Chapter Thirty: A War Within Their Hearts and Minds
"Come in, Severus."
She had known it would come to this someday, Minerva told herself as she watched Severus stride into her office and sit down in the chair in front of her desk. Yes, other parents might have been able to refrain from following their children into battle, but most of those parents didn't teach in Hogwarts, and none of their children were engaged in raising rebellion against the Ministry. And none of the parents were Severus, and none of the children were Harry.
In the moments before Severus began to speak, Minerva had time to study his eyes, and know she was losing him. Perhaps she had lost him long ago. His first loyalty had never been to the school. It had been to Albus at one point, the man who had rescued him from the darkness and given him a life worth living. Then it had been to Harry, and it had stayed that way even through arrests and battles and losses.
Best to accept that she would always have had a temporary Potions Professor and Deputy Headmaster in him, rather than a permanent one.
"You will need to hire Slughorn to fulfill the Potions position, Minerva," he said, his voice astonishingly composed. "I fear that I can no longer give you my best service. He has years of experience. He will also make a good Head of Slytherin House. He understands those who do not have problems that consume the whole world." And Severus smiled, faintly, the first time Minerva had seen him do so since the term began. "I have not understood them in some time."
Minerva nodded, a deep stickiness in her throat that prevented her from speaking for long moments. It felt like the Sugar Quills she no longer ate for this very reason. "You are going to join Harry?"
"I did not say that."
And she saw the deep lines carved around his mouth, and the wariness in his eyes, and realized that he did not know, even now, if she might turn him over to the Ministry if he admitted his destination.
Impulse made her lean across the desk between them and put her hand on his arm. Severus tried to sit back, or sit up, and reach for his wand. Minerva maintained her grip, staring into his eyes. It was rare that anyone who knew he was a Legilimens did that, and it gave him enough pause for Minerva to have her say.
"I am on Hogwarts's side in this battle," she said. "The side of Hogwarts is not the side of the Ministry. You are one of my students, and so is Harry. I would never betray either of you to the Aurors, Severus."
"You may not have a choice." His mouth was tight, his eyes shadowed, and still he looked better than he had on most days he taught Potions. "Not if the Unspeakables, who are also his enemies, come. They will take the information from you before you know what they are doing. They will insure that you can tell no one else about it, and that you do not even remember their visit."
"They cannot corrupt Godric, or the other Founders," said Minerva. "Godric assured me of this. The anchor-stones are older than the vast majority of the Unspeakables' artifacts. Do not worry about me, Severus. I have my own defenses. Leave me to guard your back, and go to your son."
He stared at her, and Minerva tilted her head up, letting his sight flare into her mind and soul. He would read everything there. He would read the determination to protect Hogwarts and her children; he would read the difference between what she wanted to do and what she could do; he would read how she had resolved that particular battle, by making herself into a protective Gryffindor lion and insuring that no one would be able to use her or her inner knowledge of Harry as a political weapon.
He lowered his head, and blinked. Minerva waited. It was by far the deepest Legilimency she had ever suffered from Severus, and it made her head hurt. But if it reassured him, then it was worth it, it was all worth it.
And then Severus said, "I never understood you," and it made her want to cry, and her throat burn fiercely that she could not, after all, go with him.
"No, you didn't," she said quietly.
He said nothing more, and he didn't apologize. He stood and walked out of the office, with nothing more than a quick head-bob.
Minerva sat back and closed her eyes. She felt a hand on her shoulder: Helga, deepest and quietest of the Founders, coming to soothe her in this moment. That she could not do anything else didn't help, because she had acted in accordance with responsibility and duty.
But if she had been able to act solely for herself, then she would rather have followed Harry to battle. Gryffindors might be born to protect, but they were also born to go to war.
The choice she had made did not invalidate that part of herself, and never would.
Her head hurt.
Priscilla drank a headache potion, choking at the taste. She had never liked it, but she had never liked the way that her headaches tended to linger for hours unless she drank one, either. It was rare that she had headaches any more, and even rarer the ones like this one, bristling across her forehead like bones shifting beneath the skin.
She set aside the vial when she was done, and leaned back in the chair, and closed her eyes. The dragonhide pushed against her neck, smooth and soft and comforting. That didn't ease the feeling that the rest of her body was a wishbone tugged on by two impatient children.
She owed allegiances in both directions in this damn war, and she had no idea what to do.
Priscilla had hoped that matters would resolve when she went to Harry, which had been the reason that she had agreed instantly when Rufus offered the mission to her. If she could just persuade him out of starting a war, then her course would be clear. The rebellion would collapse without him. Thomas would come home. He might have to spend some time in Tullianum, but Priscilla was confident she could win him free. Harry was the one they all wanted, the prominent criminal. No one would care about a man who fired a few curses at Aurors to give them six legs, next to that.
And she would have answered her own honor, which had driven her to join the Aurors in the first place. It was not right that some people might getter better treatment than others, that passions might rule over reason. If a murderer was killed because the Aurors let a member of the murder victim's family into the criminal's cell—while the criminal was chained and had no wand—then that was not justice. Priscilla disliked rage. She distrusted fanatics. She preferred the rules that the Department of Magical Law Enforcement used, because they were at least rules and they said that someone arrested for a particularly bad prank and someone arrested for being a Death Easter both still had the right to breathe without pain, to eat, to drink, and to stay distant from vengeance-obsessed relatives.
Before Harry had sent the Dementors away, the Aurors had had holding cells in the Ministry for those criminals who hadn't been sentenced yet, or who were to serve lesser punishments than going to Azkaban. Priscilla had preferred that. The cells were either in the Department itself or scattered on other floors. It was possible to know in an instant, or have someone see it, if a prisoner was being mistreated. It wasn't possible in Azkaban, of course, with how rarely inspections came there, but at least in Azkaban one knew the prisoners had already been tried and sentenced, and they had been handled humanely before then.
And then had come Tullianum, with holding of sentenced criminals and criminals awaiting trial all in one place. More to the point, it was near the Department of Mysteries, and far away from the rest of the Ministry.
Inspections were rare now, and abuse was easier to hide.
Priscilla was disgusted and sickened to realize just how easy.
The Aurors were not what they had been, not if fear could push them to hurt werewolves that way. Priscilla had assumed that most of her people believed about werewolves what she did: they were monsters three times a month, and there were laws against them that one might feel one way or the other about, but a werewolf in custody was the same as any other prisoner. It wasn't up to Aurors to change the laws. It was up to them to enforce them, and to act with honor.
And now she found out that wasn't true.
She could not remain where she was.
On the other hand, she could not go to Harry. He had enacted no neutral standard, either. He would kill those who opposed him. Priscilla believed him when he said that he was willing to do anything to secure political freedom for werewolves and other magical creatures, whether he said that by word or by magic. That meant no limitations. That might mean a code of honor for prisoners and the like, but she had no way of telling that. And what would happen if he caught the people who had attacked the werewolf packs yesterday, or those of her Aurors who had abused Hawthorn Parkinson? Could they expect mercy?
Priscilla would have said yes a while ago, when Harry still acted within limitations. Now she horribly feared the answer was no. If Harry had set himself up as judge and executioner, then it almost certainly was.
She could not go to him on the off chance that she might make things better. She was no clever thinker, to come up with new laws. She enforced them, and she would not be able to stand by and silent if Harry insisted on doing things without the rule of law, or fudged matters because one person was a werewolf and another wasn't. She would only be a thorn in his side, rather than a help.
And neither could she remain in the hypocritical Ministry that had betrayed everything she believed in.
Priscilla took a deep breath, drew out parchment and quill and ink, and began to write her resignation.
"I don't know how to react. This is so far outside anything that I ever imagined happening."
Connor had listened to an answer like that for the last few days. He had always been patient. He had always patted Parvati's shoulder, and told her that he understood, and that he found it overwhelming sometimes, too. Then she would turn around and lean her head on his shoulder and cry, and Connor could stroke her hair and marvel over how ordinary all this was, and how it wasn't the kind of life he would have expected to have after twelve years as the Boy-Who-Lived. He liked it that Parvati wasn't a shining heroine of the kind that his mother had once whispered he would marry, because no one else deserved him. She was someone he had to work to deserve, just as he was sometimes a person she had to work to deserve.
But he thought this particular phase had gone on for long enough. They were Gryffindors. They ought to face what was bothering them. Parvati was hiding from the monster under the bed. Connor, though, thought that the best way to get rid of a monster hiding under the bed was to challenge it to a duel.
"Parvati," he said.
As if she knew what he would say, her shoulders tensed, and she stared at the far wall of the sixth-year boys' room, empty except for them. Ron had cleared out easily, with a look Connor didn't have to work hard to interpret. Seamus and Dean were working on homework down in the Gryffindor common room. Neville was—somewhere.
"I think we have to choose how to react," Connor went on. "Draco joined Harry, and he's loyal to him. And most of Harry's allies are Dark wizards. If we think they're doing the right thing, then we have to accept the fact that sometimes Dark wizards can do the right thing."
"We don't know if they're right," Parvati whispered.
"You think the Ministry is?" Connor would be thunder-struck if she thought that. She had often told him how much she liked Remus, and how she wished he could have come back to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts. She was not prejudiced. Connor knew his girlfriend better than that.
"No," said Parvati. "But I just don't think that anyone is. How can they be? They ought to talk to each other, not toss around magic like they don't know what they're doing."
Connor thought for a moment. "Harry's burst of magic frightened you, didn't it?" he asked. She had done strange things before when she was frightened. Managed to hold innocent remarks against Harry, for example. She had also held not-so-innocent remarks against Draco, but Connor couldn't blame her for that. He had done the same thing, and he wasn't afraid of Draco; he just thought he was a right git most of the time.
"Yes," said Parvati, tense as a bowstring, sitting with her arms wrapped around herself. Connor wanted to hug her, but she looked as if she would shrug off the embrace, so he kept his hands at his side. "How could—I didn't know that he was that powerful, Connor. It was enough magic to destroy the school."
"Yes," Connor had to agree, because he really didn't think she was wrong. "But he didn't."
"But imagine if he came back and got angry," Parvati whispered. "What if he wasn't able to restrain himself? What if he hurt someone?"
"He's restrained himself so far," said Connor, and felt his face heat up. "Think of the patience he had with us during that last week he was here. Do you think he wouldn't have made our heads explode if he really wanted to? He must have wanted to, and it didn't happen. I don't think you need to worry about my brother's self-control, Parvati. Besides," he added, because he knew this had been a problem between Harry and Parvati somehow, though he still didn't know exactly how, "you know that I love him and want to spend time around him. Would I really want to do that if he was a barely leashed killer?"
"I don't know," Parvati whispered, ducking her head. "I just really don't know, Connor. I told you that I needed to have time to think about this."
Connor narrowed his eyes. "And you've had some time. Now tell me your decision. Are you going to start saying tomorrow that you support Harry? Or are you just going to sit in scared silence like all the other rabbits?"
"It's not that simple," said Parvati. "Maybe you can trust him because he's your brother. But what if he got angry at me and decided that he needed me gone?" She rushed on before Connor could object to that. "I did trust him before, somewhat. He went through all those awful curses the Ravenclaws fired at him, and never lost his temper. But this rebellion, and the magic he released—he's changed, hasn't he? How do we know he isn't going to come back to the school and be so different that he might hurt someone, even if it is accidentally?"
"We don't," said Connor evenly. "But we can't go around living in fear, Parvati. It's stupid and not very Gryffindor. And I swore the oaths of the Alliance of Sun and Shadow, that I would think rationally before I acted. I wasn't thinking of those around Harry and Malfoy. Now I'm trying to do better. And I say that we give Harry a chance. Until he actually make someone else's head explode, I don't think there's a reason to believe he will."
Parvati sat in silence, head bowed.
"Well?" Connor prodded her.
She looked up at him, eyes flashing, and he realized they'd stepped beyond the boundary of her tolerance. "I do have the right to think about this on my own, you know," she snapped. "You made up your own mind quickly, but that doesn't mean that I need to.
"Yes, you need to," said Connor, his own temper rising. "Because I need to know if I can count on my girlfriend to support me, or not." So far, there was little open opposition to Harry's rebellion in the school, but there were lots of stares and loud questions about whether Connor was sure that Harry was right. It was lonely. He wanted Parvati to stand at his side, or make up her mind to stand on the opposite one. Then he could argue with her, loudly, and have a different way of handling things.
Parvati shook her head, furiously, and her eyes shone with both anger and tears. "Don't push me, Connor. It's not that simple. It's not."
"So you're on the opposite one, for right now," said Connor, and pushed back from the bed, and stood up. "All right, then. That's really all I wanted to know." He glared at her. "So you can leave, now. This is my room, after all."
"Shared with four others," said Parvati, but she tossed her hair and got off the bed. "We're going to talk about this later, Connor," she said, catching his gaze and holding it.
Connor had one of those surges of intuition that he received sometimes from Merlin knew where. "Why?" he asked quietly. "Why are you surprised? You were the one who claimed to know how important spending time with my brother was to me, and you were the one who comforted me when Harry was too busy to notice. Are you actually surprised that I don't want to choose between you? Or were you counting on me to choose you?"
Parvati turned away and padded to the door, but not before he saw her deeply wounded look. Connor stifled the impulse to go after her and apologize, and instead flopped down on his bed and crossed his arms over his chest, huffing.
He was right, damn it.
This was really dangerous. She couldn't even Apparate. And if her family found out what she was doing, then they would punish her so severely that she cringed just thinking about it. She'd probably have to have a guard every time she left the Gryffindor common room, and her mum would probably get Hermione to do it. And Hermione would do it, because she would be horrified, too.
But Ginny didn't care. She had felt Harry's magic, and it had inspired in her a yearning she'd never felt before, to be there. It wasn't as if she could concentrate on homework lately, anyway. Who cared about writing some stupid three-foot essay on the proper way to prepare chopped liondragon scales, where there was a war going on out there and she had to be part of it?
She'd packed all her clothes and all her school things; she wasn't going to leave something behind, just in case they found her gone before she could reach Harry's valley and got Hermione to cast a tracking spell on something she owned, which Ginny had heard Hermione talking about being able to do. Her trunk was shrunken and in her pocket; she'd had to wait a day because she hadn't mastered the Shrinking Charm on the first try. She had left the common room with a casual remark about homework and the library, carrying a book; she didn't think anyone had noticed it was one of her textbooks, which she shrank the moment she was out of sight and tucked in her robe pocket, too.
Then she walked briskly towards the Quidditch shed, looking over her shoulder every now and then, but trying not to be too obvious about it. She was a Chaser on the Gryffindor team this year, and she could claim that she wanted to go to a late practice if someone caught her. It was late, but not that late, just before dinner.
She planned to get on her broom and fly west and south. She knew how to keep out of sight of Muggles; that was one thing Arthur Weasley had taught all his children early, since they lived near plenty of them. And the track of Harry's magic was still hanging in the air, the sweet delicious smell of it. Ginny knew she could follow it.
She made it down the stairs to the first floor. She made it through the stampede of students heading for the Great Hall early. She made it to the doors.
"Ginny?"
Ginny felt her back stiffen and her fingers twitch, reaching for her wand; the instincts Moody had trained into them for the Midsummer battle last year were still functioning. Then she reminded herself that the whole point was not to be caught, and there were still people passing towards the Great Hall. She couldn't act like this was anything unusual.
She turned around and pasted a smile on her face. "Yes, Neville?"
Neville blinked at her and shuffled his feet. "Where—where are you going?" he asked. He had a pot in one hand, and a plant in it. Ginny didn't recognize it on a quick glance. He was probably taking it out to one of the greenhouses, though.
"Out to practice," said Ginny. At least Neville wasn't on the Quidditch team, and was unlikely to know their schedule. "I missed the Quaffle seven times during our last practice, can you believe it?" She faked a little laugh, and hoped no one was listening, because it sounded horrible to her.
"Oh. B-but—" Neville bit his lip, then took a deep breath and said, "But Ron is in the Great Hall already. So how can there be a practice?"
Damn. Damn bloody damn. Ginny controlled the impulse to just Stun Neville and make a run for it. She might make it to the Quidditch pitch and grab her broom before anyone stopped her, but it was unlikely.
On the other hand, Neville had been part of the dueling club, too, and he'd fought in the Midsummer battle. There was the chance that he just might understand. Ginny darted a glance left and right, and saw no one watching them. Even the cluster of Hufflepuffs passing right by were talking about dinner and speculating about whether there would be treacle tart for dessert tonight.
"Listen, Neville," she said, and stared into his eyes. She'd found that intimidated people. "I'm running away to join Harry."
"Why?" Neville whispered. At least he had the sense to keep his voice down.
"Because I feel so useless here," said Ginny bluntly. "And there might be something I can do there." She winced as she said the next words, but she had to say them. Moody had taught them too well. Useless bodies in battle weren't worth the time it took to protect them. "I can fight, if he needs someone to do that. And even if he just needs people to chop potions ingredients and help with mundane tasks like cooking—because he's not getting food from house elves, now—I'd rather do that there than here. I feel like—I have to do something to help. I can't just sit in Hogwarts and ignore what's happening."
Neville considered her for a long moment. Ginny shifted from foot to foot, and hoped he wouldn't make it much longer. Someone was bound to start looking at them sooner or later. If he did it for a minute more, Ginny promised herself, she would Stun him and run, consequences be damned.
Finally, he smiled. Ginny blinked, her hope rising. Does he understand? Is he going to let me go?
"You can come with me," Neville whispered.
Ginny stared at him. "What?"
Neville flushed pink, but nodded. "I—he asked me to research plants that could help stop Indigena Yaxley," he said. He hefted the pot in his hand. "I've finally developed this, but Professor Sprout said that she doesn't want to send the seeds to Harry. She had relatives killed by werewolves too, y'see. So I'm taking the plants to him, and then, if he tells me to leave, I will."
"How are you going to get there?" Ginny whispered back. Neville was hopeless on a broom.
"Gran's taking me," said Neville proudly, his ears picking up the flush from his face. "She said that she's happy I'm taking my responsibilities seriously. So I'm going." He smiled, and Ginny thought she saw a glow of magic around him, bright and content. He had been so happy last year when the Light had called on him to contribute magic to Harry's fight against the wild Dark, she remembered. "She's meeting me on the outer edge of the grounds in five minutes. She can Apparate us both."
Ginny grinned. She couldn't wait until they both got to Harry and he saw that he had more help than he'd ever imagined.
"You're the bravest of them all, Neville," she said. "Even his brother is just sitting around here."
Neville flushed and smiled, but luckily didn't stammer. In fact, he swept a ridiculous bow, nodded to the doors, and said, "Shall we go, my lady?"
Ginny laughed, and hooked her arm with his, being careful not to jostle the pot he carried. "Lead on, my gallant knight."
"Hermione? I'd like to talk to you."
Hermione marked her place in her book with a finger and looked up. "Changed your mind about the Grand Unified Theory, Zach?" she asked sweetly.
His face mottled with red. "I asked you not to call me that," he hissed at her.
"You also asked me not to remind you that I was Muggleborn, last time we talked." Hermione turned to face him, trying to stir her face from the distinctively evil grin it wanted to settle into. "By all means, Zacharias. What have you come to talk to me about this time?"
Zacharias took several deep breaths, but if that was actually an effective way of calming himself down, Hermione had yet to see it. She studied him and waited. He was handsome enough, she supposed, and he had taken some effort with his robes this morning.
But that was the point. Hermione wouldn't have minded if he wore fine robes; he had money, he could afford it. But he had chosen robes that had a badger over the heart, and badgers dancing all along the hem, as if he wanted to remind her he was of Hufflepuff's blood. Hermione didn't think he needed them. The badger-shaped scar on his cheek said that he was of Hufflepuff's blood, and, more, it documented the risk that came from that, and how Zacharias had accepted the risk anyway, and gone angry into war for love of her. Why he wanted more than that—why he wanted to make her think he was an arrogant pureblood instead of a wizard who would use whatever magic he possessed to avenge his loved ones—was beyond Hermione.
"I think we should be friends again," said Zacharias.
"Just friends?" Hermione asked.
He flushed once more and shook his head. "More than that," he said. "I love you, Hermione."
"I think I could love you too, Zacharias," said Hermione consideringly. "But you haven't given me much reason lately to think that you love me. You talk about my having to abandon all the things I'm interested in if they're Muggle. You don't want me to visit my parents, or you want me to 'educate' them in how to be the parents of a pureblood witch and the grandparents of pureblood grandchildren. And you want me to marry you right out of school. What if I don't want that?"
"But that's the way everybody does it!" Zacharias exclaimed. "Then you can have time later to work on whatever you're interested in. You raise the children first, and have heirs. But you're going to live at least a hundred years, Hermione. Do you really want to be raising children when you're forty-seven or fifty-five? You do it when you're younger."
"If and when I marry and have children, I wouldn't think of it as a chore to finish as soon as possible, or just a way to have heirs," said Hermione quietly. "I would treat it like a good thing, an important thing, because it deserves to be treated that way." She pushed a curl of her hair behind her shoulder. "But I don't even know if I want children, Zacharias. Not right now. Maybe I'd change my mind in a few years."
He stared at her, and couldn't seem to think of anything to say.
"I know," said Hermione. "I know that you want children to have heirs. But I'm not pureblood, Zacharias. I can learn the rituals and wear the clothing, but I'm not going to think like one just because you want me to. I don't care about securing the next generation of the Smith line. I wouldn't care if we had a child who was a Squib, and I would try to make her life as easy as possible. I don't care that much about the definitions of Light and Dark, except that I think the Light does make things better for Muggleborns in general. I can't care about the things that you want me to care about. The Grand Unified Theory just showed that up, not made it happen. I think we would be awfully unhappy if we did get married." She leaned forward and held his eyes. "Don't you think so?"
"Hermione—"
"What?"
"My mother—" said Zacharias, and stopped.
"I know," said Hermione, and shrugged. Even though Zacharias was legally the adult heir of the Smith line, since they preserved the old custom of majority coming at fifteen instead of seventeen, Zacharias still craved his mother's approval. Hermione had met Miriam Smith briefly last year, when she'd come to the school to ride one of the golden horses. It had been a brief and chilly meeting. "But you did say in June that you loved me, and that you didn't understand pureblood ideals if they made you reject someone like me. What happened to that, Zacharias?"
"There wasn't this—thing then," said Zacharias stiffly.
Hermione took a deep breath. "So it would have been all right for you to say that you loved me and didn't care I was a Muggleborn in the privacy of our own home, but outside it you would have cared what people said and did about you having a Muggleborn wife?"
"Hermione, there are people who will be happy to help us and sell to us and trade with us," said Zacharias, putting a hand on her arm. "As long as you behave like a pureblood. But if you go around saying what—you say, then they'll get offended. Surely you can see that? They're all representatives of very old families. Muggleborns who are too loud threaten them."
I did misjudge him. Hermione met his eyes. "It's fun to make people think I'm a pureblood," she said. "But it's not enough any more. They're going to think I'm some kind of—trained monkey in the end, once they find out the truth. I want things to really change, Zacharias, and fitting in won't do it."
He looked at her, his face a picture of misery, and then turned and left the library. Hermione supposed that was an improvement over their last two fights, which had ended with them screaming at each other.
She sighed and turned back to her books. Revolution hurt.
Rufus barely studied Priscilla's resignation before he tossed it into the fire. He knew it would be serious. Priscilla always was.
He sat back and put his hands together, and took several deep breaths. What he planned to do would have been easier if Priscilla stood with him. No matter.
"Sir?" Percy Weasley was watching him anxiously from behind his desk.
Rufus stood. He would have Percy, and the two Aurors who had been with him when he went down to try and stop Harry's invasion of Tullianum; embarrassment about their utter failure to do anything that day seemed to have made them more loyal. And he would have help from Aurelius Flint, he was fairly certain. There was a portrait on the wall of his office, one of a parrot, and Rufus's grandmother Leonora had proven amicable to slipping into it now and then and conveying information to Flint that the Unspeakables couldn't hear. At least, Rufus hoped they remained unaware of it.
And there were allies outside the Ministry, if he chose to call upon them.
"Sir?" Percy repeated.
"Come with me," Rufus ordered, and the younger wizard fell into place behind him, no questions asked. There were times, Rufus thought, when Auror training was definitely good for something.
He made his way to the door of his office and stood there, his hand resting on the knob. The moment he opened it, then things would change, and he would lose what was at least a secure seat in the middle of the maelstrom, even if it was no longer a comfortable one.
He reminded himself it was secure only because no one considered him worth paying attention to anymore, and opened the door. The two Aurors who waited outside snapped to attention.
"Come with me," he repeated, and they hastened to do so. Rufus strode up the hallway, walking fast enough that he didn't think his bad leg showed.
He was going to get his Ministry back.
