Author's Note: This chapter was originally meant to be a short interlude to move the plot forward in a few separate events, but then it got longer and longer and ended up being split into two chapters. There's not really an overreaching theme – you might see it a bit like an "aftermaths" chapter, except that it starts an arch rather than ending it. Chapter 94 will see a lot of action again, I promise. :)

CHAPTER 92: LITTLE CHILDREN GROW UP, PT 1

"Hi Mum. Hi Dad."

Harry was trembling a little as he entered the small three-room guest apartment where Petunia Evans-Verres and Michael Verres-Evans had been lodged.

They didn't know.

They didn't know anything.

"Hello son," his father said with a congenial smile, and he was wrapped into two pairs of arms.

"That woman, Professor McGonagall, said that you couldn't come home, but pleaded that we come to you this week," Mother said. "Are you all right, Harry?"

"I'm okay." He distractedly ran his fingers through his hair. Professor McGonagall had warned him not to tell them too much, because it would be bad security if his parents knew before the various governments did. He would normally have argued, but part of him just didn't want to deal with this right now. He just wanted to be with his parents and not have them freak out on him like they undoubtedly would, the moment they were told. Which they would have to be, because Harry wasn't about to just let them go home. "There... there are some things which are troubling. But I really don't want to talk about it right now. It's... we can talk in a few days, if that's okay?"

His father looked at him with a concerned frown. "What's going on with you?"

"I really don't want to worry you with this now. Please. Let's wait a few days."

"But Harry," his mother started, but Michael held up a hand.

"No, Petunia. I think we should leave him for now. I'm getting the feeling that something big's happened here. And if he has some kind of trauma, then the best thing we can do is to allow his mind to repress those memories for a while. He will talk to us when he's ready, won't you Harry?"

Harry nodded gratefully. "Are you okay, mom? I know you don't like magic much..."

"I'm okay." She sounded surprisingly sincere. "This place... it's very normal. I had not expected that."

Harry nodded. The Muggle-relation-apartments had been built for those Muggle relatives who wanted to know exactly where their son, daughter, sibling or cousin was going, but who would have been wildly uncomfortable actually finding out. The rooms were enchanted to redecorate themselves according to whatever standards the upper-class British citizenry of the current period held (although it never changed while it had inhabitants), and had in the past housed clergymen, dukes, and even on one occasion a queen. There was a separate bedroom, and a dining room which got serviced with the more mundane parts of what the House tables got.

"So, would you like me to show you around a little after dinner? I bet you'd like to see the library, dad."

Professor Verres-Evans looked torn, but then sighed. "I'm sorry, Harry. Unfortunately, the deadline for a long-overdue journal paper review is next Tuesday. That friendly Professor McGonagall has told me that she can personally make sure it arrives on time, without the usual mail delay, but it still means I'll have to work most of the time, and cannot allow myself too much indulgence. And we both know what would happen if I went to see that library of yours."

"And I'm finishing off my application letter tonight," Petunia Evans-Verres said. "Your Professor really came quite unexpectedly! We hadn't counted on going to see you until later this week, and we didn't know that we would be invited to stay here."

"Application letter?"

"Yes. Oh, we haven't told you that, have we?" She beamed at her husband, who was looking proudly at her. "I'm going back to college. Your father and I have talked about it, and I want to do a Master's Degree in Law. We can afford it, now." She looked a bit guilty for a moment. "At least... you said over Christmas that we should stop saving up for you, because you'd never need money for a university degree. You meant that, right?"

"I did." If he'd ended up going three million pounds in debt to Lucius Malfoy, Harry might have regretted that remark, but as it was, it seemed like his parents had a better way of spending their money. "But Mum, I never knew you wanted that!"

Petunia just smiled. "Hey, what's that smell?"

"Oh, I bet the food just got served. They always have really tasty stuff here, you'll see!"

Harry dragged his parents to the dining room where, indeed, the table was laden with a variety of delicious dishes (although none of Harry's favorites, as those might be a bit too strange for Muggles). Tonight, he could pretend to be a little boy for a bit. Tomorrow, he was going to have to figure out how to fight his war.

Saturday morning.

Draco slowly descended the stairs to the private rooms below the Slytherin Dungeons, followed by his trunk (and by Gregory and Vincent, of course, but that went without saying). It was the first Saturday of the Easter holidays, and most students had gone home today. Draco, however, didn't have much to go home to; his father was engaged with the gathering of the International Confederation this week, and Draco would rather be at Hogwarts than just having the house elf for company. So he'd stayed at home for two days after he was released from St. Mungo's, and then his father had side-along-Apparated him to Hogsmeade before leaving for France. Professor Snape had walked him back to the Slytherin dormitories, and now, he desperately wanted to lie down for a bit.

(Side-along Apparition was a useful method of transportation, if you were too young to have learned to Apparate by yourself. However, besides carrying the risk of getting splinched if you moved too much, it also took just as much magic from the person being transported as a standard Apparition would do. At Draco's age, that meant he was on the brink of magical exhaustion.)

Down in the little hall leading off to the private rooms, Draco sent Gregory and Vincent back up, and opened his door. Right at that moment, a head appeared from the opposite door. "Draco Malfoy?"

"Miss Greengrass." Draco inclined his head. Of course Daphne would be here too; her mother, the Lady Greengrass, was a speaker for Britain at the Confederation, and her father would be expected to accompany his wife. "How can I help you?"

"Draco, I need to talk to you, privately."

He raised his eyebrows. Despite being the only two Slytherins to warrant a private room this year, he had never really spoken with Daphne. Their families were not allies, and he hadn't considered her to be on a first-name basis with him.

"I am rather tired right now, Miss Greengrass. Perhaps we can talk in an hour or so?"

She hesitated. "I don't know. There's something I need to tell you, and it could be important."

He sighed. "Oh, very well. Come on in, then. But please don't be offended if I lie down." It would be rude, but he needed it, and she could hardly blame him after pushing him like that.

"Of course." She followed him in gracefully, as befitted the daughter of a Noble House, and shut the door behind them. Then she blurted out: "Draco, I think you're in danger. Big danger. Too big to walk around unprotected."

He lay down, and pointed her to the chair. "And why is that?" he asked wearily.

"Because I know Hermione, and so does everyone in S.P.H.E.W., and we all agree that there is no way Hermione would have attacked you like that! That means that she must have been Memory-Charmed by someone who wants you dead and who isn't in Azkaban. And that means there is someone around who might try something else."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Memory-Charmed? That's like the weakest excuse ever."

"Oh really, Mister Malfoy? And what do you think is more likely? That someone like Hermione Granger would try to kill you for no good reason, or that your father offended someone moderately powerful?"

Draco blinked. "Did you have anyone in mind?"

"No. You may know more of your father's activities than I do. There's a legion of people who might have done it, though. Political opponents of your father who want to destabilize him, or just take revenge – did your father ever cause someone's child to die, by any chance? Maybe indirectly because the parents couldn't afford to pay medical bills? Or they could have been allies of your father, who didn't like the direction the future Lord Malfoy seemed to be heading. In both of those cases, they'll just try to kill you again. And then there's others too... but going by your expression, I guess you don't believe me, do you?"

"Hold on for a bit." Draco held up a hand and stared at the ceiling, trying to parse Daphne's words.

So Hermione's friends were claiming that she had been Memory-Charmed. Which was, like, the oldest excuse on the book. That never actually happened...

What do you think you know, and how do you think you know it?

He could almost hear it, Harry's voice whispering in his ear, as little as he wanted to have to do with the Boy-Who-Lived right now. But it had become part of his way of thinking, and maybe he shouldn't completely disregard those lessons. They had helped him in some ways, even as they had hurt him in others. And he wasn't enough of a fool to reject that the future Lady Greengrass was trying to tell him something significant.

It was entirely possible that his father had rejected someone's plea for a loan to pay medical costs at some point, or even that some political ally of his father's wanted him dead. He could easily imagine the Carrows, or the Parkinsons, or even the family of Flint, harboring resentment over his repeatedly helping a Mudblood. But none of them were powerful or cunning enough to do that. The revenge thing was harder to reject, but then, wouldn't they want father to know that it had been them, rather than blaming it on the insanity of another student? If they'd just wanted revenge, why use Granger, and not someone who father would have more trouble getting sentenced? It would be that much more agonizing.

No, it probably wasn't revenge. If someone other than Granger was behind this, they had something to gain. But who could profit from murdering the heir of House Malfoy?

Dumbledore.

He would be able to do this. He would know exactly where the wards were weak – or in fact, maybe the wards had cried out over his injuries, and the Headmaster had conveniently ignored them. He would easily have been able to Memory-Charm Granger. In fact, he wouldn't have needed to, he could have used Legilimency. The court Legilimens had actually said that someone had used Legilimency on her, and Dumbledore had admitted that it was him! How could they not have realized this before? With his son dead, Lucius Malfoy would not perform his best at the International Confederation of Wizards, if he went to the meeting at all. And what was it Potter had said? That his father had told Harry that if anything should happen to his son, he would throw away all his ambitions for the sake of revenge? Would Dumbledore know this? Could Potter possibly have been so stupid as to tell him?

But why Granger? Just because she stood out? Or had she managed to earn his enmity in some way? Dumbledore had been pleading on her behalf before the Wizengamot, father had mentioned. But he had rejected Harry's bargain, when the Boy-Who-Lived had appeared willing to buy his friend's life for a hundred thousand Galleons. Had he wanted her sent to Azkaban all along?

If this had been a plot, and what had happened was the intended result, then who was benefiting? Why would anyone besides father want her sent to Azkaban? In the big picture, she didn't seem all that important.

But what else had happened? House Potter and House Malfoy had become sworn enemies. And there was one person who definitely gained from that.

"I will think about the possibility that it might have been someone else," he said levelly. He couldn't say much more, for she was not an Occlumens, and if she testified before the Wizengamot that the heir of House Malfoy was willing to believe that Granger was innocent only days after she was convicted, it could cause a lot of trouble. At least he would have to discuss with father first. "Which other parties were you suspecting, Miss Greengrass?"

"Enemies of Hermione. You know we made a lot of people angry with S.P.H.E.W.. Well, Padma asked Professor Flitwick on Thursday, and he privately told her that at least fourteen powerful families were contacted by students of Gryffindor and Slytherin both. And all that anger was primarily focused on Hermione, not the rest of us. Those letters might also have mentioned your rather... unusual stance on the situation. Families who are allied with your father might have thought to kill two birds with one stone, and get rid of the inconvenient Malfoy heir as well as the insolent Muggleborn witch. Families who are opposed to your father might have wanted to get rid of the insolent Ravenclaw and destabilize Lucius Malfoy. Or it is also possible that you were never meant to die, and someone bribed Quirrell to set up the situation, and make sure you didn't survive." She shrugged. "There are so many suspects who seem more likely than Hermione. It's like mother always taught me, if you're powerful enough, there are going to be people who want you dead."

"Quite," he said dryly. "You've accused approximately the entire political spectrum of Britain. Was that all?"

"Well..." She bit her lip. "Do you think your father might have –?"

"No," Draco bit coldly, a rush of anger searing through him.

"Then, I guess that's all." She stood up. "I'll leave you to your rest now. Just – please be on your guard." She bowed slightly and left the room, Draco glaring after her.

Petunia seemed a bit jumpy as she walked alongside her son.

Harry had gone to spend some time in his parents' little apartment this morning (supposedly doing homework, but in reality using his notepad to make Bayesian calculations about various possibilities and keeping his transfiguration book open just for deniability), and then mother had said that she would like to go outside for a while. Harry doubted that she really wanted to see the grounds, but she wanted to spend time with her son, and he didn't mind giving her that.

So now, they walked along the lake together, Harry desperately hoping that the giant squid wouldn't use today to make an appearance (he made sure to keep a healthy distance from the water just in case). There were some students sitting around, but no one he really knew. Birds, and the occasional magical creature, could be heard from the trees.

"It is beautiful here," mother said with a sad sigh. She stood still and looked back at the castle. "And the school itself is simply marvelous. It must be great, living here."

"Yes." Harry wondered, for a moment, what life would have been like if he hadn't been a wizard. Just a plain old high school, or more likely starving grad students teaching him at home. National science competitions. Science fiction books. He would probably still not have any friends, if past experience was anything to go by. And he wouldn't have to save them from the kind of prison that should have been plain inconceivable since the enlightenment. No wars to fight. Just a normal child-prodigy. It seemed unimaginably far away, now. "Mostly."

She didn't seem to notice the hesitation. "I have wondered about this place for so many years, even when I was afraid to admit it. First I longed for it, and then I hated it in my heart. But I can see now why Lily loved it here so much. Why she would choose it over..." She trailed off, shook her head a little, and walked on, towards the forest.

Harry walked alongside her in silence.

"Mum," he said eventually. "Lily did love you. She loved you a lot."

"Oh, I know." But she didn't sound convinced.

"No, mum, I really mean it. Did she ever tell you about Azkaban?"

"Azkaban?" The woman looked confused for a moment. "That's a magical prison, isn't it? Her boyfriend, James, mentioned it once when he was visiting our parents for dinner. I mostly remember that he said it was pretty secure, but he didn't seem too happy about it for some reason."

Thank you, father.

"Oh, it's pretty secure, all right." Harry sighed. "It's guarded by the darkest of magical creatures, Dementors. They suck all happiness out of you. When you're there, you're not capable of thinking happy thoughts, and they drain your life force and magic out of you besides."

"You mean like clinical depression?" she asked, with a concerned tone to her voice.

"That's an approximation, I think, but it's worse than that. It's not just that you cannot be happy about things anymore, you cannot even think about the things that would normally make you happy. You'll forget your parents, your children, your friends. The prisoners won't escape, because they can't contemplate such a happy idea. They relive their worst memories over and over, stuck in an endlessly repeating loop, both awake and in their sleep. Most people don't survive it very long." He swallowed. There was a lump in his throat. "It's a really, really bad place, mum."

"I can see that," Petunia agreed. "But why are you telling me this?"

"Because the sentence for irresponsible magic that kills a Muggle is five years in Azkaban."

She stopped in her tracks, looking horrified.

"She didn't tell you," Harry observed quietly. "I figured as much. But I found the potion she must have given you in a book, and it's ridiculously hard to make. Any mistake could have killed you. She must have been really skilled to dare try it, but even if she was doing everything perfectly, there are factors beyond control, like the age of the Mimbulus Mimbletonia she used, or your body's natural defenses. And then she'd have lost her sister, and would have had five years to dwell on that memory in Azkaban. She must have really, really loved you, mum, to take the risk of accidentally killing you in order to help you."

The potion, an advanced modification of the more common Potion of Eagle's Splendor, had been one of many in the book Flitwick had pointed him to for finding the acorn-recipe. It was in the forbidden section, of course – students who didn't know what they were doing would never have been exposed to this sort of spell. Aside from the warnings about the likelihood of not surviving the illness as all the cells in your body were modified, it had also said that, even if successful, there was about a 75% chance of permanent infertility. Was that why mother had never had any children of her own? Had Lily warned her about this from the start?

"Thank you for telling me this, Harry." Mother's voice trembled a little, and there were tears in her eyes. "I never knew that."

They walked in silence for a while. Mum was chewing on her lip, as she sometimes did when wondering whether to say something or not.

"I thought she had shut us out," Petunia spoke at last. "It was like she was... drawing away. We were close as children, but that just stopped when she came here. I know it was partly my fault, I was jealous, but she never tried to get close to me either, anymore. When she got home for the holidays, she just hung out with that greasy boy who lived down the village. Or she went and stayed with friends for weeks. We rarely saw her. How could I even have known that she still loved me?"

"That's... it's normal. I'm sorry, mum, it shouldn't be like that, but it's the standard thing that happens to people here. It's painful to be too close to your Muggle relatives. Because they can't be in your world, you will always have to keep secrets from them. And then they die when they are what a wizard would consider to be middle-aged, and it's easier to just not think about that. It's like the way people with a chronic or lethal illness suddenly find themselves with far fewer friends than they used to have, so many people just can't deal with it, and that's bad and inexcusable, but it's just what most people do. You know I'll never act like that, mum. But you also know I'm a bit... different from most people. I always think about bad things that might happen, so I can avoid them. And I guess Lily just wasn't like that. But she did love you."

There was a short silence. Then: "You think we have a chronic illness?"

Harry wondered briefly whether she had really picked up anything else he had said. He could talk to his father about this sort of thing, but mother didn't know all the psychology involved.

He shrugged helplessly. "Not really, but I suppose you can compare it to that. In fact, the effect is probably stronger. Everything in the wizarding world is sort of implicitly pushing us to stay away from Muggles. If a witch or wizard marries a Muggle, one of them is going to be an outcast in the community they live in – it's usually a really bad marriage, apparently – so you don't want to risk falling in love with one. If someone you care about is hit by a car on a busy junction and dying in front of your eyes, you aren't even allowed to do the trivial spells that will save them if it risks breaking the International Statue of Secrecy, because you'll be sent to Azkaban for that. So you see... it's easier to draw away..." He trailed off.

Petunia was looking at him ponderously. "You're very scared of Azkaban."

"I'm not really," Harry shrugged. "But I'm angry that it exists at all. It's horrible and that place should be destroyed like the remnant of the Middle Ages that it is, but I don't have the power, not yet, I can't go there and destroy it without killing myself..." His voice caught.

"Why are you even thinking about that?" Mother grabbed him by the shoulder and gently turned him towards herself. "You are eleven years old. If your government is committing atrocities, that's not your fault, Harry!"

"Of course it's my fault. There is no one else here who could be responsible for anything."

"Harry!"

"No, mum," he smiled sadly. "The government is broken and corrupt. The courts are insane. The whole system is completely medieval, they've just ignored everything that happened since the Dark Ages. Even the people who are supposed to be the good guys aren't rational, and there's not enough of them to even start the debate about things like not torturing prisoners to death. And the people here look up to me as a leader, and I have certain powers that would make it possible... I'm not convincing you, am I?"

"You are a child. It's not your responsibility to take care of adults, it's their responsibility to take care of you."

"Who says it's just about adults?" Harry muttered darkly.

Petunia's face paled. "Are there children in Azkaban?"

"Forget it. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up."

"That's what's wrong, isn't it. That's what has you so traumatized that your Professor insisted that we came immediately. That's why you keep bringing it up. Someone you know is there. Or you have been there..."

"Mum, really, it's okay. I want Azkaban torn down regardless of who's in it."

"You promised that you wouldn't act like this, Harry. That you wouldn't shy away from us because we are Muggles. Are you going to tell me the truth?"

Ouch.

"Fine," Harry sighed. "Yes, you guessed right, if for the wrong reasons. Hermione's in Azkaban."

"Hermione?" Her eyes widened with horror, and her hands flew to her mouth. "That sweet girl we visited over Christmas?"

"I told you, the courts are insane and medieval. She's innocent of course. Someone tried to kill Draco, a friend of mine who's noble, like a duke's son or something, and they framed Hermione for it. And then the Wizengamot, that's like the highest magical court in Britain, voted to send her to Azkaban for ten years. Don't look that horrified, mum, she's not suffering like the others there, she's... kept apart from the other prisoners, because she's so young, so it's just that she's locked up in a cell." If anyone read mother's mind, or she talked about it, Harry could always claim that he had only been trying to reassure his mother.

"She's not in that... depressed state?"

"No. I don't think so."

"But she's in jail. For ten years. And not a youth prison with classes and psychological help."

"No."

"What did her parents say?"

"I'm not sure they know, actually... They weren't invited to the trial, and I haven't asked Professor McGonagall what she told them."

Petunia looked baffled for a moment. "That's just unacceptable! Isn't there any way to appeal?"

"Not unless we can prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that she's innocent. They don't really do innocent until proven guilty here. Or unless I can convince Draco's father, at least, who doesn't seem like he wants to be convinced very much. That, or I have to persuade Dumbledore to let me pay the five million pounds worth of magical money to buy her free, but that would mean going into debt, and he isn't going to let me." He kicked at some clumps of grass.

"Five million pounds?" she repeated.

"Yeah. That's what Draco's father demanded to let her go. A hundred thousand galleons, and that's more than twice as much as what James Potter left me."

"But Harry... if you were in a jail like that, and your father and I could get you out for five million pounds, we'd do that. We wouldn't hesitate a second to take out a mortgage and spend the rest of our lives paying it off. And Dr. and Dr. Granger are far richer than we are, I think their house alone might be worth about a million pounds."

Harry halted in his tracks.

I didn't think of that.

Why didn't I think of that?

It wouldn't be a great solution. There would still be an enormous debt, and Hermione's parents would probably demand that she return home if they paid that much for her. Plus, Hermione was innocent, no one should have to pay for her. But still...

Why did I consider killing two thirds of the Wizengamot to save Hermione from the Dementors, and not something as simple as asking her parents for the money?

"Nice thing to ask them," he muttered. "Hello Mr. and Mrs. Granger, do you have five million pounds to spare to save your daughter from this crazy jail she got put in for a murder she didn't commit?"

"They would want to be asked! Harry, this is what parents are for!" She looked stressed. "You said you wouldn't, Harry. You wouldn't stop thinking of us just because we're Muggles and have this... this chronic disease if you want to call it that. But even if you still love us, you're not thinking of Muggles as people who can help you. You didn't, and apparently Hermione didn't, and your teachers didn't..." She stopped herself, then sighed deeply. "I'm sorry, it's not your responsibility to save Hermione, so you shouldn't have to think about that. But your Professor McGonagall really, really should have. Can you tell me where her office is, so I can talk to her?"

"I will talk to her." He didn't say that he was going ask McGonagall to arrange the deal, but he'd better discuss it at least before mum took the initiative.

"Harry..."

"No, please. She'll take me more seriously. And I know a bit more of the politics involved."

Petunia sighed. "Fine. But I am telling your father."

Harry nodded. It was probably best to ease them into this part before he'd have to tell his parents about Voldemort.

"She's not in."

Harry turned his head. He had just knocked on Professor McGonagall's door. A ghost was floating towards him. Harry recognized it as Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor House ghost.

"When will she be back?"

The ghost looked concerned.

"I don't know. Later today, probably. Hopefully. There was an emergency. She told me to excuse her, if anyone came looking for her or the Headmaster."

Harry's heart sank. "What kind of emergency?"

"There has been a large magical attack on Muggles in Easingwold. Two Muggleborn Gryffindors live there." He bobbed up and down nervously, his head wobbling on his shoulders. "They were home for the holidays. She's gone to see whether they or their families need help. The Headmaster has also gone there, to help clear up the mess."

Quirrell.

What on earth was he up to?

"How large are the casualties?" His mouth was dry. He had thought of saving his parents, but the entire rest of the world was quite unprotected from whatever the Defense Professor was planning.

"Hundreds of deaths, when she got the news." Nick answered. "Over a thousand wounded."

Crap.

Harry walked away, not bothering to even look where he was going.

It is a sad truth that the human mind just doesn't know how to deal with scope. If the average person sees a video of a single person dying, they might be shocked. A hundred, or even a thousand deaths, is just a number. So Harry's mind wasn't reeling in absolute shock at the revelation of a magical attack on a village full of innocent Muggles. Instead, it retained all its normal functionality, and employed this on maximum efficiency for blaming Harry.

Quirrell – Lord Voldemort – had left the school, saying he would "update his plans".

One day later, hundreds of people had died in a magical attack. Harry didn't know how, or why, but it probably wouldn't have happened if Quirrell had still been in Hogwarts.

Hundreds of human lives. Each and every single one of them as valuable as Hermione, as Mum and Dad.

Could I have stopped this?

If only he had engineered a potions accident yesterday, before having to face Quirrell.

If only he'd been smarter, and not given away his suspicions.

If only he had done the sensible thing and left after arranging a delay to think about things. Dumbledore had his own Time-Turner, he could have contacted Moody and done their checks earlier.

If only he'd attacked Quirrell when the man left, when he'd basically admitted that he was plotting a dark plan. The idea had not occurred to him at the time, but if he'd drawn his wand and cast a spell on Quirrell, their magic would have resonated out of control again, and that would have stopped him. It might theoretically have killed them both, but Quirrell could have stopped that by turning into an Animagus, and he wasn't likely to risk both their lives.

If only.

We have decisively failed to prevent any deaths during our quest, the voice of Slytherin was saying icily. Will you stop trying to live by the code of Batman now?

Killing Quirrell was never a real choice, Gryffindor pointed out. No one died because we tried to live the ideals of the enlightenment.

Yet, Slytherin bit back. But that's only a matter of time.

We don't even know whether this was Quirrell, Hufflepuff pointed out. It could be unrelated... The voice trailed off as the other parts of Harry glared it into silence.

This sort of thing was normal, ten years ago, Slytherin continued, as though there hadn't been an interruption. It is, apparently, what Voldemort does, for whatever reason he might have. If we get a chance to kill him, and subduing him would have a higher chance of failure, are you going to hesitate?

Harry didn't know what Easingwold looked like, or what had happened, but it was easy enough to let his imagination fill in the details. A large crater with purple smoke billowing up from it. Corpses, scattered around. Collapsed houses. Children screaming. Limbs torn off.

Nothing is worth that war beginning again even one day earlier than it must, Dumbledore had said, when Harry had yelled at him for his approach to the bullying problem in Hogwarts. Dumbledore knew, first-hand, what it meant to lead a war. He had killed people in the last war, probably innocents as well as Death Eaters, and he had let Professor Snape torment students and turned a blind eye to bullying. All to prevent this sort of thing.

We can do better than that, Gryffindor whispered in his ear. Dumbledore did what he felt he had to, but we will find a better way.

How? Slytherin bit.

To that question, however, the Boy-Who-Lived had no answer.

"It was an army of Inferi."

Most children were gone for the Easter holidays, and so the dinner tables hadn't been abound with rumors for once. Thus, after dinner, Harry had sat himself down by Professor McGonagall's office invisibly, and waited for her to return. It was almost midnight when she did, but she let him in without argument.

"Voldemort – it must have been him – has made every single corpse in the local graveyard rise up, and attack anyone they encountered. Worse, he put a spell on them so those people the Inferi killed also became Inferi."

"They must have thought it was the zombie Apocalypse," Harry muttered. "Couldn't they hide?"

"Oh, they did. Unfortunately, Inferi are stronger than the humans they once were. They ripped doors off their hinges, smashed through barricades. Those few Muggles with weapons tried shooting at them, or chopping their limbs off, but the only thing that helps against Inferi is fire, and there were only two people in the town who knew that."

"The Gryffindor students?"

Professor McGonagall nodded. "Gabrielle and Rosaline Collins. Fifth- and third-year of Gryffindor. Fortunately Quirrell – Voldemort," she looked pained at this, "had taught them how to handle Inferi. Gabrielle went outside and cast Incendio, visible for all Muggles to see, and yelled at them to use fire. Nobody protested the appearance of a witch in their midst, this time. But then of course all the Inferi turned on her, and she hadn't learned to Apparate yet..." Professor McGonagall looked hard. "Some of the villagers helped with torches, and her parents dragged her inside a circle of fire they managed to draw up, contained by Rosaline, but her wand had broken and she was heavily wounded. She's in St. Mungo's now. The healers say she'll probably live, but they aren't sure whether they'll be able to regrow her legs."

Harry swallowed. "How did you find out?" he whispered.

"Rosaline has a half-blood friend, Lana Wistington. She called her by telephone. Lana used the Floo network to contact her mother, who works at the Ministry. Mrs. Wistington was in a meeting, but Lana yelled as long as she had to until someone came, and told them. That was Arthur Weasley, a member of the Order of the Phoenix, so after warning Amelia Bones, he notified Albus at once. It didn't take long for qualified wizards to arrive on the scene after that." She sighed deeply. "The most heavily wounded Muggles are treated in St. Mungo's; for the others we brought healers to the local hospital. We hope that we got all the Inferi, and there aren't any left shambling through the nearby woods."

Harry winced at the idea. It would only take one to cause another outbreak. "How are they going to keep this one a secret?"

"When I left, a quarantine had been called. They're still working on the exact stories, and no one has been Obliviated yet, but to the outside world the story for now is that there is a highly infectious virus, so absolutely everyone has to be kept out, or in. A lot of the houses have been destroyed in the fires Muggles made after Gabrielle's warning, so they're probably going to use a massive fire in the story, torch the graveyard, and also burn all the other corpses with... unusual wounds. The Muggle prime minister has been notified. But it's going to be extremely hard to cover this one up properly, Albus is saying there'll be conspiracy theories for decades even with full government co-operation."

Harry nodded. Even if you could stop the Muggle government from interfering, there was no way the rest of the population wasn't going to be worried about the sudden appearance of a new virus that required the quarantining of a whole town. Medical researchers would be all over the place once the quarantine got lifted, and preferably before.

"Anyway," she resumed. "It looks like he is striking at Muggles. For what reason, I don't know. Even if he knew of the Collins sisters, it seems unlikely that this would have something to do with them. Whatever he might be up to next, I guess that it is a good thing that we brought your parents here, where they are safe."

Harry nodded. Not that one set of parents should matter compared to the hundreds who died today. But to him, they did.

"Speaking of parents... Professor, my mother is probably going to want to talk to you when she next sees you. I told her about Hermione, and she pointed out that Hermione's parents would probably pay a hundred thousand Galleons for her."

Her eyes widened. "Are they that rich?"

Harry shrugged. "The Muggle economy works a little differently from the magical one. They'd probably have to take out a loan, but five million pounds is all in all not that much."

"I am not sure the goblins would readily convert so much money at once," she said, frowning. But she appeared to really consider the matter. "And Lord Malfoy will not be available for non-urgent matters this week. Also, I fear that if we ask her parents to pay that much for her, they will want to take her home."

"And home is not safe for her," Harry added.

"Exactly. Strange thought it feels to say this, she might be safer in Azkaban than with her parents, if Voldemort is striking again."

"I'm not sure Azkaban is safe," Harry said quietly. "It is not that hard to break in, if you can bribe or threaten someone who can cast the Patronus charm. All he needs to do is go there, and cast Avada Kedavra. Or better yet, if he suspects, drop a line to Lucius Malfoy that she got help."

Professor McGonagall blanched. "Surely he wouldn't..."

"Wouldn't he? Unless I am very mistaken, he is the one who struck at her in the first place. She might not be important enough for him to make the effort, but we don't know what he wants."

"Well. I shall definitely discuss with Albus. He will need to inform the ministry about Voldemort soon enough, and your testimony about Quirrell might be enough additional evidence to get her case reconsidered. But yes. If all else fails, I will make it clear to Albus that we are going to buy her out."

-o-o-o-o-o-

Author's Note: Sometimes I write text that I end up not using. Copied below is the original end of the conversation between Draco and Daphne, which was removed because (1) it wasn't actually advancing the storyline, and (2) a longer discussion on this subject already occurred in chapter 85. It adds yet another theory for what could have happened to Draco (seriously, the Aurors missed a lot of possibilities). I actually briefly entertained the idea of an alternative spin-off where Harry suggests a public duel between Draco and Hermione to test experimentally whether the confessions are true in this regard – however, I cannot really see Harry taking that risk, as that would set up a "Draco won the duel = Hermione is guilty" scenario in everyone's minds.

"Quite," he said dryly. "You've accused approximately the entire political spectrum of Britain. Was that all?"

"Well..." She bit her lip. "There is one more person who might have been involved, but..." She trailed off.

"Who?" He pressed.

"Your father."

"What?"

"I knew you wouldn't want to believe this, and it is also just a possibility. But your father, like my parents, watched Saturday's battle. You humiliated him."

Draco felt his cheeks burn. "I am well aware of that. But there was a good reason, I was tired, and I took immediate steps to set the situation right."

"Did your father know that?"

Draco didn't answer.

"The point is, you humiliated your House and his politics in that battle, and that's right after you allied yourself with Granger and the rumors that you're also helping her against Flint and the others... if he decided that this was inappropriate behavior for the Malfoy heir, he could have asked Professor Snape to interfere. Snape is a teacher, and he's powerful, he could have pulled that off just one night after the battle."

"No." Draco's voice was icily cold. "You do not know my father, and you do not know me, Miss Greengrass. My father would never do such a thing. If you have nothing further to say, I would ask you to please leave my room."

"There is another possibility. Would Snape act in your father's interest without your father's permission?"

"What do you mean?"

"Perhaps you didn't win your duel with Granger after all. She is powerful. I know, because I have fought by her side many times. If Snape was watching your duel, he might have interfered to make you both remember a different outcome. And you told the Wizengamot that you were then going to defeat her publicly the next day, right? Snape wouldn't want you to try that, if he'd seen you lose the first time. So he had to stop that battle from happening. Perhaps he was planning to save you right before you died, but Quirrell beat him to it."

"There's no way he would do that without telling father about it!" Then, thinking quickly, he added: "And I resent the implication that I lost from Granger in a fair duel. Or that my father would play along with a scheme like that."

"You conceded the possibility, when you challenged Granger to a midnight duel rather than a public one," she bit viciously. "And if he told your father, are you sure your father would tell you? You're too young to be an Occlumens."

Father had removed some memory from him, as it could be used to blackmail the family...

"All right," he said. "I will need to think about all this. Thank you, Miss Greengrass, for your advice." She stood up gracefully from the chair, and left the room.