Thank you for all the reviews yesterday!
Warning: This chapter is very dark.
The title comes from a quote by Sir Francis Bacon.
Chapter Nine: A Kind of Wild JusticeHarry didn't know the part of himself that woke as he stepped forward and fixed his gaze on Umbridge.
He had met his rage before. He had met his magic before. He knew about cold fury, and his frustration with his brother, and the absolute pain of betrayal he'd felt when he used the justice ritual on Lily.
He had never known this.
It came out of him in a rush, breathing past his face in a poisonous musk, coiling in front of him as a visible dark serpent with stars for eyes. He stared at it as it twisted back around and focused on him, and found himself shivering, and not from cold. He could still feel the flare of pain in his back from where Umbridge's unknown spell had struck him. Between the shoulder blades, slightly higher than the middle of that area, and nearer the right one.
It was wrong that she had struck him like that.
It was not to be borne.
Harry discovered in that instant that he could want another human being to hurt, as deeply and dearly and devotedly as he had once wanted the sun to rise so that he could spend more time learning spells in the light and not reading a book under his covers with Lumos.
The serpent had its permission. It sped away from him in a graceful slide, and ended up coiled around one of Umbridge's ankles, or so Harry assumed from its position under her robes. He found himself smiling. It was a lazy expression, one the muscles of his face made without his consent.
He nodded.
The serpent bit. He knew it, not because he could see it, but because he willed it so, and so it happened. The fangs cut into Umbridge's skin and sent icy cold venom flowing into her veins. She screamed, and staggered.
Behind him, Harry heard a voice—Fudge's—reciting some kind of charm desperately. It was probably something to disarm him.
Foolish, considering I don't have my wand, Harry thought idly, and raised a hand without looking away from his serpent, which was now slithering up Umbridge's calf, a ripple under her robes.
The witch screamed and kicked, and then her leg fell dead. She stared at it, and gripped it, and tried to move it. Harry knew what it would feel like in her hands: dead weight, dead stone. He had willed it so, and so it happened.
Behind him, Fudge started to say something else, since Harry had interrupted his first spell with that simple gesture, and then subsided, with a choking, coughing cry. Harry knew there was another snake wound about his throat, glowing the deepest green color of the Forbidden Forest in sunlight, its magic waiting on a command that would strangle Fudge or otherwise hurt him.
He hissed the command in Parseltongue, just to make it more frightening, and the black snake bit down again, this time high on Umbridge's leg, near the hip. There were no words for how she screamed. Harry half-closed his eyes, understanding for the first time how his father might have gone mad and held Bellatrix Lestrange under Crucio for ten minutes, how Bellatrix might have felt when she was torturing the Longbottoms, the reasons why Dark wizards used Unforgivable Curses.
It was a moment of sheer power over one's enemy, knowing that someone who had caused him pain was paying for it.
One more time, Harry thought, and then hissed it in Parseltongue.
The black snake moved higher, and its fangs drove home one more time, under Umbridge's ribs on her left side. Umbridge gave another wail, and then simply toppled over. Her left side was frozen, all life gone, though it still looked like flesh. She might limp about with her right leg, gesture with her right hand, speak from the right side of her mouth, animate her right cheek and right eye. It didn't matter. Half of her would always be dead, a frozen grotesque, caught in the last motion it had made.
Harry became aware, abruptly, that he was laughing. He wasn't sure when it had started, after the last snakebite or before. He wondered if it was really necessary to know.
The black snake flowed away from the half-motionless, half-thrashing Umbridge, and skimmed across the air to him, its sides lifting and rippling like butterfly wings. Harry extended an arm, and felt the serpent coil around it, head coming to rest on the back of his wrist, lazy hiss a music to his ears. Harry ran a hand down its spine and dipped his head, inhaling its scent. Ice and wind and stone.
He turned, slowly, to face the Minister. Fudge was staring at him, one hand clasped loosely around his wand, his breathing hardly audible. The green snake around his throat turned its head at once to focus on Harry, though it tightened a few of its coils so that Fudge wouldn't forget who currently controlled his life.
Harry nodded back to the Minister. "Hello, sir." His voice sounded normal. His heard was full of rushing blackness, still, and dancing snakes, and wasn't entirely normal. Not normal at all, he thought. "I suppose you might be wondering why I reacted the way I did."
Fudge's breath climbed higher, coming in whistling gasps. Harry hissed a command at the green serpent—since it was made of his magic, it would obey him in a way that Sylarana or the Many would not have—and the snake eased its hold a bit, though it could still easily strike at any place on the Minister's chest or throat.
"An unfortunate combination of magical attack and outrage," said Harry, shrugging. He knew the words were true. They made sense, somewhere, in the gray rationality that was part of his brain. The chaos behind that was screaming, and something was trying to rise to the surface, but Harry would deal with it in a moment. "I tried and tried to give you excuses, reasons not to do this, chances to recognize what you were doing and back out." He blinked at Fudge. His eyes were burning. He didn't know with what. Even if flying drops of the black serpent's poison had hit him, they wouldn't make his eyes burn. "And then you tried to drain my magic, and I realized what it meant, that you have these laws and these Hounds and that sphere—" He darted a glance at the silver device that had tried to steal his magic, now shattered beyond all repair. "Well. You had that sphere." He looked back at Fudge. "You would have used them on more people than just me, used them to terrify and beat into submission and compel. And then Umbridge hit me with the spell, and that tipped the balance of my mind over for that one moment." He shrugged. "It's not something that happens often. With luck, it will never happen again."
And then the rising emotion broke through the surface, and Harry understood the stinging in his eyes. He was crying, or at least on the verge of tears. He hurt and ached, with shame and with guilt.
He had hurt another human being. But even that wasn't the core of it, because he had done that before, both intentionally and unintentionally.
The core of it was that he had enjoyed it.
Harry controlled the rolling nausea, the desire to flee or set the black serpent on himself. None of them were useful reactions. Let them go too far, and he would end up like James, turning his back on the darkness that he was capable of. He would take what was useful from this matter, and that only.
That was the shame, and the guilt, and his burning comprehension of what he was, what lay under the persona of compassion and forgiveness he had tried so hard to cultivate. He looked full-on into the face of sadism and desire for pain, and he made himself keep looking.
This is not what happens when I get angry.
This is what happens when I get angry and act without thinking. This is what happens when, even if for just one moment and blindly and instinctually and because people have been unreasonable, I hate.
He studied it carefully. He had felt the emotion, of course. He had hated Voldemort when he thought of what the Dark Lord was capable of, attacking and trying to kill an innocent baby. And he had hated other people who had tried to hurt others.
But he had had something to pull him back to reality, all those other hatreds before. He'd been far from his target, or he'd had other people in danger and been able to concentrate on defending them instead of attacking just to inflict pain.
This time, he'd not had those, and the touch of physical pain had pushed him into a burning desire to make the person who'd hurt him hurt, even if just for a moment.
That was the difference. He would look at that, and he would learn that, and he would make sure that he never felt it again.
I cannot afford vengeance. What am I, if I turn to it? Someone else might take vengeance without causing much more than a slap and a few hurtful words. When I do it, I maim.
Harry clenched a hand in front of him and closed his eyes, hissing to the serpent. The black snake flowed away from him again, and he heard a little whimper of fear from Umbridge. Harry did not look as the snake settled on her again. Yes, it would have to bite her once more, but it would be only three bites, and then it would draw back the cold poison and leave her free.
Harry was sick, and shaking, and very tired, and ashamed of himself to his heart. Umbridge and Fudge and Grim and Crup and all the others who might have helped in the doing of this were still people. He had the right to fight back and defend himself and others from them. He did not have the right to torture them, or treat their lives as if they were worth less than his was. He did not have the right to treat them as if they had no souls, no lives, wishes, hopes, dreams of their own, or as if they had never laughed or done anything good.
He did not want to live in a world in which that was true.
What he could do was make sure they did not do anything like this to anyone else again, in the future.
Harry lifted his head and opened his eyes. He could hear Umbridge's desperate, crying whimpers subsiding behind him as she gained back control of her left side, and the Minister's eyes were still wide and fixed on him. Harry moved a hand, and the green serpent dissolved into mist. Fudge shook his head, touched his neck as though to make sure the snake was really gone, and then took a deep breath.
"I know what you're about to say, Minister," said Harry quietly. "That only a Dark Lord would do the things I have done."
Fudge squinted at him. "Are you going to deny that that was Dark magic, Potter? Or that you caused my assistant pain?"
Harry sighed. His own nails had been cutting into his palms, and he hadn't realized it. He flicked his fingers, partially to ease the pain and partially to dissolve the black serpent, now that it was no longer needed. "No. I am sorry about that, Minister."
He lifted his head. Fudge was staring at him.
"But," said Harry, and let just a trace of hardness slip into his voice, "I will not be sorry if I hear that you have continued using your Hounds to arrest people, or forced this ridiculous registration on anyone else, or tried to drain anyone else's magic." He took a step forward. "You know what I can do now." He flicked his hand, once, twice, and the bindings on Grim and Crup eased. They climbed to their feet, eyes warily fixed on him, but made no move to reach for their wands. "Do you really want to anger me?"
Fudge blustered, "Everything we used was Light! The sphere came from the house of a respected Light wizard family! The spell Dolores used on you was in defense of her own life! Even the collars my Hounds wear could not be put on without their consent, and serve to defend their minds from Dark influences—"
Harry felt a faint sensation of relief that he wouldn't be responsible for freeing the Hounds, coupled with irritation that Fudge continued to babble. "Sir," he said, his tone barely controlled, "shut up."
Fudge shut up.
Harry breathed in and out and in again, until his anger was his to master once more. Then he said, "This is the bargain I'll make with you. Cease using your Hounds at once. Split them up and mix them back in to other departments. Concentrate on rehabilitating Azkaban and assigning human guards to the prisoners there. The Hounds might do nicely," he added, and his voice leaked bitterness. He clamped down on it. He needed to be calm, controlled. "And strike these ridiculous edicts directed at certain Dark talents from the books. You might ask the full Wizengamot about any in the future that you feel are a good idea."
"And what will I gain?" Fudge demanded.
Harry lifted his head. Stupid, and beyond stupid, but I can't start a war with the Ministry, and just because he is stupid does not mean I have the right to hurt him. "My silence," he said with absolute evenness. "I will not tell anyone about what I have learned in this room today, about events—including the kidnapping of an innocent child, the brother of the Boy-Who-Lived, taken to the Ministry without even his guardian to accompany him—that could utterly destroy you, Minister."
Fudge's face went white. Harry nodded. There was a reason all this had been kept secret, with the Dark wizard registration laws the only ripple to mar the surface. Fudge was aware of what the wizarding public would and would not tolerate, or at least the outer limits of it.
And still Fudge whispered, "We all know that isn't what happened here. And we would have the word of four against one."
Harry snorted aloud. "I am willing to take Veritaserum," he said. "Are you?"
Fudge's hands locked together near his mouth, as though he could imagine the damaging truths spewing forth from it.
Harry nodded. "But I can easily enough tell everyone the truth, about everything, if I get a hint that you haven't kept our bargain. I am willing to trade you the past for the future, but only if you keep these events in the past."
"That truth would include that you're a Dark wizard, and use Dark magic," Fudge said.
He must have been a Gryffindor. He doesn't know when to give up. And, right now, I have to be Slytherin. Harry locked his face into the calm mask that Lily had taught him to perfect, looked the Minister in the eye, and said, "I don't care about that."
He was lying.
He cared about that. So much. He did not want it revealed, did not think the wizarding public would care to call a boy innocent who would create snakes out of magic and set them on the Minister and the Special Assistant to the Minister. He did not want to see the horror in the eyes of students at Hogwarts whom he had persuaded, with careful effort, not to cringe when he walked by. He did not want to see the doubt in his allies' faces, as they reconsidered whether he could ever be a Dark Lord. He could imagine all the attention fixed on him if this got out.
He did not want it.
But he had managed to bluff Fudge into thinking that all he got out of this deal was the cessation of his stupidity, he saw, when he could focus again. Fudge was nodding furiously, and muttering himself blue in the face. Harry turned his head, and saw Umbridge bobbing her head too, though her toad-eyes were furious. Grim and Crup watched him with expressions of a deep and familiar loathing, but they inclined their heads when Harry stared at him.
It was done. It was done. Harry could feel his knees beginning to wobble. He had to get out of there before anyone saw.
"Remember, Minister," he whispered. "One sign."
Fudge nodded again, and Harry turned and left the room through the door that Umbridge had come in by, striking blindly for the lifts and the Auror Office. He wondered, briefly, who was responsible for cleaning the room he'd been in, given the beetle that zipped past him with its wings buzzing as he opened the door.
Well, Rufus Scrimgeour thought to himself as he led a group of Aurors towards the tenth level of the Ministry, from which an enormous burst of magic had come welling, this is certainly turning into an interesting afternoon.
First had come the owls, hurtling through his windows like the small magical weapons the Glendorring brothers had used in the First War, bearing piece after piece of news. Two former Aurors, both sacked, had been spotted entering and leaving the Ministry on several occasions, with sightings of both confirmed just this morning. Harry Potter had spoken Parseltongue in Knockturn Alley, and then Apparated with an obviously illegal bunch of South African hive cobras. No one could find the Minister, and several of his people who'd been waiting to deliver reports to the fellow wanted to know what they should do now.
Severus Snape, Harry Potter's guardian, had written a single terse message saying his charge had been kidnapped by two gray-cloaked wizards calling themselves Hounds, and that the methods he had of tracking Harry had fallen afoul of powerful wards, most likely the Ministry's.
Rufus could put together a puzzle as well as any wizard and better than most, which was part of the reason he was Head Auror, and though he didn't know all the details, he had a clear sense of the general outline.
Something was rotten in the heart of Minister Fudge.
Had been for a long time, really, Rufus thought absently, as he and his team descended past the Department of Mysteries. Cornelius had been a good enough sort in the beginning, coasting into power on the benign promises, empty of substance, that had won many Ministers election in the past. And he had done no worse than most: half-hearted meddlesome do-gooding, and then a whole-hearted plunge into public relations. Rufus was used to working around Ministers rather than with them, and this was no different.
And then Cornelius started becoming afraid.
Rumor traced it back to a werewolf attack several years ago that he'd barely survived, or to the defection of a good friend to the Dark, or simply to the rumors circulating among the scum they brought to Azkaban of the Dark Lord's return. Rufus didn't know. He didn't really care about the cause. He saw the effects, and the effects rotted the Minister from the inside out, turned him into a shameless puppet swayed towards any "Light" wizard who wanted to whisper the right, reassuring words into his ear.
Rufus had watched the dissolution of the Minister's bribery-fueled friendships with some Dark families, like the Malfoys, with high satisfaction, but when Cornelius was all but dancing attendance on replacements who soothed him with lies and half-truths and whispered elaborate plans to "secure the future against the Dark," he didn't think the result was a net gain for his Ministry.
You don't cower in fear from the Dark, for Merlin's sake, Rufus thought, as he approached the door to level ten, his cloak flaring out behind him and his limp so smoothly integrated into his stride that it never marred it. You fight it.
The door opened before he could get there. Rufus halted and brought his wand up in front of him.
Harry Potter stood there, and he stank of Dark magic.
Rufus's nose twitched, but he forced himself to lower his wand. Yes, he'd dedicated himself to Light magic so early and so young that he could literally smell it when a wizard used other kinds of spells, a claim that he was content to have remain as rumor. That didn't mean that he was ready to strike a child just for using it, especially when Potter lifted his head and fixed his eyes on Rufus's.
Something has happened, Rufus thought. Those green eyes were too like the eyes of children who had been infected with lycanthropy, the eyes of women who'd survived a centaur rampage, the eyes of Voldemort's last victim on record before he went after the Potters, Alba Starrise, who'd said softly, over and over, that she was fine, and then hanged herself in her cell when Rufus went to fetch her tea.
He spoke the same words he spoke then, his voice low, soothing. His team came up behind him and stopped. He heard young Percy Weasley gulp audibly, but the others remained silent. They knew better than to interrupt him when he was like this. "It's all right. I'm here to protect you. What happened, Harry?"
The boy blinked, once, twice. He lifted a hand to touch his face, as though surprised that emotion was showing there.
Then he straightened and shut the emotion away behind a stern mask. It was one of the most impressive things Rufus had ever seen, and one of the most outrageous. Potter simply sealed his face, and then looked him right in the eye and said, "Nothing."
He was a practiced liar, that much was clear. Rufus might even have believed him, if he hadn't seen those eyes.
His gaze went to the door from level ten, but no one could be seen there. Of course, most of the workers would probably have fled the explosion of magic, which had certainly come from Potter.
He leaned down towards Potter and whispered, "Why are you here, then? Your guardian sent me word that you'd been abducted."
"A misunderstanding," Potter said, his voice light, dismissive. "Could you take me to him, please? I'd like to see him."
Rufus considered. Snape wasn't there—no, wait, probably by now he was. Rufus had left instructions for him to be admitted to his office at once when he arrived, partially to content the man and partially to prevent him from going anywhere else and doing anything…unfortunate. Rufus believed he had accurately taken the measure of Severus Snape. The man was a devoted, driven guardian. He was also a Dark wizard who had been accused of being a Death Eater. Rufus intended to forget neither.
But the desperate hope in the boy's voice was no fakery.
Rufus decided that questions could wait. He nodded and extended a hand. "Come with me," he said.
Harry hesitated, then shook his head. "With all due respect, sir, I really don't need to hold anyone's hand." He strode ahead of Rufus then, parting the ranks of the stunned and silent Aurors, and paused to look back at Rufus. "Your office, sir?"
Rufus made a certain resolve then. He knew he could keep it. Scrimgeours always kept their word, and he had done it without fail since he was twelve years old.
He was going to find out what had happened, what had caused a child to look like that in his own Ministry, and when he'd discovered the corruption, he would tear it out root and branch.
He'd been in Slytherin, but the Sorting Hat had recommended Hufflepuff to him. Once Rufus Scrimgeour began digging, he would not stop.
For now, though, it was kinder to pretend to believe the lie, and the boy should be back with people who loved him. He nodded.
"My office," he said, and walked up the corridor behind Harry, who held his back as straight as a sword.
He did manage to catch Percy Weasley's eye as he passed, and gave him a stern glance. If this doesn't measure and weigh him, nothing will.
Percy's shoulders and chin dropped, snatching his eyes from Rufus's gaze. But then he looked up, and steel gleamed under the surface of his face.
Rufus hid a smile. My judgment was not in error, then. Of course, when it comes to recognizing potential Aurors, it very rarely is.
Snape sat, once again, in the office crowded with more photographs than could ever be of use to anyone, speaking of a life lived to the corners, and sipped the tea that Scrimgeour's assistant had brought him, and tried to think of nothing at all. Scrimgeour had gone in search of a burst of magic that he thought was most likely Harry, that assistant had told him, but he had refused to reveal what level the burst had come from. There was nothing else that Snape could do, unless he wanted to run through the Auror Office and threaten people into telling him. And there were Aurors who had passed the door, glanced inside, and nodded to him who would prevent that. He knew it.
Harry was safe. He was going to be all right.
Snape told himself that, because considering anything else was counterproductive.
He did let his mind slip to what had happened after Harry was abducted, and felt a seizure of rage in his chest. The gray-cloaked wizard who had followed Harry and the first one in their Apparition had cast some kind of glittering dust on the ground as he Apparated out. Snape didn't recognize it, but it reacted with the dirt and rose in a choking cloud that kept him coughing for long moments.
Then he'd tried to get a hold on Harry with the passive link the potion had created between them—and failed. The dust had prevented that, he thought, slowing his brain and confusing the bond. Or perhaps it was the Ministry's wards, because even when the effect of the dust seemed to fade, he still could sense nothing from his charge, even the distant rush of panicked thoughts.
Snape had entered the school. He had made his way to the Headmaster's office and told Albus what had happened. Albus's eyebrows could still make his face formidable when he frowned, Snape found. Albus had turned and firecalled the Minister from his own hearth without a pause.
After long moments of talking to an obviously frightened young wizard, the Headmaster had turned around and shaken his head, as Snape had suspected would happen. "The Minister is not currently available," he said quietly.
Snape had nodded and swept from the office, ignoring Albus's tense call behind him.
He had knelt down in front of his own hearth, his mind curiously calm, and firecalled the Malfoys. He did not know where Harry was, and if he had, wards would probably prevent him from Apparating in. He did not know who the Hounds were, or what they wanted. If he went charging into this situation without information, he could get Harry killed.
He had to sit on the panic, and the fury about his panic, that had made him act irrationally all day today, both with the goblins and with the snakes. He had not kept Harry safe by lashing out. So he would make sure that he did not do it this time, that his actions were controlled and Slytherin.
Harry could be dying right this moment, and because of the wards, you wouldn't know it.
Snape shook his head slightly. No, he wouldn't know it. That meant that it was still best to be rational about this. And that meant gaining information. At least he could take vengeance on Harry's killers, if he could not save his charge himself.
Snape plunged his head into the flames at the right moment, and found himself staring into the small antechamber where Narcissa had welcomed him at Christmas. A crack was presumably a house elf Apparating to tell someone that he was calling. Snape cracked his impatience, threw it into one of the quicksilver pools of his mind, and waited.
Draco came through the door to the room at a dead run, barely caught himself from slipping on a rug, and looked at Snape with an ashen face. Snape found it easier to be serene after seeing him, incredibly. The knowledge that someone else was terrified seemed to relieve his own fear.
"Sir?" Draco whispered. "What happened to Harry?"
Snape said quietly, "The Ministry's kidnapped him, Draco. I need you to fetch your father. I need someone with connections in the Ministry, someone who might be able to find out where they took Harry."
"What seems to be the problem, Severus?"
Lucius Malfoy strode in behind his son, his face frozen marble. Snape did not waste time loathing him for his calmness, and instead outlined the situation with the precision that he'd learned to use when he was a spy among the Death Eaters for the Order of the Phoenix. He included the dust and the gray cloaks and the names of the Hounds as details, because if anything could identify the department of the wizards who had kidnapped Harry, those were the things.
And then he had to watch Lucius Malfoy shake his head slowly, a frown on his face.
"The Minister no longer speaks to me," he said quietly. "And none of those sound familiar."
Snape hissed under his breath. At least Lucius had been honest, though. This would have taken longer if Snape had had to wade through lying games to find out how much the other man knew.
"Very well," he said. "We do have an ally inside the Ministry itself, though he has no fireplace in his office that I saw. I will write to him. Thank you for your help." He nodded curtly to both Draco and Lucius, and made to withdraw.
"There is something else I can do," said Lucius, unexpectedly. "Adalrico Bulstrode's wife Elfrida works with the goblins, insuring that coins passed in Diagon Alley are real. She is at least nearer the Ministry than we are. I will contact Adalrico, and ask him to inform his wife of this."
Snape nodded tightly. "Thank you." The Bulstrodes were Harry's formal allies, and the more people who knew of this, the better.
"It will not stop there," Lucius assured him. "Others will hear of this." He was smiling faintly now, a hard, cold fire in his eyes. Snape studied him. He doubted highly that Lucius cared for Harry as Snape or his son did, but he seemed to be enjoying the challenge that these politics represented. And, of course, he was in the middle of a truce-dance with Harry, and he would want to see Harry survive to the end of it. "The Parkinsons are also allied to him, and my wife speaks to Hawthorn regularly. And there are others who will be…interested."
Snape felt a hard fire of his own take hold in his chest. "Thank you," he repeated.
He glanced once at Draco, and felt a stab of pity for the boy. Draco's eyes were wide, his breathing just on the edge of taking in too little air. Snape sighed. Among the many, many things he would speak to Harry about—
If they got Harry back alive.
--was how he planned to conduct his deepening friendship with Lucius Malfoy's son. Snape had slowly become worried over the boy's obsession with Harry. Draco needed to be his own person, needed to have some interests and hobbies and life of his own.
"Please let me know when you find him," Draco whispered.
Snape nodded. He thought the boy would have asked to come with him, but not with his father there. "I will," he said, and then pulled his head out of the flames and turned to write the letter to Rufus Scrimgeour. A different bird had answered him almost at once, one of the Ministry falcons bred for speed, inviting him to come to Scrimgeour's office.
And now, here he sat.
Then he felt magic flood the air, or the spent remains of magic, and the bond snapped into place between him and his ward again, filled with dark, sluggish, churning emotions.
Snape was on his feet and turning in an instant. Harry came into the office with Scrimgeour and other Aurors not far behind him.
Snape looked at him. Harry looked as cool as if he had merely gone for one of his walks in the Forbidden Forest. That was only on the surface, of course. Snape knelt down and held out his arms, not caring for Scrimgeour. At least the man had turned his back, and was shooing the other Aurors out of the office, as well.
Harry bowed his head and moved forward, hugging Snape carefully, as though he thought he would vanish in a moment. Snape closed his eyes and let the panic dissipate completely. He said nothing. He didn't think that there was anything he could say and do this moment justice.
Of course, then the moment passed, and he sat back and met Harry's eyes and asked, "What happened?"
Harry regarded him, calm and alert. "Nothing," he said quietly. "The Minister blustered at me until he realized that I wasn't a threat. Then he let me go."
Snape stared at him in disbelief. The boy was lying, of course—he must be—but that wasn't the problem. The problem was that Harry had forcibly calmed his swirling emotions and hardened them into steely determination. Seemingly, he was not about to tell Snape the actual truth of what had happened.
"You were abducted," Snape whispered. "I heard them read you charges."
"All a ruse," said Harry. He didn't smile, perhaps because he knew it would have been manic, but his eyes remained as determined and steady as ever they had been. "The Minister wanted a pretext to haul me in under the Dark wizarding laws, so he found one. We had a talk about it. In the end, he saw sense, and let me go."
"That is a lie," Snape said.
"It's the truth," said Harry. "Nothing happened between us."
"Something did," Scrimgeour interjected, turning around abruptly. Snape snarled at himself for forgetting the man was still there. At least his eyes were fixed on Harry, and not Snape. "You let go a burst of magic strong enough that we felt it through the wards all the way up here."
Up here? Harry had been held somewhere below, then. Snape intended to find out where.
Harry's eyes gave a brief flicker, and the tight coil of his emotions threatened to collapse. His breath sawed at his lungs, but he turned to Scrimgeour and shook his head. "I'm afraid that you must be mistaken, sir. The burst of magic had to have come from something else."
"I do not think so," said Scrimgeour.
Harry simply regarded him.
"You were abducted," Snape began again.
Harry turned to him with a faint frown. "I wish you would stop calling it that, sir. It's too dramatic a word. The Minister wanted me to come for a visit, and he chose a somewhat pretentious and abrupt way of inviting me, I admit. But it is all settled now. It was all a misunderstanding."
"When someone snatches a child without his guardian or his parent," Scrimgeour said, in a gentle tone that Snape knew he could not have managed through his astonished fury, "and gives them no choice about coming along, then we call that abduction, Harry. What the Minister did to you was illegal."
"To be punished, it has to come to trial, doesn't it?" Harry asked, as though this were a matter of academic interest.
Scrimgeour nodded.
"This won't," said Harry, and shrugged. "I am not going to call it abduction. I won't file charges against the Minister, or the Ministry for that matter."
Snape snarled and grabbed his shoulder, turning him. Harry simply pivoted under his hand and stared up at him, face expressionless.
"I will file them, Harry," he told him, wanting his charge to make no mistake about this. "I know the names of the men who abducted you."
"Invited me, sir. And you do?" Harry asked.
"Of course. The Hounds."
Harry laughed softly. "That isn't their official title, sir. I'm sure that you won't find them referred to by that name anywhere in Minister Fudge's records."
"I think I may know," said Scrimgeour. "I have had reports of two ex-Aurors, sacked for gross negligence of their duty, coming and going from the building lately."
Snape did not miss the way Harry's body stiffened. His voice grew high and strained, but he still did not lash out, though the magic circling him bubbled as though he were in a pool at the foot of a waterfall. "I will ask you this only once, sir. Please, please leave it. I will not testify in any trial. I have reason to believe that the Minister won't use this method of inviting people to see him again, and that the talk we had has no reason to be repeated. I will not cooperate with you on this. I don't want to fight with you. Either of you," he added, turning his eyes wearily to Snape. "But I gave my word, and this is done."
"You gave your word?" Snape knew his voice was dangerously soft. He couldn't help it. He could feel the desire to take vengeance swallowing him alive, tearing away at all the softer parts of him.
Harry nodded, his face firm. "Yes. This is done."
"It is not right, Harry," Snape said, feeling his frustration build. Surely, the boy had to see that? "Your rights were violated. The Minister might do this to other people—"
Harry shook his head, an expression Snape had never seen in his eyes. "No, he won't. We did—discuss that."
Snape snarled at him.
Harry matched him, stare for stare, the Occlumency shields burning behind his eyes.
Something else happened to him, Snape thought. There is no reason that he would be so reluctant to tell us this if it were merely him playing the part of victim—even on the scale of what happened with Black last year. Did he do something?
"Harry," he said, keeping his voice low and soothing, "you know that whatever you may have done, particularly in defense of your own life, is excusable."
Harry flinched, flinched with soul and body both, and then tucked his chin into his chest. "Please," he whispered. "Please, leave it, leave it if you love me."
Snape reached out a careful hand. "Harry—"
Harry shook his head, wild hair flying. "I'd like to be by myself for a few minutes before we go back to Hogwarts," he said, and darted a glance at Scrimgeour. "If you don't mind."
Scrimgeour shook his head, and Harry opened the door to his office and ducked out before Snape could stop him. When he moved to follow his charge, Scrimgeour reached out and put a hand on his arm.
"No," he said quietly. "I think what he said is true, and he does need to be alone."
"He can't hide from this long," said Snape, and heard the frustration in his own voice snap like melting ice. "It is not natural. And his allies have already been informed. They do have the right, under the terms of alliance, to ask for formal satisfaction from the Minister himself, or challenge him in court in Harry's place."
"To do that, however, we must still know the details of what happened," said Scrimgeour, "and we will not get those from Harry in his current state, nor from the Minister ever, by his choice." His gaze was calm on Snape's face. "I can tell you one thing. I felt Dark magic lingering around Harry when he opened the door. My guess is that he did something with that Dark magic, something he is violently ashamed of."
Snape understood in a few moments, remembering Harry's grief over killing the Dark Lord in Rodolphus's body. If anything like that had happened, or even on a smaller scale, he would want to hide. Snape wondered if Harry thought they could not forgive him, whatever it was, and felt sick.
No one else was there with him, most likely—no one else to defend, no one else he could have used or excused the Dark magic for. He was defending himself. And now he feels ashamed.
He longed to go after Harry and reassure him that of course they could forgive him, that whatever he had done was probably not bad enough to require forgiveness in the first place, but Scrimgeour's hand clamped lightly on his wrist and drew his attention.
"What?" he growled, facing the Auror.
"I think this matter too important to be left up to silence, even as you do." Scrimgeour's eyes were narrowed as if he were looking into the sun. "If my Minister is a man like this, one who would kidnap children and make deals with them, then I want to know. And there is one place to start, even if Harry is not yet in any shape to tell us. I will give you the names and descriptions of the ex-Aurors my people saw."
Snape nodded, regret and relief rushing through him in a simultaneous torrent. He would grant Harry his moments alone, but he could do little more. He would have to push this forward, threaten and fight it, no matter what Harry's wishes were.
The Minister had simply gone too far this time.
"You're acting stupid, you know."
Harry had been leaning on a wall in a disused closet for the past few minutes, trying frantically to stem both his fear and his sorrow. He straightened now and whipped around, his hands clenching.
A witch stood in the doorway of the closet, her mouth pinched in a small, hard smile as she watched him. Her hair was blonde and set in curls that could not be natural, given that they didn't shift even as she turned her head to study Harry better. Her face was crusted with makeup, at least around her eyebrows, and her glasses crusted with jewels. Harry could see a scroll of parchment in one hand and a quill in the other. She managed to lean one shoulder casually on the side of the door despite her hands being full.
"What do you mean?" Harry whispered, wondering if this was someone else who had ideas about how he should use his magic.
"My name's Rita Skeeter," said the woman.
Harry stiffened and narrowed his eyes.
"Oh, yes, glare at me if you want," said Skeeter, sounding unaffected. "But this is your chance, you know. And you're wasting it. That's why I said you were stupid." She made a wide gesture with her parchment that caused it to shake, as if what she said should be self-evident.
"I don't know what you mean," said Harry, returning to his calm mask and voice again.
"I saw everything that happened in the Ministry's interrogation rooms," said Skeeter. "And I do mean everything."
Harry stood in silence for a moment, if one could call the thundering staccato of his heart in his ears silence.
"And I am going to publish that story," Skeeter said, examining her quill. "But it could be a better story if I could speak to an eyewitness." She glanced up at him, eyes hard as the jewels on her glasses. "A willing eyewitness, one who's able to confirm every detail. And one who, should he cooperate with me, can seize control of the ripples that are going to spread from this moment." She shook her head, a faint smile on her face. "This can't stay secret, child. It's too big. And the wizarding public deserves to know the truth about their Minister, anyway."
"That's only your excuse," Harry whispered.
"Of course it is," said Skeeter, sounding faintly impatient. "But, you see, there's a difference between breaking a scandal that everyone involved will deny, and breaking a truth that's going to make me a heroine. And I'm tired of the first." She leaned forward and locked eyes with him. "I'm offering you the chance here, Potter. Refuse, and I'll just publish the story anyway. Cooperate with me, and I am going to make you look damn good." Her eyes glinted. "What do you say?"
"I gave my word to the Minister—" Harry whispered.
"He'll break it," said Skeeter. "It'll get broken. I told you, this is too big. There are already other people who are aware that something's wrong, anyway. I was in the Head Auror's office, too. Your guardian's already broken the word to your allies."
Harry felt an abrupt surge of panic. Could he reach out and tell them that it was nothing, that they couldn't worry about it—
No. No, I can't.
Harry swallowed, feeling as if it were acid instead of saliva in his mouth. No, he didn't have the right to restrict anyone else's free will like that. Snape only knowing the truth was one thing, because there weren't many people who would take his word against the Ministry's, given his past. But the Parkinsons, the Bulstrodes, and, oh Merlin help him, the Malfoys…
Harry's ability to keep his word to Fudge had relied on them never finding out. He knew that once they had an inkling of the truth, they would pursue it to the end.
And lying to them would weaken their trust in him. And that was not permissible.
Being vates and a trustworthy ally is worth more to me, he realized, the thoughts bounding like boulders, than hiding what I've done, or keeping my word to Fudge.
He breathed slowly, carefully, in and out, in and out. Another truth was staring him in the face now, even as his sadism had earlier.
I can't hide from this. I can't recoil from this. I can't sit on this, and I can't run.
Draco was right. There are moments when I am going to have to step out into the light, and act like a leader even if I'm not one, and not give the credit or the blame or the burden to anyone else.
Harry felt as if he rode a wave that was about to break and crash any moment. He remembered the beach in Northumberland on Midsummer, the distant breakers rising beyond the tame little ones. They had fallen and roared and destroyed their walls of dark gray water, but the foam spinning from their tops had sparked and dazzled Harry in the sunlight.
I will have to hope that this brings light, and not just destruction.
He met Skeeter's eyes. "When do we go to press?"