Aspen Sunlight - A Summer Like None Other

No, nobody else seemed aware that it was happening, Harry decided. Except Dumbledore. He wore a keen look as he glanced from Snape to Remus and back. He let it go on for a moment, then spoke.

"Continue, please."

Remus glanced away from Snape and cleared his throat. "The plan went exactly as the Dark Lord intended. All summer long, he had been snatching Muggleborn children, and some half-blooded children as well, and hiding them away in the amulet he wears around his neck."

"In an amulet." Bill's voice was fierce. "I've seen the like."

"Su Li," gasped Harry, clenching his fists. "Wayne Hopkins. Laura Madley! All of them, in an amulet ?"

"Oh, there were so many children reported missing," moaned Mrs Weasley. "And they were held captive by You-Know-Who, trapped like that and carried about with him? The poor dears . . ."

Remus' eyes looked bloodshot when he glanced up, looking anywhere but at Molly Weasley, it seemed to Harry. "Yes, but it gets worse. There were fifteen children in all, some of them too young to have begun at Hogwarts. The amulet formed a magical realm into which the Dark Lord himself could venture at will. A realm, moreover, which rendered young minds . . . malleable." Remus fixed his gaze on the table. "He has spent the summer manipulating them, moulding them to his will, until he was certain they would perform like . . ."

"Robots," said Harry dully. All that got him was a baffled look from everyone else in the room. "Er . . . trained monkeys, something like that."

"Are the children still held prisoner there?" asked Bill, flipping his long hair behind an ear. "I'll research what kinds of curse-breaking might set them free--"

Remus glanced at him, his whole face etched with pain. "There's no point. They all died at the Ministry. They'd been moulded into weapons. The magical incendiary devices your spells uncovered? They were made of corrosive magic grown within the children's own bodies, because, after all, who would think a child so very dangerous?"

Shocked exclamations echoed around the table. Bill looked no less shocked than the others, but he was slowly nodding. "That would fit what little evidence we found. We'd been puzzled--"

"Of course we were puzzled," erupted Charlie. "Who could come up with a plan like that?"

"An evil dark lord," said Remus without humour.

"Would you stop calling him that?" Draco suddenly exclaimed. Then, when everyone turned to stare at him, he coloured.

"And the reason you didn't report to us, regarding Voldemort's involvement in the kidnappings?" snapped out Snape.

"I didn't know about it." Remus gave a long sigh. "He kept it from each and every one of his followers, Severus. He was watching and waiting all summer, and deciding whom to trust. In the meantime, he didn't need us for much, because he was occupied with this secret project of his own. But with the attack, he knew he would lose the small army he'd gathered together in the amulet. Hence his summons for me to join him at the Ministry. I learned of the plan scant moments before it all commenced."

"Why children , though?" asked Molly Weasley, her voice anguished. She was thinking of other mothers like herself, Harry knew. Other mothers who had lost a child to Voldemort's evil schemes.

"Because they are more easily moulded."

"Bit odd, though, the half-blood angle," put in Mundungus Fletcher, who up until then, hadn't said a word.

"Not from his point of view," said Remus, closing his eyes in clear exhaustion. "It's symbolic."

"Half-bloods and Muggleborns destroying our world," said Dumbledore, the words coated with sadness. "Literally, this time."

"And your assignment was?" pressed Snape.

Remus hesitated for less than a second, but he did hesitate.

Snape's eyes narrowed, and he began staring again.

"To watch and approve, as his second-in-command," answered Remus. "To demonstrate my favoured position to the other Death Eaters. To announce to them that I alone was trusted to witness the culmination of the Dark Lord's plan."

Snape stared for a moment longer, and then he actually flinched. No, more than that. His face paled.

He's seen something , Harry sensed. Something in Remus' memories. Something that . . . well, something shocking, something Remus hasn't said out loud.

What that could be, though, Harry had no idea.

"But why were you Crucio'd ?" asked Draco, leaning forward, his eyes taking on that silvery shade they got when he was working out a difficult Arithmancy equation. "Severus was right about that. I recognise the signs."

"Exuberance," said Snape smoothly. "Voldemort doesn't use the spell merely to punish, Draco. It's also a form of celebration, for him."

"But I never heard of anything like--"

"Thank you, Draco," interrupted Dumbledore, his voice just as smooth as Snape's had been. "We do appreciate that you have unique inner knowledge, having grown up in a Death Eater household. Information which you have freely shared with us, I will remind everyone. But you mustn't forget the point at issue, which is that we are dealing with a man deeply caught in the grip of insanity."

Draco looked confused, then. Like he knew he was being managed, being shut up, in fact. But clearly, he didn't know why he should be.

Harry swallowed, his brain feeling like it was overheating, he was thinking so hard. Dumbledore shutting Draco up . . . no, Snape doing it first, answering with that "exuberance" explanation. He didn't believe that himself, I don't think. And Draco clearly doesn't believe it.

Snape and Dumbledore both know something, and they don't want the rest of us to figure it out. But what is it? Some part of Remus' report that isn't quite true, and they don't want it questioned too closely . . .

But what? What could have happened at the Ministry that they would need to keep secret?

Harry had no more time to think, though, because his father was speaking again, and he had to listen to that, hopefully to pick up a few more clues.

"What else can you tell us, Lupin?"

Huh. Harry wouldn't exactly call Snape's tone gentle, that time, but it was a hell of a lot less harsh than usual. And that, more than anything else, convinced Harry that something strange was going on.

Something very strange.

Remus briefly closed his eyes, looking defeated, somehow. "There's little else to tell. The Dark Lord and I were in the very bowels of the Ministry, in tunnels beneath the lowest level, as he directed his charges on the levels above, controlling them using a variety of Legilimency that requires no eye contact. Legilimency being an art that can be misused," he suddenly added, lips twisting. "And when they were in position, he triggered the spells that would serve as . . . fuses."

A pair of fat tears rolled down Mrs Weasley's cheeks. Arthur clutched one of her hands with both of his, looking like he was trying to lend her strength.

Remus began speaking more quickly. "And then the earth shook, and he looked to be in raptures over how well it had all come off, and with the wards down completely by then, we Apparated to what used to be the Atrium, to survey the damage before we escaped back to Little Hangleton, where he gloated all night."

Harry hated to ask, but he felt like he had to know. "Er . . . Remus? Did Voldemort send me that hateful message before or after he'd set off the explosions?"

For a split-second, Remus looked nothing short of baffled, but he covered it soon enough. "After. Part of his gloating."

Remus hadn't known the answer , Harry realised. He hadn't known about a message at all. Either Voldemort had sent it without even going into any kind of trance--unlikely, from what Harry knew of Legilimency--or Remus wasn't with Voldemort at the moment he reached out towards me.