Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.
Fixing Harry
Chapter 13
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Subject: Harry James Potter
Interview Date: Thursday July 30, 1998
Interview #: n/a
Observations: Today was not Harry Potter's Day
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The moment I'd been awaiting with such trepidation chose today to come to life. Why is it, the things you hope for are never that quick? Dread is a potent accelerant.
It had all been going so well overall I should have known it was coming sooner rather than later. He'd been healing nicely, keeping his nose clean and his famous scar well out of sight. He'd been cooperative, if reluctant, about turning in his wand and coming to see me. I'd known Scrimgeour wanted to make an example of him, but Harry'd been so careful about making it difficult for him, until now.
It smells of a set up, and it pisses me off so much that I didn't see it coming … or who pulled it off, which might have explained so much. I thought I was watching all the right people and I didn't see a thing. I can make assumptions, but you know the old saying about those who assume; and in this case being wrong could make far more than an ass of me.
He was in Diagon Alley. No big deal, right? He'd been there before, recently, with me. I hadn't actually realized at the time that it had been his first trip out and about the streets without the sole purpose of getting somewhere specific since the night of Voldemort's demise. I'd been too distracted by his happy-Harry-ness the last time, his obvious joy in the progression of his relationship with Hermione. I'd been purposely distracted by him in his kindness so that he could arrange to buy Arcturus and have him sent to Em when I wasn't looking. I'd been just plain distracted by not wanting any of the darkness hovering over him to be real.
Ron and Hermione were with him this time, of course. Whoever engineered the whole thing - and it was planned, I'm sure of it - knew those two essential pieces. It was a two-pronged effort, as far as I can tell. The first stab to the cautious balance of his reserve was none other than Draco Malfoy.
Ron's voice dripped with rage when he told me about it afterwards; whatever animosity Harry and Draco share, clearly Ron is in on it. It isn't really any great surprise. That the Malfoys are still around with their wands intact is more a testament to the "slither" in Slytherin than anything else. But then they always have done; history is full of Malfoys known to embrace the less-than-legal and get away with it. Take a single step back from the heart of the family and you'll find not a few cousins in the ranks of Ravenclaw. They aren't stupid, and that's what makes them scary, and in my opinion makes them all the more unforgivable when they fall dark.
According to Ron, Harry and Draco have been sworn enemies almost since the moment they met, and Draco and his menacing band of Slyths dogged them all of their days at Hogwarts. He told me about Harry's apparent conviction Draco was up to something sixth year, and how none of them took it seriously because of their history with each other. Ron's regret at this was all too obvious; much as he himself seemed not to like Draco, clearly something else had been drawing his attention another way that year as well.
Draco, too, did not show up for his seventh year at Hogwarts - I know this because I checked, and he isn't listed as a graduate. Unlike the trio of Gryffindors, however, there was no honorary degree for him. He did apparently redeem himself somewhat by fighting on the right side in Hogsmeade that night. Chances were excellent he was simply running like hell from his father's old compatriots, got caught in the middle and figured his chances were better with the Aurors (at least he'd get a trial) then the Death Eaters (not known for their judicial fairness or temperance when it came to those who failed their master.) Whatever happened, he was somehow cleared in the end when it came to light that he wasn't the one who'd actually killed Dumbledore and he did not, in fact, bear the dark mark. My personal opinion was that the fact he didn't have one was only a technicality meant to shield him from Dumbledore while he did Voldemort's work within the castle rather than any moral choice of his own, but there you are. It's neither here nor there now. It does make me wonder where he hid that year, though. Or who hid him.
Ron said he told them he'd got an apprenticeship and taunted Harry for being useless and still living on his laurels as the Boy Who Lived Again. Words were exchanged about the Order of Merlin affair (Draco and Narcissa had apparently been in the line of fire of one of the exploding pumpkin soup tureens.) Ron said Harry had finally had enough and decided to join Hermione, whom they were due to meet in Flourish and Blots. He moved to turn away from Draco, cutting short their exchange with something roughly equivalent to "whatever - have a nice life, I've got better things to do." Malfoy had then stepped forward and grabbed his arm to deliver the last word and got repulsed by what could only have been a surge of Harry's self-protective magic. Ron told me Draco was thrown back against a lamp pole and launched himself toward Harry in a fury. Ron tripped him en route, and a scuffle ensued.
The fact that it was Diagon Alley clues you in that it wasn't muggle-style, either. Hexes flew, shapes were shifted; substances were spewed. A crowd gathered to watch as Malfoy informed Harry (during one of the portions when he had a mouth capable of forming words) exactly what his apprenticeship was doing.
"I'm going to help make the choke collar for your so-called magic, Potter, and when I do you can bloody guarantee it will work. What will you be then, you pathetic little muggle-minded half blood? What will you be without your freakish magic then?"
If you ask me, they were the words of a scared, inadequate little boy. The ones you have to worry about don't make threats like that; they leave those to the playground bullies and just get on with it. Doesn't make it right, but put what happens next into a different light, for me at least.
Someone in the outskirts of the crowd that had gathered around the boys suddenly shouted that Flourish and Blots was on fire and there were hooded wizards inside.
Note the wording there… Who in their right mind shouts "Hooded Wizards in Flourish and Blotts!" You scream "Death Eaters! Get `em!" (or "Death Eaters, run for your life!" depending on your history with them.) But Hooded Wizards? Sounds like you already know they aren't D.E.s and are stupidly implicating yourself, or you're a Death Eater yourself and trying to implicate someone else. Not much neutrality involved.
Ron said there was smoke coming out of a second story window over the street. Harry struggled to his feet. He'd apparently still had a set of some sort of bedraggled wings, halfway through throwing off a curse of Malfoy's. Not useful ones, Ron informed me, more like he'd been about to be a Diricawl; such a Malfoy-like choice. He didn't have a wand, I'm not even entirely sure he had hands then, but no one there disputes that he was the one that blew the front of the store right off clear to the roof in his blind anxiety to get inside.
There had to have been something like a hundred people in the vicinity; there were students, couples and families, some with little kids, all up and down the street. Not a single witch or wizard was hurt. Glass and doors and books and bookshelves everywhere, and not a single soul injured.
Except one.
Harry's relief in finding Hermione alive and well inside had been short-lived when the Aurors had arrived and in short order accused him of the willful killing of one Sophismata Cullen. Sophis was well known in Diagon Alley, though better still in the Knockturn environs. She was one hundred and fifty if she was a day, deaf as a post and twice as thick. She was a notorious pick-pocket and malcontent, and it was entirely believable that she would have come to work the crowd that had formed around the boys.
It was impossible for me to believe, though, that she was actually shopping in Flourish and Blotts where they found her under a bookshelf. She probably hadn't read a book in over a hundred years; first assuming of course she could read. And she was in the household magic section, just the place you might plant an innocent old grandmother selecting a book of housekeeping spells for an errant daughter in law, but Sophis? She lived in a hovel, and she liked it that way. I`m willing to bet anything an unbiased autopsy would show she was killed by something else and someone planted her there. I'm also willing to bet she won't get one. She had an enormous bruise on the middle of her forehead, for example, that was already hours old as far as I could tell when I saw her body. I'll be interested if that fact gets glossed over. Her body was very quickly removed; and she was not the only one.
They'd taken a stunned (literally and figuratively) and bound Harry away then, and there were mixed feelings left on the street behind him. I listened carefully while I pretended to be taking notes and observing the scene. Some were outraged at the way he'd been manhandled and thought it unjust and unfitting to treat Harry Potter that way after all he'd done for them. It had been an accident, hadn't it? Who'd expect anything less from him if there were Death Eaters around?
No excuse! argued the predictable opposition, although it was minimal and they might well have been plants. They insisted there was no excuse for such outsized magical force on the streets of Diagon Alley, no excuse for such destruction of property and the loss of a life. That's why they wanted shut of You Know Who - how was Potter any different? No one like that should be allowed to walk free amongst regular wizards, even if there were Death Eaters around.
But were there? others had muttered, undecided. None had been found, and the fire seemed to have been started by spontaneous combustion brought on by shelving "Magical Firestarters; Charms for Fires When Incendio Just Won't Do" too close to "The Book of Ignition - Make All Your Spells Spark!"
Archibald Blott had been at the store and furious at the accusation; he assured the Aurors that even the lowliest clerk there knew better than that and the books had to have been moved very deliberately by an adult patron capable of undoing the alarm spells on them to ensure against incidents like this. He showed no interest in pressing charges against Harry for the damages, despite repeated offers to do so by the Ministry in the guise of Percy Weasley.
Oh yeah, Ron and his most despised brother came face to face, and the resulting collision of wills couldn't have been much prettier than the one that preceded it. This part I actually witnessed; and I have to say Ron gained major points in my estimation. The impressions I'd mostly garnered of him so far had all been with Harry present; it became clear to me then that on his own Ron was completely capable of taking things up a notch. It was as if when Harry was around Ron had become used to the fact that Harry would be the one officially on watch, his natural intensity allowed Ron the luxury of his own more easygoing nature. Without him Ron appeared more than ready to step up to the bat and take care of things his own way, and while Percy might be Ron's brother by blood, the bond between Ron and Harry after all they had gone through together was a hundred times stronger and more complex.
Percy left white-faced and furious, more, I think, because their argument had been witnessed by a good number of bystanders and their support had begun to shift toward Harry as some of the facts began to be bantered about between the two of them. His retreat was designed to shut Ron up, and I was sure we hadn't seen the last of him.
Well, that, and he just might have been fleeing the all-too-evident fact that where Harry's well-being was concerned, Hermione lost every possible trace of potential Ravenclaw, and it became abundantly clear that the sorting hat knew exactly what it was about with that one. She was one pissed-off Gryffindor lioness, and she lost none of her ability to put together a razor-sharp argument on the fly just because her protective instincts had kicked in and she was going for someone, anyone's jugular at the same time. She could clearly take you down and convince you it was really all your own fault without breaking much of a sweat, and only the fact that bureaucracy breeds the boldest and blindest of indifference saved every Ministry employee there from breaking down in sobs and personally apologizing.
I know I wanted to.
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They weren't letting anyone in to see him when Ron and Hermione were finally allowed to leave the scene by the investigating Aurors and arrived at the Ministry. It was times like this that you had to miss Mad Eye, because no one ever said `no' to him - or at least he'd never noticed when they had. Hermione had the potential to become an excellent replacement however; she was apparently so merciless in her resolve that at least two aides in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement were hiding in the witches' lavs. Unfortunately, it had got them nowhere so far.
It was time. They'd given it their best shot and no one had seen Harry in better than two hours. They could be doing anything to him. I took a deep breath and put myself in the middle.
"No one gets in," my close personal friend Auror Flargemore was telling Hermione. "N-O, er, one."
"Perfect," I told him, stepping up to join them, "because there are three of us. So there's not a problem at all, and since you're already aware of the fact that I'm his Ministry Assigned Spell Damage worker, there's no need to keep us waiting either. I know the spell to get in and everything. Thanks Leonard."
I pushed past him, daring him with my eyes to lay so much as a finger on me. Of course he didn't, like all endlessly wand-fiddling, under-endowed compensators he squealed to one of his superiors instead. I'd managed to get us inside the first door, though, so there was one barrier down. I quickly did the spell for the second that let out into the corridor where the holding rooms were. It opened up on the disproving gaze of whomever it was Flargemore had squealed to; discouraging, but not yet impossible. Before I could begin my assault on him, however, someone else came up from behind us to join the skirmish.
Bloody smegging hell. Artemis Grollinghard.
"Let them in," she said. "Minister has okayed it if I escort them." And winked at me. A distinct but subtle wink. Eww! I'm not on winking terms with Artemis Grollinghard! What's up with that?
The Auror stepped aside and Artemis moved confidently down the corridor to a room at the very end, whipped out her wand and undid the locking and security charms in a trice. Only I knew Artemis' wand better than I wanted to, having been on the cursing end of it more times than I could name. And that wasn't it. So was someone else helping us get to Harry, or were we helping someone who meant him harm to get in to him? I did a quick foot-sticking charm so she couldn't push open the door and stuck my wand discreetly into the small of her back while eying the Auror down the hall. Ron caught on quickly and moved to block his view; all Hermione wanted was THROUGH THAT DOOR. She looked at me as if I was raving. If Harry was in there what the hell was I playing around for?
"Who are you? Because you're not Artemis Grollinghard." I whispered as menacingly as I could manage.
She stared directly at Hermione and said in a low voice, "Nymphadora Tonks. I'm an Auror. I'm a friend of Harry's. Ron and Hermione will vouch for me. Can we move now please?"
Ron nodded at me; Hermione took a long, hard look and added her agreement with another almost imperceptible one. I lifted the charm and lowered my wand and she opened the door impatiently, as if it had jammed. We all slipped through and closed it behind us, and at first we had eyes for no one but Harry.
It appeared they hadn't enervated him. That would have been one reason to keep us out; that was very plainly against International Magical Law for prisoners, especially because they had secured him as well. His hands and feet were bound and he'd been dumped summarily on the floor it what looked like a really uncomfortable position. I found it particularly petty and unnerving that his glasses were missing; he looked somehow naked and vulnerable without them. He wasn't petrified, because he was way too limp for that, but it didn't look like a regular stupefy to me, either.
Hermione let out an almost unearthly sound and dropped down beside him, attempting to rearrange his limbs. Ron crouched down behind her, swearing.
Artemis morphed in to quite a striking young woman with a pale heart-shaped face and black hair that had deep lavender streaks in a cool spikey, tropical-bird sort of style. The sudden contrast to Artemis' conservative, matronly robes was highly comical. Her eyes were very dark, almost black, and both anxious and angry over the sight before her. They shifted sideways toward me and she nudged Hermione unsubtly with her foot and stared at me pointedly once she got her reluctant attention.
"Oh, no, Tonks, she's okay," Hermione said at once. "Elspeth Hawktalon, Nymphadora Tonks. Elspeth's Harry Spell Damage specialist, Tonks, but she wants to help. Honestly."
Interesting juxtaposition there. When I made Spell Damage my career, it was specifically because I wanted to help. Now I seem to have to do it despite my calling instead. Bloody bureaucracy.
I crouched beside Hermione and drew a quick scanning spell over Harry. He wasn't truly petrified, that must be how they were justifying the legality of it all. He was under a stasis spell only Level One Aurors are allowed to use. Tonks recognized it from the scan and her face grew hard. She turned to Ron, her voice low and urgent.
"We need to get him out of here. Even Remus and your Dad think it's the only way now. Once they get hold of him they won't let go."
"Where and how?" asked Ron tersely. "Anywhere we take him is going to mean trouble."
"The erm, Place," Tonks told him still apparently not trusting me. I didn't blame her, actually. "And we've got to bust him out of here so you can apparate somewhere neutral first and then on to um, there."
"Any plans on how exactly we're going to do that?" he questioned her hopefully.
"Nope. I was kind of hoping the Chess Master would have a brilliant idea."
He groaned, never a good sign. Hermione glanced over to me. "Do you know how to enervate him from this?"
"I do. The question is, do you want him to have a say in this conversation or do you want to wait and just tell him where you're taking him and go?"
Hermione got my point; none of us doubted Harry'd have something to say about his current situation. It would be nice to distract him with the comfort of a plan, however.
"How do they normally get prisoners out of here?" Ron asked, suddenly thoughtful. "Come to think of it, I've never seen anyone under guard in the elevators or anything whenever I visited Dad."
"No," I told him, quickly gaining an idea; then stopped and nodded at Tonks. She was the Auror after all.
She blushed. "I do more surveillance and undercover stuff; I haven't worked with a prisoner since my first year… Oh!"
I grinned at her. She'd realized it too.
"If we can get out there, there's a special door right out the back where you can apparate prisoners directly to the boat landing for Azkaban," she said excitedly. "It's set up so that it's far away from the main entrance of the building and there's no access back to the rest of the Ministry so if anyone ever got lose they couldn't get in to look for revenge for their sentencing. It's completely blocked from the muggle side of things as well. And it's not far from here."
"How many Aurors or Department workers are we likely to come across on our way?" asked Hermione, all business now though her hand remained on Harry's chest. It was motionless; you don't breathe during a stasis charm, which is why they aren't meant to be left on for long. It's very disconcerting to watch.
"That's the best bit," I told them. "If you go that way there's just the one. No one uses it for any other reason because once you step into the field you're automatically limited to the Azkaban boat landing as your destination - and no one goes there if they can avoid it. There'll be no one expecting you, so you guys can hit the ground running and clear the landing - there's an anti-out ward on it - and just reverse back quick to wherever you're going."
"How're we going to get past even the one, though?" Ron asked. "Who is it?"
"They're on shifts, it's a position in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement," Tonks informed him. "They just check prisoners in and out, a clerical thing. No telling who's on duty, but it shouldn't matter."
"You're going to get there by Harry using me as a hostage," I explained to him. "I need to maintain my position here as long as I can to see what's going on from the inside. So far all I've been is overzealous in trying to see my subject. Harry's already in so deep it won't change anything for him. If he pretends to hold me hostage and you and Hermione keep moving you can all three get to the apparition point and I'll have an alibi - Harry made me do it."
Ron looked distinctly uncomfortable with the idea, but several moments of silence proved a better one wasn't popping in to his mind fully realized anytime soon.
"It's the best we've got," Hermione told him. Tonks nodded.
I broke the stasis spell on Harry and he surged against his restraints, gasping. Clearly he'd gone down fighting.
"…son of a bit… Tonks?" he choked out, and froze, then blinked. His eyes traveled from Tonks to Ron and then Hermione.
Merlin, but I'd love for someone to look at me that way again. My own heart seemed to skip a beat with the raw relief and longing of it; I remembered so well seeing the same look in Almerick's eyes after a separation. They were really lovely together, the two of them.
"Come on, Mate," Ron told him, hauling him forward and helping him to his knees so that we could get at his restraints. Hermione got his other side and Tonks managed to rid him of the one round his ankles but none of us got anywhere with the handcuff-like bindings holding his wrists behind his back. We explained our plan to him as we took turns trying different spells. I just want to say for the record here that it was Tonks that set the back of his jeans on fire, not me.
"I can still run," Harry tried to persuade us. "I think," he elaborated with a pointed look at Tonks. "We can cope with it later. I haven't got a wand to hold anyway.'
"Erm, nope. You need your arms," I told him. "You've got to be the one to take me hostage. You're already in big trouble. You don't want them bringing a serious charge like that against Ron or Hermione."
"None of them think I need my arms to do that," he pointed out. And he was right, but I still thought he'd find them awfully handy at some point in the proceedings.
Hermione at last managed to slightly elongate the odd, almost lifelike cording they had used to connect the cuffs that bound his hands with a stretching charm, so that he could scoot back over them and force his legs through the circle of his linked arms. It seemed to heal itself against the most damaging spells and it didn't stay stretched out very long even under her fairly potent charm; I hoped against hope it wasn't something that would leave much trace magic to track until they could manage to get them off. He had a split lip and one eye was beginning to blacken and swell closed rather quickly now that the stasis charm was removed, but his injuries were far from fatal and aided well in making him look the part of potential desperate hostage-taker. And now he was ready to roll.
"Right then," said Tonks. "I'm going to disappear back up to the Auror Department and see what I can gather about what's going on. Remus will meet you where you're going and let you in, and I'll be there later. Don't trust anyone and don't stop for anything. You don't have to know where you're going for the Azkaban leg of it, and as soon as you touch solid ground there, get off the landing and head right off again. Right?"
They nodded; the three of them together. It struck me anew that they didn't look nearly as young and frightened as they ought to; there was no sense of disbelief to them. They'd accepted the plan calmly enough and were prepared to just get on with it and get it over with. Most young wizards and witches I'd known their age would either be spoiling their robes about now, or else they would have left Harry to fend for himself. He had some truly loyal friends.
Hermione slipped the door open a crack, and eyed the hall. "All clear for the moment," she said calmly. "Let's go."
Ron moved behind her. Harry eyed me cautiously. "Hermione?" he called softly, "Can I borrow your wand?" She tossed it to him without question and he caught it in his still-linked hands. "It's weird enough to be holding you hostage," he apologized. "I just don't think it looks quite as much a threat if I point my finger at you."
I refrained from pointing out he'd taken down the whole front of Flourish and Blots with little more than an inconvenient blink. He lowered his arms over my head and the tip of Hermione's wand brushed my chin; much as I knew him as a nice kid, he could in fact pull off potentially menacing quite convincingly. A restless field of magic roiled against my own at my back. Tonks gave us a thumbs up.
We traveled down the end of the hall and came to the door. It had a plain glass panel; through it you could see the exterior door for prisoners at the end of another corridor heading off to our right. There was a transaction counter-type desk opening into the hall where papers were typically checked for prisoners coming or going, and a sign indicated the rest of the corridor going left lead off through the depths of the Ministry to the old Wizengamot courtrooms on level ten. A bored witch stood at the counter reading what appeared to be the Daily Prophet. No one else was in sight.
"There's no fudging this; but you're so close you don't have to. Go straight through the door and keep on for the exit. When you get out there stun me and go," I told them. Hermione and Ron nodded, their eyes determined, and each took one of Harry's sides. Harry bent forward and gave me a brief, sweetly awkward hug from behind.
"I'm really sorry you got dragged into all this," he said sincerely.
"I'm not," I told him without trying to turn. It was easier, not seeing him. "It's not going to be politics and parlor games any more, Harry. They'll truly want to get you now, and I truly believe that it's wrong, what they want to do. I don't want to be a part of a society that calls itself civilized and lets its leaders do that to one of their own. I hope you'll let me help you when you get where you're going. For now just keep your wand on me and I'll look suitably terrified."
He didn't say anything then, we all four burst through the door and ran full speed down the hall toward the exit. For future reference, it's hard work trying to run as fast as you can and making it look like you're being dragged at the same time. Who knew?
The witch looked up from her paper and her face turned to panic as we passed. She clearly recognized Harry and I mouthed something to make it look like I was screaming for help and had a silencing charm on. I sure hope she couldn't lip read. It seemed not, because she sounded an alarm charm, then let fire a couple of stunners.
They were like clockworks the way they came together, unthinking and efficient. Ron shielded Hermione, Hermione turned around and shielded Harry and I as she backed to the door, and Harry dropped the witch at the counter, firing backwards across my shoulder with the wand in both hands. I could feel the pulse of magic as it passed through, and it wasn't even his wand - he had to take a hand off to keep from overloading it. It still boggled me how he did that, where it all came from. The sound of pounding feet was already echoing down the corridor as we reached the door; Ron started with a complex unlocking charm but quickly realized we lacked for time and changed tack with a curse. He cast a Reducto instead. The doors blasted out and we followed them so fast we were on the platform before the last piece landed.
"Stun me!" I hissed, turning in the circle of his arms and looking back over his shoulder to see the first wave of would-be apprehenders closing in down the hall.
He looked me dead in the eyes as he pulled his bound hands over my head and whispered a quick charm I'd never heard before, in a language I'd only read about. Surely those lyrical hisses were parselmouth.
"Close your eyes," he warned me.
I thought he couldn't bring himself to stun me with them open, but when I shut them, there were words seemingly written in burning light across the inside of my eyelids.
"The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix" appeared etched across my left inner eyelid. "Can be found at #12 Grimmauld Place, London," followed across my right.
My eyes flew open in surprise and he smiled, wistfully.
"Stupefy."
And I knew no more.
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They were gone when I awoke, enervated by none other than Rufus Scrimgeour himself. Several other witches and wizards milled about the platform but it was clear most had gone after Harry, Hermione and Ron.
His first words to me were, "They'll get him; there's no where to go from here but Azkaban."
`An interesting perspective on the Ministry, Minister,' is what I wanted to say. What I said was, "That's true, Minister. And what will we do with him once we've got him back?"
"Oh, they shall take him on ahead," Scrimgeour told me with a shake of his lion-like mane. "This proves there's no holding him safely here. No, you'll be doing your case visits in Azkaban, Ms. Hawktalon, should you choose not to quit the case."
"I'll not quit the case," I told him. "It's too fascinating, quite frankly, from a spell damage perspective."
"It must be," he said with a trace of amusement. "Being held hostage is not usually described as `fascinating' by your co-workers. Are you quite sure your professional perspective has not been… compromised?"
Here at last was the fine line I had to walk so carefully, laid out in black and white before me. When lying, it's always best to start out with as much of the truth as you can manage.
"Regardless of my personal and professional beliefs about the containment of his magic, he'll not be eighteen until tomorrow. He's looking at one hell of a birthday, isn't he? He's only a young man, he's been hounded by a terrible evil he never fully understood since he was a small child, he's just been through a long bloody battle with it and now he's frightened of being held captive, by anyone. Can you honestly blame him, Minister?"
It was rash, perhaps, to appeal to Scrimgeour that way, but I still felt like there was a normal wizard with human feelings under all those many years and layers of wariness. His predatory yellow eyes did soften a bit, and he looked off into the distance where muggle London plodded on, oblivious, when he replied.
"Indeed. He is perhaps too young to understand how much we all mean to help him. He will never truly be free as long as the magic from Voldemort's defeat is with him. Even if he manages to contain it physically there will always be those who seek to use him, and we can not allow that. He speaks with pride of being Dumbledore's man; I wonder how that would have changed if Dumbledore had lived to guide his steps against the Dark Lord. I am quite sure he hates me now, but what I am proposing is probably far kinder than any plan Dumbledore would have had. No, I would not change places with the boy for all the galleons in Gringotts."
I was with him up until the Dumbledore part. If we were all putting our cards on the table, I thought their biggest fear, Scrimgeour and Smeggall both (though it was unlikely they'd admitted it to each other) was the Harry would turn out to be another Dumbledore; a wizard canny as he was potent. Dumbledore had been immensely powerful and yet subtle with it. He'd learned to play their game. He'd developed his barmy personality over time to mask rather than hide the raw range of both his intellect and magic. He'd loomed large over Harry's development as a wizard, and they knew it. If Harry could manage to pull a Dumbledore and utterly defuse public fears of his magic, he'd be beyond their grasp.
We needed Ms. Lovegood and her father's publication, and we needed to prove Harry was being framed and harassed into running rather than ducking responsibility for anything. And we need to do it quick.
"With your permission, Minister," I said, indicating I was ready to leave.
"And what is your next step in your investigation, Ms. Hawktalon?" he asked me thoughtfully.
"I'll continue my research, of course, trying to identify the source of the problem. I'd like to visit Harry in Azkaban as soon as possible."
Like when Hell froze over, because I was so hoping against hope they'd managed to get away. What I really wanted was to follow up on the address he'd flashed inside my eyelids and I'd been enormously relieved to discover still resident in my memory when I was enervated.
"Do you still believe it might be possible that spell damage is contributing to these outbursts?" he asked me, point blank.
That was a toughie. I believed with all my heart there was a dark spell at work on Harry that needed removing… but to be honest, I no longer believed it had anything to do with his losses of magical control.
"I'm quite sure there is a spell affecting him, yes," I told him carefully.
He nodded, but I had little doubt he'd sensed my half truth.
"You'd best get to it, then" he replied. "We'll have to hold him until the wizards in development have finished their work else, and they don't seem to have anything but ideas at the moment. Actual production is proving problematic. It could be weeks, and we both know what weeks in Azkaban can do."
There are plenty of wizards who don't survive days in Azkaban without losing their wits. I hoped desperately again that they'd completed their secondary apparitions safely.
"Yes, Minister, I said, and fled.
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