Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn

The Falcon In Its Widening Gyre

More than in gardened Surrey, nature spills
A wealth of heather, kidney-vetch and squills
Over these long-defended Cornish hills.

- Betjeman, Cornish Cliffs

Keep our Empire undismembered
Guide our Forces by Thy Hand,
Gallant blacks from far Jamaica,
Honduras and Togoland;
Protect them Lord in all their fights,
And, even more, protect the whites.

Think of what our Nation stands for,
Books from Boots' and country lanes,
Free speech, free passes, class distinction,
Democracy and proper drains.

- Betjeman, In Westminster Abbey (1940)

Oh! Fullers angel-cake, Robertson's marmalade,
Liberty lampshade, come shine on us all

- Betjeman, Myfanwy

From where the coastguard houses stood
One used to see below the hill,
The lichened branches of a wood
In summer silver cool and still;
And there the Shade of Evil could
Stretch out at us from Shilla Mill.
Thick with sloe and blackberry, uneven in the light,
Lonely round the hedge, the heavy meadow was remote,
The oldest part of Cornwall was the wood as black as night,
And the pheasant and the rabbit lay torn open at the throat.
- Betjeman, Trebetherick

Lump says that Caliban's of gutter breed,
And Caliban says Lump's a fool indeed,
And Caliban and Lump and I are all agreed.

- Belloc, On Two Ministers of State

Here richly, with ridiculous display,
The Politician's corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged
I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.

- Belloc, Epitaph on the Politician

_______________________________

i. Draco Falls Apart

It was impossible. Not all the stars, all the Fates, not God Himself could repair the breach and create this impossible future.

_______________________________

ii. Harry's Centre Cannot Hold

Was it possible that a poor first impression in a bespoke tailor's and a refused handshake on a train could mean so much? Could scotch a possible future in which many of those who now would die might live, in which a victory that now seemed so uncertain might instead be so readily achieved? Dreams these were, no more than the fantasies of a tired mind, phantoms of the night.

_______________________________

iii. Dumbledore Loses All Conviction

With age, they had sworn, comes wisdom, and with wisdom, patience. He sighed, and rubbed his weary eyes. There was not patience enough, nor wisdom, there was not age enough to armour him against the sharp horns of this dilemma.

_______________________________

iv. While the Worst Are Full of Passionate Intensity

Once again, the dreams. Once again, as ever, framed by the scene of the two of them, wounded but alive, meditating the uses of victory amidst the groans of the wounded and the dying.

'Now we both have what we wanted. And we can do as we damned well please. That is what victory is, Harry. And that is what was worth fighting for.'

And Harry remembered the words of a seer from years before: neither may live while the other survives.... Perhaps, now, it would be possible to get on with life: to live, at last. But first, it would be necessary to bury the dead, and come to some terms with the past....

_______________________________

In a dream-future, in the Hogwarts staff-room.

'Wormtail? Are you mad?'

'Ron -'

'Look, mate -'

'RON! Albus ... suggested it.'

'Right, because you're always able to ignore his suggestions when you think it better -'

'It's not paid well when I have done, has it? Give it a rest, Ron.'

'But Harry -'

'Ron!' Hermione's eyes were blazing. 'If Albus Dumbledore has his reasons, I seriously doubt there are good arguments against them, and I'm certain that if there were, they'd not be arguments you're familiar with!'

Ron stood up, trying very hard to rein in his temper. 'You know, Hermione, the day I married you was the happiest day of my life until then. And every day since has been better than the one before. BUT. The problem with being married to you is, when we do fight, I might as well be back in the Department of bloody Mysteries. I'm getting just a trifle tired of being attacked by a blasted brain!' And he slammed out.

'RON WEASLEY!' And she hared off after him.

'Well, fuck,' said Harry. 'That helped us all feel better.'

Draco just looked at him. 'Love? Are you doing this for Albus? Or for you?'

'I'm doing this because Albus has suggested - and I've decided - that I need, er, closure.'

'If it's for you, go. Sod what Cousin Weasel and Dr Mrs Weasel think. I'll stay and sort this out.'

Harry kissed him thoroughly, and made for the door.

'But - Harry?'

'Love?'

'If I end up getting in the middle of their argument, that's one thing. If, however, I find myself getting an eyeful of Weasley make-up sex, I shall hex you and Dumbledore into next Trinity term.'

_______________________________

In a dream-future, in the Janus Thickey ward, 4^th floor, St Mungo's.

This, this was the hell of ice. Where traitors dwelt.

White. White, sanitary, unrelieved. White was the colour of hopelessness. For the patients for whose minds even the least hope remained, there were splashes of colour in the wards: something the mind could, perhaps, hold on to whilst it regenerated, gathered strength, healed.

Not here. This was the hell of ice.

_______________________________

In a dream-future, in Dr Hermione Granger-Weasley's quarters, Hogwarts.

'God only knows what the bastard will say.'

'You think he can say anything?' Draco was calm.

'Who knows?' Ron's voice was weary. 'Hermione, I'm sorry. I should have let Crookshanks eat the little bastard when he was still Scabbers.'

'Then Sirius's name would never have been cleared,' Hermione said, practically.

They sat quietly together, the three of them, too worried about what Harry might be facing to keep up their quarrels.

'Do you really think Pettigrew will have anything to say? Any justifications, any remorse?'

Hermione shrugged.

'Dunno, Cousin Ferret.' Ron shook his head. 'I mean. How long, how far, can a rat swim?'

_______________________________

In a dream-future, in the Janus Thickey ward, 4^th floor, St Mungo's.

'... it was always that way though always that way from the off James was such an utter

shit but that didn't stop me no I'm a Gryffindor after all bloody Sirius but I did what I had to do such a pity about Lily but there was no other alternative there simply wasn't he had to be stopped and she was the instrument for stopping him she and Harry they all talk about Snivellus SODDING Snape they fawn on him now it's over but what did he do really after all what did Snape bloody do in comparison to it my God man you want to think it through you'll see I was the greatest double-agent in history -'

Harry stared and listened, in sick fascination, as he babbled on.

'- years as a bloody rodent with the bloody Weasleys now

that my boy is what one calls dedication and after all it's precisely as Albus said of the Longbottom lad it takes the truest courage to stand up to one's friends -'

'It might,' Dumbledore sighed, 'have been a mercy had it killed him. In some sense, of course, he has paid his debts. But life-debts are very curious things, and, if his body has survived, there's no gainsaying that the process broke his mind. Yes, Harry: I fear, forever.'

'- bowing and scraping and mucking out after that filthy snake I ask you but someone had to make sure the prophecy was fulfilled someone had to give things a bit of a push what after all -'

'He can't possibly believe this.'

'- after all damn it all the proof old boy is in the pudding after all the proof's in the pud and I did all that single-handedly "all my own work" as the pavement artists used to say do they still say that are there any left these days its been yonks since I've been in Muggle London come to that it would be a damned good place for a parade and I certainly deserve one for my services I ought to get every gong there is going after all this -'

'Actually, Harry, I'm afraid he does believe it, every word. You could pour all the Veritaserum in the Three Kingdoms down his throat and he wouldn't change a word of it. It is the truth he has constructed for himself and come to believe. The mind seeks refuge in any corner, when hunted.'

'- Order of Merlin First Class really for what I did and it wasn't precisely easy after all not a doddle as it were -'

'But this is ... this is horrid, Headmaster. It's ... I'd not have wished this on my worst enemy, which he isn't, quite.'

'- though I must decline the offer to stand for Minister I do feel I've done enough after all who else had the

nous to make sure the prophecy came true pity about Lily mind but still it had to be done and it bought us time even if it only scotched the snake that's rather good I think "scotched the snake" but not killed him but it was the waiting that was the tricky bit but I was always a step ahead never lost sight of the goal never once you see how carefully I planned and waited and when Harry was ready and not until then only then did I go get the old bastard and set him up for Harry and Harry came through I knew he would time and again he came through and all because I had the brilliance to pick the times and wait until Harry was ready to take the old bugger on and he came through he's a credit to all of us that lad he's his father all over again with a touch of myself by God a touch of myself the lad's the true heir of all four Marauders and I'm damned proud to've been the one to arrange his blasting the old bastard at Godric's Hollow and then luring the old sod to our Harry only when the lad was ready to take him on dodgy life being the world's greatest secret agent but there I don't ask any thanks just that history remembers what I did -'

'Madness is always a terrible thing, Harry. I am sorry you have to witness this, but I know you would wish to know, and I resolved some years ago never again to keep you in the dark about things.'

'He really has convinced himself that he was acting for the best all along? That he's a hero?'

'Yes, indeed, my boy. And perhaps in a thousand years, the bards of that time will sing of the deeds of the Boy Who Lived and his great helper, Peter of the Silver Hand. Who knows?'

'Sweet Christ, Albus, you can't be serious.'

'One never knows, my dear Harry. Even in the most elysian, the most utopian, of futures, I have a hunch that there will still be midges, head-colds, civil servants, and revisionist historians, alas.'

_______________________________

In a dream-future, in the offices of the Headmaster, HJ Potter, OM, MMA (Domd), Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Harry sometimes thought that introducing the Wizarding world to the greater Muggle world had not been the best course of action, after the war. For most witches and wizards, perhaps, the fad had run its course and left behind nothing but improved regard and better feelings towards their Muggle cousins. But a surprising number of his fellow witches and wizards - including some most unlikely individuals - had proven as susceptible to Muggle-mania as ever Arthur Weasley was.

He still shuddered when he recalled Snape's - Snape's - having cut a Friday staff meeting short by announcing that he had acquired a complete DVD set of 'As Time Goes By': all the episodes, every season: and was having people over (Snape, having people over!) for a 'marathon' to watch it. The idea of Snape with a fanboy's crush on Judi Dench was cringe-worthy. It had been worse still when it had transpired that Remus was partly responsible: for getting Snape hooked on that series, and on 'Last of the Summer Wine' and 'Are You Being Served', to boot. Mind you, the idea of Snape as Captain Peacock....

And then there'd been the WWN. A month after the War, during the most acute spasms of Muggle-mania, Lee Jordan, now the director of the WWN, had licensed 'The Archers' and 'Gardener's Question Time' from the Beeb, and, well.... 'Addiction' didn't begin to describe it.

Worse still, Snape and Remus were actually getting along, civilly enough. That was all - and thank God: Harry's stomach roiled at the thought of anything, er, more - and it had its merits (not least that it kept their respective large, avuncular noses out of his and Draco's affairs), but it was still a trifle unnerving. Worse still, Harry had no one save himself to blame.

He had become so thoroughly browned off by their incessant bickering that he had sent them off, one night, to the Hog's Head with strict instructions to drink up, settle their differences, and put it all on his slate. When they had rolled back to Hogwarts two days later, very much the worse for wear, they had taken to referring to one another as 'the Last Marauder' and 'the Last Maraudee'. It was painfully true that they were very nearly the last survivors of their Hogwarts intake: two wars against Riddle had managed, between them, to kill off most of their contemporaries. There was a certain pathos in that thought: that they, almost alone, now preserved between them the memories of an entire generation of the wizarding world. And those memories were, in the nature of things, rarely pleasant, and those pleasant, bittersweet. Even so, Harry wasn't sure that prompting the two of them into a sort of alliance hadn't been a huge mistake, as far as his own life and Draco's went.

Tonight, though, he was glad of them. He wanted to talk to people who had known Pettigrew in school.

'I am not aware, Potter,' Snape said, 'that Pettigrew possessed any qualities or talents. Save one.'

'Yes,' Remus said. 'Survival. He was precisely the sort - the small, petty, scurrying little rodent sort - who lives on and on when better and greater men fall.'

'As for his being mad -'

'I have never, since Sirius first revealed Peter's treachery, I have never ceased to wonder how far back that madness goes. But if he was mad before now, it was always a madness that still had in it a measure of low, animal cunning, Harry.'

'Yes,' Snape said. 'He and Bellatrix had that in common, at least.'

They sat in silence, staring into the fire.

'Uncle Severus?'

'Yes, Draco?'

'Could he be shamming? At all? I mean, there are - obviously - ways to defeat Veritaserum....'

'Pettigrew's sole experience of potions consisted, to my knowledge, of the simpler mind-altering ones that were popular amongst his fellow students at the time.'

Remus took pity on them, as they goggled. 'It was the Seventies, after all.'

'You - you mean -'

'Now, Harry. You know the sort of people your parents were, and Sirius.'

Snape snorted. He and Harry were both, clearly, thinking of a certain Pensieve, long ago.

'What Lupin means, Potter, is that your parents and your dogfather - I mean godfather, of course: so sorry - had the virtues of their vices. Lily.... Well.' As Harry had remarked before, though always silently, there was a certain fugitive tenderness in Snape's tone - a tenderness, and a respect - whenever the man mentioned Harry's mother. 'Lily, of course, was above all that sort of thing. And Potter and Black ... they were a cut above it. Not for them concoctions brewed in a disused girls's lav. Oh, no. They were wine snobs and whisky drinkers. Single-malt. From Islay.'

'Sirius ... dear God, Severus, do you remember that Howler he got from the old bitch?'

'My ears rang for three days, and I was across the Hall at my House table.'

'What had he done?'

'Well ... if Mrs Black was to be believed -'

'She was, and you damned well know it. You were a prefect, as I recall.'

'I saw nothing,' Remus smiled. 'I had no evidence at all.'

'But what did he do?' Draco was as hooked on the story as was Harry.

Snape snorted - an impressive sound, magnified by his equipage in the matter of nose. 'Somehow smuggled half the contents of the Black family cellars with him to Hogwarts at the start of his third year. I've always suspected that it was the loss of all his best port and claret that really prompted his father to boot him out of the house, such that the Potters had to take him in. Though it seems to have amused his Uncle Alphard....

'They never did find that hoard, did they, Lupin? I know Minerva had Filch looking for it for months.'

'No, there was never any evidence,' Remus smiled. 'Neither the prefects -' he coughed dryly - 'nor the staff ever had any proof against them.'

'Ha. If I know Black, he probably bribed Albus to look the other way with a dozen or so of the '45 port. Quinta de Noval, wasn't it?'

'So one heard,' Remus chuckled.

'Bah. I'm sure you got your snout into a bottle or two. "Never found", my arse. No one ever offered me any.' Snape glared at the fire, petulant over that old affront, and Remus seized the moment to mouth silently to Harry and Draco, 'Room of Requirement. Turned it into a cellar for the whole year, until they took the lot when they went to your grandparents's in the summer hols.'

'At any rate,' Remus said, hastily, as Snape bent his glare upon them once more, 'Severus is quite right, Lily had no use for, ah, recreational potions, and Sirius and James did rather turn their noses up at anything that wasn't fermented or distilled, bottled, and decanted.'

'Bibulous bastards.'

Draco just looked over at Harry, humour sparkling in his eyes. 'Imagine. A sophisticated Potter. Pity it skipped a generation.'

Severus laughed - a sound Harry would never get used to.

'Well, my aunt and uncle didn't exactly run to a cellar, did they? The cupboard under the stairs was already occupied.' He poked Draco in the ribs. 'Prat.'

'But you love me.'

'I'll get back to you on that, shall I? But - about Wormtail.'

'Ah. Yes. Well. I think Peter did take refuge from his manifest and manifold inadequacies in some of the grubbier ways.'

'Lupin, there weren't enough potions in Britain to dull Pettigrew's inadequacies. It may have been the decade of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, but he was one for three, at best.'

'Oh, God.' Remus howled with laughter. 'Now there was an area in which Lily and James and Sirius - and Peter - were very much in the mainstream.'

'Er, Remus, if it's all the same to you, I'd really, really rather not hear about my parents's sex lives. In fact, I want to believe they didn't have one until they married.'

'Well,' Remus said, comfortingly, 'Lily certainly didn't, I'm certain. What I meant was -'

'Please,' said Severus. 'We all know that werewolves and drugs don't mix, we're well aware that you were lapping up the Bordeaux with the best of them, we've all suffered through your obsession with jazz music, and the less said about your and Sirius's mating habits, the better.'

'It was, in fact,' Remus said, mildly enough, 'music that I was coming to. Not that it ever impinged on your consciousness.'

'I'm tone-deaf,' Snape snarled.

'That explains a great deal,' Draco murmured, mischievously.

'Insolent brat.'

'The Marauders rocked out, Remus?'

'Three of them rocked, Harry. I swung. I still remember - oh, it was one of their most bitter disappointments. James and Sirius were devastated when Jefferson Starship broke up before they got to Britain. They'd spent months planning to sneak away to Knebworth,' he laughed, 'and all for naught. The buggers broke up in Germany. Well, the band went on, but that wasn't the point. They wanted to see Grace Slick.'

'Crush?'

'No, no, it was loads funnier than that. To their ... last days,' Remus said, with a sadder smile, 'they were absolutely convinced she was a witch. There was no way you could get through to them about her being a Muggle.'

'I'm having trouble with the idea of my dad and Sirius in beads and bell-bottoms,' Harry moaned. 'These are not happy thoughts.'

'It could be worse,' Snape said, with a look of sheer devilment towards his godson. 'We were at Hogwarts at the fag-end of the madness. According to Lucius, the lying old bastard -'

'Amen,' Draco piously intoned.

'His lot were far wilder than we. Apparently, one has not lived, who has never seen Bellatrix, Narcissa, and Evan Rosier - in drag - dressed as what I believe are called "Supremes", and wearing what I am told are referred to as "go-go boots", singing their version of "Stop! The Death You Eat May Be Your Own". Presumably, it is much more affecting when you are strung out on half-witted potions.'

'Right,' said Draco, 'now it's my turn to be sick.'

_______________________________

In a dream-future, after a victory that still did not seem altogether real.

'The Prophet is read by the wizards who run the country. Transfiguration Today is read by the dons who think they run the country. Morsmordre was read by the wizards who thought the country ought to be run by a dictatorship. The Pureblood is read by wizards who don't know who runs the country but are sure they're doing it wrong. Witch Weekly is read by the wives of the wizards who run the country. The Gringotts Draught is read by the wizards who own the country. The Daily Pensieve is read by the wizards who think the country ought to be run as it used to be run. The Daily Parchment is read by the wizards who still think it is their country. And the Quibbler's readers don't care who runs the country providing he's mythical.'

_______________________________

In a dream-future, in the Hogwarts staff-room, after Harry's visit to St Mungo's.

'I just. I just don't see how Wormtail could ever have been tempted into such a betrayal.'

Draco snorted. 'Of course you don't, Harry, darling. Your temptations are of a different order altogether.'

'But -'

'Harry, honestly,' said Hermione, with some impatience. 'Just because you wouldn't be tempted to do a Pettigrew -'

'I'm no saint,' he protested.

'Don't I know it,' Draco smirked. 'But the point is that the rat's particular brand of temptation was never yours.'

'But, see here -'

'Cousin Ferret's right,' Ron said. 'Christ, mate. You can't imagine being Peter Pettigrew, or the temptations that go with it. To get out of everyone else's shadow. To get your own back for every slight, even - maybe especially - the unintentional ones, the ones that weren't even really slights at all. That was never your particular temptation. I could have been Peter. Nev - maybe he could've, or maybe he could've had your particular temptation.'

'My -?'

Draco rolled his eyes. 'Love, you were never liable to be tempted to become Wormtail. What you risked was the temptation to become Voldemort.'

'Well, I knew that,' Harry muttered. 'Since second year.'

'Honestly,' Hermione said. 'Everyone.... All of us, Harry, have the temptations proper to our stations. In fact, I think - there is, come to think of it, a similar theory referenced in Dustin Desiccate's Magisterium; Volume Twelve, I think: something Pulverulentus Pryor first suggested - well, anyway, everyone has a choice of becoming their celestial or infernal archetype. Ron could have been Wormtail, instead of becoming Arthur. Draco, well.'

'Could have become dear old Daddy, had things gone poorly. Not a meet and fitting end, actually,' Draco drawled. 'I'm much better off as Sirius redux.'

'I,' Hermione said, 'had the choice between, well. McGonagall or -' she shuddered - 'Umbridge. Appalling cow.'

'So you're saying -'

The three of them gave him That Look: the one that said, You're thick as fog, but we love you anyway.

'You had the same sort of choice, love, in who to become.' Draco smiled. 'Voldemort, or Dumbledore. And you'll notice I've been giving you socks for Christmas these past few years, not dead Muggles, so....'

_______________________________

In a dream-future, in the last days before the final spasm of war.

As the War had come increasingly closer, the soi-disant Lord Voldemort had increasingly ceased to conceal his scorn and contempt for his own followers. He was daily increasing, and increasingly secure, in his powers, and he no longer bothered to pretend that they were anything but cattle to him. He sensed their impotent resentment, and feasted upon it, as a dementor might.

'Ah, Lucius,' he said, in a high, cold purr. 'You may rise.'

'My Lord.'

'Why do waste my time with this, Lucius?'

'My Lord - I -'

'Such a little minion. Ah, Lucius, Lucius, Lucius. You are a born ... follower. A lieutenant. And a born secret policeman. Had you been a Muggle, you'd have given Himmler and Heydrich and Beria and Habash a run for their money.'

'My Lord?'

'Never mind - you wouldn't understand me if I told you. But you love it, don't you. Second-hand power. Secrets. Dossiers of everyone's grubby little weaknesses. For a Malfoy - and of course we all know,' Riddle said, with a cold laugh, 'that - what was it? Ah, yes: "Malfoys bow to no one" -' he sputtered with his laughter - 'for a Malfoy, you have a positively suburban appetite for gossip and dirty linens.

'Shall I tell you a secret, Lucius? Hmmmm? You are exactly like your weak, slack-twisted, worthless little son. Exactly: you are both parasites, my little aristocrat. Parasites, feeding on the power of others. Attracted to power, seeking it out as a dung-beetle seeks out shit. You are exactly alike....

'It's true, you know, what they say: he bends over for Potter. Oh, yes. Harry Poofter, the Boy Who Buggers. And Draco, pretty little thing that he is, is his plaything, his little bed-mate. Filthy little beasts. And that is the hope of the Order! A spotty, adolescent arse-bandit and his boyfriend!

'And, Lucius.... If Potter were -' the serpentine creature broke down, sniggering - 'if P-Potter - oh, it's too funny - if Potter were to -' his laughter increased - 'were somehow to win ... which he can't ... but, oh, it's too funny, if he were ... I would have the last laugh! He would never be satisfied to go back to being that old fool's pawn. He would displace me, inherit me, become me - and, it's really madly funny, Lucius - Draco would be his little secret policeman, Just Like Daddy!'

Voldemort's cackling filled the chamber, as Lucius strove desperately to hide his feelings.

'Lucius?'

'Yes. My Lord.'

'I see your thoughts, Lucius. Your innermost, pathetic, impotent little thoughts. Did you ever wonder, Lucius, why it is I leave you all a tiny bit of your old selves? Do you? I see you do. And even now, all of you - even you, Lucius, even you - have not learnt my teaching. How inattentive you all are. How ... inferior. What is power's answer to any such question? Its answer, Lucius, is, "Because I can". If I stripped from each of you the last vestiges of personality, assimilated you completely, made you automatons, flesh-puppets ... why, my dear Lucius, half the fun would be gone. Don't you see? I relish your struggles. I revel in your helplessness. I exult in raping your minds whenever I desire to do.'

Suddenly, he stood, his robes flaring, his voice cold and metallic. 'And that is why I resent your wasting my time in this fashion, Lucius! You are presumptuous! Disloyal! You dare suggest, you dare think in the recesses of your pitiable mind, that Severus Snape could fool me? That I could be wrong? Overconfident? That my powers are not sufficient to supersede any so-called "life debt" Peter Wormtail may owe anyone? You tread close to the line of treason, Lucius Malfoy!'

'M- My Lord! I am your secret policeman - you have said it! It is my duty to you, my, my loyal duty, to suspect all, to question all -'

'NOT TO QUESTION ME, IT ISN'T! CRUCIO!'

Lucius writhed, in agony, for a period he was never able afterwards to estimate. Even writhing at the feet of his master, he strove desperately to occlude his mind, his last remaining store of his own thoughts.

'Oh, finite. Get up, Lucius. Go put your lily-white hands to work helping Wormtail gather vermin for Nagini - she is complaining of being peckish. And I am not - yet - quite - prepared to serve you up to her on a platter. GET OUT!'

_______________________________

In a dream-future, a few months after the war and the tribunals.

'Virtue,' Albus Dumbledore had once said, 'is not the sole province of the pleasant and the pretty. That, my dear Harry, is a lesson too often unlearnt.' And he had gone on to say, 'In the Roman communion, I believe, one of the qualities generally necessary for canonisation is that the candidate have practised "heroic virtue". This is sometimes a stumbling-block for the most saintly: for naturally loving and sanguine persons, say, to whom daily and mundane virtue is no great struggle. For someone like Severus - indeed, for someone such as Severus - simply being marginally human and marginally polite, against all natural inclinations and in the face of grave wounds, may constitute victory in a daily battle that others do not see. That is the practise of heroic virtue.'

And then the aged headmaster had shot Harry and Draco a very penetrating look. 'Conversely, evil does not always declare itself openly. Did it do so, it would terrorise, but could not seduce. To take an example of which both of you are all too aware, it was not in the form of a serpentine, red-eyed abomination, but in that of an handsome, isolated, Byronically-tortured youth, a few flattering years older than herself, that Tom Riddle insinuated himself into Ginny's mind and used her to open the Chamber of Secrets....'

Harry remembered these words now as he looked upon Malfoy Manor. In despite of his slanging it - to cover his own discomfort in paltry wit - as 'impressive, in a Late Neo-Visigothic sort of way,' the manor's appearance was by no means grim, imposing, or forbidding. A stronghold of evil it may long have been, but it was no frowning castle, no wicked baron's bastion of turrets, battlements, and dungeons. It was - or appeared to be - what its name implied: a typical Wilts manor-house. The original centre portion incorporated part of the mediæval fabric, it was true, but the old stonework was softened by ivy and creeper and weathered into an apparent harmony with the land. Subsequent additions had been made in the days of the first Elizabeth and the last Stuarts, under the Georges and - particularly where the conservatory stood - in the high noon of Victoria and the gentle Edwardian evening that followed, before the Great War's dark nightfall.

And yet, there was something subtly wrong in every line, every proportion, every embellishment: from the faint traces of adulterine fortification dating to when Malfoys had rebelled against the King's Peace by fortifying the manor without licence, to the cold, marble-and-ashlar Whig double cube that had displaced the original centre of the edifice, to the mellow Georgian brick. It had the subtle wrongness, the sense of deceptiveness and hidden evil, of a place glimpsed in a nightmare. If it basked in the sun, it was the basking of an adder; and if it smiled beneath a clear sky, that smile was the mad, hidden smile of evil.

'Harry?'

'I know Tonks has done what she could, love. But....'

'I know. I see with your eyes, now. It's ... rather like something in a fever, isn't it, or in a funhouse mirror.'

Harry looked at his bondmate, and smiled. 'Right, love. Exactly. I think ... I think you and I want to do something about that.'

Draco smiled back. 'Do you know, I rather think that - together - we can. Without ... well, I mean, we can make it what it ought to be, don't you think? As we did with Grimmauld Place?'

'Love, I think - no: I know - that together, we can do anything.'

Silently, without need for words, their minds met, and their wands were drawn with a flourish. 'Lustra!' Their command came as one voice, and as they watched, the manor subtly rearranged itself, becoming in truth what it had seemed to be but had not been, conforming itself to what was right and fit and honest. It was a manor house now: a wizarding edifice, yes, but one now purged, lustrated, no longer 'a citadel and a snare fit for mischief and for use.'

'Now,' Harry said, smiling, 'we can take formal possession.'

Draco stooped, drawing a dagger from his boot, and cut a square of turf, handing it to Harry on bended knee. 'Seisin,' he said, formally.

_______________________________

In a dream-future, some years into the peace, at Harry's and Draco's Grimmauld Place town seat.

'Is - is Remus all right, mate?'

'Well.' Harry was dubious, but tried to be honest. 'I - not just now, but. He will be.'

'What happened, love?' Draco was immediately filled with as much concern as was Ron. They had all come to love their werewolf mentor dearly.

'Harry.' Hermione, too, was worried. 'I thought. You were taking him to a concert, weren't you? Jazz, wasn't it?'

'Yes. That newish chap. Jamie Cullum.'

'Did it not go well?'

'He quite enjoyed it. Until. I cannot believe I was so bloody stupid! I'd forgotten that Cullum does covers. Rock redone as jazz. Well-done, I may add. But. We were fine, except. There's that Radiohead cover he does....'

Ron and Draco exchanged baffled looks, but Hermione's hand flew to her mouth as she gasped. 'Oh, Harry. Not - "High and Dry"?'

'That's the one. Look, Hermione. Please. Explain it to the two purebloods, will you. I need to go check on Remus.'

'I got a bloody first in Muggle Studies at Domdaniel,' Draco groused - once Harry was safely gone.

'But have you heard the song?'

'Well, no.'

Hermione drew her wand, and conjured up an enchanted CD player that would actually work at Grimmauld Place, and accioed Harry's copy of the Jamie Cullum disc in question.

Two jumps in a week, I bet you think that's pretty clever, don't you, boy?
Flying on your motorcycle, watching all the ground beneath you drop
You'd kill yourself for recognition; kill yourself to never ever stop
You broke another mirror; you're turning into something you are not....

'God,' Ron choked, 'turn it off.'

'Poor Lupin,' Draco said, a bit shaken himself. 'Are we sure that these Muggles didn't write that about Sirius?'

'Since they first wrote it in 1995, I don't expect so. But it must have cut Remus like a knife.'

'Harry, also.'

'Some wounds will never fully heal,' Ron said, soberly. His hand went unconsciously to the scars on his forearm that he'd picked up in the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. 'You live, and you learn to work around them, so they don't keep catching all the time.'

_______________________________

In a dream-future, shortly after the discovery of Flint's corpse in Dye-Urn Alley and their visit to the Docklands at the Isle of Crups.

'It's an unceasing game of tit for tat, isn't it, until it gets tatty and we see through it or it goes tits-up and they win.' Draco's voice was wearily amused. 'Riddle tries to sow dissension by ostentatiously not targeting the DA. We try to cripple him by setting the DEs at each other's throats and getting Riddle to eliminate his own followers. Now Chummy tries to fit me up for a spot of Dark necromancy. It's always the gullibility of the other side that's a faction's best weapon, isn't it.'

_______________________________

In a dream-future, in the Minister's private offices, at his official residence, the fabled No 12 Upping Street.

'Arthur?'

'Yes, Harry?'

'What was the real story behind the farce of trying to seize Draco's assets - oh, I know it was ostensibly aimed at Lucius's estate, but we both know the truth - just after the War?'

'Twigged to that, have you?'

'As it was happening. I've just never wanted to confront you about it, until now.'

'Ah. Yes. Well.'

'You could have stopped it, you know. Before the - well, it really was a farce - played out.'

'I could have done, yes. It would have required a fairly arbitrary exercise of ministerial power, and from a new ministry not yet played in at that, but, yes, I could have done. And that is why I did not.'

'Because it would have been arbitrary?'

'Yes. Because it was necessary, not only that justice be done, but that it be seen to have been done. This way, all sides of the debate then raging were reassured: that steps would be taken against enemy and attainted property; that all steps taken would be taken through ordinary judicial process; that the new judicial system would in fact work, as shown by this test-case, and work at least as well as the old system whereunder the Wizengamot served as a high court of justiciary - a supreme court of judicature - as well as a parliament; and that the innocent, such as Draco, would not suffer.

'You probably feel you've been manipulated yet again. Eh?'

'I'm used to it.'

'Balls, Harry. What you really mean is that you've chosen to permit it, for your own reasons. It leaves you free to preserve an independent judgement and freedom of action whilst the rest of us get our hands dirty.'

Harry flushed, and stammered.

'Oh, don't, Harry,' Arthur smiled. 'Neither of us need subscribe to the fiction that Gryffindors are thick. Do you think you're alone in having an "inner Slytherin"? The Prewett boys, Fabian and Gideon, wouldn't have been the Aurors they were without it. And I am, after all, rather well acquainted with the characters of Bill, Charlie, Percy, Gred, Forge, Ron, and Ginevra.'

Harry just looked at him. 'But they didn't get their Slytherin sides from Molly, now, did they? War or no War, you didn't become Minister on my coattails, Arthur. And there's a very Slytherin touch in the way you used the Malfoy inheritance case to achieve political goals - goals I approve of, by the bye, but that's not the point, is it. In fact, had you given in to your Slytherin side, you might have been Minister years ago.'

'There are any number of things I might have been, had I done that. That was precisely the problem. I was not willing then, nor am I now, to make the moral compromises that should have been necessary for me to have grasped the brass ring earlier, and in a different, antebellum environment. That, I rather think, is why you and I understand each other so well.'

'Especially cunning of you not to have, well, broadcast your cunning, Arthur.'

'It has served Gryffindors well for some generations, Harry, that façade of bluff, witless courage. But I wonder, sometimes, that it doesn't wear thin. I mean, look at the Gryffindors you know and know of. Albus. Minerva. Sirius, for God's sake, and James and Lily, and Remus. Us,' he said, gesturing from himself towards Harry and thence to the framed portrait of his family. 'Hermione, Seamus, Dean. Neville. Great God, Hagrid spent decades doing technically illegal magic with his gamp and never got an owl from the ministries of the day. And we're the thick ones, bereft of cunning and guile?' Arthur snorted. 'We're a warrior caste, Harry. Being underestimated by Ravenclaws, Slytherins, and even Hufflepuffs has been a tactical weapon. In fact, though ... look at Slytherin. Bar Severus, and young Zabini, and of course Draco - who has as much Gryffindor latent in him as ever you had Slytherin - what are they? One-dimensional, purblind, unimaginative little shits who telegraph every machination.

'That's the funniest thing about those who prat about prattling of pureblood pre-eminence - no, superiority: most of them are walking refutations of their own theory. I suppose it's the bloody inbreeding.'

_______________________________

In a dream-future, in the Minister's private offices, the Ministry.

'Arthur. Tell me about goblins.'

'No, Harry, I think I shan't. No, no. Wait a moment. We've a far better source.' The Minister called for his PPS and gave a brief instruction, and within a minute or so, Bill's head appeared in the fire.

'Yes, Minister?'

Harry chuckled. For all of Arthur's fascination with things Muggle, he didn't always get the Muggle jokes. Bill, evidently, had watched his share of Muggle telly, though, judging by the twinkle in his eye when he used the phrase.

'Bill, can you get away from the bank and stop by to see me here? Harry wants to speak with you.'

'On my way, sir. When the Minister and the Great Liberator call, even Gringotts jump, asking only, How high?'

Harry barely had time to finish his grumble about the 'Great Liberator' rubbish before Bill strode in, eyes sparkling and fang earring swinging in time with his queue. 'Harry. Hullo, Dad. Want a curse broken? Can't balance your bank-book? Need a Ford Anglia flown somewhere -'

'Bill.'

'Sorry, Dad. I'm here. Ask away, Harry.'

'Goblins. And how to deal with them. What makes them tick?'

'Ah. That is a question. Well, Harry. They're ... formal. Ritualistically formal. They are also, bar none, the world's greatest believers in meritocracy. Results are everything to them, and they don't give a damn about where you started from, just where you end up. In that sense, they're remarkably like the Yanks, only more so. But at the same time, they are intensely hierarchical - it's just that the hierarchy is exclusively one of accomplishment, merit, not birth or rank - and highly bureaucratic. I mean, I know something of the Egyptians - the ancient Egyptians - and that was a system that revolved around hierarchy and bureaucracy. Goblins make Pharaonic Egypt look like the Gryffindor common room, Harry. I don't know how to describe it, really. There's just a very ancient, and very, well, Eastern feel to it, Goblin society, like something out of the farthest and most Asiatic past....'

'Confucian.'

'Wha- oh. Well, you'd know, wouldn't you? I remember how you pored over that scroll Cho's mum gave you, before and during the War, and the mental discipline.... Yeah, Harry. That might be right, at that.'

Harry's eyes were unfocused, and his voice distant. 'Traditionalist, rational, unsentimental, commercial, not seeking innovation but revering those who achieve it, formal, ranked, with everything open to talent, all done by exams and merit, and a butcher's boy can rise to the very top if his exam results are good enough, just as in the mediæval church....' He snapped back to the present. 'Is that a fair picture of them, then?'

'That's the goblins, Harry.' Bill spoke decidedly. 'Cross between Imperial China and Old Mother Thatcher's Britain.'

'Right, then. That's what I wanted to know. Thanks, Bill.'

Bill looked at him with mild disbelief. Sometimes, Harry almost frightened him. Sometimes, the Harry who had emerged from the War frightened them all. 'Any time, Harry. Any time.'

_______________________________

In dreams of an uncertain future, after the incident in Dye-Urn Alley.

POTTER HJ MPC OM MW

SIR:

YRS OF THE 10^TH INSTANT RCVD TO HAND.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMIT THAT MINISTRY AUTHORISATION SPECIFIC TO CIRCS IS REQUIRED. W RESPECT, SUBMIT THAT PRECEDENT SHD NOT BE ESTABLISHED FOR OVERRIDE OF USUAL / STATUTORY DIRECTIVES LEST FUTURE MINISTERS ARE LESS SCRUPULOUS. RULE OF LAW ONLY SAFEGUARD FOR THE SUBJECT AS RECENT EVENTS HAVE DEMONSTRATED. REFERENCE RESPECTFULLY MADE TO YR OWN REMARKS UPON VICTORY.

GRINGOTTS EAGERLY AWAIT ENABLING AUTHORISATION AND LOOK FWD TO ASSISTING YOU AS FAR AS IN OUR POWER, &C.

GRIPHOOK BLN

FOR GRINGOTTS

_______________________________

In the dream-future, two days after victory and the war's end, on the afternoon of Harry's discharge from Hospital, outside the Ministry entrance.

'Harry! HARRY! Are you going to stand for Minister now?'

'Harry! Do you support Arthur Weasley for Minister?'

'Mr Potter! Is it true that you intend to push for repeal of the Statute of Secrecy, and establishing open relations with the Muggles?'

Harry pushed past the scrum of reporters - 'if you could call them that', as he was wont to mutter - trying not to roll his eyes too visibly. But one question stopped him in his tracks.

'HARRY! Do you support the proposals for forfeiture, attainder, and forcible re-education for all purebloods?'

'WHAT?'

'Rounding them up, redistributing the property they've acquired through years of Dark Arts, and putting them in re-education camps, Harry!'

The press rocked on its collective heels as Harry turned, and magic surged from him in a stiff breeze, stripping feathers from quills and crumpling parchment.

His voice, when he spoke, was cold, quiet, poisonous, and deadly. 'Is there in fact such a proposal?'

After a few seconds that seemed eternal, a WWN correspondent in the back answered, in a very small voice. 'Well, yes. There, um, is.'

'For purebloods. Regardless of whether they are convicted of anything or not.'

'Well, ah. Yes.'

Harry was visibly struggling not to take out a few acres with the blast of his anger. 'Simply because they are purebloods.' He glared at the reporters, and, deliberately, making sure the cameras caught it, spat on the ground. 'I suppose Albus Dumbledore, then, should be deprived of his property and put in a camp? Or Neville Longbottom? And how about the Weasleys, hmmm? When I find out what pig-ignorant sod came up with this idea, he - or she - will be very sorry he - or, of course, she - was ever born. Anyone who thinks this is what we were fighting for - rather than against - may as well go and get a Dark Mark now, because this is precisely the sort of thing, only inverted, that Riddle and his rabble stood for.

'It was this sort of thing that brought the war upon us, as payment for our sins. It was this sort of attitude, this disregard of law, that sentenced Sirius Black to twelve years in Azkaban, in his innocence, and left the true traitor free to aid Riddle. AND I'LL NOT HAVE IT.

'Blood status,' he spat out, 'I ask you. Stupid buggers. And that is what I have to say on the subject.' With a swirl of robes that would have earned Snape's approval, he turned to enter the Ministry, leaving the reporters silent and cowed.

Except one. A brassy voice, very much uncowed, and ringing with mocking amusement, rang out. 'Of course, Harry, darling, you're sleeping with one of the prime candidates for dispossession and re-education, aren't you.'

Harry slewed around and glared at her: Rita Skeeter, smirk unchanged, in statu quo ante bellum, as acid as the green of her robes. 'Well,' he said, flatly. 'If it isn't my favourite poisonous insect.'

'Harry! After all we've been to one another.' The woman was insufferably smug.

'And what has that been, Skeeter? I will tell you. You were, wittingly or not, one of the more cutting tools in the Dark's arsenal, and your libellous falsehoods about me did more to jeopardise victory in the late War than damned near anything this side of Tom Riddle's personally-undertaken actions.' Those around the witch had begun to draw aside, creating a clear circle of isolation around her. 'You are a reckless liar, a mercenary bitch, and a criminal - without even the excuse of wartime, tactical necessity for your violations of peacetime laws.' Wandlessly, in a move as swift as a snake's striking, he cast a reverse revealing charm, forcing her to transform into her animagus form, and, before she could move, a binding spell, with ropes as tiny, fine, and fast as a spider's strands. 'Do you, standing there, seize the vermin,' he cried, his voice ringing out, in the diction of the High Language that came out in him only in the throes of prophecy or at moments when his Welsh and bardic blood was stirred, 'and bear her before the tribunal that she may be charged and tried.' And in the dead silence, he swept imperially into the Ministry's portals.

_______________________________

In a dream-future, after the war, at Godric's Hollow.

Another dubious effect of the post-War Muggle-mania was that Draco, having embraced all things Muggle with the zeal of a convert, had turned, inevitably, into a demonic cross of John Betjeman with Barbara Pym. The Telegraph, the Spectator, Country Life, and Punch littered the study, there were Thelwell cartoons on every wall, and Draco had developed an unsettling interest in bulbs, herbaceous borders, and the parish jumble sale.

But it was worth it to see that new and dazzling post-War smile.

_______________________________

In dreams of an uncertain future, after the incident in Dye-Urn Alley.

POTTER HJ MPC OM MW

SIR:

YRS OF THE 12^TH INSTANT RCVD TO HAND. W RESPECT, REGRET TO SUBMIT THAT, ALTHOUGH YOU ARE ALWAYS WELCOME HERE AND YR WISH TO MEET WD BE GRATIFIED SHD YOU INSIST, GRINGOTTS FEEL A MEETING AT THIS TIME WD NOT BE PRODUCTIVE IN LIGHT OF RESPECTIVE STATES OF KNOWLEDGE. RESPECTFULLY SUBMIT THAT INITIAL ENQUIRIES AT MINISTRY WD BE MORE PROFITABLE AT THIS JUNCTURE, BEFORE WE MEET TO DISCUSS THE MATTER. WD ALSO RESPECTFULLY SUBMIT THAT SITUATION REQUIRES WHAT THE UNDERSIGNED ALAS DOES NOT POSSESS, VIZ., AN EYE AT ONCE ARTISTIC AND ARITHMETIC. NONETHELESS, GRINGOTTS WILL BE HONOURED TO RECEIVE YOU AT ANY TIME, OR TO ANSWER ANY QUERIES.

GRIPHOOK BLN

FOR GRINGOTTS

_______________________________

In dreams of an uncertain future, after the incident in Dye-Urn Alley.

'Dean? Dean Thomas, as I live and breathe! And you with your easel and painting-box. Come down the docks for a bit of scenery, have you? Very Turner of you, old boy.'

'Hullo, Corner. Yeah, now that I'm merely a consultant civil servant, I can give my muse more time. When Seamus isn't demanding my attention.'

'Well, you're more than welcome to do your artistic slumming here. I'll be interested to see what you make of the landscape - and without paying my less than abundant Knuts to get into the gallery.' Michael Corner made a sweeping motion as if ushering Dean in upon the Wizarding Docklands scene. 'It's all yours, old boy, and I'll keep within cooee if you like, as my old nurse used to say, or if there's anything you're wanting.'

Dean looked at the area with a practised and painterly eye. 'Not exactly Upton Park in the sunshine, is it. More like a council estate, a tip, and the Muggle docks in one. Dodgy place you patrol, here.'

'Oh, that's right, you grew up somewhere in East London, didn't you. Near their Docklands, at all, was it?'

'Yeah. Well, it's what you'd expect, innit, Mike. Me growing up poor, half-blood, and black.'

'Black? God blind me, I never thought you'd anything to do with Dark magic.' Corner's eyes were suddenly hard, and very much an Auror's.

Dean's slackened mouth suddenly quirked into a smile, and he threw his head back - in a gesture he'd picked up, unconsciously, from Harry, years ago - and he laughed, peal upon peal. 'Christ, Michael Corner,' he sputtered, finally. 'You pureblood wizards.... Black, as in the colour of my skin, you daft pillock.'

Corner was puzzled, and showed it. 'But. I'm no artist, old boy, but I'm not colour-blind. And that's not black. Rather the shade of cocoa, really. Which reminds me, I've a kettle on the hob. Ovaltine suit you? I'm afraid the budget really doesn't run to Horlicks as well, unless I cut back on tea; besides, you want to stay awake, down the docks....' As Corner prattled, he led Dean into the station house, waving, as they walked, to the lieges of his manor. Once inside, the masks came off.

'Still with the Treasury, Dean?'

'More or less.'

'Er. Precisely how much more, or less?'

'I like your caution, Michael. Wish there'd been more of it in other places. Here.'

'Letter from Harry, eh. Oh: from the Minister as well. All right, then, let's see it, shall we? Mmmm. Mind if I double-check this?'

'I'd raise seven hells if you didn't, actually. The Minister, in fact, is expecting to hear from you. Fire-call him.'

Corner gave him a very level look. 'Right, then. I'll do that. One moment, please - back in a tick. Have a second cuppa if you like.'

_______________________________

In a dream-future, in the Minister's private offices, the Ministry.

'Harry.'

'Minister.'

Arthur gave him a long, level look. 'Harry, unless you're taking the piss, you know better than to call me that.'

'Sorry, Arthur. I really was trying, well, just to be properly respectful.'

'I'm sure you were, but I hope never to see the day when you call me anything but "Arthur" - unless it's "Dad Weasley".'

'I -'

'I know. You're afraid that that's invoking bad luck. You've lost enough father figures. Still. No ceremony, between us, shall we say? Give it a miss? Best thing to do, really.'

'As you wish - Arthur. So long as you realise that I do take your office seriously, and have no intention of presuming on, well -'

'On the fact that, when it comes to it, you're as much a son to me as Ron is, or Bill, or Charlie, or the Terrible Twins? I take that as read, Harry. Now. About this smuggling business. And the necromancy angle.'

'Right.'

'You've focused on the money.'

'Yes.'

'But have you focused on it in the right way?'

'I'm sorry, Arthur, I don't follow you.'

Arthur stood and walked over to his window, his back to Harry, hands clasped behind him, staring out upon the charmed view of green fields and stone fences and thick hedgerows; a view, Harry realised with a start, unlike that that Fudge had had, and bearing a marked similarity to the countryside near Ottery St Catchpole.

'Harry. Thus far, we've managed to keep a lid on. But even within the Ministry, one gets a sense of what the Great British Wizarding Public will - inevitably - say. We're a reasonable cross-section here in the Ministry, and the whispers in the staff canteen generally predict the public mind rather well.

'The fact that people have seized upon, is that an undertaking of this sort wants a staggering lot of dosh to pull off. As I think Michael Corner mentioned in passing, the amounts at issue are on the order of the combined Potter-Black-Malfoy fortune.'

'Arthur. No one can seriously think that I -'

'No, Harry. No one seriously does. Your detractors - and there are still a few -'

Harry snorted. He was well aware of that.

'- Even they don't think that of you. Specifically, they don't think you would spend that sort of money to raise a Dark leader; the people who hate, fear, and distrust you are well aware that you could, if you so wished, be a Dark Lord far greater, more powerful, and more nearly invincible than Tom Riddle ever dreamt of being, with no more than a moral choice and the flick of your wand-hand. No; no one thinks that you are a suspect.'

Harry stood then, an anger flaring in him that almost made Arthur's last words an immediately self-fulfilling prophecy. The casement shook, the floorboards trembled, and the papers on Arthur's desk began to ruffle and rise.

'Harry!' Arthur's voice was stern, paternal. 'You know damned well I'm telling you this for your sake, and his. I'm on your side here - don't make fools of the both of us.'

Harry closed his eyes and concentrated. The rush of swirling magic ceased, and he forced himself to be calm. 'In light of what you've just said,' he ground out, 'whoever is playing at this needn't even raise the dead to raise merry hell. The mere threat is enough to place Draco under public suspicion, is it not.'

Arthur turned round and looked at him, with a father's love and a friend's compassion. 'Certainly if the objective is to mount a political attack on Draco, and to play upon the old fears that the Malfoy name has earned, then, yes, it's not actually necessary that whoever is behind this do any more than he or she has done. Already, people are doubting - some people, not many, but people in the Ministry, who ought to damned well know better - some are doubting Draco's honour ... and your judgment. Neither of which, I may say, want doubting in the present state of things. It would be very annoying to have that come up just now, in the current environment. If I recall, similar tactics were used, by you and all of us, at Draco's suggestion, against Death Eaters in the run-up to and during the last war. But we must assume that fitting Draco up as a villain is only one of these people's objectives; we must, that is, act on the worst-case assumption that they are also, additionally, truly resolved to resurrect Madam Lestrange, or possibly Lucius Malfoy.'

'Time, then, is shorter even than we thought.'

'I'm afraid it may well be, Harry. I'm sorry.'

'Not as sorry as the bastards behind this are going to be.'

'Yes, well, I do have faith in you. And - Harry? Please. Have faith in me, as well. I'm speaking here purely as Arthur Weasley, not as Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Magical Affairs. Please know that I - and Molly, and all of us - love and trust you and Draco, both.'

Harry crossed the room in two strides, and embraced Arthur. 'Thank you,' he murmured. 'For everything.' He stood back. 'Now, if you'll excuse me, I have enemies to destroy.'

Arthur looked at him with a smile as grim as Harry's own. 'Good hunting, son.'

_______________________________

In dreams of an uncertain future, after the incident in Dye-Urn Alley.

'Partly because this's your patch, Mike Corner. And partly. Look. Someone's trying to resurrect Bella - or, right, maybe Lucius Malfoy - it's not likely to be a Muggle-born. Or even a half-blood, and I'm still getting used to that status, ta ever so. "Blood" has too many parallels to what I've seen in the Muggle world, y'know? And you. I don't know how purebloods think. You do. I realised just now just how much I don't know about how you lot think, in fact. I still can't quite believe that there's no colour bar in the Wizarding world, for one.'

'What's a "colour bar", then, when it's at home?'

'Answers my question, doesn't it. To Muggles, skin colour - race - matters like you wouldn't believe.'

'Does it, though? My word. I thought it was just a variation, as it were.'

'It is. But Muggles ... well, it's complicated. I can't explain it.'

Dean thought back to his earliest childhood. A boy without - as he thought - a father, growing up in Tower Hamlets, in a tatty block of council flats. It was one of the oldest in the lot, so old that it had been through several name changes with the tides of political fashion: from Lucknow Towers - Labour councillors had changed that, hurriedly, in the name of sensitivity, not realising that it had long been the source of jokes by every tenant, regardless of ethnicity, on the grounds that the only luck anyone reduced to living there had, now or later, was bad - to names evoking various hangers-on of the Webbs, to being successively renamed for poisonous plants (Laburnum Gardens, Yew Walk), to its unfortunate incarnation, in his childhood, as Ebony Close Towers: another source of ribald mockery in the tradition of Lucknow Towers. Nowadays, he'd heard, it was being again hastily renamed, for one of the Tonypandy 'martyrs' of Labour mythology, now that its latest namesake, George Galloway MP, had come a well-deserved cropper. Fortunately, it no longer mattered to him, or to his family, who were now - thanks to his success in the Wizarding world, and the fruits of his war efforts and his brush alike, not to mention his Ministry salary - happily ensconced in a Kentish farmstead, freehold and clear of any mortgage, amidst acres of hops, and with a cushy arrangement with Ogden's.

Ebony Close Towers, though ... for a young black lad, scrawny, dreamy, artistic, with 'no proper dad' in the eyes of his tormentors, and already vaguely aware that there was something different about him - two things, as it had turned out, both of which he discovered aboard a magical steam-train, when he had been introduced to the Wizarding world, and to Seamus Finnigan - it had been a hard school. And learning, in time, that his father, his true father, had 'deserted' them in order to save them from the Wizarding equivalent of racialism, and its proponents; had been tortured and killed by Death Eaters because he, a pureblood, had refused to join them....

And the worst of it was the realisation, in his teens, at Hogwarts, that the same inherent evil was within him: that he, a descendant of sugar-island slaves, could have accepted without a thought the servitude of house-elves; that he, sensitive to every manifestation of racialism, could have unthinkingly insulted a professor he respected simply because that professor was a centaur. He had been so filled with self-disgust that he had been unable to set foot in a chapel for three years.

'Dean?'

'Sorry. I was....'

'A million miles away, old boy.'

'Not really. We're not that far from East London.' He took a deep breath. 'Michael ... tell me straight. Does my skin colour truly not matter in your eyes?'

Corner shrugged. 'Well, old boy, it never occurred to me that it ought to do. You're a wizard. I mean, that's the world, isn't it: there are wizards, and there are Muggles, and that's that - except that we're not supposed to say even that any longer, are we. I don't know of any of the old British pureblood families with that colouring, so, obviously, it means your people are from somewhere else, but so are Fleur's, and the Patil twins's. Doesn't make you any less a wizard; and wherever your people were from, originally -'

'Jamaica. Gran still roots for the West Indies cricketers. My great-granddad brought the family over in '48. Landed at Tilbury, with all the rest of them off the Empire Windrush. God, the hopes they had of the Mother Country's maternal embrace.' Dean laughed. There was a bittersweet edge to it.

'Didn't happen? Bloody Muggles. Can't fathom it, myself. I mean, not only are you a wizard ... these are the British West Indies we're speaking of, aren't they? Well, then, there you are. Not only a wizard, but as British as they come - I mean, good Christ, if the Zabinis and the Goldsteins are, I'd say you qualify. Look at it that way, old Finnigan's less British than you are, what? Family straddles the line, don't they - not just the Muggle-wizard line, I mean, but both sides the border, Ulster and the Republic.

'Or is that what bothers you? I mean, this blood-status rubbish. By the old standards, after all, my half-blood prince -' Corner grinned, and Dean couldn't help but grin back - 'Harry's a half-blood. Harry, mind you. And Malfoy'd have my hide for even using the bloody categories, he and Granger-Weasley both.'

'Ah, yes. The zeal of the convert.'

'But he's right. I mean, surely you got a Thaddeus Thurkell card at least once with your chocolate frog. Seven Squib sons, poor bugger.'

'Turned 'em all into hedgehogs, di'n't he.'

'Old bastard. Yes, he did, dirty old sod. But still. I mean, here are the Evanses, technically Muggle, or, if you prefer, generations of Squibs. And Lily puts a protection on Harry like that. And old Riddle was a halfer himself. You know, I never thought, a decade ago, I'd say these words in my life, but: Malfoy's right. Wizards can have Squibs, apparent Muggles can have wizarding children, and there simply, mathematically, haven't been enough people alive in history that even the most un-magical of Muggles can not have at least one wizard or witch in the bloodline. Only possible conclusion is, the whole damned distinction's a load of old rubbish. Balls, all of it.'

'But -' and here Dean pounced - 'there are still those to whom it matters, matters as fundamentally as colour matters to Muggles.'

Corner's return glance was equally sharp, and equally resolute. 'Got it in one, old boy. There are. And they're up to something, on my patch.'

'Which is what you and I are here to put paid to. So. Who - of those who hold, or who you suss may hold, those ideas - has been mucking about here, down the docks?'

'Christ, Dean. Half the world. After all, I'm not a Legilimens. I don't know what people are thinking, and I couldn't arrest them for thinking if I did know. And if old Riddle himself could be a half-blood and have the ideas he had, it's not as if I can say, "oh, that one's not a pureblood, he can't believe that rot", now, can I? And you'd be amazed at the crowd that ends up down the docks on their lawful occasions - or ostensibly lawful. Tourists, company directors, dons awaiting consignments of rare materials, shopkeepers.... You're asking me to find a wand in a woodpile.'

'Then let me narrow it down. Anyone from the Ministry?'

Corner let out a low whistle. 'Merlin's sweaty balls, Dean Thomas. Tell me we've not another lot of traitors.'

'I can't tell you that, Mike.'

'Lie to me, it's for my peace of mind.'

'Corner -'

'Right, right. Bloody sodding hell, but that's a turn-up for the books.' He rose and began to pace. After a few moments, he turned and faced Dean. 'Dean. Tell me. Are there grounds for limiting this enquiry to Ministry personnel? Or, if not limiting it, prioritising it?'

'I probably ought not tell you that. But I can't expect you to police in the dark, can I? All right then, yes. You know Arthur inherited a right mess when he kissed hands and took over the oh-so-sacred seals of office.' Dean's voice was rich with mock awe.

Corner snorted. 'Took over a bloody pig's breakfast, you mean. Fudge left the place a shambles, let alone the war. I know. Wait a moment, though. The Treasury....'

'The public pelf.'

'Well?'

'Well, I can't say that there are discrepancies in the accounts....'

'But -'

'Wait for it.'

'No need.' Corner was crisp. 'You can't say there aren't, either, can you, because the whole boiling was so bollixed up?'

'Goal! Go, the Hammers!'

'Gunhilda's hump! There's always some bloody berk who'll sell the pass, isn't there. Right, then. Let me consult my memory.'

Corner walked over to his desk, unlocked it, and pulled out a Pensieve of a curious design. Dean recognised it as one of the linked Pensieves - Aurors used them now, as it allowed a duplicate record of their official acts, duly recollected and placed in the Pensieve, to be instantly and automagically entered into the main database at the DMLE, at the Ministry. The concept had originated in an offhand remark by Neville, of all people, just before the War: a remark Harry had seized on, and the practical applications of which had been worked out by (of course) Hermione, and later refined, for the purpose of keeping Quidditch stats, by - again, of all people - Ron. It allowed for the creation of an 'index strand' of the memories recorded by the user, and this, evidently, was Michael's purpose just now. Dean was well aware of the feats of unaided memory expected of Aurors, let alone Unspeakables.

'Right,' Corner said, after a few minutes. 'Do you think it will suffice if I start at six months prior to the first smuggling incident?'

'It's enough to be going on with. If I need more, later, I'll tell you.'

'Do. Very well. Persons with some connexion to the Ministry who've been down the docks in the period. Diggory, Amos. Weasley, Arthur. Macmillan, Harold Ernest Nigel Charles James - the great, bloody toff. Weasley, Percival - Ignatius, if you can credit it. Bones, Amelia Susan. Jones, Hestia. Dumbledore, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian. Hopkirk, Mafalda. Patil, Padma. Moody, Alastor. Figg, Arabella Doreen Stuart. Fletcher, Mundungus Cavendish. Krum, Viktor, when he was seconded here by the - Bulgarian, was it? - Ministry. Branstone, Eleanor. Mockridge, Cuthbert. Abbott, Hannah. Peasegood, Arnold. Shacklebolt, Kingsley. Ackerley, Stuart. Finnigan, Seamus. Vance, Emmaline. Tonks, Nymphadora. Creevey, Dennis. Boot, Terence - jawing away as bloody usual. Whimple, Gilbert. Diggle, Dedalus. Corner, Michael - obviously. Carmichael, Edmund - also obviously. Doge, Elphias. I believe that's it. Oh, and I suppose, if you want to stretch a point about being connected to the Ministry in any way, you might add Longbottom, Agatha Emily Margaret Hilda, née Leatherbarrow.'

Dean and Michael both grinned. There were plenty of impossible suspects on the list, but with the possible exceptions of Arthur Weasley and Albus Dumbledore, Gran Longbottom, with her vulture hat and all, was perhaps the least likely imaginable.

'Ta, Mike. You've given me a right task, but it's what we were wanting.' Dean turned to go.

'Any time, old boy.' As Dean put his hand on the door, Corner added, mock-innocently, 'Oh. By the bye. Did you want ex-Ministry types as well, from the previous government?'

'Bugger!'

'I'll leave that to Seamus, old chap. Oh, don't kick yourself - that's why you're the Treasury boffin and I'm the Auror. You'll want to add the following to the list, then. Fudge, Cornelius Oswald. Umbridge, Dolores Jane. Bagman, Ludovic. And Edgecombe, Suzette Felice Prunella. Off with you now, old boy - I can see you're panting to have a go at the accounts.'

'Bleedin' Ravenclaw.'

Corner just laughed.

_______________________________

In dreams of an uncertain future, after the incident in Dye-Urn Alley.

POTTER HJ MPC OM MW

SIR:

YRS OF THE 14^TH INSTANT RCVD TO HAND.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMIT THAT YOU ARE TOO HONEST TO FATHOM POTENTIAL DEPTHS OF DEPRAVITY. RESPECTFULLY SUBMIT THAT PERSONS ENGAGED IN DARK MAGIC ARE UNLIKELY TO LIMIT THEMSELVES TO USING ONLY THEIR OWN MONIES IN EFFORT. NICE DISTINCTION BTWN MEUM & TUUM PRB 1^ST TO GO, MORALLY, IN DARK WIZARDS / WITCHES. RESPECTFULLY SUBMIT EXPANDING ENQUIRY.

GRIPHOOK BLN

FOR GRINGOTTS

_______________________________

In dreams of an uncertain future, after the incident in Dye-Urn Alley, at number twelve, Grimmauld Place.

'Yes,' Draco drawled. 'I was, rather. Aware of it.' He put down his copy of Rustice Vita - wizardom's new version of Country Life, with the same mild obsessions with informal gardens, stately homes, more spacious times, and Tory nostalgia - and looked humourlessly at Harry. 'The great and good had begun to look askance when you weren't watching solicitously over me, you know. As if I were at all likely to piss away years of rehabilitating my name, toss my relationship with you in the bin, and angle for an Azkaban sentence, all in aid of resurrecting someone who quite probably would want me dead as her first order of business. Even if I were Slytherin enough to play that deep a game, I'm too damned impatient to keep it up over this span of years. Besides,' he added, with a barely repressed shudder, 'they say necromancy gives one wrinkles and grey hairs.'

_______________________________

In dreams of an uncertain future, after the incident in Dye-Urn Alley, Level Two, the Ministry.

'Amos Diggory.'

'Lost Cedric to Riddle, refused the ... er -'

'Blood money,' Harry said, flatly.

'If you like.' Draco's tone was carefully neutral.

'Not the money needed to pull this off, or any motive,' Dean said.

'Dissent?' Harry looked around the circle of his working group. Ron, Hermione, and Nev shook their heads. Seamus was noncommittal, and would remain so throughout, as was only right given his position.

'Right, then. Next. Arthur?'

There was general laughter.

'I think,' Harry smiled, 'there are certain people on the list we can eliminate outright. Arthur, Albus, Mad-Eye, Tonks, Kingsley, Dennis, Madam Bones, old Diggle, on grounds of idiocy if nothing else, Seamus ... and of course, Nev's Gran.'

Nev shook his head. 'Happen Gran wanted to take over the world, I reckon, she could do it on her own. I mean, would any of you lot stand up to her?'

'God, no,' said Draco, fervently. 'If your Gran wished to rule the world, we'd simply stay out of her road and mind our manners.'

'Oh,' Harry said. 'We may as well put Percy out of court, as well.'

Ron coloured, and shook his head, not looking up. 'I'd leave him on, Harry.' His voice was full of pain. 'Remember what Dad said.'

Harry remembered.

'Percy

is loyal. But. He is loyal to me in my capacity as Minister. Not as his father; I know that. He knows that. And he knows that I know. Percy ... will always worship the rising, not the setting, sun. But if I may quote a Muggle who found himself in a not dissimilar position, if we open up a quarrel between the present and the past, we shall jeopardise the future. You must realise, I am here, in this office - literally and metaphorically - because I was vindicated, and I was vindicated by Harry, and by events. That is not, you may know, the usual way of climbing the greasy pole of politics. I've neither interest in nor talent for bureaucratic warfare, which is why preferment was never on my horizon. There's no little irony in the fact that, but for Tom Riddle, I'd not be where I am. Percy does understand the machinations. So long as I stay atop the pole, he's an indispensable backroom boy.'

'God, Ron. I'm sorry.'

'Never mind.' Ron attempted to be gruffly dismissive, but there seemed to be a lump in his throat. 'All else fails, we can adopt the Ferret in his place. Let's move on.'

'Um. Fine. Er. Anyone think we should front-burner Hestia?'

Everyone snorted, or rolled his eyes, or both.

'Mrs Figg?'

There was outright laughter.

'Right. Put her down as no motive. I mean, Bella wasn't precisely Squib-friendly, was she? Oh - Padma. Anyone?'

'Unlikely but possible. Not much of the ready, though, so I don't know where she'd be financing this.'

'Ernie?'

'Same answer, I think. Anyone else? Right, then.'

'Dung?'

'I'll never get to the bottom of that one. Unlikely but possible.'

'Madam Edgecombe?'

'No. Marietta, perhaps - little sneak -' Hermione had never forgiven Marietta Edgecombe - 'but not her mum. She did as she was told by Umbridge and Fudge, just as she would do, whoever was in charge. A born follower if ever there were one - which, I presume, is why Arthur kept her on, albeit on probation. Honestly, she probably hadn't enough brain to realise that Fudge's orders were improper.'

'Terry Boot?'

Hermione tossed her head back, impatiently. 'All talk, that one. Honestly, Harry.'

'U but P?'

'Right.'

'Ludo Bagman?'

'If he has a Sickle left, it's because his goblin creditors and their Nifflers are one step behind him, and he'll be down to lint in his pockets in half an hour.'

There was no dissent.

'Krum.'

'Oh, Vicky,' Ron said, with gleeful malice.

'Ronald Bilius Weasley -'

'Sorry, dear.'

'I don't know,' Harry mused. 'I mean, if there are two ways to know a man's character, it's to fight beside him and to play against him on the pitch, and I never knew Viktor to be anything but a sportsman.'

Draco cocked his head to one side and looked at his beloved Harry. 'But his name, like mine, tells against him, love. Do you know anything about him, really?'

'Tell me.'

'Well. I suppose, to English ears, "Krum" is just an amusing Eastern European name, and grounds for jest. But Viktor is descended in direct line from the Kha-Khan Krum, the great wizard-khan of the Bulgars when they first came into Europe, who annihilated the Avars, united the Bulgar tribes, defeated the Byzantine emperor Nicephorus - and used his skull, covered in silver, as his goblet for the rest of his life.' As Draco spoke, Harry recalled that there was Byzantine blood in the Malfoys, acquired from a refugee Comnena daughter who had fled the Turks when Constantinople fell.

'We'll move him up the list, then. What of Hannah?'

'Not bloody likely.'

'Mafalda Hopkirk?'

'No idea, except that I know,' said Draco, who certainly ought to have known, 'that she hasn't the money for it. And that's rather the stumbling block for most of the Ministry types, really. Are we sure the goblins aren't sending us on a wild-snidget chase with these damned hints of theirs? Purebloods, Ministry types, it's all a complete military balls-up -'

'OH!' Hermione was all but raising her hand as she had done in a thousand classes.

'What is it, Hermione?' Harry could not repress a fond and reminiscent smile.

'We're all thinking in terms of, well, raising the dead by Dark Arts, something akin to what happened with Riddle during the tournament. But - I'm not saying we should exclude anyone, but we are trying to prioritise here, so - what if whoever is behind this is trying to combine Dark Arts with Muggle technology. Cloning.'

'My God,' Draco breathed. 'Toothbrushes and old clothes. Cells.'

'Exactly,' Hermione said, nodding furiously.

'But most purebloods, or people who might want to raise a pureblood Dark Leader, know little of Muggle technology and have less use for it even than they do knowledge of it.'

'There's an academic - of sorts - on the list.' Harry's tone was grim.

'Hem, hem,' Draco added. 'But she never had a bean.'

'Um.'

'Yes, Nev?'

'Mightn't that be why the goblins gave you a wink and nudge about Ministry folk?'

'You mean -'

'She and Fudge were best positioned t'do. No reason they'd use their own brass, happen they could use Treasury's.'

Harry stood, coldly furious. 'Right. I think it's high time for another owl to Gringotts. Perhaps, in the goodness of their bankerly little hearts, assuming they have hearts, they'll be kind enough to give us poor bloody idiots another clue. After tea, shall we say? Dean, I want a précis of what the Treasury should have - estimate it if necessary - as opposed to what there is in the vaults. Back at five of four, let's say - Hermione, you'll see to it we've something sustaining to our tea, please. Cauldron cakes would be nice, and the usual sandwiches - Ron will want corned beef, no doubt.' He smiled, tightly, at his own joke. 'I'll see you then.' And all of them, even Draco, filed out, walking warily. Harry, in this mood, was not a wizard to be trifled with. Although, as the door closed, he did hear the dauntless Hermione snap, 'Oh, fine, let's have the woman see to the bloody tea. Pig.'

_______________________________

In dreams of an uncertain future, after the incident in Dye-Urn Alley, in the Minister's private offices, the Ministry.

'Well, Percy?'

'Yes, Minister?'

'I assume - it might be better to say, "I hope" - there is an explanation for why I was not aware that Ministry accounts were in disorder thanks to Minister Fudge and Madam Umbridge?'

'Of course, Minister.'

'Oh, good. And that explanation would be?'

'The possibility that a new Minister might wish to know what the Minister of the day wished not to know and had instructed the Ministry not to make known to the Minister, was not anticipated at the time the directive was issued, in that the current unanticipated situation was not contemplated, and therefore those of us who needed to advise and inform were not advised that the information that we were instructed not to divulge to the previous Minister was to be divulged, and therefore there was no authority for the current Ministerial authority to be advised, because we were not advised that the new Minister was advised of the knowledge that there was knowledge of which the Minister wished to be advised.'

Dean Thomas, by now better known as Wizarding Britain's most famous artist, but still Permanent Consulting Undersecretary to the Treasury Department of the Ministry, shook his head. 'Percy, a new minister can't be expected to know that he needs to revoke a prior minister's order to keep embezzling secret, if he doesn't know of the embezzlement or the prior secrecy order.'

Percy sniffed, his head well back. 'Thomas, embezzlement presumes a lack of authority at law to remove the funds. Minister Fudge gave Madam Umbridge, in her capacity as his Special Assistant, Senior Undersecretary -'

'- Toady Extraordinary, Deputy Bootlicker -'

'Harry....'

'Sorry, Arthur.'

'- and PPS,' Percy continued, through clenched teeth, 'gave her, as I was saying, valid, subsisting legal authority to create a new, secret service fund for purposes relating to the defence of the Ministry's interests.'

'Right,' Harry snapped, 'against me. And Albus. "Dumbledore's Army" - Fudge never worried a toss about Riddle and the DEs. And now that mad cow is out there using Ministry funds - the ratepayer's money, when all's said and done - to try to resurrect Bellatrix Fucking Lestrange! I don't know whether it's because Umbridge was always or is now Dark or whether she wants a new enemy so as to have an excuse to depose Arthur and create a new wartime government - with her at the head - with all the power that goes with that, but, by God, I'll have her for it!'

'Minister Fudge -'

'Sod off, Prefect Percy! That bastard doesn't deserve any honorific save a serial number at Azkaban!'

'Just because you're the Boy Who -'

'I TOLD YOU TO SHUT YOUR DAMNED MOUTH, PERCY!'

'DAD ALWAYS LIKED YOU BEST!'

'QUIET, BOTH OF YOU!' Arthur rarely roared, but when he did, no one save Molly ever stood up to him. 'Harry! Percy! Please. This is ... unbecoming conduct. Percy, you will draw up the necessary papers - ironclad papers - to reverse Fudge's decision and strip Umbridge of any authority or control over these accounts. Dean, please consult with the Public Prosecutor regarding recapturing the monies and charging Dolores Umbridge. Harry, good work. You'll be our emissary to Gringotts when Percy's drawn the necessary bumf. I take it they'll cooperate once they've authorisation in hand?'

'Yes, Arthur, I'm sure of it. They seem to have been waiting for that, and trying to signal that they were. And, you know, I can almost see their point. It was cutting corners that made Fudge so destructive - and put Sirius in Azkaban for a crime he didn't commit.'

'Quite. Which is why, after this is done, you and Percy and Dean and Seamus and Dung and Draco are going to be going through every file in this damned building, making sure there aren't any more of these little traps waiting to be sprung on us.

'Thank you all.' Arthur was unwontedly curt - to all of them, which wasn't really fair on Dean. 'That will be all.'

And all three of them knew it was time for a quiet, 'Yes, Minister,' and a hasty departure.

_______________________________

In dreams of an uncertain future, after the incident in Dye-Urn Alley.

POTTER HJ MPC OM MW

SIR:

YRS OF THE 17^TH INSTANT RCVD TO HAND.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMIT THAT 2.5 PM THURSDAY BEST TIME FOR MTG, BUT YR CONVENIENCE PARAMOUNT. PLS ADVISE. GRINGOTTS LOOK FWD TO MTG YOU AND FURNISHING ALL POSSIBLE ASSISTANCE.

GRIPHOOK BLN

FOR GRINGOTTS

_______________________________

In dreams of an uncertain future, after the incident in Dye-Urn Alley, in the Gringotts boardroom.

'Mr Potter.' Griphook's voice was even. He and Harry were seated across from one another in the Gringotts boardroom, the goblins Fasthold, Grapple, and Ironweb ranged on either side of Griphook. 'As you know, we have been ... approached ... about this matter before. By the Minister himself, as well as by others.'

'I am aware of it. It merely increases my sense of obligation to you and redoubles my gratitude that you would take time from your onerous duties to meet with me on this matter.'

Griphook inclined his head, obviously pleased with the formalities.

'Yes, Mr Potter, our duties are somewhat ... consuming; but we have certain obligations to the Ministry, and still greater - and more heartfelt, moral - obligations to you, personally.'

Mentally, Harry blessed Cho's mother, and a long-ago gift. 'You do this person too much honour, sir, but I thank you.'

Griphook's nod was very nearly a bow, this time. 'I think not, sir, but it is gracious in you to suggest it. I may confess that, having failed to attain a ... meeting of minds ... with Messrs Corner and Finnigan, Zabini and Goldstein, and with the Minister himself, I was in hopes that we should eventually be privileged to meet with you - or Doctor Granger-Weasley, should you have been unavailable.

'You permit that I explain the position?'

'I should be grateful of the enlightenment, sir.'

'Your servant, sir,' said Griphook, with another half-bow. 'You are, I know, aware of the very stringent laws regarding banking confidentiality - even where there is suspicion that a crime has been or is being committed. You are also of course aware that our laws are rather more ... protective ... of banking privacy than those in the Muggle world. I believe only the systems in Switzerland, Man, and some of the Caribbean islands are equivalent, as Muggle banking laws go. And -' here Griphook gave him a very hard look that seemed, somehow, equivalent to a wink - 'there are still further complications, shall we say, when the Ministry are involved.

'Arthur Weasley is, I feel justified in saying, a good and a great man, as well as a worthy Minister. But we are obliged to think in terms of centuries, my dear Mr Potter, in which time Ministers for Magic come and go. And when the emergency is forgotten and the government of the day is but a footnote, precedent remains. We want to be very careful regarding precedent. A worse Minister and a lesser man than Arthur Weasley may come, very easily, and if the laws have been twisted once.... You see my point. Disregard of law, of precedent, is what makes Voldemorts.' Again, Griphook all but winked. 'Or Fudges.'

'Ah. I do follow you, sir.'

'Sir, I hope that you precede me. Certain things that seem morally justifiable may, at times, be sought to be done with perfect legal authorisation. Similarly -' and Griphook, this time, did ghost a wink in Harry's direction - 'there are occasions upon which legally unimpeachable actions are done that are clearly morally dubious. We are constrained to follow the law; to do otherwise would risk everyone's rights. But when we are forced by law to do what seems unjust and inequitable, although legal, we do not readily forgive being put in that position. Indeed, we might go so far as to take umbrage.'

'You have been most helpful,' Harry said.

'You have been most patient,' Griphook replied, 'and quite admirably ... alert and attentive.'

'I thank you. I believe that my enquiry here is at an end for the moment, and my next steps will be taken at the Ministry, with the Treasury section.'

'I imagine they shall,' Griphook said, with an eerie goblin chuckle. 'If at any time we may be of further service -'

'Thank you. You have been a great help already; but I may call upon you again after my further enquiries, if you will allow it.'

'Oh, Mr Potter, we should welcome it.'

_______________________________

In the dream-future, a three-way conference fire-call....

'We need an overt act.'

'This is an emergency, Arthur -'

'Dung, damn it, I know that. But Harry and the goblins are right. It's cutting corners as brought us to this pass. And you can jaw all you like about the Defence of the Realm. I want more than just suss as a grounds for our giving the old cow the "come along o' me" and slapping the darbies on her chubby little wrists. As do Madam Bones and Kingsley.'

'Arthur?'

'Yes, Nev?'

'Happen you could lure her back to the Ministry vault one last time?'

'Unless that's too close to "entrapment" for your tender conscience, Arthur,' Fletcher sniped.

'Dung, don't try me. I am not particularly in want of two Alastor Moodys with whom to deal. Neville, how could you manage that?'

'Well,' Nev said. 'We've one of her suppliers in the nick. And she's no notice of that. Happen she got an owl from him about impurities in a shipment, and a knock-down price on the replacement goods....'

_______________________________

In the dream-future, from a judas window above the Paying and Receiving Desk at Gringotts....

'And there's Herself,' Seamus chuckled, 'the darlin' lass. Ach, that's right, me little charmer, just you hand that wee key over to the maneen, and be askin' to access the vault one last time, whatever....'

_______________________________

In dreams of an uncertain future, after the incident in Dye-Urn Alley, in the Minister's private offices, the Ministry.

'Well? Is that child-voiced bitch in custody? What is it about women who talk in that fashion, anyway - Umbridge, Bellatrix....'

'Ah, Harry ... there's been a bit of a cock-up.'

'WHAT?'

'Harry -'

'Sorry, Arthur, I know it's not your fault, but. God DAMN it. Now what?'

'Honestly, it doesn't, actually, seem that anyone gave her the office. I should know: I spent the small hours pouring Veritaserum down the throat of one of my own sons.'

'Christ, Arthur. I'm sorry.' Nothing he said, Harry knew, could possibly be adequate.

'Oh, I'm a Roman father,' Arthur said, trying - and failing miserably - to seem unmoved. He looked suddenly old in the early morning light. Harry, impulsively, hugged him tightly.

'Thank you, Harry.' Arthur disengaged, and blew his nose. 'Well. There it is. No treachery, thank God, just bad luck, and better wards than we thought she'd be capable of setting. We tracked her to earth after she left Gringotts, waited a bit so she'd be in flagrante when we blew in, and.... It went pear-shaped. Just bad luck and bad management, really. Still. Be that as it may, our bird has flown.'

'She has to light somewhere.'

'Indeed she does. And I rather think she has. The Muggle authorities report a power outage in the grid in Cornwall - and they have no rational explanation for it.'

'Gives a whole new meaning to revolutionaries trying to seize power.'

'You grew up in the Muggle world, Harry. Could this, truly, be related? Or am I grasping at straws?'

'Arthur ... I know I gave you a shelf's worth of Muggle classics, one Christmas. Do you ever have time to read them?'

'Oh, yes. Cover to cover, thank you. Fascinating, really.'

'Well, whilst I'm in darkest Cornwall, you might re-read some Mary Shelley.'

'Good God. You mean -'

'Seems probable. Who may I have?'

'Anyone you like, from Hit Wizards to Albus himself.'

'Right.' Harry scribbled a rota. 'Especially the last. How soon -'

'Fifteen minutes.'

'I'll go and knock Draco up, then. We'll meet the rest here, and then apparate.'

'Best of British luck, Harry.'

'Thank you, Arthur. We'll see you in a few hours.'

_______________________________

In a dream-future, a month after the end of the war, in the Minister's private offices, No 12 Upping Street.

'Harry, I don't, actually, give a toss whether you like the idea or not.'

'ARTHUR WEASLEY!'

'Molly, dear - if you would? Ministry business, I'm afraid.'

She swept out, in high dudgeon.

'Ah,' said Arthur. '"Come not betwixt the mother dragon and her egg". I don't mean to put your back up, Harry, but I want you to consider something. You're ranting and raving about the idea of a national day of commemoration because you don't want yet more fawning. Because, as you rather tiresomely remind us, it's not all about you.

'Well, Harry, you're quite right. It's not. The proposed Liberation Day is about all those who fought and prevailed. And it would be the height of selfishness if we consulted your convenience ... and in doing so, deprived Neville, and Luna, and Tonks, and Remus, and Draco, say, and even old Severus Snape, of their due plaudits. Now, wouldn't it?'

Harry blushed, redder than a beetroot. 'God, Arthur, I am so sorry. I'd thought - hoped, really - it was no longer in me to be quite that appalling a little shit. Christ, that was selfish of me -'

'No need to beat yourself up over it, either. You simply didn't think it through. Happens to the best of us. And, besides: you're quite right that it runs the risk of turning into St Harry's Day. Not the sort of thing either of us wishes to see. So I will meet you halfway. I can't think of anyone, bar Albus, perhaps, who has a better right to be consulted on how we approach this. So. Your thoughts?'

Harry concentrated, quietly, for some time. 'Well.'

'Yes?'

'I don't want this turning into some bloody bank holiday. Becoming meaningless.'

'No.'

'And I can't say I much care for the proposed name. It's too - too generic? It sounds the sort of thing that too easily could, in a generation, become meaningless.'

'What do you think we should call it, then?'

'Hmm. Oh! Why not - why not Phoenix Day? When we were reborn from the ashes?'

'Harry, that's brilliant. Oh, I quite like that. Yes. That's sorted, then - I'm sure the Wizengamot will agree. What else?'

'Um. Well. In the Muggle world. There's a day on which they commemorate their war dead, from the 1914 - 1918 war.'

'Go on.'

'And at a set time, there's a two-minute silence.'

'We can do that. Be good for us. We can remember the lost, then.'

'And - because these grew on the fields where the war was fought, and on the graves - they wear poppies in their buttonholes.'

'Poppies? Do they really, though?'

'And I thought, well. Perhaps. Would it be too much if, on our day, people wore lilies? Not for me, but because, well, I don't want people to forget about the first war, either.'

'No. No, that's excellent. And it has the Easter touch, too, which is apt. Anything else?'

'Not that I can think of, no.'

'Well, then. That's settled. If you do think of anything else, tell me by Monday, will you? I'll be putting this up to the Wizengamot on Tuesday.'

'Arthur? Thank you.'

'Not at all, Harry. Thank you. Now - if you really feel grateful towards me - go find Molly and make her see that I wasn't being cruel to you, eh? It's a very dangerous thing, having one's wife angry at one.'

'Oh, I think you could take her in fair fight, Arthur.' Harry smiled.

'Possibly,' Arthur said, with a chuckle in return. 'But a man has to sleep sometimes.'

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In dreams of an uncertain future, after the incident in Dye-Urn Alley, in a ragged Cornish meadow.

The Cornish sky was steely, and grey clouds scudded across its grey dome in a brisk wind. The meadow where they stood, facing off against Dolores Umbridge, was spanned by wires, and in its centre stood a pylon of the grid. The wind bellied her candyfloss-pink cardigan about her: the only spot of colour against the grey expanse of sky, and the sere grasses, and the bare wood behind.

'Oooh, lovely,' the toad-faced woman cooed. 'All of you here just to see me.' Her little pig's eyes burned with madness.

'Even the Great Harry Potter himself, hem, hem. And the ever ambitious Draco Malfoy! Why,' she said, with a tarnished-silver laugh, 'I remember when you were a teensy boy. So avid for power, oh my, yes. One of my very best Inquisitors, weren't you, ducks? And now all of you are here just to see me. Why, it's quite an Old Hogwarts gaudy, isn't it?'

'Dolores Jane Umbridge,' Harry said, cutting through her posturing, 'I arrest you on charges of treason, conspiracy, embezzlement of public, Ministry funds, necromancy, and practise of the Dark Arts.'

She pretended to ignore him. 'But tell me, Potter, you wretched boy. Why this martial array? All these happy little faces! Hit Wizards? Unspeakables, Aurors, members of the Privy Council of the Wizengamot - why, if I'd known I was to be entertaining.... All these important people just to pay a call on,' she tittered, 'a slip of a girl like me.'

'I believe you mean "landslip",' Hermione said, dryly. 'And you left girlhood behind when Nicholas Flamel was a young buck, if you ask me.'

'Oh, Little Miss Question-All needs must shove her oar in, does she. Well, here I am. And I see no resurrected dead - you did mention necromancy, didn't you, in your preposterous list of charges?'

'Are you coming quietly, you flabby, middle-class cunt, or are you going to give me the satisfaction of a free hand to make you suffer?' Draco's smirk was at its most Malfoy.

'Try it,' Umbridge snarled. 'A little magic, a little Muggle technology, a little eckletricty - and here I am! With the powers of Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange incorporated in my own! Yes, I raised them, long enough to assimilate their powers - look!' She pointed to one side, and moved her plump, be-ringed hand in a quick semi-circle, parting the meadow grasses to reveal two, partial, rotting corpses. Even as they looked - Draco making a small, choked sound in his throat - these fell into ash and dust, and were swirled away by the unrelenting wind. Harry had time only to send an enveloping sense of love and sympathy to Draco, along their bond, before he was forced back to the present. Fieldwork was sometimes perilously like the War.

'Did you think I wanted to raise someone to follow? I LEAD! No more puppeteering, no more working through such as Fudge - I shall LEAD! I SHALL RULE! I have in me the power of three great magicians, I am, yes, yes, I am - a, a TRINITY - I AM A TRINITY AND I SHALL BE YOUR GOD!'

'Mad cow. Bind her,' Draco snapped. The Ministry force cast multiple spells and hexes at her, but with a wave, she dissipated them.

'FOOLS! DO YOU THINK YOU CAN OVERPOWER ME? I AM INVINCIB- -'

From behind her, where the bare woods edged the fallow field, there was the twang of a bowstring and the sudden clopping thrum of hoofbeats on hard, winter earth.

She shrieked, and turned, falling to her knees with her fat little mottled hands covering her mousy head, trembling uncontrollably.

'Now,' Harry snapped, and he and Draco raised their wands as one, creating a power she could never have fought off on any case, and their magic seized and bound her. They cast a silencing charm upon her, and their team swathed her to her goggling, wild eyes in Graphorn-hide bands.

'Some deity,' Draco sneered, prodding Umbridge's still-trembling form with the toe of his exceeding expensive boot. 'This will teach you to make free with the bones of my kin. Bitch. No-one is allowed to put her grubby, fat little paddy-paws on what's mine - not even the corpses of dead, evil, relatives of mine.'

Harry had produced a seven-lock trunk from his pocket, enlarged it, and tossed the keys to Draco. 'Bundle her away, love, if you would.' He turned even as he spoke, and bowed to his reinforcement.

'Harry Potter,' Firenze said, gravely. 'As the stars foretold, we have met again upon a field of battle. I foresee that this will be the last.'

'Not our last meeting, I trust, but I also hope it will be the last battle.'

'No,' Firenze said, 'not that, I think. But the last, certainly, in which you will require my aid. Should we meet again, Harry Potter, it will be upon an occasion more trivial, and peaceable - one too much so for the stars to foretell.'

'Whenever we meet again, Firenze, it will be under a lucky star, or so I shall count it. And whether we meet again or no, you shall always be, and I shall always be honoured to count you as, my friend. I thank you - yet again.'

'The honour is mine, Harry Potter. For you, and for your friends, I shall always be pleased to do what I may. I would not do so much for any other of your kind.'

'I understand. I would extend you the Ministry's thanks as well, but I feel you would not wish them.'

'That is so. Arthur Weasley is a good man, perhaps as great a man as Albus Dumbledore. But many stars will flare and die, I fear, before your kind and mine are on such terms.'

'I labour to make that day come more rapidly, Firenze.'

'I know that you do, Harry Potter. And what you may accomplish, the stars have not revealed. But until then....'

'Yes. Again, my thanks, and my gratitude.'

'You are very welcome, now, as in the past, and as in the future we cannot see, should need arise. Our business here is done?'

'It is - by your aid. Farewell, Firenze, until we meet again. May you ever find good pasture, and may your nights be clear and the stars nigh.' This is the polite way of taking leave of a centaur.

'Farewell, Harry Potter, and those with you, fare also well. May you graze well always near clear water, and may the lodestar always guide you.' Firenze inclined his head, still gravely, and, turning, cantered away, into the barren wood.

'Well,' Harry said, turning back to the others, who had stayed silent and still throughout. 'That's that. Back to the Ministry, then, shall we?'

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