Disclaimer: Harry Potter, associated characters and setting belong to JK Rowling and whoever she shares the rights with, which does not include me. This is for entertainment purposes only, with no copyright infringement intended, or profit made.

Warning. PG language, short reference to previous violence.

Chapter 18: Separation

The door to Harry and Hermione's workshop opened, and a blond Ravenclaw bounced in, closed the door, and spent three minutes hitting it with privacy spells. Harry just waited for Luna to be ready for him, although he made a mental note to ask her about the spell that turned the door red and blue checked.

"The DMLE sent us a letter back, isn't that exciting. They had it all ready and everything. It's like they missed us, and wanted to chat." Luna's voice lilted dangerously across three octaves as she announced the news.

Harry raised an eyebrow. He's been learning that since he spent time around Professor Snape outside of class. "What did they say?"

"They wanted to know what happens to the wands of those people we make poof. Also, they had the usual clauses saying they can't encourage or condone our actions, as we're outside the law, but really, they want to check all the wands to see if they can solve any crimes."

Harry started nodding, but ended up shaking his head. "Umm, Luna, what do we do with their wands?"

"I've been transfiguring them into unremarkable objects, and keeping them in the junk storage area. It's another doorless area, like the potato-ferret hall. Malfoy the mouse's is an ashtray, on top of a carved wooden elephant, near the pile of 37 bowling pins. Malfoy the ferret's is a mint tin. I put mints in it."

"Speaking of the Malfoys, have we let them chat, yet?"

"Nope. We should. Malfoy's done all his homework, and eaten a reasonable amount at every meal. Winky is trying to feed him up, but if she keeps giving him more and more he'll get round."

"Can Malfoys do that?"

"If you lock them in a cage with nothing to do and an over zealous house elf in charge of nutrition, yes." She tilted her head. "We could get him a really big wheel?"

"Okay. so my assignment is done. We have one Death Eater containment chair, charmed to hold him still, especially the hands. It's shrunken over there, in the red box."

"What else have you got?"

"For Malfoy, in case he prove to be contrary? The chair dampens magic, and I've got it trained to dole out little shocks to the back of the knees if he tries to use any."

"Oh . I was asking about the other boxes. You have fourteen colors of boxes, I was wondering what else you made." Luna stopped. "Will you really shock Mousey Malfoy?"

"If he tries to escape, yes. He'll hurt people again, just like last time before he was caught. And the information he knows now... well, they could use it to easily kill us all the next time we go out. I'm not willing to risk Hermione or Tonks, so I'm very willing to make it clear to Mr. Malfoy that escaping is not an option that's available to him."

"Oh, I guess that makes sense. I just don't want us to start growing Argulillies in the basement. They only grow where pain has steeped into stone, you know."

"I'll tell Malfoy ahead of time what he has to do to not be hurt, and we'll give him the choice. He can stay and chew on his tube happily, if he wants."

"I guess that's alright then."

"Anything else?"

"About those wands..."

"Lets wait until toast,and talk about it. I don't trust the DMLE to be able to keep them safe, but I understand the need for information."

"Should I write them back?"

"If you like. I wouldn't want them to think we're ignoring them. You can tell them the Hunters Council will think about it."

"Right, then. By the way, Harry, did you know your door is red and blue checked? It's strangely pretty like that."

.o.o.o.o.

Harry pulled Lucius Malfoy the mouse's cage out of the cage area, and waited until he had the mouse's full attention. It was hard to tell when a mouse was paying attention to you, and when it was just hoping for more gerbil food. Harry explained to Malfoy Sr. that he would be able to talk to Draco. Draco would stay in his cell. Malfoy Sr. would be strapped to a chair. The chair will restrain his hands, and keep him stationary. The chair will discourage any attempts at magic, as they are assumed to be escape attempts. Harry then asked the mouse to turn in a circle if he agreed. Lucius agreed, turning three times.

Malfoy, once transformed, looked like crap, compared to his normal, or even compared to Snape's normal appearance. His hair was uneven, and stringy. He was sporting a thin beard. His actions, small as there were, were twitchy, as were his eye movements. He didn't stand up straight, and twitched away from the bright lights they used.

Harry masked Draco's cell. He and Luna had put in the chair, and stick it down with a password based sticking charm, which Harry had made Hermione teach him. Malfoy was kept under three wands, including one held by Snape. He sit, in silence. The chair seemed to absorb him a bit.

Luna nodded. "Are you comfy?"

"Tolerably so. The chair is... comfier... then it looks to be, since it molded up around me.".

Harry opened the blocking spell Draco's cell up, one way.. The four watched Draco doing his homework. He'd adjusted quickly to the ballpoint pen and notebook paper.

Snape explained. "He's fed well, by one our our elves that insists on nurturing everyone. He's got his homework assignments as conveyed by the students. His bath area is behind the... ducky curtains. His teacup refills itself when he taps the rim..."

Lucius's face had silent tears running down it. Snape continued. "We come to visit him, so he's not in isolation, but he's not yet reconciled to talking to the other side..."

Lucius, still crying silently, thanked Snape. "I can't think of anyone else taking so much care of an enemy, even one they swore to care for as an infant."

"I swore to help raise him if you were unavailable. I... I may have betrayed your lord, but I intend to keep my other oaths."

Snape nodded at Harry, who dropped the one way barrier.

Draco turned fast, showing off his reflexes, and then he froze. His first expression was shock at the sight of his father. Then his face cleared. "It's a trick." he murmured, mostly to himself.

His father spoke. "I know I'm a sight. But it's so good to see my son looking so good. Snape has been taking good care of you. You should continue to listen to Snape, even if he's fighting for the wrong side - the other side, since he's obviously an honorable man, to care for his god son even when he's an enemy."

Draco, still in shock, commented again on his father's appearance. "What's happened to you, how...?".

Lucius laughed,and said "it's hard to look good when you're living as a mouse."

Draco put together all the hints, and panicked. His breathing sped up and the muggle ballpoint pen in his hand broke before he noticed he was squeezing it.

Lucius tried to calm him down. "I knew the risks. I fought. I got caught. I was only really worried when I heard they caught you. I've not been tortured, or killed. I'm being stored." He took a deep breath. "Warriors must be gracious in defeat as well as victory."

Harry, behind Lucius, laughed behind his hand and muttered that Draco was never gracious in victory, as he bragged too much, and if defeated he only whined louder about his father. Lucius turned his head.

Harry nodded at Draco while looking at Lucius "You didn't teach him a warrior's honor, you taught him to be a whiny bully."

Draco screamed at Harry. "I'm not a bully, and I'm not a coward, I'd do anything for my family and my family's honor."

"Including making the right choice and refusing to serve a mad-man. Oh, wait, you didn't."

Snape started to kick Harry out of the conversation, gesturing him towards the apparition point, "We did this so Draco and Lucius could talk."

Draco interrupted, screaming at Harry and Snape. "Snape, you're no god father of mine, you're a betraying, oath-breaking, sniveling, sneaking coward, now being ordered about by a half blooded freak, not fit for either world, just like you."

Harry snapped at the word 'freak.' The bars vibrated, there was wind blowing in his hair, and the chair sucked Lucius in farther. Everyone other then Harry held very still. Even Draco went silent.

"Talking to your family was a privilege I was willing to grant you. Not any more."

Harry shot a green beam at Lucius, caught the blond mouse in his hand, and dumped him in the jar on his belt. He walked out of the room in silence.

Snape turned to Draco. "Use your brain, fool. You're not in charge here."

.o.o.o.o.

When Harry came back to retrieve the chair, Snape was lurking, not interfering. Harry though he was likely trying to ensure Harry didn't kill his godson.

Draco was sobbing. "You turned him back into a mouse. He's living in a tiny cage. He hasn't seen soap in ages. How can that be humane?"

"Draco, what do Death Eaters call Muggleborns, other then Mudblood?"

Draco paused, although his eyes were still full of tears.

"Your Aunt Bellatrix loves to call people 'filthy beasts.' Yes. Creature is also a favorite name to call people. I think most Death Eaters treat animals better then Muggles and Muggle borns."

"My father..."

"Your father sic-ed a basilisk on Hogwarts. Did he tell you how to stay safe from it's gaze?"

"My Father..."

"I mean, we played nice in the department of Mysteries, and just stunned them. And they woke each other up. We decided we need to take them all the way out of the fight. So, it was either killing them all, or this."

"It's still horrible."

"Draco. I've walked in and rescued Order Members that got captured by Death Eaters. Do you want me to tell you about it? About the blood splatter on the Death Eater's shirts. About how she was still screaming?" Harry took a deep breath. "Think about Greyback, and how he likes to play with little kids, and bite even when the moon isn't full. Think about your friend Theo, who went on for twenty minutes about how fun it was to snatch a muggle off the street, introduce him to magic, and then torture him."

Harry was pacing. He stopped. "Death Eaters are animals. They need to be stopped. We're stopping them."

"My dad's not like them!"

"He funds them. He helps them. He recruits them. He helps make the laws that make it possible. He is one of them, and he's just as responsible. Hell, he even made his son into one."

"I chose this."

"You chose this based on the stories you'd been told all your life, and the way you'd been raised. You were always told you were better the others because you were born, and you wanted to be better, so you believed."

"I..."

"You''re only not a mouse because Snape likes you. If it were up to me, we'd force feed you Vertiserum, ask you if you took the mark voluntarily, and start feeding you mouse food."

"I haven't done anything..."

"Katie Bell got ahold of a cursed necklace on her own? You weren't planning on killing Dumbledore, or letting Death Eaters into our school via the Room of Requirement?"

Draco stared at Harry, unable to refute that.

"Winky will keep feeding you. Don't make any more demands. We're not a luxury hotel. Your dad can survive without soap. He'll learn to groom himself."

Harry, almost out of sight, turned, to say one last thing. "You, all of you, you brought this on yourself. You did the intolerable. You'll have to learn to live with intolerance for the rest of your life."

Draco was crying again as Harry left.

Snape looked at him, and left silently.

.o.o.o.o.

"You said a few interesting things back there."

"A lot of things were said tonight. I doubt any of us are at our best."

"May I ask where that lecture on the Death Eaters being animals came from?"

"I'm not going to discuss it with you. It's emotional. You'll try to correct me. It will end with a detention."

Harry apperated. Snape followed a split second later. Their discussion continued as they went up the tunnel towards the school.

"Far be it from me to disturb your equilibrium."

"You are never far from disturbing my equilibrium. You have been disturbing it ever since I got here, happy to be at a school where my cousin wouldn't pummel anyone who talked to me, and grateful to be able to eat enough. Hagrid bought me my first ever gift, and I had clothes that fit, and no one was locking me in a cupboard. And then you happened."

Snape paused at this.

Harry kept walking. He didn't look back. But he did say "Your godson is still alive,and he's not in Azcaban. That won't change in the next few days. Leave me alone for a bit. Sir."

.o.o.o.

"Luna, what can I do for you?" Harry was standing in the Chamber, ahead of the meeting, holding his newest bribe for Dobby, consisting of neon yarn, enough for three socks in each color..

"I'm worried."

"Oh?" Harry turned from the eye burning yarns and studied Luna's face, looking for a hint.

"Malfoy, who's been living as a mouse. He's been greatly affected by his time in our care. Perhaps we should consider a day or two of human time for our guests. If we rotated them through we wouldn't need that many cells."

"What about escapes?"

"I haven't read the latest studies on the effect of being withing a fidelious-ed area without knowing the secret. You were able to get it for me, but when you took me over before, it was all very blurry, since it existed, but I didn't know that... But they'd be escaping up though the Order of the Phoenix without knowing where they were."

"Still."

"We could assign prisoner duty to Tonks and Remus. The Death Eaters would at least respect them, as adults and known opponents."

Harry looked undecided. "I guess we do need to be better then them. and these are people's parents. Lets not drive them insane. No more Nevilles."

"Thanks, Harry. I'll draw up a schedule."

"Lets ask Tonks and Remus first, Luna. That's a lot of time. Figure out when they can be there." He paused. "Tell Tonks she can chose who she'll be on duty guarding."

"We could bring in Lee, you know. He was asking about any support we needed. Sitting and watching Death Eaters with your finger near the alarm wouldn't hurt his study habits any. Since we've got the map, he's stopped being our source for out and about Death Eaters."

"Lets put the twins on figuring out how to get him into the place, eh? Getting Dumbledore led around to the right topic is hard."

"Have you tried putting the information in a pensive?"

Harry was quiet for a moment. "No."

"Has anyone?"

"Ask Hermione to look into it, will you? We can't ask Flitwick, but I bet he knows."

"If we go in asking about all the possible ways it could be broken and how to guard against them, then we can."

Harry nodded, his eye once again drawn to the over bright yarn twists in his hand. He shivered, and pulled his cloak closer. "Hermione would be thrilled to do a comparison on written versus vocal sharing of the secret, and it's affect on overall security. Perhaps as a DADA Charms joint extra paper?"

"Are you working on something big then?"

"I'm working on the Cell and cage surveillance. We're trying to work out getting muggle security cameras and viewing TVs made magically. And the twins are working on a system that stuns anyone in the hall that hasn't been approved by the watcher."

"How's it going?"

"We can get it to take and transmit pictures, but not a video. And the twins can turn the interlopers hair pink, but stunners require more power. It's in progress."

"Well, It will certainly help Lee and Tonks and Remus with watching the Death Eaters, now won't it?"

Harry sighed but smiled. "Yes, Luna, as you wish."

Luna bounced once, then hugged Harry, and kissed his cheek before running off.

Harry looked stunned for a moment before yelling after her "Meeting in half an hour."

She half turned and nodded. "I'll be back. I just need to go figure out what root vegetable the Death Eaters are going to be."

"How about Carrots?"

"Don't be silly, Harry, that's Dobby's knitting room."

"Right." Harry said to himself as the tassels of Luna's carpet rose out of sight. While the camber was, in fact secret, it was annoyingly out of the way. Dobby had scavenged for them 4 old flying carpets and some twenty year old cleansweaps so they could get in and out more easily. Harry had asked him where they'd come from, and he'd only answered "The seventh floor" and would say no more. Harry suspected an elf run lost and found and spare furniture depository, since castle towers had small attics.

.o.o.o.

"Isn't Remus still in a cage of his own?" was the first question, this time from Professor Snape. Normally he let them wear themselves down a bit before poking holes in ideas.

"Oh, but given a serious job, like watching Death Eaters to prevent escape, I'm sure he's come to understand that we're all on the same side." Luna was using a slightly over wattage smile for the job of charming Professor Snape into agreement. It seemed to be working, if only because he was choosing not to face it any more.

"Besides," Luna continued "He'll work with Tonks, to keep her safe. And he'll feel that Lee, once his student and known to be prone to ideas, needs supervision."

Snape nodded, if anything, a little harder then necessary at this last point, leading to a very temporary glare from Hermione.

"Next." Hermione said.

"Wait, were we done talking about that?" Ginny sounded confused.

"We'll get back to talking about it later. Right now everyone needs to breath for a bit."

"Um. Luna brought it to my attention that the DMLE would like the Boogeywoman to forward them the wands of the captured Death Eaters, so they can be checked against the unsolved crimes on record." Harry took a breath. "That was complicated."

"It was. I don't like it." Hermione shook her head, emphatically.

"Why? I though we would want Death Eaters to go on record for their crimes?"

"But if their wands are in the DMLE department, someone could break out the wands for nefarious purposes. We don't trust them to capture Death Eaters, so why should we trust them with Death Eaters wands?"

"We could ask them very nicely if they'd prove they'd checked all their employees for ugly tattoos and imperious, and if they're willing to keep rechecking?" Luna proposed, as if it were the obvious next step.

Harry coughed. "If we send that letter, is there any way we can get the reaction on their faces when they open it?"

"No." Snape answered with a smirk. "But send it all the same. They'll either take it seriously, or not."

Luna hummed for a moment. Harry pondered introducing her to the octave based scale, but waited for whatever she was processing to fully take form. "I was think about how hard it is to send untraceable letters to the DMLE. I was thinking we should just send it to the newspapers. Ask them to print it. And make is self distrust after a few minutes."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "You want to send a self destructing letter to the Daily Prophet, asking them to pass on a message to the DMLE and the world at large, and you want that message to be that the Boogeywoman refuses to turn over the captured Death Eater's wands for analysis until the DMLE has cleaned house?"

Luna lit up with a smile. "Yes."

Hermione shook her head and smiled. "Well, that's our chaos for the week. What will we do with the distraction?"

"Can we kidnap Umbridge and check her arm?" Ron asked.

Harry blinked at him, and kept blinking. Hermione answered. "That's our chaos for next week, then. What are we doing with this week?"

Ginny raised her hand. "I'm out of ideas, and I've got three papers. Can we do homework this week?"

Hermione looked around the table to see a general agreement and series of nods. "Right, Luna sends of her chaos inducing letter, and we all do homework. Except Professor Snape, who does whatever he does when we're not looking." She paused and looked at him "Sir." She added, as if unsure if her last comment had crossed the line.

"I'm sure I can entertain myself. I do have tests to write, after all."

With that, the meeting broke up, with one final reminder that everyone should be thinking of ways to confused and confound the enemy, and that Professor Snape should remember that students were not the enemy, Death Eaters were.

AN: It's alive! The middle section, with Lucius in the chair didn't wish to be written, please excuse it's akwardness.