Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!
And welcome to the chapter that wasn't supposed to exist, and has just changed the whole outline around to accommodate itself.
Chapter Ten: Mysterious Enemies
"And you think that we'll be able to get all the food we need from Muggle shops?" Camellia's eyes were wide and disbelieving.
Harry shrugged. "Rose assured me that we would." Rose had been born Muggle, too, he'd discovered, but she'd grown up in the Muggle world, and had been nineteen when she was bitten. She was sure that she knew her way among the shops of London. Her mate, Bavaros, a wizard, was going with her anyway, to change some of Harry's Galleons to Muggle money in Diagon Alley, and because he generally seemed to disapprove of Rose venturing into non-magical places without someone to protect her. Camellia had told Harry that he still secretly believed Rose would go running back to her family, given half a chance, even though her family had tossed her out, unable to deal with what she was.
That was one thing Harry had learned already: not to interfere in a werewolf's mating bond. There were several mated pairs in the pack, and they acted as if they loved and as if they hated each other at the same time, one moment mouthing each other's chins, the next moment knocking each other to the ground in a snapping, snarling whirlwind. Harry might have spoken with Bavaros if he was Rose's husband, using it both as a way to get to know a new ally and to ease his fears, but since he was Rose's mate, Camellia had explained, Harry would only have made him more paranoid.
"Next, invitations," Harry said, turning with a nod to Trumpetflower, the werewolf he'd put in charge of those.
"Most of the pack leaders you owled have responded," the young woman said, as she spread the letters over the kitchen table. She was the answer to Draco's question about whether werewolves ever bathed, Harry thought in distant amusement. Her hair was long and brown and straight and perfectly clean, and she had nails that looked as if she cared for hands for a living. "Tiger didn't, but he wouldn't have anyway; he doesn't communicate with wizards. Yuna is busy overseeing a newly mated pair in her pack and can't come. Liberty distrusts you." She looked up, blinking. "But the others all will attend the festival. Seventeen pack leaders out of twenty is not bad, Wild."
Harry grimaced. The werewolves had started calling him Wild. He'd asked why, and received a surprised look from Trumpetflower, and a, "That's the way you smell," from Camellia. That wouldn't have been so bad, but now they were using it like a title.
He had more important things to worry about, though, so he chose not to pursue it for right now. "Most of them know about the danger the Department presents?"
Trumpetflower nodded. "They'll be staying close to home when the full moon comes. Of course, we can't tell where the Department plans to strike next. We were an obvious choice, since we were Loki's pack, but now?" She shook her head, and Harry saw the worry she was valiantly trying to mask in her eyes. Everything about her screamed "sheltered pureblood," though Harry didn't know her original name or family. "Perhaps they'll come after us again."
"They had best not," said Harry mildly, and a half-open cupboard lit as if it were turned to gold. Camellia leaned forward, bathing in the smell of the magic, while Trumpetflower gave him a small smile.
"We trust you to protect us, Wild," she said softly. "But it's frightening, knowing that we could be killed at any time they find us in wolf form." She shuddered and hugged herself, her eyes shadowed. "Not to mention the new laws."
Harry took a deep breath so that nothing more violent would happen than a wind flying around the room. "Those also displease me," he said.
What the Department witches had hinted at in the corridors of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had become "official" law the next day. Werewolves going out in public were supposed to wear collars at all times and carry registration papers with them, just in case anyone else had a question about who they were. The collars, the smug Daily Prophet reporter named Gina de Rousseau had explained, were intended strictly as a means of identification and not magical restriction.
Harry did not care. Even if it had been necessary for the Ministry to identity werewolves on sight, and he did not believe it was, why choose collars? That was done for no other purpose than degrading them. He had written to Scrimgeour when the news came out, a simple letter. Had he known about this the day that Harry visited him?
No response had come. Harry didn't know if that meant that Scrimgeour's post was watched so closely that the Minister didn't dare risk writing to him, or if someone had intercepted his message. He was leaning towards interception, since the Minister hadn't communicated with him in any other way, either.
He's probably upset, too, Harry thought, with me as well as with Amelia Bones or whoever else pushed this idiotic law into effect. I brought werewolves into the Ministry. I'm pushing.
He intended to keep on pushing. He'd asked a few of the werewolves to look through the Black law books while he spoke with his allies and made other arrangements for the festival, and they'd turned up a tiny loophole that Harry hadn't known existed. It was a way to interfere in the Ministry that was on the up and up, because, of course, the old pureblood families had bullied the Wizengamot into making some special dispensations just for them while they still had the power.
There were times that Harry knew he really had to thank Regulus for making him Black heir, and this was one of them.
The man who opened the door stared hard at Harry. Harry stared back. He was flat-eyed and blank-faced, though Harry knew this particular blankness probably hid cunning and not stupidity. In other words, he looked rather like his son, Marcus, who had been Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team for the first three years Harry had been at Hogwarts.
"Mr. Flint, sir?" he asked. "Aurelius Flint?"
"Harry vates," said the man, without a trace of a smile, and stepped out of the way. "For what reason has someone so great come to visit my office?"
Harry took the hint and stepped inside; he had got through the wand checkpoint with Erica's help again, arriving at the time he knew she worked, but it would look rather strange for him to be visiting a minor flunky in the Department for the Control and Regulation of Magical Creatures. "A talk, that's all," he said. "Marcus commended you to me once. Said you'd been a great Quidditch player in your day, and we might have a thing or two in common."
He sat down in the chair in front of the desk. Aurelius Flint sat down behind it, his large, clear eyes still fixed on Harry. "I was never a Seeker," he replied. "But I played Beater, yes."
Harry nodded. "So that's one thing in common," he said. He reached into his robe pocket and pulled out the image of the seal he'd copied, carefully, from the image on the page of the legal book. It was the Black family crest, but in place of the motto Toujours pur, it carried the words Amicitia percutere. Aurelius picked it up and examined it for a moment without any sign of recognition.
Harry was watching, though, and saw his cheeks flush faintly.
A moment later, he lowered the seal to the desk and nodded. "Yes," he said. "The one who works in this office does indeed accept the obligation to serve the Black family, vates. And you are the legal heir of the Blacks, correct?"
"And acting head, while Regulus Black is recovering from a wound he took from an attempt on his life," said Harry. It was the first time he'd had to use the cover story, since few people outside of his small circle of allies cared where Regulus had gone. "Therefore, I am asking you to perform a small service for me."
Aurelius nodded, as though he had such requests asked of him all the time. "What is it?"
"There were new werewolf laws just announced to the public," Harry said, taking the image of the seal back. "To make them wear collars and carry identification. I want to know who proposed them."
"Amelia Bones," Aurelius said, looking relieved to be discharged of the obligation so easily.
"How sure are you of that information?" Harry asked. If it really and truly was her, without a doubt, he would accept that, but he no longer thought the terrified woman he'd seen on the second of August was entirely in control of herself. If someone was behind the scenes, pressuring her, he wanted to know who it was.
Aurelius hesitated.
Harry nodded. "That's right. There are other players now—the other Department Heads, the Department for the Control and Suppression of Deadly Beasts, and doubtless people I don't know of. I want you to find out where this particular idea originated, or at least come as close as you can. Amelia Bones was the mouthpiece, but I don't think she was the brain that thought it up."
Aurelius extended his hand across the desk. Harry watched him curiously, until he heard the man say, in a deep voice with a hint of a shake to it, "I formally request and require to be relieved of this obligation. I will owe you a debt if you will release me—two debts, the original obligation plus the one I owe to your goodness. I will pay those debts gladly. But I ask to be relieved of this."
Harry's eyes narrowed, this time fixed on the way that the man's cheeks had turned pale. He knows, or at least suspects, who proposed those new laws.
And he's terrified.
He had to move carefully, that much was clear. Harry had come to Aurelius Flint only because he had the office with the old dispensation pinned on it to oblige the person who worked in it to serve the Black line, but perhaps Aurelius, himself, as a person, was more connected than that. Lucius Malfoy might know.
Harry nodded as though he had considered the matter and made up his mind. Aurelius closed his eyes, his hand falling to the desk. Harry had his eyes fastened on his fingers, though, and noticed the way two of them curved and pointed down.
Towards the floor? Someone in the office below is listening to us?
No, perhaps below in the Ministry.
Once he thought about it, of course, Harry could only come up with one candidate for Aurelius's terror. The Department of Mysteries. The Unspeakables. And their offices were on a level below the Department for the Control and Regulation of Magical Creatures.
Harry nodded again, more firmly this time. Aurelius caught his eye and retracted his fingers into a fist. Then he sat back, calm and imperturbable once more, and looked at into Harry's face.
"And what do you want of me?" he asked.
"I'd like a list of every law on the books that affects werewolves," Harry said. "Since you work in this Department, I think you can provide that for me easily."
Aurelius nodded.
"And for my second request…" Harry cocked his head and stood. "I think I'll keep that in abeyance for right now."
The man looked briefly sour, no doubt wanting to pay off both his debts right away, but stood to show Harry to the door. As he opened it for him, he stooped close to Harry, long enough, to whisper, "Be careful," in a voice Harry thought he would never have heard if not for his magic.
Harry caught Aurelius's eye and moved his head in a tiny nod. Aurelius seemed satisfied as he shut the door behind him.
Harry wrapped his Complete Vanishing spell around him and began to move rapidly in the direction of the lifts. He'd come alone, because secrecy, in this case, was more important than impressing anyone. Now he wanted to get out of the Ministry as soon as possible. The Department of Mysteries studied magic at its deepest levels, and magical artifacts that did Merlin-knew-what. They might, for all Harry knew, be perfectly aware of his presence here, with undetectable wards that saw everything. Aurelius had certainly acted as if that were the case.
But I don't understand why they'd be pushing for more laws against werewolves. Why? What would the point of it be?
He reached the lifts and pressed the button that would summon one. As he stood waiting for it, he heard footsteps, light and swift and almost silent, the steps of an experienced hunter or spy, coming up the corridor from behind him.
He turned. A wizard in a shimmering gray cloak that cast back the light was gliding down the hallway. If Harry hadn't known to expect something like that from the footsteps, he might not ever have seen him.
Or her. The cloak was so muffling that it gave no hint of body shape.
The Unspeakables already figured out that I spoke with Aurelius, it seems.
Harry's lift arrived then, with a melodic voice on it announcing, "Department for the Control and Regulation of Magical Creatures." As the doors opened, Harry saw the Unspeakable's head turn and orient on him.
He walked into the lift, confident that his spell would protect him from being sensed; that was what it was designed to do, after all. A moment later, the Unspeakable walked in after him.
Harry pushed the button for the Atrium. The Unspeakable did nothing, simply standing there with head and shoulders bowed in his gray cloak, like an old man. Harry didn't think he could be, not with the way he moved, but it did effectively keep anyone from seeing his face.
The lift began to rattle downwards. Harry waited, his hand resting lightly on his chest. His magic, contained by the spell around him, hummed and buzzed. The Unspeakable still did nothing. Harry wondered if he really had any idea where Harry was, or simply knew that someone invisible on the lift going down would have to be him. Strange that he hadn't lunged and tried to grab me when I pushed the button for the Atrium.
"The Atrium," the voice sang as they reached that level, and the doors opened. A moment later, the Unspeakable moved to stand in front of them.
So that's how he thinks he'll capture me. Harry knew he could ram into the man and the Complete Vanishing spell would prevent him from feeling anything, but knocking him backwards would alert any of the Unspeakables waiting on this level.
Standing in the lift and being captured was not an option either, however. Besides, Harry's blood was up, and after these new werewolf laws and what he'd just learned from Aurelius Flint, he wasn't content to appear and explain matters to his enemies.
They're playing. What kind of game, I don't know yet. But let's show them what waits on the opposite side of the board.
He let the Extabesco plene go. The Unspeakable immediately swayed towards him, reaching out a gloved hand. He still said nothing. Harry supposed the silence was meant to unnerve his victim.
His hand flashed. He was carrying something small and silver in it, probably a magical artifact.
Harry had no intention of flinging magic directly at the artifact, which looked like a collar of some kind. With his luck, it would reflect at him or be absorbed. He shook his fringe back from his lightning bolt scar, instead, and opened his mouth in a loud, shocked wail.
The Unspeakable jerked back at the sound. Harry ducked under his arm and emerged into the Atrium, crying, "Help! Oh, help!"
He heard footsteps heading for him almost at once. And, sure enough, the first person to round the corner was Erica, the wand registration witch, lunging through the gates and towards the lifts. She saw him, and her eyes widened as she also saw the Unspeakable.
Harry felt a surge of vicious satisfaction. They want to do things in secret? Let's drag them into the public eye, and see what they think when they're accused of trying to kidnap the Boy-Who-Lived.
"Harry!" Erica exclaimed. "Are you all right?"
Harry saw the flash of another gray cloak as an Unspeakable loomed behind her, too. More footsteps were pounding, and while some of them might be visitors or Ministry personnel who would help, others were almost surely reinforcements from the Department of Mysteries. Harry suspected there wasn't much they wouldn't try to do to insure that this stayed secret.
He flung out his hand, whispering, "Exsculpo," a spell of his own creation. The hand reaching for Erica's shoulder disappeared, erased from existence. The Unspeakable gave a shocked wail of his—her—own, and Erica whipped around and saw her. She raised her wand as Harry reached her side, eyes narrowed.
"Stupefy!" she yelled, and the beam of red light struck the Unspeakable, who lay still. Erica giggled nervously.
Other gray cloaks were flashing from the corners of Harry's eyes now, and he suspected the Unspeakables had mostly cleared this floor, though they'd left Erica so anyone just arriving would see nothing obviously wrong. He grasped Erica's hand and began pulling her hard through the gates. Erica was more than willing to come with him, though she looked back now and then as Harry started her towards the fountain.
"Who are they?" she asked.
"Unspeakables," said Harry, and saw Erica's face drain of color. He nodded at her. "I'm afraid that I've just got you sacked from the Ministry," he said. "How would you like a new job?"
"Wand-checking is really all I know how to do—" Erica babbled as she finally began to run on her own, heading for the lift that would take them up to the decrepit telephone box and the alley.
"You can do that for me," Harry breathed. "And a few other things, too." He had seen, though Erica hadn't, the gray cloak trailing in front of them, trying to block their access to the telephone box. He would have to risk his magic in a moment.
Then the Unspeakable revealed himself, flicking out a red shell that Harry was more than familiar with. A Still-Beetle shell, it would imprison him, and his magic, if it managed to touch him; they were used for confining Lord-level wizards accused of crimes.
Harry thought of Doncan, and the Opallines, and the fire-blacked stone on which Gollrish Y Thie stood, and opened his mouth. Intense white heat roared forth from it, a concentrated blast, taking and melting the shell in mid-air.
The heat also flew at the Unspeakable, who lifted his hand. A silver ring sparking on his finger caught in the light and gleamed, absorbing the flame into it. Then he drew out a tiny glass sphere, filled with what looked, to Harry's speed-confused eyes, like a rose, and gave it a delicate flick towards Harry.
Harry could feel its magic as it flew, throbbing through the air with a power to rival his own. He didn't dare touch it. He grabbed Erica's arm, spinning her safely behind him, and did something he hadn't done in more than a mouth, opening the conduit of his absorbere gift inside him as wide as it would go.
The magic that rushed down his "gullet" was a much more pleasant meal than the tainted magic of the Death Eaters or Voldemort. It rang with power, though, and Harry shuddered as he was forced to gulp hastily, draining in a few seconds what he would ordinarily have taken minutes to swallow. He could already sense the sphere had something to do with time.
Nasty things they study in the Department of Mysteries.
The sphere landed on the floor in front of him and shattered, drained of magic. The Unspeakable made a sound for the first time, a snarl.
Harry lifted his eyes. He was shuddering with the effort of containing the magic, which rampaged back and forth through him, more sentient than the power he dealt with usually. That came of being confined under pressure in such a tiny space, he thought. He felt wild and sweet in a way that usually only the phoenix song made him feel, and it was an effort to speak, instead of sing or roar.
"Move."
The Unspeakable was not stupid, whatever else might be said about him. He moved. Harry grabbed Erica's hand and pulled her behind him. He could no longer hear the other Unspeakables' footsteps. He supposed they were afraid of being drained of their magic, or at least of having their artifacts drained, if they came anywhere near him.
He pushed Erica into the lift and turned to watch the Unspeakables. The nearest one stood with arms folded, or so Harry assumed from the slight shift in the cloak, surveying him.
Calm, Harry noted. They're not very worried about what I'm going to do when I get out of here, then. They probably think they can counter any publicity about this, and of course no one in the Ministry is going to dare to speak up in support of me, not if they're all as terrified as Aurelius.
A second Unspeakable stepped up beside the one who'd tossed the sphere as the lift began to rattle and move. He carried what looked like a Pensieve, shimmering with a blue liquid rather than a silver. The first man pressed his gloved fingers into the liquid and tossed it towards the lift. Harry watched warily as it spattered, uselessly, far below.
"Obliviate," the Unspeakable intoned casually.
Beside Harry, Erica gave a little gasp and shudder, and then said, in a dazed voice, "What? Where am I? What happened?"
Harry could feel the powerful compulsion to forget burrowing into his own brain, tearing at him with jagged teeth. He brought up his Occlumency shields, but the compulsion ate right through them. He snarled and brought his magic and his will up in defense, fighting as he had fought when Dumbledore tried to compel him in the past.
The spell shattered so suddenly that Harry sagged to his knees. He shook his head and braced his hand on the floor of the lift, pushing himself back upright. He looked down into the hooded faces of the Unspeakables, watching calmly as the lift went up, and up.
With artifacts like that, who else can they touch? Harry thought. Anyone in the Ministry, certainly. Scrimgeour. Aurelius. Percy. And Merlin knows who they might go after outside the Ministry. What do the Unspeakables do? Important Ministry business. So important that, of course, if they do need to Obliviate their victims later, that's accepted as the normal order of things.
He shuddered. The Ministry had another cancer inside it, then, one that hadn't revealed itself until now. The Department of Mysteries was stirring. At least some of the Unspeakables wanted to have werewolves as isolated from the rest of wizarding society as possible.
Why?
Harry smiled grimly. He didn't know yet. He would find out. But going to the papers might not be the best course after all. If the Unspeakables hadn't cleared the Atrium and destroyed the memory of his only witness, then yes. But with only him to claim the truth of the story, and with the Unspeakables holding so many other lives in their hands, and with the currently broiling, brewing nature of the public mind as concerned the Boy-Who-Lived, trying to expose them to more than his allies right now would be suicide.
He was not panicking, though, as he once would have when reminded that the Unspeakables could hurt so many people at so many different times and with magical artifacts whose nature he didn't yet know. The Unspeakables would be fools to start hurting people simply because they could. Their whole power was in remaining undetectable, and in advancing whatever mysterious, no pun intended, goals their Department held. They must believe that Harry had figured out their power and would enter a stalemate with them for the sake of the innocent, even as he stared into every shadow and wondered which ones they cast. They wouldn't want to give him an excuse to swoop down on them with magical claws extended.
If they had done this before he went to the Sanctuary, their reading of him might even have been accurate.
Now, though, it wasn't. Harry fully intended to use his magic, though they wouldn't know it until it was too late.
"You haven't answered me," said Erica, a bit of a whine in her voice as the lift finally lurched to a stop. "What am I—" And then she gasped and looked down to see his lightning bolt scar. "Harry?"
Harry gripped her hand tightly. "Yes," he said. "I'm sorry, Erica, but I rescued you from powerful enemies who just Obliviated you, and I'm afraid your job at the Ministry's gone. Do you trust me to take care of you?"
Erica nodded eagerly, looking close to swooning. "Who were they?"
"Tell you when we're safe," said Harry, and, pulling her close to him the moment they stepped out into the graffiti-covered alley, Apparated.
"Sir?" Harry asked, peering around the door into the room of Cobley-by-the-Sea Snape had taken as his lab. "Can I have a word with you?"
Snape turned from stirring a bubbling purple potion and nodded. "Of course, Harry. A moment." He tapped the cauldron with his wand, uttering a spell to preserve the potion in its present state, and then came to sit in one of the solid, comfortable chairs in the center of the room.
Harry let himself collapse into the other one. He'd just come back from the Ministry, and settled Erica into one of the numerous unused rooms of the house. He'd reassured Draco and Camellia that he was having Aurelius Flint look up all the anti-werewolf laws currently on the books, but told them nothing about the attack by the Unspeakables yet. There was something he wanted to do first, before he had to deal with all the shouting and sworn oaths of vengeance.
"You have a Pensieve, sir?" he asked.
Snape's eyes narrowed minutely. "Of course."
Harry sighed. "Can I use it?"
Snape nodded, his eyes still on Harry as he stood up, moved over to a cabinet on the far wall, and unlocked it. Harry watched him back, as placidly as he could when he'd just had someone trying to capture him. Snape had been acting more like his normal self in the last day, especially because he'd avoided werewolves entirely. Harry didn't want to upset his equilibrium too much.
Besides, he wasn't frightened. Just really, really angry.
Snape brought the Pensieve over and set it down in front of him. Harry hesitated for a moment, then held out his hand and murmured, "Accio wand." He wasn't actually sure how to get the memories from his head into a Pensieve without a wand.
The length of cypress came flying through Snape's half-open door and settled into his fingers. Harry gave a satisfied little grunt and then touched it to his temple, recalling the Unspeakable attack in all the details he could. In moments, strands of silvery thought began to unloop from the skin, and he moved his wand over to drop them into the Pensieve. It didn't take long, and he sat back with a little sigh. At least now he had one record of what had happened to him, just in case something else happened to him, and he would make more.
"May I?" Snape asked, indicating the Pensieve.
"If you promise not to destroy the room when you're done," said Harry evenly.
Snape raised an eyebrow, murmured, "I promise," and then bowed his head so that he could plunge his face into the Pensieve. Harry rose and began to pace back and forth, swearing aloud and in his head, his hand clasped around his stump behind his back.
I'm going to have to dig deeper with this than I ever meant to, he thought. I thought it was ordinary human fear that was guiding the anti-werewolf laws. And I thought that I could remove a few key players from positions of power in the Ministry and be done with most of the force behind their legal campaign against werewolves. This—this goes deeper. Much deeper. Literally.
The most damaging part about this right now is the lack of information. I need to know as much about the Department of Mysteries as I can. I'll write to Lucius Malfoy and ask him about that, as well as about Aurelius Flint. He thrives on the corruption in the Ministry, Merlin knows, and if anyone can locate a corrupt Unspeakable or someone willing to talk about the Department for money, he can.
But I also need to dig in and be prepared to defend my allies against any attacks. I need to have as many advantages on my side as I can.
And I also need to be ready to take the offensive. The release of the Grand Unified Theory is coming soon, and the anti-werewolf laws are rolling forward, and I don't think the stalemate between Scrimgeour and the Department Heads can last forever. And sooner or later, Willoughby is going to get someone to listen to him about this stupid trial, if only as a means of stopping me. And I need to know what Whitestag's doing. And school's starting soon. And Merlin knows what the wizards in other countries watching this from the outside think.
He tried to slow his pacing, but it only went faster as new ideas exploded in his head like fireworks.
Most urgent, besides finding out as much about the Unspeakables as I can, is establishing a line of communication with Scrimgeour. Owl post doesn't work, obviously. But—
Harry felt a shark's smile widen across his mouth. Fred and George, of course. No one's going to think it strange they're communicating with me, not when I gave them the money to open their joke shop. And Percy's their brother. It'll take a while to figure out how they're not going to get caught, but that should do nicely.
He laughed, and then heard the absolutely foul oath behind him, combined with the pressure of building magic.
He whirled around, and saw Snape pulling his head out of the Pensieve, his face darker than Harry had seen it since a werewolf from Loki's pack had laid her teeth on his skin. He flung up a hand, and a bookshelf on the other side of the room juddered and started to pull itself free of the wall.
Harry shook his head and tugged on Snape's magic with his absorbere gift, not swallowing it but catching his guardian's attention. "You promised you wouldn't destroy the room," he pointed out.
"Those—" Snape began, and then snarled again. The air around him briefly grew a series of writhing claws.
Harry nodded. "I know. And I am going to fight them."
Snape shook his head. "How?" He had obviously figured out the same problems with fighting the Department of Mysteries that Harry had.
"Information," said Harry crisply. "From Lucius Malfoy, if I can, and establishing a line to Scrimgeour through Percy Weasley. And then I am going to figure out all the advantages I can, and I am going to use them." He stretched out his hand and began folding his fingers down. "I've already started studying place magic, because Woodhouse can be an enormous resource for me if I only know how to use it. I'm going to join Connor in his lessons to become an Animagus. I have allies with capacities I've never called on, who can do things that I know they can do but have never delegated them into doing. I'm going to reach out and make contact with the enemies of my enemies. I'm going to start asking questions about my parents' past, because I need to figure out what that prophecy that took Dumbledore means, and if my parents really defied him three times." He folded down his thumb, and sighed in annoyance at running out of fingers. "And I am going to work on getting my left hand back."
"What has changed?" Snape asked quietly.
"I'm tired," Harry said honestly. "It's also the werewolves and the vates path and the fact that I've already committed myself to revolution, of course, but this attack made me realize just how sick and tired I am of people threatening and attacking and trying to kill and capture and bind me." He thought back to the compulsion of the Obliviate artifact the Unspeakable had used, and how it reminded him of ways that Dumbledore and Lily had tried to enslave him. "I've put up with it for too long. And I don't think fighting to defend myself is wrong any more—and there are ways I can fight on the offensive against more people than Voldemort without utterly forgetting my morals." He glanced over his shoulder at Snape. "You showed me that, sir, when you reminded me that I had to care more about the living than the dead. I'll do what I need to do, and live with the consequences. And I won't let them make me afraid."
Snape's eyes were fierce with pride. "This time, I actually believe that you might do it, Harry," he said.
Harry gave a wry smile. He couldn't deny that he'd struck out before when he'd felt backed into a corner, and then not followed up when his enemies stepped away, because it wouldn't be right. But the image of the Unspeakables Obliviating Erica, so casually, and then watching as the lift rose and Harry escaped, confident that he could do nothing to fight them, not really, had pissed him off.
"You're well if I leave you alone, sir?" he asked. Snape's temper was still making his magic writhe and squirm.
Snape stared hard at him. "I promise I am not going to poison any werewolves," he said.
Harry snapped his head down in a short bow, and then turned and headed for his room. He had quill and ink and parchment there. He would write down what he remembered of the attack as well, and then he would make a list of people he was going to delegate specific tasks to.
It's time, he thought, sorrow slipping down in him like rain across glass. I wish I could still do everything, and take on the responsibilities that should be mine, but I can't, not anymore. If I try to fight on too many fronts, I'll lose on all of them. So I'll ask Hermione to do the legal research, and some members of the pack to help with feeling out other werewolves, and Honoria to lend me some of her illusions, and others to watch enemies of mine who need to be tracked, and Draco what luck he's had with developing new spells, and Erica to help with guarding, and Peter to train me in Animagus abilities, and—
His mind pulsed smoothly, seeing far ahead. Behind it all, like a mantra, hummed a single thought.
I will not let them make me afraid.
