Adventures of Harriet Potter

The Second War Begins

                    HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED RETURNS
In a brief statement Friday night, Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge confirmed that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned to this country and is active once more. "It is with great regret that I must confirm that the wizard styling himself Lord — well, you know who I mean — is alive and among us again," said Fudge, looking tired and flustered as he addressed reporters. "It is with almost equal regret that we report the mass revolt of the dementors of Azkaban, who have shown themselves averse to continuing in the Ministry's employ. We believe that the dementors are currently taking direction from Lord — Thingy. We urge the magical population to remain vigilant. The Ministry is currently publishing guides to elementary home and personal defense that will be delivered free to all Wizarding homes within the coming month." The Minister's statement was met with dismay and alarm from the Wizarding community, which as recently as last Wednesday was receiving Ministry assurances that there was "no truth whatsoever in these persistent rumors that You-Know-Who is operating amongst us once more." Details of the events that led to the Ministry turnaround are still hazy, though it is believed that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and a select band of followers (known as Death Eaters) gained entry to the Ministry of Magic itself on Thursday evening. Albus Dumbledore, newly reinstated headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, reinstated member of the International Confederation of Wizards, and reinstated Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, was unavailable for comment last night. He has insisted for a year that You-Know-Who was not dead, as was widely hoped and believed, but recruiting followers once more for a fresh attempt to seize power. Meanwhile the Girl Who Lived —

"There you are, Harriet, I knew they'd drag you into it somehow," said Hermione, looking over the top of the paper at her. They were in the hospital wing. Harriet was sitting on the end of Ron's bed and they were both listening to Hermione read the front page of the Sunday Prophet. Ginny, whose ankle had been mended in a trice by Madam Pomfrey, was curled up at the foot of Hermione's bed; Neville, whose nose had likewise been returned to its normal size and shape, was in a chair between the two beds; and Luna, who had dropped in to visit clutching the latest edition of The Quibbler, was reading the magazine upside down and apparently not taking in a word Hermione was saying.
"She's 'the Girl Who Lived' again now, though, isn't she?" said Ron darkly. "Not such a show-off maniac anymore, eh?" He helped himself to a handful of Chocolate Frogs from the immense pile on his bedside cabinet, threw a few to Harriet, Ginny, and Neville, and ripped off the wrapper of his own with his teeth. There were still deep welts on his forearms where the brain's tentacles had wrapped around him. According to Madam Pomfrey, thoughts could leave deeper scarring than almost anything else, though since she had started applying copious amounts of Dr. Ubbly's Oblivious Unction, there seemed to be some improvement.
"Yes, they're very complimentary about you now, Harriet," said Hermione, now scanning down the article. "'A lone voice of truth . . . perceived as unbalanced, yet never wavered in her story . . . forced to bear ridicule and slander . . . ' Hmmm," said Hermione, frowning, "I notice they don't mention the fact that it was them doing all the ridiculing and slandering, though . . ." She winced slightly and put a hand to her ribs. The curse Dolohov had used on her, though less effective than it would have been had he been able to say the incantation aloud, had nevertheless caused, in Madam Pomfrey's words, "quite enough damage to be going on with." Hermione was having to take ten different types of potion every day and although she was improving greatly, was already bored with the hospital wing. "'You-Know-Who's Last Attempt to Take Over, pages two to four, What the Ministry Should Have Told Us, page five, Why Nobody Listened to Albus Dumbledore, pages six to eight, Exclusive Interview with Harriet Potter, page nine . . .' Well," said Hermione, folding up the newspaper and throwing it aside, "it's certainly given them lots to write about. And that interview with Harriet isn't exclusive, it's the one that was in The Quibbler months ago . . ."
"Daddy sold it to them," said Luna vaguely, turning a page of The Quibbler. "He got a very good price for it too, so we're going to go on an expedition to Sweden this summer and see if we can catch a Crumple-Horned Snorkack." Hermione seemed to struggle with herself for a moment, then said, "That sounds lovely." Ginny caught Harriet's eye and looked away quickly, grinning, setting Harriet's heart fluttering. "So anyway," said Hermione, sitting up a little straighter and wincing again, "what's going on in school?"
"Well, Flitwick's got rid of Fred and George's swamp," said Ginny. "He did it in about three seconds. But he left a tiny patch under the window and he's roped it off —" Harriet grinned at the reason Flitwick had done that. "Why?" said Hermione, looking startled. "Oh, he just says it was a really good bit of magic," said Ginny, shrugging. "I think he left it as a monument to Fred and George," said Ron through a mouthful of chocolate. "They sent me all these, you know," he told Harriet, pointing at the small mountain of Frogs beside him. "Must be doing all right out of that joke shop, eh?" Hermione looked rather disapproving and asked, "So has all the trouble stopped now Dumbledore's back?"
"Yes," said Neville, "everything's settled right back down again."
"I s'pose Filch is happy, is he?" asked Ron, propping a Chocolate Frog card featuring Dumbledore against his water jug. "Not at all," said Ginny. "He's really, really miserable, actually . . ." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "He keeps saying Umbridge was the best thing that ever happened to Hogwarts . . ." All six of them looked around. Professor Umbridge was lying in a bed opposite them, gazing up at the ceiling. Dumbledore had strode alone into the forest to rescue her from the centaurs. How he had done it — how he had emerged from the trees supporting Professor Umbridge without so much as a scratch on him — nobody knew, and Umbridge was certainly not telling. Since she had returned to the castle she had not, as far as any of them knew, uttered a single word. Nobody really knew what was wrong with her either. Her usually neat mousy hair was very untidy and there were bits of twig and leaf in it, but otherwise she seemed to be quite unscathed.
"Madam Pomfrey says she's just in shock," whispered Hermione. "Sulking, more like," said Ginny. "Yeah, she shows signs of life if you do this," said Ron, and with his tongue he made soft clip-clopping noises. Umbridge sat bolt upright, looking wildly around. "Anything wrong, Professor?" called Madam Pomfrey, poking her head around her office door. "No . . . no . . ." said Umbridge, sinking back into her pillows, "no, I must have been dreaming . . ." Hermione and Ginny muffled their laughter in the bedclothes. "Speaking of centaurs," said Hermione, when she had recovered a little, "who's Divination teacher now? Is Firenze staying?"
"He's got to," said Harriet, "the other centaurs won't take him back, will they?" She looked at her daughter Lily then, asleep in her mother's arms without a care in the world. "It looks like he and Trelawney are both going to teach," said Ginny. "Bet Dumbledore wishes he could've got rid of Trelawney for good," said Ron, now munching on his fourteenth Frog. "Mind you, the whole subject's useless if you ask me, Firenze isn't a lot better . . ."
"How can you say that?" Hermione demanded. "After we've just found out that there are real prophecies?" Harriet's heart began to race. She had not told Ron, Hermione, or anyone else what the prophecy had contained. Neville had told them it had smashed while Harriet was pulling him up the steps in the Death Room, and Harriet had not yet corrected this impression. She was not ready to see their expressions when she told them that she must be either murderer or victim, there was no other way. . . . "It is a pity it broke," said Hermione quietly, shaking her head. "Yeah, it is," said Ron. "Still, at least You-Know-Who never found out what was in it either — where are you going?" he added, looking both surprised and disappointed as Harriet stood up.
"Er — Hagrid's," said Harriet. "You know, he just got back and I promised I'd go down and see him and tell him how you two are . . ." Half lying to get out of an awkward moment, keeping herself calm by focusing on the baby in her arms. "Oh all right then," said Ron grumpily, looking out of the dormitory window at the patch of bright blue sky beyond. "Wish we could come . . ."
"Say hello to him for us!" called Hermione, as Harriet proceeded down the ward. "And ask him what's happening about . . . about his little friend!" Harriet gave a one armed wave of her hand to show she had heard and understood as she left the dormitory. The castle seemed very quiet even for a Sunday. Everybody was clearly out in the sunny grounds, enjoying the end of their exams and the prospect of a last few days of term unhampered by studying or homework. Harriet walked slowly along the deserted corridor, peering out of windows as she went. She could see people messing around in the air over the Quidditch pitch and a couple of students swimming in the lake, accompanied by the giant squid.
She was finding it hard at the moment to decide whether she wanted to be with people or not. Whenever she was in company she wanted to get away, and whenever she was alone she wanted company. She thought he might really go and visit Hagrid, though; she had not talked to him properly since he had returned. . . . Harriet had just descended the last marble step into the entrance hall when Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle emerged from a door on the right that Harriet knew led down to the Slytherin common room. Harriet stopped dead; so did Malfoy and the others. For a few moments, the only sounds were the shouts, laughter, and splashes drifting into the hall from the grounds through the open front doors.
Malfoy glanced around. Harriet knew he was checking for signs of teachers. Then he looked back at Harriet and said in a low voice, "You're dead, Potter." Harriet raised her eyebrows while adjusting Lily in her arms, hoping Malfoy at least had the heart not to hex her while she was carrying the baby. "Funny," she said, "you'd think I'd have stopped walking around . . ." Malfoy looked angrier than Harriet had ever seen him. She felt a kind of detached satisfaction at the sight of his pale, pointed face contorted with rage. "You're going to pay," said Malfoy in a voice barely louder than a whisper. "I'm going to make you pay for what you've done to my father . . ."
"Well, I'm terrified now," said Harriet sarcastically. "I s'pose Lord Voldemort's just a warm-up act compared to you three — what's the matter?" she said, for Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle had all looked stricken at the sound of the name. "He's your dad's mate, isn't he? Not scared of him, are you?" Trying to delay them so she could put Lily somewhere safe, away from the duel that was surely about to occur. "You think you're such a big woman, Potter," said Malfoy, advancing now, Crabbe and Goyle flanking him. "You wait. I'll have you. You can't land my father in prison —"
"I thought I just had," said Harriet. "The dementors have left Azkaban," said Malfoy quietly. "Dad and the others'll be out in no time . . ." Just as Harriet found as safe place for Lily and carefully set her down there. "Yeah, I expect they will," said Harriet. "Still, at least everyone knows what scumbags they are now —" Malfoy's hand flew toward his wand, but Harriet was too quick for him. She had drawn her own wand before Malfoy's fingers had even entered the pocket of his robes. "Potter!" The voice rang across the entrance hall; Snape had emerged from the staircase leading down to his office, and at the sight of him Harriet felt a great rush of hatred beyond anything she felt toward Malfoy. . . . Whatever Dumbledore said, she would never forgive Snape . . . never . . .
"What are you doing, Potter?" said Snape coldly as ever, as he strode over to the four of them. "I'm trying to decide what curse to use on Malfoy, sir," said Harriet fiercely, determined to protect herself and her daughter at all costs. Snape stared at her. "Put that wand away at once," he said curtly. "Ten points from Gryff —" Snape looked toward the giant hourglasses on the walls and gave a sneering smile. "Ah. I see there are no longer any points left in the Gryffindor hourglass to take away. In that case, Potter, we will simply have to —"
"Add some more?" Professor McGonagall had just stumped up the stone steps into the castle. She was carrying a tartan carpetbag in one hand and leaning heavily on a walking stick with her other, but otherwise looked quite well. "Professor McGonagall!" said Snape, striding forward. "Out of St. Mungo's, I see!" Harriet gratefully picked Lily back up and held her. "Yes, Professor Snape," said Professor McGonagall, shrugging off her traveling cloak, "I'm quite as good as new. You two — Crabbe — Goyle —" She beckoned them forward imperiously and they came, shuffling their large feet and looking awkward. "Here," said Professor McGonagall, thrusting her carpetbag into Crabbe's chest and her cloak into Goyle's, "take these up to my office for me." They turned and stumped away up the marble staircase. "Right then," said Professor McGonagall, looking up at the hourglasses on the wall, "well, I think Potter and her friends ought to have fifty points apiece for alerting the world to the return of You-Know-Who! What say you, Professor Snape?"
"What?" snapped Snape, though Harriet knew he had heard perfectly well. "Oh — well — I suppose . . ." he said reluctantly. "So that's fifty each for Potter, the two Weasleys, Longbottom, and Miss Granger," said Professor McGonagall, and a shower of rubies fell down into the bottom bulb of Gryffindor's hourglass as she spoke. "Oh — and fifty for Miss Lovegood, I suppose," she added, and a number of sapphires fell into Ravenclaw's glass. "Now, you wanted to take ten from Ms. Potter, I think, Professor Snape — so there we are . . ."
A few rubies retreated into the upper bulb, leaving a respectable amount below nevertheless. "Well, Potter, Malfoy, I think you ought to be outside on a glorious day like this," Professor McGonagall continued briskly. Harriet did not need telling twice. She carefully thrust her wand back inside her robes and headed straight for the front doors without another glance at Snape and Malfoy. The hot sun hit her with a blast as she walked across the lawns toward Hagrid's cabin. Students lying around on the grass sunbathing, talking, reading the Sunday Prophet, and eating sweets looked up at her as she passed. Some called out to her, or else waved, clearly eager to show that they, like the Prophet, had decided she was something of a hero. Harriet said nothing to any of them. She had no idea how much they knew of what had happened three days ago, but she had so far avoided being questioned and preferred it that way. Lily giggled and cooed in her arms as she walked.
She thought at first when she knocked on Hagrid's cabin door that he was out, but then Fang came charging around the corner and almost bowled Lily and her over with the enthusiasm of his welcome. Hagrid, it transpired, was picking runner beans in his back garden. "All righ', Harriet!" he said, beaming, when Harriet approached the fence. "Come in, come in, we'll have a cup o' dandelion juice. . . . How's things?" Hagrid asked her, as they settled down at his wooden table with a glass apiece of iced juice. "You — er — feelin' all righ', are yeh?" Harriet knew from the look of concern on Hagrid's face that he was not referring to Harriet's physical well-being. "I'm fine," Harriet said quickly, because she could not bear to discuss the thing that she knew was in Hagrid's mind. "So, where've you been?"
"Bin hidin' out in the mountains," said Hagrid. "Up in a cave, like Sirius did when he —" Hagrid broke off, cleared his throat gruffly, looked at Harriet, and took a long draught of juice. "Anyway, back now," he said feebly. "You — you look better," said Harriet, who was determined to keep the conversation moving away from Sirius. "Wha'?" said Hagrid, raising a massive hand and feeling his face. "Oh — oh yeah. Well, Grawpy's loads better behaved now, loads. Seemed right pleased ter see me when I got back, ter tell yeh the truth. He's a good lad, really. . . . I've bin thinkin' abou' tryin' ter find him a lady friend, actually . . ." Harriet would normally have tried to persuade Hagrid out of this idea at once. The prospect of a second giant taking up residence in the forest, possibly even wilder and more brutal than Grawp, was positively alarming, but somehow Harriet could not muster the energy necessary to argue the point. She was starting to wish she was alone with Lily again, and with the idea of hastening her departure she took several large gulps of her dandelion juice, half emptying het glass.
"Ev'ryone knows you've bin tellin' the truth now, Harriet," said Hagrid softly and unexpectedly. "Tha's gotta be better, hasn' it?" Harriet shrugged. "Look . . ." Hagrid leaned toward him across the table, "I knew Sirius longer 'n you did. . . . He nearly died and was arrested in battle, an' tha's the way he'd've wanted ter go —"
"He didn't want to go at all!" said Harriet angrily, certain Sirius wouldn't get a trial this time either despite the evidence that acquitted him of involvement in her parents deaths. Hagrid bowed his great shaggy head. "Nah, I don' reckon he did," he said quietly. "But still, Harriet . . . he was never one ter sit around at home an' let other people do the fightin'. He couldn' have lived with himself if he hadn' gone ter help —" Harriet leapt up again. "I've got to go and visit Ron and Hermione in the hospital wing," she said mechanically. "Oh," said Hagrid, looking rather upset. "Oh . . . all righ' then, Harriet . . . Take care of yerself then, an' drop back in if yeh've got a mo . . ."
"Yeah . . . right . . ." Harriet crossed to the door as fast as she could carrying baby Lily and pulled it open. She was out in the sunshine again before Hagrid had finished saying good-bye and walked away across the lawn. Once again, people called out to her as she passed or even fawned over the baby in her arms. She closed her eyes for a few moments, wishing they would all vanish, that she could open her eyes and find herself alone in the grounds with just her daughter. . . .
A few days ago, before her exams had finished and she had seen the vision Voldemort had planted in her mind, she would have given almost anything for the Wizarding world to know that she had been telling the truth, for them to believe that Voldemort was back and Sirius was innocent and know that she was neither a liar nor mad. Now, however . . . She walked a short way around the lake, sat down on its bank, sheltered from the gaze of passersby behind a tangle of shrubs, and stared out over the gleaming water, thinking. . . . Perhaps the reason she wanted to be alone was because she had felt isolated from everybody since her talk with Dumbledore. An invisible barrier separated her from the rest of the world. She was — she had always been — a marked woman. It was just that she had never really understood what that meant. . . .
And yet sitting here on the edge of the lake, with the terrible weight of grief dragging at her, with the arrest of Sirius so raw and fresh inside, she could not muster any great sense of fear. It was sunny and the grounds around her were full of laughing people, and even though she felt as distant from them as though she belonged to a different race, it was still very hard to believe as she sat here that her life must include, or end in, murder. . . . She sat there for a long time, gazing out at the water, trying not to think about her godfather sitting in Azkaban once more or to remember that it was directly across from here, on the opposite bank, that Sirius had collapsed trying to fend off a hundred dementors. . . . The sun had fallen and Lily started fussing before she realized that she was cold. She got up and returned to the castle, wiping her face on her sleeve as she went.