one more chapter and we're done.

The cold, early-winter air has settled in over Hogsmeade, pulled over the village like a worn blanket – and for once, Harry is grateful for taking a step into the Three Broomsticks, if only to escape the chilly wind. "Minister," he greets cheerfully when he closes the door to the private room behind him. "A pleasure to see you, as always."

Fudge laughs, a booming, genuine laugh, and gestures for Harry to sit down at the table. "The feeling is mutual, Harry," he says, mirth sparkling in his eyes. "How have you been since our last meeting?"

Harry, recognizing an opportunity when he sees one, jumps into action and sets his and Tom's plans into motion. "Oh, I've been wonderful, sir," he says, pulling away a chair from the table and sitting down with more grace than is natural for him. "I told my friends about Thomas and they were all very accepting."

"Thomas?" Fudge repeats, eyebrows jumping in polite curiosity. "Who is that?"

"Oh!" says Harry, widening his eyes in feigned surprise. "I haven't told you about him? Excuse me, then, we can talk about something else – "

"Oh, no," Fudge interrupts, wanting to stay on Harry's good side. "Please, do tell me who Thomas is."

Gotcha. "Thomas is a squib," Harry begins boldly. Fudge's eyebrows skyrocket into his hairline. "He's Draco Malfoy's cousin." He takes a deep breath and raises his chin: a movement made by someone steeling themselves. Nothing in this conversation is coincidental. "It also happens that he is my boyfriend."

Fudge blinks. "Your boyfriend?" he repeats. "Your boyfriend is a Malfoy? A Malfoy squib?"

Harry sighs and looks down at the table with an angry frown, letting his bangs fall into his eyes. "See, this is why I'm so worried," he says hotly. "The Wizarding world is so biased and prejudiced towards squibs and muggleborns alike. They can't make a good life here," he complains, tearing his gaze away from the tabletop to stare at Fudge with now wide, innocent eyes. "But they can't make a good life in the muggle world either!"

Fudge sits back, recognizing that the subject of the conversation has changed, and inclines his head. "Do continue," he says, gesturing with one hand.

"I don't know how much you know about muggles, sir," Harry begins, "but they fear everything they don't understand. And they're far more dangerous than we wizards believe."

Fudge raises an eyebrow. "How so?" he asks lightly.

"What they don't have in magic, they have in science," Harry elaborates. "You've surely heard of guns?" Fudge nods. "Well, it's far worse than that. Airplanes, bombs, wars – they're so brutal," he sighs. "You should've seen my muggle family. They didn't like the fact that I came from a magical family. Thought they ought to 'beat the freakishness out of me'."

Fudge sits back, eyes gone wide. "Surely they didn't – "

"They never hit me," Harry assures him, "but I was never treated like a person."

"Merlin," Fudge breathes. "That's - "

"Unfortunately, my family aren't the only muggles that act that way," Harry says, thinking of his poor Tom's childhood in the forties. "But individual muggles don't pose much of a threat," he says, again changing the subject. "Let's talk about muggle wars."

Fudge nods. "The World Wars, yes?" he asks.

"Yes," Harry nods. "But also all the other wars. Civil wars. Syrian wars. Wars in general. They aren't rare. Muggles are terrifyingly brutal – thousands of humans die every day because of war."

"During the Wizarding Wars there was much of the same," Fudge says, frowning in confusion, "surely – "

"Wrong," Harry interrupts hotly. "That was one war and one horrible person. In the muggle world? Thousands of horrible people. Dozens of wars at the same time. You don't get it, Minister. During the Wizarding Wars there were followers who went after individual people. In the muggle wars there are governments that go after other governments, murdering civilians without a single care in the world. They bomb and destroy and tear down. It's terribly painful, sir. A terrible way to die… not like the Killing Curse."

Harry looks down at the table again, his shoulders slumping as he makes his next breath shake. "My parents were lucky," he says quietly, sounding more like the broken child he was before summer began than he's ever done before, "to be killed with the Killing Curse. They were lucky they weren't muggles."

Fudge stays quiet, so Harry continues.

"I worry about the Wizarding world, sir," he says, still in the quiet, cracked voice. "They don't understand the threat the muggles pose. If they find out we exist… they fear what's different. The wars they fight? It's over religion. It's over skin color. It's over who you love." Dramatic pause. "Think about what they could do to us if they knew we existed."

Harry glances up from the table, doing his best to look worried and sad and young.

There are tears glistening in Fudge's eyes. "Of course, Harry," he says softly. "But what can we do?"

Harry clenches his hands. "I don't know," he admits. "I don't know much about magic, not really. But – but some sort of shield separating the magical world from the muggle one must be possible? Separating our worlds completely?"

Fudge nods slowly. He looks thoughtful, and Harry knows that he's hit home.

Bingo, he thinks. Victory is ours.

Harry comes back from Hogsmeade around four in the evening. He's about to whisk over to Tom to tell him how the meeting went, but thinks better of it and pops into the Gryffindor common room first. After everything she's done for him, he can give her a vote of confidence in return.

"Hermione?" he says, nearing the couch in front of the fireplace cautiously.

Hermione doesn't look up from her book. "Yes, Harry?"

"I'm going over to Tom to tell him about my meeting with the Minister," he says slowly. "Just… wanted to tell you. So you wouldn't start searching for me."

Hermione still doesn't look up from her book. "Okay, Harry."

Harry sees her smile and gives a relieved sigh before hurrying out to Hagrid's hut.

"Honey, I'm home!" Harry calls loudly as he appears in Tom's office.

"Hm," Tom says. He doesn't look up from his papers.

Harry chuckles, walks over, and presses a soft kiss to his cheek. "Good to see you, too," he chirps. "How's the Death Eaters?"

Now Tom does look up from his papers, a disgusted grimace on his face. "When did you start caring?" he scowls.

Harry grins and skips over to the couch. "I don't," he assures his cheerily, "I'm just being polite."

"To the Death Eaters?" Tom asks incredulously. He stands up from his desk and follows Harry to the couch.

"To you," Harry says, rolling his eyes. "Why would I be polite to them?"

Tom sighs, sits down on the couch, and pulls Harry to his chest. "Nevermind," he mutters. "How did the meeting go?"

"Great!" Harry says. "I finally found an opening. Gave it all I dared. He's pretty open to the idea, I think – especially now that I've voiced my concerns."

Tom hums thoughtfully. "Lucius tells me he's preparing to try and have some law passed," he informs him. "By his reports I think it's going well."

"Wonderful," Harry grins. "We're making great progress, then!"

"Yes… but not enough," Tom grumbles. "But what else can we do?"

Harry tilts his head. What other ways can they reach out to the public to push the Ministry towards taking action? Hm…

When the answer hits him it hits him hard, and he feels like an idiot for not seeing it sooner. "The Daily Prophet!" he cries, sitting up so abruptly that Tom startles and nearly falls out of the couch. "Rita Skeeter would be overjoyed to have an interview with me!"

Tom grumbles something darkly underneath his breath as he sits himself back in a comfortable position. "Yes," he agrees after some time, "she would. But she would also be blowing your story out of proportion."

"I'm the last Potter," Harry deadpans, "I have cash, Tom. Lots of it."

"Bribery?" Tom mutters, raising and eyebrow and tapping his chin. "Hm. I like it."

"Wonderful!" Harry repeats from earlier. He hops out of the couch. Tom, not ready for the sudden loss of support, loses his balance and tips over. "I'll send her an owl right now!"

He doesn't see it, but when he hurries over to Tom's desk to pen Skeeter a letter, Tom stares at his retreating back. Upon seeing his childish joy his expression softens from a disgruntled scowl to a surprised look and then further to a fond, content smile.

Half a week later, Hermione taps Harry's shoulder during breakfast. "Harry," she says, "the interview is here."

"Oh!" Harry exclaims, happily accepting the offered Daily Prophet. "Damn, she works fast."

"Read it," Hermione nags. "It's surprisingly good."

Harry snorts, opens the newspaper, and begins to read.

It's impressive. Skeeter's done a good job – perhaps because he paid her just a bit more than he needed to get desired results, but oh, well. The end result is marvelous, so he's not going to complain.

She's put together a moving tale about a horrible childhood, neglecting muggles, a still-healing child and a terrifying danger. She has successfully painted muggles, not as monsters, but as humans ready to fight the unknown. Towards the end of the article she lists wizards, witches, and squibs hurt by muggles. There's two lists, one with muggles who's hurt wizards without knowing they're magical, and one with muggles who knew.

The list with muggles who knew is deliberately longer than the one with those who didn't.

At the end of the article, Skeeter poses a very relevant question – we have always perceived muggles as relatively harmless creatures. It's obvious now that we were wrong! Why hasn't the Ministry done something? Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, has voiced a great trust in Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic. Will he live up to this trust? Will the Minister protect us?

Harry looks up at Hermione and is met by a pleased grin. "I didn't know that woman could write good articles," she says, still with that unusual grin plastered on her face.

Harry laughs nervously. "I, er. Might have bribed her. A little bit." He expects a shocked look, so he's understandably surprised when Hermione only giggles and shakes her head.

"I suppose that works, as well," she says, the grin melting into a smile. "Good job, Harry."

Well, that's certainly a pleasant surprise. Harry smiles back, but after a few moments his curiosity gets the better of him and he has to ask. "Not that I'm complaining," he says, "but your co-operation is unexpected. Pleasant, of course, but still… why are you going so willingly into this?"

Hermione turns fully towards him and sighs. "Well… Tom, the sane Dark Lord, has never expressed a hate for muggles. Just a fear. And I can support that – muggles scare me, as well. If all he's offering to do is protect us – and in that way, protect them – I don't see any problems. Not really." She smiles. "And it's… it feels good to have a goal to be working towards. Headmaster Dumbledore, great as he is, doesn't offer that."

Harry smiles back, reaches across the feet separating them, and puts his hand on her shoulder. "Hermione," he says, his voice soft and surprised, "I'm proud."

Hermione looks like Harry's just proclaimed that she got full marks in all her OWL's. "Thank you," she whispers. "So am I. Proud of Tom. Proud of you." She takes a deep breath and admits something she's never admitted before.

"…proud of myself."

In the aftereffect of Skeeter's article, the Ministry is in an uproar. The Minister is very clearly on Harry's side. People are yelling at each other in the hallways. The air is tense as they try to figure out a way to solve this.

And solve it they do. After a week of fighting, researching, checking and double-checking and triple-checking, even the muggle-lovers have to agree – the muggles are far more dangerous than they originally thought. Cornelius Fudge holds a speech about protecting the innocent. He talks about the muggles like they are humans – like they are dangerous, like any sort of human is. He talks about love, and fear, and logic. He talks about hope. He talks about safety and danger and uncertainty, and at the end of his speech, the general population of the Wizarding World has to agree with him.

Muggles are dangerous.

And it's not perfect, it isn't. It's not the best scenario, but when the Minister proclaims that incredibly powerful wards and charms and laws will be put in place to protect the Wizarding World, the deep-seated fear Tom has felt since the summer 1940 – it finally fades. A part of the boy, the shattered, broken boy… heals.

He cries when he hears the news that things are going to be okay, and Harry holds him and mutters soothing words until he calms – and he does calm, feels like he'll always calm, always when he's with Harry –

…so, this is it. Their plans have been a success. Their world and their happiness is safe, secluded from the people that might very well be their worst enemies.

But what now? I hear you ask.

Now?

Now they live.