determinism (determinism) wrote in whatprice, @ 2009-08-27 12:22:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !completed, charlie weasley, george weasley, harry potter, oliver wood, percy weasley |
Who: Charlie, George, and Percy Weasley, Harry Potter, Oliver Wood
What: Harry is interrogated by Charlie and Percy.
When: August 27, around dawn
Where: Order Safehouse, London
Warnings: PG-13 for language
Status: Complete, log
Charlie appeared in the safehouse with his burden and dropped him on the sofa in the living room. It wasn't as gentle as it might have been but he did make sure Harry didn't hit his head. George and Ollie should be here in a moment. But first he had one other party to summon. He closed his eyes for a moment and thought of dragons and the preserve and all the other things that made him happiest, and uttered the words of the spell. A silvery dragon issued from the end of his wand and flew off to advise Percy that the capture had been completed and he should join them at the safehouse.
Then he patted down Harry to make sure he didn't have a wand or anything else Charlie didn't think he needed, like a gun, and once that was done and Harry was secured, he settled in to wait for Harry to wake up or the others to arrive.
When Harry came around, he was completely disoriented. He stared at a stucco ceiling, his limbs like lead and the exhaustion built up over the past few weeks weighing heavily on his relaxed muscles. Catching sight of Charlie, however, startled him into motion. He leapt to his feet and shoved his hands into his pockets, searching desperately for the tag. His fingers had barely closed around the glass object in his pocket, shoved there just before Charlie had stunned him, when he set it forcefully on a plain wood coffee table beside the sofa. "Give me something heavy," he rasped. "Break this or they find us."
His wand was already in his hand. Charlie pointed it at the thing. "Reducto!"
Harry stared at the spot where the tiny electronic object had exploded, a piece of wire hitting his arm harmlessly. The air went out of him and he sunk heavily back onto the sofa, his head in his hands. The adrenaline of his run gone, he was too emotionally exhausted to do otherwise.
The moment of crisis was over, and Charlie relaxed back into his chair. He folded his arms loosely, wand still at the ready, watching Harry, silent. Either he had nothing to say, or, equally likely, too much.
Percy looked perfectly polished in his dark suit and tie when he arrived outside of the safehouse, the very last of his traditional morning breakfast (toast with peanut butter and sliced apple) disappearing into his mouth. He swallowed, tongue going over his teeth to check for any last bits of peanut butter before knocking on the door.
Raising his head, Harry looked at Charlie, then at the door.
Charlie rose and moved to the door. "What's the password to Dumbledore's office?" he asked, getting an extensible ear out of his jacket in case it was needed.
"Sherbet Lemon," he replied, glad something of his had rubbed off, then thought better. "At least, it was my final year of school."
"Was my second year. Bastard recycled them." Charlie unlocked the door with his wand and let Percy in. "Ollie and George are running a bit late with a complication or two. But the man of the hour is here." Charlie gestured toward Harry, who was sitting on the couch.
Percy's long legs crossed the threshold of the door and halted right before it, casting a shrewd eye over Harry's collapsed form.
"Did you drug him?" Percy asked with a skeptical eyebrow as he went over and grabbed a sturdy chair from the table across the room.
Charlie shook his head. "Stunned him. That's all. I haven't questioned him, since you wanted to do the honours." He followed Percy back toward Harry and settled in his chair again, wand still out.
"I did indeed," Percy responded and turned the chair so it faced Harry. He took a seat, reclining comfortably despite the high and rigid back. Then, the shrewd look behind his spectacles became an expectant one.
"The beginning?" Something very odd was going on that Charlie was deferring to his younger brother, but Harry was not interested in asking. There was a cauldron of poison in his system which he longed to spill out.
"I'm not sure. How much of the beginning is actually helpful, detailed information regarding MI7 and how much of it is designed to draw sympathy?" he replied directly. "I think it's safe to presume I'm only interested in the former."
Harry stared blankly at Percy for a beat, and then began. "The organization MI7 is directed by Grace Burbage, the muggle sister of Charity Burbage, former Muggle Studies professor at Hogwarts, killed in the second Voldemort war. A war against wizards is probably a personal vendetta. The organization is subdivided into three sections: A, B, and C, A and B being concerned respectively with research on magical test subjects and registration of wizards, which is done at Hogsmeade, a government outpost since the attack on Hogwarts. C is the subdivision responsible for the attack on Freya's Chariot in June, and they exact the detainment of wizards and the elimination or capture of magical creatures. In both cases, they provide the research division with test subjects. Section C is composed of agents with varying skillsets- some are sharpshooters or snipers, others are proficient at urban and wildland reconnaissance."
"They have a specific division for registrations? What are its ties to the NIR?" Percy asked, scruitinizing his words, trying to put together the bigger picture.
Charlie was merely listening and filing information for later. His eyebrows went up a little at the link to Hogwarts, but he was leaving the interruptions to Percy and the answers to Harry.
"Shadowy. They compile retinal information, fingerprints, medical, and voice tonality analyses of incoming inmates without previous muggle connections, and muggleborns or halfbloods with muggle records also have passport, residence, and familial information recorded, including residences when they move out of the United Kingdom. MI7 is not NIR, but uses NIR databases as a third party. Pureblood inmates are off-record and their documentation is facilities only." Harry looked at Percy for a cue.
A little bridge in his head connected the passport office to MI7. "Continue."
"MI7's knowledge of magic is not far past the level of superstition. The Anti-Apparation devices are their star achievement, run to produce..." Harry's knowledge of physics failed him here and he looked off toward the window, momentarily lost. "Waves. Sound waves at pitches too high for the human ear, but that disrupt human concentration sufficient to effect splinching with calculable reliability. Apart from that, they are unable to react to magic in any way except kill or maim its user. They know the connection of magic use to a wand, but they also know that under extreme mental or physical stress, human bodies that are capable of using magic will produce it. They know that magic will destroy electrical or digital devices, and there are plans at the theoretical level to begin detecting microscale magic use by electrical disruptions in the powergrid. However, that is years away from viability."
Charlie caught Percy's eye and gave a slight nod as Harry described the AADs. Harry's story jibed with the best information the Order had gotten.
Harry's eyes stayed on the window, slightly out of focus. The rising sun filtered thinly through the Venetian blinds, casting shadows around the room. "They are aware of the benefits of magic, however, and intends to use them. A beta level of a military training program has been tested to train individual wizards to protect their field agents from magical discharge. They know that there are materials lighter and more flexible than their flak jackets that are bullet proof or near bullet proof available to wizards, and this has also generated interest in their research division. Dragons are now subjects of interest. Containable magical ability and useful magical materials are considered government property, weapons grade. There are plans, in the future, to develop military hybrids of magical technology."
A measure of silence in which Harry drew a breath. "MI7 operates much like the CIA of the United States, though the focuses on research are unique. The operating Prime Minister of England is not a viable factor in decision making within the organization, and most branches of government are unaware of its existence. MI5 and MI6, the security Service and Secret Intelligence Service are minimally aware of its activities. To the outside, it is an organization that handles novel military developments and prevents them from becoming instruments of mass destruction. Azkaban, St. Pancras, non-military London offices, and several research facilities within the country whose locations are unknown outside the employees with Section A access and the directors are the sum of its facilities. The Azkaban prison is off government records, and since the island was Unchartable, it is considered a foreign secret prison that does not fall under normal government jurisdiction.
"The organization has identified, through me, their resistance as a terrorist organization known as the Order of the Phoenix. Known members include Nymphadora Tonks, Remus Lupin, Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall- determined either dead or missing following the attack on the Hogwarts school- and George, Charlie, and Bill Weasley. The latter are known from security footage, taken either during the course of military encounters with Section C agents as individuals or as a group at Freya's Chariot. Charlie was identified by several Section C officers as a likely leader of the Order and is the number one terrorist priority to Section C director David Somerset for interrogation. Known Order locations under surveillance are the house at Grimmauld Place, The Shrieking Shack on the grounds of Hogsmeade, a house on Spinner's End, and the Hog's Head Inn, which is occupied by registration level military officers.
"Section C has been unsuccessfully trying to deal with information leaks over the past few months. Katie Bell, a data miner, has remained beneath the radar as far as her alleged activities with Freya's Chariot, but recently, a medical officer at the St. Pancras facility, Dr. and Father Phillip Hughes, a muggle, went missing. They think it's you behind it."
Harry paused on his own, and glanced indifferently from Charlie to Percy for a direction in which to go from here.
Charlie glanced at Percy to see what he made of all of this. He had questions, but if Percy had more questions about registration and such, his could wait.
Percy's eyes met Charlie's, but went back to Harry's fairly quickly.
"I hope that's not all you've come to reveal," he replied to Harry, not looking bored, but not looking particularly enlightened either. "That they have a nefarious agenda is, while appalling, unsurprising, as is the fact that the organization you once belonged to has been exposed to MI7."
The edge of Percy's words fell dully on Harry. "What do you know? Or, more to the point, what do you want to know?" On the latter point, he did not think to correct him; he had never been a member of the Order of the Phoenix, a detail that was irrelevant.
Charlie didn't bother to correct Percy on that detail either, but his gaze caught Harry's for a moment, and if his eyes darted upward for a moment surely it was only a trick of the light. "Azkaban. Tell me about Azkaban."
Harry shut his eyes firmly, afraid of what he would see on the backs of his eyelids. "It appears the prison is no longer Unplottable, as MI7 was able to begin transporting prisoners there by boat. The basic structure of the prison is intact, but there are additions to it which include a massive wind-powered generator set several stories underground where residual magic does not interfere with the electrical power. The island is covered with AAD devices on its four corners and within the building itself and the exterior has been cleared of dementors. Most sea-dwelling magical creatures have moved away from it as well. There are four levels that I have seen, and two that I have heard about. The four aboveground floors house inmates and guards. The first floor is mostly offices and barracks. The next level up houses witches and children, most of the latter Hogwarts survivors. The floor above that is men, and the top floor is high security prisoners who have proven hostile or particularly powerful. Belowground there is a medical facility, and on basement level two, basic research rooms and interrogation chambers. Most of the magical protections of the island have been removed. I don't know how they accomplished that. The facility is accessible by retina scan and fingerprint scan as well as a keycard, though there are additional clearance tests to basement 1 and basement 2. The island is patrolled regularly by military boats, and a dock has been built into the northern cliffs through which prisoners are unloaded or onloaded via an elevator that goes to floors 2, 3, and 4 only. The elevator can only be activated by a cleared guard. I have only been on floors 1, 4, basement 2, and part of basement 1 but the security on floors 2 and 3 may be... less."
"Do you know how many prisoners there still are? Especially children. And do you know who they are?" Charlie leaned forward a bit; this was clearly the interesting part to him.
"The floor I was on-" Harry paused, not having meant to put himself in the first person, but went on. "Held about twenty. Flitwick was one, Dawlish- the Auror- was another I recognized in high security. Some of the Death Eaters already in Azkaban when MI7 arrived are also up there- Selwyn. I never saw any children except- except some infants in basement 1 in the medical wing, born to prisoners. Not many. Maybe two or three. But there were more kids than women on floor 2, that I am sure of. They grabbed as many as didn't run off or die at Hogwarts, and those were mainly the younger years. I saw different faces every time I was in basement 2, and there could be as many as forty people on floors 2 and 3. I don't know. It was quoted to me as an Auror trainee that Azkaban could hold several hundred prisoners at full capacity, and there is still room there for more."
"Infants born to prisoners?" Charlie had seized on that point and barely caught the rest. "Do you know who the mothers of those infants were?" It seemed to both Percy and Harry that Charlie was almost ready to spring out of his chair and get on a broom to Azkaban right now once he got the answer to that question.
The exuberance with which Charlie spoke drew Harry's eyebrows up in the most expression he had shown yet. "No, I don't. The infants had code numbers."
"What about the mothers? Did you see any of the women?" If there was the slightest crumb of hope that Meaghan was alive, Charlie was going to find it.
The heel of Harry's hand dug into his temple as he thought. His mind had closed over the horror of Azkaban and the brightening light of the room was beginning to do strange things to his eyes, a combination that preyed on his concentration. "No. Maybe. I... don't remember. I saw women in the research block."
The air went out of Charlie a little, and he slumped back on the couch. "Okay. That's something, that they do have survivors. They didn't kill them all immediately. When was the last time you were out there?"
"Four months ago." Four months ago he had been switched out of training and transferred into Section C.
There was a warning look as Percy watched Charlie collapse back onto the cushion. He wasn't going to make the same mistake Charlie was presently - the way he just gobbled up word after word.
"And since then?"
"Four months ago I was switched into Section C as an armed field agent at the St. Pancras and have protected nor- muggle officers on seven anti-magical creature investigations and four human detainment operations, one of which being the incident on Freya's Chariot."
"Who did you help detain and what creatures did you assist against?" They were back into Charlie's area of expertise here, and he was interested, but not so interested as he had been in infants and mothers.
"Two of the three I undid wards on vacated flats." Or one was vacated in the MI7 report and in reality. In the other, Harry had detected wizards hiding magically but had not revealed them. Percy's close scrutiny made him wary of revealing this detail without Veritaserum. "In the last against wizards, it was on a wizard named Ernest Higgs in Cambridge. The creatures included vampires, a cockatrice, a ghoul and werewolves." The tone of 'werewolves' suggested apprehension or confusion.
The werewolves they'd come back to. "What happened to Higgs?" Charlie asked, dead even for all that he knew what the answer had to be.
"I don't know," Harry said honestly. "St. Pancras contains a temporary detainment facility that I know he was brought to, but after that he either went to Azkaban or was executed."
Charlie let out a breath at hearing that, but didn't pursue it further. "What about the werewolves?"
Again he hesitated, uncertain whether his speculation was welcome. "The way werewolves were brought in was nonstandard for magical creatures. They were usually alive or treated with nonlethal force. It was... unusual."
Something about Charlie's expression flickered; he was clearly doing some thinking and not liking the answers he was getting. He left whatever he was thinking for later, though, and continued with the line of questioning. "As opposed to the vampire and the cockatrice," he said in a tone that invited Harry to continue.
"With the latter, blood and tissue samples were brought in. Live specimens were preferable, but not in the at-all-costs way in which our orders to deal with the werewolves were delivered." Harry glanced at Percy, then at Charlie, trying to work out their professional relationship to one another.
"Popular culture dictate their actions," Percy posited out loud. "Vampires are Vlad the Impaler and revel in their power. Werewolves are the unfortunate aftermath of an unwanted attack. The latter is more sympathetic."
Harry pursed his lips at this suggestion, but did not refute it.
"If you can't answer it, Harry, you can't answer it." It was the first time either Charlie or Percy had addressed Harry by name. "What was in that thing I blasted when we got here?"
Momentarily confused, Harry looked about himself and spotted the pile of dust and small dents on the surface of the coffee table. "That was a tracking device that Katie Bell removed from my back before Hermione was removed from St. Pancras. I carried it with me an intended to destroy it in the park. Obviously, I didn't have a chance. The glass protected the electronic parts from deterioration within the soft tissue."
Charlie frowned. "You don't think it was fried by the Apparation? The strength of the spell didn't do for it?"
"No, I don't think so." Harry obviously hesitated before he elaborated, again glancing at Percy. This time, however, he went for the complete truth. "I tried to escape before. More than once, and unsuccessfully. This technology is some sort of... advancement."
"What happened?" Charlie's interest was piqued again.
"The first time it was in basic, when they gave me a wand to try Shielding bullets from a target. Once the sensation of their anti-apparation machines went off, I tried apparation immediately. I tried to Apparate to Hogsmeade and appeared in the middle of a MI7 outpost. That was my encounter with the registration camp." Rubbing his eyes, he continued. "The second time I tried Apparation I was taken on a test mission in Dover about six months later looking for wizards who had escaped once from MI7. I went to Little Whinging after first Apparating to three other locations. There was no reason that they should have found me, but I was detained there after I went looking for a member of the Order from the area, Arabella Figg. After about fifteen minutes, the sensation started... the one their machines give you." In hindsight, of course, it had been a foolish move. Harry had a muggle identity and the residences of his relatives were registered. "Officers arrived in a van and that was the first time I went to Azkaban."
"If we could stay on topic, please?" Percy requested flatly. "Is the tracking device a part of the registration process?"
The dynamic between Percy and Charlie was making Harry extremely uncomfortable and he tensed visibly. "Not that I am aware of. Most registered wizards don't actually walk back into muggle England."
"Some do," Percy pressed.
"Hermione wasn't that I know of. Her apartment was watched and once she was detained, most of the information on her doings came in through mundane avenues, like cell phone and email record. But I don't know. It is absolutely possible that they be tagged following registration, but I don't know. If they were ever put under anesthetic, then that is altogether likely."
"And which others have they followed a similar suit with? I can't imagine she was the only one."
"Anyone who is registered and allowed to move back into the open is monitored by landline phone-tap, residence surveillance, and credit history- or in any way that generates a paper trail," Harry replied. "She was treated the same way as any registered witch, but the reason that she was not taken to Azkaban immediately either had, as best I can tell, to do with the way she was compelled to register, her mother, or for her connection to me."
Percy wasn't sure if Hermione had told him about her mother's connection to MI7 or if that was something he knew independently. That was interesting.
Charlie had settled back in his seat through this exchange between his brother and Harry. "Let's get back to Katie Bell. Tell us about her."
With two muffled bangs, Oliver Wood and George showed up. "I want him to have to walk home," George said to Ollie.
Percy did everything he could not to visibly rise to the frustration of being interrupted. It was so unprofessional... so unprofessional.
"You want who to have to walk home, George?" Charlie asked. His reaction was quite the opposite of Percy's; he'd relaxed slightly. Quite likely it was because he was no longer worried that one or the other of them had been shot.
"The greenie who's lucky to have been left his pants," Oliver answered for him. "George is apparently feeling generous today." He was fairly relaxed, likely because he had yet to acknowledge Harry's presence in the room. "Percy," he said by way of greeting, coupled with a nod.
George looked at Oliver as if he were slightly daft. "I've got pants," George replied. He looked at Shashi's ID, comparing the picture to his memory. He then handed it to Charlie. "This chap was in the car park, and he had a gun. Now I have a gun." George grinned. "I think I'll see if I still remember how to transform it into a hedgehog." The younger Weasley continued going through the agent's wallet.
Charlie took the ID from George and looked at it. His eyes narrowed.
Percy held out a hand for the id and, once Charlie provided it, gave it a once over. He handed it back to Charlie and rose up directly. "Excuse me a moment," he said and, not waiting for permission or denial, walked out of the way he came, digging out separated battery and mobile and putting them together once the door had closed behind him.
George pulled a card out of the agent's wallet. "Public Library. I wonder what Mr. Agent Fakename-Smythe pretends to read..." He delved back into the wallet again.
The impulse to laugh was almost overwhelming, but Charlie managed to keep it to the corner of his mouth quirking slightly and trading glances with Ollie. He unzipped his jacket and reached into the inside pocket, pulling out a sheaf of photographs and shuffling through them until he reached Shashi's. He handed it to Ollie. "This him?"
Oliver nodded once and handed it back. "That's him. I never forget the face of someone I've assaulted," he added with a tiny grin. "And should we be relieved or disappointed that the greenies are at least pretending to be literate?" he asked George.
Now it was George's turn to laugh. "It's dire news if it's true. We won't be able to fool them by spelling out W-O-R-D-S in front of them any more." George looked at Charlie. "How's our guest doing? Ollie and I missed the opening of the Second Act."
"He's about to tell me about your new friend here, I think," Charlie said, taking back the photo from Ollie and showing it to Harry. It was Shashi.
Harry rubbed his nose when Oliver showed up; the bridge of his nose had healed slightly crooked where he had broken it. Otherwise he watched the exchange with a closed expression until Charlie addressed him. He paled when he realized who they were talking about. Fucking Shashi. Had Somerset set him on him? Had he gone to him immediately after their conversation in the conference room? It didn't jive with what he knew of him- or at least, what he wished was true of him. There was a long silence while he wrestled with himself, all the while knowing that this was not the appropriate time to hesitate or display sympathy for a MI7 employee.
When he sensed that the silence had drawn out so long that someone was about to speak up and prod him, he held up his hand. "Shashi. Krishnan Shashidar. He's a Section C agent. He had a witch sister. Dead in the Second War. What do you want to know about him?" The fact that he did not simply speak freely was significant.
Whether he's identified Penny as a witch, Charlie did not say. Instead, he turned to Ollie. "Why don't you make sure Perce hasn't fallen down a hole?" he suggested. Charlie tucked the photos away while contemplating exactly how risky using a mobile, which seemed far more likely than a patronus, from near a safehouse was and indulging himself in a fantasy of explaining it in short words to his brother, punctuated by giving it and any other electronic gizmos Percy was carrying the same treatment he'd given Harry's glass tube of electronics not long after they'd arrived.
He waited until Ollie was gone to continue. "What was he doing following you this morning?"
"I don't know," Harry replied honestly. "Three days ago though, the morning after I contacted you by patronus, he asked me why my cousin thought I was dead. In connection with when Hermione was brought in, Dudley was interrogated by him. They may have found him in contact with her on her phone records. I assume my name came up in that conversation and that Dudley told him I'd died. My commander in Section C, Somerset, knows the details of my hire by MI7, but Shashi evidently didn't. I told him. He then told me about his sister, asked whether I knew a 'Visala.' I said I didn't. I assume he reported that conversation to Somerset and was ordered to watch me."
Charlie's eyes narrowed. If this bloke was watching Harry, at least he wasn't watching Penny. The name Visala rang a bell for Charlie, but he'd have to think about it, and ask Bill or maybe McGonagall, who would certainly remember her if she was a Gryffindor. "So they know you're missing, or will as soon as Shashi can get to a phone. He may even think it was involuntary on your part." Another thing that wasn't quite a smile crossed Charlie's face, and vanished before he continued to the next question. "Tell me about Grimmauld. And Ron and Neville." It was a line of questioning Percy wouldn't have approved of, Charlie was sure, but it was also one more likely to make Harry slip up if he were faking it.
For the second time, Harry blanched, but not from surprise. He swallowed hard several times before he trusted his voice to speak. "Last summer, I gave MI7 Grimmauld Place. They wanted more detailed information about the Order, and I thought there might be things left from the Second War. The security on the place was so bad that I thought it wouldn't matter. I went with four agents. When we arrived, they split up. One went down to the basement kitchen, and two searched the first floor and then joined another who'd headed up the stairs." Unable to bear looking at Charlie and George, who both bore resemblance to Ron in different ways, Harry turned his face away to the window. "There was shouting from upstairs. I heard spells go off. I went up. The first bedroom off the second landing was standing open. One agent was down, stunned. Ron was-" He'd known this was coming, but it didn't make it any easier. After a huge intake of breath, the words came out in a flood.
"Ron was on the floor, a bullet to the chest. Nicked his heart. Two officers had Neville. He'd been shot in the shoulder and they had a gun to his head. The commotion had set off some of the furniture, charmed with dark magic or I don't know what. The curtains in the bedroom were trying to grab the officers. I cast a severing charm and they came loose, catching the muggles. I grabbed Neville and took him out of the house. The fourth officer from the basement had been knocked unconscious by the coat rack near the back door. We went out into the alley. I performed a procedure on him that had been under development in the Obliviation office before the Ministry was destroyed; I inserted memories into his mind from my head, things about MI7 and what I had done there. Then I cast a Memory Charm on him, a weak one- I thought it was a weak one- and stunned him. I went back inside. I wiped the memories of the four officers, told them they'd been attacked by furniture. Cleaned up the blood. I took Ron and Apparated him to a part of London with a high crime rate, changed the lot number on the bullet in his chest. I took his wand. I returned to Grimmauld, rennervated the officers, who I'd also stunned. Neville I left in the alley under a tarp by the dumpster." By the time Harry had lapsed into silence, his expression was fixed and muscles in his face kept contracting, twitching around his eyes and lips.
There was a long silence while Charlie added it all up, trying to figure out whether there were any discrepancies between the various stories. Harry could do Memory Charms and they'd known Neville's behaviour was erratic. The rest of the evidence seemed to fall into place, as much of it as he had, but a lot of it relied on Hermione's memories and once you got into trying to figure out whose memories were altered, you were out of any realm that Charlie could make sense of. He looked at George and considered what he could say to buy himself time to come to some sort of decision.
George nodded throughout Harry's comments, keeping track of them. "So it was just bad luck that you happened to come to Grimmauld Place on the same night as Nev and Ron? I always knew they were bad luck magnets, but that's pretty unlikely, don't you think? Charlie, do you think we can get anything corroborative out of Nev at this late date?"
Charlie thought about that question for a few moments, looked at George, and shook his head. "Even if we could lay hands on him."
George shrugged, philosophically. "So the tough thing, Harry, old kumquat, is deciding the answer to the question 'did we rescue you or did we capture you?'. I dunno. What do you think?"
"I came to you," Harry replied, exhaustion and nerves eating at his temper. "Is what I think relevant? Everything I have said today is true; my answers would be the same under veritaserum."
"That's a good thing, because if Percy has his way, you'll be answering under it soon enough." Left unspoken was what Charlie thought of that method of questioning and whether Charlie meant to agree to it. "I'm not going to give you some Dumbledorean tripe about choices making the man, oddment! blubber! tweak! I'm not Albus Dumbledore and you're too old for that bullshit. Maybe everything you've said is true and you've done all that you've done for what you thought were good reasons at the time. But it has consequences, Harry. You gave them Grimmauld and Ron died. You got that Higgs bloke killed, most likely. If it weren't an express rule of the Order not to kill people unless it's to save a life, your colleague Shashi would probably be dead right now too."
Charlie came to his feet, the chair seeming too small to contain him. "I'm the Minister of Public Safety and I answer to the Wizengamot for what I do. But more importantly, I am, still, the leader of the Order of the Phoenix. You weren't ever one of us, but you shared our goals in the last war, and I'd like to think some shred of the boy who lay down his life so that others might live is still in there. If you were in my shoes, what would you do with yourself?"
Harry listened to this calmly, though he bristled inwardly at the subtext of these remarks, the suggestion that he did not know perfectly well what he had done. "If I were in your position as the Minister of Public Safety, I would get as much useful, confirmable information out of me as possible and then keep me under house arrest until the Wizengamot has an opportunity to try me and determine an appropriate punishment. As for the leader of the Order of the Phoenix? Probably about the same." Appealing to Harry by his role in the Second War was a big mistake, but one that factored very little in his resolve to carry his surrender through to the bitter end. "I didn't contact you to deliver an emotional appeal. I will give you whatever I have that you can use. Apart from that, I don't understand why you feel you need to say this to me. If you really want an answer to your question George, get it from this: Two years ago I made the worst fuckup decision of my life. While I am no Seer, I think my imagination is good enough that I have a pretty good idea of what I have earned by it personally and politically.
"This is damage control. I saw a window to put an end to the harm I was doing and I took it. All the better if you can use something I give you."
"I feel the need to say this to you," Charlie said patiently, "because I need to know whether you're just a boy who lived and I turn you over to Percy, or whether you're man enough to do the hard work of redeeming your mistakes and your failures, and I can do something with you myself."
Harry was stunned into silence that quickly became suspicious. "Do you mean that as open ended as it sounds, or do you have something particular in mind?"
"Harry, do you know what it means to be in the Order of the Phoenix? Every day I am under the direct command of my least-stable remaining brother, voluntarily doing whatever it takes to make the Wizards of Britain safe, the ungrateful buggers. And other than you, who learned about us when you were a kid, it's not something I'm going to tell anyone. I don't know how far Charlie wants you to go, but I say you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, and you should throw in with us. I don't think we can keep you out of the Wizengamot and some explaining, but it's the right thing to do." George nodded, satisfied. He hadn't explained anything, had he?
"If the Order of the Phoenix means that rather than being a Prophecy marionette, I'm all for that," Harry replied edgily. "Will you please explain what you are suggesting?"
If Charlie were completely honest with himself, he wasn't quite sure what he had in mind yet. But Harry was, still, a powerful wizard, never mind a powerful symbol. And whatever Percy did, was going to do, would probably not only destroy any chance of Harry redeeming himself, it would probably delay the Order and Public Safety from doing anything useful with the information they'd gotten and were likely to get from him. "If you took the oath," he said, after a long moment of contemplative silence, "it would bind you to my satisfaction." He was speaking slowly enough that it was obvious that he was sounding the words out before they rolled across his tongue. "I believe in second chances." He'd taken Ollie after Ollie had kidnapped his poor cousin, after all. "It's worth considering. But I warn you, it's not heroism, Harry, it's a dirty, ugly business that leaves blood on your hands that you can't scrub off. And you won't get thanked or appreciated. But if you're going to try to repair your mistakes, and not just try to control the damage, it's got to be a thing you do for yourself anyhow." Charlie trailed off there, his expression thoughtful, and he stared into the distance for a long moment before fixing his eyes on Harry.
Harry held the gaze unflinchingly. Rather than answer that, he jerked his head toward the door through which Percy had disappeared. "In what capacity are you working with him? What is your professional relationship?" It gave him time to wrestle with his thoughts over whether he was about to be dragged through the mud a third time, whether he would be to Charlie what he had been to Dumbledore and Somerset.
Charlie's answer was easy and somewhat blunt. "I hold my ministerial commission from the Wizengamot, directly. I was a member of the coven that refounded it, as was Percy. I don't work for him. He thinks he's here because he's Minister of Magic and he's objective about you. I let him hold on to that delusion; he's here as a courtesy and, frankly, because you sent a Patronus to him." Charlie's tone suggested he thought that was a mistake. "And Percy is Minister because he's the senior survivor of the massacre at the Ministry. The Order worked with him, through me, during the interregnum. It's a unity government. I don't like either of my partners, but politics is a dirty, ugly business, just like war."
"Neville gave me his name," Harry said, studying Charlie. "So I sent patronuses to both of you."
"Neville's in love with him," Charlie said matter-of-factly. "And he was hacked off enough at me the last time we talked that I'm surprised he sent you to me at all. Maybe he recognised--" and Charlie managed not to say any of the hideously unflattering things he was thinking, settling for the mildly unflattering "--that Percy's slow decision-making process might not serve you here."
George interrupted. "Wait, Neville's in love with Perce? Was that before or after Harry scrambled his brain?"
"Neville's behaviour, when I found him in Grimmauld Place-" Harry paused, realizing he needed to back up. "After the first time there, I set up a magical device that would alert me whether wizards were in that house. It went off last month. Neville was there, and his behaviour was erratic. Memory charms are always traumatic, particularly when followed by a Stunning Spell, but there must've been some other pre-existing condition I didn't know about. When I removed the charm, he seemed to normalize. I tried to find him a doctor and a mindhealer, but shit hit the fan before that was realized. He is functional and rational- more rational than when I knew him at school, but he still needs to see a mindhealer. The combined trauma may have been personality changing if he had such trouble with his memory and thoughts."
Which reminded Charlie of something he'd almost forgotten about. "Were you the one who sent me the pensieve memory?"
"The what?"
George snorted. "I think that counts as a 'not guilty' plea and will so enter it in the record. That's actually pretty good news. So, Harry, are there any Greenies that you suspect might have a bout of conscience about their nefarious crimes?"
"They didn't come from Katie?" Harry shoved his hands through his hair and stood up, glancing at Charlie and George to see if this was "allowed." When no one made a move to stop him, he walked in a slow circle in front of the window with his arms folded. "Katie referred me to a physician at MI7. Phillip Hughes. I think I mentioned him before. She trusted him and I trusted her. I don't know that I can do much better than that. There are people, like Shashi, who don't understand the extent of what MI7 does, but most of the people I've encountered believe in their work. How did you get them that you don't know where they came from?"
"Someone passed it to me through their lawyer," Charlie said drily. "The Order apparently isn't the only lot running extragovernmental spying operations. What do the rest of them believe about their work? I mean, what's the line about why it's all right to execute people?"
"All of the people they hire have a reason to hate wizards," Harry replied. "Especially in Section C. Combine military training and a personal tragedy, residual from our Second War and you have people who are trained to kill and have no reservations about killing a specific group of people. It's as much personal vendetta and revenge as it is training agents to think of wizards as terrorists. But some of them really believe it's terrorist control, and want to see wizards treated like normal criminals. And think that's what MI7 does."
Charlie didn't bother to ask about the ones on Azkaban. They had to be dead to their consciences the way the Death Eaters had been. "Except for the part where it's not." He took a moment to ponder which of the two questions nagging at him he should ask next, and settled on, "Someone has to be breaking Muggle-repelling charms, or leading MI7 so they can ignore them. You did it for Grimmauld. Who did it for Hogwarts and the Ministry?"
"I don't know," Harry replied, genuinely frustrated by his lack of knowledge in this instance. "That's something I was trying to figure out. I am sure MI7 had contacts in the Ministry prior to Hogwarts." What else would explain the way he had been contacted prior to the destruction of the school?
"Inside the Ministry? A lot of people knew where the Ministry was, and everyone knows, knew, anyhow, where Hogwarts was. The same could be said for Diagon, Tinworth, Godric's Hollow, Upper Flagley--a lot of places. There's a pattern there and I don't understand it." It was clear Charlie had thought about this and didn't like it.
"What kind of a wizard would have a vendetta against a Ministry led by an Order Minister and a school?" Harry had thought about it as well, but to conclusions that had led nowhere. "Maybe a muggleborn. Maybe not. Muggleborns wouldn't necessarily know where the wizard villages, apart from Hogsmeade, are located," he pointed out.
"But a Muggleborn with a hard-on for the government for not doing anything to protect people during the war." Charlie's tone was uncertain; he was clearly speculating. "Or someone with other connections with the wizarding world with reasons to hate us. Maybe not a wizard at all but someone magical enough to get into Hogwarts anyhow."
"Like who?" Harry's motion had stilled and he was unconciously twisting the ring on his left finger. "MI7 has it out for magical creatures as much as wizards. If it's war related, goblins maybe. Otherwise, who do you have? Centaurs, vampires, werewolves, Veela, giants. They'd have to be humanoid to approach someone like Burbage."
"If it were goblins, that would explain Diagon Alley. But there's no reason it has to be only one person. It's not like they'd trust any wizarding-type allies based on what you've said." Charlie frowned.
George tapped the table. "Let's not rule out squibs. They'd've had it bad in the war. If Argy Filch hasn't joined them yet, it's because he hasn't thought of it."
"That is possible." Harry leaned against the wall and parted the curtains slightly with one finger, staring out. "All of it is possible, but I don't see how the Order will determine that for certain unless a high level MI7 employee is captured."
There was a nod from Charlie. "That's on the list. I thought you might have some answers that would lead to one conclusion or another, though. There's a lot I need to pick your brain about: anti-Apparation devices and anything else they have, like this microscale power grid detection thing, that might be a danger, particularly in the near term." He glanced toward the door. "We need to finish this. We don't have forever, even if it does seem like it. And we're all getting short-tempered from missing our breakfasts."
Harry, who until now had been turning over Charlie's offer in his mind, was prodded by that comment to address it. "You mentioned the Order oath, and I assume that means I work for you for the forseeable future. Am I allowed to speak to m- your sister before I make the decision to take it?"
Nobody had ever done for Harry what Bill had done for him and what he had tried to do for George and Fred and Ron, Charlie thought. What he said was, "There's hardly time for that if it's to be done before Percy gets back in here and he and I go at it hammer and tongs. I will say that the last discussion we had over you--well, I don't think he wants Ginny speaking to you. If he had his way, I'd not be allowed to speak to you." Charlie grinned at George, who had been witness to that argument at Bill's safehouse. "Except for the minor and inconvenient fact that we had to be the ones to reel you in and all." He turned back to Harry. "It'll be up to Ginny whether she wants to speak with you, either way." Or let Harry speak with Ted, but that was a topic Charlie wasn't ready to bring up just yet.
"I sent her a patronus Monday night while I was waiting for either you or Percy to contact me." Harry had the grace to look ashamed of himself, but added, "She sent a message to me through Katie and I responded to it. I asked her whether she would be willing to speak to me, and she agreed that she would." Harry was moving again, clearly agitated. "I left her out of the last decision I made, and I don't want a repeat performance of that mistake." His tone did not imply that he expected Ginny to continue to want to have a say in his decisions; he did not know it for certain, but he did not think she would consider their marriage reparable.
On the other hand, this was Ginny's older brother, and her favorite brother at that, and the one who had the most authority at this moment over Harry's status. "If she's in the Order, I'll take the vow. Right now, if need be."
It had taken a bit for Percy to painstakingly punch in the numerical message, then another several before he'd gotten a response. He didn't pay Oliver much mind as he appeared , but didn't wait long before joining him, once again sliding the pieces of the mobile phone apart to de-energise it.
"Where did you stash the other agent?" he asked Oliver, heading back towards the safehouse.
"I had no instructions to stash anyone anywhere," Oliver replied with a casual shrug. "Only so many MI7 bastards we can handle at one time, Perce, so we left him where I stunned him, short a few personal effects."
Percy looked at Oliver as if he was half mad. "Why? Was he dead?" Percy asked, but buttoned up as Oliver opened the door. He stepped across the threshold and retook his seat, then looked pointedly at Charlie to fill him in.
Charlie looked at Percy and his eyes narrowed. "Exactly what were you doing out there? Were you using a mobile, and if so, who did you contact?"
Percy looked at him dead on. "No one I care to mention in present company."
"That's right, we'll save the discussion of your security breaches for later." The outrage wasn't feigned. For a bloke who lectured Charlie, who lived security so long and so hard that he ate, drank, and dreamed it, on using passwords and other safety measures, Percy had made what Charlie could only think of as an elementary mistake. "I've gotten the basic outlines of what I need and I'm ready to move Harry now that you may have compromised this place. Do you have any last licks or are you ready to break it up?"
Percy sharpened his eyes. "You aren't planning on releasing him are you? Then I'm sure I can return at, of course, your discretion, if there are any loose ends I want tied up."
Charlie shook his head. "I'm putting him to work."
Percy looked past Charlie to George. "You Obliviate the other operative?" he asked him, stone cold emotionally.
"Me? All I did was run, brother mine. I had no orders regarding another operative." George put on his best imitation of his father's imitation of John Wayne. "Iffen' we done had a jail, I'd've brung 'em back alive, Sherriff." He cracked open one eye. "But we didn't, so I didn't. My best guess is that that my instinct was the right thing, in this case."
Percy gave Charlie a skeptical look. "I see. We don't have a jail, but you seem fine about bringing back Mr. Potter?" he asked, waiting for it. Waiting to hear it.
During this exchange, Harry had not moved an inch, but a muscle in his cheek began twitching in tense anticipation at this juncture.
"Because there are so many other options, of course." Charlie gave a grim smile that resembled more a baring of teeth than an actual pleasant expression. "You know perfectly well we don't have a jail, Perce. What exactly were you planning to do with Harry once you were done interrogating him? What exactly were you going to tell me to do with him? Or should I have left him in place? You were pretty fucking anxious to interrogate him the last time we had this discussion. Didn't this occur to you then? Because, let me tell you, I've spent a fucking lot of time thinking about it and there's no simple answer."
"You can't secure one person who is supposedly handing himself over to us?" Percy asked easily. "Someone who came in willingly to questioning? I have several ideas we can discuss, if you'd like."
"You're the one questioning my security arrangements. And violating them without so much as a by-your-leave. This was a secure facility when you left; I'm not sure it is now." Charlie glanced at Harry. "But you can't have it both ways, Perce. Either you trust his intentions or you don't. If you trust him to hand himself over to us and work with us, you trust it. If you don't, well, we already know you don't trust me. Which is it?""
"Who do you think I called, Charlie - Gordon Brown?" he inquired, then rose. "I trust you, Charlie, to do what you think is best." And it was true - who knew what that Wizengamot spell would do to any of them if they put a toe out of line. "But I, as I have stated before, do not trust your ability to be objective with Mr. Potter. I don't have to tell you the potential repercussions if your analysis is flawed - I hope you consider that more important than your pride."
"I'm sure I'm not the only one who will wish to see the pensieve of this discussion gentlemen. Good evening." And with that, Percy had no qualms about walking straight out of the lions den.
Charlie waited for the door to close before turning back to Harry and his partners in crime. "Welcome to life in the triumvirate of government," he told George and Ollie.
George slumped back on the safehouse chair. "Harry, my brother, I have one bit of advice for you, I cannot provide you with much guidance, but this I can tell you. If the Minister for Magic ever offers to show you the stick he has up his ass, run. It's a trap. Charlie, we need to go somewhere with beer."
Oliver wisely stayed out of the matters between Charlie and Percy; it wasn't hard to discern where his opinions and his loyalty lie. He did, however, refuse to look directly at Harry for the duration, and turned to Charlie once Percy was gone. "Charlie, can I talk to you?" he asked in a way that clearly didn't mean there.
He'd known this was coming too. It was easier to face down Percy in than explain this to Oliver, Charlie thought. "You can always talk to me, Ollie, you know that. But I think what you need to say might be best said here."
"Alright," he agreed, because despite everything that was running through his head, he respected Charlie. "I want to know how you think you're going to put Potter to work. Either he gets to roam free - which seems like a light sentence for a bloody traitor - or one of us is going to have to be with him all the bloody time. Which, must as I might like to get a little alone time with the Boy-Who-Refuses-to-Die here, is probably not what you have in mind." Oliver gave Charlie a grim smile. "Unless that is what you have in mind, in which case, objection withdrawn."
"One of us is going to have to be with him all the bloody time for a while, no matter what. He doesn't have a wand. I reckon the one they gave him used to belong to somebody else." Charlie let that sink in. "And the other one I know of lying about loose is Ron's." To Oliver, Charlie could be bluntly honest in a way he could never manage with Percy. "I heard his story. I heard bits and pieces of it before today and I heard more just now. People do crazy things for their wives, their kids, the people they love. You know that, Ollie. They do things that are wrong, that have terrible consequences for other people. But sometimes they learn from it, and go on to do better."
He took a deep breath and sighed. "Sometimes I think Dumbledore didn't name the Order after that fucking bird of his. Sometimes I think he named it after the idea that people can remake themselves if they're given a second chance. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's not because Harry's my friend--" for in truth, Harry wasn't really, for all that he'd married Charlie's sister; they'd never known each other well enough for real friendship "--or because he's married to Ginny, because I don't even know--" and he stopped, because he didn't know anything about that. "But I'm willing to take the Order oath from Harry, and bind him with it, and let him earn his way back from the hole he's dug for himself. I've done it for everyone else. How can I do less for a man who brings me inside knowledge of MI7?"
"If it was a matter of him having done something stupid, Charlie, I'd understand. If it only had to do with him hurting Ginny and Ted, then sure. But he's a traitor. He chose to protect the people who he knew were killing witches and wizards, to help them, even. If it hadn't been people he knew on that boat, people he was related to, do you think it would have gone the same way? You're talking about someone who's made it so a good deal of the people we know couldn't go home because he might have sold them out to the greenies."
Oliver shook his head. "I know I'll pay for my crimes one day, Charlie, but this doesn't seem much like him paying for anything, getting to go back to the people he used to know, no harm, no foul. If the Wizengamot gets its act together enough one day to convict me of breaking the Secrecy laws, then so be it - maybe they'll send me to Azkaban with Meaghan." He said that part with particular emphasis, since Harry had been gone before Meaghan had been taken. "But you're asking people who have been risking their lives several times a week to babysit a traitor while he lives just as well as we do. Even if the Order oath keeps him from outright stabbing us in the back, that doesn't compel him to do for us what any one of us would do for each other. Or if it did, if we'd want his bloody help. He might not have a wand, but that doesn't make him helpless, and that doesn't mean he should be given a new one, either."
"Asking us to smile and nod as you make a traitor one of us is a bit much to ask, oath or not, and I've never refused an order yet."
"I'm not asking you to smile and nod. Do I look like I'm smiling?" And Charlie wasn't. He hadn't shaved since he'd seen his mother on Sunday; the stress and the irregular sleep schedule he'd been keeping between the Order and working for the Ministry and dealing with the Wizengamot showed in his eyes and bearing. "I understand what you're saying. Fleur and Bill can't go home because of this, and you know what Ginny had to do. George and I don't even have a home to go to now that the Burrow's under surveillance, and neither does anyone else who lived in Ottery St Catchpole. But that's because of my choices and not for anything Harry did." Which might or might not be true; who knew who'd turned in Ottery St. Catchpole. Still, Charlie had taken responsibility for Big Ben, so it fell on his head first.
"What would you do with him? In my shoes?" It was the same question Charlie had asked of Percy, and asked with the same sincerity, for all that Ollie would understand and answer and Percy never would.
"Put him to a pensieve, first and foremost. Seems stupid to trust his word on any of it, especially where we don't have other sources to corroborate. He might be able to fuck with other people's memories, but he can't have hidden all his own. Turn a safehouse - this one, most likely, so he doesn't learn the locations of any others - into a place to hold him in not comfortable conditions, and start writing out everything he knows, everything that might help, and a confession or twelve. Don't bloody well tell everyone that we have him, or even that he's alive, if it's possible to keep it quiet. The last thing we need is to lose what little morale we have these days or worse yet, have people start thinking that maybe You-Know-Who had the right of it after all, even more than some of them already do."
Oliver shrugged resignedly, emotionally exhausted rather than physically. "But you're the captain for a reason, Charlie, so it's your call. I'll go along with it as best I can, though I can't make any promises I haven't already made."
Charlie sighed, his own resignation and exhaustion showing in the way his shoulders fell a little as the weight of Ollie's words landed on them. "I'll never ask you to go against what you know in your bones to be right. You know that. I'm not disregarding what you say. But I need you to trust me on this one for a while, at least." He would explain more to Oliver later, maybe when he had the words for what he knew in his own bones to be right.
George opened his eye from his slouching position. "Since I'm having trouble sleeping with all the kneazle-fights in the room, perhaps I should take first watch. Sometime I'll tell you what it was like to be in the Order when Severus Snape was a member, Ollie."
This analogy, whether implied by George or not, caught Harry offguard. His reaction was subtle enough that they all might easily overlook it, but he had gone ghost white and felt like wretching. He sank against the windowsill.
Oliver nodded once in Charlie's direction and didn't say anything else on the matter. There was nothing left to say, really, and he wasn't out to make the situation any harder for Charlie, even if he disagreed with the other man. "If you're taking this shift, I'll head home. George, don't spend all that money you filched in one place." He managed to summon up the barest hint of a smile. "And sometime I'll tell you how Percy gave me nightmares for a fortnight regarding Snape's sex life."
His hand on the doorknob, he turned back to the others and shot off a half-hearted salute. "Weasleys, you know where to find me if you need me."
"I'll come with. There's one more thing before you head home, Ollie." Charlie turned back to George. "You've got shift until noon, I think. I'll be back by then." To Harry he added, "Think about it."
With a sharp nod to Charlie, Harry pushed himself upright and watched Oliver and Charlie exit. Once they had left, he looked at George questioningly. "What do I do now? Sit?"
George didn't move from his spot. "Well, we can't exactly play Quidditch in here, not enough brooms. Ollie thinks I'm going to lose Krishashiwhosit's money to you playing cards, but that doesn't have to happen. What do you want to do, in order to kill the time until Charlie brings us lunch? Oh, I hope you like leftover egg sandwiches."
"Cards're alright," Harry grunted. "'slong as Oliver doesn't come back to exact revenge if you lose. How's your poker face? Or let's invite Percy back and play 'Bullshit'."