Chapter Twenty-Six
Remus scanned the shelves of his vast book collection until he found what he was looking for. He didn't think anything of stretching up to reach it, but the splintering pain in his side stopped him in half stride.
"I thought the Healer said you supposed to be resting," Hermione's voice sounded from the doorway.
"I am," he assured her, taking the book and sinking into a nearby armchair. "I just had a momentary memory lapse where I had forgotten I had my ribs crushed."
"You could have just used magic," she said to him.
He smiled despite the pain. "That would be a bit hypocritical of me, don't you think?"
She gave a tiny shrug in response and let it go at that. "Do you need anything?"
"I'm fine, thank you."
She was almost out of there when he spoke again, causing her to stop.
"I think those were the most words you've spoken to me since I've been home," he noted. "Is there something on your mind, Hermione?"
She bit her lower lip, silently debating whether to say anything to him. She could still recall how angry and disappointed he'd been with her when he found out everything she had been doing with magic and told her she needed to stop. She had finally been making some real progress in getting over her so-called magic dependency and then with barely any conscious thought had used magic in the Death Eater fight at the Christmas Ball. She had been keeping the incident to herself. She knew Ron would just worry about her and Harry was having his own crisis, which left her with no one to talk to.
"Hermione?" Said Remus, sounding concerned now.
She focused on a spot on the carpet, so she wouldn't have to look at him when she spoke. "I used magic when you were attacked at the Ministry Ball."
"I see," was Remus's response, though his expression was unreadable.
"I didn't give it a second thought or anything. I just saw you go down and I picked up a loose wand and used it. I don't think Tonks saw anything because she already had her hands full." She knew she was rambling by that point, but couldn't stop herself. She had been living with the guilt of it for days, and despite how disappointed she knew Remus would be, it felt like a herd of hippogriffs had been lifted off her chest.
"Have you used any magic since then?" He asked when she had finished.
She shook her head.
"So then you broke your promise not to use magic because lives were in jeopardy?"
When he said it like that it didn't sound so bad, but if it wasn't, how come she felt like this? "I know it was a dire situation, but I didn't even consider any other options. It was just like before where I was using magic to solve any problem."
Remus closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. "Do you want to be punished, Hermione?" He opened his eyes and regarded her closely.
"I – I don't know," she responded uncertainly.
"Because it sounds to me like you've already punished yourself enough," he said in return. "I know I was rather adamant about you staying away from magic for awhile, and that was because I needed you to see the path you were heading down – what you would become if you didn't stop. I didn't say you could never practice magic again. Perhaps all you need is the right teacher."
She understood his meaning clearly. "You want to be my professor again?"
Remus chuckled. "It's not what you think. I know you don't need any sort of remedial lessons or the like. But I know, unlike Ron and Harry you're interested in taking your N.E.W.T.s, and despite what you've done at the Ministry you still have much to learn. You haven't even studied human Animagus transformations or advanced level defense against the dark arts."
"You think that I'm all right to start practicing magic again?"
"Hermione, I don't even know if having you stop using magic in the first place was the right thing to do. I think you're an intelligent enough young woman that you can learn from your past mistakes and judge if you're ready to take the next step in your magical education."
He knew if he phrased it like that – like a challenge – it would be the only way she would get over her fears and accept his offer. She didn't disappoint him.
"What exactly did you have in mind?" She asked, her curiousity already getting the better of her.
"On Monday you'll find out," he told her.
Harry wasn't sure why Mackenzie had sent a Ministry owl to his house with a note telling him to come down to the Auror department as soon as he received it. It was his day off, and if he had learned anything during his time at the Ministry, getting called into work in such an official way on your day off was not a good sign.
Once inside the Ministry, he went through the standard security check before catching a lift up to the Auror department. He wasn't surprised to find a skeleton staff of Aurors in the department. After the Death Eater attack at the Christmas Ball and the escape of Jack Anderson, Moody probably had everyone working the field; not wanting to give Voldemort's followers a chance to plan another coordinated attack.
He rapped his knuckles against Mackenzie's closed door, who responded immediately.
"Come in!" Her voice barked from inside her office.
Harry gripped the door handle and strode inside.
"Shut the door, Potter."
He did as he was told before taking a standing position in front of her desk.
"Your response time is better than some of the veteran Aurors around here," she remarked, as she shut the folder on her desk labeled CLASSIFIED.
Harry said nothing. Mackenzie was not one to tip toe around an issue. He just wanted her to get on with explaining why he was there.
"Has Alastor spoken to you at all?" She questioned him.
Harry knew for sure then that something was. Mackenzie never referred to Moody by his first name. He shook his head to indicate no.
Mackenzie made a derisive noise. "Of course he would make a decision like this and leave me to explain it to you."
"What decision?" Harry demanded, feeling like he had already been more than patient.
"I'm having you removed from active duty," she informed him.
Of all the things he had been expecting it had not been that. "Why?" He rasped, barely able to find his voice. What could Moody have possible said to her to make her do this?
"Potter, I think you know why."
"Well, I don't, so why don't you explain it to me." He was fuming at this point, and knew with his last remark how close he was to bordering on insubordination.
Mackenzie, who seemed to understand the outrage he was feeling, gave him some leeway. "There has been an armload of Death Eater activity since their attack at the Christmas Ball. As for the investigation into the escape of Jack Anderson, it has so far resulted in no leads as to who's responsible. Both of these locations were supposed to be a secret and the fact that Moody, who is heading up both investigations, is no closer to finding out what happened has a lot of upper echelons in the Ministry concerned."
"I already know all this," said Harry. "But what does it have to with – " he halted in mid thought, understanding finally dawning on him but he did not like where his thoughts had led him one bit. "He thinks I had something to do with both incidents?" He had not thought it impossible for his fury to grow any further, but there he was ready to explode.
"Potter, it's on your record that You-Know-Who has possessed you before. He's even tried more subtle approaches like looking into your mind when you're asleep and drawing out pieces of information when you're the most vulnerable."
Harry's head was spinning. The Ministry had a record of all these things? "That's why I've had Occlumency training, so I can prevent Voldemort from seeing into my mind."
"But you stopped Occlumency months ago, isn't that right?"
"I think I would know if someone was messing with my head," he told her, wondering exactly how Mackenzie had all this information on him.
"Can you be absolutely certain about that?" She asked, giving him a penetrating look.
Of course there was no way to be one hundred percent certain that Voldemort couldn't sneak a peek into his mind whenever he fancied and his silence confirmed that.
"Have you seen what's going on out there? You need me," Harry said, making one final attempt to get Mackenzie to come around.
"To agree with your assessment of the current state of things, yes, it's gotten worse, and that means you've got more of a price on your head than ever before. I'm sorry, Potter, but I can't take the chance that you'll be putting your partner or any other Aurors at unnecessary risk."
She turned back to her paperwork, grabbing another file folder off the top of her pile. "Shut the door on you way out," she said, signaling the end of the conversation.
Harry, having no other choice left to him, walked out of Mackenzie's office.
Hermione divided her attention between reading the book in her hands and watching Ron flip through the channels on the telly, looking for something to watch. Normally, she would be able to tune out any unwanted distractions, but not on that evening. She wanted to tell him Remus was going to supervise her N.E.W.T. level education, but wasn't quite sure how he would respond to that news.
She decided to finally put aside her misgivings and broach the subject to him. "Remus thinks I'm ready to start using magic again," she blurted out.
Ron settled on a channel, but didn't pay attention to the program playing on the screen. "So he thinks that after a month you're all better?"
"You make it sound like I had some kind of dreadful disease."
"What do you call it then?" He said, turning his head to look at her. "You were using magic for everything and didn't have the power to stop yourself."
"I wasn't – I – " She stopped herself, realizing that his assessment was valid, and tried a different approach. "I'm doing this because I want to take my N.E.W.T.s. They may not matter to you, but they're important to me."
"And your starting up with magic again has nothing to do with the fact that you can't stand how everyone else is putting themselves in danger to help the war effort?" He asked, knowing the N.E.W.T.s were only a small reason behind her insistence to work with their former Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.
"Of course it's important for me to do my part," she replied, not the least bit flustered by his comment. "I feel useless, and I'm sick of feeling that way."
"You're not the only one feeling that way," said a new voice.
Ron and Hermione turned at the sound of Harry's voice, both a bit startled at not hearing him enter the house.
"Where'd you go?" Ron asked, hoping to engage him in a conversation before he disappeared into his 'fortress of solitude' again to mope about Ginny.
"I went to see Mackenzie," he told them. "She sent an owl asking me to come down to the Ministry."
"That's rather rare, isn't it?" Said Hermione. "I mean they don't usually send out Ministry owls for no reason. What did she want?"
Harry flopped down in a chair opposite his friends, saying, "we skipped the small talk and got right into how I'm too much of a liability to continue being an Auror at the present time."
"She didn't!" Hermione cried in disbelief. "The Auror numbers are still fairly low, even though they've adjusted some of their requirements."
"I don't think that much matters to Mackenzie, especially since it was an order from Moody," Harry responded.
"Moody told her to sack you?" Ron said, outraged.
"Moody thinks I may be leaking information to Voldemort unintentionally," said Harry, looking at his friends.
"You haven't had any nightmares or visions have you?" Hermione asked him.
"No," he answered immediately. "I haven't so much as felt my scar twinge in days," he told them.
"Then you're not the one who's been feeding You-Know-Who information," Ron said simply, as if that decided everything.
"But how else would he have known about the location of the Ball or where Jack Anderson was being kept?" Harry said, suddenly not feeling so sure. "Moody has been investigating the two incidents for weeks and has found nothing to show that the Aurors or someone else collaborated with the Death Eaters. Aside from the three of us, only six other people knew where Jack Anderson was being kept and Moody has already questioned all of them. I think Moody suspects that Ron and I knew where he was, he just can't prove it."
"Harry, none of that proves anything. Moody's just following his own paranoia since he can't find any concrete evidence of a traitor," Hermione said reasonably.
"It doesn't disprove anything either," said Harry stubbornly.
"What about all the Order meetings you've been a part of?" Hermione said, refusing to fall into Moody's line of thinking. "You know as much as anyone else and how come that information hasn't been used?"
"I don't know," Harry said shrugging. "Maybe he can only pick up certain pieces of information from me, or maybe he doesn't think the Order stuff is relevant."
Hermione sat in contemplation for several moments before saying, "there might be one way to figure out if Voldemort can get into your mind."
"How?" Said Harry and Ron at the same time.
"If you talked to an accomplished Legilimens he would be able to look into your mind and see if there's any weak spots that Voldemort might be able to penetrate. I know Snape is awful," she continued, seeing the scowl plant itself on Harry's face, "but if it would give you piece of mind and show Moody you can be trusted, isn't worth a try?"
"I suppose," Harry grumbled, not too keen on the idea. Snape had made it perfectly clear he would not help him in any way, shape or form ever again, and just the thought of having to grovel to that slimy git for anything made his insides churn. No, he was just going to have to find some other way of knowing if he was a threat to his friends and the Order.
Ginny opened the door to her room after hearing the low knocking against it. She was sure she hadn't imagined it, but there was no one standing in the hallway. She went to close the door when she felt something invisible brush passed her.
"Aren't you taking a bit of risk sneaking up here in the middle of the day?" Ginny said, once the door was shut.
"I know, but I wanted to see you," said Harry, removing his invisibility cloak. "I know I haven't been around much these last few days."
She gave a brief smile. "It's perfectly understandable considering we're not supposed to see each other."
"So you're okay?" He asked, afraid that their encounter from a few nights ago would have set off the empath abilities within her again. He knew she was still being affected by him, but as long as she wasn't picking up on the feelings of others around they weren't taking a step backwards.
"Can't you tell?" She said playfully but Harry just scowled. "Harry, what's wrong?" She narrowed her eyes and said, "you're – " She almost said he was purposely blocking his mind from her but she was afraid to voice that she was still connected to him even when he already knew that.
"What are we going to do about this?" He asked her, sitting on her bed. As much as he wanted to be with Ginny, he needed to put her safety above all else.
"We could go to Remus," Ginny suggested, sinking on to the bed beside him.
Harry looked at her as if she'd lost her mind. "He thinks we've been staying away from each other. When he finds out we haven't – "
"Maybe there's something he can do."
"If there was, he would have suggested it in the first place or Dumbledore would have."
"Maybe they didn't know what else to do and that seemed like the safest solution at the time. I don't really fancy Remus knowing about our personal life either, but unless you're content to keep sneaking around, and maybe make whatever this is worse again – we should explain the situation to him."
"All right," Harry agreed lying back on the bed. Though he was still not fully convinced it was the right thing to do. Then again, continuing to sneak around probably wasn't the best solution either. "But can it wait until tomorrow?" He rather liked the idea of spending one more night pretending there was nothing wrong with what they were doing.
"That's fine with me," Ginny agreed, snuggling up next to him.