"Smile and wave," Amelia said through clenched teeth bared in a smile.
She really didn't need to bother. Harry was an old hand at dealing with the press, regardless of what personal feelings he might hold toward them.
They walked together — Amelia dressed in robes embroidered with the symbol of her current position, Harry dolled up in fresh new dress robes — passing a room full of flashing cameras and hungry eyes. The two of them traversed a narrow aisle, taking seats that had been prepared behind a thin wooden table.
The clamor in the room increased the instant they sat down. Amelia treated the gathered reporters to a stern look, which quieted them only slightly.
"We're both busy people. We will accept questions for the next twenty minutes, but no longer than that." She studied the reporters, making sure they understood, before giving a small nod to herself. She pointed to the left side of the room, picking on a wiry reporter with a tall fringe of hair atop his narrow head.
"What is the relationship between the two of you?" he asked.
There had been a lot of raised eyebrows when this press conference was announced. Since his stunt at the funeral Harry had rocketed up in the public interest. Not all that was said about him was good, but everyone had something to say, which naturally meant he became the news's favorite subject overnight. Not that he expected any different.
The only person who was written about almost as much as him was Amelia Bones. As Harry had learned when he was younger, the Daily Prophet held a frightening monopoly on wizarding news within the country, and they chose Amelia Bones their target of choice. She was written about more than Scrimgeour by some margin, many of those words far less than flattering. In classic Prophet fashion, there had been a wealth of backhanded compliments.
When he asked her about it, Amelia simply said, "Rufus has the press. For now."
It was little wonder, then, that when she announced she and Harry would be making a press appearance together, reporters practically stampeded each other trying to get into the room for it.
The reporter who asked about their relationship raised his eyebrow, awaiting an answer. Harry volunteered his.
"I am endorsing Amelia Bones for the position of Minister of Magic," he said.
The room got louder, many calls of "Mr. Potter!" and "Miss Bones!" mingling as the voices tried to win out over each other. Harry put a stop to it, pointing into the middle of the pack where a vaguely-familiar reporter with a moustache was sitting. Harry thought his name might've been Brandenburg? He'd definitely seen the man before, though not since before his trip to the past.
"Do you have a history in politics?" Brandenburg asked.
"Not at present." Things like the Auror Department's membership were publically available. If he claimed to have served for years, the press would check if it was true, and label him a when the records didn't show his name. "I won't claim to be an expert on the inner workings of the ministry or the challenges that officials face. What I will say is that I trust my ability to judge people's character. Amelia Bones has what it takes to lead our country. Particularly in times as dire as these."
Brandenburg scrawled something on the notepad in front of him, nodding in thanks.
Another clamor of shouted names started up, this one put to an end by Amelia, who called on the loudest of the voices.
"Will you be joining the Ministry, Mr. Potter?"
"I think I've made it clear where I'll be during the war," Harry said. "Hogwarts is my home as far as I'm concerned. I won't be leaving it, not on a permanent basis. However, if Amelia wins, we've discussed ways to help each other. I'll volunteer my services training the Auror department. With my help, they'll be prepared to protect you."
It was a strong statement that, predictably, caused an eruption of noise from those present.
"You believe you're qualified to train Aurors?" asked the witch who raised the last question, taking advantage of her loud voice to be heard above the clamor.
"Yes," Harry said. "I've already interacted with Aurors in the field. Nymphadora Tonks and John Dawlish proved their heart was in the right place. Tonks showed a lot of youthful ingenuity, and I can confidently say she's full of potential. But with my help, they could both become much more. That goes for the rest of the department as well."
There was no room for doubt in his tone. He laid it out as a fact, which it was. No matter how much it might sting the pride of some of the older Aurors to hear, Harry could improve them. He knew that he could.
"And if Scrimgeour wins?"
Harry turned his eyes to a reporter on the edge of the group. Order was finally starting to be restored as the press moved on from shouting their own questions in a garbled mess, trying to be heard over the others; Amelia's stern gaze helped with that. Harry could answer comfortably without raising his voice.
"I have no current plans to work with Head Auror Scrimgeour," he said. "I won't rule the possibility out entirely. However the fact is, Amelia approached me, and Scrimgeour hasn't."
"If he did approach you? Would you extend the same offer?" the reporter followed up. He was a tall, heavy man with a patchy beard and severe eyes. He looked similar to Scrimgeour, in fact, though the resemblance was passing enough that Harry couldn't be sure they were related.
"Speaking frankly? He would turn down what I'm offering," Harry said. "And I'm not likely to offer it in the first place. Rufus Scrimgeour and I have met. His behavior didn't endear him to me, and likewise, I'm sure he would say the same back."
"You'll spurn him based on personal dislike?"
Harry was practically holding a conversation with the bearded reporter at this point.
"I don't think holding grudges is healthy. If Scrimgeour apologizes for his past actions burying evidence of Voldemort's return, then I'll gladly work with him. If he continues spinning lies about who was at fault for the Ministry's negligence, then I'll have nothing to do with him. It's really that simple."
The bearded reporter was scowling as the scratching of quills filled the entire room. He made to say something else, but was beaten out by a reporter near the middle of the room. Harry smiled.
"Mr. Potter," Penny said, her quill poised at the ready, "how, exactly, do you plan to train Aurors, should you be called upon to do so?"
"Simple. For a war," Harry said. "Until they're ready not to just sit back, but to strike proactively. Until they're excited to see Dark Wizards in front of them because it means a chance to duel. I'll train them until they're all a little crazy. The best Aurors always are."
He gave the press a winning smile.
O-O-O
After Dumbledore's death, classes had been canceled for the rest of the term— students would be heading home on the Hogwarts express the following day, except for those who had chosen to stay at school over the holidays.
Taking advantage of his continued reprieve from classes, Harry visited the hospital wing. He quickly found the bed he was looking for. It was the only one occupied.
Madame Pomfrey was fussing over her potions supply not far away. She looked back when she heard Harry's footsteps, watching him in silence.
Harry didn't speak either. He was looking down at the pretty face resting there, her dark eyelids still shut.
"She hasn't woken up," Madame Pomfrey said.
"I can see that."
"She's stable, though." The matron returned to her work, categorizing brews for common colds, violent flus, and broken bones. "Her life isn't in any danger. The treatment has just had lasting effects."
"It always does."
Madam Pomfrey looked at Harry again, more briefly this time, still keeping half an eye on her work.
"You've seen the Imperius treated before? I suppose that shouldn't surprise me. You're Dumbledore's secret agent, after all."
Harry gave a wane smile. "That I am."
He heard the matron sigh. She set down the potions she was holding with an audible thunk. Although he hadn't asked for it, Pomfrey approached the other side of the bed, frowning and looking at Aurora Sinistra with him.
"She'll make full recovery," Madam Pomfrey said firmly.
Harry believed her. But if Aurora's condition had truly been worse, if the Imperius had been better cast…
It was a nasty curse. Many people considered it the nastiest. Harry thought the Cruciatus was worse, but that could have been because he was immune to one and had been subjected to the other too many times. Armed with the Imperius, a Death Eater could make anyone into their own worst enemy. You could be commanded to strangle a family member, sell out a friend in hiding, or strand a class full of students at the mercy of a psychopath.
When he was in his fifth year, the same age that Neville was now, Harry had his first run-in with the only known treatment method, though he hadn't known it at the time.
Avery placed Broderick Bode under the effects of the curse in an attempt to steal the prophecy from the Department of Mysteries. The curse lasted until Bode tried to swipe the prophecy itself, activating the defenses all prophecies were enchanted with.
The violent magical reaction left him hospitalized in St. Mungo's, but freed him of the Unforgivable's grip. A Devil Snare assassination attempt ended Bode's life before he could recover enough to share what he'd gone through— in a way, Harry had gotten the man's revenge a few weeks ago at Avery's own bedside. Not that it was more than a pyrrhic achievement.
The effect of the prophecy's defenses were shockingly similar to what healers would use. Repeated magical shocks were fed into the victim's body until, eventually, the curse snapped.
It worked better on sloppier curses. The work of Voldemort or a specialist like Mulciber was close to unbreakable. Unless you killed the caster, of course.
"The curse was weak. It only took three attempts," Madam Pomfrey said. "Aurora should wake up within the next week."
Harry nodded. He trusted her word completely. It just didn't relieve him of a feeling of frustration.
He was quite suddenly jabbed in the chest, the weapon of choice being a bony finger.
"I may specialize in healing ailments of the body but I can still spot useless thoughts when I see them. You're beating yourself up about nothing," Madam Pomfrey said.
"I wouldn't call this nothing," Harry said.
"Did you cast the curse?"
"I haven't caught the one who did."
"Bah! You're as impossible as Albus!" Madam Pomfrey said. "He used to do the same thing, moping around whenever I treated members of his little club. He'd spew something about having sent them on the mission, as if they weren't all there because they wanted to be."
"This is a bit different," Harry said. "Aurora didn't agree to risk her life. I asked her to chaperone a kids' field trip."
"So what?" said the matron. "She's alive, you're alive, and from what I hear the ones who set the trap aren't. She'll wake up soon enough. If you feel bad, cook her something nice when that happens. Don't stand guiltily at her bedside, helping no one and obstructing my work. Now shoo with you! Out!"
In a startling reversal of the way he spent many hours in his youth, Harry was hounded out of the Hospital Wing by the matron, rather than being zealously kept inside. He couldn't help smiling, and even cracked a few chuckles as a rain of finger jabs ensured he scurried all the way out.
Taking a deep breath, he pulled on the collar of his coat to fan it out and started down the hall, walking with a purpose but not a precise destination. After dealing with his business with Amelia and checking on Aurora, since classes were still out of action, he didn't have much to do. Over break he would begin putting more extreme plans in action. But those weren't things he could dive into casually halfway through a day.
He decided to seek out Neville. If the boy wasn't busy, it was past time for them to hold another Occlumency lesson. He was sure that Neville's emotions were a mess right now— it would be good practice for defending your mind under duress.
Harry had only traversed half the hallway when he found his ways barred. It wasn't a particularly imposing roadblock. Though, to be fair, her glare was good for at least another foot of height.
"Can I help you?" Harry asked, slightly bemused.
"I'm going to stop you," Astoria Greengrass declared.
Harry hadn't seen her since the day he first met her family in Madam Malkin's. She was a slim girl, considerably shorter than her sister, which was at least partially down to age. Despite the clear resemblance between the two, Astoria had a thinner face. Her eyes were more narrow and in-set against her nose. When she grew up she would look beautiful in a fragile way, an undeniably pretty face perched upon a thin and frail body. Harry remembered his impression of her clearly from when he first saw her on Draco's arm at a Ministry event. Though he found it slightly hard to connect this version to the grown woman that had been.
"Well, you've certainly stopped me now," Harry said, gesturing at the way he was no longer walking, smiling playfully as he did. "So was there something you needed?"
"I've seen what you're up to," Astoria said. "You act like a blithering fool, but you aren't. You're insidious. Two-faced. You're plotting, and you plan to drag my sister down with you and your poisonous ways."
"Daphne has come to me with her problems, and I've helped her as well as I could. I'm not sure that deserves to be called poisonous."
"You don't fool me," Astoria said.
"I'm not—" Harry stopped before declaring that he wasn't trying to fool anyone, because that wasn't really true. He had tried and succeeded on a fair few occasions since arriving at Hogwarts, though always for good causes. Never at Daphne's expense, either. "Could you share what sinister plot you think that I'm a part of?"
"You're going to get her killed!" Astoria said. "I see how this is going. Once you've pumped her head full of Muggle garbage, you'll die. It'll be too late by that point. She'll be tainted and spout off the lies you've gotten her drunk on and he'll— Someone will kill her!"
Harry lost his smile. For a moment, Astoria looked victorious, taking that to mean she had gotten to him.
"When you say he will kill her, do you mean Voldemort?" Harry asked.
Like a normal pureblood, Astoria flinched from the name. She did not answer.
"Or," Harry said, "do you mean somebody else?"
Astoria's shoulders tensed, pulling tighter to her already-slim body. For a moment she looked incredibly small to Harry's eyes. Like she could be picked up and carried in a single hand.
"I won't let you have your way," Astoria whispered. Her hand shot up, pointing at him. "I won't let you have your way!"
She turned around and ran off, her Slytherin robes fluttering around her legs as she sprinted. Harry watched her go.
Finally, he started to walk again, though no longer in search of Neville. He headed to his office this time. A niggling tightness had worked its way into his chest and was refusing to go away. He knew what the cause was, but there was little he could do to solve that problem right now, so he searched out work to distract himself until the feeling faded.
When he swung the door to his office open, his eyes immediately landed on the only feature that hadn't been present when he left. There was an envelope on his desk.
It lacked adornment. The only words on the envelope when he lifted it was his name and the address of his residence, Hogwarts. The owl must've arrived some time that morning before a helpful elf ferried it here.
Harry tossed the envelope in the air, letting it flutter. His wand became a brown flash as he muttered a chain of incantations, swinging his wrist and arm.
The envelope was suspended in the air, then bathed in a succession of flashy spells, each hitting one after another. No curses on the envelope. No traces of dark magic from the inside. The surface was clean of any kind of smeared potions or poisons. It hadn't been transfigured into its current shape, always having been a letter.
Satisfied, Harry finally held his hand up, hauling the letter into his palm as if it was on an invisible string. He ripped the top away and scanned and unfolded the message inside.
It didn't take him long to read it. There were only three lines of text, penned in immaculate cursive.
I would like to talk.
513 Balstram Way, on the 21st.
Arrive at 12. No later than, and no earlier. 12.
At the very bottom of the page, initials had been provided.
A.G.
Harry folded the paper, placing it neatly on the corner of his desk. As he settled into his seat and dug into busywork, the tightness that had possessed him felt noticeably relieved. In fact, he found himself smiling.
It was wonderful the way that planted seeds could bloom at the most opportune times.