"The Unspeakables he talked to confirmed that they attacked the Press because they wanted to shut him down," Honoria said, her eyes half-slitted in enjoyment as she sipped at the cup of orange juice Harry had given her when she refused tea. "And something else, which he was reluctant to tell me at first until I reassured him that it would never go further than your ears." She gave Harry an enigmatic look. Harry nodded. He certainly wasn't about to announce whatever Honoria had to tell him from the front page of the Prophet. That Hornblower would do so in the Populi was shocking enough.
Honoria let out her breath. "They did want to capture him—him and anyone they could get their hands on, really. They would have Obliviated me and anyone else they didn't take. Dionysus said that it's their usual course. The Unspeakables usually strike to capture, not kill, unless the other person has invaded the Department of Mysteries. He also thinks it's why that faction of Unspeakables seems to want to identify werewolves with collars and papers, rather than just kill them the way the Department for the Control and Suppression of Deadly Beasts wants to."
"What do they do with their prisoners?" Harry whispered, feeling a convulsive shudder travel through him at the thought of going down into the bowels of the Ministry and never emerging again.
"That was the thing we couldn't find out," said Honoria, with a sad smile. "At least, not from those Unspeakables. Dionysus said they swear an oath not to talk about it. He was surprised he'd got that much out of them." Her fingers slid along her glass. "But he can guess, based on what he saw in his own short time in the Department of Mysteries."
Harry shook his head. He still found it hard to believe that anyone sane would approach Dionysus Hornblower and ask him to have anything to do with secrecy. "What does he think they do, then?"
"Use the magic and the bodies of those they capture. He said it would make sense, given that they wanted to capture you."
Harry gave a smile he knew was twisted. The most important thing about him was his magic, Falco Parkinson told him. Well, why wouldn't the Unspeakables have thought the same thing? And a Lord-level wizard who could drain magic himself was probably of interest to them. Pity I can't send them after Voldemort.
He did toy with the idea of spreading a rumor that Voldemort was recovering, but then shook his head. The panic it would cause wasn't worth it, and it was unlikely to distract the Unspeakables from everything else they were doing, including influencing the Minister.
"Thank you for assigning me to the Maenad Press," Honoria said, capturing Harry's attention again. "I love this. Dionysus is who I want to grow up to be." She was grinning.
Harry raised his eyebrows. "But not who you want to shag?" he asked, grateful to be able to tease her about something.
"Please." Honoria stood with a shrug. "As if I have any interest in men. If I did, there are people who would already have filled that place."
"Tybalt?" Harry knew they were old friends.
"Among others." Honoria winked at him, and then turned and walked towards the Floo on the far side of the room. Casting a handful of green powder into the flames, she called out, "Dragonshome!" and was gone.
Harry leaned back, with his arms folded behind his head, and closed his eyes. He was in the middle of a seething, boiling cauldron here, and this time, he didn't have the excuse of retreating to the Sanctuary while someone else watched the pot for him. He felt, rather, as if the Maenads pictured on the front page of the Vox Populi would sweep around the corner at any moment, seeking to tear him apart in retaliation for all the mistakes he'd made.
He had to plan, had to think, and some of it would take longer than a single day.
For the moment, though, he might as well go up to a bedroom bereft of Draco and try to sleep as well as he could. Harry knew that the morning, which would bring the publication of Hornblower's article on the attack, would be vicious.
Ignifer felt Honoria arrive home, the wards twanging, but she couldn't leave the room and go to her, as much as she wished to. She was occupied in a different conversation with a very different woman in a fire, instead. This was her mother, Artemis, who had firecalled her every day for the past sixteen years, trying to persuade her to change her mind and Declare for Light again. Resisting her had become considerably easier since Ignifer had started sharing a bed with Honoria, though.
This time, something had changed. Artemis had given her scolding. She had asked Ignifer to make submission to her father so that Cupressus might forgive his daughter and welcome her back. Ignifer had refused. But now Artemis lingered, her eyes darting around the room beyond the flames as if she wanted to admire Ignifer's paintings and panels. Ignifer stood with her arms folded, refusing to close the connection before her mother decided on it. That would not be polite.
"Do you ever find," her mother said at last, "that there are some things you cannot discuss with your fellow dishonorables in the Dark? Some things that are unspeakable?"
Ignifer opened her mouth to reply, and then shut it slowly. She stared at her mother. Artemis stared back with pleading eyes.
Ignifer understood the silent message well enough. She has reason to think that the Unspeakables are watching their house. Well, why not?
She had known, from the time when she was a small girl and still thought her father the center of the universe and the greatest wizard in creation, that the Apollonis family had artifacts on hand that other wizards wouldn't like them possessing. It was just a sign of shortsightedness, Cupressus had explained to her. Other wizards would say the artifacts were dangerous, but they weren't, not if treated with respect. What would cause them to lose blood or limbs was forcing those artifacts to perform like slaves or beasts of burden. One approached them in honor, or not at all.
Then had come a day when Ignifer returned home from her tutor's house and found all the artifacts gone, her mother white to the lips, and her father with a burn on his face. He refused to speak a word. He simply fingered a scrap of gray cloth.
Ignifer had learned that Unspeakables had raided the house and removed the artifacts, saying they were too dangerous for any family to possess, even the most Light-devoted family in Ireland. She learned it in that roundabout way that she learned most things in the Apollonis household. Rumor and myth and murmured words and glances eventually distilled into reality.
She did not believe, even now, that the artifacts had been the kind commonly raided from criminals. Cupressus would never have stood for anything Dark in his home, as his reaction to Ignifer's Declaration proved. He had thought they were safe, and they had certainly been of the Light.
And now the Unspeakables were pressuring him again, it seemed, or watching him, or urging him to act against Harry.
"There are many things that are so difficult to say," said Ignifer carefully, watching her mother. "I was reared in the Light, and even those who chose Dark late in their lives find me odd." She heard the door to the room open behind her, and knew that Honoria had entered. Artemis's face tightened, but she still didn't shut down the Floo connection. "But I know that sometimes, silence is the best course."
Artemis's eyes closed in relief. "Yes, that is true," she whispered. "Silence, and only speaking when it's time. I am glad that you understand me, daughter." And then the Floo connection went dark, the green to the flames spluttering and dying. Ignifer shook her head.
Honoria wrapped her arms around her waist and leaned up to kiss her. "What was that about?"
"Unspeakables trying to push my father to do what they want, I think," Ignifer said, turning around to bury her face in Honoria's hair. She smelled so good, and in the past few months, Ignifer had begun to dare to allow herself to think that the smell wouldn't be snatched away from her just as she got used to it. "Or perhaps make him act against Harry."
There was silence for a moment, and then Honoria snorted.
"They're trying to push your father around?" she asked. "The man so stubborn that he's resisted reconciling with his own bloody daughter for over a bloody decade?"
"Yes," Ignifer murmured into her ear. "I wish them joy of Cupressus Apollonis." For the first time in sixteen years, she could imagine her father acting as he normally would without pain, and the subtle, inflexible rings he would spin around the Unspeakables trying to spin rings around him. Cupressus had held his own family in check with an iron will, but he had done much the same thing with the other Light-devoted families of Ireland, to the point where all of them considered him their leader. Like only Harry that Ignifer could think of, Cupressus was not afraid of the Ministry's shadow-hunters.
Honoria was laughing, Ignifer realized when she came back from her daze. "So do I," she murmured. "And now. Bed?" She tilted her head up hopefully.
Ignifer kissed her. "If you say so."
Harry yawned before he could stop himself, then winced and shook his head. He hadn't spent a productive night as far as sleep went; sometimes he'd managed to snatch a whole hour before he had to rise up and pace around his room again, because he'd had another idea or another insight or another plan to fit into place. As it went, his throat hurt with weariness, and sometimes his eyes blurred.
But he could repair that with sleep later, and he had seen things that he would never have seen if he had waited until the morning. His step as he came down the stairs was firm, and he felt a quiet confidence filling him. He was in the middle of chaos, but his priorities in the middle of that chaos were the same as they had always been: stay on the vates path, help those who looked to him for protection, continue to live and heal himself simultaneously with everything else. He thought, now, that Scrimgeour was faltering precisely because the chaos had warped his own vision of what his priorities should be.
He entered the kitchen, vaguely aware of one of the werewolves, probably Trumpetflower, walking behind him. They did seem to always keep an eye on him. Harry wondered if he should be worried by that; he doubted they had so closely observed Loki. If they couldn't trust him to take care of himself, they might not trust Harry to take care of them, and there had to be mutual trust between pack and alpha. All the research Harry had studied agreed on that.
Another thing to consider.
Only one person was in the kitchen: Draco, sitting at the table and scowling at a paper. Harry couldn't see whether it was the Prophet or the Vox Populi from this angle. He suspected it didn't matter.
Draco jerked his head up when he saw him, and stared. Harry just nodded back. He needed to—talk to Draco. That was the best description he had come up with of what he wanted to say. Not yell, of course, but "reconcile" would imply more of a breach than Harry had thought was there, and "apologize" was not entirely true. "Face the truth with," maybe.
"Good morning, Draco," Harry said quietly. "I'd like to speak with you, if you don't mind." If Draco told him to sod off, then he'd eat breakfast and go talk to someone else. Snape was a good candidate.
Draco blinked as if that were the last thing he'd expected, then looked over Harry's shoulder and scowled. Harry turned. As he'd thought, Trumpetflower stood there, amber eyes fixed on him.
"I don't want an audience," Draco snapped.
"Fine," said Harry, and caught the tail end of an astonished look on Draco's face before the Malfoy composure covered it. Really, did he think I'd refuse a reasonable request? It's only stupid things I'll refuse. Harry nodded at Trumpetflower. "We're going to my room. Will you stand guard outside it and make sure that no one interrupts?"
"She could hear something," Draco said.
"I'll cast a ward so that she can't," said Harry.
"I want to stay here," said Draco, folding his arms and scowling.
"Other people have to get in and eat breakfast," Harry said.
Draco opened his mouth, then shut it again and stood up. He watched Harry with more interest now. Harry arched an eyebrow back, gave a thin smile, then turned and led Draco out of the kitchen.
Trumpetflower caught his arm. "Wild, are you sure it's a good idea for you to be alone with him right now?" she whispered. "Loki could handle Gudrun, but they were mates. It was impossible for them to truly hurt each other."
Harry squeezed her hand. "I'll be fine, Trumpetflower, but I would appreciate it if you would talk to anyone who wants to talk to me and turn them away for right now. And, of course, not try to undo the ward so that you can listen in," he added, catching a glimpse of her wand in her shirt pocket.
Trumpetflower lowered her eyes. "We just want you to be safe, alpha, that's all," she said.
"I know," said Harry, and waited until she nodded. He could feel Draco's eyes on his back, and knew the balance of his mind was sliding more and more from angry to thoughtful. Or, at least, it should be if he was any kind of Slytherin at all.
Harry led the way up the stairs, Draco just behind him and Trumpetflower at his heels. He let Draco see him casting the ward on their room that would prevent anyone outside from listening in, even with some of the less common and cleverer eavesdropping spells. Trumpetflower took up her position as guard, and Harry walked inside with Draco and shut and spell-locked the door.
He turned around. Draco already had his arms folded again, and the mulish anger on his face. Harry doubted it was entirely genuine. Draco was going to push and see how much he could get away with, as he so often had before. Harry fought hard not to smile. Making this into a conversation between reasonable adults, instead of a shouting match, had paid off.
"What you did to me yesterday was wrong," Draco started. "You knew about that theory, and you didn't tell me!"
"I knew about the Black and Malfoy marriages, and the general truths of the Grand Unified Theory, before then," said Harry. "I am sorry for not telling you—if you can tell me that you would have accepted this at any time."
"What?" Draco blinked.
"If I had told you about this when Thomas first told me," Harry said, making sure to watch Draco's eyes, "would you have accepted it? Or would you still have been nauseated that your grandfather was a halfblood?"
Draco's eyes flicked slightly to the right before he said, "Of course I would have accepted it. It would have been in private, not making a fool out of me in front of your prat of a brother!"
Harry shook his head. "You're lying, Draco, and I don't need Legilimency to tell that, either," he added, when Draco opened his mouth to protest. "I should have handled the situation better. I can admit that. I should have done it in private. But I don't think you would have accepted it even that way."
"Why did he do that?" Draco burst out. "He must know that the only Black-Malfoy marriage in existence right now is my family's! He's making all three of us look bad. He must have done it on purpose! Why aren't you trying to exile him from the alliance for treachery against your partner and his father?"
"Because he doesn't see it that way," said Harry, blinking. He knew blood was important to Draco, but could he have truly spent time in close quarters with Thomas and not realized he wouldn't care about that? "He sees it as an interesting fact. Maybe amusing, given that those families have always said they were pureblooded to the bone. I'm sure he said more than that, and Rita Skeeter chose what to include in the article. That he did say it, I have no doubt. It's interesting to him, Draco. And that's all. He didn't mean it as an attack because he can't conceive of blood being as important to someone as it is to your family. You're still magical, and you're not research wizards, as he is. Does it matter how you got to be magical?"
"Of course it does!" Draco said.
Now we're getting somewhere. Harry leaned against the bed. "Why?"
"Because we're not Muggles," Draco said passionately. "We don't share anything with them, Harry! And even the Muggleborns like Granger—I suppose it's good that she can study the pureblood rituals and fit in, but you can't say that she's the same as we are!"
"Probably not," said Harry. "I think this came too late for a lot of people to completely change the way they feel about blood. But Hermione's children? I can see them growing up proud of who they are, not caring about the old prejudices. As Thomas said in that article, it's the future that's so exciting, more exciting than the revision of the past."
"She's not the same," Draco snapped.
Harry frowned a bit. He thought he knew where this was going, but he wanted to be sure. "Draco," he said. "I'm not going to make you change your mind, though there are some things we need to talk about with blood. But what do you want, exactly? You know that I won't just stand silent as you call Hermione a Mudblood. That's under common rules of politeness."
"I want you to believe that there's something different about her," Draco insisted. "Because there is."
Harry had to laugh, though he tried to do it as gently as possible. Draco stared at him, betrayed.
"Draco," Harry said, striving to make his words also gentle, "even if I believed that, do you think it would matter to me? I'm trying to bring centaurs, werewolves, house elves, into this alliance—all people that are far more different from you than you are from Hermione. Difference is not enough to put me off someone. Behavior would be, and if Hermione tried to use this to force you to change your mind on blood differences, well, that's wrong. So far, though, I don't know what she thinks. So far, all I have is your behavior to judge by. And it's not impressing me very much."
"It's different," Draco said, and now he was pleading. "You know that, Harry. You were raised pureblood."
Harry winced. I thought it would come back to this sooner or later. "I wasn't, Draco," he said.
Draco blinked again.
"I was abused," Harry said, though the word made his skin crawl as he said it and all his trained sensibilities want to revolt in protest, "into believing that I needed to know those rituals to win Connor allies. That is the only reason that I know as much as I do, Draco. Not interest in the rituals for their own sake. I can't think of much I'm interested in for its own sake. I was also raised with a belief that Dark was evil and Light was purely good, and that I could trust Headmaster Dumbledore before anyone else. I changed my mind on those things. Why shouldn't I change my mind on the others? Evaluate them, rather than blindly believe them? Culturally, I'm pureblood. But if that means I have prejudices, I won't hold onto them just because I was raised with them."
"But if you don't, then your blood—" Draco stopped.
"I know," said Harry calmly. "I know that my knowledge of the old dances made some of my allies look past my blood. By now, though, people like Mrs. Parkinson and Mr. Bulstrode should know me well enough not to care about that. If they don't, they can always leave the alliance." He took a step forward. "The real candidate here, Draco, the first real test, is you. Do you love me enough to actually be in love with someone who's half-Muggleborn? Or do you want to ignore it the way you always did? I'm afraid that I don't want to ignore it any longer. You believe strongly in purity of blood. If you speak up about it, though, I'm not going to be silent. I will remind you that I'm a halfblood as often as you remind me that you're a pureblood. We are equals. Nothing can change that. Unless you want to step out of the joining ritual now, of course."
Draco was silent for so long that Harry began to fear what he would say. But he steadied himself against the temptation to back off, and apologize, and say that of course it didn't matter what Draco believed, that Harry would always be there by his side to accept and support him.
It matters. Damn it, it does. And I cannot be afraid, not like this. I am vates. It's my path to grant freedom first and foremost. If Draco can't look past this, it's better that he be free of the joining ritual now, so that he can find a partner he's happier with. No one I love can wear chains.
Harry lost his train of thought as Draco let loose a little snarl and grabbed him, yanking him close and kissing him hard enough to involve much pain and little pleasure. Harry accepted it, because he thought he had his answer. He waited until it was done, and then stepped back and asked, "Well?"
"You win," Draco said. "You always do."
Harry shook his head. "Not good enough. I don't want to claim victory over you. Do you accept what it's going to be like, Draco? That this argument isn't one we can just resolve, that it's going to turn between us while we live over and around it? I don't want to have an imaginary agreement, where both of us feel constrained to never talk about blood or the Grand Unified Theory. I want to be able to argue with you."
Draco closed his eyes. "My fault for falling in love with a vates," he muttered. Then he glared at Harry. "As long as we're using honesty, I hate it when you talk about the end of the joining ritual. It makes me feel as if you want it to end."
Harry smiled. "I want it to end, but not for the reasons you think," he said.
Draco stared at him again. Then he said, "You're too good with words. Yes, damn it, all right. We live with this. And I won't call Granger a Mudblood when I see her again."
"And I apologize for not telling you earlier," said Harry.
Draco gave a short nod, then took a closer look at Harry and snorted. "You didn't sleep any better than I did last night," he said, and climbed into his own bed, patting the sheets beside him in silent invitation.
Harry hesitated only a moment before joining him. He had other things to do, that was certainly true, but what he wanted most was the courage to do them, not the time. There was nothing that had to be handled immediately, right now.
Besides, he wanted to sleep with Draco.
He settled himself carefully in the strange bed, and then found it wasn't strange at all as Draco's arms wrapped fiercely around him. Harry rested his head on Draco's shoulder and his hand on his spine.
"Someday, I'll be the one to reach out first," Draco murmured into his ear.
Harry snorted, stirring Draco's hair. "Not everything is a sacrifice," he said. "Or a debt. I wanted to talk to you, so I did. Simple as that." He closed his eyes. Weariness was coming in now like a tide, as if it had only been waiting for the moment he lay down to return.
"Nothing with you is simple," Draco whispered, and then Harry was fairly sure he fell asleep. Or maybe that was himself, remembering nothing past the moment in which Draco touched his hair, with a gentleness that felt strangely akin to awe.
Rufus had received messages from Unspeakables and magical owls and regular owls and Percy, but he had to admit that finding a letter slid under his door was new. He had come to the office at a more normal time today, and therefore had only a few moments to cast spells on the envelope, looking for hexes, before Percy strode in with the Vox Populi swinging from his hands.
"Look at this, sir!"
Rufus examined the article, and his mouth tightened. Of course Hornblower was claiming that Unspeakables had attacked the Maenad Press. It was the kind of thing he would claim, the kind of story that he would wave in the air as a banner, trying to rally the masses. The problem was, this time he was only one factor among many troublesome ones, and the rallying might actually work.
"What's that, sir?" Percy had caught sight of the letter.
"I don't know who it's from, yet," said Rufus. He was sure that it could not be from the Department of Mysteries; they would have come to him themselves, rather than send a letter, and in any case they usually used gray parchment and an hourglass sigil. "I found it shoved under my door this morning."
Percy narrowed his eyes. "And no one saw anything?"
"No." Rufus knew Percy didn't trust Wilmot, though Percy couldn't say why; he just shuffled his feet and looked embarrassed when Rufus asked. "And I don't think there are any spells on it." Nevertheless, he cast a spell that would hang the letter in the air a distance from him, then cast yet another that would slit open the envelope. Inelegantly, the three sheets of paper tucked inside tumbled out.
Rufus examined what he could see. It wasn't a letter. It appeared to be pages ripped from a book. He frowned and cast another spell. But the Deprendo revealed no sign of magic on the pages, Dark or otherwise. Rufus felt safe, at last, to pick them up, shuffle them, and read them.
They began in the middle of a sentence, which wasn't helpful, but Rufus quickly discovered why his mysterious correspondent had wanted him to see them.
--did not believe in the loyalty of those who would have sworn themselves to the shadows. He was a Light Lord, and fierce with it, a deadly opponent of any such thing as secrecy. He asked how the newly formed Ministry could have a Department that worked in the shadows and yet be the bastion of justice for the wizarding world that it was supposed to be.
The first Unspeakable, whose name has passed into history only as the First, reassured him. "We have one artifact already that we have studied and understand the purpose of," he said.
This artifact was the Stone, a great gray block at least ten feet high, and ornamented with white runes. The Light Lord examined it, and admitted it was undeclared, neutral magic, neither Dark nor Light. But he demanded a demonstration of how the Stone would keep the Unspeakables loyal to the Ministry.
The First laid his arm upon it, and cut his palm in the manner of someone securing a life debt oath. "I swear that I will be loyal to the Stone," he said. "And the Stone serves the Ministry. I cannot lie, save in the service of the Stone. I cannot hurt others, save in the service of the Stone. I cannot vanish into the shadows, save in the service of the Stone."
Those oaths are the ones all Unspeakables have taken from that day to this one, and the Stone has kept them loyal. Minister after Minister has been pleased to accept those oaths. The Unspeakables are chosen by the Stone; they do not choose themselves. Promising recruits who cannot accept the oaths and subordinate their wills to the Stone's do not join the Department of Mysteries. The Stone itself is the product of another world—for similar artifacts, one may consider the Maze that traditionally sits within the Potter home of Lux Aeterna—and it cannot be fooled as the artifacts of this world may be.
It is worth noting, since it is so often claimed as a folk story, that the Light Lord Seaborn was not satisfied with the Unspeakables' explanation. He asked how they could know that the Stone was loyal to the Ministry, and they told him that the Stone spoke in their heads. They invited him to put his hands on the Stone and listen. But the Light Lord Seaborn expressed a strange reluctance to do so, saying that he feared his own will would be taken.
Yet every Minister from that day to this who has been introduced to the Stone has agreed that its purposes are the Ministry's. They know it, as perhaps only the Unspeakables otherwise do. Those of us outside the Ministry are fortunate to even know the Unspeakables' oaths. But the will of the Stone, once sworn to, cannot be broken. Unspeakables may seem to do wrong in the public's eye, but they do, always and only, what will advance the goals of the Stone, and thus of the Ministry.
Rufus swallowed. He had known that, of course, though not the specific details about the Light Lord Seaborn. He had known the Unspeakables served the Stone, and that they could not break their oaths. He had known that even the traitors could not really be traitors, not in the sense of acting against the Ministry, and therefore they must have simply interpreted the Stone's orders wrongly. He had been willing to grant the loyal Unspeakables time to find them, because they were still his people, and they had acted wrongly out of the best of motives, not out of fear as Amelia had. It had to be the best of motives. The Stone guaranteed that.
But he had not known the Stone was from another world.
And he should trust the Stone so much only if he remembered meeting it and hearing from its own mind that its sworn companions served the Ministry.
But he did not remember meeting it.
"Sir?" That was Percy, and he sounded concerned, but he also sounded as if he were speaking from a very long distance away. "Is something wrong?"
Rufus shook his head and looked back at the pages. And that was when he saw that some of the letters on the pages were circled, faint marks that would hardly show up unless someone were looking for them. He would have pulled a piece of parchment from his desk and written the circled letters down, but suddenly he was oppressively aware, as he had never been before, of the wards that ran throughout the Ministry, allowing the Unspeakables to watch what went on. They had been strengthened in his office, for his own protection, of course.
Sick doubt filled his belly. He had believed the Unspeakables blindly, as he only should have after meeting the Stone. The sense of serene confidence described in these pages suited him perfectly.
And he could not remember meeting it.
He ran his eyes over the letters on the page instead, memorizing them. He had used to be fairly good at acronyms and codes when he was an Auror. Then he snorted and crumpled the pages up, tossing them in the air with a snarled, "Incendio."
Percy gasped as ashes drifted down. "Sir?" he asked.
"Damn pages were trying to put a compulsion on me as I read them," said Rufus, wondering if the Unspeakables' wards could pick up his heart beating in his ears like a frightened hare's. "Time-delayed spell. Trying to fill my head with stuff and nonsense about our allies."
Percy looked outraged. "And it was Harry who was doing that to you, sir?"
I must walk a tightrope. I must not let the Unspeakables know that I suspect what they are doing to me. If they are doing it to me. If Harry really is right, and they were lying.
They cannot lie, I thought.
Save in the service of the Stone.
"It must have been," said Rufus. "There were no identifying marks on the papers, but who else would have a reason to try?" He shook his head. "And compulsion, too. It seems that he has slipped from his vates path."
I must be careful. If they took me to meet the Stone and I do not remember it, Merlin knows what else they could do to me.
He provided a sympathetic ear to Percy's outrage, while he rearranged the circled letters on the pages in his head. It didn't take long. The message was too short to be a sentence, only thirteen letters long. It was obviously a name, and in a few moments he had it, if only because that name had drifted across his mind more than once in the past few days.
Aurelius Flint.
Rufus let out a sharp breath as he considered that. Other people in the Ministry were willing to play chess on his side, if he let them. At least, he thought that was what this message meant.
And he needed allies. Reaching out to Harry would only reveal to the Unspeakables what he knew. They had stopped Harry's post reaching him—and didn't that make more sense than Harry just refusing to answer letters, out of boyish pride or not?—and they had altered his memory. Rufus was far more vulnerable to them than Harry was. He would have to play his cards so close to his chest for now that not even Harry could be allowed to see their faces.
For now, he must maintain the tense status quo, dancing between balancing the Department Heads and his own power, and now he had to add the Unspeakable as malevolent partners.
His gaze wandered across the room and fell on the portrait of his grandmother Leonora. She gave him a serene smile.
Rufus narrowed his eyes, and wondered if Aurelius Flint had a portrait in his own office.
Harry stood outside Snape's door for a long moment. He didn't want to do this. He wanted to do this even less than he had wanted to confront Draco. There, there was at least the chance that Draco would reach out to him, because of the love they shared and because Draco couldn't bear arguing with him. Snape had not seemed interested in reaching out to him halfway.
It didn't matter, though. Not after this morning.
Aware of the person waiting around the corner, Harry reached up and rapped on the door.
Small sounds from inside the room, sounds of cursing and pacing, went quiet. Harry waited. Snape must have some means of identifying him. Harry would let five minutes pass, then knock again.
The door opened after three minutes. Snape stared at him without expression. Perhaps he expected a scolding, Harry thought. Perhaps an apology. Well, he was about to get neither. Harry really didn't have time for either. And he had someone on his side who would do a far better job of the scolding than he could. That person had the time, the interest, and the lack of personal connection that Harry now thought were key to helping Snape. He loved Snape so much that he backed off when he saw that he was hurting him. And perhaps if Snape's dysfunction had remained in snapping at Harry and silently fuming at himself, then that would have been enough.
Not after this morning, though. Not after Harry had heard raised voices in the entrance hall of Cobley-by-the-Sea, and then heard a curse he recognized, followed by a shriek and the scent of burning hair and skin. If Harry had not been there, if he had not known the countercurse to Ardesco, and if he had not dropped the wards on the house long enough to Apparate with her to Hogwarts and the hospital wing, he knew Camellia would have died.
Snape had cursed one of the werewolves. Understandable, perhaps, with the full moon only two nights away, and the house's main focus, including Harry's, on brewing Wolfsbane and making plans to protect the pack from the Department for the Control and Suppression of Deadly Beasts.
But he had stepped past the point where Harry could allow this to continue. The rest of the pack was silent, but it was a threatening kind of silence. They lay in an immense pile for comfort in the middle of Cobley-by-the-Sea's biggest room, their amber eyes shining in the dimness when Harry looked at them. He had told them that it would never happen again, and that he would deal with Snape.
They had watched him. They were shaken, Harry knew. They had depended on their alpha to protect them, and he had not. They would be questioning whether they could trust him now. They would definitely not trust Snape. The temptation during the full moon to slip out of the rooms in which they would otherwise lock themselves, pad down the hall, and chew through Snape's door…
Harry bowed his head. This had gone too far. He had tried to balance Snape's free will and the free wills of the werewolves, and had ended up giving too much free rein to Snape's.
Snape wasn't healing. Harry bore the onus of having waited so long to try and heal him. He looked up into Snape's eyes, and said, "I'm sending you away. To Hogwarts, in fact. I notice that you haven't given Headmistress McGonagall your resignation, so you still plan to teach Potions and act as the Head of Slytherin House. That's fine. But you'll have to spend the last few days before the start of term preparing at the school itself."
Snape said nothing. Harry had expected that. Snape had said nothing for too long. Perhaps I should have left him in the Sanctuary, Harry thought, or denied his request to come with me in the first place. But that would have stepped on his free will, too. These are the costs of being vates
"I can't force you to leave," said Harry. "I know that. And I can't just leave you to hurt, for both your sake and others'. What happened to Camellia could happen to someone else at Hogwarts."
Snape finally spoke, his words glistening dark as pitch. "Did you know that she was the werewolf who attacked me, held me, and threatened to infect me, that day by the lake?"
Harry blinked. "No. I didn't recognize her."
"She was." Snape's voice held only a little of what Harry knew must be a rushing torrent of hatred.
"Did she threaten to infect you now?" Harry asked, making sure to keep his voice calm and toneless.
Snape looked away from him.
"I thought not," Harry said. "You're going, sir. And I'll send someone with you to help you and make sure that you don't curse anyone else." He nodded to the corner, and Joseph stepped around it, his eyes fearless and patient and fixed on Snape. "Regardless, you are not welcome in this house. You used magic against someone under my protection."
"I never swore the oaths of the Alliance of Sun and Shadow," Snape snarled.
"And because of that, you think I'll allow you to curse anyone you want?" Harry narrowed his eyes, and let Snape catch a glimpse of his own anger. "No. You've stepped too far. I've tried to help. You've slapped my hand away, except for short periods that I hoped might be signs of healing, or balancing. I can't help you. I know that, I've tried, and I've failed. I'm exhausted. If you really wanted to fester in your own bitterness, I would have been content to let you do it, because that only hurts you and me, but not this. Not this," he repeated, because now Snape was staring at him as if he didn't understand.
"You cannot—" he began.
"He can," said Joseph, and his voice was merciless. "You haven't been acting like a guardian towards him lately. He's been playing the role of parent to you, and you've reacted, at best, like a sulky child. But sulky children don't nearly kill other people because of insults." Harry was glad that Joseph wasn't talking to him like that; he'd never heard anyone, even Snape himself, muster so scathing a tone of disappointment. "Come with me, now."
He reached out and clasped Snape's arm firmly, while Snape was still too astonished to protest. The Portkey he held in his other hand activated then, and the swirl of colors caught them up and washed them away. Harry closed his eyes. He'd obtained the Portkey from McGonagall while he was at Hogwarts. Harry would send Peter later with Snape's Potions equipment, most of which was too heavy for an owl to fly.
He hadn't realized, when this started, how much faith it was going to take him. He had trusted Snape, and too much. Now he had to trust that what he was doing was for the best, that what actually mattered was giving Snape another chance to prove himself while making sure he couldn't hurt others.
This is probably why Willoughby and other people want to bring me to trial. They don't trust me any more, and why should they?
Harry straightened with a shake of his head. That was done. He would go and speak with the pack now, and make it clear that he took his responsibility as their alpha seriously.
He loved Snape, but he couldn't permit him to lash out cursing werewolves left and right, any more than he could let Draco blindly hurt Connor.
Or vice versa. I've made two mistakes now, going along with that prank and letting Snape stay here without a check on his animosity for so long, and I'm only lucky the consequences haven't been more devastating.
What do I do?
Watch out, of course. And try not to make any more.
Minerva was prepared for it when Severus and his Seer appeared in her office. If she had not been prepared for it, she would not have given Harry that Portkey in the first place. As it was, she sat primly behind her desk, hands folded. She had already been to see the burned young werewolf in the hospital wing, and the sight had filled her with a rage that she had not felt against Severus in all the years they had been colleagues.
May I remind him of the teacher he faced during his years as a student here. Perhaps that will get through to him where nothing else will.
The Portkey spun the two figures out in a whirl of colors in even less time than Harry had told her it would probably take. Severus was staggering, as he obviously hadn't expected to come this way, and he pulled away from the other man in a moment, his wand raised high, a curse on his lips—
Minerva raised an eyebrow. The wards around the school, back under her control after the tearing down and rebuilding Harry had helped her with in the spring, snapped taut, and all Dark Arts magic in the room abruptly ceased to function. That affected no one but Severus, of course. His curse failed, and for a moment he stared at his wand as if it had betrayed him.
"That is enough," said Minerva, making sure to keep her voice smooth and cold, the way the lake froze in winter. "Severus."
Severus turned and looked at her, but said nothing. Minerva understood his glare, well enough not to wither under it. Severus was a frightened boy in one part of himself, and someone had dug up that part and put it on display.
"My name is Joseph," said his Seer, bowing and drawing Minerva's attention. His face was the calmest she'd ever seen, though a hint of frustration appeared when he looked at Severus. "I'll be staying in the dungeons to help the Potions Master heal. I hope that you don't mind."
"I wouldn't have agreed to accept him back without your company," said Minerva crisply, and that, at least, made Severus pay attention to her.
"Minerva," he whispered.
"I would have contacted Professor Slughorn and told him that I needed him to return," Minerva said. "It's true, Severus," she added, as the betrayed look on his face grew further. "I saw the young woman you cursed. She'll be lucky if she manages to grow any hair on her face again. What is the matter with you, that you would use Ardesco on someone outside of battle?" Her own frustration and fear bled through in her voice. She could see how badly Severus needed the sanctuary of Hogwarts, the work he was used to doing, the protection of people who understood him, but Remus Lupin could be argued to need the same things. Minerva had sent him away without hesitation when it became obvious that Remus was a danger to the children she had sworn to protect. If it came to it, she would do the same thing to Severus. She would not play favorites in this, and though Severus might tell himself so, it had nothing to do with Slytherin and Gryffindor.
"She insulted me," said Severus at last, every line in his body tight with rage.
"And you replied with a curse instead of that cutting tongue of yours?" Minerva made every line in her own face tight with disapproval. She was thinking of the boy Severus had been, caught in a spiraling circle of hatred with the Marauders, and how it seemed that he had now turned outward and wielded that hatred upon others. The image of the burned woman in the hospital wing vied with the image of young Severus in her mind's eye. She had failed him, she could admit that—she felt she had failed every student who had gone to Voldemort—but she could not stand aside because of that and allow him to visit the consequences of her failure on others. "I do not believe you could think of no insults equal to what she had done."
"I will not—"
"You will," Minerva told him. "These are the conditions of your employment here at Hogwarts, Severus. I am making Filius Deputy Headmaster. I am going to inquire personally after your talks with Joseph. And if you curse any of your students, even with something so mild as boils, I will sack you."
Severus said nothing. Minerva recognized the mask he'd bolted over his face now. She had seen it too many times in the years when Albus sat in her place, and she felt the familiar frustration sweeping over her. The temptation to back off and leave him to stew in his own bitterness was strong.
Save that, now, she was the one in the position of protecting the students from him, not Albus. And she did not have the hold over him that Albus had. She had to make sure that he understood her, and if he could not accept the terms, then she would sack him now.
"Very well," Severus said. His voice had become its bored, mocking drawl again. "I accept, Headmistress. Now, if you will excuse me, I will scuttle back into my dungeons, where I belong." He bowed and strode quickly for the door.
Joseph followed him. Minerva frowned, but he turned, gave her a reassuring nod, and kept on following Snape.
If he can see his soul, and still wants to help him, then I suppose that there is hope, Minerva thought, and rubbed her brow, sighing.
Then she turned back to testing the wards. Contrary to what Severus might think, her tasks did not all revolve around tormenting him.
Harry came down to breakfast the morning after the first full moon night of August feeling hopeful. His pack had stayed in the Black houses during their change, all given Wolfsbane, most sleeping beyond locked doors. Camellia had returned to them, healed of her burns by Madam Pomfrey's skill, and if she had demanded that Harry stay with her when she became a werewolf, well, she had the right to demand that. Harry had found some moments of surreal comfort in pacing up and down the halls of Cobley-by-the-Sea with a huge dark werewolf at his side, and even in watching the hippocampi with her.
Those allies of his he'd delegated to watch the werewolf packs in London—Honoria, Ignifer, Narcissa, Tybalt, and John—had contacted him near dawn with reports of success. No Department hunters had come after the packs there. Harry knew there might be reports of new hunts in the Daily Prophet, but he was thinking there probably wouldn't be. Most other werewolves in Britain didn't live in packs, but as scattered individuals, and the majority of them had refused the collars and identification papers. The hunters would have to stumble on one by sheer good luck.
He picked up the Prophet, glanced at the first page, and had his hope destroyed by the headline.
DEADLY WEREWOLF MURDER
Harry took a deep breath, and read.
Members of the Department for the Control and Suppression of Deadly Beasts are recovering this morning after a deadly attack on their headquarters last night by a werewolf.
"He was only one, but he was a monster," said one hunter, Gerald Darkling, 53. "He had white fur, and he moved like a lightning bolt, and none of our spells could affect him, even when they hit him. He bit anyone who got in the way, but he tore Felicia apart. What's left of her doesn't look human."
Felicia was Felicia Joyborn, one of three Department hunters who killed two werewolves last month…
Harry closed his eyes. That would have told him, even if the description of the werewolf hadn't, what had happened. Loki had taken vengeance on one of the murderers of his mate.
Harry rubbed his forehead tiredly. He'd given warning about Loki's possible future attacks in the interview he'd granted Skeeter, in the letters he'd posted to Scrimgeour—which he now knew had never reached their destinations—and in a few messages he'd tried having Fred and George pass to Amelia Bones for him, since he doubted she would listen to what he had to say.
And it hadn't worked.
Harry could see the path stretching ahead. The papers had been full of the chatter about the Grand Unified Theory in the past few days, but this would bring the werewolf issue back into focus. The Department had been ravaged, one of their members murdered and others made into werewolves. The outcry against the packs would rise again, especially once someone figured out who the attacker must have been. The Unspeakables would be able to push through, with much less resistance, laws that made the collaring and identifying of werewolves mandatory. Harry would have to work hard to disassociate the packs he was protecting from this madness, if anyone would believe him in any case.
All for Loki's vengeance.
This is why I hate revenge, Harry thought dully. Because it never affects only those people it's supposed to affect. It splashes more widely, and it makes one person's rage more important than the free wills of all the rest.
He took a deep breath and stood. He had a pack to reassure. He had speeches to prepare, since some of the reporters would want to talk to him, and Hornblower would probably contact him about an article for the Vox Populi.
And he had Department hunters to offer support to—both the newly-made werewolves, and those two hunters left who were now in danger from Loki's teeth. Politics did make for strange bedfellows, indeed.
And who said this would be easy?
