Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!
Sometimes, I like torturing my characters. For instance, this chapter makes me gleefully sadistic.
Chapter Seventeen: Dancing Above the Abyss
Thomas smiled as he admired the front page of the Daily Prophet. He and his people might almost have written the article. They hadn't, of course, because there was just too much to say and they could never have chosen what would go in such a short piece of writing. Rita Skeeter had studied their report instead, asked intelligent questions, and written the article.
He loved the photograph, though. It showed him holding up a copy of the thick, bound Report on The Grand Unified Theory of Every Kind of Magic. They had chosen that title, in the end, over the probably more accurate Report on The Grand Unified Theory of Every Kind of Wizarding Magic. Thomas was happy about what he'd learned from talking with the centaurs in the Alliance of Sun and Shadow. Their magic did seem to run on the same lines as most wizardry, and so he'd not insisted that the title of the report had to change.
The headline was intriguing, too, sure to get attention and make the readers see that they owed an allegiance to the truth, whatever their personal prejudices.
PURE BLOOD NOT SO MAGICAL AFTER ALL
Grand Unified Theory Suggests Differences Between Muggleborns and Others 'Insignificant'
Thomas hummed under his breath as he read the opening of the article.
An international team of research wizards—whose members include the Chinese Light Lady Jing-Xi and the British wizard Thomas Rhangnara, husband of Head Auror Priscilla Burke—today published their Grand Unified Theory of Every Kind of Magic, a project on which they have been working for decades. The Grand Unified Theory draws some surprising conclusions, including that other factors have far more influence on a wizard's magic than blood.
"It's something obvious to anyone who looks, of course," Rhangnara said. "After all, the most pureblooded families produce Squibs, and how could Muggleborns occur at all if all witches and wizards must have one magical parent?"
He rejected, along with the Russian research wizard Ilya Petrovitch, the ancient notion that all Muggleborns are descended from halfblood marriages or from Squibs exiled into the Muggle world.
"The research simply doesn't support that interpretation," Petrovitch said, via translator, from a firecall yesterday. "There are many factors that work together, and while genetic heritage is one of them, the most important appears to be the choice of the magic. Sometimes it chooses non-purebloods to wield it. Sometimes it doesn't choose the children of purebloods. Magic is more sentient than we always thought, and far more interesting."
Asked what some of the other factors that influence magical birth would be, Rhangnara listed them without pausing: the mother's will for the child in her womb (why, he said, the children of raped witches are almost always Squibs); where one lives (some of the first admitted Muggleborns in the British Isles came from places hallowed by druids); and weather the day one is born (thunderstorms produce more witches than wizards). He has obviously studied this in detail, and just as obviously loves the work.
"There's so much that goes on that we haven't acknowledged," Rhangnara said. "More, there's so much that goes on that we can't control. The old methods to 'insure' the birth of magical children almost always focus on blood. Even in the old days before the International Statute, when wizards and Muggles lived side by side and they knew about us, wizards were encouraged to intermarry with their own kind first and foremost. But it's not nearly that simple. We have a wonderful culture that calls itself pureblood, full of rituals and ceremonies and beliefs that are a legitimate heritage. But that has next to nothing to do with blood. After all, Muggleborns can learn to be part of that culture, too, and many have."
He named the old Dark Lord Fallen as an example; though he claimed to be a bastard son of the Prince pureblood line, he was in fact a Muggleborn.
"We have a tendency to rewrite our own history," he added. "So when someone says that there's never been a Muggleborn Lord, I've learned that, in fact, there often has been, but wizards—or the Lord himself—would prefer people to forget it. And the same thing happens with ancestry. Pureblood families will claim they've always intermarried with wizards, and sometimes, that's even true. But, most of the time, it's not." The Malfoys and the Blacks, he said, are examples of families with recent Muggleborn ancestry. By his estimation, Abraxas Malfoy, father of the current scion, Lucius, displayed the classic signs of a powerful halfblood wizard.
Thomas frowned. He had said more at that point, but for some reason, Skeeter had summarized and skimmed a lot of it. He wondered why. It was all interesting.
Rhangnara fully expects the Grand Unified Theory to change the way that wizards think about themselves.
"It's wonderful," he said. "For so long, our view of the world has been so simple. We could track where magic went, and we just ignored the things that challenged those ideas. And now we've learned that most of those ideas aren't true at all, or are just smaller drops of water in a vast ocean. Even the Grand Unified Theory only leaves us on the brink of more mistakes to explore and perceptions to shatter. The future is going to change as we wander through them with our eyes open."
Skeeter had at least chosen the right quote to end on, Thomas thought, happily. How could anyone not be excited by that image of the future?
Lucius opened the Prophet that morning, and narrowed his eyes at the photograph. What has Rhangnara done to get his photograph in the paper? Harry said nothing about any such move, and he is usually good enough to warn us before—
Then he saw the headline, and went very still.
He could feel his heart galloping, regular as running footsteps, in his ears. The table trembled a bit. Lucius had to let his magic get far out of control before he could manage even that much wandless power, but today, he thought, while his body shook with sincere, helpless rage, it was justified.
"Lucius?"
Narcissa's voice came from the door of the breakfast room. Lucius did not care. He could not look up from the article, or keep from following its bizarre conclusions to the end. More and more of them piled up, and his rage grew stronger, and his scorn.
There is no such thing as the choice of magic. It only grows a personality when confined. It cannot choose who will wield it and who will not.
Place magic? An old and discredited belief of the druids. There are magical places, such as Harry's Woodhouse, but they will never notice a modern wizard.
Weather? Storms? How can they determine our children's futures? They are only wind and rain.
Then he read the paragraph where Rhangnara had the gall to claim that the Malfoys had recent Muggleborn ancestry, that Lucius's own father had been a halfblood.
He froze as he read. He thought of going into the room he had shown Draco when he confirmed his son as magical heir, and the Malfoy ancestors speaking to him of shared blood and responsibilities, and he knew that what Rhangnara said was a lie, designed to cast aspersions on him.
My father was not the son of his mother and a Mudblood. If he was, then he would not have been a Malfoy, and not able to be confirmed as magical heir. That room would have honored only a son of my grandfather.
And then he wondered if Abraxas could have been the son of his father and a Mudblood woman, brought into the family, adopted as her own child by Lucius's grandmother Anais Henlin, and the door firmly shut on any discussion of his befouled heritage. That would make him both a halfblood and a Malfoy.
Lucius marshaled his thoughts, then placed them carefully in a box and locked them away. He would not consider them again. They were false. The Malfoys were a pureblood family, and his grandfather would no sooner have touched a Mudblood, or a Muggle, than he would have cut off his own hand.
"Lucius?" That was Narcissa again, standing near the table, her eyes wide and wondering.
He looked up at her, and remembered what the article had said about the Blacks also sleeping with Mudbloods. But surely that had been in previous generations. The recent ones had campaigned to bring back Muggle-hunting. They would not have done that if they had known what they were.
Or they would have done that if they needed to convince others that they were perfect purebloods, and hide their shame deeply, where no one would look for it.
Lucius also placed that thought in the treasure chest. He would not think of that. Narcissa was pureblooded. He was pureblooded. Draco was pureblooded. He would not think that his son's veins were swarming with dirty blood, or his wife's.
Much less my own.
"It seems that one of Harry's allies has done something mad, again," he said dryly, and extended the paper so that she could read it. Narcissa accepted it and sat down, only letting a tiny, well-bred gasp escape her mouth every so often.
Lucius stared at her, at her lovely face, at the way she sat with her blonde hair just escaping in soft curling wisps around her white throat, at the delicate bones of her cheeks. Finer than any Mudblood's, surely. She is not one of them.
No, of course she isn't. Rhangnara is mistaken. And he would not have made those remarks about Malfoys and Blacks unless he intended to attack our family personally.
Lucius nodded his head, securing the truth in his own mind, knowing what he must do. He felt a vague sorrow at the thought of it, but a greater irritation. He was already entwined in careful plotting for which Harry would throw him out of the Alliance of Sun and Shadow in a moment, if he learned of it. He would have to add another coil, this time focused on getting rid of Rhangnara.
That, however, will be a pleasure. The other is a sacrifice I wish I did not have to make.
Lucius flexed his fingers, checked to make sure that his face was smooth as Narcissa hit the part of the article that concerned their families, and reached for his teacup.
Hermione sat up in her bed with difficulty, and managed to reach one of the treats on the bedside table to give to the owl who had delivered the Prophet. The bird snapped up the food delicately and then spread its wings, soaring out the window. Hermione watched it go wistfully. She understood the importance of spending time in bed and taking her recovery carefully after the Severing Curse, and it wasn't as though she never got to write to anyone, and of course she received the Prophet, and she would be going back to Hogwarts in less than two weeks, but still she wished she could have just waved her wand and uttered a Summoning Charm for the treat.
She opened the paper.
She stared at the headline on the front page. She stared at the photograph. She read the article.
She closed her eyes.
For a moment, thoughts tumbled and reoriented themselves in her head. She didn't know what to think, how to feel. She had learned the pureblood rituals to show up some purebloods, and because she was convinced it was the only way a Muggleborn could make anyone important pay attention to her. As the article said, wizards were adept at lying to themselves. Hermione could be as brilliant and get as many O's on her OWL's as she wanted—as she had, in almost everything—and still people like the witches and wizards at Harry's alliance meeting could give her pitying looks and turn away. She had to adapt and fit in, and the only pleasure she might get out of it was someone complimenting her on her skills and then learning that she was Muggleborn.
But now this.
After a moment, her emotions stopped brewing quite as wildly, and settled on happiness and fierce determination.
If it's true, then no one can say that I must have Squib ancestors, or that I must be a changeling switched at birth. That was one of the speculations Hermione had overheard at the alliance meeting, and it had irritated her profoundly even then. Anyone who had read about fairies knew they didn't do that, and probably never had.
If it's true, then Zacharias is going to be so upset.
Hermione shrugged. Let him be upset. She liked Zacharias a great deal—sometimes she thought she loved him, sometimes she wasn't sure; it wasn't something she could analyze properly—but he had too much invested in his pureblood ancestry. Hermione had tried to adapt and succeed in many things because she had learned, during her third year, that intelligence would not get her everywhere. If this revelation destroyed Zacharias's conception of the world, then he would just have to rebuild.
And Zacharias can be wrong like anyone else.
Connor was glad that he had been awake before anyone else but Trumpetflower—who didn't seem to sleep—and not because he was writing a potentially embarrassing letter to Parvati, as had happened the other morning. It meant he got to see the Daily Prophet first, and look at the story, and laugh and laugh and laugh, and then laugh some more at Trumpetflower's shocked face when he passed the paper to her.
It meant he got to sit back and watch when Harry and Draco came downstairs, yawning. Draco sat at the table, while Harry went to make them toast. He was getting better at the toast, Connor thought. His fire charms didn't burn the bread to ashes any more.
The Prophet lay on the table, face downward. Connor had put it like that on purpose, for maximum shock value. Draco grumbled under his breath about people who couldn't fold a paper courteously when they were done with it, picked it up, and turned it over.
Connor was a bit disappointed with his initial reaction. Draco didn't shriek. He didn't shout something about Rhangnara being wrong and how dare he do this and Harry should fix this right now. His eyes narrowed slightly, as if he were trying to force the sleepiness away.
Then his face went pale, as if he were going to faint.
Connor brought his arm up in front of his mouth to muffle his laughter in his sleeve.
Draco read through the article. Connor could tell by his face when he hit the most interesting parts. When he reached the revelations about blood not being important, his face turned ashen. As he went on, he shook his head more and more, until he looked as if he had epilepsy. Then he reached what Connor knew were the paragraphs on the Black and Malfoy marriages, and tossed the paper into the air, snarling. He snatched his wand from his sleeve in the next instant. Connor was sure that he was going to set the paper on fire.
The Prophet was tumbling all over the kitchen in a mess of sheets, and Connor had his wand, so it was no trouble for him to wave it and call, "Accio front page!" just as Draco cast Incendio at the rest of it. The stink of burning paper filled the room, but the article had already sped over to Connor and settled itself firmly in his hand. Connor pressed the beaming photograph of Thomas Rhangnara, waving his heavy book, against his heart and grinned at Draco over the top of it. Draco looked murderous. That was fun. Connor liked it when Draco was looking murderous. It meant he lost control and shouted entertaining things. He had come up to Connor's room the other day to make the silliest accusations over the prank that he and Harry had played with the Firebolt. Draco had said it had hurt Harry. Connor knew that couldn't be true, because he and his brother were close enough now that Harry would have come to him and told him about that—if not the day after the prank, certainly later.
"Give it to me, Potter," Draco spat.
"Why?" Connor asked. "It's an innocent article. It never did anything to you." He petted the paper as if it were a Kneazle kitten and watched in fascination as Draco's face darkened further. "Besides," Connor added, just to fan the flames, "it's true."
"It is not!" Draco shouted, and actual spittle came flying out of his mouth on the last word. Connor applauded.
"I think this is the least like a pureblood wizard I've ever seen you act," he told Draco. "I see the article was true after all. And I bet it was a Muggle your great-grandfather slept with."
Draco let out a wordless howl and tried to spring across the table at him. Trumpetflower had grabbed him, though, and just like the rest of the pack, the slender werewolf had much more strength in her arms than someone might think at first. She held Draco effortlessly, and took away his wand with a simple movement. Connor put his head down on the table, unable to muffle his giggles any longer.
"Enough, Draco. Connor."
That was Harry, and he didn't sound like a brother, he sounded like a leader. Connor knew that meant he had gone too far. He lifted his head and gave Harry a contrite look. Harry nodded to accept it. He sometimes seemed to believe that Connor could not possibly cause that much trouble, because he was a Gryffindor and Harry considered Gryffindors a bit simple-minded compared to devious Slytherins. Connor didn't think Harry was even aware he had that prejudice, but Connor himself was not above exploiting it.
"What's the article?" Harry asked, though in a tone of voice that said he already knew. He extended his hand, and Connor put the front page of the Prophet into it. Harry read it quickly, his eyes narrowing. Now and then he nodded, as though he were encountering a piece of information he hadn't expected, and near the end his eyes widened. Connor smiled. I didn't think Rhangnara would dare to mention information about specific families, either, but he did.
Harry put the paper down on the table and turned to face Draco. "Let him go, Trumpetflower, please," he said.
Trumpetflower did it immediately, and stepped away, but she kept her gaze on Harry. Connor wondered idly if Harry had really noticed the way the members of the pack looked at him. Probably not, because Harry never noticed things like that. He assumed he just asked for things and they got done, because people wanted things from him or because of Loki's request. But Connor knew that some of the werewolves were thinking of Harry as their true leader. He'd seen the process happen last year, as the students stopped looking at McGonagall as a substitute for Dumbledore and started seeing her as the real thing.
But he looked away from Trumpetflower and went back to watching Draco, which was much more fun. Connor had accepted that Harry and Draco were going to join. He also knew they had had sex at least once, because he wasn't as unobservant as his brother seemed to think. But he also knew that Draco was only civilized on the surface, and underneath lay a bloody, sodding, prissy little wanker. Harry was about to get a sharp reminder, it looked like.
"That article isn't true," Draco told Harry, with a great deal of appeal in his voice. Connor knew the sentiment: Make it not be true. He had done the same thing to Harry when he was younger, especially after Harry took Lily's magic away, but he had grown up since then. Draco hadn't.
"It is," Harry confirmed quietly. "Thomas told me weeks ago, when I contacted him about coming to the meeting for the Alliance of Sun and Shadow."
Draco just stared at him. Harry looked back, his head on one side, his expression regretful but calm. Connor smiled. He isn't going to yield. Good. Harry gives Draco what he wants far too much of the time.
"Everything?" Draco whispered. "About the Dark Lord Fallen being Mud—Muggleborn? About blood not mattering as much as we thought? About the families—" He stopped and shuddered, seeming unable to continue.
"All of it, as far as Thomas can tell," Harry said. "He might have made a mistake; it wouldn't be the first time. But from what they can tell right now, yes, it's true."
"What's true?" Draco's voice had deepened. Connor shook his head. He wants to see if Harry will actually say it. Of course he will. Idiot.
"The part about your grandfather probably being a halfblood," said Harry.
See? Connor thought at Draco, while the other boy wrapped shaking arms around himself. You thought he wouldn't, and of course he does. If Lily hadn't given him that stupid training, he would have gone to Gryffindor for sure.
"And that would make me one-eighth Muggle," said Draco, his voice deep with disgust.
"Or one-eighth Muggleborn," said Harry. "I really don't think there's any way to tell, and Thomas certainly didn't mention one."
Draco shook his head. "My grandfather was a halfblood," he repeated, with a tone of nausea in his voice.
Connor felt the sudden deep silence in the room. He turned his head, and saw Harry's face so tight that it looked smaller.
"Why, yes," Harry said. "Just like your boyfriend is a halfblood."
Draco stared at him. Then he scowled and said, "That's not what I meant, and you know it."
"How?" Harry asked pleasantly.
"It's not—you're not—I know there's a difference," said Draco. "I'm not prejudiced against you, Harry. This is about my family, about what blood I have in me."
"So blood is one thing and a cock is another?" Harry hissed. "I'll keep that in mind."
Connor was glad he wasn't eating, as he would have choked. He had always known that Harry had a fouler mouth when he got upset, but he hadn't expected him to say anything like that.
"It is different!" Draco yelled as Harry turned his back. "You aren't giving me a chance! My whole world has just turned around, I've just found out that I'm not who I always thought I was, and you—"
"I know that it's different with you," Harry said, not looking back. "It always is, Draco. I think you only accept that I'm a halfblood because you don't have to think about it. The moment you do, then something like this happens."
He trotted out of the room and disappeared. Trumpetflower glided after him. Connor knew Harry would have a guard of werewolves until he reached his room or some other safe sanctum.
Draco sank down on the other side of the table, looking a mixture of disgusted and angry and shocked and defeated. Connor coughed and stood up. Draco's gaze darted to him, and his expression changed again, eyes gone nearly opaque with hatred.
"None of this would have happened if you hadn't started it," he said.
Connor laughed again, because he couldn't help it. "Oh, yes, Malfoy, I control the Prophet, and choose which stories to print," he said. "And I funded all the research Rhangnara's group did, didn't you know? I've been setting this up since before I was even born, that's how powerful I am."
"He knows I didn't mean that," said Draco. "I don't forget he's a halfblood, I just don't think about it."
"Maybe you should," Connor said, and left him there.
Rufus wanted tea. And a headache potion. And to go to bed and wake up again so that the day could begin once more.
But mostly, tea.
He had already searched his office and confirmed that he had nothing to make tea with there. He didn't even seem to have a cup left. While he was sitting and wondering who could possibly have stolen his cup, and what they could possibly want with it, the door opened and Percy Weasley entered, carrying two cups of tea and a folded copy of the Daily Prophet. He held one of the cups out to Rufus without a word. Rufus grasped it and drank greedily.
It soothed his headache, a bit, and he settled back in his chair with a sigh. Percy had already taken his desk and spread the paper out in front of him, with the air of someone who'd already read it. Rufus braced himself. Percy was still a trainee Auror, and that meant he was supposed to be getting practice in gauging and anticipating people's reactions. Time to see if the instructors were still working since Moody left.
"What do you think will happen as a result of that?" Rufus asked, nodding at the article.
Percy frowned in thought. He was usually careful, and he had a brain, when he wasn't trying to jump between the Minister and deadly curses. Rufus approved of that. There were plenty of Aurors who could leap into action at a moment's notice and Stupefy the enemy. Percy was the kind who knew how to ask questions, and which ones were important.
"Well, the purebloods with a lot of influence in the Ministry aren't going to be happy," Percy said. "And even the ones without a lot of influence in the Ministry, I suppose. Most pureblood families have something in the way of pride for their names and their history, and some of them trade on it. Not us," he added hastily. "But some."
Rufus smiled thinly and decided not to tell Percy about his second cousin on his father's side who had once tried to bluff his way out of Auror custody on the strength of, "But I'm a Weasley!" He nodded. "And if enough people believe it to be true, what do you think will happen?"
Percy's face went blank, but Rufus couldn't tell if that was awe, or shock, or just more thought. "Oh, Merlin," he whispered. "It's going to be total chaos, isn't it? Not just a few pureblood families upset that they supposedly had adulterous ancestors. Chaos everywhere. Muggleborns believing that laws should be changed, and magical researchers questioning the basis of some ethics, and people trying to use this information for their own gain, and charlatans promising that they can help parents control how much magic their children are born with…" Percy trailed off, staring at the wall.
"Yes." Rufus looked at the paper with another sigh. He knew Thomas Rhangnara was connected with Harry, though not how closely. But it was true, just as the Unspeakables had warned him, that Harry was going to bring more chaos down. Revolution was one thing, but Rufus had dealt with revolutionaries before; they usually had clearly-defined goals and the tendency to babble on at anyone who would listen to them. Harry was the only one he'd ever met whose main course of stirring up trouble seemed to be inspiring others to cause that trouble.
The Unspeakables, by contrast, brought clarity. They were being extraordinarily open with him for someone who wasn't even part of the Department of Mysteries, though Rufus suspected his office helped.
They'd told him that the renegades in the Department had been more devious than they thought. The truth of the attack on Harry was as he'd told it—a fact that had been obscured when the Unspeakables first came and spoke with Rufus. They'd believed, then, that some of their people had been part of the "attack," but had just wanted to speak with Harry.
Now they knew that some of their own had been Obliviated, and, more, dream-woven, which made them think that certain experiences had happened in reality when they were just waking dreams. The Obliviated and the dream-woven had recovered their memories, and they were one step closer to finding the traitors. But they had asked Rufus to delay Harry from spreading more chaos if he could. Trust of the Unspeakables would diminish if the Boy-Who-Lived said they were to be distrusted. And now the Unspeakables who had come to Rufus suspected their traitors had had help from outside the Department. They even thought they knew who, but it would take some time to confirm if they were right.
Rufus had had hope. The Unspeakables were being as open with him as they could without breaking their oaths to the Stone, which chose them, and was an artifact as ancient, powerful, and incorruptible as any justice ritual. What was sworn to on the Stone could not be broken or doubted—but the traitors had found a way to keep their oaths while advancing only a narrow set of goals that did not truly benefit the Department of Mysteries. The loyalists' inquiries into how were continuing.
Rufus, armed with that knowledge, had faced Harry, and found him worse than the cold, proud boy who would not reply to his letters out of sheer stubbornness. He had found someone who could not seem to understand that more people than his revolutionary group existed in the world. He had found someone who was not content to defend himself with the common magic available to everyone, or make his way to other levels of the Ministry in an effort to find help when he was attacked, but had to use his absorbere gifts, and thus increase both the traitors' fear and the likelihood that Harry would use it against other Ministry employees.
He had found, Rufus feared, an incipient Lord.
He stared in silence at the paper, at the smiling man who held the book with the acronym GUTOEKOM gleaming in gilded letters and could not seem to understand why other people would not welcome his theory. Rufus felt as if he were looking at Harry, too, and Harry's allies—dancing above an abyss, and not understanding the emptiness that lay below, or the people who would fall.
Rufus knew he would have to wait, because the Unspeakables had asked him to, and because, though the balance between him and Amelia had very subtly begun to shift in his favor, it had not tilted all the way yet. He could not even send a letter to Harry, because Harry would only ignore it in his pride and certainty that he knew what he was doing, as he had all the others.
Galling, he thought, to wait while your Ministry rips itself to shreds around you, and the best and brightest hope of the wizarding world looks first to himself and those he has sworn to protect, and only then to the world his actions will shake.
"And this is where we have the major presses," Dionysus Hornblower was yelling cheerfully, over the thump and clack of the Vox Populi being produced. "Run without house elves and on our own magic, of course."
"Of course," Honoria murmured, watching as the machine in question gleamed and ratcheted and danced through its motions in a blaze of metal. The Maenad Press used a large house near the end of Diagon Alley. Honoria wondered idly whether they'd had to bribe the shopkeepers near them to ignore the noise, or if they'd just bought the space and planned to expand. Dionysus looked as if he were an expanding kind of wizard.
He had been absolutely delighted when Honoria appeared and said that she was to function as Harry's liaison with the Maenad Press. And, to be honest, Honoria was delighted right back. Dionysus was brash and too confident and noisy, as the instantly converted tended to be. (Honoria's mother had been noisy about having married a pureblood wizard most of her life). He worshipped Harry in one breath and criticized him soundly in the next, mostly for moving too slow. He yelled at the people working on the Populi—editing articles, assembling the paper, creating the magical construct owls that delivered it—and they yelled right back, unintimidated. He had already mentioned going to Azkaban, fighting with Aurors, sneaking out of enemy territory during the First War with Voldemort, sleeping with an unknown woman only to find out that she was a Death Eater the next morning, and more stories that Honoria wanted to hear in full. Ignifer would just hate him.
He was the epitome of Gryffindor, whatever his House at Hogwarts had actually been, if he had attended Hogwarts. Honoria wasn't entirely sure he hadn't spent his years between eleven and seventeen on the run all over the Continent while being taught Dark Arts, illegal Charms, and blood magic.
Honoria had missed people like this.
"That owl is missing a left wing, Jamie!" Dionysus yelled at one of his workers, who probably wasn't even named Jamie, but was instantly correcting his mistake. He turned back to Honoria, beaming. "Have a plethora of articles on that new theory," he said. "Due to come, or whatever its name is. Fascinating nonsense. Have you read it?"
Honoria blinked. "Ah, no." She'd split her days lately between visiting the Maenad Press—well, spying on it at first—scouting out London pack territory to help the werewolves who lived there with escape routes if the Department showed up on the next full moon, and shagging Ignifer.
"Pity," Dionysus said. "Read the first hundred pages last night. Changed my mind on some things. Changed my mind completely. That young Harry, he's a changemaster, yes?"
"I don't know what that means," said Honoria. She felt a grin threatening to split her face. She was left behind and scrambling to keep up. It was fantastic.
"Means he comes into a place, and it changes," said Dionysus. "But he knows about that and anticipates it, not just hides in fear. Changes the center of gravity, as some Muggles I know go on about. Hepzibah, don't make me come over there and finish editing the bloody thing for you! Congratulations, Jamie boy, now the owl is missing its right wing. Yes, Harry knows how to change things."
Honoria laughed. She was having fun. She'd have to thank Harry for giving her this assignment.
And then the entire room turned red. Honoria lifted her head in astonishment. The globes filled with a heatless light charm that hung from the ceiling had been white-gold before, but now they blazed like the fire of an angry Hungarian Horntail.
"What does that mean?" she asked.
Dionysus had a gleam of battle in his eyes when she looked back, and had already drawn his wand. "Means the wards have been triggered," he said happily. "Use of a powerful magical artifact not in common use nearby. The Unspeakables have shown up. Thought they would." His grin widened. "Ready for them."
"What?" Honoria said blankly, and then the Unspeakables attacked.
It was like nothing she'd experienced. Gray cloaks were swooping out of nowhere, seeming to congeal out of mist that drifted from the walls. They carried glass globes, thin straps of bronze, patches of light that made Honoria's head hurt to look at but which drew her eyes anyway. Some of them definitely had swords. The level of magic in the room had increased to the point that Honoria didn't think she'd felt anything like it, even when Harry was at the alliance meeting.
Dionysus howled happily. "Hullo, you bastards!" he shouted, and swept his wand in a gesture Honoria knew she had never seen before. "Lions roar, you know."
The crimson glow from the lights grew more intense. Then the walls appeared to catch on fire, and from them came glowing shapes that intensified and took on solid form as they flew. They were magical constructs, like the owls, Honoria thought, but these had the shape of lions. By the time they landed, each had a mouth full of teeth and paws bristling with sharp claws.
The Unspeakables turned to deal with them. Honoria saw some of the swords come sweeping down, and even though they only cut across a lion's shadow, the crimson creatures screamed and vanished. One shoved its head towards the light in a gray-cloaked figure's hand and then charred and crisped, like a moth venturing too close to a flame. Honoria was sure, in the moments before she took to her gull form so that she could fly above the chaos and be in less danger from it, that she saw one Unspeakable also rip a lion apart with the two halves of a glass globe.
But the lions were doing their damage, too, tearing open gray robes and making blood fly, and Dionysus's people were rising with their wands in their hands now, as if they had expected it. Honoria knew she'd made the right choice in taking to the wing, no matter how many people had seen her change and so knew she was an Animagus. The flashing colors of Stupefy, Diffindo, more hexes and jinxes than she could count, and an occasional Severing Curse were blinding. She shuddered in particular at recognizing the Severing Curse, thinking of a cold night in October when she'd dropped between Harry and Igor Karkaroff and felt one of those catch her across her chest and belly.
Dionysus was in the middle of it all, directing the attack like the master of a circus directing the acts. His shouts of encouragement in battle, Honoria found, didn't sound much different from the scoldings he gave to be sure that his people did what they were supposed to do with the paper. He had a shield around him that appeared to eat every attack the Unspeakables could come up with, but which didn't stop his own spells from getting out. Honoria saw him stun and bind two Unspeakables whose cloaks fell back to reveal pale, shocked faces, and he dueled with another one-on-one for two minutes before putting him out with what Honoria thought was a time-delayed blast of light that blinded him.
The thunder of spells and roaring from the lions and teeth-clattering rattle from some of the artifacts the Unspeakables carried only lasted for a few minutes, but that was more than long enough for Honoria. Give me Woodhouse and planned battle any time, she thought, winging uneasily in circles, dodging the occasional curse from someone who'd noticed her.
Then the Unspeakables still standing vanished, taking their artifacts with them. The lions at once paused and lowered their heads towards Dionysus, bowing like shadows made of flame. Then they leaped and melted into the walls again, and the lights turned back from crimson to white. Dionysus swept the room with a practiced eye, and nodded.
"Jamie, help Hepzibah bandage that wound," he said. "Diana, you're off-work for the rest of the day; go home. Godric, for the love of all that's holy, you'll sit down now or I'll sit you down."
Honoria returned cautiously to the floor, changing back into her human body as she went. Dionysus saw her and grinned.
"There you are," he said. "Should have reckoned you would be a gull. I like it, I like it. Fits."
"You—you sounded as if you were prepared for that," Honoria said, staring at the Unspeakables lying on the ground. Even the bloodied ones seemed to be just unconscious, not dead. She expected them to change into mist at any moment, but they didn't. They just lay there.
"I was," said Dionysus. "Bastards are always showing up when they think I'm making too much trouble." He nodded once or twice. "Worked up a battle plan with my people, and we only use spells that aren't going to send us to Tullianum. Besides, the Unspeakables are always aiming to capture, not kill. Only fair if we do the same to them." He nodded again. "Mind you, this is the most serious attack we've ever had, but I anticipated that. I'm seriously annoying them at the moment."
"And the lions?" Honoria asked.
Dionysus chuckled. "Like them? They're the products of an artifact I stole from the bastards. And the shield, too. And a few other little things." He winked. "Of course, tell anyone other than Harry and I'll know who prated."
"How do you steal from the Department of Mysteries?" Honoria said. She needed to sit down. Dionysus had steered her into a chair before she could think to ask for one.
"When they try to recruit you and then change their minds later," said Dionysus gleefully. "They would have modified my memory or chained me there to do whatever it is they do to prisoners. Theft was the least they deserved. Bastards." It seemed to be his favorite insult.
"And what are you going to do—with them?" Honoria nodded at the captured Unspeakables. Dionysus followed her gaze, and his whole face seemed to become sharper.
"Right now? Have a good laugh at the Ministry with the Populi. And then introduce them to another little toy of mine. Bastards are all immune to Veritaserum, but not to my toy." Dionysus actually rubbed his hands together. "And then tell Harry about what I find. If I want to. Certainly report it in the Populi. The people deserve to hear and know the truth."
Honoria leaned on her hand and shook her head. She supposed one of her major tasks would be convincing Dionysus to share all of what he found with Harry, since the Unspeakables were Harry's enemies as well, and also what he might know about the Department of Mysteries from the brief time he'd spent training there. He might share it without convincing, but Honoria was not willing to wager on that. He could change his mind in a moment.
Merlin, this is so much fun. Now that I know what to expect, anyway.
She leaned back and smiled at Dionysus. "This is going to make the Ministry look very bad," she said.
Dionysus chortled. "They deserve it. Bastards."
