This chapter is mixed. Oh, well, some of them are like that.
Chapter Sixteen: Guilty Until Proven InnocentHarry grimaced in resignation as Lucius escorted him into the Ministry, one hand planted firmly on his back. Madam Shiverwood had sent an owl yesterday, "inviting" him to come see her today and have his second interrogation—what she would probably call a little talk. Narcissa, however, was gone this morning, talking to Henrietta Bulstrode, probably to answer some subtle questions about whether Harry was up to the ability of leading.
Harry wished he could have gone with her. Facing Henrietta Bulstrode was nothing next to facing Madam Shiverwood.
That left only Lucius to take him to the Ministry, of course, because everyone in the Manor had only given Harry a chilly stare when he suggested that he be allowed to go alone. Harry had bowed his head and not objected, but his heart boiled with objections. What good would one more hostage do in a battle? Voldemort or his Death Eaters could target the people who came with Harry in the sure and certain knowledge that he would die before he permitted them to be hurt. Harry didn't see why he shouldn't be allowed to go alone, and if Voldemort or the Death Eaters showed up to fight him again, then that was their problem, and his.
They went straight to the Department of Magical Family and Child Services, Lucius exchanging a few cool nods with those he passed. Harry watched him in amusement, to distract his mind from the upcoming questioning. Lucius had lost prestige in the Ministry when Fudge turned so hysterically to the Light, and the fact that the new Minister was Light-devoted also wouldn't help him much. But even now there were people who might listen to money, Harry supposed, if not the words of a Dark wizard. And Scrimgeour wouldn't mind that, even though he might mind Lucius, because Lucius was not a Lord and bribery was one of the means that ordinary wizards used to get things done. He would think it his duty to purge his Ministry of people who could be bribed.
"Here we are." Lucius halted before Madam Shiverwood's door. "I trust that you will emerge from your talk at eleven'o'clock, Harry?"
"Yes, sir," said Harry, and sighed, and put his hand on the door.
This time, though it swung open on the same room, it didn't swing open on the same expression. Madam Shiverwood straightened behind her desk and eyed him sternly.
"Harry," she said, with a brisk nod. "Please sit down."
Harry took the chair in front of her desk, observing her thoughtfully. Her eyes tracked his every movement. She had her hands folded, and if anything, they only clamped more tightly on each other as she stared at him. She coughed, and while it was a gentle cough, Harry didn't think that it marked any gentleness in store for him. Her eyes were too sharp for that.
"Please shut the door," she said.
Harry gestured, and his wandless magic pushed the office door shut on Lucius's distantly amused face.
"Yes, well." Madam Shiverwood shuffled the papers across her desk for a moment, then leaned forward. "I have learned more about the abuse that you suffered, Harry. I have seen all the memories in the Pensieve now, as well as read the reports." She paused a moment, her nostrils flaring, and then said, "Why didn't you tell anyone?"
Harry didn't know what had changed, but he found that he liked this new Madam Shiverwood better. She was certainly off balance, and she seemed to be less intelligent. Perhaps it was just seeing the memories that had disconcerted her. Still, he planned to take advantage of it. "Because my mother made sure the thought would never occur to me, madam," he said. "She told me that it had to stay secret, so that no one would ever find out that Connor couldn't do everything himself. And then she told me that no one outside the family would understand. They would say it was evil, but they would never understand how it looked to someone who was actually part of our family." And that part is still true. "Besides, I never thought of it as abuse at the time."
"Still, though, what she did to you—" Madam Shiverwood's hands clenched on her papers. "When did you first start thinking of it as abuse?"
Harry tried to think. The word had occurred to him at the end of his second year, he thought, during those terrible moments in the Chamber of Secrets when the box had burst open and his silent self had eaten part of Voldemort's magic. "A few months before I turned thirteen," he said quietly.
"And it still didn't occur to you to tell anyone?" Madam Shiverwood's voice was shrill.
"No, for the reasons I laid out to you." Harry shuffled around in his seat so that he was facing Madam Shiverwood more directly. His chair was still lower than her desk, which he didn't like, but he was going to make sure that he held every advantage he could. "Why is this so hard to understand?" he added. "Last time, you seemed to know me better than I knew myself."
"You were abused for so long," said Madam Shiverwood softly, her hands now clenching on the edges of the desk. "I'm merely trying to understand how you could have reached the age of fourteen before it was reported."
Harry felt a stirring of impatience. Well, if she's acting irrational, then she can't use my own supposed irrationality against me. "I didn't want anyone to report it," he said. "If I had my way, it would never have been reported. I can handle forgiving my parents and Dumbledore. There was no reason for anyone else to intrude into what was a private matter of forgiveness and reconciliation."
"It's not just about those!" Madam Shiverwood leaned forward across the desk as if she were going to lunge at him. "It's about justice, and punishment, and seeing that those who hurt you get their due, Harry. Don't you care that your parents would still have been walking about, free to do whatever they wanted, including hurting you again?"
"If they had hurt someone else, that would have been my fault, and I would have borne the guilt of it," said Harry, sitting up in the chair and lifting his chin. "If they hurt me, then I could also bear that. I expected a few more wounds before I could heal them."
"The burden of healing them should never have been up to you," said Madam Shiverwood, softly again, and then looked away from him. Harry saw her wiping tears from her eyes with the corner of one sleeve, and stared. She really is getting too upset. She has to have the ability to stand back from this.
"Has something happened, Madam Shiverwood?" he asked, as gently as he could. "Do you need me to leave?"
Madam Shiverwood blinked at him. "I am crying over you," she said. "You don't seem inclined to shed tears over your own situation." Her eyes were fastened to his face as if nailed there again. "Have you done as I asked, indulging one pleasure or one whim of your own every day?"
Harry flushed, and knew that was answer enough.
"Harry." She whispered his name. "Why?"
"It's stupid," said Harry flatly. "It doesn't have anything to do with healing me. And I can't—" He stopped. What he was going to say next sounded stupid, but then, Madam Shiverwood was already upset. If he said it now, it would just be stupidity and not weakness in front of her, the way it would have been otherwise. "I can't think of that many things I want," he finished.
Madam Shiverwood's eyes grew more alert, though also, Harry thought, brighter with the sheen of tears. She drew a piece of parchment and a quill from her desk drawers and pushed them across the desk to him. Harry sat where he was and made no move to take them, staring at her all the while.
"Make a list of things you like," she said patiently, as though she had already given him the instructions once. "Then we can work out ways for you to have them."
Harry snorted, but leaned forward and floated the parchment and quill to him, bracing them on his leg as he used his hand to write. He saw Madam Shiverwood's eyes dart to the stump of his left wrist, and that same stricken look come over her face. Why? It's not like she had anything to do with the loss of it, and if she's pitying me for losing it, then I may just have to kick her. He lowered his head and began to scribble hard on the parchment.
Helping people.
Healing people.
Giving other people what they want.
After that, it grew harder. Harry hesitated, toying with the quill, and wondered what else he liked and wanted. Oh, of course.
Freeing magical creatures.
Breaking webs.
After that…well. Harry frowned at the parchment, and wondered if he really needed to write down anything else. There were some very minor pleasures that he indulged in sometimes, but a lot of them could be filed under one of those he'd already written. He heard Madam Shiverwood shifting and starting to draw in her breath, though, so he began writing hastily.
Brewing potions.
Flying.
He added that second one reluctantly. Except when he'd flown on his broom to stop the dragons last year, or tired to throw the Quidditch games for Connor, he couldn't really think of a time he'd used his flying to help people. That made it the exact kind of pleasure that Madam Shiverwood wanted him to list, of course, but all it felt to him was wasteful. Harry didn't think he'd be playing Quidditch this year. Why should he? He had other things to do, and catching the Snitch was a small rush of pleasure compared to the time that training took up.
He handed the parchment back to Madam Shiverwood, and she looked over it in silence. To Harry's irritation, she looked as if she were about to start crying again.
She glanced up at Harry, wiping her cheeks, and said, "We must try to get you a few more selfish pleasures, that's all."
"I don't see why." Harry shifted from side to side in the chair, and wished that he were alone. "If I'm supposed to be recovering from abuse, shouldn't I think about that instead?"
"Because of the unusual circumstances of your case, this does qualify as helping you to recover from abuse," said Madam Shiverwood gently. "I want you to be able to enjoy things for themselves, Harry, or for yourself. Your mother trained you to hate good things—"
"Not hate them," Harry interrupted, thinking this was an important distinction. Otherwise, they might try Lily for something she hadn't really done. "Just do without them. And sometimes panic if someone tries to introduce them to me too insistently." He thought uneasily about the tickling session that Draco had put him through last night. It had been all right until Draco's hands lingered on his skin too long, and then the fear had surged up inside him again.
But that's Draco's province to help me recover from. Not Madam Shiverwood's. Harry folded his arms and stared stubbornly at her.
"That is worse," said Madam Shiverwood quietly. "She has made a fifteen-year-old boy incapable of thinking about having fun." She considered his list again. "From now on, Harry, I want you to do at least one thing every day that pleases you and does not involve helping someone else."
"I can't brew potions or fly every day," Harry protested.
"For now, you can," said Madam Shiverwood, and then sighed. "Although why I should expect you to obey me now, when you didn't last time, and you no longer seem as eager about healing from abuse as you were…"
"I am eager," Harry said. She really just doesn't understand. "I do want to heal. But I can't afford to do it in a way that takes up too much time. Lots of people are depending on me." That ought not to surprise her, at least, if she'd seen the newspaper articles that the Prophet was publishing.
"Healing should be your most important priority right now, Harry," said Madam Shiverwood. "Other people will understand if you have to wait to help them. And it's the most important thing I can do, too."
There is something strange happening here, though I don't know what memory or magic could have caused it. Harry leaned back in his chair. "But you don't just handle my case, madam. You handle others. I don't think you'll do a service to other abused children by concentrating so hard on me."
"Right now, the other cases do not need so much of my personal involvement," said Madam Shiverwood. "The children involved have good relationships with their guardians, or with the parent who did not abuse them, or with other relatives. You have no one who is connected to you in that way, Harry, except your guardian—"
"He's not my guardian by choice," said Harry shortly, feeling those uncontrollable emotions that boiled up in him whenever he thought about Snape. But Snape wasn't here right now, and he would make himself look a fool if he went on about him in front of Madam Shiverwood. After some deep breathing, he managed to calm down and stare her in the eye. "I tried to ask the Minister to strip him of his guardianship. He wouldn't do it."
"You need caring adults about you, Harry," said Madam Shiverwood. "That is becoming quite clear. If the Minister refused to take the office away from Severus Snape, I can only assume that he thinks the man is doing a good job."
"A good job driving me mad," Harry muttered.
"Why?"
Harry peeked at her from the corner of one eye. This is just the kind of thing she wants to hear about, probably. Well, if I tell it to her, then maybe I can convince her that I do want to heal. The things she recommends that I do just aren't useful, that's all, and take up too much time.
"He probably knows me better than any other adult," Harry admitted grudgingly. "He's rescued me and saved me numerous times, and he doubtless thought he was doing it again." Harry ducked his head, so that the expression in his eyes wouldn't be as visible. "But because he knows me, he knew that I wouldn't forgive him for exposing my parents and Dumbledore to abuse charges. For other crimes, crimes that wouldn't have destroyed them, yes. I could understand why he would do that. But not this kind of crime. Not this kind of charge. It's—what he did is inhuman, and he shouldn't have done it, not when he knows I wouldn't like it."
"Then does that mean a guardian should only do what a child likes?" Madam Shiverwood asked, mild again.
Damn. I never saw that one coming. "No," Harry said. "But that's not the point. The point is that other children need guardians like that, because they can't take care of themselves or deal with the adults who hurt them on their own. Snape knows I could have. That just makes what he's done all the more unforgivable."
"You can forgive your parents, and yet you cannot forgive him?"
"They don't know me," said Harry impatiently. "They only know the boy they think I am, the child they believed they created. Snape knows me, and he went ahead and did it anyway."
"That suggests, to me," said Madam Shiverwood, folding her hands in front of her again, "that he was prepared to lose your love, and even your forgiveness, for the sake of seeing you safe. He took a great risk with this. You might have destroyed him, or done worse than yell at him, thanks to your magic and your raw emotions. You certainly have turned your back on him. But he will live to see you safe, even if it is not with him. That bespeaks a great love to me. If he does know you better than your parents, as you said he does, then he put the knowledge to good use."
"If he really does love me, then he would have let me deal with this on my own," said Harry. "He knew how badly I wanted to." He was not going to admit that Madam Shiverwood might have a point. Of course, that didn't prevent him from knowing what would come out of her mouth next.
"And being a guardian is not about indulging all a child's whims," she said gently. She leaned back in her chair and studied him. "I would also like you to think about Professor Snape, Harry," she added. "It's obvious that you haven't, that you've pushed aside your emotions. Otherwise, I think you would be able to argue better for or against him than this."
Harry swallowed, and felt as if there were knives in his throat. "And what should I think about, madam? Making him dangle by one hand over a pit of snakes until he apologizes to my parents and Dumbledore?"
"If that is what it takes to make you work through your emotions," said Madam Shiverwood. "Understand, Harry. I am not saying that you must forgive him. I am only asking you to think about it. You have not done it, and it is obvious that that is slowing you down, and making you clumsy in your emotional responses to him. Healing from the wounds you believe that he inflicted on you is just another part of the healing process. Think about him, imagine conversations with him, dangle him above a snake pit if you must. I know that you are going back to school soon. How will you deal with him then, if you cannot deal with talking about him now?"
Harry had been wondering the same thing, in the back of his mind. But there were so many other things to think about—especially when he was at Malfoy Manor, and Draco was close by—that he tended to let it glide out of his mind, like flowing water. He sighed, and admitted she might have a point.
"All right, madam. I'll try."
Madam Shiverwood nodded, satisfied. "And what about indulging one pleasure or whim each day?"
Harry frowned at her. "I feel like I'm a little kid, and you're telling me to go play outside."
"I am not doing that, Harry, unless you wish to be outside," said Madam Shiverwood. "I am encouraging you to go and have fun."
"That sounds even more childish," Harry complained.
Madam Shiverwood shook her head slightly. "And if you have looked into the Prophet, you will have noticed that you are a child to many people," she said. "It is time that you learned to use that, Harry, instead of being difficult about it. If you do want to be more than an abused child, then you should be seizing this chance to grow past it, to learn to have fun and accept pleasure so that you can be a true adult. Unless you think that adults give up all chance of fun and pleasure when they turn eighteen?" she added, and Harry didn't want to oblige her with a smile, but couldn't quite resist.
"I suppose," he said. He didn't say it, but there was another reason that indulging himself could get to be a bad habit. What if he indulged himself the night before a battle, or when Voldemort made a sudden and violent move against the wizarding world? Then he might not have the concentration and emotional control that he needed in order to be ready for circumstances like that.
"I know it," said Madam Shiverwood. "I would like you to write down your promise this time, Harry, and sign your name to it. Or your promises, rather, since I would also like you think about your guardian." She pushed the parchment and quill back towards him.
Reluctantly, but cheered at the thought of actually pushing these stupid, crippling things behind him, Harry took up the parchment and wrote.
Lucius did not idle outside the door once he had given Harry over into Madam Shiverwood's tender care. He strolled down the hall, instead, reached the lifts, and casually took them to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.
A few people stared at him as he walked in, but most of them didn't look up from their paperwork, or prudently pretended not to catch his eye. Lucius had a few friends here. Up until a year and a half ago, before Fudge's little attack of paranoia, he had even been a common sight on some days. Lucius didn't let either the stares or the carefully averted eyes bother him, of course, as he walked casually to the door of his closest friend in the Ministry and knocked.
Time to renew an old acquaintance.
The door opened almost at once. It was warded to do that if the person who knocked was one that Aurelius Flint trusted. Lucius didn't know what happened if someone knocked whom he distrusted. Perhaps it blew up in their faces. Aurelius was disturbingly good with hexes.
"Lucius," said Aurelius, looking up and regarding him with flat, blank black eyes. Lucius had to admire the man's control. It was like being looked at by a beetle. Not nearly as charming as Lucius's own coldness, of course, which he could adjust by several degrees of warmth as the situation required, but Aurelius didn't work in a position where he needed the charm. He was, to most appearances, merely a minor paper-pusher in his Department. To those who looked with knowing eyes, he was a source of information, a node in the web where many strands met. "What can I do for you?"
"Many things," said Lucius, and heard the door shut behind him. He sat down in front of Aurelius's desk, easy, not afraid, though he knew he was in a room the man sitting opposite him had covered with death traps. "For starters, do you know how closely allied I am to the Potters?"
Only a flicker in the deep eyes showed that that wasn't the question Aurelius was expecting. He sat back, though, and slung a leg over his desk, as casual as Lucius was. "Your son's pretty close friends with their older boy, I hear."
Lucius smiled. "Not just friends, Aurelius. They'll be joined one day."
"Who told you that? Boys never know their own feelings at that age." Aurelius was grimacing, no doubt remembering the disastrous marriage he'd nearly entered when he was sixteen. Lucius still thought it was the funniest story he'd ever heard.
"Narcissa."
After a moment's consideration, Aurelius inclined his head in acceptance. "And you want to see your in-laws, or the people who will be your in-laws, and congratulate them on having produced a son who can expect to be allied with a Malfoy?" he asked.
Lucius leaned closer. "Well, not congratulate them. That would be rather too strong a word. But I do think that we should be in communication. After all, I've never had a chance to talk to Lily or James Potter since we fought on opposite sides in that large misunderstanding of the War, when I was under Imperius." Aurelius's smile at that would have done a shark credit, Lucius thought. "Who can help me with that?"
Aurelius closed his eyes, no doubt rifling through the mental files in his head. It was remarkable, Lucius thought, how he kept the information organized like that. He never wrote anything about his contacts down, because he didn't need to. That, of course, contributed greatly to his not getting caught. He would know who could be bribed, who was in desperate need of a favor, who was on the brink of getting sacked for drinking, but he wouldn't have so much as a scrap of a note bearing that person's name anywhere in his office.
"Richard Nott," said Aurelius, opening his eyes. "He has a contact who's rotating as a guard on the Potter cells."
"And what would Nott want?" Lucius asked, cocking an eyebrow. He remembered Richard. A disappointment to his family when he became an Auror, especially when his first adventure in the field resulted in him acquiring a wound that couldn't be completely healed, and put him in the Ministry doing light work for the rest of his career. Of course, Richard wouldn't admit that he was wrong and come home, being pig-headed. All the Notts were like that.
"Why, just a bit of dragonweed," said Aurelius. "A bit more than he's supposed to have, thanks to his wound nagging him. Not much, you understand. Merlin knows that I don't want the poor fellow dead."
Lucius nodded, and let a faint smile grace his lips. He would provide Nott with his dragonweed, and Nott would get his contact on the cells—the nature of whose debt to Nott Lucius didn't know, and didn't need to—to make sure that Lucius could chat with James and Lily Potter to his heart's content. "No one would want that," he said, and stood, with a small inclination of his head to Aurelius. "Helpful as always, my old friend."
Aurelius simply nodded. He and Lucius were perhaps not friends, but Lucius genuinely had saved his life, and asked only to be included in his information web as payment for the debt that had incurred. Lucius kept doing small favors for him on occasion, of course, including insuring that his son Marcus had a little extra help on his NEWTS the second year he took them, so that he could actually pass and leave Hogwarts. No need to lose such a valuable friend.
Lucius left with a spring in his step to pick up Harry. Depending on when Nott's contact could get him in to see the Potters, he might have to be prepared on a moment's notice. That was no trouble. He had the blank wand, and the owner of the Magical Menagerie had owled him yesterday. A shipment of insects had arrived, bearing his name. Their food was included with them, so they would stay alive until he had need of them. He only needed to go to Diagon Alley and pick them up.
Everything is going well. Of course, why should it not? The world is ordered around the strong, and I am that.
Harry stood uneasily holding his Firebolt and studying the sky. It was clear, late afternoon, in the first throes of sunset. The only good thing about this therapy that Madam Shiverwood had ordered him to do was that it encouraged Narcissa to extend his bedtime past dusk. Harry had come to think that punishment more and more unfair as the summer advanced and the days grew shorter and shorter.
But now…
Now he had to go flying, and he wasn't sure what would happen when he did. Even granting that all the Malfoys were staying carefully in their Manor, and not looking out the windows to watch him, either, he was afraid of what they might see.
Harry was afraid that he would act like a child when he was flying, and that would undo at least some of the respect he'd built up in Lucius and Narcissa's eyes.
Or maybe he was just afraid to do something that felt pleasant, because that would undo other barriers he'd raised, and urge him on a quest for more, more, more.
Harry took a deep breath, slung a leg over his Firebolt, and took off.
He rose faster than he had intended to, and felt fear brush him for a moment. And then it was gone, and he was remembering the speed and strength of the Firebolt from the last time he'd ridden it, and the exaltation that had flooded him when he flew as a child lifted him up and cradled him.
He was laughing. It didn't matter. He circled under the summer sunset, and the gold and the green and the blue seemed to sink into him and pierce him like blades, and that didn't matter, either.
He flew in another circle, then dropped to the ground. The plunge was straight downward. Harry watched the grass grow clearer and more distinct, felt the wind whip tears from his eyes, and laughed and laughed and laughed.
At least he knew none of the Malfoys were watching now, or one of them would have been outside and screaming at him.
At the last moment, Harry flipped backwards, pulling the broom over and around with him, so that he tumbled bristles over head over bristles, and felt the grass kiss his hair like Draco sometimes liked to do, when he thought Harry wouldn't notice. Harry turned around, rolling, so close that he scraped his elbow on the ground, and then blasted back into the sky.
He felt his blood up, hammering through his veins and singing in his ears. For once, for once, that wasn't because of battle. He could almost see Madam Shiverwood's point in that moment, that perhaps sometimes he could be a child, and it wouldn't hurt, that it might even help him become a better adult…
He was back to racing across the sky, and the moment was lost, and he was glad. He didn't really want to think right now. He wanted to lift, then dive in a jagged, zigzagging pattern that made an owl setting out from the house dodge him and squawk. Harry chased her for a few moments, then rolled over and dropped towards the ground again, flying upside-down this time.
He gathered his strength and speed before he reached the grass, imagined the ground as a Bludger, and darted sideways so sharply that he felt his neck wrench. But that was all right, that was all right, it was all right as long as he could lift straight up and balance in the air, cocking his head to ease the pain and whirling twice. He didn't need to think about anything up here, and he wasn't afraid of falling or being hurt, because he knew how to fly. He could indulge his love for risk-taking here, and no one would yell at him.
Individual movements blended into a great flood of fiery sweetness then, and Harry didn't think like an adult until he landed back on the ground, as the sky was raining blue from above and the sun was setting. He laughed and bent over, wheezing, then rubbed the side of his neck, and realized he'd changed his mind.
As long as the Quidditch team still wanted him, he thought he'd be playing this year after all.