plenty of courage

on the bright side, i want to start moving my hp muses onto the hp multimuse on saturday and i will post a promo so that you know where harry can be found.

He made it sound so simple. Maybe it was. Sure, there were things he could tell himself. He had no choice. He was only one person. The Dark Lord would only have replaced him with someone else. But there was no justifying it to Harry.

Kalmar let his sleeve fall back into place. The condemnation hurt more than he’d thought it possibly could.

They’d offered him a lot of things. Power, respect, money. Knowledge. There was even talk of giving his entire family clemency after they took over, of investing in treatment for maledictions like anybody who cared about purebloods would. There’d been no shortage of carrots to wave in front of his face, if he ever started to waver. He wasn’t sure he would have resisted any one of them.

But the funny thing was…

He burst into laughter tinged with hysteria. “No, no, not quite. You know what?” Might as well be hated for what he actually was, for once. “It’s far worse than that. I knew I could get it elsewhere.”

“You want to know why this happened? What I’m sacrificing innocent lives for? This wasn’t some scheme I thought up in that genius fucking head of mine, Harry. No, it was – it was my aunt’s idea. She was already making inquiries for me. Thought it would be a brilliant opportunity – hell, she was right! – and I thought, she’ll be livid if I’m not interested, and I – I didn’t want to have to say no. I didn’t want to make things awkward. That’s all. That’s the sort of coward I am.”

Harry’s eyes widened at Kalmar’s laugh. It sounded terrifying and unhinged and for a split second he was worried for Kalmar. The worry quickly evaporated when the other kept explaining. Harry once again asked himself whether it would have been easier not to know why Kalmar acted like he did. 

He felt reminded of Wormtail, in a sense that the rat too had been sorted into Gryffindor but had turned out to be a coward. Kalmar called himself one and how was that possible? The sorting hat was surely never mistaken? It listened to the person’s wishes, had put Harry into Gryffindor when he begged not to be sorted into Slytherin, so what was up with Kalmar? Did he ask to be in Gryffindor but would have fit better elsewhere?

Or was he lying again? Whatever it was, Harry had to think ahead and see how he can get out of this situation. With Kalmar branded, he was under an obligation to deliver Harry to Voldemort. Surely the other boy didn’t feel like getting punished for failing. So Harry pointed his wand at him, eyes narrowed. “Now what? Are you going to attack me? Stun me and drag me to your boss? I’m not going to let you do that.”

Sirius smiled when Harry took his hand, giving it a light squeeze back. He wasn’t really sure how he was feeling; his body hurt and he was exhausted still, but he was also relieved that Harry was safe and that neither of them had died. It seemed as though everyone else made it out too, or Harry wouldn’t look so happy.

“I feel like a million galleons,” he responded, falling right back into his usual habit of using humor as a distraction. “For once I’m actually glad to be back in this dump. Never thought that would ever happen.”

Although Sirius was curious about what had taken place at the Ministry, he decided not to ask. It was better if he didn’t bring it up, he could ask Remus later on. He didn’t want to scold Harry for coming either; he was certain Harry had already heard enough of that. Besides, Sirius knew he would have done the exact same thing if the roles were reversed. “I know I say this a lot, but you’re a lot like your dad. He would’ve done the same thing you did. I think he’d be proud to say his son stormed the Ministry like that.”

“You also look a million galleons,” Harry retorted, sarcastically but gently. Sirius looked like hell and though Harry hadn’t passed by a mirror ever since they arrived back in the house, he had a feeling he didn’t look any better. He had little spots that hurt him all over his body and face but that wasn’t important now. 

At the comparison with James, Harry couldn’t help but to grin proudly. He never actually tried to emulate his father - it wasn’t even possible, Harry never knew him -, but whenever he managed by accident and it elicited a good reaction in Sirius, Harry felt pleased. Aside from Snape, everyone always told Harry how amazing James had been, and now that Harry finished mulling over Snape’s memory he had seen with the added context of the time and the change in his father afterwards, he had gotten over his small crisis.