Chapter Seven

– THE DRINK OF DIONYSUS –

The high, cold, snakelike hiss resounded throughout the hallway, but Harry couldn't see him anywhere. It was as if the sound was emanating from the walls, the ground, the sky. "My followers, my Death Eaters. You disappoint me."

In a different situation, Harry might've found it comical, people frenziedly looking left and right and pleading with the omnipresent voice that came from nowhere, yet everywhere.

Some screamed, some ran down the corridor and to the stairs, some huddled against the walls, but Lucius Malfoy, unmasked and aloof, stood up, talking towards the sky in a trembling, quiet but imploring. "My Lord, with all due respect, we understood your last wishes to continue your terror against the filth and scum that inhabit our polluted environment, we understood that you wanted us to carry on your plans until your returned to us, we recruited, we have terrorised, we have not been found out as of yet, we–"

"NO!" Voldemort's voice hissed with such tremendous force that it sent everybody but Dumbledore falling to the floor; the tall, old but formidable wizard that was the Headmaster of Hogwarts stood with his hands folded, looking determinedly down the hallway, unimpressed it seemed by Voldemort's antics as if the Dark Lord had disappointed him by not being loud enough. Dumbledore carried the air of a weather-beaten, ancient but famous and deadly sword, still used in action regularly and rarely dormant. As always, Harry could not help but feel magnified by how imposing and powerful Dumbledore looked.

"The instructions I left were clear," Voldemort whispered coldly, the breath of the last syllable echoing oddly throughout the corridor. "I explained that should a situation arise where I am unable to reveal myself to you, you follow four simple missions. Infiltrate the Ministry. Kill Albus Dumbledore. Wait for my return. However, in this case, you obviously knew my disappearance was not part of a plan, so I supposed some of you might've endeavoured to find me.

"Nevertheless, none of you have completed those plans. The Ministry remains control-free of the Death Eaters, and how humiliating to me to have a passionate following, but all of them incompetent? I can feelGrindelwald just turningin his grave. Albus Dumbledore, who I can so vividly see through my Scrying Bowl, remains alive, though perhaps not healthy. What is wrong with your hand, Dumbledore? Old age catching onto you?"

Harry, overwhelmed with the chaos of the recent events, jerked his head to look at Dumbledore's hands, one of which, Harry saw with astonishment, was blackened and dead-looking, shrivelled up like a perished plant.

Though everyone was swivelling their heads around, trying to find the source of the voice, Dumbledore looked determinedly down the hallway and Harry realised that Dumbledore, and Dumbledore only, knew which direction Voldemort was.

"Oh, Tom," Dumbledore said, smiling. "If every question ever asked was answered, then there would be no questions to be asked. That is my answer."

It seemed that Voldemort ignored him. "And last of all, very ironically," Voldemort said viciously, and Harry knew that Voldemort turned his focus back on his disobedient Death Eaters, "you have all completed, with flying colours, the mission that was least useful and most effortless. Though you knew, of course, that I would have ordered you differently, all of you sat in waiting, lingering between the border of the normal wizarding community and superiority. I speculate many of you almost blended back into society, thinking that Lord Voldemort was gone, done and dusted, and you could just walk away from that life. But you stayed, stayed because of pure cowardice, complete selfishness and utter self-interest, thinking that if I hadn'tperished that night and if I did return, you would be punished most severely for your betrayal.

"Yet none of you searched for me–"

"MY LORD!" a Death Eater shrieked suddenly, collapsing to the floor and bawling and bowing excessively in a subservient manner. "We searched EVERYWHERE for you! Had we heard ANYTHING about your whereabouts, we would've looked till the ends of the EARTH!"

Voldemort sounded livid at being interrupted. "If you had searched everywhere, you would have found me eventually, even with your incompetence."

"YOUR LORDSHIP," the same Death Eater sobbed, on all fours and shaking very visibly. "I apologise dearly, but, I beg you, PLEASE! We have caused harassed the scum that think they're equal to us, we have tortured and tormented–"

"FOOLISH!" Voldemort yelled and those who had crawled back up from the last time Voldemort had shouted were sent falling to the floor again by the terrible, colossal resonance. "It is FOOLISH to argue with Lord Voldemort! Juvenile practical jokes and childish inconveniences are nothing, NOTHING, compared to the pain and the terror we caused in Great Wizarding War. Lucius Malfoy creating a little terrorist group because he hears rumours that Lord Voldemort is active once again so he remains in my good books? Child's play!"

"The games of children can sometimes be very enlightening," Dumbledore cut in calmly, twiddling his thumbs. "They can often be wiser and more observant than most adults."

Voldemort ignored him. "It took you fourteen years to build a resistance, and a weak, weak, transparent one at that. For that, you must be punished."

Harry knew that Voldemort must've been far, far away because he would not dare present himself in his feeble state, so it must've been an incredible feat to conjure something from such a long reach.

A long, thick python materialised from thin air, and made a loud thud as it landed onto the floor. People jumped out of the way as the coiled snake uncurled and slithered lethally, except the one Death Eater who had spoken, who stood paralysed to the spot.

Yet there was something translucent, flimsy about the serpent, something that made it seem less dangerous. Nevertheless, it was as strong as a normal Burmese python, striking violently at the still Death Eater's neck and rapidly wrapping itself around the terrified masked person. He thrashed but was unable to scream as the snake constricted tighter and tighter around the Death Eater's throat, until–

–Dumbledore flicked his wand and the snake disappeared as quickly as it had come, leaving the assaulted Death Eater to fall to the floor, gasping for breath and massaging his throat.

"Long distance conjuration has never been your strong suit, Tom," Dumbledore said loudly. "But I see that you've achieved a Voice Projection Charm? How impressive. A bit disappointing you have decided not used your talents for better uses than threatening and attacking the only people in the world who respect you, Tom."

"I do not go by that name!" Voldemort yelled. "I am Lord Voldemort!"

Dumbledore shrugged. "Self-proclaimed lord or not, you are still Tom Riddle."

"That is the name of my filthy Muggle father who has long since been killed by my hand! A hand that will soon be the holder of a wand that murders you!"

Dumbledore folded his hands and spoke casually, as if they were talking over tea. "There are much worse that can happen to a man than murder. Murder, for one, does not rid the world of a person."

"Untrue!" bellowed Voldemort. "Those who die cannot come back!"

"Something you'll never understand, Tom," Dumbledore said calmly, "is that death is not the beginning, or the end, or even the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning. One day you will die as well."

Voldemort breathed deeply and sounded like he was withholding a terrible rage. "Foolish philosophy does nothing to my ears except make them bleed, Dumbledore, I will never die–"

"–Oh, Tom, of course you will–"

"–I have secret defences you do not know about–"

"–Oh, I'm very aware of the defences you believe impregnable. I'm very aware of the murders you have committed, the lives you have taken, and what sickening power you have gained from the severance of your soul. However revolting they are, I have managed to … bring down a fair few."

It seemed that Voldemort was shocked, completely at a loss for words. Finally, "My Death Eaters, I now speak to you, and you only. I am willing to forgive the betrayal and incompetence you have given to me, I am willing to be merciful. Come to me now, and you shall be punished. Do not come to me now, and you shall be punished even more."

And now, Harry could see, one of the Death Eaters with her sleeves rolled up was holding up her left arm in astonishment. There, like a moving tattoo, was the pulsing Dark Mark Harry had read about in very recent history books. The tattoo-like image of a skull eating a snake was branded on all Death Eaters' arms, branded like a form of communication, the means of summoning them all to a rendezvous.

Suddenly, sporadically, many of the masked and unmasked Disapparated, some hesitating, some immediate. Soon, all of the Death Eaters were gone, but Harry guessed that a few had decided to Disapparate not into Voldemort's spidery fingers, but across the country, to run away from the imminent punishment for their treachery.

"As for you, Dumbledore," Voldemort began, but at that moment, Dumbledore swept his wand in a wide, encompassing arc and yelled, "Begone!"

Voldemort's piercing scream echoed long after the connection had broken.

It seemed the days after big, impacting events would always be blurred and indistinct. Like watching from a camera with an unfocused lens, Harry was faintly aware of wizards and witches wearing Ministry robes Apparating into the hospital minutes too late, of rapid-fire questions bombarded at every witness and of the hospital being magically rebuilt and repaired by abundant officials.

He was put back into that same 'Severe Spell Damage' ward, but this time the ward was magically expanded and two-dozen more people were propped up into the beds. Many reporters snuck into the room to ask him how it felt to face the Dark Lord twice in three days, but Mrs Weasley shooed them off.

Harry woke up groggily one day in a hospital ward bed, but it wasn't the one he had been in for what seemed to be weeks. With bleary vision, he looked around, but combined with morning eyesight and the fact his glasses weren't on him, there was little to see. The early morning sunlight filtering through the shutters shone their light on a new, polished sign saying 'Minor Charm Harm Ward Three'.

"W-what–?" Harry said, his hand groping around the bedside table for his glasses.

"'Morning, Harry," a voice said, and he whipped his head around to see the blurred outline of Hermione in the bed next to him, who was casually sitting up in her hospital bed and reading the Daily Prophet with a frown. Harry rubbed his eyes and his wandering hands found his glasses. The ward was full of beds occupied by bored-looking people and more than half looked like they shouldn't be in a hospital at all. Nobody was bandaged, except Harry, with light gauze around his leg, the dark burn he saw before vanished and replaced with new, perhaps coarse, skin. It was relieving to know his leg had healed, but then why was he still in the hospital?

"What's Minor Charm Harm?" Harry asked, putting on his glasses.

Hermione rolled the eyes that were quickly scanning the newspaper before her. "It's this newly made ward for people who've been hit by minor charms. Really, those kinds of charms could be easily fixed by counter-spells, and the ward's just made to keep all the witnesses inside the hospital so word doesn't get out. A lot of work gone to waste, in my opinion. Look," she said, holding up the newspaper, where a moving photograph depicted the St. Mungo's lobby, far from its usual grandeur flashing into the wreckage and people cleaning the place and shooing off the photographer.

There was a very article underneath it; its headline ATTACK ON ST. MUNGO'S BECOMES INTERNATIONAL STORY DESPITE COVER-UP ATTEMPTS. Harry's eyes flitted over the story and caught his name mentioned several times, things about how Harry had battled Voldemort twice in a space of a few days, how Harry had escaped the skirmish with few injuries and a brave heart – basically all the rubbish the Daily Prophet usually wrote about.

"You said it was meant to be a secret?" said Harry. "With all the stuff written down here, at least half of this stuff could be true. The Prophet's got to report some true things once in a while, right?"

Hermione smiled ruefully. "Secrets are strange. The harder you try and cover them up, the easier they get out."

She continued flicking through the newspaper pages and made a disgusted, disparaging noise. "Ugh. She's in here, again!"

She held up the newspaper to Harry's face again, and Harry caught a few lines about Fudge, while very subtly being portrayed in an unlikeable, inept light, spluttering that safety measures were not being reduced and were perfectly fine and the whole incident was a small error made by the hospital. Harry cast Hermione a confused look – Fudge was not a woman, a 'she' – but Hermione urged him to keep on reading and he found what made Hermione so disdainful.

Griselda Grey, described in a very different perspective as a paragon of virtue and accomplishment, flowered on excessively about the importance of security in dark times and how the increasing urgency for the eradication, or at least apprehension of non-human creatures. She hinted that she had suspicions they were working for Voldemort, sensing that non-humans felt 'under-appreciated' and 'jealous' of wizards and witches and felt that You-Know-Who could give them better privileges. She went on to say that she strongly suspected Sirius Black, noted 'mass-murderer', of dallying with mutinous, rebelling non-humans. More, and more, and even more Prophet garbage.

Harry, who had been feeling very ambivalent reading the article – Fudge, really, was made out to be an idiot, and Grey an accomplished, superior witch – made an outraged sound in his throat and looked at Hermione. "I know Sirius hasn't been cleared, but Dumbledore must've appealed, helped–"

"Oh, of course Dumbledore helped," Hermione said, looking patronising. "But he doesn't have much proof at all! I mean, the word of three then-thirteen year-olds? The court doesn't care if you're the Boy Who Lived, you're not the Man Who Lived, so your word doesn't count. Lots of adults are like that; they tell children to grow up but can't seem to grow up themselves. Really, adults teach children to walk and talk but, after that, it's 'sit down' and 'shut up'. We're children, Harry, so to them, we don't matter."

"What about Lupin?" Harry asked, perhaps a tad annoyed Hermione had forgotten about him.

Hermione shook her head. "Harry, I don't think you've realised it, but the wizarding community doesn't care for anyone that's not a grown wizard or a witch. Especially someone with a disease or disorder with a stigma, like Professor Lupin, who's a werewolf! Like that Terrapiliosis-infected man Ron told me you saw!

"Being a werewolf doesn't mean Professor Lupin's a beast every second of his life! That infected man isn't always mad and murderous if he takes his medication! But nobody cares, because the legends are that werewolves are murderous beasts that can't be let into society, and that the Terrapiliosic person will kill you if you come too close and are regularly violent. There are so many more people with conditions and afflictions that are ostracised from our society because they were bit, or stung, and couldn't help it! Don't even get me started on house-elves and goblins and other creatures and their mistreatment just because their environment and the way they were born!"

Harry fell silent, baffled at the justice system. Once, he had thought whenever he had run into the wall between Platforms Nine and Ten and arrived in Platform Nine and Three-Quarters he was entering a magical, perfect world of wonder and wizardry, but really, he was just stepping into the same Muggle world, except this time, the biased government had magic, more power, and essentially, more prejudice.

Harry looked at Hermione, who looked quite similar to a few days before when she had been quailing in fury as she tiraded about Griselda Grey, full of barely concealed rage. "That is why that … hag, cannot and will not be Minister for Magic. She's the representation of half the wizards and witches out there who despise half- and non-humans, and at least Fudge was – is – nice, when he wants to be. He isn't nearly as prejudiced as that cosmetic cow, but, honestly? She's putting a pretty good campaign, and the people love her."

She was looking incredibly dejected, but, as if a sudden epiphany had come, she shook the misery out of her head and replaced it with an expression of fierce determination. "Whatever. The battle's lost but the war hasn't. Grey cannot win, she will not! I'll make sure, even if I have to campaign–"

"Hermione, I don't think–"

"Yes, I was kidding, of course they wouldn't let me, I'm underage, have no qualifications, plus I'm a Mudblood, they'd never vote for me–"

"Don't say that about yourself, you're just as good as they are–"

"Oh, yes, but they don't care, do they?" Hermione asked, looking grim. "I could beat them all in exams, duels, whatever, and the only thing that'd be damaged would be their pride for a moment, and then they'd start bullying me again, because it doesn't matter that I could be a hundred times the witch they are, they'd still hate me for the fact that I exist, because I'm a Mudblood," she said, and seeing Harry's reproachful look, she shrugged. "What? It's completely and utterly true, and I don't care either. I know that I'm cleverer, kinder, wiser, than Grey, but I won't boast about that, because I know that won't make me any better than her. Really, it'll be all the more satisfying knowing that a filthy, little Mudblood brought her down."

Harry couldn't help but agree.

Hermione's intense expression disappeared and shook her head, as if suddenly coming to reason. "I'm sorry, Harry, this isn't how this conversation should have ended up."

"It's fine, Hermione, actually there's something I wanted to talk to you about – I never really got the chance, with me passing out, and then the Death Eater thing – so, there was this–"

"Hullo guys!" someone said suddenly from the doorway, and Ron came walking in, grinning broadly and holding three glasses of what looked to be melted gold, except smoother, brighter and aromatic.

"Hey, Ron," said Harry and he couldn't help but want Ron to move closer; the golden liquid emanated an incredibly delicious scent that was exotic, unfamiliar, but also gave him the feeling of intimacy and confidentiality, like the drink wanted to tell Harry a secret, and all he had to do was come closer.

"What is that?" Hermione asked, who too looked entranced by the drink.

"It's called, uh, ambrosia," Ron said, smiling dreamily. Around his lips was a moustache of the sloppily drunken ambrosia and Harry saw that one of the cups looked undeniably sipped from. "I don't know, it was in the beverages section and it was right there for the taking, only Dad told me not to drink it, but it looked so nice, so I drank some anyway and it tasted heavenly, so I brought some for you!"

"I've heard of it," Hermione said vaguely. "A group of wizards in Ancient Greece who performed magic in front of Muggles a lot, made it rain, showed them fire – the Ancient Greek Muggles called them gods, and they basically supplied the Muggles with a lot of stuff they wouldn't have today. One of them was really famous for creating wine, and everyone speculates he brewed ambrosia too. It's meant to be really powerful, more than alcohol, not even the woodland nymphs drink it, only Maenads – these frenzied, possessed, eternally-intoxicated nymphs – do …"

"C'mon, it won't hurt to give it a try," Ron said and Harry agreed, taking his cup from Ron and draining it with Ron at the same time.

A great, light feeling spread throughout him, though it was accompanied by a pounding dizziness in his head, and Harry scrunched up his face in dislike. He set the cup aside and saw through narrowed, bleary eyes that Ron was doubled over, sick and disorientated.

Hermione had a haughty look about her replacing her recent dreamy, enraptured one. "I told you two, underage drinking is unhealthy and your dad could be charged for it, Ron. You're lucky nobody else was watching, or you'd be in big trouble."

"You looked like you wanted to drink it, you were fascinated," Ron grumbled.

Hermione looked offended. "I am a mature and responsible person. I would never drink that, underage or not. I've read all about it, it makes you woozy, dizzy, unreasonable; the Maenads, probably the only creatures who drink it on a regular basis, used to be the following of a really famous wizard named Dionysus who, as I said before, probably made ambrosia too–"

"If he's famous, then he's probably smart, right? So ambrosia can't be that dumb–"

"He fought people with a pinecone. He was particularly famous for randomly Transfiguring people into dolphins."

Ron shut up.

Then he spoke up again, "Whatever, fine, we won't drink it anymore."

"Good that you've come to your senses," Hermione said, and Ron was about to argue again.

"Anyway," Harry said hastily. "There was something I wanted to tell the two of you about."

He explained what had happened in the cave, the fact that the Night-Knocker – and when he mentioned the dark creature, Hermione gasped – had turned his wand into a Portkey – Hermione gasped again and began talking about how they were learning about the Portus charm this year, and then Ron cast a reproachful look at her, saying, "That's the second time you've interrupted and he hasn't even started yet!" – and how it had transported him to a cave, where Voldemort had made Harry drink the Contracoction, how the Inferi had scarily obeyed Harry and considered him their master, and how that strange, whispering locket had been destroyed by Voldemort's billowing fire.

"Oh!" Harry said suddenly. "I forgot to tell you; I remembered that there was thing … right! I can speak this language, it doesn't sound like a human language, it just came to me, it helped me open that weird locket…" and he demonstrated, hissing and spitting in a low voice.

Both Hermione and Ron looked at him, terrified. Slowly, Hermione said, "Harry, I think you just spoke the snake language."

It wasn't particularly staggering or astonishing, and Harry felt delighted revelation. "Oh, that's neat! I'm sure lots of people can talk to animals."

"No, Harry," Hermione said, shaking her head. "There are people who learn to speak to animals … but what you just did … I'm pretty sure you haven't taken any faunal linguistic lessons," she said, giving a nervous laugh. "What you just did is an inborn talent, called Parseltongue. You're a Parselmouth, Harry."

"Cool," Harry said. "So?"

Now it was Ron who spoke. "Mate … speaking with snakes is kind of connected with the Dark Arts. Slytherin himself was a Parseltongue."

"Yeah, well, you both know I have nothing to do with the Dark Arts," Harry said, grinning, but he saw Hermione forcing a smile and Ron frowning a little, subtly moving away from Harry.

What was so bad about speaking to snakes that made his best friends in the entire world doubt him? Was this the same sort of discrimination and prejudice that Hermione was always angry other people had?

A/N: Merry Christmas!