Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!

And now there is a shitstorm brewing. Yay.

Chapter Six: Downrush

He felt the boy's magic the moment he returned to the world, because, of course, there was no way Harry Potter could ever be quiet.

Falco was meditating in his sea eagle form on top of a church steeple, most of his mind tucked and wandering in contemplation while a small shard floated on the surface to alert him to happenings in the world, including a gun going off anywhere close at hand. One disadvantage of having a large and noticeable Animagus form was that Muggles were likely to choose to shoot at him, for no greater reason than the pleasure of bringing down something unusual.

He felt Harry's magic as light, a fiery star rising in the east. Falco spread his wings and gave a little hiss of displeasure when the sentry shard summoned him. No sense of decorum at all, he thought, as he took off and turned east. No sense of quietude. He is a child.

Lord-level magic ought never to go into the hands of a child. Falco mourned the fate that had made it so.

He had been to Godric's Hollow, to study the twining magical signatures there so that he could better understand his opponent in the fight for the balance of the world. What he had found had puzzled him, but he had understood it after some study.

Most wizards had natural barriers on their magic, walls blocking off the deeper parts of their magical core, beyond which they could not press. Some wizards could not become Animagi after years of study, for example. Others could not cast the Unforgivables, or could not cast Dark Arts pain curses, or could not stay seated on a broom well enough to play a game of Quidditch. Most people accepted their talents and their interests as limitations, but those barriers played their part. And a good thing, too. When a wizard pushed beyond them in a tide of extreme emotion, he might wield Lord-level power, but only for approximately two moments. Then his body, unused to accepting such a flood of magic, would destroy itself. These days, most wizards only breached the barriers when they were trying to both commit suicide and take a hated enemy with them.

Falco would have considered what happened at Godric's Hollow the greatest of coincidences if not for the fact that a prophecy was guiding it. That Voldemort's Killing Curse had been strong enough to smash Harry's barriers but not strong enough to dominate the magic that lay beyond them, as it was in most cases; that the magic had defended its host the only way it knew how, by forming into a mirror and reflecting the Avada Kedavra back at its maker; that the rebounded Killing Curse had struck Voldemort just as he was casting the second one at Harry's brother; and that that second curse had penetrated enough to leave a curse scar but no other mark, sparing Connor Potter's life, had Falco shaking his head.

It was what the prophecy had demanded. It was what fate said should happen. But it still made Falco think that the whole thing was so unlikely that it should not have been allowed to happen in the first place. He would certainly have arranged matters differently if he had been in charge.

He had read the magical signatures, and used a spell that would pull images of the past from the walls and allow him to see what had happened. The magic that saved Harry's and Connor's lives should then have killed them immediately afterwards, as it roared through Harry's body in an unstoppable flood of fire and then consumed Connor. But instead it had swirled into the shadowy image of a serpent and coiled around Harry's cot, guarding him. The child in the memory had smiled and put out a hand to stroke the serpent's head, giggling when it flicked its tongue out to touch his cheek.

Falco could only surmise that Harry's barriers being broken so young had given him a chance at survival. It was not, for obvious reasons, something that happened to children normally. His body wasn't used to containing any usual amount of magic, the way that adult wizards' bodies were. So it had adapted itself to carrying Lord-level magic, and his power, strong enough that it had almost a personality of its own for those first few years, had helped, madly glad to be free from the walls that would otherwise have imprisoned it forever.

Falco had seen, and could feel pity for, the terror that had consumed Albus and Lily Potter when they realized what had happened. There was even the chance that Harry himself could have been the fulfillment of the prophecy, if they did not chain it so that it would not shift. And, of course, they had hated the Dark edge of Harry's magic, surmising rightly that it came from Voldemort, that the Dark Lord had given some of his abilities, most dangerously the absorbere gift, to the baby.

He did wonder that they had not ever sensed the other Dark edge of magic lingering in the house, but he understood why they might have ignored or denied it. Or simply not felt it; the overwhelming evidence was that Harry's magic had blanketed it from their notice.

But now he understood, and other than wondering if this prophecy might yet end in a tumble of coincidence as unlikely as that which had produced its beginning, Falco had no reason to wonder about Harry Potter's beginning anymore. He did know that the child's birth was natural, but his sudden acquisition of magic was unnatural, and he really should not have been cluttering up the world, still.

And now Harry had come back, blazing and blaring, as though he were the only wizard in the world.

Falco lifted his wings and spiraled higher, turning to the west, towards which the flare had traveled. He supposed he must go along and watch Harry. Soon, the watching would end. It would be time for him to take the field, and to do what he must to keep the balance, a cause greater than his life.


He felt its return as a thick, stinking, choking mist, spreading throughout the clean air and hurting him. He snarled and sank back into himself, curled and coiled, wrapped around the treasure that had sustained him.

One of the treasures.

Then he lifted his head, he, Lord Voldemort, and sought out the direction of the magic, his nose twitching. It came from the east, thick choking magic, horrible dusty magic, the reek of tombs. It was Harry come back, and he might hunt and inflict another punishment on the wounded hunter.

He lowered his head and rested it again in the soft, cool dirt. There was only darkness around him here, no light to mock his blindness. He would rest in this burrow, coiled around the cup, and he would grow strong. He would find a way to heal the wound that kept bleeding his magic away from him.

And he lay in a burrow where no one would think to look for him, save his Thorn Bitch when she woke. This was his property, uniquely his property. He closed his eyes and felt the cup's smooth sides beneath his hands, his fingers spidering over the badgers carved on the handles. He felt an answering echo from deep inside, the whispers of a fragment of immortality.


Harry went into the bedroom of the first burn victim determined not to think of the Ministry for a few moments. Think of the wounded, he instructed himself firmly. Think of how you can help them.

That first victim was a child with bandages wrapped around her burned face, a girl Harry thought he remembered vaguely from the Opallines' New Year's celebration. Sitting by her bed, softly reading to her, was a tall woman he knew he remembered: Angelica Griffinsnest, Paton's first wife, who had separated amicably from him. Harry supposed the little girl was probably her granddaughter. He winced; he could only imagine the pain she must feel right now. She was Doncan's mother.

Angelica looked up when Harry came in, and then nodded and held out her hand to him. Harry clasped her wrist, secretly impressed that she didn't flinch from his supposedly overwhelming aura of magic. Perhaps concern for the little girl kept her from doing so.

"Greetings," she said. "Paton told you what has happened to Oriela?" Her gaze was anxious as she turned back to the bed, and Harry could see why. The girl seemed to have retreated into herself, if the dull glaze of her eyes between the bandages was any indication.

"He did," said Harry softly, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. "That she had given up on living since the burning." He hated talking about Oriela as if she weren't there, but she wasn't reacting to anything. Harry supposed she wasn't there.

Angelica nodded, her curly hair rustling around her. "Some of the others were burned worse than she is, but she's the youngest." Love bled through her voice as she leaned over and picked up the girl's hand. Harry had to look away for a moment; part of him was still wracked with bitter envy whenever he saw parents acting around a child like that. "She knows that she won't ever look the same way again, and—we shouldn't have put it quite that way. The Opallines try to give their children to reality young." Angelica's voice glinted with frustration for a moment. "In this case, it was exactly the wrong thing to do."

Harry nodded. "I think I might be able to help."

Angelica gave him an intense, curious glance. "You're a Legilimens, I know. Paton told me. Will you go into her mind and bring her back?"

Harry shook his head. "I would only want to do that with someone I knew well," he said. "Besides, she's so deep in shock that I might hurt her." He licked his lips, and told himself that just because he hadn't fully explored the limits of this gift didn't mean he could avoid using it to help. "I'm going to sing to her instead."

"What?"

But Harry was already fixing his eyes on Oriela's face, and opening his mouth.

He wasn't sure what would come out. The phoenix song had sounded different each time he sang it. Harry thought it adapted itself to the circumstances, rather than his consciously choosing a sound for it. He barely remembered the music he had made in the hospital wing after Fawkes's fall on Midwinter.

And this time, the phoenix song was gentle.

Harry didn't try to control it; he let the notes swirl out from his lips and go where they would, other than keeping his mind focused on the goal of bringing Oriela back from her catatonia. The song itself warbled and coaxed, dipping almost into inaudibility on a few occasions, then rising into a soaring spire of triumph. Harry found he could imagine this as a song that the phoenix might sing to coax the sun into rising, or a flower to come through the last of the snow in spring.

It did not force. It did not push. It simply danced, and showed off how beautiful the world was, and asked the listener if she really wanted to give that up. Harry nearly lost himself in a sweet, chortling cascade that soared so high falling out of it was physically painful. He caught himself with his hand on the bed and blinked, but he didn't stop singing.

Flames abruptly sprang up along his arms, blue ones. Angelica hissed at him, something about not bringing fire near a girl who had been so badly burned, but Harry didn't let himself be distracted. The song had called the fire for a reason. He wasn't righteously angry, so it had no reason to emerge otherwise.

He held out his arms, and the blue flames crept down to the end of his fingers in one case and to the end of his wrist in the other. They blazed steadily there, pointing at Oriela, giving her, Harry realized abruptly, an example of a fire that would purify instead of hurt her.

He did not know how long he sat there, flame and song both outstretched, doing nothing to tug her back, but offering her the chance to come out of her coma and see what beauty was all about.

Oriela stirred.

Angelica made a sound that might have been a sob. Harry heard his voice lift exultantly, and for a moment his body seemed to break apart into light as long ago, on a certain Walpurgis Night, it had broken apart into darkness. Golden sunbursts pushed through his skin and struck the walls. He felt a sense of involuntary, instinctive hope, the same kind he felt when he saw the sunrise, regardless of how he might feel about the Light or Light magic. The dawn was coming. He smelled roses, or something like them, and the air was thick and warm and very sweet.

Oriela put out a hand. Harry clasped her fingers with his.

She gave a little shudder when she felt the tickling warmth of the flames, but she didn't try to pull away. She leaned nearer, and then her lips moved under the bandages, whispering a word Harry couldn't make out.

He brought the song to a sliding, swooping end. Oriela stared at him with living eyes for a moment, then looked beyond him at Angelica.

"Mwarree?" she asked, which Harry suspected was Manx for "grandma."

Angelica leaned forward, answering in the same language, her hands fluttering around Oriela's body to avoid touching the burns. Harry sat back, and smiled, and let the flames coil back into his body and his skin snap shut over them.

Perhaps I don't have to learn how to control this magic after all, he thought. It does well enough when it guides itself.

And this had settled him, grounded him, reminded him of what he really was. He was angry about the Ministry, but he would go in angry and determined, rather than simply raging. What he wanted was to bring about circumstances much like these for the werewolves, not to destroy.


Draco had to admit, he appreciated the way that Harry had decided to take this in stride.

When he emerged after coaxing a few badly burned Opallines back from the edge of sinking into themselves, and, apparently, letting the flow of his magic soothe a few more, he nodded to Draco. "Shall we go to the Ministry?" he asked. The words were light, cool. The green eyes were not.

Draco smirked and followed him, walking at his right shoulder. For his birthday, he had given Harry a copy of a book about pureblood rituals and traditions that his own parents had presented him with on his sixteenth birthday, feeling that Harry needed to know about them, too, a year away from his becoming an adult. That book had mentioned in passing that the companions of those Lords and Ladies who actually treated other people like human beings had often walked at their right shoulders. The book had debated whether it was any companion that did so, on a rotating basis, or only the most favored, the most necessary, the closest to being an equal—in terms of influence if not in terms of power.

Draco thought, although the author of the book didn't, that it was, of course, the most necessary.

They arrived in the courtyard of the Opalline home—which, frankly, made him uneasy with the bony structure of it—and Draco looked around, noting the absence of both Professor Snape and the Seer. "We're leaving without them?" he asked, trusting Harry to know who he meant.

Harry walked ahead without looking back. "Yes. We are." He turned to face Draco then, one eyebrow raised. "Unless you really think that I can trust Professor Snape to behave in the Ministry?"

Silently, Draco shook his head. He was surprised and dismayed to note the changes in Snape. Only Lucius had taught him more about self-control. Draco had seen his Head of House walk through many trying circumstances and not lose his temper. He supposed his losing it now had something to do with the Sanctuary, but if he couldn't control himself, he had to expect to be left behind.

Harry nodded. "We'll go alone. But first, I need you to tell me what my magic feels like. I can't feel it, myself."

"I'm not the best person to ask," Draco mused, his eyes fixed on Harry. "I had time to get used to it, so it isn't bursting on my senses like Mr. Opalline described. But it does stink of roses, Harry. I meant that."

"Hm." Harry gave a long, slow blink. "That could be a problem. I'll want to surprise my enemies some of the time. What about this?" He did something Draco could barely sense, like flinging a cloth up.

The scent of roses lessened considerably. Draco nodded his approval. Then he asked, because he wanted to see if he was right, "Harry, are you going to walk into the Ministry and then unleash your magic at everybody?"

"Good guess, Draco," Harry said. "Are you sure that you still want to come with me?"

"I wouldn't miss this," Draco said, and stepped forward firmly to take Harry's arm. He knew that the distance between the Isle of Man and London was too large to be covered in one Apparition jump, and he still couldn't Apparate himself. Harry would have to Side-Along Apparate him a few times, a process Draco hated. He comforted himself with the knowledge that there would be flustered Ministry officials at the end of it.

And an angry Harry. Draco did not mind seeing an angry Harry. It confirmed his own beliefs, it comforted him with the knowledge that Harry had learned to be a warrior instead of a peace-maker, and it made Harry look attractive enough that only in the midst of his laughing, exultant joy did Draco want to bed him more.

"Ready, then." Harry jumped, pulling Draco along for the ride, while Draco thought firmly of the Ministry and not of his nearly lost lunch.


They arrived precisely in the middle of the alley with the disused telephone box, which Harry remembered from his first visit to the Ministry with Snape, when he'd been asked to register as a Parselmouth. Harry stepped forward, with a swift glance at Draco to make sure he was well and not trembling too badly after the Apparition, and punched the keys that spelled out the word "magic."

The welcome witch's voice spoke, asking them to state their names and business. Harry thought for a moment, wondering how to phrase it, then decided that inconspicuous was best. He had approached the Ministry with his magic tightly under wraps, after all.

"Harry and Draco Malfoy," he said. "Here to see Amelia Bones."

The telephone box whirred, and two silver badges dropped into Harry's waiting hand. He tossed Draco's to him, then paused in the middle of fastening his own to his robes. The magic on the telephone box had obviously misinterpreted his words. The badge said HARRY MALFOY.

Draco snickered.

"Oh, shut it," Harry muttered, and used his magic to blur the last name into unrecognizability. They stepped into the box, which shut behind them and, after a moment, lowered them into the ground.

Harry kept his eyes half-closed on the way down, pondering what he would say. He knew how he wanted the conversation to go—his demanding an apology, Bones offering the apology and the immediate rescinding of all werewolf hunting—but he knew it wouldn't actually happen that way. She had pushed through a Department to hunt werewolves. She was desperate. He wondered if it was only fear, or if someone had pressured her, or if she stood to gain political power out of this, or if it were a combination of all three.

Well, I'll start by letting my magic flare, and see what she might betray. After that, I'll speak as openly as I can, to let her know that this does not please me. And then I'll go to Scrimgeour. I still don't know what he'll do in this.

That Scrimgeour hadn't interfered so far, however, suggested that his hands were tied. And Harry knew that he might be angry at him for using magic inside the Ministry. They had had an agreement. Harry could use the means that other wizards did to influence action in the Ministry—political power, money, persuasion—but he wouldn't use magic. It was Scrimgeour's position that Lord-level magic, because it wasn't available to ordinary wizards and witches, was unfair to use in a place largely devoted to ordinary wizards and witches.

But I don't think the Ministry is what he wants it to be, and it never will be if some of its excesses aren't curbed. Right now, they're helping ordinary witches and wizards at the expense of some who happen to be lycanthropes. If Scrimgeour denies that, then I'll refrain from using magic in the Ministry as long as I can, but I'll be on the opposite side from him.

The lift clicked to a stop, and they stepped out into the Atrium. Draco blinked at the fountain of a wizard, surrounded by a witch and magical creatures all gazing adoringly at him. Harry ignored it. It stung his temper, and offended him on several different levels.

The guard waiting by the gates into the rest of the Ministry was a woman with gray hair and an incurious face. She just watched them as they approached, and Harry congratulated himself. He must have done a good job of wrapping up his magic if she sensed nothing out of the ordinary.

"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic," she recited, in a fast, dull drone. "My name is Erica. Let me register your wands for you." She reached out an expectant hand, and Draco gave her his.

Harry waited until it was handed back, then shook his head with a woebegone expression when she looked at him. "I can't," he said. "Sorry. I just came back from a long journey, and I left it with my trunks."

Erica frowned and started to say something, but then caught her breath. Harry realized that she'd noticed the lightning bolt scar on his forehead. In a moment, life and animation returned to her face.

"You're him," she whispered. "Harry Pott—the one who used to be Harry Potter?"

Harry nodded, wary. She could do anything from demand an autograph to let them sneak in to summon other people to see the Boy-Who-Lived. With Harry's luck, she would turn out to be related to one of the children he'd killed, and would delay them.

"It's such an honor to meet you," said Erica. "Imagine, you coming into the Ministry this way, like any normal person!" She clasped her hands and beamed at him.

Harry saw a way to take advantage of the hero-worship in her eyes. "Yes," he said, lowering his voice and leaning forward. "About that. I'm not here with magic blaring because this is a secret mission, Erica."

"Really?" Erica's eyes shone. "It is?" She looked like a young girl, and Harry wondered if he had misjudged her age. On the other hand, being on the gates into the Ministry and having nothing to do but register wands all day might make any excitement enough to reduce her to babbling.

Harry nodded seriously. "No one can know that we're going into the Ministry right now. We have enemies." He stressed the word, and saw Erica's eyes widen in delighted comprehension. "So can you let us through, and not tell anyone that I don't have my wand?" He stared up at her from beneath his fringe, and waited.

"Of course!" Erica opened the gates for them with shaking hands. "This is wonderful. You're wonderful. This is so wonderful. I promise I won't tell anyone, I promise, I promise—"

Harry managed to incline his head and look grateful, or, at least, grateful enough to satisfy her. They were through the gates in a few moments, and making for the lifts. Draco was chuckling at his back.

"Someone has a worshipper," he said.

"I could have a lot more, if I wanted to try," said Harry, and shook his head to get rid of the uncomfortable prickling sensation that Erica's fervent gaze had given him. "Now, let's get to the second floor."


Harry let Draco go in front of him when he got to Amelia Bones's door, and chat and flirt and laugh with the Auror standing guard there, enough to get him to lower his guard and at least ask Bones if she'd see them. Harry himself remained behind Draco, head bowed as if shy, his trainer scuffing the floor to add to the image.

"Tell her that it's very important," Draco said, near the end of the conversation. "I'm acting as my father's messenger in this."

"I'll tell her," the young Auror promised, and then opened the door to speak to Bones.

Draco wandered back to Harry. It was no surprise to Harry to glance up and see him looking pleased with himself, though his smile lessened a bit when he looked at Harry. "You could at least look as if you were jealous of me for flirting with someone else," he muttered.

"But you don't mean anything by it," said Harry, wondering why Draco wanted him to be jealous.

"Neither did Nina, and you got jealous of that," Draco pointed out.

Harry flushed. He hadn't liked feeling that way. "She could See your soul," he said, "and help you in ways I can't. That isn't true this time."

Draco, who now appeared extremely smug, had just opened his mouth to reply when the Auror leaned back around the door again and said, "Mr. Malfoy? She'll see you now."

"Excellent," said Draco, fitting the haughty pureblood mask to his face so fast that Harry blinked in surprise, and he led Harry through the door and into an office that seemed, to Harry, to be even more crowded with wizarding photographs than Scrimgeour's old office had been. In this case, though, they were mostly Aurors posing with captured criminals, who seemed to be fighting like mad to get away.

Amelia Bones herself sat behind her desk, a formidable, gray-haired woman Harry had only seen in the Wizengamot before. She had a straight back and direct eyes that fixed on Draco the moment he entered.

"What do you want?" She sounded wary but interested. "Has Lucius Malfoy actually sent his son to make peace with the Light elements in the Ministry? That would be a first, for him to work with us instead of trying to corrupt us."

Draco shook his head. "I think you misunderstand me, Madam. I do have a message, but it's much simpler than that. Look behind me." He bowed and stepped away.

Harry looked up at Madam Bones and released the muffling cloth on his magic.

Bones gasped and sagged back in her seat. Harry himself didn't feel much difference, other than the removal of the barrier, but Draco put out a shaky hand. Harry turned to look at him. His face was pale, awed, his eyes wide with something that might have been desire. Harry told himself that was natural, the reaction of many wizards and witches to Lord-level magic, and turned back to Bones.

She obviously didn't feel his magic as a pleasant sensation, like the scent of roses. She had her hands clenched so she wouldn't cower, Harry thought, and she was striving to keep her chin up while she shook.

"What do you want?" she whispered.

"I came to tell you that I'm angry about this Department for the Control and Suppression of Deadly Beasts," said Harry, his voice so steady it surprised even him. It was stone on the surface, but the cold anger beneath that stone was obvious to anyone who listened. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of Bones's office walls slowly icing. "I have not taken a single side so far because I think that both the Ministry and the werewolves are wrong in how they go about waging this conflict—and while I am bound to help the werewolves, I am not bound to violent revolution. But now, you have done this. What am I to think? It seems as if you are playing right into the hands of the werewolf packs. You're hunting them, making the dead into martyrs and giving the live ones the idea that they must strike back, because you will give them no mercy, and they should at least die fighting. There will be people who might have used political means against you but will grow angry now. Laura Gloryflower, for instance. Her niece is a werewolf, and she is puellaris, sworn to defend her children whatever comes. Do you really want a lioness breaking your neck for what you have done?"

How could you be so stupid? he asked in his head, but he was being diplomatic. Do you want to tug the wizarding world into another maelstrom, divide us with Voldemort still out there? Fenrir Greyback is dead, but Loki might join the Dark Lord if he thought that was the only way to gain protection.

"We had no choice!" Bones snapped, her hands clenching harder than ever. "I had received threatening letters. We all have. It's true that no Elder of the Wizengamot has been bitten in the last two full moons, but those letters—they promised a revolution. They promised blood."

"Can I see one?" Harry asked. His voice was still smooth and steady and cold, but he was thinking over the terms of his promise to Loki. I bound him and his pack not to bite anyone for the full moons of July and August. I didn't make them promise not to write threatening letters. Damn it!

Bones, never taking her eyes off him, fumbled in her desk, opened a drawer, and tossed a folded letter to him. Harry opened it. The handwriting was unfamiliar, but the pawprint at the bottom, the only signature, did rather announce that it came from a werewolf pack, and the phrasing was similar to the phrases that Loki had used in the letter he sent Harry.

He skimmed the letter. Rivers of blood will flow…no wizard allowed to hide…wizarding world made to pay for its crimes against werewolves…call us crossbreeds…engage in a contest where strength and speed alone matter, and the strength and speed are all on our side…

Harry looked up. "I fail to see how threatening letters made you feel you had no choice but to hunt wizards like beasts."

"They are not wizards," said Bones, her eyes and face full of passion. "They are animals. They become so from the first moment they take the bite. It alters them. I mourn a friend lost to them, because she is dead, the Emily Gillyflower I knew. They will run wild and bite others even under the influence of Wolfsbane. I know that. The Evergreen who bit Emily was under the influence of Wolfsbane. He chose her as a target. Saying that werewolves will become docile because they register and take the potion is wrong."

"You seem to forget they can pass that curse on even as you hunt them for doing so," Harry remarked, tossing the letter back to her. "Werewolves can make more of themselves. And they'll have the motive to do so if you keep pushing this hunting, and the new werewolves will have to join the other side, or go completely rogue from either, because you offer no compromise. Didn't you think of that at all?"

Looking into her eyes, Harry saw that she hadn't. She was terrified. Fear ruled her.

He couldn't control her through fear, either. She might do what he wanted for a little while, but then something or someone else would scare her more, and she would go back to her old ways.

"They'll die eventually," Bones said fiercely. "There's been no evidence that the curse can exist apart from a werewolf, if it ever could. We kill them all, and there's no one to pass the curse on. If you had remained away like you were supposed to—"

She cut herself off, but Harry had heard it. He leaned forward. "If I had remained away like I was supposed to?" he asked mildly. "What?"

Bones wavered for a moment, but her anger, or maybe her self-righteousness, seemed to overcome even her terror of him, and she rallied. "We would have hunted most of them to death," she said defiantly. "There's a spell that can let us find them in human form, now, that tracks the beast within them. We don't have to confine the hunting to the full moon anymore."

Harry's heart gave a single, hard beat. They could find Hawthorn. And Wilmot.

"I do wonder," Bones went on in a musing tone, "what that spell would say when applied to you. Comperio lupum!" She flicked her wand, which she must have pulled out of the drawer at the same time as the letter, at him.

Harry, caught in a calm rage, let the spell take effect. A blue glow formed around him, and then faded into his skin. Bones looked incredibly disappointed.

"That surprises you, doesn't it?" Harry asked her, in a voice gone so flat that he saw Draco edging away from him out of the corner of his eye. "It shocks you that I could fight for the rights of werewolves without being one myself."

Bones had her hands clenched again. Harry hoped vaguely that she might snap her wand. "It does not matter," she said. "You will be defeated in the end. Hunted down like the rest of them. Laws can change. Departments can get created. Restrictions on the use of magic can pass. A restriction on the use of dangerous and destructive gifts, for example. Absorbere abilities, perhaps?"

Harry stared at her in silence for a long moment. Does she know what's she dealing with? No, it seems she doesn't.

Time to tell her.

He let his magic rise around him, the phoenix flame burst through his skin, his confidence shine in his eyes. Bones cowered again, but Harry suspected she would tremble before any strong opponent at the moment. What was important was to give her words to remember, so that she would know he wasn't just any strong opponent.

"I'm not who you used to oppose," he told her, quietly. "I'm something much worse than that. I'm someone who is going to win this struggle, because I will never give up. I've tried to refrain from stepping on the Ministry's free will. Now, I don't care, because the Ministry has both broken the wills of others, and encouraged those others to enter a situation of war in which more people will suffer confinement and torture and oppression. No. No more. I will try to keep this a bloodless revolution, but I promise you a violent one. In the end, I aim for all the old preconceptions to be snapped, for people to think instead of reacting in fear, for werewolves to have as much right to justice, including being tried for their crimes, as everyone else. We've always tried to force any dangerous situation to go back to normal, to stay safe and the same. I want nothing to be the same when I'm done."

Bones shook, lowering her head to bury it in her arms. Harry turned on his heel and made his way past Draco, who scrambled to follow him.

"We'll visit Scrimgeour next," Harry said, in a voice he hardly recognized as his own. "I want to know how much of this he knew about, and why he hasn't done anything to stop the hunting so far."

"A moment," said Draco.

Harry turned around, wondering if the young Auror who guarded Bones's office was aiming his wand at them. Draco, though, caught his chin in one hand and leaned forward to kiss him. Harry welcomed the kiss eagerly, and Draco stepped away from him too soon, looking less smug than proud.

"That was wonderful," he said.

"Glad you think so." Harry smiled grimly as he headed for the lifts again. "I suspect Scrimgeour won't."


Rufus felt Harry coming, of course. Who wouldn't?

The wave of magic traveling through the halls of the Ministry felt to him like a pounding pulse, the steady push of sap up through the trees in spring. Rufus had learned from his Muggleborn grandmother, whose father had been a forester, that such a force was enormously powerful. It brought life back to the world. But it was also relentless. Once the sap started moving, nothing could stop it.

And that was Harry, now, apparently.

Rufus was waiting, with his hands folded and Percy Weasley behind him, when Wilmot opened the door for Harry. Behind him came only young Malfoy—and no one else. Rufus raised his eyebrows, and almost asked where Snape was. That Harry was here without him would have made a story, he was sure.

But it would also have put off the main point of why Harry had come to see him, and that was something Rufus would not do. He kept his eyes fastened on Harry's and waited.

Harry's face shone. His eyes shone. The air around him rippled now and then, seeming to reflect light, as if it were a sheet of tin only sometimes turned so that it caught the sun. Rufus wondered if he was looking on the young vates or a young Lord. He was sure that Harry, when playing a vates role, had had a more thoughtful look on his face in the past.

So he has been pushed too far. He has crossed a line he would not otherwise have crossed. I have heard that a vates is not compelled to care about the wills of those who actively trample freedom. He may be required to defend, rather than attack anyone, and oppose only those actions that hurt others, but he need not hold himself back as far as Harry does. Or did.

They had an active vates on their hands now, Rufus supposed, rather than a reactive one.

He had known this day would come. It was the reason he had begun doing the research on vates and the wizards who had tried to achieve the title. What he had learned had told him that Harry could be more formidable, and thus more of a threat to the Ministry, than he had been so far.

That day has come.

"I need to know what you know about this," Harry said. "And why you didn't try to stop them."

Rufus gave him the truth. "I knew nothing about the Department until it was created, a day before the full moon. And I've talked with the Department Heads. All of them are united against me, in agreement with Amelia. I had thought I managed to recover enough balance after my misstep in opposing their decrees too openly, but I haven't. They distrust me, and they have my every move under scrutiny. The only actions I could take against them would be illegal, and they would have a reason to call for a vote of no confidence."

"So you won't act," Harry said.

Rufus shook his head. "No. Not when I know Amelia would become Minister the moment I was voted down."

Harry's eyes narrowed. Then he snorted. "I was going to ask where your principles are in the face of your citizens being murdered, but that's unfair. I know exactly where they are."

Rufus gave a slow nod. So he is not totally given to irrationality, then, even if he no longer sees a reason to respect our wills. Interesting. And that will only make him the more dangerous, of course. Revolutionaries who fall into the depths of their passion are easier enemies to handle. "Yes. I favor reform. Amelia would do more and more damage if she became Minister, and though I suspect a few of the Department Heads would abandon her inside of a month, what would that month bring? I can do nothing right now but move slowly. Slowly work myself back into their good graces, slowly rebuild my support network, slowly convince most of the Aurors to ally with me instead of with Amelia." And the Unspeakables, he thought, but he could not say that aloud. The Unspeakable contacts he had were the most delicate part of this whole affair. They had approached him, quite unexpectedly. But they had warned him they would abandon him again if he spoke of them to anybody. Rufus had never understood the internal politics of the Department of Mysteries, but he didn't need to understand to do what they told him.

"I favor revolution," Harry said quietly.

Rufus asked, because he had to ask. He knew Percy, at least, would ask why he hadn't asked when this was done. "With yourself as Minister?"

Harry's eyes flashed in disgust. "No!" The denial was so vehement that Rufus sat back in his seat, relaxing for the first time since Harry's entrance. Harry went on, his voice rushing headlong. "I favor mental revolution. I favor people having to think about what they're doing, instead of just jumping to conclusions. I favor people knowing when something's just a lie, the way the idea of Wolfsbane doing nothing for werewolves is. I favor getting people to follow my principles, not me."

Rufus sighed. "That cannot come about suddenly."

"Probably not," said Harry. "But it can come about faster than it has been doing. And in the meantime, I can protect and defend those who are being hurt, and work to change minds without compulsion."

"What weapons will you use?" Rufus asked.

Harry looked at him, let his magic flare around his body, and swept his fringe back from his face to reveal the lightning bolt scar. It was answer enough.

"I cannot let you interfere in the Ministry with magic," Rufus told him.

"I shall hope that I don't have to." Harry's voice was polite, but implacable.

Rufus wished, in deep frustration, that he had not taken the Minister's office. If he were still Head of the Aurors, he would enjoy being on Harry's side, doing everything he could to foil Amelia without letting her find out it was him, letting his Slytherin cunning and love of risks that might pay off hugely overtake his Slytherin caution. But he was Minister, and bound.

"Then good luck in those parts of it I can wish you good luck in," said Rufus. The Boy-Who-Lived and a Lord-level wizard, using his fame and his magic against us. Merlin, let it not come to war.

"Thank you, Minister," said Harry. "The same to you." He turned and left the office, with Malfoy close behind him. Rufus wondered if he had seen how adoringly young Draco looked at him. Well, he probably knew the general outline of that adoration, but not the specifics of it.

Bloody hell, Rufus could feel something like that stirring in his own belly. The natural desire to be close to such a source of magic was mingling with the knowledge that Harry had weapons no one else had ever had, and might actually be the one moral Lord in several hundred years. Rufus could imagine a future in which he did follow Harry, and was the happier for it.

But this was about responsibility, not simply personal happiness. And thus he and Harry had come to a parting of the ways.

"You did the honorable thing, sir," Percy said, as if to comfort him.

Rufus nodded, then frowned. "Not as honorable as I could have," he muttered. "I forgot to tell him about the Liberator's letters." He turned to Percy, but he was already scrabbling for quill and parchment. Rufus smiled grimly. His enemies couldn't watch Percy's correspondence as closely as his, since Percy handled so much paperwork.

Let it begin, then. He lifted his head and met the eyes of his grandmother in the portrait of her that hung across the room. It seemed that she winked at him. I'm doing what I know I have to do. There's that comfort.


Wilmot met them outside the door, and from his glance, Harry knew he wanted to talk. He nodded and used his magic to wrap them in a privacy ward. Wilmot at once leaned closer, and whispered.

"Did you know that the hunters are stalking Loki's pack?"

"Yes, and that they've developed a spell that tracks werewolves." Harry stared at him. "Are you all right?"

The Auror gave him a strained smile. His blue eyes, Harry knew, were really amber behind his lenses, and he would have slightly longer teeth than normal from the full moon nights just past. Merlin knew how Edmund Wilmot had managed to maintain his job in such a werewolf-paranoid Ministry, but Harry wanted to see him keep it. "They don't use it in the Ministry," said Wilmot. "For the most part. People consider it an insult to be suspected of lycanthropy these days, and would object. Besides, they have no reason to suspect me. So far."

Harry nodded, a bit reassured.

"Do you know who died?" Wilmot asked then.

Harry shook his head. "Only that two werewolves did. I didn't see the Daily Prophet article, though someone informed me of it."

"Well, the names wouldn't have meant anything to you, anyway," said Wilmot. "They called them by their legal names, not the ones they chose." He hesitated and swallowed, then said, "It was Loki who told me, because what happened changes everything."

Harry felt a rush and roll and swoop in his stomach, and told himself to stand steady. "Does it?" he asked.

Wilmot nodded, his face shadowed. "Yes. The male werewolf who died was a youngster named Briar. The female—" He shuddered a bit. "The female was Gudrun. Loki's mate. An alpha pair of a pack is one heart, one blood, one breath. Loki's declared vengeance on her murderers, Harry, in accordance with pack law, and there isn't anything that will stop him."