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Made of Common Clay	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 10987 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Six—Lit Some Lighter Light
“Lord Potter!”
Harry sighs and groaned and wakes slowly, stretching and shaking his head. A glare through one squeezed-shut eyelid says that it’s three forty-five in the morning. Harry takes his wand in hand and glares at the Floo.
But it continues shouting, and now he recognizes the shouting as Honeywell’s voice. “Lord Potter! Lord Potter! I must speak with you immediately!” Green sparks are shooting out of the fireplace as if Honeywell intends to walk through at any second.
As sleep finally falls away from him, Harry remembers the plot he put in motion yesterday, and starts to grin. Of course, it wouldn’t do for Honeywell to see that, so he tucks his hands into his stomach and casts a spell that puts a glittering Potter coat of arms on his dressing gown over his chest. Let Honeywell believe he sleeps like that all the time.
That done, he finally opens the Floo and makes sure to sound more sleep-fogged than he really is. “Lady Honeywell? What’sit?”
“Lord Potter, Lord Potter!” Honeywell’s face appears, and she’s panting like a teenage girl who just broke up with her boyfriend, tears streaming down her face. “The most awful thing—you must come through!”
“But where?” Harry scratches his head and makes sure that some more of his hair stands up than was already doing it. “Could be dangerous. Someone might be trying to kill Lords and Ladies.” He nods and yawns.
Honeywell’s head moves as if she’s actually dancing in place on her knees in front of her own hearth. “Lord Potter, please! No more of this nonsense! No one’s trying to assassinate us, but they are trying to discredit the Sun Chamber! Come through, please, please, please!”
“Can’t be too careful,” Harry says in a sullen mutter, but he knows he’s close to overdoing it. He stands and sighs and Transfigures his dressing gown into a set of robes that are close enough to acceptable Honeywell shouldn’t groan over them. More important, they still have that golden Potter crest on them.
“Please come through, Lord Potter.”
Honeywell sounds almost desperate. Harry arranges his face in a suitably grave expression, like the way he arranged his hands, and passes through.
He comes out into a huge black room, set with slabs of gleaming dark marble that have lines of silver between them. Harry nearly pauses and draws his wand, but Honeywell is hurrying him along before he can do anything, and he finds himself stumbling into a better-lit room filled with mahogany and gilding and silver and worried Lords and Ladies.
Malfoy is there. He gives Harry a sharp stare as he walks in. Harry raises his eyebrows blandly back, and looks around. Not all the Lords and Ladies are here, but he thinks he’s looking at at least half the Sun Chamber. He doesn’t see Neville, though.
“Now that the ones most affected are here,” says Honeywell, cupping her hands around her mouth, “if I could have your attention?”
Most affected? Hmm. Harry knows that the article he had Skeeter write about the Chamber’s sun covering a Dark Mark didn’t mention any Lord or Lady as in more danger than anyone else. He wonders idly if they’re here about something else.
Or if Skeeter changed the article. Harry doesn’t smile except on the inside. If she did that, she will soon be wishing she hadn’t.
“This—this horrible accusation of our sun hiding the Dark Mark,” Honeywell begins, her voice trembling a little.
Ah. Harry turns and stares hard at Honeywell. No one needs to know that he’s staring out of glee, or so that he can put this moment in a Pensieve and treasure it forever with his friends.
“I have called here everyone who fought in the war, or lost family members to it.” Honeywell folds her arms and looks small and old. Harry wants to roll his eyes. Everyone she can remember who fought in the war or lost family members to it, more like, or Neville would be here. “I want to know how we’re going to respond to this. They’re actually demanding we let Aurors remove the sun in our Chamber to look beneath it!”
Harry bites his tongue. It’s good he does, because that lets him hear Malfoy say in an immensely entertaining shaky voice, “What began this rumor?”
“Skeeter claims that the curved top of the sun looks like the skull on the Dark Mark!” Honeywell looks bigger, but no less old. Ripe with luxury and ready to fall, Harry thinks idly. “Who started this—”
“Why not the last person who spread rumors about the Sun Chamber?”
“What?”
“Your precious Lord Potter and Lord Black,” Malfoy says, and swings to stare narrow-eyed at Harry. “Where would Skeeter have got the notion but from him?”
Harry makes sure that his mouth is a little parted, and he blinks rapidly. Then he says, “I’ve never heard anything so outrageous in my life.”
“Why not? You inspired the last article spreading rumors about us.” Malfoy prowls towards him, his cane stabbing into the floor as if he thinks that he’s going to find a weak spot and send all of them through it, while he hovers miraculously in midair. “I want to know if it was you.”
“Of course it wasn’t me!” Harry gives him a disgusted look. “Why would it be? I barely knew anything about the Sun Chamber before I stepped in here, by your own design.”
“I am not the one who made the rules—”
“I mean, the design of the Sun Chamber.” Sometimes, Harry really wishes he had smarter enemies. “I never said anything about this to Skeeter.”
And that’s true. He wrote down the rumor he wanted her to spread, instructed her to keep his names and Ron’s and Hermione’s out of the paper, and sent it off as an owl. It’s the kind of line-treading truth that he can keep hidden even under Veritaserum.
And he knows they’re highly unlikely to use Veritaserum. It would be too disrespectful to a Lord, and someone who’s a Lord of multiple families, at that.
“He’s right,” says Honeywell, standing up a little more and looking as if she’d like to find a couch to collapse on. “He knew nothing about the Sun Chamber, and responded with incredulity when I told him he was Lord Potter.”
“What about Lord Black, then?” someone else calls out.
“Are you kidding me? I had no idea my godfather was a Lord. He never acted anything like one,” Harry answers before Honeywell can.
Honeywell sighs a little at him, and then rephrases it in words she doubtless feels are more delicate. “It is true that Sirius Black disdained his heritage, but we can only hope he would have come around had circumstances allowed him to claim his Lordship.”
The others all scowl at him, but they can’t doubt his word. Not when he’s not talking about someone else who’s a Lord. Harry contrives to scowl with them and check on something he thinks is true, but saw before this only from the corner of his eye.
It’s true, though. Susan is nowhere in the room.
“Did you contact Lady Bones with the news?” he asks, before Honeywell can begin the tragic speech that goes with her tragic eyes. “And what about Lord Longbottom?” Ask about them both, and no one can discern where his true interest lies. Besides, he really is curious why Neville wasn’t invited.
“Lady Bones—had some losses during the war,” Honeywell says again, with better delicacy this time. “But she did not become intimately involved in the battles.” Which Harry takes to mean that losing her parents and aunt and fighting in the Battle of Hogwarts isn’t enough to count as affected by the war. He wants to sneer. Susan, this is the group you’re so loyal to.
“And Lord Longbottom, Lady?”
Honeywell bites her lip and avoids his gaze for a moment. “Lord Longbottom lost so much to the war that I was afraid he would act volatile, and bid us to destroy the sun right away. We must deliberate before we make such a hasty decision.”
Harry wants to howl like a werewolf. They think Neville lost a lot, and he didn’t?
But it honestly doesn’t seem worth bringing up, not when they’re going to finally make a decision. And Neville can learn about Harry’s plan later. Harry leans against the wall and assumes a patiently polite expression.
“In the meantime,” Honeywell says, turning her head so that she can include everyone in the room with her gaze, “we must of course determine what we are going to do. We will not destroy our symbol. But what placating story can we offer so that we calm the public?”
Suggestions begin to fly from every corner. Harry notes them down in his mind. In all honesty, he doesn’t think most of them will work. They focus on things such as “acting haughty,” “reminding them that all pure-bloods need symbols,” and “urging the Wizengamot to declare us inviolate.”
But just because they probably won’t work won’t keep the Sun Chamber from trying them. So Harry will memorize them.
Honeywell finally seems to run out of suggestions from everyone else, and turns to Harry. “Lord Potter, Lord Black, what would you say?”
Harry straightens and paints an expression of deep interest across his face. Luckily, he’s had a lot of practice at that from acting like he cares in Auror meetings. “I was wondering if it would be worth it to tell the truth to the public.”
“The truth?” Malfoy is sneering again.
“I mean, tell them the truth about the Sun Chamber, and how ancient the symbol is, and that the Dark Mark can’t possibly be hiding beneath it. Because the sun is so old.”
The other members of the Sun Chamber exchange uncertain looks, and then Lady Shafiq takes a step forwards. “That would not work. The public is already set against us. And we cannot tell them more about the Sun Chamber, not when it would mean betraying our own compact of secrecy.”
Harry only nods as if that makes sense. In reality, the Sun Chamber will be hurt by this, whatever they do. If they start admitting what the sun really does and what it stands for, they’ll sound even more ridiculous than they do now. And if they refuse to address the public’s concerns, then the public will only grow louder and more riotous and more prone to believe this rumor.
“So we cannot tell the truth,” Honeywell says. “I like the idea of a resolution asking the Wizengamot to declare us inviolate.”
So they’re going to deal the death blow to themselves.
Harry watches as more Lords and Ladies speak in favor of that stupid notion, and only shakes his head and lowers his gaze shyly when Honeywell glances at him. “I’m sorry, Lady. I’ve already made mistakes because of my youth and inexperience. I don’t want to do it again. I’m going to abstain from voting this time.”
“So the boy can learn humility,” Harry hears muttered from somewhere behind him.
It might be Malfoy’s voice. Harry just keeps his eyes down. They’re not going to approve of anything he does. But then again, their approval isn’t worth winning anyway.
After some mild argument, the Sun Chamber votes for Honeywell’s resolution. Harry abstains from the vote as well, and leaves while composing a few specific letters in his mind. One of them will go to Neville.
And the other will arrive at Susan’s house. He wants her to know what happened here tonight, even if he strongly suspects it’s too late to make her change her mind about supporting these inbred “aristocrats.”
*
Harry’s in yet another boring meeting, this one about how they can’t arrest a pure-blood criminal “without knowing he’s guilty,” because apparently suspicion doesn’t exist anymore, when the building rocks.
Startled cries erupt around him. Harry whips to his feet and dances around with his wand out. He hopes that his battle-grimace hides the enormous grin that’s threatening to break out.
“What was that?” whispers an Auror next to Harry who’s barely stopped being a trainee. Harry wants to put him on his head. Honestly, who doesn’t recognize the effects of a powerful Explosion Curse when he feels one?
“An attack,” Kingsley says, and he’s on his feet, too, and his hand is gripping his wand so hard that Harry thinks he’s worried about it escaping. “It seems that the protestors have grown violent and attacked, as we feared they would.” For an instant, his glance brushes Harry’s.
Harry just charges for the door, as if he’s going into battle with the eagerness everyone loves to ascribe to him. He ignores the way Kingsley follows, pressing close behind him, as if he thinks that he can stop Harry from “betraying” the Ministry or the Sun Chamber if he stares at his back hard enough.
Harry doesn’t have the time or breath to waste telling him that there isn’t going to be a Sun Chamber left soon. If Kingsley values it so much, then he really, really should have arranged to make it less corrupt. Or grant Harry more victories.
This is the punishment for the Ministry’s corruption. There’s nothing that can change them now.
Harry bursts out into the corridor that runs the length of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and encounters the green-masked protestors exploding desks and burning papers. Kingsley staggers next to him.
Poor him, Harry thinks without much sympathy. He must have thought they were outside and attacking the building with powerful spells. No, they’re just close and can’t all do it well.
“How—how did they get inside?” Kingsley hisses, standing there with his wand dangling and staring wildly around. A Stunner almost hits him in the chest. Harry raises a Shield Charm for him, because he’s close and skilled and there will be questions if he doesn’t, and shakes his head a little.
“Who knows? We have to do something!” And Harry runs into the maze of green-masked protestors, just as they will also expect him to do. After all, Harry Potter never has a plan. It’s ridiculous to think he would now.
In reality, of course, he knows exactly how they got here. House-elves with no master and a burning desire to pop through wards are useful like that.
Protestors wave flags and wands at him and shout and hoot, and mostly fall to Harry’s careful Stunners. Harry leaps over desks and shouts back and rolls dramatically under their carelessly hurled hexes. He just has to get close enough to the most important desk, the one in the Minister’s office.
And he does. Of course one protestor runs madly at the door, and Harry engages her in an impressive duel, and they tumble into the Minister’s office and the masked woman pauses with her hand up.
“Get away from there!” Harry roars, and as he lines up his wand for what will look like an attempt to stop her and she prances around to keep eyes on her, Harry focuses on his other hand and directing wandless magic through that.
People think wandless magic takes a lot of control, and that’s why almost no wizard can do it. But Harry knows wizards who’ve done it, him and Voldemort, and neither of them was controlling their temper when they did it. Tom was riding surges of hatred and fury, controlling other children at the orphanage and using his magic to terrify his enemies. And Harry was dashing through the Dursleys’ house and blowing up his aunt and making his trunk come leaping to him.
No. It doesn’t take a lot of control, wandless magic. It takes emotion. Hot and burning and deep and hateful.
So, when Harry sends wandless magic at the Minister’s desk and flings all his rage after it, it explodes.
Harry ducks with a shout; he honestly didn’t expect the flames. He just thought there would be a lot of flying splinters of wood and dust, which, to be fair, there are. The woman goes shooting back against the far wall and staggers to her feet, shaking her head dazedly. Harry frowns. She can’t stay here and be caught, although for some of the other protestors, wild young wizards with connections, it won’t matter.
“Hissy!” he whispers.
The house-elf that appears in front of him has a serpent on his tea towel. He thinks that he’s descended from the elf that served Salazar Slytherin, and he refuses to obey any human master who doesn’t have that blood. But he will work with a misbegotten Parselmouth, and Harry nods to the woman. “Can you take her out of here?”
Hissy examines him, and Harry forces himself to wait. Then Hissy nods, seizes the young Muggleborn witch’s arm, and Apparates her out of there an instant before Kingsley comes in.
“Harry!”
He must look worse than he realizes, Harry decides, and rubs at a trickle of blood on his temple. He gives Kingsley a small, sheepish smile. “Sorry, sir. I took kind of a blow to the head when the desk exploded.”
Kingsley stares at the desk and shakes his head slowly. “They really thought that destroying a symbol of authority is enough to destroy the Ministry?”
No, Harry wants to say. I knew destroying it was the right thing to do because the Minister keeps all the evidence of Muggleborns’ crimes and guilt right there, while of course pure-bloods’ criminal records can be held in less secure places, because they wouldn’t do anything really wrong.
But he only chuckles a little and says, “Who knows whether they think anything at all, sir?”
Kingsley just nods and storms out, probably to finish taking masks off the other protestors. Harry looks around the office and sighs.
Beneath the sigh is a smile.
Some of those crimes might have records stored in other locations, but Harry is willing to bet that it would take time to find them even if so, because the Minister is a paranoid bastard.
And that means he’s taken a step further in the right direction: that of getting rid of it all.
*
SickPuppy: Thank you! I hope the story continues to please.
Staar; Thank you! Well, Harry is at least trying to give Susan a choice, although she might not want it.
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Made of Common Clay