Chapter 2: In a Wartime World

Unaccountable.

That, Rufus Scrimgeour reflected as he sat back and rotated his neck until the joints popped, was a good word for Albus Dumbledore. One would have thought the Headmaster of Hogwarts would have contacted him as soon as he heard about Cornelius, ah, "leaving office," and expressed his solidarity with the new Minister. Rufus didn't intend to make the mistakes Cornelius had. He knew full well that You-Know-Who was back. He knew Death Eaters had killed Amelia Bones and nearly half-a-dozen other people highly-placed in the Ministry, not all of them disclosed as Death Eater attacks to the Daily Prophet. He was fully prepared to treat Dumbledore with the respect that such an old war hero and powerful wizard merited.

And yet Dumbledore returned his owls unopened, or, with every other bird, sent back a cryptic explanation of why he couldn't possibly visit the Ministry yet.

Except the last letter, of course. Rufus cast the parchment on his desk a scowl that his mother had once warned him would set things on fire if he kept it. He'd been extremely disappointed when the cat, his ugly dress robes, and his mother's hairstyle all failed to suddenly sprout flames.

He could wish for the ability now. It wasn't as though he needed to keep the letter. He knew exactly what it said, from repeated readings.

August 31st, 1996

Dear Minister Scrimgeour:

A grand solution has just occurred to me, one that would solve both your problem of insisting that we meet and mine of being increasingly (extraordinarily, unaccountably) busy. Why don't you come to Hogwarts? I'm certain I can spare you an hour or two in the next few days. Your visit could be as quiet as possible, and you could just nip in and out again with all your questions answered.

Yours in socks,

Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts.

Rufus snorted and shook his head. Oh, yes, of course he could simply "nip in and out." The visit would be all over the Daily Prophet in hours. He might have agreed to a private meeting with Dumbledore on neutral ground, but not in the place of his own power. Cornelius had visited the school all the time, gone after the old dragon in his den, and look what had happened to him—outplayed, outthought. Rufus was not such a fool.

But it was, of course, necessary, even inevitable, that such a figure of power, towards whom so many people still looked for reassurance, should talk to him, and make plans with him for the defeat of the Dark. Rufus hunted Dark wizards, stopped them, and hauled them to Azkaban. It was what he did. Even though he had so many more duties now, that wasn't about to stop just because he was Minister.

He tapped his bad leg, and then grimaced. He always tended to forget his limp when he was deep in thought.

Yes, they needed to fight the Dark. And, ultimately, he would need Dumbledore's power and name behind him.

But there was someone else who had as much reason to hate You-Know-Who as anyone. And he had power and a name of his own, even a recorded defeat of a Dark Lord rather like Dumbledore's defeat of Grindelwald.

Perhaps it was time to approach Harry Potter, who was probably not so unaccountable.

Harry gave Ron and Hermione a quiet smile as he endured their hugs, hoping they didn't notice how he stiffened in their hold—luckily, Hedwig's cage in one hand and the fact that they were both hugging him at once meant he didn't have to return it—or how he flinched from their voices. He'd asked Uncle Vernon to bring him to King's Cross Station a few hours early, so that he'd have time to get used to shouting and people addressing him again. He'd done quite well, he thought. This was the kind of thing he had to plan for, because if he didn't, then Ron and Hermione would insist on finding out what was "wrong" with him. And they wouldn't accept that he had to commit suicide. They would argue with him about it.

Harry didn't want to argue with them about it. He wanted them to enjoy these last few months. They would have happy memories of him. He was determined on it.

He felt the same clinging weight of responsibility around his shoulders that he'd felt when Dumbledore first explained the prophecy to him, but how he carried it was different now. It was probably because all the responsibilities were going to end soon. He would hit a certain point, and defeat Voldemort, and then—

Then he wouldn't have to worry anymore.

Meanwhile, he had thought up the perfect lie to distract Ron and Hermione into leaving him alone so that he could pursue his Occlumency studies and the best way to ensure he died before Voldemort could take over his body. And the best part was that most of it was truth.

"So, how was your summer, mate?" Ron asked, the moment Harry had settled Hedwig's cage on the floor beside him and taken his seat.

"Serious," Harry said quietly, and the smile faded from Ron's face. Hermione leaned forward anxiously. Harry gave her a nod, so she would know he was all right. "I decided that I had to train much harder than I've been training to defeat Voldemort. Most of what we learn at school isn't going to help." He looked at Hermione as she opened her mouth, and she shut it with a resigned expression. "It really isn't, Hermione. I need to learn Defense Against the Dark Arts. I need to concentrate on that. So I've been training. And I'll be training more this term."

He turned to Ron. He needed to drop Quidditch, and he needed to make sure Ron would be so busy that he wouldn't have time to notice any strange changes in Harry's behavior. This ought to take care of both of those.

"I won't be playing on the team this year," he said.

Ron's mouth fell open, and, the next moment, his face started flushing.

"That means you're Captain," Harry continued. "I know you'll lead Gryffindor to victory." He grinned and leaned across the space between their seats to punch Ron on the shoulder. "Isn't Weasley our King?"

Ron's ears turned even redder, but, this time, Harry knew it was for a different reason. "We need you, Harry," he muttered.

"You'll get other Seekers," Harry said cheerfully. Let Ron think about Quidditch. Let him concentrate on that. People want to think about things that are important to them. The more often they do that, the less likely they are to notice me. It was such a simple tactic that Harry was amazed he'd never thought of it before. Of course, most of the time the attention focused on him was from people so numerous that he couldn't figure out what mattered to them all individually. "And you being Captain will make a difference, Ron. Just think about how you play chess. Couldn't you apply that to how you play Quidditch?"

Ron opened his mouth, probably to tell him chess and Quidditch were two entirely different things, and then blinked. "I am good at strategy," he muttered.

Harry smiled at him, and then turned to Hermione. She would be a bit more difficult. Namely, he'd have to lie more.

"Harry," she said. "Are you sure that you'll still have time for schoolwork?"

Harry nodded. "I'll still be studying, I promise." As he'd expected, her face lit up at the mention of him studying. "And just think. By the time I defeat Voldemort, I'll be able to sit the N.E.W.T. exams with perfect confidence, because defeating him will be the hardest thing I ever do." Yes, it will.

Hermione clasped her hands, though her gaze still assessed him in ways that Ron's eyes, turned happily inward to fantasies of Quidditch, never would. "You really will try hard?"

"Of course I will," said Harry firmly. And he meant it. The major lie here was letting her think that he intended to live beyond the end of this year.

Or even beyond the end of a few months, really. If he had his way, Harry was going to master the Occlumency he needed and strike at Voldemort during Christmas holidays. That would mean fewer people around in Hogwarts as innocent victims just in case the worst happened and Voldemort took control of his body. But Harry really didn't think it would. He wouldn't try to trap Voldemort until he was sure he could do it.

Even better, it meant fewer people near who might try to stop him.

"I'm glad." Hermione touched his arm. "And you'll—you'll study in the Library, and not always alone?"

"I'll study with you, sometimes," Harry promised. He'd worked out a few glamour charms that would make some of his books look like more harmless ones, and he shouldn't need to hide the Occlumency book Hermione had given him from her.

Hermione looked as if he'd given her a perfect Christmas gift. Then she started describing her summer holidays to him, in which she and her parents had apparently visited Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and nearly everywhere else in Europe. By the number of times she paused, Harry knew she wasn't telling him the whole story. She and Ron had been so silent this summer that they must have been ordered to keep something quiet.

Oh, well. It wasn't as though he didn't have his secrets, too.

After about an hour, he excused himself from the compartment. He was almost accustomed to their voices again, but not quite. He needed some time alone, away from eyes and words specifically focused on him.

He wandered the aisle between the compartments, past shut doors, without anyone appearing to notice him. Then a hand touched his arm, and Harry found himself raising his Occlumency walls even before he reached for his wand. He was pleased that his reactions had become that instinctive; it promised good things when he got to Hogwarts and confronted Snape, who would probably be the hardest to fool with his new skills.

A moment later, he relaxed. "Hi, Luna," he said. "How was your summer?"

"Calm," she told him. "We didn't find any Crumple-horned Snorkacks, though we tried." She sighed, and then her face brightened. "We did find a natural Nargle habitat." She dug in her robes for a moment, then brought out what looked like a completely ordinary pine needle to Harry.

He picked it up and turned it around anyway, once Luna nodded her permission. Then he handed it back to her. "I can't see them," he said.

"Not many people can," said Luna, and leaned nearer as if she were about to confess a great secret, her cork necklace bobbing. "Most people can't see things that are there. Have you ever noticed that, Harry?"

"I have," Harry said. Maybe it was his summer talking, but Luna seemed saner than she had last year. She could see thestrals, too, he remembered. She was currently examining him with wide, dreamy eyes. He wondered if she could see the cloud of death hanging around him.

If she saw it, she didn't say anything. She just patted his arm, and said, "I have to visit my trunk. My possessions might go away earlier than usual, and there's an edition of the Quibbler I haven't read yet." She turned and wandered away.

Harry stared after Luna for a moment, then shook his head. She might be the only person it was safe to confide in, but he couldn't count on it. Even if she thought the idea that he had to die to keep Voldemort at bay was completely normal, she could mention it in the hearing of someone who wouldn't.

Harry closed his eyes and leaned against the wall for a moment. He had to keep the fact of his death in front of him at all times, so he didn't start believing he'd survive. Maybe the hardest part of this summer was strangling the natural tendency to think of his life as more than a few months long.

"Move, Potter."

Harry opened his eyes. Malfoy stood next to him in the aisle, with plenty of room to pass. Harry noticed the summer had only sharpened his features and put more hatred in his eyes.

Harry didn't care. He would pay attention to Malfoy when he saw evidence that the other boy was helping Voldemort to win. Until then, Malfoy was uninteresting.

"Of course, Malfoy," he said, and turned and walked away. He could feel Malfoy gaping at his back. Harry shrugged. He'd changed his mind, that was all.

For a moment, the grief for Sirius throbbed. This was the longest Harry had gone without thinking about his godfather since the summer started, and he scolded himself for that. He had to remember that, too, that it was his fault Sirius was dead, or he might lose the courage he'd so carefully planted in himself.

He concentrated on the grief again, and kept walking.

Severus locked his eyes on Harry Potter the moment the boy came into the Great Hall and sat down at the Gryffindor table, and didn't move them throughout the Sorting. The only other people he might have had an interest in looking at were Albus and Draco Malfoy, and Albus was in one of his most inscrutable moods, while Severus had lately heard more about Draco than he cared to know.

His mother had tried to make a bargain with the Dark Lord, it appeared, which would have used Severus himself as a pawn. Since Severus had only heard about it afterwards, he knew none of those details. She'd had the bad luck to choose Bellatrix as a confidant, though, and Bellatrix had chosen her Lord over her sister. The Dark Lord had been merciful enough to leave Narcissa alive.

As for Draco, he'd placed the boy under Severus's personal "protection." Severus was to keep him in line, train him when necessary, and shape his mind into that of a good little Death Eater. So Draco thought. Severus knew the truth, and it would put him into yet another impossible position, trying to believably mold Draco for the Dark and save his soul at the same time.

He was used to impossible positions. His best revenge was putting others into them.

Draco was sulky enough not to pay attention to anything beyond himself yet. Severus thought it was probably impossible to trap Albus like that, if only because he would refuse to admit that he was trapped. That left Potter.

Severus knew the boy hadn't received a mark high enough to enter the sixth-year Potions class. And, thanks to an ill-advised bragging session Minerva had held, he also knew the boy wanted to be an Auror. Aurors needed the higher Potions classes, needed to achieve a respectable N.E.W.T. mark in them, and needed to demonstrate basic skill in the art.

Potter would come to him and beg to be let into the class. And Severus would pretend to think about it, if—

The "if" sounded in delicious tones in his mind.

The brat deserved it, deserved everything Severus could fling at him. The audacity of what he'd done last year, peering into his Pensieve, still took Severus's breath when he thought about it. Add to that the continuing resemblance to James Potter, the stubborn refusal to attend even to those lessons which might save his bloody life, and the lack of any discernible talent or intelligence, and it was only a miracle that some other professor had not yet seized the opportunity to savage the boy.

Of course, his fellow professors were all either too thick-headed to see a chance like this, or too timid to take it if so.

Teaching at Hogwarts has its compensations, however wearisome I find it.

He did not bother listening to Albus's speech, or paying attention to the food in front of him or to Moody, hired as this year's Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, whose magical eye had not moved from him since the man sat down. Those eyes could not spy the thoughts under the hair. Only if Moody were a Legilimens would Severus worry.

He moved fluidly enough when the feast finished, and the Slytherin prefects were guiding the new first-years to their common room. Was it not only natural for him to follow, and show his care for his students as Head of House? Surely it was but coincidence that his steps carried him in the same direction as Potter and his little Gryffindor friends.

"Potter," he said coldly. "A moment."

Potter stiffened as if he'd hit him with a board. And then he turned around, and his eyes snapped green fire, and Severus had the dubious pleasure of beholding James Potter in the flesh, in the life.

"What's the matter?" Potter taunted him. "Come to beg money to pay back one of the numerous debts you owe to decent people, Snivellus?"

A flash of red rage obscured Severus's vision for a moment. It was the name that did it, of course, but Potter had also subtly referred to his past as a Death Eater and his family's lack of money, though Severus had no idea how he would have learned that. Perhaps Dumbledore, in one of his misguided fits to make the boy sympathize with Severus, had told him the story.

Even Potter's Gryffindor friends were gaping at him now, though, and more than one had gasped. He was justified in taking points, more than he had ever been.

"Fifty points from Gryffindor House, for talking back to a professor," he said, calmly enough, once the urge to snarl like an enraged beast had passed. "And detention with Argus Filch for a month for your lack of respect."

And Potter laughed.

He sounded exactly like his father.

Severus clamped his teeth on the growl that wanted to emerge. It was one thing to punish disrespect, and another to lose control and curse the brat in front of half the school. He had already inflicted all the pain he legitimately could. But he would make it up to Potter later, oh, yes, he would.

He turned his back and glided away, heading for the dungeons. Potter would still come to him and beg to enter the Potions classes, he was certain. Or perhaps he would simply appear that first day and demand he be let in, confident in his celebrity as always.

Severus must think of something…suitable…to greet him when that happened.

"Oh, Harry, how could you?" That was Hermione, giving a distressed wail.

Harry felt his heart beating madly in his chest as he watched Snape leave. I did it! I did it! It worked! He didn't even try to read my mind!

Harry's idea to fool Snape, until he got good enough at Occlumency to hold his thoughts always private, was to act the way he'd seen his father act in the Pensieve last year. No, it didn't make him feel good, or as if James were in the right, but it worked, and that was the important thing. Act just the way Snape had always thought he should act, as if he were arrogant and carried away with his own importance, add in hints at his Death Eater past and the lack of money Harry had surmised from his gray pants, and Snape was unlikely to look for Occlumency. Why should he? He was convinced Harry was incapable of learning it.

It wouldn't work forever. But Harry didn't have forever. He had a few months, at best, maybe only a few weeks or days until he reached the point in his training where he didn't need to flinch from Snape's eyes.

"Oh, Harry," Hermione repeated.

Ron was laughing, and most of the other Gryffindors looked torn between amusement and horror. The first-years stared with wide eyes. Harry managed a smile for them as he turned away.

"Why'd you do that, mate?" Ron asked, obviously trying to swallow his chuckles in the face of Hermione's glare, and not succeeding.

"I really, really hate him," Harry said, in a voice so quiet it could sound like a sullen mutter. He didn't, but the lie could help him defeat Voldemort, and so it met his standards of what was important these days.

I don't have much longer. And the first time Snape accosts me after I've mastered Occlumency, I'll break down in front of him. That should convince him my defiance was temporary.

"Detention with Filch for a month," Seamus was saying, in the tone of one who couldn't decide if the crime was worth the punishment.

"Better than with Snape," Harry said—and it was, which was one reason he had tried to make the man that angry, so he wouldn't insist on overseeing the detentions himself—and that set Ron laughing again, while Hermione tried to remonstrate with him.

Harry kept up his smile. It was easy enough, since that was the way he really felt.

Not much longer.