Go To War, NOTHING MORE
Screaming at the ones we love
Like we forgot who we can trust
Screaming at the top of our lungs
On the grounds where we feel safe
Do we feel safe?
Do we feel safe?
Hush my baby; make no sound
Maybe we can wait each other out
It's a cold war
Let's go to war
He met Ginny that afternoon, after classes, before dinner. Her eyes were wide as she waited with him in the Room of Requirement -his bedroom- for 'five twenty-nine' to come closer.
"You said you spoke to him?" She repeated, this time giving him time to answer, her anxiety making her talk rapidly.
"Yeah, I… Spoke to him. He seems- he seems," Harry searched for the words, "I mean he doesn't seem like he's bad, or anything, just…" He didn't want to tell her that he'd watched Avalon and Eris carving runes into a stranger's heart as though it were a perfectly expected Saturday night activity, "All of this is up to you, Ginny. If you decide you don't want it that's fine. Just… You've thought about what I said about the Order, right?" He didn't like broaching the subject because she would invariably ask why he kept saying that.
"Is- Does Professor Widrich- is he a Death Eater?" Ginny ignored his question, making him nervous.
"I don't think so," Harry said; Tom, watching her carefully, said, "If he were?"
"I- don't know if I could- that would be…" She trailed off and Harry swallowed heavily.
"We might as well start walking," he said instead of letting her finish her thoughts.
He led her out of the room, and they didn't speak as they walked. There were students still in the corridors, stressing them out, but Tom had not yet needed to do more than glare to stop the staring.
They reached the Transfiguration classroom and Ginny paced, chewed her lips, and cast Tempus repeatedly until Cedrum walked toward them from the other end of the corridor; in forest green robes; letting them into the office without a word. He sat down at his desk and loaded his pipe with what Harry assumed was tobacco; gesturing for them to sit at the chairs removed from their desks, two of them, as though he knew Harry would be joining her.
"Do you prefer Ginevra or Ginny?" He asked, lighting the pipe with a match, and shaking it out.
"Uh… Ginny is fine," her eyes bulged out of her head.
"Now, tell me, what brings you here?" He puffed a cloud of smoke and Harry decided it definitely didn't smell like tobacco.
"Uh…" She looked at Harry, who watched her struggle.
He was happy to provide moral support but neither one of them wanted to decide or talk for her. Though Tom had all his eggs happily in one basket.
"Nec- Necro- I heard you teach…"
"Girl, you'll have to learn to say it, if you want to master it."
"Necromancy," she bit out, looking away.
He nodded, took another inhale, nodded again, exhaled, "And your experience with reanimation?"
She winced and looked at Harry again.
"She needs to know that nothing we say here will leave this room," Tom said, eyes on Ginny.
"I have dedicated my life to teaching necromancy to those gifted. I have done incredible things to maintain the safety and secrecy of my students, particularly while it was decidedly illegal. I won't endanger you," he puffed his pipe and Tom nodded at Ginny.
"He is telling the truth," he told her, not needing to read the professor's mind to know.
"I- my… Brother- he- he was- he was- killed at the ministry- in- June… Last year- I- accidentally… Reanimated him," she was shaking but still managing to talk.
He'd put his pipe down and it streamed a tiny trail of smoke into the air. He steepled his fingers, leaned forward and narrowed his eyes; looked between the two of them, "Accidentally…? Ronald Weasley? Well, now… He was reported dead on the fourteenth of June, this year? A year? And people think you killed him?" He pointed at Harry and let out a disbelieving laugh, making them both flinch in their seats, "Who taught you the runework?"
"I- I didn't know about runework until… I came back to Hogwarts. I found one book in the Restricted Section, but it was… It only helped… Some. Then in April I found a better book but-"
"Self-taught? So, from June to September, you… Held him up manually? With no experience or knowledge?" His eyes were as wide as his smile.
"Uh, yes. It was- really hard, actually," she said, and he laughed a loud snort.
"Yes! That is extraordinarily difficult! It's not even something I can do, child, and I have been raising the dead for eighty-three years," he seemed openly astonished, "When did you sleep?"
She shrugged, "Sometimes."
"Incredible. If you are looking for a mentor, I will happily teach you. I have two other apprentices, though, and I do not separate them from my work. They won't tell anyone you're here, and nor will I, but I will not teach you apart from them," he'd reloaded his pipe, and was watching her like a hawk.
She looked at Harry, silently questioning him.
"I've met them. Eris is a bit of a jerk- well, so is Avalon, really," he shot a glance at Cedrum, who just smiled with one eyebrow raised, "They're good, though, at- I think you'd… Learn- a lot."
Again, she looked at him like he was a perfect stranger slid into the brain of her friend, and he had to look away.
"Are they the ones who summoned all the skeletons from the lake? Hermione didn't say their names or even say- necromancy… They- they scared her… She barely told me; I don't know if she thought-"
"Yes," Tom interrupted her, irritated at the mention of Hermione.
"Are… Are you- Are you a Death Eater?" She asked Cedrum, who chuckled.
"No, I have no mark; but I will tell you that I owe him a great deal, and I am grateful for the Dark Lord's hospitality," he told her, chuffing his pipe.
"His hospitality?" She shook her head, scoffing, before Tom touched her arm.
"What were you expecting? Tell me honestly," he asked her, and she froze again, searching his face while Harry fought mild panic.
"I don't know…" She looked torn, on the verge of tears, "You couldn't ever tell Hermione… Or- anyone, Harry, right? You wouldn't, because they would all…" She let out a shuddering breath.
"Ginny, I know exactly what they'd do," Harry deadpanned, "I wouldn't do it to you. But if you do this you- you do run the risk-"
Tom interrupted him, "On the other hand, there are very few true necromancers left, and this opportunity has been served to you on far more than a silver platter, Ginevra Weasley."
'Oh, okay, you're trying to get her to recognize you. You know your Horcrux was trying to get her to- kill people, which makes perfect sense, actually, I'm sure she'll be so happy to know it's you trying to talk her into resurrecting corpses on the Dark Lord's behalf,' Harry snapped in his head.
'She cannot wait to get started.'
"I want to do it," she said, quiet but steady as she turned her gaze back to Cedrum, who smiled wide.
The Transfiguration professor told her that he would organize a schedule for her and let her know when it was ready. She walked with him back to the Room of Requirement, the halls nearly free of students.
She didn't say anything to him as she left him at the tapestry; wandered away wordlessly while Harry frowned after her. He paced to open his room, though it was only to grab his wand, which he'd left in his trunk.
His heart hammered as he made his way out of the castle and into the Forbidden Forest, not bothering with the cloak. If Cassiopeia wanted to follow him all she'd have to do would be to listen for his war drum pulse, and if he caught the attention of something in the forest… Tom was itching for a fight.
"Should we try with my wand? I-"
"Let me do it," Tom hissed, deeming the small clearing they'd found appropriate.
He raised his wand and cast a wordless Tempus, suppressing their magic to the best of his ability. The clock face that he summoned was too large, nearly ridiculous, but it told the time.
"Ventus," he said, trying verbal casting, and knocking down three heavily trunked trees with a gale-force blast of wind. He tried it again, trying to dial down the intensity, but still uprooting several more.
'You try,' Tom thought, and Harry hesitated.
"Bombarda," he blasted a hole in the dirt, much larger than intended. He brushed the clumps of dirt off his head, out of his robes, and corrected his stance, "Incendio," then quickly, as the fire burned wildly, crackling through the trees as though they'd been kindling for years, "Aguamenti!" a small inland tsunami took care of the wildfire.
"I can't get it to not be… Too much."
"I have my suspicions that we could do all of this and… More, with the curse."
"I don't want that. I don't want to hear that I want it to be how it was," Harry said, frowning at the carnage he'd produced in an alarmingly short period of time, magic so powerful it was impractical. A nuke to a nail. No finesse.
Harry tried again, nonverbally, without his wand, in the hopes that he could wrangle some sort of accuracy. Another Bombarda that was nearly indistinguishable in size from the first one. He shook his arms violently as though they were the problem and tried to summon an egg-sized rock, crushing it to a fine powder and groaning.
Tom ignored him, summoned the wispy green fluorescence, and transformed it to show the time; small, glowing, snaking, dancing numbers told them it was ten minutes to eight.
He summoned the curse proper from his left hand and focused, transmuting the ache easily to fire, sending it crawling lazily across the wet forest floor; sizzling and spitting green-black effervescence. He cancelled it, the flames vanished in an instant. There was plain, unshielded joy emanating from Tom.
"It is beautiful. Powerful. It feels…" Tom said in Parseltongue, inhaling deeply, trying to defend himself against Harry's distaste, "I know you think so too. I can feel it."
Harry's stomach rolled as Tom spoke and he wasn't sure whose fault it was. He stood up and adjusted his robes, -ignored the way he almost felt like he had a fever- having learned enough for the night.
He collected his things and wandered back up the grounds to the castle, past curfew officially, not that he wasn't bizarrely free to do whatever he liked. He'd been chasing his thoughts like a dog would its tail as he wandered through the darkened corridors, down one of the poorly lit sections of the castle. He'd almost missed the writing on the wall, small, at face level, in black ink, partly smeared but legible:
Dumbledore's Army, Still Recruiting
He blasted the stones with the darkness without thinking, deleting the message and some bricks as his mouth fell open and his stomach dropped.
"No…" His mind raced, so did Tom's, and both of them knew that Dumbledore's Army would be indistinguishable from the Order of the Phoenix.
He sprinted to the Gryffindor Tower, but by then it was past curfew; there were no students in the halls; so, without the password, he'd had no choice but to walk, shaking, back to the Room of Requirement.
"I want to see his mind again," Harry said as soon as the doors had shut behind him. He needed to know what the Dark Lord knew, if there was any sign that…
"Alright," Tom said, pulling the thread, the anxiety mutual.
He sank them into the Dark Lord's mind without preamble.
"-You, he considers prestige paramount. Power to be paramount. A bit like you, if you were absolutely stark raving fucking mad. I still don't recommend any of it," Cassiopeia said, arms crossed; legs bouncing.
"We are past the question of whether we will go, and onto the question of what we will do when we are there," he told her.
She rolled her eyes, "I hate it. I don't want to go. Hate you. There are… People there who- know me," she looked away and he sat forward.
"I sincerely doubt that."
She gave him a small smile, "So, a show of force. As big a power show as you can manage," she rolled her eyes as she spoke.
'You're not powerful you're a worthless WASTE WASTE you're nothing NOTHING but scared all the time scared all the time I see you I SEE YOU I HATE YOU HAATE.'
He flinched and she noticed, frowning like she always did.
"Are you dying? Is that it? Are you hiding a terminal disease?"
"No, Cassiopeia."
'I'll make you WISH YOU WERE DEAD DYING DEAD.'
Harry pulled them back out, "Wow… Uh-"
Tom was silent, but was strangely open with his thoughts, mostly concern, that this would mean… Something. He didn't know what yet. The Horcrux, he thought, could easily send Voldemort mad all over again.
Cassiopeia and the Dark Lord had been in the sitting room at the Malfoy Manor, and as far as he could tell, there was no indication that he knew about Dumbledore's Army.
"How often do you think that happens?" He asked, referring to the Horcrux berating Voldemort.
"It is constant, Harry."
"…Well- he's- earned it. I- think he… earned it-" He wasn't sure why he tripped over his words.
Tom was silent, his thoughts hidden immediately.
"Of course, you wouldn't think so," Harry said, ignoring the strange guilt. He still didn't respond, so he laid back on his bed, staring at the sky.
He got up before sunrise and waited outside the Gryffindor Common Room again, resolving to ask Cassiopeia or Ginny for the password. Ginny exited the portrait in a group, looking, again, surprised to see him standing there. She was with Hermione, Lavender, and Parvatti, which made his heart somersault.
If anyone was behind the DA, it was Hermione. It had been her idea in the first place. The youngest Weasley attempted to break free of the group and come toward him, but Lavender stopped her, grabbed Ginny's wrist with a foul look on her face. The redhead seemed genuinely torn between them, and it was enough to turn Tom on his heel, walking away without a word. She didn't follow him, and Harry began to panic.
'You don't think this means… Do you? That she- that she's going to choose the order anyway? Will he- will he honour it if she-'
'Harry, we are lucky to have come as far as we have, dealing with him, while he is being actively tortured by your Horcrux. If she continues to push… If you will let me, I could disband it without him ever knowing-'
'No. We're not going to… Hurt them, or scare them- I've already-'
'I cannot think of another way-'
'Well try harder.'
They interrupted each other's thoughts several times.
He was met with silence as he found himself standing outside the Room of Requirement, not entering nor pacing, his heart jumping repeatedly, stomach rolling as his fingers twitched.
He decided to go to the Great Hall for breakfast, to put his eyes on the students who were members of Dumbledore's Army in his fifth year, and maybe read some minds. He was further alarmed to find not a single member in the hall. Ignoring the whispers, glances, and the outright escapes of the other students, he pulled out the map under the table and searched for a name he recognized. Ginny was still with Hermione, Lavender, and Parvatti, and had been joined by Padma, Susan Bones, and Cho Chang, in the library. Anthony Goldstein, Lee Jordan, Angelina Johnson, Luna Lovegood, and Neville Longbottom were approaching the library in a group. Which all at once confirmed what he was guessing at.
'Tom. What do we do? What the hell do they think they're going to do?' He thought, jamming the map back in his robes and rushing out of the hall, though he had no idea where he was going or what he could do.
'Should we talk to Hermione?'
'That has gone so well every time, I see why you would formulate that plan.'
'Don't be a- can you help me please?'
'Talking to Hermione will get us nowhere, she is too stubborn, and she is determined to wind up dead. You are unwilling to tell Ginny everything, or anything, and so, where does that leave us? You do not want to hurt them, to scare them, they are going to get themselves killed do you understand? He will not tolerate this. He made that Vow before that thing in his head woke up, and he is itching to punish YOU for it.'
Harry swallowed repeatedly, very aware of Tom's change in tone, undecided in the hallway; two Death Eaters watching him swaying on his feet.
'That thing?'
There was a long pause, 'I am mad at you.'
Along with his words, a disproportionately massive wave of rage hit him, taking his breath away. He frowned in silence, trying to understand what exactly he'd done this time.
'I- why? For- what? For Dumbledore's Army?' He asked in his head when he got his bearings.
'Because you are such an idiot.'
He shook it off, ignoring Tom's apparent fury, that he continued to let Harry feel. He decided his only immediate option was to go to class. He couldn't go to the library and confront them in a group, there was no way that it wouldn't ultimately play out with Tom losing his temper, but he didn't know what he could even do if he got one of them alone.
He'd finally received a class schedule, left on the ground under a rock outside the Room of Requirement by, he assumed, Cassiopeia, so he knew he had potions first, with the Ravenclaws. And with the new Potions Master, who was allegedly deranged. He could keep an eye on them in class, at least some of them.
When he entered the dungeon classroom, he was one of the first, and the red-headed, pug-faced woman behind the desk zeroed in on him immediately. Tom sat them down smoothly, not breaking eye contact with her, face blank. She kept smiling at him; her eyes glassy and wide, and Tom willed her to do something, wanted to show her why it was a bad idea. Harry was relieved when Hermione entered the room, with Cho Chang, and Lavender, none of them looking at him as they took a seat as far from him as possible. He'd been hoping one of them would make eye contact with him; that he could take a clue right out of their heads, but they almost seemed to know not to look…
'Do you think Ginny told Hermione that we… Tried Legilimency?'
'I don't know.'
Alecto Carrow didn't introduce herself, merely grunted at them to open their books and attempt to brew Veritaserum, then she kicked her heavy boots up onto the desk and began reading a copy of Witch Weekly, frowning and warning them not to talk to her even or especially if they were on fire.
The lesson went with several hiccups around the room that were ignored, resulting in not a single successful potion. Tom noted that he'd need to tell Cassiopeia that the class wasn't going well. Harry had told him that they had bigger issues. He shot Carrow a glare as he exited the classroom first, seeking Ginny on the map once he was free in the corridor.
She was with Luna, joined as he watched by Neville, so he ran for the courtyard he'd spotted them in. He burst through the doors mostly by accident, so their eyes were already on him as he jogged toward them.
"Hello, Harry!" Luna said, "We were just… Doing nothing- out here before our next class. How are you?"
"Ginny, can I talk to you?" He asked her, shrugging off Luna, eyes on the redhead.
"Sure, Harry," she seemed stiff, and Harry felt like he wanted to head-butt a wall.
She followed him to the corner of the courtyard, Neville and Luna watching them from their usual stone bench.
"Dumbledore's Army?" He asked, adrenaline making him fidget.
"I- what?" She gave an incredulous laugh and kept her eyes off his.
"Dumbledore's. Army," Tom growled, and she flinched.
'Stop it. Don't,' Harry demanded in his head.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she snapped, avoiding his face; frowning deeply as she stomped away from him, back to Luna and Neville, while Harry tried to recover his breath.
"Are you serious?!" He shouted after her as all three left him in the courtyard.
'All of this could have been avoided.'
'No one asked you,' Harry thought back, standing still in the courtyard.
Panic rose as it dawned on him that he was powerless.