Before we begin: This is the start of the new part of the story – almost a sequel of sorts. I hope you'll like it as much as those who have reviewed seemed to have liked the first ten chapters.
I'd like to thank the guys over at Dark Lord Potter (I've lurked a bit) who made me aware of how shitty a job I did at clearing the chapters from typos in my attempt to change the narration. The brutal honesty was very much needed, and appreciated. I've tried once more to make it right, only a few left to go. Hopefully with greater success this time around.
A lot of right things were pointed out about my shortcomings as a writer, as well. I hope I can improve, even if only a little, as I continue to write.
And, lastly, I'd just like to thank the reviewers of the last chapter: James Birdsong, Guest 23, Guest, MysticFlame01, 26, Zephyrical, KingPlotBunny – every word meant a lot. As it always does.
Now – onwards we fare.
The Minister and the Parting of Ways
"Potter – Harry – what was it like? Meeting the Dark Lord?"
Harry sighed, gulping in the air-filled scent of waffles and honey-crusted sweets and sizzling-hot eggs and bacons and sausages. He'd lost his hunger, though, half-slumped over the table in something approximating defeat.
The Dark Lord… The way they said it, whispering his tittle with an odd mixture of reverence and unseen horror, which made Harry shiver. Like they knew – they fucking knew, did they?
Only his housemates spoke of the dreaded monster in such whispers – uncondemning whispers. Like he was a creature that was to be admired. Glanced at with an air of insurmountable awe.
He looked at Pansy Parkinson – the wretched source of the question – chewing a piece of bacon with deliberate slowness, and thought of how to best answer. In truth, he had known that this was coming. Had been preparing himself for it ever since he woke that morning in the Hospital Wing three days after the confrontation with Voldemort.
He felt Ron shift in his seat beside him, felt a sense of curiousness – albeit rather different than the rest of his housemates – coming from him. It was, however, sort of the same sense of wonder that had overwhelmed every student of Hogwarts once they got back from the holidays. Everyone wished to know. Everyone wished to see. To hear. To be told just what had transpired between the Dark Lord, the Headmaster… and the Boy Who Lived.
As he predicted, he couldn't avoid the awed stares and the whispered reverence that descended onto him off the mouths of enthralled children – children consumed by his barely-deserved legend. The legend that had suddenly leaped beyond all boundaries of sense and decency onto new heights.
Pansy, eyes earnest and curious, with a face characteristically hard, seemed to hold her breath, awaiting his response with pained patience. Harry noted she did so along with the rest of the table (Harry even thought he saw some of the Ravenclaws shift in their seats on the next table).
He sighed again. Slumped further over his seat at the table.
How to answer? How to fucking answer? He took another swig of his Pumpkin juice, affording himself a moment more of reprise. That they still waited for him was, in fact, quite comical. In his search for an answer, however, he found at last that the truth of the matter was so outlandishly extraordinary that he needn't bother coming up with an explanation. He didn't need lies – truths and half-truths and everything that lived in-between would suffice.
"He was – wasn't human," Harry said. To his own surprise, he found his voice clear and words comprehensible, albeit a little stuttering, and he kept onwards, and slowly the words grew bolder and stronger. "He had possessed Professor Quirrell's body – who was already dead – and lived inside the corpse of the man. I think he lived inside Quirrell since we started. Voldemort–" He breathed out slowly, exasperated, when everyone jumped in fright at the mention of the accursed name, confirming that the entire table were, indeed, listening. "–had forced Quirrell to walk through a wall of fire. Voldemort – oh get a grip, Pansy! You asked for it! – well, he killed him. His own servant. Killed him without a care."
Harry forced himself to look everyone around him in the eye, willing them to understand the kind of monster they admired, willing them to understand that, no matter what stories they'd been told, Voldemort was not someone – something – to be admired.
Not many, including the older students that found his eyes, managed to hold his gaze for long. Harry saw an undecipherable emotion filter across the face of a remarkably silent Marcus Flint.
"Why?" asked Blaise Zabini, not looking all that bothered, just curious – almost guileless. "If he was helping him, why kill him?"
"He was weak," said Malfoy. "A more capable wizard would have found a way through the fire."
Harry considered Malfoy, marvelling slightly at the fact the blonde boy believed him so readily, then shrugged it off.
"A more capable wizard did," he said, gesturing to Ron, who's ears coloured with embarrassment as every set of eyes turned to him.
"Sacrificing yourself is not that impressive, though, is it?" replied Malfoy. He held his fork up, speared on a sausage, and examined it as though it held great secrets. "I know Dumbledore and the idiots from Gryffindor seem to think that it was brave or some such nonsense, but you had no idea it would actually work, did you?"
"It wouldn't be brave if I knew what was going to happen, would it?" answered Ron, with a somewhat terse tone of voice.
"It's not brave; it's stupid! You didn't know you were going to live. You didn't even know it was going to work!"
"It said it would work as long as I did it willingly!"
Malfoy laughed with a clipped, mocking huff. "A piece of parchment promised you it was going to work? And you took it at its word, that it? Explain to me how that's not stupid."
"Malfoy – you weren't there," said Harry calmly, cutting off the steaming argument between the two purebloods. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Of course I wasn't there. I'd be smart enough to not get involved in the first place."
"No." Harry smiled, though it never touched his eyes. There was a gentle hum of energy, a rush of rage, coming from the sleeve of his shirt – Dumbledore's wand responding to Harry's quiet, slumbering, mounting anger. "You wouldn't ever be there, because you're just too much of a coward to be counted on."
Malfoy snarled, eyes narrowed and cheeks pink. "Just when I think you'd develop some common sense, Potter, you prove me wrong again. You fail to realize the way of the world around you."
"In what way?"
Malfoy crossed his arms, smirking, though Harry could see the barely disguised anger, the scorned fury. "There's no point in telling you."
"Okay." Do not go for your wand, Harry. Don't curse him.
Something in Harry's eyes or his tone of voice – just something – made Malfoy's smirk turn almost victorious. "You wouldn't understand, anyway."
Okay – one curse won't do too much harm.
"Right, Draco," said Ron quickly, perhaps sensing Harry's charging temper. "We get it. You know something Harry doesn't. Must be a first – too bad it's only your imaginary dreams."
Harry blinked, then frowned. "Isn't dreams, by definition, imaginary?"
"I'm supporting you here, mate."
"Just saying."
"Well – don't."
"Of course I know something he doesn't. And so do you, Weasley," said Malfoy loudly over Harry and Ron's argument.
"What do you mean?" muttered Harry through clenched teethes.
"You don't know that you're a wizard!"
Harry blinked. Of all the things to say… What was that even supposed to mean? He had stated it like it was some great revelation.
Malfoy continued in the wake of Harry's – and Ron's – stunned silence. "You act like a Mudblood. Not all the time. Certainly not to the extent that Granger and her lot do, but sometimes you do things or say things that you just don't do."
Harry quirked an eyebrow, smiling thinly. "Such as insulting you?"
"Yes!" Malfoy said, almost shrilly, and Harry barely caught himself laughing. "Do you have any idea who my father is?"
This time, however, he had to laugh. He had to. His father! Never had he seen a boy who hid more behind good ol' daddy-o than Malfoy, but then he noted with growing confusion that no one else was laughing at Malfoy with him.
"You're more talented than me – no point denying that," Malfoy said, and Harry could see how much that hurt to admit. "But it won't matter. As long as you continue to mingle with the wrong sort, you'll never get anywhere in this world."
Malfoy rose to his feet, smiling – Harry fucking hated that smile – done with his breakfast. "See you in Transfiguration." And then he walked away, Crabbe and Goyle following him out as though summoned.
Harry shared a confused look with Ron, glad to see his friend as lost as he felt, as conversations around him slowly turned to different topics. Matters such as classes, holidays, girls, boys, who'd be Quirrell's replacement – Quirrell's death – other stuff of the mundane flowed over him, none peaking his interest. Harry even thought he heard an older girl whispering something about having her first ever period this morning. Harry thought that strange since classes wouldn't begin for another fifteen minutes, and she must, in fact, have been attending Hogwarts for years, but didn't bother asking.
What the hell was Malfoy on about!
"Okay – I give in," he said finally. "Whose Draco's father, then?"
Ron shrugged. "I don't know, really. Dad sometimes has some run-ins with him at the Ministry of Magic. So he must work there, I guess."
"He's part of the Hogwarts' Board of Governors," said a feminine voice from beside Ron. Harry turned and beheld Daphne, who had been sitting and quietly enjoying her porridge. "Along with eleven other wizards. They're the ministerial body that oversees the running of Hogwarts. They decide who the Headmaster should be, the curriculum and the teaching faculty – that sort of thing, you know."
Harry blinked. "Okay. Thanks, Daphne," he said slowly, eyeing her carefully, "but I don't understand what all the fuzz is about, then. Board of Governors doesn't really seem like such an awe-inspiring position to me."
"It's more of a day job, I guess," said Daphne. Finished with her porridge, she began tying up her hair in a ponytail. "It's not exactly a secret that he got Fudge elected a couple of years ago."
"So?" asked Harry, trying to remember who the hell Fudge was.
"So," said Daphne, like she found him very dim-witted, finishing her hair with a flourish, "if you want a career in the Ministry, being friendly with Malfoy certainly wouldn't hurt, now would it? Haven't you noticed how even the older students go out of their way to please him?"
Harry hadn't. He'd been more preoccupied by the fact that the older students seemed to be going out of their way… to get out of his way.
Daphne, clearly not expecting an answer, stood up and grabbed Ron by the shoulder. "Come on, we don't wanna be late for our first lesson."
"I 'as 'till eatin' 'hat!" Ron moaned furiously, with his mouth full, though he put up no resistance as he dutifully followed Daphne. Pansy and Blaise stood, as well, and followed them out.
Harry smiled, somewhat fondly despite the disagreeable morning he'd had so far, as he rose unhurriedly and followed Ron and the others. He left behind the Great Hall, missing the heavy stench of waffles and breakfast already.
He found Ron waiting for him at the threshold to the Entrance Hall, leaning against the wall, and they heard Daphne shouting after them, telling them they would be late unless they hurried up.
They ignored her.
They were young and had all the time in the world.
"Who's Fudge?" asked Harry, as they fell in line with each other and leisurely walked after the rest of the Slytherins.
Ron glanced at Harry, and Harry saw with mild amusement Ron's clear confusion in his eyes.
"Sometimes I forget you've only been a wizard since last summer," he said, grinning. "He's our Minister for Magic. I feel like I've told you this before…"
"Ah – knew I'd heard the name." Dumbledore had told him. Right? It was Dumbledore? Or was it Ron? Both? He could hardly remember anything these days. Dumbledore seemed to share world-altering secrets with him every time they spoke nowadays. It was hard to keep up.
They left the Entrance Hall and crossed over a corridor, coming to a stop before an unremarkable wall. Looking around, Harry tapped two specific, rackety stones twice with his new wand. The stonewall melted away slowly, stones bleeding in on each other as though it turned liquid, and revealed an archway concealing another marble staircase. It was made of the purest white marble, not unlike the one in the Entrance Hall, and seemed to beckon them onwards.
"Can't believe we discovered this," said Ron giddily, climbing it just as eagerly as he had when they uncovered it together one night – before Snape had put on that blasted curse on their wands.
Harry nodded, feeling the old familiar tuck just behind his navel as they climbed the stairs. Harry had a feeling, a sense borne out of intricate guesswork and genuine inspiration, that time and, more specifically, space didn't work in the manner it usually would here. That space had been elongated and distorted, whilst time had been shortened and corrupted into something less tangible – less powerful. That the ways of the world simply didn't reach into this concealed passage, hidden beneath a canopy of heavy enchantments and jinxes of shrouded intentions.
From the ground floor they travelled through the castle, through walls and hallways and halls – through time and space itself, yes sir! – going up high in the South Tower. Not ten seconds later, they pushed through another concealed door, which broke out onto the swirling staircase of the South Tower.
They heard the winded mutterings of their fellow Slytherins as they trudged up the winding staircase far below, suddenly so very far behind them. Grinning between each other – loving this vast old castle all the more for every passing second – Harry and Ron travelled the last couple of steps and stepped into the classroom, finding a seat at the back of the class.
A couple of minutes later, the slightly fatigued Slytherin students joined them, quirking with surprise at the sight of them.
Daphne, along with Tracy and Pansy, found seats on the row in front of them. Daphne pushed her bag to the side after gathering her book and parchment, laying it all out with care on her desk, before she turned in her seat.
"How did you two get here so fast?"
"Magic," said Ron, tone of voice deadpanned, though Harry thought his slightly lopsided grin betrayed his coolness.
"Complete secret." Harry grinned, tapping his nose. "Couldn't possibly tell you."
Daphne narrowed her eyes good-naturedly, glancing between them. "You two can be so silly sometimes, you know that?"
"We're not silly," said Ron.
"We're cool. Secret passageways are cool," said Harry.
"Harry!"
"What?"
"Are you fucking serious?"
"Aha!" Daphne pointed a finger at them. "That's it!"
"Oh." Harry stared at her. Had he meant for that? Perhaps so, perhaps no. "Dammit…"
"For Merlin's fuck," muttered Ron.
"Yeah – that's a hard pass, mate."
Ron found an easy grin quickly. "It's Merlin – you don't have a say in the matter."
"Oh, well, if it's Merlin, then I better just–"
"What secret passageway? Where is it?" asked Tracey. "Sure would be nice if we didn't have to climb all those stairs every time."
"Yeah – tell us," urged Daphne beside her, adopting a rather adorable look with her blue eyes. "Please, Harry… please Ron…"
"Ah…" Ron turned quite pink, clearly unsure how to respond.
At that moment, however, McGonagall swept into the classroom and stole the attention, as she always did, saving Ron and Harry from the conversation.
"Welcome back. I hope everyone had a pleasant holiday," the Professor began, taking her seat behind her desk. She looked over them all, and seemed to be satisfied with what she saw. "Today we will begin with some light review of the fundamentals behind novice Transfiguration, before exploring the theory, uses and limitations of the Switching Spell. If you're a quick study, we might even try our hands at it today."
Harry was already on his way to snooze-town before she finished. Transfiguration theory, whilst fascinating in its own way, had so far – as far as Harry could see it – seemed if not more limiting than broadening, then at least rather basic and simplistic. Sure, it laid the groundwork for everything they did, but magic was so much crazier than that, so much more than that…
So much wilder and crueller and kinder and… well, more awesome than the way the teachers had taught them so far. Harry had seen it, after all – first hand. Had almost been touched by it.
He was grinning – and somehow found that Dumbledore's old, immaculate wand had snuck out into the palm of his hand, humming a merry little tune in line with his mood.
He had quite forgotten all about the little escapade at breakfast or Malfoy's words of warning, transfixed in awe at the sight of his wand and what he felt from it. This was magic! At its absolute magical finest! There were no limits. No theory should place upon him any sort of string… Not a single one!
"Can someone tell me one of the five Pillars of Transfiguration?" asked McGonagall, stealing Harry's attention back.
A score of hands rose in the air, and Harry and Ron shared a smirk. Sharing a class with the Ravenclaws had its perks; one of them being that you were almost always sure never to get picked out to answer, because half the class consisted of overeager students who wanted to live up to their House creed.
"Yes, miss Patil?" said McGonagall.
"The dimensions of the object you want to transfigure," said Padma Patil, with an almost robotic quality to her voice – at least it sounded very rehearsed to Harry.
"Yes." McGonagall nodded, smiling slightly. "Two points to Ravenclaw. The shape and the weight can have a tremendous influence on the difficulty of your Transfiguration. Beyond that it is far easier, when trying to transfigure something, if the two objects share similar sizes, shapes, or both. Well, get your quills out and take notes! Now, who can tell me another?"
Harry found a quill and began scribble down, or he appeared to be, at least. He had only grabbed his quill after he found Ron doing the same, having long since lost himself in his own thoughts.
The class passed onwards in a quiet intercourse between respected teacher and dutiful students, and Harry was only pulled from his inner thoughts when a matchbox and a wrapped chocolate frog appeared before him some incomprehensible time later.
Blinking and straightening, he looked up to meet McGonagall's knowing stare. Trying – and failing – to fight down a blush, he reached for a rakish, charming smile.
McGonagall's frown, which had seemed etched in stone, deepened further, becoming so severe even Harry lost his nerve. "Since you seem to have lost interest in the subject, Mr Potter, I take it you have already mastered the Switching Spell. I think a demonstration might be in order."
Harry blinked and glanced around. Every set of eyes were on him. Had they already covered the Five Pillars of Transfiguration and the Switching Spell? Had he been that lost in his own head?
"Of course, Professor." He gripped his new wand tightly, shaking it as if to clear it of any specks of dust. What was the spell? He had never heard of it, had he? And yet – as was so often the case – something told him that he knew the spell, and he knew it well.
The Switching Spell… not really so much a matter of two objects changing places as it were… two objects changing and taking on the form of the other, simultaneously. Harry beheld the shape closely, quickly, the curve of the Chocolate Frog and the edges of the box.
Walking the blurry border of half-realized spells, grinning with wonder – magic was real and it was him! – with a slight twirl of his wand and a thought that he barely understood himself, the two objects shimmered and changed, transfigured.
Harry blinked. That had been easy, even for him, almost too easy. He looked at the wand in his hand again, still gently humming along – as though it was eager to be used. He waved it again – the objects changed once more. Waving his wand without thought they changed again. Thinking without waving, they switched once more. Looking intently, without thought or gesture, they switched around just as easily.
It was uncanny.
The wand hummed with warmth along the train of thoughts and spells, almost singing with glee, begging to be used, to be challenged.
No. He blinked, and he slowly brought it to his ear, listening carefully. It wasn't singing… it was whispers – red-hot, dreadful, yet somehow familiar – that sang a tune split apart with a sense of madness and timelessness and incantations unlearned – one of which he recognized as the Switching Spell he'd just performed.
Life. Life is a scene made up of rules and boundaries yanked into existence by the limitations of human desires and perceptions, Harry. Of a need to control. And you, like I, will have other names before the end. They will name you in scorn – in fear! The Boy Beyond the Veil. The Oncoming Avalanche… The ma–
Horror-struck, Harry slammed the wand down onto the desk, as though burned, whisking away the whispers, and glanced to Ron. Nothing. There was nothing on his face worth of note. Ron only looked on in marvel at Harry's skills, but wore no tell that he, too, had heard the mad whispers coming from his wand.
He blinked, listened closer, listened to the silence of the classroom, and thought he heard them still… slithering about beyond sight… inside…
At times I almost dream…
Please, Harry thought desperately, stop it…
I, too, have spent a life the sage's way…
Harry quenched down on it all, reigning in everything, until there was nothing but an empty, eternal pit of blackness left.
McGonagall thinned her lips, face hard and unreadable. For a long time she stared at Harry. She almost seemed… confused? "Take ten points for Slytherin, Harry," she said at last, breaking the tense silence. "Another ten if you can tell me the incantation."
Opening his mouth to answer on reflex, he paused, brow creased in a thoughtful frown. There was something there, hidden in the tone of her voice. He looked to Ron, who was one big question personified with a dumbfounded expression. Another clue. He looked at the desk, then at the other student's desks. He was the only one currently with a matchbox and a Chocolate Frog in front of him. Clue.
Everyone was looking at him in a weird way.
Clue.
Something dawned on him.
"You haven't covered the Switching Spell yet, have you, Professor?"
"No." McGonagall shook her head, lips thin. "We've only just reached the third rules of the five Pillars of Transfiguration. Weren't you paying attention, Mr Potter?"
Oh. How about that? He opened his Chocolate Frog and began happily eating it. She quirked an eyebrow, mouth agape.
"Sorry, Professor – won't happen again."
"Yes," McGonagall said, nodding her head slightly, blinking, a rush of emotion flittering over her face. Harry thought her reaction strange. "Though I doubt that'd be the case." She studied him for a final long moment; Harry pretended to be carefree and enjoying his free chocolate frog. "Well, someone who can tell me the third Pillar?"
By the end of the class, after spending far too long on the – according to Harry – useless Pillars of Transfiguration, they only just managed to cover the basic theory and incantation of the Switching Spell.
"You have no idea how lucky you are," said Ron, rather sourly, as they exited the classroom.
"Hmm?" What the hell was wrong with him? Why wouldn't it stop? He looked down at the wand in his hand; it lay there dormant, looking like nothing more than a piece of instrument – a tool to be wielded. Not something with a mind of its own.
"I said you have no idea how lucky you are."
But was it just that?
"What do you mean, Ron?"
"Do you know how much I'd give for fraction of your talent?" Harry looked up just in time to catch the shadow of Ron's envious countenance. "Everyone is so impressed with you or scared of you and they don't even know the half of it."
Harry blinked and fell out of his troubled thoughts. "Scared of me?"
"Did you know they first teach us how to conjure water in our sixth year?" asked Ron.
"I didn't."
Ron shrugged with his odd smile. "I looked it up. It's very advanced charms. Not everyone ever learns how to do it, and yet you figured it out on you own."
"What do you mean, scared of me? Why?"
Ron hesitated for a moment. "Well, they – I suppose they see how talented you are. It can be pretty scary, you know. Some of the things you can do."
"It is?" Harry blinked. "I wouldn't – you know – do things. You know that, right?"
"Of course. But…" Ron looked at Harry with mounting nerves, eyes fleeting. "Well, You-Know-Who was probably just a schoolboy like you once, right? And you're already doing spells we only learn at the end of our time here – it's weird, that's all. You don't even study particularly much, do you? No more than me."
"So? Magic is fun. Reading is not."
"So… how do you know the stuff you do? How do you learn it, if you're not reading it?" There was a slight pause, in which Ron looked meaningful at Harry. "You can never really answer that, can you? People look at you, Harry, and they notice. They don't really understand your genius. I don't. I think that's what so scary about you."
Harry nodded, frowning, not sure what to say.
"What do we have now?" asked Ron cheerfully, as though the solemn conversation hadn't just taken place.
"History," said Daphne.
Both Harry and Ron jumped and turned to see her lurking behind them.
"What are you doing?" muttered Ron suspiciously, narrowing his eyes.
"Spying on your fellow Slytherins?" said Harry.
Daphne smiled. "That's the first time I've ever heard you actually acknowledge that." She tilted her head. "And Ron's right – you can be scary sometimes, Harry."
"Acknowledge what?" asked Harry, handily ignoring the last bit.
"Oh, only that you're both Slytherins."
"That's not true," said Ron sharply.
"Yeah, it is," replied Daphne. "I've never heard you say it, anyway."
"Well," said Ron, "you haven't spent a lot of time with us, now have you?"
Daphne's smile faltered for a moment, though she recovered it quickly. "I suppose not… though that's hardly my fault."
"Anyway, I've acknowledged it loads of times." Harry found himself smiling. "I did it that one time – you remember, Ron?"
"Yes. That one time. Definitely." He paused and gazed at Harry out of the corner of his eye. "Very memorable."
"What time was that?" inquired Daphne, with a raised eyebrow.
Harry thought about it, coming up short, then turned to Ron.
"Nope." Ron raised his hands. "Your lie."
Daphne laughed, looked around them quickly, before leaning in. "Can you show me your secret passageway now?" she whispered.
"No."
Daphne blinked. "No?"
"Daphne, you're – well, you're a bit of gossip, aren't you?" said Ron gently, almost with great care, like he was trying to reason with something intricately dangerous.
"What? Am not!"
"Besides we can't just share our every hard-earned secret with everyone," said Harry.
"I am not asking you to share your secrets with everyone – just me."
"Do you think you're the only one asking?" replied Harry quickly.
"Well – yes."
That was true, but also completely beside the point as far as Harry and Ron were concerned.
"Well – you won't be the only one," said Harry, with a notch of force in his voice. "Secrets don't stay secret for long if you share them around with everybody, do they?"
Baffled and affronted, face white with anger, Daphne stormed off without another word. Harry and Ron hurried after her towards the History of Magic classroom.
Harry didn't hear the whispers of the familiar voice – a voice he had heard once upon a time in a dream unseen, unheard, and unfound – for the rest of the week, and classes passed with the gentle, ever-lumbering stream of time. And though the reverent, somewhat weary whispers and stares seemed to cling onto his every movement, he found that things slowly settled into a semblance of normalcy.
Quirrell hadn't been replaced yet, and that cleared up some free time wherein Harry and Ron could, without getting into a spot of trouble, roam the castle. And they did.
Daphne, angered by their secrecy, had taken to ignore them entirely, failing to understand the kind of bond that had been forged already between the two boys – a kind of bond, a depth, that one couldn't just simply swagger into on the wings of charm and a desire to belong.
Slytherin's second Quidditch Game of the season was coming up next Saturday, and the common room was abuzz, afire with passion and pride, as David Hendricks – a seventh year, seeker and Captain of the Quidditch team and of modest talent according to Harry's, well, untrained and slightly biased opinion – rallied his supporters almost every night.
"Two hundred points…" He could be seen and heard muttering every once in a while. "Two hundred points and the trophy's mine!"
To Harry, he seemed almost manic, though Ron wasn't too far off, either.
"Slytherin has never been better than they're these days!"
"How come?" asked Harry, soaking up all of Ron's enthusiasm.
"Marcus Flint's the youngest on the team, Harry – a fifth year! Do you have any idea how much experience this team has? And the kind of motivation they must feel? Seven years in a row! We have to go back a century or so when that last happened."
Harry blinked, trying to keep up.
Ron continued as though Harry didn't even exist. "They've played with the same team for three years now. That's almost unheard of in Hogwarts."
Harry smiled as a thought formed. "Doesn't that mean they will have to form an entirely new team next year?"
Ron blinked. "Yeah?"
"We could, you know, try out for the team together."
"Oh – oh!" A sort of wishful, longing emotion creased his face, as his blue eyes grew slightly distanced. "You think they'd let us, though?"
"Why not?" said Harry. "We're not as hated as we were at the beginning of the year. In fact, I think we're starting to grow on some of them."
Ron stared.
"Okay," Harry relented, "maybe not as such, but still… if we're good enough, why not?"
"We could do that." Ron nodded slowly. "We will do that." Then he grinned like mad. "We should start practicing. At once! What position do you fancy yourself playing, then? I'm a Keeper."
"A keeper, are you?" Harry nudged him playfully. "Keep telling yourself that. That's the spirit."
"Shut up, Harry." Ron laughed.
Harry smiled, dreaming of being a Seeker, and together they fell into the same sort of discussion most of the other boys their age did – the discussion of wistful dreams and fancy aspirations.
Friday morning found Harry, amidst the foul-smelling odours of a brewing Forgetfulness potion, hunched over his cauldron as he measured out a great array of different ingredients for the third part of the brewing process.
"Ah – you sure you added the right amount of herbs there, Potter," whispered Snape, his breath ragged and fetid on Harry's neck. He was looming ominously over his shoulder, had been for a while, adding spiteful comments whenever he deemed Harry's performance lacking – which was all the time.
"Yes, sir," said Harry, feeling his mind starting to wander off again. He waved his wand to apply the right amount of enchantments to the potion, at the exact moment detailed by the instructions. He wasn't sure if it was Snape or the fumes of the potions, but something was making it hard to focus on just one thing.
"Your hand is sloppy. Again. Your work slow. Miss Greengrass has already produced a perfect Forgetfulness potion, and yours is not even hallway there and mediocre at best."
Which were all very true, Harry supposed. Although he seemed to have forgotten that Hermione Granger had only been minutes behind Daphne, with an equally impressive potion.
"Maybe it would be easier for me to work, sir, if you allowed me space to do it."
"Two points from Slytherin for your cheek, Potter."
"Whatever," Harry muttered loudly.
"You have just earned yourself a detention this Sunday." Harry, eyes firmly on the slowly deterring potion, could feel the snarl of a smile in the dark relish of his voice. "And a botched potion, it seems."
Seeing the azure-coloured potion slowly twisting into a foul-smelling green ooze, as he added too much Lethe River Water, Harry jabbed his wand angrily at the cauldron. Letting the whispers and the heat and the will of the wand seep out and consume him – leaching off his magic and yanking the potion back into something resembling its former colour with a soft pop of smoke and a gunshot-like bang.
Harry sighed, a rush of relief surging through him.
"What was that, Potter?" asked Snape.
A second passed, heavy with pregnancy, waiting to burst, the whole class forgetting their own potions. It was a requiring theme, and Harry was getting used to it. And he smiled, because he had already been punished, because sometimes… sometimes he was just a fool, who had to see what the dragon would do when provoked.
"Magic."
The silence took on another shape, imbued in darker hues – Harry even thought he saw Ron physically brace himself for impact – and Harry only found his slight smile widening in defiance.
Snape's hands clenched.
"Sir, Potter," said Snape with an ugly sneer. His sallow skin had gone a rotten dirt-white colour.
And Harry, angry and stupid, couldn't help himself.
"It wasn't that impressive," he said, tone of voice highly amicably and nonchalant. "Certainly not enough to call me sir, Professor."
Snape sputtered. He looked to be wrestling with himself in murderous rage, pale and red with fury, yellow teethes bared in a snarl. Harry fought with all his strength of will not to let a grin wrought his face, lest it would push Snape over his breaking point.
Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Ron's body shake with the effort to reign in his laughter, his face bent over his cauldron in an effort to hide himself.
Having earned himself a just detention the coming Sunday – and the one after and the one after and so forth – and enduring half an hour of scolding and mocking condescension, Harry turned in a half-decent Forgetfulness potion. It didn't have the same smell of fresh lavender that Daphne or Granger's potion did, nor did it share the opaque violet colour, but it was decent and he was proud of that.
"I'm never going to make it to our O.W.L's with that pshyco," said Harry to Ron as they sat a little ways off from the rest of their house, eating dinner in the Great Hall. "Seriously, we need to get him fired, Ron."
Ron swallowed his mashed potatoes. "I doubt we can manage that."
"Kill him, then."
Ron winced and peeked at Harry as if to gauge whether he was serious or not. "I doubt that will leave you in less trouble, mate."
"Okay – then we just maim him."
"Excellent idea!" Ron grinned, and they spent the next couple of minutes discussing the various ways they could maim their most hated Professor, badly enough he'd be forced to leave the school. One idea traced another, becoming more and more outlandish – and violent.
"We gonna go see the game tomorrow, right?" asked Ron after a while. He wove carelessness to his tone of voice, but Harry knew him well enough to see through it. Ron was very eager to actually see the match this time, having been forced to help Hagrid with his little problem during the first game.
"Of course. You promised to teach me the rules, remember?"
Ron nodded, and quickly fell into the same old elaborate explanation of the wonderful game called Quidditch. If he'd only love the game half as much as Ron did, Harry thought, he'd be more than happy with it.
What could he say – Ron's enthusiasm was infectious.
Harry had never been afraid of the dark.
Not, when as a young boy, he had been alone in the smouldering darkness of his cupboard beneath the stairs. Not even when he had been trekking across the blackness of the Forbidden Forest at night.
Hogwarts at night, though… it was something else.
Something wondrous… something…
Abandoned.
Terrifying.
It looked and felt like an old castle long forgotten to time, which jutted out in the midst of a great, far-reaching wilderness, burrowed deep within the cascading mountaintops of the Scotland highlands.
Harry was in love – fear of what the darkness held concealed in abundance coursing through him – but deeply in love just the same.
As shadows protruded from every corner, split only by intermittent cones of heavy pure starlight – of which couldn't touch the kind of invisibility he was now capable of – Harry explored that love with an ever-growing sense of impunity.
His gifts from Dumbledore, his most treasured possession now, allowed him to disregard entirely the warning and threats and curses of Snape.
He was beyond reach, beyond the sight of mere men.
He was more than that, more than they had ever been, and also less than a ghost.
Oh, how he wished he could share these nights with Ron. Share the castle and the magic and the secrets and everything that was to be had. To be earned.
To be seen!
He let his hand glide over the material of his Invisibility Cloak, marvelling at the soft texture of the design, marvelling at the effects it could work upon reality. He knew as he walked these fine, blackened halls that there should be the soft echo of his footsteps – clap-clap-clap – but there escaped no sound from within the canopy of true Invisibility.
Harry had known almost at once, a gnarly gem of knowledge passed onto him by something deeper than instinct, that this was not merely an invisibility cloak – it was the Invisibility Cloak, possessing the means and strengths to renter its true heir truly invisible – to lay claim to both sounds and smells and the sights of men and whatever senses the rest of the world of enchantment possessed, rendering them all useless.
There was no creature with the ability to sense him. There could be no set of eyes or ears that could detect him… that could catch him.
It was a work of absolute wonder, a cloth without equal, a creation that defied even the borders of magic. And it was his!
Of the two gifts Dumbledore had gifted him this was the most wondrous, the most dangerous – the most beautiful.
His new wand hummed quietly in his hand as though wanting to make its presence known, wanting to be appreciated. Harry smiled, lifting it to his eyes beneath the Invisibility Cloak. He hadn't forgotten this wand – no, not at all forgotten about it. Vividly, he could recall the sense of ease from his Transfiguration lesson with McGonagall last Monday. The eagerness of the wand – it had almost performed the spells without his prompt.
He had not heard the whispers, not really, like he did in McGonagall's class, and it was okay. Everything was okay. And once more he had started to find the phenomenon whisked away like a distant memory, like a dream, rather than something threatening and maddening and dangerous.
He didn't understand why or how, only that he was in control. Complete control. And it was his.
And their bond was only growing stronger, too. Sometimes it was as though it did things for him, even before he realized that that was what he intended to do.
He held the objects together before his eyes, as he continued to wander aimlessly around the Dungeons of Hogwarts, falling deeper and deeper into the darkness.
The two objects suited each other. Somehow. There was a sense of belonging that jutted out across the canvas of existence that resided within the specks of atoms and magic, clinging the two items together by indefinable small tendrils of… charms and enchantments? Or something older? Something newer?
Harry didn't know; all he was sure of was that there was something that seemed to revel in the closeness of the two objects.
Turning another corner, sinking deeper into the pit of the dungeons than he'd ever been, he happened upon a puff of stale, soggy air that smacked across his face and senses. Blinking away the sudden concession of tears in his eyes, he peered with narrowed eyes at the dark in front of him.
Seeing nothing, he hummed lightly to himself, trying to banish the gnawing sense of fear that arose stronger and stronger within, as he thought of what to do. Usually, when he was out and about in the middle of the night, he tread upon the kinder paths of Hogwarts' upper floors, seeking her secrets in the bashful light of the moon and the fiery torches.
Here, all the way below ground, there was no such companion. Only the eternal darkness and the cold, damp air that hung like a decayed promise of a long forgotten time.
Coming to a swift decision, Harry parted his Cloak slightly and raised his wand, igniting the tip with a silent Lumos Spell.
An inconspicuous hallway bloated out before him in cascading, withering shadows. He could see the soft dripping of condescend water trickling off the ceiling in a gentle, constant rhythm.
The hallway was wet, very wet, as though he found himself suddenly very close to a great body of water. Wand held aloft, he trekked across the barren hallway slowly, noting the rotten state of the dark cobblestone walls – great quantities of moss pillaging the pristine nature of the castle as it draped across the breadth of the walls, acting as an antitheses to the rest of the school's immaculate nature.
As he drew deeper into the cascading dungeons of Hogwarts, Harry knew that he was trespassing upon a point where none ever walked anymore. There wasn't a single touch of magic to be gleamed out of the darkness, not so much as a speck of clean up or scouring magic.
"Maybe I ought to do it," said Harry, pointing his wand now at the wall. "Scourgify!"
Nothing happened. Harry blinked. Tried the spell once more. Again nothing. Then he shrugged and moved on. Obviously it was meant to be there, acting as a moody décor of sorts.
Onwards he fared in silence.
But it wasn't long before he came to a sudden, dead end. A smooth black wall jutted up before him – so black it almost went unnoticed (Harry almost collided with it).
He found no tell-tale sign of enchantments in place, no outward pulse of any sort of magic to signify that this was anything but a door. Staring at the wall up close, his nose almost touching, he glanced all over it with a careful eye, peeking from the peripheral of his eyes at the edges of the wall…
And there was something! A wound in the wall, a black maw protruding from the bottom right edge of the wall, where it connected to the floor.
And just as he laid eyes on it, a great rushing sound of water, like the wild tempers of a surging river, assaulted his ears, and magic poured in waves of supple power.
How had he missed that brilliant noise? And that intoxicating rush of magic…
Stooping low to the hole in the wall, only darkness meeting his gaze, he slowly penetrated the wall with the tip of his wand, light illuminating a great open space. Heart beating fiercely in his chest, he manoeuvred his head through the wall, as well, and found the source of the sound.
Below a cliff of the wall, which almost jutted out like a slide, a fierce current of water was rushing through the castle below, escaping away in the darkness like a tract.
Should he do it, he wondered.
Should he jump?
Part of him – the mad part, obviously – desperately wanted to see where it was going. He thought he detected something of an end, a shore of sorts, off to the side, hidden beneath a shade of shadows in the frothy waters.
And then the water smacked against the side, and a healthy dollop of it splattered across his face. And Harry, on instinct alone, drew his head back in shock as a shiver lanced through him.
"Shit!" he yelped against the unforgiving and unexpected coldness.
That decided it as far as he was concerned. No thank you, ma'am.
He hated cold water.
Turning around he crossed the corridors and slowly made his way up through the dungeons. Maybe he ought to make a more in-depth test of his new wand – perusing one of the old familiar classrooms in the castle above.
Yeah – perhaps so…
Dumbledore looked tired, he thought.
"We have little time," said Dumbledore, as he had said before to his visitor. "I estimate we have about a year before Lord Voldemort has regained his powers. I'd like the Ministry to be prepared for that eventuality."
"How – how can you speak so easily of such – such monstrosities?" the man before the Headmaster said quietly. "This is war you're speaking of!"
"War and I are old acquaintances," replied Dumbledore, voice barely a whisper. "This, I'm afraid, was always meant to be – the schedule has merely been pushed forth a bit."
"But – but… it can't be, Dumbledore. It can't – it just… can't!"
"Listen to me, Cornelius!" said Dumbledore, and never before had Harry heard the old Professor's tone of voice spoken in such commanding hues. His powers, usually held at bay with ancient wisdom and quiet temper, were flaring palpably in a discernable aura. "This is it – this is the moment. We have time to prepare, to gather our strengths. If we assemble ourselves, we can stand tall when Lord Voldemort inevitably returns."
"How can you be so sure?" the man said, shaking his head. "You could be wrong – your information could be wrong! Have you thought about that?"
"I fought him – he was merely a shell of what he will become… and still he was more dangerous, more powerful, more ruthless than any wizard I've ever known – and I daresay I've seen the worst this world has to offer. Cornelius, please – time is of the essence!"
"But, Albus… this last decade – everything we have achieved – destabilized. Blown away like smoke. I'll not allow that."
Dumbledore's eyes bore into the man with unrivalled intensity. "There is little you can do to stop it, except to prepare. Reinstate the Hit Wizards. Seal away the Dementors; they can no longer be allowed to guard Azkaban – they will join him the moment he asks… Send a convoy for the giants – failing any of these steps will leave Voldemort with an easy route back to his former strength. And who knows… maybe our renewed strength can have other purposes before the end."
Harry blinked, but the conversation moved on before he could think on the words.
"But – but – but–" Cornelius was sputtering with utter misery, seemingly completely incapable of understanding just what it was he was hearing. "If I did – just one – people hate the giants, Dumbledore – the Hit Wizards were a scandal for the Ministry – if I did any of those things… end of my career…"
"Then I suggest you do it quietly – behind closed doors, away from the eyes of the magical community. If you do not wish for them to see you act decisively – in what would be your finest hour… then act unseen behind the veil of secrecy. Let the world learn when the time is right, and no sooner. But do not forsake them. Not now. Not ever. Turning your back on them… on this moment… the burden such an act imposes on your soul would be unbearable. And time would not remember your cowardice fondly."
A heavy silence blossomed, and Harry fought to keep his breath low and unheard beneath the oppressive weight it seemed to have.
"How?" the visitor said at last. "How do I do that? Any of it?" The man fidgeted with his bowler hat, hands shaky. "Even the Hit Wizards. How do I reinstate them without anybody noticing? The recruitments alone will be enough to warrant questioning in the High Courts of the Wizengamot!"
"I shall help you in our endeavours, of course," Dumbledore said calmly. "If I may be so frank, I wager I'll have quite a bit of free time after this school year is over. After all, I still hold a great deal of sway in those courts… well, that is, unless you have decided, of course, that my contributions as Chief Warlock are no longer necessary, as well?"
Harry, who had stood outside Dumbledore's office for quite a while now – having come to discuss the wand after his little test – felt something shift in the air of the conversation.
"Well, I – how do you know of this?" said Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic, Harry gathered, and he heard an emotion in his voice that he couldn't quite place.
"I have my sources." Dumbledore fell back into his calm, grandfatherly exterior, as though he hadn't been at odds with the man before him at all. "Well, I have said what I intended to say. Now you must act as you see fit. Tell me now what you came here to say, Cornelius – in the middle of the night, no less."
Fudge's fidgeting with his bowler hand increased in intensity.
"Well, you see now – it's not that I want to… there has been an uproar over the holidays, Albus. The rumours – oh yes… Children running scared, parents demanding that I take action… you see how few options I'm left with, don't you? Got to be seen doing something."
"I see a man scared of losing his position, his power – I see a man consumed by all he has. You always were so obsessed with the things that mattered the least."
"I'm not doing this alone," said Fudge, and Harry found himself wrought with a mounting dislike for the man. "The Governors feel it's time you step aside, you see – I come with an Order of Suspension. Eight out of twelve voted against you."
Board of Governors, thought Harry. The group of twelve wizards that Daphne had mentioned at breakfast. The one with Malfoy's father in it – Harry only needed one guess as to which way he had voted.
"I am relieved of my duties as Headmaster, correct?" said Dumbledore, and it looked as though it hardly mattered to him, as though he had even been looking forward to it. "One more brick laid out by Lucius Malfoy, I'm sure."
A pause, Fudge clearly fighting with something, and then he nodded. "Yes."
"Along with Severus Snape."
It was not a question.
"How can you possibly know that?"
Dumbledore smiled. "That would be telling."
Fudge shook his head. "You will stay on for the rest of the school year, of course, and then you'll be – replaced… along with the Potions Master. Too many have complained, for too long. Must do something."
"To protect yourself, yes." Dumbledore nodded, steepling his hands together beneath his chin. He didn't look angry, or sad, only resigned. "A parting of ways… I suppose, in the end, everything can change… will change, must change. Time wills out. And everything ends… in the end. I will miss…" He drew his hands, fingers grazing across his desk measuredly, as though caressing it. "You have a request of me, Cornelius? One that I am inclined to accept – despite the grieve you have cost me tonight."
Fudge sighed. "I don't understand how – I haven't even – how in Merlin's name – not even my wife knows this, Albus."
"We all have our vices – mine is cursed with knowledge of things people would rather I didn't know." He looked to the side, at the door standing ajar, and found Harry's eyes glancing in. "Would you mind stepping in now, Harry? The Minister and I will be done shortly."
Harry, reddening slightly, stepped across the threshold to the Headmaster's office, gaining the startled eyes of the Minister for Magic.
"Harry Potter," breathed Fudge, wide-eyed and pale all of a sudden. "As I live and breathe… what are you doing here in the middle of the night."
Harry shrugged. "Couldn't sleep."
Dumbledore beamed, eyes twinkling and dancing with mirth. "Ah – I always found that a good walk puts me right to sleep. That, and a healthy serving of sweets. I daresay that sweet tooth of mine will be my downfall."
"Sweets are good," said Harry, a frown creasing his brow. He could really go for some now. "Sweets are cool."
"Harry, why're you here?" asked Fudge again.
Dumbledore conjured a chair, and Harry sat down, nodding his silent thanks as Dumbledore produced a bowl of Lemon Drops and passed them to the boy.
Fudge looked on mildly incredulous at the scene.
"I wanted to talk to the Headmaster, sir," answered Harry, looking at the Minister. He popped a Lemon Drop in his mouth and sighed with relish.
"Fudge was just about to ask me to attend a conference in his stead this summer, Harry," said Dumbledore amicably. "As I recall it will be held somewhere around your birthday – end of July."
"It's so much more than a mere conference, Albus," said Fudge, eyes rounding furiously on the Headmaster. "The ICW has been out for blood for years – and they're beginning to smell ours now! Their proposals have been getting more and more insistent. And outrageous! I was hoping you could put a stopper to the madness."
"Ah yes – the Great Merger… the brainchild of Mr Delacour – I don't suppose they'll ever get tried of that daft old scheme of theirs."
"The reimagine of our ways… they're mad if they think we'd want any part – if we'd… surrender… Drunk on the strength of their beliefs, they are."
"Quite." Dumbledore nodded. "And you want me to persuade them of our ways?" he asked. "You expect great things of me, Cornelius – impossible things, I should say. Their belief has been strengthened by the passage of time and righteous revolution, to the point where dissuasion with… peaceful means is merely the fickle fancies of the naïve."
"Their sentiment has grown stronger within our folds, too," said Fudge. "A growing unrest among the fast expanding parts of the Muggleborns in our populace is speaking out in favour of some of their… notions. If anything can put a stopper to their momentum, it's you."
Dumbledore sighed. "Ah yes… Good intentions… There can be no greater tormenter, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. Such conviction of your own virtue can prove hard to dissuade. Yet I shall strive to do so, even if only to satisfy some of my own interests, though I have some requests of my own."
Fudge nodded at once. "Name them, Albus."
"I'd like Harry to accompany me."
Harry blinked. What? What was going on now?
"Of course."
"And I'd like him to be exempt from the law of underage magic while he's with me."
A pause, in which Fudge narrowed his eyes ever so slightly, rested between them. "Okay."
"And lastly, should Harry wish to bring along a friend or two – they, too, should be exempt from the law of underage magic."
A slightly longer, almost pregnant pause hung heavy between them. "Okay, Dumbledore."
"Splendid." Dumbledore smiled. "If that'd be all… I am feeling rather tired…"
"Yes. Yes, of course – yes." Fudge rose, clearly more than a touch forlorn at the clear dismissal. He, nonetheless, extended his hand. "So sorry about this, Albus – terrible business, absolutely terrible. I shall speak with you soon about how we proceed from here."
And then he was gone, out the door in a hurry, leaving Harry – still happily enjoying his bowl of Lemon Drops – alone with the old Headmaster.
"Sir?" Harry said, feeling he had something that had to be said.
"Yes, Harry?"
"Er – sorry?" He grimaced. "You know, about… listening and all that."
"Ah yes, I ought to assign some form of punishment, don't I?" said Dumbledore, and he held Harry's eyes for a long second, then he smiled. "Well, seeing as I'm, as they say, living on borrowed time, who could begrudge me a small measure of favouritism, hmm? Tell me why you've come to my door in the middle of the night?"
"Your wand – my wand – I was just…" Harry blinked, suddenly whatever qualms or worries he had had with the wand didn't seem all that important. In fact, they hardly mattered at all.
"You fired, then?" asked Harry instead.
"I'm afraid so."
"Because of what happened with Voldemort?"
"I suppose. Students told their parents what happened before Christmas – as children should. Some of those parents hold very prestigious positions within the Ministry, unfortunately. And I daresay I dropped the ball, anyway. And I imagine not all of my decisions over the years have been well-received."
"I'm sorry, sir." Harry shook his head, eyes downcast. "So sorry."
"Don't be sad, Harry," said Dumbledore, smiling broadly with an intensity Harry, despite everything, found rather infectious. "Change is an inevitable companion in a meaningful life. We must never be afraid of it. Another end is another beginning – our story is just beginning… our stories never quite end, do they? Not as long as we are remembered. And I'd like to think I've left behind something of a mark here."
Harry nodded and a comfortable silence settled. And though Harry couldn't see the sun yet, he found the stars all but gone upon the sky, and the slow rise of a dark blue dawning of the day coalescing.
"What's the ICW, Professor?" said Harry, as he remembered Fudge's words, looking at Dumbledore again. Something of a frown, the closest the Professor would allow, manifested on his face.
"ICW is short for the International Confederation of Wizards, Harry," replied Dumbledore after a moment. "It was founded as an organization meant to bring together wizarding communities across nations. To strengthen relations and bolster the magical community at large. It did that, and so much more, unfortunately."
Harry blinked, leaning forward a little. "What happened?"
"After the fall of Grindelwald – have you heard of him?"
"Only what it says on your Chocolate Frog Card – got yours again in McGonagall's class a couple of days ago. Good story, that. You defeated him, right?"
"Well," Dumbledore began, hesitant, with his eyes looking out through the window, "I suppose I did. History can, at times, however, be rewritten. You'd do well to remember that, Harry. Alas, after his fall, the ICW – in their complete benevolence, of course – thought it best if a stronger body of government was… elected to lead the way."
Harry furrowed his brow. "Elected?"
"Some would say imposed," said Dumbledore with a mild frown. "It started as an idea. Merely a thought experiment."
Harry got the sense, somewhere he knew not, that this wasn't the first time he was being told this. But it was, surely. He'd never even heard of the ICW before this, had he? He couldn't remember.
"People – they thought it a bad idea, then?" He wasn't sure himself what to make of it, any of it, but Dumbledore certainly didn't seem to like it.
"At first, yes – of course they did. What the ICW proposed – the Merger – was so foreign to how our world worked, every nation revolted at the notion. But as time passed – and particularly with the rise of Lord Voldemort here in Britain – the idea of a stronger, united front, led by a single body of government, held some merit. And so, slowly, nations started marrying under the Confederation. Old nation, like Britain, became local branches of a larger government and lost their authority. Today very few countries remain independent – chief among them… us."
"But they want us to join?"
"In a manner of speaking, you could argue that. I believe, however, they are more motivated by the thought of us ceasing to exist rather than actually merging with us because of our qualities as a nation."
"But why?"
Dumbledore sighed. "It's… quite complicated, I suppose. Yet there is the common ground that all conflict seems to share. Greed. Power. Fear. It is all the things that, in too large amounts and in the possession of men with too frail minds, always corrupt. But, Harry, this is what they wish to accomplish this summer – for us to willingly surrender and lay claim to our sovereignty. To at last cast aside the nation that fostered the likes of Voldemort and myself and the supposed Pureblood supremacy – the antithesis to everything they stand for, according to themselves. Not realizing that in their benevolence they have allowed for an even crueller mistress to take hold and shackle them to their own misguided beliefs. Not realizing that, because of their good intentions, they've allowed themselves to commit acts of monstrosity with impunity from their own consciousness."
"I… I didn't understand that at all, sir."
Dumbledore laughed. "Quite all right, Harry. If you come with me this summer, you will see it for yourself. Nothing dangerous, mind you, at least not outwardly so… but seeing is understanding, perhaps."
"But if it's for the right cause, you know?" said Harry slowly, though he wasn't sure why. "I mean, a world without Voldemort, at least, would be better. Wouldn't it? Wouldn't that be for the greater good?"
Dumbledore visibly winced, a shudder like lightning flashing through his entire body, before it marred his face in a severe frown. Harry had never seen Dumbledore react like that – so violently repulsed.
"People, Harry, who claim to be working for the greater good on the behalf of everyone often possess a rather limited understanding of what goodness actually entails." Dumbledore had never looked more serious, never sounded so cold. In the short time Harry had known the old man, he had seen him challenge dark lords and brave darkness never-ending. He had seen him sling across the canvas of life magic of such wonder, such strength, that it toppled all comprehension. And yet, Harry felt, he had never seen Dumbledore more grave and dangerous than when he spoke now. "Remember that, Harry – never trust the words of a man who thinks he knows… knows without fail… what is best for all, for he knows nothing at all. Nothing. At. All."
Harry fell silent, not knowing what to say, and so did Dumbledore. For a long while, long enough for the sun to rise above the horizon and kiss the face of the sky, they sat in silence. Harry sometimes caught sight of Dumbledore's expression, though it revealed nothing worth of note. He wore no emotion, save for the lines of a bone-deep tiredness that seemed to persist.
In a couple of hours, Slytherin would be playing their second Quidditch match of the season. Harry thought he might just sleep through it.
"It seems I'll have to take on a more active role in your education, Harry," the old man said at last, breaking the silence. "I thought it years before I'd had to take on such measures, but times change, and so must we. You are, after all, privy to a great many secrets now – secrets that must be guarded at all cost."
"Secrets, sir?" What secrets, Harry wondered. And from whom should he be guarding them? Voldemort seemed likely, and yet the Dark Lord already knew most if not all of what Harry knew.
Dumbledore smiled. It was positively ripe with secrecy and old, benign mischief – Harry found it fascinating to behold. "There's more to see in this little world of ours," he said with great wonder. "You've barely been part of it for six months and already you have uncovered some of the greatest, most darkest and wondrous secrets there is. I suspect in the future you'll quite naturedly stumble upon more. Being able to protect your secrets – and by extension, your mind – is an invaluable skill. I cannot teach you more before I've taught you that." Dumbledore's smile fell into a wry, tired mask, yet Harry thought there was also a semblance of hope in the edges of his eyes. Hope, that dastardly tiresome thing, could break a man fiercer and crueller than anything else. Yet it could also bolster one to new heights, renovate a broken old soul.
Maybe change was hope?
"Time is of the essence. I won't have long left at Hogwarts, and Lord Voldemort is working towards his resurrection as we speak. I hope you'll be able to guard your mind by the time he has regained his full powers."
Harry nodded, eager and smiling, blazing like the rising sun with energy. "When can we begin?"
End of chapter.
Author's note: Seems a good place to end this. Things will build up slowly over the next couple of chapters towards new, exiting places; hopefully the wait will be worth it. Characters will be introduced in more depths over the coming chapters. And the secrets of Harry's mind will be explored further at different points as the plot is revealed.
This was the start of the new beginning so to speak. What did you think – did I do good? Bad? Tell me, and you shall have my gratitude.
Have a fantastic day.
