War Is over: Chapter 7/17 - Legacies
It was all the same, and completely different.
They were the five of them now, having tea in Hagrid's hut. Hagrid, of course, who was besides himself with joy at seeing Harry and Ron, and got his best - and hardest - rock cakes. Harry, Ron and Hermione, as always. But also Ginny, who had never joined with them to those Friday afternoon teas, not until now.
And Fang was missing. One of Aragog's offsprings had bitten him during the battle, Hagrid told them sadly, and then started going on about those ungrateful spiders. Harry, of course, was not surprised - after all, they had tried to eat them in the past, so eating a dog was certainly not beyond them. Still, it was strange - not seeing Fang there, following Hagrid around.
And the topics of conversation had changed, too. Oh, at first they talked about the usual things: Hermione's and Ginny's classes ("Defence Against the Dark Arts is so easy now, but I'm really quite behind on potions! I don't know how I will finish the essay for Professor Slughorn!"), Quidditch ("We're going to win this year, no doubt. The Hufflepuff seeker isn't any good, Ravenclaw's keeper actually seems to get more goals inside than the opposing team, and just about everyone in the Slytherin team is new!"), and the teachers ("Professor Vector is the Head of Gryffindor House now, but we don't see too much of her. And Professor Llewellyn is teaching Transfiguration, I don't think she's as good as McGonagall").
"Speaking of Professor McGonagall," Hermione said, taking another sip of Hagrid's tea but making sure not to eat the cakes, "I really don't envy her this year. She's been running around since May, and it doesn't seem to stop."
"How d'you mean?"
"Well, with so many people repeating their year, and then some don't, and then the larger number of first years - it's been complete chaos."
Ron looked at her, puzzled. "Why are there more first years this year?"
Hermione opened her mouth to say something - no doubt, a scathing remark on Ron's lack of thinking, but Harry got there first. "The Muggle-borns," he said quietly, and Ron's mouth opened to the shape of a big O. "Of course."
"That's what I was helping McGonagall with during the summer," Hermione said quietly. "Not the new first years, but those who already got their letter last year."
All of them thought about it in silence for a moment. It was like Hermione said, Harry realised. Life went on in the wizarding world when they were on the run and hunting Horcruxes. But that life was wrong, too.
At any given year, Harry knew, there were about 40 or 50 first years at Hogwarts, and of them at least 15 were Muggle-borns. Some of those weren't completely unaware of the magical world - families that already had at least one wizard or witch in them would have at least a vague awareness that there was something else going on. But still, there were those - like Hermione - who had known nothing of the magical world. For them, it was not enough to send a letter by owl. No, someone had to come in person and explain things. Calm the parents down. Tell them that it was a good thing - the child they had been worried about all these years didn't have anything wrong in them, they were simply... different.
Most of those kids had already got their visit before the Ministry fell in August.
"Do you know how difficult it was to go back there this year and convince the parents to still send their children to Hogwarts?" Hermione said. "Some of them didn't quite understand what was the delay last year, so they were mainly concerned about their kid having to repeat a class. But others..." Others have realised that Hogwarts didn't just retract their offer, and perhaps, some of them had been watched by Death Eaters and had noticed what was going on, or were even contacted by them. Those were the parents that realised that something terrible had happened in the magical world, and that their children might suffer as a result.
"There were three families McGonagall asked me to talk to specifically. To explain from a Muggle-born point of view, I guess."
"Did you tell them what had happened?" Harry asked, curious.
"Yeah, I did. They have a right to know. And they ended up saying yes. But now there are Muggle-born first years who should have started last year and are now hearing the stories from the rest of the kids about how it was like here last year, and then there's the real Muggle-born first years, and they're... Well, let's just say it's a very interesting year," she finished diplomatically. "And those who weren't afraid before are afraid now, and those who were afraid before are absolutely terrified."
"Of what?"
"Death Eaters, of course! They hear from the older kids about all those attacks, like the Smith family last week, and they don't really understand what's going on. And it hasn't escaped anyone that there are no Muggle-born first years in Slytherin this year, and a lot of the kids saw the headlines in the Prophet..."
"And they ask why not arrest all of them," Harry said darkly.
"Not arrest, no," Hermione said, slightly uncomfortable, "but I'm not sure keeping an eye on known Death Eater sympathisers is such a bad idea. I heard it was Will Jones who suggested that."
"Figures," Harry muttered.
"You know, Harry," Hermione said with an edge to her voice, "I'm not sure he's got the wrong idea."
"Are you kidding me?" Both Harry and Ron stared at her.
"I mean, yes, he's doing things in a rather noisy way - "
"He's been a pain ever since Kingsley took over!"
"Has he? What exactly did Kingsley try to do that he stopped?"
"And anyway," Ron couldn't find anything to answer her with, so he grabbed at the next possible argument, "he's the one who made us take the physical test before starting Auror training!"
"Yes, I know," she said, and there was something strange in her voice.
"What?" Harry asked.
"Well, it's just... don't take this the wrong way, Harry, but I don't think it was such a bad idea."
"Oh, so now you think Harry's a nutter?" Ron demanded, and Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Of course not, you know I don't doubt Harry. It's just that... Look, Harry, no one knows how the Killing Curse works. I checked in the library, and there's a lot about how the Cruciatus Curse and the Imperius Curse work, but all anyone ever knows about the Killing Curse is that it kills. Getting checked by a Healer didn't hurt, did it?"
Harry remained silent, while Ron muttered, "I can't believe this."
"And besides... I thought his solution was the best one, considering the Daily Prophet's campaign."
"What? Giving in?"
"No, Ron, not giving in. Although Kingsley was about to ask Harry to do the check-up anyway. But this way everyone had to do it, Rita Skeeter can't spread any more rumours, and Harry wasn't singled out. No one's suggesting anything about Harry anymore, do they?"
"Admit it, Hermione, you only support Jones because - "
"Because what?" Hermione's nostrils flared. Ron was entering dangerous territory, and he knew it.
"Because... well, because..."
"Because he's Muggle-born? Yes, I support him because he's Muggle-born. Finally there's someone in the Ministry who doesn't treat us as something embarrassing and prefer to ignore the whole issue. Finally there's someone in the Ministry who's dedicated to get the best for us."
"Come off it, Hermione," Ginny interfered. "None of us ever treated you differently because you're Muggle-born."
"None of you," Hermione insisted.
After a minute or so of silence, the five found better, safer topics of conversation.
But this was not to be their last encounter with the real world during this visit. Hogwarts no longer was a safe place from the problems outside, not only because the topics themselves were important - but because of the people who had been there. As they were walking back from Hagrid's hut, they ran into the last Herbology class of the day, leaving Greenhouse Five - the Slytherin Seventh-years.
And between them, repeating her last year at Hogwarts, was Pansy Parkinson, followed by a small group of friends.
No one said anything - no one had to. Both groups, Harry and his friends and Pansy with hers, froze in place, right in front of the Greenhouse door. And each and every one of them had the same thing in mind - the last time Pansy Parkinson had seen Harry Potter. All around them, kids from other houses, who were already out of their class and ready to enjoy the last rays of sunshine for the day, stopped as well.
The whispering went through the crowd, and whenever the whispers stopped, silence fell. For the first time in living memory, the Hogwarts grounds were completely silent, despite being full of students. It was as if Pansy's words had just been spoken again. But he's there! she shouted then. Potter's there! Someone grab him! And every one of those who had been in the Great Hall that terrible day could hear those words now, echoing in the silence. Someone grab him.
After a moment's hesitation, Pansy raised her head, looking directly at Harry. There was no remorse in her expression. No regret. It was as if she was challenging him. Say something. Go on. Say it like you really think, Potter.
But Harry said nothing, just looked back at her.
And then, Pansy spoke.
"You probably only did this because your brain is addled by all the curses thrown at you," she said clearly, "but thank you. For Draco."
"They should have been told what happened," he said in a measured voice, not removing his eyes from hers. "It wasn't right, to let him go to Azkaban for the rest of his life."
Finally, she lowered her eyes, breaking eye contact. "You're the only Gryffindor left in this school, Potter," she said. "The only true Gryffindor," and was gone.
-X-
"It's Potter!"
"Harry Potter's here, I've seen him!"
"Guess who I passed in the corridor earlier? Harry Potter!"
And so on and on, the whispering went. Harry was right - it was worse than anything he had experience until then. Much worse.
At first, they sat in the common room, but that soon became impossible. The whole of Gryffindor House came there, and sat around them, listening to every word, even when that word was "your turn" while playing exploding snap. And whenever he tried to leave, everyone would gather around him and start asking questions, or want to shake his hand, or say "thank you".
Dinner was even worse, even though Harry didn't believe that was possible. Harry and Ron sat in the Gryffindor table, and were immediately surrounded not just by Gryffindors, but by Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws as well, so much that Professor McGonagall had to say, quite impatiently, that students must be seated at their own house table.
But the end of dinner also suggested an opportunity. Unnoticed for a second, Harry went under his invisibility cloak, and all of a sudden, he was free. He didn't go back to the common room. Instead, he sat by the Great Hall, waiting for everyone to disappear. Ginny was supposed to come back after a few minutes, gathering his and Ron's stuff from the common room, ready to walk them back to the Hogwarts gates. And after a while, he could take off his cloak and wait, as everyone disappeared back into their common rooms, and Hogwarts was quiet again.
Quiet - except for one small kid.
"I'm Jimmy," the kid introduced himself.
"Hi," Harry said, slightly irritate at the kid, and even more at himself. He shouldn't have taken off the cloak.
"Everyone's talking about you. Who are you?"
Now Harry was paying attention to the kid. "You're Muggle-born?" he asked, and the kid nodded. "First year?" The kid nodded again.
"Wow."
He never thought about that. Muggle-born kids always felt a bit overwhelmed, a bit left out. He had felt that way, too, when he was eleven and just starting Hogwarts - even though everyone knew his name even then. It felt like a different lifetime now, but he could still remember that feeling, of being utterly lost in that wonderful world that had opened up in front of him.
But this kid - this was something completely different. He had missed the war, he had missed Voldemort. It was good, Harry was sure. Very good. For a moment, he had wondered what the lives of the Muggle-born kids who were supposed to start Hogwarts a year ago had looked like, how the lives of the Muggle-born kids who had now started their third year were shaped. He had a difficult, eventful time at Hogwarts, no doubt, but at least he had some sort of an idea what was going on. These kids - they fell right into the middle of it, with no one explaining anything.
And now, they were completely left out. They got their letter, just like he did. They got to go, just like he did. And then all they had heard about was war, and terrible dark dead wizards, and a battle everyone had witnessed - and they didn't know what to make of it.
And now this kid had plucked up the courage to come to him, the one everyone was talking about, and ask him the simplest of questions. Who are you. And Harry wasn't really sure how to answer it.
"I'm Harry," he said simply.
"They say you're this great soldier. You won the war, all by yourself," the kid looked at him, eyes open wide. "You don't look tall enough," he said critically, and the continued without waiting for Harry's comment. "They say you died. But Professor Vector says there's no magic that can bring back the dead."
"She's right," Harry thought for a second of his parents, of Remus, of Sirius. Of the portrait of Albus Dumbledore, hanging in the Headmistress's office. "There isn't."
"Then how could you die and still be alive?" the kid asked with scepticism, and Harry wasn't quite sure whether he was questioning Professor Vector's explanation, or his own story.
"I'm not a great soldier," Harry avoided the question. "Don't believe them when they say that. It was mostly luck."
"They say you killed the evilest wizard of all times, right here in the school."
"Yeah."
"And that you fought dragons, and something called Dementors, and giants! I bet that was cool."
Harry looked at the kid, and the boy - only eleven years old, only a boy - seemed to cower slightly from his gaze. "There's a lot of people here who saw the Battle last year," he said quietly. "Did you talk to some of them?"
"Yeah," the kid hesitated.
"Did they say it was cool?"
"No. There's this kid, Dennis Creevey - "
" - His brother died in May," Harry pointed out, and the kid looked abashed for a moment.
"He doesn't talk about his brother, though," he said sullenly.
What did this kid know? He wasn't like Lavender, he wasn't like Cho, and he definitely wasn't like Dean, or Seamus, or Lee Jordan, or any of them. He didn't see what war was all about. And maybe, Harry thought for a moment, maybe it was a good thing. Maybe it was alright that eleven-year-old kids could hear the stories about what had happened here and think it was cool, because what that really meant was that they didn't understand. Four months have passed and already this kid could not imagine the horror of Lord Voldemort, could not realise the danger he would have been in if things would have turned out differently, could not comprehend the pain of the last months, the funerals and memorials and the people they would never see again.
No, this kid had plenty of time to learn. It was a good thing he didn't know it, not yet.
"Well, if Dennis ever talks about his brother, just listen," Harry said, and the kid ran off on his own way.
The kid probably didn't spend any more time thinking of that conversation, perhaps other than telling his classmates that he had spoken to Harry Potter, and that "it wasn't such a big deal!". But it stayed in Harry's mind, all through that evening, when he and Ron went back to Grimmauld Place.
"How long, do you think, before people stopped being afraid of Voldemort?" he asked Ron that night. "They still don't say his name - not everyone, anyway. You think it will just be a story one day? A children's tale?"
But if he expected an answer, he didn't get one. Ron was already asleep. Harry sighed and tried to sleep as well, and didn't bring up that subject again. Not in the morning, not at the Burrow, where they had spent the rest of the weekend, and not once they were back in Manchester for their training. Harry kept that question to himself, but almost every night, he wondered about it.
He didn't have much time to wonder about it, though. Their nights were becoming shorter, their days much more tiresome. It was physical training, more than he ever experienced, even at the height of the Quidditch season. And there were classes, harder than his O.W.L.s year, harder than anything he'd ever done at Hogwarts. Dawlish had said on that first week that while they knew their students had practical experience that was not usually available to Auror candidates, many of them still lacked the theoretical basis, "And what with your training being shorter than usual, expect a lot of hard work."
'Hard work' wasn't the right word to describe it, Harry thought one evening as he collapsed again at his bunk, too tired to even talk to Ron or any of the others. He was too tired to think of a better term for 'hard work' these days, so instead he just voiced his agreement when Seamus complained - once again - at the work, and Dean wondered whether becoming an Auror was really worth it.
"This is nothing," Neville gave his opinion, and earned himself a choir of incredulous comments as a result. "I had to work a lot harder for my O.W.L.s... and we were a lot more worried then."
"But school's over," Seamus interrupted. "We're not supposed to do so much hard work."
"Speak for yourself," was Neville's reply.
And Harry, despite appreciating Neville's point, still would have liked some more free time and less work.
And it wasn't just the hard work - ten days after the incident with the Death Eaters, they had found themselves around another house, and the Ministry's top Aurors surrounded it, full of tension and worry. No one wanted to repeat the scenario, even if the department didn't come out all the worse from it.
But the house seemed quiet - almost abandoned.
"What if they're not there?" Seamus paced up and down, stopping every five seconds to ask the same questions. "What if it's a trap? What if they know we're here?"
"Sit down," Ron hissed at Seamus, but he kept on pacing.
"What if they get closer and the whole thing blows up?"
"Seamus!" Harry whispered at Seamus. "You're making us all nervous, and you're making it impossible to hear what's going on. Sit down!"
Seamus glared at Harry for a moment, but eventually sat down. He still tapped on his foot - clearly getting on everyone else's nerves, especially Ron and Anthony - but at least he was relatively quiet.
Harry concentrated again on looking at the house. What was going on? He also wondered whether this was a trap, whether the Aurors were lured there by Death Eaters.
But no - all of a sudden someone left the house - and it wasn't a Death Eater. It wasn't even a wizard - it was a goblin.
Five Aurors jumped on the goblin as soon as he left the house. Harry got up, trying to get closer. He couldn't hear anything from their perimeter - and the house didn't seem to hold Death Eaters in it.
When he arrived, Dawlish was questioning the goblin - which Harry was surprised to see was Griphook.
"But what were you doing there?" Dawlish demanded.
Griphook gave him an apathetic look. "Wizards have taken the goblins' right to carry wands, Wizard," he said in a measured voice, "not to live under a roof."
More goblins were coming out of the house - five, six, seven - Harry counted them and couldn't help but wonder what so many goblins were doing so far away from civilisation. By that time, Ron had joined him, counting the goblins, looking at Harry with concern.
"How many of them are there?" he whispered to Harry.
Harry shrugged. He was looking at Griphook, who was arguing with Dawlish. Oh, he wanted to know what they were doing there - but he could see where this was going, especially with Dawlish's temper, and he didn't relish the thought of the possible outcome.
"His name is Griphook," he called towards Dawlish, and both Auror and goblin looked at him in surprise. "He helped us against Voldemort last year."
Griphook stared at Harry as long as Ron did. They both, of course, noted the part that was missing from Harry's statement - how Griphook betrayed them in the end. But Harry couldn't hold too much of a grudge towards the goblin. After all, they were planning on doing the same thing, in a manner of speaking. He kept his gaze directly at Griphook - if the goblin wanted to confess to the second part, he was invited to. But Griphook remained silent.
Dawlish, on the other hand, stared from Harry to Griphook to Ron. He could see that there was something else going on, of course. This was not a reunion of old friends, nor of people who had gladly fought together against a common enemy. But neither one was filling him in, so in the end he shrugged and let the goblins go.
"Just don't let us catch you here again," he grumbled, and the goblins laughed unkindly. There wasn't much Dawlish could do about their presence there, and they all were aware of it.
"What are you doing here?" Harry asked Griphook quietly as the goblin walked past him and back into the house.
"Mind your own business, wizard," another goblin shouted at him, but Griphook ignored the other goblin and considered Harry's question for a moment.
"Taking care of the goblins, Harry Potter," he said. "Speaking of which, you wouldn't happen to know where the Sword of Gryffindor is, would you?"
As Harry shook his head, Griphook flashed a smile that made him all the more uncomfortable.
He didn't have much time to consider his discomfort, though - the very same day they were already back to classes and training. And by the end of that week he was pleased - almost happy - when it became his and Ron's turn to go over old files in the Auror office.
All of them had to do it - it was part of the training, Dawlish said, but Harry suspected it was a way to get a chore done which no one else wanted to do. The files were the Ministry's records of all the Wizengamot trials and Azkaban incarcerations, as old as they had kept them. The whole records room had been thrown into a mess during Thicknesse's period as Minister for Magic, and now needed reorganisation - boxes and boxes that needed careful alphabetical sorting. The records room was protected from magicking all of the records at once, Dawlish sighed, so that no one could abuse it, and now the wizards in charge were hopelessly flooded with work. As a result, every other weekend a different pair of Auror trainees was sent to do the unending task, and Harry and Ron, the fourth pair to set foot in the records room, couldn't see any signs of the work that's already been done.
"I take it all back. Send me on another three-day camouflage training in the forest. Please!" Ron said, horrified at the boxes.
"Come on," said Harry in resignation, but sharing the sentiment.
Most of the work was incredibly boring. Indeed, it was the mental break Harry had been craving for days. But every once in a while, something interesting came up.
"Look," Ron showed him a paper, "Ludo Bagman's trial records," and then turned to read them in interest. And a couple of minutes later, another paper was given to him. Prisoner report for Sirius Black. Harry found himself looking at the photograph for a while, sirius looking at the camera in what must have seemed at the time like apathy, but Harry could recognise as grief and despair.
A short time later he had amused himself with an arrest warrant for Albus Dumbledore, dated three years ago - after the incident with the DA, he realised. He showed it to Ron, who was too busy reading something else - the protocols of Harry's own hearing with the Wizengamot from that same year. Harry didn't mind Ron reading the protocols - he had already told Ron at the time everything that had happened - and instead spent the time looking at Dumbledore, winking at him from behind the half-moon spectacles. With a pinch to his heart, he had sent the warrant to lie in the right drawer.
The next paper turned just as difficult, but for other reasons. A new paper, this was Draco Malfoy's trial protocol. Harry looked at the verdict - guilty - and anger rose in him.
"Hey, at least he only got six months," Ron commented when he saw what Harry was looking at now. "That already made a lot of people unhappy."
"Still six months too much," Harry muttered and sent the paper on its way, to Ron's shrugs.
"And here's his aunt," he said and showed Harry a paper with Bellatrix's photograph on it. She didn't look like herself at all - not like Harry had known her. This was Bellatrix before Azkaban - still terrible, but beautifully so. He had only seen her once like that, in Dumbledore's memory. At her trial. He shrugged and sent that paper on its way, too, and picked another one: Walden Macnair.
"What is this doing here?" he wondered, and showed it to Ron. Walden Macnair's trial had been going on for months now. It was one of the more embarrassing cases for the Ministry, as Macnair had been a Ministry employee for years, and - as Kingsley had to keep on reminding the Prophet, would continue to be considered a Ministry employee until he was found guilty. Between that and his age, the trial had been postponed a dozen times, and Rita Skeeter in particular had been constantly harassing everyone in the Ministry over it, including Kingsley and Will Jones.
"And speaking of Will Jones, look at this. The next time you give him a hard time," Ron shoved another paper into Harry's hands - William Jones. Full with the protocols of his arrest and trial in front of the Muggle-Born Registration Commission, and his Azkaban record.
Harry read in silence - and only then noticed something. "Look," he showed Ron a small note on the file. "It says he was in Hufflepuff here."
"Yeah, so?"
"No, but - why would it say which House he was in?"
"Maybe the Death Eaters decided to keep records of that, too. Who knows?"
"No..." Harry tried to remember. He had seen records kept by the Death Eaters, the year before, when he broke into Umbridge's office; they held the blood status alright, and here it was too - but there was no House information there, he was sure of it.
"Give me another one."
"Okay, how about this - oh, you'd love this one. Lucius Malfoy."
And there it was. Blood status: Pure-blood, House: Slytherin.
Sturgis Podmore. Blood status: Half-blood. House: Ravenclaw.
Alastor Moody. Blood Status: Pure-blood. House: Gryffindor.
Harry was distracted for a moment, reading of another old altercation in which Moody had been involved in, but soon sent the paper to its way and looked at Ron. "I'm sure this wasn't part of the records last year," he said.
"Maybe you should ask Kingsley about it," Ron suggested with an unconvinced tone, more to get Harry to shut up than because he saw significance in it, Harry thought. But still, the idea was a good one. He'll ask Kingsley what exactly was going on in the room of records.
But it took another whole week until Harry had the chance to see Kingsley. At the end of another gruelling Friday, he had decided to go and visit Kingsley at the Ministry. He got there just in time to see the heads-of-offices leaving, and from Kingsley's expression as he saw him, he had just had a day as exhausting as Harry's.
He was, in fact, still having it, as the end of the meeting did not stop Will Jones from having one last thing to say.
"... again, Minister, thank you for your support. This new law will be very beneficial for everyone - oh, Mr Potter!" Jones beamed at him and shook his hand with enthusiasm.
"Mr Jones," Harry said coldly.
"I trust the Auror training has been going well?"
"Yes."
"I bet things worked out right at the end. I was quite happy to be able to find the best solution, Mr Potter!"
"I beg your pardon?"
"The medical exam! Finding a way out of that entire mess... "
"I rather thought a way out of the mess would be to ignore the Prophet on this one," Harry said, and Jones just laughed.
"Come now, Mr Potter. Most of us can't simply ignore public opinion... and you would do well not to, too. But I really must be going now. Kingsley, thanks again, Mr Potter, a pleasure - as always." And he was gone.
Kingsley raised an eyebrow. "And how's your day been?" he asked with a hint of sarcasm. Harry laughed, and Kingsley showed him inside his office.
"What was that all about? New laws?"
"Oh, we'll announce it later. Tea?"
"Yes, please."
He got a biscuit to go with it, and Kingsley sat down in his own chair, in front of Harry. "I take it this isn't a simple social call," he said quietly, but with a hint of fatigue.
"Yeah... there was something I wanted to ask you."
"You're rather late," was the response, and when Kingsley saw his puzzled expression, he continued, "I thought you were coming here to see me about the Smith family."
"Yeah - no - well, sort of. But not quite."
"Oh?"
"We - Ron and me - were going over the stuff in the records room, and I couldn't help but notice there's House information on everyone's sheets."
Kingsley considered him for a moment. "It's just for standard Ministry bureaucracy. Statistical information."
"It wasn't there last year," Harry looked straight at Kingsley.
"It was another one of Will's... solutions," Kingsley said carefully. "We added them the Friday after the Smith... incident."
"So you are keeping track of Slytherins."
"We're not keeping track of Slytherins. If you would have looked at the sheets closely - "
"Everyone's got them, yeah," Harry interrupted. "Still tells you who's a Slytherin and who isn't."
"That would be a side-effect of this information, yes," Kingsley answered, still just as careful.
"And you're just going to let them do it?"
To Harry's surprise, Kingsley just sighed. "People are afraid of the Death Eaters, Harry."
"There have been five attacks in the past four months."
"These days, one attack is too much. People are scared. Scared of going back to the way things used to be - "
" - I know all about the way things used to be, Minister. So what, this is a public opinion thing? Like Scrimgeour wanting me to show my support for the Ministry?"
"No," Kingsley's voice had become sharp, "these are the demands of the different heads of departments and offices. They're scared, too."
"You mean Will Jones - "
"Will Jones has lost his wife and is now raising both his children alone. And as the highest-ranking Muggle-born Ministry official, he is probably the first to be attacked if the remaining Death Eaters decide to go after the Ministry. He has a good reason to be afraid, Harry."
"How many Death Eaters are there out there?"
Kingsley didn't answer, and Harry tried again. "How many? Kingsley?"
"We don't know," the Minister for Magic said. "And that's a part of the problem. It could be three people - for all we know, with the death of the Death Eaters in the Smith case, the last Death Eaters have been killed. Or maybe there are still twenty or thirty out there, all planning their revenge."
"You'd think it was Voldemort himself that's still out there," Harry said bitterly.
Kingsley sighed again, and his expression, that had been on the verge of exasperation until that point, softened. "Your life has been shaped by Voldemort since before you were born, Harry," he said. "And you have fought him, in person, more than once. He was important to you because you were important to him. And some of us - the Aurors, the Order, some of your friends, we've done it, too. But a lot of these people out there weren't important enough, Harry. They weren't visited by Voldemort, or any of his high ranking Death Eaters. At most, they've seen some snatchers, or a low-ranking Death Eater. Voldemort is dead, and for you, that's the end. But all they knew are Death Eaters, and if the Death Eaters are still out there, they won't feel safe, even if they're no longer organised or led by the most terrible wizard of our time."
"So, what now?" Harry asked, still unsatisfied. "This continues until we know all Death Eaters have been captures?"
"It looks like it, yes," the softness has disappeared from Kingsley's voice. The interview was over.
"And how will we know that?" Harry muttered as he left his office.