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Part Twenty-Three

"I need you to explain some things about familiars to me," Hermione said, sitting down in front of Ron with parchment and a quill.

Ron eyed them uneasily. Not that he didn't like Hermione, and she had given him some useful tips for essays and where to look in the books for homework, but she was acting like she was going to use him as a study subject. He wasn't sure about that.

"So," Hermione said earnestly, leaning forwards, "I know that Regina is an ermine, and yet she doesn't try to eat the little birds and rodents that some people here have as familiars. Why not?" Regina chittered on her shoulder as if she was angry about the question.

Arctos nudged Ron in the side with his nose, as he often did, to remind Ron he was there. Ron scratched behind his ears and tried to think of a sensible answer to that question. "Blimey, Hermione. Why would they? Familiars are all intelligent."

"But they're also animals, with all their natural instincts. Why wouldn't they?"

Ron blinked at her. "You think regular animals walk around with wizards and can't be seen by Muggles and glow different metallic colors? I mean, you might get brown wolves in nature, but you aren't going to get bronze ones like Arctos." He caressed his wolf's side, and Arctos huffed in pleasure and leaned against him.

"And you don't get golden snakes or silver ermines, either, I know." Hermione brushed a curl of hair out of her eyes. "But it just seems like familiars would find it hard to resist chasing down other familiars."

"They don't."

"I know. I just want to know why."

Ron sighed. He wanted to tell Hermione to go ask Draco or something, who would know more about the magical lore surrounding familiars, but he supposed there was a reason Hermione had asked him instead. Draco still sometimes had a sneer in the back of his voice when he talked about someone who hadn't grown up in the wizarding world.

Except Harry. But Harry was kind of the exception to everything.

Ron could at least tell her some things, though, even if he couldn't tell her all the technical explanations she was probably dying to hear. "Familiars are an extension of a wizard's soul," he said, and watched as Hermione began to scribble the words down. "They wouldn't hunt and hurt someone else's familiar any more than normal people would kill another person. They can be corrupted, I think," he added, a little less certain. Sometimes he had overheard his parents talking about battles when You-Know-Who was around where Death Eaters' familiars attacked other people. But it was hard to tell when that was corruption and when it was just them defending their wizards, which any familiar had a right to do.

"What does corruption mean?"

"You corrupt your soul, and that corrupts the familiar."

Hermione started to write, then stopped and gave him an exasperated glance. "But what does that mean? How do you corrupt your soul or corrupt your familiar?"

Ron laughed. It was a weird sound, and he stopped making it when Hermione's look sharpened. "You think they write descriptions of that process down, Hermione? Bloody hell. Of course they don't." Arctos's tail thumped, and Ron bent over him, making his fur almost stand on end with how hard he was rubbing it. "There might be spells. Rituals. Something. But I don't know what they are."

Hermione frowned and tapped her wand against the table, making Ron wince. But other than a few sparks shooting out, nothing happened. Ron was relieved. Madam Pomfrey would never forgive them if they damaged the books while supposedly just sitting in the library. "Is that why they call people Dark wizards?"

"Some of them," Ron said cautiously. The only Dark wizards that he knew for sure were You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters who had fought on his side. And then, he had to admit that he wasn't sure about all of them, anymore, since Draco was a Malfoy and they'd fought next to You-Know-Who, but Draco was coming over to their side. "Not all of them, I don't think? You can be a Dark wizard and not have a corrupted familiar. But I think the worst ones have corrupted familiars."

"Huh," Hermione said, and stood and disappeared into the shelves of books without a word. Regina gave him an irritated look and bounded after her, although Ron didn't see how that was his fault. Arctos whuffed a little.

"Yeah, you and me both," Ron said, and then went to play tag with his wolf, since his Charms essay wasn't due until Monday.


Albus closed his eyes, meditating carefully. It had been a long, long time since he'd used this particular talent, and it was harder with his magic and Fawkes's held down by the suppression cuffs. But he had mastered it as a bored, lonely child watching his younger sister, and boredom and loneliness were certainly conditions of the cell in which he now found himself.

When it seemed as if the whole of his body was thrumming like a tuning fork, then he took a step to the side.

Well, his spirit did. It had pulled free of his body. Albus opened his eyes and found his consciousness fading through the wall of the cell as if he were a ghost. He smiled slightly in triumph, or at least vibrated with pleasure and goodwill, as he drifted softly up through the Ministry, from the holding cells to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He would have to travel for some time before he found Madam Bones's office, but he had plenty of time.

And in this form, no one would be able to see him. Ghosts were only visible because their bodies were utterly gone, and that drove the soul to create an ethereal facsimile. Albus was traveling astrally. The only people who would be able to sense him were other astral travelers.

Golden familiars could, as well, but being as it was a schoolday, Albus didn't think he would encounter Harry here.

He drifted around several corners, listened to the talk of the people walking obliviously through him, and peered through the open doors he encountered. So far, no one was being so considerate as to be escorting a naïve visitor to the Ministry to Madam Bones's office. Albus resigned himself to taking his time.

Before he found the office, he heard his name. Albus turned and focused, and for a moment the world narrowed around him as if he were rushing down a thin white tunnel. Then it stabilized again, and he was hovering over the shoulder of a tired-looking woman dressed in Auror robes.

"But I don't understand why you think this is such a big change," said the man opposite her. He had familiar features, brown eyes and thick black hair, although Albus had to squint at his bronze hyacinth macaw before he recognized him. Of course, Lewis Alfonzo, friend to poor Marlene McKinnon who had fought in the Order with Albus and died in the war.

"Because for years, our wizarding world has had an unacknowledged Lord," the Auror said. Her shoulders slumped. Even the copper mare leaning on her shoulder stood with head drooping. "Maybe Dumbledore never wanted to rule, but he made his power felt anyway. Everyone had to be careful around him."

"Not that careful."

The Auror ignored poor Lewis. "Now there's another choice, someone else to swear allegiance to. If you think that doesn't change things, then you're the fool, not me, Alfonzo."

"But you don't have to swear allegiance to him!" Lewis waved his hands around, making his macaw clap his wings in emphasis. "Albus never demanded anything like that, and this new gold one's just a child. You can just go on as you were before."

"Leaving things the same means acting as if Dumbledore's the only choice, though. It means ignoring reality." The Auror shook her head and looped her arm over her mare's back, turning towards a door that was presumably her office. "Give it up, Lewis. Find someone to convert who's as much of a fool as you are."

The door shut with an echoing bang, and Lewis leaned on the wall and scowled at it. His macaw preened his hair in comfort. Albus smiled. After so many decades with Fawkes, he knew the comforting gestures of birds.

But the smile faded after a second. If Harry became the target of people who wanted a Lord to swear to…

That would change the political landscape in ways that Albus hadn't anticipated. He had thought a few traditional wizards or ones more enamored than they should be with Harry's golden familiar would address him as Lord, but not swear, because they would be cagey, pragmatic sorts wanting to keep their political freedom. Other people would be aware that Albus would be free someday, and refuse in order to keep their options open. If Harry demanded it, that would scare others off. And some would simply never swear to someone with a serpent that looked so like Voldemort's.

He might have a critical mass of people tired of Albus, though. That, Albus hadn't foreseen.

He did find Madam Bones's office and read the paperwork on her desk relating to the progress of his trial and what they were planning to do to ensure he was tried on each charge, but it was almost mechanical now. He was saddened to note that Harry's Muggle relatives had been tried and condemned to a Transfiguration punishment. Muggles were ignorant of the nature of the wizarding world, and spending time as helpless animals would only make them feel more powerless and resentful. Placing them with qualified Mind-Healers, perhaps Muggleborns, would have been better.

In the end, he retreated to his cell and spent some time thinking about what his next step should be. Just because there were people willing to swear to Harry did not mean that a movement would start soon. And it did not mean that Harry would accept them. His upbringing in the Muggle world had gone a long way towards preserving his natural modesty.

But Albus decided he would have to start one of the tactics he had considered much earlier than he would have otherwise.

That night, when an Auror trainee and her tin dragonfly brought him dinner, Albus engaged her in small talk. It was still easy with those young ones who had grown up in awe of him; the girl kept blushing and casting glances at Fawkes on his perch as if she couldn't believe that someone with a golden familiar was speaking to her. Albus smoothly guided the conversation around to where he wanted it to go.

"Did you know that it's possible for golden familiars to arise from something other than an accident of birth?" he asked, and watched in delight as her mouth widened at what she must have thought was rare gossip.

"No," she breathed. "Really? How?"

"Oh, it can happen when someone corrupts a silver familiar and has them eat enough other silver ones," Albus said, leaning back and letting his fork stir through the leftover noodles on his tray. He was telling the truth. Tom had let his Nagini consume the living bodies of silver familiars during the last war, the only way they could be eaten, since a familiar dissipated immediately on the death of their wizard or witch. Albus thought he had been aiming to turn Nagini gold. "It could also happen if someone else's magic was added to a silver familiar's magic. For example, you've heard of wish blessings?"

The trainee clasped her hands, while her dragonfly buzzed around her head. "I thought they were rare and powerful magic."

"They are, but that does not mean they do not exist," Albus told her gently. He personally thought that was that way Lily had saved young Harry, directing all the power of her magic into a wish to keep him safe. That had blessed Harry enough to save his life from the backlash of the Killing Curse—and, combined with the Horcrux, had lifted his familiar to be gold and serpentine. Albus grieved that young Lily had wrought such a mistake. "I know of a particular case in which a wish blessing made a silver familiar gold."

"Oh, please tell me, sir, will you? The stories of golden familiars and their wizards were always my favorites!"

Albus granted her the smile of a parent indulging a favorite child, and began to drop hints. From the way her mouth and eyes both widened as the tale went on, he was sure she was picking up on them, all while assuming he was not, that he was merely a mostly senile old man rambling his way through stories.

The rumors would begin to spread soon. People who suspected that Harry's golden familiar was unnatural would not be so quick as to swear allegiance to him.

It was only a temporary measure, however. Albus knew he would need to do something more permanent if he didn't wish to see Harry leading an army like Voldemort. Or with Voldemort, given what the presence of the Horcrux in his scar meant.

But as a first strike from inside his cell, Albus thought it a particularly masterful one.