It was with great uncertainty a few days later, after everyone had been healed, that what had become an informal planning committee informed the rest of the DA about their general situation, including their contingencies for escalation, and the ways in which the enemy was likely to escalate. It was not as if they were keeping the Horcruces secret from the others, not once it had been decided that they already figured it out, and they had all practiced their Occlumency enough to keep Voldemort out at a range. The rest of their organization had divided up into different committees and it seemed like no one was entirely left out. At least, it seemed that way.
"The recruits aren't happy about being kept in the dark," Neville announced as soon as they were done. "Ernie and I already know this, but we thought we'd put it to a vote of sorts... They're fine with... they understand the whole concept of rank, but they've lost one of their numbers and they can't stand just getting sent into the fray without an idea of where they're going. They've warned that it'll be hard to convince anyone else to join our cause."
"Casualties are inevitable," Michael said. Ron clenched a fist. "The fact that they're a man down is not a reason to compromise operational security. There was a time when all of us were told to practice and do nothing else; even Harry, who's told us everything as of now, was kept in the dark at one point. They know not to sell us out and that will have to be enough."
Silence enjoyed a brief reign. Harry could tell even just from the way that his friend was getting angry, but not saying anything, that he agreed with almost everything, at least in principle, but simultaneously he understood how hard it was for the person on the other end; it was a response void of sympathy and he wanted a way of expressing that without starting an argument about the strategic content of the response. His girlfriend made things easier; she was also getting better about not antagonizing people. In her case it started with a general maturity that he had not yet developed, and then genuine respect for others, and Ron seemed to have taken the opposite approach to the same ideal. In his own case, Harry was grateful for all the times he kept his mouth shut and did not let his sarcasm ruin things with the group, when someone might not have seen the humor in it.
"The address to the family of the deceased has already been given," she started. That much was true; he had done it himself. Susan was there was there as backup, a representative for Ministry brats, and because she had a soft heart and found it easy to relate to people. The family had been just as crushed as they expected, but instead of shouting curses, they seemed strangely honored to have a 'famous young hero' in their home, and it was 'nice to see Miss Bones as well'. They really only talked a little about their loss. "What we need to see is progress. We have arranged a hearing of our supposed court."
He almost wanted her to cancel, but he knew that they had to provide the service that they had arranged. There was no way of disassociating it from his own name, not if they wanted it to function, and Voldemort would inevitably find out it was something else that he was trying to do. Was the only thing to do to proceed straight into a major miscalculation just to keep up appearances? The enemy did not even have to risk all that much to have them killed; if he did not want Harry dead personally, he could send his minions and thin out the ranks.
"We'll be ready for anything there," he said after a fateful moment. Even without everyone's eyes directly on him, he knew that it was his decision, and they needed him to respond in order to proceed with anything. It was true that they had trained and prepared, and that was going to have to be enough; if they could not fight when it counted, then the enemy would almost certainly decide that it was time to attack soft targets in order to draw them out. "We'll have joint support from the Order. This is their area of expertise as much as ours."
There was some small amount of relief. On past operations they had not been able to count on much direct support, because in a sense, the Order had come to have a different role in the conflict. Its members were no longer fresh out of school and eager to attack something; each one had matured and taken on different jobs, earning a place in society and coming back with valuable insight each from his or her own area. The potential as an unseen undercurrent within the regime was substantially greater than it had ever been.
"What will we do in advance and when will it be?" Ginny asked, annoyed, looking up from a copy of the Prophet.
"We are left without much of any time to prepare," Daphne said. "We arranged this in advance so we would have to wait, and I suppose we got our wish. We leave tonight and hold court in the village of Godric's Hollow." She managed to say the whole thing without a trace of disdain; he found it somewhat annoying that there seemed to be prejudices that everyone in the DA tolerated, and one of them was the regional variety. Perhaps it had never been used to justify violence, or it had not, in a long time, but he shared Terry's opinion that it was the same; what mattered was the fact that someone was choosing to believe an unfair generalization without looking into it more. He was sure that at some point, someone would submit that if he looked into some of the sweeping statements enough, he would find there was truth to them, and then they would simply be unfortunate generalizations.
Everyone seemed to understand. They warped to the sleepy village as quickly as they could; it was convenient that the recruits, as soon as they could all be mobilized, mostly knew how to apparate; many of them were proper adults already. Some of them were lacking in combat skills, but that was the quickest gap to close; the real challenge was to make Healers and Legilimens out of more of them, which kept getting put on the back burner. As soon as they were all together, each available member was assigned two recruits, irrespective of their skills, and instructed that genuine initiative within the bounds of their orders was grounds for promotion. Harry took to the church in the churchyard, Ron and Hermione following him in. It would have been nice if they had a chance to lay down wards and charms and enchantments and look through the village for existing threats, but their guests would have to show up at their own risk.
"I didn't know this would be here," he said, looking around. "I thought wizards had their own religions."
"You didn't notice the similarities?" Hermione asked. "I thought Terry told you some of the stories from the Phoenix Script. I honestly thought everyone was just acting like it was a coincidence."
"I didn't really know anything about all this in the first place," he said. "I think the Dursleys went to a church a grand total of once."
"I don't know anything about it either," Ron said. "First time I've ever been in one of these places."
"Okay, well... the clients wanted something recognizable and it was the first thing that came to mind. It doesn't really matter what else is here."
Right as she said as much, the plaintiff arrived. As described, he was a middle-aged man with a heavy accent. He described himself as 'basically a squib' and sat down in one of the pews rather than remain standing. Harry had heard of people who were unsure of their own feet, and assumed that was the case. His opponent, a girl fresh out of school, whom they had not known, took her place opposite him.
"We're not going to stand on ceremony," he said after he had their introductions out of the way. "We'll hear your case and explain how the standards apply, and then we'll make a decision."
"Very well. I'd hoped this was going to be a proper hearing, like the old days," the old man said before starting. Apparently he had a land dispute with the girl's father, but the war went cold and they quietly agreed not to make an issue of it, and neither of them would use the disputed section, which was apparently a rather large amount of land where a particularly temperamental magical plant grew. As soon as she inherited it, though, she sold the land to the highest bidder, including the section that was disputed. None of the facts were in dispute, as it passed to her. She cited a writ by Hydre Malfoy, a notable judge of sorts, at least at the time, that stated she had the right to sell whatever had been bequeathed to her, passing any legal complications on to the recipient.
"Well, while we're getting this all in order, did you tell the recipient that there was a claim on the land?" Ron asked.
"Why should I?" she asked, frowning suddenly. "It says that isn't my problem."
"That would mean that you sold a problem," Hermione said. "By handing off the cost of this dispute to the recipient of the sale, I would think that you would have cheated the recipient unless he or she understood what the purchase entailed. I would expect him or her to know basic things about the property, but something that would invariably become an issue that only you knew... I'm sorry, but that's your responsibility to disclose. Do you have the contract of sale?"
"I'll save you some time. No. I also didn't specify it there. The writ implies that all fact-finding of the case would be the responsibility of the new owner."
"I'm sure it can be read that way," Harry said. It was getting to be a challenge to remain patient, especially knowing that Voldemort could appear at any time. They had tried to make sure that no one else knew the details about where their unofficial court would be held, but there were always leaks with so many variables outside of his control. "Let's say that the new owner was the one who was getting sued, though. Wouldn't he or she have to summon you as a witness, or wouldn't we be required to search your documents, if you were the only one who knew about your father's claim and the basis for it?"
"Of course. Is there some legal principle that I don't know that suggests that I should make the case happen sooner rather than later? Where is it written?"
"I'm just asking you what effective difference does it make if the writ really applies the way you think it does? Wouldn't you still be in a trial helping us to unravel this dispute?"
"I wouldn't be on the hook for it; that's the difference. It ultimately wouldn't matter if I couldn't help you resolve your dispute."
"It would if we determined that your sale was illegitimate," Hermione said. "That's why I asked if the recipient knew what he or she was buying. If you didn't disclose something that only you would have known, and no amount of looking into it on their end would have ever discovered, then effectively you lied about the cost of buying the property. If there's no way for you to establish your father's claim, then what you sold was the property, except for the disputed section, and that goes to the plaintiff unless the buyer wants to contest it, and you lied about what you were selling."
"There's no reason not to declare the contract illegitimate, then," Ron said.
"This is in direct contrast to the legal doctrine handed down by Lord Malfoy. This is precisely what I should not have to be doing, having sold-"
"You didn't sell it," Harry said. "You didn't come to an agreement with the buyer about what it was you were selling. I'm not saying that I'll stick to this writ until the end of time, but if I had to say one way or another what this writ means, it's to protect people who didn't know there was a legal issue, or people who voluntarily accepted the task of having to deal with it."
"There's no way of resolving it. There's no record. I have my father's deed and he has his- what do you expect to do about it?"
"We can still make a decision," Hermione said. "I for one am not impressed with the way that you tried to offload this responsibility to the recipient, but if you truly wish to escape from this headache, you can simply relinquish the disputed segment to the plaintiff and then owe its estimated value to the buyer, unless of course that was the buyer's primary interest, and you didn't know that you really had it?"
"I- he said that this wasn't going to be a problem," she said, pointing at the older gentleman. "He told me that he wasn't going to take me to court over this, and that as long as he could still come onto the land-"
"I had no way of knowing if the new owner was informed of that-"
"Order," Ron called out. He was not exactly yelling, but he was at the top of the range for a speaking voice. "This arrangement is not important. I'll go ahead and assume that when you sold the property, the buyer was primarily interested in the disputed section, and you didn't say anything about it being disputed."
"I simply didn't say anything. That's correct. I'm not responsible for something that someone else assumes."
"I'm sure we could have the buyer in here," Harry said after a moment of thought. "I'm sure we could ask him or her how it was understood that-"
"This is ridiculous. I should have known that you wouldn't take my side- three Gryffindors starting up a courthouse in Godric's Hollow of all places-"
"If anything we would be more biased to your case, because we're closer to you in age," Hermione said. "We're simply here as custodians of the law stated in the Phoenix Script, and you agreed to come here knowing that we're practicing law without a license." She started to write something, presumably the decision, before handing it off to Ron and closing her own eyes. Was she getting a sense of something through her Legilimency?
"That's all we can do for the day," Ron said, figuring out what was happening as he finished out the decision, probably with far fewer words than it would have had originally. "Go ahead and inform the recipient that the respondent is on the hook for the disputed section of the field."
"On what do you base your decision?" she demanded. "You're not real government officials."
"No, we're not, but you knew that," Harry said, casting a human detection charm with his wand up his sleeve. "If you're only getting onto us about it now, then I don't see any reason to hear out your complaint. It would be the same if you didn't fill out the form correctly in any other judicial system, and I think you were relying on some informality in the process."
"Dragon Marshals!" Hannah reported from the door. "We are under attack."
"It's sensible to exit," he said. "We don't know what they're bringing. Organize a safe retreat to this location and don't draw attention to the civilians."
"You're civilians," the old man said. "What's all this about being a Dragon Marshal?"
"It's the highest rank," Ron explained. "Always has been, I reckon. We decided that we're fighting and we decided that we're at the highest rank."
Runespoor General Abbott had already disappeared. Technically, it was not as if they had so large of a fighting force that they really had to get specific with it, and he had wanted to be able to call at least the members of the DA by their first names, but if they were going to have to pull rank with the recruits, they were going to have to accept that the force was becoming more formalized. A recruit apparated to his side with Neville and Daphne, as he had been assigned.
"They should be trying to cut off our escape right about now," Harry said. "We've practiced this, though, so we'll be out of here before they can pull it off."
Boomslang General Zabini and five recruits, each at the field officer level, were tasked with ensuring the encirclement of anti-apparation jinxes could never complete, and they would warp out immediately after everyone else was gone. By putting down blocking wards and moving along the circle the enemy was trying to establish, they could slow down anyone sent to their position to address the problem. It would not work forever, but they only needed to keep it up for a matter of two minutes.
"The last of the general ranks have been evacuated," another recruit said, popping up on his other side. That was how they referred to members of the DA. "We're all that's left."
"That's the way we planned it," Ron said. "We'll take care of things here."
Harry did not need any more invitation to get the plaintiff and the respondent to Diagon Alley, along with the evidence that they had brought before the court. Both of them seemed to have the same look of shock. He took the chance to go over how they could be reached again if there were more disputes, or if they knew of anyone else waiting in line.
"Who were they?" the young witch asked. "Why were they attacking you?"
"They're Death Eaters, probably, and they don't have a choice. They do whatever Voldemort tells them without questioning it. The fact that bad people are trying to kill us isn't proof that we're good, but I'll let you draw conclusions on your own." He sighed. It seemed like it would take a miracle for anyone else to trust them to resolve their conflicts- perhaps they could get to the point where their judgement was trusted, but not their ability to shield the litigants from outside circumstances. The enemy's ability to figure out what they were doing was exactly as much of a problem as they had feared, and that was going to continue to work against them.
When he managed to break away, he apparated to the next camp, grateful that everyone was there. Terry, or rather, Boomslang General Boot, was in the middle of a role call, but just looking around there was no one who was missing. He looked over at Neville.
"The recruits are all back already. I made sure of it."
"Good. Tell the chaplain- tell Terry, that as soon as he's done counting everyone else, I want to speak with him about the law."
"No problem."
There were two uneasy feelings as he went off to a tent for a book. One, they had executed the mission about as well as they could have, and it still very nearly got them all killed. The other was that if they continued to formalize everything, no matter how much better it was for the argument about why they were leaving the recruits, it was going to drive him up the wall. When he started the DA in the Room of Requirement, he had never had a clue how much the others seemed to look up to him, at least once a few of their questions were answered. The whole thing had not really been his idea and his being the teacher had been a surprise, but he ended up being fine with it; he could accept having a temporary position to catch everyone else up with what he had learned. It had turned into so much more than that, but how much was how it was always meant to be? Before he was even born, apparently, he had a prophecy about him.
"One day at a time," he muttered to no one.