Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Seven: The Illusion of a Fork in the Road
O.W.L.s week had not had a good beginning. It was whispered throughout the school that Umbridge's pejoratives and extremism might have merit, if she were to somehow elude the rumoured Curse upon the Defence Professor position. This meant that, one way or another, she needed to be put out of the way. At the very least, they needed to get her out of that position. Ideally, unspeakable horrors would befall her, but she had the luck of a saint.
Harry was in a bad humour even before Marietta Edgecomb and Cho Chang had approached him, both looking rather out of sorts, and exhausted (disheveled and worn, as if they hadn't slept that week), demanding to know what it was about Hermione's members list, and what anyone was to do, now that Umbridge was methodically carding out students by year and house, and subjecting them to veritaserum.
"She put some sort of protection against that, though, didn't she?" asked Edgecomb. This was a good point. He didn't know. But, Hermione was fretting about the exams she was about to take, and was scarce, and not to be disturbed, save for with a very long pole. Even Ron seemed wary of her.
For the moment, Ginny saved him from further pestering by glaring fiercely at both girls, which was just as well, as Harry was not about to ruin his alliance with Cedric Diggory by suffering the ministrations of Diggory's estranged girlfriend. Why she persisted was something that no one could figure out.
When he at last had a chance to ask Hermione about the list, she told him that any idiot knew better than to take any food or drink offered by the enemy, lest it be laced with poison or worse.
Harry (privately) thought that only applied to his close friends, and those who had spent long periods of time around him, or Alastor Moody.
The problem was that that should include the entire Defence Association. Hermione spread word throughout the Defence Association with the same runners she had used to first test the waters for the plausibility of attempting such. Warnings not to touch anything known to have come from the enemy was the most effort that she was willing to put into this project, and, without Hermione's list, Harry didn't know even what house all of the members were in.
But, she was right: they should know better. Constant vigilance! He let it pass.
Hermione was utterly convinced that it was imperative that they retrieve, and destroy, the list at the first opportunity. This gave Harry to realise that he hadn't seen the chest in which he'd hidden the list since that first day.
But, it was a real object. You would think that it must still be somewhere in the Room of Requirement. How did you go about retrieving such a thing? Weapons, clothing, supplies, even books, could be made ex nihilo—it made sense. This was a particular piece of paper. There was only one copy of it, and Hermione must have put some sort of enchantments on it. But, he could find no trace of it.
He resolved himself to going down to speak with Dobby on the nature of the Room, after he'd finished with his own exams.
He barely noticed Stephen's absence on the night of the seventh (although Ron seemed to be keeping better track). Who knew how sorcerous time travel worked? Perhaps, it was fickle?
No, Stephen had had much success with choosing a specific temporal destination, if you excluded the first few attempts (on the grounds of their being practice). But, Stephen could hardly be ignorant of the fact that this was O.W.L.s week. Harry remembered asking whether or not they had similar tests in muggle society in the United States. Stephen gave him one of his rare "you must be an idiot" looks, in response. But, the cultures seemed so very different….
He assumed that Stephen was late as a courtesy to them, and perhaps because he realised that Hermione would likely have murdered him with one of the defensive spells Harry had been teaching in the Defence Association (say, reducto). She would have been sorry after, but it would have been too late.
She might be even worse in the future, and Stephen might have some prior experience to draw on, to know that she was best avoided until the danger had passed.
These conclusions, while perhaps logical, nevertheless were inaccurate. Stephen waited because Riddle had been courteous enough to wait until Harry had finished his exams before attempting to lure him into a trap.
It was bad enough, Harry had had to reflect, during their ruined Astronomy test, that Hagrid and McGonagall had been removed by force from the Hogwarts grounds (which in turn required them to look after Grawp). Hagrid had escaped mostly unscathed, fleeing into the wilderness (or perhaps the Forest), wherein lurked monsters so horrible that no one went there willingly except for gryffindors.
But, the memory of McGonagall, who had little respect for Hagrid (there was, as the saying went, no love lost between them) paying for her sense of fairplay and common decency with a heart attack—the sight of her, borne away on a stretcher, was more than many could bear.
It now seemed to everyone that Umbridge was systematically stripping away everything that was even somewhat pleasant about Hogwarts life. She'd banned clubs and gatherings. She'd destroyed quidditch and the House points system. She'd ratcheted up the house rivalries into a stew of mistrust and dislike. She'd pitted them against one another quite the same as Dumbledore would say that Riddle did. And, she was a ready source for blame for the abrupt departure of The Twins—although, in truth, that was Harry's fault.
She'd turned Hogwarts into a chaotic mess for the entire school, and not just Harry. But, she seemed to have sought out particularly cruel ways of dealing with him, and she'd left him to simmer until he boil over. Half of the school united against her, and the other half knew to lie low.
This was how she'd tried to bypass Dumbledore. When he'd heard, he had come down, power rolling off him in waves, catching the attention of even those who had no training in magic to show them how strong Dumbledore was.
He was too late to help McGonagall, but Hagrid would not be that difficult to find. Harry hoped that Dumbledore found Grawp on the way. The centaurs shouldn't have to suffer Grawp's destruction of their forest; Hagrid was not here for him, and the burden of caring for someone who came of quite a different culture, and who spoke no English, was not one that could be laid upon the shoulders of just anyone.
Dumbledore had evicted the auror squad that Umbridge had needed to go against Hagrid, and had disappeared, himself, into the Forest. He was not seen again immediately.
With Dumbledore missing, Umbridge was in a foully pleasant mood—sadism, the pleasure of seeing others hurting. A different form for her usual entertainment. It put Harry wary of her—she was not the type to rest on her laurels. She would press her advantage.
There was still little time to dwell on important matters. Harry needed to get good results to pursue a career as an auror. He studied quite as hard as Hermione. Ron set to a similar task with grim determination, pausing only to practice quidditch.
Even training of magic was put on hold. Harry had barely the time to continue teaching Ron and Ginny Latin, and that was hardly a time-consuming exercise. It involved plenty of rote memorisation. Ginny was catching up to Ron because he lacked the time to study a foreign language, on top of everything else. The Defence Association was put on hiatus, pending knowledge of whether the Ministry would continue their sabotage into the next year.
In a free moment, Harry thought of Pogs, and set to creating a rather odd and complex working, cutting out circles out of a sheet of parchment, and transfiguring it into a sturdy sort of laminated cardboard, and then, after a moment's thought, scouring his memory for the knowledge of a third substance, neither metal nor wood, nor any substance known. An illusion of solid magic, translucent for the moment, in the shape of a coin. It looked like glass, but it wouldn't shatter. It was parchment, deep down, but with the thickness of cardboard, and laminated to protect it from weather somewhat. It was paper and metal and stone.
He made six of them, and then he wove them together, connecting them to the one that would be his. If he'd read The Lord of the Rings, he would have known to compare the idea, superficially, to the relationship between the Great Rings of the races of Middle Earth, and Sauron's One Ring.
Pictures were illusions, too, in a way. He was not unduly startled to find that it took little effort to "paint" a simplistic image on one of them—that of a castle turret, blood red on the clear blue of the coin itself. That was the easiest one. He was not an artist. In an ideal world, Dean Thomas would be set this task—he had the genuine talent for it. But, for stylised designs, this would suffice.
He'd thought about this for awhile, coming to the conclusion that, just as they called "Dumbledore's Army" the "D.A." to avoid calling undue attention to their activities. so too was it essential to hide the identities of this select group of trusted high-ranking members behind another veil of vagueness. There was quite a lot of symbolism involved, as well.
He made the coins, working on them when he felt that even he could not shove more information into his brain. He did not tell anyone about them, for the moment.
In addition to the castle turret, there was a majestic phoenix, with its wings spread, a worm with that snoutlike tip of its head stuck in an open book, a moon with closed eyes and a thought bubble coming off it, and what no one he anticipated meeting in the next three years would recognise as a Groot. It was stylised enough to be taken for a bowtruckle.
His coin was left blank. There were options for what image might be placed on the surface, but he preferred the blankness of the glassy substance. Nothing could be made of it.
He finished with his self-appointed task in time to have them all in his pocket on the night of the final O.W.L., which was the one on the History of Magic. He'd thought that he could catch most of his fellow gryffindor fifth-years, at least, at the end of that final, and with finals out of the way, tracking down Luna would be easy. And, Ginny was a gryffindor, too, albeit in a lower year.
But, that wasn't what happened. Instead, Riddle at last made his move, during that brief moment when Harry'd fallen asleep in the middle of the exam. He'd decided, on balance, that History of Magic was an acceptable sacrifice for dragging Riddle out into the open, and ending the Ministry's denial. With any luck, he'd also be able to destroy the prophecy, ensuring that Riddle never could get a hold of it, and in a way that raised no suspicions. After all, Dumbledore must be right: Riddle had realised that there was a connection between his and Harry's minds, now. This meant that there was no safety to be had.
As Harry'd expected, sleep tore down all his defences. He emerged from his vision with a splitting headache, as if his scar were on fire. Ron clearly had a sixth sense for his distress, out of his seat and by Harry's side, already.
It was Ron who made Harry's excuses for him, guiding him back out of the examination hall into a purer, less-stuffy air that helped clear Harry's thoughts.
"A vision—Riddle on the move," he murmured. "He wants the prophecy, and he will be most astonished if I do not go to the Department of Mysteries to rescue Sirius," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. He gave Ron a strained smile, but he was shaking, and more or less unaware of what was going on around him, as he fumbled for the mirror in his pocket. He was taking no chances. Sirius had said that he would have this mirror on him, always.
He leant back against the cold stone of the wall behind him, and ignored Ron hovering nearby, uncertain. "You can go back in, Ron, and finish your exam. I don't think I'll have the opportunity to finish mine."
Ron saw right through him. Harry hated when he did.
"If you are not returning to finish your exam, then neither will I," Ron declared, folding his arms, and settling in for a lengthy struggle to convince Harry to listen to him—
"Alright," Harry said. History of Magic was not a course integral to becoming an auror. They could afford to do not-as-well in this class. Harry glanced to either side in the hall, and then whispered to the mirror "Sirius Black".
Ron still looked stunned that Harry had not fought him in this matter, when Harry turned to glance back at him, briefly.
"Harry? What's wrong? Did something happen?" Sirius could not have made it plainer that he was doing his best to calm a racing heart, and seem cool and collected. Harry did not ordinarily contact him out of the blue.
Harry pressed a hand against his temple, and lowered the mirror again. "You're well?" he asked, surprised at how level his own voice sounded. "Are you at Grimmauld Place, keeping up the protections on the house?"
Sirius refused to be distracted. His eyes narrowed. "I'm well enough," he said. "What's wrong with you? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Not being tortured by Riddle, then," Harry said, with a strained smile. "Good to know. Just a trap, then. Now, see here, Sirius: you are not to leave Grimmauld Place. Do you remember my warning?"
"That Stephen said that I'd die at the end of the year?" Sirius scoffed. Ron's sharp intake of breath was drowned out by a scraping noise, as Sirius threw the mirror down on the table, and there was a lovely view of the dark rafters of Grimmauld Place zooming by overhead, as it skidded across the smooth wood of what Harry thought was probably the kitchen table where Sirius and Stephen had first made one another's acquaintance.
Then, Sirius reappeared in the frame, frowning. "Well, it's the end of the year, and nothing has happened!"
"And Umbridge is still Defence Professor, although they call the position curst. Sirius, the year is not yet ended. Do as I say, and stay in Grimmauld Place. I will need your help in my evil plans to save the universe."
The attempt at levity failed. Sirius just glared down at the mirror. He'd tilted it at just the right angle to make himself look much taller than he was. Smoke and mirrors. Just Harry's sort of individual.
"I will protect him," Ron said, in the background.
"I know you will," Sirius snapped. "Only, I've been locked up in Azkaban, and quite unable to protect him, any of the times I should have, as your Mum felt the need to remind me—"
"Nor have I," Ron said, in his grimmest voice. "I have failed Harry every time that—"
"That's enough, both of you!" Harry all but shouted. "Sirius, stay where you are. I shall keep you informed. Finite."
The mirror went blank, and he shoved aside the horrible suspicion that he'd just made a costly mistake.
"Ron, we have to go to the Department of Mysteries and stop whatever Riddle's plotting. I'll need your help, and Hermione's, and maybe a few others…."
He wasn't sure, and let his voice trail off, already trying to plan ahead. Then, he realised what he was doing, realised that he knew none of the variables, and that planning was hardly his forte, anyway. "Here, Ron," he said, reaching out to slap the first coin into his hands. "You're 'Red Rook', because a rook was your piece during the chess game, first year. Keep it on you at all times. I'll be able to talk to you through it, if the connection's open. I'm in charge of that. Don't worry."
Ron opened his mouth to ask something, but Harry cut him off. The current crisis was more important. "I need your planning skills. You're our strategist; how would you go about infiltrating the Department of Mysteries?"
Before Ron could answer, another voice spoke up, as a figure stepped out of circle of orange that cut a hole through the air beside them. "About that," Stephen said. "You might want to cancel those plans, when you hear what I have to say."
Harry was no less stubborn than Hermione, Sirius, or Ron. He stuck by his plan, at last convincing Stephen to go away to ensure Sirius's safety. "If you are always there watching him, and ensure that you are never separated, then you could save him from any danger, surely, with that Sling Ring of yours," he'd insisted, and Stephen had, at last, conceded defeat, and, muttering about idiot gods, had gone away to Grimmauld Place. Harry quashed the suspicion that a conspiracy would arise, when he wasn't looking, between Sirius and Stephen, how to interfere with the plan.
It was too good of an opportunity to pass up—a chance to lure the impulsive Dark Lord from his hiding place, wherever that might be, to compel him to show his face, to give proof of his own resurrection. And, with the prophecy destroyed, he would have little cause to remain hidden.
Yes, perhaps it was also due in part to Dumbledore's current plans of shunning him—perhaps, he thought Harry so weak that Riddle would easily breach the defences of his mind, even from a distance—as he had. But, that factor was not about to change. Sleep was that state of being in which all of a man's barriers fall. There was no remedy for that. Dumbledore would just have to accustom himself to that risk, or sabotage his own cause, by keeping Harry in the dark.
Harry hated being kept in the dark.
There was a ready way back to the Ministry—one that he'd used before, and that recently. Too recently, he realised belatedly, but what other choice was there? Apparation, that he didn't know? A portkey, that he insufficiently understood? There was nothing.
Ron had found Hermione, and they'd both come to Umbridge's office. Harry had intended to call as little attention to them as possible. He'd given Hermione the token with the bookworm on it, intending to explain later. Neville had the plantman, Ginny the red phoenix, and Luna the dreaming moon. He promised each a further explanation, and begged Ginny and Neville to keep watch for them. He explained that it was urgent, that Umbridge not find them.
But, Umbridge was Umbridge, and she had been waiting for just such an eventuality. Malfoy was not an obstacle that Harry had foreseen. He took them by surprise, him, and Crabbe and Goyle, the ever-present flunkies, and Umbridge and hers. She knew with Dumbledore absent from the school, she could do whatever she wished. And, she had been waiting.
Worse, Ginny, Neville, and Luna were dragged into it. He shouldn't have sought for their help.
Had she known, somehow? What a paranoid thought. But, she called Professor Snape in, and there was a pause, as Snape met his gaze. A moment of weakness, Potter? Harry almost heard him ask.
A trap. A necessary counterattack, he willed Snape to understand. With Umbridge here in Hogwarts, sooner or later public opinion will turn against us as rabble-rousers, or the friction will tear the Wizarding World apart. We must be the heroes, the ones who act, even to our cost. They must see that we are trying to fight the good fight.
"What is he babbling?" Umbridge snapped. Harry blinked. Had he said something aloud? Snape sneered—it was a strange expression, after his few months of mellowness. Fake.
"I have no idea," he snapped, and whirled around, back out of the room.
Calling for reinforcements. Perhaps, calling for Dumbledore. And, Dumbledore would try to keep the war from beginning for as long as possible, to attempt to forestall it, as if he didn't see its inevitability. But, Harry did. And, the sooner Riddle had opposition, something calling his attention away from single-minded pursuit of his goals, the sooner they could make progress towards defeating him.
Unless Dumbledore knew something he weren't telling Harry. In which case, all this be on his head!
But, Severus Snape had claimed to have no further stock of veritaserum. That, too, was a gift.
"Where is Dumbledore?" Umbridge demanded. "How does he intend to overthrow the Ministry?"
There was a certain insanity to her gaze, a wildness, as if she'd gone beyond the bounds of caring about right or wrong. As if it didn't matter what they said. She'd hear only what she wanted to hear.
Understandably, she would not hear his protestations that there was no secret weapon, that Dumbledore had no designs on the Ministry, that You-Know-Who had returned, and that they should be focusing their efforts on him.
But, his thoughts were forced to abruptly switch tracks, as she said, with a glint in her eyes,
"Perhaps, the Cruciatus would loosen one of your tongues."
And, to Hermione's protestations that she couldn't do that because the use of the Unforgivables was illegal, she continued, "Cornelius doesn't need to know. After all, he doesn't know that I sent the dementors after that boy last summer…."
Ron somehow restrained himself from murdering her, then and there, at this confession. Harry's fists clenched—he did not even like to think of those creatures, but they did quite a bit of damage to his mind and his soul whenever they appeared, and he could little afford that.
"Who should it be first, I wonder…" she mused, and Harry glanced around the room, where the slytherins looked slightly disturbed by the thought of witnessing someone being tortured—or at least, Malfoy and Millicent Bullstrode looked vaguely uneasy. Perhaps, as if they even wanted to leave. "Perhaps, one of you should volunteer yourselves…you're known for being such a tightknit group, I suppose it wouldn't take more than a bit of suffering for any of you for the weakest link to break. There always is one. Probably the mudblood—"
Pure energy flooded the room. Harry felt his hair trying its hardest to stand on end. Hermione's expanded to five times its normal volume. Luna's whipped about her head, in the wind that was beginning to fill the room—currents of air? a gathering storm?—and Ginny fared no better. Only Neville looked normal, if a bit uneasy.
And Ron, of course, as he was the epicentre. Could he be any more obvious?
But, there were more pressing concerns than how blatantly supernatural Ron was at the moment. Umbridge's ultimatum had sent Harry's thoughts and plans, such as they were, veering widely off course. A moment of truth, a choice to be made.
"I'll do it," he whispered to the two of them, and Ron was desperate enough that he lost the anger that was building up the storm.
"Harry, no," he begged. "Let us handle this. You have said it yourself: pain is—"
"I know!" Harry hissed in return, turning back to Umbridge, who, for the moment, was content to watch them squabble amongst themselves. Ginny looked as if she might be having trouble breathing. The air was thick with tension, but the real problem was probably that Bullstrode was crushing her. Harry swept an imperious glare in that direction, and Bullstrode loosened the grip on Ginny's throat, just a little. Ginny sucked in a few, strained breaths, and Harry returned his attention to the topic at hand. "What do you propose that we do? Are you volunteering Hermione be tortured in my stead?"
Ron's gaze was hard as steel, as he glanced around the room. He rarely got this worked up about things, but when he did…watch out. That determination would pulverise mountains. A mere human could never match up.
"No," said Thor. "I am the strongest of us. I was not there for you, to help you, before. I will do this for you, now."
That was a bad idea, a very bad idea, and Harry knew it, although he couldn't place the why, immediately. It took a moment.
Then, he remembered. It wasn't the physical pain that had broken Loki. It was what had come after, the need to convince himself that working alone was the only path that would protect those he cared about. The need to not care, the heart of the mantra. The only way—
No! he told that corrupted corner of his mind. He remembered what Stephen had suggested—that perhaps his love for his friends and family would give him the strength to carry him through. He remembered the rut he'd fallen into, flowed through in safety, during those interminable detentions with Umbridge.
"I can take it," he said. "But, I couldn't take you being tortured. That's the whole point of the mantra; don't you get it?"
But, the pain of the Cruciatus was what had first unleashed Thanos's corruption from its bonds, deep within his mind. He saw the situation for what it was, now, even before Ron said,
"But, pain is what made you use it—"
Harry glanced at Ginny, whose eyes were very wide, and he knew that she wasn't demanding answers only because her mouth was covered.
Thor had thrown it into stark relief. Harry saw how it was, now. It didn't matter whom Umbridge tortured, as far as Thanos's corruption was concerned. The physical pain had been enough to break the barriers warding off the corrupted corner of his mind, before. The thought of the fall of Asgard, and the death of his family, had brought it into being to begin with. There was no real choice here.
It was as if, walking deep in inhospitable terrain, you came across what seemed a fork in the road—two paths that could be taken, both harsh, both heading in quite different directions, but as you picked one, and followed it, you saw that they quickly reunited into a single road. The fork was only an illusion. This was just the same. All roads led to destruction, to madness, to unleashing a force that he couldn't afford to let loose.
"Then, there is no good choice," he said, with a bitter laugh. "Witnessing your pain, or suffering my own—either way leads to ruin. What a fool I was!"
Thor paused. "And, what if you need not witness my suffering?" he asked
Harry paused, uncertain, as energy—electricity—gathered around Thor's body, as it had down beneath the school, when the Devil's Snare had nearly smothered Harry, at end of first year.
Harry's mind felt sluggish, as if to drag out the moment. Adrenaline was that force that made time seem to drag out. No one but the two of them, who knew to look for it, would know that that sharp electric shock was what made Crabbe let go of Ron, long enough for Thor to approach, and hit Harry, as hard as he could, over the head.
Ah. That, Harry thought, as he lost consciousness.
"What is the meaning of this!" Umbridge shrieked. To her, it must have seemed a mutiny. Before Thor could reach her, to attack, she'd cast that spell incarcerous, binding him in thick chains, which he couldn't hope to readily escape.
"What sort of friend are you, attacking someone who trusts you?" she practically screeched. He wished that he could cover his ears. He glanced at Harry. He knew he'd robbed her of what she'd really wanted—to make Harry suffer.
"One who understands the meaning of sacrifice. There is no use in torturing him, now," he said. "He is unconscious. Even a restorative spell will not wake him from this."
Head trauma. Stephen would be most displeased. But, it was necessary to ensure that Harry did not wake anytime soon. He seemed to have retained at least a slight healing capacity.
"Ron," Hermione whimpered. Both she and Ginny redoubled their flagging efforts to break free from their captors.
"Well," Thor said, throwing down the gauntlet. "I believe that you were making threats concerning torture."
Umbridge needed no further prompting.
There was a moment, when it first hit, and an unknowable time after, when it hurt more than any blow he'd ever received, full of fire and the sting of blades, and it was everywhere. But then, his heritage kicked in—that overwhelming part of him that wasn't human, wasn't mortal, and retained the ability to endure and bear through injuries that would incapacitate a human.
Show no weakness.
Even the magically-intensified agony of the Cruciatus began to fall aside, breaking around him, as if repulsed. The electricity that was his birthright eclipsed its fire, and there was only the rain of blades, but he had always known how to take a punch.
Umbridge frowned, as if in disbelief, and he knew that she'd try that curse at least once more before deciding, as the false professor had last year, that he was an anomaly.
"Crucio!" she tried again, before he was ready. Again, a conflict, between was and is. Again, his heredity and birthright won out.
Umbridge understood that she couldn't break him. Hermione sobbed, nearby, as Ginny stared, with a sort of absent vacancy to her expression that made her look dispassionate. It reminded him of Harry.
Umbridge took a step towards Hermione, and Thor sought for a release from his bonds, but knew that he wouldn't find it in time. Umbridge knew that she'd been tricked, and Hermione would pay the price. But, if Snape were truly on their side, should not support, a rescue, have come for them by now?
And then, Harry stirred.
With his eyes still closed, he erected walls, as many and as strong as he could, around the corrupted corner of his mind. That was the priority. He knew what came next.
He glanced around the room, and put a hand to his head. He realised that his captors had left him be, with no need to watch him, once he'd lost consciousness. He dragged himself to his feet, noticed that Umbridge was heading for Hermione, and didn't think of what might have happened to Ron. Ron was in chains. That was as much as he had time to notice.
As Umbridge pointed the wand at Hermione, crying "Crucio!", Harry interposed himself, opening his seventh sense wide as he did. There was no need for awareness of the outside world.
He lost his focus the moment that the spell hit. But, he knew the Cruciatus Curse. He'd felt it performed by Riddle, and Quirrell, and Umbridge could not hope to match Riddle's level of hatred, try as she might. She just didn't have the raw power.
He regained his focus, reopened his seventh sense, studying the pattern of the spell—not to learn how to replicate it with the other sort of magic, but to know its nature. This was the spell that had damned Frank and Alice Longbottom, after all. He would never have a better chance to see how it worked.
He stared at the spell, a stout rope that split into thousands of wispy cords. He reached down the line, to the point before it split off, and nudged it back towards its originatrix. Back to Umbridge.
He closed his seventh sense, and was unsurprised to find himself on his knees. He barely noticed Umbridge's screams in light of the immediate, more pressing, concern. Malfoy was making to stop him. He pointed the newest wand in Harry's direction, and Harry pivoted on the spot, grabbing Malfoy's wrist, and wrenching the wand out of his hands.
"Expelliarmus!" he cried, and the phoenix feather wand he knew best leapt from Malfoy's hand into his. Malfoy stared at its progress, as if he'd forgot he was holding anything. The distance it had to travel was absurdly short. Harry stunned the momentarily immobile Malfoy, and then aimed a reductor curse, with some care, at Ron's chains. It was important to free the best fighter of them all, first.
He'd heard it for a while, but only now did he recognise the sound of Umbridge screaming, subjected to the power of her own hatred. It would last until she gained the presence of mind to stop it. Or lost her mind. Or lost consciousness. Harry was past caring which.
He flinched, and knew that Ron noticed, and followed his line of thought (or, at least, that part of it). Harry shrugged, and silenced Umbridge.
"I suggest you let go of Ginny," he said, in his pleasantest voice, to Bullstrode. Her eyes widened, and Ginny fell to the ground in a heap as the iron grip abruptly loosened.
"Harry! What the hell is going on?" she snapped, without missing a beat. "And Ron—how did he do that? And you (Harry, I mean)—I know you're tough—I always thought you seemed to be made of steel, but Ron—"
Meanwhile, Luna oozed out of her captor's grip, and the unknown slytherin girl looked more resigned than anything else. She lowered her gaze, almost demurely, and took a step back, conceding defeat. Hermione used Parkinson's moment of shock to drive an elbow into her gut, and then kicked backwards, hard, freeing herself. Crabbe and Goyle did not seem to know quite what to do with themselves, with Malfoy down for the count. But, they knew when they were outnumbered. They released Neville.
Harry gave a bitter laugh. "Oh, I'm not Superman," he said. "But, if you would still say that I'm made of steel, then Ron is made of adamant. He's the strongest of us."
Without bothering to explain further, he went to the fireplace, reaching for the floo powder, despite its adverse effects on him, when Luna said,
"But, if we're going to the Department of Mysteries, can't we just ride the thestrals?"