CHAPTER 10
Dumbledore was at the man's shoulder as if midway between trying to reason with him and tackling him, and had ended up looming quite by accident. "Cornelius, you must know this is highly un—"
"No, Albus!" Fudge spat, eyes flashing and jowls trembling. "I will not have you interfering on this boy's behalf again. This time we've caught him red-handed, and justice will be done!"
The headmaster stepped back slowly, grave eyes flicking from the Minister to meet Harry's—in warning or apology, Harry could not tell.
Clearing his throat aggressively, the Minister pulled out a roll of parchment and snapped it open. "Mister Harry James Potter, under the assembled approval of the Wizengamot, you have been thus charged…"
Fudge began to rattle off a long list of offences, and Harry felt the cold weight of dread settle over him. He looked around at the small crowd gathered in the Burrow's kitchen. Some of them were watching Fudge read, but most eyes were locked on Harry. Dumbledore, Kingsley, Remus, the older Weasleys, McGonagall, Snape…
He couldn't read their expressions—they were stony and still. Were they accusing? Angry? Shocked? A part of him thought wildly that this had to be a dream.
Of course it was! He'd been a captive for days, and nearly killed—surely he wasn't being accused of being a criminal. Was the Ministry really going to lay the blame at his feet instead of actually finding out who was responsible?
Harry suddenly felt a wave of nausea at the idea that they had gotten it so horribly wrong, and that nothing useful was going to be done. As usual. He felt an insane urge to laugh, and swallowed reflexively.
It was hard to focus on what the Minister was saying—something about arson and vandalizing private property on the Galloping Galleon. Harry found himself watching the way little sprays of spit flew from the man's mouth, how his face flushed in patches of red and white, how his beady eyes focused so intently on what he was reading.
Harry shook his head slightly to clear it.
A hand touched his elbow and he jerked, heart racing, but it was just Tonks.
"Okay?" she mouthed silently, looking worried.
He nodded reflexively before frowning and opening his mouth to ask a question.
"Your friends are outside," she murmured, reading his mind. "Running interference on the reporters."
Harry swallowed, gaze darting to the windows. Indeed there appeared to be a swarm of people on the front drive. Bloody effing brilliant.
"Am I boring you, Mister Potter?" Fudge snapped, dragging Harry's attention back. "This is very serious business, young man. If you're not interested in hearing your charges, we could simply skip this farce and toss you into Azkaban right now—"
"Really, Minister Fudge!" Professor McGonagall's cry of outrage rang out over a swell of volume as everyone spoke up. "You go too far! We will do no such thing—and certainly not before we verify the truth of these accusations—"
"You doubt the truth?" Fudge blustered, waving a fistful of papers about. "I—we have proof—eyewitnesses, evidence from the scenes—"
"Undoubtedly, Minister," interrupted Snape, who was leaning darkly against the door like a misplaced shadow. "So let us get on with it."
Fudge dithered a moment in suppressed anger before turning back to fix Harry with a hard stare, as if to make certain he was listening attentively. Harry stared back, and Fudge finally commenced reading.
Harry didn't understand it. What leg did Fudge have to stand on? Wasn't he teetering on the brink of being kicked out of office? Harry didn't precisely know how ministers were appointed, but if this man still had even a month left in power, something was wrong. For that matter, what did he stand to gain from going after Harry? If anything—not that he'd spared it much thought—he would have expected the man to come knocking down Harry's door for endorsements to save his dying political career.
Not that Harry would ever do any such thing.
Pompous git.
And the Wizengamot? How had Fudge managed to get their support on this? Harry's gaze shifted to Dumbledore. The old man would know. Surely… surely they couldn't believe this was right.
Fudge's litany was coming to a close with the most serious charges—"one count of assault on a professor, one count of blood artifact manufacture, multiple counts of blood magic, and two counts of homicide—one suspected, and one confirmed—"
A cacophony had slowly grown in the room until this final pronouncement, when Harry could only shout, "What?" His mind spun with the impossibility of it all. He hadn't murdered anyone—he'd tried to save Lucius' life, for Merlin's sake, and the 'attack' on Professor McGonagall (who was in the room and looked quite as shocked as he did) had been in self-defense….
"Don't play coy, Potter," Fudge said, growing red in the face. "You snuck aboard a private vessel—"
"Snuck—?" Harry nearly choked.
"—without an invitation, where you then proceeded to murder a member of the staff—"
Harry gave a wild laugh of utter shock and disbelief.
"You don't remember?" Fudge asked patronizingly, and tut-tutted. "Bhutanese Mountain Trolls are registered Magical Persons—"
"Staff? Is that what they're calling slaves these days?" Harry asked, furious. It was still raw in his mind: the desperation, the horror—the hot spurt of blood.
"—says here that you killed one with a handful of old nails, I believe—"
Someone gasped, "That actually happened?"
"—and of course there's the guest, who was last seen entering your rooms, just before he mysteriously disappeared—"
"Do your little papers say who that 'guest' was? Have you thought to check Azkaban, where he was supposed to be a permanent resident?" Unnoticed, small paper items began to ignite all over the room.
"If you didn't kill this person, Mister Potter, then why don't you tell us where he is?"
"I don't know."
Fudge barked a triumphant laugh. "Of course not."
Harry drew a slow breath through his nose. I won't lose my temper. I will not lose my temper in front of all these people. The tablecloth nearest him began to blacken and curl, while a tremor ran through the dishes in their cabinets.
A few of the Order members began to look around in growing consternation, but Fudge remained oblivious and gestured at the blood wand still sitting in the middle of the table. "And how do you explain this?"
"That's the only reason I'm here instead of at Voldemort's feet."
"It's an abomination!" Fudge spat immediately. "For this offense alone I could bury you in Azkaban so deeply you'd forget what the sky looked like!"
"I. Didn't. Know," Harry gritted out, anger constricting his throat. You cannot attack the bloody Minister of Magic, he reminded himself. His hands clenched. "How could I know that? What should I have done?"
Fudge frowned. "You—you—"
"Tell me," Harry demanded, unaware that he'd taken a half step forward. "I didn't have a wand! I couldn't fight them with my fists! They—I was left for days—" he faltered. "You tell me what I was supposed to do in that situation, because somehow I missed the pamphlet about what proper procedure calls for in the event that you find yourself abducted, locked up, starved, beaten, dehydrated, unarmed, and about to face the psychopathic right-hand man of the other psychopath who wants you captured but doesn't really care how many pieces you come in! Tell me, Fudge!"
Fudge worked his mouth silently for a moment, before pointing a finger and waving it at Harry. "You—you're an accomplished liar—we all know that! But this time we have hard evidence, eyewitnesses, proof—youwon't talk your way out of it like you usually do!" He gestured to some of his aides, who stepped forward with sheaves of documents.
It felt as if the world had begun to spin, and a buzzing sound rose in Harry's ears. It would be so easy, part of him snarled—a snap of his fingers and the man's face would light up like a torch.
"What do you have to say for yourself now, Mister Potter?" Fudge pressed, waving what appeared to be testimonies in Harry's face.
That was the last straw.
Dumbledore stepped forward. "Cornelius, I really must ask that you—"
Harry struck the papers out of the man's hand, grabbed him by the front of his robes, and yanked him close. "You're a sorry little excuse for a human being, who's sad and bitter because he's a waste of space and a professional fuck-up, and the public knows it! You're a fucking idiot and your incompetence nearly lost us the war before it even started, and you've decided the best way for you to gain back some shred of self-worth is to go after me. And you know what the sad thing is? I'm just a school-age teenager, and I would mop the floor with your stupid, fat face. If we were alone, I would beat you to a bloody fucking pulp." The papers strewn across the floor ignited with a whistling crack.
"Merlin's beard!" Fudge gasped weakly, his beady eyes white all the way around.
"You knew Voldemort was back and instead of doing anything, you slandered me; you knew about Umbridge and the dementors, and instead of disciplining her you had me tried. Now instead of going after the people that abducted me, you're accusing me of vandalism and murder! You're done, Fudge. I'm going to ruin you, and that's a promise!"
"Harry!" Tonks said from behind him, and Harry felt as if he'd been doused in cold water. The wild, angry strength washed away and he realized how close he'd come to carrying out his violent impulse. He shoved at Fudge, and the man scrambled back.
Dumbledore moved quickly to Harry's side, fixing him with an piercing stare before turning to Tonks and saying quietly, "Miss Tonks, if you would please take Harry—" Tonks was already nodding, taking Harry by the arm. "The back, I should think," the old man added with a wink, before turning to sort out the disarray of the crowd and the shell-shocked minister.
"Come on Harry," Tonks said, barely audible over the din, and tugged him out the back door.
The sunlight and summery air was a balm on Harry's fraying nerves, and he flopped down into the overgrown grass.
Tonks moved to join him, before abruptly rising again with a sharp, "Oy!" Before Harry even knew what was happening, she'd fired off a curse, and a loud yelp sounded as a figure scurried back around the side of the house and out of sight.
"Reporters, bloody buggers…" Tonks muttered, pocketing her wand with a scowl before taking a seat next to him.
"Sorry about all that," Harry muttered, desperately ashamed and embarrassed.
"About what? That reporter? They're always—"
"No, I mean the… well, the burning and the ranting… I just lost control…"
"Hey," Tonks interrupted, fixing him with a look. "I'll bet you two weeks' salary that everyone in that room thought he had it coming."
Harry shrugged uncomfortably. "Yeah, but I should be better than that. Little kids have temper tantrums. Accidental magic at my age?" He shook his head disgustedly and looked at the sky. Storm clouds darkened the horizon, but the sky above was a deep cornflower blue. A flock of white birds crossed his view. "Although I can't quite bring myself to be sorry about shouting at that idiot."
"I probably would have hit him." She patted his shoulder before lying back with a huff. "Dumbledore'll sort it out."
Harry looked at his hands. There was more to it than that—every time he lost his temper, he felt just a bit more violent. Every time, he felt a little less in control of himself. What if, next time…?
"I don't know what they expected you to do!" Tonks suddenly blurted, sitting up again. "I mean, charging you with—with arson, underaged magic, vandalism, criminal mischief… for defending yourself? When your life was in danger? It's a joke! What's the alternative? Die? It's like the dementor incident all over again. You know, if it had been Aurors putting down Death Eater attacks or even domestic disturbances, they wouldn't go after us for this stuff. He's taking advantage of the system, and I don't know how the Wizengamot can possibly go along with it!"
"How does everyone already know where I was, anyway? I hardly know what happened myself."
"Well, about an hour after you showed up out of the blue, we received an owl from the Galloping Galleon's legal rep with this laundry list of charges. I s'pose they also sent a copy to the DMLE, because Fudge showed up not long after. Unfortunately this coincided with a case leak about your other little fiasco…"
"And he just couldn't resist?" Harry supplied flatly.
"That's about the shape of it," Tonks agreed. She rolled her eyes. "Leave it to Fudge to act on little to no evidence where you're concerned, but when he has a veritable mountain of evidence for anything else, he does nothing. Useless bloody wanker."
That startled a laugh out of him, to his amazement "Wow."
She grinned ruefully. "Sorry, Harry. It's just hard for me to work for the Ministry when everything is getting so corrupted, and people I care about are being chewed up by the idiots in charge. You know, I grew up wanting to serve my country, root out injustice… help make it better…." She met his gaze, and he frowned thoughtfully.
She shrugged, examining a bit of breeze-tossed fluff, before letting it go. "But it's all gone to shite now. And I don't know how it can be fixed."
Harry was uncomfortably aware that he'd often entertained the same thoughts.
"Meanwhile every Death Eater we catch gets kicked right back out like we're on some kind of rotation. And even if we get rid of You-Know-Who and all his followers, his ideas will still live on, and the Ministry won't change. Sometimes I think…"
Harry waited, feeling anxious, but not quite sure why. "What?"
She opened her mouth in a half smile and gave a short sigh, as if trying to decide whether to go on. Then she shook her head. "It's nothing—just a stupid little thought."
Harry frowned and was about to try and convince her to talk, but she beat him to the punch.
"So we all know what the charges against you are, but what really happened to you, Harry?"
Harry, feeling like a weight had been lifted from him, told her. He began with the fight out by the field, where he'd been overwhelmed, before waking up in the engine room of the ship. He told her about his captor, and how the man had hidden his face, but everyone seemed to know him. He talked about the prisoners, and the deal that had been made between Azkaban and the ship, and how they had all been forced to fight. He told her about how he'd tried to escape, before building a wand with his own blood.
He didn't talk about Toliman, or the man's advice. He let Tonks think he'd made the wand before his fight with the troll—that the wandless magic they'd all heard about had just been a trick. He didn't want the whole world to know that there was something wrong with him just yet. And, as he'd sworn to himself, he left out the part about the apple, too.
"And then?" she asked.
"And then Lucius came, and we fought," he finished tiredly. "And I won."
Tonks was silent for a long time. Her voice was quiet, and her eyes free of judgment when she finally asked, "Did you kill him, Harry?"
A lump lodged in Harry's throat, so that he could only shake his head at first. "No, he… he was alive when I left him." How he hoped that was the truth.
She gripped the back of his neck, leaning over to make sure he met her eyes. "You did good. Okay?"
Harry nodded, and was surprised to discover he felt just a little bit better. "Thanks, Tonks."
She smiled, satisfied. "So there's one thing I'm curious about—how did you get away?"
Harry's mouth went dry. The truth? The truth… Yes, it was probably a good idea to tell someone what was happening to him. He had his proof of concept—he'd gone through to the other side twice, hadn't he? Unless this was just a particularly persistent brand of crazy… Right. He should tell her. She might know something that could help.
He opened his mouth. "Accidental apparition." Damn! You're a coward, Potter.
Tonks' eyes sparkled. "Wow, that's brilliant, Harry! Not to mention lucky."
"Yeah," Harry breathed a laugh, while mentally kicking himself. "I'm not sure what I would've done otherwise."
To Harry's relief, someone came out the back door at that moment, sparing his flimsy story any further scrutiny.
"Harry," Remus called gently from the doorway. "Professor Dumbledore asked me to fetch you if you're up to…"
"I'm fine, Professor," Harry said hastily, standing up and brushing his trousers off. He offered Tonks a hand, and she accepted it with a grin.
"Why thank you, Mister Potter."
"Not at all, Miss Tonks," he returned very stuffily.
Remus' eyes flicked between them for a moment, before giving Harry a shadow of a smile and angling his head toward the door.
Harry followed after him, mentally steeling himself. Sooner or later this day from hell would end; he just had to take things one step at a time and have faith that eventually things would work out the way they were supposed to.
"No combustion this time." Tonks poked him in the back.
Despite himself, Harry cracked a smile, and his anxiety eased a little.
When they entered the kitchen, it was to find that the ministry officials had all cleared out. Fudge was nowhere to be seen, and for that Harry heaved a sigh. The Order was standing in a cluster, and his sense of wellbeing went cold at the weary expression that Dumbledore favored him with.
"Ah, Harry," the old wizard said, looking as if he were struggling for optimism. "The Minister has agreed to drop all but the most serious charges, and will hold off on any incarceration until a formal investigation has been completed. In exchange… with the assurances of the Hogwarts staff that you will be carefully monitored at all times… I'm afraid you have been placed under wand probation."
"Wand probation?" Hermione squealed later that night. They were once again huddled on the beds in Ron's room. All the lights in the house were out, and the only illumination came from the eerie light of the brains' fish tank. Since the brains lacked eyes of any sort, Harry wasn't really clear on what they needed a light for.
The boys shushed her simultaneously, and she hunched in apology. "But really, Harry, how could they? How are you going to do school work?"
"Or fight for his life, let's not forget that one," Ron put in, eyeing her in a surly manner.
"Apparently," Harry sighed, "the instructors will have a spare wand on hand for each of my classes, and I have to check it out and turn it in after class is over."
"Complete rubbish," Hermione scoffed.
"You're gonna get ganked, mate," Ron said, patting him sympathetically on the shoulder.
"Well, they'll try for sure," Harry agreed absently, turning the river spirit horn over and over in one hand. He'd found it earlier in the day when Mrs. Weasley had been doing laundry—and had nearly tossed the bit of horn outside from where she'd found it in his trouser pocket, thinking it was just junk. How anyone could think such a thing escaped him—it was a bit rough looking, but the ridges of honey-brown horn had a pearly quality to them, and a cool heavy weight that felt reassuring in his hand.
"What are you going to do, Harry?" Hermione asked, chewing on her bottom lip. "They didn't let you keep that blood wand, did they?"
"Er," Harry said hesitantly. "Officially, no, but both Dumbledore and Snape told me not to let anyone else get a hold of it, so I'm supposed to be hanging onto it until I have time to destroy it myself."
"You are going to destroy it, right?" she pressed.
"Well, I don't know, I…"
"Harry! You can't walk around with something like that!" she said, looking horrified.
He frowned, irritated. "I don't see why not. It's my blood, isn't it? I could understand if I'd used somebody else's, but it's mine!" And his pride in his creation hadn't diminished, though he wouldn't tell anyone that.
But Hermione wasn't finished. "Harry, there's a reason blood magic is so illegal! It's dangerous!"
Harry struggled not to roll his eyes, but to his surprise Ron spoke up to agree with her. "She's right, mate. My dad said using someone's blood will key an object to that person—if that wand were used against you, the spells would be way more… well, potent."
Sighing, Harry pocketed the Horn. "Look, I'll do some research, then. But I'm not just going to throw it out or smash it to bits. That wand saved my life, and right now it's the only one I've got." He stared defiantly at the two of them.
Hermione's eyes suddenly looked too bright, and she lunged forward without warning to grip him in a fierce hug. "Every time we lose sight of you, someone is trying to kill you," she mumbled into his shoulder.
"But they haven't managed it yet," he wheezed, carefully hugging her back.
"And you'll be at the school all alone for almost a month," she said, pulling away and dashing a hand across her eyes.
"Hagrid'll be there," Harry assured her, amazed and confused. He tried to lighten the mood. "He's not bad in a fight, I've heard."
Apparently this was the wrong thing to say, because Harry could see Hermione's imagination running away with her, and her face twisted up all over again.
"Oh Hermione, it's Harry," Ron said, patting her arm. "He always gets out of scrapes. He'll be fine, won't you Harry?"
Harry watched them both, and suddenly perceived what a strain his abduction had put on them. They had always been there for him, and with him when he got into trouble. Except for this time. This time they'd had to simply sit and wait, while he was in danger.
He nodded, trying for a confident smile. "Of course I will."
Hermione laughed wetly, wiping her eyes again. "I know I'm just being stupid…"
"Oy, that's you, all right. Stupid as the day is long," Ron teased her.
Harry watched them, smiling slightly.
He would have plenty to keep him busy, but three weeks without them would be a long time.
In the morning, Harry awoke with a start. The sky outside was still mostly dark, but the shapes outside were beginning to take on the crisp, gray lines that hinted at existence if not light.
The horizon was a dusky silhouette against the deep sky, and Harry could almost imagine he had woken up on the Other side. Peeking out the window at the pond in the backyard, he was able to set aside the sudden creeping worry in favor of itching curiosity.
"You call—I come," Karakash had said.
Harry found his footsteps taking him stealthily down the stairs and out the back door—wincing at the creaking screen. The cool grass felt good on his bare feet, and the night air lifted his hair from his forehead.
Now that he was outside, the rustling weeds and rippling water of the pond were somewhat eerie, but Harry shoved those errant feelings aside. He'd dealt with worse than the dark, after all.
He walked out to the old wooden dock, and lowered himself to a seat at the end, feet dangling over the dark water. He sat there for a long time in the silent predawn. Nothing made a sound except the fitful breeze, and he could hardly even tell how close the water actually was, it was so dark.
He felt a sudden chill as he imagined the creatures that surely waited just on the Other side. He could picture the face of a dementor staring back at him from the dark glassy surface, and had an overpowering urge to leap to his feet and sprint as far and as fast as he could away from the pond.
He cleared his throat, breaking his own spell with the jarring sound. After another second, he said, "Karakash."
Two minutes later, he repeated it, louder. "Karakash."
Another minute passed, during which his irritation steadily grew. "Karakash!" He leaned over the water, acutely incensed. "Damn it, you great bloody lying sack of worm bogies, where the hell are you?"
A whooshing sound reached his ears just before a flurry of wings assaulted his face, and he yelped in surprise, lost his balance, and tipped off the end of the dock. The dark water seemed to reach up for him, and with a familiar blinding rush, he slipped across the divide.
He came up sputtering in shock, and hauled himself up out of the neon-blue water to splay amongst the dark weeds at the bank. It was amazing how he didn't have any skin here, and yet still managed to feel wet. "Ugh," he muttered, thoroughly displeased to be here again so soon, and wondering what had attacked him. "Where the hell are you, worm?"
Maybe it just took the river spirit a long time to travel all the way from China. That seemed rather likely. Harry tried to imagine how long it might take, but since he had no idea how fast Karakash could fly, it was difficult to estimate. "Karakash!" he called once more, just in case the worm hadn't heard him from the other side.
There was no immediate response, and Harry sighed before climbing to his feet. "I guess it couldn't hurt to wait for—" He choked on the rest of his sentence when he turned toward the Burrow. Sitting atop the glowing structure of wards and little spells and artifacts was a monstrous ethereal pheasant the size of a tool shed. "Bloody hell!" he blurted.
"I beg your pardon?" the pheasant replied, looking as affronted as a giant bird could.
"What—who—why—?"
"My, aren't you the eloquent one," the bird chuffed, massive head twitching to the side to get a better look at him from her high perch atop what appeared to be Ron's room. Her tail feathers trailed up over the top of the roof and draped out of sight.
"Sorry," Harry replied reflexively, staring up at her. "I just… who are you and why are you sitting on top of my friend's house?"
The pheasant chuffed again, feathered breast fluffing. "I am your friend's house, silly boy."
Harry gaped. "What?"
"Guardian spirit?" she tried, watching him. "Soul of the house? Poor dear, you really haven't got much of a background in magical lore, have you?"
Harry felt mildly insulted, but his curiosity got the better of him. "So you, er, are the Burrow…"
She fluffed up further. "I protect the Burrow, and all inside it."
Harry blinked. "Well… thank you."
"You're quite welcome, dear."
Harry squinted slightly, thinking the pheasant—guardian—reminded him an awful lot of Molly Weasley. "Are there a lot of you… guardians around?"
"Only in the oldest, most well lived in places. The Burrow has existed in some form for more than a century, you know."
"Ah," Harry said, mind whirling. It was times like these when he really doubted his sanity, and whether all this was really just some fantastic illusion. "So do you guardians ever… talk to each other?"
"Oh yes," the pheasant replied. "Why Lovegood Tower is a stone's throw away from here—lovely fellow, even if he is an owl."
"So you lot can move around as you please?"
She bobbed her head. "To a certain extent, yes. I'm usually here when my brood is."
Harry cocked an eyebrow at the metaphor. Odd. "Have you happened to see a river spirit around lately?"
The pheasant cocked her head the other way. "I'm sorry dear, I haven't—not since you were here last."
Harry silently cursed Karakash again. Then a thought struck him. "What about the pond? Do you know its name?"
"Indeed I do, but she is rather young, and I'm not sure how much help she'll be to you. Her name is Little Muddy."
Harry sighed. "Little Muddy? That's not very…"
"If you'd like to come up with something more eloquent, you're quite welcome," the bird sniffed. "They're Weasleys, not poets."
Shaking his head, Harry turned back to the water's edge and crouched down. He wondered briefly if he had to stick his face in like Karakash had done to summon the river Derwent. "Little Muddy," he called. After a few seconds he decided he really needed to read up on this summoning business, and awkwardly settled on his knees to crouch over the water. Leaning down, he dipped his nose in, trying not to inhale anything, and murmured, "Little Muddy…"
He immediately heard a soft 'plip,' and from the middle of the pond a little head stuck straight up, staring at him.
Harry straightened. "Hello there."
The creature was gone in a flash, and before he knew it, had swum all the way to the shore to get a better look at him. She had a clever little face like a gecko's, and a sleek, scaled body shaped like a river otter. "Hi," she said in a tiny, child-like voice.
"Are you Little Muddy?"
"Yes," she said very firmly. "You kin call me—you kin call me Mud, though."
"Okay, Mud," Harry agreed, trying desperately not to laugh at the charming little creature. "You can call me Harry. How old are you, Mud?"
She looked to the side, rolling her eyes in obvious reluctance. "Not very old."
"Well that's okay, I'm not very old either. Hey Mud, can I ask you a question?"
"Okay!" she agreed, brightening.
"I was wondering… how fast can a river spirit fly?"
"Oh, really, really fast! Super fast. I can't fly that fast, b'cause I'm just a pond, though. Sometimes I go to play with—with the creeks but they're really fast n' I can't really keep up."
"I'm sorry about that," Harry said sympathetically. Who knew water spirits could have self-esteem issues?
"It's okay," Mud said, crawling up to settle next to his knee. "I kin play with the Weazes, so it's okay."
"That's good," Harry said, and couldn't help patting her smooth little head. She seemed pleased by the gesture, if a little surprised. "So if I called a river spirit, he should be here by now, right?"
She nodded, and shrugged her scaly little shoulders. "Prolly. Maybe you did it wrong, or maybe—"
She stiffened at the same time that Harry felt a breath of cool wind on the back of his neck. "Damn!" he murmured, rising to a crouch. Mud darted back into her pond with a squeak and a splash. "Dementors here?"
The massive pheasant was shifting on her perch agitatedly, feathers rising in a surprisingly threatening display. "You're a beacon for them, lad," she told him anxiously, watching the looming darkness.
"What? How?" Harry sputtered, feeling the temperature drop rapidly as the wind kicked up.
The pheasant ignored his question. "You'd best clear out of here, dear. I'll take care of things on this side—"
And then it was too late for any more discussion, because the shrieking black shadows were closing in from both sides of the house. Merlin, there's so many! Harry thought, stumbling backwards into the water. And there were other things as well, crawling things, slithering things—some slick and black, and some pasty white with long grasping fingers. Where had they all come from? How did they know he was here?
"Go, lad!" the pheasant commanded, launching from her perch to land in a whirlwind of feathers, hackles raised.
There was something else, behind the mass of encroaching blackness—a swift, fleet shape that lay into the monsters like some kind of hellhound. Harry's eyes darted, trying to track its movements. It was…
It was a wolf. He realized he'd seen it once before. Was it following him, or—?
"Boy! Go!"
Harry flung himself backward just as skeletal hands reached for him.
He burst out the other side, and gasped in shock at the bitterly cold water. "Hah!" The pond had turned to icy slush, and was freezing over even as he struggled toward the edge. "God—damned—dementors!" he bit out, shivering uncontrollably as he flung himself onto the grass, taking bits of ice with him. Somehow, he knew that with just a little more power, they might have come through after him. He lay panting and shivering, and watched vapor rise from the frozen pond while the summer sun began to peak up over the horizon.
He'd hardly recovered his breath before he was assailed once again by bundle of pointy joints and feathers. He jolted up in surprise, and the shape gave a loud screech. "Hedwig?"
The owl calmed down enough to land on his lap and squawk in reply, boring into his eyes with her own yellow ones. She looked distinctly ruffled, and it was all Harry could do not to laugh. "And where have you been, girl?"
She looked fit to fly off right then, she was so angry, and Harry hurriedly drew his arms out of range of her nipping beak. "Ah!—all right—I'm sorry Hedwig, that wasn't very funny. You must have been looking for me all week, huh?"
She went still, regarding him dolefully, and he chuckled sympathetically as he stroked her downy feathers. "I am sorry, girl. I was behind a fidelius charm—I'm not surprised you couldn't find me. I'll bet you're hungry, eh?"
Hedwig twittered, her mood already grudgingly improved.
"Come on, pretty bird, let's go find you something to eat." He rose to his feet with his owl on his arm, and cast a last glance at the frozen pond, hoping it would thaw out before anyone noticed. "Sorry, Mud!"
He distinctly heard a tiny, sleepy voice say, "S'okay, Harry."
Harry shook his head, and wondered what it was like to be normal.
The last few days Harry spent at the Burrow were a tense affair. The weather was lovely, and there was a constant stream of visitors and pickup games of Quidditch and wonderful dinners outside, but… there was still no word or sign of the missing patriarch. When Harry first found out that Arthur had been gone since before he'd been abducted, he felt like a spectacular heel for not knowing.
"It's okay, Harry," Hermione had told him. "No one knew anything was out of the ordinary until he didn't come home that night—you couldn't have known."
"Why didn't anyone say anything to me?"
She shrugged uncomfortably. "We—well, Ron, that is—didn't want it to seem like he wasn't happy to have you back. It's been really hard on him, though."
The only thing that kept the Weasleys from going into a collective panic was the family clock—Arthur's hand wasn't pointed at 'Mortal Peril' or 'Dead,' but it couldn't seem to decide on anything else either.
It wasn't until the last day that Ron finally broached the subject with Harry. They were outside in the orchard—the twins and Ginny were playing some ridiculous game that involved trying to nail each other with the still-green apples from across the pond. Harry could almost hear Mud's delight, and so he was a bit distracted when Ron, leaning against the apple tree next to him, said, "Hey Harry."
"Yeah?"
"When you were on…that ship," he began, eyes downcast. Harry immediately straightened, and Ron looked at him. "You didn't… happen to hear anything, or see any signs of my dad, did you? Was he there?"
Harry was overcome with a sick wave of guilt, sadness, and impotent anger. He shook his head, and wished he'd known before—maybe he could have done something. If Arthur had been on that ship with him… "I'm sorry, Ron."
Ron just nodded silently and went back to watching Ginny and the twins. Hermione, sitting cross-legged in the grass nearby, looked up at them both with concern, and Harry didn't know what else to say.
But the pit of bitter rage that had taken up residence in his chest fanned just a little brighter.
Later that evening, after dinner was cleared away and people had drifted off hither and yon, Harry was sitting at the kitchen table and waiting for Dumbledore to arrive. His trunk was packed and currently serving as a footrest, and Ron and Hermione sat nearby discussing something in low voices—Harry couldn't be bothered to try and listen.
He was too busy thinking. A curious thing was going on in his mind, and it had been spurned on by the Daily Prophet article that lay discarded in front of him. Despite the fact that Fudge had agreed to drop most of the charges against him, somehow the details had still leaked out to the press. Wild and out of control, they called him. Dangerous, willful—taking the law into his own hands, they said. A vigilante. If the article earlier in the summer had leaned heavily on the idea, these new ones all but proclaimed it as fact.
Apparently, Harry went out and night and hunted people down.
He twiddled with the edge of the paper, not really looking at it, but staring off into his own mindscape. Yes, something like an idea was forming in his head, or maybe it was more of a decision. He was tired, and angry, and disgusted. Everything was going wrong, and no one was doing anything about it.
He thought about Tonks' bitter words, and further back to his conversation with the grizzly bear animagus, Toliman Hughes. He thought about Fudge, and the Wizengamot. Voldemort, and his Death Eater followers, and all the imitators flooding the papers. Someone needed to do something.
His eyes flicked back to the paper under his fingers.
Vigilante.
He tapped it once and watched the embers spread.