Potter's memory was wiped.
It sounds alarming, but in practice, he suggested it himself before any of the wizards remaining in the hospital wing had a chance to raise the idea. He'd apparently had time to think it over while the whole performance was playing out, and having finally grasped that his efforts at Occlumency hadn't exactly been crowned with success — not in terms of reaction speed or mental resistance — he'd decided to safeguard the overall plan by removing its weakest link: his own memory.
I had no desire to take any further part in these absurd proceedings, and so I took my leave while the others were busy magically repairing the windows of the hospital wing. The Headmaster only managed to say that I shouldn't spread word of what had happened — though reminding me of that was hardly necessary.
The following morning, the entire school was rocked by McGonagall's announcement that Dumbledore had been killed in the course of a nocturnal raid and Death Eater attack. The funeral would take place within the coming days — a separate announcement would follow.
The morning post finished everyone off. The front page carried a story about an overnight combat operation by the Death Eaters, led by You-Know-Who. Several departments had been wrecked, half the Atrium demolished, Dumbledore had personally engaged the Dark Lord in battle while defending Potter and his classmates, who had somehow found their way there. Injured but undefeated, both Dumbledore and the Dark Lord had fought to a draw, leaving rubble and witnesses in their wake.
— And what happens now? — Justin, like everyone around him, was deeply shaken and alarmed by such a rapid turn of events.
— What do ordinary people usually do when everything around them goes to hell? — I glanced at him.
— They hope the government will sort it out, — Justin gathered his thoughts, though his expression only darkened further. — Except it doesn't look like the Ministry is capable of sorting out anything of this kind. They couldn't manage it last time — luck did it for them. And they won't manage it this time either.
From all sides came the murmur of anxious conversation, the occasional dispirited scrape of cutlery against plates. Despite the dreadful news, the students hadn't lost their appetites entirely — though all enthusiasm for anything cheerful had evaporated. Some were worrying about parents and relatives.
— Wizards, if historical records are to be believed, — I, unlike the rest, had no intention of going hungry, and was working steadily through my breakfast. — Since the Statute of Secrecy was established, they haven't resolved conflicts like this. Not properly. A bit here and there, maybe. I think the problem is that there's never been a sound framework for dealing with trouble on this scale.
— Along with a certain reluctance to kill other wizards, — Ernie had caught our conversation. — Father used to say that ordinary people don't stand on ceremony in cases like this.
— Depends on the country and the severity of the crimes, — I nodded, finishing my breakfast and picking up my cup of juice. — But broadly speaking, yes, they don't. Incidentally, what does everyone think — why is there such a taboo on killing in the wizarding world? I mean, we do have the death penalty, but you'd have to rack up quite a remarkable tally to qualify for it.
The students from wizarding families could only exchange uncertain glances, unsure what to say, because that was simply how things were. Justin, however, had worked it out — we'd touched on something like this before.
— Too few wizards, — he nodded. — Too small a population. And as far as I can tell, most of them know each other. Each other's families, relatives. They keep running into one another in the same places, discussing things, arguing, falling out.
— That makes sense, — the girls agreed.
— Exactly! — Justin's smile carried little joy. — And when you've known someone a long time, it's hard to be indifferent to their fate — let alone personally sentence them to death, or carry out the sentence.
— But some people aren't stopped by that, — Susan, gloomier than usual, was making a pointed reference to recent events and to the Death Eaters.
— Any society, however egalitarian, will sooner or later find itself subject to increasing divergence, — I spread my hands slightly, as if to say: well, what's surprising about that? — It's in human nature to divide into groups along one line or another. And the innate desire to be better than someone else maps neatly onto that kind of division. Only it's far easier and simpler not to improve yourself, but rather to diminish others in some way. The other "group." Another race, nationality, religion, background. People of a different social standing, and so on. But those groups don't agree amongst themselves either, and violence follows. A bit of agitation, the right framing of information, and suddenly it seems not merely acceptable but positively righteous to kill certain people on the basis of some invented distinction.
I'd got rather too absorbed in my own thoughts.
— That's a bit of a stretch, honestly, — Justin clapped me on the shoulder.
— And that's without even touching on politics alongside whatever the fashionable social currents happen to be. You know, ever since the French came up with the concept of "human rights" in the eighteenth century, things have only got worse. And especially after the Second World War. Because it makes such a splendid pretext for deploying "peacekeeping" forces into some inconvenient country — oh dear, they're violating human rights over there.
— You're not making the situation any better, — Hannah shook her head. — It's just not clear what any of us are supposed to do now…
— Nothing. First, we need to see how the Ministry responds. And Crouch. But also — what target the Dark Lord chooses next.
— And us?
— What about us? McGonagall will become Headmistress, or acting Headmistress, at least for a while. After that, if I were the Ministry and the Board of Governors, I'd appoint someone as Headmaster who isn't the Dark Lord's declared enemy. Some neutral or compromise figure. Simply so that the Dark Lord considers Hogwarts, if not his own, then at least free from the influence of his ideological opponents.
Breakfast came to an end and students headed off to lessons. Tuesday, the thirteenth of February. I wondered whether the Quidditch match would be cancelled in light of mourning for Dumbledore, or whether they'd decide it should do the opposite and lift everyone's spirits. I also wondered who Dumbledore would let in on the secret of his faked death.
The day passed in a thoroughly grim fashion. The professors attempted to compensate for the unpleasant news with more engaging delivery, but who was there to compensate for their own sagging morale? It was remarkable, how a single wizard, by the mere fact of his existence, had served as a kind of regulator for the lives of so many others. And this was still before the news had spread beyond Hogwarts. I was quite certain the atmosphere out in wizarding society would be much the same once they learned of Dumbledore's death. Something else was interesting, too.
The reckless idiots had been discharged from the hospital wing — hardly surprising, magic is remarkably effective on ordinary injuries. Potter was utterly miserable, which was understandable. Ron and Hermione, however, were deeply preoccupied, occasionally glancing at the tormented Harry. They were going to have to carry a dreadful secret, one whose revelation might lift a burden from their friend's soul.
In the evening, after supper, the regular meeting of the DADA club was scheduled, and all members attended. Even Malfoy. There weren't really any lessons as such. Many were curious about what had actually happened the previous night. Many — but not all. Hermione, Daphne, Draco and I, along with the Hufflepuff contingent, settled at a table and on cushions near the bookshelves, conjured some light, and simply read. Though we did send Justin over to the crowd who wanted to hear the dramatic account of the others' idiotc escapades. Ron, incidentally, wasn't crowing or spinning wild tales — he sat beside Potter looking quite thoughtful, occasionally correcting something in Harry's telling.
From the corner of my ear I caught snatches of the story, heard the questions from the others, and could piece together a fairly complete picture of what had happened — though honestly, I had no need for it whatsoever.
This group of the alternatively gifted, led directly by Potter while under the mental influence of the Dark Lord — which he didn't mention, incidentally — had managed to slip out of Hogwarts via the fireplace in McGonagall's office when the professor and Hermione had stepped away for literally a moment. By Floo they'd gone to Neville's house — his grandmother was travelling around the country at the time, having nothing particularly pressing to do at home.
There, at Neville's house, they'd taken some old broomsticks — wizards generally dislike disposing of things they no longer need, and brooms get replaced rather often, with new models coming out every year or two. In any case, on broomsticks they'd flown to London, Neville's house being somewhere not too far off. They'd made their way to Whitehall, found the entrance to the Ministry — courtesy of Ron, whose father had brought him to work before, though not through the "front door" or the Atrium fireplaces, but through a special lift disguised as a telephone box that Muggles couldn't see regardless.
Then came the account of how they'd made it, without triggering any alarm, without any difficulty, without witnesses or anything else, all the way to the Department of Mysteries — the door to which Ron had identified from Potter's description. Utterly fantastical. So: in the Department of Mysteries the Death Eaters had cornered Potter and his friends, and began chasing them through the entire Ministry. The students described the spells used — their own and the Death Eaters' — and I can say with some confidence that the group hadn't a chance, and the Death Eaters were clearly toying with them, because if that is their actual level, they can't even be considered proper opponents.
Chase, chase, chase — they pressured Potter and the others to retrieve some prophecy, steadily inflicting more and more injuries. The students managed to bite back effectively a couple of times, but that was purely down to the Death Eaters underestimating how much of a threat they posed. Chase, chase, chase — they never really achieved anything, demolished the Hall of Prophecy, and then reinforcements arrived in the form of a mixed company of wizards. At that point a real battle broke out — one in which the students' only option was to hide and run — and it was precisely in that battle that they received all their serious injuries from stray spells, trusting in themselves a touch too much.
One of the wizards who arrived took responsibility for evacuating the group, and opted for the obvious approach — the fireplaces in the Atrium. Potter and his team, battered but alive, were escorted to the Atrium — but there Voldemort appeared, instantly incapacitating that valiant wizard, though not actually killing him. For several minutes the Dark Lord theatrically demonstrated his malevolence and cunning, bound the children as a precaution, and proceeded to torment Potter while frightening everyone half to death. Then Dumbledore appeared, and the two of them set about demolishing the Atrium, deploying rather large-scale spells and effects that no one had heard of before, animating statues, hurling rocks, shards, glass, dark and light bursts and beams about the place, pressing everything around them with raw magic and attempting to get at one another. On a couple of occasions Dumbledore shielded himself from the Dark Lord's Killing Curse with Transfiguration, but once Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix, had to take the blow for the old man. Not to worry — he'd be reborn.
They ended in a draw, and as far as I could tell, the reason was the arrival of a large number of wizards, including Minister Crouch. And after that — the rest is known. The only thing is that Potter now has no idea that Dumbledore's death had been staged right before his eyes, that these memories Dumbledore had removed from his head at Potter's own request and with his consent, and that the memories had been neatly erased and falsified.
— And what do they find so fascinating in the story of this failure? — Malfoy looked towards the students gathered around Potter with mild distaste, and at Potter himself.
— You already know the details? — Hannah was surprised.
— Anyone who isn't deaf knows them. Do you think Weasley's been quiet out of modesty? — Malfoy smirked. — Not a bit. He told everyone everything this morning. On the lower years — their sister told every last one of them. And by lunchtime the whole of Hogwarts knew.
— And you're not worried at all, about… — Susan might dislike people, but she has a trace of Slytherin social grace, and she tries to phrase things more or less carefully. — About persecution. Of you and of Slytherin in general. The Death Eaters did kill Dumbledore. And they have plenty of relatives here.
— Since we're on the subject, — Malfoy looked at Bones, — there were Blacks in your family line too. And in the Abbotts'. And in quite a few others. So the question now is whether that's reason enough to hate you.
— Hmm… — a sigh escaped me, drawing the attention of everyone around, while Daphne, sitting at my side, leaned her shoulder against mine and carried on reading. — The wizarding world feels rather cramped, doesn't it. Spit in any direction and you'll hit a relative. Cross one person by accident and you've managed to offend an entire clan of distant cousins. How do you even defend your own interests when there's virtually no one you can move against — allies here, business partners there, shared values somewhere else, simply respected families elsewhere, or plain not worth the trouble? All that's left is Muggle-borns, who aren't really worth the bother of feuding with, and those with whom things are already bad enough that any worse means a blood feud.
— That's exactly why they get so worked up, — Hermione offered her view without looking up from her book, and only on feeling everyone's attention on her did she raise her eyes. — It's my personal opinion. I haven't found a precise argument for it yet, so don't expect an explanation.
— Sounds like something with a right to exist, — Daphne nodded, in no hurry to detach herself from my shoulder, though she had no desire to continue the conversation — she had a rather interesting book on, she'd got quite taken with Charms lately. And why not, when everything was beginning to come together for her, and very well at that?
— Tell me, Malfoy, — I turned to Draco. — How did you end up in conflict with Potter and Weasley in the first place?
— Everyone knows that, — he shrugged, making himself comfortable on the cushions. Where, incidentally, the other boys had also chosen to sit — all except me; I'd wanted to sit beside Daphne, which was mutual, while the girls had considered it too vulgar to sit on cushions and had therefore positioned themselves at the table.
— I, as it happens, missed the beginning of school life.
— Oh, right, — the smirk reappeared on Malfoy's face. — You're so infuriatingly good at everything, so absurdly superior, that I'd started to feel as if I'd known you always. Right then — first, one needs to understand that a great deal, as you yourself said… Well, there's no one worth feuding with, but sometimes you want to. With some you can't — allies. With others you can't — business partners. With a third group you can't — they hold more or less the same values. A fourth — simply respected wizarding families. A fifth — not worth the trouble. So what remains? Either Muggle-borns, against whom feuding is somehow beneath one, or those with whom things are already bad enough that any worse means a blood feud.
Hermione made a small sound and looked at Malfoy.
— That didn't stop you feuding with me.
— You should have stayed out of my rows with Weasley and Potter more often. And you always take the leading role, — Malfoy waved a hand. — Girls shouldn't get involved in boys' disputes; we don't get involved in yours. And if you do get involved — be prepared to be treated as an equal. We do have equality, or whatever the fashionable Muggle term for it is these days.
— That's fair enough, — I nodded, putting an arm around Daphne, who had been making quite unmistakably pointed efforts — nudging me shoulder to shoulder in a way that couldn't be misread.
— Hector, — my little sister gave me a reproachful look. — Couldn't you take your own sister's side?
— When someone points a wand at you — then I'll take your side. In an argument, I'm on the side of fairness, and I'd recommend the same to you. Simply assess it objectively. Girls often want to be treated as equals, given equal opportunity, on common terms. But they're not always prepared to be held accountable for their actions on those same common terms.
— That does sound a bit odd, honestly… — Hermione was doubtful, and in exactly what respect I wasn't destined to discover. She was also clearly eaten up with questions about my abilities, their limits, and so on. But she wasn't in a rush to ask directly. She'd almost certainly try to conduct some sort of investigation — she loves to "dig" for information.
Loaded with fresh data, the students from Potter's circle set to training. With serious expressions, determined, resolute… And rather struggling, because beneath the masks of resolve and bravery they were clearly hiding profound bewilderment at the general situation, which did nothing at all to assist them in learning new magical techniques, or consolidating old ones.
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