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Hey readers! It's the ten year anniversary of my signing up with you guys on fanfiction net
... ... dot, dot, dot ... anyways:
back to the story...
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An Old and New World
by Lens of Sanity
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Chapter Twenty Four: Lilium Inter Spinas
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Lily watched with frustration as her husband paced, the wet and windy Halloween night making him feel cooped up in this small house at Godric's Hollow. She could sympathise. It had been just the three of them for weeks, and while they were safe beneath the protection offered by the Fidelius Charm, Lily still would have appreciated an opportunity to get out once in a while.
They were here because a foolish psychopath had taken literally the words of an equally foolish prophecy. And instead of going with one of the hundreds of far more sensible courses of action, had decided that two one year old children needed a good murdering before he could sleep soundly at night.
Voldemort was out to kill her family. And secretly this terrified her.
She'd crossed wands with him three times over the course of this war—as many as any save Dumbledore—and each time she knew it had been luck as much as skill keeping her alive. Voldemort was so powerful Lily knew she could never hope to match him on her own.
If the worst happened Lily had taken some extra precautions. James hadn't like some of the things she'd been reading, not in the least. Nevertheless, she'd done what little she could to keep her beautiful innocent son safe, and now simply hoped none of the additional safeguards would be needed.
They'd been in hiding for months, and other than the standing level of stress caused by being one of the Dark Lord's two main targets, things were pretty boring. She kept tripping up and almost saying "Voldemort" out loud, which would be stupid in the extreme. Taboo was confirmed on the word, and they didn't want to help narrow down this cottage's location.
Still, saying "You-Know-Who" was silly, and privately agreed with James' insistence at calling the man "Riddle," even if infuriating a Dark Lord was probably not the most sensible idea either.
She moved over to the tall black haired man, his eyes tired behind thin glasses. He was making puffs of coloured smoke erupt from his wand for the amusement of their son. Harry looked so cute in his little blue pyjamas. He was laughing with open joy and trying to catch the smoke, to grab it in his tiny fist.
Lily spoke a few words and James smiled at her. He scooped up their son and handed him over, and Harry giggled she did her best to squeeze the life out of his tiny body. Lily absently noticed James throw down his wand as he yawned, and she left to put her little boy to bed.
"No," Lily whispered. She felt the telltale heaviness of anti‑apparition and anti‑portkey wards against her skin, and knew things were about to get bad. Across the hall she heard James' sprinting footfalls.
"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!" he bellowed, voice frantic with resolve.
"Avada Kedavra!" The unmistakable sound of the love of her life hitting the floor. Lily screamed in despair giving away her position. The emergency portkey had failed as she feared it would.
Although Lily knew it was futile she began barricading the door with as many boxes and chairs as she could pile onto it. With a prayer to whichever god was listening, she took a deep calming breath and steadied herself for what was about to happen.
With a single lazy wave of his wand, the serpentine, barely human form of Voldemort forced his way into the room. There she stood, the child in her arms, face to face with an insane red eyed gaze of the man who would see the world burn for his own perverse amusement.
At the sight of him, Lily dropped her son into the crib behind her and threw her arms wide.
Give me your best shot scumbag. Her snarl was occluded behind skills taught her by Sev so very long ago, and into the bastard's face, in her most whiny and pitifully voice, Lily said aloud, "Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"
"Stand aside, you silly girl, stand aside now," commanded Voldemort.
Come on you prick, do it! she thought. "Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead—"
"This is my last warning—" hissed the man in his cartoonishly evil tone. Why wasn't he going for it?
"Not Harry! Please, have mercy, have mercy, Not Harry! Not Harry! Please – I'll do anything—" Lily tried again. Gods in heaven, could the man even cast a fucking Killing Curse?
"Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!" Voldemort clearly lost patience, and with a small sigh of regret, or perhaps simple hesitation, a green light flashed.
Catch you on the flip side motherfucker!
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Lily tasted the faint twang of ozone hanging in the air, felt coarse grass in between her bare toes and across the soles of her feet. Silently she took a moment to enjoy the quite pleasant sensation of a dry wind caressing her bare skin.
Huh, so there really is an afterlife, she noted with amusement. I own Petunia an apology.
Her eyes cracked open to see a peculiar scene. A number of people she knew quite well, a handful of people who seemed familiar, and several people she had never met in her life. Her close friend Selene was there, crouching next to James, and Dumbledore was off to the otherside looking cosy with some teenage girl Lily didn't know, but who was sporting a very attractive haircut.
This didn't feel right.
Selene was alive. She was pretty sure. And there was no way Dumbledore had fallen in the last few days, was there?
James had his back up against some strange monolith, and her heart beat raced at the unrestrained lust in his eyes, before the brunette with the sexy hairstyle cuffed him across the ear causing the look to fade.
Wait, what was that? Lily thought. Mother?
"Hey Mum. Tell me honestly, what do you think of my boots?" said James, confusing her a little before she become aware of the woman to his left.
"Bellatrix!" Lily yelled diving to the side.
James' eyes narrowed. "I would appreciate you did not talk to my friends using that tone Lily," he said a touch harshly, squeezing Bellatrix Lestrange's hand in a comforting way.
"What the hell is going on?" Lily demanded when nobody moved at her warning. She was starting to doubt the whole being dead thing... Unless—, unless she'd been sent to a Circle of Hell or something, because of her non‑belief in an afterlife.
"I know it's a shame to cover that body of yours, but would you like me to conjure some pants?" James said softly, and that was when she noticed that his eyes were not brown. They were green like hers.
And like her son's.
"H-Harry?"
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It was a few hours later, the thunderstorm passed, and evening had fallen early as it did at this time of the year. Lily knew a lot had happened today, and that it would catch up with her eventually. Her husband had just died and she'd sacrificed her life in order to save her one year old son. Lily was acutely aware of the mild disappointment which came from not being able to save Harry and James as she'd originally intended, however the foolishly brave man had been on the wrong side—dying first. Dammit.
Had she been downstairs and James in the nursery with the baby, they'd both have been fine. Lily would have still been dead of course, but the two boys in her life would have been safe, not just Harry.
Still, she appeared to be the first person in history to have survived the Killing Curse. That was something she supposed... Yeah, Lily knew she should be freaking out a little, but at the same time she was also incredibly aware that the events of the last twenty four hours had not actually hit her yet. All of which went to explain the bemused enjoyment she was taking from the current goings-on.
She'd freak out later. For now, things were just far, far too weird. Moreover, Lily had not yet completely abandon the whole "Hell Dimension" theory.
To recap on what had happened over the past couple of hours:
Dumbledore smiled benignly and said some words about how happy he was to see her alive, and had taken his apprentice? — if she'd heard correctly, taken her back to Hogwarts where the young woman had some Herbology homework to complete.
It turned out doing one's Herbology homework was important, even in situations like these.
Selene Lovegood, Dorcas Meadowes, Alice and Frank Longbottom, and Remus Lupin were all dead under various circumstances. The blonde she'd wrongly concluded was Selene turned out to be little Luna. Basically, all of her closest friends were dead too, it was not just her husband.
Lily was informed her baby Harry had done something extremely dangerous, and blatantly impossible to reverse her death, and that she had been thought deceased for the past fifteen years. The year now being 1996, not 1981 apparently... that idea was probably going to take some getting used to.
Padfoot was present. Seeing him standing there smiling brought a perfectly reasonable burning anger and hatred directed toward Peter Pettigrew, who must have betrayed the Fidelius now she had time to think through the events of earlier that day. A single muted question to the dog animagus had confirmed her suspicions were valid.
Everyone had then cleared out, leaving her and Harry alone outside Dumbledore's old family home. Except they were not alone. Harry was with one of his best friends; Bellatrix Lestrange.
This jarring assertion was one of the principle reasons Lily had yet to throw out the Circle of Hell explanation. She could conceive of no possible way her son could stand the presence of that insane sadist, while still able to talk so amicably with Dumbledore. It made no sense.
"I've made this specifically for you." Her newly teenage son handed over a small bracelet. "I had Albus add a secondary portkey to Hogwarts for emergencies, but mainly this is the method we use to board my home."
"Board your home?" Lily asked in her state of semi-permanent incomprehension.
"Caravel Caerbannog," he said, looking into her with her own emerald eyes. "The bracelet is a fifty mile portkey to my airship's atrium."
"Oh, that makes sense." It really didn't. The three whispered Caerbannog to their wrists regardless.
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Harry looked over ambivalently at the auburn haired woman. Yes, he knew that some people had an aversion to pretty innocent Bella, but to have the first thing come out of the woman's mouth be a harsh tone directed at her, kind of put Harry off a little. Besides Lily Potter was giving him a weird vibe he'd yet to fully pin down.
For simplicities sake he waved Bellatrix off to go about her own thing leaving the two alone.
"Would you like me to show you to your room?" Harry gently asked his mother.
She'd been a little nervous with the malevolent points of red light glowing at the group from the walls, followed by the floor to ceiling woosh of air, and then the port to starboard curtain of light. Atrium countermeasures; every one — had the ship recognised them as a threat they'd have been met with a markedly less friendly, far more lethal welcome.
"Yes please," Lily replied. "I think I would like to clean up. Maybe take a shower or rest for a while." Walking out the door she bemusedly enquired, "Your home is an airship?"
"Yeah, an exact replica of the Hindenburg, it's awesome!" Harry smiled widely with enthusiasm. "Back at the start of this year I managed to scam it out of the Wizengamot."
They passed down two spiral staircases and across the rope bridge before Lily spoke again. "Rope bridge?"
"Bottomless Pit. Well, effectively bottomless anyway," he replied. "I tried to get molten lava but the bridge kept burning down." They swept across several more corridors. "The main room and the flight deck are that way," he pointed. "If you get lost try to head for one of those. Or you can ask the picture of the satyr banging one of his wood nymphs. He's one of the more helpful pieces of artwork, and is usually hanging around by the library."
"Library?" she said and noted the label on the door in question. "Naked Granger? Sex Magic?"
Harry just nodded and gave a friendly wave to the tapestry of a troll enthusiastically waling on a regiment of Frenchmen. "It's probably best you avoid the swamp for the most part, but this is the fastest way to your room. You can explore later at your leisure."
"Swamp?" Lily asked with increasingly wide eyes. The two began wading through the sludgy knee‑deep wetlands, trying to keep to high ground.
"Yeah, the Weasley twins are selling them. They're thinking about opening a store after they graduate and are trying to make some extra cash," said Harry, distracted tracking a huge snake, his eyes wary.
§Have you seen your Master Nagini?§ Harry politely hissed, and was greeted with a typical flow of filth from the serpent. He didn't even know why he bothered.
"You are also a Parselmouth?" Lily asked with interest while sinking a little into the swamp. "What is your snake saying?"
"It is using language which cannot be repeated in polite conversation, as usual," he commented with a scowl. "And she's not mine, she's Tam's."
"Oh," said Lily, beginning to take these things in stride.
"Come on, we're almost there."
They made it through the swamp and cleaned off one another with a few wand waves. Once they made their way into a huge open space easily capable of housing a jumbo jet, Lily spoke again. "That's a pretty big skull. What is it, Dragon?"
"Basilisk," Harry grinned. "Tam sicked it on me back when I was twelve and I had to stab it with a sword, it was classic. If you want to read about it see my published works."
The infectious grin and slightly sarcastic tone made Lily smile a little at the obvious make believe. "What's it doing here?"
"Oh, Tam sold most of the carcass to raise the money for improvements to Caerbannog, but kept the skull and a few other things because they were dead useful," Harry went on, happy to talk about one of his favourite subjects. "The head of a sixty eight foot magical snake was just too good to pass up. So we carved the crap out of it and turned it into the airship's primary rune reservoir. I think of it like a big magical battery, or maybe capacitor is a better analogy."
That made sense, magically expanding this much space, and maintaining all the effects would take tremendous stores of Thaumic Energy. Although Lily seemed suddenly less certain about whether or not he'd killed a Basilisk at age twelve.
Side by side mother and son moved through the cavernous room, and along a sweeping promenade offering a wide view out one side of the Zeppelin. After a time the two came across a familiar head of crimson hair and Lily became visibly more worried.
"This is the Tam girl you were telling me about?" she whispered.
"Huh?" Harry responded intelligently looking at his brother. For whatever reason he'd begun to really enjoy thinking of her in that way.
"Aren't you going to say something?" his mother asked in concern.
"If you think I should," Harry replied negligently. "I'm sure she has a good reason."
Hearing a shuffling approach Tam flipped around, attempting to shield with her own body the three corpses she'd been dragging. "I can explain!"
"Relax, Hermione is back at Hogwarts," Harry soothed. "What's going on?"
"Thank Merlin for that!" she said in relief. "And I am creating our very own inferi horde."
"Is there a reason we want an inferi horde?" Harry asked as neutrally as he could.
"Well after Hermione shot down your Rancor idea, and Luna's suggestion to fill a pool with mutated sea bass, I thought a horde of the inferius would be pretty useful." Tam stated this as if it was obvious. "Besides, this stone is friggin' awesome! You have no idea how expensive and time consuming inferi creation is without necro wards. Yet with the Resurrection Stone we can have a fully mobile army of the undead with ease."
"That makes sense," Harry said nodding, completely missing his mother's look of horror. "And I never really gave up on the Rancor idea... The Cerberus Fleur and I used to escape the City of the Dead is named Rancor. It's housed below an unused room and trapdoor."
"Nice," Tam said in approval, before proceeding to drag the three dead bodies away.
It wasn't much longer before the two were outside the door to Lily's room. "It's a little bare," Harry confessed. "You'll have to decorate it yourself, but there is a shower and a bed and stuff. I'll make sure some clothes find their way to you so you don't have to rely on garments from the tip of your wand."
Lily had been a touch weirded out since the run in with Tam, and as such was not overly talkative for the last few minutes. "May I ask where you found my wand?"
"Potter Family Vault," Harry replied carefully. "What was left after you and James died was all thrown in there."
"Willow, ten and one quarter inches, swishy," Lily tried for a smile.
Harry knew it was all starting to hit her, but he was a neglected orphan, even the little hug she gave him was incredibly uncomfortable.
"Good night" he began, then forced himself, "...mum?"
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"That woman is weird!" Luna said tactlessly two days later. "Is it just me or does she give off a kind of," the blonde hesitated, "...ninja-ish vibe?"
Harry gestured with an overflowing glass of firewhiskey. "She made a comment about pirates being stupid."
Luna winced.
"That sucks."
"Yeah."
"I can't believe your own mother is a ninja," she needlessly went on. "That's just wrong."
"Pirates aren't stupid," Harry said, clearly more than a little drunk. "Ninjas are stupid!"
Luna took the proffered glass and enjoyed a deep drink of the burning liquid, joining her friend in mournful silence. After a time she spoke her mind, "Lily still crying at odd times?"
"Sirius is with her," he answered. "Either he's grieving for the loss of all his friends alongside her, or he's going for the whole 'comforting the widow' angle."
"And you don't really mind?" Luna asked genuinely interested.
"Nah, it was the first thing I thought of too," Harry admitted. "Although I'll probably have to give him an arse kicking on principle if that's the case."
The two settled into a companionable conversation for a while, with Luna rebuffing his attempts to have her teach the sticky shield, and eventually going off into a long bout of swearing in Chinese when Harry refused to leave well enough alone.
"You know, I'm aware you have this thing for redheads, with the amount of Sue Bones and Tam Riddle we've got stockpiled," Luna commented in her old dreamy tone. The mannerism alone was enough to snap Harry to full attention. "I can think of a good way to take out some frustrations on that ninja mother of yours."
Harry swayed a little drunkenly as his mind raced through this suggestion. "First a ménage with Parkinson now this? You really are a deviant freak!"
"That I am!" Luna agreed happily downing the last of her glass.
Forty minutes later the door banged open and the real Lily Potter came into the room. Harry looked between the two girls and when he saw the triumphant look of amusement in Luna's jade eyed gaze, he knew he'd been had.
Bitch set me up! Harry thought, mind spinning out what must have happened. Luna had been trying to win back "the crown" ever since he'd successfully killed a Jabberwock using his bunny rabbit animagus form. It was obvious now that the whole Parkinson thing was a ploy.
Okay Potter, what are your options? Make some excuse; Vito, not gonna work... and worse, it's what Luna wants you to do.
Pretend to be a deviant freak?
Well Potter you've just been caught jackknifing your polyjuiced mother, there won't be much pretending involved! Nonetheless fuck Luna and her eye twinkling, you cannot so easily give up the title of "most chaotic person in the room."
"Hey Lils, either join in or leave us too it," Harry somehow managed, knowing that Hell probably wasn't as bad as everybody made it out to be. "We're kind of in the middle of something here."
His mother left looking a little—well a lot—shell shocked.
"Wow Harry, you really are hardcore!" Luna commented, processing what had just occurred.
"I'm totally going to make you pay!"
"Feel free to give mummy everything you've got."
That was so very wrong, in all of the worst kind of ways!
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"Well good afternoon professor, such a wonderful day do you not think?" Harry asked cheerfully walking into Potions.
"Sit down. Do not speak. Get on with your work," Snape spat out. He'd taken to ignoring Harry as much as possible since his most hated student had begun the NEWT class. Unsuccessfully attempting to ignore him anyway.
Harry set about brewing a derivative of dreamless sleep potion which was today's task, occasionally smiling cheerfully at the professor and acting as though the intermittent hate filled glares were amusing. Around a quarter of an hour through the second period, Harry downed a swirling green potion which tasted faintly of mint, and casually transfigured his robes.
With a flick of his silky auburn hair and a battering of his big emerald eyes Harry raised his hand. "Sev," he began sweetly "could you please tell me why we must add willowbark shavings after stirring counter-clockwise fourteen times?"
Hermione saw what Harry was doing and loudly choked. She never did admit it was funny though. Hermione was well aware polyjuice potion didn't work if the subject was dead, meaning Harry was not-so-subtly pointing something out to the Potions Master, and doing so in an unbelievably cruel way.
The man literally fell out his chair. Snape crawled back up to his desk, and even though he must have known on some level that it wasn't actually her, croaked out, "Lily?"
"You know Sev I've never told you this, but before I went into hiding I tracked you down and well..." Harry/Lily hesitated, prettily sucking in her lip, "I obliviated you afterwards. But the truth is that Harry is actually your son."
For reasons Harry was not completely certain, Snape was still angry with him when the Order of the Phoenix meeting rolled around later that night.
"And you're saying that large parts of the dungeons have melted stone and obvious signs spell damage?" Tonks reiterated from her seat next to him.
"You should have seen his face," Harry agreed with a playful wink. "It was brilliant."
"Man I always hated that guy!" said the metamorphmagus, kind of loudly given that Snape was in the room. "I had to self study for my Potion NEWT because of his terrible teaching. Otherwise I would never have been able to become an Auror."
Hermione nudged him to be quiet when his mother walked into the room with an unsure look and a small wave. He heard Albus finish "—would like to re-introduce to you all: Lily Potter."
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Tam took a dull smash of yellow light to the shoulder and clumsily rolled behind the table, a second wand coming into her peripheral vision, held in a steady hand. A wave of power crashed over her and the enraged Weasley matriarch fell still, signifying an end to the fighting.
Tam prodded herself in the shoulder and decided that it was deep bruising and nothing more. She saw the black cords painfully holding the woman in the air with arms firmly tied behind her back, gagging her mouth tightly closed. Turned to see who had cast such powerful magic.
"Hermione?" Tam asked incredulously, seeing her girlfriend holding her wand in on the older woman with a look of determination.
The redhead went over to inspect the bindings, noted a quartet of what looked like jet black ward stones holding the ribbons, and after running a few diagnostics rounded on Dumbledore in anger. "What the hell do you think you're doing? What are you teaching Hermione in those lessons of yours?"
Albus had been effectively taken out of the fight quite early, dazed as he was by a chair solidly impacting the back of his head. But now he was ensuring nobody had been hurt during Molly's... fairly reasonable reaction to current events.
"He has been teaching me powerful magic," Hermione answered for her teacher.
"Those are a variant of the Shackles of Mourning!" Tam stated as he moved toward the brunette. "Even I would be a bit shirty tossing around magic that dark around without good cause."
Tam ignored her protestations as she set about pealing back her eyelids, checking her fingernails, and searching for any indication of Dark Arts Dependency. Hermione saw a look of genuine concern and so tempered her initial response. "Albus is not teaching me Dark Magic," Hermione softly whispered. "I simply used a high level holding he taught me, because Mrs. Weasley needed to be restrained."
"Uh-huh," Tam said dubiously. "Not dark, eh? What was it then?"
"Heaven's Binding," Hermione informed. "Not in the least bit dark. Albus is teaching me combative White Magic."
"Don't be ridiculous," Tam countered. "There is no such thing!" she hesitated, "...is there?"
"I wish you could learn it, but everything is covered by the Interdict of Merlin. And I am sorry to say you do not have the right temperament."
There was a horrified scream interrupting the conversation, and everyone who was still conscious turned to the scene of Lily standing over her downed son. The two moved over and Tam physically checked Harry's neck.
"Yep, he's dead."
Tam's words were dispassionate, not helped by Hermione callously nudging the corpse with her toe.
"Huh," Hermione uttered to herself. It was strange how little the sight bothered her. "Did anyone get hurt?"
"My only son is dead you stupid girl!" Lily shouted in her face, looking heartbroken.
Hermione raised an eyebrow but Tam ignored whatever she was about to say in retort, instead speaking with the trussed woman.
"While I am sorry for your loss, I must say murdering the one person who tried hardest to save your little girl, does not seem to be an appropriate response." Noting the woman's look fade Tam went on, "I will neglect to inform Bellatrix of the person responsible, but I suggest you think about what you have done. Next time listen to the full explanation before resorting to violence." Identical brown eyes locked, and when the older woman capitulated Tam finished, "I hope you will come to understand, but if nothing else be aware Lucius Malfoy suffered a fate worse than death for what he did to your daughter."
"Miss Riddle," a hopeful voice drifted across the damaged room. "There is an outside chance you can heal him?"
The redhead paused in thought looking over the frazzled Mrs. Potter. "Halloween was last week, and his birthday is a little under nine months away. I think the best day to do it will be the end of January."
"Harry is going to be fine Lils," Sirius pitched in, once more fully awake. "Come on, I think this meeting is over. We both need a drink."
Tam may have noticed him throw an unseen stunner during the mêlée. So his stepping on Snape's unconscious form on the way out was almost certainly intentional.
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"Oh, what's the point?" Luna asked in exasperation. It was six days later and Luna fired off her question from a position lounging on the floor of the Headmaster's Office. The blonde woman had been brushing a white tiger's fur contentedly for a long while, before voicing her single obvious concern.
"What is the point of making plans to combat the influence of Lord Voldemort?" Hermione asked sarcastically.
"Yeah."
The people in the room looked at one another strangely, retuning as one back to the blonde.
"You people still don't get it do you?" Luna asked shaking her head. "We cannot win against Voldemort!"
"Don't be ridiculous. The Dark Lord may be powerful, but he's not invincible. Should we get wind of his goals and short term objectives, we can devise a course of action which will mitigate the effects," stated Hermione, with Lily nodding along in agreement.
"No," Luna retorted. "We can't." She sighed and looked into the distance for a long while. "Whatever we do, even if we try to do something totally random, or if Voldemort makes a mistake and we save a bunch of people or something. It won't matter. None of it will. Each and every action we make, we decide on, and even the successes we have, will all be part of the Dark Lord's plans.
"What we do, might do, or plan to do, will all be taken into account. So that regardless of the outcome he wins. The best we can hope for is small temporary victories. Ones which still further his eventual goals."
"You cannot possibly know all that," Lily stated with a frown. She'd beaten the piss out of Voldemort once already after all!
"Tsaow nee shoo shoo! Why do you think I resorted to fucking time travel in the first place?"
Hearing these words spoken with such bleak sincerity everyone in the room started shuffling, refusing to meet each other's eyes.
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Harry was deep in troubled thought on the first of February, seated uncomfortably in the main room of his airship. He'd been given a long run down on events over the past three months and it wasn't a pretty picture.
The Goblins had fully sided with Voldemort when he'd managed to convince the nation that Harry had been crafting Valyrian Steel. A claim which—while completely true—was not something the Dark Lord could prove. Meaning he must have lied!
Lily kept hugging him as well. Harry was getting used to that, but still it was weird. His mother had been very relieved to see him alive again, and Harry couldn't bring himself to be callous enough to make her stop. He wouldn't admit this sensitiveness aloud though. Besides, she was far easier to deal with now she'd had some time to come to terms with all the things that had happened over the past fifteen years.
More on the war front was bad however. The werewolves were massing in France under Grayback's banner and they had no viable means to effectively combat an army of those guys. Surprisingly Hermione had managed to kill the Salazar Founder, meaning Lockhart's body was dead. Although few people knew this because he was up and about looking exactly the same the next day; some form of Dark Polyjuice variant which was presumably permanent.
Worse was the fact that the British Ministry was now headed by Minister Amelia Bones, aka Helga, and her Undersecretary Susan, aka Rowena. So the D.M.L.E. as well as the official magical government was in the hands of Voldemort too. Scrimgeour and several of the escaped Aurors had set up shop at Hogwarts, which the Dark Lord was rightfully hesitant to attack.
All of this of course paled in comparison to the important piece of news, so many orders of magnitude more terrible, and more concerning than all of those things added together. Harry broke his long thoughtful silence and just voiced the one question whose answer he couldn't fully grasp:
"What do you mean Fleur is getting married?"