Time passed.
Grimmauld Place was populated with the entire Weasley family at times, though most of them went about their business during the day. Fred and George's shop was thriving, keeping them out late, and Charlie and Bill worked long days as well. The uproar at the ministry was keeping Arthur away more than he ever had been before, so Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were left for the most part to their own devices, watched occasionally by Molly Weasley or whatever Order member was around.
Harry would have wondered at this lack of security in keeping them inside the house, but he needn't have. Ron and Hermione were as much of a security blanket as Dumbledore could possibly have hoped for. He hadn't mentioned his ideas about the Order since his first night there, and he hoped that Ron and Hermione had forgotten, if only so that they would never again give him those horrified looks that came when he suggested that the Order were not the saviors of wizardkind.
He spent a great deal of his time brooding in his room. Ron and Hermione, left alone by Molly, were getting up to things that Harry didn't want to think about, and he was left by himself. Ginny didn't appear to want to speak to him, spending her time writing to her friends, and this suited him just fine.
He hadn't been visited in his dreams since that first night, but he had been given plenty to think about. He asked Hermione three days later what her research had turned out about repairing wands, but she had apparently found nothing, frustrating her greatly.
His birthday dawned cloudy. He came downstairs around lunchtime to find a great deal more people in the kitchen than were usual.
"Happy Birthday, Harry!" cried Ron, marching toward him with two full glasses of pumpkin juice. "Here. Take this and get over here."
Harry found himself led to the center of a kitchen, where the crowd parted to reveal an enormous cake. He smiled.
"Thanks, Ron." He turned to survey the crowd. It was mainly made up of DA members, as well as Order members and several people he didn't recognize at all. "Thank you all for coming here," he said insincerely. He didn't even know most of these people very well. He would rather have had a quiet party with just his closest friends.
"There are so many people. Who organized this?" he asked Ron quietly as they served themselves cake and sat down.
"Well, I think Hermione and Dumbledore cooked it up between them," said Ron, grinning. "Great to see everyone again, isn't it? I think there's a lot of extra security or something. You're an important fellow." He slapped Harry on the back and moved away, striking up a conversation with Susan Bones.
He was an important fellow. But for the prophecy, would he be considered important at all? Would Dumbledore care about him at all?Of course not,scoffed his mind.You are a tool, nothing more. Something the old man uses for his own purposes.
Harry stood up, hoping to abandon this train of thought. He took a few steps and was immediately immersed in the crowd and a flurry of conversation.
"Great to see you again, Harry," said Neville Longbottom, pushing up to him enthusiastically. "Been a while, eh?"
"Hey, Neville," said Harry. "New wand?" he nodded at the brown tip sticking out of Neville's pocket.
"Yeah." The boy's round face darkened. "I tell you, Harry, next time I see Lestrange, I'm going to be ready. I'm going to kill her."
"Harry!" Before Harry had a chance to reply, he was spun around and given a vigorous hug by Cho Chang. "It's been so long!"
I'm going to kill her.The words echoed in Harry's mind, sounding so strange in Neville's innocent voice. Something of an odd thing to say on a first meeting in nearly a month.
"Er, yeah, Cho," said Harry, trying to smile. "How have you been?"
"Much better now that I've seen you!" the Asian girl beamed.
Harry glanced around, looking for an escape route. "Er, is that Luna over there? I have to talk to her. I'll see you around, Cho." He brushed through the crowd, forcing a smile for all the greetings he received. In truth, he was getting hot and claustrophobic. The lights were on too brightly, it was too loud, and there were too many people here.
He wasn't sure if it had been Luna, but he had seen a head of long blond hair turn the corner into the kitchen. He followed whoever it was in relief to get out of the crowded area in the dining room.
The girl was sitting down in a chair, her back facing Harry. She was wearing dark brown robes, and lacked Luna's usual eccentric wand-behind-ear style.
"Luna?" he asked cautiously, moving forward. The girl turned around.
"No. Definitely not." It was a very attractive voice, silky and beautiful.
Harry didn't move, trying to identify the girl. She went to Hogwarts, but was only in one of his classes, Potions…
"Daphne Greengrass?"
"Full points for the Boy who Lived." She stood up, turning to face him. "What's the matter? Got tired of your party?"
"Why are you here?" he didn't bother to answer her question. It was true. He couldn't deny it. All those people, some of whom he didn't even recall the names of…they weren't there for him. They were there for the Boy who Lived, for what Dumbledore had created out of him.
She shrugged. "My parents were kidnapped by the Dark Lord. I'm staying with the Longbottoms. Closest relatives and all that."
Harry smiled wryly, remembering how Sirius had told him that all the pure-blooded families were related. Thinking of Sirius brought a stab of pain to his chest, but he ignored it.
"You don't seem too concerned about your parents," he said challengingly.
She raised one eyebrow. "I'm not. They're enjoying his hospitality, I'm sure."
Something clicked. The Dark Lord, not You-Know-Who…
"You're a spy." It was a statement, not a question.
"Not a spy, per se. Who would I spy on? Besides you, of course." She took a step toward him. He was mesmerized by the movement of her long blond hair and the willowy body beneath it. She brushed a stray strand of hair back from her face casually, exposing chilly gray eyes. "Your friend Neville watches me all the time. His grandmother checks my mail. It would be impossible for me to get a communication out to the Master." She chuckled. "No, certainly not a spy."
"What are you here for, then?" asked Harry, intrigued. He knew that he ought to be turning her in right now. She had as much as admitted to him that she followed Voldemort.
"It's fascinating, seeing how the 'light' side operates," she continued scornfully, obviously not listening to him. "They treat their hero like dirt, not telling him anything he needs to know or helping him along his way. They keep information from each other, hoarding it for when they can use to further glorify their image. They call themselves light but at the same time deceive each other, don't do what they claim to do at all…" she sat down again and cocked her head. "But of course, you are a true believer in the light side, aren't you? Tell me, what is the difference between the light and the dark?"
Harry pulled out a chair as well, sitting down. The minute he left this kitchen, he would turn her in, but here was what he had been looking for during the last week. The problem was, he no longer knew what side he was on.
"Light is good," he said firmly. "Light magic is used for good, and people who follow the light work for good. Dark magic is used for evil."
"But that isn't what you believe," she said softly, reaching out to touch his face. "Is it? That's what you've been told for the last six years. That's the sort of thing that all the Gryffindors are fed, and they just eat it up, don't they? That's what Dumbledore has told you. But tell me. The Headmaster uses Legilimency constantly. How is he doing good because of that?"
"He finds out people who are working for Voldemort, doing evil," said Harry. It sounded weak to his ears. She smiled derisively at him, leaving him no doubt of what she thought.
"Oh. So he thwarts people working against him. But how are they evil? Just because they don't believe in his ideals? Because they are against him?"
"You people want to kill all muggleborns!" Harry protested. "How is that not evil?"
"Who told you that? Our headmaster? Reinforcing it with a touch of Legilimency?"
"Are you saying you don't want to kill all muggleborns?"
"Of course not!" the blond girl stood up again and began pacing the room. "We want a new order, Potter. That is what we are working for. Even someone as Gryffindor as you should be able to see that the government is corrupt. A new government, new laws—"
"New laws!" Harry scoffed, trying to ignore the echo of his own thoughts coming out of her mouth. "Muggle hunting made legal, I suppose? The unforgivable curses made forgivable? All Azkaban prisoners released?"
She stopped her pacing in front of him, glaring. "Tell me this, Potter. Your best friend is sick of life. He has no job prospects and his parents have told him that they don't love him or some such thing." She shrugged. "I don't care about his reasoning. He's probably a Gryffindor. Anyway, you follow him out of the house one day to find him at the edge of a cliff, prepared to jump off. What can you do?"
"Stun him," said Harry. "Maybe I can make him see reason."
"Oh, take away his free will? Good idea, Potter. I like the way you're teaching yourself to think. But no. If you stun him, he falls over off the cliff. Try again."
"I'm not taking away his free will. I'm stopping him from killing himself!"
"But he wants to kill himself."
"Fine. What would you do?" growled Harry.
Daphne flicked an imaginary wand. "Imperio! Come back here. Rethink your decision." She smiled. "Good job, Potter. Your friend is dead, and mine is back with me, explaining why he tried to jump off a cliff in the first place. I win a handy little medal."
"So you're here finding out how the light side operates?" muttered Harry, his face red with frustration, though not with Daphne. He could simply imagine himself trying to explain a scenario like that to Ron and Hermione. They would be horrified. "You'll be disappointed. They don't operate. Most of what they do is argue with themselves and do nothing."
"Is that so?" she said, drawing her chair closer to his. "Is that what you want out of life? To be the hero of a group of people who never really do anything? They're a bunch of gossips, nothing more, really. Our spy—the real one, not me—comes back from your meetings laughing."
"You don't have a spy," said Harry desperately.
She snorted. "You think your Order is hard to infiltrate? And no, I don't mean your good friend Severus Snape. He's a decoy. His allegiances must be the most open secret in the world."
"You're bluffing," Harry ventured.You believe her,came a voice in his mind.You can't deny that she's right about most of what she's said.
"Believe what you want." She swung her hair back over her shoulder. "It won't change the fact that we have several spies, and that your precious Order never really does anything."
"They do, though," said Harry. "They all fought the Death Eaters back in June, when—" he didn't finish the sentence.
"Good for them," said Daphne sarcastically. "Do you know what has happened this summer, while you were locked away by the savior of the light? I do. Albus Dumbledore comes to consult Augusta Longbottom quite often, actually. It's surprising."
"What happened?" asked Harry quickly.
"Death Eater attack on Rufus Scrimgeour," she said casually. "And another, after the first one failed. And a successful attack on Amelia Bones, may I add."
"And you aren't evil?" Harry whispered. The news of Madam Bones' demise was entirely new to him.
"Get over yourself, Potter. Bones was in the way, and a pure-blood, I might add. She was a barrier in the way of the new order. And Scrimgeour? The only thing that's saved him twice is his own skill with a wand. Dumbledore's people never came to help. They don't want Scrimgeour in power either, and they simply were incompetent in the case of Madam Bones."
"What do you mean, they don't want Scrimgeour in power?"
"You heard me. Scrimgeour as minister means that they have a lot less freedom to carry out their little escapades. Scrimgeour would want to make them official, but Dumbledore loves to carry out his operations in secret. He wants to come out at the end of this so called 'war' as the savior of the light side, someone who led a fugitive group to protect the entire wizarding world. It's something out of a fairy tale, really. Dumbledore is working for himself, no one else. He wants to be remembered. He wants his name in the history books. No one will remember a little Legilimency when they write of his grand deeds."
Harry was silent, thinking hard about what he was hearing. It made sense, really. Dumbledore's apparent lack of support for Scrimgeour, as had been recorded in one of the Daily Prophet articles Harry had bothered to read in the last week. His flashy duel in the middle of the Ministry Atrium where a hundred ministry employees could watch him. The fact that he had kept the prophecy secret, making himself a substantially more important character in Harry's life for five years.
"Are you comparing yourselves to Dumbledore?" he asked, and was gratified as she silenced for a moment, clearly thinking about her answer.
"I'm not, really," she began, with an impish smile. "We're much better organized. But when I say that both sides will stop at nothing to get what they want, I am being truthful. Read a little history, Potter. Find out what really happened when Dumbledore saved the world from Grindelwald. It wasn't pretty, and I'm not talking about the fight itself."
"What happened?" asked Harry, leaning slightly forward.
She shrugged lightly. "Dumbledore put a lot of people in harm's way. Sacrificing themselves for the common good, that sort of thing. Grindelwald built up an army." She smiled. "The Master is doing so as well. You haven't seen anything yet. But back to the last war. Dumbledore didn't like the Minister back then. He was issuing some nasty decrees, some that would enable him to arrest Dumbledore for continually refusing to work with the government." The blond girl eyed Harry carefully. "He got splinched, apparently. Left his heart behind. No fully grown wizard gets splinched unless there is an anti-apparation ward suddenly raised where he doesn't expect it."
"Dumbledore killed him?" Harry whispered, fascinated and disgusted.
"Oh, but wards are light magic," protested Daphne sarcastically. "A simple Avada Kedavra would have just killed the man painlessly, but with light magic Dumbledore allowed him to suffer, trying to pump blood with a heart that wasn't there."
"How do you know all this? Why should I believe you?"
"Family history, Potter. We have a library. Even this dusty old place should have one." She waved an arm around, indicating Grimmauld Place. "The history books write themselves for all the pure-blood families. The Minister was some great-great-uncle of mine, apparently." She shook her head as Harry opened his mouth. "Don't say anything, I didn't know him and I don't really care. I did enjoy reading it, though. He could feel magical signatures, you know. He knew exactly who set up that ward, at exactly the time he was scheduled to apparate."
Harry was silent, trying to comprehend this new development.
"Have you ever considered that you might be on the wrong side of this war?" asked Daphne softly, reaching out and clasping his hand with her soft, cool one. "Have you ever considered the alternatives?"
"What?" said Harry hollowly. "Muggle hunting?"
"No." she whispered fiercely. "A world that is ruled by an unbiased government. No muggle hunting, but the acknowledgement that we are above muggles. The power we have! We could take over their world in an hour, but instead we tiptoe around them, trying not to disturb their orderly world. They deserve to know that we are here, that we belong here. That burning a witch will not go unpunished."
"It sounds dark to me," he said, not really believing it. He needed to go and think for a long time about this. To be able toshowthe Dursleys what he was capable of, what they had spat on and oppressed all those years. To be able to punish Muggles who didn't respect wizardry…
…and to be able to finally have his revenge on Dumbledore, after his life had been tugged every direction, Sirius had been killed, Cedric, Harry himself, nearly, multiple times…all as a result of the Headmaster's exploitation…
"There is no such thing as dark and light," whispered Daphne excitedly, leaning closer into him. "Nothing but shades of gray. That's what the Master told me, the first time my father allowed me to be introduced to him. The concepts of good and evil are for children. We make our own choices when we grow up. I've made mine." She stood and glided away toward the door. "You should make yours."
He stared at the empty doorframe for several long moments after she left. He should make his. A month ago, he wouldn't have thought that he had a choice, but now he did, and both sides were clamoring at him.
A new world, or the preservation of the old, stagnated one?
The ability to control, to operate under no restrictions with magic, or the possibility of being constantly watched, stopped from 'straying' anywhere from the approved magic?
Dark or light?
He sighed gently, leaving the thoughts for later, and strode out into the party that had been thrown in his honor, that he had been missing from for nearly an hour. Had anyone noticed? He glanced around.
No.
Three hours, and no one was leaving.
Harry sat on a chair near the wall, frowning. He didn't want to be here. He didn't want all these people to be here.
They had progressed to the point where the adults had retreated, leaving for some sort of meeting that was going on at Hogwarts. It was either an Order meeting or a regular Hogwarts parent meeting with an extreme amount of security. At any rate, the large group had been left at home, a huge mistake on the part of the adults, Harry reflected, especially when Fred and George Weasley were part of the crowd. Harry had cautiously avoided the bottles of Firewhiskey the first time they had come around the room, but the second time, he succumbed to the catcalls and took a glass of the potent alcohol.
It wasn't like anything he had tasted before in the wizarding world; it reminded him of the smells that came from the kitchen when Dudley's gang spilled their vodka, burning but at the same time inviting. It went down his throat roughly, leaving a hot trail behind on his throat. He spluttered.
It was easier the second time, though, he mused. The liquid was smoother, easier to get down.
On his fifth shot, Ron stumbled over to Hermione and planted an enormous kiss on her lips. The girl, who had contented herself with shooting glares at the twins while nursing a tiny amount of alcohol herself, gave as good as she got in a sudden embarrassing snogging session. Harry stared at his normally chaste friends.
"Get a room," called someone from the crowd. There were about twenty people here, most of whom Harry knew. Daphne was sitting quietly against the wall, watching the proceedings with disdain.
Ron surfaced. "I heard that, Seamus," he mumbled. "Shut your mouth. We all know what you and Parvati get up to in that broom closet in the fourth floor." Seamus and Parvati both blushed.
As the banter continued, Harry wandered over to Daphne, having no more interest in the Firewhiskey. He hadn't had much, and he thought he may have been one of the most sober there.
"Enjoying yourself?" he muttered to her. She smiled.
"Immensely. The entire fighting force of the light side, in the process of getting completely hammered. I could kill you all here and now if I wanted to."
"You would blow your cover, though," said Harry amiably.
"It wouldn't matter, if I could take all of you out in one go. The Master would protect me. He always protects those who do well for him."
"Does he really?" asked Harry skeptically. "He was pretty harsh on his followers last year when I saw him resurrected." Under the buffer of the alcohol, it was easier to talk about it.
"They failed him. Only think of how much easier it would be for your side to operate, if only Professor Dumbledore had punished Fletcher for leaving on his watch instead of giving him another chance. Or if he hadn't trusted Snape and let the man report the prophecy to the Master."
Harry stared at her.
Snape.
"Harry! What are you doing, hiding back here?" it was Fred Weasley, a half-empty bottle in hand. "Come join us!"
"Don't, Fred," Harry growled, the seething rage that was growing in him burning away the fuzz that the Firewhiskey had caused. "Where's Dumbledore?"
"What do you want with him?" the redheaded boy slurred. "He—"
The sentence was never finished as the room shook alarmingly and all the windows broke. Suddenly, the raucous laughter that had filled the room vanished as the people looked around for the source of the commotion, confused and quickly becoming frightened.
It had beenSnapewho had given away the prophecy to Voldemort, who had caused the Dark Lord to come after Harry's parents?
"We use any tool we can, Harry," came Daphne's soft voice near his ear. "If that tool is the old fool's over-willingness to forgive, so be it."
Harry clenched his fists andscreamed.
"Professor, I think he's waking up."
"Ah, excellent, Miss Granger. If you would just leave us alone for a moment."
He came to, slowly. The first thing he was aware of was the color white, in abundance. Walls, floor, sheets…he groaned. He was in the Hogwarts Hospital wing, an all-too familiar sight.
"Hello, Harry," said Professor Dumbledore gravely, his face swimming into view above Harry's face. His glasses were settled on his nose, and he saw that the headmaster looked rather disappointed.
"Could you explain to me what happened a few days ago?"
"A fewdaysago?" Harry repeated, aghast. He had only been out for a few hours, hadn't he?
"Yes." The Headmaster spoke in calm, measured tones. "Perhaps you could explain how you managed to wandlessly tear the roof off of an extremely well-warded house from inside of it?"
Harry gaped.
"I presume you did not know," said the old man sternly. "Accidental magic, perhaps? May I ask what set it off?"
"No," said Harry shortly, beginning to sit up. "I'd rather just leave."
"I'm afraid I cannot allow you to do that, Harry, until you explain to me." Suddenly there was a heavy weight on Harry's shoulders, something that was invisibly pressing down on him.
"Let me out," he snarled, but the weight did not lift. He finally settled back on the bed, his head spinning.
"You want to know why I was angry? Why don't you answer a question for me first? Why do you trust Snape, after he told Voldemort about the prophecy?"
The Headmaster looked taken aback for a moment. "Harry, how did you learn about that?"
"It doesn't matter how I learned," Harry seethed. "What matters is that you never planned on telling me about it, and you let my parents' murderer teach me for six years!"
"Harry, Professor Snape did not murder your parents. He came to me immediately after, having not realized what he had done at the time. I took him in because he felt such great remorse for his actions that night." He frowned at Harry's unsatisfied expression, his voice taking on a slight edge. "You have no right to interfere in his business, Harry."
"You had no right to interfere in mine, but that's never stopped you," snarled Harry. "How the hell do you know Snape is still working for your side? Does it even matter to you, as long as you can continue to appear great and forgiving?
"You never think of the consequences of your actions, do you? When you put me with the Dursleys, when you didn't tell me the prophecy…all those times when you put other people's lives in danger, did you ever think of anything you could be causing?"
"I do what I believe is best for the Wizarding World," said Dumbledore, sorrow in his voice. "When you are an old man, Harry, perhaps you may understand that."
Tom Riddle does what he believes is best as well!Harry cried in his mind, but he stopped the words before they made it to his mouth. None of the other people he had spoken to had understood what he meant, and Dumbledore would probably understand even less than Ron and Hermione had.
"So it was best for the wizarding world to let a Death Eater and murderer teach children?" Harry asked, refusing to let go of the issue.
"Professor Snape felt the greatest remorse when he realized what the consequences of his actions were," repeated Dumbledore firmly. "He has saved your life in the past, if you will recall, Harry."
"Only after ruining it for me for the first ten years," spat Harry. Dumbledore opened his mouth to reply—
"Headmaster? I have finished the potion you requested," came a voice that Harry was all too angry at at the moment.
"The bastard himself," he snarled, jumping out of the bed before Dumbledore realized what he was doing. He ran forward and took a wild swing at Snape, landing a glancing blow on the man's face.
"Harry!" shouted Dumbledore, and the same force that had kept him in bed before swept him back and pinned him to the wall. Snape was clutching his eye.
"What on earth was the meaning of that?" shouted the Headmaster, looking angrily at Harry.
"But it's all right, isn't it?" Harry sneered. "I'm really, really sorry about it. I thought it would be all right if I apologized after."
"You have indulged this boy for far too long, Headmaster," said Snape, glaring daggers at Harry. "I will not tolerate behaviour such as this."
"Learn to, Snivellus," snapped Harry. "You're going to be seeing a lot more of it."
"No, you will not," said Dumbledore firmly. "You owe Professor Snape an apology and your respect, Harry."
Harry crossed his arms and glared. "He owes me an apology. What makes you think that his crime would be all right as long as he apologized to you, not even to my parents or me for betraying us?" Snape had paled, finally realizing what Harry was talking about.
"That was in the past, Harry. We need to all work together against Lord Voldemort in the present, so that things such as this do not happen."
Harry looked up. Snape had vanished. Dumbledore was looking disappointed.
"I will await your apology to professor Snape. In the meantime, I will consider a suitable punishment for assaulting a professor." Harry growled quietly, and was shocked when one of the beds across the aisle from his suddenly lifted and slammed hard into the wall, leaving a large dent. Professor Dumbledore turned, raised an eyebrow, and corrected this with a wave of his hand.
Harry sighed as the Headmaster stood and left the infirmary. Surely second chances were a good thing. But the problem was, Harry had grown up with second chances; Dudley had had them in excess, and Harry had had none. And now Dudley was bloated, spoiled, and unable to make anything of his life, and Harry was…Harry.
A second chance for Mundungus Fletcher as a guard had nearly cost Harry his life again. A second chance for Snape could cause something far worse.
The Dark Lord understands what failure could mean for his side, so he makes sure that his Death Eaters will not fail.
"Harry! What happened?" cried Hermione, bouncing into the Hospital Wing, followed by Ron and Ginny. "Dumbledore just swept by and wouldn't tell us anything."
Lapdogs, the lot of them. Dumbledore, Dumbledore, Dumbledore. Can't they do anything for themselves?
"Accidental magic, I guess," Harry said with a careless shrug. "I was angry."
"Yes, you were talking to Greengrass," said Ron, looking angry. "I wish Neville hadn't had to bring her along. She's Death Eater scum to her toenails."
"What did she say that made you angry enough to knock a house down?" asked Ginny curiously. "I heard that she was only with Neville because there was no one else. She's never really been associated with Malfoy or Parkinson or that group. I'm sure if she was, she wouldn't have been at the party."
"Was it something bad, Harry?" asked Hermione fearfully.
Vultures.
"I don't really remember now," he lied. Well, time to venture out… "Do you ever think that Dumbledore shouldn't give people as many chances as he does?"
"What do you mean?" questioned Hermione. "It's one of his better qualities, I've always thought, that he's willing to forgive anyone. A lot of people have been able to start better lives because of him."
A lot of people who didn't deserve it.
"Honestly, what got you so angry?" persisted Ginny. "You couldn't have just forgotten about it."
"Why does it matter so much?" he snapped. "We all survived, didn't we?"
"Actually, Neville was a bit injured," said Hermione in a tremulous voice. "He'll be all right, of course," she added quickly as Harry opened his mouth. "Dumbledore carried him out of the wreckage himself."
Typical.
As Ginny opened her mouth for the third time, presumably to ask the same question, Harry cut them off. "I'm tired. I think I need to sleep some more." It was a blatant lie, but it got Hermione right back into her protective mode.
"We'll leave you, then. It's important to get your strength back after accidental magic. Make sure you drink all your potions," she said bossily. Harry nodded impatiently, watching as they filed out the door. He wanted them to leave before he snapped too hard at them and they realized that there was something truly wrong.
What was happening to him? Three encounters with people he had never spoken to before in his life, and he was suddenly questioning everything he had ever been told about magic.
He thought back carefully to the odd dream he had had the night he had arrived at Grimmauld. He had asked how his wand had been repaired, and the man had replied…what?
Dumbledore was too narrow-minded, or some such thing. And that he wouldn't find it in the Hogwarts Library…
How did the man know, though? Had he been a Hogwarts student?
Harry knew, despite rarely listening in History of Magic, that the Headmaster could do what he wanted with the Library, removing or adding volumes as he wished. He also knew that the Restricted Section was never tampered with.
Dark Magic.
There was the answer, plain and simple. The way to repair a wand would never be taught to Harry, because it was officially termed 'Dark Magic'. That had to be the reason; why else would Hermione never have heard of it? The girl had been through every conventional book in the Library.
Dark Magic…
The entire Weasley family somehow managed to get back to Grimmauld place for the next week. Harry found himself stifled by their company as he never had been before. Molly's attempts to force him to eat third helpings irritated more than amused him, as did the twins' pranks and Ron and Ginny's bickering.
Arthur admitted that he had had to grant several favors to get the week off work, but he claimed that it was worth it to be able to spend time with his family before the war took over most of their time. Molly got tears in her eyes at this, and Harry wondered quietly to himself why everyone inevitably assumed that a war would be coming.
Daphne hadn't wanted a war. The impression Harry had gotten was that she wanted the fighting to stop, but if necessary, the opposition would be crushed.
It seemed much more sensible to him.
His Owl results came the next day, yielding seven Owls, more than he had expected. Especially an E in Potions. He supposed he wouldn't be able to continue anyway. Good riddance to Snape.
Bill and Fleur announced their engagement on the third day, and their planned wedding for the following summer. This suddenly created a constant stream of visitors to Headquarters for another week, leaving Harry no free time. He failed to see Remus Lupin, however, at all. He had been the only person Harry looked forward to seeing.
After four days of carefully placed questions to Kingsley and Tonks, he finally acquired a reason for the werewolf's continued absence.
"He'sspying?"
"Keep it down, Harry," said the metamorphmagus, looking around cautiously. "I wasn't supposed to tell you—in fact, Dumbledore told me explicitly not to. I think you deserve to know, though."
Three glasses suddenly broke in the kitchen. "Remus would never spy willingly," Harry insisted, gritting his teeth.
"I think Dumbledore spent some time convincing him. It's for the best, of course. We need the werewolves on our side."
Harry strode up the stairs, his fists clenched. The only man that Harry had truly wanted to see had been sent away, apparently on a lost cause.
The werewolves would never come to the 'light' side. Harry knew it was impossible. The Ministry had taken their rights to the point when they had no choice but to live outside the law. He had spent some time looking up werewolf legislation last year for an assignment of Umbridge (write an essay on why there should be stricter rules for werewolves). He had never bothered even starting the essay, but what he had found in the research was appalling. A werewolf had to present their status as a 'half-breed' first thing when applying for a job. When working in the ministry, they were forced to wear silver wristbands, apparently to weaken them and keep them from compulsively attacking their co-workers.
The bill that Umbridge had wanted passed was one that commanded all werewolves to present themselves to Ministry holding cells during full moons, effectively forcing all werewolves to be within range of each other, almost guaranteeing fights. Harry couldn't believe that the Ministry was even considering passing such an edict.
It was after the stream of visitors had finally disappeared, only a week before school began, that Harry found himself on the third floor of Grimmauld Place, in a secluded room that had not yet been ransacked by the cleaning group. Harry supposed that Molly had been afraid to enter.
There were no lights; Harry brought a small lantern he had found downstairs. There were three shelves in the room, each slightly higher than Harry's head and stretching about four feet away, to the end of the room. Each was packed from front to back with books, most looking too dark to even be allowed in Hogwarts' Restricted Section.
He knew he was being careless, especially after a book in the Restricted Section had screamed at him in his first year at Hogwarts, but he was curious about the wand spell. He was fairly sure that it was dark, but why?
In the six nights he spent there, he failed to find it, but he did build up a wealth of other knowledge. He eventually dragged a chair up there, so he could go up and be comfortable when the others didn't know what he was doing. This had grown easier, as he and Ron were no longer forced to share a room. The two thought that he was reading school books. To support this, He periodically borrowed Hermione's advanced spellbooks and returned them, unopened. What he found within the books of the Black family was far more fascinating.
Here was a spell that could cause the recipient to believe that they were the person who they most hated, just for seven seconds. Here was one which could stop someone's heart for as long as the caster wanted; enough for a brief moment of exhaustion to enough for death. Here was a spell that painlessly turned someone's legs backwards, although that sounded more like Fred and George's pranks, except for being irreversible…
The most enthralling few hours came the day before he had to leave and return to Hogwarts, where he found what appeared to be a book that described medical and healing spells. Spells that could bring someone back from the brink of death, that could heal more than any light spell, that could recreate limbs, heal even the most grievous injury…Harry even found the spell that Voldemort had used to create Pettigrew's silver hand.
The difference for all of these spells that obviously marked them as dark spells, Harry discovered, was that each required a sacrifice. Potions that cured mortal wounds required human blood, or ground up bones. To save one person from death required the caster to kill another…
But what was wrong with the death of someone like Bellatrix Lestrange, if it could have saved Sirius? Why could not Lucius Malfoy have died, if only it saved Cedric?
"Harry?"
He jerked upright. How long had he been asleep for? He was still sitting up in the library, the open book of healing spells on his lap, another of interesting dark spells at his feet. He picked them both up carefully and walked out of the room just as Hermione came around the corner.
"Where were you? We looked into your room, but you weren't there."
Harry guiltily hid the books behind his back and sought out the first excuse he could think of. "I was just…thinking about Sirius. I miss him, you know." In fact, he was becoming numb. Sirius was gone and there was nothing he could do about it; all he could do was keep on living.
"Oh, Harry," said Hermione, moving forward to hug him. Harry sighed loudly, masking the sound of the two books as they thumped to the ground.
"I'll be down in a few minutes. What did you want me for?"
"We just wanted to know where you were," she said softly. "Take as long as you want." Harry smiled and nodded, amazed that she believed that he was sincere. As she disappeared once more down the stairs, he made his way back into the library and opened the books once more.
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