Chapter 183
Chapter 183. Aftermath.
Hogwarts.
Severus exhaled with irritation and dismissed the screen with a sharp wave of his hand, once nearly all his informants had left the battlefield.
"I never thought I'd ever have to save their hides."
"You didn't have to." Nagini said it lightly, without thinking, but the moment she saw a finger approaching she quickly swished her tail in front of her face. "I'm joking! Can't you take a joke?!" It did not save her from the flick to the forehead.
A few seconds later she was staring at him with a wounded look, rubbing her brow irritably after her punishment.
"Well, what's done is done." He dropped back against his pillow and muttered tiredly at the ceiling. Still, it would have been pleasant if they'd simply eliminated each other. But no: the cleaner move is to stay out of it, let her solve her own problem, and after that it's never too late to arrange an accident. A couple dozen accidents.
"Severus." Nagini's puzzled voice broke through. She was watching him with a distinctly peculiar look. "Could you tone down that smile? It really feels like you're planning something terrible." At her words he choked, as though he had swallowed something the wrong way, and her look grew even more suspicious.
"You imagined it."
"Did I? It doesn't look like it."
"You definitely imagined it." He scratched his cheek awkwardly with one finger, then patted her on the head. "Right. That's truly it. Time to sleep."
"What about the Ministry of Magic?"
"That's over too. Though I wouldn't call it a clean finish." The image surfaced in his mind: Moody lying unconscious on the ground, missing his right leg and left arm, with several Aurors scattered nearby, some in critical condition, others no longer breathing.
Moody might well have lost his life that day too, if not for one chance occurrence: an old Master with whom he had a scheduled meeting after the end of his shift, and who had decided to arrive ten minutes early.
The following day began for most wizards of Britain with a genuine shock. Concealing something like this was simply impossible: many had heard it, and some had seen it firsthand, even in Knockturn Alley, to say nothing of the traces of battle and blood that still had not been cleaned up.
By midday, word of mouth and the papers had done their work. Not with perfect accuracy: in places the stories were heavily embellished, padded with speculation and private theories. But they had managed to explain to the residents of Magical Britain roughly what had happened the previous night.
Almost no ordinary wizards, and only a few aristocrats, knew of Black Star's existence, so nearly everyone assumed the clash had been between the Death Eaters and the Ministry of Magic.
And yet only the day before, everyone had been cheerfully preparing for the coming Christmas: decorating trees, dressing their homes, laying holiday tables. Only five days remained until the celebration, and everyone had hoped it would pass peacefully. This year, that hope had been ruined.
By one newspaper's rough estimate, approximately one hundred and forty-five people had died. Forty per cent had been in the Ministry's service. Twenty had belonged to aristocratic families, and two of those families had been nearly wiped out entirely. Thirty had been independent wizards belonging to no particular category, though a large portion of those had been wanted criminals who had long since had a place reserved for them in Azkaban. The remaining ten bodies could not be identified.
The numbers varied from source to source, but almost all of them came in above one hundred and thirty: enough to give people reason to believe them. Even so, many were waiting for an official statement from the Ministry of Magic, since a government announcement and a newspaper article were very different things.
What was most remarkable, however, was that the Minister of Magic's injury never surfaced at all. Harold was on his feet the very next morning, addressing the civilian population of Magical Britain and offering reassurances. Rumours about his condition circulated, but they stayed at the level of idle gossip and nothing more.
He had not, of course, recovered: the wound was far too serious for that. To calm public anxiety and project a sense of control, Harold had simply endured sharp, at moments aching pain for nearly an hour. That earned him Severus's respect: the man was genuinely worthy of his office.
As for Voldemort, very few had seen him in the hours after the retreat, but what they had seen was more than enough: furious shouting, explosions, and the sound of something heavy hitting the floor on the upper level made it perfectly clear that approaching him right now, unless you wanted an Avada Kedavra straight to the face and a one-way trip to Merlin, was a very bad idea.
He had every reason to be furious. When he had ordered the retreat, Voldemort had felt forty-two marks go dark, and a mark could only disappear in three ways: it had been removed, which was nearly impossible and he would have sensed it immediately; it had been sealed; or its bearer was dead.
For Voldemort, all three amounted to the same thing as death. And he had no particular confidence that those bastards would have bothered with sealing or removing marks: he was certain every last one of them was dead, and that was a catastrophic loss for an organisation as small as the Death Eaters.
There were still those who had not yet received the mark: people Voldemort had considered unworthy, but who were nonetheless his servants and a source of strength he could not afford to lose. Among them the losses had been considerably smaller: twenty-three. Only one thing had taken even the slightest edge off his rage, and that was the knowledge that he was not the only one who had suffered that evening.
The Ministry of Magic presented a similar picture, though their losses were in many respects heavier. Where Voldemort had managed to preserve the core of his strength and influence, they had lost five captains and fifty-two rank-and-file Auror members. That said nothing of the twenty-five who had sustained serious injuries and would most likely never raise a wand again. Among the latter, two names stood out: Moody and Richard Brooks, two captains whose careers as fighters against the Dark Arts were over.
As for the Order of the Phoenix, led by Dumbledore, the tragedy had largely spared them: the exceptions were Moody and the Prewett brothers, the latter having assisted a small Auror squad and come away with nothing worse than a few scratches.
But this incident had become the very trigger that forced all the powers of Britain together for the first time in ten years. The Ministry of Magic, the Death Eaters, and the majority of the gangs, all of whom had suffered significant losses of their own, resolved to unite against the foreign invaders, understanding that none of them could overcome Black Star alone, especially now, when each had been so badly hurt.
On the second day, in secret, a magical contract was signed by nine people: Harold, Voldemort, and the leaders of the seven largest gangs. A pact of alliance, to hold until the enemy was driven from the country.
Hogwarts. The Headmaster's Office. Two Days Later.
In the small, round office, Dumbledore sat at his desk with grief written across his face. Before him lay an open parchment bearing fifteen names and the seal of the Ministry of Magic.
"Albus... we..."
"No. Let them be. At least let this Christmas pass in ignorance." Minerva pressed her lips together and nodded in silence. "Tell the other teachers to say nothing about what happened. And cancel all owl departures until the twenty-ninth of December."
Dumbledore knew better than most what it meant to lose someone close: he had watched his own sister die before his eyes, and had been one of those responsible for her death. The list sent by the Ministry contained the names of students whose parents had lost their lives that night. He had no wish to ruin the children's holiday: he wanted to prepare them for this bitter truth in his own way.
"And the funerals?"
"They will be held on the twenty-ninth. Don't worry: I'll speak to the children myself." He almost always smiled, almost always carried himself in a lifted mood, but after recent events he simply no longer had the strength for it. In a way it had become a trigger, dragging old and darker memories to the surface. "Tell me, how is the preparation for the ball going?" He tried, gently, to give them both something else to think about. Minerva responded with a restrained smile: it resembled a smile less than it resembled the effort to produce one. But she understood everything and chose not to draw attention to it.
"Everything is going well. Nearly all of them, even Mr Spinnet: the moment I paired him with Miss Fane, he learned to dance in half an hour. You should have seen how very 'displeased' he was about having his partner changed." But as she finished the sentence, the smile faded. One of the names on the parchment was Spinnet. His parents had been Aurors on patrol that day.
------------------------------------------
Chapters on Patreon progress: Currently at;
1. Harry Potter: Satan? Nah, Just My Family Crest = CHAPTER 314
2.Marvel: Cosmic Forger of Infinity = CHAPTER 219
3.Harry Potter: Beyond Good and Evil in the Wizarding World = CHAPTER 315
4.Harry Potter: Reborn as Draco Black = CHAPTER 146
support me on Patreon for instant access to the 120+ advance chapters: patreon.com/redofic