Chapter 6.3 Winter 1996 / 1997

At the start of the Christmas holiday, Harry bought a ladder, a dark grey helium balloon that was large enough to take most of the weight of the ladder, a dry suit, a syringe, and telescoping pruning secateurs for the Azkaban assault. He would use the moveable part of the secateurs to operate a syringe with an infectious disease. When Harry noted that he would have a problem hitting the lips of the Lestrange brothers if either were turned away from him in their beds, Sirius found a pair of communication mirrors, one of which he could attach to the end of the secateurs, while placing the other in front of himself. He also went to the Potter vault in Gringotts to retrieve a piece of jewellery that was nice but not too nice, so that, should he be caught leaving Hogwarts he could claim he'd been getting something for someone he wanted to ask out. The problem was that he didn't want to ask anybody out. The majority of the female students currently had a boyfriend. The next largest group were Boy-Who-Lived fangirls who Harry avoided as much as possible. Then there were the pureblood bigots who wouldn't go out with Harry because he was a half-blood; not that Harry would have been interested if any of them were to judge it more important that Harry was the heir of an ancient family, because he couldn't stand pureblood political views. Because Hogwarts was a fairly small school, that left very few candidates, none of whom Harry was interested in for one reason or another. So, he decided to stay single for the moment.

The holidays were a good time to relax after a term of hard work. Harry could only endure homeopathic doses of Sirius' ideas of fun, so he also used the time to move forward with his studies of building and breaking wards / curses. Harry had hoped to work on the curse on the Defence Against the Dark Arts professorship, but had shelved that for the moment due to a lack of leads. During the latest school term, Susan had boasted that Hufflepuff was the only one of the Hogwarts houses that had never been broken into, which had piqued Harry's interest in how that security was maintained. After demanding an unbreakable vow from him, Professor Sprout had allowed him to read the incomplete manuscript that described how the ward was able to distinguish between people who were allowed access and who were not. Though Annora Gaunt, the head of Hufflepuff who had put up the ward in the 14th century, had set up the ward intentionally, it had never been clear why, after many tries, it had succeeded, and the feat had never been reproduced. Professor Gaunt had been basing her work on the way the sorting hat was produced, knowledge that had since been lost. However, the ward was able to distinguish between Hufflepuff students and non-Hufflepuffs, so Harry agreed with the notes from previous people who had researched the ward that it had been imbued with some of the personality of the caster. Having seen how the Marauders' Map used a variation of the process of animating paintings, which were both also based on the way the hat had originally been animated, Harry hoped he came to the question with some insight into the process that previous attempts to reproduce the ward had lacked. The vow to Professor Sprout allowed Harry to discuss the problem with the portraits of his parents, so he had detailed discussions with both of them; with his father because he'd helped make the Map, and with his mother because she had known a lot about warding.

On boxing day Harry got a letter from Aberforth Dumbledore, asking if he had seen or heard from his brother, as he hadn't heard from him for almost a year. After having to search through his old correspondence, he told him that as far as he was aware, the last person to have talked to him was unspeakable Capodastro. A few days later, an announcement in the Daily Prophet announced that Albus Dumbledore was missing, presumed dead. It would be another year and a day before the Ministry would declare him deceased.

In the first week back at Hogwarts, Theodore passed Harry a note asking for a private conversation.

When Harry showed up Theodore said, "Potter, I need you to agree that this conversation is part of our previous agreement, and therefore covered by our mutual vows of silence."

"I agree. I will not speak to anyone of the following conversation."

"I found someone with access to Selwyn Manor and their main Gringotts vault. They agreed to do a search. They also agreed to a mutual vow of silence. There is a catch. Though they didn't say so, I'm convinced they think I'm trying to find out what happened to the Dark Lord in order to help him come back to power. It's my own fault, because when they objected that if I didn't trust them enough to proceed without a vow, that I shouldn't ask for their help, I justified it by saying they would be able to keep the secret if the Ministry got suspicious enough to use veritaserum. It's got me worried I will look guilty. Vows of silence are not fool proof. You can still hint if you're desperate enough to test the limits of what will trigger the vow to break. So, I need to know, is what you're trying to detect necessary to defeat the Dark Lord?"

"I don't want to say. … I can't risk Selwyn hinting to the wrong person, and ..." "I also can't sit back for 15 years, like Dumbledore, only to discover I had the opportunity and let it slip by. I hear what you're saying about risks, and I think it's worth it, but you're the one who has spoken to Selwyn, so if you say that it's time to abort, then I will take your word for it."

"No, that's not what I was saying. I think I convinced Selwyn not to go talking to other Death Eaters, using the disaster after the Quidditch World Cup Final as an example of what happens when they take matters into their own hands."

"What disaster?"

"They attacked a muggle family, and a small group of disillusioned people carried out a coordinated counterattack and cut off the wand arms of four of them, then destroyed the arms. One died, one has lost his wand arm, and two spent a fortune to be whisked off to a discrete healer abroad who wouldn't ask inconvenient questions while healing them. … I need you to promise that if anyone ever accuses me of attempting to bring back the Dark Lord, that you will vouch for me."

"I promise that if allegations are made, that, as far as the vow of silence allows, I will tell the truth of how you helped me."

Meanwhile, Harry was using the new knowledge on curse-breaking that he had gained over the holidays to disenchant some cursed jewellery that the elves had found in the Room of Requirement. He did the work in the hospital wing, in case he made a mistake. Harry hoped that the plan to build new houses in Hogsmeade would be going ahead. It would certainly make the house-elves happy, who had been far too pleased to have more work over the last summer instead of having enforced holidays. If the building plans fell through, Harry was tempted to put the curses back on the jewellery, since the experience he was gaining in curse-breaking in a relatively safe environment was quite valuable. Then again, as a teaching tool he might as well curse rocks.

Harry was glad to see that the improved way that Luna had been treated when she started dating Harry had persisted when they had broken up. Even if he still hated how the majority had this distorted image of who Harry Potter really was, even quite a few of the muggleborn students, as long as it improved the lives of those who were important to him, he would come that much closer to making peace with it.

The tests of the Selwyn manor and vault came back negative as well. Nott offered more help, and Harry told him that if he thought that would like to do the same for the Rosier and Yaxley families, but that the further they went down the list, the worse the reward to risk ratio became, and therefore to be extra careful.

Dear Harry,

Mr Theodore Nott asked me to ask you whether you had reservations about him. He acknowledged that you have reasons to have reservations, so if you do, he did not wish to imply any criticism or discontent. However, he is also aware that you grew up among muggles, and therefore may not know that as his social superior it would be for you to suggest whether the two of you should be on a first-name based acquaintance. Moreover, he hastened to assure me that he had no wish to imply that I had been remiss in my duties as a godfather, merely that, thanks to you spending most of your time at boarding school, this particular detail might not have been mentioned yet. You no doubt get the implication that he has something to discuss that he cannot unless you take the initiative and suggest the two of you address each other by your first names.

Hoping you are well,

Your godfather

P.S. How's that for a ridiculous plot by purebloods to make social interactions as complicated and awkward as possible? I wish I had given you only one of the pair of mirrors, so that we could have had a good laugh about it. Please make your own decision in the matter. If you are worried that publicly addressing each other by your first names would signal more approval of him than you want, it would be fine to suggest you only use first names in private, so that he can still tell you what is on his mind, should you care to find out.

"Mr Nott, might I have a word?"

"Certainly."

Harry walked into the nearest empty room, cast a privacy charm, and came straight to the point, "would you agree to be on a first-name basis?"

"Thank you, Harry."

"Theodore, what did you want to tell me that you couldn't before?"

Theodore looked at his shoes, "I shouldn't have written to your godfather. I apologise."

"Now that you have, though, you might as well tell me. Or have you changed your mind?"

"No, I haven't changed my mind. It just belatedly occurred to me that asking for your intercession might make public what we agreed to keep private."

"I see." Harry was silent for several moments, but realised that without knowing more it was difficult to know what to do. "What did you want to ask my intercession with?"

"I asked Padma Patil to go to Hogsmeade with me. She refused because I had been seen in public with Lachesis Mulciber." Theodore looked for a sign of recognition, and when Harry failed to display it, he explained what any pureblood would know, "she's the eldest daughter of Alexander Selwyn." When that produced the sign of recognition he had been looking for, he elaborated, "I'm sure she agreed to meet where we would be seen in public together as a way to force me into closer alignment with my father's camp."

"A move that is now at risk of succeeding," Harry reflected. After thinking about it, Harry asked, "how about Padma demands some gesture from you that is equally significant, but in the opposite direction?"

"Going to Hogsmeade with Padma was supposed to do that."

"Would you be able to get away with a second one?"

"I think so. I could pretend to be more infatuated with her than I am." When Harry looked taken aback by that, Theodore asked, "did I say something wrong?"

"It sounded like you care more for how it will look to others than you care for Padma."

"I don't really know her. I'm not playing a game with her feelings, but for my father to accept any steps I take that from his point of view are disgraceful, I have to pretend to have lost my sense of perspective." When Harry didn't look convinced, he elaborated, "the disturbance that the Death Eaters caused during the quidditch world cup final was in response to some signal that my father will only hint about, and that was building up all last year, so they were expecting something to happen after 14 years. But then you disappeared for 2 days after the third task of the tournament, and then there was silence. Neither side has made any announcements, and now almost another year has gone by, and they're getting nervous that they haven't heard anything. I have been trying to distance myself from my father's prejudices for years, but with whatever has been happening, and I guess also because I've come of age now, he has been making renewed efforts to get me to join, or at a minimum to pay lip-service to his cause. Meanwhile, you have this sense of purpose about you, which made me think that maybe I can not only escape from my father, but do it in such a way that he doesn't disown me, because he'll be forced to acknowledge that they have lost the initiative. For better and for worse, this is what dating is like for Slytherins. Asking Padma on a date is both because what little I know about her I like, and because if I wait, my father is going to push me at the daughters of his friends. Am I being too selfish about this?"

Harry thought that it sounded like a big headache, and was once more glad he hadn't let the hat put him in Slytherin, but after Theodore's explanation he was happy with his motives. Therefore, he said, "no, I think you're fine. I will tell Padma in private that you're ready to make a public sign to distance yourself from Lachesis and her ilk if she'd go to Hogsmeade with you."

"Thanks, Harry."

A few days later, Harry reported back to Theodore, "Padma said that if you agreed to come with our band of muggle-raised sixth-years and friends, that she would talk to you. In case you hadn't noticed, Padma has so far not been a member of our group, so I'm allowing her to come with us to thank you for your help, but I want her and everybody else to think that I'm allowing you to come with us for her sake, because that would get around the problem of not wanting to give any public signs of our collaboration."

"Thank you, I'm looking forward to it."

The Hogsmeade visit went well. Harry ignored Theodore and Padma as much as he could without being rude. Harry didn't want to seem too friendly with Theodore, but it would be good to have a way to slowly turn his private approval into a public friendship over time. After the Hogsmeade weekend, Theodore and Padma would increasingly join Harry and his friends in their various activities.