CHAPTER 9: The Game That Moves As You Play (Part 2)
Severus stood outside the door to Grimmauld Place. While once, he had been treated with respect, given his place inside the Order, he was now left waiting for someone inside to open the door to him. He didn't care what the morons at the Order thought of him, even the great Albus Dumbledore's opinion was meaningless to him. He had only regretted one thing in all his life, and making sure Potter grew to be a man, unlike his worthless father, wasn't it? But now he was treated worse than scum, scorned and belittled and humiliated in ways only the Marauders had been able to achieve before. The only reason why he was still around was because of the promise he had made, as far as he was concerned, the entire Order could bleed and die and rot on the ground so long as the Dark Lord joined them.
It had become harder to stay at Azkaban as well. His duties at Hogwarts had kept him inside the castle for most of the time since the Dark Lord's return, but the end of term meant he had to go back to his rightful place by the Dark Lord's side. He wasn't Ares or Zeus, the Dark Lord would never see him like that. Despite all he had achieved, everything he had sacrificed to the cause, Circe had never been made a goddess. The only reason why he had been inducted into the Pantheon in the first place had been because of his mission. It didn't matter to the Dark Lord that he was a potions master or one of the smartest Death Eaters in his inner circle, his only real value came from his position inside Dumbledore's circle. Many Death Eaters envied him after he had been chosen, the smart ones pitied him.
Ever since he had been appointed to the Pantheon, the Dark Lord had kept a close eye on him. Despite no explicit misgivings, Severus could tell the Dark Lord didn't like his closeness to Dumbledore. He didn't trust him, not fully, and a part of Severus thought the Dark Lord had never particularly liked him. It made his life more complicated than it was worth. Random Legillimency check-ins, Death Eaters ransacking his house whenever they pleased, even his own students were used to spy on him on the Dark Lord's orders. Back when he still believed in the Dark Lord's mission, he understood it. Now that he had turned for good, Severus couldn't help but feel the Dark Lord knew. It was in the way he looked at him, the words he used when he spoke. There was no doubt in Severus' mind that the Dark Lord knew, and yet, if he did, he would have already been dead. And despite his known connection to Potter, he hadn't been punished for it. Not even after the defeat at the Ministry.
He could deal with the Dark Lord. He'd mastered his Occlummency better than nearly everyone else in the country and had learned how to deal with him over the years. It was the others that made Azkaban so unbearable. Every day, new recruits came and went, pledging their allegiance to the Dark Lord and receiving their orders. Unlike him, they were never forced to stay the night, but the constant influx and the sheer volume of aspiring morons kept the prison tower constantly full. At their best, they were annoying fanatics or needy psychopaths. But within the ranks, there were more than enough ambitious climbers and gutless worms who could make their lives difficult. He saw them as they passed, eying him as if they were already wondering how they could use him to gain favour with the Dark Lord. He recognised previous students from Hogwarts, people he had vaguely remembered seeing in the street, witches and wizards from all over the country. More than enough of them who would be willing to rat him out just. It made the nights long and the days unbearable, and his one respite from it all was coming to Grimmauld Place and being forced to bow down to Dumbledore's will.
Lily only gave him enough strength, it was only his pride now that was keeping him on his feet.
Aberforth was the one who opened the door, looking down at him with his nose flared before moving out of the way and letting him through. Without saying a word, Severus entered the manor and headed upstairs. Dumbledore was in the same study as always, along with Aberforth and someone else, by the look of the three working stations in the room. He didn't comment on it and instead took a seat in front of Dumbledore. The old man gave him a quick look, one that didn't bother to hide the contempt he had held for Severus ever since he found out about Potter. That hatred, that disdain, it burned something fierce inside Severus. It wasn't the hypocrisy that bothered him, but the fact that Dumbledore genuinely thought he could have done better than him with Potter.
"What do you have to report?" Dumbledore asked coldly.
"The Death Eaters are incensed about the Ministry's reaction to the Muggle shooter," Severus said monotonously. "It hasn't started yet, but you can expect more wizard-on-wizard attacks shortly."
"How bad?"
"It's escalating quicker than before. If I were to make an estimate, I'd say in three, four months the Death Eaters will catch up to their rates of '81."
Dumbledore leaned back on his chair, looking plainly troubled. "Are there any obvious targets at the moment?"
"Anyone supporting the Ministry is in clear danger. Large Wizengamot families who are actively against the Dark Lord, Muggle-friendly businesses. Expect the same targets from the first war."
"Very well," he nodded. "Do you have any information on the attack at the Opera House?"
"It was retribution for the shooting, nothing special. From what I've heard, some Death Eaters, especially new recruits, are inspired by it. They now know that if there aren't any witnesses or traces of Magic, then the Ministry won't be able to interfere. There'll be more attacks like that one, I can assure you of that. Then there's the matter of the missing Death Eater."
"What do you mean missing?"
"According to Thanatos' wife, her husband was involved in the attack but never made it home. The Ministry doesn't have him in custody, no one knows where he is. Whatever happened to him, it has the entire Pantheon enraged. They want to punish someone for it. They'll take action if he isn't found soon."
Dumbledore looked at him intensely, as if trying to pull something out from behind his eyes. "You can honestly report to Voldemort that I did not know about this disappearance. It isn't the Ministry or the Order."
"Noted," Severus said hollowly.
Dumbledore didn't say anything for a moment. Instead, he exchanged looks with Aberforth before he turned back to Severus. "Has Voldemort been different? Have you noticed anything off with him in the past week or so?"
Severus looked between the two men. "What would make you think that?"
"Just answer the question," Aberforth barked from the other side of the room.
"Yes," he said through gritted teeth. "In a way. Other Death Eaters have noticed this too, Ares in particular, but no one has said much about it. It's best not to displease the Dark Lord when he is not in the right mood."
"Oh, I quite understand," Dumbledore said darkly, and after a last look to Aberforth he said, "That'll be all."
Severus got the feeling that he wasn't being told something, that he missed something critical, something he should have known already. And when he exited the office, shut the door, and managed to clearly hear Aberforth say "This is it. We don't have a choice any more," only for it to suddenly cut off, he knew that Dumbledore understood what had freaked out the Dark Lord so much.
It was barely nine in the morning and Harry already knew he was in for a long day. Scrimgeour had been relatively quiet ever since the attack at the opera house. The Ministry was still running, and Harry still showed up here and there to keep the masses talking, but that had been the extent of it. Scrimgeour was still in the country, only he had locked himself inside his office and kindly told everyone to fuck off through his secretary's mouth, and without his daily training sessions at the Ministry and Dumbledore abruptly stopping his lessons at Grimmauld Place, Harry had quickly grown restless. It wasn't helping that Theo was still jumpy about the whole Horcrux thing. Harry wanted to hate him for it, call him a whiny bitch and slap him across the face a few times just for good measure, but he couldn't really bring himself up to it either. He didn't have the heart for it. Not when he couldn't even step a foot into the room without feeling a small hand crawling up his spine.
He had ventured down there a few days ago when he knew Pansy would be at Daphne's place and all the others busy doing whatever the fuck they were doing to track the Horcruxes. It was out of boredom, he told himself, but he didn't really believe it. Even at his worst points in that other life, he never sought to fuck himself up quite like this. Edward was the only other person inside Parkinson Palace. Black and purple surrounded his eyes, hair greasy and almost looked like it was on the verge of falling off. Bedivere had given him a bed, a chair and a desk with a few books he could pick up and read before the soul piece consumed him. It was meant to be a nice gesture, Harry assumed. Humane, in a way, or at least as humane as Bedivere could muster. It reminded him of when Mrs Weasley used to visit him in his cell with a plate full of hot, delicious food and a chair so that she could eat with him. It was probably because now, he was on the other side of the cell, but this didn't feel as genuine.
Edward seemed to agree, he had taken the cold, hard stone floor over any of the niceties Bedivere had offered him. Harry would have admired that. He saw himself in the man more than he would want to. A part of him wanted Edward to fight back, even to escape, to somehow beat the locket and run away into the night. He knew who that man was, he'd heard everything he had done in the previous war, and Harry hated him for it. But it was a vague sort of hatred. The type you feel when you know you should be angry, and so you force yourself to be angry despite any lack of emotional connection. This wasn't Montague or Snape or Dolohov or Black or any other fucker who had gone after him personally. It had been him who dealt the first blow this time around. He kidnapped this man, took him away from his wife, his son, and sentenced him to the worst sort of hell he could ever wish on another human being. He'd spent his whole life fighting against oppressors. Bullies and bigots and tyrants, he had despised them all with a relentless hatred that kept him alive for so long now. It was no wonder some part deep within him wanted that man to beat them.
But as he stepped further into the room and looked into Edward's eyes, he knew that he wasn't doing this out of protest. It wasn't stubbornness or any sort of fight left within the man that made him reject the pity comforts. The locket had already taken hold of him. His face was gaunt, as if the Horcrux itself had pushed back his eyes and sucked out all the blood from his face. His arms were filled with cuts, its surroundings covered in red and brown spots, and there was a stain large enough to give Harry an idea of just how much blood there had actually been. He was rocking so slowly that Harry almost missed it, and it wasn't until he was standing just a few feet from him that he heard the incoherent mumblings.
Everything in him had been screaming at him to get out. The room felt darker, colder, alone and filled with something that shouldn't be there all at the same time. The locket had burned a mark on Edward's chest, he could see the edges of black flesh peeking out from its golden contours. And just like it had taken hold of Edward, Harry felt it pulling him forward. Pulling him until he was pressed up against the bars. Pulling him until he felt the sudden urge to force himself into the cell and pull at the glittering relic until the chain fully snapped. Harry gripped onto the bars, but instead of running or fighting, he stood transfixed. It had taken months before the diary had overcome him, months before he was even dependent on it. It hadn't even been a week since the locket had been forced on Edward, and it had already taken full control. It was as if it had already consumed his soul. And that thing he had felt during the latter days of the diary, that long, thin snake curling around every bone, muscle, and organ it could find until it was squeezing the life out of him… it was starting to come back to him.
"Stop!" Harry shouted. The words carried like a blast wave. They pushed out the air that was suffocating and pulled him out of that trance that had snared him. Edward was sitting on his bed, looking at him with nothing but deep hatred behind his eyes. Harry bolted out of the room before anything else happened, and vowed to himself that he would never go back down there. It had only been a few days, so nobody had noticed his resistance to being in the same room as that thing, but there was something in the way Bedivere looked at him the other night that told him the old man knew enough. It was sometimes unsettling how omnipresent Bedivere seemed. Very much how Dumbledore seemed during those first weeks at Hogwarts, only without any of the warmth he radiated. Even being polite, Bedivere couldn't help but come off as slightly off.
Maybe he was growing paranoid. The way his hands felt restless, and how his eyes darted at every sound certainly seemed to say so. There were so many things that could go wrong, and he still couldn't figure out the reason why Scrimgeour had holed himself up and ignored him for nearly a week. He wasn't about to complain now. There was a certain thrill to it that he couldn't deny, and after living a whole summer in that plain, boring life, he realised a sick part of him enjoyed being kept on his toes like this. But between Scrimgeour and Dumbledore, Augusta and Bedivere and even his own friends, he was quickly remembering he wasn't back in that rosy, shiny world where all the people in his life were trustworthy Gryffindors. Sometimes, the most concerning things in life ended up being weirdly comforting. Right now, it didn't feel like that.
More people started slowly arriving. Aurors, Harry noted, as he watched Kingsley, Dawlish, three other Aurors whose names he had forgotten already, and the real Moody slowly take up the seats at the Minister's waiting room. Harry knew Scrimgeour and Dawlish were close ever since the Montague investigation back at Hogwarts, so it wasn't really a surprise to see him there. If Dumbledore hadn't come into the picture, Scrimgeour would have probably chosen him to run the department. He or Robards, but given the fact Robards didn't seem to have been invited, Harry didn't doubt his instincts much. Kingsley and Moody, he understood, even if he didn't like the way Moody was looking at him. But there was something he didn't like about this group. An off feeling he couldn't seem to get rid of.
Before he managed to fully understand it, Scrimgeour's secretary - the same girl whose wand Harry had used through the entire night of the sieges - peered out from behind the desk and said, "The Minister will see you now." The Aurors took the order like well-trained dogs, all standing up at the sound of the whistle and walking into the office in a single file line. Harry trailed behind them. They all took their seats in front of the Minister's desk, and though there was still one more place that was clearly meant for him, Harry opted to stand at the back of the office, leaning against the nearest bookshelf. It was the wrong thing to do, objectively, and Harry knew it. Outcasting himself like he hadn't helped with anything in the past five or so years. But he'd already kept to himself enough back in the waiting room that he didn't particularly care to fix it any more. He was too on edge to put back on the Prick Potter facade everyone had grown to know and love.
Scrimgeour didn't even acknowledge it, nor did he waste any of his time with pleasantries even. The man looked like he was barely awake, standing up from his chair and rambling on like he was trying to get the meeting done as quickly as possible. He looked almost as bad as Harry felt, and not for the first time this week, Harry was glad he knew how to hide it. He couldn't help that spark of pride, the addicting satisfaction of knowing just how badly the job was affecting Scrimgeour, and he didn't want to.
"Everything that is said within this room must be kept a secret," Scrimgeour began saying. "Nothing related to what we speak of here today can be spoken to anyone but the seven of us, not even your own families will be privy to it. As far as Dumbledore and everyone else in the Ministry is concerned, this meeting didn't happen. If that's not something you can agree to, this is your chance to back out."
The Aurors gave solemn nods and deep grunts, one by one they announced their loyalty without even saying a word. Harry wondered if that's how he and Theo had looked that day when they had first met Bedivere. He hoped not.
"The night of the Muggle shooting, Potter and I made contact with the Muggle Prime Minister," Scrimgeour continued. "After a few words of persuasion, we got him to agree to help us with this brewing Muggle resistance."
"I thought the attack was a one-time thing," one of the Aurors Harry didn't know cut in.
Moody snorted, and Harry vicariously took satisfaction out of it.
"We would all be better for it, but I'm afraid that's not the case," Rufus replied. "The night of the sieges left too many leaks for even the Unspeakables to contain. Bedivere Parkinson has confirmed that many of the strays have managed to stay connected, this attack is the product of that cooperation." He let the impact of the words sink in for a moment before continuing. "For now, the Unspeakables agree that there isn't much synergy within this group. Your job will be to find and detain the Muggles before this escalates any further."
"You want us to attack the Muggles?" Moody barked out, and despite having grown accustomed to that voice for nearly a year, Harry still couldn't read if it was disapproving or not. "Shutting them up won't stop the Death Eaters from blowing up the country as they please."
"No, but it mitigates the damage," Rufus snapped back. "You've all seen how the Death Eaters are ramping up their attacks ever since the shooting. Unless you want a full-out war between Muggle and Wizard factions in the next month, this is our best option. The Statute is too frail to risk something like this."
"So we find the leaks and give them to the Unspeakables to obliviate them," Dawlish spoke up. "How do we know which Muggles to target?"
"You'll be dealing with our assets in the Muggle world. Kingsley, you're the one with the most experience dealing with Muggles. Do you think you can coordinate with the teams already in place?"
"Yes, sir," he gave a stiff nod. For a moment it looked as if he was about to say something else, but he kept his mouth shut.
There wasn't any more pushback as Scrimgeour explained the finer details of the task force. He set meetings and goals and chose Moody to lead the group. They would all answer directly to the Minister and no information would be shared with anyone outside the meetings. As far as they were all concerned, they weren't even allowed to look at each other too much anywhere but in the Minister's office. And throughout the entire meeting, not once did he address Harry. Everyone else knew he was there, often looking back at him as if waiting for him to speak up or take the lead, but Harry remained determined to be a portrait on the wall.
At some point, he stopped listening to all the orders and codes and contingencies that Scrimgeour had set in place. He drifted inside his mind, not really thinking of anything as he let what Rufus was saying settle inside him. There was so much he wanted to say, but couldn't put into words. He couldn't even decide how he felt about it before everyone started leaving the room. All the Aurors gave him odd looks as they exited the office, Moody even giving him a mangled smirk as he closed the door behind him. And it wasn't until they were alone in the room that Scrimgeour finally slumped on his chair, staring at him with brazen annoyance. "Spit it out."
"What makes you think I've anything to say?"
"You've never one to shut your damn mouth."
Harry snorted, a short burst of amusement that didn't last long. "I'm sure Voldemort will be thrilled, seeing the Ministry doing his dirty work."
Instantly, Scrimgeour grew rigid. Sitting tall on his chair, elbows on the desk. "I don't care for what you're implying."
"I'm not implying anything," Harry replied. "I know you too well for it."
"Then I suggest you don't speak of things that don't concern you."
Harry sighed. He wouldn't get anywhere with Scrimgeour, not with how he was being. In truth, he understood him. Suppressing the Muggles was the easiest way of de-escalating this war, considering the alternative. If he were in Scrimgeour's position, Harry wasn't sure he wouldn't do any different. Then again, Scrimgeour was meant to be the paragon of justice. Harry was the fucked up one. He pushed himself off the bookshelf and gave Scrimgeour one last hard look. "The war is against Voldemort, Minister. Do try to remember that."
He spent the rest of his day running through other errands. Last week's party had accomplished just what he wanted, and Harry went every day to his vault and Gringotts and watched with pride as it grew fuller every day. There was no denying it was demeaning, especially whenever Malkin took pictures of him in her robes or when he was supposed to pose with a new broomstick, and he hated it. But the amount they offered for just a single shoot was obscene, to the point where he wasn't able to refuse it. Businesses, Ministry officials, Quidditch players. There were Wizengamot members who paid him to just have lunch with them and listen to their proposals, and even foreign bands like the Bent-Winged Snitchers offered royalties just for him to promote them.
He hadn't been needing for money, not since he started swindling all the rich trolls at Hogwarts with his essays, but seeing the goblins forced to enlarge his vault four times now felt just as good as winning a rather tough duel. He had planned on using the influence he had now to make sure he wasn't thrown down to the bottom of the food chain again, and despite how tedious and despicable the pageantry of it all was, he couldn't deny that he would be more than set for the rest of his life by the end of the summer. And if he ever did, he still had Aurora, whose feathers were just as priceless as his image. Who knew, if he played his cards right, he could start using all the money to keep fucking over the Longbottoms. That would make the ridicule of it all worth it.
It was well after lunch that he finally made it to Malfoy Manor. The moment he arrived, Harry immediately understood how Draco had become such a smarmy cunt. If he had been raised in a place like this, he would have also grown up to believe everyone else in the world had been born to vow to him. The manor itself was larger than Parkinson Palace, designed in a unique, almost gothic style, unlike anything Harry had ever seen before. Its vast grounds covered everything the eye could see, with unicorns and hippogriffs freely roaming around the place. He could see the Quidditch pitch Draco always bragged about, a small golf course filled with lakes and sand traps, and an outdoor pool. It was a miniature Hogwarts, one built maybe four hundred years after the real one.
Despite his unpunctuality, Lucius Malfoy greeting him at the gate personally told Harry that he had still been very much expected. He had first properly met the man at the party last week. Just like Alessia and Titus, Lucius had taken a particular interest in him. It wasn't something unusual, practically the entire world had since the night of the sieges. But the fact that he knew these people he was dealing with were Death Eaters or at least adjacent to them complicated things. They knew who he was, Malfoy could very well invite Voldemort to Malfoy Manor and kill him if he truly wanted to. Of course, he had contingencies for that, Aurora being the biggest one of all, but having these people smile at him and welcome him to their homes only meant they were eager for a chance to stab him in the back.
Still, Harry was the perfect guest. He engaged Lucius in conversation as they walked through the grounds and tried not to wonder if he had faced Malfoy in London or at the Ministry those months ago. Lucius played his part well, and Harry was glad he wasn't showing as much enthusiasm for him as Titus and Alessia had. His approach wasn't dissimilar to how Mr Weasley would treat him during those nights he went to the Burrow for dinner. If someone told me this is how Lucius would have treated Pansy or Blaise or any of the others, Harry would have believed them. That still wasn't enough for him to lower his guard.
Draco and the others had taken over the living room on the ground floor of the manor. Pansy was working with Daphne and Blaise on some of the homework essays they had to complete before term started while Theo and Draco were having a make-shift duel, jumping over the couches and diving under the tables right as Harry and Lucius entered the room. Both boys had the decency to look ashamed, their faces red as they clearly tried to ignore the burn spots on the walls and the dozens of feathers on the floor from the blasted cushions. Lucius only waved his wand and fixed the mess in one quick motion. "Don't run around too much," he told them in a calm tone. "It messes with your aim."
"Yes, father," Draco nodded sharply, and Theo did the same.
Not looking forward to working on the summer essays, Harry joined the other two boys. It was fun for a while, keeping himself trained and active while embarrassing the two Slytherins. At one point, he joined the others on the corner and managed to fight off Draco and Theo, even as they teamed up while listening to Pansy and Daphne debate about the proper way to brew a Hiccoughing Solution. But after a while without any real challenge, he got bored and decided to coach the boys instead. They had been all but begging him to include them in the lessons with the Gryffindors for a few weeks now, and while he still didn't want to blend those two worlds together, he never denied helping them out a bit. Blaise joined them after a while, and it didn't take long before Pansy and Daphne too decided to try it out for a bit.
After a couple of hours, when everyone was sweating up to their toes and Harry had got tired of yelling the same instructions over and over again, the group all collapsed on the couches. Mrs Malfoy came in with a few butterbeers for all and politely told them that if they wanted a refill, they only had to call Niblet, and he would take care of it. Draco's mother was the complete opposite of Lucius. She avoided interaction with any of them as much as she could, and whenever she spoke to them, it was all very quick and vague and not once did she ever turn in his direction. No one commented on it, but Harry knew he wasn't the only one that had picked up on it.
They talked and laughed and drank and then asked Niblet for more, and Harry was mostly there for it. To be honest, he was half-falling asleep for most of it. But then someone said something that caught his attention. He didn't pick up on the voice, but he heard the words loud and clear.
"Bastard got lucky. It would have gone so much worse for him if the Ministry still had control of the dementors."
"Honestly, Scrimgeour should have just handed him over to the Dark Lord," Draco said, the usual kind of hatred rising in his voice. "Whatever disagreements they have, it's clear that filth deserved Azkaban as much as anyone."
"That's just dumb," Pansy looked like she was trying to not roll her eyes. "Scrimgeour and the Dark Lord were never going to work together. Not even for something like this. It would take the entire Muggle population rising against us for that, and even then, I don't think his pride would allow it."
"It's his pride that will fuck up the entire country," Draco continued. "Father says that if the Minister had reached out to the Dark Lord for this, he would have gladly taken the Muggle of his hands."
"As he should have," Daphne said. "Disgusting what that man did. It could have been any of us walking out of Diagon Alley that day only to get shot. And people wonder why we don't want them coming into our world."
"Yeah…" Theo hesitantly agreed. "But he still has to spend the rest of his life in jail, hasn't he? That should count for something."
"It's a Muggle prison," Pansy scoffed slightly. "It does the work, but it's… he should have gone to a wizard prison."
"It's a shame Azkaban is out of commission," Harry said casually.
Blaise gave a small laugh. "Tell us how you really feel, Potter."
"We aren't getting into this today, Blaise-"
"Scrimgeour should have just portkeyed him to Azkaban. It's not like the Dark Lord would have sent him away. After what he did, you can't say he didn't deserve it." Draco pressed.
Harry shrugged. "No, he probably did. But if the public found out that Scrimgeour was actively working with Voldemort-" Harry smirked when he saw everybody flinch. "Well, that wouldn't be a good look, would it?"
"Yeah, but that's the problem, to begin with: why is Scrimgeour working with the Dark Lord such a bad thing?"
"Maybe because he calls himself the Dark Lord and tried to burn down Britain only a few months ago?" Harry mocked.
"He wasn't trying to burn down Britain, he was trying to attack the Muggles before they attacked us. And look what's happened since. Can you really say he didn't have a point, given how there are Muggles actively trying to find us and gun us down?"
"The Death Eaters started all this shit," Harry felt his voice rising, and he was growing quickly aware of how everyone but him and Malfoy had gone silent. Even Theo and Pansy weren't stepping in to support him. "If they hadn't attacked the Muggles as a distraction, none of this would have happened."
"The Muggles would have attacked us sooner or later," Draco matched his tone. "Every day we're growing more exposed, and trust me, Muggles don't like when they realise there are bigger fish out there. They nearly wiped us out three hundred years ago. You think they won't try the same once they find out about us again?"
Harry leaned back, but didn't say a word. The topic of the war had been one they had managed to avoid for so long now, and he wasn't keen on starting to make it an issue now. Not when he was in enemy territory, or when he didn't have people to back him up. He could feel Lucius speaking through Draco's mouth, recognised the words that had been recited from generation to generation for God knows how long now. And despite his earlier apprehension towards Scrimgeour's plan, Harry finally understood why it was necessary. Voldemort wanted to shatter the Statute of Secrecy, he wanted the public terrified and a full-out war to blow out between wizards and Muggles. That was how he won, and by the looks of it, he was already swaying people now without them even noticing it. The only way of making sure more people didn't turn to the Death Eaters was to make the Muggles a non-threat.
But even then, a small part of Harry wondered if even that would make a difference. Draco was right, Muggles didn't like knowing they weren't the biggest predator out there, but Harry didn't think wizards did either. Things were starting to get more complicated, and this time, Harry wasn't sure he particularly liked it.
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