THE MANOR
Disclaimer: I'm not making any money at all from this fanfic, so there's no reason for anybody to start legally attacking me. It's just an expression of admiration for JKR's fantastic work!
Chapter 20 – The Decision to Help
Harry and Hermione stood outside the open door to the prison cell where Hermione had been held captive until recently. Hermione was beaming, unable to believe her luck. That she was finally free, and that Harry was here. A pinkish flush rose to her cheeks as she gazed at Harry, and she brushed her fingers against her lips momentarily. Although she knew she ought to get moving, she felt she had to say something first about what had just happened.
'Why did you come?' she asked a little shyly. 'It's dangerous, and how did you know to come here exactly without getting stopped?' A touch of her old curiosity had come back to her voice.
'I didn't,' Harry admitted. He steeled himself for the reaction to his next statement. 'I came with Malfoy, Hermione.'
As he had expected, Hermione's brows both shot up, her eyes widened, and a look of disbelief crossed her face at once, removing the dreamy expression that had graced it earlier. 'Are you serious?' she demanded incredulously. 'Are you saying the truth or are you joking?' she added, suspiciously. 'Because it's not very funny, Harry.'
Harry spread his hands to show his sincerity. 'I came with Malfoy,' he repeated, green eyes earnest. 'He told me you were missing, and he showed me the way here. He told me how to find you.'
Hermione stared at him, a look of panic emerging on her face. 'Shit!' she swore abruptly, rather unusual for Hermione in Harry's opinion, who had not been exposed to Hermione's extensive vocabulary earlier. 'We're trapped, Harry,' she said finally. 'How could you be so … so stupid?' Hermione asked helplessly for lack of a better word to describe Harry.
Harry shook his head. 'I trust him,' he found himself saying firmly. 'You should too. You were the one who befriended him after all, not me. If I can trust him, you definitely should.'
'Bullshit,' Hermione said scornfully, and drew back, scrutinising Harry. 'Who are you, and what have you done to Harry?'
Harry shook his head at her. 'Don't be ridiculous, Hermione. You know it is me,' he said seriously, directing his clear, vividly green eyes at her, one hand taking her own. Hermione, caught in his look, sighed and nodded. It was Harry before her. Nobody else could look at her quite like that. Nobody who took Polyjuice Potion to look like Harry would be quite Harry.
'So where's Malfoy then?' she asked, still a little dubious. 'If he came with you, why isn't he with you now?'
Harry sighed. 'He went off to find Voldemort, I think,' he said, rubbing his own scar unconsciously as he did so. 'He said he knew where you were, so he told me to go and find safety for Ron –'
'Ron!' Hermione interrupted. 'Is he alright?' she asked anxiously.
'Ron's fine,' Harry assured her. 'A broken leg, but he's in a safe, fairly hidden place. Out of danger.'
Hermione breathed a sigh of relief, as Harry continued. 'Malfoy told me to help Ron to the safe place, and then told me to come back and search along the dungeons for you. He seemed quite confident you would be here,' he added.
Hermione's eyes, though, had gone momentarily distant. Draco had gone to find Voldemort earlier? Was he the reason why Voldemort suddenly stopped his vigorous mental invasion of her mind? Was he the cause for Peter Pettigrew's interruption, which drew her back from the brink of snapping into insanity? Was he why she had found herself in a relatively harmless, passive cell instead of Voldemort's chamber? But what could he possibly do to draw Voldemort away from herself? Did he really go to Voldemort just to save her? Or to join up with the Dark side to whom his father had pledged his allegiance? Questions and musing thoughts flitted through her mind.
Harry had stopped speaking and was watching Hermione thinking. While she thought, clearly about Malfoy's ambiguous position, his mind turned back to the kiss he and Hermione had shared. It had been so unexpected, yet … not so. He liked Hermione, he realised. Liked her a lot, like nobody else he knew. And Hermione? Did she like him too?
'So you haven't seen him since?' Hermione said hesitantly.
Harry shook his head, jolted from his thoughts. 'I think we should go and rescue him,' he suggested.
'What?' Hermione's voice was definitely shrill at that sudden prospect.
'He helped us, so we should help him back,' Harry argued.
Hermione looked caught in a turmoil of thoughts. 'I don't believe you,' she finally said flatly. 'He's probably safe and snug with his dad and Voldemort and everything, getting initiated to Death-Eater-hood.'
Harry frowned. This situation was definitely unreal – him sticking up from Draco Malfoy yet again, but something made him trust him, he didn't know what. 'I think we should go back to help him,' he said to Hermione, his sense of justice and fairness coming through in him. 'He got you out, we should get him out, otherwise its not right.'
'Unless he's actually just leading us into a trap,' Hermione said darkly.
'He didn't,' Harry protested.
They stared at each other fiercely for a moment, a silent battling of wills, when there was the heavy thud of footsteps … coming their way.
***
The scene would have been comical if it wasn't for the fact that Draco's fate was still imperilled. The sight of the black-robed and hooded Death-Eaters gaping at their Dark Lord would normally have made Draco quite amused. However, the fact that the Dark Lord was smiling rather viciously at Draco, to whom some Death-Eaters threw some dirty looks at, made the situation rather less humourous.
Draco himself was bewildered. Was Voldemort suggesting that he didn't condone the prejudices held by Draco's own father and his group of cronies? The idea was quite shocking, pleasantly so, and Draco wondered what exactly was going on. Voldemort hated Muggleborns, didn't he? He hunted them down and killed them, didn't he?
The scene slowly defrosted, and the still, shocked figures of the Death-Eaters and Draco, released themselves.
'Wh-what did you say?' Draco asked, mentally scolding himself. Really. Get a grip on yourself, he frowned to himself. Malfoys did not stutter.
That twisted smile remained fixed on Voldemort's chalk-white face. 'You think your voice of rebellion, of spirit, will mean you won't become a Death-Eater, don't you, young Draco?' he said. 'You don't want to be a Death-Eater, do you.'
Draco's eyes narrowed. He hated the way Voldemort kept on referring to him condescendingly as "young Draco." 'Maybe,' he said grudgingly, refusing to say too much.
'But,' Voldemort continued, blue eyes level with Draco's own, 'it pleases me even more. I need wits, and brains, something that I happen to find severely lacking with this lot,' he threw his Death-Eaters a scathing look.
They quavered.
'I'm flattered you think I'm intelligent,' Draco said sardonically, still sprawled in his chair, and forcing himself to calm down. The fact that Voldemort might be intelligent himself was worrying. That he might not be completely insane, like he had initially seemed to be. An evil irrational man could be easier to deal with, sometimes, than an evil rational man.
'And strong-willed as well,' Voldemort said, looking from Draco to his father, Lucius. 'You have raised a son worthy of the highest levels of the Dark Arts,' he praised.
Lucius tried to smile, but the incredulity remaining in his eyes made his smile somewhat forced and false.
'But I guess my clever little plan failed, didn't it,' Draco said evenly. 'Maybe I'm not so intelligent.'
'Of course, your plan failed. You may be clever, but not nearly so clever as I am,' Voldemort replied coldly, with no hint of false modesty.
'We'll see,' Draco said in careless reply, managing despite his hammering heart to sound smugly superior.
'Indeed?' Voldemort again sounded amused, but the light, almost bantering tone of his voice died in a moment. 'What I am curious about, young Draco,' he said, making Draco wince again with the adjective, 'is why you have changed your ideas. Your father said you were most eager to become a Death-Eater,' he said, musing, one long-fingered hand holding up his chin in deep thought. 'Even Severus has always said you were one who would without doubt choose to follow me.'
Draco's eyes widened momentarily in fear, but he forced himself with effort to remain calm and serene. Don't let him find out about Hermione. He pleaded with his inner consciousness to remain strong. If Voldemort found out that he had befriended Hermione, and that Hermione had drawn him away from his path, then surely he would want to kill her, even though for some reason, he had wanted her. And if he didn't, then his father surely would.
'Why?' Voldemort breathed, and he stared at Draco.
Draco sat, stubbornly silent.
'Tell me, young Draco,' Voldemort's voice was coaxing poison in his ears. 'Because I will find out anyway. I will also find out why you wanted to save that girl,' he added.
Draco's mind worked furiously.
'Tell me …' he hissed.
Draco gasped, he could feel something wrong with his mind. Like as though somebody was sifting through its contents. He struggled to push out that outside presence, but he did not know how, unlike Hermione. Unable to push out the intrusion, he quickly pulled out thoughts to place in the forefront of his mind. The thoughts focused in his mind, and the intrusion swept upon them with an unholy glee.
'Potter!' Voldemort spat, yet exulted in his discovery. 'You are friends with that idiot?'
Draco nodded vigorously, then slowed his head movements, so as not to look so overtly enthusiastic. 'That's why I came to save that girl and boy,' he said. 'Hermione what's-her-name and the Weasel,' he said carelessly. 'Potter's best friends.'
Voldemort's eyes narrowed. 'So you think your friends,' he sneered on the word, 'are free now?'
Draco shrugged.
'You thought that I would be so distracted with you that I wouldn't have set up back-up plans? That I would let them slip away?' A tone of gloating had infiltrated Voldemort's voice, and Draco felt his stomach begin to sink away.
A cruel smile spread on Voldemort's face. 'Don't you realise how foolish you are, young Draco?' Voldemort said with the air of a teacher speaking to a misbehaving student. 'Never underestimate me. Your friends are being apprehended even as we speak.'
Draco shut his eyes in dread.
***
'Over here! They're over here!' the rough shout of a Death-Eater jarred the air, and a black hooded head poked around the corner.
'You still trust him?' Hermione asked, disbelieving, voice raised slightly in fear at the sound of running footsteps. Her face was white, and obviously worried and fretful.
Harry gritted his teeth. This was not supposed to happen – now Hermione's faith would be completely done with. However, he pulled out his wand and tossed it over to Hermione. 'You use it,' he ordered.
Hermione caught the wand, holding it lightly for a moment to get a feel of it, before she looked at him inquiringly. 'What about you?' she asked, even as she threw an Impediment Jinx at an approaching Death-Eater.
'You're better with a wand than I am,' Harry shouted back, and threw himself physically at the Death-Eaters.
The fighting was very fast, so fast that it was difficult for Hermione to follow it completely with her eyes. She threw spells at the Death-Eaters, barely even registering where the spells hit, or whether they actually hit Death-Eaters. Her sole concern was not to injure Harry in the process. Sometimes, though, she would see a bolt of magic knock down a Death-Eater that did not come from her, but looked like it came from Harry, but pre-occupied as she was, she did not focus too much on it. Maybe the spells were backfiring, or perhaps some Death-Eaters targeted each other by error. It was a confusing mess after all.
Hermione continued fighting, stunning one Death-Eater with a quick 'Stupefy!' and breaking another Death-Eater's defence with the Jelly-Legs Jinx. The wobbling Death-Eater lost balance, and crashed into the wall, losing consciousness. 'Invertus!' managed to satisfactorily confuse one Death-Eater, allowing Harry to swiftly punch him in the head. With the Impediment Jinx, Hermione managed to slow, in one quick move, a Death-Eater who was moving ominously towards Harry. And so it continued. Hermione became increasingly glad that she had helped Harry prepare for the final task last year for the Triwizard Tournament, and that she had spent that time in the summer holidays reading those books on the Dark Arts.
'Well,' Hermione said, eyes wide at the sight of the eleven unconscious Death-Eaters lying sprawled on the ground. 'I don't know how we did it,' she admitted. Quickly, she took one of the cloaks and ripped it up so that they could use the pieces of cloth to tie up the Death-Eaters, while Harry deftly de-wanded each Death-Eater. Hermione returned Harry's wand, and inspected the wands Harry offered her, eventually selecting one made of birch, ten inches, with what felt like unicorn hair inside, and tucked the others in her pocket, safely out of the Death-Eaters' reaches should they return to their conscious states.
Harry, breathing hard from the fight, glanced over at the Death Eaters. 'They're not very good, are they,' he noted critically.
'Thank goodness,' Hermione said inspecting the Death-Eaters. 'They're not the Inner Circle, that's for sure,' she said. She looked closely at one of them. 'That's Javier,' she announced, recognising one of her captors. 'He was part of the group who attacked me and Ron earlier. They're not top Death-Eaters, but underlings of the underlings.'
'How many of them are there?' Harry asked, wondering. 'They seem to have some sort of ranking system going on.'
Hermione nodded. 'Probably a fairly complex hierarchy based on their monetary wealth, their closeness to the Dark Lord. There are probably lots of them,' she noted. 'Last year –'
'Last year when I saw those Death-Eaters,' Harry filled in when her voice faltered.
'They were probably only the Inner Circle ones,' Hermione suggested. 'Like Avery and Lucius Malfoy.'
Harry nodded in agreement. Having regained their breaths and composures after their little fight, he looked over at Hermione. 'We need to rescue Malfoy,' he began again.
Hermione scowled. 'I don't trust him. He betrayed me, Harry. He led us into this mess. Why do you think we escaped so easily? Because they expected this lot to finish us up!' she said with a scornful jerk of her head at the prone Death-Eaters on the floor.
Harry shook his head stubbornly. 'I don't think so,' he insisted. 'You didn't see him, Hermione. He was really shaken up when you were kidnapped like that,' he said, remembering. 'I never thought Draco Malfoy had a heart before, but he was really upset when you were taken.'
Hermione swallowed at Harry's words. Maybe, maybe it was true? She wished it were in her heart. Draco had been a wonderful friend before she had found the photograph on him.
'The photograph?' she asked tentatively.
'He did invade your house, with his father and two of his father's cronies. He confessed to that,' Harry told her. 'But I don't think he's very proud for having done that.'
Hermione frowned. The fact that he did not deny his involvement suggested that he was perhaps changed. She sighed. Harry seemed determined about this, and after having released all her rantings earlier, there didn't seem much of a point in disagreeing with him.
'Look, Harry. If it all screws up and we end up dead, I blame you,' Hermione said squarely. Harry just grinned at her. Hermione sighed. Underneath, she knew that the reason why she agreed with Harry was because some part of her still hoped that Draco was a friend, and that he hadn't just been a false, lying and deceitful Death-Eater.
'Okay, so that's settled,' Harry said, and they began walking. 'I-I just wanted to ask you something before we begin,' he said, his obvious nerves making him walk faster.
Hermione's face went pink again, as she had a strong feeling she knew what subject Harry was about to broach, now that the official business was out of the way.
'Er, Ron said you two had broken up,' Harry said awkwardly. He knew he had to say this, but that didn't stop him from feeling completely embarrassed. He felt like that time in fourth year, when he had tried to ask Cho to the Yule Ball. Hermione's your friend, he thought to himself. You've never had trouble speaking to her before. Yeah, but he'd never kissed her before either. Why couldn't he just kiss her? That was so much easier – no talking, a simple way of getting his feelings across, he thought angrily, a little frustrated with himself. But he knew he had to speak.
'Yeah,' Hermione said, face completely red, and twisted some of her shirt nervously in her fingers. 'It-it wasn't really working out. Ron was too, too brotherly,' she struggled to put it.
'Am I?' the words were blurted out of his mouth before he realised it, and Harry groaned inwardly. So much for subtlety.
'No!' Hermione exclaimed, and then felt like dying with mortification. She sounded too enthusiastic. 'I mean,' her face was burning, 'I like you, Harry, a lot.'
That sounded so pathetic, Hermione thought crossly to herself, but the words made Harry beam.
'I like you too,' he assured her. The words made Hermione grin, suddenly feeling much more confident.
'Really?' she asked playfully.
'Yeah,' Harry said, smiling, a feeling of warm relief surging through him.
They had stopped moving, and were just smiling at each other, when a practical thought again crossed Hermione's mind, and she lost her cloud-nine look.
'We can't get into the chamber, Harry,' she said, panicking. 'You need to be with somebody of the blood of a Death-Eater to get past the door.'
Harry grimaced. Back to the real world. 'More obstacles to throw at us,' he observed impatiently. He slumped back against the wall, obviously trying to think of a solution.
Hermione felt discouraged too. After making the decision to help in the rescue of Draco, she felt distinctly disappointed that it would all be overthrown just because of some more stupid spells the Death-Eaters had put up. She stalked back to the Death-Eaters they had captured, and frowned heavily at them. She kicked the offending unconscious Death-Eater (Javier) before her, and then gaped. The answer was so obvious and simple.
'Death-Eater blood,' she whispered, and pointed at Javier.
Harry stared at her, and came running over to also stare at Javier. Realisation dawned on his face, and he looked disgusted. 'You can't seriously mean to take his blood.'
'I do,' Hermione said firmly. 'I don't like him very much.'
'Be serious,' Harry protested.
'I am,' Hermione insisted. 'He won't feel anything, unfortunately,' she added as an afterthought. With her newly stolen wand, she pointed at Javier's arm. 'Hiridunis,' she whispered, and magically, a vein opened in his arm, and drops of blood spilled out onto a piece of cloth she held out. The cloth soaked in the blood, and then, she spoke again. 'Finite incantem.' The wound closed seamlessly.
She held out the piece of blood-soaked cloth to Harry and smiled grimly. 'Death-Eater blood.'
***
Draco stared at Lord Voldemort, who was watching him as a cat would watch a canary. Hermione was not safe. She was out of her cell, yes, but soon she would be brought here, trussed up and subjected to the Dark Lord's cruelty. Potter would surely die, unless he still had some of that luck that got him out of the worst situations still with him, but Hermione was surely doomed.
He felt a weight pressing down on him, and sighed, shoulders sagging. It was hopeless in the end. He had failed at playing the hero.
Voldemort though had snapped his fingers. 'We have wasted enough time,' he said crisply. 'We will begin your initiation rites now. After all, you wanted them now, didn't you, young Draco?' he asked smoothly.
Draco glowered at him, as Voldemort closed his eyes briefly in concentration. Death-Eaters began appearing in the room, with a slight pop as they Apparated into the chamber. The room was getting crowded, but the Death-Eaters continued to enter. The sight was frightening, and with a slight gesture of his wand, the chamber expanded so that it was the size of a small hall. There were at least sixty Death-Eaters, maybe even seventy. Draco knew that was not the entire Death-Eater force, but from his guesses, they would be those members of the Inner Circle not in Azkaban, and also the underlings who were in the Manor at the time, of whom there were many.
All of them prostrated themselves on the ground before their Dark Lord, standing in an intimidating, and oddly perfect ring around Draco – almost like it were a practised formation for some huge theatrical production.
Draco wondered if they went through all this pageantry before every single Death-Eater was initiated, when, as if he had read his thoughts, Voldemort spoke up.
'Be honoured, young Draco,' he said, eyes watching. 'Not all Death-Eaters get such pomp and ceremony when they are initiated, especially not ones of your age.'
Draco raised a brow. 'And I get the honour because?' His words were heavily laden with sarcasm.
'Of who you are,' Voldemort answered, a little mystically.
Draco frowned, and looked away from the Dark Lord to observe the melodramatic surrounding of the Death-Eaters. Eleven Death-Eaters stood slightly more forward than the others, and he could see that they were the Inner Circle Death-Eaters, as his father stood among that more "elite" group.
The Death-Eaters were chanting, murmuring long, complicated Latin incantations along the lines of let the Dark powers rise and help bind this new soul to our worthy pure ideas and that sort of rubbish. Despite the ridiculously pretentious element to the Death-Eater initiation rite that made Draco want to fall about laughing just to see the shocked expressions on their faces (although that wouldn't have really been possible since they were wearing hoods), he found the situation still rather forbidding.
The chamber had darkened so that it was only lit by candle light, that burned with a greenish cast, and Voldemort himself moved from his "throne" to the centre of the enlarged chamber, where Draco stood.
He snapped his fingers, and a cluster of green flames, the size of a beach-ball, burned brightly between him and Draco, who were facing each other. The green flames reflected on Voldemort's pale face, and again, Draco was reminded forcibly of a snake.
'Place your hands into the flames,' Voldemort ordered, his voice taking on a hypnotic quality.
Draco stared at the Dark Lord, and shook his head stubbornly, when he found his hands grabbed from behind by one of the Inner Circle Death-Eaters and forced into the green flames. They did not burn, as Draco had suspected, but made his hands tingle, and he almost felt as if his mind were flapping, wide open.
'The blood,' Voldemort intoned.
Another Death-Eater went to Draco, holding a short, gleaming knife. He plunged the knife into a vein in Draco's forearm quickly, as Draco almost yelped with the sudden sharp jab of pain, as a drop of blood was allowed to trickle down Draco's arm into the flames, where they sizzled, before disappearing. The opening in his arm sealed seamlessly and the pain vanished.
Voldemort forced his gaze onto Draco's, who shuddered. The Dark Lord's eyes were no longer the blue they had been before, but instead, were slit-pupilled, with red starting to glow in the irises, in a fiery red rim around the pupils.
'You wish to become a Death-Eater,' Voldemort said, in a voice that didn't sound like it offered any options. 'To become so, you must swear.'
'I must – what?' Draco glared at Voldemort.
'Ah, your strength of spirit remains,' Voldemort said in a patronising tone.
'Isn't that what you wanted?' Draco demanded.
Voldemort chuckled, sinisterly. 'Of course, but in the rite, your spirit will be broken, never fear.'
'Oh so that's why you don't have any spirited Death-Eaters. You screw them up in your precious rites,' Draco said mockingly.
'You will, though, build it up again afterwards, once you have learnt the supremacy of my ways,' Voldemort continued calmly, ignoring Draco's interruption.
Draco swore. 'I refuse to swear in,' he said flatly.
Voldemort's smile stretched wider, and Draco felt something tinkering with his mind. The door of his mind had flapped open, and now, he realised with a sickening feeling in his stomach, that Voldemort was going through that wide-open door.
Draco's swearing increased, but in his mind, he frantically sought to close that door, to banish Voldemort. Desperately, he began running through his numerology charts in his mind, hoping that the prevalence of those numbers would confuse Voldemort. 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 … it worked to some extent. The intrusive presence paused, as if bewildered by the sudden patterns of numbers, and then retracted.
Draco opened his eyes and then they widened, as he could feel a curse hitting him, and his body became limp, and his mind again felt like as though it had been thoroughly exposed. Voldemort's consciousness imposed itself on his mind, and like Hermione, he felt a stretching sensation on his mind, but unlike Hermione, his mind did not rebound as easily. He could feel his sense of being present ebbing away, and ebbing away, and he lost any sense of physical feeling, as he retreated into the corners of his mind, a whirlwind of thoughts sweeping his consciousness away.
Author's note: Well, that's another chapter over. Sorry it took so long, but I really had to sketch out the next chapters before I felt I could publish this one. There'll be another three chapters after this until the end, and then this part of the fic will be over!
I've revised chapter 14, 18 and 19 because of the Order of the Phoenix and me checking up the Lexicon (I had no idea that Rookwood was in Azkaban. Where did that come from?) Most of the changes are really insignificant details, which you probably wouldn't notice, but I did fix Mundungus Fletcher to fit the book, and I changed Jem's technical details to match OotP – he's now a Metamorphmagus, instead of a Shape-shifter. I'd suggest re-reading chapter 14 (esp. the bit about Jem) just to clear that up.
Anyway, anybody remember their maths who think they can tell me what pattern Draco was using in an attempt to bamboozle Voldemort?
Thanks for the reviews (16 since last time!), they are very encouraging, and I would love more (a very unsubtle hint.) Reviews make me very very happy, so I write better! (It's my goal to reach 100 by the end of this fic). Besides, reviews mean you can have your say (to an extent)!
mina-ise – end of July is still far too long to wait! Hope you enjoy this chappie.
Cinnamon Angel – chances of JKR's Draco changing are slim, I read the Albert Hall transcript and she doesn't seem to think of Draco as reedemably good. Disturbingly, she doesn't even seem to like him – Stephen Fry was the one who said that Draco had evil with style. (Sigh). Yeah, I'm still mourning Sirius. (Sobs). Do you come from France or Switzerland? That's so cool. I feel sorry for your mum and brother – that's terrible, having OotP in front of you but not able to read it! By the way, did you change your name?
No Comment – love your pen-name. And thanks!
liltigger – thank you! I'm not the most patient person in the world either, and the author of my favourite fics are all terribly slow to update.
wolfy65 – It's a pity Narcissa/Sirius would be incestruous now with the Black family tree. Do you know how hard it is to try and modify all the background and everything planned out to suit canon? Thank you for your reviews!
Lady Prongs – It will probably take me 3 years to finish this fic, which will hopefully keep me preoccupied enough not to keep moaning about when book 6 will come out!
Jay – brilliantly bored, is that because it's now summer? I'm sure JKR would be shocked if you said you liked Voldemort, but I rather like this guy myself.
Porphyrophobic Grape – I adore To Kill a Mockingbird too! I'm not sure how they would squish the big fat book 4 into a movie, let alone book 5! And I'm glad you liked The Last Bark. I'm still sniffling about Sirius.
Cloud*Dancer – I know … kill anybody but Sirius! I actually quite liked Harry in book 5 – better than Harry in book 4 although his CAPITAL-LETTER-RANTS could get a little irritating.
Lee-SenRu – thank you!
mousas – rambling's fine, I ramble all the time. My whole fic is one long ramble!
Cooky173 – differently, yes, but I actually find myself liking it.
airotci – I'll try not to stop writing my fic. And go delusion! Sirius lives!!!!! In my fic anyway!
Crystal Slytherin - OK, you claim that Bill was a charm breaker for underground passages at Egypt for Gringotts, but that's not true! I'm right! To quote PoA: "our eldest son, Bill, works as a curse breaker for Gringotts Wizarding Bank," which is perfectly in line with my fic! Just had to point that out. But – if you do see any other errors, feel free to point them out. I get peeved about errors too, so I would like to avoid them. For some reason, I only read that review recently although it seems quite old …
