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Chapter Twenty-Eight—When the Apple-Blossoms
Harry settles back in a chair and looks around, sipping the hot drink that Kreacher insisted on giving him. Hermione isn't happy that Kreacher is still acting like a typical house-elf with Harry, but as Harry has pointed out to her, she is welcome to try and get him to stop. Harry isn't risking that gauntlet again.
The drawing room of Grimmauld Place is full of his allies. Ron and Hermione are there, of course. Bill, Weston, and Londer. House-elves who freed themselves long ago and have been participating in the protests. Some of the wizards who were part of the raid on the Ministry, mostly Muggleborn but not all, unmasked this time. Neville, who has a faint smile on his face that tells Harry he has good news. Luna, who's toying with a glittering string of what looks like tiny crystal balls chained together.
"Well," Harry says. The room falls silent at once. He wants to roll his eyes, but someone will have to be in charge, as Hermione says. It might as well be him. "We've made some important steps in toppling the Ministry."
"I thought you got yourself declared a fugitive, though," says one of the Muggleborn witches, a Black British woman named Jerilene Osborne. "How does that help?"
"It means that I don't have to kowtow to the Aurors anymore. And we still have a few spies among them, so we didn't even lose that role." Harry tilts his head at Weston and Londer. "They didn't suspect you after you helped me escape with the goblin artifacts, did they?" he adds to Weston.
She grins at him. "No. I played myself off as someone too eager to capture you, because I couldn't believe such a great hero would turn his back on the profession that he swore to uphold. They bought my soft-brained act, because, well. Muggleborns. They just don't know any better, you know." She tilts her head down and sighs.
"And what else?" Osborne demands.
"The goblins have agreed to join us."
There's a roar of noise at that, which is only beginning to die down when Hermione stands up and says, "I've completed the initial stages of my project to free the house-elves."
"Leaving them the choices, yes?" asks one of the free house-elves sternly. He goes by Illam, and there are enormous gold rings in his ears that he keeps adding to the way Dobby added socks. Harry still misses Dobby when he looks at him. "To stay or go?"
"Of course," Hermione says. "Although I think that most of them will want to find work with families who didn't do things like throw pans at their heads and make them iron their ears!"
Harry knows Illam's earrings are there partially to hide old scars from irons and worse things. He nods in grim agreement, the rings softly tapping together. "But you are not to be making those choices when they are free, Hermione Granger. House-elves be making those choices."
Even years later, Harry sees, Hermione still blushes at the reminder of the knitted hats she left lying around the Gryffindor common room to try and tempt elves into picking them up. "Yes, Illam. I understand."
"I've collected almost all the magical signatures from the Sun Chamber in the keystone above my door," Neville announces. "I'm missing a few, and there are some families where I didn't know if I should try for the Heirs as well as the Lords and Ladies." He glances at Harry, who thinks about it for a second. Some families have weird internal customs that put emphasis on the Heirs, and some don't.
In the end, he says, "As many as you can, but don't risk the success of the plan on trying to find more."
Neville nods, his eyes shining, and Harry hopes that most of that shine comes from the desire and the ability to stick it to some pure-blood families, rather than because Neville thinks Harry is a great planning genius or something. He's not. He just takes advantage of the huge gaping wounds their enemies leave in their defenses.
"I heard that Draco Malfoy is calling himself Draco Black now and taking orders from you," mutters Londer. "Why isn't he here?"
Harry shrugs. "I don't want to involve him in something bigger than he knows exists. And even if he takes orders from me, he might get tiresome about insulting Muggleborns. That shouldn't be the focus of these meetings."
"You're willing to work with pure-bloods?"
"Neville and Ron and Bill and Luna are pure-bloods," Harry points out. He understands Londer's grief over her son, but he isn't going to let it take over the meeting. "I would be willing to work with anyone who won't betray me and has a good grasp of what we intend." He ignores the way Londer's mouth opens, and turns to Luna. "I know the good news about the fire spells. What about the chain you have now?"
Luna holds up her hands and displays the glittering globes. "They'll form chains to partition off the unicorn reserves in the Forbidden Forest," she whispered. "And whoever else doesn't want to fight."
Harry grins. "Excellent." This is something Luna's been working on for a long time, although as is common with Luna, he didn't necessarily recognize the success when it manifested. "Well done."
"Thank you, my Lord," Luna says, and laughs when Harry picks up one of the Weasleys' cups and throws it at her. Hermione repairs it, shaking her head.
"I'm afraid I don't understand what she's talking about," says Weston carefully, as if she thinks that Harry will get upset with her for revealing her ignorance.
"There are some magical creatures who won't join our fights no matter what, and who might be harmed otherwise when the rebellion breaks forth," Luna says, her face losing its dreaminess. "The unicorns are one species of them. I think some centaurs might be as well. These chains will create Untouchable, Unplottable pieces of land where they can hide."
"And you haven't thought of offering something like that to humans?" Londer demands.
"So few people know about our rebellion at all? No," Harry points out dryly. "Unless you think we ought to go out and announce it in the streets now."
"Of course not! But there might be people who don't want to fight for you or for the Ministry who need a safe place to stay."
"Only if they also agreed to release their house-elves, and utterly change their minds about Muggleborn prejudice," Hermione says. "Given that Luna's chains will protect anyone inside them from being affected by our spells at all, we would essentially be giving permission for people to still enslave other non-human magical creatures and be bigoted if we didn't make them promise that."
"But how can you know if someone tells you a lie about that? Or perhaps they sincerely intend to change their minds but won't be able to at the last moment, because they have less strength than they thought. You cannot force someone to change their minds."
Harry smiles at her.
"You can't," Londer insists in a quiet hiss. "The magic doesn't exist."
"It didn't exist before we started researching it. But neither did the magic to free house-elves without their owners giving them clothes, or to keep magical creatures safe from the war if that's what they want."
Londer stares helplessly at him. Then she shakes her head and mutters, "Then put it a different way. You shouldn't be able to change people's minds. It ought to be immoral. That means that you shouldn't do it."
"I think I know the definition of immoral," Harry says gravely. "But I'll tell you the same thing I told you someone who complained about this the other day." Briefly, his gaze crosses Hermione's. She only blinks and looks blank. "If we don't do something, the Ministry and the Sun Chamber and the bigoted pure-bloods and the wizards who just don't care about Muggleborns and magical creatures will keep doing as they like with no consequences. Ron and Hermione and I tried legal reform and persuasion for a decade. It didn't work. There's still this bill in front of the Wizengamot that's going to strip rights from magical creatures no matter how idiotic that is when goblins guard our money. This is pure stupidity. Pure stupidity doesn't get any more chances."
"But what about people who aren't in the Ministry or the Sun Chamber? They might not be helping us, but they deserve to have—"
"Another chance?" Harry breaks in harshly. "They did have it. They could have spoken up in favor of less restrictive laws on house-elves and centaurs and goblins and werewolves and Muggleborns and almost anyone else. They didn't. Now the choice has been taken from them. That's it, Auror Londer. I'm not going to listen to any more arguments."
Londer sits back with her eyes gone wide and shocked. Her arms tremble for a second, and then remain at her sides. Harry is relieved. He really doesn't want to alienate her and then have to throw her out with most of the past few weeks Obliviated from her mind.
But if she does retain a lingering belief in favor of blood prejudice, then she's going to be affected just like everyone else by the spell the Elder Wand casts.
Harry turns to Hermione. "How much backup are you going to need for this project? I know that some of our free elves are going to help you—" he nods to Illam, who nods back and makes his ears ring "—but how much do you need of wizards feeding you magic when you begin casting the spell?"
"The elf magic is going to be enough," Hermione says quietly. "And the other things that we have helping me." Harry nods; if she doesn't want to talk about the Invisibility Cloak to the others, that's her right. "But what you can do is cause more of those distractions that you said the werewolves and the goblins were going to help you with, so that pure-bloods are looking at those instead of their elves."
"If you're going to give the elves a choice, then how can you forcibly free them?" That's Bill, who sounds thoughtful, not opposing them for opposition's sake like Londer was. "I mean, what if the elves choose to stay with the family that enslaved them anyway?"
"Then elves still be having the choice!" Illam stands up to his full height, instead of sitting down like the other elves, and moves over to scowl at Bill. Bill blinks, but he doesn't laugh, which Harry was afraid he might for a second. "Right now, they not be having the choice unless their family be giving them clothes, and then the breaking—" He stops, struggling for words.
"The bond that ties house-elves to certain families is unnatural," Hermione says quietly. "But breaking something that deeply rooted in an elf's being is still going to hurt. They might choose to stay for a while because they're upset about it being broken. Or maybe they'll negotiate for a better rate of pay or more freedom if the family didn't treat them too badly. But the point is, right now they don't have a choice."
"This breaking of bonds," Londer says abruptly. "Is it going to free anything that shouldn't be free?"
"Like?" Harry asks politely.
"What if it makes the restrictions that confine the dragons to the reserves fall apart? You can't tell me you aren't concerned for the Muggles if that happens, even if you don't care about the effect it has on wizards."
"Those restrictions have nothing to do with enslaving dragons," Hermione says. "There's nothing that can enslave a dragon, they're too wild. They're just wards that hide the reserves and keep the dragons inside them, the way Muggle-Repelling Charms hide our houses. They'll survive just fine through the rebellion."
Londer nods, although she doesn't look convinced. Harry supposes he'll have to follow her home tonight to make sure that she doesn't have any indiscreet chats through the Floo.
"What about the trolls and things like that?" asks Kellah Jordan, a relation of Lee Jordan who gets discounted by a lot of people because her mother was a Squib. "Do you think we have to worry about them getting free?"
Hermione rolls her eyes. "Trust me to know what I'm doing, all right? I promise that the trolls and the others are going to be confined behind wards, too. There are magical creatures we enslave and shouldn't, there are others we should treat better but we don't, and there are some that we can't negotiate with, like trolls and dragons. They're going to be kept safe for everyone's protection."
"I don't see how a tapestry can break house-elves free of the families that are holding onto them."
Hermione smiles a little meanly at Neville, who knows a lot about their plan but nothing about the mechanics of this one. Honestly, Harry wouldn't know himself if he didn't have to be involved because of commanding the Hallows to do what Hermione said. "It's all right. It'll happen, and that's all you need to know."
Neville nods, looking satisfied. Luna looks down at the chain of globes wound through her fingers. "There's going to be a lot of burning," she whispers.
Harry nods and captures the eyes of people around the room. "Anyone who wants to leave Britain before the rebellion? You can do that. Just make sure that you warn me and that you give me time to cast the spells on you that will prevent you from talking about this with anyone. Then you can go wherever you like."
"You talk about free will, and yet you'd bind people's tongues?"
Harry is wondering now whether he should have brought Londer into their group at all. Perhaps the only thing that she has in common with them is dislike of the pure-bloods killing her son—but she doesn't care if people other than her son die. "Yes, I would. That makes sense. I'm not going to risk the lives of people who trust me for the sake of a false ideal."
Londer blinks and falls silent, blushing a bit. Harry continues looking around. "What about it? Does anyone already know that they want to leave?"
"What, and lose the chance to see them pay for what they've done?" Weston asks, spinning her wand idly between her fingers. "No, I mean to see this through."
The others murmur variations of that, except for Hermione, who just scowls at him as if asking what in the world he's thinking, and Illam, who folds his arms and shakes his head. "House-elves have been enslaved too long. We see it through."
Harry nods. "All right. Then we need to reveal a few more things about our plans. We have the house-elf part completed and ready to work when Hermione can access the magic. Luna will string the chains to keep the unicorns and perhaps the centaurs safe, with their help." He glances at Ron. Ron grimaces, and then stands up and walks to the middle of the room when Harry's stare lets him know he hasn't got a choice.
"All right," Ron says. "So you might know that I've been negotiating with the Dementors—"
The chaos that erupts makes it clear that most of them did not know that. But Harry doesn't have to do anything to stop it, because Ron loses his temper first and waves his wand around wildly. A firework leaps out of it and pinwheels through the room, shutting everyone up fast enough that they're left blinking.
Harry is grinning. He knows that Ron learned to do that from George.
"Anyway," Ron says firmly. "I've been negotiating with them. They think that we're willing to give them a bunch of our enemies so they can consume our souls."
"But we're not," Neville says, a little hesitantly. He catches Harry's eye, and raised eyebrows, in the next second, and flushes.
"Of course not," Ron says, and he can roll his eyes better than anyone Harry knows. "They just think we are. So they're willing to act as another distraction for us, and then descend on the area in Diagon Alley where they think that we'll have a whole bunch of helpless victims gathered and waiting for them. Except we're going to have something else instead." He grins at Harry, a little evilly. "I can tell them, right?"
Harry waves his hand, and Ron almost leaps off the floor as he turns around. "Magic enough to destroy them."
There's another outburst of chattering. Harry puts his chin on his fist and lets Ron deal with it. He's been working harder and longer on this than anyone else, just like Hermione has on charting pure-blood lines and freeing house-elves. He's the one who ought to defend it. And just like no one is going to tell everyone about Hermione using the Invisibility Cloak to help with her research, Harry isn't going to tell everyone about Ron's efforts being helped by the Resurrection Stone.
The Resurrection Stone, that calls back souls, and which when placed in the middle of a bunch of Dementors that think they're arriving to eat the souls...
Harry smiles. It's not a nice smile. But at this point, he assumes that no one is going to notice.