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“Now, you are going to be doing some lines for me Mr. Potter. No, not with your quill. You’re going to be using a rather special one of mine. Here you are... Off you go.”
***
Harry looked at his hand in horror as his first line finished. I must not tell lies was carved into his skin, shoddy handwriting and all, blood welling down and between his fingers, from his hand to the parchment and the desk.
And then, to his utter horror, a flash of white light came from the quill itself. He wasn't sure what was happening, but whatever it was, it couldn't be anything good.
It was like a blanket of magic had covered him, smothering him, and it was all he could do to keep breathing through it.
No, no, no, no, no. This could not be happening. Not again. Not another cursed diary or horrifying ritual or whatever this bloody was. No. He refused to let this happen, no matter what it was.
His ears were ringing, muffling the world around him, but eventually he registered the shrill voice of Professor Umbridge.
“—Potter! Mr. Potter! What have you done? I insist that you cease this tomfoolery at once. The Minister has given me full authority to punish you for your outlandish claims as I see fit, and you will come around to his way of seeing things.”
Harry stared at her blankly. Surely there was some kind of a trick? Surely she’d seen it too? Was he supposed to pretend he never saw whatever magic this bloody quill set off, or was he truly the only one that had noticed it?
No, surely that wasn’t the case. The vindictive gleam in her eyes when she presented it to him spoke of more than simple lines or even solely pain being in store for him this evening, and even Umbridge couldn’t be blind enough not to notice magic like that getting set off not two meters from her bloody face.
So, it was part of the plan, then. Whatever it was, whatever this quill was enchanted to do, it was more than the immediately obvious, and more than that, it played directly into her ghastly plans.
So be it.
Harry grimaced, and gingerly picked the thing up again. If he had to be here, if he had to do as she asked, well at least he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of seeing exactly how deeply he was discomforted by it.
It was all he could do.
***
Harry found himself in a rather lavishly appointed study that was starting to become quite familiar to him, all hardwood bookshelves and heirloom armchairs, everything plated in gold and dotted with gaudy gems; probably diamonds, if he had to bet.
As always, he was hovering near a corner of the room, close to the fireplace, the desk directly in his line of sight when he first opened his eyes. As always, Voldemort was seated alone at the desk, scribbling furiously on scraps of parchment and muttering to himself, half a dozen books strewn about carelessly, left open and forgotten as he flipped from one to the next.
For over a year now, he’d caught glimpses of things, memories or visions or maybe even some horrifyingly bastardized kind of possession if Hermione and her wild theories were to be believed, while he slept. They were true dreams, he knew they were real, but even so, they had only been glimpses, the briefest moments, a conversation with no context before the visions faded.
Not so anymore.
No, he wasn’t sure what had changed, but lately, in the last few months or so, the visions had changed. They were no longer short snippets, confusing glimpses without context, but had instead become… this. Hours and hours of monotony, watching from a distance as Voldemort worked himself into a quiet frenzy each night. It was strange and discomforting to witness, not consoled at all that the frenzy was more one of improbable research rather than the fury or bloodlust that had so consumed him before.
Harry didn’t know what to make of it.
But nevertheless, he watched. It never amounted to much, no actionable intelligence he could pass along to Dumbledore, no matter how much he wished it would be so. The names he recognized: Fudge and Arthur and Thicknesse and so on were devoid of any meaningful context, and he could never quite be sure of a place or time, even as the trees outside the window of Voldemort’s study lost their leaves, and a first frost quickly gave way to blankets of snow.
Wherever he was, Harry thought it looked somewhat peaceful, in its own way, the snow remaining untouched day after day, far from the footsteps of students or the tracks of animals, perfectly pristine, wherever it was.
Harry kept watch, no matter how useless it all seemed. It still felt important, in its own way perhaps, that this shift had happened, no matter how.
***
Harry shuffled down the steps into the common room, annoyed that once again it hadn’t felt like he’d slept at all. Once again, it felt like he’d spent the entire night, alert and watching like a pathetic spectre, as Voldemort conducted whatever research he was doing.
“Didn’t sleep well?”
Harry turned and squinted at the sound, scrubbing his face when the squinting failed to help him make out who was speaking. He scrubbed at it harder, finally coming to the realization that he’d left his glasses all the way upstairs, and now he’d have to go all the way back there to get them. This morning just kept getting worse.
“Harry?”
This voice he recognized, and he wasted no time in slumping into the couch at Hermione’s side, giving a half-hearted shrug to the other voice. The black blob of where her robes probably were contrasted quite nicely with the red blob of the couch, and he was quite certain that anything he couldn’t make out on the seat next to her was unimportant. She wasn’t yelling at him about it yet, so yes, he was correct.
“Yeah, Herm. It was another dream or vision or whatever you want to call them.”
“It seems to be keeping you awfully tired… And you’re sure they’re real? You’re sure it’s not just…” Hermione trailed off, and he could almost feel the frown on her face.
“Just what, stress? Nightmares?” he laughed. “I mean, yeah, I’m pretty sure. They’ve been real before, haven’t they, for all that they seem especially useless now.”
“And frequent, Harry. You weren’t having them every night last year. Are you sure there’s been no other symptoms? No strange pains? Strange urges to do anything? Nothing at all?”
“No… Why? Did you find something?”
“I might’ve, or well… Hardly anything is still known about them, but after you told me about the blood quill, and the strange flash you described after using it the first time, I looked into what other artifacts have been made with similar properties. And well…”
“Well?”
“It’s just… Oh Harry, it might not be this at all, but what you described sounds an awful lot like the seal created when a blood quill is used to bind someone into service, usually the permanent kind. The feather was the size and color of a normal blood quill, or as normal as they come, so it couldn’t have been a lingering house elf binding or anything of that sort. Which leaves the quills the Ministry supposedly keeps only for historical study, from when Magical Britain was ruled by a monarch much as the rest of Britain is. They’re supposed to all be carefully kept in a vault beneath the city, guarded by the Unspeakables, and they’re certainly not supposed to be used for anything!”
“So…”
“So, I suspect that quill was possibly the last of the quills that were used to swear servants to the line of Pendragon.” At his blank look, she continued. “On the magical side, the line of kings and the occasional queen was unbroken, all the way from King Arthur until the establishment of the Ministry of Magic.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m not magically bound to some long-dead king, Hermione,” Harry said, and forced an uncomfortable chuckle.
“No, you’re not. Which raises the question of who it has tied you to.”
“Isn’t it obvious? Shouldn’t it be Fudge? I mean, I hate him too, but…”
“See, that’s just it, Harry, and its the whole reason the quills fell out of use to begin with. As a magical artifact, it determines who the leader of Magical Britain is. There was a whole falling out after the ascension of King Bixley to the throne in 1642 when it became clear that the Servants of Pendragon didn’t answer to him. Years passed, and they couldn’t figure out who the new monarch they answered to was, and so the Servants formed a council which became better known as the Wizard’s Council.”
“I don’t understand, Hermione. That council is just as defunct as the kings are.” He may make a habit of sleeping through Binns’ lectures, but he was certain of that much.
“Precisely. If you were magically bound as some kind of a servant to the Minister, or to the Ministry as a whole, I am quite certain Professor Umbridge would not have waited to take advantage of that power, whether by forcing you to recant your statements, or any number of other actions. Which leaves the question…”
“… Who is it?”
“Precisely.”
“I mean, I haven’t the faintest, Hermione. How am I supposed to know? How does the quill choose, anyways?”
“Well, historically, it was always whoever was the most powerful wizard, whoever was most trusted by the people to defend them from whoever their enemies of the time were—”
“So it must be Dumbledore then!” he cut in.
“Professor Dumbledore, Harry. And I think not, actually.”
“What? Why not?”
“Just think about it. It isn’t just about what we know to be true, but what the majority of Britain believes. And maybe once they held that faith in him, but…” She trailed off, and he really didn’t like where that uncertainty was leading.
“So who? If not Dumbledore, and not the Ministry, then…”
“I’ll keep looking, Harry. I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”
***
He was asleep, and he knew it, but for the first time in ages, he was out of the study. Somehow, Harry knew he was Voldemort himself tonight rather than watching silently from beside him, and he knew he was on the move.
Swift steps took him down a dark hallway into an atrium, and even the addition of a Christmas tree and jolly ribbons and ornaments couldn’t prevent him from recognizing it.
The Ministry of Magic.
A witch at a desk stood, hand raised to draw attention to herself, which turned out to be a mistake. Even without recognizing her, Harry knew she was simply trying to register their wands, to follow protocol for visitors, but a horribly familiar flash of green light had already reached her, and she was already collapsed on the floor.
He kept up his steady stride, working deeper into the Ministry, for all that Harry had no idea where he was going. Perhaps there were offices back here, or important documents, or something else of interest, but he was helpless, only able to watch as it played out.
Figures in dark cloaks followed in his wake as he walked, turning down the hallways he passed without stopping, without a need for an order, without any visible command, moving in perfect, eery synchrony, and flowing back into the mass as their jobs were completed.
Harry struggled to look, for any hint of what was happening, but it was as though his ears were muffled, or perhaps damaged from one of the explosions. But even so, he could see dust, and rubble, and so many more flashes of green light.
He strode onwards, and Harry had the oddest feeling that he was treading deeper not just metaphorically into the Ministry, but that the relatively flat and even hallway was taking him to the lower levels as well.
Sure enough, he stopped in front of a nauseatingly familiar set of double doors, which swung open to reveal the Wizengamot chambers, just as he recalled them from this summer.
There was chaos.
People screamed even as he couldn’t hear them, falling even before they could draw their wands to the black cloaks that poured into the room from behind him. Drips of blood fell onto the once-ornate carpeted floor, from fallen bodies and spelled wounds and even that horrible axe Macnair had was dripping as well.
With a wave of his hand, a ceremonial sword flew off the wall and into his hand, feeling so right there, so familiar, like the Sword of Gryffindor once had.
The next moment, Fudge was brought in front of him, and pushed to his knees. His men drew back and he raised his arm for a heavy swing.
He struck true.
A fountain of more blood joined that already staining the carpet, and his ears finally started to work again, just in time to hear a soft thud at his feet.
***
Harry gasped, already tearing the sheets off of him and throwing off his pyjamas. From the sounds of shuffling in the other beds, this had hardly been one of his quietest visions, and he was hardly the only one awake.
It didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting there as fast as possible. Maybe it wasn’t too late, maybe it hadn’t actually happened yet, maybe that wasn’t actually Fudge’s bloody head rolling on the floor of the Wizengamot Chambers.
He shuddered. All that mattered was getting there.
Sure enough, Ron’s curtains peeled back just after Harry let his trunk thunk open as he dug for something to wear, and Neville’s and Dean’s were right after.
“What’re you doing, mate? What time is it?” Ron asked.
“No time,” Harry said, only half attempting to whisper in his hysteria. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Wait a bloody minute—”
“No, Ron. There’s no time!”
“I’ll call the DA,” Neville said, with an actual whisper, and a moment later, four more trunks were thudding open as well.
Whatever, it didn’t matter. Maybe they’d follow him, maybe not. He didn’t even know where the Ministry bloody was, but he still had to get there. He had to. He could figure out the rest on the way.
***
Harry burst into the room, gasping for air after the long run from the Ministry Atrium. It had taken a while, far longer than he’d liked to get to a working floo, but he was finally here.
He took in the Wizengamot Chambers, fully assembled in their uniform robes just as they were for his trial. Just as they’d been when his dream started.
Except they weren’t all there. He spotted gaps in the lineup, not that he knew the names of any of them, and the more he looked, the more gaps he spotted.
And then his eyes caught on the scene at the center of the atrium. Unlike all the rest of the bodies, who had presumably been moved somewhere in the hour or so since he woke up, cleared out of hallways and out of their seats, this one had been left.
It was odd to see it, looking from the outside now, from a new angle, but that was still clearly the body of Fudge making a mess of things, and that was still his head gently resting at Voldemort’s feet.
Somehow, he doubted that was what Umbridge had in mind, if anything, when she dug that blasted quill up. He still wasn’t nearly certain about what it did, nothing like Hermione’s confidence, but he was certain she’d done something with it, and that this whole scene was her fault.
Voldemort’s gaze met his own as he felt his friends filing in behind him, and he was oddly intrigued at the sword he still held, hanging loose from his hand, still stained red with blood. He wondered if he’d looked anything like that himself, dragging a bloody sword up with him from the Chamber of Secrets, if it had made him look so strong, if it—
Harry shook himself, and tried to focus on what was in front of him. He wasn’t sure exactly what was going on here, but he wouldn’t stand for tyranny.
Except then, something flickered in the risers, up in the seats behind Voldemort, and Harry frowned as it settled into two chairs. No, two thrones more like, both equally ornate, equally sized, yet very distinct from the seats of the rest of the Wizengamot.
Hermione made some kind of a strangled gasp behind him, but before he could turn to ask her what she had thought of now, Voldemort had caught his attention again, gesturing with a flick of his other hand, the one not holding the sword, that Harry should follow.
It felt so right to do so, that Harry hardly spent a moment to consider before following, his steps even with Voldemort as they crossed the floor and started up the steps. In unison, they took their seats, sitting in the thrones, and Harry’s mind was just struggling to catch up with that bit as the tension in the room broke, as though everyone had been holding their breaths, waiting for the worst to occur.
A strained smile made its way onto Harry’s lips, and he met Voldemort’s eyes yet again, completely unprepared for this.
“Well?” he asked. “What now?”