Merlin had dreamed of a long run, a world that would last for eons and not just centuries. The world had no reason not to last forever, if the truly dangerous powers were removed and kept gone. Conversely, a single loophole in the safeguards made the world’s destruction only a matter of time. Someday Merlin’s Line would pass to the wrong person. It could reject the obviously unworthy, but eventually it would pass into hands too subtly flawed for the Line to detect. This was inevitable, when dealing with human beings, and Harry needed to keep that in mind before he sealed something where future Line-holders could retrieve it—the disaster of its inevitable misuse someday needed to be outweighed by its benefits over the next few thousand years.
Harry let out a sad small sigh, under his breath. Merlin, you idiot… Thinking that didn’t unlock any final safeguards.
There wasn’t anything currently on fire in the Department of Mysteries, so Harry carefully placed the Line back on the table.
“Thank you,” the old witch said. She picked up the rod of dark stone. “Do you know how I am to use it to call the Wizengamot to order, or— never mind, I shall just try striking the podium. That seems obvious enough. To the rest of the country, of course, I am the Chief Warlock so far as anyone knows except us four.”
Harry hesitated. Then he imagined the owls he would receive if anyone knew he was allowed to second-guess the Chief Warlock, and what that would do to Amelia’s negotiating power. “Fine.”
Amelia tucked the rod back into her robes. “I will not say it was a pleasure doing business with you, Boy-Who-Lived, but it could have been much worse. Thank you kindly for that.”
Harry was already feeling worried about the exact balance of power here, from the way Madam Bones was acting. The others had, quite logically, deduced that it had been mostly David Monroe who’d planned the way to defeating Voldemort, which meant they were still underestimating him. It might take a crisis of some type, with Harry figuring it out successfully for once instead of screwing up, before Amelia Bones started to respect his authority. Or believe in it at all, actually… “So,” Harry said. “Any weirdness for me that you would have brought to Dumbledore while he was around?”
Amelia looked thoughtful. “Since you ask… I can think of three things, indeed. First, we don’t have the faintest notion what ritual was used to sacrifice the Death Eaters and resurrect You-Know-Who. It corresponds to no known legend, and the magic traces from the ritual have been eradicated. So far as my Aurors can tell, everyone’s heads fell off their necks due to natural causes. Except for Walden MacNair, who was killed by magical fire after firing a Killing Curse from his wand. A very mysterious ritual indeed.” She was giving Harry Potter a rather precise look.
Harry considered this, choosing his words carefully. Voldemort had said he’d put up wards, so Harry had been confident of not being observed by Time-Turned Aurors, but still… “I think this is a matter you don’t need to investigate too hard, Madam Bones.”
The old witch grinned slightly. “We can’t be seen to go easy on the investigation of so many Noble deaths, Harry Potter. When I heard retold your particular account of David’s last stand, I made certain to send investigators whom I considered reliable in the usual quality of their work. Auror Nobbs and Auror Colon, in fact, who are widely respected outside my Department. I found their report to be quite fascinating reading.” Amelia paused. “There’s a possibility that Augustus Rookwood left a ghost—”
“Exorcise it before anyone talks to it,” Harry said, conscious of the sudden hammering of his heart.
“Yes, sir,” the old witch said dryly. “I shall disrupt the soul’s anchoring
a little, and none shall be the wiser when it fails to materialize. The second matter is that there was a still-living human arm found among the Dark
Lord’s things—”
“Bellatrix,” Harry said. His mind had leaped back, made the connection that ongoing trauma had blurred. “I think that’s Bellatrix Black’s arm.” Lesath Lestrange hadn’t been named as someone who’d lost a parent. “Oh, bloody hell. She’s still out there, isn’t she. Can you use her arm to track her down somehow?”
Amelia Bones had acquired a sour look. “I see. As I was saying, a stillliving human arm was found among the Dark Lord’s things, but it proved to be easily incinerated.”
“What idiot—” Harry stopped himself. “No, not an idiot. Because immediately destroying Dark objects is Department policy. Because of past experiences with rings that really should’ve been dropped into volcanos immediately. Right?”
Moody and Amelia nodded in unison. “Good guess, son,” said Moody.
It might seem literarily inevitable that Harry’s past stupidity was going to come back and haunt him in some horrible fashion later, but that was no reason not to try subverting the plot. “I expect you’ve thought of this already,” Harry said, “but the obvious next step is to put out your equivalent of an international bulletin for a thin witch missing her left arm. Oh, and add twenty-five thousand Galleons pledged from me— Headmistress, it’s fine, please trust me on this—to whatever reward is being offered.”
“Well said.” The old witch leaned forward slightly. “The third and final matter… there was one truly puzzling element to last night’s events, and I am curious to see what you make of it, Harry Potter. Found among the
corpses was the head and the body of Sirius Black.”
“What?” yelled Moody, starting half from his chair. “I thought he was in
Azkaban!”
“So he is,” said Madam Bones. “We checked that at once. The Azkaban guards reported that Sirius Black was still in his cell. Black’s head and body have been transported to the St. Mungo’s morgue, and show the same cause of death as the other Death Eaters, that is to say, his head spontaneously fell off. I am also told that Sirius Black is, as of this morning, sitting in the corner of his cell rocking back and forth with his head between his hands. No other duplicate Death Eaters have been found.
Yet.”
There was a pause filled with ticking and whooping things, as people considered this.
“Ah…” said Minerva. “That’s not possible even by You-Know-Who’s standards of possibility. Is it?”
“I would have thought so too when I was your age, dear,” said Amelia.
“It is the sixth strangest thing I have ever seen.”
“You see, son?” said Moody. “This sort of thing is why nobody, even me, can ever be paranoid enough.” The scarred man tilted his head, looking thoughtful, as his bright blue eye kept ever-roving. “Twin brother, concealed from the rest of the world? Walpurga Black gave birth to twins, couldn’t bear to kill one, knew old Pollux would demand it… nah, ain’t buyin’ it.”
“Any ideas, Mr. Potter?” said Amelia Bones. “Or is this another matter into which my Department should not inquire too closely?” Harry closed his eyes and thought.
Sirus Black had hunted down Peter Pettigrew, instead of fleeing the country as common sense would have suggested.
Black had been found in the middle of the street, surrounded by bodies, laughing.
Nothing left of Pettigrew except one finger.
Pettigrew had been a spy for the Light, not a double agent but somebody who snuck around and found things out.
One of the conspiracy theories about Pettigrew had been that he was an Animagus, since he’d been good at ferreting out secrets even in his Hogwarts years.