Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.
Fixing Harry
Chapter 15
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Subject: Harry James Potter
Interview Date: Friday July 31, 1998
Interview #: Interview? I don't remember any interview. Did someone say obliviate?
Observations: Erm…
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So that was the Most Ancient House of Black.
Kind of makes me glad not to be one, I can tell you that. Not a terribly welcoming place, even without the screaming blood snob portrait they'd told me had always greeted them. That was one impressive scorch mark though.
It wasn't such a bad house, really, as much as just… creepy. It could be fine with some serious cleaning and redecorating charms; it just had the air of a place that had been used as a haven or shelter for quite a while rather than actually lived in. Harry had told me that Sirius Black was his Godfather and that he'd left the house to Harry in his will. Last I knew he'd gone missing after twelve years Azkaban, which would certainly account for the unlived-in air.
Now that's another fascinating connection to me - Harry and the infamous Blacks.
I remember Sirius with a healthy dose of prepubescent adulation. I was only eleven, but to us ickle firsties (no matter what I told Snape) the Sevenths were glamour itself. James Potter and Sirius were inseparable, always together, and now that I thought of it I had seen Remus Lupin before. He had often been in their company as well, although I don't remember him making quite as indelible an impression. He'd been quieter somehow, almost deliberately not as noticeable. And way younger. Something had aged Lupin a good bit harder than most; he was still quite a handsome man, but worn down from apparently fighting it.
James had been already smitten by Lily then, the classic romance for first year girls to swoon over and pick apart, envious in the semi-dark of our early-to-bed dorms. Lovely Head Girl and dashing Quidditch Seeker. Sirius was darker stuff and more my own cup of tea, quite honestly. He had that little edge of danger, that feeling that he was never going to be anyone's tame lion. He was quicksilver and restless, and had a sense of humor so sharp it was just as much a weapon as his wand could be. His most favored victim as I remember it seemed to be Snape, who'd for some reason always rubbed his fur the wrong way. But then, Snape had a talent for that.
I only saw Sirius in a wand fight once and he seemed to enjoy it thoroughly, more for the sheer ecitement of it than the resultant disarming of his challenger. (It was a quick impression, however, as they'd both had to hightail it after to avoid discovery and detention by Filch. Fortunately for the both of them, following that strange code of honor amongst school children, none of us twenty-odd witnesses had seen a thing.)
The long and short of it was that I had quite enjoyed romanticizing Sirius that year. His younger brother Regulus was closer to me in age, but he was a Slytherin blood snob, his heart as apparently dark as his surname, one of those quietly noted as Most Likely To Become A Death Eater by the rest of his year. Sirius' sorting into Gryffindor had been a tragedy previously unheard of amongst the solidly Slytherin Blacks.
Harry struck me as sort of a combination of James and Sirius both, with what was probably a healthy dash of his mother for seasoning. He had James' seemingly easygoing nature but Lily's Head Girl compassion to broaden it, all topped off with Sirius' dark, restless need to do something to right the world. Their fates had rendered him both more lost and yet more powerful then they ever were. I couldn't imagine any of them not being proud of all he had finally achieved, wherever it was they were now.
Today, however, he was eating scrambled eggs and toast and listening to the general conversation round the table, his eyes occasionally shifting to the speaker but saying nothing himself. His eyes linger longer on Hermione when she's the one who's talking, and they soften perceptibly now if you know what you're looking for. I find myself wondering how far that particular minefield has been negotiated with this present company. Ron seems to have accepted the two of them with extraordinary grace, if you ask me.
The number in the kitchen slowly dwindled as we tried to puzzle out way through what had really happened at Flourish and Blotts. Ron's mother took his sister (who seemed for no reason I could actually fathom to dislike me on sight) to collect Luna Lovegood. Tonks and Arthur Weasley headed for the Ministry to see which way the wind was blowing today, and Lupin headed off to do whatever it is that Lupin did.
"What does Remus do for a living?" I asked Harry.
"He's a werewolf," he said matter-of-factly, the way anyone else might say `he's a musician,' "so he can't really get a decent Wizarding job. He's the best Defense teacher I ever had, but word got out before the year was even up and he resigned. It was Snape who outed him, if you want to know the truth. He ends up doing all sorts of odd jobs now. He's done a good bit of research lately for someone writing a book on obscure spells developed during the time before Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald. While we're changing the Ministry one small mind at a time we ought to pin that on our agenda as well."
"Piece of cake," I told him, and he grinned at me then, that heartbreaking grin he has that says he doesn't believe it for a minute, but he'd fight to the death to help make it happen anyway.
"So how are you really, Harry?" I asked him, since it was just the four of us then. "Any after effects from the stasis spell or anything else new I should know about?"
"I'm okay," he started, but Ron broke in, his expression suddenly both fierce and determined.
"Oh right, you're perfect, aren't you. Brilliant. He almost bloody dissolved! Right here in the kitchen. Something was pulling on him, and Professor Lupin and Hermione and I had to hang on to him, only you couldn't, really, because he sort of came apart in your hands at the end. It was bloody terrifying and Lupin thought it had to be something really Dark doing it."
"Show her the marks, Harry," Hermione urged him. "That was the really odd part. He was right here in front of us, only he wasn't, not fully. Wherever else he was someone was trying to keep him there, too. Look."
She eased the collar of his t shirt over his shoulder, revealing a fairly deep gouge surrounded now by moderate to heavy bruising, about the length and breadth of a finger. Whoever or whatever had made it hadn't thought twice about holding on for dear life and clearly hadn't cared if it hurt.
"Just the one?" I asked her.
"No, they were just on one side, but all up and down his arm, as if whoever or whatever it was had been trying to get a good grasp. The odd thing was that except for this one they were in pairs of two on top and one beneath, like talons or claws, not fingers at all. I healed the others as best I could, but I'm not Madam Pomfrey. You can still see them."
Now that she extended his arm and pointed them out I could see the faint stripes of paler new skin against the rest.
Now that narrowed things down considerably. We were no longer dealing with the mysterious beyond or issues of afterlife or walking into the light, for sure. Something at least originally human or controlled by one had to have made those marks, and that I could deal with.
I'd learned my lesson about pulling a wand on Harry Potter. "May I?" I asked first, indicating my wand and his shoulder. At his nod I cast several revealing charms. This time, the answers were very different than before.
It had been someone magical, for there were trace elements fundamental to magic. One of the advantages of Harry's own magic was that for all it was more than he could contain right now, it sort of had its own gravitational pull as well. On anyone else there might not have been anything left to show up, for they were physical marks, caused by physical contact rather then a spell to tear the skin. Alas it was still only a trace, not enough to really reveal anything detailed, though I stored what there was for future reference. There was still no sign of a latent or active curse, charm, hex or spell, light or dark, anywhere actually on him. His own magic played havoc to some extent with that determination but I was kind of getting to know it now, and more able to predict the skewing effects it caused.
"What happened?" I asked him. "Everything you remember."
"I realized I'd killed someone. Really realized it, once I was finally safe in the house with a shot of firewhiskey in me as well. Almost the moment it hit me I could feel it happening again. It was different this time. I knew what was happening faster, I suppose, and I was sure that I didn't want to be wherever it was. It was cold there and it…" Harry closed his eyes, visibly straining to recall all he had felt in detail and I saw Hermione's hand slip into his lap and take hold of his tightly, hanging on. Her fear alone gave what had happened this time more weight; she didn't strike me as the sort to panic too readily.
"It stunk," Harry continued. His fingers closed over hers tenderly. He seemed perfectly in control of himself to me, just remembering. "Really badly. And there was another smell, not bad but distinctive." His eyes opened again and fixed on mine. "So much of it is sort of right there but just beyond me, as if I keep reaching for it and it keeps moving just past where I can reach it. Remus said something about that not being unlikely for a dark spell."
"It's not," I agreed. "Avoiding detection is a huge component of that, because you're attempting to circumvent what magic is really all about. Dark spells are usually more complex and take longer to come to fruition because of it, so you have to confound or confuse your victim long enough to get it to work."
"There's that," Hermione said slowly, "Or it could be someone who just knows Harry. Sooner or later he'll have to let go of here to find out where there is and who's doing it because that's just the way he's made. He just… will."
It was said with such finality it was clear she'd accepted that part of him long before now. Ron was nodding absently; I could see he thought it true as well. Harry's eyes dropped to their entwined hands on his lap.
"Who knows Harry that well? Someone that either has a serious grudge or wants Harry out of the way and would think the Ministry isn't going about it fast enough? Because whatever this is, I think it's a separate issue altogether from what Scrimgeour's working on," I asked slowly, my mind turning over the possibilities like stones. It was like a child's matching game; I too was fairly certain I had seen part of the answer to this question before, but which stone held the right clue?
It was Ron's eyes that leapt then, something I hadn't expected. "Snape," he said triumphantly. "Snape's known him for forever, but he's also actually been in Harry's mind. He was meant to teach him Occlumency Fifth year but it ended up being nothing but an excuse to get his jollies jerking Harry around and calling it remedial potions."
One look at Harry confirmed all that Ron said and so much more. And come to think of it Snape himself had said something along those lines. The idea of Snape teaching anyone Occlumency was laughable; he'd probably been born locking people out of that scary thing he called a mind. There was no way he could possibly teach anyone else that level of paranoia. He'd hardly be gentle about it, either.
Hermione was clearly intrigued by the idea, though, and Harry utterly repulsed.
"It's a woman's voice I hear, though," he protested. "And least I think it's a woman. It's not Snape himself, anyway. I'd never miss that voice."
He would if Snape wanted him too, but that was hardly the point. The thing didn't exactly scream Snape to me, but that wasn't a real reason to rule him out, either. One thing I was fairly certain of was that if Snape were behind it the plan was his own and had nothing to do with Scrimgeour's. Snape would never willingly answer to anyone else ever again.
The only positive thing about Snape as a suspect was that we could actually question him, check out his reaction first hand. There was always Uncle Boldie's assertion to follow up as well; his `To whom do you think that Voldemort turned when he sought something of this nature... an enormous challenge requiring a keen mind and warped moral fiber?' had not left my thoughts. Even if Snape was uninvolved with Scrimgeour's ultimate answer, he more than likely knew what it was and now there was no time to waste. If the Ministry caught Harry again, they would undoubtedly be prepared to act quickly if they at all could. We could kill two big nosed, greasy-haired ugly birds with one stone.
"Would you consider Hogwarts a neutral enough ground to meet Snape on?" I asked him. "It's empty for the summer and warded to the teeth, you both know it well. If I can get Professor McGonagall to agree, would you come and face him? All of you?"
Harry had his snarly cat face on. "Will he? I can hardly imagine him agreeing to that."
"I guarantee I can get him there," I promised. "I can't guarantee he won't be a surly great git, but I can make him at least show up."
Ron appeared less than thrilled, but accepting. Hermione was nodding at him encouragingly. Harry turned to me and exhaled deeply, closing his eyes for a moment.
"Okay," he said. "But I have to warn you, he's always brought out the worst in me. We might want to do it out on the Quidditch pitch or something right about now."
"Done," I told him. "I'll get right on it. McGonagall would never turn you in to the Ministry and I'll have Snape hexed to hell if he tries, but we still don't want them getting into trouble over it either, so we'll have to be careful getting there. I'll let you know what I can work out."
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Ginny Weasley returned with Luna Lovegood just before I left Grimmauld Place. Ginny's mood had obviously mellowed somewhat and I had been demoted from actual dislike to inconvenience. She barely noticed me as I made ready to go.
They had brought two traveling baskets with them, and produced Crookshanks for Hermione and Ron's Guinea Pigs for him from the boys' flat.
"The very idea of allowing Fred and George to be responsible for anything is disastrous," Ginny scolded him. "You transfigured them, you gave them questionable potions and now it's up to you to make sure they're okay."
"Besides," said Luna dreamily, handing the second basket to Hermione after she'd released a happy Crookshanks, "I think Harry might have gotten Hermione in the family way."
Harry had been raising his coffee to take a sip; I noticed he put it down carefully without doing so and looked very proud of himself. It was Ron who spewed tea half way across the kitchen this time.
"Bloody hell!" he managed.
"They're guinea pigs, Ron," Ginny said with a worldly roll of her eyes and a dazzling smile Harry's way. "It's what they do."
`Right. Guinea pigs," he said, looking quite relieved. "Should have known that about them. I wonder if their improved reaction time will be passed on to the piglets?"
"Considering they started life as crickets," Hermione pointed out, "should there actually be any offspring? I was impressed you actually managed to make the transfiguration permanent."
"Well that would have been Harry, actually," said Ron. "I had the idea, we caught the crickets, he did the transfiguration. Only Harry could make a transfigured guinea pig pregnant."
"There's the endorsement that will get me out of Azkaban." Harry banged his forehead slowly on the tabletop, the words `hell,' `wrong,' `life,' and `rubbish' released on the upstroke.
"Speaking of Azkaban, we were wondering, Luna, what the Quibblers position on all this might be. Thanks for coming so quickly," Hermione said, clearly trying to ignore the whole guinea pig issue now. She had one eye firmly on Ginny, however.
"Daddy wants to interview Harry himself," Luna replied, moving to the table and settling happily down beside Ron. "He thinks it will be most effective if people hear things directly from him, just the way they happened, and then he'll run a background story bringing out all the rest of what he's learned about what the Ministry's been up to. Did you really take hostages and destroy the administrative hallway to the Wizengamot, Harry?"
"I had to basically hold the wand to my own head," I told her, "And Ron was the one who blew the back doors out. There was hardly any damage to the hall."
Her slightly protuberant blue eyes widened and she patted Ron's arm, suitably impressed. Ginny finally noticed me again. And not in a good way, exactly.
"Oh that was brilliant," she said, moving across the kitchen to stand by Harry's chair and glare daggers at me. "I thought you were supposed to be helping him, not get him in even deeper. They've added attempted witchnapping to the charges now, according the wireless report we heard at the Quibbler."
Harry's left eye twitched, and somewhere in the house a door slammed. "Leave off Gin. It actually was a brilliant idea. Without Elspeth I'd probably already be locked up in Azkaban right now."
"They'd never send you to Azkaban," she insisted. "You're Harry Potter. If you'd just sat tight they would have sorted the whole thing out. Now there's going to be a trial, whether you're there or not, mind you. The wireless said they'd try you in absentia because of the danger to the public having you in a courtroom. They're looking for Ron and Hermione too, for helping you."
Harry swore softly and turned to Hermione and Ron.
"Don't, mate," Ron told him, and Hermione nodded. "We knew before we found you what we were willing to do if we had to. We'd do it again, and you know it. Who knew Voldemort actually had eight horcruxes and the one that wouldn't die was the bloody Ministry?"
"Well she's part of it, Ron," Ginny said accusingly. "Don't you think you ought to…"
I opened my mouth to defend myself, but Harry beat me to it. Even more interesting, though, was who beat him.
"Oh, no, Ginny," Luna Lovegood said positively. "Mrs. Hawktalon would never hurt Harry. She has to find his curse to lift her own."
To borrow a phrase from Ron, what the bloody hell?
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I told her. "Only I'm not cursed, it's just I happen to disagree the teensiest bit with my current employer about believing Harry is, and that he's innocent and being set up over the rest of it."
"Paracelsus said, `All things are poison and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes that a thing is not poison,'" Luna proclaimed calmly. "Spells can be the same as potions. A seemingly good spell can go bad if it's applied too strongly, or too often. Or by two different people. Perhaps you need to look at it all another way round."
I was floored. Totally floored. Because if truth be told, she had a point. About the spells anyway; the bit about me being cursed was utter rubbish. There really were many ways to achieve fairly wicked results with otherwise innocent spells, though. I'd seen it done before. The matching game stones suddenly reshuffled themselves; I'd have to start over. Bugger.
"I've got to run," I said.
`About time,' said Ginny Weasley's eyes.
"Mum's going to make you a birthday cake this afternoon, Harry," she told him then. "And since your present is back at the Burrow I thought maybe I could just… make it up to you. Like we used to."
Ginny clearly hadn't gotten the memo from the tone of that offer. Harry looked like any birthday cake that came his way today was going to get the same forehead bashing the table'd just enjoyed. Hermione locked eyes on her in much the same way the otters at the zoo had stared at Harry and me.
Erm, oblivious human? It's about to rain on your outing.
I left them to it then, never having been a big fan of blood sports. Still, no matter what happened, the conversation was obvious productive. The Quibbler's report that day had merely covered events with a healthy dose of understatement, balancing The Prophet's overblown coverage. The next morning things had galvanized quite a bit.
HARRY POTTER ON THE LOOSE! TAKES MINISTRY SPELL DAMAGE WORKER HOSTAGE AT WAND POINT AND ESCAPES! screamed the Daily Prophet's headline.
WIZARD HERO STUNNED AND MISHANDLED BY MINISTRY OF MAGIC! countered the Quibbler. EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH HARRY POTTER.
The lines were drawn.
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