Book Three

Harry Potter, all related characters, and the original Harry Potter narrative are properties of J. K. Rowling.

Chapter 2

The Consequences of Rash Action

"Bit of a close one, eh Harry?" smiled Arthur, who was sharing Harry's stall in the outpatient ward of St. Mungo's. He'd been nicked by the Death Eater's axe, and the infection was incredibly fast-acting.

Harry looked at him, then turned back to the nothing he'd been staring at.

Arthur sighed. "Molly's going to kill me if she finds out about this," he admitted. "I was supposed to be doing another raid on the Malfoys, you know - see if they've got any more Dark Artifacts. Every other month, it seems, we try their house."

Harry kept staring at nothing. It was better than the memory of the flames.

"Good thing your Godfather was there, too, or Mrs. Figg'd be roasted crispier than a figgin!"

Harry contrived to indicate a sense of confused disappointment with Arthur Weasley's choice of words. Sirius and Mrs. Figg had both suffered severe burns, and were still in recovery.

"Ah... sorry," Arthur replied. "I try to make light of these sorts of things, otherwise I'd be staring at nothing to avoid the memories."

Harry sighed. "Who was it that saved me?"

"Ah! That would be me, Alastor, Tonks, and Kingsley," he reported, a bit of pep returning to his optimistic face. "Alastor is the one with the eye - don't tell him I called him Alastor, it's Moody he goes by - and Kingsley's the other one, who Apparated you out of the way of that Fiendfyre." He shook his head. "Nasty stuff, that. Burns da- er, very nearly everything, and it's the devil himself to control it once it's made."

Harry grimaced. "And that's loose in Little Whinging?"

Arthur nodded. "It'll wear out after a few hours - probably done by now, especially with more Aurors tearing it apart."

Harry nodded. "That's... still scary. People live there." He realized something. "You said there was a Tonks saving us - but I only saw three of you."

Arthur's smile vanished. "Tonks took a Killing Curse."

The guilt was palpable.

"Took it for me," Arthur told him. "I wasn't even supposed to be there, you remember - I'm not really an Auror, just part of the Misuse of Magical Objects Department - but they needed backup, and I was handy, and, well," he trailed off.

"Well?" asked Harry, who could still feel the heat from the Fiendfyre as it blazed past him, surrounding him...

"I did fight Voldemort's followers, back in the War," Arthur told him. "But never the man himself."

Harry grimaced. "If there's one thing I've learned in the past two years," he said, deliberately ignoring every spell he knew, "it's that everything trying to kill me is because of Voldemort."

"Even the Dementors?"

Harry nodded. "But that's for secret reasons."

"It is indeed," confirmed Dumbledore, walking through the door.

Arthur had fallen asleep after a few minutes of light conversation with Dumbledore. The Weasley patriarch seemed a bit peaked to Harry, but he was in a hospital, and Harry assumed the magical medical marvels of the modern wizard doctors would keep the man alive.

Dumbledore glanced at the sleeping Weasley, then turned a gimlet glare on Harry. "You have already felt the consequences of your actions, Harry," he admonished. "But I fear they will only grow more intense as time passes."

"Voldemort's got another meat-puppet," Harry interjected. This earned him a moment of shock, and a respite from the terrible disapproval of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.

"He has returned so quickly?" Dumbledore's eyes glinted with concern, which surprised Harry, as he'd only ever seen twinkles in those blue orbs before.

Harry nodded. "Either that, or somebody in his old posse got possessed by one of his erstwhile soul shards." Seeing that Dumbledore was too busy mulling through this information to make a wise statement - or even a looney one - Harry continued his explanation. "He had a giant snake, which called to him in Parseltongue with numbers, and then spells happened."

"So it would seem," Dumbledore confirmed. "Nevertheless, you must bear responsibility for your folly. I will do what I can to shield you, until you return to Hogwarts and can be placed under my full protection-"

"Hogwarts is the least secure location for me, Headmaster." Harry shifted about a bit in his bed. "For several reasons. One, every wizard in the world knows I'm going to Hogwarts. Two, terrible things tend to happen there, usually resulting in me getting killed."

"I assure you, Harry, I-"

"Three, most if not all of the Death Eaters went to Hogwarts, and they know its secrets better than anybody but me and the Weasleys. And Sirius," he added, "but he got possessed because he was tortured for a decade on false charges, and then he made a mockery of your protection."

Dumbledore sighed, preparing to rebut Harry's incensed statements.

Harry cut him off. "Not to mention, Snape-"

"Harry, you know above all people that I trust Severus with my life."

Harry nodded. "And so does Voldemort, I'm betting - you keep Snape because you trust him, and he's going to go meet Voldie later if he hasn't already, and he'll have to tell him something believable. Which means something mostly true. The trouble with Snape, Headmaster-"

"I am aware of the delicacy of Severus' position, Harry," Dumbledore overrode. "It is cold comfort to me that you have taken time to think this through to such extent, however, as you have willingly signed away the protections that prevented Voldemort and his followers from finding you."

Harry sulked at that.

"As your statements, and those of Shacklebolt, Sirius, Arthur and Nymphadora-"

"Who?" asked Harry, who hadn't heard of anyone by that name.

Dumbledore sighed. "Nymphadora Tonks, in training under Alastor to become an Auror."

"He - I mean, she - took the bullet for Mr. Weasley, didn't she?"

"The bullet- ah, yes, that quaint Muggle expression."

"It's a deadly weapon," Harry reminded the silver-bearded wizard.

Dumbledore didn't smile, which reminded Harry of Neville not saying anything. "Indeed. Yes, she took the curse meant for Arthur, saving his life."

Harry looked away for a moment, gathering nerve for what he was about to say. "Should've been me," he muttered.

"No, Harry-"

"I can take it," Harry said, firmly. "I can take it, I'm the only one who can." He hesitated. "Although probably Voldie can manage it, too."

Dumbledore did smile, this time. "I think not. Voldemort's soul is scattered across the world, anchoring him in this life, but not in his own body."

Harry's eyes widened. "Then-"

Dumbledore smiled some more. Harry had expected him to interject with some kind of monosyllabic confirmation of Harry's unspoken realizations, as the Leglimencer was wont to do.

"Er," Harry rallied, when no such affirmation was forthcoming, "then he is vulnerable to the Killing Curse?"

"I suspect it would, at the least, render him indisposed for a term of several minutes," Dumbledore allowed. "Perhaps even a few hours."

Harry grimaced. "Not that anyone's likely to use a Killing Curse on him," he noted. "That seems more the style of Voldie and the Death Eaters."

Dumbledore chuckled. "You have a singluar talent for removing the terror of things, Harry," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"Had I not lived through the last twenty years of pain and grief, I would most likely expect 'Voldie and the Death Eaters' to follow the Wyrd Sisters at one of their popular events."

Harry had to think for a bit to remember who the Wyrd Sisters were. "Wait - are you trying to tell me that Voldie and the Death Eaters would be a good name for-"

"Yes," confirmed Dumbledore.

"Eugh," Harry shuddered, shaking his hands as if to get something nasty off of them. "Even so, it should have been me," he restated, changing the subject.

"Do not blame yourself, Harry," Dumbledore told him. "Nymphadora-"

"You really shouldn't call her that," Sirius interrupted. He was standing in the doorway with an extremely short haircut - Harry had to look twice to be sure it was actually Sirius, and not someone that just sounded exactly the same.

Dumbledore started to turn towards Harry's Godfather, but was ambushed by a familiar-looking peg-legged man shouting "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

"She hates it," clarified Sirius as Dumbledore received a rather vicious and undignified headrub.

"Alastor-"

"Call me Tonks, Dumbles," grated Dumbledore's assailant. "Tonks. Not Nymphadora. Seriously," he drawled, putting the greatest wizard in Magical Britain into an armlock, "it's one syllable. One against four. Why can't you just call me Tonks?"

"Alastor," Dumbledore squeaked again, his old bones creaking.

"Closer," replied the very strange person, who had one really large eye that kept spinning around and looking backwards. "But no cigar." He released the armlock, allowing Dumbledore to turn and face him.

Sirius grinned at Harry, and pointed at the person Harry assumed was Alastor Moody.

"...Tonks?" Dumbledore querulously inquired.

Moody reached up to his giant eyeball, plucked it out of his head, and - when he brought his hand down, his face was that of a young lady. "Wotcher," she said, by way of greeting, introduction, confirmation, and youthful lingo.

Harry boggled. Dumbledore fared only a little better, sinking back down onto the chair by Harry's bed.

"Moody had me screwed up to look like him, to 'put fear in the hearts of the enemy'," explained Tonks, popping the giant eyeball back into her face. On the other side, this time. "I figure, he'd want to keep people guessing posthumously as much as he did prehumously." She made a face - which was something to see, as her bones actually twisted around to accentuate the expression. "Is that even a word? Prehumously? Whatever."

Dumbledore was completely speechless for the first time in living memory.

Sirius was still grinning.

Arthur had been pulled out for a last magical scan before they sent him home, which had given Dumbledore a chance to recover from the shock of having his head rubbed like a secondhand stepchild. The nurse had also brought in a stack of worried-looking Owl Post for Harry.

"Sirius," Harry asked, "where are we headed?"

Sirius grinned at him some more. "Arthur's been heading the raids into my house," he gloated, "and they've got about half the place livable, so I went ahead and had myself made Secret Keeper."

Dumbledore raised one wispy white eyebrow at that. "Such a thing has never-"

Sirius shushed him, which Harry thought might not be the best of plans. "It's legitimate, we checked all the loopholes, and it's better protection at home than you could offer from a whole fleet of Dursleys," he stated. "Plus, I've only tried to kill Harry once."

"Which is much better than the average," Harry added, "for houses I've lived in and people in charge of my life."

Dumbledore looked somewhat ashamed. "I see," he said. "Then I hope you will not hesitate to call upon me in time of need."

"Sure thing, Dumbles," Sirius agreed, flashing a grin at Tonks for inventing the nickname. "But I'm not giving you the address until then."

Dumbledore sighed. "As you wish." He turned to the stack of Harry's mail. "You'd best get started on your mail, Harry," he advised. "You are blessed with an abundance of friends, and-"

"NO!" shouted Tonks, whipping her wand out as Dumbledore's wrinkled old hand lifted the top envelope. Harry had just enough time to flinch as the pile of letters exploded, spattering the room with ash, charred scraps of paper, and blood.