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Chapter Twenty-Three—The Poppy-Seeded Wine
"You have no right to do that to her."
"I know I don't have the right. But it's what I did."
Ron takes a long, complicated breath, not looking at Harry. They're in the dining room where they just finished dinner. Hermione took the news of him Obliviating Ginny in stride, but seemed sad about it; she's just left the room. Ron is the one who's been sitting in his chair and staring at the table for the last half-hour.
"She could have been dealt with some other way," Ron whispers. "If you'd called me or Hermione. Hermione especially. She's a Muggleborn, she's directly affected by all this. If you'd let us talk to her."
"I had no idea I was going to confront Ginny when I went over to Rolf and Luna's house. I just had that note from Luna to come, and nothing else. Honestly, I thought she was sick. I didn't know Ginny was even there."
Ron lifts his head. "And you're not even sorry about it. That's what kills me the most."
"I can apologize for the necessity," Harry tells him quietly. "But that's all it would be. I can't say I'm sorry for doing it, because I'm not."
"And is it going to be the worth the cost, in the end?" Ron asks wearily. "Having our friends on opposite sides, maybe Obliviating other good people, getting rid of some things but not all? Is it going to be the worth the cost, Harry?"
"For me? Yes. I can't do anything about prejudices people come up with in the future. If they all decide to start hating mooncalves tomorrow, nothing I can do. But with the Hallows, I'll change the ones that are here."
Ron lifts his head slowly. "And it's going to affect everyone who holds those prejudices. It doesn't matter whether they're pure-bloods or Muggleborns or members of the Sun Chamber. It'll be absolutely everyone."
Harry rolls his eyes at him. "It's impossible to actually differentiate between people you're casting magic on based on blood status, or haven't you listened to any of Hermione's lectures yet?"
"I know that," Ron says. "I was just—not thinking about it before. If someone I know holds those opinions but just has never said anything about them, then they're literally going to be a different person after these spells are cast."
"Yes."
"That could include Ginny."
Harry shrugs. "I don't think she'll change much, honestly. She doesn't hate Muggleborns, she doesn't think pure-bloods are superior. But she doesn't understand why I'm so invested in changing things, and she's comfortable. A lot more comfortable than she used to be when she was at Hogwarts or a child. People who are comfortable don't want to change things, usually."
"So she could change."
"Yes."
"Huh." Ron breathes out heavily, and then nods. "All right. I'm in this thing to the end, I promised you that already. But, Harry?"
"Yeah."
"Sometimes I really hate your methods."
"You're allowed," Harry says gently.
"I summoned you for a reason, Lord Potter. I want to know what you think you're doing."
Harry only looks at Shafiq as if he has no idea what she means. "I am doing my best to make sure that the wizarding world is ready to accept me as its king. That includes taking care of rebellious elements."
"But ending a great pure-blood line—making sure that its only Heir renounced his name and took up his mother's—"
Harry shrugs and accepts a goblet of wine from a house-elf who appears and disappears in seconds. They're in the middle of a shining, gold-draped room in yet another house the Kingmakers are using. Harry committed as much of it to memory as he could, so he could talk about it to Londer for her reports, but the maze of corridors between this room and the one he Flooed into is confusing. "What was I supposed to do, let an attempt to murder me and extort my allies go unpunished?"
"Find something that would leave pure blood alive! You could have sent Lord Malfoy to prison and simply had Heir Malfoy ascend in his place."
"They broke my wards. They sacrificed a Muggle in a way that is going to attract attention, and would have attracted much more if I hadn't complained about it. They nearly killed me. They did injure me. Explain to me, Lady Shafiq, why I should take that insult and leave any of them standing."
Shafiq stops pacing and stares at him. Harry lifts the goblet to his mouth and only pretends to sip at it. There's a strong scent coming from it that confirms it isn't as innocent as it appears.
He wants to sigh, but he doesn't. Of course he expected Shafiq to betray him, but he didn't expect it this soon, or this obviously. This is going to be inconvenient to figure out how to deal with.
"It's true that you have little reason to love the Malfoys." Shafiq is fumbling with her words, perhaps also at a loss for what to do until whatever potion or poison she's put into his glass takes effect. "But to end an ancient family line like that, one which has been pure for centuries…"
"So no Malfoy ever married a half-blood or a Muggleborn? Or a Veela?" Harry probes carefully at the smell in his wine with his magic. It comes back with a soft impression of steam that only he can see. It's a sleeping potion, then, nothing more. Good. He'll pretend to react to it and see what happens next. He takes another, more generous pretend gulp.
Shafiq is relaxing, her eyelids creasing a little at the sides. "Of course not. And they would have been your allies if you had given them time to accept you. They might have been able to guide you in your choice of a bride."
Harry fakes a yawn. "They—weren't my allies. They would probably have introduced me to someone who would stab me in my sleep."
Shafiq glances at him and modulates her voice. "I know it must feel that way. But there's always time to change our minds and repair our mistakes. Why don't you go in front of the Wizengamot and say that you've changed your mind about the penalty Heir Malfoy should pay? That it's all right for him to resume his family name and become Lord Malfoy?"
"This matters—a lot to you," Harry says, and fakes another yawn. "Are the Malfoys related to the Shafiqs recently?"
Shafiq sighs, probably because anyone with the right degree of inbreeding would know that without being told. Then she shakes her head and murmurs, "They are pure. I do not want to lose any other pure-bloods."
"And you probably value me less than you do them because I have a Muggleborn mother."
"Your level of power and your holding the Lordships of two families makes up for it. You will still make a fine king."
Harry lets a few more incoherent mumbles out, and then permits his chin to droop onto his chest. Shafiq watches him with narrowed eyes, and then casts a few spells that make loud noises rip through the room. Harry jumps at the first of them and "chats" with her for a bit more, before his head droops again. He doesn't let himself react to the next few, since Shafiq seems to be waiting for him to be utterly unconscious.
Shafiq breathes out deeply and leaves the room. Harry is a bit disappointed that he won't get to see who she calls up on the Floo, but if they arrive and come back with her, he'll at least get to see them.
As it turns out, there's only one person who comes back with her, a tall man in an Unspeakable's robes and hood. Harry delicately sniffs as much as he can without moving his nostrils. No, there's no clues, even scent, that would enable Harry to recognize him.
"You are sure this is the best way?" The Unspeakable's voice has a slight accent that both reminds Harry of Fleur's and makes Harry even surer that he's never met the bloke before.
"Yes, of course. You know that outright assassination attempts are both gauche and unworkable. Take him."
"Gauche is the worse word for you, of course." The Unspeakable sounds amused, and then his robes swish as he walks towards the couch that Harry is slumped on.
For a second, Harry considers letting the Unspeakable take him into the Department of Mysteries. That must be what Shafiq is angling for, a literally mysterious disappearance. But he would find it harder to get out of the Department than he did out of Malfoy Manor, and he wouldn't have someone around to help him like Draco this time.
Instead, he stretches and snaps his wandless magic around the Unspeakable as he gets closer, and then leaps off the couch and hides behind it.
The Unspeakable shrieks, because, like it mostly does when Harry doesn't want to do something specific with it, his magic has taken the form of fire. Shafiq spins towards her companion, looking as if she thinks she should help him but has no idea how to do it.
Harry, meanwhile, is casting Binding Curses from behind the couch, and the Unspeakable falls over, still thrashing inside his burning cloak. Harry pulls his magic back to him. The flames stop, but not the bloke's moans. He might be badly burned.
Amazingly, Harry can't bring himself to care.
"Lord Potter." Shafiq faces him with her hands clasped around her wand and a very well-feigned look of shock on her face. "What is the meaning of this? You fall asleep and then you come shouting awake and burn my guest—"
"The sleeping potion in my wine didn't affect me," Harry says dryly, and watches her eyes tighten for a second before she clamps that control down on herself that it seems all members of the Sun Chamber learn. "I heard what you said. And not that it matters compared to the rest, but in the interests of accuracy, I came awake blazing, not shouting. Lady."
Shafiq doesn't move for a few seconds. The Unspeakable stops moaning. From the hesitant motions of his hands, Harry thinks he's reaching for a potion to treat the burns or kill the pain. The Binding Curse that hit him must not have been very strong.
"Then you know that we never intended you to be king."
"It had crossed my mind."
"I believe I understand your extermination campaign against the pure-blood families better now." Shafiq readies her wand without lifting it. "I cannot allow you to leave knowing what you do."
Harry shrugs. He never intended to let her leave, either. He'll restrain her the way he did Pansy, Obliviate her the way he did Ginny, or kill her the way he did Atlas. What happens is going to be up to her.
Shafiq abruptly kicks sideways, a strange dance-like step. Harry is moving before he realizes that she didn't use that movement to launch a projectile at him or get herself out of his line of fire. Instead, it was to conjure fire—or a ritual circle.
All over the floor, runes are lighting up, creating crackling lines and rings and geometric shapes. They're ancient ones, embedded in the stone and not used for generations, or Harry would have sensed them the minute he walked into the room. A pentagram forms around Harry, one made of raging blue fire that doesn't rise higher than his knees.
"Impressive," Harry says, smiling at Shafiq.
"Thank you." But her tone is stilted. It could be she just doesn't like banter, but Harry doesn't think that's it. She's wondering why he doesn't look more worried.
Well, it's true that Harry would prefer not to be trapped in a runic pentagram, and it'll cost him something to get out of here. But as he raises his magic around him, he sees Shafiq's eyes widen with understanding.
The runic pentagram is only any good if it can trap him.
His magic rises, and rises, and rises. Phoenix wings unfold behind him, or the image of them, and Harry smiles at Shafiq and brings down his wings on the sides of the pentagram as hard as he can.
The room shrieks. The world around Harry spins, and flames are raging out of control somewhere behind his eyes. The surge of power from within him makes him bend over and vomit—
On the still-intact lines of the pentagram. But now they are smoking and black instead of running with blue fire.
"You d—don't want to do that." Shafiq is stuttering.
"Oh, yes, I really do," Harry says softly, and he drains his magic outwards again and hurls it in a furious burst against the force holding him trapped.
Not helpless, though. That's one thing his enemies will never find him.
This time, the unleashed power vibrates inside his ears with an enormous twanging noise, like the plucked string of a harp. Harry whirls the flames as a rope around his head as he vomits again. It feels as though someone has plucked out his liver and lungs and then put them back inside him in in the wrong order.
"Lord Potter! Stop this."
Harry ignores her, and gathers himself for a third lunge. Then he sees movement out of the corner of his eye, and pulls in the power, shaping it into a shield. Only a second later does he think that his enemies' magic might not be able to cross the runes, either.
But it turns out they can, and the Stunner from the Unspeakable crashes into his shield. Then it has nowhere to go, caught between his shield and the runes, and bounces and pools around like random red light.
Harry seizes control of it, and expands his shield outwards as hard and fast as he can, forcing the magic of the Unspeakable's spell to lap over the runes.
"You fool! You can't—"
It's not clear whether Shafiq is talking to him or the Unspeakable. In the end, it doesn't matter. The extra magic does it. The runes darken, and then the shattered marble flooring shoots away from Harry. Harry tucks himself inside the little protection the shield can still offer and rolls behind the couch again. He desperately needs a moment to catch his breath.
But from the sounds of pounding feet, he's not going to get it. Oh, well. Harry bounces to his feet and aims his wand over the top of the couch. A Stunner makes the running person duck, and then Harry hurls the couch with a push of raw strength in his direction.
From his groan, the Unspeakable isn't going to get up as quickly this time. Harry rolls and limps his way back to his feet, facing Shafiq. She's standing in the middle of a runic circle that he knows is protective, and she's staring at him with huge eyes.
"You can't—you broke the pattern," she says, and again she's on the verge of stuttering.
Harry watches the runes begin to light up in jagged ways, and thinks he can guess what that means. "And the pattern was all connected? Breaking one part of it is going to damage the others?" Even as he speaks, there's a sharp hissing and a steaming pop that sounds almost as if it's coming from the Hogwarts Express, and one of the circles near the back of the room explodes. Harry watches blue sparks rain down and light one of the tapestries on fire.
"Yes! Of course it does!" Shafiq raises her wand, but then lowers it and shakes her head in disgust. "You are mad. Destroying pure families this way—"
Harry whips his wand at her, a silent Memory Charm. It stops at the edge of the circle protecting her. Harry assumed that had weakened as well when the other protections did, but it holds yet.
"But it does make certain decisions on my part easier." Shafiq turns and hurls a Killing Curse at the Unspeakable before Harry can catch his breath, and he's still. Then she flicks her wand once more, says, "Anti-Apparition wards with a built-in exception for me only. Good-bye, Lord Potter," and vanishes.
Harry closes his eyes. It's so hot, and so much raw, jagged magic is stinging the air, that it's hard to think. He doesn't know if he can break the wards that Shafiq raised given how exhausted he already is.
But he has to try.
He builds the shields first, rippling flames that grow faster and faster from the wild magic in the air, and wrap around him with shining flares of white and blue. Harry tucks himself into them until he's all but wearing them, sleeves of smoke and a cloak of fire. Then he draws in heated air until his chest is small and compressed, and he leaps.
The roof falls in an instant after he does, and then there is only darkness.