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Chapter Fifty-Three: Vengeance Lies Dreaming

"Come and look at this article, Pemberley."

Honoria rolled her eyes as she gathered up her robes to pick her way in among the presses. No matter how long she spent at the Maenad Press, Dionysus Hornblower refused to call her by anything but her last name. He seemed to change his mind on her daily. Now she was the liaison with the press Harry had assigned her to be, now she was a spy from the cause of an underground rebellion and the Press's ally, now she was a spy from a vates who had sold his cause out by cooperating with Light wizards for the sake of a legal authority Dionysus cared for less than spots on bread. Life was never boring, but sometimes Honoria wished it wouldn't vary quite so much.

His refusal to call me by my name should be refreshing, perhaps, as the one constant, she thought, as she finally hopped over a discarded piece of metal and came down beside Dionysus, who thrust an article impatiently at her.

Honoria took it up carefully. It was written on fine parchment, which argued against it coming from a student at Hogwarts; so did the accurate spelling. But many pureblood families had parchment like this in the house. Honoria did not see how she was supposed to tell anything about the article from that.

"The content, girl, the content," said Dionysus.

She read the article, and stifled her complaint against the only other "name" that he ever called her. Mad-Eye Moody had been the same, and Honoria had liked him well enough, though she thought he needed to relax and learn how to dance. And at least Dionysus had not decided to announce her stupidity to the press at large today, as he had a habit of doing.

DEPARTMENT OF MYSTERIES 'UNSPEAKABLE' IN ITS LOYALTIES

It didn't look any different from the articles they printed almost daily—except, Honoria thought as she read on, for the tone, measured and assured, without the half-hysteria that permeated most stories about Harry's treachery or the Ministry's treachery or the werewolves' treachery or Voldemort's treachery. The Vox Populi was very fond of treachery, usually.

This article outlined a story of the founding of the Department of Mysteries that Honoria had never heard before, beginning with the Stone and arguing that, pretense or not, the Unspeakables still served the Stone and not the Ministry. Some were things that she thought Dionysus couldn't have known, either, given how early his "training" in the ways of the Unspeakables had finished. The article-writer concluded with a few sentences that made the hair on Honoria's arms stand up.

For now, when they must fly against public outrage and loss of face, the Department of Mysteries is quiet. But it will not remain so for long. If we do not stand on our guard, they will return, filtering into our dreams, turning our very shadows on the walls against us. Maintaining the amount of light shed on them is the only way to harness them and their Stone, to negotiate rather than face them in a hopeless all-out war.

Honoria lowered the parchment and rubbed absently at the gooseflesh on her arms. She blinked as she caught a glimpse of Dionysus's scowling face. "What?" she asked. "You love this."

"But I know who it's from." Dionysus regarded the article with a jaundiced eye. "Our readers won't know, of course, since we print without names, and I've never let a story's origin disturb me before. But."

"But?" Honoria prompted.

"This one's from Scrimgeour." Dionysus all but snarled the word, and then met her eyes as if daring her to challenge him.

Honoria blinked, and had the urge to laugh. She supposed that the day would, of course, come when the Minister would seek to use the Vox Populi to express his opinion. Everyone else did. She would never have thought that Dionysus, champion of freedom and the rights of everyone to speak, would balk, though.

"And so?" she asked gently. "You know that he can write these articles and send them to you, too. And he certainly has the spelling and the writing skills to be accepted." The only articles that Dionysus tended to reject out of hand were the ones so badly-written it was impossible to say what the author had meant.

"He's an enemy of freedom." Dionysus turned his head upside-down, watching the article from the corner of one eye as though it would burst into flames if he regarded it directly for too long. "What would your vates say about this, Pemberley? Since I consider him the champion of freedom."

Only when it suits you to do so. "He would say that you should print the article," said Honoria, and gave it back to Dionysus. "If the Minister is planning treachery, then it should be outweighed by the fact that other voices in the same edition of the Populi speak against him. And you know that Harry always gives his enemies a chance to have their say, even to his own detriment."

"Then he uses them to gain power," said Dionysus, but absently, showing off his inconsistent philosophical position for the day. He went on staring at the story, and refused to take it from her hand. "What if it's a code? I print it, and it tells someone to attack the Maenad Press, or gives other information damaging to the cause of freedom?"

Honoria refrained from rolling her eyes, but with a very great effort. "Change the wording a bit."

"I can't do that! Not to something I've agreed to print."

"Then don't print it." Honoria shrugged. Dionysus's paranoia had kept him alive, but it was tiresome to deal with. "I'm knackered. Going home to be with Ignifer for a time." She turned to grow wings and rise out of the mass of the press. She hadn't used her Animagus form to reach Dionysus mostly because there was so little room for her to change back from gull to human in the crowded mess of the floor where they stood.

Dionysus caught her shoulder, and he was heavy enough that it was hard to dislodge him. "You won't consider writing that exposé I wanted?"

"No," said Honoria, with finality. Dionysus had wanted her to write an article on what it was like to live with an exiled Apollonis, or, alternatively, a Light witch turned Dark. Honoria had her own reasons for refusing, but those wouldn't content him. She had to find ones that would. "That plays too much on Ignifer's blood status, and makes everyone think all over again that purebloods are special and worth more than other people. You don't want to undermine the Grand Unified Theory like that, do you?" The one wind that remained constant in Dionysus's character, or had so far, was the Grand Unified Theory.

His shoulders stiffened. "Of course not." He released her with a faint push. "Go home to your lover. Sarah!"

Honoria transformed and soared upward. She was nearly out of the building when she remembered she hadn't had her joke yet today, and wheeled back to lift her tail discreetly over the machinery of a press. The magic that drove it could cope with most failures, but they hadn't yet figured out a spell that would get rid of all the problems bird-shit caused.

Thus fortified to come back tomorrow and enjoy her task, Honoria merrily flitted out of a window and was gone.

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Ignifer was in the extraordinarily odd position of talking with her father for the first time since he had cursed her with infertility and not being furious at him. She sat stiffly in front of the fire, hands clasped before her, and watched Cupressus with a keen eye through the flames. He crouched with his head poking through them. That alone was impossible enough to earn Ignifer's attention. Cupressus Apollonis never made a gesture that could be interpreted as submissive to anyone. Ever.

"And that was the end of it," Cupressus concluded. "The Unspeakables threatened to publish what I'd done in the past, specifically in my foolish youth." His slow glance said that he might consider foolish youth to extend to thirty-six. Ignifer ignored those implications, and just nodded. "I told them they were welcome to do so, but I would know what direction the attacks came from, and I was not yielding my time or my treasures to them to do with as they would." He sat back, looking pleased with himself, and added, "Some others were not so lucky as to avoid that trap. Or they went seeking them out, as if one wanted the Department of Mysteries to engage with."

Ignifer tilted her head. She knew that tone in her father's voice. He had specific information, in this case names, and he would give it up if he was given something in return. And once again she felt the temptation to bargain with him.

Don't, the voice of experience told her. His bargains are iron chains that only slowly fade into being around your limbs.

But this time, she had protection, while all the other times she had faced him alone and crippled by the terrible yearning to return home, not to be an exile any longer. She had Harry, and the Alliance of Sun and Shadow, and their shelter even if her father tried to hurt her.

She asked, carefully, "Would the names of these unlucky or foolish ones be common news?"

"Not common news," said Cupressus. "One is often watched in Ireland, because of his importance, but no one would guess that he was so unfortunate as to misstep. The other is shining brighter, but passing beneath the shade of the Unspeakables could well dim his light forever."

The only thing that told Ignifer was that the unlucky one was an important pureblood wizard, and the other a Light pureblood wizard on the rise, not necessarily important. But pursuing this line of attack would win her a collar about the throat. She adopted an expression of indifference. "And they are proclaiming their failures?"

Cupressus laughed quietly. "Oh, daughter, everyone proclaims his failures, if one only knows how to look. And read."

Ignifer gnawed her lip a moment, trying to find her way through the strands of the discussion. An important pureblood wizard who had slipped up. What Cupressus was implying could mean that the consequences of his failure had been announced in the Daily Prophet, but most readers wouldn't know the nature of his folly.

And then she blinked, because there was only one wizard who fit that description, and, somewhat to Ignifer's own shock, she was involved enough in politics now to know who it was.

She didn't blurt it out to her father, of course. She nodded to Cupressus and said, "I appreciate your willingness to share this knowledge with me, Father, and I salute your resistance to unspeakable designs on your home and property."

"You might have the right to speak their names, again, in the future," said Cupressus softly.

Ignifer didn't react. Her father had told her again and again what price would win her back her home and her family and his approval. She only had to Declare for Light, and she would receive everything she wanted.

Was it stubbornness that kept me Dark for so long, or honor? Well, it is honor now. I won't abandon my allegiance in the Alliance of Sun and Shadow, the allegiance that lets me sit on the monitoring board, the allegiance that means I can obtain what I want from my life instead of what my father wants.

"As soon hope for a change of voice, as a change of name," she told her father, and then dismissed the flames. Cupressus would only offer some savage or ironic farewell. Ignifer saw no need to entertain either.

The moment the flames ended, she cupped her hands around her cheeks and bowed her head. Her stomach was sick with nervousness, churning as if she would vomit at any moment.

Only one wizard fit Cupressus's description, and if he was right—and he might not be right, Ignifer tried to tell herself, again and again—then that wizard had been conspiring with the Unspeakables right under Harry's nose.

Lucius Malfoy.

He had publicly broken with Harry, but almost no one knew why. Ignifer had to admit she'd doubted it was over the disownment of his son. After all, what reason did he have to dissuade his son from going to Harry? He was Harry's joined partner, or would be, and using a ritual that required a level of will and commitment that most parents approved of. Lucius Malfoy was simply too practical to disown Draco in a fit of pique, or because Draco had disobeyed some whim of his. He would need a compelling reason, and an entanglement with Unspeakables through which he hoped to escape blackmail would fit.

If it was what her father suggested, then Lucius had not only betrayed the Alliance of Sun and Shadow, but he had more personally and permanently betrayed Harry. The Unspeakables had tried to control Harry. They had tried to compel a vates. Lucius cooperating with them stated that he did not believe in the very ideals he claimed to support.

Ignifer tried to pull her rampant speculation up short. This might have been the very track her father intended to set her mind running along. She really had no proof, other than her father's word, and the odd coincidence of Lucius breaking from Harry for some reason no one knew the full tale of, and her own conviction that Lucius was slimy enough to do something like this. For all she knew, Cupressus wanted her to become Lucius's enemy to advance his own agenda.

Of course it's to advance his own agenda. Ignifer wiped at her cheeks and tried to calm her breathing. It always is. And he may want me to suspect and accuse Lucius, and fracture the Alliance further, or weaken Lucius's place with Harry. He is Lucius's enemy by allegiance. He could want to see Lucius destroyed just because he's a Dark wizard. I don't know anything yet.

But the suspicion sank into her stomach and gathered force, if only because Cupressus had been right about odd things before. He had predicted long years before it happened that Cornelius Fudge would become Minister, and that he would be weak and contemptible enough to need the "advice" of prominent Light families, while fearing the Dark ones enough not to seek comfort from them. And he tended not to make statements without some kind of proof behind them. Lucius was really the only candidate who fit his parameters this time, no matter how Ignifer turned them in her mind.

A door banged, and Honoria's voice called out, cheerfully, "Ignifer? Are you—" Then she entered the room and crossed it in a soft run. Her arms locked around Ignifer's waist, and when Ignifer looked up, illusions of lions juggled tiny balls on her shoulders. Ignifer cracked a reluctant smile.

"Who did this to you?" Honoria whispered, stroking her hair. "The bitch or the bastard?"

The descriptions of her parents made Ignifer chuckle, and then feel bad for chuckling. If her father was trying to help—but then, she did not know if he really was, and he could intend to help the Alliance purely and solely because it would benefit him. She didn't know, couldn't know, and keeping the suspicions locked in her own skull was making her nervous and jumpy.

She licked her lips and did what she usually did at such a time: told Honoria.

Honoria went more and more still as Ignifer listed the reasons she had for thinking Lucius had been involved with the Unspeakables, and the reasons she had for not believing Cupressus. At the end, Honoria jumped away and flung her arms into the air, swearing. The illusions of flames sprang out, crackling around her fingers.

"Fuck," she said, when other, and more eloquent, terms had deserted her. "There's no way that we can move against this, either. Not easily. If we accuse Lucius falsely, then we'll lose credibility and cost Harry two of his best allies, and practically compel him to give Lucius a second look and another hearing. If we turn out to be correct, then it could still split the Alliance and put Harry in a very difficult position. Is he going to be able to eat the magic out of his father-in-law?"

"I don't know," said Ignifer, and she didn't. She had held firm to her own promises, even when they cost her with her family, but that had cost her, too, hardening her pride into a bitter, hollow shell. She had also had longer than Harry had been alive to consider her position, and she'd had people she despised begging her to reconsider her choice. Nothing fortified the will like open attacks from the opposition. No matter which principles Harry ultimately chose to support, those of justice or those of mercy, he would have people he loved and cared for on both sides, not scorned.

"It's not a good idea to tell him just yet, maybe," said Honoria. "Not until we have more proof." She paused for a long moment, and a slow, manic, brilliant smile crept across her face.

"What?" Ignifer asked.

"Minister Scrimgeour sent an article decrying the Unspeakables to the Populi today," said Honoria, and sat down on another chair, swinging her foot. "I convinced Dionysus to print it. We could send news of Lucius's possible treachery to Scrimgeour, since we know that he distrusts the Department of Mysteries. He could look around for clues to it, and he has a much better spy network than we ever will."

Ignifer smiled. She knew the Minister didn't like Lucius Malfoy. Honoria's solution was as close to perfect as it could get. At least they would know someone was working on the problem, and someone with much better resources to handle any eventual discovery—and, best of all, someone without the Alliance of Sun and Shadow oaths hindering him. "You're brilliant."

Honoria tossed her head in pretended pique. "I'm radiant, I'll have you know."

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Rufus rubbed his forehead. Days like today were why he hated being Minister.

Oh, it was very pleasant when he could sign a truce to end a rebellion, or hear near-assurances that Gloriana Griffinsnest would be judged guilty of murder and put into Tullianum for a very long time. But those days were pinnacles of high shining light in the morass of his life. Sooner or later, the time always came to descend into the bogs and valleys again.

First had come the news that the Centaur Committee, which Rufus had hoped would be ready no later than November sixteenth, was having problems. Some of their original volunteers had flat-out refused to serve when they realized that their tasks would involve actual contact with centaurs, not simple paper-pushing. Rufus had written what reassurances he could, but in the end the answer was to hire wizards less prejudiced, if any could be found. It would further delay the Committee being in actual operation.

Second was this movement to start a new, wizard-controlled bank, now that some people no longer trusted Gringotts. The hanarz of the southern goblins had sent Rufus a polite note to the effect that her people would consider any such operation unfair competition, and expect the Ministry to support their legal claims against the upstarts.

Third was the confirmation that some of the Muggles who'd observed the flight of the British Red-Gold had escaped the Obliviators. Now the Muggle papers were full of speculation on what the dragon could be. The most heated debate was between those who thought it some political gambit of the Prime Minister's and those who thought it some secret project of the Queen's. But a substantial minority insisted it had been a dragon, secret projects be damned, and those were the ones bringing in variously-worded owls, some polite, some not polite, from the Ministers of other countries, asking why in the world Britain seemed intent on violating the International Statute of Secrecy.

And now, this.

Rufus eyed the note lying in the middle of his desk as if it were a Many cobra. Actually, a Many hive would be less troublesome, since all of them in Britain seemed to work for Harry. The note was from Ignifer Apollonis and her lover, explaining that they had reason to believe Lucius Malfoy had interfered in the Alliance of Sun and Shadow by cooperating with the Unspeakables, and could he look into this?

Nothing would have delighted Rufus more a year ago. Now, he assuredly could not look into this, because the Unbreakable Vows he'd sworn in Courtroom Ten bound him from betraying Lucius in any way.

He had sent Percy off for tea when he first read the note, so that he could throw things at the walls in peace.

The man's words made so much sense in this context, he thought bitterly. Lucius had spoken of not getting everything he wanted when he first appeared with Flint and swore the oaths. And he hadn't, had he? The Unspeakables hadn't managed to control Harry or prevent the rebellion from happening, and Lucius had broken with Harry when the rebellion began, so Rufus rather thought his motivation traced to that. He had not thought to give Lucius's words that particular spin, and so that meant he was sitting hand-bound in his office and Lucius was walking around the roads of the wizarding world free to do as he pleased.

It pained Rufus.

He wished there was a way that he could give the note to someone else and let that person investigate Lucius. Wilmot would be perfect. He had told Rufus, quietly, a few days after the anti-werewolf laws were repealed, what he was, and the only questions Rufus had been able to ask in his astonishment had been how he managed during the full moons and why he had never noticed before. He was loyal to the Minister and Harry—somehow both at the same time—and he was discreet. He could look for proof of Lucius's treachery without blaring his intention all over the front page of the Daily Prophet.

But even giving the note to someone else would be a betrayal of Lucius; he could feel the Unbreakable Vow tightening like a noose on his throat just thinking of it. Rufus shook his head and crumpled the parchment up. The tightening eased. If Honoria or Ignifer asked about the progress of the investigation, then Rufus would simply have to say that he had been unable to find proof, which was true enough.

Would Lucius go on from this to act against Harry again? Rufus did not doubt it. Lucius had broken his ties with the Alliance of Sun and Shadow, to hear the Vox Populi announce it. And his own Unbreakable Vows bound him from action against the Minister, not against the vates.

Rufus's only comfort was the fact that his article for the Vox Populi separated him firmly from the Unspeakables, and thus from whatever Lucius's activities for them had been. At least that particular association, of blind belief in and support for the Department of Mysteries, did not taint him.

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Lucius tapped his fingers rapidly against his knee as he read the description of the Declaration ritual on page 363 of Declaring for Children. Then he shook his head. He could not see Draco choosing that particular ritual. Not only was it demanding, long, and bloody, but it involved an element of dominance that Lucius did not believe his son capable of achieving, given what must happen after the ritual. No, Draco would find a ritual that let him preserve his purity in the eyes of his partner.

Lucius felt another lash of irritation at the thought of Harry. If Harry had only done as he was supposed to, and reacted to Hawthorn Parkinson's imprisonment by means less extreme than rebelling, then Draco's disownment would not have happened. Lucius would know what ritual his son was using to Declare, and he would have been able to influence him by subtle suggestions.

Neither boy had responded to his letter indicating that he wanted to reconcile. Lucius counseled himself, again, to patience. It would take more work than that to earn back Harry's trust, and Draco's. It would take months of perfect good behavior, and even cringing submission if necessary.

He did not like cringing submission. But he had done it for the Dark Lord, when he still believed the man might give him gifts beyond the brand on his arm.

Lucius scratched the Dark Mark absently. Several times in the last week he had awakened from rough dreams to find it tingling, and, once, when he peered at the snake and skull by the light of the moon, surrounded with red lines. Lucius had cast several spells on it, trying to determine whether the Dark Lord was reaching out across the miles to influence him, but the spells had revealed nothing. The tingling had ceased now. And though Lucius had analyzed his dreams, he could not find any way in which they would be useful to Voldemort. They were memories, of times when he had punished his enemies, or future hopes, such as what would happen when he finally disproved the Grand Unified Theory and put the Mudbloods in their proper places. He often had such dreams. Voldemort had not changed them in any way, had not planted visions in his head as Lucius knew he had often done to Harry.

The thought of the Grand Unified Theory reminded him that he had long meant to issue a certain invitation. He spent a pleasant few minutes composing a letter to Thomas Rhangnara, inviting him to come to the Manor. He would like to discuss the implications of the Grand Unified Theory on the heritage of the Malfoys and Blacks.

The letter sent with Julius, Lucius turned and drew another book down from the shelves. Somewhere, he would find a match for Draco's temperament and goals. He would know that was the ritual his son was using, and he would be prepared to use it when he went to Hogwarts on Midwinter's Eve.

He would never attempt to change the force of his son's Declaration to the Light, of course; the ritual would prevent such outright interference in any case, and on the longest night of the year, the wild Dark was likely to kill the wizard who tried something so foolish. No, what Lucius would do was—minor, really. A suggestion here, a tweak there. The wild Dark would approve of that, since Lucius was working with its methods, subterfuge and deception.

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Connor smiled as another gray-and-black owl flew down and alighted on his bed. They were beautiful birds, the ones Mark kept finding to send his letters. The young werewolf had left Woodhouse, but continued writing to Connor, mostly talking about his inability to find a job now that most people knew he was a werewolf.

This letter was typical.

Hi Connor!

Well, I did try your suggestion today, and went to Gringotts. But they're not hiring wizards anymore, did you know? Or, at least, they're only hiring them for curse-breaking and other dangerous jobs that you have to have a lot of experience in. One snotty goblin told me I just wasn't fit for the job, and I'd need at least two more years of private training before I attempted it. Prejudiced bastards. I can say that because I'm a werewolf myself, you know, so I can't be prejudiced.

I'm sending you another gift with this letter. And yes, I know, check it for tracking spells and Portkey spells and all of those things you like. It's just a wooden model of a broom. I know you said once that you were kind of jealous of your brother for having a Firebolt, so I made you one!

Cheers,

Mark.

Connor shook the package until the little wooden broom tumbled out on the bed. It was just what Mark had said, a complete Firebolt down to the twigs. Connor supposed he must have drawn the model from Harry's broom, when he took it with him to Woodhouse.

Humming happily, Connor went to enchant the wooden broom and Snitch and chase them around the Pitch on his Nimbus. If he saw Harry along the way, he would ask him if he wanted to play. Harry was spending an awful lot of time without Draco these days, even though Draco's punishment for being a right git to Michael was long over.

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Draco took a deep, bracing breath. He stood on top of the Astronomy Tower, lingering behind after his NEWT Astronomy class had departed below. Professor Sinistra had given him an understanding look when he asked if he could stay. She knew how much he loved the stars, and she would think this another opportunity for watching them.

It wasn't, though. It was about listening, instead. This high, and this close to Midwinter, Draco could hear the cry of the wild Dark as it swept through the black spaces between the constellations, hunting down the Light. The day was near when it would land and bite the year in half, proclaiming its power with a thunderous roar that Draco thought even Muggles might hear, if they would only listen.

His vision swam with stars during the day, and with blackness at night. He could feel the wind tugging on his heart, trying to make him follow it into the sky. Draco resisted that—he would not lose himself that far—but he could admire the savage beauty of the wild Dark.

If it were not presumptuous, he would say that the tone and temper of the wild Dark this year was much like his own, or at least as he perceived himself: beautiful, cruel, cold, indifferent to attempts others made to crack that coldness.

That observation, at least, was the thing that had made him rethink his behavior with Michael, and resolve not to do anything like it again. It was beneath him. He would watch out for threats, he would battle them, and he would work for his own advantage, but indulging himself with vengeance was undignified. Draco wondered that his father had ever thought it a good idea. A cool insult or quiet application to Harry to take care of the problem worked much better.

Draco felt his smile widen as he traced his eyes from star to star, almost seeing the thing blacker than the blackness that danced between them.

He had no objection to riding on Harry's power when he couldn't do something for himself. If he knew who and what he was, what others thought did not matter, and remaining in Harry's shadow, at least to their perceptions, would just encourage more people to underestimate him.

But on Midwinter, at least, it would be his night. He had chosen a ritual to Declare to the Dark that he rather thought would surprise everyone who witnessed it.

And it would certainly surprise Harry, and serve as Draco's answer to those two days of punishment when he hadn't been able to touch him or feel his magic.

Watch out, Harry. You're about to find out what it's like to have a Dark lover, Dark in heart and soul as well as in magic.