- Chapter Ten -
Insults and Apologies
Harry was furious, out of his mind.
'Why didn't you do anything?! You let them die! Didn't even lift a finger for them!'
All five were gathered in an interrogation room at the Ministry of Magic, where they had been left only minutes earlier by Kingsley and Mr Weasley. Harry immediately gave way to his seething anger and attacked Aberforth for not trying to save the lives of Blaise and Belladonna Zabini.
'Well, you didn't push yourself too hard either, Potter!' Aberforth snapped back.
He, Ron and Ginny sat at a grey table set in the middle of the cold-walled room, while Harry and Hermione, as if to emphasise their opposition in this heated argument, stood leaning against the wall, arms folded. The girl was as angry as Harry, they agreed perfectly that Aberforth had the advantage under the protection of the cloak, his strong patronus could have run the dementor off and he could've stunned the blue-skinned man.
'They would have killed me instantly you idiot!' was his excuse, and he found support in Ron and Ginny. The two Weasleys also scowled at Harry and Hermione for expecting such a thing from the old innkeeper.
'It's easy to make excuses,' Hermione muttered under her breath, without looking at him. 'Hiding unnoticed while people are being killed...'
'The Zabinis weren't exactly innocent lambs,' Ron noted, and he didn't look at his girlfriend.
Harry shrugged his shoulders irritably.
'Belladonna may not have been, but her son hasn't hurt anyone.'
Ron shrugged.
'He was still an idiot...'
He immediately regretted his sulky muttering, because Hermione had snapped at him:
'AND FOR THAT HE DESERVES TO HAVE HIS SOUL SUCKED OUT AND HIS NECK BROKEN?!' she shouted at the top of her lungs in Ron's face, who was staggering backwards as if he was being shouted at by a giant acromantula. 'You are a giant idiot, Ronald Weasley!'
Ron said no more to her, or to anyone else, feeling bloody insulted. Ginny, still in her low-cut black dress, tried to calm the mood.
'We should all calm down, don't you think?' she said cautiously, when Hermione had stopped snorting like an angry Fury. 'We had a difficult night, we are exhausted, we should all go to...'
'Save the empty speech for Zabini's mother!' Harry interrupted before thinking it through.
Ginny turned pale and opened her mouth, looking at him as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing. Harry stared at the floor, not wanting to see her face. He was already ashamed of himself for his outburst, but the blood still pounded wildly in his veins.
'Don't worry, I won't bore you with any more of my empty speeches...' said Ginny softly, wiping a tear from her eye.
The two had never quarreled before, always understood each other, and remained true soul mates even in the most turbulent times of the war, as well as in the mourning and remembrance that followed. It was unfamiliar to them to insult each other, that was Ron and Hermione's relationship that drove them, not theirs. It felt weird for him that this time they were at odds, and it had become so hostile.
If looks could kill, Harry would be dead, that's how Ron looked at him from beside his sister.
The door opened, and Harry felt that was the only thing that saved them from actually fighting within minutes. Kingsley came into the room, followed by Dawlish and Proudfoot. The ever cheerful Proudfoot winked at Ron and Harry and shook hands with everyone, greeting Aberforth as an old acquaintance. Dawlish, on the other hand, tried to remain inconspicuous, putting a pile of files on the table instead of greeting. Harry tried to count the rare occasions when he didn't see their instructor with a stack of official papers in his hands.
'I have to say, you five have made quite a mess for us to clean up,' Kingsley began, but Aberforth interrupted.
'Five?!' he raised his voice. 'What have I done?!'
'Nothing, as usual...' Hermione countered, unable to contain herself. Kingsley cleared his throat as they fell silent. Dawlish handed him a folder.
'Let's start at the beginning,' he said, but he didn't take a seat between the two Aurors, where they had left him an empty chair, no doubt because Harry and Hermione were standing. 'Yesterday morning, the Hog's Head burned to the ground, with eleven burned bodies inside, and one outside the inn, cause of death...' read Kingsley from the paper, slightly stunned, 'fatal abdominal injury, massive blood loss, broken spine, a removed limb...'
He looked up from the file into the faces of the five interrogated, as if he did not believe his eyes. Hermione coughed in confusion.
'You cut off a man's arm?' he slowly said.
'Don't be ridiculous!' cried Harry. 'We didn't kill that man! It was the dementor.'
Dawlish and Proudfoot looked at each other.
'The dementor?'
They had reported earlier that the black creature, a constant companion of the blue-skinned wizard, had attacked them at the Hog's Head and at Peverell House, but so far there had been no mention of the people who had died at the pub – somehow last night had been more on everyone's mind. They all agreed that the pub massacre was just the result of the dementor's bloodlust.
'Dementors don't kill their victims like that, they don't use physical violence,' Dawlish replied matter-of-factly.
'I was once thrown from a broomstick flying fifty metres above the ground,' Harry retorted. 'I think that qualifies as physical violence.'
Dawlish said nothing, only furrowed his eyebrows even more. Kingsley stroked his shaven head and sighed heavily.
'So you're saying you didn't cause the murders...'
Aberforth cleared his throat.
'We set the bodies on fire, but believe me, Minister, they were no longer human.'
'But what were they then?' Kingsley asked in a challenging tone. This time Harry answered his question.
'Inferi. They all turned into inferi.'
The two Aurors looked stunned, but Kingsley remained calm.
'And the corpse with the ripped-off arm?'
'He was pulled out of the window,' said Harry in a chatty voice. 'We don't know who it was.'
Kingsley snapped with his fingers at Dawlish, who feverishly rummaged through his thick files, finally pulling out a folder and handing it to his superior, who opened it and scanned the contents with an expert eye.
'Well, we know who he was!' he announced, though neither Harry, nor the others showed too much interest. 'The victim, Mortimer Meliflua, had previously been involved in a run-in with the Office for the Detection and Confiscation of Dangerous Objects of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Mr Meliflua has previously been found in possession of a number of dark items with medium security clearance, including some quite interesting ones...'
Ron yawned spectacularly. The minister continued.
'What makes these objects even more interesting is that I have seen more than one of them myself, even held one in my hands. Some of them were thrown into a bag under my nose by Sirius Black...' the four good friends here got their heads up so suddenly that their necks hurt unpleasantly. 'One of them, a robe, was peeled off you in front of me by Mundungus before it strangled you,' he pointed at Ron, who couldn't say a word.
Kingsley savoured the stunned silence that followed his words, then continued.
'So the situation is quite interesting, especially after you threatened Dung previously for selling off Sirius' belongings,' he looked at Harry this time.
Hermione sighed.
'Kingsley, you've got your brains all cooked in that office!'
The minister's features hardened.
'You know,' he said again to everyone, but his eyes were fixed on Hermione, and not at all friendly, 'I will only tolerate that tone because I know you and because we've been friends for a long time. But I am also an Auror and a Minister. I can say with absolute certainty that you would not have harmed someone to take something that was rightfully yours...' he said, addressing Harry, 'that's the only reason you don't have handcuffs on. I suppose you are aware that if anyone else were in your shoes, they would be the prime suspect in the deaths of thirteen people.'
Harry took a deep breath, trying to calm his pounding heart.
'Just like in Sirius' case, right?' he asked the poetic question. 'Everyone was so damn sure he killed those thirteen...'
'Exactly,' said Kingsley, with grave calmness, 'and I would very much like you to not tell a soul in the future that you were anywhere near the Hog's Head when it burned down. Dumbledore, this does not apply to you, of course...' he changed his tune, turning to the old man, who had somehow been forgotten in the last few minutes.
Even though he was with them at the Peverell house when the Aurors arrived on the scene, and even though the massacre took place in his pub, none of the Aurors thought it relevant to question him. They simply put him in this room with Harry and his friends and left them to wait until the Minister and his staff arrived. Everybody was at once aware that in such a case Kingsley and Arthur Weasley must be immediately alerted, but even in the early morning conversation the four young adults were the only ones who they heard what had happened from, and no one was interested in Aberforth's point of view.
The old man hummed a little, but remained silent, picking his fingernails intently as Kingsley talked. Harry supposed that he must have been used to being left out of the picture on his brother's side, and that he hadn't noticed it all by the time he was approaching the hundred and fifty.
'And what will you do with the case?' Ron asked, sitting upright in his chair.
'Dawlish and Proudfoot will continue to investigate...' (the two named nodded in sync) '... and it will all be supervised by me and your father. You will report directly to us, excluding Commander Robards, is that clear?' this last sentence was directed more at the Aurors than the interrogated, but Harry strongly disagreed.
'I would like to take the case,' he interjected. Kingsley raised an eyebrow.
'You're just a trainee. You can't lead an investigation of this size.'
Harry made a very confident face and finally stepped away from the wall, moving closer to Kingsley. Ginny, Ron and Hermione followed him with their eyes.
'I expected you to say that,' he said, 'but I have as much experience in investigation as any Auror, you know that. I'm an apprentice in name only, you said so yourself when you hired me.'
Kingsley spread his arms wide in bewilderment.
'But why do you want this case so badly?' he asked. 'It's clear that this sorcerer attacked you, but you didn't seem to be his real target. And you said he would leave you alone from now on. If this is some kind of insane revenge...'
'It's not revenge,' Harry replied curtly.
'Then what is it?' shook the minister his head. 'Because it looks like it to me.'
Harry didn't say anything. He knew that he could easily sway Kingsley's opinion to his side if he told him what the blue-skinned man had been doing in the house before he set it on fire. However, he didn't tell his friends everything, as there was no time to discuss the incident in detail before the Aurors arrived on the scene. So, by mutual agreement, they decided to simply lie: they did not go into the Peverell house after the blue-skinned man, they knew nothing about what had happened inside or why he had come. And the fire destroyed all evidence.
'I understand your point of view, Harry,' Kingsley said in his soothing, deep voice, 'but the answer is no. And that is final.'
Harry pressed his lips together, lest something thoughtless spill out of his mouth like it had with Ginny. He already regretted talking to her like that.
'If you have nothing more to say, we can finish up,' the Minister concluded. 'You may leave as free men.'
Dawlish and Proudfoot got up, packed their bags and went out, no doubt to dive straight in, clinging to what little information they had. Harry knew that they would now start making inquiries among the people of Hogsmeade and Upper Flagley, taking everyone's statements, which would take weeks, completely unnecessarily. He knew he could stop it, but he didn't. He had to talk to Ron, Ginny and Hermione first.
When they reached the corridor, Ron took Kingsley's arm.
'Will you at least let us go back to our office?' he asked. 'We want to continue... what we've been doing.'
The minister nodded in agreement and then strode off with a flapping cape. Harry looked after him gloomily, muttering assorted invectives under his breath.
'The minister's chair seems to change everyone,' Aberforth murmured quietly, lest the many witches and wizards walking past should hear.
'Kingsley was being nice,' Ginny defended him quietly, as if she was afraid someone would shout at her again.
This immediately reminded Harry of his earlier pointless outburst, and now, forgetting everything that had been on his mind, he turned to her with a sincere look of remorse.
'Ginny, I'm so sorry for what I said in there, please don't be mad at me.'
She sighed heavily and stared at the wall, stubbornly looking past Harry's head. Instead, Ron gave his opinion.
'You're lucky you apologised, mate,' he said darkly. 'Because if you ever talk to her like that again...'
'As if you were such a gentleman, Ronald!' snapped Hermione, silencing him. 'How many times have we heard such 'nice' remarks from you?'
The boy wouldn't budge.
'At least there is usually a reason for that, but his outburst was just plain bullying!'
Harry was feeling smaller and smaller as Ron and Hermione were fighting each other along the path to the lifts, only occasionally lowering their volume when many people passed next to them. Ginny was still serious, with a sadness in her eyes, and Harry didn't know what else to say to make up for his mistake.
When they reached the lift, Ron and Harry said goodbye to the two girls and the old man.
'I can't tell you how nice it was to see you again, boys,' Aberforth turned to face them when the lift arrived. 'Anyway, I'm glad I don't have another pub you could burn to the ground.'
Hermione have the old man a pitying look, who ignored her.
'Next time you need information, call me and I'll come. Because otherwise I'm gonna end up homeless...'
The two girls and Aberforth got into the lift; Hermione just went down one floor, Aberforth went home, and Ginny was probably about to apparate into the shop from the atrium. Harry watched her the whole time until the bars closed, but even then she wouldn't look at him.
He then looked stealthily at his friend, who looked at him, but with a scowl so fierce that Harry almost expected a hard punch to his face.
'Don't worry, I won't hurt you,' Ron said quietly, as if he had guessed his thoughts.
'Have you recently also got used to using Legilimency?' Harry asked him. Ron finally smiled faintly.
'There are advantages to having Hermione Granger as your girlfriend,' he replied hastily, and they both laughed.
'Ron, I'm really sorry for what I said. I have no idea what got into me.'
'Don't apologise to me, mate. Make it up to my sister,' he said, then tapped Harry on the shoulder and together they headed back down the corridor towards Auror Headquarters. 'Though I think she forgave you already. Ginny doesn't really hold a grudge.'
Harry sincerely hoped that was the case, and he was still thinking about it when they returned to their compartment to find a pile of old files to go through, courtesy of Dawlish, and a sealed, ornate brown envelope on top of it all.
'Where did that come from?' Harry muttered, throwing himself down in the chair, and Ron opposite him.
He tore open the envelope, which read: To Harry J. Potter.
Dear Mr Potter!
You are cordially invited to the first task of the Triwizard Tournament, to be held on November 26th at the Durmstrang Academy of Magic. We would be honoured to welcome you to the jury as the most recent champion of Tournament.
If you accept our invitation, please send us your reply with owl mail. The portkey will be sent to the address of your choice on the twenty-fifth of November.
Best regards:
Ursula Ulatov, Deputy Director
At the bottom of the letter were two cat scratch-like signatures.
'Are you going?' Ron asked, leaning over the table and glancing at the letter.
'Not a chance!' said Harry, bored, and tore the letter in half, then into four pieces and threw it in the bin. The dustbin belched a good burp.
'Your business...', Ron let him know, and the subject never came up again between them.
Harry, however, was keen to discuss with him what he had seen in the house, especially the dots on the map, the location of the wizarding schools, and the mysterious things the blue-skinned man was looking for. But they couldn't do that here, so they divided the file heap and tried to learn something from the work of the old Aurors. Many times they came across Alastor Moody under the name of the investigator, and all of those were exemplary solved.
Ron was soon dozing off over his reading, snoring loudly in his chair with his feet up on the table. Harry sometimes felt like his eyes were about to close, as they hadn't slept a wink the night before. He was so exhausted that even turning the pages was difficult. He thought that if he'd been sleepy in the interrogation room, at least he wouldn't have said such stupid things to Ginny.
A purple paper airplane whizzed over the screen; Harry didn't even notice it until it poked Ron in the nose, who cried out loudly, startled, and fell with his chair, clattering heavily on the floor. There was laughter from the neighbouring booths, someone remarked, 'That's the fourth one this week!'
Harry jumped up to help Ron up.
'Are you OK? Did you hurt yourself?' he asked, but his friend just cursed furiously and tapped the bump on his head.
Dawlish peeked into their cubicle.
'What happened?' he asked with a serious face. Harry was sure that their instructor was not one of the laughing Aurors.
'Nothing, just a... (Ron glanced at the table)... just an in-house message.'
'Be careful with those,' said Dawlish. 'A colleague once had his eye poked out by a message like that.'
Harry looked wide-eyed, and Ron went quite pale.
'One shouldn't send insults,' the Auror shook his head, 'there are disciplinary inquiries for these sort of things...'
'Nothing happened!' hurried Harry, and quickly snatched the paper airplane off the table before Dawlish could see the name of the sender.
After the Auror left them alone, they unfolded the paper, on which a few lines of a message were written in regular pearl letters.
We should talk about last night. Come down to my office, Harry. Tell your idiot of a friend to come down as well if he's not in a fighting mood so he doesn't lose track of things.
- Hermione
'Nice,' Ron noted, crumpling the letter that followed the Durmstrang invitation to the trash can. 'Come on, let's go down to her place.'
They went back to the lifts and waited. The clock struck noon, the busiest time of day in the ministry, with the twelve lifts working non-stop, often one had to wait minutes for a grate to open.
When the lift arrived and the door slid open, Harry and Ron immediately stepped forward, but stopped almost as soon as they saw who was coming up with him.
Draco Malfoy stood face to face with them.
For a brief moment they stared at each other, frozen. Their former hated classmate in black robes and cropped blonde hair looked just as he used to.
Malfoy stepped out of the lift, and Harry and Ron got in. They tried not to look at each other as they passed. Ron was about to press the button when Malfoy turned back towards them.
'Is it true that Blaise is dead?' he asked hesitantly.
Ron hit the stop button just as the bars were closing. The door slid back into place.
'Yes, it's true,' Harry replied.
Draco nodded, looking paler than ever from the scattered light on his face.
'And did you see how it went down?'
Ron nodded. Malfoy didn't ask how it happened. Perhaps he'd heard the rumours and didn't want to find out if they were true. Harry didn't know if they were friends or just acquaintances, roommates. He wondered for a moment how he would feel if he heard the news of Neville's death, or Dean's, or Seamus'.
'He wanted to get out of here,' Malfoy said again. Ron hit the stop button again.
'Zabini?'
Malfoy nodded.
'But his mother wouldn't let him go,' he continued. 'She wanted him close to her.'
Harry opened his mouth slightly as he listened. In fact, he had been looking dumbfounded from the moment Malfoy had addressed them. It was the first time they had ever faced each other and didn't hurl insults at each other.
'Where to...? Where was he going to go?'
Draco looked hesitant, then simply shrugged.
'I don't know,' he said.
Harry was no Legilimens, but he knew the boy was lying. He didn't start questioning him.
'Bye.' he said goodbye, and then moved on with hurried steps.
Ron finally let the door close. They looked at each other in astonishment on the short drive, and said at the same time: 'What was that?'
It wasn't unusual to meet Draco Malfoy, it happened sometimes in the atrium when they came out of the fireplace in the mornings. What was exceptional was that they didn't talk to each other as enemies. Harry, for some inexplicable reason, even made himself look sympathetic at the news of Zabini's death.
Five minutes later they were knocking on Hermione's door.
'Come in!' the girl said tiredly.
The office looked much as it had the last time Harry had been here, but Ron had not yet visited Hermione downstairs, and now he was free to look around. He noticed the photo of the three of them, then suddenly glanced at her.
'The idiot also came down, he is not in a fighting mood anymore,' he told her bitterly, but with a relaxed half-smile on his face.
Hermione smiled too, and then conjured two chairs for them. Harry and Ron took their seats, while they reported on their brief conversation with Draco Malfoy. Hermione was as surprised as they were, but also nodded in understanding.
'Zabini and Malfoy were friends at Hogwarts,' she said. 'He was probably more of a friend than Crabbe or Goyle, they were more like...'
'They were tools,' Harry finished for her. 'Yes, I can understand that in his grief he made himself ask us, but it's still strange what he said about Zabini wanting to leave.'
'That's what he also said to Ginny in the alley,' said Ron, and they both looked up. 'Don't you remember? When he was hugging her outside the shop.'
Harry winced at the memory.
'Then I wasn't really paying attention to what Zabini was talking about...'
On Hermione's advice, they put the subject of Malfoy and Zabini aside for the moment, because, as she said, they had more important things to discuss. After she asked Harry to tell her what had happened in the house, he immediately threw a question at her:
'Do you still have the Pensieve?'
'Yeah,' she said, and opened her bag.
She put the stone bowl on the table and Harry poured his most recent memories into it. He felt it would be easier if he just reported the big part of it verbally, so he told everything until the blue-skinned man found the candle and the map.
'... and then points of light appeared all over it. Look at that!'
With his wand, he stirred the contents of the bowl, which soon revealed the large world map and the glowing dots.
'You also think these are wizarding schools, don't you?' he observed his friends' faces.
Hermione nodded seriously.
'Then this happened!' Harry stirred the liquid memory again, and a voice called out from the bowl, 'Now show me where they are hiding!'.
Some of the dots have faded, the dot marking Hogwarts has disappeared, and so has Beauxbatons (Harry has identified the only French wizarding school by rule of exclusion).
'What's hiding there?' Ron frowned.
Harry shook his head and sighed deeply.
'I don't know, the blue-skinned man didn't tell me,' he said. 'After that we came out and he cured us, and from there you know...'
Hermione watched the emerging image without a word, concentrating hard. Harry was sure that he herself must have been staring at it in a similar way, memorising every little detail that might be important.
She now sat upright in her chair and released the deep breath she had been holding.
'Where did Voldemort get this information?' she dropped her hand on the desk. 'And how?'
Harry didn't really understand why this bothered Hermione, and seeing Ron's face, he realised that his friend didn't either. Hermione answered their unspoken questions.
'Every wizarding school keeps its exact location in the strictest secrecy, so that no one unauthorized can find it,' she said. 'And Voldemort knew the location of all schools, and even more!'
Reflecting on it, Harry also found this disturbing, remembering how at the Yule Ball, Igor Karkaroff, then Headmaster of Durmstrang, had hurriedly interrupted Hermione and Viktor Krum's conversation when the Bulgarian boy had gone into a little too much detail about his school. He also remembered what Hermione had said previously on the train: wizarding schools are rivals because each is a unique repository of magic, and therefore guard their secrets carefully from other wizarding schools.
'It seems that Voldemort had even bigger plans than we thought before,' Harry shared his suspicions.
He stared out of the enchanted window at the bright blue sky, though he knew it was an illusion, for he remembered the bitter cold of the morning.
'Okay, I think we should write this down quickly,' Ron suggested, craning his neck to look around the shelves. 'Hermione, don't you have an atlas?'
His girlfriend didn't even look at him, answering casually, while she stroked the Pensieve's edge thoughtfully.
'There is no point in trying to mark these on an atlas, Ron.'
Harry turned from the window to look at her face, interested.
'Why, what would happen?'
Hermione took a sigh and leaned forward over the bowl.
'In theory, the paper would catch fire, but it could also freeze your hand,' she said, poking her wand into the memory and magnifying the glowing spot in the north of Norway. 'One way or another it would hinder you to note down the information.'
'Great,' Ron grumbled.
'Guys, look at this,' Hermione pointed into the Pensieve. 'I think this must be Durmstrang.'
Harry and Ron, too, leaned over the bowl like two gargoyles and peered into it curiously.
'You think?' Harry asked back in a doubting tone. Somehow he had always imagined Durmstrang to be further east.
She nodded and brushed her tangled hair out of her face.
'That is the most northern place of all,' she said. 'Remember how thick the robes and the boots of their students were? The school is in a very cold place. Viktor told me that his bedroom window looked out onto a beautiful fjord and that they had to heat it magic even in the summer.'
Ron let everything else slip after Viktor's name and the word "bedroom" were uttered in the same sentence. Hermione, noticing this, blushed slightly. Harry couldn't help wondering why the boy from Durmstrang was still a taboo subject between the two of them, despite the fact that they had been together for over a year. It seemed that the Triwizard Tournament five years ago would forever be a gap between Ron and Hermione that would never close.
'Remember what the guys in the Strangled Cat said?' Harry quickly drew their attention away from the conversation. 'Parvati told me, I think, that Durmstrang didn't want to stage the Triwizard Tournament...' he tapped the side of the stone bowl. 'And now this!'
They looked at each other, Harry knew they understood what he meant.
'Durmstrang is hiding something,' Hermione said.
Ron grinned, as if strangely pleased by the suggestion. Harry could almost see his friend immediately linking Durmstrang to Viktor Krum, and imagining putting handcuffs on the hands of the Quidditch champion who was secretly scheming with black magic.
'Then there is the list that the dementor gave me,' he continued, 'with a lot of names crossed out. People who have nothing left...'
'The dark objects,' said Ron.
'That's right,' Hermione nodded.
'Malfoy said Zabini wanted to leave,' Ron continued, 'He himself said he wanted to leave with the others. With others.'
For Harry, the picture grew clearer with each sentence, like the sky outside the window.
'Black wizards and dark objects migrate out of the country after the fall of Voldemort,' he summed it up, rocking comfortably in his chair. 'Pureblood families with lots of money and old magical items...'
'They're buying the move,' Hermione took over, and her face brightened. 'And abroad, they're taken with with their Dark Objects, such schools...'
'... which are known to pay too much attention to black magic!' Ron said, almost shouting.
Harry got up from his chair and started pacing the cramped office.
'Where does it all lead to?' he looked at his friends.
'To the inner circle,' said Ron and Hermione at once. Harry put his hands in his pockets and stopped.
'So the blue-skinned wizard is looking for members of the mysterious inner circle.'
Looking at the faces of his friends, he knew they thought the same, but they reflected different emotions. Hermione bit her lower lip, blinking worriedly at the map she could make out in the Pensieve, the glowing dots where the members of the secret dark sorcerer's society were. Ron, however, grinned as if it was the best news he'd heard all week.
'He's after the dark objects,' he said quietly. 'That's what he is looking for.'
Harry was torn somewhere between the two of them. On the one hand, he thought it was a good thing that the circle's hideout had been discovered, but on the other, it gave him the creeps to think what the demonic figure and his companion would do to them.
Hermione took a deep breath before breaking the silence.
'If that's true,' she said, 'then that list is effectively a death list. They won't part from those items when they paid a fortune for them.'
Harry nodded. That's exactly what he was thinking.
'And it also means that we are to blame for the Zabini's death. The dementor may have told us. I just didn't understand...'
Ron quickly interjected:
'Don't blame yourself,' he tried to console him. 'Anyone in our position would have done the same.'
'Yes, and if anyone is to blame,' Hermione added, 'it can only be me. 'I told you to capture Zabini. It was all my idea.'
But this didn't stop Harry feeling guilty, he knew very well why he felt bad.
'Not only that...' he said with a miserable expression. 'I didn't see them as people. I always thought of the Zabinis as enemies...'
'Because they are!' Ron said without thinking. Harry shook his head sadly.
'No, Ron, they shouldn't be any more. Voldemort is gone. We must learn to live with them. And if we don't respect them, it will be very difficult.'
He thought of Malfoy again, as he turned back towards the lift and asked his childhood arch-enemies if his friend had really died. As if it was one last straw to cling to, that perhaps those who were there might refute the rumours, the official and semi-official reports of what had happened at the Peverell House. It was human, Harry thought.
It was as if, with the passing of Voldemort, something invisible, something intangible had really fallen off these people, which previously drove them mad and made them to enemies.
'We need to stop the blue-skinned man!'
At this statement, Ron and Hermione's faces now seemed to match again; they both thought Harry had lost his mind.
'No, listen to me...', Harry started to argue, 'We simply can't allow this. The man is a monster. He's just like Voldemort. If we ever want him to...'
'I thought you said he hated Voldemort?' Ron reminded him, but Harry ignored him.
'The inner circle will always exist as long as there are humans, that cannot be changed. And it should not be changed. What do you think Dumbledore would do?' he asked them on a whim. 'You think he would support the blue-skinned one? Or would he try to stop him?'
His two friends did not reply. He was pleased to see that he had discouraged them, and they were slowly beginning to understand why it was so important to prevent what the sorcerer was planning.
'You said it yourself Ron,' Harry continued to press to convince them. 'The inner circle is an open secret to all. If they posed such a threat, do you think they wouldn't have done something about it by now? That Dumbledore wouldn't have done something? He fought tooth and nail against Voldemort. If you doubt it, ask yourself: what is better, having all those dark objects scattered around the world, or having them all together in one man's hands?'
Harry thought about it for the rest of the day, even when they had gone home to the Burrow together with Mr Weasley earlier than usual, and were even able to persuade Hermione not to work overtime for a change. Huddled together in the smallest bedroom in the Burrow, they told Ginny what had happened inside the house, and the Pensieve reappeared.
She hadn't completely forgotten about Harry's insult, but at least she was talking to him, not stubbornly silent. Harry was immensely pleased, and hoped that Ron was right and she would soon forget about it.
She also agreed that the rampage of the blue-skinned man must be stopped, but unlike the three, she made the most obvious suggestion:
'We have to tell Dad and Kingsley.'
Her words were met with a loud outcry and protest, but she remained calm.
'Why not?' she raised her eyebrows. 'Do you want to do everything on your own?'
Harry counted to ten before he spoke again without thinking.
Ginny doesn't understand anything. Kingsley has flatly stated that he won't let them anywhere near the case, and Mr and Mrs Weasley are backing him up. As if now that they've done what they needed to do, defeated Voldemort, they'll put them in a display case like some shining sword that's seen many battles and just proudly show them off to everyone.
'I'm sorry to say it, but the Ministry hasn't the faintest idea what to do with a fellow like that,' said Harry. 'He attacked us, we saw him, and so did Aberforth. Kingsley and your father had no idea what the Blight was, they just denounced Aberforth that he couldn't do magic!' Hermione put her hand on his arm in warning, lest he cross that line again. Harry held himself back. 'Ginny, Aberforth and us know what to do.'
Not to mention that he still felt the blue-skinned man had answers for him about the mysterious hooded figure, he added to himself. After all, it was impossible for these two strange figures to appear at the same time without having anything to do with each other...
He saw that he hadn't convinced her, as she deflated her shoulders and tsked.
'I understand, but if you tell them everything, if you... if you show them in the Pensieve everything that has happened, they will know what to do. That's what Aurors do, they'll hunt the guy down!'
'We are Aurors!' Ron poked his chest, his back proudly outstretched. Ginny was not impressed.
'Exactly, and that is why you have superiors whose job it is to tell you what to do!'
Harry and Ron snorted, Hermione shook her head.
'Our superiors would not be that if we hadn't said so!' she repeated her statement from the Dumbledore house. 'Kingsley only became Minister and your father Secretary, because we recommended them to Wizengamot, less than an hour after Voldemort's downfall!'
'That's right,' Ron approved, and Harry agreed with them. 'Thanks to us!'
Ginny had a slight look of disappointed sadness on her face, which had been there ever since they had come out of the interrogation room.
'Yeah, to you,' she said. 'And fifty other people besides you who gave their lives for it, including our brother. What can they thank you for?'
Ron turned pale as clay in an instant, and neither Hermione nor Harry had anything to say. Ginny made an all too understanding face as she watched her stunned friends, rose from the floor where they had been crouched across from each other, squatting, with the glowing blue stone bowl in the middle, as if they were sitting around a campfire.
'You know, I've been thinking a lot about you three lately,' she continued. 'This great 'triumph' that 'you alone' have fought for has changed you so much that sometimes you're unrecognizable,' she paused briefly, watching the effect of her words. 'Anyhow, it's your business. I'm going downstairs to see if Mum needs help with the washing up...'
The door to her room closed behind her, and the words Ginny had said buzzed like annoying flies in the minds of Harry, Ron and Hermione. It felt unjust, an unfounded accusation... How dare they treat them like five year olds?! Kingsley even accused them of killing that poor man! They are not sane, Harry thought furiously, kicking the Pensieve.
Hermione and Ron flinched as the memories escaped from the bowl, then exploded into vapour in the air. Harry didn't care.
Have they changed? Have they become selfish? How could they be selfish when they risked their lives to defeat Voldemort?! Who had the courage to do what they did? No one!
'Harry, I think she's right...' said Ron quietly, who still looked like a ghost ever since Ginny had mentioned Fred's death.
'No, she's not!' Hermione snapped, her hands folded. Harry looked with seething anger at the upturned Pensieve.
'Listen to me,' Ron asked.
Hermione hissed angrily in response.
'Things are running differently than what they used to,' he said. 'I also think it's too much that we've been excluded, but we're not exactly helpful to them either! If we told them everything, if we shared with them what we've concluded, maybe they'd see that we have a right to be involved.'
Harry and Hermione were thinking over what they had heard. He still found Kingsley and Ginny's words outrageous. If they hadn't acted on their own, they would be literally walking amongst the dead thanks to the Blight, as the Ministry wasn't able to come up with any solution after the incident at the Strangled Cat. But he also knew they couldn't always swim against the tide. There was no war anymore. Compromises had to be made.
'They'll get nowhere,' Harry said dismissively, when he had already given in. 'They'll screw this one up as well, just like all the previous ones.'
They went down to dinner at Mrs Weasley's invitation having reached a decision. But this decision brought no comfort to any of them; on the contrary, they felt humiliated. Harry's mind was still reeling from Kingsley's insolence. Behind Kingsley, in his mind, were Mr and Mrs Weasley, Dawlish, Proudfoot, Ginny, Percy and Charlie, with Aberforth alone on their side.
'We've had a busy day today, haven't we, Percy?'
'Tell me, Dad! Did Amos complain again...?'
'Yeah, don't even ask...'
The Weasley parents and their children were chatting happily over dinner, with only Ron, Hermione and Harry sitting on a bench, who deliberately moved to the other end of the table. Every insignificant half-sentence dropped was taken as a sneer and a repulsive insult; Harry's face was almost burning from anger.
'... he was completely outraged that we closed the case, even though he saw that there was no trace of the kid,' Percy's voice came out.
'Harry, dear, would you like another boiled egg?' Mrs Weasley held out the bowl from across the table.
Harry looked at her, momentarily confused. Mrs Weasley was smiling with motherly kindness, just as she had done when they had left the Burrow early in the morning the day before.
"I know I can trust you."
His seemingly rock-solid fortress of anger and resentment shook. Mrs Weasley seemed able to change everything with a kind smile, her brown eyes sparkling just like Ginny's, two chairs away.
'Harry?' the woman called out.
He picked his head up, and only now was he really coming out of his thoughts. Mrs Weasley laughed good-naturedly at Harry's dumb expression, and set the last of the boiled eggs down in front of him.
After dinner was over, the table was magically cleared, but Mr Weasley and his two eldest sons remained seated to discuss official business over a glass of wine. Ginny and Mrs Weasley moved to the sofa in the sitting room and whispered, occasionally laughing, about something. Soft music from the radio in the background added to the cosy atmosphere.
Ron felt obliged to address his father.
'Dad, do you have a minute?'
Mr Weasley turned silent – he was talking to Percy and Charlie about the Triwizard Tournament, and they were speculating about the tasks the three champions, who had been chosen the day before, would have to overcome.
'Is there anything that you forgot to mention earlier in the questioning?' he squinted at them and slid his chair closer. The two older Weasley boys glanced back and forth between them. Ginny and Mrs Weasley's laughter died away.
'Yes, it's about that...'
Mr Weasley listened quietly, attentively, without interjection. He listened to their ideas about the inner circle and Durmstrang, without a flicker of doubt or disagreement. When they finished, the silence in the dining room was almost tangible.
Mr Weasley broke it after a long time:
'You know that it is a crime to withhold information in an ongoing investigation, don't you?' he looked at the three of them over his wine glass.
Harry, Ron and Hermione nodded with bowed heads.
'Why didn't you tell us this during the questioning?' Mr Weasley asked again.
A few awkward minutes followed. Neither of them wanted to answer that question, so they remained silent. Mr Weasley did not question them further.
'I understand,' he said quietly, 'I know what excellent detectives you three are. To tell you the truth, three quarters of the Auror Office is an amateur compared to you...'
Despite his words, the statement did not sound like a compliment, nor was it taken as such by Harry and his friends. They dared not even peep as they sat before him, staring at the table.
'I appreciate you saying all this and not going into some kind of crazy rogue operation,' Mr Weasley continued, 'because let's be honest: we were all afraid of that. Many in the leadership board know that you cannot be steered, and those who try are usually lose badly...' he smiled faintly. 'I've told this to Kingsley as well and he agreed. He decided to let you take part in the investigation under Dawlish's leadership.'
Harry, Ron and Hermione's faces brightened and they looked at each other. They were caught off guard by this surprising turn of events, especially as Kingsley seemed so determined in the interrogation room.
'And one more thing,' Mr Weasley leaned forward over the table, his tone a shade colder, 'I very much hope that in the future you will restrain yourselves and speak to Kingsley Shacklebolt with the respect that he deserves. You did not elect him as a minister to speak to him in that tone afterwards, but because you trust his judgement. You elected a leader – not a servant. One more outburst like that and we'll be on bad terms.'