The Heart of Gryffindor
by SJR0301
Chapter Thirteen
The sun was high in the sky when Harry woke the next morning. He could feel its warm rays on his face, but he was reluctant to open his eyes and face reality. A pleasant lassitude enveloped him and he realized that someone was holding his hand. The faint, clean scent of lavender told him who it was. He wished he could wake like that every morning, rested and peaceful and ...cared for.
He opened his eyes and observed them sitting there. Ginny was holding his hand, and her long hair tickled where it draped itself over his arm. On the other side, Hermione was sitting knitting one of her endless succession of elf garments. He closed his eyes again and struggled to lock up the pleasure he felt at their presence, the sheer relief that they were there, that they still cared despite his behavior.
But he couldn't do it. He opened his eyes and said in a hoarse whisper, "I think you've made more hats and socks than there are elves here, Hermione." She jumped and clucked at the dropped stitch and then looked at him quite severely.
"You've led us a merry dance, Harry Potter. Don't you think it's time to be more considerate of your friends' feelings!"
He sighed, relieved that she was willing to talk to him at all, and said quite meekly, "I expect so. I know I was rotten. I knew you'd be mad."
Ginny looked down at him and said, "We are the ones who should apologize. We should have known you had your reasons."
Hermione clucked again, but then her face relaxed and she gave in instead to a faintly worried frown. "How are you feeling, then?" she asked.
"Fine," he said. "Where's Ron?"
"Sleeping," Ginny answered.
"Sleeping! It must be near noon," Harry said.
"Yeah," Ginny answered. "But he was sitting up with you all night. We had to make him go to sleep so he won't have to miss dueling practice this afternoon."
"What dueling practice?" Harry asked.
"Every other Saturday we have it," Hermione answered. "Dumbledore announced it the first night back."
"Oh," Harry replied. He had missed the first night and had only arrived early on the first morning of classes. He stretched and started to swing his legs out from under the blanket until he realized they were bare.
"How soon does practice start?" he asked.
"In about an hour," Ginny answered. "And what makes you think you're going today? You're not fit to do anything more than lie in that bed and rest."
"Course I am," he answered. "Anyway, that's the whole reason I had to come back to school. I have to train. I'm not missing this."
"Oh, for Merlin's sake," Ginny said. "I give up. You talk some sense into him, Hermione. He listens to you." Hermione favored him with another one of those looks that made him think of McGonagall.
"Oh, why not let him fight," she said. "If he can stand up without collapsing and get by Madam Pomfrey, then I expect he's all right."
"Damn, you play dirty sometimes," Harry, said. "You don't really think I'm waiting for Madam Pomfrey to lecture me, do you? Besides," he added as he smothered a yawn, "I feel better than I have in ages. I wonder what was in that potion Flamel gave me besides sleeping potion. Dragon blood, maybe?"
"Flamel?" Hermione exclaimed. "That old man! That was Flamel?" Harry nodded.
"You don't suppose it was..." Hermione stopped and whispered, "you know. The elixir?"
Harry yawned again and his stomach rumbled quite loudly making Ginny giggle. He grinned sheepishly and thought how nice it was to hear her laugh again. "It can't be," he answered. "The potion, I mean. The Stone was destroyed. He wouldn't make another with Voldemort running around loose and ready to grab it."
Hermione frowned and said, "But how is Flamel still alive if he isn't taking the potion anymore?"
Harry shrugged and said, "I dunno. I don't think he knows. He told me he expected to die when he destroyed the original stone and stopped taking the elixir. His wife did die, but he didn't. He was terribly sad about it, too."
"Really?" Ginny asked.
Harry nodded again. He watched Hermione and saw that she was now busily occupied with a new mystery. He thought affectionately that he liked to see her thinking. Sooner or later she would come up with the most amazing deductions and make them all feel so stupid for not having seen what she did. It struck him that he didn't mind feeling stupid next to Hermione like he would just about anyone else. He grinned at Ginny and she giggled again.
"So," he said, tugging at her hair, "are you going to find my clothes so I can get downstairs and eat before practice?" She gave him a look almost as severe as Hermione had, but then she relented. She tiptoed over to a corner and brought him his jeans and boots, and he flung the covers over his head to put his jeans on so he wouldn't be too embarrassed by the girls' presence. He swung his feet out from under the covers and stood and he had to dig down deep to keep from falling again. But after a moment, the weakness passed and he walked quite jauntily out of the infirmary, giving Madam Pomfrey a wave as she sputtered and shook her finger at him.
"No more dangerous stunts!" she yelled after him. He made for the Great Hall feeling very relieved to be out of the hospital wing and even more relieved that Ginny and Hermione had not pressed him with questions about the previous day's events. They had not mentioned who had been killed or if the paper had said, and he was afraid to ask as the weight of guilt was quite burdensome already.
Ron was eating lunch with his usual enthusiasm when they arrived at the Gryffindor table. He hailed Harry as if there had never been a rift between them and when Harry sat down next to him and said, "Pass the coffee," he relaxed quite completely and started chatting about the Quiddtich team's prospects for the year.
"I'd like to get the cup again this year," he said. "It's our last year. Can you believe it?" Harry shook his head. Across the table, Neville swallowed a chunk of tomato wrong and choked.
"Our last year," he chimed in, "and my Gran want me to apply to the Ministry for a job. But I don't think I'll ever make it. My grades just aren't that good."
"You know what, Neville," Harry said, "You're worrying about the wrong thing."
"I am?" Neville asked.
Harry nodded. "You should be worrying about what you want to do. Not what your Gran wants."
"But," Neville said, "but my Gran'll be unhappy with me."
"Well what do you want to do?" Seamus asked. "We've got career advice again this year and they help you fill out job applications, too. Only I don't know what I want to do. Something out of the country maybe." He looked sidelong at Harry and said, "Somewhere far away from You-Know-Who. Do you think they know about Hogwarts in New Zealand?"
"Of course, they do," Hermione, answered. "Hogwarts is the best school for wizards in Europe, or maybe in the world."
"Definitely," Harry agreed.
"So what do you want to do, Neville?" Hermione asked.
"I want," Neville, said, blushing quite red, "I want to be a healer."
"Better you than me," Ron said. "You know how many NEWTs you need for that?" Neville nodded and applied himself to his food.
Harry had a feeling Neville had a better chance of making a healer than he had of being an auror. Even if by some miracle he managed the NEWTs he'd need, there were still Fudge and Umbridge. Neither one would be happy to see him at the Ministry. He could use some career advice himself, he thought. If he managed to graduate at all.
At two o'clock, Snape and Bill came and cleared the Hall of everything. Bill stepped forward to speak and everyone quieted immediately. Even the Slytherins were silent as this was something new to Hogwarts. Not that they hadn't had a dueling lesson or two before. But that had been with Lockhart and no one could think of that as a real lesson.
"This, as you know, will be the first year that Hogwarts students are required to learn to duel. There is not one of you here who doesn't realize there is good reason for this. You Know Who is back and stronger than ever. And everyone of you may someday find yourself in a place where you must fight and fight to win. So, today we begin. We will have to work in small groups at a time while others watch as we haven't enough weapons for everyone, yet."
"But, what about our wands? We all have wands," Ernie Macmillan said.
"You will continue to work with your wands in Defense Against the Dark Arts," Snape said. "But you will learn other forms of fighting. Some of you will be building on your lessons from last year. For some of you younger students, you will learn other weapons for the first time. But all of you will learn." Snape's dark gaze made many students flinch. He lined them up in pairs and began to pass out swords. Some of the students swished the air happily as they received theirs. Others took them gingerly as if the sword might poke them if they failed to keep an eye on it.
Harry wasn't in the first group of students, which he didn't mind at all. He watched and saw that Neville was doing quite well. Far better than one would ever have expected from the clumsy boy he had been. He would never be graceful or a true athlete. But he worked quite seriously and with great concentration. His round face was screwed up with determination, a determination Harry could well understand. He thought, perhaps Neville sees his Mum's face when he practices. Or perhaps his Dad's. And then more darkly, perhaps, Bellatrix Lestrange, leering with her ruined beauty and lethal strength. After two bouts, they had to switch. The second group started to line up and pair off.
Harry stepped forward and Snape hissed quietly to him, "What are you doing here? You are supposed to be in the hospital wing."
"I'm fine," Harry said briefly. He held out a hand for a sword and Snape handed it to him with a glare that almost made it to the old level of hostility. That was okay with Harry, too. It made him feel like everything was almost normal, for once. At least, until he noticed that no one would practice with him.
Harry looked questinoningly at Ernie Macmillan and Ernie said hastily, "I'm parcticing with Justin."
Harry looked inquiringly at Anthony Goldstein, but he too shook his head. "Michael and I are practicing together," he said, pointing at Michael Corner. Corner nodded vigorously and took his place directly opposite Anthony.
Snape glanced about and said, "What about Mr. Malfoy, then? It won't be the first time you've faced off."
"Not a chance," Malfoy said, "I'd prefer not to be killed before I graduate, thank you." The Hall went quite quiet and Harry felt perfectly horrible. It was the first time that Malfoy had openly refused to face him. How many of the others, he wondered, really thought he'd kill if given the opportunity?
"That's ridiculous," Ron said. "Here, I'll fight him. It's just practice, anyway."
"You've already had a turn, Mr. Weasley," Snape answered.
"Then I'll have an extra turn," Ron said, "unless you want to practice with him?"
"The point," Snape replied, "is for the students to learn."
"They can learn by watching, too." Bill had made that rejoinder with a perfectly straight face, but Harry thought he was rather amused. Harry tried not to be annoyed, but he didn't succeed altogether.
"If you wouldn't mind, sir?" he said bowing very slightly to Snape. Snape gave him a look that said he'd pay for this down the road. Extra homework, a detention. But that was all right. At least he'd get to practice. And, he hoped, he wouldn't end up being too embarrassed.
Snape picked up a sword and gave it a controlled flourish and then stood at the ready for the bout to start. Harry lifted his sword to cross it with Snape's and focused on seeing the blade and nothing else. Snape made a small thrust testing Harry's defenses; Harry parried that one easily and the fight was begun. He was not surprised that Snape was good at it. He was quick and precise and Harry thought he'd hate to be in real fight with him. He concentrated on setting up a defense, parrying each time with the least force necessary so as not to wear himself out.
But even so, he found himself tiring much sooner than he should have. Perhaps Snape had noticed, for he disengaged and said,"Not bad, but you need to improve your strength and stamina."
Harry caught his breath and managed a relatively calm nod. He was also quite surprised that Snape hadn't taken the opportunity to humiliate him thoroughly and either disarm him or trip him up.
Harry watched the students who went in the third group and then the fourth. He couldn't help thinking that Dumbledore had been deadly serious when he had waved the piece of paper on it with Dumbledore's Army on top. It struck him that if Fudge were here, he would think all of his fears had come true. Before him, in fact, Dumbledore's Army was taking shape, though most of those there did not know it.
At the end of the practice, the students straggled out gossiping, many of them eyeing Harry almost fearfully again. And he heard a couple whispering, "Griffths said he had some weird episode yesterday...don't blame Malfoy for not wanting to fight him...they say he's a bit barmy, you know...it's that scar from You Know Who or something."
His stomach squirmed at the thought; there were times now when he wondered about it himself. Harry couldn't help but jump a bit when Bill laid a hand on his shoulder and said, "Would you wait a moment please? I'd like to talk to you."
Harry nodded and waited for Bill to give a final bit of correction to one of the fourth years. He wondered gloomily what else he had done to warrant the extra attention. Bill pulled Harry off to the side and they both watched Ron and Hermione supervising the return of the swords to their racks and then the Hall being set up for dinner.
Bill shook his head and said, "Who'd have thought it? Ron has really come along, hasn't he?"
"Not really," Harry answered. And when Bill looked at him in surprise and with the beginnings of offense, he clarified. "He was always that good. It's just nobody noticed because he was always in someone else's shadow. Yours or Charlie's or Percy's or Fred and George." Bill looked at Harry thoughtfully and added, "Or yours."
"My fame, you mean," Harry replied fiercely. "I spend half my time in my own shadow. The one that's been created for me by well-meaning gossips and ill-meaning journalists." He watched his friends again and added, "I don't suppose the ill-meaning journalists have written about yesterday's attack, have they?"
"No," Bill answered. "Not a word. Not in the Daily Prophet and not even in the Quibbler."
"What about the Times?" Harry asked, "Or the Guardian?" And at Bill's lifted eyebrow, he added, "Muggle papers."
"Ah," Bill said. "I don't know about that. I don't read the Muggle papers."
"Well, it's too bad we can't get them delivered here," Harry said. "We might find out more about what's going on than we do with Fudge censoring things."
"What makes you think he is?" Bill asked.
"Because there was an attack yesterday," Harry answered. "And if it's not in the Daily Prophet, it's because someone leaned on them to keep it out."
Bill looked at Harry and said quietly, "That's what I wanted to ask you. Do you know who it was they attacked?"
"No," Harry answered. "I...don't know." He closed his eyes and tried to get a picture of the victims, but all he could see were the guards going down and a vague blur of others behind...dressed in Muggle clothes. That much he knew. He shook his head and thought; I'll have to try harder to see next time.
"Does your Dad know?" Harry asked. Bill shook his head.
"I don't know. I guess Dumbledore knows. Maybe the Muggles contacted Fudge and him, but by the time Dad got there, the whole place was jammed full of Muggle police and he couldn't get near. The Death Eaters had gone already, too. And Dad thinks we'll have big trouble with the Muggle authorities now. He thought I should warn you. Keep your head down, if you can Harry. Things are heating up again."
"Yeah," Harry said. "But it's a bit hard when I haven't got enough control of what goes inside my head. And if you say I'm going barmy..."
"I don't think you going barmy," Bill said softly. "But you are going to drive Ron and Ginny barmy at the rate you're going." Harry winced and felt even worse than before. Then he thought and said even more softly, "Better they're mad at me and safe, Professor Weasley."
Bill flashed a look at him and turned rather red. "Mind your tongue," he growled. "I may be your best friend's brother but I won't be cheeked, even by you, Harry Potter."
"I wasn't being cheeky," he replied.
"Perhaps not," Bill conceded. "But just the same." He gave Harry a very hard look and added, "And don't play around with Ginny's feelings. She's got a bit of a thing for you. I don't want her hurt."
"Neither do I," Harry answered. "Neither do I."
There was no mention of the Death Eater attack on Sunday or on Monday. Instead, the Daily Prophet had an article about illegal flying carpet imports and a large front-page opinion on the Ministry's stupid refusal to allow for a comfortable family vehicle. Harry threw the paper down in disgust. The Quibbler, he thought, would be better than that. On the back page, however, his own name caught his eye. Harry balled the paper up intending to throw it out, but then thought better of it.
Preparing himself for annoyance, he found himself shocked instead at the picture on the back page. It showed him frozen in the moment of stabbing Voldemort, his own sword, the Sword of Gryffindor, plunged straight through Voldemort's heart and Voldemort's great black sword sticking out of Harry's back. He couldn't imagine how the picture had been taken or how it had gotten to the Daily Prophet. And then he thought it might not be a photograph at all, as it wasn't moving.
"What is it, Harry?" Hermione asked. She took the crumpled paper from his nerveless hands and dropped her cup of tea on the floor at the sight of the picture. "Are you all right?" she whispered.
Harry simply shook his head. He shut his eyes and tried to clear the picture from his mind, and the memories that had flooded to the front with it.
"Did you read the article?" she asked. He shook his head and managed to say, "No, I'd rather not." Just the same, he opened his eyes and saw the headline below the picture: "Our Only Hope?" and that made him feel sicker than ever.
"I think I'll go to class," he said avoiding Hermione's anxious gaze. He slung his book bag over his shoulder and walked out of the Hall, conscious that people were staring at him again. He tried to walk at a normal pace so that they wouldn't think he was mad or cursed or dangerous and as soon as he reached an empty hallway, he ran toward the Defense classroom as though he were being pursued. He slowed up and walked sedately in lest Bill see him in such dither. There was no one there yet, fortunately, and he was able to sit and wait for his breathing and his heart to slow. When the other students began to straggle in, he was sitting with his head bent over their textbook, "Curses: How to Make and Break Them."
Oddly, no one spoke at all while they were waiting for Bill to arrive. Instead of the usual chatter and laughter, there was a great hush, but Harry could feel eyes on him, speculative, fearful, sympathetic. But no one dared to speak and he was just as glad they didn't. Bill, perhaps, had not read the paper yet. He conducted the class as he always did, with a brisk efficiency and cool expertise that Harry usually enjoyed.
When it was Harry's turn to try the day's curse-breaking, however, he could feel the sudden hush again and for the second time that term he said, "I'll pass if you don't mind."
Worst of all, was the wave of palpable relief that manifested itself in the faintest of collective sighs. A great breath let out. Bill made no remark and called on Neville as if a student refusing to try was a minor, everday occurence. Harry sat and let the class go by pretending to pay attention, but he felt as though the class were happening in some other place and he was separated from that place by time and distance that could not be bridged. So he was just as startled as everyone else when Professor McGonagall interrupted the class.
"Professor Weasley," she said, "I need to borrow Harry Potter for a while." For a second, Harry thought Bill would refuse. His face tightened and then he nodded reluctantly. He looked at Harry and appeared to be on the verge of saying something, but he merely nodded again for Harry to go. Harry swept up his books and followed McGonagall out of the class and all the way to Professor Dumbledore's office.
"Am I in trouble?" he asked.
"I fear we are all in trouble," McGonagall answered. Her stern face contracted slightly and she said softly, "You haven't done anything wrong, Potter. Keep that in mind." She hesitated and added before lifting the griffin doorknocker, "Believe in yourself, Harry. That's something only you can do for yourself."
The door swung open and Harry saw that Professor Dumbledore was there and standing before the Headmaster's wonderful desk was Cornelius Fudge.
"There he is!" Fudge said. "Come along, now. We've got to hurry."
"Come along where?" McGonagall bristled.
"Ministry business," Fudge answered. "Order business. He was inducted, wasn't he?"
Harry's stomach clenched. Was Fudge going to make him challenge Voldemort now? Was that his answer to the other day's events. He looked at Dumbledore and saw that the Professor was in a rare fury.
"He was," Dumbledore answered. And answering Harry's thought, he added, "This is about Lord Voldemort, but we are not going to fight him just now. A rather difficult matter it would be, too, as we don't know where he's gone to." Dumbledore glared at Fudge and his blue eyes were full of anger. "I see no reason for students to be dragged out of classes for your politcal agenda, Minister."
Fudge's face-hardened. "This isn't my political agenda, Albus. This is for our whole world. Perhaps you would like to see the wizard world revealed in full to the Muggles and subjected to Muggle rule. I, for one, will oppose that."
"You may not be old enough to recall, Cornelius," Dumbledore replied, "but it was I who authored a number of our laws on Secrecy. I may have been wrong, but I did do it."
"You see, Dumbledore, that's just what I mean," Fudge replied. "And this is important. The Muggle Prime Minister must be pacified or all of our plans will be for nothing."
"You're going to see him again?" Harry blurted out.
"We are going to see him again," Fudge answered. "He liked you. He was impressed with you. He asked for you. So I must ask you to do your duty and come with me. A day out of classes isn't so bad."
Dumbledore gave Fudge a sharp look and said, "Very well, we will go."
Fudge started to protest and then at a glance from Dumbledore seemed to think better of it. "What about Muggle clothes?" he asked. "You're wearing robes, Dumbledore. You can't show up like that. And I don't have time to wait for you to change."
Dumbledore merely took out his wand. Harry noticed that Fudge flinched as Dumbledore waved it and his wizard's robes transformed into a blue suit. He couldn't help thinking that Dumbledore looked odder in the suit than he did in wizard's robes. A glance at Dumbledore's calm face told Harry that the elderly wizard had outflanked Fudge once more. At least in part, as it was now obvious that Dumbledore did not want Harry going on this 'trip' at all. Dumbledore waved his wand and a blue teapot came soaring toward them and hung in the air. Harry recognized it as a portkey.
"On my word then," Dumbledore said. And upon his command, "Now!" they all seized the portkey and Harry once again felt the whirl of wind and color that were the sensations of travel by portkey. They reappeared in the lobby of the Ministry by the refurbished Fountain of the Brethren. Fudge immediately led them toward the elveator to the Visitors' entrance where a Ministry limousine awaited them. As he had in the Great Hall, Harry could feel people's eyes on him and some were pointing. One even said as they entered the elevator, "Thank Merlin. Now things will be better."
Harry had expected to return to the place they had been before, but when they arrived, the building they went into was much, much older. Dark wooden beams supported a whitewashed ceiling and the wood of the door was so dark with age it was nearly black. They waited in an ante-room for only a moment before a man in a suit came and said, "Minister Fudge?" and then waved for him to follow.
"Wait here," Dumbledore said to Harry, and he followed after. Fudge turned his head and said, "The boy should come, too," but the man ushered them on and Harry was left behind.
He passed the time speculating on whose house they were in and wondering just how much trouble was coming. He tried to imagine wizards and magic being open and accepted in the Muggle world and could not. He thought that if wizards were truly brought back to public scrutiny, it was much more likely that Muggles would shun them and distrust them, fear them even, as Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia loathed and feared Harry.
And he had an inkling that the Muggles would want to make laws and restrict wizardry. He almost couldn't blame them, if wizards like Voldemort were the ultimate evil they feared.
Sooner than he would have liked, the man in the suit came back for Harry and Harry followed him down the hall into a large and wonderful room. Like the ante-room, the ceiling had dark beams and the walls were of the same dark wood halfway up, and then they rose, in a creamy whitewashed stone to meet the ceiling. Along the walls were glassed in shelves with old leather books and older scrolls of parchment. A large octagonal table with a cracked green leather top sat in the middle of the room surrounded by heavily carved dark wooden chairs with clawed feet. One wall had only a large portrait and glassed pictures that contained inked charts of the skies exactly like those they made in Astronomy and other charts that were clearly horoscopes, exactly like those they made in Divination.
One of the charts was particularly large and decorated with signs and markings in gold leaf and purple ink. The one portrait was of an older man with a long pointed white beard. His head was covered with a black cap and he wore an antique suit with a high ruffled collar. The man in the portrait had been the owner of the house, clearly, because the portrait showed him sitting at the very octagonal table around which the others were gathered. In the portrait, scrolls were laid out on the table, and a large crystal ball with golden feet rested in the center of the table along with a sextant and an armillary. Harry was fascinated by the portrait as the man's shrewd eyes looked much too alive for the ordinary Muggle painting. And the man himself looked familiar, though Harry could not recall where he had seen him.
His attention was drawn to the one unfamiliar occupant by that person's voice, a woman's voice that said, “This is your answer, why he's only a schoolboy!"
Harry stared at the woman, who sat at the only armchair --one with gilded lions' heads on the arms -- and blinked in surprise. The woman was rather old to his eyes, far older then she looked on the telly, which was the only place he would ever have expected to see her. And she wasn't wearing a crown. No one spoke and Harry had no clue what to do.
Then the woman, the Queen, his mind identified, said, "What is your name, young man?"
Harry could feel the heat creep up his cheeks. What was he supposed to do? No one had ever taught him how to behave in front of a Queen. Not shake hands that he was certain of. Kneel? Bow? He thought with annoyance that Dudley would know. He compromised by saying his name, stammering it really, and bowing to the Queen as he would an opponent in a duel.
"Come closer, Harry Potter," she said. "You do know who I am?"
"Yes, ma'am. Erm, Your Majesty," he answered. He decided that politics was not for him.
He'd rather be fighting Voldemort right now than face this woman who looked like someone's grandmother, but emanated something of the power Dumbledore did when he chose and even Fudge did from time to time. Not the power of magic. The power of power.
"Do you know why you are here?" the Queen asked.
Harry paused momentarily to force back what he really wanted to say: that Fudge wanted him here to appease the Prime Minister and to make the Prime Minister think they had a means of defeating Voldemort without Muggle help. He understood the purpose of the picture and the "editorial" now. Fudge had planted them probably and sent a copy to the Prime Minister. Harry strove to keep his voice as neutral as possible and answered directly.
"Because Voldemort attacked a bunch of M... people in a public place and this time he killed, and so did some of his Death Eaters, his followers." Harry waited for someone to say, okay, you can go, but no one did. Instead, the Queen spoke again.
"And do you know who he attacked?" Harry frowned.
"No one I know, Ma'am. Your Majesty." He would have dearly like to ask why the Queen was there. He would have thought she'd leave this sort of thing to the Prime Minister.
"He attacked me and my family," the Queen said coldly. Harry stared in astonishment and said nothing. "None of us were hurt," the Queen added, "but it was quite close. And one of my guards was killed." No one spoke still and Harry looked at the old woman before him and felt something like sympathy, but mostly fear.
Inside the carapace of the grandmotherly old woman was a person who would be ruthless in protecting what was hers, her family first, and then the thing most people didn't even realize was truly still hers: the country. He understood that he himself was Fudge's offering to the Queen. An exchange for the continued independence and secrecy of the wizard world, And for Fudge's own position and power.
"Why," the Queen asked, "Would this Voldemort attack me? And my family? Not even the IRA was ever so bold." No one answered.
Fudge was pale and sweating and Dumbledore was looking at the portrait of the old man on the wall as if he might supply an answer. In Dumbledore's office, of course, the portraits very often did supply answers. Sometimes they volunteered them even. Something tickled at the back of Harry's mind, but he let it go because he felt it was simply wrong and rude not to answer the Queen directly.
He answered slowly, trying to say it right and hoping he wouldn't offend anyone. But it was too bad if they were offended. "Voldemort," he answered, "attacked you because it was the most dramatic way of telling the world his intentions. He will not be content with the small power he can achieve in terrifying the wizard world anymore. As his power has grown, his ambitions have grown. He submits to no power superior to his own, neither magical, nor temporal. He attacks you because you are the Crown. You embody the rule of law in the land and he would set himself up as the law instead. He is his own law, and he obeys none but his own desire."
"He is mad, then," the Queen answered.
Harry shook his head, "No," he answered regretfully. "He knows exactly what he does. He is sane. He is quite simply evil."
The suited man, the Prime Minsiter's aide, Harry supposed, cleared his throat with a soft cough and said, "If he attacks the power of the government, why not the Prime Minister? Why not the Parliament?" Harry looked at the man in surprise.
"Even I can figure that out," Harry answered. "It's basic grammar school history isn't it? The Parliament makes the laws, the Prime Minsiter proposes them and sees to their execution, but there is no Parliament if the Crown doesn't open the Session. Technically, however far removed it is from older days, that ultimate power still rests with the Crown."
"It's a formality," the suited man said. Harry didn't look at the Queen.
"Is it?" he answered. "And if it is, it doesn't matter to Voldemort. The power of the Crown is a kind of magic, isn't it? And the Queen is the Crown. That's why he attacked her." Harry turned to look at the Queen and said, "I'm sorry if I've offended you, Ma'am, I'm just trying to answer you as best I can. And I think you and your family need better security. Voldemort almost never misses when he aims to kill. And he doesn't ever quit once he has a target in his sights. He'll almost certainly try again."
"I want measures taken," the Queen said. "What do you propose to do about this Minister Fudge? If you can't control your own people, changes will be made." Fudge cast a furious glance at Harry.
He had left Harry to swing in the wind and now he was swinging along on his own rope. Harry turned his gaze on the old man's portrait and waited for the axe to fall that would cast him out with no lifeline to hang on to at all. He blinked then, because he could have sworn that the old man in the portrait winked. Feeling like an idiot, and wanting to divert his own fury into safer courses, he winked back. A corner of the old man's painted mouth twitched and the eyes met his directly. Unnoticed by anyone else, one long-fingered hand tapped a parchment on the table in the portrait. A parchment that had gold leaf and purple ink on it. Harry looked from the picture to the parchment in the glass case on the wall. An elaborate ancient hand designated the name of the person to whom the chart belonged as Elizabeth R. The R was large and had a fancy looping decoration on it.
"That's what Potter is here for, Your Majesty," Fudge answered. "He will provide the security you require. You can have him be attached to your personal guard. Then if Death Eaters attack, he will be there to defend you."
Dumbledore's response, "No, Cornelius," came at the same time as the Queen's, "A schoolboy? Charming and clever as he is, you cannot be serious, Minister."
"Quite right, Madam," Dumbledore added. "Harry has not completed his final year at school. The suggestion is unacceptable."
Fudge replied in a cold, hard voice, "Have you a better candidate, Dumbledore?" With a flourish he brought out the copy of that morning's Daily Prophet and handed the paper to the Queen, turned over to display the picture of Harry and Voldemort. "Harry Potter is the only one who has ever defeated the Dark Lord. He nearly defeated him permanently only last spring as you can see from the photograph. He has the power to defeat the Dark Lord and only he. That is why he is the best candidate for your protection, Your Majesty."
Harry averted his eyes from the photograph and bit his lip to keep from exploding. He could not imagine anything more absolutely stupid than for them to appoint him to guard the Queen. The Queen and the Prime Minister examined the paper each in turn and the Queen said, "Well, it seems there is more to you than a simple schoolboy, Mr. Potter."
"He is still a schoolboy, though," Dumbledore cut in. "And as impressive as that may seem, Harry was defending his own life, as anyone might. He has not been trained as a guard. You do her Majesty no favor, Minister Fudge, by making this proposal."
"I find it quite strange, Dumbledore, that you would not express your confidence in Potter. He's always been your golden boy, till now, hasn't he? And besides, he has been inducted into the Order. If the Ministry assigns him this task, he must obey."
"But the Ministry does not control the Order of the Phoenix, Minister Fudge," Dumbledore retorted. His blue eyes shone with fire now, a sure sign of his anger. "The Order is independent of the Ministry and I do not agree to this, neither as head of the Order nor as Headmaster of Harry's school."
"You do not persuade us gentlemen, that you can govern your affairs," the Queen said, after a glance at the Prime Minister. "I fear I must ask my Prime Minister to propose a law that will bring your governance more directly in line with the rest of the nation."
"Your Majesty," Dumbledore responded swiftly, "our laws and governance are already directly in obedience to the Crown. The only change such a law will make is to bring our kind to the attention of the rest of the world and upset the balance of our society."
"This Lord Voldemort has already done that, Professor Dumbledore," the Prime Minister answered.
"Let Mr. Potter speak for himself," the Queen said. "Whom do you obey, Mr. Potter?"
Harry swallowed and thought, now what do I say? Uncomfortably aware that everyone was watching him again and that no matter what he said, Fudge or Dumbledore must be angry with him, he dodged the question altogether and said quietly, "I will obey you, Your Majesty, in what ever you request."
The Queen's old face thawed ever so slightly and she asked, "And what is your opinion, Mr. Potter? What do you advise I should do to protect my people and my family?"
Harry gulped again and answered, "As Professor Dumbledore said, I'm only a seventeen year old who has yet to finish school. I think you should listen to those advisors who are older and wiser than I am." He turned to the portrait and said, "As for instance, Master John Dee, the Queen's own advisor and astrologer. What is your advice, Sir?"
The Queen's eyes widened a bit and she said, "You know who that is?"
"Of course, ma'am," he answered. "John Dee, advisor and prophet to the Crown. He was insturumental in creating the Royal Navy and he was Queen Elizabeth the First's personal wizard, erm, astrologer. And he, erm, put a hex on the weather so that the Spanish Armada was defeated."
"How do you know that?" the Prime Minister asked sharply.
"Well we learnt about him in History, sir. It's in our History book."
A dry, wheezy chuckle came from the old man in the portrait. "So you haven't slept through every History class, then, Young Harry."
Harry blushed and said, "Not every one, Master Dee."
"You can alter the weather with magic?" the suited man asked.
"That is magic," Dee replied. "The alteration of the physical world by the force of magic. But I do not recommend weather magic except under dire circumstances. One can change a whole year's climate with one magically induced weather change."
"I don't believe this," the Prime Minister muttered. "Talking portraits. What's next? We drag out the Sword Excalibur and have the Prince of Wales pull it from a stone?"
"That Sword is gone," Dee replied. The portrait tapped the chart again and Harry turned to look at the one on the wall.
"Is the answer in your chart, then," he asked. "The one you made for the Queen?"
"Alas," Dee answered, "the mighty Elizabeth's chart was for her and her alone. There was another that I made, one for England itself, but that too is gone."
"But do you recall what was on it?" Dumbledore asked.
"How can a portrait have memories?" the Prime Minister asked. His tone suggested that he thought the entire business was a sham.
"Ah," Dee replied, "a collection of memories is all that I am. The remainder is passed on. That is the sum of my remaining existence--memories impressed upon canvas, and recorded in the aether. I wait for the Crown to call upon me for advice, but none have until now. And I wait at the call of the Headmaster of Hogwarts, where I resided for some brief while."
"And what was in that chart you made, Master Dee? The one that was destroyed." Harry thought, let it be something other than what I fear. Let it be something to hope for.
The dry voice of the portrait was sad, regretful. "Trouble and danger," Dee answered. "A time of great danger and perhaps ruination. Look at the other chart, young Gryffindor and tell me what you see." Harry turned his head to look at Dumbledore.
"Yes, you, Mr. Potter," the voice replied impatiently. "You are the only Gryffindor in this room that qualifies as young." Harry shrugged and looked at the other chart on the wall, the one next to Elizabeth the First's personal chart. That one, he saw, was an astronomy chart rather than a horoscope. The planets and stars were drawn in and notated with precision. In the corner of the chart was labeled the date, September 17, 1587. He traced on the glass the alignment of the planets, Mars and Jupiter and Saturn.
"How odd," he said. "That’s almost the same as they are right now."
"Yes, indeed," Dee replied. "You stand, now, at the cusp of something large and dangerous. The balance wobbles from the good to the evil, and some very small act one way or the other may tip the balance for good or for ill. The heart of Gryffindor is the power of Gryffindor that may tip the balance one-way or the other. A small way to the left, and Slytherin shall triumph; a small way to the right, and Gryffindor prevails."
"I don't understand," Harry said angrily. "Why the devil can't you speak more plainly?"
"Look inside yourself, Harry Potter, and you will," Dee answered.
"You're supposed to be advising the Queen," Harry snapped. It was quite insupportable. Here he was, dragged into a conference of the high and mighty and instead of telling them what to do, the portrait had nothing but more allegorical mumbo jumbo for him. It was almost as bad as Trelawney's prophecy.
"Quite, right," the Queen said. "Advise me, then, Master Dee. As the Queen, I command you." A dry wheezy chuckle came from the portrait.
"Your Majesty, I advise you to ask the young man what he thinks. He's the only truly honest one among the bunch as he's too young to have learned politics or to have decided for the many rather than for himself and his friends alone."
In his head, Harry thought every curse word he knew, including some that would have got him a week in the cupboard under the stairs without any meals. Like a prisoner waiting for the verdict, Harry turned to the Queen and waited.
"Tell me something, Mr Potter," she asked, "this school you go to, is it a good school?"
"Hogwarts?" Harry asked in surprise, "it's very fine, yes."
"I've never heard of it," the man in the suit said.
"Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago," Harry answered. "That makes it the oldest school in continuous existence in Britain. We have students who come to Hogwarts instead of Eton, you know." He glanced at Dumbledore and saw that the Headmaster was looking amused once more. That heartened him and he looked to the Queen again, waiting for her next question or decision.
"And what do you study there," the Queen asked, "besides history?"
Harry thought quickly. What was he allowed to say? What should he say that the Muggles would understand? "Erm, astronomy, herbology...like plants or botany. And erm, Chemistry." (He thought that was as close as you could get for Potions.)
"I thought you study magic," the Prime Minister said. Harry shrugged. Dumbledore was now looking up at the ceiling, apparently lost in thought, and Fudge had got out his handkerchief and was surreptitiously wiping the sweat off his forehead.
"Yeah," Harry said briefly.
"And do you do well in your classes?" the Queen asked.
"Not very," Harry answered.
"That would be because you're too busy running off and getting into trouble," the portrait said severely. "Going down trap doors and into the Forbidden Forest and running off to save the world at the drop of a...”
"It's not my fault Voldemort wants to kill me," Harry replied heatedly, quite forgetting where he was and whom he was with. "It's not like I enjoy having to worry about which of my friends or family he's going to try to kill next, just for the fun of it, when he's not having a go at me."
Harry turned back to the Queen and said with considerable heat, "If you want me for your guard, ma'am, I'll do my best and I can promise you, Voldemort won't get to you before killing me first. But I wouldn't advise it, because he really would like to kill me personally. He's only after you because you're the Queen. If I join your guard, you'll be in worse danger than ever, and that's a fact."
The Queen considered him thoughtfully, but Fudge, he saw, was frowning and looking as though all of his carefully laid plans was about to come tumbling down in a heap.
"And why, does this Lord Voldemort want to kill you, Mr. Potter?" the Queen asked, "A seventeen year old schoolboy?"
Harry shrugged. "He killed my Mum and Dad when I was a year old. They were members of the Order and were fighting against him. He went to kill me off to make a clean sweep and he failed. So he wants to kill me to prove that he can. It's like an obsession, you see. He doesn't like for anyone to appear to be better and stronger then him. Which I'm not," he added, "I've just been lucky so far."
The Queen said simply, "I see." Then she sat and thought and said, "You shall go back to school where you belong."
"But Your Majesty," the Prime Minister said. "There must be something done. The situation cannot go on as it is."
"Professor Dumbledore will take care of it," the old woman replied calmly. "Will you not, Professor?" Dumbledore bowed.
"I don't think you appreciate the whole of this," Fudge said. "You have seen the picture. Harry Potter is the only one who has successfully fought the Dark Lord. Potter may be young, yes, but he is the only one who will defeat him. If you send him back to school, you will merely prolong the time that the Dark Lord has to entrench himself in power and to kill many more." The Queen glared at Fudge.
"You mistake us, Minister. We do not send seventeen year old orphans into suicide missions. It isn't done. You will have to deal with this problem promptly and leave the children to grow up."
They had returned to Hogwarts by the same port-key, but not before Fudge had had his word. "You disappoint me, Harry," the Minister had said, ignoring Dumbledore altogether. "What were you thinking of, speaking that way to the Queen?"
"I told her the truth," Harry answered. "You might not have wanted to hear it, just like you didn't want to hear it when I told you Voldemort returned, but it was the truth." Fudge merely looked angry and walked off to the elevators without even speaking to Dumbledore at all.
Upon their return, Dumbledore had looked weary beyond description, but he had waved a hand for Harry to be seated in one of the chairs before his desk. Harry avoided looking at Dumbledore. He didn't want to see the Headmaster's disappointed expression. And he didn't want Voldemort seeing anything through his eyes. A cup of tea and a plate of sandwiches appeared in front of him, conjured by a flick of Dumbledore's wand. Harry looked at them and though he was hungry, he also did not want to eat. He had the odd notion that eating was feeding Voldemort, too, somehow and he wanted Voldemort weakened, starved, so that he could claim back his mind and thoughts and be free of his unwanted twin.
"Going hungry will not solve anything," Dumbledore said. Forgetting his resolve, Harry glanced up at the Headmaster and saw something he had never quite seen before in the old man's eyes - pity.
"I'm sorry," Harry said at last. "I know I messed everything up. And now Fudge won't even talk to you at all."
"You did nothing of the kind," Dumbledore answered. "Under the circumstances, you did only what you ought to have done." Harry got up restlessly and looked out the window and then paced the corners of the office as though he were locked in, though he knew he was not. From his perch, Fawkes opened his eyes and trilled at him, and the song, as always made him feel quite better, stronger, able to go on.
The late afternoon sun struck ruby shimmers off the phoenix's scarlet feathers and cast rainbows where the light struck through the glass case in which the Sword of Gryffindor customarily lay. Harry stared in horror when he looked inside the glass. The sword was there, but it was no longer the same sword at all. A large portion of the blade was missing and the part that remained seemed almost melted at the edges. And where once, the words, Godric Gryffindor, had stood out clearly on the blade, Godric was now melted out of all recognition and only Gryffindor remained. The hilt with its rubies was also ruined. The stones were blackened and cracked and the filigree that had formerly decorated it was also gone.
Harry felt as though someone had rung a death knell. In his head, he seemed to hear the deep dong, dong, of a mournful bell, announcing someone's passing. "It's ruined!" he said. "Completely ruined! But how?"
He swung around to face Dumbledore and saw that the old man had followed his gaze. Then the blue eyes met his serenely and Dumbledore said, "Voldemort, of course. The amount of magic that went through the sword in your effort to kill him did the damage. We almost could not salvage even that much."
"I wrecked it?" Harry repeated. He felt deprived as though he'd lost a close friend. In the back of his mind, he realized, he had depended on the Sword being there for him. It had been a comfort for him, to believe, that in the next, perhaps final confrontation with Voldemort, the Sword would be a weapon for him again.
"It was over a thousand years old, Harry," Dumbledore replied. "Not even magic swords last forever.Look at me," Dumbledore added. Harry shook his head and stared instead at the books piled high on Dumbledore's desk. Absently he noted that the one on top was one the Sirius had had too. Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy.
"Harry," Dumbledore said quietly, "Look at me. Voldemort will not see my thoughts through your eyes." Surpised Harry did look.
"You must stop blaming yourself for everything that Voldemort does," Dumbledore said urgently. "You are not he. He is not you. You share a connection with him, yes. But you are a separate person. You make your own choices. You are your own soul, free of his evil."
"How did you...?" Harry was not merely surprised now. He was frankly astonished.
"I would be thinking the same, if I were you. I would worry the same. But because I am not the one who carries this burden, I can see some things more clearly than you." Dumbledore stood up and walked over to Harry. "You must believe me in this. You must not let unfounded conclusions become fears, obsessions. They will cripple you just when you need to think clearly and act."
Harry could not reply. He could not begin to tell Dumbledore how great his fear was. He could not admit it, yet he must. "You don't understand," Harry said stiffly. "The other day, I saw through his eyes when I was wide awake. I was inside him again, like when I was inside the snake that attacked Mr. Weasley. And I wasn't sleeping. I think," he added shakily, "I think that you made a mistake in having me come back. I'm dangerous now, really dangerous. To you and my friends and to anybody around me."
"But you were aware that you were seeing through him," Dumbledore responded. "You attacked him again and he did not possess you. If anything, you interrupted what he was doing, and for a very brief moment, you possessed him."
"But that's what I mean," Harry protested. "I told you, the wall between us is crumbling."
Dumbledore shook his head. His blue eyes were very bright. "You saved the Queen and her family. You distracted Voldemort at the crucial moment. You attacked him from far away and he could not stop you and he could not take you in his control in return. His power has grown, yes," Dumbledore added softly, "but so has yours."
"You think there's still hope for me, then?" Harry asked.
"There's always hope," Dumbledore answered. "Now come eat your sandwiches and help me think of a suitable excuse for you to tell your teachers for your absence."
