I got a sense of giddiness when I saw my readers squirm over the cliffhanger in the last chapter. Does that make me a bad person?
There isn't much in the way of action in this chapter; it's mostly talk.
I don't own Harry Potter, blah, blah, blah.
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Chapter 5 - Exchanging Words
Finnegan screamed in pain as he clutched his shoulder, blood oozing out of the wound that the bullet had caused. He looked up in shock at Harry, who was flipping the safety back on.
"You shot me! You fucking shot me!" Finnegan shouted in outrage. Harry narrowed his eyes in anger as he lowered his pistol to his side.
"And considering what you did to me, I'm entitled for much, much more," he said darkly as he holstered the weapon. "Consider yourself lucky that I shot your shoulder and not your head." Harry looked at Finnegan's hand, which was now stained red and began to drip blood onto the floor. "The healer should be here in a few minutes, so hold tight," he said as he left the room. Even though Harry was just guessing, a healer did appear in Finnegan's room less than two minutes later, and managed to heal the wound before Finnegan passed out from blood loss.
Finding the closest Vanishing Cabinet, Harry turned the color dial until it led near the Headmaster's office, and stepped inside. Seconds later, Harry found himself knocking on Hermione's door.
"Come in," Hermione said through the door. Harry opened the door to see Hermione flipping through several files. "How did your talk with Finnegan go?" Hermione asked, not looking up. Harry shrugged as he sat down in front of her desk.
"Didn't get a whole lot," Hermione said dejectedly. "Like I said, he was basically bottom of the totem pole, so he doesn't really interact with the other department heads that much. That said, we have figured out one thing that we can use to our advantage. Apparently, Theodore Nott is fond of a particular brothel in Knockturn Alley," she continued, wrinkling her nose.
"Great!" Harry said, rubbing his hands together in mock enthusiasm. "When do we go?" Hermione rolled her eyes at him before replying.
"You aren't going anywhere," she said. "It wouldn't do to corrupt your innocence like that," she continued, patting him on the cheek. Unable to think of a comeback to that remark, he simply stuck his tongue out childishly. A voice coughed behind them, and Harry turned around to see the portrait of Albus Dumbledore. Hermione sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I forgot to tell you, Dumbledore wants to speak to you alone. I'll see you later," she said as she walked out of the office, leaving Harry alone in the room. For several seconds, only an awkward silence permeated the room.
"How are you, Harry?" Dumbledore finally asked in a grandfatherly tone. Harry narrowed his eyes slightly at the subtle tone his former headmaster spoke with, and his features hardened.
"I've been better," Harry said flatly.
"I've heard on the magical grapevine that you injured your former classmate Seamus Finnegan, am I right?" Dumbledore asked, a hint of disappointment in his voice.
"So?" Harry asked, shrugging. "It's just a flesh wound." Dumbledore sighed tiredly as he wrung his hands together.
"Harry, whatever he has done, he was your friend, and you must learn to forgive him. You must also forgive Mister and Miss Weasley as well, for they are your friends as well," Dumbledore said sagely. Much to his surprise, Harry laughed at him.
"`Forgive them?'" Harry asked incredulously. "You're actually asking me to forgive them? Tell me, Dumbledore, have you ever spent a day in Azkaban? And I don't mean just a quick visit; I mean a full twenty-four hours. Have you?" Dumbledore seemed to hesitate in his response before he slowly shook his head.
"No, I have not," he said.
"Have you ever had your so-called `friends' stab you in the back, and make you spend half your life in hell for a crime you didn't even commit?" Dumbledore paused for a moment before shaking his head again. "Then don't talk to me about forgiveness. Despite what you may think, some things cannot be forgiven. Just be thankful that I shot Finnegan in the shoulder instead of the head, because I was seriously considering it." Dumbledore seemed shocked when Harry admitted that he had considered killing Finnegan.
"Harry, why would you want to kill him?" the portrait asked. Harry exaggerated his movements as he pretended to think about the question.
"Oh, let's see, he only assisted in a massive Ministry-wide conspiracy to set me up for a lifetime imprisonment in Azkaban, thereby stealing about half of my current lifespan. You don't think that's reason enough?" Harry asked rhetorically. Dumbledore sighed tiredly. This conversation was not going the way he had hoped.
"What are you planning on doing next?" Dumbledore asked, silently fearing Harry's answer.
"I'm going to take down the Ministry, one piece at a time," Harry said matter-of-factly.
"And once you topple the Ministry, who are you going to put in the seat of Minister? Yourself?" Dumbledore pressed.
"That's not a bad idea actually," Harry said. "Thanks for that."
"Harry, if you continue on this endeavor, you will only succeed in becoming that which you are trying so hard to destroy. How will that make you any better than them?" Dumbledore asked, hoping that Harry would see reason.
"It won't," Harry replied. "But it is probably necessary. I've done a lot of thinking in Azkaban, and I realized that the people of this country are mindless sheep who will follow the loudest voice. So in order to restore order in the wizarding world, I will have to silence the voices that lead the population and lead them with my own. It sounds cruel, I know, but sometimes, in order to be a hero, you must also be a tyrant."
"I don't suppose that I can make you see reason, can I?" Dumbledore asked sadly.
"Actually," Harry said, "I think I'm being very reasonable. You're trying to turn me to the light, for me to fight nobly. I did fight nobly…in the last war. And in return, I was framed and incarcerated. Then I realized that nobility has no place in war. If you want to win, you must learn to be savage." Tired of the conversation, Harry walked out of the office, closing the door with a slam. When he got to the bottom of the spiral staircase, he saw Hermione waiting for him.
"He gave you his `forgive and forget' speech?" Hermione asked, seeing his foul demeanor.
"Among other things," Harry grumbled.
"He does that to me a lot too," Hermione said, patting him on the shoulder. "It gets annoying really quickly." Hermione looked at her watch, then back at Harry. "I've got to prepare the team for the next grab. You can go next time, I promise," Hermione said reassuringly. "In the meantime, try talking to Archie; he's got some really interesting knowledge. I think he's in the Room of Requirement right now." She kissed Harry on the cheek before walking away.
"No drinking, no bringing back strange men and be back by ten, young lady!" Harry yelled at Hermione. While he couldn't be completely sure, he thought he saw Hermione flip her middle finger at him right before she rounded the corner. It took a few seconds for Harry to register the kiss that Hermione had left him, and slowly raised his hand to his cheek. What was that about, he asked himself. Shaking his head, Harry headed to the nearest cabinet and transported himself to the seventh floor. When he reached the wall where the Room of Requirement was situated, Harry knocked on the door.
"Come in," Archie said. Harry opened the door and saw the nerdy-looking former Unspeakable poring over notes. He looked up and saw Harry standing in the doorway. "Ah, Harry, so nice to see you! Come in and sit down." As he spoke, an overstuffed velvet chair was conjured by the room, which Harry plopped down in. "So, what brings you here, stranger?"
"Hermione's going out on a mission and wouldn't let me go, so she said to talk to you to pass the time," Harry said, shrugging.
"So, what would you like to know?" Archie asked as the office chair he was sitting in turned into an overstuffed chair as well.
"What kind of work did you do in the Department of Mysteries?" Harry asked. He had always wondered just what went on down there, and this was his chance to find out.
"I worked in the Sub-Department of Spell Creation, which was one of the more…politically unstable areas of the DoM," Archie said.
"What do you mean?" Harry asked curiously.
"Spell Creation is separated into two divisions, Spell Conception and Spell Protection. Spell Conception is pretty obvious, just make up a spell and move on, but Spell Protection was essentially taking an already existing spell, study how it affected an individual - not its intended effect, but how it actually worked - and come up with a countermeasure for it. While Spell Conception was sort of ignored, in Spell Protection, a lot of our results were things that Muggles had discovered years ago, but we haven't yet, and probably wouldn't for a long time. Because of that, we often had to research Muggle science and medicine, which in a pureblood government, did not go over well. One of our primary tasks down there was to develop a counter spell to the Killing Curse." This had piqued Harry's attention, as he was now leaning forward in interest.
"A counter spell?" Harry asked. "I know that you can block it with stones and such, but an actual counter spell?" Archie nodded, smiling proudly.
"While our research was cut short with the, you know, purging and all, we managed to figure out how the Killing Curse actually works. Tell me, do you know what an EMP is?" When Harry shook his head, Archie continued. "It stands for Electro-Magnetic Pulse. When a nuclear bomb is detonated, in addition to the massive explosion, it also sends out a shockwave that knocks out any electrical equipment within its range. Of course, such devices are annihilated soon after, but that's beside the point.
"Any organism with a heart and a nervous system is run by a series of electrical signals. After months of testing and hundreds of murdered lab rats, we discovered that a Killing Curse instantaneously stopped all of these signals, essentially `shorting out' the subject. We had then concluded that a Killing Curse is essentially a concentrated EM pulse, except instead of affecting a mechanical target, it has been tailored to affect a biological target.
"On a side note, while flipping through one of my medical texts, I found out that Muggle healers use electrical charges to revive patients whose hearts had stopped beating. This led me to theorize - and this is just a theory, mind you - that if you ran a moderate electrical current through a person who had just been hit by a Killing Curse, then it might be able to revive them. But since I don't know of any spell that can generate an electrical charge low enough, and I don't think there are many wizards running around with a defibrillator kit, it's kind of a moot point." For hours, Harry and Archie talked about spells and how they worked, with Harry occasionally throwing in a suggestion as to how they might work.
When Harry finally exited the Room of Requirement, he walked straight into Hermione.
"I was about to check up on you!" Hermione laughed as they pulled themselves up off of the ground. "How was your talk with Archie?"
"Oh, it was great," Harry said, dusting his pants off. "He had some really interesting things to say. How was the grab?" During their walk and all throughout dinner, Hermione talked about the stakeout, and how she had to constantly remind the others to watch for Nott and not at the dancers.
That night, Harry and Hermione got ready for bed. The past few weeks had made them complacent with each others' presence, and didn't think too much on the implications of them sleeping together should they ever be caught.
"So, who's the next victim going to be?" Harry asked as he climbed into bed. Hermione shrugged as she climbed into her side.
"We'll just have to see what the new day brings," she said as she doused the lights. "`Night, Harry."
"`Night," Harry murmured as he drifted off into sleep.
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Other than the fact that this is probably kind of boring compared to previous chapters, whatcha think?
Don't forget to read and review!
Edited October 15, 2007 for a chapter number error.
Edited February 6, 2008 for a plot error.
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