Angela's Note: I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays! I've begun what farmers around here fondly call 'hibernation', the days of it being too cold or wet to work the fields, so we lurk in our indoor shops tinkering with repairs and growling at the salesmen who prowl by like hound dogs, sniffing eagerly about for a sale.
Enjoy!
Walking through Diagon was never easy anymore. Disguises had to be made, in practical clothing or with magic, often both supplementing each other, to prevent outright public detection of his presence.
The incident with the diamond flowers and the children, which seemed far too long ago by Harry's reckoning, had become something of an Alley legend. As such, hopeful children and their equally hopeful parents, along with hoards of witch and wizards, took it upon themselves to keep an eye out for a green-eyed wizard carrying a staff, who might bestow on their lucky souls the same wealth at the asking.
He shouldn't have made them out of diamond. Why had he done that? Next time he would pick satin. A nice verdant shade of green…
Hermione grasped his hand tightly, her voice an excited whisper.
"I knew this would work! Not a one has recognized us!"
Harry, feeling slightly ridiculous under the unfamiliar wig, returned her excitement with a faux woman's voice. It was beyond creepy to speak like normal and hear a different voice come out.
"Oh, my dear sister, you always have the best ideas!"
Her husky laugh made his smile genuine. It had been a pretty good idea, if it prickled his male pride. Dudley would never let him hear the end of it if he found out his cousin had dressed up as a rather unattractive red-headed witch.
But no one would see the Blind Sorcerer when they looked at him in this get-up, that was for certain. He hadn't even brought his staff, though the lack made him feel naked. Hermione had replaced it with a short brown cane, its top carved like a lions roaring head.
Apparently, Kreacher had dug it out of the Black storage.
Harry absently touched his face with one hand to scratch at where a wisp of dead fiber had brushed him. Dead hair, even if it was an animals, felt kind of like wearing a corpse. On his head.
"Stop that! You'll mess up the make-up." She tugged his hand down, then giggled. "You'll mess up your make up!"
"Glad someone is enjoying herself." He grumbled. "This woman would rather not wear whatever the hell that black stuff is you slopped on my face. It's sticky."
"It's not black, it gives you a more… tannish look. Like you've actually gotten some sun."
"You don't put that crap on your face!" Harry demanded. "So why did I?"
He couldn't pick up the shadowy black liquid makeup with his sight if it was spread thinly enough, nor could he see various lotions for the same reason. The natural light of a body would shine through it. But he still would have noticed if she wore it. It smelled like chemicals.
"I do sometimes." She said firmly. "And you've never noticed. Plus, I don't need it for my disguise. I can just use a glamour without it making me blind."
He gaped at her. "I would too notice!"
"Oh look Harriet, we're here." She pulled them to a stop and her light practically beamed out of her with excitement.
The Menagerie. Harry took a stabilizing breath of the Alley air. Then he let his very excited girlfriend drag him through the doors.
The cat was half kneazle. He recognized the difference immediately, from the complexity present in the overly large feline pattern to the brighter sparkle of its cinnamon brown hue.
It was also old. It's life was the slow steady beat of an experienced elder, not the wild pulsing chaos of a young kitten.
The beast purred audibly where it sat on the counter, the loud rumble overpowering the sounds of the other animals in their cages, the squawking, squeaking, roaring mess of the Magical Menagerie.
Hermione cooed over a box of kneazle kittens on the floor by her feet two shelves over, while Harry leaned against the counter near the old purring half-kneazle and tried not to let the writhing brown and blue lives of the hundreds of animals make him dizzy.
So much life trapped in one place. How did the proprietor stand the sight, let alone the smell? Even with cleaning charms…
The rumbling grew louder. Harry looked to the side, where he could swear the half-kneazle had shifted closer.
It really was much larger than a normal cat. It dwarfed Hiss and Spit by a good six inches.
The owner of the store fluttered about Hermione, waving long purple arms about as he talked excitedly about whatever creature she paused in front of.
Which at that moment was the box of kittens.
Oh, please, don't let her want more than one. I can't handle more than one.
A brush of soft fur. Harry jolted, narrowing his eyes down at the cinnamon cat that was now at his elbow, nonchalantly rumbling its constant purr, face directed out over the shop. The end of it's bottle-brush tail twitched.
"I'm onto you." Harry muttered, and the half-kneazle proceeded to ignore him, squat brown face fixed on the owner of the store as he kept up his fluttering.
"Guy's pretty ridiculous." Harry commented idly, sight now locked onto the animal.
Kneazles were notorious for their intelligence. Smart enough that they made some witches and wizards uncomfortable. It was said some could even understand the conversations of those around them.
The cat flicked an ear, its tail jerking in what looked, oddly enough, like a nod of agreement.
"Why are you still here?"
It slowly turned its face, and no doubt was fixing him with a glaring stare. All he saw was the bright cinnamon light of it's face, shaped into a large feline shape.
"Oh, don't mind that sourpuss." Purple rushed forward, arms attempting to shoo the half-kneazle away. The animal merely turned onto its side, facing the opposite direction with blatant disrespect.
He decided he could like cats after all.
"He's been here, oh Merlin, since my father ran this shop! Anyone who takes him just brings him back. Or he comes back himself. And I have a very strict no-money back policy on my pets! He must be going on fifteen years old now. Or more. But no matter. Our kneazle kittens can live up to twenty-five years! A good investment indeed."
Behind the purple man, Hermione sniffed loudly.
"I don't know if pets should be considered investments."
The man whirled and changed his tact with the practiced ease of a salesman.
"Oh, my dears, not what I meant at all. At all! I simply understand that people desire to spend many years with their beloved companions."
Harry didn't have to guess what Hermione's reaction to the saccharine sweetness in the man's tone would be. She didn't like the wizard any more than he did.
"We'll be going now. Thank you for your assistance. Let's go Harriet." Her own sweetness was as false as the man's. She stepped forward to grip his arm and began to pull him away, her fingers digging angrily into the sleeve of his robe.
"The nerve." She grumbled when they exited. "You should have heard some of the utter nonsense he was spouting. How that man even has a license to sell…!"
Harry suddenly stumbled, his foot colliding with a darting brown shape, and would have fallen flat on his face had Hermione not had such a tight grip on him.
She sucked in a breath, and Harry heard his doom when she spoke.
"Oh, you beauty! What a handsome little guy!"
The old cat rumbled its loud purr and let itself be gathered into loving blue-violet arms. Harry glared fiercely.
He did not like cats.
"Crookshanks! You harridan!" The rushing purple shopkeeper, green robes rumpled as he chased after them. "I'm so sorry! I'll take him at once."
Hermione turned her body away, the half-kneazle cradled against her breasts in a way that made Harry instantly jealous.
He was jealous of a cat. This was a new low.
"I've changed my mind. I want this cat." Hermione announced. "Crookshanks, you said? How much."
The man sputtered.
"Oh, miss, you don't want old Crookshanks! He's… he's old! And… spiteful!"
Harry could have groaned aloud. If he knew one thing, it was that one never told Hermione what she did or did not want.
"I want him. And how dare you call this big sweetheart spiteful? Just look at him!"
Harry was looking, alright. The cat sounded smug with its loud purring and twitching fluffy tail.
The man sputtered again, but Harry only sighed.
Time to accept the inevitable.
He wasn't going to accept this.
Oh, hell no.
"Not in our bed." Harry stated, arms crossed, that night as they prepared for sleep.
Spread across the bed like a big fluffy pillow, Crookshanks rolled onto his back as if inviting a soft hand on his furry belly.
Harry already bore two teeth imprints in one hand from making the mistake of accepting that invitation the hour before.
"Oh, Harry. It's his first night here! He must be so lonely and scared…" So saying, Hermione lay down beside the big creature and proceeded to pet the fiend, who absolutely did not bite her.
Crookshanks had apparently figured out who was boss around Grimmauld Place, and it wasn't him.
Harry sat tentatively on the other side of the creature, the way one might approach a live electrical wire.
No response. He began to relax. But when he went to gather Hermione close, the monster let out one low, long growl.
Hermione giggled.
"He'll get used to you."
But she wasn't talking to Harry.
She was talking to the bloody cat.
"Can't you just... accidently send it outside to get lost in the street?" Harry furtively asked Kreacher two days later when he came down for breakfast.
"Kreacher assumes Master is referring to the newest individual living in Grimmauld Place."
Harry looked behind him, testing his newest skill to look beyond the kitchen wall and into the hallway, which was blessedly empty.
"Yeah. The monster with the brown fur."
"Kreacher believes he is a ginger." Kreacher corrected.
Harry waved one hand in dismissal.
"Yes, ginger. That thing."
A flash of cinnamon brown, and the devil in question was there, jumping up onto the kitchen table with two quick bounds.
The devil that growled and spit the moment he tried to kiss his girlfriend. The devil that insisted in laying on her lap at every opportunity. The devil that tried to kick him out of his own bed!
Harry glared furiously at the feline, who disdainfully stretched itself across his table with the authority of a Master of the house.
Whoever named it Crookshanks was spot on. This cat was a crook!
Kreacher turned, yellow hands deftly placing a round purple saucer filled with pale tan liquid in front of the half-kneazle.
Harry gaped.
"Did you just give him milk? Milk?"
The elf gently ran spindly hands across the felines back, and that blasted rumble began to echo.
This cat was stealing the hearts of his family one by one!
Harry stomped out of the room before Kreacher could respond verbally.
Harry stood in his laboratory and played with the colors of magic.
He was trying to strip an essence from its pattern, trying to discover just how far he could stretch the laws of magic and physics.
He had an uncut violet crystal, a budding jade rose trimming, and a purple glass that held blue water.
Each possessed a color and a pattern. An essence and a structure.
He had made a dragon structure of stone essence. He knew, with raw magic to fuel the transformation, that essences and structures were interchangeable.
But could one exist without the other? Could a pattern have no essence?
He drew the water up and away with magical fingers of emerald green power, and tried to strip the faceted liquid pattern away. It was hard to grasp it, hard to take color away from something that was made of such color; but it haltingly slid free the way a knife might slide from a sheath.
In one place, pure blue color swirled in the air, cradled in his power. In the other, there was nothing he could see.
But he could feel its presence there. He held something he could not see. When he reached out a hand, he touched something that felt wet, a tepid temperature that dripped from one finger.
What is water, when it is not water at all?
His mind couldn't quite comprehend the paradox.
No more than it could understand when he stripped the jade from the thorns of the rose, and yet still felt its prick against his questing touch. Or when he held a crystal cool to the touch against his face, and yet saw nothing of its once-violet essence.
The colors, the essences, he held apart with strain. They seemed to be trying to return to their patterns, like a rubber band stretched to its capacity, or a magnet striving to reach its opposite force.
What would happen if that connection snapped?
As if in answer, he felt the crack against his cheek, and flinched as the crystal he jerked away suddenly shattered, invisible pieces making no sound when they should have hit the floor.
The rose and the water were gone as well, and he hadn't even noticed their disappearance.
When he turned for the colors, he saw them fading away. He tried to hold them, but they slipped from his power like water dripping through cracks in a glass.
There was nothing of substance to cling to.
Harry fell into his chair with a thoughtful grimace.
He had hoped that the vampires black color might be simply the lack of proper human hue, not just a symptom of no soul. After all, dead flesh is white. But if that was true, when he stripped the essence from the objects they should have turned black, and they hadn't. They had destroyed themselves instead.
A dead end, then.
Harry's weary sigh was suddenly knocked from him as a large fluffy shape jumped into his lap, stiff paws barely missing delicate areas.
He would have given into the urge to throw the cat across the room if its aim had been off. The cat was too smart to have done such a thing by accident.
He sat stiffly as Crookshanks settled down, hands held up as non threateningly as possible.
Harry waited for the snap. Waited for the growl, the bite.
When the purring started he glared.
"I'm not giving in that easy." He stated, even as he gently ran one hand tentatively through soft, luxurious cinnamon fur. "I know your true colors."
The cat only rumbled its response.
Reluctantly, Harry began to relax, his mind turning back to his current conundrum.
Goblins were shades of burned orange, house-elves a vibrant flourescent yellow. Those with veela heritage colored in crimson strands, the merfolk in blueish gray. Each their own individuals, but with non-human characteristics overshadowing whatever unique soul-color they might possess. Could vampires be the same? Carbon black simply being the hue of vampiric genetic material?
If that was so, then a simple color change from black to white would not be a step forward to fixing them. He couldn't simply make them human by forcible transfiguration. It would be like forcing a cat to become a dog and expecting the animal to be happy with the change.
Yet, the broken humanity he had seen was, at its root, human. Just like veela and goblins, who could interbreed with human kind, it was compatible enough to create mixed-heritage children.
How to fix something he had no template for? There was no textbook to read, no master of this craft to follow. Only legends.
He absently pet Crookshanks, staring into the cinnamon brown fur, the feline pattern. How it angled and twisted, how it knotted and looped. Elegance and form, the amazing complexity of it. As if some genius in the ancient past had sat down and decided to create a wondrous creature of light that no mortal man could again recreate, only copy the brilliance of it.
Creation. He had to create a new pattern, an unbroken one. Something he had never done before. Had to see how such a thing would work.
Harry leaned his head back, tried to envision something new. Something the world had never seen. Not an imitation, not a recreation, not a copy.
Something that had its roots in normality, but was more than what it was.
The cat under his hands purred, the vibration echoing up his arms.
He had created a feline pattern years before, using the principles of transfiguration and stone. He had had a formula to follow, tweaked based on his own thoughts and theories.
Now, he needed no formula. He knew how to recreate and copy a pattern. He could see what made a cat a cat, how the light glowed, how the pattern twisted. There were nuances that were unique; the slight differences between breed and size, sex and strength. But at its core, a cat was a cat, just like a human was a human.
So, with Crookshanks under his hands, he called his power to the surface, loops of emerald that circled about his body like neutrons around the nucleus of an atom. He could smell the electric scent of its power, felt the fur raise under his fingers in response.
From the air, on the strength of his green magic, he wove a feline pattern, legs and paws, tufted ears, long tail, brown essence.
No pulse, yet. No life.
Something new.
From memory, he built the blue wings of a large barn owl, strong filaments and feathers, muscularity and the bone beneath. He brought the two pieces together, considered how one might make a ground animal fly.
Dragons flew with orange-red fire, phoenixes in scarlet ripples of beautiful light. A hippogriff held within itself the pale blue of an eagle and the rich brown of a horse, melded together with perfect precision. Griffins were the same, beige lion and blue eagle, contradictory ribbons of life and purpose and pattern.
It was nothing new, truly, to make a cat fly. He had seen its like on a large scale. He had a rough template to follow.
He wove the wings into the cat, blue and brown together into an original tapestry of beautiful perfection, and marveled at how well the pieces fit. Marveled again when he saw how the feline heart strengthened on its own, growing larger, how the tail flared with unintentional feathers, the eyes dilating into a bird's optical shape.
The pattern, with his magic as its fuel, his desire as its focus, became whole.
Eyes narrowed, he let the complete animal gently fall to the floor, still unmoving, its heart not yet beating.
A domesticated cat and owl hybrid. The first of its species. Crookshanks' tail lashed against his calf, the cat silent now as it glared at the lump on the floor.
Harry laughed, exuberance fighting to rise into exultation.
But not yet. He wanted more. Needed to prove this was not just creating a miniature griffin.
Alone in his laboratory, with only Crookshanks as quiet observer, he began to weave light again, shades of blue and brown and orange.
Brown for a mammal, with fur and claws and teeth. The pale blue of a bird in flight, the darker blue of a fish under water, the muddy mix of slithering orange reptile.
A snake's head and fangs, its belly scaled like a fish, its mammalian back paws large and webbed. Its wingtips large primary feathers, the arches solid furred skin. It's neck long, its three tails doubly so. A reptile's ridges along its spine, flexing against its back.
A crest that formed on its head and neck, proud as any phoenixes. It was a conglomeration of what he considered beautiful in the species he had encountered.
It formed together, a tapestry of animal life. A creature not bound to air, or water, or earth, but capable of living in each. A fish's gills with a bird's wings and a snake's mind and a dog's paws. It was marvelous.
But something in it reminded him of a dementor, how the many colors wove and sank into each other.
When it was complete, he lay it beside the cat owl, and compared how the two's designs could exist whole and unbroken with Crookshanks own feline pattern.
How is such a thing possible?
And if he could do this to an animal, if he could put wings on a cat and gills on a dog, if he could weave magical red fire into a snake's soul and purple stone upon its scales, what could he do to humankind?
Was there an end to the possibilities? Already temporary changes were capable with potions and plants and spells. He could make those changes permanent. He could give a man the ability to breath under water with merkind, could give a woman wings like a veela.
Couldn't he?
The desire to know, to try, burned inside him with a fire of its own. And with that desire came another question.
Had someone already done so? Had someone long ago taken a human and made them inhuman? Were merpeople and veela, sphinxes and centaurs, all just species that had been created more successfully than vampire kind?
Were griffins and hippogriffs, the many different horse breeds, bicorns and chimeras, the thousands of magical creatures, all also the descendents of just such creations?
Because he couldn't be the first with his abilities. Statistically there had to be others. Others who had discovered what he had, that one could play with life, could twist and mold and reform it.
The mutations of werewolves could be a failed genetic experiment just as vampires seemed to be. So could dementors with their humanoid shapes and their endless hunger for souls and emotions.
How much of magical myth could be explained by methodical scientific experimentation? How many legends had their root in some mad genius of a witch or wizard who made the world their personal sandbox?
The questions that arose with such a hypothesis were complex. The implications staggering.
What it might mean for the magical world.
What it might mean for the mundane one.
Because if he could create a magical creature, then he could create a magical human. If he could isolate the factor that made wizarding bodies able to channel and hold a magical spark, then he could recreate it. He could...
He could…
He couldn't even grasp it alone. The consequences. The political, the economic repercussions… would change the world.
Would break the status quo. Shatter it into a million fragments.
Harry bent over and breathed deeply, cradling the stiffening cat in his arms as Crookshanks let out a meow of protest at the motion. He didn't let go. He needed to hold on to something.
His and Hermione's dream of one day building a united world, where magical and mundane citizens lived in peace. They had known it would take decades, even centuries, to fulfill that dream. To create any semblance of peace.
He had only just begun to consider how to create magical factories, how to employ teams of trained muggleborns into creating magical items that would be useful and masked in the mundane world.
But what if there was no mundane world any longer. What if a new generation arose where all were magical? All capable of channeling energy to some degree?
"I'm home!"
Crookshanks shot from his arms at the words even as Harry jumped at the crack of apparition from down the hall.
Then he looked down at his empty green hands, the Stone a black-white geometrical stain on one palm.
All of these thoughts, spurred because of broken black vampires and a brown half-kneazle. All the potential futures he couldn't yet fathom.
"Harry?"
Her voice from his doorway, her light shining out with magical brilliance.
Brilliance he might one day be able to give to non magical people.
"What's wrong?" Her hand on his cheek, warm and solid. He turned his head to place a soft kiss on her palm.
"Nothing." He whispered into blue-violet light. "Sit down with me."
And he spoke and watched as her light began to burn ever brighter with the fever of possibilities.
Hermione sat on their bed, watching as Harry slept, tousled black hair a mess over the silver silk of his invisibility cloak.
He was exhausted, it was easy to see in his hooded eyes, in the stress lines forming across his forehead. He didn't sleep enough, or eat enough, or relax enough.
She was just as guilty, consumed in her own studies and research. But she still hadn't seen until that moment how tired he looked.
She adjusted the silver cloak further down, her hands absently running across the skin of his back where he lay sprawled on his stomach. Crookshanks had taken up residence across his feet, the large ginger cat's yellow eyes cracked open to observe her movements, the end of his tail twitching with wakefulness.
She should be sleeping. Should be cuddled under the silk and sharing warmth and comfort. After the discussion they had had, one that had lasted until late into the night, she ought to rest her eyes and her mind.
He was considering human experimentation on a genetic level. Changing the very fabric of what made a person a person.
Or was it what made a body a body? What were the ethical consequences of such a thing?
She tried to imagine giving her parents the ability to use a wand, to ride a broom. Tried to imagine the mundane professions that would become nearly irrelevant overnight, dentists being among them.
Should they try something just to prove they could? And if they could in fact do what Harry suspected, should they? Would they even be obligated to improve the lives of so many if they could?
It was the kind of question she couldn't answer right away. They had both agreed on only one thing, that they would wait to consider further action in full until they knew it was in fact an option at all.
If Harry could fix the vampires pattern. If he could fix what Aelia, or one like her, had done centuries before. Maybe then they could consider how this new potential would change their plans.
Hermione lay back onto her side, curling around Harry's still form, trying to quiet her mind.
Crookshanks rose and padded over, settling into the slim space between them with a feline sigh of contentment.
She smiled, and let herself begin to drift into sleep.
The Minister met him at the Leaky Cauldron, their booth cloaked under several layers of privacy wards. Outside that ward, Vaughn stood side by side with an auror guard who gleamed a vibrant orange.
"I'm surprised you wanted to meet here." Harry commented as they sat. "Usually you are chained to your desk."
Scrimgeour grumbled his answer.
"Believe it or not, politicians do occasionally desire to get away from politics."
Harry raised a brow.
"I don't believe it."
The older wizard grunted. "Speak for yourself too then, Lord Potter, as we are here at your request."
Harry frowned. "Fair enough."
The Minister leaned back in his padded booth, the ancient cushion creaking with the movement. "So? What crisis does the Blind Sorcerer wish to spearhead next? Goblin rebellion, perhaps? The Daily Prophet was thrilled to report your brief employment months back."
It was Harry's turn to grumble. "I wish they would stop reporting every move I make like it's a matter for national security. I don't even know how that information leaked."
"Ah." The wizard tapped on hand against the table. "The curse of the celebrity. Eyes on you wherever you go, whatever you do. Stop meddling in current affairs and the fascination might fade."
Harry laughed. "I'm sure that would thrill you, Minister. To not see my face in the Wizengamot."
"What would please me currently is to know what you want." A thread of steel in his voice. "Not everyone who tracks your movements reports to the Daily Prophet."
"Is that a hint that the Ministry is keeping tabs on me?" He queried.
The wizard only tilted his face down, chartreuse fingers tapping their staccato beat.
Harry let that silence grow a moment, then decided to approach the matter directly.
"I want access to the Veil. I've waited nearly five months. The werewolf crisis is no longer a crisis. Public sentiment has shifted into their corner, and people aren't avoiding the shopping Alleys anymore. You have no reason to deny me this request in light of my cooperation with the Ministry."
The man's heart beat harder, the yellow-green pulse rising with some emotion.
"Level Nine is restricted for a reason. It contains secrets of magic that are not safe for the public to know or experiment with. The Department of Mysteries was put into place to not only research dangerous concepts and artifacts, but to also protect people from them."
"Concepts like Death?" Harry asked quietly. "I'm not 'the public', Minister. And I'm not irresponsible. I, of anyone, understand that some facts should be kept secret."
The silence grew again, a pause where he knew the wizard would be considering the many hints and half-truths that had drifted between the two of them since the first time they stood over the torn body of a dementer.
"The Veil is dangerous." The Minister said softly. "Just being around it, looking at it, can be fatal. In the past teams of three were always sent to perform any tests together, with one facing away from the Veil at all times due to its mesmerizing effect. The current director hasn't authorized any new research into the Veil in the last decade due to the rate of unintentional casualties such research causes. We still, even after years of study, know very little about what it is or how it was created, nor who built the room it resides in. I can not imagine what it is you think to do by studying it that countless others have not tried and failed at already."
"I'm assuming this room is made of rock, stone?" Harry enquired, thinking of the cave in the vampiric legend, and saw the wizard's unintentional jolt of surprise.
Then the wizard cursed.
"That's why you have been seen at the Crup. The bloody vampires."
Harry sat up straighter.
"So the Ministry does know more than is in public textbooks on the living dead. You are aware of their legend and how it might relate to the Veil?"
The man waved a hand, voice aggrieved. "It's been a fascination of Level Nine for decades, but no proof has ever been gathered to substantiate a connection between the Veil and their Door. No spell or ritual known has worked to truly summon the dead outside of myth. And any attempt to destroy the Veil by my predecessors failed. Even Fiendfyre, capable of melting stone, leaves the archway and its surroundings untouched. It's an object of purely magical construction, given a physical form as an afterthought. And anyone who tries to physically touch it dies, simple as that." A pause, a flash of anger. "And vampires, Lord Potter? Are the werewolves no longer exciting enough for you?"
Harry's chin rose at the accusation. "The werewolves are building a new world for themselves, Minister, with or without witches and wizards. Their situation in no way resembles that of the vampires."
Fingers balled into a fist, their tapping silenced.
"The vampires have rights. The Ministry does not hunt them, and does not prevent them from accessing blood ethically. We allow them their bonds, their covens, and their lands. What more could they possibly want, and from you? Why must you always meddle with the world?"
Harry made himself react calmly, considering the question in the spirit it was asked, from a man he respected even if he did not always agree with him.
"They are treated as less than human, in public perception and by Ministry employees. They simply want to be..."
"Human?" The Minister interrupted. "But they're not. They are not. If the public really knew what they were capable of, the creatures would have been exterminated decades ago. We hide the extent of their abilities to save them."
Harry laughed at that, hating the bitter edge in his words even as he heard it.
"You don't really believe that. The Ministry tried to kill them off already, didn't they? And failed. The vampires have money, lots of it. With money comes power, influence, doubtless many of their connections are within the Wizengamot itself. And one vampire alone would decimate a team of wizards with both hands tied behind its back. But we both know that vampires rarely travel still exist because the Ministry can't kill them outright. You've been forced to accept their presence, and you cover up your own weakness by hiding the strength of your opponents."
"What do you want from me?" A cold question. "Admit that the Ministry is flawed, has problems, weaknesses? Show me a government that does not. Admit that vampires could kill us all while we slept? Fine. I'll admit it. Treat vampires like they are not what they are, soulless, blood-sucking cadavers? I won't, because they are."
"Let me study the Veil." Harry met cold words with his own. "Maybe you'll get lucky and I'll touch it."
The Minister scoffed. "Those words show that you are still a child. I'm trying to protect you, damn it. If I wanted you out of my hair I wouldn't be sitting here, having this argument!"
"Then stop protecting me!" Harry demanded. "And trust that I know what I'm doing!"
The wizard sucked in a breath and growled it back out again.
"Don't insist on this thing. Pick another pet project. Start that goblin rebellion, I'll deal with it. But don't go meddling with your own mortality. Don't start down that path."
Harry blinked at the sudden switch from anger to worried concern.
"I didn't say I was…"
"Why else?" The Minister sounded weary now. "Who studies death, Potter? Wizards afraid of dying. The darkest magic, the most forbidden, all deal with death and the quest for immortality. Vampires themselves are probably one such failed quest. And studying such things taints a person in ways they can never recover from. It rots away at the magic and the sanity, it shatters the soul. Mortals are not meant for immortality."
"I know." Harry said simply, and absently rubbed the palm of his right hand. "I know that better than many people. I promise you, I have no intention of seeking immortality. I just…" How to explain what he wanted, and not give away too many closely held secrets? "...I need to understand. I need to see it."
A long sigh from the older wizard, as the man shifted in his booth, magic pulsing with agitation.
"You think you can just look at the Veil and understand anything? You talk of sight like you can actually see. You try to touch the Veil and it will claim you, as it has countless others. You step too close, and it will whisper to you in the voices of everyone you have ever loved and lost. It is an object of death that brings only death. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. You seem familiar with the vampire legend. It says the Door was never meant to have a physical existence that one could touch, never meant to exist in the first place. The Department of Mysteries agreed with that assessment long before I was born, which was why they attempted to destroy the Veil, before some descendent could try to use the Veil for a darker purpose than suicide."
Harry could respect that the Minister had dropped the pretense of ignorance when it came to the vampires and their mythology.
He spoke carefully, knowing he stood on shaky ground.
"Necromancy. That's what you are building up to. Summoning an undead army. That's why the Ministry was built here, and why it stayed here when the muggle city grew up around them. The Veil…"
"Not just the Veil." Scrimgeour interrupted. "The Death Chamber itself holds mass quantities of power. The kind that draws all sorts of attention. It's why our Unspeakables take oaths of loyalty and silence, the sort that punish any Oathbreaker with permanent silence. It's why the Ministry has always been cloaked in layered wards, before they were even necessary for security. To mask the draw of the Chamber. This is the place you want me to let you waltz into. The heart of magical Britain, and its greatest vulnerability. Why should I let you go there?"
Harry leaned back with a grimace, and considered the few cards he held, what bargaining power he possessed.
Scrimgeour was not a Minister who could be bribed in this instance, with money or with favors. He had to have a good reason, one based on facts that the man could accept.
And the Minister had told him things in the last minutes that Harry knew was a risk in itself. He could have simply said no, and not explained why. He had trusted Harry with more knowledge of the Veil and the Chamber than he could possibly have possessed before.
But how much did Harry trust him in return? How much was he willing to risk?
"What if I try to destroy it. The Veil."
The wizard's chartreuse magic gave away the emotion he was feeling in rapid bursts of light, even as the man spoke with eerie calmness.
"The last wizard to enter the Chamber with the explicit intent to destroy the Veil never left that stone room. Instead his colleagues watched in horror as he walked into the arch with a brighter smile on his face than many had ever seen him possess in life. You can't fight an inevitable state of being. Death is not an enemy any mortal can destroy."
"You talk like Death is a sentient being, a reaper going around with his scythe to cut loose the strands of mortal lives."
"Who can prove it isn't?" The Minister responded to Harry's remark. "No one. And if you die in this foolish pursuit, I will feel the weight of your life on my own shoulders, because I had the ability to tell you no."
Harry's head jerked.
"You will let me on Level Nine then."
Scrimgeour dragged a weary hand of light across his face.
"Merlin help me. You will have an Unspeakable escort at all times, and access to the Death Chamber alone, no exceptions. There will be a time limit. And no one goes with you. Not your bodyguards, not Miss Granger. These are my conditions."
Harry sat up straight, magic swirling with triumph.
"When can I go?"
The wizard snorted.
"I suppose tomorrow is as good a day to die as any. Be there at closing hours, use my direct floo, I will give you temporary access. The less curious eyes, the better."
"Thank you." Harry responded quickly. "I mean it."
The Minister slid free from the table, standing with regal movements.
"Thank me by not getting yourself killed. Britain loves you, Lord Potter, as capricious as that is at times. If you die inside my Ministry, the speculation will chase me from office and into early retirement."
Harry's smile was broad and genuine.
"If I don't get myself killed, you have my vote next election."
He could hear the answering smile in the other wizard's voice as they parted.
"Favors and bribes, Lord Potter. You are quite the politician yourself."
Dudley Dursley shared a small flat with three other members of his college boxing team, the space reeking of chinese takeout and women's perfume.
"Had a late night last night." His cousin announced offhandedly, before shoving a mix of green cardboard and shadows from one couch cushion. "This seat's clean."
Harry sat carefully, conscious of the fact that the legs underneath said cushion had a pattern splintered in more than one place.
"Thanks."
Dudley's heavy steps sauntered away and then back, each beefy hand grasping more shadow.
"Here, it's plain water." Harry held his hands out, letting the other boy aim and toss the plastic across with practiced ease in a game they had perfected when they were boys.
Aunt Petunia had squealed every time her delicate glassware might fly across open air towards her blind nephew, and the sound had always been worth the inevitable lecture.
"So what's up? You haven't been here since I moved in." Dudley fell onto a chair, the furniture protesting loudly at the treatment.
Harry frowned down at the cold bottle in his hand, arranging the thoughts that had spiraled ever since his talk with the Minister that morning.
And they were alone. No other soul colors present in this room or the bedrooms beyond.
"Am I too young to ask Hermione to marry me?"
Dudley, who had just taken a drink, sputtered.
"What? Wait." The man sat up, bottle placed aside, and scooted his chair closer across the carpet. "Ask me that again."
Used to his cousins flair for the dramatic, he repeated himself. "Am I too young to ask Hermione to marry me?"
Dudley snorted.
"You guys are already living together. What you want to get married for?"
Harry's frown deepened.
"Don't answer a question with a question."
Dudley's light abruptly stuttered and flashed.
"Oh my god. She's pregnant, ain't she? Oh my god…" His cousin's exuberant groan sounded like that of a dinosaur.
"Now just wait a moment…" Harry quickly tried to interrupt.
But Dudley was on a roll.
"Mum is going to flip. Totally flip. I can hear her already, 'what will the neighbors think!'"
"Dudley!" Harry snapped. "She's not pregnant!"
"Oh." Dudley sounded a little disappointed. "Probably a good thing. Her dad would put out a hit on you if you knocked up his daughter before you married her."
"Thanks." Harry grumbled. "I know how to prevent pregnancy, by the way. I'm not irresponsible."
Dudley snorted a laugh. "You're telling me. So responsible I had to give you a book so you'd know how to get a girl pregnant."
"Oh, stop it already." His cousin was never going to let him live that one down. "I'm serious."
Dudley sighed.
"Yeah, I figured. But marriage, really? Marriage? Now?"
"Both our parents got married in their early twenties." Harry pointed out. "It's not that uncommon."
"But why?" Dudley persisted. "You live with her. You, I assume, share bills and stuff? Why is there any rush to make it official?"
Technically, they didn't share bills. Any expenses to upkeep Grimmauld Place were taken from the family Vault automatically, as it had been for decades. And Kreacher had his own line of credit for buying food and supplies from the same.
But while they might not share monetary expenses, they did share everything else. They shared a bedroom, a closet, a laboratory, a library. They shared an owl, and now a half-kneazle. They shared each other's space.
And he wanted to keep sharing.
"I suppose it just feels right. The right thing to do." Harry began slowly. "A commitment that I can offer, a statement that I'm serious. That I want her to be it for me."
His cousin let out a deep breath. "Wow, that's… big. Sounds like you don't need me to tell you you're ready."
Harry grimaced.
"What will everyone think?"
Dudley laughed.
"Mum will be beyond thrilled, but be prepared for her to ask if Hermione's pregnant too, in a very subtle way of course." He paused to laugh again, shaking his head. "Dad's dad, you know? And you'd know better about her parents than me. Good luck asking her father for his blessing though. That man is scary."
Harry jerked, fingers tightening around the plastic.
"People still do that? It's not just in the movies?"
He shrugged. "Sure. A mate of mine did. More of a respect thing than actual permission these days, of course. Still, couldn't hurt."
The sound of the door being unlocked halted further questions, a large burgundy man tumbling into the room in a cacophony of sound and movement.
"Dursley! Get your stuff, we're… who're you?"
Dudley sprang to his feet.
"My brother, Harry Potter. Harry, this lug is Gregg Kelley." He introduced, before reaching down to seize a duffel bag. "Sorry Harry, I got to move. Practice in half an hour. But I'll catch up to you soon, see what advice I can come up with when it comes to, you know, asking."
Harry nodded and set down the unopened bottle, and accepted the quick hug with a smile as he stood.
"Thanks. I'll see you at Aunt Petunia's in a week."
He exited with them, returned a wave, and ignored Gregg Kelley's whispered question asking if 'that was the cousin who was blind'.
Harry simply started walking, Vaughn falling in beside him without a word from where he had been leaning against the brick building that housed several college flats.
The air felt humid, the smell underneath the typical city plethora that of coming rain.
Across the muggle street, he saw the vampires, moving humanoid shadows that tracked their movements.
Spies, or guards, or both, given that they had made no move to close the distance between them. How the creatures had tracked him across muggle London was a mystery, given Vaughn had apparated them into an alley closer to Dudley's college.
He didn't know enough about vampires yet. He would need to learn.
But first, the Veil.
And after the Veil, he would rather like to begin his hunt for a ring.
"I don't see the point in not letting me go down with you." Hermione grumbled from beside him the next day, where he stood by the fireplace. "They've got to know I can just view the memory later."
Harry absently fiddled with the sparkling white powder in his hand, eyeing the crackling red firelight.
"It's more of a safety issue than a privacy one I believe."
She tossed her violet hair and kicked one brown boot gently against his own orange dragonhide.
"If you don't come back I promise to break in down there and rescue you from their evil clutches. Because I doubt the Veil can seduce you, knowing what we know about reincarnation and death."
"You and what army?" Harry grinned.
"The house-elves, obviously. And I bet Viola could even call some werewolves to her valiant cause. We'll just pop in and tear the place apart."
Harry wrapped one arm about her shoulder and leaned down to kiss her neck.
"My courageous Viola, conquering the world one Ministry at a time. I'll be honored to be your damsel in distress."
Her laughter spurred his own, and he smiled as she tugged on a lock of his hair.
"You'd make a great damsel with your hair getting long again. I'll just dub you Blind Harriet in my call to action. You'll be so thankful when I come to rescue you that you'll swoon at my feet."
Harry leered down at her boots.
"I think I feel a swoon coming on already…"
She shoved him lightly towards the fireplace, a smile in her voice.
"Get on with you, Harriet. Go get in trouble."
"Happy to oblige, My Lady." He dipped into a mockery of a curtsey, and was rewarded by her buoyant laughter.
And he smiled as he tossed the sparkling powder into the fireplace, the red flames growing to a white roar.
"Be careful." Harry heard her whisper at his back as he spoke the codeword for the Minister's personal floo.
"I love you." He replied just as softly, and stepped into the bright light.
A wizard with a deep maroon soul waited beside the Minister's yellow-green form when he stepped from the flames.
"This is your escort." Scrimgeour said, and at Harry's nod continued. "You have one hour. That's it. In and out. No touching anything. Observational spells only at this time. If you think you have a bright idea to destroy the cursed thing, you run it by the Head of the Department first so she can calculate any potential collateral damage."
"I understand." Harry said simply, and when the maroon person moved to the exit Harry fell into step behind them, his staff a comforting weight in his hand.
Behind him he saw the Minister sit heavily into a chair, chartreuse hands running through hair of the same shade.
The wizard was worried. For him, or for what he might do?
Maroon was stoic as they punched in the button for Level Nine. Harry couldn't tell if they were male or female, any defining physical characteristics hidden under robes that gleamed with red and gold power.
The person didn't introduce themselves either, and Harry settled into the grim silence, feeling for all the world like a very unwelcome guest.
When the doors opened again, a circular purple room waited, its stones a shade of violet that reminded him of the heavy granite gravestones in a cemetery. Multiple green doors shone from all directions, veins of power running through them with streams of golden wards and red charms.
"The Death Chamber." Maroon spoke in a feminine voice, perhaps solving his previous thought. Or was she a he, simply using the same charms he had used in Diagon Alley weeks before? Abruptly, he floor underneath him trembled as the walls began to rotate, shaking him from his thoughts.
Or was the floor moving? It was hard to tell for certain, but it was an odd security measure regardless.
The movement stopped, and Maroon strode forward to the door straight ahead of them, identical to all the others.
It opened at a wand wave from the witch in front of him, and Harry suddenly felt a shudder rock him back on his heels.
He couldn't say the source. He didn't believe in premonitions.
But what he felt felt a lot like dread.
"It's this way. Unless you've changed your mind, sorceror."
The words were razor sharp, and he wondered if she meant it as a challenge or an insult.
"Right." Harry muttered. "Ladies first."
The Unspeakable snorted and stepped through, waving a hand with a dramatic flare.
"Feast your eyes on the Death Chamber. Try not to die."
Harry slowly stepped forward, that feeling of dread growing inside of him. No longer just dread, either; but excitement, a flood of energy rising from his heart that he felt in every particle of his body.
And as his foot moved from violet stone to a deeper eggplant shade, the darkest purple hue he had yet observed, he saw what rested regally in the center of the cavernous arena below.
And his right hand burned, shooting fire up his arm as he dropped his staff with the shock of the sudden pain, his left grasping the gloved skin in helpless reaction. The Cloak upon his shoulders rustled closer, its pattern a mantle against his neck, smooth and soft and as comforting as the Stone in his hand was threatening.
It gleamed malevolently, a tattered fall of substance, between the purple arches that were more of a frame than an anchor. Steps led down towards It, as It stood in the bottom of the bowl like a testament to all that was impossible in his world.
A waterfall of black darkness and bright stars, pure and deep and impossible. The infamous color of the Hallows that he wore on his person that very moment.
Only one key difference to set it apart.
Where the Cloak was mostly cones and the Stone mostly prism, their patterns had a cohesiveness to them, like brothers who shared the same ears or eyes as their parents. A resemblance to the process that had created them and made them a set.
The Veil's pattern was cone, and prism, and pyramid.
And it was broken, fractured in every part of its substance. Shining from those cracks a rainbow of light poured forth, every beautiful and pure color he had ever seen and more, colors that should have mixed into the dirty brown of a dementor but didn't, somehow setting themselves apart when he focused too long upon one.
The Veil rustled in a movement mirrored by the Cloak upon his shoulder, echoed by a starburst of pain from his hand. He looked down to see the black-white of the Stone sinking deeper into his bones and muscle, latching onto him for all the world like a child grasping the hand of its mother too tightly when it was afraid.
Whispers reached his ears, too soft for him to make out, but familiar. So familiar he knew he had heard them before, could swear he knew...
He took two strides forward to stand at the top of the hill, looking down at the twisting pattern, trying to understand what he saw.
The Veil was not just broken; it was missing slivered pieces of itself, strips torn loose like threads from an ancient carpet. Prisms and cones and pyramids, their angles fractured in the wrong places, making more shapes that shouldn't be a part of it.
Harry, his back to the maroon Unspeakable, held his right hand in front of him and pulled the tight glove off with a sharp motion.
He looked between the two and compared, even as he commanded the Cloak to spill off his shoulders and pool over his left arm, until he held both outstretched like the conductor of an orchestra of one.
Two Hallows and the Veil, and he couldn't turn away from the conclusion he felt growing with greater conviction in every moment that passed.
More whispers reaching his ears, but they were not as seductive or peaceful as he had expected.
They begged in low moans and gasped with angry breaths. They made the hairs on his neck stand up, the emerald of his skin becoming less distinct as his power rose to ripple through the air around him, a winding green snake of magic that sought restlessly for an enemy it couldn't locate.
The Veil was not a Hallow.
It was the base material that had fathered them.
~Next Chapter: Yellow Petals in Golden Firelight~
Merry Christmas Everyone!
