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World in Pieces	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 16431 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

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Chapter Thirteen—Lay of the Land

            “I just don’t see that we can trust him, Mum.”

            Severus, who had reached out to lay his hand on the door of the room where the Weasleys had gathered after their initial resolution to help Harry, paused. It was Percy Weasley’s voice. Severus ought to know. No one else in that family had that perfect combination of whinging and pleading when he tried to force Severus to change his marks.

            “He spoke the truth under Veritaserum,” Molly replied. Moving his head to the side, Severus could see through the gap between the edge of the door and the wall, and this revealed Molly shaking out a set of robes briskly so that they snapped in the air and dust flew away from them. Severus didn’t think a house-elf could have done it better. “I don’t know what you think we ought to trust, Percy, if not that.”

            “It’s not that,” Percy said. Severus stepped back and angled his head again, and yes, there was the boy, standing in front of his mother and staring at the floor. His mouth was set in an unhappy line, but also a stubborn one. Severus made a mental note that he would probably continue his opposition no matter what his family said. Percy had always worshipped authority, and Dumbledore maintained that aura of unquestionable grandeur even for students who had left the school.

            “Then what is it?” Molly turned around and gave the boy an impatient glance. “Unless you are going to insist that all of us should distrust anyone who questions Albus Dumbledore no matter what, I think this is a serious charge that we need to think about carefully.”

            “Carefully, exactly!” Percy said, snapping his head up and down. “That’s just it, Mum! Someone appears out of nowhere and claims that the Order is summoning every single Harry Potter in all the universes and making them fight You-Know-Who? And this one just happens to be different? I think You-Know-Who is playing a trick on us, Mum! I think he’s trying to turn the Order of the Phoenix against each other.”

            Severus smothered a snort. He had not realized that the outer ring of Weasleys might think of themselves as part of the Order. In truth, Albus had trusted only those whose devotion to him was unquestioned, such as Black and Minerva, or those he had some sort of hold over, like Lucius and Severus, who would probably perish without his protection.

            “And what about the Veritaserum, then?” Molly was considering her son the way she might, Severus thought, when he told a lie about eating all his vegetables. “Are you going to say it was only water?”

            “Well, no,” Percy admitted. “That Harry, whoever he is, reacted like someone who was under it. But Snape brewed it, Mum. Or at least gave it to him. And Snape is the one who supports his story. Isn’t it a little suspicious that he’s the only Order member here? Where are all the others who would be horrified by something like this and turn against Dumbledore because of it? There has to be at least one, right?”

            Severus smiled in spite of himself. Had it not been about something as serious as potentially depriving Harry of the support he needed, he might have been proud of the boy. At last, someone who listened when I cautioned them to question, to criticize what was happening around them, rather than simply accepting whatever happened.

            Molly pursed her lips, or at least she was doing that when Severus again altered his line of sight. “That’s a good question,” she said. “But consider what’s been happening to Ron in the past several years.”

            Percy blinked several times. Severus shook his head. His brother’s actions and fate had been the furthest things from Percy’s mind, then. They usually were, from what Severus had been able to tell. Percy was one of the few students he had known who cared almost nothing for his House’s reputation, if he had to choose between caring about that and about his own marks. “What do you mean?”

            “I mean that he’s become more obsessed with the war and with obeying the Headmaster,” Molly said. “I think the Headmaster is a good man in many ways, Percy, but you know that we’ve always encouraged you children to come to us first with your problems.”

            Percy looked as though he didn’t relish being reminded that he was a child, but he nodded jerkily.

            “Ron got into debt when he had to buy a new cauldron after he blew his first one up,” Molly said. Severus nodded; he remembered that incident. There was a stain on one of the tables in his classroom that was never going to fade, or, most likely, stop smelling of molten metal. “If he had come to me or your father, we could have settled things easily enough. But no, instead he went to the Headmaster for a loan of the necessary Galleons.”

            “Well, uh,” Percy said, and then blinked again. “That’s not really a bad thing, is it, Mum? You always encouraged us to trust Professor Dumbledore.”

            “It does argue that he trusts someone else more than he trusts his family,” Molly said firmly. “And there were other times, times when something happened to Ron and we were the last ones to hear about it instead of the first.” She frowned at the far wall, and something made the light in her eyes colder than Severus had ever seen. “No. Maybe not everything about Harry’s story is true, but there’s a score I’ve been meaning to settle with Albus Dumbledore for a while.”

            Severus gave another smile. This was not something they could have planned, but once again, he and Harry could take advantage of it. Albus truly had cared for nothing in the last six months but the inner circle of the Order and battling the Dark Lord; he would not have noticed that some of his other followers’ loyalty was beginning to slip.

            “You’re talking about fighting him?” Percy sounded as though he could not decide whether his mother was more mad or more courageous.

            “Yes, I am,” Molly said, and turned to face her son. The angle was not perfect for Severus to catch a glimpse of her face, but apparently, it was enough to make Percy gulp and try to press himself backwards into the carvings on the wall. “Not in the way that you’re thinking of, but with words and information. That, I can certainly do.”

            Severus raised his eyebrows and wondered which member of her family had been questioning Molly’s ability to do as much. It would seem foolish for any to do so, in truth, but they were not beyond acting foolishly; they were Gryffindors.

            “I just don’t understand, that’s all,” Percy whispered, shaking his head. “The Headmaster always seemed so—beyond reproach.”

            His mother walked past him and tapped him sharply on the back of the head as she did, making his hand fly up to the spot. “It’s time that you learned no one is, Percy,” she said. “Now, I’m going to go and find Harry. If you want to make yourself useful, cast some Housekeeping Charms in here. We’ll be staying for a while.”

            Severus stepped back from the room and walked several steps down the corridor. Molly might still suspect that he had eavesdropped, but she would not have proof, and that should be enough to convince her that she need not strike him.

            When the door opened, Molly turned and glanced straight at him, and nodded. “Good, you’re here,” she said. “Where is Harry staying?”

            If she had no courtesy to spare for a Slytherin, at least her directness and lack of nonsense made her a guest after Severus’s own heart. He nodded up the stairs and began to lead her, wondering as he went whether Harry had stopped gaping at the space in his new room. Not unexpected, for a boy who had spent time in the cramped circumstances of his relatives’ home, but amusing to watch.

*

            Harry took another walk around his room, and kept his arms stretched out as he went, thinking all the while that the distance between the walls had to be an illusion, and that he would bump into them at some point.

            But nothing like that happened. The room remained exactly as it had from the time that Snape had brought him up here, wide, and spacious, and so vast that Harry half-suspected this was another folded wizardspace inside Shaldon’s Garden.

            The walls were the same polished wood as the great room downstairs, but of a slightly paler color, and the wall that Harry thought faced south was nothing but a window, with bright sun pouring through the glass. Here and there were crystal ornaments, and mirrors, and small glass lamps that bounced the light and reflected it. Harry wasn’t sure if it was the angle they were set up at or enchantments or just pure luck that no glare ever seemed to strike his eyes, but they made the room bright, that was for sure. It was as if Snape had wanted to make sure that Harry had no dimness here to remind him of Dudley’s second bedroom in Privet Drive.

            Harry scowled and turned sharply away from the window as he thought that. That couldn’t happen, because Snape didn’t know enough details about that place. And he never would.

            The room was crowded along the walls with small tables, and shelves, and cabinets, and lacquered wooden boxes, although the floor was so wide and bare that Harry didn’t have any fear of tripping over anything. And when he opened a red box with golden dragons sporting on the sides, he found out fast enough that this wasn’t a room full of broken toys and discarded games like Dudley’s.

            Not at all.

            Inside the box was a huge rock, black on the outside, and glittering purple out of the core, which was split so Harry could see it. Harry just knelt there, staring at it. That was the purest purple he had ever seen, and he wondered if it was made of amethyst.

            Then he shut the lid of the box and turned and started opening the others.

            There were steel figurines of dragons inside, and iron sphinxes, and more rocks—Harry decided tentatively that they were geodes, and not huge jewels—and cuttings of plants that waved towards him when he opened the lids as though they were more of the mind-reading plants from the garden, and shining vases that had flowers carved on the sides, and books that Harry couldn’t read when he looked inside them, and golden cups, and chains of silver, and brass manacles that were so small Harry thought they might have been made to hold fairies. It was wondrous, and it was never-ending. And then Harry started pulling out the drawers in the little tables, and there were more things there: lockpicks, and smaller chains, and necklaces, and collars, and earrings, and tuning forks, and spoons, and tweezers, and leaf-thin mirrors that Harry hesitated to pick up in case he broke them, and golden coins.

            He wondered if this wealth came with the house or if Snape had brought it back here and stored it. He probably could live here if he wanted, Harry thought in a daze, sitting back and staring at the latest drawer he had opened, which had a book that looked like it was made of silk, with glittering sheets for pages and a scarlet cover. And he could use all this money to buy his Potions ingredients and stronger wards in case Dumbledore came after him.

            Why doesn’t he stay here? Does he really distrust himself that much?

            But it seemed he had to. It was what he’d said, and Harry hadn’t seen any other reason so far that would make sense.

            Someone knocked on his door. Harry stood up hastily, shut the drawer in front of him, and then flicked his wand so that all the other drawers and box lids slammed shut. “Come in!” he called, his voice a small noise after the much bigger one.

            Snape stepped into the room and gave Harry a measuring glance, then flicked his eyes over his shoulder. Harry understood. Snape hadn’t come alone. Harry nodded back and leaned around Snape to see who it was.

            Mrs. Weasley gave him a faint smile and waited outside the room’s door for a minute. It took Harry forever to realize what she was waiting for, and he flushed as he said, “Of course you can come in, Mrs. Weasley.”

            “Thank you,” she said quietly, stepping in and still staying near the door as if she didn’t want to crowd him. “I didn’t want to presume.”

            “Sometimes I think you have to,” Harry said. He sat down in one of the chairs near the center of the room, because if he stood up, he would just fidget around and he knew that wouldn’t present a good picture of a confident leader. “I want you to fight for me and turn against people you’ve known all your life.”

            “I think I know them less well than I thought I did,” Mrs. Weasley said simply, and moved towards one of the chairs, glancing at Harry. Harry nodded, and she sat down. He caught a glimpse of Snape raising his eyebrows behind her. Well, he could do that. If Harry chose to invite her in, then she could come.

            “Like Ron?” Harry asked.

            Mrs. Weasley compressed her lips. “He’s turned to Dumbledore when he should have turned to me,” she said. Her face was flushing, but there was a weariness in her eyes that made Harry wonder if she was more angry or tired. “I can understand him feeling confused or overwhelmed the first time that they wanted him to help in the summoning of someone like you from another universe. It’s the sort of thing that could be presented as compelling. Saving the world.” She shut her eyes and touched her forehead as if remembering something. “Ron always wanted to be different from his brothers. I’m sure Dumbledore knew that and pointed out that this was a way to be different from any of them.

            “But he should have had the good sense and the strength to refuse, and to come and talk to me about it if he was confused. I thought he did.” She shook her head and opened her eyes. “So. There were some questions I wanted to ask, and I’m sure you have some.” She smiled at him, and she looked like the Mrs. Weasley he had left behind, enough so to make Harry swallow the lump in his throat.

            “Yeah,” Harry said. “I don’t know anything about the world outside Hogwarts, really, except Voldemort’s headquarters.” Both Mrs. Weasley and Snape flinched a little, and Harry reminded himself to be careful with the name. “What’s the Ministry doing? What does the wizarding world think they’re doing?”

            “The Ministry has essentially collapsed,” Mrs. Weasley said, and wove her fingers into a clenching knot on her lap. “Most of the workers don’t bother to show up on a daily basis now; they’re making do only with the ones they absolutely have to have. And even then, the Aurors and the Hit Wizards are protecting the Ministry officials more than anyone else.”

            Harry grimaced. “What do they do when Snake-Face kills someone?”

            Mrs. Weasley blinked, then smiled. It was a faint little smile, but, well, Harry could understand that. “They get the Prophet and the wireless to announce how sorry they are, and go back to doing nothing.”

            Harry stood up and paced back and forth, because he thought he might explode if he sat still, and he didn’t want to do that right in front of Mrs. Weasley. “That’s disgusting,” he said. “I understand why they do it, because they’re afraid, but that’s no excuse.”

            “It certainly is not.”

            Harry turned around and grinned at Mrs. Weasley. He was sure that she had been part of Gryffindor in this world, even if everything else about her was different. She practically sat on the edge of her seat now, vibrating with indignation, her hands clasped in front of her and her eyes shining.

            “What does the public think about this?” he asked. “Are people still traveling? Is there anyone who’s criticizing the Ministry or trying to get them to change?”

            “Very few,” Mrs. Weasley said, shaking her head. “Especially because Snake-Face—I do like that—targets them first, and even fewer of them can outrun the Death Eaters. Fewer and fewer try.” Her eyes had a military brightness. “People will still Apparate, but they fear the Floo and Portkeys, which the Death Eaters have largely hijacked.”

            Harry nodded, thinking. “What about traitors? Are there a lot of Death Eater spies among ordinary people?”

            Mrs. Weasley frowned. “I would say there aren’t many in Ottery St. Catchpole, but it’s hard to tell. You should talk to Bill and Charlie about that, and perhaps Percy.” She said his name so reluctantly that Harry was immediately sure that Percy wouldn’t want to talk to him. He looked briefly at Snape while Mrs. Weasley had her head bowed, thinking, and Snape gave him a minute nod.

            Well. Harry would just have to live with that. He had lived with the Order of the Phoenix being a much bigger hindrance to him, after all.

            “I think,” Mrs. Weasley said, when she’d spent a few more minutes thinking, “that there are people there who want to fight. But the fearful ones persuade them not to, because You-Know-Who doesn’t kill only them. He kills their families and friends. He’s burned whole Muggle villages to the ground to get at a single wizarding house.”

            “What do the Muggles think is going on?” Harry asked eagerly. He didn’t think he would actually get any help from that direction, but if he knew what they thought, then he might know how hard it would be to move around among them.

            Mrs. Weasley gave him a sad smile. “Terrorists, mostly, Arthur says. Anyone who walks around in London now—outside the wizarding parts, of course—needs identification papers, and is watched constantly.”

            Harry nodded. He should have expected that. “How many people still do things like go to Diagon Alley?”

            “Oh, some,” said Mrs. Weasley. “People still need to eat. But You-Know-Who makes random strikes there, too, and there are people who will turn to their own gardens or the markets in their villages instead of daring to leave.”

            “What does he want, then?” Harry asked, surprised. This Voldemort had seemed so much saner and smarter than the one Harry knew that he wouldn’t have thought he would do stupid things like that. “He can’t want to starve them out, can he? When he wouldn’t let them flee or go to the Death Eaters anyway?”

            “Those who want to join, he does take,” said Mrs. Weasley firmly, and her eyes burned. “Traitors. Of course, if they’re not at least half-bloods, they’re killed when they reveal their existence to him. All the Muggleborns I know are being very, very cautious.”

            Harry nodded. He saw Snape shift behind Mrs. Weasley’s chair, and raised his eyes to him.

*

            Severus did not like the new feeling in his veins, as if his blood was on fire and charging through them. He distrusted it. It was the way he had once felt when he was younger, listening to the Dark Lord speak.

            It felt as though there was some hope of changing the world when he listened to Harry.

            And he distrusted that. Harry, for all that he was strong and sure of himself and a better leader than Severus would have thought even one of them who had won his own war could be, was still a teenager, and one inexperienced in the ways of this universe. The Dark Lord was much older in terms of experience and strength and cunning. They would not win so easily.

            But he could try to make his contributions in terms of realism that might help Harry and the Weasleys understand that. So he merely nodded in acknowledgment of Harry’s glance and then said, “You should understand what he wants, from having fought him. The complete and unconditional surrender of everyone’s hearts and minds, from their souls outwards. He will tolerate no defiance.”

            “Fancy hearing you speak of souls, Severus,” Molly murmured, not turning around.

            Severus smiled at her even though she couldn’t see, and it might look more as if he wanted to eat her than anything else. She was reminding him of reality, grounding him when he tried to soar. That was a valuable thing right now.

            “I speak of the way the Dark Lord thinks,” he murmured, meeting Harry’s eyes. “He believes in the soul. Believes in it absolutely. He believes in it as something to corrupt, to break down, to destroy. Beware what allegiance you give his ideas, Mr. Potter—” he thought it better to use a slightly formal title for Harry in front of someone else, if he was supposed to be their war leader “—but understand them, at the same time.”

            “Well, it seems weird that if he feels that way, he’s been in a holding pattern,” Harry said bluntly. “He hasn’t destroyed the Order yet, and they defy him. He hasn’t been working day and night on a way to destroy me, and I did it.”

            Severus felt his lips pull back from his teeth in absolute contempt, though not of Harry’s reasoning abilities, as he once would have believed if anyone had asked him about Harry Potter being in Gryffindor. “Do you not see?” he asked softly. “Do you not understand?”

            “Understand what?” Harry looked at him warily.

            “The Dark Lord,” Severus said, making sure that he enunciated precisely, “thinks the Order one of the greatest allies he could have. I am not speaking of the fact that he may have a spy among them—though I am all but sure he does—but that he believes they will destroy themselves with their spells that summon Harry Potters, their combination of fear and hope. He need not move against them as long as he has other enemies elsewhere, which he does, and as long as they are in their own holding pattern. The delay costs him nothing. And just in case it is a ruse, which of course, as eternally distrustful as he is, he must consider, he will have extra time to study the spells Dumbledore may know and defeat him if it comes to open battle.”

            Harry scowled. The expression charged all the lines of his face, and made his green eyes blaze. Severus felt that stupid hope waking up in him again. Here might be someone he could follow into battle—

            Severus crushed that hope with a ruthless grasp. He did not yet know whether his role was as adviser, or as companion fighter beside Harry, or as something else. So he waited. So he must wait.

            “Yeah, he’d think that way,” Harry muttered in what sounded like disgust. Severus felt a laugh pulling the corners of his mouth inside. The Dark Lord would be unable to comprehend that his enemy despised him, along with feared him. “Fine. So why do you think he’s holding back on me?”

            Severus stepped around Molly’s chair and knelt in front of Harry’s, staring at him on an equal level. He was aware of Molly’s wondering eyes, and felt a small squirming of satisfaction. He would put on a show for her. The better he managed to convince her that Harry was someone worth following, the more easily he could convince others.

            And the more she would act as a forerunner for them, telling them that Harry was someone who could make the haughty Severus Snape treat him as an equal.

            “Because you have three times surprised him,” Severus said softly. “With the hawk, with the confrontation in his headquarters, with the mental battle. He has no need of moving too fast and potentially exposing weakness, he will think. He will study you, and act only when he is sure that he can destroy you.”

            “So the next strike is the heavy one,” Harry muttered, staring at Severus.

            Severus nodded. “That is my belief.”

            “What will happen if I have allies?” Harry asked, his voice detached, almost as if he was voicing the question to himself rather than Severus. “Is he likely to move faster? Strike at them? Hold back again? Try to find a way to isolate me from them and then strike?”

            “I think,” Severus said, “that it will depend on the strength, and presence, and number, of those allies. Keep them hidden for a time in one or more of those aspects, and he is likely to remain preparing slowly and cautiously.”

            Harry smiled, and then turned around and looked over Severus’s shoulder at Molly. “What do you think?” he asked. “Do you think you could spread the word about this and recruit more people without alerting anyone who would tell the truth to the Death Eaters?”

            When Molly Weasley smiled, it made her whole face swell and shine with some of the confidence and power that Severus had seen in Harry’s.

            And that is also not a thought I should be having, lest it tempt me to the extremes of hope, Severus told himself sternly, and stood, moving out of the way so that Molly and Harry could more comfortably converse. His point was made.

            “Yes, I think so,” said Molly judiciously. “It would, of course, depend on where I started, and what I should tell them.” She watched Harry expectantly.

            Harry blinked, but then sat up. “I want everyone who’s willing to fight,” he said firmly. “Who has the courage. It doesn’t really matter if they’re powerful wizards or not. They can still teach and learn and hide people and help us with spying if they’re not. But we need to spread the word quietly, underground.”

            “And then spies would be the worst things we had to fear.” Molly nodded thoughtfully, tugging at her hair for a moment, and then seeming to remember who she was with and dropping her hand back into the lap. “As I said, I should speak to my sons about that, since they travel more often than anyone else in the family.”

            “The worst thing we have to fear is always the Dark Lord,” Severus said sharply. “We will lose the war if you forget that.”

            Molly gave him a look that was far more merely tolerant than Severus would have expected. Then again, he reckoned that might be what he deserved, when he had deliberately given up his dignity to show her how much he trusted Harry to lead them. “Of course, Severus. You will be our voice of fear, I’m sure, when we’re about to forget.”

            Severus put a hand on his arm, thinking he might have to show her the Dark Mark to remind her of what the Dark Lord could do, but Harry stood up and walked towards the center of the room, shaking his head.

            “I think we need to be afraid of him,” he said. “Professor Snape’s right. We have to be cautious, or we’ll lose the war.”

            Mrs. Weasley turned and studied him curiously. “You don’t think Dumbledore is losing the war by being too cautious?”

            “No, he’s losing the war because he’s being stupid,” Harry said confidently. Severus choked, wishing that Harry could have said that to Albus’s face and that he could have been there to see Albus’s expression—contradicted on his authority by a mere teenager!—but Harry was going on, not having noticed Severus’s reaction. “He thinks I’m the only one who can defeat You-Know-Who, so he wants to summon another version of me. And then I’m supposed to just do it miraculously, I suppose, without any kind of training whatsoever.”

            Molly shook her head. “That is madness to do to a child.”

            “Oh, I agree,” Harry said, with a faint, sinister smile that made Severus want to applaud. “But it’s going to keep him from interfering, and it’s also going to keep him from winning the war. We have to go a little slowly, enough to keep him from catching on, but not as slowly as Dumbledore did.

            “And that means that we need something else. A distraction, something that will convince Vol—him that we’re doing something other than what we are, gathering allies and support.”

            “What’s that?” Molly seemed at least willing to listen. Severus had to wonder at that. He didn’t remember her treating even Dumbledore that respectfully, when she had been part of the Order of the Phoenix and Albus had been a leader worth following.

            Harry smiled. “I was thinking of using Dumbledore as bait.”

*

            Harry kind of liked the way they both stared at him. It was nice, to be respected, for once, as someone with neat and interesting ideas instead of the pawn that the Order here had tried to treat him as.

            And even when he was on the Horcrux hunt with his friends, he had sometimes felt like baggage, dragged along mainly because he was the one that Dumbledore (his version) had entrusted with the knowledge. Hermione came up with helpful spells. Ron rescued him from the pond when the locket had started to choke him and figured out ways to destroy other Horcruxes. He could come up with plans separate from his friends, though.

            That didn’t diminish his longing to go home as soon as possible. But it did remind him that he wasn’t entirely alone here, and he didn’t have to give up and crumble to the ground because Hermione wasn’t at his elbow with history or Ron with strategy.

            “You will explain what you mean by that.”

            Harry glanced over at Snape, smothering a grin. Yeah, he looked somewhere between shocked and angry. He didn’t like being surprised. Harry would have to remember that when they started planning battle strategy, and try to include Snape in everything from the beginning. He didn’t want to make an enemy of probably his most powerful ally.

            “Yes, please do.”

            Mrs. Weasley sounded interested. Harry faced her and decided that he would rather explain his plan directly to her, anyway. That would give Snape a chance to recover his dignity without feeling like Harry was staring at him.

            “Vold—sorry, Snake-Face is already worried about Dumbledore. What if we used Polyjuice to make him think that Dumbledore had left Hogwarts and was traveling around working on other rituals to summon different versions of me? Multiple ones, this time. We could spread the rumor that Dumbledore had given up on controlling me and wanted to try several Harrys at once, from different universes.”

            Mrs. Weasley opened her mouth, and then paused and blinked. “It certainly sounds interesting,” she said at last, in the tone she had used back in his world when the twins asked her to serve some of their sweets for dinner one night. “But surely it would place innocent people in danger? Wherever the fake Dumbledore went?”

            Harry shook his head. “We’d have him, or me, or whoever plays him—”

            “Not you.”

            Snape’s voice said that he would argue if Harry tried to contradict him. Harry decided not to for now—not because he was giving up on the thought of playing Dumbledore, but because it simply wasn’t worth the argument. He just nodded and went on. “We should have them keep away from villages. Just pretend that he’s looking at likely ritual sites.”

            “How do you know what a good one would look like?” Harry knew even before he checked over his shoulder that Snape would have his arms folded. Yeah, he did.

            “That part, I leave up to the research of other people,” Harry said, and then focused on Mrs. Weasley. “What do you think?”

            Mrs. Weasley smiled. “I think that Fred and George would be delighted to be involved in this. And they will certainly have their own ideas.”

            “Yeah, they do.”

            Harry started as the door of his bedroom opened and Fred and George stood there, grins all over their faces. Snape glared at them, but they didn’t look sorry for having been caught listening. Then again, as far as Harry could remember, they never did. They held up Extendable Ears.

            Harry laughed, and tried to keep from staring too hard at the sight of the twins together, both alive. “What are some of the ideas you have, then?” he asked.

            The twin on the left—Harry thought it was George—grinned and looked at the one on the right. Fred nodded and said, “We reckoned that the people who really deserve You-Know-Who’s attention are the Death Eaters. Now, it just so happens that we have these little toys.” He reached into his robe pocket and produced a green wooden box that he held up and opened.

            Harry squinted. Even though he was standing closer to the door than he had been a few minutes ago, it was still kind of hard to see what Fred held. After a few seconds, he could identify it as a silver ball, shaped like a Snitch.

            “What does it do?” he asked, leaning forwards. As far as he could remember, the Fred and George in his world had never come up with anything like this.

            “Shall we, brother mine?” Fred asked George, and then cast the silver ball at him. It grew wings as it flew, just like a Snitch, but also changed color and shape, so that in the end it only looked like a fat bug hovering around George. George blinked and looked around vaguely, although Harry didn’t know if that was a real part of the thing’s effect or only part of the performance they were giving.

            “Who was the one who broke into Mum’s bedroom last week and changed all the sheets to mauve?” Fred asked.

            “I was,” George said dreamily.

            Mrs. Weasley rose to her feet like a mountain standing up. “I didn’t find any mauve sheets,” she started to say.



            Fred gave her an appealing look, and Mrs. Weasley stopped talking, but folded her arms and gave him a look that Harry could translate, too. Explain this or you will be in big trouble.

            Fred continued hurriedly. “Did you break into Mum’s bedroom just now and turn the sheets yellow?”

            “Yes,” George said in the same tone. “That was me, all right.”

            Fred snapped his fingers, and the silver thing zoomed back to him and into the box, which he shut. George shivered and rubbed his ears. “Brrr,” he said. “That’s bloody creepy, that’s what it is.”

            “It makes people confess to false crimes?” Harry asked, fascinated.

            “It makes people confess to whatever they’re asked,” said Fred, smugly. “Took us forever to get the formula right.”

            “And that means,” George added, with an awful grin, “that You-Know-Who is going to think he’s surrounded by traitors. He’s paranoid. He looks for them anyway. He’ll figure out what’s going on eventually, but by then, he won’t know who to trust and not to trust. And he’ll waste an awful lot of time on torture and Veritaserum.”

            “And by then,” Fred added, with a firm nod, “we’ll have come up with something else.”

            “Do you think it’ll work?” Harry asked, turning instinctively to look at Snape, even though Mrs. Weasley had a complex expression on her face and he supposed he could have asked her first.

*

            Severus wanted to announce that no, it would not. He wanted to announce that the Dark Lord would catch on too quickly and that made the risk not worth the taking.

            But he paused, remembering some of the things the Weasley twins had got away with at Hogwarts, tricks that not even Albus had been able to fathom, and under the eyes of watchful portraits and professors like Minerva, who had seen generations of students who thought they were clever. The Weasley twins truly were.

            If they had allies, they had to permit those allies to help them, or they were useless.

            And as he thought about it, more plans began to occur to him, new wrinkles and twists that he could add to what Harry and the Weasley twins had come up with.

            So he met Harry’s eyes, and then the eyes of their new allies, one by one, and said firmly, “Yes, it very well may.”

            He did not feel the return of hope again at Harry’s fierce, predatory grin. He did not. He was in better control of himself than that.

            But perhaps it was worth remembering that one could not always be in control of the future.

*

            moodysavage: Thanks! I do think these chapters have less action than before, because they’re in the plotting and planning stages, but the next one should be able to move ahead.

            And I don’t know if Snape could make one like that. He sort of inherited this one, so he didn’t have to do anything about its protections.

            unneeded: Thanks! Sorry it took so long, but it’s here now!

            If you want to borrow the idea of a box in a box territory, that’s fine with me. I probably got it from somewhere else anyway, though now I don’t remember where.

            No, Molly is not happy with Ron at all. She thinks his first loyalty should be to his family, and it obviously no longer is.

            Zip: No problem! So far, the Order hasn’t had to face the question of whether Harry would stay or not; since the others have died, it was moot. But Draco, at least, might be sympathetic for a bit.

            Harry still hasn’t had time to break the code in the diary.
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World in Pieces