Thank you for the reviews yesterday! That was a rather mild chapter.
Now here comes the angst again! Did you miss it?
Chapter Thirty-Three: On the Wings of the StormA howl of outrage from Pansy distracted Harry from eating breakfast and mulling over how best to word his return letter to Lucius. He sat back with a frown and leaned down the table, trying to see what had happened to her. The only time he'd heard her howl like that before was when Millicent had put marmalade in her hair one morning.
But Pansy wasn't swiping at her hair, or attempting to strangle and hex Millicent at the same time. Instead, she held the Daily Prophet in front of her and shook it as though she were going to tear it apart. Her eyes were fastened to the front page, but Harry hadn't received the newspaper and couldn't tell from here what story had upset her so much.
He glanced at Draco. The other boy frowned and shook his head. Harry started to stand up, but Millicent tapped him on the shoulder just then and handed her copy of the paper over.
Harry focused on the headline, and felt his breakfast congeal in his stomach.
MINISTRY OF MAGIC TO ENACT ANTI-WEREWOLF LEGISLATION
Harry couldn't help stealing a glance at the head table. Remus was pale, but he met Harry's gaze resolutely enough. Most of the school still didn't know he was a werewolf. He obviously wanted to keep it that way by not showing any overt reaction to the story. He turned the page as Harry watched and calmly took a bite of his toast.
Harry went back to the story.
By: Melinda Honeywhistle
Minister Fudge has reported today that the Ministry of Magic will pass laws to control and regulate any werewolves living in Britain.
"It's quite ridiculous, the amount of leeway that we've permitted them," huffed the Minister as he met with the press on Friday to discuss the proposed legislation. "There are much tougher laws on the books, but we've never enforced them, out of the goodness of our hearts. And now, to learn that a werewolf would come into the Ministry and attack one of our valuable employees. It's an outrage!"
The Minister is referring to Monday's attack on Walden Macnair, an executioner for the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures. The werewolf Fenrir Greyback found his way into the Ministry offices of the Committee and tried to bite Macnair, claiming he wanted to punish the executioner for the amount of werewolves he had executed.
The attack was fended off and hushed up. Apparently, Mr. Macnair had a noble wish: to avoid bringing blame on all werewolves for the actions of one.
"Fenrir Greyback is a blemish on all his kind," he told this reporter when she caught up with him on Friday after the Minister's press conference. "He's one of the few who can pass on his bite in human form, you know, because he's so thoroughly embraced the wolf. I'm afraid of him. But that doesn't mean that we should toughen all the laws. Other werewolves might live in harmony with us, if we just give them the chance."
Minister Fudge evidently does not agree.
"What happened to Mr. Macnair is a horror and a crime that should never be allowed to take place again," the Minister proclaimed to all assembled. "Therefore, we are placing laws in—in place to insure that it does not."
The Minister refused to discuss the precise content of these laws, but hinted darkly that they would be much sterner than they have been in the past.
"We can't have animals attacking good, decent magical folk," was the Minister's last word as he left the press conference. "It's just not right."
Harry laid his paper down and fought to calm himself. He could handle this. He really could. He had to think, and not react.
The first thing that came to mind was the letter Scrimgeour had sent him, in response to Harry's request for Remus to take over guardianship of Connor. That would be most unwise, Harry thought bitterly. Of course it would. The attack on Macnair hadn't even happened then, but the Ministry must have been considering toughening the laws. I bet you anything one of them is a law stating that no werewolf is allowed to have custody of a child.
The second thing was Starborn's reminder that Macnair and Greyback were working together, two servants utterly committed to the Dark Lord's cause. Harry had no doubt that the attack on Macnair was fake, a way to shove the faltering Ministry into passing the laws in the first place.
But why? Those laws will make things harder for Greyback, too.
The answer came easily. Because they want the werewolves to have no choice but to turn to Voldemort for help and protection—and become part of his armies, of course.
Harry wanted to scream in frustration. He supposed he could send a warning to Scrimgeour, but he doubted the man would turn against the Ministry he so loved, and Harry wouldn't be able to explain where he got his information about Macnair being a committed Death Eater. Mysterious letters, with a handwriting charm on them, from an even more mysterious source? Why, yes, of course, that sounds entirely trustworthy, Mr. Potter. I'll get on that right away.
Harry shook his head and went back to his breakfast. Damn it, he would have to think about this, but he just didn't know what to do right now.
Actually, he thought, as he heard the muted sobs down the table, he did know one thing he could do. He shoved back his chair and went to comfort Pansy. She was having to pretend to her peers who didn't know about Hawthorn that she was upset with something else in the paper. Harry wanted to reassure her that she wasn't alone.
By late Saturday afternoon, Harry had decided what else he would do. He'd drafted a letter to Scrimgeour explaining the situation, Starborn's letters and all. Harry had admitted that he didn't know who Starborn was, and Scrimgeour was free to leave or take the information as he saw fit. But Harry would have been bothered to do nothing at all.
He didn't quite manage to slip out of the Slytherin common room before Draco caught him. "Going alone to the Owlery, Harry?" he asked, lightly, but with a familiar tightness around his eyes.
Harry scowled at him. "Well, I was." He hadn't been the most pleasant person to be around since the announcement of the Ministry's betrayal, he knew, but Draco took it in stride.
"Now you're not," he said, and jogged alongside Harry as he strode rapidly through the halls. Harry muttered to himself, and if the words "Ministry" and "blind idiots" appeared far more often than they should in a random rant, Draco was kind enough not to say anything about it.
Harry hesitated when they came to one of the usual third-floor corridors to the Owlery. It was full of second-year Hufflepuffs, and the Weasley twins were standing in the middle of them, with enormous smiles. Even as Harry watched, a bang and a flash of colored smoke went up from beside the twins, and the Hufflepuffs shrieked.
Harry shook his head. "Not that way," he murmured to Draco, and they backed off before anyone could notice them. Harry turned around to take another route.
A light scampering sound reached his ears, and he whirled, wand drawn in his left hand. His first thought was of an artificial Dark spider, like the one that had attacked him outside Trelawney's Tower in February. But he saw the slight twitch of whiskers, and the slender shape of a rat, in time to stop himself from firing a hex. He relaxed.
"Disgusting," said Draco, and Harry glanced over to see that he'd drawn his own wand.
"Wait, no, Draco!" Harry caught his wrist. "This rat is a…friend."
"Really," said Draco, in a tone full of drawling disbelief that he had to have learned from Lucius.
Harry opened his mouth to answer, and then Peter transformed. Draco yelped, but tried to step in front of Harry instead of scrambling away. "Who are you?" he asked. "If you want to hurt him, you'll have to go through me."
"And you say I say melodramatic things when I'm referring to my brother," Harry muttered, exasperated, and dragged Draco out of the way. He nodded to Peter. "What brings you here?"
"I found a new hole in the wards," Peter murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. "And I came to ask you if you could look into my mind. I know you said you were learning Occlumency. What about Legilimency?"
Harry blinked. "Yes, I am, but I'm a very poor beginner at it so far." He'd had several arguments with Snape on the subject. While Harry had a natural liking for Occlumency's defensive shields, he found it very hard to want to push his will into someone else's mind. Snape understood that, and was deeply unsympathetic, pointing out that Harry still needed to learn it.
"Please try," said Peter. "Lately, my thoughts don't feel like my own. I see flashes of gold that remind me of the phoenix web sometimes, but I don't see how, since I know I got mine under control or I could never have escaped from Azkaban in the first place. I woke up this morning with the urge to tell you to trust Dumbledore." He shook his head. "I know it seems impossible, but could you please look?"
Harry hesitated, then nodded one more time. "All right, but if I don't find anything, then you might want to go see Snape."
"Are you kidding?" Peter snorted. "The man terrifies me."
"He's not that bad," Harry began, but gave up when he saw the expression on Peter's face. "All right, all right, but I'm not promising anything." He shifted his wand so that it pointed at Peter—he still didn't trust himself to do this wandlessly—fixed his eyes on the other man's, and murmured, "Legilimens."
A brief, dizzying swirl of motion consumed him. He felt as though he were traveling forward, on the end of an arrow made of pure will. Then he was past the first trembling barrier and into Peter's mind.
He caught a glimpse of gold, but it vanished. Harry frowned and pressed forward, trying to find out if there really was a web here.
He found Peter's mind odd—endless gray corridors, broken here and there by doors that Harry supposed led to memories and suppressed emotions. Dark, prowling shapes were probably his mental defenses, or his magic. It wasn't until one of the shapes drifted past him and Harry recognized it as a Dementor that Harry realized Peter had constructed his mind to resemble Azkaban.
Swallowing a surge of pity that would distract him from his goal, Harry slipped past the Dementors and opened a few doors, looking for the golden web. He found nothing. The brightest color in Peter's mind was olive green, which flashed whenever Harry came near it. He supposed that was the part of Peter's will that had to do with protecting him.
Then he realized he had hunted in the corridors and behind the doors and past the Dementors, but he had not looked in one very simple place. He stepped back and looked up.
There was the web, a faint, glimmering thing, but real, stretching over the gray stone blocks of the ceiling. Harry let out a harsh breath and started to reach towards it, gently. He would not break it as he had the web of Remus's Obliviate, but there was no doubt that Peter needed it gone.
Then something jerked him rudely out of Peter's mind, and he looked up to see Professor McGonagall rounding the corner at a dead run, followed by Professor Sprout. "The wards are going mad," McGonagall said, panting. "What in the name of Merlin--?"
Peter had already transformed and scuttled back to whatever hole in the wall he had emerged from. Harry grimaced and managed to keep from looking after him. I bet Dumbledore left that hole open in the wards as a trap for Peter, so that he would be tempted to come here and seek me out, and Dumbledore could catch him inside Hogwarts.
"I didn't hear any wards, Professors," he said, and glanced at Draco. "Did you hear any wards, Draco?"
The other boy solemnly shook his head. Harry smiled at him, thanking him for going along with the pretense, although he knew from Draco's pointed stare that he would have some explaining to do later.
"Of course you wouldn't, they're keyed to the professors," said Sprout, and pushed her tumble-down hat back on her head. "What do you think, Minerva? Should we search the corridors?"
"Of course, Pomona," said McGonagall, but she was frowning at Harry. Harry put on his most innocent expression. He knew that he could probably get McGonagall to believe him about Peter if he took the time to explain, but he didn't have Peter's permission to do so, not even the implicit permission he'd granted Harry to tell Draco about him by appearing in front of them both.
McGonagall shook her head at last, and she and Sprout both turned, trotting down a side-corridor. Harry sighed and faced Draco.
"I suppose we're going up to the Owlery?" he asked.
"Sure," Draco agreed easily. "And along the way, you can explain why you have the most interesting friends."
"Of course," said Harry. "I think it all started when this stuck-up, snotty pureblood boy approached me on the Hogwarts Express in the first year…"
He ducked Draco's punch, grinning. It kept him from thinking about what it meant that Peter was apparently wearing yet another phoenix web.
Harry yawned and knuckled at his eyes, then sat back with a sigh. Hermione had been right. Every single book with so much as a reference to the phoenix web had been removed from the library.
He stood, immediately drawing Millicent's attention. She'd settled the incipient fight between Draco and Harry earlier in the evening—Harry wanted to go to the library; Draco wanted to stay in their rooms and work on his Charms homework—by volunteering to accompany him. Draco had been a bit uneasy, but since he trusted someone else to watch Harry in Divination for him, he couldn't really object. And most people knew not to mess with Millicent, unless they wanted either a pulled ear or a vicious hex.
"Ready to go back?" she asked.
"Yeah." Harry glanced at the clock he'd brought along with him, another part of Draco's compromise. Draco seemed to think Harry would feel better if he knew instantly what Draco and Snape were doing at all times when they weren't with him. That way, he would know where to find them if he needed their comfort or company.
Snape's hand was lodged under PLOTTING. Harry hadn't yet seen it move, except when Snape was making potions; if Snape stopped plotting even in his sleep, he did it long after Harry fell asleep himself. Draco's was under STUDYING, but even as Harry watched, it moved. Harry smiled. So they had finished at the same time, and he could go back and entertain Draco. It really was a shame that the clock didn't include a setting for 'bored,' which Draco usually was when Harry wasn't with him.
Then Harry's smile froze as Draco's hand settled under IN DANGER.
Harry gasped, heart pounding and head feeling oddly light and dizzy. He nodded to Millicent. "Can you bring my clock and my books for me?" he whispered, and then tore out of the library.
"Harry? Harry!" Millicent was shouting after him, earning a sharp reprimand from Madam Pince. Harry ignored them both. Millicent was a smart girl. She would be able to look at the clock and see what was happening.
Harry reached the stairs and skidded down them, rolling and falling where necessary, the way that Lily had taught him to fall from a broom. His thoughts were chaotic, welling on the edge of panic, but he refused to let panic rule him. He made a plan instead, and brought his magic up around him, locking it firmly in place. He was ready if someone struck at him with a spell, and he was ready to destroy any Dark artifacts that might threaten Draco the way he had destroyed the snake.
He reached the dungeon corridor, and forced himself to pause as he heard a sharp crack from ahead. It sounded like the crack of a house elf's Apparition. When he stepped around the corner, though, there was no house elf there.
Harry hurried to the door, gasped, "Dragonsbane," and then all but jumped inside as the wall slid open. He tore through the common room, earning more than his share of curious looks, and then snatched open the door of their bedroom—
And stopped.
Draco looked up curiously from his Charms book. "Harry! You're back. What's the matter?" He sat up, looking concerned.
Harry stared around the room, breathing hard. He saw no evidence of Dark magical artifacts, nor of anyone hiding and waiting to cast a spell. He concentrated on his hearing, but couldn't hear the slight breathing and shuffling that would have given someone under an Invisibility Cloak away. Harry bit his lip, bewildered. Had the clock been wrong after all?
A warning twinge, his magic breathing in another kind of magic perhaps, wafted over his skin, and he remembered his experience in Peter's mind last weekend. He took a step back and looked up.
The ceiling was covered with a rustling mat of spiders, like the one that had attacked him in the corridor by the North Tower.
Harry had barely seen them when they fell on him.
Harry went to his knees, ignoring Draco's shout of his name, forcing himself to remember what the spider in the corridor had done. Breathed out spores, he thought, and took a deep breath and held it, even as his skin crawled from the effect of hundreds of tiny legs racing all over it.
Hard ridges, the spiders' metallic outsides, brushed and cut him. Harry felt mandibles snap at his sleeves and robe folds, but luckily the cloth was fending them off so far. But it was only a matter of time before one of them found skin. Harry wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that their bite was poisonous.
He couldn't use cold; it probably wouldn't affect Dark magical artifacts like this. He shuddered as a crawling leg rasped at his lips, and one of the spiders did a tap-dance across his eyelid. He couldn't use Parseltongue, as he had to call the snake, because these weren't serpents.
What would be the best weapon?
He hit on it just as a spider hit on him, and its mandibles went home into flesh. Harry wailed silently at the unexpectedly icy sting of the poison, but didn't let himself scream aloud. He was growing dizzy with lack of breath, and the solution to that problem was to destroy the spiders.
He imagined the small ball of golden light he'd called to rest in his hand, like a Snidget or a phoenix, when he'd given his message to everyone who cared to see it on the vernal equinox. He clenched his hands close together and imagined that intensity of power again, only this time he wouldn't let it expand. He would concentrate it in a tight space, just around his body, just above his skin, and—
A second spider bit him just before it burst into flame from within, irradiated by a blast of pure magic. Harry viciously held onto his breath and his power, not letting it surge outward. It crackled just above his skin, burning the spiders' metallic outsides, overwhelming their magic with its own, and Harry imagined it hotter and hotter, brighter and brighter, until the last spider fell away from him.
He stood, wobbling uncertainly, breathing in what felt like the most wonderful air ever created, and caught Draco's horrified eyes in the moment before dizziness swamped him. "Poison," he whispered. "Tell Snape to look at the spiders' jaws, if any are left."
He pushed his magic back inside his skin, and then collapsed. Two icy arrows of venom rode his body towards his heart.
Harry opened his eyes slowly. He knew he was in the hospital wing, because he remembered the spiders biting him, and where else would he be? He was not lucky enough to have Draco merely tell Snape and have his guardian brew an antivenin that would cure him at once and keep the matter quiet.
He saw Draco first, on one side of the bed, and Snape on the other. Draco gave a little cry of relief and clenched his hand down on Harry's left one. Harry didn't feel anything for a moment, and panicked, but then Draco lifted his hand high enough for him to see it was all there, fingers intact. Harry relaxed a bit and looked at Snape.
"The spiders' ice numbed your extremities," Snape said, his voice not giving anything away. "It will be some time before you regain all feeling in your left hand and your right foot, the places where they bit you. But you will live, and you will regain it eventually."
Harry nodded. "Thank you, sir. I'm alive thanks to a potion that you brewed, I take it?"
"There would not have been time to brew it from scratch," said Snape. His body was still tightly coiled, his voice nearly as cold as the venom. "But it was similar enough to adder poison that I was able to modify the formula, and that saved your life."
"Thank you, sir," Harry repeated.
Snape abruptly stood and strode from the hospital wing. Harry watched him go with a puzzled frown, then glanced at Draco, who just shook his head.
"Don't mind him, Harry," he whispered. "He was frantic when he thought you were going to die. And then it turned out you weren't, and now he seems to think he has to go cold to make up for feeling a real, human emotion. Besides, he needs someone to blame, and he hasn't figured out how to blame you for risking your life yet." Draco hesitated, his face growing sober. "Or who sent those spiders into the room."
Harry gnawed his lip. His thoughts felt sluggish, probably as a result of the potions he'd taken, but he could force them to move, leap, and concentrate. "You never saw them enter?"
"No," Draco admitted. "They were small enough that they could have hidden in all the corners of the room, then come together just in time to catch you."
Harry blinked. "I thought they were for you," he said. "The clock said you were in danger."
"I probably was," Draco said. "Snape recognized the spiders—the Dark Lord had some like them, from the treasuries of some of the older Dark families. They'll obey their master's orders, go into a room and wait for a command to attack, but they're not really smart. After a certain amount of time has passed, if they can't fulfill their orders to attack one particular person, then they'll bite anything that moves."
Harry sighed, as he remembered the crack of house elf Apparition. "I think someone had a house elf watching for me, to report when I was almost in the room," he muttered. "And I didn't even pause to think about it. I was too worried that you might already be dying."
Draco grinned at him. "You don't need to apologize for that, Harry. I'm flattered, really." Then he sat back, and his face assumed a more austere expression. "But you do need to explain dashing out of the library so quickly that Millicent couldn't follow."
Harry stared at him. "I just did. I thought you were in danger."
"And what if someone had attacked you on the way back to the dungeons?" Draco countered. "What if the person threatening me wasn't setting up an ambush in our room, but along the way, and just used the spiders to make you panic and not think about where you were going?"
"That's ridiculous, Draco," said Harry. "You're getting paranoid."
"I'm sensible," Draco retorted. "And you nearly died. And you have a vengeful best friend, and a vengeful guardian stewing in the dungeons who is going to make everyone's life hell for the next few days while he tries to figure out a way to admit he was terrified for you. I think that's worth some basic safety, Harry." He leaned back and looked at him sternly until Harry nodded in reluctant acceptance.
"Good!" said Draco brightly. "Now, Blaise has agreed to give up some sleep so that you can still shower at your insanely early time—"
That was as far as Draco got before the door to the hospital wing abruptly crashed open. Harry blinked and turned his head. Connor stood in the doorway, looking nearly as angry as he had when he first accused Harry of making their mother a Muggle.
"How dare you!" he screamed in Harry's general direction.
"I am going to kill him."
Draco didn't shout the words, which was what had Harry worried. He snapped his hand out and cried, "Expelliarmus!" as Draco tried to draw his wand. The wand smacked into Harry's palm, and Draco gave him a furious, betrayed look.
Connor was still ranting. "How could you take me away from my lessons with Sirius?" he shouted. He stood at the foot of Harry's bed and yelled hard enough that Harry could feel the flecks of spittle on his face. "The Headmaster just told me. I don't know what you did to Dumbledore, maybe you compelled him or something, that would make sense, that's what Dark wizards do, but how could you—how could you—" Connor broke off, breathing raggedly. His face was red with splotches and tears.
Harry didn't know what Draco was going to do in time to prevent it, and given how sore his muscles felt, he might not have managed to move even if he did. Draco punched Connor in the face with all his strength. Harry heard the savage crumple of bone, and his brother fell to the floor, wailing.
"Your brother just nearly died," Draco said, and he had never sounded more like Lucius to Harry. He bent over Connor and said the words directly into his face, tone hard and cold enough to make Harry shiver. "And you, instead of coming here to ask after his health like a concerned sibling, come here and accuse him of trying to make life better for you. So he's taking you away from that insane idiot you call a godfather. He's teaching you himself, did you know that? Giving up time and effort so that you can become a better wizard."
Connor said something that Harry couldn't understand, given that his fingers were clamped over his face. At least part of it sounded like "want to corrupt me," though.
Draco's voice grew harsher and quieter. "It's beyond me why Harry cares for you," he spat. "But he does, Merlin help him, and so I'm not going to kill you—although I knew a few hexes that would be worth Harry's ill regard for the next two years. I'm going to insure that his life is still good, even with you in it, you worthless piece of hippogriff dung. You won't take anything away from him. I'll drag you into being a good brother if I have to. I'll make sure that he still smiles and laughs even while he's teaching you. And someday, I'll make you apologize, and mean it."
He stood and moved away from Connor, who lay on the floor, sobbing. Harry sat in the middle of the bed and had no idea what to say. Draco moved up beside him.
"I'm never going to apologize for that one, Harry," he said, eyes narrowed. "You might as well give up the idea right now. And I'm going to sit in on every one of your lessons with him, and make sure that you're not just pouring your skill and love down the drain."
"All right," Harry whispered. His head rebounded with the echoes of what Draco had said to Connor. Two realizations had come up on him sharply.
There really are other people in the world who don't think my brother is worth more than hippogriff dung. If I think that, I'm not going to be alone. I don't have to feel guilty. That was the first one.
The second was, Merlin, how much must Draco care for me, to want to spend time with a person he abhors, just to make sure I don't kill myself trying to do the impossible?
"Can I have my wand back now?" Draco asked, and Harry absently handed it over.
"What is all this?" Madam Pomfrey asked just then, sweeping around the corner with a tray on a strap around her neck. The tray contained various shimmering vials of potion, Harry saw. "I step out for five minutes, and a fight happens, in my hospital wing?" She shook her head and set the tray down on the table next to Harry's bed. "Into a bed, Mr. Potter—Connor. Mr. Malfoy, please leave now."
She doesn't sound as outraged as she should have, Harry thought, staring at the matron. And isn't it a coincidence that she only entered after everything was all over?
Madam Pomfrey caught his glance and tilted him a wink as she helped Connor into a bed. Harry blinked several times. So it's not only students who don't really like Connor.
Merlin help me, I'll have a lot of work ahead of me to teach him the proper way of things.
"See you tomorrow, Harry," Draco said softly, drawing his gaze back, and then squeezed his hand and left the hospital wing.
Harry lay back, absently accepting a sleeping potion when Madam Pomfrey insisted he take it. Until it took effect, his thoughts whirled and danced in the chaos he hadn't permitted them to assume earlier.
I have a lot of things to think about.
Harry winced as Sirius bowled out of the Great Hall, obviously on the verge of yet another fight with Snape. At least Sirius had himself under better control now, and would walk away when the insults grew too fierce, instead of attacking.
A glance back at the head table told Harry that Snape was smirking as he finished his breakfast, viciously pleased with himself. Harry groaned softly. He wished that Snape had found something more productive to do with his anger at the murder attempt on Harry than simply insulting the other professors until they cracked. Of course, if they could actually find out who had done it, then he might calm down—or at least refocus his anger on the criminal instead.
Harry sighed wearily and scooped up a spoonful of porridge. Dumbledore had questioned all the house elves in Hogwarts. None of them had put the spiders into the Slytherin rooms, or spied on Harry's progress and told the spiders' master when to release them. Harry didn't trust the Headmaster—least of all since he had learned about the renewal of Peter's web—but he didn't really think Dumbledore would have lied about this. Indeed, he had been very concerned over almost losing Harry. He still needed him to teach Connor, of course.
"Harry."
Harry jumped at the grave tone in Draco's voice, and turned to see his friend holding the Daily Prophet out towards him. Harry swallowed and took the paper. He wasn't sure what he expected to see on the front page—more about the anti-werewolf legislation, which was encountering some problems, maybe, or mysterious news of Fenrir Greyback's even more mysterious activities.
His heart nearly stopped when he saw what was there.
DEATH EATERS ESCAPE FROM AZKABAN"Shit," Harry whispered, and skimmed the story. Various phrases leaped out at him here and there.
…lack of Dementors on the prison, as they were called to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to look for the fugitive Peter Pettigrew…guards described a 'gray presence' invading their minds and sending them to sleep…anti-Apparition wards destroyed…the prison has lost all the Death Eaters in custody, including the infamous Bellatrix Lestrange…Aurors can find no trace…
Harry put the paper down and took a deep, steadying breath. He knew what he was going to do about this, unlike the werewolf legislation.
Thus, when Draco asked him just that a moment later, Harry was able to smile grimly and say, "I'm going to fight, of course. And train Connor to fight. He's one of their primary targets."
"Aren't you glad that I insisted on coming to the lessons and tightening the protections around you after all?" Draco asked lightly, his hand shaking just a bit as he picked up an apple. "This way, we're already half-prepared."
Harry nodded. His panic was subsiding into grim determination.
I will not let them destroy me with fear. Fear is eating the Ministry alive from the inside out. Fear is destroying Connor. It hinders Dumbledore and makes Snape impossible to live with.
I am going to fight.