The Heart of Gryffindor
by SJR0301
Part III - Chapter Thirty
The Prime Minister congratulated himself on the choice of the meeting place. The suburban safe house was bland and ordinary and he had been careful to have only a single security agent drive him in an ordinary Cooper instead of a government limo. It was the kind of meeting, which he would usually have at Ten Downing Street, not merely for convenience, but as a means of emphasizing his ultimate authority over those attending. But he had concluded, regretfully, that the fewer people who knew of this meeting or had even a casual opportunity to note those attending, the safer for all concerned.
He considered Locherman, the head of MI-5 and appointed by his predecessor as a political reward, with well-disguised distaste. He would have liked to replace Locherman with someone from his own stable of experienced security men, but did not think the present fragile balance with the Opposition would bear the change. Locherman's counterpart at MI-6 had hung on to his position through the Opposition's interregnum, and the Prime Minister was comfortable that he could be relied on.
The third person, Bones, was also reliable, though the Prime Minister was careful not to test his loyalties too far. Bones had done a good job keeping Department 7 quiet and functioning within the other agencies. He had been so careful that the Prime Minister was fairly sure Locherman still did not know what the real function of Bones' task force was. The fourth person was the reason for this meeting, though he did not know it.
As always, the Prime Minister's first thought upon seeing Harry Potter was simply that he was so very young. The untidy black hair and smooth, unlined face were those of the teenager he had been when the Prime Minister had first been introduced to the boy wizard. It seemed strange to think that Potter was in his thirties and the Prime Minister counted it as one of his best moves, the deal he had made with the Minister of Magic Fudge. Potter had been invaluable and not just in fighting wizard trouble. He had taken his assignment to work within the framework of the Security Services with great seriousness and was one of their top agents. Potter was so well regarded, even by those who had no inkling of his other talents, that Locherman was known to be jealous of his abilities and known to be on the lookout for ways of pushing Potter out of the service altogether. That was something the Prime Minister did not want, especially in view of the threat posed by the escape of the Death Eaters, engineered as it was by the Alliance.
"Gentlemen," the Prime Minister said, "I want your assessments on the threat the new Alliance now poses, both domestic and foreign."
"We've got things under control," Locherman said quickly. "There hasn't been an assassination since August and the attack on Parliament's Opening Day was a false alarm."
Potter stirred and looked as though he'd like to contradict Locherman, but he kept quiet for the moment. A reassuring sign of maturity, the Prime Minister thought, as there was a time when Potter would have said whatever he thought no matter the circumstances.
"I don't agree," Six said coldly. It was well known in the spy community that Five and Six were always in competition; but since Locherman's appointment, the two agencies were often at loggerheads and the two heads disliked each other cordially.
"Go on," the Prime Minister urged.
"We have good information that the Alliance has strengthened its position on the Continent. We are also hearing worrying reports that they're slipping their people in here through work exchange programs and through corporate investments."
"If it's immigration you're worried about," Locherman retorted, "it's the ones from the Middle East and Africa You should be restricting. Your department has been downplaying and ignoring the threat from that area for years. If we're not more careful, the Queen will be wearing a burkha in another five years."
"That's absurd," Six fumed. The two heads glared at each other, confirming the Prime Minister's concerns and solidifying his decision. He looked at Bones, but the Yard’s man shook his head fractionally. He was not going to comment on the wizard aspects when the other two were showing every evidence of starting an intelligence war. He nodded at Bones to show his approval and then cut the others off.
"I am mindful that we need to be better prepared in a number of ways," the Prime Minister said, not answering either of the Head's, but giving them both the impression he was siding with them. "I have decided we need to beef up our strategic defensive planning by appointing someone with substantial intelligence background to a cabinet position."
Locherman's face remained bland and calm, but the very faint tip of his mouth gave him the expression of a satisfied faun -- or a satyr, the Prime Minister thought, if he had horns. The expression changed to shock when the Prime Minister continued, "I can't remove any of you three gentlemen from your positions at such a critical point, so I am asking Mr. Potter to accept the position." He felt a considerable satisfaction at the sight of Locherman's struggle to contain his temper and ill will. "Well, Harry?" he asked. "Does an office in Ten Downing Street suit you?"
"You can't be serious," Harry blurted out. All of his hard-won ability to control his face and his emotions had deserted him. Seeing the Prime Minister gathering disappointment, he added, "I'm not a politician, sir. I've never run for office. You can't appoint a nobody to a major position like that. It just won't do."
"You have seventeen years experience in intelligence and anti-terror operations," the Prime Minister replied, "and if we need for you to have a seat in Parliament, I believe your home seat is a good safe seat for our party."
"We already have a perfectly decent MP in our district," Harry said. He could barely contain his horror. Wizards did not run for the Muggle Parliament. It was bad enough his having worked inside the Muggle Ministry all these years. He could not imagine how it would be possible to prevent a total disaster, perhaps even his expulsion from the wizard world altogether if he were to take so public a position with the Prime Minister's cabinet. "Honestly, sir," he went on, "I think you'd be better off to appoint someone like Deputy Halsey, who has more experience than all of us here together. Not," he added hastily, "that I don't appreciate the great honor, sir." The Prime Minister was looking disappointed and almost offended so Harry said quietly, hoping that Locherman would miss the reference, "I just don't think I would be a suitable choice for such a public appointment."
The Prime Minister nodded and Harry heaved a sigh of relief. His relief, however, turned to horror when Locherman said slyly, "It wouldn't do to have a wizard in the cabinet. Might raise some serious questions if the information about Potter ever got out, wouldn't it?"
"You know?" Harry asked. He managed to keep his voice level and to give the appearance of mere curiosity, but it was difficult indeed not to simply pull out his wand and hex the man there and then.
"I'm the Head," Locherman said. "I can read anyone's file. I've read yours as you are one of my most senior men." He turned to the Prime Minister and said smoothly, "It is a great compliment to our agency that you have considered Potter for the appointment and I certainly won't oppose it if you want to attach him to your office as your personal security agent." He paused and said gravely, "But I do hate to take an experienced man off a major case when we've got an ongoing investigation."
"I thought you had things under control?" the Prime Minister rejoined politely.
"Of course," Locherman said. "For the moment. I would request that Potter stay on the Job until we've got the leaders brought in."
"And when will that be?" the Prime Minister asked.
"Soon," Locherman answered.
Harry glanced at Bones and saw that the other man was seething as much as he was. He felt, unhappily, that he could not have responded in any other way. Yet he also felt that he had made a mistake and let the Prime Minister down. He wondered whether his secrecy oath allowed him to talk this over with Hermione, since she was the Muggle Liaison. Almost he could feel nostalgic for the days when Voldemort had only wanted to kill Harry and take over the wizard world without involving the Muggles. Things had been plain then, black and white, with no difficult subtleties. Too bad he didn't have Phineas Nigellus to give him a bit of advice.
As they departed from the safe house, Locherman said, "I'd like to have a meeting with you Potter, at noon tomorrow."
"I'm on vacation, tomorrow," Harry answered.
"Vacation?" Locherman said.
"Yeah," Harry said politely in the kind of voice Aunt Petunia would use for people she disliked. "I'm going to a concert at the Albert Hall. It's New Year's Eve," he added.
"I was aware of that," Locherman said. With more than a little malice, he said, "So wizards go to the symphony?"
"Wizards are human beings just like anyone else," Harry replied. "Except, of course," he added with the greatest of mischief, but with the appearance of serenity and reason, "that we can do magic." He strode off to his car and wished he had his broomstick with him. Locherman called out as he got into the driver's seat, "I'll expect you first thing Monday morning then. Terrorists don't take holidays as you well know."
Bones stopped by his car and they watched Locherman pull away in his black limo. "I can't imagine why the Prime Minister doesn't just fire him."
"He can't," Harry said gloomily. "The Opposition will give him trouble and say he's responsible for the next attack of he does. It's amazing," he continued, "how much alike Muggles and wizards are when it comes to politics and power. They all like to stick their heads in the sand and shore up their own positions first all the while pretending that the enemy isn't right at the gate."
~~***~~
Dad was so preoccupied and busy after Christmas that I was afraid he would forget about taking me to the concert on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve. I spent much of the rest of the holidays at Ian’s house, playing my new guitar and worrying about whether I had filled out my application to Balliol College at Oxford properly. I had hoped to have time to talk to Dad about it, but even Mum was heard to complain that we might all be invisible as far as Dad was concerned. And mind you, Mum never complains like that.
The day of the concert was fine but very cold. I dressed carefully in full Muggle dress – no cloaks, no robes, not even my Weasley sweater, which this year featured golden unicorn colts that kicked up their heels every so often. I put my wand in my pants pocket, but found it stuck out. I tried the outer pocket of my wool jacket, but that didn’t work either. Eventually, and with great regret, I left my wand on my bedside table. I didn’t suppose I would need to do any magic that afternoon in any case. The magic of the music would be potent enough.
Dad not only remembered the concert, he even stayed home from work the entire day. At noon, he showed up in the library wearing a Muggle business suit and coat and the only detail that might remotely give one a hint that he wasn’t a Muggle businessman was the fact that he was wearing dragonhide boots. A Muggle would think they were fake alligator anyway. Dad drove us there in his Muggle car – the one he used when he wanted to go into London without a broom or disapparating, and he left it in the car park by the Hall just like all the other Muggles attending the concert.
The Hall was crowded with those celebrating the holiday and those who simply loved music. I couldn’t help thinking that the concert was more like the music you might hear in heaven than the Muggle notions of angelic choirs and harps. I wished I could play the flute as the flautist there did: he could make anything, from Mozart to jazz sound heavenly. When we came out, I said, “Thanks, Dad. That was one of the best presents you ever gave me.”
Dad looked really happy and I noticed that the tension that had made shadows in Dad’s face recently was quite gone for once. He took a big breath of the icy air and said, “Shall we go to the Leaky Cauldron for some butterbeer?”
Greatly daring, I said, “Why don’t we find a Muggle pub, somewhere where no one will recognize you or bother you?”
Dad shrugged and said, “Why not?”
I wanted to ask if it bothered him having all the students thinking of him as famous, and dangerous somehow, but I didn’t like to ruin his mood.
We followed the stream of people leaving the concert and making for the car park. The sky was already darkening just a little and fat snowflakes began to fall. The city lights had come on and they formed amber pools of light that sparkled off on the snowflakes. We were still about a hundred feet from the car when a man in a bowler hat asked Dad for the time. I had stopped to look again at my programme so Dad had gone past me by several yards.
“It’s half-past five,” Dad said absently looking at his watch. I had noticed this one earlier and wondered how he could tell time on it. It looked just like the one I had seen Dumbledore wearing as it had moons and planets but no numbers that I could see.
The man said, “Thanks,” and continued on, but he was a bit clumsy as he bumped right into Dad, accidentally stabbing him with a collapsible black parasol. He said, “So sorry,” and walked away.
It should have been one of those chance contacts one has from time to time, and Dad seemed to think so. “Never mind,” he said vaguely. He gave a slight shrug of his shoulders and pulled his car keys out of his coat pocket, only he never inserted the key in the car. Instead, he made funny sound and collapsed and he would have fallen except that three men, Muggles, too, caught him.
“He’s been taken ill,” one of them said loudly. They started pulled him toward a car, but not ours. Before I knew it, they were shoving Dad into a black Volvo. I rushed forward and said, “Hey! You can’t do that.” I started to say, “He’s my Dad,” only I never got the words out. Something crashed down on my head and grew dizzy with pain. I tried to struggle, but found myself being shoved into the same car as another blow sent me into the dark.
I’m paralyzed, I thought, when I first woke. My arms hurt and I realized that they were stuck together behind my back. I tried to pull them apart, but I understood in a moment that they were bound together and to the chair in which I sat. A rag of some kind bound my mouth and tasted perfectly foul. I forced my eyes open and saw that I was in a large, empty space. Overhead, large pipes hung down and the only light came from a single bare bulb. Dad was tied in the same manner to another chair, only he was still unconscious. His head drooped and someone had removed both his coat and his suit jacket. A man had rolled up his sleeve and was preparing to inject something with a Muggle needle, but he stopped when another addressed him.
“You’re not going to give him more, are you?”
I craned my head and saw that the other voice came from the man with the parasol who had asked Dad for the time.
“He’s dangerous,” the man with the needle said. “They say he’s one of MI-5’s top men. He’s the one that arrested His Lordship and got him sent to jail.”
“He looks like a librarian with those glasses,” the other answered.
A third man had entered from the far end of the space. The heavy concrete door slammed closed behind him and his footsteps creaked on the scarred old wooden floor. This one was tall and had graying, fair hair and was handsome enough to be a movie star. He looked oddly familiar and for one moment I thought he would be our rescuer. Instead, he considered Dad coldly and said, “How much did you give him?”
“Enough,” Needle Man replied. “He won’t give you any trouble, your Lordship.”
“Yes,” his Lordship said, “but will he be awake enough to give me my answers?”
“You said to make sure he didn’t get away,” Needle Man whined. “I gave him a bit extra seeing who he is and how you want him to talk an’ all.”
His Lordship glanced over at me and said, “What is he doing here?”
“He saw us and tried to interfere,” the man with the parasol answered. “You said no witnesses, so we couldn’t let him go.”
His Lordship shrugged fractionally and said, “You can dispose of him with Potter then, when we’re through.” He stripped off his gloves, fine suede, with shearling lining, and suddenly backhanded my Dad across the face. I made some sound, muffled by the gag, but the men never noticed. They were too intent on Dad, who had opened his eyes and looked as though he was trying to focus, but could not. His eyes were dilated, so they looked almost black and his face was quite pale.
“Wake up, Potter,” His Lordship said. “I’ve got questions you’re going to answer.”
Dad blinked and said vaguely, “I know you…seen you somewhere…” Then his eyes focused more and he said, “Hayden.” He saw me then and he looked as though he would throw-up. Then he closed his eyes and his face smoothed out into no expression at all. For a second I thought he had passed out again, but when His Lordship – Hayden, hit him again, he opened his eyes back up and glared at him.
“Where,” Hayden asked, “is Arthur’s sword?”
I couldn’t help gawping at him, as the question was almost more absurd than the other men’s belief that my Dad, a wizard, The Boy Who Lived, was an agent for a Muggle intelligence agency.
“Haven’t a clue,” Dad said.
That was odd, too, as I knew Dad had been reading books about Merlin and Arthur all through the Christmas holidays. The book he’d been reading on Christmas morning had been one of my favorites, the Tale of Percival.
At a nod from Hayden, the man with the parasol swung it and cracked it right across Dad’s middle, as if he were striking a bludger. This time, I was the one who wanted to throw up; Dad nearly passed out again and I was sure I had heard the sound of bone breaking.
Hayden said again, “Where is Arthur’s sword?”
Dad caught his breath and said, “I wouldn’t tell you if I knew.” He took another breath, one that sounded more like a whoof of pain, and added, “It would do you no good anyway.”
“That’s not true,” Hayden replied coldly. “Arthur wasn’t the only one who could use that sword. That part was romance. It was a sword of power, and I will have it.”
I wished I could talk. I wanted to tell Dad the sword wasn’t worth it. I wanted to tell him that even if Hayden knew where it was, he probably couldn’t get into its hiding place. Dad said nothing and Hayden contemplated him with rage.
“You may be The Boy Who Lived,” he said, “but you can be broken just like anybody else.”
The other two men’s eyes widened, like nervous horses, so that the irises were completely ringed with white. They must have guessed what was coming when Hayden drew a wand from his coat and pointed it at Dad. Dad still said nothing and Hayden said coldly, “Imperio!”
Dad’s face relaxed and he looked as though he were about to fall asleep again.
“Where is Arthur’s sword?” Hayden asked for the third time.
Dad’s head hung a bit and I was sure he would tell what he knew. “I won’t!” Dad said suddenly. His green eyes had focused again and they no longer looked dreamy at all.
The other two men looked far more frightened than they had before and they edged away as though Dad’s resistance were something to fear. I changed my mind when I heard Hayden’s next response, as I understood they simply wanted to get out of range of the Cruciatus Curse. This time Dad did cry out, and I know I made some kind of noise again, but it was covered by the sound of Dad’s yells. When Hayden lifted his wand, Dad slumped back in his chair and I thought he had passed out again between the drugs they had given him and the effects of the Curse. He opened his eyes, however, I saw that he was not afraid. The look in his eyes was scarier than any as it had nothing to do with anger at all. It was quite calm – the look of a judge who has judged a man guilty and is considering the extent of his punishment. And this, mind you, when he was the one tied to a chair and had just been tortured.
“He won’t talk,” Needle Man said. “He’s been trained by the Security Services. You can’t break him.”
“Then I’ll just have to kill him,” Hayden answered. He lifted his wand and still Dad didn’t look frightened. For a moment all was still, then Hayden narrowed his eyes and used his wand to push the sodden fringe off Dad’s face. In the light of the naked bulb, a very fine, white line showed-up, a line in the shape of a lightning bolt. Hayden got a funny look on his face and put his wand away. “I think I’d rather not go the same way as the Dark Lord.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, which only goes to show how stupid I am. Hayden stepped back and said to the man with the parasol, “Kill him. Kill them both.”
The man drew a gun from his pocket and pointed it right at my head. I don’t know why he aimed for me first, but maybe it was just because I was closer or because he wasn’t scared of me. I had the odd thought that it wouldn’t matter if I’d filled out my application to university properly after all. I looked at Dad wanting some kind of reassurance that this wasn’t really happening or that it would be all right, but I saw that now, for the first time, he looked scared. In fact, he looked terrified and then he looked furious. The Muggle man sighted right at me and I was wondering whether I ought to pray when Dad sprang right at him.
This happened so fast I couldn’t believe it, I couldn’t take it in at all, and yet it seemed to occur in slow motion, too, so that every detail was recorded. Dad leapt on the gunman with the ferocity of a lion and he literally roared, a great NO, as he did so. The other Muggle stared in shock as Dad seized the gunman’s hand and yanked at it as the gun went off. The two men went down together struggling and the gun went off again, and then Dad somehow got on top of him and slugged him with his fist several times until he lay still. The other man went for the gun, which had flown away; only somehow, Dad got there before him, and had the gun in his hand and shot it off. His aim was spoiled though as Hayden had drawn his wand again and the gun flew back out of Dad’s hand. Dad threw himself to the side and rolled, just as he had taught us in class, and the spell missed him. As quick as can be, he was up again, and his wand was in his hand. He got off a stunning spell but Hayden had disapperated with a crack. The other Muggle – Needle Man – ran for it, only Dad’s stunner caught him before he could move two steps.
Dad stared at me and then he sank down, or fell, I’m not sure and feverishly untied my gag and the ropes. I saw that his wrists were all bloody and there was a hole in his shirtsleeve that was stained with blood where one of the bullets had caught him. He was sheet white and his hands shook as he touched my shoulder and said, “You’re not hurt, are you?”
I shook my head but I couldn’t say a word.
The sound of feet coming up the stairs alerted us and Dad pointed his wand at the door, though I didn’t see how he was managing to hold himself up at all. He let it droop when my godfather and Matilda’s Dad came bursting through with a third man, a very large man whom I didn’t know.
The third man cursed on seeing us, and my godfather said, “How on earth do you do it, Harry? How’d you know they’d be here?”
“I didn’t,” Dad said. He sat down on the floor abruptly. “How did you?”
“We got a tip,” Matilda’s Dad said, “but we didn’t expect you. They just said Hayden would be at this address.”
“I don’t see how Hayden knew,” Dad said cryptically. Then he fainted and the third man said, “Well this is going to need some cleaning up. Not to mention we’ve got a witness.” But he bent over and picked up Dad as easily as you might pick up a child and Dad is a pretty tall guy. Then they carried Dad downstairs into a big Rover and my godfather guided me there, too. I finally managed to blurt out; “We should take him to St. Mungo’s. He’s been shot.”
The doors closed on the Rover and we took off at great speed, but we didn’t go to St. Mungo’s. Instead, we entered an underground car park and took an elevator into a lobby with uniformed guards. The guards waved us right by at a nod from Matilda’s Dad and we rode the elevator with another guard. I squinted at the plastic I.D. tag, which said on it, Security Services.
Dad woke back up and said something, “Put me down, Mac.” The big man did, but he kept a hand on Dad’s arm just the same.
“Where are we?” I asked. “Why are we here?” I was feeling really mad for some reason because I didn’t understand much of anything.
“This is where I work,” Dad said. But I really could not believe it. This was not the Ministry of Magic. This was not the place we ought to be.
The elevator stopped and they all walked into a large area, which had cubicles, each of which contained a desk and computer. Dad shrugged off any help and walked by himself, though I had no clue how he was standing up even. My head was pounding from the blows I’d received, or maybe it was from sheer confusion and disbelief. They continued through to a hallway and everyone sat down at a large conference table. My godfather gave me a nudge and I sat down, too, though it was the last thing I wanted to do.
Several other men came in. One took one look at Dad and said, “Are you hurt? Playing the hero again, are you?” His tone was gruff, but surprisingly amused. The other man had a rather bland face, except that his even features went taut with surprise and then anger when he saw Dad sitting there. He started to speak and then stopped. Then he said coldly, “What were you doing messing up our raid, Potter? Hogging all the glory for yourself? Only you messed it up and we’ve lost Hayden and you’ve got a civilian witness.”
That was when Dad lost his temper. “I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT A RAID, LOCHERMAN, AND THIS ISN’T A WITNESS, IT’S MY SON.”
There was a moment of tense silence and Matilda’s Dad got a very funny expression on his face as though he had seen something nasty crawl out from under a rock, something he was afraid to step on.
The man called Locherman, who I deduced must be Dad’s boss, gave me a glance and then said, “That makes it all the worse then, doesn’t it? You should know better than to take a civilian with you, a family member, on an official operation.”
“He wasn’t in on this operation,” Matilda’s Dad said quietly. “He was going to a concert this afternoon. He told us that yesterday.”
“Well, obviously, he found out and changed his mind,” Locherman responded.
“How did you know where to go?” Dad asked. He was swaying again as he asked the question. My anger at his deception washed away in my anxiety. I put a hand under his elbow, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“We had a tip,” Matilda’s Dad said. “It came in this afternoon.”
“Who from?” Dad asked.
Matilda’s Dad looked at Locherman and said, “I don’t know. Do you, sir?”
“Anonymous source,” Locherman answered. Then his gaze narrowed and he asked, “What were you doing there, if you didn’t know about the raid, Potter?”
Dad, however, didn’t answer. His eyes closed and he tipped sideways and this time he didn’t rouse again. Locherman, for whom I had developed an immediate loathing, said, “Get him up to the medics, and you, you’re the witness, you’ll have to tell me what happened.”
I gawped at him and my godfather started to say something, but I blurted out furiously, “They attacked him in the car park. They drugged him and knocked me out when I tried to stop them. And they tied us up and hit him and they were going to kill him. They were going to kill us both only he got out of his ropes and stopped them when they were going to shoot me only he got shot. And Hayden - ”
I stopped there as I had been about to talk about Hayden disapparating and what else he’d done to Dad, but I realized I didn’t know if I could mention magic here. I finished with a gulp, “He ran when they came.” I glared at Locherman and said, “I want to call my Mum so she can come and take my Dad to a proper hospital.” I started to shake and wished very much that I had my wand so I could go after Locherman. I thought that Dad might’ve put his back in his boot but I wasn’t sure. Before I could say or do anything further, my godfather said calmly, “They’ve got very good medics here, Sirius. They can take care of your Dad and get at look at you, too.” There was something so soothing about his tone and I was so confused and tired that I just followed him when he picked Dad up and carried him into the elevator. It wasn’t until sometime later that I had cause to wonder whether he hadn’t used magic to calm me down.
The doctors there were the Muggle kind like I’d seen on the telly. They even wore white coats and had stethoscopes around their necks. The one who examined Dad looked very unhappy when they managed to get his shirt off and the damage was exposed. In the time since we had left the place of our captivity, dark, black bruising had gathered on his ribs and on his face. His left arm had a nasty looking hole in it as well. The thing that drew my attention most of all, though, was a wicked looking scar on his left side, that looked as though it was right over his heart. I nearly jumped when his eyes opened again, and he cursed as the doctor used some kind of disinfectant on the hole in his arm.
“I don’t want any stitches,” Dad said muzzily.
“You’ll get another scar to join the rest, if you don’t have any,” the doctor answered testily.
Dad caught me staring and I couldn’t help it, I asked, “Was that from a gun, too? Who did that?”
He blinked and said, “Voldemort.”
That gave me the shivers, to hear that name there, in the Muggle place of all places. “How come you say his name?” I asked.
Dad gave me a funny look, which was hardly surprising considering he’d been drugged and tortured and probably had broken ribs and said, “That was the name he gave himself. His real name was Tom Marvolo Riddle and he was a human being once upon a time just like you and me.”
I gawped at him in astonishment again. I wanted to say, that’s not possible, no human does the things You Know Who had done. As if he knew my thoughts, though, he said, “It’s men who do the most evil, Sirius. Voldemort chose to make his life what it was, an evil life. He could have made different choices. He could have used his talents for good. Even at the end, he could always have made a different choice. Remember that,” he said. He looked as though he would pass out again, but he opened his eyes and said, “Promise me you’ll remember that, Sirius. You can always make the right choice, even when it’s very, very hard.”
I was cold and tired and a bit scared and I didn’t like the way they had hooked Dad up to those Muggle machines. They had dropped Dad’s shirt on the floor when they stripped it off him to clean and bind his injuries and I got a hold of it just in time before an assistant could. I slid his wand out from the bloodstained bundle and said defiantly, “My Mum can wash it.”
The assistant looked at me strangely and then went away with a shrug. I waited a moment and breathed a sigh of relief as I felt the wand in my hand. It wasn’t mine, but it would do if needed. I looked at it and thought, this is the wand that Dad used to fight with You Know Who. A sound made me jump and I turned and pointed the wand only to let it drop down again.
“Put that away,” Matilda’s Dad said. “You’ll mess up everything if you start using magic here.”
Defiantly, I stuck it in my pocket and let the end stick out. “I want to know how they knew where Dad would be.” I said. “How could they know where we were?”
Matilda’ Dad has these grey eyes, a silvery-grey that reminded me of Narcissus Malfoy, only they weren’t sneaky or nasty. He looked at me thoughtfully and said, “Matilda says you’re quite smart. Smart enough to be in Ravenclaw.”
I ignored that and said, “It doesn’t take any great brains to see that someone had to tell them where we’d be. And I know that practically no one would have known.”
“Who did know?” Mr. Bones asked.
“Mum and James and Lily. And Matilda,” I added. “I told her at Christmas. But no one else.”
“What about your brother and sister?” he asked. “Would they have said anything?”
I shook my head. “They don’t care for that kind of music. I don’t think so. And the only other people who might have known were my grandparents.” I did not add that Matilda’s Dad had known and his boss. I looked at his face and tried to decide if I could imagine Bones as a Death Eater or a traitor who would betray Dad’s whereabouts to his enemies. I decided I couldn’t. I decided I had an idea who had done and I wasn’t going to wait to find out or to let the traitor strike again. No one was going to do that to my Dad again. Not without getting through me first.
I stalked out of the infirmary and hit the elevator button. Bones came running after me and jumped in the elevator just as I hit the button that would take me back to where we had been before. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked.
I got off the elevator and drew Dad’s wand and I pulled away from Bones as he tried to stop me. “I want to know,” I said. “He is going to tell the truth.”
“Who is?” Bones asked. He looked thoroughly alarmed, but not puzzled and I had a feeling he had already come to the same conclusion I had.
“Him,” I said as I pointed the wand at Locherman. “You.”
Everyone there froze and my godfather said, “Sirius! Don’t do it!”
I don’t know what he thought I was going to do, but his voice held no charm that could stop me then.
“It was you,” I accused Locherman. “You betrayed my Dad.”
Locherman stood up and eyed my wand warily. “He’s obviously addled from that knock on the head. I thought he was being seen to.”
“I’m not addled,” I said coldly. “You knew where Dad was going to be. You were the only one who knew where he would be who would have betrayed him.”
Several people exclaimed, but Locherman ignored them. “Just hand that over,” he said smoothly to me, “and we’ll forget that you are threatening a government minister.”
“I shall do more than threaten you,” I answered, “unless I get an answer.”
A man in a uniform made a move for the gun at his hip but by the time he had drawn it I had already transfigured it and he was left holding a bouquet of flowers. He gawped and next to me, Bones groaned. I was really startled though at his next words.
“Sirius is right about one thing,” he said. “There were very few people who knew where Harry would be. And I highly doubt that the Prime Minister would have mentioned it to anyone.”
“Six was there,” Locherman, answered. He looked a bit sweaty now as I continued to hold the wand on him. “He might have mentioned it. I always thought he was untrustworthy.”
“I don’t think so,” Bones said. His grey eyes were locked on Locherman and his expression now was anything but polite. He advanced on Locherman and I was surprised to see that my godfather was joining him.
“You really hate Harry,” Johnny said. “Maybe you thought you could get rid of him and take in Hayden all in one go.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Locherman said. “Just because Potter’s a hound for glory and a bit, well, unreliable, doesn’t mean I would betray my own agent to the enemy.” He almost managed to sound affronted.
“My Dad is not unreliable,” I shouted. I was so angry that the wand shot crimson sparks and Locherman jumped at the sight of them.
“Harry doesn’t want publicity,” Bones said.
“Ha!” Locherman answered. “It’s the sword he wants then, for himself, as he’s a wizard.”
“How’d you know about that?” I asked. I said it almost in a whisper because I felt as if I might actually kill him if he spoke any louder.
“We all know that’s what Hayden’s after,” he answered.
“I didn’t say anything about that,” I said even more quietly. “I didn’t tell you that Hayden wanted Arthur’s sword. You couldn’t know that was what he actually wanted from Dad. Not unless you were in on it all the time.”
I drew my arm back, though I didn’t get as far as actually uttering a spell. Bones caught my wrist and Johnny moved at the same time, shoving Locherman into the wall in the position policemen always use in those shows on the telly.
“You can’t do this to me!” Locherman said. “The kid’s crazy.”
“Well, we can,” Bones said. “As Head of Department 7, I am arresting you, Locherman, for treason and conspiracy to commit treason and for conspiracy to murder an officer of the Crown.”
“There’s no such thing as Department 7,” Locherman bellowed. “That’s rumor. You’re my subordinate, on loan from the Yard.”
“Why do you think I was at that meeting with you and the Prime Minister yesterday?” Bones asked.
A silence fell and Bones said after a moment, “I knew something was wrong when you started talking about Six being worried about the wrong people. You’re not just after getting rid of Harry. You’re actually one of Hayden’s. You got your start in the same district that openly elected an Alliance man before the Alliance was officially listed as a terror organization. You joined the Opposition, but your loyalties have been to the Alliance all this time. It was you that engineered Hayden’s escape, wasn’t it?”
Anger possessed me when I realized the full extent of it. I tried to aim the wand again, but Bones twisted my wrist and the wand fell. Locherman moved suddenly and tore himself from Johnny’s grasp – but only for a moment. He stepped back just a little and then struck Locherman on the back of the head with a very loud thunk. In an instant, he and the big man called Mac had Locherman cuffed and they dragged him off. Everyone watched them go and then stared at me as if I was somehow to blame. The gruff one, who had been nice about Dad, said, “Looks like you take after your Dad. Too sharp for you own good not enough sense to be scared when you ought to be.”
~~~
New Year’s Day had arrived by the time we got home. Astonishingly, Mum did not yell or have tantrum when she saw us. Though she was pale, she remained entirely calm and had Dad in bed without any argument from him in a minute flat. He slept most of the rest of the day, but I could not. I lay on my own bed staring at the ceiling and trying to come to grips with the fact that I had been less than a second from death. I had no illusions that I would have survived a bullet to the head. Some wizards might discount the lethal possibilities in Muggle weapons, but I never would again. I had seen the hole in Dad’s arm the gun had left. I had seen the damage the bomb had done at Kings Cross. If Dad hadn’t gotten out of those ropes, I would be dead. I could not forget those scars either, nor the way he had said Voldemort. I wondered how he had known You Know Who’s real name and how… how had Dad survived the things he had survived. Most of all, I thought it was no wonder I hadn’t been placed in Gryffindor. I had seen what courage meant and I was sure I wasn’t brave like that at all.
***
At midnight, Sunday evening, Harry was quite ready to listen to Ginny and go back to bed, though he’d only been up for several hours. His arm hurt, his ribs hurt, and he was feeling quite annoyed that he couldn’t go to St. Mungo’s to get his injuries taken care of. Madam Pomfrey would have to see to them in a few days. He would have to take the children to the station in the morning and go into work instead of riding the Hogwarts Express back as he had planned. He was not going to miss out on questioning Locherman and he was extremely irritated that the others had figured out Locherman’s involvement without him. Locherman was still insisting he was not connected to Hayden and the Alliance and Harry was inclined to believe that. The man’s distaste and fear of wizards had been too obvious at the last meeting with the Prime Minister and Harry supposed that Locherman had let slip his location to the anonymous source with the intention of setting Harry up as bait for Hayden. Edgar had stopped by earlier and he had been more doubtful.
“It doesn’t explain his interest in Arthur’s sword,” Edgar said. “He knew that was what Hayden wanted.”
“We all know that’s one of Hayden’s obsessions,” Harry answered. “He knows I’m a wizard. He figured I’d want a magic sword like that for myself.”
“You’ve got one,” Edgar had replied.
“Yeah,” Harry said, “but he doesn’t know that.”
When the phone rang in the front lounge, Harry ignored it at first. It rang again and kept ringing and Harry finally went to pick it up as it occurred to him that it might be Johnny or Edgar or even Dudley.
“Locherman’s out,” Edgar said furiously.
“What d’you mean he’s out?” Harry asked.
“The Prime Minister made us let him go. The Opposition found out and they’re up in arms,” Edgar said. “They accused the Prime Minister of trumping up accusations so he can put his own man in that spot.”
“But how did they find out?” Harry asked.
“We’re not sure,” Edgar answered. “He does have a few men who’re loyal to him. Some of the ones Bentley’s passed over, you know. Some of the ones who’re jealous of you or scared of you.”
“There’re only a few who know about me being a wizard and they’re okay,” Harry protested.
“There’ve been whispers about you for a while,” Edgar replied. “You’ve gotten out of tight spots too often.”
“That’s what we’re trained to do,” Harry answered dryly.
“Oh, yeah,” Edgar replied, “Only some of them no body should’ve been able to. Like you getting out of those ropes yesterday. That kind of thing.”
“Now we can’t question Locherman,” Harry said.
“Not easily,” Edgar answered. “Apparently he’s taking an extended leave. The Prime Minister saw to that. But there won’t be any official replacement until this all blows over and the Opposition get distracted by some other problem.” Edgar paused and Harry could hear him yawning over the phone.. “Bentley wants you in tomorrow,” he added. “We need to figure out where Hayden’s gone to ground, and we need a plan to find that sword.”
“And what are we going to do with it?” Harry asked.
“Use it as bait for Hayden,” Edgar replied. “If we can find that…”
Harry hung up thinking that this was one quest that was going nowhere. He had an inkling where it might be hidden, but he thought for sure that getting past the enchantments guarding it would be far more difficult than getting past the ones guarding the Philosopher’s Stone.
In the morning, there was the usual flurry of last minute packing and forgotten items as they prepared for their return to Hogwarts for the winter term. Harry thought that Sirius was looking a bit pale and worried that he hadn’t had a chance to talk to him properly after the weekend’s disaster. It worried him, too, that he would not be able to ride the train up with them, and so he kept stopping Sirius in the middle of his final packing to remind him to patrol the train corridors and to get James to help him and not to feel embarrassed about having the train conductor call ahead to Hogwarts for assistance if problem should come up. On his fourth interruption, Sirius had flung back his hair in a gesture so like his namesake that Harry felt as though a ghost had solidified in front of him and said, “It’ll be all right, Dad. No one will attack the train if you’re not on it!” Then he had flushed in horror and said, “I didn’t mean – “
Harry had not known quite what to say to that and it hadn’t helped when James had come out of his room and shouted at Sirius. “You’re such a git. Just because you got scared because Dad almost got killed doesn’t mean you have to be rude about it.”
Unusually, Sirius had yelled back, “Well, I almost got killed, too, you know! Just because I’m not as brave as you or Dad doesn’t mean I don’t know anything.”
“You didn’t even draw your wand,” James said angrily.
“He didn’t have one,” Harry cut in. “And stop this! Sirius did nothing wrong and he’s not a coward. Do you think I wasn’t scared? Do you really think being brave is not being scared? It’s nothing to do with whether you feel scared when someone’s trying to kill you. I feel scared every time. It’s what you do anyway that counts, not whether you’re afraid.”
Sirius flushed then and looked away and Harry understood that Sirius was worried about more than the quality of his courage. He wondered with anxiety what else he ought to say and how many mistakes he might have made, but before he could say anything else, Sirius said, “It’s just, what if Malfoy’s grandfather comes back again? I don’t expect Hayden will show, but what about the Death Eaters? There’ll be two hundred children on the train and I’m no auror.”
“I’ve arranged for some extra protection,” Harry said quietly. “Your Uncle Ron will ride the train with you and a couple of others. Id’ come myself, but like I said ---“
“You have to go into work,” Sirius finished. “Will they fire you?” he asked.
James and Lily looked at them curiously. They, too, had been stunned to find out Harry did not work for the Ministry of Magic. It had been impossible to keep what he did secret as Ginny had been so worried by the bullet wound in his arm that she had forgotten not to mention things.
“I don’t think so,” Harry said calmly. “But it doesn’t matter if they do.”
Sirius had stared at him and Harry could almost see the brilliant wheels of his mind turning. “I bet it does,” he said. Then he lifted his eyebrows and said, “And to think I was worried you wouldn’t approve of me going to Muggle University.” He didn’t wait for Harry surprised response either, but marched back into his room to close the case on his cherished new guitar and carried it down to join his trunk and Athena’s velvet draped cage.
They all trooped down the long gravel path to the front gates. Harry had called for a taxicab as he had left his car at the car park in the city. He would see the children to the station and then go on from there to the office at Thames Street. He bent to pick up the morning's edition of the paper, which no one had bothered to bring in as they were all at sixes and sevens getting ready to leave. The Daily Prophet had been quiet for once. Not one headline featured Harry's name and that was how he liked it. He tucked the paper under his arm for later, never realizing that it might have provided some warning of what was to come.
At the front gate, the taxicab was waiting, but the driver was having trouble getting out. Surrounding the cab and blocking the normally quiet street were several dozen people, some carrying cameras, others hanging out of vans on which small satellite set-ups were attached. As Harry stepped forward, he was utterly horrified by the shouted questions:
"Is it true you're an agent of MI-5, Lord Gryffindor?" shouted one reporter.
"Is that why you were appointed to the Queen's entourage? Are you providing security for the royal family?" called out another.
"Is it true you have psychic powers?"
"Are you really a wizard? Can we see some magic, Mr. Potter?"
"And what about the rumors that the Prime Minister wanted to appoint you to his cabinet but the Opposition doesn't want you there? Do you know why?"
For a whole moment, Harry simply stared at the mob of questioners. He was completely and utterly flummoxed. Not even the worst moments in the wizard world, when his reputation had been destroyed by Fudge's campaign to discredit him and Dumbledore had approached the level of ferocity here. He considered, briefly, pulling out his wand and jinxing the lot, but he quickly realized that this would be useless. Damage control was necessary.
Harry turned to the children and said, "Get in the taxi. Quickly, now."
Sirius gave James a little shove and glared ferociously at a reporter who was now focusing his camera on Lily. He gave her a shove into the taxi, handed her Athena's cage, and then began loading the three trunks into the boot of the cab. Harry gave Sirius a grateful nod and stepped a bit away from the taxi, causing all of the reporters to re-focus on him. They began shouting questions again, but he raised his hand and said, "I will give you one short statement and then I must go."
There were more questions shouted again, "are you really an MI-5 agent?" and "what about those magician rumors?"
"I am a government employee," Harry said coolly. "I work for Britain and for the Queen, and that is all I have to say."
"So you're admitting you work for MI-5?"
Harry lifted an eyebrow and answered, "Disclosure of the identity of Security Services officers is a violation of the State Secrets Act so you shouldn't be asking that question even if you had positive information to begin with. And I wouldn't answer you, if I were because I would be violating the same Act if I did."
"So you don't deny it?" the reporter demanded.
"If I deny it," Harry said dryly, "you'll just say I denied it all the while implying that I lied. So why should I bother answering at all?" He stepped back and nodded at Sirius to get into the taxi. The reporters weren't done, however.
"But is it true you're a magician and have psychic powers? Is it true there's a whole community of witches living right here in Britain? Do you use sorcery in your job?"
Harry paused, and using all of his hard-won ability at Occlumency, forced himself to answer in a tone of amusement. "No doubt you'll be asking if there are really elves and fairies next? And after that, you'll want to know if I'm really an alien from another planet. And don't you think I'd be flying on my broomstick instead of taking a taxi if I were?"
There was a small silence and then a wave of chuckles went round. Harry thought he'd carried that off quite well and he started again to get into the cab. Another questioner called out, "So is that your son, Lord Gryffindor? Does he socialize with the Princes? Do you like them or are they a bit stuck up?"
Sirius froze in the act of placing his guitar case in the trunk. Harry was on the brink of losing his temper, but Sirius forestalled him. "I don't know them at all," he said politely.
"And what've you got in that case there?" one of the reporters asked, "your broomstick?"
Sirius gave a sudden snort of laughter and opened his case to show them all his brand new cherry red Stratocaster. "My mates in my band say I can really fly with this." He grinned cheekily and snapped the case closed and got in the car with perfect cool. Harry followed suit, waiting for the taxi to nose its way through the mob before turning to Sirius to say, "You were brilliant."
The extent of the disaster was not clear until Harry glanced at the paper. Even the stodgy paper, which normally headlined such stories as what the price of the euro was against the dollar, and statistics about the days patients were waiting to see doctors, and the results of the latest G-8 conference, had a photo of the procession from Opening Day with a circle magnifying Harry's face in front of the Queen's carriage. When he arrived at the Thames Street office, the receptionist immediately pounced on him. "Bentley wants you now," she said. Although her tone was stiff and professional, Harry could not help noticing that she had a copy of the Sun and that the headline was worthy of Rita Skeeter. "MI-5 Places Mystery Sorcerer in Queen's Household" Below that, half a page was taken up with speculations on the number of witches presently living in Britain and calls for an investigation of the "ongoing cover-up." Harry wondered whether he was now going to go down in wizard history as being more famous for having broken the Statute of Secrecy so thoroughly that the wizarding world would never be the same again.
He felt alternately hot and chilled and his injured arm throbbed uncomfortably. Rebelliously, he wished that he had gone to St. Mungo's or directly back too Hogwarts. An old feeling of grievance surfaced: how could the Ministry have forced him into working for the Muggles? The risk had been there all along and they had known it.
He strode out of the elevator feeling savagely as though he could jinx anyone in his way. It was bad enough they'd got to him, but far worse to think his children had been caught on film as well. His anger dissipated and common sense returned, however, when Bentley greeted him, not with accusations, but with the anxious query, "Are you all right?"
The Deputy Head gestured for Harry to follow him. They had set up a situation room and the telly screen showed the scene in front of Harry's house. At least twenty papers were spread out, and some were already marked with suggestions for damage control.
"Listen, Harry," Bentley said, "We're going to have a tough time dealing with Locherman's loose tongue. The Opposition have demanded a hearing today, and the Prime Minister has decided to give it to them. You and I will go now and meet with him briefly before the hearing."
"The Opposition are the least of the problem," Harry answered, trying to stay calm. "I'll be in trouble under wizard law for breaching our secrecy laws."
"No you won't," Bentley replied sharply. "The Ministry of Magic has already been in touch with the Prime Minister. We are putting our heads together to figure out how best to deal with this."
Harry followed Bentley back down to the garage and thought gloomily during the short ride over to Westminster that an unstoppable juggernaut had been released.
~~***~~
“For someone who claims to want to purify the wizard world, you rely on Muggle technology way too much,” Lucius Malfoy sniped.
Hayden gave the Death Eater a cold glance and returned his attention to the screen on which the news commentator was discussing Harry Potter’s identity as an MI-5 agent and wizard. The revelation, even if it were ultimately buried by the Muggle authorities, was bound to give Potter enough trouble to distract him from his activities against the Alliance, and time was what Hayden wanted more than anything. Time and terror, he thought, were his two best weapons.
Annoyed, apparently, by Hayden’s failure to answer, Malfoy added ominously, “You also don’t seem to realize that the breach of the Statute of Secrecy will complicate our mission completely. How could you have let that moron know about the existence of wizards?”
Hayden turned his attention from the screen and retorted, “I don’t care if the Muggles know about the wizard world. When I rule, I will rule as a wizard king and the Muggles will be our servants, as they always should have been. As for Locherman, he is a fool, and has no idea that I am a wizard. He meant the information to be used as leverage by his party. He doesn’t even believe it’s really himself.”
“It’s still down to your carelessness,” Malfoy reiterated. “You let Potter get away. You had him in your hands, helpless, and he still got away.”
“And how would you plan to kill him?” Hayden inquired. “Would you dare use the Killing Curse? Had my man’s aim been better, Potter would be dead. At least I’ve managed to injure him and place him under the public spotlight where he’ll be too busy answering to the Muggles and to your lamentably stupid Ministry to interfere for a while.”
Hayden turned his attention back to the screen, which showed the procession in which Potter had ridden in protection of the Muggle queen. His eyes fixed jealously on the sword strapped at the Boy’s waist, with its golden lion and ruby stone.
“Look all you want,” Malfoy sneered. “That sword is as close as you’ll ever get to obtaining a real sword of power. You waste your time hunting for Arthur’s sword. Even if you could find it, you’d never get past Potter and his sword.”
“Why try to get past it?” Malfoy’s grandson cut in. “Why not just steal that one and forget Arthur’s sword, since you don’t know how to get past the enchantments guarding it anyway?”
“The Sword of Gryffindor has strong enchantments guarding it,” Lucius answered. He paused, and the expression in his pale eyes intensified. “On the other hand,” he said slowly, “there just might be a way to do it.”
~~***~~
Potter was really quite good with the press, the Prime Minister mused, almost good enough that he would have risked denying everything to the Opposition if things hadn’t progressed as far as they had. Unfortunately, the leak had been picked up overseas and was receiving play in the U.S. and among some of the E.U. countries as well. Even then, it would’ve been suppressible if the first leak hadn’t come from the head of MI-5 himself. He should have known better than to leave an Opposition man in place in such an important post.
The Prime Minister’s concerns redoubled, however, upon seeing Potter himself. The telly screen had not revealed the bruising on his face, nor his pallor, nor the angry, almost feverish glitter in the bright green eyes.
"I can't believe you let him go," Potter growled immediately upon entering.
"It was necessary," the Prime Minister replied.
"Well, we could've made sure the damage was minimized," Potter answered, "If anyone had bothered to tell me beforehand."
The Prime Minister opened his mouth to put Potter in his place for his rudeness, but he was forestalled by the Weasley woman with the bushy hair who'd been introduced to him as the liaison from the Ministry of Magic.
"Seeing as how you were unconscious, Harry, someone had to make that decision without you."
"What're you doing here, Hermione?" Potter asked irritably.
"I'm the Muggle liaison," she answered tartly.
"And what, you're going to make a speech to them, I suppose?" Potter replied.
"She will not be saying anything," the Prime Minister interrupted. "You will answer the questions put to you as truthfully as you're able."
"I...what?" Potter stared in astonishment. "You can't be serious! I'm not going to admit to them that I'm a wizard, or even that I work for the Security Services."
"Yes, you are, if they ask you those questions directly," the Prime Minister responded. "There's no point in denying things now."
"No point?" Potter echoed. "I'll be expelled as a wizard," he snapped.
"No you won't," Hermione cut in again. "Ernie knows you were made to work for the Muggles by Fudge. He won't let any demand for a hearing against you go forward."
"Even so," Potter rejoined, "I don't think we should actually confirm this to them."
"I will deal with what happens after," the Prime Minister said with finality. "Answer their questions, and leave the policy to me."
For a moment, the Prime Minister thought that Potter would actually refuse. However, he gave a shrug and seemed to visibly reign himself in. After a single deep breath, his face closed up into an inscrutable calm, impenetrable as any statue of a Buddha. They entered the hearing room together, and the Prime Minister devoutly hoped that the hearing would not be the end of his administration.
***
Upon entering the room, Harry saw that there were five men seated at a raised table and that there were microphones before each of them. The man in the center, and the only one Harry recognized, was the Opposition leader. He was a tall, balding man with a pleasant baritone voice. Harry supposed that the other four men must be members of the Shadow Cabinet, advisors to the Opposition leader. Off to the side was a man setting up a video camera for filming the proceedings and Harry had to wonder whether there weren’t other microphones distributed about, but too small to see.
The Prime Minister sat down at the center of the lower table and drew some papers out of a leather pouch. Harry suspected that the papers had nothing to do with the hearing and were only meant to impress. He moved to the chair beside the Prime Minister at his gesture but did not sit. Instead, he said quietly, “I’m not testifying if this is going to be recorded.”
The Prime Minister shrugged, however, and commented, “It’s much too late to worry about that.”
“I don’t agree,” Harry responded. He considered whether it might be better to obliviated every person there. No doubt Hermione would help if he did. He turned and motioned for her to sit by him. She shook her head imperceptibly and sat behind him instead. Bentley took a seat on the Prime Minister’s other side, and Edgar Bones came in and took a seat next to Hermione. Despite their presence, Harry felt quite alone as he determined to give the Opposition the least information possible.
“The meeting will come to order,” the Opposition leader announced, “and let the record reflect that this meeting commenced at noon on the second day of January. We are here to investigate the conduct of one Harry James Potter, also known as Lord Gryffindor, and the circumstances of his employment with the Security Services as well as an alleged cover-up by the Prime Minister and other members of the Security Services with regard to the same. Mr. Potter, if you would take a seat and state your name for the record.”
Harry took his seat and complied. He felt as though he were fifteen again and under threat of expulsion from school and from the wizarding community. He reminded himself that he must keep his temper and that although there were magic remedies for the present situation, none of them were going to be acceptable here. He wished momentarily that Dumbledore would sweep into the room and speak in his defense as he had when Harry was fifteen.
“Do you understand, Mr. Potter, that lying to Parliament is a crime punishable by five years in prison?”
“Yes,” Harry answered. “So is revealing the identity of an MI-5 officer,” he added.
“Are you saying that you are?” the Opposition leader asked.
“You’ve got my file sitting right in front of you,” Harry replied gently, “so I think we ought to bypass the preliminary nonsense and get to the real point of all of this.”
Next to him, the Prime Minister stirred as though he would interrupt. However, instead of speaking, he watched the five men at the other table with a very small smile on his face.
“And what is the point?” the Opposition leader asked politely.
“I was hoping you would tell me that,” Harry answered. “Because if this is just a way of scoring points off the Prime Minister and proving you an mess up some other legislation you’re all arguing about, I’ll go ahead and leave you to your maneuvering and get back to work.”
“So you do belong to his party, then?”
“That’s none of your business,” Harry said coolly.
“Of course, it’s our business if the Prime Minister and his party are colluding in covering up the existence of an entire community of magicians and employing them to use unscrupulous means of dominating the country and the Crown,” the Opposition leader retorted.
The small smile disappeared from the Prime Minister’s face and Harry was quite sure he was now wishing he’d let Harry do a bit of emergency magic to avert all of this.
“You’ve got a number interesting and unfounded conclusions there,” Harry objected, “not least of which is the assumption that your party hasn’t colluded in covering up the existence of wizards for centuries as well.”
“Centuries?” the Opposition leader exclaimed. “You’re admitting that you are a sorcerer of some kind, too?”
“I’m a wizard,” Harry replied. “That’s in my file as well. It’s why I was hired, or to be precise, drafted.”
“This is ridiculous,” muttered one of the Opposition leader’s advisers. “There’s no such thing as magic.”
“Then there was never anything to cover-up, was there?” Harry responded. He could almost enjoy their frustration as their hostility reminded him all too well of Uncle Vernon. They all glared at him with the exception of the Opposition leader, who was thumbing through Harry’s file with an expression of growing incredulity.
“According to this, you were hired by MI-5 at the age of eighteen, and you’d never been to university.”
“Yes,” Harry answered.
“And, according to this, you personally defeated the terrorist who went by the name of Lord Voldemort or the Lord of Death at age seventeen.”
“That’s right,” Harry answered.
“You’ve been working for the Security Services for seventeen years?”
“Yes,” Harry answered.
“And you were present at a planned arrest of the head of the terrorist organization, the Anglo Aryan Alliance on this Saturday past, which arrest your presence interfered with, and on account of which said terrorist leader escaped?”
“No,” Harry objected angrily.
“No?” the Opposition leader asked. “Be careful here, Mr. Potter, you were warned about lying to Parliament.”
“Why don’t you ask your man Locherman why he set me up as bait for that arrest without telling me?” Harry snarled. “Why don’t you ask who Locherman owes his loyalty to? Why isn’t the Prime Minister asking you if you knew that your appointee was in the habit of setting up his own agents to be killed and if you approved of it in advance?”
“Is that true that you didn’t know?” the Opposition leader asked. He sounded, for the first time, quite human, and quite aghast. The others beside him immediately began flipping through their files and making feverish notes, looking, perhaps, for some new angle or new offense with which to accuse Harry.
“It’s true,” Bones cut in suddenly. “Harry had the day off on Saturday, he mentioned where he was going only to Locherman, the Prime Minister, me and the head of MI-6. He was attacked by the Alliance and nearly killed by them and Locherman more or less admitted he set it up. And now Harry’s identity is compromised completely by Locherman’s announcement to the press and this hearing.”
“Who’re you?” one of the other men asked.
“Superintendent Bones,” the Prime Minister replied. “Head of the Scotland Yard’s anti-terror Task Force.”
“What about this wizard thing?” the Opposition leader interrupted. “Potter admitted he is one. How do we know what he’s been doing all these years? He was just appointed to the Queen’s entourage. How do we know he hasn’t been controlling our agents with some kind of black magic for years? How do we know he hasn’t cast some...some spell on the Queen herself?”
“I don’t do dark magic,” Harry said softly. “I fight our enemies that do. That’s my job. That’s what the Prime Minister hired me to do seventeen years ago.”
There was a tense pause. “The Prime Minister hired you?”
“I blackmailed him and all of them.” The Prime Minister spoke for the first time. “You would have too, I can assure you, and you would have kept it secret as well, I can guarantee you that. Would you have announced to the public that the Lord of Death was a black wizard with a band of black wizards who was terrorizing the country with magic? Would you have risked the panic and pandemonium that would have resulted? Do you recall the Winter of Ice? All those mass murders? The attack on the Queen?” He paused for effect, to let his words sink in and he knew he had them. “You’d have done exactly as I did, for the good of the nation. And the Queen knew all about it, from the beginning. She was the one who told me I had to call up the wizards again to fight this Lord Voldemort. The Crown has always known about the wizards. And the Prime Minister, whichever party he or she represents, is always told about the wizards and always keeps things quiet.”
“Always?” the Opposition leader asked weakly.
“Since the Middle Ages,” Harry affirmed. “Since the enactment of the Statute of Secrecy in 1692, under which all wizards and witches agreed to keep their existence secret.”
“But why?” the Opposition leader asked. The Prime Minister turned to look at Harry as though he, too, had wanted to ask that very question.
“To avoid the very thing that’s happening right here and now,” Harry answered. “We got tired of witch hunts, you see. Who wants to go around being threatened with drowning, or hanging or burning at the stake? Who wants to be accused of heresy just because he’s got a talent that some others don’t? Who wants to be oppressed and treated like a freak?” He tried, but was not entirely successful at keeping the bitterness out of his voice. “And the problem, now, is that you are so busy focusing on wizards that you’re in danger of forgetting that terrorists like the Alliance do as much damage with regular non-magic weapons as their Death Eater allies do with magic. The problem is, you’re so busy jockeying for power against the other parties, that you’re in danger of missing the point altogether.”
Again, there was silence as the Muggles stared at Harry.
“And what is the point?” the Opposition leader asked once more.
“The point,” Harry said, “is that if we don’t all stand together, wizards and non-wizards alike, the Alliance and its kind will exploit our fears and our differences and bring this country down in flames and it’ll never be the same again.”
***
The Prime Minister took advantage of the moment to make the request he’d been planning to all along. “I wonder whether we might all agree together on one thing?”
“What might that be?”
“We should minimize the damage done by your man by announcing that the story about wizards is quite false,” the Prime Minister replied.
“It’s already all over,” his opposite number objected. But the Prime Minister could see that he considering all the angles. His party would hardly look good if the full story were revealed. Well, none of them would.
“And what about Lord Gryffindor, here? What do we do about him? His identity is compromised no matter what.”
Beside him, Potter stiffened, but he closed his mouth on whatever protest he meant to utter as the Prime Minister answered, “We’ll let it be known that he is an MI-5 officer and that we are gravely concerned at the breach of secrecy. We can even let it be known that he was originally assigned to the Queen’s party on Opening Day to provide personal security for the Royal family as we had credible information of a possible terrorist attack on the Queen. We can also remind the public that it’s not the first time the Queen’s entourage has been attacked by terrorists. And we can announce that Harry will be transferring to consult with the Yard’s Anti-Terror Task Force along with continuing to advise the Palace on security.”
The Prime Minister held his breath as the Opposition put their heads together to mutter over the suggestion. He was quite sure they were looking for a way to get out of keeping the reality of the wizard community secret, as it was their best weapon for bringing down the present government.
“This is already on tape,” his opposite asserted. “BBC and CNN have already shown tapes of that mob of reporters interviewing Potter this morning.”
“And nothing in that interview confirmed the existence of wizards at all,” the Prime Minister said. “A few conspiracy theorists will go on believing that there are wizards. They might even write a few books about it and start a cottage industry. But most of the public will want to think it’s all nonsense. Most of the public doesn’t want to think that magic exists at all.”
“I still haven’t seen any evidence it does in any case,” commented the Opposition leader’s security advisor. “Seems like it’s just a good excuse for your side to increase the budgets for your pet projects, especially the black ops ones.” He glared at Potter and said, “Rot! That’s what it is. Load of nonsense meant to make us think the terror threat is greater than it is.”
The Prime Minister looked at Potter. He looked exceedingly unhappy as he glanced back at the Weasley woman and then back to the Prime Minister himself. The Prime Minister cleared his throat and said, “Well, then you’re agreed to keep all of this quiet, as I suggested.”
“Not necessarily,” the Opposition leader rejoined. “I’m not going to be accused of deceiving the public and keeping them in the dark about a real threat to their safety. If there’s even any likelihood they can be attacked by magic, they should know.”
“You prefer to start a panic?” the Prime Minister asked silkily.
“We’d need to reassure them that measures are in place for their protection.”
“Measures are in place,” the Weasley woman interrupted, “as they have been for centuries. The general populace has no more need to know the details of their magical protection than they have to know the details of the protection they are given through military intelligence. It’s why we have an Official Secrets Act to begin with.”
“And who are you?” the Opposition leader demanded.
“Hermione Granger-Weasley,” she answered. “Head of Magical Law Enforcement and Ministry of Magic Liaison to the Muggle Prime Minister.” The Prime Minister noted with distinct discomfort that the woman, whom he had previously considered to be quite intelligent and perfectly harmless, had drawn a slim wooden stick and was tapping it in the palm of one hand.
“Hermione!” Potter protested. His protest was drowned out by the offended looks on the Opposition men’s faces. “You aren’t going to try to persuade us this is real?” asked their security advisor. “Perhaps you can make a rabbit come out of a hat and I could hire you to give a performance at my daughter’s birthday party.”
The Prime Minister knew that they were all in trouble. He should have warned the other side that the wizards were to be treated with the same deference they gave to ambassadors from other countries, even when their dress and customs were different and appeared backward compared to their own. He supposed that the security advisor had been deceived by the Weasley woman’s appearance. She looked like quite an ordinary, pretty woman, and could easily have passed as one of his own staff members.
Unfortunately, Potter took the insult quite badly. He drew his own wand, which the Prime Minister suddenly recalled had some rather interesting uses, and pointed it at the video camera. A flare of red light hit the camera, and it metamorphosed instantly into – a rabbit. It would have been laughable had Potter not followed up with an even more alarming action. He said something that sounded like “Accio listening devices,” upon which, a number small objects whizzed through the air and landed in a pile on the table in front of him. Worse still, one of the Opposition men who had been entirely silent until then twitched in horror as his jacket and shirt ripped open and a small receiver with wires detached themselves from him and soared through the air to join the rest. The Prime Minister could not help noting with inappropriate amusement that the Opposition man had quite a hairy chest and that the sudden removal of the tape, which had held the wire to his body, must have hurt.
“I do believe that takes care of the record of this hearing,” Potter said calmly. A flick of his wrist brought the rabbit soaring through the air to the table in front of the security advisor. “There’s your rabbit, sir. On second thought,” he added, “perhaps not.” With another flick of his wand, the rabbit disappeared, but the video camera did not reappear. The Prime Minister would have laughed at the expression on the Oppositions’ faces if the casual demonstration hadn’t terrified him as well. He swallowed and reminded himself that Potter was on the right side.
“How do we know you won’t use that on us?” the Opposition leader asked.
Potter looked at them and answered in almost an apologetic tone, as though he were ashamed of having shown off, “I’ll be much too busy using going after the Death Eaters and the Alliance. And,” he continued quiet dryly, “I don’t expect there’ll be any need for you to ever see any magic again – so long as you do agree to keep this quiet.”
It was, however, Deputy Bentley who had the last word. “I have to disagree with your plan to confirm Harry’s employment with MI-5. We don’t want one of our best officers transferred and we have need of his special skills.”
“Why did he foul up the arrest last Saturday, then?” the Opposition’s security advisor complained. “How come he didn’t use magic to collar that Alliance fellow?”
Bentley glared at them all and said, “They drugged him and tried to kill him. Weren’t you listening? And Harry was the officer who brought Hayden in the first time around. Hayden’s been wanting a piece of his hide ever since!” Bentley stalked out of the hearing room and Potter followed. The Prime Minister could not help feeling a small sense of annoyance. He had been thinking that the incident had given him the excuse to push Potter to work directly for him in the position Potter had rejected. At least the worst of the damage would be averted for the present and at least Potter hadn’t simply resigned. He resolved to badger the Opposition Leader even more than usual at their next session of questions.
