Chapter Fifteen: Aurors All
It was the middle of November when Harry finally came close to snapping. Three more major attacks, marked by smaller, less organized attacks on unsuspecting muggles, had happened, and Harry had been working on the last of his patience for some time. Practice and training helped, but not to the degree that Harry, or the others, could forget. Seamus seemed especially driven, and Ron and Neville were sometimes hard pressed to keep up.
It was during a Friday evening class that Kingsley stopped, looked around the room and shook his head.
"You've been training outside of our sessions, haven't you?" he asked.
"We train every day," Harry confirmed. "Before classes."
"It shows," Tonks panted from the side of the room. "Blimey, Potter... you almost had me there."
Harry grinned. For the past three weeks, they'd been working on hand-to-hand combat. While Harry was powerful, Tonks was fast. They were well matched as a fighting team.
"Well, I've taught you all I can," Kingsley said, sitting down and gulping greedily from a bottle of water.
"What?" Seamus looked at him.
"We're done. You've not only completed what would be required for auror training, but you've learned most of what I could teach you from working in the field. I can't teach you anything more."
"But..."
"Auror training is supposed to take months," Harry said softly.
"An average Auror training class consists of about thirty people, Harry," Kingsley said. "And they concentrate a whole lot more on theory at first. They don't get to the actual physical training for weeks."
"But..."
"You already knew the theory. Or at least as much of it as the average Auror takes away with him, just by what you've done. We first teach them how to not get themselves killed. You lot have had that down from, if I guess correctly, about your fifth year or so."
"Fourth," Ron commented dryly.
Kingsley looked at him, his brows raised.
"You ever faced a dragon, mate?" Ron asked the older auror.
"Well, technically, neither have you," Seamus pointed out.
"No... but Harry has. And I did face a bloody herd of acromantulas and that was in our second year, wasn't it? And a three-headed bloody giant dog in our first, not to mention a bloody cave troll. I think that more than makes up for it. Not to mention the fact that I've been avoiding the worst of Hermione's temper for the better part of seven years."
Seamus grinned broadly. "I'll concede the point, my friend."
"The fact is, we've done all that needs to be done... and more... for the four of you to qualify as aurors," Kingsley said, drawing them back on topic.
"So," Neville glanced around at the group, looking rather lost. "What do we do now, then?"
Three days later, the situation hadn't changed and Harry was very upset. Dumbledore was still discouraging him from attempting to talk to the Bloody Baron directly, asking him to understand that the Baron was not being very receptive, and that anything Harry or the others said at this point could not go over well.
"People are dying, Albus!" He snapped pacing the length of his lounge as Dumbledore watched from the large leather armchair.
"I know, Harry. Believe me, I know."
"Then why?"
"Because, it is necessary."
"Necessary?" Harry stopped midstride and turned on the older man. "It's necessary for people... innocent people... to die while we do nothing?"
"Harry..."
"Then my aunt, my Aunt Daisy, she died for nothing?"
"No, of course..."
"She died to protect the innocent, Dumbledore, to stop this. She made the ultimate sacrafice to ensure the safety of those who couldn't protect themselves."
"I know, Harry."
"But we're allowing her sacrafice to mean nothing."
"Harry, it doesn't mean nothing. What Daisy did allowed you to destroy Voldemort..."
"But I didn't, did I?" Harry said quietly. "I didn't destroy him. Once again, he's back."
Silence.
"Are you certain you interpreted the prophecy correctly, Albus?" Harry asked, his voice calm.
"What?" The old wizard looked surprised at this.
"The prophecy. The one you interpreted to mean that I was meant to be the one to destroy him. Are you sure you interpreted it correctly?"
"Yes, Harry."
"How? How can you know for certain?"
"I can be certain because the facts support it, Harry."
"The facts?" Harry laughed. "Really? The fact that the prophecy says that I will destroy him, but I haven't quite managed it yet?"
"Harry, you have managed it. He has simply found a way..."
"Albus, the reason he keeps coming up with ways to come back is simply attributable to one thing, and one thing only."
"And what do you believe that is, Harry?"
"He always has a backup plan. Something we don't appear to take into consideration."
"Perhaps..." Dumbledore nodded. "Perhaps it is time you spoke with the Baron. Perhaps... well, as I have recognized in past, there are some things that even I do not see. Come."
Harry followed.
"And tell me, lad, why I should help a scrunt of a boy such as yourself to kill my own kind?"
"I don't need you to help me do it. I simply need you to tell me how," Harry gritted his teeth, desperately trying to retain the tenuous hold on his temper that Dumbledore had insisted he must, for this to work.
"Show you? You think it's like making tea, then?" the wispy grey bulk looked at him coldly.
"Voldemort is back, in this form!" Harry hissed. "The bloody Dark Lord! And he's up to his old tricks... only this time, I can't defeat him in a duel, and you are the only one who knows how I can destroy him!"
The face of the dead nobleman turned back towards him after glancing to where Dumbledore sat behind his large mahogany desk.
"You think you can do this, lad?"
"I know that I must do it!"
"It's dangerous."
"Like everything else," Harry said quietly. "Like everything else to do with the Dark. That doesn't mean I'm not going to try."
The baron watched him closely again, until Harry felt like screaming with the tension of it. "Nah, you cannot do it, lad..."
"For Merlin's sake! What do I need to do to..."
"At least, not alone."
Ron stood in the middle of the Quidditch Pitch, looking up. The cold December sky was bright blue, and the sunshine was deceptive. It was bitterly cold.
Slowly, he pulled a bit of parchment from his pocket and looked at it. He was still looking at it when he heard the voice.
"What's that?"
Startled, he turned, all his auror training going into effect. In a split second, he had Harry Potter at the end of his wand.
"Bloody hell, Potter!" Ron cursed, lowering his wand and taking a deep breath. "Don't bloody sneak up on me!"
"I didn't, actually," Harry said dryly, not having moved. "I called to you from the end of the pitch. You mustn't have heard me."
"I didn't."
"What's on the parchment? Letter from Mione?"
"No," Ron shook his head, then hesitated before handing it over to Harry to read. "I wrote it the day... the day I found out Voldemort was back..."
Harry took the well-worn bit of paper and raised an eyebrow at his friend. It would appear that he'd read it every day since he'd written it, as well. Looking down, Harry read.
"What's this, then?" Harry glanced back up at his friend's pale face after reading it.
"It's what we have to do," Ron muttered, obviously uncomfortable. He shuffled his feet, then stared off into the distance. "I thought... I thought if I wrote it down... made it more real... well."
Looking down again, Harry nodded.
Find him.
Destroy him for good.
Live our lives.
Make sure Harry knows he doesn't have to do it alone.
The last line had obviously been added later, as it was in a different color of ink, and had been written to avoid a small tear in the parchment.
Harry looked back up at Ron and handed it back to him.
"So, you figure that's all we've got to do, then?"
"You don't have to do it alone, Harry," Ron said quietly. "Not this time."
"I didn't do it alone last time, as I remember it, Ron."
Ron looked up at him, his eyes dark. "And you don't have to now."
"Maybe that was the part that I got wrong last time. Maybe that's why he was able to come back."
"He was able to come back because some pillock... or several pillocks... at the Ministry decided to give him a way to come back..."
"No, Ron," Harry denied. "They've given him a way to build an army. But there will always be people willing to help a miscreant like Tom Riddle build an army. Voldemort returned because he was strong enough to make a choice... to choose the immortality of the spirit world. I've learned that he has to be destroyed... utterly. I didn't do that last time. I won't make the same mistake twice."
Ron was silent.
"So... you figure that's how we have to go about things, hmm?" Harry asked after a moment, indicating the parchment that Ron still held.
"I reckon it is," Ron agreed, slipping the parchment back into his pocket, almost defensively.
"Well, then, I guess we need to consider step one, then," Harry smiled at Ron's rather confused expression. "We can't destroy the son of a bitch if we can't find him, Ron."
"And what, exactly, do we do when we find him?" Ron asked. "How, precisely, do you kill a bloody ghost?"
"Oh, don't worry about that part," Harry said. "I've just spoken to the Baron. He's going to help us with that bit."
"You... you spoke to him? But I thought Dumbledore...?"
"Dumbledore came around to my way of thinking on it. We spoke to the Baron this morning."
Ron's eyes glinted, and a rather feral smile played about his lips. "So, step one: find the sodding bastard."
"Ready?" Harry asked.
"As ever," Ron agreed.
Turning as one, they headed towards the castle to find Neville. It was time to go Dark Lord hunting.