fall. Speed'll be better than stealth, then, I reckon."
"Get close, raise our wards, dodge the patrols, wreck the Nott wards with Fiendfyre, and burn the manor down for the grand finale?" George mused. "They'll know we're there, but if we can't stay hidden, anyway, Fiendfyre took down the Lestrange wards pretty fast. Throw in an Invigoration Draught or two as well. You sounded pretty sure about raising those wards on your own. If you can do that ... it would be risky but doable."
He made it sound so simple. Still ... "Best plan we've got," Harry admitted. "I'll need to talk to Hermione, she found the anti-Floo ward in one of the books, and I know I saw one that blocked house-elves as well."
"Wouldn't ask her about that one," George agreed. "Not unless you want an earful."
Harry didn't know for sure if the Notts had a house-elf, but they were rich and important enough and with a Dark Lord after them ... they would be idiots not to have one, if nothing else for the ability to escape an attack.
The Floo ward was complicated. The house-elf one somehow detoured around 'complicated' and headed straight for 'headache'. Harry wasn't about to ask Hermione, though, and with their training for the Malfoy Wards he had enough experience to work it out on his own.
It still took him a day and a half – and several honest apologies to Mute, who had to test the ward – but it worked. If he had been more of a Ravenclaw, he would have wondered if the downright strange magic of house-elves had something to do with the difficulties of the ward.
As it was, he was just grateful that he managed to work out the bloody thing.
They struck on Friday. Enough time for Harry to get the proper ward combination down, enough time for the Aurors to hopefully lose their edge a little, but not long enough that the ambush had been called off by impatient higher-ups.
Once they started they would need to work fast. Both Harry and George knew it. They had to assume the Aurors would spot the new wards the moment they went up – it wasn't a given, the magic of the Nott wards might drown it out, but they had to act as if it was – and that gave them precious little time to act.
Harry substituted power for finesse and threw in the some of the blood magic he had learned from the Black library and practised with George. After half an hour of non-stop casting, the wards that rose blocked everything they knew could be an issue – Apparition, Portkeys, Floo, and house-elves – and the only bypass was Harry's blood, willingly given. An exemption based on his own and George's magic took time and power, and would have added several more components to an already complicated string of spells. Even adding George's blood would have made it more complicated than they could afford.
Harry stumbled when the last spell snapped into place, but George was there and held him upright. A bottle of Invigoration Draught cleared his head and banished the fatigue, though he knew from painful experience that the sudden rush of energy did nothing to help on his concentration. George downed a bottle of Polyjuice for disguise. Harry didn't bother.
A small cut on his arm and two quick Portus spells saw their robes turned into Portkeys for Grimmauld. George grimaced slightly at the blood on his clothes but didn't argue.
They were half a mile from the Nott wards, far enough to let the Fiendfyre spell work without interfering with Harry's wards, and they crossed the last distance by broom and with frequent detection spells.
It was silent – too silent, perhaps – but they arrived by the wards without problem and George shrunk and pocketed the brooms even as Harry raised his wand.
The wards might be temporary, but that did not make them weak.
George grabbed his arm the moment before he could cast. "The manor."
It took a moment before Harry spotted what he had seen. Light in several windows, and more lightning up by the second. "They know we're here. No point in stealth, then."
Fiendfyre awoke with a low snarl and a blast of scorching heat. A curled-up phoenix at first that spread its wings and proceeded to grow into monstrous proportions. Several dragons and a three-headed hydra-Basilisk abomination followed to become a towering wall of flames that slammed into the wards with a deafening roar.
Magic groaned, a deep sound that Harry felt all the way to his bones. Another wall of Fiendfyre rose, crested, and fell upon the wards as an army of fire-beasts.
The groaning deepened and with a flare brighter than daylight, the wards collapsed under the onslaught.
"Incoming!" George shouted over the roar of flames.
Harry blinked the spots from his eyes and brought the disjointed Fiendfyre back together into one massive wall again. George's shield lit up in the corner of his eye, and Harry risked spitting his attention when the first spell impacted.
One part of his mind on the living fire, Harry cast a Protego horribilis. Not as strong as it could be, nor as quick to cast, but it was there and would have to do. He could manage nothing else when his Fiendfyre was just waiting for a flicker of inattention to come after him.
Two more spells impacted George's shields from somewhere in the darkness, barely a heartbeat apart, and Harry turned to help him. They would need to deal with the Auror patrol before they could do anything else. Just five people, several of them trainees – how the bloody hell did they stay that well-hidden even when they cast?
He couldn't split his attention between three spells, but he had no qualms about using Fiendfyre on them. Eradicate the patrol, then feed the spell whatever power and focus it needed to destroy the manor.
A manticore split from the inferno and leapt high to land in front of them, taking out several trees on its way. The ground hissed beneath its paws and then it moved, shifting between forms – manticore, hippogriff, thestral – as it hurled like a fireball through the darkness in the direction of the spells.
There was a flash of colour behind him, something yellowish purple – not an Unforgivable – and he half-turned a second too late. With no time or attention left to spare, Harry braced and let it hit.
His shield flared brightly, held for a painful second, and then collapsed in a blinding flash. Purple light and searing pain exploded across his chest. His concentration was shattered, his control of his magic with it, and with a triumphant roar the wall of Fiendfyre rose tall and free.
Someone gripped his arm – George, that magic was George's – and shouted something Harry couldn't understand.
The sharp tug of a Portkey, of spinning and nausea and pain –
Then nothing.
"- the potions, but -"
His chest hurt. Breathing hurt.
"- four here and Ern-"
It smelled like potions and sterile hospital. His heart said Hogwarts but some slightly more clear-headed part of him knew it wasn't.
Another breath. His chest really, really hurt. He wondered if he could just stop.
"-rry! Keep breathing! Ge-"
Magic settled cool and soothing against the pain in his chest.
He slept.
The next time Harry woke up, he managed to open his eyes. He recognised the room as a spare bedroom in Grimmauld, with thin, white curtains that let in just enough light to see but not be blinding.
He took a breath and it took a few disoriented seconds to grasp that he didn't hurt and even longer to remember why this was a surprise.
"Mate? Bloody hell, you scared a decade off of us." Ron's voice, somewhere to his side. Harry risked a cautious turn of his head.
Ron looked like shit. Exhausted, with dark circles under bloodshot eyes, and a healer's robe that had seen better days. Relieved, though. Very, very relieved.
"There was a spell ..." Harry trailed off as he tried to piece the memory together. "Some sort of Dark cutting curse? It went through my Protego horribilis. Barely slowed it down."
Ron looked grim. "Cutting curse? That thing was made to target a dragon. It's a bloody miracle you survived. We asked around based on your injuries and what George saw, and Charlie recognised it. Probably a personal variation, it was a lot Darker than the one Charlie had heard of, and we haven't been able to find any references in the library."
That explained the pain. Harry took a slow breath, then risked a look at his chest. There were no bandages, just a thin sheen of some ointment or another where the spell had struck. The scar was broad and vivid red and stretched from his right shoulder, across his chest and almost to his left hip.
"How long?" Harry finally asked.
"Four days. Your shield weakened it enough that you survived the initial strike, and your armour took a lot of the rest. I did what I could until Ernie arrived. We've taken turns watching you once you were out of the woods." Ron shook his head. "Ernie reckons your magic kept you alive for long enough that we could actually do something. The residue of that thing had burned through most of your ribs by the time we managed to stop it. He says you shouldn't even be alive, but ..."
"Boy Who Wouldn't Bloody Die," Harry finished quietly. "Yeah. Sounds about right."
Comfortable silence settled. Harry didn't feel like moving much just yet.
"Hermione's asleep. She took the night shift," Ron eventually said. "George is at the shop. The others know you got injured, but we've kept them up to date. I let them know you're awake."
The memories were still a little scattered, but he had pierced most of them back together now. "I got cocky."
"Cocky or unlucky. Or lucky, maybe, since you're still alive." Ron was unusually still in his chair. "All it takes is one lucky shot. Voldemort died to an Expelliarmus."
"I know." One lucky shot, and he didn't have a sliver of Voldemort's soul to save him this time.
Silence settled again. Long minutes later Ron spoke again.
"The Prophet calls you the Fiendfyre Lord. Fourteen dead, including those in the manor. No one but us seem to know you were wounded. If anyone still alive had seen, they would have told someone. There would have been articles. They would have pressed their advantage when they had the chance."
The Fiendfyre Lord. The wizarding world liked their titles. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, Harry supposed.
"George got out safe?" He assumed so, since Ron hadn't mentioned any injuries, but he had to ask.
"Few scratches. Nothing dangerous. Couple of spells took care of it without a single scar. The others know about him now, but he doesn't mind, said it was probably overdue. You bore the brunt of it."
As he should have. This was all Harry's idea, Harry that got George involved. If anyone should end up with near-fatal injuries, it was only fair it was him.
"Get some rest, mate. It'll be time for another round of potions soon enough."
Harry didn't bother to argue. Not with exhaustion sneaking up on him already. Instead he closed his eyes and surrendered to oblivion again.
Harry was up and moving the following day under Ron and Hermione's watchful eyes. Still tired, still sore, but well enough that he felt restless in bed.
Ernie skipped lunch at St Mungo's and appeared around noon to check up on him.
He took one look at Harry, a little tired and worn and in the middle of catching up on five days worth of letters, and shook his head.
"You shouldn't be up. You shouldn't even be breathing. Bloody hell." Half exasperation, half reluctant admiration. He was starting to sound like a healer.
"I feel beat," Harry admitted. "Can't stay in bed, though, it drives me up the wall."
Ernie nodded absently even as he started casting, one spell after the other with the ease that came only with long practice. Harry recognised a number of them from his many visits to the Hogwarts hospital wing.
"You're healing as you should. Pretty much all patched up, actually. The scar?"
Harry shrugged off his shirt and let Ernie take a look at the wide, angry red mark. "It feels fine. I've tried worse."
Basilisk venom. The Cruciatus. Voldemort's possession. Even the aftermath of his second encounter with the Killing Curse, the soreness from which had lingered for weeks. Against that, the slight pull from the scar when he moved was barely noticeable.
"Honestly, I think that made a good part of the difference." Another couple of spells targeted at the scar before Ernie lowered his wand. "You don't see people walking away from repeated amounts of that sort of damage on a regular basis, but there's a theory that goes that your magic remembers. You see it mostly in older Master Aurors or senior curse-breakers. Particularly lucky, reckless spellcrafters and certain parts of the Knockturn population, too. Their magic grows used to the punishment and keeps them alive through things that would have killed most other people."
He dug a jar of something green out of a pocket and handed it to Harry. "It says a lot about the sorry state of our world that a twenty-year-old managed to build up that sort of resilience through seven years of Hogwarts schooling. Here, put a thin layer on the scar once a day for the next week. I'll take a look at it again after that and see if another week would help. You'll scar permanently, no way around it, but that'll keep it a little less. Other than that, you're doing well. Exceptionally so for someone who was at Death's door five days ago. Rest and listen to your body, healer's orders."
Harry nodded. "I will. I – thank you, Ernie."
For everything, he didn't need to say. Ernie got it just fine and nodded seriously in turn.
"If all we can do to help is this, then we'll do that," he said. "I gave a four-year-old part vampire her inoculations last week. A shy little thing with a skin rash when she gets too much sunlight. Her only crime was to have a great-grandfather of vampire blood. Half a year ago, that crime would have seen her refused by the wards. Her and her mother both."
He was silent for a long time. Harry didn't interrupt.
"There are plenty of people that don't want anything to do with werewolves, but you'll be hard pressed to find a lot of healers worth their oath who agree with barring children like her from St Mungo's. Dark creatures are dangerous in the wrong circumstances. Most part-humans aren't, no more than any other wizard or witch. St Mungo's does not side with Dark Lords. St Mungo's does not agree with senseless murders. Officially, St Mungo's is appalled by what you're doing."
"And unofficially?" Harry asked when Ernie fell silent.
"A healer's oath is no more binding than a Muggle doctor's is. There is a reason why most known Death Eaters used private healers, and it had nothing to do with being richer or more important than the rest of us. There are a lot of healers who lost family and friends to Voldemort's reign of terror and want revenge enough that their oaths come second or, at the very least, get bent something fierce. Unofficially? As long as this is all you do, as long as you don't go on murderous rampages against innocents – if Ron or I can't get there in time, you have allies at St Mungo's. Enough that you'd be safe. Probably even enough that you could escape before the Aurors hauled you off to a Ministry cell when you were stabilised."
"That could bring the Ministry down on your heads. They only just agreed to allow the Dark creatures treatment again."
Ernie's smile was sharp and thin. "Even Voldemort had sympathisers on staff. The Ministry does not dare interfere with St Mungo's itself. Barring Dark creatures and those of that blood from the hospital was pushing it already. What will they do? Put a healer on trial for saving a life, even that of a Dark Lord? For obeying the oath they took? No. The Ministry stays clear of that."
It was a lot of information, a lot of behind-the-scenes things that Harry had no idea even existed. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised.
"You have allies," Ernie repeated. "As long as you're alive, we have something to work with. We can't bring you back from the dead, but we could probably find a way to keep you out of Ministry hands."
To someone who had never had real support, who had never had anyone on his side but his two best friends, that thought was equally strange and oddly comforting.
George appeared that evening after the store in Diagon had closed for the night, bearing a folded paper and dinner from Molly Weasley.
"You look like you got into a fight with one of Hagrid's beasties."
"And lost," Harry admitted. He pulled out his shirt a little and peered down at the vivid red skin. "Ernie says it'll scar. At least it doesn't look like a lightning bolt."
George snorted. "Considering how you looked when I got you back here, you're lucky it's just a scar. I think I've got a few grey hairs with your name on it after that."
"Yeah. I'm sorry about that." Harry took a deep breath. He was still a little surprised he could do that without pain. He remembered very well just how much it had hurt in those flickers of awareness. "Thank you. For getting me out of there." He hesitated. "I'm pretty sure I would have died. I – if there's anything I can do -"
"You're family." George reached out and ruffled his hair. "Ickle Harrykins. If we're counting life-debts, we've got a long way to go to break even."
And Harry would have done the same for him, he didn't need to say. Harry swallowed against the sudden lump in his throat.
"Still."
"You could eat your dinner," George suggested. "Mum's not going to be happy otherwise."
He was a little hungry. His stomach, in full agreement, growled loudly. Still, there was one more thing he had to ask about. "The Notts? Ron mentioned everyone in the manor died."
George unfolded the paper, four days old by the date on it. Nott Family Massacre! Aurors Dead! Dark Lord Potter Strikes Again!
"We got three of them, including Dougal Nott. The runt hid somewhere else. They were smart enough not to keep the whole family there. Supposedly they all had emergency Portkeys. Didn't do them a lot of good with the additional wards. Once you lost control of the Fiendfyre, everything burned too fast to get out. Most of the Aurors outside the wards got away. The five inside died with the Notts."
"Do we know who hit me?"
"It was a little Dark for an Auror, but the Notts were all hiding in the manor according to Susan and the Prophet. Maybe a pure-blood. There are all sorts of grandfathering laws when it comes to the Dark Arts and family spells. We were pretty close to the Fiendfyre when you got hit. My best guess is that whoever it was died to Fiendfyre. The spell came from the direction of the manor."
Harry nodded. A few more of the pieces fell into place. He would probably never be able to remember all of those panicked seconds, but he could pick up enough from his friends to form a reasonably complete picture.
"My shield should have handled it, but with my attention split between it and the Fiendfyre ... I assumed anything the Aurors would cast would be Unforgivable or too weak to get through the shield, anyway."
"Bit of a miscalculation." There was none of the usual glint of dark humour in George's expression. "Good thing it wasn't the Killing Curse."
Harry swallowed against the lump in his throat. "I – that one, I can tell. The magic feels familiar. But point made: Don't get cocky."
"Don't get cocky," George agreed. "That's what get ickle Dark Lords killed."
Ron and Hermione sat him down the next day. He was doing a lot better and the same seemed to be the case with them. They had both lost the tired look and dark circles around their eyes, at least.
"We have a problem," Ron told him bluntly. "Remember the effects of the Vow?"
Harry resisted the urge to touch his throat. The memories of being choked to death by magic still showed up occasionally in his nightmares. "Vividly."
"Yeah. Thing is, back when it happened, you felt the effects and it scared the lot of us, but that was it."
Harry had the sinking feeling he was not going to like this conversation. Hermione proved him right a moment later.
"We were wrong when we assumed the effects from the Marks would be instant. That they would be constant. The bond has grown stronger. Enough so that we felt you nearly die twice. Ron almost Apparated to you before George managed to get you home, and I wasn't far behind. It did not let up afterwards, either. We needed Dreamless Sleep to get any rest while you were unconscious. The effects only eased when you slipped into proper sleep. Distance made it worse – I tried to Apparate to the Hideaway as a test and nearly splinched myself in the process."
"The bond?"
"The bond," Hermione agreed.
A few pieces clicked into place. That explained why Ron had looked so miserable when Harry had woken up. He had spent plenty of time in Poppy Pomfrey's care at Hogwarts, but neither of them had looked quite that worried back then. Worried enough, certainly, but never that wrecked.
Harry was silent for long seconds as he tried to make that new information fit with what he already knew. He had read the pages with the spell thoroughly before he cast it. He had done exactly as it had described – well, as much as he could, when the directions were vague at best in places.
"That wasn't supposed to happen. The book didn't mention that." They would have noticed, one of them – it wasn't a long spell, no more than a handful of pages. It would have mentioned it somewhere, wouldn't it? "Did – I could have cast it wrong. It's a possibility."
"You didn't," Hermione dismissed his concern. "Everything else matched the descriptions in the book. Soul magic is fickle. We would have known if you had cast it wrong. I read the book again, cover to cover, and couldn't find anything about that sort of effects from the bond. It has never reacted to any injuries when we've practised, so it seems to only be the serious injuries – or, perhaps, the bond itself understands the intent behind the injuries."
Sentient soul magic. Ice settled in Harry's stomach as the reality of that possibility sank in. The strengthened bond hadn't been their doing. Not consciously, at least, or maybe that particular effect of the bond had simply been kept out of the book. Maybe the bond had simply reacted because he had been very, very close to dying.
He preferred to think that was the case. The idea of sentient soul magic that acted without their knowledge or consent was ... not something Harry wanted to dwell on.
"For now." He took a slow breath as he realised something else. "Only the serious injuries for now. You didn't get the effects when the Vow tried to kill me. You said it's getting stronger."
Hermione nodded. Ron didn't speak. Harry suspected they had probably spent a lot of time going through that same sort of conversation while he had been out of it.
Several more pieces fell into place. "Is that why we can't sleep apart?"
He never considered it much past that first night – his sleep had been so much better that nothing else really seemed to matter, and Ron and Hermione had agreed. Friendship and shared trauma, Hermione had said once. They slept miserably alone because they subconsciously didn't feel safe.
"Very likely."
Harry hesitated. "Is there any way to break it?"
"No." They had definitely discussed it earlier, her response was too sure for anything else. "It was permanent and unbreakable the moment we cast it. We could no more remove the bond than we could remove our own magic."
That explained a lot. There was always a catch, wasn't there? And he had wondered why no one else had decided to use it. "... So that's why soul magic is ten years in Azkaban."
The potential for abuse was staggering. He had never thought of it like that, none of them had, but if the bond kept growing stronger … even cast with the best of intentions, the amount of ways it could go terribly, terribly wrong was sobering. And if it had been cast with less pure intentions, if someone had found a way to change the spell just a little ... that thing could have become a slave brand instead. No wonder it was illegal. No wonder it was never cast. No wonder that was the sort of magic that had eventually become the basis for the Dark Mark.
"That's why soul magic is ten years in Azkaban," Hermione agreed quietly.
Harry wondered how the Vow had let him cast it at all. Maybe because none of them had known. Maybe because Hermione had agreed with it. He doubted they would ever know for sure.
"You said distance made it worse?"
"When you were still unconscious, at least," Hermione said. "It might … we don't know how it will act later on. If it will grow increasingly stronger still. If it has been slowly strengthening, and we simply didn't notice until your life was in danger, or if it happened specifically because of that. If whoever wrote that book – if the person they shared a bond with was never in danger like that, they might never have known."
Or maybe the author of the book had followed that pull of Apparition like Ron almost had, and had died with whomever they had shared that bond with. Harry didn't say it, and he didn't need to.
"The blood-bond in the jewellery?"
"That bond is blood magic, not soul magic," Hermione replied. "And far better researched and documented. They're safe. If it came to that, the destruction of the physical vessels of the spell would break the bond. It's not woven into their magic and soul." She hesitated. "I suppose the same methods could be used to break a bond based on soul magic. The destruction of the physical vessels."
That was a very delicate way of saying death.
"All right." Harry nodded slowly and tried to pick up everything he had just learned. "Unbreakable, likely to continue to grow stronger, a downright liability if one of us get seriously hurt, and if we're very lucky, it's sentient, too." He paused. "So ... if Ron found a girlfriend?"
This time Ron was the one to answer. "Bloody awkward, I assume." He grimaced. "A lot of explaining to do, at least."
That wasn't even getting into the worst case scenario that he didn't doubt they had already considered. If the bond reacted that strongly to mortal danger – what would it do if one of them died?
"Bloody hell," he breathed. "I – bloody hell. I'm sorry."
Hermione's expression turned equal parts stubborn and defiant. "I found the spell. I suggested it. I was the one who didn't research it well enough, who just – just took that book's word for it! Soul magic! From the Black library! And I didn't look for a second opinion!"
"We all bloody well agreed to cast it!" Ron said loudly, before an argument could break out. "It's nobody's fault. Or all of us, either way." He shrugged. "Can't do anything about it. Just got to live with it now. At least we don't have a skull and snake on our arms."
Point.
Harry took a slow breath. Nodded. They would deal, one way or another. There was nothing else they could do now.
Deal, and be a lot more careful with unfamiliar spells in the future.
The Dark Lord Potter wrote Auror Trainee Bones seven days after the disastrous trap. Harry channelled his best Lucius Malfoy impression, tempered by the Lord Potter who still considered Susan a former comrade-in-arms.
A trap, Auror Trainee? I would be disappointed if it hadn't allowed me to reduce most of the Nott family tree to ashes.
I consider us even now. Warn your masters I will not show that same leniency again.
That's more than I could have hoped for, I think. Thank you, Harry. And I'm sorry, for what it's worth.
Auror Trainee Bones took less than a day to reply. Her superiors had helped write it, as always, but the apology had been all Susan. She had insisted, and they had eventually caved.
If it had been real, Susan later explained to Harry, if she had genuinely just tried to get him captured or killed, she would have wanted to apologise. Despite it all – the murders, the Dark magic, the Unforgivables – he was still Harry, still the person who taught her to defend herself, and she owed him that.
After careful consideration, Susan's superiors reluctantly decided that no, Harry would never trust her again, and that they had wasted their one chance. The spells around Susan's home changed slightly around the same time. No one mentioned the spells had been there already, but the DMLE sent out an official team, with Susan's knowledge, to raise a set of 'new' wards to alert the Senior Auror on duty of hostile spells within the area.
Harry didn't approve of the way they had used Susan as bait, but at least they gave some thought to her safety now that their plan had failed. The wards would have done little to stop Voldemort – and only marginally more to stop Harry, if he had genuinely wanted revenge – but at least they didn't just ignore the possibility.
Susan wasn't overly impressed, either, but at least they no longer had to keep up their Auror-approved correspondence.
Two days later, when Harry was properly back on his feet again and the lingering soreness was mostly gone, he pulled Anthony aside after one of the casual group dinners they had whenever schedules lined up.
"I need you to find an address for me."
Anthony nodded slowly, curiosity plain in his eyes. "All right. Who?"
"Dolores Umbridge."
Anthony's answering smile was all teeth.
Harry had the address in hand less than a day later. Umbridge might have been fired after the war, but the criminal investigation of her had ground to a halt since the defeat of Voldemort. She did not have Malfoy's financial resources, but she still had enough connections and the intimate knowledge of Ministry bureaucracy to cause any number of difficulties for the DMLE. Harry wouldn't be surprised if she had blackmail on a number of people, too – she managed to get away with far too much otherwise.
George took one look at the address and his eyes lit up with vindictive joy.
"Well, well. The Toad herself."
"Her birthday is on the twenty-sixth of this month." Harry's lips curled in a smile every bit as malicious as George's. "I thought it might be proper to pay our respects."
"The former Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic herself? Oh, definitely," George agreed. "The proper thing to do. Wouldn't want to be known as uncultured blood-traitors, now would we?"
A birthday present to every last half-blood and Muggle-born and part-human that ever had to deal with her. Harry had certainly wished for that often enough in his fifth year.
The Umbridge home was surprisingly opulent. Nowhere near Malfoy-levels, of course, but still. The position as the right hand of the Minister for Magic seemed to have paid exceedingly well. That, or the woman had found other means to supplement her income. Fudge had accepted numerous bribes. There was no reason why his Undersecretary shouldn't have done the same.
The wards were not exactly on the level of a proper pure-blood manor, but they were still surprisingly strong for common wards.
Umbridge probably knew she had enemies and was smart enough to act accordingly. Those wards still wouldn't keep Harry out, but they would be enough to persuade most other attackers to give up.
"Fiendfyre?" George asked after their first night of reconnaissance. "She'd be dead before she even noticed the wards fall. Won't give us useful information, but she'll be thoroughly dead."
An option, definitely. The easiest and safest, too. Still …
"I want her to know." Harry looked up from the mess of notes on the table to meet George's eyes. "I want her to know why she's going to die. I want her to know that no amount of simpering or threats or Unforgivables will save her life this time. I want to be the last thing that miserable creature sees before she dies."
George was silent for long seconds. Then he smiled, a dark expression mirrored by an unholy glow in his eyes. "A little bit of personal payback, your Lordship? You say the sweetest things. Take down the wards carefully, then. Give her no warning."
"They're strong, but nowhere near as dangerous as the Malfoy ones. With the right spells, we can get through them easily." The right spells, a number of which they already knew, and enough power to make up for the rest.
Umbridge lived alone. There would be no one to help her. No one to complicate matters.
"The twenty-sixth, then," George agreed. "Past midnight. A proper birthday present."
Maybe they both took a little too much delight in what they were about to do. As far bigger part of Harry knew she deserved every last bit of it, and plenty more. Revenge – for themselves, for Hogwarts, and for every last lesser being she had ruined or killed.
Harry and George had experience with ward-spells from the Malfoy murder, and they had made a point to continue learning more afterwards. Some spells required enough power that Harry alone of the two could manage them. Some spells needed multiple wands to work. Others still had to be done silently, or wandlessly, or any other of a dozen requirements they had stumbled across.
They had trained to take down some of the strongest wards gold could buy. As a result of that practice, the wards around the Umbridge home lasted less than fifteen minutes against them. It would have been far less if they hadn't wanted to do it completely undetected.
As expected, their spells only revealed one person in the house, and few other security measures beyond the wards.
The locked front door was easily opened, and the home beyond it was much like Harry had imagined based on the woman's office in Hogwarts.
Mostly pink, with an alarming amount of kitten paraphernalia. It would have been cluttered, if everything hadn't obviously been put up with a disturbing amount of precision, the space between each and every item perfectly even and just so.
A large, white Kneazle – meticulously groomed and with a pink ribbon around its neck – hissed at them as they entered the house. George took it out with a Stunner.
The staircase was covered by a thick, pink rug that swallowed all sound of footsteps and gave the place an almost claustrophobic feel. The kitten motifs continued on the first floor, from the wallpaper and to the many pictures and decorative plates on the walls. The number of painted eyes watching them was somewhat creepy and more than a little unnerving.
They followed their spell to the location of the only other human in the building – a large room at the end of the hallway with the door partially open and the sound of deep breathing coming from inside.
A Stunner from George took care of Umbridge, while a string of spells made sure she didn't carry anything that could be tracked. To both of their relief, the woman was wearing heavy, conservative night-robes, though George cast a quick spell to change the sickening pink to something less eyes-watering.
Another handful of spells to erase their tracks and they were gone again, though Harry knew he would need a long time to forget that he had been in Dolores Umbridge's bedroom.
Everything had been set up in the larger of the Lestrange safe-houses by the time they woke her up again. A Full Body-Bind kept her from moving at all, and only the sinking comprehension in her unmoving eyes revealed that she was awake and aware at all.
Harry crouched in front of her chair and held out a small bottle of perfectly clear potion. He waited long enough for Umbridge to get the chance to realise what it was before he spoke.
"Veritaserum," Harry confirmed, never looking away from her. The hatred had returned the moment they spotted her in the bedroom, a whole year of torture and harassment and pent-up fury, and the scar on the back of his hand stung in a way it hadn't done in years.
"We are going to take everything from you," he continued mercilessly. "Every bit of blackmail. Every dirty little deal. Everything you helped someone cover up. And then we're going to use it to take down every last worthless Voldemort sympathiser still left in your precious Ministry. The wizarding world will burn. And you will help us."
He smiled, sharp and vicious, and watched the mounting fear in her eyes with no small amount of satisfaction.
"And when you've told us everything you know, I'm going to be merciful and allow you a swift death. That is far more than Voldemort would have granted most of us. Consider it an unusually generous birthday gift."
Harry and George returned to the Umbridge home three hours later with a dead body – Killing Curse; Harry had kept his word – and the directions to a large, heavily protected trunk embedded in the floor where Umbridge had kept the evidence of a number of things nobody wanted to have made public knowledge. They had been right about the blackmail and Umbridge, bureaucrat to the bone, had kept meticulous records for herself. Some of it was useless now, the people in question already dead by Harry's hand, but far more would still be valuable information.
They would let the outcry die out. They would let Umbridge be forgotten. They would let people believe that the evidence had been lost with the woman herself and would never reappear.
And then, in months or years, they would bring it out again and see just how useful that information was when it came to bending the Wizengamot and the Ministry to their will.
The murder of Dolores Umbridge made front-page news in the Prophet.
Ron and Hermione knew already. Hermione still carefully cut out the article and saved it. Harry strongly suspected she wasn't the only former Hogwarts student to do just that.
The Holyhead Harpies held their try-outs in early September. True to Luna's prediction, Ginny did spectacularly. A year of training past Hogwarts had honed her skills, and she gladly accepted the position of reserve Chaser she was offered.
The Harpies didn't seem to care in the least about her family's suspected association with a Dark Lord. Harry wasn't even surprised. The Harpies had a brutal reputation, and not just on the Quidditch field.
Harry risked a visit to the Burrow two days later, both to congratulate Ginny and to reassure Molly Weasley – again – that he was doing good and was healing just fine, honest.
Luna greeted him with a bright smile and went to fetch Mrs. Weasley in the orchard. For the first time in longer than Harry could readily remember he found himself alone with Ginny.
"I heard about the Harpies," Harry said before the silence could get too awkward. "Congratulations. You deserve it. You've trained hard."
Ginny shifted a little and looked as unsure about the situation as Harry felt. "Thank you. I'm – I like them. I really wanted the position." She took a deep breath. "George – George mentioned ..."
She didn't finish the sentence, but the way her eyes drifted to his chest said the rest.
"I'm fine now." Harry hesitated. "It'll scar and I think I racked up a life-debt, but it's almost healed. I'm fine."
Ginny nodded. She shifted again, a little unsure, and then she crossed the room in a half-run and hugged him like the world depended on it. Strong and fierce and clingy, and then she let go again before her mother could arrive and see it.
And if her eyes were a little wet and her skin a little paler than usual, Harry knew better than to mention it.
Hermione turned twenty-one on the nineteenth of September. They celebrated like they did all of their birthdays: with a bottle of Firewhisky as they waited for the stroke of midnight.
They raised their glasses when the first heavy chime of the grandfather clock rung through the house. Ron was the first to speak, lips twisted in a bitter mockery of a smile.
"To long life," he began one of the traditional wizarding toasts.
"To strong heirs," Harry continued.
"And to the blessings of magic," Hermione finished softly. "And barring that ... may we be three days in heaven before the Devil knows we're dead."
They drank as one. Not to wizarding toasts, not to traditional blessings, but to a joking pledge shared by Seamus Finnigan in the Gryffindor common room what felt like a lifetime ago.
Harry and George went after another small manor in late September. The Wootton home did not have a Floo connection, but it used to, and that was enough for Anthony to find the address.
The Ministry did not get rid of records. Ever. Unless, of course, someone paid them enough and Talfryn Wootton had obviously never seen a reason to. The man was not a Marked Death Eater, nor did he have the influence or wealth to have earned himself serious enemies.
He did, however, serve as one of the assistants to the Wizarding Examinations Authority. A harmless-sounding job, Harry knew, that belied the fact that the man had access to the names and blood-status of every Hogwarts student – and a number of addresses as well – and knew which of the examiners that were flexible in their grading with the right incentive.
Have a child of a proper, pure family that didn't quite live up to the pure-blood standards? Galleons or a favour or two would pave the way for some respectable results on the exams. It wouldn't do to have an heir that flunked out of Hogwarts, after all. And if Madam Marchbanks kept a little too close of an eye on things? 'Re-testing' after 'summer tutoring' solved that problem. No need to bother the Governor of the Wizarding Examination Authority with such a minor thing.
Have a Muggle-born that wanted to retake an exam or lodge a complaint about their grading? Well, things tended to disappear in the Ministry. Applications, after all, had to be filled out just so. Wootton would not have made a particular competent Death Eater, but he was a master of bureaucracy and the art of arranging everything to the satisfaction of whoever paid him at any given time.
Avery and the Lestranges had known about him. Lucius Malfoy had considered him useful.
That alone had been enough to make up Harry's mind. He'd had bigger threats to go after first, of course, but Wootton remained on the list, slowly moving upwards as Harry got to work.
Wootton had kept his head down in the time between Voldemort's two reigns, but Harry had learned from Malfoy's memories and the Lestranges' interrogation that the man had done plenty of damage as it was. With the proper grades and the proper blood, you could get hired anywhere, and with a choice between a Muggle-born with good grades or a pure-blood with just as good ones? Harry knew exactly what the choice would be just about every time.
If the Muggle-born was a little too insistent that they had the right to be considered, too – or the right to employment, Merlin help them all – then Wootton could usually help with that as well. Fix a few grades, perhaps, as it obviously had to be a mistake that a Muggle-born had such good grades. Maybe find an address without the hassle of seeking out more obvious venues of information, where people might actually keep track of such things. Problems could be made to disappear, after all.
With a location and a target that wasn't an Inner Circle Death Eater, Harry's task became much easier.
They struck at night, as they usually did. The wards were reasonably acceptable, Harry supposed, but when he had seen the sort of wards the Malfoys and Blacks could boast, ordinary wards didn't even make him pause. Even the Lestranges' safe-house wards, temporary that they might have been, had been better, never mind the temporary Nott wards.
A lot could be said about Inner Circle Death Eaters, but most of them were magically strong and viciously competent. If they didn't raise their own wards, they had the gold and connections to get the best warders in the business to do it for them.
The Wootton wards were small enough that Harry's temporary anti-Portkey and Apparition wards easily encased them and stretched well beyond the property. Floo wouldn't be an issue when the house didn't have a connection anymore, broom was too exposed, and Wootton was nowhere near wealthy or important enough to warrant a house-elf.
George fired off one detection spell, frowned, then tried another. "There are some defences but they're useless. They only block the weakest spells around. Reckon he thinks he's good and safe, since he wasn't one of Voldemort's boot-lickers."
Harry cast a string of well-practised spells of his own and waited for the result. Useless turned out to be an accurate description. It only blocked the most basic of spells intended to figure out the number of people inside. The second, stronger one Harry cast went through the defences with ease.
A part of him knew that this was what ordinary wards tended to be. Simple wards that were either affordable or cast by wizards and witches with only the most basic of grounding in the art. Most homes were not set up with wards that would give even a Dark Lord pause. Most magicals did not expect to have to defend themselves against Aurors, or Death Eaters, or mortal enemies.
"Two humans, both on the second floor," George murmured.
Probably the man's wife. Wootton was married. He had a son, too, but the boy was older than Harry by several years and had long since moved out.
It would be easy to simply cast Fiendfyre and let the house burn to the ground. For a moment Harry was tempted. Then his grip on his wand tightened and he forced the impulse aside.
"If it's his wife, she's got nothing to do with it. For that matter, we should probably make sure it's actually Wootton in that bed and not her lover or something."
George snorted. "Wouldn't blame her if it was. Intel, then?"
If they checked the man for anything that might be used to trace them, and made sure his wife was kept unconscious until the morning ... he wasn't likely to have anything like the protections Lucius Malfoy had kept around.
"Might as well." The man might not know all that much useful information, but still. The chance was there.
The house was almost disappointingly easy to break into. Fiendfyre would have been faster but even then, George and his own training with wards meant that that they were past in less than five minutes without triggering a single alarm in the process.
A few spells to open the door unseen. A number of detection spells throughout the house to check for traps – of which there were none. Two Stunners to take out the people in the bedroom, a quick check to ensure that the man was indeed their target, and another handful of spells to erase any tracks they might have left behind.
Harry tore down his own temporary wards with a flick of his wand and then they were gone with the sharp crack of Apparition, less than half an hour after they arrived.
By the first light of dawn, Wootton was dead and his body quietly disposed of. He wasn't a Death Eater, wasn't even a suspected one, and it would be easier for everyone if it couldn't immediately be pinned on Harry. He didn't doubt he would still be a suspect, but at least they wouldn't have any proof, and Wootton didn't fit his usual pattern of targets.
They did have another stack of parchment to go through. Most was useless – things they already knew, or information they had no way of using – but there was always something. Sooner or later, something in that interrogation would prove useful.
Susan turned twenty-one in early October. As such she became of age to observe the Wizengamot debates before she would be able to claim her seat – as a member of a proper wizarding family in good standing – at the age of twenty-five. With no other living relatives with the Bones family name, it was a given she would claim her seat. The Abbott, Longbottom, and Macmillan families all had a seat, too, but those were currently claimed by older relatives, not one of them a day below seventy.
Neville would become an observer as well upon his birthday, as the only other Longbottom left, but both Hannah and Ernie had other relatives in line first. Not that it mattered that much. With two people there, Susan now and Neville come summer, they had the Wizengamot thoroughly covered.
With first-hand knowledge of Wizengamot politics and members, Harry's list of necessary targets became a lot more refined.
When the restrictions on part-humans eased further in mid-October, Susan was the one to explain the behind-the-scenes to him. Outsiders were not permitted to watch the regular meetings, not even a reporter from the Prophet. There were some vague explanations about choosing what was right and not catering to the masses by pursuing popular bills, but not even the Wizengamot itself seemed to give much credit to that. It was simply a way to avoid being blamed for more unsavoury deals and to push through bills to their own advantage without having to answer for them. The majority of the Wizengamot had no wish to see those rules about public accountability changed and so it remained, an elitist, antiquated system.
As it was, a number of Ministry and Ministry-controlled jobs had creature restrictions. No werewolves. No vampires. No giants, no hags, no half-anythings, no – well, these days Muggle-borns weren't specifically discriminated against, but it hadn't been all that long since they had been on the lists, too, Harry knew.
The most recent changes eased the part-humans restrictions and allowed wizards and witches like Teddy and Lavender to – in theory – hold a number of jobs they would otherwise have been banned from or would, in the very least, have needed a very good reason to get a special permission for.
Teddy's Metamorphmagus abilities would probably have granted him an exemption for the ban on werewolf blood in the Auror forces as it was. With the new changes, that exemption would never be necessary.
Harry was well aware that it was still just in theory and that in practice it would take a lot longer to take effect. It was a start, though.
"Very few people are willing to speak up too much against that sort of bill nowadays," Susan explained to him afterwards. "You've been ... thorough with your lists. Those who disagree aren't willing to risk drawing your attention by trying to block it. Those who agree ... most don't agree with what you're doing, but to block the bills for that reason alone would be idiocy."
"And might draw my attention," Harry added.
"And might draw your attention," Susan agreed. "The Wizengamot prides itself on never yielding to threats, but it has a long, inglorious history of caving at the first true show of force. Voldemort won it over through gold and blood. You haven't bothered with gold, but you have been liberal with blood. The Dark families aren't used to being the ones threatened. They're used to being ones on the right side. If it had been the Wizengamot of a year ago, it wouldn't have worked, but you've killed off the ringleaders since then. No one wants to take over those reins. Not when there's a Dark Lord just waiting for that sort of thing."
They fell silent. Mute reappeared with a fresh pot of tea. For a while that was all they focused on, the hot tea and the biscuits and the lingering silence.
"You don't agree with what I've done."
Susan made a tired sound. "No. It doesn't change the fact that it's necessary."
"I'd like to see the wizarding world turned into a genuine democracy one day," Harry admitted. "I don't know if it'll ever happen, this place has been run by Galleons and might-makes-right for so long, but ... it's a nice thought."
"Something for our children," Susan murmured. "An actual vampire teaching potions, and not just a teacher that everyone claimed was one. A Muggle Studies curriculum that isn't a joke. A Minister that isn't for sale more often than not. Trials that can't be rigged with the proper amount of Galleons or blackmail. Merlin, just a Minister that isn't a pure-blood would be a start. Even just a half-blood one."
She glanced at Harry. "It could probably have been you, in another world. The first known half-blood Minister for Magic. There might have been others but if there were, they hid it well."
"Maybe. I don't do politics very well. Hermione might have been the first Muggle-born one. She's not good with politics, either, but she has the drive and intelligence."
"A detour through the DMLE, maybe. The Aurors or the legal team. That route has bred several competent Ministers over the years." Susan trailed off and didn't speak for long moments. "Do you ever regret it?"
Harry paused, cup halfway to his mouth. "What could have been, you mean?" He put the cup back down and took the few seconds to gather his thoughts. "Not for the most part. There is little point in regrets anymore. I can't undo my decisions, even if I wanted to. Regrets do nothing to help me, and I won't belittle Ron and Hermione and George's choices like that, either. Do I wish it hadn't been necessary? Yes. Merlin, yes. It doesn't change the fact that I would do it all over again if I had to."
Susan watched him for a long time. "And if we managed one day? If the wizarding world became the place we want it to be?"
One day, so far into the future that Harry could not even imagine how that world might look. "Hypothetically speaking? Assuming we all survived? Assuming I didn't fall completely and someone had to stop me? I don't know," he admitted. "I never thought that far ahead. I never imagined I would live long enough to see it."
"Gryffindor," Susan sighed. There was a little fondness in the word, though, so he assumed that was all right.
"Part Slytherin, I'll have you know." Harry paused. "I think ... it would depend on Ron and Hermione, wouldn't it? I guess it would be nice to just retire. Some quiet place somewhere, well away from everyone and where no one would recognise me. Spend the rest of my life growing flowers or feeding stray cats or something. Just be Harry. Not Harry Potter, or the Boy Who Lived, or the Man Who Conquered, or the Saviour Turned Traitor or the Dark Lord Potter. Just Harry. Maybe I could even convince Ron and Hermione to join me."
"I suppose ... if you don't mind feeding the occasional stray badger or raven, we could always visit, too," Susan said softly.
"There would be tea and biscuits," Harry offered equally softly. "And whatever strange things we could pick in the garden."
They finished their tea in silence. Only then did Susan offer him a small, tired smile.
"I think," she said, "that sounds absolutely lovely."