Chapter Twenty-Seven of 'Made of Common Clay'- At Springtide
Chapter Twenty-Six.
Title: Made of Common Clay (27/48)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Minor mentions of Ron/Hermione, Molly/Arthur, Neville/Hannah, Luna/Rolf, and past Harry/Ginny; otherwise, this fic is gen and will remain so.
Content Notes: Angst, violence, torture, politics, present tense, cynical Harry
Rating: R (for violence)
Summary: Harry has reached a very bitter and jaded thirty. His efforts to reform the Ministry haven’t lessened the corruption or pure-blood bigotry one bit. That’s when he finds out that he’s apparently a part of a pure-blood nobility he’s never heard of before; he’s Lord Potter and Lord Black. Unfortunately, that revelation’s come too late for him to be a reformer. All Harry wants to do is tear the system down and salt the earth. And with a double Lordship, he just might have the power to do that.
Author’s Notes: This fic is partially a parody of some of the tropes common in Lord Potter/Lord Black fics. The title and most of the chapter titles come from one of Oscar Wilde’s poems: “Sweet I blame you not for mine the fault was, had I not been made of common clay/I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed yet, seen the fuller air, the larger day.” I don’t yet know how long this fic will be, but it will get pretty dark.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twenty-Seven-At Springtide
Harry straightens up from his kneeling position on the floor of the lift slowly. Half a dozen wands follow his movement. The other Aurors are aiming theirs at the back of the lift and to the sides, as if they expect hundreds of his allies to appear out of thin air at any moment.
Harry only wishes that were true.
He gives Kingsley a large smile. He’s already decided on the way he has to play it, the only way until he can recover a little of his magical strength. “I must say, I wasn’t expecting this huge a welcoming committee for my effort to restore Ministry relations with the centaurs.”
Kingsley stares at him. “What?”
And that’s what Harry’s been waiting for, any crack in the confident façade, no matter how small. Harry nods and steps away from the lift. The Aurors track his movement, and he hears a threatening sound that’s probably made by someone who can’t control himself. Harry stops moving and nods again in understanding.
“These,” he says, and shakes the bag he holds, “are centaur artifacts that the Ministry has stolen over the centuries and hidden in the Department of Mysteries. I was bringing them back. I did try to ask nicely, but the Unspeakables wouldn’t give them to me. Do you understand how much these thefts have set back wizarding-centaur relations? Centuries.”
“But the centaurs never visit the Ministry!” bleats an Auror named Cochran, who Harry has disliked for a while. He never bothers to hide his contempt for Muggleborns, house-elves, and anyone other than pure-bloods and half-bloods with at least one prominent name in their family tree.
“And why do you think that is?” Harry shakes the bag again. “I’m just righting an ancient wrong.”
“If you truly wished to repair relations,” Kingsley says, looking a fair amount of constipated as he does so, “you would have come to me and talked about a fair way to do this. Not broken into the Ministry, Auror Potter.”
“But how could I, when I’m a fugitive? And you really should call me Lord Potter, you know. I’m not entitled to the other name anymore.”
Kingsley looks like he may have an attack of apoplexy right there. Harry watches him with the same smile, and darts his eyes around to the sides. The Aurors are spreading out a little. Not good. Or, well, maybe good. It all depends on the plan that he hasn’t come up with yet.
“Lord Potter,” Kingsley finally grinds out, which nearly startles Harry into laughing. Oh, shit, I didn’t think his respect for the Sun Chamber was that great! “You appear to have misunderstood the situation. You cannot break into the Department of Mysteries no matter the provocation.”
“Well, I tried not to. But I told you, they weren’t reasonable.”
“You have to give back the stolen artifacts,” says Cochran in a commanding voice, moving forwards with one hand out.
“I completely agree. So if you’d let me get on my way to the Forbidden Forest…”
“I meant that you stole them from the Ministry!”
“I don’t see how, Auror Cochran. Reclaiming stolen property to return to its rightful owners is in no way a crime. Of course, the people who owned it may be entitled to some compensation if they bought it innocently under false pretenses from the thief, but since the Ministry is the thief in this case, they’re not.”
Cochran stands frozen, staring at him in wordless rage. Harry looks along the row of Aurors again, and this time he catches Weston’s eye.
He didn’t smile, which would give the game away. But he does incline his head a little, and Weston nods back. She’s ready to go along with any gambit that he can think up.
“The Ministry has perpetrated a long series of frauds and crimes against our non-human citizens,” Harry goes on, in the lecturing tone that Hermione uses so effectively so much of the time. “I was only trying to begin the first step at atonement. I would have preferred to work with people in the Ministry, of course, but since that’s not possible, and they won’t listen, I acted on my own.”
“You are still under arrest, Lord Potter,” Kingsley finally says.
“What for? I’m not stealing, I’m returning stolen property.”
Kingsley looks so angry that Harry is faintly regretful he never tried this before. “For breaking and entering in the Department of Mysteries.”
“To reclaim stolen property!” Harry says instantly. “And I did try to get them to let me enter the legal way, but they weren’t interested in it.”
Kingsley waves a hand through the air as though he’s going to cast a spell any second. “I grow tired of these excuses. Even a Lord twice over can make mistakes. Make sure that you Stun him strongly and bind him with chains, not ropes.”
Harry nods to Weston then. He can’t move his wand without being noticed, but she can. He just needs a good distraction.
Either she figured out the same thing, or she’s a passive Legilimens, because she does exactly what Harry would have done in this situation. She whips her wand up and cries out strongly, “Lumos Solis!”
The spell is just a little ahead of the Stunning and binding spells the other Aurors are beginning to cast. There’s a scream as almost everyone in the Atrium is blinded by the burst of golden-white light coming from Weston’s wand. Harry isn’t, because he thought to shield his eyes first, and then cast a weak Dimming Charm right over them that functions a little like a sunshade. He drops to his knees and elbows and wends his way forwards, through the chaos that is running legs and barked orders and dropping wands.
He hopes Weston won’t get in trouble, but he didn’t get the sense many people were looking in her direction when she cast. They will probably think that it’s just some overenthusiastic Auror or the allies that they thought were going to pop out of midair to aid him all along.
Harry only has to duck away from Kingsley once, and from other Aurors a handful of times. He makes it to the fireplaces, and finds them shut down. Well, that’s not going to stop him. A Blasting Curse takes more out of him than he likes, but it breaks the grate that holds the Floo shut.
Then Harry only needs to hurl a handful of powder, and the flames turn green around him as he tumbles forwards through the fireplace. He can hear people yelling at each other behind him, and he has to grin at the thought that they’ll all blame each other. They may even think he’s still there.
Although maybe not. Even in the middle of a battle, the sound a Blasting Curse makes is distinctive.
*
“You’re an idiot.”
Hermione doesn’t say that in a loud voice, though. Harry grins up at her from where he’s lying on the couch in a house that he put under the Fidelius a while ago. It used to belong to a woman called Cassiopeia Black, some kind of aunt of Sirius’s or something. Hermione and Ron are the only ones who know the secret of this particular Fidelius.
“You’re just pleased that I took those artifacts back to the goblins.”
“It’s something I would never expect of any other wizard,” Hermione admits, and then she sits down and gives a strong frown at Harry. “That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a stupid thing to do.”
“How so?” Harry asks her in all innocence. “The goblins got what they wanted, and they agreed to feed us information about the bill and cause a distraction for the Ministry. I think it’ll be a pretty good distraction, myself. The Ministry is always more afraid of a goblin rebellion than they should be.”
“Why should be?”
“It would be so easy to get along with the goblins if they didn’t do stupid shit like steal their artifacts.”
Hermione’s lips twitch reluctantly. “Anyway. You know that the Ministry is going to be after you now more than ever? And the Department of Mysteries, too?”
Harry calms down enough to nod. “I know. And before you say it, I know that the Unspeakables are dangerous because you never know who they are, they have artifacts down there that could kill me, they probably know more spells than I do, and they might even know a way around the Fidelius.”
Hermione slowly closes her mouth. “Am I that predictable?”
Harry pats her hand. “Only for someone like me or Ron.”
Hermione thinks about that and ends up nodding a second later. “All right. As long as you’re aware of the permutations of the risks.” She hesitates. “I’ve got the tapestry finished.”
“You do? You’re brilliant, Hermione! I never thought you’d trace all the threads so soon.”
“The free house-elves helped a lot. They were the ones who know what pure-blood families used to own the most of them, after all.” Hermione bows her head for a second. “You know that that isn’t going to be easy.”
“I know.”
“And the Elder Wand’s spell is going to cause a lot of destruction.”
“I know.”
“I just-Harry, is it going to be worth it?”
“To really know the answer to that question,” Harry says quietly, intensely, catching her eye, “we would have to know the worth of all the Muggleborn ambitions that they’ve blocked, all the dreams they’ve destroyed, all the lives of the Muggles that they’ve baited and killed. And the worth of the dignity of the creatures they mocked or subordinated or enslaved or murdered. And the ones they’ll go on doing to that in the future if we don’t stop them.”
After a second, Hermione sighs. “I know.”
Harry reaches out and holds her hand.
*
“I can’t believe that you really intend to do this.”
Bill is trembling. Harry gives him a minute to recover, glancing away as he sips his tea and watches Fleur leading Victoire and Dominique in a demonstration of their Veela magic. It is kind of overwhelming when someone hears the scope of his plan for the first time.
“Why tell me this?” Bill abruptly demands. “You-you could have told me anything at all, and I would have believed it. And-I don’t have anywhere else to go, anywhere else to turn. You could have let me believe something crazy or harmless, and I wouldn’t be able to go tell anyone even if I thought you were lying.”
Harry turns back to him. “I want you to really be on my side. And that means understanding the full, mad scope of my plans.”
Bill gets up and paces back and forth in front of the table. Then he sits down again with a thump and says, “There are people in my family who would never agree with this no matter what.”
Harry nods. “There’s a reason that I had to use the Memory Charm on Ginny.”
Bill bristles, then sinks back. He’s already heard that story from Harry, and he didn’t take it well, but he also understands why it happened, which is more than Harry could say about some of the Weasleys. “All right. And Mum and Dad would-they’re gentler. They wouldn’t think that what’s happened is bad enough to justify what you told me. They would encourage you to work with the Ministry and the pure-bloods and attempt reform.”
Harry nods in silence. There are other things he could say-for instance, that Arthur thinks of Muggles sometimes as a child would fascinating toys, and that Molly’s sympathy for Muggleborns is mostly abstract. They don’t mean much to her unless she knows them personally. They’re not malicious, unlike a lot of pure-bloods, but they’re typically isolated and ignorant.
Bill already has enough to deal with, though. Harry wasn’t sure he’d keep him past hearing the truth about Ginny. And Molly and Arthur are still his family.
“So you intend to carry out this insane plan? With only the support that you have right now?”
“That includes a lot of goblins and werewolves and free house-elves,” Harry points out mildly. “I’ve killed a few members of the Sun Chamber, or been responsible for them being killed, and taken out some others by getting them imprisoned or so confused they don’t know what they’re doing. I wouldn’t underestimate me.”
“I’m trying not to. But I don’t see how even with your plan, you can actually bring down the Ministry.”
“You doubt the power of the Deathly Hallows?”
Harry makes his voice sepulchral on those words on purpose, but Bill doesn’t smile. “Honestly? Yes. I know they’re strong, but that doesn’t make them glad to serve you. How do you know they’re actually going to do what you want them to?”
Harry sobers long enough to shrug. “I don’t know for sure. But I do know that the Resurrection Stone is being confined within the bounds of a magic exactly like itself, and the Invisibility Cloak has never betrayed its owner, and the Elder Wand…”
“Yeah. That one, even you aren’t sure about, are you?”
“We are giving it the chance to cause destruction and chaos on a mass scale that it couldn’t ever cause if it was just hopping from owner to owner and getting them murdered.”
Bill still looks a little sick. “And we’re risking the fate of the world on how well you understand the murderous instincts of a piece of wood.”
“That’s true. But look at it this way. The Ministry entrusted the future to no one ever finding out about the Sun Chamber. And to Muggleborns never getting vocal and resentful enough about their treatment to work together. And to house-elves being abused and mistreated by everyone.”
“Yeah,” Bill finally whispers. “I suppose, put it that way, you feel that you might as well use inertia for righteousness.”
“Right,” Harry says, and claps Bill on the shoulder as he stands up. Fleur and her daughters look as if they’re done with their magic practice, and Harry thinks that it’s probably best if they don’t meet up. He has no idea how Fleur really feels about this enforced hiding, which wouldn’t have happened in the first place if not for Harry’s rebellion. “I’ll see you in a few days.”
But Fleur comes in the door before Harry can go out the Floo. Victoire and Dominique stand behind her, their silvery hair cascading around their shoulders and their eyes as bright as moonlight. Fleur moves forwards with her hands held out. “Harry. I have wanted to thank you.”
Her accent is almost gone, so Harry can’t blame misunderstanding her words on that. He still blinks and says, “Huh?”
“For providing shelter for me and my daughters. For fighting for a world where they can attend Hogwarts and other schools and where they will not be feared.”
“Er, thanks? But it’s entirely likely that Hogwarts will be deserted, you know. Or maybe shut down for a while.” Or destroyed. But Harry doesn’t like to think about that even though it’s a possibility.
“Destroyed things can be rebuilt,” Fleur says, apparently answering his thought. She smiles at him again and kisses his cheek. Then she goes further into the house, already calling for Bill. Victoire and Dominique give him shy smiles and follow. Harry hasn’t spent a lot of time with Bill’s family, and doesn’t know them that well.
Harry stands there for a moment when they’re gone. Then he nods and casts the Floo powder into the fire.
It’s good to have a reminder of what he’s fighting for, after all.
*
“Harry?”
“Hmm?”
Harry opens his eyes. It feels like it’s three in the morning, and in fact, that’s what the clock on the mantel says. Harry rolls his eyes and casts Hermione an accusing glance.
Hermione just smiles at him and says, “Watch.”
She turns around and points her wand at the far wall. Harry sighs and sits up to look. His jaw drops when he sees the tapestry hanging there, a gorgeous forest-green with bright golden threads running through it.
The lines are all kinds of pure-blood families, and beneath them, written in smaller letters that blaze with silver light, are the names of the house-elves they own.
Hermione gestures again with her wand, and a third kind of line grows on the tapestry. This one is a color so dark that Harry can’t be sure it’s actually black, the way it looks; it might be dark blue or dark red. It races down from the top of the tapestry, and reaches out so it encircles all the lines of the pure-blood families.
Then it trembles and bursts into a herd of red sparks.
“It’s only a demonstration, of course,” Hermione murmurs, lowering the wand. “When it’s ready, then it’ll need to encompass so much more. But I can do it. I know that now.”
Harry seizes her in his arms and laughs and waltzes around the room. Hermione goes with him, laughing too. They wake up Ron, who comes to the door of the bedroom and stands there, shaking his head.
“It’s a good thing Mum and Dad can’t see you now, or they’d think you two were planning to run away together.”
“It’s three in the morning, Ron,” Hermione promptly says. “Go back to bed.”
“Look, all of us are up, so that means we might as well have something to drink,” Ron points out, in such a reasonable tone that neither of them can contradict him, and walks into the kitchen. “After all, we have something to celebrate!” he calls over his shoulder.
Hermione sobers instantly, resting her hands on Harry’s shoulders and staring into his eyes. “It’s really going to change everything, isn’t it?”
“Everything,” Harry agrees softly.
Hermione closes her eyes, and Harry sees the gleam of tears underneath the lids.
But in the end, she’s one of the three laughing as they clink their glasses of Firewhisky together.
Chapter Twenty-Eight.
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