Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter!
You know those quandaries that Harry doesn't always know how to solve? Yeah. Here comes another of them.
Chapter Seventy-Three: The Teeth of the Past
Harry wasn't surprised to wake the next morning and find half the tents dismantled. Enough wizards and witches had spoken to him yesterday as should leave them in no doubt of his politics. Some were still lingering in hopes they could change their minds or his, but most of the hopeless cases were gone now.
That still left almost three hundred people in the valley, though. Harry shook his head, smiling. He wondered how many of them actually meant to swear an alliance with him, and how many were hoping they could drag him into a compromise of some kind.
"Harry! You shouldn't be out here alone!"
Harry turned, startled, and then laughed as he saw his brother emerging, hair mussed with sleep, from his golden-white tent, which Harry was passing on his way towards the Malfoy one. "Connor! I don't think anyone else is going to attack me, not after the way I handled Montague."
Connor tried to respond, but wound up yawning. "Wait here," he said, ducking into the tent again. "I'll get you an escort. Fred and George are already awake."
Harry rolled his eyes at the thought of actually taking two Weasleys to breakfast with the Malfoys, but Connor was insistent, and Fred and George would only follow if Harry didn't walk beside them. Harry had no desire to have the twins and their inventions chasing him, perhaps calling his name in various embarrassing ways. An escort would work.
Fred and George tumbled out a few moments later, yawning so widely that Harry started to think Connor's idea of them being awake was exaggerated. But they recovered in a moment, and focused on him with identical grins that reminded Harry of the way cats looked at mice—if cats baited mice with the smell of cheese and sent them back to lure out the rest of the nest.
"Where are we going to have breakfast, O Great and Grand Lord of Light and Dark?" the one Harry thought was George asked.
Harry sighed. "With the Malfoys. But you don't have to stay with me. You can just take me to the tent, and—"
"Oh, no," said the other twin, probably Fred. "After all, we're the brothers of the best friend of your brother, and Draco's your consort now." The other twin sniggered. "That makes the Malfoys practically our in-laws," Fred finished innocently, and Harry choked.
"Please don't mention that in front of them," he begged when he'd recovered his breath.
"We won't," George agreed. "We'll save it—"
"For the joining," said Fred, looking delighted. "Then we can photograph them as they—"
"Choke on the cake," George finished, nodding emphatically. "Can you imagine it, Fred?" The twins exchanged dreamy smiles.
Harry bit down on the instinct to protest. The sooner this started, the sooner it would be over with. "Come on, then," he said in resignation, and led the way towards the Malfoy tent. It was a beautiful morning, the sun blazing off the dew that coated the grass and mud, but he no longer took as much cheer in that as he had a few moments ago.
Lucius Malfoy had always disliked Weasleys.
It had to do with their pure blood and their refusal to have any standards. It had to do with personal insults that Arthur Weasley had offered him. It had to do with a feud that extended backwards between their two families into decades where Weasleys had certainly committed crimes and Malfoys might, just might, have retaliated with the good taste and breeding they had always possessed.
And now Harry had brought two Weasleys to breakfast.
Lucius eyed them warily as he sipped his tea. The two boys were lanky as ropes, and exactly identical, and even though they had done nothing so far but grin, Draco and Harry were both flinching as if they expected more every moment. Narcissa had taken one look at the twins and absented herself from breakfast, claiming that she had a headache which only walking about in mud would cure. Lucius had offered to escort her, but had been reminded that the owner of the tent should remain to offer hospitality to his guests. Implicit in Narcissa's reminder was the one that they would probably lose the tent if they left two Weasleys alone in it with only Harry and Draco for company.
Lucius sneered. Probably return to find it Transfigured into a pile of Galleons. Merlin knows the Weasleys need the money.
"Mr. Malfoy."
Now one of them was addressing him. Lucius tightened his grip on his teacup and wished he could pretend to be oblivious, as if he read the Daily Prophet for his own edification. But when the same voice repeated his name, he concealed a sigh and lowered the teacup to the table. He had altered the table's composition from stone to wood when he saw the visitors. There was no reason to treat the Weasleys with a higher standard than they were accustomed to.
"Yes?" he snapped at the twin. The boy grinned at him. There really didn't seem to be much of Arthur in him, Lucius had to admit, but he had red hair, and freckles, and the Weasley air of looking at the world as if it were an enormous gift to be unwrapped, instead of a maze to be understood and walked through. That was enough.
"Allow me to offer you our congratulations on the joining of your son and Harry," said the boy pompously. "We have a number of products that you might be interested in—"
"Oh, Merlin, George, not here," Lucius heard Harry say, with the smallest of groans in his voice.
Lucius felt his muscles grow tight, to the point of snapping. He knew his voice had dropped onto a glacial level when he said, "I beg your pardon?" and felt the table shiver with the force of his leashed magic.
"A number of products to make the eventual joining more poetic," the Weasley said, and gave him another of those idiotic grins. "We have a prototype here. Fred?" He nodded to his brother, while Lucius was meditating on what sort of pureblood family would give their children such prosaic names, and the other pulled a small, silk-wrapped package from his robe pocket.
"Imagine," said the other twin, in a hushed voice, "this beauty proclaiming the joining ritual to all and sundry, when you decide to have it!" Then he whipped the silk off, and tapped the object.
Lucius started hard at it. It appeared to be a green box ornamented with golden curlicues—garish, of course, the way he would expect of something the Weasleys thought a treasure, but otherwise ordinary. Harry and Draco were both edging away from it as if the boy held a snake, however.
No, Lucius thought, as if the boy held a piece of the Dark Lord. Harry would not fear any snake, no matter how venomous, and Lucius could have spoken to one as well.
"Please do the honors, Mr. Malfoy," said the Weasley, and extended the box towards him with a little bow.
Harry hissed, "Fred, no!" and shook his head at Lucius. Fred turned a wounded, innocent look on Harry.
"Now, Harry, I never believed those rumors about the Malfoys being a pack of slimy cowards," he said. "Your consort does a good enough job of protecting you in school. I think Mr. Malfoy deserves a chance to show that he's just as brave as his son."
Lucius knew there was no way he would get out of this without embarrassing himself. At least, if he accepted the box, it would only be embarrassment that they were forcing upon him. If he walked away, then he would be committing the sin of abandoning guests in his tent without just cause to dismiss them. With a smile that hid how tightly his teeth were clenched, he reached out and opened the box.
A puff of colored light and smoke rose into his face. Lucius blinked, and then looked around. He could see no obvious effect of the box. Then he caught sight of Draco staring at him in horror, and looked down at himself.
His robes were a brilliant, garish green, like a Gryffindor maniac's idea of what the Slytherin colors should be. Red lettering marched along it, making him look like a bloody Christmas tree. The lettering spelled out Happy joining, Harry and Draco! and sometimes smoked and sometimes steamed, to draw further attention to itself. The robes now had pink, gleaming lights fastened at the cuff, and they blinked and beeped happily, now and then imitating the sound of faint cheers.
Even through his fury, Lucius had to admire the amount of magical skill that must have gone into developing this trick. It wouldn't have been easy to fold so many spells into such a small container, much less insure they interacted without influencing each other into unfortunate effects, or activated when the box opened and not before. But that was through his fury.
He looked up in time to catch the flash of a camera. Then the Weasleys were out through the entrance of the tent, laughing all the way, and Harry was sitting there with an absolutely mortified look on his face. Draco didn't look as if he knew whether to sit there in answering embarrassment or to chase the Weasels with his wand held out and avenge the honor of his family.
Lucius managed to control his impulse to shout. He put the box back on the table, though he closed it first, hoping that might remove the spells from his robes. It did no such thing. He smiled tightly at Harry.
"How…interesting," he said.
Harry winced and stared at him through his fingers. "I'm sorry, sir," he murmured. "I thought they could behave themselves. I hoped they wouldn't insist on staying for breakfast, or offering you one of their products, but…" He shrugged helplessly, as if to point out that what he hadn't wanted had happened, which Lucius knew perfectly well. One of his robe cuffs beeped, to emphasize the point.
"I understand that you were the one who gave them the thousand Galleons they would need to start their business?" Lucius asked, as if only mildly interested. When Harry nodded, he added, "Can I ask why?"
"Because they have the talent and determination to do what they want," said Harry, blinking at him. "And they're magical geniuses, sir. They really are. They've already created amazing effects with a limited amount of money. I thought they might become even more amazing if they had the fortune to do what they wanted. It could prevent them from becoming bitter, and turning their pranks into jokes of true malice because they didn't have any better outlet for their emotions."
"And, of course, you weren't thinking at all about what weapons they might make for us in battle," Lucius said softly.
Harry swallowed. "That wasn't at the top of my mind, sir."
But it was under the surface, I think. Lucius found comfort in thinking of his future son-in-law this way. Really, it was all very well to acquire a reputation as a philanthropist—sometimes it was one of the most powerful political tools one could wield in the Ministry—but being one was a different matter. Harry would have to learn that there were better things to spend the fortune on.
And he would have to learn that there were better means of vengeance than the immediate strike that both Harry and the Weasleys seemed to have expected Lucius to launch. Lucius would wait, and watch, and see when the best opportunity to avenge the insult arose.
It would be one that both helped him and hurt the Weasleys, ideally. He had had no idea that those troublesome twins were so close to Harry, and it would be better to separate him from them as soon as possible.
"This is nothing magic cannot cure," he said, soothingly, and that was true, though he might have to give these robes to his house elves and let them try their magic on them. "Now, finish your breakfast."
Harry nodded, murmured another apology, and then turned back to do so. Draco slid a hand down his shoulder in comfort, and whispered something. Harry leaned into him so readily that any of Lucius's fears about Harry's acceptance of the joining as only a political stunt were allayed.
Now that he is so closely allied to us, we can do far more. Lucius felt his mouth curl into a vicious smile. Avenging ourselves on the Weasleys is only part of it. There are other families waiting for us to take our rightful place above them. I wonder if Harry will ever realize that, by declaring himself about to be joined and closing off paths with which other people might claim him, he has made himself an enemy of those families the Malfoys are enemies of?
He did not think Harry realized it. He believed that most of his would-be allies who had left the gathering had done so because their principles didn't march with his. Lucius knew of at least three families, however, who had departed because they knew they would not be able to combat the Malfoy influence on Harry.
That is well for right now. When I die, then Harry will have to have more political competence, but I can guide him until then. It would be confusing for him to try and absorb this right now.
With that comforting thought, Lucius felt equal to returning to his breakfast, even though Narcissa came in, looked at his changed robes, and declared that she had another headache.
Harry ducked the sweep of a wing as the Opaleye settled the stones she'd been carrying into place. Then he finished Transfiguring the last of his own boulders, eyed the lines of the circle they'd drawn on the grass, and nodded.
The current of magic that ran through the Woodhouse valley had proven unexpectedly resistant to letting them put boulders from the valley's sides together in a circular shape, even though it hadn't cared when Harry, Regulus, and Peter assembled the stage and steps. After the third attempt, and the third time that the current tore the stone from his imagined "hands" and put it back where it belonged, Harry had given in and asked the dragon to assemble the boulders. The current appeared to accept the dragon as a beast to put up with, and while she flew back and forth with stones, it continued its tame circling.
She was done now, and they had a round table, with boulders placed around it which Harry had Transfigured into chairs. He had thought of draping family pennants over them, but for all he knew, he wouldn't get a detail right and one of his allies would be insulted. If they wanted to mark their own seats, then they could do so.
The table was more than a hundred feet wide and more than twice that long. The dragon had been clever enough to put the boulders with their smoothest sides upright, so that it worked out as a tabletop. Harry had already selected his seat, which was on the southern side of the table, somewhere near the middle but not exactly. He wasn't going to look as if he had a more important position than anyone else by taking the head, when the whole point of a round table in the first place was to give an impression of equality.
"Harry."
Harry turned towards Acies, who was standing beside him with no sign of how she'd arrived. That was all right; Harry was almost used to her sudden appearances and disappearances by now. "Yes, ma'am?" he murmured.
Acies looked up at the Opaleye, as if communing with her, and didn't respond for a long moment. Then she said, "You are on an anvil. The hammer is about to descend upon you again."
Harry blinked. "I do consider the meeting a forging," he said. "But I consider most experiences in my life a forging." He wondered, sometimes, what ultimate end most of those experiences were shaping him for: facing Voldemort, accomplishing his vates task, or something altogether different. Then he scolded himself for thinking that the world turned around him like that. Prophecy or not, he didn't want to weave a narrative of his life in which destiny was the primary focus. Perhaps the experiences shaped him simply for living. That would make the most sense.
"And the harder they temper you, the less likely you are to break," said Acies, pulling his gaze back to her. "But this one will fall as a hard blow. Remember that you cannot heal everything, and that when the blades of others' lives shatter, they cannot always be repaired." She turned and walked away, her cloak swishing along the grass. Harry stood and watched her go.
She had confirmed for him already that a prophecy might come true three times, that there was no mystical rule against it—though none that said it could happen, either. She had recited that prophecy about the storms again when Harry asked her, and strengthened Harry's conviction that he was right, that a storm of Light would descend on Midsummer Day, and at Hogwarts. Two storms for the year, the prophecy said, and Midsummer Day marked halfway around the year from Midwinter and the storm of the wild Dark.
And a year since the day Voldemort and Bellatrix had taken his hand.
Harry winced as a sharp twinge of phantom pain jolted up his left wrist, then resolved not to let it bother him. The important thing was setting up the trap so that it would take Voldemort, and, before that, getting through this meeting.
And if a hammer would fall on the anvil this time…
Well. That was what would happen.
Harry turned towards the Opaleye, who had landed next to the table and cocked her head at him, and nodded his approval of the table's construction. As if that had been a signal, she lowered her head and laid it down next to him. Harry let her stare at him, not knowing what else she wanted.
Perhaps that's a good thing. I don't want to get so confident that I forget there are forces in the world greater than I am. For a moment, his hand brushed against the stone impregnated with the foul magic, still stored in a robe pocket. Nor absorb so much magic that I think magic is the end-all and be-all of someone's strength.
Augustus Starrise stretched luxuriously as he stepped out of his tent. His staff of white oak was in his hand, the bands of gold catching the sunlight and sparking it back, and he had a head full of good dreams.
Last night, he had seen and spoken with Alba for a long time in his dreams. She had reassured him that she loved him, and that he had not taken too long to find her murderers. That had reassured Augustus. Dedicated as he was to his justice quest, he could not help feeling like a failure that it had lasted so long.
He strode rapidly through the grass in the direction of the immense stone table Harry had set up, in deliberate echo of another stone table. Augustus found the gesture amusing, but not as amusing as the fact that the Apollonis tent was missing from its place. It appeared that Cupressus hadn't been able to accept Harry's ultimatum, and had taken his leave.
He listened to threads of conversation as he wandered in circles, yawning and touching his staff now and then as if he weren't quite awake. The sense of his sister's spirit accompanying him hadn't faded yet, and it mingled with the opinions that people didn't know he overheard. Augustus found the various reactions to Harry's little speech yesterday interesting.
"—don't really think that he has the right to tell us what to do with our house elves," said one stuffy voice.
"Then why are you still here?" countered the other, and the first person didn't seem to have an answer to that. Augustus smiled, though he kept his eyes straight ahead. In time, he thought that most of the wizards and witches who had decided to remain past that initial statement of revolution would yield to Harry's demands. Keeping house elves was a luxury, now, not a need; there were plenty of Muggleborns and even poorer pureblood families who did without them. That didn't mean Augustus was eager to give up his own, but next to what Harry could offer his allies, it was not sensible to continue clinging to outmoded custom.
"Think that he'll stay with the Malfoy boy?" Flora Dawnborn was asking her sister Fauna, one of the most inveterate matchmakers in wizarding Britain.
"Only until someone better comes along," Fauna said with a sharp nod of her head. "He said it himself. The Malfoy boy's the first one who snared his attention, that's all, the first friend he ever had. Bonds like that last only until a deeper and more mature love comes along and absorbs a young man's passion. I think Proteus might be perfect for him, don't you?" she added.
Augustus had to rack his brain for a moment before he remembered Proteus Dawnborn. Then he snorted. A puffed-up little Light wizard, that one, even worse than the Malfoy heir, with only his allegiance to recommend him. Fauna was mad to think he stood a chance of capturing Harry's interest.
Of course, the ritual he referred to, the one that begins Walpurgis Night, is a three-year dance, if I remember correctly. That means that someone else might interrupt it before it finishes, and snare Harry's attention before the crucial Halloween when he'll be unable to back out of it…hmmm.
Much as he tried to think of a relative of his who would snare Harry, however, Augustus couldn't come up with a candidate. Pharos was to be married soon, and his brother's children were all too young—and girls besides, which might not be a barrier, but, on the other hand, might be. Certainly Tybalt had refused to consider any of his cousins, even when Augustus had pleaded political expediency. Some wizards and witches were like that, seeing the sex before the person. Augustus couldn't understand the attitude himself, but then, he didn't need to understand it, just be aware of it and manipulate it—or, in Tybalt's case, give up in disgust when he threw himself away on a Muggleborn, not even an eligible young man.
"Paul won't like it," a witch he knew only slightly was telling a friend of hers.
"Really?" Her friend leaned nearer, her voice a bit breathless, and Augustus took the opportunity to pretend to search for something he'd dropped in the grass, so that he'd have an excuse to listen.
"Really," confirmed the witch, with a nod. "After all, if Lord Harry's going after centaurs and house elves and dragons this year, who's to say that he won't be going after Granians the next? Paul and the other breeders won't be pleased, oh no, if His Lordship wants them to free their stock instead of breeding and selling."
"I hadn't considered the economic aspect of this, I must admit," her friend said, looking disturbed.
Augustus frowned as he moved on. He knew Paul, at least if he was Paul Fredericks, breeder of the fastest Granian flying horses in Britain. He was part of a more than slightly fanatical political group called Shield of the Granian, which had leaned on the Ministry in the past to change laws that would have affected their breeders. They had money and power backing them. Harry should think twice before he went up against them, or encouraged them to go up against him.
Of course, he won't. Say what you want about our young Lord, but he's more than dedicated to his cause.
Augustus moved on, taking in reactions and a cup of hot tea that one of his house elves, when summoned, brought him. Most of the reactions he heard were positive, but cautious. Harry was refusing to play by too many rules for these wizards and witches to feel entirely comfortable with him. He wouldn't claim the title of Lord. He wouldn't use the Black fortune, at least so far, for bribery and the more subtle gifts that bought future favors. He had joined himself to the Malfoy family, but had reached out to Light wizards. And now this, his determination to haul the wizarding world into revolution whether it wanted it or not.
Augustus shook his head as he assumed a seat at the table. He is making this harder than it needs to be. If he learned to compromise, he might achieve more of what he wants.
It was not long before the other allies who had chosen to stay assembled, many of them casting a glamour of their family flag on the back of their chairs. Harry had one of only two blank seats in the midst of them, by the time he showed up. He had his scowling guardian, Severus Snape, on one side, who refused to cast the glamour he was entitled to; Augustus knew his mother had been a witch of the once-powerful Prince line. The other side was thick with Malfoys and their blue-gray. On the far side of Snape sat the resurrected Black, Regulus. He had tried to cast a glamour of the Black crest on the back of Harry's chair, but the moment Harry appeared and looked at it, it vanished.
Harry leaned forward and cast whatever charm it was that made his voice appear to sound directly in one's ears. Augustus shook his head. It was an effective political tool, in one way, but in another, it promised an intimacy, a personal touch to the politics, that Augustus doubted Harry would be able to sustain.
"Thank you for coming," said Harry. "Yesterday was a general introduction to my purposes and the purposes of this alliance, which I thank you for enduring, as I know the recitation was redundant for those who've paid attention to me." A chuckle moved up and down the table. "Today, I have a favor to ask of the Light families who have linchpins in the north of England." And he turned his eyes on Augustus, and the Dawnborns, and the Griffinsnest representatives, and Laura Gloryflower.
Augustus caught his breath in surprise. Can he mean to ask us to give up our linchpins? Surely he would not be that bold.
He was distracted for a moment as his staff gave a spark. But when he glanced at it, his sister had nothing to say to him as yet. Augustus could feel her spirit searching the table, however. He leaned back in his chair and tried to relax.
"The linchpins are the stakes in a web that binds the northern goblins," said Harry bluntly. "It was done to make them unable to hurt wizards, so far as I can determine, and also to stop some land that wizards valued from sliding into the sea. There are two ways I know of that the web can be removed. One is to sacrifice enough magic to take the place of the linchpins in the web." For some reason, his hand brushed his robe pocket. Augustus repressed the temptation to snort. If he thinks he can channel enough magic through his wand for that to happen, he should think again. "Another is to change the nature of the inheritance, so that the linchpins are no longer linchpins and each Light family inheritance is bound to one person, as happens in some Dark families, including the Blacks. My brother has already allowed this to be done."
Pandemonium answered him. Augustus leaned back in his chair, distracted both by the way that the golden band at the end of his staff sparkled and by the fact that he thought he should say nothing. Of course Harry's second suggestion was ridiculous; the linchpins were precious, a matter of pride and a family's legacy, and perhaps only someone like Connor Potter, a half-blood reared away from his ancestors' traditions, could consider it seriously. But the first might have possibilities, merit. Augustus had no particular investment in the slavery of the northern goblins, as long as Harry could persuade them not to attack the wizards.
The southern goblins are a different matter, but we would know if they were free. They would have attacked the wizarding world at once.
As he had expected would happen, one voice emerged, calmly, from the center of the maelstrom. That was Laura Gloryflower's. The puellaris witch had a commanding presence when she chose to exert it, and she was on her feet now, her face set and a golden aura playing around her. Augustus was close enough to smell the thick, musky scent that came from her when she was on the edge of transforming into a lioness.
"Harry," she told the fifteen-year-old they were here, nominally at least, to follow, "tell us why you think we should give up our heritage."
Harry smiled. "Because you would not be giving up your heritage," he said. "I could spare your houses, your lands, and all the priceless treasures inside your houses. The only thing that would change is that your houses would no longer have their connection to the earth."
"But that makes them linchpins," said Laura intently.
Harry leaned back in his seat and raised his eyebrows. "I was under the impression that what made them linchpins was their link to the moods of the current family leader, and the fact that if the house is attacked by an enemy, it will drain strength for its wards from the family."
"That is true." Laura settled her hands in front of her, a gesture that Augustus recognized of old. She was trying to keep herself from fussing with her robes. She lowered her voice, too. "But the link is grounded in the earth. That is what, as you pointed out, keeps the earth from sliding into the sea. How do you propose to change the nature of that link and yet keep them linchpins?"
"By linking the wards to the sacrificed magic," said Harry, just as quietly. "Some power will be given to maintain the linchpins as they are, but with their wards flowing into pure magic instead of the earth. The rest will go to replace the linchpins in the northern goblins' web. Then, when the goblins pull, the web will shred without disturbing your estates." He cocked his head. "The goblins have already agreed to this. I need your permission, and your permission only, to change the anchor of the wards. Then they shall be free."
"And the goblins really won't attack the northern families?" Laura asked. Her face was so stern that Augustus hoped no one tried to interrupt her. The last thing they needed right now was a lioness springing on someone who'd insulted her or Harry.
"They swore so, by the most sacred oaths they have," said Harry. "They used to do mining and minting for our ancestors, but most of those tasks have been taken over by the southern goblins. All the web does now is assist the paranoia of our ancestors, and prevent the goblins from practicing some of their most sacred rites. With it gone, the only difference you'll notice is that any goblins you encounter might be a bit less deferential than normal. I think you can live with that," he added, and his voice was smeared with an emotion only partly contempt.
"I can live with it," said Laura. "I do not know about everyone else." She sat down, yielding the table to members of other northern families.
Augustus spoke first, partly because the sparking of his staff had died for the moment and partly because even Harry's preferred solution had something wrong with it. "It sounds as though unbinding this web will take an enormous amount of power."
Harry nodded. "It will."
"And where will you get that much magic?" Augustus eyed the boy, wondering if his sacrificial instincts were really so strong that he'd leave himself a Squib for the sake of some goblins. Perhaps he did think that others would follow him even if he were powerless, which indicated a lack of basic understanding about the way the wizarding world and its politics worked.
Harry raised his eyebrows, and a dark smile touched the corners of his mouth. "You forget I'm an absorbere, sir," he said. "I can gather in that much magic, and channel it for my purposes. Both my gift and my will are strong enough."
Augustus refused to shiver. Being reminded so suddenly that the teenager sitting across from him was a magic-eater did shock him a bit, but he would just have to get used to it. "I thought that you would not take magic unless it was willingly yielded," he said.
"There are some of my enemies who've given up their immunity to my dislike of eating magic," said Harry. "Voldemort, for one. And I have other sources that I haven't told anyone about." That made the Malfoys start and glance at him sharply. Harry didn't appear to notice. "I can accomplish this, sir, you don't need to worry about that. But I need the linchpin families' permission. Contrary to what some people might think, I do care about the opinions of my own species. I will do nothing without your permission."
Augustus tapped his fingers on the table. Put like that, it seemed the greatest obstacle was that Harry wouldn't be able to do this, that something would go wrong when he tried to replace the linchpins with the sacrificed magic in the goblins' web. It was a large chance. On the other hand, Augustus didn't know enough about such procedures to determine that something would go wrong, and to refuse because he didn't trust Harry enough would be an insult.
He could see similar emotions at play on the faces of the witches and wizards beside him. Many of them owned several small estates that were linchpins. Come to think of it, Augustus couldn't think of one linchpin-owning family that was missing. Some of them would have stayed because Starrise was Harry's ally, but not all of them. Augustus wondered if that was good fortune, or conspiracy, or the combination of both that seemed to attend Harry.
Harry waited, looking calm and content and fearless. Laura Gloryflower spoke a few minutes later. "For my part, I accept, and will yield the Gloryflower linchpins to the change."
Harry smiled at her. "Thank you, ma'am." He glanced down the table, and waited some more.
One by one, other, minor families, some of their members looking at Augustus, gave their permission. Augustus waited in magnificent silence. He saw no reason to rush. He would look the more gracious for giving his permission after waiting so long.
At last, it came down to him and Flora Dawnborn. Augustus listened to her assent, and then jerked his head sharply sideways. His staff had vibrated in his hand, and now he could see a ghostly mist of gold and white forming above the end of it. He caught his breath.
Alba, sister, are you telling me the name of your murderer at last? Since his sister had died before the enchantments on the staff were complete, Augustus had had little hope of discovering one of the murderers until he was in his presence. But time and proximity had done their work at last. He could see an image of his sister's face as it had looked in the year of her death forming above the staff, looking fretfully back and forth.
Then a hand of white light sprang from the image. Augustus followed the sweep of its fingers, feeling a deep, clear, strange inevitability overtake him.
The hand pointed straight at Adalrico Bulstrode.
Augustus felt the inevitability yield to savage gladness. The oath he had sworn not to use magic except in self-defense was gone from his mind. What mattered was that he finally, finally knew who one of his sister's murderers was.
In a loud, deep voice, he began the incantation of the Caerimonia Inrevocabilis, the highest and sternest of the justice rituals. It would take Adalrico's life, and his own, in payment. Augustus did not care. Other concerns melted and dropped away from him. He was no longer a part of the living world in any case, to worry about them.
Harry heard the chant begin. Later, he could feel thankful that he was already looking towards Augustus's section of the table. He saw the man rise to his feet, holding out his white oak staff banded with gold, his eyes focused on Adalrico.
Harry rose to his feet, his hand held out. "Augustus," he said. "Mr. Starrise."
Augustus gave no sign that he'd heard him. In fact, his chant was picking up speed, and Harry recognized it, now. There was no way he could allow that ritual to be completed, both because it would kill and because this was such a delicate time and place. A Light wizard killing both a Dark wizard and himself might be the boulder that shattered the alliance.
Harry shouted the word, so that everyone could hear him. "Silencio!"
Augustus's voice ceased in an instant. The gathering power of the ritual wavered for a moment, then fell off and drained away. Harry stood in the center of a spreading pool of silence, as though his spell had been aimed at more people than just that one, and felt Snape place a hand on his shoulder, Draco rise and touch his arm.
"Why, Mr. Starrise," Harry asked, when he was certain he had everyone's attention, "would you be trying to use a justice ritual on Mr. Bulstrode, a man I am certain has done you no harm, and against the oath you took that forbids offensive use of magic here?" A subtle gesture of his hand disrupted the silencing spell so Augustus could answer, though Harry stood ready to renew it in an instant if he tried to take up the justice ritual again.
Augustus didn't try. His face was beatific, and he answered readily. "No harm? Is that what he told you, Harry? No, no. It is not so." He laughed, and the laughter was not sane. "He was one of the Death Eaters who captured and tortured my sister Alba, so badly that when the Aurors rescued her, she hanged herself. I am claiming vengeance. It took me fourteen years to find him, but here he is at last. There is no law in the world that can keep me from laying my heart and Alba's to rest." He smiled at Harry. "I am sorry to abandon your alliance just as it is forming, my Lord. I would have liked to see what happened in its wake. But this is a higher duty, a greater. I am going to kill the murderer of my sister."
"You have no proof," said Harry softly, though he could feel his heart beating erratically. He had not yet dared to look at Adalrico.
"My sister helped me with the enchantments on my staff," said Augustus. "She did not live to complete them, and thus it took them years of preparation and hours in the company of the murderer before she could locate him. But now she has. I trust Alba's spirit, my Lord. And it makes sense, truly. Adalrico Bulstrode has long had a reputation as the most cruelly inventive of the Death Eaters. I should have suspected him before this." He sighed, his voice longing. "But I did not want to condemn an innocent man to death."
Harry took a deep breath and turned to face Adalrico. "Is this true, Mr. Bulstrode?" he asked.
One glance into Adalrico's face told him it was. Adalrico was still, silent, his mouth clamped shut and the lines of his skin, crow's feet and laughter lines and all, white. He stared at Augustus as if he were a creature come out of nightmare.
Then he met Harry's eyes, and his face relaxed. "You know what the verdict was from the Wizengamot, Harry," he said softly. "I was under the Imperius Curse, and not myself at the time, so I cannot be held responsible for what I did at Voldemort's behest. And I cannot be tried twice for the same crime," he added, just in case anyone had missed the point of his mentioning the Wizengamot.
"That does not matter," said Augustus. Now he didn't sound human, as if he were some masked spirit of justice come riding out of story. "I still claim justice. I know what he did. I shall have justice."
Harry looked at Adalrico, and could think of nothing to say. He knew, if no one else there did, that Adalrico had been a willing Death Eater, as much in control of his own actions as Lucius was. And now he had no idea which was the greatest allegiance: to truth, to justice, to the family alliance he had sworn with the Bulstrodes, or to the fact that he'd tried to move on, put his allies' crimes in the past, and accept that they had changed and become different people.
"I want to know who the other Death Eaters who helped him were, mind," Augustus's voice said, warm and distant. "I would like to know that. That might be worth staying alive for."
Harry cocked his head at Adalrico, who answered in a clipped voice, "They died in Azkaban. All of them."
"I suppose I can accept that," said Augustus. "Since I am about to have justice on you, and you have not only lived, but never served a penance for your crimes."
"I will not allow you to use the Caerimonia Inrevocabilis," said Harry, certain of this, at least. "It breaks all the rules I have asked you to abide by, not only the oath you swore before the alliance meeting, but also the rules that prevent you from attacking someone else in the alliance."
Augustus bowed to him and took his staff in his hands, moving it in a pattern Harry didn't recognize. A moment later, he felt a bond he hadn't known was there loosen, and Augustus said in a clear voice, "I formally resign from the alliance that I entered into with Harry, once called Potter. Let magic witness that this was done willingly on my part, and because of no fault on his."
Harry ground his teeth. "Then you must leave Woodhouse," he said. "I cannot permit—"
"Woodhouse is a place within the wizarding world, and it belongs to you as much as it belongs to anyone right now," Augustus interrupted contemplatively. "But there is a place outside the wizarding world, outside law, outside anything but honor." He faced Adalrico, and his voice gained depth like a stream flooded with snowmelt. "I call Adalrico Bulstrode to that place, in the name of Merlin, in the name of sea and stone and silver and gold. To that place, only honor will guide us, and from it, only blood will release us. If he refuses this call, may the consequences fall upon his head."
Harry didn't recognize that ritual, but Adalrico obviously did. His hands clenched in front of him, and then he said, "Far be it from me to refuse this call. I come through in honor, and will depart in blood. In the name of bronze and iron and fire and wind, in the name of Merlin, I answer Augustus Starrise."
Augustus gave a wide, genuine smile, and inclined his head. "Tomorrow, then, Bulstrode," he said softly, and turned away, striding rapidly from the table, with his cloak fluttering behind him.
Harry turned to Adalrico. "What does that mean?" he asked, without pause.
It was Elfrida who answered him, voice soft. "It means that my husband is called to a duel of honor," she said. She cradled Marian against her with one arm, and her eyes were wide. "If he had refused it, his children would have become Squibs, and every Bulstrode born from now until the end of time would be a Squib, likewise. The duel is to the death."
Harry gave a shudder. Adalrico was a savage, skilled fighter, and the inventiveness and cruelty that Augustus had accused him of would function to keep him alive. On the other hand, Augustus Starrise was a trained war wizard, and especially good at duels, from what Harry had heard, and ridden by vengeance.
And, tomorrow, one of them would die.
Harry closed his eyes.