Chapter Seventeen: Home Truths and Machinations

The following weeks were some that Harry would have preferred to not have had to live through. In later years, people talked of the changes that happened during this time as the tide which brought on the Dark Days. In truth, it was not the actions of those in the Ministry or the Order which brought on these dark days, but the Dark Days which brought on the reactions from these offices.

Harry felt he was living a completely reactionary life. And he knew he wasn't alone. Ron and Seamus both mentioned their feelings of being out of control, and Neville walked around with a permanently startled expression on his face. Attacks increased, people became frightened, and others talked of the days when Voldemort was at his strongest, staging attacks before the Yuletide holidays, disrupting the peace of the season on principle alone.

There were grumblings from the several people in the Ministry that everyone had been premature in thanking the group from Hogwarts who had claimed to have destroyed Voldemort the summer before. The Daily Prophet wrote a rather cliched article, swinging back on their previous praise of the group of students and suggesting that perhaps Harry wasn't sane, after all.

Ginny and Luna, while still studying hard for their NEWTs, knew that something more was going on. Ginny took to sleeping in Harry's quarters, using his Invisibility cloak and a few well placed sound charms around her bed to cover her absence in the seventh year girls' dormitory.

For his part, Harry spent much of his time teaching all of his students how to defend themselves. His classes were well attended, and at his encouragement, the DA club continued in the evenings, following the model that Hermione and Ron had set up the year before, with each prefect being responsible for a group of several other students, practicing together every day, and meeting together as a group once a week.

Strangely enough, Dennis Creevy took over the responsibility of running the club. Harry was glad. Colin's younger brother was proving to be a wonderful resource. While Ginny and Luna were still students, it was well known that they were dating members of the faculty, and despite it being Harry and Neville, few of the other students were as open with the two girls as they might have otherwise been. Dennis and his friends didn't fall into the same category, and Harry and Ron were often in receipt of news which the students felt the young professors could make use of. The Hogwarts school grapevine was certainly alive and well.

"Why on earth would I care that Gregory Goyle's mother was seen shopping in Diagon Alley for men's robes?" Ron came into Harry's quarters after dinner one evening, tossing a bit of parchment down beside Harry where he sat on the sofa before moving to the cupboard beside Harry's desk and helping himself to a butterbeer.

"Dumbledore should see this..." Harry said absently, reading the note.

"What? What in bloody blue blazes does it matter if Mrs Goyle was doing a bit of shopping? We're trying to..."

"Gregory Goyle, his father, and his brother were all killed in the last battle, Ron," Harry said calmly, watching his friend and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"So?" Ron took a long drink from the bottle he held after casting a quick cooling charm.

"So... who would she be buying men's robes for? She's a widow. Her children are dead. She lives alone."

"Maybe she just likes men's robes?" Ron offered.

Harry didn't laugh. "Or maybe she's housing someone who's come through the Veil... maybe the Dark needs robes for those they're bringing through, and rather than place a rather conspicuous order for a few hundred pair through Madame Malkins, they've got witches like Mrs Goyle doing their shopping for them."

Ron's eyes rounded. "Oh."

"Oh, is right," Harry nodded, moving to kneel in front of the fire and tossing in a pinch of floo powder. "Headmaster's office!"

After relaying the news to Dumbledore, he rose and moved back to the sofa, accepting the bottle of butterbeer that Ron held out to him.

"Ginny coming tonight?" Ron asked offhandedly before sipping from his own bottle. When Harry looked at him, he didn't meet his eyes.

"Ron?"

"I saw her coming in last night, Harry... unless it was someone else under an Invisibility cloak opening then closing your door? Assignations with Luna?"

"Ron..."

"Relax, Harry. I'm not going to pound you. But don't let Charlie find out. He might," Ron took a swig from his butterbeer bottle, still not looking in Harry's direction. Harry could feel the tension coming off of him in waves.

"Ron..."

"Look..."

"I've asked her to marry me," Harry said flatly.

Ron was suitably silenced.

"Last June," Harry continued. "After the final... well... the last battle."

"And what did she say?"

"She said yes," Harry said.

"So why haven't you two said anything to the family?"

"Because..."

"Because you didn't want everyone freaking on you. About Ginny's schooling, right?"

"Right. We were going to announce it in the spring..."

"'Going to'? But now you're not?"

"Now... I don't know if I'll be here in the spring."

"Where do you think you might be going?" Ron's eyes narrowed.

"Ron, I don't know what to expect this time. I don't know... I don't know how powerful... I may not be here."

"So that's it? You're going to leave my sister high and dry, and alone?"

"Ron..."

"What if she's... what..." Harry was amazed to see Ron flush even further. He wasn't sure if it was anger or... "What if you leave her with a parting gift, Harry? What's she to do then?"

"What?"

"What if she's... I mean, you two go at it like bloody rabbits... there's every chance that if something happens to you..."

"Ron, we've been..." Harry was flushed now, too. "She's not."

"She could be. You'd never know. You know Ginny, Harry. If she thought that it would stop you from doing what you feel you need to do, she'd never say a bloody word."

Harry sucked in a breath. That hurt. The thought of Ginny... in that white dress, wandering around the grounds at Potter Manor... a red-haired child in her arms... alone.

"I've left her everything, Ron. She'd be taken care of," Harry said quietly, pushing his own pain away.

"She doesn't want your money, Harry!" Ron stood, angry. "And just how exactly do you think that your money would help her? Do you know what happens to witches who have babies without being married, Harry? Do you care?"

"I..." Harry looked startled. He'd never thought of it before. He'd never heard of a single mother in this world.

"They're shunned, Harry. They're treated... like nothing. Most of them leave. Turn their back on magic and their families and just leave. Is that what you want for my sister?"

"Would you turn your back on her, Ron?" Harry's eyes spit fire at his best friend.

Ron was shocked rigid. For a moment, Harry thought he was going to swing back and hit him, but somehow, Ron managed to control himself before sitting down again.

"Harry, if something happens to you, pregnant or not, Ginny won't last."

"I've done everything I can to protect her, Ron."

"Except not involve yourself in this."

"I can't not involve myself, Ron. The fight is going to come to me. Voldemort wants me dead."

"How do you know that?"

"Because..." Harry's hand went to his scar. Ron's quick eyes didn't miss this, despite Harry pulling his hand away quickly. "Because, Ron, I can feel it."

"Then you'd better pray his luck hasn't changed, Harry," Ron said before standing and heading towards the door. "Because if he wins this time, I'll bloody kill you."

Harry was silent for a long time, watching the door that Ron had closed silently behind him.

Harry paid a visit the following Saturday to Potter Manor. He'd received an owl from Mrs Granger saying his aunt was asking to speak to him, and he made time to go and see her. Ginny had offered to come along, but Harry felt it was something he really needed to do alone, besides which, Ginny needed some quiet study time.

Arriving via floo from Dumbledore's office, Harry quickly strode through the public lounge and the main hall, heading into the kitchen. Hermione had reported in a letter than his aunt was up and around, no longer confined to her bed, and Harry thought the best place to find her would be in the kitchen.

He was right. He found her sipping tea, alone, at the kitchen table. When he walked through the door, she jumped, tea spilling on the tabletop.

"Oh! Oh, I'm so clumsy..." she said, grabbing for the tea towel sitting on the end of the kitchen counter.

"Aunt Petunia... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

"Harry... it's fine. I've been... jittery, I suppose."

"You're okay?"

"Nothing more than the attack... Death Eaters surrounding you with no notice will do that, I understand," she said with a rueful smile. Harry was surprised. He'd rather expected a return of the bitterness she'd harbored all those years toward the magical community.

"Aunt Petunia?"

"I'm glad you're here, Harry. I need to talk to you."

"Mrs Granger said. That's why I came."

"I..." the older woman swallowed uneasily, then pushed on. "I need to ask you something."

"Okay," Harry looked at her. She seemed different somehow.

"I need..."

"Aunt Petunia, whatever it is, I'll try to help."

Her pale blue eyes rose to his and she looked at him for a moment. "Yes, I know. You always help, Harry."

Harry looked at her for a moment. She was behaving very oddly.

"I... two homes destroyed in a year. That must be some kind of record."

"At the height of it, the Death Eaters were destroying a home a day," Harry said quietly.

"Harry, I need to ask you..." she took another breath. "It would appear that I need a home... again. At least..."

Harry was startled. He hadn't thought of her leaving.

Petunia swallowed. "I think I'm fooling myself that a return to the... muggle world will put things right. I need to know if... if I can stay?"

"You've always got a home here. I told you that before."

"And if only I'd listened..." she sighed. "It would seem that fate wants me here... here in this world. All those years I tried to push it away. Maybe if I hadn't, if after Vernon died... well, maybe Dudley would be alive now."

"Aunt Petunia..."

"I know that you and he... I know what my son was like, Harry. I harbour no illusions about that. But his reaction to you was due to how he saw others treat you. I'm not excusing it... but you didn't really know him."

"I know that," Harry agreed. Dudley had been almost as much a victim as he had in the Dursley home. Vernon Dursley had a lot to answer for.

"In the end, Harry..." she choked, tears rising. Harry reached out a hand to comfort her, and surprisingly, she took it. "In the end, he rose to the occasion spectacularly. I had no idea. I thought he was a Squib, Harry, I swear I did. I don't think anyone was more surprised than Dudley, though. When..."

"What happened?"

"They came around midnight. I'd just gone to bed, and I'd left Dudley watching television. You know how much he liked that show where they fix up the houses without the owner knowing..."

"Yes," Harry didn't. He'd never watched more than an hour's television a year when he lived with the Dursleys. He wasn't allowed to. But he agreed anyhow, somehow sensing that his aunt needed that right now.

"Well, I'd just put my nightclothes on, and thought I'd get a cup of tea to take to bed. I'd just made a pot for him... he'd worked late, you see."

"Yes," Harry wanted to encourage her to talk about that night. So far as he knew, she hadn't yet, and he knew from his own losses that talking about it, especially after holding it in for so long, helped.

"Well, I walked into the lounge and... and the windows exploded... and suddenly, there were these robed men everywhere... I thought..." she glanced up at him, tears in her eyes. "Forgive me, Harry..."

"You thought it was me, or someone I sent?"

"For a moment. I thought... he didn't forgive me after all... but then..." she swallowed. "Then I saw the masks, and I remembered..."

"And Dudley?"

"Dudley," she smiled again, through her tears. "He jumped up and... oh, Harry, I was so very proud! He took one look at me and... and it was like he knew."

"Knew?"

"I knew that they'd wiped his memory of the night Vernon died, Harry... but for a moment, I could have sworn that he remembered. He said..."

"Aunt?"

"He said," she straightened her spine and continued. "He said, 'Not you too, Mum... I won't let them hurt you, too!', and then... there was a flash of light, and... and... it was green light. It came from him, from my Dudley. There was light everywhere, and then... they were falling all about us... and then there was someone else..."

"Someone else?"

"A... Harry... I think it was a ghost. He came in through the hole where the windows had been."

Harry paled.

"Harry..." she looked at him, the tears pouring down her face now. "He said something to me."

"Dudley?"

"No," Petunia shook her head. The tears falling unchecked now. "He told me... he told me he would take my family, all of my family, just as he had taken Lily and James. He told me to tell you... he told me to tell you that he was back, and nothing could stop him this time. Harry, it was him. It was Voldemort. And he let me live only to be able to tell you that he intends to kill you."

Harry took a deep breath, his eyes hardening. "He can try, Aunt Petunia. He can try."

"And Harry?"

"Yes?"

"That's when he... without even... without even a wand. He just raised his hand and... and Dudley was on the floor."

Hermione Granger left the Ministry of Magic Building in downtown London and hurried west towards the Leaky Cauldron. She had to get through to Diagon Alley and into the twins shop before closing time. This couldn't wait. She needed to talk to Dumbledore. She needed to find Harry.

"Miss Granger!"

"Sorry, can't stop, Tom. I've got to see the twins about something..."

"Do stop on your way back through, lass... not enough faces as pretty as yours around here!"

Hermione smiled at the barkeep and hurried through. Tapping at the brick wall with her wand, she waited as it dissolved in front of her, and then quickly moved through and on to the shop three doors down.

"Hermione, my lovely sister-in-law-to-be if my prat of a brother could only get his head out of his arse..."

"Fred, don't be a git."

"I'm George," the redhead behind the counter said with a grin.

"Right," she said, not believing him for a minute.

"You wound me, fair lady..." he made a production of grabbing at his chest and falling to the floor behind the counter. "As if I would lie to one so fair..."

"Fred, do you think we can get..." his twin came through from the back room, spied Hermione and stopped. "Oh, hello, Hermione. Fred hiding behind the counter again? What did you threaten him with this time?"

"Nothing, but I will if he doesn't stop messing about and tell me that I can use the floo without fear of everyone within the Ministry knowing where I'm going. You two get that rigged up yet?"

"Untraceable floo... one of our more successful ideas," George smiled, glancing over the counter. "Oi, you getting up? Lying down on the job... unbelievable."

Fred hopped to his feet, grinning. "Just taking a bit of a siesta..."

"Right. Show the lady the way through to the new floo."

"Right now," Fred led Hermione through to the back room. "It's still in pre-release, you understand... so you only have a choice of three destinations... Potter Manor, our apartment, and..."

"Hogwarts. I know. I need to talk to Dumbledore,"

"How fortuitous, then," Ron's brother grinned. "Off you go then, love. To get back through this floo, you simply say 'Wheezes Private Lower'."

"Don't forget the 'lower' bit!" George called from the front.

"Ah, yes... if you don't, you'll end up upstairs," Fred smiled. "Bill got rather an eyeful of Angelina last time he forgot..."

"I'll be sure to remember," Hermione said dryly, reaching out for a handful of floo powder. "I won't be long... I hope. And would you mind holding off on setting your alarms until I'm back? I don't feel much like having pink hair tonight."

"Never happen," Fred shrugged. "That is a special setting for clumsy aurors... we've got something special set up for you, Hermione."

"Just be here until I get back. I'll need you to let me out."

"I won't set anything. Call up the stairs if one of us isn't in the shop."

With a burst of green flames, Hermione was gone.

"Ah, Miss Granger," Professor Dumbledore greeted her, a slightly surprised look on his face as she stepped out of the floo directly into his office at Hogwarts. "I wasn't expecting you."

"I..." she flinched, feeling the pain she had fully expected. "Harry... I need to..."

Dumbledore's eyes lit with understanding, and he was immediately solemn. "You have information?"

Hermione hesitated, her eyes watering with the pain of the betrayal to her vows she was about to make. Thinking about it made it worse. Much, much worse. With a sudden, sharp-drawn breath, she nodded, then screamed as the pain overwhelmed her.

Through it all, she prayed that Harry could be brought quickly.

When she came to, she was lying on a large bed. It had a wine-red canopy and gold trim. The four posts were of a deep mahogany-red wood, and the light streaming in from the windows was dim.

It was early evening.

"Hermione?"

"Ron?" she struggled to sit up.

"Thank Merlin..." Ron sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her to him. "I was worried."

"You... the twins..."

"I've sent a message... they'll hold the shop floo open for as long as it takes."

"Harry?"

"He's here... in the lounge. We thought you should rest after... after you passed out in Dumbledore's office."

"Where am I?"

"My quarters," Ron flushed. "They were closest."

"I... I have..." she flinched, feeling the pain and the tears rushing to her eyes. She squeezed them shut, as much to stop the flow as to conceal it from Ron.

"I know, love. I know," he held her, stroking her back. "It will be better when it's over."

"Yes..." she groaned. "Please, Ron, get Harry. I don't know how much longer..."

"I'll be right back," he said softly, releasing her and moving quickly to the door.

In moments, Harry and Dumbledore were there. Hermione sensed their presence long before they spoke.

"Mione?"

"Harry?" her eyes opened. The rush of pain she felt made her flinch yet again. "Can you... I need you to..."

"I'm here, Mione. You have...?"

"I have information," she gasped. "Please... Harry... it hurts so badly... please, make it stop!"

"Hermione," Harry's voice was firm. "You have to open your eyes, Hermione. Look at me."

It took her a moment, but she obeyed him, her brown eyes locking with his bright green ones, and with a little sob, she let him in. Vaguely, she felt Ron's arms go around her, but she didn't break eye contact with Harry. She knew if she did, despite the pain it was causing, it would only be worse.

"Legilimens," Harry said softly, finding himself inside her thoughts, and moving forward. This time, he was ready for the churning core of her he'd encountered last time. The place where all her memories of her work were hidden. He looked around briefly, and suddenly knew exactly where to find the information she wanted him to have. It was like she had had it ready for him.

Hermione would never cease to amaze him. Despite the pain, despite the agony she was going through, her thoughts guided him right to where she wanted him to go. Quickly, he took the two separate memories as his own, and left her mind, to find her slumped against Ron, her back shuddering with silent sobs.

"I'm sorry, Hermione... but I love you so much for doing this for us..." Harry reached out, touching his almost-sister on the back. Ron looked sadly up at him.

"We need to finish this, Harry," Ron said with a steely, calm voice. "I don't want her going through this any more than she has to."

"Neither do I, Ron," Harry nodded. "But this time.. she was right, Ron. We needed to know this."

"What is it, Harry?" Dumbledore spoke for the first time from the corner of the room.

"The Ministry is monitoring several businesses in Diagon Alley... they've managed to find a way to trace information from money..." Harry remembered the small device left with Fred and George. "They're putting together pictures of who goes where... they're tracking people that they know to be members of the Order... or at least loyal to you and I."

"To what end?" Dumbledore asked.

"To be able to put together a picture of their habits, Albus. To have an idea of where certain people will be and when," Harry sighed. "And then they're sending the information to someone in the Minister's office."

"The...?" Dumbledore looked flummoxed for a moment.

"And she had information on portkeys... an abnormal number of them being made, Albus."

"Portkeys?" Ron looked oddly at Harry. "What the hell do portkeys have to do...?"

"Portkeys to a property in Wales," Harry's eyes bored into Ron's until Ron's lit with understanding. "And every one of them requested by the same official."

"Harry?" Albus' voice was deceptively soft. "Do we know...?"

"We have a name. And I'll bet that he owns a lovely property near Swansea. That's where many, many people have been portkeying to... all between midnight and four in the morning. If we could prove it, I would bet that they're all originating in the Department of Mysteries."

"Harry?" Dumbledore's voice seemed firm again. "Do we know how many?"

Harry turned towards the Headmaster and nodded. "Four hundred and twenty two so far. And more releases for portkeys being approved every day."

"And Harry... who is requesting them?"

"I've never heard of him. Ogden Dover."

"I have heard of him," Dumbledore said, nodding. "But... do we know... Harry, who is approving the requests?"

Harry glanced at Ron, swallowed and looked back to Dumbledore. Sadly, he looked again at Ron as he said, "The signature on the requests is Percy Weasley's."