Harry's thumb was given a clean bill of health by Madam Pomfrey. The murtlap had done its job and he wouldn't even get a scar. Harry was just finishing up with the healer when Hermione came running into the hospital wing at a full sprint. She tried to say something but was breathing too heavily to get the words out.
Harry, a little worried, ran over to her; something must have happened to get her this agitated. "Hermione, breathe. No, don't try to say anything, just breathe for a second… Good, now tell me what's wrong?"
"Heard… you… hospital wing." She got out between pants and Harry understood what happened. She had heard he was in the hospital wing without any context, imagined something terrible, and had come running as fast as her legs could carry her.
"Okay first, I love you, but you need to calm down. I came here for a cut on my thumb, which I'm glad magic can heal because the mundane way would have stung for weeks, but also something I would have dealt with at home. No emergencies this time, I promise," Harry told her in a soothing voice. A part of him wanted to scoff at her worrying, but it was how Hermione cared. It was part of the beautiful whole that he loved. Plus after the Dursleys it was, in some ways, nice to such a clear indication that someone cared so much.
"Just. Your. Thumb?" Her breathing was less laboured now.
"Yep, and it's all better now, look," Harry said in a slightly joking tone as he held out his thumb for her to see. The skin was still a little red, but apart from that it was his perfectly normal thumb.
Hermione relaxed at seeing he was fine, and Madam Pomfrey decided it was time to shoo them both out of the hospital wing. As Harry needed to tell Hermione the full story of what happened, he led her up stairs to one of the balconies that had a brilliant view of the lands around the castle. Hermione transfigured a nearby bench into a more comfortable loveseat while Harry summoned a stone from the grounds. After transfiguring it into a stone bowl, he filled it with the same bluebell flames Hermione had taught him their first year.
With a comfortable seat, warm fire to stave off the November chill, and a beautiful view, Harry got to telling Hermione what happened. "So the Horcrux was at the centre of all these runic rings designed to contain it…" Harry started his story.
"... Then curse breaker Williams was thrown back hitting his head. So I rushed forward, biting the skin on my thumb, and slammed the bleeding wound down on the last circle raising the last barrier. Of course my blood went and did something weird, because magic seems to have decided that nothing can be normal for me. It seems to have supercharged the barriers against Voldemort, like how my touch burned Quirrell in our first year."
"Actually that makes sense. One of the reasons Voldemort would have wanted your blood specifically for his restriction would be to overcome the effect you have on him. But that would be limited to the body made with your blood. The rest of him, all the Horcruxes, would still be without that protection from your presence," Hermione said. "Still, you did brilliantly, though I can't believe you called yourself 'Harry fucking Potter." She laughed.
Harry didn't, however. "He was offering me you, Hermione. For you, and I, and everyone we love to just not be involved in this bloody war. In that moment I needed to remind myself who I was, and why he would never honour a deal to leave me alive. But for that moment I wanted to accept, to free him and unleash him on the wizarding world just so the people I care about would be safe." Harry couldn't look at Hermione as he admitted that.
"Oh Harry, you idiot," she said softly as she lifted his arm and pulled it around her shoulders so she could snuggle into his side. "Temptation is supposed to be, well, tempting. Anyone would have wanted to accept a deal like that. If I was offered the safety of you and everyone else I consider family, then I would have had a hard time turning it down as well."
"That's the thing Hermione, I didn't turn it down because it was the right thing to do. I did it because the deal was worthless. You, Ron, grandfather, Sirius, none of you would have abandoned the fight. You would keep fighting and it would have all been for nothing," Harry admitted.
"So would you Harry, you couldn't give up the fighting either. You couldn't live knowing your life, my life, and the lives of everyone you love were being held hostage by someone that unstable. And love, don't forget you made that decision in seconds. You didn't have time to even consider how ethical that deal was. So you based your decision on us, what we could accept and live with. Our feelings. You made your decision not on selfish desire, but on an empathetic understanding of the people who love you."
"What if I have made the wrong choice Hermione? What if it was the only way to save you?" Harry asked a shiver running through him at the idea of losing her.
Hermione sighed she knew where Harry's head was at. "Sometimes it can be hard to be the one who makes a decision. You have to accept the consequences and every bad outcome makes you question 'did I make the wrong move?' But you never see all the bad that would have come from the other decision. To some, it makes it feel like you are always making the wrong choices. To others, they assume that the other decision would have just been worse. You made the right call.
"And honestly, if you had let him free, where would he have gone? Like the diary, he would have needed to possess someone. I doubt possessing you would work, Williams maybe would have been acceptable to him, but compared to taking control of the Warlock of the House of Black? It wouldn't even be a choice, he would have gone for Sirius and claimed by possessing him he was keeping him safe. I'm sure Voldemort would have had a similar fate for anyone under protection of such a deal; a hostage situation where they would rather die."
-ϟϟϟ-
What Harry and Hermione didn't know was that their private conversation wasn't so private. Dumbledore found it weird that Sirius took Harry out of the school. He needed to know what was going on, especially since Charlus had revealed that the Potters knew about Horcruxes. It was imperative for the war against Voldemort that he had as much information as possible. Only then would the correct path forward become knowable. That was why he had made himself invisible and had followed the two teens.
He was shocked to learn that the Potters not only had found anther Horcrux but they were not destroying it immediately. Instead they were employing curse breakers to try and refine a method to find the remaining ones. It was a risky move, one he wasn't sure he could approve of. Yet he would admit there was some wisdom in the strategy. If you find a way to locate all the Horcruxes, then Voldemort could be ended once and for all.
The problem was the risks. There was every possibility that the Horcrux could corrupt one or more of the curse breakers. Even if they resisted the corruption and were successful in creating a way to locate Voldemort's Horcruxes, there was still the seductive lure of immortality. Every curse breaker who worked on this project would learn enough to create their own Horcruxes if they choose to. Even if they didn't, they could talk about it to someone who would. They were risking multiple undying Dark Lords in the future to destroy one now.
Yet there was little Dumbledore could do to stop it at the moment. Maybe once he knew who everyone was that came into contact with the Horcrux, he could try and reason with them, and have them take Unbreakable Vows to leave the subject alone.
He felt some sympathy for Harry as he lamented over the offer the Horcrux had given him. It was how Voldemort operated, to promise people the thing they wanted the most. If there was one talent Tom had, it was ferreting out exactly what it was that would tempt someone, a skill that only improved a thousand fold after he became a master Legilimens.
It reminded him of Severus and the deal he had taken. But then Miss Granger kept talking. Harry had made his decision in seconds, but in those seconds Harry had considered things like how Voldemort would use the deal and how the people protected would feel. Severus had days to ponder the deal before he had taken it.
Plenty of time for him to consider how Lily Potter would have been after the murder of her husband and son. She never would have accepted being some kept woman sheltered by a man loyal to a monster who had murdered those she loved more than life itself. No, Lily would have gone on rampage the second she was free, killing as many Death Eaters as she possibly could before they could kill her.
The problem was, Dumbledore knew that Snape knew Lily well enough to know this. She never would have accepted the deal, yet Severus had made it anyway. Of course there was a simple solution to Snape's problem. He said it to every student in their first class with him ever since he started at Hogwarts: 'bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses'. Sure, he would have used pretty words like a 'plutive for her grief' or a 'distraction from the past', but it would have amounted to the same thing: Lily Potter, potioned and unable to make her own decisions, just like Tom Riddle Sr.
By the gods, what had he put in charge of children for over a decade?"
With that thought echoing through his mind he walked away, leaving the two teenagers to have the privacy they had no clue he was violating.
-ϟϟϟ-
Over the rest of the month Harry mostly focused on his arm and the silver hand spell. As well as his shoulder was healing, he still wouldn't be able to play in the Gryffindor Slytherin match at the end of the month. Ginny had been gracious when he told her, not wanting to seem too overjoyed at getting to play because Harry was injured. She was happy of course, and Harry had spotted her rather giddy telling her friends when she thought he couldn't see.
He wanted to feel good for her, he really did, but if he was honest it felt like a punch to the gut. This would be the fifth game in a row he had to miss because of Voldemort's plans. It felt that the moment he had decided that he would actually quite like to try playing professional Quidditch after Hogwarts, the world had conspired to make it impossible. And as stupid as it was, his feelings were all pushed towards Ginny, the one taking his spot. He made sure to ensure that she never found out about his feelings. Ron was a big help in that running interference with his sister and keeping her away from Harry.
Hermione helped him by being a distraction. When they weren't working on his silver hand spell, she pulled out their homework. When they finished the homework, she would pull him into a secluded corner and experiment on how long they could hold their breath while snoging. When he added in classes, dinner, talks with Charlus, and prefect duties, Harry was thoroughly distracted.
Though the most interesting thing about their prefect duties was the meeting that was called to introduce the new Slytherin male prefect now that Malfoy was gone. The position was given to Blaise Zabini. Harry didn't know much about Zabini, but he actually considered that a good thing. Because he hadn't heard of his parents being Death Eaters, Zabini had also never stood out as someone who gave Harry or muggleborn students a hard time. Harry didn't just accept that the boy was trustworthy, but he at least had hope the guy wasn't going to be a problem.
One thing to celebrate was that, towards the end of November, Harry finally managed to make a fully formed and functional silver hand. He and Hermione had been in an empty classroom while he practised. Hermione was doing some background reading for Transfiguration in the corner while Ron was off taking Susan on a romantic walk.
When Harry had cast the spell, at first he didn't believe it. He kept examining it looking for the flaw, looking for what he needed to try and fix the next time he cast it.
"Hermione, can you come give me a hand for a second?" he asked.
Hermione gave him a slightly annoyed look because he had interrupted her reading before she put a marker in the book and came over to see what Harry needed. "What's wrong?"
"I can't find the flaw in this hand to know what to work on next. I can't really progress until I know what needs working on," he admitted.
"Okay, let's have a look." After a few minutes of testing, she gave him a look as if she wanted to call him stupid, but just smiled and shook her head instead. "Harry you dolt, there is nothing wrong with it."
"Well, what do I need to work on next?" Then what Hermione said resisted. "Wait… you mean it's done?" There was now a mad grin spreading over Harry's face. Hermione nodded and Harry started to woop in celebration. He actually pulled Hermione to him and started to dance. He had been working on this for months, and with everything bad that had happened to him over those months, a win like this was something he desperately needed. Hermione was soon caught up in Harry's sudden good mood and ended up laughing and smiling along with him.
It was many forty minutes later when Harry, still with a massive grin on his face, started working on repeating the feat. After all, it wasn't good enough to do it once, he had to be able to do it every time. The difference now was he knew he could do it.
-ϟϟϟ-
At the end of November there was a Hogsmeade weekend. Some students were very aware of the Death Eaters being broken out of Azkaban almost a month ago and were staying in the castle. Harry and his friends, however, were well aware that healing enough from prolonged close proximity to a Dementor would take longer to get them to the point that they could be used to attack anyone. So this was possibly their last chance to enjoy the village.
Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Susan decided to make it a double date, starting with them sharing a carriage down to the village. As they were driven along a drizzle of rain for the twenty minute truck to the village, they talked.
"Harry, what's the latest on your silver hand thing? Ron was saying you cracked it?" Susan asked.
"Not quite, I can do it two out of three times right now, so I have a bit more to do before I can say I cracked it. But Krum has already arranged to come visit between Christmas and New Year because we all think I will be ready by then." Harry was having trouble keeping the pride off his face. He had put a lot of effort into learning this spell and he was so close to mastering it.
"Oh wow, well once you have it down there will be so many who you can help. Aurors who had to retire, victims of horrific curses and magical accidents," Susan gushed. Through her aunt she had met quite a few people who had lost limbs, a lot of them colleagues of her aunt who were invited around for a commiseratory drink after being invalided out of the force. But a lot of them would jump at the chance to rejoin if it meant new limbs
"Speaking of Aurors, how is your aunt holding up with everything that's going on?" Hermione asked Susan.
"She is… stressed. She doesn't have the manpower to deal with what we know is coming. Fudge is screaming at her to deal with the problem. She is constantly reminding him she is under staffed because in the last ten years he has cut her budget fifteen times. Fudge has given her more money, but it still isn't where it would be if her budget kept up with inflation, so it's still short even for a peacetime budget, and no matter how she spends what she has, new recruits take time to train."
"Sounds like a pretty bad situation to be in. Is there any way to bypass the minister for funds?" asked Harry.
"No, that's the whole point of the minister, his office allocates the funds and appoints the head of each department. The public can't even make a direct donation to the department, it would have to be to the Ministry as a whole and Fudge would get to decide how it's spent," said Ron. He knew this from his father also working in the Ministry, under Director Bones as coincidence would have it because the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office was a sub-department of the D.M.L.E.
"I'm more surprised that Fudge is still minister given everything that's happened. I mean, one of the things Lucius Malfoy was sent to Azkaban for was bribing the minister. Doesn't it follow logically that if one man is guilty of bribing an official, that same official is guilty of accepting that bribe?" Hermione asked as she attempted to snuggle into Harry even more than normal in order to ward off the November chill. That she could easily cast a warming charm or summon fire for warmth apparently was completely forgotten.
"You don't get to be Minister for Magic without playing a lot of politics. The man probably had to call in on a hell of a lot of favours to keep himself from being charged. But I doubt he will be able to last much longer. Soon there will be a big attack and the press will ask questions and Auntie will tell them the truth that 'after years of accepting bribes from a man long suspected and now confirmed of being a Death Eater, the Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge cut the budget of the D.M.L.E. so much that they no longer have the manpower to capture the man who was bribing the minister or any of the other Death Eaters who broke out of Azkaban to join You-Know-Who.' Basically, Auntie will point the finger directly at the minister, because it's at least partly his fault anyway," Susan explained.
Once they got to Hogsmeade, Susan wanted to visit Madam Puddlifoot's Tea Shop first. It was nowhere near as full as it normally was on Hogwarts weekend, so they were able to find a table for the four of them easily. Susan took it on herself to order for them and asked for something that wasn't on the menu. "We will have four large chocolate deluxe please and a plate of hazelnut biscuits." The owner just smiled and said they would be right out.
"What's a chocolate deluxe? I don't see it on the menu," Hermione asked.
"Only the absolute best hot chocolate you will ever have," said Susan. "Trust me."
A few minutes later Madam Puddlifoot came back, this time with a tray laden with things for the table. She set a cup of what looked like fairly ordinary hot chocolate in front of each of them. "There you go my sweets, now if you want anything else just give me a wave and I'll be right over."
Susan took a sip of her hot chocolate and made a sound that Harry had only ever heard come from Hermione before, and only then when they were getting particularly handsy. That had Harry thinking that either this was some phenomenally good hot chocolate, or there was something added to it. Hermione, seeing how much Susan seemed to enjoy hers, took a sip of her own and declared, "Oh that is dangerously good. I could easily drink this all day."
"I know," said Susan. "Only then we would need to spend a whole month dieting to cancel it out. If only magic could make something have zero calories," she lamented. That was one hard rule with magic: if you could eat it, it was real food. It had to do with how your body reacted to food. The last thing anyone wanted was for bits of themselves that had been grown from a steak when they ate it to suddenly turn back to the stone it had been transfigured out of. Apparently simulated results of such an effect weren't pretty.
Harry took a sip of his hot chocolate, noting the girls were right. It was rich, creamy, thick, and absolutely decently delicious. If Harry was right, at least half of what was in his cup was just melted down Honeydukes' finest chocolate.
After the tea shop, they started on a lot of the regular stops for Hogwarts students. Honeydukes' was first, Harry had a list of things a few friends had asked him to pick up. Just because they didn't want to come to the village didn't mean they didn't want their monthly fix of sugar. The owner was more than happy to help when he saw the lists Harry had from people. He packed them all into individual bags with people's names on them so they didn't get mixed up and added a flyer about his new owl order service to every bag. Harry guessed that the man had guessed exactly what was going to happen with the Hogwarts crowd after the breakout and had a plan to protect his business. One thing Harry noticed was that the owner of the shop kept looking at Hermione and Ron, which to Harry was a little odd. He was going to have to ask the two of them about it once they went back to the castle.
It was getting towards lunchtime, and the four of them were headed towards the Three Broomsticks for food. Harry didn't know if the others had noticed it, but there was a hooded figure who was keeping pace with them on the other side of the street. Harry didn't want to say anything, though, because whoever it was was close enough to overhear and if it was someone shady then he didn't want to provoke anything.
Still, Harry kept an eye on whoever it was, surreptitiously drawing his wand and concealing the movement by taking an extra half step and momentarily putting Ron between him and the hooded stranger, before falling back into his place in the group so he could keep watching the suspicious figure.
They came to a junction in the road they were walking along and were about to cross the road to get to the pub when the man struck. He whipped off his hood, revealing that it was Draco Malfoy, and he pointed his wand and shouted "Avada Kedavra!" Harry almost dove back to get out of the way, but in a split second he noticed that the spell wasn't aimed at him but rather at Hermione. Instead of dodging back, Harry dove forward, tackling both Hermione and Susan to the ground. Harry actually felt the crackle of the vile magic on the back of his neck, and without checking was sure he had lost at least some hair.
Hermione and susan both screamed in pain, as unprepared for the sudden tackle their heads bounced off the worn down cobbles. Harry tried to roll and bring his wand to bear on Malfoy, but he was struggling to free himself from the tangle of bodies and limbs. Ron, however, was not so encumbered and the next thing Harry heard was "Fulmenactus!" Ron whipped his wand at the blond git, eager to finally, after years, have reason to not hold back against the boy who had been taking the piss out of him for years.
Unfortunately, Malfoy's plans seemed to very much be hit-and-run, because before Ron could finish his spell the attempted murderer activated a portkey and vanished. Ron's spells hit the house that was behind, blowing a section of the outer layer off the wall, but there seemed to be no more damage than that. At least that was what they thought until there was a cry from behind them.
"Noooooo! No no no no no!" Harry looked over and saw an old woman breaking down as she looked at the body of an old man, begging the universe that she wasn't seeing exactly what she was seeing. The curse that was aimed for Hermione hadn't stopped when it missed her and Harry, and the old man, whoever he was, hadn't been as lucky.
Just then, the owner of the house Ron had blown the side of came running out of the house shouting and screaming about his house, and a crowd of people from the pub were now coming out to gawk at what was happening.
So much for an enjoyable double date.