The news that Hagrid had been put on probation was just the icing on top of the exceptionally shitty cake. No one seemed particularly surprised — not even Hagrid himself, who was still covered in an absurd amount of bruises, and Harry did not want to know. Hagrid didn't seem all that worried, either; not about the probation, at least. He was definitely worried about something else, his mind absent during classes and his gaze often on the Forbidden Forest. He brought much more mundane creatures out to study — likely at the behest of Hermione, who Harry noticed practically coaching Hagrid through his lessons — but every single one of his lessons was now attended by Umbridge, and Harry suspected Hagrid had come to the same conclusion he had.
Not even perfect lessons were likely to safe him from Umbridge's blood-purist wrath.
Trelawney, too, now had to deal with the presence of the High Inquisitor in every one of her classes.
"You'd think she'd be focused on teaching her own bloody classes," Parvati hissed venomously once they were out of earshot of the Divination classroom, her expression thunderous. "Maybe that's why all she does is have us read the textbook."
To add insult to injury, Umbridge had introduced another Educational Decree, this one banning teachers from discussing anything but the subject they taught with their students. Harry suspected this was to stop teachers talking to them about the Azkaban breakout, or anything related to what was going on outside the castle walls — as far as Lavender and Parvati were concerned, it stopped them talking freely to their favourite professor, and that was a step too far.
Umbridge was making enemies all over the school, but there was very little they could all do about it. Except what they were already doing, of course.
With that in mind, Harry scheduled a HA meeting as soon as his busy timetable allowed it. As instructed, everyone had spent Christmas researching a spell they wanted to learn — Harry now had quite an impressive list of magic to work through, only a handful of which he would have to have Snape teach him first.
"Brilliant, guys. I'll sort that list out and we can start working on them next week. Today, I thought we'd do something a bit more fun."
"Are we breaking out the duelling dummies again?" Cho asked excitedly, looking over to the corner where a trio of dummies waited. Each of them now had a picture of Umbridge's face stuck to the front of their heads, and it made practicing with them that much more entertaining.
"Not today. Instead… how many of you know what paintball is?"
Immediately, all the muggle-raised members of the group lit up with unholy glee. Harry grinned back at them. "I'm going to split you into two teams," he announced. "And I hope you're all familiar with the Colour-Change charm, because we're going to be using a lot of it."
Just because learning to dodge spellfire was a very serious and necessary skill, didn't mean Harry couldn't make it fun, after all.
.-.-.-.
Sirius looked around the small group, tucked away in the upstairs drawing room of Grimmauld Place. These were the only members of the Order he could trust, these days. Other than Snape, of course — and if his teenage self could hear that, he'd check himself right into St Mungo's.
"The Minister isn't interested in searching for the escapees," Kingsley said in his low, rumbling voice. He had an arm around Tonks, gently rubbing her shoulder — the young auror had been in a state ever since the news of her dear Aunt Bella's escape. Sirius didn't blame her; the thought of that crazy bitch running free made him feel cold inside, like the dementors were right over his shoulder again.
In his sleep, he could hear her, cackling away to herself from a few cells away, the sound echoing in the narrow stone halls of the prison.
Sirius didn't sleep much, these days.
"He's too scared that actually going after them might unearth something he's not ready to face," Tonks snorted derisively. "He's paying lip service, of course — assigning aurors, telling the press he's got it handled. But the aurors he's putting on the case can barely tell their arse from their elbow."
Sirius snorted grimly; he was very familiar with the type.
"The fact that he's still in the job is a bloody miracle," Charlie muttered, shaking his head. He was sat beside Sirius, close enough to press their legs together from knee to ankle, and Sirius was glad no one else was bringing up the matter — with the ever-present chill in his bones, he would take all the warmth and comfort he could get. Within reason. He wasn't going to get the poor man's hopes up, no matter how desperate he was for some company at night, a warm body to keep the shadows at bay. Charlie deserved better than that. "It's not a miracle, it's a sign that Voldemort's people are already in power, and Fudge is playing right into their hands," Remus piped up knowingly. He was propped up in an armchair, wan and tired-eyed from the recent full moon. "If he were competent, he'd be dead by now."
He was right; the dark side wouldn't put up with a Minister who might actually do something to stop them, not after all the work they'd done to worm their way into government.
"Charlie, we need to talk to Dad. We need to get our seats," Bill declared. Sirius felt Charlie tense beside him.
"You think he'll go for it?"
Sirius knew the boys had been laying the groundwork for a while now, especially since Arthur's attack.
"We'll have to keep at him until he does. If we leave it too late, we risk getting caught out by Dumbledore; he'll never let Dad pass his seats on to us if he thinks there's even a chance of us voting against him," Bill pointed out with a frown. "Hell, having the guarantee Dad will vote with him is the only thing that keeps him one up on Malfoy."
With all the seat proxies given to Lucius Malfoy from various Death Eater friends who were incarcerated, or otherwise unable to take up the positions, it gave him nine votes in the Wizengamot alone. But with all of Harry's proxies, Dumbledore held nine of his own, and several more that were his in all but magic, considering how devoted their true holders were. Considering those who kept their politics firmly neutral were often not Dumbledore's biggest fans, losing the Weasley and Prewett backing might just tip him out of his power vacuum.
Not that Bill and Charlie would necessarily agree with anything Malfoy proposed, but it would stop Dumbledore passing his ridiculous, restrictive bills that so many people didn't realise were merely cementing the old man's foothold in society.
"If you can, that'll be a huge step in our plans," Sirius agreed. He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "Merlin, I wish I could do something useful." If he were a free man, he could take Harry's proxy seats as his godfather, without it necessarily looking like the boy's faith in Dumbledore was waning. He could take up the Black seat, as he should have years ago.
At this rate, they would have to wait until all of Harry's classmates began turning seventeen before any real progress could be made. And that was only if many of them could convince the current seat holders to step down — not all of them had dead parents and proxy holders, after all. "You're doing what you can," Charlie protested, hand squeezing Sirius' knee. "We always knew the Ministry would take time. There won't be any real change until all of the Death Eaters have been weeded out. Fudge's incompetence is just making that part of our jobs even harder."
He was right, and they all knew it — Dumbledore's adoring public wouldn't matter one knut if Voldemort took the Ministry proper. All the kids coming of age wouldn't mean anything if it was too dangerous for them to attend Wizengamot sessions.
"Now he's got his best generals back, we know the Dark Lord won't wait around forever," Kingsley said solemnly. "He'll strike eventually. And we'll be ready when he does." Sirius caught the man's dark gaze, seeing it become bloodthirsty for just the briefest moment. "We know who the key players are. If we can catch them, get them off the board, we can begin to turn the tide. Enough for Harry to sweep in and do the rest, once he's ready."
At that, Sirius glanced over to Bill, who looked troubled. The animagus wondered how the goblins were doing on the horcrux solution.
If they couldn't figure out a way to get that soul shard out of Harry safely, it would all be for nought regardless.
He set his head in his hands, resisting the urge to tear at his hair — or turn into a dog, where emotions were much easier to deal with. He'd promised Moony he'd stop doing that.
So many aspects of their plans relied on uncertainty. If they could fool Dumbledore for long enough and if they could unseat Fudge and if they could destroy all the horcruxes. If they could get Sirius free, or get Malfoy in prison.
If, if, if. Sirius hated that word.
A gentle hand on his back made Sirius look up, and he realised the room had cleared out — everyone except for Charlie, who was watching him with concern on his handsome face. "Talk to me," he urged, fingers sweeping up to massage gently at the tense knot of muscle at the base of Sirius' neck. He couldn't stop himself from melting under the touch.
"It just feels like it won't be enough," Sirius blurted. "I feel like— like I'm not holding up my end of the bargain. Harry's at school risking everything under the noses of Dumbledore and Umbridge both. He's training his classmates for war — something none of those kids should need to prepare for — and he's got his friends planning an entire restructure of the government, and he's dealing with those shitty visions. Meanwhile I'm here rattling around this bloody house with nothing to do but put laxatives in Dumbledore's tea when he comes for meetings."
Charlie snorted. "Have you actually?"
"Once or twice," Sirius confirmed with the barest hint of a grin. "It's hardly worth anything, though. Harry's my godson — I should be doing more to take some of this burden off his shoulders." A burden no teenager should have to bear, least of all his beloved pup, who had already been through so much.
The dragon tamer's fingers stilled. "Sirius," he sighed. "Like it or not, you're a wanted criminal. Harry knows it, we all know it — Kingsley and Tonks are doing what they can to get info on Pettigrew, but it looks like the rat is holed up tight with his master." Sirius snarled at the mention of him. "We all wish Harry didn't have to do what he's doing, but let's be honest, half of his burden is shit he decided to take on himself, the over-achieving little bastard." His voice was affectionate, despite his words. "As his godfather, all he wants you to do — all any of us want you to do — is support him, and love him, and give him a safe place to call home whenever he needs it. And you've done all those things. Are doing all of them."
Charlie's hand moved to cup Sirius' cheek, his other hand coming up to do the same, cradling the older man's face tenderly. He kissed him, and Sirius' heart ached. "You're doing everything you can, Sirius. I wish you'd stop being so hard on yourself."
But couldn't he see? Everything Sirius could do wasn't enough, not while he was trapped in this bloody house. "He needs someone who can protect him from all the crap he's getting. All the crap that's coming his way." If Harry were attacked, Sirius would be one of the last to know, and no one would let him fucking do anything about it for risk of his capture.
Blue eyes softened, a thumb stroking the line of Sirius' cheekbone. "I hate to say it, but if you tried to protect Harry he'd be the first one to shove you out of the way. Kid has even less self-worth than you do." Sirius wasn't sure whether to be more offended on his own behalf or his godson's. "We all feel useless. We're all playing a waiting game. Don't you think I wish I could take up the Weasley seat and put Dumbledore in his place? But it's not time for that. And I get the feeling that when it finally is, we'll be longing for the days where we sat around thinking how useless we all were."
He grinned, cheeks dimpling, and Sirius' heart thudded hard in his chest. "We're all doing what we can. Yourself included. This breakout… it's shit. There's no denying that. But the second those bastards show their faces, we'll get them. Until then, we just keep the lies going, so we don't put Harry in danger. That's the most important thing."
They could both agree on that; while Harry was stuck at school, they all had to fool the world into thinking he was just an average fifth year who happened to have a Dark Lord after his head.
A long sigh escaped Sirius' lips, and for a moment he let himself fall forward, forehead resting against Charlie's. "What would I do without you, Charlie?" he murmured. The hands on his face slid down his neck, resting on his shoulders.
"Don't know. But I can think of plenty of things you can do with me," the redhead replied flirtatiously. Sirius barked out a laugh, and it was harder than ever before to pull himself away.
"I keep telling you, you don't want to be saddled with me."
"And I keep telling you, that's my decision to make," Charlie retorted without missing a beat. His eyes, when they met Sirius', were sad and tired. "You deserve to be happy, Sirius. But I don't know how long I can keep trying to convince you of that."
The admission made Sirius' stomach clench, but before he could say anything Charlie was gone. Sirius was alone in the room, staring at the door, bereft.
He'd been telling himself for weeks now that he would be glad when Charlie gave up, when he could get on with his life in his solitude without gorgeous redheads trying to tempt him into breaking their hearts.
So why did he feel like his own heart was breaking?
.-.-.
Exhaustion tugged at the edge of Harry's senses as he headed down for his latest 'Occlumency lesson', and he pushed it away stubbornly. He had stayed out a little too late with Draco the night before, and he wouldn't let Snape punish him for his tiredness, less he accidentally admit the source.
To his surprise, Snape was stood in front of his desk when Harry arrived, rather than at the wall ready to enter the chamber. Harry cocked his head curiously. "I have a different lesson in mind for today," the Slytherin declared. He gestured for Harry to sit.
"What kind of lesson, sir?"
"Legilimency," Snape said, and Harry's eyebrows rose. "I… but I thought my Occlumency shields were fine?" He hadn't felt much since the Azkaban breakout, and at night the only dreams he got were of the endless dark corridor. Voldemort was fully aware of the connection now, and making sure things only got through when he wanted them to.
"They are. I will be teaching you to perform Legilimency," Snape said, to Harry's astonishment. "It will be beneficial for you to know what an intrusion of the mind feels like from the other side — perhaps, should the Dark Lord ever become… vulnerable, the skill may allow you to dig a little deeper when he draws you into his own thoughts."
"But…" Teaching Harry Legilimency meant Snape allowing Harry into his mind. The Slytherin nodded, mout in a thin line, clearly of the same thought.
"It is necessary. I have used the pensieve, for once. And I am confident in my ability to throw you out of my mind should you go searching for something I do not want you to see." He peered down his large nose at Harry, and Harry knew then that no matter how much progress had been made between them, how much they had become family due to their shared love of Remus Lupin, if Harry violated this trust he would never be forgiven.
"I'll behave," he promised. "Tell me what to do."
Snape drew up a chair to sit opposite him, and set his wand in his lap. "You know the incantation. To truly breach the mind, you must have absolute focus — there are billions of moments and memories inside a single person's brain, and if you do not know exactly what it is you are looking for, it can be easy to get lost in there. The hardest part is not the spell itself, but removing yourself from the other's mind."
Harry's fingers tightened around his own wand, attempting to stop them trembling. "I could get stuck?"
"In an untrained mind, yes," Snape said with a short nod. "I have enough skill in Occlumency to eject you myself, though I will not until you have gained a feel for it. First, I will lower my shields for you, so you can see what it is to enter a mind without resistance. We will work upwards from there. Are you ready?"
Harry nodded, meeting Snape's near-black eyes, imagining he could see some of his own trepidation reflected back at him. He took a deep breath. Focus.
"Legilimens."
At first it was like being plunged into a pool of icy water, not knowing which way was up. Sensations and sounds were bombarding him from all angles, so overwhelming he could hardly breathe. Focus, he reminded himself. He had to try and find his way around. Find a memory, intentionally. Immediately, his mind went in one specific direction. Show me Lily, he thought, yearning with his whole heart to see his mother through this man's eyes.
The sensations faded a little, and Harry wondered if Snape was kicking him out, if he'd asked to see something off-limits. Then everything blurred around him — and he was stood on grass.
It was like being in a pensieve memory but… sharper. More. He could smell the grass, feel the wind in his hair.
He could see the sunlight glinting off the vibrant red hair of the little girl in front of him.
It was not the kind of memory Harry had anticipated; they were in a park — a rather run-down one, by the looks of it, with a swing seat hanging from only one chain and a climbing frame that looked like an absolute death trap. But all he could feel was joy, excitement, and the warm glow of receiving this girl's wide smile. There was a boy with the girl; twig-thin and knobbly-kneed, with a curtain of dark hair falling in front of a pale face.
"It came! Sev, you were right — it really came!"
"Of course it came," Harry heard the boy say — Severus Snape's voice to be sure, but pre-pubescent.
And northern.
Lily Evans, too, had a thick Birmingham accent, crying out to "Show me yours, show me yours!" She thrust a piece of parchment in Snape's direction.
Dear Miss Evans, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
In Snape's hand was an almost identical letter, crumpled at the edges from being held so tight; proof that he was worth something, that he could be more than this silly little mining town.
"Mum and Dad thought it was mental, but I told them it weren't a joke," Lily continued. "They wanna talk to your mum, though."
"I don't know if that's a good idea, Lils."
"Oh, come on, Sev!" A small hand on the boy's skinny arm, a bright smile directed his way. Nothing could possibly be bad when Lily was smiling like that. "They've met your mum, they know what she's like. As long as your dad's not around it'll be easy."
"That's easier said than done," young Snape pointed out. "He got let go from the factory again." A flash of pain, a wince. Lily's smile was gone, replaced with righteous fury blazing in those vivid green eyes. "What did he do to you?"
Harry saw those dark eyes widen a fraction. Saw Snape scrambling to think of a lie, something Lily might believe, anything to get her off the subject.
"Lily! Mummy says it's time to come in, now! I— oh. You're with the freak." And that could only be one person, with that sort of contempt. Harry looked across the park to see a girl a couple of years older than Lily, her blonde hair cut in a wavy bob, a look of disgust on her face as she stared at them. Petunia Evans, aged thirteen, and just as hateful as always. She had the same accent as her sister, though her words were clipped and over-annunciated, like she was already trying to train herself out of it and into the crisp RP accent Harry knew her to have as an adult. "Come away, Lily."
"Leave him alone, Tunie!" Lily argued, glaring at her sister. "You're just jealous because we get to go to magic school and you don't!"
A sneer on Petunia's face, so cold it made Lily flinch. "Why would I want to go to such an awful place with a couple of unnatural weirdos like you? I'll be glad to see the back of you. Maybe Mum and Dad can ask that old man if they can keep you over the holidays, too."
And then Harry felt a sharp shove, and he was back in his own mind, his body feeling even more worn and leaden than ever. "I'm sorry," he gasped, looking up awkwardly at Snape's face. It was remarkably blank. "I… I got carried away." He hadn't intended to linger so long in the same memory, but his mother was right there, tiny and fierce and so incredible.
"I could have removed you at any time," Snape replied — his way of assuring Harry that he had not overstepped. "You must learn not to get trapped in memories, however. No matter how… appealing they are. Had I been of the mind to, I could have caged you there for as long as I wanted. Especially since you did not keep any connection to your own mind — a true Legilimens needs to be able to slip into another's mind while remaining in their own, to avoid leaving themselves unguarded. Or arousing suspicion."
That made sense; when Dumbledore tried to sneakily use Legilimency on people, he didn't go all slack and vacant-eyed like Harry no doubt had. He could hold entire conversations while rummaging through peoples' heads!
"It's harder than I thought it would be."
A flicker of a smile crossed Snape's lips. "You have only seen it done well, and that makes it look easy."
Snape leaned back in his chair, no doubt giving Harry a little time to recover from what he'd seen. Harry's head was full of his mother's voice, her face; it was so different than seeing pictures. "When did you lose your accent?" he blurted, eyes going wide at the faintest blush on Snape's pallid cheeks.
"Summer after my first year, for the most part," he confessed. "Speaking in such a way, to the other Slytherins, was… uncouth. I didn't need even more for people to bully me over, so I trained myself out of it. I… slipped, on occasion. Remus found it particularly amusing to make me revert to my childhood accent." He blushed deeper, and Harry started blushing, too.
"I never knew. Aunt Petunia hasn't a trace of it."
"Oh, Tunie was speaking like a toff before she hit sixth form," Snape told him, and there it was, just a tiny hint of a Brummie twang. "Though it took her far longer than it did me to learn proper elocution, and it certainly didn't endear me to her any further." A small twitch of Snape's lips. "Lily, on the other hand, made a point of getting even more northern the longer we spent away from Cokeworth. Said she wasn't ashamed of where she came from and there was nothing wrong with a good regional accent. It was quite entertaining, watching her yell at your father — he was as posh as anything, and when she really got going I think he only understood a quarter of the words from her mouth."
Harry laughed, imagining that tiny red-haired girl yelling at a tiny Indian boy, her accent ever-thickening. "Would— would you show me, sometime?" he asked before he could help himself. "Not in your head, if you don't want." Experiencing things with the full weight of young Snape's emotions was a little alarming. "But… in the pensieve, maybe?" While they had it, it couldn't hurt to take advantage, surely?
"Perhaps," Snape drawled, and he — thankfully — didn't look offended. "If it will incentivise you to learn Legilimency faster."
Harry straightened up in his seat. "Deal."
To watch memories of his mother, he would do just about anything.
.-.-.-.
Harry was starting to feel like he was going insane.
Between the Prophet still denying the truth of the breakout — running a series of increasingly ridiculous articles about the criminal mastermind Sirius Black and what he could possibly be gathering Death Eater accomplices for — and Umbridge cracking down on any hint of independent thought within the walls of Hogwarts, the school began to move on from it all, and Harry often felt like he was the only one who realised how close to impending disaster they actually were.
Well, not the only one. His friends were right there with him. But just when he started to think they might be gaining a majority on the side of truth, he was knocked right back down again — like right now, in the Great Hall, overhearing a group of Ravenclaws in his own year laugh about how much of an attention-seeking crazy person he was, to be full of such anti-Ministry conspiracy theories. This, naturally, was the result of yet another detention with Umbridge after he mentioned in class that sending dementors out to search for the missing prisoners was not going to work when the dementors had let them escape to begin with.
He forgot, sometimes, that despite his growing friendships with people outside his own house, he didn't have everyone on his side. Padma and Mandy were the only Ravenclaw girls in his year that he spoke to, and there were still a fair few Hufflepuffs who gave him dirty looks whenever he was nearby. Hell, even within Gryffindor he was not entirely supported — Seamus and Dean had become Ron's new friends, and even though Ron was fully aware that Voldemort had returned and Sirius was an innocent man, he was happy to make jokes about how Harry had finally gone 'round the twist.
It was disheartening, to say the least. He was trying so hard to prepare people for the dark times to come, and they would much rather stick their heads in the sand and keep going with business as usual.
"If it's this bad inside the school when I'm right here telling the truth, I dread to think what the rest of the country thinks," Harry muttered, turning back to his lunch. He had Ginny on one side and Neville on the other, and the Weasley girl patted his shoulder sympathetically.
"With the Prophet against you, there's not much you can do."
Harry still scowled, absently wondering if Susan had any plans in her arsenal for laws about unbiased media reporting. He was on the verge of calling Mrs Frobisher back up, but he doubted there was much she could legally do about it; they were insinuating a lot, to be sure, but they weren't outright calling Harry a liar or a lunatic. He couldn't sue them just because they were saying not to worry about Voldemort.
"It's like last year all over again," he muttered, "only worse, because it's about other peoples' safety rather than just me being a glory-hound."
Suddenly, Ginny froze, and then a slow smile stretched across her face. "If it's like last year," she drawled, "why not take the same approach?"
Harry blinked at her, and then it clicked. "Write another article?" She grinned wider, nodding.
"People listened to the last one. Mostly," she added, remembering her own mother's firm denial on the subject. "But anyone with a brain can tell that the Ministry's story doesn't add up — if you tell the world the truth, it'll be harder for them to deny it. Not everyone will believe you, but you'll get plenty to think about it at the very least."
"Half the magical folks in the country only have the Prophet for news," Neville agreed. "They've no reason not to trust it. And they might not know anyone at the school to know that your story is a whole lot more plausible."
Harry thought it over, dipping the crust of his bread into his soup. It could backfire on him spectacularly; the Quibbler, as much as he loved Luna dearly, was hardly a recognised source of truthful, legitimate news.
But… it was like Ginny said. If he could just get people thinking, get them questioning the legitimacy of the stories the Prophet fed them…
"Okay, then," he declared, his heart lifting with enthusiasm for the first time in a long while. "It can't hurt." It could, but he wouldn't think too hard on that.
"At the very least it'll piss Umbridge off, and that's always a winner," Ginny chirped slyly. Harry laughed — that was certainly true. Maybe if Umbridge was railing at him again, she might ease up on Hagrid for a while.
"I'll talk to Luna in Charms," Ginny promised, grabbing her school bag. "You just start thinking about what you want to write."
Harry groaned quietly; he'd forgotten that publishing an article meant actually having to write the article. He'd have to try and squeeze that in somewhere amongst the three hundred other things he had going on.
But he would, because it was worth it. The resistance needed to happen outside of Hogwarts, too.