A/N: Halfway through! Thanks for all the reviews. I hope/think in this chapter that Harry does "grow up" a little bit. Let me know what you think.

Chapter Ten – The Speech

Harry didn't have much time to worry about Snape for the next few days, save making sure that two meals a day were provided (meals that were, bizarrely, eaten). But he could devote no efforts to actually trying to bring Snape out of his catatonia, because far too much else was going on, and he would have given anything for a drink. But Hermione had charmed the house to not permit any drinking alcohol inside, and Harry had no ida what the countercharm was. It was true that he could go to the bar, but Ron seemed to be there in the evenings to make sure he wasn't. It looked as if Hermione was serious about getting him to stop drinking. And as good as her intentions might be, it still annoyed Harry.

That was really the least of his problems, though. It was only two days after the conversation with Hermione that Felix turned up in his house again. Again, it was in the middle of the night, and this time, Harry was even less inclined to go with him. He didn't even want to get out of bed, and so remained there while Felix shouted at him. For what, Harry didn't quite know, but he didn't really care, either.

When Felix finally calmed down, Harry asked him why it had been necessary to do this in the middle of the night instead of during the day, like a normal person.

Felix frowned. "Because that's not the only reason I came to talk to you."

"Oh yeah? So what's the other reason, then? That you like annoying me by waking me up at this hour?"

"We…well, we found Leroy."

Harry raised his eyebrows. That didn't sound too positive. "Where did you find him? And is he…well, is he alive?"

"No, he's not alive." Felix looked at the ground and then back at Harry, who was lying snugly in bed. "And it's going to cause even more uproar than we had feared. I mean, him being dead is bad enough. We can't hide that forever. But…how and where he was found…maybe we can keep that covered-up, but I doubt we will be able to forever…"

"Stop babbling, Felix. Where did you find him?"

"In his office, in his chair, propped up like he was working. His back was to the door, and from there…well, he looked like he could almost be alive…but turned around?" Felix visibly shuddered. "He's probably been dead since the night he disappeared. And bodies decompose pretty quickly."

Harry frowned. He was glad he hadn't seen that. "Okay. So what are you going to do about it? Are you going to make a statement to the press? And what are you going to do about a new Minister of Magic?" For it being so late, he was surprised how well his mind was working. He refused to believe that it was the fact that he hadn't been drinking. That had nothing at all to do with it.

Felix shook his head. "That's not what I came here to talk about."

"Then what?"

"We need you to make a statement. You need to be the one to tell the public that they've got nothing to worry about. You're Harry Potter…they'll believe you if you tell them that. They won't necessarily believe the Ministry, if we do it right after we tell them that the Minister of Magic was abducted, murdered, and then returned to his office. It doesn't look very good."

"So, what are you going to do? Make the statement, and then throw me on right after to make a speech about how wonderful everything will be? Another Minister of Magic tried to get me to do that, a long time ago, when I was still in school. I didn't do it then, and I won't do it now. I'm not a puppet for the Ministry to use." Harry still felt surprisingly calm. He wasn't even close to raising his voice. "I've never wanted to be a puppet for the Ministry to use, and so I'll let you deal with the fallout from it by yourself. After all Felix, you were the one that fired me. What do I owe you, or the Ministry?"

"Harry, we need your help. Do you want your job back? You can have it. Just make this statement for us. We'll not be able to do anything if everyone is panicking. We need to keep people calm while we sort this all out. You can do a great deal towards making people calm, and making them feel as though everything will be okay."

"So why did you need to tell me this in the middle of the night?" Harry wasn't sure that he was going to agree to it, but it did seem like a pretty tempting offer. He was starting to get bored, sitting around the house, not doing anything. Now that Hermione had taken away his alcohol, all he had to do was watch television, and that got pretty boring.

"Because I don't want everyone to know that we're coming to you for help. It doesn't make us look very good."

Harry sat up properly in bed. "So you want me to make a statement, but I'm to make it independently, so it doesn't look like you told me to, and you don't want them to know that I'm at all involved with the Ministry? So why give me back my job? That will just make me look like a Ministry pawn, won't it?"

"Will you or won't you make a statement?"

Harry smiled. "I will, on one condition."

"What's that?"

"That I write the speech, and I can say whatever I want, and you have no control over that. If it's my independent statement, it's my independent statement."

"But you could say…anything."

"I could say anything. But I'm not doing it unless you agree to those conditions." Harry grinned; he was already starting to write it in his head.

Felix only thought about it for a few seconds and then said, "Okay, Harry, say whatever you want. But you're not getting the job back unless it actually does something to help us. Are we clear?"

"Crystal."

It had been quite a while since he had made a speech of any kind, but he wasn't feeling that nervous. Instead, he was feeling more prepared for this speech than he had for nearly any other, and for the first time in ages, actually felt like he was doing something useful. He did feel pretty awful because he'd not had a drink in days, but Hermione had found a charm that would reduce some of the effects to make it easier for him to concentrate on what he was doing.

The speech was being broadcast live, which meant that there was probably nothing they could do to stop him, short of pull him off the air. But that would be a noticeable Ministry intervention, and the Ministry would lose even more stature and credibility among the Wizarding world. Earlier in the morning, they had made their statement about Leroy, and public opinion polls were already telling the story: the people had lost faith in their government; if they couldn't even keep their Minister alive, then what chance did the rest of the population stand.

And now Harry was the one that was supposed to fix it all. As usual.

"I know you all heard earlier today, as I did, that Leroy MacDougall was murdered by Death Eaters. I don't think that the Ministry spokesman went as far as to say that it was Death Eaters that did it, but I assure you that it was. They are back, and they are trying to do what they have always tried to do. They are going to try to break down our way of living, and they are going to try to make us lose hope. They want to purge us of everything they see as foul and wrong and unclean, and they want to bring us under the iron fist. They want to lord over us, they want to be our masters and us, the slaves.

"I know that hearing about Death Eaters after so many years will alarm you, as it alarmed people when I was a teenager, and Voldemort had come back. You were scared, you refused to believe it was true, and waited until you had proof, right in your face, that he was back, before you were willing to. Countless lives were lost because of your unwillingness to take the word of someone renowned and respected, like Albus Dumbledore."

"I'm nothing like him, and I don't hope to be half of what he was, but I did fight in the last war, and I am, supposedly, the chosen one. Whether or not you believe that, that's your choice. But I'm here today to tell you what is happening. If you need proof, I cannot give it beyond what you have already seen. I ask you just to remember that getting that proof can cost hundreds of lives, when action could have been taken sooner.

"Here is what I know. Voldemort is dead. I have someone who I believe, who has told me this. Voldemort is properly dead and he is never coming back. That means that we never have to fear him again. He is gone. But that does not mean all of his followers are gone as well. They may well have elevated someone to be their new leader. This person, though, will not command nearly the fear that Voldemort once did.

"Voldemort, for whatever it is worth, was a great wizard. A terrible one, but a great one. His command of magic was second to none, and that is why he was so powerful, and so feared, and rightly we feared him. But we defeated him, this powerful wizard. The one who stands in his stead now, is not him, is not as powerful as him.

"Yes, they have frightened all of us by killing Minister MacDougall. I don't deny you your right to be scared. But there is no reason for you to panic. There is no reason for you to think that the end is nigh, that we are all about to fall under the rule of a new Dark Lord. We are not. This is what they want us to believe, they want us to be scared.

"In our fear, all we would be able to do is cower and hope for the best. Fear robs us of our ability to fight, and they know, these Death Eaters, that we are stronger. That is why they want us afraid. If we are afraid, they will win. It is only through denying them that, that we can be victorious.

"We don't need to be afraid. We are stronger, we are better, and we will defeat them. That is a foregone conclusion. It is only a matter of time.

"I was not told to say this. These words were not given to me by the Ministry. I am speaking as Harry Potter, as the man who killed Voldemort, and as the man who will stand up to fight against these Death Eaters, because all they want to bring is terror and death. That is not something I am prepared to live with. That is not something any of you should be prepared to accept.

"We can do better. We have done better, and we will do better. All that we need to do is fight them, and never fear them. Never fear them. They are here, but that does not warrant us cowering and believing that they are going to win.

"They will never win. Evil can never triumph. It is easy to destroy. That is what they are good at. But it is hard to build, hard to create what we have created since the fall of Voldemort. I'm not willing to let all of that fall apart. And neither should you." a