Chapter 21
The Art of Death
Blaise's travel to Malfoy Manor was extremely bewildering to Harry. Against his raging instincts, and in spite of his fading health stemming from being in the wrong time, Harry stuck out a few more days in pre-murderer Blaise's timeline. However, after numerous, broody visits to the wooded area behind Malfoy Manor, all he had gathered was that Blaise had an almost necrophilic fascination with death. The Slytherin did nothing but stare at the decaying ball of fur which lay exactly where he had struck a hare with the Cruciatus Curse a few days earlier. The fascination should not have been surprising, given that the other boy had checked out a book called The Art of Death from the Library of Malfoy which contained vastly more books from the same dark, malevolent cloth.
Harry watched with repulsion as Blaise repeatedly crouched near the decomposing hare, unfazed by the horrendous stench but instead ravished by the sight. He even took notes in a small leather-covered lined notebook (Harry, who had to become used to writing on parchment without lines, unlike when he schooled at St Gregory's in the Muggle world, suspected the lines lent the piece of stationery a considerable markup). Harry could not explain the Slytherin's fascination with the process of dying in any other way other than that it was preparation for the murder of Draco and the aftermath. Indeed the sight and stench of a body orders of magnitude larger and weightier than that of a hare required such scientifically precise planning.
Harry was frustrated because he did not know what it all meant, even though he could see the faintest outline the further away he stepped from the picture. What he did know was that he did not have much time to stay. On the fourth day, he took a time trip and travelled back to his original timeline. He had revealed himself to Ron and Hermione on their way to Gryffindor Tower from dinner in the Great Hall. It was not easy to catch himself up to the pace of living of his original timeline, as there seemed to be extra security around the castle and a corresponding and pervading sense of agitation. In every corridor he passed through stood stoic, forbidding-looking men, most of whom bulged out of their dark robes, dripping with robust masculinity. They looked highly alert, holding the middle partition of their robes with both hands rather in the same way as the Secret Service detail Harry had seen on the television which protects the American president.
After warning him not to say anything remotely related to the goings-on beyond Hogwarts while they were in plain sight, Ron and Hermione led him to an ancient classroom in another obscure corner of the seventh floor (Harry watched his friends grow slightly green as their eyes wandered to the door of the classroom where Draco's body was hidden; Harry had trained his eyes against this tendency). Whatever compelled his friends to seek out the services of a classroom on the same floor Draco was murdered on, which they knew about, was not trivial and gave Harry a fair amount of trepidation.
They came to stand outside the door of the classroom. Hermione rapped several times on the heavy wood of the door in a specific sequence, after which golden sparks danced around the frame of the door briefly and a clicking sound came from the doorknob, announcing that the door had been unlocked.
"Can't an Alohomora done the job?" asked Harry, befuddled.
Hermione gave a paternalistic shake of her head. "Not these days, Harry."
They stepped inside the classroom. It looked ancient but bore the signs of a recent sprucing-up: The farther one wondered into it, the dustier it became, which suggested little more than the centre and front of the classroom was used by a crowd that had gathered in it; broken chairs and table tops and their frames were relegated to the back corners of the room; several of them at the front seemed repaired as they looked misshapen; and paintings which had hung skew for likely centuries were righted, revealing bright areas of wall around their frames.
"What goes on in here?" Harry asked. "It looks like it's being used properly."
"Parvati and Lavender hold their little revolutionary guard army get-togethers here," Ron replied in a weighted tone of mocking.
"Really?" said Harry, looking around the classroom, his lips quivering from amusement and very interested in Hermione's reaction to what Ron had said.
"Those two have actually got something of a movement going that doesn't deserve your scorn, Ron," she said. She took out her wand and blew away the dust on a table, which she then lowered herself on. "It's rather impressive, and a bit surprising coming from them."
The only thing that Harry could believe from what she and Ron had said was Hermione's grudging conference of intellectual credit to any project led by the famous gossipmonger pair. Hermione was not a fan of Parvati's and Lavender's, but she called a spade a spade when it came to it.
"Parvati and Lavender are building a revolutionary army?" Harry asked in a tone that meant to establish a sober element to the discussion in order to get proper answers and not quips.
"The classroom is not exactly battle-weary, is it?" Ron said as he leant on a table. "I don't think whoever comes here they're practicing any spells. Didn't figure that pair for the intellectual type going for the intellectual route of fighting within the system." The last few words were spoken with a whisper of disdain. Ron's eyes wandered about the room as though looking for obvious signs of intellectual exertion such as books and pieces of parchment bearing soaring manifestos as opposed to battle plans.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "You'd be surprised at what they've been doing, Harry," she said, addressing Harry but with a rejoinder plainly directed at Ron. Harry was used to these tendencies of Hermione's. Mrs. Weasley was not above them either. "It's not every generation that comes up with an underground newspaper aimed at overthrowing the warlord of that day."
"I guess using products from joke shop must count for something," said Ron dismissively, pointing at a piece of Extendable Ears popping out from cupboard. Hermione shook her head in disappointment in the carefulness of Parvati and Lavender's group. "It's not hard to find an Extendable Ears, though. They use those to try to spy on people they think might be working for You-Know-Who."
"They have a newspaper?" Harry said, shocked. It briefly occurred to him that he might be annoying Hermione with questions that wpuld get him up to date. After all, he had not been in his original timeline for an undefinable amount of time; he had not kept dates. "Can I see it?"
"I'll show you a copy in the common room," Hermione said. "You won't find anything incriminating here; they know better than to leave anything out in the open even with a pass code for the door."
"How come you know the password?" Harry asked. "Or the pass code or whatever it is."
"Hermione wanted to keep a close eye on what Parvy and Lavvy are up to in case they actually stumble upon something useful," replied Ron, "like a proper strategy to defeat You-Know-Who."
Hermione shot Ron a look of contempt when he used the more familiar nicknames of the pair's. "I daresay what they have got going is far better than what we have come up with, which is absolutely nothing," she pointed out with more than a touch of asperity.
"Well," said Ron, looking at Harry, "Harry did come up with something pretty brilliant before he… left."
"He did indeed," said Hermione, who also stared at Harry intently.
Harry felt an onus to explain his absence again, but the mission had exhausted him to the point that he was not willing to make a case for it. All he knew was that his feelings about the mission were initially right and just, and toward the end of it, they were becoming motley, complicated and far more difficult to untangle.
"Do you remember that idea you had to start Dumbledore's Army?" Hermione asked. Harry, whether it was his imagination or not, thought he picked up a tone of polite irritation.
"I do and I think we should go ahead with it," he said aggressively, looking at his friends intensely. He was not going to justify his sojourn from his original timeline to his friends when he had already done so and when he himself, as exhausted and disillusioned as he was by it now, needed to remind himself of that justification.
"I think so, too, Harry," Hermione agreed, which annoyed Harry. "With the Army and the newspaper, I think we have a real chance."
"What chances does a newspaper have of winning an outright war?" Ron said sceptically.
"The newspaper you so easily mock, Ron, is called The HogsBeauDurm Reformer."
"Wow," said Harry after a pause. He did not know whether to laugh or stare profoundly in the distance as he contemplated the implications of the paper's name. "Very grandiose."
"Quite," said Hermione shortly.
"So this underground newspaper," Harry began, noting the encouraging nods from Hermione and the familiar glint in her eyes from the thrill of piecing together clues—at least in this case watching someone else do so, "has something to do with Hogwarts, Beauxbaton and… even Durmstrang?"
"Yes, Harry," said Hermione proudly. "I don't know how they managed to do it but they have the French school and even Durmstrang to support them. This fight is bigger than us, Ron," she said, turning to Ron to put a full stop on the point she had made to him about the significance of the paper. "It would be incredibly stupid and downright ignorant of us to overlook what those two did here. It's monumental. I think we should use all the momentum from this and use it to build up the Army. It's a ready-made megaphone."
Harry kept quiet for a few seconds, thinking. Ron had become silent as well, watching his best friend.
"Okay," said Harry finally. "I say we do it. Speak to them about helping us get the DA—Dumbledore's Army—off the ground." Hermione nodded with a proud smile while Ron kept silent again. Harry felt awkward taking a commanding position barely minutes after returning from a relatively long mission, disconnected from the crisis of his original timeline. "Creative name," continued Harry. "For the paper, I mean."
"It took a while to get there," Ron said with a snort of amusement. "What were the other names they had in the air, Hermione?"
Hermione rolled her eyes but a smile of amusement played on her lips. With a look of pain, she rattled off the abandoned names for the newspaper: "The Resistance, The Vanguard, The Scholarly Reformer—" Hermione coughed as she said this name and pressed on, ever more pained-looking. "The Young Reformer, The Young Resistance and lastly but certainly not least, The Dawning Resistor—" She winced particularly hard on this name as though she could feel the intoxicating, self-aggrandising ambience of revolution and blind ambition in the room when the names were being thrown around.
"Sounds like I've missed a lot of fun," Harry laughed.
"Much," said Ron, smiling.
"Okay," said Harry, shaking his head. "Now, catch me up."
"Maybe catch us up first," Hermione rejoined as her amusement faded and she frowned at Harry's forehead and hands. "Why do you look like you're turning into a statue?"
"Yeah, why do you look like that?" Ron asked. Harry was very annoyed by the curl of Ron's lips. So he addressed Hermione, who had a look not of disgust but, marginally more bearably, pity.
"Let's just say the longer I play with time the more irritable it grows," Harry said, suddenly exhausted. Thankfully his friends seemed to notice his swift change of mood. Hermione nodded understandingly while Ron seemed to let the issue go with some difficulty.
"Talk about it another time?" Hermione suggested diplomatically.
"Yeah," said Harry, feeling even more exhausted.
"In an astonishing twist of events—Sorry, the intros to the news stories from what was almost The Dawning Resistor haunt me sometimes," Hermione said. It brought a smile to Harry's eyes. "Dumbledore's this close to being fired," she said, holding her thumb and index very close together, almost touching, "the Ministry is in shambles because of the whole Dementor debacle and You-Know-Who's people have just about overrun Gringotts. Oh, did I mention that eleven Gryffindors are dead?"
Harry could not contain his gasp. He recalled the article in the London Courier about the Black Snake's murder spree. They intended to kill a Hogwarts student every day—specifically, as it was quite clear to Harry in spite of Dumbledore's public protests, Gryffindors.
"That explains those Aurors everywhere," Harry said, appalled. "But it's been more than ywo weeks—why haven't they killed more?" When Hermione threw him a curious frown, he added, "I went to a different timeline and read a story about the Black Snakes and them seeming to kill a Gryffindor every day. Why? I don't know."
Obviously impressed, Hermione went on. "The Aurors have been able to dial them back, at least mostly. Six lives have been saved," she finished a little morosely.
"It's just to send out a message that Hogwarts' not the safe, fun place it used to be," Ron suggested. "They're trying to scare everybody into flocking home so they can take over Hogwarts, I reckon."
"At least that's our suspi—" Hermione began but was cut off by Harry, who had stumble backward. She leapt for his arm and with Ron's help guided on a chair. "Harry! What's wrong?"
His head downcast at his knees, on which his forearms rested, Harry said nothing. The only sound to come from him was a slow, dry breathing. Ron and Hermione exchanged looks of fear.
"Mate, you all right?" Ron asked.
"Pomfrey," mumbled Harry.
"What?" said Hermione.
"He said 'Pomfrey,'" Ron answered and grabbed Harry's arm and swung it over his neck. "We've got to go to the infirmary, Hermione." She did not need to be told twice; she grabbed Harry's other arm, emerged from the classroom and made their way to the hospital wing.
"You have to walk it off now, Mr Edmonds," Madam Pomfrey was sternly commanding a student when the three of them huddled in. "What is it now?" she said as he went over to the bed of another student. She was suffering from ugly green boils all over her body, said irritably as she recognised the face of her newest patient.
"He just collapsed while we were talking in the common room," Hermione said, sounding very worried.
"He just collapsed?" Madam Pomfrey asked suspiciously. "Over here." She quickly prepared a bed next to the one of the student with the green boils. Ron and Hermione guided Harry onto the bed. "Has he been over-exerting himself again?" Madam Pomfrey asked sternly as she waved her wand over Harry's body.
"No, Madam Pomfrey," Hermione answered hesitantly with an unconvincing shifty to Ron.
Harry was facing away toward the next bed, his eyebrows knitted together in a placid frown somewhere between pain and confusion.
"Another one with a skin condition," Madam Pomfrey observed as her eyes flicked away from Harry's pale-grey skin to the large, green boils on the skin of the boy one bed over. She proceeded to wave her wand numerous times over Harry, each time her own frown growing more severe. "It doesn't seem to be anything I can easily make out but it's definitely something sinister. Something worrying indeed, and it's getting worse by the minute."
Hermione squealed at the word "sinister" which Madam Pomfrey had used and grabbed Harry's hand. "Harry, please fight it!" Ron was left to grimace uneasily behind her as his friend lay in desperate health on a hospital bed, his chest rising and falling shallowly.
"Watch him carefully while I try to figure out what his symptoms mean, Ms Granger," said Madam Pomfrey as she hurried off towards her office. Before she disappeared into it, she turned out and said in a grave voice, "I think we better call the headmaster. Mr Edmonds, get off that bed."
Edmonds, a lanky, spotty boy, who, if not for the awkward way in which he climbed off the, looked totally sane and able-bodied, walked off in a stiff waddle. "Get a move on, Mr Edmonds, we haven't all day as you can see! That boy needs to see the headmaster! Stop being a baby and fire up all of those cylinders!" Edmonds, who seemed to fear that Madam Pomfrey would implicitly reveal his ailment when her eyes briefly stayed on his backside, quadrupled his speed and trotted briskly out of the hospital wing.
While they awaited Dumbledore's arrival, Madam Pomfrey returned from her office with a massive tome. While holding it against her waste with one arm, she shot all manner of spells at Harry's limp body, all the while muttering furiously under her breath.
"Are you sure you don't know what could afflicted Mr Potter, Ms Granger?" she said.
"I honestly don't know, Madam Pomfrey!" Hermione answered after a hesitant pause in which she looked at Ron, who made a fierce but restrained expression of disapproval. "If I could tell you the truth I would!"
"This completely boggles the mind then!" Madam Pomfrey said rather defensively. "I can't possibly know how I can help this boy if I don't know what happened to him!"
"Just do your job, lady, and keep blasting those diagnostic spells or whatever they are!" Ron shouted.
"How dare you?" Madam Pomfrey shrieked, scandalised, turning on him. Ron seemed abruptly reminded of the fact that Madam Pomfrey's wand was clear of her robe.
"Ron!" Hermione admonished, letting go of Harry's hand. "No one's say you're not doing a brilliant job, Madam Pomfrey!" she beseeched the aged matron. "But you understand he's our friend and we can't bear to see him suffer like this!"
"That's no excuse to belittle my talents when the three of you may as well be part of the furniture in this hospital wing, given how often you find yourselves in here!" Madam Pomfrey shot back heatedly.
"Yeah? What are those if you can't even—" Ron began but was cut off by Hermione's scream.
"Look he's moving!" Hermione said. Harry's arm moved around the bed and rose off it. Hermione, mouth agape, could only stare as Harry's hand found hers again. "Harry, please say something!"
The door swung open and Dumbledore swept inside, making quick work of the floor space between him and Harry's bed. "What is it, Poppy?" he enquired softly.
"It's something I haven't seen and doesn't want to be discovered, I reckon," she replied as she frowned almost nose-deep into her tome, occasionally throwing a spell at Harry below.
Dumbledore came around the bed next to Hermione and watched him down the length of his crooked nose.
"I'm sorry to interrupt you and the Minister but as you can see, we had this one our hands," Madam Pomfrey said.
"It's quite all right, Poppy. I'm rather glad you could remove me from his company even if for a while," replied Dumbledore and thoughtfully as he completed the boy laying almost lifelessly on the bed if not for shallow rise and fall of his chest and the occasional deeper furrowing of his forehead.
"There're no obvious signs of injury except for the strange tinge to his skin," Madam Pomfrey said with a trace of a defensive tone as she seemingly explained herself. "I've diagnosed for all sorts of skin ailments but he has none of them."
"Strange indeed," Dumbledore said softly with a small smile in one corner of his lips as he surveyed Harry's body. Ron watched Dumbledore avidly while Hermione held Harry's once-again limp hand, staring hopefully into the Gryffindor's face. Ron appeared impressed when Dumbledore removed his wand from his robe. The headmaster paused, studying Harry, and then cast a spell with a soft, yellow light. Madam Pomfrey put her wand hand against her hip, looking resigned and emasculated. Dumbledore cast another spell on Harry, this one lime green. They were followed by a string of more spells, each softly muttered. "I think," Dumbledore said, after a full thirty seconds and enough spells to fill a first-year edition of Standard Book of Spells, "your patient will be all right. He just needs, er, time to return naturally to his right body and mind.
Dumbledore avoided Ron's and Hermione's eyes as they glanced at him in astonishment. He smiled at Madam Pomfrey and turned to Ron and Hermione before saying, "I daresay a little help from the love of friends and familiar surroundings would help." Ron and Hermione remained wordlessly stunned and could look after Dumbledore as he swept off, resplendent in a robe of deep purple strewn with twinkling constellations. "For now, I must return to my guest. If you'll excuse me, Poppy." Dumbledore nodded at Ron and Hermione kindly. Madam Pomfrey, a little shocked herself, looked away from Dumbledore's retreating back and stared seemingly through Harry and his bed.
"I just don't understand what these students think is funny to do these days. In the middle of all these demented killings, one day it's Malfoy with Living Death overexposure, the next it's—"
"WHAT?" said Ron and Hermione loudly in unison, at which point Harry stirred. Hermione quickly turned to him and held his hand.
"Harry, you're awake!"
Harry slowly moved up the bed. Hermione slapped and plucked his pillow into shape and he lay on it, facing his friends.
"How do you feel, Harry?" Ron asked.
"Strange, I can't explain it. It's like my chest is filling up again; it's getting better."
"We're glad to hear that, Harry," said Hermione.
"Why were you screaming?" Harry asked. Ron and Hermione exchanged glances. Hermione stuttered and ultimately failed to bear words.
"Hermione thought we were losing you," Ron finally replied.
Harry looked away to the bed on one side, saw the massive boils and looked away with a look of deep sympathy and disgust. "I kinda miss this place."
"Pomfrey doesn't miss you, that's for sure," Ron remarked. Harry chuckled carefully so as not to provoke sources of albeit diminishing pain from his chest.
Edmonds came through the door and shambled toward his bed. Ron, Harry and Hermione watched him with great sympathy.
"You all right there, mate?" Ron called.
"Yeah, fine," said the boy shortly, avoiding their eyes.
"What happened?" Ron pressed. Harry, as his movement was limited, fought to keep his face straightened.
"Nothing major, just tweaked something," Edmonds replied as he very uncomfortably lowered himself onto his bed with a grimace.
"Right," said Ron, "as you were." Edmonds gave a thumbs-up. Ron's lips twitched and then he whispered, "That's never a good place to hide anything, or put it in there for other reasons."
Edmonds returned a deathly glare to Ron while Hermione failed to hold back a laugh, which came out as a stifled grunt. Harry, conversely, held a non-committal expression.
"Dumbledore said you'll recover well enough," said Hermione, returning the air to a more sober plane.
Harry nodded. "Glad I didn't do any permanent damage."
"Yeah, well, I wouldn't recommend…" She lowered her voice. "…staying as long as you have in a different timeline. Nature has a way of correcting itself."
"Yeah, like causing pain when you put things where they're not supposed to be," Ron said more loudly. Hermione slapped a hand over her mouth before she could release another audible grunt of amusement. Even Harry could not fault Ron for this one and failed to contain his grin. Edmonds shifted onto his side, turning his back on them.
"Tell about your trip," said Hermione.
Harry exhaled. "Well, Malfoy is a stubborn piece of work and Slytherins seem to have made a habit of slipping in and out of Hogwarts casually. Blaise looks like he regularly visits the Malfoys' mansion regularly—at least they didn't look surprised to see him there when I went with him. And do you remember Malfoy crying and getting sloshed on the fourth floor? Where did he get that bottle of Ogden's? And I was here going to Hogsmeade under my Cloak without permission on a school-sanctioned trip. It's almost cute. I wonder what would happen if students could Apparate and Portkey in and out of Hogwarts from without the inconvenience of having to get off the grounds."
"That's not terribly surprising," said Ron, "the Slytherins are running roughshod all over this place. They know it in and out, how couldn't they?"
"They call us Lighters, so that was fun," said Harry. Then a smile he could not quite explain to his friends forced its way onto his face. "At least Draco called me that."
"It's also not terribly surprising that he was hard to convince, even to save his own life," Hermione remarked. Harry grunted in agreement.
"You were about to telling about Dumbledore about to get fired," he said.
Hermione closed the curtains around them. "Actually, he was just here to see you. He said he was with Fudge."
"Right now?" said Harry.
Ron and Hermione. "But there's something else I think we should tell you," said Hermione, glancing uneasily at Ron. "We haven't seen Blaise for a while."
"Blaise has not been at Hogwarts?" Harry said as a mixture of astonishment, vindication and hatred exploded inside him. He knew he was right. He had seen Blaise cast the spell on the seventh floor. He just needed to pursue Blaise a little further. Had it not been for his health taking a turn for the worst… "That shifty fuck."
"Harry, I don't we should be having this conversation right now. Maybe you need to recover more fully," suggested Hermione.
"Fuck that," said Harry, feeling a sudden surge of life in his chest, right where he had left the least whole. "You said Dumbledore was having a meeting with Fudge? I want to listen in."
"But, Harry!" said Hermione in a placating tone.
"I kinda want to know what they're talking about, too, I won't lie, Hermione," Ron admitted a little guiltily.
Harry climbed off the bed. "You're not healed yet!" Hermione protested strictly. Harry ignored her. However, she followed them as they returned to the classroom they were previously in to grab Harry's Invisibility Cloak and a bunch of Extendable Ears. They ducked under the Cloak to escape the attention of the Aurors dotted about the castle. They did not find any in the corridor where the entrance to Dumbledore's office was. Harry spoke the password and the gargoyles impishly leapt aside. The staircase ground upwards and stopped at the top. Hermione gasped when she saw two Aurors on either sides of the door standing guard. Harry slapped his hand on her mouth and quietly muttered a Silencing Charm on their feet.
The Aurors approached the staircase, clearly bewildered because it seemed to have moved all on its own. Harry, Ron and Hermione shimmed out of the way, came to the large oaken doors of Dumbledore's office and stuffed the ends of their Extendable Ears under the doors, holding the other in their ears. Behind them the Aurors were standing ready to draw their wands, looking around the vestibule as though looking for invisible intruders.
"This castle got a life of its own sometimes," one of the Aurors said.
"You figure. Remember that poltergeist that used to prank us all the time back in the day?" the other one said, to the accompaniment of a grunt of agreement from his partner. They return to their posts, which still left enough room for the three teenagers to listen in on the conversation in the office. The voices were at first indistinguishable and unfamiliar to Harry but soon became clearer. Judging from the flow of the conversation, it had not gone on for long.
"I've just seen Harry in the infirmary. He's a bit under the weather but he'll make a fine recovery."
"You've seen the boy?" said the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, in surprise. "You're lying, Dumbledore. You've been harping on this lie since the moment I dropped in now that the going is getting tough."
"If I haven't convinced you now, I have no hope of getting through and so I won't make any further effort to."
"Show me the boy then," demanded.
There was a pause.
"Harry is recovering from a serious ordeal and your presence might perturb his health," Dumbledore said.
Fudge snorted loudly. "That comes off a bit thin, though, doesn't it? You say you've just visited him and yet you can't show me and prove to me that he's not missing, never mind being alive."
"You follow rumours with a close ear, Cornelius," Dumbledore said quietly. "If only you did the same to my words, which I think, given that I'm still headmaster, carry more water."
"If you don't stop diddle-dallying and tell me the truth you won't be headmaster for long!" Fudge said angrily.
"Is that a threat?" Dumbledore asked kindly.
"It's a promise!" Fudge roared. "You've testing the limits of my patience, Dumbledore! The Dementors are running amok, Hogwarts students are dropping like flies under your watch and those blasted political heads are out for my blood!"
"Ah," said Dumbledore softly, and Harry could clearly hear the smile on Dumbledore's face at that moment, "so you're worried about keeping your seat after all."
"This is about more than that!" Fudge hissed. Harry could not stop himself from rolling his eyes, the irony was too staggering. "People are looking up to me to lead and show strength in these frightening times! It's not helping at all that the boy's missing and his fellow schoolmates are going out by the day!"
"You have, with my permission, installed Aurors across the castle to stem the death of these students, have you not?" Dumbledore said, and Harry could detect the growing anger in his headmaster's voice. "Your plan has worked superbly so far; there hasn't been a murder in a week. You couldn't have moved fast enough to claim your credit for this, which you thoroughly deserved. Was there more you wanted?"
"I want to see the boy!" Fudge shouted. "I want him to be seen so we can restore some confidence in the people of Britain!"
"I will not permit you to use Harry to bolster your own fame—"
"Fame? How dare you?" Fudge bellowed. "This is about the people of Wizarding Br—"
"This is as much about you as it is about the people of Wizarding Britain," Dumbledore said coldly. Harry could feel the waves of power emanating from the other side of the door. He, Ron and Hermione exchanged knowing looks. "As far as my powers permit me, I will not allow you to use Harry in any way. Six lives have been saved by a measure you led, that should be enough to keep your downfall at bay for now."
"Don't patronise me, Dumbledore!" Fudge shot back.
"I would never do such a thing," Dumbledore replied gently.
"You're an even bigger hypocrite than they take you for! I will return here with Aurors to escort you out. You're fired!"
"Cornelius—"
"Cornelius nothing!" Fudge roared. "I've had it with you, Dumbledore! It's time I take things into my own hands. From the beginning of this whole mess you have led from behind and it's got to stop. If you don't have a solution for me, I'm afraid you'll have to part ways with this office!"
"As you wish, Cornelius. It will not be necessary to call for assistance; I shall remove myself without molestation."
"I didn't say you were being fired so you can go home and drink peppermint tea with your toffees! You're going to jail, Dumbledore!" There was a sickening amount of joy in Fudge's voice as he said this. Harry's hand curled into a fist.
"Ah," said Dumbledore kindly. "I'm afraid I can't do that."
"What?" said Fudge, who for the first time sounded wildly confused.
"I'm not going to jail."
"We'll see about that! Guards!"
Harry grabbed the collars of his friends and lunged himself backward just as soon as the two Aurors blasted through the doors. Luckily the action in the moment was so intense that the Aurors barely felt Ron and Hermione as they brushed past them. In the few split seconds the doors were swung open, Harry saw Dumbledore move in a way he had seen before. Spell light blazed around the office, the door swung closed and a massive noise shook the ground. In a few seconds it was over, dusted pushed out from beneath the door and there was silence. Harry, Ron and Hermione stood frozen where they were.
"He's gone!" Cornelius cried.
Harry, Ron and Hermione ran out of the vestibule.