The Fallen Minister
1350 Words
The morning brought no comfort.
Harry had not slept. None of them had. After the Aurors fled, Hermione had reinforced the wards on Grimmauld Place with every protection she knew – blood wards, time wards, even a Fidelius charm she had no right to cast. The secret was now locked inside her heart. Only she could reveal the address.
But magic had limits. And fear had none.
Ron sat at the kitchen table, staring at a copy of the Daily Prophet that had arrived by reluctant owl. The headline screamed in letters of fire:
"YAXLEY CONFIRMED AS MINISTER – MASS ARRESTS BEGIN"
Below it, a photograph showed Kingsley Shacklebolt's empty chair in the Minister's office. His wand lay broken on the floor. No body had been found, but the Prophet declared him "presumed dead – killed by Dark sympathizers."
"Sympathizers," Ron spat, throwing the paper across the room. "They're calling us sympathizers. Harry, your face is on page three. 'Public Enemy Number One – Potter Harbors Fugitive Malfoy.'"
Harry didn't look at the paper. He was looking at his wrist.
The black thread had grown again overnight. Now it circled his entire forearm – not tight like a rope, but loose like a living vine. It didn't hurt. But it moved. When he was angry, it pulsed faster. When he looked at Ginny, it slowed down.
"It's responding to emotion," Hermione said, examining it with a magnifying lens. "Harry, I think the Shadow Weaver isn't just inside you. I think it's watching through you. Learning."
"Learning what?" Ginny asked sharply.
"Learning how to feel."
Draco sat in the corner, wrapped in the same quilt. His own black thread had grown too – but slower than Harry's. His was a thin line, barely past his wrist. He hadn't spoken since the Auror attack.
Now, finally, he spoke.
"Yaxley won't stop," Draco said quietly. "I know him. He visited my father often. He's not like Voldemort. Voldemort wanted power to feel immortal. Yaxley wants power to feel safe. He's paranoid. He'll kill anyone he thinks is a threat. And he thinks Harry Potter is the biggest threat of all."
Ron snorted. "Brilliant. So we're hiding in a house that Death Eaters already know about, with a man who used to be a Death Eater, while a new Death Eater runs the entire country. Anyone else feel like we've done this before?"
"Except last time we had Dumbledore's army," Hermione said. "Last time we had the Order. Last time we had hope. Right now, we have nothing."
"We have each other," Harry said.
Everyone turned to him.
He stood up from his chair. His green eyes – still green, though Ginny had seen them flicker black – were calm. The sleepless night had not broken him. It had sharpened him.
"Listen to me," Harry said. "After the war, I thought peace meant sitting still. I thought if I didn't fight, the fighting would stop. But peace isn't the absence of war. Peace is the presence of justice. And there is no justice in a world where Yaxley sits in Kingsley's chair."
"So what do we do?" Ginny asked. "We can't walk into the Ministry. There are hundreds of Aurors."
"We don't walk in," Harry said. "We sneak in. Just like we did at Gringotts. Just like we did at Hogwarts. Hermione, you still have your beaded bag?"
Hermione's eyes lit up with understanding. "Polyjuice. Invisibility cloaks. Dark detectors. Yes. But Harry – the Ministry has changed since we were seventeen. Yaxley will have installed new wards. Anti-Disapparition jinxes. Probably Dementors too."
"Then we need help," Ron said.
"Who?" Draco asked bitterly. "The Weasleys? They'll be watched. The Order? It disbanded. The Hogwarts staff? McGonagall can't wage a war with students inside."
Harry was quiet for a long moment.
Then he said: "There's someone we haven't asked."
---
Two hours later, Harry stood alone in the basement of Grimmauld Place. The room was empty except for a cracked mirror on the wall. Not just any mirror – the two-way mirror Sirius Black had given him years ago. The mirror he had never used. The mirror that could have saved his godfather's life.
He had kept it anyway. Out of guilt. Out of memory.
Now he raised it to his face and whispered: "I need you. Please."
For a full minute, nothing happened.
Then the glass shimmered. A face appeared – not Sirius. Not James. Someone older. Someone whose eyes held the weight of centuries.
"Hello, Harry," said Albus Dumbledore.
Harry stumbled backward. The mirror fell from his hand – but Dumbledore's voice continued, calm and warm, from the glass on the floor.
"You look surprised. Did you think death was the end of our conversations? I promised you, long ago, that help would always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it. I did not specify that I had to be alive."
Harry picked up the mirror with shaking hands. "Professor – how – you're dead. I saw you fall. I saw your body."
"You saw my body, yes," Dumbledore said gently. "But the soul, Harry? The soul does not fall. It moves. I have been watching you from the place between worlds. The same place where the Weavers live. And I must tell you – what you did for Draco Malfoy was the bravest thing you have ever done. Braver than facing Voldemort. Because this time, you had nothing to gain."
Harry's throat tightened. "Yaxley has taken the Ministry. Kingsley is dead."
"I know," Dumbledore said. "And I know how to stop him. But you will not like it."
"Tell me anyway."
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled – even in death, even in a mirror, they twinkled. "You must go back to Hogwarts. Not to fight. To listen. There is a room in the castle that no one has entered for a thousand years. The Room of Hidden Things is not the deepest secret of Hogwarts. Beneath it – far beneath – lies the First Hallway. The place where the Founders buried their greatest mistake."
"What mistake?"
"The first Horcrux," Dumbledore said. "Not made by Voldemort. Made by Salazar Slytherin himself. Yaxley is searching for it. If he finds it, he will not need an army. He will become immortal – truly immortal – in a way even Voldemort never achieved."
Harry's blood ran cold. "Where is the entrance?"
"In the girls' bathroom on the second floor," Dumbledore said. "The one Moaning Myrtle haunts. But Harry – the way is protected by something worse than monsters. It is protected by the truth. And the truth is that you cannot enter alone. You must bring the one who shares your shadow."
"Draco," Harry whispered.
"Yes," Dumbledore said. "The Weaver's mark binds you both. Together, you can open the door. Apart, you will die in the attempt. Now go – and Harry? Do not trust anyone who offers you an easy answer. The path to peace is never easy. That is why so few ever find it."
The mirror went dark.
Harry stood in the basement, alone, his black-threaded hand still raised.
Then he ran upstairs.
---
"We're going to Hogwarts," Harry announced.
Ron choked on his tea. "What?"
"No time to explain. Hermione – Polyjuice, three hours' worth. Ginny – write to your mum. Tell her we're fine but not to send owls. Draco –"
Draco looked up from the corner. His grey eyes were tired.
"You're coming with me," Harry said. "We have to open a door that hasn't been touched in a thousand years. And apparently, we have to do it together."
Draco stood up slowly. His black thread pulsed once – in rhythm with Harry's.
"You trust me?" Draco asked.
"No," Harry admitted. "But Dumbledore does. And he was never wrong about people. Not really."
For the first time in six months, Draco Malfoy smiled. It was small. Fragile. But it was real.
"Then let's go steal a Horcrux," Draco said. "Again."
Outside, rain began to fall on Grimmauld Place. And somewhere beneath Hogwarts, a door waited to be opened.
- Writer
