The Ministry sent a new flunky to Hogwarts two days after Umbridge's arrest, to Harry's dismay. It was even worse because Alduin had mirror-called him that very morning announcing Rowan's birth, and Harry was all set to spend the day by celebrating the fantastic news of having another cousin, only to have it completely ruined when the most boring-looking man Harry had ever seen in his life walked into the Great Hall and over to the High Table, and Dumbledore introduced him as 'the ministry's replacement for Professor Umbridge in her role of the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher'.
"They've got to be kidding," Sophie said, seething. "They haven't had enough? Do they want to do that whole arrest thing again? How many of them are they going to send, do you think?"
"Well, he did specify it was just as a Defence teacher," Harry said carefully, "so maybe they'd learned their lesson in not trying to make him an Inquisitor, at least?"
"Yes," Ron said grimly. "They haven't made him an Inquisitor yet."
"I'll get him out before that happens," Sophie said with determination.
"Hey," Dean interjected, "it doesn't have to always be you. You've done enough, getting rid of Umbridge for us. I'll try to get a detention in our first class, and we'll see what happens from there."
"Mate...do you have an Ancient family waiting in the wings to adopt you?" Ron asked him pointedly.
Dean grimaced a little. They all knew Seamus' family would probably be willing to take him in, if he needed to for some reason, but they were a long way from an Ancient family. "Nah," he said, "but if he pulls out another blood quill, I can take It for one detention. Sophie went through it for weeks to make sure Umbridge got the sack. I can do it once."
"Surely they wouldn't be so stupid do do the same thing twice?" Neville said hopefully.
Harry wasn't so certain. So far as he could see, there was no end to Fudge's idiocy.
It seemed, however, that Neville would be right this time. They had their first Defence lesson the very same day, and while the teacher was exactly as boring as Umbridge, he seemed a good deal less malicious. He was so nondescript Harry thought magic had to be involved, and he followed Umbridge's curriculum and clearly never meant to do anything practical with them, but there was no public mocking of students, and mostly, he just seemed clueless.
Good to his word, Dean did provoke him into getting a detention in that first class, but it took quite some doing: effectively, he had to talk back constantly during the entirety of the lesson, and it earned him only one evening. Either the guy was harmless, or he was being careful.
Nevertheless, they all waited with bated breath that evening for him to come back and tell them what happened. At least he knew, and entered the common room already with a bright smile on his face, leading to a collective exhale of relief. "I wrote lines," he announced, and at Sophie's tensing, hurriedly added: "Normal lines, with a normal quill. It was just boring as hell, nothing more. He didn't even say anything to me the whole time, just greeted me and wished me a good night.
Well. That was something, at least. Harry stayed nervous for some days after this man's – Professor Batwing, he was called – appointment, but nothing more was revealed. The whole Inquisitor thing was never mentioned again, and it seemed the Ministry was hoping they would all forget about it. Fudge gave an interview where he expressed his absolutely shock at the discovery of what Dolores Umbridge was, but Alduin told Harry there were distinct grumblings. If Fudge couldn't even tell his own undersecretary was a Dark witch, then what use was he, if there was a potential war with...someone on the horizon?
Which was, according to Alduin, another very convenient thing. Umbridge's use of the Dark spell, though completely unrelated to Riddle, strengthened the people's belief that something might be truly, seriously wrong, and that Death Eaters might perhaps be trying to infiltrate the Ministry and that she might have been working for them. It was all really very convenient, and so Harry was finally able to enjoy the mirror-call with his first look at Rowan without any acute worried ruining his delight.
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Having to miss most of Rowan's first weeks of life was...painful.
Alexandra came over every day, but not for long, to avoid disturbing her sleep schedule, and as they could not use Portkeys for the return journey for safety reasons, she could not do so more than once per day, as the long journey left her exhausted – especially since she took the children with her.
Which was another problem – for such a long journey, she did not date to bring all three of them at once, afraid of splinching, so one of the boys always stayed behind, which only added to Alduin's frustration.
Sometimes he went to Basque lands instead, but it was exhausting for him, too, and with all the work he had now, he could not afford to do it often. They exchanged mirror calls in every free moment they had, but in some ways that made it even worse – hearing Wynn complain that he missed Alduin was heartbreaking.
All in all, this war needed to be done.
It gave him renewed focus when ti came to making sure it was.
Snape had not found a way to test Riddle's pet snake for being a Horcrux yet, or rather not one that wouldn't get him immediately killed, but Alduin had to trust he would get to it.
In the meantime...
Umbridge had truly provided Alduin with the most perfect opening.
He knew he would never get very far through emphasizing the harm done to Sophie – she was Muggle-Born, and even those who claimed not to care would be affected by that to a degree – but there was the very convenient fact that Umbridge had chosen such a dark method. The woman likely didn't even realize it, she must have came across the quill somewhere and it must have appealed to her disgusting mind, but the fact was that she had used it, and they were at the moment on the hunt for a Dark wizard.
It was not difficult to insinuate that she was connected to him, and that given that she was Fudge's close assistant, Fudge was either complicit or a fool being led around by her, minimizing the danger of said Dark Wizard as he was.
And Amelia Bones was, thankfully, a relatively universally popular candidate. She had Huflepuff support as a matter of course, the Gryffindors liked her by and large, and the Ravenclaws would mostly be swayed by Alduin, hopefully. The Slytherin families would depend on how closely related to any Death Eaters they were. Everyone who had one in a direct family line would try their hardest to get someone less competent elected, but Alduin thought there was a good chance fo success – as long as he played his cards right.
He felt a little sorry that he had not even gotten around to trying to push for Aristos Greengrass for a Supreme Mugwup, since he would have definitely preferred the man to Dumbledore, but as soon as Harry wrote to him about Sophie's detention, he knew he had to svae his political capital for that one large battle instead. What he had told Dumbledore was true – if he didn't expend it to save his job, he would likely had enough to get rid off Fudge...eventually. Certainly not immediately after succeeding with his candidate for Dumbledore's replacement, however moderate it was.
And very clearly, the time to strike at Fudge was now.
Alduin was in luck, too, because only a couple of days after the Umbridge news broke, Melania came over to the Manor one late afternoon.
Alduin had her be shown to the evening parlour instead of their bedroom as he had over the last months, and prepared to receive her more formally.
It was awkward.
She was as beautiful as ever – even more so, it seemed to Alduin, for not having seen her for so long – and as they stiltedly asked after each other's health and families, and she congratulated him on Rowan's birth, the tension between them could be cut with a slicing hex.
Finally, Melania's nerves gave out, and she said in a rush: "I haven't decided yet."
Alduin merely raised his eyebrows at her. "So you are here for a scoop once again, then?"
A mix of guilt and stubbornness passed over her expression, and so before she could say anything, Alduin raised his hand. "I don't mind," he said. "We are both adults, I would hope, and you know me well enough to be aware that other things take preference for me before emotional entanglements. However, I am not certain if your journalstic integrity will find cooperating with me on this acceptable. Let me be plain with you: I am willing to share quite a lot, but this time I truly want something particular for it."
"Which is?"
"I want Fudge gone, and I want your department's assistance in it."
Melania gave a prolonged whistle. "Now, as you know, I am all for that," she said, "but it might eb hard to push it against the editor in chief, as you are also aware."
"If it helps, there should be pressure mounting from Ancient families soon, so that should be an obvious enough sign for them as to which side the bread is buttered."
"That should certainly help. Now, I have no problem with pushing for Fudge's resignation, but if you want me to push for a particular candidate, we might have a problem."
"Honestly, that is the less important part for me. Perhaps one article? I think my suggestion is eminently reasonable, anyway..."
The entered the negotiating phase, and as they did, the awkwardness disappeared.
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Harry's defence group had...grown.
The second meeting was actually smaller than the first, as after Umbridge was sacked, some people hoped the new teacher would be better, but when it became obvious he was only less inclined to torture, the meetings swelled as more people brought further friends from their year, and Harry wondered if he'd have to separate the group even into more parts.
It was working, though. It's been going on for over a month and Harry could already see progress in most people. They learned to dodge and jump away automatically, their spells grew stronger and more confident, they learned new, useful things. Neville and Horatio both worked great as assistants of sorts, Horatio with the older groups and Neville with the younger ones, always monitoring those Harry wasn't, right then, working with. Moreover, Hermione had offered him help with planning the lessons, and some of her ideas were absolutely brilliant. Some less so – she didn't have a great eye for what could actually be useful in a fight – but then that was what Harry was for there, looking through her suggestions as they met on afternoons before the training in an empty classroom.
Harry thought about incorporating Ron, too, in the future, when they'd move on to tactics more, since he thought his friend could have some interesting things to say there.
The Come and Go Room had also proven invaluable. It provided them with a huge space separated into three section, but with a shared part as well, where Harry could talk to everyone and try things like a big, all out battle he wanted to do once he was sure everyone could hold their ground at least a little bit.
All in all, it was just...good.
Harry was used to training by now, after two years of it. With Alduin, it was interesting. With Maurice, it had been pointless. With Snape, it was chiefly exhausting. But this...Harry couldn't be sure how the people attending actually felt about it, for all Ron and Sophie and Dean assured him it was brilliant, but for him, it was...fun. A grim fun, yes, because the reasons they were all doing it were far from cheerful, but fun all the same.
After the last meeting in October, they were all sitting in the shared space, on the cushions the Room had obligingly provided, relaxing after an exhausting bit of duelling. "We need a name," Hermione said suddenly.
Harry gave her a surprised look, and she nodded. "I've been thinking, and talking it over with Su, and Lisa and Mandy," she said, "and I really think we should have one."
"Can't we just call ourselves Defence group or something?" Harry wondered. After he saw grimaces on a few people's faces, he figured probably not.
"How about 'Ministry of Magic Are Morons'?" Fred suggested, to everyone's laughter.
"Maybe let's not to motivate them to send us another Inquisitor," Hermione replied drily.
Several ideas were bandied about, then Ginny suggested: "How about Death Eater's Nightmare, DEN for short? I mean, that's what we want to become, right, and this place," she gestured at the pillows on the ground, "is a bit like a den, so..."
Harry saw Draco and Theo shift a bit uncomfortably in their seats. Horatio had better self-control, but Harry wondered if he disliked the idea too. He supposed no one particularly wanted to be their own father's nightmare, whatever the circumstances.
However, just as he was about to shoot the idea down out of respect for his friends, Horatio said: "I think it's a good idea. I know a lot of you are here just to have a decent chance of actually passing your Defence exams, and that's fine, of course, but I think we do need to become ready to face this Dark Lord and his minions, no matter if it's the old one or someone new. And while taking him on in person might be a bit too much for us, or for most of us at least, his followers are going to be just regular witches and wizards, just better trained. Even if you don't want to fight in the war, you can still come across them if you are somehow in their way. And people being able to defend themselves? That is every Dark Lord's follower's worst nightmare. We all need to learn to stand up to them," his eyes darted to Draco and Theo, "each and every one of us."
There was a short silence after he finished talking, and then some Gryffindors began to clap, and Fred and George hooted and called "hear, hear". Harry smiled.
"Well," he said, "DEN it is."
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Towards the end of October, Alduin received a letter from Harry that announced the name of his new Defence group and how it was doing – Alduin was quite inordinately proud of him – and also mentioned, in a hurried hand that seemed to indicate Harry felt some awkwardness about it, that he was now in "not a relationship", as he called it, with Draco Malfoy.
I don't think it's really anything, he wrote, but I also don't want to feel like I'm ashamed of it, or of Draco, and we can't really be public at school because of politics, so it's just about meeting in an empty classroom once a week or something, but only Neville knows (and Theo, on Draco's side), and I just wanted to tell someone else, you know? Because I was nervous and everythign, but I'm not hiding it because I want to. Really, I'm not.
Alduin gave a very deep sigh.
He thought, a little, about 'protesting too much', however misunderstood that quote was, but he did think, on balance, that this meant Harry had gotten over his Muggle-inherited hangups about people of the same sex being involved sexually or romantically, which made Alduin happy.
On the other hand...well.
It wasn't as if it was entirely unexpected – when Harry and Draco had stopped going out during the summer and instead spent all of their time in Harry's room, Alduin had his suspicions – but he'd hoped it would pass with the end of summer. Not that the boys being close friends would be that much less potentially devastating, but still. This threatened a lot of pain for both of them. But they knew it just as well, and any advice he tried to give in that respect, he knew perfectly well, would not be welcome.
Instead, he considered his own youth and the boy he'd liked, and the words Harry had used, and wrote back this:
Regarding what you write about Draco, I am glad that you found a new way to enjoy the time you spend together, and I am glad you told me. If I could offer one piece of advice, it would be this: make absolutely certain that you both want the same things from the relationship – or "not a" one, as you say. There are pitfalls in these casual affairs when one is young, especially if one of the people involved cares more than the other and fears, perhaps, letting it be known because they know the feelings are not reciprocated. That is what happened to me when I was of a similar age to you, and it can be a way to long lasting pain and tension between people who used to be close friends. So I advise talking about matters openly, though I know that is something that is always difficult, and especially when the relationship is in some way your 'first'. I wish you the best of luck in this.