Disclaimer: JK Rowling has a way of bringing out the Harry Potter in people.
A/N: No, this story isn't dead. I'm sorry it's been so long, but it's been a hard year for everyone. I have several more chapters partially written and hopefully coming out soon.
I feel like the outline for this story is a lot sparser than it used to be. Partly, that's by design. I don't think I could manage another 100+ chapter fic like The Accidental Animagus. As it is, my outline is still over 50 chapters, but I feel like there's not much substance to it. I don't have as much detail and certainly a lot less slice-of-life stuff to offer.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't be surprised if the pacing of this story picks up. Some of you might approve of that. I did let The Accidental Animagus ramble on for a long time. But it may mean a significant change in the writing style, and I feel like I can't help but end up dropping some of the plot threads, or at least pushing them into the background. Action scenes, sure, but I don't know how much I'll be able to manage beyond the main plot. Anyway, here it goes.
Chapter 29: Watching from Afar
"The art of potion-making is not to be found in books," Monsieur Oppenord told the class. "Anyone can follow a recipe and get a passable result, even if it isn't top-shelf, but the true art can be learnt only by experience. You must be sensitive to subtle changes in the colour, smell, and consistency of your potion, and you must be able to interpret them to apply them to the recipe. Variation in the quality and preparation of the ingredients, inaccuracies in heating and timing, the temperature and humidity of the room—all of these can affect the outcome of your brew, sometimes in unexpected ways. And sometimes, even the recipes themselves are not perfect and must be adjusted. You must practice these skills until they become as instinct if you wish to become a true potions master."
"But aren't there other ways to account for those things, Professor?" Hermione asked him. "In the muggle world, chemical processes can be done by machine so they're perfect every time. You couldn't do that with all parts of potions, but some of it you could, couldn't you?"
"To a point, Madamoiselle Granger," M. Oppenord said. "If you were to take care to control all of the variables and arrange for all of the non-magical operations of a brew to be performed by a machine of some kind, doubtless you would improve the quality of the result, but you would still have the problem of the quality of the ingredients. Because you must still account for that, for most cases, it is easier to do all of it by hand."
After the lecture, they got started with the brewing. Harry and Hermione were off to a good start. Harry stood over their shared lab bench, stirring diligently. He didn't particularly want to like his classes here. He still felt grumpy about being stuck in school while there was a war on, but right now, it felt like a whole new world of potions was opening up to him. If he concentrated, he could feel the potion subtly changing as it boiled and thickened—not in real time, perhaps, but between one minute and the next. He was surprised to find he was fast developing those instincts M. Oppenord described.
"Why didn't we learn about this before?" he asked Hermione in a low voice. "If Snape taught like this, I could've aced his class."
"Snape would probably say everyone below his N.E.W.T. class is too dunderheaded just to follow instructions," Hermione said. "Besides, you remember the O.W.L.s. This could have helped on the practical, but it wasn't on the written exam at all."
"Maybe it should be. If it's on the French sixth-year exams, they must think it's worth it."
"Excuse me," on the Polish students nearby spoke to them. "You are speaking of Potions class at Hogwarts?"
"Yes. Our teacher there wasn't very good," Harry said. "He never explained anything. Just gave us instructions and told us to get to work. This makes a lot more sense—at least for corrections. I'm not sure how I'd go about modifying things."
"My mum says it's like cooking," the girl's partner said in French. "Once you get to the point of a recipe that kind of does what you want it to and won't poison anybody, you work by feel and develop an intuition for how it behaves at each step to refine it."
Harry laughed: "Snape would hate that analogy. Far too undignified." He imitated Snape's voice. "'A potion is not a stew where you can throw randoms ingredients into a pot, Potter. It is a subtle science and an exact art.'"
Hermione started giggling loud enough that it attracted the attention of M. Oppenord. The four of them immediately quieted down and looked back to their potions to appear busy.
"Your teacher really sounded like that?" the Polish boy whispered.
"Not exactly…" Hermione started.
"He totally did," Harry said.
"Hm…well, he might say that," the boy replied,"but if you pressed him to describe the process, I'd bet it would sound pretty similar."
"There is that," Hermione admitted. "And the fact that he assumes that we know how to follow his instructions—or at least that the people who don't aren't worth his time—where would you pick up those skills except in cooking?"
"He really should teach us proper technique in first year," Harry agreed. "He got better after Mum and Dad convinced him to read those muggle chemistry books, but that's not saying much."
"Well, I'm glad you're finally coming around on the subject, little brother. It's in your blood, you know."
The two Polish students looked at them curiously.
"My birth parents," Harry explained. "Sirius and Remus say my mum was one of the best potions students in the school. And my grandfather got rich selling hair care potions."
All of them pointedly looked at Harry's perpetually unkempt hair, including Hermione, who already knew the story well. (He rolled his eyes at her.)
"Anyway, I'm just glad we have a better teacher now," he said. "That's one silver lining to Beauxbatons."
Now, all they had to do was survive two years there without it coming down around their ears.
On the morning of the twenty-seventh of September, the entire school was subdued and tense. Few people spoke as they waited anxiously for the newspaper. Most anxious of all were the Polish students, as it was their school that was affected. This was the morning after the full moon, and everyone wanted and dreaded to find out what the werewolves had done last night.
For the past month, the ICW had put what efforts it could spare toward dislodging the werewolf occupiers from Czarnoksiesto, to little success. Harry and Hermione knew that a watch had been set around the Polish school last night—not to attack. That would be absurd in these circumstances. But to try to keep the werewolves holed up inside from coming out and attacking the surrounding villages. There honestly wasn't a lot they could do, especially since some of them could have sneaked out earlier, but the locals were demanding it. The question was, had the werewolves seized the opportunity to attack the watch? Had they broken through the lines and gone on a rampage anyway?
The newspapers arrived with the rest of the post. Hermione quickly took her copy and scanned the article.
"How bad is it?" Harry asked.
"Not as bad as it could be," she said. "Still pretty bad by normal standards…Actually, they're still not sure what happened. There weren't many witness this time. I suppose that's not so good. They're leaving fewer people alive."
"Probably because that was Greyback's thing," Harry said.
"Hm…They're still trying to piece things together, but it seems like there were some disappearances last night. Aurors are saying a couple of them were assassinations. A couple of others were obvious kidnappings, but nowhere near on the scale of what Greyback did."
"So, what's their game? They're not going totally silent. They must still be up to something."
Hermione shrugged and handed him the newspaper. "Nothing pops out at me," she said. "Maybe you can spot something?"
Harry studied the article. He tried looking at the names of the victims, but not all of them were given, and the ones that were weren't familiar to him. No, that wasn't right. What were more important were the locations of the attacks. And accounting for the different borders of the magical world… "These are all German cities," he said. "There were a couple attacks in Bohemia, but they didn't after Prague again. Do you think they're still trying to keep Germany in line?"
"It's possible," Hermione mused. "It's bad enough with the hostage situation at Durmstrang, though."
"Or maybe they want them distracted," he said. "It's bad enough Germany's too scared to act, but if they're also focused on some other crisis…"
"Yes, that could be. But if those are all German cities, would the werewolves be so obvious about it? Weren't they trying to distance themselves now that Greyback's gone?"
"Are they?" Harry asked. "That's what everyone said, but…Well, not all of the werewolves are at Czarnoksiesto anyway. We can't prove the ones there were involved."
"Oh, I suppose not…still a bit obvious isn't it?"
"I don't know," Harry said. "I feel like we're still missing something."
The answers were more forthcoming that they expected—or rather, some answers were. In fact, they showed up on the front page of the paper the very next day, but they only raised more questions.
NEW WEREWOLF LEADER DECLARES INDEPENDENCE!
The militant werewolf group occupying Czarnoksiesto School of Magic proclaimed itself an independent magical state yesterday, according to a statement by the new Alpha of the pack, Silas Crump, who succeeded Fenrir Greyback this week.
While there were far fewer werewolf attacks in Central Europe during this week's full moon than under Greyback in previous months, the continued occupation of Czarnoksiesto and the displacing of the entire Polish school population has caused tensions to remain high. Crump's announcement, dubbing the region "Gerifreki," is sure to fan the flames. In it, he claimed not just the school and grounds, but also the surrounding lands whose crops and infrastructure support the school as his territory, which is inhabited by a number of wizards and several muggle villages.
When asked about his continued occupation of the school, Crump had this to say: "Werewolves have been oppressed across Europe for far too long. I did not choose to occupy a school as our base of operations, and I feel for the students who have been displaced, but with the forces of the ICW arrayed against us, we have little choice but to stay here. Czarnoksiesto Castle is one of the few places with strong enough wards to protect our community from encroachment or persecution. We do not wish to interfere with the lives of the people in our territory, and we hope to establish friendly relations with our neighbours.
Crump disavowed any involvement with the werewolf attacks of two nights ago, though critics were quick to question his claim…
Harry and Hermione just looked at each other grimly when they read the article. However, Demelza Robins had a few choice words when she saw it. It was only making the reputation of werewolves worse, making a play like that, she told anyone who would listen. Natalie McDonald told Hermione later that she was acting so angry about it in part to let the Polish students know she wasn't on the other werewolves' side.
To be honest, no one was sure what to make of the article. In the muggle world, something like that wouldn't be taken seriously, or if it were, it would be handled by police, but the magical world was different. The werewolves had the strength to do at least some of what they said and to be a serious "military" threat. But this was so outlandish that Hermione wasn't sure if it had ever been tried before.
A partial explanation came in the form of a letter from Remus later that day:
I'm sure you saw the article. Something definitely smells fishy here. I know Crump. He's a petty crook from London. Not an alpha personality at all. No way he's actually in charge there. I'd bet you anything there's a Death Eater behind him pulling the strings and paying him a lot of money to do it. Besides, that speech he gave has Lockhart written all over it. I'm kind of surprised he's involved at all, to be honest. They might've sold him that job as a good way to stay far away from Voldemort.
I can't figure out why they're going for that angle, though. Maybe they technically weren't involved in the attacks this week because they left sleeper agents on the outside to do it, but everyone knows that's a ruse. Maybe it's a distraction or something, but none of my ideas fit very well into Voldemort's game.
"It still doesn't make sense, does it?" Hermione asked her brother.
Harry shrugged. "It definitely doesn't seem like Voldemort's style," he said. "It guess it's possible that they're being completely honest. Greyback went rogue from the start, and they really do just want to be left alone now, but if Remus is right about Crump, that doesn't work. But I don't get what Voldemort gains by setting them up as a puppet state or whatever instead of what they doing before."
"I don't know…" Hermione said. "Unless it's long term. Remus says no one will believe them now, but if they can convince people they aren't involved in any attacks for the next few months…and they're keeping their own people in line." Suddenly, she sat bolt upright. "Harry!" she gasped. "Do you think they could be pushing back against our project for a cure?"
Harry's eyes grew wide, but when he thought about it, it didn't fit: "No, that doesn't make sense. I can't imagine they could go on the international stage and say they don't need a cure and get away with it. I mean, they could try to claim lycanthropy is a disability or something that should be respected, but given how it spreads, that's not going to work. The world's never going to pass up a cure."
"Oh, yes. You're right. But then, why declare sovereignty? I guess they could be jumping on the werewolf rights bandwagon, but I don't see how that would help the cause. It might hurt it, even."
"I don't know…Unless they think we won't be able to find a cure. I mean, that's the common wisdom—that cursed wounds can't be healed. If the hunt for a cure falls through, they'd be in a good place to pick up the pieces—you know, except for being Death Eater puppets and all."
Hermione considered that. "That…does seem like it would fit. That could be a whole other problem for us then: undermining confidence in our project.…Say, Harry, do you think there's some way we can reach out to them?"
"Not if they're in with the Death Eaters," he reminded her.
"I know, but they claim they're not. If it goes through official channels, they'll have to respond somehow."
"And put themselves on record—" He stopped, his face falling. "No, I still don't think it'll work. Not with no one believing them yet. There aren't any official channels."
"What about Remus or someone else with the Order? Or even Dumbledore? Can we reach out to them in some other way that will demand a public reply?"
Harry thought about this, considering his options. Remus, maybe, but the fact that he was publicly with the Order would be a problem. What else could they do that would be more neutral? Various of his family members had been teaching him to think more politically and strategically over the years, but there weren't many possibilities here. In fact, he could think of only one. "No…" he sighed, "but I think I know someone who can."
Draco Malfoy studied Harry's and Hermione's faces suspiciously. "Lord Potter, Granger," he said. "What's all this about?"
"We want you to take a role in dealing with Silas Crump, or whoever his puppet master is," Harry said.
Malfoy sat there and gave them a blank look. Harry waited for him to respond, but he stayed silent.
"There's something fishy about the whole werewolf thing," Harry said. "Crump's antagonising everybody doing what he's doing. It's not going to help his cause, but I don't see how it helps Voldemort either."
Malfoy glared at him, but he didn't acknowledge it. "Sooo…?" Malfoy drew out the word.
"So, he's an unknown player on the board. We need to know what he's really up to. Surely you can see that, Malfoy."
"Why me?" he replied. "Surely, there are other people more suitable to do your dirty work, Potter. Don't you have a werewolf or two on your payroll?"
"I don't do the payroll," Harry said, "and unfortunately, a werewolf with close ties to Dumbledore isn't the best person for this job."
Malfoy smirked.
At this, Hermione stepped in: "You have a personal interest in what happens in the werewolf community, too. You publicly supported our effort to find a cure for lycanthropy."
"That was just good sense."
"Not to most people," Harry said. "That was a surprise move from you."
"Most people aren't that bright, Potter. The people who were paying attention knew the score."
"And you had enough influence to get them behind you."
"You helped sell the project when a lot of people wanted to kill the werewolves and have done with it," Hermione said. "And you recruited Aurélie Dumont, the last student of Nicolas Flamel."
"Exactly," Harry said. "You have connections that we don't."
Malfoy sneered. "If you mean Death Eater connections—"
"We mean connections that Harry Potter can't get without causing a political mess," he said. "Come on, I know you, Malfoy. You're the one who always has the right connections."
Malfoy stood there a minute longer, leaning back against the wall and stringing them along. "You know, I'm surprised you came to me at all," he said. "You lot must be desperate."
"We're being practical," Hermione said.
"We're being resourceful," Harry corrected. "We have other options, but you seemed like a pretty good place to start."
"Naturally. Still, interesting that you came to me first. Alright, say I help you. What do you want to know?"
"Generally, as much as you can tell us, but practically, are they behind us on finding a cure? Are they willing to cooperate at least on that part. I'd ask you for a tactical assessment if I thought you'd give me an honest one, but this is about the politics side of it. An independent werewolf colony doesn't mesh with any side of the debate these days. And if you know something more on that point—something that's not part of their public statement, and I'll vouch will stay out of the public statements…"
"That," Malfoy said, "will cost you."
Harry went very still. "Cost me what?" he said dangerously.
"Just a favour for something like this."
He considered that a few moments. "I won't do anything that will hurt the war effort."
"Please, in case you haven't noticed, we're on the same side."
"You're on your own side, Malfoy."
"Tactful as ever, Potter. If you want to play the game, you need to learn how to trade favours—how to compromise. Otherwise, you can go running back to Dumbledore and take your chances."
"I don't need Dumbledore to hold my hand."
"Harry," Hermione hissed.
"What? He's not here, and if I can't fight, I'm still gonna do something. I can handle Malfoy." He turned back to the other boy. "So, are you in?"
Malfoy waited a little longer before answering. "Fine, I'll look into it. Something about their play seems funny to me too, but you owe me a favour if you want my private insight…Don't worry, I'll make sure it's something that doesn't offend your delicate sensibilities…much."
Harry groaned. "I supposed that's the best I can expect coming from you."
They shook hands.
Unfortunately, the bad news kept on coming in the following weeks, both in Le Monde Magique and the muggle papers their parents sent them articles from or mentioned to them in their mirror calls.
BOMBING IN GROZNY THREATENS CHECHEN PEACE AGREEMENT.
AUROR TEAMS IN POLAND AMBUSHED IN COORDINATED ATTACKS!
EBOLA OUTBREAK IN BOSNIA; TOWNS QUARANTINED!
EXPLOSION IN PARIS! 3 WIZARDS, 11 MUGGLES KILLED IN ATTEMPT ON FRENCH MINISTRY.
DURMSTRANG CRISIS CONTINUES; GERMAN MLE SAYS REINFORCEMENTS NEEDED TO HANDLE DOMESTIC UNREST.
Malfoy did come through, although Harry didn't feel like he'd helped much. He seemed to be of the opinion that Silas Crump was serious. Maybe he liked being able to run his own country. Either way, his main insight was that there was a core group of werewolves who were true believers following a less "feral" (his word) form of Greyback's plan for werewolves gaining political power. They paid lip service to supporting the search for a cure, but they were really looking out for themselves.
Of course, the Order was leaning a different direction. Mad-Eye Moody was convinced that the werewolves were a reserve force for Voldemort that could be deployed in Eastern Europe on short notice. It was possible that both theories were true.
Meanwhile, possibly the most shocking headline of those first couple of months came at the beginning of October. It was a British story, and not war related, but it was still unusual enough to rate an article in Le Monde Magique:
BRITISH TEACHER KILLED BY POLTERGEIST!
"What?"
Like any juicy story, the whispers rapidly circled the Beauxbatons Great Hall. All of the former Hogwarts students scrambled to grab a copy of the paper to see it for themselves. Once they got a look, there wasn't any mistake. Peeves had killed someone.
Professor Stuart Craggy at Slytherin School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was killed Friday by the school's resident poltergeist, Peeves, who struck him multiple times with a battle-axe.
Headmaster Bartimeus Crouch reported that Peeves has grown increasingly hostile in the current school year, insulting the new administration, interfering with students' work, and damaging the library, and he has recently taken to swooping through the halls whilst swinging swords and axes, threatening anyone who approaches.
"We are saddened by the loss of Professor Craggy and disturbed that it came at the hands of one of the resident spirits of the school. Additional measures are being taken to protect the students and teachers from the poltergeist," Crouch reported.
"The whole world's gone mad," Hermione muttered. "Really? Peeves?"
Neville patted her on the shoulder. "Well, if he took out another Death Eater, I say good on him," he said.
"Was he a Death Eater?" she asked. "Harry?"
"Dunno. I've never even heard of Stuart Craggy."
"He must've been one of the new ones," Neville said, "but I'm pretty sure those are all Death Eaters. Everyone knows Voldemort wants to keep a tight grip on Hogwarts."
"I'm a little more disturbed that Peeves killed someone," Hermione said. "I guess I sort of knew he was capable of it, but it's kind of scary to see it."
"You knew?" Harry said. "How—?"
"It's not so surprising," Luna spoke up. "I never thought Peeves was very nice. He would hurt people—trip them, throw rubbish at them, drop things on their heads…"
"But he's never tried to kill anyone that I know of."
"He has once in a while, I think," Hermione said. "According to Hogwarts, A History, the last time anyone tried to expel Peeves, he chased everyone out of the castle for three days with cutlasses and blunderbusses."
"Oh, right, but I don't remember it saying anything about people being killed," said Harry. "It's weird all around…Say, do you think Peeves could get the Death Eaters out of the castle? Or better yet, Voldemort?"
"No, there's no way it could be that easy," Hermione replied.
"But why not?" Neville perked up. "It's not like they can curse him. Poltergeists are spirits. They're practically untouchable."
"Yes, but…no, that doesn't make any sense," she said. "Otherwise, why don't people just recruit an army of ghosts or other spirits—"
"Dementors," Harry pointed out.
"Besides dementors."
"Heliopaths," Luna chimed in.
"Er, and those. Ghosts could be untouchable spies, couldn't they? They could learn ways to eavesdrop without being seen, and almost nothing can trap or incapacitate them. Poltergeists could attack people without recourse. Even boggarts could be used as booby traps. If people aren't doing things like that, there must be a reason."
"Like what?" asked Neville.
"I don't know. But even if they can't get rid of him, I'm sure there are ways to stop him from hurting anyone else. I don't think Peeves is going to take out Voldemort."
"Hmph. Too bad," Harry said. "It's almost Halloween. I'm worried what's going to happen now Voldemort's got total control.
"Maybe the trouble will stop this year?" Hermione offered.
"No, it won't," he said. "Voldemort always does something bad on Halloween, and I just know it's going to be even worse than usual."
As the Sun set, heralding All Hallow's Eve, an ancient wizard sat on a wooden stool vacantly gazing out the window. He knew the symbolic meaning well, but he was only vaguely aware of the import of the day in recent geopolitics. As he did on many evenings, he gazed out at the uninhabited, mostly pristine valley without really taking anything in. There wasn't much else to do, after all these years.
The old man had no human contact of any kind but once a month at most. His meals and cleaning were provided by house elves, who were under strict orders to disregard any attempt he might make at persuasion and relay all requests in written form. A maintenance wizard and two guards would come in for an inspection once a month. A Mediwizard would show up to scan him only once every six months even at his advanced age. And the list of people who were authorised to visit him and actually wanted to had exactly one name on it, and he was far too busy to be bothered to come very often.
It would have been a night much like any other, except that just after sunset, he saw them, and his vacant gaze suddenly grew sharp. People were coming up through the valley, following paths that weren't normally patrolled this close to the castle.
A simple cantrip was all he needed to keep following them in the fading light, turning magically-enhanced night vision on the intruders. They were definitely something he had not seen for a long time. They moved with the surety of people who knew exactly what they were doing, coordinating their movements across distances too far to see, and heading straight for the patrols of the castle guards.
This was interesting. The list of people with official access to that kind of information was three names, the last he'd heard. The list of people who could acquire it unofficially wasn't much longer. They weren't guards, nor legitimate visitors, nor again any of those who remained loyal to him, if there were any left. But then, for whom were they working? Who would be mad enough to want him?
He seriously considered warning the guards. He had grown fond of them, in his own way, and he didn't begrudge them doing their jobs. But he didn't. He wanted to see what would happen.
The attack was swift and precise. The intruders were trained, possessing skill he would have been pleased to have among his own forces once. At some unseen signal, all of the Auror teams on the perimeter were attacked within moments of each other. The intruders incapacitated them—killed some, it appeared—and kept moving.
Inside the perimeter was the hard part, of course. People would never have been satisfied with a mere perimeter patrol here. There were wards and more heavily protected castle guards to contend with. The badges and protective artifacts looted from the Aurors would provide some help, but not enough, and the wards were already tripped. Now, it was a matter of beating the reinforcements here.
The old man wasn't expecting the attack to work. He really wasn't. Others had tried and failed. But it was how they failed and how far they got that interested him.
This time, though, they didn't fail. The view wasn't very good, but he could still hear what was happening below. The intruders had some sort of surprise. They forced the guards back and began climbing the stairs. Whoever was doing this had a lot of knowledge they weren't supposed to have. Well, it looked like this night was going to go rather differently.
When the masked wizard came into the top chamber, the old man only one thing to say: "How?"
"A friend of ours in the Caucasus," the masked wizard said in lightly accented German. "He said your patrols are far too predictable."
The old man put the pieces together. "Ah, how is Konstantin?" he asked.
The masked wizard bristled at the use of the familiar name, but he answered, "Master Jugashvili is very busy. A sudden demand for his services. But he said this job was the most interesting."
"Interesting and difficult. Every eventuality was considered in building this place. And attack like yours would have been anticipated."
"We have our ways of getting into places like this," he said with a tone that indicated a smile. "Master Jugashvili was able to See what to do."
"An impressive feat, considering I set the wards myself. Scrying can only do so much. Who was your inside man?"
The old man could almost hear the scowl in his voice: "That is not your concern. We're giving you an opportunity to escape—an opportunity that won't come again. Please, come with me…Sir."
He leaned back against the wall. "No, I don't think I will."
"What? Have you gone senile, old man?"
"And about that inside man," he continued in all calmness, "if you live to see him again, you should tell him he made a mistake."
The masked wizard stilled. "What mistake?"
A smirk crossed Gellert Grindelwald's face. "You shouldn't have crossed that ward line on the stairs. And not because of me."
There was a blast of fire, and then, behind the masked man was another ancient wizard, this one with piercing blue eyes flashing with anger, and wielding a legendary wand.
On the first of November, the front page of Le Monde Magique showed its most sensational headline yet. All it said was:
NURMENGARD ATTACKED!
"I told you," Harry said.
The rest of the front page above the fold consisted of a moving photo of a tall, narrow castle high in the mountains, with multicoloured flames shooting out of its windows. Part of the roof seemed to be blown away.
"How bad is it?" Neville asked.
Hermione quickly scanned the article. "Grindelwald's still contained, but they broke through most of the security, and no one's sure how they did it. It sounds like people in Germany are spooked."
"Well, at least he didn't escape," Harry muttered.
She scanned the next paragraph. "Because Dumbledore personally showed up and fought back. That won't always be an option. It was really close."
"Why would they even do that?" Neville said. "I thought Voldemort was trying to show he's against Grindelwald's politics."
"Maybe for exactly what happened," Harry suggested. "Panic. Distraction. The more we're worried about Grindelwald, the less we can interfere with his plans. Although I don't think he'd turn down ruling over the muggles if he could."
"Would Voldemort think he could control Grindelwald?" Hermione asked.
He thought about it. "I'm not sure. He's definitely arrogant enough. But I think he's smart enough to know how hard that would be…He could maybe try to—"
But what Voldemort could try to do they didn't find out because Harry was interrupted by a shout from another table: "Holy crap! All the Hogwarts people, look at Page 3!" someone shouted.
Once again, the real story wasn't on the front page. Hermione immediately flipped the page, and she gasped in horror.
"What?" Harry said. "What is it?"
"Peeves is dead."
