x
"You're sure it's a good idea?" Harry inquired doubtfully. "Scrimgeour is scared stiff of you."
Tom took a seat at the head of the table and laid his hands palms-down on the wood. Harry registered the tiny tremors in his fingers, in addition to the way his knuckles seemed disproportionately massive. Irrationally, it occurred to him that Tom should have a ring – or several of them – at the very least to boast his descent from Salazar Slytherin.
Of course, that particular ring (originally a Peverell heirloom) was now lost, destroyed in the ritual Harry had used to reassemble his husband's soul.
"It will only make the negotiations easier on me," Tom replied, pouring himself his third cup of coffee. He gulped it down, unsweetened and black as death, shuddering at the taste.
"You're masochistic," Harry pointed out, and wondered how he could not have realised this years ago.
"I have never allowed discomfort to hinder me," Tom replied evenly, pouring his fourth cup, which Harry summarily Summoned from his hand. There was a brief magical struggle, but as they shared all their power, it resulted in a shower of ground porcelain and tiny droplets of coffee.
"I'm happy you've dropped Pepper-Up for the day," Harry said, "but that won't be of much help if you'll have an infarct-"
"Stop nagging!" Tom hissed, bringing his fist down on the desk hard enough to rattle the tableware.
Harry bit his tongue and forced himself not to react spontaneously (exempli gratia start yelling back). He paused to think.
Was he nagging?
Yes, he supposed he was, but there was a damn good reason for him to do it. He understood now how Hermione had felt when he and Ron spent their time horsing around instead of concentrating on their schoolwork, but there still were miles of difference – Harry's careless attitude toward his academic performance had hurt nothing in the long run. Tom's disregard for his own, very serious, physical condition could turn out to be apocalyptical.
Harry had a vivid vision of Tom losing consciousness in 'Minister' Scrimgeour's office and offering an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to the opportunist who had already proven he had no problem hexing someone in the back. Fudge was, according to the Prophet, in St Mungo's with dismal prognosis of improvement. Taking into account just how terrified Scrimgeour was of Tom, Harry didn't think the man would balk at murder in this case.
"I'm going with you," Harry said. He rose from the table, indicating that he had no intention of continuing the conversation.
Tom magnanimously let him have the last word, even though his mind was probably already on the Ministry.
x
Tom, upon absorbing the information that Harry was tagging along, decided that they might as well skip the preliminary talks and take the prisoners with them, and thus they arrived in the centre of the lobby and scared the Ministry personnel half to death.
The reactions were hardly surprising. Antonin had volunteered his team, so five Death Eaters, all dressed in uniform black yet forgoing the obligatory cloaks in favour of elegant and fashionable robes and dresses, stood strategically positioned around the row of the kneeling Carrows', Macnair, Crouch, Greyback, Yaxley and Pettigrew. Harry belatedly noticed that Bellatrix was absent.
"S-sirs!" the watchwizard stuttered at them, still in the process of collecting his jaw from the floor. He nervously shifted his wand from hand to hand. When Tom, Harry and their retinue turned to him in an eerie unison, he took a few ambling steps backwards.
Harry moved forwards, just enough to warn Tom that he was going to deal with this, because they wouldn't have made a very good first impression if they killed the security. Tom was in a right mood today, and he wasn't the most patient person when irked. Also, he tended not to hold back once he decided to display his displeasure.
"Is there a problem, Carlin?" Harry asked, squinting at the nametag on the wizard's robe.
Carlin Bukowski, if Harry was reading the surname correctly, instinctively shook his head before he paused and tried to remember what he was supposed to do when a group of 'potentially' hostile Dark wizards invaded the lobby. By the way his feet kept jerking, he must have remained stuck at 'run.'
"We have an appointment with the Minister in – ah…" Harry cast a nonverbal wandless Tempus spell, and Bukowski paled further when the realisation dawned that he was faced with power he could not have dreamed of. "…a bit more than two minutes," Harry finished the sentence, and met the watchwizard's eye, flashing his patented 'believe in me, I'm your Saviour' smile.
"L-l-lettme… j-just-"
Harry was the only one to hear Tom's soft growling, but not the only one to breathe out in relief when the gilded grille of the VIP lift opened and Scrimgeour stepped out of it, followed by the young assistant that had spoken with Harry through the Floo and, unless Harry's memory was going the way of Tom's sanity, Amelia Bones.
"Lords Riddle," Scrimgeour said by way of greeting, and went so far as to sketch out a bow.
Tom accepted the borderline genuflexion without a blink, but to Harry it seemed overdone and too blatantly obsequious. Bones obviously shared his opinion, judging by the sharp and disgusted look she aimed at the back of Scrimgeour's head.
"Minister," Harry replied, asserting himself as the speaker for the group. "Miss Festervex; Madam Bones."
Attempting to take advantage of the moment when everyone's attention was focused elsewhere, Carlin Bukowski snuck back into his booth and tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible.
"Let us proceed upstairs," Scrimgeour said, drawing himself taller and inserting a slight bit of confidence into his tone.
Bones switched her glare from Harry to the Minister. She looked ready to bar his way with her own body if he attempted to lead the Wooden Horse into the depths of her stronghold. "The procedure states that all visitors to the Ministry must have their wands checked before entrance," she stated coldly.
Scrimgeour shakily laughed, waving her assertion away as if it were a particularly annoying fly. "Amelia, certainly there is no need to do that. Lords Riddle and their entourage are welcome to come right in." He shot a glance at Tom, who was presently standing back and observing – judging by the curiosity seeping through the bond – how Harry was going to handle this.
Harry, since he disliked Scrimgeour but had no doubts about his usefulness, faked a concerned expression. "Are you certain, Minister?" he asked. "There would be no problem in having our wands checked-"
"No, no! No need for that, sir! Don't mind Amelia, she's a stickler for the rules-"
"And rightly so," Harry inserted, driving another nail deep into the coffin of Scrimgeour's dignity.
Amelia Bones seemed to hate him more for his solemn profession of respect.
"Right…" Scrimgeour agreed, hopeful that agreement was what was expected of him.
A brief silence fell on the company, with the backdrop of the everyday Ministry bustle of multiple Apparitions and Disapparitions, arrival of portkeys, slamming doors, rumble of lifts and babble of dozens of passing citizens.
The corners of Tom's mouth twitched. Harry knew that he was mostly amused, but no one else could have guessed that.
Scrimgeour hastily instructed them to make use of the VIP lift, which, it turned out, could be expanded to transport up to fifty people, and which didn't stop at every level but – like Muggle lifts – had call buttons on the inside.
Bones took the initiative and pressed number two.
"Amelia…?" Scrimgeour hissed at the woman.
"It is most efficient to take these criminals straight to the holding cells," the woman replied evenly.
Tom was on the verge of slipping in a nonverbal hex – and Harry believed he could do it, too, avoiding all the protections the Ministry had certainly installed. Fortunately, he refrained. Harry, on the other hand, had to respect the amount of daring it took to call a Dark Lord a criminal to his face, and the slyness necessary to put it so that said Dark Lord remained civil afterwards. It helped that Scrimgeour flushed, possibly about to have a heart-attack.
The lift deposited them on the second floor with a businesslike clang, and Bones assertively took the lead.
x
The Auror Headquarters had been ready for them. There were so many wizards there that Harry would have bet everyone available had been called in. In groups of three, they secured the seven captives. Scrimgeour grumbled that they had not brought Bellatrix, but cut himself off before he suggested that Tom wished to keep her at hand to do his dirty work.
Tom acidly informed the man that Bellatrix was dead, and offered to send her body over later.
Bones then spoke up and instructed her men to douse the prisoners with Veritaserum to ascertain their identity, and within moments decided that it would be a waste of expensive potion to not conduct full interrogation at the same time.
Harry suspected it was Bones' ploy to show them that she was not going to cater to their whims. Attitudes like that mostly got the offender killed, but Harry didn't want to dispose of the woman just yet – especially not right after her public disagreement with them. That would have meant that they were blatantly ignoring all the promises they had made in their proposal of armistice.
"I can manage this on my own," Harry said.
Tom spun on his heel, slapping several desk-legs with the folds of his robe, and looked at Harry. At first he was impatient, vexed to have been torn out of his angry musing, but then he figured out what Harry was getting at and marginally calmed down.
It might not have been discernible in his face, but Harry smiled at him anyway. "Why don't you track down Lucius and ask how he's progressing on the matter of Dumbledore's trial?"
Tom Apparated out, breaking through Ministry wards as if they were made of tissue.
"What – where has he gone?" the Minister demanded, lifting himself from the chair he had the Aurors transfigure for him so that he could be comfortable during the investigation.
"You don't imagine my Lord husband has so much free time that he would waste his whole day with you?" Harry asked sharply.
Scrimgeour stared back at him with the first hint of rebellion Harry had noticed in him. "I am the Minister, Potter! I don't have time to waste here, either!"
Apparently, it was only Tom that instilled such bone-chilling terror in the man.
"Rufus," Harry addressed him in a lowered voice; "don't make the mistake of thinking me less powerful or less decisive than my husband merely because I do not feel the need to show off my power and have a tendency to be merciful. Do not anger me. I would not go off and whine about it to Tom; neither would I turn the other cheek."
"I fought against the Dark Lord, Potter, and I know I must tread the line around him if I want to survive. You, however, have no hold over me save for your association with him."
Harry's eyes narrowed. He knew he could not do anything that would fracture the fragile air of ostensible ignorance. His every act in the capacity of the second Dark Lord had to be plausibly deniable, and casting Cruciatus on the Minister in the middle of DMLE did not fall into that category.
"You live in Auchendinny, don't you, Rufus? With your sister and her two kids – a boy and a girl. Didn't the girl turn seven recently? And the boy is twelve, right? A Hufflepuff?" Harry was quite proud of himself for remembering that much. He had no earthly idea where Auchendinny actually was, or if it was even feasible to stage a raid there (not that he would, at least not because the Minister was being an idiot), but the expression on Scrimgeour's face told him there would be no more quips about Harry's supposed lack of intimidation factor.
"H-how did you… Don't you… Leave Mary alone, Potter. I'll do what you want."
"Splendid," Harry said dryly. "Start by addressing me with respect and keeping your opinion on my husband's agenda to yourself."
"Yes, Lord Riddle," Scrimgeour said loudly, because the Aurors and Hitwizards were beginning to congregate around them, worried that Harry was going to go Voldemort on their poor Minister. The men and women relaxed then and returned to their work, even though most of them still kept at least half an eye on Harry.
None too soon, Bones entered the room, in the most ironic company she could have assembled within her department: Kingsley Shacklebolt – a former member of the Order of the Phoenix turned into a reluctant supporter of the New Order – and Mercury Savage – a Marked Death Eater, who had replaced Robards as the assistant to the Head of the Aurors.
"I must thank you for your assistance, sir," Savage said, coming forth and extending his hand, which Harry did shake with the countenance of a proud man doing a favour to someone beneath him. Situations like this were one of the main reasons why he consistently wore gloves.
"I will sleep better knowing criminals like them are locked up in Azkaban, not roaming the countryside," he said, glancing at Scrimgeour.
The Minister scowled and turned away, cowed, knowing too well how many criminals were still outside, free to roam the countryside, particularly the countryside around Auchendinny.
"We would gladly accept your aid with any other outlaws you might apprehend," Shacklebolt added, not very subtly.
Bones swallowed hard; it must have pained her to act civil toward representatives of the very wizard who had masterminded her family's murders. Harry sympathised – she was not the only one who had lost family to Voldemort – but there was nothing to be done about it. Voldemort had been vanquished, just like the prophecy had foretold he would be, and she would let go of her hatred or suffer under its weight.
"I have my eyes on you," Bones said quietly, pressing the words out through clenched teeth. Her skin was white with constrained rage, and the hand clenched around her wand trembled. "I'll pick up your little slaves, one by one, the moment they return to their practices. I will not let the innocent suffer because you were too much of a coward to stand for what is right, Harry Riddle."
It had been a long time since someone had felt such a strong disgust for Harry – or, rather, it had been a long time since Harry had let it affect him.
He did not show it; instead he appeared to be betrayed by her in return. "The moment this Ministry put me on trial for defending my life against dementors sent by this very Ministry's employee, my idea of justice was different from yours. I am not Voldemort, Madam Bones, but I will only adhere to your laws if I agree they are just."
Bones would have required a moment to compose a retort, but Harry didn't intend to stay for a bit of verbal repartee. He spun on his heel and set out to gather Antonin's group.
A trinity of Hitwizards seated by the interactive map of Wessex with winking red points moved to rise, but Bones shook her head. They settled back, disgruntled but obedient.
Harry chalked up a small victory, which nevertheless left him with a feeling of unease.
Going by the look Antonin gave him when he came into sight, all of them were glad to be leaving.
x
Harry barely stepped over the Manor's threshold when he was met by a panting and obviously relieved Death Eater.
"My Lord!" the man called, practically skidded to a halt in front of Harry and bowed. He braced himself with his hands of his knees a moment later, and tried to catch his breath – yet another of the wizards who relied too much on their wand and neglected their physical endurance.
Like Tom.
"Antonin," Harry said. He didn't have to continue, because the wizard nodded and led his team past the wheezing man into the building. They would report to Tom, who had, presumably, managed to make his way to the Ballroom, which had become something akin to his unofficial office – that was where their people delivered all news, reports and material, and where the unannounced guests were received.
"My Lord!" he Death Eater repeated. "We have received a request to open the wards for a group of three!"
Harry deduced that this wizard was one of the guards in the portkey chamber, and ordered him to go straight back and speak along the way.
"I was on my way to alert the Dark Lord, but then the wards registered your arrival and… well…"
Harry stifled his impatience with the blabbering, and responded: "You did well. Who sent the request?"
"Hogwarts, my Lord-"
Harry quickened his step and slipped through an illusion of a decorative grille onto a narrow secret staircase, abandoning the Death Eater to his – longer – route. He felt slightly uneasy about encroaching upon the Notts' hospitality further by learning and using some of their secret passages. Perhaps it was time Tom and he moved into their own residence.
He entered the portkey chamber so quickly that he raised a breeze. The remaining guard had him at a wand-point within half-a-second.
A moment later, the wand was gone and the man bowed low, muttering an apology.
Harry, satisfied with his performance rather than bothered about being aimed at, ordered: "Grant the request from Hogwarts."
The wizard grabbed a handful of floo powder from the tall limestone vase next to him and threw it into the fireplace, calling "Hogwarts, Head's Office!"
As far as Harry understood the security system, that fireplace was the only one accessible to public, and it was impossible to use it for transportation.
The green flames disappeared, leaving behind fantastically green embers.
"Madam McGonagall?" the Death Eater asked.
"Present," the Headmistress' distorted but recognisable voice replied.
"The wards will be open for you for the next thirty seconds."
Familiar with wardwork, Harry didn't bother paying attention to what the man was doing after the fire sprang back to life, returning to its natural colour. Instead, he stood ready to defend, just in case McGonagall was trying something underhanded. He didn't think she was, but life in Slytherin had drummed into his head the universal policy of fide, sed qui, vide.
"Incoming," the Death Eater warned.
There was a loud whoosh, and a trinity of young people in Hogwarts uniforms touched down in the centre of the room. Ginny landed almost gracefully; Hermione would have remained standing, had Ron not attempted to catch himself on her shoulder and taken her down with him.
The Death Eater, to his credit, maintained his blank expression all through the following half a minute of slapstick comedy.
"Welcome," Harry said once Hermione finished laying into Ron and there was a chance that they might notice him speaking.
Ginny, smiling, came right over and gave him a brief hug. "Hi, Harry. It's great to see you again." Leaning closer, she whispered: "You're sexy in the Dark-Lord get-up."
Harry refrained from laughing aloud – he could not break form in front of ordinary Death Eaters, and the more capable guard was just being joined by his tardy partner – but he allowed a quirk of lips.
"Come along," he instructed the children, nodding briefly to the guards, who bowed back.
Ron followed on Ginny's heels, wand in hand, like the protective big brother he was, but Hermione hesitated – possibly she didn't realise that she would be left in a room with two Death Eaters and no one to chaperone.
"I can promise on my magic that you will not be harmed by any member of the New Order," Harry offered, very careful about not actually promising any such thing.
Hermione decided to accept that – or perhaps she belatedly realised the situation she would have found herself in if she hadn't accepted it – and joined the group. Ginny meanwhile appropriated Harry's arm and hung onto him; luckily she was reasonable enough to keep it within the limits of decency, aware that Harry was married to a man whose potential fit of jealousy was likely to end in a body count and massive collateral damage.
"I must admit to being surprised that you're here," Harry said, including all three of them in the statement.
"Mum tried to forbid me but, well, McGonagall gave me a portkey," Ginny informed him cheerfully. "When I told Hermione that I had permission from the Headmistress, she thawed."
Hermione huffed, but didn't refute the statement. Ron just shrugged, wordlessly agreeing.
"Amazing," Harry scoffed. "McGonagall is Headmistress for less than a week, and already she's adopting Dumbledore's modus operandi."
"What do you mean?" Naturally, Hermione couldn't refrain from defending her teachers – the everyday heroes of her academically-centered world.
"Sending underage students to meet Dark Lords," Harry replied flippantly.
Ginny giggled, and even Ron snorted. Maybe, just maybe, that was another friendship Harry wouldn't lose.
"You're hardly a Dark Lord, Harry," Hermione protested, moving closer to the wall to put as much distance as possible between her and trio of passing black-cloaked Death Eaters.
The supporters were putting in an effort to make their ogling covert, and since they didn't say a word, Harry decided not to call them out on it. It was bad enough trying to reconnect with his former classmates without his evil-overlord routine getting into the way.
"More than half of this country would disagree with you," Harry pointed out.
"You're the Light Lord," Ginny argued.
Hermione rolled her eyes, but Ron laughed, and Harry didn't quite hide his appreciation either. "Light Lord…" he tried out the title. "That's a new one." It was even better than Theodore's 'Light Dark Lord.'
"Good," Ginny replied, "I would so hate to be unorigi-"
She was cut off by a scream.
Ron reflexively brandished his wand and set off at a run, followed closely by Hermione, who yelled at him to stop but did nothing except copy his idiocy.
Harry extracted his arm from Ginny (it was a good thing she couldn't have run off, too, because catching three people was twice as difficult as catching two), and cast a Tether with each of his hands; one wanded, the other out of necessity wandless.
Tethers were evil Dark magic, which was not so good, but they also stopped the two idiots from rushing headlong into danger and getting a taste of the Cruciatus Curse themselves before Harry would catch up and save them, and that was a very good thing… he guessed. He might have been robbing them of a valuable life-lesson, but somehow Harry didn't think Ron and Hermione would be any more receptive to that kind of lesson than Draco Malfoy had been.
Harry realised all three teenagers were incredulously staring at him, for a variety of reasons.
"You will remember that you are guests here," he said in the kind of tone he used when managing greater numbers of Marked underlings. He knew it was extremely difficult to ignore a suggestion made in that tone.
These three had known him when he was just a boy, and moreover a boy that was generally submissive, with only the intermittent bout of self-assertion and dominance. Their past experience with Harry Potter might have made them misjudge the seriousness of his words, but he hoped they would be smart enough to obey.
"You will act with decorum, even if that means you will bite your tongues and swallow your own blood to keep from speaking up. Behind closed doors I will be your friend if you will wish it so, but here, in view of wizards and witches who hold me in respect, you will observe that dynamic."
He met their gazes, one by one, and was satisfied that they would, probably, not do anything suicidal.
"Yes, Harry," Ginny said quietly.
They continued, at a sedate pace, forwards. Their way took them – unfortunately, in Harry's opinion – straight to the source of the screaming.
A group of no less than thirty Death Eaters, including Antonin and his five chosen operatives, were positioned in a loose semi-circle in the atrium. Tom was standing in front of them, irritated but not, as some might have mistakenly supposed, enraged. He was keeping a shaking, screaming black-robed man under an Unforgivable, until he noticed Harry's entrance.
"Did you have to bring them here?" Tom asked, pausing briefly in the Cruciatus.
The Death Eater rolled over, and Harry recognised him as the older of the Lestrange brothers. It was a peculiar occurrence; the man was one of the dependable ones, trustworthy within reason, and a member of the Inner Circle. Contrary to popular belief, Tom didn't resort to Unforgivables for every trifle.
"I didn't expect you to be admonishing Rodolphus in the atrium," Harry said curiously.
Ron and Hermione were busy being horrified. Ginny had gone white, but she wasn't gaping like he had never before seen a grown man drooling onto the floor.
"Dare I ask?"
Tom's frown deepened. "He killed Bellatrix last night." That explained so much. "I am able to follow his reasoning, but sentimentality isn't a good enough excuse for disobeying direct orders."
"H-Harry…?" Ron squeaked, and Harry hit all three of his companions with a Silencio before either of them unknowingly inspired a mutiny.
"Harry, try and keep the joyous family reunion in private, would you?"
"Sorry. I'll take them to the Study, shall I? Come by when you finish with Rodolphus?"
"I'll see," Tom replied, and Harry interpreted that as a somewhat less direct 'not on your life.'
He nodded – there really wasn't anything he could add – and called his (possibly former) friends away, while Tom turned back to his disobedient servant and continued with another nonchalantly uttered: "Crucio."
x
"H-Harry…?" Ron asked when the door to the Open Study was shut behind them and Harry had released the Silencing Spell.
"How could you?" Hermione yelled, dropping into the nearest armchair and wringing the sleeves of her robe in her hands. She had tears on her face, but Harry wasn't the least bit impressed with her temper tantrum. What had she imagined when he had returned from the graveyard, back in the fourth year, and told her he had been held under the Cruciatus? She was being too sensitive and, although he could excuse it due to her upbringing and nature, he had no intention to cater to it.
"Do you know who that was, Hermione?" he asked, while a house elf provided them with a tea set without being even glimpsed.
Hermione sniffed and grimaced at him, as though attempting to communicate that she didn't care and whoever the 'poor victim' was didn't change her outlook.
"That," Harry continued, "was one of the people who'd turned Neville's parents' brains into sludge. Do you think a gentle rebuke works on somebody like that?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Ron had paled and, trembling, accepted a cup of tea Ginny had poured for him. The girl herself was green around the gills, but she continued fixing cups for the rest of them.
Harry decided he had underappreciated the Weasleys.
"He should be in prison," Hermione hissed. "And you, too. You should be in prison."
Harry met her accusation head on and without a speck of self-consciousness. "Well… yes," he admitted. "In theory. Right next to you."
Flushed with righteous anger, so expected of the young and idealistic Gryffindors, Hermione pursed her lips, narrowed her eyes, and leaned forwards – and then dispelled the almost intimidating image by stammering: "I… I never…"
"It's just a different scale, Hermione," Harry said, with as much gentleness as he could muster. "The principle is the same. Rules exist, and they are being broken. Meter is always double."
He fell silent and gave them a while to digest what he was telling them.
They were all intelligent people, and he believed they had already observed what he was describing to them, but were perhaps too young, too inexperienced, too unhurt, to have accepted it as a basic truth.
Ginny gave him a crooked smile and sipped her tea. Harry suspected involvement of Tom's Horcrux, but it was obvious that Ginny was leagues ahead of the elder two in her comprehension of social injustice and social Darwinism. Certainly, she had pieced together a telling picture of Harry's history in the past and accepted his choices as soon as he reassured her that he didn't hate her for simply being who she was.
He wanted to introduce her to Tom. He imagined how proud he would be pointing her out and saying 'this is my childhood friend Ginevra Weasley, a Light witch from Gryffindor, and she has never relinquished her faith in me.'
Ron seemed resigned, but Hermione didn't want to be convinced.
Harry suppressed a sigh and said: "I am trying to show you a world in which nobody is good, just as nobody is evil. All people are born human. We have fundamental differences of opinion based on our nature and our experiences, and varying degrees of rationality in our decisions. Label people what you want – they won't stop being human."
"Is that your way to excuse the war?" Hermione asked, rather acutely.
Harry shook his head. "I'm trying to explain why no excuse is necessary – not to you, Hermione. You haven't lost anyone." As the only one in the room, Hermione had no business declaiming the evil of war based on the losses. "Those who died… well, soldiers have chosen to fight, perfectly aware that they might die. If they had not, they had been manipulated and lied to. Is it that Dumbledore didn't take each and every one of the Order members aside and told them that they could be killed in this conflict? That's why you're mad?" Harry knew that this wasn't her problem – he was enough of a Gryffindor to understand exactly what Hermione was trying to tell him, but he was also enough of a Slytherin to tie her reasoning into knots and let her follow the thread until she began to doubt herself.
"You're making Dumbledore into a bad man-"
"Flawed," Harry cut in. "A flawed man." Once it was obvious that they didn't understand, he explained: "Dumbledore cares little for people. He is too much of a philosopher. For him everything is about ideas. Even the students were mostly but numbers in his mind, for all that he knew all of them by name. Don't fool yourself: Dumbledore only ever acknowledged a loss of life of one of his 'faithful' when it was politically advantageous to him. All the other cases – notably Myrtle Stewart and Carlisle Humdinger – were swept under the carpet."
"Who is Carlisle Humdinger?" asked, unexpectedly, Ginny.
"You have just illustrated my point," Harry replied. "Humdinger was a Hufflepuff, who would have graduated in the early fifties. It is an educated guess of a group of Slytherins that he had been poisoned by his elder sister to secure herself a meagre inheritance. Dippet's machinery labeled it a suicide and there was nary an obituary in the Prophet to commemorate it." He waited for a moment for the idea to sink in, before he delivered the final statement. "My point is… Dumbledore does not care."
"He freed Hagrid," Ron raised a valid (from his point of view) argument.
"He saved you!" Hermione yelled, indignant on the behalf of the ex-Headmaster.
Harry decided to deal with her objection first: "He saved me from danger I would never have been in, if not for his own negligence… or intention," and went on elucidating for Ron: "He had Hagrid released from Azkaban, because I practically spoon-fed him solid evidence that it never could have been Hagrid who murdered Myrtle."
"What…"
"How?"
"Time-travel…" Hermione more stated than asked. Her eyes were glazed, and anybody could practically see the cogs turning within her cranium. "Bonded in the past… no anchor… insanity… that makes sense!" she exclaimed.
Ron grabbed her shoulders before she could vault from her chair and run for the library. "No, it does not," he spoke carefully, as if addressing a retarded person. "It makes no sense whatsoever-"
"But it does," Ginny disagreed. "How much do you know about the Dark Order of 1945 to 1947?"
"What?" Ron asked, stupefied.
"Practically everything," Harry replied nonchalantly, at the same time as Hermione said: "Very little. Why do you know about it?"
"I read upon it since the article," Ginny informed them.
Harry had already assumed she had done her research, but he was curious to hear how much she had actually gleaned from Daily Prophet, which had been little more objective then than it was now.
"They were rising incredibly fast," Ginny said. "They were everywhere. Within a couple of years, they could have controlled everything. Then, all of sudden, they just… stagnated."
"Why?" asked Hermione, ever thirsty for knowledge. She picked up her cup and took a much-needed calming gulp.
"If I'm right," Ginny ventured, looking to Harry, "correct me if I'm not, Harry – the Dark Lord went mad. It was a gradual process, and I don't know exactly how it worked, but he lost his sanity over the next ten years. Losing his body, too, couldn't have helped."
That garnered another wave of protests, although this time it was raised against Ginny, her suspicious extra-curricular activities, and the preposterousness of her findings. Hermione interspersed her argumentation with (rather ironic) attempts to explain the cause of Tom's decades of insanity. She hit the bull's eye, too.
It was a pity she wasn't half as good at assimilation of facts as she was at gathering them.
When the children quieted, almost ten minutes later, Harry was on his third cup of tea and feeling very relaxed. "I know what Voldemort was like even better than you do, guys," he told them mock-casually. They should have asked him if they wanted to know what had actually happened before Tom went mad.
"But you're married to him anyway," Hermione retorted acidly.
She was lucky that Harry felt too comfortable to bother with getting angry.
"I am married to Tom," he emphasised. "I am married to the Dark Lord whose Vision gives my life purpose, whom I have come to care for before your parents were even born, Ron. None of you – bar Ginny, due to some unfortunate circumstances – knows anything about Tom."
"He was a Prefect," Hermione noted.
Had she been somebody else, Harry would have thought she was provoking him, contradicting him out of spite. Since she was Hermione, he counter-questioned instead of casting an unpleasant hex. "And what does that tell you?"
Hermione curled unto herself for a while, assuming an atrocious posture that was a murder on her spine but which nevertheless seemed to help her think. Then she recited facts: "He had outstanding marks – but we knew that he was exceptionally intelligent before. He was reliable… held the respect of his class-mates…"
"That is all true," Harry confirmed her deductions.
"He was a teachers' pet!" Ron blurted.
"Inarguably." Harry nodded fondly.
Tom the Prefect had been a masterful performance by a masterful actor, and Harry had beautiful memories of Slughorn bending over backwards just so Tom would give him that honey-sweet smile he reserved for the instances when someone pleased him. Wizards and witches of all ages, like bees, flew together to that smile.
"However," Harry said, with the enormous amount of pride that accomplishment deserved, "that was a product of a long and arduous effort."
"He charmed them into liking him," Ginny said wryly. She would know all about being charmed into adoring Tom.
"Quite," Harry agreed.
They exchanged knowing smiles.
"He could be extremely… persuasive," she said contemplatively.
Harry suspected there was something else she wanted to say, or perhaps ask. "Ginny?" he encouraged her, garnering Hermione's glare and Ron's supremely worried look – Ron hated being reminded of the Chamber of Secrets more than Ginny did.
Ginny met Harry's eyes, conveying equal parts of hopefulness and fear. "Would he… consent to meeting me?"
Harry felt smug. Regardless of Tom's consent, he was arranging a meeting. Aloud he said: "I believe so. I will ask, if you want me to."
"I'd like to write a letter," Ginny stated. "Would you deliver it?"
"Sure." Harry replied, and turned to the rug, which he had noticed was the favourite arrival point of the house elves. "Chatter?"
The elf appeared with a pop, took a cursory view of the room, and turned to him. "How can Chatter be of service, Master Lord Harry?"
"Please, bring a sheet of parchment and writing implements," he asked, admittedly a bit more politely than he would have otherwise. One of the reasons why he had called for Chatter specifically was that he could trust her not to bawl her eyes out when she was treated with respect, and because she had enough of a spine to convince Hermione that there was no exploitation of a weaker species happening within the Headquarters of the New Order.
"House elves," Hermione deadpanned, finding yet another pretext to be dissatisfied with Harry's actions.
He had anticipated it, of course, but it was becoming a tad too tedious even to him, who was generally regarded as a relatively patient and genial person. "Hermione, I do not condone house elf abuse. If you look closely, you can see that all our elves are well-dressed, well-fed, and injury-free. Moreover, they like Tom and me."
"Look, Mione," Ron spoke up gingerly, probably risking that he would be hit over his head with a bit of 'light reading' in the near future, "I've got heaps of issues with what Harry's doing, but house elves are a part of our culture."
"Hermione," Harry cut in before the girl could turn her ire onto her less well-armed friend, "I am muggle-raised and understand where you are coming from when you speak out against slavery, but you must realise that you have entered an insular society where this is the standard of behaviour. Your unwillingness to adapt causes you, and by association other muggleborns, to be seen as antagonists. It is one of the reasons why purebloods hate you and come up with all sorts of vulgar monikers for you."
"You're a right bastard, Harry," she snarled.
"And you are not listening to me," he replied, ready to give up on her. She was intelligent, and book-smart, but he did not have the kind of time and ability to keep on forgiving that dealing with her required. "One of your great failings is that you are not open to debate, Hermione. Your opponent might have interesting opinions, but you do not allow yourself to hear them."
"That's not true-"
"It is, Hermione," Ginny said sharply.
"Sorry, Mione," Ron muttered, "but I'm with Harry on this one."
Although unnecessary, the Weasleys' support restored some of Harry's motivation. "As an example," he told the stubborn girl, "you have dismissed out of hand what I have told you right now. Yet, apparently, there was merit in it."
Hermione threw betrayed looks at her two companions, before she drew herself straight and rejoined the battle of words. "So what? You're not my friend anymore, because I don't subscribe to your Memorandum?"
"Not at all," Harry replied, calling on a reserve of patience he hadn't been aware he possessed. "I would like to continue being your friend. I'm asking you to accept me, but there seems to be a problem with that."
"Yes, there is a problem," Hermione said, ignoring the shushing gestures coming from the Weasley side of the debate. Apparently, Harry's skin-deep friendliness hadn't fooled the two redheads into believing they were allowed to be rude. Hermione, on the other hand, valued her principles far above and beyond what common sense would dictate – at least so it seemed when she stood and waved her hands in dismay, yelling: "You're married to the murderer of your parents! Are you insane?"
Harry very nearly snorted. The sanity/insanity argument was becoming practically arbitrary, so often it had been revisited between himself and Tom. "I do not think so – but that's only my opinion."
"Stop being flippant!" Hermione cried, flushed with frustration.
That was as much as the other two teenagers in the room were willing to risk. Ginny stood hastily, held out a folded piece of parchment to Harry at the same time as she pushed her righteous friend to the side. "Cool off, Hermione," she said in a tone sufficiently dry to penetrate the other girl's thick skull. "Harry, I'm glad you're alright, and I'd like to get together again sometimes. Maybe you could organise an 'inspection' into Hogwarts?"
Harry smiled at her, accepting the letter, and nodded in response to her hopeful expression. "Perhaps."
By that time Ron, too, was standing, and keeping a hold of one of Hermione's arms. "Mate, I don't like this. But…" Ron took a deep, bracing breath, and sideways glanced at his sister, who nodded to help him bolster his courage. "I get that this is the way things are now and… it's better than if You Know Who killed you – and us. If the war's over then I can accept this. Just…"
Ron took two more bracing breaths. Since no words seemed to be forthcoming, Harry stood up (finding that he was still pathetically small in stature compared to the tallest Weasley), and asked: "Yes?"
Quite suddenly, Ron slumped in defeat. "I don't think Mum and Dad will get over this. You… won't let him hurt them or anything, will you?"
Harry met a pair of imploring blue eyes and, for a brief moment, considered how important it really was to be truthful to these children. In the end, he decided to go with a diplomatic response devoid of any true answers: "I'm sorry about that, Ron. And unless your parents attack us or our people, they won't be in any danger from the New Order."
x
"Slytherin!" Harry muttered. "Teenagers are stressful."
Tom raised his eyes from the coffee table, which had been turned into a temporary worktable, and watched Harry close, lock and ward the door.
"It is as if they completely lacked any survival instinct!" Harry continued, shrugging off his cloak and toeing off his boots. A house-elf double apparition sounded, the cracks so close to each other they were barely discernible, and the wear he had shed disappeared. "Malfoy more or less begs for the Cruciatus every time I meet him, Hermione starts in on me as if I was a sixteen-year-old Gryffindor and-"
"Go on, Harry," Tom cut in snidely. "Tell me how it's my fault that your little friends are angry at you. Tell me how I shouldn't have been cursing my followers in plain sight-"
"They are children, Tom, and they suck morals in with their mothers' milk!" Harry exclaimed, too damn tired of being patient with recalcitrant obstinate intellectuals. "Of course they would be appalled-"
"I never stopped being a Dark Lord, just because you sprang out of a temporal vortex and restored my soul!"
Harry froze in the middle of taking off his belt. His tabard was hanging open, revealing the sides of his tunic, and he quickly continued his trek across the chilly room. The scroll in Tom's hand had a pattern of frost along the edge.
"When have I ever given you the impression that I expected it of you?" Harry asked quietly, sinking into the sofa by his husband's side and off-handedly transfiguring the tabard into a long-sleeved unidentifiable article of clothing. "Tom, I have never ever deceived myself about your nature."
Tom pursed his lips. He attempted to unroll the parchment his anger had frozen, but it crumbled between his fingers. Exasperated, he crushed the pitiful remains in his fist, rubbed his eyes and leaned back. "You're blinded by your emotional attachment."
"Are we being avoidant now? Are euphemisms the latest vogue?" Harry asked, aware that he, too, was being snide, even though the situation called for calm and rationality. He sighed and carded his hand through Tom's hair.
When that earned no reaction, Harry dared rest his cheek on Tom's shoulder. He closed his eyes – and trembled with the sudden, unexpected, detachment he felt; like all the pressure had ceased within a split second. Very little mattered when he was in this state, least of all three virtual strangers. He sighed again. "I am perfectly comfortable with your management of your followers."
There was a minute of silence, while a great part of Tom's defensive wrath transformed into curiosity and indifference. Eventually, he said: "Your friends are not."
Harry pressed a kiss to the side of Tom's neck and shuffled closer still. "My acquaintances are adolescent Light Gryffindors, and I have already informed them on no uncertain terms that I would not let their opinions affect mine."