Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to JK Rowling...

From the last chapter

One phrase reverberated throughout him. Dumbledore lived! He lived somewhere as a tiny baby. Harry breathed freely for the first time in weeks as he felt the weight of self-inflicted blame lift from his shoulders. He saw once again in his mind's eye the weak, piteous headmaster begging Harry to not make him drink the potion in the cave, but then he banished it with an image of a healthy, bright-eyed newborn, a sprinkling of red hair crowning his head.

Elation filled Harry as he realized he hadn't been responsible for the Dumbledore's death after all.

Chapter 34

"Harry, can you get a bit of Professor Snape's hair tonight?" Hermione asked just before she, Ginny, and Ron sent him off for the night. "That's the last thing I need before I convert RAB's locket into an imperius and loyalty clock for him."

"How did you manage to combine those two things into one, Hermione?" Ron asked.

Hermione curled a lock of her hair around one finger and smiled, pleased with Ron's question. "There were a few complications. I etched the nauthiz rune on the back of the hour hand and combined it with a changing color charm," she paused for a moment, searching Ron's face to see if he was following her. "Basically, the hour hand turns red if they're under imperius, while the minute hand points to where their loyalty lies. See?"

Hermione pulled out a chain with a silver watch tarnished with age hanging from it. She flipped open the lid, and Harry saw a picture of himself attached to the minute hand swirling around the clock , pointing first to The Order, then Friends, before finally bouncing back and forth between Harry Potter and Self. Harry couldn't stop the color that flooded his cheeks. That watch made him look like a real prat. At least the hour hand gleamed black, and the minute hand never went near the You Know Who, Death Eater, or Ministry of Magic categories.

Of course, it didn't touch on family at all, either. Hopefully that was because he had no living close relatives. The Dursleys didn't count.

"Excellent," Harry managed to get out around his embarrassment. Then, to distract his friends from his reaction, he reached out toward the watch and asked, "Where did you get my hair for that?" He didn't remember her snatching a chunk of his hair. She couldn't have done it while he was asleep at the Dursleys!

Hermione danced back, pulling the watch out of his reach. "Mr. Ollivander gave me the extra he didn't use in his wands for the goblins.

Great, Harry grumbled to himself. Hermione will skin me alive if that hair - magically enhanced with my contract with the goblins - messes up her prototype. Because that's just my luck.

Harry directed the conversation away from his hair. Hopefully Ollivander warned her. If not, he didn't want to attract any attention to it. "I suppose I should just waltz up to Dumbledore's murderer and ask him for a lock of his hair? Tell him that I'm a big fan of his?"

Hermione rolled her eyes, exasperated. "I don't see why you call him that. The headmaster didn't die!"

Harry shrugged. "Maybe Snape cast a confundus charm on the headmaster's portrait." As wonderful as it was that Dumbledore could really be alive, he wanted to test Snape's loyalty first. He'd never forgive himself if Snape betrayed him and everyone in the manor to Tom.

Hermione disagreed. "The headmaster's portrait has been awfully helpful with the watches for days. Professor Dumbledore trusted Professor Snape, maybe we should too."

Ron sided with Harry. "Too much hangs in the balance to be wrong about this. What if Snape polyjuiced Wormtail into the headmaster?"

Ginny spoke up. "I agree. And maybe Snape is loyal, but under the imperius." Ginny raised one eyebrow at Hermione. "Constant vigilance, after all."

Harry glanced at Ginny and then Hermione. Something wasn't quite right between those two. "Did you get to try any experiments today?" He asked Ginny. Perhaps a distraction would work.

Ginny wrinkled her nose at him and held up darkly stained hands. "The fish decomposed faster. So fast it seeps into the skin."

Harry's nose twitched. Now he could identify the subtle smell growing stronger in the enclosed space of the apparition room. Fish guts. Rotting fish guts. "That's one way to get people to give you space."

"Very funny, Harry James Potter," she reached forward and ruffled his hair. "Let's see you get rid of the smell!"

Harry elevated his nose in his best imitation of Aunt Petunia. "I'm sure my cleaning charms are up to the task."

A smile played around Ginny's mouth. "I'm glad you think so. My cleaning charm is better than my bat bogey hex, and you can still smell it." She leaned forward and whispered in his ear. "Sleep well."

Ginny turned on her heel and left, waving as she went through the door.

Harry swallowed as he stared at her retreating form. Since her brothers dreaded her bat-bogey hex, his cleaning charms had no hope of getting rid of the reek now embedded in his hair. He suspected Ginny had found a new product the twins would find useful in their search for a new weapon. He could picture the headlines now: "You-Know-Who Asphyxiates Self After Exposure to Magically Amplified Rotting Fish Guts."

Harry shook his head at his own thoughts and waved goodbye to his friends.

Silence fell over the apparition room for but a moment.

"I can get Harry Potter sir some hair from Professor Snape." Dobby once again startled Harry. He'd been so quiet while he'd been talking with his friends.

"How?" he asked.

Dobby smiled a toothy grin. "I will find all of the hairs. Your family has short hair. Professor Snape has long hair. And my eyes can see in the dark." He pointed at his green eyes.

Huh. Maybe that's why house elves clean at night. Harry remembered Dobby's eyes gleaming in the dark of his cupboard under the stairs, reflecting the small amount of light coming In under the door. "Can you do it with no magic, then?"

For a moment Dobby's excitement at a new way to help Harry left his face. He nodded his head. "Yes." His ears drooped downward.

"Excellent, Dobby"

Dobby perked up, beamed at Harry, and reached out to take wink them the cupboard under the stairs.

In the early hours of the morning, sounds reverberating down Harry's extendable ear woke him. His muscles ached with tension as Snape moved through his early morning routine with agonizing slowness. He breathed shallowly through his nose. The smell of fish guts in the tiny enclosed space was nearly overpowering, and he didn't understand why his nose hadn't gotten used to it.

After Snape ate what must have been another cold dinner in the moonlight streaming through the kitchen windows, he went to the parlor and took out Dumbledore's portrait.

"Things are rapidly spiraling out of control, Albus." Weariness threaded through Snape's voice.

For a moment, Harry heard nothing. Then Snape continued.

"The Dark Lord's hiring death eaters at the ministry as food procurement agents. They've already started raiding the muggles."

Harry heard Albus's voice for the first time since that morning. "And what role are you playing in all this, my dear boy?"

"The honor of being your dear boy rests with Harry bloody Potter, as anyone could tell you!" Anger invigorated Snape's voice, and Harry had to pull the extendable ear away for a moment.

"...if Harry can have two homes, then why can't I have two boys who are dear to me?" Albus's soft voice met a snort from Snape.

"That boy has more homes than most people have family. His aunt's, Hogwarts, the Weasley's rickety shack...it's a miracle Lily's protection spell works at all."

"Many people have many homes. You have two, yourself."

Snape made a sound of disgust. "Spinner's End hardly counts."

"And neither does Hogwarts, now that it's locked down." The headmaster's comment prompted a laugh from the dour potions master.

"I didn't think the old biddy had it in her."

"Severus." The slowly drawn out warning from Albus was met with silence, followed by squeaks as Snape shifted around in the old plush armchair near the fireplace. Vernon's favorite chair hadn't been up to the task of holding his bulk without damage to the wooden frame.

Snape changed the subject. "The Dark Lord was utterly pleased about the lockdown, once he ascertained no living thing could break through the charm. His public persona as minister was absolutely enraged, of course. But in private he said he would have applied the lockdown charm years ago if he'd known about it."

Harry could have heard a pin drop. No doubt Tom Riddle would have cast it during a term. Killing hundreds of children would appeal to a madman like him. He's not so mad anymore, Harry reminded himself. Thanks to you.

Snape sniffed once, then twice. Harry heard footsteps enter the hallway, and he tensed further, not daring to breath. He'd forgotten about the reek from his hair. The smell was so thick in his cupboard he could almost touch it.

"Something's rotting in this house. It can't be natural."

Sniffs came from the painting, followed by a sheepish chuckle. "Do you suspect something magical?"

Snape blew his breath out. "The ministry hasn't swooped down upon us, so if it was magic, it wasn't done here."

A tiny hand shook Harry's shoulder. He popped his eyes open and froze as he felt Dobby's head come near and whisper, "Your hair needs cleaning?"

Harry shook his head hard. "No!" Visions of a hovering charm dropping a pudding during the Dursley's dinner party the summer before second year filled his memory. The resulting warning from the ministry had let the Dursleys know Harry couldn't do magic during the summer. With his luck, in addition to alerting the ministry, this growing dead fish smell would only get worse with a cleaning charm, not better, just like the Weasley's whizbang fireworks.

For a moment, he wondered if the twins had tampered with Ginny's experiment today. He'd have to have stern words with them. Though he was sure they'd either plead innocent or protest that rotting fish odor would drop a rampaging giant in its tracks, let alone attacking death eaters, and was thus in line with their assigned weapons research. Harry smiled to himself and returned his attention to the conversation outside his cupboard.

"Any luck finding Petunia, Severus?"

"No sign of her or her great lump of a husband. That's a pair I would be happy to raid as a food procurement agent, if I didn't already have the great honor of doling out the stolen food in miserly packages."

Harry entirely agreed with the snarl at the end of that statement.

"We need her to stay alive for the protection spell," Dumbledore reminded.

"I know, " a singsong note of mock delight entered Snape's voice. "Why don't we give her the draught of living death, toss her into this house, shrink it, and throw it wherever Potter's staying? Then I wouldn't have to stay here each night waiting for that brat to show up."

That, Harry thought, is a brilliant plan.

Kingsley Shacklebolt raised his arm and knocked on the thick wooden door in front of him, triumph running through him as his days-long search for the Lovegoods finally reached completion. He had no doubt the ministry had instituted a capture order for the ministry's newest renegade auror. Kingsley laughed to himself, a bitter edge sharpening the humor.

He hadn't dared contact the Order for help finding the address, not with what he was about to do. He had to cover his tracks here first. If his alternate wand fell into the ministry hands, they might be able to trace the communication patronus he would have used back to the Potter Manor. Instead, the prime minister of Britain had been invaluable in his search through muggle records in London. The Lovegoods had made a splash a few years back when they broke into the London Zoo's cage of a rare aardvark they claimed was a Crumple-horned snorkack that had lost its horn, or some such nonsense. Security detained them and procured their name and address, but the form documenting the incident contained nothing else save a long, jerky line running off the page. Kingsley suspected someone had applied a memory charm to the security team at that point. Thank goodness for bureaucracy, he thought. The half-filled form had been filed and forgotten. The hunt for their address could have taken weeks without this form and if Kingsley hadn't remembered the Lovegood's proclivity for trying to find new magical animals in the strangest of places.

He was just grateful that the small office at the zoo had been spared the fires still raging around London, filling the air with a heavy soot that blackened every surface and lingered in his lungs. He couldn't say the same for the zoo's exotic inhabitants. At least the smoke covered that smell.

Shaking the memory off, Kingsley raised his arm to knock again, but stopped as an explosion echoing from inside was accompanied by a howl of triumph.

"Exploding ink! The next issue of the Quibbler will be a blast! Don't you agree, Luna? Luna? Where did you go...oh there you are. Why did you bury yourself under that rubbish?"

Kingsley repressed a snort of laughter. Only Xenophilius Lovegood would think exploding ink a fantastic idea for a newspaper. He rapped on the door and heard a clatter of feet rushing to open it.

Xenophilius cracked the door open, peering out with one blue eye. "Yes? Kingsley Shacklebolt, I believe?"

"Indeed." Kingsley's deep voice was grave. "I have some vital information to share with the magical world. Could I impose on your newspaper to deliver a public service announcement?"

"Of course! Come in, then! Come in! You're just in time for the evening edition." Xenophilius opened the door and waved them into the kitchen. "And who is your friend, good sir?"

Kingsley put a hand out, gesturing the prime minister to silence. "Just a friend."

Xenophilius turned around and called up the spiraling staircase dominating the center of the house. "Luna, bring the recording quill down here, won't you?" The kitchen encompassed the whole first floor, cabinets and tables curving along the circular wall to maximize the space.

Luna floated down the stairs, a sheaf of parchment in her hand with a quill tucked behind her ear. "Here you go, Mr. Shacklebolt. Just sit over at that table and talk at the quill, it will do the rest. The command word is suscipio stilus. Don't mind the wrackspurts, they tend to infest every quill we get."

Kingsley eyed the quill without touching it. "And what is the command to stop recording?"

"Oh!" She gave a breathy laugh, her eyes focused distantly on a point over his shoulder, almost as if she were looking at something Kingsley couldn't see. "Terminus stilus."

The things I do for the Order, Kingsley thought, taking the quill and parchment from her. After commanding the quill to begin and gesturing the wide-eyed prime minister toward a seat, he dictated the events at Hogwarts two days prior, from Minerva's proof that Alrick Armstrong was not who he said he was, to the suspicious actions of the aurors who had privately visited with the minister. He decided to not include Harry Potter's evidence. Unfortunately, the previous ministers had done their work too well, and many of the wizarding populace considered the boy an attention-seeking liar. Kingsley grimaced, regretting that he hadn't been able to change that.

He leaned back in the chair in a deceptively relaxed pose as he finished his public service announcement. His eyes scanned the room for all potential entrances and exits. The first floor wasn't defensible, he noted. Nearly the entire ground floor was ringed in windows that could easily be blown out, and flying glass would create a hazard to those inside. The stairs, though, would narrow an advancing force's attack nicely.

Xenophilius bounced over and scanned Kingsley's work. "Excellent! Excellent! Alrick Armstrong dead. The new minister is really You-Know-Who. That makes perfect sense."

Kingsley glanced at him in askance. "It does?"

"Of course it does, my good man!" Xenophilius ascended the spiral staircase to the second floor, with Kingsley and the prime minister following close behind. "After the ministry's cover up over Sirius Black, I'd believe anything!"

"That was a sad affair," Kingsley agreed.

"The world deserved to know that Stubby Boardman was really Sirius Black."

Kingsley looked heavenward but said nothing. Xenophilius had a reputation for unusual ideas. His eyes instead scanned the second floor. A printing press stood in the middle of room, blank sheets of paper stacked in haphazard piles next to it.

He turned to the prime minister. "It would be best if you didn't touch anything." Kingsley restrained an impulse to examine what looked like a rare, unexploded erumpant horn on the wall. An excellent weapon if used carefully.

The prime minister followed his gaze and swallowed at the sight of the huge, curved horn glittering like a rainbow in the sunlight. "That might be for the best," he said, his voice faint.

"It's too bad we can't use the exploding ink on this issue," Xenophilius mourned. "It would have added a certain zing to experience."

Kingsley made a note to himself to avoid the Quibbler till Luna's father found out that customers might in fact dislike having newspapers explode while they read.

Xenophilius fed the master copy into the top of the printing press, fiddled with a few knobs, and tapped it with his wand. The press groaned and shook as it pulled in paper after paper. In a short time, the first copy of Kingsley's public service announcement popped out and disappeared, while the rest piled themselves in stacks according to their final destination around England.

"Impressive," Kingsley said. He'd seen the work involved in muggle printing presses, and this was truly phenomenal.

"My wife and I modified an old press from the Daily Prophet. It's a fine piece of magic if I do say so myself."

As the two men tied newspapers to hundreds of owls parading in front of an open window with a wide ledge, Kingsley noted that each newspaper had the name of the recipient written in script on the front page. Xenophilius may be a touch mad, but he's a genius with charms.

Several hours after he arrived, Kingsley wiped his hands on his cloak, satisfaction thrumming through him as the last owl flew off into the deepening purple sunset.

"Dad, I've finished packing our things!" Luna's voice echoed in the silence as she descended from her bedroom on the third floor.

Kingsley turned around sharply in shock. He'd not extended an offer of asylum to the Lovegoods, although he was sure Harry would be happy to house his friend and her father.

"Where are we going, my dear?" Xenophilius asked with mild curiosity, as if this was an everyday occurrence. And perhaps it was. They were known for their frequent magical animal sighting trips.

"With Mr. Shacklebolt here." She looked around with a sad smile at her home.

"But we're doing just fine here on our own, my dear. And how will we move the press?" Xenophilius asked, clearly not liking the idea of leaving.

Luna sighed and looked at Kingsley. "The first copy off any magical press goes directly to the ministry. That was two hours ago."

Kingsley remembered the first copy off the press disappearing, and he shook his head at his own foolishness. He shouldn't have let himself be distracted by the enhanced charms on the printing press. He strode to the owl-loading window and searched the landscape around the house. "We haven't much time. The minister will want to catch us and force a retraction." Or worse, he added to himself. He had no doubt the new minister would stop at nothing to consolidate his power over magical Britain. The power of disseminating information would be the bedrock of his administration.

For the first time, the prime minister of Britain spoke up. "I'm afraid it's too late." He pointed out the small window on the opposite side of the room. "A bunch of chaps with wooden sticks have just popped in."

Kingsley rushed across the room. Seven aurors fanned out around the bottom of the hill. He stifled an urge to groan. They had only a few minutes before they were trapped.

To be continued...