Disclaimer: Everything belongs to J. K. Rowling. I'm not making any money from this story.
Author's Note: Sorry for the delay in this chapter, folks; I was having dialogue trouble, and it took a while to get Harry sorted out. Thanks to my trusty beta-reader, Yolanda, for helping me keep Harry from sounding like a 25-year-old grad student. And thanks to folks who reviewed!
P.S. Sorry about the formatting weirdnesses; I forgot to save in HTML format. I've re-loaded this chapter to fix them.
Chapter Three—Resolutions
Whatever Dudley said to Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon must have worked, for Harry received neither glares nor snide remarks when the Daily Prophet owl flew in during breakfast. He started to set the paper aside and wait until after breakfast to read it, but a headline caught his eye as it fell open. Disappearances Baffle Ministry. Harry stared at the paper for a moment, torn between wanting to pick it up and read the article now and wanting to wait and read it when he was alone and away from the judgmental eyes of his aunt and uncle.
"Anything wrong, cousin?" Dudley asked. There was no malice in his voice, no happiness at having caught Harry looking worried—only concern and a little worry of his own.
"The banner headline doesn't look good," Harry answered. "I don't mean to be rude and read at the table, but this might be important. Do you mind?" He addressed the question to his aunt, and, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Uncle Vernon glance up a little guiltily from behind his own newspaper. Aunt Petunia shook her head, indicating that Harry should read, and he picked up the paper and started to read.
Three more high-ranking Ministry officials vanished without a trace last night, bringing the total number of missing Ministry workers to six, writes Daily Prophet reporter Candace Kane. Althea Simmons, Deputy Minister of the top-secret Department of Mysteries, Ewan Tydfil-Cynon, head of Accidental Magical Reversal Squad, and Butler Innisfree, Deputy Minister for the Department of Magical Catastrophes, were all reported missing by their families last night. None have been seen since leaving the Ministry yesterday evening. These officials join Ludo Bagman and Bertha Jorkins, both of the Department of Magical Games and Sports, and Bartimious Crouch, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, on the list of the Ministry's current missing members. Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge reported, "The Ministry has the matter firmly in hand. We are taking all the necessary steps, and we are confident that the missing Ministry workers will be found soon." Minister Fudge declined to comment further.
The Department of Magical Law Enforcement requests that anyone who has information on the locations of any of the missing workers should contact their Department immediately.
Harry put down the paper to find all eyes turned toward him. After a moment of considering how to put things so that his aunt and uncle would understand and so that he wouldn't have to say much about magic, he said, "A few high-ranking civil servants went missing last night. Vanished without a trace. Disappearances were apparently pretty common last time, so it's kind of worrying."
"Nothing to do with us, though," Uncle Vernon said, sounding pleased with himself. "These… these civil servants… they're all your kind, not ours."
"They're all wizards, if that's what you mean," Harry replied, trying to keep his voice steady, to push away the feeling of anger that threatened to make him speak sharply.
Uncle Vernon immediately turned purple. "I won't have your abnormality-"
Harry, feeling a sudden rush of mischief amid the anger, cut him off. "And, being wizards, they of course work for the Ministry of Magic. The ones who disappeared last night worked for the Department of Mysteries, and the Department of Magical Catastrophes, and the Department of Accidental Magical Reversal. Those last are the lot who showed up to reverse the magic that made your sister blow up like a hot-air balloon. They use wands, like this one." He paused, grinning, to remove his wand from his pocket. He held it up and watched as his aunt and uncle both pushed their chairs back as though to run. Uncle Vernon's face, which had turned more and more purple with every word that Harry emphasised, suddenly turned white. Dudley looked like he might be smothering a grin. Harry returned the wand to his pocket and continued, seriously this time. "But, aside from having magical powers, they're not that different from you. They're human, just like you are." Harry looked very seriously at Uncle Vernon, to whose face the normal color had started to return, and added, "Next time, it might be Muggles, and next time, it might be deaths instead of disappearances. Do you understand that?"
Uncle Vernon glared at him. "I don't like your attitude, boy."
"And I don't like yours," Harry replied. "But I won't make a big deal out of things if you won't."
There was a long pause, and Uncle Vernon finally said, "Fine. But you meet those owls upstairs from now on; I'll not have them in the kitchen. And don't go pestering us with any nonsense from your newspaper."
"Just as you choose," Harry answered. If Uncle Vernon wanted to avoid the truth, that was fine with Harry. He knew the danger, and Harry couldn't really blame him for not wanting to hear about the ways that the danger was creeping nearer. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some letters that I need to write. I'll be up in my room, Aunt Petunia, if you need me." Petunia nodded, and Harry left the table, stopping to rinse out his cereal dish before he went back upstairs. He did need to write some letters. These disappearances had him really worried, and he hoped that some of his friends might be able to tell him more; it was obvious that the Daily Prophet reporter either didn't know or wasn't allowed to tell the full story. Maybe Ron would have heard more from his father.
Harry sat down at his desk and took up his quill.
Dear Ron,
I just read in the Daily Prophet about the disappearances, does your dad know anything? It was pretty obvious that paper wasn't telling the whole story.
Things are almost decent here, for a change. You know how I wrote that the Muggles finally seemed to be used to the idea that I have to be here? Well, they're still being almost civil (except for Uncle Vernon, and even he isn't being too bad for him.) Anyway, the other day I tried to tell them about what's happening, and of course Uncle Vernon started ranting before I had two sentences out. So I yelled at him and stormed out of the room. Pretty typical exchange. But then you'll never guess who came knocking on my door—Dudley! Actually knocked instead of barging in! And we had a really good talk, I think he's finally starting to grow up a little. So he said he'd talk to his mum and dad, and they seem to be acting a little better. Uncle Vernon's still ranting about "I'll not have your abnormality mentioned in this house," and we had kind of a scene at breakfast, but he did agree not to make a big deal out of things. We'll see how long that holds.
How are things at The Burrow? I really hope Dumbledore will let me come, even if Dudley and Aunt Petunia are being almost civil, it's still pretty dull here.
I'd better sign off and write to Snuffles. He still hasn't said exactly what he's up to for Dumbledore, and he never says anything about where he is. Probably because he's afraid someone might find the letters. Since I don't know how much news he gets, I reckoned I'd better tell him about these disappearances. Say Hi to everyone for me, and let me know what your dad says.
Harry
After finishing Ron's letter, Harry wrote one to Sirius to fill him on the disappearances. He also wrote to Hermione. He knew that she wouldn't know any more about what was going on than he did, but he still liked to keep in touch; he suspected that she felt just as isolated from the wizarding world as he did during the summers. They both had Daily Prophet subscriptions, but the drips and drabs of news weren't enough for Harry, and he doubted that they were enough for Hermione, either.
Harry sealed up each of the letters and then took them over to his owl, Hedwig, who was snoozing on her perch. She awoke at Harry's approach, spreading her wings and stroking down her smooth, white feathers with her beak. Harry thought that she looked a lot like a person waking up and stretching. "Good morning, sleepyhead," he said. Hedwig nipped his finger affectionately. "I have three letters to go the three different places. Do you think you can keep them all straight?" Hedwig stood up very erect and looked rather offended, as if to say that of course she could keep them straight. Harry chuckled. "I thought so." Tying the letters to her leg as he talked, he explained, "This one's for Ron, and this one's for Sirius, and this one's for Hermione. Don't wait around for a reply at Ron's—he'll send Pig along when he's ready—but wait and see if Sirius or Hermione have replies, okay?" Hedwig hooted affirmatively, nipped Harry's finger again, and soared off out the window. Harry watched until she was out of sight. Then he sat back down at his desk to think. He skimmed the rest of the newspaper, found nothing else of note, and laid it aside.
It had started. It had started, and the Ministry was still in denial. Of the three workers listed as earlier disappearances, two were dead. Harry knew that one had been tortured and killed by Voldemort himself; the other had been killed by his own son, one of Voldemort's supporters and the man who had caused Harry and Cedric to end up in the graveyard where Voldemort rose again. Minister Fudge knew about the deaths, and he was still claiming that they were "missing." Blind, cowardly, power-addled fool. Harry sighed. They would meet it when it came, but meeting it would be much easier if they didn't have to deal with opposition from people who were supposed to be on the good side.
Meeting it would also be much easier, he reflected, if he were fully trained. As a rising fifth-year, he didn't know nearly as much magic as fully-schooled wizards. He would have to take his schoolwork much more seriously this year. Hermione had always been the swot of the bunch, and Harry and Ron had often teased her about it, but Harry knew that it was time to take a leaf out of her book. This year, he decided, he would stop fooling around.
On impulse, Harry grabbed a sheet of parchment and wrote at the top "Resolutions." He knew that most people made resolutions at the New Year, but he reckoned it didn't really matter when you made them. The New Year was supposed to represent change, but the events surrounding Voldemort's rebirth were a bigger change than any day on the calendar could ever be. He looked at the sheet for a moment and then wrote, "1. Take schoolwork seriously." Then he twiddled with his quill a bit and thought. What else did he need to do this year?
"2. Don't let Snape get to me." That was a big one. Professor Snape, the Potions Master at Hogwarts, had gone to school with Harry's father, and he had been a sworn enemy of James Potter and all his friends. This enmity had carried over to James's son. From the first day of class, Snape had gone out of his way to show everyone that he didn't like Harry one bit. Harry, in the face of such unreasoning hatred, had been first bewildered and then angry, and his emotions had quickly settled into a strong antipathy of their own. But Snape, after spending some time on the Dark side, had turned against Voldemort and had been a strong ally for Dumbledore during Voldemort's previous reign, and Harry didn't like the idea of having enemies on his own side. It was too much to hope that Snape would ever treat him with anything but contempt, but at least Harry could try to rise above it.
On the theme of rising above it, Harry continued his list with, "3. Ignore Malfoy." Second to Voldemort, Draco Malfoy was Harry's worst enemy, and, though far less dangerous, he was much more annoying than the Dark Lord. He was in Harry's year at Hogwarts, and it seemed that his only pleasure in life was taunting Harry and his friends. Harry knew that Lucius Malfoy, Draco's father, was a Death Eater, and the son seemed to be heading down the same path. In short, Draco Malfoy was a horrid, snobbish, foul-tempered little worm. In the past, though, the little worm had been quite adept at making Harry rise to his bait; he knew how to push people's buttons—Harry's in particular and Ron's even more so. At their last encounter, an ugly scene on the Hogwarts Express as it brought the students home for the summer, Malfoy's baiting had taken the form of a snide remark about Cedric—a remark that had earned him a thorough hexing from Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ron's twin brothers, Fred and George. Though hexing Malfoy into next week had been satisfying, Harry knew that it wouldn't always be an option. Ignoring him, pretending that he didn't exist, was the next best thing. Harry would just have to get better at turning off his emotions, at thinking about other things. The books that he had been reading this summer might help with that; his current one, one of Hermione's recommendations, a book called Pride and Prejudice (whose title had reminded him of Malfoy but whose characters were all much less objectionable), was full of people who knew how not to rise to bait. And when they chose to rise to it—and it always did feel like a choice—they always seemed to have the perfect thing to say. Harry considered making "Practice witty replies like Elizabeth Bennet's" the fourth item on his list, but he decided that such practice would not be conducive to a quiet life at the Dursleys. Uncle Vernon didn't seem like the type to appreciate a well-crafted squelch. Harry twirled his quill some more, idly wishing that his uncle could be more like Mr. Bennet; there was a man who appreciated an apt rejoinder. Of course, if his aunt were more like Mrs. Bennet, she'd be completely unbearable. He grinned at the thought of Aunt Petunia wittering on like Elizabeth's mother, then returned his attention to his current task.
Instead of writing "Practice witty replies," Harry wrote, as a corollary to his third item, "And get Ron and Hermione to ignore him, too." Convincing Hermione to ignore Malfoy shouldn't be too hard; she was by far the best of the three at controlling her temper. (Most of the time, anyway; she had hauled off and smacked Malfoy once during their third year, but Harry attributed that incident to mental fatigue caused by trying to take too many classes.) Ron was another story; Harry had lost count of the number of times that he and Hermione had had to hold onto Ron's robes to keep him from throwing himself at Malfoy. But Harry intended to do his best to convince Ron that ignoring Malfoy was the best thing to do. Malfoy wasn't important. Malfoy was an insignificant git. Malfoy wasn't worth getting into trouble over. Maybe if Harry continued to repeat these and similar sentiments to Ron, they would sink in. If all else failed, he could tell Ron to shut out any comments that Malfoy made by closing his eyes and picturing Draco Malfoy, the Amazing Bouncing Ferret.
After he had finished grinning at the thought, Harry refocussed on his list. "4. Stay informed." Not that he really needed to write that one down, but he might as well make a thorough job of this list.
After a brief struggle with his baser self, Harry added, "5. Go to Dumbledore." He did need to write that one down, and he knew he needed to follow through on it in spite of his reflexive reluctance to do so. In the past, he had tried to do things on his own far too much. Asking for help, especially from authority figures, didn't come naturally to Harry, who tended to keep his problems to himself and try to work them out himself. (And Harry usually a pretty decent job of things on his own, if he did say so himself—with a healthy does of help from his friends, of course. He still marvelled that the three of them had managed to get out of some of their scrapes alive, and, when he stopped to think about what they'd done together, it always gave him a pleasant feeling of pride.) Last year marked the first time that he had gone to Dumbledore straight away about a problem, and it was the best decision he had ever made. He knew that Dumbledore couldn't solve every problem, but he could solve a lot more problems than Harry could ever hope to solve alone. Also, as head of the forces for good, Dumbledore needed to be kept informed of anything that had a remote chance of helping in the fight against Voldemort. No matter how much it went against Harry's instinctive reticence, Dumbledore needed to know. If anything at all went wrong, Harry promised himself that he would go to Dumbledore. Besides, Dumbledore always managed to make Harry feel better once he finally broke down and talked with him.
"6. Be careful." Harry looked at the words. He wasn't exactly sure how "Be careful" would play out, but it wouldn't hurt to have the thought on paper. And that, he decided, should do it. There were other things that he wanted to do this year, from the mundane ("Win the Quidditch Cup") to the critical ("Defeat Voldemort once and for all") but they all seemed too much out of his own control to belong on a list of resolutions. Harry folded the list and placed it as a bookmark in Pride and Prejudice. He wanted to have the list nearby for a few days so he could add to it if he felt the need. He laid the book on his desk and thought about what to do now. He decided that looking back over his textbooks from the previous year wouldn't be a bad idea. The Tri-wizard Tournament Champions had been excused from the end-of-the-year exams, so Harry hadn't been tested on any of his subjects—not in the classroom, anyway; his duel with Voldemort had been more of a test than even Snape could have devised—and he was a little worried about whether he'd be prepared for his classes next year. It would be difficult to "Take schoolwork seriously" if he turned out to be behind the rest of his class. After a moment's reflection, Harry decided to look over his Potions textbook, a task which worked toward satisfying both "Take schoolwork seriously" and "Don't let Snape get to me." He dug his copy of Magical Drafts and Potions from the bottom of his school trunk, found his Potions notes, and set to studying.
