Chapter 46: Reverberation
Tuesday, 4th July 1995.
Harry was not terribly impressed with his return to the Ministry.
Like any government building, it was overly showy. A demonstration to any visitor, domestic or foreign, as to how 'extremely well the country was running under their guidance'. Shimmering midnight blue tiles covered the walls, matching the highly polished dark wood floors except for the gleaming golden symbols flashing and changing across the walls and ceiling.
The high sheen of every surface was likely the work of house-elves in the 'employ' of the government. Which helped to show what a blatant mockery of the reality of the world of Magical Britain the centrepiece was. The Fountain of Magical Brethren showed several 'magical creatures' gazing adoringly up at magical humans. Who thought that was a good idea? Centaurs and goblins gazing longingly at wizards?
Today, the normally tame crowds were more chaotic than last time. People rushed back and forth in every direction. Whether it was the atrium or the upper levels. Everyone seemed stressed by something big. Harry wondered if the meeting to which they were headed was even needed. Or if the Ministry had chosen to acknowledge the truth at last.
His first visit had been quiet and unassuming. He, Sirius, Ted and Hermione had simply disappeared into the crowds there that day. Following the natural current of human bodies through from the arrival fireplaces to the elevators and down into the quiet depths of the Ministry.
A quick word from Ted to an old friend had seen them escorted through the vast underground Hall to row 97 where Harry had taken the record from the shelf and snapped it to the Manor. Unseen by their silent guide. Personally, he had been more interested in the label than the contents at the time. The recipient's initials were now well known to him. And he was left to ponder if the man who had cornered him in the Gringotts atrium could have had useful information that Harry was ignorant of by hiding from the man.
Harry still had no idea what exactly Ted had offered the Unspeakable as he guided them back out. But so far as he knew, that visit had gone entirely unrecorded by the Ministry. Dumbledore had certainly seemed surprised to learn that they had liberated the prophecy record.
The following weeks had been filled with the entire family pondering the wording. Hours of discussion and consideration had been spurred by the tiny spun glass ball. Until Hermione had stepped in.
Remembering the moment she had stood in front of them all always brought a smile to Harry's face. The adults had been mid-argument about the prophecy when she simply pulled her elder wand and obliterated the tiny sphere. No shards of glass survived the small explosive spell. It had been powerful enough to reduce the item instantly to atoms. Gone forever.
That had quieted the adults, who watched her stunned. Hermione had simply turned to Harry and informed them all that it didn't matter. If destiny existed, they would face it head-on together. If not, then the future was whatever they made it. Worrying over words got them nowhere.
He glanced at the girl at his side, her natural place for so many years now and noted that she was already smiling at him. It seemed she followed his thoughts naturally whenever his mind wandered now that he was free of the leech. The knowing smile showed her pride in her actions several years earlier.
"Do you regret it?" She asked softly as they came to a halt at the end of the long and overly decorated corridor with its thick purple carpets and gleaming mahogany doors.
Harry shook his head in response. "You were right then and you're right now. Whatever is coming, we'll face it together."
The two turned to the small desk as a harried-looking young woman flicked through a dozen pages on her desk, seemingly in response to Andromeda's request. There had been a debate as to who would attend this meeting today. They had agreed they could not bring everyone, as that would have weighted matters too heavily on their side. And they needed their host to cooperate.
In the end, Harry had decided on Andromeda for her cunning, guile and sheer presence. Ted had escorted them to the building once more but had remained downstairs, looking into other matters in different departments. Remus had begged off, knowing that his presence on Level One would just lead to excess attention they did not need. The argument that Hermione's parents, as wonderful and knowledgeable as they were, would be mostly ignored due to their blood meant that the only other choice for the meeting was Sirius.
Harry was happy to have his godfather attend, but the man himself had seemed far less assured. Yet, after a morning spent being prepared by Andromeda and Natalie, Harry had to admit that his godfather looked almost stately today.
His trimmed and shaped beard framed his face well when accompanied by his dark curly locks of now well-groomed hair. And the robes he wore today were nothing like Harry had ever seen the man in. If he didn't know Sirius Black personally, he'd have almost believed he was a respectable individual, rather than a scallywag looking for some mischief to cause.
"Right, yes. Here it is. Ten o'clock. They're already inside, please go in." Rebecca, as the nameplate on her desk showed, informed them, gesturing to the large double doors beside her desk.
It seemed she too was a victim of whatever mystery was bothering the entire Ministry today. Too busy to show them inside or even announce them.
Andromeda raised an eyebrow, but Sirius saw the moment as an opportunity, and before Harry could stop him, Sirius strode over and swung both doors wide open, the draft they caused making his robes flare outwards. Harry had to admit, it must have made for quite the entrance from the inside.
Yet the three figures there did not seem to be impressed. The atmosphere inside was heavy and Harry was seriously beginning to wonder whether this meeting was a bad idea. Hermione squeezed his hand as the four of them entered and stood before the desk.
Minister Fudge sat in the centre on the far side, watching them closely, a pile of paperwork strewn in front of him as Madame Bones stood to his left, hands hovering over the parchment. To the right, sat a short squat woman draped in a bright pink cardigan over green tweed robes. The same woman who had joined Fudge and the dementors in storming Dumbledore's office the weekend prior. He had never gotten her name then, but Harry instantly disliked the obviously fake smile on her face as she watched them.
But Harry's attention was drawn away from her saccharin sneer as he felt another presence leave the elevator at the far end of the hall and quickly traverse its length.
"It would seem I am the last to arrive." Albus Dumbledore stated, stepping into the room without bothering the receptionist.
"Indeed, Albus. Please take a seat, everyone." Fudge said, gesturing to the arranged chairs around the desk.
"Before we begin, I must ask Cornelius. Why have matters not yet appeared in the Prophet?" Dumbledore asked as Harry and his allies sat in the four chairs in front of the desk. Sirius and Andromeda on the ends, keeping the teens between them.
"What matters?" Sirius questioned. Harry could see that his godfather was trying to keep a wary eye on both the pink toad-like woman on the far left and Dumbledore as he conjured himself a seat to their far right.
Dumbledore turned to face the man, sighing softly before he spoke. "The breakout, of course."
This drew Harry's attention firmly. "What breakout?"
He already knew the answer. Magical Britain only had two responses to criminal activity. A fine levied by, and payable to, the Ministry that never seemed to be passed on to the harmed party in any way. Or imprisonment in Azkaban for a term that could vary from weeks to entire lives. So the looks on the faces of those opposite only cemented it into reality.
"When did this happen?" Andromeda demanded, staring at Bones across the desk.
"Around midnight on Sunday. I've spent the past day trying to piece everything together." Madame Bones replied, looking every bit like she'd been burning the wick at both ends. "Literally."
"A whole day. You've known a swathe of criminals, some of the worst this country has ever known, has been free for a whole day and you've been suppressing it?" Andromeda scolded. Harry knew that his friend's mother was a formidable woman, but seeing her in action here was still impressive to behold.
"It wasn't that simple." The Minister defended. "The tower was shattered. We had no idea who was and wasn't inside. We're still identifying some of the…" He paused as he locked eyes on the teens in front of him before finishing, "...remains."
"At least you had ample warning to increase the defences," Harry said, instantly noting a look of guilt on Fudge's face at the comment.
"Nonsense. Azkaban had the same defences as it has always had." The pink woman stated. "This is the first ever recorded incident of a prisoner being released from that fortress without authorisation."
Sirius turned and glared at the fool. "You truly are a moron, Umbridge." He said flatly.
"Are you saying that even after we warned you that Riddle would attack the prison, you did nothing to bolster its defences?" Hermione asked, and Harry could feel her anger was rising to match his own.
They had taken out Riddle's forces in the graveyard hard, ensuring he had no army with which to engage in his preferred form of terror. And the Ministry had stood by and allowed him to renew his ranks without even a token effort to stop him.
"The dementors were quite adequate, as they ever have been." The toad-like woman said. The black velvet bow in her hair looked like a fly perched on her forehead.
"The dementors attacked us!" Madame Bones retorted, giving Umbridge a heavy stare that didn't seem to penetrate the cheery facade.
Harry was done dealing with someone so intentionally obtuse. With a quiet snap of his fingers under the table, the toadish eyes closed and the woman slumped in her chair, sliding down until she slipped off of it entirely. Thudding to the floor in a pink and green lump, now hidden from view.
"Dolores?" The Minister said, startled by her toppling.
"She'll be fine," Sirius said, drawing attention as he laid his unused wand on the desk's surface, covering for Harry's actions. "But I was done listening to her inane prattle. We're here for a purpose, and she was getting in the way."
"Why didn't you do anything?" Harry asked, directing his query at the man on the other side of the desk. A man who was eyeing his godfather wearily.
"There was nothing much we could do. Assigning more aurors to guard the prison would have required overhauling the facilities. There are only so many places they can sleep and eat. Unless you suggest we place them in the cells." Fudge retorted.
"Loath as I am to admit it," Bones added," The Minister is right. Azkaban is not built to house protectors. Ekrizdis built it to house his experiments, most of which required confinement, not comfort. And went entirely insane, if he wasn't already, after too long cooped up in there with them. I will need my Aurors for the fight to come. We cannot waste them by demoralizing them on that little island in the hopes Riddle never came to call."
"You wouldn't need to keep them there twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week," Hermione replied. "Simply having rotating shifts would have surely sufficed. Or do you all sleep and eat in your offices here as well?"
Harry turned to look at the Headmaster smirking in the corner and he felt his anger rise at the man as well. He had agreed that the prison was a high-value target. But the old man beat him to words.
"Unfortunately, arguing over how the prison could have been better protected serves no purpose now," Dumbledore said softly. "We need to focus on addressing the reality we are in, not vainly hoping we can will an alternate one into being instead."
"Thank you." Madame Bones said, taking the statement as a defence for her side. "As I said, we've spent the past day piecing things together," she paused and seemed to cringe at her own words before continuing, "on that island. And it seems Riddle did not free everyone present. There were still almost a hundred dead within the crumbling stones. Most were still contained inside their cells. I'm unsure what his reason for leaving them was, but some of them were true monsters. So we have been lucky there.
"All of the defenders present were killed. And during our efforts to ascertain the degree of the breakout, the dementors swept down from the clouds, or burst out of the debris and began to feed on the Aurors as they worked."
"So they have joined Tom once more." Dumbledore said, as if it had always been a foregone conclusion.
"High-Security?" Andromeda asked, and Harry knew where her mind had gone.
"Three dead." Bones replied. "The Lees and Milton were killed. The rest are currently missing. It was the hardest section to identify as all that was left were pieces. That seems to have been where the explosion was centred."
"So she is free," Andromeda said quietly, more to herself than the others present.
Harry felt Hermione lean away from him as she offered their support to the woman whose maniac sister was once more free to cause mayhem and chaos.
"I'm afraid so. I will be seeing Augusta later this afternoon. She's not going to be pleased."
Harry considered Neville and how he might take this news. He would have to be cautious when the boy visited the Manor next week. Perhaps his parents might offer suggestions for how to cheer him up.
"Do we have a count?" Sirius asked.
Bones sighed, but she shuffled a few of the papers in front of her. "We're still checking to be absolutely sure, but as of right now… the count seems to be three hundred and fourteen prisoners unaccounted for."
"Bugger me. That's more than he had last time."
"We cannot be sure that this was… You-Know-Who." Fudge said, chiming in at last and Harry fixed the man in his gaze.
While Andromeda had taught them intermediate occlumency during their studies, legilimency had never been something either of them had ever really been concerned with. Reading other people wasn't that important to either him or Hermione. However, Harry's gaze now revealed a great deal about the Minister. Simply because the man was practically an open book.
He was terrified. Frightened of admitting the truth sitting right in front of him. And his reluctance could spell doom for the entire world.
"You can think of someone else with the power to sway the dementors to his cause?" Dumbledore noted. "Who would single-handedly be able to assault an island prison covered in enchantments meant to keep people out, undetected as they released all of Voldemort's strongest supporters?"
Harry saw the shudder that passed through the Minister at the made-up name and he struggled not to roll his eyes at the behaviour.
"If you bury your head in the sand now, you will lose your country to Riddle," Harry stated, drawing the Minister's eye. "Tom Marvolo Riddle, for that is who he is, not some myth or a legendary monster with a terrifying name. Just a man with a penchant for cruelty and anagrams, who did awful things for selfish gain. Yes, Riddle is dangerous. He is cunning and he is ruthless. He attempted to murder a one-year-old child in its bed in the hope it would cement his power. Ignore him, and your days in that chair are numbered. If not your days alive at all."
"But," Hermione added, "at the end of the day, he is just a man. And a man can be killed. But only if you move proactively. Last time, the Ministry was almost entirely reactive. And it led to incredible losses. You need to press your advantage. Most of those freed are not former servants or supporters. Your justice system cannot be so narrowly focused."
Madame Bones nodded. "Most of those unaccounted for are simple thieves or petty criminals, whose crimes warranted more than a fine. Most were only serving very short sentences. Very few have any sort of martial training. And most preferred to work alone. Only about thirty are what I would consider Death Eater quality. Besides the known marked Death Eaters themselves. It would take time to make them into an effective force. But not much."
"Not to mention the difficulty in acquiring wands enough to arm such a large force." Sirius pointed out. "You'll probably need to provide some sort of protection for Ollivander and his friends."
"Unfortunately," Andromeda said, "bolstering your own forces will take even longer. Thanks to Severus Snape."
She glared at Dumbledore here, and Harry knew she was furious at the Headmaster for allowing Snape to behave as he had for so many years. Moreso given the old man had apparently suspected Riddle was staging a comeback for some time now.
"Over a decade that man has driven people from taking NEWTs in Potions. A requirement for both healing and law enforcement. Meaning the pool from which we might recruit is already severely diminished."
"I can only apologize for my failure there. I trusted Severus to grow beyond his flaws. The man is a genius when it comes to brewing potions. I made the mistake of believing that, given he was seeking a position at Hogwarts regardless, he was a competent teacher as well." Dumbledore explained.
"That damage is done now." Hermione said, cutting off Sirius before he could join in the ranting against 'Snivellous'. "What you need to do is reach out to your fellow Ministers. Seek foreign aid."
"What? Why would we do that?" Fudge asked, seemingly taken aback at the idea the British couldn't solve this problem alone.
"Riddle is weak right now," Harry explained, "but he won't remain that way for long. You might think he's our problem, as in Britain, not me personally. But if he conquers here, he will not stop at a small island. He will spread his influence. Riddle believes he will live forever. Britain is not enough to satisfy such a person. Hell, the world is not enough."
Harry ignored the pointed looks he was getting from Dumbledore as he touched on the topic of the anchors. The old man seemed to want to keep that topic under wraps. And while Harry knew they needed to keep Riddle from learning about the search for, and destruction of, his anchors as long as possible, hiding information from Fudge while trying to convince him to act was a bad idea. Especially when he had already seen one, and been told its importance.
"You also now lack a prison," Sirius noted, a tinge of vindication in his tone. "From what you've said of its state, Azkaban won't be fit for habitation again anytime soon. What are you going to do with anyone that the Aurors do manage to round up? Keep them all in the half-dozen holding cells that you added here in the Ministry after my release. You're going to need to cooperate with your neighbours on this."
Harry nodded in agreement as he watched the Minister consider their words. Fudge seemed to pause for a moment, rallying his courage for whatever he planned to say. It was obvious to all present as no one saw fit to interrupt the moment.
"If… and I mean IF we accept he is back… How can we fight someone that, by your own admission, is immortal."
"Riddle is only immortal so long as his anchors remain," Sirius stated. Harry knew he had yet to return to the Black home in London, but the man still knew more about the topic of soul anchors than any other living member of the Family. "Several have already been destroyed. He is already on the path to mortality once more. So long as he is kept ignorant of the search, the rest should not take long to find and destroy."
"And the…" Fudge paused again and took a steadying breath. "The dementors?"
"They are a problem." Bones said. "Most magicals cannot perform a patronus at all. They could turn any potential resistance into a one-sided massacre."
Hermione squeezed Harry's hand as she obviously felt his emotions spike at the mention of the demons.
"We're having enough trouble managing the ones that remain on the island. I've lost eleven people already. The Unspeakables have managed to erect a ward that is keeping the ones inside from escaping any further, but we cannot destroy them. And it seems hundreds have already fled the island before we arrived."
Harry knew every eye had turned to them. Even those of his supporters in this meeting. The ability they had advertised the week before was not something to be ignored in this fight. But he worried that the two of them would be vulnerable while Kitty and Dawn carried out their goal.
"Maybe we don't have to destroy them all, Harry," Hermione said softly. "Just send a message."
He turned to face her and saw she too was worried by the idea, but also that her resolve matched his own. The dementors were a scourge on this Earth and they needed to die.
They both knew the generally accepted history of the monsters. Dementors were not a natural species serving some greater purpose in global biodiversity. They were a sickness unleashed by ancient magicals seeking to unbalance the natural order. They had succeeded, just not in the ways they had hoped. The group had apparently wanted to grant themselves control over matters that should not be in human hands.
None of them had survived the spawning of the monsters. And if the stories were true, several of them had been turned into the creatures themselves in the attempt.
"Once we're finished here," Harry said, "we can head to Azkaban. Hermione and I will kill as many as we can. That should send a message. Riddle might offer them more than the Ministry will, but we can and will kill them. Maybe that will suffice to keep them from the fight."
"Do we have to go there?" Sirius moaned.
Harry turned to face his godfather and he could see the reluctance within. The brief encounter the week before had finally allowed him to sort fantasy from reality in his mind. But he had been held prisoner by these beasts for almost a decade. It was no surprise that he would not want to expose himself to their presence again. Nor see the place he had been so unjustly detained.
"You can stay behind if you like," Hermione said, mostly supportively from behind Harry. "But as has been noted, our ability to harm them as we do seems somewhat unique. We can't really achieve it from here, Sirius."
The elder man sighed heavily, but his eyes did not waver from Harry. The boy could see the battle going on within his godfather. But it did not take long for one emotion to win out over everything else. Sirius had sworn to himself that he would keep Harry safe, and that meant going with him to dangerous places. Horrible as those places may be. Finally looking away, Sirius nodded his consent.
Harry hated the idea of bringing Sirius anywhere near the monsters, but he knew Sirius would not be talked out of coming along. And as Hermione had just noted, they couldn't destroy the dementors from a distance. Such focused use of the spell required their immediate presence.
"You need to publish a casting guide in the paper. And hold training sessions." Andromeda noted, drawing focus away from Sirius once more. "These two have taught us that our understanding of that spell has been flawed for a long time. Perhaps, they can provide you with a few tips that might help bolster the number of people that can cast the spell. At least enough for them to get away from any attack."
Harry nodded his agreement. He would not personally reveal the depth of the emotions he used for Kitty to anyone outside the Family. But it was true that he had found a way to more easily teach the spell. Nym had been finding the spell difficult to achieve with Remus's teaching methods. But once Harry understood the spell, he had explained it to her in a way that saw her casting it corporeally not long afterwards.
Nip, the playful red fox form that her patronus took matched her behaviour nicely. And it particularly enjoyed messing with Sirius's grim and Remus's wolf patronuses. Usually siding with the two larger felines against the other canids when all five came out to play.
"I'm sure we can work something out before we leave." Harry agreed, focusing back on the matter at hand. "So, Minister." The man looked up and locked eyes with Harry. "Have we convinced you of the truth yet?"
Fudge still looked frightened. Harry knew they were asking a lot of the man to acknowledge the war that had already begun. No one wanted to face such a reality. Harry was sorely tempted to simply return to the Manor and remain there. Ignoring it all and letting things play out as they would. But there was a large part of him that refused to capitulate to the feeling.
Not only did he have many friends now out in the world he wanted to protect, it would just be a shitty thing to do. As much as the adults hated it, as much as he hated it, he had the power to help. And he could not live with himself if he hid away and allowed a monster to conquer the world.
That didn't mean he was about to rush off and hunt Riddle down. But he was going to be involved, one way or another. This meeting alone was proof of that.
"I…" Fudge paused and glanced at the still form of Umbridge, "...agree. The evidence, when looked at as a whole, is fairly overwhelming. You-Know-Who has returned."
Harry gave the Minister a supporting smile.
"Excellent," Andi said. "But you do yourself a disservice calling him that. If you must avoid his preferred moniker, use his name. Riddle is just a human man, like you. Do not give him the satisfaction of cowering before a name. Using the one he was born with will go a long way to convincing those who look to you that this is not a losing battle. That the enemy they face can and will be defeated."
"Alright. Riddle it is." Fudge said, sitting a little straighter. "What about these anchors?"
"That is a topic that must be kept to as few people as possible." Dumbledore interrupted immediately, as Harry had been certain he would. "If Tom were to learn of such a search, he would relocate them. Making their destruction all the more difficult to achieve."
Harry turned to glare at the man who still possessed one of the items in question, but he paused when he noted the look on Dumbledore's face.
"I must ask, though. Was Morfin Gaunt amongst those set free?" The old man finished, directing the question to Madame Bones.
A look of confused curiosity spread over her face in response and she checked her paperwork.
"No. According to our records, Morfin Gaunt passed away approximately seven years ago. It was a bit of a surprise. He had seemed oddly resistant to the effects of the dementors up to that point. I think he was almost eighty or ninety years old. And had been in Azkaban since the early forties. Not many survive a forty-year stay in the prison."
"So long…?" Dumbledore mused to himself as his head fell. "Time gets away from us all. How unfortunate."
Harry felt like he was missing something there. He knew who Morfin was, of course. Tom Riddle's uncle on his mother's side. He knew that Morfin had been sent to Azkaban multiple times, the last for the murder of the bulk of the muggle Riddle family when Tom had been attending Hogwarts. But he did not know why Dumbledore was so interested in the man.
"We're doing what research we can," Sirius stated, moving matters forward again after Dumbledore's tangent. "And so far as we know, two have been destroyed so far…"
"Three." Dumbledore injected once again. "I would need to inspect her remains, but I am certain that Nagini, Tom's snake, was one of them as well."
That surprised Harry, although it did explain the man's curious behaviour at the mention of the snake's demise. Something Harry still felt guilty for, despite her trying to attack them both. Hermione simply shuffled their chairs a little closer and held him tighter.
Bones gave Dumbledore a wary look before she spoke. "I'll try and arrange that."
Sirius eyed Dumbledore for a moment before he nodded as well. "We also know the location of another. That makes four at least."
"From what research we have done," Hermione said, "Riddle was a cruel and lonely child who felt that his magical gifts made him superior to others. He put a lot of stock in the value of magic and its quirks. By looking at his exam results, we can see that he had a definite interest in arithmancy. That subject deals with divining outcomes through Numerology and the breakdown of magic in spells. I can see why it would appeal to him.
"It is especially fond of certain numbers. One representing new beginnings and leadership. Riddle definitely considers himself the One above all others. Most everyone in the magical world knows the power of the numbers Three and Seven. And the master numbers Eleven, Twenty-Two and Thirty-Three hold specific significance. Showing up over and over in potions, rituals and other group-casting systems. Riddle had a peculiar interest in the number Twenty-Two. Given it was the age he disappeared from Borgin and Burke's. He always held an inner circle of twenty-one members. When you count Riddle himself in that, you get the number again. A number that did not waver during his assaults. If one died, another was always elevated in their place within a day."
Harry loved watching Hermione speak on the aspects of magic. It filled her face with a glow that only appeared in certain other situations. She truly appreciated the value of knowledge. But he tried valiantly to keep his mind present on the topic at hand, lest he fall into memory and fantasy instead. He shuffled in his seat slightly as Hermione continued.
"All that is to say it is not really a surprise that he is fascinated with it. Given it supposedly represents mastery, power and natural leaders who are highly intelligent and have a 'strong sense of purpose'. But other research we've done suggests it would be impossible to break a soul into that many pieces. Extrapolating from that, we think," she paused and glanced at Harry, who nodded his agreement, "that he would have sought to make a powerful magical number central to his effort. That means Three, which we know cannot be accurate, Seven or Eleven."
"Is it even possible to mutilate a soul to that degree?" Bones asked in disbelief.
They had not been able to do much research on the topic of souls since the Graveyard. But their new status together was something Hermione would be incapable of ignoring for long. It had been one of her priorities to find out how souls worked and interacted once they returned from Hogwarts after the Diadem. The pair had dug through some truly esoteric tomes as they fell into the subject in depth. Which had proven crucial in preparing their ritual with the elves as well.
"Only time will tell," Dumbledore said, pulling Harry from the memories he was recalling. The old man looked as if he had finally passed his momentary whimsy over a dead man, and he seemed quite impressed with Hermione's assessment as well. "I have a lead I shall follow up on. It might help us to confirm that number." The old man paused once again and Harry could see the hairs around his mouth shudder as he sighed before Dumbledore locked eyes on him once again. "I know you do not trust me, Mr Potter. However, your presence at such a meeting may be vital in ensuring that the man who holds it remains present long enough for the truth to be received."
"Not going to happen," Sirius growled, moving towards his wand on the desk until Harry blindly placed his free hand on the man's thigh.
"We'll see. You can send any messages to Andromeda. She will see to it that I get them." Harry replied, not breaking the gaze.
He knew that he would feel it if the old man tried to enter his mind, and that would certainly mean that Harry would never trust him again. But surprisingly, he felt nothing. It seemed the direct eye contact was for sincerity, rather than subterfuge. It was Harry who eventually broke the stare, moving his gaze back to Fudge.
"Make sure that you absolutely trust anyone involved in this matter." Harry continued. "Do not tell her a word of it."
He gestured to Fudge's right and everyone knew who he was talking about. Harry knew she wouldn't have heard a syllable of what had been discussed, so powerful was the sleeping spell he had cast. Riddle could rip her mind to shreds searching and not find a thing. But he needed to ensure that Fudge kept the foul woman out of the loop. Sirius had mentioned her by name before as being a horrible person, but this was the first time Harry himself had interacted with her.
"We'll be keeping a tight leash on that information." Bones stated. "And I will personally vet anyone before they're brought anywhere near it."
Fudge glanced down at the still woman once again before he nodded. "Agreed."
"You should speak with Gringotts as well," Hermione advised. "Ensure that anyone privy to the knowledge has customised portkeys to a known safe location. Riddle must be kept unaware. If he should attack any of you, you must be able to escape. Ministry portkeys are all well and good, but the goblins know magic that you all like to ignore. Make the most of it."
Fudge and Bones seemed surprised at the statement. Harry had no idea if they would heed the advice, but he personally knew how powerful the goblin portkeys were. Their ability to function through powerful wards would be a boon against the Death Eaters' favoured style of home attack.
"As it seems we all need to do a bit more research before we continue these discussions," Andromeda began, "shall we head off to other matters?"
The question was directed at Harry and Hermione. This next step was entirely their decision. The adults of the Family had tried to convince them against being involved, but they had both refused to sit back and watch others harmed to keep them safe. And they had just agreed to try.
"Fine, yes. We can stop by the DMLE first." Harry said, gripping Hermione's hand tightly. "And then, let's head to Azkaban."
ϟ
Hermione was thrown by the ferocity of the storm above them.
Her previous visit to the prison had been strictly internal. Popping directly into Pettigrew's cell with the Orb and stunning the evil git. She had been able to hear the ever-surging ocean outside, but Pettigrew's cell had lacked any kind of window. A feature meant to ensure he was unable to escape.
Now though, the tower was a ruin, its upper reaches shattered and chunks of rock spread all around them over the 'beach'. It hardly qualified for such a term.
A typical gravel beach had nice smooth stones, as they were massaged over time by the lapping waters and tides. But something about this island seemed to prevent that natural process. All of the stones here were coarse and sharp. And the dense clouds above threatened lightning while delivering copious amounts of rain. Everything about this place was awful.
Her grip on Harry's hand tightened and she could feel him comforting her with his magic. Though it was so much harder to feel in this place. The oppressive atmosphere of the island was trying to form itself between them, but neither one was letting go of the other enough to allow it to gain purchase. She felt like they were a ball of resistance against the oncoming miasma of depression.
Madame Bones was ordering everyone present about, gathering the adult wizards into rows around them. Most of those present had just been run through Harry's Patronus refresher. And that had seen a marked improvement in the ability of the Ministry staff to cast the spell.
Andromeda and Sirius stood behind them both, each with a hand on one of their shoulders. Their silent support didn't truly help here, but it was appreciated regardless.
Hermione could feel something niggling at the corner of her mind as well. A memory that sought to come forth. One that she tried her hardest to keep suppressed at all times, even if it did lead to her learning about her magic. She quashed it harder, pressing it down into the most secure portion of her mind. She needed to focus on safer memories right now if they were to achieve their goal. Wallowing in the fear and pain of that one would only weaken Dawn.
"Alright, the ward is still working." Madame Bones said as she approached once more. "We're as ready as we'll ever be."
"You sure about this, kiddo?" Sirius whispered into Harry's nearby ear, and Hermione smiled at the man's concern.
It was impressive that he wasn't a complete mess right now, after the way he had reacted to the dementors that had been brought inside of Hogwarts. There were a lot more here, and she could feel them approaching closer as they stood here waiting. Though she suspected it had more to do with the four cheering charms that Andromeda had surreptitiously cast on the man both before and since their transport to the island.
"The dementors could wreak havoc on both sides of Britain. Magical and muggle. Especially the muggles. Riddle has offered them something they think we cannot counter. We need to give them a reason to rethink their role in this fight." Harry replied, his fingers entwining tighter with Hermione's as he spoke. He turned to face her and stared deeply into her eyes. "Are you ready?"
"Always." She replied, summoning her elder wand to her right hand as she felt Harry's rowan one appear in his left.
While Harry was right-handed, just like herself, the two cast while holding hands so often that they could both cast equally well with either hand. Yet he always seemed to defer, allowing her to use her dominant hand. She had never queried why, as it was not something that hurt her ego or bothered her in any way. It was simply a slight curiosity that she had never thought to ask him about.
"Here we go," Harry said, and she followed his lead as the pair fell into themselves and became awash in the feelings they shared with one another.
Feelings that had only ever grown stronger. Ones they had built on every single day since they had first met on that playground. That tied them together across the bounds of the Earth, no matter how far apart they might become. Ancient magic which filled and entwined their very souls.
"Expecto patronum." They both calmly incanted together, pointing their wands upwards and unleashing the mighty cats up into the air.
Around them, dozens of other voices echoed the spell and a powerful wall of bright energy followed Dawn and Kitty as they shot upwards into the sky. A shield of combined warm emotion keeping them all safe from the monsters above.
The contrast that the shield created in the air finally allowed Hermione to see the horrid black-cloaked figures that were far closer than she had realised. Floating down from the upper reaches of the tower and the clouds above.
The first one paused before it shot towards Kitty, only for the massive cat to slam into it and rip at its throat with its spectral jaws. Dawn hit another moments later and the process truly began.
She could feel the dementors ripping at Dawn's hide, trying in vain to shred her before she could damage them further. But for the moment, her love for Harry kept their claws at bay. The two cats shot from one dark form to the next, each cloak dropping quickly to the ground after they were done. Making a horrid squelching sound as their decayed flesh splattered against the jagged rocky ground below.
That was when the attack came in earnest. From out of the broken tower poured the bulk of the dementor force, swarming against the bright glowing wall keeping them protected. The sound of it was like a thousand people dragging their nails down a blackboard randomly as their scaly scabbed hands scrambled against the bright light wall. The sound reflected inside and was not helping matters for the defenders.
It probably made for quite an impressive sight from the outside. A dome of light holding back waves of diving and striking black figures. But inside, it was not impressive at all.
It was terrifying.
Hermione crushed Harry's hand in her own, fingers entwined tightly, and he returned the favour. She could feel Andromeda's hand tighten on her shoulder and could only imagine how Sirius was faring right now.
"Hold your nerve." Bones yelled over the sound of the scraping claws and sucking mouths trying to force their way inside.
Hermione could see that certain parts of the wall seemed thinner than others, but at Bones's comment, those dull patches brightened again. The sound and sight of so many monsters assaulting them was already taking its toll. The defenders could not keep this up for long.
Kitty and Dawn were making excellent progress. They had left quite a growing pile of dead dementors laid at the base of the tower. It was hard to tell in the near-perpetual twilight under these heavy clouds, but she would estimate they had already rid the world of almost two dozen dementors.
They were much harder to see past the roiling mass striking the powerful dome, but she thought that the pair were now dancing through the dark monsters. Ripping their decayed bodies into pieces by sheer force. Shattering their awful forms like bright piercing arrows of tooth and claw.
It would have been a rousing sight if not for the horrifying chaos between her and the patronuses.
"They can't keep this up," Harry said, echoing her earlier thoughts. He turned to her again and she saw a curious gleam in his eyes. "But I have an idea."
His eyes flicked upwards and she noted that he was looking past all of the movement above them. Staring at something beyond the dementors and the patronuses.
Hermione was surprised at the thought she felt from him. Magic was energy after all. It could be possible. But it would be very dangerous.
"Are you sure?" She asked, locking their eyes again.
"It's worth a try. This method is too slow."
"What are you two talking about?" Sirius asked, a quiver in his voice as he held his wand aloft with the others, a tiny thread of white energy connecting it to the shield above. Far smaller than those around them.
Sirius needed them to end this soon. She glanced back at Harry and nodded.
Hermione felt Dawn dissolve away as she focused her mind and energy on the pile of dead dementors. She closed her eyes and felt the magic around her, good and bad. And she focused on forcing the electrons from the dead bodies out into the ground. And then pushing them deeper still. Forcing that area to become positively charged.
Kitty disappeared soon after and she could feel Harry focusing his own magic upwards. It did not take long for the air around them to become charged. The mass of negatively charged clouds above them seeking to snap back to a natural balance. Something they were holding at bay by sheer force of will right now.
"What is going on?" Bones asked. "I can't see your patronuses."
Others around them began to notice the change as well, and the shield above them began to dull as the collective keeping them safe seemed to lose focus.
"Hold steady," Harry said, eyes still closed. "We're trying something tricky. It's going to be very loud and very bright. Ready?"
"Ready," Hermione said to him, hoping that this wasn't as crazy as it seemed.
She felt the words form in her mind as she raised her wand again. They'd never actually tried forming a spell on the spot before. "Fulmenimbus patronum."
Two massive bolts of bright white energy shot upwards from their wands, scattering the dementors that were attacking the shield, giving the defenders a reprieve. They continued unimpeded up into the thick cloud cover above. And immediately a deep rumble began to form.
Harry and Hermione both fell to their knees at the immense energy they had expended into the spell. The sharp edges of the rocks below dug into their skin harshly. But they both remained conscious for the moment.
"Conjure a physical shield against the ground," Harry yelled.
The two waved their wands and thick blocks of stone appeared out of the air along the ground in front of the large group. Hermione allowed the electrons she had previously pushed deep into the ground to rise up and fill the wall they were making. Ensuring its charge matched that of the clouds above.
The adults behind them seemed to have no idea what they were doing, but Andromeda dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around Hermione. And it felt like Sirius was doing the same to Harry.
Suddenly, with a bright flash and a deafening snap, everything went dark, and Hermione fell into unconsciousness.