Chapter 38 – Damage Inspection

Harry was a bit surprised to find that it was Dumbledore who had come to fetch him from the hospital and not Remus. But as the headmaster didn't offer any explanation as to why this was so, Harry didn't ask. He guessed he'd meet Remus sooner or later, probably his former teacher was busy with something and didn't have the time to fetch him. Dumbledore exchanged a few words with the healer who was in charge of Harry's treatment. Finally, though, the moment of Harry's release had come.

"Can we go and visit Sirius before we leave?", Harry asked as they left his room and went down the corridor. Dumbledore shook his head.

"No, I'm afraid this isn't possible right now. The Ministry is keeping him under a very strict guard, you would need a permission to visit him. Give it another few days, I'm sure things will be easier then."

Harry didn't want to wait another few days. He didn't want to wait another few hours, he wanted to see that his godfather was truly back, with his own eyes. He trusted Remus and Dumbledore that he was back, but it was a bit tiring to hear them talk about Sirius without being able to convince him of his godfather's return with his own eyes. But he didn't have a say in this, as usual.

"Are we going back to Hogwarts?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "No, we are not. I thought you might be more comfortable if you returned to Grimmauld Place for the remaining holidays. Your friends are there, and Remus will return there as well. It's not as safe, but there are more people around, and at the moment it's not too busy or too dangerous there."

Harry understood this to mean that there were more people at Grimmauld Place to watch out that he would not do anything stupid again. Actually, he didn't particularly care where he went to, but Grimmauld Place meant facing Ron, Hermione and the remaining Weasley family. Hermione was still angry with him, Ron had surely been punished for helping Harry with his plan to bring back Sirius, and the Weasleys might be angry with him for involving Ron into his plan in the first place. Not very good conditions for returning to Grimmauld Place right now, but experience had told him that there was nothing he could do about this right now. He'd just move back to Grimmauld Place and see what awaited him there.

And that was exactly what they did. Much to Harry's dismay, they went past the public fireplaces in the entrance hall without sparing them even the smallest glance. Instead, Dumbledore led them into the far off corner of the room and pulled a comic book out of his pocket which he held out to Harry. The teenager sighed.

"A portkey."

Dumbledore smiled and nodded. "Yes, I know that you don't like them. But I'm afraid we can't get around using a portkey today. It's fastest, and far less complicated."

Harry sighed dramatically, but he stepped closer and obediently grabbed one corner of the comic book. He would never like portkeys, yet somehow he was always forced to use them. One more year until he could learn how to apparate. Just one more year.

As he was still contemplating the possible safer options of wizarding travel, the portkey activated and Harry felt the telltale tuck behind his navel which initiated the portkey travel. A breathless moment later, Harry opened his eyes – strangely he always closed them during those travels – and found himself in the basement kitchen ad No. 12, Grimmauld Place. He unconsciously loosened his grip on the comic book, but barely noticed that Dumbledore pocketed it again. Instead, his gaze was drawn immediately to the kitchen table.

Molly and Arthur Weasley were sitting there, Tonks sitting opposite of them and Dung at the far end of the table, seemingly pretending not to be there. Harry swallowed hard, not really knowing how to confront Ron's parents now, but for the moment Dumbledore saved him from worrying about it. The headmaster stepped towards the table.

"Has Remus returned yet?"

Mr. Weasley shook his head. "No, he wasn't here. If he hasn't come in through the front door and gone upstairs directly, then he's still at St. Mungo's."

Harry raised his eyebrows. Remus was at St. Mungo's? Then why hadn't he come to fetch him? Harry knew why without thinking overly much about it. Because Remus was visiting Sirius, that was why. There was no other reason why Remus should be in the hospital this morning. And even though both he and Dumbledore knew how desperately Harry wanted to see his godfather, nobody had told him about it. Instead, Dumbledore had told him this nonsense story about him needing a permission to visit Sirius. It couldn't be too difficult to get one, not if Remus was allowed to visit, could it?

Dumbledore exchanged a few more words with Mr. Weasley, then he pulled something Harry recognised as his own trunk out of the pocket of his robes and waved his wand above it. Immediately, the trunk popped back to its normal size, and with another wave of the wand it vanished entirely. Dumbledore winked at Harry.

"If I haven't made a mistake, it should be in the room you and young Mr. Weasley share. Now, there are other things I have to attend to. But I'm sure we'll see each other during the next couple of days. Until then, Harry."

He nodded at Molly, Arthur, Tonks and Dung, then he left the kitchen through the door. Harry sighed deeply and turned towards the kitchen table. Dung was still sitting there, unmoving, either asleep or deeply lost in thought. Tonks was smiling at Harry, but the Weasleys had sombre looks on their faces, as if they, too, didn't quite know how to confront Harry now.

"Hello", Harry carefully ventured. Molly wordlessly looked at him for another short moment, then she forced a smile and got up from her chair.

"Hello Harry", she said and went over towards the stove. "I'll make you some breakfast."

"No, thank you, Mrs. Weasley", Harry said hastily. "I have eaten at the hospital, you really don't need to prepare something for me now." Of course Harry had noticed that all the usual exuberance Molly Weasley showed in greeting him had missed today, and he asked himself just how awkward things would be from now on. Mrs. Weasley remained standing in front of the hearth, shifting around pots and pans as if she didn't quite know what to do with herself. Tonks got up from her chair.

"Hello Harry. It's good to see you back again."

She smiled and gave him a quick hug, then she stepped back. "I gotta go, there's a meeting at the Ministry I have to attend to."

To Harry it sounded like a lame excuse, especially since Tonks said goodbye to him and before she left the kitchen pulled Dung up by the elbow and led the man out of the room. Harry helplessly remained standing in the middle of the room for another moment, then he went over towards the table and sat down on a chair so that he was facing Mr. Weasley.

"Hello Harry", Mr. Weasley said, and Harry drew in a deep breath to tell his best friend's parents immediately that he was sorry for what he had done and that he hadn't wanted to bring any trouble upon Ron, but somehow the words died in his throat. He looked at Mr. Weasley for a moment, then turned his eyes into his lap, watching how his hands nervously kneaded each other.

"Everything went well at the hospital?"

Harry's head shot up at Mr. Weasley's question, and for a moment he was so surprised that he had to search for an answer.

"Yes. Everything went all right, thanks. Erm…where is Ron?"

"Upstairs, doing his homework. I imagine he'll be spending most of the remaining holidays up in the room you two share."

Harry swallowed and forced himself to keep looking into Mr. Weasley's eyes.

"Mr. Weasley, I'm sorry that I got Ron involved in this. I really didn't want him to get into any trouble."

"Then what do you think asking him to steal something from me would mean, other than getting him into trouble?"

Harry drew a deep breath and searched for a proper answer to this. He found none. So instead, Mr. Weasley continued.

"Harry, you know that we care about you, very much so. Ron is nearly sixteen years old now, of course he should be able to make his own decisions, he should know what is wrong and what is right. He should be able to say no to you when you ask something of him that will get him into trouble. We've always been in favour of his friendship with you, but over the course of the past years, the two of you have managed to get yourself into one tight spot after the other. And always you came out of that relatively unharmed. Now, I know that blind luck runs out one day, I know that you can't rely on it to continue forever, and that is something the two of you will have to learn. I find it incredibly hard to believe that my own son trusts this blind luck enough to go and take something from me without my permission, and that all to help you in another harebrained scheme, one you cooked up on your own this time. I do not want to watch my son's blind luck run out one day, Harry. Especially not right now, with out world being dangerous enough as it is. And neither do I want to watch how your luck runs out. And if it's the last thing I do, I will not let Ron or you continue to risk your lives like that. No matter what it's for."

"Yeah, I know", Harry snapped, angry all of a sudden, though he didn't quite know why. He knew he had done many stupid things, especially during the past days, but he didn't need everybody to rub it in, again and again. "I know I'm not allowed to do anything that hasn't been planned and approved before I've saved the world from Voldemort."

Mr. Weasley flinched as Harry used Voldemort's name, but his eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Do you think that's the reason? Do you really think that is what I think? What we think?"

From the corner of his eyes, Harry saw Mrs. Weasley stepping up beside her husband, but he turned his eyes back to Mr. Weasley as the man continued to speak.

"Harry, the sole and simple reason why I won't stand by to watch you put your life at risk is that I care about you. Our whole family cares about you, and that never was because you were Harry Potter, the famous defeater of You-Know-Who. I had hoped you know that."

Harry shrugged and his mouth drew together in a tight and angry line. He did know, though it felt good to hear Mr. Weasley confirm it. And though he was angry, it was unjustified to unleash that anger on Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, but they just didn't see the point. He knew it was foolish, it had been a horribly risky thing to do, but didn't they see why he had done it? Didn't they see that Sirius had been worth risking all this for?

"I know that. But do you think that I plan on getting into that kind of trouble? Do you think that I ask for Voldemort to keep popping up in my life?"

Again, Mr. Weasley flinched at the mentioning of the Dark Lord's name. So did Mrs. Weasley, but she quickly found her voice again.

"With what you did this time, you seemingly took a lot of time to develop a plan."

"To bring Sirius back. Nobody believed me that he could be brought back, what should I have done? Nobody wanted to listen to me, I had to take things into my own hands before they cut him off forever."

Mrs. Weasley drew a deep breath, then she looked straight at Harry. "Albus told us what exactly happened in the Ministry that night, Harry. And there were reasons why everybody told you that this was no way to bring Sirius back."

"Well, it brought him back, didn't it?", Harry snapped back, his voice icy because he remembered all the things Mrs. Weasley had said about Sirius, all those things which she had had no right to say about him, no matter what had happened between them in the past. But instead of getting angry, Mrs. Weasley sighed and sadly shook her head.

"That is the core of what Arthur was trying to tell you. Yes, you did the impossible and managed to bring Sirius back. We don't yet know all the consequences, but you managed to bring him back. So far, every time you threw yourself into danger, you succeeded and everybody came out alive. Whenever you threw yourself into something reckless, you managed to come out of it and what you had set out to do worked out. The problem is, this will not always remain this way. And of course neither Arthur nor I want to see Ron come to harm because of his loyalty to you, but just as little do we want to see you come to any harm. You cannot rely on things to work out all by themselves every time. We don't want to see you hurt one day because you didn't consider the risks for yourself, or for somebody else involved. We're glad that you're both unharmed, we're glad that Severus and Remus are fine, and that Sirius is back. But the end does not justify the means, Harry. Ron took something from us which he shouldn't have, and you did something that was so illegal that you'd have ended up in prison had anybody seen you. You forced Severus into this, as well as Albus to cover up for you. But there won't always be Albus to cover up for you. What you did was not only about you and Sirius, there were far too many other people endangered and involved. We just want you to think about that, and keep it in mind the next time you think about doing something."

Harry sighed and shook his head. His anger had gone as quickly as it had come, but in all honesty he didn't want to have this conversation again. Not here, not now.

"I really didn't want to cause as much trouble as all this did. And I know that it wasn't all as easy and simple as I thought. Though it worked, and it did something good. It brought back somebody about whom I care very much. Probably I have done a lot of things wrongly, but that can't be changed anymore now."

"No", Mr. Weasley said. "It can't be changed anymore. But I hope you do everything to stop something like this from happening again. Your life is dangerous enough, you don't need to add anything to it."

Harry nodded silently for a moment, then he got up from his chair.

"I'd better go upstairs and see what Ron is up to."

Mrs. Weasley nodded, and she and her husband silently watched Harry as he walked out of the kitchen. Somehow, Harry had a strange feeling about this conversation. He liked the Weasleys, he cared very much for them and was immensely thankful for everything they had done for him. This had been the first time he had seen them angry or disappointed at him. Before, he had only witnessed those emotions directed to one of their own children, and though it should maybe make him feel even more as a part of the family, it made him feel strange about his whole relation to them. He was worried that things would stay as awkward now as this conversation had suggested. Those thoughts buzzed through his head as he climbed up the stairs and went towards the room he had shared with Ron during his previous times at Grimmauld Place.

When he entered the room, he found Ron sitting at the small table underneath the window, brooding over a stack of parchments. One of the holiday assignments which he had not finished yet, Harry supposed. He looked up as he heard the door open.

"Hey", Harry said and entered the room, closing the door behind himself.

"Hello Harry", Ron said, then he threw his quill down onto the parchment with a heavy sigh. "Say, have you written that Charms assignment yet? I just can't get the hang on the theory of those stupid Vanishing Spells Flitwick wanted us to write about."

"Yeah, I did write the essay. Mind you, it's probably not the best one I've written in my life, but you can have a look at it if you want to."

"I'd be eternally grateful. By the way, a few minutes ago a trunk which looks suspiciously like yours suddenly materialised over there", he gestured towards the other side of the room. "A pretty loud arrival on top of that. Gave me the hell of a scare, I can tell you. I've had to start the second scroll of parchment again because of the scare it gave me." He showed a half-filled scroll of parchment to Harry. Somewhere in the middle, Ron's writing had stopped abruptly and a long line of ink ran across what he had written. Probably the hand holding his quill had slipped due to the loud arrival of Harry's trunk. "Care to explain it?"

"Dumbledore", Harry said as he went over towards his trunk and opened it in search for his Charms essay. "He sent it upstairs after we arrived."

He found the essay, smoothed out the parchments and carried them over to Ron, who gratefully accepted them.

"How have things been here during the past days? Have your parents been really angry with you?"

Ron rolled his eyes. "To a degree which only Fred and George have experienced before. But don't you worry about it, I'll survive. I probably shouldn't behave as if nothing had happened, but otherwise I think I'm through with being talked to seriously. And I mean, somehow they're right, but still…" He shrugged helplessly. Harry sat down on the other chair in the room and looked at Ron.

"I shouldn't have asked you to help me. Your parents are right, it's bad enough that I did what I did in the Department of Mysteries, but I shouldn't have pulled you into this as well."

"Yeah, as if I'd have let you go all on your own. If I had to do it again, I wouldn't do anything different, and neither would you."

"Maybe that's our problem", Harry said, and they both lapsed into silence after that. It was Ron who finally broke it.

"They gave you the "You can't keep on risking your life speech" as well, didn't they?"

"Yes, they did", Harry said. "And as you said, in a way they're right. We've done some pretty dangerous things in the past, at times when there might have been other possibilities. Like going after Quirrell on our own, or the thing with the Chamber of Secrets. But the problem is, there always didn't seem to be an alternative that would have worked at the time. And I've been telling Remus and Professor Dumbledore countless times that there was a way to bring Sirius back, they just didn't listen. If I hadn't acted, nobody else would have. I don't exactly enjoy getting into such situations, I don't go around searching for them. It…it just always happens, it's not as if I had any influence on it. But nobody seems to see that."

Ron nodded with a sigh. "Be that as it may, for the remaining holidays they're going to watch what we do like haws. No matter that there is absolutely no reason to worry anymore, after all Sirius is back."

"Yeah, if what they say is true."

Ron frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Of course I believe Remus when he says that Sirius is back. But they just don't allow me to visit him, and I can't understand why."

"Maybe nobody is allowed to visit him. I mean, the Ministry has been waiting for nearly three years to lay their hands on him, he might not be allowed to have visitors until everything is cleared up."

"Dumbledore went to visit him already. And just now I got to know that Remus is visiting him today. When I asked him, he said that Sirius was not allowed to have visitors. Why do they want to keep me away from him?"

"Don't know, mate. But maybe it has a simple explanation and you'll get to see him sooner than you imagine."

Harry couldn't quite believe that. "Maybe", he said doubtfully. But that was another of those many things on which he didn't have any influence. He'd simply have to wait. However, there was still another important matter to consider.

"What about Hermione?"

Ron immediately put down his quill and raised his hands in front of him as if to ward off an attack.

"Don't go there, mate."

"That bad?"

"She's furious", Ron said. "Bloody mad. Seemingly, Snape found her and let her out of the cupboard, that's why he and Professor Lupin were at the Ministry that quickly. After Kingsley brought me here, he went to Hogwarts and fetched Hermione. Man, that was the worst encounter of my entire life. She came banging in here like the devil herself, giving me a lecture which would have made my mother proud. I didn't even get the chance to say anything. And just for the record, she doesn't particularly care that it was you who locked her in the cupboard, we're both guilty of the crime from her point of view."

"Sorry to drag you into this so deeply."

Ron waved him off. "It's not as if you had forced me at wand-point. I could have said no, I could have let Hermione out of the cupboard after you locked her in. I didn't, so I'd say she has a reason why she's angry with both of us. I guess we'll have to wait for an opportunity to set things straight with her."

"Why wait? I had planned on talking to her today."

"Good luck. She left for home the day after she came back from Hogwarts. So unless you want to write her a letter, you'll have to wait until September 1st to see her again. Or maybe the day before that, when we go to Diagon Alley."

"Hermione left?"

Ron nodded. "Yeah. I guess she was pretty angry, and after her holiday in France was already cut short, she went home to spend some more time with her family. Ginny went with her, her we're definitely going to meet on August 31st on Diagon Alley to do the shopping for the new school-year."

That indeed crossed all of Harry's plans to at least try to apologise to Hermione. He had guessed that it would not become easy, once her temper had risen Hermione was hard to pacify. And Harry didn't delude himself that her anger would diminish through the remaining two weeks until term at Hogwarts started again. With a sigh he sank down on his bed.

"Well, I definitely won't write her a letter, that wouldn't be a good idea."

"No. Not after locking one of your best friends into a cupboard. That definitely qualifies for a personal conversation."

None of them was looking forward to it, though. But they had done this, and now they would have to bear the consequences. While Ron bent over the parchments and continued his essay with the help of what Harry had written, Harry lay back on his bed, crossed his arms behind his back and looked up at the ceiling, contemplating whether there was anything he could say to Hermione that would make her forgive him easily.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

After delivering Harry to Grimmauld Place, Albus Dumbledore returned to Hogwarts and went directly to his office to prepare for another rather unpleasant appointment he would have the next day – a meeting with Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge. Fudge had urged for that meeting repeatedly, demanding an explanation from Dumbledore for what had happened in the Department of Mysteries – again. Dumbledore didn't dread that meeting, he knew that Fudge had more pressing problems than what had happened in the Department of Mysteries, but something like the destruction of the archway, the presence of two underage wizards and the return of a man believed dead was still not something he'd just accept without any explanation.

Not that Dumbledore had any problems with giving Fudge an explanation, one that would keep Harry's, Ron's and Severus' role within the frame of legality, but it was a time-consuming process. Nevertheless, Dumbledore needed to prepare, especially since he wanted to use that meeting for his very own purpose.

The more he forced Sirius into the focus of this meeting, the less Fudge would worry about Harry, Ron or Severus. And once the Minister concerned himself with Severus, Albus would call Kingsley to join them. Whenever he had not been on official duty to guard Sirius at the hospital, Kingsley had been digging in the Ministry's archives on Dumbledore's request. He had found not everything Dumbledore had hoped he would, but still enough. And if things went smoothly, then this meeting with Fudge would have two effects – it would even the path to get Sirius' name cleared, and it would finally put another name on top of the list of the Ministry's most wanted criminals. But considering what he had seen in the hospital, Dumbledore wasn't so sure that all this would help Sirius any.

But first things first. He prepared a cup of tea, picked up a roll of parchment Kingsley had copied in the archives and began to read.