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Made of Common Clay	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 10987 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Chapter List
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Chapter Eighteen—Sat Within That Marble Circle
“Sometimes I question whether anyone has the right to do what you’re doing.”
“That’s a point,” Harry says, and knocks back the Firewhisky in his glass. Luna asked him to come over tonight, but it turns out it’s because she wanted Rolf to have company for dinner while she does something secret and important in the lab. Harry doesn’t mind, exactly, but he keeps remembering how Luna’s mother died in an accident in her lab.
“One you don’t care about.”
“Not exactly, no.” Harry puts his glass down and considers Rolf thoughtfully across the table and the remains of the excellent baked salmon. Rolf is a good cook when he tries. “I trust you to be able to know about it. But I’m not asking you to be part of the plan.”
“Did you ever consider how many good aspects the wizarding world has? Aspects that you’re going to ruin for everyone?”
“Like what?”
“Hogwarts! And how many lessons people learn there, and the fun the children have. And the magical creatures they study, and the way the Wizengamot can change laws, and the passion people have for the truth, and—”
“I was in more danger at Hogwarts than I’ve sometimes been as an Auror. It was full of people who had the tendency to idolize me at one moment and lash out at me the next. Some of the professors were pretty piss-poor. Some still are. The magical creatures have next to no rights. The Wizengamot considers blood purity before any kind of justice. And the truth? Rolf, most of the wizarding world didn’t want to believe Voldemort was back, or I was sane. They don’t care about that.”
“You’re just condemning everybody without giving them the chance to speak.”
“I spent nine years trying to reform the Ministry.” One thing Harry learned long ago is that lowering his voice is actually more effective than raising it. Actually, maybe Snape was the one who taught him that lesson. Kind of disturbing to think about. “Ron and Hermione tried to help me. Luna worked on creature laws. Neville did what he could when we needed a war hero’s voice or the voice of someone whose ancestors spent a lot of time on the Wizengamot. None of it worked. Those prejudices are too deeply-ingrained.”
“The answer still can’t be to burn it all down.”
“Why not?”
As Harry thought, Rolf doesn’t have a real answer. He retreats into baffled scowls at his glass and mutters that sound like, “Not a solution...”
“The solution we come up with will be,” Harry says, and smiles a little. He can’t wait to see what Rolf says when the Elder Wand goes to work. He will be one of the people not affected by the spell, so he should see the difference.
Yes, Rolf can know about some of it. Harry never intended to tell him everything.
“I have it.”
Harry and Rolf both look up as Luna comes bursting out of the lab where she’s been working. Harry feels his lips quiver as he sees the singed hair clustering around her brow, but he still stands up and pulls out a chair at the table for her.
“You have what?”
Luna lifts her hand grandly and spills a few cloudy orbs on the table. Harry leans over to study them curiously. They look like marbles, honestly, with blue and grey swirls in them.
“Do be careful. They might interact with the Nargles around your head.”
Harry pulls back obediently, though he’s looking at Luna out of the corner of his eye. She slumps back in the chair and shakes her head. “They didn’t want to come to me,” she murmured. “The Wooloons tried to hold them back. They like the world the way it is.” She nods to Harry. “I think the Sun Chamber has a lot of Wooloons in it.”
“Or at least a lot of loons,” Harry says dryly, and smiles at her to let her know that he’s not trying to refer to her old nickname. “What are they, Luna?”
“They can cool things down. When they burn.” Luna sighs when Harry only blinks at her, and ignores the way that Rolf is casting charms on her singed hair to make it stop being singed. “They can put out fires.”
Harry understands at once, and his eyes widen. “Do you really think you can make enough?”
“Yes.”
“If Luna says she can do something, she can do it. Not that I know what you’re talking about at the moment…”
Rolf sounds anxious. Harry ignores him and leans over to pick up Luna’s hand and gently kiss the back of it. “You’re brilliant.”
“Sometimes I think so. And I don’t listen to the Nargles when they try to tell me otherwise.” Luna’s gaze sharpens, and she touches the side of his face. “There’s going to be nothing to cool down the flames that start burning around you, Harry. Always remember where the exits are. And take the mask with you. It’ll let you breathe through the smoke.”
“I’ll remember,” Harry says solemnly, even though he hasn’t the least idea what she means by the mask. Luna is a lot more involved in their political fight than he ever thought she would be, as someone who likes to stay out of it, but her every thought still doesn’t have a one-to-one correspondence with reality.
“Good.” Luna leans back and yawns. “I would like some fresh roast beef in a salad and a lot of milk.”
Rolf immediately jumps up to provide that. Harry remains where he is, watching Luna through lazy eyes. She smiles solemnly back at him and reaches out to take his hand and turn it over.
“I never learned Divination.”
“Trust me, it’s a waste of bloody time.”
“Well, if the tower wasn’t so full of Jabbering Bloodlungs, maybe it wouldn’t be.” Luna traces a line down the middle of his hand and looks at him solemnly. “But I know this is called the life line. And I know that you’re doing things to endanger that line, Harry Potter. I don’t want you to get called out by the blood oranges.”
Harry smiles at her. “I know lots of people are going to call me out and call me all sorts of things in a while. But I promise that I won’t deliberately put myself in danger. I’m doing it right now because it’s the best way I could find to make my mark on the wizarding world.”
“Just watch out for blood oranges. And blood apples.”
“Here’s your salad and milk, Luna.” Rolf rushes over with the bowl and the glass, and Luna smiles up at him as she takes them.
“Thank you. You’re as sweet as a Straight-horned Snorkack. They’re much nicer than the Crumple-Horned ones, you know.”
“I’ll watch out,” Harry says, at the same time as Rolf beams at Luna and leans down to kiss her forehead.
Luna keeps her eyes straight on him as she takes the first bite of mingled cut beef and lettuce. “Good.”
*
“I don’t think you understand the importance of what I’m saying.”
“I do.” Harry gives Shafiq a patient look. There are a few of Luna’s marbles in his hands, and he’s considering if he should leave some here, but so far the Kingmakers haven’t used the same meeting place twice in a row. It’s a bit useless to place them where the conspirators won’t come into contact with them. “And I’m saying that I can’t swear secrecy on the Muggleborn Mirror because Hermione would know I was keeping something from her and ferret it out.”
“Ferret it out. A good synonym, Lord Potter, with how close to the dirt Mudbloods are.”
Harry smiles some more, while inside his head he dreams of breaking Shafiq’s neck with a Blasting Curse.
“Well, if you can’t do it yet, then we’ll do it later.” Shafiq puts down the blood quill she was going to have him sign a contract with and turns to say something to a small man behind her. He bows and scurries off. “But I’m going to show you the mirror and we’ll see what you think. You must understand the importance of this, Lord Potter. I wouldn’t show it to just anyone.”
Just anyone wouldn’t care. Harry nods and follows her.
This particular manor house seems to be made of entirely of black stone, which makes some of the torches they pass cast strange reflections on the walls and floor. Harry watches small shadows pass them. The house has defensive spells on it, too, which he knows may make it hard to harm anyone the owner considers a guest.
Then again, he’s not at the point where he wants to harm all the Kingmakers yet.
“This is it.”
Shafiq parades him into a large room with a dais of smooth brown stone at the center. Harry blinks. It actually looks like smoothed river pebbles. But then he sees the ripples of color in the stone, and snorts. An entire dais built of agate. Of course.
The mirror stands in the middle of the dais, on a sketched blue pentagram that Harry thinks may be necessary to contain it. He glances at Shafiq for permission and then moves forwards to stand in front of it.
It’s taller than the Mirror of Erised, and has no similar inscription around the top or sides. In fact, the only decoration at all is a repeated motif of vines with eyes peering out from between them. There are hands, too, and some of the hands have wands. Harry wouldn’t think anything was threatening just from observing it.
Then he looks into the glass.
The vision that comes back at him is horrific. Wizards and witches are trampling on goblins and blowing the hearts out of house-elves’ chests. Other humans die in front of them too, mixed with broken-legged centaurs and flayed merpeople. It’s like the Fountain of Magical Brethren come to atrocious life.
“You like the thought of us at eternal war?” he asks Shafiq without his voice trembling, which honestly impresses him.
“It wouldn’t last long,” Shafiq says. “And besides, Lord Potter, the mirror shows something different to everyone. I saw only the aftermath of the war, with flowers blossoming among the cracked stones in Diagon Alley and pure-blood children free to explore the alley without having to halt and pay tribute to Mudbloods.”
Harry cocks his head without taking his eyes from the mirrors. “Are you one of those who believes that fewer pure-blood children are born because of the existence of Muggleborns?”
“It makes sense, doesn’t it?”
No.
But Harry holds his peace, and listens to the whole spiel as Shafiq spins it: Muggleborns somehow steal the magic of pure-bloods, and steal the souls of those who would be born otherwise, and turn healthy magical children into Squibs by claiming the wands that would have gone to them. Harry’s run into it before when arresting blood purity extremists. He supposes Shafiq only kept it quiet until now because she thought she would send him running otherwise.
He does say, when she’s finished, “You keep forgetting that my mother was a Muggleborn.”
“She was powerful, and she had you.”
And that’s it, really. They would have trouble dealing with my mother if she was alive, but she’s dead, and that makes her a safe target.
None of it is a surprise, which the force of his own rage is. Harry breathes out carefully and faces the mirror again, extending a hand to touch it. The vision shimmers and vanishes at once, and there’s a silver ripple under the surface that chases his fingers.
“Don’t touch it for long, Lord Potter. We’re not entirely sure if it drains the magic of half-bloods or not.”
Harry lowers his hand and waits. The mirror goes back into placidity that resembles calm water. It still doesn’t reflect him and Shafiq or the room it’s in, though. It would be hard to mistake it for a normal glass.
“I’m a half-blood, but you want me to be your king?”
“You are a double Lord. That outweighs everything.”
Harry smiles and nods, and knows that Shafiq’s mind is still spinning across ways to get rid of him. It’s fine. His is doing the same thing in reverse.
He does go home when he leaves this particular manor and shower long enough to need a Warming Charm on the water, though. And he takes a Dreamless Sleep potion because he knows he’ll stay awake plotting ways to make them suffer, otherwise.
Magic was his salvation, the only reason he thinks he survived being a teenager. He would have died at the Dursleys’—mentally, probably not physically, but still. And Shafiq and people like her want to deny that to Muggleborns out of the insane belief that it will somehow let them have more children.
He might not use all the marbles Luna made after all. Burning is too good for them.
*
“I want you to come to dinner.”
Coming home to find Ginny’s face in his Floo isn’t a normal occurrence anymore. Harry leans back in his chair and studies her curiously. Her face is pale and set and determined, and she has one hand clenched down at her side, low enough out of the fire that he can’t see what she’s doing.
He hopes she knows better than to go for her wand, frankly. It would be disappointing if she was that much of an idiot.
“Why?”
“We need to discuss what you did to Simon.”
“Is he going to be there?”
“No.”
Harry nods. “All right. But if this is an ambush or trap of any kind, or if he’s there, I’ll turn around and walk right out the door. And I’ll never trust you again.”
Ginny blinks, and for a second her lips thin. Then she leans back and vanishes from the fire. Harry spends the moment tucking a few magical tricks from George’s shop into his sleeves and belt, and then he Flooes to Ginny’s house.
There’s no sound of Simon, or anyone but the two of them. Harry is vaguely surprised. He thought Ginny would have someone from her family to back her up.
Ginny folds her arms and gives him an unimpressed look. Harry nods to her. “What did you want to talk about?”
“I want you to stop punishing me for not having the same politics that you do.”
“How am I doing that?”
“Hurting my boyfriend. Upsetting my family.”
“I do that simply by existing. What do you want me to do, never talk about anything political again?”
Ginny glances away at the kitchen, which is cold and has no smells of food coming from it. Harry already guessed that he wouldn’t get any dinner. “I want to know why the world matters more to you than—other people.”
“Do you mean the whole of the wizarding world?” Because, honestly, no one has accused Harry of caring about the world in a while. When Ginny nods, he says, “Because there’s nothing but corruption all around me. People can be excused from crimes just based on their last name or who their grandfather fucked. Muggleborns still have people thinking of them as inferior based on outdated theories of magic. The Wizengamot doesn’t try cases, they try reputations. Kingsley would have let a fellow Auror’s son be murdered and do nothing about bringing the real criminal to justice because he’s so concerned about destabilization.”
“You’re trying to destroy the world I grew up in.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Why?” Ginny spins around and faces him head-on. “I’m sorry that you didn’t grow up in it, too. I’m sorry it came too late! But that isn’t the fault of the rest of us. Who tried!”
“And what about now?” Harry asks softly, not taking his eyes from her face. But he’s aware of the hands that could reach for a wand, and the way she’s tensed as if she’s going to cross the distance between them any second. “You don’t think the way Muggleborns are treated is shameful? You want to date someone who thinks Lords and Ladies are wonderful?”
“I never—I was called a blood traitor! Of course I don’t believe in blood purity!”
“But the way Muggleborns are treated doesn’t bother you?”
Ginny glances away, her face flushing. Harry watches her calmly. He doesn’t think she’s evil. He suspects that she feels like many other wizards and witches, that there’s nothing she can do and it would be stupid to protest and upend her life.
But she’s also not Muggleborn. She’s also not dated any Muggleborns or been close to them, beyond Hermione, as far as Harry knows.
That gives her much less of a right to protest what he does.
“You can stay out of it,” Harry says. “You don’t have to participate. But then you don’t get to lecture me, either.”
“You could use your titles, though. You could reform everyone and make them think—”
She stops, because Harry’s laughing. He stops to wipe away a few tears and shakes his head. “I’ve tried to reform the Ministry for nine years,” he says. “It doesn’t work. I’m fed up.”
“You don’t have the right to destroy a world just because you’re fed up!”
“There’s no other cure.”
Harry waits, but it seems like Ginny doesn’t have anything to say or protest now, so he turns back to the Floo.
“Harry?”
He glances over his shoulder. Ginny has a stubborn, determined expression he hasn’t seen in years on her face.
“I am going to stop you.”
“Feel that way if you want,” Harry says pleasantly. “Just don’t act on it.”
He disappears back through the flames before she can say anything.
- 17
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Made of Common Clay