[Children of the Sun series]: Silver Shadow Snake, gen, PG-13, 26/?
Part Twenty-Five.
Part One.
Title: Silver Shadow Snake (26/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Gen other than background Lucius/Narcissa
Content Notes: For this part, mild angst
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Harry wasn’t sure when he first started noticing the odd doubleness of Professor Quirrell’s familiar, but he had no doubt it was there. And since no one else was doing anything about it, he thought it was probably up to him.
Author’s Notes: This is the beginning of a longer story arc, which will be updated every Saturday. You should read the other fics in the series first: Children of the Sun series.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Part Twenty-Six
Albus sighed a little as he walked behind Amelia into the courtroom. “Are these suppression cuffs really necessary?” he asked, gesturing to the one that still bound his wrist. Fawkes, huddled on his shoulder, chirped miserably. “You must know by now that I’m not going to try to break away from you or harm anyone in your employ.”
Amelia kept walking without looking back at him, which Albus thought unfair. But he quieted those thoughts as he encountered the stares of the Wizengamot. He must get through this and back into the outside world. Carefully making Harry safe, and safe in his interactions with others, was more important than having the last word.
Or even persuading Amelia. She was not the only member of the Wizengamot and would not be alone in deciding his fate.
Amelia turned around then, and Albus took his seat in the chair, felt the chains grip his wrists and link together with the suppression cuff, and shook his head. Then he turned a calm smile on the Wizengamot.
He could tell nothing from their faces as they watched him. That was unusual. He might have tried to dip into a few minds through the eyes of those who stared at him most steadily, but Amelia was speaking.
“So we are decided? It was unanimous? Or all but,” Amelia added, with what sounded like a smile in her voice, as a few hands rose near the back of the rooms. Albus marked their owners to himself.
“Tell me what it is to be, Amelia.” Albus made his voice as gentle as he could, as resigned. “Azkaban? Transforming me into an animal, the way that you did to that poor child’s relatives?”
Amelia stiffened for a moment, as if she had forgotten he was there. Then she turned around. “No. You might be able to persuade the guards to let you go, or whoever we assigned to watch over you might be a secret sympathizer.”
“I do hope that some people out there would recognize that my guilt has been exaggerated.”
“So we are using a punishment that the Ministry has not used in decades, because it can only be used on those who have golden familiars, and there have been few enough of those.”
“There is only one now.”
Amelia blinked, but not as if she understood him. Albus regretted that he did not have more time to teach her. “So are going to use the Dream Labyrinth.” She nodded behind him.
Albus turned around in his chair at the same moment as Fawkes shrieked in fear and ruffled all his fathers. Albus reached up and stroked him, while he stared at the construction that several strong Aurors were manhandling into the courtroom. It was made of twisted spirals of gold, silver, bronze, copper, and tin, all curving around each other and in to a center that seemed to reflect and baffle Albus’s gaze on purpose. The center looked as if it were made of pearl.
“What is this?” Albus stroked Fawkes with one hand and turned to gesture at the artifact with the other. “I have never seen this, and yet it looks ancient.”
“Well, as I said, Albus, until recently, the Ministry didn’t have anyone with a golden familiar to punish. But we found this when we read about the punishment on the books, and it’s one of the options I presented to the Wizengamot. They voted for it overwhelmingly.”
“Tell me why.”
“It will place you into a dreaming state,” Amelia told him softly. “It will take you through all the convictions that brought you to this pass-the things that only someone with a golden familiar can do, like using your spreading magic on people, which we think you must have done for years without being caught. You will have to confront your pride, your hypocrisy, your lies, and any other weaknesses that riddle you. The Dream Labyrinth relies on the magic of its prisoner to work, and needs so much that only those with golden familiars can power it. But that’s precisely what makes it brilliant. Those with golden familiars are more likely to fall victim to the weaknesses of power than anyone else.”
Albus licked his lips. They were so dry that it was painful. Fawkes cowered so low on his shoulder that he felt like a tiny feathery mound when Albus touched him. Albus shook his head. “You cannot mean to do this to me.”
“Why not?”
“I am the Headmaster of Hogwarts.”
“You were. But you misbehaved, Albus. None of us voted for putting you back in power, even the ones who thought you should be spared the Dream Labyrinth.”
“You would place me into a prison I stand no chance of being released from?”
“Did I imply that? No, Albus, you will be released. When you have confronted and come to terms with every weakness that made you fall as you did. But,” Amelia added, with a gentleness that Albus hated her for, “that might take a very, very long time.”
Albus stared at the Dream Labyrinth and shook his head. He could not believe the Wizengamot thought this the more compassionate punishment. “And have you thought of what will happen to our world in the meantime?”
“Please explain what you mean by that, Albus.”
“I am the only defense you have left against Voldemort!”
“Thought it was the Potter boy,” muttered an old witch with silver hair that Albus didn’t recognize from his trial. “Thought he was the one who made his body dissolve into dust and air, or something.”
Albus hesitated for only a moment before he began to speak. This was not the way he had wanted to handle the matter, but if they really did intend to put him into the Dream Labyrinth, it might be his best chance. “The boy’s golden familiar is a false trick. A combination of the fact that Voldemort attacked him as a child and the legacy he left behind when he did.”
Amelia said nothing, did nothing, but her tiger stalked a single step forwards. Albus eyed the beast. Fawkes still wore the suppression cuff, or their victory in battle with Amelia and her Phantom would have been assured. “What legacy?”
Albus grimaced. A less than ideal situation. On the other hand, it would also ensure that the truth reached more people more rapidly than being dribbled out by the naïve Aurors he had spoken with. “You must have realized by now that Voldemort has corrupted his familiar. She would never have joined him in Dark Arts otherwise.”
“Yes?”
The Wizengamot was silent, staring. Albus wished that he could feel he was capturing their attention and not merely astonishing them with his obviousness. “That means that it is possible for him to break his soul apart. He has left a shard of his soul behind in Mr. Potter’s scar. That is why Mr. Potter’s familiar is gold and a serpent. Having two souls in his body gives Mr. Potter more power than any child should have, more than one body could contain alone.”
The clamor that erupted from the Wizengamot made Albus wince and Fawkes crouch even lower on his shoulder. Amelia tried to shout for quiet, and finally lifted her wand and caused a firework to spiral into the air. Golden sparks detonated and showered down around the courtroom. Amelia lowered her wand and stared hard at Albus. “What is your evidence for this?”
“I know that Mr. Potter carries a Horcrux in his scar,” Albus told her. “I have experience with soul magic, and I confirmed my suspicions the moment Mr. Potter stepped through the doors of Hogwarts.”
“Go on. Why is it unnatural for him to have a serpent familiar?”
“When both his parents were Gryffindor and fought against the Dark Lord who has a serpent familiar? My dear, why would it be natural?”
“Oi!” said someone on one of the lower benches, making Albus wince as he thought of the depths of indignity to which the Wizengamot had fallen. Not that they hadn’t proven it by trying to convict him. “You can’t possibly mean that! My cousin Cormac McLaggen is in Gryffindor, and he has a lizard familiar! And he’s as Gryffindor as they come!”
“There is a difference between a harmless lizard and a gigantic serpent-”
“As I recall,” Amelia interrupted, “You-Know-Who’s familiar was a large viper. I know that Mr. Potter’s Golden is an anaconda. They are not even the same species of serpent, Albus! And you dare to claim that Mr. Potter has a snake because of You-Know-Who?”
“There cannot be any other reason,” Albus said steadily. He watched Amelia’s face settle into lines of disbelief, and wanted to sigh. Of course she would want to resist the implications, and the knowledge that Harry would have to be killed to free him from the Horcrux and the world from his influence. But her disbelief was not Albus’s problem. “The power of the two souls in his body has combined to give him a golden familiar, as well.”
“Pull the other one!” someone shouted, to snickering. Once again, Albus mourned the Wizengamot of old.
“Think about it,” Albus said. “When was the last wizard born to the gold before me?”
There was some muttering, but Griselda Marchbanks answered. “That would have been Erin Gaunt. She and that golden sphinx of hers. She died in 1759, I think.”
“And she had some Peverell blood in her lineage,” Albus said. “As I have some Gryffindor in mine. But there is no such blood in the Potters. Harry’s parents certainly did not have golden familiars. Where did that power come from? Why would it suddenly have flowered in this child, who was not that powerful when he was a baby? I should know. I visited his parents.”
“Albus,” Amelia said, giving him an incredulous look. “You know very well that there is so Peverell blood in the Potters. And some strain of Gryffindor, too, I think, although maybe not as direct as yours. Not to mention all those studies that St. Mungo’s has tried to conduct on whether people actually inherit their level of magical power and the colors of their familiars from their parents. They can’t find any correlation. Abandon your ridiculous theories and accept that your faults will be corrected in the Dream Labyrinth.”
“You should at least examine Mr. Potter’s Horcrux. Perhaps there is a way to destroy it without harming the boy. I don’t know for certain. And when it is gone, then his familiar will turn silver, and back to the species that he should have been born with.”
Amelia only shook her head and gestured to the Aurors who stood behind Albus’s chair. Albus scanned the faces of the Wizengamot in front of him as the Aurors dragged him to his feet and towards the twisting construction of metal. He could see some doubt, some disbelief. He could only hope that they would remember his words in truth and fight Voldemort as necessary.
Then the Aurors turned him to face the Labyrinth.
Albus cast one glance behind him that he hoped would be remembered as well, and then stepped forwards.
For a moment, he couldn’t see how the Labyrinth would envelop him. It seemed to be a hollow frame of metal, something he could stand within but escape from easily. And then the metal spirals began to spin, and Fawkes gave a long scream and tried to soar off his shoulder, even though a chain still connected the suppression cuff around his leg with the one on Albus’s wrist.
Albus caught and stroked his familiar, and then stared around. The courtroom had vanished. They were in the midst of a series of tunnels that gleamed grey, gold, brown, and red. Albus took a slow step, and one part of the wall released a shimmering mist.
Albus stiffened as he saw the flash of spells within the mist. No! Not that one!
But the labyrinth and the Wizengamot were merciless, and Albus was propelled into the moment when he had dueled Gellert and Aberforth and Ariana had died.
*
Harry put down the newspaper down. “That’s what they should do,” he said aloud.
“What are you talking about?” Neville asked.
“They put Dumbledore in a sort of maze where he has to face his weaknesses and learn better about himself.”
Neville blinked and leaned over to read the article. Harry fed Golden a piece of egg and nodded to himself. That was the sort of punishment that would help people come out of it feeling good about themselves and not hurt them too badly.
There must be some way that I can make that happen for other people, too.
Harry looked around the Great Hall and saw how some people kept turning to stare at him.
It’s not for the best reasons, but maybe I do have a hope of making that come true.
Part Twenty-Seven.
This entry was originally posted at https://lomonaaeren.dreamwidth.org/996572.html. Comment wherever you like.