Nothing is mine.

In which Harry is dragged to the headmaster's office.

I Promise No Tomorrow

A small, brown-feathered wren hung from the end of a bramble; its toes curled tight around the bright green tip of the stem as it clung on between the sharp thorns. Harry watched the little bird bob up and down above the bubbling, ink-black brook. The restless magic swirled in the stream like shadows flickering upon smoke, but the wren dipped its head into the stream and bathed its wings without fear, scattering drops of water away through the cold mist smoking from the stream's dark surface and over the striking yellow daffodils blanketing the banks.

Firefly swarms danced above the petals of flowers shining with vivid, shimmering magic — above daffodils, bluebells, wild, white-flowering garlic, a carpet of colourful crocuses in hues of white, purple and blue, and patches of pale primroses — their glimmering golden glow blinking in and out like bright eyes winking in the shade of the glades. They drifted through the gnarled, twisted roots rising from beside the small dark brook and up among the floating motes of amber magic hovering in the cracks and crevices of the trees' bark into the brilliant beams of sunlight spilling through the verdant youthful green canopy. Magic sung in the air there, a chorus of whispers of it in every breath of the breeze, a symphony of susurrations in the rustle of the leaves; it tingled on Harry's skin with each touch of gentle wind and prickled down the back of his neck each time distant shadows flitted through the trees and high, childish laughter drifted to his ears.

A flash of sun sliced through the branches.

He jerked back and smacked his head, little white sparks bursting before his eyes.

Harry blinked them away, rubbing the sore spot at the back of his skull.

'Harry.' Daphne peered through the crack in his bed hangings, her blonde hair turned to shining gold by the sun pouring through; the red ribbon tying it up into a sleek knot shone bright as blood, fluttering in the breeze from the open dorm window beside his bed.

'How did you even—'

'Hush,' she whispered. 'Come with me. I want to show you something.'

'Now?' He sat up, pulling the covers to his chest, and yawned, rubbing his eyes. 'It feels horribly early.'

'It is dawn,' she murmured. 'Come. Come on.'

Any slight hint of reluctance or resentment was lost beneath the swarm of butterflies swirling and swooping about in Harry's stomach. 'Alright. Alright. I'm coming.' Heat flooded his face as she stared, a strange little spark in her ice-blue eyes as they roved over him. 'Greengrass?'

'Yes, Potter?'

'Get out of my bed so I can change,' he said. 'If you're not undoing buttons and skirt-hem-rolling, then I'm not performing any kind of pyjama striptease.'

Bright pink blossomed across Daphne's cheeks and in the tips of her ears. 'Meet me in your common room, by the fireplace.' She vanished.

Harry waited for a few moments as he put his glasses on, straining his ears for her footsteps, but heard nothing. 'How did she even get in here?' He rolled out of bed, yanking the window closed at the cold touch of the wind, and dragged on his robes. 'There must be some secret family passage that comes up here for any not mildly evil Gryffindor Greengrasses.'

The common room, as he stumbled down the stairs into it, hung silent in the low light of the wall lanterns and glowing hearth embers. Daphne stood by the fire, one foot on the edge of the side-table as she pulled her socks up to her knees, the hem of her skirt trapped halfway up her thigh by her arm.

'I'm here.' Harry tugged his eyes away from Daphne's bare legs and studied the crimson crescent moon swinging from her ear instead.

'Hurry,' she murmured. 'Today is Gwanwyn Byghan.'

'No it's not, it's Saturday.' He flashed her a grin, lingering on the last step of the stairs. 'My lie-in day, actually. Or it was, before someone ruined it.'

Daphne's lips twitched. 'It is Gwanwyn Byghan, Harry, the celebration of The Little Spring.'

'As opposed to a big Spring?'

'As opposed to Gwanwyn Ynfawr Gwyr, the Great Green Spring foreseen by our ancestors.'

'Oh. That.'

Daphne picked up two crosses of interwoven snowdrops; their leaves and stems braided together into the arms of the cross, the clusters of their delicate little white flowers trembling at its heart. 'I made one for you.'

'What is it?'

'An offering.' She swept through the sofas into the passage. 'Come on.'

Harry frowned after her. 'Why the hurry?'

'We have to climb up into the hills above the lake before the sunrise is over.'

'We could just fly, I have my broom; if you don't mind riding passenger?'

Daphne poked her head back out of the passage. 'I do not mind,' she whispered. 'But we must not be seen by the wrong people. Those who practise the Old Ways are regarded with great suspicion by the Ministry.'

'Yeah, because most of them are Death Eaters,' Harry muttered under his breath.

'No, they are not.'

'Some of them absolutely are.' He blinked. 'And how did you even hear that?'

The corner of her mouth crooked. 'Are we flying there or not?'

'Yes,' Harry replied. 'But if you don't want to be seen, we should leave from my dorm window and just go straight down and across as fast as we can.' He mimicked the dive of his broom and the zip across the lakes with one hand, turning back up the stairs.

Daphne darted past him on the balls of her feet, slipping into his dorm room without a sound. She waited at the window, twisting the handle open and tilting her face into the cool breeze; that rogue lock of blonde hair fluttered across her nose as Harry reached her, and the strangest urge to reach out and give it a light tug seized him.

He bent and pulled his Firebolt out from under the bed instead. 'Open the window all the way,' he whispered, throwing one leg over the broom. 'We'll fly out. We could jump off the window, we'd probably be fine.'

'No.' She pushed the window all the way open and stepped over the broom. 'You would not survive a fall from this height.'

'Neither would you. Or were you planning on landing on top of me?' Harry laughed under his breath. 'How mildly-evil of you, Greengrass.'

'Go, Potter,' she murmured, her breath tickling the back of his neck.

Harry twisted about, taking a breath laced with sweet, sharp spearmint and swallowing a mouthful of trembling butterflies. 'You should hold on to something.'

Her arms slipped around his chest. 'I am.'

The butterflies swarmed, scattering all the words he might have said in a frenetic tremble of little tickling, tingling wings and legs.

'Go,' Daphne whispered.

Harry kicked off, wincing as her grip tightened around his ribs like bands of steel, and took them straight down the vertical tower wall. The wind screamed in his ears as they streaked past the turrets and towers, the grass, and over the waves of the Black Lake.

He glanced back.

Daphne's ice-blue eyes flicked to one of the steep hills above the water. 'That hill,' she mouthed.

He arced toward it, swooping up over the heather and the dark green gorse toward a patch of white just below the summit.

'There,' she yelled over the rushing wind. 'The blackthorn grove.'

He took them down.

A narrow path snaked up the hill to the cluster of bright, white-blossoming blackthorn trees rising from the low dark gorse, running back along the lake shore and around to Hogwarts.

Daphne's grip loosened as he followed it up the slope, his toes brushing the heather, and she leapt off.

'People come up here a lot?' Harry asked, pulling up and dropping down onto his feet.

'Yes,' she murmured. 'But quietly. The practice of the Old Ways was decreed illegal by the ICW after Merlin's disappearance over a thousand years ago. To avoid more trouble than it was worth, the Lords Pendragon only enforce this law when severely broken and the Ministry followed the same rule when it was set up later, but they are watching all the same.'

'So Umbridge is probably hiding behind a bush up here waiting to send me to Azkaban.' Harry sighed, laying his Firebolt down in the dry heather. 'Why must you drag me into your schemes, Greengrass?'

Her lips twitched. 'Gwanwyn Byghan is not a scheme, Potter.' She led him up the last few metres of the path into the shade of the sweet-scented blackthorn blossom.

Veiled behind those clouds of pale blossom, the slender statue of a long-haired woman stood over a small bubbling spring, her feet buried beneath countless offerings of snowdrop crosses, spring flowers, and little scraps of ribbon and cloth. The clear water welled up at her toes from beneath a stone lantern worked in the likeness of a cluster of blackthorn blossom and encircled by the coils of a serpent emerging from the earth. It shielded a flickering flame as white as snow from the wind and the rain and the cold.

'Briganti,' Daphne whispered, turning back with that fierce gleam of yearning in her bright blue eyes. 'While her flame burns, the promise of Spring remains.'

'Who is she?'

'A goddess. One of many.'

Harry stared into her granite eyes and smiled to himself. 'How does she feel about sunsets? Or snow?'

Daphne bent and placed the two crosses down at the statue's feet. 'Briganti's cross is made from snowdrops,' she said. 'To celebrate the coming of The Little Spring, Gwanwyn Byghan, of the mundane world—' her fingers slipped to the red ribbon tying up her hair '—and to beseech her to return soon to the Veiled World.' She pulled the ribbon free, spilling her blonde hair over her shoulders and letting that rogue lock flutter over her pretty nose. 'Come soon, Briganti.' Daphne wrapped the crimson ribbon around the crosses. 'Come soon.'

'What do you mean? To return to the Veiled World? I thought that's where all your gods and everything already were.'

'Once,' she whispered. 'Once, all our gods and spirits dwelt there. But Autumn is a time of blood, of sacrifice; if any of them have not yet passed into Winter, they will be very few.'

'They can… die?'

'All things die,' Daphne murmured. 'As the little winter of our world comes each year with the fading of summer, so the great cold night settles upon the Veiled World as magic dwindles. At the first touch of spring, Briganti yn cyl ei aileni yn Marvoleth—' the words sung on her tongue and shivered through Harry, thrumming through his blood with each beat of his heart '—she will be the first reborn from the womb of winter, like the lambs birthed in the spring.' Her eyes shone with all the clear, bright hope of cool spring skies. 'Winter is not meant to last forever. Not even that of Y Noz Yen Braz, the Great Cold Night.'

'So when all the things in the Veiled World are dead and the high magic is all gone, she'll come back for your Spring?'

'Something like that.' Daphne knelt at the edge of the spring on the small grey stones, dipping her hands into clear water. 'You can join me, Harry. I brought you here so you could.'

Harry contemplated the small bubbling spring, torn between Daphne's pretty face, the fluttering butterflies beneath his ribs, the memory of the breathtaking endless vivid verdance of his dream, and the little voice in the back of his head that whispered to him that all of this was silly superstition, and that it was better it was, that he should hope it is, because if it was not, then somewhere she was waiting, waiting like the dark beyond the stars, like the dusk beyond the sunset, like the snow borne aloft in the sky, waiting with a smile so sharp Harry could feel the bite of it deep, deep inside, slicing up from some strange, dark place within himself with less than a whisper.

He crouched beside her.

'Kneel,' she whispered. 'You are trying to touch the Veiled World, even if but lightly; it deserves our respect, our reverence.'

Harry shifted onto his knees on the cold, hard stones and dipped his hands into the freezing spring with a gasp. 'Chilly.' He chuckled to himself. 'At least it's normal water and not something extremely suspect, dark, and highly magical.'

Daphne washed her hands and swept them across her face, leaving little gleaming drops of water clinging to her skin and trickling down to her chin.

He steeled himself for the cold and splashed water on his face. 'Why do we do that?'

'To cleanse ourselves of the year before,' she murmured. 'Be it the tears of Winter's sorrow upon our faces or the blood of Autumn's sacrifice upon our hands.'

'And it has to be really cold water.'

'Springs are sacred.'

'Is it because it has the word spring in it?' Harry chuckled and raised his hands in surrender as Daphne levelled a long, cool look at him. 'No, I sort of get it; I do, I promise. Water is a little bit like life, right, we can't live without it, so springs…'

'They are clean, fresh water born from the earth itself. They heal, cleanse and free us from the past; there is magic in that.' She stood up, patting her hands dry on the front of her skirt. 'Not the sort of magic Granger would like; real magic.'

'I think if you told Hermione, she would probably quite like it,' Harry murmured, pushing himself to his feet. 'She likes books and rules and recipes and lists, but she knows there are more important things. If she didn't, she wouldn't have risked her life helping me so many times.'

'She is loyal,' Daphne said. 'That much I cannot deny.' She stared down at the little white flame dancing in Briganti's lantern. 'And brave. There are certainly far worse Muggle-borns than she is, Umbridge has been recruiting that sort for some school, pseudo-auror squad. She tried to convince Malfoy and a few others from Slytherin, but no Pure-bloods want to help the Ministry for something like this. It would be shameful.'

'Blood-Traitor shameful?'

'Yes.'

'Huh,' Harry said. 'Well, I suppose if Malfoy can't stand Umbridge, he can't be wrong all the time. Just ninety-nine times out of a hundred.'

'Just because some Pure-bloods are desperate enough to hope Voldemort is their saviour, does not mean all Pure-bloods are bad,' Daphne said. 'Who, after all these long years of pain, would not see the signs and feel just a little hope…?'

'Some? Don't you?'

'A holl gwez yn y gwyrdd-gyd mhór, choronír y cælyn,' she breathed.

'Well, I don't understand any of that, so…'

'I know,' Daphne murmured.

Harry laughed. 'Helpful, Greengrass.' He dried his hands in his robes' pockets. 'So, what now?'

'That is it,' she said. 'We should go back, so we are not spotted.'

'I don't think I can fly us back up to my dorm…'

'By now, people will be waking up, dawn is late in winter.'

'We have a DA meeting soon. Hermione wanted it in the morning after breakfast for some reason. Something to do with house elf rumours about Umbridge not getting up early on weekends, so it's safer to meet in the morning now she's actively looking for us; I don't know, I just do what I'm ordered.'

'I will make my own way back,' Daphne said. 'If we arrive together after you were not in the dorm this morning, there will be more gossip.'

'Right. Yes.' Harry felt the heat rise on his cheeks. 'Sorry about that, Ronald can't be trusted not to talk to Lavender, and Lavender can't be trusted not to talk to, well, just about everyone.'

'As long as you do not tell them anything that is not true,' she said.

'I would never,' he promised. 'Mostly because Astoria would be really scared for you and your sister's actually kind of sweet, but also partly because it would just be a bit of a weird thing to do.'

'Go, Harry.'

He took a step back toward the wall of sweet-scented blackthorn. 'I'm going to tell the DA about our upcoming potential field trip to London today.'

'About what?'

'The prophecy,' Harry said. 'I'm going to steal it before Voldemort can. And get rid of it.'

'You should listen to it.' A little colour rose in her cheeks. 'The words of the Veiled Realm should not be wasted.'

'Well, maybe. Mostly I need to get it before Voldemort does. We can hear what it says after we've made sure he can't use it to recruit a load of Pure-bloods who are so desperate for some saviour to appear they'll follow anyone and do anything.'

'Not just anyone,' Daphne murmured. 'There are signs.'

'You could fake them.'

'But he has not.'

'Okay, no, I admit that he definitely managed to kill himself on my forehead and come back, but that's only one sign. He could have faked the rest.'

'It is quite an important one. Even the greatest wizards and witches do not return from Death.'

'Alright, I get it,' Harry muttered. 'He's still not a saviour, though. You talk about all your signs and prophecies and Old Ways, but you don't know Voldemort.' A small flare of anger rose in his breast. 'You haven't seen what I've seen.'

The corner of her mouth crooked. 'No, I have not. Good morning, Potter.'

'Good morrow, Lady Greengrass… eth,' Harry said, hooking a foot under his Firebolt and flicking it up off the ground. 'I'll see you later.' He threw a leg over it and kicked off, streaking across the gorse and over the Black Lake, trailing his fingertips through the top of the waves until he reached the shore and arced up to the dorm room window.

'Harry, what the hell?!' Seamus blurted.

'What?' He tucked the Firebolt back under his bed. 'Can't a guy go flying at a really suspicious time of the day without having questions thrown at him?'

'Yes,' Ron said. 'Especially if we don't want to be talked at by Hermione.'

'Oh, the DA, yes,' Seamus said. 'More importantly, Harry, why do you have blackthorn blossom down the side of your neck?'

'What the bloody hell is blackthorn?' Ron asked.

'I do?' Harry poked a finger down his collar and pulled out a white petal. 'I do.'

'Oh, that stuff.' Ron grunted. 'Got some of that in the orchard back home. Mum loves it. Gets all excited when it starts flowering about now every year. Dad just leaves her to it. We all do.'

'Fair enough.' Harry glanced around. 'Are we getting breakfast, or is someone bringing food again?'

'Terry Boot and some of the Ravenclaws said they'd bring stuff,' Ron said.

'That's the only thing you know about that's happening, isn't it?'

'I've got the important stuff covered, mate.'

Harry snorted. 'Clearly.' He tossed the blackthorn blossom out of the window and headed for the stairs. 'We should go, then, I want to tell you all some very important stuff that will make Hermione angry with me, so we should try and get there on time and keep calm before that.'

'Oh, what have you done now?' Ron groaned, trudging down the steps after him. 'Don't tell me you made another potion and you want us all to drink it?'

'I haven't, I don't even have anything potion-like on me—' Harry patted down his pockets and pulled out the vial of fake Felix Felicis '—except for this.'

'What is that?' Ron asked. 'It's very… bright.'

'It's what happens when your twin siblings try and make Felix Felicis,' Harry replied. 'It's probably safe to drink. Mostly.'

'What does it actually do?'

'Apparently, it feels like you're on Felix Felicis, liquid luck, but you're actually incredibly unlucky.' He tucked the bottle back into his pocket. 'I'm going to spike my own drink with it.'

Ron paused halfway across the Gryffindor Common Room. 'Your own drink?'

'Yes, Ronald.' Harry grinned. 'You see, I have terrible luck, so drinking this should give me even more terrible luck, turning all that bad luck positive.'

'I don't think that's going to work, mate.'

They ducked out of the portrait hole and headed across toward the seventh floor, joining the steady stream of other fifth year students and the handful of older and younger pupils tagging along.

'You know—' Harry took a rough guess at how many students were coming from those around them '— it's amazing Umbridge didn't notice sooner. The tables must have a few big gaps on them every time we do this during lunch, over an entire year's worth of people are coming now.'

'Don't think she's that smart,' Ron said. 'You've seen our textbook.'

'I haven't actually.' Harry chuckled to himself. 'Not for almost an entire term.'

'Oh, right, yeah.' A snort of laughter escaped Ron. 'Forgot about that.'

Harry stepped through the crowd, flashing Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott a smile as they ushered people out of his way for him. 'I have an announcement!' he declared. 'Of the utmost importance.'

Hermione sighed. 'Oh god. What now?'

'At some point in the near future I am going on an exciting extracurricular school trip,' he called, catching Daphne's eye as she slipped into the Room of Requirement in the wake of the last huddle of Hufflepuffs. 'There's no obligation to come with me, but if you want to, you're welcome to!'

'Come where?' Terry Boot asked.

'The Ministry of Magic, specifically that really suspect bit at the bottom where they keep all the prophecies.' Harry laughed to himself. 'No. I won't lie to you. Voldemort is back. I saw him come back. The papers have apparently said nothing about it, but he already broke all his old followers out of Azkaban—'

Susan Bones's head snapped up. 'How do you know…' She clapped her hand over her mouth and flushed red. 'Ignore me,' she squeaked.

'I saw it. I know because I saw it. Believe me or not, but I did.'

A low murmur swept through the cluster of students around Susan, and Terry Boot and Zacharias Smith exchanged a long look.

'And he's now after some prophecy; something he thinks everyone should see because if they see it, they'll all do what he wants; which is presumably murdering loads of Muggles and Muggle-borns.' Harry shrugged. 'Nobody else seems to be much good at stopping him; his giant snake, Nagini, already nearly killed Ron's dad down there. But, apparently, the prophecy thing also involves me, so I am allowed to go and take it. I'm going to go and take it so Voldemort can't use it to do anything bad. I'll go alone if I have to, but I wouldn't mind a bit of company or help to get there.'

A long silence settled over the room like snow.

'I will come.' Daphne's ice-blue eyes shone with a strange unreadable gleam as she held her arm aloft. 'If the rest are not brave enough, we will go alone together.'

'I'll help,' Susan Bones said.

Hannah Abbott stuck her arm in the air next to her.

'Me too.' Justin Finch-Fletchley raised his hand.

'Us.' Terry Boot and Cho raised their hands.

One by one, more hands went up around the rest of the room.

'Obviously, I'm coming, mate,' Ron said.

'Obviously,' Harry replied with a grin. 'Someone has to help me stop Hermione cursing Muggles in the street.'

Laughter rippled through the room.

'You coming Hermione?' Harry asked. 'Or can I tell the innocent Muggle-borns of London to come out from hiding?'

She rolled her eyes. 'Where you go, I go, Harry. You know that.'

A gentle, warm glow settled in Harry's chest and his grin softened a little. 'Well, there is no plan other than flooing to London, getting into the Ministry, and then stealing a big glass orb, but we probably don't need much of one. If they didn't notice an eight metre snake roaming around down there, they won't notice us.' He chuckled to himself, remembering Daphne's words on the Unspeakables and Saul Croaker. 'It's possible that Unspeakable Croaker, who was meant to be watching over the place, had an unfortunate mishap and ended up as a very macabre piece of sculpture.'

A dull thud rang through the room and the walls shook, sprinkling them all with dust.

'What the bloody hell was that?' Ron asked.

'Umbridge,' Hermione snapped. 'Who else?'

'We need a way out,' Harry said.

A door melted together out of the far wall.

'You know, I really rather like this room,' he announced. 'Let's all leave through there, it probably comes out somewhere very convenient. Head back to your Common Rooms and say nothing if asked.'

Susan raised her hand. 'What about going to—'

'Oh, we'll figure something out, don't worry,' Harry said. 'Last minute not-planning is my specialty. But, to be honest, it should be totally safe. You can just walk into the Ministry, and then all we need to do is sneak down a few floors and steal a big piece of glass. How hard can it be?'

Her lips twisted into a frown. 'My aunt—'

A second thud tore through the room and little cracks spiderwebbed across the wall.

'Time to go,' Harry announced. 'Abandon ship.'

'What?' Ron asked. 'Ship?'

'Idiom,' Hermione snapped, dragging him toward the door by the elbow. 'Come on, people!'

They poured out, spiralling down into the gloom of some narrow set of stairs.

Daphne lingered at the top of the steps. 'Do not wait for Umbridge, Harry. Hearing the prophecy is more important than anything she could ever do.' She vanished into the gloom as a third boom rippled through the room, spilling more dust across the floor.

Harry poked his head in after her.

A tight, spiral staircase plunged away into the dark, full of the echoing whispers and steps of everyone else. He sauntered down, following the winding steps down and stepped out of the frame of a painted staircase onto the corridor a floor below.

'Neat, right?' Ron said.

Harry admired the innocuous painting of stairs hanging in the small alcove between two suits of armour as the other students tiptoed away, filtering back toward their Common Rooms in small groups. 'Clever. I guess you can only get out that way, though.'

'Damn.' Hermione crouched down, rummaging through her bag with both hands.

Harry quirked an eyebrow at her. 'You okay down there?'

'I've lost the list,' she hissed.

'What list?'

'Of all the DA members!'

Harry laughed. 'Good. That means Umbridge can't find it either and do something annoying.'

'Yeah.' Ron nodded. 'Come on. Let's get some breakfast.'

'No, Ronald, we're going back to the Common Room.' Harry wagged his finger. 'To pretend we were just there the whole time.'

'But…'

Hermione huffed and swept her bag off the floor. 'I might have thrown it away with some other stuff in the library yesterday.' She stalked up the stairs. 'Let's go!'

'You heard our glorious leader,' Harry whispered to Ron, as loud as possible. 'Quick, before she remembers how much you like Lav's attitude toward blouse buttons and curses you.'

'Hard for her to forget when you keep saying it so often, mate.'

'I'm wearing her down, Ronald. Eventually, she'll get used to it.'

'Shut up and come on,' Hermione snapped. 'Before Umbridge hears you and comes down here.'

Harry chuckled, following her back up the stairs and through the Fat Lady's passage into the Gryffindor Common Room. 'What were you doing in the library? Didn't Umbridge close half of it and the whole Restricted Section so you can't do your Arithmancy project?'

'She did.' Fury flashed in Hermione's brown eyes. 'But I wasn't researching that, I was researching the Ministry.'

'Why?'

She grabbed his arm. 'We should stay here in the Common Room. If Umbridge comes looking for people, she'll come here first; she should find us, so she doesn't find someone who might give something away.'

'Probably true.'

Hermione glanced about. 'I was researching the Ministry after what Greengrass said about exams not mattering.' She chewed her lip. 'I just… I don't know, I assumed it was the same as the normal world, Harry, but—'

'It's not?'

'No.' She scowled. 'The Ministry is really weird and complicated. The country elects a minister who then structures his government departments and they enact policies that everyone voted for when choosing him, but they have to get all of those through a vote by the Wizengamot, which just seems to be a bunch of old Pure-Bloods with a thousand old titles, whose seats are passed down by some backwards right of blood. And anything that actually gets through the Wizengamot is still subject to the approval of the ICW, who select someone from the Wizengamot to act as their advisor and to represent their veto on the Wizengamot. It's…Harry we're not even really a democracy. The Wizengamot can veto anything they don't like. The ICW can too, but they almost never veto anything from what I read.'

'Daphne said that,' Harry replied, grinning as Hermione's eyes narrowed. 'She said the Ministry is just a smokescreen for the ICW.'

'Well, that's just rubbish,' Hermione retorted. 'I read all about it in the library. The Ministry runs everything; they were established to help replace the backwards feudal rule of the Wizengamot by the ICW, who wanted to help move the magical world forward from superstitions and dark magic.'

Harry laughed. 'So they set it up and… what?'

'And that's how it works.' Hermione frowned, fiddling with the clasp of her bag. 'And it sort of works, I guess, even if we only elect one person, everyone else still has to work for them, and the Wizengamot can't make laws, so they have much less power than they must have done before. The Wizengamot is just unnecessary, though, all those old feudal nobles just sit there and veto everything they hate. I read that only one in a hundred laws pass by them.'

'Mum has a seat on it,' Ron said. 'She was a Prewett and they go way back. She doesn't use it though, doesn't want to get involved in any of it.' He shrugged. 'Harry probably has—'

A familiar girlish cough rang out across the room. 'Mr Potter, Miss Granger and Mr Weasley. You three all need to come with me at once.'

Harry yawned. 'Can we get breakfast first?'

'She has the list.' Hermione jabbed her elbow into his ribs. 'Harry, someone must have stolen it and given it to her.'

'Well, given Ronald's recent record of betrayals, I can only assume it was him.'

'Nah, you know I wouldn't, mate.'

'Yeah, I know.' Harry turned around and met Umbridge's malignant glare with a bright grin. 'Let's go and see what's going to happen, maybe it will be exciting and fun?'

Umbridge marched them out and straight to the Headmaster's Office, puffed up like a proud, pink pigeon, her heels clicking with every short step as she strutted through the corridors. Harry laughed to himself just behind her, mimicking her pompous stride to the sound of Ron's sniggering.

Auror Dawlish stood at the foot of the Headmaster's staircase. 'Principal Secretary,' he said, dipping his head. 'The Minister has already gone up with Auror Proudfoot.'

'Hurry,' Umbridge snapped at Ron, scuttling up the steps, but stumbling in her heels on the uneven stone with every other stride.

Harry strolled after her. 'I hope Voldemort is somehow watching,' he said. 'This ought to be very entertaining.'

Dawlish barred his path with his arm. 'Hold still.'

'I think we're meant to be going up,' Harry replied.

'You are, but I have to search you first.'

'Just in case I have a really sharp quill?'

Dawlish patted him down, pausing as he felt the vial in Harry's pocket. 'What's that?'

'A potion.'

'Give it to me.'

Harry surrendered it with a sigh. 'I was quite looking forward to drinking that and seeing how amazingly lucky I was.'

'Felix Felicis.' Dawlish gave it a shake. 'Illegal to use in many circumstances, but not to brew or possess. However, it is illegal for anyone below the age of seventeen to drink or possess.'

'Didn't know that.'

Dawlish held out his other hand toward Ron and Hermione. 'Wands.'

They exchanged a glance and gave them up.

'What about my wand?'

'I checked all your pockets, Mr Potter,' Dawlish replied. 'You had no wand in them.'

'That's because it's up my sleeve—' Harry waved his left arm in the air '—see?'

'You shouldn't keep your wand there; it's harder to draw it out fast. Please give it to me for safe-keeping while you're upstairs with the Minister. While no true wizard or witch would ever attack another in such an… ignoble fashion; these days, with so many Muggle-borns coming into our world unaware of our traditions, the Ministry believes it is better to be safe.'

Harry pulled his wand out. 'I'm very fond of this. I better get it back.'

Dawlish blinked. 'A thousand years of my ancestors would burn with shame if I stole a wand, Mr Potter; you will get it back, I swear it on the magic of my forebears, may mine never join theirs in the next world if I prove false.'

'Seems fair.' Harry passed his wand across. 'Right, can I go up now? I'm probably missing something very funny.'

Dawlish pulled his arm back.

'Excellent.' Harry ambled up and drifted in through the ajar door. 'Morning, Professor Dumbledore. Sorry, I know I'm not meant to be around certain places because Voldemort might be watching, but Umbridge insisted that we come.'

Professor Dumbledore stroked the fierce, flame-red crest upon Fawkes's head with one finger. 'Quite understandable, Harry. The Minister was just informing me about my attempt to raise an army of underage students to overthrow him.'

'Most despicable of you, sir,' Harry said. 'Also, not very smart. It would have been much easier just to ask Neville to brew any potion in the Ministry, the resulting explosion would have surely taken the whole government out.'

'Harry!' Hermione hissed in his ear.

'What? It's true, Neville's a menace to society whenever he's within ten feet of a cauldron.'

Ron snickered into his hand, but Fudge shuffled his feet and the back of his neck turned bright red. Behind him, staring up at the ceiling rather harder than Harry thought necessary, Auror Proudfoot wrestled with his own smile.

'Minister Fudge—' Umbridge puffed herself up and held out the list '—I have the evidence right here.'

'Compelling stuff,' Harry said. 'You can tell it's all Professor Dumbledore because it's all in his handwriting and he even signed it.'

'He did?' Fudge crowed, snatching it from Umbridge's hand and skimming it; his glee crumbled into a frown. 'I don't see it.'

'I was being sarcastic, Minister.'

'Be quiet, Mr Potter,' Fudge retorted.

'Yes, Minister.' Harry chuckled under his breath.

Professor Dumbledore polished his palms together. 'Harry, it would be best if Cornelius was able to get a word in edgeways. I'm sure he has much he would like to say.'

'Sorry, sir.'

Dawlish squeezed past. 'No contraband but this vial of what I believe is Felix Felicis, Minister.'

'I'll take that,' Umbridge ordered. 'The Minister has more important things to do than fuss over minor contraband.'

Dawlish handed it over to her and she stuffed it into the inside pocket of her cardigan. 'That's all, Minister.'

'Well—' Fudge fidgeted, pulling the bowler hat from his head and turning it around in his hands '—I think it's quite clear that a group of students, a large group of students, have been engaging in illicit, dark practices and spreading dangerous superstitions. This group clearly takes some measure of inspiration from yourself, Dumbledore, and so you are not, as the ICW decrees, providing an education of suitable standard for the children of Britain.'

'And I suppose the Ministry, in service of the mandate of the ICW as upheld by Lord Pendragon within the demesne of Britain, must therefore take me into custody?' Professor Dumbledore asked.

'Oh, I think so.' A gleeful smile spread across Umbridge's broad, flabby face. 'We can't have someone out here spreading such dangerous lies.'

'Would you allow me a moment to speak to my students before I leave?' Professor Dumbledore asked.

'You may, but we will all remain present,' Fudge replied.

'Naturally. Harry, Hermione, Ronald, good luck with your OWLs.'

'Thank you,' Harry said. 'Come on, Ronald, say thank you.'

'Thank you,' Ron mumbled.

'Hermione won't say thank you, she's heard you might be in favour of treating Muggle-borns like people, sir.'

'Harry,' Professor Dumbledore chided. 'I'm sure there are more appropriate things you could say.'

'I'm sure there are too, sir.' Harry grinned. 'Are you being sent to Azkaban?'

'Cornelius?'

Fudge placed his hat atop his head. 'Well,' he blustered, 'there's no other place so secure—'

'Didn't everyone just escape?' Harry chimed in.

Professor Dumbledore's blue eyes sharpened. 'Is this something you… saw?'

'Yes.'

'Well, Cornelius, are you beginning, perhaps, to feel the first few creeping doubts?'

'It is impossible for a dead wizard to do anything, Dumbledore,' Fudge snapped. 'Now, Proudfoot, Dawlish—'

'Pardon me, Cornelius, but I fear I have a great many things to do, and no time to waste in Azkaban.' Professor Dumbledore clapped his hands together and raised them above his head.

Fawkes leapt from his perch with a soft trill and grabbed hold of Dumbledore's wrists, vanishing in a flash of red flame.

'Wait, all this time he could do that?' Harry asked. 'So in first year, when he had an urgent summons and went off by broomstick, and we had to face down possessed Quirrell, he could have just done that, come back, and fixed it all himself?'

Ron snickered.

'Unbelievable.' Harry laughed to himself. 'Funny, though. I can't blame him, I guess.'

'Dolores,' Fudge said. 'Lock down the Floo network of the castle and the village of Hogsmeade. Monitor all of the fireplaces of the castle.'

Harry sighed. 'Well, that's not really very convenient. Do you have to?'

'Yes, Minister,' Umbridge replied. 'What about… these three?'

'They're no trouble. We have far more important things to consider; Dumbledore may have been ousted, but the ICW will expect to hear we have made progress in combating the rise of old dark ways and superstitions. If things continue to devolve, Pendragon may take direct action.' Fudge gulped. 'Come with me to London, Dolores, we have to have an emergency convention of the Wizengamot, but then you will take over as headmistress to ensure our goal to prove that the younger generations are free from dangerous beliefs is reached.'

'Does that mean we can go have breakfast?' Harry asked.

Fudge swivelled on the spot. 'I want it understood, Mr Potter, by you, your friends, and anyone else here, that if the sort of people who believe in all that old nonsense truly begin to think that You-Know-Who has returned from the dead, they will do all sorts of insane and horrible things. Such a thing is impossible, of course, so spreading rumours to the contrary, which will stoke division and cause unrest and violence across the country, is unacceptable.'

'What if Voldemort was back?'

'Mr Potter… It is impossible to return from the dead. I don't know what you've been told as part of this… this club, but let me assure you that for eight hundred years, the Unspeakables, the greatest magical minds of this country, have studied the subject, and there is no way for the dead to return. If you saw anything, then at worst it is a clever forgery, no doubt designed by Sirius Black, who likely is attempting to seize his former master's place and lead those old followers into more violence.'

'So you're admitting that they all did break out of Azkaban.'

Fudge spluttered. 'Well, yes, I suppose, there was a mass breakout, but it's all well in hand and it's vital that rumours are not spread, Mr Potter. You simply do not understand the scope of what we would be dealing with. Fanatics with no fear, no respect for the law, nothing but dangerous delusional worship of a dead, dark wizard.'

Umbridge cleared her throat. 'I don't think, Minister, that Mr Potter will understand the situation. From what I've seen of him in my lessons, he is more interested in making silly jokes and messing around. As you might recall, he was similarly immature in the hearing before the Wizengamot.'

'I see.' Fudge glanced at Dawlish. 'Return their wands, Dawlish, and we will return to London.' He plucked the small box of Floo powder off the mantel and tossed a pinch into the flames. 'Minister's Office, London.'

'Bye.' Harry gave them a cheerful wave. 'See you soon.'

Fudge stepped into the whirling emerald flames and vanished, Umbridge and Proudfoot following him through. Dawlish placed their three wands on the desk and disappeared into the fading green flames.

'Bit of a setback, that,' Harry said. 'For us, I mean, Dumbledore's just got a load of free holiday. I suppose we could fly to London.'

Hermione shook her head. 'It would take hours, Harry. We would all freeze going that speed that high.'

'Ah well, I'll find a way.'

'That utter cow.' Hermione balled her fists. 'You know what she's going to do now?!'

'Probably something annoying,' Harry said with a little frown. 'Ronald, you're being very quiet.'

'Whatever you decide to do, I'll help.' Ron picked his wand up and handed Hermione's back to her. 'Least I can do after Dad, isn't it?'

Harry swept his wand off the desk and polished the smooth holly on his robes. 'Well, I shall come up with another work of genius, a plan to get us all to London.'

Ron snorted. 'As long as Hermione's helping.'

'If she feels she must.'

'I do. You will probably do something completely stupid and reckless and dangerous.'

'I might not,' Harry retorted. 'I resent these baseless accusations.'

'You tried to drink a potion that would make you feel like you were burning alive just to test it,' Hermione snapped.

'How else are you meant to know if it works, Hermione?' He cackled as she scowled. 'Don't tell me you'd rather test it on someone like Colin Creevey?'

'Oh, shut up,' she muttered. 'Let's go get some breakfast and make a plan.'

AN: Lots lots more via the linktree...

linktr . ee / mjbradley