Chapter 6.4 The end of sixth year

Although Harry had dropped two subjects, and was doing only the minimum in Herbology and Creatures to learn the kind of practical knowledge that had helped Harry select the components for brooms and wands without being overly bothered about the theory, Harry was still more busy then when he had had 10 OWL classes. The only good thing was that the class that was the most academically challenging, arithmancy, was also the class in which he had done the most extra studying, but he was barely keeping up with the theoretical work in transfiguration, and in potions he was struggling, as Professor Tilley assigned them piles of homework to try and make up for the inadequate teaching by Snape, and that was only the half of it, as remedial potions doubled the workload. Fortunately, most of the other sixth-years who took potions were in a similar position. Therefore, they at least struggled as a group, providing mutual support to buckle down for long hours.

Neville had it worse. He was taking 7 NEWTs, Herbology, Arithmancy, Charms, Creatures, Defence, Potions, and Runes, and he was a late bloomer who had gotten indifferent scores on his OWLs, and was trying to catch up. He wanted to become a herbologist, and most of the other classes he was taking were useful in some way toward that goal. Good NEWT grades would make it much easier to find a mastery apprenticeship. The exception was Defence, which he took both because, like Harry, he was not convinced that the lack of recent Death Eater attacks meant that the problem had gone away, and also because both his parents had been aurors, and he was trying to come to terms with ambivalent feelings. On the one hand, he felt honour-bound to contribute to the fight for equal rights for muggleborns, non-human beings and against pureblood privilege and bigotry; an attitude that had been drilled into him by his grandmother. On the other hand, he was coming to the realisation that it wasn't where his talents lay, as he was developing as an organiser and orator. He was still committed to contributing to the struggle, but not as a fighter. Instead, he was changing course to a future of being a professional herbologist with a hereditary seat on the Wizengamot.

Harry had done some tests with the helium balloon attached to the ladder, using the time-turner to get back before anyone got suspicious of Harry's absences, including trying to swim with it, and had found that rather than approaching Azkaban from upstream, he would have to approach from upwind, and it would have to be on a quiet night, or he wouldn't have the strength to move the ladder around. That severely limited the window of opportunity, because it was almost always windy around Azkaban. It would also have to be during the last quarter of the moon, when there was no moon early in the night. Azkaban prisoners were fitful sleepers, so it would be too risky to go in the early morning hours. After further tests Harry found that even with little wind the balloon dragged him around too much, but without the balloon lifting some of the weight he couldn't manage either. In the end Harry had to admit defeat: at 16 years of age, despite all his training, he simply didn't have the strength to haul a 50-foot ladder around. He would need help, which he didn't like, because the plan was illegal, and, seen in a certain light, immoral. After all, he was trying to murder three people who had already received their sentence, only on the off chance that they might be able to end Voldemort.

He went back to Sirius once more, explaining that he couldn't manage the Azkaban break-in alone. "I need help, but the people who have helped me the most so far are you, Madam Bones, Mr Smethley and Capodastro. However, you can't get involved, and I can't ask Ministry workers to go so directly against the law."

Sirius made a face, "I know you don't like Remus all that much, but you've trained with him, and he's stronger than he looks because of being a werewolf, and he knows how to cast a Patronus in case the dementors show up, so I think he might be the best choice."

"Will you ask him if he would make an unbreakable vow of silence?"

Sirius thought about that for some time, and finally said, "I guess I could argue that because of Pettigrew you don't trust easily. Would it be alright to use that argument?"

"Yes, you can even invoke the Dursleys if you need to."

"Harry," Sirius chided, "you may think of that as a concession to explain why you don't trust easily, but practically the first thing you said to Remus was to complain about never hearing from him while you lived with them, so to him it would sound like justifying your distrust for him specifically."

Privately, Harry made the distinction that in his mind, Pettigrew was in Voldemort's camp, while Professor Lupin and the Dursleys were associated with Dumbledore, so to Harry it was a distorted argument. Of course Harry didn't trust Pettigrew, but he was an enemy, a Death Eater. He didn't think Lupin was his enemy, and neither were the Dursleys or Dumbledore. But none of them had done right by him. Harry knew enough not to try and convince Lupin that Dumbledore had overtaken Voldemort in his mind as the worst dark lord in his life, and that in some ways Harry preferred enemies over allies he couldn't trust. However, for some decisive action with a well-defined goal and a vow to keep Lupin from telling Dumbledore or anyone similar, Harry thought he could trust Lupin to have his back, so he nodded to Sirius to go ahead and speak to Remus and use whatever arguments he thought would get him on board.

Even though Harry and Professor Lupin both lived in Hogwarts, Harry left it to Sirius to get Remus on board and arrange a meeting with the three of them to perform an unbreakable vow of silence. Once that was out of the way, Harry and Professor Lupin met to discuss details and contingency plans. They did several trial runs to work out details such as the need to bring an oil-graphite mixture to keep the ladder from squeaking as they extended it, and replacing the helium balloon with empty plastic carboys to keep the ladder afloat. It wasn't until April that it became warm enough that warming charms applied before they entered the wards around Azkaban would keep them from catching pneumonia, or dropping the ladder because their fingers were frozen. By then, the wait paid off, though. They managed to get in and out without being detected. Thanks to the fact that Remus was a professor, Harry hadn't even needed to work on a new excuse in case they were caught coming back into Hogwarts, because Remus could have simply vouched for him. Fortunately, they didn't encounter anyone.

In the following months they watched the obituaries in the Daily Prophet, while Harry went back to his usual activities. It was a busy schedule, but without the stress of Ministry exams the usual hecticness of the end of a schoolyear didn't bother him.

During the Hogsmeade weekends, he spoke more to Daphne than to anyone else, because she was the only person in their group of friends who had never made it beyond a first date. He hadn't gotten to know her as well as the muggleborns with whom he had spent most of his spare time since first year, but they were catching up. However, he had no interest in dating her. Daphne didn't show the toxic levels of contempt for muggles and non-human beings that many other purebloods did, but she was still steeped in wizarding traditions and a culture of stability, that made Harry, who had grown up with muggle attitudes towards progress, vaguely uncomfortable and their conversations were interesting, but they were often battling miscommunication. Not to an extent that he disliked her, but enough that he wasn't tempted to try breaking through her Ice Queen persona.

In June, while Harry was sitting his sixth-year exams, Rabastan Lestrange died. It left Harry with a bitter taste. While killing Alecto Carrow had been more visceral, as he had been there to watch her get crushed by the rock, it had also been self-defence. This had been cold-blooded murder.

Harry hadn't passed his herbology exam, but Professor Sprout had been sufficiently satisfied with his preparation before classes that she would let him continue into seventh year.

During the last week of the school year, Harry went to talk to Remus about his ambivalent feelings about the murder of Rabastan Lestrange. He still thought it had been the right decision to make, not least because the Lestranges had been the ones to torture Neville's parents into insanity, so even if they didn't have a horcrux, they had been ruthless Death Eaters, and his guilt was more over cheapening the letter of the law. The conversation with Remus was helpful. He had agreed that placing themselves above the law made him deeply uncomfortable as well, but that he had joined Harry because he had agreed that doing nothing had felt morally wrong because it placed uncounted innocents at risk. That after maintaining the international statute of secrecy, the next most important role of the Ministry was to suppress the use of certain forms of magic. But that, because Gringotts operated outside of legal oversight by the Ministry, they had no legal means to determine whether the Lestranges were party to that kind of black magic. Therefore, he felt they could be excused for providing their own summary justice. It was another lesson that Harry would remember later in life: that he might often chafe under the endless bureaucracy of the Ministry, but that institutions which operated outside legal oversight tended to produce worse excesses.