'What in the world was that about?' Hermione demanded the moment they returned to Gryffindor Tower. 'What did Malfoy call me, and why did everyone start a fight over it?'

Neville sighed. 'He called you a "Mudblood", Hermione,' he answered. 'That's not a word anyone calls anyone.'

'What do you mean?'

'It's a very terrible word,' Neville explained. 'It's never "just" an insult. Its only purpose is to insult people who're muggle-born, to say that they're worse wizards because they don't have wizarding blood. Mud blood – dirty blood – see? It's really stupid – Gran says the blood status thing is all made-up and there's no difference between a muggle-born, half-blood, pure-blood, whatever – but that doesn't stop some people from believing that having "pure wizarding blood" makes you better than everybody else.'

There were a few seconds of silence as both Hermione and Harry processed that information. Harry knew already that there were some wizards who thought themselves better than everyone else, but to hear it manifest itself was still a shock which he had somehow not expected. 'Oh…' Hermione breathed. There was a long pause. 'Is that…is that why Pansy and Draco have always treated me like…like I'm transparent?' Another pause. 'Is that why…is that why they scoff at Professor Cauverina in Finding Magic?'

'Probably.'

'Oh…' Hermione whispered again. 'But why do people believe it?' she asked after another stretch of silence. 'If there's really no difference between pure-bloods and muggle-borns…'

Neville shrugged. 'I don't know why,' he answered in a quieter voice, hesitantly putting a hand on Hermione's shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. 'Some people just do. The children usually learn from their parents…that's probably how it passes on. Malfoy, for example, his parents were big supporters of You-Know-Who, even if they deny it. You-Know-Who was one of the biggest believers in this pure-blood supremacy stuff. Just because You-Know-Who was defeated doesn't mean that his followers stopped believing in it. They probably taught Draco from a young age that muggle-borns – and muggles, for that matter – are worse than them, and Draco believed it.'

'But it's all actually untrue?' Hermione asked, sounding like she was looking for some confirmation. 'Muggle-borns aren't worse wizards than pure-bloods or anything like that?'

'It's all untrue,' Neville affirmed. 'Don't let people like him get to you, Hermione. They're ignorant. Keep doing what you're doing and show them how wrong they are. When you get all "O's" and he doesn't…well, it'll be clear who's the better wizard – or witch.'

Hermione nodded slowly. 'I'll show him,' she said, a small but detectable sound of determination in her voice.


Draco's egregious words on Saturday morning meant that when Monday came, he remained the target of many Gryffindors' dirty looks. Others, Hermione included, chose simply to pretend that he did not exist, looking straight through him and refusing to make any indication that they even recognised his presence. Even among his fellow Slytherins – save for his five or six close 'allies', of course – the alienation and disapproval that had arisen as a result of his unfair appointment as Seeker seemed to have increased in magnitude.

It seemed, though, that only a minority of the Slytherins' avoidance of Malfoy was due to an actual moral issue with his words. 'They're just concerned it'd look bad to everyone else if they didn't distance themselves from Malfoy,' Tracey explained. 'Or they saw that's what everyone else was doing and decided they should copy them. Either way, when it all dies down and the school forgets about what happened, they'll all just go back to the way they were before, and nothing will actually change.'

'Pansy's sticking by him, of course she is,' she added with a look of distaste. 'The only thing she probably thinks Draco did wrong was to publicly proclaim that he supported pure-blood supremacy. Maybe not even that, considering how the six of them – those two plus Goyle, Crabbe, Murke, and Bulstrode – almost never split now except to go to the bathroom and bed.'

Unfortunately, Tracey was correct. By the end of that week, Draco was very much re-integrated into the dynamics of the Slytherin House, with only a few such as Tracey, who had in any case always given him a wide berth, continuing to refuse to interact with him. Gryffindors, too, slowly stopped consciously remembering what had happened, though Harry was sure that it did not mean that that he – or Hermione, Neville, or many others – had forgotten. It simply meant that there were far more worthy things with which to occupy his mind than the brash words of an angry twelve-year-old bigot.

One such thing was a note from Dumbledore, delivered to him at lunch that Friday, asking Harry to meet with him in his study. In line with previous notes from the Headmaster, it was brief and gave little information, apart from the time of the meeting and the password. Thus, it was with puzzlement and curiosity that Harry headed to Dumbledore's study that evening. After saying to the gargoyle 'Acid Pops', he climbed the steps up to the top of the tower, where he knocked on Dumbledore's door and was asked to enter.

'Good evening, Harry,' Dumbledore said as Harry sat down. 'How has your term gone so far?'

Harry shrugged as Fawkes, who was sitting on his perch, trilled a greeting. 'All right. My classes have been going well.'

'That is good to hear,' Dumbledore replied. 'I also wanted to let you know that I have been told of the verbal attack committed by Mister Malfoy against your friend Miss Granger. Neither I, nor the staff, tolerates this kind of behaviour, and Mister Malfoy has been punished accordingly. I have already, of course, communicated this to Miss Granger, but I think that you also should be told, as it was, after all, a close friend of yours who was targeted in this way.'

Harry nodded. 'Thanks for telling me.'

Dumbledore nodded back. 'Now, onto the main topic which I wished to discuss with you. As you know very well, the dark lord who calls himself "Voldemort" is not only alive and well, but continually plotting his return to power. We must all, of course, work to stop those attempts, but sooner or later, he will find a way to succeed. When it happens, all of us will be under threat, especially, as Mister Malfoy's words and conduct have exemplified, muggle-borns, whose mere existence the ideology furthered by Voldemort abhors.'

'I likely do not need to impress upon you why this matters particularly for you, considering Voldemort's persistent and specific targeting of you during his time last year in this very castle,' Dumbledore continued. 'Given how…special…you are to him, it would be a gross irresponsibility for me to not attempt to prepare you to defend yourself against him. Defence Against the Dark Arts is most certainly important, and there is much to learn from Gilderoy's…experience…but a battle against Voldemort, or in fact, any enemy, is won or lost long before the first spells are exchanged. Unfortunately, right now, Voldemort is the one who holds that advantage of being able to manipulate the circumstances to his benefit, not you. To do that, you need knowledge. You must know the enemy and know yourself as well. Failure of either will invariably lead to all that you have planned unravelling, perhaps so much so that it becomes unsalvageable.'

'Is that what you want to tell me?' Harry asked. 'Information about Voldemort?'

Dumbledore nodded. 'Among other things, when you are ready. However, right now, you are not. The fact that you will know all these things about him gives you an advantage, but if Voldemort finds out that you know about them, your advantage is negated, and if he acts on that knowledge to adjust his plans, the advantage may even swing to him. This knowledge – and the knowledge that you have this knowledge – must be kept so absolutely secret from all except the closest, most trustworthy of your allies, that no friend of Voldemort would ever hear of it.'

Harry looked at Dumbledore, confused. 'Why wouldn't I be ready to know?' he asked. 'I'd never tell anyone I'm not supposed to.'

'As noble and sincere as your promise is, it is, in fact, of no use,' Dumbledore replied sadly. 'There are ways that Voldemort or his allies can gain that knowledge from you without you ever uttering a word. Have you ever heard of the Mind Arts?'

Harry shook his head. 'What are the Mind Arts?'

'That is in fact a good – and very difficult – question,' Dumbledore replied. 'What is and isn't considered a Mind Art is highly subjective, but many of them revolve around attempting to gain information from someone's mind without their knowledge – Legilimency – and, on the other side, trying to defend one's own mind from such an attack – Occlumency.'

'As you can imagine, these methods are extremely dangerous in the wrong hands – and even in the right – and as such, the knowledge of them is heavily regulated by authorities all around the world. There even exists an international treaty, in which nearly every magical nation on Earth takes part, that explicitly sets the minimal regulations which must be implemented. Voldemort and his followers, however, have never cared about adhering to these regulations. They will not hesitate to use even the most forbidden and powerful of the Mind Arts to gain information if they believe that it would be to their benefit.'

'It should be clear, then, that no law, no treaty, no authority, will protect you if Voldemort decides to exercise the Mind Arts against you,' Dumbledore concluded. 'Therefore, you must learn to protect yourself.'

'You want to teach me the Mind Arts?' Harry asked, awed. 'Against the law?'

Dumbledore nodded. 'That is exactly my intention. Your ability to protect yourself against Voldemort's followers is paramount, Harry, more so than any law, for the consequences of you being unable to do so will be the destruction of all that we know and hold dear. Furthermore, it is in your best interest to start early. The Mind Arts is like a language, Harry. The earlier you learn and acquire it, the better you will master it. There are certainly highly proficient masters who have learned later in life, but the effort you must then put in will be far higher, while the results markedly worse.'

'How do I learn it?' Harry enquired eagerly.

'I believe that you should begin with Occlumency,' Dumbledore answered. 'Being proficient in defence before attempting to understand offence is, I think, prudent. Even in the most optimistic of circumstances, Occlumency could take years to master to fluency, while Legilimency, if you begin as you start to become comfortable with Occlumency, could take another few years. It will not be a fast process, Harry, not even for the most gifted. There will be times when you question the usefulness of all the exercises which you must do to seemingly no result, but you need to trust me when I stress their importance and impact.'

Harry nodded. 'When do I start? How do I start?'

'The answer to the first question is simple: as soon as possible,' Dumbledore replied. 'The second question is more difficult. Professor Snape has agreed to teach you – '

'Snape? Why Snape?'

'Yes, Harry, Professor Snape, though I would appreciate if you would let me finish next time, by which you may find your questions answered. Professor Snape is a highly accomplished Occlumens and Legilimens and would be well-equipped to teach you the Mind Arts which you must learn. Believe me, Harry, that knowing your relationship with Professor Snape, I would most certainly rather teach you myself, but I, unfortunately, cannot. Learning the Mind Arts requires regular and consistent instruction and practice, and due to my many commitments elsewhere, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide that for you. No other teacher in this school comes anywhere close to being Professor Snape's equal, and due to the illegal nature of what we are doing, looking for an alternate teacher from outside the school is out of the question.'

Harry gulped. He knew that Dumbledore would not lie to him about the importance of the Mind Arts and why he would choose Snape as a teacher, but that did not make it easier for him to accept that he would have to take extra lessons with Snape. Even if Snape had never been outright hostile to him since those first few weeks of last year, Harry still had no desire to spend more time with him than he had to.

'I know that you do not like this, Harry, but you have no choice in this,' Dumbledore said seriously, seeing the expression on Harry's face. 'To neglect the Mind Arts may be equivalent to putting your signature on the death warrant of you, your friends, and perhaps the entire world. Sometimes, we must do things we do not like for the greater good. I need you to promise me that you will put all your effort into learning Occlumency and later, Legilimency, regardless of whether you learn it with Professor Snape or not.'

'What if he starts to treat me…the way he treated me at the beginning of last year?' Harry asked, concerned.

'Then you should come to me at once,' Dumbledore replied. 'I will take any measures that are needed to correct his behaviour. However, I do not believe it will come to that. Professor Snape knows very well himself what is at stake, both for him and for the wider world, that he will not be negligent in his duties, or sabotage them with a belligerent attitude towards you.'

'I say this again, Harry. There may be nothing you learn at Hogwarts that will be more important than this. You must do this, whether it is to your liking or not.'

Harry hesitated for a moment, dreading the prospect of lessons with Snape. He quickly understood, however, that Dumbledore was right, that it was irrelevant whether he liked Snape or not. He thought about his anger at Malfoy for calling Hermione a Mudblood, and then imagined what that could mean if Voldemort came to power and turned insults into action, but even after Professor Ross's graphic readings, he could barely imagine what horrors that future may hold. He had to do everything in his power to stop that from happening.

'When'll be my first lesson?' he finally asked.

'Professor Snape will communicate that with you, but I anticipate Monday or, at the latest, Tuesday,' Dumbledore answered. 'I will leave you and Professor Snape to work out the details together, but I believe a lesson at least every other day will be essential. You should also expect to practise regularly every day outside of those lessons.'

'Furthermore, because of the illegal nature of what we are doing, you must keep these lessons an absolute secret outside your closest and most trusted friends,' Dumbledore warned him seriously. 'Of course, seeing as this is Hogwarts, it is inevitable that eventually, someone will notice your regular meetings with Professor Snape and suspect that you are up to something. Therefore, you and Professor Snape will not be meeting in his office, but rather Anna's, who has kindly agreed to allow her office to be used for these lessons.'

Harry blinked. 'Why?' he enquired, confused.

'This way, you would be able to easily dodge any questions about what you are doing,' Dumbledore answered. 'It would be suspicious to many if you suddenly began to meet with Professor Snape in his office, but since you already go to Anna's office fairly regularly, less questions will be elicited. Even if any questions are asked, you will be able to give an easy response that should put a quick end to any questioning.'

'Does that sound agreeable?' Dumbledore asked. 'Do you understand that you must keep this a strict secret?'

Harry nodded. 'I understand.'


'Have you had an opportunity to consider yet?'

'Consider what?' Anna asked irascibly, feeling irritated that Gilderoy had interrupted her thought process as she tried to reconstruct yet another of Flamel's formulae. She thought she was close to figuring it out, too, until Gilderoy decided that he needed to pick this moment to knock on her door and ask to speak to her.

'The favour I had asked,' Gilderoy replied. 'Helping me with my book.'

'I told you already, I don't have time to help you with your bloody book,' Anna snapped, looking up. 'Look around you. Do I look like I have endless free time?'

'I know you're busy,' Gilderoy said. 'That's why I'm not asking for much. All I'm asking for is interpreting some texts and putting them in context. Please. What I need you to do…it's important…it might be the most important thing I need for the book – besides writing it, of course.'

'Get someone else to do it. There're plenty of people out there who can do what you want. Better than I can.'

'If I could, I wouldn't be asking,' Gilderoy responded. 'Unfortunately, the person I would otherwise ask has been for a while…indisposed. Finding someone else to do it would be problematic due to the secrecy agreements needed – those are, as I'm sure you know, very time-consuming to negotiate – '

'Ah, so you want to get your stupid book classified as "research" and take advantage of Hogwarts's ban on disclosing ongoing research to exploit me for free labour,' Anna finished.

'You'd be paid, of course,' Gilderoy objected without refuting her previous conclusion. 'I'll give you the cut that I would have paid to my normal assistant. If this book does as well as my other books, it should be quite a large sum. A pretty girl like you wouldn't have to spend your twenties cooped up in a castle.'

Anna clenched her fists under the table and suppressed a growl at the belittling comment – as if he thought that being sexist would make her more willing to do him a favour. 'I like my job, thank you very much,' she replied through gritted teeth. 'I don't mind, as you so gracefully put it, being "cooped up in the castle". The answer is still no.'

'I can assure you that it's not very much work at all, and anyway, I've already filed this as official research, so if you refuse to do it, it's just your loss,' Gilderoy said, changing tack again. He produced a small, leather-bound notebook. 'This is one of the texts that I'm trying to incorporate. It's a journal from a local ally. Why don't you take a look at this and see for yourself? It would probably take you a few hours at most to interpret.'

Anna glared at him, but seeing Gilderoy's undying determination, decided that it may be easiest to shut him up for good if she took a look at the journal and then told him a firm 'no'. Reluctantly, she reached across the table and picked up the worn book. She opened it to the inside cover, where the name 'Mikołaj Błyzniuk' was printed at the centre of the page, while at the bottom was printed 'Warszawa, 1991'. The inside cover was grimy, and there were stains of mud and what looked suspicious like blood dotted about the page.

'You're wasting your time,' Anna told him immediately. 'I can't read Polish.'

'The contents aren't Polish,' Gilderoy corrected. 'Błyzniuk wrote his field manual in Russian, I think.'

'You think…' Anna grumbled as she flipped the notebook open to the next page. There, she was immediately confronted with incredibly scrawled, loopy handwriting. It took her some moments to begin deciphering the text.

She began to read the first entry. 04 March 1992, it began. Vitebsk. The forces are gathering. New units have come in from the Far East of Russia with dragons. The enemy has dragons of their own. We don't know how many, or how they are being deployed, but there is no way they have more than we do, nor know how to use them like we do. The Enemy has no doubt also set traps, but they will be no match for the Tsar's best sappers. The Tsar has picked many Byelorussian units for this campaign, and the troops cannot wait to retake their home from the enemy hooligans. The sappers have already begun to move our heavier equipment by broom convoy, and we will be apparating to the outskirts of Minsk in days.

It did not require a genius to realise what the journal was about, and for whom this 'Mikołaj Błyzniuk' was fighting for. Bile and fury quickly rose in Anna – against Mikołaj, against Lockhart, against the Protectors and the Hwjerikwunists, against everyone. Yet it was like watching the burning of a city or the slaughter of children. As horrified as she was, she could not look away, and needed to read on, needed to know what unforgiveable atrocities Mikołaj had committed in name of the Tsar and Xarnjale.

She turned the page. 10 March 1992, by Minsk. We have orders to march on the city tomorrow. The broom cavalry has been attacking the city for days with Greek Fire. The enemy broom cavalry is nowhere to be seen. We conclude that there must be so few such units defending the city that they cannot afford to use it against our initial attack. This gives our dragons yet another advantage.

11 March 1992, Minsk. The battle has begun. As we had already expected, the enemy broom cavalry appeared just as our forces approached the city walls. We were ready for them, however. Our broom cavalry took to the air immediately, and the Enemy was no match for them. Enemy brooms and riders fell from the sky like rain to the loss of only a few of our own. Then, suddenly, the enemy dragons appeared. Our broom cavalry was still finishing off their remnants and was caught off guard. Many broom riders closest to the city were incinerated before the rest organised a response. They managed to take down two or three dragons before being forced to retreat due to having lost too much of their strength, but there were still at least ten dragons in the sky. A group of volunteers, led by our English ally, 'Harris' – though this is near certainly just a nom de guerre – downed yet another, but that was not enough. The dragons were still wreaking havoc on our attack. We had to retreat for the day and regroup.

The next journal entry was on the fifteenth. We have over half the city, it read. After the sappers deployed their Beastkillers and our own dragons were unleashed, the dragon threat was quickly neutralised, and we entered the city. There were only foot soldiers left to stop us, but they did not surrender. They fought for every square and every road, killing many of us – they will pay for it after our inevitable victory. My superior was killed, and the Englishman Harris took command of our unit. Under his leadership, we made quick progress, and the enemy fled before us. Unfortunately, we have lost a lot of our strength, and we have been ordered to withdraw from the city by the end of the day. It does not matter. Minsk is ours.

There was little need to wonder about the fates of the people of Minsk and those who had resisted the Protectors after the fall of the city. Fighting back the desire to scream, punch Lockhart, or simply vomit, she turned the page, wanting to know every action for which she should hate Lockhart.

30 March 1992, Bila Tserkva. We are back to full numerical strength after receiving fresh Polish troops, but our combat strength is still far from what it was before Minsk. The Poles are reluctant to fight – there's been a lot of rumours of unrest in the Polish territories held by the Enemy. This is worrying, but in the in my mind unlikely scenario of a Polish uprising, the Enemy will have to divert resources to put it down, which would in fact be to our advantage. Yet as we stand in front of the gates of Bila Tserkva, I could only worry about what the unwillingness of the Poles will do to our unit. Perhaps it is to our advantage, then, that the attack will be spearheaded by elite units from the Tsar's Guard.

09 April 1992, Bila Tserkva. We were sent into battle against a particularly well-defended square in the centre of the city. Our unit is in bad shape. Several of the Poles deserted while we were camped outside of the city – the traitorous cowards! When we arrived, the Englishman sent a group of Poles to make a frontal assault on the building as a diversion for us to approach it from the side, but that ended up being a mistake, for when we approached, the Poles had surrendered and were being marched away by enemy troops. We were caught in the open, but we managed to capture the point anyway. The costs were high, though. Sixteen of us attacked the building, and of them, twelve were killed. If only the Poles had not defected… We are now being sent back to Byelorussia to re-equip.

'Serves you right,' Anna breathed as she continued to read. 01 May 1992, Kishinev. We have been reinforced by troops from the Imperial Guard Reserves. The campaign is near its end; Odessa is in sight. When we arrived, the city had almost fallen, and we were given the mission to liquidate the last stronghold of the enemy near the southern edge of the city. There, we found out that the Enemy was using a Balachko, imported from Serbia, in their defence. Thankfully, our English ally immediately knew and told us what the creature's weakness was. We then ordered a group of about a hundred captured enemies to run straight at the beast, and we watched in satisfaction as they were all burnt to a crisp or frozen to solid ice. As the last of the prisoners were killed, the beast grew exhausted, and its attacks faltered. At that point, we charged it and slew it at close range with swords. With the Balachko defeated, we easily dislodged the Enemy. We chased after them and killed every last one of them as repayment for Bila Tserkva. We've been given a week of rest in Kishinev, and what a week it will be! Kishinev has barely been touched since the start of the war. To the victors will now come the spoils.

Anna did not know how much more she could read, for her detestation of Lockhart was quickly threatening to boil over, but she pressed on. She was quickly approaching the end of the journal now. The last entry was dated on the eighth of May 1992, and proved difficult to read thanks to half the page being covered in blood.

The Enemy is suicidal. They launched an attack with all the dragons they had left right over their own city, while at sea, they let loose two sea serpents which devastated our and their boats and coastal troops alike. But even though Odessa was now an inferno, burning to the ground, it worked. We were driven to the outskirts of the city with huge losses. We would have all been killed if the Englishman had not personally destroyed a wave of attacking enemies and then led the slaying of a dragon. In the chaos, we're hearing reports of enemy troops arriving over the Black Sea to reinforce the city. We will be acting at once to secure the city immediately at all costs. The Enemy cannot be allowed to be victorious now. The Tsar demands that we prevail, and we shall.

With that, the journal came to an end, and Anna looked back up at Lockhart, her hands trembling and fire doubtlessly burning in her eyes. 'Well?' Lockhart asked. 'Will you be able to?'

Anna said nothing, simply staring at him. What she had always feared was right. She was not sitting in front of some mere writer, but rather a mass murderer. How many people had he killed or had been indirectly responsible for the deaths of? Thousands? Even that seemed like a too-conservative estimate, given the sheer scale of destruction and death in the Empire.

'Well, tell me, then,' Anna demanded harshly. 'What did the Protectors offer you to be their butcher? Money? A book deal? Fame? An outlet for your bloodlust?'

Lockhart froze, his mouth open but unable to form words. 'I wasn't offered anything,' he began. He paused for a long while, visibly struggling to turn his thoughts into words while under Anna's withering glare before resuming with a placating, explanatory tone. 'I…I… Look, Anna, I wanted to – '

'Oh, so you wanted to,' Anna interrupted, ignoring the attempt at truce and raising her voice even more. 'Well, then, tell me, so I know how much I should want to kill you: how many towns and cities did you burn to the ground? How many houses did you loot? How many civilians did you massacre? Have you those numbers somewhere? I'm sure you've got them meticulously recorded down to the tiniest detail in some journal of yours so that you could reminisce on your proudest moments.'

'It's not like that – '

'Then what the fuck is it?' Anna shouted, slamming the table. 'And don't you tell me that you're actually innocent. I've seen the war with my own eyes, I know what happened! So spit it out, you fucking wanker. You're obviously proud of all of it, so say it!'

There was a long silence as the two of them stared at each other. Anna did not know how to read Lockhart's expression; his eyes were also closed, giving away nothing. 'What's made you so shy?' Anna abused. 'You were itching to tell me all about it earlier. So tell me, yes or no? Did you do all of that or not?'

There was a long silence. 'Of course I tried to stop them,' Lockhart finally answered, his voice quiet and raspy. 'Do you think I like watching all that happen? But there's no way to stop them. All of them are itching to murder and destroy, and nothing I said or did, short of killing them, would've stopped them, and the only result of that would've been my own death!'

'How does that excuse you?' Anna yelled. 'If you know what they were doing is wrong, then you should've stopped them! You had the ability to! One life for thousands!'

'Are you really that naïve to think that they would've stopped after they killed me?' Lockhart argued back. 'They would've continued as if nothing had happened. Have you ever seen what people do when intoxicated by bloodlust?'

'As a matter of fact, I have!'

'Then you should've known what I said was true!' Lockhart cried. 'There's nothing I could've done that would've made any difference! Why do you think I'm writing this book? I'm trying to tell people what happened! That's what I need your help for – telling people what happened!'

'Well, I have no desire to relive all that's happened to me,' Anna snapped. 'Much less as a favour to a war criminal who helped cause all of it, who now wants to tell everyone of his exploits!'

'Please – '

'Don't "please" me!' Anna shouted. 'I don't want to see you, nor talk to you, nor have anything to do with you!' Momentarily, she looked down and saw the book in her hands, hating it more than ever. Without thinking, she threw it as hard as she could at Lockhart, hitting him right in the chest. 'Go! Get out! Get out of my office! I don't want to see you or talk to you again! Get the fuck up and fuck off!'

Lockhart, seeing Anna's unabating fury, scrambled to get up, nearly knocking over his chair, picked up the book, and scurried from the room. Anna sat for a moment before she, too, stormed out of the room, turning in the opposite direction as Lockhart to get as far away from him as possible. She did not know where she was headed – all she knew was that she needed to go somewhere, scream at someone, destroy something. It almost did not matter whom or what.

She passed the gargoyle guarding the Headmaster's study, and knew immediately whom she could hold at fault. Albus must have known, and yet he had hired Lockhart anyway. She had trusted Albus's judgement, but he had failed not only her, but the entire school and everything good in the world. 'Acid Pops!' she snarled, and the gargoyle, perhaps sensing her wrath, jumped aside as quickly as it could.

'Albus Dumbledore!' she yelled at the top of the spiral staircase, banging on the door.

The door swung open, and an alarmed Albus stood behind his desk, his wand in his hand. 'What's the urgency, Anna?'

'What's the urgency?' Anna roared. 'I don't know, you employing a war criminal as a teacher in this castle?'

Albus blinked, and his face grew tense and unreadable. 'Anna, what do you – '

'Gilderoy bloody Lockhart!' Anna interrupted. 'Gilderoy Lockhart, mass murderer, war criminal, and teacher at Hogwarts!'

Dumbledore's face seemed to relax somewhat, though still strained. 'What do you mean by that?'

'I mean, he's a mass murder, war criminal, and a teacher at Hogwarts,' Anna snapped. 'What part of that do you not get?'

'Anna, please calm down.'

'How the bloody hell am I supposed to calm down when I just found out all this?' Anna screamed. 'This is a man who had fought for the Protectors in Russia, allowed the burning of entire towns and cities, the murder of thousands of innocent civilians, the indiscriminate ransacking, looting, and pillaging, and who knows what else! If he had been a Nazi at Nürnberg, he'd probably have been convicted and hanged, but no, instead he's teaching at Hogwarts! How am I supposed to calm down?'

'Anna, please sit down,' Albus said. 'I insist,' he added after seeing her continued rebellion.

Anna complied, but not without giving the Headmaster a dirty look. She sat down opposite him, still glaring daggers. 'Well, I'm sitting down now,' she growled. 'Does that make you happy?'

Albus ignored this. 'Anna, please tell me what's going on. From the beginning.'

Impatiently, Anna recounted everything that had happened, starting from the moment Lockhart had walked into the room to the moment she had sworn at him to leave. As she spoke, Albus looked sympathetic and apologetic, but that did not make Anna feel any inclination to forgive him or give him any benefit of the doubt.

'Anna, I'm sorry that I've put you in this position,' Albus said quietly as she finished, removing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. 'Please believe me when I tell you that I had no idea.'

'I don't,' Anna replied curtly. 'How could you possibly not have found out? Didn't you check who Lockhart was before hiring him? I fail to believe that you would not know one person in this entire country who could've told you this.'

'I'm not all powerful,' Albus said. 'There is much information, especially when it comes to security, which I have no ability to access.'

'I don't see how Lockhart has anything to do with security.'

Albus shook his head. 'Quite the contrary; he has everything to do with security.'

'Well, what does he have to do with it, then?' Anna snapped.

Albus sighed. 'See, the popular image of him as a travelling writer combatting the dark arts is a façade,' he started. 'This is obvious to anyone who bothers to think. Someone who has access to harder-to-obtain information about him would know that he was once a highly accomplished officer in the Army before mysteriously transferring to a lowly desk job in the Department of International Relations before the end of his term of service. Only an order from the highest levels of government could have accomplished that. There is more. In July 1982, Gilderoy's name appeared in a strange, ludicrous Devon "newspaper" called The Quibbler. The story linked him to the south of Ireland, then attributed it to him being in conspiracy with the government to monopolise the trade of some imagined creature.'

Anna was feeling impatient now. 'What's the point of all this?' she demanded. 'So he was an officer in the Army, so he was in Ireland. And? How does that justify you knowing nothing about him being a war criminal?'

'Please allow me to finish, and you will see,' Albus requested. 'So, The Quibbler. The vast majority of people dismiss anything printed in that publication out of hand, and I cannot blame them, but behind even the tallest of tales there is always a grain of truth, no matter how tiny. It's known, though not well, that in 1982, a rogue band of werewolves, all former followers of Voldemort, were responsible for a number of attacks on the magical and non-magical population. Having access to more restricted records reveals that this band was eliminated in early August of that year during the last of several failed attempts by the Ministry to do so. The potential connection is obvious. It's not a blind guess to say that Gilderoy was, and still is, connected to the Ministry.'

'And what's the proof?'

'The evidence lies in his books,' Albus replied. 'His first book, Wanderings with Werewolves, was about defeating a werewolf pack. The setting was ostensibly France, but the physical descriptions of geography in his writing makes it obvious that it was not France, but in fact Ireland. His subsequent books continue the same trend. His travels are never independent of conflict: every book he has written and published so far has had some connection to some conflict. His most recent book, Sailing with Sea Serpents, takes place in the waters around Iceland, where several years ago, the two constituent countries of Denmark-Norway – Denmark and Norway – fought an undeclared conflict over fishing and hunting privileges. I don't know what Gilderoy's role is, who exactly sent him, and what for, but the contents of the book make me believe that he was helping one of the sides, likely Denmark. There are two things about this that point towards Ministry involvement. One, such a conflict is generally low-intensity enough to not attract individual foreign mercenaries, and two, the British Ministry supported Denmark's side during the war. Putting these two things together, I can hypothesise that Gilderoy is, to this day, still heavily involved in the Ministry's foreign policy.'

'Well, if you know he's taken part in a lot of wars, then how could you not have foreseen him taking part in the Russian war?' Anna questioned, refusing to allow herself to be convinced of Albus's non-knowledge. 'Shouldn't it be extremely obvious that that's a very likely possibility?'

'As I've considered myself,' Albus confirmed. 'It was actually Cornelius Fudge himself who pressed me to take Gilderoy. Neither he nor the Ministry usually attempts to so directly influence me, and I found this odd. Knowing what I knew about him, I questioned Fudge about his involvement in Russia. I had no intention of hiring someone who may have been involved in such crimes, either. Cornelius, however, refused to disclose any information other than his qualifications, and none of my usual contacts could provide any information that I did not already know.'

'So you hired him with no evidence, but knowing that he could be a war criminal?' Anna asked, feeling an incredulity at Albus's negligence. 'How's that much better?'

There was a pause, and Albus rubbed his face tiredly. 'In the end, it was a pragmatic choice that I had to make. Gilderoy was undeniably many times more qualified than the other candidates who had applied, and it would have raised many eyebrows if I turned him down in favour of someone else.'

'You knew all this,' Anna retorted. 'You could have told them what you knew and justified your choice.'

'It wouldn't have worked,' Albus answered sadly with a shake of his head. 'Very little of this evidence is hard – most of it is circumstantial. Cornelius could simply give a prepared counter-explanation, and I would have nothing to back up mine. Don't forget that Gilderoy is a famous celebrity and a hero in this country, and thousands admire and worship him. As influential as I may be, anything I say to that end will simply be dismissed as speculation by the crowd.'

'Additionally, you know very well the threat made against Harry this summer,' he added. 'I believed that he may be safer against any possible action on that threat if someone as experienced as Gilderoy was in the castle.'

'Are you trying to play the Harry argument on me, Albus?'

'I certainly am, but that does not make what I said any less true.'

Anna glared at Albus for a long time. She did not want to cave. She wanted to be angry at him. She wanted to blame him somehow for what Lockhart had done, and by extension, everything terrible that had happened in her life. Yet at the same time, she knew that she could see his perspective, that he had to make the best decision out of the options he had. She wanted to ignore the argument of 'protecting Harry' as playing to her emotions, but she knew that she may have made the same decision in her desire for him, who reminded her so much of herself at twelve, to be spared of the suffering and shattered youth that she had endured because of the war.

She caved. 'Yes, I do,' she replied quietly through gritted teeth.

There was another long pause before Albus spoke again. 'I understand that I'm in no position to ask anything of you right now, but I must. If you would allow me.'

Anna nodded curtly. 'What do you want?'

'I ask that you do not tell Harry or any of his friends any of this,' Albus requested. 'Gilderoy is here to stay. I am unable to remove him until the end of his teaching term in June except in the most serious of situations, something I'm certain that my circumstantial evidence would not qualify as. Additionally, thanks to the non-negotiable policy of research confidentiality that Gilderoy had exploited, you would also face legal consequences if you were to disclose your actual evidence to any outside party – including the Ministry. Thus, in the meantime, while Gilderoy is in the castle, I believe that it will be essential for Harry to learn what he has to teach, regardless of where and how he learned that knowledge. You cannot tell yourself otherwise after the events of May.'

'I cannot,' Anna admitted reluctantly. Harry needed to learn how to defend himself, and Lockhart was someone who could teach him how to do it. She could see that clearly thanks to Voldemort, even if she detested both the necessity for Harry to defend himself and Lockhart being the teacher best equipped to train him. It was an evil that had to be tolerated.

'You also know that Harry has a steadfast loyalty to those whom he cares about,' Albus continued. 'I fear that if he knows, he could possibly enter into a confrontation with Lockhart at best, or at worst, refuse to learn from him valuable skills he needs. Therefore, I must ask that this matter remains between us for the foreseeable future.'

Anna sighed deeply, swallowing. 'I agree.'