Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter (novels, industry, products, movies, person, etc.) that honor belongs to Scholastic Books and JKRowling – clearly if I owned Harry Potter (again, novels, industry, products, movies, people, etc.) there would be a lot more porn. … and just possibly banana fritters.
Author's Notes: It's a double header! … I'm bored, and it's snowing (in fecking April! That's just wrong!) and I'm supposed to be dying Easter eggs but I'm waiting for my friend instead etc. So I'm posting – happy Easter, if you're not Christian or not a fan of blatant commercialism (particularly those white chocolate crosses… because those things are just freaky, hysterically blasphemous and freaky) "happy spring solstice". Just a note - I really hate this first segment – I mean, okay I guess the chapter's important and blah blah blah, but the first segment… just seems so Emo. But the bit with "Merlin Potter, ever heard of toenail shears?" Cracks me up every single time I read it ... you know, it occurs to me that this story may be viewed by some as incredibly depressing... and those people are not wrong, but I laughed harder writing this story than I do watching most sit-coms, or anything relatively campy. ... aaah to have a twisted sense of humor. In light of that - you can find the entire, re-edited, uncut archive (this will include some more NC-17 scenes in later chapters) at Malf0yM0nkeys. Come visit, and to everyone that gives me feedback I wish the craziest ideas/inspirations ever to have landed in your brain. It's a fire, go with it.
Chapter 29 - Communicating
He was lonely, so lonely, and sad, and tired in a way that he had never been tired before. There was nothing for him now, no home to return to, no family to bemoan his existence, no muggles in the world to hate him, no kindly old men to convince him that maybe his life was worth something after all. His friends had gone, his memories of them were fleeting and distant, leaving him to wonder if they'd ever been at all. He was dying somehow, through Voldemort who had his eye on no uncertain murder for some time, through Quidditch where it would be oh-so-easy to slide off his broom in front of a thousand stunned spectators, through time to whose inevitable grasp he would eventually fall. He was dying and he felt it worming inside his bones and stealing his heartbeats away from activity and purpose; sand stripping him of his flesh and nicking at his bones.
He had no right to share in their lives. No right to call himself a true friend to them, nor the ability to call himself a human, to share in their grief or mourn their losses with them. Harry was their tool, he was the wand, or the mascot, or just the stupid bit of rice that caught in the back of the throat and murdered innocently. He was just a method of survival, hardly human to begin with, and doing this, doing this was the only way he could think to escape the never ending sense of responsibility as people that hadn't been designed like he had died for the very same reason, died.
The knife was hot and cold and liquid in the way that only steel can be. It didn't reflect the hand that held it – it didn't bandy words and make false accusations against its possessor. The knife was a knife was a knife – good and evil didn't matter to it. The skin beneath the knife was blue, and purple and silver, and translucent and the knife did the job it had been created to do, plunging beneath the waiving milk surface of his skin with fire and ice. Harry Potter had not considered suicide. He had never thought to kill himself even as the hand solidifying around the handle of that oh-so-effective weapon became his own, even as the soft black template of his mind became red and mercurial, and puddled around his feet in a shining and uneven pool that hadn't sunk into the fabric yet. Even as he felt himself flooding away Harry Potter had not ever considered suicide.
He felt his heart pounding. Felt the inevitable panic of death, that desperate last attempt to save his own soul from eternal hell, and the horrible thought that no, he didn't want to die. Nothing on earth was worth sacrificing his life for, and even in misery and pain he wanted to live. Live. He understood Nicholas Flammel, he understood Voldemort, he understood the absolute terror in Sirius' eyes when he fell backwards, stunned and into the unknown. It was unknown. Harry didn't want to die and the knife slipped away, dissolving in his hand like arsenic, green and crumbling as his fist loosed its hold.
Where was he in this? A breeze said outside, the stillness in the air said in, somewhere he would be found? Some corner where no soul could come across him in time to save his life – Harry didn't want to die in this black unknown, he didn't want to die at all. Where was Malfoy to stay his hand and berate him, and hold his arm together, hold him together, while he died and died – since when had he relied on Malfoy to be his keeper? But Malfoy wouldn't be touched, and would never come to find him here, wherever here was, because this was his mess and Draco Malfoy was a firm believer in sorting out ones own messes.
Ron was staring at him scowling from that horrible pool of body fluid that he stared into now, aghast. Not his parents who were gone now from mind, not Sirius who had been replaced by the more recently deceased in sorrow. And the image of his friend flickered into Hermione, who was standing with her arms across her belly that bulged with a child that she claimed was Neville's – screaming, screaming not the silent pain she had before in Dumbledore's office when it was all Harry could do to stand against the horrible weight of Ginny and Marjorie and Ron, but screaming long and loud and she was old and haggard until Hermione's face became McGonagall's. The woman sighed, and Harry did not look away for long before the pool flickered again, another drop from his mutilated wrist stirred its surface. Voldemort was laughing with eyes brighter and more vibrant than they had ever been before, still red reflected in his own life's blood, still evil as the whole world shriveled under his gaze and Harry's idiocy flooded it all in a tsunami of grief and liquid from his untimely suicide.
Harry sat up in the grey light of dawn; his hand flew to his wrist which was perfectly normal and unscarred save the tiny puncture scar he'd received during detention in the green houses so long ago. His breath caught and the wave of panic he'd been fighting dissipated into a cloud. Nightmare, a frequent occurrence and no less damaging for the routine. This wasn't suicide, this would work, this had to work. He wasn't killing himself, he hadn't sacrificed friends and his skeletal family for the perverse pleasure of dying. Stubborn anxiety took him then and he scowled, he wasn't trying to kill himself no matter what anybody thought, no matter what Malfoy had to say, he wasn't trying to die. He refused to acknowledge that somewhere in the pit of his stomach lived a part of Harry Potter that didn't want to be a hero, and didn't want to solve the world's problems, and had simply found that the easiest out was at the hand of the enemy. This plan, however absurd, was going to work because he had nothing else and desperate impatience had him firmly in its thrall.
Harry fought down the anger that growled up in his throat as the words of imagination came back to sting him, chanting a vague reproach at his behavior and held on to the precious belief that despite everything the world said he was doing the right thing. Stubborn, yes he was stubborn, and damned if he would let the fickle mob convince him that this was wrong, this was crazy, this was suicide. He had an answer, he had a chance – if he didn't bet the lot then he was all the more a coward. Since Ron, and since Hagrid he had lost the ability to sit on his hands and wait for people to fix his problems – to hell with his nightmares because this was the only way Harry knew he had a chance. He had an in, he had a plan, and a sporting chance, he knew he was going to die eventually, and probably as a direct result of what he and Malfoy were trying but… he had to do something and damn everything if even his own head thought he was wrong.
Harry's foot hit the bedpost with a thump and the dull pain in his heel held the reassurance of reality that his dream had not. The undirected anger was what had him yanking into trousers and tugging on a shirt. Ron could scowl all he liked from his vantage point in the afterlife, but Harry was going through with this, and he moved from his empty four-poster to go eat breakfast in his isolation at the Gryffindor table. "Harry?" Came a sleepy voice as he turned the handle on his dorm, Neville was blinking at him, stupid with sleep, and Harry cringed as his dream of Hermione came at him from the depths of his mind. "Everything all right?"
"Yeah Nev."
He had to find Malfoy and end this thing as soon as possible. Now. It was driving him mad having to wait to confront Voldemort, and wait knowing that his chances were remote at best and having to muster the courage every day to not simply call it off. Like a wedding in some regards, neither party entirely positive that this was the best course of action but far too much in momentum to stop things, or a birth; it was time and there was no getting around it. Maybe this was how Neville felt every morning of his school career for five years, waking up to face the good Professor Snape and knowing that it was his worst fear wearing a scowl just for him. The analogy didn't quite hold water, because Harry and Neville both knew that Professor Snape would never intentionally harm a student, if only because of the liability to the school, and that Voldemort would never be remotely amusing, even in Matron Longbottom's hat.
Harry let his mind wander as his feet pursued their course to the dungeons. Malfoy had given him a sound verbal thrashing for not coming to him immediately with the information Dobby had given him, to which Harry replied that it was just after a specific instance in which Draco had fled like a bat out of hell and Harry thought it wiser not to disturb him lest he be hexed, and Easter break had gotten very much in the way. Draco rallied with an aristocratic sniff that Harry found incredibly poncy, and pointed out that Malfoy's do not flee. Harry thought it prudent to avoid a screaming row by simply taking his lumps and neglecting to mention that Draco had then been hiding from him because Malfoy's certainly do not hide. His temperance and foresight, however, was magnificently wasted when Draco let into him for not discovering the exact properties of the Bacchus Flute which, hardly fitting the elegant standards of an actual flute, had turned out to be a lopsided and lumpy little bowl that Dobby claimed could solve all of their problems. Draco then proceeded to nag his ear off while they trotted up to the kitchen to rectify his 3am mistake. "Mordred's Mother-in-law, Potter!" were Malfoy's exact words, which he only ever used when he was deeply upset, so he proceeded to expound on Harry's inadequacies until Harry was feeling approximately six inches tall and about to be squashed by a house-elf.
Malfoy had forgotten his anger though, sacrificing indignation in favor of amazement and nervy caution. Dobby had done them a great service, Bacchus Flutes were supposedly a popular trend among house elves in the 13th century for obvious hosting reasons, but the single set of complex magical mugs had dwindled down until there were only two remaining in the world. The Flute was the genuine article, designed to produce any liquid whether simple water or the viscous Elixir of Life, an alchemical miracle that in many ways went far beyond the abilities of the Philosopher's stone. It had been crafted by the beatific and reclusive cousins of the common house elf and was a breathtaking gift that seemed to shimmer with both magic and importance despite its aesthetic ugliness.
Harry had watched across the top of his water glass as Dobby explained everything to the son of his former master, excitedly gesturing and demonstrating by asking the Bacchus Flute in his reedy little voice to please provide him with the honeysuckle nectar and the cup promptly overflowed. "I has been using it for Winky sirs, but Harry Potter is needing it more." Harry felt a guilty twinge as the little house elf explained that the cup had belonged to his grandmother but he was giving it to his good friend Harry Potter because the wonderful Harry Potter would never use it for evil. Malfoy suppressed a snort, Harry cringed.
Dobby's series of revelations prompted the most categorical and meticulous book search thus far, delimiting the search to elf magic, specifically the Bacchus flutes and the various uses that had been discovered for them over the last eight centuries. Like all things of its chemical and magical nature, the softly-glowing porcelain tended to absorb the attributes of the things it was exposed to. With long-term exposure to poison, the Bacchus Flute would proceed to act exactly as it had for hundreds of years, producing the liquid desire of any possessor, but whatever it produced would be tainted by lethal poison for some time to come. Ordinarily genuine and potent exposure took years, Draco was expediting the process through the means of various charms and a magical gate, the corruption of the Bacchus Flute would only take thirteen days and nights, it was all Harry could do not to roll his eyes at the number.
He crawled into his bed sometime after third hour Transfigurations with the vague desire never to emerge from it and slept until his nightmare let him. Harry lived as a simple wizard, put two and two together, you get four: perfect for a bridge game, or better yet, assassinating the Dark Lord. In his happy world of non-theoretical magic you mushed strong smelling plants together in the right order and got results; all of the gate drawing and magic mixing was strongly Draco's forte and Harry kept well out of it. He didn't pretend to understand the magic, only knew that it worked, something thing they'd argued over when Harry demanded an explanation, only to later find that and explanation of the precise magicks at work would probably send his brain leaking through his ears and onto the flagstones. The benefit of using something as potent as Azrael's Mercy in a project like this was that the results would be lethal, but Harry kept his reservations and could only hope that whatever Malfoy had in mind would work, because he had no suggestions for improvement.
Malfoy had been particularly touchy of late and somehow Harry recognized this as his fault with no way to rectify the situation, so he was on his way to the dungeons, and probably on his way to more scathing remarks about his general competence. Malfoy wanted things done right, and in this instance Harry couldn't blame him, but knowing he had the appropriate weapon and having to wait to use it was pushing him to the very brink of self control. His feet had gotten out of the habit of shoes, and the castle stones were cool beneath them as Harry's patience finally ran its course. The ensuing argument was explosive, and Harry walked away with bleeding knuckles where he hit the wall.
"Merlin Potter, ever heard of toenail shears?"
"Sod off." Harry Potter could definitively say that he was not in the mood for witty banter about his toenails, excess paraphernalia, or comment on the state of his feet in general. He was balanced precariously on one leg, bracing himself against a stall in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom and performing a clumsy lift as Malfoy held his right foot firmly. It was still the perfect place for somewhat illicit extra curricular activities having nothing to do with fun because snogging students were soon intruded upon by the hormonal ghost and though the 6th year Gryffindor prefect was female and well aware of the isolated place, she studiously avoided it since Myrtle was torn between offering condolences for Ron and lamenting that it was not Harry who died and might have shared her toilet. So in perfect secrecy they had placed their cauldron sitting amidst twists and swirls of magic that marked their gate – occasionally the contents that Malfoy had fought to procure went 'blurp.'
The gate magic was an archaic and ridiculously complex process that easily could have easily substituted for a NEWT exam in Ancient runes, but Harry maintained that it needed to be done, and so they did. The spell was to be performed precisely two days past the full moon, cauldron handle pointing south west, and seventeen twigs laying in a tee-pee turned towards the East; but Harry didn't need to understand the magic to know that it worked, he knew "Potter, if you step on that rune I'll cut your balls off and feed them to the squid" and that was good enough for him. So he humored Draco by hovering in this ridiculous and awkward ballet pose while Malfoy traced runes and swirls on the floor of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, first in chalk, then with his wand, muttering to the four wind gods and chanting something obscure in Latin as the whole thing came to life.
The gate was designed to weave opposing spell components together, and with a little tinkering it worked on liquids too; soon the near powdery contents of Azrael's Mercy that they'd patiently scraped from the crucible, a decaying agent that would slowly tarnish and pit the surface of the Bacchus Flute and would make the poison more effective and the final ingredient, enough of Harry's own blood to set the potion boiling would be chemically bonded with magic as a directive. When the magicks were raised and the gate sealed the potion would be harmless to anyone that did not share Harry's blood – their somewhat graceless solution to the question of 'what if Voldemort decides to test it?'
Harry's Muggle-raised logic insisted that he and Voldemort did not share his actual DNA, and that Wormtail's hand could surely counter whatever influence he'd had in the Dark Lord's resurrection. Malfoy's pure wizard logic sneered in the face of Harry's, pointed out that in the realm of Muggle biology said resurrection was impossible, and that Harry should keep his mouth shut and bleed when told. The argument had degenerated into yet another screaming row until Malfoy smacked him in the face with the point behind this nonsense and firmly stated that if Voldemort tested it without the blood magic they'd be dead, and if it didn't work they would be dead; Harry sullenly shut up and agreed to bleed when told; happy to be doing something at last.
The cauldron was steaming very gently and Draco had kept a handkerchief over his mouth and nose to avoid the foul smell. Harry had not been granted the same courtesy and was squirming uncomfortably with the knowledge that there was a glutinous and possibly corrosive sludge only inches beneath his numbing foot. The kitchen knife in Malfoy's hand was scratching at his ankle bone, leaving a network of tiny thin lines and score marks that would bubble up and become red without procuring a drop of the pint they needed for this spell to work. "What is it, exactly, that you're doing? Trying to tickle it out of me?"
Malfoy fidgeted and tossed Harry a glare as he scored a somewhat harder line in Harry's ankle that welled up with blood and garnered them a tiny drop. "I don't exactly want to hurt you." He said stubbornly and went back to the excruciatingly tedious task of collecting Harry's blood.
They'd chosen the feet because they tended to bleed profusely with minimal damage, and very few people asked questions if you showed up to class with a scratch on your ankle instead of a slit wrist, but this was becoming ridiculous and Harry's hip had started to ache with the strain of keeping his leg aloft. "How thoughtful Malfoy, you're the soul of courtesy." He braced himself against the bathroom wall and wrestled the knife from Malfoy's limp grasp and thrust it point-first into the soft spot just below his ankle bone. It was cold and Harry could feel the blood leave his face in a wash of little tingles as goosebumps were raised on his skin up to his shoulders, flooding down to his ankle and making him slightly nauseous.
"Fuck! Merlin, Harry…" the blood was everywhere, wending down his foot and across Malfoy's pale fingers in rivulets so opaque it hardly seemed real. Malfoy had no problem inflicting pain, he was ordinarily quite good at it, but this brutal and physical expression of magic was personally abhorrent; his variety of agony lay firmly in the mental and emotional anguish he could inflict. Things like roughing people up and breaking thumbs for information he left to Crabbe and Goyle in the past, and now apparently to Potter. Malfoy was shaking as he dug the knife point from Harry's ankle and braced the Gryffindor's foot against his chest to steady him.
The potion began to smoke and spat sparks of aquamarine light as blood fell away from Harry's foot in a sticky dribble and stained the front of Malfoy's robes. A purplish green fog hovered around the pewter rim before spilling over the side as Draco drew up the wards one-handed, letting the magic draw itself together in intricate patterns around the cauldron, sealing itself as the liquids swirled and twisted around each other like oil and vinegar until Malfoy dropped the Bacchus Flute into the pot with a small 'plunk' and released everything with a sharp jerk.
The wards and rune-weave held but Harry didn't. He couldn't swallow, felt searing heat in his ankle as one of the azure sparks sunk through the weave of his jeans and seemed to burn his flesh from the inside out, couldn't breathe as the fog turned thick and greasy in his lungs and he started feeling dizzy. Harry fell away from the cauldron and the bathroom stall coughing and wheezing when Malfoy let his foot go and the ammonia-white fog rolled across the floor wrapping around his lungs and eating away at his skin. Harry crawled away from Myrtle's bathroom dragging his foot behind him and waited slumped outside the door gasping and choking back the vomit he felt welling in his throat as the occasional confused portrait leaned down in its frame to ask after his health. Malfoy emerged moments later with a scowl and sealed the door behind him. What little fog had been seeping from beneath the door was abruptly recalled and Harry's lungs felt suddenly clean as the door locked with an audible click and Harry, who found he could breathe again, stared up in awe. "What did you do?"
"A simple containment spell you dolt. A first year could have done it." Malfoy was scowling darkly in his direction while he used a few of the bathroom tissues to wipe Harry's blood from his hands and threw the dirty rags bodily at Harry before moving to help him with his ankle.
Harry rolled his eyes while Draco scowled and fumbled around the hem of his trousers, holding the skin of Harry's ankle together with a thumb. It was hardly his fault that he couldn't think clearly in the bathroom, the knife in Malfoy's hand was a surreal reminder of his increasingly bizarre nightmares, and the fog hung in his lungs like grease and lead until he could not breathe around the nausea and the dizziness. He was feeling so much better now, even before the gentle heat that Malfoy's wand sent zipping across his ankle before it seeped into the skin and the cramp in his hip had fallen away to a dull throb that held the comfortable physicality of non-magic. "Could a first year have done that?"
Draco smirked, "Maybe if he weren't in Gryffindor."
Harry chuckled dryly and rearranged his robes to cover his bloody and charred trouser leg. He would have to change before anyone saw him, the potion they'd spent the afternoon assembling left sticky residue all over his clothes and a hole in his shirt where he'd accidentally spilled a drop of corrosive acid while Malfoy laughed at his plight. "Don't suppose you have any chocolate on you?"
Malfoy shook his head and Harry shrugged. He hated chocolate with a passion but because he felt as though he had walked through the entire headless society, or had possibly met a Vampire at the corner store, that a little chocolate might have helped. Malfoy had proven surprisingly resourceful at acquiring chocolate and candy in general from the miscreant youth of the castle, and offered what was in his pocket, "Fizzing whizbees?"
"No." Harry pushed himself to his feet and away from the rather awkward seating at the girl's bathroom. It was funny to think, chocolate had essentially earned him his first friend in Ron Weasley and had found Nicholas Flammel for them. It endeared him to Professor Lupin, introduced him to the unusual company of his father's friends. Chocolate had provided this strange and miraculous substitute for the philosopher's stone, and with the endorsement of chocolate Harry felt strangely reassured; it was a cornerstone of the fantasy world that allowed him his new and glorious life in wizardom and its absence made Harry apprehensive. "How long do we wait before the cup is ready?"
"Thirteen days." Was Malfoy's reply. Thirteen, of course it would be thirteen, and Harry could feel himself rolling his eyes without a thought, the magic was so thoroughly predictable. They had argued earlier about that as well, and while their arguments were never few and far between this one had been particularly impassioned. Harry wanted to get on with it, move forward and kill the Dark Lord (or himself) in the quickest manner possible. Malfoy wanted to wait, to plan, to research, to know absolutely that they couldn't fail, and Harry had curtly informed him that he'd be waiting until Voldemort died of old age. It hadn't been particularly pointed, no accusations of political agenda and no cruel references to dead parents, their fighting had been refined to the simple point of 'you're a bloody idiot and you're going to get me killed,' until a compromise could be drawn: they never managed to compromise.
"We should go to Hogsmeade." Harry hadn't been since before Christmas. Not because it was too hard to sneak away, if anything the staff at Hogwarts could care less what he did with his time, he went to his classes and that was apparently enough. The students were still being escorted from class to class, Mad-Eye Moody was still pacing in his jerking limp across the entrance hall, scanning students warily for devious grins or dark allegiances, but it was just motions, no one had been attacked since February, and how easy it is to forget in a month, in two. He didn't stay away from the village out of respect, not because it was the last place Ron was alive, he stayed away for the simple reason that he had no motivation to go. No excuse to visit Honeydukes as long as the kitchens were open, no reason to sip butterbeers across a table, and no one to enjoy said butterbeers with.
"Why?"
"Why not?"
"Right." And some time later when they were seated around a table to the astonishment of the local bar tender, leaning with their heads so close together when Malfoy said "Potter?" and Harry turned to reply his lips brushed the shell of Draco's ear, he had never really been so content. "You're paying."
Harry laughed and felt better than he had in days.
Luann and Peter Pelgrave had not taken the news their son's death lightly. The man that had killed their son was not, in fact, a death eater and had never previously sought to harm another human being. He was merely a member of the Devonshire Herbology Society, and the unfortunate victim of a juvenile prank left to mock the Ministry as Voldemort eluded them again. All 42 members of the DHS had been at the country chateau that the ministry had unsuccessfully raided; Kynan Richmond, the man that killed the unfortunate Pelgrave was the owner.
Auror Michael Pelgrave was awarded a posthumous Merlin: Third Class. It was a bit insulting to his unfortunate parents and the Auror that trained him who argued that despite the embarrassing nature of the raid, Pelgrave had nonetheless died in the cause of duty and therefore deserved a Merlin: First Class as was tradition for those who died on the job. Had Tonks not been so busy lobbying to save her own job she may have had more of a mouthful for the bureaucratic sod that had stinted the Pelgrave family. She had personally delivered the news to Michael's parents, his father shook her hand, his mother burst into quiet tears and nodded that she had known all along.
There would be a trial for Richmond. The poor man had been distraught when he'd regained consciousness. It was, after all, his home and the current DHS headquarters that had been raided, it was his wand that (in arguable self-defense) killed the young auror. The source of this terrible misinformation would be dug down to its roots and end; every member of the ministry knew too well that the Internal Investigations Department would find nothing but rubbish. It was a witch hunt that desperate parents and a desolate society allowed, seeking to find someone, anyone to harangue beyond their limits. The IID would dig and dig until they found anything, questionable morals, an affair some five years ago with no motive, but they would not find Death Eater activity. Voldemort excelled at smoke and mirrors, tracking him down had all the effect of beheading a ghost, but they had to try.
The gleeful mocking the Daily Prophet employed against the nightmarish raid on the Devonshire Herbology Society had done nothing for morale. They spent a good deal of page space happily expounding on the ministry's failures both recent and old, going so far as to cite the 1973 fairy-dust upset. It was a ridiculous waste of press, and a painful reminder that Voldemort knew the ministry tactics too well. Her return from the raid had been a difficult one – she had made her way to Scrimegeour's office with her head low and the hushed voices of her colleagues ringing in her ears. It was, however, not nearly as bad as it could have been, she had said quite succinctly "Sir, I'd like to make an official apology to everyone involved, and you'll have my resignation on your desk by Monday."
Rufus Scrimegeour, however, was less than thrilled about that particular course of action. "You will do no such thing – Tonks, you're a fine auror and what's more a competent lieutenant, the truth is I wish I had twenty more like you," Tonks mentally excused her clumsiness from this estimation. "You were acting on misinformation – if there had been death eaters in that mission it would have been the perfect sting and the whole ministry would be singing your praises about now."
"Thank you sir."
"You are going to be making that apology, and when that's through I want you to hunt down that informant. That man cost the justice department an Auror and ten thousand galleons in civilian reparation, but I'm not having one of my best aurors taking the fall for someone else's mistake." If that's what it was – the words hung unspoken, but it was clear to Tonks that Scrimegeour wanted the informant's head on a pike.
"Thank you sir."
Because of the Disastrous DHS Debacle, Tonks then 'officially' received the soundest verbal thrashing of her life from her superiors. This wasn't because they blamed her, or because they thought any of this mess was her fault, but simply because the 'reputed press' had mentioned her name in connection with the raid and the ministry needed to punish someone for the death of one of their aurors and the gross abuse of a citizen's rights or further lose their credibility.
Nymphadora Tonks was now off to make a report to The Order, to essentially say 'Thank you Albus, you were about as useful as a dead kitten,' and await more orders. It was days like this she found herself wishing she'd taken up gardening, or possibly become a dentist – they apparently had a lower suicide rate than aurors and made better money to boot.
"Hermione," Harry didn't particularly want to be doing this, he thought it was a waste of time, or he was too disgusted to really speak with her, but eventually this needed to be done. It wasn't as though he had a family, the thought of owling Dudley to say "in thirteen days I'm going to die, and I just wanted you to know that… well, I can't say I've ever particularly cared for you, but you should know that none of my funeral expenses will be your responsibility." The thought sent him into paroxysms of laughter, sobered only by how much it would hurt Mrs. Weasley to read a second one, perhaps more sympathetic or in his current state perhaps not – she would ask him why. She would floo straight to Dumbledore's office demanding answers because Harry was perfectly healthy and the hand she'd added during the summer had been pointing to mortal danger for months simply because he was Harry Potter and semantics got in the way.
It left him, by the law of elimination, with Hermione, who was family only in the respect that they'd been friends for five years and she had probably managed to save his life on more than one occasion. Harry seriously doubted that he and Hermione Granger had anything to say to each other, the logical arguments that had supported their friendship for so long now seemed null. Sometimes friendships just died unexpectedly, like Ron, and there was nothing about her that Harry could honestly say he liked anymore, right down to the points of her sensible shoes. He had no intention of telling her this, she would blame it on Malfoy, perhaps rightly so; and he had no intention of telling her she was right, that Malfoy was going to get him killed or just how willing a participant in his own destruction he was going to be.
Harry could almost hear the argument building against him in her head, 'you've sided with Malfoy' who was a plague unto himself and remarkably unattached to Voldemort in all their years of association. Malfoy had been the first person to really challenge them all, and the person to give Hermione her first true insult in the Wizarding world; the fact that 'mudblood' rang with the approximate juvenile equivalent of 'retard' was of little significance. Arguably, Draco Malfoy was still the most irritating, insulting, Semitist twit they'd ever known, his latest stance having been along the lines of 'of course muggles are inferior to wizards, I just happen to think Voldemort is going about it all wrong,' but Harry would take what he could get. Malfoy was going to be Malfoy no matter what Harry's current assassination plans, and Hermione's hatred of him was just as valid as Harry's use for him. The thought sat heavily in his stomach and made him queasy about the whole thing.
Perhaps he should have talked to Hermione first, Harry's reasons for not doing so were becoming increasingly unclear, but she had been frustrated by his seeming coldness, and absorbed so completely by Ron's death that she had made herself utterly unavailable to assist in his revenge, if it could even be called revenge. Their friendship hadn't been the same since Ron, and when he lay in bed in sleepless January thinking of all the things he should be doing and couldn't bring himself to, it wasn't Hermione and Ron that sprang to mind, or anyone. Only the all-encompassing idea of 'being done'; being done with Voldemort no matter what, and Mrs. Weasley's clock that should never have to point to Mortal Danger again because of him. He hadn't thought of Ron and Hermione so it should have come as no surprise when Hermione turned away from him at the memorial service for Ron, and it should have then followed that when Hagrid was declared dead, and that he decided he could stand no more it wasn't Hermione he turned to. Was he doing this for Ron and Hagrid after all, or simply for himself? because he was lazy and tired, and too exhausted to spend another year on a wild goose chase that only resulted in nightmares for all of them. It was all a bit hazy but to him it made sense if he simply didn't involve them because none of them should have to do that again – Malfoy was there, with nothing to lose, and willing to actively pursue that inevitable death that Hermione protested. Malfoy was there, Hermione hadn't been.
Harry would compromise everything by letting it slip at all that there was a plan brewing in the girl's bathroom on the second floor, and Hermione would ruin everything by telling Dumbledore. But there was still a need for confrontation, a sort of stuffiness in his head, the very strong urge to clear the air between them before he went marching off to his death, and he suspected that this part should have been easy. He felt obligated to inform her that… which was where he lost the plot and couldn't remember what he'd intended to say. Maybe to apologize for all the ways he'd wronged her, or to speak against the evidence and say "look, I want you to know that we're still friends, and when I die, it's not your fault," because Hermione blamed herself for everything, Harry knew. "We need to talk." Was what came out and he moved to sit beside her on the couch.
Hermione shot up as though burned, jerked to her feet scattering quills and her rolls of parchment around, residue from her intense studying habit. "Er…Sorry Harry!" Not fear, or panic, but disgust, and anger, and resentment, and the pure urge to avoid Harry Potter made her leap to her feet with a hurried excuse "I can't talk now, I'll be… late for Ancient runes," and presumably towards Hufflepuff where Marjorie waited nearer the Hospital Wing than Gryffindor. Harry found himself muttering about poor excuses and only wanting to make amends before sighing into the couch and spending the rest of the night asleep with his head uncomfortably balanced on the arm.
Hermione is a coward, neener neener neener! ...sorry, school yard antics ahoy - it's easter. I'm dying eggs. I'm a big kid. Review and I'll make you a pretty egg in your favorite color!
