Chapter 15

Fudging the News

"Anyway, I just thought you'd want to know . . ." Harry crumpled up the fifth piece of parchment and threw it in the general direction of the trash. He started again. "My scar hurt two times today. Nothing new there, but as it hasn't hurt since you brought me here I was kind of wondering if something was happening." He scanned the note. It had the right sort of sound to it, casual but it conveyed the important information. He nibbled nervously on the end of the quill, before he dipped it into the ink again and added, "Also, there was some explosion last night in greater London that I think must be related to Voldemort. What was it?" Harry hurriedly stuffed the note into an envelope and glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. It was 4:30 and he knew that if he hurried he could get this note into the afternoon post. He had already sent his usual morning note but he really wanted an answer to this explosion thing. Something about it was niggling in the back of his brain. He really hoped that Dumbledore would tell him he was wrong, that the explosion was just something completely Muggle, but he knew, deep down, that it wasn't.

After he returned from a very brief walk to the corner mailbox, Harry sat down on the couch and allowed himself to remember the afternoon's events. It had been wonderful with Cassie. He still couldn't believe that she wanted to see him again, tomorrow night. He had replayed the whole afternoon with her over and over again in his mind since he had left her an hour and a half ago. She had been so nice to talk to, not demanding much, just happy to have him there and happy to be there with him.

He got up from the couch and walked into the kitchen. He was starving and now that the letter to Dumbledore was safely out in the mail, he could do something about his stomach. He had decided on the walk home from Cassie's that he really needed to write Dumbledore again tonight. He had come to realize this year that it was best to let the people who cared about him help out when he needed it; keeping stuff to himself just tended to get him into trouble.

After eating a sandwich, Harry sat down to watch the news. He had gotten into the habit of watching almost every evening to find out what was going on. He had initially hoped that it would keep him from sounding like an idiot if he needed to talk to a Muggle on the street. But tonight he had a special reason to pay attention. As he suspected, the explosion was discussed in the middle of the newscast, giving it just the right amount of weight to viewers who were mildly curious about the story but were not personally affected by it. He looked very carefully at the few pictures that were shown. Yes, there it was! Exactly! He grabbed the newspaper article again. This was the same exact photo from television. It was just that the shot on TV was a little wider and so he could see more of the man standing in the corner, just out of the camera's view. It was definitely Fudge. He recognized the hideous lime green bowler. Fudge always insisted on wearing that stupid thing, even when dressed in Muggle clothing. No question about it. The building that had blown up was not merely an abandoned warehouse.

Harry felt a great leap of triumph in his stomach. He was right! It was a cover-up for the sake of the Muggles! His anxieties surfaced again quickly , however, when he realized what this meant. Voldemort was on the move again. But, when he thought about it, he really had not expected anything less. No, the War was going full force without him there and it was quite certain the Voldemort had some devious plan in mind that was moving along nicely now that Harry was not there to interfere.

Leaning his head back on the chair cushion, Harry thought for the first time since he had woken in St .Mungo's about the fight nine nights ago, the night when he "died."

When the intelligence briefing had first come in from Bill Weasley three days before, everyone in the Order had laughed about it. There had to be some sort of mistake. Even Voldemort wouldn't be foolish enough to think that he could stroll into Gringott's Bank and take over. Could he? It was so well guarded! But, as the intelligence reports multiplied and stories were heard about how the Goblins were secretly supporting Voldemort and Fudge was blustering around, as usual, insisting that Lord Thingy wouldn't have the manpower to try it, they realized that the risk was too great not to go and try to stop him. Bill was pretty convinced that something was going to happen that evening. Of course, Harry was not supposed to come. Absolutely not. He was used to that line of thinking, though. According to them, he was never supposed to go anywhere. And he presented them that evening with the identical argument he used every time. He had seriously thought about recording it somehow on some sort of magical disk and then he could just play the recording again and again when the Order needed to be convinced to let him go with them. He had meant to talk to Hermione about arranging it. The recording could go something like this:



"If He is there, if there is any chance, even a small one, that He is actually there, then I'm the only one who has a chance of finishing Him off. You are all as familiar with the Prophecy as I am. I am the only one who can do this. Now you can go in there. You can play wand-waving with the Death Eaters and you can maybe, maybe, drive them out of (suitable blank space for Harry to fill in the name of wherever they were going to fight) but you can't get rid of Him. That's my job. And sometime, you are going to have to let me do it. Maybe (another suitable blank space for Harry to fill in the time of day when the fight was supposed to happen) is it. So stop arguing."



It usually took several repetitions of these same basic arguments before someone saw the logic behind it and he got to come along on whatever mission was planned. This particular time, it had taken a whole lot of arguing. But, as always, they had eventually given in. It was Moody this time that promised never to let Harry out of his sight. It was always one of them. And Harry knew, knew with every particle of his being, that when they did that, that person was promising to die for him. He dropped his head into his hands. It was too much, too much. He wasn't worth it. All these good people were willing to fight beside him, give their lives for him. And what did he offer in return? He was mildly surprised to feel the wetness on his cheeks. He hadn't cried for a year. He never wanted to cry about anyone ever again.

It had been real; that was obvious 10 minutes after they walked into the bank. It was closing time and they had mingled in with the diminishing crowd of wizards bustling about making last minute deposits and withdrawals. They were just going to give up and go back to headquarters when Lucius Malfoy had walked in and somehow his entrance had been a signal. All hell had broken loose. Harry didn't remember much about the details of the fighting. He knew it had been fast and furious. He had used a lot of defense, not too much offense. He was kind of holding back, hiding in the shadows; Moody was also, waiting to see if the big guy was going to dare to show up. Of course, he had, and of course, Harry and he had fought. Both Harry and Voldemort had long ago learned that their wands were not able to be used against each other but they had each developed techniques that did not require direct wand use against each other. In some ways, it was more vicious than any other fighting. And Harry had seen a lot of vicious.

Harry stood up, pulling himself back into the present with an unpleasant wrench. It was late now and he felt more tired than he had in a very long time. He had failed again. Most people considered it a successful mission when he faced Voldemort and survived but Harry knew better. Survival only allowed them to meet again another time. Sometimes he felt like his entire existence narrowed down to one fact. He was doomed to face Him again and again. There was never going to be an end to this nightmare.

His temples were throbbing. He needed to go to bed. He had been in too much shock and surprise when Dumbledore had brought him here to even ask about Moody, much less everyone else who had gone to the bank with them that night. Now he felt sick. Harry supposed it was possible one of them, or maybe more, had finally done what they had sworn to do and died so that he, Harry Potter, could live to try to fight Lord Voldemort another time. That had happened before. And it probably would again. It would keep going, endlessly, until either he or Voldemort murdered the other. Pleasant thought. He managed to get his clothes off before he collapsed onto the bed, knowing even as he did so, that he would regret not pulling the curtains in the morning.



iHarry and Arthur Weasley were walking down the dingy street toward an even dingier telephone box. They stepped inside and Harry dialed the number. 62442. The cool female voice spoke. "Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business." Harry was the only one who spoke. "Harry Potter. Here for another rescue mission." The badge saying "Harry Potter, Rescue Mission" emerged, as always, from the coin return slot on the phone. Harry attached it to the front of his robes. As they descended to the lobby, Harry was reminded by the same cool female voice that he needed to register his wand at the security desk. Harry was extremely surprised then because when they got out of the phone box into what should have been the gleaming lobby of the Ministry of Magic, they were in the main entrance hall of Hogwarts. Mr. Weasley did not seem surprised at the unexpected change of destination. They got out and walked toward the Great Hall. Harry heard a familiar high-pitched laugh and turned to Mr. Weasley. " Lord Voldemort is in there, Mr. Weasley." But it wasn't Mr. Weasley anymore; it was Lucius. Malfoy and he was grinning evilly with his wand pointed right at Harry's heart. "So He is, Potter. So He is."/i



Harry sat straight up in bed, sweating and panting. He hated dreaming, hated it with a passion. He took some comfort in the realization that this did not feel like a dream Voldemort had planted in his brain. Those had been . . . well, horrendous was the word that sprang to mind. They were always full of torture and a great deal of screaming. This dream had just been strange. However, Harry had taken enough of the old bat Trelawney's divination classes to realize that this dream probably meant something. He even kind of wished he had that terrible book "Dream Oracle" that Trelawney had forced the fifth-year Gryffindors to read two years before to help him figure it out. But not tonight. Tonight, he needed to sleep. Old habits are really hard to break, though. He grabbed his glasses off the bedside table, stumbled into the living room, flipped on the lamp, and scribbled the main elements of the dream down on a scrap of parchment. He only barely managed to make it back into his bedroom before he collapsed into bed again.

When he awoke in the morning, his mouth felt dry and his head ached. He couldn't get his eyes to focus right, even after he put his glasses on. He had found them under the pillow and he didn't want to try to remember how they had gotten there. He vaguely remembered having a dream that had upset him somehow; however, he decided he was really not up to analyzing it this morning. Maybe after breakfast, . . . or maybe lunch. The Cornflakes made him feel a little better. But what really helped him push away the drifting fog of gloominess was remembering that tonight . . . . Well, tonight he would be seeing Cassie again.