Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter!
I do like this one- even though it sends the story bouncing off in several new directions.
Chapter Seventy-Six: Fenrir Greyback's Legacy
Draco was practicing how to move like a shadow.
He'd thought, after the brief surge of hot panic when he'd decided Harry was dying, and then the whispered conference between Regulus and Snape that announced Harry would have to remain at the Black house for a few days, that he'd want to do nothing but sit and brood about his boyfriend. But he'd got bored of that more quickly than he used to do. Draco had leaned back against his pillow, looking so baffled that Blaise evidently had a need to comment on it.
"Manticore got your tongue, Malfoy?" he asked, peering through his bed curtains. Draco refrained from commenting on the mark on his cheek, which looked vaguely as if someone had slapped him. It would make good blackmail material later. Besides, he wanted someone to pay attention to him.
"No," he'd sighed, folding his arms and putting them behind his head. "Just—I used to be able to brood on the wrongs done to me for hours. And now I can't. What's wrong with me?"
Blaise shook his head. "Harry's not here to make you into a little orbiting planet?"
"I notice your lioness isn't here either, though her handprint is," Draco had snarked, good intentions forgotten, and Blaise had scowled at him and ducked back inside his bed. But his remark had made Draco seriously consider whether it was Harry's absence that made him feel differently.
In the end, he'd decided that, no, it wasn't. Since his confirmation as Malfoy magical heir, he'd tried to keep busier, and now it had reached the point where sitting around and brooding on the wrongs done to him felt like a waste. At least his father created plans to avenge those wrongs. If Draco couldn't do that, said this new sensibility of his, he didn't deserve to brood at all.
So he joined the rune circle around his bed together again, and lay back, and closed his eyes, leaping into Blaise's mind—but not to take over his body. He wanted to see if he could skirt his thoughts like a shadow, move about inside them without Blaise noticing and panicking. That wasn't something he could practice with Harry, even if he'd wanted to; Harry was too sensitive to any change in his mind after all the Legilimency and Occlumency he'd learned and the numerous restructurings he'd done.
He found it was possible to lie like a stone in a river beneath the chattering surface of Blaise's thoughts, his presence nothing more than a gentle ripple of inquiry every now and then. He could access memories if he really wanted them, or, sometimes, tug Blaise's head to look in one direction rather than another. He did that a few times for amusement value, so that Blaise read part of the left page of his Astronomy text over and over, and then rose on smoky wings, padding out of Blaise's head and towards the common room.
He no longer felt the same panic he had when he tumbled free of another person's body. He had learned to relax and open senses he hadn't known he had when he was so focused on possessing a body instead of thoughts. Now Draco let himself follow a pulling line, centered on a sixth-year girl studying by the fire. He settled into her body, and let himself get used to the unfamiliar sensations of breasts, soft genitals, strange chemicals circulating in her bloodstream.
He wondered if he could make her scratch her nose, and what would be the best way to do it. Taking control of her hand and lifting it would alert her that something was wrong at once. But maybe he could make it itch?
Draco thought of her nose becoming red and raw and irritated, twitching the thoughts through her brain, mixing them in with the regular ones. A moment later, the girl gave a grunt of annoyance, reached up her hand, and scratched her nose. Draco ran through her mind like a shadow and on to the next one.
He practiced on most of the Slytherins and grew confident before he allowed himself to venture out of the common room. He turned down the dungeon corridor, and a powerful mind yanked him into another body.
Snape.
Snape was marking Potions essays, a frown on his face as he dashed off sneering remark after sneering remark. His mind constructed the words with such flowing efficiency that Draco couldn't trace the thoughts to their beginning. He settled very carefully into the depths of Snape's mind.
He's a Legilimens. I probably can't possess him without his sensing me. But it would be a wonderful opportunity to practice…
Draco stayed still as Snape went on marking, observing the complicated structure of his mind. Quicksilver pools glittered everywhere that he looked, most of them hiding jagged dark shapes—emotions that Snape didn't want to deal with, Draco surmised, from Harry's description. From this position, Draco could also see layered trap after layered trap, meant to catch and turn the probing of an enemy. And what traps were there that he wasn't seeing? It was a good thing that he'd resisted the temptation to possess him.
But still. It was such a wonderful chance to practice. And Snape might know something was wrong, but not what. He was more likely to think the Dark Lord than he was to think Draco. This was the first time that Draco had ever managed to possess someone without eye contact, after all.
That thought startled and momentarily elated him—his mistake, he guessed later. Those emotions were so foreign to Snape's mind that his thoughts bore down on them at once, trying to guess their source.
Draco found himself whirled around, caught in one of the traps, threaded between its glittering teeth. Snape examined him for a moment, and then he laughed. Draco, spinning, disoriented, couldn't tell if the laughter was in the physical world or the mental one; he only knew it made the trap ring like a banged kettle, and sent him bouncing from wall to wall.
"Draco. I should have known." Snape's voice drained and bled cold. "Think before you invade my mind again. If you intend to possess a Legilimens, you will need to be more subtle than that."
He threw Draco out, as if he were a horse bucking, and Draco found himself drifting aimlessly in midair for a moment. He started to feel for a thread that would bring him to the next mind, and then he was speeding along a corridor, drawn relentlessly by another one. He wondered if he had remained in Snape's mind so long that only one person was in the common room.
He understood when he found himself settling into Harry as he strode up the stairs to their bedroom. His gift knew this mind, and had brought him back to a familiar place.
Harry sensed him at once, but unprotestingly carried him up the stairs and walked close enough to his bed that Draco could fly to his body. He opened his eyes, rubbed at them, and rolled over to look at Harry.
"You're back," he said.
"So pleased you noticed." Harry sat on his bed and stretched for a moment, then yawned. His face was exhausted, Draco saw, but it bore no trace of burns.
"That was a stupid thing you did," said Draco, and Harry looked at him with a faint nod.
"Yes, I know," he said. Draco kept his mouth clamped shut, because otherwise his jaw would dangle, and Malfoys shouldn't allow themselves to be that startled. "I should have had someone else with me when it began," said Harry. "Or I should have stopped when I realized that it hurt. I didn't think it was supposed to hurt. Of course, I didn't know much of anything about the phoenix fire." He scooted up the bed until he lay back on the pillow. "That's cured now."
Still trying to deal with the fact that Harry had admitted something risky he'd done was a mistake, Draco could only say, "Pardon?"
"I researched phoenix fire in the Black library with Peter," Harry said, and then stifled another yawn. "For hours. I think I'll see the words behind my eyes when I go to sleep." He shut his eyes as if he would go to sleep then and there, and Draco leaned across the gap between their beds. His hand slammed into a barrier, though, and he realized the rune circle protecting his body was still up. He rose and impatiently smudged it away, then poked Harry.
"You don't get to tell me that and then just rest," he pointed out, when Harry opened his eyes again.
"Sorry." Harry gave him a sleepy smile. Draco caught his breath for a moment, then shook his head and fixed Harry with a stern look. "Peter thought that some of the old legends about phoenixes, the human-created ones, might apply to someone human who had phoenix fire and a—voice." Harry grimaced. Draco was about to ask what was wrong, but Harry was plowing on. "It seems they do. I can get mesmerized by my own fire if I'm not careful. And there used to be a tale that you could capture a phoenix chick by luring it with the smell of sweet flowers. Peter tried some on me. It has no effect when the fire doesn't burn, but when it does—" Harry shook his head and snorted. "I'll have to be in one of your rune circles if I want to burn in front of Voldemort, given that he has the Thorn Bitch with him, and she has plenty of flowers."
"Then you aren't planning on using your phoenix fire in battle?" Draco asked.
Harry shook his head again. "I don't think it would be useful. Even Fawkes didn't often burn his opponents, remember? He struck at their eyes, most of the time, or tried small, concentrated blasts of fire. And the way he died was as a sacrifice, consuming himself in his flames, yielding his own immortality. He died as a gateway for the Light, so that it could enter the heart of the Dark storm; it couldn't have done it otherwise." Harry stopped talking and stared into the remote distance for a moment. But though grief salted his voice, it had vanished when he went briskly on. "It would be dangerous to use as a weapon unless I had some idea of how to avoid being mesmerized when the battle is done. As long as I consumed the impurities from the tainted magic in my body, I could keep my mind on the task. The moment I tried to just call the fire for its own sake, I lost my mind."
"So Snape and I might actually have done you more harm by interrupting you?" Draco had wondered about that since the time, three nights ago, when he'd come back and found Harry rolling on the bed, burning and screaming.
"Oh." Harry looked startled. "No, I don't think so. It did hurt, and Peter said that the fire-pool in Silver-Mirror had to do some healing of its own for me." He held up his left arm and watched it shake for a moment. "I've absorbed two different kinds of venom through this in the last month," he muttered. "Peter says not to do it any more."
"That's good advice," Draco said quietly.
"Yes, I know." Harry cocked his head. "And what about you? How did you manage to possess me without making eye contact?"
Draco laughed and began to describe his adventures, though he neglected to talk about his possession of Blaise with Blaise right there. He didn't see a need to describe his resounding failure with Snape, either, though by the glitter in Harry's eyes, he knew there was something missing. But he didn't pursue it, and Draco didn't pursue the mishap with the phoenix fire, since Harry had admitted he was wrong. They slid back more easily into companionship than Draco would have expected.
Maybe something really has changed, now that he's accepted my courting ritual, Draco thought, and admired the shine of Harry's eyes when he smiled, and counted the days in his head until Walpurgis.
Harry expected the post owl that came winging in to him at breakfast. He and Scrimgeour had exchanged numerous letters on the matter of werewolves in the past few months, since Harry had made the oath to fight for werewolves' rights, and the Minister was a few days overdue with the next one.
He didn't expect what it said, though.
April 5th, 1996
Dear Harry:
You will know that the full moon was the past three nights. It seems that a rogue werewolf calling himself Evergreen bit a member of the Wizengamot on the second one. The Wizengamot is meeting today to set stricter limits on the rights of werewolves. I am sorry, but there is nothing I can do to stop this when the Wizengamot has a personal cause for outrage. And it is feared that Evergreen may be acting out of a larger political agenda. There were a few points in the past when werewolves tried to make people in power amenable to their viewpoints by biting them. It has worked because the victims decided to hide the curse, and allowed their biters to blackmail them.
Elder Gillyflower has decided to reveal the curse she is now infected with. That means that the Wizengamot is buzzing with outrage on her behalf, and fear that this might happen to them next, and determination not to allow any werewolf to achieve his ends based on intimidation. It is likely that the stricter limits will include mandatory confinement on the nights of the full moon for all werewolves, and from there it is only a small step to putting them in Tullianum permanently, with penalties for those who refuse to admit their curse. Amelia is already speaking of authorizing Aurors to kill free-running werewolves on those nights. She is shaken and upset by what happened to Elder Gillyflower, an old friend of hers, but other members of the Wizengamot will not be less extreme in their sentiments.
I am sorry, Harry. But there is no way to oppose this right now. Werewolves are not allowed to speak to the Wizengamot in their own defense, either during trials or in situations like this, when laws debating them are being passed—one of Fudge's provisions that I never dreamed would cause so much trouble.
Regretfully,
Rufus Scrimgeour,
Minister of Magic.
Harry was shaking by the time he finished the letter, and he crumpled it viciously in one hand as he stood. Scrimgeour hadn't mentioned what time the Wizengamot was meeting—probably in an attempt to discourage Harry from interfering—and he might already be too late. But if not, then Harry knew whom he wanted to call upon.
Draco grabbed his arm. "Harry! Where are you going?"
Harry tossed the letter to him and sprinted out of the Great Hall. He knew Snape would be following. He didn't care. At the moment, nothing was more important than having a modicum of privacy so he could use the communication spell that Charles Rosier-Henlin had taught him.
He spoke Laura Gloryflower's name, and heard the soft chime of phoenix song. A moment later, Laura's voice sounded in his ears, and Harry said, "A werewolf bit a member of the Wizengamot two nights ago. They're meeting today to try and push stricter limits on them, which will probably mean confinement in Tullianum on full moon nights—or permanently. Can you help me?"
"Of course," said Laura at once. "Delilah will not object to others knowing she is a werewolf if it is for a cause like this one. I think the hiding is rather wearing on her, to tell you the truth. She is a trained war witch, and was made to walk in the sunlight and reveal her secrets to all, even as the bells in her hair proclaim her skill. I will be at the Ministry in an hour, Harry."
Harry nodded, then remembered she couldn't see him, and said, "Thank you, Mrs. Gloryflower. I know this is sudden, but I don't see much chance to stop them if we don't move now."
"I am prepared," said Laura, and her voice deepened into a growl. "And I do have favors in the Ministry I may call in, Harry. Ordinarily, I save them for the idle telling of gossip, but this is more important. They are not going to hurt my niece." She was snarling like a lioness by the time she cut off the communication spell.
Harry turned around, and saw Snape next to him. "When are you going to the Ministry?" Snape asked quietly.
"As soon as you're ready," said Harry. "And Remus. I want you both to be there, even though I'll have go into the courtroom without you, sir."
Snape cocked his head. "And why is that?"
"They have to see me as an adult, flanked by people committed to the cause of werewolf freedom, and you're my guardian, sir," Harry pointed out. "As long as you're there, it'll be easier for them to think of me as a child. I don't want to leave you behind, but I can't have you overshadowing me."
Snape inclined his head, various emotions beating just under the calm surface of his face. Harry was fairly sure that one of them was pride, and even surer with the next comment he made. "I can hardly complain about the development of your political instincts," Snape observed.
Rufus would not say that he was afraid. Never that. A sitting Minister could afford to be cautious, worried, eager, preoccupied, but not afraid. Otherwise he would become like Fudge, terrified of his own shadow, sure that something lurked in every corner to finish him off. So Rufus would not say that he was afraid, but he could say that he was not looking forward to entering the small holding cell in front of him. This bothered him in a way that even entering Lily Potter's cell to see how much she had suffered from Capto Horrifer did not.
He looked at Percy Weasley, finally, and nodded. "A lesson for you," he said. Percy's eyes burned with apprehension as Rufus stepped forward and rapped firmly on the door of the cell, deliberately knocking high. Aurors tended to put their wards all over the lower three-quarters, and clustered especially thickly around the lock.
The door opened at once to the signal, and Rufus caught a glimpse of the pale functionary from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. "He's bad, sir," he said briefly, before he turned back to deal with their furiously struggling prisoner.
Rufus stepped into the room. It was claustrophobically small. That was meant to intimidate those who waited here to see the Wizengamot.
It only served to make their captive this time madder.
He whirled and snarled and snapped in his chains, for all the world like a wolf caught in a trap—which was what he was, Rufus reminded himself. His enormous strength meant it took three Regulation flunkies, all big, burly man, to keep him from breaking free. His amber eyes burned, and he took great and obvious delight in champing his teeth near the faces of his captors, to make them flinch and duck. They didn't think he could pass along the infection in human form, but it was the day after the full moon, and they were mindful that two of their own had nearly died in trying to capture this one werewolf.
That was the news that Rufus hadn't put in the letter to Harry. The Department was horribly embarrassed about it; both men would heal, and neither had been infected. Elder Gillyflower had been, and she was the reason the Wizengamot was meeting today to decide Evergreen's fate.
It bothered Rufus that he wouldn't give any name other than Evergreen. His age bothered him, too. When he could look away from the lupine eyes and the teeth, which appeared longer and sharper than any ordinary human teeth even though they probably weren't, he was very aware that this werewolf was a sixteen-year-old boy. Foul-mouthed, of course, and wearing, before they gave him a prisoner's robes, ragged clothes that indicated he had nothing much in the world, but, still. Sixteen years old.
And, just to make things even more complicated than they already were, he was a Muggle, infected by some rogue werewolf five years ago, and living with one of the London packs since then. That much he had admitted. Rufus knew it would start at least part of the Wizengamot, Fudge's leftover cronies, baying about the need to Obliviate Evergreen when they were done trying him—never mind that he already knew magic existed. Then they would get onto cracking down on Muggle "incursions" into the wizarding world, by which they meant Muggleborns' families knowing about magic, and they would drag Rufus into a political battle he was not ready to fight.
Evergreen could help him, if he appeared more sane and reasonable. But he wanted to drag people around the room by his chains instead, and stare at everyone with burning hatred.
And Rufus could feel his own fear, long-conditioned, squirming in him. He didn't want to be in the same room with a lycanthrope. He stiffened his shoulders and snapped, "Evergreen."
The boy stopped struggling with a suddenness no human could have imitated. He turned his head towards Rufus and stared. Sure enough, burning hatred shone in his amber eyes.
"You won't be able to speak when we're in the courtroom," Rufus said. "Someone will cast a Silencio on you—that's a silencing spell—"
"I know what it is," said Evergreen, every few words chopped off. Rufus wasn't sure if it was a speech impediment, or if it just came from his heavy panting, itself born of his constant struggles. "I've lived with wizards for the past five years."
"You know," said Rufus, seeing a chance that hadn't been visible before, because of the boy's self-absorption, "you could get out of your punishment, or get it lessened, if you gave us a little information."
"What kind of information?" Evergreen let his tongue loll out of the corner of his mouth. Rufus wished he wouldn't.
"Where your pack is located," said Rufus. "How many werewolves it consists of. Who they are." That last was especially important, because werewolves weren't supposed to have wands. In the wizarding world itself, as in the case of Remus Lupin, it could be ignored as long as the werewolves didn't use Unforgivables or Dark Arts. But using magic in front of Muggles…Rufus could feel his skin crawling more than it had when he realized the problems Evergreen represented. The last thing they needed was Muggles learning of their world when there was a war on. "Whether the attack on Elder Gillyflower was part of a larger plan or not."
Evergreen barked at him. Rufus realized only a moment later that it was meant to be a laugh. "I'm not telling you anything," said Evergreen. "Pack loyalty forbids it, even if you had treated me nicely." He gave a sharp, sly jerk sideways, and nearly rolled two of the men holding his chains off their feet. Evergreen lowered his head and studied them with his dark fringe falling into his eyes, as if waiting for a moment of weakness.
Rufus ground his teeth and wished they could simply use Stupefy—easier all around, and less messy—but werewolves were highly resistant to magic the day after a full moon, even Muggle werewolves. The Stupefy spells might hold, or they might wear off in the middle of the debate. The chains at least let them confine the werewolf, and without magic of his own, he wouldn't be able to get out of them easily.
"Listen, Evergreen," he said softly, trying to make his voice persuasive, trying to remind himself of what Harry had told him last year, that werewolves and the other magical creatures were also people whom he represented, "you must know that most of my colleagues would like nothing so much as to condemn you to Tullianum. But if we know more of the particulars of your situation, then we don't need to do that. I don't know what you mean by pack loyalty, but—"
"Of course you don't." Evergreen's face had taken on the implacably bored look that adolescents did so well. "That's because you're outsiders." He said it with the same kind of condescension that Rufus had heard from the lips of numerous people when talking about Muggles and Muggleborns. "Loki wouldn't expect you to understand."
Rufus narrowed his eyes. He'd heard of Loki before. Maybe he was a real person, and maybe he wasn't; so many werewolves in London claimed to be in contact with him that Rufus was inclined to believe the latter. But if Evergreen had seen him, or knew who the person hiding behind the name was, then he could be an even more valuable source of information than Rufus had thought.
"Listen," he said. "We're offering you the same chance we would offer most prisoners, the same chance we offered Death Eaters during the First War. If you give us information, we'll protect you."
Evergreen sneered at him. "And I told you, we're not interested."
Rufus knew what it meant when a werewolf started using the plural. He wouldn't say anything else. With a brief, frustrated gesture he couldn't entirely suppress, he turned out of the room, limping past Percy.
"Did you think he'd turn them over, sir?" Percy asked his back as they walked up the corridor towards the Wizengamot's courtroom.
"I hoped so." Rufus rubbed his forehead with one hand. It seemed that something he'd feared like a bad dream a dozen years ago had become all too real. Muggle and wizard werewolves had formed mixed communities on the edge of the magical world, and there would inevitably be crossover, leaking, bleeding in. Evergreen might still have Muggle friends. And he was so young that he would want to brag, to show off or hint at secrets, knowledge he had access to that they didn't. He might even introduce some of them to wizards, for all that Rufus knew.
And from there, it was only a matter of time until Muggles who would react badly to magic heard of it, or until wizarding authorities did, and pushed Rufus into actions he didn't want to take but wouldn't be able to justify not taking.
Or, worst of all, it might give support to the Death Eaters' beliefs, and push other people into joining them, if they thought that Muggles were invading their world.
Rufus shook his head. I shouldn't have told Harry about this incident. If Evergreen was a wizard, or if he didn't come from one of the mixed packs, or if he hadn't bitten an Elder…and the timing of this couldn't have been worse, either.
He did pause, then. Yes, all of those factors were working together at once to make this situation as complicated as possible. And that whispered to his Slytherin brain that this was deliberate, planned.
But how could that be? If pack loyalty was everything that Evergreen was hinting that it was, then his pack should have hidden him. Instead, the hunters had reported that there hadn't been any other werewolves anywhere near Evergreen, and he had run wild through the streets of London, as if he didn't care about seeking a safe haunt.
Either it was an incredibly clumsy plan, which the smooth execution would argue against, or the werewolves wanted something that Rufus couldn't fathom.
Or it isn't a plan at all, and you're seeing shadows of plans where there's only desperation, he reminded himself, and then he was at the door of the Wizengamot courtroom and the Aurors were letting him through.
His mood darkened when he realized that Harry was standing in the middle of the sunken courtroom floor, with Laura Gloryflower and Remus Lupin beside him, as well as a young witch who looked Gloryflower, but whom Rufus didn't know personally. The young woman gazed up at him as he walked to his place in the balcony seats, and he caught a glimpse of amber eyes.
Fuck. He's going to bloody force the issue, isn't he? And on the worst case possible.
Rufus sat down solidly as the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures guards brought in Evergreen. Whatever happened next, there was no one right choice to make, and his course wasn't clear for the first time since he'd become Minister.
Harry had discussed what they should do with Laura before they'd even entered the Wizengamot courtroom. A helpful Gloryflower contact had revealed the time of the meeting, and when they'd shown up, the Aurors on the courtroom doors had argued with them for a few inconclusive moments before giving up, because, Harry thought, of his magic and Gloryflower's political power combined. They would let them in and let the Wizengamot deal with them.
Remus and Delilah couldn't speak aloud here, as werewolves weren't allowed to defend themselves before the Wizengamot. That left the words up to Laura and Harry. Harry had decided that he would add his support only if and when it became necessary. Let Laura lead this particular charge. If nothing else, her support would have the advantage of surprise, since so few people knew that her niece was a werewolf.
Thus he stood silent as Elder Sapientian leaned forward and said, "Well, with the Minister, we are all gathered. And, Mr. Pott—that is, Harry, I'm sure we're all interested in learning why you're here."
"You should be questioning my presence, not his," said Laura in a voice that seemed to pick up extra echoes from the room around them, as if other angry people were there and shouting in chorus. "After all, he is vates, and sworn to the protection and freedom of magical creatures. But I am Laura Gloryflower, head of a northern Light family. Why am I here?"
"Yes, very well," said Sapientian, sounding a bit put out. "Why are you here, Mrs. Gloryflower?"
"Because my niece, Delilah Gloryflower, is a werewolf," said Laura, nodding to the young woman standing silent behind her. It hadn't surprised Harry to see the way she and Remus had leaned towards each other; Remus had told him, without really explaining what it meant, that he, Hawthorn, and the remaining Light werewolves were becoming a pack. They had the common bond of all being victims of Fenrir Greyback, if nothing else. "And unlike the majority of the wizarding world, I will not cast her out and turn my back on her because of something that was not her fault. I will guard her, and part of that guarding is making sure that persecution does not fall on her. I had considered the anti-werewolf laws up to this point as livable. I am not sure anymore. After all, I am not the one who must labor under them. And this new policy of possibly confining all werewolves, even the most law-abiding, in Tullianum on nights of the full moon is not acceptable."
"It's very sad, of course, that your niece was a victim," said Sapientian, stiffly. Harry knew it wasn't his imagination that he was looking at Delilah with distaste now, and flinching when she turned her head, as if he expected her to turn into a beast and lunge up the wall at him. "But there's nothing that we can do about it, Mrs. Gloryflower. Our people, the common people of the wizarding world, must be protected."
"Do you realize what you are saying?" Laura asked, her voice rising in passion. "Do you realize that anyone, any of your 'common people,' could become a victim? It happened to Elder Gillyflower. The problem will not be solved by turning your back on the victims unfortunate enough to contract the disease. And that is what it is, Elder: a disease, a curse. Not a crime, and not a sin."
"But where and when it spreads, we must protect others against it." That was Amelia Bones, leaning forward now, her hands clenched around the edges of the balcony railing. Harry could see her face tighten in rage and pain. He remembered, for a moment, what Scrimgeour had said in his letter about Elder Gillyflower being her personal friend, and felt a surge of sympathy. Then he remembered that Gillyflower was undoubtedly rich enough to afford the Wolfsbane Potion, and that Bones would condemn others who couldn't to existences even more wretched than they already were, and his sympathy withered. "It was spread on purpose by this monster you see before you. It can be no coincidence that he bit an Elder of the Wizengamot, though so far he refuses to respond to questioning."
Harry turned to look at the werewolf they'd brought in in chains. He was very young, perhaps only a year older than Harry himself, and the way he stood, the way he vibrated, told Harry he was either a Squib or a Muggle. His eyes were bright, and his tongue lolled from his mouth in a gesture Harry had learned to recognize as laughter in Hawthorn and Remus. He met Harry's gaze, and he winked. Then he bowed, making his chains rattle and his handlers jerk nervously on them.
Another Elder spoke then, voice harsh with suspicion. "You would not know the reasons behind this attack, vates?" She sneered the last word.
"No," said Harry, though he went on staring at the young werewolf. "I don't know this man." But he seems to know me, or of me.
"Please be honest, Harry." That was Scrimgeour, and he was tense, weary, looking for some way out of this. "Do you really not know him?"
"I've never heard the name Evergreen," said Harry, concentrating and trying to remember if he could have seen this boy in any other context. But he had to shake his head, in the end. He would have remembered someone with such a low level of magic. In the alliance gathering and at Gollrish Y Thie, Calibrid had stood out to him incredibly. "I don't know him."
Evergreen spoke then; they probably hadn't thought he would dare, and so hadn't Silenced him. "But I know you, vates, as you can probably surmise. Greetings from Loki."
He was hit with several spells then, at least one of which managed to bind his mouth shut. And still he laughed, his eyes sparkling at Harry even if he couldn't speak.
Harry took a deep breath and faced the Wizengamot again, motioning with his head to Laura. Increasing suspicion of Evergreen and himself wouldn't help their cause. He wanted Laura to plead it.
She took up the signal and responded magnificently. "You don't understand what I will give to help keep my niece out of prison," she said, her voice clear and unwavering. "And to insure that she can hold a paying job, for that matter, and retain custody of any children she might have in future, and own her own property. I will not let you confine her in Tullianum when she has committed no crime."
"It's not certain that we're going to decide that, Mrs. Gloryflower," said Scrimgeour, obviously trying to smooth things over.
"Isn't it?" Laura asked with a scornful toss of her head, echoing Harry's thoughts precisely. "My apologies, then, Minister. The faces of your colleagues certainly look as if they're set and decided."
"As we should be," said Amelia Bones. "We must do something about those who would hurt our children, our friends, the helpless and the old. You should know that, ma'am," she dared to tell Laura. "You are a mother, and dedicated to it. Would you like a werewolf to bite one of your children?"
Laura's mouth parted, and Harry could see fangs growing. She restrained herself from transforming with an obvious effort. "One has," she said. "And I have lived with it, and in fact defended her fiercely to those who would question her soul. Delilah is a stronger person for this. She did not become a monster, and she did not, in any sense of the word, deserve it."
Amelia looked back at her, just as angry, just as stubborn. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Gloryflower," she said. "But I've lost a friend now, and the rest of her life was changed because of what was either a werewolf's monstrous killing instincts or a sick, disgusting political ploy." She turned and faced Scrimgeour. "Please call for a vote, Minister. Mrs. Gloryflower and Mr. Pott—the vates have no right to be here. We've let them have their illegal say for long enough."
"We can witness the vote, can't we?" Laura asked, her voice so proper that Harry knew she was angry just from that. "That is a matter of public record, or would be if anyone knew this meeting was being held."
Scrimgeour interrupted before any of the Elders could speak. "It is permitted, yes. After that, Mrs. Gloryflower, Harry, I will have to ask you to leave."
Harry folded his arms, and wished he could force words past the furious lump in his throat. But they hadn't convinced them, even though Laura's face said she would keep fighting, and he could not use his magic to compel the Wizengamot to obedience, and he would not use it to make them fear him. He had to stand there and listen as three-quarters of the Wizengamot voted to confine all registered werewolves to Tullianum on full moon nights, unless they could make arrangements for confinement themselves. No one said what would happen to unregistered werewolves or those found running free on those nights, but Harry could guess. The only possible consolation was that Scrimgeour abstained from voting.
Remus said nothing. Delilah said nothing. Evergreen shifted once, and when Harry heard the clink and rattle of his chains, he turned his head to find the young man's eyes on his, clear and penetrating.
Why is he happy about this? What does he want? Harry continued to hold his gaze as the Wizengamot voted to hold Evergreen until he either agreed to take Veritaserum or confessed to what he'd been planning on his own. Amelia Bones's justification for the decision was that they didn't want to misuse Veritaserum and "overstep the bounds of our authority." Harry bit his lip to keep from laughing, aloud and savagely, at that statement.
Aurors entered the courtroom to escort them to the door when the proceedings were done with. Evergreen gave Harry another bow, and watched him out of sight, shaking the chains once or twice just to fuck with his handlers' minds, Harry was sure.
What does he want? How can I sympathize with a werewolf who did bite someone else on purpose, like Greyback? But how can I do anything else, when I see the way he's treated, as if he were worse than a Death Eater? Even Bellatrix got more of a trial than that!
Harry caught his breath and forced his thoughts away from questions he couldn't answer without more information, onto more productive, if grimmer, ones. Well, that failed, but that just means that I'll have to do something else, something more unmistakable, to show everyone how much I mean this oath. And I am going to win in the end. I'm more determined than they are. They're driven by fear, and I'm driven by conviction.
Remus walked behind Harry, smelling his confusion and frustration, and half-wished he could tell Harry what the plan was, what Loki was doing. But, of course, he couldn't, because Loki had specifically asked him not to, and loyalty between packs—and to the man who had helped Remus more than once when he was younger—forbade him to spill the secrets to anyone who wasn't a werewolf anyway.
Besides, Harry would hate the truth. Loki's werewolves were upsetting the applecart on purpose. They'd chosen the most difficult candidate to send to trial, the one most likely to stir debate. Evergreen would be doing other things than sitting quietly in Tullianum, and in such a way as to make it impossible either to dismiss werewolves as innocent victims or shove them aside and treat them like depraved criminals. They were equal to wizards, and they deserved to be treated so.
And Harry was part of the plan. By pushing forward, Loki would force the vates to stop sitting on the fence. Come down and join them—and he would, Remus knew, because of the oath he'd sworn and because of where his sympathies lay—and then werewolves would gain their rights more quickly than they would if they waited for Harry to make up his own mind. He might not ever do it. He was still a wizard, and couldn't understand the discrimination werewolves faced. He might be content with slow progress from the wizarding side, as long as it was progress.
To Remus, the discrimination was perfectly understandable, and it rasped against him like a polecat's scent in his nostrils. And he understood the frustration that would drive Loki to send Evergreen after Elder Gillyflower, too, and the loyalty that would let Evergreen go happily to Tullianum and not rely on his pack to rescue him. Werewolves like Fenrir Greyback, serving a cause that would ultimately not benefit his kind, were contemptible. Loki was putting the cause of the packs first, and that was why so many were faithful to him.
So Remus put up his head and paced down the hall behind Harry, sorry for some of the consequences of the plan, but exulting in the idea that someday he might be able to look other wizards in the eye, and speak his piece, and know that they would have to listen to him.