There'll Be Bluebirds

'Are you awake?' Harry's eyes were fixed on the ceiling.

'No. I'm sleeping.'

'He wants to know about Umbridge...' Harry couldn't keep the distaste from his voice.

'Hm.' The silence spooled between Harry and Ginny. 'Hem-hem.' Ginny waited a beat then burst out laughing. 'I'm sorry,' she gasped. 'I couldn't help it!'

Harry's lips twitched. 'I'd forgotten how well you do that...'

'What are you going to tell him?' Ginny asked.

Harry sighed and pulled the quilt over his face. 'I don't know,' he groaned, his voice muffled by the quilt. 'I don't know whether to be honest with him or sugar-coat it a bit. He's already feeling a bit raw over everything.'

'No, Harry... I meant were you going to tell him about everything she did, including her tenure at school, or just confine it to her anti-werewolf legislation?'

Harry was quiet for so long, Ginny thought he might have fallen asleep. She jumped a little when he began to speak. 'I don't know,' he breathed in a low voice. 'I don't even want to tell our own children about any of that, and I can't redirect Teddy with an, "I'll tell you when you're older" line. Especially not when he's got Remus' journals mentioning all this...' Harry hesitated.

'What?' Ginny propped herself up on one elbow

'The thing is,' Harry began, mumbling, 'it's almost easier to tell Teddy about it, than when James asks about something.'

'Why? Because he's older?'

Harry shrugged. 'I suppose. Or maybe because he hasn't been as sheltered from it, like we've done with James, Al, and Lily.' Harry slowly exhaled. 'That's going to come back and bite us in the arse,' he said darkly. 'I'm not looking forward to James' first year...'

Harry was cut off by a plaintive cry from one of the children's bedrooms. 'Daddy! Daddy!'

He rolled out of bed, pushing his glasses up his nose. 'At least for now, I'm just the bloke that brings juice to his sick kids and not Harry-effing-Potter...'

'We're not going to be able to keep it from them much longer,' Ginny murmured, watching him leave the bedroom, inexplicably saddened at the idea. The children had a somewhat normal existence here. The magical denizens of Godric's Hollow had more or less closed ranks around Harry and Ginny when they moved into the house after James was born. They claimed Harry as one of theirs, and if he wished to live as anonymously as possible, then they would see to it. Home was one of the few places where Harry could expect to be treated just like any other wizard. And so were the children. Ginny scrubbed her hands over her face. 'That day's coming, far sooner than we'd like...'

*****

Kingsley hunched over a map of England. Various villages glowed brightly in the dark, sooty kitchen. One village pulsed more brightly than the others. 'He's still operating out of the Riddle House in Little Hangleton. We can't do more than keep an eye on the house, though, and make a record of who goes in and out... Too many damn charms on the place. He's not made it Unplottable yet, nor has he put a Fidelius on it -'

'Probably doesn't trust anyone to keep it a secret,' Arthur murmured.

'Would you?' Remus snorted.

'I wouldn't trust any of that lot with my mother's knickers,' Sirius snickered. Remus sighed and his lips pressed together in a thin line as he glared at Sirius. Sirius wilted slightly. 'Oh, fine...' he mumbled. 'Just trying to keep it all from descending into gloom...'

'More like he doesn't see the need for it,' Remus stated flatly. 'Arrogance... One day, we're going to be able to exploit that...'

Kingsley sighed heavily, rubbing his eyes. 'Dumbledore says it's possible.'

Arthur eyes narrowed behind his glasses. 'How?'

'He won't say,' Remus replied tightly. While he appreciated the need for secrecy, he felt this was going too far. It felt like they were flailing in the dark. If he would only tell us what he thinks is the key to defeat Voldemort... Maybe we could reach that goal faster and end all of this. He pushed his chair back and began to pace restlessly around the kitchen. The full moon was in two days and he could feel it tugging at him as inexorably as it pulled on the ocean tides.

Arthur let his head fall to the table, pillowing his head on his folded arms. 'Who's got watch tonight at the Ministry?' he mumbled sleepily. He'd been on watch last night and gone to work straight from the Department of Mysteries.

'Emmaline,' Kingsley said, glancing at Sirius. Remus knew Kingsley wasn't very comfortable about talking about the watch schedule in front of Sirius. It usually prompted Sirius to ask, with a desperation that bordered on begging, to be included in anything other than his dreary, housebound existence.

'Hmmm.' Arthur lifted his head slightly, glasses askew. 'Someone ought to go check on her later. She has a tendency to fall asleep...' he yawned.

The fireplace suddenly flared. All of them drew their wands, Sirius' face alight with the possibility of excitement. Minerva stepped through, clearly seething with anger. 'That... that... that... woman!' She came to a halt in front of the others. 'She's gone too far this time!'

'Erm... Who?' Arthur asked tentatively.

'Umbridge,' Minerva spat.

Arthur, Kingsley, and Remus resumed their seats at the table, while Sirius went to fetch a glass from the dresser. He poured a thimbleful of Firewhiskey from the bottle on the table into the glass and held it out to Minerva. She looked at the miniscule amount with a raised eyebrow and snorted. 'For Merlin's sake, Sirius, I can handle my drink. Probably better than you can. If you're going to offer me a drink, don't insult me like that.'

Sirius merely tipped the bottle over the glass and added a healthy measure of whiskey. Minerva took it with a murmured word of thanks, and tossed it back in one gulp. Sirius held up the bottle in wordless inquiry, visibly impressed. Minerva held out the glass in reply. He poured several fingers' worth of whiskey into her glass and set the bottle down as he took his seat once more. 'Isn't calling her a woman sort of an insult to women?' he asked with a hint of his customary cheekiness.

Minerva managed a faintly amused look at that. 'You might be correct,' she told him.

'What's she done now?' Arthur asked worriedly.

Minerva frowned, a deep line appearing between her eyebrows. 'She's banned Fred, George, and Harry from playing Quidditch,' she said heavily.

'She's done what?' Sirius roared, standing up so quickly his chair toppled to the stone floor.

'Given Fred, George, and Harry lifetime bans from Quidditch,' Minerva repeated dejectedly.

'But why?' Molly stood in the doorway, clutching a worn dressing gown below her throat.

Minerva wrapped her hands around her glass and stared dolefully into it. 'You'd better come sit for this, Molly...' Her shoulders hunched and she began to quietly, emotionlessly relate the events that led to the boys' banishment. 'Malfoy and his minions made up a song that insulted Ron and everyone else in your family,' she said painfully to Molly and Arthur. 'After Harry caught the Snitch, Malfoy laid into the team, especially your three boys and Harry. They tried not to rise to the bait... They tried so hard, but the final straw apparently, was when Malfoy said something about Lily...'

'What did he say about Lily?' Remus asked, his voice nearly growling. He felt his hands clench under the table, nails biting into his palms. He almost welcomed the physical pain. It allowed him to keep the wolf from crashing to the surface.

It was the first time Remus had ever seen Minerva look uncomfortable. 'He made a comment about Lily's blood status,' she managed. 'I'd rather not divulge the details. They're quite...' She paused to take a sip of her whiskey. 'Crude.'

'Minerva,' Arthur said softly. 'I'd like to know what he said...'

Minerva stared into her glass for several long moments before she gulped its contents. 'That bloody ferret implied your house is no better than a pigsty, and intimated that Lily and James' house was worse, because Lily was Muggle-born,' she said shortly.

Molly's face drained of what little color it had, leaving her pale and sickly looking. 'Oh...' Arthur put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer.

'In their defense, the boys didn't mind so much what was said about them personally, it was when that git went after the two of you and Lily,' Minerva told Molly and Arthur. 'Harry held George back as long as he could, and once Malfoy mentioned Lily, he snapped. George joined him in the melee. It took Angelina, Katie, and Alicia to hold Fred back. Barely. Ron had already left the pitch. Umbridge barged into my office while I was attempting to get George and Harry's side of things, and announced Educational Decree Number Twenty-Five,' she said bitterly.

'Another one?' Kingsley and Remus blurted at the same time.

'I'm afraid so. She now has the right to punish all students with impunity, overriding what their Head of House might have given them. So she banned Harry and George for attacking Malfoy, then added Fred out of malice. Because he and George obviously share a brain.'

'Well, they do at that,' Arthur interjected with a weak smile.

'And she confiscated their brooms. Locked them in her office.' Minerva shook her head helplessly. 'And she did nothing to Malfoy for his blatant provocation, nor did she do anything to the Slytherin Beater who hit a Bludger directly at Harry, just as he caught the Snitch. Knocked him clean off his broom.' Minerva wearily pushed her chair back and stood. 'I'd better get back to the school. She's bound to notice my absence and demand to know where I've been.'

'She's not a Legilimens, is she?' Kingsley asked warily.

'Not that I can tell,' Minerva said. 'But Albus is the one who would know. Or Severus.'

'He's not working with her, is he?' Sirius asked in a biting tone.

'I don't think so,' Minerva sighed. 'But it doesn't look very good when his House escapes punishment for doing something equally disgraceful.' With that, she disappeared through the fireplace.

*****

5 November 1995

Fudge knows... He has to know the Order's been revived. Umbridge isn't just there to keep an eye on things at school, she's there to report any instances of revolt against Fudge. Of course she's there to report on Dumbledore to Fudge. You could argue we're in this... mess... because Fudge is an insecure, petty man. And he surrounds himself with people who are just as insecure and petty as he. And as much as I'm loathe to admit it, I'm not surprised that Percy is one of Fudge's sycophants. Percy's always been one to value rules and order and superficiality over finding out the true purpose of a person's actions. It's disheartening in one so intelligent - God, Percy's astoundingly smart, but he's got little in the way of common sense. And from what I've seen of his brothers and sister, it's not really anything Molly or Arthur have or haven't done. Percy likes things to be just so and sadly, like Fudge, refuses to believe his world has been turned upside down until it's already there and he cannot deny it any longer. I sincerely hope for Molly and Arthur's sake that Percy sees things are not what he wants to see before it's too late.

Umbridge is beyond vindictive. I have never seen Minerva so defeated, for lack of a better word. She's always been fair, and has never favored her House over another. I have to wonder... Has she banned Harry, George, and Fred to punish Arthur and Molly, as well as Minerva because they're in the Order? Because what Draco did, while not a physical attack on them, was just as malicious. And he gets nothing from either Snape or Umbridge?

I could just be overreacting and paranoid. Seeing things that aren't really there. The closer it gets to the full moon, the more it happens...

*****

Harry knelt in front of his parents' graves, pulling up weeds that poked through the cowslips and ox eye daisies. It was characteristically quiet in the valley, and the bright sunshine that filtered through the trees gave Harry pause about the subject he was about to broach with Teddy. He wiped his hands down the front of his jeans and sat back on his heels. 'You wanted to know about Umbridge...' he began.

'I've never heard of her before,' Teddy said, plucking the petals from a daisy.

'For good reason,' Harry snorted. 'She's been in prison for, oh... Just after you were born... And that's been...' Harry glanced over his shoulder at Teddy. 'Fourteen years now.' He squinted at Teddy. 'You can't be fourteen already,' he exclaimed softly.

'April fourteenth,' Teddy huffed. 'You and Ginny sent me a pile of presents. Thought Ariel and Dante were going to pass out when they got to Hogwarts.' Teddy tossed the stem aside and plucked another daisy. 'So, why is she in prison?'

Harry moved to Sirius' grave and began to weed the bed of meadow cranesbill in front of it. 'She was in charge of a rather nasty program to register Muggle-born wizards and witches during the war. If they resisted, she sentenced them to a Dementor's Kiss.' Teddy started violently. 'I don't know how many were left as soulless husks,' Harry admitted painfully. 'There wasn't much I could do about it. Hermione, Ron, and I managed to help several of them escape, though, so there is that...' Harry slowly took in a deep breath and let it out. 'If they cooperated,' he said bitterly, 'she sent them to Azkaban. Was in her element. Umbitch loved to torture people who didn't fit into her worldview.'

Teddy frowned. He vaguely remembered a lesson from his Muggle primary school. 'Wasn't there some bloke in Germany who was like that?'

'Yes. Several of them, in fact.' Harry waved his wand at the pile of weeds and they disappeared.

'Why did you call her Umbitch?' Teddy asked curiously, then looked around guiltily, as if Andromeda was going to swoop down and scrub his mouth out with soap.

'Because she was a bitch,' Harry replied promptly. 'And it sounded just like her name.' He reached for his old schoolbag and pulled out two bottles of butterbeer, shooting a casual Freezing charm over them, and handed one to Teddy. He moved to sit under the towering tree over his parents' graves, his back against the trunk. 'She was the Headmistress of Hogwarts for a brief time. She liked to force us to do lines with a Blood quill.'

'What's that?'

'When you write, it doesn't use ink. It cuts into the back of your writing hand and uses the blood as ink,' Harry said, unconsciously clenching his right hand. The old scars stood out whitely against his tanned skin. 'She banned me and George and his twin Fred from playing Quidditch. She tried to make us take Veritaserum so we'd confess about our Defense group. She tried to sack some of the teachers. She was responsible for making it impossible for your dad to work. She's a lot like those gits at school who gave you such a rough time your first year. Just in a position of power.'

'She sounds like a right bundle of joy,' Teddy muttered. 'Wait... You said she was responsible for sending Muggle-borns to Azkaban...'

'Yeah.'

'Did she... Did she kill my grandfather...?' Teddy asked softly.

'Not directly, no. But Ted went on the run, rather than register like a common criminal. He was eventually caught by a group of people called Snatchers. They killed him. He was with Dean, my friend from school. He managed to distract them long enough to let Dean escape.'

'Gran doesn't like to talk about him,' Teddy whispered. 'It makes her unhappy...' His mouth turned down and hair drooped, darkening several shades.

'What makes you say that?' Harry asked, slightly puzzled. Andromeda had certainly been wistful when talking about Ted, but he'd never seen her dissolve into outright grief since Teddy was a baby.

'Every time I ask her about him, she gets all squidgy and cries,' Teddy said, with a slight air of disgust.

'She just misses him a lot, Teddy.'

'She doesn't do it over Mum,' Teddy said pointedly. 'Not as much anyway...'

Harry recalled hearing Tonks talk about her parents' courtship and marriage. 'That's because Ted saved your grandmother.'

'From what?'

Harry glanced at Sirius' headstone. 'From marrying someone she didn't love. A fate worse than death...'

Teddy's face scrunched in confusion. 'I don't get it...'

Harry picked up his old schoolbag and stood up. 'You will... One day.'