Nothing about this conversation had been news to Harry so far, but he felt like he owed it to Ron to at least pretend to be surprised, so that things might not get even more awkward than they had to be. But still, Harry found himself at a loss of words.
“Er…” he muttered, peering around the room, as if looking for the perfect answer to what Ron had just told him. But before he got the chance to say anything else, Mrs. Weasley came rushing down the stairs with a flabbergasted look on her face.
“Harry, Darling! You’re here,” she exclaimed. “Ron! Why on earth didn’t come and tell me that Harry had arrived?” Ron shrugged as she rushed into the kitchen.
Harry took this opportunity to lean over to Ron and half whisper “Good for you, mate” with a sly smile on his face, before moving into the kitchen. That way he knew that Ron knew he supported him, but it also meant that he didn’t have to talk about right then. In the kitchen Mrs. Weasley was already in the middle of preparing what looked like about two dozen ham and cheese sandwiches.
“Now, I know you’ll be hungry,” she said, while she was balancing on a chair to reach a bowl on the topmost shelf of the cabinet. “You always look so starved after every time you’ve stayed with those Muggles.” Then she muttered on to her self and all Harry could here were stray words like ‘…good reason…’, ‘…complexity of the situation…’ and ‘…better before long…’
Ron and Harry seated themselves in a chair each, and helped themselves from the huge plate of sandwiches.
“Ron, Darling…,” said Mrs. Weasley in a lighter tone. “Was something wrong with Hermione just now? I met her in the stairs and she seemed really furious about something. You boys weren’t winding her up again were you? You know how easily she gets aggravated…”
Ron and Harry peered at each other, and Ron gave Harry a mischievous grin. “Nope,” said Ron with his mouth full of ham and cheese. “Not up to anyfing, mum.”
“Well I suppose you two better get up to bed soon,” Mrs. Weasley carried on. “It’s getting rather late, and you’ll need your sleep for tomorrow. It’s going to be a busy day for you, Harry.”
Harry gazed up at her. “Now wait a minute. I want you to explain to me what happened this evening,” he said with a harsh undertone. He was so sick of people keeping thing from him, and not explaining the things that happened. “And also… What’s happening tomorrow?” he queried.
Before Mrs. Weasley got a chance to say anything, Ron butted in. “Ah man, you didn’t hear? They’re deciding whether or not to shut down Hogwarts tomorrow,” he said, very quikly.
“What?” snapped Harry. “They can’t-- How will they-- What will everybody--“, but his rambling was cut short by Mrs. Weasley.
“Surely Harry, you can understand that the question has been raised,” she said as she sat down across the table from him. “For goodness sake, the Head Master, the man counted as one of the most powerful wizards in the world was murdered on the school grounds.” Harry felt is stomach drop as it always did lately when he thought about his old Head Master. “They now reckon,” Mrs. Weasley continued, “that the school can’t possibly be safe for anyone, if the Death Eaters managed to get in even when Dumbledore was there. That’s what they’re going to determine at the hearing tomorrow. “
Harry shook his head in disbelief. “But the school is safe,” he said angrily. “It was all because of the Vanishing Cabinets. So if the remove those, the school should be impenetrable. “
“I should be, mate,” said Ron, “but nobody can really be sure about it. Hogwarts is so old and the amounts of spells that are set on the school are so many that no one will ever be completely certain that the school is safe.”
Harry thought it seemed as though this topic had indeed been discussed already at The Burrow. But something still bothered him.
“So that’s why I’m busy tomorrow?” he asked. “Because the hearing is scheduled then? What does that have to do with me?”
A voice from the stairs made Harry and Ron jump. “Because they want you to testify, of course.” Hermione had come back downstairs, walking slowly with Crookshanks in her arms. “Of course they know that you were there, the night of Dumbledore’s murder.
And I bet they want a full account of it, so that they can give it as a reason for why the school shouldn’t open again.”
She shuffled over in her slippers and nightgown and sat next to Ron. Then she grabbed a sandwich and stared promptly at Harry.
“But--,” he stuttered, “I don’t want them to close the school. So I shouldn’t be testifying for them. I probably shouldn’t be there at all.”
Hermione sighed. “We know,” she said in an exhausted tone. “We’ve tried to get you out of it all week, but the only way that you can not go, is by refusing to testify. And they threatened to throw you in jail if you did that.”
Harry gave them a horrified look. “What?” he exclaimed. “They can’t do that. That’s illegal.”
Mrs. Weasley sighed and rubbed her eyes in an exhausted kind of way. “We know, dear. But the ministry isn’t going to stop at any point this time. Arthur has been trying to fix this for you at work ever since we learned about it, but all they have to say is that they have let too many things pass through their hands and it’s not going to happen again. He says they will arrest you on the charges “abruption of peace” and “withholding of criminal information” if you do not do it. I’m sorry, dear.”
Harry looked across the table at the three of them sitting there. They all looked gaunt and drawn, and very tired. He didn’t doubt for one second that they had really work on trying to figure out a way to get him out of this business. He just couldn’t understand how the ministry would be able to get away with something like this. But then again, this was the same ministry that refused to believe that Voldemort had returned, and also sentenced an innocent Sirius Black to a lifetime sentence in Azkaban.
Their silence seemed to finally get to Mrs. Weasley, and she stood up abruptly. “No matter. There is nothing we can do about this now, anyway. You’ll just have to try to make everything sound as positive for the school as possible tomorrow, Harry dear. Now I need all of you to march off to bed. It’s far too late to be sitting up, chitchatting.”
At this, Harry, Ron and Hermione dragged their bodies out of their chairs, and towards the stairs. Harry was thinking how tired he actually was when another thought entered his mind, and he turned abruptly again.
“Mrs. Weasley!” he said quickly, “What happened to Mrs. Figg tonight? She was lying blind and hurt in the street when I found her, and when she died--“
“--a spidery bug crawled out of her mouth, right?” Mrs. Weasley interrupted. She sighed, and starred at the ground for a little while, before she said, “Mrs. Figg’s body has been taken into services by the Dark Lord. You see, Harry… If the Dark Lord wants someone as an Inferi he kills them in the cruelest way. Without a use of any spell, a person is forced to swallow a potion that kills you from the inside out. It slowly takes away everything live about you, but the body is still preserved. And the last thing that happens to a body after it is dead, but before it becomes an Inferi, is that the person’s soul leaves their body. After that, the body is at the disposal of the Dark Lord.” She sighed, and looked around the kitchen, as though looking for something more comforting to talk about.
Harry didn’t know what to say. He only heard his own blood pumping in his ears, and small fidgety noises from Ron and Hermione behind him.
“Now now!” Mrs. Weasley said hurriedly. “Any more talk like this and you will never get to sleep. Of you go, now. You need to rest for tomorrow.” Then she shooed them off up the stairs.
Even though Harry’s brain still was filled with questions, he was very tired. It felt like he hadn’t slept for days. So he, Ron and Hermione shuffled on up the stairs to their bedrooms, but just as Ron and Harry were about to enter Ron’s room Hermione stopped them.
“Ehm… Ron?” she muttered softly. “Could I please have a little word with you before we go to bed?” She had stopped by the stairs, and stood very awkwardly and played with her fingernails as she said this.
Ron stopped dead in his tracks, and slowly turned around only to reveal what looked like a painful expression on his face.
“Go on, mate,” whispered Harry with a slight grin on his face. “She really doesn’t look like she’s in a yelling mood”
Ron gave a low grunt and started walking back towards her. Harry made to go into the bedroom as he heard Hermione say “I’m really sorry for yelling at you earlier. I know I should have talked --“, but that was the last Harry hear before he closed the bedroom door.
He undressed and crawled under the covers on his squishy but comfortable roll-away-bed, and had almost fallen asleep five minutes later when Ron came back in.
“All good?” Harry asked.
“She just kept rambling on and on, and all I really wanted to do was to shut her up and go to bed,” Ron confessed as he got into bed.
“So I kissed her,” he said, and then he turned off the light. “Night, Harry!”
Harry Potter and the Key of Merlin by didyoubelieve
Chapter Notes: The fourth chapter in my story, where harry learns more about what happened and what is to come.
I'd love reviews, so if y'all have the time ;)