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Chapter Five—A Letter from the Ministry

"Who's that from?"

Harry is sitting with Sirius and Remus at the breakfast table looking over their post. There was nothing for Theo, so he went outside to wander around the grounds. He says that he's just going to look at them, but Harry thinks he's probably searching out weaknesses in the wards, in case someone tries to attack them like Bellatrix did.

Harry wishes he wouldn't, but it's near-impossible to talk Theo out of anything he wants to do.

"Oh. Your other guardian." Sirius rolls his eyes and tosses the letter in a crumpled ball onto the table. "He demands that I let you return 'home' immediately, because of course only someone careless would have let Bellatrix through the wards." Sirius snorts. "The fact that I captured her right away and the wards took care of her doesn't matter, of course."

"It wouldn't, to him," Harry says, and stares down at the second letter he received this morning. The first one, which came in with Hedwig, is from Hermione and half about the wonderful time she's having with her parents on a holiday to France and half about all the books she wants to read with him when she comes to visit.

"What's that?"

It's Remus who asks, which makes it easier to show him the heavy letter with the Ministry seal. "I don't know. Why would someone at the Ministry for Magic be writing to me? I know that I haven't broken the Underage Sorcery Decree or anything like that."

Remus nods. "I would go ahead and open it, Harry. Something that was cursed to harm you couldn't have got past the wards."

Harry didn't think of that, and it cheers him slightly as he opens the letter. He's remembering now that Karkaroff's trial for enchanting that Portkey—and interfering in the Tournament—is coming up. Maybe this letter is just going to summon him to testify in the trial.

But instead, what tumbles out looks like a legal decree. Harry picks it up and reads through it.

By the end of the first page, Lion is hissing on his shoulder and Harry is having to fist his hands in his lap because they want so badly to tremble.

"Harry? What is it?" Sirius gets up and comes around the table to sit in the chair next to Harry, one arm around his shoulders.

Harry leans against him and holds out the letter. His voice is quiet, and his mouth feels full of ashes, but he still manages to speak when he didn't think he could, similar to the way he managed to force Selwyn to tell the truth. "They want to try me for spreading stories liable to cause a panic."

"What?" Sirius snatches the letter from him, and rips it. Harry doesn't really care. His body is roaring with numbness and anger at the same time.

"What about?" Remus sounds calmer than Sirius, who's muttering threats under his breath, but his eyes are a brilliant gold that Harry doesn't remember seeing before, and his nostrils have flared.

"They said something about the stories I was telling of Voldemort's return. Stories," Harry says, and his hand falls into the pocket of his robes to grip Chaos's firestone.

He can practically hear Lyassa telling him that that's a weakness when he's not using the stone for magic, but frankly, he doesn't care. At the moment, it's hold onto the stone or possibly launch accidental magic across the table and burn someone.

"Shit!" Sirius pounds a fist on the table suddenly. "That old law…" He scowls at Harry, who doesn't have any idea what he's talking about, then at Remus. "They're trying to get him under the Grindelwald Laws."

Harry shakes his head. He's aware of Grindelwald, because Severus doesn't approve of how ignorant Harry would be of history if he just relied on Binns's teaching, but he doesn't know anything about laws passed during his time. "What? Do they think I'm going to cooperate with Voldemort or something?" He laughs despite himself, and then stops when he hears how bitter and grey it is.

Remus and Sirius exchange glances that say they're worried about him, but luckily, they don't hammer Harry with questions. Remus just says quietly, "No. It was laws passed to stop the mouths of refugees from other countries who fled to Britain and told everyone how powerful Grindelwald was. The Ministry at the time didn't want to get involved." His eyes glare gold again. "So they declared that trying to panic people with rumors of a Dark Lord was a punishable crime. They didn't use those laws during the first war with the Death Eaters because Voldemort was everywhere and everyone knew he existed. But now…"

"Fudge doesn't want anyone talking about Voldemort," Sirius interrupts, his hands clenching down until Harry is surprised there's anything of the letter left. "He'd have to deal with it, the pathetic coward. So he's trying to silence you."

"Arrest me," Harry says numbly. He read that much before Sirius took the letter away from him.

Sirius nods. "There's going to be a hearing, kiddo. Sorry." He sighs. "And because of the nature of the Grindelwald Laws and how much Fudge is probably in a panic with not wanting you to spread this around, they can try you as an adult." He closes his eyes. "I'm sorry. You deserve to have your voice heard, but this is going to make it difficult."

"But they're trying Karkaroff for making that Portkey," Harry whispers. "They tried Marietta Edgecombe. How can they do that and then deny Voldemort is back?"

"Because both of them denied that they knew where the Portkey would take you," Remus says. He sounds as weary as Sirius, as weary as he does after each full moon. "And that means that the only people who know the truth about what happened to you that night in the forest are you and Voldemort. I can hardly see him coming forward to testify." Sirius snorts.

Harry recovers some of his balance with the mental image of Voldemort walking into the Wizengamot's courtroom, and rolls his eyes. "Merlin, Fudge would faint," he says. Then he glances back at the letter. "But if they have these laws they can use against me, and I'm going to be tried as an adult, doesn't it mean that they're going to send me to Azkaban?"

He would break free before anything like that happens. He knows it, and Sirius and Remus know it, too, which means that he doesn't have to say it to them. He would run away to the Speakers' country. He would go on the run. He would do anything to avoid being trapped in that horrible prison with Dementors all around him when he has a war to fight.

Sirius shakes his head. "There are things we can do." He stands up, his shoulders slumping a little.

Harry stares at him. "I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do."

"There are a few things I'll need to arrange with our allies," Sirius says, and then hugs him so hard that Harry thinks he'll be carrying the imprint of his godfather's arms around on his ribs for the rest of the week. "But as distasteful as I might find some of them, I would do a lot worse to protect you. Remember that, Harry."

Harry leans against Sirius and lets him ruffle his hair. Remus comes around the table and puts a hand on his shoulder, and that gives him strength, too.

Lion hisses and rears up, weaving his neck back and forth. "Stupid people think they can put us in a cage. We will show the stupid people."

Harry manages to smile despite himself. "Yes, we will," he says, and neither Sirius nor Remus flinches at the sound of the Parseltongue.

Severus's hands are shaking. He ends up clasping them behind his back, because the last thing he needs now is for Harry to notice and worry about him instead of concentrating on the details of the story he's telling. Besides, Harry might think that Severus was afraid, and want to reassure him.

Severus would not be able to express the rage rising up in him sanely, so it is as well to put it aside.

"And you have the original letter?" he asks, when Harry has stumbled to a halt. Harry is kneeling in front of Black's Floo, his head bowed and his hair sagging around his face. It's the only time Severus remembers that at least part of it hasn't stood straight upright.

Harry starts and nods. "Sirius tore it, but Remus used a Reparo Charm," he murmurs. "I can owl it to you."

"Please do. It is important that we all know the details as we prepare your legal defense."

"Oh, you're going to be in it, too? I thought Sirius was going to handle that."

"You thought I would not be involved?" And Severus can feel his voice cooling and veering towards pain, as much as he tries not to let it. Did Black suggest that he would abandon Harry in his hour of need? Did he dare suggest that?

"No, nothing like that." Harry's eyes are wide. "Only that I thought Sirius was going to handle the legal end of things. He said something about speaking to some of the Dark pure-bloods that we're allied with."

Severus sighed. He already regrets sending the letter demanding that Harry return after Bellatrix was exposed. He has to give up his suspicions of Black. They would only have the effect of setting Black and perhaps Harry against him.

And he has many other people to direct that rage at.

"I will be helping," he says. "And there are other things I can do, things perhaps more appropriate for someone who has been Head of Slytherin for more than a decade."

"You're going to call in some favors?" Harry frowns at him. "Be careful."

That is not what Severus means, but it is a good thing for Harry to assume. And he is touched by the concern sparking along the edges of Harry's words. He smiles. "Believe me, I will. I don't want to do anything to jeopardize your trial."

"Yeah, but be careful for yourself, too. I don't need you to be careful for just me."

Severus bows his head in recognition, murmurs, "I will see you tomorrow," and stands. Then he turns towards his Potions lab.

He has a store of potions on hand, prepared against a circumstance such as this, but not as many as he will need. He will have to spend a large part of the afternoon brewing.

"Professor Snape? Is Harry okay?"

It's Daphne Greengrass, peering in through the door of the room where the Floo is. Her sister is beside her, silent and wide-eyed as always. Severus nods to her. "I just spoke to him. He is all right. I assume this is about the story in the Prophet this morning?" Fudge wasted no time in publishing stories of Harry being charged under the Grindelwald Laws, of course.

"Yes." Daphne glances down at her sister and strokes her shoulder for a moment, which makes Astoria withdraw from the room. Daphne turns to Severus. "If Harry can't protect us anymore, will you?"

Severus narrows his eyes. "So he only has usefulness to you as long as—"

Daphne shakes her head urgently, her blonde braided hair sliding off her shoulder. "I only meant that if Harry goes to Azkaban, then nothing we've done in the last few years matters much. For all I know, Fudge is going to come after any of Harry's friends and allies he knows about next." Her eyes are wide with a fear that Severus cannot fault.

And Harry would hardly want him to deny the protection that he promised the Greengrass sisters would have by staying with him this summer.

Severus sighs. "I will continue to offer you the protection of this house, Miss Greengrass."

Daphne nods, and it sounds as if her sister has almost collapsed. Then both of them turn away and go up the stairs to the rooms they have taken for their own. Severus thinks he will finally be able to go to his potions lab, but this time Mr. Zabini interrupts him.

"Does that offer apply to me as well?"

Severus studies the young man who was, perhaps, the first of his Slytherin students to befriend Harry. "Of course it does. I offered you shelter before this because of your mother. That does not change no matter what happens to Harry."

Mr. Zabini closes his eyes. "Thank you." Then he follows Severus to the lab, which is more than confusing. Severus pauses with his hand on the door.

"I require some private brewing time, Mr. Zabini."

"I know about a lot of potions that Hogwarts doesn't usually teach students," Zabini says, and his face is so brilliant with rage that Severus is reminded forcefully that he is not the only person loyal to Harry here. "I thought I could help you. With dicing the ingredients and preparing the cauldrons, if nothing else," he adds, when Severus starts to shake his head. "Please, sir. The article made me so angry. I want to do something."

Severus considers him. Mr. Zabini is a passable Potions student, that much is true. He doesn't have the passion that Draco does for the subject or Granger's precision, but he has never caused an accident or created a draught that is more than a shade or two off the true color.

But still…

"If your testimony under Veritaserum were required in a certain situation, it could go badly for you."

Zabini snorts. "Sorry, sir, I just didn't realize that you didn't know. Because of certain gifts that my mother gave me, I'm immune to Veritaserum."

Severus stares at him. Zabini stares back. "It's true," he says. "And I know that the courts in Britain are reluctant to take memories in evidence at all, because they seem to assume that everyone is a master Legilimens who can alter them. Please, sir. I won't betray you. It won't matter what I see or hear in the lab. I want them to suffer."

Perhaps he should not encourage such an attitude, Severus thinks as he opens the door of the lab and motions Zabini in. But he is familiar with that attitude that will become helpless frustration if someone does not take care of it. That he wants to aid a friend and cannot, because someone else will not let him.

Of course, in his case, that friend was Lily, and the person who would not let him help was himself.

But he will not be entertaining Zabini with ancient history today. They are here to brew.

Blaise stares out his window, hands locked on the sill. He knows that Harry and Theo aren't scheduled to return from Black's house until tomorrow, but…

He wishes they were here now. Theo to say something clever and biting and puncture Blaise's worries like unicorn bladders.

Harry, so that Blaise can make sure he's safe.

Until he saw the story in the paper this morning about Fudge moving to try Harry under the Grindelwald Laws, Blaise forgot the feeling of being helpless. It's one he experienced under his mother's heavy hand until he grew numb to it, convinced he could do nothing but be swept along in her plans.

Befriending Harry changed things. Discovering that he has his mother's Gift and can enchant people to do anything he wants if he's careful enough changed things. (Even though Harry disapproves of the Gift and wouldn't like him using it, Blaise wouldn't hesitate if his life was in danger. Or Harry's life).

But now, he doesn't know what to do. It's not as though he can walk into the Ministry, request to see Fudge, and spend the day altering the man's mind so that he won't try to arrest Harry or have him tried. Oh, he'd like to, but he isn't good enough at achieving a lasting effect yet, and such an abrupt change would be noticed.

And it's wrong, says the small Harry voice that lives in the back of his head.

Blaise rolls his eyes as he slumps back on the bed and picks up the book on Charms that he put down earlier. Yes, it's wrong, but that consideration won't stand in the way of what he needs to do. It never has.

Meeting Harry altered his hopes and who he was loyal to, not who he is as a person.

He glances up sharply as something hits the window. For a moment, he sees the owl hovering there, its beak open, its eyes blazing with an orange fire. Then it becomes nothing but an ordinary bird again, swerving off and presumably heading to the Owlery.

Blaise closes his eyes. His mother doesn't dare come close right now, or maybe even enchant someone to help her, given that Harry burned her badly the last time they met. But she'll send these owls with the spell to try and terrify him.

It's another reason Harry has to stay out of prison. Professor Snape might promise to protect Blaise even if Harry is out of the picture, but Blaise doesn't hold any illusions that the protection will be vigilant enough if Harry is gone. For one thing, Professor Snape will be distracted.

They might not admit that they regard each other as father and son, but Blaise has eyes.

So. He has to do whatever he can to affect Harry's chances of staying free, whether that's using his Gift, helping Professor Snape brew the obvious mind-control potions he was making this afternoon, or…

Anything else. Anything.

He can't go back.