Dudley sighed and drank the juice. "Come on, my bed," said Harry, leading the way. "You remember where the loo is, I'm sure . . ." He hastily dug some pyjamas out of his trunk and transfigured them to a larger size. "You've only got about five minutes until you're out of it, so best hurry . . . What?"
"You were hissing."
Oh, right. Dudley had heard Harry talking about how his magic had returned, but Harry hadn't gone into details. "Yeah, I know some pretty wild spells," he said, not wanting to explain everything all at once. Besides, it wasn't the kind of thing Dudley could probably understand very well.
Harry waited until Dudley was settled in bed and snoring, and then quietly closed the bedroom door as he went back to Snape and Draco.
Once in the living room, he couldn't help but firm his jaw as he stared at his father. "All right, what was that? Magical healing is draining? Any particular reason you decided to drug my cousin and lie about why you were doing it?"
"I don't care for your tone," said Snape, but his own was mild.
"Oh, give over. I trusted you enough to play along, but now I want the truth!"
Snape raised an eyebrow. "I actually considered dosing him on the sly, but I trusted you, too."
That brought Harry up short.
"Wait," said Draco. "Healing a little cut is one thing; it's just a matter of stretching skin together, but I thought things like potions didn't work on Muggles."
Good thing Dudley's already asleep, thought Harry. No point in reminding him how none of us could use magic to help his mum . . .
"They don't," said Snape. "That was an infusion of a Muggle sleeping remedy, finely ground."
Harry gaped. "You keep things like that on hand, do you?"
"I acquired a few such when last your cousin visited." Snape's brows drew together. "We're getting rather far from the point, gentlemen. I want Harry to give a report to Albus so that we can decide how best to proceed after tonight's events, and for obvious reasons, I do not want your cousin privy to all the Order's secrets."
That made so much sense that Harry almost groaned. He should have thought of it himself, but his mind was still too full of horror to fit one more thing in. Perhaps that was why he'd been so intent on arguing with Snape about the potion--for a moment, it had distracted him from that very horror.
But now, of course, he had a new nightmare blooming in his mind. He suddenly understood better just what kind of stress his brother had been coping with these past weeks. "Dudley's a target," he gasped. "Voldemort knows where he lives, and he'd definitely attack him to get to me--"
"Agreed. Now that Voldemort is active, your cousin will not return to Number Four." Snape took a seat and crossed his ankles. "We'll arrange something, Harry, but that can wait until he wakes."
"Maybe the Dark Lord will attack in the meantime and do away with that horrible Piers character," Draco drawled.
Harry shuddered. "That's awful. Don't say that."
Draco bared his teeth. "Well, would you rather hear me talk about how I'm supposed to be meeting Rhiannon right about now? She's going to think I stood her up, and on her opening night, too!"
"As I was saying," said Snape, raising his voice, "we have more important matters at hand. Draco, your petite amie will survive the disappointment, and if she truly loves you, she will forgive your failure to celebrate her new opera." He leaned forward in his chair. "Harry, please floo up to the headmaster's office. If he's returned, ask him to join us here."
Draco huffed, but threw himself into a chair, his features brooding.
Dumbledore was indeed back from the Burrow, and as soon as he saw Harry, he nodded and stepped through the fire to join them in the dungeons. He took a seat without being invited, his blue eyes looking about as worn and tired as Harry had ever seen. For a long moment, he just sat and stared at the hearth. Then, he shook his head back and forth, his beard weakly swaying.
"Headmaster?"
"Yes, Severus, yes," murmured Dumbledore, looking like he was coming out of a disorientation spell. "You've checked the wards here?"
"Yes, straight away. All is well." Snape hesitated. "You've been to the Ministry?"
Dumbledore sighed. "What remains of it."
That had Harry sitting up a little straighter. "It wasn't completely destroyed?"
"Very nearly. The Atrium and all levels above have been utterly annihilated."
It took a moment for Harry to absorb the implications of that. It was one thing to hear that "the whole Ministry" had been wiped out. When he thought about it level by level, even if the lowest portions had survived, the scope of the destruction seemed much larger. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement, the Department for Magical Games and Sports, the Department of International Magical Cooperation, the Apparition Test Centre . . .
Harry swallowed, feeling a bit guilty when the next thought that struck him was how he wouldn't be able to get his Apparition license, now.
"The Department of Mysteries was slightly damaged, but survived the worst of the explosions. Level Ten appears undamaged," Dumbledore went on.
Just his luck, Harry thought. If anything had to be destroyed, he'd have put that horrible courtroom at the top of the list.
"You said explosions, plural," said Snape in a careful tone. "You have certain information?"
Dumbledore sighed. "Oh, yes. Bill Weasley has set to work using his curse-breaking skills to uncover the root source of the damage. By his reckoning, at least twelve separate but simultaneous explosions caused it. He suspects magical incendiary devices."
Harry blinked. "You mean bombs?"
"After a fashion."
"But why would Voldemort need bombs?"
"He's hardly omnipotent, Harry," said Snape. "The public tends to regard him that way, but the Order, and you, must not."
"I know. It's just . . . bombs?"
"You haven't heard from Lupin, I take it," said Snape dryly.
"Not as of yet." Dumbledore sighed.
Harry felt his heart stutter, and then seem to freeze over. "Oh, my God. Has he been killed? I mean, as a spy? Because obviously Voldemort had big plans for today, and his sending off his Death Eaters was a feint!"
"The Dark Lord might have thought somebody else a spy," said Draco, his teeth chattering.
Harry knew what was causing that: Draco was afraid of what might happen to his mother if "Lucius Malfoy" was found out as a traitor. Somehow, though, that didn't stop the wave of anger that suddenly swept through Harry. "Will you stop calling him that? He's not a lord! He's nothing like a lord! He's a cowardly arsehole who kills hundreds of people at a time--"
"Harry," said Snape. He stopped after that one word, but it was enough to make Harry draw a breath before he spoke again.
"Percy's gone, I know," he said in a choked voice. Not that he'd ever much liked Percy, but he hadn't deserved to die. "Was there . . . did Bill find him, I mean? And who else was killed?"
"There's nothing left of those who were killed," said Dumbledore in a gentle voice. "Magical incendiaries leave no remains, Harry. And as to the list of those who are missing . . ." Dumbledore paused. "Like Hogwarts does for students, the Ministry keeps a self-updating roster of employees. A roster which was destroyed, of course. But there was a duplicate in the Ministry vault at Gringotts, and as there is some question at present as to where ultimate magical authority lies, the goblins kindly consented to my request that a copy of it be owled to me. Percy's name . . . does not appear."
Harry cleared his throat. "I . . . yeah, I knew that. I mean . . . the clock." He waved a hand, trying to move past it. "Who else, then?"