Chapter Nineteen: An Impossible Choice
The trick with carrying the lifeless body of a fellow student was simple, magic. Harry disappeared to fetch the cloak, which they planned to drape over his limp form, before levitating him… somewhere.
The details were foggy, but they couldn't exactly wait at the top of the tower to be found by Filch or the obnoxious prick of a Head Boy who always sneered at Daphne whenever she was dragged into Prefect meetings. On the plus side, at least they weren't dragging him down the stairs and lightly concussing the boy.
"He didn't do it, Daph." Tracey's voice was feeble, but Daphne didn't need to look 'round to know that she was staring at the unconscious face of the boy who'd, on the balance of things, just tried to kill her. "I know he didn't."
"Still a Death Eater. He's done enough."
"He's just scared."
"We're all terrified, Trace. It doesn't mean we dress up and pretend killing muggles is a good way to spend a weekend." The idea of joining Voldemort's little band of nutters was so foreign to her, so alien, that even thinking about it made her stomach clench. Ambition, cunning, desire, none of the traits her house supposedly stood for explained why they weaselled away beneath the safety of the 'Dark Lord's' robes. They were cowards, too scared of losing what they had to realise what they were sacrificing.
"And if it was your parents. If they weren't - if they tried to make you - We don't know what it's like. We can't judge them."
Daphne privately thought she would quite happily judge them, but Tracey had a point or at least the beginning of one. She knew she was privileged, lucky even. Her parents were raving lunatics who cared about status and money and blood purity. They had enough to go on for generations and even if they didn't, they cared about being happy over being powerful.
If the choice was death or murder, what would she choose? And Zabini had probably been told it wasn't straight to murder, that's how they got you, it was just spying or bulking out the numbers or doing the right thing for his mother. Any number of conversations all twisting Blaise's scared little mind to the one conclusion that sent him to the top of the tower.
"Why was he up here?"
"He likes to come up here to think. He always has."
"Has he?"
"Yes," Tracey said, a weird fondness in her tone for a boy who'd just tried to kill her. "I found out in Third Year. It was our little secret."
"As if there's not enough of them already."
"Things were simpler then. We were."
"Yeah," Daphne agreed, leaning against the wall and looking out over onto the Grounds. It felt like a lifetime ago that she came to Hogwarts to actually learn. Their exams felt so unimportant, so ridiculously banal, and yet almost everyone in the castle was worrying about school, homework, who liked who and why Professor Snape hated them. It was all so stupid. "We were. So, that's it? He just wanted to think?"
The hesitation was enough. Tracey was a terrible liar, or at least, a terrible liar when Daphne was the one listening to her. "I thought so."
"I don't know."
"You do," Daphne said simply, sliding down so that she was next to her friend. "You just don't want to admit it."
"We have to help him, Daph. He could've…" Killed himself. The words hung above them, like the stars in the night sky only a thousand times more depressing. But that didn't change what he'd done, what he'd tried to do. What if he did it again, even if they tried to help him? What if, after everything, he turned around and killed them.
Merlin's beard, how did Harry deal with this?
"Some people don't deserve help."
Tracey considered this, her hand pale in the moonlight as she touched Zabini's lifeless form. It always amazed Daphne how kind-hearted Tracey could be, they'd often joked that she should've ended up in Hufflepuff, that the hat had got it wrong.
"That doesn't mean we shouldn't try."
oOo
"Remind me again," Sirius Black asked from the head of his freshly purchased oak table. "Why exactly I've got a sixteen-year-old boy in my kitchen?"
"We didn't know where else to go." Harry said, still panting from the exertion of dragging Blaise onto the table in the first place and cursing the Ministry for banning students using magic outside of school.
He'd discovered Tracey crying at the top of the tower, Daphne holding her friend as best as Daphne knew how and then asking him to choose, Dumbledore and the Ministry or secrets and second chances. If they went to Dumbledore, regardless of his scheming and plotting, he had an obligation to tell the Ministry if a student filed a complaint of, well, attempted murder. That kind of issue couldn't just be swept under the carpet.
There was only one choice Harry could make.
"We need to talk to him," Tracey insisted from her seat at the table, never taking her eyes off of Zabini who lay spread-eagled on the table which had, until minutes earlier, been the home of Sirius' dinner. "Sorry. Hi, Tracey Davis."
"Pleasure."
"And you're good at keeping secrets," Harry added.
Sirius sighed, running a hand through his long hair. Harry couldn't blame him, neither of them could catch a break. He'd just escaped Azkaban and now three students were asking him to do something that could, very likely, get him sent there again. Harry wasn't up-to-date with his magical laws, but he was fairly sure that hiding information from the Ministry and interrogating a potential Death Eater was illegal.
"Fine, Harry, if you would."
"What're you -" Tracey tried to ask, but Sirius interrupted her.
"We need to be sure," he explained, he nodded to Harry again and this time Harry was uninterrupted as he moved to the side of the table and, more gently than Zabini deserved, rolled up his sleeve and revealed the writhing image of the Dark Mark. It was never any easier to look at. Every single time he did, he was transported, if only for a second, back to the graveyard. In that instant, he wasn't in Sirius' home, he was cradling Cedric's body.
"It's started." Sirius withdrew his wand and with a flick a gigantic net appeared above Zabini before thudding onto the table and clasping him firmly in place. "Right. This is what we do. I'll get that thing disconnected from the floo network, can't have anyone interrupting us like you lot did." Breaking into professors' offices was a theme that evening. That one had been McGonagall's. "Veritaserum ought to help, too."
"Here."
Harry withdrew the small vial from his pocket and chucked it to his godfather. Their second break-in. After the countless times Snape had threatened Harry with it in Third Year, it was impossible not to remember the Potions Master had a store of the truth serum in his stores.
"You really are prepared. Okay then, give me a minute."
They sat in subdued silence as Sirius prepared the house. Not only did he take the fireplace off the floo network, with quite a lot more swearing than Harry suspected most Ministry officials required, he also placed muggle-repelling charms, notice-me-not charms on the house and a bunch of other secrecy spells that Harry'd never heard of before. For the first time in his life, he was seeing the man who'd jumped at the chance to become an Auror.
No one broke the silence, but Harry didn't need words to see the pent-up fury in Daphne's bucking leg or the intensity in her pale eyes. His girlfriend was many things, but forgiving wasn't one of them. It wasn't the first time they'd disagreed about the Order and Dumbledore.
Dumbledore. All roads seemed to lead to the Headmaster these days. It felt like years since Harry had been laying in a classroom wondering how to deal with six, no, five horcruxes.
One life-changing problem at a time.
"Okay, we should be fine," Sirius told them as he stood over Zabini. "As for you two, you don't have to stay. I know there's no point telling Harry to leave but you don't have to see this."
"I'm not going anywhere," Daphne said simply, never taking her eyes off Zabini's unconscious form.
"Me neither."
"Suit yourself, but if you stay, you do what I say and right now, I need you to be quiet and say nothing, no matter what you hear. Veritaserum's a bugger at the best of times." The two girls nodded, one resigned, one desperate. "Harry."
"How come he gets to help?"
"What did I say?" Sirius shot back at Daphne. "Harry?"
Trying to ignore the outrage from his right, Harry got up and moved to Zabini. It was strange, seeing him so helpless when the boy who'd been standing over Tracey had looked so powerful. Not the good kind either, the terrifying people who used to be your friend kind. Yet, as he lay on that table, he looked every bit the boy he was.
"Two drops," Sirius instructed, passing Harry the small vial. "I'll hold his mouth open, then we'll see what he's got to say."
The same calm that had overtaken him at Slughorn's party descended on him again. It was as though in these moments his brain shut down, all the conscious anxieties and stresses that pulled at him whenever he was trying to sleep or work or just exist, they all faded into the background noise - like static on a television or Aunt Petunia complaining about the neighbours. Unimportant.
His hands were steady and the drops fell with ease into Zabini's open mouth.
One wave of Sirius' wand later and breath flooded into Zabini's lungs. There was a momentary sense of confusion, rapid blinking and then it were as though the mists cleared when Zabini's eyes fell on Harry.
"Ah, Potter. If you wanted to talk, all you had to do was ask." There was that effortless charm Zabini was so famous for. Where Daphne and Ron raged, Hermione fret and Harry, well, apparently he just shut down these days, Zabini was cocky, even arrogant. The mask he'd worn for so many years wasn't even a mask anymore. "Where are we exactly?"
"Somewhere no one will find you," Sirius told him, earning himself a cursory glance from the Slytherin boy.
"So, you ran to daddy. And I thought Gryffindors were meant to be brave. Turns out you're a coward just like me." He laughed, no, giggled. "Well, not exactly, I have this rather fetching tattoo. Why did I - Oh, you didn't? Tut tut, Potter."
"Shut up," Sirius barked, but all that did was earn a grin from the boy.
"I'm rather afraid I can't. Now, whose fault is that? Oh." He waggled a bound finger and grinned. "Oh, this is rather freeing though. All that lying, day in, day out. It's rather tiring and the people, ugh. Draco thinks he's so smart, well you know that obviously."
"Is he always like this?" Sirius asked.
"Yes," Zabini answered before Harry had the chance. The fact he'd been unable to lie tore a deranged laugh from his mouth. "This is good! I should take highly illegal potions more know, my mother used to insist that her fourth boyfriend take this stuff before they… I don't know why, he hated her. Perhaps that was part of the fun."
"You're disgusting."
"Daphne, is that you, my dear?" Even if he'd wanted to move his head, Sirius was pointing his wand directly at the boy and keeping him firmly in place. "You're no fun."
Sirius moved forwards, so that he was looming over Zabini. "Neither are you, trying to kill your professors and friends."
"I didn't so much as touch Slughorn," Zabini confessed. "I knew, certainly, but they all did. Tracey… I didn't want to."
"But you would have?" Behind Zabini, Tracey froze.
"I just wanted to scare her. I wanted her to leave me alone."
"Why?" Harry asked.
"Why else would I be up there wallowing in my sins?" Zabini asked. "There comes a point for all of us, Potter, where going on is so much worse."
"Who tried to kill Slughorn?"
The muscles in his face clenched, but it wasn't enough. "Bruce Thickness. Third Year."
"Slytherin?"
"Ravenclaw," Zabini confessed, but his face betrayed the calmness the serum was forcing upon his voice. It would've been comical if it wasn't so harrowing. "Draco knew everyone would suspect one of us, and his father was awfully easy to persuade apparently. Only managed one Cruciatus curse."
The unimaginable pain of that curse still pricked at Harry's skin whenever he thought about it. "Only?"
"You and I have both dealt with more than that," Zabini said, a lopsided grin twisting his handsome features. "Don't lie, Potter. The Death Eaters I know all proudly talk about the day Harry Potter screamed for his mother at the mercy of the Dark Lord. How many was it? Five? Ten? Or did you lose count?"
Sirius looked like he wanted to explode, and Harry couldn't bring himself to look at Daphne, so instead he hunkered down so that his face was level with Zabini's. Block out the room, one problem at a time. "Did you?"
"Fifty-seven, if you must know." There was no shame in his eyes that time, no desperate attempt to resist telling the truth. "I broke at around forty, but Rookwood is rather slow on the uptake."
"Who's next?"
"No one's really sure. Draco wants you, obviously, but then his father insists it should be Dumbledore. Then there's calls for anyone you know, really. Greengrass, Weasley, any, take your pick, Granger, Bones. Susan and Amelia, rather unfortunate that one, I had always rather liked Susan."
"How?" Harry asked, as dispassionately as he could manage without throttling Zabini.
"Not a clue, sorry. And really, I am. Sorry, that is. I… I always hoped I wouldn't…" His words were broken up with small sobs and a desperate attempt to clamp his jaw shut. "But I did."
"Why?"
"Because my mother would die and I wouldn't be far behind."
It was Sirius who spoke next. "It's always the mother."
"Personal experience, Black?"
"I'd have killed my mother for a Bowtruckle," Sirius said conversationally.
"I'll take that as a yes. Then you should know, this is how they win."
"It's how it starts," Sirius confirmed. "But some people aren't worth saving. She threw you to a bunch of Chimeras and for what? You've got a choice. Tell us everything, every single thing, and we'll keep you safe."
"You can't be serious!"
"My godson is rather fond of you, Miss Greengrass," Sirius said without looking up. "Don't make me silence you."
"He's -"
"He knows what he is," Sirius interrupted. "And he'll have to live with that for the rest of his life, won't you?"
"However long is left."
"Kill yourself when you've done something useful." There was a harshness in his tone that Harry had never heard before. Beyond Zabini, Harry heard Tracey gasp. "Names. Places. How they turned you. Will you tell the Ministry?"
"I'll die."
"We all die someday," Sirius reasoned. "It might as well be doing something that matters."
oOo
Ron Weasley awoke, as he normally did, well-rested and late. The Gryffindor dormitory was completely empty. Weird, but not unusual. Fifth-year was making them all a little bit insane. Neville was studying from five in the morning, while Seamus and Dean had taken to long stints in the library until curfew and even staying in the Common Room until the early hours.
Ron wasn't entirely sure when Harry had time to study these days, what with Quidditch, the Defence Club and Sirius' trial the poor bloke had been zonked out by the time Ron had returned from the stack of homework he'd been trying to get through. They'd barely seen each other and in recent years that might've upset him. Now? Now he just wanted to do what was best for his friend and if that meant making sure the twins didn't turn his hair green when he passed out in the Common Room, then he'd do it.
So it struck him as a little odd when the door to the dormitory was flung open angrily and Harry burst into the room. His best friend didn't notice him at first, for Ron had been forced to leap back from the door to avoid being thrown into the wall. Dumfounded, he watched as Harry kicked his trunk, swore loudly and dropped onto his bed nursing his freshly wounded foot.
"Er," Ron started, "you alright, mate?"
Only then did Harry realise he wasn't alone. Something like the expression the twins' wore when their mother found confiscated dung bombs under their bed crossed Harry's face.
"Ron."
"Who else would it be?"
"No, it's not - I just -" A great resounding grunt of frustration left his mouth. "Zabini's a Death Eater."
"What?"
"And he tried to kill Tracey, or scare, or whatever. Oh, and there's a bunch of other Slytherins who're Death Eaters, a kid called Thickness tried to kill Slughorn and now they're all fighting over whether they should knock me or Daph off first. And -" A bark-like laugh not to dissimilar to his godfather's burst from Harry's mouth "- now he's unconscious in Sirius' house."
"Sirius?"
"There wasn't anywhere else to go," Harry explained. "Daph doesn't trust Dumbledore, to be honest, I don't know if I do these days. He gave us everything, Ron. Everything. There's something like twenty of them, all here, in the castle. We've been in classes with them."
The thought made Ron's stomach clench. "Who?"
"Guess any pureblood family in the castle," Harry told him. "They're everywhere."
"What even Gryffindor?" The fact Harry's face didn't even crack was enough for Ron to realise just how close he'd been sleeping to a real-life Death Eater. "Bloody hell. So, what're you gonna do?"
"No idea."
"What do you mean? He told you -"
"Under Veritaserum," Harry explained. "I nicked some from Snape's stores, oh, he's in on it by the way. Which means Dumbledore probably already knows."
The idea that the Headmaster would just sit by and watch a load of kids being turned into the worst thing imaginable and do nothing was so completely alien that Ron almost didn't even process what Harry had said.
"You're kidding. Dumbledore wouldn't just let this happen."
"If it was going to happen anyway, isn't it better to know who's involved?" Harry asked. "Steer them the right way, just do a bit of spying, don't actually kill anyone. Only they ignored what Snape said because Malfoy's dad told them to go after Slughorn. That's what Zabini said. I mean, Snape's always been a spy, right?"
"'Pends who for," Ron shrugged. "Could be spying on us."
"And stopping Death Eaters in training actually killing anyone?" Alright, that didn't make much sense, but maybe Snape was just trying to be cautious. He'd always been a slimy git.
"Dumbledore will -"
"Will what? Tell us what to do? Sit us down and say what good children we've been and that he's so proud of us?" Harry was up again, pacing across the dormitory. The floorboard by Neville's bed squeaked every time he stood on it. "Dumbledore hid the prophecy. Hid the Horcruxes. He's lied to us, to me. He says it was to protect me but what if - what if he just wanted me to know when it mattered? What if there's more? What if there's something else?
"But we can't go to the Ministry," Harry continued, squeaking the floorboard as he rounded back towards Ron. "They'll take ages to do anything and if they do, they'll have to arrest Sirius for questioning Zabini under Veritaserum. We can't just go to the Auror Office and say, by the way, these people are all Death Eaters - don't ask us how we know, just trust us."
"So Zabini's got to do it," Ron reasoned.
"And trust him to do the right thing?"
"Fair point."
"And then there's the horcruxes."
"Five little pieces of You-Know-Who floating about," Ron grimaced. "Wonder what he'd stick them in?"
"No idea, but I bet you Dumbledore knows, or suspects, or whatever."
"Then ask him." It was simple enough. "He wants You-Know-Who gone as much as we do. You might not like how he's gone about things but he needs you, mate, remember?"
"Neither can live while the other survives."
"You've got to finish this," Ron continued, glad that Harry had finally stopped, teetering on the edge of a turn, his eyes fixed on the window, seeing something that Ron was clearly missing. "Whether anyone likes it or not, it's you, Harry. It always has been."
"So, I have to tell the most powerful wizard alive that I know better?"
"Why do you always have to make my plans sound stupid?" Ron joked, trying to get a grin out of his best mate. It almost worked, too. "It's better than not. Worst he can say is bugger off."
"And probably kill us all."
"Yeah. That too."
Harry considered this for a moment, and then it was as if the spring inside him had uncoiled again and he was moving. Not pacing. Instead he knelt down in front of his trunk, fishing out the map and the cloak, along with a shiny mirror that Ron knew connected to Sirius.
"Fine, but you're coming. And Hermione."
"Me?"
"Someone's got to stop me from doing something stupid," Harry grinned, "you two've done a good job so far."
"What about Greengrass?" It wasn't jealously, even though plenty of people had accused Ron of that and far worse before. Greengrass was important, everyone could see that. Whether he liked her, and if he was honest he didn't, Harry did. She didn't seem the type who wanted to be shut out of life changing conversations.
"She's with Sirius," Harry told him. "Said she'd sooner set fire to his house than go back to the dungeons. Besides, do you think it's a good idea to leave her and Dumbledore in the same room?"
oOo
The Headmaster's Office was everything Hermione Granger had hoped it would be. There were books neatly organised in bookcases, magical instruments that she had only ever read about just sitting in front her whizzing and popping merrily, and every single Headmaster or Headmistress to have ever presided over Hogwarts looking down at them. To think of everything they'd seen, every student, the magic they'd had at their fingertips, the wisdom they could give her. She wanted to hoist them from the walls and ask them all of the billions of questions that were trying burst forth from her brain.
Of course, she couldn't. Not only because she doubted they'd be interested in what she had to ask, although that was a very real and tangible possibility, but because her insatiable curiosity wasn't up for discussion. In fact, she wondered if Hogwarts would even be open again.
They had practically had to force the gargoyle protecting the office to let them in. Professor Dumbledore had been sitting serenely at his desk and hadn't even appeared the least bit confused by their sudden appearance. He still refused to meet Harry's gaze, instead his electric blue eyes flashed to Hermione and Ron before the beginnings of his small smile had pulled beneath his beard.
"I wondered when I might expect to see you, Harry," Professor Dumbledore said quietly, withdrawing his wand and summoning three very comfortable looking armchairs. "Mr Weasley, Miss Granger, it is always a pleasure."
"You know." It wasn't a question. The harshness in Harry's voice surprised Hermione, but after everything she'd been told about the night's events, should it? She had always thought that Dumbledore, despite his eccentric operating, had their best interests at heart. She still did, even if Harry was beginning to doubt it.
It was still impossibly strange to wrap her head around. Death Eaters in the castle, and not only Death Eaters, but her classmates, people who should only be worried about their exams. They were throwing their lives away before they'd even had chance to live them.
"I am afraid, Harry, you are going to need to be more specific."
"Zabini's a Death Eater," Harry said far more levelly than Hermione had expected him to. Perhaps Daphne was rubbing off on him, not because of her own ability to be calm, far from it. The Slytherin girl ran her mouth off constantly, a fact that had made her incredibly unlikeable to most people. Harry couldn't very well snap and shout at her, all he'd get was his own emotions mirrored back at him. "Snape recruited them and you knew, didn't you?"
Dumbledore didn't answer for a moment, instead taking a great steadying breath and steepling his fingers. None of them sat down in the chairs, although Ron was eyeing them with interest. "Severus believed that he had the situation under control. It appears, however, there are forces at play beyond even his control."
"So yes then." He reminded Hermione of Scrimgeour, definite and fuelled by thinly stifled anger. "You knew."
"I did," the Headmaster nodded. "But only because -"
"If you didn't it would happen anyway," Harry said cuttingly.
"Precisely. It was not an easy decision, Harry, nor was it one made lightly. I hoped that if Professor Snape -" Ron snorted, but Dumbledore continued. "- was involved then, perhaps, the children could be protected. Their efforts were limited to gathering information we were more than happy to fall into the hands of Lord Voldemort, and so no harm was done."
"Until they tried to knock off Slughorn," Ron interjected. "That Zabini bloke told Harry they did, right, Harry?"
"Malfoy's father put them up to it."
"Lucius was always persuasive," Professor Dumbledore said mournfully.
"But Professor," Hermione began, a little nervously. "Why not tell the Ministry they were coerced? They're all underage."
"And their lives would be forever tarnished if the world knew the choices they had made."
"And Slughorn's isn't?" Ron asked.
"As I said, Mr Weasley, I never believed they would go so far as to attempt the murder of a professor."
"It doesn't matter what you thought, Professor," Harry said evenly. "What's important is what they did."
"And what they might do next," Hermione finished, saying what everyone else was thinking. From the walls around her, she noticed several of the portraits ogling their conversation with interest. One of them even had a hearing trumpet. She wondered if he actually needed it, if his hearing defect had actually been passed onto the painting or if instead it was a habit from the dead Headmaster's real life counterpart memorialised in ink and paintwork.
"Professor Snape assures me -"
"They're not listening to Snape!" Harry snapped. "Don't you get it? They're going to go after one of us. Hermione. Ron. Daphne." His voice wavered at the mention of his girlfriend. "And you're failing, sir. Right now. You're failing us."
"Harry!"
"It's alright, Miss Granger," Professor Dumbledore said calmly, holding up a hand. "Harry is quite right, of course. I have failed you. It is my duty to protect the students in this castle and, upon being informed by Professor Snape of Mr Malfoy's conversion I should, as Harry rightly says, informed the Ministry.
"However, I believed, wrongly, that nothing dangerous would come to pass. I had hoped that within these halls, despite everything, you would be safe. It appears I was wrong. You are, I suspect, aware of the issues aligning with the Ministry presents?"
"People like Malfoy's dad can bribe whoever they want," Ron answered.
"Simply put, but yes."
"They tried to kill someone, sir," Harry managed to grind out. "We've gone past that."
"Then what would you do?"
Harry faltered for a moment, clearly not expecting the Headmaster to shine the light of responsibility on him. That was the thing about Harry, Hermione had always known, he never wanted to lead. He never sought it out, but when it was thrust upon him, he would invariably, one way or another, figure out how.
"We can't turn over Zabini," Harry began, "that'll just get his mother killed and then he'll shut up anyway. So we… We… Snape."
"Professor Snape has done -"
"His best, I know. But Voldemort trusts him. So we give him to the Aurors. The Ministry needs more proof that Malfoy and that lot were in the graveyard that night, that they're actually doing something. Give him to Kingsely or Tonks, someone we know we can trust. They run the investigation, when a bunch of Death Eaters meet up, they'll be there to stop them."
"Doesn't stop Malfoy being a Death Eater though," Ron pointed out. "They're here, mate."
"Locking up their parents should stop most of them."
"And take away their point of contact for Voldemort," Hermione added.
"Most?"
"We can't just kick them out, Ron."
"Why not? They'd kill you."
"Because their parents are forcing them to do this," Harry insisted. "Because they don't think they've got another choice."
"This would give them one," Hermione finished. "If they don't think Voldemort can hurt their families they-"
"Go back to normal? And when they try and knock either of you off in your sleep, what then?"
"Then we know what choice they've made," Harry said simply.
"You know how mad this sounds?"
"We can't just throw them out of the school. That's how you get people like Voldemort. That's how this carries on. You didn't see him, Ron. Zabini, he's… He doesn't want to be a Death Eater."
"Still did it though."
"Because they tortured him. They threatened to kill his mother. They didn't give him a way out. This does."
"If it works," Ron objected. "And what about Daphne? And Tracey? And anyone else who goes to sleep with those nutters next to them?"
"I - I don't know."
"Mr Weasley raises a valid concern," Professor Dumbledore said. "One that will be shared by parents."
Hermione could see Harry visibly trying to restrain himself from exploding at the sheer irony of Dumbledore refusing his own plan. "Okay, so we kick them out. Then Voldemort's got a bunch of other followers."
"Unless we can make sure they're safe," Hermione said.
"If they could be safe, wouldn't they have done that already?" Ron asked.
"No, Hermione's got a point," Harry said slowly. "Parkinson's dad was trying to get her to turn, I think. Daph mentioned something about it. She thought her dad or Sirius might put them up. We could do that."
"And publicly condemn them," Professor Dumbledore pointed out.
"But you just -"
"I am merely playing both sides of the argument, Harry." The professor wasn't unkind, nor was he angry, he was simply calm. It was like watching her parents whenever they found her eating too many sweets. They'd simply explain why it wasn't a good idea and then let her make her own choice. Hermione sometimes longed for the simplicity of those moments. Glimpses of a life she'd long ago left behind. "You have to make a choice, I believe, that is what you wanted when you came here, is it not? I have given you a life so bereft of your own decisions. No more. I will, in this instance, follow your direction."
"There's no right answer, is there?"
"I'm afraid not."
"And you could keep them safe?"
"Between myself, Sirius and some other Order members, yes, I believe we could. It would require their trust, of course, and I cannot force anyone to accept my assistance."
"But you'd give it to them?"
"I would."
"Okay," Harry sighed, taking a step forward leaning against the back of the chair, his emerald green eyes locked on the Headmaster. "We do both. Give Snape to the Aurors and protect the students. That's… that's what we'll do and then, Professor, you're going to tell me everything you know about Voldemort's horcruxes."
oOo
The next few days were insane to say the least. Students from every house slowly began disappearing one by one without a word from the school. Professor Snape resigned with immediate effect and Professor Dumbledore himself took the Fifth and Seventh Year classes, scheduling homework. The Defence Club was hastily disbanded and a strict curfew was put into effect until further notice.
Slytherin Common Room was home to the most notable changes, largely thanks to the fact that the vast majority of fifth year students and above were taken out of the equation. Daphne's dormitory was unaffected, while only two girls from sixth and seventh years were expelled from the Common Room and the school, although the rest of the school didn't know that.
The only person who was truly struggling with what had happened was Harry. Thanks to the curfew, Daphne was rarely allowed to be within a few feet of her boyfriend. They'd taken to exchanging letters, meeting in abandoned classrooms and eking out what moments they could in Potions. She cursed her lack of interest in Magical Beasts. Hagrid would've let her partner with him as much as she wanted on his morning lesson that saw her dragging tired eyes over runes that failed to hold her interest.
Finally, she was able to steal him away beneath the secret passageway underneath the One-Eyed Witch.
"I never knew this was here," Daphne confessed once she and Harry were firmly tucked away in the snug space, illuminated only by the magical light emanating from the tip of her wand.
"Fred and George showed me," Harry told her. "Goes all the way to Honeydukes."
"Good, I could do with some chocolate." Not so much as a wry smile. "They're gonna be okay."
"No," Harry said. "They're not. Some will, but not all of them."
"That's the best we could've hoped for." So as not to shake her wand, she reached out with her left hand and gently stroked the palm of his right. He didn't pull away, that was something. They'd had the beginnings of this conversation more than once over the last few days, but never managed to get all the way through it. Partially because teachers would turn up or simply because Harry couldn't face it.
She couldn't blame him. As much as Sirius might want him shielded from it, there was no protecting Harry from the consequences of his conversation with Dumbledore.
"You made the only choice you could. I don't think I'd have been that kind."
"People are going to die." Harry's voice shook. "They're going to die because I told Dumbledore to expel them." For you.
It wasn't the first time she'd had the thought. What would he have done if he didn't love someone sharing the dungeons with Malfoy? Would he have left Slytherin to become a Death Eater den of Snape and Malfoy's control? "But you also saved some of them too. Think about that. Zabini's pathetic excuse for a mother is still breathing because you told the Order to protect them. What do you think would've happened to her if they'd found him dead at the bottom of the Tower? Or if he'd ratted on his Death Eater pals to the Ministry? And anyone else who turned, you think they'd be safe now? You're not killing them. You're not killing your own children or throwing them to that psychopath." She stuffed her wand up in one of the cracks on the wall and used her newly freed hand to cup his face, pulling all of that anxiety and stress and self-loathing to her.
"Ron would've kicked them out. Hell, I would've kicked them out because I was too scared, too hurt, too stupid to think of anything else. All I could think was they made their bed, so they could lie in it. I wanted to chuck Zabini off that tower myself for what he tried to do to Tracey, for what he could've done to me or Tori or you…
"I don't know anyone else who would've given them that chance. That's what you did. You gave them the choice. What they do next, that's on them, Harry. It's on them. Not you. You can't save everyone."
"I know, but I don't know where this goes. I mean, we're meant to be studying for our exams and all I can think about is those stupid Horcruxes and… I've seen him. Torturing them. The ones that said no to Dumbledore, but tried to run anyway." Daphne almost couldn't breathe, the weight of his words hitting her so forcefully everything just seemed to stop. "He laughs. Every time, he laughs. They're begging, you know, for help or their parents and sometimes they're there. He makes them watch before he kills them."
"Harry -"
"Don't," Harry cut across her, not turning away, instead gripping her hand tightly. "Please. Don't say you're sorry for me. Be sorry for them."
"How often is this happening?"
"Every night," Harry confessed and she could see the dark rings under his eyes, she'd thought it was because he was struggling with the weight of his decision, and perhaps it was, but it was also because Voldemort was showing him exactly what that choice had done. "I don't know if he knows I can see it, but I don't just see it, Daph. I feel him. He's happy."
"That's sick."
"That's Voldemort," Harry corrected darkly, there were tears pooling in his eyes, they'd no doubt been lingering there for days, Harry refusing to let them fall.
"We'll stop him. I promise, Harry. Whatever happens, we're going to stop that psycho."
She clung to him for a long time and he to her, beneath the statue of a crone she held her boyfriend as he cried and wept for the Death Eaters who'd tried to turn tail and run but been too scared to accept help. Above them students worried about homework, about exams, about the future they didn't realise were being threatened by Lord Voldemort.
A threat Daphne swore to herself she would make sure Harry eradicated from the world if it was the last thing she did.
AN: This is going to be the end of Fifth Year, originally I had planned to add in chapters about the OWLs themselves and some more light-hearted snippets, but moving up Blaise's stuff meant that it doesn't really fit now. We'll be moving onto Sixth Year, which will revert to the short story/snippet version of this story I originally envisioned. That means there's going to be longer chapters with more jammed-in, but more infrequent updates as these take a lot longer to put together.
I accidentally fell in love with telling this story and Fifth Year especially, I love these characters and really wanted to spend a lot of time with them, however, I want to head back to the larger scale that I had in mind and to do that I'm going to need to use longer chapters with more time skips/jumps. This is because this story will be going past seventh year and beyond, but because I don't really have the time to write epic fantasy-style door stops, something needs to give somewhere.
I hope you guys still enjoy this new direction and let me know if that's something you don't really want. It's going to be more similar to the fourth year now that a lot of the seeds for future events have been planted and sorted. I know some reviewers didn't really like that approach, so I'd like to know what people who have gotten to this point think. Thanks again for reading, I really do appreciate every single person who takes the time to go on this journey with me. I'm learning a lot about my writing and pushing myself to do scenes I'd never normally do, so if they're ropey, please bear with me and let me know how you'd like to see things improved. This is a learning experience for me as much as anything and I really want to give you the best stories I can. Until next time!