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\title{Comes Out of Darkness Morn}
\date{December 23, 2005}
\author{Lightning on the Wave}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\tableofcontents

% \textbf{Story:} Comes Out of Darkness Morn\\
% \textbf{Storylink:} \url{https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2655016/1/}\\
% \textbf{Category:} Harry Potter\\
% \textbf{Genre:} Tragedy/Drama\\
% \textbf{Author:} Lightning on the Wave\\
% \textbf{Authorlink:} \url{https://www.fanfiction.net/u/895946/}\\
% \textbf{Last updated:} 12/23/2005\\
% \textbf{Words:} 278941\\
% \textbf{Rating:} M\\
% \textbf{Status:} Complete\\
% \textbf{Content:} Chapter 1 to 51 of 51 chapters\\
% \textbf{Source:} FanFiction.net\\[2\baselineskip]\textbf{Summary:} AU of
% PoA, Slytherin!Harry. Harry struggles to rebuild himself after the
% shattering events of his second year. He will finally learn the truths
% he needs to know\ldots{}but they're hardly going to be pleasant ones.
% COMPLETE



\chapter{Reintegration}\label{chapter-1-reintegration}

Twice in one week, all the windows in Malfoy Manor shattered. Once they
broke and cracked and crazed in the shape of lightning bolts. The second
time, they formed coiled serpents with Locusta markings. Harry played
with them, the magic healing any wounds the glass inflicted on him as
soon as they were made.

Narcissa came up beside him and repaired the windows each time, then led
Harry away from the mess they'd made. Harry couldn't always remember
just what she said, but later he thought there was pumpkin juice and
Narcissa's voice telling stories of what had used to happen when she was
a child in the Black family and lived with her sisters Bellatrix and
Andromeda. They were always mild, cheerful stories. Harry listened to
them, and sipped at whatever drink she gave him, and felt Draco standing
as silent sentry beside the chair or the divan, until he fell asleep.


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The star was five-armed, made of clear glass in the center and opaque,
white glass towards the edges. Harry traced one finger away from the
center and down to the points. They were sharp enough to cut. Of course
they were. There would be no reason to have this gift in such a shape,
otherwise.

Harry looked up and away from the star to Lucius's face. Draco's father
stood, tensely, on the other side of the sitting room. He'd levitated
the star to Harry rather than trying to bring it to him, considering
that Draco and Narcissa both stood on either side of Harry and watched
him suspiciously. But he had brought it. He was supposed to. The star
was the Midsummer gift, the middle-of-the-year gift, the fifth gift in
this strange dance he was doing with Harry which supposedly proclaimed
he wanted a truce. He had sent a ring set with a piece of ice enchanted
never to melt, and a green stone to symbolize the growth of new bonds.
Harry had replied with a piece of ebony, indicating his distrust of
Lucius's motives, and a red stone, to remind him of the blood that still
lay between their families.

But now\ldots{}

Harry gazed down at the star. The clarity of it told him how much Lucius
trusted him, and the positioning of the clear patch in the center
indicated that the trust could grow in any direction. Of course, since
Harry still had no idea why Lucius had chosen to play this game, to
pretend that he wanted a truce when he'd already hurt Harry by handing
Tom Riddle's diary to him, that clear patch could mean anything. Lucius
Malfoy was perfectly capable of playing along until something happened
to benefit him, such as his Lord returning to life.

Harry had to reply to the star, or at least nod to show that he accepted
the gift and would find a suitable reply later. He put a hand on the
star and closed his eyes instead. His magic rushed to his command. It
was still near the surface, churning and slashing at his thoughts
whenever he wasn't using it. After so long confined, as Professor Snape
had explained in one of the letters that came twice every week, it had a
force of its own, nearly a personality. Harry had to use it. If he
denied it, the way he had for years, then it would simply break free on
its own. It had already done so, shattering all the windows in Malfoy
Manor, as Harry dimly remembered.

Now, though, he could put it to a productive use, and he did so,
altering the gift. As he gazed, strands of frost raced across the star,
hardening it and obscuring the center, so that the glass was entirely
opaque. He levitated it back to Lucius, carefully. He had to be careful
with everything he did with magic lately. It took so little to rouse it
to full, raw strength, at which point he smashed things. Finesse and
control were far harder arts than summoning power.

Lucius accepted the star and gazed at the lack of a clear patch. Then he
raised his eyes to Harry's face. He did not look offended. He merely
nodded thoughtfully and turned to slip from the room.

Harry closed his eyes for just a moment, as he thought, but opened them
in the bedroom the Malfoys had turned over to his use. The window was
open, and he could smell the scent of roses through it. Sunlight
streamed in, and the radiant songs of birds. Harry lay there and
listened.

After a little while, Draco came in and put a hand on his arm. ``Mother
said I should go if you wanted me to,'' he whispered.

Harry let him stay. His hand was warmer than the sunlight, and even
though Harry found it as hard to understand the things he talked about
as it was to understand the birds, together they made a sharp and
musical kind of sense.


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Harry's memory was tattered and fogged, bits of webs clinging to each
other the way they had before Sylarana died and took a large part of his
sanity with her. But they suddenly tore away on one day towards the end
of June, as he sat in the broad piano room and listened to Narcissa
play.

Harry blinked and sat up. Narcissa looked over at him, but never stopped
the graceful, swift motion of her fingers over the keys, or the low,
crooning drone of her voice that accompanied it. She was teaching one of
the history songs to Draco, the ones the purebloods had taught their
children when the old ways had to be memorized and instinctive. Draco
sat at the foot of the piano and gazed intently up at his mother,
mouthing the words along with her. He was learning about the dance, the
rights and rules of a host or a pureblooded wizard or witch on his or
her own land, the proper ways that one treated a guest, and all the
other courtesies for living life among powerful people with recourse to
magic that would end each other's lives in an instant. They were rituals
rarely used anymore. Draco had asked to learn them. Harry had the faint
recollection that the asking had something to do with him.

But the music. The music.

Harry sagged back against the couch he sat on, and listened to
Narcissa's voice caress the notes. She was telling the tale meant to
seal in notions of marriage to most pureblooded children, the tragic
love story of Pomona Ironbrand and Septimus Prince. They had not been
equals; Pomona had chosen Septimus because she was in love with his
weakness, not any strength that could match hers, and Septimus had
killed her in jealousy and himself in grief. The lesson, repeated in
every refrain, was to choose only a mate of equal power, or to be sure
that true love existed between a mismatched pair.

Harry had known the story by the time he was six. He'd read the history
songs out of books, since his own mother was Muggleborn and his father
wasn't interested in holding on to pureblood customs he thought were
old-fashioned and probably Dark besides. There was something different
about hearing it sung.

Lily. James.

\emph{Don't think about them.}

For a moment, Harry's anger trembled on the edge of control, and if his
parents had been there, he would have asked them the questions that
waited behind the anger. Why had they felt the need to weave webs into
his mind as they had? Why hadn't they brought him up to control his
power, rather than deny it? Why had they thought that the only possible
place he could have in the family was as guardian and guide to his
brother Connor? Yes, Connor was the Boy-Who-Lived, Voldemort's enemy,
but did that really mean that Harry's childhood and very self had to be
sacrificed on the altar of necessity? Why hadn't they taken more of a
part in defending Connor? Why had they never come to visit him when he
lay in the hospital wing after driving Tom Riddle from his head last
December? He knew now that Riddle had promptly possessed his brother,
and that was the reason Connor hadn't come to visit him. What were his
parents' excuses?

And battling that was all the training he had received until this point
in his life, or the broken remnants of it, arguing that they had done
what they had done for the best reasons, that he had to understand, that
he could never fully understand until he confronted them and listened to
their explanation, that, that, that\ldots{}

He didn't realize the music had stopped until he heard himself making
jagged little noises, like a dog with a bone caught in its throat. Then
Draco was beside him, a hand on his shoulder. He steered Harry through a
few more rooms, each smaller than the last, and finally through a door
made entirely of glass and into a small garden. This garden was the
source of the roses and the birdsong that gave Harry such joy through
his bedroom window. It looked nearly overgrown now, roses curling in
wild profusion on the gates and the walls and the bushes, roses of all
colors, white as joy and red as blood and yellow as pain.

Draco lay down on a patch of sun-warmed grass in the center of the
garden and drew Harry firmly into his embrace. Harry had to lie with his
body sprawled beside Draco's and his head buried in the other boy's
shoulder and pale hair, because he didn't have any choice. He might have
struggled to pull free at first, especially since the heat was so
stifling.

But, gradually, he relaxed. The heat \emph{was} stifling, and added to
by the sunlight and the sweat that covered his own skin and Draco's. But
that very closeness made it comforting. There was no way that it would
pull him back and leave him alone in the center of the ice that he still
remembered from his defeat of Tom Riddle. Harry's breathing slowed down,
and he shifted to put one arm around Draco's shoulder in turn. He could
feel the other boy smiling, but his voice was sad when he spoke.

``Not yet?'' he whispered.

Harry shook his head and pulled back slightly, so that his head still
rested on Draco's shoulder but he could see just a slit of blue sky.

He'd tried since he came to Malfoy Manor, even though he hadn't done it
for years. Draco and Narcissa seemed convinced that, if he could do it,
it would represent a victory over his years of training. And he had much
to mourn---the passing of one stage of his life, the death of his
illusions about his parents, Sylarana.

But still it hadn't happened. Harry couldn't cry.


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A barn owl came in the middle of the night at the end of June. Harry
opened his eyes and found it waiting for him on his windowsill. It
hooted softly when it saw that it had his attention and hopped forward,
holding out one talon. Harry stood and wavered across the carpet towards
it, oddly conscious of the way that the cloth pressed on his bare feet
and how the breeze through the window stirred his pyjamas around him.

The owl waited patiently while Harry took the letter from it and fumbled
for a Knut from the table near the window to put in its pouch. Then it
took off. Harry watched it skim over the garden and then gain height,
turning north, towards Scotland. He blinked, then fumbled at the letter.

It was brief, but then, all the letters Snape had sent him over the
summer holidays tended to be.

\emph{Mr. Potter:}

\emph{You will find little that exhausts your magic like destruction.
The power of Dark spells themselves shows this. They will tire you, and
enable you to rest with a clearer head. Do what you must to keep
yourself sane and whole. If that means the destruction of chairs and
windows, so be it.}

\emph{Severus Snape.}

Harry closed his eyes and clenched his hands on the letter. He knew that
it was a proper answer to the letter he'd written Snape five days ago,
asking for potions or some other means to keep himself under control
without destroying things. His magic raged inside him and \emph{wanted}
that mayhem. Harry himself did not. He hardly dared to face the fury
that he felt against his parents and against Dumbledore. He wanted to
use his magic to guard, to protect, to defend, to heal, to create, as
Snape had promised him he could when he'd come and rescued Harry from
the storm. Why should he have to destroy?

But this answer was simple, clear, cold, and the truth. He had to
destroy because, otherwise, his magic would destroy him. Denying it and
caging it was what had allowed it to grow to such nightmare proportions,
to the cold voice that Harry heard whispering in his dreams. And then,
when he faced Tom Riddle in the Chamber of Secrets, his magic had
absorbed power from the diary and the memory of Voldemort in a way that
Harry still did not understand. Either way, he was stronger than he had
been.

He had to let it free.

He sighed, dressed in a robe, and then slipped out of the Manor and over
the lawn. He could feel the glow of wards around him, but the Malfoys
had given him free rein as a guest for as long as he stayed with them.
He stepped past them without much trouble and into the wild country that
surrounded the Manor.

His magic flared, raw power that barely obeyed the confines of spoken
spells any more, never mind his wand, and created a number of light
wooden figures in front of him. It disturbed Harry that some of the
figures looked human, but he could pretend they really weren't, in the
maze of the starlight and the moonlight. He closed his eyes, and that
helped, too.

He flung his first spell.

The night flared with light as the fire caught, and then Harry was
hurling other spells, spells to freeze or blast or maim or chop the legs
out from under the wooden figures, and he couldn't seem to stop. His
magic surged through him, high and singing. It would be so \emph{easy}
to go on using it, or even to turn his back and focus his attention on a
real challenge, like the wards around the Manor.

Harry pinched his lips together tightly, hearing the coaxing tones of
his wild magic in those thoughts, and refused to listen. He flung spells
to destroy the figures, create more, and destroy them again, all the
while shielding the grass and the scattered trees from the destructive
effects of his spells.

By the time he collapsed, panting, on the ground, he realized that Snape
had been right: he had used the magic, and, at the same time, gotten it
used to weaving through and integrating with himself, rather than
shutting it up in a box in one corner of his soul or mind. He could feel
the touch of magic burning beneath his skin, under his ribs. He supposed
that was better than before. A little bit better.

Snape's words again returned to him, when Harry had said he didn't want
to have the power he had. \emph{``But you have it. And you should use
it, Harry. Otherwise, it will make an impact on the world, and not one
that you desire. It has its own personality at the moment, and its own
desire for freedom. If you try to deny it, the same thing will happen
again. And perhaps this time you will kill someone else, instead of
trying to escape doing so\ldots{}You are closer now to becoming another
Dark Lord than you have ever been.''}

Harry let out his breath, told himself that, yes, it was for the best,
and wallowing in self-pity would not change that he was magical or how
magical he was, and went to bed. For the first time since his arrival at
the Manor, he slept without dreaming of dark Chambers or golden snakes.


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``Mr. Potter.''

Harry froze, then deliberately picked up the Chocolate Frog that
Narcissa had said he could have after lunch and opened it. He caught the
frog as it tried to hop away and placed it gingerly into his mouth.
``Mr. Malfoy,'' he said, when he had chewed and swallowed the Frog and
Lucius had still not gone away. He was beginning to consider it no
coincidence that one of the house elves had had an accident that
required Narcissa's supervision and that Draco, thinking of a question
to ask his mother, had run off to find her. One or both of them had been
with him at all times since he arrived in Malfoy Manor. They had never
allowed him to be alone with Lucius.

\emph{I think that is about to change,} Harry thought, and forced
himself to lean back in his chair and look at Lucius evenly across the
small, highly polished table. He forced himself to see Lucius's
reflection in the table and find it amusing, rather than terrifying or
as if he suddenly had two powerful, impatient, murderous former Death
Eaters to face. He let his breath carefully out of his lungs, and
watched Lucius's face.

``Have you seen the \emph{Daily Prophet} today?'' Lucius held the
newspaper out in front of him as if it were a peace offering.

Harry blinked, then regretted it as he saw a muscle clench in Lucius's
cheek. He had just lost a step in the dance by showing his surprise. He
could afford to lose no more.

``I figured it could have little of importance to report,'' he said
distantly as he met Lucius's eyes again, ``given that I would have known
at once if something had happened to my brother.''

Lucius's eyes narrowed. Harry watched him. \emph{Let him meditate on
that, try to work out how much is truth and how much is lies.}

``There is news of other importance,'' said Lucius, and then slid
further around the table, coming towards Harry without making a sound.
``For example, if someone who once acted in the name of the Dark Lord was
coming to kill you, the \emph{Prophet} might report on that. Surely, you
would want to know.''

Harry felt his magic wake, and wondered, also distantly, if Lucius
realized just then how much he was taking his life in his hands. Draco
had seemed determined to protect Harry from his father. Harry knew
Narcissa was wiser than that, and sometimes had feared to find her
husband dead and bleeding on the floor if he pushed too hard.

``I would surely want to know,'' said Harry, ``if something like that
was going to happen. And if the one who had once acted in the name of
the Dark Lord gave me the courtesy of letting me find out beforehand.''
He raised his magic higher. He knew that Lucius, like Draco, knew how to
sense other wizards if they were powerful enough. Usually, shields
protected him from headaches and the other unfortunate consequences of
that. Let him feel pain spilling over the top of the shields, then.

Lucius's eyes widened, and then he nodded and backed away, sitting down
in a chair at the other end of the table. ``Mr. Potter,'' he said,
dropping every pretense of the dance now that the falling of his own
mask had stripped his advantage away, ``you should know that I do not
mean myself.''

``So this is not another of the articles exclaiming over the brother of
the Boy-Who-Lived going to stay with the Malfoy family, and how
inappropriate that is, and how you will surely kill me and use my blood
in some ritual to raise your Lord?'' Harry asked. He could be blunt,
too.

Lucius winced. Then he took a deep, calming breath of his own and slid
the paper across the table towards the boy. ``Read this, Mr. Potter,''
he whispered. ``Just the article on the front page. I think you'll
understand.''

Harry glanced down. He didn't need to read the article, actually. He
needed only to read the headline, and to understand how very wrong he
had been, to think that Connor was safe in Godric's Hollow and that he
could stay away for the duration of the summer.

\textbf{PETER PETTIGREW ESCAPES FROM AZKABAN}

Harry could make out the picture beneath that, an old photograph in
which Pettigrew, caught between two Aurors, jerked his head around in
several directions as though looking for an escape. Harry knew it had to
be him from his parents' descriptions, though he had never seen a whole
picture. Shortly after Peter's arrest, Sirius had gone through all the
Marauders' old photos and cut the traitor out of them.

He put out his hand and concentrated. This was something he could let
the magic destroy, and gladly.

It wound up doing an odd amalgamation of burning the newspaper,
shredding it, and making it cease to exist. Harry gave himself fully
over to that brief burst of power, and was the calmer for it when he
recovered. He nodded and looked up at Lucius, who was leaning back from
him. He did not breathe fast. His face was not paler than usual. But
Harry could feel him nonetheless, poised to strike, and knew that Lucius
truly had guessed how much danger he was in.

``Understand,'' Harry whispered. ``I care for my safety. I would not
have come here if I had thought I was in danger from you, or rather,
that you cared more about my death than your son's happiness. But I care
about my brother more than anything in the world, and it is the seventh
of July now. I should be returning home soon.''

``\emph{No}, Harry. You aren't fully recovered yet.''

Harry sighed as Draco rushed back into the room and put his arms around
him. Draco meant well, of course, but he had just revealed what could be
an important weakness in front of someone Harry still thought of as an
enemy. Harry put a hand on his back and stared hard at Lucius over his
son's head.

Lucius did not move. He did not say anything. He watched. His gray eyes
had gone so blank and his face so still that Harry was no longer sure
what he was feeling.

Harry turned his attention to comforting Draco, who was watching him
pleadingly. ``You've only been here for a month,'' he said. ``We were
going to celebrate your birthday in the Manor. The house elves were
going make a special meal just for us, and you won't even \emph{believe}
the gift I bought for you. It'd be the first time that you had a
birthday just to yourself, without Connor, wouldn't it?''

Harry smiled gently. ``It would be,'' he said. ``But Peter Pettigrew is
free, Draco---''

Draco's face promptly took on a faintly guilty expression. Harry raised
his eyebrows. ``You knew about this?''

``I didn't want you to worry,'' said Draco artlessly. He let go of
Harry, but moved around and sat in the chair beside him. ``The wards on
the Manor wouldn't let him through, and it's not as though you need to
worry about him attacking you. Why would he want to hurt you?''

``That's the problem,'' said Harry. ``He wants to hurt Connor. And for
all I know, he could get through the wards around our house. Our parents
have already proven that they can't protect us.'' The venom in his voice
shocked him, but he forced himself to let it go and continue speaking
rationally to Draco. Rationality had to penetrate that stubborn sulk
some time. ``I have to be there when Pettigrew arrives, just in case he
tries to hurt Connor.''

``He could already have Apparated there,'' Draco pointed out.
``\emph{Please}, Harry, I don't want you to worry about this.'' He leaned
forward earnestly. ``Wouldn't Connor have to protect himself sooner or
later, anyway? Let him do it this once.''

Harry sighed. ``Can we go somewhere else, Draco?'' he asked, looking
towards Lucius.

Draco reached out and clenched his hand. ``You can speak in front of
him,'' he said. ``He hasn't tried to hurt you, Harry. Mother and I have
watched. You can trust him.'' He hesitated for a moment, then added,
``I've read some of the older books, and I can recognize the truce gifts
now. No one exchanges them up to this point if they mean to break off
the treaty and hurt the other wizard.'' He looked at his father.

``Very good, Draco,'' said Lucius, in a polished voice. He was looking
at Harry, and he didn't seem inclined to stop. ``I am glad to see you
furthering your education. It is indeed true that I have committed to an
exchange of six truce gifts with Mr. Potter thus far. That leaves only
ten. By this point, the two wizards are bound to continue, unless one of
them sends the other an unmistakable sign to break off the
negotiations.'' He paused, for effect, Harry was certain. ``I have no
intention of sending such a sign any time soon.''

Draco beamed at his father, then turned to Harry. ``You wouldn't end it,
either, would you?'' he whispered. ``Please?''

Harry understood the impulse that led Draco to ask the question. After
all, if Harry and his father were allies, there was no way at all that
Draco would feel torn between them. Draco would never have to confront,
fully, what Harry knew he was beginning to suspect: that Lucius had
acted as a Death Eater of his own free will, without being under the
Imperius Curse. He could follow through on the decision he'd made to
face Tom Riddle at Harry's side, without losing his family.

Harry knew that, if it came to an open break between them at the moment,
Draco would choose him over his father.

There were no words for how much that knowledge honored him, and for how
much it terrified him and made him sick to his stomach. He did not
\emph{want} that measure of control over another being's life. He could
hardly face ordering house elves around since the Chamber, and he knew
that most of them (Dobby was an enigmatic exception) were frantically
eager to serve. How could he put someone under compulsion when he'd been
under it himself, from possession and the web in his head?

He did not want to. So he told the other thing, the secret he had been
waiting to tell Draco until it became pressing.

``It's not just Pettigrew's escape, Draco,'' he said softly. ``I'm
feeling a pull back to my brother.'' He lifted his hand and touched the
nape of his neck, tapping the back of his skull. He waited for the pain,
and sighed in relief when nothing came. A week ago, doing that would
have made reverberations race around his head for an hour. It seemed
that he was finally beginning to heal. ``The---the golden thing I told
you about.'' He was not yet ready to reveal to Lucius of all people that
he had a web that glowed golden and had a voice like a phoenix's in his
mind. ``It's tugging at me, telling me to go home. I'm already losing
sleep and not feeling as hungry. I don't think it will stop until I'm
back in the same house as Connor. I'm sorry,'' he added.

``But it didn't do that before,'' Draco whispered.

Harry nodded. ``I know that. But it wasn't damaged then, and I think
this is the way it's reasserting itself. I'm sorry,'' he repeated.

Draco dipped his head and gave a long sigh. ``But your parents,'' he
whispered. ``Do you think that you can handle them?''

Harry nodded again. ``I think so. As long as I exercise my magic, I can
keep from hurting them. And since they'll ignore me anyway---'' he'd
told Draco about the \emph{Fugitivus Animus} spell he'd cast on his
parents that made them devote every bit of their attention and
perception to Connor ``---I should have plenty of time to practice my
spells.''

Draco bit his lip a few times more, then put his arms around Harry and
held him tight. Harry embraced him back, and ignored the stare he could
feel from Lucius's direction. Lucius wouldn't know if Harry was really
showing affection, or only feigning it so that he wouldn't hurt Draco's
feelings. Lucius knew nothing about the bottle he'd given Draco, which
shone with the true emotions Harry felt towards him.

``I'll send you your birthday gift by post, then,'' Draco whispered. ``I
think I can do that.''

Harry nodded. ``Thank you.'' He drew back from Draco and turned to
Lucius. ``As I'm not old enough to Apparate by myself, Mr. Malfoy,'' he
asked, ``may I do you the trouble of asking you for a Portkey?''

Lucius opened his mouth to answer, but a cool voice from behind Harry
said it for him. ``I will give you one, of course, Harry. It's no
trouble.'' Narcissa stepped in, stared hard at her husband, and then
glanced down at him. ``If you are sure that you must leave us?'' she
added, her smile sad.

Harry nodded. ``I am, Mrs. Malfoy. Thank you for your hospitality. It's
been wonderful here. If you can tune the Portkey to Diagon Alley, I'll
owl Remus Lupin, who's a family friend, and ask him to meet me there.''
It would do no good to try and tune a Portkey to Godric's Hollow, since
Harry wasn't about to tell the elder Malfoys just where his brother
lived, and the wards wouldn't let them through anyway.

``Not your parents?'' Narcissa murmured, but she was already stepping
out of the room to hunt for some object which might make a suitable
Portkey, and didn't stay to listen to his answer.

``But tomorrow, right?'' Draco whispered. ``You won't leave today?'' Now
his smile was wan, at least until Harry nodded back to him. He grabbed
Harry's hand. ``Good. Then you'll have time to try and guess your
birthday gift.''

Harry blinked. ``I thought you didn't want me to guess my birthday
gift.''

``I still want you to \emph{guess},'' said Draco, tugging him towards the
door from the dining room. ``I just don't want you to guess
\emph{right.}''

Harry nodded, then glanced once at Lucius. The pull at the back of his
head had eased the moment he spoke of going home to his brother, but he
could still feel the other wizard's eyes slicing into him.

``It seems my son has found a true friend,'' Lucius said, his lips
hardly moving. ``It is such a wonder when one finds a friend this young,
and such a shame when one loses them.''

Harry inclined his head back. He could understand that statement well
enough: it was the beginning of a new dance, and while Lucius would
hardly break off the truce negotiations yet, that did not prevent him
from doing anything else he took it into his head to do.

Harry had expected it. Lucius was still a Death Eater. And Connor was
still the Boy-Who-Lived, and Harry's brother.

\emph{And then there is Draco}, thought Harry, as said obstacle gave a
yank on his arm hard enough to nearly spill him to the floor. \emph{Who
is always tugging me somewhere.}

``Come \emph{on}, Harry,'' said Draco, giving him another prompting pull.
``It's even hidden in my bedroom. I'll blindfold you, and you try to
find it.''

Harry shook his head and yielded to the wonder of having such a friend
as this, for a little while.

\chapter{*Chapter 2*: The
Cartographer}\label{chapter-2-the-cartographer}

Thank you for the reviews! That's quite a reception. I will try to get
review responses up in my LJ by tomorrow.

I've looked forward to this chapter. The house of cards is falling fast
now.

\textbf{Chapter Two: The Cartographer}

Harry listened as their mother read a book out to Connor, instructing
him in history that he really should have learned last summer. He kept
his eyes on his own book, one of the journals that Sirius had kept when
he was still an Auror. It was ``racy'' reading, or at least Lily had
said it was last year when Harry had asked if he could read it.

Now, he could read it, and no one seemed to notice or care. Lily or
James could see the journal appearing to float off the shelf, and they
would blink and frown before simply deciding that it was a sign of
Connor's developing wandless magic. They were able to attribute just
about any strange event around the house to Connor. The \emph{Fugitivus
Animus} spell was still in operation.

It didn't seem to work as well on Sirius, perhaps because he didn't
visit Godric's Hollow as often. Sometimes Harry thought that his
godfather could almost see him. He blinked and squinted often enough, as
though he stared into the sun. But aside from a few whispered questions
of ``Harry?'' that Harry could ignore easily, he never tried to do
anything about it.

Remus was a different matter, since he hadn't been in the room when
Harry cast the spell to darken his existence in Lily's, James's, and
Sirius's minds. He could speak to Harry normally when he came over,
leading to a delicate series of maneuvers on Harry's part to keep the
werewolf from revealing the whole game. As it was, Remus had been
getting more suspicious lately. Harry was just as glad that Remus would
spend the rest of the summer at Hogwarts. The Wolfsbane Potion had
finally been perfected, and Dumbledore had asked Remus to come and join
the teaching staff as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor
(Lockhart having been sacked with relatively little ceremony). Remus was
there now, readying himself for the position and learning how to
function while on the potion.

He had been here on their birthday, and had been the only one to see the
gift Harry received from Draco Malfoy.

Harry felt himself relax as he thought of Draco, and leaned his head on
his arm. He could rest. It wasn't as though Lily would flutter about him
the way she used to, scolding him to study and exhorting him to think of
what might happen to his brother if he didn't.

He paused, startled. \emph{I didn't know I remembered that.}

And yet there the memory was, spread in front of him like a
stained-glass butterfly. He had studied on his own, voraciously,
striving always for some new bit of knowledge that might let him protect
Connor. But when he flagged, Lily had encouraged him, sometimes guilted
him, into it.

\emph{She should have done that to Connor instead. He's the one who's
going to need the knowledge.}

Harry drew in his breath as he felt the book he held began to chill
beneath his fingers. Connor gave him a quick concerned glance across the
room. Harry managed to hold his smile and nod at his twin until Connor
turned back to his studying with their mother, reassured.

Harry took the journal quietly upstairs, to their bedroom. His web, or
what remained of it, was satisfied as long as he remained in the same
house as his brother. But when he felt his magic leaking around his
control, then he had to get away from their parents. So far, he had
nearly turned James's hand to ice, nearly broken Lily's arm, and nearly
sent both of them tumbling to cracked skulls or worse when his magic
froze some patch on the stairs. That last one distressed Harry
particularly. It seemed that his power not only found some way around
all the controls he tried to place on it, but could do so without his
immediately sensing it. He had to check the steps several times a day
now, to be sure that there wasn't some nasty, vicious trap there,
courtesy of Harry Potter.

He ground his teeth as he completed his latest careful survey of the
stairs and retreated to their bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind
him. The guilt was lashing him now. Harry wished he could speak about
it. He wrote to Snape, but that wasn't enough. Connor wouldn't
understand. And Harry had to pick and choose what he wrote in his
letters to Draco, since he could never be sure that Lucius wasn't
reading his post.

He hesitated for a long moment, then charmed the door with
\emph{Collorportus}. Connor might come up and find it stuck, but that
was better than him stepping into the storm of wild magic Harry
suspected the room might become at any moment.

He bowed his head and wrapped his arms around it, breathing as deeply
and evenly as he could. That wasn't either very deep or even. Pain woke
in his mind as he tried to channel the emotions the way he always would
have---either accepting them because they fit with what he expected to
feel, or putting them into a box because he couldn't afford to feel
them---and couldn't.

The webs of his mind were torn. He knew that. Sylarana, the Locusta
snake who had helped him settle his emotions in the last few months
before the end of second year, was dead. He knew that.

The webs of his mind were torn.

\emph{I cannot think the way I always thought.}

Sylarana was dead.

\emph{One of the few people who understood me is gone.}

None of that subdued the emotions he didn't know how to face, didn't
know how to feel, guilt and anger at himself for feeling the guilt and
guilt for the anger and anger for the guilt\ldots{}

Harry let out a little sob. It had been a mistake to leave the Malfoys
so early, he thought. He could have endured shortening sleep and less
fulfilling meals for the sake of not seeing his parents every day and
being faced with what they had done to him.

\emph{But why should I have to endure it? Why should I have to choose
between suffering in body and suffering in mind? I never would have had
to if my parents just hadn't placed this web in my mind.}

\emph{But they did. And they had their reasons. They wanted to make me
the perfect sacrifice. That was what I wanted to be. Why can't I accept
that it worked out that way, and would have continued working that way
if Sylarana hadn't died?}

\emph{I wish she were still alive.}

\emph{How could she leave me?}

\emph{She didn't leave you, you idiot. She got killed saving your sorry
life.}

Harry scrambled off the bed and hurried across the room, aiming for a
cupboard low on the wall behind Connor's bed. Whatever he tried to store
in his own cupboard got moved there, Lily simply assuming that any
belongings in this room were Connor's. Luckily, his brother had
protested that he wanted the second bed to remain, or Lily would have
Vanished that, so convinced was she that she had only one son.

Now he pulled out a smooth glass figurine wrapped in silver cloth, pried
the cloth away, and held the figurine to his bare skin. He calmed almost
at once. He breathed deeply, and moved back to his own bed, lying with
the glass snake on his chest.

This was Draco's gift to him, sent inside a large box that it had taken
three owls to carry; somehow, Draco had thought packing the snake in
layers and layers of cloth was safer than just binding it tightly into a
small package. The serpent was half-rearing, its mouth closed, eyes
half-shut. It shone with shifting colors that Harry recognized as
Draco's own emotions towards him; in that way, the gift mimicked the
bottle he'd given Draco. The serpent had hardly stopped shining deep
purple, the color of protectiveness, since Harry returned home.

That hadn't been all, though, as a letter packed deep in the box had
revealed. If Harry touched the serpent and said, ``\emph{Portus},'' it
would act as a Portkey and take him to Malfoy Manor, inside and through
all the wards on the house.

Harry could barely imagine how Draco had set \emph{that} up. It had
probably involved his mother, since Harry couldn't imagine it was
something Lucius would agree to. But he was grateful Draco had. The
promise of escape, the chance being there even if he could not grasp it,
had returned him to a fragile pretense of sanity several times this
summer.

Clutching the serpent, he drifted slowly off to sleep.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


He woke to a knock on the door, and his brother's low voice. ``Harry?
Will you let me in? I have something to show you.''

Harry blinked and fumbled with his glasses for a moment before
remembering he'd fallen asleep with them on, rather than taking them
off. He sat up, muttered, ``\emph{Finite Incantatem},'' at the door, and
then turned over, once again clutching the serpent close. It was faintly
warm, as though it had lain in the sun. Harry knew it was Draco's magic
making it so. He found it more and more difficult to let go of each time
he touched it.

``Thanks, Harry,'' said Connor, behind him. He slipped in and stood by
the bed until Harry tilted his head in acknowledgement. Then he
whispered, ``Here,'' and pressed a piece of folded parchment into
Harry's hand.

``What is this?'' Harry asked, unfolding the parchment. It was blank,
but so old that Harry thought it must have been written on at one time
or another. Why carry around an old piece of paper that didn't have at
least a line of memorable poetry?

``Watch,'' said Connor, and held out his wand. He tapped the center of
the parchment and said, in a clear, commanding voice that Harry had also
heard him practicing with Lily, ``I solemnly swear that I am up to no
good.''

Harry blinked in astonishment as the parchment abruptly swarmed with
images, forming a picture of corridors, tunnels, and walls it took him
only a moment to recognize.

\emph{Hogwarts.}

Harry managed to swallow, and also to control the urge to throw the map
away from him or clutch it close. ``Thank you, Connor,'' he whispered.
``What does it do?''

``Shows you people moving around the castle,'' Connor said promptly,
indicating a dot on the map. Harry squinted at it and saw that it said
\emph{Remus Lupin.} He blinked. ``You can tell if they're getting close
to you, or if they're where they're supposed to be.'' He paused, and bit
his lip. ``Father made it, along with Remus and Sirius and---and
Pettigrew.''

Harry nodded tightly. Connor's voice sank on the last name, as it had
since they heard of Peter's escape from Azkaban. It was not right that
his brother be so afraid. Harry almost wanted Peter to come to Godric's
Hollow at that point. He could use his magic to kill him, or scare him
badly enough that he would never consider coming after Connor and
completing his Lord's dirty work.

``Why give it to me, though?'' he asked, lifting his eyes and studying
Connor's face intently.

``A few reasons,'' said Connor, and shifted his arm. Harry blinked again
as it vanished. ``First, I have this, and I thought you would want the
map so that you could keep track of me.'' He swept something that
sparkled faintly around himself with a flourish. ``Father finally
decided I was old enough for the Invisibility Cloak,'' he said, from the
middle of the place where his face had abruptly disappeared, and then
pulled the Cloak off again.

Harry nodded slowly. ``Thank you,'' he said. He would be frantic if he
couldn't find Connor when he believed his brother might be in danger,
and especially frantic if the Cloak meant he might walk right past him.
``And what was the other reason?''

``It's fantastically complex magic,'' said Connor. ``Mum showed me a
picture of what the spells looked like that Father and the others used
to make the map---the Marauder's Map, that's what they call it---but I
could hardly make them out, and there were dozens I didn't recognize.''
He paused, as though considering how to word what he needed to say next.
Harry just watched him, clutching both map and serpent close. ``I
thought,'' Connor said slowly, ``that you could use your magic to work
on making a map like that, or at least analyzing this one. That would
give it something to do. Something creative. You said you didn't want to
do anything destructive.'' His eyes fastened on Harry's face again, as
though he hoped that Harry hadn't changed his mind about wanting to
destroy things.

Harry smiled. For the first time since he came home, it felt like he,
himself, was behind the smile, and not some anonymous smiler. ``Thank
you, Connor,'' he whispered. ``But how do I make the map vanish again?
It might be important.''

Connor tapped the map with his wand again, and said, ``Mischief
managed.'' The image of Hogwarts sank into the parchment and vanished.

``Thank you,'' Harry repeated. It was inadequate as an answer to what
Connor had done for him, but he couldn't think of anything else to say.

Connor abruptly hugged him. Harry froze with astonishment, but his
brother held the embrace until he reached up and wound his arms around
Connor's shoulders in return. Then Connor backed off and peered at him.

``I hate to see you suffering,'' he said. ``I know that I can't do
anything about a lot of it, but I could do this. Promise me that you'll
actually use the map and your magic, so that you won't go crazy or---or
do anything else.'' He was trusting enough not to think that Harry would
actually murder their parents, Harry supposed.

``Thank you, Connor,'' Harry whispered back. His voice came out steadier
this time, and for the first time since he came home, he also got an
absolutely genuine smile from his brother.

``Good,'' said Connor. ``Now I have to study these books that Mum wants
me to read. Do you \emph{know} how many Goblin Wars there have been?''

``Seventeen,'' Harry said automatically.

Connor wrinkled his nose back at him. ``Yes, you would,'' he said, but
with no malice in his voice, and then went to his own cupboard to
retrieve the books that Lily wanted him to look at.

Harry lay back on his bed and began studying the map. He already had
several projects in mind, but he wasn't sure if they would work. When he
let control of his own magic go enough to examine the spells on the map,
he sighed in contentment. Yes, there was more than enough here to keep
him busy.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Harry kicked the bed, then reminded himself to keep silent. Connor was
sleeping, and Harry wasn't to keep him up simply because he had better
things to do than sleep. He glanced from the Marauder's Map to the
other, seemingly blank piece of parchment that he'd enchanted. Tonight
was one of the last chances he'd have to make the test. Tomorrow they
were going to Diagon Alley---Connor had finally managed to convince
their parents that, yes, he needed to go there and purchase two of
everything they'd need for the third year at Hogwarts, just in case
something happened to his books or robes or cauldron---and in the days
after that, Harry would prepare himself as best as he could for his
sudden reintroduction to large groups of people, and what he would do
when he saw Dumbledore again.

His breath became visible in front of him, and he heard Connor shiver
and snuggle further under the blankets. He forced his anger away. Yes,
his rage still burned cold at the thought of the Headmaster, but it was
always doing that. He would just have to put up with it.

He made his mind bright and shiny and clear again, and then tapped the
Marauder's Map and whispered, ``I solemnly swear I am up to no good.''
The map gleamed into place. Harry nodded, then touched his own
parchment, let his breath out, and murmured, ``I solemnly swear I will
protect my brother.''

And, for the first time, it worked, the lines that Harry wanted
springing into place on his own parchment. Harry snorted and shook his
head. All the work he'd done, trying to duplicate the spells in the Map
just so that his own would function, and it turned out that the trigger
phrase was the key. He had to have a phrase to bring up and hide his map
that was like the phrases the Marauder's Map used.

Harry rolled on his back, his \emph{Lumos} spell illuminating the map's
surface. It showed the house at Godric's Hollow and the area around it
inside the isolation wards. He could see the dots labeled ``Lily
Potter'' and ``James Potter'' inside their parents' bedroom. He
carefully tore his eyes away from them. He could not afford to stare too
long, or he would become violently angry. His rage was still the hardest
of all his emotions to control. He was glad for the \emph{Fugitivus
Animus} spell right now, as there were times he thought he would have
killed his parents if they had spoken to him.

There were the motionless dots labeled ``Harry Potter'' and ``Connor
Potter'' in their bedroom, and a dot labeled ``Sirius Black'' in the
guest bedroom downstairs. Harry nodded. \emph{Good. This works. And it
means I ought to be able to create maps of other places.} Wherever
Connor might go, he needed to have a map that showed that place.

He was about to tap the parchment with his wand and whisper,
``Guardianship achieved'' to clean the image off when he saw another dot
abruptly appear near the edges of the isolation wards. Harry paused and
tilted the map back towards his \emph{Lumos}. Had Remus come back from
Hogwarts? He would watch the progress of the dot, if so, just to make
absolutely \emph{sure} his spells had worked.

But the dot was labeled ``Peter Pettigrew.''

Harry felt his breath coming short, and he sat up, staring at the map
and trying to figure out if he was seeing it wrong. But no. The writing
was clear, and did not waver as the dot moved across the grass towards
the house.

How had Peter got through the wards? They were tuned to the Potter
family and to Sirius and Remus only---

\emph{No, they aren't,} Harry thought abruptly, remembering what James
had said about them long ago. \emph{They're tuned to the} Marauders.
\emph{And Peter is still that.}

Harry bared his teeth. He felt his magic rise around him, hissing
through the familiar channels inside his body, glad to have a target it
could use. He nodded, once, and then gathered up his map and headed for
the door.

He could wake their parents or Sirius, he knew. They would be able to
defend Connor. And Peter would run at the sight of them, as he wouldn't
run at the sight of one boy wizard approaching him with just a wand.

Just \emph{a wand.}

Harry felt his rage stretch lazy claws inside him, and smiled.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


He stepped through the front door and shut it behind him. He could not
see Peter yet, but he suspected it was just a matter of time. He leaned
his back against the wall of the house and breathed deeply. It was a
fine, clear night, with the nearly full moon hovering overhead, and a
scent in the air like flowers, though Harry couldn't see any of them,
either.

He kept his gaze trained ahead of himself, and saw the grass rustle and
move to the side, along with a glimpse of his \emph{Lumos} shining off a
hairless tail.

``Show yourself, Pettigrew,'' he said calmly, and lifted his wand to
point directly at Peter. Of course, if he was foolish enough to watch
that instead of the wandless magic Harry could unleash to much more
permanent destruction, that was his problem. ``I know you're here.''

He half-expected the rat to squeak and run, but it didn't happen.
Instead, a moment passed, and then Peter Pettigrew transformed to human.

Harry bared his teeth again, wondering if Peter would think he was
smiling. \emph{Again, if he does, that's his mistake.}

He moved a step forward, feeling the dew-heavy grass soak his ankles,
and studied Peter. For the most part, he matched the descriptions he'd
heard Sirius and James give, their voices choked with grief and hatred.

\emph{Small\ldots{}fat\ldots{}always tagging behind us\ldots{}had to
have our help to learn the Animagus transformation\ldots{}we felt sorry
for him\ldots{}watery eyes\ldots{}he always looked away from someone who
wanted to confront him about something he'd done\ldots{}he was jealous
of James\ldots{}hated Sirius\ldots{}foul traitor\ldots{}Death
Eater\ldots{}should have known that if anyone was going to be a Death
Eater, it would be him\ldots{}}

There were two things that were different about this Peter, though.
Harry could see that he was thin, his clothes---which he'd probably
stolen---hanging on him. Of course, he would have dropped weight after
twelve years in Azkaban.

The other thing was his gaze. When he raised his head and met Harry's
eyes, Harry actually recoiled a step. Peter's eyes were blue, and so
piercing that Harry felt scraped to the bone by them.

He recovered himself quickly, of course. It wouldn't do to let Peter,
Pettigrew, \emph{Wormtail}, think he was weak and couldn't protect his
brother. He held his wand out before him and waited for the first blast
of magic.

Instead, Peter nodded and said, in a voice that reminded Harry of Lucius
Malfoy's, ``Harry.''

``Wormtail,'' said Harry. The nickname didn't make Peter flinch, though.
He just went on watching. His hands were frozen near his sides, and
Harry supposed that was another way that he had changed in the last
twelve years. Before, as Sirius had emphasized when describing Peter, he
would always have fidgeted and washed his hands together, resembling the
way a rat washed its paws.

``Do you know why I came here?'' Peter asked, finally, when they had
passed some minutes in silence.

``To kill Connor,'' said Harry. ``The way that you tried to when you
betrayed him to Voldemort.'' He ignored Peter's flinch at the Dark
Lord's name. Snape was the same way, and even Draco. They all preferred
calling him by his title. Harry thought that was silly. ``It won't work.
I'm going to stand in your way, and I'm going to kill you if you try to
touch him.'' He brought his magic up, swirling and roaring, cold music
that frosted the grass around him and broke the air into small pieces.

Peter shook his head. ``That's not the reason I escaped,'' he said. ``I
didn't come here for him.''

``For whom, then?'' Harry curled his lip and took a step forward. He
felt strong, powerful, ready to strike in a way he hadn't all summer.
This was an \emph{enemy.} Harry was justified in whatever he did to him.
This was the kind of battle that Lily had specifically trained him for,
the kind where Connor's inherent innocence and compassion might blind
him and make him leave the enemy alive. Where justice had to take place,
rather than mercy, Harry could become the executioner.

``For you,'' said Peter. He tilted his head to the side. ``I thought,
when I saw the announcement in the newspapers about the brother of the
Boy-Who-Lived going to the Malfoys' for the summer, that something like
this might have happened. And I see that it has.'' His voice was deep
with a sadness Harry did not understand. ``I knew---well, I should have
known, after that night when V-Voldemort attacked, but I couldn't
remember for the longest time, you see.''

``What the fuck are you talking about?'' Harry asked as calmly as he
could. His wand wasn't trembling. His magic was, ready to lunge and
strike. Harry didn't know if he could control it much longer, and
neither was he sure that he wanted to. Peter would, of course, lie, or
else he would have gone insane after twelve years in Azkaban. No one
stayed sane that long there.

\emph{Of course, no one's ever escaped from the prison before, either,}
Harry thought, and went on listening.

Peter let out a breath, then another, and then said, ``Harry, I betrayed
your parents on Dumbledore's orders.''

Harry shook his head at once. ``No,'' he said. ``That's not true. You
were a Death Eater. Let me see your left arm.''

Peter pushed the sleeve of his stolen robe up at once, and Harry saw the
dark gleam of the skull and snake. He hissed, one hand rising to his
forehead, where his scar had abruptly blazed with pain.

``See,'' Harry said with gritted teeth through the agony. ``You're a
Death Eater. You served Voldemort.''

``I became a Death Eater because Dumbledore asked me to,'' said Peter,
his eyes unearthly. ``The Dark Lord approached me because he believed I
would be jealous, being in my friends' shadows all the time. When I went
to Dumbledore, he saw it as the perfect opportunity to have a spy. Snape
hadn't turned his back on the Dark Lord then. And then, when I had the
chance to become Lily and James's Secret Keeper, Dumbledore said I had
to take it. He explained about the prophecy to me. And he explained
about something else to me, too. That was the real reason he wanted me
to become everything I did, to betray your parents and go to Azkaban. I
was a sacrifice, Harry, even as you were---''

Harry abruptly went to his knees, crying out in pain. The phoenix light
and song had blazed up in his mind again, as though the crippled web
sensed an enemy and was fighting frantically to involve itself in one
last battle.

Peter was speaking, but Harry couldn't hear him beyond the pressure of
the fire. Then a hand touched his shoulder, and Peter's voice cut off,
and Harry felt the agony steadily retreat. He took a deep breath and
stood.

He leaped backward when he saw that Peter was the one who had touched
him, and pointed his wand at him again. Peter lifted his hands and
backed away.

``I should have known that would happen,'' Peter breathed. ``It was the
web, wasn't it? The phoenix web? I just broke free of mine a few months
ago, and that's why I was able to escape---''

Harry's vision flashed gold again. ``Stop,'' he managed to say through a
clenched jaw.

``My apologies,'' said Peter softly. ``I can't tell you everything you
need to know, Harry, because the web will prevent you from listening if
I do. But I'll find a way to help you break it. I swear I'll find a way
to help you break it. That was the reason I escaped when I did. I could
have rotted and died in Azkaban, or just run away. Merlin knows I've
paid all my debts to them.'' His eyes shone viciously as he said that,
and Harry had the feeling he was seeing the Death Eater. ``But if you
were suffering from this too, then I wanted to help you. As one
sacrifice to another---twelve years is enough, I think. You don't have
to listen to them anymore, Harry.''

Harry shook his head. ``I don't believe you,'' he whispered.

``Of course you don't,'' said Peter gently. ``Not yet.''

``No, I mean---I mean I won't believe you,'' Harry said, bringing his
wand up. It wavered. He despised himself for his weakness, but he
couldn't seem to stop it. ``Why would you agree to go along with that,
if it really happened?''

``Because Dumbledore is persuasive,'' said Peter, shrugging. ``And for
other reasons that I can't tell you yet without causing your web to
cause you pain.''

``But my parents never knew---''

``Yes, they did,'' said Peter quietly. ``They knew, and---''

``\emph{Harry!}''

Harry spun around abruptly. Sirius was rushing out of the house, his
head low to the ground and his body already rippling with the first
signs of his Animagus transformation. His next cry was as much a bark as
a shout. ``\emph{Wormtail!}''

By the time Harry turned around again, Peter had transformed and was
running. He scurried across the ground, aiming for the edge of the
wards. In a few moments, Sirius, now a large black dog, had caught up
with him, but though his head dipped several times and then rose again,
he seemed to miss Peter each time. Harry watched, his head aching and
his wand still shaking in his head. He noticed it, and forced his
fingers to steady.

Sirius came back in a few moments, his growl rumbling up from his
throat. Harry didn't have to look at his jaws to know that he hadn't
caught Peter. He swallowed, unsure what to feel.

``\emph{I betrayed your parents on Dumbledore's orders.}''

That \emph{couldn't} be true. It \emph{wasn't} true. It \emph{had to not
be true.}

``Are you all right, Harry?''

Harry looked up into Sirius's face as he transformed again. The
\emph{Fugitivus Animus} spell didn't seem to be working any more, if the
way that his godfather's eyes were fastened on him was any indication.
``You can see me?''

Sirius gave him a puzzled glance. ``Of course. Why?''

Harry shook his head. The spell never had worked as well on Sirius. He
supposed he would just have to put up with it. ``Nothing,'' he said.
``And yes, I'm fine. I just came out to get some air, and he was
there.''

``Talking nonsense, I bet,'' Sirius muttered. ``Trying to get you to
join up with the Death Eaters, was he?''

``He told me some things---''

Sirius tensed like a twig about to snap. Harry wondered why.

``But it was all nonsense,'' Harry assured him quickly. ``I didn't
believe him.''

Sirius let out a loud breath and hugged him. ``Thank Merlin for that,''
he said. ``Now, come back inside. I'm going to wake up your fool of a
father and tell him to adjust the wards.''

Harry nodded and fell into step beside Sirius, letting his godfather
lead him back to his bedroom. He deliberately didn't think about
anything until he was back under the covers, with Connor snoring
heavily, reassuringly, across the room.

``\emph{It was the web, wasn't it? The phoenix web? I just broke free of
mine a few months ago\ldots{}}''

That was the thing that troubled Harry the most, and on two accounts.
First, he wondered if a phoenix web---if that was what it was---placed
in someone's mind could cause that person to lie his way through the
Veritaserum the Aurors would have used when they tried Peter. After all,
if someone under the web believed what he was saying were true, the
Veritaserum would find only truth.

And the second thing\ldots{}

Harry rolled over and punched his pillow. \emph{You know that what he
said wasn't true. Go to sleep, damn you.}

And the second thing\ldots{}

Harry buried his face under the blankets, but his thoughts would not
stop racing.

Harry was trying to get used to thinking of himself as a sacrifice
again, the way he had unquestioningly before the damage that Tom Riddle
and Sylarana's death had inflicted on his mind. He had chosen it. He had
trained for it. It was what he was. Eventually, he would have to
reconcile himself to that, rage at his parents and Dumbledore or not.
What he had learned about his own mind and magic did nothing to diminish
Connor's need for protection.

But what if they had sacrificed other people, too? What if Peter had
spent twelve years in Azkaban, scorned by his friends, as a living
sacrifice? What if Harry wasn't the only person Dumbledore had
manipulated?

He was not sure how he felt about that.

Golden light roared across his eyelids, and Harry turned his attention
away from the thoughts. He had to rest, had to relax, or his head would
hurt.

And besides, Sirius was right and what Peter had said was nonsense,
designed to trick Harry and lure him away from his brother's side.

\emph{Just nonsense,} Harry repeated to himself until he fell asleep.
\emph{Just nonsense, all of it.}

\chapter{*Chapter 3*: Hawthorn and
Rue}\label{chapter-3-hawthorn-and-rue}

Glad that so many people liked the twist in the last chapter! Review
responses up in my LJ in a little while.

This chapter was unexpected at first, but it fits in nicely. However, I
sincerely hope the third story doesn't grow as much as the second,
because this makes me worry for how long the sixth and seventh years are
going to be.

\textbf{Chapter Three: Hawthorn and Rue}

Sirius's hand clenched hard on Harry's arm as they came out of the
Apparition and into Diagon Alley. Harry stepped away from him and took a
few deep breaths. He never had liked Side-Along Apparition. It made him
feel as though his stomach were being squeezed out through his ears.

Sirius glanced over at him anxiously. ``All right there, Harry?''

Harry conjured a smile and nodded. Sirius had been solicitous this
morning, as though to make up for ignoring Harry during the rest of the
summer. Harry's skin was crawling with all the unexpected attention. He
needed to get away from Sirius. He knew that he meant well, and he knew
that he would have to face even more people at Hogwarts, but those
people generally weren't in the habit of trying to check him for
injuries and ask him if he wanted sweets at the same time.

``Connor,'' Lily was saying as she unfolded the list that had come with
his Hogwarts letter. Connor took the chance to pass his own Hogwarts
letter to Harry. It had arrived to utterly blank looks from their
parents, until Connor told them that the school had probably sent two
copies to him by mistake. Then they'd smiled and nodded, seeming to see
Connor's name on it. ``I think we should go to Flourish and Blotts
first. It looks like you need more books this year.''

Harry let out a little breath of relief. He could head in the opposite
direction, then, and no one would think it strange. Connor gave him a
sympathetic look, and then beamed up at their mother.

``That would be fine, Mum.''

Lily and James herded Connor away. Harry started to turn away, only to
be halted by Sirius's hand clamping on his shoulder. His magic gave a
little wet snarl in his ears, and Harry felt the power battering under
his skin. It was just looking for a chance to escape and hurt someone.
Harry told himself firmly that it wasn't getting the chance this time,
and shut it up again before he attended to what Sirius was saying.

``Where do you think you're going, Harry?'' his godfather asked. ``I
think you should have someone with you, just in case Wormtail attacks
you again.''

``He probably wouldn't want to attack me,'' said Harry, summoning up a
calm mask to cover his face, which really wanted to stretch in surprised
panic. He \emph{needed} to get away from Sirius. He \emph{needed} some
time among strangers. Even the people who were detouring around them
now, staring hard at him as if they thought he was his brother, made him
feel a little better than he had when trapped at home. ``He came for
Connor. He'd just want to spout more nonsense at me.''

``And you wouldn't listen, right?'' Sirius's fingers flexed and drove
down hard enough that Harry thought he would probably have bruises
tomorrow.

``Of course not,'' said Harry. ``Like you said, it's just nonsense, and
I know better than to listen to Death Eaters. They're all liars, just
like Voldemort was when he talked to me at the end of first year.''

Sirius let out a little breath and pried his fingers off Harry's
shoulder. ``If you're sure\ldots{}''

``I'm sure, Sirius.'' Harry flashed him a brave little smile that he'd
perfected a few days ago. ``I'll meet you back here in a couple of
hours, all right?''

Sirius nodded. Then he opened his mouth, and a shadow fell across his
face. Harry braced himself. Sirius hadn't asked about the spell on Lily
and James yet. Every moment he looked like this, Harry thought he might.

But, once again, he shut his mouth and turned away. Harry watched him
blend with the crowds in the Alley, heading towards Quality Quidditch
Supplies, and shook his head. He didn't know whether Sirius was
hesitating because he thought it was ridiculous for there to be a spell
or for it to be Harry's fault, or because he didn't want to confront the
reason why Harry had cast the spell.

Harry wanted to think it was the first, but he suspected it was the
second. That made him bitter at Sirius, and \emph{that} made him uneasy.
Yes, Sirius had been a Gryffindor, and that meant that he should have
some courage. But there were all different kinds of courage. Was it
really fair to demand that he should have this kind?

Harry shrugged and turned away to consult the shopping list on his
letter. He was no more eager to confront the question than Sirius was.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Harry stepped out of Eeylops Owl Emporium and paused to tuck the bags of
owl treats he'd bought for Hedwig in his pocket. Someone nearly knocked
into him as he did so, and Harry had to stagger back and catch himself
against the wall of the shop. The person turned around to apologize.
Harry blinked.

``Pansy?'' he asked. He had thought that all his Slytherin Housemates
would have finished their shopping earlier than this late in the summer.

Pansy Parkinson gave him a distracted nod and glanced around, her eyes
constantly moving through the crowd. ``Hi, Harry. Have you seen a little
girl holding an ice cream sundae and shrieking something about elk?''

Harry blinked again. ``Um. No.''

Pansy gave a withering sigh. ``I thought so. That's my little cousin,
Aurora,'' she explained, to Harry's blank glance. ``I was supposed to
watch her, and I met Millicent, and I only turned aside for a second,
and then when I turned back, she was gone.'' She ground her teeth, and
then abruptly stomped her foot. ``Why do they always make the older
children watch the younger ones? It's not as though I'm good at it just
because I'm a girl.''

Harry just shrugged. He was afraid he couldn't sympathize very much. His
duty had been watching and protecting Connor ever since he could
remember, even though his brother was only fifteen minutes younger than
he was. To him, it was sacred, and it always slightly startled him to
remember that there were people who disliked or resented doing it.

``\emph{There} she is,'' Pansy said abruptly, and sprinted away. Harry
turned, but could see only a glimpse of a small robe waving before Pansy
blocked it. The childish howl that came a moment later, though, was
probably a sign that she had caught her charge.

Harry shook his head and turned away. But he'd only got a few paces when
another of his Housemates fell into step beside him.

``Potter.''

It was Millicent Bulstrode. Harry found himself having to look further
up at her than he had expected. Millicent had always been one of the
tallest girls in their year, and she'd already grown a bit over the
summer, it seemed. Millicent raised her brows in silent, mocking
acknowledgement of his gaze, and then tilted her head, her eyes
narrowed.

``Why are you by yourself?''

``Because I wanted to be, Bulstrode,'' said Harry. He kept his voice
inoffensive, polite, even boring. Millicent sometimes seemed interested
in what he was doing, and sometimes did not. She usually gave up and
went away if he didn't seem to be doing anything that would inspire
interest.

Not this time, it seemed. Millicent only smiled more widely and said,
``What could cause the great Harry Potter to want to be by himself?''

Harry stared openly at her, unable to help it. ``What?''

Millicent sighed dramatically and examined a hand, as though she were
looking at her nails. Pansy would have pulled the gesture off better,
Harry thought. She actually looked as if she cared about her appearance.
Millicent's nails were as broken and ragged from biting as any boy's.
``Sorry, Potter. When I get chattered at all summer about you, it
becomes automatic to call you that.''

``Who's been chattering at you about me?'' Harry slipped one hand
towards his robe pocket and found his wand there, safe and secure. If he
had to fend off a sudden attack of Death Eaters---and Millicent's
father, at least, had been one of those accused of Death Eater
activities and had pleaded that he was under the Imperius Curse---then
he wanted to be ready. He was trying to force his magic to get used to
his wand again, instead of simply lashing out from his body like wings
and beating whoever it liked.

``Various people,'' said Millicent, with a vague gesture that seemed to
encompass the whole Alley. ``Relatives. Not-relatives. Friends. House
elves. You know how it is.''

Harry jerked a little at the mention of house elves. Dim as twilight, a
memory came to him from the end of last year, when Dobby had been
muttering to him about being a \emph{vates} of some kind. But Harry had
pushed it away and refused to consider it, since none of the house elves
at Malfoy Manor---even Dobby---had tried to speak to him about it again,
and his own family had no elves.

``Tell me what you mean, Millicent,'' he said, deliberately switching to
use of her first name. He drew his wand out so that she could see it.
``Are you threatening me? Is this an offering of alliance? Do you just
mean to tease me? \emph{What}?''

``It's mainly an attempt to make you see that I'm not stupid,'' said
Millicent, stopping and turning to face him. She sounded as if she were
speaking with disarming honesty, but Harry was sure that was only
another mask. ``I can see what things are, you know. I can see what's
what. And no one could have missed last year that you were the one
blazing with power in the hospital wing. It wasn't your brother, and
that story that he told about defeating the basilisk in the Chamber was
just a bit \emph{too} constructed. Why would Fawkes have flown the Sword
of Gryffindor to him? Why wouldn't Dumbledore have come himself to
battle the Dark Lord?''

Harry shook his head. ``It's not like that,'' he said, and could feel
his head aching and his sight blurring from the strain. He didn't think
it was the phoenix web, but more the thought that someone else might not
support and believe Connor. ``You have no idea what it was really
like.''

``But I know who can tell us,'' said Millicent, and her gaze was direct.
``I know who wants to believe a new story, and I can arrange for you to
tell them that story. Who knows? The truth might even soothe their fear,
and they might fall into line behind your precious Boy-Who-Lived the way
you want them to.''

Harry blinked. ``You would really be able to arrange a meeting between
us?''

Millicent nodded. ``We've had someone watching Diagon Alley each day,
hoping it would be the day you came to get your supplies,'' she said,
and then turned and let out a soft little whistle in the direction of
the shadows between the Emporium and the magical instruments shop.

Harry stiffened as several cloaked and masked figures emerged into the
light. Their hoods were sufficiently lowered that they didn't need the
masks, but Harry could see them anyway, and they were white. Though the
cloaks were dark green instead of black, they looked enough like Death
Eaters that he drew his wand.

``None of that,'' said Millicent, clamping onto his arm and forcing it
down with unusual strength. ``Play nice, Potter. They just want to know
what really happened in the Chamber. That's all.''

Harry breathed deeply for a few moments, considering the Death Eaters,
or former Death Eaters, or whoever they were. They remained motionless
and watched him. Harry could not even hear them breathing. He wondered
what they wanted, if they really would go away after they heard his
story, and why it seemed to matter to them so much.

After a moment, he decided he might as well tell them. At worst, it
would make them see that, powerful as Harry might be, he was loyal to
his brother, and get rid of any thoughts about them using him as a pawn
in their games. At best, it would focus their attention on him and make
them attack \emph{him} instead of Connor. Harry would almost welcome
that. He didn't want to kill anyone, but his magic could use the
exercise.

``All right,'' said Harry.

He told the story as simply as he could, because he was afraid that any
attempt to add emotion or humanity to his chill tone would involve
tears. He froze the tears deep, and spoke of Sylarana's death, and how
that had suddenly freed his magic. He did not tell them about the damage
to his mind, but represented Sylarana as the kind of familiar who had
been a large part of taming his magic, so that it went wild without her
presence and sought some new container. He told about the ice and how he
had destroyed the diary and sucked out the fragment of Tom Riddle,
absorbing his power. At that, one of the cloaked figures on the far end
gave a sharp sound and made a movement that might have involved the
drawing of a wand, if another cloaked figure hadn't checked him.

Harry finished up with the storm, and how Professor Snape had come out
and chided him into putting his magic away and coming back into the
school. He certainly was not about to reveal how fragile his sanity was,
even now.

``Why did Connor believe the way he did?'' Millicent demanded.

Harry shook his head. ``Because he wanted to,'' he said. ``It was the
best explanation he could come up with for what had happened.'' He
wasn't gong to reveal that he had \emph{Obliviated} his brother, either.

``And Draco?'' Millicent asked, the one question he had really not
wanted her to ask.

Harry held his wand high enough that they could see it. ``Ask about him
again, and I'll hex you,'' he said. He thought he knew who the cloaked
figures were now---former Death Eaters, Slytherins, the kind of people
who might associate with Lucius Malfoy more than casually. Harry was not
about to tell them that Draco had chosen to stand with him against Tom
Riddle and had been vital in trying to burn the diary, either. Draco's
allegiance was their secret until he was ready to announce it to the
world. It was no secret where Connor stood, or Harry, either.

Millicent put her hands up. ``Calm down, Potter,'' she murmured, but her
voice had the sound of deep satisfaction, not mockery. She stepped up to
the cloaked figure at the farthest end of the line, the one who had
stopped the first from drawing his wand, and leaned against him. The
others turned and melted away into the shadows once more. Harry closed
his eyes, trying to control his magic, and listening for the sounds of
an attack in the moments he needed to recover himself.

When he opened his eyes, no one had attacked him, and the figure
Millicent had leaned against had stripped his mask off. He was a
dark-haired man with a large, blunt face, and Millicent's piercing eyes.

Harry inclined his head slowly, never looking away from the wizard's
face. The man nodded, a faint smile gleaming between his hooked nose and
thick lips.

``My name is Adalrico Bulstrode,'' he said. ``Former Death Eater, as you
doubtless have guessed by now. Under the Imperius Curse,'' he added.

``Of course,'' said Harry, letting politeness and nothing else season
his voice.

Adalrico chuckled. ``My daughter did not mention how careful you were,''
he said, and squeezed Millicent's shoulder with rough affection. ``She
should have.'' He leaned closer, staring into Harry's eyes. ``You have
given a confession, and the old ways say that a secret for a secret is
the way of things, yes? So. There is a force abroad in the land, a force
that is trying to bring back Voldemort.''

Harry stood a little straighter, noting how Adalrico had used the Dark
Lord's name instead of his title. ``I already knew that, Mr.
Bulstrode,'' he said softly. ``I have expected someone to try and bring
back Voldemort since my brother and I came to Hogwarts.''

Adalrico cocked his head slyly to one side. ``Ah. But did you know that
that force is gaining new momentum now? There are those who have been
hurt in trying to resist it, in trying to move slowly, in trying to make
sure that we are ready before anything happens. And we do not like
that.'' The hand not holding his daughter made a convulsive gesture.

Harry narrowed his eyes. He could not ask outright, of course, if this
really meant that some of the Death Eaters---former Death Eaters, he
corrected himself firmly---would be interested in an alliance. That
would be losing an important step in this dance. But he could hint at
it. ``That is unfortunate,'' he said. ``I am sorry for those who have
been hurt, Mr. Bulstrode. I would like to ask you that carry my
condolences to them. And any skill at healing that I might offer, of
course. I have been training in medical magic, you know.''

Adalrico's eyes shone with the same fierce enjoyment that Harry had seen
in Narcissa Malfoy's face when he danced with her. ``That is kind of
you, Mr. Potter,'' he said, trying to keep his voice perfectly grave and
failing. ``Do your skills extend to healing bruises and contusions only?
Or might they go further than that?''

``Further than that, I believe, sir,'' said Harry, and inclined his head
modestly. ``Of course, to know how to heal a certain affliction, then I
have to see what that infliction is first, and how much damage it has
done.''

Adalrico nodded to him. ``Perfectly reasonable,'' he said, and glanced
over his shoulder. ``Don't you think so?''

There was a long pause, and then the shadows stirred again, and one of
the figures moved back out into the sunlight. With heavy, reluctant
movements, he removed his mask---no, Harry corrected as he caught sight
of the face, \emph{she} removed \emph{her} mask.

``Pansy?'' Harry asked in wonder, before realizing that this had to be
her mother. He squinted at her, and recalled her name a moment later.
\emph{Hawthorn Parkinson.} ``Mrs. Parkinson,'' he said, and bowed to
her. ``I am sorry to hear that you have been hurt.''

``So was everyone else.'' Hawthorn Parkinson was as pale-haired as her
daughter, as pale of skin, but her eyes were unlike Pansy's blue, being
shadowed hazel. Her face carried the deep-carved lines of some great
strain, and her body was coiled as though she might explode in any
direction at any moment. Despite that, Harry thought, she was managing
to force some dry humor into her voice. ``Of course, none of them truly
\emph{promised} to do anything about it. Sorrow was the only balm they
felt able to offer me.''

Harry studied her again, looking for some sign of an injury or curse,
and then realized what else, beyond her face, seemed so familiar about
her. He hesitated, then took a risk. He might be revealing too much, but
on the other hand, he was revealing his intelligence---which they would
need to be convinced of if they entered into an alliance with him.

``How long have you been a werewolf, Mrs. Parkinson?'' he asked gently.

Hawthorn jerked, one hand flying up in front of her as if to defend
herself from a curse with bare skin, while the other fumbled for her
wand. Harry merely waited. Two wands were aimed at him, now, he saw,
rolling his eyes to the side to check that Adalrico was armed. That was
somewhat of a relief. He would have been disappointed if they weren't.

``How did you---'' Hawthorn asked, and the low snarl in her voice only
confirmed it further for Harry.

``I've known werewolves,'' said Harry. ``How long?''

Hawthorn lowered her head and said, ``Since last month, when Fenrir
Greyback attacked me for refusing to cooperate in his futile attempts to
raise the Dark Lord. This next full moon is my first transformation.''
Her eyes reflected rage and horror and utter fear. Harry could
understand. For a pureblood witch, raised with the idea that werewolves
were always halfbreeds and monsters and that only stupid or worthless
people became them, this was a living nightmare.

``I could help, you know,'' said Harry. ``Have you heard of the
Wolfsbane Potion?''

The brief flicker of hope in Hawthorn's eyes showed that either she had,
or she had not but suspected what it would do. She clasped one hand
around her wand. ``A cure?'' she whispered.

``Not as such,'' said Harry. ``There is no cure for lycanthropy yet,
Mrs. Parkinson. This is a potion that allows a werewolf to retain his or
her senses in animal form. You'll still transform, but you won't be a
ravening beast.''

Hawthorn closed her eyes and nodded. ``That is the best I can hope
for,'' she whispered. ``I would never forgive myself if I attacked my
daughter.''

``How can you get it to her?'' Adalrico asked. ``How can you brew it?''

``Some is going to be brewed at Hogwarts this year,'' said Harry. He was
being blunt, but so were they. He only had to insure that he didn't
betray other people's secrets, which weren't his to betray. ``Professor
Severus Snape finally perfected the formula. I helped him on some of the
preliminary stages. I can learn to brew it, and I can give it to Pansy,
if you're able to meet her somewhere on school grounds.''

They were silent for a long moment. Harry thought they were wondering
whether to trust him, and painted his most open and guileless expression
on his face.

Then Hawthorn Parkinson said, fighting to keep her voice steady and
almost succeeding, ``If you do that, Mr. Potter, I will owe you a debt
so profound that it cannot---'' She cut herself off and shook her head.
``What will you want?'' she asked. ``What is in my hands to give, I will
provide with open palms.''

Harry hissed before he could stop himself. That was an ancient saying,
one that even pureblood families didn't use all that often, probably
because deep and trusting alliances between them were uncommon. One
trusted family first, and outsiders only if one had to.

``Is it true that you're a Parselmouth?'' Adalrico asked abruptly.

Harry nodded at him. ``It is.'' He ignored Millicent's outraged mutter
to her father about his not trusting her, and glanced back at Pansy's
mother. ``I'll ask for a truce as long as I provide you with the potion,
Mrs. Parkinson. You said that Fenrir Greyback bit you for refusing to
cooperate with him?''

Hawthorn nodded, her eyes distant. ``What he is doing is stupid,'' she
growled softly. The tense, wild aura around her grew stronger. ``It
would never work, and for him to demand my help when---'' She shook her
head. ``It does not matter.''

Harry nodded. ``I'll ask that you continue to refuse him for as long as
I provide you with the potion,'' he refined his original request. ``I
don't know exactly what he wants, and I will not ask unless you want to
tell me. But if you continue to refuse, that's one less enemy whom my
brother must face on the battlefield.''

Hawthorn smiled, slowly, and Harry saw a shadow of the lovely,
commanding woman she must be when in full possession of herself. ``That
is well enough. And gladly, even easily, given.'' She cocked her head to
the side. ``You are sure that you do not want something else in addition
to that?''

``No, Mrs. Parkinson,'' said Harry. \emph{Let them think me generous.
Let me have a little extra space, if I need it, to maneuver and win
concessions for Connor.} ``Let's not weight the bough of our union with
snow it cannot carry.''

Hawthorn laughed, a soft, delighted sound, and put out a hand. Harry
clasped it, and then added, ``I'm afraid that I won't be able to provide
the potion for this first transformation, since I won't be at Hogwarts
until the first day of September.''

``That does not matter,'' said Hawthorn, her voice gone warm. ``I know
how to handle this first transformation, what to do and where I must go.
But to know that the others will make me safer---that I need not abandon
my daughter or lose control of myself to the beast within me---'' She
shook her head, and apparently was unable to say anything more.

Harry nodded to her, and then glanced at Adalrico and Millicent. ``With
all due respect, sir, did you really seek me out because you thought I
could cure Mrs. Parkinson's disease? You couldn't have known that I
would know anything about it.''

Adalrico smiled, a deep, predatory expression that Harry had to admire
for the sheer weight of glee behind it. ``No, we did not,'' he said.
``But needs must when the devil drives. We wanted to see what a powerful
young wizard might have to offer us, and we have seen it now.''

Harry inclined his head. ``Of course,'' he murmured, ``family is still
most important, especially blood family.'' He could not make a clearer
statement of his loyalty to Connor without being insulting, he thought.

Adalrico held up a hand as if toasting him with an imaginary wineglass.
``I could not agree more, Mr. Potter. And when blood family and similar
principles come together, then there is the happiest union of all. But
bonds on principle alone may form between people of varying families, as
they did in the case of Calypso McGonagall and Thomas Mackenzie.''

Harry narrowed his eyes. He knew that story, too, and he was not sure
what Adalrico meant by referring to it. The McGonagall and Mackenzie
families had been at war for generations over the kidnapping and rape of
a pair of children that could have belonged to either family depending
on whom one listened to, until Calypso McGonagall strode out to the
middle of one of their battlefields and sent a binding spell into the
air. It tugged Thomas Mackenzie over to her, made him her lawfully
wedded husband on the spot, and led to an immediate consummation in the
sight of everyone, just so that no one could say later that they weren't
really married.

\emph{Perhaps he means that they'll be watching to see if I ever choose
principle over blood. Long may they watch. It's not going to happen.}

``That is true, Mr. Bulstrode,'' he said, opting for the diplomatic
reaction. He nodded to Millicent. ``It was nice to meet your father and
Pansy's mother, Bulstrode,'' he said. ``I'll see you at school.''

``Oh, call me Millicent, Harry,'' said Millicent, and smiled at him. ``I
think we should do that now. It's what friends do.''

``Are we friends?'' Harry raised his brows.

Millicent just smirked at him.

Harry turned around, shaking his head, and nearly slammed into Pansy
again. This time, she hastened over to her mother and wrapped her arms
around her, giving Harry a suspicious glance.

``It's all right, darling,'' Hawthorn murmured, stroking her daughter's
hair. ``Mr. Potter has come up with a way to help me.''

Pansy stared at her, and then switched her stare back to Harry. Her face
relaxed and warmed considerably in the next moment, and Harry thought
that a genuine smile looked better on her than a smirk ever had. ``Thank
you, Harry,'' she whispered. ``I swear that I'll repay you for this.''

Harry just nodded cordially. He wouldn't count anything but the alliance
with Mrs. Parkinson as secure, and that only when he delivered the first
vial of Wolfsbane Potion. ``See you at school, Pansy,'' he said, and
strode away.

It was as he went to meet Sirius that he realized his magic was the
quietest it had been since he left the Malfoys'. He blinked and touched
his head, but it didn't ache. His thoughts were tame. His emotions were
calm.

\emph{Is it pureblood traditions that did that?} he wondered. \emph{Or
just the effort of having to think rather than react?}

``Harry!''

Sirius grabbed him and swung him around in a hug, and Harry gave up the
thoughts for now. He was about to go back to Godric's Hollow and endure
a few more days there, which only Connor's presence would make
tolerable. With parents who ignored him and a godfather who watched him
too closely\ldots{}

Harry shoved those thoughts aside, and concentrated instead on the new
allies he was winning for Connor. That soothed him immeasurably.

\chapter{*Chapter 4*: Choosing Their
Camlanns}\label{chapter-4-choosing-their-camlanns}

The title of this chapter is figurative; Camlann was, according to some
versions of the legend, the place where King Arthur faced and fought his
son Mordred.

\textbf{Chapter Four: Choosing Their Camlanns}

``All right there, Harry?''

Harry nodded jerkily as they passed into King's Cross Station. Connor
smiled at him for a moment longer before looking away as Lily began
reciting a long list of instructions to him. James, on the other side of
him, looked about, befuddled, for a moment, before apparently deciding
that Connor must have been giving himself a reassuring talking-to. After
all, as he had told Connor yesterday, who wouldn't be nervous on going
to his third year of school by himself? Sirius would be on the train,
but busy arranging team practice schedules with the Quidditch Captains.

Harry closed his eyes and told himself that he had no right to feel hurt
or bewildered by this. After all, he was the one who had managed to set
things up like this.

``Harry?''

Harry sent a glance sideways to Sirius, who grinned at him and tried to
make it look non-nervous. He didn't succeed. Harry had never seen Sirius
so jumpy as he had been in the days since Peter's visit, even on the
occasions when he was planning a major prank and wanted to be sure that
no one interfered with it.

``Yes?'' he asked, when he saw that Sirius wouldn't stop staring at him.

Sirius coughed. ``I---we'll talk about why your parents are ignoring you
at school, all right?'' He quickened his pace and moved towards the
front of the line, cuffing Connor on the head as he passed. Connor
ducked with a muffled protest, and Lily and James laughed aloud.

Harry closed his eyes. He breathed carefully, and reminded himself over
and over, \emph{You chose this. You know it was the best course. You
would have killed them without it. How could anything but this be the
right thing to do?}

The web gave a little prompting tug on his mind, as it had been doing
since they moved out of the house. It didn't seem to think that being
near Connor in a wide-open space was the same thing as being across a
series of rooms from him. Harry sighed and hurried to catch up.

``Harry.''

Startled, Harry turned his head to the side, and gasped to see Peter
standing behind one of the Station's pillars. He wore Muggle clothing
and didn't look \emph{that} out of place, at least as long as someone
didn't look into his eyes. They remained piercing, and certainly pierced
Harry in place. It was a long moment before he could draw his wand, and
a longer moment before he could find his voice.

``Don't come near me, traitor,'' he snarled, leveling his wand in front
of him.

``I won't come nearer than this,'' said Peter, keeping his own voice
even. ``But I thought that you deserved to know more, Harry, as much as
I could tell you without the web assaulting and blinding you. Have you
ever heard the name Regulus Black?''

``Maybe,'' Harry hedged. Sirius had mentioned it once, last year, during
his apology to Harry for being an awful godfather. Come to think, he had
acted strange during that apology, too. Harry shoved the thought away
and concentrated on Peter. \emph{He is Wormtail. He only wants to
confuse you, to cause treachery. He's probably working with Fenrir
Greyback to return the Dark Lord to life.} ``I don't know who he was.''

``Sirius's brother,'' said Peter. ``His \emph{younger} brother. His
\emph{beloved} younger brother, for all that he became a Death Eater.''
He paused. ``Are you seeing any parallels here, Harry?''

``That's ridiculous,'' Harry said, and was displeased to note that his
voice was little more than a breath. He forced more strength into it.
``Someone would have told me about Sirius having a younger brother. They
always told me that he was an only child. Why conceal it? Mum could have
used the story to strengthen my training and show what might happen to
Connor if I didn't guard him.''

Peter closed his eyes. Harry didn't know what to make of the expression
that worked over his face then. It looked like a mixture of rage and
disgust, but what was there in the words he'd said to inspire that?

``That's true, then,'' said Peter. ``I wondered how much was. I only know
what I heard that night. So you're guardian to Connor, then? You really
\emph{are} the sacrifice for him, and weren't just raised to be that
way?'' He opened his eyes and pinned Harry with his gaze once again.

``Of course,'' said Harry. His web was quiet, probably because he was
doing what it wanted. He plowed ahead. Perhaps he could convince Peter
how ridiculous it was to try and speak to him and force him away from
his family. Then Peter might run away and become someone else's problem.
``I know what I am. I'm proud of it. Why shouldn't I be?''

``Harry,'' Peter whispered, his voice gone longing. ``There is \emph{so
much wrong} with someone simply raised to be a tool for someone else, a
pawn, concealing his strength in someone else's shadow.''

Harry felt the first headache begin, but he fought through it. ``I like
it. I don't care.'' His rage stirred in him, joining the web, but he
ignored that, too. ``I know that I had some things happen to me that
made me not care for that duty for a while, but I have to return. Who
else is going to do it?''

``Your parents,'' said Peter. ``Connor. Dumbledore himself. Anyone but
you.''

``Why?''

``Because,'' said Peter, ``they made your choices for you, and you were
too young---''

Harry gasped as the pain hit him like a Bludger to the side of the head.
He managed to sit down before he fell down, but it was a near thing. He
cradled his forehead in his hands, and whispered the words that he dimly
remembered his mother using to soothe the pain. ``I am sacrifice for
Connor. This was freely chosen.''

The pain eased after a moment. He looked up to see Peter standing away
from the pillar, one hand reaching for him. He dropped it when he saw
Harry's glare.

``I feared so,'' he said soberly. ``I shattered my web all in one go.
Yours was weakened, but it's getting stronger again. I want to help you
break it, Harry---''

And then he cut off, but not because of Harry's pain this time. Harry
saw him shiver, saw his face turn gray. A shadow fell on him, and Peter
scrambled backward, suddenly the cringing little rat Harry thought he
always should have been.

Harry looked up.

In front of him floated a black creature with wispy dark robes, its oval
head cocked to one side. A hand with fingers like twigs reached for him,
and Harry felt his mind tremble, his thoughts dancing and swirling up
and out of him.

\emph{He was in the Chamber again. It was freezing, and he knelt before
the pure, icy-cold force of the magic. It showed him memories that he
could not face, things that he knew could not be true\ldots{}}

Harry slammed his hands down beside him, trying to use the pain of the
stone cutting into his palms to force himself to focus. He felt his mind
waver and turn, and some of the new certainty that he had, that he
really \emph{was} destined to be Connor's guardian and that was the way
things were, cracked and broke apart. Once again, he found the terrible
uncertainty, the rage at his parents and Dumbledore.

Someone got between him and the creature Harry knew must be a Dementor,
and its terrible regard somewhat lessened. Harry blinked and gasped and
looked up to find Peter there, his face white as he absorbed the full
force of the cold gaze. One hand reached out and hovered above his
shoulder, and Peter made a little crumpled sound and half-collapsed. He
never moved from between the Dementor and Harry, however.

Harry began to move forward in a crawl. He wasn't sure what would happen
when he got there, but he knew he was going to do \emph{something}.

Then a voice spoke, like a cold spike piercing Harry's brain. \emph{Get
away. Back.}

Harry cried out, but his voice was a weak and reedy thing in the face of
his pain. The Dementor in front of Peter floated weirdly, appearing to
turn the top half of its body towards the speaker while keeping its
bottom half in front of him. Harry knew it made some response, but this
time it was unintelligible to him.

The other speaker, another Dementor who looked more gray than black,
drifted up behind the other and said only one word, for which Harry was
grateful, since even that word made his head vibrate and seem to freeze.

Vates.

The Dementor holding Peter turned and darted off at once, seeming to
hide behind the gray one. The gray one turned its gaze to Harry. He
looked up, and forced himself to meet those hidden eyes by a tremendous
effort of will.

The gray Dementor reached out and moved one hand in front of him,
fingers flicking in a beckoning gesture. Harry felt his rage surge. Then
he was half-blinded by a golden glow that seemed to originate from his
face. When he could see again, pieces of a golden web were vanishing
into the Dementor's fingers. Harry shivered. \emph{Why is it freeing me?
Why would it? And do I want to be what I will be when the web is
entirely gone?}

Pain flared in his head, which Harry guessed was the last remnants of
the web fighting for life, at the same moment as someone behind him
bellowed, ``\emph{EXPECTO PATRONUM!}''

A silvery wolf charged into the two Dementors, making the black one cry
out in a high, shrill voice and turn to flee. The gray one lingered for
a moment, and Harry knew it was looking at him. He whimpered as the
voice spoke again, hammering into one ear and then out the other.

\emph{We shall meet again.} Vates.

Then they both turned and fled as the silvery wolf came back for another
gallop. The wolf slowed to a trot when it saw that it had no more
enemies left to face, wagged its tail once, and winked at Harry. Then it
tattered into mist and flowed back towards Sirius, who ran over to hug
Harry.

``Harry,'' he whispered. ``Are you all right? I'm so sorry. The
Dementors are here, hunting for Peter, and I couldn't tell---I didn't
know---''

Harry rolled his head slowly to the side. Peter was gone. Harry had
expected him to be. He would hardly stay around when first the guardians
of Azkaban and then Sirius came for him.

``Are you all right, Harry?'' Sirius repeated, drawing back and looking
at him again.

Harry looked away from him and took huge, deep, gulping breaths. Part of
his control was gone again, the control he had fought so hard to
maintain over the summer. He realized now that it must have been built
on the crippled but gradually strengthening remains of the web. The
Dementor had destroyed that. Harry did not know whether to scream or be
grateful.

Well, right now he did want to scream. Sirius murmuring endearments and
reassurances was only another reminder of how he hadn't done so last
year until it was far, far too late. Harry tried to counter that, tried
to remember how Sirius had taken him flying at Christmas and given him a
gift that had helped save his life down in the Chamber, but his thoughts
were veering, crashing into one another, and his magic was rising
quickly.

``Let's get through the barrier,'' Sirius was saying as he pulled him
along. ``I'm sure some Muggles saw the Patronus. This is work for the
Obliviators, that's for sure.''

Harry closed his eyes. He had to do \emph{something} with his magic. He
didn't know what, but it had to go somewhere.

\emph{What can I do?}

The magic offered several suggestions, all of them ways that would
result in his parents' and Sirius's body in several thousand small
pieces. Harry shook his head. He couldn't do that. He still couldn't
kill them. He didn't want to kill them. Harm them, maybe.

The magic seized on that, and Harry felt his lips almost part over a
spell that would have inflicted gaping wounds on his parents, a spell he
had read about but never had the insanity to try. With an effort, he
closed his lips and fought his temper back under control. But the air
around him was chill, and Sirius shivered as they stepped through the
barrier and onto Platform 9 ¾.

Harry tried and tried to fight his magic, but it wasn't working. It sped
through the familiar channels in his body that he had created at Malfoy
Manor, and demanded things to rend and split and burn. Harry could hear
a scream of fury building down in his guts, and shuddered. He would cry
aloud in a moment.

``Harry?''

And Sirius was making it \emph{worse}, damn him, touching and touching
and probing. Harry kept his eyes closed, knowing he couldn't see him
right now. If he saw his parents, he was sure he would strike. His walls
were already weakening, and his magic prowled back and forth like a
tiger that knew it would be able to escape its cage in seconds.

The only person Harry thought he might be willing to curse was
Dumbledore. But Dumbledore was at Hogwarts---

\emph{Hogwarts.}

Harry seized gladly on the idea and fed it to his magic, bending his
will abruptly to that one goal. The magic lost its defiance as it
flooded into him. Harry felt a dense resistance to what he was trying to
do, but that only made him fight the harder, and kept him from striking
someone dead.

Then he vanished, and passed briefly through a freezing cold space, and
appeared just outside Hogsmeade with the loud \emph{crack} of a
successful Apparition.

Harry dropped to one knee and gasped, then coughed. Ice crystals fell
past his lips. He shuddered. That was how close he had come to using his
magic on someone else. He traced his hands up and down his arms, noting
faint webs of white and the first traces of frostbite in his fingers.
They were quickly warming under the morning sun, but it had been very,
very close.

Well, now that he was here, what was he going to do?

Harry raised his eyes to the road that wound through Hogsmeade, towards
the castle, and smiled. He suspected it was a grim smile, but he did not
particularly care. Apparating this far had somewhat used, and thus
calmed, his magic, but it had done nothing about his rage.

\emph{What I came here to do}.

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\newpage

``Mr. Potter. What are \emph{you} doing here?''

Just last year, that voice would have made him tense up. Now Harry could
smile and turn around, confident that its owner meant to welcome him, no
matter what he sounded like. ``Professor Snape. Hello, sir.''

Snape stalked towards him, eyes narrowed and nose pointing forward as if
to lead the way. The sight eased Harry's rage. He leaned against the
wall of the entrance hall and waited as Snape halted in front of him and
examined him up and down with one disdainful sweep of his eyes.

``You seem to have lost your parents along the way,'' Snape sniffed at
him. ``And a brother. And a certain Black mutt.''

``Oh, they'll be along, doubtless.'' Harry felt his smile widen. Merlin,
was it really possible that he could have missed Snape \emph{this} much?
``But I wanted to come ahead of them. Get a little air, you know. See
the castle before a bunch of idiot children---'' he imitated Snape's
voice ``---overrun it.'' He hesitated, then continued, as sure of
Snape's loyalty as he was of anything in the world. ``Speak to a certain
Headmaster,'' he added, ``about certain decisions that he made regarding
me.''

Snape's eyes narrowed further. Harry held his breath. Perhaps Snape had
turned backwards in his loyalty after all. Harry would have said that
couldn't happen, after the way they had spoken in the storm, but he had
almost tricked himself into becoming a useless pawn for his brother
again, too.

The rage flared. Harry told it to lie down. \emph{You'll get your chance
soon enough. And Connor is innocent.} Innocent.

``Good.''

Harry blinked, jolted out of contemplation of himself again as Snape
nodded and pointed in the direction of the Headmaster's office. ``The
Headmaster's password is \emph{Cauldron Cakes},'' he added. ``I will not
come with you, Mr. Potter. I trust that you can leave the school
standing by yourself?''

Harry only smiled at the snide tone. ``I am fairly certain of that, yes,
sir,'' he said gravely.

``Then get to it,'' said Snape, and spun the other way, his robes
flowing behind him as he strode across the hall. Harry thought he saw
him halt to speak with someone when he reached the stairs down to the
dungeons, but wasn't sure who it was. Someone from Slytherin come early,
perhaps?

\emph{I must remember to speak with Snape about brewing the Wolfsbane
for Mrs. Parkinson}, Harry thought, as he took the stairs to the
Headmaster's office. \emph{It would be a poor return for all his
kindness if I simply took his supplies.}

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\newpage

``Cauldron Cakes,'' said Harry, and the gargoyle sprang aside. He
stepped onto the moving staircase, his shoulders relaxed despite the
second storm he could feel brewing inside his head.

He wondered which question he should ask first as the staircase bore him
upward. \emph{Why did you do it?} But he thought it was fairly obvious
why Dumbledore had done it: in obedience and answer to the prophecy and
the needs of war. \emph{Why did you leave the web in my head?} But the
answer to that question was the same. \emph{Did you ever mean for me to
find out about this?} Well, obviously the answer was no.

He reached the top without deciding. Harry shrugged and pushed open the
door to the office proper. He would wait and see what came, then.

Dumbledore was not behind his desk. Harry halted and stared around
curiously. He would have thought Snape would warn him if the Headmaster
was elsewhere. Perhaps he had gone through a door hidden behind the
shelves? Harry moved in to investigate.

A loud trill greeted him before he could move more than a few steps.
Harry looked up, and smiled as he saw Fawkes lift from his perch and fly
towards him. The phoenix settled on his shoulder, a denser weight than
he looked, his head bowed so that his neck brushed against Harry's hair.
Harry lifted his hand and stroked those feathers. Fawkes uttered a
contented little croon and closed his eyes. Harry briefly wished Dobby
were there to translate.

``Harry.''

Harry turned quickly towards the desk again. Dumbledore waited there,
his face grave and his eyes darting back and forth between his phoenix
and Harry's hand. Harry wondered if he was more surprised to see Fawkes
welcoming Harry or Harry only stroking the bird and not attacking his
office.

Fawkes made a loud, disapproving sound and pressed closer to Harry. He
did not look up at Dumbledore.

``He has been doing that all summer,'' said Dumbledore lightly,
apparently deciding that he would play the part of the doting
Headmaster. He walked over to sit down behind his desk. ``Would you care
for a sweet, Harry?''

Harry shook his head. He had gone breathless with rage, abruptly. He
took his hand from Fawkes, and the phoenix flew back to his perch. Harry
was glad. He thought being in contact with him when his rage began to
flare bright and cold might be painful for a creature of fire.

``I want to know why you put this web in my mind,'' he said, when he
thought he could say that and not simply burst out screaming. ``I want to
know what the \emph{fuck} you thought you were doing to me.''

Dumbledore only nodded, as if he had expected this question, and then
bent down. Harry tensed, but he retrieved a Pensieve from the floor and
set it on the desk. He nodded to it.

``This Pensieve, Harry,'' he murmured, ``holds the memory of the day
that I put the web into your mind. I invite you to enter it and see for
yourself. The web can only be enacted on a willing subject, you know.
You did choose this fate, though I can see how that might fail to
concern you now.'' He managed to look stern and forgiving both at once.

Harry snarled, and heard one of the silver instruments on the shelf
behind Dumbledore snap. The Headmaster did not flinch, only nodded to
the Pensieve again.

Harry strode forward and dipped his head into the silvery liquid.

He found himself on the lawn of the house at Godric's Hollow, on a
summer day so bright that there seemed to be no shadows. A younger
version of himself lay on his back in the sunlight, reading a book.
Harry blinked. He didn't remember the book as being so heavy that his
arms had to strain to hold it and tilt it to the light, but obviously it
had been.

Dumbledore and Lily stood conversing a short distance away, their voices
audible but unimportant to the younger Harry. He was studying to protect
his brother, and that was the only thing that mattered. Harry edged
closer to the adults, looking back now and then. It seemed odd that he
had ever been that \emph{small}, or his green eyes so serious. Harry had
had the impression that he often laughed as a child.

``I think it's time,'' said Lily. Her voice wavered, but strengthened as
she went on. ``I've---well, I've monitored him as you asked me to do.
And his maturity for a boy his age is just astonishing. He knows that an
evil wizard is coming for Connor, and that I want him to do his part to
protect his brother.''

Dumbledore nodded. ``And his magic?''

Lily flinched and glanced away from him. Her eyes seemed to dart back
and forth between the lawn and her son. Harry waited, his hands
clenched.

``It is frightening,'' his mother admitted at last, her lips barely
moving. ``I've never felt \emph{anything} like it. It sleeps most of the
time, and so far he hasn't hurt anyone, but I think that's mostly due to
his training. He fetches himself toys when he wants them, and never
seems to find it strange that he's not using his hands. He poured
himself a bowl of porridge the other day, perfectly, and carried it to
the table without spilling a drop---and all the while he didn't look up
from his book. He Vanished all the dust in the nursery one day when it
was making Connor sneeze. His use of magic is casual, and if it goes on
much longer, I don't think he'll be able to stop.'' She shuddered. ``And,
Headmaster, it's just---it's hard living in a house with a child like
that, even when his magic is sleeping. It's like listening to a tiger
purr. It might be content right now, but you always know that it could
attack you, even if it never does.''

Dumbledore nodded. ``I understand, Lily. I think you brave to have
endured this as long as you have, a true Gryffindor.'' Lily lifted her
chin. ``What about the others? Do they suspect anything?''

Lily smiled sadly. ``James could look past a herd of stampeding
Acromantulas if it meant not having to acknowledge that one of his sons
is Dark.'' Harry felt bile soak his throat. ``And Sirius and Remus don't
visit often enough to know what it's like. They're just pleased and
proud of Harry's `accidental magic,' as they call it. They don't know
what it's like living day to day with it.'' She shuddered.

Dumbledore patted her shoulder. ``It is all right, my dear,'' he said.
``We both know there was nothing accidental about it, and that such
powerful magic in a child is unnatural. He will be happier when he is
without it, when he is more like other children.'' He turned to face the
younger Harry reading on the lawn, and drew his wand. ``Let us be about
this business.''

Harry fought the temptation to scoop up his younger self and carry him
away. He knew this was only a memory, and he had to watch what happened.
He stood there with leaden feet as Dumbledore walked over to the little
boy and said, far too casually for Harry's tastes, ``What are you
reading, my dear boy?''

Younger-Harry blinked at him around the cover of his book. ``Defensive
spells,'' he said, as though that should have been obvious. Given that
the title of the book was \emph{A Practical Guide to Defensive Magic},
Harry could understand how he'd felt.

Dumbledore nodded. ``You want to protect your brother, don't you, Harry?
That's the reason that you read about defensive spells and make dust
Vanish out of the nursery when he sneezes?''

Younger-Harry flicked a glance to his mother first. Lily nodded at him.
Reassured that this man was someone who could know about his protection
of his brother, Harry brought his gaze back to Dumbledore. ``Yes, I
do,'' he said. ``I don't want an evil wizard to come and kill him.''

\emph{And I still don't want that,} Harry thought, sick inside as he
stared at his own younger face. \emph{That is the hell of it. I still
want Connor alive. I still love him. Why couldn't you have just taught
me to love him, Mum? Why did you have to make} sure \emph{that I loved
him? Why did you have to bind my magic?}

If that was, in truth, what the phoenix web had done. Harry supposed he
would find out in a moment.

Dumbledore nodded. ``And if I could give you a gift that would make sure
you protected your brother all the time, would you take it?'' he asked.
``It will keep you from wavering or looking aside.''

Harry recognized one of the phrases that Lily had taught him was a bad
thing. Younger-Harry did, too. His face lit up, and he nodded. ``I never
want to waver or look aside,'' he said.

``You choose this freely?'' Dumbledore had his wand loosely clasped in
his hand now, and golden sparks were racing around it. Harry stifled a
snarl as he recognized the sparks. They were the exact color of the
phoenix web that shone behind his eyes when he did something that it
didn't like.

``Yes!'' said Younger-Harry, dropping the book in his eagerness. His
eyes shone from behind his glasses. ``I want to protect my brother!''

Dumbledore nodded, and then lifted his wand. ``\emph{Expleo penuriam cum
textura!}'' he said firmly, and the golden sparks went into a wild dance,
coalescing around Younger-Harry's head. ``\emph{Phoenix texturae!}''

The gold tightened into a pattern, and Harry recognized one glimpse of
the web as he dimly remembered it from his own wild attempts to repair
his mind in the storm. He heard Lily gasp, and Younger-Harry stared at
the web in fascination. For a moment, Harry saw the web bisecting his
own head, as though his skull were only a shadow, or both the web and
Younger-Harry were occupying the same space at the same time.

Then the sight vanished, and Younger-Harry gasped and leaned his head
forward. Dumbledore nodded, stood, and carefully backed away from the
boy. Harry could feel his own heart, beating in his ears as though
someone were clenching a fist around it over and over.

``That will hold,'' Dumbledore told Lily. ``Placed when he is this
young, it will do more than hold. It will reweave his mind to its
purpose.'' He nodded again. ``You need never worry about his magic
escaping it again.''

Lily bowed her head in relief, and Harry thought he saw the gleam of
tears on her cheeks.

He had seen enough. He pulled his head out of the Pensieve, and made out
Dumbledore's wand aimed at him in the moment before the Headmaster began
to intone, ``\emph{Expleo penuriam}---''

Harry lashed out, angrier than he had ever been in his life. He didn't
know what was going to happen. He only knew that he wanted to \emph{hurt
something}, and if that something was the Headmaster, then that was what
he would do.

\emph{I am barely free, and only because my Locusta died and a Dementor
helped me, and he tries to enslave me again?} No!

The last word exploded out of his throat as a howl, and the pressure of
his magic tore the wand from Dumbledore's hand and forced him back
against the shelves. Harry kept up the steady pressure, even when he
felt Dumbledore's own wandless magic rising to oppose him. He smiled,
and it was surprisingly easy to push that magic back down, simply never
allowing it out of Dumbledore's body. Harry knew he would be no match
for the Headmaster if once that magic got past his skin, but he could
hold it in defensive walls.

``After all,'' he whispered aloud, ``you taught me to be very, very good
at defensive magic.''

Dumbledore's eyes were still clear, and he still looked at Harry with a
mixture of sadness and admonition. ``You know the reasons,'' he said.
``You know it was necessary. What if you had hurt your brother in a fit
of childish temper, Harry? What if you had hurt your parents, or your
godfather, or Remus?''

Harry shook his head. ``Why didn't my parents simply teach me to control
my magic, then, instead of fearing it and locking it away? I surely
wouldn't be tossing you around like a toy if it came to that. I would
have better control.'' He was breathing fast. His power was rising out
of a well in the center of him, and urging him to do more than simply
hold the Headmaster against the wall.

``There is no way of controlling your power save binding it,'' said
Dumbledore. ``We could not trust that a four-year-old child would
understand the importance of that, and the phoenix web was the one
binding that would work with your will to protect Connor and yet be
powerful enough to stand a chance against your magic.''

``Free me from the last remnants of it,'' said Harry. ``I'm aware now. I
understand the importance of control.''

``You are still too young.'' Dumbledore's eyes were diamonds.

Harry nodded. ``I thought you would say that,'' he said, and then
concentrated. All his magic leaped from Dumbledore's skin at once. As
the Headmaster slumped to the floor, Harry wrapped his magic around
himself.

Wards sprang into place, deep and strong, as Harry's will pushed his
power forward. He was far more willing to do this than to destroy
something, and so the wards attained a strength that his attempts to
kill could not have. And all his experience in defensive magic was
there, too, the kind that had made \emph{Protego} so instinctive to him.
It wasn't hard at all to tighten the wards and tie them off.

All this took only a second, as did the Headmaster's recovery and the
snatching of his wand. ``\emph{Expleo penuriam cum textura,}'' he said, so
fast that Harry was impressed in spite of himself. ``\emph{Phoenix
texturae!}''

The spell stormed towards Harry---

And bounced. Dumbledore had to duck as the web slammed past him, into
the wall, and dissolved into a crowd of sparks. He stared for a long
moment, then brought his gaze slowly back to Harry.

Harry met his eyes without fear. His wards were wrapped around his mind,
too, or there would have been no point. Dumbledore could not use
Legilimency on him now unless Harry decided to allow him to do so.

``I'm immune to your magic,'' he pointed out.

Dumbledore breathed in silence for a moment, eyes never leaving him.
Harry stared back. He felt---different. He wasn't sure yet what all the
consequences of the difference would be. Among other things, he didn't
know all the effects of the phoenix web, nor how to remove the lingering
pieces of it from his consciousness. But he thought he'd made a good
start.

``What do you plan to do?'' The Headmaster spoke in a neutral tone.
Harry supposed it might be the voice he used to speak to equals or
Professors, which Harry of course would never have heard.

``Nothing yet,'' said Harry. ``I don't want to fight you, really,
Headmaster.'' And that was true. Harry still had his horror of
controlling and compelling people, and he would still prefer to use
defensive magic rather than offensive. ``We're still on the same side. I
simply want you to cease trying to control or compel me. I can't trust
that you will yet, so my wards are remaining up.''

``And your brother?'' Dumbledore's voice was a shade cooler.

Harry shrugged. ``I love him. You saw to that.'' He swallowed his
bitterness. There were some things he could not change, and some he
could not give up. ``I'll protect him, but not as blindly or as
slavishly as before.''

``And your parents?''

Harry shook his head. ``I can't see them right now. I don't know what
I'd do.'' He found it refreshing to be honest. His head tingled and his
body rang, and Harry suspected he was in shock. Well, he would land in a
short time. He had a whole new road to walk now, and doubtless it would
be hard. But at least he would be freer than before.

He half-considered asking Dumbledore about Peter, but decided there
would be no point. He would meet with Peter again, if he ever showed
himself, and see what could be done.

Dumbledore bowed his head. ``This is not the way I hoped things would
work out, my boy,'' he murmured.

``Well, it's the way things have,'' said Harry, and turned for the door.

He knew his face must look strange. He \emph{felt} strange. Beneath the
shock was not fear or anger or bewilderment as he would have expected,
but rising exaltation.

\emph{I'm closer to being free. I never knew it would feel this good.}

He paused when he reached the gargoyle again. Two figures were waiting
for him there, not one as he expected. Beside Snape stood Professor
McGonagall, her eyes sharp and haunted.

``Harry,'' Snape said, his voice at once mocking and triumphant, ``I
believe that Minerva has something to say to you.''

\chapter{*Chapter 5*: The Course of True
Ethics}\label{chapter-5-the-course-of-true-ethics}

Thank you very much for the reviews! I'm so happy that most people
continue to like this story, even as it does new things (well, I suppose
I always promised comeuppance for Dumbledore and Lily, but the
Peter-thing is new).

And here's another new thing: McGonagall POV chapter, non-linear.

\textbf{Chapter Five: The Course of True Ethics Never Did Run Smooth}

Severus had been picking at her all summer.

Sometimes, Minerva thought she should never have tried to make him
comfortable at Hogwarts as a teacher, or at least not in the way she
had. When he had first started teaching Potions, she had grown sick of
his constant sniping at his colleagues and the sneers about how no one
could possibly understand him because none of the other professors had
come out of Slytherin House. \emph{Or been a Death Eater, for that
matter,} Minerva sometimes thought, but that was not something that one
brought up around Severus.

Finally, she confronted him after he had yet again reduced Rolanda to
stammering in incoherent rage, and asked him if he really felt as alone
as all that. After listening to a long tirade, mixed with sneers, on the
necessary superiority and therefore solitude of Slytherin House, she
asked him, ``And would it change your mind if I told you that I was
almost Sorted into Slytherin?''

He stared at her. In a moment, however, he recovered his sneer. In those
days, he was never without it. Minerva wondered sometimes why he thought
he fooled her, who had taught him through seven years of school and knew
the hurting little boy he had been.

``You are lying,'' he had said, his voice softly poisonous and full of
contempt. ``Lying out of pity, which is a Gryffindor trait if ever there
was one.''

``Tell me, Severus,'' Minerva had asked him, ``do you believe that one's
Animagus form reflects that person's nature?''

``I know the theory, Minerva.'' He managed to sound bored and cutting at
the same time, which Minerva had to admit was quite a feat for a man who
hadn't yet seen his twenty-second year.

``Oh, \emph{good},'' she said. ``I \emph{am} happy for you.'' He'd peered at
her suspiciously then, because she never used sarcasm around him.
Ordinarily, Minerva thought, there was no need. ``Then you might
consider what it means that my Animagus form is a cat, Severus, rather
than a sheep.''

She'd turned and left him gaping after her then, stifling the other
things she wanted to say. She could have mentioned that four Gryffindor
students who had recently left school were inveterate pranksters whose
spirit she had never crushed in the name of keeping to rules. But one
did not touch raw and bleeding wounds, and that comment would have torn
them open for the both of them. Severus remembered the four boys who had
tormented and nearly killed him all too well; Minerva remembered four
prize students who were now shattered into three loyalists and one
traitor rotting in Azkaban. That had been less than a month after Connor
Potter defeated Voldemort, and everyone was feeling around uneasily in
this strange new world.

Minerva had been content at first when her revelation proved to serve
its purpose, and Severus stopped pretending that he was some martyr no
one could ever understand. Of course, then he started coming to her
whenever he had some Slytherin issue that he wanted someone else to
agree with him about, from a student who failed every class that wasn't
Potions to the darkening reputation of his House in the school as a
whole. Most of the time, she \emph{didn't} agree with him, but he didn't
care. They would badger and shout and storm and sneer and whisper at
each other, and in the end he would leave, seemingly satisfied.

Once, she'd asked him why he didn't go and converse with Filius, who
would at least understand and appreciate the finer abstract principles
behind the arguments even if he didn't agree with them morally. Why did
he want debate out of her?

He'd looked at her strangely and replied, ``Because you were almost
Slytherin, of course.''

\emph{And you hold onto House affiliations with a stubbornness that only
Sirius Black and James Potter rival}, Minerva thought, but even though
that was seven years after Voldemort's defeat, she still held her tongue
on the matter of the Marauders.

Of course, the last two years had been different, since Connor Potter
went into Gryffindor and Harry Potter into Slytherin. Severus stopped
coming to talk with her as often, and then at all. He seemed to spend a
great deal of his time giving Harry Potter detentions or private
lessons. Minerva, preoccupied with trying to guard the Philosopher's
Stone and mentor both the Boy-Who-Lived and Hermione Granger that first
year, hadn't really noticed, but as second year wore on, she began to
wonder.

Then she began to wonder what Severus thought he was doing, and then
Albus. She'd spoken with Harry last year, almost on the brink of doing
something\ldots{}well, something Slytherin, was the only way she could
think of it.

But Harry had so adamantly refused her help, and insisted that
protecting his brother was his free choice, that Minerva had felt
compelled to let it lie. Yes, she could intervene when there was no
choice, when there were tears and bruises or Dark curses, and a child's
life in danger. But she had never encountered a child like Harry, who
seemed to have undergone the most horrible things and yet spoke the
wartime rhetoric, the rhetoric that Minerva herself had learned to obey,
like an adult. She had felt it would be a betrayal to press him, to help
him when he did not want her help. And when he had come back and spent
so long in the hospital wing at the end of the year, she had winced, but
thought he was recovering, and he certainly had not needed her help.
Besides, so far as she knew, his suffering was not a result of his
conditioning.

Severus had changed all that, him and his endless picking over the
summer, his causal mentions of the latest letter he was writing to Harry
or which Harry had written to him from the Malfoys', his recitation of
deaths caused in the First War by Albus's tactics, his unexpected and
very long discourse on the finer details of Peter Pettigrew's trial for
betrayal of the Potters (Minerva still wondered where he'd learned all
that). Severus had hinted, and hinted, and picked, and picked, and given
her a casual look whenever she questioned why he was doing this.

The upshot of it was that she agreed to meet Harry on the day he came
back to school and ask him exactly how she could help him.

Of course, she also had a few questions of her own, ones that Severus
did not know she intended to ask. He didn't have much of a chance to
guess at them, either.

\emph{That is because he's not a Gryffindor,} Minerva told herself, and
waited patiently at the bottom of the stairs to the Headmaster's office,
until the gargoyle moved and Harry emerged from behind it.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Minerva studied Harry carefully. She could feel his power, of course, in
the way that witches and wizards of the McGonagall family had long been
taught to feel it---as a wind that blew across the surface of her skin
in long, cold, steady exhalations. She knew from that that Harry was
very strong, the strongest wizard in the school if one excepted Albus,
but she had already expected that. She was more interested in the look
in his eyes and the expression on his face.

Harry's green eyes shone with a deep clarity that Minerva would not have
expected from any child under sixteen, which had been the youngest age
that Albus would permit students to be when they fought Voldemort in the
First War. He looked as if he knew his choices and knew how to make
them. It was the look of a man who had seen down the long road of
consequences to the end, and determined to walk it anyway. It was the
look Minerva had seen in Frank Longbottom's eyes, in James Potter's
before his sudden and unexplained abandonment of the Auror position, in
her own when she heard about the deaths of the Prewett brothers.

It impressed her, and it frightened her deeply. That a child could look
like this, in these days when no open War raged and Voldemort had not
managed to return\ldots{}

And it finally, in a way that all Severus's nagging little hints hadn't
managed, pushed her into a clear, cold anger.

``Mr. Potter,'' she said, when she had studied him for long enough that
a few of her questions were answered, ``I wanted to apologize. I should
have pressed harder last year, when I first learned that you were a
sacrifice for your brother, or intended to be one.''

Harry simply tilted his head and studied her out of one eye, letting his
hair fall across the other. He did that quite often, Minerva realized
abruptly, remembering the times he had done it in Transfigurations class
last year. He was waiting for something else, some acknowledgement that
she hadn't given him yet.

``You would not have accepted my help then, I know,'' she continued, and
at least \emph{this} was familiar, this admitting of mistakes. She had
made more than her share of them over the years. She usually admitted
them to Albus, though, especially after she had second-guessed his
tactics. ``But still, there were things I could have done, as your
professor, to insure that you did not have to return to your parents for
any holidays, even the Easter ones.''

``I could have chosen to stay here, too, Professor,'' said Harry, his
voice soft. ``I didn't. I wanted to be with my family just then.'' He
lifted his head and shook his hair, and for a moment Minerva could make
out both eyes and that lightning bolt scar that Severus had made several
preposterous claims about. ``And that's changed, but not a lot. I'm
still a minor, after all. They still have legal control of me. And my
brother,'' he added. ``I could hardly run away and leave Connor there
alone.''

Minerva said, primarily because it was true and only secondarily because
it would irritate Severus, ``You would have made a fine Gryffindor, Mr.
Potter.''

Harry smiled at her. Severus spluttered. Minerva ignored him. Harry was
more important than scoring House points, in the end. Any student who
had suffered so would have been, but \emph{Harry} was, in this case, the
student who had suffered so, and it would take much to pry her from his
side now. But she couldn't afford to let that through her stern mask
yet.

``Mr. Potter,'' she said, ``what do you intend to do, now that you know
the truth and have recovered a good portion of your power?'' His magic
was near a gale now, though she felt the cold wind only on her skin and
not her hair or her body. It still made the hairs on her arms stand up.

``Do?'' Harry echoed as if he hadn't really thought about it, and
blinked. Minerva nodded slightly. She had been right to ask, and never
mind that Severus was trying to get some word in edgewise. This was
important. She could hardly condone some of the actions that Harry might
reasonably want to undertake right now.

``Do you plan to take revenge?'' she asked him quietly. ``I would not
blame you if you wanted it. But if you tried to kill or maim someone
else, then I would stop you. I promise you that.''

``Minerva!'' Severus hissed. ``What the child has gone through---''

``The child is standing right here, Professor Snape,'' said Harry, with
more than a trace of irritation in his voice. ``And she's right. I want
revenge, but how can I expect the Head of Gryffindor House to let me
hold down and torture my father, or cheer me on as I kill my mother?''

Minerva peered hard into his eyes. The words were lightly spoken, and
the burning clarity in his face had gone shuttered again. She was not
sure if he meant what he said or not.

\emph{Either way, some truths must come clear now.}

``Indeed,'' she agreed calmly. ``Of course, you could not expect me to
stand behind you if you were intent on killing and enslaving people who
had never done you wrong, as You-Know-Who did, or on controlling and
compelling others, as---as Albus has done.'' It was still strange to
speak of him that way, the Headmaster who had saved so many lives during
the First War. But he had done this, too, and if Minerva could not
change the whole base of her ethics in a day or a season, she could at
least acknowledge that leaders were not perfect. And this was far enough
from perfection to sway her loyalties in the matter of Harry.

``I will \emph{never} do either of those things.''

Minerva's heart soared as she watched Harry's face when he made that
vow. He spat the words, his lip curling at the thought of either murder
or slavery. She had hoped that he would say such things, and had even
thought there was a good chance, since, after all, he had been a slave
himself and would not like the idea. But Voldemort had been mistreated
as a child and yet had not learned empathy, and Albus had loved the
whole wizarding world enough to destroy the Dark Lord Grindelwald and
yet had not loved a single child enough to spare him becoming a
sacrifice. Contradictions existed in the world, and powerful wizards
tended to embody them more than most.

\emph{More than that,} Minerva thought, \emph{they impact on the world
more than we do. So many people might yet feel the weight of Harry
Potter's contradictions, did he have the best intentions in the world.}

``Has Professor Snape told you what my highest ambition is, Professor
McGonagall?'' Harry went on, his head high and his gaze directly focused
on her.

Minerva shook her head. Severus had nattered on about a great many
things, including how Harry could help unite the wizarding world in his
unique position as the son of a Muggleborn witch who knew a great many
pureblood traditions, and what he might do for the reputation of
Slytherin House, and even how he could usher in a whole new era for the
wizarding world. Minerva had no doubt that those were \emph{Severus's}
major ambitions for the boy. He wanted to help Harry, she had no doubt
of that, but he was already looking to what would happen when the boy
had mastered his rage and his magic and was free to use both as he
wished. Minerva was more interested in the immediate consequences of his
actions.

``I want to be free,'' said Harry, and his face glowed and his voice
rang with passion. ``I want to know what it's like to wake up in the
morning and have something on my mind other than duty. I want to help
other people find freedom, too, and maybe even help balance their
freedoms.'' He shrugged, looking slightly embarrassed now. ``And I also
want to help protect my brother and insure that he survives his victory
over Voldemort. But I don't think those two things need to contradict
each other, so they're both my highest ambitions.''

``You should be thinking more of your own life,'' Severus stepped in
then to chide him.

``I am,'' Harry snapped back at him, and Minerva caught and hid a
chuckle as she saw the spirit flare in his eyes. This would be one of
the reasons that Severus was so drawn to the child, she thought. Severus
might convince himself that he would be best pleased if every student
obeyed him without thought and without question, but in truth, he would
be bored stiff. He needed a challenge, someone whom he could mentor and
who would mentor him back, and it looked as if Harry would be that
person. ``I want to be free. That's thinking of my own life.''

``And what about breaking free of your convictions of duty?'' Severus
asked in a drawl gone silky. Minerva was fairly certain she could have
stepped away then, and neither would have noticed. Harry was glaring at
Severus. Severus was looking back at him if he were a Potions ingredient
that unaccountably refused to be diced up. ``You know that you want to
be free of them. How can you be free if you still want to protect your
brother?''

``Strange as it may seem,'' said Harry, his back and voice both gone
stiff with indignation, ``someone can want to be free, and can even be
cunning and Slytherin, without being an utter bastard.''

Severus's eyes narrowed, and he was almost surely preparing to say
something unfortunate. Minerva shook her head. ``Harry,'' she said, and
the boy's eyes snapped back to her. ``You have reassured me greatly.
Please, come to me if you are ever unsure about what you want to do
next, or if you wish to know some methods for controlling your magic, or
if you simply want to talk.''

Harry blinked at her. ``You could show me ways to control my magic?'' he
asked.

Minerva smiled, and felt a knot of tension that had been gathering
itself in her spine at the thought of what she must do next relax.
``Yes, of course. Calypso McGonagall was my ancestor, one of the most
powerful witches who ever lived. She had to control her magic, or she
would have destroyed Scotland several times over. And she had to come up
with ways to do it on her own, as no one like her had existed in the
bloodline until that point. Her methods have come down to me as part of
my family history.'' She inclined her head slightly to Harry. ``In
Merlin's name, not all pureblooded witches and wizards are in
Slytherin.''

The boy looked as if someone had slapped him in the face with a haddock.
He blinked several more times, then nodded. ``Thank you, Professor
McGonagall,'' he said. ``I'll remember that.''

``Thank \emph{you}, Harry,'' she said. ``You have made it easier to be on
your side.'' She stepped past him and towards the staircase. She could
feel both Harry's and Severus's eyes on her back. She ignored them both.
There were some things that she had to do alone, and some ways in which
she was not a Slytherin. Albus deserved to know that she would stand to
oppose him from now on, or at least until she discovered some reason
that she should not.

``Be careful, Minerva,'' said Severus.

``If I don't come back, Severus,'' she said, without glancing back at
him, ``take care of my Gryffindors.''

She could feel him making a horrible face. She ignored that, too, and
rode the staircase upwards, thinking of a battle that Harry would only
have read about and Severus had not fought in---the battle that had
secured her loyalty to Albus Dumbledore.


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\newpage


``Back! \emph{Back}!''

When Frank Longbottom sounded the call for a retreat, the battle had
turned for the worse. Minerva maintained her position for a moment
longer nevertheless, sending curses at the Death Eaters in front of her
without a pause for breath. One of them returned her spell for spell,
and the other was holding a weakening Shield Charm. Minerva broke that
one's protection with a spell she had developed herself, and had the
satisfaction of seeing that wizard fall, screaming, before she followed
the others.

Around them, the gray skies and green grass of Ireland glowed
ferociously, as if to make up for the burned patches where curses had
struck and the blood shed by fallen bodies. It had been a vicious
battle, Minerva saw. Over twenty Death Eaters were dead, and nearly as
many on their own side. As she fled, she wondered why Frank had sounded
the retreat at all.

Then she glanced over her shoulder, and saw Voldemort coming.

There was no mistaking the Dark Lord's arrival. His darkness spread out
from him, visible, lifting wings. Those wings were part of a spell that
he'd created, and which the Order had no way of countering, but which
they called the Black Plague in honor of those it left dead. Minerva
held her breath and ran madly for the Portkey point. Anti-Apparition
wards were already in place around the battlefield, maintained by both
sides. Neither wanted their foes to simply flee.

The ground shook as Minerva gained the safety of a small copse of yew
trees, and she grimaced. There were giants coming. You-Know-Who had made
a treaty with them that no one could figure out the terms of; the giants
were allowed to ravage as much as they wanted, but also obeyed
Voldemort's battle instructions. If they showed up, the battle would
turn, swiftly, very bad.

``Minerva!''

She turned at Alice's call. Together, they touched the small silver ring
that would bring them to the safety of Hogwarts.

It didn't work.

Minerva swallowed heavily. She had not sensed any spell blocking the
operation of Portkeys on the battlefield, though of course there could
be one. She reached out, and felt nothing behind the anti-Apparition
wards. She shook her head.

``He's found some way of making the spells undetectable,'' she said, and
Alice nodded.

Then she coughed.

Minerva quickly cast the Bubble-Head Charm on both of them. It would not
hold for long against the Plague, but it might matter. She turned and
saw other bubbles of clear air sprouting around the Order members.

Except for one. Young Cassiopeia Marchbanks was on her knees, already
hacking. Minerva felt Alice stir as if to go to her, but Minerva grabbed
her arm. If Alice touched her, there would be nothing anyone could do to
halt the Plague's spread into her, too.

They had to watch as Cassie writhed, her body wriggling and straining
like a sack full of kittens about to be drowned, and then burst. From
her skin, black polyps burst, and a thick black liquid ran out, staining
the ground. Dark spores launched into the sky, seeking for victims.
Minerva eyed them, and decided the Bubble-Head Charms would keep them
safe for now, at least until the spores found another victim. The
second-stage Plague could not be stopped by the Charm.

A high, cold laugh announced that Voldemort had arrived. Minerva turned,
holding on to her temper and her pride. She would die as a McGonagall
died, as a Gryffindor died.

The Dark Lord was a point of red light at the center of a whirling cloud
of darkness, his Black Plague and the power that boiled off him so
thickly it was actually visible. His eyes were red, his wand glowed red
with the curse he was preparing, and his hands were red, too, Minerva
thought, or should be, given the amount of blood he had spilled.

\emph{We are going to die,} Minerva realized. This was the first time
she had seen Voldemort so close since the War began, and she knew, now,
that there was utterly no trace of anything human left in him. She
raised her wand.

Voldemort had opened his mouth to speak the first words of the curse
when a piercingly sweet song rang out over the battlefield. The Dark
Lord turned his head, eyes narrowing.

The phoenix that came down and almost took out his eyes---he ducked at
the last moment, cursing---was one Minerva knew. She began to breathe
more easily, her eyes following Fawkes as he rose and circled, cutting a
swath of light through the storm of the Plague, his song heartening the
warriors of the Light. Could \emph{he} really be here?

But he had been miles away, on a battlefield in England---

And then he was there, after all, Albus Dumbledore, striding along under
his phoenix. He glowed white, from his beard to his robes to the air
around him. This was his own power, Minerva knew, the power of the
Light, which she had never seen manifest like this. It was like warm
wind across her skin, which built up to broiling desert wind as he
stopped, facing Voldemort.

``You have come out of your school to die before me then, Albus?''
Voldemort asked, his voice high.

``I have come to fight you, Tom,'' said Albus, his voice calm and mild.

And then they began to fight.

Minerva could remember surprisingly little of the battle, for all that
she had been as close as anyone. She remembered stormclouds of Light and
Dark, writhing white fire that withered the Black Plague cloud, a red
curse that turned Leda Swanswallow inside out, and through it all a
high, steady phoenix song. But there was little more than that, until
the moment when the Portkeys abruptly activated again and snatched them
away from the battle to land safely in Hogwarts.

Albus remained. If he had tried to leave, Voldemort would have followed
at once, and probably managed to inflict damage on a good many other
people. Instead, he stayed, his anger at Albus up, and then turned tail
and ran when his fear overcame his rage.

Albus saved twenty-six lives that day, twenty-seven if one included the
child that Alice Longbottom had not yet known she carried. And he did it
again and again, fearlessly, coming incredibly close to sacrificing his
own life each time, knowing the lure of killing the Light's strongest
hope would bring the Death Eaters, and Voldemort himself, to the battle.

Minerva had never forgotten it. Albus asked much of his troops, but he
never asked more than he was willing to give himself. He had made
decisions that no one else could have---he had been the first one to
realize that the Black Plague could not be cured, either, and that
bringing victims of the second-stage spores along merely insured that
others got sick and died in violence and shrieking pain---and he had
stuck by them. Her loyalty was his.

\emph{Until now}, Minerva thought, as she stepped off the moving
staircase and into Albus's office. \emph{Old friend, why must you have
stumbled at last, asked for one particular sacrifice that you had no
right to ask?}


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\newpage


She found Albus sitting behind his desk, staring at nothing. When she
came in, he looked up. He did not even seem surprised, his eyes
sorrowful and intent. \emph{He knows what I have come about,} Minerva
thought, and knew it was true.

``Albus,'' she said. She had planned an elaborate speech, but found it
wasn't necessary. She merely leaned forward and placed her hands flat on
his desk. She needed just one word, other than his name. ``Why?''

Albus sighed tiredly and looked at the perch on the other side of the
room. Fawkes was gone, Minerva saw. Her heart gave a slow, steady thump,
heavy as the fall of a coffin lid. It felt as though the world had just
confirmed what she already suspected. She stepped slowly away from him.

``I made one sacrificial decision too many,'' said Albus softly. He
sounded as if he were talking to himself, not her, as if he had
forgotten she was even in the room. ``I wanted so badly to spare one I
loved from the perils of having to make a harsh choice. I found someone
who was willing to agree, to make that choice instead. And it cost him.
Oh, it cost him. But the cost was willingly paid.'' He let out a
shuddering breath. Minerva thought she had never seen Albus look so old,
not even when the news of the Children's Massacre came from Ottery St.
Catchpole, where the Death Eaters had crucified dozens of Muggleborn
children and left them to die.

``And past that point,'' Albus went on, his voice a murmur now, ``there
were other decisions to make, things that might have hurt someone else
unless they were stopped and checked. When one bitter, bitter sacrifice
is made, what is another? There were those who said I should have
murdered Tom Riddle when he was a babe in the cradle, should have killed
him when he was a student, should have smothered his magic when first it
showed itself in its power. And I hesitated. I remembered my own long
struggles to master my magic, and wondered if someone else would have
looked at me, declared me a danger to the wizarding world, and killed
me. For the good of wizarding kind, of course.''

He closed his eyes. Minerva waited, listening.

``I let him grow,'' Albus whispered. ``And that was a mistake. When I
found a child who seemed to be part of his legacy, whose magic was
deeply unnatural in more ways than one, what was I to do?''

``Not kill him, of course. But bind him? Yes, that was an option. And
what better way to bind him than to ask him if he wanted to be a
sacrifice, and to accept his answer?'' Albus closed his eyes again.

``You should have known,'' said Minerva, ``that he was too young to make
that decision.'' She kept her voice iron. His words affected her, of
course they did, but she was a Gryffindor. It took more than pretty
words to sway her.

``He made it,'' said Albus, and looked up at her with a face as weary as
time. ``And it \emph{must} be kept as made, Minerva, or have consequences
that you cannot conceive of.''

``Do you really believe that Harry Potter will become a Dark Lord?''
Minerva folded her arms and stared at him.

Albus shook his head. ``It is not even that,'' he said. ``It is worse.
It is the opposite.'' He smiled, but it was a horrible rictus of a grin,
and Minerva was not sure what he found funny. He stood and looked at her
evenly. ``I must put him under the phoenix web again. It can be renewed.
Once the choice is made, it is not so easily taken back.''

``I stand to oppose you, Albus,'' said Minerva.

``You are following your heart, Minerva?'' Those blue eyes looked deeply
into her. ``And not the call of power? You are sure?''

``If it were the call of power,'' said Minerva, ``I would still be
yours.'' She found her breath coming short. There were so many old
loyalties falling to pieces here, so many things changing.

``True enough,'' said Albus, and looked away, releasing her from the
grip of his eyes. ``To both sides of this struggle, then, Minerva. I
would rather have you for an opponent than anyone else in the world.''

Minerva crossed the office to the door. She hesitated for a long moment,
until Albus looked up at her.

Then she swept her palm in front of her as she bowed her head, the old
pureblooded salute of a challenge given and accepted, and departed.

\chapter{*Chapter 6*: A Day and a
Night}\label{chapter-6-a-day-and-a-night}

Thank you for all the reviews. I am hoping most people will be patient
and willing to come along with me for the long haul, as my most recent
outline for this book has forty-five chapters (fifty-one counting the
interludes). I swear I need them, or I think I do. The full chapter
title list is on my LiveJournal, in case anyone wants to read it there.

Anyway, on to chapter six. A very quiet chapter, but several important
things happen in it.

\textbf{Chapter Six: A Day and a Night}

``But you \emph{weren't there.}''

Harry checked a sigh as he and Draco slid into their desks in the
Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, followed by the rest of the
third-year Slytherins and a good number of third-year Ravenclaws. The
Ravenclaws tended to glare threateningly at Harry, no doubt thinking
about the time last year when they believed him to be an evil Dark Lord.
Harry ignored them for the most part. Draco was far more annoying.

``Yes, and I told you why,'' he said, hearing the edge to his own voice.
``I \emph{had} to get out of there. I would have killed someone
otherwise.''

One of the Ravenclaws gasped. Harry would have glared at her, but Draco
leaned around and did it for him. The girl squeaked and concentrated on
her book instead.

``You could have come to the Manor,'' said Draco fiercely, lowering his
voice. ``That's one of the reasons I gave you that Portkey.''

``Yes, and appeared alone in the house with your parents,'' said Harry.
``That would have gone over wonderfully well.''

``Mother would have Apparated you to Hogwarts,'' said Draco, who seemed
determined to find an answer for every argument Harry could possibly
offer, as long as it meant not having to admit that Harry had a
legitimate reason for not riding the Express. ``She would have
firecalled me when I arrived and told me where you were. I wouldn't have
to spend seven hours fretting and wondering and waiting.''

``Well, you did,'' said Harry, pulling his inkwell from his bag, ``and
then you saw me at the Slytherin table. That is the \emph{end} of the
story, Draco.''

Draco shook his head. ``Someday, Harry,'' he said loftily, ``you're
going to have to learn that other people have a right to be interested
in your movements.''

Harry opened his mouth to argue back, and then Remus swept into the
room. He was moving well for a werewolf who'd been subjected to the full
moon yesterday, Harry thought---which meant his face was pale, but not
the color of parchment, and his hands trembled when he laid the book he
carried down on his desk, but not noticeably. He turned about and smiled
at the students.

``Third-year Slytherin and Ravenclaw,'' he said. ``I've been looking
forward to this class. My name is Remus Lupin. You may call me Professor
Lupin.'' He paused as one of the Ravenclaws' hands went up. ``Yes---your
name?''

``Elise Swanswallow,'' said the girl, and leaned forward intently.
``I've heard Connor Potter talk about you. Aren't you his godfather?''

Remus smiled pleasantly. ``Yes, I am.''

``But isn't that going to cause a conflict of interest?'' Elise tossed
her blonde hair over her shoulder. Harry decided that he didn't like
her, and this time it wasn't the web's fault, for making him dislike
everyone who spoke ill of his brother. Her eyes were too wide and
innocent, and she looked as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.
``After all, you'll be tempted to give him better marks just because
he's your godson.''

The smile slid away from Remus's face. ``Miss Swanswallow,'' he said,
``I would ask you to give me the benefit of the doubt until such time as
that actually happens.''

As always with Remus's mild rebukes, Harry thought, it took a moment for
the sting to set in. Elise flushed then, and lowered her eyes to the
desktop. ``Sorry, Professor,'' she said meekly.

``Quite all right,'' said Remus heartily, as he picked up the list of
students. ``I'm used to being questioned. Now, let me make sure that
everyone's here who should be. Millicent Bulstrode?''

As they strolled through the list of names, Draco muttered to Harry,
``Should he be teaching when he looks like that?''

``It's just full moon,'' Harry muttered back. ``He'll be fine. And most
people don't know anything about his condition, so I'll thank you not to
discuss it.'' Draco pulled back with a flinch, and Harry sighed to
himself. He'd probably been more annoyed than he should be, because
Draco would not stop \emph{picking} at him. He was fine. Why should it
matter?

``\ldots{}Turtledove,'' Remus finished, and nodded as the last Ravenclaw
girl murmured in response. ``Good.'' He laid the parchment down on his
desk and leaned forward. ``I understand that your last Defense Against
the Dark Arts professor did not spend much time on the distinction
between Light and Dark magic.''

``He did his best,'' said Pansy, a little stiffly. Harry rolled his
eyes. He was coming to accept that Pansy was a great deal more sensible
than he had thought she was, but she still had a crush on Lockhart that
meant she tried to defend him at every opportunity. She had actually
been disappointed when she found out the golden git wasn't coming back
to Hogwarts.

``I'm sure he did,'' said Remus, with a smile that soothed Pansy
immediately. Harry hid a smile of his own. Remus tended to \emph{be}
soothing. Just being in his presence made Harry let go of a lot of the
tension he'd developed during the summer. ``But since I can't find
anything in his notes that indicates he explained things like this to
you, I'll explain anyway.''

He waved his wand, and a gasp rose from the class as motes of light spun
out from it and into two distinct shapes. Harry leaned back in his
chair. Remus had always been good at illusions, and it was fun to watch
him dazzle the rest of the class.

``Here,'' Remus said, pointing to the illusion on the left, of a girl
with nondescript brown hair and eyes, ``is someone we'll say is under a
Light spell.'' He nodded to the figure on the right, the same girl.
``And this is the same person under a Dark spell.''

He waved his wand again. The girl on the left continued smiling, but the
one on the right grimaced horribly, as though she were fighting
something. Harry swallowed and had to look away. Sometimes Remus was
\emph{too} good at illusion magic.

``\emph{That} is the primary difference between Dark and Light magic,''
said Remus softly. ``Not that one is pleasant and the other unpleasant.
Most medical magic is pretty unpleasant.'' He was making a horrible
face, Harry saw when he looked back. A majority of the students
giggled---even Pansy, who looked surprised at herself. ``Not even that
one affects the body and the other the mind. There are plenty of spells
classed as Light and spells classed as Dark that do both. If we
eliminated all the spells that did anyone harm, then we'd have to quit
teaching most of Charms and at least half of Transfigurations. And of
course we'd have to eliminate all the poisonous plants from Herbology,
and the poisonous Potions ingredients.''

``No, the main difference between Light and Dark magic is the difference
between compulsion and choice.''

Harry froze. He'd never heard it explained like that before.

``Light magic is either done with the subject's consent,'' Remus
continued blithely, sending his illusions back into spinning motes of
light, ``or it does not need consent---when you Transfigure a table into
a chair, for instance---or it is done for the cause of letting someone
continue to give consent, as when you try to preserve someone else's
life. Even there, intent matters, the choice of the original caster. A
Light spell could become Dark if someone performed it against his or her
will. Likewise, a Light spell performed to maintain life when the person
who cast it only wanted his target to stay alive so he could suffer
torture would be Dark.'' Remus ran his eyes across the class. ``Remember
that, all of you. Light magic takes account of your will, but also of
other people's wills.''

Harry blinked, and blinked again. He'd never encountered a theory so
unified and yet so simple. Most of his reading on the subject was on
Ministry laws that forbade the use of certain spells, and why. Most of
the books had argued strenuously that the restrictions should be
loosened. Harry, thinking of ways in which he could use the spells to
defend Connor, had agreed.

But what if someone else didn't agree to them? What if he cast a spell
and it was not what someone else wanted, but that person wasn't Connor?

Rationally, Harry knew he'd learned nothing dazzlingly new, but it had
still hit him hard. He barely listened as Remus went into the next part
of the lecture.

``Dark spells, on the other hand, thrive on compulsion,'' Remus went on,
his voice growing grim. ``Dark creatures are those who usually subdue the
victim's \emph{will} so he can't escape. That's why Dementors are
considered Dark creatures and dragons are not. Dragons are dangerous,
but they can't hold you in place, suck our your memories, and corrupt
your mind the way that Dementors can.''

Draco put up a hand. Remus nodded to him. Draco put his hand down and
gave an innocent smile. ``Are werewolves Dark creatures, too?'' he
asked.

Remus jerked, but it was a movement so tiny that Harry didn't think
anyone would see it who wasn't looking for it. Draco smirked, then
yelped as Pansy abruptly pinched the back of his neck.

``Shut \emph{up},'' Pansy whispered. Her voice was so deadly that Draco
paled. Harry turned to listen to Remus's answer. Remus's eyes were
narrowed speculatively at Pansy, but he smiled quickly.

``Yes, werewolves are Dark creatures,'' he said lightly. ``But it's not
because they kill people. Dragons can do that, too, after all. It's
because the bite is a curse, a sickness that's spread without consent,
and the werewolf himself usually loses his or her mind to the ravening
beast on the nights of the full moon.''

The Ravenclaws were scribbling away, Harry saw, and even some of the
Slytherin quills were moving. He supposed he should do the same thing,
though he was so far into shock that he was having trouble thinking.

\emph{So Dumbledore was right,} he thought, as he finally began to take
notes on the special varieties of Dark magic. \emph{The phoenix web is
technically Light magic, since it was given with my consent. But
something like the Imperius Curse is still Dark magic, perhaps the
purest form of Dark magic, since it subdues its victim's will.}

\emph{And that means that the Memory Charm is Dark magic, too, or should
be. And since I know what Dumbledore was trying to hide by casting}
Obliviate \emph{on Remus, and I don't agree with it any more\ldots{}}

\emph{I} have \emph{to free him.}

Harry looked up as Remus cast another illusion, this one a ramified tree
explaining the varieties of Light and Dark magic. His face was content,
and he seemed more energized than Harry had ever seen him this close to
the full moon.

\emph{I'll have to tread carefully. Snape said a carelessly snapped
Memory Charm could cost the victim his sanity. But I'll do it. I have
to. I owe it to him. He would have fought for me, and he had his will
taken over without his consent.}

\emph{Bastard,} Harry finished, and wondered if he meant Dumbledore or
himself.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Harry paused as he entered McGonagall's classroom, and frowned. Connor
sat near the front, talking with Ron and Hermione. But Slytherins never
had Transfiguration class with Gryffindors.

Draco pressed in behind him, looked over his shoulder, and said,
``What?''

Harry shook his head and went slowly to the side of the room where they
usually sat, still looking at Connor over his shoulder. His twin had
noticed him now, and was blinking much as he was. Harry studied his
face, but saw no sign that he'd known about this.

Pansy started complaining the moment she saw the Gryffindors. Parvati
Patil fired insults back, and things would have descended to hexes very
soon if McGonagall hadn't swept in just then and eyed them all sternly.

Hermione's hand was immediately in the air. ``Professor McGonagall,''
she said. ``Why do we have class with the Slytherins?''

``I wanted it that way, so I rearranged the timetable, Miss Granger,''
said McGonagall, looking the picture of offended pride. If Harry hadn't
seen that she could smile yesterday, he would never have believed it.
``Besides, one might as well say the Slytherins have class with you.''

Hermione dropped her hand and gaped at her teacher. Harry calmly took
out his book. He thought he saw what was going through McGonagall's mind
now. She wasn't going to strive to separate Slytherins and Gryffindors
any more, assuming she ever had (and since she taught no mixed
Slytherin-Gryffindor classes except for the sixth and seventh years, he
thought she had). Besides, changing things at all would send a message
to Dumbledore.

Harry found he rather admired her.

``Today,'' McGonagall announced, adjusting her hat on her head as she
spun across the front of the room, ``we will begin a lecture on Animagi.
I want you to know the theory behind it, though of course \emph{no one}
will attempt a practical demonstration.'' Icicles were in her voice. ``I
will also want you to write essays in pairs, and one group of three, so
that you may pool your knowledge. I will assign the pairs and the
topics. Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger. Blaise Zabini, Parvati Patil.
Harry Potter, Connor Potter.''

Harry nodded as he gathered up his books and went to Connor's side of
the room. He was sure that Draco would sit where he was and make
Hermione come to him. That meant he could at least be away from Draco's
whining that they weren't paired together.

``Harry.'' Connor's voice was welcoming, if cool. He pulled his bag off
the nearest chair so Harry could sit down. ``Do you know why she has us
working together?''

``To make a point,'' said Harry, and elaborated when he saw his
brother's blank look. ``For inter-House unity, I think.''

``Oh.'' Connor looked thoughtful. As they waited for McGonagall to
assign them a topic, he whispered, ``Did I tell you that found a teacher
for my compulsion gift?''

Harry hid a sigh. He had hoped the compulsion gift really would
disappear over the summer, that it had come from the presence of Tom
Riddle in Connor's head and wasn't his at all. It made him slightly ill
to think about his twin possessing such magic. But he made his voice
enthusiastic. ``That's wonderful, Connor. Who is it? The Headmaster?''

Connor shook his head. ``Sirius.''

Harry blinked. ``What?''

``Yes,'' Connor went on, oblivious to Harry's wide-eyed shock. ``He---''
They had to wait while McGonagall came to them and assigned them their
topic: why Animagi had to register with the Ministry. Connor wrote it
down painstakingly, with a dedication that Harry didn't remember him
showing last year. When he was finished, he continued as if they hadn't
been interrupted. ``He has the gift himself. He doesn't use it
carelessly, of course,'' he added quickly. ``But his parents trained him
in it, and I don't think you could ask for stricter teachers than the
Blacks as far as Dark magic goes. I mean, look at Bellatrix Lestrange,
and Narcissa Malfoy. They're \emph{great} Dark witches.''

Harry swallowed. \emph{I think that's why Sirius was able to slip my}
Fugitivus Animus. \emph{His mind is trained, like Snape's.} ``Narcissa
Malfoy never used any Dark spells that I saw.''

Connor cocked his head. ``Oh, yeah. Sorry, Harry. I just keep forgetting
that you stayed with the Malfoys. It's strange, you know?'' He shook his
head. ``Now that I've been reading history, I can see how far back the
devotion of the Potters to the Light goes, and how far the devotion of
the Malfoys to the Dark. Just because Mrs. Malfoy didn't practice Dark
spells in front of you doesn't mean she doesn't.''

``I know,'' said Harry, because he did, and friendship with Draco didn't
mean his parents didn't use Dark magic. He felt the first premonition of
what might come, like a fishhook in his heart. He was loyal to Connor,
he knew that. He wanted to protect him. He \emph{had} to protect him.

And he was loyal to Draco, too. He didn't want to say that his parents
used Dark magic (despite the fact that he knew Lucius Malfoy had done
so). He didn't want to prepare to fight him or his family one day
(despite the fact that he would have to do so, unless the Malfoys
unexpectedly declared for the Light). He didn't want to think of giving
up their friendship or his Portkey.

\emph{I never thought I would be the one being pulled}, Harry thought.
\emph{I always thought it would be Draco, because I would go with Connor
without trouble.}

\emph{And now?}

Now\ldots{}he didn't know.

Harry swallowed. Freedom was terrifying, then, as well as thrilling.
Again, it felt like something he should have known, but something he was
learning for the first time nonetheless.

\emph{What am I, if not a person who would uncritically choose my
brother over everyone else?}

He hesitated, then found an answer he could live with. \emph{Someone who
would try to reconcile both sides for as long as he could.}

``Harry?'' Connor peered at him. ``I think you drifted off.''

Harry shook his head and sat up again. ``Sorry.''

Connor nodded. ``That's all right. I just wanted to tell you that I'm
going to be training with Sirius this year, and continuing my studies of
history.'' He clenched his jaw, and gave a grim smile. His hazel eyes
blazed. ``Tom Riddle was good for me, you know? In an odd way. He let me
see that you've been right, that I can't just run around playing all the
time when I should be preparing for the war, that I have
responsibilities if I'm the Boy-Who-Lived.''

Harry nodded. He said nothing more. Saying that he, himself, was
suddenly uncertain of his own responsibilities would have sounded as
though he were whining for pity, however true it was.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Snape nodded at the knock on the door of his office. One thing that
hadn't changed in Harry, and which he hoped never would, was the boy's
punctuality, whether he was coming to detention or to a private lesson
as this one was.

At least, Snape assumed it was a private lesson. Harry had simply found
him that morning and asked to come visit him that evening. Pleased that
their argument after Minerva left them yesterday hadn't driven the boy
into a sulk, Snape had granted his permission.

Harry came in now looking half-haunted, rubbing his arm and biting his
lip. Snape narrowed his eyes. ``Has someone hexed you?'' he asked.

Harry blinked, and Snape realized how far away he must have been. ``No,
sir,'' he said. ``I had an argument with Draco.'' He shifted his sleeve
up his shoulder, but not before Snape caught a glimpse of a bruise in
the shape of a hand.

``And what did you and Mr. Malfoy argue about, Harry?'' he asked,
leaning back in his chair and evaluating the boy. Harry didn't flush and
stammer the way he might have when confronted with an uncomfortable
truth last year; nor did he lie his way out of it, his eyes on the wall
behind Snape's desk so the professor couldn't use Legilimency on him. He
just looked perplexed.

``I don't know, sir,'' he admitted. ``I knew that he didn't like my
being absent from the train yesterday, and he didn't like it when
Professor McGonagall paired him up with Hermione in Transfiguration---''

``I had not thought Miss Granger was in that class.'' Snape quashed his
irritation at Minerva's apparent do-gooding. He had known when he tried
to bring her in on the boy's side that she would go her own way, and do
things in a Gryffindorish fashion however much he might try to persuade
her otherwise.

``Well, she didn't used to be,'' Harry admitted. ``But the professor
moved the timetables around so that we're having class with the
Gryffindors now.''

Snape nodded, slowly. He supposed Minerva had her reasons for that, and
he would find them out if he ever grew irritated enough with her to ask.
``Very well. How does that lead to an argument of the kind that you
appear to have had with Mr. Malfoy?''

Harry shrugged. ``I don't know, sir,'' he repeated. ``I teased Draco
about the train, said that I felt like a pet he was trying to haul
around on a leash so that it didn't get too far away from him. Then he
flew into a rage and accused me of wanting to get away. We, ah, we
started arguing about Connor, and about my coming to Malfoy Manor, and
all sorts of things that I didn't know bothered him. Then I said I was
coming to a meeting with you, and he grabbed my shoulder and tried to
hold me there.'' Harry paused, and his eyes darted off to the right.

``Out with it, Harry,'' said Snape, making sure to keep his voice mild
and not accusing. He had to encourage the boy to confide in and trust
him, if he wanted to have a chance at being Harry's mentor, and perhaps
an actual guide and teacher in more subjects than Potions.

Harry shook his head. ``My magic flared, because I was angry by then. I
didn't think he had any right to keep me there. And Draco immediately
let me go and apologized, and said that I should come along before I was
late and made you furious at me.'' Harry stared hard at Snape. ``Do you
know of any reason that would have caused him to do that, sir?''

Snape sighed. He could think of one, but hearing it would cause Harry
much grief. Yet better, he supposed, to cause some little grief than to
lie to the boy, as everyone around him had done for much too long. ``I
think he was afraid, Harry. He has seen what your magic can do.''

Harry bit his lip. ``Yes. I was afraid it was that, sir.'' He clenched
his hands, and Snape felt the magic lift around him, a buzzing pressure
that leaned against his Malfoy-inspired shields but did not pierce them.
``There are times I \emph{do} want to put my magic away,'' Harry said
passionately, ``just so that it won't frighten anyone anymore.''

Snape stood. This had been the core of their argument yesterday. He had
said that Harry should concentrate on taming his magic more than
anything else. The more he insisted on that, the more Harry insisted on
staying loyal to his brother and defending him. It was time to take a
different tack, then. Snape had suspected it would be. Indirect tactics
worked best with Harry.

``Do you think Dumbledore was right?'' he asked.

Harry frowned. ``Of course not. I told you that I didn't intend to put
the phoenix web back the way it had been.''

Snape concealed his wrath---Harry had explained in more detail about the
phoenix web yesterday, too, and it had set Snape thinking of spells he
hadn't used in years---and sneered. ``And yet, the phoenix web was meant
to bind your magic. If you are thinking of tucking your magic away
simply because it might cause consternation and fear in those weaker
than you are, you are conceding to Dumbledore, saying that he was right
to enslave you in the first place.''

Harry stiffened, and his magic lashed around him. ``I am \emph{not.}''

``Yes, you are,'' said Snape, and paused until he felt Harry's power and
temper both build. Then he added, delicately, ``Unless you are saying
that Dumbledore and your mother put you under the web out of some other
emotion? Kindness, perhaps? Worry for your delicate constitution?''

Harry looked away. Snape waited. He had led the boy back to this point
before, and he would lead him back as often as was necessary. Harry
might not want to talk about the memories aloud, but he couldn't stop
thinking about them, anyway, at least not when someone else forced him
to confront them.

``They wanted to keep everyone safe,'' Harry murmured. ``And that's what
I want, too.''

Snape cocked his head. ``And, of course, binding your magic has worked so
\emph{well} in the past to do that,'' he said. ``It must be someone
else's magic that grew its own will and personality and did its best to
destroy Hogwarts. Do forgive me. Shall I ask Mr. Malfoy how well he
remembers that night, perhaps? Or your brother?''

Harry turned around and snarled at him. Snape could feel the magic grow
claws and teeth against his shields.

He kept the sneer in place. If this was what Harry needed, then he would
do his best to be that kind of person. Someone to rage against, someone
he might come close to hurting but would not actually hurt in the way
that he might his parents or Dumbledore, someone he appeared to trust
despite having many small wounds inflicted against that trust.

And all the while that he might threaten to tear open Snape's mind with
his power, he was \emph{not} caging it, \emph{not} letting it rot or rot
him, \emph{not} doing the same thing to himself that his parents and
Dumbledore had wanted to do.

Snape fully intended to see Harry mix his magic with his own being, not
cage it and not restrain it. He also fully intended to live to see the
day when that union would be complete.

\emph{And then,} he thought, his eyes lingering on the lightning bolt
scar just barely visible above Harry's agitated green stare, then
\emph{you will be more than a force to be reckoned with. You will be a
force to make peace with, a force to change things with, a force to
unite those who have gone shattered and fragmented too long.}

Snape had been reading, when he could, about what a \emph{vates} was
over the summer. It had been\ldots{}enlightening.

``That's the thing, though,'' Harry said abruptly, in an unhappy tone,
and Snape realized he had managed to calm himself while Snape was lost
in daydreams. ``I want to protect and defend and heal and create, the
way you said I should. But the magic only wants to destroy. I don't
understand.''

Snape shrugged. ``I do. You are growing more successful at harnessing
your power. You have not harnessed your rage.''

Harry laughed. It was not a sound that Snape wanted to hear ever again.
``Sometimes I wonder whether it matters,'' he said. ``Our parents left me
alone this summer. Sirius is being stupid, but I can deal with him. My
brother has finally learned what responsibility means. I want to free
Remus from the \emph{Obliviate}, but once I do that, do I really have to
face them? Couldn't I just sort of\ldots{}stay away from them?''

``You already know the answer to that, Mr. Potter,'' said Snape, using
the boy's last name to get his attention. ``You cannot. You must face
them, at one point or another, or your rage will not be quiet. And they
will never leave you in peace. I saw the way the Headmaster watched you
at every meal in the Great Hall today. He will renew that web if he
can.''

Harry bowed his head.

``And even if you could stay away from them, if they would leave you
alone,'' Snape added quietly, ``what do you think the werewolf will do
when he gains his memories back? What do you think Minerva will do now
that she is convinced those who should have loved you betrayed and
harmed you---''

Harry looked up swiftly. ``They still love me.''

Snape paused, then decided to let that one lie. It might be true, for
all he knew, though he could not call the elder Potters' behavior
loving. ``You have never seen her in battle, Harry,'' he said. ``I have.
She is terrifying. There are the Malfoys. There is, perhaps, your
godfather, and your brother.'' He let himself sneer in doubt. \emph{If
Black and Potter have not yet awakened to every terrifying consequence,
they are not going to.}

``And there is me,'' he went on, when he found that Harry's eyes were
wide and fixed on him, drinking in what he said. ``I had to stop myself
from brewing---certain potions a dozen times this summer. Potions I have
perfected, potions that would inflict extremely painful death.''

He had actually been unable to stop himself from making one particular
potion, but he had put it on the very back shelf of a locked cabinet and
promised himself he would never use it. Probably.

Very likely, at least.

``Would you stop us from doing what we wish in your name?'' Snape asked.

``I'd stop you if you were trying to kill someone else,'' Harry said,
and his eyes were wide and clear, his voice as firm, as it had been
yesterday when Minerva questioned him on possibly taking revenge.

Snape nodded. ``But you cannot stop us from feeling outrage and grief
and hatred.''

Harry gnawed his lip.

``Why is this so hard for you to understand?'' Snape persisted.
\emph{Perhaps this particular direct tactic will work.}

``Because I---it's me,'' said Harry. He gave an angry shrug when Snape
simply looked at him. ``\emph{I} don't know. Don't ask \emph{me} to
explain it,'' he said, and his magic stalked around the room like a
prowling beast, rocking the vials on their shelves. ``But I would
understand perfectly if my parents had been abusing Connor and someone
found out about it, or if Lucius was casting Dark curses at Draco all
the time and I found out about it. Then the outrage and grief and
hatred, sure. But I keep trying to put those emotions in the same place
with what happened to me and---it doesn't work.'' He shook his head.

Snape tamed what he wanted to say. His thoughts went to the potion on
the back shelf of the locked cabinet instead.

Harry took several deep breaths, then looked directly at him.
``Actually, sir, I came to ask if I could get your help brewing the
Wolfsbane Potion.''

Snape considered pressing the issue, but let it go in the end. Harry was
not yet ready. ``Afraid that I won't brew it right for your precious
Lupin?'' he mocked. Harry's eyes flashed, and Snape smirked. \emph{Good.
Get him angry.} ``I am sorry to disappoint you, Potter, but I value my
reputation as a Potions Master more than I value the thought of getting
revenge on that wretched beast.''

A vial on the nearest shelf shattered, and Snape regretted going so
far---though more for the abashed look on Harry's face as he surveyed
what his magic had done than because of the lost potion. It was a Boil
Cure potion, easily replaced.

``No, it's not that, sir,'' Harry said, now looking anywhere but at him.
``I promised\ldots{}well, you see, someone I know is a werewolf, and I
promised to brew the Potion for her.''

Snape stared at him. Just when he imagined that he understood Harry, the
boy came out with a surprise like this. ``Who?''

Harry hesitated, then sighed. ``Hawthorn Parkinson.''

\emph{The Red Death.} Snape concealed a wince. For all that he had been
stronger than the witch when they both served as Death Eaters, he had
been wary of her nasty talent for curses involving the blood. ``And how
exactly did you meet Hawthorn Parkinson?'' he asked.

``A meeting in Diagon Alley,'' said Harry. ``I think Millicent arranged
it. Maybe. I don't know. It was strange. But I promised Mrs. Parkinson I
would try to help her. She got bitten by Fenrir Greyback for refusing to
help in some insane plan he has to raise the Dark Lord.''

Snape nodded at once. He could see why this would be important, though
he suspected he was not seeing it as important for the same reasons
Harry was. The boy needed as much training and protection as possible
before the Dark Lord returned. Someone who might actively oppose that
was to be encouraged. And if Harry could win her gratitude\ldots{}

\emph{Well, there are many less valuable things to have than the good
opinion of the Red Death.}

``Fetch me unicorn hair and fairy wings from my stores,'' he said,
nodding towards the appropriate cabinets.

Harry moved at once to get them, seeming glad the conversation was over.
For that matter, Snape shared the sentiment.

\emph{Every time I think we are making progress,} he thought, as he eyed
Harry's back in resignation, \emph{I am reminded how much further we
have to walk.}

\chapter{*Chapter 7*: Interlude: Mothers to
Sons}\label{chapter-7-interlude-mothers-to-sons}

I know this is only an interlude, but I'll have the regular chapter up
later. I just was afraid I wouldn't get both chapter and interlude done
if I waited, as I have a busy day ahead of me.

Have I mentioned that both Lily and Narcissa creep me out at times?

\textbf{Interlude: Mothers to Sons}

\emph{September 5th, 1993}

Dear Connor:

Yes, you can trust Sirius to teach you the full extent of his compulsion
ability, even though he might not want to. I know that it reminds him of
the Blacks, of the house that he grew up in and the family he fought so
hard to escape. He is a hero, Connor, a hero because of that if nothing
else.

But he had to use his compulsion ability to force his family to let him
go after he was sixteen and ran away to live with James, and he used it
several times on the Death Eaters, too. He knows how to wield it. He
knows what a useful weapon it can be. And now that he knows you have it,
he would push you to use it, if only to get it properly trained. With
the War coming, he will do more than that.

I'm sending you the books that you asked for, {A Practical History of
Goblins in the North }by Griphook Fishbaggin and {Making the Most of
Your Unexpected Dark Gift}, by Shadwell Willowbranch. I almost thought
there was someone else I ought to tell you to share that last book with,
but now I forget who it was. In fact, the more I think about it, the
more I would urge you to keep that book somewhere safe and secret.
Officially, we aren't supposed to know about this, but unofficially,
I've had owls from Dumbledore. The Minister, Cornelius Fudge, has
apparently been receiving threatening letters from former Death Eaters.
The Ministry is moving to restrict the use of Dark magic and the
presence of Dark creatures in wizarding Britain. The Wizengamot is
already considering ways to restrict the shipping of dangerous Potions
ingredients.

I can promise they won't hurt you, Connor, not when you are and will be
their hero, but you'll have to keep your head down for a short time.

So much love for my brave, heroic son,

\emph{Lily Potter.}

\emph{}


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


\emph{September 5th, 1993}

Dear my son:

I hope you are well. Please remember the last tales we have talked
about. In return, I have another tale for you.

Julia Malfoy lived six hundred years ago. You have heard of her, I am
sure. Her portrait hangs in the front hallway---the tall woman with the
blue crystal and the enormous gray hound. Lucius likes to refer to her
as his Fearsome Aunt. Most of the Malfoys do. She was indeed fearsome,
very strong in her power, about which more in a moment, and apparently
aunt to a dozen children without having one of her own.

But she was not childless, Draco. I have finished my investigation of
our family's private papers, and I have found evidence that I can only
call evidence of a conspiracy, to conceal the birth of Julia Malfoy's
only child, a son, and pass it off as someone else's. Do you know who
that someone else was, Draco?

Octavius Malfoy, who was one of the next generation of Malfoy children
whom Julia grew up mothering. He became Lord when his father died,
because it was believed that he was the son of Julius Malfoy, Julia's
twin brother and the Heir of the line, and his wife.

I have investigated further, and I am convinced that, in this case, your
Fearsome Aunt did not become pregnant by some commoner and thus slip
baseborn genes into the Malfoy line because the Lord could not sire a
child. Octavius was, in fact, Julius's son. Julia seduced her own
brother, so that the child would be born purebred Malfoy.

I can imagine your face now, my son. You will be making a horrible one.
Not too horrible, of course, because someone else might see you and
question it, but a grimace nonetheless.

The important thing about Julia is {not} that she committed incest, nor
even that she passed her son off as the next Lord Malfoy---when, truly,
he {was} It is that she was willing to go to such lengths to insure the
Malfoy line's continuance, and she had the magic to do so. Her brother
could not resist her call, but she did not enslave him, either with
{Imperius} or some other spell. She was simply so powerful than when she
asked, he did as she bid, dazzled by that which we all crave.

Draco, you will understand in time. I am sending you certain books with
my next owl. For now, remember this: I come from the Black family, but
no Black mother was ever {less} determined to protect her children than
a Malfoy mother was. I will move mountains for you, Draco. You have only
to speak the word, or have a certain look on your face. I have
interpreted several such expressions already. Do not fear, my darling.
You shall have what you need.

Your loving mother,

\emph{Narcissa Black Malfoy.}

\chapter{*Chapter 8*: Rise, Like Lions After
Slumber}\label{chapter-8-rise-like-lions-after-slumber}

Here's the chapter proper for today. Another quiet chapter---kind of. It
hints at a lot of things that are upcoming, and hey, we have a Draco POV
section!

The chapter title is from Shelley's poem ``The Masque of Anarchy.''

\textbf{Chapter Seven: Rise, Like Lions After Slumber}

Harry paused when both Draco and Blaise followed him out of the common
room on Saturday morning. ``Why are you coming to the library?'' he
asked.

Blaise put his nose up. He was doing that lately. He seemed even more
nervous around Harry than he had been last year. Harry supposed the
rumors about him spending some time with a Dark Lord in his head had
something to do with that. ``I'm meeting Patil in the library to discuss
our project for Professor McGonagall's class, of course.''

Harry blinked. ``But I'm meeting Connor to discuss it.''

``And I'm meeting Granger,'' said Draco, and they all looked at each
other.

Harry shook his head. ``They must have arranged to meet us all at once,
then.'' He shrugged. He could understand the sentiment. Connor would
probably have been willing to meet Harry on his own, but Hermione had no
reason to like Draco, and he would be extremely surprised if Blaise and
Parvati knew each other.

``Are they scared?'' Blaise muttered as they walked towards the library.
``Scared of the big bad House of Slytherin?''

Harry and Draco exchanged glances. It had only been a week back at
school, and already \emph{they} had noticed what had changed. Blaise had
to be blind.

Except for the few members of other Houses who'd already had friendships
with Slytherins, like the small group of Hufflepuffs who'd befriended
Harry last year after he'd saved Justin Finch-Fletchley from the
basilisk, most of them were avoiding Slytherins. Whispers trailed them.
From somewhere had come the rumor that Snape had once been a Death
Eater, which, while not exactly a secret, wasn't very common knowledge
either. Harry had heard a few people hissing in the corridor at him
yesterday. By itself, that would have struck him only as students intent
on resurrecting the Parseltongue scandal from last year, but as part of
the larger pattern of abuse and isolation towards Slytherins, it was
worrisome.

Draco shrugged now. ``They probably are,'' he said lightly. ``Merlin
knows we outmatch them in magic, in brains, in beauty, in blood purity,
in everything that matters.''

``Because, of course,'' said Harry, taking care not to look at Draco
this time, ``you weren't moaning to me the other evening about how you
hoped Hermione would do more than half the work on your project, because
you know next to nothing about Animagi.''

``There may be gaps in my knowledge,'' said Draco, his chin lifting
until Harry thought his neck must hurt. ``That doesn't actually mean that
Granger is \emph{smarter} than I am.''

Blaise snickered. Harry resisted the temptation only by a great effort.
The back of Draco's neck flushed.

``You could agree with me once in a while, you know,'' he whined at
Harry.

Harry raised his eyebrows as they turned into the library corridor. It
was true they'd been fighting all week, and over the silliest
things---who had snickered at Harry when he got a gob of food stuck to
his hair in the Great Hall, how much time Harry spent studying as
opposed to talking to Draco, who had said what in a half-remembered
argument from the night before. But how could Draco expect Harry to
agree with him all the time? Harry was under the impression that that
would have bored Draco, anyway.

``I do agree with you,'' he said. ``I think the Gryffindors are nervous
and wanted to meet us in a group. But that doesn't mean that I think
you're smarter than Hermione.''

Draco pouted at him. That was at least better than shouting, and Harry
felt in a relatively good, even hopeful, mood as he stepped into the
library and looked around for the Gryffindors.

He spotted Hermione and Parvati almost immediately, sitting at a large
table already covered with books. He couldn't see Connor anywhere. He
frowned and approached them, then halted as Ron came out from between
the shelves and sat down next to Hermione. He'd thought Ron was working
with Vince and Greg, who had been firmly snoring in their beds when the
other boys left their room.

Ron without Connor to restrain him was trouble. Quite apart from the
grudge the Weasley family had always had against the Malfoys, Lucius had
tried to get his father sacked permanently last year, and only Sirius's
intervention had saved him. And Ron didn't like or trust Harry that
much.

Yet he just sat there and watched as the Slytherins approached, and
never said a word, though Harry saw him rub his shoulder as though he
were wondering if his arm was strong enough to throw a punch that would
bring down all of them. His eyes were cool and assessing, though, a look
that Harry had never seen in them.

He remembered, abruptly, that Connor had said Ron was an excellent chess
player, one who always pounded him into the ground when they played.
Harry had the feeling he was seeing the chess master now.

Trying to ignore his own uneasiness, he nodded to Hermione and Parvati.
``Hello. Do you know where my brother is?''

``He said something about training,'' said Parvati, pushing her thick
dark hair behind her ears. She was pretty, but the way she was frowning
at Blaise somewhat marred it. ``He said to tell you he was sorry, but he
didn't think he'd be able to get together with you and work on the
project today.''

Harry blinked, even though he knew where Connor had to be---with Sirius.
``Oh.'' He hesitated as Draco and Blaise took their places at the table,
opposite their assigned partners. He was acutely aware that, other than
a brief contemptuous flick in Draco's direction, Ron's eyes had never
wavered from his face. ``I guess I'll go back to the dorm, then, and
talk to him later, so we can arrange a different time to meet.'' He
started to turn away.

``Wait, Harry.''

Harry glanced over his shoulder. Now he \emph{knew} something was off.
Ron didn't call him Harry, at least not without a lot of prompting.
``Yes?'' he asked, leaving off the name altogether, since he wasn't sure
which to use.

``Stay and work with me,'' Ron proposed. ``You can get your work done,
and I'll get mine.'' He snorted abruptly. ``Not that Crabbe and Goyle
could help me that much anyway.''

``You take that back,'' said Draco. ``Vince and Greg are \emph{good}
friends.''

``Shut it, Malfoy,'' said Ron. ``I was talking to Harry.'' He turned
entirely away from Draco, who was left gaping. ``What do you say,
Harry?'' he went on, as if they did this all the time. ``It'll give you
a head start, anyway.''

``I think that's a good idea,'' Hermione piped in. ``I've already
written most of the essay---'' Draco's relieved expression didn't escape
Harry's notice ``---but there's so much \emph{fascinating} information
here. Did you realize that the Animagus form always reflects the
wizard's or witch's internal nature? Without exception? And that it's
the nature they really have, not the image they present to the world?''
She began to flip through the book she held. ``It says here that Hilda
Hufflemark was \emph{completely} disappointed when her Animagus form
turned out to be an earthworm, but---''

``We know, Hermione,'' said Ron, in a long-suffering fashion. ``Come on,
Harry.'' He tapped the table. ``We should get started on this, you
know.''

Harry slowly took the chair. Perhaps he would understand what was going
on if he simply spent more time with the Gryffindors, then. He eyed Ron
as he opened the first book, but Ron just went on staring at him. It was
starting to feel familiar.

It \emph{did} feel familiar, Harry realized suddenly. It was the way
Lucius had stared at him the first time he met Harry, when he went to
the Malfoy Manor for Christmas that first year. He hadn't cared about
how rude he was being, because the dance he was dancing required
bluntness, even rudeness, to get its point across. He was letting Harry
know that he considered him a threat and would size him up accordingly.

\emph{But I didn't think any of the Weasleys would teach their children
the dances,} Harry thought in confusion.

Very well, then. Harry hadn't felt inclined to question Lucius's
staring. He would question this. Lucius had already known that Harry
didn't trust him. Ron might not know that.

``Stop that,'' he said, sharply but quietly enough that it just stayed
between them, leaning forward. ``What do you want?''

``To figure out why my shoulder's hurting,'' said Ron, and touched his
right shoulder blade.

Harry blinked, lost.

Ron raised an eyebrow for a moment, and his face melted back into the
expression that Harry was more familiar with, impatience mixed with
contempt. ``You really don't \emph{get} it, do you?'' he asked.

Harry settled himself again. This was familiar. He could deal with this.
He wanted familiar things that he could deal with. Enough had changed in
the past year. ``Of course not,'' he said. ``I have no idea what your
shoulder blade hurting has to do with our Transfiguration project.'' He
turned back to the book in front of him. \emph{The Ministry has long
required that dangerous wizards and witches register with them, but in
the present time, only the Animagus Registration is specifically
required, for a number of reasons\ldots{}}

Ron tapped the page in front of him. ``Come with me,'' he said, and he
had the chess player look in his eyes again. He walked away between the
shelves.

Harry hesitated, but Blaise and Parvati were arguing, almost
nose-to-nose, and Hermione was rattling off a long series of facts to
Draco, who was playing the captive audience well enough to half-fool
Harry. No one seemed to notice as he stood and slipped after Ron.

\emph{I have to keep having mysterious meetings with people in shadowed
corners, don't I?} he wondered as he came to a halt in front of Ron near
the back end of one aisle. ``What---'' he began.

``Shhh,'' said Ron.

Harry rolled his eyes, but was quiet. Someone on the other side of the
shelf finally moved away, and Ron relaxed and glanced at him. ``My
shoulder blades have been itching all week,'' he said. ``It felt like I
was going to sprout wings. And Percy's been feeling the same thing, and
the twins. The twins just claim it's one of their products, of course.''
He eyed Harry.

``How do you know it's not?'' Harry had to ask. He had seen last year
that the Weasley twins would prank \emph{anyone.} Ron shouldn't be
excepted just because he was family.

``Because,'' said Ron patiently, ``I \emph{know} what it is. I think
Percy does, too, but he just gets a scared expression on his face
whenever I ask him about it. He's always going to talk to Headmaster
Dumbledore. I think he's involved in something he doesn't want the rest
of us to know about. And Fred and George refuse to take it seriously, of
course.'' He shrugged. ``It's the way the Weasley family feels a powerful
wizard's magic. You know, like the way that the McGonagall family feels
it as wind across their skin.''

``How do you know about that?'' Harry asked.

``I was taught it.'' Ron looked more confused. ``I thought you were being
obtuse to act all cool and Slytherin about it, but you aren't, are you?
You really \emph{didn't} know.''

Harry shook his head. ``I---Draco can feel my magic, he's told me so,
but I thought it was just something he was trained to do, some special
ability he had. I didn't know that other pureblood families could do it,
too.'' He tried to push aside any worry and give in to his curiosity
instead. ``Can all pureblood families do it?''

``I suppose so.'' Ron shrugged again. ``I don't know all the signs. But
it's an obvious survival skill, isn't it? After all, purebloods were the
only part of wizarding society that was really accepted for a long time,
and---well, don't tell Hermione, but even if there were powerful
Muggleborns then, it wasn't like anyone was going to \emph{admit} it.
They got killed instead. But we had to know how to spot a powerful
wizard or witch right away, just in case he or she started wanting to
conquer us or gather followers.'' He sounded as if he were quoting
someone, and grinned abruptly, lapsing back into his normal voice.
``Don't tell Mum, but I always hated that part of the lecture. She
sounded as though she was about to faint.''

Harry snickered in spite of himself, but he had gone back to confused
again. ``All right, you can feel my magic. Sorry. I'll try to tone it
down. But why did you stare at me the way you did?''

``Because I want to know what you're going to do,'' said Ron. ``So do
the rest of us, really.'' He scowled. ``Except Fred and George. They just
assume that you'll play the \emph{best} practical jokes, because that's
what they'd do, and they're waiting to see what happens, so they can
take notes.''

Harry shook his head. ``You don't have to worry about me. I'm going to
protect Connor.''

Ron peered at him skeptically. ``You're going to use all that magic just
to do that?''

Harry shrugged. ``Sure. Why not? It's pretty complicated, anyway, since
my brother's got You-Know-Who after him.'' There were other things he
might do, but whenever he thought of them, he tumbled into the deep pit
of rage that Snape had made him explore every night Harry visited him so
far. He wanted to do something to strike back against his parents, but
he knew he would regret it the moment he did. He regretted thinking
about it.

``It's more than that, though,'' said Ron. ``The powerful witches and
wizards in the past always \emph{did} something. Maybe you can turn
Malfoy into a toad.'' He looked hopeful.

Harry rolled his eyes. ``He's my friend. I'm not going to do that.''

``A ferret, then?'' Ron suggested. ``He looks like a ferret.''

Harry shook his head and turned back towards the table, deciding their
conversation was over. Ron clutched his arm and held him back. Harry
glared at him.

Ron promptly dropped his hand and backed away, his palms spread in a
gesture of surrender.

Harry swallowed. ``Why are you doing that?''

Ron cocked an eyebrow at him. ``Because your magic surges when you're
angry, mate. And right now I feel like I'm going to sprout feathers.''
With a grimace, he scratched roughly at his shoulders. ``I don't want
you to get angry at me and do something to me,'' he added.

``Is everyone going to think that?'' Harry felt a deep curdle of fear in
his stomach. It had been bad enough when Draco seemed to be afraid of
him, but Draco had seen the full extent of his magic and knew what he
was capable of, so Harry could understand even though he didn't like it.
But if everyone started fearing him just based on his anger\ldots{}Harry
would have no option but to bind and hide the rage again. Snape would
just have to understand.

``Every pureblood wizard, anyway,'' Ron corrected him. ``I think some of
the Muggleborns might feel you, too, like Hermione. She's strong,'' he
added, as if Harry wouldn't have known that already. ``But that's why
you tell us what you're going to do. If you're not going to go crazy and
enslave the world like---like You-Know-Who---'' Ron glanced around as if
Voldemort might be hiding behind the History of Magic books ``---then we
shouldn't have a reason to be afraid of you.''

Harry shook his head. ``I'm going to protect my brother.''

``Not enough, mate.'' Ron's eyes were kind, but appraising once again.
``No one's going to believe it. Do you think anyone would believe
Headmaster Dumbledore---I mean, \emph{really} believe him---if he said
that he was going to live in a little cottage and grow roses for the
rest of his life?''

``Maybe,'' Harry muttered, his rage flaring again at the thought of the
Headmaster Ron winced and touched his left shoulder. Harry tried to calm
down. ``What's the phrase? Famously eccentric?''

Ron laughed. ``Yeah. But he's earned the right to be left in peace,
really. We know that he killed Grindelwald and everything. We trust that
he'll use his magic for good, and we know that You-Know-Who will use his
magic for evil. We don't know what you're going to do, yet.'' He tilted
his head. ``I wonder if that's what's got Percy so nervous. I know that
he had to follow you last year. Maybe I can ask him what he saw that the
rest of us didn't.''

``Or you could ask me,'' Harry had to point out, ``since you have me
right in front of you.''

Ron rubbed the back of his neck as his face flushed. ``Yeah. Sorry. What
did you do last year? Why couldn't we feel you then?''

Harry shrugged. ``I have no idea.'' He was lying, of course. The phoenix
web would have bound his magic much more strongly then, and kept a good
part of its full strength beneath the surface of his mind. ``If it
helps, Draco's been able to sense my magic since first year,'' he added,
to get Ron's mind off the potentially dangerous track of what might have
happened last year. He didn't mind if Death Eaters knew what he had done
in the Chamber, not when it might intimidate them or make them think of
him as a better target than his brother. He didn't want Ron, who was a
Gryffindor through and through, to find out that Connor hadn't really
been a hero.

``Yes, but you were a git first year,'' said Ron. ``Maybe it was just a
case of gits drawing together.''

Harry glared at him. ``Sometimes I don't know if you're really serious
or not about wanting to know what I'm going to do,'' he said.

``Of course I am,'' said Ron, his smile melting. ``I was trying to make
\emph{you} more comfortable, Harry. I really don't want you angry. No
pureblood wizard in the school wants you angry anymore. The sooner you
get this settled, the better.''

``And how can I possibly tell everyone what I intend to do for the rest
of my life?'' Harry demanded.

Ron shrugged, unconcerned. ``You could file an announcement with the
Ministry, to be read in every part of Britain, if you \emph{really}
wanted to. Maybe not,'' he amended, when Harry gave him a horrified
glance. ``Or you could just tack a sign up somewhere to reassure
everyone who's been feeling the magic and doesn't know where it's coming
from what happened, and that you don't intend to harm anybody.''

``It's none of their business,'' said Harry.

Ron raised his eyebrows. ``When you're \emph{this} strong, it becomes
everybody's business, Harry,'' he said. ``Just like the Minister has to
know everything about Dumbledore's movements, and everyone gets nervous
of You-Know-Who. That's just the way it is. You're realigning power
structures just by walking around.''

``But---'' Harry swallowed back his panic. He couldn't say why he got so
nervous about having attention paid to him without drawing more
attention, and talking about the way Lily had trained him. And
\emph{that} really was not everybody's business. Harry would sacrifice
privacy about his magic before he would talk about his training. ``I'm
just thirteen years old. No one's going to listen to a kid, anyway.''

Ron shook his head slowly. ``That's just going to make them more
nervous.''

``What is?''

``That you have this kind of power, and you're so young.'' Ron cocked
his head and eyed him thoughtfully. ``This time you have right now is
really a gift, you know. No one's sure what's going on. They think you
might still be good. Or they don't know that you're the source of the
magic. I was only sure when you walked into the library this morning,
and Fred and George \emph{think} they know, but they're more enchanted
with the idea than anything. But people are going to write to their
parents soon, Harry. People outside Hogwarts are going to pay attention.
You haven't got long before someone tries to assume custody of you, for
your own good.''

``My parents---''

``Don't seem to have trained you to take care of your magic,'' said Ron.
``That'll probably be the first argument they try. \emph{Watch out},
Harry.''

``Why are you telling me about this?'' Harry whispered, closing his
eyes. He could feel his heart pounding as walls seemed to close in
around him. He didn't want this to happen. He wanted to be as normal as
he could, to go back to the shadows he'd been guarding Connor from. Just
because he knew the truth, and a few other people did, didn't mean
\emph{everything} had to change. And now this was happening.

``Because,'' said Ron, ``you're my best mate's brother, and that makes
you kind of like my brother, too.'' Harry opened his eyes to see him
grimacing, probably at having to call a Slytherin brother. ``And you're
something really special to Connor. Did you know that? The way his face
lights up when he talks about you\ldots{}'' Ron sighed. ``I'd give a lot
if someone's face lit up like that for me. Ginny, maybe.''

``But you still don't like me much,'' Harry summarized.

``You're a Slytherin,'' Ron answered bluntly. ``And that makes me
nervous.'' \emph{Gryffindor honesty}, Harry thought, meeting his eyes.
\emph{They're not supposed to be nervous, but if they are, they usually
admit it, even to people they really shouldn't be admitting it to.} ``And
now you're dithering on what to do. That's just \emph{stupid}, Harry.
I'll grant that you don't know much about this, and I thought you did,
and I'm sorry for that. But you know now. You've got to \emph{move}.''

Harry closed his eyes. ``And what do you think the rest of the school
would do, if I announced that I was some powerful wizard?'' he
whispered.

Ron's hand clasped his shoulder. Harry let his eyes blink open under the
unexpected touch. ``Some Ravenclaws will probably want to study you,''
said Ron casually, ``and the rest will panic. Slytherin'll probably
think you're just great. Another powerful wizard who talks to snakes?
Wonderful!''

Harry tried to pull away, but Ron kept him there.

``The Hufflepuffs might stand by you, at least your friends, while the
rest of them panic,'' he said. ``And we'll fight you if we have to. I
know that you think Gryffindors are unfairly favored---''

``I never said that.''

``All Slytherins think that.'' Ron waved a hand. ``You can't help it, I
suppose. The thing is, one reason Gryffindors are favored---my parents
told me all about this---is because of the First War. Everyone else
dithered around trying to decide what to do, or slunk away to join
You-Know-Who. Gryffindors were the ones who went down there and
\emph{fought}.''

``And died,'' Harry whispered, remembering a list of casualties he'd
once seen divided by House affiliation. Gryffindor had outnumbered all
the rest combined. Harry had thought it was because Voldemort hated them
the most and sought them out at first, or because they were
overrepresented in the Aurors. Now he wondered if it really was the kind
of rash courage Ron was praising.

``Yes, that too.'' Ron sounded surprisingly unruffled. ``But that means
that you'll have a whole bunch of people who fight you if you turn out
to be an evil wizard. But look at it like this: we'll fight \emph{for}
you if you turn out to be a Light wizard. Our house is strongest in the
Light.''

Harry thought of arguing that, but could only scrub at his eyes instead.
``Why are you doing this?'' he asked. ``Why talk about fighting and
dying for someone you barely knew?''

``Connor wrote to me a lot over the summer,'' said Ron, and his face
clouded for a moment. ``He told me about the Chamber, and the battle
with Voldemort first year in detail, and---and other things, things he's
dreamed about.'' He stared hard at Harry. ``I know why he isn't here
today.''

Caught speechless, Harry could only nod.

``So he said he understood if I wanted to stop being his friend and go
befriend someone else less dangerous.'' Ron shrugged. ``I thought about
it a lot. But I finally wrote back and said I still wanted to be friends
with him. And if that means thinking about fighting and dying, then I
will.''

Harry eyed him. Ron appeared utterly sincere. Harry thought he might be
less than sincere if he was on the other end of a Death Eater's wand.

But\ldots{}

There was courage here, too. And no one in Slytherin had told Harry
about what consequences his magic might have. He nodded at Ron.

``Thanks,'' he said, his voice hoarse with something that sounded
embarrassingly like gratitude.

``No problem,'' said Ron. ``At least now I know why you weren't doing
anything. But do something soon, all right?'' He abruptly turned his
head to look at the end of the row of shelves. ``What do \emph{you} want,
Malfoy?''

``I want to know what you're doing with my friend, Weasley.'' Draco
sneered at him and stared hard at Harry. ``And what you were doing with
him.''

There was no mistaking the jealousy in his voice. Harry shook his head.
It wasn't worth arguing about. ``Talking about chess,'' he said, and Ron
caught his eye and gave him an odd half-smile.

``Yeah,'' he said, and walked past Harry and around Draco, giving him a
sneer of his own for good measure. It wasn't as practiced as Snape's,
Harry thought, but not many people's were. ``See you later, Harry.''

``What was that all about?'' Draco demanded.

Harry glared at him. ``Strange as it might seem, Draco, I don't have to
explain every one of my movements to you.''


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Draco clenched one hand. He couldn't explain why this was so important
without making Harry misunderstand him. And anyway, he'd tried all week,
and Harry just kept being stubborn at him.

\emph{Why do you need to know where I go, Draco?}

\emph{Why do you care what time I come back to the dorms, Draco?}

\emph{Why does it matter to you that I wasn't on the Hogwarts Express,
Draco?}

And Draco wanted to say that he felt as though he gave everything he had
to the friendship with Harry and Harry gave him back nothing in return
except what he gave everyone, unconsciously, and the least he could do
was reserve that unconscious giving for Draco himself.

But Harry wouldn't understand. Draco had seen that already. He didn't
\emph{grasp} that he was important enough for Draco to feel jealous
over, that he was important enough to want to have private conversations
with, that Draco was in agony every day over the mental and magical
damage he was still suffering.

Oh, he could understand those things when they were applied to other
people. He felt jealous over the time his brother spent with other
people, that much was plain, and he respected the private conversations
that Draco had with Vince and Greg over people they'd known from
childhood, and he worried about Draco in every aspect except the ones
that had to do with him. But the most he could do with the emotions
people felt for him was accept that they existed. He couldn't understand
\emph{why.}

It was killing Draco, slowly---that this was happening, that he couldn't
do anything to take revenge on the people who'd done it to him without
hurting Harry further, that Harry wouldn't understand even if Draco did
take revenge, that it was costing him so much of himself and he got so
little in return.

He turned abruptly and ran out of the library, ignoring Harry's startled
cry behind him and the shrill voice of Granger as she tried to command
him to return to their table. He hurried upwards, heading steadily for
the Owlery. No one should be up there at this time of the day on a
Saturday. Sensible people were asleep or outside.

No one \emph{was} there, and Draco stood in silence amid the shifting
rustles of feathers and legs and the deep smell of owl pellets. He'd
taken several deep breaths, filled his lungs with the musk, and started
to think about offering a treat to Imperius, his own owl, when a tawny
owl spiraled in through the window and aimed straight for him.

Startled, Draco let the bird land on his shoulder. It had a letter bound
around its leg, and he unbound it and scooped up a handful of treats
from another owl's bowl to put in the bird's pouch. It hooted
disapprovingly at him, but flew over to another perch and settled down
to eat.

Draco read the letter.

It was from his mother, and while he did make the horrible face she
talked about in it, he was more intrigued by the last three lines.

\emph{I will move mountains for you, Draco. You have only to speak the
word, or have a certain look on your face. I have interpreted several
such expressions already. Do not fear, my darling. You shall have what
you need.}

Draco closed his eyes. He wondered for a moment if it was entirely fair
to ask his mother for what he needed next.

Then he decided, \emph{To Azkaban with fair. I} need \emph{this. I need
her to help me heal Harry, to make him stop hurting.}

He turned hastily to fetch parchment and quill, to write back. The
possibility of an end to the pain was as glorious as it would have been
to have Harry come to him, all apologetic and humble, to ask Draco to
explain what was going on.

He felt considerably lighter of heart as he watched Imperius wing his
way into the sky, bearing his letter.

\emph{Mum will make it better again.}

\chapter{*Chapter 9*: Omens of a Leadership
Accepted}\label{chapter-9-omens-of-a-leadership-accepted}

Thank you for the reviews yesterday! I'll get the review responses up
soon.

This is a noisy chapter, compared to the previous ones. It's also a
chapter I realize people might not like very much. Um, sorry.

\textbf{Chapter Eight: Omens of a Leadership Accepted}

Harry lay on his bed in the Slytherin dorms and gnawed on his lip as he
stared up at the Marauder's Map. He could see both Sirius and Connor
clearly---positioned in a room on the seventh floor. They hadn't moved
in hours.

He was fighting down the temptation to go and ask if his brother was all
right. Connor had spent both days of the weekend with Sirius, as Harry
had learned from a run-in with Ron that morning. He didn't appear to do
any homework. He hadn't come to the Great Hall to get something to eat.
He wasn't doing anything that Harry would say was normal and everyday
for Connor to do.

\emph{Could he really be taking his duties as seriously as} that?

Harry sighed and started to speak the words to clear the map, then
paused as one of the dots abruptly left the room. He watched as ``Connor
Potter'' moved downwards through Hogwarts, and only admitted the truth
when he saw the dot approaching the dungeons.

\emph{He's coming to see me.}

Harry scrambled off the bed, tapping the map with his wand and
murmuring, ``Mischief managed.'' Luckily, no one else was in the dorms
right now; Vince and Greg were Merlin knew where, Blaise had gone to the
library, and Draco was curled up in the common room with some books his
mother had sent him earlier today.

Of course, Harry would have to cross through the common room to get to
the door. He hesitated, sighed, then decided it couldn't be helped.
Besides, it wasn't like he was \emph{afraid} of Draco.

\emph{More like afraid to make him afraid of me,} he thought, as he
cautiously crept down the stairs and into the common room.

Draco looked up when he passed through the door, but returned
immediately to his book. Harry told himself he was pleased, not worried.
If Draco was reading, then he couldn't be fighting with Harry.

\emph{I wish I knew what he was reading, though.} The books had no
titles, on either the spines or the covers, only designs. Harry had
recognized one of them---the rearing silver serpent of the Guile family,
the last member of whom had been killed fighting in the Dark Lord
Grindelwald's army. It didn't surprise Harry that the Malfoy library
would include books about or by the Guiles, but he hoped Draco was
careful in what he pulled out of them.

\emph{And, I'll admit it, madly curious to know what's in there,} he
added, as he came out of the common room door just in time to meet
Connor's running charge.

Connor paused when he saw him, blinked, then said, ``Oh, right. The map.
Of course.'' Grinning, he shook his head and charged on, catching Harry
up in a hug. Harry hugged him back, surprised. He always forgot that
Connor was a little taller than he was now until reminded of it by his
weight and size.

Harry waited until Connor danced back from him, grinning like an idiot,
and then managed, ``To what do I owe the honor?''

Connor laughed, the sound rising like water in spring. ``Harry! I've been
reading one of the books that Mum sent me, and then Sirius told me about
something he heard once, and I put it together, and he said it was
right, and it \emph{was}! It was \emph{right}!'' He laughed and spun
around, his hands raised above his head.

Harry cocked an eyebrow, unable to stop the smile, and then said,
``Connor. I can't share your head. Tell me what you're talking about,
please?''

Connor managed to calm down, though he was still grinning. ``Sorry,
Harry. But---well, look. Have you ever heard of an author named Griphook
Fishbaggin?''

Harry frowned. ``That sounds goblin.''

``He was,'' said Connor, and then shrugged. ``Well, except I don't think
goblins have last names, so maybe he was adopted by them or something.
Anyway, he wrote a book that I asked Mum to send me, because I'd read
about goblins being allies of wizards and enemies of wizards, and I
thought I should know if they were likely to be my allies or my enemies.
And he mentioned this---thing.'' Connor waved a hand. ``Concept. Idea. I
don't know, it's hard to explain without seeing the whole thing. He gave
it about sixty different names, anyway. There are whole pages in his
book just devoted to explaining what the names mean in Gobbledegook.''

Harry nodded. ``And you figured out what the thing was?''

Connor grinned. ``Yes! The closest human name is probably \emph{prophet}.
The goblins have a rumor, or a prophecy---except Fishbaggin always
insists that it's not that, but then he translates the word as prophet
again---that someday a great leader will arise and be able to command
them. He'll have all these different duties. And they'll help him face
his enemies, including this `one of darkness.' '' Connor paused for a long
moment, and Harry waited. He knew when his brother meant to speak
another word.

``And the best thing,'' Connor whispered, ``the \emph{best} thing, Harry,
is that Fishbaggin always uses the same word to talk about the duty of
command.''

``What was it?'' Harry asked.

``Hm? Well, I don't know. I don't know how to pronounce the
Gobbledegook.'' Connor's eyes were shining. ``But I mentioned it to
Sirius, and he translated it for me. It means someone with the
compulsion gift, like I have.'' He looked up, face on fire. ``That means
it's not Dark after all, Harry! I asked Sirius about that, and he
confirmed it. How \emph{can} it be, when prophecies are running around
saying that I have to have it in order to be this sort of prophet to the
goblins?''

Harry blinked, and then had an armful of his brother again. Connor
hugged him hard, then broke away. ``Sorry,'' he said. ``I've got to tell
Ron. He'll be wondering where I was, anyway. But I wanted to tell you
first.''

Harry looked at him sideways. ``Why?''

Connor's stare back was blank. ``You're my \emph{brother,}'' he said, as
though that explained everything, and it probably did. Then he was gone,
with a cheerful wave, dashing up the corridor and towards the steps out
of the dungeon.

Harry leaned on the wall and closed his eyes. He wanted to believe
Connor. He wanted to be sure that his brother really did carry a Light
gift and not a Dark one, if only for his own peace of mind.

But he could still hear Remus, saying that the Dark Arts were based on
compulsion. He'd confirmed that \emph{Imperio} was the quintessential
Dark curse when Harry asked him. And if what Connor---and Sirius---could
do was a version of that, then how could it be Light?

Harry took a deep breath and got his thoughts under control.
\emph{You're letting your prejudices run away with you,} he snapped at
himself. \emph{You didn't even congratulate Connor on this new position
of his---one he's thrilled to accept, one you would have been happy to
see him accept, too, last year. It's so good that he's finally standing
up and taking responsibility, isn't it? And you and your silly
prejudices are going to ruin it all. He's stuck by you since he found
out that you weren't really a new Dark Lord, just possessed. Why
shouldn't you stick by him? So you have this uneasiness with compulsion.
That doesn't mean it can't be done in the name of war or to justify a
greater good.}

But that made it sound as though what Dumbledore had done was right.

Harry made up a thought and repeated it to himself. \emph{My brother is
not Dumbledore. Connor is who he needs to be, who he was born to be, who
Voldemort marked him to be. He always will be. He's good. He's right
about the potential of this gift, and it turns out the Dark has never
touched him. That's all.}

Now he only had to repeat that thought to himself, again and again,
until he believed it.

\emph{}


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


\emph{Harry. Can you meet me in the Charms corridor tonight at seven?}

The note was unsigned, but Harry recognized Connor's handwriting, and
the owl that had brought the scrap of parchment was certainly one of the
school owls. He looked up, caught his brother's eye across the Great
Hall, and nodded. Connor looked confused for a moment, then smiled.

\emph{Just as well,} Harry thought, tucking the note into a pocket of
his robes. \emph{That will give me an excuse to avoid Draco this
evening.}

Draco had spent the first three days of the week ignoring Harry as he
read, but that day, Thursday, he'd come out of his trance with a
vengeance. Now he was staring. He peppered Harry with random
questions---his favorite color, what kind of food he liked best, whether
he \emph{really} wanted to stick his fork into his mouth while acting
just like a barbarian or a Weasley and talking all the time. Harry had
tried to answer as patiently as he could. He was afraid his patience was
about to run out.

He had tried to ask Draco, and a few other members of Slytherin House,
why they hadn't told him about the power that Ron sensed. Millicent just
smiled and looked secretive. Pansy changed the subject to ask how the
brewing of her mother's Wolfsbane Potion was going. Blaise made up
moronic excuses and fled when Harry didn't believe them.

Draco just didn't let him get a word in edgewise, and now he was at it
again.

``What was that note, Harry?'' he asked. ``Who was it from?''

``No one important,'' said Harry, trying to concentrate on his treacle
tart. It had been Sylarana's favorite treat. Currently, one of his
self-tests, along with avoiding his rage as much as possible and
controlling his magic, was to see how often he could approach the
memories of her and turn them good instead of evil. Granted, he would
often feel a hitch in his breathing or a burn in his eyes during one of
the tests, but that was better than the horrible closeness to tears he'd
endured before.

``Tell me,'' said Draco. ``I want you to tell me.''

Harry glanced sideways. Draco was staring at him again---Ron's intent
gaze, Lucius's intent gaze, the gaze of a pureblood in the dance. Harry
shook his head slightly. ``I don't want to.''

Draco reached out and put a hand on Harry's arm, near the place where
he'd bruised him last week. Harry felt his anger, and his magic, flare
at the thought of being manhandled like that again.

Draco at once dropped his hand and smiled at him. ``That's all right,
Harry. You don't have to if you don't want to.''

Harry blinked at him. And a moment later, Draco's face went hard again
and he nodded, exactly as if he had confirmed something about Harry that
he had been waiting to ask him.

It was too much strangeness for one evening. Harry stood up. ``I have to
go to the library and work with Connor on our Transfiguration project,''
he said.

``Your brother hasn't moved from his table.'' Draco leaned back in his
chair and studied Harry coolly.

Harry shrugged. ``He said he'd be along later.'' He walked away from the
Slytherin table, knowing that everyone could tell he was agitated from
his stride, and not caring. Of course, now that he was aware of it, he
could see heads turning at the tables he passed, hands rubbing noses or
eyes or arms, and suspicion dawning into certainty on many pureblood
faces.

\emph{You have to do something}, Ron's voice rang in his head, and Harry
clenched his teeth. Yes, he had to do something, he had accepted that,
but he didn't have to like it.

He calmed his magic with an enormous effort, reminding himself that the
last time Connor had met him privately, it had been to tell him good
news. He would probably have more good news to tell him this time. Harry
was looking forward to it after such a trying day.

He reached the Charms corridor and cast the Disillusionment Charm on
himself to keep him hidden until Connor came. A few students ambled past
him, talking about nothing particularly exciting. Harry was glad. He
used the minutes he was alone to close his eyes and count to ten. He'd
learned the words for the numbers in Gobbledegook and Mermish
specifically to give him something to pass the time with. Figuring out
how to pronounce the rush of goblin consonants or the insistent twanging
of Mermish, which was really meant to be spoken underwater, took almost
all his concentration; he'd never been that gifted with languages.

``Harry?''

Harry blinked. Connor was in front of him, peering around as though he
thought Harry might not be there yet. Harry dispelled the charm.
``Connor, there you are.''

Connor grinned at him. ``Yes. Here I am.'' He let out a little breath.
``And, Harry, I have a favor to ask you.'' He squinted and licked his
lips as though he couldn't wait to ask the favor and didn't want to ask
it at the same time.

Harry raised his eyebrows. He was thrilled at the thought of doing
something for his brother, but letting that show would result in
questions he didn't want to answer right now. Connor still didn't know
about the full extent of his training. ``Yes?''

``Well, see\ldots{}'' Connor scuffed his trainer on the floor. ``The
problem is Ginny Weasley.''

Harry blinked. ``Ron's little sister?''

Connor nodded. ``See, she has a crush on me or something.'' His cheeks
grew bright red. ``I don't know why. But lately she's been tagging after
me wherever I go. The Great Hall, the Gryffindor Tower---and to lessons
with Sirius. And I don't often see her. She's really quick, and
clever.''

``You want me to stop her?'' Harry asked doubtfully.

Connor nodded. ``I thought of a way to do it, but I don't have the
skills, and Hermione is Ginny's friend. Could you---could you brew the
Polyjuice Potion, so you could look like me, and distract her
sometimes?''

Harry cocked his head. ``The Polyjuice Potion isn't quick, Connor,'' he
warned his brother. ``It would take some time before I could have it
ready, and in the meantime, Ginny would still be following you
everywhere. Besides, maybe she'll get tired of it before the Potion's
finished.''

``Even knowing that it would take a while, I'd still welcome it,'' said
Connor. ``And Ron says she \emph{doesn't} give up. Ever. She waited a
whole year once, but she got Percy back for turning her favorite teddy
bear into a snake, even though it was an accident. I think she'll still
be following me around in October. And Sirius says he has to step up my
training.'' He pouted. ``Please, Harry?''

Harry sighed, then nodded. ``All right. I need a piece of your hair,
though. Otherwise the Potion won't work.''

``That's no problem,'' said Connor with relief, and plucked a hair from
his head, holding it out to Harry.

Harry took it and felt a jolting tingle race up his arm. A moment later,
he felt the very familiar sensation of the cracked and broken phoenix
web attempting to repair itself.

He tried to jump, tried to shout, tried to reach for his wand. Instead,
he stood still, caught in a full body-bind, and watched as the illusion
of Connor in front of him melted away to reveal Albus Dumbledore,
stern-faced and sad-eyed.

``I am sorry that it must come to this, my boy,'' he said, holding up
his wand. ``But I cannot allow you to reverse the choices that you have
made, nor turn the whole world topsy-turvy for the sake of your magic's
freedom. You will be happier when the web is restored, I promise. Right
now you are not only unhappy, but making others so.''

Harry tried to open his hand, tried to let the hair fall, and found out
he could not. His wards, too, the ones that kept him immune to
Dumbledore's magic, were gone as though they had never been. It had to
be the hair, he thought. Dumbledore had enchanted it with spells to
dispel the wards and hold him still, and once it touched bare skin, that
had been the end of it. Or maybe it really was Connor's hair, and
depended on the blood connection between them.

Dumbledore waited a moment, as though expecting Harry to nod or say
something in agreement, and then seemed to remember he was under the
body-bind. He sighed.

``I am sorry,'' he repeated. ``\emph{Expleo penuriam}---''

He cried out abruptly, and turned, his wand falling from his hand in
shock and pain. Harry had time to see a small gray rat clinging
furiously to Dumbledore's ankle before it rolled off, dodging a bright
white spark that leaped from Dumbledore's robes, and transformed into
Peter.

``I've been watching,'' was the first thing Peter said, backing up so he
was in between Dumbledore and Harry. Deftly, he reached out and plucked
the hair from Harry's hand, and Harry relaxed and let out a loud breath.
His magic rose up around him. Peter didn't seem to notice, his eyes
still on Dumbledore. ``Did you think I'd let you get away with this?''

Dumbledore didn't say anything, but a bright red curse leaped from his
wand, even though it was lying on the floor, and came for Peter. Harry
realized that Peter didn't intend to move aside.

He growled, exasperated---standing in front of danger and turning it
from other people was \emph{his} place, not Peter's---and called his
near-instinctive \emph{Protego}. It manifested in front of Peter and
bounced the spell back in Dumbledore's direction. Of course, the curse
dissipated harmlessly before it got that far.

Harry was left riding his magic, which had a hard core of the
substantial, silent rage he'd locked in his box. The wall behind him had
already turned to ice. He breathed, deeply and quietly, and told his
magic, \emph{No. We are defending only.}

It didn't object, but the air in front of him turned cold enough that he
could see his breath. Dumbledore was watching them thoughtfully, as
poised as though he had never lost control and fired a curse. If he
noticed the frost creeping towards him, he preferred to give no sign
that he noticed it.

When he spoke, his voice was laden with sadness. ``Peter, Peter, Peter.
Do you know what you have done? Do you know that you may have put the
wizarding world itself in danger with your reckless actions?'' He shook
his head, slowly, his eyes disappointed. ``So little remains of the boy
I once knew, the boy who swore he would give up everything to save his
friends.''

Harry felt the touch of the truth like a wind on his neck. \emph{Is
Peter---did he really go to Azkaban on Dumbledore's orders, then? Did he
really leave us open to attack by Voldemort because Dumbledore wanted
him to?}

That would mean that Dumbledore had left \emph{Connor} open to attack.

It was only the channels that Harry had carved into himself over the
summer, the ones that he knew and which his magic usually tried to run
in, that kept them all from dying then. He felt the building of an
explosion that would have torn his body and Peter's apart at the same
time as it would have killed Dumbledore, and sealed the channels.

\emph{No.}

He rocked on his feet as the magic roared at him for his balking and
turned on him, scraping his mind with harsh claws. He could feel his
mouth straining in a silent scream, but he forced it back down, forced
the magic back down, forced the impulse to destroy back down. \emph{He}
was master of his magic, and master of himself. He needed no one else
challenging him for that title.

It took him a long moment to come back to himself, to still the washing
tides of magic in him as they sloshed from one side to the other and
ceased to wound him. Only then could he attend to Peter's voice, which
had lost the mockery it held earlier and gone straight into incandescent
rage.

``\ldots{}\emph{look} at him, Albus. \emph{Look} what you've done. This
is a \emph{child}, a bloody \emph{child}, Lily and James's \emph{son}.
You once claimed to love them, you said you'd do anything for them, you
moved mountains to help them. And Sirius and Remus, too. You kept any of
us from being expelled after Remus nearly killed Snape. Is this the
proof of the love you offer? Is this what happens to our children even
if it doesn't happen to us? Look at him and tell me you can do this.''

``I can do this,'' said Dumbledore, his voice still sad beyond measure.
``I must, Peter.'' His face was stern when Harry looked at him. ``You
knew the cost when you paid it. Harry knew the cost when he paid his.''

``I changed my mind,'' said Peter bluntly. ``And I've shattered the web,
Albus. I'm here on my own, not because the insanity that you forced me
into pretending finally took me.''

Dumbledore had a moment of clear and obvious shock. Harry blinked.
\emph{He didn't expect Peter to say that.}

\emph{Does he think the web can't be broken?}

Dumbledore had already recovered, though, and his face was beyond stern.
It reminded Harry of the face he'd seen in the Pensieve memory, when
Dumbledore had come to Godric's Hollow to bind him. ``Certain choices
cannot be changed, Peter. I told you this when I gave you the web. Still
you swore to me that you wanted it, that you were doing this of your own
free will.''

``You never gave Harry that choice,'' said Peter. ``And that
\emph{sickens} me.''

Dumbledore shook his head. His power was rising around him, and Harry
knew that he would attempt to break through the \emph{Protego} shield in
a moment. ``Harry had his choice and his chance. It was only the
greatest of misfortunes that led him to question it. It was damage Tom
Riddle wrought to his mind that led him to question it. He is only
wavering in his duty because he was wounded, Peter. You must realize
that.'' He looked past Peter and caught Harry's eye. ``If his mind were
whole, he would know his duty and he would be happy.''

``The web would have stayed buried,'' said Peter. ``How young did you
put it on him? It must have been---''

``Four,'' said Harry, since he thought he could speak now instead of
utter a wordless scream. His head still hurt as though someone had tried
to flatten it, and the magic was still curling around inside him,
snarling and making little forays against the limits of his control
every now and again, but he thought he could say this. ``I was four.''

Peter didn't look at him, but Harry could see the sudden stiffness in
his shoulders and guess at the expression on his face. ``Four,'' he
said, his voice utterly flat.

Dumbledore probably thought there was nothing to be gained from speaking
any more. His next attack was a hammer sent at the \emph{Protego}
shield. Harry had never felt such force behind any one spell. It was
like a battering ram.

He reacted instinctively, the way that Snape had taught him to escape
from such strong attacks in Occlumency. He grabbed Peter and rolled to
the side, letting the Shield Charm splinter. The force of the hammer
went through and sent rubble flying from the wall. Harry stared at it a
moment.

He knew Dumbledore was in precise control of his power. He was sure the
spell would have stopped before destroying him, because Dumbledore
didn't want him dead.

It would have killed Peter.

Harry had had enough. He pushed at Peter, to get him further down the
corridor, and then faced Dumbledore. ``\emph{Haurio!}'' he said firmly,
holding up one hand up.

A green shield spread from his palm and fingers, and then grew further,
engulfing both him and Peter. This should absorb any magic Dumbledore
threw at them, Harry thought. And it would give Peter time to run.

When he turned, he realized that Peter didn't have any intention of
running. He was trying to get around or see around the green shield,
probably so he could fling some more insults or accusations at
Dumbledore.

``Get \emph{out} of here, for Merlin's sake,'' Harry snapped, shoving at
him and resisting the temptation to make a very Snapeish remark about
dumb Gryffindors who wasted all their wits charging into battle.

``I want---''

``You can't tell me anything or protect me or whatever you came to do if
you're dead.'' Harry shoved him again.

Peter paused for a moment, and then a faint smile flitted across his
face. ``You're right,'' he said. ``Thank you for trusting me, Harry.'' A
moment later, he'd changed back into a rat and was gone, scampering down
the hall in a mad flight for his life. Harry spared a moment to hope
that he wouldn't run across Mrs. Norris.

He turned his attention back to the shield. Dumbledore was still
stronger, and was using that power in a very unrefined way, the same
kind of raw force that Harry had used to break the windows and heal
himself at Malfoy Manor, without channeling the magic through spells.
Harry knew he could do the same thing.

He wanted to do the same thing. His rage, at least, would have been
happy with him if he did.

But he remembered Hogwarts, and Remus's voice echoing in his head,
saying that one had to consider the wills of others when considering
whether a spell was Dark or Light. If he destroyed the school, as would
happen if he let his magic fly now, how would that make him better than
Voldemort?

He maintained the shield a moment longer, then dropped it and rolled out
of the way. He still felt wind catch him and slam him hard into the
wall, but though he was bruised, Harry knew he hadn't broken anything.
He knew what a broken rib felt like, thanks to Quirrell's \emph{Crucio}
spell from first year. He got to his feet at once, and met Dumbledore's
eyes.

They were still calm. Harry envied him for that---that he could call on
his magic like that and not be incapacitated by the sheer fury it took.

``Where is Wormtail?'' Dumbledore asked.

Harry shook his head. ``I don't know. As if I would tell you even if I
did,'' he added, with a snort.

Dumbledore inclined his head slightly. ``Now that I know Pettigrew has
been sighted on school property, I have no choice but to accede to the
Ministry's request and let the Dementors guard Hogwarts. They will find
Pettigrew if anyone can.''

``You could at least call him Peter, like I do,'' said Harry, and rubbed
his aching head.

``I hope that you will have occasion to avoid calling him anything in
the future.'' Dumbledore's voice was a knife now. ``That was foolish of
you, my dear boy, very foolish. How could you put your life in danger
protecting him like that? How could you believe his lies? He would have
hurt your brother, killed him if he could. He was the one who betrayed
your parents and lied to them, saying that their sons had been taken
elsewhere, so that Voldemort could enter Godric's Hollow unopposed.''

Harry shook his head. ``I know. I know.'' It was all confused and
tangled in his head. Even if Peter had done what he had done on
Dumbledore's orders, did that mean he was any less to blame? He had
still put Connor in danger.

\emph{But Dumbledore was the one who put him in danger in the first
place, and when he should have been protecting him.}

Harry looked up as Dumbledore sighed. ``Come with me, Harry. We can
check you for traces of a Confounding Charm. I fear that Pettigrew might
have been charming you into believing his stories.''

Harry set his teeth. ``I didn't say that I believed him absolutely, not
yet. But I don't trust you, either.''

Dumbledore had the gall to look shocked, as though that were the last
thing he would have expected. He opened his mouth to say something else,
but a spell abruptly struck past him and hit the wall. From its color,
Harry suspected it had been a Jelly-Legs Jinx.

He turned, staring, to see Millicent Bulstrode standing at the end of
the hall, lowering her wand. She was blinking innocently at Dumbledore.

``Oh, I'm \emph{so} sorry, Headmaster,'' she said. ``I didn't know that
was you. Of course you wouldn't have hurt Harry. I just saw a threat
standing over him, so I attacked without thinking.'' She trotted
forward, making a variety of soothing noises that Harry wouldn't have
believed could come out of her throat, just as simpering and wide-eyed
as Pansy could act. She put one arm around Harry's shoulders. ``Come on,
Harry, let's get you to the hospital wing. You \emph{poor} thing. It
looked like it hurt when you hit the wall. And it looked like you had an
enemy. That's too bad, but you should take comfort. You always have less
of them than you think. And your enemies might have more.'' As she spoke
the last words, she was looking straight at Dumbledore.

The Headmaster simply looked back at her. He stood where he was as
Millicent escorted Harry in the direction of the hospital wing. He
tolerated the pretense until they were around the corner, then tried to
shake her arm off. ``I'm fine, Millicent,'' he said.

``Of course,'' said Millicent. ``That's why you're pale and quivering
like a pudding. And of course \emph{fine} people are always clutching
their heads, and smell like a thunderstorm.''

Harry guiltily snatched his hand from his head, then paused. ``I do
\emph{not} smell like a thunderstorm.''

``To me, you do,'' said Millicent. ``The Bulstrode trick, you know. It
smelled like the mother of all storms in there. And you need the
hospital wing and bed, Harry. It's not every day that your own
Headmaster tries to kill you.''

``He doesn't want \emph{me} dead,'' said Harry, and then regretted the
emphasis he'd put on the word as Millicent gave him a sidelong glance.
``Now what are you going to do? And give me a straight answer for
once.''

``What, and watch you die of shock?'' Millicent mocked him, but she
obliged him. ``Someone's been talking to us, someone who goes by the
name of Starborn. He said we should watch you, that you could be a far
more useful ally to us than we had suspected.'' She smiled like a cat
stretching. ``And you \emph{are}, Harry. You outfaced Dumbledore. Now our
families have a real choice. They don't have to go crawling back to the
insane followers trying to put the Dark Lord back together or obey
Dumbledore, whom none of them trust not to compel them. They can follow
you.''

``I'm going to be protecting Connor,'' said Harry flatly. ``So you'll be
really following him.''

Millicent patted him on the head. ``Aren't you cute,'' she said.

Harry remained silent the rest of the way to the hospital wing, but
didn't feel much better, since Millicent settled for knowing sideways
smiles when she couldn't get him to talk. Madam Pomfrey got one look at
him and put him to bed with a Strengthening Potion and a Calming
Draught. Harry drank them in resignation and lay back in his bed,
staring at the ceiling.

\emph{Do something, Ron said. Well, I fucking did something.}

\emph{Now I just wish I knew what the hell it was. And I wish I could
tell someone that I'm not going to be a leader or compel anyone and have
them} believe \emph{me.}

He sighed and closed his eyes.

\chapter{Gifts At Autumn's Turning}\label{chapter-10-gifts-at-autumns-turning}

``Because,'' said Millicent, giving him a strange look, ``the rest of us
had seen the way you reacted when someone told you that you had power.
There was the way you reacted when you thought that we might prefer you
to your brother. There was the way that you didn't \emph{want} to win
that race we set you up to win last year---''

``Oh, Millicent, do be fair,'' said Pansy, who was sprawled on one of
the divans in front of the hearth in the Slytherin common room. She
opened her eyes and smiled at Harry though the mess of blonde hair
covering her face. ``Harry won that race on his own merits, didn't you,
Harry?''

``I certainly hope so,'' said Harry, glancing back and forth from one
girl to another. ``But\ldots{}'' He trailed off, unable to express just
what he thought.

Millicent shrugged at him. ``Like it or not, you do have a tradition of
refusing to live up to your potential, Harry. If we'd tried to talk to
you about it, or talk you through it, we thought we'd just get another
speech about your brother being the powerful one and could we all shut
up now and blah blah blah.'' She laughed, and Harry caught a glimpse of
how genuinely happy she was. The laughter was without a hint of mockery,
despite what she'd just said. ``We didn't know that this time you might
have been willing to listen because you sensed your own magic. So we
just started doing the practical thing---attending to our own needs, and
waiting for you to catch up or wake up.''

``Those `needs' don't really include orbiting around me, though,'' said
Harry, leaning back on the couch at last. He was still tired, though
he'd been out of the hospital wing since early Saturday, and it was
Sunday evening now. Now, at least, he knew why the Slytherins hadn't
told him about the power Ron had sensed, and it was a reason he
believed. ``There's no \emph{reason} that you have to choose me as
leader, or whatever other insane plan you had in mind.''

Millicent shrugged. ``Your magic,'' she said, as if it were the simplest
thing in the world.

Harry shook his head. ``Voldemort and Dumbledore have more than raw
magical power, you know that. You'd be safer with one of them, if you
really wanted protection from the other one.'' It struck him as somewhat
ludicrous that he was encouraging some of his Housemates to follow the
Dark Lord, but pureblood politics often ended up being like this, the
same way that Lucius had been proud last year when his son had
out-danced him.

``Of course we know that,'' said Millicent. ``And we also know that they
have established principles that are going to wreck and destroy the way
we are.''

Harry peered at her. ``I thought Voldemort was all about defending
pureblood ideals.''

``Pureblood ideals aren't about killing Muggles,'' said Pansy. ``They're
about staying away from them, maybe. But---listen, Harry, my mother was
a Death Eater. You must know that by now.'' She sat up and stared at
him. ``And you're helping her anyway.''

Harry glanced away. ``And don't think I haven't asked myself why I'm
doing it,'' he muttered. How \emph{could} he brew the Wolfsbane Potion
for a woman who had set the blood of several witches and wizards boiling
until it scalded them alive from the inside? He didn't know, so he kept
his eyes on his hands when he made the Potion, and not on the mirror
that Snape kept in his office for the purpose of preparing some of the
more obscure brews.

``You're \emph{doing} it,'' said Pansy. ``That's the important thing. And
you didn't demand some kind of sacrifice from my mother.''

``I demanded some things from her,'' said Harry, glaring at her.

``I know,'' said Pansy patiently. ``But they weren't sacrifices. They
were an equal bargain. That's the \emph{difference}, Harry. Dumbledore
would sacrifice us, or want to, if we went to him. That's what he has a
habit of doing.'' Her eyes flashed viciously. ``And the Dark Lord asks
for more than sacrifices. By the time he's done, there's no one left to
give anything more.''

``Doesn't that make it sound as though Dumbledore is the one you should
be asking for help, then?'' Harry pointed out.

Pansy gave him a flat stare. ``No,'' she said.

Harry shook his head. ``I can't help you,'' he said. ``Not much. I'm
\emph{thirteen}. I'm still not as strong as Dumbledore. I'm going to
follow and serve my brother. My magic is making everyone uneasy right
now, not content.''

``And do you know why?'' Millicent asked, her hand plucking at a blanket
someone had slung along the back of her chair.

Harry shook his head.

``Because it \emph{appeared},'' said Millicent. ``Or so it seems. Powerful
wizards don't just walk out of the broom closet every day, you
know---oh, sorry, here I am, rather got lost for a while.''

Harry frowned. She was mocking him again. ``And so?''

``So they're rushing around like a Pegasus with a gadfly up its arse,''
said Millicent bluntly, ``trying to figure out what to do. And sooner or
later they're going to calm down, and then they're going to start asking
questions. And one of those questions is going to be why they couldn't
sense your magic before, why it burst out at full strength instead of
building slowly for years. If it had just built naturally, if everyone
knew you were powerful over time instead of suddenly, then they wouldn't
panic. They'd just acknowledge that sooner or later they'd have to deal
with you, and go about their lives. But this---'' She shook her head.
``Harry, this \emph{doesn't happen.} It won't be long before you hear
people whispering \emph{unnatural}, and wondering if this is a side
effect of your possession from last year, and all kinds of other
things.''

Harry closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with one hand.
\emph{Another thing to thank Dumbledore for, I suppose.} ``Ron suggested
that I make some kind of announcement to the wizarding world, telling
them I don't plan to do anything evil, and outlining what I do plan to
do,'' he said. ``Would that work?''

``Trust a \emph{Gryffindor} to come up with that kind of plan,'' said
Pansy. ``Of \emph{course} it wouldn't work. For one thing, it'd make you
seem weak, as if you were conceding to the Ministry, when you don't need
to. For another, why should you have to declare all your principles and
allegiances right now? Tell them to go talk to your parents, and go
right on living. And brewing my mother's Wolfsbane Potion,'' she added.

``But I thought that I had to do something,'' said Harry. ``Otherwise,
the Ministry will start trying to take me away from my parents, and---''

``Oh, they'll make \emph{noises} about it, sure,'' said Millicent, waving
one hand. ``But they can't do anything unless they find out that your
parents actually abused you.'' She stared at him. ``And they'd probably
prefer to leave you right where you are. They don't want to split apart
the family of the Boy-Who-Lived, after all.''

Harry nodded. He'd seen the headlines in the \emph{Prophet} lately, the
ones that swirled around Connor's every minor doing as if it were proof
that he was about to drop dead or save the world. There had been a
front-page article on the fact that Connor had argued with Ron the other
day. ``Then all that I need to do is hide---''

He cut himself off abruptly. He sometimes forgot, in the sheer
camaraderie of speaking Slytherin to Slytherin, that only Draco and
Snape knew any details about his home life.

``Hide what?'' Millicent asked. ``Your magic? I don't think you can, not
now.''

Harry shook his head and glanced away from her too-sharp eyes.
``Nothing.''

``So long as the `nothing' doesn't interfere with anything you need to
do,'' said Pansy, standing up and yawning. ``I'm going to bed.''

Harry nodded to her and watched her go to the third-year girls' dorm,
then turned to find Millicent still watching him.

``Draco's not the only Slytherin who can watch, you know,'' she said.
``And I don't need strange books from my mother to help me notice
things. I notice things, Harry. The way you forced down so many emotions
last year. That almost slavish devotion you have to your brother. How
you immediately leaped to thinking about consequences for your power,
instead of just glorying in the fact that you have it. How you went home
with the Malfoys last summer, and your parents didn't object.''

``I know you notice things, Millicent,'' said Harry, yawning himself.
``But I'm not going to tell you anything.''

``I'll make you a bargain,'' said Millicent. ``One piece of information
from you, and in return I'll teach you a spell that will make sure
Dumbledore can never try the trick he pulled last night.''

Harry eyed her warily. ``Why would you know a spell like that?''

Millicent shrugged. ``My mother works with the goblins at Gringotts. She
knows most of the spells they use to determine which coins are real and
which are false.'' She smiled abruptly. ``You wouldn't believe how many
wizards and witches think they're the first to have the brilliant idea
of counterfeiting Galleons.''

Harry closed his eyes. A spell like that would presumably help with the
illusion that Dumbledore had been under.

He \emph{had} thought of a way to deal with Dumbledore on his own, but
it wouldn't cover every instance, and it certainly wouldn't cover
Dumbledore putting a glamour on someone else and sending him after
Harry.

``All right,'' he said, opening his eyes. ``I think about consequences
for my power because that's the way I was raised, studying history and
magic from the youngest age possible. I've read about the First War, and
I've seen what happens when wizards don't watch out and just loose their
power in any random direction they want to. And since I've been here,
I've had the example of Dumbledore's magic to remind me every day of
that.''

He wondered if Millicent would demand more, but she just nodded at him
and held out her wand. ``The spell is \emph{Aspectus Lyncis},'' she said,
``the Lynx Sight spell.'' She showed him the wand passes he had to
perform, and intoned it carefully, her voice stressing the second
syllable of the first word and the first syllable of the second. Harry
nodded, and then performed it himself, being careful to use his wand. He
was still trying to get his magic used to using that first, instead of
flying all over the place.

He blinked when several wards flickered into sight, positioned around
the Slytherin common room. All of them had the trace of Dumbledore's
power around them. Harry frowned and decided that he would study them
later as a jaw-cracking yawn nearly sent him from the couch.

``Good night, Harry,'' said Millicent, standing up with a faint smile.
``I'll see you tomorrow. And remember---not everyone who wants to follow
you or who's interested in you is only doing it because of power.''

Harry just blinked at her as she went up to the girls' dorm, and then
went to his own room. Vince, Blaise, and Greg were already asleep. Draco
was lying on his back, reading a book by the look of the \emph{Lumos}
spell through the curtains, but he didn't respond when Harry softly
called out to him.

Harry shook his head and put his pyjamas on. \emph{If he wants to ignore
me, that's just fine. I can ignore him right back.}

But, he admitted as he crawled into his own bed and drew the curtains
closed, it \emph{did} hurt.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Harry took a deep breath and added the final drop of sphinx blood. The
potion stirred briefly, as though it would reach up out of its cauldron
and bite him, and then fell back. It began to steam at once. Harry
stepped back and looked at Snape.

Snape nodded, once. Harry let the breath out. \emph{One Wolfsbane
Potion, correctly brewed.}

``I'm going to take this to Pansy,'' said Harry quietly, as he began
fetching vials and dipping them into the cauldron. ``She'll want to owl
her mother at once, I think---''

Snape shook his head. ``The Red Death is waiting for you at the edge of
the Forbidden Forest,'' he said calmly, as he turned back to the
cauldron he was brewing for Remus. ``She owled me this morning and told
me so.''

Harry stared at his back for a moment, blinking, then said, ``Why did
she tell you that?''

Snape spoke without looking at him. ``It seems that she wanted to make
peace with me, once she knew that you would be brewing the potion under
my direction.'' He had a smile in his voice. Harry knew from the sound
that it was a nasty smile. ``So easy, after all, to settle a long-time
grudge with a little poison in the wrong place. And this is a
complicated potion, very easy to get wrong.''

Harry nodded uneasily. ``And she knew that this would be the day I
finished the potion?''

``She apparently has people watching you,'' said Snape blandly, as he
added another pinch of demiguise hair to his own potion and stirred it
once. ``I can't imagine why.''

Harry cursed under his breath and continued filling and corking vials.
He thought longingly of Connor's Invisibility Cloak, then shook his
head. Connor was making use of it right now, sneaking outside the walls
to meet Sirius in the old Shrieking Shack. Besides, he didn't think his
brother would want him using the cloak to go and meet a former Death
Eater specializing in blood curses.

``Harry.''

Harry glanced up, startled, to find Snape watching him. He had a faint
smile on his face. It could have come from anything.

``Well done,'' said Snape.

It took Harry a moment to realize why that sounded so familiar to him.
Snape had told him the same thing at the end of first year, when he had
told the story of fighting Voldemort to him under Veritaserum.

Harry shook his head, unwilling to visit the bitterness that still
remained in him about that incident, and slipped out the door, holding
the corked vials of potion close.

Luckily, no one was there to see him as he slipped up the dungeon stairs
and across the entrance hall, though he did pause briefly to let Percy
Weasley go by. The boy was hurrying along with his head bowed, muttering
to himself. Harry hesitated when he heard him saying, ``But how
\emph{could} I do anything that would hurt my family?'' but decided it
was none of his business. He would hardly want Percy sticking his nose
into Harry's private wonderings about Connor, after all.

He cast the Disillusionment Charm on himself as he emerged from the
school. It was a pleasant evening, the wind brisk but not cold, the
leaves on the trees that edged the Forbidden Forest just beginning to
turn. Harry briefly turned his head in the direction of the Whomping
Willow that hid the Shrieking Shack, and wished that he could be there
with his brother, helping him train.

\emph{Sirius does that well enough,} he reminded himself, as he skirted
Hagrid's hut and headed deeper into the trees. \emph{And you'd only make
him uncomfortable anyway, since you're so uncomfortable yourself around
compulsion magic.}

That was another thing he would have to train himself out of, Harry
reflected as he reached the edge of the Forest and began to scan
carefully for Mrs. Parkinson. Connor was his beloved brother. No rift
must ever come between them, either in reality or in appearance. Harry
had been through that, and he didn't \emph{want} it to happen again, but
it would if Harry insisted on being uncomfortable around compulsion
magic. He didn't have to be. Dumbledore had used it harmfully, but
Dumbledore was not his twin. Harry was sure that Connor could do much
more productive things with it.

He caught a glimpse of a dark cloak beneath one tree edged with leaves
like fire, and halted. While he watched, the cloak moved again, and he
caught a flash of pale hair he was sure was Hawthorn Parkinson's.

He dispelled the Charm, and heard the woman's soft exclamation before
she stifled it. Then she came forward and held out her hand wordlessly,
and Harry placed the vials of the Wolfsbane Potion into her palm.

Hawthorn studied him, her hazel eyes quick and bright. She looked better
than the last time Harry had seen her, though he supposed that might be
because it was further from the full moon. She still appeared tired, but
there was a resolve, a fire, in her that Harry had seen in Pansy when
her blood was up.

``Thank you,'' said Hawthorn at last, and then shook her head. ``I wish
I had something else to say. Thank you is an inadequate word for what
you have done for me. The transformation was not so painful as the
madness that followed, in which I lost every trace of the witch I am. I
would pay much not to have to suffer it again.''

``What you promised me before is all I require,'' said Harry fiercely.
``That you stay away from Fenrir Greyback and his attempts to raise the
Dark Lord, or whatever it is that he's doing.''

Hawthorn nodded once. ``That is all you require, but it is not enough to
settle my sense of a debt,'' she said. ``Have you heard of Starborn?''

Harry blinked. ``Millicent mentioned him. She said that he's been
telling you to watch me.''

Hawthorn smiled. It was a strange smile. Harry wondered about it.
``Indeed,'' she murmured. ``He has had an opportunity to observe you
closely, and he has liked what he had seen.'' She reached under her
cloak, and Harry tensed, his magic rising in readiness around him, but
instead of her wand, she tugged out a book, which she held towards
Harry. Harry accepted it and tilted it towards the moonlight.

He caught his breath. \emph{Bindings of Magic}, the title said, a book
that Merlin himself was supposed to have written. He looked up at
Hawthorn in wonder. ``I thought this was destroyed.''

Hawthorn shrugged. ``Well, it is hardly an original; it is a copy of a
copy, and there may be some errors in it. But, errors or not, there are
many things in there that most modern wizards believe about compulsion
magic, webs, and other forms of binding.''

Harry frowned at her at the mention of webs, and Hawthorn winked. ``As I
said,'' she murmured, ``Starborn has had the opportunity to observe you
\emph{very} closely.'' She tilted her head and laid her fingers over her
lips. ``And he is no friend of Dumbledore's,'' she added softly.

Harry took a deep breath and looked back at the book in his hands. For
all that he knew Hawthorn must have ulterior motives for giving it to
him, this was a priceless gift, since he knew it spoke of the many
ancient kinds of magical bindings that might tie wizards together, such
as life debts and sacrifices of love, and included the basis of more
modern kinds of magic. It might contain the information that he needed
to free himself completely from the phoenix web; in fact, if any single
book in the world did, this one would.

``Thank you,'' he whispered. ``I don't think you only did this to repay
the debt, but thank you.''

Hawthorn smiled faintly at him. ``You are right,'' she said. ``Pansy has
been writing to me, and Starborn has been writing to me, and there is a
crystal phoenix in my home which sings when great power comes into the
world. It has sung since the end of last spring. It is a relief to meet
you at last.'' She bowed her head slightly. ``At the same time, you
might not be the kind of leader we need. Raw power proves nothing.''

``What about a lack of taste for leadership?''

Hawthorn smiled again, more fully this time. ``So that part was true,''
she said. ``Well, Starborn has written me about that, too. I do not
believe you are the kind of wizard who would grasp at enslaving
others.''

``Tell that to the Ministry,'' muttered Harry, tucking \emph{Bindings of
Magic} into a pocket of his robes.

Hawthorn's smile widened still further. ``When you do what you must for
love and duty,'' she said, ``as I believe you will, they will have no
choice but to see it.''

She turned and slipped back into the Forbidden Forest before Harry had
the chance to ask her any more. He sighed, frowned at nothing, and
slipped away himself, back to the castle.

The book rode in his pocket, calling his thoughts.

\emph{She was wrong. This book doesn't repay her debt. It makes me owe
her a greater one.}


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


``I have to know,'' said Millicent, as they sat at breakfast on the
first day of autumn. Harry jumped a bit; he'd been thinking more about
what he read in \emph{Bindings of Magic} the night before than he was
about the people around him. He glanced at her, only to find her
motioning to the staff table. ``What did you do to Dumbledore, that he
hardly dares to look at you any more?''

Harry grinned and glanced in Dumbledore's direction. The Headmaster was
keeping his eyes strictly on his food.

``A variation on a mirror spell,'' said Harry happily. ``When he looks
at me and thinks about casting spells on me, the spells start affecting
him instead. If he was thinking about putting me in a full body-bind,
for example, he would start feeling his legs go paralyzed.'' He happily
bit into a pumpkin pasty.

He looked up to find Pansy and Millicent exchanging glances. ``What?''
he asked.

``That shouldn't be \emph{possible},'' said Pansy frankly. ``A shield that
bounces spells when they're active, sure. But not when he's just
thinking about them.''

``Well, it's not when he's just thinking about them, I told you,'' said
Harry, talking through his pasty. He ignored the girls' looks of
disgust. It was part of his cunning campaign to discourage them from
thinking of him as a leader. He could be subtly Slytherin, too. Or maybe
he was just hungry. \emph{I wonder if part of being Slytherin is
learning to lie to yourself, too.} ``It's when he looks at me and thinks
about them. The sight aspect is important.''

``It's still incredible,'' said Millicent. ``Not many students can
invent spells like that, you know.''

``It's a variation on the mirror spells,'' Harry insisted. ``I didn't
make it up.'' Perhaps talking with his mouth full wasn't enough to
discourage them. He wondered if talking willingly to Gryffindors other
than his brother and Neville would.

``Yes, but---''

A sudden ruffle of wings announced the arrival Harry had been waiting
for---though he had half-wondered if Lucius had given up, now.
\emph{No}, he thought, as he tilted his head back and watched the great
horned owl, Julius, sweeping once around the Great Hall before he
descended on the Slytherin table.

Harry reached out, curious, to take the bundle from Julius's leg. There
were two possible gifts that Lucius could choose for this autumnal
equinox gift, since it was the last one in the year-cycle he'd chosen.
The next, Yuletide gift would mark a year since he had been
truce-dancing with Harry. \emph{This} one was the point where he had to
choose to take the truce down one of two paths: the continuation to a
true pact, or the graceful backing-out, both of which would take another
year. Harry was almost certain he would back out, but even then, the
gift this time would be both beautiful and useful.

His breath caught when the bundle opened and a small mirror fell out. He
picked it up with trembling hands, and tilted it back and forth. As he
suspected, it showed not his face, but the view from a similar mirror in
Malfoy Manor, which bent and skewed as he turned his own glass. When he
concentrated, he could push his gaze and attention through that mirror,
and out from the room it hung in, and conjure a floating, present-time
vision of any corridors and rooms in Malfoy Manor.

Lucius had granted Harry license to see into his home, the private
sanctum of his family. More than that, he could look at any time he
wanted, and see whether plots against him were taking place.

Lucius intended to continue the truce dance.

Harry managed to breathe again, with a massive effort, and picked up the
note that had come with the mirror.

\emph{Mr. Potter:}

In light of the regard I bear you, on this first day of autumn, may you
step past the barriers between us that are falling like leaves.

\emph{Lucius Malfoy.}

Harry put the mirror down gently on the table. He swallowed once. He
knew what the proper answer would be: a mirror that allowed Lucius to
see into his own home.

Into Godric's Hollow.

\emph{If} he chose to continue this dance. Harry would have to think
about that carefully. His relationship with Narcissa and Draco---even
with Draco as distant and strange as he was now---was far different than
Lucius's relationship with his parents and Connor.

``That's a princely gift,'' said Pansy, shattering the awe.

``I know,'' said Harry simply, and tucked the mirror into a pocket. He
watched as Julius took wing again and flew through the window.

He glanced down the table, but Draco had his nose buried in one of his
mother's books again, the one with the Guile serpent on the front, and
was ignoring Harry. Harry smothered his flicker of irritation. \emph{You
have no right to be irritated with him. You didn't treat him very well
when you had his attention.}

He stood, ready to make his way to the first class of the day, History
of Magic. He was looking forward to the chance to sleep while Binns
droned his way through history Harry already knew by heart. He'd had the
dream of the two dark figures last night---one screaming in a cramped
space, one writhing on a bed and whimpering---for the first time in a
long time. He'd lain awake after that, tense, waiting for an attack from
Tom Riddle before he finally figured out it wasn't coming and fell
asleep again. By then it'd been almost dawn, and Blaise had had to
threaten to dump cold water on him to get him out of bed.

He was just about to leave the hall when he heard a loud cry and a sound
of shattering glass. Eyes wide, he turned back to see Snape on his back
on the Hufflepuff table, one hand on his wand.

Clutching his throat, and making it impossible for him to get his wand
up and cast a spell, was Sirius.

He was snarling, yelling words that Harry couldn't make out, so choked
as they were with spittle and rage. Snape replied in a much clearer
voice, despite the grip on his throat. ``Have you lost your \emph{mind},
Black? That never happened!''

``Yes, it did,'' said Sirius, more clearly this time, ``and you are going
to \emph{apologize.}'' He abruptly transformed, and now it was a huge
black dog with its teeth near Snape's throat. There was a long moment of
trembling tension, and Harry knew Sirius would bite. He might well tear
Snape's throat out.

He started to call on his magic, but Snape must have managed a
nonverbal, wandless curse. Padfoot abruptly went flying backwards,
smashing into the wall behind the Gryffindor table and tumbling down it.
Connor was on his feet, face red with fury and wand out and aimed at
Snape.

``\emph{Enough.}''

Harry felt the wave of compulsion that attacked the Great Hall, similar
to the time last year when Dumbledore had calmed the other students
after Harry admitted to being a Parselmouth. He felt it worming into his
mind, and closed his eyes. He didn't have Sylarana to root Dumbledore
out this time, but he knew the Headmaster was there, which was an
advantage he hadn't had last year, and he had his Occlumency shields and
his utter hatred of the Headmaster to sustain him.

\emph{I may not be able to face you on the battlefield yet,} he thought.
\emph{Connor might still need any protection you can give him, and it
isn't time to make you answer for endangering him yet. But it will be.}

He threw off the compulsion a moment later, and he opened his eyes to
see Snape looking similarly disgruntled. But everyone else was calm---

Until Sirius, who had transformed back into a man, began to sob.

Harry stared at his godfather. He looked like a trembling, broken shell,
as though he and not Peter was the one who had gone to Azkaban for
twelve years. He hid his face from everyone else and wept as though his
heart was breaking. Connor, visibly shocked, started to step towards
him.

``Severus, Sirius,'' said Dumbledore, his voice implacable, ``please
follow me to my office at once.'' He nodded at the Hufflepuff and
Ravenclaw tables. ``I am sorry to deprive the third-years of their
teacher for Potions class, but it should be for only one morning.'' He
swept out the door.

Snape followed a moment later. Sirius picked himself up and stumbled,
sobbing, along behind.

Harry stood frozen. He wanted to go after them, to figure out what the
hell had happened, but Millicent was tugging on his arm.

``Come on,'' she whispered. ``Professor Snape will tell you later.''

Harry had to admit that was probably true, and anyway, he didn't think
he could be in the same small room with Dumbledore safely right now. He
forced his feet to move, to carry him out of the Great Hall.

He might have gone to Connor, too, but a whole horde of Gryffindors had
descended on him. He had to trust that his brother would be all right.

Harry closed his eyes and breathed, carefully dealing with the anger,
and the unexpected source of the anger.

\emph{I'm furious with him. I'm furious with} Sirius \emph{for
assaulting} Snape.

\emph{Shouldn't it really be the other way around?}

He wondered, gloomily, what new and disturbing discoveries about himself
this portended.

\chapter{*Chapter 11*: Memories, Such Haunting
Memories}\label{chapter-11-memories-such-haunting-memories}

Glad that people liked the last chapter! Review responses up in my LJ
later.

This is an entirely Snape POV chapter, because I do feel the need to
explain what the hell was happening in the last chapter, and there's no
way that Harry could tell it.

\textbf{Chapter Ten: Memories, Such Haunting Memories}

Snape had been passing the Hufflepuff table, on his way to the dungeons
to teach his morning Potions class, when Black had assaulted him.

\emph{And that is what it was,} he reminded himself, subtly shifting his
robe and wincing at the cuts and scores and scratches that ran down his
back under the cloth. He'd heard cups shatter, and probably a few
plates. Black was going to \emph{pay} for wounding him in that manner,
and Dumbledore was going to pay for hurrying him out of the Great Hall
in such an undignified manner that Snape had had no chance to subtly
heal himself.

For now, he kept his glare on Dumbledore's back and his stride swift and
even. He would leave the wounds for evidence, if he needed them, of how
unstable Black had gone.

\emph{Not that it matters,} he thought briefly, his glance darting back
to scour the man who followed them. \emph{I know I will only hear some
excuse for the instability, and some half-hearted apology, and a
scolding for not being more tolerant, and that will be the end of it.
Black is Dumbledore's Golden Boy, has been ever since that damned Hat
touched his head and shouted him for Gryffindor. Why should things have
changed?}

Yet he had dared to hope that things \emph{had} changed, since he had
contacted Black over the summer and asked him to formally dissolve the
bet they'd made over Harry last year, since they had both acted like
school-children. Black, sober and earnest---

\emph{For once}.

--had accepted immediately, apologized, and said that he would tell
Harry about the bet ending. When the boy came back to Hogwarts and made
no mention of it, Snape had assumed that Black had kept his word.

Now, he wondered.

\emph{Is that why he said what he did? Accused me of trying to murder
his godson?}

Frowning, shaking his head, Snape hardly noticed when they arrived at
Dumbledore's gargoyle, and didn't remember the password the Headmaster
called to let them past it. Of course, he thought, that hardly mattered.
He was not in the habit of visiting Dumbledore any more.

He wondered if the Headmaster had really noticed it, or what it meant.
\emph{You are a fool if you do not, Albus. The purebloods are spinning
around a new star. They don't know what he means to do now, but that may
not matter, not if they convince themselves that he} could \emph{do
something. You intended to use his brother as a figurehead, Albus.
Instead, you have someone distinctly different on your hands, someone
close to growing into a true leader.}

But he cleared his mind of that as they arrived in the Headmaster's
office and Dumbledore turned around with that gentle smile Snape had
grown to know and loathe. ``Sirius, Severus,'' he said. ``Please take a
seat.''

It was not a request, for all that he made it sound like one, and Snape
felt the iron edge of the same compulsion that had attacked the Great
Hall, pressing him towards one of the chairs. He shook it off and sat
down on his own. Black shuffled towards his and half-collapsed into it,
looking like an old man.

``Now, Sirius,'' said Dumbledore, sitting down behind his desk and
turning an anxious, fond glance on Black, ``tell me what happened.''

``I don't remember,'' Black whispered.

\emph{Oh, I do not believe that,} Snape thought, raising an eyebrow.

Neither did Dumbledore, apparently. ``Sirius,'' he said, as though
scolding a child.

Black broke again, and began to weep. Snape curled his lip and looked
away. He had seen grown pureblood wizards weep, but only under the
influence of the Cruciatus and similar curses. Even if Black had
realized the incredible worthlessness of his continued existence and was
going to beg the Headmaster to end it all for him, he could have shown a
little more dignity.

At last, Black drew himself together, and whispered, ``I---I could see
it all so clearly. I remembered Snivellus trying to kill Harry last
year.''

Snape narrowed his eyes. \emph{He said he would try to put aside that
stupid nickname.} Anger stirred in him, against Black and against
himself, for being so stupid as to believe that anything Black said was
true. \emph{I see the way things stand now. You are my enemy, Black, and
I see no value in trying to keep peace with you, even for Harry's sake.
I would take pleasure in removing him from you now. If you died, I would
dance on your grave.}

The depth of his hatred was sustaining, comforting. This was the same
man who had tried to send him to his death when they were both sixteen,
and not in the name of Dumbledore's war with the Dark Lord. Snape
wondered that Dumbledore would even try to protect someone so weak, so
flawed by his grudges that he could not see past them. He certainly
could not use him in his endless war, so what was the point?

He realized it again as he watched Dumbledore lean forward across his
desk, gently coaxing Black to speak. \emph{He is a pureblood wizard from
a Dark line, who was placed in the House that Dumbledore thinks is the
House of Light. Black is his little pet redemption project. Of course he
would try to spare him anything he could, and not hold him to those
standards of conduct that any other reasonable adult wizard would be
expected to obey.}

``Tell me about Severus trying to kill Harry,'' Dumbledore whispered.
``Come now, Sirius, you can do it.''

Snape rolled his eyes, but sat still.

``He was standing over him with his wand,'' Black whispered, in between
the sobs. ``He said that he really served the Dark Lord, and that he was
going to send Harry's soul to join the soul of his dead master. Then he
fired a Killing Curse at him, but it rebounded, just the way that it
rebounded from---from his brother.'' Black huddled into himself and
covered his face with his hands.

Dumbledore turned to look at him. Snape wanted to rage at the doubt on
his face.

\emph{How} dare \emph{you look at me that way, Albus, after everything I
have done for you? A year of spying, a year of giving up people who
believed in the same things I once had, a year of walking in constant
fear of discovery, a year of committing murder and torture on your
commands? Don't you owe me more than that?}

Probably last year, Dumbledore would have felt he did, Snape realized
abruptly. But since Snape had confronted him over what he had done to
Harry, their relationship had been strained to the breaking point. He no
longer trusted Dumbledore not to hurt a child. Perhaps the Headmaster
did not trust him in exactly the same way.

He kept his voice a lazy drawl, his eyes half-shuttered. ``Do you really
believe, Albus, that if I had been hit by a deflected Killing Curse,
that I would be here now? Such a spell destroyed the Dark Lord, who was
a much more powerful wizard than I am. And what was my motive for trying
to kill Harry Potter? Do tell me that.''

``I told you,'' said Black, jerking his head up. His face was caught in
a snarl, his features twisted into something barely human. ``You're a
Death Eater, Snivellus. You were trying to kill Harry so that you could
bring your master back.''

``From the story you told, it sounds like this imaginary wizard you saw
was trying to take vengeance for the Dark Lord instead.'' Snape sneered.

Black passed a hand over his face. His eyes had such heavy dark circles
under them that Snape wondered, in a detached way, when he had last
slept. ``I---that's what I meant. That's right.''

``It is \emph{not} right,'' said Snape, wondering that anyone could
believe this idiocy. ``Headmaster, with your permission, I would like to
leave this room. I cannot believe these ridiculous accusations. I cannot
believe that I should be subjected to them.''

``This was grave enough for Sirius to attack you in the Great Hall, in
front of the students, Severus,'' Dumbledore said, his eyes unsmiling.
``You will stay.'' He turned and looked at Sirius again. ``If this
happened last year, Sirius, why didn't you attack him then? Or come and
report the incident to me?''

Black's face turned dead white.

\emph{Oh, yes, do tell him,} Snape thought, folding his arms across his
chest and staring back at him. \emph{Do tell him that. I must admit, I
am curious to learn how this imaginary version of me got away as well.}

``I---it was wiped out of my mind the next day,'' Black whispered.
``They made me forget. Someone wanted me to forget.''

Dumbledore sighed. ``And now the Memory Charm has snapped? That would
account for your behavior, Sirius, but you still should have come to me
first, instead of attacking Severus.''

Black seized on the explanation fervently. ``Yes, yes, the
\emph{Obliviate} broke,'' he said, his head bobbing up and down on his
neck like a puppet's. ``And now the memories are flooding me, and I'm
sorry, Albus, but it was just too much to take. They flooded me all at
once, and I had to try to kill him for what he'd done to Harry. I'm
sorry, I'm sorry, I should have come to you first, but I didn't think.''
Tears were leaking down his face again.

\emph{What a plainly ridiculous story,} Snape thought. \emph{I would
have noticed last year if Black was under a Memory Charm of any kind, or
Dumbledore would have.} He had to admit, he hadn't noticed that that
incredible fool Lockhart had used any Memory Charms, but he had used few
if any while inside the school itself.

``Since I did not try to kill Harry, Black,'' he said, ``I am curious as
to what your Obliviator would have wanted you to forget.''

Black turned towards him and gave a very dog-like snap of his teeth.
Snape curled his lip. He had always found it fitting that Black's
Animagus form was a dog, since he had learned of it. Snape himself had
always believed that dogs were dirty creatures, shedding and barking and
smelling like wet hair when they came in out of the rain.

``How do I know that you didn't try to kill Harry?'' the fool asked
belligerently. ``That's what the memory says.''

``But you are lying,'' said Snape, looking directly into Black's glare
and adding a touch of Legilimency to his gaze, trying to seek out the
truth in his mind. It was such a feeble lie, thought it would succeed
because Dumbledore would support him in it. Snape was curious to see
what Black was hiding instead.

He found absolute, howling chaos. Most wizards organized their mind in
some way, as a park or a forest or a vast underground cavern. This was a
raging storm, flickering lightning revealing memories that Snape barely
had time to glimpse before darkness took them again, and wind that
tossed him from side to side and made the normal gentle swimming motion
of a Legilimens impossible.

He tore himself away and looked down at the chair, his hands clenching
on the fabric. He breathed out, carefully. He did not think Black was
insane, but he was very close to it. \emph{He is dangerous. I must keep
him away from Harry at all costs.}

``I am \emph{not} lying,'' Black was saying. If he had felt Snape touching
his mind, he didn't seem inclined to comment on it, and neither did
Dumbledore. ``That's what the memory says.''

Snape looked up to see Dumbledore watching them across the desk. His
eyes were sober, but he wasn't interfering.

\emph{He will let Black say such ridiculous things? Then I have free
rein with the truth.}

``I wonder what memories you've put aside, Black, to put this false one
in its place?'' he asked, turning his attention back to his old enemy.
``Memories of your godson being abused, perhaps? Memories of him turned
into nothing more than a tool for his brother, memories of his mind and
his magic bound and nearly shattered because someone feared his
power---'' He took care not to look at Dumbledore.

``That's \emph{not true}!'' Black was yelling, near the top of his lungs.
``It's Connor who has the power, not Harry, and Harry was never
abused!''

``Tell me, then,'' said Snape, ``what you call being made to study
advanced magic when you are a child. Tell me what you call casting
curses on yourself to train yourself into weathering physical pain. Tell
me what you call knowing that you will die in war protecting your
brother, or stand at his shoulder wrapped in shadows if you survive. I
saw all this and more in Harry's mind last year, Black. And I saw how
none of the adults who should have been his guardians and his protectors
were helping him. I saw---''

``\emph{That is enough, Severus.}''

Another flowing wave of compulsion, as in the Great Hall, and Snape
found his mouth clamped shut. He blinked and subsided. The spell wore
off immediately, and then Dumbledore was leaning forward across his
desk, his eyes on fire with anger.

``You will not repeat such lies outside this office,'' he said.

``They are not lies, Albus,'' Snape snarled back. ``You \emph{know} they
are not. You know what you did. You know whom you sacrificed.''

``You should have thought of that,'' said Dumbledore, his eyes stern,
``before you made another such sacrifice necessary.''

Snape had nothing to say to that. He swallowed, and felt a cold black
dread building in his stomach.

``I know that you have spent long hours alone with Harry,'' Dumbledore
went on. ``Perhaps you are only teaching him advanced Potions and
spells. Perhaps not. Perhaps you truly do mean to harm him for the sake
of the man who was once your master.''

``You know the truth,'' said Snape again. There was a cold hollowness in
the middle of him, he realized in wonder. He had not thought that
Dumbledore would go this far. He had not thought that the man really was
capable of such enormities.

``I know many truths,'' Dumbledore replied. ``And one of them is that
you will not supervise any more of Harry's detentions, nor spend any
more time alone with him after class hours.''

``Under penalty\ldots{}?'' Snape asked. Because there had to be a
threat, of course. The Headmaster would not expect him to just give up
and slink away into a corner without being bested in some form or
fashion.

``Under penalty of Sirius's memory being spread to the entire school,''
said Dumbledore, and his voice was heavy. ``Who do you think they will
believe, Severus? A former Death Eater, only spared from Azkaban by the
good grace of the Headmaster of Hogwarts? Or a hero of the First War
with Voldemort, a former Auror, and the godfather of the brother of the
Boy-Who-Lived?''

Snape had to close his eyes, so dizzy with rage and outrage was he.
``You will lose yourself a Potions teacher if you do this,'' he said.

``Only if you are stupid and stubborn, Severus.'' Dumbledore sounded as
though he were smiling. ``And I know that you are not. That is more the
province of Gryffindors.'' Snape opened his eyes to see him giving Black
a fond look.

\emph{Caught. Trapped.}

How could he let himself be stripped away as support for Harry?

On the other hand, he could do nothing for Harry if he was in Azkaban.
And he knew about the panic creeping slowly through the Ministry,
filtering into Hogwarts and touching the students of his House. It
awaited only a spark to light the tinder. Finding out that a pardoned
Death Eater had tried to kill a student, and with that student being who
he was, would ignite it.

Snape thought of the others that conflagration would reach out to
touch---the pureblood families, the former Slytherins who would suddenly
come under intense suspicions for nothing they had done, the wizards
with unusual talents who made others nervous. Minerva herself could be
under suspicion in such a climate, for all that she was a Gryffindor and
a hero of the First War, for nothing more unusual than being an
Animagus. The wizarding world was once more in the mood to fear and hate
what it did not understand.

And Harry would certainly be on that list. His power and his
Parseltongue talent would make him a likely target.

If he cared about protecting him, Snape could not do that to him.

``I yield,'' he said, his voice sounding hollow even to himself. ``I
promise that I will not speak such truths outside this office.''

``Lies, Severus,'' Dumbledore reprimanded him gently. ``They are not
true.''

It would have been a relief to be Black in that moment, Snape thought,
or any other impulsive, dunderheaded Gryffindor. It would have been a
relief to have shouted, to storm at the Headmaster and call him a
bastard, to pull his wand and hex everyone in sight.

But he was a Slytherin. And Slytherins retreated when they had to, and
waited for the best moment to strike, when the enormous heel of a more
powerful enemy was not poised to crush them.

``Very well,'' he said, with what he knew was bad grace. ``Lies, then.''

Dumbledore nodded, his eyes twinkling again. ``Now, Severus, please
return to your Potions class. I have matters to speak of with Sirius.''

Black, Snape noted as he stood, was looking hopeful again. Of course,
why should he not? He had always been Dumbledore's Golden Boy. If trying
to slaughter another student in school was not enough to get him in
trouble, why should attacking another teacher in the Great Hall be?

\emph{There are times I wish I had died on Lupin's fangs,} Snape
thought, as he took the moving staircase back down, \emph{if only
because an enraged werewolf would bring me to a cleaner end than Albus
seems intent on doing.}

The idea hit him so hard that he nearly stumbled.

\emph{An enraged werewolf\ldots{}}

He used all the skills he had learned as a spy to keep himself from
showing emotion on his face or in his body, just in case Dumbledore was
watching him through the spells Snape knew he had positioned in this
staircase. He reached the bottom and strode briskly in the direction of
his Potions class. He would teach them, and he would go about the other
ordinary efforts of his day, and at the end of it, he would go and speak
to Remus Lupin.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


``Lupin,'' said Snape coolly, when his knock on the werewolf's door that
evening produced said werewolf.

``Severus,'' said Lupin, blinking at him. He always \emph{had} assumed
he had permission to use Snape's first name, Snape thought as he pushed
past him, and scolding him for it had always been tiring. Besides, now
it would probably work to his advantage. Lupin considered them on
friendlier terms than Snape himself did.

``Remus,'' he said, turning around as Lupin shut the door, and noticing
the brief flicker of surprise in the amber eyes. ``I need your help.''

``I assumed you were here to bring me the Wolfsbane Potion,'' said
Lupin, frowning at him. ``For what other reason do you visit?''

Snape ground his teeth. \emph{Gryffindors. Always interested in the most
inane things.} ``For a reason that concerns us both, this time,'' he
said sharply. ``Harry.''

Lupin's eyes widened, and he rubbed the back of his neck, moving to take
a seat behind his desk. It was an old and comfortable-looking piece of
furniture, Snape noticed. In fact, most everything in the room looked
comfortable, from the books with battered spines on the shelves to the
half-stuffed chairs that flowed around the desk in a half-circle. ``What
about him? I trust that he hasn't been troubling you. I know that last
year he still wanted rather badly to go to Gryffindor, but I have told
him that Slytherin House isn't all that bad.''

\emph{How gracious of you,} Snape almost said. He let it go. There were
more important things at stake. ``Tell me,'' he said, ``was there ever a
point this year at which you seemed to lose a few days' time?''

Lupin froze. Then he glanced hastily aside. \emph{Trying to keep me from
reading his mind,} Snape thought, and his eyes narrowed. \emph{So he
does suspect. Why hasn't he done anything about it?}

``I don't know what you're talking about,'' said Lupin, his voice light
and neutral. ``Now, Severus, if you will excuse me, I really ought to
get this marking done. I'm frightfully late handing these essays back to
my students as it is.'' He picked up the stack of scrolls near the edge
of his desk.

``You suspect,'' Snape whispered. ``Why haven't you come to me? There are
ways to break a Memory Charm, you know that, and I would not have
thought you one to submit tamely to an \emph{Obliviate}, however gentle
your friends may claim you to be.''

Lupin's hands tightened, and he looked up. ``Albus told me the truth
when I asked,'' he said.

Thrown, Snape only stared at him.

``He told me that the memories he took from me concerned Sirius,'' said
Lupin, and closed his eyes as if in pain. ``I---sometimes I get angry at
him for things he can't help, things that are over and done and in the
past now. Sometimes I get angry at him for just being who he \emph{is.}
And that is not something friends should do. I always come back and
apologize to him later, but this time I went further. This time I did
something that hurt him so badly that Albus had no choice but to take
the memories from me, so that I wouldn't go on hurting him.''

Snape wanted to swear. \emph{Black, Black, always Black! Who else has
Albus sacrificed to protect him?}

With an enormous effort, he held in his temper. ``Albus lied to you,''
he said as coolly as he could. ``The stolen memories concern Harry, not
Sirius.''

``Harry?'' Lupin frowned. ``But why would he want to take away memories
concerning Harry? I've always been happy with Harry. He's never done
anything that made me angry.''

``Not what he has done,'' said Snape, watching closely, ``but what he
has had done to him.''

Lupin just went on frowning at him.

Snape shook his head. ``You would not believe evil of your friends if it
paraded around in front of you naked, would you?'' he asked.

Lupin said, slowly, enunciating each word, ``We've all made choices that
we're not proud of. But I don't think any of those choices has ever---''
He broke off abruptly and swallowed. Then he said, in a voice that Snape
didn't understand, the voice of someone pleading for forgiveness, ``I
know that Harry was in danger that Halloween night when You-Know-Who
attacked Godric's Hollow, but not since then. His parents would not
endanger him. Sirius loves him. Tell me they haven't done something else
to him, please.''

Snape closed his eyes with a long hiss. \emph{As I suspected. Simply
telling him the truth will not work. His loyalty to his friends runs too
deep. And I would not care if he remained Charmed, ordinarily. If Harry
had not told me what his memories contained, I would not even be trying
this.}

``When you have your memories back,'' he replied, opening his eyes, ``you
will see what I mean. But it takes a long time, and it is a very
delicate process. Will you let me begin the first steps into your mind
so that I can eventually reverse the \emph{Obliviate} and let you see
what lies behind it?''

Lupin closed his eyes. He was wrestling with the desire to know the
truth, Snape thought. But he wondered what the other side could be. Why
\emph{wouldn't} Lupin want the Charm off, now that he knew what was
hiding behind it?

And then he knew, and the sudden shining contempt unleashed a torrent of
words from him.

``You are afraid of losing your friends,'' he sneered. ``You are afraid
of losing these people who have tricked you, hurt you, betrayed you,
\emph{Obliviated} you, because they are the only friends you have.'' He
thought back to Lupin as he had known him in school---painfully shy;
horrified the few times he got angry, as though he could transform
without the full moon calling to him; making no effort to find new
friends even when he obviously disapproved of what his fellow Marauders
were doing, because he just as obviously believed that no one else would
befriend him. Something occurred to him that never had, given his rather
personal involvement in the incident. ``Tell me, \emph{Remus},'' he said,
stressing the name and seeing Lupin flinch, ``how did you feel when
Black nearly made me dead and you into a murderer?''

Lupin sank back into his chair. Snape watched him, barely breathing. He
knew that he needed Lupin's help with Harry if at all possible, but he
would be worse than useless if he simply flinched when Harry was in
danger, or handed Harry over to Dumbledore the moment he was asked to.

``I---that's not what he did,'' Lupin whispered.

``Really.'' Snape smiled. He knew it wasn't a pleasant smile. His smiles
never were. ``I could almost understand Black's actions against me,
after all,'' he continued, voice soft and caressing. ``I was his enemy.
But \emph{you}. You were his \emph{friend.} If he had succeeded in his
little---prank---then you would have killed me. You would have become
the thing you feared most, the thing you hated most, the thing you
fought so hard to avoid becoming. And all because your friend had an
unreasonable grudge against me.'' He shook his head, clucking his tongue.
``Tell me, \emph{Remus}, why have you have remained friends with him
after that? Why did you find some way to excuse it, even then, because,
after all, Black is `just being what he is?' No one has ever forced
Black to grow up. Why not you?''

``\emph{Shut up.}''

The voice was a snarl, and Lupin surged to his feet, his teeth bared and
his amber eyes open and blazing. Snape felt a thrill of fear. This was
the thing he had seen, or half-seen, or dreamed he had seen, on any
number of occasions. It was close to the full moon, but Lupin was still
dangerous, even without that. Snape had made a point of studying
werewolves after one had so nearly killed him. He knew their strength,
even in human form. Lupin carried the power to tear apart anyone he
chose, at any moment, to transform someone not into an infected, cursed
beast like himself, but into a corpse.

Lupin knew that, too, from the look in his eyes.

And he was sorry for it immediately afterwards, sitting down and putting
his hands across his eyes. ``Oh, Merlin,'' he whispered. ``I am \emph{so}
sorry, Severus.''

Snape took his leave without a word. He still intended to free the
werewolf from his Memory Charm if he could. Harry wanted it. That was
one good enough reason. But, more than that, he suspected that Lupin's
horror against getting angry extended mostly to himself. If he was hurt?
He would swallow it and nod. If he learned that a child he loved was
hurt\ldots{}?

Snape did hope that he managed to break the \emph{Obliviate} on a full
moon, and that Lupin `forgot' to take his Wolfsbane Potion before he
leaped on Black. Death was too good for Black.

\emph{But I dare not use him as a mentor for Harry, the way I wanted to.
He is afraid of his own anger. So is Harry. The last thing he needs is
reinforcement on that.}

He swallowed his pride, and found Minerva's rooms, and knocked. She was
in, luckily, and she invited him in the moment she saw his face. Snape
suspected he did not look his best.

``What is it?'' she asked, when she had him sitting in a chair across
from her desk and drinking a cup of tea. The tea was strong enough to
nearly make Snape choke, but he drank it all the same. This was a ritual
when he came and visited her. More than once, the teacup had ended up
broken on the floor, flung by Snape when Minerva worked him up into a
rage, but it was still a ritual. And this time, Snape thought he was
unlikely to get angry.

He told her the whole story, and saw her eyes chill as she listened, one
hand closing around the corner of her desk. When he had finished, and
made his request, she nodded, once.

``Of course I will mentor Harry, Severus,'' she said. ``But I can't
promise that it will last much longer than your own protection of him,
since Albus knows that I don't run blind at his heels any longer.''

``I know,'' said Snape. ``But he \emph{needs} support, Minerva, and he
\emph{needs} to know what is going on, and I am afraid that Albus will
carry out his threat if the boy tries to spend much time with me outside
of class. I can send you Potions materials and books by owl. He can have
them during his times with you, if you are agreeable.''

``Why would I teach him Potions when I could teach him
Transfiguration?'' Minerva murmured, but her voice was dry, and she
smiled. The smile vanished in the next moment. ``I had not realized you
were quite \emph{this} dedicated to making his life better, Severus.''

Snape raised his chin. She would accuse him of having a heart in a
moment. It was one of her favorite remarks to make, and his to rage at.

But he said only, ``I saw what his mind was like at the end of last
year, Minerva. There is no way I could fail to help him after that. And
I believe that others are beginning to notice his power. You have felt
it. I have felt it. Others are turning towards it.'' He paused. ``Some of
the reading I have done has convinced me that he might easily be
\emph{vates,} if he chose to be.''

Shock wiped her face clean, and then awe, and then hope. She nodded,
slowly. ``I see,'' she said. ``Well. That is different. I will be happy
to mentor him, Severus.''

``Thank you,'' said Snape, and stood, and took his leave again.

He felt a slow pulse of anger and determination rise in him as he made
his way back to the dungeons. \emph{Check and mate, Albus. But only for
now. I don't think you realize how far I will go on fighting. If you
take Minerva from him, I will free the werewolf. If you take him, or if
he proves not strong enough to bear the burden, I will turn to the
Malfoys. If they fail, then I will reach out to the purebloods who have
sensed his power and know what it might mean, to the members of the
Ministry who are not part of your Order, to the political enemies who
would be happy to see you fall. To anyone but the Dark Lord himself my
reach will go, until you are brought down and he is free.}

\emph{You threatened me with a wildfire. I will unleash a firestorm, if
need be.}

\emph{If need be.}

\chapter{*Chapter 12*: The Lure of
Power}\label{chapter-12-the-lure-of-power}

Glad that everyone liked the last chapter so much! I'd been waiting to
unleash some of those revelations for a while.

And in this one, we finally find out what has been up with Draco. And,
um, well, some more revelations. Because I never said that Harry didn't
have nasty secrets too.

\textbf{Chapter Eleven: The Lure of Power}

Draco sighed and closed the book he held in his lap, rubbing at his
eyes. They had begun to blur, and not even adjusting the color of the
\emph{Lumos} Charm would hold off the inevitable watering that would
follow.

He could hear his mother's voice if he concentrated. \emph{Never read in
the dark for more than an hour, dear. It will make you squint the next
morning, and Malfoys are not supposed to squint.}

But she was the one who had sent him the books, the one who had told
him---via notes placed in the books at strategic spots---what was going
on, the one who had shown him why he had to draw away from Harry for a
time. Draco wondered gloomily why she had sent such fascinating books if
she didn't expect him to be up until all hours of the morning reading
them.

He put the book on the table next to his bed, and took a moment to stare
through the opened curtains at Harry's bed. The curtains there were
tightly drawn, as always. He could hear the soft breathing that marked
Harry's sleep. He never snored. He sat up with a scream more often than
a snore, or he would suddenly cease breathing altogether, and Draco knew
he was lying still, terrified or tense, probably waiting for the
appearance of enemies.

There had been more than once in the past month that Draco was tempted
to go to him and soothe his nightmares, even if it was with something as
simple as a handclasp.

But then he would have to explain why he had stayed away so long.

And Draco didn't yet know a way to tell Harry the truth without
destroying him.

He put his hands behind his head, let out a long breath, and lay staring
at the ceiling.


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The first book had simply been fascinating---mostly explanations of the
compulsion power that ran in several pureblood family lines, including
the Black one, and explanations of what it could and could not do. Draco
had wondered why his mother wanted him to have it. Did she just want to
insure that any compulsion power he used was trained? That made sense,
but Draco really didn't think he had the gift. It usually manifested by
the time a wizard was twelve, the book proclaimed, and Draco's
thirteenth birthday had been the fifth of June.

He remembered it as a miserable day, mostly, given that Harry had been
dozing in the hospital wing at the time, recovering from the damage to
his mind, and he'd only wanted to be at his side.

Then he found the first note, tucked in between two pages of a
philosophical argument about whether using the compulsion gift was ever
moral. He unfolded it and recognized his mother's handwriting at once.

\emph{Draco, my darling---}

\emph{I am hopeful that by now you will have figured out why I sent you
these books. The compulsion gift is not irresistible, but it is subtle,
and often changes the course of a wizard's mind without his realizing
it.}

Draco frowned when he was done reading it. Not irresistible. Fine, then.
But what did she expect him to \emph{do} with this information?

He flipped through the rest of the book, and found no more notes. He put
that one down and picked up another with a rearing silver serpent on the
front. Draco spent a few minutes staring at that. He knew he'd seen the
symbol before, probably on a few artifacts around the Manor, but he
couldn't remember what it indicated.

He opened it, and a folded piece of parchment fell out from between the
cover and the first page. Draco picked it gingerly up and unfolded it,
shaking dust off it. This book must have been packed away for a long
time, wherever Mother had managed to find it.

\emph{Draco, my dearest---}

\emph{There are other forms of compulsion than the compulsion gift.
Sometimes, a wizard may not even realize that he is compelling others to
follow his will, but he may do so unconsciously.}

Once again, it was unsigned, but once again, Draco knew her handwriting.
Wondering what this was all about, he settled back with the silver
serpent book to read.

He quickly figured out that it was a history of the Guile family, whom
he had indeed heard of. They'd managed to survive for centuries, playing
Dark Lords against one another, never quite coming into the service of
the Light Lords but making themselves appear innocent, until the last of
them had died in the Dark Lord Grindelwald's armies.

But this was not a usual history. There were no musty family trees, no
lists of great things that family members had done that were now
forgotten, no lectures on what magical gifts might have been linked to
their blood. This was a treatise on how the Guile family had survived
the powerful wizards, what signs they had noticed that they were being
compelled or swayed against their wills and how they had dealt with
them.

Draco read the first few pages, and came upon the sentence \emph{Yet it
was hard for Serpentina Guile to figure out what had happened to her at
first, though she was a great witch. She finally noticed that whenever
she was around the wizard Falcon and grew angry, he had only to grow
angry in return to calm her. At once her feelings would be soothed,
washed away in the tide of magic that rose with his rage, and she would
obey whatever he asked of her.}

Change the names, and it was a perfect description of what always
happened lately when Draco grew angry at Harry.


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Draco read hastily through the rest of the Guile book, and the other
books that his mother had given him---a history of the Black family in
particular, a book of laws that the Ministry had at one time enacted
against those with the compulsion gifts, and a biography of the lives
and magic of the Light and Dark Lords. It only took him three days, and
by the end of those three days he had not only the books but a large
array of parchment notes from his mother, folded and placed into the
books at various key points, to enable him to put the puzzle together.

Draco took a deep breath that Wednesday night in September, and picked
up his mother's last and lengthiest note, found very near the end of the
book on the Light and Dark Lords.

\emph{Draco, my beloved son---}

\emph{I am sorry to have to hurt you like this. However, when Harry was
at the Manor with you, I recognized the signs. You were gentler and
sweeter than I had ever seen you be, even as a baby. You cared for him
as if he were your world. Such attachment is not natural, is too fierce,
in a child your age. And what had he done to cause you to grow such an
attachment? I know that he saved your life in first year, but even
before that, you still spoke of him in your letters, chattered as if you
were obsessed with him. He became more than a figure of fun. He became
your best friend.}

\emph{I do not think it is all his magic, to be perfectly honest. I
think you genuinely do see something in him that would have caused you
to become friends even without that. But you could sense his power
earlier than most of the others could, even when it was chained and held
down by his webs. Malfoys have always been more magically sensitive. I
fear that this caused his power to have a hold on your mind that it
would not if you were one of your duller peers.}

\emph{My darling, my dearest, I will not say that you should break your
friendship with him. I will not say that merely because some of this is
the effect of his magic, all of it must be. I will say that I want to
see you free to make your own choice, not dragged along by Harry's
magic, however subtly or unconsciously that may have happened. If you
need this, if you decide that you need this, you must make the decision
independent of the effect he has on you. The only way to do that is to
withdraw from him for a while, and see if you can raise barriers against
his power. You have the inheritance of the Black compulsion gift, and
compellers themselves, as you will know from your reading, are immune to
the effects of another's compulsion, and take less damage even from
other spells that affect the mind, such as the} Fugitivus Animus
\emph{that Harry performed. Perhaps you can use that to your advantage,
to help you resurrect your free will.}

\emph{I have already said I would move mountains to help you, my son. I
will. Should you decide that Harry is, after all, a true friend and not
merely an incipient Lord who managed to draw you into orbit with his
power, then the world will shudder and fall before I see you parted, or
see either of you harmed again. Only tell me.}

\emph{I will see that you have your freedom. Without freedom, nothing
matters.}

\emph{With all my love,}

\emph{Narcissa Black Malfoy.}

Draco had closed his eyes. He was upset already, and he'd only been
distant from Harry for three days.

But he could feel other effects as well. He felt more clear-headed, the
cool distance that had always been his gift before he came to Hogwarts
returning to him. He felt more like his father's son than he had in
years. He felt as if he could make sarcastic comments to Connor Potter
without looking guiltily at Harry first to see if he would approve of
them.

But he had to keep taking out his bottle anyway and staring at it, to
see that despite the faint red traces of irritation that crept into the
colors from time to time, the overwhelming colors were still
purple---Harry's protectiveness of him---and green---Harry's fondness
for him.

Draco ground his hands into his eyes. He didn't want to do this. He
\emph{didn't}.

But he had to know how much of his friendship with Harry was just magic.
He could see the way that that magic was beginning to attract other
people too, now, see the way heads turned when Harry entered a room
(Harry was utterly oblivious, of course). He could see the same thing
with Dumbledore. What Draco had accepted as evidence of a presence or
aura the Headmaster projected was actually his magic.
Wizards---pureblood wizards, at least, he corrected himself with a
sneer---turned to meet it like flowers to the sun, or planets spinning
around a star. Draco was starting to think from the book about the Light
and Dark Lords that \emph{that} was the main reason so many people
grumbled about Dumbledore but didn't actually do anything to oppose him.
The sheer strength of his magic lured them and soothed them and told
them it would be impossible before they tried to accomplish anything.

\emph{How much of me is really Draco, and how much is
Draco-because-of-Harry?}

Draco decided he would have to find out.


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\newpage


``What's your favorite color, Harry?''

Harry blinked and turned to look at him. Draco kept his face as
emotionless as possible, even though he wanted to make a joke that would
ease the bewilderment in Harry's expression. This was a test that one of
the books had suggested, and he wanted to see if he could pass it.

\emph{Though I am not sure what would count as passing or as failing, in
this instance,} he thought, and didn't move.

``Green,'' Harry said at last, still blinking.

\emph{Green}, a voice whispered in Draco's mind an instant after that.

Draco swallowed and glanced away from Harry, picking up his pumpkin
pasty. That was a bad sign, that voice in his head. Harry's magic was
not only around him but within him, within the webs of his mind, or
whatever he had in place of webs. It was a way that Lords could control
their followers, making sure those servants knew them so well that they
would do what they wanted before the Lords even commanded it.

Draco decided he would make a few more tests, and then he would have to
withdraw from Harry almost completely.


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\newpage


It hurt not to be included in whatever had happened between Harry and
the Headmaster, hurt that Millicent was the one who had escorted him to
the hospital wing, hurt to see Harry talking to Millicent and Pansy as
if they had always been his friends. Draco wondered sometimes whether it
was worth the pain. Perhaps he should just tell Harry the truth now and
let him make up his own mind about the strength of his magic.

But then he remembered that that was a sign that he was still very
firmly under Harry's control. He turned back to the book on the Guile
family and read until he came to a passage marked in a very firm hand.
Someone had owned this book before the Malfoy family, he thought, or at
least before his parents. This was not either of his parents'
handwriting.

The passage said, \emph{And of course the emotional pain that Frederick
Guile felt when he could not go at once to Grindelwald's side was a sign
of how deeply the Dark Lord's magic had crept into his being. Why should
he have felt such emotional pain, with him a pureblood and the Dark Lord
no friend or child or sibling of his? But he did, and he could not stop
shivering and longing to be a part of his life until he had Apparated to
become a part of his battle. Distracted by what he was feeling, as no
good pureblooded wizard should be, Frederick Guile lost his life in that
battle.}

The note in the margin said, \emph{Merlin take my magic if I am ever
such a bloody fool.}

This time, Draco noted the small letters near the end of that passage.
A.M. Abraxas Malfoy, then, his grandfather, Lucius's father.

He wouldn't be proud, would he, to see a grandson of his going to a new
Lord's side the moment he felt a slight disconnection from him? No, he
wouldn't. Draco turned on his side and punched his pillow, and pretended
it didn't tear at him when Harry came up and got into his bed without a
word. He \emph{had} to fight his way free. It had half-destroyed Harry
to be tangled, bound up in someone else's magic. Draco would not do the
same thing. If he had to leave Harry behind---

Panic clawed at his skin, made it break out in sweat and gooseflesh, and
his heart raced. Draco drew the bottle from his pocket and stared at the
green glow, threaded with red, until he was calm again. Then he
deliberately finished the thought.

If he had to leave Harry behind, then he would. He knew it was for the
best, the only way he could have a completely free will. And he knew it
was what Harry would want, in that case. Harry would be horrified to
think of someone else being a slave to his power.

Draco closed his eyes abruptly, feeling as if a hot brick had just
dropped into the middle of his chest.

\emph{Even if I decide for him and renew our friendship, how am I ever
going to tell him? It would kill him, to know that he had a part in
altering someone else's mind and personality. How am I ever going to get
him to see that he didn't mean to?}


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\newpage


``Harry. We want to---''

``Talk to you.''

Draco looked up intently around the corner of the book he was only
pretending to read; by now, he had memorized most of the passages about
the history of the Guile family. He had wondered when the Weasley twins,
who could unquestionably feel Harry's power but preferred to just hover
around him and follow him everywhere, would approach Harry. It seemed
that that time was now, on an evening in the library very near the end
of September.

Draco could have told them it wasn't a good time. Harry had been looking
deeply stressed the last few days, ever since Professor McGonagall
inexplicably started meeting with him and Professor Snape had taken to
ignoring him. Harry seemed to know why. Draco had heard him come into
their bedroom one night, radiating so much anger and so much power that
the stones strained in the walls, and fall on his back on his own bed,
muttering something about ``Dumbledore.'' But he had not confessed it to
Draco, or to anyone else that Draco knew of. Millicent tried to talk to
him about it, and got a snarl that had her backing down very fast.

There was a small and selfish part of Draco that had cheered at that.

But the snarl had never quite gone anyway. Harry spent more time than
ever studying these days, and kept his interactions with other
people---except his brother---on the level of chill courtesy. His magic
spent a lot of time expanding out from his body in rippling waves, and
drawing more attention than ever. Draco had caught some of the
Gryffindors staring hard at him the other day, including Granger, who
seemed to have taken to sneezing whenever Harry was around. Harry, of
course, didn't notice.

He was looking at the twins now with a distinctly unfriendly expression,
but that didn't daunt them. Draco had long since come to the conclusion
that a rampaging dragon would not daunt the Weasley twins. They would
probably throw Dungbombs at it, just to make it even angrier, before
taking it down with some brilliant and utterly unfair trick. Draco
scowled. It was unfair for \emph{Weasleys} to have that much sheer
magical skill.

``We want to know what---'' one of them began.

``You're planning to do with your power,'' the other one finished, and
then they leaned forward and gave Harry identical piercing gazes.

Harry sighed and shook his head. ``I don't know. Everyone keeps asking me
that, and I \emph{just don't know}.'' He rubbed a hand over the center of
his forehead. Draco had seen him washing blood off his scar the other
day, and had had to work very hard to keep himself from asking what was
wrong. ``But it probably wouldn't be to play jokes and pranks, so you
can go away.'' He picked up the book he was looking at again. Draco
frowned. What would \emph{Harry} want with a book on the history of the
First War with the Dark Lord? He had thought Harry knew all that
already.

``There are other things to do with power like that than just play jokes
and pranks, mate,'' said one of the twins, taking a chair across from
Harry. Draco restrained the impulse to simply rush up and yank them away
from him. \emph{His magic's affected me even more strongly than I
thought,} he decided fiercely, and flipped through his book looking for
some evidence of what it meant when someone else wanted to rush up and
drag identical twins away from a powerful wizard.

``Yeah,'' said the other twin, who also took a chair. ``Play tricks, for
example.''

Harry eyed them with a faint smile. It made Draco start when he realized
that that was the first time Harry had smiled in \emph{days.} And he
ignored the sheer boiling jealousy that immediately rushed up from his
stomach, over the fact that it was the twins who had made Harry smile.
He \emph{didn't} care who made Harry smile. He was strong. He was
independent. He was staying away from Harry so that he could rebuild his
free will.

``I don't want to do that, either,'' said Harry. ``But I appreciate your
concern. Really, I'm not going to do anything with it. Not just yet. Ron
suggested I put up signs, and I'm not going to do that. Just sit here
with it for a while.'' He turned back to his book. Draco knew that was a
way of suggesting he was done with the conversation. He scowled at
himself and flipped through the Guile book again, wondering how they had
resisted Lords whose slightest gesture they could read.

The twins exchanged glances for a moment, communicating with silent
flickers of their eyes. Then they shrugged and stood. ``Just let us know
when you do decide to do something,'' said one of them.

``Yes,'' said the other, his eyes lighting up again. ``We could help you
chain the Headmaster up, maybe. It's obvious that you don't like him.''

Harry looked up, the skin around his eyes tightening. Draco knew that
meant he was anxious. \emph{Damn it, why can I still read him so well?}

``I don't want to chain anyone,'' said Harry, his voice quiet but
passionate. ``Not at all.''

The twins grinned and bowed. ``Well, not gaolers, then,'' said the one
on the left. ``What about court jesters? Can we be Your Lordship's
jesters?''

``\emph{Never call me that.}''

Draco would not have been surprised if every pureblood in the school
felt the force of that command. It stabbed through his head like an iron
sword, driven by the force of Harry's outrage. The twins staggered, and
several books on the library shelves flew up and hovered in the air like
silent sentries, as though they were eagles prepared to stoop on Harry's
enemies.

Draco let out a long, slow breath, trying to recover from rejoicing at
the sheer level of magic in the air, and then opened his mouth. This was
a perfect test. The Guile book gave several examples of this. Once
someone who was a Lord because of the level of his magic, whether or not
he claimed the title, gave a command like that, it should be impossible
for him to disobey it. The words shouldn't pass his lips.

``Harry, the Lord,'' he said, clearly.

He stared at nothing in particular as Harry stormed out of the library,
his magic still sweeping around him like wings, and the books fell to
the floor, and the twins scattered as Madam Pince came charging around
the corner like the rampaging dragon Draco had been imagining earlier.
She paid no attention to Draco at all, assuming that whatever had caused
noise in her library, the Weasley twins were behind it. Draco was glad.
She could have yelled at him, and he still would have sat there,
glassy-eyed and staring.

He shouldn't have been able to disobey.

How could he?


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\newpage


Draco watched Harry more carefully than ever for the first two weeks of
October. And he could only conclude that he must have been blind before,
because whatever signs Harry was displaying of being a wizard who could
command others with his sheer presence, he countered them with signs of
being something else altogether.

He \emph{did} influence people. He \emph{could} make them back down and
do what he said when his anger flared. He \emph{was} so powerful that he
drew attention wherever he went, by the mere fact of his magic. Draco
practiced not letting his eyes turn towards Harry, and found it
unexpectedly hard.

And he also never influenced people for long. Millicent avoided him one
day when Harry had muttered something about not wanting her around, but
there she was the next one, cajoling a reluctant smile out of him. When
Draco concentrated through Harry's anger, he had no problem resisting
whatever it was that Harry might want in that moment of his rage. He
\emph{could} look away from Harry. It took some effort, but there it
was. It didn't take that much, really, not when he was practiced at it.

If Harry really was going to become a Dark Lord of the same kind as
You-Know-Who or a Light Lord of the same kind as Dumbledore, none of
those things should have been true.

Draco was confounded.

And then came a night at the second week of October, the night he had
lain awake brooding about how he would tell Harry the truth even if he
wanted to, and finally fell asleep staring at the ceiling of his bed.


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``Draco?''

Draco blinked his eyes open, thinking this had to be a dream. There was
no way that Harry would be standing there, framed in the curtains of his
bed, his wand blazing with a \emph{Lumos}, if it wasn't a dream. He
hadn't reached out for Draco in the long weeks of their separation, not
even when he had a nightmare or when he was obviously angry and hurting
and barely talking to anyone else. Draco sat up, rubbing at his hair and
his eyes and trying to think of what to say.

Harry took a deep breath and sat down on the edge of his bed. His scar
and his eyes were both vivid in the shifting light. ``Draco,'' he said
gently. ``I---I was going to wait until you said something, because I
don't know what I did to anger you.'' He bit his lip. ``But I can't
\emph{stand} this anymore,'' he said, abrupt, low, and fierce. ``I need
to know why you're upset with me. I need to know what I did wrong.''

Draco stared at him. None of the books had said anything about incipient
Lords seeking people out to ask what had angered them, either.

And he had thought that Harry would not. He meant less to Harry than
Harry did to him. That had always been obvious. Harry might miss him,
but he would never try to repair an apparent breach in their friendship.

\emph{Except that, apparently, he did,} said Draco, when Harry
misinterpreted his silence and sighed.

``Look,'' said Harry. ``I know I shouldn't have let it go on this long.
But I really \emph{did} notice that you were angry, Draco, and I've kept
noticing, and I just---I miss having you for a friend, all right?'' He
turned his head away, and Draco could see the stinging blush on his
cheeks.

``I am not good at this,'' he said in the next moment, his voice gone
flat. ``The only person I've ever really cared about conflicting with
before was Connor, and I yield to him. But I can't just yield to you.
But I want to know what's wrong. Is it something I can help with? Is it
something I can listen to? Or do we have to just stop being friends,
because of whatever it was I did?'' He swallowed harshly, a little click
that Draco knew Harry didn't mean for him to hear.

Draco closed his eyes. Shock was yielding to other emotions. He knew
that Harry couldn't have come to him and said this last year. His webs
wouldn't have let him. His focus on his brother to the exclusion of all
else wouldn't have let him. The fact that he seemed willing to let
Draco's friendship simply drop away from him when he came back from
Easter holidays was a sign of that, too.

That wouldn't happen now, Draco was fairly sure. Harry would fight to
keep their friendship intact, even if it took him more than a month to
admit he \emph{wanted} it to be intact.

Draco swallowed himself, and sat up to hug Harry. He felt Harry stiffen
in surprise, then relax and even hug him back, his wand pressing
awkwardly against Draco's spine.

``Are you going to tell me what got you so angry?'' he whispered.

Draco closed his eyes. He still didn't know how to tell Harry the truth.
He still wondered if he should try to pull away again, to achieve some
semblance of independence.

But he no longer thought that all the answers could be found in books.
And he had \emph{missed} Harry, damnit. Now that he was aware of what
Harry's power could do and prepared to make conscious decisions about it
if Harry asked him to do something he didn't want to do, Draco thought
he could have their friendship back. He certainly appreciated it more
than he ever had.

And so did Harry.

``It's something that I think would hurt you to know about right now,''
Draco whispered. ``Please? Can it wait?''

Harry started a bit, but then relaxed when Draco's arms didn't move
away. ``Of course it can,'' he said. ``I just---you're my best friend,
Draco, and I need to know that you're all right. I thought you weren't,
and it was driving me mad.'' He chuckled painfully. ``Millicent kept
asking me about the sour expression on my face all last week.''

``That was about me?'' Draco asked incredulously. Harry had never
answered Millicent. Draco had assumed the sour expression came from any
one of the numerous pressures Harry was dealing with: controlling his
magic, studying with Professor McGonagall, playing at a badly-feigned
coolness with Snape, coping with the fact that his godfather was trying
to be affectionate with him and failing, and cheering on his brother,
whose compulsion gift Harry was more and more obviously uneasy with.

``Of course it was,'' said Harry, as if it should be obvious. ``I was
worried about you, Draco.''

``Prat,'' Draco grumbled into his shoulder, hugging Harry tightly enough
to make him squeak. ``Stubborn, \emph{idiotic} prat. You could have come
and \emph{asked} me.''

``Yes,'' said Harry. ``But it took me this long.''

``And you're really willing to wait to hear about it?'' Draco asked,
once more, just because he had to be sure.

``Of course.'' Harry pulled away from him and blinked at him. ``I trust
you, Draco.''

Draco made his decision in that moment. To Azkaban with Lords and
whether he had to stay away from Harry to be completely independent of
him. He would just go along, deciding day to day on his independence if
he had to, and getting Harry ready for the news that his magic could
compel people, or something like it, even if he didn't mean to. Someday,
Draco thought, he would be ready for it.

He was free. He made this choice freely. Draco said so, and felt no
chain or compulsion holding him back.

He hugged a startled Harry again. ``Now tell me what's been going on
with you,'' he said, and settled down to be startled and angry and
amused and outraged all in turn, confident that he was where he wanted
to be.

\emph{}


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\newpage


\emph{Dear Mother:}

\emph{I know that I made this request of you once before, but I hadn't
considered everything you sent me then. Now I have, and I've freely
chosen, and my request is still the same.}

\emph{Please, move the mountains.}

\emph{Your beloved son,}

\emph{Draco.}

\chapter{*Chapter 13*: How Like a
Lion}\label{chapter-13-how-like-a-lion}

That last chapter was fun to write. This one a little less so---except
for one particular scene that I absolutely love.

\textbf{Chapter Twelve: How Like a Lion}

``Harry! What are you doing in there?''

``Just a minute!'' Harry yelled out through the door of the loo, and
splashed some more water on his forehead, washing the scum of blood from
his scar. He sighed when he realized the lightning bolt was once again
filling with crimson. That troubled him more than the crippling headache
he'd awakened with. He could hide the headache; Tom Riddle's possession
last year had given him plenty of practice. A bleeding scar was
something else.

Draco was knocking harder than ever on the door. ``I'm coming in there
in two minutes, Harry Potter!''

``I'm done!'' Harry reassured him, while he checked his scar. Yes, it
would probably take a few hours to fill and drip again. The blood rose
slowly, as though it were forcing its way out past thick barriers of
muscle and skin. He thought the few hours he had promised to spend in
the library with Luna, helping her get caught up on the lessons she'd
missed last year when she'd been Petrified, would push its limits, but
with luck he should be able to clean it again before the blood spilled
down his face.

Draco opened the door before Harry could get there. Harry gave him a
sharp glance. ``That wasn't two minutes,'' he pointed out.

``I lied,'' said Draco, and caught Harry's hand, pushing back his fringe
before he could stop him. Harry turned his head away, but Draco had
already seen his scar, and the livid color it had turned.

``I thought so,'' Draco whispered, and then raised his voice. ``Somehow
you forgot to mention your bleeding scar in your account of the last few
weeks, Harry.''

Harry glared at him and hurried towards the library, Draco keeping up
with him easily. Draco had, most unfairly, started into a growth spurt,
and he never seemed to trip over himself the way some of the other boys
did, either. ``Why didn't you mention it?'' he asked insistently. ``Why
did you feel that you had to keep that one thing concealed from me?''
Then he paused, and Harry knew the thoughts that were running through
his head. \emph{If you kept one thing from me, how many other things
have you kept?}

There were a few others, but none of them were Draco's business. He
didn't need to know the details of Harry's meetings with Peter; that was
Peter's secret, and Harry's to keep. He didn't need to know that Harry
sometimes felt like hexing his brother when Connor preached about the
goodness of compulsion gifts to him, because then he would feel like
he'd been right about Connor all along. He didn't need to know how
intensely uncomfortable Sirius was making Harry. That was a private
matter, especially given the conflict Harry was feeling between his
emotions for Sirius and his emotions for Snape.

And he didn't need to know about the scar bleeding, because that would
involve explaining the dreams, and Harry had no idea how to explain
them. What \emph{did} a dream of two dark figures and a dream of other
dark figures tightening in a ring about him have to do with anything?
Harry had figured out that he only woke with the headache and his scar
bleeding on the nights he had them, but they told him nothing he didn't
already know. Yes, he had enemies. That had been obvious since the first
time he fought Bellatrix Lestrange---since the first time he learned
about \emph{Connor} having enemies, really.

Except that, from his stare, Draco thought he \emph{did} have to know,
and that a few details meant he deserved the whole thing.

``I'll tell you later,'' said Harry, trying to hurry ahead as he reached
the doors of the library. Draco lengthened his stride and caught him
easily. Harry whirled to face him. He got angry much more easily now,
and the one good effect of that was that he was sure he wasn't letting
his rage collect in a hidden place and build up any more. ``Why do you
insist on accompanying me everywhere, anyway?''

``The Headmaster might hurt you,'' said Draco, not looking away from
him.

Harry snarled. ``Yes, but he's not going to try where someone else can
see. I'll be safe with Luna.''

``Yes, and on the way there?''

Harry turned away again. He knew that he was Draco's friend, and he knew
that Draco was his, but this intense care unnerved him. As he had told
Snape, it was one thing for someone to value people in general, and
another thing altogether for them to show that they valued him.

He strode into the library, his mind already buzzing through the million
and one things it seemed he had to do. Private work with McGonagall,
finishing the brewing of Hawthorn's Wolfsbane Potion, coming up with a
response to Lucius's truce gift, tutoring Luna, tutoring Neville,
Quidditch practice, his own homework, spending time with Draco so that
he wouldn't feel lonely, reading \emph{Bindings of Magic}, visiting
Connor and Sirius\ldots{}

Harry's life was already a whirling circus. He couldn't imagine what it
would become should he actually do something with his power, the way
that people kept begging him to.

He sighed with relief to see Luna sitting at the table they'd agreed on,
with her books spread in front of her. Of course, he faltered a bit when
he came closer and saw that she had Divination and Arithmancy textbooks,
since she took neither class.

``Luna?'' he said softly, and she looked up at him, protuberant eyes
blinking from behind her glasses. ``Are you---all right?'' There were
some days where she was more all right than others.

``Of course, Harry,'' said Luna, with the same gravity that she said
everything. ``Why wouldn't I be?''

``You don't take those classes,'' said Harry, sitting down in the chair
across from her. Draco took the one beside him, and made a comment under
his breath that might or might not have included the word ``Loony.''
Harry gave him a glare that promised a hex when they got back to the
Slytherin common room, and then turned to smile again at Luna. ``What
would you want with them?''

``I want you to teach me about them,'' said Luna. ``You're taking the
classes, aren't you, Harry? I asked someone, and they told me that you
were.''

Harry winced a bit. He hoped that whoever Luna had asked hadn't hurt
her. He would have to ask the other Slytherins what they'd seen tonight.
Most of the students, especially other Ravenclaws, didn't seem to
understand that hurting Luna \emph{always} resulted in Harry finding out
about it, no matter how quiet they tried to be or where they did it. The
other Slytherins thought it was a fine game, watching out for Luna,
reporting it to Harry, and then watching for what clever or embarrassing
hex he inflicted on the ones who'd embarrassed her in return.

Harry hadn't yet got Neville to confide the same mistreatment to him. He
insisted that he could handle himself, and that anyway no one in
Gryffindor mocked him too badly. Harry didn't believe him. It was taking
time to coax Neville out of his shell, though, especially since he
hadn't spent half of last year with his peers.

``Yes, I am taking these classes,'' he said, to get himself back on
track, and picked up the Divination textbook. ``Where did you want to
start? Tea leaves? Crystal balls?''

``Dreams,'' said Luna.

Harry sent her a sharp glance. She looked back at him, serene and
serious as ever, and if she had ulterior motives, she hid them better
than anyone else Harry had ever seen.

``All right,'' he said, and opened \emph{Unfogging the Future} to the
right page. His own textbook always fell open to that place
automatically now. He had read the brief descriptions of dream
interpretation over and over again, hoping against hope there was
something that could help him with his nightmares. But Trelawney's books
were as useless as Trelawney herself. ``What did you want to know?''

``About dark dreams,'' said Luna. ``Nightmares.''

Harry could have recited the paragraph from memory, but he pretended to
be reading, for Luna's and Draco's sakes. Their eyes on him felt like
skewers. He wished they would stop---stop looking so calm, stop looking
as though there was a hidden purpose behind this, stop \emph{looking} at
\emph{him}. ``Um. \emph{Reading dark dreams is different from the art of
reading light dreams, also commonly called prophetic dreams. While light
dreams are the will of the future reaching down to touch those so
favored, nightmares, also called dark dreams, represent a different kind
of favor. They are commonly accepted as either the dreamer's fears made
manifest, or, occasionally, as the reaching back of a future so awful
that it wants to prevent itself from happening.}''

He leaned back in his chair. ``Luna, what questions did you have?''

``What kind of dreams do you have, Harry?''

Harry stared at her. He didn't dare look at Draco. Luna sat with her
quill poised above her parchment and just regarded him calmly.

``Oh, normal dreams,'' Harry managed to say. ``You know, the kind that
you always have when you go to sleep.'' He forced a smile, and hoped it
looked more natural than it felt. ``The other night, I dreamed that a
door was chasing me.''

Luna nodded. ``And what about other kinds?''

``What do you mean?''

``Nightmares,'' said Luna. ``Do you ever have nightmares, Harry? I dream
about the Wrackspurts possessing me, the way they possessed you last
year.'' Luna never had accepted the Tom Riddle explanation for the
possession. ``What are your nightmares?''

``I don't have nightmares, Luna,'' said Harry. He didn't want to hurt
her, didn't want to scare her. Merlin knew he was already doing that to
enough people; he'd had a huge argument with Connor about it just the
other day. ``Just regular dreams.''

``He has nightmares every night,'' said Draco.

Harry whipped around. ``\emph{Draco}!'' he squawked.

``You prat,'' said Draco, seizing his arm and brushing back his fringe
again. His finger rose and touched Harry's scar, then came back down and
forced Harry to acknowledge the glistening red liquid on it. Harry
winced. He'd started bleeding sooner than he thought. ``She's trying to
\emph{help}. Can't you see that? And I'm tired of you not talking about
this. What happened to moving forward and being honest, Harry? You said
that you would.''

Harry closed his eyes. His headache was returning, despite the potion
he'd brewed himself last night and taken this morning. ``I know. I
just\ldots{}I don't know why I'm having the nightmares, all right? I
just am.''

``Do they have to do with Voldemort?'' Luna asked.

Harry stared at her. He'd never heard anyone else but Dumbledore and his
family pronounce the Dark Lord's true name without stumbling. Luna just
gazed back at him, waiting for the answer, and didn't seem to realize
there was anything remarkable in what she'd done.

``They can't,'' said Harry. ``How \emph{could} they?'' He remembered the
dreams that he'd had about Quirrell in first year, and the dreams about
Tom Riddle last year. Well, yes, the Tom Riddle dreams had had to do
with Voldemort, but they \emph{were} Voldemort, the signs of Riddle
working his way into Harry's mind. The others were---dreams. ``If anyone
is going to dream about Voldemort, it should be Connor. Riddle himself
told me that Connor's scar is some kind of connection to him.''

``This looks like a pretty damn good connection to me,'' said Draco,
swiping his finger across the scar again and holding it up. There was
enough blood to soak the palm of his hand and spill towards his wrist.
``\emph{Damn} it, Harry, what do you dream about?''

Harry took a deep breath. Backed into a corner like this, he had no
choice but to talk about it, and he had promised himself that he would
try to stop hiding things. He really had no choice, unless he wanted his
confined magic and his confined rage back. He told them about the
dreams, and emphasized their vagueness and the fact that he had no idea
what they related to.

``I think I know.''

Harry turned around abruptly. \emph{Merlin, how many people know now?}
Hermione Granger apparently did, since she was behind him and looking at
him, her face somewhere between serious and worried.

``Do you,'' Draco said, his body language gone tense, his hand making
the hovering motion that Harry recognized as Draco's version of being
ready to reach for his wand. He didn't like Hermione, or any of the
Gryffindors, really. He barely tolerated Neville. Harry couldn't figure
out why, since all Draco ever said when asked was \emph{They're
Gryffindors, Harry!}

``Yes,'' said Hermione. ``I wondered why I was sneezing all the time
around you, Harry,'' she added. ``And I think I figured it out. And,
well, if I'm right, then you have some pretty Dark magic. I think the
shadows you're seeing in your mind are your own fears of your magic. You
know that you're doing something wrong, even if it's unconscious---''

``\emph{Shut up, Granger.}''

Harry had never heard Draco sound so deadly. He was on his feet now,
wand in hand, never wavering from the way it pointed at Hermione. His
face was pale, his eyes gone dark, and a few flecks of actual
\emph{foam} shining near his lips. Alarmed, Harry stood and put himself
in between Draco and Hermione.

He wondered, tiredly, how many people he would have to shield from
overzealous Gryffindors in a month's time. Of course, this time it was
probably the other way around, but he wasn't sure about that. Hermione
was one of the most powerful witches in the school. She would give Draco
more trouble than Draco probably suspected in a hexing contest.

``Stop it, Draco,'' Harry said over his shoulder. ``These dreams have
troubled me for months.'' Well, one of them had troubled him for months,
but he didn't care to dwell on the distinction right now. ``If Hermione
thinks she's figured out one of them, or even both, then I want to hear
what she thinks.''

Draco's hand clamped down on his shoulder, hard enough that Harry gasped
and winced. ``But this has to do with the thing I told you about
already,'' Draco whispered into his ear. ``The thing I didn't want to
tell you about because it would hurt you. Please, Harry. \emph{Leave it
be. You do not want to hear this.}'' The last words sounded almost like
one sentence, spoken in the same intense whisper.

Harry frowned. He couldn't imagine how Hermione's theory and Draco's
secret could be the same thing, but it would certainly fit with Draco's
sudden and overwhelming reaction. Nothing seemed to drive him mad quite
like threats to Harry's safety. Harry had had to stop him from hexing
Dumbledore three times this last week.

``I think I want to hear it,'' he said, and turned back towards
Hermione.

Draco's arms descended, clamping around his waist and squeezing the
breath out of him. ``No, no, no,'' he whispered. ``Harry, please, trust
me. Do what I tell you. Turn around and walk out of the library
\emph{now}. I'll make your apologies to Luna. I'll listen to Granger and
tell you if they really were the same thing when she's done, and I'll
report it \emph{honestly.} But don't listen to her.''

Harry attempted to pull himself free of Draco's grip. It held firm.
Harry sighed and glanced at Hermione.

``I think he can choose whether or not to hear this for himself,
Malfoy,'' said Hermione, putting her nose up. ``And he deserves to hear
it, whatever you think. Harry, I think you have the ability to---''

``\emph{Silencio}.''

Harry stared. The spell hadn't come from Draco, even though he'd torn
one arm free of Harry's waist and was groping frantically for his wand.
It had come from Luna, who walked up and looked Hermione up and down as
she mouthed silently. Then she turned and glanced up at Harry.

``It's like the necklace I gave you last year,'' she said. ``The one to
protect against Wrackspurts. Sometimes you need a necklace, and
sometimes you need a spell.''

Harry blinked, once, twice, again. He had the feeling that there was
something very profound in what Luna had just said, though he couldn't
reason out what it was. ``Thank you, Luna,'' he said slowly.

Luna nodded. ``You should never let Wrackspurts get hold of you,'' she
said. ``Or the Heliopaths, either.'' She turned and wandered over to her
books, gathered them up, and then wandered out of the library. Harry
supposed that meant their study session was at an end.

Hermione was still mouthing in outrage. Harry glanced at her and sighed.
He knew he should release the spell and listen to what she had to say.
Hermione was a brilliant researcher. If she had found something among
the books that related to the dreams, it might take Harry months to
duplicate her. He was good at applying knowledge he'd already consumed,
not so much at finding it.

\emph{If you were a Gryffindor, then you would take the spell off and
listen to her,} said a voice in his head. Harry suspected it was
Connor's voice. That was one of the things they'd fought about, lately.
Connor said that Sirius had said Slytherin House was fundamentally
untrustworthy, and had given him stories about all of Harry's
classmates' parents to prove it. Connor was always full of stories about
Sirius saying this or that. He was disappointed that Harry couldn't seem
to repair his relationship with him and become a dutiful godson again,
and told Harry so at every opportunity.

\emph{If you were a Gryffindor, if you were brave, if you were like a
lion, then you would listen to her.}

But Harry wasn't, and so in the end he sighed and walked out of the
library. Draco was nearly prancing at his side, as though he suspected
that he was responsible for Harry's decision to leave without freeing
Hermione.

Harry rubbed his scar again, and Draco dragged his hand away from it and
pointedly showed Harry the blood. ``You're going to Madam Pomfrey,'' he
announced.

``She'll put me in a bed and want me to sleep,'' said Harry. ``And that
won't work, Draco. If I sleep, I'll dream, and my scar will bleed again.
Let it go. I only have to clean it off every few hours.''

Draco stared at him. ``And I never \emph{noticed?}''

Harry was about to argue that yes, Draco had noticed the scar bleeding,
when he realized that Draco meant the frequency of times he'd washed the
scar. He sighed through his nose. ``I guess you didn't,'' he admitted.

``You're far too good at hiding things, Harry,'' said Draco, with a
sadness in his voice that Harry supposed he might understand if he
concentrated. But he couldn't concentrate for very long. He had to get
to Quidditch practice early, since his study session with Luna had ended
early.

He was about to hurry off when Draco's hand touched his shoulder again.
Harry looked up and met a pair of eyes so concerned that he abruptly
hugged Draco, simply to reassure him.

Draco hugged back, muttered, ``Be safe,'' and then went off in the
opposite direction. Harry ran faster than ever. Flint, who had failed
his NEWTS last year and so been kept back an extra year, really, really
didn't like it when anyone on the team was spending free time dithering
about elsewhere, but he would make an exception and be especially harsh
with Harry, since he thought Harry was their team's key to victory.


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Harry had just left the Great Hall and turned towards McGonagall's
office when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned, and backed off
immediately when he saw the Headmaster. His magic rose to bind him in
protective walls. Probably Dumbledore had found some way past the
modified mirror spell Harry had cast on him.

Instead, Harry saw, Dumbledore was avoiding eye contact. That meant the
spell still held. \emph{Probably}, Harry emphasized to himself. After
the way Dumbledore had tricked Snape from his side---McGonagall had told
him the story on the night she'd taken over his tutoring---Harry would
believe anything of the Headmaster, including that he would pretend the
spell still held when in fact he had overcome it.

``Please come to my office, my dear boy,'' Dumbledore dared to say. ``We
have much to discuss.''

``I'm sorry, Headmaster, but I'm meeting with Professor McGonagall
now,'' Harry said, as calmly as he could. He would be polite. He
\emph{could} be polite. He would not scream the roof down and set
Dumbledore on fire as he wanted to. Besides, trying to set him on fire
would probably only result in more ice. No matter what spells Harry
practiced with, his magic and his rage both remained cold. That was
another thing that had bothered Connor when he confessed it.

``You are not, Harry,'' Dumbledore said firmly.

Harry froze. ``What did you say?''

``I said that you are not,'' said Dumbledore. ``I have relieved Minerva
of the responsibilities of teaching you. She is not your Head of House,
and as Transfiguration Professor, she has other students who need her
attention. She agreed with me. I believe her exact words were that a
Slytherin student should be able to find other ways to learn.''
Dumbledore smiled at him.

Harry smiled back at him, which appeared to disconcert the Headmaster.
He heard McGonagall's words for what they were, a salute and a statement
of faith. And she had not outright been forbidden from associating with
him, as Snape had been. They might still be able to meet on the sly.
McGonagall had thought it better to yield than contest to the bitter
end.

\emph{Sometimes, she is almost Slytherin}, he thought, and then looked
up at the Headmaster. Dumbledore avoided his eyes. He was probably
thinking of magic to use on Harry right now, then. \emph{Probably}.
``Will all due respect, Headmaster, I won't want you teaching me in her
place. There are reasons that it I don't want it. I hope you understand
them.''

Dumbledore only waved a hand. ``That can be arranged later, Harry.
Either Remus or Sirius would be an excellent candidate for your next
teacher.''

Harry concealed his snort. Remus he could see, but Sirius\ldots{}
\emph{Only if I want a course in ranting about Slytherins or twitching.}
He had only disliked Sirius more when he learned he was the cause of
Dumbledore's attack on Snape. Harry was sure that Sirius had lied about
the false memory. \emph{It sounds like the kind of thing he'd make up,
secure in the knowledge that the Headmaster would back him, because the
Headmaster likes Gryffindors so much. It doesn't matter that it's so
ridiculous. Dumbledore supports him.}

``No, this is something else,'' said Dumbledore, solemn now, and drew a
large letter forth from his pocket. Harry recognized the seal of the
Ministry on the front. He nodded slowly.

``Lead the way, Headmaster,'' he said.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Once they were seated in Dumbledore's office, and Harry had refused tea
and sweets and another cup of tea, the Headmaster handed over the
Ministry's letter. Harry wasted no time in opening it.

\emph{Dear Mr. Potter:}

\emph{We realize this must come as a shock to you, and indeed we are in
a somewhat unusual position ourselves. Normally, we would write to the
parents of a child your age. However, on contacting your parents, they
claimed to have only one son, Connor Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, though
birth records and your attendance at Hogwarts clearly prove your
existence, and they did admit to remembering a Harry Potter who had
moved away or died a long time ago. They seemed to think that you were a
relative of your father.}

\emph{This is a sign of Dark magic in operation, and as such, we are
forced to resort to this rather unusual form of communication, and of
request.}

\emph{It has come to our attention that you exhibit powerful magic, both
Light and Dark, that you did not exhibit last year. We understand that
such magic is not your fault, but the result of your birth, and we
hasten to assure you that we do not regard you as} at \emph{fault.
However, each magical child so powerful must have a guardian in order
for the wizarding community at large to assure themselves that the magic
is not going wild or untrained. Since we have contacted your parents and
they are victims of Dark magic that causes them to deny your existence,
we currently believe they are not suitable guardians for you.}

\emph{We would ordinarily appoint a guardian ordered by the Wizengamot,
but your case is special enough that the Department of Magical Law
Enforcement is concerned with it. We believe you should have a guardian
who a) lives on the grounds of Hogwarts, so that you may continue to
attend school and acquire training for your magic, and b) is someone you
trust, which will make your training all the easier, and c) can learn
some of the facts of the case, as powerful wizards do not usually emerge
as you do and we fear there may be something unnatural in your magic,
perhaps as a result of the Dark spell cast on your parents. As someone
who fulfills all of these conditions except the last, we have chosen
Albus Dumbledore. Please sign the letter enclosed with this one; it will
confirm the Department's choice of guardian and grant us permission to
release the facts of the case, as we understand them, to him. It also
grants you the option to choose your own guardian, provided that he or
she fulfills the criteria set forth in this letter.}

\emph{Amelia Bones}

\emph{Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.}

Harry turned the letter over for a moment, wondering why they had
contacted him instead of Dumbledore directly. Was it the unusual nature
of the case, or the fact that his parents were still alive but victims
of an unknown curse, or--?

And then he knew what it probably was, and wanted to laugh. The Ministry
would have heard about his magic. And they would want to keep things
quiet, since Harry was Connor's brother. All of this was being arranged
to pass the case along as quietly and as quickly as possible, without
the possibility of either making it public \emph{or} vexing Harry.

Harry glanced up at the smiling face of Dumbledore. ``The Ministry
contacted my parents,'' he said. ``They don't remember me, so they're
appointing a guardian who has to live on Hogwarts grounds and oversee my
training. They want to appoint you.''

Dumbledore's smile grew wider. ``That would be wonderful, Harry. I have
long looked forward to an opportunity to work more closely with you.''

Harry nodded at him, then turned back to the letter enclosed with Amelia
Bones's letter. It had a simple line for his signature (magically
binding, of course) if he accepted Dumbledore as his guardian, and
another few lines for him to fill out, complete with signature, if he
wanted another guardian. The letter warned him sternly that his chosen
guardian would have to comply with all the standards set out by the
Department of Magical Law Enforcement in the original document.

The necessary words were written, and a brilliant white flash traveled
around the room. Harry chuckled to himself. He would have to study the
Ministry letters and see what magic they used, if he got the chance. His
hand was already empty, the letter having apparently communicated with
the original document to confirm that the chosen guardian met the
standards set forth in it, with him to confirm that this was what he
really wanted, and with Hogwarts to confirm that the chosen guardian was
in residence, and then taken itself off to the Department of Magical Law
Enforcement. Harry wondered idly if the Aurors had come up with that
particular spell, or if it was the product of some overworked and
underpaid researcher.

``Excellent, Harry!'' Dumbledore said, sitting back. ``May I see the
original letter?''

Harry handed it over to him, and waited in patient silence as he read
it. Dumbledore glanced up at the end of it, blinking. ``I am flattered
that you have changed your mind about trusting me, Harry,'' he said.

``I haven't,'' said Harry, and enjoyed seeing Dumbledore's face change.
\emph{I can be like a lion, sometimes. I can face what I have done.}
``There is that option they mention at the end, about choosing my own
guardian. I did. And, as you saw, he met all the standards set forth in
the letter.'' He shrugged.

``Who?'' Dumbledore whispered.

``Professor Severus Snape, of course,'' said Harry pleasantly.

Dumbledore stood. Harry could sense the power rising around him. He met
Dumbledore's eyes calmly. ``Will you really do this, Headmaster?'' he
asked. ``We could destroy Hogwarts if we were dueling. You know that.''

``You have not asked Severus, Harry,'' said the Headmaster. ``Are you
quite sure that he would be willing to take on a burden?''

``Oh, I am quite sure that he would be,'' said Harry, and bared his
teeth in what was not a smile.

Dumbledore stared at him for a long moment, then sat back down and shook
his head. ``I must admit I do not understand, Harry,'' he said softly.
``Why would you do this? There are so many things that you must be
trained in, so many things you do not understand, and I am the one who
can best train you to know them.''

``You haven't explained them so far,'' said Harry. ``You made me a
slave. Merlin only knows why, but I trust Snape, and he's proven how
much he's willing to risk for me.''

``I will make every effort to remove him from you again,'' said
Dumbledore calmly. ``You must know that.''

``I know that,'' said Harry.

``How long will we play this game?'' Dumbledore's face was long and sad,
sad enough to break a heart. ``How long until we are the allies we must
be to defeat Voldemort, Harry?''

``As long as it takes,'' said Harry, and turned his back. Dumbledore
didn't try to make him remain in the office.

Harry made for the dungeons. He walked up to Snape's office and knocked
on the door, knowing the professor was working late on Remus's Wolfsbane
Potion.

The look on Snape's face when he opened the door made all Harry's anger
at Dumbledore dissolve. ``Idiot child!'' Snape hissed. ``What are you
doing here? If the Headmaster---''

``I just made you my guardian by filing a paper with the Ministry,''
Harry interrupted him. ``Can I come in?''

Snape stared at him intently for a long moment. There was a bare flicker
of warmth in his eyes before he inclined his head and moved out of the
way. ``Idiot child,'' he said again, more mildly this time. ``I suppose
that you have left all your brewing equipment with Minerva.''

``Yes,'' said Harry agreeably.

``Well, we will ask her for it tomorrow. In the meantime, come here and
make yourself useful for once.''

Harry moved over to brew one of the lesser potions that the Wolfsbane
took. After working so hard on Hawthorn's batch, he could tell easily
where the brewing was at any stage.

``And Harry?''

Harry glanced up. Snape was watching him with his head on one side.

``Well done,'' Snape said quietly.

This time, it destroyed the bitter memory of what he had said after the
Veritaserum and replaced it with a good one. Harry grinned at him and
turned back to his brewing.

\chapter{*Chapter 14*: Interlude: A Little
Knowledge}\label{chapter-14-interlude-a-little-knowledge}

I just realized I'm not going to get as much writing time tomorrow as I
thought I was, so I'm writing and posting this tonight. There
\emph{will} be a regular chapter up tomorrow, though.

\textbf{Interlude: A Little Knowledge}

\emph{October 17th, 1993}

\emph{Dear Mr. Potter:}

I hope you will forgive the formal means of salutation at the beginning
of this letter, and the charm that I have placed on this parchment to
make my handwriting unfamiliar. I {do} know you, I know a great deal
about you, and it feels hypocritical to hide behind a mask that I have
created. However, I feel I have no choice. If you knew who I was, you
would question me, distrust my motives for communicating with you like
this, and above all demand answers that you would not believe. Please,
be patient with me, and read what I write here, and do your best to open
your mind and grant that the {possibility} of truth is here, if not the
reality of it.

I am under pressure as I write this. There are many who would like
nothing better than to take away the choice I am intent on giving you---

No, those are the wrong words. The choice has always been yours, and I
am not the one who will give it to you. I am the one who, if all goes
well and you grant the possibility of truth to these words, will let you
know it exists.

You will have read the history of the First War with the Dark Lord. You
will have read other histories. I know that you are astonishingly
well-versed in ancient pureblood customs, and that you have used that
knowledge in the past to dance with purebloods and best them on their
own territory. However, I am asking you to reconsider a very simple fact
of that history:

Why has the title used always been ``Lord?'' (Or ``Lady,'' as in the
case of the Light Lady Calypso McGonagall, but I must admit ruefully
that witches often have better sense than to become involved in games of
conquest and power, preferring instead to dwell on the inner mind and
develop their own control of themselves).

The title is important, Mr. Potter. It stakes a claim as well as
announces what the wizard is to the whole world. The purebloods, and the
Muggleborns---it is not the name I was born using for them, but I know
it is the one you prefer---once they became part of the wizarding world,
grant a certain recognition by using it. They acknowledge that the
wizard holding it possesses power---power over them. Magic, Mr. Potter.
It sings more sweetly than you can know, since you grew up with so much
of your own power confined, one Lord in our world held up as a figure
for you to revere, and one identified as the target of your enmity.

Dark Lords tend to conquer. Light Lords tend to rule. Both sway
followers to their sides with the sheer lure of being near so much
magic. And if one has to grant them the title of Lord and sometimes obey
their commands, what of it? At least that immense power is not turned
against them. And for many servants of the Lords, it has been about more
than fear of that power, or even shared ideals. We were born to be near
magic, those of us who carry it in our blood. It strengthens us,
revitalizes us, cleanses our souls, works a rebirth in our perceptions
of ourselves, changes our relationship to the world around us. Imagine
it flowing over you like waves of an ocean that you can breathe, and
which at the same time is light and sweet music and the scent of roses
(or whichever flower you prefer). It is intoxicating. Not impossible to
resist, especially once one is aware of it, but very convincing, very
ensnaring.

Now imagine, Mr. Potter, what would happen if a wizard with such power
came into our world---and did not claim the title of Lord. Imagine that
he instead looked upon such compulsions as the Lords have been wont to
use, and disdained them. Imagine that he worked to wield his power with
such finesse and such delicacy that it would not harm the minds around
it. Imagine he offered {possibilities} to those around him, paths for
the future and hopes they could never have achieved without his magic to
back them. Imagine that he was conscious, every moment, of what his
power could do and what it might be used for, and weighed the hopes of
those who came to him, and rejected the ones he deemed wrong instead of
mindlessly obeying every wizard's wish. Imagine such power bent to
defend, to protect and serve.

Many Lords have gone mad trying to be such a creature, and ended up
wearing the simpler title. Others have howled in fear and denied that
such a possibility existed, because that would mean they would lose
followers, or have to look too long and hard at their own tendency to
use compulsion unthinkingly. And in practice, Mr. Potter, there has
often been little difference between the Light and the Dark Lords. Both
could wield the magic of both sides, compulsion or free will. It is the
allegiances they declared themselves for that made the difference, that
and the strength of their magic.

I will tell you now, Mr. Potter, that I think you have a good
possibility of becoming such a wizard, nameless right now, but committed
both to his own freedom and that of others. I am trying to show others
that that might also be your path. But I can only persuade, and that
will take a long time. I will not force. I will not compel. I have used
Dark magic unhesitatingly in the past, but not for this. The purpose is
too high, the path too bright.

Two things you must know:

First, Dumbledore fears what you may become. He fears what it would mean
if a mere boy of thirteen was able to do greater and more moral things
than he can, because he fears looking too closely at the consequences of
his own decisions. It is a fear all the Light Lords have had.

Second, {do not trust Sirius Black.}

\emph{Starborn.}

\chapter{Padfoot and Moony}\label{chapter-15-padfoot-and-moony}

``Harry?''

Harry hastily folded Starborn's letter and put it in the pocket of his
robe as Connor ducked into the Owlery. Harry shook his head and turned
back to his task, binding the bundle he'd made around Hedwig's leg as
she balanced on her perch. When he was certain it wouldn't fall off, he
stepped back and met Hedwig's golden eyes.

``Take this to Lucius Malfoy, girl, please,'' he said softly.

Hedwig hooted at him, leaned forward to run a piece of his hair through
her beak, and then took off, her wings sending up a mist of dust and
feathers. Harry sneezed through it, and heard Connor sneezing behind
him. Harry smiled. It was a peaceful moment enjoyed with his brother.

It didn't last.

``Harry?'' Connor asked, his voice thick with disbelief. ``What are you
doing sending gifts to Lucius \emph{Malfoy}, of all people?''

Harry turned to face him. Godric, Connor's black eagle-owl, was trying
to get his attention from his perch, but Connor ignored him. His gaze
was fixed steadily on Harry, his hazel eyes wide with disbelief and
something that looked like betrayal. Harry sighed. He had become
accustomed to that look on his brother's face lately.

``Because I'm truce-dancing with him,'' said Harry simply.

The puzzled expression on Connor's face didn't ease.

Harry muttered under his breath. ``Isn't Sirius teaching you anything?''
he asked, irritated, as he pushed past Connor and turned towards the
stairs. ``He said that he would. You need to know about pureblood
customs and history and honor in order to make a good leader.''

``He's been teaching me in compulsion magic,'' said Connor, voice gone
cold, as he trailed Harry. ``I thought you'd be \emph{proud} of me,
Harry. This what I'm supposed to learn. I'm learning to fight, to
survive in the war, to be the Boy-Who-Lived. What else do you want me to
do?''

Harry turned around and leaned against the wall of the staircase.
``Connor, what do you think will happen after the war?''

Connor's face went blank---not the practiced draining of expression that
he had lately whenever Harry disagreed with him about Slytherins, but
true confusion. ``What do you mean? I know we'll win. Sirius told me
that Light Lords have always defeated Dark Lords, and that's what he's
training me to be, a Light Lord.''

Harry stifled a shudder. He had suspected that, but he had a different
idea of what the term might mean now, after reading Starborn's letter.
``All right, so we win the war. And then what happens?''

Connor said, in the voice of someone still trying to understand what he
was thinking about, ``Well---I think that we'll put the Death Eaters in
Azkaban.'' Harry held his tongue. His brother \emph{really} wouldn't
understand the contacts that Harry had among the former Death Eaters.
``And then we'll heal people who were hurt in the war. And Dumbledore
will probably make a speech.'' He shook his head. ``I don't know. What
do you think will happen after the war, Harry?''

Harry sighed and rubbed at his eyes. ``I think that we'll have a lot of
people to heal,'' he said. ``And I think there will be people who resent
us for winning. And there will be purebloods on our side, and purebloods
who aren't. I think we'll have a lot of work to do, Connor, to put the
wizarding world back together again. If you don't know pureblood history
and customs, how are you going to do it? You'll have to send someone
else to speak to them instead of coming yourself, and that's an
insult.''

``Harry, you think \emph{too much} about this kind of thing!'' Connor
cried, and flung an arm around his shoulders. ``Now, come on. Sirius
said that you could sit in on my lesson today. Remember?''

Harry managed to hide his flinch. ``Yes, right,'' he said.

He ought to be grateful, he told himself as they hurried down the
stairs. He got to spend time with his brother today, and all the other
people he could have spent it with---Draco, Flint, Luna, Neville,
Zacharias, Justin---had understood, if reluctantly, that a day with his
brother was a rare treat.

But Harry had hoped that Connor would want to spend at least part of the
day flying or eating or playing a prank. He didn't want to sit and watch
as compulsion magic was flung around for a few hours, then have to
excuse himself because he was shaking and sick to his stomach with fear
and revulsion.

As if reading his mind, Connor asked wistfully, ``Harry, isn't there
some way that you could become more comfortable with compulsion magic?
For my sake? It's not a Dark gift, we know that now---''

``Remus would say it is,'' Harry interrupted. ``You remember how he
explained Light and Dark magic at the beginning of the year.''

Connor shrugged. ``Well, Remus was wrong. Are you going to believe him,
or all the books that explain compulsion magic can be a Light gift, as
long as the person who has it learns to control it?''

\emph{I got in trouble last year for trusting a book,} Harry almost
said, but stopped himself. Connor knew that all too well. He'd been
possessed by Tom Riddle too, after all. ``Can I read the book that
explains what you are? You know, the goblin one?''

Connor blinked, then smiled. ``Of course!'' No doubt he was enthralled
to see Harry finally interested in more than the disgusting aspect of
compulsion magic.

Harry touched the letter in his pocket, and listened to the crinkle of
parchment. Now that Starborn had given him an idea of what to look for,
Harry really \emph{did} want to read that book for himself, in the hopes
that it would let him understand a little more of Starborn's cryptic
natterings.

\emph{}


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


\emph{The goblins of the North have long proclaimed themselves different
from the goblins of the South, who have been working and living among
wizards since before the Norman Conquest. The goblins of the North, on
the other hand, have said that they would respect only a wizard who met
a certain set of criteria\ldots{}}

``Very good, Connor!''

Harry blinked and glanced up. Connor and Sirius were across the room in
the Shrieking Shack, and Connor had apparently just compelled a rabbit
to hop straight into his hand. His brother was laughing in delight, and
the rabbit was wildly struggling, fighting no visible pressure on his
body.

Harry's breath sped up, and his sight began to spin and narrow to a
distant blur. He turned hastily, determinedly, back to Griphook
Fishbaggin's book. He could see why it fascinated Connor. It talked a
lot about compulsion magic in vague and abstract terms, and mentioned
good uses to which it had been put.

But it also praised free will in higher terms, and Harry wondered how
that could have escaped his brother. Maybe he just hadn't wanted to see.

\emph{That set of criteria has been variously and problematically
defined, by both wizards and the goblins themselves. Following is a list
of the words and phrases in Gobbledegook, the goblin tongue, that may be
taken to refer to such a wizard.}

Harry turned the page, and his mouth fell open. Connor hadn't been
kidding about the list of terms. Even the simplest had its own
explanation, peppered with frequent question marks.

\textbf{\emph{Halark mazkatin.}} \emph{This phrase nominally translates
to `opener of doors,' but it is a puzzle why the goblins would need a
second phrase for it, as they have their own word for `porter.' Also,
the doors are supposedly not literal. What does this mean?}

\emph{\textbf{Kevnaz.} This word simply means `seer.' At least, so I
believed for a long time. However, I have learned that the implication
is of a non-goblin seer. (Much as we refer to `non-human' magical
creatures, so the goblins of the North refer to `non-goblins.') Yet, at
the same time, do goblins believe that other species can even have true
seers? I had not thought so.}

And on and on it went, with Fishbaggin seeming almost as confused as
Harry was beginning to be. He heard a throat clearing, and it took that
to tear his attention away from the book. Connor stood in front of him,
smiling slightly.

``Yes?'' Harry asked, when his brother simply went on smiling at him,
instead of doing something.

Connor shook his head, grinning. ``Just wanted to see how long it would
take you to say yes,'' he said. ``Sirius wants to talk to you about
something. I'll see you back at Hogwarts, all right?'' He bounced
towards the entrance to the tunnel that ran under the Whomping Willow
and back towards school. Harry gave a bewildered nod to his brother's
back, then turned and looked at Sirius.

Sirius sat down on the bed beside Harry and put his head in his hands.

Harry tensed up at once. This was going to be another of the very worst
sessions, then, the ones where Sirius cried and shook. Harry had dreaded
them ever since the first time they happened, when he first visited the
pair. Connor had simply stood in the background, an expression of
sympathy on his face, as Sirius sobbed and told Harry how much he meant
to him, he was his \emph{godson}, he \emph{meant} something to him,
didn't he \emph{see} that? Harry had to respond with awkward apologies
and attempts to explain his distance, none of which went over well with
Sirius. Since that time, Connor had left them alone when they talked. He
claimed, when Harry asked him, that godfather and godson needed time
alone.

Harry somewhat doubted that. He, at least, didn't need any time alone
with the person Sirius had become, or was becoming.

Somewhat shocked by the bitterness of that thought, he was unprepared
for Sirius to lift his head, wipe his eyes, and say, ``Your parents sent
me a letter, Harry. They've had Aurors questioning them. \emph{Aurors!}
The letter said they had a son called Harry Potter attending Hogwarts,
whom they didn't remember, and until an attempt to remove the spell on
them worked, he was going to spend his time with a former Death Eater
called Severus Snape. The letter said that their son had chosen Snape as
his guardian, out of all the choices available.''

Harry stared. Sirius had gone from shocky and shaky to furious. His eyes
were glowing as they had when he attacked Snape in the Great Hall. His
hands were clenched in front of him, and he was breathing fast. Harry
felt his magic respond instinctively, pouring through the channels in
his body, ready to raise barriers if Sirius attacked him.

``Why?'' Sirius whispered. ``\emph{Why} Snape, Harry? Why do you want
him? I'm at Hogwarts, and so is Moony. They sent along a copy of the
Department of Magical Law Enforcement's letter. You could have chosen
one of us. Why did you pick \emph{him}?'' The last word was a snarl.

Harry bared his teeth. \emph{So it's come down to this, then? Fine. He
avoided it all summer, even after he knew. There's no reason to avoid it
now.} ``Do you know why I put that spell on my parents, Sirius?''

``What spell, Harry?'' Sirius demanded, leaning nearer. His teeth were
bared in a dog's warning. ``What did you \emph{do} to them?''

``\emph{Fugitivus Animus Amplector},'' said Harry, as calmly as he could
with his godfather so close. He wanted to defend himself, he realized.
He wanted to call \emph{Protego} and keep the Shield Charm between them.
He wanted Snape there.

Sirius stared at him, then shook his head. ``That's not possible,'' he
said. ``The Aurors would have recognized and broken that spell.''

Harry laughed. It didn't sound nice. It made Sirius's face crumple a
little. ``They would have had to use as much power to break the spell as
I did in casting it,'' he said. ``And I don't think any Auror is quite
that strong, or even two or three of them working in combination.''

There. He'd said it, admitted his own power aloud to Sirius for the
first time. \emph{Let's see how he takes it.}

``Harry,'' Sirius whispered, and the balance in the room tilted crazily,
away from anger and back towards sorrow again. ``What have you done?
What have you become? What's happened to my little godson who used to
watch Connor singing about Gryffindor and clap his hands?''

Harry drew in a deep breath. ``That wasn't me,'' he said. ``That
was---that was your godson. That was who I was, who my parents
\emph{made} me into.''

Sirius froze. Then he said, ``What are you talking about, Harry? Lily
and James never made you sing if you didn't want to.''

Harry clenched his fists, rolled off the bed, and stood up. He could
feel the air around him chilling, his rage and his power spreading.
``You were a Gryffindor, Sirius. Do you have to be such a bloody
coward?''

Shocked speechless, Sirius didn't manage to respond before Harry turned
and started shouting at him. It felt damn \emph{good} to shout, Harry
realized. The rage around him wasn't exactly turning hot, but it did
relax, and seemed less likely to reach out and turn something to ice.

``They \emph{hurt} me, Sirius! And you knew that, after what my mother
told you last year, and you let them do it anyway! They twisted and
warped my mind and my magic, bound me and changed me into something I
never would have been if not for them! I still don't really know
\emph{why} they did it, except that they needed a protector for Connor,
and somehow they decided I'd do! But they should have helped protect
him, too! They were the adults. You were the adults. You didn't
\emph{act} like adults, but you were! You should have known! Why the
hell didn't you try to get me away from them, Sirius? Why did you treat
me as if \emph{I'd} done something wrong, just because I was Sorted into
Slytherin? And now you're on me about choosing Snape for my guardian.''
Harry tried to laugh. It got caught in his throat. ``Did you ever think
that maybe I feel \emph{safe} with him, because he tried to do something
to help me, when you didn't do a bloody fucking thing to keep my parents
away from me, Sirius? Not one bloody fucking thing!''

Sirius's face was ghost-white by the time Harry finished. It turned as
gray as the Dementor's robes in the next instant. He shook his head.

``There are so many things you don't understand,'' he murmured. ``So
many things\ldots{}'' He abruptly broke off with a cry, as though
someone had hit him, and fell over and huddled on the bed again.

Harry shut his eyes and turned away. There was no satisfaction to be had
in yelling at someone so weak, and he could already feel guilt creeping
in where the rage had been. Sirius hadn't actually been the one who hurt
Harry. That was his parents. But Harry shuddered at the thought of
facing them, because whatever he told them would affect his bond with
Connor. They were Connor's parents, too.

\emph{Do you have to be so selfish?}

Harry tilted his head to the side. That sounded like his mother's voice,
and it was definitely coming from inside his mind---

\emph{Does everything have to revolve around you? Can't you learn that
other people have suffered in their lives, too, and that your sufferings
don't negate theirs or make them any less?}

A flash of light and fire behind his eyes told Harry what this was. The
phoenix web was reviving, perhaps stirred by his immense explosion of
rage, and reaching out to take what it could of his thoughts.

His mother's voice continued, relentless. \emph{So you were trained to
play the role of Connor's protector. Does that matter? There was a time
when you would have fought everyone else off rather than give up that
role. Does that mean that we should apologize for making you what you
are, the person Snape and Draco admire? They would never have paid
attention to you if you weren't the way you were, if you were just the
Boy-Who-Lived's older brother.}

Harry shook his head weakly. This couldn't---this wasn't true---

\emph{Your magic is only so strong because it was confined. When the
confinement wears off, then you'll be back to the strength that you
always had. And then you'll want your parents, your godfather, but
they'll have turned their backs on you, because you couldn't appreciate
what you had while you had it. Do you want to be left all alone? It
sounds like you're begging for that.}

It sounded more and more like Lily as it went on, complete with the
tearful recriminations on the end. Harry had heard her crying like that
the few times as a child he tried to refuse his training, saying he was
tired. Did he want Connor to die? She'd asked him that. Did he want his
brother to lose his life because Harry didn't know how to perform an
effective Shield Charm, because he would rather sleep than learn how to
defend Connor against curses?

And every time, Harry had picked himself up and gone back to his books.
He could be tired later. One of the books had expressed it best, giving
part of a speech that a Light Lord defending against a Dark Lord six
hundred years ago had spoken, and ending with \emph{Rest is for the
dead.}

Harry felt himself fall to his knees, but dimly. The phoenix web was
spreading over his vision now, turning everything into a haze of fire
and gold, tightening its hold on his mind. Thoughts that had seemed
thinkable a moment ago were becoming less so. \emph{Why} had he shouted
at Sirius? What did it matter that Sirius hadn't confronted his parents
about the way they treated him? Harry wouldn't have wanted him to. He
would have been upset. And look what happened to Remus when he
interfered. He had to become a sacrifice, too, or at least his memories
did, for the good of the wizarding world.

\emph{You inflict such pain when you protest, pain on others and on your
bonds with others. Do you want that? Do you want Connor to look at you
with disgust someday? Do you want him to ask you whether you choose the
Slytherins or him, and have you hesitate, and have him turn his back on
you and the choice be lost forever? He's your brother. Draco is just
your friend. How could you do this to him?}

Harry cried out in misery, and heard footsteps abruptly hastening up the
tunnel that led from the Whomping Willow.

``Harry? Sirius?''

Remus was in the room in the next moment, grabbing Harry and holding him
close. Harry leaned his head on Remus's chest and stopped shaking. The
phoenix web was retreating, pushed away by the presence of a person who
obviously still cherished him, despite his daring to shout and use magic
against other people.

Harry closed his eyes and fought to still the racing of his heart. He
could feel Sirius and Remus exchanging glances over his head, and then
heard them arguing, low-voiced. He could only catch splinters of their
conversation through the pain and chaos in his head.

``..didn't have to do that\ldots{}''

``\emph{Snape} as a guardian, Moony! \emph{Snape}\ldots{}''

``\ldots{}has reasons\ldots{}''

``\ldots{}way of spending more time with us\ldots{}''

``\ldots{}what happened\ldots{}.''

``No \emph{way} we can tell him what happened! No \emph{way}\ldots{}''

``Hush, Sirius, I know, I know. Let's ask him.'' Remus gently reached
down and tilted up Harry's chin, until Harry's eyes were level with his.
The werewolf gave him an equally gentle smile. ``Harry,'' he said
conversationally, ``did you know that I can run on full moon nights
since I've started taking the Wolfsbane Potion?''

Harry blinked, trying to wrench his thoughts away from the consuming mix
of guilt for his own actions and anger against his mother and Dumbledore
for placing the phoenix web in his mind in the first place. ``Really?''
he asked cautiously. ``I thought you still stayed---well, here, or in
your office.''

Remus laughed gently. ``Hardly! I'm a man in a wolf's body now, able to
roam and run without losing control of my instinct. Sirius transforms
into Padfoot, and comes with me.'' He hesitated for a moment, then
nodded, as if he'd had to convince himself this was the right decision.
``And we'd like you to come with us. We run through the Forbidden
Forest, mostly. I think it might be a good distraction for your magic.''

Harry could imagine that it would be. The one thing he didn't want to
think about was spending time with Sirius, after what Sirius had said to
him.

\emph{But that wasn't really Sirius's fault, was it? You should have
known better than to question him about that.}

``All right,'' he whispered. ``This full moon?''

Remus nodded enthusiastically. ``Just one night, Harry. I don't know if
you'd be up to running around all three nights, anyway.'' He smiled.
``But you ought to see us. There's a---a wildness in the Forbidden
Forest that I can sense when I'm not human. I think you'll enjoy it,
too.''

Harry swallowed several times. ``All right,'' he whispered at last.

``Excellent!'' Remus hugged him one more time and stood up. ``Now, come
on. I'm hungry, and want lunch.''

Harry smiled at him and accompanied him out of the Shack. He knew Sirius
was following them, but he didn't dare to look back. He was not sure if
he would rush to Sirius in that moment, hug him, and beg his
forgiveness, or try to strip his flesh from his bones with only the
knife's edge of his magic.


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\newpage


Snape took one look at him when Harry came to help finish brewing the
Wolfsbane that night and strode across the room, catching his chin and
staring hard into his eyes. Harry averted his gaze and brought up his
Occlumency shields.

\emph{He wouldn't understand,} whispered the phoenix web. \emph{He
wouldn't want to spare Sirius, would he? He hates Sirius. And you have
to try to understand Sirius. It's obvious that something's happened to
him. You have to try and understand, Harry. Everyone deserves a second
chance.}

``What happened?'' Snape demanded, without letting Harry go.

``Nothing,'' Harry whispered.

``If you will not tell me, I cannot help you.'' Snape still didn't let
him go.

Harry wanted to tell him. The temptation was strong, the words hovering
on the tip of his tongue. But then Snape would get angry on his behalf,
and storm and rage, and there would be another fight between Snape and
Sirius, and this time Dumbledore might really sack Snape. How could
Harry bear being the cause of that? He was barely standing the rush of
memories that the phoenix web had brought back to him all day, of times
when he'd hurt other people with his magic or his selfishness.

He cleared his throat. Snape waited, his eyes intent.

``I don't want to talk about it,'' Harry whispered, and then wrenched
himself free and walked over to one of the waiting cauldrons.

Snape's eyes cut holes in his back. Harry chopped and mixed and sliced,
and went on doing so until he felt Snape move back to his own work. He
let out a low breath.

``Do not imagine for one breath that I have forgotten this,'' Snape said
then, voice soft and deadly. ``And do not imagine for one moment that I
do not know who is the cause of this.''

Harry glanced up in panic, only to see Snape staring fixedly at a locked
cupboard across the room. ``Your parents,'' Snape whispered.

Harry sagged. No, it wasn't healthy to have Snape so angry at James and
Lily, but at least they were in Godric's Hollow, not here at Hogwarts
where Snape might harm them. ``Yes,'' he said, as though agreeing.

Snape said nothing for the rest of the evening, except to direct Harry
in the brewing of the potion. His gaze didn't often waver from the
locked cabinet, no matter what he was doing. Harry wondered what was in
there that was so interesting.


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\newpage


``Ready, Harry?'' Sirius asked, now looking smiling and cheerful, much
more his normal self.

Harry stood outside the castle, shivering slightly as a chill breeze cut
through him. They were on the lawn in front of the Forbidden Forest,
which loomed dark and black and oddly inviting. Overhead, the full moon
blazed with rigid clarity, like bone that someone had set on fire.

Harry's gaze went briefly to the werewolf standing on the other side of
Sirius. Remus didn't look exactly like a normal wolf when transformed,
being longer in the jaw and leg. But his coat was gray, and he had his
head lifted so that he could sniff the wind. And he hadn't attacked
anyone yet. Harry found himself hoping that the same thing was happening
to Hawthorn Parkinson, wherever she was. He had delivered the Wolfsbane
Potion by owl a few days ago, since she had written him that it was too
dangerous for her to come to Hogwarts. Harry wanted to imagine her
taking it and then running through the woods, enjoying the strength and
speed and power of her lupine body without the urge to kill anyone.

He turned to Sirius and nodded.

Sirius grinned, the devil-may-care grin that he used when he played a
prank. ``Don't worry if you can't keep up,'' he said softly. ``That's
not the point. Just run.''

He transformed into the black dog, and barked once.

Moony tossed back his head and howled. Harry shivered. That sound was
definitely \emph{not} a normal wolf's voice. It had no trace of
melancholy to it, only wild power.

Padfoot barked again, and then began to run forward. The werewolf's legs
surged down, and then forward, and he sprinted into the woods a good
distance ahead of Padfoot. The big black dog barked enthusiastically,
still running.

Harry ran after them.

It was easy to keep up with them at first, even with the branches
slapping and scraping at him. He leaped over the trail sometimes as it
twisted and turned in front of him, and took advantage of the clear
areas that Moony and Padfoot had left. But soon they were plunging
through thick underbrush that snagged but didn't stop them, and Harry
had to run behind them, trying to keep track of the plunging shapes. He
could see Moony still speeding up, moving effortlessly, and knew from
his own harsh panting that he couldn't go much longer.

Then his magic came out.

Harry felt it stir and take a deep breath, as though it liked the smells
of the wild Forest night. Then it swept through his body, and sped his
feet, and cooled his panting, and eased the stitch that had started to
grow in his side. Harry felt it lift and beat like wings, the way he had
only felt a few times. One of them had been in the battle with Voldemort
at the end of first year, and he shuddered. That had not been far from
where he was now running.

But this time, he was not in battle, and the magic was not angry or
defensive, only silent and intent. He wanted to keep up with Moony and
Padfoot. The magic knew that, and it was going to help him.

He felt himself skim through tangles that should have caught him, and
wondered if he was actually flying through them, or if his magic had
simply brushed them aside. He avoided roots and rocks that should have
caught his feet, and sprang across small hollows that should have made
him trip. He ran and he ran and he ran, and still his breath passed
cleanly and easily out of his lungs. It made him feel like singing.

A trill of song passed above his head as if in answer. Harry lifted his
head, and saw Fawkes flying there, his wings spread wide and his tail
trailing like a comet's. Even through the darkness, Harry could feel the
phoenix's eye on him. Fawkes sang again, and then rose and disappeared
briefly behind the branches. Harry knew he was tracking him, though,
could feel the bright presence moving along steadily at his right
shoulder.

Then there came the sound of hooves, and centaurs were galloping as
steadily opposite him. They did not say anything, but when Harry glanced
at him, they nodded their heads once, in grave gestures of recognition.
They reared in the next moment, and tore back into the Forest.

Other creatures replaced them, things that Harry recognized from his
reading and others he didn't. He thought he saw a swift, two-legged
thing that was not a bird, with grasping talons and claws on its feet
big enough to tear a man in two. He knew at one point there were
unicorns, running with their tails behind them like streams of
starlight, their horns catching the full moon's every gleam in ways that
brought tears to his eyes. He knew he saw the coiling shape of an
immense snake, and the striding legs of what could have been giant
spiders. None of them stayed long, except for Fawkes, whom Harry could
still feel like a beacon above him. All of them moved alongside him for
a short time, often making some brief gesture of invitation or
recognition, and then plunged back into the darkness of the Forest.

Harry felt less and less fear as he ran. His magic spread around him,
filing the Forest with familiarity if not with light. He ran contained
within it, spinning along as if on a broom. But this was the exaltation
he had always felt on a broom strengthened and deepened. He was not
afraid even when he recognized the three-headed shape of a Runespoor
slithering rapidly beside him, and he called out a greeting in its own
tongue. The three heads turned towards him, gave three identical snaps
in unison, and then guided the Runespoor back into the bushes.

Harry knew it would have to end at some point, and it did. He jerked to
a stop in a clearing, his heart hammering and his head filled with gold
that did not come from the phoenix web. He spun around in a circle, his
hands above his head, laughing. He \emph{felt} the light when Fawkes
came spiraling down and landed on his shoulder with a rushing croon. He
felt his magic spread out further, shaking its head like a wild horse,
rearing and dancing, with no purpose to hurt or destroy, only play.

He felt it when Moony came to the edge of the clearing and jerked to a
stop, his nose in the air and his attitude and posture stiff. Harry
turned and looked towards him, still smiling.

The werewolf's brilliant amber eyes were staring at him. Harry was
puzzled by them. He could see recognition in them, the same that the
other magical creatures had seemed to show him, but why? It was not as
though Moony didn't know who he was. Remus had been around Harry since
he was a baby.

``Good show, Harry!''

Sirius was behind Moony, panting, human again, his body covered with
scratches and his face freer than it had been in a long time. Harry
found himself thinking that he ought to run through the Forbidden Forest
every night, if it did him this much good. Moony turned away, the odd
recognition disappearing from his eyes, and nudged at Sirius's hand.

Sirius scratched his ears, his eyes on Harry now. ``How did you keep up
with us?'' he asked, with a smile in his voice that said he knew the
answer already.

``Magic,'' said Harry at once. Fawkes shifted on his shoulder and rubbed
his neck against Harry's, prompting Harry to raise a hand and scratch
the golden feathers. They bristled with a pleasant heat, counteracting
the chill of the late October air.

Sirius smiled and nodded. ``Think you want to run on?''

Harry thought about it, but an immense yawn caught him, and he shook his
head. Fawkes made a chirp of protest as that disturbed his perch on
Harry's shoulder. ``I think I'll go back in and go to bed,'' he said.
The air still thrummed with magic, but it had calmed down now. Harry
decided he would sleep better with the memory of peace and wonder still
untaxed, rather than exhausting himself. ``See you tomorrow, Sirius,
Remus.'' He nodded to the werewolf.

Moony's ears came up, and he stared hard at Harry. Harry shrugged and
eased past them, back through the Forest. The walk was still light and
easy, though far slower than it had been earlier. Harry supposed he
ought to worry about some creature of the Forest possibly confronting
and hurting him on the way back.

None of them did, though Harry did sometimes see signs of movement off
the path, indicating he had an escort again. Maybe that was due to
Fawkes, who showed no sign of moving from his perch on Harry's shoulder.
Harry reached the entrance of the castle, and still Fawkes didn't move.
Harry reached the entrance to the Slytherin common room, and paused to
look at the phoenix again. Fawkes put his head on one side and watched
him calmly back, with one eye.

``Won't Dumbledore be wondering where you are?'' Harry asked.

Fawkes gave a cheerful trill. Harry couldn't translate it the way Dobby
would have, but he recognized the tone: \emph{don't care.}

Harry thought back to his last visit to Dumbledore's office. The phoenix
hadn't been there. Maybe Dumbledore wouldn't worry at that.

``All right,'' he said, with a shrug that Fawkes reprimanded him for,
and whispered, ``\emph{Dignatio verus,}'' to the wall. It opened, and
Harry made his way to the third-year boys' bedroom. He saw a slight
shift that was Draco relaxing into sleep. Harry had told him where he
would be tonight, but the other boy had waited up for him anyway.

Fawkes fluttered from Harry's shoulder to the top of his canopy while he
put on his pyjamas and brushed his teeth, but then insisted on coming
inside the hangings with him and perching on the edge of his bed,
radiating warmth.

``Cuddly thing, aren't you?'' Harry muttered, and closed his eyes.

Fawkes began to sing, softly enough that Harry didn't think he was
disturbing anyone else. He fell asleep contentedly, and for once, when
phoenix music twined with his dreams, he wasn't frightened of it.


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\newpage


Albus Dumbledore stood at his window, hands clenched hard on the sill.
He could see the full moon from here, and he knew that underneath it
somewhere, Sirius and Remus were running, as well as other werewolves,
some tame, some not. It was not that which had disturbed him.

Magic had brought him out of bed. Magic had jerked him awake. Albus
could have slept through any of the ordinary small flares that were the
professors performing spells, or a first-year's accidental magic
escaping his control. But this was something else, a deep and booming
symphony that had raised a thousand thousand voices in response to it.
The Forbidden Forest was still stirring, not like a hornet's nest but
like some sleek and beautiful creature awakened after a long sleep.

\emph{And about to go hunting,} Albus thought, and shivered. This was
the first song of a deeper threat than Voldemort was. He knew that
Voldemort would be defeated, thanks to the prophecy. Harry might easily
raise his voice and rouse so many answers that something altogether
different would happen, something that would rock the foundations of the
very wizarding world. And when foundations rocked, people died.

He \emph{must} bind the boy again. It was the only answer. He had
thought that the subtle strengthening of the phoenix web he had been
doing lately would work, but if Harry's magic was as free as this, it
was a sign that the web had weakened once more.

He turned to go back to bed, giving Fawkes's empty perch a frown along
the way. Granted, the phoenix had been gone for long periods of time
before, but it wasn't like him to stay away when Albus could have used
the company.

\chapter{*Chapter 16*: Detention With
Draco}\label{chapter-16-detention-with-draco}

Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter!

Now, this chapter illustrates one of the perils of having tension build
all the time: sooner or later, it's got to explode.

\textbf{Chapter Fourteen: Detention With Draco}

\emph{Clink.}

Albus sighed and straightened his back as the last link in his trap was
placed. It wouldn't be possible to use it until tonight---the devices
needed time to adapt to the spells he'd placed on them, and Harry would
need to be in his rooms, sleeping, which would happen for sure after the
Halloween Feast---but he doubted that anyone would discover it before
then. He had commanded the house elves to place the devices in
out-of-the-way spots, and of course, since he was Headmaster of
Hogwarts, they had obeyed him gladly and swiftly.

He waved a hand to dismiss the hovering window through which he'd
observed the trap placement, and then sat down heavily behind his desk,
to once more mourn that such a trap had been necessary. If Harry had
only listened to his mother's words in his mind yesterday, coming from
one of the unmodified devices, Albus would not have had to do this.

\emph{If Voldemort had not done what he did the night he attacked
Godric's Hollow, you would have no reason to worry about this at all.}

Albus nodded his head, once, in determination, and then straightened. It
was useless wishing for the present to turn back and change the past,
and he had lived long enough to know exactly how powerless regrets were.

He swept from the room, then, to prepare for the Halloween Feast, giving
Fawkes's perch only one irritated glance along the way.


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``Draco, what is \emph{wrong} with you?''

Draco turned around and relaxed a little. Harry was fine, though he
looked windblown from Quidditch practice; the first game, against
Gryffindor, was on Saturday, and Flint had been drilling all his team
hard. Flint had also forbidden Draco from coming to watch the practice,
claiming that he distracted Harry. Draco didn't think that was true, and
even if he had, would have determined it fair payment for the way that
he worried whenever Harry was out of sight.

Today, though, his jumpiness and twitchiness had increased, and he
didn't know \emph{why.} He just shook his head and reached down to touch
a piece of Harry's hair that was sticking straight up from his head,
grinning. Harry swatted his hand away with a practiced motion and shook
his head.

``I'm going to go to the library and study with Neville,'' he announced,
ducking down to pick up his bag from the floor.

``Good,'' said Draco, swinging down to collect the Transfiguration book
he'd laid beside the bed. ``I'll come with you.''

Harry gave him a long look. ``Zacharias will probably be there too,'' he
said. ``There's really no need for me to have an escort to the library,
Draco.''

Draco's nervousness spilled out his mouth before he could stop it. ``Yes
there fucking well is, Harry, and you know it.'' He strode up to Harry
and pushed his hair back. The lightning bolt scar was inflamed, but not
bleeding. Draco managed to hide his surprise and rally before that
ruined the point he wanted to make. ``Someone might try to attack you at
any time.''

``Somehow I think the Headmaster has better things to do than lurk
around corners and wait for me, Draco,'' said Harry, and his magic
swirled and grumbled.

``I don't.''

Harry shook his head. ``\emph{Fine.} Come if you want to. But I don't
enjoy the feeling that I'm keeping you from your homework. You know
Potions as well as I do. Poor Neville doesn't, though, and that's what
I'll be tutoring him in.'' He turned determinedly towards the door down
to the common room.

``That's why I'll be studying something else,'' said Draco, and stifled
a laugh as he saw Harry's flush. \emph{The poor boy does hate being
embarrassed.}

The further they walked away from the Slytherin common room, the better
Draco felt---until they ascended the stairs into the entrance hall and
he felt it again, a buzzing and nagging against his nerves, building to
a pain like a beesting on his right temple. Draco turned to the right,
and the beesting moved until it seemed to hit him in the face. Draco
narrowed his eyes, staring hard at the tiny alcoves and doors scattered
around the Great Hall. \emph{Where is that coming from? What is it?}

``Draco?''

Draco could hear Harry tapping his foot, but he ignored him for the
moment. If he had a way to get rid of his jumpiness, then yes, he would
take it. He slunk forward, and finally traced the buzzing and the pain
to a small door that was probably a broom closet. He found it hard to
concentrate on. Notice-Me-Not spells seemed to be worked into the wood.
After a moment, though, he grasped the door and swung it open.

The buzzing wrongness focused on the one odd object in the closet: a
silver Pensieve, sitting on the floor and wound with glowing golden
runes. Draco frowned. There was something wrong with the Pensieve's
magic, something twisted away from the usual purpose, but he couldn't
figure out what it was just from looking. He would have to touch it.

``Draco, don't.''

Harry was holding his shoulder with one hand, and his other extended his
wand when Draco looked. His expression had gone flinty. Draco stared in
fascination. It was the first time he had seen open anger on Harry's
face without an explosion of magic following that made him drop into a
fetal position from the headache. The ferocity suited Harry better than
the whimpering weakness that had afflicted him this summer, he thought.

``Why not?'' Draco asked. ``I know that's what's bothering me, Harry.''

``I don't feel anything,'' said Harry stubbornly.

``You haven't been trained like I have,'' said Draco, as kindly as he
could. ``And even then, you're so powerful that your magic shields you
from tiny influences like these. This is subtle. But I know it's been
making me jumpy, or part of it.'' He brushed Harry's now-hesitant hand
from his shoulder and walked forward, kneeling to stick his head into
the Pensieve.

``\emph{Draco!}'' came Harry's anguished cry, and he heard feet running.

Then the memory swallowed him.


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\newpage


Draco blinked and glanced around. He knew for a fact that he didn't
recognize this place. It was a small, neat room, with wizarding pictures
on the walls that displayed an unfamiliar series of scenes, mostly
grassy fields with the grass rippling in the wind. The chairs sat close
around a cozy hearth, which in Malfoy Manor would have been twice as
big, and a bookcase packed tight with books stood along one wall. A
staircase off to his left led upwards, and Draco supposed there must be
more rooms up there. He shivered. The house would be claustrophobically
small if there weren't.

``Now, Harry, recite the names of the seven defensive kinds of curse for
me.''

Draco turned, and his breath caught in his throat and turned to glue.
Behind him, near a couch, were two figures he recognized, despite not
having studied them closely. One was Lily Potter, whom he'd briefly met
in Dumbledore's office last year. Her face was worn and lined, her mouth
set as she stared down at the child balancing on a chair next to her.

The other was Harry, Harry at perhaps five or six years old, with his
glasses already in place and his eyes on the book that he held. At his
mother's words, however, he shut the book and began to recite
obediently.

``Shielding curses, mirror curses, dream curses\ldots{}''

Draco recognized the names of only those first two types of defensive
curse. The others he'd never heard of. Harry recited them flawlessly,
and then sat with his eyes on his mother's face and waited.

Draco felt slightly sick when he realized Harry was looking at his
mother the way a Crup looked at its master for approval. And Lily gave
him what he wanted, with a nod and a smile and a motion of her hand that
came damn near being a pat on the head. Harry beamed. Then Lily stood
and backed to the far side of the room. Harry sat where he was at a
subtle gesture from her.

\emph{She has him well-trained, doesn't she?} Draco thought, anger
burning like bile in the back of his throat.

``Now,'' said Lily, ``pretend that I'm casting spells at you. This is a
battle to save Connor's life. Connor is behind you and to the right.''
Harry's eyes half-shut, and Draco knew he was envisioning it. ``Tell me
what kind of defensive curse you would use to stop each kind of spell.''

She drew her wand and moved it in a half-circle. ``\emph{Reducto!}''

The spell did not actually shoot towards Harry, but Harry tensed as if
it had and said, ``A mirror curse. Then you'd have to deal with your own
\emph{Reducto} reflected back twice or three times.''

Lily nodded. ``That will do. \emph{Consopio!}''

``A dream curse,'' said Harry, ``to arrest the sleep in mid-motion and
throw it back to you.''

Lily tilted her head briefly to the left. ``Acceptable, if you think you
could really catch my spell and throw it.''

Harry lifted his head slightly, his eyes gleaming. Draco would have
expected him to smile, but his face remained silent and intent. ``Can I
try?'' he asked softly.

Lily nodded. ``\emph{Consopio!}''

The sleeping spell had barely left Lily's wand when Harry held up a hand
and shouted, ``\emph{Speculum Consopio!}''

A milky substance formed in front of Harry, bouncing the spell so fast
that Draco was still blinking when he realized Lily had sprawled out on
the floor and gone to sleep. Harry hopped off his chair, ran to her, and
lightly touched her cheek. Lily stirred and woke, staring at her son.
``I thought you said you would use a dream curse, rather than a mirror
curse,'' she murmured.

``I thought I would, too,'' said Harry. ``But I think a mirror curse
works better with that particular spell.'' He was smiling, and Draco
stared. That certainly transformed his face.

Lily stood up, and the smile evaporated as Harry watched his mother.
``Tell me why you changed your mind,'' Lily said, in a tone of quiet
iron that Draco had never heard even his mother use. \emph{Well, maybe
the time I chased fairies all through the eastern rose garden and broke
most of the flowers,} he thought.

``Because I---'' Harry stopped, chewing his lip.

``The truth, Harry,'' said Lily, still in that iron voice.

``Partially because I thought it really was a good idea,'' said Harry,
bowing his head. ``And partially because---well, does it matter if a
Death Eater is asleep or asleep and having nightmares? They still
couldn't chase us.''

``They do deserve to suffer for attacking your brother,'' Lily said,
sinking to her knees in front of Harry. ``That is the way you have to
think, Harry.''

``But I thought being nice was a good thing.'' Harry sounded timid,
fragile, unsure. Draco wished he could do something to change this, but
morbid fascination---and furious curiosity about why this Pensieve had
been placed in the broom closet---made him keep watching.

``It is,'' said Lily gently. ``For your brother. Connor is the one who
has to remain innocent to defeat Voldemort, Harry. Remember, I told you
about that last week? Connor has to show mercy.''

Harry nodded, his eyes half-lidded, as though he were trying to recall a
difficult lesson, or a dream that insisted on escaping his grasp. Draco
had to swallow bile again.

``But you have to be strong,'' said Lily, and then put her hand beneath
her son's chin and tilted his head up so that his green eyes met hers.
They were almost the same shade of green, Draco thought, and wanted to
believe that was the only similarity he could see between their faces.
``That means that if an enemy comes up to you and tries to hurt you, you
have to be willing to hurt them back. If someone tries to kill you, then
you have to be willing to kill them. Or Connor will die before he's
eleven years old. Do you want your brother to die?''

``No,'' Harry whispered.

Lily hugged him. ``And I know that you don't want to kill him through
inaction, either. Just keep this in mind, Harry. Anyone could turn out
to be an enemy. Almost everyone, except the Gryffindors and the known
pureblood families who serve the Light, could be a traitor or a Death
Eater. So you've \emph{got} to be careful. I know that you'll make
friends when you go to school, but you have to be careful around them
all the time. And if one of them says something bad about Connor, or
tries to hurt him, then you'll have to hurt them back.''

Draco wanted to step out of the Pensieve, but not strongly enough to
resist watching the rest of the memory. \emph{It's a wonder that he
didn't hex me for the first remark I made about his brother. It's a
wonder that he's in Slytherin and seems to like it. It's a miracle that
he has any sense of compassion left.}

``I know,'' said Harry, and he looked and sounded solemn.

``Other than that,'' Lily said softly, ``you are doing very well, Harry.
You have just that little bit left to learn. Connor comes first, always
and forever. When you've learned that, then I'll never worry about him
again. I know that you'll be there, protecting him against all his
enemies, and making them hurt if they try to hurt him.'' She touched a
hand to his forehead, resting it over the lightning bolt scar. ``Connor
has mercy and compassion. You'll have to be justice, Harry, and
sometimes the executioner.''

Harry nodded at her, and then the memory trembled to a stop, and Draco
knew that it was ended. He wrenched himself backwards with a gasp, and
then kicked viciously at the Pensieve. The golden runes on the sides
were hissing like Harry's snake had done last year, but they quieted
when the silvery liquid of the thoughts inside splashed out and ran
across them, dousing their glow.

Draco turned towards Harry. He had one hand pressed to his temple and
was breathing harshly. He opened his eyes, but they had gone
half-glossy.

``What are you hearing?'' Draco whispered.

``My mother's voice,'' Harry whispered back. ``Telling me that I have to
be justice, I have to be executioner, because Connor is the gentle and
merciful one.'' He gritted his teeth, and Draco wondered if it was
against pain, real or remembered, or to make himself speak the next
words. ``I can hear them repeating over and over in my head. The phoenix
web is coming back.''

Draco gave a sharp glance at the Pensieve, knowing now how that was
possible. Then he grabbed Harry's shoulders and lowered him gently to
the floor. Harry was panting as though he fought an enemy, and Draco
could feel his muscles jumping like a nervous unicorn's.

``It's all right,'' Draco whispered. ``It's just a memory, Harry, and
she can't hurt you. And you've already protected other people than
Connor. You protected me from Ron's hexes last year. You protected Luna
from being bullied. You've protected Neville from failing in Potions.
You got between Granger's wand and me in the library the other day. You
protect and shield all kinds of people. You show mercy and compassion
all the time.'' His own heart was pounding, and he wished suddenly that
his mother was there. He knew he could soothe Harry, since he'd done it
this summer, but Narcissa could soothe \emph{him}, and make him as
strong as he needed to be for Harry.

``But that's different,'' Harry whispered. ``Wrong. I shouldn't have
done that, not when Connor needed me.'' To Draco's horror, he looked up
with that glint in his eyes that Draco had hoped was gone forever, the
one that said he was sorry and valued Draco's friendship, but expected
it to be dropped any moment. ``I need to go find him.''

Draco started to respond, and felt several sharp buzzing pains center on
his face. \emph{There must be other Pensieves,} he thought. \emph{That's
why I'm feeling them now. And we've triggered the trap, or maybe
disrupting this one Pensieve did, and they're all focusing on Harry and
trying to put him back under the phoenix web.}

Draco told Harry, ``Stay here,'' rather unnecessarily---he didn't think
Harry could have moved---and then rushed out of the room and turned his
face in the direction of the pain. It was like facing into a stinging
wind, but he found the source of the problem almost at once. There was a
Pensieve in a closet on the other side of the hall. Draco kicked it over
without bothering to glance into it and see what memory it held.

Then he tracked the pain into the dungeons, and kicked over two
Pensieves in a corridor near the Slytherin common room. There was one
near the Potions classroom, and another near Snape's office. They'd
formed as much of a circle around Harry as possible, Draco thought as he
soaked his shoe kicking over the sixth one. When he lay in his bed that
night, probably, they would have sprung into motion, and he would have
been overwhelmed and buried by the onslaught of memories.

The buzzing pain was quite faint by now. Draco breathed a sigh of relief
and turned towards the stairs out of the dungeons. He thought the final
one would be near the Great Hall. He could disrupt it, and then---

The Headmaster was standing down the corridor, watching him.

Draco took a deep breath and plastered a smile across his face. ``Hello,
Headmaster, sir,'' he said. ``I didn't know you went walking in the
dungeons. It's a good place for a chill morning walk.''

``You have been disobedient, Mr. Malfoy,'' said Dumbledore. He raised
his wand. ``And I think that you have earned yourself---''

Draco let out another sigh of relief as he felt the magic that erupted
from behind Dumbledore, bathing him in the scent of roses on flowing
crystalline waves. The air brightened and turned sweet, and then Harry
stalked around Dumbledore, who had frozen the moment the magic broke
free, and faced the Headmaster. Draco couldn't see the expression Harry
wore. He didn't think he needed to. The way that Dumbledore's face
blanched was enough.

``How \emph{dare} you do this?'' Harry whispered. ``How \emph{dare} you try
to hurt him?'' His magic climbed, but still the sensations Draco felt
were mostly light and sweetness. He shrugged, deciding not to question
the change. It was more pleasant than the pain he usually felt when
Harry was angry. ``Would you have hexed him or tried to kill him, the
way you did Peter?''

\emph{Peter?} Draco thought, and decided that was one of the things that
he would ask Harry about later. Right now, he didn't think it was a good
idea to ask Harry anything.

The Headmaster, of course, was the kind of fool who would try, and who,
moreover, would paste on a scolding look as he watched Harry. ``Harry,''
he said mildly, ``you know that what I was doing was only for your own
good. The Pensieves would have tamed your magic and made you able to
think of your brother kindly again. I know that you have been having
arguments. This would soothe them.''

``I want to be able to choose the arguments I have, thank you,
Professor,'' said Harry. Draco watched ice glazing the stones under his
feet. ``And that still doesn't explain what you were going to do to
Draco.''

``Harry, my dear boy, I was only going to assign him detention.''
Dumbledore fixed Draco with that same mildly scolding glance.
``Disrupting my measures to help you the way he has done deserves
missing the Halloween Feast, I think.''

Draco stuck his tongue out at the old man. He was sure that the
punishment would have been much harsher if Harry hadn't interfered.

\emph{He saved me again,} he realized then. \emph{He might not like to
think of it that way, but he does keep getting between people who aren't
his brother and harm.}

``I want detention with him,'' said Harry.

``But, my dear boy, you have not done anything wrong,'' said Dumbledore.
``At least, you have not broken school rules. You have been morally
wrong, and that is a blow to your relationship with your brother that it
might take a long time to recover from, but nonetheless---''

He shut up then. Draco edged a step to the right, and caught a glimpse
of Harry's face. \emph{Yes, I would have shut up, too.}

``Really?'' Harry asked darkly. ``I think attacking the Headmaster ought
to do nicely.'' He raised both hands.

His magic bulged and rippled around him, and then turned abruptly
sideways. Draco felt a wind pulling and tugging on him, causing him to
move a step closer to Harry. But it let him go almost at once, and
lashed out, focusing on Dumbledore. Draco watched in confusion. Was
Harry just trying to make the Headmaster trip and stumble over his
robes?

No, he wasn't, Draco realized after a moment. The wind wasn't physical,
and it was blowing towards Harry, not away.

It was pulling on Dumbledore's magic, tearing pieces of it away from him
and merging them into Harry's power.

Draco felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. \emph{That would
be pretty terrifying, if it was focused on me,} he thought, with a haze
of both fear and contentment in his mind, and then pressed closer to
Harry's back so that he could watch. The sensation was what counted, the
rippling waves of power and how they ceased to exist as separate
entities the moment they hit the magic around Harry, but the look on
Dumbledore's face was well worth watching.

It ended soon enough. Dumbledore set up a barrier of some kind, and the
magic ceased to flow. Draco hugged Harry, and sniffed roses as his magic
bounced back and rippled around him. Harry let out a harsh breath.

``That, Mr. Potter, was a serious magical crime, and not merely a breach
of the school rules,'' said Dumbledore. His voice was mild. His eyes
were not. Draco supposed this was a glimpse of the White Wizard who had
taken the field against Grindelwald. He found himself shivering.

``And what would you call attempting to bind the mind and magic of a
child, Professor Dumbledore?'' Harry's voice was absolutely level, but
Draco could feel the fine tremors that ran through his body. ``What would
you call trying to reinforce the phoenix web in my mind long after I had
said I did not want it back? What would you call trying to \emph{kill}
another man who was only trying to shield me?'' His voice was building,
and so was his magic. The stones between him and Dumbledore were
ice-covered, and in the silence between Harry's shout and his next
whisper, one of them shattered, shards falling to the ground from the
immense stress the ice was putting it under. ``I want you dead,'' Harry
whispered, and Draco felt his rage join the magic, filling the corridor
with the unbearable pressure of an angry wizard. Draco grimaced. Now the
sensations of his magic felt like pain again.

Dumbledore did not strike back. Draco didn't know why. Perhaps he
thought even now that he could use Harry, or perhaps he would rather
have Harry angry and half-free than opposing him in magical battle.
Draco could understand that. Instead, he only inclined his head and
said, ``Both of you will miss the Halloween Feast tonight. Your
detention is to pick up branches and leaves off the lawn. You may not
use magic.'' Then he turned and walked away.

There was a moment when Draco thought Harry would strike at his back.
Harry's magic trembled, fighting the leash he had it on, and then
collapsed abruptly into him. Harry shook his head and leaned back
against Draco.

``Thank you,'' he said.

``I think that you're mistaking who those words should go to,'' said
Draco, running his hands over Harry's shoulders. He couldn't seem to
stop touching him. The magic was probably responsible for that, he
thought, and then shook his head and set Harry gently back on his feet.

``I mean it,'' said Harry, and glanced back at him. ``For all of it. For
finding the Pensieves and kicking them over.'' His hands clenched in
front of him briefly. ``The phoenix web was coming back yesterday, and it
was my mother's voice that spoke to me. That must have been why it was
happening. And I want to thank you for being here and holding me back. I
could have \emph{killed} Dumbledore.'' He turned fully to face Draco.
``And I want to thank you for not being afraid,'' he said softly, ``when
you found out that I could drink magic.''

``Did you know?'' Draco asked.

Harry hesitated briefly, then admitted, ``I think I swallowed part of
Voldemort's power in the Chamber of Secrets last year. But it wasn't
something I've ever tried consciously to do. So no, I didn't.'' His eyes
were back on Draco's face, studying it closely. ``But you aren't
frightened.''

``It wasn't \emph{my} magic that you were trying to swallow,'' said Draco,
puzzled as to why this was such a large deal for Harry. ``It would be
like being afraid of you because you're a Parselmouth, Harry. So long as
you aren't drinking my magic or setting a snake on me, there's no reason
for me to fear it.''

Harry abruptly embraced him, his body trembling violently. ``Thank
you,'' he whispered. ``Thank you.''

Draco gave up on arguing that he owed Harry thanks, and just hugged him
back. The pain was retreating from his head, the ice was retreating from
the corridor, and Harry's magic now merely draped his back like a warm
blanket. Draco couldn't feel any commands from it. If it wanted him to
keep holding Harry, then he was more than happy to oblige.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Harry sighed and stooped down to pick up another branch. The wind really
had been brisk this weekend, and individual leaves from the Forbidden
Forest had colonized the Quidditch Pitch until it looked as if it were
growing a second kind of grass. The branches were almost worse, because
of how quickly they usually broke when he picked them up.

Harry half-grimaced to himself. \emph{You just aren't used to doing
chores without magic,} he thought, as he carried his latest armful to
the edge of the Pitch. Dumbledore hadn't told them to put the leaves and
branches in any one particular place, so they'd chosen this one and
hoped the wind didn't start blowing again before they finished their
detention.

Harry added his armful to the pile and turned to study Draco. Currently,
he was chasing a leaf and trying to pick it up without dropping the rest
of what he held in his arms. Harry thought it was a doomed effort,
considering how many twigs he clutched. A small rain of them already
followed his feet.

He'd thought as carefully as he could about the detention and the
process of the detention to avoid thinking about what had got them the
detention in the first place. He'd attacked Dumbledore, and somehow,
both he and Draco were still alive and free. His head hurt like mad, but
the phoenix web was a glittering mass that shifted under the surface of
his mind, not the whole of it. Harry knew Dumbledore would likely try
again, but at least this plan had failed.

And Draco had saved him. And then Draco had not been afraid of him when
Harry had struck out and sucked part of Dumbledore's power away.

Those were facts so wonderful that Harry felt he couldn't let his mind
fully touch them. His thoughts kept skittering around them and then
returning, peering as warily at them as he had looked into the final
Pensieve before kicking it over. He kept expecting to awake and find it
a dream, that Draco had defended him so fiercely and accepted his fierce
defense in return.

\emph{That is not something that would have happened with Connor,} his
thoughts told him abruptly. \emph{Connor couldn't protect you like that,
not against Dumbledore, and you know that he would be afraid of you.}

Harry shook his head. He didn't want to compare his relationship with
Draco to his relationship with his brother right now. He just wanted to
think about Draco by himself---

And perhaps laugh when he dropped the next handful of twigs, which
happened in the next moment. The integrity of the bundle in Draco's arms
was completely disrupted, and Harry laughed as it slid through Draco's
frantically grasping hands and left him with a few leaves and one twig.

Draco flung down the leaves and the twig and stamped his foot at him.
``I don't see you helping,'' he declared.

Harry started to walk towards him, and then paused when he saw a flash
of movement near the pile of branches. He recognized the lifted,
twitching nose and hairless tail in a few moments. Peter was there, in
rat form, and wanted to speak with him. Harry let out a slow breath. He
hadn't seen Peter in the school, not even on the Marauder's Map, since
the attack by Dumbledore. Dumbledore had probably strengthened the wards
so Peter couldn't enter again.

But would Draco understand this?

Harry swallowed and turned towards his friend. ``Draco,'' he whispered,
catching his attention in a moment. ``Please, will you cover for me?
There's someone I have to talk to.''

Draco didn't laugh. His eyes were deep as they stared into Harry's.
``Who is it?'' he asked.

Harry let out his breath. ``Peter Pettigrew.''

``You have the \emph{strangest} friends, Harry,'' said Draco, a little too
calmly. ``Not including me, of course. But yes, I'll cover for you. If
you'll just leave an illusion of yourself here, it shouldn't be hard.''

The edge to his voice said he would demand an explanation later, but
Harry didn't mind. His heart was singing with relief. He waved a hand,
and an illusion of him formed and stooped to gather up a stick. His hand
passed through it, but Harry thought it would take a lot to notice.

``Of course, it doesn't actually \emph{help},'' Draco bemoaned it.

Harry looked hesitantly at him. Draco waved him on. ``Go talk to him.
The sooner you go, the sooner you can get back and tell me all about
it.''

Harry nodded to him and slipped around the leaf-pile, following the
rat's tail further and further into the grass. Peter didn't transform
until they were almost to the Forbidden Forest, and when he did, he sat
with his back against a tree and stared intently at Harry.

``I think you can know why Dumbledore made me be your parents'
Secret-Keeper now,'' he said softly.

\chapter{*Chapter 17*: Interlude: To Narcissa, To
Lucius}\label{chapter-17-interlude-to-narcissa-to-lucius}

Just a short little interlude, but I wanted to post it not too long
after the last chapter, as its ramifications aren't immediately visible
in the next one.

\textbf{Interlude: To Narcissa, To Lucius}

\emph{November 1st, 1993}

\emph{Dear Mother:}

I'm very, very afraid that Dumbledore is going to hurt Harry if this
keeps happening. And I've managed to protect him so far, but I don't
know what to do now. I can't fight the Headmaster spell to spell, and
now he's tried to use magic on Harry.

So far, I know that he and Harry had some kind of fight in late
September, though I don't know what it was about, and Harry wound up in
the hospital wing. I was still considering the information you sent me
then, so I couldn't go and see his wounds without exposing myself to his
magic and risking (as I thought) compulsion. And just yesterday
Dumbledore tried to set some kind of trap with Pensieves for Harry, and
would have hurt me when I found out about it and managed to disrupt it
by kicking the Pensieves over. Harry protected me, and drained part of
the Headmaster's magic.

I saw one of the memories in the Pensieves. It was horrible. His mother
was testing him on types of defensive curses and telling him he had to
hurt anyone who hurt his brother. What kind of witch {does} that? What
kind of {mother} does that? A Mudblood, that's who! It goes against all
the pureblood tests that you taught me about this summer. You don't test
children until they're ready!

What can I do, Mother? Is there anything {you }can do? I know that you
can't really reach out and protect Harry from so far away, but you said
you wouldn't let anything happen to him if I chose him. So, please, give
me advice. I'm so worried for him. His scar bleeds and he has nightmares
and he doesn't tell me half the things I need to know, even though he's
my friend. And his brother scares me. Please help.

\emph{Your beloved son,}

\emph{Draco.}

\emph{}


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


\emph{November 1st, 1993}

Well, really, Lucius. I expected better of you than this. So far you've
traded a few truce gifts with a child who will perish the moment the
Dark Lord takes the field, pretending to believe that this child is a
wizard of serious power, and played at finding out a way around the
Potter wards. Did I not know your true dedication to our cause, I would
say you are playing both sides, trying to find a way to keep your wife
and son happy while still serving our Lord. How like a Slytherin.

Very well, then. It would seem that I must get your attention in another
way. Slytherins also like dramatics, if I recall my own days at school
correctly.

Your son Draco drinks pumpkin juice for breakfast every morning, no
matter what else there is to drink. He laughs with Harry Potter as if
the world were never going to change. He reads too much late at night
and thinks no one notices when he yawns in his classes. He watched the
Slytherin Quidditch practices until the Captain, Flint, told him to
leave. He cares more for the safety of this child you are truce-dancing
with than he does for his own.

I can reach him at any moment, Lucius. I can snuff the life from him.
Unless you make clear your dedication to our cause and send me, in the
vial this owl has also brought you, three drops of your blood to help
with our Lord's awakening, the boy's life will be forfeit no later than
Yule.

I see him every day, Lucius, and I am not someone whom other people pay
attention to. It would not be hard to kill him.

You have a day to send the drops of blood to me, and a week to find out
a way to enter Godric's Hollow, despite the wards. Then you will involve
yourself more deeply in our cause, and go on involving yourself. There
will a test of your dedication at Yule.

I trust you will have a pleasant day, Lucius, warmed by the thought of
your son continuing to breathe.

\chapter{*Chapter 18*: Soldier In a Silent
War}\label{chapter-18-soldier-in-a-silent-war}

Thank you for the reviews on the last chapters! The story's moving in
the direction of actual answers now, I can hope, even though some
mysteries have to remain until the end.

Like this one, for instance. It's largely an answer chapter. It is also
an Ugly Thing.

\textbf{Chapter Fifteen: Soldier In a Silent War}

``The phoenix web is returning,'' Harry warned Peter as he sat down on
the grass in front of him. ``I'm not sure how much I'll be able to hear
before it burns my thoughts up again.''

Peter's eyes narrowed, but he didn't waste time speaking against
Dumbledore. He simply nodded. Then he said, ``Harry, I mentioned Regulus
Black the last time we had a proper conversation.''

Harry blinked. ``I remember.''

Peter leaned forward. ``Regulus Black was Sirius's younger brother,'' he
said. ``Not much younger. A year between them. They were close friends
before Hogwarts.''

Harry tightened his hands in front of him. ``I'll repeat what I said
then,'' he said, as calmly as he could. ``\emph{Why} would they keep
something like that concealed from me? Sirius could have forged a closer
bond with me by telling me he was an elder brother like I was, or that
he had been. And---and from the way I understand them now, they wouldn't
have let an opportunity like that pass. They wanted to control me, bind
me close to them, and that would have been a great chance.''

``They are your parents and godfather, Harry,'' said Peter. ``Does it
make it easier to talk about them, and the wrong they've done you, when
you don't acknowledge that?''

Harry clenched his hands again, and felt his hands begin to bleed like
his scar. ``It makes it possible for me not to wish death on them,'' he
said.

Peter's eyes sharpened, and he nodded again. ``Then we'll talk about
them as `they,' Harry,'' he said. ``And I'll tell you why they wouldn't
admit that Regulus existed.''

``As I said, he and Sirius were close friends before Hogwarts. But then
Sirius came to Hogwarts and was Sorted into Gryffindor. Suddenly he'd
broken all the traditions that his family was supposed to keep. The
Blacks had been Slytherins for as long as the family existed. All
Sirius's cousins had gone into that House. And Sirius was the elder son
of the major branch of the family. I know that doesn't matter to a line
like the Potters, but to a pureblood family like the Blacks, it
\emph{did} matter. A great deal.''

Harry nodded. ``But Sirius told me that he was an only child, and that
was why his parents were so angry with him,'' he whispered. ``They had
no heirs after he rejected their ideals.''

``They had Regulus,'' said Peter quietly. His eyes were staring past
Harry, seeing into a time that Harry now suspected he didn't know the
tiniest shard of truth about. ``But he was the \emph{younger} son. He
couldn't quite ever make up for the loss of Sirius, no matter what he
did, even though he was Sorted into Slytherin and believed in the same
ideals that they did.''

Harry felt himself give a shudder of revulsion. \emph{Imagine if our
parents had favored me just because I'm the elder and ignored or
devalued Connor because he was born fifteen minutes after me. What an
idiocy!}

Then he remembered that they had, seemingly, ignored and devalued him
for not being the Boy-Who-Lived.

Harry swallowed and caged the grief and pain. \emph{There has to be a
reason for that. I don't know everything yet.}

``All right,'' he said, harshly, because he needed to get his mind off
those disturbing thoughts somehow. ``Say I believe you. Say that Regulus
\emph{did} exist, and that Sirius lost him to his parents just like his
parents lost Sirius to the wizarding world. Then what happened?''

``Regulus became a Death Eater,'' said Peter quietly, and met Harry's
eyes again. ``But---and I'm only reporting this secondhand, understand,
because Sirius never told all the details to anyone---something went
wrong. Something\ldots{}changed his mind, I guess. Or he just decided
that he was tired of being ordered around. He stole something very
important to the Dark Lord and ran. I never knew what it was. I was
never that close to the Dark Lord. My importance was all borrowed from
Sirius.'' He glanced away, but not before Harry saw many complicated
emotions twisting in his face, hatred and love and bitterness and
weariness.

``And he got away?'' Harry asked. ``Or he died?''

``Voldemort,'' said Peter, visibly forcing himself to say the name,
``caught him. And then he bound Sirius's mind to his brother's. He could
do that, because of the blood connection. He forced Sirius to witness
the way Regulus suffered while he tortured him.''

Harry buried his head in his hands, breathing hard. The mere thought of
watching Connor suffer in his mind made him want to kill something.

``Sirius was going crazy,'' said Peter, his voice as distant as the
moon. ``None of the Blacks\ldots{}well, none of them were ever very
stable, except Andromeda and Narcissa. Sirius was struggling between his
impulse to stay loyal to his friends and his impulse to go and rescue
his brother. He knew that the moment he went to Regulus's rescue,
V---Voldemort would take him, and then Sirius would be tortured until he
gave up your parents' location.''

``Because of the prophecy,'' Harry guessed.

Peter glanced at him sharply, then relaxed. ``I had thought you didn't
know much about that,'' he murmured. ``Yes. Because of that. And
Dumbledore wanted to spare Sirius that.''

``I don't understand why,'' said Harry. ``The first time we met, you
said that you had betrayed my parents on Dumbledore's orders. If he was
going to betray us anyway, why did it matter if you or Sirius did it?''

Peter's mouth curved into a cruel grin, but Harry knew from the tone in
his voice that the cruelty was all directed against himself.
``Dumbledore didn't want Sirius to have to make that choice, to decide
between his friends and his brother. He explained everything to me and
asked me to take Sirius's place as Secret-Keeper. He performed a spell
that---''

Harry cried out as the phoenix web flared across his vision. Peter
reached out and caught his shoulder, holding him steady until the spasm
passed.

``Never mind about the spell, then,'' said Peter softly. ``Some other
time. He asked me to take Sirius's place as Secret-Keeper, and told your
parents the reason for the switch. They were horrified, of course.'' The
emotion in Peter's voice now wasn't like anything that Harry had ever
heard. ``No one should ever have to make a decision like that, they told
me. Poor dear Sirius should never be subjected to such a loss of
innocence as choosing between his friends and his brother.''

Harry heard the echo of other words behind the ones Peter spoke. After a
moment, he drew them out.

\emph{Connor should remain innocent until the time he can face
Voldemort\ldots{}}

With a gasp, Harry flushed the words from his mind. \emph{No. They
aren't the same, not really. They did offer me a choice.}

But he'd seen that choice in Dumbledore's Pensieve. A shudder of
remembered anger racked Harry again, and he suffered a brief moment of
despair. How did ordinary people cope with these emotions? How was he
going to be normal when he hadn't dealt with them for the first twelve
years of his life?

``I was already a spy among the Death Eaters,'' said Peter. ``The Dark
Lord would accept my betrayal of my friends for the same reason he
accepted me as a credible Death Eater, Dumbledore assured me. He thought
I was jealous of my friends for being more powerful and talented than I
was. Aren't wizards of lesser power always afraid of those with greater,
and jealous of them?''

``He was right. Once your parents made me the Secret-Keeper, the Dark
Lord ceased torturing Regulus and killed him. He concentrated all his
efforts on me. I held out for a week, then cracked when Dumbledore said
to, and betrayed the house at Godric's Hollow. I told your parents that
V---Voldemort had kidnapped the two of you and taken you to one of the
last battlefields, to sacrifice you there in a dark blood rite. Off they
rushed. Voldemort came into the house that night, and I was right behind
him when he struck.'' Peter closed his eyes tightly.

Harry's heart had sped up. The sound of it filled his whole world. He
fought wildly to calm it down, because it was just as wildly important
that he be able to hear Peter's answer to his next question.

``They knew we would be betrayed? They risked our lives on purpose?''

Peter turned his head and fixed Harry with a careful eye. ``Of course.
You said you knew the prophecy. They \emph{knew} what would happen when
I led Voldemort into the house of a child born at the precise moment the
prophecy said he should be born. And of course there are other clues in
the prophecy that let them suspect your house was the right one.'' Peter
closed his eyes again.

``After that, it was rather simple,'' he said, his voice gone strained
and thin. ``I ran, of course, when the Dark Lord fell. Your parents came
back and found you wounded but alive, and the Dark Lord a pile of ash on
the floor. They knew who must have betrayed them. The Aurors arrested
me, and questioned me under Veritaserum, but the phoenix web was in my
mind by then, already sinking deep. It filled me with a different kind
of soul that gave me the appearance of truth. I was able to stare at
them, and laugh, and proclaim my hatred and jealousy of James and Lily
Potter. That was the same web that was going to give me the appearance
of insanity in Azkaban, just in case anyone ever questioned me about
that night. Dumbledore could say truthfully that he visited me several
times, and I only appeared to grow more mad over the years. But Sirius
was with me during the trial anyway, just to make sure that I didn't
place one foot wrong. He was determined that no one should ever discover
that I'd been a sacrifice for him, because he didn't want to be thought
a coward or too weak to choose between his friends and his brother.''

Unbidden---like all his thoughts lately---Harry recalled what James had
said to him when he'd told the story of cracking and using \emph{Crucio}
on Bellatrix Lestrange. \emph{And Peter's betrayal hit Sirius hardest of
all. He was in the Ministry when they interrogated Peter. I don't think
he slept for three more days after that. He had to hear every last
detail, every last confession.}

Sirius hadn't been trying desperately to learn why one of his beloved
friends would commit a crime. He had been trying desperately to make
sure that said beloved friend, a shield, a sacrifice, didn't reveal that
he was either shield or sacrifice.

Harry swallowed several more times. Now was not the moment to get sick.

``And so you went to Azkaban for twelve years,'' he said.

``Almost twelve years,'' said Peter, his eyes distant. ``Yes. That is
what I did. If I had revealed what I had done under Veritaserum, I might
have stayed out of Azkaban, but I would have revealed that Dumbledore
had knowingly placed two small children in danger, and that was not
permissible. Nor was it permissible to reveal that Sirius had suffered
for so long.''

``Not only Dumbledore,'' Harry whispered. ``Our \emph{parents}. Why? Why
is that, Peter? Why would they do that?''

``The prophecy,'' said Peter.

Harry was starting to hate that word. He picked up a blade of grass and
rubbed it between his fingers until the urge to tear the explanation out
of Peter was gone. ``But surely there must have been a greater
justification than that,'' he said.

Peter blinked. ``Of course there was. There was concealing Sirius's
weakness, and bringing Voldemort down.'' He hugged his arms around
himself and stared into the Forest. ``You cannot understand what the
First War was like, Harry. Everyone was tired, and certain they were
going to lose, after eleven years of fighting. We'd grown up in Hogwarts
in the knowledge that we'd be soldiers going to war. Everyone wanted an
\emph{end}. That was the cause of the hysterical celebration after
Voldemort fell. No one really thought to question that, to ask how and
why a baby could have defeated him \emph{without} something like the
prophecy, which was never made public. They didn't want to. They had
their hero, they had their villain, and that was it. That was all.''

``They put Connor in danger,'' said Harry again. He could not get past
that. He had always trusted his parents to know what was best, to save
and protect his brother---if not as well as he could---and they had put
Connor in danger when he was only a year old.

``And you, Harry,'' said Peter, looking strangely at him.

Harry swallowed. ``Yes,'' he said, and then dodged the uncomfortable
truth staring him in the face. ``But why aren't you still in Azkaban?
You stayed there twelve years. Why not the lifetime you were meant to
stay?'' His voice wavered into hesitancy on the last words.

``You are right,'' said Peter. ``Dumbledore meant me to stay a lifetime.
But I was left alone in Azkaban, without the constant reinforcement that
I think you've had, if they've really tied your web---''

Harry shouted as his sight darkened with pain. Peter held his arm this
time until it subsided, and then spoke carefully, watching Harry for the
least sign of agony.

``Without reinforcement. And my web was tied to two things. One of them
was my sense of friendship. That withered when none of my friends came
to see me, when I realized they'd all been pitifully eager to sacrifice
me just so that Sirius could sleep with an untroubled conscience.''

``What about Remus?'' Harry asked.

Peter looked hard at him. ``Remus knew about it, too, Harry. He was too
afraid of losing his friends ever to go against them.'' He laughed,
harshly. ``Remus is very good at ignoring things that he doesn't want to
see.''

The revelation hit Harry with the force of a hammer blow. He'd thought
Remus was just another one of Dumbledore's victims. Instead, he, too,
had conspired to hurt and maybe even kill Connor.

\emph{And you}.

Harry gave the thought a vicious kick and focused back on Peter.

``And what was the second thing?'' he asked, his own voice unexpectedly
hoarse.

``A sense of duty,'' said Peter simply. ``Dumbledore impressed it on me
that this was my duty to the future, my duty as a Gryffindor, my duty to
a world without the Dark Lord. And---well, he was right, I thought. So I
gave up my personality and my freedom and the good will of the wizarding
community for it.''

``But the more I thought about it, the more resentful I became. As I
said, the loss of my friends did that. I became convinced that it wasn't
fair that I was sitting in that cell when Sirius was free to walk
around, and the phoenix web might have controlled that.'' A feral smile
spread over Peter's face. ``But then I found another duty instead.''

``What?'' Harry whispered.

Peter locked eyes with him. ``Protecting you. I promise you that I am
not going to let the same thing happen to you that happened to me,
Harry. I promised myself that, too, and I even got through the wards on
the school that permitted the passage of Animagi until Dumbledore
adjusted them to bar me specifically. I'm confined to the outside of
Hogwarts now, but that doesn't mean I won't protect you. I was a
sacrifice, and I lost so much because of it. I've been a sacrifice
exactly as long as you have. Both of our trials began the same night. I
broke free of my prison. I'm going to help you break free of yours by
shattering that damn web. If you find another duty to substitute for the
one the web originally attached to, then you're free. The web can't cope
with that great a shift in priorities. The moment that I chose you over
Sirius and James and Remus, then I was free.''

``But that would mean I have to do something other than protect
Connor,'' said Harry.

``Yes.'' Peter was immovable.

Harry shook his head at him, frantic. ``I \emph{can't}. Then he'll be
left undefended when he goes forth to face Voldemort.''

``Sirius is training him, I thought,'' said Peter. ``He'll have that
training. And he'll have the protection of other people, the adults and
his friends and anyone else who fights the Second War. And I assure you
that this is everyone's war, Harry. Not even most of the Death Eaters
stood by Voldemort when they thought he'd fallen. I've been prying and
sniffing around my old haunts. They \emph{like} their lives now, free
and prosperous. They're not eager to go back into slavery to a madman.
They might be called by Voldemort's magic, but they'll seize any other
option that seems at all viable.''

``Dumbledore---''

``He's not viable,'' Peter said sharply. ``Not for them. Do you think
someone who did what he did to me would hesitate to sacrifice Dark
wizards whom he already despises?''

``Connor---''

``Maybe,'' said Peter. ``But he'll have to grow in strength and training
first. And that could be your duty, you know, Harry.''

``Training him?'' Harry sat up straight. It was only a minor variation
of the duties he had now, he thought. ``I could do that.''

``Protecting the wizarding world,'' said Peter. ``Uniting it. Leading
it. Providing an option for the Death Eaters and the purebloods and the
others who would ordinarily rally to Voldemort's side. You know their
rituals. You have the magic that could shelter and protect them. Think
about it, Harry.''

Harry closed his eyes and began to shake. The mere thought of taking his
brother's role as the Boy-Who-Lived was enough to activate the phoenix
web. He felt burning pain begin to concentrate behind his eyes.

``I've said too much,'' Peter whispered. ``I'm sorry. But think about
it, please, Harry. And now I must go. I can feel the Dementors coming.''
His voice was threaded with old fear. ``Be safe.''

Harry heard the inrush of air as Peter transformed, and then the soft
rustle of grass as he scurried away. A moment later, the phoenix web let
him go enough that he could feel the cold approach of the Dementors on
his back. They curved into the Forbidden Forest after Peter. Harry
shivered.

His mind was in chaos, screaming and shouting at him.

\emph{They knew. They left us in danger.}

\emph{Remus knew.}

\emph{You don't have to live for Connor.}

\emph{Dumbledore sacrificed Peter to spare Sirius.}

He stood up, heavily, and made his way towards the school. He needed,
badly, to speak with Dumbledore.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Harry had just slipped past the doors into the entrance hall when a
piece of darkness unfolded from the wall and swept towards him. Harry
winced. It was Snape, and unlike the conversation they'd had the day
Harry first confronted Dumbledore, Harry wasn't in the mood to talk with
him.

Snape, of course, gave him no choice. ``What was that explosion of magic
earlier, Mr. Potter?'' he asked. His face was mostly in shadow, but
Harry could see his eyes glittering with some intense emotion.

Harry sighed. ``Dumbledore tried to trick me. There was a set of
Pensieves he'd charmed to reinforce the phoenix web in my mind.'' He
heard Snape's sucked-in breath, but forced himself to keep his eyes on
the floor. He knew that Snape would probably have something to say about
this, but he didn't think that he had the ability to deal with it right
now, what with his thoughts stirred into chaos. ``Draco helped me get
rid of them, but then Dumbledore tried to hurt Draco. So I called my
magic to fight his, and sucked some of his power away.''

``And you did not come to me?'' Snape's voice sounded nearly dead. Harry
winced again. That didn't mean hurt. That meant anger so intense that
not even his normal cold whisper was sufficient to express it. ``You did
not think that perhaps your guardian should know that the Headmaster is
threatening his ward?''

Harry raised his head and stared at Snape. \emph{Well, I didn't expect
that.} ``But we already knew that,'' he pointed out. ``Dumbledore was
threatening me before this. Why would you want me to come and report it
to you again?''

Snape moved a step forward. Harry took a step back, watching him warily.
He was not afraid, not exactly. He trusted Snape not to hurt him. But it
was hard not to feel---well, cautious, especially with the way that he
could feel Snape's magic boiling under his shields. Snape was not as
strong as Harry or Dumbledore, but his power had a sharp, cruel edge to
it that made it a finely balanced blade on the occasions when he chose
to wield it outside the confines of wand and spell.

``Guardian does not mean only guardian in a legal sense,'' Snape said.
His voice was strangled. Harry wondered if he was choking on rage or
something else. ``It means guardian in a protective sense as well. I
could have helped you fend off Dumbledore, Harry. I could have spoken to
him in place of the parents who will never stand up to him again.''
Harry clenched his fists again; he feared that after what Peter had
said, that was no more than the truth. ``And I could have provided you
with the protection and shelter that you need so badly,'' and Snape's
voice twisted, with kindness more cruel than cruelty, ``and which you
will never convince yourself to seek.''

Harry held his breath, then forced it out his nose and mouth in regular,
calm patterns. He couldn't afford to get upset over this. He had a
Headmaster to speak to about his sacrifice of Peter and his endangering
of Connor. He couldn't yell at Snape and shatter his mask.

``I'll remember that the next time, sir,'' he said. ``May I please pass
now? I'm going to speak to the Headmaster on another matter.''

Snape looked startled for perhaps a tenth of a second. Even as Harry
tried to slip around him, however, his hand darted out and seized his
shoulder. Harry kept his stance relaxed and his gaze on the ground, so
that Snape couldn't try wandless Legilimency on him.

``I do not want you alone with him,'' said Snape. ``I'll go with you.''

``No!'' Harry tried to back away without looking up or really dislodging
Snape's hand. He didn't want Snape to think he was really rejecting his
guardianship. It was complicated. \emph{It started being complicated the
moment you started having allegiances other than to Connor,} whispered a
part of his mind that might or might not be the phoenix web. ``Please. I
have to handle this on my own. Can I handle this on my own?''

``Why?'' Snape was merciless, even as he knelt in front of Harry and
spoke gently. ``Why do you want to?''

``I---I don't want you hurt,'' said Harry, twisting his head away again.
He couldn't tell Snape what Peter had said. Snape would only see it as
more evidence that Sirius was dangerous or weak, and would seek to keep
Harry away from him. Perhaps talking about that in the abstract would
work. ``And I'm going to say things to the Headmaster that concern
Sirius. I don't know if you can control yourself around him if you know
what those things are.''

There was a tense, breathing silence. Then Snape said, ``I have always
told myself I was more concerned about the future than the past. That
was what I told myself when I spied among the Death Eaters for
Dumbledore. And it was perhaps the only time in my life when that has
been true.'' He reached out and gripped Harry's chin, tilting it so that
Harry's eyes met his. He did not try Legilimency, though. ``These other
years, I have brooded more on schoolboy grudges than the possibility of
saving someone or healing someone or the future. That is true. And now
it need not be. This is my chance to prove that, as much to myself as to
you, Harry. I will come with you, and whatever I learn about Black, I
will hold silent, because you matter more to me than he does.''

Harry closed his eyes to cover the emotions he was feeling, and nodded
once. ``Thank you, sir.''

``Come.'' Snape swept to his feet like a great bird hovering over Harry.
His hand never moved from its grip on Harry's shoulder, warm and
intensely comforting. ``Let us go see the Headmaster.''


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Albus told himself that he had expected the visit. Of course, that did
not mean it did his old heart any good to see Harry walk in, laden with
power and with eyes in which he could see the broken remnants of the
phoenix web, and with Severus following closely behind him, his eyes
wild. Albus winced. \emph{Severus has given himself entirely over to
protection of this child. What happened to his knowledge of the greater
cause? What happened to the man who was prepared to torture, to kill, to
act the Death Eater for the sake of the wizarding world?}

Harry Potter had happened, Albus answered himself, and sighed. Matters
would have been a great deal simpler if Lily Potter had only ever borne
one child, and if that child was Connor Potter.

``Professor Dumbledore,'' said Harry, his eyes pierced with half a dozen
emotions. ``I met Peter Pettigrew this evening. He told me why you
sacrificed him.''

Albus clamped down on his emotions. He would not show terror in front of
either of them. Harry might miss it at this moment, but Severus's
piercing eyes were fixed on his face and hadn't moved.

``He said that he went to Azkaban so that Sirius could live free,''
Harry whispered. ``Why him, Professor?''

Albus felt his heart begin to beat again, slowly. So Harry knew part of
the truth. He did not know the whole of it, the most vital part of it.
Perhaps he never would. It all depended on how well Albus answered him.
``I felt sorry for Sirius,'' he answered freely. ``He had come from a
Dark family, and been abused as a child. The moment he went into
Gryffindor, his family began to turn their backs on him. Not even his
relationship with his brother could save him in their eyes, not once his
brother went to Slytherin. But Sirius still remembered his brother
fondly. That childhood experience of friendship with him was the seed
that had formed the noble man we knew, that made it possible for Sirius
to escape the shadow of Slytherin in the first place.'' He heard Severus
snort, but he made no move to meet the other man's eyes, keeping his
earnest gaze on Harry. ``When that same brother was in danger, how could
I ask Sirius to choose between betraying him and betraying his friends?
True, he would have died when he went to Voldemort, but more than that,
his soul would have been destroyed. I wanted to spare him that.''

``Why didn't you want to spare Peter?'' Harry's voice was flat and
unforgiving.

Albus spread his hands. \emph{Yes, I knew I could count on Peter's
selfishness. He must have escaped and shattered his web because he was
so concerned that someone else know the truth. He could not stand to be
a true sacrifice. Now that he has convinced Harry he was some abused
innocent, he should leave him alone, because his vanity is satisfied.}
``Peter had already had a different life than Sirius,'' he said simply.
``One full of life and love and laughter as a child, and a friendship
with the Marauders. The first sacrifice I ever asked him to make was as
a spy among the Death Eaters, before Severus came to our side---''

``What?''

But Severus clamped his mouth shut in the next instant, even though his
eyes glittered angrily. Albus watched him with an intense sadness
etching his heart. \emph{I have already lost you, Severus. I know it.
But I may not have lost Harry. Not yet.}

``And then to become your parents' Secret-Keeper in Sirius's place,''
Albus finished. ``That spared Regulus, whom Voldemort killed at once
when he had no more use for him, and it spared Sirius from making a
decision that would have torn his soul apart.''

``But it didn't spare Peter,'' Harry whispered.

``Peter chose this,'' said Albus. ``I told you once, Harry, that the
phoenix web only works when someone accepts it willingly. That is what
Peter did. He agreed to spend the rest of his life in Azkaban with the
rest of the world thinking him a traitor. I honored him for his
sacrifice. I do not honor him for what he has done since he escaped.''

``You ordered him to betray us,'' said Harry. ``You ordered him to put
Connor's life in danger.'' There was a long silence, and then he
breathed out, ``Why?''

Albus could have fallen to his knees and prayed in thanks, did he think
anyone or anything would have accepted this prayer. Despite the
shattering of the phoenix web, despite Peter's words, he had not lost
Harry, not yet. Harry believed that Connor's life was still more
important than his own.

\emph{And, because of that, the wizarding world may be spared the
intense revolution that Harry would otherwise bring upon it, the tearing
and the ripping and the bloodshed.}

Albus replied with all his heart. Harry could have this part of the
truth, and welcome to it. ``Because of the prophecy,'' he said. ``It
spoke of someone born to defy the Dark Lord at the end of July---a
younger twin. You were the only pair who qualified. If the Dark Lord did
not attack you, then the prophecy would never have come true. The dying
would have continued. The First War would have ended with Voldemort's
victory.''

Harry wavered for a long moment. Then he said, ``But you put a child in
danger. There are those who would argue that if you had to sacrifice
children, then you didn't deserve to win the War.''

``Those people were not the ones who fought Voldemort,'' said Albus, his
mind full of Plague-devastated battlefields, of the thunderstorm that
Voldemort had turned to acid and set upon Hogsmeade, of the Children's
Massacre with its crucifixions and the Eagleton house with its
Muggleborn family made to rape and murder each other. ``They are the
ones who still have the luxury of ethics even in wartime.''

``But what if you put him in danger again?'' Harry whispered. ``What if
you put him in danger now?''

``That is why he is getting training from Sirius,'' said Albus, and then
leaned forward. He had to impress this on the boy, now that Harry was
turning aside from the role the prophecy had destined him for. ``And why
you must support him, Harry, not rip him in two. I understand that I
have hurt you. I understand that your parents have hurt you. But what do
you gain by drawing away from us, by choosing Severus as a guardian or
listening to Peter? You will tear your twin apart, put him in danger of
his concentration wavering even as he learns to fight Voldemort.''

Harry swallowed.

``Harry,'' said Severus sharply, ``that is not true. He also put your
life in danger that night.'' He raised his head, and Albus flinched at
the hatred in his eyes. \emph{I must watch him. I forgot how dangerous
he was when angered.} ``He has asked unacceptable sacrifices of you. Is
Connor's peace of mind worth so much more than your freedom?''

Harry only shook his head and said, ``Truce, from now on. I won't hurt
you if you don't hurt me.'' Then he turned away from the room, barely
waiting for Albus's nod. Severus stayed a moment, his eyes locked on
Albus's. Albus knew better than to try Legilimency. He remained silent.

``You are a bloody fool, Albus,'' said Severus. ``You know what he could
become.'' He shook his head twice, and then hurried after Harry. Albus
could hear him speaking to the boy, trying to soothe him, trying to turn
him from his loyalty to his brother.

Albus did not think it would work, not now. They had avoided disaster by
the skin of their teeth, but they had avoided it. He had a truce with
the boy, and he had seen for himself that Harry still cared more about
Connor than about simply turning his magic loose to do what it would. He
still had some hope for the future.

\emph{Perhaps it would have been better to leave him free, in danger of
becoming a Dark Lord, than to bind him. He has a hatred of bindings now.
He will not understand that the wizarding world is built on them, that I
cannot let him loosen them.}

\emph{But he could be far more devastating than he is now. If he were
free of all the bindings, if he knew all the truth, then he would wield
a power that is stronger than he now has. Imagine the world then.}

Albus could imagine the world then. He would not be able to
\emph{prevent} the bindings from being loosened if Harry knew
everything, and then there would be civil war and bloody revolution and
the death of everything he had worked so hard to build and protect and
love.

\emph{And Sirius\ldots{}}

What the boy did not know about his godfather would not hurt him.

The situation now was not ideal, Albus knew, but he could maintain it.
He could stay in a truce with the boy, defending what he still had
rather than mourning what was lost. He was sure Harry would do the same,
rather than risk losing his brother. He did not think himself that
important. He would not challenge or confront his parents unless someone
pushed him. And Severus cared too much for the boy to push him.

It had been, Albus decided as he stood and made for bed, a good day
after all, and the only thing that would have made it better was the
presence of Fawkes on his perch. Phoenixes, however, never seemed to
know when they were wanted.

\chapter{*Chapter 19*: Comes a
Dementor}\label{chapter-19-comes-a-dementor}

Thank you for the reviews on the chapter yesterday! They contained good
constructive criticism.

Chapter Sixteen is different now, and better for it, I think.

\textbf{Chapter Sixteen: Comes a Dementor}

Harry felt the thoughts ganging up on him again, that night when he lay
in his bed in Slytherin and had no distractions but the soft breathing
of the other four boys around him---which was too familiar to be a true
distraction.

Harry closed his eyes, but sleep was the furthest thing from his mind.
He felt Starborn's letter, which he'd hidden under the sheets, burning
like a hot coal. He felt the questions that Peter had made him ask
stirring in his head and looking at him with sharp eyes.

\emph{They've risked so much, in reaching out to me. Well, at least
Peter has. I have no idea how much danger Starborn's in. But Peter is
here, and keeps being here in spite of everything.} Harry let out a
long, slow breath. \emph{He lost his friends, his freedom, control of
his own mind for twelve years. And he still would have been safer if he
remained in Azkaban. At least then things wouldn't have changed. He
could have had the comforts of routine, and Dumbledore's good will.}

\emph{Instead, he left, and came for me, first to Godric's Hollow and
then to Hogwarts. He didn't even know if I would listen to him. But he
came anyway. He risked his newfound freedom.}

\emph{And all he wants me to do is try to think without the phoenix web,
to think about things a little differently than I've done so far.}

Harry wrestled with the thought a while longer, but the conclusion he
came to was always the same.

\emph{He risked too much for me. He made another sacrifice. The least I
can do is try to honor that sacrifice, and ask his questions.}

Harry opened his eyes and stared at the canopy of his bed. He missed
Sylarana now as he had not in days. She could have helped him straighten
out his thoughts and decide which one he should tackle first.

\emph{Well, when in doubt, work backwards.} Sylarana had said that to
him once, though she had been referring to the way that one ate a
Chocolate Frog. She did not seem concerned about the wisdom that said
snakes always swallowed prey headfirst, and preferred to start with the
legs.

Harry started with the Headmaster, therefore. When he settled the truce
with Dumbledore, he had regretted, for a moment, the gift he'd sent to
Lucius Malfoy, a mirror tuned to the silvery instruments in Dumbledore's
office, and enabling Lucius to see what happened there. Harry had
explained in his note that he felt compelled to answer the gift of great
trust Lucius had given him---allowing him to spy on possible
enemies---with a gift as great, to allow Lucius to spy on his greatest
possible enemy. Such a mirror would be worth more than one linked to
Godric's Hollow, the home of a pair of frightened wizards on the edge of
a \emph{Muggle} village.

Now, he did not regret it, because he was thinking about things the way
that Peter would have wanted him to. He was thinking that the truce with
Dumbledore could not hold. How could it? Dumbledore didn't just want
Harry not actively opposing him. He wanted Snape away from Harry, and
Harry was not about to let that happen. He wanted Harry's magic bound,
and Harry was not about to let that happen, either.

He paused, startled at himself.

\emph{You aren't?}

If someone else had asked him, he would have said that of course he
would allow his magic to be bound, if Connor wished it. Connor had made
the point that Harry's magic could hurt and frighten other people. Harry
didn't want that to happen. Surely it would be better to cage his power.

But how would that work? It was only a temporary solution. And given
what had happened the last time his magic had been fully under the
control of the phoenix web, that ``temporary solution'' was as likely to
get people killed as having the magic free. Harry wondered whether other
wizards would rather be dead, or alive and afraid.

No, his magic would have to stay free.

Harry shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. His head throbbed in
an odd, pleasant way that had nothing to do with the pain he got in his
scar along with his dreams. He had the feeling that he should have seen
this revelation long since, but better late than never.

\emph{So. Fight your way back. Now Snape.}

Snape's refusal to indulge his hatred towards Sirius was another
sacrifice, another change. How could Harry refuse to honor it? He had
demanded peace from Snape on the matter of his godfather, and got it.
Snape was \emph{trying}. The least Harry could do was trust Snape in the
matter of his legal guardianship, and that meant thinking about things
the way Peter had asked him to, so that he could tell Snape when
something went wrong or was bothering him.

\emph{This is simpler than I thought it would be,} Harry realized in
confusion, and moved his thoughts to Peter.

The phoenix web flared when he tried to consider betraying Connor, so
Harry concentrated on the story about Regulus, and the fact that their
parents, Dumbledore, Sirius, and Remus had left them alone to face
Voldemort's attack. Harry wondered what would have happened if things
had gone wrong, if the prophecy hadn't meant his brother to be victor
over Voldemort. Would Dumbledore have shrugged at Lily and James and
said that he was sorry? Would he have \emph{Obliviated} them the way he
did Remus?

Anger hissed through Harry, honest anger. It was still hard to feel
angry on his own behalf, but he could and would feel enraged over
Connor. The phoenix web even liked that, and retreated from paining him.

\emph{There have been too many sacrifices,} Harry thought, as he
remembered Peter's distant eyes when he spoke of the First War.
\emph{That was the way they fought then. We can fight the Second War a
different way. I don't need anything to be different, because I was
raised and trained to be a soldier, but someone like Peter shouldn't be
asked to do the same in the middle of his life. I want to fight in some
way that won't involve anyone but me having to sacrifice anything.}

He waited for pain from the phoenix web, or pain from his own
conscience. And there was nothing. There was only darkness in his mind,
bright darkness lit with the shine of possibilities like stars. Harry
shivered, and now there was gooseflesh running up and down his arms, and
his breath was coming short, and he remembered the sentences in
Starborn's letter that had most caught his attention.

\emph{Imagine that he was conscious, every moment, of what his power
could do and what it might be used for, and weighed the hopes of those
who came to him, and rejected the ones he deemed wrong instead of
mindlessly obeying every wizard's wish. Imagine such power bent to
defend, to protect and serve.}

And Harry thought, for the first time\emph{, I really could do that. I
really could be that. But to do that, I have to be conscious of my
power, not caging it, not ignoring it, not hoping that everyone else
will ignore it.}

The possibility, tasting of morning, lasted for all of a moment. Then
the ordinary, regular thoughts crowded in again.

\emph{Doing that} would \emph{frighten other people. There's no doubt of
it. And do I want to call attention to myself just now, when I've just
got Snape as a guardian, and have Aurors investigating my parents? And
Peter could still be lying. And Starborn could be lying. It's even
likelier with Starborn. He} \emph{admitted to being a pureblood who uses
the word Mudblood. I can't trust them. This is all just an aberration.
There's a reasonable explanation for all of it. Come summer, I'll be
back with my parents and Connor, and all of this will seem like a
nightmare.}

This time, it was the ordinary, regular thoughts that felt false and
strained, and it was his own voice and not the voice of his magic or
rage that answered his last statement, quiet and confident. \emph{It
will only seem like that if you let it.}

Harry lay awake, trembling, for some time after that.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


``Nervous, Harry?''

Harry snorted at Millicent and bit into his sausage. ``Hardly,'' he said
around the food, ignoring Pansy's grimace of disgust at the way bits of
sausage flew out of his mouth. ``It's just a Quidditch game.''

``It's against your brother,'' said Millicent, leaning forward, her eyes
shining with the Slytherin instinct for scenting a weak point, or blood
in the water. ``I'd think that would throw you. After all, you've gone
to great lengths before not to win that game, and you seemed quite
distressed last year when you did win.''

``That was last year,'' said Harry, and bit into another sausage without
quite finishing the first one. Pansy pointedly edged away from him.

Millicent lifted her head. ``You've changed your mind, then?'' she
whispered.

``Did I say that?'' Harry turned back to his breakfast, ignoring her
growl of frustration. Let her see how it felt, to be tormented and
teased and played with.

Draco, of course, leaned over and whispered, ``Do you really mean to win
this game, Harry, or not?'' Draco always considered that he had a right
to know truths like that, and he probably had more of a right than most
people, Harry conceded. As it happened, though, he knew why Draco was
asking this now. He'd been listening the night before when Draco bet
Blaise ten Galleons that Harry would win. Blaise was betting that Harry
would deliberately throw the game again. It irritated Harry slightly
that neither of them was betting on Connor to win, but he was fairly
sure he would get blank looks if he asked them why, so he didn't bother.

``I don't know,'' he answered Draco honestly, and went back to his
sausages.

``You should,'' Draco whispered, stealing one of the sausages. Harry
didn't know why, since his own plate had been loaded with them, but he
couldn't do much more than growl a protest; he'd bitten into too much
food for even him to talk through without spilling crumbs to the table.
\emph{It's too bad that the game today isn't a contest in that skill,}
he thought. \emph{I could best Connor at that and not feel awkward about
doing it. He'd probably be disgusted.} He snorted at the mental picture
of what his brother's expression would be as Harry crammed food into his
mouth, and so almost missed Draco's next words. ``Real talent deserves
some recognition.''

``You're not being subtle, you know, Draco,'' Harry pointed out as he
finally got his mouth free. ``I might have wondered what you meant first
year, but now I know.''

Draco frowned at him. ``Don't you \emph{want} to win?''

``Yes,'' said Harry, and ate one more bite before Flint's bellow rang
out across the Great Hall, summoning the members of the Slytherin
Quidditch team for one final lecture and yelling session. He sighed and
stood. ``And no.''

``You're bloody confusing,'' Draco whined at him.

``I'm being honest with you,'' said Harry, as he eased around the table
and towards the entrance to the Great Hall. ``The inside of my mind is
bloody confusing.''

He had just started to hurry, not daring to look towards the Gryffindor
table, when the shadow of wings swept across his head. He paused and
looked up, blinking. An owl circled around him, then dropped a letter
into his hand and hurtled back towards the window out of the Great Hall,
as if it were too busy to wait for a reply or even a Knut or treat.

Harry turned the letter over. He had suspected from the creamy paper
what it was, and the Ministry seal confirmed it. He swallowed once and
eased a finger beneath the seal, breaking it open.

``Hurry it up, Potter!'' Flint shouted.

``Just a minute, Flint!'' Harry yelled back, and then drew out and
unfolded the letter.

\emph{Dear Mr. Potter:}

\emph{It has come to our attention that your appointment of Severus
Snape as your guardian is irregular in at least one respect. There is
evidence that Professor Snape was once a Death Eater, and though he was
spared Azkaban by the good word of Headmaster Dumbledore and indeed was
not reported reliably at the scene of any Death Eater activity, his
reputation is hardly pristine. He would hardly seem the first choice of
guardian for the brother of the Boy-Who-Lived, who might himself be a
target of Death Eaters seeking to use him against Connor Potter.}

\emph{We must therefore be sure that you are not under any outside
coercion. Enclosed with this letter is a charmed parchment that will
check you for the} Imperius \emph{and other forms of compulsive magic.
When it is touched and has completed its listing of any relevant spells
you may be under, it will return to us. We also plan at least one visit
from the following Aurors, so that they may interview you personally:}

\emph{Auror: Kingsley Shacklebolt}

\emph{Auror-in-training: Aidan Feverfew}

\emph{If our Aurors see any irregularity, they will not hesitate to
recommend removing Professor Snape as your guardian. In that case, we
are minded to appoint either Professor Dumbledore, as was our original
intention, or your godfather, Sirius Black, whom Auror Shacklebolt has
done us the convenience of pointing out lives at Hogwarts. Please
prepare for the visit on the second Saturday of this month.}

\emph{Sincerely,}

\emph{Amelia Bones}

\emph{Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.}

Harry let out a little sigh. Well, he had known something like this
would probably happen. He had not expected the visit from the Aurors
specifically, and he wondered what it would take to fool them. A good
deal, he suspected. Shacklebolt was Dumbledore's, part of the Order of
the Phoenix, and if he trusted this Auror-in-training, he would either
also be part of the Order or a neutral who could do no harm---certainly
not an enemy of Dumbledore's.

Harry never doubted that he would need to fool them. Going back, falling
into Dumbledore's pocket, was simply not an option.

He swallowed. \emph{You are thinking the way Peter wanted you to think
again,} he accused himself.

\emph{And is that a bad thing?}

Harry shook his head and straightened his spine. Flint was glaring at
him from across the Hall now.

``Any day that you see fit to join us, Potter,'' he sniped.

Harry strode out of the Great Hall. He could feel thoughtful gazes fixed
on his back, but he had no inclination to turn and meet them. He had a
lecture to attend, a match to play, and a decision to make, probably in
mid-air.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Harry kicked into the air. He could feel eyes on him. The rest of the
Slytherin Quidditch team would be watching, because Flint had managed to
convince the rest of them that Harry was the reason their practices went
so well. Harry wished he wouldn't. Taking credit for his own Captaincy
would be a good start, even if said Captaincy did consist mostly of
yelling.

He could feel the Slytherins who'd bet on him to win or throw the game
watching. They'd probably debate every move he made, Harry thought as he
swerved around the first Bludger batted at him by one of the Weasley
twins, because they would want to be absolutely sure if he'd flown in
such a way as to hand the game over to Connor, or just had a piece of
bad luck.

The Gryffindors were watching him, and especially Connor, whose eyes had
gone wary. He no longer expected to win, automatically, when he played
Harry. Harry told himself he was glad. His brother needed to experience
real competition in order to grow. It was as simple as that. Harry
should have seen it last year and done something about it then, though
he'd been a bit too busy fending off an enchanted Bludger to think about
it.

He knew his parents, who had come for the game, wouldn't be watching
him. He wondered idly if the \emph{Fugitivus Animus} would blur his
shape in their eyes, or just convince them that he was someone else.

``And Gryffindor secures the Quaffle!'' Lee Jordan roared triumphantly.
``Chaser Angelina Johnson carries it---''

Abruptly he squeaked, and the Gryffindor stands roared in outrage. Harry
briefly turned from his search for the Snitch to see Flint cutting
Angelina off, turning his broom in such a way that she nearly fell from
the sky. She had to clutch at her own broom, and the Quaffle bounced
from her arms. Flint grabbed it and sped towards the hovering Gryffindor
Keeper, Oliver Wood.

Harry shuddered at the look on Flint's face. He obviously wanted to win
this game, badly enough to risk fouling an opposing player, and the
expression on Wood's face wasn't much better. \emph{Mad for Quidditch,
the both of them.}

``And the Snitch has been sighted!'' Jordan shouted, recovering from how
massively unfair life was. ``There goes Connor Potter, surely the most
magnificent Seeker on the field, after it!''

Harry glanced once at his diving brother, then shook his head. That
would be a feint; he'd played Quidditch with his brother too long not to
recognize the way he bent over his broom, prepared to spin off in one
direction or another. The Slytherin Beaters were falling for it, chasing
him, but Harry preferred to rise and hover above the chaos, still
looking for that flash of gold.

``\emph{Fall off your broom.}''

Harry clutched at his broom handle in shock. He darted a quick glance
around, but he could not see who might have spoken. It certainly wasn't
another Quidditch player; they were all below him. And the stands were
full of staring eyes and screaming mouths. It had sounded like none of
them, actually. It had sounded like a voice half in his head, the way
that Sylarana used to speak to him.

``\emph{Fall off your broom. Leave this match to your brother.}''

Harry, now that he was watching for it, felt the slithering of a cold
wind around his thoughts. This was the compulsion gift, he realized.
Someone was trying to make him fall by compelling him to do it.

He thought of Connor and discarded him in the same instant. Connor would
want to win the game fairly, and he was a bit busy at the moment,
skimming along just above the grass to escape the Beaters and their
Bludgers. But it was still compulsion.

That left Dumbledore, but Harry didn't think Dumbledore wanted him
harmed in the way that a fall from his broom would leave him harmed.

\emph{Sirius.}

Harry caught his breath as a shock of betrayal tore through him. Of
course, it would be that way, he thought a moment later. Sirius had made
no secret of his allegiances this year, even as he helped all four
Quidditch teams prepare for the matches. He wanted Gryffindor to win. He
expected to see the Quidditch Cup adorning Gryffindor House at the end
of the year. Harry had prevented that from happening the last two years,
and Sirius might well have decided to remove him as a threat.

\emph{But does he really want me dead?} Harry looked down at the boil of
green and red robes beneath him. \emph{That's what could happen if I
fell from this height.}

Now that he knew what was happening, he became filled with a reckless
desire to test if Sirius really meant it. He aimed his broom at the sky
and soared upward, ignoring Jordan's amused commentary about how the
Slytherin Seeker seemed to have decided to chase birds instead of
Snitches. Harry was two hundred feet above the Pitch, then three
hundred. He waited.

``\emph{Fall off your broom.}''

\emph{Yes, he means it,} Harry thought in a daze as he bounced the
compulsion off his Occlumency shields. \emph{Oh, Sirius. Are House
rivalries really that important to you, still? Or are you just not
thinking?}

He lowered his gaze, sweeping the stands until he saw Sirius's untidy
black hair. Sirius was sitting beneath a colorfully decorated Gryffindor
banner with their parents and Remus, of course. He would be
concentrating intensely to summon the compulsion gift from that far
below. Harry had no doubt he could do it, though. Connor had had to meet
his eyes when he demonstrated it, but Connor's gift had been new then.
Sirius had been well-trained in it for a long time.

``\emph{Fall off your broom.}''

``No,'' Harry snapped back aloud, irritated, and then looked down to see
Sirius's head tilt back. Harry couldn't read his expression, being too
high up, but he could make out the pale smear of his face, and that was
enough to confirm that, yes, Sirius had been talking him into a fall,
and Sirius could hear him back.

Harry resisted the urge to stick out his tongue, and looked around for
the Snitch. He still didn't know for sure what he would do when he saw
it, but his desire to catch it was a bit stronger than before. \emph{If
Sirius wants to see Slytherin lose so very badly, I am disinclined to
oblige him.}

Then he saw it, a golden flutter dancing and looping ahead of him, as
though it were taking a small stroll alone in this empty expanse of sky.
Harry tensed, but didn't move, listening instead to Jordan's commentary
for a moment.

``Slytherin scores,'' he said, sounding displeased, ``40-20.''

Harry nodded slightly to himself, and felt his mind open up in front of
him again, the way it had Sunday night. He was making another decision
that would change things, and he wasn't sure he would like all the
consequences.

But it wasn't his fault that the Snitch was up here, and Connor was down
there. Nor was it his fault that Gryffindor was trailing Slytherin right
now, and Harry's snatch of the Snitch would let them win conclusively.

It was much easier not to think, Harry found as he pushed himself
forward. He'd win the match, and then see what happened.

Of course, the moment he began flying after it, the Snitch began
exhibiting evasive behavior, darting back down towards the players and
cutting from side to side. Harry gave himself over to a Seeker's
instincts, and none of the evasive maneuvers mattered. He was not behind
the Snitch, but slightly in front of it, his hand poised to the right by
the time it fluttered there, his body leaning forward when the Snitch
stopped flying backwards.

``\emph{Fall off your broom.}''

Sirius's command simply rolled over him and vanished when he was in this
mental state, and then Harry's hand closed around the Snitch. He'd
planned to let out a howl of triumph, to mark the moment, but when he
felt the frantic beat of the tiny wings against his palm, he could do
nothing but swallow. He held up the Snitch in his closed hand and flew
back closer to the players, hoping someone would notice soon.

Lee Jordan did. ``Potter's caught the Snitch,'' he said, in a dazed
voice. ``Slytherin wins, 190-20.''

Harry heard the cheer erupt from the throats below him, at least the
throats clad in green or sitting in the Slytherin green-draped stands.
He smiled as he saw the gleams of pale and dark hair that would be Draco
and Blaise, the one taunting the other into paying up. Harry thought he
might be in shock. His breath rushed through his lungs, and he was
shuddering slightly, and the air around him was very clear and bright.

``\emph{Fall off your broom.}''

Harry shook his head and turned to glare down at Sirius. \emph{The match
is over. Slytherin won. Why does he have to keep doing this?}

He was just in time to see Sirius rise to his feet, his eyes apparently
intent on where Harry hovered, and Peter hit him like a whirlwind. Harry
felt his jaw gape, and did not care. Peter appeared to leap up from
between the slats of the stands---maybe he'd come as close as he could
in rat form, or actually transformed as he was making his way through
the gaps in the boards---and bear Sirius down onto the stands as he
tackled him. The compulsion ceased at once, but now people in the
Gryffindor stands were screaming for a different reason.

Harry narrowed his eyes and hurtled towards them, letting his Nimbus
2001 fly as fast as it could. The rest of the Pitch flashed by in
confused blurs of green and scarlet, and then he was above the fight.
``Peter!'' he yelled. ``Sirius! Stop it!''

Sirius had already transformed, and Peter was trying to hold down, or
fight back, or do something else with an enormous black dog. Harry knew
at once that he was going to lose. Peter was still thin and shaky from
Azkaban, and Sirius was enraged and snarling on top of being healthy.

\emph{And if Sirius wins and retakes Peter\ldots{}}

A cold wind blew in from the side. Harry reared back and saw the
Dementors pouring onto the Pitch, aiming for Peter. Their black shapes
appeared to ripple in the strengthening wind. Their eyeless
faces---Harry had learned now that they were eyeless---were turned in
one direction. People screamed and fainted all around them, and they
didn't appear to notice.

Harry bared his teeth and sharpened his grip on the Snitch. His hand
hurt from the tightness of his clutch. \emph{Good. The pain will give me
something to focus on.}

He flew straight at the Dementors.

They didn't stop coming, but they did ripple and part, and then Harry
could see the gray one he'd met in King's Cross Station in the middle of
them, walking down the suddenly empty space like a king down an aisle in
his throne room. That sensation of cold eyes from the eyeless face
assaulted Harry again, and that voice like an icy spike hammered in
through one ear. Harry pulled up, hovering. He didn't dare fly when he
was in such pain.

\emph{What are you doing? This one has escaped from Azkaban prison. He
is ours to retake.}

``I don't want you to retake him,'' said Harry, and bore down with his
right hand to make his fingers cramp and tremble, and his mind come back
from the threatening glimpses of the Chamber that danced on the edges of
his vision. ``You---you called me something, the last time we met. What
does that mean?''

Vates. The gray Dementor's voice had turned colder. \emph{But though we
might listen to you,} vates, \emph{that does not mean we obey.}

Harry had no idea what the Dementor was talking about, but he knew what
it meant: the Dementors were still spreading out around him and focusing
on Peter. He didn't want that to happen.

``You touched my mind last time,'' he said. ``Why, if you don't care?''

\emph{The} vates \emph{is important to us,} said the gray Dementor, and
reached out a shadow of a hand on which ghostly fingers flickered.
\emph{But our own responsibilities are to guard the prisoners of
Azkaban. We have no choice about obeying that binding, any more than you
have a choice about obeying your own.}

Harry took a deep breath. What he thought he had to do now was far more
than just listening, or thinking. But too many people had made too many
sacrifices, or might have to make them. Peter, and Snape, and Draco, and
Connor.

\emph{It ends here.}

``If I could free you from that binding?'' he whispered.

The Dementors all froze as one. Harry could feel them trembling, and
wondered if that was what they did in place of breathing.

Then the gray Dementor said, in a voice that felt as though it were
leaving ice crystals frozen on his face, \emph{Only the true} vates
\emph{could do that. And you are very far from being a true} vates
\emph{yet.}

``Free my magic, then.'' Harry lifted his head and narrowed his eyes at
the gray Dementor. ``You want to be free? You want to have possibilities
other than guarding Azkaban?'' He remembered the phrases in Starborn's
letter. ``I think I have power that I might bend to protect and serve,
and I would refuse compulsion if I could. I've had it used against me
too often to like it. But I \emph{can't get rid of this binding on my
own.}''

The phoenix web flared behind his eyes, but Harry thought hard about
doing this for Connor, getting the Dementors off the field so that he
wouldn't be terrified, and the pain in his head calmed.

\emph{That is the first step}, said the gray Dementor, and then it
glided forward and reached out a hand towards him.

Harry calmed his fear and grasped its fingers with its left hand.

Cold sank into him and overwhelmed him, freezing his arm from the hand
down, but Harry had felt the intense cold of his own magic and did not
flinch. The swirl of ice bore up to his shoulder and then across to his
neck and towards his head. Harry closed his eyes.

The warm flare of the phoenix web was there to greet him, and then the
Dementor's power reached his mind. This time, it did not simply rip and
tear at his thoughts as it had in King's Cross. Harry had invited it in,
and that made the difference. Harry could feel the way the Dementor trod
carefully through his thoughts, stirring up happy memories that it
delicately fed on, to keep itself locked in his head while it completed
its work.

And it did complete its work. Harry saw the phoenix web turn blue from
gold, and then he felt it begin to crack and fray. Behind it rose a
swell of power, and he panted, afraid of what it might mean.

\emph{We will not force you to free us,} the gray Dementor whispered to
him, the voice still painful. \emph{The} vates \emph{cannot be forced,
or he is the not the} vates. \emph{And we can do nothing about the part
of the web that is tied to your brotherly duty. But freeing your magic?
Yes, we may do that. At the least, we shall enjoy it.}

Harry didn't have time to question what that meant before the web
dropped in shards of ice, and his magic broke completely free for the
first time in his life.

The gray Dementor was borne backwards out of his mind on swelling waves
of power. Harry sobbed, and then bowed his head as he felt magic spiral
down his arms, warming the path of ice that breaking the phoenix web had
made. Then it reached his fingertips and rose all around him, an
incandescent wave of light that filled the Quidditch Pitch and struck
wildly for the sky beyond.

Harry managed to slit his eyes so as to see through the radiance, and
became aware that his magic was singing, in a voice far deeper and
gladder than the voice of the phoenix web. The song echoed through his
body, his mouth, his ears, and its cheerful booming shook the earth,
reminding Harry of Hagrid's voice. That ceased after a moment, but the
light continued rising from him, forming an enormous pair of white-gold
wings that beat lazily from his shoulders and covered the shocked faces
staring at him in brilliance.

Heated wind stroked his skin, and Harry saw the Forbidden Forest
stirring, the trees bowing as if in answer to that wind. Creatures were
moving at the edge of the trees, too. Harry heard the thin sound of many
cries, many greetings. He lifted his head as the wings dropped from his
shoulders, dissolving into sharp motes of light, and smiled in their
direction.

He looked back down at the stands. Peter was gone, and, Harry had to
hope, safe. The Dementors were nowhere in sight. Remus was on his feet,
staring hard at him. The rest of the school was staring at him, too, but
screaming in shock, and the expressions on their faces were different
from the one on Remus's, which was unexpectedly yearning.

Harry didn't know what the \emph{vates} was, not exactly, but he knew it
had something to do with freedom and magical creatures, and he wondered
if Remus had recognized him in the way a werewolf might.

He turned slowly on his broomstick, looking along the stands. Ron was
furiously scratching his shoulders. Neville was staring with an open
mouth and shining eyes. Percy Weasley had his hand over his face.
Hermione was mouthing questions at him that Harry didn't think he could
have answered even if he could hear her. McGonagall was on her feet, her
hands clasped together as if to hold something precious between them,
her face wildly proud.

Dumbledore was staring at him in horror.

Harry glanced at the Slytherin stands, and surprised a look of pleasure
and wonder on Millicent's face. Pansy had her mouth open. Draco was
standing up and applauding, while Blaise looked as though someone had
smacked him in the face with a hammer. And Snape\ldots{}

Snape's triumph hung around him like a roaring black fire to someone who
knew him as well as Harry did, even though he'd done no more than rise
to his feet and look up at Harry.

Harry read the next step in his guardian's face, and nodded. He was
terrified, and he did not dare look at his brother, but he knew what had
to happen next.

\emph{No hiding. No going back. We face what comes from this. We must.}

He started to fly towards Snape, and then paused as another voice rang
out over the field. This one was very familiar, but it didn't come from
inside his head. Instead, singing, Fawkes soared over the field and came
to settle on Harry's shoulder. Harry adjusted himself to carry the
weight and raised a trembling hand to stroke the phoenix's feathers. He
only realized he still held the Snitch when he realized that he couldn't
unclench his fingers from around it.

Fawkes fit his head into the curve of Harry's neck, and gave a low, glad
croon.

Harry took a deep breath, accepted the heat seeping into him like
courage, and flew towards Snape.

\chapter{*Chapter 20*: Shut Up,
Sirius}\label{chapter-20-shut-up-sirius}

Thank you for the incredible response to Chapter 16! I'm so glad that I
took a risk and it paid off.

Chapter 17 is an immediate continuation of it, so you definitely will
want to read that one first.

\textbf{Chapter Seventeen: Shut Up, Sirius}

Harry was trembling by the time he landed beside Snape, despite Fawkes's
warm presence on his shoulder, despite the fact that he knew there could
be no going back, despite the comforting hand that Snape immediately
clapped onto his other shoulder. Only his iron determination kept him
from running.

Well, that and the sense of what he owed to so many people. The
sacrifices had gone far enough.

\emph{It ends here.}

Harry turned and lifted his chin, meeting Dumbledore's eyes. It was his
move now. Harry was not about to clap his magic under bindings again.
Nor would he run. He had every right to come over to his guardian and
accept congratulations for winning the match for Slytherin. He had no
reason to whimper and cower as if he had done something wrong, or hide.

He finally managed to unclench his fingers from the Snitch, and smiled
faintly at Snape as he let the little golden ball go. Its wings were
broken. ``It looks like Madam Hooch will have to use a different set of
balls for the practice matches,'' he said, and Snape's gaze grew, if
possible, fiercer. It seemed as though he had forgotten the Quidditch
triumph in the wake of what happened next.

``She will indeed,'' he said. ``That was incredible flying, Harry. Both
during the match, and what came\ldots{}after.''

Harry swallowed, and felt a tingle of weariness run through him. He
didn't show it. They could not show any weariness, any weakness, not
right now. The easiest course for the Ministry and anyone else who
wanted to enslave him would be to pretend that a mere child couldn't
handle that much magic, and herd him, clucking, into the ``care'' of
someone who would make sure his power was bound again. But he had to be
honest with Snape. He had promised he would be. ``Better than you
know,'' he said. ``Sirius was trying to compel me to fall off my broom
at the same time.''

Snape did not move for a moment. Then his gaze rose past Harry, and
Harry saw Sirius's death in his face. He apparently shouldn't have
trusted Snape's newfound control around his godfather \emph{that} much.

``He will not leave the Pitch alive,'' said Snape. If he had made it a
loud, dramatic announcement, then Harry would not have worried. But he
said the words casually, and drew the wand from his sleeve, and Harry
knew he was seeing the man who had run as a Death Eater at Voldemort's
side. Even more telling, the shields were rising off Snape's magic. If
he wanted to, in this kind of rage, he could simply will Sirius's heart
to stop beating. Harry was grateful beyond words that he had thought of
his wand first.

He reached up and gripped Snape's arm, causing Fawkes to give a
disapproving chirp as he shifted positions. ``No,'' he said, when his
guardian looked at him. ``I don't want him harmed. I want him alive.''

Snape did not look as though that would change his mind. Harry firmed
his grip and leaned in close to say, ``He is my godfather. He's still
that.''

``Not by the time I finish with him,'' said Snape.

Harry sighed. ``I know that you probably think he doesn't deserve to be
my godfather any more---''

``He does not,'' said Snape, his voice smooth, ``deserve to live.''

``Please let him speak to us,'' said Harry. He glanced over his shoulder
and saw Dumbledore already coming towards them, his robes billowing
around him. ``Please let him explain why he would do such a thing. I
have the power to demand explanations like that and get them, now.
Dumbledore has to treat with me on a much more equal footing. Please?''

Snape took a deep breath. Then, abruptly, he smiled, and the shields
came down over his magic again. ``I suppose,'' he murmured, ``that I
would have little to gain from killing Black in public and in such a
manner that the Headmaster, at least, would immediately guess my hand in
the death.''

Harry squinted hard at Snape. He knew him well enough by now to guess
that the important parts of that statement had to do with killing Sirius
in public and in a traceable way. But what about private, untraceable
ways?

\emph{He is a Potions Master,} Harry thought uneasily, and felt his
heart begin to pound hard.

``Sir---''

He got interrupted by Dumbledore's arrival, and by Draco's. Draco
stepped up to stand at his side, every bit of him radiating wonder and
happiness and protectiveness, and Dumbledore halted in front of Harry
and inclined his head in a little bow. It was by far the most equal
gesture he'd ever got from Dumbledore. Harry bowed back, reassured now,
despite Dumbledore's narrow-eyed glance at Fawkes. The phoenix preened
his tail feathers and ignored Dumbledore.

``Harry,'' said Dumbledore, ``surely you will want to come and speak
with me about---your new magic, and other things, in the privacy of my
office? Surely you would like some answers?'' His eyes had a careful
look to them, and Harry recognized it. Dumbledore was making as gracious
a surrender of this as possible. He did not want Harry for one moment to
think he was defeated. Harry could almost admire the old bastard. At
least he knew his politics.

``I do,'' said Harry. ``But I want Professor Snape to come with us, as
my legal guardian, and Draco, as my best friend and as a witness from
the pureblood community, and Professor McGonagall, as a witch of
untouched reputation, and Hermione Granger, as a witness from the
Muggleborn community, and Sirius Black, to answer for his crimes, and
Remus Lupin, to be answered for the crimes done to him.''

Dumbledore stared at him. He understood the reasoning behind Harry's
gestures, of course, but he seemed stunned that Harry would actually go
through with them. Harry raised his eyebrows mockingly, his fear
retreating as he started to enjoy himself again. \emph{Of course I am
going to go through with them. I'll use any weapon against you I can,
Dumbledore, and not only the supposed Slytherin ones. The more
witnesses, and the more varied, the better.}

Dumbledore nodded once, and then said, ``It shall be as you suggest. You
will give me a minute to speak with Professor McGonagall, Miss Granger,
Professor Black, and Professor Lupin?''

Harry inclined his head again. ``Of course, sir.''

He felt Draco take his arm as Dumbledore moved away. ``Is that wise?''
he whispered. ``After all, Professor McGonagall is such a busybody. And
Black just tried to kill you. And Granger's twice the busybody that
McGonagall is, and---''

``Yes?'' Harry encouraged mildly, his gaze locked on Dumbledore's
retreating back. Sirius was human again, but still snarling and looking
around for Peter, whom Harry thought must have got away. He sagged when
Dumbledore spoke to him, though. Professor McGonagall was already making
her way calmly towards the Headmaster.

``She's a Mudblood.''

Harry glanced at Draco. ``I can't force you to stop using that word,
Draco,'' he said. ``I \emph{won't} force you to stop using that word. I
will ask you to please stop using it around me. I don't like it, and
it's ridiculous, anyway. Going by terms of sheer magical power, you know
that Hermione's one of the strongest witches in the school.'' Fawkes
added a croon after his words, as though to confirm that.

``I know that!'' Draco sounded peevish. ``But Mudbloods just don't
belong, Harry. And I thought you were going to ally with the
purebloods.''

``I'm allying with everybody,'' said Harry. ``If I can ally with the
Dementors, I can surely fit in some witches and wizards who grew up in
the Muggle world.''

``You must tell me what happened with the Dementors,'' said Draco.

``\emph{Must}?'' Harry asked, watching Remus's expression as he glanced
over Dumbledore's head at Harry. The Headmaster was casting
\emph{Sonorus} now, making some speech, probably reinforced with an edge
of compulsion, to calm the crowd down and make them sure that things
were being handled. Harry knew some people would calm down and leave,
but he doubted that the Headmaster would be able to make them stop
thinking about this. The headlines would appear in the \emph{Daily
Prophet} tomorrow. The Ministry would be notified. The news was probably
already sweeping like a storm throughout the community of people
Starborn was trying to maneuver.

Harry had to accept that. He had made his decision. There was no going
back.

\emph{I suspect I will need regular reminders of that,} he thought, and
tightened his shoulders, causing Fawkes to flutter in place. The
Headmaster had summoned Hermione. She was giving Harry a curious look,
her hand tightening on something around her neck. Harry tilted his head.
He could feel an intense aura of magic radiating from the thing,
whatever it was.

``Well, I'd like you to tell me what happened with the Dementors,'' said
Draco.

Harry broke his gaze on his enemies, or tentative allies, and smiled at
Draco. ``I will.''

The other Slytherins surrounded him then. They ranged from Blaise, who
was pretending everything was normal and accusing Harry of winning the
game purely to lose him ten Galleons, to Millicent, who smiled more than
she talked. But they walled Harry round in green and made him feel at
home.

He did not look across the field for his parents and his brother. There
seemed to be no point, not right now. His path was still too new.


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\newpage


``Would anyone fancy a cup of tea?''

Harry listened as Hermione and Sirius accepted, while everyone else
refused, Snape with no more than a dark expression. Dumbledore had
conjured chairs for the seven other people now crammed into his office.
Harry sat between Snape and Draco, with Hermione and McGonagall across
from him and Sirius and Remus in chairs on the sides of the rough
circle. Harry could still meet Dumbledore's eyes, since Hermione's and
McGonagall's chairs flanked the Headmaster's desk. Fawkes was not with
him. He had fluttered away towards the dungeons, singing, rather than
enter the Headmaster's office. When a phoenix chose his allegiance,
Harry reflected, he did it rather thoroughly, and did not turn back,
either.

He could feel the weight of tense expectation in the room. Merlin, he
was radiating some of it himself. This was the moment when some shells
were going to have to crack. He wondered idly for a moment what question
Dumbledore expected him to ask first. Something concerning his parents,
concerning Connor, concerning the phoenix web?

In the end, he decided it wouldn't matter. Rather than reacting to what
Dumbledore wanted him to do, he would lead the dance and force
Dumbledore to react to him instead.

``Professor Dumbledore,'' he said. He would stick to titles until they
were open enemies. They weren't, not yet. This was the steel fist in the
velvet glove, the same role he had danced opposite Lucius during his
Christmas in Malfoy Manor. ``Will you please enlighten me as to why
Sirius Black might have been trying to convince me to fall off my broom
during the Quidditch match?''

Hermione choked on her tea. McGonagall paled. Sirius slumped back in his
seat, bowed his head, and wouldn't look at anybody.

Remus stood up and shouted at Sirius.

``\emph{You} were doing that? I thought Harry might be having some
trouble with his flying, but I never---Sirius---you really did---'' He
broke off, but his eyes were glowing, and his voice had become a
rumbling snarl on the last words. Harry had only seen him angry like
that once before, and then he'd been too deeply under the influence of
the phoenix web to appreciate it.

``I did,'' Sirius said softly. ``I can't---there is no apology that will
be enough, Harry. But I'm sorry.'' He recited the whole thing in a dull
voice, his hair still falling across his face.

``Tell me why, Padfoot,'' said Remus, stepping forward until he stood
directly in front of Sirius's chair. ``I'm owed that, at least, I
think.''

Sirius looked up, and Harry stared. He hadn't really paid attention to
Sirius in the last few days, occupied as he was with the thoughts that
Peter had asked him to think. Sirius barely looked human. His face was
gray, his eyes bloodshot, and shadows that indicated lack of sleep and
pain both were cut into his cheeks.

``I'm sorry, Moony,'' he said, his voice steady now, but still dull. ``I
can't tell the whole thing over again. I'll leave that up to Albus.'' He
nodded to the Headmaster, and then slumped back down in his seat.

Harry looked in the Headmaster's direction, and surprised a gentle
expression on his face. ``Sirius?'' he whispered. ``You really grant me
permission to tell them everything?''

``Yes,'' said Sirius, his voice flat and gray.

``You have suffered so much, my dear boy,'' Dumbledore murmured, and
sighed. His eyes were more open than Harry had ever seen them. They were
showing the love that Harry suspected Peter had gone to Azkaban for.

Dumbledore faced the witnesses and began to speak. His voice did not
quaver, and his words did not falter or fade; they sounded almost
detached. But the way his eyes went constantly to Sirius made up for all
that he did not show in his voice, Harry thought.

``Harry Potter has asked why his godfather would betray him. I have
denied him answers before, but now that Sirius Black has granted me
formal permission to narrate the reasons, I will.''

``Sirius Black was born with the compulsion gift---'' Dumbledore waited
patiently for the shock wave to finish traveling around the room, and
continued in the perfect moment, which was the moment before Hermione
could begin asking questions ``---and had it trained ruthlessly by his
parents. He had a younger brother, Regulus, whom some of you will
remember.'' He looked to Remus, to McGonagall, to Snape. Remus's face
had gone absolutely pale, Harry thought. He narrowed his eyes. He would
ask Remus, later, why it was that he had agreed to go along with
Dumbledore and the rest of them, and betray Peter and Connor.

``Regulus had no compulsion gift,'' Dumbledore said softly, ``and did
everything his parents wanted of him. He did not suffer as Sirius did.
Sirius had the power, if he had not been trained, to make his parents do
whatever he wanted them to do, to believe whatever he wanted them to
believe. They had much smaller compulsion gifts, and they were
terrified, scared sick, as purebloods often are, at the thought of being
made to believe that perhaps Muggleborns were equal to them. My
apologies, Miss Granger,'' he added. Hermione nodded stiffly. Harry
looked hard at her, and realized she was the only Muggleborn in the
room. She would probably be thinking hard, and twice as hard as any
other Muggleborn student in the same situation would, because she was
Hermione. Harry decided to speak with her later, if he could.

It kept him from thinking too deeply about what he had just heard, for a
moment. Then the thoughts came rushing and pounced him.
\emph{Sirius\ldots{}they feared Sirius, just as my parents feared me.}

``They tried as hard as they could to sway Sirius to their way of
thinking, so that he would never wish to make them believe otherwise,
because he would believe the same things,'' Dumbledore's soft voice
continued. ``They---well. I am afraid beatings would have been the least
of it. But they were pureblood wizards, and, moreover, of a pureblood
line to whom Dark magic came as naturally as breathing.'' He looked at
Sirius again, and there was desperate fondness in his eyes. ``Do you
feel up to showing them the scar, Sirius?'' he whispered.

Sirius took a deep breath, put his teacup down beside his chair, and
rolled up his left sleeve. Harry stared. The scar there was one he knew
he had never seen before, and should have; Sirius had probably been
using charms to mask it. It rolled from Sirius's shoulder to just past
his elbow, and resembled a branching vein. Harry was not sure what could
have made it. It certainly didn't look like the cuts from a blade that
he had studied how to heal, nor the aftereffects of any Dark spell he
knew.

``That is the remnant of an \emph{Amotio Maga} spell,'' said McGonagall,
and when Harry looked at her, she seemed to be on the verge of fainting.

``Yes,'' Dumbledore acknowledged softly. ``When his parents were
displeased with him, they took Sirius's magic and locked it into a
festering, flesh-eating wound on his left arm.'' His voice was
emotionless. Harry wondered how long it had taken him to sound like that
when he spoke of this. ``It pained him horribly, and he could not use
magic to ease the pain---nor to do anything else, for that matter, as
long as the \emph{Amotio Maga} curse was in operation. His parents would
only give his magic back when he pleased them, which was not often. They
were trying to teach him the horrors of living like a Muggle.''

Dumbledore's voice warmed and grew sterner, both at once. ``It did not
work. When Sirius came to Hogwarts, he had a sympathy for Muggles and
Muggleborns, both, since he had been deprived of both his own magic and
control over it for so long. He was Sorted into Gryffindor, and I
undertook to protect him, as I could not do before.'' He paused one more
time, then sighed. ``\emph{All} of it, Sirius?''

Harry looked at his godfather. Sirius nodded, or the curtain of black
hair hanging over his face nodded. It abruptly occurred to Harry that
Sirius hadn't cut his hair in months. That had always been a sign that
he was depressed in the past. Harry felt an uncomfortable twinge of
guilt for having failed to notice it.

Dumbledore sighed once again, and took a battered piece of parchment
from his desk. He gave it to McGonagall, who stared at it and paled. She
handed it past Sirius to Draco, who only stared at it without interest
before handing it on to Harry. He took it with trembling hands. He
recognized his godfather's script, though it was far shakier than what
he was accustomed to seeing. Sirius must have written this letter when
he was younger, Harry thought, and the date at the top of the letter
confirmed it.

\emph{November 2nd, 1967}

\emph{Dear Professor Dumbledore}:

\emph{I know that you don't know me, but my name's Sirius Black. I need
your help. My parents hurt me. But I know you're the wisest and the best
wizard in the world, because you defeated the Dark Lord, and you'll help
me, because you always help children in trouble. Even my mother says so,
and I think she's afraid of you. Please, please help me.}

\emph{Sirius Black}.

Harry gave the letter to Snape, and stared at Dumbledore. ``And you
didn't help him,'' he whispered.

Dumbledore dipped his head slowly. ``I did not.''

``Why not?'' Harry could not imagine not responding to such a letter.
Sirius had just been a child.

``Because,'' said Dumbledore, with a sigh, ``at the time, I had no power
to help a child in desperate need. I was not yet Headmaster of Hogwarts.
And I had no legal means to challenge a powerful, pureblooded, Dark
family for control of their elder son and heir. The Wizengamot would
have laughed at any legal challenge, no matter how Sirius was being
treated. A child's letter was proof only of a child's temper tantrum,
they would have said.''

Dumbledore spread his hands slowly. ``I have spent most of my life since
trying to make up for that great wrong, and I fear that I have only
exacerbated it. I could not save Regulus Black. I could not save Sirius
from nightmares of his brother's torture and death at the hands of
Voldemort. I could not save him from the aftereffects of that Dark curse
used to forge the mental link between the brothers. Only Voldemort could
have broken it, and it ended only when Connor Potter survived his
Killing Curse.''

``What aftereffects?'' Snape asked the question with no emotion in his
voice at all. Harry was glad. He could think of many emotions that would
have made the room explode. Everyone was far too quiet. Remus had not
stopped staring at Sirius, for one thing, and Hermione's tears were
spilling silently down her cheeks as she read the letter.

``Sirius's mind has been---unstable since then.'' Dumbledore did not
look at Sirius as he spoke. ``He has had nightmares. And I asked him to
take on a duty that I feared he did not have the strength to do, because
we had a desperate need, and Sirius wished to be useful. First to guard
Connor, by coming here to Hogwarts as extra protection for him, and then
to tutor him in compulsion magic. Connor Potter also has the ability.''
Dumbledore closed his eyes. ``I asked him, but I fear I made it sound an
order. The Dark curse is prone to---twisting Sirius's good intentions,
it must be said. Sirius seemed to take part of protecting Connor to be
sabotaging Harry. And that came to a head today. I am sorry, terribly
sorry, to you, Harry, and to Sirius. What mistakes I made, I made out of
love, but that does not change the fact that they were still mistakes.''

Harry became aware that his hands were clenched tight again. He tried to
breathe, and could only utter a sound suspiciously like a sob, though he
still knew he was not going to cry. He stared at Sirius, and thought how
little he'd known of him at all, how the drinking and the womanizing
were probably an attempt to live as normal a life as possible, how the
dark circles under his eyes came from nightmares and not loss of sleep
over his latest girlfriend.

``None of that excuses what you have done to Harry,'' said Snape then,
and his voice was cold and utterly bereft of emotion or resonance.
``Bound his magic and encouraged him to be trained into a weapon.''

``I know,'' said Dumbledore, calm, accepting. ``But that does not mean
that the suffering of one can be made the reason for the suffering of
others, as would happen if Harry were to unleash his magic.'' Harry
looked up to find himself facing a stare full of passionate Gryffindor
resolve. Dumbledore was not going to back down from this one, he knew.

\emph{Well, neither am I.} Harry bared his teeth and hardened his heart.
This was for other people, not him. ``But you made Sirius's suffering
the excuse for others','' he said.

Dumbledore's face went white. Snape's chuckle followed after that, low
and smooth and dark.

``He has you there, Albus,'' he said. ``And I feel free to say that, as
Harry's legal guardian, I will not agree to your binding his magic
again. Nor will I consent to Harry being near Black again, nor alone
with him. He is insane, and he tried to cause my ward's death.''

``\emph{FUCK YOU, SNIVELLUS}!''

Sirius was out of his chair in an instant, bowling towards Snape. Harry
had time to react, and he snapped up a barrier in front of Snape, a wall
of white-golden light. He hoped Sirius would have time to react in turn,
but he hit the wall and fell backwards. A steady stream of whimpers slid
from his mouth, and he held a hand to his face, blood running between
his fingers. Harry suspected he'd broken his nose.

Snape hadn't reacted except to breathe a little faster, but the glare he
sent Dumbledore was deadly. ``And I will definitely recommend that Black
be removed from the school altogether,'' he whispered. ``That he would
attack another professor, not once but twice, is unacceptable. And as
for attacking students, the way he did today---it would not matter if it
was Miss Granger here, or Connor Potter. I would still ask for, no,
\emph{demand}, his removal.''

Harry watched Sirius climb slowly back to his feet. Yes, his nose was
broken. And Harry had caused that by no more than willing it to happen.

His magic reared around him, then settled on his shoulders in visible
golden coils of power. Harry saw Sirius's eyes trace them, and blank
hatred and rage turned to blank fear. Harry wound his fingers through
each other.

\emph{He's unstable,} he reminded himself, and looked at Dumbledore.
``You must have had a reason to keep him here so long and let him train
Connor,'' he said. ``What was it?''

``I told you,'' said Dumbledore softly. ``I asked him to train Connor in
compulsion magic because he had the time to do so, the ability, and
wanted to feel useful. I believed the duty would be light enough not to
affect him adversely. I did not---''

``I can still do it.''

Sirius sounded calm again. Harry looked back at his godfather, and saw
that he'd lowered his hand. He'd probably cast a healing spell on his
nose. His eyes were fastened on Dumbledore's face, and there was a deep,
quiet desperation in them.

``I love both of these boys as if they were my own children,'' he said.
``I know that Snivellus won't let me have any more contact with Harry
now, for as long as he's Harry's guardian.'' The stare he sent over his
shoulder said that he personally wouldn't let it be very long. ``But I
\emph{need} the contact with Connor. Please, Albus. I'm sure that Lily
and James wouldn't want you to stop letting me teach their son just
because Snivellus is being unreasonable.''

Dumbledore closed his eyes. He looked inexpressibly weary, but Harry
knew he would assent before he did.

``Very well, Sirius,'' he whispered. ``If you think you can control
yourself around Connor, then you may continue training him.'' He sighed.
``It would be the best solution, in any case. I simply do not have
enough time to give Connor all the training and attention that he needs,
while you do.''

Sirius nodded fervently. ``Thank you, Albus. I promise that you won't
regret this.''

``I will,'' said Harry, standing. He drew Dumbledore's gaze to him, and
part of him reveled in the sick terror behind the older wizard's
serenity. ``Why should I consent to leave my \emph{twin} alone with a man
who's hurt me so badly, and could hurt him?''

``Because,'' said Dumbledore quietly, ``Connor is doing well. He no
longer unconsciously compels people. But he has much yet to learn. And
it helps heal Sirius as well, to know that he's doing something.''

``That's true, Harry,'' Sirius chimed in eagerly. ``I promise that I
won't hurt him. I could never hurt him. I could never raise my mind or
my hand against him.''

Harry turned and studied his godfather. It hurt to say what he felt he
had to say next. ``But you could do it to me.''

Sirius flinched and turned his head away. ``You don't understand,'' he
whispered. ``This Dark curse makes me react strongly to Dark magic. And
you stank of it, and you chose a guardian who stank of it, and you're in
\emph{Slytherin} House, and it's just so \emph{hard}, Harry---''

He began to cry then. He sank into his chair unattended. Remus was still
frozen in the middle of the circle. Now he took his own seat, and drew
Harry's eyes and attention back to him.

``I think,'' he told Dumbledore, ``that Remus should know what you've
kept from him, now.''

Dumbledore tried to stare him down. Harry stared back, and let his magic
unfold lazily. Even the barest touch of that power made Dumbledore
narrow his eyes. Harry wondered how he felt the magic, if it was some
horrific physical sensation.

``I know,'' said Remus then, quietly.

Harry stared at him. ``You do?''

Remus nodded to Snape. ``Severus mentioned it to me at one point. He
said---he said I had learned you were being abused. That's what the
stolen memories concerned.'' He closed his eyes. ``And he also said that
the \emph{Obliviate} had to be removed delicately. My sanity is at stake
if it's just stripped from my mind. I know that.''

``Yes.'' Harry felt the claws of his power flex around him. He was
reasonably certain that he could remove the \emph{Obliviate}, now, when
he'd studied Remus's mind for a little while. ``But do you know why
Dumbledore \emph{Obliviated} you rather than try to persuade you?''

``Harry,'' said Dumbledore sharply.

``He was afraid he couldn't convince you,'' Harry told Remus, ignoring
Dumbledore. ``He was afraid that you would endanger a web in my mind,
one that had been there for eight years, since I was four. That web
fucked up my mind and bound my magic.'' He ignored the very slight flare
of golden pain from behind his eyes. He had expected it, since the gray
Dementor had told him the part of the web that concerned Connor was
still there. ``They needed me bound, to be Connor's guardian. Dumbledore
here is terrified of what I'll become when my magic is free, don't ask
me why---''

``You could become a Dark Lord,'' said Dumbledore, and the room appeared
to flicker into darkness as if a cloud had crossed the sun when his own
magic surged forward. Harry wondered if he was even aware of the edge of
compulsion that rode his voice. He did see McGonagall bow her head and
twist as though trying to escape a yoke, and Draco made a spitting,
hissing noise. Harry hoped they had managed to fight it off. ``You could
become as vast and dangerous as Voldemort, Harry. We are already
fighting one of him. I do not wish to fight two.''

``I swear that I will not,'' whispered Harry. ``I wish to defend, to
protect and serve.''

``Then why not remain as you have been?'' asked Dumbledore, his voice
ringing with wistfulness. ``You would be defending, protecting, and
serving under the phoenix web, and doing it with an easy mind and clear
conscience.''

Harry found himself laughing. The sound tore at his throat, but he went
on making it. The look of shock on Dumbledore's face, the shine of
mingled triumph and compassion in McGonagall's eyes, and the intent
expression on Hermione's features were worth it.

``I want to defend, protect, and serve other people than just my
brother,'' said Harry plainly. ``And that is \emph{going} to happen.'' He
turned and met Remus's eyes. ``Tell me when you want the \emph{Obliviate}
removed.''

``I don't know,'' Remus whispered. ``I---I have to think. I have to
think about what I'm ready to know.'' He avoided Harry's eyes.

Harry suffered a brief surge of contempt. Remus probably didn't want to
know, or wanted to think of some way to know about the abuse Harry had
suffered and yet avoid losing his friends. Harry would not be at all
surprised if he chose his friends, the way he had when he knew about
that Halloween night.

Then he restrained his contempt. He could not simply step into Remus's
mind and kick the barriers aside. That would make him no better than
Dumbledore, no better than Voldemort. He \emph{had} to respect Remus's
free will, even if that led him to actions Harry despised, and only act
against him when Remus actually did something to hurt him.

Harry faced Dumbledore again. ``And now I want to know why you tried to
put me back under the phoenix web,'' he said softly, ``when I had said
clearly that I did not want it. I want to know why you attacked Draco.''
Draco shifted closer to him. Harry put one arm around his shoulders,
ignoring McGonagall's shock. She hadn't known about the Headmaster's
attack on a student, then. \emph{Well, there is a first time for
learning everything.} ``I want to know why you thought it was so
important to have my magic and my mind bound.''

``I have told you,'' said Dumbledore. ``I feared that you would become
the next Dark Lord.''

Harry snorted. ``When I was \emph{four}?''

``Yes,'' said Dumbledore, his voice unexpectedly grave. ``No other child
has ever had power of that magnitude at such an age, Harry. Their power
matures slowly, along with them. Tom Riddle was already a powerful
wizard at eleven years old, but he did not suddenly leap full-blown into
spells that would have taxed adults. He had been powerful since birth,
and he went on refining his gifts. His magic gained ground because he
learned new spells, new techniques, and new training. But
yours\ldots{}yours was simply and suddenly \emph{there}, Harry, long
after your birth, when to all appearances you were born a magically
normal child. It had more than a touch of the unnatural about it. And
given the prophecy, we could not let the future savior of the wizarding
world grow up with a brother who would become a Dark Lord. We thought at
first that your training would encourage the magic to lie still and
accept refinement, but it wasn't enough. Your magic not only refined, it
kept growing in raw strength, as if its sudden appearance in your life
were not the end, as if it were drawing power from elsewhere. So, the
phoenix web.'' Dumbledore let out a long sigh and passed his hand over
his eyes. ``Because the greatest opponent of power, and of the careless
arrogance with which Tom used his power, is love.''

Harry lowered his eyes. There were a great many things he wanted to say.
He wanted to ask about the \emph{vates} title that the Dementors had
given him. He wanted to ask about what Starborn had said in his letter,
about Harry having the potential to become a kind of wizard who was not
a Lord. He wanted to ask about why they had to force him to love his
brother, and not just rely on the natural love. He wanted to demand that
Sirius be kept away from his brother.

But he looked at Dumbledore's face, and decided the first three would be
unwise questions to ask, at least if he wanted to surprise Dumbledore in
the future. And he looked at Sirius, and the words stuck in his throat.

They were so similar. They'd both endured, and managed to survive,
suffering. They'd both been feared for their gifts. They'd both been
asked to make sacrifices beyond what they could bear---though Harry
knew, at least intellectually, that his sacrifices had been heavier than
Sirius's.

It was true that Sirius hadn't hurt Connor. \emph{Not yet}, pointed out
a dark voice in the back of his thoughts. But his offenses had been
against Harry himself, and if Harry chose to forgive them, he could.

Harry let out a long breath. ``This is the way it's going to be,'' he
said, and saw Sirius's head twitch towards him. ``I don't mind if Sirius
trains Connor---for now. If he ever hurts my brother, then he'll have me
to contend with. The same if he hurts Snape, or Draco, or anyone else I
care about.''

Dumbledore nodded slowly, his eyes not moving from Harry's face. Harry
stared back at him, and went on.

``I mean to have Professor Snape as my guardian, still.'' He ignored the
firm grip on his shoulder. He'd expected it. ``We'll deal with the
Ministry. And I'm going to stay in Slytherin House and use my magic
openly, the way I want to, free of its constraints.''

``There are many things you do not know,'' Dumbledore warned him
gravely.

``I know that,'' Harry snapped. ``But I'm going to try to learn them,
rather than avoid or ignore them.'' He couldn't help glancing at Remus
as he said that. Remus flinched. The look in his eyes was odd now, a
mixture of fear, pleading, and the yearning with which he'd watched
Harry on the Quidditch Pitch. Harry stared back at Dumbledore. ``I want
you to stay out of my way.''

``You're talking to the Headmaster of Hogwarts, Harry,'' said Sirius,
who seemed to have recovered from his crying fit.

Harry gave him a glance he knew was withering. ``Shut \emph{up}, Sirius,''
he told him in exasperation. ``I forgive you for what you've done to me,
but I know what you are now, and I'm going to be watching you closely.''

``Those are the kinds of things a Dark Lord might say,'' Dumbledore
observed quietly.

Harry snarled at him, and felt the walls shake slightly. He snatched
back control of his rage before he could do something unfortunate.
``No,'' he countered. ``They're the kinds of things that a very angry,
very tired, very magically powerful teenager might say when he's been
forced to grow up and become a soldier too quickly and a sacrifice all
his life.''

Dumbledore was silent, regarding him. Harry turned, meeting the other
eyes in the room.

``I won't demand anything from you,'' he told them---McGonagall,
Hermione, Remus, and Draco. ``I will \emph{ask} that you use your
discretion when talking about what you heard in this room. And if you do
something to oppose me, please think about what I'll have to do in
return.''

Draco was grinning, now, and not bothering to hide it. McGonagall
nodded, her eyes shining with pride. Remus glanced away from him.
Hermione was chewing on a piece of her hair and scowling fiercely.

``And now,'' said Harry, rising to his feet, ``I think I'm tired, and I
have a party to attend in the Slytherin common room, and I'd like to
walk back down to the dungeons under the protection of my legal guardian
and my best friend.'' He held out a hand to Draco, who clasped it, hard.
Harry glanced once at Hermione, regretting the loss of an opportunity to
talk to her alone. But\ldots{} ``Hermione, I'm meeting Neville in the
library tomorrow after lunch. Can you be there?''

Hermione blinked and nodded. She would probably go to the library the
moment she left the office, Harry thought, and try to look up most of
the terms she'd heard here. He wished her good luck with finding them.
He could use the help, assuming she decided to help him.

``So our state is one of---'' Dumbledore began.

``Armed neutrality,'' Harry cut in. ``I won't attack you or your allies,
Headmaster, and I expect the same courtesy of you. I \emph{will} defend
my brother and anyone else I care about if you threaten them. I
\emph{will} defend myself against future attacks by Sirius.''

``That wasn't my fault,'' Sirius muttered.

``Shut \emph{up}, Sirius,'' said Harry, without looking at him. It would
take him a while to sort out his feelings for his godfather. He would
prefer to do it away from him. ``I will try to learn as much as I can
about my magic, and the best ways to use it.''

``There is so much damage you could do,'' murmured Dumbledore in a
resigned tone.

``I prefer to think of it as how much good I could do,'' Harry corrected
him, and then turned towards the dungeons, Snape and Draco immoveable
barriers on either side of him. He didn't wait to see how the others
sorted himself out. He was almost tired enough to skip the Slytherin
victory party.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Albus slumped against his desk as Harry and the others filed out of the
room. Things were bad, but not as bad as they could have been. There was
still a spark of hope. Sirius could remain in Hogwarts to train Connor.
The wizarding world would find out about Harry's power, but they
wouldn't fall in behind him as they might have had he declared an open
allegiance to the Light. Harry was still, technically, in a truce with
him.

Harry did not know the full story behind why Albus had called his power
unnatural. He did not know that Albus felt his magic as a narrowing of
every possibility in the world, a darkening and a stripping away of the
future.

Albus gave Fawkes's perch one last sorrowful glance, then stood up,
shaking his head. Things had gone as they would. There was no turning
back. He had lost some ground, but he would win it again. Harry had met
his eyes a few times, too directly, during their conversation. Albus had
used Legilimency, and knew he still bore part of the phoenix web, the
part linked directly to his brotherly duty.

It was enough. It would have to be enough. Albus would make it be
enough. Things were not as dark as they had been before, in the final
days of the First War with Voldemort, or those days of the war with
Grindelwald before Albus had felt comfortable enough to challenge him to
single combat.

He had survived then, by loving the wizarding world. He would protect it
now. Not all hope was lost.

He made himself believe that.


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\newpage


Snape saw Harry and Draco safe to the door of the Slytherin common room,
where the boys stepped from the silence of the corridor into wild
cheers, wilder catcalls, and the crooning and chirping of an overexcited
phoenix. Snape shook his head and made his way to his own office.
\emph{I hope the boy does not ask if he can bring the bird to classes.
My answer will always be no.}

He opened his office door, stepped inside, shut the door, and leaned
against it for a moment. He let the emotions wash through him, burning
triumph and bone-deep disgust and heart-high pride.

Harry had done it. He had \emph{done} it. His strength was incredible,
not only his strength of magic but his strength of soul. Snape did not
think he could have emerged from that sort of binding and not
immediately taken revenge on everyone who had ever done him wrong.

In fact, he knew himself not to be a very pleasant man, even with
smaller wrongs than Harry had suffered. And he was about to prove it
again.

Snape walked over to the locked cabinet at the back of the room,
unlocked it, and took out the potion sitting on the back shelf.

\emph{Harry might have forgiven Black for what he has done,} Snape
thought, as he held up the bottle and admired the dark green shine of
the potion. \emph{But I have not.}

\chapter{*Chapter 21*: Pureblood
Rituals}\label{chapter-21-pureblood-rituals}

I apologize for the rather amalgamated nature of this chapter. It's
mostly a transition between two arcs of action.

\textbf{Chapter Eighteen: Pureblood Rituals}

Harry wasn't sure who held the \emph{Daily Prophet} towards him first
the next morning when he walked into the Great Hall with Draco; it
seemed to come from half a hundred hands at once. Harry shook his head
and took his place at the Slytherin table, accepted a copy of the paper
from Millicent, and then glanced around the Hall, letting his eyes
travel slowly from face to face. He had avoided the reactions of the
other Houses to his magic yesterday, except for a few select members of
Gryffindor. It was time for him to look and see what they thought now.

Half of Hufflepuff House waved cheerfully to him. That would be Justin's
work, Harry knew, and Zacharias Smith's. They tended to argue with
anyone who said that Harry was the next Dark Lord, and given Justin's
sterling good sense and Zacharias's bloody-minded stubborn logic, they
usually got their way.

The Ravenclaws were more subdued, and the students in his own year
avoided Harry's eyes. A few of the older students who tended to torment
Luna were cowering in their seats. Luna looked up from reading the
\emph{Prophet} upside-down to nod gravely at him, and then returned to
her reading. Harry kept his gaze cool as he looked, finally, at the
Gryffindor table.

Neville was picking at his food. Hermione wasn't there. Percy Weasley
looked as if he'd been up half the night vomiting. Ron avoided Harry's
eyes. The twins just grinned at him.

Connor was glaring at him, and so were the other Gryffindors.

Harry took a deep breath and forced himself to turn his back on his
brother. He looked down at the article that adorned the front page of
the paper.

It was typically melodramatic, of course, because the \emph{Prophet} was
like that.

\textbf{{\emph{HARRY POTTER: NEXT DARK LORD OR TRUE SAVIOR?}}}

Harry's breath caught in his throat, and he groaned. They wouldn't---he
couldn't believe that someone at the \emph{Prophet} had really been
overtaken by the same nonsense that Snape had spouted last year, about
Harry being the true Boy-Who-Lived.

With dread, and yet a certain morbid fascination, he read on.

\emph{By: Rita Skeeter}

Harry Potter, a student in Slytherin House at Hogwarts School of
Witchcraft and Wizardry, and brother of our very own Connor Potter, the
Boy-Who-Lived, has revealed himself to be a source of immense magical
power.

It happened during a Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch game, with Dementors
on the field and a dramatic attack occurring in the Gryffindor stands.
Sirius Black, a Professor at the school and a descendant of the Noble
and Most Ancient House of Black, was reliably seen to be wrestling with
Peter Pettigrew. Our devoted readers will remember him as the Azkaban
escapee who excited and concerned many of us when, as reported in the
\emph{Prophet}, he appeared on the Hogwarts grounds, apparently
intending to murder Connor Potter.

Soon after the attack began, the Dementors appeared, and Harry Potter
flew to confront them on his Nimbus 2001 broomstick.

What happened then, no one seems quite sure, but we do know that young
Harry's magic expanded around him, in an explosion felt as far away as
the \emph{Prophet} offices.

``I think he's really powerful,'' said Seamus Finnigan, a Gryffindor
student in Harry's year. ``Did you \emph{feel} that?''

``I suppose he's powerful,'' said Ron Weasley, also a Gryffindor student
in Harry's year, and the best friend of the Boy-Who-Lived. ``I don't
really know, though. I didn't think he was \emph{that} strong.''

``Please leave me alone,'' said Percy Weasley, elder brother of Ron
Weasley, a seventh-year in Gryffindor House, and Head Boy. ``I have a
headache.''

No Slytherin students were available for comment, and Connor Potter
refused to do so. It is the understanding of this reporter that Lily and
James Potter, parents of both the Boy-Who-Lived and our new magical
prodigy, were at the game, but left before comment or a lack of it could
be obtained.

However, there is no shortage of fascinating things to learn about the
elder Mr. Potter. It seems that Harry caused rather a stir at Hogwarts
last year, when he turned out to be a Parselmouth, and was rumored to be
either possessed by the Dark Lord, or the new Dark Lord himself, during
the unfortunate rash of Petrification incidents during the autumn
months. While this reporter was unable to obtain information as to how
that incident fell out, it is certain that Mr. Potter has acquired a
certain aura of Dark magic. He also argued with his brother, the
Boy-Who-Lived, and may actually have been present during the historic
moment when Connor Potter killed the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets
with the Sword of Gryffindor.

We have also found out that the elder Potters are under investigation by
the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for unspecified incidents, and
that Professor Severus Snape, Potions Master at Hogwarts and Head of
Slytherin House, has become Harry Potter's legal guardian for at least
the duration of the investigation.

Amelia Bones, head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, was
unavailable for comment\ldots{}

That was as far as Harry got before a hand slammed down on top of the
paper, knocking it to the tabletop and flattening it. Harry took a deep
breath and looked up to meet his brother's eyes.

``How could you do that?'' Connor whispered. ``How could you hurt Sirius
like that? He came back from Dumbledore's office yesterday a shadow of
the man he looked before the Quidditch game. He told me that you didn't
want him to be your godfather any more, that you'd rather have sodding
\emph{Snape} as your guardian.'' His face was flushed, and his eyes shone
in a way that reminded Harry of James's. ``\emph{Why}, Harry? What sin
could he possibly have committed to make you reject him like that?''

Harry took a deep breath and stood. He could feel Draco surge up beside
him, but he put out a hand, and Draco held his tongue. Harry had to be
extremely careful of what was said here. He knew that Draco wouldn't be,
tempted as he might be to blurt out the secrets of Sirius's dark past.

``That's what worries you?'' he asked Connor. ``Not my power, not my
beating you in the Quidditch match, but this?''

``I care more about Sirius than some silly magical power, or some silly
game,'' said Connor, trying to sound adult. It would have worked better
if he weren't so angry. ``I thought you did, too. I guess that was my
mistake, huh?'' Bitterness cut deep lines into his face.

Harry clenched his hands. \emph{Damn it, I can't tell him the truth
without revealing Sirius's past, and I don't know if I have his
permission to reveal it.} He flicked a glance at the head table where
the professors sat. Sirius was there, watching without expression. Snape
leaned back from taking a platter of food in front of Sirius's plate and
gave Harry an inscrutable glance.

It was his choice as to how to handle this, and Harry decided to be safe
rather than sorry, especially given their audience.

``I'm sorry,'' he said quietly. ``But you don't know everything, Connor,
and until you do, you can't understand. Ask Sirius to tell you
everything, or to give me permission to tell you everything.''

``Now you sound like Mum,'' said Connor, his nose wrinkled.

Harry flinched, remembering Lily's often-cried phrase, the one he had
hidden behind himself last year. \emph{You just don't
understand\ldots{}}

``I don't need to ask anything,'' said Connor. ``I know that Sirius was
telling me the truth, and that you're being as bull-headed as ever.'' He
shook his head, his eyes hard. ``I don't want you to come to my training
sessions any more. You can't keep from hurting Sirius, so I don't think
you should be welcome during my private time with him. He should know
that \emph{someone} loves him and appreciates him for what he is.''

Harry inclined his head, striving to keep his face expressionless. He
was not sure how well he succeeded. Connor looked frustrated, which
could have meant anything.

``All right, then,'' said Harry, and sat down, and started to eat his
breakfast.

Connor leaned forward. ``I won't let you ignore me---''

``Potter,'' said Millicent, and Harry had never known how coldly she
could speak the name. ``It might have escaped your notice, but you're
near the Slytherin table. And you're threatening our House Seeker, who
won the match for us yesterday---the one \emph{you} lost thanks to your
bloody stupid flying. Now get away from us before someone puts a hex up
your arse.''

Connor paused for a long moment. Harry knew him well enough to see him
opening and closing his mouth without even looking up.

He didn't look up.

``\emph{Fine},'' said Connor, in a deeply meaningful tone, and turned to
trudge back to the Gryffindor table.

``Bloody stupid sod,'' Millicent muttered, and sat down again, making a
motion from the corner of her eye that Harry thought meant she was
tucking her wand away. ``He never learns, does he?''

``No, he never does,'' said Draco, and then leaned against Harry. ``It's
going to be all right, Harry.''

Harry nodded slightly, and flicked a glance at Snape, whose face had
relaxed enough to say the same thing with his expression. Harry did
think it was curious that he needed to lean right over Sirius's plate
again, his sleeve almost trailing in his godfather's goblet.


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\newpage


``Oh,'' said Neville, and his face lit. ``That's a simple way to
remember it. I never really thought of it that way before.''

Harry smiled. ``That's all right. It's not like I ever thought of it
before, either.'' He turned the parchment around, so that Neville could
see the whole of the table he'd drawn. The first third of it was a list
of Potions, the second third a list of plants from Herbology, and the
last part a small box that explained the connection between the Potions
and the plants. ``See? You can remember what ingredients a Memory Potion
takes by remembering it as a series of plants, all of which affect---''

``Memory.'' Neville leaned over the chart, his eyes already devouring
it. ``\emph{Thank} you, Harry.'' He hesitated, then glanced up again.
``Thank you for not making me feel stupid.''

Harry blinked. ``You're not stupid, Neville.''

``I feel like it,'' muttered Neville, looking down at the chart again as
a blush crept over his cheeks. Harry felt Draco shift impatiently beside
him. He hated Neville's self-deprecation, probably because he'd never
had a moment of truly doubting himself and his purpose in his life.
Harry, having been on the other side of it himself, understood it only
too well. ``Professor Snape thinks I'm stupid.''

Harry sighed. \emph{He's my guardian, but he's so far from perfect that
it's not funny.} ``Yes, he does,'' he had to admit. ``But that doesn't
mean you \emph{are}, Neville. You can learn Potions, really you can.
Just study the chart.'' He tapped a finger on the parchment and turned to
welcome the person he'd felt hovering around the edge of his awareness
for the last five minutes. He'd been slightly surprised that she wasn't
already here when he and Draco came to meet Neville.

As Hermione drew nearer the table, and her glance flickered at Draco,
Harry thought he understood.

``Hello, Harry,'' said Hermione quietly, and took a seat across from
him. Her face was closed, quiet. She had a book held in front of her
like a shield. Harry looked at the title, and was only mildly surprised
to see that it was \emph{Hogwarts, A History.} Hermione often carried
that one around.

``Hello, Hermione,'' he said, and saw her cast another anxious glance at
Draco. ``You don't need to worry about him,'' he added. ``His bark is
worse than his bite.'' Hermione's lips quirked in a smile.

``My bite and my bark are equally as deadly,'' said Draco, sounding
offended, though Harry thought it very likely that he didn't really know
what Harry meant. ``If I'm a dog at all, I'm a Grim.'' He turned back to
his Charms homework, but Harry knew he was on edge, listening and ready
to attack the moment Hermione said something remotely offensive. Harry
knew how much of an effort it took for him to sit here and just listen,
instead of leaping in or calling Hermione a Mudblood. He \emph{did}
appreciate the effort it took, he thought firmly. He would have to find
some way to show Draco that. It would never do to have him think that
Harry was ignoring him, or thought better of the Gryffindor witch than
he did of his best friend.

``You looked as if you wanted to do some research after the meeting
yesterday,'' Harry told her. ``What did you find?''

Hermione took a deep breath and laid \emph{Hogwarts, A History} on the
table. ``I've found out that Headmaster Dumbledore is the fourth Light
Lord to be Headmaster of Hogwarts,'' she said. ``The first one was
Cygnus Hedgerow, in the 1100's. And he was---he was kind of crazy, like
Dumbledore. Did you know that he wanted to put up wards so that none of
the students could actually practice magic? Just theory until they
reached the age of eighteen, and by then they would already have left
school. He was more than a little---''

Harry interrupted her gently. ``What made you think of Light Lords?''

Hermione leaned forward. ``That thing the Headmaster said about you
being a Dark Lord,'' she whispered. Neville jumped a little in the seat
beside her, but went on studying the chart of Potions and plants, and
Harry trusted him anyway. It wasn't as though Neville would run back to
the Gryffindor Tower and blab everything to the first person he saw,
especially with the Gryffindors' hostile attitude towards Harry. ``I
thought I remembered something about the difference between Light and
Dark Lords that was interesting, and then I started reading about Light
Lords who were Headmasters of Hogwarts. And then I remembered that there
was a fifth one. Or, well, he was almost the fifth one. Except not
really.'' Her fingers played with the edge of the page.

``What was his name?'' Harry asked gently.

``Falco Parkinson,'' Hermione said, in a whisper, as if saying the name
of another Slytherin student were tantamount to wearing the Dark Mark.
``And he\ldots{}'' She shook her head, then flipped rapidly through the
book until she reached a certain page and pushed it towards Harry.

Harry leaned closer to read.

\emph{\textbf{Falco Parkinson.} One hundred-twentieth Headmaster of
Hogwarts, His term endured only one year. It was believed later that the
stress of trying to be a Light Lord who set aside the magic of
compulsion altogether was what caused him to have the nervous breakdown
that forced his retirement.}

\emph{Falco began by seeking out dragons, leaving the school untended
for nearly a month while he did so. He came back with his left arm
missing, but insisting that he had learned the secret of freedom from
the dragons. Then he attempted to talk to the centaurs in the Forbidden
Forest, spending much time that he should have spent with his students
in secret negotiations that resulted in nothing. It is sometimes thought
that the centaurs' wariness and suspicion of humanity dates from this
time.}

\emph{There were rumors that Falco Parkinson was strong enough to tame
werewolves, breaking through the grip of the disease on their minds, and
he certainly spoke with Veela colonies and the merfolk who have long
dwelled in Hogwarts's lake. But in the end he resorted to compulsion to
enforce his will, and apparently came into conflict with his own
principles, and retired to live a quiet, and short, life at his own
cottage in Surrey. On the last day of the summer term, he apparently
sobbed continually, and repeated only the word,} ``Vates.''

Harry leaned back from the book as if burned. He could feel a tingling
excitement racing through his fingers. He looked up and met Hermione's
eyes, though, trying as hard as he could not to betray any of it. He
could see Hermione being the kind of witch who would get involved in
whatever he was trying to do---the thing that didn't have a name, unless
\emph{vates} was it---purely for the sake of knowledge, of realizing
things that she didn't know before. He couldn't lead her down that road.
If she took risks for his sake, if she even became a pariah among the
Gryffindors for his sake, then she had to know everything.

And he couldn't tell her everything until he was sure that he trusted
her.

``What do you think this means?'' he asked her.

Hermione shook her head, eyes gone large. ``I don't know,'' she said.
``The Headmaster called you a Dark Lord.''

Harry nodded, encouraging her to go on.

``And I know that you're strong,'' said Hermione. ``And I know that you
have the ability to---''

Draco cleared his throat noisily.

Hermione glared at him, and seemed a moment away from putting her hands
on her hips. But then she looked back at Harry, and nodded in
resignation. The glare slipped from her face, replaced by a quiet,
considering look that reminded Harry of McGonagall. ``I remember what
you said about being bound by the web,'' she said. ``I remember what you
said about wanting Professor Lupin to choose when he had his stolen
memories returned.'' She paused again, and Harry could almost feel her
awe at daring to contradict the Headmaster. And then she went ahead and
did it anyway. ``I don't think you're the kind of person who would
choose compulsion over free will, the way that Dark Lords do. That's
just not logical.''

Harry couldn't help smiling at her. It seemed that Hermione had, after
all, arrived by her own road at a place where Harry could trust her.

Hermione held up a warning hand, as though she could hear his thoughts
and wanted him to reconsider them. ``That doesn't mean that I think what
you're doing is right,'' she stressed. ``I think it's stupid, really, to
go against the Headmaster. Both of you believe that You-Know-Who is
wrong, and both of you value Connor. So I don't see why there should be
this much disagreement between you. It's as bad as the goblins and the
wizards at the Conference of 1584.''

She leaned forward and stared hard into Harry's eyes. ``But Connor's my
friend, and you're interesting, and maybe right. So I want to help.''

Harry let out a harsh breath. ``Good. Then can you research the phoenix
web for me? I need to know what it is and what it does, exactly, but I
haven't been able to find much on it, and the Headmaster would notice if
I searched. And I just don't have \emph{time} to search.''

Hermione smiled a little. ``You need me because I'm a good researcher?''
she asked.

``For right now, yes,'' said Harry, deciding to be honest.

``That's all right,'' said Hermione. ``I'd rather be needed for that
than just because I'm a Muggleborn.''

``But you are,'' said Harry, not understanding.

``I know,'' said Hermione, standing up. ``But I think what you do is
more important than what you're a symbol of. I'll look up the phoenix
web, and tell you about it.'' She nodded once to Harry, and then moved
determinedly off among the aisles of books. Harry watched her go, brow
furrowed, and wondering if he'd made a mistake including her in the
meeting yesterday as a representative of the Muggleborn community.

``Harry?''

Harry turned back rapidly. That was Neville, and he flinched at the way
Harry moved, but then he took a deep breath and met Harry's eyes. He was
trembling a little.

``I don't understand what all of that means,'' said Neville. ``But I'm
your friend, Harry. I'm here too, if you need me.'' He blushed and
looked down. ``I d-don't know if you'll ever need fat, stupid Neville
Longbottom, but I'm here.''

Harry reached across the table and caught Neville's hand. ``You're
\emph{not} stupid,'' he said. ``You're brave. A true Gryffindor.''

Neville flushed again, but this time with pleasure. ``Thanks, Harry,''
he said, and smiled at him.

\emph{That was well worth it,} Harry thought, as he sat back in his
chair. He darted a glance at his best friend, and had to smother a
smile. \emph{Even though Draco's all jealous over me now.}


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Harry slid to a stop outside the Slytherin common room, staring.
Millicent and Pansy were waiting for him, which might not have been all
that unusual, except that they knew the password themselves and usually
didn't have this intent, predatory look. And at Millicent's shoulder
stood her father, and behind Pansy's shoulder stood Hawthorn.

Harry let out a long breath and lifted his head. ``Is there some point
to this?'' he asked. ``Or did Starborn arrange this?''

He got a small smile and a tilt of the head from Hawthorn, but she said,
``No, this was entirely of our own initiative, the moment we felt your
power.'' She glanced at Adalrico and received a small nod, after which
she went on. ``We know, now, which side of the War we would choose to
stand on.''

Harry blinked several times. He had thought the purebloods would need
more time to make up their minds. On the other hand, Hawthorn had
already shown she could react fast to situations where fast action was
called for, and he supposed there was no reason to think Adalrico wasn't
similar. He nodded. ``My brother's? Dumbledore's?''

``Yours,'' said Adalrico, his voice rough with exasperation. ``Where is
the sense that your magic gave you, boy?''

Harry inclined his head. ``You realize that I'm going to have to ask you
what you want and work out the formal terms of a negotiation. I'm hardly
going to be leading a War yet. I'm still in school.''

``There's no need for complicated terms,'' said Hawthorn, and pulled a
knife from a pocket of her robe, unwrapping it from a silken cloth as
she did so. Harry blinked when he saw that the knife's blade was made of
silver, and the hilt was ebony. Hawthorn flinched as she looked at it,
but her expression hardened. ``You will know what this is,'' she said to
Harry.

``\emph{I} don't,'' Draco complained. ``What is it?''

``Draco,'' said Millicent, with infinite gentleness, ``go away. You
can't be here. Your father hasn't made up his mind yet. You're not
allowed to watch what we're doing.''

Draco folded his arms. ``I can be here if Harry wants me to be,'' he
said.

``This is intensely private, Draco,'' Harry said, meeting his eyes and
holding them for one moment. ``And they're right. If your father hasn't
made up his mind yet, then there's no way that you can be here, because
you might accidentally tell him what you saw here. Or he might read it
out of you with a spell.''

Draco opened his mouth for a moment, then closed it. He bowed his head
and shuffled dejectedly into the Slytherin common room. Harry turned
back towards Hawthorn and Adalrico, his heart pounding with a crazy sort
of excitement. He had never anticipated this, but now that it was here,
he wondered how he could have anticipated anything else.

``It's going to hurt, isn't it, when the blade cuts you?'' he did ask
Hawthorn.

Hawthorn gave him a look. ``Of course it will. It is silver, and I am a
werewolf. But I don't care. It must be done this way.'' She crouched
down and drew back her left sleeve, and Harry saw the gleaming black
skull and snake of the Dark Mark.

He resisted the urge to put a hand to his scar, even as it began
twinging. He watched as Hawthorn drew the blade firmly across the Mark,
bisecting the skull. Rich blood welled in its wake, and the skin to
either side of the slice turned red and puffy. But Hawthorn's face, when
Harry looked at it, was calm, only a whiteness around the lips revealing
her strain.

``I bind blood to blood,'' she said, ``blood across blood, blood in
honor of purpose and protection.'' She raised her eyes to Harry's face.
``I am Harry Potter's ally. I will not take up magic or arms against him
or his family. I will grant him protection should he ask for it or be in
need of it. In any dispute about primacy, I follow of my own free will,
and will abide by his decisions.'' She held her bleeding arm out to
Harry.

Harry took the blade from her other hand and cut his own right arm. ``I
call blood to blood,'' he said, the words flowing faultlessly from his
lips after a moment as he remembered the old ritual, ``blood throughout
blood, blood in honor of choice and change. I am the Parkinsons' ally.''
He sought Hawthorn's eyes for only a moment, to be sure it was the
choice of her whole family and not just her. She gave him a short nod.
Harry felt immensely heartened. ``I will not take up magic or arms
against their family. I will grant them protection should they ask for
it or be in need of it. In any dispute about primacy, I accept their
following, and will guard their interests as if they were my own.'' He
touched his bleeding arm to Hawthorn's.

The entire corridor disappeared behind the blinding flash that followed.
Harry heard Hawthorn crying out hoarsely, swearing in a language that
sounded like German, and hoped that she hadn't been hurt. He hadn't
anticipated that the light would be so bright, nor the reactions of
their blood so fierce.

When he could see again, Hawthorn was staring at her left arm. It was
healed, Harry noted, the swelling from the silver-blade cut going down.

\emph{No}, he realized abruptly, staring. It was \emph{completely}
healed. The Dark Mark was an ugly scar on Hawthorn's arm, visible if one
looked for it, but far fainter than it had been.

No Mark had taken its place. Harry was glad for that. A Mark like that
would have meant he was a Lord, and he didn't want to be.

In the stunned silence, Adalrico laughed, his exaltation as fierce as a
storm. ``If I had any doubts,'' he said, ``they are gone now.'' He
almost snatched the knife from Harry, and bared his own Dark Mark.
``Your Starborn did well, finding us this one,'' he told Hawthorn, and
then turned towards Harry and smiled. Harry became aware that his magic
was beating around him, radiating away from him and back from the walls
in deep waves. He supposed, from the glazed look in Adalrico's eyes,
that it was a good feeling and not an oppressive one.

Adalrico made the same vow, and Harry repeated it and touched his
bleeding cut to Millicent's father's. This time, he was prepared for the
flash of intense light that signaled a successful binding, and when he
looked down at his right arm, he saw two silvery scars cutting past each
other in parallel lines.

``Those will break open and bleed if we ever betray you,'' Adalrico told
him, though Harry already knew that. ``And our Dark Marks will return if
you betray us.'' He paused, his eyes sparking as they fastened on
Harry's face. ``I hope that you will never betray us. You are the better
choice, in a world of Dark Lords and Light Lords.''

Harry shook his head, even though he was smiling. ``I'm only thirteen,''
he pointed out.

``Older than that,'' Adalrico retorted. ``I can see the truth, unlike
\emph{some} people.''

``Hush,'' Hawthorn said, very mildly. ``Starborn reassures me that he is
talking to Lucius Malfoy, and that Lucius is close to coming around.''

``Lucius is a blind fool, and should have seen the truth before now,''
Adalrico said, getting to his feet. For a moment, he met Harry's eyes
directly, and his hand clutched Millicent's shoulder. ``And you'll take
good care of my little girl, I trust?''

Harry nodded, then looked at Pansy. ``And you, too.''

Millicent snorted. ``Don't forget, Potter,'' she said, sounding like her
old self, ``we get to protect you, too.'' Her eyes lit when she smiled.
``I'm looking forward to the next time your brother tries to hurt you.''

``He's part of my family,'' said Harry. ``So you can't lift your wand
against him.''

Millicent opened her mouth, then shut it, looking extremely peeved.
Harry laughed, and then glanced at Adalrico and Hawthorn.

``What are you going to do now?''

``You could command us to do something,'' Adalrico said, watching him
closely. ``We would obey, of course.''

Harry shook his head violently. ``I don't---I don't like commanding
people,'' he said. ``Or compelling them.''

``This is an order, not a compulsion,'' said Adalrico, and then glanced
at his daughter. ``I see what you mean about him,'' he said obscurely.

``Terrible, isn't he?'' Millicent sighed, and then turned to Harry.
``Sooner or later, you're going to have to lead.''

``Maybe,'' said Harry, as he turned towards the Slytherin common room.
``But today isn't that day.'' He did pause, remembering what Hawthorn
Parkinson had told him, and looked back at her. ``Wasn't it dangerous
for you to come to Hogwarts today?''

Hawthorn smiled. ``Not since I declared my allegiance to you. I am under
your protection now.''

Harry shivered a bit. Adults, witches and wizards who were more
experienced if not as strong as he was, were depending on him for
protection.

He did not want to let them down.

``Thank you,'' he said. For the vow, for the trust, for being willing to
take silver on the arm\ldots{} she would know that he meant any and all
of those.

Hawthorn smiled at him. ``You're welcome.'' Then she turned away to
speak to her daughter. Harry slipped inside the Slytherin common room,
and patted a sulking Draco on the shoulder.

``Your father will come around eventually,'' he said.

``He \emph{better},'' Draco said darkly. ``What does it look like, when
the Bulstrodes and the Parkinsons can see sense sooner than the Malfoys?
He's being an idiot\ldots{}''

Harry listened to a tirade about Lucius Malfoy for the rest of the
evening. It was the one way to make Draco feel better, and Harry much
preferred having Draco happy to having him sulky.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


``You will do well, Harry,'' Snape said softly, touching Harry's messy
hair once more, but retracting his hand before he could muss it further.
``They are only an Auror and an Auror-in-training.''

Harry nodded.

``And we have discussed what to do.'' Snape's lips thinned for a moment.
``We have spent the past week discussing little else.''

Harry nodded again as his gaze nervously sought out the door of Snape's
private rooms. This was where they had agreed to meet Kingsley
Shacklebolt and Aidan Feverfew. It was the Saturday of the Ministry
visit, and Harry kept wondering what they would do, what they would say,
if they would really try to take Snape away from him\ldots{}

``Has Black given you any more trouble?'' Snape asked, probably to
distract him.

Harry took the distraction gratefully. ``No. In fact, lately he won't
really look at me, and broke down crying once in the corridor when he
couldn't avoid me.''

Snape smirked. Harry narrowed his eyes.

``What did you do to him?'' he asked, just as a sharp knock sounded on
the door.

``It seems that our guests are here,'' said Snape, and swept away before
Harry could question him further. He frowned, and then told himself to
straighten up and look as neutral as possible. It probably wasn't
possible to look happy, not when he was this worried.

``Auror Shacklebolt, Auror-in-training Feverfew,'' Snape was saying, his
voice soft and courteous. ``Welcome. My name is Professor Severus Snape,
Potions Master at Hogwarts and Head of Slytherin House.'' He waited a
moment, as though to allow the next title to fall on their minds.
``Guardian of Harry Potter.''

``Where's your ward?'' That was Shacklebolt, a tall black man with
piercing eyes that put Harry in mind of a lynx. He caught sight of Harry
just then, and nodded slightly. ``Never mind.'' He rifled through a box
of parchments that he held, and drew out one of them, which he held out
to Harry. ``Mr. Potter, would you mind explaining this?''

Harry took it, thinking it would be his original letter naming Snape his
guardian. But it was, instead, the parchment he'd marked and sent to the
Ministry last weekend, listing the coercive magic he was under. It said
only \emph{phoenix web.}

``Why, Auror Shacklebolt?'' he asked, looking up and blinking. ``It
means just what it says. Unless you don't trust the legal magic, of
course.'' He couldn't entirely hide a smirk, and his magic rose around
him, shimmering, in response to his amusement. The Auror looked as
though Harry had taken a sledgehammer to his head.

``But---a phoenix web isn't coercive magic,'' said Shacklebolt, blinking
and recovering. Harry could see the Auror-in-training now, who was in
intense conversation with Snape. He was a slight young man with pale
hair and a habit of twitching his nose like a rabbit, and looked
slightly awed of Snape. ``This parchment means only that you \emph{think}
of the phoenix web as coercive magic. It's perfectly legal.''

``Legal doesn't mean morally right, Auror,'' said Harry, leaning back
against Snape's desk. ``You ought to know that, when so many Dark
wizards got out of Azkaban after the First War by claiming they'd been
under Imperius''

Shacklebolt made a slight, irritated gesture. Harry ducked his head to
hide his grin. He and Snape had planned this, to knock their visitors
off-balance as soon as possible and keep them there. \emph{Make this
more about them than about us,} Snape had said, \emph{and we are free.}

``I know that,'' Shacklebolt snapped. ``But, as it happens, I know where
this phoenix web comes from.'' He leaned nearer and stared significantly
at Harry.

Harry smothered a flare of irritation. How many people had Dumbledore
told? Or was Shacklebolt's knowledge something new, something that
Dumbledore had told him in an effort to wrest back control of Harry?

``So?'' Harry asked, with a slight shrug of his shoulders. ``All it
means is that this web has a different kind of origin than you believed.
It doesn't make things right. It doesn't mean I think of it as any less
coercive.'' He stared hard at Shacklebolt. ``What questions did you come
here to ask me?''

The Auror fumed a moment, then sighed. ``Are you happy with Severus
Snape?'' he asked finally.

``Very,'' said Harry, and waited.

``Why did you choose him?'' Shacklebolt spat the words as if they were
pebbles.

``Because he's my Head of House,'' said Harry. ``He has been very
supportive of me, especially last year when it was found out that I was
a Parselmouth, and some people feared me for what they thought was a
Dark gift. He has trained me to control some of the wilder excesses of
my magic, and assisted me in finding constructive things for my power to
do.'' The last week had been\ldots{}interesting in that respect. Harry
found it much easier to brew the Wolfsbane Potion when his magic was
darting about the potions lab, bringing ingredients over as he needed
them. ``He is the best guardian I could ask for.''

``Not Albus Dumbledore?'' Shacklebolt asked. ``Not your own godfather?''

``I do not trust the Headmaster,'' said Harry bluntly. ``And my
godfather thinks that I have Dark magic merely because I'm a
Parselmouth.'' He adopted an injured expression. ``You can ask him, if
you want, but he just wants to get me away from my guardian because he
can't stand Professor Snape, and thinks all his magic is Dark. It's more
a matter of schoolboy rivalries than wanting what's really best for
me.''

He thought, in amusement, of them questioning Sirius. \emph{Oh, yes,} do
\emph{let them question him. I don't think he will impress them much
with his sanity, or his fitness as a guardian for a young wizard.}

``What about your brother?'' Shacklebolt asked.

``What about him?'' Harry echoed blankly. He couldn't tell where the
conversation was going now. Was the Auror about to suggest that Connor
should be Harry's guardian instead of Snape?

``Do you feel resentment towards him?'' The Auror's eyes raked him.
``Jealousy? Some people in the Ministry and the \emph{Daily Prophet} have
suggested that you mean to take his place as savior of the wizarding
world, and that's why you released your magic in public, at a Quidditch
match.''

``Are you supposed to be asking me questions like this?'' Harry asked,
imitating the tone that Snape used with Neville. ``I'm sorry. I thought
you were only supposed to ask me questions about my guardian, and
whether I was in my right mind when I chose him.'' He glanced towards
Snape. He had finished with Feverfew, it seemed, intimidating him into a
quivering mass. ``I want my guardian here if you're going to ask me
questions like that,'' he went on in a louder tone, and Snape's head
snapped up.

``Has my ward committed some crime, then?'' he asked, taking a step
forward. ``Why do you look as though you're facing a criminal, Auror
Shacklebolt?''

Shacklebolt gave a frustrated growl, and Harry thought he understood.
This would be the excuse that Dumbledore gave the members of the Order,
to try to pivot them against Harry. He would say that Harry was jealous
of Connor's prestige, that he was ambitious enough to try and make
people notice him instead for his magic, and that the timing of his
magic's release from its cage was not coincidence.

Now that he knew, he could fight it. Harry said, ``He was asking me
about my brother, if I was jealous of him. And I didn't think he was
supposed to do that. I thought he was only supposed to question me about
you.''

``He is.'' Snape's voice was clipped. He moved the rest of the way
forward, so that his shadow completely sheltered Harry. ``Your partner
has finished asking me all his questions, Auror Shacklebolt. If you have
nothing else to say, then I suggest you leave.''

For a moment, Harry thought the Auror might argue. Instead, he inclined
his head, neck tense as a bowstring. ``Very well,'' he said, almost
spitting the words. ``But the Ministry shall require another visit, in a
few weeks, to know how your guardianship is progressing, and if Mr.
Potter has made any progress in restraining his wild magic.''

``Good day, Auror Shacklebolt, Trainee Feverfew,'' said Snape, and
watched them go. Harry saw the awed look that Feverfew cast back at his
guardian, and smiled. It seemed they might have won one ally, or at
least swayed him closer to being impressed.

The moment the door of his rooms shut, Snape hissed and tore at his left
arm. Harry hastily shifted aside the cloth, and stared when he saw the
Dark Mark for the first time, ignoring the way it made his scar prickle.
It was inflamed, the skull a deep sable and the snake an ugly, poisonous
green. Harry could only imagine how sternly Snape must have been
controlling himself to appear composed in front of the Aurors.

``What does this mean?'' Harry whispered.

``That the Dark Lord is returning,'' Snape whispered back. ``That
somewhere, he is stirring, and feels happy, and we---ah!'' Abruptly, he
went to his knees, his lips clenched. Harry knew how severe the pain he
must have been in was, that he permitted even that tiny gasp to escape
his throat.

Acting on instinct, he touched the Dark Mark and focused his magic on
it. \emph{Stop hurting him,} he told the Mark, and hissed it aloud in
Parseltongue, focusing on the snake, for good measure.

The color vanished from the Mark. Snape stared at him, then at the Mark,
then at him again. Harry stepped away, shrugging self-consciously.

``I don't know,'' he answered Snape's incredulous look. ``It just seemed
like something I should do.''

``It no longer hurts,'' Snape said softly, and then stood, still giving
Harry his piercing stare. For a moment, it seemed as though he might say
something. Harry waited, rather nervously, for what it would be.

Then Snape turned away, and Harry let out a breath as the tension
relaxed. It grew again with Snape's next words, however.

``The Mark's message remains the same. The Dark Lord is growing stronger,
and you will be one of his primary targets. You are to remain within the
school unless it is absolutely unavoidable, as for Quidditch practices,
do you understand? And then you are to have people around you. I know
that you have allies among the purebloods. Let them guard you. You are
\emph{never} to be alone with Black, not at all.''

``Surely you don't believe that \emph{Sirius} is working for Voldemort?''
Harry protested.

``I believe in limiting your emotional damage as much as possible,
Harry,'' Snape snapped at him. ``And that means limiting your contact
with him.'' He smirked as though something were funny. ``Leave him to
suffer with full knowledge of what he did wrong.''

Harry opened his mouth to ask about that, but then Snape added briskly,
``And, of course, you will not be attending any of the Hogsmeade
weekends unless you manage to convince a professor who is not Black or
Lupin to chaperone.'' Snape smirked at him again. ``I plan to be
occupied with brewing.''

``\emph{What}?''

They had an argument about that for a good half-hour, which Snape won,
and Harry sulked about for another hour, until Snape sent him off to do
Transfiguration homework. He was grinning as he prepared his parchment
and ink in the crowded, chattering Slytherin common room, to the
accompaniment of Fawkes's sleepy croons, and it took him a long moment
to realize why.

It felt\ldots{}\emph{good} to have a parent again.

\chapter{*Chapter 22*: Strength of a
Soul}\label{chapter-22-strength-of-a-soul}

Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter! Writing that one turned
out to be surprisingly fun.

And here's the arc it was transitioning to.

\textbf{Chapter Nineteen: Strength of a Soul}

Snape watched with his usual blank expression as Black drank his heavily
drugged pumpkin juice. Behind the blank expression, of course, he was
grinning, but no one else needed to know about that.

It was nearly three weeks now that he'd been giving the empathy potion
to Black, and so far everything had worked out the way he had hoped.
Black was reliving the same pain that Harry had suffered, the same
memories of being bound and tortured and abused. That Harry had not
experienced them as binding and torture and abuse at the time did not
matter. Black retained his own perspective, even as he suffered the
emotional and mental pain. He would know the burden Harry had been
laboring under.

His gaze drifted down the table to Remus Lupin, who was picking at his
food---understandable, given that the full moon was near. If Snape had
not been reasonably certain that Lupin's mind would change when he
finally allowed Harry to remove the \emph{Obliviate}, then he would have
been tempted to give Lupin the empathy potion, too. Both of them needed
to understand what they had done to the boy. It was justice. It was
right.

\emph{And it is so entertaining to watch.}

A movement near the Slytherin table caught his eye, and Snape watched as
Harry slipped out of the Hall. He knew where his ward was going. He
would do homework for a few hours, then slip out of the castle, to watch
his brother in company with Black. So far, Harry believed Snape ignorant
of these little trips outside of Hogwarts, and Snape let him think so.
It wouldn't do to make Harry feel caged. So long as he stayed within
Hogwarts' wards, Snape could check on his presence and reach him easily.

Eventually, of course, Harry would have to learn that Snape took his
guardianship more seriously than wielding it in petty power plays over
whether or not Harry could go to Hogsmeade. But that time wasn't yet.

Black's fork cracked loudly against his plate. Snape looked back at him,
and this time did permit a smirk. Black's face was pale, eyes unseeing
as he stared at the memories that Snape himself knew well, since he had
put them into the potion when he was brewing it. That potion would have
been impossible to make if he'd never had access to Harry's mind.

\emph{Perhaps he is reliving the times Harry cast pain curses on
himself,} Snape thought contentedly as he picked up his own goblet.
\emph{Or the times that he was scolded for not studying faster, in case
his brother might need him.}

Snape hummed as he drank. He had other doses of the empathy potion in
preparation. He thought they might make a fine Christmas gift for Lily
and James Potter.


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\newpage


Harry glanced over his shoulder, and sighed with relief when he noticed
no one coming after him. Millicent and Pansy had been very vigilant
lately, as though they really \emph{had} realized that Harry didn't
spend all his time in the Slytherin common room or the library, and
Draco was worse. If Harry left him alone too long, he returned to a
turned back and a very tight grip on that bloody bottle.

But he thought he'd managed to fool them well enough tonight. A few
gentle reminders of what homework was due in every class had made them
yelp and scramble to work---and since Harry himself had purposely
distracted them from that homework yesterday, he knew how much writing
they still had to do.

He shivered as he slipped across the lawn, under the protection of a
Disillusionment Charm, and towards the Quidditch Pitch, where Peter had
asked him to meet this time. He checked the detailed map he'd created of
the Hogwarts grounds, and relaxed when he saw the dot labeled
``Wormtail'' already in place, with no ``Dementor'' dots anywhere near
it. Three times their conversations had been interrupted by Dementors,
who still did not seem inclined to listen to Harry when he asked them to
stop pursuing Peter. Harry was hopeful that this time Peter would get to
tell him everything, since the phoenix web had calmed down so much.
Harry hadn't felt its presence at all in over a week.

\emph{A conversation with Peter, and then time to go protecting,} he
thought as he lengthened his stride. Sirius and Remus would be running
tonight, given the full moon, and they had asked Connor to go with them,
or so Harry had surmised from overhearing his brother's mysterious
hints. Harry was not about to leave Sirius alone with his brother in the
Forbidden Forest, with Remus trapped as Moony and largely incapable of
helping if something should---happen.

\emph{Connor's lessons with Sirius always leave him all right, if more
prejudiced against Slytherins than ever,} Harry thought as he stopped in
the shade of the Ravenclaw stands and removed his Charm.

\emph{And they end at a certain time,} Harry answered himself.
\emph{Everyone expects Connor back at such and such an hour, and Sirius
wouldn't dare keep him later. But in the Forest, when no one knows he's
going along with Sirius and Moony? Oh, no. I should be there.}

He really should have been there all along, Harry acknowledged, as he
consulted his map by the light of \emph{Lumos} and looked for Peter. His
first duty was to protect his brother. He'd let it go shamelessly
lately, frustrated by Connor's inability to speak to him without
insulting him and enthralled by the intricate dances that he performed
with most of the Slytherins.

\emph{But not tonight. If Peter isn't going to come forward---}

``Harry,'' said Peter quietly, and then he was there, seeming to melt
out of the darkness. Harry supposed he had to have got used to hiding,
to avoid the Dementors and all the people hunting for him so long.
``Thank you for coming. I want to tell you what I got interrupted on the
last three times, so I'll try to keep it short.''

Harry nodded.

``Have you heard of the Soul Strength Spell?'' Peter asked, without
further preamble. His eyes were wide, and his nose twitched now and
then, the only remnant of the rat he showed in human form.

Harry blinked, taking the moment both to search his memory and give the
phoenix web time to react. His mind remained blessedly dark and cool,
and he shook his head. ``No.''

Peter smiled grimly. ``It's a spell that answers a specific question the
caster asks about the strength of someone else's soul. Dumbledore used
it on us---'' by which, Harry knew, he meant the Marauders ``---when
trying to find out who would have the strength to betray you and leave
you open to the Dark Lord's attack, then go to Azkaban afterwards so
that no one would find out what the Lord of the Light had done.'' Peter
spat Dumbledore's title. The weariness Harry had heard in his voice at
the beginning of the year had long since given way to ancient, dusty
hatred. ``No surprise, is it, that he found Sirius would crack if he was
asked, and Remus would collapse without his friends, and James was too
devoted to Lily? I was the strongest. I was the one chosen to make the
sacrifice.'' Peter closed his eyes and expelled a long breath.

``He sent you to Azkaban primarily so that no one would find out what
he'd done?'' Harry breathed.

``Of course,'' said Peter. ``That was the only way, with the phoenix web
to make me look primarily jealous and a crime so heinous that no one
would demand a really \emph{detailed} trial. Otherwise, we either would
have to put up with questions that might uncover the truth---a relative
of that blasted Skeeter woman came quite close as it was---or having
people know that Dumbledore was a man who would sacrifice children and
lose all trust in him. And, of course, if we'd arranged it another way,
they would have to do without the legend of the Boy-Who-Lived.'' He
closed his eyes more tightly.

Harry stood there and stared at Hogwarts, and thought about that. His
own sacrifice paled next to Peter's, he thought. The man had given up
\emph{everything}, and known he had done it because he was not the
weakest but the strongest of the Marauders.

``And you must know,'' Peter went on, after a pause that Harry thought
was shorter than it should have been, ``that Dumbledore also used the
Soul Strength Spell on you and Connor before the attack, to see which
one of you could bear the burdens and sacrifices of being a weapon more
easily.'' His eyes flared open, and seemed to pierce Harry. ``And you
were the stronger one.''

Harry felt himself begin to shake. He sat down in the grass and wrapped
his arms around himself. He'd brought a cloak, but he was still cold. Of
course he was, he thought absently. It was already the end of November,
and the wind carried ice in its teeth.

``Harry?'' Peter whispered. ``Did you hear what I said?''

``I heard,'' Harry whispered back, as quietly. He didn't know why he was
shaking. He'd heard everything that Dumbledore had done. He knew all his
crimes. Why did he want to shake? Why had hearing something else
unexpectedly hurt and upset him so much?

\emph{It's a good thing that he used that spell, in fact,} he told
himself firmly. \emph{Imagine if Connor had been trained to protect you.
You wouldn't want that to happen, would you? You wouldn't want to see
him crack and fall apart because he couldn't bear the burdens.
Dumbledore chose wisely. He even tried to arrange things so that the
person who would be the best savior would become the savior, even though
that was really Voldemort's doing. I bet the spell doesn't test for
things like compassion or gentleness. That's Connor all over.}

He felt Peter grip his arm. ``I'm sorry, so sorry,'' the older wizard
whispered. ``I wish there was some way I could turn back your life,
Harry. Some way I could have carried you from Godric's Hollow that night
the Dark Lord fell. Your life would have been so much happier.''

``Yes, but what would the cost have been?'' Harry said back. He could
talk, if he didn't try to talk too loudly. ``Connor would have to bear
\emph{everything} all by himself, and you just said he couldn't do that.
They might have hunted and killed you for what they would see as a true
betrayal. And I would be left without the purpose in life that I was
always meant to fulfill.''

Peter made a soft frustrated noise. ``That's the thing about prophecies,
Harry. They're not as simple as---''

He turned his head abruptly, and Harry felt the cold of Dementors. He
sighed. He knew it was no good. He couldn't force them to stop hunting
Peter, and until he understood how to free them and what the
consequences of it would be, he couldn't do that either.

``You'd better go,'' he said, but Peter had already risen to his feet.

``I will,'' he said. ``Take care of yourself, Harry. But, please, think
about what I said. Just because you were strong enough to go through
what you have and survive \emph{does not mean} they should have put you
through it.''

He transformed and ran then. Harry sat in silence for a little while
longer, then stood up and shook himself. The moon was fully risen.
Werewolves were running.

It was time to run with them, and guard his brother.


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Harry swore under his breath as he stepped carefully along the path that
Connor had taken after Padfoot and Moony. He didn't dare use his magic
to run through the Forest as he had once before, since he was sure that
the stir it would cause would draw too much attention from Sirius and
Remus. His only consolation was that Connor couldn't keep up, either,
and was pausing to rest every few hundred feet. Harry would catch up to
him soon. He knew his brother had his Invisibility Cloak, but Harry had
checked his specialized map before entering the Forest. There were thick
trees ahead, and Connor would have difficulty changing his path much.
Harry was relatively confident that he was still right behind his
brother.

His own Disillusionment Charm was beginning to wear away, the ambient
magic of the Forest nibbling at it. Harry snorted and waved his wand to
renew it.

A werewolf's voice cut the sky. Harry smiled, then shivered slightly.
The sound came from ahead of him, and he suspected it was Moony, voicing
his exaltation the only way he knew how.

Harry stopped to rest against a tree, not wanting to stumble onto Connor
too suddenly, and because he \emph{was} tired from picking his way over
brambles and between patches of moonlight and darkness and what
\emph{looked} like darkness but was actually small hollows in which he
could twist an ankle. He looked up at the full moon and surprised a yawn
out of himself.

Moony howled again.

Harry abruptly straightened, then, as he realized that there was no way
that second howl could have been Moony. It was much closer, and to the
side instead of ahead of him.

That might mean it was to the side of Connor.

Harry wrapped his magic around himself and began to pass lightly through
the undergrowth. He would draw attention, but that could not be helped.
He would rather save his brother than stay in hiding.

That philosophy had been the source of much of his difficulty, he
reflected, as he darted around the trees like a wisp of smoke. If he'd
managed to save Connor undetectably in his first year, then Snape and
Draco might never have suspected he was anyone remarkably different from
what he seemed, and he could have remained as he was.

He grimaced. \emph{And would you really want that? Your magic would
still be bound.}

He jerked his thoughts back to the present. Now was not the time to be
thinking about the phoenix web and how different his life was now that
he knew about it. Now was the time to think about Connor and how he was
going to defend him if the second werewolf in the Forest was aiming for
him.

Harry followed the path down into a little hollow, leading him between a
mounded ridge on the right and a bank of thick trees on the left. He
froze as he saw a sudden glint of movement from ahead. He let out a slow
breath when he realized it must be the trailing edge of Connor's
Invisibility Cloak, and then smiled slightly when he heard his brother
cursing under his breath. He seemed to be fine so far.

A scuffling, snapping sound came from the top of the ridge. Harry looked
up, and saw a dark, crouched shape silhouetted against the moon.

Then the shape howled, and leaped downhill, heading straight for Connor.

Harry shouted and broke his own Disillusionment Charm. He saw the
startled shuffle that was Connor turning towards him, but he didn't
care. There was a \emph{werewolf} coming, and his brother was standing
there like a\ldots{}like a\ldots{}

Like a child, which was what he was.

Harry flung himself into motion, and arrived, thanks to the lightness
his magic inspired, between the werewolf and Connor. The werewolf saw
him and altered its stride, impossibly fast and graceful for such a
large beast. Harry didn't have time to see much before it spun to the
left and then whirled around to face him, paws raking long furrows in
the earth, but he did see black fur and eyes full of a wild, alien fire.
This was a werewolf not under the control of the Wolfsbane Potion.

And now Harry could see the moonlight striking the long stripe of gray
fur that ran from the tip of the immense black wolf's muzzle to his
tail.

\emph{This is Fenrir Greyback,} Harry thought, and felt his heart leap
from immobility into sudden motion.

His mind cleared as it did so, though, and his eyesight sharpened. This
was the kind of battle he had been trained for. He knew exactly where
everyone was. Connor was behind him and slightly to the left, with the
way he'd turned. Greyback was in front. The ground beneath his feet was
mostly solid, but slippery with rocks and dirt and leaves; he would have
to remember that.

A slight snarl was the only sound Greyback made before he charged,
bearing down on Harry like the Killing Curse. Harry shifted his grip on
his wand, and saw the werewolf's eyes turn towards it.

He didn't use it. He flung his magic forward instead, edging his voice
with the same will that he had once used in these same woods to crack an
egg-shaped stone and save Draco's life.

``\emph{Stop.}''

Greyback rolled over as though someone had slammed him all along his
left side. He whimpered as he rolled, but he came back on his feet
almost immediately, and this time he was closer to Connor. Harry turned
to cover his brother. He heard Connor ask a breathless question, but he
didn't have the time to listen. Werewolves were highly resistant to
magic. He had always known that. It was part of what made them so
dangerous, even to highly trained adult witches and wizards such as
Hawthorn Parkinson.

It was a problem when facing Greyback, but Harry did not intend to let
it defeat him.

He looked deeply into those wild eyes, burning with hatred and
bloodlust, and sought some trace of humanity, the odd recognition that
Remus had displayed on the last full moon night and again at the
Quidditch game. If he could find that part of the werewolf, could
connect with it, then perhaps he could convince Greyback to back off and
not hurt Connor.

He found nothing like it. Perhaps that only worked with people who were
under Wolfsbane Potion. Harry nodded, and slowly the priorities in his
mind shifted. He could felt his objections shrinking, becoming small and
cold and silent. He lifted his wand and held it towards Greyback, in
spite of the fact that he probably wouldn't need it.

He was preparing himself to kill, for the first time in his life.

Greyback \emph{bounded} this time, hitting the ground with all four feet
at once and bouncing off, aiming at Harry's chest and head. Harry
focused and sharpened all his will, and held it in a shearing blade a
few inches in front of his face.

He let it go when Greyback was too near to avoid it.

Greyback screamed, his face and his muzzle tearing open as he landed and
plowed into the dirt a few inches from Harry's feet. The strike hadn't
blinded him as Harry had meant it to do, though, nor killed him. He
scrambled up, snapping his jaws, well inside Harry's personal space.

Harry didn't have time to step back before the heavy body hit him and
bore him to the ground.

He tried to shout for his brother to run, but his air was gone. He
grabbed Greyback's neck, holding him there as long as possible, wanting
to give Connor some time to get away as well as himself a moment to find
a weapon that worked.

Greyback's jaws snapped in his face. Harry's arms were already shaking
from the effort it took to hold his head back.

He heard feet shuffling, and hoped Connor was running. He tensed,
prepared to strike if Greyback should get distracted.

The werewolf didn't even look around, though he must have been able to
smell Connor. His claws were plunging into the ground on either side of
Harry now, driving him forward. Without his magic lending strength to
his limbs, Harry was fairly sure he would have been bitten already.

Revelation struck him like lightning.

\emph{He didn't come to assassinate Connor. He came for me.}

Harry had just finished processing that when something pale flashed past
his vision and struck Greyback. Once again, the enormous werewolf went
rolling, this time with a whimper that he could not quite escape, and
the sound of cracking bone. It seemed to be his night for it, Harry
thought, as he stood and wiped dirt off his robes. He was trembling
slightly, and it took him a moment to understand what he was seeing.

Greyback, his tail to the trees, faced a smaller, paler werewolf,
probably fawn in color, though it was hard to be sure in the moonlight.
He was snarling continuously, and she was replying in the same language.
Harry was fairly sure that she turned her head towards him for a quick
glimpse, and that he saw the hazel eyes of Hawthorn Parkinson in her
face.

Greyback charged while her head was turned.

Harry had no time for finesse. He knew only that he had promised to
protect Hawthorn and her family, and here she was, risking her life for
\emph{him}. Granted, their bargain went both ways, but he was the
stronger. He should be the one doing the defending.

He reached out and called up the ground at Greyback's paws with the
force of a \emph{Reducto}. It tore itself apart in a fountain of earth,
and Greyback screamed, halted and caught halfway through his leap. Harry
heard another sound of cracking bone, and this time, when the black
werewolf touched down, his left foreleg dangled uselessly.

Hawthorn struck at his right shoulder, silent and blinding fast. Her
fangs flashed, and Harry saw a bleeding wound sprout just to the side of
the gray stripe. Greyback howled in misery, and snarled for a good show
of it, and then turned and limped furiously across the path and up the
ridge. Hawthorn snapped at his heels for a moment, then spun back and
trotted over to Harry, sniffing at him.

Harry held out a shaking hand. Yes, it was Hawthorn. She graciously
permitted him to rest his fingers on the end of her muzzle, and met his
eyes with the same grave, calm politeness that she showed in human form.
Harry found that recognition in her gaze that he had missed in
Greyback's.

``What am I?'' he whispered. ``Do you know?''

Hawthorn only stepped away from him, with a speedy flowing movement that
proclaimed how very much she was a wild creature at this moment, and
looked up the slope. Harry tensed and turned, but it was only Adalrico,
his hand loosely clasping his wand.

``Good as your word,'' he murmured, sounding satisfied. ``Lucius is a
bloody fool.''

Harry let out a sharp breath, and glanced along the trail. ``Have either
of you seen my brother? He would have been wearing an Invisibility
Cloak---''

``Then we wouldn't have seen him,'' said Adalrico.

Hawthorn snarled at the older wizard and began sniffing up the trail.
Harry relaxed and started to take a step after her.

``But if you mean the younger wizard currently blubbering like a fool in
Black's arms,'' said Adalrico, ``then yes, he's well enough.'' He tilted
his head at Harry in curiosity. ``I would have thought you would be more
concerned about the other one.''

Harry frowned. ``Other one?''

``We were following Greyback before he transformed,'' said Adalrico.
``He was muttering something about a second death, something to punish
the son of someone reluctant to help raise the Dark Lord---''

Harry never doubted the conclusion his mind snapped to.

\emph{Draco.}

He ran full out for the school, ignoring the trailing yelp behind him.
The trees blurred past him, and his feet no longer touched the ground,
and still Hogwarts loomed on the other side of the trees, impossibly far
away.


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Draco yawned and put his book down, rubbing his eyes. It was all very
well to study Charms for hours on end, but he wished Harry would come
back---

\emph{Harry.}

Draco sat up, not swearing, because a Malfoy did not permit profanities
to cross his lips in front of a common room full of observers, but angry
enough to do it. Harry had maneuvered them all \emph{again.} Draco could
see it now, the continual pattern of fun yesterday that had distracted
and cajoled them away from their studies. Harry had chattered at them
about there being other things to do than homework, and landed them all
with it today so that he could have some time alone.

Draco stood and marched up to their bedroom to put his Charms book away.
He was going out into the corridors, curfew or no curfew, and look for
one Harry Bloody Potter.

He stepped into the empty room---Vince and Greg were with Pansy, who was
trying to teach them both some Potions basics they should already have
grasped, and Blaise was in the library---and then paused. Something
was\ldots{}out of place. The room was empty and dark and quiet in the
way that it should be, but something was still out of place. Draco
couldn't have said what it was, and knew his father would be annoyed
with him for that. The curtains did not tremble, as if in a strong wind,
but it felt as though they should have. The air did not tense and
tighten with a spell resting unspoken on a tongue, but it should have.

Draco muttered to himself, to distract himself from the sudden
nervousness, and then bent down to put his Charms book in the trunk at
the foot of his bed.

Something under the bed hissed.

Draco jumped back, the pain of his sudden headache from powerful and
malicious magic good as a shout of warning. Jaws snapped where his ankle
had been, and then the thing slithered into the light.

Draco knew at once it was a magical item, no natural snake. It was just
too dark, and its green scales had the sheen of jewels. It inched
towards him, silver fangs bared and ruby eyes gleaming. It stank of
cinnamon and almonds, and Draco shivered. He recognized the scent from
several deadly poisons that had been in their Potions textbook.

He opened his mouth to cry out, and then felt the unmistakable presence
of silencing wards on the bedroom. The door locked with a sudden little
\emph{snick} in the same moment.

The snake waited for a moment. Draco stared at it, and felt his mouth
dry and his hands clench helplessly in front of him. Malfoys did not
become afraid, but it seemed as though he were afraid now.

The snake lunged.

Draco barely escaped. He was sure he felt the fangs tear the leg of his
trousers. He scrambled to his feet, his hands shaking so hard he could
barely draw his wand. Then his nerves stood up on end and shrieked.

\emph{He couldn't see the snake.}

He stamped down and spun to the left, trying to think of something that
would affect a snake which was clearly made of Dark magic. Serendipity,
and not any good planning, saved him. The snake had been waiting to his
right, and its next strike missed, too.

Draco stumbled another step away, and rammed into his bed. He aimed his
wand as nearly straight as he could, and shouted, ``\emph{Stupefy!}''

The snake moved, and the Stunning spell missed it entirely. Draco jumped
up on the bed with a shriek. Now he didn't know where the snake was,
under the bed or crawling up the posts. Fuck, the thing was \emph{fast.}

He caught a glimpse of green off to the side, and shouted,
``\emph{Petrificus Totalus!}''

He missed again, at least if the way the coil vanished instead of
freezing was any indication. Draco climbed to his feet, balancing as
best as he could on the bed, and concentrated on means of lifting
himself. He would have to hope that the damn thing couldn't fly.

``\emph{Wingardium}---'' he began.

The snake boiled up and across the sheets at him. Draco shrieked and
lost the thread of the spell. He grabbed the nearest thing at hand,
which happened to be his favorite pillow, and slammed it down on top of
the snake.

Fangs burst through the pillow, shredding the cloth and missing his hand
by an inch. Draco let the pillow go and hopped backwards again, nearly
in tears from fury and frustration and terror.

The door abruptly exploded.

Harry swept into the room in a roil of power and Dark magic and the
scent of roses, at least to Draco. He cried out, this time in relief,
and saw the snake freeze on the bed and turn towards Harry.

Harry immediately began hissing. The snake swayed back and forth as it
listened to him. Harry went on hissing, his voice low, urgent. Of
course, Draco thought everything in Parseltongue, which he couldn't
understand, sounded urgent. Harry had a hand out now, coaxing the deadly
toy towards him, his hissing never faltering.

The snake moved again, and Draco screamed again in spite of himself.
This time, though, the snake shot away across the floor, coiled around
Harry's leg and then his wrist, and became motionless, a bracelet
clasping its tail in its mouth. Draco felt the aura of Dark magic
retreat.

Harry closed his right hand over the snake and squeezed. It crumbled to
powder. Harry stamped on the powder for good measure, and then a wind
swept into the room and marched the remnants past the kindling of the
door. Draco didn't think the wind was a coincidence.

He realized, dimly, he was shaking. \emph{So this is shock}, he thought,
in wonder.

Harry stared at him, his eyes desperate. ``Are you all right?'' he
asked.

Draco managed to nod. He was, wasn't he? The snake hadn't bitten him. He
did lean down and check his ankle, but he couldn't see any bite there.

He didn't have time to straighten up before Harry half-knocked him down
with an enormous hug. Draco hung on and closed his eyes. There was
nothing shameful about holding on to someone else when you'd nearly
died, he thought, even for a Malfoy.

``Thank Merlin, Draco,'' Harry was murmuring, voice half-hysterical.
``First the werewolf, and then this. Merlin, if Adalrico hadn't said
something, I wouldn't have known, I would have been too \emph{late}, you
would have \emph{died\ldots{}}''

Draco opened his eyes and managed to see over Harry's shoulder, to his
bottle, sitting on the table. It was entirely fierce, dark purple, the
color that meant Harry's protectiveness towards him was in full force.
Then Draco frowned. He noticed a bit of black, a color he hadn't ever
seen before, in the corner of the bottle.

``What's that?'' he asked. His voice was shaky. Draco frowned more
fiercely. \emph{That wouldn't do around Father.}

``What's what?'' But Harry did him the favor of turning around and
looking, so that Draco didn't have to speak again.

Harry blinked when he saw the bottle. ``Huh,'' he said. His voice was
flat.

``What does it mean?'' Draco insisted. He already sounded stronger.
\emph{Good. Being in shock does not present a good impression.} He
couldn't seem to do anything about the hold his hands had on Harry's
shoulders, though.

``It means that if the person who did this was in front of me right now,
they'd die,'' said Harry, his voice still flat. ``I probably wouldn't
even mean to kill them. They'd just crumple with their hearts stopped.''

``Oh,'' said Draco, and then blinked again. ``What was that about a
werewolf?''

And then he fainted, because there was apparently only so much that even
a Malfoy could take.


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Harry hovered beside the bed; Madam Pomfrey had managed to make him back
off, but she couldn't make him leave completely. ``And you're absolutely
certain?'' he asked. His voice sounded tired to his own ears.

``I'm absolutely certain,'' said Madam Pomfrey. \emph{She} sounded
exasperated, but Harry didn't really care. He nodded sharply. He had
assumed that Draco had gone white-faced and limp in his arms because of
the snake's poison. But it seemed that he really was fine.

``Harry.''

Harry turned in startlement. He had expected the voice eventually; after
all, he couldn't stay in the Forest forever. But he hadn't known that
Connor would come back to the castle so quickly, nor that Harry and the
hospital wing would be the first things he would seek out.

He nodded to his brother, whose eyes were focused past him, on Draco.
``Connor,'' he said.

``I\ldots{}'' Connor let the word fade away as though he didn't know how
he would continue, assuming he wanted to continue. Then he said, with a
determined attempt at cheerfulness, ``Going to be all right, is he?''

``We think so,'' said Harry, ignoring the way that Madam Pomfrey snorted
and muttered about presumption. He might not be a mediwitch like she
was, but he was the one who had played a part in Draco's diagnosis as
much as she had. Without his summary of what had happened in the
bedroom, she wouldn't even have known what to look for. ``A magical
snake was loose in our bedroom, trying to bite him.''

Connor blinked. ``What happened to it?''

``I destroyed it,'' said Harry, and clenched a hand as he thought about
how. He wished that he had another snake like that with him now, so that
he could destroy that one, too. He did not want to use his magic for
anything else. It had rampaged up and down the hospital wing until Madam
Pomfrey, without glancing away from Draco, had snapped at him to control
himself. Harry had therefore spent his time since dreaming of revenge.

``Maybe you should have kept it?'' Connor asked tentatively. ``So you
could know who sent it?''

Harry shook his head. ``It might have come to life at any time. I only
calmed it because I'm a Parselmouth. It was best to destroy it.''

Connor nodded uncertainly, and they stood there in silence for a while
more. Harry glanced at Draco, and judged the speed of his breathing and
the color of his face. He thought it was all right. He thought Draco was
all right, and that was such a huge change from the mood he'd been in as
he ran back to the castle that he was shaking from the fierce contrast.

``Harry.''

Harry glanced hard at his brother. There was a new tone in his voice,
and he had one hand extended.

``Thank you for saving my life,'' he said formally.

``Sure,'' said Harry, and clasped his brother's wrist back. He thought
this gesture should probably mean more to him than it did, but a lot had
happened since he first thought Connor might be in danger. His gaze kept
going back to Draco, even when he didn't mean it to. He was a target, as
Snape had so snippily informed him some time ago, and even Connor he
could accept as a target in a certain light. But someone had tried to
kill Draco, just for what his father had done, and maybe because he was
Harry's friend.

Harry could not accept that. He wanted to know who it was, and he wanted
to destroy that person.

``I'll leave you here,'' Connor whispered, and his hand tightened on
Harry's shoulder for a moment. ``I'll explain things to Remus and
Sirius.''

``Thanks,'' said Harry tiredly, and leaned his forehead against the bed
as his brother walked softly out of the hospital wing and Madam Pomfrey
bustled off, probably to fetch clothes for Draco. He was tired. Spell
exhaustion was catching up to him, and all the running he'd done earlier
in the evening, and the sheer effort of using so much wandless magic at
once. He yawned.

A hand brushed his shoulder. Harry looked up, blinking through eyes
already hazy with sleep, and saw Snape standing there. He nodded. The
other Slytherins would have seen the door smashed to kindling. They had
certainly seen it when Harry hurtled past them towards the hospital
wing, Draco borne behind him on a wave of golden-white wind. They would
have fetched him.

``What happened?'' Snape asked.

Harry blinked at Draco. ``Someone turned a snake loose in his room,'' he
said. ``A Dark magical artifact of some kind. I came in and destroyed
it, but I thought he might have been bitten, so I brought him here.''

``How did you know?'' Snape's voice was distant and lulling. It was very
easy to speak in response to it, and Harry did so. He had felt lately
that he could be honest with Snape, anyway.

``Adalrico Bulstrode told me,'' said Harry, and yawned again. ``He heard
Fenrir Greyback talking about an attempt to murder someone in the
castle, right before he attacked me.''

Snape's hand was abruptly on his shoulder again, gripping like
fishhooks. Harry blinked at his guardian, brought half-awake again, but
not understanding the terrible expression in the dark eyes.

``What?'' Snape said.

Harry tried to shrug off the grip. It refused to be shrugged. ``Please
let me go,'' he said, keeping his voice even.

Snape did, but his voice was as firm as his fingers had been. ``What
happened?''

``I was in the Forbidden Forest, guarding Connor,'' said Harry. ``Fenrir
Greyback came for him. The people who are trying to resurrect Voldemort
probably sent him.'' He considered telling Snape that Greyback had been
trying to assassinate \emph{him}, then discarded the notion. He didn't
have any proof, just the flashing brief second when Greyback had seemed
more interested in him than Connor. The werewolf had probably thought of
it as eliminating the greater threat. And besides, then Snape would be
more unreasonable than he already was. Harry had survived. He was all
right. ``I got in the way, and he tried to bite or kill me. But I
defeated him with the help of Hawthorn Parkinson, and he ran away.
Adalrico Bulstrode was with her. He was the one who told me that Draco
was in danger.'' Harry turned back to Draco. He was stirring towards
wakefulness now, muttering, his eyelids fluttering.

``That is the end of it,'' said Snape.

Harry blinked at him. ``The end of what?''

``The end of your little trips outside the castle's wards.'' Snape's
eyes narrowed at him. ``Yes, I knew about them. And you are not to
venture outside of Hogwarts again unless you are practicing Quidditch or
I am with you. I thought I could trust you to take care of yourself. It
seems I was wrong.''

``I \emph{did} take care of myself,'' said Harry, indignant. \emph{I'm
glad I didn't tell him that silly idea about Greyback wanting to kill me
or make me a werewolf, not if he's going to be as silly as this.} ``I'm
alive, and I prevented anyone from getting bitten.'' He felt Snape
wasn't giving the proper weight to that.

``You nearly \emph{died.}''

It was worse that Snape didn't yell. He simply spoke the words fiercely,
and made Harry feel as though a cold wind had taken up residence in his
bones. He looked at Snape's face, then quickly down and away. What he
saw there would be natural on Lucius Malfoy's face when he was looking
at Draco, or Lily's face when she was looking at Connor. It made him
intensely uncomfortable when it was focused on him.

``Doesn't that matter to you?'' Snape whispered. ``Doesn't it matter,
that you would hurt me and Draco and your brother if you died?''

``Of course it matters,'' said Harry. ``But I would sacrifice my life in
an instant if it meant saving one of you. You already knew that.''

``That is the thing that we must rid you of, then,'' said Snape. ``You
will not be free until you begin to value your own life more.''

Harry glared at him from beneath a lock of dark hair. ``I'm \emph{fine.}''

``You will still obey me,'' said Snape. Harry couldn't read him at all
now. His face and voice both took on the weight and inscrutability of
dark stone. ``No venturing outside Hogwarts except for Quidditch
practice or if I am with you. No going into the Forbidden Forest again,
for any reason. You will spend a portion of every day with me, in which
you will tell me what you plan to do that day and where you are going.''

``But\ldots{}that would take up more of your time,'' said Harry, who
knew how much Snape valued the hours he had where he didn't have to be
teaching or eating in the Great Hall.

``I said that I was not your guardian only in name, Harry,'' said Snape
calmly. At least Harry could tell that he was calm now. ``I meant that.
Other children have parents, and have had them all their lives. You have
not. You have one now. I promise you, cross me and you will learn how
seriously I take this.''

Harry shook his head wildly. ``What if something happens to Connor or
Draco because I'm not there?''

Snape learned towards him. ``It is parents who should think that way,''
he said. ``Not thirteen-year-old boys.''

Harry clenched his fists and forced himself to calm down. His magic was
on the verge of boiling one of Madam Pomfrey's precious potions.
``Regardless of whether or not I should, I am,'' he said. ``This is what
I am. This is what my training made me. I don't want to be treated like
what you think I \emph{should} be. I want to be treated the way I am.''

Snape studied him in silence. Then he said, ``And what need do you have
of a guardian, then?''

Harry shut his mouth. ``I still like the time I spend with you,'' he
said at last. ``I'm grateful for your help with the Ministry. And thank
you for teaching me to brew the Wolfsbane Potion. I even---I even want a
parent, in a way. But the restrictions have to be loose enough that I
can still do what I was born --''

``Made.''

``---\emph{born} to do,'' Harry corrected stubbornly. ``And that's protect
the people who are important to me.''

Snape studied him again. Harry had no idea what he was seeing, and so
stood silent, staring back, only reaching out a hand to stroke Draco's
hair when the other boy made a sleepy little sound.

Snape dipped his head. ``Very well, Harry. If you come and speak with
me, then we can work out exceptions to those restrictions at times when
you think there might be danger. Until then, I shall expect you to obey
me.''

Harry relaxed. It was the best compromise he could hope for. And he
really did owe Snape something. He couldn't simply take from the
guardianship; he had to give, too, though Merlin knew why Snape wanted
the things he had to give other than protection.

``Thank you, sir,'' he said, and turned to answer Draco's questions.
Snape laid a hand on his shoulder one more time, and then left the
hospital wing.


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\newpage


Snape returned to the dungeons in a rage so deep that he was glad, in a
distant fashion, that he had not encountered anyone along the way.
Venting his fury would have been enjoyable, but Dumbledore probably
couldn't have kept him out of Azkaban if he'd done it.

He stepped into his offices and examined the brewing empathy potion.
Then he shook his head slightly.

\emph{I will reserve those doses for Black,} he thought. \emph{Well,
perhaps one for James, if I think of no better punishment.}

He turned towards the racks of potions, and studied them all, one by
one. The rage sank into him, deepened, and turned cold.

In the end, he decided, very calmly, that none of them would work. None
of them were vicious enough. He didn't want to hurt Lily Potter for what
she had done, nor kill her, nor make her suffer the way he was doing to
Black.

He wanted to annihilate her. He wanted to obliterate her.

He went to read one of his Dark Arts books. He highly doubted that
anything he found there would satisfy him, but it would turn his mind in
the right directions. At least it kept him from contemplating the awful,
overwhelming scope of what it would take to heal and free Harry's
thoughts, and his own heart-stopping terror when he had heard that Harry
was in danger.

\chapter{*Chapter 23*: Interlude: Revelations Upon the
Waves}\label{chapter-23-interlude-revelations-upon-the-waves}

Setting more of the game in motion.

\textbf{Interlude: Revelations Upon the Waves of Air}

\emph{December 1st, 1993}

\emph{Dear Mr. Potter:}

You have done well, you know. I am pleased at your progress. And I am
pleased that you have taken my words to heart, and that you no longer
seem to fear your own magic. The release of your power is long overdue,
and I think it will yet benefit our world. I am not like most of those
people around you, you know, who fear what you could become. I am afraid
{for} you, but that is a different thing.

But I greatly fear what could happen if some of your attitudes do not
change soon. This is a war. It will be a war until Voldemort is finally
and absolutely destroyed. You know this. Yet still you hold back when
you could have destroyed an enemy; still you stayed your hand for so
long that Fenrir Greyback only escaped wounded, and did not die as he
should have. You {must} learn to harden your heart, Mr. Potter.

I would never advise you to compel anyone alive. I will not advise you
to threaten others onto your side. But there are some now alive who are
your implacable enemies. No matter how long you give them, they will not
come back to you. They have made their choices. When one of them tries
to kill you, strike hard, and strike fast, and do not delay. It is your
responsibility, if you do become the kind of wizard who is not a Lord,
to protect yourself against that kind of murder attempt. We, all of us,
need you alive too badly.

I can give you two names now. I was raised among them, your enemies, and
I know two of them who will never turn back from Voldemort's cause.
Fenrir Greyback is a monster who must be destroyed, as he has destroyed
the lives of so many others. Walden Macnair is another. He will never
relinquish his hatred and his bloodlust. He has made sacrifices already
for his cause. For no other reason than because Voldemort asked it of
him, he murdered his own wife.

And now, I must give you a bit more information on that matter which I
wrote to you about last time.

Ask, Mr. Potter, ask whoever you can find, why Sirius Black did not go
to Azkaban.

I remain, in shadows and starlight,

\emph{Starborn.}

\emph{}


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


\emph{December 1st, 1993}

Lucius:

By now, you will have heard about the attack on your son. You may not
have known why we made it. You, of course, will be opening and closing
your mouth in furious denial, thinking that you sent us the blood.

Yes, you did. And do you know one interesting thing about blood, Lucius?
{It can be used as a mirror.}

We used it to read your intentions, Lucius. You have indeed been playing
with us, pretending to commit to our cause while seeking a way out---or
a way in with us, if you decided ours was the better path to survival.
But you haven't been able to decide, have you? You have been kept
hovering in the middle, foiled by the implacable dedication of those
closest to you. Poor little Malfoy. Poor little Slytherin.

Poor, indeed, in everything but money. Look to those closest to you,
Lucius. One of them is not quite so dedicated as you seem to think.

Understand: The attacks on your son and Harry Potter were both warnings.
See how easily we can reach into the grounds? Well enough to slip a
savage werewolf and a Dark magical artifact past the wards. We
anticipated that the attack on Potter would fail, and that he would then
return and save your son. It is the reason that we used a snake when we
know that he is a Parselmouth. We do not wish to alienate you
completely, only to play with you as you seem to so delight in playing
with us.

But think of it, Lucius. One moment later on Potter's part, and your son
would have died. Or Potter would have been a werewolf, or dead. He is
only a child, Lucius. He can be destroyed as easily as any other child.

Do you understand us now? Do you see how serious we are? Do you see the
advantages of committing to us?

Swallow your silly pride, Lucius, and bow your head. To some yokes even
a Malfoy neck must yield, and you chose one of them when you took that
brand upon your arm.

Send us a letter back within a week with your formal declaration of
allegiance, or the next attack will come. And perhaps this one is the
one we mean.

\chapter{*Chapter 24*: Wrecks of a Dissolving
Dream}\label{chapter-24-wrecks-of-a-dissolving-dream}

Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter!

This one isn't quite as intense, but builds to intensity, I hope. I get
to introduce a character I've wanted to introduce for a long time, and
who turned out just awesome.

The chapter title is from Percy Bysshe Shelley's \emph{Hellas.}

\textbf{Chapter Twenty: Wrecks of a Dissolving Dream}

``Hey, Harry.''

Harry blinked and came slowly awake, putting a hand automatically to his
scar. There was a faint trace of blood there---unsurprising, since he'd
once again dreamed of the dark figures writhing in pain and the circle
of shadows closing itself around him. He clenched his fingers carefully
inward, making it seem as though he were wiping away sweat instead of
blood, and then turned around with equal care. He had a crick in his
neck from sleeping in the chair beside Draco's bed.

The first thing he checked on was that Draco was still asleep, his hand
tucked beneath his cheek in a distinctly childlike gesture. Then he
turned and looked at Connor. His brother seemed tentative, his eyes
darting around in several directions before they settled on Harry's
face.

``I, um,'' said Connor. He caught his breath, and caught his lip between
his teeth as though in complement to it. ``I went and talked with Sirius
and Remus. They knew that you'd probably want to know why they didn't
come and help when we heard the second werewolf howl.''

Harry nodded tiredly. The dreams still lingered in his mind, wanting to
poison it, but he forced himself to put aside the fear. He would worry
about them later. He had to worry about his brother right now.

Connor shook his head. ``Remus just went too far into wildness. He was
having so much fun running that he didn't know what the werewolf's howl
meant. And then Sirius was with him, and got caught up in the run, too,
and didn't realize that I'd fallen so far behind, or into such danger.''
His eyes darted to Harry's and then away yet again. Harry supposed he
didn't know how to feel. This was only the third time that Connor's life
had been in such intense danger. Only Voldemort had ever threatened him
so much before.

``That's all right,'' said Harry. ``But I think they could watch out for
you better next time, if they're going to take you with them again.''

Connor nodded fervently. ``Headmaster Dumbledore already made them
promise to watch out for me.''

\emph{So Dumbledore is good for something after all,} thought Harry, and
stretched his arms above him, shaking his head slightly to convince his
hair to lie flat, or as flat as it ever got. \emph{At least I can trust
him to make provisions for Connor's safety.} ``Thanks for telling me,
Connor. I would have wondered.'' He glanced again at Draco, and smiled
when he saw that his eyelids were fluttering.

``Harry\ldots{}''

Harry turned back to his brother. If Connor didn't know how to deal with
the danger, he thought, he must especially not have known how to deal
with his brother saving his life. This time, Connor knew what had
happened. The last time, Harry had \emph{Obliviated} him.

He winced at the thought. \emph{I swore that I would give Remus back his
memories. What can I do about Connor's? Is there a way to heal his mind
without making him hate me?}

Connor drew in his breath, then let it all out in a rush and said,
``Thank you for saving my life. I know that you're good after all, no
matter what Sirius says about Slytherins. Thank you.'' He nearly hopped
forward and gave Harry a quick, tight hug, leaning back almost before
Harry could manage to return it.

But it was only almost, and Harry embraced his brother firmly. He could
feel a weight he'd borne for so long as to hardly be conscious of it
dropping from his shoulders. He had his brother's good will back again.
There was nothing half so important, not when he was being honest with
himself.

``Harry?''

Harry turned, and met Draco's eyes. Draco had flushed, and was scowling.
Harry shook his head when he realized that Draco was probably jealous of
Connor and the attention he was getting from Harry. It seemed that there
was very little that Draco wouldn't be jealous of, and the more
ridiculous, the better. Harry let Connor go, nevertheless, since it was
obvious that his brother wanted to leave.

Connor slipped to the door of the hospital wing, and turned to smile
back at Harry, pointedly avoiding Draco's eyes. ``I'll see you at
breakfast, Harry.''

Harry nodded at him, and then turned and met Draco's gaze, raising his
own eyebrows. ``What?'' he asked, when Draco's scowl didn't fade.

``You nearly died for him last night,'' said Draco. ``And then he comes
and treats you like that.''

Harry blinked. ``What do you mean? He brought me good news. He hugged
me. That's hardly treating me poorly.''

``He should have been groveling,'' said Draco. ``I can't believe that
he'll speak a few simple words, and you'll just accept him like
\emph{that.}'' He snapped his fingers, which was a gesture Harry had
never seen him make. ``You \emph{nearly died}, Harry!''

``So did you,'' Harry pointed out, deciding to quash the line of thought
Draco was building up as swiftly as he could. Draco wasn't Snape, and he
would probably listen to the quashing. Harry was already regretting
telling either of them about Greyback's attack. Connor probably wouldn't
have said anything, and neither would Sirius and Remus or his pureblood
allies. Harry had promised to be more honest, but when people were
unreasonable in response to his revelations, could he be blamed for
keeping them to himself?

Draco quieted at the reminder, dropping his eyes to his hands. ``Yes,''
he said. ``And I owe you another life debt, Harry.''

``Oh, no, you don't,'' said Harry, remembering exactly what Draco had
used his last life debt to make him do. ``You wouldn't have been in
danger if it weren't for me. I think someone was trying to hurt you to
get at me. So I just saved the life that I put in danger.''

``I can have a life debt to you if I want,'' said Draco, looking
mutinous. Then he smiled. ``Unless you refuse to accept it, of course,''
he said. ``Or unless you're going to \emph{force} me to withdraw it.''

Harry ground his teeth. ``Please, Draco,'' he said, ``don't bind
yourself in a life debt to me.''

``Why not?'' Draco tilted his head to the side and folded his arms.
``I'm waiting for a good reason, you know. What you did with the snake
last night was pretty fucking impressive.''

``Because it embarrasses me,'' said Harry. ``And I would really prefer
not to have a debt that I might feel tempted to invoke just because you
were being petty.''

Draco snorted. ``Harry, you're the last person I would think would abuse
pureblood rituals for petty reasons.''

``You've forgotten other things about me,'' said Harry, with a slight
smile. ``I might want you to stop annoying me about Connor, or leave me
alone, and invoke the debt to make you leave me alone instead of
maneuvering you so that you have so much homework you \emph{have} to
stop following me.''

``You're too Slytherin for your own good,'' Draco muttered, and then
flopped back in the bed. ``I have to stay here,'' he added in a pathetic
voice as Madam Pomfrey appeared. ``I feel shaky, and I see the snake
every time I close my eyes.''

Madam Pomfrey clucked at once. ``Of course you must, you poor dear,''
she said. ``It's not every day that one of the students at Hogwarts
almost dies.'' She waved her wand and cast a spell that Harry vaguely
recognized as a ward which would tell her the physical and emotional
state of her patient when she checked. ``Just stay here. We'll make sure
no Dark artifacts get you.'' She swept away.

Harry shook his head. ``Who was saying something about being
Slytherin?'' he asked, and received a smug smile from Draco. He stood.
``I have to get to breakfast.''

``You could stay here with me,'' Draco suggested. His voice was soft and
playful, but his gaze was intent. ``I think Madam Pomfrey wouldn't let
you leave if you told her what really happened last night. And I could
use the company.''

Harry sighed. ``I'm sorry, Draco, but I really do have to attend
classes.'' He reached over and gripped the other boy's arm hard for a
moment. Draco turned his hand upward so they were palm to palm. ``Why
don't you think about writing to your parents? They'll be frantic, I'm
sure.''

``I wish I could say the same about yours,'' Draco said, and then
flopped down, his face mostly discontented.

Harry shrugged, and moved out of the hospital wing. He was already
working on burying the memories of Greyback's attack. He wanted to make
sure that he looked absolutely calm and composed when he met Snape and
talked with him about these new restrictions his guardian had decided to
impose.

\emph{I know that he'll be silly about some things now, and he'll take
note of any weariness or weakness I display---even if that really comes
from the dreams and not the attack.}

Halfway to the dungeons, much to his annoyance, he had to detour to the
loo and wash blood off his scar again. At least his head wasn't hurting.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


``You are ready this time, I trust?'' Snape's voice was casual, and he
didn't look up from the essays he was marking.

Harry looked up from his own book and nodded, once. He saw no point in
speaking. He thought his voice might shake in spite of all his
preparation.

They'd received word three days ago that the Ministry intended to visit
this weekend and check on Harry's ``progress.'' The too-polite Ministry
letter had revealed more than Amelia Bones perhaps intended it to, and
Harry knew that Kingsley Shacklebolt had authority to ask more probing
questions this time. He wondered idly if Dumbledore had spoken to Madam
Bones, or if she'd simply got impatient and nervous at the thought of
someone in the press getting wind of the Aurors' non-progress in
breaking the spell on his parents. There had been no more articles
specifically about him since the first release of his magic, but Skeeter
was always taking the opportunity to steer her other articles back
towards him in some form or fashion.

Harry glanced once at the clock on the wall, and blinked. The Aurors
should have been in Snape's private rooms twenty minutes ago. He bit his
lip thoughtfully and went back to reading.

A sharp knock on the door a moment later made him nearly drop the book.
Snape stood up and glanced at him. ``As we prepared,'' he said.

Harry nodded. His breath was coming too fast, and he told himself to
shut up and stop being ridiculous. He'd faced Fenrir Greyback. It was
stupid to be nervous around Ministry Aurors who couldn't do anything to
him.

\emph{Magically. But they could take away Snape's guardianship, and
force you to live with Dumbledore or Sirius or your parents.}

Harry didn't want that. His feelings were still a jumbled mess towards
all of them. He was afraid that if he spent too much time with them
right now, one of them would wind up severely injured or dead.

He stood and waited as calmly as he could while Snape opened the door to
usher the Aurors in. Snape gave a single violent twitch of movement,
though, and by that movement let Harry know something was wrong. He
shook his sleeve and let his wand fall into his palm, while all around
him his magic stirred and opened one eye.

But then Snape was stepping aside, as he certainly wouldn't have if the
Aurors had come in with drawn wands or Dark Marks, and saying, ``This is
an unexpected honor. Welcome. I am Professor Severus Snape, Potions
Master at Hogwarts, Head of Slytherin House, and guardian of Harry
Potter.''

Harry frowned and craned his neck, since he couldn't yet see beyond
Snape's head. \emph{Did they send someone new, that he feels the need to
introduce himself again? The letter only said that Shacklebolt and
Feverfew would be coming.}

They had indeed sent someone new, someone who strode into the room ahead
of Shacklebolt and Feverfew as if he owned the place. Harry stared. This
man was older, and walked with a slight limp that did absolutely nothing
to diminish his air of ancient dignity---the mark of someone trained in
pureblood ways almost from the time he could move. He wore glasses, like
James, but his eyes were a startling yellow. He held his head up even as
he nodded at Harry, as though it were impossible for him to really bend
his neck.

``Mr. Potter,'' he said, in a deep voice a little like a lion's growl.
``My name is Rufus Scrimgeour, Head of the Auror Office.''

Harry stared harder. He'd heard of Scrimgeour, of course---he'd studied
his family along with the Malfoys and the Parkinsons and all the others
who might someday be valuable as allies or important as enemies to
Connor's success. They had been among the proudest and most prestigious
of the purebloods, always Sorting Slytherin, until Scrimgeour's
grandfather had taken it into his head to marry a Muggleborn Gryffindor
witch, apparently because he wanted to. His halfblood father had become
a Ravenclaw, and blown himself up in some mad Potions experiment while
his son was still a baby. Then Rufus Scrimgeour had come to Hogwarts,
Sorted Slytherin, and declared an intention to use no Dark magic, ever,
when he was still twelve. He never had.

\emph{The Scrimgeours are a bloody confusing family}, Harry had thought,
the first time he finished studying them.

But---and this was the important thing at the moment---Rufus Scrimgeour
had never been a friend of Dumbledore's.

Why he was here, why he would have been allowed to come into an
investigation controlled by an Order Auror, was beyond Harry's
comprehension.

Then he caught a glimpse of Shacklebolt's furious face over Scrimgeour's
shoulder, and it clicked into place. Shacklebolt was still under his
superior's control, whoever he might serve in secret. If the Head of the
Aurors wanted to invite himself along on this kind of investigation,
Shacklebolt was hardly in a position to say no.

Harry smiled sincerely, something he hadn't thought he would do during
the visit, and inclined his head. ``Hello, sir. My name is Harry Potter,
as I'm sure you know by now, and you've already met my guardian,
Professor Snape.''

Scrimgeour made a soft sound that might or might not have been a
chuckle. His eyes hadn't left Harry's face. Harry wondered what he was
seeing there. ``I have indeed. Now. I understand that Auror Shacklebolt
spoke with you last time?'' Harry nodded. ``Then I think he should speak
with your guardian this time, and I will interview you. Alone,'' he
added, as though he had felt Feverfew's movement to come along with him.
Feverfew sagged. Harry thought that was due less to a desire to listen
in---he still didn't know if Feverfew was part of the Order---than to a
desire to avoid being left with Snape.

``I think that is an excellent idea,'' said Snape smoothly. ``I trust
that you will not ask my ward any questions that are out of line,
Scrimgeour?''

The older wizard turned and faced Snape fully, making it look as though
his limp were a natural part of his gait and not an infirmity at all. He
didn't look upset by his lack of a title, either. ``No,'' he said. ``Of
course not. What kind of Auror does that?'' Then he turned back, met
Harry's eyes again, and nodded towards the back of the room, near
Snape's bookshelves.

Harry went along with a will. He was already wild with curiosity.
Scrimgeour might have come along just to spite Dumbledore, but that
would mean he had to already know something about the investigation and
the unusual nature of it. Harry highly doubted that the Head of the
Auror Office just strolled out constantly and left the Ministry on a
whim.

Scrimgeour leaned against the wall and watched Harry. Harry watched him
back. He realized he had no idea what would happen next, and was rather
happy about that. At least he knew he was fencing with an opponent who
wasn't interested in putting a phoenix web on him.

``Now,'' said Scrimgeour, who seemed fond of that word. ``I would like
the answers to a few honest questions.''

Harry raised his brows, let a small smile play around his lips, and
nodded.

``Why did you choose Professor Snape to adopt you?'' Scrimgeour's lips
flickered for a moment, in an expression so quick that Harry couldn't
have said whether it was smile or sneer, and his eyes took an equally
quick tour of the room. ``I can feel Dark magic everywhere in here.''

Harry nodded again. Scrimgeour had hunted down Dark wizards for a living
for over thirty years. That he had a sensitivity to that kind of magic
didn't surprise Harry. ``I chose him because I trusted him,'' he said.
He paused, then decided that, trained in pureblood ways though this man
obviously was, he didn't seem inclined to perform the dances, and Harry
had no reason to do so with him. ``And because I thought he could
protect me from Dumbledore's interference.''

Scrimgeour's gaze was absolutely \emph{locked} on him now. Harry saw him
note everything about what Harry had said, including the lack of a title
for Dumbledore, and then he smiled. Harry blinked. That was a full,
open, dazzling smile, one that transformed the man's whole face into
something approachable.

``Yes, well, Dumbledore should have known that his tame Dark wizard
could be used against him sooner or later,'' Scrimgeour murmured. ``And
why do you trust Snape more than your godfather?''

Harry hesitated for a long moment. He had to step carefully. He had
little compunction about maneuvering Dumbledore into a trap;
Shacklebolt's involvement here just proved that Dumbledore was still
trying to trap him. But he had no right to reveal Sirius's past.

``I don't trust \emph{him},'' he settled for saying at last.

Scrimgeour grinned at him, a fierce expression. ``I see,'' he said.
``And would that have anything to do with the rather large Dark legacy
that the Black family represents?''

Harry blinked again. Scrimgeour was offering him a way out of being
forced to stay with Sirius---a way based on a claim that Scrimgeour
would know was false, but which everyone else would surely believe,
since they knew how dim a view the Head of the Aurors took of Dark
wizards. Of course, some people would say he was being unreasonable, but
that was all right. Scrimgeour had far more room to legally obstruct
matters than Harry did. Let him in to mess with things, and the
Ministry's quick investigation would turn grindingly slow.

``Why?'' Harry whispered.

Scrimgeour's eyes went to the far side of the room, where Snape was
being scathingly polite at Shacklebolt. ``One more piece of information
from you,'' he said. ``I've thought for a long time that Shacklebolt
seemed more than usually attached to Hogwarts. Is that true?''

\emph{Obviously, being devoted to the Light doesn't prevent him from
having a brain.} Harry nodded.

Scrimgeour exhaled and gave that feral grin again. ``I knew it,'' he
said, and then focused on Harry. ``I don't know how much you know about
Lords,'' he said.

``Quite a bit,'' said Harry, thinking of Starborn's letter.

Scrimgeour nodded. ``Dumbledore's a Light Lord. You-Know-Who is a Dark
Lord. I don't like 'em. Neither of 'em.'' Harry recognized his suddenly
informal diction as an affectation, but had to admit it was effective.
``That's why I work for the Ministry. The Ministry's inefficient and
simple-minded and petty and choose whatever other adjective you like,
but it's a \emph{normal} place. It gives normal wizards a chance to
change things, since we don't all have the power of a Lord. On a normal
day, we balance 'em. I don't like Lords mucking about with my Ministry.
Dumbledore is doing that right now.'' He stared straight into Harry's
eyes. ``Now, maybe you're going to become a Lord, and if you are, then
I'll fight you as hard as I've fought all the rest of 'em. But until you
do, then you're someone else Dumbledore's trying to control, and,
moreover, someone who could fight him a hell of a lot more effectively
than other people could, if you can just get rid of some of the barriers
in your way. I'll do my part with the legal barriers. You can repay me
by not becoming a bloody Lord and ordering people about the way the rest
of 'em do.' ''

Harry felt his heart lift in wonder. Scrimgeour was confusing and
contradictory, a Light-devoted Slytherin, a pureblood who talked like a
Muggleborn, and it seemed he liked having the freedom to be that way.
Harry was inclined to respect someone like that. He nodded. ``I can do
that.''

``So you don't trust Sirius Black because he's a Dark wizard,'' said
Scrimgeour, looking keenly interested. ``And what about your parents?
That was Dark magic cast on them. I knew it the moment I saw them.''

Harry's breath caught in his throat. Scrimgeour stared right through
him. He \emph{knew,} he had to know, that Harry was the one who'd cast
the \emph{Fugitivus Animus} spell on his parents.

``It is Dark magic,'' said Harry, treading carefully. ``I---I don't want
to go back to them yet.''

Scrimgeour tilted his head at him. ``Scared?''

``Of myself,'' said Harry honestly.

The Auror nodded sharply. ``Of course,'' he said, a little louder.
``You're only a child, after all, for all your power. Of course a
thirteen-year-old wizard would be scared of a household where Dark magic
had been used.''

Harry couldn't help smiling.

``Most natural thing in the world,'' Scrimgeour went on blandly. ``I can
see that you'll want to stay here because at least here you know where
the Dark magic is coming from, and of course you wouldn't try to learn
it yourself because of that fear, oh no. And of course you trust your
Head of House. It might be a grim home, but you know what to expect from
it. And isn't that the greatest need of growing children, after all?
Stability, and security, and peace?''

Harry thought he would have given a good deal to be in the room when
Scrimgeour made the same arguments, in a tone of absolute and utter
calm, to Amelia Bones and the rest of the Department of Magical Law
Enforcement. He definitely sounded as though he believed himself, and if
anyone could shake him out of his mask of calm reason, Harry didn't know
who it would be.

``I know \emph{I} need a lot of stability, and security, and peace,'' he
managed to say, keeping his tone woeful.

``I know that you do.''

Harry squirmed. Scrimgeour was \emph{looking} at him again, and seeing
far too much. Lucky that the man would be leaving in a little while, he
thought fervently.

After that keen glance, Scrimgeour nodded and stepped away from him.
``I've seen all that I need to see here,'' he announced imperiously.
``Shacklebolt, Feverfew. Let's go. I'm quite satisfied that the boy's
proper place is with the guardian he's chosen.''

Shacklebolt paled. ``But, sir---''

``Not now,'' said Scrimgeour. ``The stench of Dark magic here is making
me sick.'' He strolled to the door. ``We'll talk everything over on the
way back to the Ministry, won't we, Kingsley?''

Feverfew practically scurried out the door. Shacklebolt lingered a
moment, and glared at Harry and Snape both.

``This isn't the end of things,'' he breathed.

``Of course it isn't,'' said Scrimgeour from right behind him, making
Shacklebolt jump a foot in the air. ``Come along, Kingsley. There's still
\emph{paperwork} to file.'' He made it sound as if he would look forward
to it. Harry felt a horrible kind of admiration rise up in him.
\emph{Damn, he's good.}

Shacklebolt trailed out, looking embarrassed and frustrated and furious
beyond measure. Scrimgeour casually shut the door behind them.

Harry burst out laughing the moment he was sure the Aurors were far
enough down the hall not to hear him. Snape's face wore a smirk as he
settled into his chair and pulled the pile of essays towards him again.

``That was\ldots{}interesting,'' he said.

Harry flung himself down on the couch next to his book and grinned at
him. ``Why do we have allies in the \emph{Ministry}, of all places?''

``It is not we,'' said Snape, peering at him. ``It's you.''

Harry blinked, then picked up his book. People seemed to make a habit of
disconcerting him today.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Lucius Malfoy was having a nervous breakdown.

It was the only way he could identify his present behavior to himself.
His gaze darted back and forth continually between the last letter he'd
received from those demanding he declare allegiance to Lord Voldemort,
and Hogwarts. He currently stood in the outer edges of the Forbidden
Forest, not far from that disgusting half-giant's hut, his hands white
where they clutched the letter.

He knew he had no choice but to pursue the path he'd come here to take.
That didn't mean he had to like it.

Lucius tried to straighten his shoulders and put his Malfoy mask back
on. It didn't work. It hadn't worked from the moment that he received
the first letter threatening Draco's life, and all the ones that had
followed, whispering secrets that no one could have known about Draco
unless they were inside Hogwarts.

He had thought of showing the letters to Narcissa, but he knew that she
would not have understood the complications of the situation. She was
blindly besotted with Harry Potter, certain the boy was going to save
them all. She would have given him a single hard look and told him to
join Potter's side of the war. She already trusted Potter beyond all
reason simply for saving Draco's life---the way he'd been meant to do,
apparently.

Besides, tell Narcissa that her son was in danger, and she was bound to
do something blind and stupid.

And\ldots{}

Lucius stared at the letter in his hand again. Two lines leaped out at
him, just as they had in his first hurried scan of it.

\emph{And do you know one interesting thing about blood, Lucius?} It can
be used as a mirror.

Lucius knew of no spell that could do that, and he was sure that he was
experienced enough in Dark magic that he would have heard of one. Quite
obviously, the people threatening his son had access to Dark magical
artifacts (as if their attack on Draco with the snake hadn't proven
that!) And Lucius had no idea what they were, nor what they might be
used for next.

That also meant they might be watching him right now, but since he had
no idea if they were or how to tell if the Dark artifact was focused on
him, he had to act as if he had a chance at success.

\emph{Look to those closest to you, Lucius. One of them is not quite so
dedicated as you seem to think.}

That was the other reason he'd chosen not to show the letter to
Narcissa. The letter writer was most likely lying, trying to encourage
Lucius to distrust his wife, but just in case\ldots{}just in
case\ldots{}

Lucius lifted his gaze back to the castle and shook his head. He had
sent the letter declaring allegiance to the Dark Lord's cause because he
had no choice, and that meant that the best time to move was now, while
the Dark Lord's followers thought he was one of them. He would take
Draco from Hogwarts, so that no one could threaten him again. He would
send him to Durmstrang. The Malfoys had powerful friends there, wizards
who would protect Draco \emph{and} teach him Dark magic, and who would
not care about the Dark Lord until he had actually returned and was
threatening them. And Lucius would not tell Narcissa until the matter
had actually been accomplished.

\emph{She was the one who wanted Draco to go to Hogwarts,} Lucius
remembered. \emph{Could she have known, even then\ldots{}}?

Then he shook that thought off, because some suspicions were too
paranoid even for him, cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself, and
moved forward. No one looked towards him, even though several students
were flying above the Quidditch Pitch. Lucius curled his lip.
\emph{Inefficient. If I were Headmaster of the school, I would have
wards that would detect such Charms in operation.}

He made it inside Hogwarts without anyone noticing, waited a moment to
make sure he did not track muddy footprints across the floor, and then
moved slowly towards the Slytherin dungeons. Even from here, he could
feel a hollow echo, beating in his head like a drum, that signaled a
coming headache.

\emph{That would be Harry Potter, then.}

Lucius had no doubt the brat was powerful; he had felt as much himself
when Potter was at the Manor for the summer. Lucius also had no doubt
that the brat was incapable of defeating the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord
had studied for decades, and had experience as well as magic behind him
that Harry Potter could not match. Raw, untamed strength was no use
against the Dark Lord's knowledgeable cruelty.

That was the thing Narcissa had not understood, though Lucius had tried
to argue the issue with her in abstract terms. She had insisted that
Harry Potter would be able to protect them, that Lucius simply did not
understand the strength of his magic. Of course, she also insisted that
Draco was utterly devoted to the boy---another thing Lucius had been
able to see for himself that summer---and that she wanted them to remain
Potter's allies for Draco's sake more than for any other reason.

Lucius sneered. \emph{She does not appear to have considered the
possibility that it is Potter's magic that calls to Draco, and makes him
so unlike a Malfoy, by taking part of his personality away.}

Lucius knew the symptoms, and knew that when Draco was removed from
Potter's presence for a long enough period of time, he would recover.
That was another reason to free his son from Potter, so that Draco could
make an actual choice that he never could with that kind of magic
overpowering him.

And, of course, there was the fact that Malfoy pride would not allow
Lucius to bend his neck fully to anyone but a Lord. This child was not a
Lord. He was only a child, one who had somehow swayed both Lucius's son
and his wife.

Lucius knew he would have a fight on his hands after he removed Draco
from Hogwarts, but he expected his son to see sense. Narcissa would take
a little more effort. But they would have to draw together in the face
of whatever attacks Lucius would face from the enraged letter writers.
Narcissa would choose family loyalty over whatever fussy principles she
had. She always did.

Lucius smiled as he stopped at the door to the Slytherin common room and
waited for a student to exit so he could slip inside. It was perfect,
really. Once his son was out of danger, then his mind would stop
clouding with panic, and he could face his enemies with the fury that
waited, boiling, behind the panic.

The wall slid open. Lucius prepared to step inside, and then stopped,
staring, as Harry Potter stepped out of the opening---

And looked straight at him, magic welling around him like ripples in a
pond, like painful drums, like wings.

``Mr. Malfoy,'' said Potter calmly, ``I don't know what you're doing
here, but you'll have to go through me if you want to harm Draco.''

\chapter{*Chapter 25*: Pomona and Septimus
Renewed}\label{chapter-25-pomona-and-septimus-renewed}

Well, here we are. I must say, I didn't anticipate the bomb coming down
quite this hard.

\emph{Damn} it, Lucius.

\textbf{Chapter Twenty-One: Pomona and Septimus Renewed}

Harry could feel Lucius's tension, and his shock. It boiled off him like
warm air. Harry watched his face, and saw the slight shudders there, the
way that Lucius's eyes wanted to dart off to the side and the way he
controlled them and refused to let them do so. Something had come close
to splintering the man's mask, probably the near-death of his only
child.

\emph{Or perhaps not}, Harry thought, remembering the dream that had
awoken him and driven him out of the Slytherin common room. A dark
shadow had stalked towards Draco, who lay peacefully sleeping in his
bed, unaware of it. Harry had only come out into the corridor for a
breath of fresh air at first, but then he'd seen Lucius standing there,
and his dream made much more sense than they usually did.

Lucius finally drew himself together enough to respond. He lifted his
chin. ``You are not the arbiter of how I should raise my son, Mr.
Potter,'' he said, voice gone cold enough that Harry would not have been
surprised to see ice frosting the stones. ``We are currently in
truce-dance, and I would prefer not to have to hurt you. Stand aside. I
am invoking the \emph{Officium Auctoris.} There is nothing you can do to
prevent me from taking my son from the school.''

Harry blinked. The \emph{Officium Auctoris} referred to the eldest
living member of a pureblood family's right to decide what was best for
the other members. Harry hadn't read of an invocation of it in the last
fifty years, since it was generally considered bad form to intervene too
drastically in another wizard's life, and a sign of having failed in the
dances, that one needed to resort to such a crass weapon. That Lucius
would reach for it now was surprising\ldots{}

And out of character. Harry narrowed his eyes and waited, his hands
clasped behind his back.

``Stand aside, Mr. Potter,'' said Lucius, his voice grown even colder.
``You \emph{know} that you have no authority in this matter.''

``I am waiting,'' said Harry.

Lucius simply narrowed his own eyes further. He didn't need to sneer,
like Snape did, Harry thought. He conveyed his authority with his whole
body, shoulders and hands and feet at least as much as his face.

Save that he was showing more fear than glacial command now, and Harry
found himself glad of it. Frightened people did stupid things, and
Lucius having done a stupid thing was the only hope Harry could count on
that he wouldn't be forced to yield to him.

``Waiting, Mr. Potter?'' Lucius asked, when Harry had made it clear he
wasn't moving anywhere.

``For the salt and the smoke and the silver,'' said Harry, and waited
again.

Lucius hissed between his teeth. ``I do not need---''

``Yes, actually, you do,'' said Harry peaceably. ``Not if you simply
wished to invoke your right to control Draco's life, no. But when you
invoke it in the middle of a truce-dance, you need the salt and the
smoke and the silver to create a space into which I cannot enter.'' He
clasped his hands together more firmly as he saw the storm building on
Lucius's face, and called his magic to rise around him. ``My truce is
with your whole family, Mr. Malfoy, not merely yourself. If you try to
take Draco away without the proper rituals, then I might simply assume
that you're an impostor and attack you. And I would be within my
rights---in fact, within my duties, in defending a member of your family
from an improper \emph{Officium Auctoris.} A \emph{true} Malfoy surely
would not have forgotten such details. Shall I check you for Polyjuice?''
Harry kept to the tone of courtesy, certain that he would win this
dance.

And he did. Lucius broke, his eyes blazing with true fury.

``You are impudent, boy,'' he whispered. ``Stand aside, \emph{now}.''

Harry shook his head. ``You have no authority to command me to stand
aside. We are equals at this point in the truce-dance.''

Lucius reached for his wand. Harry lifted all the controls on his magic.
Lucius promptly slumped back, gasping, and the slightly glazed look that
Harry had expected came into his eyes. Starborn had said his magic
called to purebloods. Harry had not imagined the results would be so
dramatic.

``Harry? What are you doing?''

Harry looked over his shoulder. Draco had slipped out of the Slytherin
common room, too, and his eyes were blinking in sleepy confusion, while
one hand rose to rub at his face. Then he saw Lucius, and felt the magic
in the air, and frowned.

``Father, you \emph{didn't},'' he said.

Harry lowered his magic a little, tucking more of it behind barriers. He
hadn't meant to send Lucius into quite \emph{this} state
of\ldots{}shock, awe, wonder, whatever it was. Luckily, it seemed that
Lucius could recover from it quickly. He straightened and gave his head
a little shake, and then was burning and clear-eyed again.

``I will not be scolded by my own son, Draco,'' he said. \emph{He's
still shaken, a bit,} Harry thought, watching him. He would have been
able to command Draco's obedience with no more than a look if things
were as normal.

And Draco would certainly have obeyed. Instead, he folded his arms and
launched into a lecture.

``Has it occurred to you that I'm capable of making up my own mind about
my friends, Father?'' he asked. ``You raised me with the capacity to
judge power for myself, and not only in the name of survival. I was
supposed to be true to the Malfoy name.'' His eyes were lit with an
emotion that Harry had seen only once before---last year, when Draco had
out-danced his father. ``And I think I have been. You, on the other hand,
have an unfortunate habit of forsaking our honor and leaving it for me
and Harry Potter to guard. And now it is happening \emph{again.}'' He
narrowed his eyes. ``Our honor is rather lonely, Father.''

Lucius's fury had gone bone-deep now. Harry tensed as he took a step
forward. \emph{Perhaps this was what the dream meant. He certainly looks
ready to hex Draco now.}

``I told you,'' said Lucius, his voice quieter than Snape's had ever
been, ``I will \emph{not} be scolded by my own son. I have come to remove
you to Durmstrang, Draco. You will be happier there.''

``Safer, you mean to say,'' Draco murmured, and then laughed, a sound so
full of choking bitterness that Harry looked at him askance and wondered
what he had missed. ``Isn't it obvious that I'm safer here, Father?
You've felt Harry's magic. You know that he would kill to protect me. He
saved my life from the snake.'' Draco's cheeks were flushed now, his
eyes glittering in a match for his father's. ``And now you tell me that
that's not good enough, that I'll be safer at bloody \emph{Durmstrang},
in the midst of Dark wizards? That's doubting Harry's ability as well as
my judgment. How many more insults will you pile up, Father? Don't you
care at all about soothing matters over with powerful wizards? Or is
that always going to be my bloody job?''

``Draco,'' said a mild voice from behind Lucius. ``Language.''

Draco immediately stood straighter, and the flush disappeared from his
cheeks as he inclined his head. ``My apologies, Mother.''

Harry blinked as Narcissa Malfoy walked around her husband and came over
to stand next to him and Draco. Lucius was staring at her in shock equal
to what he'd shown on feeling Harry's power. Narcissa gave her son a
gentle look and a murmur of, ``I shall expect you to guard your tongue
better in the future.''

Then she turned and gave her husband a glare that made Harry want to
duck.

``Did you think I wouldn't follow you out of the house, Lucius?'' she
asked softly. ``If you really distrust me, you should have unhooked me
from the Manor's wards. That would not have let me feel you leave.''

``What are you talking about, Mother?'' Draco asked. ``Why would he
distrust you?'' He shot his father an accusatory glance, which Lucius
seemed to be doing his best to ignore.

Harry took a short step backwards. Obviously, this was much more a
private family affair than he had realized, and he was sure that
Narcissa could take care of her son. He should probably---

Narcissa's gaze darted to him, and she shook her head slightly, even as
she answered Draco. Harry blinked and stood still.

``Your father has been receiving letters,'' said Narcissa, and Lucius's
face paled further. ``They are from someone threatening to resurrect the
Dark Lord, and threatening your life in order to make your father
cooperate. Your father has gone along with them so far, as I believe he
could not see a way out of it. But today he came to the school, and
intended, it seems, to abduct you from Hogwarts and take you to
Durmstrang.'' Narcissa paused for a moment, and then fixed her eyes on
Lucius and said, ``You are an idiot, husband.''

Lucius finally seemed to have recovered from the triple shock of his
son's defiance, his wife's appearance, and his wife's knowledge. He
straightened and moved a hand to his sleeve, as though he would draw his
wand. Narcissa rolled her eyes and made a very slight movement with one
wrist.

Lucius's wand tore itself from his grasp and sailed to her. Narcissa
tucked it away among her robes, and then took a step forward. Harry
didn't think it was coincidence that her body shielded both him and
Draco from any attack by Lucius.

``Did it ever occur to you,'' said Narcissa, in the kind of voice she
might use to ask what a fine day it was, ``that I might be able to help
you? That I might be able to understand the intricacies of the situation
better than you know, because I have been in almost constant contact
with Draco? That I would have understood the threat if you showed me
those letters, but I would have been able to think of some way to deal
with it?''

Lucius was breathing harshly, his pale cheeks flushed with spots of
color. Harry supposed he thought there was no harm in showing emotion
now, since his mask had been not just ripped off but stomped on.

``No,'' said Narcissa. ``I can see that you did not think that. Why?''

``You would have reacted blindly if your son was in danger, Narcissa,''
said Lucius, finding his voice at last. He stood and leveled Narcissa
with a glare that actually made Harry feel a bit better. He could think
under stress, then. Harry would have felt slightly unnerved to find a
Malfoy so broken and beaten back that he couldn't. ``Stupidly.''

``As you have done?'' Narcissa asked.

Lucius opened his mouth, and ended up sealing it again. His gaze went to
Harry. Harry returned the gaze calmly. It was Lucius's decision as to
what to do. Perhaps his dream wasn't right, and Lucius wasn't a threat.
If he moved to be one, Harry would stand ready.

He felt Draco's steady pressure against his right shoulder. Without
looking at him, Harry draped an arm around the other boy, and felt Draco
relax against him.

Lucius's eyes narrowed, as if that sign of trust and affection had been
the banner he was looking for, and he turned back to Narcissa. ``He is a
\emph{child},'' he said, his voice burning with cold. ``You have already
seen what our enemies are capable of, Narcissa---hiding in Hogwarts and
sending a Dark magical snake to threaten our son, a snake that could
have killed him.''

Narcissa nodded slowly. ``And that shows what our enemies are capable
of,'' she said. ``What escapes me is how you have missed what our allies
are capable of, Lucius. Harry saved Draco's life.''

``He was \emph{meant} to!'' Lucius flourished a piece of parchment at her.
Narcissa took it from him and read it. If the contents affected her at
all, Harry couldn't tell. Narcissa looked up at the end of it and met
her husband's eyes.

``And it never occurred to you that they were lying, to try and save
face after their plans failed?'' she asked. ``That they had
underestimated Harry, and didn't want you to know it? I read one of the
early letters, Lucius, that mentioned something about Harry not being
very powerful. That is obviously not true. Why would you trust them at
all?'' She folded the letter into four neat squares and held it out to
him.

Harry could see Lucius making a mighty attempt to recover himself. It
was like trying to steer a plunging Pegasus with only one rein, though.
He shook his head, and his temper won out again as he snatched the
letter back from Narcissa.

``It is different for you than it is for me,'' he said. ``You know
why.'' He made the smallest of motions towards his left arm.

Narcissa snorted. ``Oh, yes. Because you wear an ugly brand, you should
let the brand dominate your life and become more important than your
family. Very winning behavior, Lucius. You did not let it become more
important twelve years ago; why should it do so now?''

``\emph{Narcissa},'' said Lucius in a snarl, his eyes darting to Harry.

``Don't worry, Mr. Malfoy,'' said Harry calmly. ``I've known since my
Christmas with you that you were Marked, and that Mrs. Malfoy wasn't.''
He paused for a moment, wondering if he should say what he was thinking,
and then shrugged and gave in. It was best that Lucius know exactly
where he had stood. This was a matter too severe for the indirect
dances. ``And I'm going to make sure that Draco is never Marked.''

He heard a hiss from beside him, but he wasn't sure what expression was
on Draco's face: surprise, or gratitude, or hope. His gaze was fixed on
Lucius's face, and the emotions there. There were too many to see all at
once, a storm of them. He wondered how many months Lucius had labored
under his lonely pressure, the stress of the letters mounting. He
wondered more why the man had never thought to trust his wife, but that
was over and done with. What was important at the moment was what was in
front of him.

``Thank you, Harry,'' said Narcissa, her voice warm. ``And I will add my
voice to yours.'' She turned and faced Lucius. ``You should know,
Lucius,'' she said, casually, ``that Draco will never be Marked as long
as I live, either.''

Lucius flung his head up. He looked like a stag backed against a cliff
by a pack of wolves, Harry thought in sympathy. Of course, matters would
have been much easier if he had just thought to \emph{ask} someone
before now whether it would be a good idea to trust Harry Potter or the
Dark Lord's servants.

``You have chosen your side, then.'' Lucius carefully enunciated his
words, his eyes looking only at Narcissa this time. He had gained that
much control of himself, then. ``I did not think it would be so soon.
There are still reasons to follow the Dark Lord, Narcissa. You know them
as well as I do.''

``I do,'' said Narcissa. ``And were it not for certain things that have
happened this year, then I would even agree with you that we should
consider those reasons. But those things happened.'' She turned and
looked directly at Harry this time, not seeming nervous that her husband
would strike at her back. ``Harry,'' she said. ``I felt your power. I
have heard from Draco that you never intend to become a Lord. That is
true, isn't it?''

Harry nodded.

Narcissa nodded back. ``Then I am your ally,'' she said.

``That is \emph{impossible},'' Lucius snarled from behind his wife.
``Anyone who has the kind of power the boy does must become a Lord, but
he is not that yet, and will not be for many years. He would die if he
faced the Dark Lord.''

``He has faced the Dark Lord twice, Lucius,'' said Narcissa softly.
``Once at the end of first year, and once in the Chamber of Secrets.''

Harry blinked at her. ``How do you know about that?'' If she knew that
he and not Connor had banished Tom Riddle\ldots{}

Narcissa gestured to Draco. ``I listen to my son.''

Harry relaxed. If Narcissa got the story from Draco, she would have
heard only the carefully modified versions that he told most people, and
in both of those, Connor was the hero of the story.

``He would still die if he faced the Dark Lord in full power,'' Lucius
interjected stubbornly. ``And that is what will happen.'' He paused for
a moment, as though trying to recover some of the coolness he had lost,
and then plunged ahead. ``You know this, Narcissa, since you have read
the letters. This group may be small, but it is determined. They will
resurrect the Dark Lord in the end, and then how will you face him,
Potter?'' He was all but snarling at Harry. Harry remembered the
expression from when Lucius had faced his parents in Diagon Alley last
year. ``Not the pitiful remnants of him that may have been in that
diary, but the real thing?''

``The same way I have so far, sir,'' said Harry quietly. ``With my
brother, who defeated him once before---and as a far younger child than
I am.'' He had decided it was no use disputing Lucius's classification
of him and asking the man to call him an adult. He would simply adopt
it, adapt it, and use it as necessary.

``You \emph{think} that.'' Lucius sneered. ``I think it far more likely
that you would die, and your allies with you.''

``That's funny, Father,'' said Draco, all perfect, bright brittleness.
``I didn't think you were so eager to see me die.''

Even Harry winced at the look on Lucius's face when Draco said that.
Lucius drew in a thick breath, as though shards of something were caught
in his throat. Then he knelt and held out a hand. ``Draco,'' he said.
``Look at me.''

Draco stirred at Harry's side, but from the motion, he'd simply pressed
his face into Harry's shoulder.

``I came here to save you,'' said Lucius softly. His extended hand
trembled. His voice did not. Harry had some idea of what that mastery
cost him, and was properly impressed. ``I promise, Draco. I would never
leave you here to die. I was going to keep you out of the battleground
that Hogwarts will become. You will go to Durmstrang, and be safe there.
I promise it.''

``No,'' said Draco softly. ``I don't want to go. I want to stay with
Harry.''

``I am your father, Draco,'' said Lucius. ``You will go if I say you
will.'' Already, Harry could see, he was trying to force himself past
that moment of vulnerability. His face was tightening, turning sharp and
chill.

``Then I have no part in my son's fate?'' Narcissa asked. The very
softness of her voice was a danger signal. Harry backed up a step,
pulling Draco with him.

``Stop this, Narcissa.'' Lucius tried to sound commanding. It didn't
work. ``I am making the only possible decision for all of us. We will
not die. We will stand on the winning side---''

``With all due respect, Mr. Malfoy,'' Harry asked, ``how is that
possible if pulling Draco out of Hogwarts isn't what these enemies want
you to do?''

Lucius narrowed his eyes at him. ``The Dark Lord will return,'' he said.
``I have no doubt of it. I merely intend not to see him return this
way.''

Harry made a sound of surprise that turned into a chuckle halfway
through, and rather choked him. Lucius went on glaring. Harry got
himself under control and glanced at Draco, whose eyes were shining with
perfect agreement. ``Do you want to tell him,'' Harry asked, ``or should
I?''

``Oh, you,'' Draco urged him. ``I don't think he would take it as well
coming from his own son. You've already seen how my insults devastate
him.''

Lucius growled. Harry nodded to his best friend and turned back towards
that best friend's father, determined to keep his smile small and his
voice as diplomatic as possible.

``Mr. Malfoy,'' he said gently, ``you've already chosen your side. I
\emph{know} what the Dark Lord was like in the last years of his reign,
and I've faced him twice, as your wife told you. Do you really think
that he would forgive treachery against an attempt to bring him back?''

Lucius went still. His extended hand stopped trembling, and his eyes
went on staring with no sign of the emotions under the surface. But
Harry knew what the stillness was a sign of, and pushed forward.

``You stand with us,'' he said. ``Your concern for Draco shows that. I
can't believe that you would really hurt him to get him to leave
Hogwarts. That's why you came in and tried to abduct him in the first
place, instead of use a coercive spell to bring him home. I can't allow
you to do harm to his free will, either, of course. But perhaps I didn't
need to worry about that. I think you always knew what side you were on.
You just needed an announcement to make you see it.''

Lucius was utterly still for a moment longer. Then he began to breathe
wildly. Harry shifted, ready to step in front of Draco if he needed
shelter from a sudden burst of magic.

``You dare accuse me of doing harm to my son's free will?'' Lucius
whispered. ``\emph{You} dare?''

Harry frowned, wondering why that statement out of all of them was the
one Lucius had taken exception to. ``Yes, Mr. Malfoy,'' he said slowly.
``I saw a shadow in my dreams just before you arrived. The shadow was
threatening Draco. I don't think now that you would physically hurt him,
but you \emph{did} intend to take him away from Hogwarts when it wasn't
his choice to go.''

``And what do you think you have done to him?'' Lucius asked in a
steadily rising voice, as he stood.

``Father, no, \emph{don't},'' Draco said abruptly. His voice was small,
and desperate, and went utterly ignored.

Harry clenched his fists. ``What have I done to him?'' His own voice
sounded like a distant gong in his ears, competing with his heartbeat.

``You've changed him,'' said Lucius flatly. ``My son is not the same now
as when he went to Hogwarts, and the change happened immediately after
he met you. Your magic is too strong, Potter. You will wind up a Lord,
whether you want to or not. You have already compelled Draco into
changing into someone else, some\emph{thing} else, merely to fulfill
your desires to have a pet.''

``No,'' Harry whispered.

But he turned and met Draco's eyes, and saw them widen, and knew there
was at least some truth in what Lucius had said. And his mind leaped
then, and made the connection with the last time Draco's voice had
sounded that desperate.

\emph{When Hermione nearly told me\ldots{}}

``My magic doesn't just attract other wizards,'' he whispered. ``It
compels them. And I didn't know.''

``Is not knowing an excuse for doing it?'' Lucius pounced on his words
like a wolf. ``It has happened, Mr. Potter. My son is not the same person
as he was. I would wager that many people near you are not the same
people they would have been without your interference, your
\emph{influence.}'' He laughed sharply. ``At least the Dark Lord was
honest about who he was, and what he wanted. He wanted to change our
world. You have altered and twisted and broken minds for no reason other
than a mere child's desires to be safe or comfortable or have friends.''

``\emph{Lucius},'' said Narcissa, her voice deadly.

Harry didn't hear what happened next. His world was falling around him,
the careful justifications he'd built to keep from panicking since the
release of his magic. He \emph{had} compelled people. All his
fulminations against Dumbledore had been for nothing. How could he be
angry at the Headmaster for binding him, when he had bound others? Not
wanting to do it was not the same thing as not doing it. He had thought
he had some time before he began to possibly compel people with the
force of his magic alone, but it seemed he did not. His magic had done
that even when itself compelled to obedience by the phoenix web. What
was going to happen now that it was free?

He swept his magic around him, wrapping it as close as he could, and
then put it to a good use for once, sending himself to a place where
compulsion was practiced all the time, and so where he would feel most
at home.

He felt Hogwarts' wards against Apparition trying frantically to resist
him, but Harry smashed straight through them, his body bending, his mind
twisting, and then the room vanishing behind him.


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\newpage


Lucius had only a moment to enjoy his victory before Narcissa's palm
connected with his face.

She had chosen the slap carefully, he knew, and had hit him in such a
way that the handprint would be highly visible, and red. He had heard
the wandless spell she hissed under her breath, and knew the handprint
would not fade. Lucius took a stumbling step backwards and touched the
handprint. He felt numb. In all the years of their marriage, Narcissa
had never hit him this way. It was how a Dark witch marked her husband
for doing something savagely, unforgivably stupid. He would wear the
marking until she chose to take it off.

Narcissa stepped away from him, eyes wide and brilliant and still. Draco
was shattered, staring at the spot where Potter had been, his hands
clenched in front of him. His wife moved so that she entirely shielded
their son from Lucius's sight. Those brilliant eyes fixed on him.

``I informed Draco about the possibility of his being compelled by
Harry's magic months ago,'' she said, enunciating every word. ``He took
appropriate steps, and in the end decided that he was free enough to
continue being Harry's friend. But he waited to tell Harry until he
could find the words. And now you have undone that, Lucius, and possibly
overset the fragile mind of a very powerful and very unstable young
wizard.'' She paused, and the silence burned. ``Congratulations,'' she
said at last.

Lucius said nothing. He didn't lower his eyes from his wife's, but he
didn't say anything, either. He was feeling the backwash of the magic
that Potter had used to vanish now, lapping waves of pain and power.

The boy was stronger than any wizard he had ever felt, even the Dark
Lord the night before he had gone to destroy the Potter twins. Lucius
felt as though he were bathed in roaring black surf. Every part of his
body tingled and began to ache the way that usually only his head did
when he faced another wizard's unleashed magic.

Lucius began to glimpse, dimly, then, what he had done.

Footsteps sounded down the corridor, and Severus rounded it at a dead
run, his wand drawn. He paused when he saw all three Malfoys, but his
eyes swept past the two adults and found Draco. ``Where is Harry?'' he
asked bluntly.

``He Apparated,'' Draco whispered. ``Father upset him.''

Severus turned and gave Lucius a look that reminded him of the one he
had received last year, when Severus had been carrying Potter to the
school in his arms. Lucius lifted his head and met the glare. They
weren't Death Eaters anymore. There was nothing Severus could do to him.

Then he remembered some half-read rumor in the paper, that Severus had
adopted the boy, or chosen to play legal guardian to him for his own
obscure reasons.

Severus would have every right to hurt him for hurting the Potter boy.

Lucius felt his head began to ache more fiercely.

``I am not going to kill you,'' said Severus. ``Harry would not like it.
I will leave you to contemplate your own stupidity, Lucius, and to
explain to the Headmaster what that blast of magic was, when he comes
looking. I am going to search for Harry.'' He turned on his heel and
strode away, his robes snapping around him. Draco wriggled out from
behind Narcissa and ran after him.

That left Lucius alone with his wife. Narcissa did not move as she stood
there, and her eyes never wavered.

``You do not deserve a second chance, Lucius,'' she said at last, her
voice cold and pitiless. ``You should have consulted with me the moment
the letters began arriving, the moment you noticed that Draco was drawn
to Harry by the strength of his magic. You have interfered in your son's
friendship and broken \emph{my} word. I promised that no one would hurt
Harry or Draco, as long as Draco was sure that this friendship came
about of his own free will.''

``You do not deserve it, all things considered,'' she went on
thoughtfully, after a pause, ``but you will be given it, because you are
Draco's father, and my husband, and, as Harry pointed out, his ally by
your own actions.'' She extended a hand.

Lucius stared at her palm. \emph{Dare} he clasp it? He had been
humiliated as never before today, and normally he would have been
imagining the vengeance he would take on the ones who had done it. Now,
however, there was only the thick, cold taste of shame in his throat.

``For once, Lucius,'' said Narcissa, her voice forceful and serene,
``bend your proud neck. I can help you, but only if you let me.''

Lucius reached up and clasped her hand.


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\newpage


Harry sat on the bed in the Shrieking Shack and stared at the far wall,
while his mind whirled and cut and danced around thoughts that he had
never believed he would think.

He could remember, now, the way that Draco had altered his behavior in
first year. He had gone from cool and assured on the Express, and even
the first few nights after Harry was Sorted into Slytherin, to a devoted
friend. And why? He'd had no choice. Even then, Harry had leaned on his
mind, woven his own web, used his magic to force out the kinds of
reactions he'd wanted from Draco.

And Snape in the first year? Snape was an Occlumens. Harry was sure he
could feel the intrusions of the magic on his thoughts and deal with
them. That would certainly account for his volatile attitude. But he had
mellowed since then, as he became more used to Harry.

\emph{Or the magic mellowed him for me.}

Harry swallowed a moan. He'd wanted someone to trust, hadn't he? And his
magic had provided it for him. His magic would probably try to give him
everything he wanted of others, if he let it.

\emph{I cannot let it.}

Hawthorn, Adalrico, Dumbledore, his parents, Sirius, Remus\ldots{}how
many of his altered relationships were the fault of his magic? How many
of the changes in the people around him could be traced back to that?
Had he leaned on Sirius's fragile mind and snapped it more? Had he drawn
his pureblood allies to him when they would rather have stood with the
Dark Lord, who at least represented the world they had always known and
the ideals they would more naturally fight for? Had he committed worse
crimes than Dumbledore's, through not knowing what he was doing?

His parents\ldots{}

He had cast \emph{Fugitivus Animus}, a Dark spell, on them almost
without thought, solely to ease his own pain, because he wanted to slip
out of Hogwarts and die in the middle of his released magic. And he
hadn't taken it off since, despite plenty of opportunities to do so. He
could have removed it at any time during the summer, at any moment until
he left for Hogwarts, at the Quidditch game. Instead, he'd probably only
reinforced it when his magic burst free.

And the horrible thing was that he knew that if his parents hadn't been
under the influence of the spell, if they had been paying attention to
him, he would probably have killed or maimed them.

\emph{No matter where I turn,} Harry thought, \emph{there's no comfort.
No matter what I do, I'm going to hurt someone. Snape and Draco might
care for me, but I forced them into it. It isn't natural. My magic is
entirely unnatural. Dumbledore was right, and Starborn telling me that I
could be a leader is laughable. What am I ever going to be but a Lord,
cutting people off from their own ambitions and freedom?}

His hands clenched, and the Shack abruptly trembled around him as if it
would take flight. Harry smoothed down his rage again. He couldn't allow
himself to get angry, even if it was at his own stupidity.

\emph{So what is left? Suicide?}

He contemplated it calmly enough. He had always known that his chances
of survival were not great. If he could die in the War to save Connor,
then he could surely die by his own hand to keep from influencing people
the wrong way. He would rather die than use compulsion. He had said
that. He had felt that. Did he mean it?

And then the world turned around and made sense again.

\emph{Connor.}

Harry's breathing came easier. He couldn't commit suicide. He had to
stay alive for his brother's sake. Not only would Connor be left without
protection if Harry died, but he would be devastated by grief. Harry
winced at the thought of hurting someone else like that.

\emph{Are you sure that you didn't compel him to care for you, too?}

No, Harry thought, he wasn't. But he thought it unlikely. His and
Connor's love for one another had begun in childhood, when the phoenix
web was still there to protect other people from unnatural influences.
If there was any relationship in Harry's life that was free of the taint
of his magic, it was his bond with his brother.

And perhaps\ldots{}

Harry sat up and breathed out, slowly. He allowed himself to feel hope,
and that was painful, but since when had he been afraid of causing pain
to himself? Other people's pain was far more to be feared.

\emph{Connor has been learning compulsion magic,} he thought. \emph{He
can teach me techniques, I think. He can teach me how to start
controlling this, how to limit the influence my magic has on other
people.}

Because that was the problem, the crux, the heart of the matter, and why
he couldn't simply turn back to the phoenix web and the way things had
worked in his childhood, Harry finally admitted to himself. Binding his
magic only caused more problems. And he knew that Draco and Snape would
struggle and argue with him if he tried to do it, because it would
probably take a while before their true personalities returned and they
ceased to care about him. He would rather not cause them any more agony
than he had to in withdrawing the compulsion.

And there were the promises he had made to Peter, and Snape---even
though he had caused some of Snape's sacrifices, such as his reduced
loathing of Sirius, and hadn't noticed it---and to Remus, to free him of
the \emph{Obliviate}. There were the implied promises to the creatures
in the Forest, even though he didn't know what they were yet, and to the
Dementors, and to Fawkes.

For all those, he needed his magic.

\emph{I can't bind it,} Harry decided, and slid off the bed. \emph{I
can't ignore it, the way I have been doing. I have to do the harder
thing. I have to face it. I have to learn to use it, the way Starborn
suggested I do.}

He remembered the story of Falco Parkinson, who had died trying to walk
this path through his magic, and what Starborn had said in his letter,
that other powerful wizards had died or gone mad trying not to be Lords.

Harry laughed, and was glad to hear that it sounded grim, instead of
defeated.

\emph{Since when has anything in my life been easy?}

But to gain some time and space for the training, and to give Draco and
Snape time to recover from what he had done to them, he would have to
insure that he parted from them for a while.

Harry knew the perfect way.


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\newpage


Neville let him into Gryffindor Tower with no questions asked, and
directed Harry to the third-year boys' room when he asked after Connor.
Harry found his brother there, pretending to work on a Charms essay but
actually chattering with Ron. They both fell silent and stared at him.

Harry took a deep breath and met Connor's eyes. ``I promised you once
that we would spend all our Christmases together,'' he said. ``And then
I broke that promise last year. This year, I don't want to. Can I come
home with you over Christmas?''

When Connor's face welled into a smile and he lunged at Harry over the
bed, grabbing him in a fierce hug, Harry knew he'd made the right
choice.

\chapter{*Chapter 26*: Christmas With the
Potters}\label{chapter-26-christmas-with-the-potters}

I'm updating this early because I won't get the time to do so Friday,
what with things I have to do. I promise I'll try to have Chapter 23 up
early on Saturday.

Well, here we go.

\textbf{Chapter Twenty-Two: Christmas With the Potters}

Harry wondered idly if it was possible for someone to expire of rage. He
supposed he would know in a moment. Snape would either expire of it or
finally speak, as he hadn't since Harry had arrived in his office.

Harry lifted his head and calmly met his guardian's gaze. Snape didn't
try to use Legilimency on him. He was probably incapable of remembering
the incantation right now. Harry waited.

Snape broke.

``You \emph{stupid} boy,'' he hissed, lunging up from behind his desk.
``What are you \emph{thinking}? You cannot go back to that befouled place
yet, let alone for weeks.''

``I've made my decision,'' said Harry, letting Snape's words roll off
him. This was a mindset he hadn't summoned in some time, the one in
which everything except Connor ceased to matter. He had forgotten how
wonderfully clear and simple everything became when he used it. He still
felt rage, and regret, but far stronger was the knowledge that he was
doing this for everyone else's own good, even if it was his brother's
that came first. ``I know that Draco told you about what his father
said.''

``And it was \emph{wrong},'' Snape said.

Harry tilted his head. ``I can't compel other wizards with my magic,
then?'' It would be good news if it could be true, he mused. It would
shatter the nightmare he'd been living in for the past few days, while
he avoided Draco and Snape as much as possible and brooded on Lucius's
words. Snape had finally managed to corner him and command him to his
office. Harry didn't think he had done it in order to wake him up from
the nightmare, though.

``You can,'' said Snape, ``but I have not been compelled.''

Harry shook his head. ``I'm sorry, sir. I don't believe you.''

Snape took one long step towards him. Harry went on observing. He wasn't
afraid. He didn't feel much of anything, except determination. It was
obvious that Snape needed far more time away from him than Harry had
thought he did. The claws of his magic were hooked deeply into him.

``I am an Occlumens,'' said Snape. ``Did you think I would not have felt
it, Harry?'' He was trying to change things back to the way they had
been, using his first name, Harry realized. The magic was probably
making him do it. Harry's magic obeyed even his unconscious wishes, and
Harry really did wish for a waking from the nightmare. It would not
happen. He knew that now.

``I think you did feel it first year, sir,'' said Harry. ``And then
matters changed. I remember the way that you felt you had to protect me
after Tom Riddle's attack.''

``Do you remember what Tom Riddle did to your mind?'' Snape sounded as
if he would start snarling any second. Harry wondered if he should call
Remus in. He and Snape could compare ferocious noises.

``Of course I do, sir,'' said Harry. ``That's why everything changed.
But my magic was influencing people even under the phoenix web. Draco
was changed. You were changed. It just took longer to work on you, since
you had the protection of your mental shields.'' He sighed. ``I'm sorry.
I would have stopped it if I knew how to control it. I would stop it
\emph{now} if I knew how to control it.''

Snape mastered himself with a visible effort. ``Harry,'' he said.

Harry nodded to show he was listening.

``What do you believe would happen if you were suddenly to remove your
compulsion from me?'' Snape asked. He was leaning forward, his eyes
intent on Harry's.

``You would go back to being your normal self, sir,'' said Harry. ``The
man you were before I enslaved you.''

Snape's voice came out low and cold, the sign of his true anger. ``I
know what slavery feels like, Harry.'' He touched his left arm, and the
Dark Mark hidden on it. ``And you did not enslave me.''

``But that's why it's so insidious, sir,'' said Harry. He was a bit
confused. Snape must have read up on the theories of powerful wizards
compelling others to follow them from the sheer strength of their magic.
He'd been around Voldemort and Dumbledore, both. He would have felt it,
from both of them. Why he should refuse to believe that Harry had done
it was a mystery. ``You didn't notice it. It crept into your mind and
your thoughts, and bound you. Even now, it binds you. You think you feel
affection for me. You don't, not really.'' Those words still hurt to
say, as they hurt to think, but that was part of the point. Every time
Harry thought he had caused himself pain, he remembered that he had
caused other people far more.

``I will thank you not to tell me how I feel, Harry,'' said Snape, and
his eyes narrowed further. ``You have done a disservice, to me, to
yourself, and to Draco. Have you listened to him at all when he tries to
speak to you?''

``I did tell him that I was going home for Christmas, sir,'' Harry said.
``He had a screaming fit at me.''

\emph{Screaming fit} was too mild a term for what had happened with
Draco, really. Harry had not really wanted to know that Draco thought
all those things about his parents and Connor. For a Malfoy, Draco had
an extraordinarily foul mouth. Harry thought now that he might have
learned those terms from his mother.

``Draco has been to see me,'' said Snape, and paced one more step
forward. Harry was craning his neck back to look up at him. That was all
right. He could do this. When he came back after Christmas, Snape would
already have noticed the difference, and probably have strengthened his
Occlumency shields against the compulsion creeping in again. ``He says
that he knew about the compulsion beforehand, and that he had already
decided to stay friends with you.''

``Yes, he told me that, too,'' said Harry, unmoved.

``And?'' Snape probed, his eyes glittering.

Harry shrugged. ``The compulsion's feeding on him, too. He thinks he
feels all these things that he really doesn't. He thinks he made the
decision to stay my friend, but he really had it made for him.''

Snape ground his teeth. ``And how, Mr. Potter, do you know that, when
you have admitted that you do not know how deep your compulsion runs?''

Harry smiled. He knew it was a sad smile. Most of his smiles were,
lately. Connor hadn't been able to understand why. He'd even seemed
pleased that Harry had a gift so similar to his own. ``Don't you see,
Professor? \emph{I can't take the chance.} I have to get away from you
for a little while. If your feelings for me change noticeably---and I
think they will---then I know that they were the result of my
compulsion. But I can't know that until I test it.''

``And if they do not change?'' Snape asked harshly.

Harry let his breath out. ``I don't understand,'' he whispered. ``As you
said, you know what slavery feels like. Why would you want to risk being
enslaved if you stay near me? My compulsion could be unusually powerful
or far-reaching. It may make some decisions for you and not others. It
might influence you on some things and not others. The most horrible
part of this is that I can't ever be sure, and there isn't one solution
that will fix it all. Why would you want to take the chance that you're
being compelled, even if you're absolutely sure you aren't?''

Snape moved. Harry had expected the man to stride back behind his desk,
or perhaps even raise his wand and unleash a hex, but he knelt down in
front of Harry instead. Harry eyed him warily. Snape's hands twitched,
but he made no move to touch Harry, instead gazing at him evenly.

``Harry,'' he said softly. ``I choose to risk it. When I change my mind
about that, you will be the first to know. I chose to help you rebuild
your mind. I chose to become your guardian. I chose to teach you the
Potions knowledge that you requested from me. Every choice I have made
concerning you since at least the end of last year has been motivated by
compassion and admiration and, yes, affection for you. I am absolutely
sure of that. I know what slavery feels like. \emph{This is not it}.''

Harry fought to control his own trembling. He tried as hard as he could
not to feel anything, not to respond to Snape's declaration. If he did
that, then his magic might reach out and compel Snape to recite more of
the same words.

Of course, it might do that anyway, responding to wishes that Harry
didn't even know he had.

How could he trust himself, ever again?

``Stay here,'' Snape whispered. It seemed as though the words were
choking him. ``Do not go to your parents for Christmas. You deserve more
than a house full of cheer that does not include you, and parents who
will ignore you, or injure you if they ever see you again.'' He closed
his eyes, and held still for a long moment. Harry wondered what was
coming. Then Snape forced it out. ``Please.''

\emph{He wouldn't have said that. The magic made him.}

\emph{I'm compelling him just by standing in the same room with him.}

Harry fled.


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\newpage


``Harry.''

Harry sighed and tucked an arm around his head. Fawkes, who was sitting
with his own head beneath his wing on the foot of the bed, gave a sleepy
chirp and huddled down further, fluffing out the feathers on his breast.

The curtains opened, and Draco was there. Harry didn't have to look at
him to know he would have his wand out, glowing with \emph{Lumos}. Draco
had been very, very persistent since Lucius's visit. He didn't seem to
understand that Harry was trying to give him space to grow his own
personality back. He kept insisting that he knew what he wanted, and
Harry had no right to take it away from him.

Harry wanted, desperately, fiercely, to believe him, but how could he?

Draco sat down on the bed beside him this time, and said his name again.
Harry waited for the hand that would shake his shoulder and force him to
face his friend---his compelled friend, his tamed pet, his
some\emph{thing}. He felt even worse about what he'd done to Draco than
Snape. Snape had resisted the compulsion for a whole year, and Harry
also thought he would recover faster. Draco had been under Harry's
influence for two and a half years. Harry had deprived him of the person
he could have become, the other friends he could have had, the interests
and hobbies he might have developed out of Harry's shadow. Guilt writhed
like snakes in his belly whenever he thought about it.

\emph{Snakes. Sylarana. Oh Merlin, did I compel her too?}

``Fine,'' said Draco, his voice exhausted. ``Just listen, then. I have
something to tell you, Harry.''

Harry did not see what it could be. Draco had already told Harry that
he'd known about the compulsion in September, that his mother had sent
him books on how to resist it, that he had made his own decisions and
renewed his friendship with Harry out of his own free will. Harry did
not believe it. Draco had still been too close to him when he was making
that decision. And perhaps he might even have fought free, but then
Harry had reached out, greedily, selfishly, and dragged him back into
the charmed circle.

\emph{How many mistakes have I made? The sooner I can get some training
from Connor, the better.} Connor had already shown him how to
concentrate and focus inward, pulling in his will until he barely leaned
on the world at all. Harry didn't know how well that would work when all
of his magic and not just one specific part of it wanted to change
people's minds, but he was hopeful. If he could get away from Hogwarts,
then he might even stop wanting so much. He already knew where he stood
with his parents and Remus and Connor. He shouldn't want to alter their
behavior.

``Harry,'' Draco whispered, and then his hand stroked Harry's hair. It
felt good. Harry did not want to let it. He closed his eyes, trying his
best to withdraw his will from Draco. But the voice followed him into
the darkness, even as Harry dived, spinning and cutting among the
portions of his mind he'd rebuilt in May.

``I didn't even know about you until I met you on the Hogwarts
Express,'' said Draco. ``And then I felt your magic. I felt it as pain,
the way that Malfoys always have. I thought you were the Boy-Who-Lived
at first, and that you and Connor were playing a joke on me. It wasn't
until you named yourself that I realized I was wrong.'' He hesitated, as
though about to say something else, but then went on.

Harry tried to focus on the bridges of magic he'd created across the
gulf of his thoughts. He had controlled his own thoughts last year, when
he fought Tom Riddle---almost exactly a year ago, now. He ought to be
able to confine his magic to himself again, if he really tried. Not bind
it forever, certainly, but direct it more specifically than he had so
far. Then he would only do what he wanted to do with it.

``I felt so betrayed when I thought you had compelled me all the time,
that our friendship was a lie,'' Draco whispered.

Harry hunched, and then forced himself to lie still and breathe calmly.
If he felt too hurt, then he would probably try to soothe the hurt, and
that would involve compelling Draco to do things he hadn't agreed to.
Breathe slowly and deeply. That was it.

``And then I realized that it didn't matter,'' Draco said. ``There are
things in our friendship that couldn't have been compulsion, Harry.
\emph{Think} about it. You saved my life in our first year. You gave me
back the life debt, and I used it to force you to do something you
didn't want to do, visiting my family at Christmas. I asked you again
and again for the full story of what happened with the Dark Lord at the
end of first year, and you never gave it to me. You drove me from your
mind last year the moment you felt you didn't need my any longer, and I
had no ill effects from that. You let me go with you into the Chamber
last year even though you didn't want to, and you could have easily
forced me to stay behind. And then this year you've saved my life
\emph{again} and then defended me from my father when you thought I
needed it.'' He paused, as if to draw breath. ``There's too much there,
Harry. I won't let you dismiss it. And I won't dismiss it, no matter
what you think. Even if I find my feelings changing when you leave
Hogwarts, I don't care. I'll still be here when you come back, because
of that too much. You can't end this friendship because you feel guilty.
It's not only yours to end.''

Harry wondered dismally why his magic liked yanking affectionate
speeches out of people.

\emph{Because you want affection, of course. You felt used by your
family when the phoenix web lifted. But you could have managed to win
affection the normal way, instead of compelling it. That's the way
normal wizards would have done it.}

``And if you come back from your Christmas broken,'' Draco whispered,
``I swear to Merlin that I'll pick you up and put you back together
again.''

Harry didn't let himself listen. He would turn around if he did.

Draco eventually went back to his bed, and Harry rolled over again and
stared at the closing gap in the curtains where he had been. What scared
him most wasn't the declaration itself. He could have expected that
Draco would make a declaration like that. The magic was quite capable of
getting anything it wanted---or he wanted. That was the more accurate
depiction.

What scared him was the calm determination behind Draco's words.
Compelled or not, Harry thought it might be a match for his own.


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\newpage


Snape ate his breakfast in silence that morning, and watched Black drink
the last dose of empathy potion he would have for a time with much less
than the usual good humor he felt at the sight. Black and Lupin were
going to be in the same house as Harry for weeks at a time.

Snape knew he could have forced the issue. He could have used his legal
authority as guardian to make Harry stay.

And that would have shattered his relationship with Harry far more
effectively than Lucius's words had.

Snape put down his fork and sighed. He could do nothing. He hated being
helpless, and he especially hated to be helpless in the matter of Harry.
The boy had suffered enough, and he was going back into the house with
the people who had caused the majority of that suffering.

\emph{No,} he thought, as he watched Black. \emph{There is one thing I
can do.}

``Black,'' he said.

The man started, slopping pumpkin juice all over his hand, and turned
towards him. He really did look bad, Snape thought clinically. His skin
was nearly pasty white now, and the circles beneath his eyes looked like
bruises. Had he not done what he had done to Harry, Snape might even
have been persuaded to care.

``I know that you are going to Godric's Hollow with Harry,'' he said.
``If you do something to hurt him, be assured I will find out. And then
I will hunt you down and kill you.''

Black stared at him for a moment. Then he said, ``You would go to
Azkaban.''

``I don't care,'' said Snape. ``I will torture you before I kill
you---one hour for every year I expect to spend in Azkaban. It cannot
make up for what you have done to Harry, but be assured, it would
satisfy \emph{me.} And the torture would make what your brother suffered
at Voldemort's hands look kind.''

Black gave a stifled cry at the mention of Regulus. He clenched his hand
beneath the table, then said, ``I could tell Albus that you threatened
me, and he would---''

``He would do nothing,'' said Snape. ``Not when he needs me.''

``Potions Masters can be replaced,'' said Black.

Snape snorted. ``You are a fool if you think that is all he needs me
for. And a threat is only a threat, Black.'' He held the other man's
eyes and lowered his voice until he was sure that every word was burning
past Black's ears. ``It need not become real unless you take some action
yourself. Remember. Any torture you inflict is cause for your own death
by torture.''

Black stared at him with wide eyes. Then he stood and bolted out of the
room.

Snape leaned back in his chair, and avoided Albus's inquisitive gaze. He
brooded on Harry instead, sitting at the end of the Slytherin table and
ignoring every attempt from his Housemates to initiate a conversation.

\emph{I let him go into danger, in the knowledge that holding him back
would be worse.}

\emph{Is this what all parents feel about their children?}


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\newpage


So far, Harry thought, stretched out on the couch in front of the
fireplace but posed to shift if one of their parents should come over
and try to sit down on him, Christmas with his family had been all
right.

His parents ignored him utterly, of course, and Sirius did much the same
thing, as though he had gone back to being under \emph{Fugitivus
Animus}. Harry had his suspicions about that, since he had seen Sirius
flee the Great Hall soon after Snape spoke to him on their last morning
at Hogwarts, but there was nothing he could do about it. He was making a
great effort not to even think about Snape, so that his magic wouldn't
decide that he needed the Potions Master and try to compel his feelings
again.

But Harry had Connor's attention, and that was always glorious. Connor
spent many hours working with Harry on training his compulsion, showing
him the calming process he'd learned from Sirius, and how to aim his
will and push it out towards a single target, rather than simply spread
it out and let it dangle in the air. And he spent many hours with Harry
when he didn't have to, when their parents would have been happy to
speak with him or play with him or pamper him silly. They talked about
the history Connor was learning, and Quidditch, and Connor had already
promised that Harry would get a few of his Christmas gifts, since Lily
and James didn't think to buy him any.

\emph{Couldn't} think to buy him any, Harry told himself firmly. He
always wanted to remember whose fault this was. Forget who was to blame,
and he stood a good chance of turning into one of the compellers Connor
had warned him solemnly about, the ones who simply used their gifts to
order everyone around because they thought it was their \emph{right} to
do that, by virtue of being born with the magic. Compellers had to be
careful of their impact on the world, Connor had said earnestly. That
was why it had been such a relief to him to find out that his gift was
of the Light from Griphook Fishbaggin's book. That meant he would never
have to worry about the impact he made.

Harry knew he couldn't be assured of such prophesized status himself, so
he was concentrating. And he thought it worked. The first day he was
home, a bit of bread had skimmed out of the kitchen and into his hand
when he was barely aware he was hungry. Now, on Christmas Eve, he really
had to concentrate to summon the simplest of objects, and his magic
certainly wasn't attending to his subconscious desires.

\emph{That you can tell.}

There was always that, of course. Nevertheless, Harry thought he had a
right to be cautiously pleased.

``Harry? Can I talk to you?''

Harry blinked and put down his book, which was a review of wizarding
history he already knew but wanted to brush up on, this time playing
special attention to the role that Lords had played. ``Sure, Remus,'' he
said, shifting his legs aside so that the werewolf could sit down on the
couch opposite him. Remus was shaking, and Harry studied him carefully.
``Do you need more Wolfsbane?''

Remus shook his head tightly. The full moon was still a few days away,
Harry remembered then. \emph{Silly of me to forget.} He smiled
apologetically and sat up. ``What is it?'' he asked, when Remus kept
silent.

Remus flattened his hands in front of him. ``I think you should know why
I refused to let you remove the \emph{Obliviate},'' he said.

Harry felt his insides curl up and freeze. He didn't want to talk about
anything associated with Hogwarts here---

But of course he couldn't escape it, not when Connor's every second
conversation with their parents was about that. And he had promised to
help Remus heal. It was progress, that he was willing to talk about
this. Harry made himself nod.

``Tell me,'' he said gently, and tried not to reflect how much he
sounded like their mum when she was coaxing some small envy or petty
hurt out of him.

Remus let out a breath. ``Do you know close I came to killing Severus,
when Sirius played that prank?'' he asked.

Harry jerked at the mention of Snape, and then forced his body still
when Remus gave him a curious glance. Neither Sirius nor Remus---nor
Connor, for that matter---knew about his changed relationship with
Snape, or the reason that Harry had come to Godric's Hollow for the
holidays instead of staying with him. And Harry didn't want them finding
out, either.

Of course, blessed with a werewolf's nose, Remus was sniffing. ``Why do
you smell so fearful, Harry?'' he asked gently.

``We weren't talking about me,'' said Harry. ``We were talking about
you.''

It was a clumsy maneuver, but he had thought that Remus must really want
to talk about this in order to seek him out, and that meant he was
vulnerable to distraction. It turned out to be true. Remus's face
clouded, and he gave a difficult nod.

``Of course we were,'' said Remus. ``Do you know how close I came?''

Harry shook his head. ``No. Dad only ever explained about the prank in
its bare outlines, and how he saved Snape's life, and how Snape owes him
a life debt for it.'' He could speak the words calmly, including his
guardian's name, he thought. He could. See? He had just done it.

``Very close,'' Remus whispered. ``And I still remember the anger that
filled me, that savage, mindless bloodlust to kill and \emph{kill}. I
know it affected Severus too, of course, but it left its mark on the
beast in me. At the full moon, in the brief moment when I change and
before the Wolfsbane Potion lets me get control back, the beast wakes up
and remembers that moment.''

``Why?'' Harry asked, puzzled. Remus had transformed dozens of times in
his life by now. Why would that one transformation matter so much?

Remus smiled grimly. ``Because,'' he said, ``Severus got away. The beast
never wants anyone to get away.''

Harry swallowed. Remus nodded. His face was calm, but his eyes were
burning.

``There is no compromise with this \emph{thing} in me, Harry,'' he said.
``Understand. I'm not a wolf. I'm a \emph{werewolf.} This is a disease. A
curse.''

``I knew that,'' Harry whispered.

``Yes, but you don't understand,'' said Remus. ``Fenrir Greyback bit me
as a child. Do you know why he likes to bite children?''

``To punish their families,'' said Harry, remembering that part of the
history of the First War.

``Only partially,'' said Remus quietly. ``Many bitten children die, but
if we survive, we adapt differently to the curse, since we took it into
our bodies so young. The beast's rage becomes ours. When we get angry,
we get angry the way a werewolf would.'' He took a deep breath and
spread one hand in front of him. ``I'm not rational when I'm in a rage,
Harry. I've been tempted to bite people before.''

He met Harry's eyes directly. ``And since I know I would be angry when I
found out the memories behind the \emph{Obliviate}, I don't want it
removed. I would essentially be a werewolf without the transformation.''
He leaned forward. ``Can you imagine being that angry with your own
friends, Harry? I don't \emph{want} to. I know that there would be no
going back once I learned what they did to you. And it would be because
of me, not them. They may have done unforgivable things, but I would do
unforgivable things, too, in my anger.''

Harry shuddered as he remembered the cold, black, \emph{silent} rage
that had welled out of him in the Chamber of Secrets. Remus was wrong.
Harry understood all too well. He had his own curse, though as far as he
knew, there was no potion that could aid him in controlling it.

``But, at the same time,'' Remus whispered, ``I want to know. I look at
Sirius and James and Lily, and it's like I don't know them at all
anymore. I wonder what's behind the masks.''

Harry said nothing. He didn't know what he \emph{could} say. Remus was
the one who had to make this decision. Harry couldn't make it for
him---wouldn't make it for him, not if someone told him he had to make
it or die. He had said he would rather die than compel someone else.

\emph{Yes, I do mean it,} he realized, in a rush of wonder and relief.
He hadn't been sure that he did.

``I know Lily was a good woman,'' Remus whispered. ``I know that Sirius
and James were good men. But \emph{were, were, were.} I don't know if
they really are the people I thought they were anymore.'' He smiled
grimly. ``And I think I'm most terrified of discovering they never were
the people I thought they were.''

``Remus,'' Harry asked, because he had to ask, ``why did you stand aside
and let Peter go to Azkaban, knowing he was innocent? And why did you
never tell me the truth?''

``At first?'' Remus asked lowly. ``Because Albus asked, and I trusted
him. And I saw Sirius after the spell finally broke and Regulus died. He
looked worse than now. I spent days with him in a room while he
screamed, nights with him while he had nightmare after nightmare. He
wanted to forget, to let the whole thing die, to let Regulus pass out of
memory. And I was willing to give him anything he wanted, to enable
myself to forget his suffering.''

``What about Peter?'' Harry asked. He knew his voice was sharpening
towards accusation, but it was okay to let it, he assured himself. He
was angry on someone else's behalf, and not his own.

``I never valued him as much as the others,'' said Remus. Though his
voice obviously scraped his throat, he admitted it readily. This was an
ugly fact he had made his peace with a long time ago, Harry realized.
``James, Sirius, me---we were the close friends. Peter was the sidekick,
the tagalong. We all felt that way. I don't think we ever realized it
until Albus tested us, but we did.''

Harry looked aside. He didn't know what to say, again. No wonder it had
been easy for Voldemort to believe that Peter was sick of being in his
friends' shadows, he thought. It might even have been partially true.

``I know that I'll have to come to my own decisions, and you have to
come to your own,'' said Remus, placing one hand on Harry's shoulder as
he rose. ``But I wanted you to know that I'm afraid of my own anger. It's
cowardice, Harry, but it's a specific \emph{kind} of cowardice.'' For a
moment, his smile flashed, knowing, self-deprecating, more like the old
Remus.

Then it vanished, and he limped from the room.

Harry spent the rest of that afternoon on the couch, since no one else
insisted on coming over and sitting down, and Connor was playing some
game with Sirius that made his laughter scatter around the house like
butterflies. He thought about what Remus had said about making his own
decisions.

He thought of something he could do near the evening.

Thoughts chased themselves around his head as he considered it.

\emph{Do you really want to do it? Are you sure?}

But no matter what objections he came up with, they always slammed
straight into the inflexible barrier of his principles. It didn't matter
if he wanted to do it or not. He had said that he would die before he
used compulsion. He wanted to work to undo it. He couldn't do it with
Remus, because Remus had to choose, and had the ability to choose, now
that he knew he was missing memories.

But there were others in the house whom Harry had compelled, directly,
and who would not get a chance to choose.

And Harry was tired---tired of being alone except for his twin and
Remus, tired of not having a parent except one whom he had magically
compelled in one way or another.

He missed his mum.

He stood up, slowly, at last, and when dinner was finished, he went into
the kitchen. Lily was alone there, charming the dishes to zip around and
clean themselves. Harry could hear laughter from upstairs, where Sirius
and Connor had now pulled James into the game, which seemed to be a card
game, from the sound of it. Remus had already gone home; the fatigue of
the approaching full moon had been affecting him. Besides, he'd joked,
he wanted to be ready for Christmas the next morning.

Harry took a deep breath, and listened for a long moment. Laughter, and
soft music from the WWN in the other room, and his mother's voice
lifting in small breathy snatches of melody as she sang along with it.

He didn't draw his wand, because he thought he should end this the same
way he had started it. He focused all his will, and raised his power to
the level it had been when he left the Chamber of Secrets, and
whispered, ``\emph{Finite Incantatem.}''

He felt the snapping and parting of the \emph{Fugitivus Animus} from
Lily's mind. Her thoughts brightened, sharpened, shifted.

Then she froze.

The dishes hovered in place for a moment. Lily at last made a jerky
gesture, and they clattered back onto the table and the counter. She
stood in silence for another moment more, and her breathing matched
Harry's in rapidity. Harry thought her heartbeat probably did, too,
though he couldn't hear hers.

Then, slowly, inch by inch, she turned to face him, until a pair of wide
green eyes were staring at him, the twins of his own.

``Hi, Mum,'' said Harry softly.

\chapter{*Chapter 27*: Harry And His Mother Have a Little
Chat}\label{chapter-27-harry-and-his-mother-have-a-little-chat}

I'm updating so early because I'm obsessed with writing this story. I
admit it. I think about it when I should be thinking about homework
instead.

Or maybe it's just this chapter. Which changes everything.

\textbf{Chapter Twenty-Three: Harry And His Mother Have a Little Chat}

Things fell and shifted and crashed into place in Lily's mind, and she
knew, now, what had sometimes made her pause in the last months and
question her own sanity, that she had a sense of a person missing from
the family.

Someone \emph{had} been missing from the family. Someone who had just
announced his return by lifting the spells that had obscured her memory
of him.

Lily met her son's eyes, and saw the power that burned there, unbound.
Harry might think he was shielding everyone else from the effects of his
magic, but he wasn't, not really. Fear waited to tear Lily apart if she
thought about it, heart-rending, soul-shrinking fear.

But the Headmaster had sent her a letter months ago, one that Lily had
kept in spite of not knowing what it referred to. It had two lines on
it. One was six words long.

The other said simply \emph{You will know what to do with this when the
time comes.}

And she did know what to do with it, Lily found, as she stared back at
Harry. It would hurt to do it, but she would do it anyway. It was only
one more sacrifice in a long string of them.

\emph{I am not,} Lily thought, as she stared at her elder son, the son
with her eyes and her soul, \emph{any stranger to sacrifices.}


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\newpage


Harry waited. His mother only went on looking at him, as though she
didn't know whether to hug him or burst into tears or lunge away in
terror. Harry hoped it wouldn't be that last, but he feared it would be.

He couldn't speak, himself. The memories overwhelmed him. \emph{This}
was his mother, the woman who had trained him and given him purpose in
life and made him so much of what he was, the aspects of his personality
he had told Snape coddling him like a child would not change. She had
hurt him. He could acknowledge that, even feel it. She had not done
things the best way.

But she had taught him the meaning of sacrifice, and of facing war
without flinching. That was the real reason Harry had wanted her back,
so that he could look into her eyes and know that at least one other
person understood what he had given up. Oh, Snape and Draco
\emph{tried}, but they could only glimpse memories before becoming upset
(though he had probably compelled their anger and horror, too). Lily had
been there with him all along. Hurt or no hurt, she understood him as no
one else in the world would ever do.

And she had been a Gryffindor, and had made a decision to sacrifice her
own child, perhaps both of them, if Connor had not stopped Voldemort
that night. She was no stranger to courage. She took a deep breath now,
and stepped away from the counter, all the time keeping her eyes on his
face.

``Hello, Harry,'' she said.

Harry tucked all the emotions that wanted to burst out of him behind a
calm mask. He wasn't entirely sure what would happen if he let them go
now. \emph{A storm of laughter or a storm of tears, maybe.} He took a
deep breath in turn. ``I suppose you're wondering what I did to you,''
he said.

``I do wonder what specific spell you used, yes.'' Lily's voice was as
calm as his.

``\emph{Fugitivus Animus},'' said Harry. ``On both you and Father. Sirius
broke it months ago, but that's only because he has the compulsion
gift.''

Lily's eyes widened for a moment. Then they narrowed. ``Dark magic?''
she whispered. ``Oh, Harry, I would have hoped you knew better.''

Harry clasped his hands together behind his back. They writhed and
twisted, and he wished Sylarana were with him, to do something that
would soothe or drain away the intense feelings running through him. It
was like having a river just under the surface of his skin.

``I know,'' he said. ``But I wanted to use it. I was frightened that I
would hurt you if you didn't ignore me, if you tried to talk to me, if
you tried to hurt me as you had been doing.''

Lily shook her head. ``I thought you would have understood that any pain
you went through was for Connor's sake,'' she said.

Harry swallowed. Then he swallowed again, and when he was sure he would
speak words and not a spell, said, ``Even the pain of the phoenix web?''

Lily jerked as if he'd hit her, but nodded. ``Yes,'' she said. ``You
must know the circumstances of how you received the web now, if you're
able to think so independently of it. You know that you consented, and
that we did it because we were afraid for Connor's life.''

Harry shook his head. ``When we were \emph{four}?''

``Yes,'' said Lily. ``Your magic is unnatural, Harry, unnatural in its
strength and the way it kept growing. We tried other bindings, and none
of them worked. The magic shrugged them all off.'' She closed her eyes,
and the memory of bitterness was in her face and her voice. ``We lived
in terror daily, waiting for the moment when you would turn on us.''

``But I didn't,'' Harry whispered.

``You were bound before you could,'' Lily corrected him.

Harry swallowed, and swallowed, and swallowed. ``Why did you think I was
like Voldemort?'' He didn't realize the question was welling up his
throat before he asked it. ``Why not like Dumbledore?''

``Because your magic grew the way it did,'' said Lily softly. ``You were
siphoning off something else, Harry. Your magic came from some other
source. It was the only explanation for the way it increased. Who knew
when you would turn and start siphoning off us?'' She closed her eyes.
``It was like living with a vampire. I told Albus it was like living with
a tiger, but a tiger only tears you limb from limb. A vampire
\emph{feeds}. Maybe you were even feeding from Connor. We didn't know.
We couldn't tell.''

Harry watched from the back of his mind while his thoughts reeled, as
though someone had punched him in the solar plexus. He'd surrounded
himself with a thick layer of fuzz and shock to keep from going
completely mad at once.

\emph{Wonderful. Something else I can't control. Not only do I compel
other wizards, I feed from them. Did even Voldemort do that?}

``I've never felt myself doing it,'' he managed to say. The words
crawled over the jumbled shards of sanity in his throat. ``I don't think
I did it.''

``But you could have,'' said Lily, and in her eyes was the same terror
that looked back at Harry from the mirror, when he bothered to confront
it. ``How could anyone ever know? So we bound you. We needed a secure
future for Connor, Harry. Surely you can understand. You were made part
of securing that future, instead of threatening it.''

Harry felt the deep surge in his soul, the recognition, as the words
touched the bit of the phoenix web that was left to him. He \emph{had}
trained to defend Connor. That had been his whole life until he went to
Hogwarts. How could he dispute what Lily was saying? Wouldn't he have
urged them to put the web on him, if he had known this about himself and
understood the issues involved?

He swallowed. ``You could have told me when I was old enough,'' he said.
``Asked me if I wanted the web when I really understood it.''

\emph{Why am I complaining?}

But he knew the answer. It was the same reason he had lifted the
\emph{Fugitivus Animus} spell from Lily instead of simply letting her
remain under it. A false peace was no peace at all. The kind of progress
he could achieve with his mother ignoring him was nothing to the
progress he could achieve if she backed him. And while he could work
through the answers on his own, perhaps, fumble and stumble until he was
finally as loyal to Connor as he had ever been, he wanted her to tell
him. She had always reassured him before this. She must have the answers
to this, too. He would drag out all the questions and have her answer
them once and for all. Then he need never trouble with it again.

``We could not have,'' said Lily. ``And four \emph{was} old enough,
Harry. Not for other children, but for you.''

\emph{I want Sylarana. I want Connor. I want Draco. I want this to end.}

But it would not end until he reached the end of it, until he'd heard
everything, so Harry asked, ``Why did you decide to train me into
Connor's guardian, then? Was that another way of binding me? I know the
training started even before the phoenix web was cast.''

Lily shook her head. ``That was the prophecy,'' she said. ``The prophecy
said that you were to play your destined role as Connor's guide and
guardian. He needed someone to shield him. He needed someone who would
\emph{always} love him, no matter what happened, no matter what he might
do. And we determined that that person was to be you.''

Harry frowned. He debated not asking about the uncertainty that had just
burst into his mind, but then it would just pop up again at some point,
and he wanted this done with. He asked. ``If the prophecy bound me to a
certain future as Connor's guardian, then it should have happened
anyway, whether or not you trained me as a weapon or to love him. And
you shouldn't have needed the phoenix web. You knew that Connor had to
live to defeat Voldemort, and I had to guard him until then, not drain
his power.''

The terror in Lily's eyes deepened exponentially. Harry blinked at her.
\emph{Why would she fear me knowing about this thing? Why would she fear
it more than my having my magic unbound?}

``Harry,'' Lily whispered, ``I never thought of it that way before.''

Harry felt his eyes freeze. ``What?''

Lily was staring past him at the wall. ``How could I have?'' she asked,
and Harry had the feeling that she was talking to herself now. ``I
never---I never thought to \emph{ask} how true the prophecy was. I just
trusted Albus's word that it would come true, but that we all had to do
our parts to make it come true the right way. And that sometimes
prophecies are tricky, and it might actually let something bad happen to
Connor while still letting him defeat Voldemort. Why did I never think
about the contradiction between the wording and what we needed to do?''
She stared at the floor. ``I was so sure that you would hurt Connor, and
you could have, and we were reeling from the War, but I\ldots{}I never
phrased it to myself like that. I just never.'' She hunched and stared
at her hands without finishing the last sentence.

Harry took a step forward. He could feel himself quivering. His eyes
stung as though dust had got into them, which he did not understand, but
he was not going to worry about the sensation, not when his mother was
in front of him speaking words he had never thought he would hear.
``What?''

Lily's face was wizened with sorrow. ``Oh, Merlin,'' she said, and Harry
could barely hear her. ``What have I done? What have I done to one of my
children, in the name of war?''

A deep richness filled Harry's chest, and somewhere within him, a pain
he hadn't realized he was feeling stopped. ``What?'' he whispered again.

Lily began to cry. She did it silently, and Harry knew the shudders that
shook her were real, that the disgust and fear behind her shaking
shoulders was real, that the way her voice trembled when she finally
managed to speak was real. ``I d-didn't, oh, Harry, oh in the name of
\emph{magic.}'' She had her head in her hands now, and the words sounded
as though someone were tearing them out of her throat with a fishhook.
``What have I done? What have I \emph{done}?''

Harry put his hands up in front of his eyes. His own fingers shook
against his skin. He had a headache. He swallowed again and again, and
tried to remind himself of what Snape had said---that this was a
befouled place, that he could not trust his mother.

This was his mother.

\emph{Yes, she is,} he thought, and forced himself to speak again.
``Mother, are you---are you sorry for what you did?''

``Yes,'' said Lily, and the word broke halfway through the middle into a
huge, gasping sob. ``I, I can't believe, such a blind fool, what the
\emph{fuck} was I thinking, oh Harry. Apologies aren't enough.'' She
abruptly plunged a hand into her robe pocket and drew out her wand,
lifting it towards her own temple.

Harry lunged forward, catching her wrist. Lily stared up at him, much
smaller than he ever remembered her being, bleeding in heart if not in
body, and terribly, terribly vulnerable. Harry knew that he could
unleash the full force of his temper on her now, and she would never
recover. Snape certainly would have urged him to do so.

\emph{Snape is more vengeful than I will ever be.}

``What were you going to do?'' he whispered.

``Kill myself,'' said Lily, her voice utterly flat. ``I know that an
\emph{Avada Kedavra} is deadly from this close.'' She laughed, and the
sound rattled in Harry's ears like bones bouncing off rocks. ``I
certainly had enough chances to see that in this war I've sacrificed
everything in the name of, didn't I?''

Harry found himself able to breathe again. A soaring feeling filled his
chest, as though he were in flight and aiming straight towards the sun.

\emph{She's my mother. And she loves me. And she's sorry.}

``Don't,'' he said. ``It would be too easy. And think about the way it
would hurt Connor. And me,'' he was able to say, and it was without
guilt for the first time in his life. ``You have to stay here and face
what you've done.''

Lily's face had had little color left. Now it washed completely, and
left her eyes shining in her face like a werewolf's through the
darkness. ``Everything?'' she whispered.

``Everything,'' Harry confirmed. His tongue felt thick and heavy, and he
groped for words. His heartbeat sounded in his ears, the door of a
sepulcher closed over and over. ``The sacrifices you demanded of me, the
sacrifices you demanded of Peter, the sacrifices you demanded of Connor.
He doesn't know anything about this. He should have known long ago. I
should have told him, but so should you. We have to tell him why I made
you and Dad forget me. We have to tell him that I've been guarding him.
Everything. \emph{Everything.}''

He could have been standing on a field at sunrise, with a cool breeze
from the east fanning his face. That complete was his hope, his joy, his
feeling of sweetness.

\emph{It will take a lot of work, but\ldots{} things are going to be all
right. Things are really going to be all right. I'll have a family
again. Mum will apologize for her mistakes. We'll endure Connor's anger,
and get past it, and Dad's fear of himself, and get past it. We'll help
Sirius and Remus. We'll be a family again.}

\emph{Remus. I have to tell him that he was right about Mum, that she
really is a good woman, that she would die before harming one of her
children.}

Harry felt his mother nod. It was a tiny, fragile moment, but he held
her eyes, and silently challenged her to make it again.

She did.

Harry felt as though his heart would burst. It was too much for him to
comprehend, that he was going to have something so much better than what
he'd dared to look for. He would have peace. He would not have to worry
any longer about training his magic, because his mother would help him
train it. She had come up with a kind of complicated training that a
child could still master, and increased it in complexity every year, so
that he had gradually learned it, never pushing him too fast. She was a
natural teacher. She could help him learn to control his compulsive and
his feeding magic, too.

\emph{There's so much that's good in the world,} he thought in wonder.

``Harry,'' Lily whispered. ``I don't know how you can ever accept all
the apologies I want to give.''

``I'll manage,'' said Harry, smiling ridiculously and not caring who saw
it. ``Come on.'' He hugged her close. ``Do you think you can stand up
and make it up the stairs to Connor and Dad and Sirius?''

``Yes,'' Lily said, and gave a half-choked laugh. ``Why not? I've done
so much. Why not this?''

Harry laughed aloud, and then helped her stand up. He looked up at her,
and knew that his eyes were shining. Hers were shadowed, but that was
only to be expected.

Then he heard what she was saying.

``\emph{Expleo penuriam cum tex---}''

She was trying to cast the phoenix web on him again.

After saying she understood. After saying she would try. After.

Realization crashed home. Harry felt the image of his beloved mother
shatter into six pieces, into six thousand, into six million. She was
gone, the woman who had done only what she thought best, the woman who
had trained him out of concern for the fate of the world, the woman who
had loved him.

\emph{She would never do this. Not if she loved me.}

Lance to a boil, mercy cut to a throat, final and absolute betrayal of
trust. Perhaps Harry was an evil person for thinking so, but he was not
capable of forgiving her for this.

``\emph{---tura! Phoenix texturae!}''

The spell came at him and bounced. Harry's magic was hovering in front
of him, spread over him like enormous, shimmering wings. Of course the
spell bounced. He was not going to let himself be bound, not ever again.

Harry looked at his mother, and felt the insanity rise, shrieking. Her
eyes were wide with terror again, and he could do it. He could strike.
He could deprive her of life, and how she deserved it for what she had
done to him, how she---

\emph{No.}

Harry seized control of the insanity. \emph{He} was master here, not his
rage. He kept saying so. It was time he proved it.

No one to demonstrate it to, this time, except himself.

And he did have a way of demonstrating it.

Harry took a deep breath, grasped his thoughts, and \emph{forced} them
into the channels that he had worked so hard to learn, the channels of
pureblood ritual and tradition. Such a response would have been natural
to a wizard raised in a pureblood home. Harry hadn't been, but he had
studied until he could dance in his sleep.

And there was a dance for this. There was a dance for most everything.

He put out a hand. He was not sure that the item he wanted would come to
him. For all he knew, James's grandparents might have destroyed it. Or
perhaps his parents' ignorance of him for the last six months and his
legal guardianship by Snape would confuse the thing.

\emph{Then I'll create one,} he thought, and the thoughts rose and
echoed from a vast silence within him, which matched the silence in the
kitchen. \emph{But, for now, I} want \emph{it.}

And then it was there, slamming into being, settling into his palm very
delicately for an item that had been called from Merlin knew how many
miles away. Harry studied it for a long moment. As he had expected, it
was a simple box, the sides made of rowan wood, with a silver lid. On
the lid was engraved a simple P.

It was covered with dust. No Potter had used it in a very long time,
then.

Harry raised his eyes to his mother's.

``What you have done to me cannot be forgiven,'' he said, beginning the
ritual with a sense of relief. Already, the magic was taking hold,
calming his own magic, bending it to this one specific task, and
insuring that Lily could not leave and no one else could enter the room
until it was finished. This dance was the best of them all for this
particular moment, designed to contain anger and to \emph{end} it. ``I
have no wish to face you in a duel, nor to arrange legal means of
settling the insult. Both of them would involve seeing you again, and I
have no wish to do that, either.''

``Therefore, I will take a payment from you, a weregild for all that you
have done to me. One time, one shattering price for another shattering
price, one apology made in terms that I have decided. We need never see
each other again. We will make the exchange, and it will be done.'' He
took a deep breath, because this was the last conscious step of the
dance, and the test. ``Last time pays for all.''

And it \emph{worked.} The kitchen slammed into red and yellow light, as
though fire had burst into being through the walls and the air. Harry
could feel magic older and stronger than he had ever dealt with swirling
through the room, sucking the breath from his lungs and binding Lily in
place, to take the price from her that he had demanded.

\emph{I was right. She did do me an injustice.} Had it not been a true
injustice, then the dance would have failed and the magic would have
snatched his chosen price from him instead, for daring to invoke it on
an innocent.

Harry held the box aloft and opened it. He had no choice anymore. The
magic of justice was clutching at him, and it was implacable. The same
magic tugged the words from him, the words that always varied every time
this ritual was performed, but were what the invoker must say.

``I can never be safe so long as you would bind me with the phoenix web.
I am going to make sure you can't. And this is it. This is all I need to
satisfy my anger. I never want to see you \emph{again.}''

The ritual acted. The red and golden glow became fire, a huge scarlet
hand.

It reached out and stripped Lily's magic from her.

Lily screamed as the fingers swept through her body, down from the aura
and within, searching out every last bit of power she possessed. Out it
funneled as glowing blue light, a delicate counterpoint to the red and
golden flame. For a moment, it hovered around her, as though reluctant
to leave.

Justice tore it away, and flew to the box that Harry held, and deposited
Lily's magic within it. The silver lid slammed down and locked.

Harry released the box. It spun in midair, the rowan wood sides bucking
for a moment. Harry watched narrowly. It wasn't often that a reparations
box was asked to contain a price so powerful. It was far more likely to
hold a certain amount of blood or flesh than magic.

And then the sides settled, and another box appeared, spinning lazily
beside the first one. This one was empty, as Harry could see from the
flapping lid. It vanished, for use at a later time, and the first one,
the full one, followed it.

That was it, Harry thought, as he watched them go. Anything put into a
reparations box could never be pulled out again. He wouldn't use or
swallow his mother's magic, no matter how much he might be tempted. He
trusted the pureblood ritual as he did not trust himself.

His mother was crumpled on the floor now, and Harry understood the
difference between the brokenness she had feigned to lure him close and
the real thing. He didn't want to look at it for long. It simply made
him feel tired.

A wind pushed at his back. The ritual had taken his justice for him, and
now it remained up to him to obey his part of the bargain. He had said
that he never wanted to see his mother again. The magic was not about to
let him remain and contradict that by hexing her, especially when it had
just made her a Muggle.

He would have to leave.

Harry had barely thought that when he realized that some of the red and
gold shadows in the room had altered; they were growing brighter,
instead of darker. Harry blinked and turned to face them. The magic of
the ritual was supposed to be fading away, as long as he left. Had
something gone wrong?

Then the red and gold burst into flame, and Fawkes flew over to him. He
hovered in front of him, and Harry couldn't see anything except black
eyes cocooned in a nest of golden feathers. Fawkes crooned gently to
him. The sight of his wings shielded Harry from the sight of his mother.

Harry, raw and aching and with his magic wide open, could understand the
phoenix's intention, though still not his words. He nodded.

``Yes, please,'' he whispered. ``Show me where to go.''

Fawkes spread his wings wider, until he appeared to float in the air,
rather than flying there. Harry watched golden leaves sprout from those
wings, shining things of light and song, flapping gently around him and
enclosing him in bright walls. They reminded him of the phoenix web for
a moment, but he quelled that thought, and instead studied the world
that he now stood in.

\emph{Where am I?}

He understood almost instantly. He was riding Fawkes's fire, in the
world that Fawkes flew through, when he vanished and appeared between
one place and another. It was a beautiful world. Gauzy veils of scarlet
and orange overlapped each other. Blue and gold surged in dazzling
fountains that sprang and built off one another, soaring upwards in
arched loops. Now and then, a brilliant white point winked into
existence, hovered, like the sun, too bright to look at, and then
vanished.

And the heat. Heat everywhere.

Harry felt it chase into him and warm away the last bits of the freezing
cold rage. He smiled, slightly. He wouldn't be able to share this with
Fawkes every time, but he could share it right now, with his magic
wondrously free and his mind purged of some of the poison it had carried
for so long.

And he knew, beyond all doubt, that Fawkes had offered this up to him
freely, that he had in no way compelled it.

He extended a hand. Fire licked around him, tame and playful this one
time, wound on his fingers and purred like a Kneazle. Snakes of
glittering red crowned his hair. Harry felt himself laughing as the
flames poured down his throat and tickled him, and if he didn't sound
entirely sane, well, he didn't think he \emph{was} entirely sane at the
moment. But then, neither was the fire.

A word began to echo around him, a word that he had only heard a few
times, but which repeated and rustled like the fire, as though it were
the voice of the flames.

\emph{Vates. Vatesvatesvatesvates.}

\emph{I suppose I am that, then,} Harry thought, with a calm that he
knew was artificial, forced on him by the remnants of the ritual and
Fawkes's magic. But so? A pureblood wizard would be able to accept this.
He would be able to accept it, too, since he was thinking like a
pureblood wizard at the moment. Far be it from a pureblood wizard to be
afraid of his own magic.

For a moment, his grip on the thoughts slipped, and he saw the vast gulf
beneath him, the gulf where he would have to think about what his mother
had done---

And he twisted away, and renewed his grasp on the learned thoughts. It
was over. It was done. He had claimed his payment from her, and it was
done. This time, there truly was no turning back and letting her hurt
him again. The magic of justice had agreed with him that there was
justice to be done, and Connor and James and \emph{she} would just have
to learn to live with it.

\emph{Last time pays for all.}

The rustling, rasping voices subsided, and then the fire fell away
altogether. Harry caught a brief glimpse of a white world, and knew that
Fawkes had borne him somewhere familiar, on a snowy night. But before
the fire let him go completely, it exhaled and breathed out across the
whiteness in a shining array of nets.

Harry stared in silence at the nets, and then the misty glimpses of
figures they connected to, figures who appeared at the ends of the
threads like fish on a line.

\emph{House elves. Centaurs. Dementors. Unicorns. Dragons. Goblins.
Runespoors. Werewolves. Giants. Merfolk. Hundreds and hundreds of
others, all connected, all bound, all tied.}

\emph{All compelled.}

The wizarding world was built on webs, hundreds of them, thousands of
them, ancient and interconnected. Harry wondered how he could unbind all
of them.

And then the vision vanished, and Harry saw Fawkes sitting on a bare,
icy tree branch in front of him, regarding him calmly. His head was
tilted to one side, his eye a glittering black gem in the midst of the
feathers. He uttered a long, slow croon.

``He says that that is why you are the \emph{vates.} You will figure out
a way.''

Harry turned and nodded to Dobby. He wasn't surprised to see the house
elf. He was incapable of being surprised right now, he thought. Too much
had happened, and he was holding very, very tightly to the patterns that
were keeping him sane.

``Hello, Dobby,'' he said. ``Will you please run and ask Mr. Malfoy if
he minds very much having me as a guest for Christmas?''

Dobby bowed. ``Dobby would be delighted,'' he said with dignity, and
vanished.

Harry stamped his feet and blew on his hands, warming himself in the
cold. All around him lay snow. Overhead lay stars. In front of him,
surrounded by its wards like a crown of blades, lay Malfoy Manor.

``You brought me here for a reason, didn't you?'' he asked Fawkes.

The phoenix crooned again, this time a smug sound, and then fluttered
off his branch and landed on Harry's shoulder. Harry relaxed, letting
the warmth from the feathers drain into him. He stroked Fawkes's neck
and wondered idly if Lucius would really let him stay. He had sent no
truce gift for solstice so far. Harry had thought he was allied with
him, but he really had no idea what had happened since he kept away from
Draco.

\emph{That will have to stop,} he thought. \emph{Until they officially
dissolve anything that we put between us, they are still my allies, and
I can't afford to keep away from them.}

Would his presence mean compelling Draco?

Harry forced himself not to worry about it. He would ask for
guest-rights. Lucius could let him in or deny him. If he denied him,
there were other places to go. If he accepted him, that meant he was
accepting the risk of his son's mind possibly being influenced, not to
mention his wife's and his own.

Draco would take it further than that, of course. He would insist that
they settle matters on a more personal level. But Harry felt as though
he could accept that. He could accept anything at the moment. There
really was a dance for most everything.

Dobby appeared just then. ``Mr. Malfoy says that Mr. Harry Potter is
welcome in his home, sir,'' he said, bowing his head.

Harry smiled distantly. He was glad that Lucius had decided to stop
being stupid.

\emph{Applies to more people than just him, doesn't it?}

``Mr. Malfoy says that he hopes Mr. Harry Potter will accept his
apologies,'' Dobby added, his too-large eyes peering hard at Harry.

Harry nodded. ``Please go ahead of me, and tell him that if I can
forgive him for the diary, then I can forgive him for this.''

Dobby nodded, and vanished again, just as the Manor's door flew open and
Draco's voice shouted, ``Harry! Harry!''

Harry took a deep breath, and did the second hardest thing he'd done all
evening: he started forward, instead of away. He was within the wards in
moments, with them parting for him like curtains, and then he was
walking across the snow, his feet making brisk sloppy sounds, Fawkes
shifting on his shoulder as though to get more comfortable.

Fawkes was forced to take to the air with a startled squawk when Draco
grabbed him and knocked them both into the snow, but Harry didn't really
mind. He grabbed Draco, and held on tight, and thought about
guest-rights and letting other pureblood wizards take risks, and nothing
else.

What he \emph{really} didn't understand, a moment later, was why the
dusty feeling returned to his eyes, and his face twitched, and he then
burst into tears. And he let Draco escort him into the warmth and light
of the Manor, because while there really was a dance for most
everything, there wasn't a dance for this.

\chapter{*Chapter 28*: Interlude: Another
Letter}\label{chapter-28-interlude-another-letter}

Thank you so much for the response to the last chapter. I'm glad to know
that people enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.

This interlude is part of a plot thread that will unfold for a little
while before it gets anywhere. Sorry.

\textbf{Interlude: Another Letter From Severus Snape}

\emph{December 24th, 1993}

\emph{To: Hellebore Shiverwood}

\emph{Department of Magical Family and Child Services}

\emph{Dear Madam Shiverwood,}

My name is Severus Snape, Potions Master and Head of Slytherin House at
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I have found myself rather
unexpectedly taking charge of a thirteen-year-old boy after long years
in which I had no children of my own. If you have been following the
{Daily Prophet}, you have learned by now that this child is Harry
Potter, the twin brother of the Boy-Who-Lived.

I find myself quite anxious to make sure that I am doing the right
thing. While I had a pureblood mother and was raised with full knowledge
of many wizarding laws and customs, my father was a Muggle, and I had
learned before I was seven to expect no children of my own. Therefore,
my mother neglected to teach me the many pureblood dances that deal with
the relations between parents and children. I would like to request
information from your department so that Harry might know the pureblood
side of his heritage, and also to know how the Ministry approves of
treating children.

The Ministry's good opinion is important to me. While the Head of the
Auror Office, Rufus Scrimgeour, recently visited Harry and me, and was
gracious enough to say that he thought Harry could remain with me, I
would appreciate it deeply if the Department in the Ministry most
concerned with cases like mine and Harry's could make a recommendation
concerning his treatment. It is only because of the unusual nature of
Harry's case that the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and not your
office has handled it. I would trust your advice more than theirs.

I understand that some of the information that I am
requesting---anything connected with the laws on child-care, for
example---is sensitive. Please be assured I would not have written this
letter were I not concerned for the welfare of my ward. This information
shall be used only to benefit him.

With respect,

I remain,

\emph{Severus Snape.}

\chapter{*Chapter 29*: Compulsion Against
Compulsion}\label{chapter-29-compulsion-against-compulsion}

And now, the chapter proper.

\textbf{Chapter Twenty-Four: Compulsion Against Compulsion}

Snape recovered from the dizzying swirl of the Portkey, which an owl had
delivered to him along with Narcissa's letter, and looked around his
landing place. It was a small, pleasant room, laden with frost-patterned
windows through which Snape could see fields of unmarked snow. A fire
blazed in a huge hearth on the far wall. A house elf hurried forward
with a glass of amber liquid, which Snape accepted and sipped slowly.
The warmth helped combat both the cold he'd encountered when traveling
outside Hogwarts to use the Portkey and the nauseated feeling he usually
received from that method of travel.

``Welcome, Severus. I am glad that you felt able to come to our home,
when you and Lucius recently had such an overwhelming disagreement.''

Snape turned and met Narcissa's eyes. The woman wore a long white gown
with silver on the bodice and hem, which Snape hazily recognized as the
clothing that a Dark witch wore when she wanted a guest to feel
comfortable in a potentially hostile place. Snape supposed that was
good. He found that he cared little, right now. He always \emph{had}
missed most of the pureblood subtleties, and he wanted to see Harry.

``I came here for my charge,'' he said. ``Where is he?''

``In a room down the hall, Professor Snape,'' said Draco, and then
slipped in through the door across from Snape.

Snape raised his brows. Draco's face was---changed. He looked as though
he had been through some shattering experience, both tragedy and
triumph, and it had given him a new depth to his eyes. Snape had always
thought the boy would probably have one like it, given his pureblood
status and his devotion to Harry, but he hadn't expected it to come so
soon.

But he dismissed it, because, while the change in Draco was intriguing,
the boy had his parents to watch him here, and Harry had had no one
until he arrived. ``Take me to him,'' he said.

``In a moment, Severus.'' Narcissa glided forward and put a hand on his
arm. Snape fought not to shake her hand off. He \emph{did} glare.
Narcissa only looked calmly back at him, blue eyes piercing. ``I didn't
give you specifics in the letter because I didn't know what your
reaction would be, but there are things you should know before talking
to Harry.''

Snape tilted his head and waited. The knot of tension in his belly got
worse. It had been present since he received Narcissa's letter, though,
and it could wait a moment longer. At least he was in the same house as
Harry now, something that he had wished were true since the boy went to
Godric's Hollow.

Narcissa took a deep breath. ``From what Harry told Draco yesterday---''

Snape deepened his glare. \emph{They had Harry here for at least a day
and didn't tell me?} He would remember that.

``---his mother tried to do something to him,'' said Narcissa. ``We
don't know exactly what it was. But, whatever it was, it smashed
directly through the shields of blindness about her that he's been
maintaining all his life. He used a pureblood justice ritual on her to
remove her magic, and then came here.''

Snape blinked. For a long moment, he was not sure what surprised him
more: that Harry had had the good sense to flee to Malfoy Manor, or that
Lily Potter, the woman he had dreamed of destroying quite often in the
last few months, was now a Squib, or possibly a Muggle.

``Take me to him,'' he repeated.

``You \emph{must} understand.'' Narcissa's face was implacable. Snape
wondered if Harry realized that he had another protector here.
\emph{Probably not, if he's still in the state he was in when I last saw
him.} ``Harry has acted differently since he arrived here. He's using
the dances to maintain his sanity. If you find him excessively formal,
don't expect to alter it with a few words.'' She took a deep breath. ``I
believe that it is only the particular ritual Harry used, in which he
knows that he can trust the magic's judgment as certain, that is keeping
him from breaking. The rituals are the only things he trusts right
now.''

Snape nodded slowly. \emph{That} would fit with the boy he had seen
leave school. At least Harry could function.

``I still want to see him,'' he said.

``I know,'' said Draco, surprising Snape, who had supposed an answer
would come from Narcissa. He turned to look at his student, and found
Draco's eyes glittering with determination as sharp and cold as the
frost on the windowpanes. ``Harry's been formal, but it's pathetically
obvious that he still thinks he's compelling us into liking him. I want
to make sure that he stops that.'' He tilted his head back, and his
hands clenched. ``Want to help me?''

Snape smiled. He knew it was not a pleasant smile, because his smiles
were never pleasant, but it was the first one he had worn since
Narcissa's letter had summoned him. ``Lead the way, Draco.''


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Harry stirred slowly and opened his eyes. He recognized the effects of a
sleeping draught in his unusually hazy mind and the way it took him two
or three blinks before he could move his head.

He didn't mind. He'd smelled the sleeping draught in the cup of milk
Draco had brought him last night, and drunk it anyway. He'd needed rest
after a very odd Christmas Day spent with the Malfoys, in which
everything was too bright and too sharp-edged, and questions appeared to
arrive in his ears after he'd given his answers to them. Narcissa and
Draco had allowed him to watch the sunrise with them, which was a
tradition they had almost every year, and then to simply sit in the room
with them and soak up the warmth while they opened gifts. Harry hadn't
seen Lucius at all.

But it was the day after Christmas now, and Harry supposed he would have
to face things.

He sat up and picked his glasses up from the table next to the bed. His
fingers trembled as he slipped them on. It didn't matter, he told
himself sternly. He wasn't in front of anyone pureblooded at the moment.
He didn't need to keep up the façade of strength---and that was really
all it was---that made him seem invulnerable.

Then the door opened, and Harry turned his head to see both Draco and
Snape entering.

Instantly he was on his guard. Harry studied Snape's face, and saw at
least some knowledge there. He was grateful the Malfoys had waited so
long before summoning his guardian, and he understood why they had done
it; Snape was still the one with legal control over him. But he would
have to be very careful not to feel much, not to want much. Otherwise,
he stood a huge chance of compelling Snape against both their wills.

``Hello, sir,'' he said, and watched as they both took up positions in
the room---Draco on the foot of the bed where Harry's legs didn't
extend, Snape standing beside the bed. Harry waited for Snape to sit
down, and then decided he wasn't going to. Harry nodded. He could
understand that. Snape would probably want to be able to move, to get
his wand up between them, if there was a way that he could fend off
Harry's magic with a spell. It looked as though the days away from Harry
had done Snape at least a little good. His dark eyes glinted with a hard
emotion that was certainly not all the affection Harry had pulled out of
him.

``Hello, Harry,'' Snape said, and his voice was soft enough, but with an
edge of steel underneath. Harry relaxed a bit. \emph{Are there going to
be accusations, then? I can offer my formal apologies, and we can put
this behind us.}

``We have come to prove to you that your ridiculous suspicions are
ridiculous,'' Snape continued.

Harry blinked. ``Sir?'' \emph{Oh, please, don't let that be what I think
it sounds like. I don't think my magic has let his mind go after
all\ldots{}}

``You heard me,'' said Snape. ``I made a number of mistakes with you at
Hogwarts, and the biggest of those was bowing to your stubborn bloody
logic and your insistence that I chose to become your guardian only
because you forced me to do so. I am going to \emph{prove} to you, Mr.
Potter, that it is not so easy to force me to do what I do not want to
do.''

Harry shook his head. ``With all due respect, sir, you need the time
away from me to heal,'' he said. ``If you only---''

``And I'm going to prove to you that I really do want to be your
friend,'' Draco cut in, so smoothly that Harry realized they must have
talked about this before they came into the room. \emph{Well, of course
they did,} he thought. \emph{They're Slytherins. They would want to have
a plan in place ready to strike at my vulnerability. I wonder if they
know just how vulnerable they are, themselves?}

``You might think you do,'' said Harry. ``But that doesn't mean you can
convince me.''

``Well, we're \emph{going} to,'' said Draco, and his face turned a flushed
color. Harry retained his calm posture, but he felt a tight little coil
of unease open up in his gut. ``I don't think we intend to do the same
thing,'' Draco went on, and gave Snape a quick glance, ``but that
doesn't mean that we're just going to give you up.''

``I formally request that you give me time to prepare,'' said Harry.
``Five minutes, in the name of Merlin.'' He could strengthen and focus
his magic inward in that time, he thought. It was currently curled
around him like some sort of enormous snake, lazy and sleepy as he had
been before Draco and Snape came in. Five minutes were all Harry would
need to tuck it away.

``No,'' Draco said.

Harry blinked. ``But you know the ritual, Draco,'' he said. ``I used the
exact correct wording.''

``And I don't have to grant your request,'' said Draco. ``I'm the heir
of the owner of a home who's given you guest-right. I read about this.
The requests a guest makes in the name of Merlin can be refused, unless
he makes them of another guest.''

Harry seized that information as swiftly as he could. He had indeed
forgotten that particular caveat to the rituals, but there was someone
else in the room who didn't have that protection. He looked at Snape.
``I formally request that you give me a little time to prepare,'' he
said. ``Five minutes, in the name of Merlin.''

Snape exchanged a glance with Draco, and Draco nodded. ``You have to do
as he asks, I'm afraid,'' he said.

Snape didn't look daunted as he went out the door. Harry didn't
understand that. He would have guessed that Snape would look
discouraged, as long as he kept up this silly, unreasonable reaction of
trying to convince Harry he really hadn't compelled anybody. Snape just
looked more determined, the way that Draco did when Harry turned back to
him.

``I swore that if you came back broken, I'd put the pieces back
together,'' Draco said, when the door had closed. ``Do you remember
that?''

``Of course, but---''

``And I'm here,'' said Draco. ``And I am never moving anywhere, Harry.''

Harry sighed and shook his head. ``I formally apologize for compelling
you when I'm a guest in your home,'' he said. ``I thought this might
happen when Fawkes brought me here, but I was so broken at that moment
that I couldn't think of another sanctuary. I'll apologize to your
father and---''

``Compel me.''

Harry blinked at him. ``What?''

``You think you've already done it,'' said Draco, his cheeks flushing an
intense, angry red. Harry opened his mouth to point out that Narcissa
and Lucius would hardly like their only son to display such unattractive
emotions, but Draco went right on talking, overriding him. ``For two and
a half years, you think you've compelled me. And now you're apologizing
for taking peace and safety that you desperately needed, because you
think the same thing's happened.'' Draco's hand slammed on the bed
between them, and he leaned forward. ``So one more instance of control
isn't going to make a difference. Make me do something I don't want to
do.''

Harry shuddered as fierce loathing twisted around in him. His magic was
certainly awake now, hissing unhappily in his ear. Harry kept it from
getting out of control by thinking about the ancient pureblood families
whose symbols he'd learned during his very earliest childhood, and
having the magic make their symbols in a faint line of light behind him.
``I can't,'' he whispered. ``Don't ask me that, Draco.''

``You don't want to?'' Draco's face had flushed further, so that he now
looked as though someone had Transfigured his head into an apple.

``Of course not!'' Harry shouted, and then winced as the room around
them shuddered. ``Apologies.''

Draco waved a hand, in a gesture so dismissive that he didn't bother
completing it. ``Then how can you think you compelled my affection for
you, you \emph{stupid prat?} You hate compulsion so much. Would you ever
put someone under it willingly?''

``But I put you under it unwittingly,'' Harry whispered. ``Your father
said you had changed---I didn't know---''

``Scary as it is for you to comprehend, Harry, there is a little concept
called \emph{forgiveness,}'' Draco said, his voice cutting. ``You chose
to forgive your parents and your brother for all the stupid things
they'd done, practically forever. And I chose to forgive you for the
compulsion when I realized that I didn't know what was real friendship
for you and what wasn't. There's no way that I could ever go through
books and find all my reactions in them. I'm your friend, and though it
may have begun in compulsion, it's continuing with my full knowledge
about the risks of being close to you. Yes,'' he added, before Harry
could draw breath, ``that includes risking my life.''

Harry hadn't been about to say that; he had been about to talk about the
future risk to Draco's free will, even if he thought he could choose
right now. But now he shook his head. ``No,'' he said. ``You can't
possibly forgive me for that.''

``Why not?'' Draco pushed.

``Because---''

``Because why?''

``Because the desire to forgive me is probably just another compulsion
that I induced in you,'' said Harry, finding the answer and clinging on
to it for dear life. ``I want your friendship so much that I could
convince you to go through this whole charade, just so that I could get
you back. I can't ever know what's compulsion and what's not.''

``No, Harry, you cannot,'' said Snape, opening the door and coming right
back in. \emph{The five minutes must be up,} Harry thought, even as he
wished that Snape would have stayed away for longer. ``But I know my own
mind. I am a trained Occlumens, and I have been around powerful wizards
who did have a reason to wish to compel my obedience, the Dark Lord and
Dumbledore both. I know the touch of compulsion. I know what it feels
like on my mind. I have felt none of that from you.''

``That probably just means it was too subtle for you to notice,'' Harry
disagreed. His palms were sweating, his magic swirling around him. He
could feel himself being backed up against a cliff, and he didn't know
what would happen when he felt air beneath his heels. He couldn't think
of a pureblood ritual appropriate to handling this. While he had been
Lily's victim, they were his, and doing all of this, even wanting to
forgive him, because of his influence.

``Harry.'' Snape's voice all but growled. ``Do you think you are a more
powerful wizard than Dumbledore?''

``No,'' said Harry at once. This was a question that he knew the answer
to, and since he couldn't think of a reason that he would want Snape to
ask it, perhaps it was the first step on a road to freedom, something
that had emerged independently from Snape's thoughts.

``What about the Dark Lord?''

Harry shivered as he remembered the feel of the Dark Lord's magic
sliding over him at the end of first year, heavy and potent, able to
bind him down and defeat him quite easily. It was only Connor's innate
ability to love that had saved both their lives then. Granted, Harry
supposed he might have grown stronger since he'd had the phoenix web
unbound, but surely the web would have allowed him to use all the power
he had, because he was trying to protect Connor then, and it approved of
that purpose. Voldemort had still triumphed over him. And besides, he'd
been weakened himself, a disembodied spirit. If Harry could improve in
strength as his restraints lessened, surely Voldemort could as well.
``No,'' he whispered.

``Then why do you believe that you can compel me, when I managed to
fight off both their auras?'' Snape was glowering at him now.

Harry shook his head frantically. The cliff was behind him, parts of
himself spilling out and over into empty air. ``No,'' he said. ``I---I
compelled you. I must have.''

``Why?'' Snape demanded.

``My mother told me that I can feed on other wizards' magic,'' said
Harry. \emph{A twig. I can grab and hold to this.} ``If I drained part
of your magic, then that would make you weak enough that I could compel
you.''

Snape snorted. ``That, also, is an ability that the Dark Lord
possessed,'' he said. ``And I watched him employ it often enough, though
at great cost to his own strength for days afterward. No, Mr. Potter, I
do not believe that you have done that.''

``I did it to my mother,'' Harry said, and her broken form on the floor
when the justice ritual had finished with her echoed like a note of
discordant music in his mind. Snape and Draco did not hear it, or did
not care. They did not back off. They were still pushing him off the
cliff.

``You did \emph{not.}'' Draco's voice was a vicious snap, a bite that went
home as none of Fenrir Greyback's had. ``I know the ritual you used,
Harry. Mother explained it to me. There is no \emph{way} it can be
mistaken. It would have hurt you if you were wrong. It certainly
wouldn't have drained your mother's magic unless she completely deserved
it. Mother says that you know that, too, and that you were certain the
ritual was right, or you'd have nothing to hold onto.''

\emph{He's right. I know the ritual is right. I know it couldn't be
mistaken.}

And that was the shove that sent Harry off the cliff. He closed his eyes
intensely, hunched in on himself, and waited to hit the bottom. His
thoughts whirled in chaos around him.

Into them, swift as a spear, came Draco's final words.

``That means that she was \emph{wrong}, Harry. And she was wrong about
other things, too. Like your having to compel other people to get them
to like you. That's wrong. I'm your friend. Snape's your guardian. She
was \emph{wrong}, Harry.''

And Harry couldn't think of anything to refute that. To admit his mother
had been right about him in any respect would undercut the justice
ritual, and that was right, that was true, that was absolutely
correct---

Harry hadn't noticed the contradiction in his logic.

He hadn't let himself, really, and he hadn't been in any fit state to
notice it when he first came to the Malfoys.

But here it was, and Harry tried to think of a way around it, and
couldn't, before the contradiction swallowed him.

He became aware that he was crying again, and that Draco had his arms
around him. Harry clung back. He wasn't falling anymore, but his
thoughts and his magic still ran in confused circles.

``I'm here now,'' Draco whispered. ``I suppose you might compel me in the
future, or we might learn that something specific is the result of
compulsion. There's always that chance. But for now, I'm here, and I
choose to be here, and I \emph{am} your friend, Harry. I promise.''

Harry closed his eyes and hung on, aware for the very first time of how
much he really needed this.


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\newpage


Snape watched the scene in silence, as Harry shook in Draco's embrace.
His tears had dried up almost as soon as they arrived, but that didn't
bother Snape. What amazed him was that they had come at all.

It was not a nice thing at all, what they had done, Snape knew,
confronting Harry when he was still vulnerable and acting to drive the
truth they wanted him to acknowledge home. On the other hand, had they
waited, Snape thought it quite possible that they would never have
convinced him. Harry had the greatest ability to heal that Snape had
ever known, and Narcissa had said that he was using the pureblood
rituals as a channel for his thoughts. Given time, he would have simply
grown over the wounds in his being like a sycamore and become a stronger
person yet again---but without the ability to forgive himself or listen
to his friends. And that would, in the end, have meant another breaking.

This way, building on the one thing Narcissa had said Harry was sure of,
they had the chance to truly walk forward.

\emph{We are neither of us nice,} Snape thought, when Draco finally
gently unwound his arms from Harry and nodded to him. \emph{I am glad
that Draco has this particular kind of unpleasantness within him,
however. I will need help with Harry in the future.}

He stepped forward and sat down on the bed beside Harry, while Draco
slipped out of the room. Snape appreciated that, though he suspected it
was courtesy on the surface only and Draco would listen at the door.

Harry kept his head bowed as he whispered, ``I'm so sorry for thinking
that you didn't know your own mind well enough---''

Snape felt his brows rise in exasperation. \emph{He always manages to
guilt himself about one thing or another, doesn't he?} ``Stop that,'' he
said, sharply.

Harry hunched into himself a bit, and waited. He was shivering, Snape
noted, though the room wasn't cold.

``I know that you have the ability to compel other wizards, should you
wish to,'' said Snape casually. ``And it seems that you \emph{might} have
the ability to drain off other wizards' magic.'' Now that he thought
about it, he believed that Harry had mentioned something like that when
describing how Dumbledore tried to attack Draco, but he had not sounded
interested in exploring it, and Snape had not pushed. ``I assure you I am
not eager to be either your victim or your test subject. I \emph{will},
however, be your teacher in attempts to control both abilities.''

Harry looked up for the first time. Snape steeled himself not to simply
reach over and embrace the boy. It would comfort Harry, but it would
also undermine the seriousness of what he was telling him.

``Had you not thought of getting teaching?'' he asked, and made his
voice icy. ``That is the first sign of genuine carelessness with your
magic I have seen from you, then.''

Harry shook his head. ``I thought Connor could teach me,'' he whispered.
``Since he has the ability to compel other wizards, too.''

``And you thought his ability resembled yours?'' Snape asked.

Harry nodded, hesitantly.

``They are not alike,'' said Snape. ``The compulsion ability your
brother possesses, and which Black also does---'' he was not able to
keep the loathing out of his voice, but luckily, Harry did not react to
it ``---are specific magical gifts, such as Parseltongue. Your ability
to compel other wizards is more properly a side-effect of your magic,
which calls to other wizards. Dumbledore has both abilities, as does the
Dark Lord. However, you have only the one. If you had the other, I would
have seen signs of it when I entered your mind last year.''

Harry nodded. Snape had thought the boy understood this already, but he
restrained his impatience. It turned out to be amazingly easy. Next to
the importance of the victory they had won with Harry today, the small
nuances of what he might or might not already know didn't matter.

And perhaps the boy had never been in a mood so receptive to listening,
so likely to let words make an impact on his mind. Remembering that,
Snape chose his next words carefully.

``Your brother cannot teach you. And, after what happened to Lily, I am
not sure he would wish to.''

Harry drew in a sharp breath, and his face paled. But he nodded. He had
considered, then, what his actions would cost him with the rest of the
people who had lived with him (Snape refused to dignify them with the
title `family' anymore). \emph{Good. That will make things easier.}

``I will teach you,'' said Snape. ``I will teach you whatever you need
to know---Occlumency, Legilimency, Potions, Dark Arts. Whatever will
preserve your life and insure that you not only survive, but live. You
have had enough pain and sorrow in your life, Harry. I assure you, any
grudge I bore you because you are James's son died in your first year,
and when I came after you at the end of the second, I knew what I
risked. I have chosen, again and again, to take the risks.'' With
relief, he noted that Harry was \emph{listening} to him, this time, and
his eyes were steadily widening. ``I will not abandon you.''

Harry closed his eyes sharply.

Snape, unable to contain the impulse any longer, reached out and drew
him close. Harry didn't look up at him as he leaned against him, and
Snape was glad for that. He did not think that Harry would have wanted
to see the expression on Snape's face.

\emph{What Harry has done to Lily is a beginning. But it is not enough.
Nothing will satisfy me but her complete obliteration. And he has not
touched James, or Black.}

\emph{It will be my pleasure to insure their destruction.}


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\newpage


Harry paused warily at the entrance to the room. He had thought about
not coming; the ritual that Lucius had used to request this meeting gave
him the chance to refuse. But then things would have been tense,
strained, and unhappy in Malfoy Manor for the rest of his stay, and
Harry intended that to last until he went back to Hogwarts. He would
have to risk the chances of Lucius hurting him.

He thought it was small, anyway. Narcissa and Draco would---well, do
something really horrible to Lucius if he hurt Harry. Harry wasn't sure
what it would be. He found that he didn't want to think about it. It was
enough to know that they were there, their protective presence wrapped
around him even when they weren't in the same room, and that Snape was
behind them as well. Snape had refused to leave unless Harry came back
to Hogwarts with him, and since Draco didn't want that, he had managed
to secure an invitation to stay.

Harry still found it hard to believe that they felt affection for him,
but he couldn't \emph{not} believe it. Not anymore. He supposed he would
have to get used to it.

``Come in, Mr. Potter.''

Lucius straightened up from the hearth, which he'd been poking
at---unnecessarily, since the house elves of course kept the fire
blazing brightly---and gave him an even look. Harry blinked. He hadn't
seen Lucius since he revealed his compulsive ability to him, and neither
Narcissa nor Draco had mentioned anything altered about his appearance.
He hadn't realized that there was a huge red handprint splayed across
Lucius's cheek.

He kept himself from gasping, which would be a break in the dance as
well as rude, and inclined his head, going to one of the two chairs.
They were the only furniture in the room, and were severe, dark wood and
white cloth. Harry knew the colors, paired, meant apology in one of the
older silent rituals. He didn't think that was a coincidence.

Lucius took the chair across from him. For a moment, they regarded each
other in silence. Harry didn't know what Lucius saw. \emph{He} saw a
pureblood wizard who looked as if he had witnessed a war.

\emph{Or was about to witness one,} Harry thought, and then shivered.
\emph{Well, that's true enough.}

``Mr. Potter,'' said Lucius, breaking the silence, ``I need to ask you
to accept two gifts from me.'' He gestured, and a white box rose from
the floor beside him and skimmed over to Harry. ``First, this one.''

Harry opened the box gingerly, his magic humming around him; he saw
Lucius wince, though he didn't say a word. He had to fight to keep from
gaping when he saw what lay inside. It was the truce-gift for the winter
solstice, the carved marble branch of an olive tree, token of peace and
negotiation continued. It was traditional for the wizards who gave the
gift to add some small charm to it, usually one that made the branch
shimmer and look alive, in order to show off their power and remind the
recipient of the advantages of allying with them.

Lucius had added the dazzling golden aura of a Charm that Harry knew
quite well. He'd studied it in-depth in the histories of the First War,
though he had never cast it or expected to see it cast. He raised his
eyes slowly to Lucius's face.

Lucius confirmed it aloud for him, though he didn't need to. ``Break the
branch,'' he said, ``and harm will come to me.''

``What will break?'' Harry asked, hearing his own voice as though down a
long tunnel. That hadn't been unusual since he came to the Manor, but
this time, the shock wasn't from what he had done to Lily. He looked
down at the Charm, but couldn't tell just from looking. ``Your arm, or
your leg?''

Lucius bared his teeth in a very faint smile. Harry thought it was
directed more against himself than Harry. ``My neck.''

Harry gently picked up the branch, and saw Lucius shudder along the
connection that bound him to it. ``You've given me a weapon against you
in the case of treachery,'' he said, hearing the wonder in his voice.

Lucius snorted. ``I would have not used that Charm otherwise, Potter.''

Harry looked carefully at him. He wouldn't have trusted protestations of
sorrow, of course, or simple apologies, and Lucius knew that. It seemed
that when he decided to yield, he did not do it halfway.

Of course, he'd just stepped the truce-dance up. Harry would have to
think of a gift that was a fit answer to this one, and that meant,
properly, making himself just as vulnerable.

Harry put the branch back in the box, and then nodded. ``And the second
gift, Mr. Malfoy?''

Lucius gestured again, probably performing a nonverbal spell rather than
doing wandless magic, and a second box rose from behind him. This one
opened on the way to Harry, so that he could see a glass vial nestled
within it. The vial contained a tiny amount of dark liquid. When he
could see it closely, Harry realized it was blood.

He met Lucius's eyes. ``And this?''

``Three drops of my blood,'' said Lucius. ``I gave three drops to those
trying to resurrect the Dark Lord, when they threatened Draco. They used
it to determine my true intentions.'' He paused, and bowed his head
slightly, in such a motion that his chin shielded his throat. ``I
thought it only appropriate,'' he added softly, ``to give three drops of
blood to the one who saved my son's life.''

``Merry Christmas, Mr. Potter. Do you accept my apologies?''

Harry held himself back from the immediate answer he wanted to make.
This was not about Draco or Narcissa, however large a part they might
play in Lucius's decision to yield to him. He had to consider,
rationally, logically, coolly, whether or not he trusted Lucius not to
hurt him.

And he did, he realized, a little surprised. The branch secured his
trust. So did the three drops of blood.

And so did the knowledge, clear in Lucius's eyes as they squinted
against the headache Harry's magic was giving him, that he could utterly
destroy Lucius, branch or no branch, if Lucius ever betrayed him. He was
stronger than Lucius was. The pureblood rituals were a way of
acknowledging that power without coming to blows, and letting everyone
preserve their pride. That was their oldest and most sacred purpose.

``I accept them,'' said Harry quietly.

Lucius gave a small, feral smile. Harry gave back one he suspected
resembled it a great deal. What he and Lucius had was nothing like the
friendship Harry had with Draco, nor the perhaps-friendship,
perhaps-parental bond he had with Narcissa, but it was an understanding
nonetheless.

\emph{}


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\newpage


\emph{January 2nd, 1994}

\emph{Harry Potter:}

Have Severus bring you to school at once. I know he is there with you.

Your mother has been stripped of magic, and your father has left
Godric's Hollow without telling anyone where he has gone. Your brother
is beside himself, and Sirius is not much better. Remus returns my
letters to me unopened.

It is time that you and I talked.

\emph{Albus Dumbledore.}

\chapter{*Chapter 30*: I Have Been a Brother to
Wolves}\label{chapter-30-i-have-been-a-brother-to-wolves}

Thank you for the responses on the last chapter. Poor Harry just doesn't
get a break, that's true, and won't get one until probably the end of
the year.

The title of this chapter is a variation on a line from the Book of Job:
``I have been a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.''

\textbf{Chapter Twenty-Five: I Have Been a Brother to Wolves}

``Are you sure?''

Harry quirked his lips in a smile. Nervous as he was, he thought that
Draco was having a worse time of it, with the way that he kept asking
Harry if he was sure, if he was ready. ``I'm sure. And you'll be there
for the start of term soon, so it's not like we're going to be separated
for a long period of time.''

Draco frowned at him. ``I just don't understand why you won't let me
come with you right now, but you'll let Snape.'' He had moved slightly,
as though to shield Harry with his body from the fireplace they were
about to Floo through. They were in the antechamber that Snape had
entered last week, and to hear Snape tell it, there was no change except
that the frost on the windows was heavier.

``Because Dumbledore can't manipulate him as easily,'' said Harry, and
waited serenely while Draco sputtered through his protest. When he'd
finished, Harry went on. ``You try, Draco, but you're not quite as
experienced at manipulation yet. And anyway, you're learning the
pureblood dances. Dumbledore won't keep to them. He knows that he can't
challenge me on that ground, not with the ritual I performed on my
mother. He's going to try different tricks instead.''

``Like what?'' Draco insisted, folding his arms.

Harry shrugged. ``Emotional blackmail, I think. Probably also something
legal, even though he can't actually have the Ministry arrest me for
turning my mother into a Muggle.''

``I want to hurt him,'' said Draco.

``And \emph{that} is why you can't go yet,'' said Harry gently. ``I
promise, Draco, we'll see each other in a short time, and I'll have
Professor Snape with me. Don't you trust him to take care of me?''

``Not in the same way,'' said Draco, and stamped his foot, and turned
his back so that he could stare into the fireplace and sulk. Then,
abruptly, he lifted his head and turned around again. ``I never did give
you a Christmas gift!'' he exclaimed.

``Then you can give it to me when you get back to school,'' said Harry.

``And where's \emph{my} gift?'' Draco was scowling at him.

``At school,'' said Harry. ``I wanted to give it to you in person.''

Draco smiled at him and might have said something else, but Snape swept
into the room then, and nodded to Harry. ``Since the Headmaster
requested our presence so precipitously,'' he said, ``I feel it would
not be wise to disappoint him.''

``Of course not, sir,'' Harry agreed, and stepped forward. Snape was
tense beside him. Harry wasn't surprised. He was tense, too, in spite of
all his reassurances to Draco about everything being fine.

But he wasn't going to get much chance \emph{not} to be tense. He would
have to plunge ahead and do whatever he could to survive and win. It was
the same mindset that had kept him alive through the battle at the end
of the first year with Voldemort, when he was already writhing under the
\emph{Crucio} spell. It hurt, of course it hurt, but so? He was marching
into war. That \emph{always} hurt.

\emph{At least my mother trained me well to face my enemies,} he
thought, and then tried not to think about it, because he didn't like
thinking about the Muggle who had borne him if he could help it.

Snape took a pinch of Floo powder from the mantle, gripped Harry's
shoulder for a moment, and then tossed the powder into the flames.
``Hogwarts!'' he called out, as the fire turned green, and plunged in.

Harry stayed a moment to embrace Draco, who appeared abruptly nervy
about letting him go, and tried to say something. But Harry didn't stay
long enough to hear what it was. He was afraid that it might break
through the fragile shields that he was already building around himself.


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\newpage


``Mr. Potter, Severus. Please do come in.''

Harry lifted his head and stepped into the office with Snape just behind
him, at his right shoulder. Dumbledore was no longer using his first
name, then. Harry thought it a kind of honesty, setting up the
battlefield ahead. He wouldn't try for the grandfatherly persona any
more.

Of course, his eyes fixed on Harry were bright with disgust and rage,
and Harry knew that honesty was not the same thing as lying down and
giving up.

``Sit down, Mr. Potter,'' said Dumbledore sharply. He gestured to the
two chairs in front of the desk.

``I would prefer to remain standing, thank you,'' said Harry. His voice
emerged from his lips, perfectly practiced and cold. He felt Snape give
a small tremor of surprise, but Dumbledore's eyes only narrowed further.

``I would like us to be equals for this discussion, Mr. Potter,'' he
said.

``Then take your seat first.''

Snape drew breath as if to say something, but let it go into silence.
Harry was sure Snape would have admonished him to be more careful, not
to face the Headmaster so bluntly. Slytherin cunning was called for, he
would have said, not Gryffindor rashness.

But Harry did not care. He \emph{knew} he wasn't up to the usual
delicate, indirect way he and Dumbledore approached each other, not with
the state his mind was in. Besides, delicate and indirect hadn't worked
in the past. They had set up a truce, and Dumbledore had begun at once
to undermine it with things like his messages to the Ministry. Harry had
countered in the same subtle way, and Dumbledore still had not
\emph{stopped.} More than anything else, Harry wanted him
\emph{stopped}.

He didn't think for one moment he could actually persuade the Headmaster
to stop interfering in his life. What he would do was refuse to play as
many of the games as he could. This was a battle. He wouldn't let
Dumbledore pretend it wasn't anymore. He would treat the Headmaster much
as he would Lucius, save that he actually trusted Lucius more.

Dumbledore slowly sat down behind the desk. Harry at once made his way
to the nearest chair. It was set just high enough from the floor that he
would have to climb up onto it like a child and sit with his legs
dangling.

Harry let his magic out in a brief, controlled snap. The chair shrank
until it was more nearly suited to a thirteen-year-old's height. He took
his seat and met Dumbledore's eyes. Yes, there was fear there, and
uncertainty, and something that Harry didn't think was \emph{quite}
seething hatred, but could become it very easily.

\emph{Good. If I'm unnerved, he should be, too.}

``I have received word about what you have done,'' Dumbledore began, the
words sharp as a slap. He'd obviously recognized at least some of the
tactics Harry was using, and tried to adapt them to his own advantage.

``You told me that in the letter, Headmaster,'' said Harry. ``However,
your wording was interesting. You said that my mother had \emph{been
stripped} of her magic. Does that mean that you do not realize what in
fact happened?'' He kept his face innocent and unstrained, and felt Snape
quiver in his own seat, this time with laughter. Harry felt his own
rueful amusement, distantly. It seemed he could not quite stop being
Slytherin altogether.

``I know that you called on a misplaced ritual to strip her of her
magic,'' said Dumbledore. ``A vengeance ritual.''

``A justice ritual, Headmaster,'' said Harry. ``I used the Potter
reparations box, and put her magic within it. I would have lost
\emph{my} power instead, if I had called for the box and it really was
only vengeance.'' He knew his voice rang with steel. He didn't care.
Dumbledore was an idiot, if he really thought that he was going to make
Harry doubt the ritual he had used, and which was the core of the
fragile certainty that Harry knew passed for his mind right now.

``I am not speaking of its intention,'' said Dumbledore, leaning
forward. ``I am speaking of its effects. You know that you have deprived
your mother of every chance of a normal life? I have seen her. She is a
Muggle, with not the smallest bit of magic left to her. How do you think
she will feel now, surrounded day in and day out by people who have
powers she can never exercise again? The punishment was too harsh,
Harry.''

Harry steeled his heart. He could see the broken figure on the floor if
he looked into his mind's eye. He was not looking into it. ``I would
never have expected you to say that Muggles didn't have normal lives,
Headmaster. After all, you've spent your entire life preaching the
virtues of protecting them, of regarding them as people just like
wizards. `Only our talents are different,' goes a quote from one of your
most famous speeches. `Our souls are the same.'\,'' He could quote that
speech flawlessly. He could quote the whole thing flawlessly, if
Dumbledore asked for it. There were advantages to being made to study
and memorize history books since he could read. ``Lily Potter is not
less than she ever was. How dare you say that she is?''

Snape was most definitely trying not to laugh now. Dumbledore leaned
forward further, his face gone grave and disappointed. ``For one who has
been magical, Harry, the loss is still a severe blow,'' he said. ``You
must realize that.''

``And what about the blows that she has given me, Headmaster?'' Harry
let his voice rise. \emph{Let him think I'm on the verge of losing
control.} Dumbledore should really watch his magic instead of the
visible indicators of voice and face, and for the moment, his magic lay
quiescent around him. ``The way she trained me. The phoenix web. The way
that she tried to put the phoenix web on me again, after making me
believe that I might have a family and that she understood what she had
done wrong.'' Snape jerked. Harry ignored him. Yes, he hadn't told
either Snape or the Malfoys about what exactly Lily had done to make him
so angry, but that was because he didn't have a reason to relive it with
them. With Dumbledore, he did. The Headmaster's eyes were wide with
shock. Harry laughed, and knew the sound was harsh, and did not care.
``You should never have advised her to do that, Headmaster. Of course I
resisted it. It was the one thing that could have made me angry enough
to use the justice ritual. I am \emph{never} going to be bound again.
\emph{Never.}''

The Headmaster looked old, and supremely tired. ``Harry,'' he murmured.
``Do you realize what will happen if your magic is not bound?''

Harry raised his eyebrows mockingly at him. ``You think that I'll turn
into the next Dark Lord?''

``I don't think it, Harry. I \emph{know} it, given where your power comes
from.'' Dumbledore seemed to age before his eyes. ``Your mother must have
told you about the talent that you possess to feed on the magic of other
wizards. That is an inherently evil thing.''

``What, like Parseltongue?'' Harry asked. ``I don't think so,
Headmaster. I know the difference between Light and Dark magic now,
since I've been under the phoenix web. I don't think that the ability to
speak with snakes is Dark, and I don't believe that I'll go evil just
because my magic is free.''

Dumbledore shook his head. ``You are still going to endanger other
students, my dear boy. I cannot let you attend Hogwarts with your magic
unchecked.''

Harry ground his teeth. He had to admit, he hadn't seen that coming. But
he thought he could still respond. ``I am getting it checked,'' he said.
``Professor Snape has graciously agreed to train me, and to stop my
abilities from harming other wizards. He is a trained Occlumens. He can
tell me when I am impinging on his thoughts and his magic. And he has
served two Lords,'' he couldn't help adding. ``He'll know what would
happen to make me become one, and prevent that from happening.''

He glanced at Snape for the first time since they had entered the
office, and saw the watchful dark eyes fixed on his face. Snape nodded
once. Harry was glad. Now it wouldn't really matter if his will faltered
a bit, or if he felt like giving up on the path because it was too hard.
Snape would be there, pushing him forward, and once Snape had decided
something, he didn't yield.

``That is a problem,'' said Dumbledore, his voice barely a breath.
``That Severus has served two Lords, I mean. If it were more
widely-known\ldots{}if it were confirmed that he still bears the Dark
Mark, for example\ldots{}''

Harry sat straight up and met Dumbledore's eyes. \emph{He is threatening
a person I care about.} His magic trembled, wanting to be unleashed, but
this wasn't a problem that could be solved with magic.

\emph{Up the stakes. Since he only seems to understand how poisonous
these blades are when they're pointed back against him, I'll just do
that.}

``That would be a shame,'' said Harry casually. ``Since losing Professor
Snape would make you lose Professor Black, too, and where would you find
competent wizards to cover both positions?''

Dumbledore's face went white.

``I am \emph{tired} of this,'' said Harry, his eyes fixed on Dumbledore's.
``You must know by now that I won't give up. And yet you keep threatening
to sack Professor Snape, as if that will make me bow. I'm \emph{not
going to bow.} Threaten my guardian, and I'll threaten the man you sent
Peter to Azkaban for.''

Dumbledore was shaking his head from side to side. Harry couldn't tell
whether the shock and sorrow he wore now were real or feigned. ``Harry,
he is your godfather,'' he murmured.

``He doesn't deserve the title,'' Harry snarled, and was startled to
hear himself say the words even as they passed his lips. He hadn't
realized \emph{this} kind of rage was under the surface, hot and
boiling, so unlike the cold rage he'd used to enact the justice ritual.
``He's helped Connor more than me this year. He doubted me last year.
He's lied to me about everything important in his life. You made Peter
into a sacrifice for him just like you made me into a sacrifice for
Connor. I don't want to protect him anymore, Professor.'' He clenched
his fingers in front of him. ``I would prefer not to take this public,
Headmaster, but I will if you force Professor Snape's past into the
open. The moment everyone hears about the ex-Death Eater working at
Hogwarts, everyone is going to hear about the insane Professor Black
with a Dark talent and a fondness for trying to kill his godson working
at Hogwarts---the one who was spared death or Azkaban because you
persuaded someone else to go to prison in his stead.'' He paused
delicately. ``Indeed, some people already know.'' He was sure that that
was what Starborn's letter had been referring to, when he had written
that Harry should ask what had spared Sirius Azkaban.

Dumbledore remained silent for long moments. Harry met his eyes
directly. He could feel the probing light of Legilimency, but it bounced
straight off his Occlumency shields.

Behind those shields, Harry knew, he was terribly vulnerable. But he had
come prepared for nearly everything that Dumbledore threw at him so far.
He was going to continue to do so. He was going to continue to attend
Hogwarts, and he was going to continue to have Snape as his guardian.

``Do you think anyone would believe you?'' Dumbledore asked at last. His
voice was emotionless.

``I'm sure that Rita Skeeter would be happy to,'' Harry said coldly.
``She seems rather fascinated with me.''

Dumbledore nodded, once, twice, and then said, ``Very well, Harry. You
may continue to attend Hogwarts, and Professor Snape may continue to
work here.'' He turned and opened one of the boxes on a shelf behind
him, pulling out a sheaf of papers. ``However, I am afraid that he can
no longer continue to be your guardian.''

``No?'' Harry asked through numb lips.

``No.'' Dumbledore spread the papers on his desk. ``You see, with the
Dark spell your parents were under gone---on both their minds---there is
no longer any reason to keep you from them. The Ministry agreed to give
custody of you to Severus Snape for only as long as the Department of
Magical Law Enforcement was investigating your parents. Now that the
spell is gone, you can return to them.'' He shot Harry a narrow-eyed
glance, coupled with a bright smile. ``Unless you can provide some
reason that you should stay away from them, of course.''

Harry clenched his fists. \emph{The bastard.} Oh, he could tell the
Ministry the truth easily enough---but that would mean letting everyone
know what his mother had done to him, dragging the whole mess up again.
Harry wanted it done with. The ritual had been all the justice he
intended to take. He wouldn't see his family vilified and crucified in
front of the horrified and morbidly curious wizarding world. He was
\emph{done} with Lily. He would leave it up to James, Sirius, and Remus
to confront him on their own terms. And he was Connor's brother now and
forever. Connor didn't deserve to be in front of the media circus that
would result.

``Harry,'' Snape hissed. ``They should know. I am willing to go to any
lengths to stay as your guardian, and if that means telling the
Ministry---''

Someone rapped smartly on the door of the office. Dumbledore smiled.
``Ah,'' he said. ``That should be the Ministry representative I asked to
join us, bringing the papers to transfer your guardianship back to your
parents, Harry. You will have to choose, in a moment, between truth and
lies. Choose well.'' He sat back behind his desk and beamed as the door
swung in.

Harry, frozen, saw Dumbledore's smile disappear in the same moment as a
smooth voice said, ``Terribly sorry for the delay, Albus, old boy. But
I'm afraid there's been a bit of a problem with the paperwork.''

Harry turned, disbelieving, joyous, to see Rufus Scrimgeour standing in
the doorway. His apologetic expression was nearly perfect, except for
the light in his eyes, which were fixed on Dumbledore. He never
acknowledged Harry as he limped forward and laid the handful of papers
he held carefully on the Headmaster's desk. He didn't need to, Harry
thought. He could see the essence of the Auror's plan from here.

\emph{Oh, beautifully done, sir,} he thought, with the same admiration
with which he'd read about Dark families' outmaneuvering each other in
the past. \emph{Oh, wonderfully done.}

He was absolutely sure, even before Dumbledore began to shift through
the papers, that this was all perfectly legal. Scrimgeour wouldn't have
it otherwise. He watched Dumbledore with patient earnestness as he
looked through the pieces of parchment, and nodded when the Headmaster
stared at him.

``Yes, Albus, I'm sorry,'' he said, with oceans of regret in his voice.
``But you know that we can't make an exception to the proper procedure
even for you.'' He managed to say that without any emphasis at all.
Harry was beyond impressed. ``All the forms have to be completed
absolutely properly, and in triplicate. We received only one copy of
each, and most of the vital information was missing.'' Scrimgeour
shrugged. ``I'm sure it will be set right eventually. No doubt it was a
mistake somewhere along the line. But, in the meantime, I'll have to ask
you to complete the forms again.''

He paused, then drew a final sheet of parchment out of his cloak and
laid it carefully, carefully, down in the center of the table. ``And
this,'' he said. ``It's the results of the exam that we had Lily Potter
take, just to be absolutely sure that she'd returned to normal. I'm not
sure what happened, Albus, really. Probably she was just having a bad
day, the poor girl. It's not every day that one recovers from a Dark
spell on one's mind. But until we can see some sign that she has her
normal magic back, I'm afraid that we can't release young Harry here
into her custody. She might have erratic power and hurt him, after all.
And I'm sure none of us want the boy with a guardian who would hurt
him.''

Dumbledore had been absolutely stopped. Harry wanted very, very badly to
laugh, but he managed to lower his head and clap a hand over his mouth,
making soft snorting noises instead. Scrimgeour gave him a mild glance,
as much as to say that he didn't know what Harry found so funny in all
this deadly serious business. Snape was leaning back in his chair, his
eyes glinting as they fixed on Scrimgeour.

``I will insure that the forms are completed properly, Auror
Scrimgeour,'' said Dumbledore, and swept up all the papers. His stopping
had lasted only a few moments, Harry saw. He would find a way past it.
But at least he wasn't saying that Harry had to return to his parents
right now; for that alone, Harry thought, he owed a debt to Scrimgeour.

``See that you do, Albus.'' Scrimgeour wagged one finger. ``There's
nothing more important than properly completed paperwork, especially in
a case like this.'' He turned and moved towards the door, giving a final
glance at Harry and Snape. ``Are you coming?'' he asked. ``I would like
to have one more interview with young Mr. Potter here, to insure that
he's been treated right.''

``Of course,'' Dumbledore had no choice but to say, though he watched
Harry with fierce eyes.

Harry smiled amiably at him. So things hadn't been settled permanently,
not yet, but he supposed he had been a fool to think they would be. At
least he was able to walk out of the office without more vicious mental
wounds, and with an idea of what tactics Dumbledore would try now. He
would count it a victory.

``Of course, Auror Scrimgeour,'' he said, and stood. Snape moved very
close to his side. Harry was glad. He didn't entirely trust Dumbledore
not to throw a curse at his back. Merlin, he didn't trust Dumbledore to
do anything but try to control him and protect Sirius.

As they rode down the moving staircase, Harry looked up at Scrimgeour
and said, ``Thank you, sir.''

``He was mucking about in my Ministry,'' Scrimgeour explained
peacefully. ``You don't muck about in my Ministry. You just don't.'' He
paused, and shook his head. ``Besides, imagine trying to transfer
custody of a child from one guardian to another when all the forms
hadn't been properly completed. It's a terrible thing. Keeps me awake at
nights.''


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\newpage


Someone knocked on the door of Snape's office that night. Harry paused
and looked up at Snape, who only shook his head back. He wasn't
expecting a visitor, then. Harry palmed his wand and strode cautiously
forward. He supposed it might only be Draco, whom he'd seen at the Feast
that night but had to leave because Draco had left all his homework
until the last moment, but it was better to be safe.

When he opened the door, he blinked. Remus stood there, shivering
slightly, as though he'd been caught in a heavy rain. The amber eyes he
turned to Harry's face shone with desperation.

``What do you want, werewolf?'' Snape snapped from behind Harry. A
glance back showed that his wand was most \emph{definitely} pointing at
Remus, and he looked inclined to hex first and ask questions later.

``I want my memories back,'' said Remus softly.


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\newpage


``I know the ritual that you did to Lily,'' Remus explained, for the
third time, at Snape's insistence. ``My father told me about it. And I
know that it can't be wrong.'' He clenched his hands in front of him.
They were shaking. ``Harry,'' he said, ``I have to know, now. I thought
it would be better never to know, to just leave Lily as the good woman I
imagined her to be. And now I found out that it---isn't. I can't stand
knowing that she did something wrong, and no details about what it was.
Please, please, let me past the barrier. Let me see. Let me
\emph{know.}''

``It's not that simple, Lupin,'' Snape began, his lip curled. He'd let
Remus in to sit on a sofa Transfigured from a bookshelf, which Harry
knew was generous by Snape's standards, but refused to take a seat of
his own. He'd been pacing around the room during the three explanations.
Now he whirled, robes flying behind him as he stabbed his wand at Remus
again. ``You know that an \emph{Obliviate} is Dark magic by at least one
standard. It clamps down on your free will, and prevents you from
looking at one set of memories you should have access to. The safest way
is to have Dumbledore remove it, and you know that he will not.''

``There's another way,'' said Remus. ``And I would never have suggested
this if I didn't think it would work.'' He turned and faced Harry, who
sat on a Transfigured chair across from him. ``Harry,'' he said quietly.
``I felt you, in my mind, that night we went running in the Forbidden
Forest---''

``\emph{What}?'' Snape said, in a voice that promised death and pain if he
wasn't told about this immediately. Harry ignored him, because this was
more important.

``And when you released your magic at the Quidditch game,'' Remus went
on, undaunted. ``I know what you are.'' He took a deep breath, and let
it out again. He seemed to grow larger as he did so. Harry saw his eyes
blaze amber, and the air around him stirred with the smell of musk. The
sudden wild atmosphere to the room made Harry's nerves tingle.
``\emph{Vates},'' Remus breathed.

Harry nodded slowly. After the ride with Fawkes, he could hardly deny
it. But--- ``I don't know everything about what that word means,
Remus,'' he said. ``I could still hurt you.''

``I know what it means,'' Remus whispered. ``Not everything, but what it
means for \emph{me.} The unbinder, Harry, someone who opens. You
couldn't touch my mind and free me from the \emph{Obliviate} if I were
an ordinary human. But the werewolf in me knows you.'' He smiled faintly.
``Even if it doesn't like you very much.''

``Wait a minute---'' Snape began.

Harry stood up. His magic swirled around him, and he brought it forward
so that it pointed at Remus. ``You know that I'm going to have to enter
your mind?'' he asked, and Remus nodded.

``\emph{Wait} a minute---'' Snape said again.

``Good,'' said Harry. ``Just checking.'' And he leaned forward and
opened his eyes and his magic in the way that he had just after he'd
ridden with Fawkes.

An absolute maze of webs sprang into being around him, worked through
the stones of Hogwarts and into the very earth. Harry could see the
bindings on the house elves if he looked, probably the most prominent
ones, and a net spread over the Forbidden Forest, and the icy, curling
blue strands that reached out from Hogwarts's grounds towards Azkaban
and tied the Dementors to their duty.

But, at the moment, he was only interested in one set of them. He
focused his mind on Remus, and saw the man as a shimmering form,
surrounding two webs. One was small and red, and held back a specific
set of memories in which Harry saw his own face.

He tensed himself, and reached out to that web.

Immediately, the other one attacked him. It was old, and dark, and wound
into every part of Remus's being---body for the transformation, mind for
the bestial rage that was a werewolf in the killing mood, emotions for
the way it heightened all of them, spirit for the pall it cast over
Remus's life, and magic for the way it made Remus able to pass the curse
on to others. It fell on Harry like a crushing weight, heavy and black,
snarling in his ear and drooling liquid so warm it might have been
blood.

Harry held himself firm. The werewolf was recognizing him even as it
tried to keep him out. It itself was a magical creature, and in the grip
of a human mind or one calmed by Wolfsbane, it had to listen to the
rumors of power Harry carried with him---that and his hatred of
compulsion, Harry suspected. Only when it went absolutely mad with fury
during the transformation was it free of the need to listen. Harry knew,
then, why he hadn't been able to make Fenrir Greyback recognize him.

``\emph{I hate you.}''

Harry's hair stood on end, and he swallowed several times before he
could reply. It was unnerving to realize that the disease had a voice.
``I know,'' he said. ``It doesn't matter. I want to take off the
\emph{Obliviate.} I want to free a part of you that's been tied up. That
should lessen your hatred of me, shouldn't it?''

``\emph{You} \emph{like him},'' said the disease.

``Who?'' Harry asked, at a loss.

``\emph{The one I ride.}'' The web flexed its claws, and Harry dimly heard
Remus cry out. The wolf was trying to wake. ``\emph{My victim. Mine. I
hate him, too.}''

Harry shuddered, and because he was in Remus's mind, a storm of memories
flitted past his eyes. He realized fully what it meant when Remus had
said he was a werewolf, not a wolf. This wasn't a wild creature Harry
could speak with as he had with the Runespoors or centaurs, not even a
Dark creature open to bargaining, as the Dementors were. This was a Dark
creature who lived to compel others. It hated Remus, and it was alive in
him, and it would torment him until he was dead, for no better reason
than the pleasure of making him obey its will.

Harry felt his own hatred of compulsion rise in response. He bared his
teeth. ``Someday,'' he promised, ``I am going to destroy you.''

``\emph{Can't. Won't.}'' The disease laughed at him, a sound that Harry
felt like fever in every fiber of his being. ``\emph{Too weak of will.
And I hate you. I catch and torture what I hate. Always.}'' Harry had the
sensation of teeth snapping past his ear. ``\emph{You, and the other one
in here, the one my steed calls Severus. I'll have him yet.}''

Later, Harry considered that perhaps he ought to have reacted to the
threat more rationally. But he hated it when people threatened those he
loved. He didn't understand why his enemies kept doing it.

He reached out and pulled Remus's \emph{Obliviate} apart.

Remus's mind bucked, twisting, trying to shatter in the face of the
suddenly released memories and the disease's pushing. Harry wrapped his
magic around it and held on. He kept breathing gusts of free will across
it, wanting Remus to do as \emph{he} wanted, not as Dumbledore or the
werewolf in him wanted. Harry bent all his will to that task, feeling
himself slip to the ground. He heard Snape yelling ``\emph{Ennervate!}''
but he didn't respond to the pull back to his own body. He \emph{had} to
do this. He hated webs so much. He wanted the one web he thought he
could remove at the time gone.

\emph{If I have this power for a reason, this is the reason,} he
thought, and shoved, and shoved hard, at the pressures threatening to
break Remus's mind apart. Where they wouldn't yield, or Remus couldn't
respond fast enough to deal with them, Harry took them on himself.

He felt his shields give way, felt the webs of his mind unraveling, and
hung on there, too. He had to stay sane, because Draco and Snape wanted
him sane, and because the justice ritual had been right. He didn't have
anyone's \emph{permission} to go insane, including his own, because, at
the moment, that would mean the same thing as doubting the ritual.

The storm at last finished. Harry opened his eyes and found himself
lying on the floor in Snape's office. He looked up, blinking, turning
towards Remus, but Snape's face got in the way first.

``If you \emph{ever} do that again,'' Snape hissed, one hand clutching at
Harry's shoulder, ``then I am going to kill you, discover magic that will
allow me to resurrect the dead, and use it to bring you back to life so
that I can kill you \emph{again.}''

``Remus's werewolf threatened you,'' said Harry, still trying to sit up.
``It shouldn't have done that.'' His head was aching ferociously, and he
couldn't see more than a few feet. He could make out that the
Transfigured couch was empty, though. ``Where's Remus?'' he added.

``The beast ran out of here,'' said Snape in disgust. ``He said
something about finding Black.''

Harry felt his eyes widen as he remembered what Remus had told him about
being suddenly released from the \emph{Obliviate.} \emph{I know that
there would be no going back once I learned what they did to you. And it
would be because of me, not them. They may have done unforgivable
things, but I would do unforgivable things, too, in my anger.}

And\ldots{}

\emph{I'm not rational when I'm in a rage, Harry. I've been tempted to
bite people before.}

This soon after the full moon, and with the rage and the werewolf rising
up in him, Remus might even bite Sirius, and succeed in giving him the
curse.

``Oh, \emph{Merlin},'' Harry said, and managed to stand and turn towards
the door. ``We've got to stop him.''

``Why?'' Snape asked, curling his fingers in his collar. ``I would much
rather stay here and listen to you tell me the stories of your trips to
the Forbidden Forest.''

``He's going to make Sirius a werewolf!'' Harry yelled, trying to twist
out of Snape's grasp. It was hard when his head and mind still trembled
with pain, and even his magic felt exhausted.

``Why didn't you say so?'' Snape let him go and strode towards the door.
``I want to watch.''

\chapter{*Chapter 31*: Lady Lioness}\label{chapter-31-lady-lioness}

Thank you for all the responses yesterday, and the patience with the
cliffhanger!

I don't know if this chapter goes exactly the way I imagined it, but we
do get some confrontations.

\textbf{Chapter Twenty-Six: Lady Lioness}

She had most often believed in the past that if she wanted something
done right, she would have to do it herself.

Or get Albus Dumbledore to do it. But since he had grown so
untrustworthy of late, Minerva had once more become used to relying on
herself.

And one of the things she had to do, which no one else seemed willing to
do, was tell Connor Potter exactly what had happened to his mother.
Albus had told her at once when he received Lily's letter, which was
good of him. Of course, he probably wanted her to use the information to
manipulate Connor against his brother in some unimaginable and obscure
way. Minerva had decided to counteract that by using the information in
as straightforward a manner as possible.

She rapped on the door to Sirius Black's office on the second floor, and
then repeated the motion when no one answered. Sirius had brought Connor
in just a few hours ago on his flying motorbike. Minerva had asked one
of the house elves to watch over the room for her, and knew they were in
here.

At last, slowly, Sirius opened the door. Minerva bit back a curse. His
eyes were\ldots{}

She shook her head and stepped past him. She knew why his eyes were like
that, and since the memories asking would bring up were even more
painful, she would not ask. ``I came to talk to Connor,'' she said
softly.

Sirius nodded and motioned a hand over his shoulder. Minerva turned and
saw the Boy-Who-Lived in a chair beneath one of the Gryffindor Quidditch
banners that Sirius kept hung all over the room, his head buried in his
hands.

Minerva approached him as calmly as she could. She had seen Connor when
he was in a temper, especially when he was in a temper about something
his brother had done. He needed serene adults around him, adults who
could tell him the truth and make sure he understood it while retaining
an undertone of stern sympathy. Had she had the choice, Minerva would
not have left him alone with Sirius so long, but he was far closer to
the boy than she was. She had wanted to give them \emph{some} privacy.

``Mr. Potter,'' she said, taking a chair across from him. He hadn't
stirred when she stood over him. Perhaps this would encourage him to
open up to her more. ``I want to speak with you about your mother.''

Connor dropped his hands from his face at that and looked up at her, and
Minerva bit back on more obscenities, which was something she normally
never had to do once in a day, never mind twice. Connor's eyes looked
like holes in his face, as though someone had scooped all the soul out
of them and left dim hazel tunnels into his skull.

``I already know,'' said Connor flatly. ``She talked to me, and Sirius
talked to me.'' He drew in a ragged breath, and then barked like Sirius
in dog form. ``Harry stole her magic! He stole her magic, and left her a
\emph{Muggle}! How could he have \emph{done} that! He hates her, that's
obvious, and I hate him!''

Minerva's eyes widened, and she turned to stare at Sirius. Even if Lily
hadn't recognized the pureblood ritual---and Minerva considered it one
of the unmistakable ones---then why hadn't Sirius, who had certainly
been raised in a pureblood household and might even have seen that
ritual in action, told him the truth?

Sirius hunched and avoided her gaze.

``I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!'' Connor was repeating
passionately when Minerva looked at him again. His eyes had brightened,
but only to fill with the emotion that he was describing, something
Minerva thought no child so young should feel. ``I want him dead. I
don't want him near me. Can you arrange things so that we don't have
Potions or Transfiguration with the Slytherins any more?'' He looked up,
seeking sympathy in Minerva's eyes. ``Because Sirius was right all
along, and that's all he is, really, just a dirty, nasty, slimy,
sneaking---''

The door to the office burst open then, and in came Remus Lupin.

But it was a Remus Lupin horribly changed. Minerva didn't think she'd
seen him look worse since the sole transformation she'd witnessed for
herself when he was a student here. His face was flushed with too much
color, and his hands choked the air in front of him. The deep, wild
smell that accompanied him made Minerva's nose twitch as if she were
already in cat form.

And he aimed straight at Sirius and knocked him to the floor, his
jaws---Minerva couldn't think of them as part of a human mouth any
more---snapping at his face.

Connor was screaming. Minerva rose and aimed her wand, casting coolly.

``\emph{Petrificus Totalus!}''

The spell hit Remus and simply faded. Minerva hissed. She forgot, not
having fought them often, that werewolves were resistant to many kinds
of magic, and immune to some of them.

But that was only supposed to be in animal form.

Swift as despair came the next thought: \emph{Does that mean that he
could pass on the curse to Sirius if he bit him now?}

Minerva would not allow that to happen. It would mean a fate worse than
death for one of her Gryffindors, and death or life in Azkaban for the
other, and she had already lost enough of them during the holidays.

She gathered up more of her power and poured it smoothly into the next
spell she used, one that the witches of the McGonagall family had passed
down among themselves since Calypso invented it. It had been one of the
techniques that the Light Lady had used to control herself.

``\emph{Catena cordis!}''

It worked, as she had hoped it would. Werewolves had been around long
enough to develop more immunity to general spells than specialized ones.
Just as Remus opened his mouth and lunged at Sirius's face, he gasped.
Then he fell awkwardly to the side, his arms and legs moving as though
he struggled against a net. Minerva watched him in pity. The effect of
the spell wasn't pleasant, as all the emotions in the victim's heart
abruptly jerked sideways, chained and kept from becoming true emotions.
He would have to think rationally. He wouldn't have a choice.

Minerva decided that she could do worse than use the spell on the others
in the room, and had just lifted her wand to do so, when the door banged
the rest of the way open and Harry and Severus lunged in. Harry was
gasping, panting, his face flushed as though with fever. Severus was
looking at Remus, and the expression he wore was undeniably
disappointed.

Minerva opened her mouth to ask what was going on, and then Connor took
the matter at least partly out of her hands.

``I hate you, Harry!''


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Harry winced and closed his eyes, turning his head so that his chin
rested on his shoulder. He supposed he should have expected his twin's
declaration, but it still hurt.

What hurt even more was Connor's awkward punch to his jaw a moment
later. Harry wouldn't have believed his brother could cross the room
that fast, nor that he wouldn't have heard him coming. He supposed his
own emotional pain had distracted him.

He rolled with the blow---one thing he had learned in his long training
with the Muggle who had given birth to him was how to fall---and lunged
back to his feet, only to find Snape's wand pointed at his brother, and
McGonagall's wand pointed at Snape, and Connor's wand pointed at him.

``You hurt our \emph{mother!}'' Connor had obviously been crying not too
long ago, but now his eyes were dry with rage like a desert sun. ``How
could you \emph{do} that? How could you take her \emph{magic} away?'' He
steadied his wand with his left hand as it began to shake. ``Maybe you'd
like it if I did that to you, so that you can pay for it?''

Harry felt the remnants of his sanity begin to slip again. He scrambled
after them and grasped them all, holding them firmly in place. No, he
would not allow himself to doubt the justice ritual. He \emph{could}
not.

``Shut up, Mr. Potter.''

Harry went cold all over. He had never heard Snape sound so hateful. He
turned slowly to look at his guardian again, and saw that Snape's face
had closed down. What Harry recognized was the same look he had given
Sirius on the Quidditch Pitch. They had a Death Eater in the room with
them.

``No, don't,'' he whispered. ``Sir. Please.''

``He practically \emph{killed} our mother!'' Connor howled back at Snape,
not at all intimidated. ``She told me so herself. I saw her. He didn't,
he ran away, he was too cowardly to stay, but---''

Harry stared at him with horrified sickness rising up in his belly. Of
course. He should have anticipated that this would happen. He had left
Connor alone with Lily and Sirius, at least, and maybe James, for too
long a period of time. Of course they would make his brother believe
what they wanted him to believe, and that Harry had taken away her magic
as the result of Dark spells, or perhaps the obscene feeding ability
that Lily had talked about.

Snape's hand came down on his shoulder just as the room started to
swirl, and Snape's low voice said into his ear, ``I will not have you
fainting. Do you understand? You \emph{will} not.''

That sternness gave Harry an anchor to cling to, and he took it,
straightening his shoulders and nodding shortly at Snape. By the time he
turned back, McGonagall had found her breath and was speaking to Connor.

``Mr. Potter,'' she said, ``your mother lost her magic to a ritual, and
not a spell.''

``A Dark magic ritual,'' said Connor, undaunted. Harry tried to meet his
brother's eyes, and could not. The loathing there was too deep. It made
him dizzy and short of breath when he attempted to look into it. ``I
\emph{know} it. Sirius and Mum told me all about it. He made her into a
Muggle just because he wanted to eat her magic. He's a Dark Lord, too.''
Connor took a step forward. ``He has to be stopped before he eats anyone
else's magic.''

Snape began to say softly, ``\emph{Adsulto}---''

Harry, recognizing the incantation for the heart attack spell, snapped,
``\emph{Protego!}'' and stuck a shield in front of Connor that should
repel the spell. Of course, that effort sent him to his knees. He really
shouldn't have mucked about in Remus's head quite so much, he thought
woozily. Then perhaps he would have more strength to devote to the
effort of keeping both his brother and Snape alive.

Connor was glaring, and Harry felt a slithering force across his mind
that he recognized as the compulsion gift. He managed to bounce it off,
barely.

``I'm sorry, I'm sorry,'' Remus was whispering.

And then McGonagall's voice cut over everyone, saying, very firmly,
``\emph{Silencio.}''

Harry gratefully let the spell take his voice. He wasn't sure what would
emerge, at the moment, if he tried to speak. He crouched on the floor
and concentrated on getting his perception of the world back.

Of course, without the surety of affection from his brother that he had
based so much of that world on, it was a harder task than he had
expected. And by now his head \emph{really} hurt.


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Minerva caught her own breath and scowled at the wizards sprawled or
standing around the office.

\emph{That's better,} she thought. \emph{Not one of them has the sense
that Merlin had when he advised Arthur against bedding Morgana. Wizards!
If I want something done right, then I have to do it myself.}

``Now,'' she said, when she was sure that she would manage to sound calm
and not as if she wanted to bite all their heads off, ``I'm going to
release you from the spell, one at a time. I've already heard Connor's
side of the story.'' She glanced once at Sirius, but he shook his head
and turned away from her. Minerva restrained a growl. That one had been
the bravest and most reckless of her Gryffindors, once upon a time,
living as though untouched by any dark shadow. She had learned since
that he was touched, of course, but she still found it hard to believe
that \emph{all} of his courage had been a façade. She released Remus
instead.

He sat up slowly. His eyes still glowed, and the undeniable wild smell
still plagued the air around him, but he was calm. He had no choice but
to be, under the \emph{Catena} spell. He looked at her once, and then
away.

``Well?'' Minerva demanded.

Remus sighed. ``I gained some of my courage back, and asked Harry to free
me from the \emph{Obliviate},'' he said.

``Why him?'' Minerva checked on Harry. The boy really did look
bad---pale as the Bloody Baron's blood, with one hand on his head as
though it were about to split apart. ``Why not Severus?''

``Because,'' said Remus, looking at her as though \emph{she} were the
one who had gone mad and tried to pass on lycanthropy, ``Harry is the
\emph{vates}, and he could enter my mind because I'm a werewolf.''

Minerva blinked a few times, and then shook her head. Of course she had
suspected that something like that must be true, especially with the
books that Severus had been lending her, but she had not thought there
was any way that the boy could come to his power so soon.

She looked sharply once again at Harry. \emph{And it does look as though
he's paid the price.}

``And then what happened?'' she demanded, to keep from getting angry at
the thought of the poor boy suffering \emph{again.}

``I came here,'' said Remus. His eyes briefly sparked, and then subsided
again. He looked mildly confused. Minerva thought the confusion really
belonged to the wolf inside him, who would not understand why it could
not summon the rage to attack. ``I thought Sirius would probably be in
this room, and he was. Or maybe I was following his scent. I don't---I
don't really know. I was too lost to the wolf. I only knew that I wanted
to punish him for what he had done to Harry.'' He glared at Sirius.
``After all, he was the only one of Harry's family actually at
Hogwarts.''

``James has gone somewhere,'' Minerva remembered, from what Albus had
shown her in Lily's letter, ``and Lily is still at Godric's Hollow.''

``\emph{Is} she?''

Minerva narrowed her eyes. ``If it's necessary, Remus,'' she said
coolly, ``I will have you swear an Unbreakable Vow to me, that you will
not attack or harm Lily Potter in any way.''

Remus stared at her, and said nothing.

Minerva shook her head again. \emph{What a mess you have created,
Albus.} It was too bad that Albus was too powerful to take vengeance
against, and that they needed him as leader of the Light side. Perhaps
there were other ways to do it than straightforward magical assault, or
exposing Albus's crimes against Harry and letting the boy suffer again
along with him.

Then Minerva remembered the object she'd stolen from Albus's office the
last time she'd been there, and relaxed. \emph{There are smaller ways.
They're slower, but they're more guaranteed to work, too.}

``I don't want you harming her, Remus.''

\emph{Harry.} He'd broken through the \emph{Silencio}---Minerva wasn't
surprised, not really---and had crawled over to Remus, one hand out as
though to stroke the werewolf's cheek. Remus turned his head and gently
nuzzled the boy's hand. Harry stared up at him with wide green eyes.
Minerva thought those eyes had seen too much. She wished she could pick
Harry up and put him in a place where he wouldn't have to experience
pain ever again, but almost seventy years in the world had taught her
that only death was like that.

Remus watched him for a long moment, then nodded. ``If you're sure,
Harry,'' he said. ``But \emph{only} if you're sure.''

``Yes,'' said Harry. His voice was weary, but utterly determined, in the
way that Minerva had felt herself when facing Voldemort in battle.
``It's all done, between me and her. That's the end. You know what that
ritual means. I know what it cost her, and what it cost me. I never want
to hear about it costing anyone else anything.''

Minerva couldn't help it. She turned and looked at Connor and Sirius.

She knew from the looks on their faces that it was too late for
that---not to mention whatever the ritual had done to James and Lily's
relationship. Sirius blamed Harry, in the odd way that he had lately of
blaming his godson for everything. Connor blamed Harry, because he
thought it was Dark magic that had left his mother a Muggle.

Minerva sighed. She did not know how to fix this. Even if Remus
refrained from attacking Sirius or Lily in the future, the other two had
heard him declare an intention to do so. They would probably never trust
him again. Remus, as much as Harry, had just left half his family
behind.

\emph{It is good that he has chosen Harry, at least,} she thought, as
she released Connor from the \emph{Silencio}. \emph{If he had not, the
poor boy would have no one among those he has known from childhood with
him.}

``Mr. Potter,'' she said, drawing Connor's intense gaze from his twin to
her. ``I will have your word here and now that you won't attack your
brother---in the corridors, on the Quidditch Pitch, in class, on the
grounds, or anywhere else.''

Connor tilted his head back. His eyes flashed Gryffindor stubbornness
and pride at her. They were traits that Minerva had loved and cursed in
equal measure since the Hat had shouted out the name of her House for
her. At the moment, she had more reason than usual to curse them.

``No,'' he said. ``He has to pay for what he did to our mother. And no
one else is punishing him---'' the furious betrayal in his voice made
her wince ``---so I have to. I'll attack him as often as I can.''

``Mr. Potter,'' said Minerva, with a heavy heart. \emph{He will not
understand. But if it comes to a choice between his not understanding
and further suffering for Harry, I know which I will choose.} ``For every
attack on your brother, you should know that \emph{you}, in turn, will
suffer a punishment. For the first one, you will have a week's worth of
detention with---'' she almost said \emph{Professor Snape}, but then
remembered the glances he had given the boy and decided that wasn't a
good idea ``---Argus Filch. For the next one, you will not play in the
Quidditch game against Hufflepuff. For the third one, you will not play
in the Quidditch game against Ravenclaw, either. For the fourth one, you
will be removed from the Quidditch team for next year as well.'' She
paused. Connor was staring at her in absolute betrayal and disbelief.
``Do you understand?'' she added softly.

``But, Professor,'' Connor spluttered, ``if you do that, then we have no
chance at wining the Quidditch Cup!''

Minerva thought of the way that Severus would taunt her about that. It
was astonishing how little the memory stung, beside the thought of Harry
suffering, and not even defending himself against, his brother's
attacks. ``I know,'' she said.

Connor's eyes widened, and she saw comprehension flood them after all.
Of course, he lowered his head in the next moment and muttered,
``Everyone cares more about him than me. I don't understand.''

Minerva restrained herself from exasperation. The Boy-Who-Lived really
was a boy, a child, and she would not yell at him, no matter how much
she wanted to. She would explain instead.

``Mr. Potter,'' she said, and waited until his gaze was fixed sullenly
on her again, ``I want to tell you about the ritual that your brother
used on your mother. It was an ancient one, and it could not have
happened unless your mother had wronged Harry---so wronged him that she
deserved to have her magic taken away.''

Connor blinked. Then he looked at Harry. ``I don't believe you,'' he
said, his voice harsh, ``but I'll listen if you can \emph{really} tell me
what she did to you.''

Minerva faced Harry. Connor's response made her cautiously hopeful.
Perhaps the boy could be rescued from Sirius's and his mother's
influence, after all, and if it meant not having to either protect Harry
from his brother's attacks or assign the punishments she'd promised
Connor\ldots{}

She was surprised, therefore, when Harry lifted his head and shook it,
lips pressed tightly together.


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Harry had already made his decision---long before he entered the room,
actually, but in concrete fashion ever since he'd realized what he'd
done, leaving Connor alone with Lily and Sirius for days.

\emph{He's already had his family ripped apart. I can't prevent that. I
can't do anything to give him his father back, or his brother, or Remus.
But I can let him have Mum and Sirius. They've already chosen to be
heroes. I can confirm that.}

Giving up his brother's regard hurt him like a branding with a red-hot
iron in the center of his chest, but what did it matter? It was only
another sacrifice, after all. It wasn't like he wasn't used to making
them.

He felt Snape's hand tighten on his shoulder from behind. He felt Remus
staring at him. He felt McGonagall's eyes narrow in disapproval. None of
that mattered. He had suffered worse when his brother first looked at
him with hatred. He could ease past this best if he knew that Connor was
also on the way to healing.

Lily had said that she wanted him to preserve Connor's innocence for as
long as possible. Harry was doing so. Later, when he was ready to hear
it---when his heart wasn't torn into tiny shreds by the loss of his
mother's magic and the betrayal of his brother---then perhaps Harry
could tell him the truth. But, for now, it would be like hurling himself
against a wall while simultaneously tearing open Connor's wounds again,
and again, and again, and again.

Harry had suffered enough of that himself in the last year. He would not
let it happen to his twin.

Of course, he would not lie, either, but he could see what conclusions
Connor was drawing from his silence, and he let him draw them. The
victorious light in Connor's eyes grew brighter. Harry breathed a little
easier. Anything, \emph{anything}, was better than the defeat and
despair he'd seen there.

``I'll keep your punishments in mind, Professor,'' Connor told
McGonagall casually, and then went over to kneel beside Sirius, ignoring
both Harry and Remus completely.

McGonagall tried to say something, but Harry didn't hear what it was.
He'd done what he had to, and his body was demanding that he go to
sleep. He yawned and did, not even hearing whether or not McGonagall
released Snape from the silencing spell. He would have to hope she did.
Snape was capable of releasing himself, of course, but if he did, then
his anger was probably also severe enough to make him use wandless,
nonverbal magic against Sirius and Connor.


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``Drink.''

Harry blinked, but didn't have much choice, as the cup of pumpkin juice
was practically shoved in his face when he awakened. He took it from
Snape's hands and downed it, then looked around. He was on the
Transfigured couch in Snape's quarters. He could feel the potions in the
juice working, one to ease the pain in his head, another to ease his
drowsiness. Harry yawned anyway, and sat up, continuing to sip at the
juice.

``What time is it?'' he asked.

``Nearly midnight.'' Snape prowled around in front of him and stood
there, watching him drink. Harry realized his face was blank---utterly
so. His eyes held no smoldering hatred, no sarcasm, no anger. If Harry
absolutely had to find words to describe his expression, or lack of it,
he would have said that Snape looked serious.

Harry swallowed. ``Won't Draco be worried about me?'' he asked.

``He would be,'' Snape agreed, ``but I have spoken to him, and he knows
where you are. He said something about your giving him a Christmas gift
tomorrow?''

Harry smiled slightly. ``Yes.''

Snape nodded. ``But that is tomorrow, and this is tonight.'' He sat down
on the chair that Harry had taken earlier, when he was freeing Remus
from the \emph{Obliviate}. ``Harry. We must talk.''

Harry tilted his head. ``About what?'' He could guess some of the
subjects, but he had not expected Snape to address them this early or in
quite this way.

``Your rushing into Lupin's head without any warning or preparation
would be a good start,'' said Snape. He would have said Remus's name
with a curl of his lip ordinarily, or the words themselves with dry
sarcasm. He didn't. Harry felt his heart begin to pound, and shifted
defensively backwards. ``Why?'' Snape asked.

``I wanted him free,'' Harry replied. ``I was sure I could do it.'' And
he \emph{had} been sure, a rush of dazzling confidence overcoming him.
Of course, there was more to it. ``And I thought that Remus might change
his mind at any moment and decide to stay hidden behind the barriers,''
he added.

``If he had changed his mind, then that was surely his choice,'' said
Snape. ``And I believe that he would have changed it back soon enough.
There was no excuse for what you did, Harry. None.''

Harry winced. ``Did I hurt him?'' he whispered. Remus hadn't seemed that
hurt, especially since McGonagall had calmed him before he bit Sirius,
but it was possible that Harry had caused mental wounds.

``No,'' said Snape. ``But, quite apart from that, you could have hurt
yourself.''

Harry looked down at his hands, and said nothing.

``You have been reckless,'' said Snape softly. ``Journeys into the
Forbidden Forest. How many, Harry?''

``Just two, really,'' Harry muttered. ``One with Remus and Sirius on a
full moon night at the end of October, and one when Connor was in danger
from Fenrir Greyback.''

Snape closed his eyes and took a deep breath. ``And then there is the
fact that you went to Godric's Hollow for Christmas,'' he said, ``and
released your parents from \emph{Fugitivus Animus}, despite knowing that
you could have put yourself in danger by doing so.''

Harry looked up. ``I didn't mean to release Dad.''

Snape pinched his lips shut, as though he would say something about
James Potter, but refrained. Harry was glad; it was the first sign he'd
seen of the normal Snape since the conversation began. ``Nevertheless,
he was released,'' said Snape slowly. ``Minerva assured me of that. And
he has left Godric's Hollow, and gone Merlin knows where.''

``Do you think he's in danger, too?'' Harry asked.

``I don't \emph{care.}'' Snape leaned forward abruptly, and the growl was
back, twisting in cold anger under his voice. This time, though, Harry
had the distinct impression that Snape really was angry with \emph{him}.
``The point is, what if he had decided to do something to hurt you
before you could get to the Malfoys'? Or if he is hunting you even now?
You have insured only that Lily could not hurt you.''

``She was the only one I was angry enough at,'' said Harry.

``Because she used the phoenix web,'' Snape surmised.

Harry nodded. ``Yes.''

``You did not tell us about that,'' said Snape, his voice softer than
darkness.

Harry looked away. ``I didn't think that I could relive it.''

``You managed in the Headmaster's office.''

Harry gave his head a quick shake. ``What's the point of listing all of
these times I was in danger at me?''

``Because I think you have little to no care for your own \emph{life},''
Snape hissed, and reached out to catch one of Harry's wrists. ``Or your
own sanity, given the way you answered Dumbledore's summons the day it
came, or how you stepped into the werewolf's head. Nor do you explain
things that badly need to be explained.'' His free hand swiped across
Harry's forehead, and came away covered with blood. Harry started
guiltily.

``Draco mentioned something about nightmares,'' Snape said, staring hard
at him, ``and blood coming from your scar. Somehow, you had neglected to
mention them to me. It is good that he did, or I would have panicked
when you began bleeding and I could not wake you.''

Harry swallowed. It was true that he'd had the dream of the two dark
figures writhing in torment again, and the circle of shadows closing in.
But he had kept them from Snape because\ldots{}

``I didn't want you to worry,'' he whispered.

``I \emph{choose} to worry,'' Snape snapped. ``And I worry when I see you
continuing a self-destructive course that you have pursued for
\emph{months}, long before you confronted that woman who was pleased to
call herself your mother.''

``You told me once that I could not treat you as a child, nor coddle
you. But you must have restrictions, Harry. You will hurt other wizards
as well as yourself if you do not. I consider it a miracle that you
turned to a ritual to deal with Lily, and not rage that could have
destroyed everyone in the house.''

``It was a near thing,'' Harry whispered.

Snape nodded grimly. ``I am going to allow you to choose the
restrictions,'' he said, ``so that you can live with them. But there
\emph{are} going to be restrictions, Harry. I promise you that.''

Harry met his eyes, and let out a slow breath. ``Would you start
teaching me Occlumency again, sir?''

The tight lines around Snape's eyes relaxed the slightest bit. ``That
would be a start.''

Harry sighed, and prepared himself for a relatively long series of
negotiations. He didn't mind as much as he pretended, though he still
didn't completely understand why Snape was so worried about him, as he
had managed to survive, and he had trained to make his death, when it
came, mean something.

But beneath the incomprehension was a glimmer of warmth.

\emph{This is more proof, I think, that he really does feel the
affection he says he does.}


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Draco tore the wrapping away from his present and let out a crow.
``Harry! Where did you \emph{find} one?'' He turned the book around in his
hands, delightedly, and then flipped open to a random page. He grinned
at Harry in the next moment. ``This dance says that you're never
supposed to have your elbows on the table while eating,'' he said,
prodding at Harry's right elbow.

``I just found it,'' said Harry vaguely, drawing his elbows back and
watching Draco in amusement. The truth was that he'd combined a
Transfiguration spell with his wandless magic one day in early December,
just before Lucius Malfoy's visit, and managed to create what he wanted:
a book of pureblood rituals and dances, drawn from his own memory, that
would enhance Draco's training in them. But Draco was watching him like
a hawk that morning, and seemed to take any evidence of wandless magic
as evidence of exhaustion. Harry was not going to get into an argument
by mentioning how he'd created the book. He infinitely preferred a
happy, cheerful Draco.

``It's \emph{wonderful,}'' said Draco, and admired the book's white
leather cover for a moment more before he turned and pushed Harry's own
present to him across the table. ``Go on, open it!''

Laughing, Harry opened it---and gasped. He lifted the round object
gently out, blinking. It was a clock, rather like the family clock that
had hung in Godric's Hollow, with hands for his parents, Connor, him,
Sirius, and Remus. However, this one had four hands, and thus four
names, on it.

\emph{Draco, Harry, Snape, Narcissa.}

In place of times, the clock displayed titles for TRAINING, SLEEPING,
EATING, WRITING, STUDYING, IN DANGER, HAVING FUN, IN CLASS, MAKING
POTIONS, and, Harry was simultaneously pleased and disturbed to note,
PLOTTING. Snape's hand was firmly lodged under the last one. Narcissa
was writing something, probably a letter.

Draco's hand was under HAVING FUN, and as Harry watched, his own hand
shifted from EATING to that one, as well.

Harry swallowed several times, and then raised his eyes to Draco's face.
``Thank you,'' he said softly.

Draco smiled at him. ``You're welcome.'' He paused in the midst of
saying something else as an owl skimmed overhead and landed on the
table, brushing crumbs of breakfast out of the way as it offered its leg
to Harry. Harry looked with a frown at Draco, but Draco only shook his
head, shrugging. He didn't know what it was.

Harry unrolled the long, slender package, surprised to note that it was
a wand made of some polished dark wood, probably ebony. The note that
came with it was brief and to the point.

\emph{Mr. Potter:}

\emph{This wand belonged to a friend of yours who has been too long
without it, in a gray and dreary place. Please see that it is returned
to him. A certain weaver of webs has had it for twelve years.}

There was no signature, but Harry didn't need one. He saw the
handwriting on his Transfiguration homework all the time.

He looked up the head table, and met McGonagall's gaze. The professor
saluted him with her goblet.

Harry gently placed Peter's wand back in the package and nodded to her.
He avoided Dumbledore's gaze, and his brother's, because he wanted to
enjoy, just for one moment, this feeling of warmth and alliance, without
having it spoiled.

``Now you \emph{have} to tell me what that was,'' Draco said.

Harry blinked and looked at the family clock, then smiled slightly. His
hand was pointing firmly at PLOTTING.

\chapter{*Chapter 32*: Trelawney's Second
Prophecy}\label{chapter-32-trelawneys-second-prophecy}

Thank you for the reviews yesterday!

We have a transitional chapter again.

Well\ldots{}kind of transitional.

\textbf{Chapter Twenty-Seven: Trelawney's Second Prophecy}

``Catch.''

That was all the warning Harry gave Peter before he tossed him his wand.
It seemed to be the only warning Peter needed, though, as he snatched
the wand deftly out of the air with his hand---his left, Harry
noted---and then pulled it close to him.

Harry halted and watched with a small grin, taking the opportunity to
renew his warming charms. Peter stared at the ebony wand with the look
that Harry imagined he would have if one of the other Marauders walked
up, stuck out his hand, and offered to renew their friendship. His wrist
trembled as he slowly held the wand up before him, pointed it at nothing
in particular, and whispered, ``\emph{Lumos}.''

Harry applauded as light began to glow at the tip of the wand and spread
out in front of him, illuminating the snow that stretched around the
edge of the Forbidden Forest, unbroken save for his tracks, Peter's, and
a long, thin, sinuous trail that Harry thought he could live without
knowing the source of. Peter pulled his wand back towards him. He was
still staring.

Then he looked up and let out a short breath. ``Where did you get
this?'' he whispered.

Harry shrugged. ``McGonagall delivered it to me. You'd have to ask
her.'' He grimaced and adjusted his scarf so that it wrapped more
closely around his neck as a gust of chill wind nipped at his throat.
Peter wore ragged clothes bundled on ragged clothes. Harry knew he was
probably stealing them. At least he'd be able to use magic now, with his
wand back. ``I've had it for about three weeks. I'm sorry I couldn't
come out and see you earlier to give it back, but Snape kept me on a
tighter leash than I thought.'' The one good thing Harry could say about
the restrictions Snape had negotiated with him was that he filled the
time Harry had to spend in the castle with defensive magic training and
brewing potions other than Wolfsbane. If Harry had been forced to do
completely non-productive things during that time, like sleep, he would
have fretted.

``Thank you,'' Peter whispered one more time, and slipped the wand into
his coat pocket.

Harry hesitated, then asked. ``I wanted to know how you were avoiding
the Dementors for so long, and managing to survive.''

Peter flashed something that could only be called a grin because it was
on his face and used his teeth and lips. ``I spend a lot of time as a
rat, Harry. We don't get cold as easily, and I can always find plenty to
eat.''

``Oh, right,'' Harry muttered, feeling stupid. But then, he'd been
feeling that way an awful lot these past three weeks. He suspected that
he'd made a mistake, but asking Draco and Snape about it only produced
vehement assurances that no, he hadn't. He had come here only partly to
return Peter's wand.

Peter recognized the signs on his face, and made a soft snorting noise
that Harry suspected no rat, ever, had made. ``Ask the next question,
Harry. I promise you, I don't bite.'' He bared his oversized front teeth
again. ``Unless you're Dumbledore.''

Harry laughed, and used the laughter to ease his way into the next
question. ``Um---do you know what happened with Lily?''

Peter nodded slowly, his eyes fastened on him. ``I've been---sniffing
around a few places where Dumbledore neglected to close the wards,'' he
said. ``I wasn't a Marauder for nothing, you know. And I heard some
things. But not the whole truth.''

Harry let out a sharp breath. ``Well. I used a justice ritual on her. A
pureblood dance. It made her a Muggle.''

``And your brother blames you,'' Peter surmised easily. He sighed. ``I'm
not surprised, really. Lily and Sirius got to him first, and for Merlin
knows what reason, they've always wanted to fill his head with drivel. I
suppose you told him the truth and he disbelieved you entirely, yes?''

Harry swallowed. Here was the crux of the mistake he suspected he had
made. ``Um.''

Peter stared hard at him, eyes beady in the faint light still glowing
from inside his coat pocket. ``\emph{Harry},'' he said, sounding shocked.

Harry sighed and ran a hand through his hair. ``I really did mean to,''
he said. ``Honest. But I thought he should get to have whatever family
and innocence he has left, and---''

``You're a fool,'' said Peter bluntly. Harry blinked, but nodded. He
could accept the insult without flinching. He certainly deserved it if
he really had made the mistake he'd suspected he'd made. ``Sirius isn't
fit to be anyone's family. And Dumbledore is the one who'll control him
now. Lily can barely act without his control.''

``I don't know if that's true,'' said Harry, remembering the Muggle's
eyes, and then pushed the notion away. He didn't like thinking about
her. ``The thing is, I don't know how to tell Connor about the justice
ritual without telling him about everything she did to make it
necessary.''

``The phoenix web?'' Peter asked.

Harry nodded. ``Among other things.''

``And why would you want to keep them secret?''

``I don't like anyone knowing about them,'' said Harry flatly.
``Everyone who knows about them does so either because they did them, or
because they suffered something similar---like you---or because I
couldn't prevent them from learning about them.'' He scowled, thinking
of Snape, and how he'd kept prying details of his nightmares from Harry,
details that Harry had never meant to give. ``And I thought that Connor
shouldn't have to grow up so fast---''

``I was hoping you'd share my story with him,'' said Peter, his voice
rising slightly. ``I was hoping to see him out here with you some night.
I thought he was simply being stubborn, or Sirius had got to him first
and convinced him to believe whatever he wanted. But now, to hear that
you haven't told him at all---'' He narrowed his eyes at Harry. ``I'm
disappointed in you, Harry.''

Harry took a deep breath and forced the screaming memories to retreat
and leave his mind clear. That was one of the Occlumency techniques that
Snape had taught him, one that let the memories swim under the surface
of his thoughts, present, but not interfering with his emotions. He
couldn't hear the echo of the Muggle's voice in Peter's every time he
said something like that. If he had failed, then he had failed, and that
didn't mean that he'd failed the intense training program the Muggle had
set him, where his failure would mean his brother's death.

``I'll talk to him, then,'' said Harry quietly. ``I asked Draco and
Snape about it, but they both said I didn't have to.''

``You have to,'' said Peter, almost violently. ``Go to Dumbledore if you
have to, if Connor won't listen. Ask him what it would take to win your
brother free.'' He leaned back and stared hard at Harry. ``Do you know
one of the reasons that I agreed to become Sirius's sacrifice in the
first place, Harry?''

Harry blinked. ``I thought Dumbledore persuaded you. Or compelled you.
And that Sirius was going to break.''

Peter inclined his head. ``There was some of all of that. But truly, I
thought it would\ldots{}win me their true friendship. I loved them. I
could already see by our sixth year in Hogwarts that they didn't love me
in quite the same way.'' His mouth twisted. ``I was too small, or too
fat, or not sympathetic enough, I suppose.''

Harry wondered how long it had taken him to recite those truths without
flinching to himself.

``I thought,'' Peter whispered, ``that being a sacrifice would make them
realize how much I was worth.''

He opened his hands and raised his voice again. ``And it didn't. They
never came to see me in Azkaban. They never seemed to think of me again,
except to describe me as an evil traitor.''

He looked directly into Harry's eyes. ``Sacrificing yourself like this
isn't the way to get your brother to love you, Harry.''

If he had punched Harry, he could not have stunned him more. Harry stood
there, blinking, the mist of his breath steaming before him, and could
not think of anything to say.

``Go talk to him,'' Peter whispered. ``If you love him, but not only
because of that. If you want him to love you. I should have refused
Dumbledore. The others couldn't have disliked me more than they did. And
I would have had my freedom. I think you can have more than that. If you
love your brother so fiercely, then there must be something good there
to love.''

``Go talk to him.''

Harry took a deep breath, nodded once, and then turned and walked back
to school, hearing behind him the scamper of a rat's paws on the snow.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


``Connor.''

Connor turned around and tensed. Harry walked up to him, breathing as
calmly as he could. He reminded himself that everyone else would be at
dinner in the Great Hall still, or working furiously on homework due the
next day, as it was Sunday evening. He'd tracked Connor to this remote
corner of the school with the Marauder's Map. He could speak with him
without anyone else interfering.

Connor folded his arms. ``I'm meeting Sirius,'' he said, voice sharp as
a slap. ``Go away.''

``I can't.'' Harry shook his head. His hands were shaking, too. He
clasped them behind his back to still that quiver. Nearly as strong as
his fear of telling the truth was the nausea at the thought of what his
failure could have cost Connor. Harry tried as hard as he could to
ignore his training. It wouldn't do either of them any good now.

Connor watched him in silence. His arms were still folded, his head
tilted to one side, his hazel eyes narrowed with dislike. Harry realized
abruptly that the pose was one he hadn't seen his brother use before.
He'd almost certainly copied it from Sirius.

``I have to tell you about the ritual I used on Mum,'' said Harry. He
could call her that, for the sake of repairing his relationship with his
brother. He didn't want to call her ``the Muggle'' and see Connor's eyes
widen in disgust. ``It was a justice ritual, Connor, not a vengeance
ritual, whatever they told you. I promise. It wouldn't have worked if
she hadn't hurt me.''

``So Professor McGonagall has been trying to convince me,'' said Connor,
in a lazy drawl that sounded like Sirius\ldots{}maybe. Harry hadn't
heard Sirius sound quite so contemptuous. \emph{Maybe this is the voice
that he uses when they're alone and talking about Slytherins.} ``But
it's not true. I know it can't be true. Mum and Sirius already told me
that it was a vengeance ritual.''

``I promise it was,'' said Harry. ``What do you want me to swear by?
Merlin? Magic? My love for you? I'm prepared to swear by any and all of
them.'' He was, too. That would content some of the anxiety beating in
his mind, in fact. A pureblood ritual was just the thing.

``I don't want you to swear by anything,'' said Connor, his voice
unexpectedly raw. ``Mum told me that you'd try an oath like that, to get
me to listen. She said I couldn't trust you, that it wasn't possible for
a Slytherin to keep his word. And Sirius agreed with her.''

Harry took a step back, uncertain, then rallied. ``I don't---''

``Have you seen her, Harry?'' Connor whispered. ``Have you \emph{seen}
her at all since you made her into a Muggle and took her magic away from
her? She looks like a moth. She can barely move, barely lift her head
from her pillow in the mornings. Sirius Apparated me to Godric's Hollow
to see her. If Dumbledore hadn't sent a house elf to take care of her,
she'd be entirely alone, since Dad ran away like the coward he is.''
Connor's voice scraped and hissed. ``She has no interest in anything. She
doesn't want to eat. She sleeps all the time. Does that sound like you
left her fucking \emph{alive}?'' Connor's voice was rising now.

Harry winced. They were in the fifth floor corridor, but Connor could
attract a prefect's attention any moment. But he had promised Peter he
would do this, and he did want Connor to understand, if he could.

``She hurt me, Connor,'' said Harry in a rush, before he could change
his mind.

Connor stared hard at him, then shook his head with a snort. ``No, she
didn't,'' he said. ``I never saw a bruise on you, and you couldn't have
hidden that.''

``Not that way,'' said Harry. ``Mentally. I had something called a
phoenix web on me. You can ask Hermione about it if you don't believe
me. She can confirm it exists. It bound my magic, and it forced me to
think about serving you and loving you before anything else.''

Connor stared at him. Harry stared back, and waited for some reaction.

Then Connor shook his head again and said, ``I don't understand. You've
always loved me anyway, Harry.'' His voice was wistful. It changed
before Harry could take advantage of it. ``Or I \emph{thought} you did.
So if the web was forcing you to love people and not hurt them with your
magic, then it was good. It must be.'' He took a step forward. ``Is that
why you don't love me any more, why you hurt Mum worse than killing her?
Because you were only a good person because the web made you be?''

Harry clenched his hands. ``No,'' he said quietly. ``It's much more
complicated than that, Connor. You don't understand everything yet. I
can tell you the full story---''

``She said you would do this, too,'' Connor interrupted. ``Mum, I mean.
She said you would say that I didn't understand everything, and that you
had to tell me long stories to explain everything. I don't believe it,
Harry.'' His face had entirely closed now. ``She \emph{said} so, and she
wouldn't lie. She loves me.''

Harry bit back an eruption of bile. He recognized his mother's tactics,
all too well. He \emph{had} left things too long.

Connor turned away. Harry moved forward and gently took his brother's
arm.

Connor came around swinging. Harry rolled, and managed to make it look
as though the blow had hurt him more than it did. As it was, he just
grazed his cheek on Connor's fist and his shoulder on the floor.

``What's all this, then?''

Harry glanced up, blinking, as Percy Weasley came into the light of the
torches. His face was flushed, as though he'd hurried down the corridor,
and his eyes darted suspiciously between one of them and the other.

``Were you fighting, Connor?'' he demanded. ``Ten points from Gryffindor
if you were fighting.''

``No, Percy,'' said Connor, with a wide-eyed innocent look that Harry
recognized from Sirius's face long ago, before any of this had happened.
``I promise. I was on my way to study, and he ambushed me.''

Harry met Percy's eyes steadily as Percy turned and looked at him. He
didn't get a steady gaze in return. Percy glanced away at once, then
flashed his Head Boy badge.

``I'm rather afraid I'm going to have to take you to see the Headmaster,
Harry,'' he said. ``Can't get away with keeping students from their
studies.''

Harry nodded sharply, once. He didn't know why Percy was here---probably
watching over him at Dumbledore's orders again, the way he had been last
year---and he didn't care. Peter had told him to try Dumbledore if all
else failed, to try and get Connor away from Lily and Sirius.

``Let's go, then,'' he said, and set off firmly in the direction of the
gargoyle, leaving Percy to stumble after him.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


``My dear boys.'' Harry marveled that the Headmaster could sound
perfectly calm with Percy, red-faced and panting, and Harry, his body
tingling with magic, in front of him. But he did sound that way, and he
waved them to the two chairs that Harry recognized as having been there
when he and Snape had visited. This time, there were no tricks with the
height. They could sit in them comfortably, though Percy was mopping his
face as though he had run too long a way and could not possibly be
comfortable. ``What can I do for you?''

``I caught Harry fighting with Connor in the corridors, sir,'' said
Percy, in that pompous tone. Harry wondered idly if it was unique to
him, or if all Head Boys had it. ``And since you told me---well, since
Connor is so important, I thought it best to bring him to you right
away.''

``Of course, of course, Percy. That is the kind of initiative a Head Boy
should take.'' Dumbledore turned to Harry. ``And what do you say, Harry?
Were you fighting with your brother?''

Harry met Dumbledore's eyes. The old man was calm and patient, damn it,
and Harry could feel the dangerous boil of his own temper. He more often
got hot anger than cold lately, it seemed. Snape said that was a sign of
progress. Harry wondered if that was really what they should call it,
but he could hardly dispute it; his own cold anger had frightened him,
and Snape knew more than he did about Occlumency.

``I would like to speak to you in private, sir,'' he said. ``About my
brother.''

Dumbledore waved a courteous hand at Percy. ``Mr. Weasley has a share of
responsibility in caring for the castle, too, Harry. I would say that he
can hear anything you say to me.''

``About my mother, sir? And Sirius?''

Percy stood at once. ``Oh, I could leave, Professor Dumbledore, if these
are private family matters---''

``Yes,'' said Dumbledore, his eyes on Harry. ``Perhaps you should.'' But
he still sounded curious, intrigued, rather than upset. It frustrated
Harry.

He closed his eyes and pictured one of the pools of quicksilver that
Snape had taught to him, one of the fluid containers for his emotions
during Occlumency. They worked far better than solid ones like the box,
but they operated on the same principle. By the time Percy shut the
door, Harry was calm again. He opened his eyes and made himself meet
Dumbledore's gaze without much expression.

``Now, Harry?'' Dumbledore encouraged him gently. ``You were saying?''

Harry let out a deep breath. ``They've poisoned Connor's mind,'' he
said. ``They told him lies about the justice ritual. And I want him
removed from them. They're putting him in danger.''

Dumbledore sighed. ``Your mother has a right to see her child, Harry.
Since your father has vanished, and Connor does not have another
guardian, she is his best protection, right now. And Sirius would never
wish to kill or harm Connor as he did you.''

Harry blinked. ``Why?''

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. ``When you heard about
the---unpleasantness---in Sirius's past, I told you, Harry. It is Dark
magic that exacerbates the failing stability of his mind. You leak Dark
magic. He does not like Severus, or Slytherins, for much the same
reason. But Connor's gift is Light. He and Sirius have done enough
research to convince me of it. Connor is safe with Sirius as you would
never be.''

Harry bit his lower lip. ``Still, sir, Sirius is insane. I would like if
it I could go to lessons with Connor.''

``As I would have been able to say if you had not interrupted me,''
Dumbledore continued, ``there is no longer his insanity to worry
about---though I cannot speak of what his loathing for Dark magic might
push him to do. I have made a device for him that confines his thoughts
and leads them back into soothing patterns when they become too
agitated. Before Christmas, I thought he could manage, but seeing what
happened to your poor mother has become too much for him.''

Harry shook his head slowly. ``So you could have cured him at any
time?''

``This is not a cure,'' said Dumbledore. ``It is a prevention---much as
Muggle crutches will prevent one from collapsing to the floor, but do
not cure a broken leg by themselves. It took me some time to work out
that it was needed, and why it was needed, and to make it. You can ask
to see it for yourself if you like. It's a large golden ornament that he
wears on a chain around his neck.''

Now that Harry thought about it, he had seen such a chain around
Sirius's neck. But he hadn't been around his godfather long enough to
notice any true change in his behavior.

He debated for a moment whether he could leave it there, but then his
thoughts returned to the bile that Connor had spewed in the corridors.
Yes, some of it had Sirius's mark, but more had his mother's.

``I don't think he should be around the Muggle, either,'' he said
firmly. ``She's dangerous.''

``And who made her that way, Harry?'' Dumbledore's gaze was level and
absolutely clear.

Harry once again dipped some of his emotions in the quicksilver.
``Please, Headmaster. I am asking you to remove him from her. You can
take up guardianship of him yourself. I think it would suffice, since
after all the Ministry does trust you---'' he though of Scrimgeour to
calm himself this time ``---and I know that you value him.''

Dumbledore simply watched him, until Harry thought the man's face had
frozen in that inscrutable expression. Then he said, ``I will not
deprive your mother of her only true son, Harry.'' Harry flinched
despite himself, and the Headmaster continued speaking as if he had not
noticed. ``But if there was a way to reverse what was done to her, then
I might agree, since I could give her a son back to replace the one she
stole.''

Harry wondered if he had plunged all his thoughts underwater, and not
only the ones that had produced uncomfortable emotions. His vision swam
as he said, ``You know that the ritual cannot be reversed, sir.''

``I was not thinking of that,'' said Dumbledore, and spread his hands.
``I was thinking of putting you under the phoenix web again, making you
what you were. If you agree to that, I will take over the training of
Connor's compulsion gift from Sirius, and Lily will not see Connor again
until she is more---herself, and ready to deal with him.''

Harry closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair. This was the keenest
pincer that had yet gripped him.

He had said that he would never go under the phoenix web again.

But Connor was in danger.

But he had said that he was never going back under it.

But Connor was in danger.

But he had said that he needed his freedom.

But Lily might hurt Connor.

Harry thought he might have come close to crying then, except that he
never wanted to cry in front of the Headmaster.

He made his decision.

He took a deep breath, ragged with the sound of sobs, and stood, and met
Dumbledore's expectant eyes.

``Fuck you very much, sir,'' he said quietly, and walked out of the
office.


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\newpage


``Oooh, yes, dear,'' said Professor Trelawney excitedly, as she peered
into Lavender Brown's carefully arranged leaves from around the lake.
``Yes, I think I see your future husband in here.'' She paused so that
Brown's giggles could rush over her, and continued. ``Yes, quite a
handsome fellow he is\ldots{}tall, and what is this? He is wearing a
crown!'' She turned and blinked at the class who crowded behind her,
many of them half-asleep in the incense-soaked Tower room. It was an
unusually warm day for early February, which didn't help the situation.
``Who can tell me what a crown means?''

A few people desultorily flipped through their books, looking for the
symbol. Harry caught Hermione's eyes and rolled his own. Hermione made
the same gesture back. She was looking increasingly disgusted with
Trelawney, and now and then her hand went up to toy with something
around her neck, something that kept radiating incredibly powerful magic
when Harry bothered to pay attention to it.

Ron and Connor were on the other side of the room. It looked like Ron
was imitating Trelawney, and earning a snort of laughter from Harry's
twin. When he saw Harry watching, he frowned.

Harry glanced away. He was beginning to hate this waste of a class. He
had signed up for Divination so he could share another class with
Connor, but that had been in the warm camaraderie---of a sort---last
year, when anything had seemed possible. Harry was becoming steadily
convinced, however, that Trelawney would only ever say something useful
by accident. He stayed in the class for those hints, now and then
listening as she twittered over tea or leaves or bits of spun spiderweb.

And he could talk to Hermione, of course, he thought, as he leaned
carefully nearer the Gryffindor witch, watching the professor from the
corner of her eye. It was a mark of Hermione's disdain for the subject
that she actually \emph{would} talk instead of listening diligently and
scribbling notes.

``Anything?''

``Nothing,'' Hermione whispered back, the way she did every class. This
time, though, she hesitated, and drew the thing around her neck out of
her robe. Harry blinked at it. It resembled nothing so much as a small
silver hourglass dangling on the chain. It was polished to a bright
sheen, but he saw nothing about it that should make it so powerful,
unless---

``A Time-Turner?'' he whispered.

``Of course,'' said Hermione, looking a little displeased that Harry had
managed to guess what the thing was without her input. She shrugged in
the next moment, though, and checked on Trelawney's position---the
professor was now going on about Parvati Patil's luck on the next
Tuesday when a full moon occurred---then whispered, ``Professor
McGonagall got it for me so I could attend more classes. I just have to
be careful never to meet myself.''

Harry nodded. ``And you used it in the library to research the phoenix
web, too?'' he asked.

Now Hermione \emph{did} look annoyed. ``How did you know that?''

``You wouldn't have got it out unless it had something to do with what
we were talking about, and we were talking about your research on the
phoenix web,'' said Harry, with a shrug.

Hermione muttered something that sounded like, ``Slytherins,'' but she
went on before Harry could call her on it. ``I tried, Harry,'' she said.
``I found books that hinted at its existence, and told me where to look.
But every single book I tried to find was gone. They're either in the
hands of a Professor, or they're in the Restricted Section.'' She looked
cross.

Harry sighed. He supposed he should have suspected that.
\emph{Dumbledore. Always an irritant.}

What he wanted Hermione to do would have been much easier with proof,
but there was the chance that Connor would trust the word of his friend
even without it. ``Can you talk to Connor?'' he whispered. ``I tried to
tell him what being under the phoenix web was like, and he didn't
believe me that it was evil. I know we don't have the books, but you
were in the meeting that day, and---''

``Mr. Potter!'' Trelawney fluted at him. She was hovering right over him
now, and staring down into the muddy, moldy, half-frozen leaves that
Harry had laid on his table. ``Let us see what your leaves say.''

\emph{They say you're an old bat who should shut up and leave me alone,}
Harry thought in annoyance, but he restrained his temper. He looked once
at Hermione, who nodded at him. Trelawney mistook the reason for the
nod, and turned to Hermione.

``And what do your leaves say, dear?'' she asked. ``Or do you have an
idea what Mr. Potter's leaves say?''

Hermione opened her mouth, a sharp look on her face, then glanced at
Harry, sighed, and modulated her voice into a sickly sweet tone. ``I'm
sorry, Professor,'' she said. ``I couldn't quite read this bit.'' She
stabbed at a curling, wet brown corner off one leaf. ``Do you think it's
a sailing ship, or a cloud?''

Trelawney shifted over to look. Harry flashed a grateful smile at
Hermione, who glared back at him.

\emph{One day, she really is going to lose it at her,} Harry thought, as
he leaned back and waited for the charade to end. \emph{But not today.}


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Harry left Divination early and by himself, as usual, but lingered near
the bottom of the ladder to the Tower. He ought to be able to hear
Hermione's and Connor's conversation from there. He knew that Hermione
would start out in a reasonable tone, but Connor's voice would probably
escalate.

What he didn't realize was how \emph{quickly} it would happen.

``---don't talk to me about my brother!'' Connor yelled. ``I \emph{know}
that he put you up to this. It's not true, it's not, and I don't want to
hear anything about it again!'' Then he added something else, something
low-voiced and vicious that resulted in a loud gasp, and a whisper from
Ron along the lines of, ``You really shouldn't have said that, mate.''

Hermione came down the ladder in the next few minutes. Harry didn't
quite dare to speak to her. She gave him a dire look, shook her head,
said, ``\emph{Him},'' and stormed off up the corridor.

Harry sighed. He knew it wasn't the best time to go talk to his brother,
but at least he knew where Connor was, and they would have an audience,
in the form of Ron and Professor Trelawney. He didn't think Connor would
hurt him too badly with them there. At least the subject was uppermost
in his brother's mind right then.

He'd just put a hand on the bottom rung of the ladder when he heard a
skittering noise down the hall. Harry spun, his magic rising around him.
He squinted when he realized that he could see only a small rock, moving
back and forth by itself, in the middle of the hall. It paused as if it
saw him watching it, then turned and rolled down the corridor.

Harry drew his wand.

Something else skittered out from nothingness and joined the pebble. It
was a spider, Harry thought, but then he saw the flash of the torches
off metal and jewels, and snarled to himself. It was another artificial
Dark creature, like the one that had attacked Draco.

He approached the thing with long strides.

The pebble stopped rocking, and the spider scuttled to meet him with a
rush of air. Harry flung himself to the side, aimed his wand, and
muttered, ``\emph{Petrificus Totalus.}''

The spell didn't work, as he had thought it might not. The spider stood
facing him, motionless for a moment, then flung out a loop of jeweled
silk into the air. Harry watched it warily. Was it going to grab the
ceiling, or the floor, or a torch sconce?

It did none of those things. It drifted in the air for a moment, then
abruptly exploded into a cloud of silvery spores.

Harry covered his nose and mouth and ducked at once. He had heard about
things like this. Breathing in the spores was \emph{not} a good idea. He
coughed anyway, and felt dizzy, which might have meant that some of them
got in, but he retained his consciousness and his balance.

\emph{No more playing around,} he thought, and spoke calmly.
``\emph{Reducto.}''

The spider smashed apart. Harry walked over and carefully kicked at the
pieces to make sure they wouldn't move anymore, then glanced around. He
could see no sign of more spiders, nor of whoever had released this one.

He shook his head and walked back to the ladder, keeping an eye over his
shoulder. He supposed he would have to tell Draco and Snape about this,
though the attack was so small and seemed pointless. Was it a warning?
Of what?

Harry quelled the temptation to run back to the dungeons to check on
Draco. He would, as soon as he was done talking to his brother. Connor
was still up in the Tower. Maybe Ron was arguing with him about whatever
he'd said to Hermione, and that meant that Harry could catch him when he
was feeling guilty.

He climbed until he reached the Divination classroom, and felt an odd
stillness in the air even as he entered it. He felt a wind brush past
him, and saw a silver flash near the wall that had him drawing his wand
again.

What bothered him most, however, was the sight of Trelawney, her eyes
rolled back in her head and her voice a chill, dead monotone, as she
recited words at a stunned Connor and Ron.

``\emph{\ldots{}stand or fall.}''

Then she collapsed.

Harry must have made a noise, because Ron turned around and saw him. He
was dazed, shaking his head. Connor hurried forward to help Trelawney.

``I was going to talk to him\ldots{}'' Harry whispered, eyes on the
downed teacher.

``I don't think that's a good idea,'' said Ron, and grimaced as he began
scratching at his shoulders. ``She just went crazy and recited a load of
drivel at us.''

``Did you not remember it?'' Harry demanded. He didn't think Trelawney
was more than a fraud, really he didn't, but if ever circumstances would
pull a true prophecy from her, these were the circumstances. He checked
for another sign of the silver flash, but couldn't see it.

``Sorry, mate, no.'' Ron shook his head. ``I don't---''

``Go away.''

Harry looked at Connor's face and surprised a murderous expression
there. Carefully, he raised his hands and backed towards the entrance of
the classroom again.

Of course, he felt obligated to ask. ``What was it, Connor? A prophecy?
Was it meant for you?''

``I don't have to tell you.'' Connor's face was flushed an ugly red.
``And I don't want to talk to you, Harry. \emph{Go away.}''

Harry turned and left, quietly. He would continue his efforts to get on
his brother's good side and help him whether Connor wanted him to or
not. This time, though, he would have the added curiosity of what
exactly the prophecy might have said about his brother. Of course it
would be about him, since he was the one who had heard it, and the
Boy-Who-Lived.


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\newpage


That night, a new nightmare came hunting him.

Harry found himself on a flat dark plain, with shadows the only things
that moved in the distance. He couldn't see any buildings or trees. He
stamped on the ground, and realized it was hard as iron. He shivered.

Then, abruptly, a dark, four-legged shape sprang into motion on the far
side of the plain and rushed towards him.

Harry jumped out of the way just in time. He relaxed a bit in confusion,
watching it as it ran. Was he seeing a werewolf? Or something else? He
couldn't make out anything other than the fact that the thing was
four-legged, and fairly large.

He didn't make out the much smaller creature that pursued the large one
until it sprang and apparently locked teeth on the side of the large
one's neck.

The large thing screamed.

Harry screamed along with it. Pain that reminded him of \emph{Crucio}
wracked his body. He woke in a few instants, thrashing and tangled in
his bedsheets, and all but blind. It took him a moment to realize that
that didn't come from the sheets, but from the blood pouring out of his
scar and over his eyes.

Draco was there then, cradling his shoulders and attempting to soothe
the pain. It was already gone, but Harry couldn't find the voice or the
breath to tell him so. He let Draco hold him and wipe the blood out of
his eyes, and nodded when he thought he was all right to go to the
hospital wing.

He remained silent even as Madam Pomfrey clucked and fussed over him,
and Draco explained earnestly that he'd fallen and hit his head on his
way back from the bathroom, because he was thinking about the images in
his dream.

Though he didn't know why his mind kept circling back to the idea---the
shapes had been less than silhouettes, and he had no reason to think
this was true, or even that the dream meant anything---he believed that
the shapes he had seen were those of a rat and a dog.

\chapter{*Chapter 33*: Gazing on
Connor}\label{chapter-33-gazing-on-connor}

Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter!

This is a rather different chapter from any I've done so far, but
necessary, I think. And look, we've got a new POV character at the end!

\textbf{Chapter Twenty-Eight: Gazing on Connor}

\emph{If there is one thing I have learned,} Albus thought, as he moved
into the Great hall for breakfast, \emph{it is the importance of
adaptability.}

He took his seat at the head table and nodded to Sirius and Severus, the
only ones already seated there. Sirius nodded back at him, a bright
smile on his face. He smiled all the time since Albus had given him the
golden bauble to hang around his neck. It really had been simpler than
Albus had thought it would be to confine his thoughts and turn them back
towards calmness. Because Sirius had not often let him look into his
mind before, he had not known how many of those thoughts revolved around
Dark magic. Having a central focus made them far easier to confine.

Severus scowled at him and turned away. Albus hid a sigh. He had behaved
badly earlier in the year, he knew. Had he walked more carefully, he
might have managed to retain Severus's loyalty---though an unusually
large piece of it seemed to have been given to Harry Potter.

He knew why he hadn't walked more carefully. His emotions had blinded
him, most especially his horror and dread of what Harry was becoming.

\emph{If I had thought about it,} Albus decided, as the porridge
appeared in his bowl and he began to eat, \emph{I would have realized
what I had to do. Alas, thought was the furthest thing from my mind at
that moment.}

He \emph{knew} how to survive. He \emph{knew} that things changed, and
he did have to change with them. Had he retained that lesson in the
forefront of his mind, rather than the lessons imprinted by doing
nothing about Tom Riddle while he was still a child, then he thought he
would still have Harry as at least a tentative ally.

\emph{Things change, but must they be shoved along? Tom would freeze all
things into changelessness, so very greatly does he fear death. And with
Harry, or rather, with the} vates \emph{he could become,} all \emph{is
change.}

He lifted his head, eyes seeking Harry across the Hall. He was seated at
the Slytherin table, of course.

Albus sighed to remember his utter surprise when the Hat had proclaimed
Harry for Slytherin. It wasn't what he had expected, from Lily's account
of the boy and what he observed when he visited Godric's Hollow, but
that did not excuse his reactions. So much had been lost in that moment.
If he had been faster, then he could have contained the damage. He could
have invited Harry to his office and explained that no one would disdain
him for belonging to the serpent House as long as he still acted with
proper caution and courtesy and chivalry. Harry understood the ideals of
sacrifice and lived them better than anyone else Albus had ever seen. He
would have understood the idea of continuing with the sacrifice.

Albus could even have cast an auditory glamour charm, so that the Hat's
shout would have sounded as Gryffindor instead of Slytherin. Then Harry
could have gone into his proper House, and much disaster would have been
averted.

\emph{But that would have required me to have some idea of what the Hat
was going to shout,} Albus thought, as he finished his porridge and
turned to his pumpkin juice, \emph{and as we have already established, I
did not.}

There was a tone of self-deprecation to his thoughts, and he did not
know why there should not be. He had made mistakes. He could admit it
now, now that it was late February and the first flush of many rages was
past---Harry's unbinding his magic, demanding Sirius's past, hurting
Lily\ldots{}.

Now he would have to live in the changed world that had come about at
least partly as the result of his mistakes, and adapt to what followed.

\emph{I must still be the balance,} he thought, and his gaze went from
Harry to Connor. The Gryffindor was chattering with his friends.
Sirius's return to sanity had been good for him. He once again had an
adult at the school whom he trusted unreservedly, and his friends
somewhat helped to make up for the loss of his brother.

\emph{I must be the balance between frozen order and unbridled chaos.
Only on the middle ground can life continue in the wizarding world much
as it had been, without the reign of terror that Voldemort would bring
about cruelly or Harry would bring about innocently.}

There was still the chance that things could proceed as they always had.
Albus was not defeated. His pieces moved on the board yet. He could turn
Harry back to his brother's side, and train Connor into the kind of
leader who would swing the balance between order and chaos himself.
Harry still bore part of the phoenix web. The longer he remained away
from Connor, the more impatient it would get to bring him back to his
brother's side.

That was the first possible path.

The second chance was that Harry would tear more and more free of
Connor, and matters would continue to worsen. In that case, Albus knew,
he would have to strike a truce with Harry---some bargain that would
hold. He would have to ask the boy what he most wanted, and seal the
matter, perhaps with a pureblood ritual. Albus dreaded matters coming to
that pass, since he knew it would mean having to tell Lily that she
really would never see her elder son again, but he was prepared to
accept it now. In that case, nothing he did would make that much
difference to Harry one way or another, until that fatal moment; this
chance was the one that had the least impact on his plans.

That was the second possible path.

And in the third\ldots{}

Albus narrowed his eyes, though he kept his face calm. The third was
unpredictable, and he feared it would bring about the change and the
chaos that he so feared. But he knew it also grew likelier the longer
his patient, methodical plan to capture Peter again was delayed. At any
moment, Peter might realize that Harry did not know the whole truth, or
Harry might show it to him with a careless comment. And yet, the
patient, methodical plan could not possibly be rushed.

\emph{If Harry learns the whole truth about the prophecy\ldots{}}

That was the third possible path, the one where Albus would have to do
the most adaptation, the most pure survival, and the most careful
guardianship. Should it come to pass, he would have to be Harry's ally,
because there was no other choice with a wizard that powerful and that
intensely violent at the mere mention of compulsion. Yet he would have
to be prepared to turn against him at any moment, too, because if Harry
went too far, Albus was the only one with the power and the commitment
to hold him back.

\emph{And yet,} the ironic edge to his thoughts, his constant companion
in the last two months, pointed out, \emph{Harry would never have hated
compulsion so much if you had not bound him. You have forged your own
bane. You made him more like a} vates \emph{by tying his magic.}

Albus nodded, and put the regrets away. There was no room for them.

As Severus left to teach his first class and Minerva arrived to eat
breakfast, as Sirius all but bounced out of the Hall while winking at
Connor, as Harry stood and departed with the Malfoy heir in his wake,
Albus sipped his pumpkin juice and reached out slowly, delicately. In
his office, a Pensieve was glowing, and the memory it showed would be of
a night twelve years ago when Albus had cast another phoenix web. From
there, delicate, delicate threads of compulsion snaked out and towards
Peter. Albus did not know exactly where he was hiding, nor how long it
might take him to reconnect with the reordered phoenix web. He knew he
was having some success; it was Peter who had suggested that Harry visit
Albus, winning the Headmaster another chance to make an offer to Harry,
and Peter had said that he wanted to visit with Connor, thus setting up
a situation in which he could be seen as a great threat to the
Boy-Who-Lived and the Ministry would agree to send more Dementors from
Azkaban to capture him.

But Albus did not know when he would win, and the pressure to do
something more than this was growing greater.

Albus put the regrets away again, and wondered what wizards did who had
never learned that ability.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Harry wasn't surprised that Draco accompanied him to breakfast. The
spider attack and the nightmare in early February had obviously
frightened him. But since it was now a Sunday at the beginning of March,
Harry felt a bit justified in turning around and confronting him.

``Draco,'' he said.

Draco looked at him. ``What?''

``I'm going to the Owlery,'' Harry pointed out.

``Yes,'' said Draco, and looked at him.

``You don't need to accompany me there,'' said Harry. ``It's the
\emph{Owlery.} People don't lurk up there waiting to ambush other
people. It would happen in the dungeons if it would happen anywhere at
all.''

Of course, his internal history book promptly reminded him of some times
during the First War against Voldemort and the war against Grindelwald
when people had indeed been ambushed in Owleries. And Draco was shaking
his head already. ``You need someone with you at all times,'' he said.

``You trust me to be in Snape's office and Divination class alone,''
said Harry.

``I trust Snape,'' said Draco, and leaned casually against the wall.
``And I have people I've talked to who are in Divination and are keeping
an eye on you.''

Harry blinked. ``Who?''

Draco just smiled at him.

``I'm feeling a bit \emph{crowded},'' said Harry, after wondering who it
could be and coming up with nothing. ``Please, Draco, I'd like some time
alone to send this letter off.'' He gestured with the small bundle,
wrapped in silk, that he held.

``You're sending it to my father,'' said Draco. ``I should be able to
watch, I think.''

Harry rolled his eyes and set off again. It wasn't worth arguing over.
Besides, he didn't have the time. He had hesitated in sending the next
truce-gift to Lucius as it was, and now it would barely get there in
time for Lucius to choose the next gift and reply by vernal equinox. And
right after he sent the letter off, then he was going to slip away from
Draco, whether his friend liked it or not, and find Connor.

He kept trying to convince his brother of the truth. Each time, it
escalated into punches, and the last time, Connor had drawn his wand.
Harry knew he could have pinned his brother in place and forced him to
listen with magic, even sent the truth driving into his mind; Snape was
teaching him Legilimency.

That was exactly why he broke the confrontations off when he did. He
would not compel Connor, not in any way. His brother had to listen
freely.

They arrived in the Owlery to a welcome of coos and hoots and shifting
on perches. Harry held his arm up, and Hedwig stooped down to him before
he could call for her. Harry blinked, then shrugged and attached the
bundle carefully to her leg.

``Lucius Malfoy, at Malfoy Manor,'' he told her, and fed her a bit of
pastry he'd saved from breakfast.

Hedwig ate it delicately, slid a strand of his hair through her beak,
and then rose and swooped through the window. Harry watched her go with
narrowed eyes. When he concentrated, he thought he could see a binding
that trailed her, or perhaps which she flew along, anchored to the
Owlery's stones.

``What was in that?'' Draco asked, startling him out of his daze. Harry
blinked and shook his head. A faint headache from returning so soon to
normal sight plagued him. At least it was better than the headache from
the nightmares---which had, admittedly, lessened since his dream about
the rat and the dog, so that he dreamed only of the circle of closing
shadows.

``A stone I enchanted so that your father could break my neck if he
crushed it,'' Harry answered, and turned towards the stairs.

Draco's hand on his arm jerked him to a halt. Surprised, Harry turned
and found Draco staring at him, wild-eyed and angry.

``\emph{What}?'' He packed an awful lot of emotion in that one word, Harry
thought dryly. He would have to get Draco to show him how he had done
it.

Harry shrugged, trying to remove the tight grip. It just got tighter.
``He gave me a branch that could break his neck if I broke it,'' said
Harry. ``I couldn't respond in less than kind.''

``Yes, you \emph{could},'' said Draco, looking as if he didn't know
whether to be angrier with Harry or Lucius.

``No, I really couldn't,'' Harry said, and lifted his chin to look Draco
directly in the eye. ``The truce doesn't work that way, Draco. He knew
how vulnerable he was making himself when he gave me the branch, but he
also knew I would give him a vulnerability back.''

``What's his next gift going to be?''

``I don't know,'' Harry answered calmly. ``This is the part of the truce
where the one who initiated it gets to choose the gift, and I just have
to make an acceptable answer. I get to choose my own midsummer gift,
though.''

Draco opened his mouth to say something else, but two things interrupted
them at that moment: an owl gliding through the window and heading for
Harry, and a cough from the doorway. Harry glanced past Draco's shoulder
and saw Ron waiting there, looking a bit red in the face.

Harry said, ``Just a minute, Ron,'' and took the letter from the owl's
leg. It was a snort note only, without the Ministry seal, which didn't
tell him who it was from until he'd opened it.

\emph{Dear Mr. Potter:}

\emph{What you ask of me would be most unwise.}

\emph{Rufus Scrimgeour.}

Harry frowned and crumpled the paper in his fist. \emph{It was unwise to
ask Scrimgeour to try and arrange to have Lupin as Connor's guardian?
Why?}

But he knew the Auror was unlikely to give him answers with further
pestering, if this was all he had sent, and Harry owed him too much to
pester.

That left him with almost no choice, again. Dumbledore would have been
more suitable than either Lily or Sirius, and Harry had the most
realistic chance of getting the Ministry to agree to the Headmaster, but
Dumbledore had named his price for the guardianship, and Harry \emph{was
not} going back under the phoenix web. James returned everyone's letters
unopened. Lupin was ``unwise.'' Snape had developed a hatred for Connor
apparently almost as great as his hatred for Sirius, and Lily and Sirius
would both fight the choice of McGonagall.

\emph{I suppose I don't have any other choice but to ask her, though,}
Harry thought, dismally.

Ron coughed again.

``What do you \emph{want}, Weasley?'' Draco asked. ``Come to Transfigure
owl pellets into Galleons? Or perhaps this is the place that you do your
laundry?'' His gaze took in Ron's worn robes with spectacular contempt.

Ron turned red, but spoke to Harry instead of Draco. ``I have a message
for you from Connor,'' he said.

Harry stared blankly at him. ``A message?''

``Too good to speak to his own brother, is he?'' Draco asked with a
sneer.

``Shut up, Malfoy, it's not like that,'' Ron snapped at him. ``This is a
pureblood thing.'' He glanced uncomfortably at Harry. ``I suggested that
he try it, and, well, he said he'd think about it. Now he's actually
done it.'' He came forward and placed a small scroll in Harry's hand.

Harry glanced up at Ron as he unrolled the parchment. ``You don't want
to tell me what the prophecy was, do you, Ron?'' he asked, the same
question he'd asked every time he saw the other boy since that day in
Trelawney's Tower. He'd overheard Ron and Connor discussing the prophecy
in hushed tones, and knew the other boy had indeed remembered it.

Ron's face turned even redder. ``I'm not a snitch, Harry,'' he said,
with a kind of quiet dignity in his voice. ``And I'm loyal to my
friends.''

Harry sighed. He suspected he wasn't going to get the truth out of Ron
short of reading it from his mind or compelling him to say it. And both
of those smacked of slavery to him.

He read the parchment, and blinked.

\emph{Meet me on the vernal equinox at sunset, in the Owlery. Do not
approach me again before then. Connor Potter.}

Harry let out a long, slow breath. Vernal equinox, when the winter
turned to spring, and the day and night were exactly as long as each
other. And sunset, a time of equal balance between dark and light.

This particular time and date had been used for reconciliation rituals
almost since the beginning of pureblood culture.

Harry could feel himself smiling as he put the parchment in his pocket.
``Tell him I'll be there,'' he told Ron, whom he now realized was
fulfilling the formal role of messenger.

Ron nodded. ``I'll tell him.'' He gave Harry a little bow, then turned
and left.

Draco opened his mouth and said something sneering and disdainful about
Connor or Ron or both, no doubt. Harry ignored him. His heart was
beating, hard, with cautious hope.

He might be able to reconcile with his brother. He might.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


At dinner the evening of the distasteful encounter with Weasley, Draco
leaned back and scowled across the Great Hall at the chattering
Gryffindor table.

Connor was the center of them, the prat. He wasn't at all \emph{subtle}
about it, either, which made Draco think he was rather missing the point
of power. His mother and father had taught him all about that---his
father with explicit lessons, his mother by living it. A Malfoy didn't
just walk around proclaiming that he was powerful. It had no class, and
it made other wizards more likely to put their backs up. Besides, it
wouldn't work with Slytherins, with Ravenclaws, even with some
Hufflepuffs, particularly the cleverer ones like Smith.

But it worked with Gryffindors, and there was a certain raw strength in
the way that Harry's brother marshaled them. They knew he was having
private lessons with Harry's mutt of a godfather, and they knew that he
had some special secret magical gift, and they knew that something
terrible had happened to his mother. Add the lingering mystique of the
Boy-Who-Lived, and that won him sympathy and admiration in almost equal
amounts. It was a rare Gryffindor who managed to resist a combination of
glorymongering and pity-slobbering.

Draco narrowed his eyes with dislike as he watched the Patil girl say
something to Connor. Connor said something back, and the Patil girl
burst into giggles. Connor leaned back and made another observation,
looking hard at the Slytherin table, and \emph{everyone} started
laughing, except Granger, who was obviously trying hard to concentrate
on her book.

Draco turned and looked at Harry, and shook his head. The twins were
hardly comparable. Harry didn't have to brag about his terrible tragic
past or his power. He ate, he slept, he studied, he did homework, he
walked around, he plotted an awful lot (at least according to his
clock), and he made efforts to reconcile with prats who \emph{obviously}
didn't deserve them.

And he turned heads.

Power rippled out from him slowly and subtly, lapping onto others,
making them think and whisper and debate, and thus inspiring other
people to think and whisper and debate. Slytherins floated nearer to
Harry bob by bob, lured by the fact that he had this magic and
\emph{wouldn't} use it to rule over them. Older students watched with
narrowed eyes, and sometimes asked probing, testing questions that Harry
answered with more honesty than he should have---except that the
strength of his magic protected him. The Slytherins who had kept secrets
from Harry last year were beginning to share them with him, forgetting
that he hadn't been raised perfectly pureblood and didn't grasp many of
the things that were instinctive to them.

Harry, the prat, continued not to notice.

Draco shook his head, and gave one more hard look at the Gryffindor
table. There was the figurehead people actually paid attention to.
Eating calmly beside Draco was the soldier who would actually change the
world.

Granger looked up and met his gaze just then. Draco raised an eyebrow.
She nodded back, confirming without words their deal that she would
watch Harry in Divination class.

Sometimes, Draco mused, it was a good thing that Harry was so oblivious
to emotional matters that concerned him. There were threats that he also
didn't think to watch for, and this way other people could protect him
without his peevish arguing.


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\newpage


Snape was in a foul enough mood to actually welcome teaching the
third-year Gryffindors and Slytherins as they tumbled into class that
second week of March. Anything was better than the fifth-year class and
the Weasley twins.

They had varied the Eternal Repair Potion in a way that Snape
\emph{still} couldn't figure out, then used it to stick their
classmates' cauldrons to the desks. No matter what spells Snape cast,
the cauldrons remained stuck. The twins stood in front of him with wide,
innocent eyes and hidden smirks no matter how many points he took from
Gryffindor, so Snape had finally been forced to Vanish everyone's
cauldron and threaten the students into obtaining new ones by next
class. The twins had received two weeks' worth of detention, each, which
Snape had deliberately scheduled to include times that he knew the
Gryffindor Quidditch team was practicing.

The twins did not seem to care.

Snape didn't bother writing out the instructions for the Child's Game
Potion. It was a simple antidote to several of the common hexes that
children were always getting themselves hit with, for situations with
accidental magic where \emph{Finite Incantatem} wouldn't work
predictably. He simply waved his wand, conjured the instructions, and
barked, ``You will turn in a sample of the potion at the end of class.''
That made everyone scramble for their cauldrons.

Snape caught a few betrayed looks from among the third-year Slytherins.
He usually gave an introduction to the potion, at least, and explained
what it did and why they were making it; unlike every Gryffindor but
Granger, they actually listened. Snape ignored them. Life wouldn't hand
them introductions to potions, nor would opponents on the battlefield
stand still and patiently explain what every hex did. It was time they
learned to stop leaning so heavily on him.

He was self-knowing enough to admit, as he stalked among the students,
that part of his impatience came from the fifth-year class and part from
the increasingly insistent flare of the Dark Mark on his left arm, so
keen last night that he'd had to charm the limb immobile this morning.
He was angry enough not to care.

``Like this, Neville,'' Harry was explaining as Snape circled them like
a stalking werewolf. ``The lavender petals have to go in before the
beetle carapaces. Do you know why?''

Longbottom worried at his lip for a moment, and then his eyes lit up.
``Because the petals make the potion smooth and ready to receive the
carapaces?''

``Exactly,'' said Harry, so warmly that Longbottom flushed. Then he
caught Snape's eye and paled.

Harry looked up, too. Snape scowled at him. Harry gazed calmly back, not
at all intimidated. ``Our potion isn't quite ready yet, sir,'' he said.

Snape noted to himself that he would have to find Harry a different
partner than Longbottom soon. Longbottom had improved out of all
recognition, and it was time that he, just like all the others, learned
to stand on his own. Besides, Harry could more productively lend his
knowledge among the other Slytherins. Crabbe was starting to slip badly
enough that Snape soon wouldn't be able to bring himself to ignore it.

``I can see that, Potter,'' he said. ``When do you think it will be
ready?''

Harry turned his head to look at the directions on the board. ``An hour
from this point forward, sir,'' he said.

Snape sneered. ``Then see that you brew it, Mr. Potter, instead of
talking to me.'' He swept away. He could feel Harry's eyes on his back,
\emph{still} not intimidated. The boy had shown more tendency to argue
with him this week about what Snape thought they should practice in
their private lessons, as well as how often he should be allowed out of
Hogwarts.

\emph{That will have to be corrected,} Snape thought, even as he turned
to vent his anger on a deserving target.

Connor Potter was partnered with Ron Weasley; they always worked
together, unless Snape assigned one of them elsewhere. Currently, they
were arguing in heated whispers about whether to add the lavender petals
completely crushed, as the directions clearly called for, or in large
shreds, because that took less time. Snape wondered what cruel whim of
fate had sent him students unable to follow simple directions.

The Potter brat glanced up as Snape approached, and then narrowed his
eyes and sneered. The look had Black stamped all over it. It was the
same look he was always giving Harry whenever they passed in the
corridors. Snape considered the brat a waste of time, beyond hope of
redemption, and did not know why his ward continued to try and redeem
him anyway, against Snape's explicit advice. That, combined with how
much he resembled Black now, gave Snape all the excuse he needed to lay
waste to the Potter brat's confidence.

``Mr. Potter,'' he said, and looked down into the potion. It was, of
course, congealing, as neither Potter nor Weasley had thought to
continue stirring it while they talked. ``Pray tell me, do you intend to
have the lumps in your potion large enough to injure whoever swallows
it?''

Potter's glare intensified, but he said nothing. Instead, he lifted a
hand to rub at his head. No, Snape thought, since he had become used to
watching for the gesture with Harry, at his forehead.

A drop of blood welled from the heart-shaped scar, just behind his
rubbing fingers.

Snape stared in fascination as the drop trickled down the scar and
started to fall, and then moved a few precise steps backward.

The blood fell into the cauldron, and caused a prompt explosion of
noxious fumes. Snape waited until Potter and Weasley had each got a good
lungful before he caged the fumes in the air with a few sweeps of his
wand and then Vanished them. He nodded to Granger.

``Accompany them to the hospital wing, Miss Granger. I will be spending
time with students who are not so stupid as to disdain knowledge
offered,'' Snape drawled, and moved back towards the Slytherin side of
the room, feeling immensely better.

Of course, he did have to consider what it meant that Connor Potter was
bleeding from a supposedly Voldemort-inflicted scar, much as Harry
Potter was.

\emph{Nothing significant, I hope,} he thought. \emph{If that brat is
truly the savior of the wizarding world, then we might as well hand
ourselves over to the Dark Lord right now.}


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Minerva had to admit, as she checked to make sure that the teacups were
in place on the desk and that she was sitting in a straight, upright
posture, that she was nervous. She had never done anything like this
before.

Oh, there were some students she might have considered it for, but that
was a different thing than actually doing it. And it was far different
than doing it at the request of the student's brother.

A prompt knock sounded on the door, and Minerva let out her breath.
``Come in,'' she called.

Connor peered around the door at her. Minerva eyed him. Harry was right.
He did need someone to intervene. He might smile more brightly than
ever, but his eyes were shadowed, and he looked as though he wasn't
getting much sleep. He absently rubbed at his forehead and that famous
scar as he shuffled across the room and slouched into the chair in front
of her desk.

Minerva indicated the teacups on her desk. ``Would you like some tea,
Mr. Potter?''

He stared at her, then sat up in the chair. ``Just tell me what this is
about, please, Professor McGonagall,'' he said. ``I thought we were
going to discuss my Transfiguration project, not\ldots{}'' He trailed
off and waited.

Minerva sighed and folded her hands in front of her. ``I think that you
need a different adult to look after you, Connor,'' she said, dropping
the surname that might remind him of his family and distance him from
her. ``I know that Sirius and your mother are doing their best, but your
mother is, obviously, deprived of magic and thus of much meaningful
participation in our world. And Sirius is\ldots{}unstable.''

``He hasn't been for weeks!'' Connor snapped.

``Yes, well.'' Minerva had once believed that it was impossible to think
that Sirius Black really meant harm. That he didn't mean harm was the
whole trouble, of course; when something bad did happen as a result of
his pranks, he only had to wink and grin and look a bit contrite, and he
was excused. But now, she was not sure. ``That does not mean I'm not
concerned over your future, Connor.''

Connor's eyes narrowed, and an odd expression came onto his face.
Minerva would have said it was Slytherin, if she didn't believe that the
boy despised Slytherins with all his heart and would never look like
one.

\emph{Willingly}, she added in her head.

``You really think that Mum can't take care of me without magic,
Professor?'' he asked.

``I think that she has trouble enough taking care of herself,'' said
Minerva quietly. When she had asked for more details about Lily Potter,
Albus had willingly provided them, especially when she explained that
she meant to comfort Connor Potter. He seemed to believe he was luring
her back to his side. Minerva was letting him think that. ``And I know
that you are at a point in your magical education when you will need to
keep learning even over the summer. And given who you are, Mr. Potter,
you have\ldots{}well, more threats than most to worry about.''

``Voldemort's tried to kill me three times now,'' said Connor. ``I
escaped each time. And Sirius is teaching me now, and Mum can still
teach me, even if she can't lift her wand and show me herself.'' A spasm
passed over his face, something Minerva thought was anger or grief or
pain. ``Harry made sure she couldn't,'' he whispered.

Minerva leaned forward. ``I am offering to train you, Connor,'' she
said. ``You could live at Hogwarts over the summer while you learned.''

Connor blinked at her for a moment.

Then he shook his head.

Minerva frowned. ``Is something wrong, Mr. Potter?'' She cursed herself
for the slip the next moment, as the boy's face became even more closed.

``You don't trust Sirius or my mum,'' he said softly. ``And you didn't
suggest my father or Remus, even though you could have. And you didn't
suggest the Headmaster, who would be better at training me than anyone
else, and maybe have some time during the summer, too.'' He looked her
straight in the eye. ``Please tell me. Did Harry put you up to this?''

``Yes,'' said Minerva, and then blinked, one hand rising to touch her
mouth. She hadn't meant to say that. It seemed extremely odd that she
had.

``Thank you,'' said Connor, and then slipped out of his chair and made
for the door.

Minerva called after him. ``Please, Mr. Potter, tell me that you'll
consider it.''

Connor paused and glanced over his shoulder. His face had gone quiet,
his eyes introspective. He looked more like Harry in that moment than
Minerva had ever seen him look.

``I'm sorry, Professor,'' he said quietly. ``I can't. My mother lost a
son, and Sirius lost a godson. I can't make up for Harry, but I don't
want to make them lose me, too.''

He shut the door gently behind him.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Remus forced himself to stop pacing. He had the Gryffindor and
Hufflepuff third-years arriving for their Defense Against the Dark Arts
class in five minutes. He couldn't look worried to death.

But he also couldn't stop himself from picking up the letter that lay on
the desk and reading it again.

\emph{Dear Remus:}

\emph{I have no reason to think that you'll read this once you recognize
my handwriting, but I wanted to reassure you that I did get your letter.
And I'm responding to you where I didn't respond to anyone else because
I think you'll understand. Sometimes we Marauders take a long time to
make up our minds. You and I were always the longest.}

\emph{I'm safe. I'm at Lux Aeterna right now, just staring around me,
and I'm} thinking. \emph{It feels like years since I thought. It feels
like sweeping cobwebs out of my mind. It feels like looking on the
consequences and evaluating them. All of them.}

\emph{And that's what I'm doing, Remus. Two and a half months of
thinking, and I still can't make it all come straight in my mind. Of
course, I have thirteen years of mistakes to think over and set to
rights. Peter and Albus and the prophecy and giving up my position as an
Auror and Connor and Harry and Lily.}

\emph{Lily.}

\emph{It probably doesn't shock you to know that I still love her,
Remus. You were always good with things like that. And I always felt
like I could talk to you about anything.}

\emph{But not this time. Not everything. This is something I have to
work out on my own, if I'm ever going to be the father---and the
husband---I should have been. If I'm ever going to be the man I should
have been, I think on the bad days.}

\emph{Enough of this self-indulgent whining! Keep my boys safe if you
can, Remus, and watch over Sirius. I did read one of his letters, and I
know that his mind is safer now than it's been in a year, thank Merlin
and thank Dumbledore (even though I can't stop thinking awful things
about him, either).}

\emph{I'll be there, if I can, at the end of the year.}

\emph{Mischief managed,}

\emph{James.}

Remus let out a sharp breath, and then really did fold the letter and
put it away again when the students came into the room. He would need
all his concentration to deal with this class. Today was their first
practical lesson, after months of theory; Quirrell and Lockhart had left
the class in such a shameful state that Remus had felt compelled to
start with that first.

Besides, any teacher, Remus was fervently convinced, would need all his
or her concentration to deal with having Hermione Granger and Zacharias
Smith in the same class.

He met their gazes with a calm smile as they settled into their seats,
did a mental tally of the roll---everyone was there---and asked, ``What
was the last thing you remember me telling you about Dark creatures?''

Zacharias's and Hermione's hands were in the air at once, but Hermione's
was marginally faster. Remus nodded at her. ``Yes, Miss Granger?''

``That some of the Dark creatures feed on the fear they cause,''
Hermione said. She didn't only imitate his words, but also the
intonation with which he'd delivered them. Remus wondered if she
realized she did that with all her professors. Hearing Severus's
deliberate pauses and slicing tones filtered through her voice was
really quite startling. ``Dementors, for example,'' she added, and that
was more her own voice.

``Very good, Miss Granger,'' Remus said, with a nod. ``Five points to
Gryffindor.''

``But you also said that we were going to face a creature that caused
fear today,'' Zacharias cut in, using all his trained pureblood poise to
try and make himself look taller than Hermione. ``And I don't think that
you would bring a Dementor into the school, Professor. Is it a
boggart?''

``Five points to Hufflepuff,'' said Remus. He sighed as he noted
Hermione glaring at Zacharias, and Zacharias glaring right back.
\emph{At least we will be practicing magic in a moment, and they will
need to be using spells, so they can't compete with each other at the
questions.} ``Yes, indeed, Mr. Smith.'' He turned and walked back to the
edge of the desk, gesturing with his wand to float out the heavy trunk
he'd brought from his rooms. The trunk bucked as he set it down. More
than one student flinched.

``A boggart will take the form of what you most fear,'' he informed his
class. Everyone was paying attention now, he noted, and none of them
looked ready to interrupt. ``That is why they are considered Dark
creatures; they pull emotions from their victims' minds, and, as Miss
Granger noted, they do feed on them. The incantation to defeat a boggart
is \emph{Riddikulus}. It draws on laughter, an opposing emotion to the
fear that boggarts try to invoke, and it requires the caster to use
force of will, to resist the compulsion trying to overtake his or her
freedom. And, of course, once others begin laughing, a boggart is done
for.'' He measured the class with his eyes, looking past both the most
eager---Hermione---and the most nervous---Neville. Finally, he nodded to
Justin. ``Mr. Finch-Fletchley. If you will come forward?''

Justin stood with a small swallow and came forward, his wand held out.
``What was the spell, Professor?'' he asked.

``\emph{Riddikulus,}'' Remus supplied with a smile.

Justin repeated it to himself a few times, then nodded. ``I'm ready,
Professor,'' he said.

Remus cast \emph{Alohomora} on the trunk, and stepped out of the way as
the boggart burst free, a confused shape for a moment as it tried to
pick out fears from the minds of the people around it. Then it focused
on Justin, and abruptly became an enormous dog, with serrated teeth so
long they overedged its jaw. Remus blinked, and hoped that Justin never
faced Sirius in his Animagus form.

The boggart strode forward, snarling. Justin shivered and seemed to have
trouble getting his wand up. His face had gone pasty white.

``Something that amuses you!'' Remus called, ready to wave his wand and
banish the thing if the challenge proved to be too much for Justin.

But Justin caught his breath, waved his wand, and shouted,
``\emph{Riddikulus!}'' In the next moment, a baby bonnet appeared on the
dog's head, and a tiny kitten was sitting on its neck, mewing and
swatting at the dog's mouth to get its attention. The hound whirled
about, seemingly confused, and the kitten clung on, hissing and
spitting.

The class burst into laughter, and Remus nodded. ``Well done, Mr.
Finch-Fletchley!'' He flicked his eyes to the person immediately behind
him. ``Mr. Potter?''

Connor stood up and came forward. Remus had to admit to some curiosity
as to what form his boggart would take.

The hound burst apart into a cloud of smoke, and then rushed forward
together into a smaller shape.

Remus felt his heart tighten painfully. Connor's boggart was Harry.

Connor was staring at his brother, or the form of his brother, with sick
terror in his eyes. The boggart-Harry pushed his glasses up on his nose
and took a step forward, aiming his wand at Connor and wearing a smile
that Remus sincerely hoped did not come from real-life experience.

Connor aimed his wand, with difficulty, and managed to whisper,
``\emph{Riddikulus}.''

It took him a few more tries, but the boggart-Harry finally tripped,
broke his glasses, and started groping around blindly. The class laughed
again---at least, most of them did. Remus noted that there was a nervous
edge to the sound, and that Hermione was scowling as though her face
would burst. Zacharias leaned back in his chair, gaze flicking around,
coolly evaluating his classmates' reaction.

\emph{At least in that they are matched,} Remus thought, heart heavy, as
he motioned Connor back and Ron forward. \emph{Since Harry's boggart,
after all, was Connor lying dead because of his failure.}

\chapter{*Chapter 34*: A Visit From
Dobby}\label{chapter-34-a-visit-from-dobby}

Um. Cliffhanger at the end of this one, too. Sorry about that.

\textbf{Chapter Twenty-Nine: A Visit From Dobby}

Harry opened his eyes slowly. He knew something was poking him, but he
didn't immediately know what it was. It felt like a long, narrow finger,
and the eyes peering down at him from above looked like house elf eyes.
But why would they be? House elves never came and woke students in the
middle of the night, and it was the middle of the night now. In the
morning, Harry had to receive Lucius's vernal equinox gift. At sunset,
he had to face his brother. He wanted to get all the rest he could
before then.

But then he realized the house elf was Dobby, and the fogs of sleep
cleared from his mind. He sat up, keeping his voice low. ``What's the
matter, Dobby? Did something happen to Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy?''

Dobby shook his head so hard his ears flopped. His eyes were enormous,
and seemed to glow, Harry thought. ``No, Dobby came for Harry Potter
sir,'' he said. ``Harry Potter sir must get up.''

``Did something happen to Draco, then?'' Harry asked, as he reached for
his glasses. He managed to slip them on and listen to the noises behind
the curtains at the same time. He could hear nothing but the familiar
breathing of his roommates. Draco sounded deeply asleep.

``No,'' Dobby whispered, and then gestured. Harry looked. Fawkes sat on
the end of his bed, not asleep as usual, but watching him with bright,
grave eyes. He inclined his head slightly when Harry stared back at him,
and crooned.

``Harry Potter must come walk with Dobby and Fawkes,'' Dobby translated.
``We have something to show you.''

Puzzled but obedient, Harry nodded. ``Let me get a cloak on. If we're
going outside, then I'll need it.''

Dobby said nothing to contradict that, so Harry ghosted around his bed
and to his trunk. He listened intently to the breathing around him as he
got the cloak out and slung it around his shoulders. Greg, Vince,
Blaise, and Draco seemed convinced that nothing was happening.

Harry winced when he thought of what Draco and Snape would say about
this outing, but it wasn't as though he would be unsafe with Fawkes. He
was sure one of them would have said something about the phoenix
accompanying him as an approved guardian, if only they had thought of
it.

Thus having satisfied his conscience, Harry turned around. He assumed
they would walk out of the room, but Dobby firmly grasped his hand.

``Harry Potter sir must hold tight,'' he said.

Harry had barely nodded when they appeared to leap sideways into the air
and stand still at the same time. Or perhaps everything \emph{else} had
moved around them, Harry thought, impossible as that was. He used the
thought to keep his dinner down. His brains and his stomach violently
sloshed against the insides of their respective containers. He blinked
when he was able to see again, and stared around at the place that Dobby
had brought him, probably by house elf Apparition.

It was familiar, but he still couldn't get a grasp on it until Fawkes
burst into being above them and illuminated it with his flames. Then
Harry recognized the clearing where he had once bargained with centaurs
for Draco's life. He stamped his feet and shivered. It was colder now
than it had been when he made that bargain, and slushy snow still
huddled sullenly in the shelter of the bare trees, spring tomorrow or
not. The ground felt like iron, like nothing alive.

``Harry Potter must be seeing,'' said Dobby in his squeaky voice. ``And
this is the best place to see.'' He looked expectantly at Harry.

``What do you want me to see?'' Harry looked around again. There were
the large stones the centaurs had used to form their impromptu gallows
for Draco, and the path that dipped over the crest of the hill with the
gallows on it and then continued on. He saw no waiting centaur, no
impossible tree, nothing that he thought a house elf and a phoenix might
have taken him out of Hogwarts to show him.

Fawkes crooned, and Dobby ready translated. ``Harry Potter sir is to see
what he saw in the journey with Fawkes.''

\emph{The flames?} Harry thought, but he realized the truth in a moment.

\emph{The nets.}

He thought back to what he'd felt during the journey with Fawkes, and
immediately his emotions about the Muggle tried to rear up and attack
him. Harry breathed calmly, and subdued them with his Occlumency. He
reached back with pure memory instead, thinking of the emotions pinned
between glass panels like the butterfly collection the Muggle had
described having once. He had always had a good memory, letting him
retain information about spells and history and Connor's enemies and
pureblood dances.

When he felt sure that he was as raw, as open to seeing another world
\emph{behind} the wizarding world, he glanced up.

He stared. He had not expected to see so many different webs. They were
the gold of the phoenix web in places---and Harry felt the shattered
remnants of the one in his mind stir briefly, as though feeling the
kinship---but a great, intricate pattern at the center of all them shone
a subtle, heartbreaking silver, and there were spiky patterns of dark
green that made Harry want to hiss. He thought those probably bound
magical snakes. He turned around slowly, and watched the webs soar
around him. It was like standing in the center of a snowflake, if
snowflakes shone like rainbows and with more colors than had appeared in
any rainbow.

``What are they?'' he whispered.

Fawkes crooned, and Dobby spoke in a subdued tone. ``What Harry Potter
saw once before. The nets that bind us.''

Harry turned, squinting hard at Dobby, and saw the net that circled
around him, a bright ice-blue. It ran away towards Malfoy Manor in the
distance. He cocked his head. ``They bind the house elves into
service?''

``Yes,'' Dobby hissed, and for a moment, he looked feral, almost
frightening. Harry thought about the magic of house elves, who could
Apparate even in areas, like Hogwarts, that human wizards could not, and
who didn't need wands, and wondered if this was what the wizards who
bound them had seen. But Dobby calmed in a moment and peered mournfully
at Harry. ``And worse than service. They make elves like the service.''
He clapped his hand over his mouth then and wailed through his fingers,
something about being a bad elf.

Harry nodded grimly. \emph{Genius, really. It means they won't try to
lift the web themselves.} He turned back to the maze of nets again and
waved a hand. ``And these?''

``Different magical creatures,'' said Dobby, and pointed to the silver
web. ``The unicorns.''

``Unicorns?'' Harry echoed blankly. ``What did they ever do to
wizards?'' He could understand the nets being used on dangerous
creatures like giants or dragons, and of course house elves lived among
wizards and made their lives easier, but binding unicorns seemed
pointless.

``They were too beautiful,'' said Dobby.

Harry ground his teeth. ``And this one?'' he said, squinting at a dim
blue web he could barely see, the color of the sky at sunset.

``Centaurs,'' said Dobby. ``To prevent them from showing themselves to
Muggles, to prevent them from harming wizards, to prevent them from
using much of their own magic.'' He shrugged apologetically. ``Dobby
only knows some of the effects. Dobby is sorry. He is not studied in
history.''

``Do all house elves know about this?'' Harry felt a little sick. So
easily this could have been set to rights in the past, perhaps, by any
powerful wizard, if only they had thought to ask the house elves. He
wondered if Dumbledore knew, and if he would really leave the webs in
place if he knew.

\emph{Well, he used one on me. Probably, the answer is yes.}

``Yes,'' said Dobby. ``Elves were the first ones bound, Harry Potter
sir.'' For the first time, Harry noticed how the elf gave a little jerk
when he added the title. In a human, Harry would have called it a flinch
of disgust. ``Elves can see the other webs. Elves know what they do.''

``But you can't rebel,'' Harry surmised.

``Only bad elves rebel,'' said Dobby, and then put a hand over his mouth
again and gave Harry an appealing look from wide eyes.

Harry took a deep breath to calm himself down. ``And you want me to
unbind the webs and set you free?'' he asked.

``It is not that simple, Harry Potter sir,'' Dobby squeaked.

\emph{Of course not,} Harry thought, and waited for the reason. \emph{I
think I would die of shock if anything in my life were} ever
\emph{simple.}

``Harry Potter sir can be a \emph{vates},'' said Dobby simply. ``Prophet,
singer, poet, seer.'' His words were hushed with reverence, and had the
sound, Harry thought, of a litany, a chant, a mantra. ``Harry Potter can
see ways for us out of the webs. And he can do it while respecting free
will.'' He waited, eyeing Harry expectantly.

Harry grasped the truth soon enough. ``I have to set you free without
trampling the free will of anyone else,'' he said. ``And that includes
the wizards who benefit from having you bound and wouldn't want you to
go free.''

Dobby bobbed his head, and one of his ears hit him in the eye. ``Now
Harry Potter sir sees,'' he said, and clapped his hands.

Fawkes flew to Harry's shoulder and settled, his body a warm presence
near Harry's right cheek. Harry stroked his back, neck to tail, without
really thinking about it. He was thinking fiercely on what they had told
him instead.

\emph{I have the ability to compel other people. It might be easy to
charm or enchant other wizards into releasing the magical creatures. But
then I would never forgive myself. And most of the wizards aren't the
ones who set the webs. And I have no idea what releasing the webs would
do. Would the house elves turn on them---}

Us, \emph{Harry. I benefit from this too. It's not like I've never eaten
food that house elves cook, and I depend on them to clean my room and my
clothes and my sheets.}

Harry sighed. \emph{I bet it really is simpler, being Dark. You just do
whatever you want to do without thinking of the consequences to others,
and if someone complains, then you compel them again. Or you could be a
Light Lord and think you were doing good, and not care about what others
thought, because obviously they aren't seeing clearly if they disagree
with you. You're good.}

\emph{No wonder that Starborn said so many Light and Dark Lords went
insane or gave up on this. How am I going to} do \emph{it?}

To take his mind off the seeming impossibility of his task, he asked
Dobby, ``What made you think that I might be a \emph{vates?} My brother
found some information in a book about goblins that made it sound as
though he were one.'' Only it didn't sound much like it, now that Harry
thought it over. Could a \emph{vates} ever use compulsion, much less as
naturally and freely as Connor did? If the goblins were bound as
well---and Harry suspected they were---then would they really only
follow a wizard, or would they be compelled to do so by the nets they
wore and nothing else?

``Connor Potter sir is not a \emph{vates},'' said Dobby. If a house elf
could snarl, Harry thought, Dobby would be doing so. ``Connor Potter sir
is a compeller, and happy to be so. A \emph{vates} can never compel. He
cannot compel wizards. He cannot compel house elves. He cannot compel
centaurs. He cannot compel phoenixes.''

Harry shook his head. ``Then I can't be one, either. I can compel
people, and I've done it.''

``But Harry Potter sir is sorry,'' said Dobby promptly. ``And Harry
Potter sir did not mean to. And Harry Potter sir is watching out, now,
and watching how his will impacts on other people.''

Harry blinked. It was true that he was training with Snape to try and
find the limits of his odd compulsion, so that he could bind that part
of his magic without binding the magic itself, but he had not thought
that would qualify him for Dobby's title, even so. ``And is being sorry
enough?'' he asked quietly. ``Surely other wizards would be sorry, if
they knew about this.''

Fawkes went off into a long, complicated series of chirps and trills.
Dobby waited until the phoenix had finished before he tried to
translate. ``The \emph{vates} cannot be compelled, either. Dobby and
Fawkes could not tell Harry Potter sir what he was and what it meant
until he began to learn it for himself, for fear of shoving him down the
wrong path. To force the \emph{vates} to make a choice before his time
is to destroy the \emph{vates.} But now you have seen the nets, and
Fawkes has felt your horror at them. And a \emph{vates} must hate
compulsion with all his soul.'' Dobby nodded at him, as though to say
that that part was self-evident. Harry nodded back, though he was less
confident on that score. On the bad days, he still wanted the reassuring
security of his phoenix web, for all that he knew he would fight anyone
who tried to cast it on him again, because it would make things so much
simpler. ``Many other wizards have said they would be a \emph{vates.} But
they stumbled on the path, and decided to use compulsion to achieve
their ends, or they liked compulsion enough that they could not give it
up.'' Dobby hesitated, then added reluctantly, ``Or the magical creatures
pushed them too hard, and they ended up choosing to act as \emph{vates}
out of a sense of duty and obligation. The \emph{vates} must choose,
always. He must make decisions. He must not flinch from choices. And he
must \emph{be} free will.''

Harry let out a shaky breath. ``Is Dumbledore a \emph{vates}?'' he asked.
``My m---the Muggle who bore me once said that he made the decisions
that no one else could make, the hard decisions of sacrifice and war.''

``Dumbledore could have been a \emph{vates,}'' Dobby said. ``But he
compelled others, and told himself it was well.''

\emph{So I won't be able to lie to myself, either, if I do this,} Harry
thought. \emph{I will have to be absolutely honest. I will have to know
when I might make excuses for my shortcomings, when I'm doing things
just because they're easy and not because they're right, when I'm
protesting too much and taking} too \emph{much blame on myself. I'll
have to read myself out loud to myself all the time, with never a
lapse.}

It sounded, Harry had to admit to himself, really fucking terrifying.

\emph{And I can't do it,} he realized with a sigh. \emph{I still lie to
myself about plenty of things. Draco and Snape say so, all the time, and
I suppose they would know better than I would.}

He explained that to Dobby, who nodded as he listened. Under the light
of phoenix fire, Harry found himself thinking, the house elf looked
neither silly nor stupid. There was a light of his own in his eyes, one
that Harry thought would go out when he finished his explanation. But
Dobby only grinned up at him.

``A \emph{vates} is not being,'' he said. ``A \emph{vates} is not a
\emph{vates} only once, and then never again. A \emph{vates} chooses
again and again every day of his life, and makes some wrong choices, but
always comes back to the right path.''

``It's a thorny path,'' Harry muttered.

Fawkes crooned at him.

``Fawkes says that there are roses among the thorns.'' Dobby had his
hands clasped in front of him. ``Fawkes says that Harry Potter sir must
not choose to help elves and phoenixes and others out of duty, but only
because he wants to. And it must be a choice. Harry Potter is not all of
a \emph{vates} right now. He may be in the future.'' He made a gesture at
Harry. ``But first he must stop lying, as he said, and he must be free
of his own webs.''

Surprised, Harry touched his temple. ``Do you mean the phoenix web?''

``And others,'' said Dobby, pointing insistently at Harry.

Startled, Harry looked down. He hadn't noticed the webs cutting through
his own body, seeming to run in and out of, and tangle with, the ones in
the Forbidden Forest beyond. He didn't recognize them. They were a deep,
sullen red, not a color the phoenix web had achieved even in the
fullness of its power. He rested a hand on one, and felt a faint
sensation of heat, but nothing else. ``What are they?'' he asked.

``Barriers that Harry Potter sir has put on himself,'' Dobby said,
sounding sad. ``Barriers that he has not chosen, barriers that he has
not thought about. Barriers of fear.'' He met Harry's eyes. ``Barriers
that Harry Potter has reinforced with his magic, because he cannot bear
the thought of certain things being true.''

Harry closed his eyes and turned his head away. It was true that there
were things he did not want to think about. But to hear that he had used
his magic on himself, and that he hadn't even been aware of it\ldots{}

It stunned him.

He took a deep breath, and asked another question that had been drifting
in the back of his head since Dobby began to explain what a \emph{vates}
was. ``Does this have to be the most important thing in the world to me,
once I begin to do it?''

``Not \emph{has} to,'' said Dobby. ``Never \emph{must,} or \emph{has to},
or \emph{compelled to be.} Only want and will.''

Harry nodded. ``But a \emph{vates} concentrating on other duties wouldn't
be one that you wanted as your unbinder,'' he said.

Dobby shook his head.

Harry sighed and ran a hand through his hair. ``Then I don't see how I
can be. You know how much of my focus goes to my brother. He's the most
important thing in the world to me, Dobby. I would care more about him
than others. I would sacrifice some of the magical creatures for his
safety and happiness.'' He wondered if this was being honest with
himself. \emph{Honesty often involves a good deal of ugliness,} he
thought, memories of the incident with the Muggle once again filling his
mind. ``I love him too much. I'm sorry. I don't think I would make a very
good \emph{vates.}''

He offered a weak smile and opened his eyes. He almost thought Dobby
would be gone in his disappointment, and Fawkes, too. But the phoenix
remained, a warm, content presence on his shoulder, and Dobby still
stared at him intently.

``Becoming,'' said Dobby. ``Harry Potter sir can become the \emph{vates},
even if he is not that right now. He can change. Unless he thinks that
he will never change?''

Harry shuddered. ``After everything that's happened since first year, I
can't say that,'' he muttered. ``But are you sure that you want to wait
around for me to, possibly, become the unbinder that you need so much?
You could be wasting a lot of time on me, when someone else would be a
better candidate.''

``There are no better candidates,'' said Dobby imperiously. ``Harry
Potter sir is the best since Dumbledore failed us.'' He gave a brief
shudder of his own and pulled on his ears. ``And the D-Dark Lord was
never an option.''

Harry tilted his head. ``Is it only powerful wizards? Wouldn't someone
like Connor serve you just as well, if it weren't for his liking
compulsion so much?''

``Powerful wizards,'' said Dobby.

``But we're the ones who can compel others most easily,'' said Harry.

Fawkes gave a twist of his neck and a bubbling trill that ran up and
down the scale. Dobby gave Harry a smile as he translated. ``Fawkes knows
this. We all know this. The power that makes Harry Potter sir able to be
\emph{vates} is what makes him dangerous. And it keeps him safe from
others. Others cannot compel Harry Potter.''

``They can try,'' muttered Harry, thinking about Dumbledore, and Tom
Riddle's possession. Then he lapsed into thought again, while Dobby and
Fawkes watched him expectantly.

If he took this gauntlet up, so much would have to change. He would have
to think about other people as more important than Connor was. There
were some people he would have to fight against instead of forgive, he
knew, and he didn't like the thought of that. He had no idea in the
world how to free magical creatures without trampling on the free will
of wizards, and no idea how to persuade or coax wizards along without
trampling on the free will of magical creatures. And what would happen
if, say, giants or Dementors caused something harmful to happen when
they were freed? On the other and, could he really justify freeing only
some of the magical creatures, the ones that might be harmless to
wizards?

\emph{My life's never been simple, granted, but this would be the most
complex thing I've ever done. And\ldots{}I can't do it right now. My
life is still Connor. He's still the important one.}

``I can't do it right now,'' he said. Fawkes gave a prompt, impatient
chirp, and Dobby translated as promptly.

``Harry Potter sir can wait. But Harry Potter sir had not thought about
the webs since his night in the fire, had not looked for them. Dobby and
Fawkes wanted to make sure Harry Potter sir did not forget.''

Harry nodded. ``I don't see how I can forget, now,'' he said. Fawkes
uttered another croon that Dobby didn't translate, probably because he
figured there was no need for it.

``Harry Potter sir is welcome to ask Dobby questions at any time,'' said
Dobby, and bowed slightly. ``Dobby's webs are weaker than others,
because Dobby was born in an odd way, and then one of his old masters
was odd and tried to free him. So Dobby can answer questions, and come
from his masters at times to answer them.''

``Thank you, Dobby,'' Harry said. He was trying to figure out when he
might be ready to ask more questions. He had the pushing feeling that he
should try to ask them immediately, that it was important that the
magical creatures be freed at once, but if he did that, then he was not
being a \emph{vates}. Dobby had said he could not feel it as a duty. It
had to be a decision.

\emph{But then how am I} ever \emph{going to do it? Duty and sacrifice
are the ways I think of things.}

He let Dobby Apparate him back to his bed, and nodded to return his
farewell. It wasn't far from dawn, at least from the glimpse he'd got of
the sky, and that meant it wasn't worth it to try and return to sleep.
He lay with his arms folded behind his head instead, and Fawkes asleep
near the edge of the pillow.

He kept trying to imagine the wizarding world without house elves, and
couldn't do it. Then he tried to imagine it with predatory or feral
house elves instead of tame ones, and couldn't do it. Maybe that was yet
another part of the problem: if he wanted hope for the future, he would
have to learn what it looked like first. Right now, his mind was a
blank.

Harry put the thoughts away when he heard the other boys stirring. He
had other obligations to attend to today, and the first of them was
waiting for the sweep of a great horned owl's wings across the Slytherin
table.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Halfway through breakfast, Harry became aware that he wasn't the only
one awaiting the appearance of Lucius's owl. Pansy and Millicent
murmured together as they often did, but paused and waited expectantly
whenever the shadow of a post owl crossed the plates. Blaise jumped now
and then, as though he'd let his attention wander from the windows to
his food for too long. Draco just appeared tense and unhappy.

``Your father will choose the perfect gift,'' Harry reassured him, and
Draco simply looked at him.

``I know, Harry,'' he said. ``That's the problem.''

Finally, when the suspense had built almost to breaking point, Julius
came through the window. Then he took his time circling. Harry heard
mutters of agitation from around him; even some of the older Slytherins
had risen to their feet and craned their necks towards him, which made
Harry wonder when they'd taken an interest in the things a lowly
third-year did.

Julius finally hurtled down to land precisely in front of Harry. His
eyes fixed him and wouldn't let him move. The leg he thrust out with the
bundle attached to it almost scraped the back of Harry's hand with his
claws.

Harry inclined his head, losing the sensation of being a mouse, and
retrieved the bundle without looking away from Julius. The owl continued
to stare hard at him for the next moment. Then he rose and gathered
speed and power, traveling from the far end of the Hall to the windows
as though someone had thrown him from a slingshot.

The bundle was slender enough, and long enough, that Harry wondered if
it contained a wand. But he wouldn't find out until he unwrapped it, so
he did.

A blade tumbled to the table, making a dull thump as it landed. Harry
picked it up, careful not to touch the edge, or the green jewel in the
hilt. It was a knife---a skinning knife, about ten inches long. Harry
studied the edge with intent care, catching a subtle glimmer now and
then, as though the maker had put diamonds among the steel. Then he
examined the jewel.

It was in the shape of a hangman's noose.

Harry had the inkling, then, of what this was. He didn't quite dare to
look at Draco's pale face. Instead, he took Lucius's neatly folded
letter from the bundle. It was far longer than the note he'd sent with
the last vernal gift.

\emph{Mr. Potter:}

\emph{When one powerful wizard allies with another, it is often to
repair mistakes made in the past between the two of them, or between
their two families. The Malfoy family has no especial quarrel with the
Potter family, though we have always despised them. I suspect you may be
wondering why I began this truce-dance.}

\emph{I began this dance to ally with} you, \emph{Harry Potter, not your
family. As time passes by, and I observe what has become of your coward
father, your weak brother, your Mudblood of a mother, I am more sure
than ever that I have made the right decision.}

\emph{What I cannot understand is why you have taken so little justice
from your family in return for the way they have treated you. Depriving
the woman who bore you of magic hardly counts. Under the old laws, you
could have demanded her death, and the death of everyone else in your
family, as recompense. They bound you, a powerful wizard. The stronger
the magic of the wronged, the more justice he is entitled to. And you
are the most powerful wizard now living.}

Harry narrowed his eyes. He was sure that wasn't true. Dumbledore could
still overmatch him, and Voldemort's power was a fearful and awesome
thing. He wondered if Lucius was simply trying to flatter him, and, if
so, why he thought Harry would be susceptible to that particular brand
of flattery.

\emph{This knife is a way to insure that you may take justice from your
family. When you give it a name, it will listen to you. When you command
the knife by name to take those who should have loved you and did not
from you, it will sever the bonds that tie you to your family, whether
they are of affection, magic, or blood. From that moment forward, you
are free. You may use this blade to stop yourself from loving your
weakling of a brother, your coward of a father, your Mudblood of a
mother. You may use it to cut yourself from their family, and then no
force in the wizarding world, including the Ministry, will be able to
claim that you legally belong to them. And you may use it to sever
whatever bonds and limits living around them has put your magic within.}

\emph{Merry first day of spring, Mr. Potter. I eagerly await your
response, and to see what you what will do with your newfound freedom.}

\emph{Lucius Malfoy.}

Draco was leaning over his shoulder, reading the letter. His hand
tightened convulsively on Harry's elbow. Then he pulled back and stared
at him with his mouth open.

``Your father is a bastard, Draco,'' said Harry conversationally.

``You could be free, Harry,'' Draco whispered. ``And he gave you a
priceless gift. I know what that knife is. It's been in the Malfoy
family for centuries. We used it to cut ourselves free from marriage
alliances that didn't work out, when the families we'd married into
turned against us. I know that it works. I've heard the stories.
\emph{Think}, Harry! You could be free. This is the greatest gift that
he could have given you.'' Draco's face shone like the moon.

Harry glared at the knife. It shone dully at him. Harry wondered if it
was aware even now, unnamed. It felt as though it were watching him.

``I'm never going to use it,'' said Harry, and swept the knife and the
letter off the table and into his robe pockets, not caring that he
almost cut his hand with the edge. ``I don't want---that's
\emph{obscene}, Draco, that something exists which can cut those ties.''

\emph{And you want to do it. Part of you wants to do it.}

Harry acknowledged that, and stepped over the acknowledgment. Just
because he wanted to use it did not mean he would. He was very certain
on that point. The knife was obscene, and his desire to use it was
obscene. One couldn't just sever love like that.

Or perhaps he could, but that didn't mean he \emph{should.}

``But, Harry---'' Draco whined, following him.

Harry shut his ears. He was not going to listen. He had a reconciliation
with his brother to look forward to.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Step, and step, and step, and then Harry completed the climb to the
Owlery. He stood there for a moment, listening to the rustle of the
birds and the ruffle of feathers. He looked through the window, and
nodded to see the sun just touching the horizon.

Sunset, in a sky so deep a blue it looked almost green.

On the vernal equinox.

He'd kept his word, and not sought Connor out during the weeks between
the delivery of his message and the time of their meeting. It remained
to be seen if Connor would keep his side of the bargain.

``Hello, Harry,'' said Connor's voice from behind him, calm and
controlled.

Harry took a deep breath and turned to face his brother. ``Hello,
Connor.''

\chapter{*Chapter 35*: Choose, Harry}\label{chapter-35-choose-harry}

Thank you for the reviews yesterday! Just as a note, I had slight
trouble uploading today, but I will still post new chapters on my LJ
(address available in my profile) and at Skyehawke if I can't update
here.

And here we go! Ready?

\textbf{Chapter Thirty: Choose, Harry}

Harry wondered for a long moment if he should begin the conversation, or
let his brother speak. Connor seemed content to wait and let him decide,
his face turned a gentle gold by the light of sunset through the window.

Harry didn't know what his brother's main purpose in coming here was,
though---reconciliation, or something else. Given that Connor didn't
know the dances, he thought it might be something else. In the end, he
waited. \emph{Let him be in control of the situation,} he thought, his
eyes watching the way Connor's gaze darted at and then flickered away
from him. \emph{I think he needs the confidence.}

Connor finally let out a deep breath and met Harry's eyes.

``I was really angry about what you did to Mum,'' he began.

\emph{Shaking in his voice, but past tense.} Harry cocked his head.
\emph{Does that mean he has moved closer to forgiving me, after all?}

``I didn't know what you meant about a ritual.'' Connor managed to make
his voice apologetic and defensive, both at once. ``So I looked it up,
and I talked with Ron about pureblood dances.'' He wrinkled his nose.
``He told me that you could do things I never knew you could do. I don't
like most of them. But he also told me that what happened to Mum was
right. She couldn't have lost her magic unless she did something really
awful to you.''

Connor folded his arms and leaned against the wall. ``So tell me what
she did to you, Harry. I'm waiting.''

Harry let out his breath by degrees. \emph{Thank Merlin. It seems he's
willing to listen instead of punching me this time.}

``She trained me from the time I was a child, from right after
Voldemort's attack, to watch over you and guard you,'' Harry began. He'd
had time to think over how he would say this, since all his attempts to
explain before had failed, and was confident that this speech would make
the most sense to Connor. ``But my magic frightened her. When I was
four, she had Dumbledore cast a phoenix web on me.''

``She told me about it,'' said Connor. ``But it was just to keep you
from hurting other people.''

``No,'' said Harry, as gently as he could. ``It was more than that. It
was to keep me loving you, to consider your welfare before my own, to
\emph{make} me love you and care for you in ways that I wouldn't have if
not for it.''

Connor shook his head. ``But you've \emph{always} done that, Harry.
You've always protected me. Remember the troll and the Lestranges in
first year? Why did that make you want to take Mum's magic away?''

\emph{Eyes looking away from me,} Harry noted. \emph{I think that he
does have some inkling of the truth, after all, but doesn't want to
confront it.}

``I only wanted to protect you so much because of the web, Connor,'' he
said. ``And my training. Mum told me I could never have a life of my
own. I always had to put you first.''

Connor stared at him. Then he asked, as if testing it, ``No friends of
your own?''

Harry shrugged. ``I think she mentioned once that I could share your
friends. I was certainly to make myself agreeable to them, since they
would be your friends and important to you, and fulfill your needs for
companionship. But she never envisioned me having friends that were only
mine and not yours.'' He wondered, for the first time, if that would
have been a bad thing about his going into Gryffindor. \emph{Would} he
have managed to make friends on his own? He had no idea, since being in
the same House as Connor would have meant being far more constantly in
his shadow, under his influence, and compared constantly (and probably
unfavorably) with him in the eyes of the other Gryffindors.

``No getting married?'' Connor asked.

Harry shook his head. ``How could I do that? If a wizard gets married, he
should love his spouse as he loves nobody else. And I would be loving
you, watching over you, protecting you. I should protect your spouse and
your children, too. I wouldn't have \emph{time} for a lover or a
family.''

``What about a life after the War?'' Connor whispered.

``I mostly didn't expect to survive the War,'' said Harry. ``After it,
if I did, then I would be engaged in getting you whatever you wanted. If
you wanted to be Minister, I would support you. If you wanted to have a
quiet life completely separated from the world---after all, I don't know
if the Boy-Who-Lived would ever get any private time after his defeat of
Voldemort---then I would create wards that completely cut you off from
everyone else, stronger than the wards on Godric's Hollow. If you wanted
a life as a star Quidditch player, I'd arrange that, too.''

Connor kicked at the stones of the floor, scowling. ``But I would want
to become a star Quidditch player on my own,'' he said.

Harry nodded. ``And if that was what you wanted, then I would stay out
of the way, and only make sure that you got to practices on time and did
other things that wouldn't jeopardize your chances.''

Connor put his hands in his robe pockets. ``I still don't see why any of
this leads to your taking magic from Mum.''

``If it weren't for Tom Riddle, I wouldn't have,'' Harry admitted,
noting with a frown how Connor flinched at the name. \emph{Tom Riddle
was only a fragment of Voldemort. If he flinches from the memory, then
how can he face the whole?} ``He tore up my mind. He released the
phoenix web. And then Sylarana died last year, in the Chamber---'' His
voice wavered, and he looked away from Connor. ``And she was so entwined
with my web that she shredded it when she died. I had to rebuild my
mind. That's why I spent so much time with the Malfoys last summer. I
still have the phoenix web now, or part of it, but I can see around it,
and I know that I don't ever want to go back under it again.''

``Mum pretended to reconcile with me, and then cast the phoenix web on
me again. I couldn't take that. I stripped her of her magic. That way,
she can never cast the spell again.''

There was a long silence. Harry listened to the wind blow around the
stones of the Owlery, and fought the sadness that came with reliving the
loss of Sylarana. How ridiculous \emph{was} he, to want to mourn when he
was on the verge of reconciling with his brother, the one person he
loved most in life?

Then Connor said, ``But, Harry, I don't think that what she did to you
deserved the loss of her magic.''

Harry looked back at him. His brother's eyes were earnest, shining, and
his words came slowly, as though he were stepping over the thoughts that
he needed to think like scattered sticks.

``Don't you see?'' Connor asked, with a sharp gesture. ``She was trying
to make you a better person. She was trying to make you a
\emph{Gryffindor.} She was trying to make sure that you knew how to love
other people, that you knew what courage and duty and sacrifice were
like, that you could protect me until I was ready to protect myself.''

``Yes,'' Harry acknowledged unwillingly.

``So you must have misunderstood,'' Connor said. ``You thought she'd
done something really wrong, and the ritual believed you and took her
magic. But she hadn't, so that means that she deserves her magic back!''
His eyes were brilliant, and he surged forward to grip Harry's arm. ``We
can have a \emph{family} again! We'll get Dad to come back and stop
being such a git, and then---''

Harry stepped gently backwards. It was a small motion, but enough to
quell the smile on Connor's face. ``No?'' he whispered.

``No,'' Harry repeated. ``The justice ritual doesn't work like that,
Connor. She must have done something \emph{really} wrong, objectively
wrong, for me to use it and have it work. If I'd only believed that it
was wrong, and used the ritual anyway, it would have eaten up \emph{my}
magic. I know that she's wrong. I know that she hurt me. It doesn't
matter what she thought she was trying to do. I can't give her her magic
back, and I don't want to. I want to stay away from her.''

``You \emph{don't understand,}'' said Connor, his voice sharp with
disappointment and anger. ``Mum told me about this. She said that she
regretted what she'd done. She knew you would be angry, but she had the
best of intentions. She wants you back, Harry. She wants us all to be a
family again, the way we were at Christmas---''

``When she was ignoring me?'' Harry asked. ``When Dad was ignoring me?''

``They were doing that because \emph{you} cast a spell.'' The red of fury
was mounting in Connor's cheeks.

``Yes, I know,'' said Harry, ``and now she wants her magic back, which
can't happen. She doesn't really want me in the family, Connor. She
wants someone who can be controlled. She wants the person she made me
into.''

``But that \emph{is} you, Harry,'' said Connor. ``You \emph{do} protect me,
and you \emph{do} love me, and does it really matter if the web broke?
The other things are still part of you. You can protect me even better
if you give Mum her magic back. Then she can guard me during the times
when she's there and you're not.''

``I do still love you,'' said Harry. ``I do still want to protect you.
But it matters to me how she tried to get me to do that, Connor. It
matters very much.''

``\emph{Why}?''

Harry wondered if he could explain it. As he had told Snape and Draco,
it was still hard. He could imagine Draco in this situation, and the
howls of outrage that he would release at Lucius Malfoy if he'd put a
phoenix web on his son. He could imagine Connor in that situation; the
very \emph{idea} caused a hot anger at the Muggle to build up. He could
even imagine Hermione in this situation, though since her parents were
Muggles they'd probably have been beating her instead, and how he would
make sure that they understood what happened when a powerful wizard got
angry in the defense of his friends. But put himself in the same
situation, and his anger diminished. He'd survived, after all. It was
the training, if not the phoenix web, that had made him into this person
that Draco claimed to be friends with, that Snape had become guardian
to, that Lucius Malfoy had chosen to truce-dance with, that the
Bulstrodes and the Parkinsons had bound themselves to. Could he really
complain about that? Did he have the right? Would any of them have
looked at him twice if he were ordinary? Would anyone care at all?

Harry did not believe so.

But Connor was waiting for an explanation.

Harry used the arguments that Snape and Draco had used with him.
``Because she didn't have my true consent to do that,'' he said. ``Choice
is important, Connor. She started training me so young that I never had
the chance to really say yes. And then Dumbledore put the phoenix web on
me when I was four. So my mind was changed and twisted and warped. Would
\emph{you} like having your mind changed and twisted and warped?'' He
thought he might win the argument by appealing to Connor's empathy,
which Harry knew he had. He had watched Connor rescue butterflies from
drowning in the small pond behind their house. He had watched the way
that Connor kept offering compassion to Sirius when Harry himself was
incapable of doing so. Even Connor's love for their mother was a sign of
it.

Connor blinked. ``Of course not,'' he said. ``But I'm me now, and I'm
thirteen. And you're you, and you grew up with the phoenix web. Why
can't things just go back to the way they were?''

``They can't, Connor,'' said Harry, despite his own longing to have his
simple, clear, happy life back. ``I'm sorry.''

Connor turned abruptly away from him and stared out the window. Harry
watched his back. He wanted so badly to say something to make things
better. He didn't know what he could say, though. He didn't really
believe in the things that Snape and Draco would have said. Neither
could he tolerate going back under the web.

\emph{It will have to be his move,} Harry thought, and waited.

Connor turned back around at last, and faced him. Harry met his eyes.

``I saw Mum when the ritual was done,'' Connor began. ``I've never seen
such an awful sight.''

``She was lying in the middle of the floor. She raised her head when she
saw Dad and me, and started crying.'' Connor drew in a sharp, nervous
breath. ``She tried to \emph{Accio} one of the cloths on the far side of
the kitchen. She couldn't. All her magic was gone.''

``Dad rushed to her, and demanded to know what had happened. She
whispered something about a box and her magic, and you. I saw Dad's face
freeze. I didn't know then that he would leave. I knew that he
remembered you, and he thought the ritual meant something bad.''

Connor took a single step forward, eyes never leaving Harry's. Harry
didn't think he'd blinked since beginning his litany. Harry went on
listening. He had to know what had happened. Besides, Connor probably
hadn't told anyone else this. He needed a chance to purge the poison, to
pour out the sorrowful tale into willing ears.

``Dad carried her to bed. She couldn't walk. Her whole body had been
raided.'' Connor raised his voice. ``No, \emph{raped.} You raped her,
Harry.''

Harry held himself still. He knew that couldn't be true. The ritual was
the foundation of his sanity. He trusted it to be right.

So it didn't matter that the words went home like scythes. He could
still listen to this. Connor needed him to listen to this.

``She cried for the first day,'' Connor whispered. ``And then Dad left.
He left on Christmas evening, and I still have no idea where he went.
Sirius was there, and he took care of Mum and me.''

``She raged for the second day. She wanted her magic back. It was the
most horrible thing I've ever \emph{seen}, Harry.''

``She got a letter from Dumbledore on the third day, promising he'd talk
to you. She cried again after that.''

``But then\ldots{}''

Connor took another step forward. Harry became aware that they were
standing less than a foot apart. Connor's eyes were very deep, the hazel
more intense than Harry had ever seen it, swarming with flakes of gold
and green.

``Then,'' Connor whispered, ``she changed her mind. She said that she
wanted to have you back. That's what she wanted, more than her magic or
Dad or a happy family Christmas. She wanted \emph{you}. She wanted the
son who'd hurt her. She has the greatest capacity to forgive that I've
ever known, Harry.''

Connor lifted his head. He was shaking lightly. ``I'm afraid of you,''
he said. ``I'm afraid of your magic, and the way you tore Mum apart, and
the way you trample on all the lives around you. But I promised Mum that
I'd talk to you, and that I'd try to get you back for her. \emph{Will}
you come back?''

Harry felt as though he were falling through space. The world around him
was too large, too endless. He knew that he could give Connor back the
family he'd dreamed of. The broken remains of the phoenix web pulsed in
his head, urging him to give in. Everything could be back to normal.
He'd wanted that, when he had spoken with Lily about his dream of a
happy family.

\emph{And what about Draco? And Snape? And Remus? And Peter? And the
purebloods? And all the magical creatures?}

Harry shook his head. ``I'm sorry, Connor,'' he whispered. ``I can't.
The ritual is forever. I can't give her back her magic, and I can't give
her back the son she had. I don't trust her, and I think that she sent
you mainly because she wants everything the same as it was, not because
she really loves me. She's afraid of me, too.''

Connor's breath hitched. He closed his eyes. Harry wondered if he felt
like he was falling through space as well.

Then he opened his eyes, and his gaze was incredibly direct, clamping on
Harry's eyes like iron bands.

``I promised that I would get you back for her,'' said Connor. ``I would
talk to you and give you the chance. But since you're refusing, then I
can't trust that you'll ever see sense. So.'' He took another breath,
this one seeming to penetrate more deeply into his chest. ``\emph{Come
back with me, Harry.}''

Harry felt his brother's compulsion leap and coil in his head, far
smoother than it had been last year, when he first felt it. It neatly
dodged most of the Occlumency shields that he raised before it, aiming
for the phoenix web. Once it joined with that, Harry knew, it could
probably convince him.

He lunged backwards, pulling with all his will to remain free, to
destroy the tendril of compulsion in his head, the desire to obey
Connor's order.

The phoenix web shredded, broke apart, dissolved, and was gone.

Harry gasped. The gasp traveled through him, expanding like a cloud in
new directions, finding new spaces and filling them up with new, soft
fog and mist.

This wasn't the sudden sundering that had marked the end of his ability
to trust his mother, nor yet the sensation of triumph and wings that he
had encountered when the gray Dementor freed his magic. Instead, the
world swung around, and around, and then Harry realized he stood atop
the Owlery, and saw in a thousand directions.

His sight sparkled with clarity. He had never really \emph{seen} before,
he thought in wonder. He was seeing now.

He could see how the stones fit together, how they blended at the edges
into strength, how they rested on each other in sturdiness, how they
clung together to resist the blast of the wind. He could see the tracks
that owls would probably take when they flew out the window, and, if he
concentrated, he could see the bindings that ran from owls to wizards,
and the other way, too.

He saw how beautiful those small and ordinary things were, and he was
filled with wonder.

He turned and looked at his brother.

Memories suffocated him, blowing up in his head like thick, choking fog.

He remembered how Hermione had looked when she stamped out of
Trelawney's Tower on the day Trelawney had given the prophecy. His
brother had spoken sharply to her then, said \emph{something} that
Hermione found unforgivable, and they hadn't yet made up. Hermione was
waiting, bristling, offended, for Connor to make the first move, and
since he had given the insult, he really should have. But he hadn't.

Was that the act of a compassionate, gentle, giving person who only
wanted the best for everybody?

\emph{No.}

He remembered the way that Connor had attacked him last year, when he
had thought that Harry was the next Dark Lord, and he was discovering
his own compulsion gift and his fear of it. Was that the act of a war
leader, courageously facing his enemy the best way he knew how, on a
battlefield that would match them equally?

\emph{No. It was the act of a frightened child.}

He remembered the way that Connor had offered him the Marauder's Map
that summer and suggested that Harry could let his magic work on it, or
create copies of it, so as to use up the power that raced restlessly
around him. Was that the act of someone completely irredeemable?

\emph{No. It was the act of a brother who was concerned for me, and for
the safety of other people in the house, too, since my parents didn't
even remember me to defend themselves against.}

He remembered the way that Connor had woken up at his bedside after the
events of last year, after spending Merlin knew who many hours there,
and told him about his possession by Tom Riddle. Was that the act of a
coward who would never know courage in his life, who had been placed in
Gryffindor House solely because of arrogant rashness?

\emph{No. It was the act of someone who knew he was wrong, and was brave
enough to confess the mistake to me.}

\emph{So many things I didn't know,} Harry thought in wonder, and had
the feeling that he was truly seeing his brother for the first time, not
making excuses for him, not forgetting the things he had done that were
worthy of praise, able to evaluate and judge. Had the phoenix web that
bound him to brotherly duty really bound that much of himself up, all
his critical faculties where Connor was concerned, all his
\emph{thoughts?} It seemed so, and yet Harry could hardly believe it. It
seemed so obvious, now that he was looking. Now that he was
\emph{seeing.}

He became aware that Connor was staring at him. He wondered if he was
waiting for some reaction to his compulsion, or if he simply didn't know
what had happened. Harry had no idea how much time had passed since his
eyes had opened.

\emph{He isn't perfect. He isn't unforgivable. He's nowhere near ready
to become the Boy-Who-Lived, the leader we need, or at least the leader
that people will expect him to be. He's human. The Muggle and Dumbledore
did us both a disservice with the phoenix web. I could have helped teach
him better, if they hadn't been so worried that I would turn on him or
try to take his place.}

\emph{But it takes more than power to be the Boy-Who-Lived. I think it
takes more than power to be anything important.}

Harry took a step forward, and Connor backed away, fast enough to bump
his shoulders hard on the wall of the Owlery. His voice had turned
hoarse when he raised a shaking hand between them.

``Don't come near me,'' he whispered.

\emph{Of course,} Harry thought, after a moment of regarding him
curiously. \emph{He's still afraid of me. He believes the lies the
Muggle told him, and who knows what Sirius has been teaching him, alone
in the Shrieking Shack?}

``You'll have to stop the private lessons with Sirius, you know,'' he
told Connor. ``I think he's been teaching you a lot of nonsense.
Slytherins aren't \emph{evil}.''

``Voldemort came from that House!'' said Connor.

Harry shrugged. ``And Dumbledore came from Gryffindor, and he was the one
who bound me with the phoenix web. You can't just assign everyone to
Houses and have them be good and evil that way, Connor. It would be too
simple. And if it's one thing the world isn't, it's \emph{simple}.''

He waited for a moment. Acknowledging that yesterday, or even last
night, when Dobby and Fawkes had shown him the webs in the wizarding
world, would have sent him into a panic. He wanted the simple. The easy.
The clear. His early life had been so clear, with the path of duty laid
out before him.

But instead, he felt a wild gush of glee, and began to laugh. If things
were complicated, then that meant he had more things to do, more
possibilities spreading out around him, more problems for his magic to
tackle. There was Connor, and the \emph{vates}, and Sirius, and his
family, and the tension between Slytherin and Gryffindor, and figuring
out how to live now that the phoenix web was gone, and defeating
Voldemort, and maybe doing things like making more friends and getting
married himself someday, and the alliances with the purebloods, and
reconciling with his father if he could, and deciding what to do about
the werewolf in Remus, and, and, and\ldots{}

The Owlery burst into brightness around him as his magic began to dance,
creating several small and mad golden vortices that spun in on each
other, collided, vanished in a spangle of sparks, and then came back
into being again. Harry held out a hand flat, and heard himself laugh as
some of the golden light formed into a winged shape that might have been
a Snidget or a really tiny phoenix. He threw it out the window of the
Owlery.

The sun had fully set by now, though traces of gold and green still
lingered behind it. The light that rose from Harry's creation flooded
the grounds and made Hogwarts look as if day had come again. Harry heard
a song begin, and felt a wind rush past him and swirl out the window.
The scent of roses was in his nose, and the taste of honey on his
tongue. He laughed, and the sound briefly became visible as notes that
sparkled and popped like bubbles. He did not think he had ever been so
purely happy in his life.

He had been wrong about so many things, and caused so much harm by
encouraging Connor to persist in his blindness. And he had been right
about so many things, and he was going to have the chance to make up for
his mistakes. He had been wrong about what being free and living in a
complicated world would feel like, too.

It felt \emph{wonderful.}

The golden light lofted higher, and higher still. Now it appeared as a
round lump, like a lamp, in the middle of traceries stretching to the
horizon that it renewed again and again. The song had grown stronger and
stronger, and by now, it was a deep and booming voice singing cheerfully
over Hogwarts.

\emph{Ron told me to hang up signs announcing what I intend,} Harry
thought, dizzy more from the exaltation than the magic, \emph{but why? I
think this is a much better message.}

\emph{I choose to be free. I choose to live. I choose to repair what
mistakes I can, and try to learn when I can't repair them any more. And
oh, I haven't stopped lying to myself and I might never do that, and
learning to love Connor for the} right \emph{reasons is going to take an
awful lot of work, and I'm nervous and I} so \emph{might fall down and
fail.}

\emph{I don't care. This is wonderful, being free and facing the fear.
Dumbledore really ought to try it sometime.}

And because he knew that, he turned his gaze on the webs that Dobby had
shown him in his own body, the sullen red ones that burned like coals.
Harry reached down and felt the same faint sensation of heat. He knew
that he could break them, if he wanted to. It had never been a matter of
power that kept them there, but his own will. He hadn't wanted to face
what he had bound.

Snape's cautions echoed in his head, and Harry knew he didn't want to
rush into this the way that he had rushed into shattering Remus's
\emph{Obliviate.} Therefore, he carefully unbound the largest web,
rather as though he were unwrapping a gift.

Darkness rushed at him. Harry understood a great deal, in that moment.
He \emph{did} have the ability to eat other wizards' magic. He didn't
know if he would ever have hurt his parents and his brother when he was
a child, but he might have. The phoenix web had tied it at first, and
then Harry had, because the thought horrified him so much. He suspected
the red web had originated the moment he heard about the possible power
at Christmas, or perhaps the time that he stole a bit of Dumbledore's
magic while protecting Draco.

\emph{Well, yes, but hiding doesn't solve anything,} he thought, with a
mad happiness that reminded him of Gryffindors, and jumped on the
ability as it tried to spread out around him and eat Connor's magic.

The darkness fought him. It was rather like riding a writhing snake,
perhaps a basilisk, and \emph{that} brought up memories that were just
so distracting, and Harry had to fight his own tendency to think about
Sylarana so that he could corral the damn thing. But he fought them. He
let the memories pass through his head, and he endured beneath them.

\emph{I am the wizard, not you,} he thought at his magic, as he threw
bits of his own being around it---not webs, but reins. \emph{I don't
want you to run wild and eat other people's magic, and so you won't.}

The darkness roared and hissed and plunged. Harry was unimpressed. Just
because he could eat magic didn't mean that he \emph{should}, or that he
was \emph{going to.}

\emph{That was the lesson that Dumbledore and the Muggle never learned
about me,} he thought, sadly, as he bridled the damn ability and wrapped
it around him. It was his. He would do what he wanted with it, not the
other way around. \emph{They thought I might eat their magic. They
didn't trust me to have control, so they tied me.}

It made him regret, for a moment, all those years that he could have
been growing, wrapped in his own magic, learning to control it, but then
he sighed and gave up the regret. Time was never going to turn
backwards. What he could do now was learn to grow within his magic, and
make up for the time he'd lost. That was the past, and this was the
future, and he was going to \emph{live}.

And he was going to make sure that he saw his brother the way he really
was. No one could afford the way that he'd used to see him. Connor
couldn't become the Boy-Who-Lived that way, and they couldn't be normal,
loving brothers that way.

Oh, Harry knew he would still make more excuses for Connor than were
natural or necessary, and he knew he would probably feel some guilt, at
some point when he wasn't thrumming with magic, at the way he had made
excuses in the past. But he \emph{knew} about it now. The phoenix web
was gone, and now he could at least acknowledge the mistakes as
mistakes.

He looked at Connor, and sighed when he saw his brother's
horror-stricken gaze. Harry took a step closer, and held out a hand.

``Connor,'' he whispered.

Connor stood where he was, trembling, and then Harry saw a dark patch on
his trousers, where he'd let his bladder go in his fright. And then he
turned and ran away.

Harry sighed. \emph{This will still take some work.}

He looked out the window, to where the light he had created and the
sunset alike were fading, and couldn't help smiling. \emph{And I'm ready
to do it.}

Calmly, he made his way down the Owlery steps.

\chapter{*Chapter 36*: Aftershocks}\label{chapter-36-aftershocks}

Thank you for the reviews yesterday!

Reactions chapter, because I really did want to show how many people
feel Harry's message and what they're going to do about it.

\textbf{Chapter Thirty-One: Aftershocks}

Percy Weasley lay on his bed and stared out the window of Gryffindor
Tower. He supposed he should think he was lucky. Most people would think
he was lucky. He was Head Boy, entitled to help the professors lord it
over the other students. He was one of the best students in the school,
and got his high marks with a minimum of effort. He was a pureblood
wizard, and would have a job in the Ministry immediately after he left
school, assuming his NEWTS were high enough---which, of course, they
would be.

He had Albus Dumbledore's trust.

Percy buried his head in his pillow. That last was the heaviest burden
he had to carry, like some great and fragile ball of glass. He always
thought he could drop it, and it would shatter the way that his own
peaceful life had shattered the summer before his sixth year, when he
received his first owl from Dumbledore.

His mother had been so proud of him, getting private post from
Dumbledore.

Percy did not think she would be proud of him now, given the decision he
had almost, almost, almost made.

Light abruptly flared overhead, and at the same moment, Percy felt a mad
itching in his shoulder blades. He sat up, scratching furiously beneath
his robes, while his eyes followed the burst of gold, which renewed
itself again and again, over the Forest.

He knew what it meant. Percy had felt that itching more than most of the
Weasleys, and knew the different forms it took. Near Dumbledore, the
itch was deep, almost savage, extending right to the bone. Near Harry,
the itch was light, tickling, like the feet of many tiny spiders running
over his skin. And this was Harry's power, a magic that curled like a
wind and whispered what would happen if a wizard just reached out and
grasped that wind.

Percy knew he never could. And he knew, too, that Dumbledore would
probably want to speak to him about this display. It was part of the
duty he had almost, almost, almost made up his mind to take, and Percy
didn't think the Headmaster would be able to see all of it from his
office window.

So he watched, and watched, and watched, and finally the gold stopped
renewing itself and the sky was calm and dark again. Percy kept on
looking, just to make sure it wouldn't come back, and then stood up
heavily. He opened his door and walked down the stairs to the Gryffindor
common room, ignoring the speculative stares and chatter of the younger
years.

He had an obligation to perform. He had duties they didn't. Once, when
he was a prefect waiting to become Head Boy, that would have made him
grin in excitement. He knew things that most people didn't know.

Now, the weight of all the accumulated knowledge he had that other
people didn't just made his head ache. One nice thing about going to
Dumbledore's office was that he actually got to dump some of it, and
then his head would feel clear for a while---

Until the next time the impossible decision crept up on him.


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\newpage


Hermione was in the middle of her Arithmancy homework when she began
sneezing. She put the book down and pushed it out of the way of the
dangerous droplets, intending to return to work the moment this odd
attack stopped, but she kept on sneezing. She sat back on her bed and
pulled out a cloth from the box of them she kept on the floor, a gift
from her parents. They were always concerned that she keep things clean,
and Hermione didn't have the heart to tell them that cleaning charms
were more common at Hogwarts than handkerchiefs.

``What's wrong, Hermione?'' The violence of her sneezing had caught
Lavender's attention. She turned around with that expression of vague
good will on her face that Hermione reminded herself she was lucky to
get from the other girls at all. She certainly hadn't when she attended
Muggle school. ``Did you swallow something the wrong way?''

\emph{That's} coughing\emph{, honestly,} Hermione thought, but the
sneezes kept her from delivering the lecture she'd like to. She wiped
again and again at her nose, and finally it calmed. Hermione carefully
folded the cloth and put it away, and then performed a \emph{Scourgify}
on the bed just in case. She'd read in \emph{Hogwarts, A History} how
all the students had once regularly become sick in the winters, until
the professors began to teach cleaning charms in the younger years.
Hermione liked to keep things safe.

\emph{Except that I don't think it's really safe, now.}

She thought herself stupid for not remembering when she'd had a sudden
attack of sneezing like that earlier---when Harry had unleashed his
magic. She promptly scrambled up and marched towards the door.

``Where are you going?'' Lavender and Parvati chorused.

Hermione ignored them as she wrenched open the door and bounded down the
stairs to the common room. She didn't much care for either Lavender or
Parvati. They giggled all the time. They thought too much about boys as
romantic partners and not study partners. And, most of all, they thought
Professor Trelawney was brilliant. Hermione would have been ashamed of
herself if she'd needed any more signs to recognize them as idiots.

She reached the common room and looked around eagerly. Conversations
swirled among the chairs and couches, but no one was moving towards the
portrait hole. They looked as though they wanted someone to tell them
what had happened, instead of finding it out for themselves.

Hermione put her nose in the air. She couldn't stand that kind of
apathy. As Professor McGonagall always said, how was anyone going to
learn if they didn't want to?

She stalked across the common room towards the portrait hole, but heard
rushing footsteps on the stairs from the boys' room and turned to wait.
Ron was running to catch up with her, his face red from the effort.
Hermione nodded sharply at him and opened the portrait. She didn't think
as highly of him as she had last year, but she supposed someone had to
stand beside Connor and try to keep the precious idiot from falling and
hurting himself.

Ron had an almost frightened expression on his face. Hermione shook her
head. ``What's the matter?'' she asked.

``Connor and Harry were having a meeting tonight,'' said Ron tightly.
``First day of spring, y'know.''

\emph{No,} Hermione thought, \emph{I don't know.} She was vastly annoyed
every time some casual pureblood reference made her remember that she
was Muggleborn. Of course, that wouldn't stop her for long. She intended
to have every nuance and ritual of pureblood culture mastered by fifth
year, just in case some of it showed up on the OWLS. Then she could move
on to learning every spell she might possibly need for the NEWTS. True,
she would have only two years' preparation that way, but Hermione was
confident that most of her spell skills were already up to OWL level.

``And?'' she asked, as Ron turned towards the Owlery. Hermione followed
him willingly. She only knew that the explosion of magic had been
powerful, and close. She hadn't yet learned to pinpoint its direction.
That was another thing she would learn, she had promised herself, and
made a mental note now to add it to her private scroll of such things.

``Connor said that he wanted to reconcile with Harry,'' said Ron,
increasing his stride as they passed a few empty classrooms and finally
came to the bottom of the Owlery steps. ``He wanted to use a pureblood
ritual to do it. But the explosion of magic isn't part of the pureblood
ritual. So---''

``Surely you're not afraid that Harry hurt Connor?'' Hermione couldn't
believe that. Harry was devoted to his brother---so devoted that
Hermione wanted to smack him sometimes, because there was \emph{no way}
that anyone deserved that kind of devotion when he was being as much of
a prat as Connor could be. And other people felt the same way. Hadn't
Draco Bloody Malfoy actually approached her and asked her to watch over
Harry while he was in Divination, because Malfoy was afraid that Harry
wouldn't defend himself against his brother?

``Maybe,'' said Ron. ``Maybe he did it without meaning to. You don't
know how strong Harry is, Hermione.''

``I do too!'' said Hermione indignantly. ``I felt it!''

``Well, powerful wizards---'' Ron began, in that lecturing tone Hermione
hated. She didn't know why he had a right to lecture \emph{her.} She
knew a lot more than he did.

Ron didn't get a chance to finish as Connor abruptly hurtled down the
Owlery steps and almost hit them. Ron grabbed their friend's elbows and
steadied him, and Connor burst into hysterical sobs.

``He tried to kill me,'' he whispered. ``I really think he would have
killed me.''

Hermione wrinkled her nose. Something smelled foul. She glanced down and
saw the dark stain on Connor's trousers, and gave Ron a commanding look.

Luckily, Ron could understand her without words sometimes. He pulled
Connor in the direction of Gryffindor Tower, talking too softly for
Hermione to make out after a few steps. ``Look, mate, you've had a
terrible shock, and\ldots{}''

Hermione pulled out her wand and waited. Now that she was thinking about
it, she could feel the magic descending the steps after Connor, Harry's
steps as unhurried as the steps of a prowling dragon. Maybe that was
what had panicked him.

Harry came around the last turn of the stairs. He seemed mildly startled
to see Hermione's wand pointed at him, but after a few moments he smiled
and shook his head. Hermione, meanwhile, was fighting hard not to
squint.

There wasn't really a visible aura of magic around Harry; she just felt
as though there should have been. There was a shimmer of air around him
that her eyes found it hard to focus on, and his eyes shone more vividly
and richly than she had ever seen them shining before, even from behind
his glasses. And he looked more \emph{relaxed} than Hermione remembered
seeing him, too.

``Are you going to hex me?'' Harry asked.

``No,'' said Hermione, lowering her wand and blinking. \emph{I wonder
what causes that effect around him? I don't remember seeing it around
the Headmaster, but maybe he controls it better. I'll have to find out.}
``But Connor said that you'd tried to kill him, so I thought I'd best be
ready.''

Harry's face darkened, and then he said something that made Hermione
sure he must be someone else Polyjuiced into Harry. ``Connor's a prat,
sometimes,'' he said.

``Who are you, and what have you done with Harry Potter?'' Hermione
demanded, pointing her wand at him. ``Are you Draco Malfoy?''

Harry gave her a small smile and shook his head again. ``No, Hermione,''
he said, and that reassured her a bit, because Malfoy only called her
``Granger,'' and then with a twist in his voice that made it obvious
that he was fighting hard not to say ``Mudblood.'' ``Just Harry finally
seeing the truth.''

Hermione blinked, and felt a wash of pure wonder overcome her.

``You'll have to tell me what that's like,'' she said, putting her wand
back in her sleeve. ``I don't think I can learn it from books.''

``It's \emph{brilliant},'' said Harry, his voice soft as starlight.

Hermione nodded. ``But \emph{how} brilliant?''

Harry laughed. Hermione decided that she could stand not getting the
answers to a few questions, since she was hearing that laugh.


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\newpage


Albus stared out the window of his office as the last of Harry's
light-show died. He continued watching for long moments before he
finally moved over and allowed himself to take his seat.

For the first time in years, he felt \emph{old.} Not merely weary of
battle, not wondering where he would find the strength to fight, but
actively aged, and almost ready to think of death as something other
than the rest he would take when the wizarding world was finally,
absolutely, safe.

He sat behind his desk for a moment and stared at the far side of the
office, at Fawkes's empty perch and some of the silver instruments that
wouldn't see use for a long time, if ever. He felt, he concluded, as he
had the day he realized Fawkes wasn't coming back to him.

One of the three possible pathways for the future had just vanished into
smoke. Harry would not fall back under the phoenix web. He would not
make everything be as it had been, the safe and secure and predictable
future that Albus had envisioned from the moment he heard the prophecy.
He would tear further and further away from Connor and the problem would
worsen, or\ldots{}

Or he would hear the prophecy, someday, and realize what it could mean,
and become an equal and an ally. Albus did not dare let him be anything
other than an ally, not when Harry had that much power, but he knew this
was a wizard whom he had bound, conditioned, and encouraged to stay
bound and conditioned. Harry was sure to demand a heavy sacrifice of him
before he agreed to aid the war effort in one of the two ways that they
would have to have him.

Regret struck through him, keener than a lightning bolt, sharper than
the thorns of the path he'd once tried---and failed---to walk.

For the first time since the beginning of the First War with Voldemort,
since he realized what young Tom Riddle had become, Albus found himself
unable to put the regret aside. He wished things could have gone
differently, with a sourness that tainted the back of his throat. Even
knowing that things could not have gone differently, that what was done
was done, he still wished for it.

He pushed the thoughts out of his head when he heard a knock on the
door. That would be young Percy Weasley, one of the few Albus still
thought he could trust to watch out for the wizarding world before
themselves. Albus knew he had to look calm, contained, and regal.
Otherwise, Percy might start doubting and falter. He was still unsure
that this course really was the \emph{best} one, however much he wanted
to help the Headmaster. He needed a strong leader.

\emph{They all do,} Albus thought. \emph{They will be watching me in the
wake of this, trying to see if I am frightened of Harry, if I am making
frantic overtures to him. They will all be watching---the Ministry, the
students, the professors, those impossible purebloods who seem to think
that a child can lead them.}

\emph{I must give them a show.}

The regret was drowned. The thorns were pulled free from his flesh and
thrown away. Regrets or not, he had a path to follow.

Albus lifted his head and put on his best smile. ``Come in, Mr.
Weasley.''


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\newpage


Luna didn't know why everyone around her was chattering about the blast
of magic. It was perfectly \emph{obvious} that the blast of magic was
Harry's, and that he was fighting a Wrackspurt. Wrackspurts had an
interest in him. He'd been possessed by one last year, and had done some
awful things under its influence. So, if he was fighting now, another
one was trying to possess him.

\emph{I should make a necklace for him,} Luna thought, and reached down
to the basket beside her chair. She kept feathers in there, and small
scraps of parchment, and stems from quills, and bits of broken inkwells,
and Knuts no one else wanted, and many other treasures that people
discarded without noticing the lingering magic in them. She sorted
carefully through her treasures now, and found an empty piece of string
and some small green scraps of parchment. She nodded. Those would be
good. Wrackspurts were scared of small green scraps of parchment.

``Hey, Loony, what you doin'?''

Luna glanced up. It was poor Gorgon, a fifth-year student with a speech
impediment. That was the only reason he could have for mispronouncing
her name each and every time. ``Making a necklace,'' she said, and held
up the string so that he could see. ``There are Wrackspurts up in the
Owlery.''

Gorgon snorted and opened his mouth to say something else, but Jones,
who always followed him around, shook his shoulder roughly. ``Mate,'' he
whispered. ``That explosion came from up in the Owlery.''

Gorgon paled dramatically, but it still took him a moment to work out
the implications. Luna frowned lightly as she strung the parchment
scraps along the thread, the movements so familiar she could do it by
feel. She didn't understand why Gorgon \emph{acted} stupid when he
wasn't. He couldn't be stupid, or he wouldn't be in Ravenclaw.

``So that means that Potter---'' began Gorgon.

``Yeah,'' said Jones. ``He's more powerful than ever, mate, and
Loony---I mean Luna---here is his friend.'' He jerked his head at Luna.

They both stared at her. Luna didn't know why. Her fingers kept making
the necklace while she stared back, calmly. People were always looking
at her. She was used to it. She would have gone mad long ago, if she
wasn't.

Gorgon licked his lips and swallowed. ``You'll---you'll tell Potter that
we didn't mean you any harm?'' he asked. ``That we were just playing?''

``When did you ever intend me harm?'' said Luna, and knotted the end of
the necklace. She considered the string for a moment, and decided that
it could use a few of the swallow feathers she'd found lying beside the
lake. She stooped down and got them from her basket.

``Right, right,'' said Jones, driving an elbow into Gorgon's ribs. Luna
thought he was trying to get Gorgon to shut up, and nodded. \emph{That's
probably the best course. Then he won't say inane things.} ``Just tell
Potter that we've seen the error of our ways and we wish him the very
\emph{best} of luck, all right?''

Luna shrugged at him. ``All right. But Harry won't have the best of luck
if I can't get these swallow feathers on the necklace just the way I
want them.''

``Right, right.'' Jones dragged Gorgon away, and left her alone. Luna
looked around, and noted that most of the people in the Ravenclaw common
room were trying not to look at her, and failing. She shrugged, and
carefully finished the necklace for Harry.

\emph{I wonder if they'll be afraid of him?} she thought for the first
time as she admired the finished necklace.

Then she frowned and shook her head. \emph{How could anyone be afraid of
him? He's not going to hurt people. I don't understand why so many
people don't see that.}

Of course, most people refused to admit that Heliopaths and Wrackspurts
were real, too. Luna supposed that some of that was fear of what the
Ministry would do to them if they admitted it, but some of it could be
the same reason they were afraid of Harry---they thought something might
happen if they drew their attention.

\emph{People are very strange,} Luna thought, as she put down the
necklace and picked up the book on Arithmancy she'd been reading again.
\emph{So few of them see the world for what it is.}


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Remus jolted out of a doze as the magic swept the castle. He could
\emph{smell} it, which was more than he'd been able to do in a long
time. He dazedly lifted his head from the pile of second-year essays and
blinked at nothing.

The wolf inside him snarled and muttered its hate. By that alone, Remus
suspected the magic came from Harry and not Albus. The wolf approved of
Albus, for the same reason it approved of Sirius: it could sense kindred
in them.

Remus ignored it as he sniffed, and his nose reported to him what the
wolf wouldn't. This magic was joyous, fresh, and smelled like green
shoots pushing up through mud---like the beginning of spring, in fact.
Remus felt his body twitch. He wished he could transform into a beast
that wouldn't kill people and run through the castle, exercising his
elation through his muscles.

He stood and rapidly made his way to the door of his office, shutting
the wolf up when it protested. It was not yet the night of the full
moon, and he had more control when he was further away from it. He
locked the wolf behind a door he'd learned about long ago, and stepped
out into the hallway.

He saw Sirius, hastening away from him towards the top of the school,
and called out, ``Sirius! Wait!'' Surely, if anything could reconcile
them, it was this, Remus thought. The air smelled like spring. It
\emph{breathed} possibility. Surely Sirius would realize that any magic
that felt like this couldn't possibly be Dark?

Sirius turned around, and Remus recoiled. Sirius's face was a mixture of
desperation and fear.

``What do you \emph{want}, Lupin?'' Sirius snarled, the sound of a dog in
the back of his voice. The wolf whined in appreciation, and Remus shut
it up again. ``I have to go find Connor. I think Harry must have done
something awful to him. They were having a meeting tonight, you know.
The vernal equinox. A reconciliation meeting. I'd been training Connor
hard for it.''

Remus felt his eyes widen. "Sirius---you didn't advise Connor to use
\emph{compulsion} on Harry, did you?"

Sirius glanced sullenly away from him.

Remus strode forward and grabbed his old friend's shoulders, shaking him
slightly. He could, if he concentrated, forget that the last time he'd
been this close to Sirius, he'd been trying to kill him. "Sirius,
\emph{wake up.} Harry isn't going to be a slave, not ever again. I would
think that you would welcome that and cheer him on. You were enslaved by
your family's expectations for so long, until you ran away and hid with
James at Lux Aeterna. Why won't you feel grateful that he managed to
escape, and even younger than you did?"

``You don't understand anything, Lupin.'' Sirius's voice didn't sound
like him, low and chill and dusty. He wrenched himself free from Remus's
hands. ``You don't understand anything of what I have to do, what Albus
has asked me to do, what it means that---'' He cut himself off, and
hurried up the hallway again.

Remus watched him go, actually limping slightly, as though he favored
his left side. Around his neck, the golden chain of the ornament
Dumbledore had given him clinked and shone.

Remus found that he was no longer quite as joyful as he had been.


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Draco had planned many fine speeches for when Harry got back to the
dungeons.

One of them would definitely start with \emph{Did you think I'd be
fooled for long?} That one was because of the illusion of himself that
Harry had created to follow Draco down to dinner and then back to the
dungeons before it dissolved. The illusion couldn't do much more than
smile and nod and make small talk like ``Really?'' and ``You don't
say!'' but that had been enough to convince Draco, who was in a
talkative mood, that it was Harry. Of course, then he turned around and
Harry was dissipating into small motes of light. Draco had panicked for
a minute until he realized that Harry had done it so that he could
attend the meeting with Connor in private.

So that meant he thought of a second speech starting with \emph{I'm
really angry with you}, and containing many terms that sounded like
insults but were, in fact, absolutely and utterly true. He would make
Harry look at the floor in \emph{shame} before he was done. One didn't
\emph{fool} a Malfoy like that.

The third speech consisted of \emph{I've been to see Professor Snape
about your little stunt at dinner, you know.} Then he could pause and
watch the expression on Harry's face.

And there was his favorite so far, \emph{Harry? I was so worried about
you.} Let Harry's guilt bring him low, Draco thought, as he kicked
viciously at the side of the bed. Then he would spend some time
extracting promises from Harry, including never, ever, ever to create
illusions of himself again, while Harry was vulnerable and prone to
giving them.

But that was before the explosion of magic sprang from atop the Owlery,
and Draco fell back on the bed, overwhelmed by the scent of roses that
had filled his nostrils and half-drugged him. When he had partially
regained consciousness, he rolled over, sat up with one elbow leaning on
the bed, and stared at the door.

There were many good points to being a Malfoy. At the moment, Draco
couldn't decide whether his bloody sensitivity to magic was one of them
or not. At least being overwhelmed by the scent of roses was better than
being overwhelmed by a headache, he supposed.

The door of their room opened, and Harry came in. He carefully shut the
door before he turned and met Draco's eyes.

Draco found himself utterly arrested by the expression on Harry's face.
He had \emph{never} seen him shine like that, his eyes the green of
affection in Draco's bottle, his mouth moving in a free and open smile
that had decision and wisdom and knowledge behind it, the lines of
tension in his cheeks and forehead almost gone.

``Hi, Draco,'' said Harry quietly.

``What happened?'' Draco whispered, the only words he could manage.

``Connor tried to compel me,'' said Harry. ``And when I resisted it,
that took care of the rest of the phoenix web.'' He hesitated, then
stepped forward. ``And it might, um, possibly have made me decide that I
don't see the world the same way anymore, and that some things could be
more important than my brother.''

Draco couldn't breathe. For the first time since they'd been Sorted, he
thought, he had the sensation that Harry was thinking solely about
\emph{him}, and not Connor.

\emph{Well, it's only fair,} he tried to think. \emph{I've spent so much
time and emotion worrying about him, it's only right that he start
returning it. Go on, Draco, tell him that you haven't forgiven him for
his little stunt yet. Make him beg for your forgiveness.}

It was what his mother would have done, or his father. But neither
Narcissa nor Lucius was here right now.

``Forgive me?'' Harry asked, with a small, nervous smile, as though he
were actually worried that Draco wouldn't.

And someone---\emph{certainly} not Draco, who had more poise than
that---was saying in a half-broken voice, ``There is nothing I wouldn't
forgive you for right now,'' and leaning forward to hug Harry. And Harry
was hugging him back, his mind, Draco knew, for \emph{once} not rushing
off to think of his brother.

It had been a long time coming.


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Snape judged the moment less by the magic he felt sweeping through the
school and more by the pain in his Dark Mark.

One moment he was sitting in utter agony before the fire, attempting to
mark essays that wouldn't mark themselves, his teeth clenched as he
fought the temptation to cast a numbing spell on his arm. He didn't want
to. It would be like admitting weakness.

Then the pain was gone, like a beast wounded and sent running, and Snape
sat in the absence of agony, blinking.

And then he felt the magic sweeping, and heard it singing.

He stood coolly and laid his quill down atop the essays. He made his way
to the door of his private rooms. He was not shaking. He was not
fumbling to open the door with hands that would barely obey him. He was
not afraid that Harry might have called his magic in such extreme power
because he had somehow got into another werewolf attack in the Forbidden
Forest, or into other danger.

\emph{This is ridiculous,} Snape thought savagely, and clamped down on
the racing thoughts. He made himself take five deep breaths before he
opened the door and stepped into the dungeon corridors. He turned calmly
in the direction of the Slytherin common room, and his strides had
always covered great amounts of ground; he didn't need to worry that he
was almost running now.

He was in time to see Harry and Granger come along the corridor towards
the common room, and to hide around the corner to watch them. Granger
was leading, bent towards Harry, obscuring his face. Snape fought to
temptation to hex her bushy hair off, just so that he could see what
expression his ward wore.

Then Granger waved to Harry and started back towards the stairs out of
the dungeons, and Snape saw Harry's face.

He felt a breath go deep into his lungs and then pass out of them again,
leaving him drained.

Harry was all right. He was more than all right.

His face wore a smile that had no touch of strain or stress. He was
humming beneath his breath as he leaned near the stone wall and
whispered the password that would let him into the common room. And,
more to the point, the magic around him leaped and danced, creating
faint images of golden and silver light that dissipated almost before
Snape could see what they were. If Harry had been upset, his magic would
have been snarling around him, and Snape, with the way that Lucius had
taught him to sense power, would have a headache.

Snape stepped backwards and returned slowly to his rooms. He could have
gone in after Harry and scolded him, certainly, but he found that he
didn't particularly want to. He would wait for Harry to come to him and
explain what had happened, and take action only if his ward tried to
evade him or lie.

Snape didn't think that would happen. Not this time.

He sat down in front of the essays again, brightened the fire, and
smiled with vicious glee. There, in the very first sentence of the next
essay, was a glaring grammatical error.

Snape marked it with a flourish.


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``Millicent! Millicent, did you feel that?'' Pansy was practically
babbling, and she'd fallen off the bed to the floor.

Millicent glanced calmly up from her Transfiguration book. ``Of course I
did, Pansy,'' she drawled. ``I'm neither a stone nor a Mudblood.'' The
air was surging with the scent of a thunderstorm brewing, and Millicent
wasn't surprised. Harry was a hell of a powerful wizard, and it smelled
as though he'd finally realized it.

Pansy picked herself up and scowled at her. ``Sometimes I don't like you
very much, Millicent,'' she said. "What \emph{was} it?"

``Harry,'' said Millicent, with a shrug, and turned back to her book.

She could feel Pansy's eyes on the side of her face. She refused to turn
around. Pansy wasn't that annoying, most of the time, but sometimes she
could be. And Millicent had long ago sensed just what Harry could do,
and had her guesses confirmed by her father, whom she trusted more than
anyone in the world.

Adalrico trusted her back, and once Starborn had arranged the meeting
between him and Harry last summer, he'd told his daughter what Millicent
had already suspected: they had someone new to follow, a third option
between absolute Dark and absolute Light.

Millicent was no stranger to power, either magical or political. She was
her father's magical heir, and he had taught her all sorts of things
from the time she was six years old and he realized it. Millicent had
realized it earlier. She realized lots of things earlier. She was
sometimes amazed at how long it took people to catch up.

Harry had finally caught up, it seemed.

\emph{Well, good,} Millicent thought, as she turned another page in her
Transfiguration book. \emph{Maybe that way, we can finally start getting
some things done.}

She wasn't Slytherin enough to conceal her smile.

\chapter{*Chapter 37*: Mastering
Himself}\label{chapter-37-mastering-himself}

Thank you for all the reviews yesterday! Writing that many different
POV's was definitely fun.

Just one today, but there will be more in the future.

\textbf{Chapter Thirty-Two: Mastering Himself}

"\emph{Legilimens.}"

Harry stood as still as he could, and let down as many of his carefully
trained defenses as he could. It was harder than he had thought it would
be. As Snape had said would happen, his Occlumency shields were now part
of the normal arrangement of his mind, and it took some work to move
them, as it once would have taken work to shift the webs.

He had to know the truth, though, and he had to know it before he went
to confront Dumbledore.

Snape looked long and carefully into Harry's mind, and then stepped
back. The expression on his face was so inward that Harry waited for a
moment before he asked.

``It's gone, isn't it?''

Snape shook his head, then said, ``Yes, it is. I cannot see a trace of
the phoenix web anywhere in your thoughts.''

Harry closed his eyes in relief. ``Thank you, sir.''

``But your mind,'' Snape whispered. ``Your mind, Harry. It's been
arranged in webs for so long that I did not think it knew any other way
to grow. It may have taken its cue from the phoenix web, but it had made
the shape its own. And now it is changing shape.'' Harry opened his eyes
to see his guardian looking at him as if he had done this on purpose,
just to spite him.

``What is it?'' Harry asked, half-wondering if he wanted to know. But he
had promised himself. No more hiding---at least once he knew he was
hiding---no more flinching from the hard choices. He had to know
everything he could if he was going to work out the compromise he wanted
to propose to Dumbledore, much less become the \emph{vates} and stay
allied with the purebloods and everything else he had to do.

``Your mind is becoming a forest,'' Snape whispered. ``The webs are
changing into canopies of leaves, the intersecting strands into vines,
the sturdier places where you tucked your magic into trees.''

Harry blinked, then laughed softly. ``But that's a good thing, sir. I'd
much rather have that as a symbol of life.''

Snape eyed him. Then he seemed to realize that he was showing confusion
in front of someone else, and that simply would not do. He straightened,
and the expression vanished behind a wooden mask. ``If you spend more
than an hour in the Headmaster's office, Potter, I am coming in after
you,'' he said.

``Yes, sir,'' said Harry happily, and stepped out of Snape's office.
Draco was waiting for him. He seemed to consider it only fair that Harry
was bringing him along this time, instead of Snape. Harry hadn't
enlightened him to the real reason yet, but he did now as they turned in
the direction of the Headmaster's office.

``I'd like you to watch, Draco, please,'' he said. ``I know that I have
to make a bargain, an alliance, with the Headmaster---''

``You could kill him,'' Draco suggested, his tone a bit too bloodthirsty
for Harry's tastes. Harry rolled his eyes, and wondered which of his
parents Draco had got this from.

``Maybe,'' he said. ``But I don't want to.''

``Why not?'' Draco halted and frowned at him. Since Harry kept walking,
that didn't work very well. Draco muttered under his breath and caught
up with him a few strides later. ``He hurt you. He betrayed you. He kept
trying to get that damn web on you even when you didn't want it.''

Harry shrugged. "And he's too powerful to kill, and he controls Connor a
good deal more than I do right now. I still care about my brother,
Draco. I just don't care about him \emph{only}. I need to talk to
Dumbledore. And that is the reason I need you there. If it seems at any
point like I'm willing to sacrifice too much, give up things that you
don't think I should, interfere."

"Oh, you can \emph{count} on me for that," Draco said.

Harry gave him a small smile. ``I know.''


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``Harry, come in,'' said Dumbledore as the door to his office opened.
His voice was patient, calm, serene. Harry could tell it wasn't full of
his usual grandfatherly good nature, though. He sounded as though he had
no emotions at all, behind the serenity.

Harry nodded to the Headmaster and once again made for the left-hand
chair, but Draco got in front of him and took it first. Harry gave him a
curious glance only until he realized that the left-hand chair was
slightly closer to Dumbledore's desk, and thus Dumbledore's wand.
Rolling his eyes, Harry sat down in the right-hand chair instead.
\emph{I know he cares about me, but there are times when he takes the
protectiveness a bit too far.}

``Headmaster,'' he said. ``I came to talk to you about my magic and my
brother.''

``So you said in the note you sent me, Harry.'' Dumbledore inclined his
head, his beard draping across most of the desk. ``What I am unsure
about is why you waited a week to talk to me.''

``I thought I needed the time,'' said Harry. ``I had to come up with a
plan. I wanted to gain some control of my magic before I saw you again,
in case I accidentally ate part of it.'' He watched Dumbledore wince
with a malicious pleasure that was entirely new to him---well, all
right, almost new. ``And I wanted to do some reading.''

``What is your plan, Harry?'' Dumbledore might have been discussing the
weather at the raising of Stonehenge. In fact, Harry thought, he
probably would have showed more animation in a discussion of that. Some
wizards argued that ancient weather patterns were the most important
clues to ancient magic.

``To teach my brother,'' said Harry. ``I ought to have done it before,
but I didn't know how badly he needed it. Now I know. He's utterly
incompetent in most of the things he ought to know, Headmaster. He had
to have a friend instruct him in pureblood rituals, and then he still
misused them---''

``Purebloods are not the whole of the wizarding world, Harry.''

``But they're part of it,'' said Harry, ``and I won't see them left
behind.'' He nodded at Draco. ``In some cases, they've been more
welcoming to me, more understanding, than my own family.''

Dumbledore contrived to look unmoved as he said, ``Still, Harry, that is
mostly because of your power. And power isn't everything.''

``No,'' Harry agreed, because Draco was trying to say something
unfortunate. ``Learning is. And Connor has only learned how to use the
compulsion ability, and then not in appropriate places. He tried to
compel me in the Owlery, Headmaster.'' He paused, then decided to ask.
Even if it were true, it was in the past now. ``Did you tell him to do
that, sir?''

Dumbledore's face had gone white. In the next moment, it went back to
being free of all expression. ``No, Harry, I did not,'' he said. ``I
suspect that was Sirius's idea. He has been spending almost all his time
on the weekends with Connor and Lily, and he seems very dedicated to the
idea of renewing your bonds of family.''

Harry nodded. "Then that is part of my bargain. I will teach my brother
the things he ought to know and hasn't learned---the pureblood rituals,
history, how to control his power, how to duel, how to \emph{survive}.
In return, I want him taken away from Sirius."

``You know that Connor will not like this,'' said Dumbledore. ``The boy
adores your godfather.''

``I know that,'' said Harry. ``But he's not learning anything useful
from Sirius, Headmaster, only how to get his way and how to hate. And
the Boy-Who-Lived will need to love the whole of the wizarding world,
won't he?''

Dumbledore actually \emph{jumped}. Harry wondered why. But the
Headmaster nodded briskly a moment later. ``Yes, he will,'' he murmured.
``If you feel that he is learning only hate, Harry, then I will remove
him from Sirius's tutelage. Sirius had assured me that he was no longer
teaching the boy to hate Slytherins or even Dark magic. He had said he
was showing him the ethics of compulsion, when it may be used and when
not. It sounds as though he lied to me.'' His voice had turned old, and
infinitely sad.

Harry drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair for a moment. In some
ways, this felt like betraying his brother. On the other hand, after
what had happened in the Owlery, he was not much more inclined to show
mercy to Connor than Snape and Draco had been to him at Malfoy Manor. If
Connor had not torn the phoenix web and introduced him to the wonders of
clear sight, which distracted him from his anger, Harry might have
reacted to the compulsion violently enough to hurt him.

``Headmaster, do you know about the second prophecy?''

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. ``What second prophecy?''

Harry stared searchingly at him, blocking the attempt to Legilimize him
instinctively. He couldn't tell if Dumbledore was sincere, because
almost any emotion could be hidden behind that twinkling façade, but he
seemed to be. Harry decided he would have to explain further, despite
the tight hold Draco had on his arm.

``Professor Trelawney gave what sounded like a true prophecy early in
February, Headmaster,'' he said. "I only heard the last three words,
\emph{stand or fall}. Ron and Connor heard the whole of it, but Connor
won't tell me and Ron won't tell me, either, out of loyalty to his
friend. I thought Connor had probably come and told you."

``No,'' said Dumbledore quietly. He sat in silence for some time. Harry
waited. Draco shot him a small glare. Harry ignored him. He had done
what he thought was necessary, and it hadn't been a sacrifice. He had
thought that Dumbledore really did know all the things he asked about.

At last, the Headmaster looked up and nodded. ``You may teach Connor,
Harry, and I will inform him that his private lessons with Sirius are to
cease.'' Dumbledore paused for a long moment, then added, ``You surprise
me with your willingness to enter into this. I thought that you would
despise him after what happened, turn against him.''

Harry smiled. He knew it wasn't a pleasant smile. ``You trained me too
well for that,'' he said. "I love him, sir. I always will. But I refuse
to simply be a mindless weapon for him, turned against his enemies on
his whims. I want to teach him how to recognize his own strengths, and
to know the things that any wizard can learn. He \emph{is} the
Boy-Who-Lived, but if Voldemort returned tomorrow and Connor needed to
defeat him, we would all be doomed. So I think it best that he learn how
to defend himself---which he was supposed to be doing by now, anyway, if
my mother's original plan had held true."

``He has defeated Voldemort three times,'' Dumbledore pointed out.

Harry sighed. "\emph{Twice}, sir. My magic destroyed Tom Riddle in the
Chamber of Secrets. I \emph{Obliviated} Connor, because my magic would
have done something more permanent to him otherwise, and let him think
that he did it."

Draco pinched his arm. Harry glared at him. ``What?'' he whispered. ``I
would think you would be smug that I told him that.''

``I am,'' Draco whispered. ``Now tell everyone else.''

Harry shook his head and turned away from Draco's further pinches, back
to Dumbledore. Dumbledore once again looked old, and he was looking out
his window as though wanting a glimpse of a wizarding world that had
vanished long ago. Harry felt a spasm of pity as he watched him.

At last Dumbledore turned back, and said, ``If this is the bargain you
wish to make, Harry---teaching Connor in exchange for Sirius teaching
him no longer---then I am inclined to grant it. But there is still the
matter of what to do about your power.'' His eyes traced something
invisible in the air, probably the outline of Harry's aura. That was on
Harry's list to learn how to do, at least partially because he wanted to
teach Connor how to do it.

``I know, sir,'' said Harry. ``Professor Snape is helping me learn to
see the edges of my compulsion and my ability to eat other wizards'
magic, so that I'll know at once if I ever start exercising them.''

``And what do you intend to do other than that?'' Dumbledore was
suddenly back to the stern old man Harry had seen him become on
occasion, hardened in the matters of war, and his eyes \emph{pierced} as
they bore into Harry's.

``I intend to attend Hogwarts,'' said Harry calmly, ``and teach my
brother, and have more friends than my mother's plans would allow me to
have. I have magic, Headmaster, and I even know more things than the
average student might be expected to know. But I don't have other skills
that the simplest child of four or five has. I want to build them. I
want to learn how to live without my brother's shadow. And there are
some things only time will teach me.'' He smiled slightly at the
Headmaster's stunned expression. ``Did you think I would run right out
and become a war-leader, sir?'' he asked.

``The thought had crossed my mind,'' Dumbledore murmured.

Harry shook his head. "I don't \emph{want} to," he said. ``I know there
are some things I won't have a choice about because of the sheer
strength of my magic, or because of the people I want to protect and
free.'' He thought again about the webs that Dobby and Fawkes had shown
him, and grimaced. He would choose to walk the \emph{vates} path when he
was ready, yes, but in other ways, there hadn't been a choice from the
moment he realized what a \emph{vates} was and did. There was no way he
could forget about or ignore it. "But there are other things I
\emph{can} choose. I'm not the Boy-Who-Lived. I'm not the general of the
Light; that's you, sir. I'm not going to become a politician of some
sort just because that would make people comfortable. And the phoenix
web has made me hate giving orders. I can't see myself at the head of an
army. I can't see myself at the head of any sort of force, really."

Draco pinched his arm. Harry glanced at him, and saw Draco's eyes
widened in something that looked like a mixture of surprise and
amusement.

``Do you think most of us are going to follow anyone else?'' Draco
whispered to him.

Harry rolled his eyes. ``Purebloods ought to get over this dependence on
anyone of pure power,'' he whispered back. ``It's what keeps them
following Lords. Do they want to be swayed only by magic all their
lives?''

``It's more than that, Harry---'' Draco began.

``I am glad, Harry,'' Dumbledore interrupted then, ``to know that
ambition is not one of the reasons the Hat chose you for Slytherin.''

Harry shrugged. ``I do want to accomplish things, Headmaster. Just not
in the name of myself, or only for myself. I know that Connor has to
lead us, because the prophecy chose him. But he'd be a horrible leader
right now.'' That caused only the smallest twinge of guilt in his chest,
where before he would have been literally unable to say it. Harry had to
smile about that. ``I'm willing to help him become what he has to be.
That's one of my major ambitions.''

``And another?'' Dumbledore was smiling too, encouraging, as though he
thought he could trust Harry now.

"To become a \emph{vates.}"

Dumbledore's smile vanished, and he sat up. ``I hope that you think on
that long and hard, Harry,'' he intoned. ``After all, the wizarding
world is built on webs. I do not imagine that most of the
purebloods---'' for a moment, his eyes flicked to Draco ``---would thank
you for taking their house elves away.''

Harry smiled tightly. ``I'm working on it, Headmaster. I know how hard
it's going to be.''

``That ambition has killed wizards in the past, Harry, or driven them
mad,'' said Dumbledore quietly, his eyes never wavering. ``Why do you
want to do it?''

``Because I want to,'' said Harry, and stood. ``Is there anything else
that you wanted to request of me, Headmaster?''

Dumbledore sighed. ``No. I will speak to Connor. It may take me some
time to persuade both him and Sirius that their lessons must cease.'' He
leaned forward, and connected his gaze with Harry's strongly enough that
Harry found it hard to look away. ``I am glad that we are allies on
this, Harry. I would not have wanted you as an enemy.''

``He had every right to think of you like that,'' Draco hissed, hovering
protectively at Harry's right shoulder.

``It would have been counterproductive to make you an enemy,
Headmaster,'' said Harry. ``You've hurt me, but I'm used to being a
sacrifice. And other debts\ldots{}'' He thought of Peter, and Remus. ``I
can wait to collect them.''

Dumbledore's face changed, but Harry didn't stay to watch how it
changed. He turned towards the office door instead, and waited patiently
for it to shut behind them so that Draco could shout. He'd obviously
been wanting to do so for a while.

Sure enough, Draco started as they rode the moving staircase downwards.

``What was that about not wanting to give orders, Harry?'' he asked,
with false sweetness. ``What was that about not wanting to lead?''

Harry shifted to face him. ``I'm hardly going to ignore the alliances
I've forged with the purebloods, Draco,'' he said. "That's not what I
meant. But I'm not going to march out at the head of some army, either.
That's absolutely ridiculous. Why should I? When former Death Eaters
like Hawthorn Parkinson turn against Voldemort and ally themselves with
me, it's not in the hope that they'll be able to sneak back to Voldemort
when he rises again. They know that he wouldn't forgive that kind of
betrayal. They \emph{are} committed to my goals, and my goals are
Connor's and Dumbledore's."

``No, they aren't,'' said Draco.

Harry rolled his eyes. ``Well, not Connor's, I'll grant you,'' he
muttered, thinking of the way that his brother had run away from him. He
had apparently proclaimed, in the presence of Gryffindors, that Harry
had tried to kill him. That got a few of them looking askance at Harry,
but since the Gryffindors who'd heard that proclamation included the
Weasley twins, they had wasted no time in creating a mask of Connor's
face that floated about and wailed the same words while bursting
dramatically into tears every few minutes. After that, most people were
unable to take the news seriously. Harry was disgusted anyway, that his
brother would think such a thing. ``But they will be once I get to
teaching him. And Dumbledore is finally coming around, I think. He knows
it would be silly to provoke me. And he would be beyond stupid to
alienate the purebloods, which he isn't. I just don't think that he
thought he had any way of reaching them until now. Now he does, through
me.''

He stopped. Draco was staring at him. Harry waited until they were
beyond the gargoyle, and then asked, ``What? Are you stunned by my
brilliant plan, or by my pretty face, or what?''

Draco blushed fiercely, but cleared his throat and said, "Do you really
\emph{trust} them, Harry? I don't. I think they'll twist back on
themselves the moment they realize that \emph{you} trust them, and don't
want to hurt them. There were some purebloods who fought on Dumbledore's
side in the last War, you know. And look at them now. The Weasleys are
still poor. Black's fucked in the head. Do you think most of us want to
follow their example?"

Harry groaned. ``The Weasleys have been poor for a long time,'' he said,
as he started back towards the dungeons. ``And you know what happened to
Sirius. You were there to hear it.''

Draco sounded more normal as he followed, catching Harry up again
easily. Harry wished for his growth spurt right now. At least then he
would be able to storm away from Draco impressively. ``Dumbledore could
have helped the Weasleys, if he really wanted to. And he sure hasn't
done a good job of helping Black. If that's his `protection' for those
dearest to him, then I don't think any of us want it.''

Harry sighed. "Did any of the purebloods really think that I was going
to turn my back on my brother and plunge wildly into some---I don't even
know what it would be they would \emph{want}. Leading a rogue band of
outlaws on a crusade of vigilante justice?"

``Of course not,'' said Draco, with a sniff. "Vigilante justice is so
\emph{crude.} No, Harry. What we want is someone who'll speak up for us,
who will lead legal fights against the Ministry, who will defend our
homes and families and traditions against any kind of threat, whether
that's Mu---Muggleborns trying to destroy our culture---"

"No one is out to \emph{destroy your culture,} Draco---"

``Or other purebloods attacking us in the throes of war,'' Draco
finished stubbornly, and slapped a hand on the wall that hid the
Slytherin common room, preventing the door from opening. Harry turned
around to face him, glaring. Draco didn't seem at all intimidated. His
own face wasn't worked into a glare, but a simple stern look, as
inflexible as the silver masks that Harry knew members of the Malfoy
family had once worn to funerals. "We have a different view of the world
than you do, Harry. You know our customs, but you don't know all the
political realities. Of course, growing up as isolated as you did,
that's not surprising. And we're willing to teach you, and allow you
some time to learn them.

"But, sooner or later, we're going to need you for more than just sheer
physical defense against the Dark Lord. We \emph{want} a leader. I know
that my father wouldn't have started truce-dancing with you if he wanted
no more than a defender. I know what the truce-dance ultimately leads up
to, and that's not the sort of connection that two soldiers forge with
each other. It goes much deeper." Draco leaned closer. ``You know that
too, Harry, or you would never have answered him. Why did you?''

``Because it began as something I could do for my brother,'' Harry said
through his teeth. "If the Malfoys weren't fighting him, then he had
less chance of dying. I wanted to turn his enemies into friends. I
intended your family to be part of \emph{his} army, originally. Connor
really will have to lead armies. Voldemort won't leave him alone until
he does."

Draco cocked his head. ``This isn't about your brother anymore, Harry.
It never was, but you were too blind to see that. So see it now. I've
been writing to my mother a lot, talking to her. You've read those
letters. And you read those books on the Guile family and compulsion and
Lords that she sent me. People aren't following you just to follow your
brother by proxy or to get protection from---'' Draco took a deep
breath, and forced the name out. "\emph{Voldemort}. They're following
you for you."

Harry grunted. He supposed he would have to think about it. What he did
know was that he was no more suited to be what the purebloods wanted him
to be than he was suited to be \emph{vates}, right now. He wouldn't give
orders. He would leave decisions up to other people. He would follow the
bonds of pureblood ritual and tradition, both because they were useful
and because he loved them for themselves, but that was very different
from leading, or governing, or ruling.

\emph{Right now. Does that mean that I could become what they want me to
be, the same way I could become} vates?

\emph{There} was a disturbing thought, and Harry decided that he didn't
want to think about it anymore. He nodded to Draco, muttered, ``Thanks
for telling me,'' and vanished into the Slytherin common room.

He couldn't think about this right now, he reasoned, as he dragged his
books out from his trunk. He had Charms homework to finish.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


``Good,'' said Snape's voice, from somewhere beyond the barriers that
Harry had set up. ``Now. Open your eyes, and tell me what you see.'' His
guardian's voice had gone deep, lulling, into a softness of tone Harry
would have never believed him capable of if he hadn't heard it.

Harry opened his eyes. He blinked. ``A forest,'' he said.

``What?'' Snape's voice cracked the softness, and the forest vanished.
Harry shook his head and touched his temple. He was sitting on another
Transfigured stretch of mattress in Snape's office, and the intense
concentration needed to look for the edges of his magic was draining
him. ``What did you say?'' Snape insisted, stepping forward from behind
the desk.

``I saw a forest,'' said Harry, and glanced about. ``The trees went just
to the edge of your desk,'' he added, pointing. ``I saw vines on the
walls. There were flowers---I think they were orchids---on the ceiling.
It was centered around me. I didn't have time to look behind me, but I
think it might have been there, as well.''

Snape was silent for long moments. Harry studied his face, but could
tell no more from it than he had been able to tell from Dumbledore at
the start of their meeting. He resigned himself to wait. Perhaps Snape
was just considering what it meant, and didn't really have bad news to
hand him.

As it turned out, it was the latter. ``Harry,'' said Snape, ``you
remember that I told you last week about your mind reshaping itself as a
forest, after the webs?''

Harry nodded.

``That is---not supposed to happen,'' said Snape carefully. ``In your
case, I think the magic that roars through you is taking on the
challenge so as to have something to do. Also, it roots itself more
firmly in you that way, and carves new channels it can travel. That
makes it less likely to burst out of control.''

``That sounds like a good thing,'' Harry ventured, hoping to make Snape
smile, but his guardian only nodded absently.

``But,'' Snape whispered, "your magic obviously does not have
\emph{enough} to do. Or its strength simply overflows your mind. So it
is changing a small portion of the world around you into a reflection of
your thoughts."

Harry felt a chill travel down his spine. ``I don't know what that
means,'' he admitted. ``Are oaks going to start sprouting through the
floor?''

Snape waved a hand. ``Nothing like that,'' he said, with the irritated
tone Harry was more used to hearing from him. ``It is not the physical
world that it changes. It is the mental and perceptual one. People
around you may begin to see the trees, the vines, the---orchids.'' Snape
curled his lip as though he disdained the word. ``It may be as mild as
that. On the other hand, they may begin thinking like you, too. The
magic extends your way of thinking outward, if you will. Your mind takes
over from the space that other people's thoughts are more used to
occupying. They may begin hearing what you think, or---'' Snape halted.

``I might start compelling them,'' Harry finished with a sigh.

Snape shrugged. "Yes. Yet a different kind of compulsion from any you
have done so far. There, other wizards, dazed by the strength of your
magic, simply gave in to your desires. This makes them think that your
desires \emph{are} their own. In a deeper form, it might ultimately grow
over their minds so as to make them part of your forest."

Harry swallowed. He wanted to panic, and that meant he was not going to.
``Is there any way that I can stop that?''

``Yes,'' said Snape. ``You may work more consciously with your magic.
Assuming this is a result of its not having enough to do, concentrating
it in other projects, using it more freely, might stop it from expanding
your mind.''

``But that might mean more of the other kind of compulsion,'' Harry
finished.

Snape inclined his head. His eyes had never moved from Harry's face, and
they had gone inscrutable again. ``Yes.''

``What are the other options?'' Harry wished his magic was in front of
him in some recognizable form, so he could glare at it. \emph{Stupid
magic. Why does it have to be this strong?}

``There are certain potions that will damp some of your strength for a
time, so that you may grow used to controlling a certain level of it,''
Snape said. ``I am reluctant to use them, however. I think it would be
better to work on conscious control.''

``Any other choices?'' Harry asked.

``More Occlumency,'' Snape pronounced. ``Tend your mind. Find another
shape for it to assume. Do not permit it unchecked growth, and most
especially do not let the rest of your magic combine with it and spread
it.''

Harry half-closed his eyes, trying to think of what he wanted his mind
to look like. Perhaps he was thinking too hard about Snape's word
``tend,'' or the fact that his thoughts apparently \emph{liked} the
shapes of trees and flowers, but he found only one that pleased him.

``A garden?'' he asked, looking up at Snape. ``Will that work?''

Snape's lip curled again. "If you think I am going to teach you to
construct mental gazebos and beds of roses, Potter, you \emph{may} think
again."

Harry laughed, and used the laughter to ease past the moment of
blinding, panicked fear, about what his magic might already have done to
other people.

\emph{Yes, it might have. But this is one of those times when I
recognize my mistakes and my shortcomings, and go on.}

``No gazebos or beds of roses, sir, I promise,'' he said. ``I was
thinking more a hedge maze.''

Snape's eyes lit in interest, and he stepped back. "Ready, Harry?
\emph{Legilimens.}"

Harry allowed the intrusion, and settled himself to the task of making
his incorrigible magic obey him.

\chapter{*Chapter 38*: On the Wings of the
Storm}\label{chapter-38-on-the-wings-of-the-storm}

Thank you for the reviews yesterday! That was a rather mild chapter.

Now here comes the angst again! Did you miss it?

\textbf{Chapter Thirty-Three: On the Wings of the Storm}

A howl of outrage from Pansy distracted Harry from eating breakfast and
mulling over how best to word his return letter to Lucius. He sat back
with a frown and leaned down the table, trying to see what had happened
to her. The only time he'd heard her howl like that before was when
Millicent had put marmalade in her hair one morning.

But Pansy wasn't swiping at her hair, or attempting to strangle and hex
Millicent at the same time. Instead, she held the \emph{Daily Prophet}
in front of her and shook it as though she were going to tear it apart.
Her eyes were fastened to the front page, but Harry hadn't received the
newspaper and couldn't tell from here what story had upset her so much.

He glanced at Draco. The other boy frowned and shook his head. Harry
started to stand up, but Millicent tapped him on the shoulder just then
and handed her copy of the paper over.

Harry focused on the headline, and felt his breakfast congeal in his
stomach.

\textbf{{\emph{MINISTRY OF MAGIC TO ENACT ANTI-WEREWOLF LEGISLATION}}}

Harry couldn't help stealing a glance at the head table. Remus was pale,
but he met Harry's gaze resolutely enough. Most of the school still
didn't know he was a werewolf. He obviously wanted to keep it that way
by not showing any overt reaction to the story. He turned the page as
Harry watched and calmly took a bite of his toast.

Harry went back to the story.

\emph{By: Melinda Honeywhistle}

Minister Fudge has reported today that the Ministry of Magic will pass
laws to control and regulate any werewolves living in Britain.

``It's quite ridiculous, the amount of leeway that we've permitted
them,'' huffed the Minister as he met with the press on Friday to
discuss the proposed legislation. "There are much tougher laws on the
books, but we've never enforced them, out of the goodness of our hearts.
And now, to learn that a werewolf would come into the Ministry and
\emph{attack} one of our valuable employees. It's an outrage!"

The Minister is referring to Monday's attack on Walden Macnair, an
executioner for the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures.
The werewolf Fenrir Greyback found his way into the Ministry offices of
the Committee and tried to bite Macnair, claiming he wanted to punish
the executioner for the amount of werewolves he had executed.

The attack was fended off and hushed up. Apparently, Mr. Macnair had a
noble wish: to avoid bringing blame on all werewolves for the actions of
one.

``Fenrir Greyback is a blemish on all his kind,'' he told this reporter
when she caught up with him on Friday after the Minister's press
conference. "He's one of the few who can pass on his bite in human form,
you know, because he's so thoroughly embraced the wolf. I'm afraid of
him. But that doesn't mean that we should toughen \emph{all} the laws.
Other werewolves might live in harmony with us, if we just give them the
chance."

Minister Fudge evidently does not agree.

``What happened to Mr. Macnair is a horror and a crime that should never
be allowed to take place again,'' the Minister proclaimed to all
assembled. ``Therefore, we are placing laws in---in place to insure that
it does not.''

The Minister refused to discuss the precise content of these laws, but
hinted darkly that they would be much sterner than they have been in the
past.

"We can't have \emph{animals} attacking good, decent magical folk," was
the Minister's last word as he left the press conference. ``It's just
not right.''

Harry laid his paper down and fought to calm himself. He could handle
this. He really could. He had to think, and not react.

The first thing that came to mind was the letter Scrimgeour had sent
him, in response to Harry's request for Remus to take over guardianship
of Connor. \emph{That would be most unwise,} Harry thought bitterly.
\emph{Of course it would. The attack on Macnair hadn't even happened
then, but the Ministry must have been considering toughening the laws. I
bet you anything one of them is a law stating that no werewolf is
allowed to have custody of a child.}

The second thing was Starborn's reminder that Macnair and Greyback were
working together, two servants utterly committed to the Dark Lord's
cause. Harry had no doubt that the attack on Macnair was fake, a way to
shove the faltering Ministry into passing the laws in the first place.

\emph{But why? Those laws will make things harder for Greyback, too.}

The answer came easily. \emph{Because they want the werewolves to have
no choice but to turn to Voldemort for help and protection---and become
part of his armies, of course.}

Harry wanted to scream in frustration. He supposed he could send a
warning to Scrimgeour, but he doubted the man would turn against the
Ministry he so loved, and Harry wouldn't be able to explain where he got
his information about Macnair being a committed Death Eater.
\emph{Mysterious letters, with a handwriting charm on them, from an even
more mysterious source? Why, yes, of course, that sounds entirely
trustworthy, Mr. Potter. I'll get on that right away.}

Harry shook his head and went back to his breakfast. Damn it, he would
have to think about this, but he just didn't know what to do right now.

Actually, he thought, as he heard the muted sobs down the table, he did
know one thing he could do. He shoved back his chair and went to comfort
Pansy. She was having to pretend to her peers who didn't know about
Hawthorn that she was upset with something else in the paper. Harry
wanted to reassure her that she wasn't alone.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


By late Saturday afternoon, Harry had decided what else he would do.
He'd drafted a letter to Scrimgeour explaining the situation, Starborn's
letters and all. Harry had admitted that he didn't know who Starborn
was, and Scrimgeour was free to leave or take the information as he saw
fit. But Harry would have been bothered to do nothing at all.

He didn't quite manage to slip out of the Slytherin common room before
Draco caught him. ``Going alone to the Owlery, Harry?'' he asked,
lightly, but with a familiar tightness around his eyes.

Harry scowled at him. "Well, I \emph{was.}" He hadn't been the most
pleasant person to be around since the announcement of the Ministry's
betrayal, he knew, but Draco took it in stride.

``Now you're not,'' he said, and jogged alongside Harry as he strode
rapidly through the halls. Harry muttered to himself, and if the words
``Ministry'' and ``blind idiots'' appeared far more often than they
should in a random rant, Draco was kind enough not to say anything about
it.

Harry hesitated when they came to one of the usual third-floor corridors
to the Owlery. It was full of second-year Hufflepuffs, and the Weasley
twins were standing in the middle of them, with enormous smiles. Even as
Harry watched, a \emph{bang} and a flash of colored smoke went up from
beside the twins, and the Hufflepuffs shrieked.

Harry shook his head. ``Not that way,'' he murmured to Draco, and they
backed off before anyone could notice them. Harry turned around to take
another route.

A light scampering sound reached his ears, and he whirled, wand drawn in
his left hand. His first thought was of an artificial Dark spider, like
the one that had attacked him outside Trelawney's Tower in February. But
he saw the slight twitch of whiskers, and the slender shape of a rat, in
time to stop himself from firing a hex. He relaxed.

``Disgusting,'' said Draco, and Harry glanced over to see that he'd
drawn his own wand.

``Wait, no, Draco!'' Harry caught his wrist. ``This rat is
a\ldots{}friend.''

``Really,'' said Draco, in a tone full of drawling disbelief that he had
to have learned from Lucius.

Harry opened his mouth to answer, and then Peter transformed. Draco
yelped, but tried to step in front of Harry instead of scrambling away.
``Who are you?'' he asked. ``If you want to hurt him, you'll have to go
through me.''

"And you say \emph{I} say melodramatic things when I'm referring to my
brother," Harry muttered, exasperated, and dragged Draco out of the way.
He nodded to Peter. ``What brings you here?''

``I found a new hole in the wards,'' Peter murmured, his voice barely
above a whisper. ``And I came to ask you if you could look into my mind.
I know you said you were learning Occlumency. What about Legilimency?''

Harry blinked. ``Yes, I am, but I'm a very poor beginner at it so far.''
He'd had several arguments with Snape on the subject. While Harry had a
natural liking for Occlumency's defensive shields, he found it very hard
to \emph{want} to push his will into someone else's mind. Snape
understood that, and was deeply unsympathetic, pointing out that Harry
still needed to learn it.

``Please try,'' said Peter. ``Lately, my thoughts don't feel like my
own. I see flashes of gold that remind me of the phoenix web sometimes,
but I don't see how, since I know I got mine under control or I could
never have escaped from Azkaban in the first place. I woke up this
morning with the urge to tell you to trust Dumbledore.'' He shook his
head. ``I know it seems impossible, but could you please look?''

Harry hesitated, then nodded one more time. ``All right, but if I don't
find anything, then you might want to go see Snape.''

``Are you kidding?'' Peter snorted. ``The man terrifies me.''

``He's not that bad,'' Harry began, but gave up when he saw the
expression on Peter's face. ``All right, all right, but I'm not
promising anything.'' He shifted his wand so that it pointed at
Peter---he still didn't trust himself to do this wandlessly---fixed his
eyes on the other man's, and murmured, \emph{"Legilimens.}"

A brief, dizzying swirl of motion consumed him. He felt as though he
were traveling forward, on the end of an arrow made of pure will. Then
he was past the first trembling barrier and into Peter's mind.

He caught a glimpse of gold, but it vanished. Harry frowned and pressed
forward, trying to find out if there really was a web here.

He found Peter's mind odd---endless gray corridors, broken here and
there by doors that Harry supposed led to memories and suppressed
emotions. Dark, prowling shapes were probably his mental defenses, or
his magic. It wasn't until one of the shapes drifted past him and Harry
recognized it as a Dementor that Harry realized Peter had constructed
his mind to resemble Azkaban.

Swallowing a surge of pity that would distract him from his goal, Harry
slipped past the Dementors and opened a few doors, looking for the
golden web. He found nothing. The brightest color in Peter's mind was
olive green, which flashed whenever Harry came near it. He supposed that
was the part of Peter's will that had to do with protecting him.

Then he realized he had hunted in the corridors and behind the doors and
past the Dementors, but he had not looked in one very simple place. He
stepped back and looked up.

\emph{There} was the web, a faint, glimmering thing, but real,
stretching over the gray stone blocks of the ceiling. Harry let out a
harsh breath and started to reach towards it, gently. He would not break
it as he had the web of Remus's \emph{Obliviate}, but there was no doubt
that Peter needed it gone.

Then something jerked him rudely out of Peter's mind, and he looked up
to see Professor McGonagall rounding the corner at a dead run, followed
by Professor Sprout. ``The wards are going mad,'' McGonagall said,
panting. ``What in the name of Merlin--?''

Peter had already transformed and scuttled back to whatever hole in the
wall he had emerged from. Harry grimaced and managed to keep from
looking after him. \emph{I bet Dumbledore left that hole open in the
wards as a trap for Peter, so that he would be tempted to come here and
seek me out, and Dumbledore could catch him inside Hogwarts.}

``I didn't hear any wards, Professors,'' he said, and glanced at Draco.
``Did you hear any wards, Draco?''

The other boy solemnly shook his head. Harry smiled at him, thanking him
for going along with the pretense, although he knew from Draco's pointed
stare that he would have some explaining to do later.

``Of course you wouldn't, they're keyed to the professors,'' said
Sprout, and pushed her tumble-down hat back on her head. ``What do you
think, Minerva? Should we search the corridors?''

``Of course, Pomona,'' said McGonagall, but she was frowning at Harry.
Harry put on his most innocent expression. He knew that he could
probably get McGonagall to believe him about Peter if he took the time
to explain, but he didn't have Peter's permission to do so, not even the
implicit permission he'd granted Harry to tell Draco about him by
appearing in front of them both.

McGonagall shook her head at last, and she and Sprout both turned,
trotting down a side-corridor. Harry sighed and faced Draco.

``I suppose we're going up to the Owlery?'' he asked.

``Sure,'' Draco agreed easily. ``And along the way, you can explain why
you have the most interesting friends.''

``Of course,'' said Harry. ``I think it all started when this stuck-up,
snotty pureblood boy approached me on the Hogwarts Express in the first
year\ldots{}''

He ducked Draco's punch, grinning. It kept him from thinking about what
it meant that Peter was apparently wearing yet another phoenix web.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Harry yawned and knuckled at his eyes, then sat back with a sigh.
Hermione had been right. Every single book with so much as a reference
to the phoenix web had been removed from the library.

He stood, immediately drawing Millicent's attention. She'd settled the
incipient fight between Draco and Harry earlier in the evening---Harry
wanted to go to the library; Draco wanted to stay in their rooms and
work on his Charms homework---by volunteering to accompany him. Draco
had been a bit uneasy, but since he trusted someone else to watch Harry
in Divination for him, he couldn't really object. And most people knew
not to mess with Millicent, unless they wanted either a pulled ear or a
vicious hex.

``Ready to go back?'' she asked.

``Yeah.'' Harry glanced at the clock he'd brought along with him,
another part of Draco's compromise. Draco seemed to think Harry would
feel better if he knew instantly what Draco and Snape were doing at all
times when they weren't with him. That way, he would know where to find
them if he needed their comfort or company.

Snape's hand was lodged under PLOTTING. Harry hadn't yet seen it move,
except when Snape was making potions; if Snape stopped plotting even in
his sleep, he did it long after Harry fell asleep himself. Draco's was
under STUDYING, but even as Harry watched, it moved. Harry smiled. So
they had finished at the same time, and he could go back and entertain
Draco. It really was a shame that the clock didn't include a setting for
`bored,' which Draco usually was when Harry wasn't with him.

Then Harry's smile froze as Draco's hand settled under IN DANGER.

Harry gasped, heart pounding and head feeling oddly light and dizzy. He
nodded to Millicent. ``Can you bring my clock and my books for me?'' he
whispered, and then tore out of the library.

``Harry? Harry!'' Millicent was shouting after him, earning a sharp
reprimand from Madam Pince. Harry ignored them both. Millicent was a
smart girl. She would be able to look at the clock and see what was
happening.

Harry reached the stairs and skidded down them, rolling and falling
where necessary, the way that Lily had taught him to fall from a broom.
His thoughts were chaotic, welling on the edge of panic, but he refused
to let panic rule him. He made a plan instead, and brought his magic up
around him, locking it firmly in place. He was ready if someone struck
at him with a spell, and he was ready to destroy any Dark artifacts that
might threaten Draco the way he had destroyed the snake.

He reached the dungeon corridor, and forced himself to pause as he heard
a sharp crack from ahead. It sounded like the crack of a house elf's
Apparition. When he stepped around the corner, though, there was no
house elf there.

Harry hurried to the door, gasped, "\emph{Dragonsbane}," and then all
but jumped inside as the wall slid open. He tore through the common
room, earning more than his share of curious looks, and then snatched
open the door of their bedroom---

And stopped.

Draco looked up curiously from his Charms book. ``Harry! You're back.
What's the matter?'' He sat up, looking concerned.

Harry stared around the room, breathing hard. He saw no evidence of Dark
magical artifacts, nor of anyone hiding and waiting to cast a spell. He
concentrated on his hearing, but couldn't hear the slight breathing and
shuffling that would have given someone under an Invisibility Cloak
away. Harry bit his lip, bewildered. Had the clock been wrong after all?

A warning twinge, his magic breathing in another kind of magic perhaps,
wafted over his skin, and he remembered his experience in Peter's mind
last weekend. He took a step back and looked up.

The ceiling was covered with a rustling mat of spiders, like the one
that had attacked him in the corridor by the North Tower.

Harry had barely seen them when they fell on him.

Harry went to his knees, ignoring Draco's shout of his name, forcing
himself to remember what the spider in the corridor had done.
\emph{Breathed out spores,} he thought, and took a deep breath and held
it, even as his skin crawled from the effect of hundreds of tiny legs
racing all over it.

Hard ridges, the spiders' metallic outsides, brushed and cut him. Harry
felt mandibles snap at his sleeves and robe folds, but luckily the cloth
was fending them off so far. But it was only a matter of time before one
of them found skin. Harry wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that
their bite was poisonous.

He couldn't use cold; it probably wouldn't affect Dark magical artifacts
like this. He shuddered as a crawling leg rasped at his lips, and one of
the spiders did a tap-dance across his eyelid. He couldn't use
Parseltongue, as he had to call the snake, because these weren't
serpents.

What would be the best weapon?

He hit on it just as a spider hit on him, and its mandibles went home
into flesh. Harry wailed silently at the unexpectedly icy sting of the
poison, but didn't let himself scream aloud. He was growing dizzy with
lack of breath, and the solution to that problem was to destroy the
spiders.

He imagined the small ball of golden light he'd called to rest in his
hand, like a Snidget or a phoenix, when he'd given his message to
everyone who cared to see it on the vernal equinox. He clenched his
hands close together and imagined that intensity of power again, only
this time he wouldn't let it expand. He would concentrate it in a tight
space, just around his body, just above his skin, and---

A second spider bit him just before it burst into flame from within,
irradiated by a blast of pure magic. Harry viciously held onto his
breath and his power, not letting it surge outward. It crackled just
above his skin, burning the spiders' metallic outsides, overwhelming
their magic with its own, and Harry imagined it hotter and hotter,
brighter and brighter, until the last spider fell away from him.

He stood, wobbling uncertainly, breathing in what felt like the most
wonderful air ever created, and caught Draco's horrified eyes in the
moment before dizziness swamped him. ``Poison,'' he whispered. ``Tell
Snape to look at the spiders' jaws, if any are left.''

He pushed his magic back inside his skin, and then collapsed. Two icy
arrows of venom rode his body towards his heart.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Harry opened his eyes slowly. He knew he was in the hospital wing,
because he remembered the spiders biting him, and where \emph{else}
would he be? He was not lucky enough to have Draco merely tell Snape and
have his guardian brew an antivenin that would cure him at once and keep
the matter quiet.

He saw Draco first, on one side of the bed, and Snape on the other.
Draco gave a little cry of relief and clenched his hand down on Harry's
left one. Harry didn't feel anything for a moment, and panicked, but
then Draco lifted his hand high enough for him to see it was all there,
fingers intact. Harry relaxed a bit and looked at Snape.

``The spiders' ice numbed your extremities,'' Snape said, his voice not
giving anything away. ``It will be some time before you regain all
feeling in your left hand and your right foot, the places where they bit
you. But you will live, and you will regain it eventually.''

Harry nodded. ``Thank you, sir. I'm alive thanks to a potion that you
brewed, I take it?''

``There would not have been time to brew it from scratch,'' said Snape.
His body was still tightly coiled, his voice nearly as cold as the
venom. ``But it was similar enough to adder poison that I was able to
modify the formula, and that saved your life.''

``Thank you, sir,'' Harry repeated.

Snape abruptly stood and strode from the hospital wing. Harry watched
him go with a puzzled frown, then glanced at Draco, who just shook his
head.

``Don't mind him, Harry,'' he whispered. ``He was frantic when he
thought you were going to die. And then it turned out you weren't, and
now he seems to think he has to go cold to make up for feeling a real,
human emotion. Besides, he needs someone to blame, and he hasn't figured
out how to blame you for risking your life yet.'' Draco hesitated, his
face growing sober. ``Or who sent those spiders into the room.''

Harry gnawed his lip. His thoughts felt sluggish, probably as a result
of the potions he'd taken, but he could force them to move, leap, and
concentrate. ``You never saw them enter?''

``No,'' Draco admitted. ``They were small enough that they could have
hidden in all the corners of the room, then come together just in time
to catch you.''

Harry blinked. ``I thought they were for you,'' he said. ``The clock
said you were in danger.''

``I probably was,'' Draco said. "Snape recognized the spiders---the Dark
Lord had some like them, from the treasuries of some of the older Dark
families. They'll obey their master's orders, go into a room and wait
for a command to attack, but they're not really \emph{smart}. After a
certain amount of time has passed, if they can't fulfill their orders to
attack one particular person, then they'll bite anything that moves."

Harry sighed, as he remembered the crack of house elf Apparition. ``I
think someone had a house elf watching for me, to report when I was
almost in the room,'' he muttered. ``And I didn't even pause to think
about it. I was too worried that you might already be dying.''

Draco grinned at him. "You don't need to \emph{apologize} for that,
Harry. I'm flattered, really." Then he sat back, and his face assumed a
more austere expression. ``But you do need to explain dashing out of the
library so quickly that Millicent couldn't follow.''

Harry stared at him. ``I just did. I thought you were in danger.''

``And what if someone had attacked you on the way back to the
dungeons?'' Draco countered. ``What if the person threatening me wasn't
setting up an ambush in our room, but along the way, and just used the
spiders to make you panic and not think about where you were going?''

``That's ridiculous, Draco,'' said Harry. ``You're getting paranoid.''

``I'm sensible,'' Draco retorted. ``And you nearly died. And you have a
vengeful best friend, and a vengeful guardian stewing in the dungeons
who is going to make everyone's life hell for the next few days while he
tries to figure out a way to admit he was terrified for you. I think
that's worth some basic safety, Harry.'' He leaned back and looked at
him sternly until Harry nodded in reluctant acceptance.

``Good!'' said Draco brightly. ``Now, Blaise has agreed to give up some
sleep so that you can still shower at your insanely early time---''

That was as far as Draco got before the door to the hospital wing
abruptly crashed open. Harry blinked and turned his head. Connor stood
in the doorway, looking nearly as angry as he had when he first accused
Harry of making their mother a Muggle.

``How dare you!'' he screamed in Harry's general direction.

"I \emph{am} going to kill him."

Draco didn't shout the words, which was what had Harry worried. He
snapped his hand out and cried, "\emph{Expelliarmus}!" as Draco tried to
draw his wand. The wand smacked into Harry's palm, and Draco gave him a
furious, betrayed look.

Connor was still ranting. ``How could you take me away from my lessons
with Sirius?'' he shouted. He stood at the foot of Harry's bed and
yelled hard enough that Harry could feel the flecks of spittle on his
face. "The Headmaster just told me. I don't \emph{know} what you did to
Dumbledore, maybe you compelled him or something, that would make sense,
that's what Dark wizards do, but how could you---how could you---"
Connor broke off, breathing raggedly. His face was red with splotches
and tears.

Harry didn't know what Draco was going to do in time to prevent it, and
given how sore his muscles felt, he might not have managed to move even
if he did. Draco punched Connor in the face with all his strength. Harry
heard the savage crumple of bone, and his brother fell to the floor,
wailing.

"Your brother just nearly \emph{died}," Draco said, and he had never
sounded more like Lucius to Harry. He bent over Connor and said the
words directly into his face, tone hard and cold enough to make Harry
shiver. "And \emph{you}, instead of coming here to ask after his health
like a concerned sibling, come here and \emph{accuse} him of trying to
make life \emph{better} for you. So he's taking you away from that
insane idiot you call a godfather. He's teaching you himself, did you
know that? Giving up time and effort so that you can become a better
wizard."

Connor said something that Harry couldn't understand, given that his
fingers were clamped over his face. At least part of it sounded like
``want to corrupt me,'' though.

Draco's voice grew harsher and quieter. ``It's beyond me why Harry cares
for you,'' he spat. "But he does, Merlin help him, and so I'm not going
to kill you---although I knew a few hexes that would be worth Harry's
ill regard for the next two years. I'm going to insure that his life is
still good, even with \emph{you} in it, you worthless piece of
hippogriff dung. You won't take anything away from him. I'll \emph{drag}
you into being a good brother if I have to. I'll make sure that he still
smiles and laughs even while he's teaching you. And someday, I'll make
you apologize, and mean it."

He stood and moved away from Connor, who lay on the floor, sobbing.
Harry sat in the middle of the bed and had no idea what to say. Draco
moved up beside him.

``I'm never going to apologize for that one, Harry,'' he said, eyes
narrowed. ``You might as well give up the idea right now. And I'm going
to sit in on every one of your lessons with him, and make sure that
you're not just pouring your skill and love down the drain.''

``All right,'' Harry whispered. His head rebounded with the echoes of
what Draco had said to Connor. Two realizations had come up on him
sharply.

\emph{There really are other people in the world who don't think my
brother is worth more than hippogriff dung. If I think that, I'm not
going to be alone. I don't have to feel guilty}. That was the first one.

The second was, \emph{Merlin, how much must Draco care for me, to want
to spend time with a person he abhors, just to make sure I don't kill
myself trying to do the impossible?}

``Can I have my wand back now?'' Draco asked, and Harry absently handed
it over.

``What is all this?'' Madam Pomfrey asked just then, sweeping around the
corner with a tray on a strap around her neck. The tray contained
various shimmering vials of potion, Harry saw. "I step out for five
minutes, and a fight happens, in \emph{my} hospital wing?" She shook her
head and set the tray down on the table next to Harry's bed. ``Into a
bed, Mr. Potter---Connor. Mr. Malfoy, please leave now.''

\emph{She doesn't sound as outraged as she should have,} Harry thought,
staring at the matron. \emph{And isn't it a coincidence that she only
entered after everything was all over?}

Madam Pomfrey caught his glance and tilted him a wink as she helped
Connor into a bed. Harry blinked several times. \emph{So it's not only
students who don't really like Connor.}

\emph{Merlin help me, I'll have a lot of work ahead of me to teach him
the proper way of things.}

``See you tomorrow, Harry,'' Draco said softly, drawing his gaze back,
and then squeezed his hand and left the hospital wing.

Harry lay back, absently accepting a sleeping potion when Madam Pomfrey
insisted he take it. Until it took effect, his thoughts whirled and
danced in the chaos he hadn't permitted them to assume earlier.

\emph{I have a lot of things to think about.}


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Harry winced as Sirius bowled out of the Great Hall, obviously on the
verge of yet another fight with Snape. At least Sirius had himself under
better control now, and would walk away when the insults grew too
fierce, instead of attacking.

A glance back at the head table told Harry that Snape was smirking as he
finished his breakfast, viciously pleased with himself. Harry groaned
softly. He wished that Snape had found something more productive to do
with his anger at the murder attempt on Harry than simply insulting the
other professors until they cracked. Of course, if they could actually
find out who had done it, then he might calm down---or at least refocus
his anger on the criminal instead.

Harry sighed wearily and scooped up a spoonful of porridge. Dumbledore
had questioned all the house elves in Hogwarts. None of them had put the
spiders into the Slytherin rooms, or spied on Harry's progress and told
the spiders' master when to release them. Harry didn't trust the
Headmaster---least of all since he had learned about the renewal of
Peter's web---but he didn't really think Dumbledore would have lied
about this. Indeed, he had been very concerned over almost losing Harry.
He still needed him to teach Connor, of course.

``Harry.''

Harry jumped at the grave tone in Draco's voice, and turned to see his
friend holding the \emph{Daily Prophet} out towards him. Harry swallowed
and took the paper. He wasn't sure what he expected to see on the front
page---more about the anti-werewolf legislation, which was encountering
some problems, maybe, or mysterious news of Fenrir Greyback's even more
mysterious activities.

His heart nearly stopped when he saw what was there.

\textbf{\emph{{DEATH EATERS ESCAPE FROM AZKABAN}}}

``Shit,'' Harry whispered, and skimmed the story. Various phrases leaped
out at him here and there.

\ldots{}\emph{lack of Dementors on the prison, as they were called to
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to look for the fugitive
Peter Pettigrew\ldots{}guards described a `gray presence' invading their
minds and sending them to sleep\ldots{}anti-Apparition wards
destroyed\ldots{}the prison has lost all the Death Eaters in custody,
including the infamous Bellatrix Lestrange\ldots{}Aurors can find no
trace\ldots{}}

Harry put the paper down and took a deep, steadying breath. He knew what
he was going to do about this, unlike the werewolf legislation.

Thus, when Draco asked him just that a moment later, Harry was able to
smile grimly and say, ``I'm going to fight, of course. And train Connor
to fight. He's one of their primary targets.''

``Aren't you glad that I insisted on coming to the lessons and
tightening the protections around you after all?'' Draco asked lightly,
his hand shaking just a bit as he picked up an apple. ``This way, we're
already half-prepared.''

Harry nodded. His panic was subsiding into grim determination.

\emph{I will not let them destroy me with fear. Fear is eating the
Ministry alive from the inside out. Fear is destroying Connor. It
hinders Dumbledore and makes Snape impossible to live with.}

\emph{I am going to} fight.

\chapter{*Chapter 39*: Interlude: A Last
Warning}\label{chapter-39-interlude-a-last-warning}

This Interlude more or less sets up the ending of the book.

\textbf{Interlude: A Last Warning}

\emph{April 10th, 1994}

\emph{Dear Mr. Potter:}

It has been some time since I have written to you, I know. I have been
busy collecting information, at great personal risk to myself. The
journey was not so bad. The destination most assuredly was, and if
anyone had guessed what I was doing, the consequences would have been
incredibly harsh.

I have prompted you to ask why Sirius Black did not go to Azkaban.
However, you have not been diligent in seeking the answers. That will
{not }do, Mr. Potter. You {must} begin to take your duties
seriously---and that includes your duties as a leader of importance to
both Light and Dark wizards as well as your duties in protecting your
brother.

As you assuredly did not know, Sirius Black was your parents' original
Secret-Keeper. But then his brother Regulus was captured when attempting
to leave the Death Eaters, in possession of an object that Voldemort
valued very much. Alas, I have been unable to learn what this object
was.

Voldemort used a curse to connect Sirius's and Regulus's minds, and let
Sirius feel his brother's pain as he tortured him to death. In so doing,
he intended to break Black and make him give away your parents'
location. But Dumbledore intervened before he could. Peter Pettigrew
became your parents' Secret-Keeper in Black's place, with instructions
to betray you at an appropriate moment. If that does not convince you of
Dumbledore's malice and Pettigrew's innocence, then nothing ever will.
Make a less wary connection with Pettigrew, I urge you. I believe he has
come to seek you from pure motives.

This information I learned from Pensieves. There is one more piece of
information, which I learned from a tapestry, and which may be of
interest to you:

Sirius was disinherited by his parents when he was sixteen, after he ran
away to your father's house. That resulted in his mother blasting him
off the Black family tapestry and making his brother Regulus heir.
However, the tapestry I have seen has Sirius's name printed clearly on
it.

I believe this is the reason that Regulus's existence was concealed from
you, your brother, and so many other people, as well as the
circumstances of his death. There are spells that will work against
inheritance magic if the designated heir is both dead and {forgotten} by
enough people, and if the person selected as heir instead is related to
the family by blood or adoption. It is the only reason I can give for
why Sirius Black's name is still on the tapestry as the heir of his
line, rather than the inheritance having passed to his cousin, Bellatrix
Black Lestrange.

For some reason, Sirius wanted to remain his parents' heir, and
Dumbledore agreed.

Think on {that}, Mr. Potter, and be careful whom you trust. This is one
of the last times that I will be able to help you pass one of the harsh
tests of life. Soon, you must take your place as leader, and then there
will be no one to shield you. You must make your decisions, and those
decisions will include killing.

Yours in starlight and shadows,

\emph{Starborn.}

\emph{}


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


\emph{April 10th, 1994}

Lucius:

You will note already that you do not recognize my handwriting. That
does not matter. Be assured that I hold the same position as the last
person who wrote to you. However, he has proven\ldots{}most
unsatisfactory as a servant. He has been replaced.

You do not know me by my writing, Lucius. This quill was guided by
unfamiliar hands. However, I know you. I can imagine your eyes widening
with shock, then narrowing as you try to process what this will mean for
you and your family. Have no fear, my sly and cunning Lord of Bad Faith.
I will tell you what it means.

It means destruction. You and your family were doomed from the moment
you chose to ally yourselves with Harry Potter. I have been patient long
enough. There is no forgiveness now. And my true allies, now escaped
from the isle of mists and unhappy memories that obscured them for so
long, will not forgive you, either.

You will have heard about the attack of spiders on your best hope for
the future? That was only a demonstration of my power, Lucius. Be
assured, if I wanted him dead, he would be. However, I do not yet want
Harry Potter dead. I have far more specific uses for him in mind. There
will be justice before I am finished.

The Dark Lord has almost returned, Lucius.

Now comes the night, and out of this darkness, there will be no morn.

\chapter{*Chapter 40*: Educating His
Brother}\label{chapter-40-educating-his-brother}

Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter! This one is actually less
angsty, or, at least, the angst is a little more personal.

\textbf{Chapter Thirty-Four: Educating His Brother}

``I don't think he's coming.''

Harry glanced up, blinking, from Scrimgeour's letter, which he was
reading for the fifth time, in an attempt to deduce any useful clues
from the bland government-speak that the Auror had chosen to send him in
return for his warning about Greyback and Macnair. ``Why not?'' he
asked, when he finally realized Draco was talking about Connor.

``I don't think he's coming,'' Draco repeated. He gave a sneer around
the abandoned classroom they sat in, as though the newly cleared dust
was about to return.

"Yes, but that doesn't tell me \emph{why}," Harry said, folding the
letter and tucking it in a pocket. ``He said he would be here.'' He held
up the piece of parchment he'd enchanted to communicate back and forth
with a piece of parchment Connor held. It was a variation of the spells
that made the Marauder's Map, but simpler; it insured that any message
written on either piece of parchment would appear on both. Connor's
\emph{I'll be there}. \emph{Now stop bothering me} was still visible at
the top of the page. Harry knew from the scratches on the b's, almost
tearing through the parchment, that his brother was angry and sullen.

``Because he's afraid of you,'' said Draco, leaning back on a desk and
kicking at the legs of another. ``Because he's afraid of me. Because
he's a wanker.''

Harry tried to hide a chuckle, though he suspected from the sidelong
glance Draco gave him than he'd probably heard anyway. ``You're bored,
aren't you?''

"Well, that and he \emph{was} supposed to be here five minutes ago,"
Draco said.

``You said that you would help,'' Harry reminded him. ``Of course, you
can leave, and I wouldn't blame you. This isn't likely to be easy, or
pleasant.''

Draco shook his head, his face closing. ``I said that I would help you
get something worthwhile out of him, and I will,'' he said. ``Besides,
if I left, you would have to come with me. There's no way that I'll let
you be alone with him ever again.''

Harry rolled his eyes. Draco often made grand pronouncements like that
and forgot them five minutes later. This one would linger,
undoubtedly---it had only been three days since Draco punched Connor in
the nose---and it was true that Draco was giving up his Easter holidays
with his family to stay at the school and help Harry with Connor. But he
would have to forget it soon. ``Whatever you say.''

He glanced up sharply as the door opened. Connor shuffled in, his face
red. Harry couldn't tell if it was mostly from sullenness,
embarrassment, anger, or something else. He shut the classroom's door
behind him and leaned against it, glaring at Harry, his arms folded.

Harry felt a brief and entirely unexpected twinge of sympathy for
teachers like McGonagall, who had to coax students determined to resist
her teaching methods into appreciating the subject. He knew he couldn't
get away with her sternness, though, nor with Snape's intimidation. He
thought it better to imitate Remus, so he plastered a smile on his face
and said, ``Welcome, Connor. I'm glad that you decided to come.''

``The Headmaster told me that I didn't have a choice,'' said Connor.
He'd made an obvious effort to strip all the emotion from his tone, but
some was still there---bubbling fury. Harry concealed a sigh, making
sure he did better at it than he had hiding his laughter from Draco.
"And he told me that I can't have lessons with Sirius any more, either.
\emph{Why} did you do that?" He squinted at Harry, ignoring Draco with
all the persistence of a child.

``Because I'm worried about you,'' said Harry. \emph{Remus is always
honest. He always explains the motivations behind his lessons.} ``You
were spending so much time with Sirius that you were picking up on his
attitudes. You'd started to hate Slytherins and think we were all
evil.''

``Well, you are,'' said Connor, sidling a few steps away from the door,
but not coming any nearer Harry.

Harry sighed. \emph{Maybe this is the place to begin, then.} He'd
intended to start with practical lessons first, to get Connor used to
some other kind of magic besides compulsion, but he couldn't do that if
Connor absolutely refused to learn. ``Do you really think that everyone
in Slytherin is evil, Connor?'' he asked softly. "The little
eleven-year-olds who were Sorted into our House this year? Or the people
who work in the Ministry and on the \emph{Daily Prophet} and in
Hogsmeade and in Diagon Alley and everywhere else who were Slytherins?"

``None of them work in those places,'' Connor insisted.

``It looks like you'll have to give him practical lessons in basic
intelligence, Harry,'' Draco drawled.

``Shut up, you're not helping,'' Harry muttered at him, and then dived
in before Connor's startlement could give way to outrage. ``They do,
Connor. Did you know that Madam Malkin, the one who made our robes for
Hogwarts, used to be a Slytherin?'' It had been easy enough to learn
that; \emph{Hogwarts, A History} had a list of past Slytherin students
and what they were doing now. ``And Zonko, who runs the joke shop? And
Rufus Scrimgeour, who's the Head of the Auror Office? He chases Dark
wizards all day, and he made a vow when he was twelve that he was going
to use Light magic only, and he's kept it ever since. Do those sound
like evil people to you?''

"They don't \emph{sound} like it," Connor admitted reluctantly. ``But
they could be hiding it. Sirius told me. That's the trouble with
Slytherins. You think you know them, and then they turn out to be
something else.'' He glared at Harry. ``Like you. We thought you were
going to be a Gryffindor all the time we were growing up, and then it
turned out that you weren't.''

Harry sighed. "I don't think anybody \emph{planned} where I went,
Connor."

``I knew,'' said Draco lowly.

Harry shook his head at him. ``I wanted the Hat to put me in
Gryffindor,'' he went on, turning back to his brother. ``That was so I
could protect you. I wanted to share the same House as you did, the same
friends, the same life. I wanted to do everything for you.''

``What changed?'' Connor whispered, and Harry was astonished to see
tears edge into his eyes. It honestly hadn't occurred to him that his
brother, under all the rage and the hate and the fear, might miss him.

``Then? I wasn't sure.'' Harry shrugged. ``Now, I think it had to do
with how well I'd been trained to hide everything---''

"Ah-\emph{ha}!"

Harry rolled his eyes. ``That was Mum who trained me to hide things, not
anyone else,'' he said sharply. ``No one was ever supposed to know that
I could protect you, that I was the reason you were surviving the
attacks that you were. I was supposed to guide and protect you into
becoming a defeater of Voldemort without ever revealing that I'd done
it. I was supposed to die in the final battle defending you, if
possible, and no one would ever know that it came from my dedication to
your service. It would just be the love of a brother for another
brother.''

He felt a brief tremor of unease race down his spine as he contemplated
that. He had seen his life as a straight line for a long time, running
until that final battle, when he would undoubtedly die. If he survived,
the images were less clear, but they would still include serving Connor.

And now those were gone, and Harry had, so far, no perfected image of
the future to replace any of them.

\emph{It's no wonder that so many wizards gave up on being the} vates,
he thought. \emph{I would give much for a path where I} knew \emph{where
I was going.}

He shook himself out of it when he realized that Draco's arms were
around his waist, and Draco was glaring bloody murder at Connor over his
shoulder. Harry turned to face him. ``What?'' he whispered.

``He's just standing there,'' Draco snarled back. ``Like he doesn't know
what to do. Like he doesn't think that his precious Gryffindor Mu---''

"\emph{Draco.}"

``Muggleborn, Muggleborn, I was going to say Muggleborn,'' said Draco.
``Like he doesn't think she could have made someone into a Slytherin. I
know that you told him about being forced to act as his slave once
before. Why doesn't he believe it?''

``Too much time with Sirius.'' Harry tried to slip out of Draco's
embrace, and couldn't do it. Draco even shook him slightly when he
tried.

``No,'' he said. ``I want him to see that someone values you, damn it.''

``Or you want to taunt him about having my company and friendship when
he doesn't,'' Harry muttered back.

``That, too.''

Harry faced Connor once again. Connor had closed his mouth and swallowed
painfully. Then he looked up and said, ``But you can't deny that the
largest number of Death Eaters were Slytherins, Harry.''

Harry shrugged. ``No, I can't. But only because Voldemort was in that
House and had the most contacts among them---''

"Ah-\emph{ha}!"

``That's really very annoying, you know,'' Harry told him. "And
Slytherin House existed for almost a thousand years before Voldemort
came to Hogwarts, and it went on existing after him. My \emph{point} is
that not everyone who comes out of the House is evil, Connor. I'm not
going to force you to judge me as good, or Draco, or Millicent, or
anyone else in Hogwarts right now. But if you really think that the
Sorting Hat separates out people who are evil or good, then why do you
think there are three good Houses and one evil? Why do you think
Slytherins are allowed to stay in Hogwarts at all? Wouldn't it make more
sense to just exile them the moment the Sorting Hat chose them as
Slytherin, and refuse to teach them magic?"

Connor waved a hand. ``It doesn't work like that. Sirius explained it to
me. They have to keep Slytherins around to keep an eye on you. It would
be worse to let you run around loose and become even Darker wizards.''
He scowled at Harry. ``And Gryffindors are the best of the best, the
Light wizards.''

``And Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw?'' Harry asked.

``I don't know,'' said Connor, with an impatient shrug. "Sirius didn't
spend a lot of time talking about them. They're just\ldots{}there, I
suppose. The wizards in them can be good, but that doesn't mean they're
really \emph{important}. They follow Gryffindors when it comes to
fighting Slytherins, and that's enough."

``I resent that highly,'' said a voice from the door.

Harry whirled as much as he could in Draco's hold, which wasn't much.
Zacharias Smith leaned against the classroom door. He had a smile on his
face, but it didn't reach his eyes. They were fixed on Connor, and they
made Harry wince. He had seen Zacharias look like that in class when he
thought someone else was being stupid, and it usually meant a series of
pointed questions was about to occur.

``And so do I,'' said Hermione, as she pushed in behind Zacharias.
``You're making our House look incredibly asinine and prejudiced,
Connor.''


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Hermione had been feeling like that for some time, really.

She was the one who had all but forced Connor into going to his lesson
with Harry, by threatening him with not helping him study for Charms if
he didn't. Since Connor was having a lot of trouble with levitation
Charms stronger than \emph{Wingardium Leviosa}, he had slouched off,
with a scowl.

Hermione hadn't been able to restrain herself. She'd waited until ten
minutes after Connor left, then announced to Ron that she was going to
the library. Since Ron was engaged in a game of chess with Ginny, he'd
just let out a ``Hmm,'' and Hermione had ducked out without further
problems.

\emph{I have to see what they're studying,} she'd assured herself as she
hurried down the stairs from Gryffindor Tower. \emph{It might benefit
me, after all. If they're studying pureblood rituals, then I can get to
see them in action, and complicated spells would help, too. It's not
really just nosy curiosity. Of course not.}

She did cast the Disillusionment Charm on herself before she reached the
classroom door, and was glad she had. Zacharias Smith was lurking there,
listening in a way that Hermione was convinced was\ldots{}evil. Or at
least, annoying. Zacharias Smith was an annoying git who only got as
many points as he did for Hufflepuff because he was pureblooded,
Hermione was convinced, and had mastered pureblood poise. That meant she
had to work twice as hard as he did, since she was Muggleborn. And Smith
never let her forget it, either; whenever a class, even History of
Magic, referred to purebloods somehow, he would catch Hermione's eye and
give her a cool smile. She wondered if he knew that only made her more
determined to defeat him.

\emph{Bloody annoying git,} Hermione's thoughts continued, and were so
pervasive that for a moment she didn't listen to what was actually
happening in the classroom.

Then she did, and was appalled.

\emph{Connor's an idiot,} she thought fretfully. \emph{All right, so I
don't like most Slytherins either\ldots{}well, Harry's all right. And
even Malfoy's all right when he's worried about Harry. And I suppose
Parkinson hasn't been as bad since that newspaper article about
werewolves, though I still don't know why it affected her so much. And
Millicent terrorizes people who want to hex Harry, not me.}

\emph{But still!} she added in her head, feeling she was being disloyal
to Gryffindor. \emph{I don't think that he has any right to spout that
slime about Slytherins. How is it any different from being prejudiced
against Muggleborns, really? Some Slytherins are perfectly awful people,
but some aren't. And I can think of Hufflepuffs who are worse,} she
thought, with a glance at Smith.

Then Connor dismissed the whole of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff Houses as if
they weren't important, and that made Smith step in. Hermione had known
it would. He couldn't stand being insulted, even if it was by proxy and
not personally.

``I resent that highly,'' he said, sliding into the room.

Hermione hesitated for a moment. \emph{Do I have to go in? No one knows
I'm here. And I'm sure that Smith will only try to outshine me, again.}

\emph{No. I know I'm here. And if I don't say anything, then I'm
agreeing with Connor, and I don't want to do that. Besides, a preening
pureblood shouldn't be the only voice of good sense here.}

She lowered the Charm, stepped in behind Smith, and said, ``And so do
I.'' For a moment, she wondered if she'd said the words soon enough
after Smith's for them to really play off his, but decided she had, from
the fact that no one looked at her in confusion, only surprise. ``You're
making our House look incredibly asinine and prejudiced, Connor.''

Connor gaped at her. Harry just lowered his head as though resigned, and
Malfoy tightened his arms around his waist, shooting Connor a smug smile
that Hermione doubted he noticed.

So, of course, Smith had to fill the void.

``Careful, Granger,'' he murmured. Hermione glanced at him and saw his
eyes narrowed in that squinty pureblood way she hated, but they were
narrowed at Connor and not her. ``Are you sure you should be using the
word `asinine?' We don't want to strain the little boy's brain-power,
after all.''

Hermione found an unexpected smile creeping onto her face. ``You're
right, of course, Smith,'' she said. ``Since Connor's apparently never
read any book, at all, that talked about a good Slytherin, I think he
can't have read too many books.'' She nodded at Connor with mock apology
in her expression. ``Sorry, Connor. Little words from now on, all
right?''

Connor went red and began to splutter. Smith cocked his head on one
side, watching him. ``What do you think, Granger?'' he asked her. ``Will
dramatic speeches from our future leader of the Light consist of
splutter, splutter, spittle, spittle?''

Hermione pretended to debate with herself, pursing her lips in a way
she'd got from McGonagall. ``Add another spittle, I think,'' she said
finally. ``There's certainly enough flying from his lips.''

"\emph{Hermione}," said Connor, in a deep, betrayed wail. "You're
supposed to be my \emph{friend}. A \emph{Gryffindor}. Why are you doing
this?"

Hermione's temper flared abruptly. She wasn't sure why. Maybe it was the
overdramatic self-righteous whinging that Connor was doing right now.
``Really?'' she snapped. "I was under the impression that you didn't
call your \emph{friends}, and I quote, `interfering busybodies who
should know better than to think their brains give them the right to
order everybody around.' I was trying to talk to you about my \emph{own}
perceptions, Connor. I wasn't some pawn of Harry's. And I won't be your
pawn, either. You're an obnoxious, big-headed, unappreciative, idiotic
\emph{moron} who wouldn't know friendship if it bit him on the arse!"

The room was silent. Everyone was gaping at her, even Malfoy---all
except Smith, who just turned to her and raised his eyebrows.

``And when did he call you that, Granger?'' he asked.

``Two months ago,'' said Hermione starkly. "In Divination, when I tried
to tell him about a subject I'd learned about in a---a private meeting.
Yes, I was telling him because Harry asked me to, but it was the
\emph{truth.} You can't ignore the \emph{truth} just because you don't
like your brother!" The hurt rushed through her again. Connor had made
no attempt to apologize about that remark, and neither had Ron. They
both seemed willing to pretend it hadn't happened, instead. Hermione
wished she could forget it, but she had an excellent memory, and years
of experience, in Muggle school, with people who'd insulted her in
almost exactly the same terms. She'd tried to be a friend, and look what
it had got her.

``And he never apologized?'' Smith asked, his eyes flickering to Connor.
``But he still wants to think of you as a friend? And he has the gall to
think you should lie for him just because you're a Gryffindor?''

``No, and yes, and yes,'' said Hermione, glaring at Connor. He couldn't
have looked more stunned if a Bludger had hit him in the head, she
thought. \emph{Well, good. Maybe he can start growing up around}
everyone\emph{, not just Harry.}

"Then I think your description of him was a \emph{bit} off," said Smith,
his tone clinical. It reminded Hermione of the way that her father
discussed tooth problems in his patients. ``I don't think he would
appreciate friendship if it paraded naked in front of him, wearing a
banner that listed the names of all the Gryffindor Death Eaters.''

Hermione couldn't help herself. She laughed, and that seemed to be all
that it took to break the frozen mood. Smith gave her a narrow smile
that couldn't quite be called a grin. Malfoy snickered. Harry stood up
straighter and turned to face his brother.

Connor snapped.

He drew his wand, yelling something about making her and Smith sorry
they'd ever been born. Hermione didn't think she needed to make out the
actual words. She knew their general gist. If Connor did read at all,
she thought, it was bad Muggle novels with villains who twirled their
mustaches.

She drew her own wand before he could get off a spell, aimed it coolly,
and said, "\emph{Tarantallegra."}

Connor began dancing. He yelped, and tried to keep his wand straight
regardless, but it fell from his hand as his body gave a particularly
violent jig. Smith and Malfoy were laughing openly now.

Harry said, in a desperate, resigned voice that made Hermione feel sorry
for him, "\emph{Finite Incantatem.}"

Hermione snorted in annoyance as the spell ended. She'd put a bit of
extra force into her wrist when she cast that one, hoping it would make
the spell last longer and resist the first application of \emph{Finite
Incantatem}. Of course, given how powerful Harry's magic was, any chance
of studying that was lost.

Connor's legs came free, and he knelt down on the floor. Hermione could
see his shoulders shaking, but wasn't sure if he was merely shivering
from the force of his reaction, or whether he was crying soundlessly.

Harry squirmed out of Malfoy's arms and walked across the room to kneel
beside his brother. He said something Hermione couldn't hear. Connor
didn't move. Harry put out a hand to touch his brother's hair, and
Connor's arm snapped out, knocking it away. Harry winced a bit and
touched his wrist.

Malfoy hurled a spell at Connor then, but Hermione didn't hear what it
was in the midst of Harry's barked, "\emph{Protego!}" She watched in
envy as the Shield Charm worked, popping up in front of Harry and Connor
and deflecting Malfoy's hex, whatever it had been, away. She had tried
the Shield Charm several times so far, but she wasn't getting it right.
She didn't know if she didn't have enough strength for it yet, or if it
was her wand movement or something else that got in the way.

Malfoy said in a tight voice, ``Harry, come out of there. It's hopeless.
You have to see that---''

"It is \emph{not} hopeless," said Harry, in a voice that made Hermione
think he thought it was but didn't want to admit it. ``And having anyone
else here was a bad idea. I need time alone with Connor. Please, Draco,
just leave.'' He turned around and looked at Hermione and Smith.
Hermione winced. His eyes were still resigned, not angry, and he looked
incredibly weary. ``Please,'' he repeated.

Hermione nodded and backed out of the room, listening to Malfoy argue
with Harry. She felt a deep stab of pity for them both. Malfoy clearly
despised Connor, and it couldn't be easy for Harry, having to choose
between his friend and his brother.

She turned around once outside the room, this time towards the library.
She really was going to go there and research how best to perform the
Shield Charm.

"I can cast \emph{Protego} perfectly," Smith announced from behind her.

Hermione turned and glared at him. Yes, he'd been funny in the
classroom, but it was clear that he was still the same annoying
pureblood git he'd ever been. ``Good for you,'' she said tartly.

``And I can teach other people,'' Smith offered. He stretched a hand out
in front of him as if admiring his fingernails. ``At least, when they
actually try and aren't hopeless idiots like the big-headed moron in
that classroom.''

Hermione hastily shut her mouth, because it was undignified to leave
one's jaw hanging open. ``I can try,'' she said quietly.

Smith nodded to her, giving her one of those cool not-quite-smiles.
``Shall we, then? I know a quiet room where we can practice.''

Hermione nodded back and fell in beside him. She supposed Connor wasn't
the only one who might need to revise his prejudices.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


``Because I asked you to, Draco, that's why.'' Harry could feel his
self-control slipping. He wanted to comfort Connor and slap him both at
once. He wanted to hug Draco back for his protectiveness and slap him
for that hex. This time, he wasn't sore and sluggish in a hospital bed,
and he actually could do something if Draco wanted to hurt his brother.
He glared up at his friend from behind his Shield Charm, which he still
hadn't lowered. ``This is important to me.''

``He'll hurt you again,'' said Draco, darkly. His wand hadn't moved.

Harry shook his head. ``I can prevent that.'' He could, too. Wards
wrapped right over his skin would work.

``Not physically,'' Draco insisted. "Mentally. You're going to have to
listen to his stupid babbling. And then you'll come back to the
Slytherin common room all self-doubting and needing to be reassured,
Harry. I \emph{know} it."

Harry straightened his shoulders. ``I was under the impression that you
didn't mind the reassuring, Draco,'' he said.

Draco blinked. ``I don't,'' he said, and then scowled, as he realized he
had just tumbled headlong into his own trap. Reluctantly, he put his
wand away. ``Sometimes I wish you hadn't learned to be such a good
Slytherin, Harry,'' he muttered.

Harry laughed, and saw Draco's expression alter to one of concern. The
laughter did sound bad, Harry had to admit, stretched and scraped thin.
``I'll be along in an hour, Draco,'' he said. ``I promise. And I'll tell
you everything that happened after you left, and let you reassure me if
I need it. Promise.''

``What about the next lesson?'' Draco still didn't seem inclined to
move.

``I don't know,'' said Harry. \emph{This one was an unmitigated
disaster, but that wasn't Draco's fault as much as Connor's.} ``It
depends on how well this one goes.''

Draco snorted and walked towards the door, pausing to look back over his
shoulder when he was there. ``He's hopeless, Harry,'' he whispered. "Too
far gone for \emph{any} teacher to reach, I think, and not worth what
you're going to do to yourself trying to teach him."

Harry met his eyes calmly. ``It's my decision. And he's my brother.''

Draco sighed windily and left the classroom.

Harry sighed in turn and ran a hand through his hair. He felt tired
already, and he hadn't even thrown much magic or spent time dodging
around the room from hexes. Learning what Connor had said to Hermione
probably made him weariest, followed by Connor's never-ending prejudice
against Slytherins.

\emph{I think it would be easy to hate you, sometimes,} he thought, as
he looked down at his brother. \emph{You make my life harder, and I}
really \emph{don't need that right now. And you're so} stubborn.
\emph{And there are people around me who would be willing to care for me
even if I didn't care for you. It's the first time that's ever been
true.}

\emph{But I can't give up on you. You're our hope for the future. The
prophecy isn't going to choose anyone else just because we want it to.
And I love you, Connor. It's exasperated love right now, but there it
is. And how can I justify giving Death Eaters who killed and tortured
people another chance, but not you?}

\emph{My own morality scares me sometimes,} Harry finished, and decided
that was quite enough time spent in thought. He shook Connor's shoulder.
This time, as he had expected, his brother didn't slap his hand away,
but only curled inward more tightly.

``Connor,'' said Harry.

More curling.

Harry sighed and sat down beside him. He looked at the wall, not his
brother. Looking at his brother brought too many emotions surging up,
thick and choking, and he didn't know how to deal with them. He would
just speak aloud for a while and see where that took him.

``I always knew that you were my little brother,'' he said softly.
"\emph{Little}, even though we're twins. And I fought to protect that
innocence in you. Mum wasn't going to tell you about my training, but I
could have. Remember all those nights we spent comforting each other
when something ridiculous had gone wrong, when Mum or Dad got upset at
us for something we didn't do, when Sirius played a prank that went just
a little too far or Remus couldn't come and visit because of the full
moon? Remember all the secrets we shared? I showed you the fairies near
the wards, and you showed me the frog eggs you found near the pond.
Remember how nervous you were when we came to Hogwarts? You didn't know
how well you'd fit in with other people, because we'd been alone so far.
You told me that you envied me for my calmness. That wasn't calmness,
Connor. That was purpose. I knew I was always going to be with you. The
future was so clear."

Harry took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "And now, it's not. Well,
it never was from the moment I went into Slytherin, but I wanted it to
be. And you did make friends, and you did fit in. But now\ldots{}now you
don't.

"That's hard for you to understand, isn't it? Why people dislike you so
much. You know that you're Gryffindor, and Gryffindor is more popular
than Slytherin. You know that you're the Boy-Who-Lived, and you get
attention paid to you, and you don't see why that attention should be
negative. You know you're a hero, and the least everyone could do is
thank the hero who saved them from Voldemort.

"But, Connor, it's more than that. Dad loves you because you're his son.
I love you because you're my brother. Sirius and Remus love you because
they've known you all your life. Mum loves you insanely, fiercely,
intently. Dumbledore favors you because of the prophecy.

"But either that doesn't apply to other people, or they don't care as
much. They \emph{can} love you, Connor, but you can't just demand it of
them. The Slytherins won't be evil because you want them to be. Hermione
won't be your friend unless you apologize or make some other effort at
being friendly towards her. I know Ron sticks by you, and the
Gryffindors laugh at your jokes, but they're the only ones. Ravenclaws
and Hufflepuffs are just as important as everyone else, and they're not
going to laugh at your jokes.

"I don't know how else to explain this to you, Connor. The world
\emph{isn't} the way you think it is. Things are never simple. The
sooner you can get that through your head, the better off we'll all be.
If Sirius told you things were simple, he was lying. If Mum told you
things were simple, she was lying. \emph{She} ought to know how
complicated she made her life, and mine, by teaching me to play
sacrifice."

Harry closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and said, ``You know what? I
think that's what I hate most out of what she did. I have no idea how
much of the love I feel for you is real, and how much was trained into
me. I have no idea how I really feel about you, and when you're thirteen
and you've lived with someone for your entire life, you're supposed to
know, aren't you?''

He stood up and looked down at Connor, who still had his head bowed and
his forehead resting on his knees. ``I am going to continue teaching
you,'' he said softly. ``But I'd like to do it not just because you're
the hope of the Light side, but because you're my brother and I love
you. You're making that awfully hard right now.''

He turned and walked to the door. He was halfway there when he heard a
muffled sound behind him. He paused, but didn't turn around. That might
well lose Connor his courage.

Connor was murmuring something, the same thing, over and over, and
steadily raising his voice loud enough to hear. Finally, Harry could
make it out.

``I'm sorry.''

Harry released his breath, feeling as though he had just avoided running
off a cliff. He still didn't turn around.

``I accept your apology,'' he said, and then gently left the classroom
and shut the door behind him.

\emph{It's only a tiny sign of progress,} he reminded himself as he made
his way back to the Slytherin dungeons. \emph{Not a lot. There's an
incredibly long way still to go.}

\emph{But he's not hopeless, whatever Draco says. He's} not.

\emph{He's my brother, and I love him.}

\chapter{*Chapter 41*: Walpurgis
Night}\label{chapter-41-walpurgis-night}

Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter! I agree that it was
angsty, but this one is slightly less so.

\textbf{Chapter Thirty-Five: Walpurgis Night}

Had no one else \emph{spoken} to him yet?

Millicent couldn't believe it. Then she recalled what she knew of her
peers in Slytherin, and snorted. Oh, yes, of course she could believe
it. After all, they mostly existed in some strange sort of limbo where
they thought Harry could be trusted, and yet didn't want to reveal any
of the secrets he would need to know to him. There was Draco, but the
Malfoys hadn't joined in this celebration for years, disdaining it as
too common and too plebian.

\emph{Too wild,} Millicent thought, as she watched Harry composing a
letter to Lucius Malfoy on one of the couches and Draco stretched out on
the one nearest, watching him, \emph{is nearer the right word.}

Well, she wouldn't allow it to continue. She waited until Harry
twitched, indicating that he knew she was watching him, and looked up.
Then she put on her most gracious smile, the one that her mother had
taught her for welcoming Death Eater guests.

``Harry,'' she said. ``Has no one invited you for tomorrow night?''

``Tomorrow night?'' Harry looked blank. Draco, Millicent saw from the
corner of her eye, had narrowed his gaze until it could have burned a
hole through her---if Millicent was the kind of person who ever paid
attention to Malfoy glares. She turned her head fully towards him and
smiled, and Draco scowled and looked away.

``Yes,'' said Millicent, sitting down on the couch next to him. Harry
moved to shield the parchment from her view. Millicent didn't care. She
already knew it was a letter to Lucius, and beyond that, she didn't need
the details of the truce-dance. At least, as her father would say,
Lucius was no longer acting like an idiot. ``This is April twenty-ninth,
Harry. And tomorrow is April thirtieth.'' She leaned nearer to him and
lowered her voice. ``Walpurgis Night.''

Harry's eyes widened behind his glasses. ``That was where you went last
year, then?''

Millicent nodded, impressed that he could connect the night last year
that most of the Slytherins had quietly vanished from their common room
to this date with such accuracy. They had done it the first year Harry
was here too, of course, but he had been too absorbed in his brother to
notice at all. Last year had been a bit better as far as Harry's
attention was concerned, but they still didn't want to take the risk of
inviting him. This one, Millicent fervently hoped, would finally see
Harry taking the place he had to take if he was going to be more than an
unbound house elf wandering around and getting into trouble. ``Yes.
We'll leave the school and travel to a---well, a place whose name you
don't need to know if you don't come. It's a Dark wizards' holiday, or
used to be. Some of them,'' she added, with a glance at Draco, ``think
themselves too good to celebrate it any more.''

``It's a random holiday,'' Draco said darkly. "It makes no
\emph{sense.}"

``It stands opposite in the year from Halloween,'' said Millicent.
``That doesn't make it random, Draco.''

``I don't understand what happens,'' Harry broke in gently. At least he
wouldn't have to be taught the skills of graceful interrupting, then.
Millicent favored that. The less they had to teach him, the sooner Harry
could get out there and start \emph{doing} things. ``If it's just a
party, why couldn't you have it here in your rooms?''

Millicent smiled, and Harry leaned a bit away from her. She guessed her
smile was Adalrico's wild one, then, the one that said things were
finally moving on some investment or intrigue he'd worked out. Well, she
was his heir, so that shouldn't come as a surprise. ``It's not a party,
Harry. It's a festival. And\ldots{}well. You know that on Halloween,
there used to be a belief that the spirits of the dead came back, even
if they weren't ghosts?''

Harry nodded cautiously.

"Well, you can't see the \emph{spirits} of the dead unless you make the
proper sacrifices, and very few wizards or witches are willing to make
those any more." Millicent shrugged. "But \emph{everyone} can see the
magic of the dead. And that's what comes back on Walpurgis Night,
Harry."

She knew from the brewing thunderstorm smell in the room that she'd
caught him. Harry was possessed of magic, and possessed \emph{by} it. He
always leaned towards the most powerful spell someone else was
practicing at the moment, and lifted his head if someone else's power
flared out of control. Millicent didn't think he had any idea he was
doing it, but she noticed, because she was observant.

``I don't know what that means, exactly,'' said Harry. ``But I'd like to
find out.''

Millicent cheered silently, and inclined her head to him. ``Then we'll
take you with us.''

``How do we leave the school?'' Harry asked. ``Don't the professors
notice?''

Millicent gave him her mother's smile again as she stood. ``Granger
isn't the only one to have a Time-Turner, Harry.''

As she walked away, she could hear Draco arguing with Harry behind her.
Draco was repeating all the arguments the Malfoys had against Walpurgis
Night, the reasons they had abandoned the holiday. It was too wild, it
was too violent, it did nothing for anyone but make them drunk on magic
and think they could conquer the world, and anyway, how could Harry want
to be alone with several dozen Dark wizards and their children, at least
some of whom would be Death Eaters?

Harry made a calm answer, and Millicent knew he would be coming. She
supposed there was the small chance that Draco might come, too, for his
sake, but she doubted it. The Malfoys were too proud, and the thought
that someone else might see them look undignified, even for a moment,
was anathema to them.

Draco could unbend for Harry in private, Millicent had no doubt, but not
in public.

It seemed that Harry had recognized the same thing. At least, Millicent
thought it from the glimpse of his letter to Lucius that she'd received
when he carelessly moved his hand.

\emph{Well, really,} she defended the action to herself as she started
studying for Charms again. \emph{I'm a Slytherin. I don't really} care
\emph{what the letter says, but it might be good to} know\emph{,
someday.}


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``Harry, I wish you wouldn't,'' Draco whined. They were on their way
back from the Owlery, where Harry had just attached his letter to Lucius
to Hedwig's leg and asked her to carry it to Malfoy Manor.

``I know,'' said Harry. ``But you can't always get what you want,
Draco.''

"Why \emph{not}?"

Harry concealed a smile---grinning now would only encourage Draco to
whine further---and shot him a sidelong glance. ``You know, you can come
with me. It doesn't seem as if you would be out of place at this
celebration, given what it's meant to do.''

``No.'' Draco's face had closed. He shook his head, his eyes remote.
``It's\ldots{}it's a Malfoy family tradition to stand back from this,
Harry. We have our pride to maintain.''

``Yes, I know,'' said Harry, and couldn't keep his lips from curling in
a vicious smile as he thought of the letter he'd sent to Lucius.

He imagined Draco's father receiving the letter and blinking at the
small silk pillow that Harry had sent along, plucked from a couch in the
Slytherin common room. Then he would read the letter.

\emph{Dear Lucius:}

\emph{I salute your choice of vernal equinox gift. I must consider
carefully what it says about you, that you believe my family is my
weakness, what holds me back, and that you would send me a gift capable
of severing those ties.}

\emph{I have sent you a gift that should allow you to do the same thing.
When and if you unbend your stubborn neck and learn that some things are
more important than Malfoy pride, the pillow should provide a
comfortable resting place for it. It was designed to support someone
lying completely with a curved neck, not one straight enough to cost us
both our sanity and our truce.}

\emph{Our definitions of pride are very different, Lucius, and so are
our definitions of family.}

\emph{Merry Walpurgis Night.}

\emph{Harry Potter.}


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``How do we get there?'' Harry asked Millicent, as he waited with a
milling group of Slytherin students later that night after dinner in the
Great Hall. Blaise Zabini was in the group, and Pansy, and Marcus Flint,
and everyone else on the Slytherin Quidditch team, and other students
from other years whom Harry didn't know nearly as well. Draco had
pointedly retired to their room earlier, as had Vince and Greg. Harry
wondered if their families didn't celebrate the holiday, either, or if
they were simply showing solidarity with Draco.

``This way,'' said Millicent, and unfolded her hand to reveal a smooth
black stone. Harry thought it had been carved, but he wasn't sure. It
rose in a tiny pyramid from a round base, looking rather like a
half-melted candle. As he peered more closely at it, he saw it wasn't
black, but a dark green.

``A Portkey?'' he asked.

Millicent smiled slightly. ``Not really. With a Portkey, there's always
the chance that someone could intrude on the holiday whom we don't want
there. A Light wizard, for example.'' She breathed on the stone, and
traceries of silver ran down it, as if her breath had been frosty.
``This calls out to the Dark magic in you, and pulls you to the largest
concentration of Dark magic in Britain---which will be our Walpurgis
celebration. Tonight, at least.'' She looked up and winked at Harry.
``You wouldn't like some of the places it would take you other nights of
the year.''

Harry shuddered, staring hard at the stone. ``Um, Millicent,'' he said
quietly. "I'm not sure it will work for me. I haven't used \emph{that}
much Dark magic."

``You're thinking of Dark in terms of compulsion, the way that Professor
Lupin taught us, aren't you?'' Millicent asked. The strands of silver on
the stone were pulsing now, spinning and writhing about. Harry found it
hard to look away from it and focus on Millicent's face, but he made
himself.

``Yes,'' he admitted.

``There's another sense of Dark, Harry,'' said Millicent calmly. "And it
holds tonight. Dark magic is \emph{wild.}" She abruptly tossed the stone
into the air.

It hung there like a small dark sun, though its rays were silver instead
of gold. It spun faster, and faster, and faster, and this time Harry
didn't think that he could pull his eyes away. He found himself bracing
as if for a blow. His magic was creeping out of him, rising off his body
like steam.

But that wasn't because he was afraid, he realized a moment later. The
stone was calling to it, and his magic answered, stretching luxuriously.
He could feel the magic from the witches and wizards around him doing
the same thing. Blaise was trembling. Pansy hopped up and down in place.
Millicent watched the stone with a slight smile, eyes half-closed as her
power rose singing around her.

Then the silver slanted away from the stone like the Muggle fireworks
Harry had seen once when his family visited his mother's sister, and
came down around them, forming an enormous net, or cage. Harry had the
impression that things were changing rapidly behind the silver bars, but
he couldn't remove his gaze from the stone to make sure. The deep green
was growing, absorbing his gaze, reminding him of the Forbidden Forest.
He had the insistent urge to reach out and touch the stone, and he
trembled. This was Dark magic of a kind he had never even considered,
powerful and chaotic but not malicious.

``Here we are!''

Harry blinked, hard, and came out of his daze. They were standing in
another place entirely, on a steep bank, thick with gorse and heather,
which led down towards a clearing. A nearly full moon shone overhead.
Harry turned and looked at the clearing, and caught his breath.

The clearing's grass was a deep, unnaturally smooth green, and the fire
that blazed in the middle of it, giving the light to see it, was silver.
Leaping ghostly flames intertwined with each other, now the color of
frost, now pale gray, now the hue of polished Sickles.

Harry wondered if that was the reason that Slytherin's colors were green
and silver.

``Come on!'' Millicent yelled at him. Harry turned towards him and saw
that she had caught the stone, or disposed of it somehow. She grabbed
his wrist and tugged on it. Her face was flushed, her eyes glittering as
if she had a fever. ``No one else is here yet, so we get to claim the
best spots.''

The other students seemed to be thinking the same thing. They all but
hurtled down the hill, laughing as though they were about to collapse in
a moment. Harry staggered, but quickly regained his balance, and managed
the run even with Millicent not letting his hand go. He found he didn't
mind it. A subtle touch of hysteria had entered his mood. It was very,
very easy, he found, not to think about his brother, or Draco, or being
a \emph{vates}, or any of the one hundred and one other things that he
had to think about when at Hogwarts.

He felt \emph{free.}

They reached the clearing, and their feet made no sound as they ran over
the grass. Harry flung himself down in front of the fire with the
others, and put out one hand. The flames licked just past it, now cool
as a wolf's wet nose, now warm as its breath. Harry shuddered once, and
then laughed again. He thought he laughed for a few minutes, but no one
shrieked at him to stop, as they would have anywhere else. He rolled on
his back---at some point Millicent had let go of his hand---and simply
laughed and laughed until his breath came short and his throat was sore.

He took a deep breath, caught Millicent's eye, and asked, ``Why am I
feeling like this?'' He meant it as an accusation, since after all she
hadn't told him about this, but the effect was ruined when he was
giggling like a maniac half the time.

``Because of the magic,'' said Millicent, almost matter-of-factly. At
least her face was flushed as though the night around them were much
colder than it actually was, though, or Harry would have felt inclined
to hurt her for being so unaffected. "It's all around us. You're feeling
it much more than anyone else, Harry, because you're so strong. You have
your own magic to deal with, \emph{and} the magic around us is drawn to
you." She smiled slightly and inched nearer to him. ``Right now, it
really, really wants to make you feel happy.''

Harry blinked and turned his head to study the fire. He was still
smiling hard enough to make his face hurt, but at least he seemed to be
back in control of his voice. The other Slytherin students were sprawled
around the fire, talking to each other with a casual ease Harry had
never seen them exhibit in the common room. One of them, a boy Harry
thought was a sixth-year, gestured lazily, and a rock flew from the
ground into his palms, where he began playing with it. Harry blinked
again. He might still have trouble distinguishing the power from his
mood, but it was clear that there was quite a bit of it in the air
tonight, to let people perform wandless magic.

He wondered what he could do, but decided he should wait to experiment.
He was almost stupefied with joy as it was.

He looked at Pansy, who was lying with her head resting on his shoulder,
humming a nonsense tune. ``Hey, Pansy?'' It seemed to take forever for
her to look at him, but she did, smiling. ``Who lit the fire, if we're
the first ones here?''

Pansy blinked slowly. ``It lit itself,'' she said, and gave a careless
shrug. ``It always does.'' Abruptly, her gaze cut past Harry, and she
sprang to her feet like a fawn. ``Mum! Daddy!'' she cried, and ran
across the grass towards them.

Harry turned and saw the pair descending another slope than the one they
had taken, moving slowly and regally. The clearing was really a dip in
the land, he realized now, surrounded by hills on all sides.

Millicent tugged on him. ``Come on. You should stand and greet Pansy's
parents. You've formally allied with them, and you've done so much for
Hawthorn, and you haven't met her father yet.''

Harry nodded and ambled to his feet. Part of him wanted to force this
drugged feeling out of his head. The other part was enjoying the
relaxation, and allowed him to feel nothing stronger than curiosity as
he went forward to meet Pansy's parents.

Hawthorn looked resplendent in a pale green gown, though when he got
close enough, Harry could see that her face was still white and tired
from the full moon a few days before. She turned and gave him a slight
gesture as he approached, a cross between a bow and a curtsey.
``Harry,'' she said, and looked proudly at the man on her arm. ``This is
Dragonsbane Parkinson, my husband and Pansy's father.''

Harry turned and looked at Dragonsbane, and shock cut through some of
the haze of the magic. The man was entirely wrapped in black cloth, from
head to foot; only his hand was visible, where it rested on Hawthorn's
arm, and his index finger bore a ring with a large, pale blue stone. The
black cloth drifted as though caught by wind, though Harry could feel no
wind blowing in most of the directions it drifted. There was a very
faint smell around him, sickly sweet. Harry identified it after a moment
as the smell of rotting flesh.

Awe replaced his shock. ``You're a necromancer, sir?'' he whispered.

``I am.'' Dragonsbane's voice was deep and smooth, with only a trace of
an emotion. Harry couldn't tell what the emotion was, amusement or
courtesy or curiosity or something else---though he assumed he would
have already known if the man was displeased.

Harry went on staring. He hadn't expected to meet a necromancer. Few
wizards became them anymore, since the sacrifices to do so were
enormous. Dragonsbane would have to shield his face from the sight of
anyone but his wife and children for the rest of his life. He could only
speak aloud on two nights of the year, Halloween and Walpurgis (though
Harry hadn't been sure about the date of the second one, knowing next to
nothing about Walpurgis). He would see how long every wizard or witch he
met was destined to live, but was forbidden to speak of it. He would
even have to give up his birth name, whatever it had been, choose a new
first name, and take on the surname of the family he had married into.
That would have been the reason Hawthorn made the alliance with him,
Harry realized then; she was the one born with the Parkinson name.

At least, Harry thought in wonder, as he looked back and forth between
Dragonsbane, whose eyes he could feel resting on him, and Hawthorn, who
was beaming at him, he could understand now why Hawthorn's husband
hadn't reacted badly when he found out that she was a werewolf. And he
had his silent, nagging question answered, about what sort of wizard
would be willing to marry the Red Death.

``I'm very pleased to meet you, sir,'' said Harry, finally remembering
his manners. He only half-remembered the formal greeting that one gave
to necromancers, since he had never expected to meet any. He hesitated,
then decided that it was worth the risk. ``I wish you basalt, and the
ash of the volcano, and fires that no water can put out, and the black
wind that blows between the stars.''

Dragonsbane cocked his head, or at least Harry thought so. His clothing
was so shapeless that it was hard to tell. ``The dead approve of you,''
Dragonsbane whispered at last. ``They have been talking about a magic
rising that stirs their sleep. You are one of the components of that
magic.''

Harry suppressed a shiver, and nodded. ``Thank you, sir.'' For a
necromancer to respond at all to the greeting was a rare honor.

Pansy giggled at him. Harry saw that she had her arms wrapped around her
mother's waist, and she was grinning in his direction. "You look as
though you just \emph{met} a ghost, Harry."

``I met one who speaks to them,'' said Harry, and bowed to Dragonsbane.
``I am very glad to have seen you, sir.''

Dragonsbane gestured once with the pale hand that had not let go of
Hawthorn's arm. Harry made sure not to look too directly at the stone of
his ring. ``We will see each other again,'' he said. ``And the next time
but one is in a home of my kindred.''

Harry nodded slowly, wondering when he would have occasion to visit a
necropolis or a graveyard. ``I'll remember that, sir.''

Hawthorn smiled at Harry and led Dragonsbane down into the dell,
whispering to Harry as she passed, ``I am so glad that you could join us
at last. It is time that you learned more about the Dark.''

\emph{I suppose so,} Harry thought dazedly as he watched them go. Pansy
skipped back and forth between her mother and father, babbling like a
child, her hands sometimes flashing in what Harry guessed was the sign
language Dragonsbane would use to communicate with his family the rest
of the year. He shook his head.

``Potter.''

Harry turned swiftly. Other people had begun arriving while he talked to
the Parkinsons, and while most of them had simply trailed past him with
curious looks, it seemed that there was someone Blaise wanted him to
meet.

``May I present my mother, Arabella Zabini?'' Blaise said. He gave a
stiff bow, then stepped out of the way.

Harry met the witch's eyes steadily, to be met with a quirk of her lips
in return. Arabella, he knew, was a Dark witch who had never been a
Death Eater, and she looked it. Her skin was smooth and utterly black,
her eyes large and darker than Snape's. She wore her dark hair coiled in
so many intricate braids around her head that Harry had no idea how long
it was. She was easily the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

That beauty had snared seven husbands, one of them Blaise's father. They
had all died, one by one. Supposedly it was of poison. There was no
evidence incriminating Arabella Zabini, of course. There never was. The
most the Ministry could do was hold her for a short time and then let
her go. On one of those journeys to the Ministry, Harry remembered, she
had managed to get Sirius sacked.

``Mr. Potter,'' she said now, and her voice had an odd musical quality
to it that instantly made Harry alert. She extended her hand. ``My son
has told me so much about you.''

Harry warily took her hand, his eyes traveling her hair. Yes.
\emph{There}. A tangle of small bells coiled demurely around the end of
one braid, bound so they wouldn't jangle. They testified, to anyone who
looked for them, that Arabella Zabini had mastered musical magic. She
could use it in her voice, doubtless to seduce people and put them off
their guard.

``Good evening, Mrs. Zabini,'' he said, bringing his attention back to
her face. ``Are you going to sing for us later?''

Arabella's eyes widened briefly, then narrowed, and a pleased smile
appeared on her lips. ``I had no idea that you had such superb taste in
music, Mr. Potter,'' she said.

``We have a Songstress among us,'' said Harry, letting go of her head
and stepping back into a deep bow, while surreptitiously checking his
hand to make sure that there were no small pinpricks on it, such as
might come from spider bites or poisoned rings. ``It would be crass of
me not to suggest it.''

Arabella studied him in silence for a moment, then nodded. "It has been
years since anyone \emph{dared} to ask me to make music on a Walpurgis
Night," she said, putting the slightest emphasis on the verb. ``I should
be happy to, Mr. Potter.''

She gave him a calculating smile and swept past him towards the fire.
Harry looked at Blaise, raising his eyebrows. Blaise's jaw was hanging
open, but he quickly shut it and nodded, a faint grin curling his mouth.

``You impressed her, Potter,'' he said. ``That's damn hard to do.''

Harry let his breath out. ``I'm glad.'' His body was thrumming with
energy now, and he didn't know for certain how much had to do with the
magic in the air. He felt as though he had just escaped alive through a
deadly trap.

\emph{Of course, you knew it was going to be like this when you agreed
to come,} he reminded himself, turning back towards the circle of
celebrants around the silver fire. \emph{Dark wizards and Death Eaters
don't make the best of company.}

\emph{Yes, but no one said anything about the necromancer and the
Songstress.}

"Come \emph{on}, Harry!" Millicent called. She was standing near
Adalrico and a pale, blonde woman Harry supposed was her mother. ``The
festival is just about to get started!''

Harry shook his head, braced himself, and plunged back into the fray.


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Hawthorn stepped forward, her hands held in front of her. Harry thought
she was cradling something, but he couldn't be sure what it was. It
sparkled and shifted and changed shape when he tried to focus on it. It
was either silver or green, though, he was certain of that.

``This is Walpurgis Night,'' said Hawthorn, her head lifted and her
voice clear as it cut across the crowd of witches and wizards, stilling
any chatter at once. ``This is the night that the magic returns, the
night when the magic renews, the night when the Dark cries out in its
power. I claim the right to speak by virtue of having survived Darker
magic than anyone else here this year.''

Her face turned haggard for the briefest moment, and then she shook her
head and smiled, and it was gone. Harry glanced at Pansy, who was
standing with her eyes fixed adoringly on her mother, and shook his own
head. \emph{If someone had asked me before I met her, I would never have
thought that the Red Death could smile like that, or that someone could
love her so.}

Hawthorn lifted her hands high. ``There is magic coming again,'' she
said, voice growing clearer still, until it remind Harry of the cry of a
great bird. ``There is power coming again. Some of that power stands
among us now, not confined by compulsion in that poor understanding of
Darkness that we know best, but free in a manner that we can only
half-understand and must trust.''

She cast her hands into the air, the whatever-it-was she held
pinwheeling across the sky. It changed shape and burst as it expanded,
and Harry finally made it out. It was a rain of flowers, with silver
petals and green leaves. It was a flock of birds, their silver wings
beating steadily around green bodies. It was a shower of dust, both
silver and green, that lifted his head and his heart and shook him to
the depths of his being.

``May we all be unbound!'' Hawthorn cried.

The atmosphere changed as the flowers/birds/dust fell, from solemn to
abruptly frenetic. Harry felt the dance begin, but he couldn't have said
the moment when he was pulled into it. Suddenly his feet were moving,
and wild music poured out of the air, coming from Merlin knew where,
surrounding them and snaring them and pulling them on.

Harry found himself dancing opposite Hawthorn, who smiled at him and
spun around, her gown and hair flying wildly, her face shining with a
joy that was almost wolfish.

He found himself dancing opposite Millicent. She gave him a smug grin
that said, ``See? Aren't you glad that you came?'' But the dance took
her away again before Harry could make up his mind how to answer.

He found himself whirling in a tight ring with Arabella, who moved like
a swan landing on the water. Harry heard the music shift, and was
certain that she was adding her voice to it. She didn't stay long enough
for him to be sure, only leaped and skimmed with her dark gown rising
like wings, and then came down again and was gone.

He found himself dancing opposite Dragonsbane, and the music grew muted
and he felt the intense cold of death brush against his fingers; they
turned blue.

He found himself dancing opposite Pansy. For the first time since the
article about the Ministry's anti-werewolf legislation appeared, she
looked completely relaxed. She spun in a circle and clapped her hands
above her head, sparkling trails of dark green and dark blue magic
outlining her body, and Harry saw the witch she would become in that
moment, several years on, graceful and confident as her mother was.

The dance continued until Harry couldn't tell when it had begun, though
he was certain his feet ought to be more tired than they felt. He was
broken from his utter trance when he heard ecstatic, wordless cries,
mingled with a few names. He lifted his head.

Black silhouettes of beasts were springing down the hills, and curving
through the air above them, and rising up from the ground, all moving
towards the silver fire.

Millicent's words returned to Harry. "But \emph{everyone} can see the
magic of the dead. And that's what comes back on Walpurgis Night,
Harry."

And, indeed, these did look like the odd form, half-snake and
half-lizard, that Harry's magic had assumed in the Chamber of Secrets
when it first broke free. He could make out the shadow of a dragon, and
a trotting beast that looked like the bastard child of a unicorn and a
thestral, and a fleeting shape that might have been a banshee. They
swirled around the fire, joining with the dancers, brushing against them
sometimes. Harry continued dancing, and wondered what would happen if
one of them touched him.

He had the chance to find out when the dragon swerved in midair, stuck
its silhouettes of claws out before it, and scraped them through his own
shadow.

\emph{Gold sparkling so deep that it nearly sickened him and nearly made
him sing, gold spinning itself out of the lead, gold springing and
dancing as it finally answered the call of the potion he had
made\ldots{}}

And then the dragon flew on, and Harry, his throat rasping with shock,
found himself stopped, the dance having let him go at last. He stared up
at the memory, and shook his head. That had been the magic of an
alchemist, then, one who had managed to turn lead into gold.

These were memories, he thought, all of them, though he didn't know of
any way to distinguish which dead Dark wizards they belonged to.

The unicorn-thestral charged him, its horn spearing his shadow.

\emph{Serpents rising, hissing, calling, crowding around a pool of
molten gold, piling on top of it in a wriggling, sliding mass, pulsing,
shifting, beating like a heart, and then coalescing abruptly into an egg
of heartstopping beauty\ldots{}}

Harry gasped as that one let him go. The magic shaped into the
unicorn-thestral had been a Parselmouth's once, then, and still held the
memory of creating a basilisk. He watched in wonder as it wheeled, tail
swaying behind it like contours of ink, and sought another wizard to
share the memory with.

Other witches and wizards around him cried out, or tilted their faces
back and absorbed the memories in silence, or shook before them. Harry
took a few steps forward, willing to seek out any who would speak to
him, halfblood that he was.

They all spoke to him, or so he thought; it was hard to distinguish some
of the shadow-shapes one from another. He caught glimpses of exquisite,
unique potions; of magically-bred plagues; of spells that did three
things at once; of people turning to stone statues from the gaze of a
wizard who had given himself Medusa's abilities; of a wave rising hard
and high enough to smash an island to pieces in a roaring storm; of a
sword enchanted until it could cut the very air. All of those and more,
and it felt as though the boundaries of his being rippled and expanded
outwards, filled with a heritage he hadn't even known was there.

At last it ended, and the shadow-shapes leaped high and dived deep and
ran fast and vanished. Harry noticed he wasn't the only one on the
ground, shaking. Some of the wizards and witches had their hands over
their eyes, and Harry heard low murmurs that sounded like prayers or
curses.

Then Arabella Zabini began to sing.

Harry had never heard a Songstress; he had only read descriptions of
their voices. It was nothing like the real thing.

\emph{Dark}, the books had warned gravely, but Harry found that he
willingly yielded his thoughts to be sculpted into new images. He, along
with everyone else there, saw a hillside turned purple by the light of
the setting sun, already scattered with bodies. He, along with everyone
else, saw the blood among the flowers, and the Dark wizards retreating
frantically before the Light ones, blocked by powerful Light artifacts
from using their full power.

\emph{Dangerous,} the books had insisted, but Harry presently couldn't
see the danger as the notes plunged and twisted and turned, taking him
into minds and whisking him out again, giving him glimpses of wives and
sons and daughters and husbands and mothers and fathers and sisters and
brothers, letting him see and understand those who were on the verge of
dying.

The song rose, reaching steadily for its crescendo, and Harry felt his
mood spin upward with it. Shining patches of light cut past him,
reflected in darkness, as if he were underwater and swimming for the
surface. The world trembled and splashed and broke apart, and he reached
that surface.

The Dark wizards joined hands, sinking their feet into the earth and
clasping their magic in an unbreakable wall. They shed fear, shed panic,
resolved not to be ruled by it, and gave their trust to leaping wild
magic.

The magic soared out of them, joyous, snarling, free, and ripped the
Light wizards in half like a sweeping sword cut. Abruptly, the scene of
battle on the hill by sunset changed from a victory for the Light to a
victory for the Dark.

Harry found himself cheering as the song ended, along with everyone
else, and blinked, sitting back. He probably shouldn't have been
cheering a scene of such violence, but it had seemed like the only
sensible thing to do.

He glanced up, and met Arabella Zabini's gaze. She looked satisfied.

\emph{That was a test}, Harry realized abruptly. \emph{She wanted to see
how I would react to a scene of Light wizards being slaughtered.}

He attempted to give back a glare that said his reaction was more an
indication of her song's power than his sympathies.

She chuckled at him and turned away in a sweep of her dark gown.

Harry shook his head and stood, slowly, his legs wobbling. Millicent was
beside him in an instant, whispering, ``So what do you think?''

``I\ldots{}'' Harry shook his head. ``How much more of this is there?''

Millicent laughed. ``Not much more. Just one more major ceremony, and
then it'll be done. Most of us stay for a little while, eating and
talking, but we go back early to the school anyway, so we don't have to
use the Time-Turners for more than a few rotations.'' She cocked her
head at him. ``No one would think badly of you for going back now,'' she
whispered. ``They're already impressed.''

Harry shook his head again. ``No. I want to see what this ceremony is.''

Millicent said, as they walked back towards the center of the circle
where the silver fire blazed, "You know, Harry, you would make a very
\emph{good} Dark wizard."

Harry chose to ignore her.

By the time they reached the fire, the ceremony had already begun. At
least, he thought that was why there was a circle of absolute blackness
on the grass in front of the fire, slowly pulsing and expanding. The
wizards and witches who had come to celebrate stood around it, moving
back only slightly as it consumed more and more of the grass.

Abruptly, the circle extended upward as well as across, rising into a
tall, slender black cylinder. Harry stared at it hard, and shivered. His
eyes ached just trying to pierce the blackness.

The shape focused itself some more, and then a shape like an awning
molded out from the top. Harry squinted, but still didn't know what it
was until it stopped moving. \emph{A doorway}.

Hawthorn stepped forward, her voice gone back to the clear one that she
had used at the start of the evening. ``This is the circle of unbinding.
Whoever goes into this is entirely unbound, entirely free, for one
instant---body, magic, mind, heart, and soul.'' She paused for a moment,
her eyes cutting across the crowd. If they lingered on Harry, he really
didn't feel it. ``There is, of course, the possibility that you will not
come back to yourself,'' she added softly. ``But perhaps vanishing is
worth it, for the one moment of perfect freedom.''

\emph{Shit}, Harry thought, as he stared at the black thing. He could
hardly risk death, not when other people needed him so much.

But the temptation to enter it was present from the moment Hawthorn
finished speaking, and even in the silence that followed, when everyone
else regarded the cylinder with solemn expressions and made no move.

``Does someone have to enter it?'' Harry whispered to Millicent.

Millicent shook her head. "No. This is the part of the ceremony that
most often gets neglected, in fact. It \emph{does} kill people." She
leaned towards him earnestly. ``It separates you entirely, Harry. Every
part of you. It detaches your soul from your body, and your magic from
your mind, and so on. And whether it puts them back
together\ldots{}well, that's up to you, really.''

Harry stared at the dark thing. It sat there. ``How long before it
vanishes?''

``An hour,'' said Millicent. ``We can go back to Hogwarts---''

``No,'' said Harry, and stepped forward. His heart was pounding crazily.
He could see almost nothing but the doorway, but he was aware, in other
ways, of the gazes swinging to embrace him, of Millicent's
expression---not quite awe and not quite pride---as she helped him
forward, of Hawthorn stepping out of the way.

``You risk your life freely?'' Pansy's mother asked him.

``I do,'' said Harry, and then he stepped forward and through the
doorway before his caution could eat his desire to be free.

He whirled free.

He found himself drifting in darkness, with a gulf beneath him and on
either side so vast and terrible that his mind would break trying to
comprehend it. So he didn't try to comprehend it. He drifted, and gazed
down and up and around until the directions broke, and he could no
longer tell which was which.

It didn't matter which was which. They were only part of his human
perception. He closed his eyes, or he opened them, and he whirled.

He whirled, bound to a wind, cutting beneath small points of light in a
blackness so huge that it made his soul ache. \emph{Stars,} he thought,
\emph{and this is the black wind that rides between them.} Whenever he
looked up at night, the impression he had was of millions of stars, but
now he realized how wrong that was. His eyes sought out the stars only
because they were prejudiced by being able to see light. In truth,
darkness was the vaster creation, space unending and wondrous, empty
void with nothing to fill it but more darkness. And darkness always
came, unspent, inexhaustible, created and born and generated of itself
in a way that light would never manage.

\emph{There was darkness before there was light, and there will be
darkness when the light is all gone.}

There was darkness in his heart, too, despair and hatred and rage that
he had fought so hard to suppress. Harry found himself gazing at those
emotions, and he was unafraid. Yes, they were there. Yes, he would feel
them. Yes, he could see the fine cracks running through his conceptions
of the universe, places where someone could hit him and fracture him.
But they were whole and unbroken as yet, and he was free to look at them
and accept them calmly.

He climbed as if he had wings. Webs seethed around him, and Harry knew
them all, the webs of his ordered thoughts. He touched them and crawled
them and felt the sheer stickiness of them, and was unsurprised to see
how many of them led back to Connor, even now. That would change. His
mind was already changing, moving into the forest where strange and wild
creatures could run. That meant the webs would have to find new places
to attach, and if those places were still on Connor, then Harry would be
more than surprised.

He danced among his magic, which refused to form one beast as the magic
of the dead wizards had, or one memory, but formed many, all alive, all
shifting, pulsing, changing like the snakes in the vision of the
basilisk egg. From moment to moment they changed, from moment to moment
they were different, and Harry caught glimpses of what his magic could
do, and he laughed in wonder, and again he was unafraid. It was not the
same thing as courage, this unfear, being far calmer. He didn't have to
brag or fear what he could do, because he \emph{knew.}

He couldn't keep hold of the insights. They whirled away from him, flew
away from him, danced away from him, and he spun back together, bindings
once again taking hold, body and mind and soul and magic and heart to
each other.

He found himself on the grass, on his knees, on the other side of the
black cylinder. Harry took a deep breath and climbed slowly to his feet,
then walked around the cylinder to join the witches and wizards again.
The silver fire was almost out, he noted.

They stared at him solemnly, and then they began nodding, and
whispering, their voices like wind in a large grassy plain.

Harry found it easy to ignore them. He stared at the stars, his gaze
this time picking out the voids between them instead of the points of
light. Had he really ignored darkness that easily, all his life? Had he
really disdained Dark magic as only compulsion, and Light magic as only
free will?

It was more complicated than that. Dark magic was also wild, and Light
magic was also tame. And yes, compulsion and wildness did not seem to
sit side by side easily, but they were both true.

Harry's eyes came back from the heavens when Millicent touched his arm.
She was smiling at him softly.

``A bit of refreshment, and then we'll go back to Hogwarts,'' she said.

Harry nodded, and let her pull him back into the circle of chattering
Dark wizards and witches, part of him still free and gone flying.

\chapter{*Chapter 42*: You Cannot Afford Not to
Listen}\label{chapter-42-you-cannot-afford-not-to-listen}

Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter!

From the end of this chapter forward, the climax of the book begins, and
runs through Chapter 42. I know there is a cliffhanger on the end of
this chapter, but I promise I will update every day. I \emph{promise.}
'Kay?

\textbf{Chapter Thirty-Six: You Cannot Afford Not to Listen}

Snape closed his eyes, ground his right front teeth into his right
bottom teeth, and tried to think of something he could say that would
make an impression on the irritating child in front of him.

``Harry,'' he said finally.

Harry glanced up from brewing Wolfsbane, his eyes wide and attentive.
His hands never stopped selecting, stirring, and mixing. He had done it
so often now that he might be able to do it in his sleep. Snape didn't
understand why Harry wouldn't brew some of his own and sell it to other
werewolves who wanted it. Dumbledore would pay for the ingredients
gladly, since he would take it to mean that Lupin had definitely
committed to staying with them for the next year. Meanwhile, Harry could
be making some money of his own, independent of the Potter fortune that
he might never see.

But Harry had said he wouldn't steal from Dumbledore or Snape, and that
he would prefer to give the potion away. \emph{Give} it \emph{away}!
Snape sometimes wished that the boy's inner Slytherin had sucked a bit
more of the Gryffindor out of him.

\emph{But that is not what you are supposed to be worrying about,} he
reminded himself, and looked sternly back at Harry. He suspected that
the boy's magic might have begun to reach out and wind his thoughts in
vines, turning them away from any greater source of irritation towards a
lesser. They would have to work on that. Snape did not intend to be
subject to any form of compulsion, no matter how minor, largely because
of how it would devastate Harry when he found out.

``You left the school,'' he said, this time keeping his voice free of
inflection. ``You promised me you would ask me for permission before
doing that.''

Harry froze for a moment, then carefully added the demiguise hairs to
the portion of the potion he was working on and stepped away from the
cauldron before turning to face Snape. ``I'm sorry about that, sir,'' he
said. ``I forgot.''

Snape drew in another breath of air. This was something else he had been
meaning to address, but it had to wait for the proper time. Being beside
himself with rage when he'd first heard about Harry's little jaunt in
the company of the purebloods for Walpurgis Night would only have led to
something unfortunate. So he'd waited until he thought he could be calm.

And now he was. He \emph{was}, he assured himself. But he was also
disturbed, and by something far more important than the fact that Harry
had been outside Hogwarts for an unspecified period of time.

``Harry,'' he said, ``you still do not think twice about risking your
life.''

Harry flushed. Snape wondered, narrow-eyed, exactly what had happened at
the celebration. Millicent had refused to let Harry tell either Draco or
Snape, saying it was a private matter between those who'd attended.
Harry had seized on that excuse a little too eagerly for Snape to think
it meant anything good.

``I'm not as reckless as I was earlier in the year,'' Harry protested.
``Really. I sensed a bunch of webs in myself when I lost the phoenix
web, but I didn't cut at them. Only the one, to release my magic-feeding
ability.''

Snape shook his head slowly. "It is not the recklessness I am speaking
of. It is the \emph{thoughtlessness}." He heard his voice descend,
becoming icy, and realized he was angry after all. \emph{Well, Harry
will just have to deal with it. This should have been solved long
since.} "You do not risk your life or your sanity quite as often or
quite as suddenly. You think about it first. But you still do not think
about the \emph{danger.}"

``I do so!'' Harry's eyes flashed, and Snape felt the first faint
beginnings of a headache. ``I weighed what you would think of me dashing
into my own mind the way I had into Remus's. And I do consider what you
and Draco would feel if I died.''

``That is not what I meant.'' Snape rubbed his forehead. His own
emotions were back to weary resignation. He didn't think it was Harry's
mind influencing him after all, but the simple fact that he was trying
to be a guardian to the third most powerful wizard in Britain, who also
happened to be a child recovering from abuse.

Harry stared at him.

``I mean,'' said Snape, ``thinking about your own life. You have no
self-preservation instinct, Harry.''

More puzzled silence.

``Staying alive for yourself,'' Snape clarified. ``You think of what
would happen to me or Draco or Lupin or your brother if you died.'' And
that was progress. Snape had to admit he preferred being on Harry's list
of ``people who might be hurt if Harry Potter were to meet a sudden
demise'' to Connor Potter being the only entrant. ``But you do not think
of your own life as worth anything unless you can spend it serving or
defending or protecting others.''

Harry sighed. ``You know that's the way my mother raised me, sir---''

``I fear that you will never overcome it if you do not begin to see it
as a problem,'' Snape interrupted him. He knew his ward's patient tone.
Harry would manage a reasonable explanation that would make Snape think
the problem had been solved until five minutes after he walked out of
the room, whereupon Snape would realize the explanation solved nothing
at all. That tendency had only become worse in the few days since he
returned from Walpurgis Night. Sometimes, Harry could not be allowed to
be as mature as Snape knew he was. "You \emph{must} begin to value
yourself for yourself, Harry. Not just for what you can do for others,
not just as someone whom anyone else would be sorry to see die, but for
yourself."

Harry blinked at him. Snape fought down the temptation to simply snarl
insults until they broke through the mask of indifference. It wasn't a
mask, and if he wasn't good at this, then at least he'd known what kinds
of things he was letting himself in for when he agreed to be Harry's
guardian.

``I do, sir,'' said Harry at last, just as Snape was about to speak
again.

``Do you?''

Harry nodded. ``Of course, sir. I like being alive. I take pride in what
I can do. I would much rather be alive than dead.'' He paused, his head
tilting slightly to one side. ``Isn't that what you mean, sir?''

``Yes, and no.'' Snape wished irritably that Dumbledore had not turned
into a complete fool where the Potter twins were concerned. He would
have been able to frame the issue with words that made \emph{sense} and
taught Harry to see exactly what he wanted him to see. \emph{Which is
the problem. Harry would not like that. At least I know he prefers my
stumbling honesty.} ``Is there any cause you would not risk your life
for, Harry?''

``Dumbledore's,'' said Harry at once.

``But he wishes to protect your brother and defeat Voldemort,'' said
Snape. ``What other cause does he have?''

``The cause of enslaving me.'' For a moment, there was enough bitterness
in Harry's voice that Snape felt himself relax. If Harry could only hang
onto it\ldots{} But then it was gone again, and Harry was shaking his
head. ``I have to remain free.''

``Why?''

``So I can teach Connor, and brew the Wolfsbane Potion, and figure out
some way to fight the Death Eaters, and---''

``Harry.'' Snape strode over until he stood in front of Harry, and
compelled the boy to pay attention to him by the simple expedient of
staring him down until he did. ``You need not do everything. Trained
Aurors cannot find Bellatrix and her companions.'' And if he had private
nightmares about them catching Harry or himself, those were no one's
business. "You \emph{can} take some of your life to do other things."

``Such as?'' Harry folded his arms.

Snape hated that damn mature look, at least when Harry was using it to
fight him. And this wasn't even fighting; it was Harry assuming the
attitude of a parent. That made Snape doubly hate it. ``Whatever you
like to do,'' he said. ``Play Quidditch.''

Harry shrugged. ``I don't enjoy it as much anymore. It takes time away
from my training Connor and planning.''

Snape ground his left teeth together. Much as he had to admit the
bargain of teaching Connor was good since it placated Dumbledore, he
still thought Harry's brother a lost cause. ``Not that, then. Cast
spells for fun.''

Harry gave him that impossibly gentle and impossibly infuriating look.
"I don't have \emph{time}, professor. I can't afford to use my magic for
frivolous things. I might get addicted to the power. Besides, I'm busy
learning spells that can be useful in the war."

Snape's eyes narrowed. ``What does that mean?''

Harry let the mask slip a bit, let his bewilderment peek through.
``Advanced defensive and offensive spells, sir. I told you I was going
to start studying them. And medical magic. I can heal broken bones
now,'' he added with a hint of pride. ``Wouldn't that be useful on the
battlefield?''

``Why would you not leave that up to Madam Pomfrey?'' Snape demanded.

Harry cocked his head. ``Why, sir? She'd be in Hogwarts, and probably
far from any battle scene. The Death Eaters aren't going to make
attacking the castle their first priority. The wards are too strong.
They'll be fighting further away. I'm more mobile than she is, and I'm
stronger.''

Snape slowly shook his head, unable to find words to express his dismay.
What \emph{did} Harry do for fun? He realized he didn't know. He would
have studied all during his childhood; he didn't appear to know how to
read for pleasure. Quidditch was something Snape and Draco had forced
him into, much as he loved flying. Magic was always to be used for
something else. It didn't help that most of Snape's childhood leisure
time had been spent inventing nasty intrigues and even nastier potions
or spells. He didn't have any idea what normal children did for fun. And
Harry was not a normal child.

At the same time, he thought it sad beyond the words he didn't have that
Harry was the one thinking calmly of battle tactics, and training as
though he fully expected to go out and die the day after tomorrow.

\emph{This summer,} he thought, suddenly seized by inspiration.
\emph{The end of the term is only a few weeks away. He will spend the
summer here with me---I would not dare take him to Spinner's End, not
with the Death Eaters abroad---and perhaps Draco, if that can be
arranged with Lucius and Narcissa. His brother will be gone back to his
Mudblood of a mother. We can teach Harry how to have fun.}

It was appalling, really, how much that thought pleased him.

``Make sure that you rest,'' was all he could say to Harry now. ``Make
sure that you take some time to relax.''

Harry blinked once, and then his face lit up. ``Of course! Because I
have to be rested and have a relaxed mind to fully understand my
training,'' he said. ``Of course, sir. I understand. Thank you for the
reminder.'' He smiled at Snape and all but bounced out of the office.

Snape made a grumbling noise in his throat and turned to the pile of
books that he had acquired from the Department of Magical Family and
Child Services. He had wanted them for another purpose, but they should
serve this one: teaching him what children raised pureblood did beyond
dance and watch each other like hawks.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


``All right,'' said Connor suddenly. His lip was bitten from trying to
stay silent in the face of Draco's taunts, and his cheeks were red, and
his eyes looked as though he hadn't got enough sleep lately to do
anything more than shamble around, for all that he was glaring at Harry.
Harry reminded himself again that some of those things were the
inevitable consequences of having his brother and his best friend in the
same room. "Say that I \emph{do} believe you, and not all Slytherins are
evil."

Harry blinked and licked his own lips. He had been giving Connor another
lecture for an hour already, and to break through Sirius's training so
suddenly was not what he had expected. ``Yes?'' he said.

``Then tell me why Salazar Slytherin left a Chamber of Secrets in the
middle of the school, and a monster who could kill Muggleborn
students!'' Connor said triumphantly. "He must have been evil. He could
actually condone the murder of students, and he helped \emph{found} the
school. Why would anyone who comes out of his House be good?"

Harry shook his head slowly. "Connor. Do you \emph{really} think like
that? Or do you have a mad gnome in your head who starts yelling
whenever you hear the word \emph{Slytherin} in any form?"

Connor flushed further, but said, ``Answer the question, Harry.''

Harry knew he shouldn't. It was only an hour. It was only a display of
the same kind of stubbornness that Connor had shown before. And he had
apologized last time. He'd come to the lesson without prompting this
time. He'd ignored most of Draco's insults. They \emph{were} making
progress.

But Harry did it anyway, and lost his temper.

``Slytherin may have been evil,'' he snapped, leaning forward. He felt
Draco jump and look at him in what was probably excitement. Harry didn't
care. "But that doesn't mean that everyone who comes out of his House
is. Fuck, Connor, don't you \emph{get} it? If you really think that a
founder's character is passed down to everyone in his or her House, then
you can't explain Gryffindor Death Eaters. Because how could they be
evil, if Godric Gryffindor was so pure and good?" He was yelling by now,
halfway across the abandoned classroom to his brother.

Connor folded his arms. "I didn't say Gryffindor was \emph{perfect}," he
said. ``But he was good. And most of the House is good, with just a few
bad apples. But Slytherins are all evil.''

"You great \emph{git.}" Harry felt his magic stir around him and reach
out towards Connor in interest. He tried to clamp down on it, but his
temper flared again when he saw Connor just smirking at him, as if to
say that Harry's little display proved his inane theory. "I gave you a
list of Slytherins who weren't evil earlier, and you \emph{agreed} with
me!"

``They aren't perfectly evil,'' said Connor. ``But they're still evil.''

"You said they \emph{weren't!}"

Connor shook his head and clucked his tongue. "Harry, Harry, Harry. You
don't understand. You can judge someone's \emph{general} character by
their House. That means that Gryffindors are \emph{generally} good and
Slytherins are \emph{generally} evil. So sometimes you get a few
Gryffindors who falter. It happens."

``Then you should get some Slytherins who shine, too,'' Harry said. He
barely recognized his own voice. ``That's the outcome of this supposed
logic of yours. Say it, Connor!''

``I'm not going to lie,'' Connor said, his face turning closed. ``You
can't make me.''

Harry flung out one hand, and his magic lashed and grabbed Connor,
lifting him off the ground and pinning him to the wall. Connor's eyes
promptly went wide, but he held still. Harry wondered if he thought it
would be a good idea not to anger Harry further, or if the weight of the
power on his limbs simply wouldn't permit him to move.

"I don't care \emph{what} Sirius told you," Harry said. "Sirius isn't
Merlin. He isn't even Dumbledore. He's not right all the time---half the
time---a quarter of the time. \emph{Slytherins aren't evil. Gryffindors
aren't good.} What the \emph{fuck} do I have to say to get this through
to you?"

Connor's face went pale, but he simply hung there for long seconds. He
seemed to be thinking. Harry glared up at him, and kept the hope out of
the glare. Perhaps his brother was, after all, changing his mind.

Connor looked directly at him. And Harry saw the flash of understanding
there. Connor \emph{knew} he was telling the truth.

But his face closed again in the next instant, and he began what Harry
knew was a lie. ``Sirius didn't tell me anything like that. He just
hinted, and I came to the understanding on my own. I told you what I
think about Slytherins, and about Gryffindors. Those are my own
opinions.''

\emph{Oh, no you don't, brother mine,} Harry thought. "Sirius \emph{did}
tell you those things," he said, and Connor's face could have been made
of milk.

``He did not,'' he said, with an undertone of desperation bubbling in
his voice. ``I came to them on my own. I told you. I'm the stupid one.
Isn't that what you always think about Gryffindors?''

"\emph{I} do," said Draco.

``Draco,'' said Harry, his magic curling around him like the mad
tentacles of the Squid, ``could you please do me a favor, and shut up
right now?''

Draco shrugged and shut up. That didn't dim the expression of enjoyment
on his face when he watched Connor held in mid-air, but Harry supposed
he couldn't ask him to stop smiling.

Harry turned back to Connor. \emph{I should have suspected this before.
Connor's never this stubborn on his own. He's only this stubborn when
he's protecting someone\ldots{}}

\emph{Just like me.}

``Connor,'' he said, ``I promise I'm not going to hurt Sirius. Just tell
me what he said to you. And tell me why you think I would hurt him,'' he
added.

``No,'' said Connor, and he was sweating, his eyes glazed and wild.
Harry felt him straining against the weight of magic on his limbs, and
it was now obvious that he couldn't move. "He \emph{told} me. And it---"
He slammed his mouth abruptly.

``Connor---''

"\emph{No}!"

Connor's magic turned wandless and fought against his own, and Harry
knew he couldn't hold his brother much longer without damaging him. He
relaxed his grip, and Connor slid gently down the wall and landed on his
feet. He immediately stood up and ran to the door, his eyes on Harry as
he opened it.

``I'm going to Dumbledore,'' he said. ``I'm going to tell him what you
did. He won't make me have lessons with you now.''

He slipped out and shut the door behind him.

Harry made himself relax by degrees, and glanced at Draco. Draco's face
was somewhere between smug and concerned.

``That went well,'' he said, when he caught Harry's gaze.

Harry shook his head and put his head in his hands. One bad side effect
of Walpurgis Night was that he saw Connor from more of a distance than
ever. He kept seeing more and more of his brother's faults---the
stubbornness, the blind trust in everyone who was Gryffindor unless they
``turned against him'' the way Hermione had, the refusal to apologize or
admit he was wrong even when he knew he was, and the clinging to his own
status as the Boy-Who-Lived.

He'd felt uneasy about that all week, but for the first time, the idea
really formed in his mind, in so many words:

\emph{If Connor's the Boy-Who-Lived, then Voldemort's already won.}


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


"Go to \emph{bed}, Harry," said Hermione, pausing behind him in the
library.

Harry blinked and looked up from the book he was reading. He scowled at
her. ``Listen to your own advice,'' he said, nodding to the enormous
pile of books in her arms.

``I am going to bed,'' Hermione retorted. ``I just have a bit of light
reading to do first. But you look half-asleep on your feet, Harry.''

``I'm sitting down.''

"\emph{Harry.}"

Harry rubbed his face. It was true that he was tired, and if one of the
other Slytherins had been with him, he would have been hustled and poked
and prodded and taunted into going to bed already. But he had created an
illusion of himself and left it in the common room again. He simply had
to have some time to research the phoenix web, and try other methods of
getting it out of Peter's head. Draco and Millicent and the rest seemed
to think that because Dumbledore had called a halt to Connor's lessons
for a week to ``cool everyone's head'' and find out why Connor had
thought Harry would hurt Sirius, Harry would have more time to rest.
Harry knew better. He wanted to use the time for \emph{productive}
things.

On the other hand, if he was tired enough, he would probably miss some
vital thing in the books.

``Just one more hour, Hermione,'' he muttered. ``Please.''

Hermione sighed at him, shook her head, and made her way out of the
library. Harry dived back into the book. It was a more general one,
containing hints on Occlumency and Legilimency as well as mind-webs. If
Snape or Draco came and chided him for reading it, Harry could say that
he was just striving to understand his own thoughts.

He flipped the page, the text blurring before his eyes, and took off his
glasses. Surely the text wasn't blurring because he was \emph{tired.}
That was silly. He hadn't reached the stage of exhaustion where he felt
like a wet rag yet, and that was the one where his eyes burned. It was
just a smudge on his glasses. He wrapped and rubbed them in his shirt,
then put them back on and peered at the page.

\emph{\ldots{}common myth that Legilimency can be used this way, just as
it is a common myth that the Soul Strength Spell can be used on a
child\ldots{}}

Harry sat straight up, his heart pounding. He suddenly wasn't tired
anymore. He leaned forward and read the passage three times, until he
was absolutely sure he was seeing what he had thought he had seen.

\emph{It is a common myth that Legilimency can be used this way, just as
it is a common myth that the Soul Strength Spell can be used on a child.
In truth, Legilimency on a truly unconscious person is impossible,
though it can sometimes be used with those who have gone into comas with
magical causes. In the case of ordinary unconsciousness, however, the
thoughts shut down and are too malformed for the Legilimens to tell what
they are. She will find herself caught in a web of dreams, and is likely
to stumble unless she has experience in one of the dream-reading arts.}

\emph{Similarly, the Soul Strength Spell, commonly used to test the
strength of character that may let a person endure a certain specified
task, cannot be used successfully on any child younger than twelve, and
there have been arguments for not using it on anyone younger than
fifteen. A child's character is too unformed, full of drifting thoughts
and influences that the spell is unable to recognize. Sometimes, it will
return a false answer. Most often, the spell simply does not work.}

Harry leaned back and stared at the ceiling, catching the book
automatically when it tried to slip from the table. He didn't want it to
thump and alert Madam Pince that he was still here.

Peter had claimed that Dumbledore had used the Soul Strength Spell on
Harry and Connor before he made Peter into Sirius's sacrifice, and
determined from its answer that Harry could better stand being the
sacrifice than his brother. According to this book, that was impossible,
since Harry and Connor hadn't even been two years old yet.

So Harry was left with two possibilities, neither of which he liked.

First, that the spell had returned a false answer, and Harry was not
actually stronger of soul than Connor was---or, in the case of the
question that Dumbledore had asked, not actually meant as a sacrifice.

Harry backed quickly away from the gulf he could sense opening in his
thoughts with that answer, and looked at the second one.

The second one was that Peter had been lying.

\emph{But why?} Harry thought, closing his eyes. \emph{What would he
gain from it?}

He snorted to himself a moment later. \emph{Can you ask? My belief, my
trust. He's an escaped Azkaban prisoner, Harry, and one I'd been told
all my life was evil. He had to have something to tell me in order to
get me to trust him.}

That didn't mean that everything he'd told Harry was false, of course.
But it did send a shiver of unease across Harry's mind.

He took a deep breath and stood. Everything else in Peter's story had
sounded true; Dumbledore certainly hadn't denied it. And Peter had
risked his life for Harry several times. Until Harry found another piece
of evidence, he would not let himself think that Peter was false.

But that meant he needed to confront the other possibility---that the
spell had returned a false answer.

The suspicion raced through his mind like a jagged crack, and joined
with his thoughts about Connor from earlier in the week. Harry shuddered
once, and then cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself so he could slip
past Madam Pince.

He had to see Snape, right away.


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\newpage


Snape groaned as a sharp rap sounded on his office door. That someone
was bothering him near---he glanced at his clock---eleven at night was
insane. And he knew it couldn't be Harry, because he'd checked on Harry
just half an hour ago, and found him peacefully asleep in his bed.

Snape called, ``Enter,'' braced for it to be Dumbledore with word of
some emergency, or Minerva wanting to discuss the Slytherin-Gryffindor
scuffle that had happened earlier in the Great Hall, evolving into a
full-blown food fight.

It was Harry, becoming visible as he opened the door. From his face, he
hadn't been to bed at all. Snape discovered he wasn't too tired to feel
rage.

``What have you done?'' he hissed, rising from behind his desk. ``If you
tell me that you cast another illusion of yourself---''

``I cast another illusion of myself,'' Harry said.

Snape narrowed his eyes, pondering if he were actually angry enough to
ban Harry from playing in the Quidditch match against Hufflepuff this
weekend. It might cost them the Quidditch Cup if he did, but Harry would
certainly know how seriously Snape took his crime.

"But we don't have \emph{time} for that right now," said Harry, and came
a step forward. His eyes were wide, his face pale, and when he turned
his head, his fringe swished aside enough for Snape to see that the
lightning bolt scar on his face was brilliant. ``I just found out
something that made me worry.''

Snape let his anger retreat to the back of his mind, inside one of the
quicksilver pools he usually used to contain his magic. He gestured
Harry to a chair and sat down opposite him. He hadn't forgotten Harry's
punishment, but it could wait, and be all the more devastating when his
ward had forgotten about it.

``What was it?'' he asked.

Harry swallowed. ``I found out---or thought I did---from Peter that
Dumbledore cast the Soul Strength Spell on me and Connor when we were
babies, and that was how he knew who would be the best sacrifice. That
was how he knew for certain that Connor would be the Boy-Who-Lived, too.
I was the stronger of soul, and I wouldn't crack if I was asked to
protect my brother.''

``That is impossible,'' Snape interrupted, unable to keep silent any
longer. ``The Soul Strength Spell does not work on infants.''

``I know,'' Harry whispered. ``I just read that.'' Snape quelled the
urge to say something about Slytherins who not only lied to their Head
of House about where they had been at night, but also used that time to
read more than was necessary. ``But, Professor Snape, that means a few
things.'' He took a deep, dragging breath, and ran a shaking hand
through his hair. ``Peter was lying, maybe, and if so, I don't think I
should be alone with him any more.''

``I never thought you should,'' Snape could not resist pointing out.

Harry gave him a distracted nod. ``Or Dumbledore lied about casting the
spell,'' he whispered. ``Or the spell returned a false result. And if
either of those two things are true, then\ldots{}'' He trailed off and
stared past Snape.

Snape followed the course of his mind easily enough. Two leaps and a
jump, and one was there.

\emph{Dumbledore had no guarantee outside the prophecy that Connor and
Harry were meant to play the roles he said they were.}

\emph{No one had actually been at Godric's Hollow the night of the
attack---except Voldemort, whom they certainly couldn't ask.}

\emph{That meant that Harry could, possibly, be the Boy-Who-Lived.}

Snape watched his ward's face grow paler and paler, and suppressed his
triumph. Harry would misunderstand a smile now. ``What makes you think
this?'' he asked. ``Surely one lie is not enough to bring down something
you have believed in your entire conscious life.''

``Because,'' said Harry, and choked for a moment. Then he looked up.
``Because Connor's an idiot.''

Snape told himself he could smirk later, and only nodded gravely,
imploring Harry to continue.

Harry sprang to his feet and started pacing in front of the chair.
``Because he isn't that magically powerful,'' he said. "Oh, I know the
Boy-Who-Lived isn't going to kill Voldemort that way, but at the moment,
I don't see how he could survive a duel with him long enough to kill him
any other way. I've tested his power, and it's at its strongest when
he's most frantic---which isn't going to work in a battle. And he's not
very compassionate, either. He demands absolute loyalty and love from
others, but if they do something that he thinks of as a betrayal, he
turns on them without further compunction. He doesn't \emph{forgive.} He
doesn't think of the future. He isn't interested in doing all sorts of
things, like learn history and the pureblood dances, that would make him
a better Boy-Who-Lived." Harry turned and glanced sidelong at Snape. "He
doesn't \emph{love} people very often."

The smirk would not be restrained. Snape was only thankful that Harry
was too distracted to take it personally. ``And because of
that\ldots{}'' he prompted.

``Because of that,'' Harry muttered, "I don't know how he \emph{could}
be someone whose innocence and purity are essential to bringing down
Voldemort. I was the sacrifice to make sure he stayed pure, but all
kinds of impurities were apparently there already." He laughed, and it
was the laugh that Snape always hoped he would never have to hear again.

``Surely you do not blame yourself for that,'' Snape said.

Harry gave him an odd look. ``Of course not. Not even I can be
responsible for what got mixed into his character when he had the
happiest and most peaceful upbringing we could conceive of.'' He sighed.
"I should have told him the truth, yes, and I wish I knew just how much
I love him, but I don't think that would have necessarily made him more
loving. He's known all his life that he's the Boy-Who-Lived, and the
past few years that he would have to work harder, and he \emph{still}
doesn't."

Snape nodded, and felt triumph irradiate him. ``And what other signs are
there?'' he asked. He could give them to Harry, but he knew Harry
learned best when he came up with them for himself. Besides, that would
make it harder for him to hide from them later, if he started regretting
that he'd ever thought this.

Harry sighed and swept back his fringe on purpose this time, to touch
his scar. ``This bleeds,'' he said. ``And I have prophetic dreams that
are usually connected with Voldemort somehow---I think,'' he added. ``I
never did find out what the dreams I was having this year were about.
But I dreamed about Quirrell. And Tom---Tom Riddle said there was a
connection between us.'' Harry closed his eyes. "I always thought it
meant that I had a bond to my brother, and Riddle was connected to me
through \emph{his} connection to Connor. But\ldots{}maybe not."

Snape cleared his throat. He did have a bit of information to offer,
something Harry could not have known. ``There is one person who might be
able to tell you the truth, Harry.''

``Who?'' Harry whispered, his eyes flaring open.

``Pettigrew,'' said Snape. ``Dumbledore told me once that there were two
people who could have told us for certain what happened when the Dark
Lord attacked you: the Dark Lord himself, and Pettigrew, who was with
him. At the time Dumbledore told me this, he claimed Pettigrew was
insane, and only grew more so with every passing year. But that is
obviously not true.''

Harry stood stock-still for a moment. Then he whispered, ``Of course. He
told me that once before. But I think he assumed I already knew what
happened, that I knew I could have been---could have defeated Voldemort
and didn't care, since I was under the influence of the phoenix web.''
He shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. ``But how can I know
for certain that he's telling the truth? He could have been lying about
the Soul Strength Spell. I don't know if I can trust anything that he
says.'' He hesitated for a long moment. ``And he told me that the
phoenix web Dumbledore had cast on him was trying to return. That might
make him even more untrustworthy.''

``Do you what you can to meet with him in a setting where I may attend
you,'' Snape suggested. ``This weekend, perhaps. I am a Legilimens. I
should be able to tell you for certain whether he is lying.''

``And remove his phoenix web?'' Harry looked up at him in hope.

Snape ground his teeth. \emph{When did `defend Harry' turn into `help
Harry's friends?'} But he knew that it would make Harry happy and ease
any worry that he had about going into the meeting, so he nodded. ``If
it comes to that,'' he said.

``Thank you, thank you!'' Harry abruptly darted forward and caught Snape
around the waist in a spontaneous hug. He pulled back before Snape could
say anything about it, and grinned at him. ``I feel much better about
everyone potentially being wrong about Connor, now,'' he announced.

Snape caught his eyes. ``I hope so,'' he said. ``I have thought for two
years now that you were the true Boy-Who-Lived, Harry.'' He saw Harry
wince, and realized his ward hadn't once used the title to refer to
himself. ``And I hope for the wizarding world's sake that you are. We
are doomed if we have that idiot leading us.''

Harry laughed softly at him, and slipped out of the room. Five minutes
passed, in which Snape basked in his triumph.

Then he realized that he hadn't managed to assign Harry a punishment for
leaving an illusion of himself asleep in Slytherin, and his curses shook
the walls.


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Harry opened his eyes quickly and let out a long, slow breath, forcing
himself to relax. Everything had gone well. He'd slipped back into
Slytherin and into his bed, taking the place of his illusion, before
anyone had realized he was missing. And then he really had fallen
asleep. He'd hate to ruin that by screaming now, just because he'd had
the dream of a ring of dark figures closing in around him again.

He raised his hand to his scar, and felt it come away bloody. He sighed
and sat up, looking at the blood in the faint light from the slumbering
Fawkes's feathers.

He had a lot to think about concerning his dreams and his scar,
if\ldots{}

Harry let out another sigh and flopped back. There were still things
that his new interpretation didn't explain, of course, like why Connor
had a heart-shaped scar if he really hadn't played any part in
Voldemort's defeat, but he thought he was close to getting definite
answers, and that heartened him.

He closed his eyes, and tried to figure out what the dream meant. His
scar hurt too badly to go back to sleep right away.

\emph{Death Eaters.}

Harry's eyes shot open, and his heart began to beat very fast. That
thought had not been his own. It had been another voice in his head, low
and sorrowful and definitely male. Harry thought he ought to recognize
other voices in his head by now, after having Sylarana and Tom Riddle in
there.

\emph{Who are you?} He carefully formed and cast the thought.

The answer came at once, somewhere from the back of his mind.
\emph{Don't remember that. I never remember. But I know what you're
dreaming about. Death Eaters. They're free, aren't they?} The voice was
wistful.

Harry shook his head slightly from side to side. He strained for a
visual, the way he always had with Tom Riddle, but could see nothing,
only utter darkness. At least that made it easier to concentrate on the
voice. \emph{They are. But why do you think the figures in my dream are
Death Eaters?}

\emph{I can feel them,} said the voice. \emph{I can feel anyone with a
connection to Voldemort. I think I was his, once. Or him? Maybe. I don't
know. But I drift around and look out through people's eyes every so
often, people who have a connection with Voldemort. You. Snape. Your
brother. Pettigrew.}

Harry shuddered. That was beyond frightening, that someone had been
watching through his eyes and sharing his memories and he hadn't known.
\emph{How long have you been here?}

\emph{Months}.

\emph{What were you doing before that?}

\emph{I can't tell you that.} The voice was sad again. \emph{Memories
are gone.}

Harry swallowed. \emph{Are you sure you can't tell me who you are? You
can't remember your name or anything else that might let me identify
you?}

\emph{Oh!} The voice sounded delighted for the first time. \emph{There
is one thing. I can't tell you, but I can show you.}

Pain abruptly exploded in Harry's scar, then his hands, then his feet,
then all through his body. He writhed as it ran like fire down his
sides. This was worse than \emph{Crucio}, worse than his dream in
February of the rat and the dog.

Fawkes began trilling urgently. He felt hands shaking him, but he
couldn't respond. So much pain thudded through him that he couldn't
unclench his jaw. He heard distant shouts, one of his name and one of
``Get Snape!''

Pain turned the world behind his eyes red, and then yellow, and then
blue, slowly blooming into black.

\chapter{*Chapter 43*: Gone Round the
Twist}\label{chapter-43-gone-round-the-twist}

Thank you for the reviews yesterday!

And yes, I did mean to write this chapter this way. Please don't kill me
for any revelations that start appearing here. We're in endgame
territory, but every chapter after this one has a revelation in it, and
nothing is what it seems until the game is over. Watch the pieces
carefully.

\textbf{Chapter Thirty-Seven: Gone Round the Twist}

Harry opened his eyes slowly. He could feel his shoulders aching first,
beforehis head, before his scar. He thought that was odd, but he didn't
try to roll them or stretch, as might have been his first action on
waking otherwise. He turned his head slowly from side to side instead,
and saw the dimness of the hospital wing around him. He was sprawled in
a bed, and Snape was asleep in a chair beside it, looking uncomfortable.
Harry wondered if the discomfort came from the position or actual worry
over him, and then dropped that line of thought as too potentially
uncomfortable for \emph{him} in turn.

\emph{I'm sorry.}

Harry managed to stifle his gasp in time, which pleased him. Let Snape
sleep. \emph{What do you mean?} he whispered back, wondering if thoughts
that were too loud or too deliberately formed could wake an Occlumens.

\emph{I said that I would show you some key to my identity}, the voice
murmured. \emph{Instead, I hurt you. The pain was what I felt in the
past, but that doesn't mean that I should have hurt you.}

Harry reached up and touched his forehead, but still, his scar refused
to ache. He wondered why, given the voice's claimed connection to
Voldemort.

\emph{I don't know,} the voice explained. \emph{I told you, I
can't­­---}

\emph{Remember anything about who you were, I know,} Harry finished with
a weary sigh.

The voice whined in his head, sounding rather like Connor when he'd just
got in trouble and was in danger of being sent to bed without dinner.
\emph{I'm sorry.}

\emph{Apology accepted,} Harry said, because otherwise he felt as though
this might go on forever. \emph{But please tell me if you remember
anything. Then perhaps we can move your voice back into your own
rightful mind, and stop your own suffering as well as other people's.}

\emph{You would do that for me?} The voice sounded both wary and
pleased.

\emph{Of course,} Harry said. \emph{You can share my memories. You must
have seen that I would want to put you back in your own body.}

\emph{Oh, yes. You're compassionate that way. I'm sor---}

Snape chose that moment to stir and wake up. He looked Harry directly in
the eye, and his face tightened.

\emph{I can tell you what he's thinking,} offered the voice smugly.
\emph{Want to know what he's thinking?}

\emph{Not particularly, no,} Harry snapped back at it. Too late; he had
the feeling that the voice had already drifted away from his mind like a
cobweb. He didn't know where it had gone, probably to Snape's mind, but
he hoped that it wouldn't come back and pass on the thoughts it found
there.

``What happened?'' Snape asked quietly. ``You have been unconscious for
more than a week, Harry. This is Friday night. It will be---'' He
swished his wand, conjured a clock in mid-air, and studied it for a
moment. ``Saturday morning in two hours.''

Harry shook his head, even as he tested his sore muscles and found them
weak enough for what Snape said to be true. ``There's a voice in my
head,'' he said. ``Something that speaks about a connection to
Voldemort, and being able to read the thoughts of people who have a
connection to Voldemort. He said he couldn't remember who he was, so I
asked him to give me a clue, and he showed me. Pain,'' he added, just in
case Snape didn't understand what he meant.

Snape's breath hissed out of him as if Harry had punched him in the
solar plexus. Then he leaned forward and clenched his hands on Harry's
shoulders. ``Use your Occlumency,'' he demanded. ``Force him out.''

\emph{Doesn't work that way,} the voice said smugly, drifting back into
his head. \emph{You can tell him that. I come through your scar, and
through his Dark Mark. Unless you can obliterate those, then I can keep
talking to you. Did you know that Snape's bad habit used to be biting
his toenails?}

Harry tried to snicker and gag at the same time, and wound up choking.
Snape shook him to get him to pay attention. Harry looked up and shook
his head. ``He says that it can't be done. The connection to Voldemort
is my scar, or your Dark Mark, and there is no way to close those.''

Snape pursed his lips around another hiss. Then he said, ``We will
discover a way. I will not have someone in your head who hurts you. Not
again.''

\emph{That was only one time!} The voice was indignant now. \emph{You'd
think that he'd trust you by now.}

\emph{I wish you would go away and shut up,} Harry thought wearily at
it.

The voice gave him a sound that Harry thought was the equivalent of
sticking its tongue out, and then the sense of another person in his
mind left again. Harry let his head sag back on the pillow. He was not
sure what he thought of all \emph{that.} Perhaps the voice had been
unhinged by all the pain it had gone through---or, rather, its owner had
been unhinged by all the pain \emph{he} had gone through. That would
explain the ridiculous mixture of suffering, apologies, and childish
teasing.

\emph{Yet another insane person in my head,} Harry thought, as he closed
his eyes. \emph{How wonderful.}

``We will find a way to defeat this,'' Snape whispered, stroking his
hair away from his forehead. ``I promise you, Harry. I will not see you
suffer more than you already have. What I can do to protect you from
harm, I will.''

Harry smiled in spite of his immediate desire to answer that he was the
one who did the protecting, not Snape. He let himself slip into sleep,
half-listening for echoes of the voice as he did.

It did not return.


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When he woke, Draco was there, and scowling at him.

``You're stupid,'' he accused Harry.

Harry managed to raise his eyebrows. ``Really?'' From the light around
him, he assumed it was Saturday morning, and that seemed surer from the
lack of sounds in the halls and the steaming bowl of porridge that sat
beside the bed---though there was really the same breakfast in the
hospital wing every morning, come to think of it. Madam Pomfrey didn't
seem to trust her patients to consume anything stronger than porridge.
With some help from Draco, Harry managed to sit up and maneuver the tray
onto his lap. He began eating, and sighed in relief as he found that he
could grip and lift the spoon. Having someone else feed him was the
ultimate in humiliation as far as he was concerned.

``Yes,'' said Draco, crossing his arms over his chest and staring Harry
down. "Trust you to \emph{talk} to someone who just strolls into your
head and starts telling you that he came through your connection with
the Dark Lord." He had the sense to say the last quietly, at least, and
with anxious glances at the door to make sure no one was there first.
``Snape told me what happened. Honestly, Harry. Why didn't you come and
wake me up? Why did you demand clues to his identity?''

Harry blinked at him. ``Because you were already asleep, and I wanted to
know who it was. Wouldn't you have done the exact same thing, Draco?''

"I would have screamed like someone was using \emph{Avada Kedavra} on
me, that's what I would have done," said Draco.

Harry shook his head and sipped the porridge again. ``Yes,'' he said.
``We're two very different people, Draco.''

``Yes,'' Draco echoed, sitting back in his chair and giving Harry a dark
look. ``I'm sensible, and you're stupid.''

Harry chuckled, which only made Draco scowl harder. ``Who won the
Quidditch match?'' he asked, knowing it would have taken place the first
Saturday that he was unconscious.

Draco's stare this time was long and slow. ``We did, Harry,'' he said,
as if talking to a first-year. "Honestly. It was \emph{Hufflepuff.} The
only one who's worth anything on that team is Diggory, and he wasn't
flying that well. We took the Snitch after only an hour, and we've got
the Quidditch Cup unless Gryffindor or Ravenclaw manages to pull six
hundred points out of their arses on the next game." He nodded, looking
satisfied with himself.

``Well, good,'' said Harry. ``And classes?''

Draco shrugged. ``Were the same as ever. Professor Lupin is moving us on
to vampires next.'' The glee in his voice made Harry suspect that would
probably be Draco's favorite lesson. ``Snape is having us brew a potion
you'll have no trouble with, of course, and Longbottom made his cauldron
explode.'' He paused, his brow wrinkling. ``And Loony---''

``Luna, Draco---''

``---came and left this for you.'' Draco held up a necklace thick with
swan feathers and blades of grass. ``She should something about it
protecting you against the Wrackspurt invasion you're suffering.'' It
was obvious that Draco was trying hard to keep from snickering. Harry
ignored him. Luna's gift was heartfelt, and he always wore the necklaces
for at least a short time, until the string unraveled or too many of the
objects fell off and got lost. He put it around his neck now, pleased to
note that his hands didn't shake.

``I'll have to tell her thanks,'' he muttered, and then looked back at
Draco. ``Has Dumbledore decided what to do about my brother's lessons
yet? Or has he made any progress in finding out who put those spiders in
our room?''

``No to both.'' Draco could manage a snort that would make a thestral
proud when he wanted to, Harry thought. ``Idiot. If he would just use a
few mind-reading spells, the way you know he could, then he would
probably have the answers to both questions in no time at all.''

``He's not going to do that, Draco,'' Harry said, and finished the
porridge. Draco put the tray back on the table for him without
prompting.

``Why not?'' Draco demanded, as he fluffed Harry's pillow without being
asked, either. Harry restrained a comment about him being Madam Pomfrey
in training that would probably get him punched. ``He compels people all
the time. Why is this different?''

Harry shrugged. ``I don't know, but he must have his reasons for not
doing it.'' He closed his eyes. Sleep was close, and sounded more and
more tempting the more he thought about it.

``You just forgive everyone too easily, Harry,'' Draco muttered, but he
sounded affectionate rather than despairing. Harry was sure he felt a
soft touch to his scar just before sleep claimed him.


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\newpage


Harry leaned against the wall of the first floor corridor and let out a
shaky breath. After he'd eaten lunch in the hospital wing and proven he
could walk around the room without breaking stride, Madam Pomfrey had
reluctantly agreed to let him go back to the Slytherin common room.
She'd offered to escort him, or to call one of the Slytherins up to
escort him, but Harry had politely refused both. He had to make it on
his own, or he would have to doubt how much he had recovered.

\emph{Maybe this wasn't a good idea after all,} he thought, as the world
danced around him. He closed his eyes and gave his head a good shake, in
hopes that would cure it.

``Harry.''

Harry opened his eyes swiftly. He hadn't heard that voice in weeks, at
least addressing him. He straightened as much as he could and pulled his
magic around him in wary defense. It answered at once. Weak though he
might be in body, it was strong, and it had been bored, Harry suspected,
during the week in which he hadn't used it. Now it snarled, low and
eager, in his head.

Sirius stepped out of the shadows and stood looking him over, smiling
faintly.

Harry blinked. He hadn't paid that much attention to Sirius in a long
time, and was astonished to see how much better he looked. The dark
shadows beneath his eyes were gone, and he had a touch of color to his
cheeks that hadn't been there before. His hair was trimmed from the
messy shoulder-length tangle it had been. He also waited without strain
for Harry to acknowledge him, where before he would have been jittery
and might, Harry thought, have used compulsion.

``Sirius,'' he said finally. It was as much as he wanted to give, but it
seemed to be enough for his godfather, who nodded and let his smile
widen.

``Listen, Harry,'' he said. ``I wanted to apologize for being a right
git earlier in the year.''

Harry stared at him, and lost his voice. When he found it again, it was
to say, "You call trying to kill me, and attacking Snape, and pouring
your brand of poison into Connor's ears, just \emph{being a right git?}"

``I could use a stronger term, but I didn't know if you would want to
hear language like that from your dear old godfather,'' said Sirius. His
smile turned self-deprecating. ``I fully expect you not to forgive me.
You forgive almost everyone, I know, but I also know I crossed the
line.'' He shrugged. ``Just wanted you to hear the apology and decide if
you wanted to accept it or not. I'll be talking to Connor, just as soon
as Dumbledore lets me have contact with him---'' he rolled his eyes to
show that he could take and appreciated the joke ``---and telling him to
apologize, too. It's painful that this has gone on as long as it has.''
He nodded to Harry and turned, as if he would walk back up the corridor.

``Wait!'' Harry called.

Sirius turned and raised his eyebrows, waiting.

``What made you decide to apologize?'' Harry demanded, taking a step
away from the wall. Perhaps shock was giving him strength, but this time
he didn't think he would collapse. And it felt weak to be leaning on the
stones, and the last thing he wanted to do was show weakness to Sirius.
``This is---out of the air. A bolt of lightning.'' Sirius's lips
twitched, and his eyes went to Harry's scar, but he didn't say anything.
Harry pressed forward. ``Why now, and not before?''

Sirius blinked and drew out the golden ornament that hung around his
neck. Harry stared hard at it. It was round, studded with rubies and
small golden chains leading back to the main one that looped around
Sirius's neck. Harry could sense the song of powerful magic around it.
Of course, Dumbledore had made it for Sirius, and only Dumbledore in
Hogwarts had magic that powerful.

``This,'' said Sirius fondly, regarding the thing as he might a
Christmas gift. ``This finally tamed my thoughts, and gave me the help I
should have asked for long since.'' He looked up and winked at Harry.
``But your poor old godfather was too stubborn, and thought he could
handle everything on his own. It's brought me back slowly. First I could
control my behavior, then I could stop feeling the urges to do things
like attack you or hex Snape, and then I could control my words. And now
I've seen that I was always in the wrong.'' He shrugged when Harry's
stare sharpened. ``Like I said, I don't expect you to forgive me. But
the option is there.'' He turned as if he would amble off.

``Wait!'' Harry said again, and again Sirius turned around and waited
patiently. Harry had to think of what question he wanted to ask. His
mind was buzzing with confusion, and insistence that this reconciliation
couldn't be true, that it was too easy. ``How does it work?'' was the
only question he could ask without sounding rude.

``Order,'' said Sirius happily. ``It traps my chaotic thoughts when they
would get out of control, and brings them back into patterns that do
what I tell them to. I have to think of the consequences, which is
something that I almost never did before. That means that I can't really
play jokes, anymore.'' He pulled a wry face. ``But I would much rather
be sane than otherwise.''

Harry nodded. He supposed something like that would work, though since
he had never known just how deranged Sirius was, he had never been sure
how powerful a corrective Dumbledore would need to give. ``And you
really want to continue being my godfather?'' he asked.

Sirius blinked slowly. ``That isn't something I would willingly give up,
Harry,'' he said, a hint of reproof entering his voice for the first
time. ``I said I would be your godfather the day you boys were born, and
I always will be. Regretfully, as long as you won't forgive me. Happily,
if you do.''

Harry stared again. He wanted to let himself accept this, truly he did,
but he remembered how Sirius had apologized and then changed his mind
before. There was just too much chance that the same thing would happen
again.

``It'll have to be regretfully, for right now,'' he said.

Sirius nodded. ``I expected no less.'' He shrugged. ``But let me know if
you ever want to talk again, Harry.'' He walked away this time, and
Harry let him go, with dignity. He did favor his left side slightly,
Harry thought, but that could be the result of a broom injury while he
helped referee the latest Quidditch match. Harry had been unconscious,
and hadn't asked Draco about that---not that Draco would have considered
something like that worth reporting.

\emph{I'm missing an awful lot, with Sirius,} Harry thought, and for the
first time in months, he regretted it.

He turned and pursued his course back to the dungeons, in a more sober
and thoughtful frame of mind than he had been since awakening.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


``He said there was no way that we could keep him out of our heads as
long as we still bore our connections to Voldemort,'' said Harry, eyeing
the thick potion Snape was brewing. It didn't look like any he'd seen
before. It was currently the color of dew, but it kept violently
changing color, and had been seventeen different ones in the last
seventeen minutes. Even now, as Snape scattered powdered newt eyes into
it, it burped and changed into a purple mass.

``I don't care,'' Snape snapped. "He must have been lying, and if he was
not, there are potions that will counteract any intrusion. We have
worked too long and too hard on your mind, on your Occlumency shields
and your other defenses. I will \emph{not} see you vulnerable that way."

Harry looked over and rolled his eyes at Draco, who stood on the other
side of the room, against the wall. Draco didn't roll his eyes back. He
was watching Snape as though he would memorize all the steps of this
insanely complicated potion, and he had an intent frown on his face.

Harry frowned in turn, and sat back on the chair they'd provided for him
when his legs began to shake, kicking at the rungs. Draco seemed to
think that Snape's potion would work, and that the voice, whoever it had
been, needed to be kept out of his head. Harry supposed he could see
that. His pain, and then his being unconscious for a week, must have
been terrifying for them.

He couldn't help but feel cautiously hopeful. He hadn't had any more
pain through his scar since that initial outburst, and the voice had not
returned. The reconciliation with Sirius was odd and unexpected and not
something he was going to fully trust, but it had the \emph{potential}
to turn out well. This was the first day he had been awake, and he could
still move around with short rests, and he seemed to have no permanent
side effects from the pain. He also had less homework to make up than he
might have, since he was far enough ahead in most of his classes to know
the material for the third year by heart. He could rest until Monday, if
he wanted to.

If he had seen Connor, or had some assurance that his brother had
visited him while he was in the hospital wing, then his life would have
been as close to content as it ever came.

Harry closed his eyes and tried, again, to work out what the best
solution to that problem would be. Perhaps he should simply tell Connor
that Sirius had approached him and offered to reconcile? That might
shock his brother into dropping the act, and telling Harry why he had
been so intent on trying to protect Sirius. Harry had no doubt but that
his godfather was the heart of the matter. Lily might have been,
originally, but Lily was outside the school, and Connor seemed to have
accepted that her magic was not coming back no matter what Harry might
do or say. Sirius was nearby, and vulnerable to a powerful wizard like
Harry, should Harry decide that he wanted to hurt him.

\emph{What would make him certain beyond a doubt that I was going to
hurt Sirius, when we haven't even talked to each other in months? And he
did seem certain. What would make him think---}

Harry's eyes flared open, and his breathing quickened. \emph{The
prophecy. The prophecy he heard. Fuck, that must be it. I have to find
Connor and tell him about Sirius trying to reconcile, then. Maybe that
will persuade him to tell me what the prophecy said, and we can try to
avoid it together. Or figure it out. It wouldn't surprise me to know
that he's interpreted it wrongly.}

Harry tried to hop up from the chair in his restlessness, and found he
couldn't; his legs had gone to sleep. As he shook them and tried to get
the tingles out, Draco strolled across the room to him, just
incidentally getting between Harry and the door.

``And where do you think you're going?'' he all but chirped.

``To see Connor,'' said Harry, impatiently wishing that his left foot
was not waking up with such sharp pins and needles. ``I just figured
something out about why he didn't want me to hurt Sirius. It's
important.''

``You aren't,'' Draco corrected, his voice still chirpy. ``You aren't
going anywhere alone, and you aren't going anywhere near your brother
until you're fully recovered.''

``That's true,'' said Snape, without looking away from his potion. It
was now the color of new grass, Harry saw, and smelled like nasty
cheese. The color changed again as Snape added crushed rose petals, and
at least the smell was more pleasant now.

``You don't understand,'' Harry insisted. ``Connor heard a prophecy in
February. I think the prophecy said---or he imagined it said---something
about me hurting Sirius. That's why he's been resisting me so hard. I
have to go and explain to him that I don't intend to hurt Sirius, but I
need to know the prophecy, so that we can work on it together.''

``You are not going near anyone but other Slytherins this weekend.''
Draco's eyes were flinty. He held up a hand when Harry opened his mouth
to object. "\emph{No}, Harry. You could have fucking \emph{died.} Yes,
\emph{again}, I know, but that doesn't make it any less important. You
had a fucking \emph{voice} in your head, and you can't be trusted not to
risk your health on the whim of the moment. You are staying right here
until Professor Snape finishes his potion and tests it."

``But why?'' Harry demanded. He knew it was a stupid question, knew
Draco must have been more worried than he let on all along, but this was
so \emph{important}, more important than silly House prejudices or their
odd idea that his twin might hurt him. Harry could pin Connor to the
wall again if he had to.

Draco's face flushed, and he leaned nearer Harry. ``Because I refuse to
let you die,'' he said. "\emph{Sit. Down.}"

Harry sighed and sagged back into the chair. He couldn't outrun Mrs.
Norris at the moment, and he supposed that taking Draco with him when he
talked to Connor wouldn't make much of a difference---

\emph{Wait. Yes, it would. All right, I'll put Draco under a} Silencio
\emph{before we start the actual conversation.}

Harry relaxed. Draco eyed him suspiciously, and then turned and looked
at Snape. ``Is the potion almost done, sir? I think that we should feed
it to Harry before he comes up with some other insane plan.''

``Almost,'' said Snape, and the potion turned clear again. Snape studied
it with his head on one side, his fingers tapping out a rhythm on the
edge of the cauldron. Harry \emph{burned} to say something about that,
since it was one of the things that made Snape take House points from
Gryffindor in class, but he kept silent. This was not the kind of
atmosphere into which he wanted to throw that remark.

Into that silence came the flutter of wings. Harry looked up in surprise
as an owl flew through the slightly open door of Snape's office---the
potion had had to send its fumes somewhere---and over to him. It was a
barn owl, one of the ordinary school birds, and it took off again the
moment Harry removed the parchment from its leg. Harry supposed it had
already been fed or paid.

He unfolded the parchment, and frowned. It was blank, without the
slightest trace of a note to make this worth whoever had paid the owl.
Was it a joke, perhaps? Something like the Marauder's Map, where he had
to speak a specific phrase to get it to work?

\emph{It would be just like the twins to send me a blank piece of paper
that explodes in my face,} he thought then, and cautiously held it away
from him.

Words began appearing on it in the next moment, in a flowing, looping
hand that he didn't recognize.

\emph{Hello, Potter.}

\emph{Now comes the night, and out of this darkness, there will be no
morn.}

Harry stared. This \emph{had} to be a joke, and perhaps he was supposed
to recognize the last words as some quote from a song or a poem, but he
didn't. Who would be writing to him like this?

``Who are you?'' he asked aloud, and then realized that was stupid. If
this parchment functioned like the ones he and Connor had used, then he
had to write back, not speak.

Snape looked up sharply. He didn't appear to have noticed the owl's
arrival. ``Is the voice in your head again?'' he asked.

\emph{Yes}, said a smug tone from the back of Harry's mind.

Harry shook his head, because he couldn't have Snape bothering about
that right now. ``Someone's writing to me through a piece of
parchment,'' he said. ``Do you have a quill?''

Draco raced to retrieve him one, and stood behind him, one hand resting
lightly on his shoulder, as Harry braced the letter on the table to
write back. \emph{Who are you? Do I know you?}

The answer appeared almost at once. Harry could hear the laughter.
\emph{Oh, yes. In the past few months, you have come to know me very
well.}

Harry narrowed his eyes. \emph{Who} are \emph{you}? He underlined the
middle word for emphasis.

\emph{Come, Harry, you are not able to figure it out? Oh, I am so
disappointed in you. Of course, I suppose that you could have been a bit
too trusting. Trusting Slytherins and Headmasters and former Death
Eaters\ldots{}and rats.}

Harry's breath rushed out of him. ``Peter?''

\emph{Very good,} the answer appeared at once. \emph{Oh, yes, I have
eyes on you, Harry, though I am not there with you. We're going to play
a little game now, since everything is ready at last. See if you can
figure out the moves before I make them. Or just after I make them,
which is the more usual course. Let's have some} fun.

In the next instant, Snape screamed.

Harry's head jerked up, and he saw his guardian sagging to the dungeon
floor, his right hand tearing at his left arm. Draco shouted and bowled
over to him, helping him tear. In moments, the sleeve was pulled back,
and Harry could see the ugly flare of the Dark Mark. Just seeing it made
his scar burn, and he closed his eyes and fought back pain and nausea
and the thick bile of betrayal.

"What do you \emph{want}?" Harry shouted, easing himself off the chair.
Snape's screams were inhuman. Harry reached out towards him with magic,
but found nothing that he could affect. The pain was coming from inside
Snape, through the connection that he had forged long ago and of his own
free will with Voldemort. Harry could practically see the conduit,
coiled like a shimmering serpent atop the dark one, but he couldn't
touch it.

He glanced back at the parchment even as the reply to his question
formed.

\emph{To play. You have cost my Lord enough time in the past. A swift
death is out of the question. To make you suffer, to make those whom you
love suffer\ldots{}yes, I think that will do well enough.}

\emph{How is your brother, Harry?}

Harry swore under his breath and reached for his pocket. Of course, this
was the one day that he hadn't brought any of his maps with him, and he
couldn't see where Connor or Peter was in Hogwarts. And Snape's screams
were driving nails through his head, pushing him closer and closer to
the edge over which panic would bear him.

He had to do \emph{something} about that.

Harry focused all his will on Snape, and whispered, "\emph{Consopio.}"

The screams stopped as Snape fell asleep. He would have fallen, too, but
Draco caught and gently laid him down. Harry stood amid the sounds of
his own panting for a moment, then turned back towards the parchment.

\emph{That was clever,} scrawled the mocking message. \emph{Very clever.
You can send someone to sleep when he suffers pain, yes. But it won't be
as easy next time.}

\emph{I will give you the answers that you've wanted, Harry Potter. But
first, I think you should go to the second floor. There's a locked door
there that I want you to open, one that leads to an office you haven't
entered all year.}

Harry closed his eyes. He knew what the message must be talking about.
The door to Sirius's office.

He snatched up the parchment and walked towards the door. Draco joined
him without comment, and caught Harry when he wobbled. His eyes dared
Harry to say anything about that, anything at all, to send him away or
tell him to stop. But Harry just nodded to him.

``We've got a game to play,'' he said, and then turned and cast a ward
over Snape's office as they left it, to hold Snape safe against any harm
that might come to him. He barely thought about it as he created it,
though he did make sure to close any small holes a rat might have
crawled through. His shock and pain had given way to something else,
something that was familiar and crawling out of the darkest parts of
him.

As he hurried towards the second floor, Draco supporting him where
necessary, ice raced along the walls beside him and behind him and
ahead.

\chapter{*Chapter 44*: A Blow Up Between
Brothers}\label{chapter-44-a-blow-up-between-brothers}

Thank you for the reviews yesterday! I'm afraid that I can't answer a
lot of questions yet.

The chapters will have to do that for me.

\textbf{Chapter Thirty-Eight: A Blow-Up Between Brothers}

Harry waited for a moment while what appeared to be most of the
Ravenclaw Quidditch team went by, chattering about how they would beat
Gryffindor in their match in a few weeks. He leaned partially against
the wall and partially against Draco, though he drew away from the
latter the moment the team was by. Draco gave him a sharp look.

``I don't want to look as though I'm about to fall over,'' Harry
explained, before turning and concentrating on the door to Sirius's
office.

"But you \emph{are.}"

Harry ignored that. He certainly was \emph{not}, and if he'd felt a
brief moment of surging dizziness and nausea, that didn't matter, did
it? Peter was certainly not about to wait for him to catch his breath.

He glanced at the parchment, which had sprouted new letters. \emph{I can
watch you, you know, Harry. And that was not an impressive display. How
are you ever going to face my spells, when I finally tell you where I
am?}

``Bastard,'' Harry muttered.

\emph{That insult long ago lost the power to sting me, I assure you.}
Harry had never seen Peter's face twisted into an evil smirk, but he
found it surprisingly easy to imagine. \emph{Now, open the door. I want
you to understand the full history of my brilliant plan, and you can't,
not unless you see what lies in Sirius's office.}

Harry tried a simple \emph{Alohomora} first, and wasn't surprised when
it didn't work. No professor would leave his or her door bound with
magic that all the students could counter. He considered a spell like
\emph{Reducto}, but that would draw attention, and he desperately didn't
want anyone else involved in this little game. He knew that Peter would
not hesitate to hurt anyone else.

\emph{That's going to be a problem, in a short time,} Harry thought,
glancing sideways at Draco.

``I don't suppose you have the counterspells?'' he snarled at the
parchment.

\emph{Why, Harry, I thought you would never ask,} the parchment replied
at once. \emph{The password is} Freedom of the mind. The last word was
scrawled with a distinctive flourish.

Harry paused for a moment, wondering what that password said about
Sirius, and then leaned close to the door and whispered it.

The door softly came open under his hands. Harry pushed it inwards and
stepped into Sirius's office, remembering what it had looked like the
last time he had been here. Peter wasn't \emph{quite} right in saying
that he hadn't been in Sirius's office all school year, since he and
Snape had chased Remus here when he wanted to bite Sirius, but that had
been only a few days after the New Year, and perhaps the voice was being
very literal.

Then, the office had been neat and cozy and warm, with a Gryffindor
Quidditch banner hung on every wall.

Now, it was dim, the only light a dying fire, and it looked like a cross
between a battlefield and a half-destroyed treasure vault.

Harry stared at the cages stirring with spiders of the kind that had
attacked him in the Slytherin bedroom. Another one caught his eye, and
he saw the swimming motion of the same kind of snake that had attacked
Draco. He closed his eyes.

``No,'' he whispered. ``I don't understand. How?''

Draco caught him from behind and leaned him against the table, on which
rested other artifacts, weapons of some kind, radiating powerful magic.
Harry opened his eyes to read the parchment's answer.

\emph{Oh, Harry, I am watching you, and the expression on your face is
everything I hoped for. But you should have guessed before this, Harry.
Who but a powerful Dark wizarding family would have access to the kind
of artifacts that came after you, the kind of artifact used to watch
Lucius Malfoy and determine his true intentions from his blood? And, of
course, Sirius is still heir to that family, even though he should not
have been. Dumbledore saw to that. He could not bear that the Second War
might come and they wouldn't have access to the kind of weapons that the
Blacks possessed.}

Harry felt a gust of anger grip him, and rattled the parchment. ``How do
I know you're Peter? Why shouldn't you be Sirius?''

\emph{Because you would know Sirius's handwriting, wouldn't you?} came
the swift answer. \emph{And this is not Sirius's handwriting.}

Harry controlled his anger as best he could. Currently, his magic was
gripping the edges of the parchment, suggesting it could rip it, and he
didn't dare do that. ``So why isn't Sirius helping you anymore, then?''

\emph{He grew too sane for us to use anymore,} the parchment reported.
By now, it had covered both sides, and Harry wondered what would happen
next. What happened was its flipping itself over, the lines it had
already written vanishing, and the new message beginning at the top of
the front again. \emph{When he was still insane, struggling under the
influence of the curse that the Dark Lord used to bind his mind to his
brother's, then he was very useful. A trusted member of the Order of the
Phoenix, who would occasionally break and give us information when the
pain became too much for him, and who didn't dare tell anyone else what
he was suffering because of his stupid pride, who thought he had to
fight alone? Oh, yes, very useful.} The writing paused for a moment.
Harry tried to force away the image of Peter waiting with a quill in his
hand and a manic grin on his face. \emph{Tell me, Harry, who do you
think it was that dropped the anti-Apparition wards in your first year
and gave the Lestranges access to the Quidditch Pitch?}

Harry lost his breath yet again, and closed his eyes. He heard Draco
make an unexpectedly deep and dangerous sound of outrage. Harry couldn't
confront him about it, though. His mind was on the first Quidditch game
he had ever played opposite Connor. Their parents, Sirius, and Remus had
come. Sirius's face had been haggard, his eyes drowning above the dark
circles of nightmares.

For at least two years, then, Sirius had been struggling madly against
that curse, his sanity wavering whenever he tried, bouncing back and
forth between the madness that had led him to attack Snape this autumn
and turn against Harry in second year, and the calmness that made him
the godfather who had gifted Harry with the armband that would enhance a
Parselmouth's magic. And he had said nothing. The parchment called it
``stupid pride,'' but now that Harry knew about Peter, he could well
imagine what else Sirius had been thinking. Someone had already been
sacrificed for him. Sirius hadn't been indifferent after all. Guilt had
probably been eating him alive, and when he found out that the sacrifice
wasn't enough to free him from Voldemort's curse, he would have
determined to fight the rest of the battle alone.

\emph{Oh, Sirius, you and your stupid hero complex,} Harry thought, and
opened his eyes to read on.

\emph{Dumbledore's ornament made him too sane}, the parchment wrote,
Peter wrote, the words rippling with what Harry imagined was probably
disgust. \emph{So we did, after all, have to replace him with a more
satisfactory servant. And now I am here, and the attempt to resurrect
the Dark Lord is not going to fail after all.}

Harry shook his head slowly. ``I thought you went to Azkaban for love of
your friends, Peter, not for love of Voldemort.''

Draco leaned heavily on his shoulder, supporting him or being supported,
as the answer appeared. \emph{I lied. And now he is almost returned,
Harry. A few more steps remain, a few more movements on the game board.
First, of course, you might want to ask yourself where Sirius is right
now.}

Harry stiffened, and felt his lungs refuse to work. Draco pounded him on
the back until they did again. Harry winced, and whooped out the breath,
and snapped aloud, ``Walking around the castle, I would assume.''

\emph{Wrong. The ritual to bring back the Dark Lord requires
certain\ldots{}sacrifices. And who better to be one of them than a man
for whom so much has already been sacrificed, and who is fated to die
anyway, if one believes the second prophecy?}

``How do you know about that?'' Harry demanded. He felt horribly
helpless, writhing between the urge to rush out and find Sirius right
now, and the temptation to keep reading on, so that he wouldn't cause
Sirius immediate death or debilitating injury.

\emph{I know pain,} Peter said. \emph{And Sirius has never been good at
resisting it. He bore that curse in his head for twelve years, Harry,
did you know that? It never broke, though he told everyone else it did,
in the hopes of easing his own conscience over my supposed sacrifice..
He relived Regulus's torture each and every time he slept, and the curse
whispered and urged him to act in my lord's voice. Sometimes he broke.
Often he didn't.}

Harry shivered. He thought he knew now why he had dreamed so often of
two dark figures in torment, and why those dreams had ceased after his
nightmare of the rat and the dog. That had been around the time that
Dumbledore's ornament had finally taken hold of Sirius and cured him, to
hear the Headmaster tell it. The snapping teeth of the small creature
had been the ornament and not Peter after all, Harry thought. His mind
had been free at last, with no more reliving of pain\ldots{}

And now his body was not.

\emph{The point is,} the writing continued, when he could finally direct
his eyes back to it, \emph{I think you should know the second prophecy
before you come and visit with me and Sirius. And I'm not going to write
it down for you. That would be too easy. Find a way to learn it, Harry,
and then come to me. And be assured, I shall know if you do not. I have
eyes upon you.}

Harry pulled himself sharply out of the tumbling disgust and rage that
wanted to seize him. He clenched his hands in front of him. ``How do you
want me to find out the second prophecy without alerting everyone to
what you're doing?'' he demanded.

\emph{You're an intelligent boy. I'm sure you'll figure out a way.}

Harry nodded, once. ``Draco,'' he said, ``do you know where Connor is
right now?''

Draco's eyes were almost black. Harry blinked so hard at that that he
nearly missed Draco's words. ``If you think I'm going to let you
confront your brother in this state, you're mad.''

``Draco,'' Harry whispered, "we \emph{have} to."

Draco shook his head. "The \emph{proper} thing to do is turn this over
to McGonagall right away, if you trust her," he said.

\emph{That wouldn't be smart,} the parchment pointed out helpfully.
\emph{I can hear every word you see, mark every expression on your
faces.}

Harry bowed his head. He couldn't risk it, not when Peter apparently had
Sirius and was going to hurt him. If he understood Peter's temperament
right, he was interested in this game right now, and would play until
Harry managed to find him. But let someone else step in, and everything
was about to go badly wrong. Peter hadn't vetoed the suggestion of
Connor, so Harry guessed that he didn't mind if his brother knew.

``I'm going with you, at least,'' Draco said.

Harry gave the parchment a wary glance, but received only the message
\emph{Such loyal friends you have, Harry. Even now, Sirius is struggling
against me, as though he could get out from under the control I have
over him. Stubborn son of a bitch.} Once again, Harry thought he could
hear the laughter.

Harry nodded. ``That's fine for now. Come on.'' He turned and limped
three steps to the door of Sirius's office.

``Wait!''

Harry glanced over his shoulder. Draco was picking up a spider from the
table, and Harry winced. ``It's going to bite you,'' he whispered.

``It is not.'' Draco shook the spider back and forth, and showed its
unmoving legs. ``I don't think anyone but their master can really
control them, Harry. And since Sirius Black isn't in a position to
control them right now, they aren't going to respond. But I do want us
to have proof of what happened, in case someone is inclined to question
this ridiculous story. I would be.'' He slid the spider into his pocket.

Harry paused abruptly, a spasm of doubt going through him. \emph{If only
their master can control the spiders, then why did several of them
attack me} after \emph{Sirius supposedly gained his sanity?}

And then there had been the sharp \emph{crack} of a house elf's
Apparition in the hallway that day\ldots{}

Harry restrained himself from glancing wildly around the room, though he
thought he knew how they were being watched now. The Blacks would have
had access to a house elf along with all these malicious Dark treasures,
though, and a Black house elf could have come and gone freely from
Hogwarts in a way that a Hogwarts house elf could not have. He had a
slight, fragile advantage, or two if one counted his perception of the
flaw in Peter's story---whatever it meant. It was still true that he did
not recognize the handwriting on the parchment, and he would have known
Sirius's.

``If you must, Draco,'' he said aloud. ``Come on. Let's go find
Connor.''

\emph{Good idea,} the parchment said.

Harry smoothed his face into desperation for the sake of the house elf's
eyes, not that it was hard, and led the way out the door.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Harry swore and banged his trunk shut. Draco glanced up, startled, from
where he was studying the spider critically. He'd placed it on his bed
and cast several spells at it, none of which raised a response.

``What's the matter?''

``My maps of the school and the grounds are gone,'' Harry muttered in
disgust. ``I can't use them to tell where Connor is.''

He noticed the parchment trembling in the way that meant new letters
were appearing on it, and snatched it up, glaring balefully at it.

\emph{I could have told you that, if you asked,} Peter was writing.
\emph{Did you think I would have left you with a weapon that would let
you know where we are before I am ready? Easy enough for a rat to steal
in and remove them.}

``Great, but now I have no idea where my brother is,'' Harry snapped
aloud. Blaise, Vince, and Greg were out in the sunshine, which was the
only reason he dared speak like this.

\emph{Find him}, the parchment suggested, without much compassion.

Harry drew breath to reply, but someone banged on the bedroom door just
then. Draco tossed a fold of his sheets over the spider, and moved over
to open it, giving Harry a look that Harry correctly interpreted as
\emph{Stay still and behind me.}

Harry didn't think he had the strength to argue. His head and gut were
both blazing and slowly spinning with tension and exhaustion. He did
call up his magic, but let it drop again when he saw it was only Marcus
Flint at the door, his face wrinkled into an expression of disgust.

``Your brother's at the door of the common room, Potter,'' he said.
``Something about your godfather.''

Harry nodded back, grateful for the information, and stepped forward.
Draco was beside him in an instant, one hand resting on his shoulder for
support and to control how fast he went. Harry gritted his teeth and
told himself that he was grateful, really he was, to have such a good
friend. That he wanted to kill Draco right now was more a reflection of
his own tense mood than anything else, he thought.

\emph{But he still can't come with me to wherever Peter and Sirius are}.

He and Draco were going to have to talk about that, probably in a few
minutes, or possibly a few hours, whenever Peter made up his mind to end
the game. Harry suspected it was not going to be a pleasant
conversation.

They came to the door of the common room, and Harry knew from Connor's
desperate, tearful eyes that his brother already suspected something was
wrong.

``Where is he?'' Connor demanded, one hand in his pocket. Harry
suspected he held his wand, though he hadn't drawn it yet. ``I've looked
for him everywhere, Harry. What happened?''

``I need to know the second prophecy, Connor,'' said Harry, checking to
make sure that the common room door had slid shut behind them and that
no one was coming down the corridor. ``I know you know it, and I know it
has something to do with Sirius, and I know that---''

``And you kidnapped Sirius so that I would tell it to you?'' Connor
backed away from him, eyes so wide that he seemed to be drowning his
face in hazel. "Are you \emph{insane}?"

``No, no, not that!'' said Harry, and reached for the parchment---only
to realize he'd left it on his bed. He cursed and glanced at Draco.
``Draco, will you go and get the parchment, please?''

``And leave you alone here?'' Draco's voice sounded like Narcissa's now,
and he hand his wand out, though not quite pointed fully at Connor.
``No, Harry. Never. Since you have no self-preservation instinct, I'm
just going to have to be that instinct for both of us. And I'm not
leaving you with your brother.''

Harry counted to ten in his head, in Mermish. "We do not have
\emph{time}," he said. ``Please, Draco, we have to---''

``Come to that, Harry,'' said Draco, in a cheerful voice that didn't at
all give Harry warning of what he said next, ``your godfather can go
fuck himself, and your brother can go fuck himself, and everyone else
who needs you to rescue them and think for them can go fuck themselves.
I'm protecting you. Your life matters more to me than any of theirs.''

``But it's not that way to me,'' said Harry.

``I know,'' said Draco. ``That means that I'm just taking on a role that
you would have yourself, if you'd been raised by someone sane.''

``Don't talk about our mother that way!'' Connor yelled, and this time
he did pull his wand.

``We really don't have time for that,'' Harry muttered. ``Connor,
please. I didn't take Sirius, but he is in danger, and I believe that
he's probably going to lose his life unless I know the second prophecy.
It's important. Please? I have to know it, and I know that you know
it.''

Connor shook his head, his face turned pale again. ``It says that you're
g-going to kill him,'' he stammered. "But prophecies can be shifted, if
you try hard enough. They can \emph{shift.} If I can make it mean
something else, if it does mean something else, then Sirius isn't going
to die." His eyes fixed on Harry's face with a resolve that Harry found
familiar. It came from their last lesson together, when Connor had
started fighting back against him with wandless magic. And he was close
to the edge of panic now, his magic plunging around him like a wild
horse. ``I'm certainly not going to tell you how the prophecy says
you're going to kill him,'' he whispered.

"The exact wording \emph{matters}," Harry said. ``And I need that
prophecy, Connor. Please. Give it to me.''

``You could rip it out of his mind with Legilimency,'' Draco whispered
into his ear. "Damn it, Harry, \emph{do it.}"

``That won't make me any better than he is,'' Harry snarled back, and
hated the moment of temptation that he felt. He tried to smile
soothingly at his brother, though he suspected it was impossible under
the circumstances and it came out as a twisted grimace instead.
``Please. I'll swear by whatever you like, by Merlin or magic or by an
Unbreakable Vow, that I'm not going to kill Sirius.''

``The prophecy says that you are,'' Connor whispered. ``And if I told
you, then I would be making it come true. There's so little room to turn
it aside, now. We're getting into the last moments.''

``Does it say something about May?'' Harry kept his own voice a whisper,
too, wondering if he could lure the prophecy out of Connor by playing
into his own half-conscious rambling. It seemed to work. Connor's eyes
turned to him, but they weren't piercing and panicked. They were dreamy,
as though Harry were a figure he was seeing in his own mind.

``Yes,'' Connor breathed. "Do you \emph{swear} that you haven't
kidnapped him, Harry? Do you swear that you haven't hurt him?"

Harry nodded. ``I promise you. In the name of Merlin.''

Connor nodded back. ``Then I think I know where he is,'' he said, voice
just barely above a mutter. ``The last safe place, he told me it was.''
He blinked, and the mask of sleep or unconsciousness was gone from his
eyes, replaced with the same grim determination Harry had been trying to
inspire for the cause of Connor becoming a leader. ``And I won't let you
hurt him.''

``I said that I wasn't---''

Connor narrowed his eyes, and Harry recognized the surge of magic, the
cool wind in his thoughts, that meant he was about to start using
compulsion. With an effort, he kept his voice even. ``That doesn't work
on me, Connor, remember?''

``There are other kinds than the kind I used on you, Harry,'' said
Connor, voice detached. ``Reinforcing someone's deepest desires is the
simplest one. And right now, I have the perfect candidate for that.''

Harry knew what would happen then, but knowing what would happen wasn't
the same thing as being able to prevent it. Connor's gaze moved past him
and fixed on Draco, and the next moment Draco grabbed Harry's arms and
held them firmly together behind his back.

"I'm \emph{not} letting you go into danger," he murmured fiercely into
Harry's ear.

Connor nodded to Harry. ``He really wants to protect you,'' he said.
``Just the way that I really want to protect Sirius. I'll get him off
Hogwarts grounds, help him flee to a place where he'll be safe from you
and the prophecy will have to mean something else, and then come back
and face the consequences of this. Whatever they are.'' He gave a
fleeting, fragile grin, and then turned and ran up the dungeon corridor
as if there were Grims after him.

That left Harry with a struggling Draco, who wanted to protect him by
any means necessary. Harry tried to throw off the physical grip, but the
attack of pain more than a week ago, and then the week in bed, had left
him desperately weak. It was easy for Draco to pin him against the wall.

``I'm not letting you go into danger,'' Draco repeated, looking more
stubborn than ever, his eyes still dark. ``I'm going to put you to
sleep, and then we're going to wait for Snape to wake up. He'll be able
to talk sense into you. You know that he wouldn't want you going into
danger, either, wouldn't want you risking your life for that mutt of a
godfather.''

Harry knew he had to do something about Draco before that happened. The
moment Snape was awake and through the ward that Harry had put around
him, then he could give up any thought of going after Sirius. Draco was
right; Snape wouldn't think Sirius's life worth the potential loss of
Harry's.

Harry began to call on his magic, rationing it carefully. If he simply
attacked, without finesse but with a great pulse of power, then he would
hurt Draco. This had to be done with the fine control he had worked on
with Snape.

"\emph{Consopio.}"

Harry felt the sleep spell coming at him, and knew he could bounce
it---but that would mean being prepared for an attack in the next
instant. He took a deep breath and unleashed a bit, just a tiny bit, of
his ability to eat magic.

It came to life around him, hissing like a hungry snake, and devoured
Draco's spell. Harry let his body sag as if it had hit him, though, and
Draco scooped him up, cradling him in his arms. He murmured the
password, and carried Harry through the common room and towards their
bedroom the moment the door opened. Harry waited, tense as he could be
when he was letting his muscles lap over Draco's arms like pudding, but
Draco didn't call on anyone to help. He appeared to believe that
protecting Harry meant protecting Harry by himself.

Accordingly, once they were in the bedroom, Harry gathered his magic up
and used it to pour strength into his limbs, the way he had when he was
holding Fenrir Greyback back from biting him. He rolled out of Draco's
grip and managed to stand, wobbling, beside his bed. The parchment was
there, but when Harry shot a glance at it, he didn't see any new writing
on it. He supposed Peter, or whoever was really managing to control the
Black spiders and the Blacks' house elf, was content merely to watch and
see how this would play out.

Draco smiled at him, a smile full of appreciation. ``I should have known
that such a simple spell wouldn't take you down,'' he murmured.
``There's still the chance to be sane about this, Harry. You can give me
your word that you won't try to escape, and we can go and wake Snape up
together. You know that he can help you figure out some plan to keep you
safe and perhaps even rescue your godfather.''

Harry coughed. His stomach, for a moment, felt as though it were about
to empty itself out his throat whether or not he wanted it to, but he
held it down. The next moment, he heard the voice murmur in the back of
his head. \emph{You're not going to be sick. It's not that kind of
pain.}

Harry felt the voice settle, watchful, in his thoughts. He ignored it
for the moment, though. He didn't know how much help it would be, and
perhaps it was even content to stay neutral. It certainly hadn't done
anything for him so far.

\emph{I am trying to.} The voice sounded injured.

Draco was already aiming his wand again. "\emph{Petrificus Totalus,}" he
said clearly, and the spell's light came for Harry.

The snake wound around his shoulders ate it without being asked, and the
magic around Harry began to purr. Harry felt a bit stronger. He pushed
away the temptation to eat more. This was still Dark magic, and he was
using it at all only because he couldn't risk Draco disabling him. He
had to think of something soon, something that would not hurt Draco but
would convince him to stay here.

He laughed, in the next instant. He really should have thought of this
before. Draco wasn't doing this of his own free will. Harry could return
his free will to him.

He locked up the magic-eating ability again, caught Draco's eyes, and
whispered, "\emph{Legilimens.}"

He was past the barriers in a moment; Harry wondered if that was because
of the strength of his magic, called and dancing around him, or because
Draco had little true interest in keeping Harry out of his thoughts.
Then he had no time to wonder, swept away by what was before him.

Draco's mind was a house, created in the same silver-gray shade that
most of Malfoy Manor was, shading from deep at the bottom to pale at the
top, like a rising wave. Harry stood in a wide entrance hall with a
spiral staircase in front of him, each tread a different color.
Corridors led in different directions, locked doors standing firmly in
them, and winds blew past Harry's head, carrying delicate glass bubbles
that swirled with more colors still.

Across one of the corridors ran a thick rope, obstructing passage down
it and bouncing back the bubbles when they tried to drift over it. Harry
strode towards it and laid his hand on it, certain he could unbind
Connor's compulsion in a moment and return Draco's mind to where it
needed to be.

The rope buzzed and hummed and sang when Harry touched it, and affection
poured through him like a tidal wave.

Harry snatched his hand back and stared at the rope. It was an intruder
in Draco's mind. It shouldn't work so well as a conduit for his
emotions.

Perhaps he had done something wrong. He touched the rope at a different
place this time, and made sure to concentrate on his image of Draco
free, so that he wouldn't feed the compulsion.

Once more, the affection pounced on him and rolled over him, inundating
Harry with ripples of protectiveness and possessiveness and friendship.

Harry stumbled, but managed to retain his grip on the rope, and
remembered Connor's words in the same instant.

"\emph{Reinforcing someone's deepest desires is the simplest one. And
right now, I have the perfect candidate for that."}

Draco really did want to protect him. Draco really did feel this
affection for him. The emotions weren't unnatural, but what Draco really
felt when it came to Harry.

Stunned, disbelieving, struggling hard to avoid confronting what that
would mean, Harry stepped away from the rope. He couldn't unbind the
compulsion because he didn't have time. As Connor had said, it was wound
into the deeper structures of Draco's mind, already making itself a
natural part of his thinking, and it would take very fine work to
separate it out again.

Harry did a simpler thing, reaching out to the light that surrounded him
in Draco's mind and asking it to dim. It did, thrusting Draco into
unconsciousness and Harry out of his thoughts.

He opened his eyes and found himself crouching on the floor between
their beds, with the voice in the back of his head murmuring some vague
appreciation. He forced himself to his feet with a grip on the
bedclothes, and stumbled around Draco's bed to look.

Draco lay on the floor, his wand sprawled by his outflung hand, his face
peaceful. Harry couldn't help lingering for a moment, staring, before he
shook his head and whispered, ``Sorry, Draco.''

Draco wouldn't be able to come with him. Harry had known it. He did
regret leaving him this way.

He made it back to his bed by sheer force of will, and pumping more and
more of his own magic into his limbs so that he could stand straight. He
picked up the parchment, and saw more words appearing.

\emph{You've done the right thing, Harry. I would hate to have someone
else interfere in our little game. Now, of course, you have to figure
out some other way to learn the second prophecy, as your brother will
certainly not tell you, and Sirius isn't in a position to tell anyone
anything at the moment.} Harry wished he couldn't so clearly imagine the
vicious chuckle that would follow those words.

Oddly, he felt stronger than he had a short time before. How much of it
had to do with the emotions he'd encountered in Draco's mind, he didn't
know, but he would take what he could get.

And, right now, he had a plan to learn the second prophecy.

\emph{In fact,} he thought, one hand reaching for the spider Draco had
left on his bed and one for the parchment, \emph{if I'm thinking right,
I already did.}

\chapter{*Chapter 45*: Help From
Hermione}\label{chapter-45-help-from-hermione}

Last cliffhanger for a while.

\textbf{Chapter Thirty-Nine: Help From Hermione}

Harry had reached the Gryffindor portrait hole before he realized he had
no idea what the password was; Connor hadn't seen fit to give it to him
lately, and Harry didn't associate regularly enough with any of the
other Gryffindors.

He paced and swore for a moment, then spun and looked up at the Fat
Lady, who was staring back at him in interest. ``Can you appear on the
other side of your portrait?'' he asked.

``Yes, dear,'' she said, giving him an odd look. ``Are you all right?
You're sweating, and pale, and frankly you look as if you should be in
bed.''

Harry nodded distractedly. He didn't have \emph{time} for people
parenting him, no matter how few people seemed to believe this. "Could
you reappear on the other side of your portrait and call for Hermione
Granger, please? It's \emph{vitally} important that I speak with her."

``Of course, dear,'' said the Fat Lady, and gave him one more
sympathetic look before she vanished. Harry waited, though he did force
himself to stop pacing and lean against the wall. He didn't want to
exhaust all his strength. He still had to persuade Hermione to go
through with this plan, and that was likely to take some doing.

The parchment in his hands rattled. Harry warily lowered his gaze. The
writing had a slant to it it hadn't had before. With a leap of his
heart, Harry recognized Sirius's handwriting.

\emph{Harry, you must listen to me. I can't stop---}

The writing jerked to a stop, a flying spot of ink appearing beside it,
as though someone had roughly snatched the quill from Sirius's fingers.
Harry waited, barely breathing, until the mocking hand appeared again.
\emph{Sorry about that. He continues to fight, even though he knows it's
hopeless. Really, is this a trait of all Gryffindors?}

Harry narrowed his eyes, and added that hole in the story to the hole in
the story about Sirus's spiders attacking after he supposedly regained
his sanity. Peter would know exactly what Gryffindors were like, having
been one himself.

The portrait swung outward just then, and Hermione poked her head out.
Her eyes widened when she saw him. "\emph{Harry?} Why aren't you on a
bed in the hospital wing? I don't think you should be up yet!" Her voice
was shrill, and rising further in her concern.

Harry wondered, irritably, why that was the first thing anyone thought
of. He probably looked awful, but why would he have left the hospital
wing and tottered up to Gryffindor Tower if this wasn't urgent?

``Hermione,'' he said softly, ``I need your help.'' He motioned her out
of the portrait hole, and then far enough away from the listening Fat
Lady so that she couldn't overhear. Hermione followed despite the frown
on her face, the gleam in her eyes saying that her curiosity had been
roused. Harry had been counting on that.

He faced her, and tried to sound as normal as possible as he said, ``I
need to use your Time Turner to go back in time and listen to a
prophecy.''

Her face changed slowly, the scowl growing even more thunderous, her
lips pursing. Harry winced in spite of himself. She looked sterner than
McGonagall when the professor was angry, and that was saying something.
But he held himself firm. There really was no option other than this. If
this failed, then he knew of no way that he could learn Trelawney's
prophecy, short of tracking Connor or Ron down and ripping the words
from their minds. Trelawney would have forgotten the prophecy the moment
she made it; all true Seers did.

"You need to \emph{what.}" The last word cracked like a house elf
Apparating. Harry winced, and glanced at the parchment in his hands, but
no new words had appeared. Apparently, the mysterious man, Peter or
whoever he was, was willing to wait and listen to what happened.

``I need to use your Time Turner and go back in time to that day in
Divination when Connor made you mad,'' he said. Still he kept his voice
calm, though he could feel the panic boiling and straining at its leash.
"Please, Hermione. This is the only way that I can learn it, and I
\emph{need} to know it. I think Connor's run off somewhere because he's
so convinced that the prophecy said something about me killing Sirius.
But I don't know that for certain."

Hermione nodded slowly. ``All right. But, Harry, I've only ever gone
back as far as three hours. This will be going back\ldots{}months.''

``I know,'' said Harry simply. ``I trust you to make the calculations.''
They were both in Arithmancy, but Hermione was better at maths, no
surprise there.

Hermione gave him a suspicious, sidelong glance. ``You're not going to
go off on your own and try to use the Time Turner the moment you have
the calculations, then?''

Harry frowned. ``Of course not. I don't know how to use it, and I
wouldn't trust myself to be careful right now even if I did.'' He
glanced at the gleaming chain just barely visible around Hermione's
neck. ``I trust that the chain is long enough to loop around both of us,
and can take both of us back? I think that you need to hear the
prophecy, too. You deserve it.'' \emph{If only so that she can
understand how dangerous this is, and she won't argue with me when I
have to leave her out of the final confrontation.}

Hermione studied him once, then nodded. ``We go back one hour for every
inversion of the glass,'' she said. ``Twenty-four hours in a day, more
than three months\ldots{}'' She turned away from Harry, muttering, and
waved her wand in front of her. A bit of parchment flicked out of her
robes, and a quill joined it, making rapid scratches as she calculated.

Harry blinked and stared for a moment before he shut his mouth. He
sometimes forgot how powerful Hermione was, until he saw her in action.
She didn't have a specific gift like Connor's compulsion or his
Parseltongue; she eschewed flashy magic. But she could cast many small
useful spells that all worked together much faster and more smoothly
than any ordinary wizard could have achieved, and she could maintain
them effortlessly while she began another spell. As Harry watched,
beyond the levitation charms on both parchment and quill, and the
enchantment that made the quill write, she levitated a small calendar
from her robe pocket to check for sure and certain on the dates of the
months, all the while with numbers rushing through her head.

Harry shook his head---he winced as that motion made him dizzy---and
waited. The parchment in his hands rippled briefly. Harry looked down.

\emph{She is a clever witch. And I stand ready to help you, of course,
if you need anything.}

Harry swallowed. It truly, truly disturbed him how clearly he could
imagine the laughter every time the letter-writer wrote something like
that. But he did nod and mutter, while watching Hermione to make sure
she had her back to him, ``Yes. I need you to command Sirius to command
the spider.'' He patted the spider that hung in his robe pocket. ``I'm
going to need it to attack someone.''

\emph{Done.}

Harry ground his teeth, though he tried to keep his expression as blank
as possible, given the watching house elf. The writer was pleased that
Harry was playing his game, and treating him like some clever pet. Harry
loathed being treated that way, but since he had to rescue Sirius, he
didn't think that he could spend a lot of time voicing doubts.

``There!''

Harry blinked as the calendar, parchment, and quill shot away from
Hermione, and she turned, taking the Time Turner out of her robes and
beckoning to him. Harry started towards her, and found himself
staggering as he actually got there. The pain in his head and his gut
was flaring again. Harry blinked, and saw white spots, and then saw
Hermione's white face.

``Harry,'' Hermione whispered. ``I could go back by myself, and then you
could go to the hospital wing and rest---''

``No,'' Harry whispered. He didn't dare trust that. The letter-writer
might think that Harry wasn't playing by the rules of the game if that
happened. And worse, Hermione might accidentally forget a word of the
prophecy, or misremember what it said. Harry couldn't take the chance.
He needed to hear the prophecy for himself, and hear the exact
intonation with which Trelawney had repeated it.

He folded the parchment so that Hermione couldn't look at the
conversation he'd had with Peter or whoever was holding the quill, and
met her eyes defiantly. ``I wouldn't sleep anyway,'' he pointed out. ``I
think Connor's running headlong into danger. And you know how protective
I still am of him.''

Hermione sniffed. ``Without reason, sometimes.'' But she didn't argue
any longer, pulling out the chain of the Time Turner and looping it
around his neck. Harry tried to breathe as normally as possible while
she held the hourglass up between them.

``We'll have to be careful when we get there,'' Hermione warned him
solemnly. ``We don't dare be seen by ourselves while we're in the
past.''

Harry smiled slightly as he felt the spider come to life in his robe
pocket, its legs swarming and scraping at the cloth. ``I think I know
exactly what to do.''

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him, but began to invert the hourglass,
chanting, ``One. Two. Three\ldots{}''

Harry joined the count, though he hated to hear how weak his voice had
become. \emph{Stupid body. It can't fall down on me now. I can't afford
to let it.}

The world around them blurred and rippled like cloth. Harry didn't look
too directly at it, since it made him dizzy and gave him a worse
headache, but the voice riding behind his eyes seemed to enjoy it.
\emph{Oooo. I never traveled in time before. Look! There's someone we
must have passed hours ago. Whee!}

They reached the last turn, and then Hermione gripped the hourglass and
kept it from inverting again. Harry stood locked within the chain,
panting. They hadn't traveled physically---they were still standing in
the same stretch of empty Gryffindor Tower corridor as before---but he
felt as tired as if they had.

``Harry?'' Hermione's whisper was nearly timid. ``I really think that
you should lie down and rest.''

Harry shook his head and smiled grimly at her. ``No time. The prophecy
happened ten minutes after the hour, and we've come just on it. We've
got to move.'' He began to do so, using his magic recklessly to feed his
flagging strength when he had to. It wasn't as though he had a better
use for it.

Hermione trotted beside him with alacrity, and didn't even flinch when
Harry cast the Disillusionment Charm on both of them, despite the cold
feeling that it produced. Harry found the cold invigorating. On they
moved, and then they were in the North Tower corridor, and Harry saw
Hermione storming down the hallway, her face set. Knowing now what
Connor had said to her, Harry couldn't blame her at all for being so
disgusted. They watched her out of sight, and then shuffled forward.

Harry came on himself, staring in concern after Hermione. He took a deep
breath, snatched a small stone from his robe pocket, and tossed it at
his past self.

His past self focused on the stone, staring at it with a dark expression
that Harry hadn't realized was so frightening on his own face. Harry
pulled the stone down the corridor with his magic, and saw his past self
draw his wand. That was the moment at which he added the spider.

His past self immediately became more concerned with the spider, which
scuttled towards him with lifted mandibles, than with any potentially
Disillusioned people sneaking along the walls. Hermione wanted to linger
and watch the fight, but Harry gripped her arm and steered her past with
main force.

Climbing the ladder was the hardest part, since they had to do it
invisibly, and in as much silence as possible, and while keeping the
chain of the Time Turner around both of their necks. Harry finally
levitated the both of them, hearing Hermione squeak when he used both
wandless and wordless magic to do so. But they didn't have time to wait.
Beneath them came the blast of the "\emph{Reducto!"} that had reduced
the spider to smithereens, and past-Harry wouldn't be far behind.

Harry kept up the levitation once they were in the Tower, and they
skimmed until they settled into the classroom entrance. Even then, Harry
feared they would be too late, but they ducked through the veiled arch
just as Trelawney, in front of Connor and Ron, rolled her eyes back and
began her recitation of the prophecy.

Harry leaned against the wall, keeping his panting silent, and
\emph{listened} as hard as he could. This was the prophecy that Connor
had been willing to fight him to keep hidden. It must be important in
some way, even if Harry wasn't sure what that would be yet.

Trelawney's voice was a grating moan, a sound that was hardly human, and
one that should have been too male to come out of the fluttering woman's
throat.

"\emph{Five weeks before the time of longest light}

\emph{There comes one who puts lesser foes to flight,}

\emph{Who has a soul and magic cold as ice.}

\emph{Now comes the hour}

\emph{Of the black one's power,}

\emph{And he shall die by the wand of the sacrifice.}"

\emph{Oh, Connor,} Harry thought, his heart speeding fast enough to make
him sick. \emph{No wonder you thought that I was going to kill Sirius.}

"\emph{Now comes the hour all truth is revealed,}

\emph{Now comes the hour the gray one takes the field,}

\emph{And first decision sets the path for all.}

\emph{Now kindness is tested,}

\emph{Now soft heart must be bested,}

\emph{And on that test he will stand or fall."}

Harry saw himself come charging through the classroom at that moment,
and he gripped the Time Turner and began to turn it. His past-self's
head swung around, and Harry knew he had seen the gleam of silver that
marked the place where his future-self and Hermione left.

Everything had gone as it was supposed to do, then, and now the prophecy
bounced around in Harry's head, buzzing like an angry fly, even as he
chanted the count of the Time Turner's inversions aloud with Hermione
and the world warped and changed around them.

\emph{Five weeks before the time of longest light. That must mean five
weeks before the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. And,
well, this weekend is that. Approximately. No wonder Connor panicked
when he thought I'd taken Sirius somewhere or done something with him
today.}

\emph{There comes one who puts lesser foes to flight\ldots{} I don't
understand that part. I know Connor thought it was me, though. And the
part about having magic cold as ice fits as well. And what would my
brother know about my soul?}

The sadness of that thought threatened to distract him for a moment,
from both the prophecy and the count of the Time Turner's inversions,
but Harry turned his mind determinedly back.

\emph{The black one's power\ldots{}no doubt Connor thought that meant
Sirius, though I don't understand how he can be in power if he's a
captive. And ``die by the wand of the sacrifice'' sounds pretty damn
blunt. Either I'm going to kill him, or Peter will.}

\emph{I don't understand the rest. I suppose that the gray one could be
the gray Dementor, but if the Dementors had some reliable way of finding
Peter, they would have used it by now, and then perhaps we wouldn't be
in this} mess.

They chanted the final number, and then Hermione gripped the Time Turner
and held it still again. Harry blinked around the empty Divination
classroom, then removed the Charm from both himself and Hermione. A
glance out the window showed that it was still late afternoon, only
slowly slanting towards sunset. Harry nodded. That meant he shouldn't
meet many people on his way to\ldots{}wherever it was that the
letter-writer wanted him to go; they would be either lingering outside
still, or heading to dinner.

The parchment rattled. Harry unfolded it and read it.

\emph{The place where Connor and Sirius practiced their lessons, Harry.
The last safe place. Oh, yes, did I mention that I have your brother
now, too?}

Harry felt a flash of anger. Hermione gave a little shriek as the walls
around them abruptly froze, and then she slipped on a patch of ice, and
tugged on the Time Turner's chain. Harry ducked his head to get it over
his neck, never removing his eyes from the parchment. So he had to
rescue two captives instead of one. That wasn't such a huge change, and
it would only give him more rage to take Peter, or whoever this was,
down with him.

\emph{Without} killing Sirius, if at all possible.

The parchment finished, \emph{The Shrieking Shack.}

Harry nodded sharply. He liked that answer. He approved of that answer.
He would be dealing with Peter off Hogwarts grounds, then, and in a
place that most people still believed was haunted. He turned to leave.

``Harry!''

He paused and blinked back at Hermione, who was scrambling to her feet.
She had her wand out and a look of confusion on her face.

``What was all that about?'' she demanded. ``Did the prophecy say what I
think it said? Are you going to kill Sirius?''

Harry shook his head. ``Prophecies are notoriously vague and hard to
interpret,'' he lied smoothly. ``I don't think that's what it means. And
now I'm going to find Connor and tell him so. I think I know where he
might have gone.''

``I want to go with you,'' said Hermione. ``You're not well enough to
face him alone. Or get Draco, at least, though I would think I'm less
likely to get angry and send a spell at Connor.''

Harry let out a careful breath and shifted from side to side. It was
only his imagination that his stomach was churning, he reminded himself.
The voice in his head had said this wasn't the kind of pain that would
make him sick. ``Hermione, I can't. This is something I have to do
alone.''

"I \emph{knew} it," said Hermione, with the soft, vicious tone of a
pouncing cat, and then her hand shot out and grabbed the parchment
before Harry could stop her. She looked down at the writing, and her
eyes widened as she read. Harry simply thanked Merlin that the whole
conversation wasn't there.

When she looked up, her eyes were still wide, and her face pale enough
to make her gaze stand out as drowning dark. "\emph{Harry,}" she
breathed. ``What is this?''

``Something bad,'' said Harry shortly. He had to hope that the writer
wouldn't consider Hermione's reading of his letter to be a betrayal of
the game they had played so far. ``Listen, Hermione, I've got to go.''

Hermione laughed, though it was more like a bark---short and unamused.
"If you think I'm going to let you go into danger when you're this sick,
alone, you're mad. I won't insist that we tell any of the professors if
you don't want to, but we \emph{are} going together."

Harry shook his head. "\emph{Consopio}," he said, and Hermione fell
asleep. "\emph{Wingardium Leviosa}," he added, and eased her to the
floor.

Then he snatched up the parchment, scanning it anxiously. The writer
hadn't added anything. Harry began to walk out of the Divination
classroom, but had to stop and lean against the wall, his face to the
stone as he panted.

Could he really do this? The weakness in his body was growing, and the
magic he poured into it drained out immediately, like water through a
holed cloth. Could he really go and confront Sirius's and Connor's
kidnapper on his own?

\emph{It isn't a matter of ability,} Harry thought, as he opened his
eyes and straightened. \emph{It's a matter of necessity. I have to go
alone because Peter, or whoever this was, won't let me bring any help.}

\emph{You have me.}

Harry jumped a bit before he realized that the voice was coming from
inside his head. \emph{Oh, yes, you,} he thought back, as he eased out
of the Divination classroom and towards the ladder. \emph{I don't
suppose you've remembered who you are.}

\emph{No. But I remember that I could see through Sirius's eyes, too,
because he had a connection to Voldemort in the form of the curse. I
can't right now. I don't know why. Maybe Peter did something to keep me
out.} The voice sounded sulky. \emph{But if we get close enough to him,
and I can break this barrier that prevents me from seeing, I might be
able to help you. Or maybe I can even enter Peter's mind and tell you
what he plans to do next.}

\emph{Thank you,} Harry murmured.

He made his way out of the North Tower and carefully through the
corridors towards the front entrance. He made liberal use of the
Disillusionment Charm to hide from the people who passed him, despite
the sickness swimming in his gut. He supposed he could have Apparated
directly to the Shrieking Shack, as he had once before, but that kind of
Apparition on Hogwarts grounds would definitely have attracted
attention, from Dumbledore if no one else. Harry wanted to keep anyone
else out of this. The more people got involved, the more loss of life
there would be.

Harry reached the entrance hall and allowed himself to feel something
like triumph. He would be out beyond the doors in a few moments, and
from there he could make his way to the Whomping Willow. He knew from
seeing Sirius do it earlier in the year how to open the tunnel that led
to the Shack.

"\emph{Impedimenta.}"

Harry let out an involuntary cry as his feet went out from under him,
and then the Disillusionment Charm boiled away like so much steam. He
turned his head, and saw Snape climbing the stairs from the dungeons,
his wand out and a gleam in his eyes like some maddened hippogriff.

``You are not going anywhere,'' Snape whispered, as he stalked closer.
Harry shivered. The lower Snape's voice went, the angrier he was, and
this time it was so soft as to sound like rat's paws on stone. "You are
staying right here, and if I must bind you and knock you unconscious to
keep you from risking your life, then I will. I am \emph{tired} of this,
Harry. You have given me no chance to act like a true guardian. I will
protect you from the consequences of your own Gryffindor-like stupidity,
if I must."

``You don't understand,'' Harry whispered, struggling to stand. The jinx
still wouldn't let him go, and the knock he'd taken on the head when he
fell, as well as the pain in his gut, was distracting him from his
efforts to break the spell. ``Connor and Sirius are at risk. They'll
probably die if I don't get to them---''

``I don't care!''

``Peter says that he'll sacrifice Sirius to insure the Dark Lord's
return,'' Harry hissed, as he found Snape standing right over him, and
his anger came back. The stones beneath him froze. "Do you \emph{really}
want that? Voldemort, risen again and running around?" He glanced
pointedly at Snape's left arm.

Snape's eyes flickered briefly, and then he said, ``Dumbledore has more
than enough power to face Voldemort, and more than enough reason to hunt
Pettigrew, if his golden boys are captured. Tell me where they are, and
I will alert him. After placing you in the hospital wing, of course.''

"\emph{No,}" Harry said, even as the parchment rattled. He twisted his
head to look at it, sprawled on the floor beside him, and saw new words
appearing.

\emph{Where are you, Harry? Delayed? Oh, dear, I don't think I like
that. And I don't think that your brother really needs two arms, does
he?}

Harry shrieked, but the voice in his head spoke quickly, before he could
build up a true head of panic. \emph{Let me.} Harry felt it drift away
from him as it had once before.

The next moment, Snape staggered and clutched his head. He tried to
focus his eyes, and Harry suspected he was using Occlumency, or
Legilimency, or a combination of both, to try and throw the voice off.
It wasn't working, obviously. Harry couldn't help a brief, twisted
smile. \emph{I did try to tell him that that voice doesn't speak through
any connection in his mind.}

Snape abruptly slipped to the floor, eyes blank. The voice slid back
into Harry's head and snorted. \emph{He'll be out until he manages to
wake up from the memories that I gave him.}

\emph{You remember who you are now?} Harry stood, and found that, yes,
he could manage it. His legs wobbled, but he still stood straight. And
he was not going to think about Peter cutting Connor's arm off, because
he \emph{wasn't.}

\emph{Not really,} said the voice. \emph{Only that I was once in a great
deal of pain. I gave him some of the pain, not as much as I gave you.
That ought to keep him busy for a while.} It sounded smug.

Harry shook his head, and hoped Snape would understand when he came back
and woke him up and explained everything.

\emph{If} he came back and woke him up and explained everything.

Harry let out a long, hissing breath and turned towards the doors out
into the grounds. So he might die. He had accepted that from the time he
was four. He shouldn't be shaking in his shoes now at the thought of it.

And he wasn't, he realized with some startlement, as he staggered out
the doors and into the cool brightness of a spring evening. He was more
upset at the thought of never being able to explain to Snape and Draco
and Hermione why it had been necessary to hurt them, or ignore them, or
insist they stay behind.

\emph{My priorities really are strange,} he thought, as he maneuvered
carefully across the grass towards the Whomping Willow. \emph{I had my
brother first for so long, and then things changed, and} I \emph{don't
even know what I think of as most important any more.}

\emph{I could root around in your mind and find out for you,} the voice
offered, but Harry shook his head.

``We really don't have time,'' he whispered, as he shot wary glances off
to the side, looking for anyone who might spot him and call out, or for
some sign of Hagrid. The grass was empty, though, save for the grasping
fingers of sunlight, and Hagrid was nowhere in sight. Harry relaxed
marginally, but kept his caution up.

The Whomping Willow sprang into motion as Harry neared, the branches
cutting through the air and slamming into the ground. Harry shook his
head and reached out, carefully thickening the air near the knot on the
willow's trunk. When he thought it was thick enough, he shot it forward,
and the knot pushed home. The willow's branches froze, and Harry ducked
beneath them and towards the tunnel that he could see between the roots.

He knew the moment he pushed into the tunnel and began to creep forward
that this was going to be hell.

The pain in his stomach grew worse the longer it was pressed against the
ground. The pain in his brow blazed harder and faster and fiercer as he
kept his head bowed so that he could scramble beneath the overhangs.
Every muscle in his body ached and screamed with tension as he contorted
himself into odd positions to get past the bumps and the jerks in the
trail. Add the worry about Connor and Sirius, and by the time he arrived
at the entrance to the Shrieking Shack, Harry was worried that he
wouldn't be able to stand up and fight Peter properly.

He could feel strong magic humming beyond the door, waiting. If this
wasn't a ritual to resurrect Voldemort, then it was something else damn
close. Harry closed his eyes and wailed to himself.

\emph{I can't do this! I can barely stand upright.}

Of course, the answer that came back was always the same, mingled with
echoes of his mother's voice and his own.

\emph{You must do it because there is no one else. You must do it
because you're the strongest, and it's the responsibility of the
strongest to carry the burdens that no one else can. You must do it
because it's necessary.}

Harry began, gently, to breathe in a pattern that Lily had taught him.
This, granted, was when she had been teaching him what to do if he was
ever tortured, and the last time he had used it was when Quirrell's
\emph{Crucio} had hit him in first year. But it was still valuable, and
it worked, letting him rise above the pain that plagued him in stomach
and head. Even when his scar abruptly blazed with agony, he could look
past it and see what had to be done, stretching like a path before him.

\emph{That's impressive,} the voice said, in subdued tones. \emph{Where
did you learn it?} A rooting, shuffling sensation, and then the voice
said, \emph{Oh.} Harry had the sensation of it backing carefully out of
a certain corner of his memories.

Harry smiled. He knew it was probably a grim smile, but no one was here
to be frightened. ``From my mother,'' he murmured, and stood. His legs
did not shake. His resolve and his magic were one, now, and his magic
was no longer trickling out of him, spent, the moment he sent it into
his muscles. He only had to strengthen his will, and it did what he
wanted, instead of the other way around. ``I am still what she made me,
even now.''

Irony teased him for a moment, and then was gone. Harry called on his
rage instead, and watched, detached, as the tunnel around him swelled
with frost.

He was doing what had to be done, because there was no one else.

Connor and Sirius were waiting.

Harry reached out and pushed the door open.

\chapter{*Chapter 46*: Danse Macabre}\label{chapter-46-danse-macabre}

Here we go.

If you notice parallels here, they're deliberate. Just as Chapters 16
and 30 were parallels to each other with the release of Harry's magic
and his phoenix web, so this one parallels Chapter 23, where Harry spoke
with Lily. The title literally means ``dance of death'' or ``grotesque
dance.''

Ready?

\textbf{Chapter Forty: Danse Macabre}

Harry moved a step into the Shack. He saw the bed before him, the edge
of a foot sticking out from beyond it, the marking of what could be a
circle traced on the floor---

And then he felt powerful magic slam down in front of him and to the
sides and behind, and the door slammed and sealed itself shut. Harry
tensed. Quite apart from the strength of the magic, he didn't think that
anyone else would be getting in behind him to help.

\emph{You are not alone}, the voice in his head breathed, but it sounded
distracted. \emph{All of this\ldots{}it feels familiar\ldots{}}

Then Harry heard the clear, cold laughter he had been imagining while he
held the letter, but it was a familiar voice that spoke the words,
``Hold him. The dance is about to begin.''

Harry felt the magic fall into place around him, gripping him as tightly
as a full body-bind. Sick with rage, he watched Sirius step from beyond
the bed, his eyes wide and quite mad, his smile bizarre. Harry's heart
thumped and stuck in his throat, and the voice of his own thoughts
whispered, \emph{It wasn't Peter. It never was.}

Harry couldn't shake his head, he found when he tried to move, but he
could still speak. ``Why, Sirius?'' he whispered. ``I thought you were
sane now, after the golden ornament managed to tame your thoughts.''

Sirius clucked his tongue at him and lifted the ornament over his head.
``Poor Potter,'' he said, voice almost familiar. The sound was Sirius's,
but the intonations were someone else's, Harry knew. ``Do you mean to
tell me that you didn't figure it out? I was so sure you would.'' He
tapped the golden ornament with his wand. "\emph{Finite Incantatem}!"

The ornament shifted and shivered, and then an intricate illusion charm
melted away from it. What was left was heavy and gold, and hung on the
end of a chain, but was assuredly not the ruby-studded ball that Sirius
had worn for months now. It was a locket instead, with a rusted clasp,
marked with an ornate S that Harry recognized after a few moments of
staring.

\emph{Slytherin's mark.}

And now that the locket was free of what must have been powerful spells
to disguise its magic as well as its shape, Harry could feel it. It was
humming, all but snarling, shedding a cold aura. It felt\ldots{}

It felt like the diary that Harry had held last year, the one that had
contained a piece or memory of Voldemort.

Harry could feel himself stop breathing.

Sirius looked down fondly at the locket, shaking his head slightly. When
he looked up, Harry could see Tom Riddle in his smile, though the
intonations were not exactly the same as Tom Riddle's, and not the same
as Harry had heard from Voldemort's mouth when he fought him as
Quirrell, either. "This locket lay among the Black treasures for
\emph{years}. They never suspected what they had. And then your old
godfather, in searching for weapons that he could use to train your
precious brother, found it and picked it up." Sirius chuckled, a sound
that, like his smile, was turned sideways from what it should have been.
``And I was free. In his head, at least.''

\emph{My nightmare}, Harry thought. \emph{Something small destroying
Sirius, and the pain I felt when it happened. Not a rat after all. That
was the piece of Voldemort swallowing the last freedom of his mind.}

He met Harry's eyes and smiled unpleasantly. ``You'll have guessed that
I'm part of Voldemort, of course, but no sixteen-year-old boy. I have
forty years of his memories. And I'm far more experienced than Tom
Riddle was, I think you'll find, and far more sane than my latest
incarnation.'' A spasm of distaste crossed Sirius's borrowed face. ``I
shall have to make a special point of finding and killing him, when I've
completed this ritual,'' he muttered.

\emph{And then we'll have two Voldemorts to face.}

The thought terrified Harry as few other things could have. He began to
struggle in earnest, his magic snapping and beating at the bindings. But
they held him immobile, and Voldemort-in-Sirius didn't seem at all
bothered by his fight. In fact, he cocked his head to the side, looking
mildly puzzled, until he suddenly snapped his fingers.

``Oh, that's right,'' he said. ``You didn't win the game. You didn't
anticipate all my moves. You didn't guess about the locket, and you
didn't guess what I was going to do once you got here. Well, really,
Harry.'' More than anything he had done so far, Harry hated the chiding,
playful tone his voice took on, as bad as the worse messages written on
the parchment. ``You should have. I was kind enough to tell you.''

He looked at something on the other side of the bed. ``Kreacher!''

A house elf came into view. Harry felt his face twist in disgust. The
creature was beyond shabby, with knotted hair hanging down around its
face and an expression full of fawning adoration as it looked up at
Voldemort.

``Master Black is wanting something?'' he asked. ``The Master Black who
became a true heir of the mistress is wanting something?''

``Move this boy into place in the circle,'' Voldemort instructed,
striding around the bed. He leaned heavily to the left, Harry noticed,
and hoped that that indicated a weakness he could exploit. Merlin knew
he needed \emph{something}. ``The one I indicated to you earlier, mind,
and not an inch to right or left.''

``Master Black is being very good to Kreacher, letting him participate
in important rituals,'' said the house elf, bowing from the waist and
seizing Harry's arm with nails so long they drew blood. ``Kreacher will
not let Master Black down!''

He dragged Harry around the bed, and Harry could see the room fully now.
There was a circle scratched on the floor, drawn in some thick liquid
that did not look like either blood or ink to Harry. Kreacher positioned
him carefully, still hopelessly bound, on the near side of the circle,
with his heels treading on the dangling cover of the bed.

On the other side lay Connor. He was awake, his face ashen and his
horrified eyes fixed on Sirius. They flicked to Harry for a moment, and
Harry could see the terror in them briefly dim to shock. Then it turned
to despair, and Connor turned his head away, tears trickling down his
face.

Harry felt part of him ache with pity. It was only part, though; the
rest of him was taking note of the fact that Connor could move, and
thinking that it might be important.

\emph{I'm here, too}, the voice in his head reminded him.

\emph{Can you do anything}? Harry asked, watching as his godfather's
body stooped down and gathered several small objects together into a
heap. There was a knife, and a Pensieve, and a draped object that
Voldemort treated more carefully than all the rest.

\emph{I don't know}, said the voice unhappily. \emph{I can't see into
his mind---most of it. But there's a part I can read, and its thoughts
make no sense. They're twisting and plotting to stop him. That doesn't
make sense, does it?} The voice sounded as though it were appealing to
Harry.

Harry swallowed. What he was about to think sounded mad and desperate,
but if there was the slightest chance\ldots{} \emph{Sirius? Could that
part be Sirius?}

The voice gave a squeal of the kind that it had when they were traveling
through time. \emph{Yes! Yes, it is! Thank you, Harry! It's him! There's
part of him still alive and sane in there!} The voice turned puzzled.
\emph{But then, I don't understand why he's not attacking. Why is he
just waiting?}

\emph{I don't think Voldemort knows he's there, or he wouldn't have let
him remain,} Harry decided. \emph{He's waiting for the best moment.}

Part of him hoped that was it, and that Sirius wouldn't turn into a
coward unable to face what he had done again. But since all he could do
was wait, he decided he might as well wait and hope.

``You've given me a lot of trouble, you know,'' Voldemort went on
conversationally, turning around and carefully setting the draped object
in front of him. ``I couldn't decide how best to take revenge on you,
even when I knew that I was getting a body back, thanks to your dear
godfather. I pumped your brother's ears full of poison, nonsense about
Slytherins being evil and compulsion being good.'' Harry saw Connor
flinch as if someone had driven needles into him. Voldemort didn't seem
to notice, but his smile did turn a touch crueler, so perhaps he had.
"But, of course, you gave me the best idea yourself, or your godfather
did, thinking about what you'd done. So I decided to wait until the
second prophecy was about to come true, and seize the chance to take
revenge on you, turn the prophecy into what \emph{I} wanted it to mean,
and change your perceptions of those who have helped you all at once."

He waited to be sure he had Harry's absolute attention---as if he had a
choice about facing forward with his head clasped by the magic, Harry
thought---and then drew the cloth dramatically off the small object.

It was a dark container, made of what Harry thought was yew wood, the
wood of death and resurrection. Despite the lack of rowan wood, he had
no trouble recognizing it as a reparations box.

``But---you can't,'' he said, the first words to tumble through his
thoughts. ``The justice ritual can only be used on someone who's really
wronged you.''

Voldemort gave him a deep, jagged smile. ``Oh, I think you have wronged
me, Harry. But since when have you known me to use neutral or wholesome
magic? I am going to use the magic of the ritual. It's that which holds
you even now, and will prevent any human from entering this place. But I
will twist it, and insure that it does what I want it to do.'' He
stroked the yew box. ``This will open to me again, unlike a rowan box,
when I have completed the ritual and taken your magic, so that I might
absorb your power. It's mine in the first place.''

He smiled directly into Harry's eyes. ``Always remember, you were the
one who gave me this idea, with what you did to your mother.'' Harry saw
Connor jump and flinch out of the corner of his eye again.

Harry rose above the panic, the terror, the guilt, and stared calmly at
Voldemort. ``I did the right thing,'' he said. ``You're perverting the
justice ritual to your own ends.''

Voldemort only laughed, as if not at all fazed by his failure to
intimidate Harry, and turned to Kreacher, who had retreated off to the
side, to stand with his head bowed. ``Kreacher!''

``Master Black?'' Kreacher looked up, eyes adoring.

``Bring me the knife.''

Kreacher hurried to scoop up the blade and bring it Voldemort's hand.
This close, Harry could make out that the hilt was ebony, the blade some
dull metal he did not think was either silver or steel. A silver serpent
was etched on the hilt, just above the words \emph{Toujours pur}.

``The Blacks understand family,'' said Voldemort softly, turning the
knife over and over. ``They always did, until this last generation, when
both their sons turned traitor, in different ways.''

The voice in the back of Harry's head made what sounded like an
incoherent noise of protest.

``And they made magical items that could certainly affect family,'' said
Voldemort. ``Polaris!''

The knife trembled and came alive, twitching, in Voldemort's hand, which
was Sirius's hand. Harry stared. He knew now what the knife must be---a
blade like the one Lucius had sent him, capable of severing ties of love
and loyalty and magic between family members.

Voldemort began to walk towards Connor.

``No,'' said Harry. He spoke calmly enough, but he could feel the bubble
of rage building up inside of him, and wasn't surprised when his magic
went mad.

The invisible force flung Kreacher to the far side of the room, wringing
a snarl out of him as he hit the wall. Sirius turned as if to face a
strong wind, one that made him list more to the left than ever. He put
one hand over his face and clucked his tongue at Harry, laughing
mockingly.

``If you could have stopped this, then you would have done so the first
time you called your magic,'' he said. He raised his head and began to
chant. ``What you have done to me cannot be forgiven. I have no wish to
face you in a duel, nor to arrange legal means of settling the insult.''

Harry felt his own magic settle, stilled, under the weight of the far
greater power that the justice ritual called forth. Shadows flickered
madly in the room, above the outline of the circle. Voldemort watched
them with a smile for a moment, then put out one hand. It was Sirius's
broom-callused palm that was offered to the air, but Harry could not
think of it as his hand again. He doubted that he would ever be able to,
even if he somehow managed to separate Sirius and Voldemort out from
each other's minds. Voldemort had been possessing Sirius for
\emph{months}, and no one had \emph{noticed.}

\emph{That must be driving Connor} mad, Harry thought dimly.

``I demand this of the old powers,'' Voldemort said, ``for my will is
strong, and my desire for justice firm.'' He took two steps towards
Connor and moved Polaris in a broad sweep. A shimmering line of
connection sprang into being between Harry and Connor, a cord that
manifested as a red glow. "With the power that comes from the connection
between the one who has wronged me and his brother, I draw the magic,
and I draw the will. \emph{Corrumpo castimoniam}!"

He brought the knife down.

Harry screamed as he felt a binding he hadn't known was there strain and
leak and begin to \emph{break}. Connor screamed in the same moment, a
noise like the verbal equivalent of internal bleeding, and flung an arm
over his face, or so Harry thought in the moment before his head bent
back and he felt magic wash from him.

He could hear Voldemort repeating, every few moments, his voice as
steady as rainfall, "\emph{Corrumpo castimoniam! Corrumpo castimoniam}!"

Harry's mind translated the incantation, whether or not he wanted it to.
\emph{I corrupt the purity.}

Harry felt magic twist and writhe, buck and scream. The magic of the
justice ritual was abruptly trying to flee, as though the ritual had
sensed the danger it was in of being used wrongly.

Harry wrenched his eyes open, and could see dark red light trailing from
the connection between him and Connor, attacking the shadows that danced
above the circle. The circle itself came to life in the same instant,
striking out with pale gray tendrils that reminded Harry uncomfortably
of the silver fire on Walpurgis Night. Voldemort flung his own magic
behind that, holding Slytherin's locket above his head and chanting the
spell over and over again.

Harry's stolen magic, Connor's stolen magic, Voldemort's own Dark
power---it was all too much for the ritual. Harry felt the nature of it
overthrown, felt the very atmosphere in the room change. Now, the
shadows that crouched and sidled nearer him looked dark, not as if they
would burst into red-gold light the way that the shadows of his own
justice ritual had. The circle was blazing. The hold that settled on
Harry's body was not simply firm, preventing him from moving until
justice had been done, but actively cruel, pinching his skin like
chains.

Harry was reeling. He could feel hot tears slipping down his cheeks, and
though Merlin knew he had plenty to cry about, he realized he was
mourning the loss of the dance's purity. Voldemort could not change the
nature of the justice ritual for anyone else, or permanently, but within
this shack, something old and beautiful had died. Voldemort had
perverted its intent and brought it back to life as a shambling corpse,
ready to snatch the price he asked from an innocent. It was wrong. It
was \emph{obscene}.

Harry met Connor's eyes. He knew his brother was shocked and hurt and
terrified beyond measure---

No, he didn't. He could guess it from his expression, but he didn't know
it any more, the way he had always done with no more than a glance. That
was the tie that Voldemort had cut, a connection to his twin that Harry
hadn't even known was there.

This time, the bubble of anger didn't give him any warning that it was
coming. Instead, Harry flung back his head, tossing off the weight that
crowned it, and screamed, unleashing the full force of his magic for the
first time since the storm last year.

The shack shuddered. The walls raced into ice in a moment, and Kreacher
became a frozen statue between one step and the next. Harry felt the
ritual clamp down on him, but he didn't care. He wanted nothing so much
as he wanted to kill Voldemort in that moment, and as Sirius's body
staggered and leaned to the left, it seemed his wish would be granted.

But Voldemort recovered in a moment, and made a negligent gesture.
Harry's magic calmed, his ice turning into water. Kreacher shivered as
the ice on his body cracked open like a nutshell, and gave Harry a
baleful look. Voldemort chuckled through Sirius's voice, the laughter
colder than it had been.

``I am very glad to see that your magic is so strong, Harry,'' he said
cheerfully. ``It gives me pleasure to imagine what I shall do when that
power is mine.''

Harry stared at him through narrowed eyes. Briefly, he wondered where
his fear had gone, and then decided that it didn't matter. He felt at
his magic. It was bound, but it was stirring under the surface, and he
knew there was one thing he could do that might work. \emph{Might} was
the operative word, of course. He couldn't know that it would,
especially when the justice ritual, perverted and broken though it had
been, would probably still prevent him from using any magic to escape,
the way it had prevented Lily from doing so when Harry used it on her.

Voldemort laid Polaris down and picked up the Pensieve. He gazed into it
for a moment, Sirius's eyes contemplative the way they had been whenever
he had spoken of the past, then shook his head and set it aside. ``No,''
he said, as though speaking to someone else. ``I do not think the time
is right for that, yet. And if there is one way in which I am smarter
than both my newest self and my sixteen-year-old one, it is knowing when
the time is right.''

He turned and smiled at Harry. ``There will be plenty of time to show
you the truth when I have stripped you of your power,'' he said. ``In
the meantime, before we begin that stripping, do you have any
questions?''

The ritual loosened its fierce hold on Harry's chin and cheeks, and he
could talk. He worked his jaw for a moment, eyes never moving from
Voldemort's, and then said, ``I don't understand why you wanted me to
know the second prophecy.''

Voldemort shrugged. "So that you could lose further hope, of course. You
\emph{do} know that it says you'll kill your dear godfather?"

Harry nodded tightly. He heard Connor's sobs coming from the corner, but
couldn't turn his attention from Voldemort to comfort his brother. He
just didn't have \emph{time} right now.

``I wanted you to brood on that,'' Voldemort said, and smiled widely.
``Just as I wanted you to think that Peter was writing to you to break
your hope. You cannot suffer enough for what you have done to me.''

``What do you care?'' Harry snarled, playing for time. He needed to gain
as much strength as he could before he struck, and to gauge it. Under
all the imprisoning layers of ritual, his magic was moving, but he knew
if he simply unleashed it now, Connor would be hurt as well as
Voldemort. ``What I did was to your old self and Tom Riddle, not you.''

``I would have become much more powerful the moment I manifested, if not
for you,'' said Voldemort, losing his smile for the first time. ``And I
would never have had to go to the trouble of arranging this ritual.'' He
shook his head. ``You are going to have to pay for the inconvenience
that you caused me.''

He turned and snapped his fingers. ``Kreacher!''

``Master Black,'' said the house elf, hastening forward.

``Help me disrobe,'' said Voldemort, and held out Sirius's arms.

Kreacher, bowing and fluttering, began to pull his clothes off.
Voldemort looked back over his shoulder at Harry.

``Everything I wrote you in the letter was quite true,'' he said
casually. ``Sirius has been betraying you for months, whenever my old
self's presence in his mind became too much for him. And then he picked
me up, in the locket, and was foolish enough to put me on to see what he
did. And that was the end. He'd managed to withstand or undermine my old
self's attempts to hurt you; he chose to send that snake, for example,
because he knew you were a Parselmouth and had a decent chance of
stopping it. The spiders were mine, though I only meant their poison to
weaken you. That was when I knew that I had complete control over this
body and mind. Sirius was not able to object when I chose the spiders.''
He smiled.

``You were the one writing the letters to Lucius Malfoy,'' said Harry.

``Only the last one.'' Voldemort shrugged, and the robes came off his
chest. ``Sirius wrote the ones before, when the pressure of the curse,
and Fenrir Greyback's and Walden Macnair's persuasions, became too much.
Imagine, Harry. Your godfather might have been free of the curse long
before I possessed him, only he was too proud to tell anyone.''

Connor gave another sob. Harry suspected the barriers were falling in
his mind, leaving him vulnerable to all sorts of truths.

Kreacher drew the robes almost completely off.

Harry gagged. There was a gray \emph{lump} growing from Sirius's left
side, pulsing gently in patterns of light and darkness. It looked like
an egg, or at least mostly like an egg, since part of it was obviously
still under Sirius's skin. It glistened with thick wetness, dark enough
to look like blood, but obviously not it. Harry flicked a glance at the
circle. He knew what it was made of, now.

``This will be ready in a moment.'' Voldemort stroked the egg's opaque
side. ``Your magic will enable me to hatch out a new body. Then I'll
arrange for your godfather to die by your wand, and show you the truth,
and depart.'' He looked at Harry with his head cocked on one side as
Kreacher eased him down in the middle of the circle, his hands tender.

``Do you know what I will do first, Harry?'' he breathed.

Harry stared stonily at him.

``What I gave Severus Snape was only a taste of what I will give him
when we are done here.'' Voldemort's eyes glittered. "Not only is he a
traitor, he dared to aid \emph{you}. He will be flayed alive, inch by
inch. There are spells that can do that. I will leave him no skin but
that which bears my Dark Mark, and cast the Mark on every inch of his
skinless flesh. The Mark will keep him alive, but it will also prevent
any healing magic.

"Then I will go after those you are so fond of, the young Mudblood witch
and the Malfoy boy. The Mudblood may have a fairly quick death, I think,
with only a few broken limbs and mutilations first. After all, she did
help you to learn the second prophecy, and indirectly to play my game.

``Draco Malfoy\ldots{}'' Voldemort's eyes were feral now. ``He will stay
alive, and come with me. I will send him back to his father, a piece at
a time, over many years. The Prometheus Curse will do.''

Harry shuddered in spite of himself. The Prometheus Curse renewed every
part of a body the moment it was cut off, in the way that Prometheus's
liver renewed itself every day after being eaten by an eagle. The
thought of Draco, suffering, unable to die, nearly made Harry launch his
best weapon right then. But he refrained, and asked, quietly, ``What
will you do with my brother?''

Voldemort glanced in Connor's direction. ``Why, I have been training him
these past three months,'' he said. "It would be a shame to let such a
well-trained and natural compeller go to waste. \emph{Imperio} should
remove any obstinate moral fixations he has, and then I have a follower
skilled in doing Dark magic."

Harry nodded, calmly. It was what he needed to hear. It gave him the
final bit of anger he needed in order to act as he had to, and it held
out a promise, a faint hope, that if he failed here, then the
Boy-Who-Lived might yet keep close to Voldemort's side and one day fell
him.

\emph{If} he failed.

\emph{I am not going to fail}.

Voldemort held up one hand. "\emph{Mors Mordre}!" he said clearly.

A glowing green Dark Mark appeared above his head, casting sparks down
into the center of the circle. The magic of the corrupted ritual
tightened in anticipation, and Harry supposed Voldemort had spoken to it
silently.

Voldemort faced him, that same faint smile on his face. ``I will take a
payment from you,'' he said, ``a weregild for all you have done to me.
One time, one shattering price for another shattering price, one apology
made in terms that I have decided. We will make the exchange, and it
will be done.'' His smile twisted at the edges. ``Last time pays for
all.''

The magic of the ritual reached down, and Harry saw the immense hand
form, a sickly dark gray this time, coasting towards his body to remove
his magic.

He unleashed his ability to eat magic.

It chewed its way out from the inside, through the layers of ritual and
Voldemort's binding spells, swallowing all the powerful magic that lay
on top it. It consumed them, and Harry felt his body swell with the rush
of power as it handed that magic to him instead. He concentrated. He
wanted to break free of this spell, and stop Voldemort, blast away the
gray lump emerging from his side.

Voldemort roared, a wordless sound of protest, and closed his eyes in
concentration. The sickly gray hand drifted a little nearer.

Harry envisioned his power as a snake, and sent it crawling out in front
of him, eating everything in its path, working its jaws wider and wider.
The hold on his body abruptly eased, and he dropped to the floor. He
felt the power around him surging wildly as the snake ate and ate,
consumed and devoured, snapped and tore, and he grew steadily more and
more powerful, feeling his eyes bulge in his head.

A small movement off to the side distracted him. Harry blinked as he saw
a gray rat dart along the wall, rolling a slender stick in front of it
with a paw. Peter, Harry knew, and he'd brought along his wand.

His snake began eating the gray lump in Sirius's side, and Harry gagged.
He felt as though he were drowning in filth. For the first time, it
occurred to him that siphoning off Dark magic might not be a good idea.

"\emph{No}!" Voldemort cried, and chanted once again, "\emph{Corrumpo
castimoniam}!"

Harry felt the ritual begin fighting him. This was still mighty magic,
stronger than he was even with all he had swallowed. The sickly gray
hand formed anew, and reached out for him. Harry felt the chill brush of
its fingers like the touch of flaying knives.

Then his snake turned and lunged at Connor's and Peter's magic, and
Kreacher landed on his back with a spitting snarl.

Harry dropped to his knees, trying to wrestle the house elf off. It
wasn't working. His magic snapped around him wildly, out of control.
Harry tried to restrain it, to turn it away from eating Connor's power
or Peter's. He might as well have tried to stop a waterfall. Strength
pounded through him, useless as that waterfall to someone who only
wanted a drink. He could neither halt nor master it.

Dirty fingers found and locked around his throat, and nails scored it.
Harry tried to force power into his hands to tear them off, and nearly
drained Connor of magic entirely, and nearly let the gray hand of the
corrupted ritual through. He gasped, sobbed, and pulled back, trying to
decide what he should do---risk killing Kreacher, risk draining his
brother or Peter, risk being stripped of magic entirely and resurrecting
Voldemort---

\emph{He's doing it}!

Harry could hear the voice in his head, its clear, ringing tones cutting
through all the other nonsense there, the desperate whirl of fears and
plans. He forced his eyes up when the voice urged him, \emph{Look at
Voldemort! Look, look, look!}

Voldemort was clutching his head, which shook wildly. His eyes bulged,
and he appeared to be wearing two different expressions at once.

Harry dragged his magic back from feeding on Connor again, and pushed
Kreacher back from tearing his throat open again, and shouted,
\emph{What's happening?}

The voice replied at once. \emph{Sirius is charging! Sirius is fighting!
This is what he was waiting for, what he was harboring all his strength
for! I can see him, like a great black dog springing on a wolf! He's
wrestling him, he's drowning him, he's taking his mind back}---

Voldemort's groping hand abruptly hit Sirius's wand, and Harry thought
he would lift it and strike at himself. Then his fingers spasmed, and he
knocked it away. Harry supposed one of his selves didn't want to risk
the other using it.

And Harry knew Voldemort would win in the end. There was the locket
around his neck, and Voldemort was a skilled Legilimens. It could only
end one way.

\emph{Yes, it could.}

Understanding of the prophecy flooded into Harry's head, and he felt
calmer than he had in a long time, even as his magic bucked wildly
against its reins, growing stronger with every second that passed, as he
swallowed more and more of it, and that in turn fed his ability to
swallow more and more. He whistled sharply, and that caught the snake's
attention. Harry pointed out, helpfully, how powerful the magic in the
locket around Voldemort's neck must be.

His magic lunged forward and grabbed the locket---and yes, it was
familiar, the same kind of power that it had swallowed when it destroyed
the diary. It tore it open, snacking, feasting, glutting itself. Harry
heard Voldemort scream.

And then Sirius's eyes were looking at him, and they were his
godfather's, flashing gray and apologetic for a moment.

Harry used a bit of his magic to send Kreacher flying entirely free, and
then shouted, ``Peter! Roll the wand to me!''

He could feel the wand when it settled against his hand. There was no
doubt that Peter had brought it for him, had intended for him to use it
against Voldemort, and Harry was a bit sorry to disappoint him.

He tossed it underhanded to Sirius.

He heard Peter's squeak and Connor's wail, but they didn't understand.
Neither of them understood. Neither of them had been battle-trained in
the way Harry had, and neither of them understood the prophecy as he did
in that instant, watching Sirius catch Peter's wand and stand.

Already, his face was flickering, showing signs of Voldemort returning.
But, as it turned out, he did have time to say six words.

``Goodbye, Harry.'' He smiled slightly, and his eyes turned to the side.
``Goodbye, Connor.'' His gaze faced forward again, fixing on the wand he
held. Harry saw the bright Gryffindor courage there, the bravery in the
face of death that the other Houses considered them mad for.

"\emph{Avada Kedavra}."

And as the green light struck, killing Sirius, killing Voldemort with
him, as Sirius died by the wand of the sacrifice, Harry brought his
magic down in a \emph{Reducto} that broke Voldemort's yew reparations
box to pieces.

The justice ritual twisted a final time, and smashed free. Mightier
magic than Harry's shoved his own magic back into his body, burned the
circle away, tore the gray egg emerging from Sirius's side to shreds,
ate the Dark Mark, and vented itself on Kreacher's body until the house
elf was a series of small and bloody pieces, destroying everything that
had been used to confine it and perpetrate injustice. Harry's snake had
to vomit up most of the power it had swallowed. And Harry found that he
could control what was left, so long as he thought, in utter
determination, about not hurting anyone.

The dance broke apart, Voldemort's spell of corruption ceasing, and the
shack shuddered a final time as the ritual fled. Sirius's body shook,
too, a faint tendril of red-gold light caressing it. Harry nodded as the
light flickered out. The ritual was simply making sure there was no more
justice to be done, but there was not.

\emph{Last time pays for all}, Harry thought.

Then the light was gone, and they were left---Peter crouching as a rat
in the corner, Connor sobbing near the remains of the circle, and Harry
kneeling on the floor with his throat bleeding---in utter silence.

\chapter{*Chapter 47*: October 31,
1981}\label{chapter-47-october-31-1981}

I know this is the chapter a lot of people have been waiting for. Let's
hope it was worth the wait.

\textbf{Chapter Forty-One: October 31, 1981}

When he could breathe, and when he had felt, with one hand, that the
wound on his throat was not about to tear open any further, the first
thing Harry did was crawl over to his brother.

Connor lay on his side, one arm still wrapped around his face as he
cried, though he cried without sound. Harry hesitated for a moment. He
could no longer sense his brother's emotions as he once had, but other
bonds were still there. He still felt as though Connor were his twin. He
still felt loyalty, and he still felt love.

Relieved that Polaris had not cut \emph{all} their bonds, Harry held out
his arms and whispered, ``Connor?''

Connor didn't hesitate, but turned around and embraced him, one arm
locking around his shoulders and one around his waist. Harry bowed his
head carefully onto his brother's shoulder in return and closed his
eyes.

\emph{I am sorry that he had to grow up this way,} he thought. \emph{At
least the most painful part is done, and he got to hear Sirius say
goodbye, and he knows} why \emph{Sirius died.} Harry thought he would
have never been able to explain himself to Connor's satisfaction if he
had gone alone to the Shrieking Shack and come back with a dead Sirius,
or only Peter's word that he had not killed him.

Harry heard a scurry, and saw that Peter, in rat form, had come up
beside them. He sat up on his haunches to touch his whiskers gently to
Harry's elbow, then retreated towards his wand. Harry was grateful for
the privacy, and went back to rubbing his brother's neck and spine,
murmuring nonsense words that Connor could choose to take heed of if he
wanted.

``Harry?'' Connor whispered at last, when the sobbing had calmed enough
to let him speak.

Harry murmured his attention.

``I---'' Connor's voice cracked for a moment, then grew stronger. ``I'm
sorry.''

Harry blinked. He had expected an apology, but not so soon. He sat back
and tried to look into his twin's eyes, but he couldn't. Connor had
pushed his face into the crook of Harry's neck and shoulder, and kept it
there even as he whispered. Harry was surprised that his words were so
clear, when cloth had to be muffling his mouth.

``I should have known,'' Connor whispered. ``He acted so strangely. He
didn't seem to love you at all in these last few months, as though your
being put in Slytherin made him not your godfather any more. Before
that, he always ranted and raved against Slytherins. These last few
months, he just told me calmly all about their evil, and especially
yours.'' He shuddered.

Harry couldn't think of anything to say to that, so he kept silent,
other than the faint sound his hand made as it passed through his
brother's hair.

``And I---I was so desperate to think that he would stay alive past May,
and that my compulsion was good, that I listened to him,'' Connor
whispered. ``I'm sorry, Harry. I should have come to you with the
prophecy.''

\emph{You should have,} Harry thought, but that was not the proper thing
to say now, not that or any other variation of ``I told you so.'' He had
a chance to heal Connor's bleeding wound and let Connor heal his, but
only if he was careful.

``I understand why you didn't,'' he said instead. ``It seemed pretty
clear when it said Sirius was going to die.''

Connor nodded, a miserable motion accompanied by sniffling. He finally
sat back enough for Harry to see his face. He looked half-destroyed, his
eyes narrowed by the puffy red skin around them, his skin blotchy, his
nose smeared with snot.

``And that's what happened,'' he whispered.

``It is.'' Harry glanced at Sirius's body, and felt the first touch of
mourning for the man who had been his godfather, who had died so
bravely, like a Gryffindor. He squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn't
afford to cry, not right now. His headache was surging back, and the
voice in his head was suspiciously silent, and he could not collapse
yet, not when his brother needed him. ``He died bravely.''

``But he's still dead.''

Harry blinked. He would have thought the reassurance of bravery would
calm his brother. Perhaps Connor was not quite as far gone into the
Gryffindor mentality as he thought, or perhaps he just didn't want that
kind of comfort right now.

``Yes, he is,'' he said.

Connor closed his eyes. His lips, pressed together, trembled. Harry
didn't touch him. He thought this was something his brother needed to
work through on his own. And Connor didn't break down into tears, but
visibly pulled himself together, with a resilience that Harry hadn't
known he possessed. He opened his eyes and gave Harry a faint smile.

``You were telling the truth all along,'' he said.

``Well, not about Sirius being possessed,'' Harry said. ``I didn't know
about that. But about him not having your best interests at heart, and
about Mum and the phoenix web, and about my intentions towards you.'' He
took a deep breath. ``Yes.''

``I'm sorry,'' Connor whispered again.

Harry held still. Connor had that hitch in the back of his voice that
said he wasn't finished speaking yet, and the last thing Harry wanted to
do was interrupt him. He had to admit, part of him thought he deserved
the speech that Connor was about to come out with, the one that wouldn't
ever have emerged if Connor hadn't been here and watched the shattering
of his childhood in front of his eyes.

Connor began speaking, hardly above a whisper and with his words all
running together, but Harry had had ears mostly tuned to his voice for
years. He could make out what his brother was saying, and he didn't need
it to be any louder or clearer. This was about \emph{saying} things, not
saying them in some dramatic manner.

``I started suspecting you were telling me the truth with a letter Mum
wrote me in February,'' Connor said to his hands. "She said that I had
to keep fighting you, had to get you back under control. Why would she
use \emph{that} phrase? She'd always said before that she just loved
you, and you were the one who turned on her. But that phrase made it
sound like you were right, and she'd controlled you, and she just
couldn't stand it that you'd broken the control and run away.

``And then the prophecy came, and I was so frightened that you would
kill Sirius.'' Connor laughed unhappily, though for a moment it sounded
like he would break down in tears again. ``I started feeling your power.
You're so strong, Harry. You could have killed Sirius at any moment you
wanted to. I thought I had to protect him, and so I started fighting you
more often. I thought you wouldn't want to fight and kill him if you
were paying attention to me and trying to kill me.''

Harry had to close his eyes. \emph{How many sacrifices are there going
to be in my family?}

``I was more stubborn than ever,'' said Connor. "Sometimes I was stupid,
and sometimes I acted stupid. Sometimes I really believed everything Mum
and Sirius told me, and sometimes I didn't. But when I really did, then
I was comfortable in what I was doing, and when I didn't, then I thought
at least you would hurt me and not Sirius.

``And by then, he must have been possessed.'' Connor turned his head to
stare at Sirius's body. ``He was telling me that compulsion had always
been a Light gift, except when a Slytherin used it.''

Harry bit his lip, thought about not asking, and then decided he had to.
If he didn't, then it would linger between them, a poisoned fang like
one from the basilisk's mouth, and corrupt everything that followed.
There had to be absolute honesty between them, now. ``Is that why you
tried to compel me in the Owlery?''

Connor nodded. "I couldn't think of anything else to do. I thought that
maybe, just maybe, you would feel sorry for what you did to Mum and
reconcile with us, but you didn't, and by then it was a full month after
I heard the prophecy. I was getting frantic. I thought that if I could
compel you to become part of the family again, then you wouldn't have
any reason to hurt \emph{anybody}, not Sirius and not Mum and not me."

``What did you believe, out of what I said to you that day?'' Harry
asked.

Connor's eyes slid away from him.

``Connor?''

``Everything,'' Connor whispered. ``I believed everything. And I hated
it. I thought I would start to hate Mum if I listened to you. I thought
I would start to think that you were right and she was wrong. Do you
know what it's like to have your world shatter around you, Harry?''

``Intimately,'' said Harry, before he could stop himself.

Connor's gaze darted towards him, and then dropped away. He gave a small
nod to acknowledge Harry's words. ``So I demanded that you come back to
us. I told myself I was offering you a chance. And when you refused, I
told myself that compulsion was the only choice, even though I knew it
wasn't, because I couldn't think of anything else to do. It was vernal
equinox. The time the prophecy was talking about was just a few weeks
away. If I couldn't convince you, then I thought I could bend you or
break you.''

``So you were willing to sacrifice me for Sirius,'' Harry summed up.

Connor nodded.

Harry took a deep breath, which felt as though there was anger hanging
off the end of it. ``I hate that,'' he said, finally. ``I hate being
sacrificed. I don't mind if I choose to give up my own life or free
time, but I hate it that you tried to do it to me, Connor.''

Connor nodded. ``I know. I'm sorry.''

Harry watched him in silence for a few moments, then said, ``Go on.''

``That failed,'' said Connor. ``So I tried to spread rumors that you
were going to murder me, thinking that maybe the Headmaster would have
to expel you from school if you were thought to be a dangerous lunatic.
But that didn't work. And then you started the lessons, and it seemed as
though that was my chance to make you so mad at me that you would never
think about Sirius again.'' He squeezed his eyes shut. "But you kept
mentioning Sirius. You kept \emph{talking} about him. I thought you were
taunting me, that you had some plan to get rid of him, and you wanted me
to know that there was nothing I could do about it."

``And when I confronted you this afternoon---''

``I thought you'd put a plan in motion,'' Connor admitted. ``I was wrong
to compel Draco. I know that now. But I'd rather compel him than lose
Sirius.'' He looked over at Sirius's body and seemed to forget what he
was going to say next.

``Draco's the one you're going to have to apologize to about that,''
Harry reminded him, ``not me.''

Connor nodded distractedly. His eyes were tearing up again, but he
swatted at the corners of them to take the moisture away. ``I can't
believe he's really gone,'' he whispered.

Harry held out his arms, and his brother climbed into them again. Harry
held him tightly as he cried, and wondered where his own tears had gone.
Burned off by exhaustion and pain and the need to concentrate on other
things, perhaps.

Connor's second bout of weeping was shorter, and he sat away from Harry,
looking a bit embarrassed about it. ``Thanks,'' he whispered. ``Harry, I
don't even know how to say sorry other than---well, sorry. And I hate
that I was trying to protect someone who didn't deserve it, and I hate
that Voldemort corrupted me again, like he did last year, and this time
I didn't even know it was him. But I'll do what I can to change
things.'' His face was set and determined.

Harry nodded. ``We'll have to talk to lots of people,'' he said. ``We'll
have to talk a lot. But I think we can do it.''

Connor gave him a tentative smile.

``Harry. Connor.''

Harry started. He had actually forgotten that Peter was there, and he
hadn't heard the sudden inrush of air that usually accompanied Peter's
Animagus transformation. He turned around to see Peter sitting solemnly
beside Voldemort's Pensieve. Polaris, Harry was glad to see, was nowhere
in sight.

``I'm sorry,'' said Peter softly. He waved his wand, and \emph{Lumos}
took fire at the tip, lighting up the cabin better than the faint beams
of afternoon light still creeping through the boards on the windows.
"But there are some things \emph{we} need to talk about, and we don't
have much time to talk about them."

Harry frowned. ``What do you mean?''

Peter smiled at him sadly. ``I thought you knew the truth already,
Harry,'' he said, ``and the phoenix web was just preventing you from
viewing it in the right light, or thinking it mattered. It turns out
that you don't, that you must not. I saw your face when V-Voldemort said
some of the things he did. You still believe the story your parents told
you about that night at Godric's Hollow when he attacked. You should
have reacted to the things he said differently, now that you're free of
the phoenix web, if you knew the truth.''

Harry blinked, and felt his heart begin to stutter. He and Snape had
suspected, but not \emph{known\ldots{}}

``But why not much time?'' he whispered.

Peter glanced at the windows of the shack. ``I've stayed in one place
for too long,'' he said. ``The Dementors will be hunting me. And, more
than that\ldots{}'' He rolled his wand gently between his fingers. ``You
know the Aurors have spells that will let them see the last round of
spells a wand cast?''

Harry nodded, then stopped. Peter smiled gently at him. ``You get it,''
he said.

"But you didn't cast the \emph{Avada Kedavra}," Harry insisted. ``Sirius
did. We can tell them that.''

``I'm not sure that you would be allowed to,'' Peter said quietly. "It's
still an Unforgivable Curse, Harry, and I'm still a fugitive from
Azkaban. I don't think that Dumbledore would let me tell them the truth,
either. The phoenix web in my head hasn't moved on the surface in a long
time. I think it's sinking deeper. Dumbledore is saving it for something
other than my telling you the truth, this time, or I would never have
been able to say even this much. But my talking to the Aurors and
revealing \emph{everything}? Yes, I think he was saving it for that. He
must have decided that the possible damage to him from that was even
greater than the possible damage if I told you about the attack on
Godric's Hollow."

His eyes turned flinty, and flashed. "I am \emph{never} going back to
Azkaban. I want to make sure that the two of you know the truth, all of
it, and then I'll leave."

``But where will you go?'' Harry asked, feeling helpless.

``I don't know yet,'' said Peter, and then paused with a faint smile.
``Well. There is one place I might go and be welcome, though I haven't
ever taken advantage of the invitation.'' He shrugged. ``It doesn't
matter, Harry What matters is you knowing the truth. It's been kept from
you for too long.''

He dragged Voldemort's Pensieve forward. Harry eyed it warily. ``If that
contains memories of him possessing Sirius, I don't think we need to see
it.'' He moved sideways until his shoulder bumped his twin's, and felt
Connor nod in agreement.

``It doesn't,'' said Peter softly. "It contains memories of \emph{that}
night. The attack. I think even Voldemort was growing tired of you not
knowing the truth, though in his case he intended to take away your
magic and then make you despair of what you saw in here."

He glanced at both of them. ``Ready?''

Harry knew a fine tremor was shaking Connor, and knew his brother was
not ready. But it wouldn't get any easier if they waited---and if what
Peter said was true, they \emph{couldn't} wait. He held Connor's hand
and nodded.

Peter bent down towards the silvery liquid. Harry followed, shuddering
slightly as the coolness crept over him, but he didn't duck fully
beneath the surface until he had made sure that Connor was following
him. He wasn't going to see his brother left behind again. This time,
they would face whatever shattering truths might be waiting together.

They landed in the middle of a place that it took Harry a moment to
recognize as Godric's Hollow. For one thing, it was night, without a
moon, thanks to the rushing clouds overhead. For another, the house
looked different. And for a third, the gleam of the isolation wards that
had protected their home for as long as he could remember was gone. He
shivered. They must be seeing the moment in which Voldemort had breached
the wards. The Fidelius Charm was already broken.

A dark-cloaked shape moved on the lawn, striding rapidly towards the
doors. Harry shuddered. Even in the memory, he could feel the power that
traveled with Voldemort. It was stronger than it had been when he faced
Voldemort as Quirrell, or Tom Riddle, or this latest version of him.
Harry shook his head. How could Dumbledore have thought a baby would
survive an attack by a wizard that powerful?

``There I am,'' said Peter, pointing out a plump figure, low to the
ground, scurrying behind the Dark Lord. ``I can tell you what happens
afterwards. This memory only goes to the point when Voldemort was
destroyed, of course.''

Harry glanced at Connor. His brother's jaw gaped open, and he shook his
head slowly back and forth, as if he were trying to envision some way of
dealing with this. When he saw Harry watching him, he slammed his jaw
shut and tried to lift his head high, though his face was working with
violent emotions. Harry took his hand, and they walked into the house
behind Voldemort and Peter.

Voldemort glanced around the empty house and laughed, the same high,
cold laugh Harry had learned to associate with his enemy in other
incarnations. ``Where are the children, Wormtail?''

``Up-upstairs, my l-lord.'' Harry hardly recognized Peter's voice. It
was a broken, obsequious stammer. Harry wondered if it was an act, if
Peter had always been this strong man who waited beside them now with a
solemn expression on his face, or if his fear of Voldemort had prompted
fear in truth.

Voldemort crossed to the stairs and began to climb them. Harry, Connor,
and Peter followed behind, shivering. The memory-Peter scuttled even
behind them, as if he did not want to witness what was about to happen.

\emph{Well, come to that,} Harry thought, \emph{I don't, either.}
Suspicion made his heart knock heavily in his chest, and his breath came
short, as if he were backing up to another cliff of the kind that Draco
and Snape had shoved him off in Malfoy Manor.

They reached a bedroom door that looked substantially different from the
one that Harry knew. Voldemort studied it for a moment, then laughed
again and moved his wand twice. One muttered spell broke the wards on
the door, and another shattered it entirely. Harry heard bedclothes
rustle in the aftermath of that shattering, and then an unhappy, wailing
cry.

Voldemort stepped through the door. The memory-Peter peered over his
shoulder. Now-Peter motioned, and Harry and Connor stepped around
Voldemort so that they could see better.

Two young boys lay in twin cots a good distance back from the door,
under a high, peaked roof. Harry was startled to see how much alike they
looked. \emph{Of course, we didn't have the scars then,} he thought,
\emph{and we're squinting so hard that you can't really see our eyes.}

Voldemort was still a moment; when Harry looked at his face, he saw red
eyes narrowed. ``Wormtail!'' he said abruptly.

Memory-Peter flinched and scurried up to his side. ``My lord?''

``You are sure that you know no more of the prophecy?'' Voldemort asked.
``You are sure that you do not know for certain which child will defeat
me?''

Memory-Peter shook his head. Harry found himself beyond impressed.
Somehow, Peter had broken in just the right ways to convince Voldemort
that he knew where his friends were living and was willing to betray
them, but not enough to reveal that he also knew the prophecy that said
the younger of the two twins would be the one to defeat him. ``No, my
lord. Only what S-Severus told you.''

Voldemort nodded. ``Best to take care of them all at once, then,'' he
murmured. ``By now, Bellatrix should have destroyed the other
candidate.'' He held his wand high. "\emph{Avada Kedavra!}"

The bolt of green light shot forth---

And towards Harry's cot.

Harry found himself staggering backward and sitting down, hard, as the
light struck him in the forehead, as Voldemort turned and sent another
bolt of green light at Connor---

And a deep, shattering roar filled the room, accompanied by the familiar
feeling of magic boiling over, and green light inundated Harry's vision,
and Voldemort screamed and screamed and screamed, and cold, powerful
magic claimed a victim---

And then they were back outside the Pensieve, sprawled on the floor of
the Shrieking Shack.

Harry, shaking, buried his head in his hands. Sometime along the route,
he had let go of Connor's wrist. He could hear his brother's soft sobs,
aching noises of disbelief and confusion.

``That was what happened,'' Peter whispered. "I was behind the Dark
Lord, and I could see. He cast the Killing Curse at you, Harry, then
turned and cast it at your brother. While the green light still bound
him and Connor, your reflected Killing Curse struck him. I've never seen
anything like it. I suppose that was because Voldemort had taken so many
protections against losing his own life, trying to gain immortality, and
the curse had to fight that as well as actually kill him. It
\emph{struggled} with him before it pulled him from his body, and the
light that bound him and Connor flickered out. Then it reduced his body
to ash. His spirit fled, of course," Peter added, a deep, bitter sound
in his voice. ``I know that now.''

``I don't understand,'' Connor whispered. Harry managed to lift his head
and look at his brother, whose face was not only pale, but streaming
with tears. ``If Harry reflected the Killing Curse back at Voldemort,
does that mean he's the Boy-Who-Lived?''

Peter shook his head slowly. ``He's the one who killed Voldemort with a
reflected Killing Curse, yes,'' he said, and gestured at Harry's
forehead. "That scar is a curse scar. But yours is as well, Connor.
Voldemort was busy trying to kill you when Harry hit him. I think the
second \emph{Avada Kedavra} had a chance to leave a mark on you, but
nothing else. It got interrupted in the middle."

Connor blinked and swallowed and swiped at his forehead. ``But---I don't
understand. Mum and Dumbledore would have been able to tell that Harry's
scar was a curse scar. Why didn't they think he was the Boy-Who-Lived,
too?''

Nearly numb with shock, Harry saw Peter's face harden. ``Ah,'' he said.
"That's to do with the part that I don't think even Dumbledore knows I
saw.

"After I ran, I came back. I had nowhere else to go, not that night,
though I was meant to be found and go to Azkaban the next morning. And I
have to admit, I was curious. I didn't know what I'd expected when I
went into the house at Godric's Hollow, but that wasn't it.

``I came back, and crouched outside the window. That house was
half-destroyed,'' he added to Harry. ``That's why they had to rebuild
it. I saw your parents and Dumbledore come back and run to the nursery.
They came down the stairs with both of you in their arms, your foreheads
bleeding. You were both crying.'' Peter spoke with his eyes fixed on the
distance, as if that would make the memory easier to bear.

"Lily used a healing spell, and I heard them gasp when the spell
finished. The blood had cleared, but left behind scars.

``Understand,'' Peter said, ``that wasn't supposed to happen. The
prophecy said there would be one savior, clearly marked.''

``Can you recite the prophecy?'' Harry asked. His voice was flat and
hoarse, and did not sound as if it belonged to him.

Peter nodded, then closed his eyes and began to chant. "\emph{The one
with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches\ldots{} Born to
those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month
dies\ldots{}He is the younger of two, and he shall have the power the
Dark Lord knows not\ldots{}For the elder is power, but the younger is
power united with love\ldots{}O guard him, O shield him, for the
darkness through which he passes otherwise is vicious and hideous, and
love has but a scant chance of surviving\ldots{}The elder will stand at
his right shoulder, loving him, but the younger will love the whole of
the wizarding world\ldots{}The Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, and
in so doing mark his heart\ldots{} The one with the power to vanquish
the Dark Lord approaches, born as the seventh month dies\ldots{}"}

His voice faded, and Harry stared at the wall, and tried to think.
Thoughts chased themselves in small pieces around his whirling mind,
assaulting him and then flicking away again before he could fully grasp
them.

It seemed as though Dumbledore and his parents had interpreted the
prophecy correctly. Connor was born at the end of July. He was the
younger of the two of them. Lily had always said that Connor's power was
love, and that Harry needed to guard him, because otherwise that love
would perish. Harry's love for Connor was deeper and truer than any
other he felt---

\emph{Or had been.}

Harry shoved that thought away, and went back to concentrating.

Connor's scar was in the shape of a heart. Yes, everything fit. Or
everything \emph{should} have fit. Harry didn't know how to explain the
memory in the Pensieve.

He shook his head, finally, and turned back to Peter, deciding that he
couldn't possibly know the truth with the information he had right now.
``And what did Dumbledore and our parents do?''

``I heard them speaking,'' said Peter softly. "I will not forget what
they said, not until I die. I certainly had enough time to remember
their words in Azkaban.

"Lily said, 'This wasn't supposed to happen. Albus, what
\emph{happened?} Why do they both have scars? And why does Harry's magic
feel like---like that? It's unnatural.' She started to cry."

Peter darted a swift glance at Harry. "You'd always been a magically
normal baby, Harry---strong, but well within the bounds of normality.
Until Voldemort came. Lying in Lily's arms that night, you would have
been a beacon, or a siren, to anyone who wanted to look or listen. I was
having a hard time restraining myself from going into the house, just to
be nearer the magic.

"Dumbledore sighed. It was a sigh that seemed to come from his bones.
`Lily, James,' he said. `What I am telling you must not go beyond the
walls of this house. Voldemort used the Killing Curse on both boys. He
must have used it on Harry after he used it on Connor, or Harry would
not be alive, but the fact remains that he used it. And the curse broke
a barrier in Harry that all normal wizards have. He has access to a
level of power that most wizards can't use, because calling on that much
magic at once would kill them.'

`` `Then why is he still alive?' It was James who asked that. I'll never
forget how he looked, Harry, holding you. Small and fragile, and
helpless. It was the first time I ever saw James look that way.''

`` `Because,' said Dumbledore, and pinched the bridge of his nose, `he is
a child, and he can grow used to using that level of power in a way that
he could not if he were older. His body is still flexible enough to
accept the change. Even if he were four or five, I do not believe he
would have survived the breaking of his barriers.' He hesitated for a
long time, looking down at you, Harry.''

``Then he said, `And Voldemort has transferred a good portion of his
powers to him. That accounts for the rest of his strength, and the
unnaturalness that you sense, Lily. I felt it as we climbed the stairs.
There should still have been much ambient magic left in the air, enough
that I could have cast a spell to see what happened in that room, what
the walls remembered. Instead, there was almost none, except that which
emanated from Harry himself. He has Voldemort's ability to feed on
magic. Once he had the ability, he ate Voldemort's remaining power,
including whatever was left of the two Killing Curses Voldemort must
have used.'\,''

Harry bowed his head, and tried to keep his breathing deeper than it
wanted to be. He felt Connor take his hand. He squeezed desperately. His
brother winced, but squeezed back.

``That is why they think your magic unnatural, Harry,'' Peter whispered.
``Not only did V-Voldemort open your barriers and give you access to more
magic than you should have had, he gifted you with a good deal of Dark
power. In essence, he made you his magical heir, the way some pureblood
families do when they transfer powers from parents to children at the
moment of death. You have abilities that he does, \emph{because} he had
them when he attacked you that night, not because you were born with
them." Peter gave a dusty little laugh. ``You know, things would have
turned out differently if you or Voldemort were just a little weaker. If
you were, then you couldn't have survived the Killing Curse for the
moment it took to smash the barriers and let your deeper magic out. If
he was, then he wouldn't have had the strength to smash the barriers at
all, or leave his magic behind for you to swallow. You would simply have
died, or he would have died and taken all his power with him. Instead,
he made you the most formidable enemy he possibly could have.''

Harry made himself breathe. \emph{Deep breaths. I am not going to panic.
I am not going to panic. I will not let myself panic.}

He lifted his head. ``What did Dumbledore say then?''

``Nothing immediately,'' said Peter softly. "Your parents were crying by
then. And then---well, then Sirius and Remus came in, and Dumbledore
didn't trust them enough to reveal his full plan in front of them. He
told Sirius and Remus that Connor had been marked by the prophecy, just
as they suspected, and sent them away with him and James to try and make
the curse scar stop bleeding, since it had broken open again. That left
him with Lily and you, Harry.

"He told Lily, 'You must make sure that he loves his brother, that he is
his guardian, that all that immense power is trained and bent to a good
purpose. You know that otherwise, the prophecy may shift. We cannot
afford to have the next Dark Lord, someone with unnatural magic, as our
only savior from Voldemort. Harry \emph{must} be the elder, and Connor
\emph{must} be the younger.'"

Harry tried to speak. He had no saliva left in his throat. He was
grateful when Connor murmured, ``I don't understand. Surely I'm the
younger, and Harry the elder?''

Harry opened his eyes far enough to see the savage look on Peter's face.

``Prophecies are the wildest form of Divination magic,'' he breathed.
"Prophecies can \emph{shift.}"

Harry felt the words touch a spring in his memory. His mother's words
last year, just after the phoenix web had been tripped and Remus had
found out about it, came back to him.

\emph{``But prophecies are the wildest form of Divination
magic\ldots{}There's a chance that it might mean different things. It
would still come true, but it could turn out meaning something different
from what it seemed to say the night it was made\ldots{}And we had to do
everything we could to lock you into that role, to sculpt you that way,
so that the prophecy couldn't possibly wander off and mean someone else,
someone we wouldn't know in time to protect, someone that Voldemort
could perhaps kill. Everything in the prophecy had to come true. You had
to love Connor, and before everything else. We couldn't take the chance
that it would be otherwise. Do you understand?''}

Harry had half-forgotten the words, but they slammed home to him now.
Lily had told him the truth then, though he had been too stupefied by
pain and exhaustion and his commitment to obedience to see it.

``The prophecy could have meant someone else,'' he whispered.

Peter nodded, slowly. ``It could have, indeed. That's why Voldemort sent
the Lestranges to attack the Longbottoms, because their son Neville was
also born at the end of July, and it could also have been him. If
Voldemort had gone along in Bellatrix's place or with her, if Voldemort
had marked him\ldots{}'' Peter spread his hands.

``But the prophecy says that the one with the power to defy the Dark
Lord is the younger of two,'' said Connor. ``I don't understand.''

``The younger of two,'' Peter pointed out. "It says nothing about the
younger of two \emph{brothers}, or the younger of two \emph{twins.} It
doesn't even say that both people in the prophecy need to have been born
at the end of July."

Harry buried his head in his hands.

\emph{So many things in my life have been a lie.}

``A prophecy always comes true,'' said Peter softly. "But we usually
can't know how or why beforehand. It can shift in midair. It can take
the likeliest person. Human choice works to influence it, though, if we
understand it enough, and we can try to make the prophecy more certain.
Its very wildness grants us a little more free will.

"Dumbledore knew he could convince Lily to sacrifice one of her sons. He
wasn't sure about anyone else. And he \emph{wanted} to be sure. More
than anything in the world, Dumbledore fears uncertainty. He fears
waking up one day to find that the wizarding world he's labored to save
for a century has exploded around his ears. If he had control of the
savior, then he had the assurance that tomorrow would be pretty much
like today, that the future would be pretty much like the past.

``So he influenced Voldemort as much as he could, to try and insure that
the Dark Lord would mark Connor his equal.'' Peter took a deep breath.
``And he influenced us, too. He focused on me, played on my love of my
friends, to insure that I would agree to break the Fidelius Charm and
make your parents a more tempting target than the Longbottoms. He
performed the Soul Strength Spell to show your parents that you were the
one who had to play guardian, Harry---''

``You can't perform that on an infant,'' Harry cut in, his voice tight.
His eyes burned. He felt as though the walls of the shack had been torn
away and they stood on an open plain, under black stars.

Peter looked startled for only a moment. Then he nodded, his face
tightening. "So he lied to us, then. He nudged the prophecy along. And I
think he thought everything was going smoothly up until the point when
he realized you had more power, Harry. If \emph{you} were the savior the
prophecy mentioned, the one with the power Voldemort knew not, then that
meant the elder, the one who would stand at your right shoulder and love
you, was still somewhere else---somewhere out of his control. He
wouldn't have a clue who it was. He could not stand that.

``So he told Lily to sculpt you and train you to love Connor. If you
were his guardian, if you loved only him, then you would be the best
candidate for at least two lines of the prophecy---the one that said
Connor needed to be shielded, and the one that said the elder would love
the younger. That made the prophecy all the more unlikely to shift, and
to choose Connor as its savior instead. And, of course, it made you
extremely unlikely to use your power for any other purpose than
protecting your brother.''

Harry sat there. The dark stars were wheeling above him now, cutting
across the sky in black streaks.

He heard Connor ask, his voice soft and timid, ``What does that mean,
then?''

``It means that we're up in the air,'' said Peter. "We were from the
moment Harry broke his phoenix web, I think. Dumbledore could no longer
trust that he would only love you. His power is free, and he might be
the one the prophecy will choose. On the other hand, perhaps it
\emph{will} choose you, and Harry will be the elder who has to love you.
Or the elder could be someone else who loves you. Or the younger will be
Harry, and his elder someone else. Since you both do bear marks from the
Dark Lord, then I think the choices have narrowed, and it can't really
be anyone but one of the two of you. But Dumbledore's neat plans are all
smashed." There was a vicious glee in Peter's voice that Harry thought
he couldn't really blame him for.

Harry sat in silence for a moment. He couldn't think, couldn't breathe,
was falling if he thought too much about it---

And then he grasped himself, and yanked himself forward.

\emph{What is this? Living in fear of change? What, do you} want
\emph{to be like Dumbledore and your mother?}

\emph{This doesn't change everything. It means that you could be the
Boy-Who-Lived, and you'll have to think about that. But it also means
that Connor could be the Boy-Who-Lived, and he'll need your help and
your training. He's not power united with love right now; he's not
anything like it. The world might need him, and he would falter.}

\emph{It's not over. It's not anything like over. Both of you were
wronged. Both of you might be needed, or at least one. Now,} stand up
and do something about it.

Harry shifted towards Connor. Connor, his face pale and his eyes
seemingly permanently wide, stared at him.

``I couldn't blame you if you hated me,'' he whispered. ``They made you
give up your life for me.''

``They're to blame,'' said Harry. ``Not you. I won't let you go live
with Lily again, Connor.''

Connor considered him, then dipped his head once. ``And what else are we
going to do?'' he asked.

``I am going to help you learn,'' said Harry, startled by the steel in
his own voice. "Voldemort's not going to get us. He's never going to
kill either one of us. And I refuse to live in fear of what \emph{might}
happen. We're going to \emph{make} things happen. We're going to have
our own freedom, which should have happened all along. We're going to
fucking \emph{fight}." He held out his hand.

Connor took a deep breath, and clasped it.

Harry thought he heard Peter utter a long sigh, half of surprise, half
of soul-deep relief. Harry braced himself for how his head would ache
when he stood, then stood, and clasped Connor's hand more firmly.

``Let's get out of here,'' he said softly, and turned towards the door,
and the future that waited beyond it.

\chapter{*Chapter 48*: Stand or Fall}\label{chapter-48-stand-or-fall}

Posting tonight because I finished the chapter unexpectedly. That does
mean there won't be another chapter so soon; Chapter 43 will come on my
Wednesday, and some other people's Thursday.

Hope you like nasty surprises!

Because things are not quite over yet.

\textbf{Chapter Forty-Two: Stand or Fall}

Harry froze as he reached the end of the tunnel under the Whomping
Willow. He heard Connor make an inquiring noise behind him, but he
didn't move, instead staring forward and reaching out as much as he
could with his dulled senses. They throbbed with magical exhaustion, and
he couldn't be sure that what he felt was really there.

``What is it, Harry?'' Peter asked from behind Connor.

Harry shook his head slowly. ``I don't know,'' he whispered.

\emph{I do}, said the voice in his head, abruptly returning from
wherever it had been. \emph{Bad things.}

\emph{How do you know?} Harry thought back, continuing to strain his
senses. He still heard nothing, but enemies didn't have to make noise to
be dangerous. That was one of the first things his mother had taught
him.

\emph{I know pain,} said the voice simply. \emph{And there's pain
waiting for us outside this tree.} It took on a whining tone.
\emph{There's always pain. Why is there always pain? I don't like it. I
can't escape it. And you can't escape it. Why can't it just go away?}

Harry sighed and banished the voice to the back of his head, seeing he
would get no help from it. He went on listening, since he could see
nothing but the usual calm evening in front of him, and hear nothing but
the whisper of wind in the grass, and smell or taste or feel nothing out
of the ordinary.

``Fuck,'' said Peter abruptly.

Harry turned to look back at him. ``What is it?'' He would trust Peter's
senses more than his own right now, and Peter was a better wizard than
Connor, and trained in recognizing Dark magic besides.

``The air,'' Peter whispered. ``Doesn't it feel heavy to you?''

Harry shook his head. ``I don't know.'' He had to lean against the side
of the tunnel just to keep on his feet. He hoped neither Connor nor
Peter could see that, since they would probably insist on him going to
sleep the moment they saw it, perhaps even carrying him back to the
school. Harry didn't think it a wise decision. If there was evil here,
then he had to be ready to meet it.

Peter smiled, but the smile was strained. ``I've only felt it this heavy
once before,'' he said, still in a whisper. "When I went into Godric's
Hollow behind V-Voldemort. There's a prophecy getting ready to come
true, Harry. \emph{Damn} it."

Harry closed his eyes and tilted his head back. Now that he
concentrated, he thought he \emph{could} feel it, a weight in the air
that slid down his face like melted marmalade. He shuddered and opened
his eyes again.

``Well,'' he said, his voice hoarse with what he hoped they would think
was anger and not weariness, ``we still have to leave this tree. You
said that the Aurors aren't going to give you time to explain, Peter,
and running into Dumbledore would be even worse.'' He shuddered to think
of what Dumbledore would say about the knowledge he and Connor now
possessed.

``Yes, we've got to leave,'' Connor agreed. ``Harry needs to get to the
hospital wing.''

Harry looked at him sharply. His brother gave him an irritated glance
back. ``What?'' he asked. ``Anyone can see that you need to rest, Harry.
You're not doing a good job of hiding it.''

Harry shuffled from foot to foot, muttered in his throat, and looked to
the entrance. Still nothing moved beyond it, and Harry heard no voices,
raised in either laughter or threat. He thought they should be able to
get back to Hogwarts relatively unobserved; most people would be at
dinner, and he hoped that Snape would still be stunned by whatever pain
the voice in his head had shared with him.

He tried to think about the second half of the prophecy, but the words
warped and blurred and slid away from him. All Harry really wanted was
to go put his head down on something soft and close his eyes.

He took a deep breath ``Let's go, then,'' he said, and stepped out of
the way, so that Connor could duck past him and press the knot in the
Willow's trunk to calm it. Peter took Harry's arm and helped him up the
slight slope out. Harry accepted the hold, grudgingly, since it was
obvious that Peter wouldn't let him simply walk out on his own.

And, damn it, he was tired, even though he couldn't afford to be. He
concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, and told himself
it would be better when he reached Hogwarts and had some healing
potions.

And then the late sun darkened, and the air turned cold, and Dementors
were everywhere, turning the world gray.

Peter let out a faint scream, overwhelmed by the presence of so many of
them, and crumpled to the ground. Harry shouted, but it was a faint and
strangled sound. Connor didn't cry out at all, though his eyes grew
wider and wider in his increasingly pale face.

A dark figure floated towards Peter, drawing its hood back from its
face. Harry saw the yawning, distended mouth, and knew the thing was
about to try and suck Peter's soul out in the Kiss.

``No, damn it!'' he managed. ``Where is your leader? The gray one?'' He
let his magic flare around him, calling the Dementors' attention. ``I
spoke with him once before. He released my magic. I want to know where
he is!''

\emph{Here,} vates.

Harry shivered as he felt the voice drill into his head, like ice spikes
through his ears. It hurt less this time than it had, though. He
wondered why.

\emph{I am keeping it out,} said the voice in the back of his head.
\emph{This is my territory. I don't want to share it with any more pain,
thank you.}

Harry blinked and nodded shortly, then forced himself to his feet as the
Dementors parted like a thunderhead and let the gray one glide down an
aisle in the middle of them. Harry felt its freezing not-gaze, and
flinched. His thoughts and eyes were still trying to slide sideways. He
could sleep \emph{later,} he told himself. He didn't have \emph{time} to
be exhausted right now.

It didn't seem to be working. As far as his body was concerned, the plea
that Harry had used to such good effect when he was dashing out of
Hogwarts and rescuing Connor was so much air. He had done his part,
rescued Connor and defeated Voldemort and seen the truth and resolved to
struggle in the future. Now he needed to \emph{rest.}

\emph{Not yet,} Harry thought, and used some of the stolen magic that he
had gotten from Voldemort to stiffen his legs and spine. He grimaced. It
felt as though raw shit was pouring through his veins when he did that,
but it did was supposed to do, and kept him upright as the gray Dementor
floated to a halt in front of him. The one hovering above Peter hadn't
moved, but Harry was grateful to see that it hadn't stooped and sucked
out Peter's soul, either.

\emph{You are among us again,} vates. The gray Dementor's voice was
thick in his head, like condensation, like fog---or maybe it was just
that combining with his tiredness. \emph{And your magic is free, and so
are your thoughts. You have learned of your duties and the path of
choice. Will you choose to free us?}

Harry blinked. That did not sound like such a horrible price. Why had
the Dementors come up as if they were attacking, then?

\emph{Probably because they wanted Peter,} he thought, his gaze sliding
sideways to the motionless wizard. \emph{And the black ones don't seem
to be as smart as their leader.}

He looked back at the gray Dementor. ``You're bound like all the other
magical creatures, aren't you?'' he asked.

The gray Dementor inclined its head. \emph{We want to be free,} vates.

And then, just as Harry supposed Dementors could pour despair into the
victims of Azkaban, the gray leader poured longing into him. Harry could
feel the clinging chains of the web that the Dementors labored under,
how they longed to rest and reproduce and feed and live as normal
magical creatures would, but how they could not do that until the chain
was removed.

\emph{They enslave us,} the gray Dementor said, its voice causing a
faint rime of ice to form on Harry's face. \emph{We cannot breed,}
vates. \emph{There will never be more of us until the chains are
removed. There have not been more of us in centuries. And we cannot eat,
not truly eat, and we cannot sleep. We cannot dream. Can you imagine
what it would be like, never to dream,} vates?

Harry's first thought was, \emph{It would be heaven,} and he found
himself wanting to giggle as if he were drunk. But he restrained
himself. Just because his dreams were usually nightmares induced by
Voldemort didn't mean that the dreams of all creatures were like that.

And he could certainly understand the plea for rest right now. And to be
free of a certain weary, bothersome, burdensome duty that hounded him,
or rested on his shoulders. The Dementors, all of them, had been chained
to Azkaban for centuries, guarding human prisoners. It was no existence
for magical creatures.

\emph{That was horrible, what the wizards did to you,} he thought dimly,
but the gray Dementor picked up on it and inclined its head.

\emph{We have helped you,} vates. \emph{We freed you under the hope that
someday we would be free ourselves. And now that time has come.}

Harry considered that, as clearly as he could in his current state. It
seemed reasonable to him. Why not? The Dementors had freed him, and
certainly they deserved to be free. And they seemed to be as good a
candidate for the fulfillment of the prophecy as any other. The gray one
was before him. He had even thought the line in the prophecy might mean
the gray Dementor when he was traveling through time with Hermione. And
what was the line about his decision this evening setting the path for
them all? That must mean that his first action as \emph{vates}, to free
the Dementors, would mean setting the precedent to free other creatures
from their magical nets. Harry remembered how wonderful he had felt when
freed from the phoenix web. Surely it could not be a bad thing, for
others to feel that surge of joy and completion.

\emph{Can you show me the web?} he asked the gray Dementor, not without
embarrassment. \emph{I'm not feeling as well as I should be right now,
and I'm afraid that I can't see it on my own.}

The Dementor gestured once, and a glowing ice-blue web sprang into
being, writhing among the Dementors and trailing away into the distance.
Harry studied it for a moment. \emph{There are other Dementors still at
Azkaban?}

The gray head inclined.

Harry blinked. Well, he thought it would be hard, but not too hard. The
web was large, yes, and ancient, but also clumsily stitched. The wizards
who wove it had done nothing more than cast the ice-blue coils of the
incantation around each Dementor's core, the thrumming black thing at
the center of all of them. It was impossible for the Dementors to
remove, of course, without tearing themselves apart, and most wizards
wouldn't have the power or inclination to touch it, but it required only
raw strength to shred the web itself, and leave everything that was not
it untouched.

Harry started to reach out, concentrating on marshaling the stolen
power, even the filthy Dark magic. He could find a good use for it.

Then he paused. There was something he was forgetting. What was it?

The prophecy? No, as much as he could understand the prophecy, Harry was
sure he understood it.

Peter? No, the black Dementors had not touched him, and though Connor
looked on the edge of fainting, they had not touched him, either. They
were waiting patiently for their freedom, eyeless not-gazes fixed on
him.

A part of his task as \emph{vates?}

\emph{Yes.}

Harry abruptly shuddered and lowered his hand and his magic. He
swallowed thickly a few times, trying to push the horrified insight in
his brain into words. He felt the gray Dementor's cold curiosity, and
the voice in the back of his head whispered, \emph{Are you sure you
should be doing this, when they're right there?}

Shock had cleared Harry's head for a moment, though, and he knew this
was the right thing to do.

He looked up and studied the gray Dementor. ``You said,'' he managed,
and paused. \emph{Merlin, I want to go to bed.} He told himself to stop
whining like a child and act like a \emph{vates.} ``You said that if you
were free, you would dream and reproduce and feed. What did you mean,
feed? Who are you going to eat?''

The Dementors went motionless. Harry knew they really couldn't have,
since after all their robes were still drifting in the wind, and some of
them were shifting around near the back of their crowd, but he felt as
if it had happened, anyway. His heart knocked against his ribs, and
adrenaline rose to chase away the blurriness. He stood a little
straighter.

Connor whispered, ``If they were free, wouldn't they just Kiss everyone,
not only the Azkaban prisoners?''

``That's what I'm trying to find out,'' Harry whispered back. ``Hush.''

The gray Dementor waited long moments before it spoke. Harry wondered if
that was because it had to consider its words so carefully, or whether
it had hoped to use the pause to impress him or wear him down. If the
latter was the intention, it didn't work. Harry only felt more and more
tense as the moments passed. He could feel his head lifting, his
nostrils flaring, his eyes narrowing. He was trained for battle, and he
knew there might be another battle coming.

His childish side tried to wail a protest at that. Harry squashed it
without much effort. He had known when he trained that there might come
days with more than one battle---in fact, a running skirmish would be
more usual than one enormous battle in a day, and no more. He had to
keep moving, had to call up energy multiple times, had to be ready to
face whatever appeared.

The gray Dementor said, \emph{We would feed as we always have, on happy
memories and sometimes souls. The Kiss is necessary for us to breed.}

``But you would feed on whoever you wanted?'' Harry asked. ``Not only
criminals condemned to Azkaban?''

\emph{We would no longer be bound by wizarding notions of morality.}

"So you \emph{would} feed on whoever you wished?"

\emph{We would confine our hunting mostly to the Muggle world. They
cannot see us. They would not hunt us. They would not know what killed
them. We would be willing to leave your family and friends alone,}
vates.

Harry closed his eyes. Yes, this was the part of the \emph{vates} name
that he almost forgotten. He was responsible for his decisions, all of
them, both the good and the bad ones. If he made one, then he had to
know why he had made it, how it would affect his future decisions---and
what consequences it would mean for others.

``How can I let you go free, when you will destroy others and leave
soulless bodies behind you?'' he whispered.

\emph{Think of it as justice,} vates, the gray Dementor suggested.
\emph{Your kind has held us prisoner for centuries. We will only be
visiting on them the same terror and frustration they have visited on
us.}

"That's \emph{vengeance,} not justice," Harry said.

The Dementors stirred around him like a trembling candle flame. The gray
Dementor said, \emph{And is it justice to leave us confined in the web?
A true} vates \emph{cannot abide compulsion, neither for himself nor for
anyone else. If you are not a true} vates, \emph{perhaps we have made a
mistake, and we then owe you nothing, neither obedience nor safety.}

``You wouldn't owe me obedience anyway,'' Harry muttered, but he was
thinking hard. Was there some way that he could free the Dementors and
insure that they didn't feed on anyone else? He could see why those
ancient wizards had taken the compromise of binding the Dementors to
Azkaban. Those they fed on were already considered guilty, not worthy of
protection from the Dementors, unlike the innocents outside the prison.

\emph{I cannot destroy them. That would be against their will. I cannot
Transfigure them into something that does not need to feed on souls or
memories. That would be immoral, when they are intelligent and know the
world around them.}

Harry clenched his fists, spitted for the first time by one of the
thorns on his path, and hating it.

\emph{And I cannot leave them bound.}

And, just to add to everything, the prophecy said that his first
decision as \emph{vates} would set the path for them all. And he was so
tired that he could barely think straight, and growing in the back of
his mind was the increasingly urgent need to get Connor and Peter away
from the Dementors.

\emph{No pressure, of course.}

Harry swallowed. Well, when in doubt, turn to the source. Perhaps the
Dementors themselves could give him some idea of what they might do,
what bargains they would be wiling to enter, so that freeing them would
not linger so heavily on his conscience. Their offer to hunt in the
Muggle world and spare his friends and family was unacceptable.

He lifted his head and stared at the gray Dementor. ``I cannot free you
without others suffering,'' he said. ``Can you think of any way that you
could be free and not cause others suffering?''

The gray Dementor did not speak for long moments, but eddied from side
to side. Harry watched, and held his breath, and waited.

Then the gray Dementor said, \emph{Is this something that you will ask
of all the bound magical creatures,} vates?

``Probably not,'' said Harry. ``Some of the bound creatures, like the
unicorns, probably won't cause others to hurt when they're free. But the
others---'' He shrugged. ``Yes.''

\emph{It is a restriction of our free will.}

``It is not,'' Harry pointed out. ``I asked you what you're willing to
do. If you enter into a bargain like this because you say you want to,
then that's not a restriction of anything. You'll have chosen.''

\emph{Even choice is a restriction.}

Harry folded his arms. ``You're not the whole of the wizarding world,''
he said, surprised for a moment by the irritation in his tone. Then he
remembered that he had sounded this way as a six-year-old when he'd
stayed up too late. The recollection almost made him smile, but the gray
Dementor was there, and Harry was not sure how it would interpret the
gesture. He kept his face blank. "You're not more important than anyone
else. You're just as important as the wizards, and the house elves, and
the unicorns, and not \emph{more} important." He shook his head slightly
when he realized he'd repeated that sentiment twice. Fatigue was
affecting his eloquence. ``I can't free you if it would hurt everyone
else.''

The gray Dementor was silent for long moments. Then it said, \emph{We
came from nightmares, long ago, from the dark shadows that lurk at the
edge of human souls. It is why we can feed on happy memories, and on
souls themselves. We were called out, and lived in the daylit world, and
did not want to return to nightmares. But, if need be, we could go back.
We could live in that half-world, that dream-world, taking our food from
human minds just like any other breed of nightmares.}

Harry frowned uneasily. ``That would mean you were still hurting people,
wouldn't it?''

\emph{And would you stop every bad dream in the world,} vates? For the
first time, the gray Dementor sounded amused with him.

``If I could. Yes.''

There as silence, and then the gray Dementor said, in tones of wonder,
\emph{Yes, I do believe you would.} It went on before Harry could spend
much of his time being surprised about a Dementor experiencing wonder.
\emph{You could consider yourself setting right the balance of nature
and magic in sending us back. We were called into the open by a wizard
who wished to use us against his enemies, and we adapted to the night. I
am the only one still of the twilight, the only one who still remembers
that we came from the dream-world. Yes,} vates, \emph{send us back. Send
us home.}

``Do I have your word that you'll go to the dream-world and nowhere else
if I release your web, then?'' Harry demanded.

\emph{You have my word, and the others answer to me,} vates.

Harry let his breath out in a deep wash. ``Very well,'' he said, and
then reached out and broke the ice-blue web with a twist of his power.

It was actually a good thing that he was so tired, or he might not have
done it the right way. The web was too thick to be cut, too sticky to be
freed one Dementor at a time. Harry just grabbed it and yanked it away
from the gray Dementor, flushing out his tainted, stolen magic in a
flood over it, and the web dissolved and rotted away. It was gone from
every other Dementor in sight the moment it was gone from the gray one.

Harry was aware of the Dementors' oppressive aura increasing. There was
no longer any barrier between him and the fear. But he stood straight
under it, and looked at the gray one.

He had kept his part of the promise. It was up to them to keep theirs.

The gray Dementor held its arms wide and began to whirl. The others were
swept towards it like leaves in a windstorm. The gray Dementor spun them
all into a rotting, dark web of its own, and then into a funnel cloud
with itself at the bottom. Harry saw it rise, soaring straight up the
middle of the funnel. Ahead of it, the sky ripped open, but Harry saw no
twilight-marked clouds or stars. Instead, he was staring at a sky the
color of rotting muscle, a sky that it seemed he had seen in some of his
nightmares.

\emph{Goodbye,} vates.

The sky closed with a thunderclap behind them, and Harry and Connor
stood alone on the grass, beside a just-barely-stirring Peter.

Peter sat up and stared at Harry.

"I don't think \emph{they'll} be bothering you any more, at least,"
Harry muttered, swaying on his feet. He blinked, then added, ``And I
think you should go, before someone sees you with us and Dumbledore
calls the Aurors.''

Peter did not move for long moments, despite his earlier urgency. His
eyes scanned Harry intently for a moment, and then he nodded, his teeth
flashing briefly in a fierce, feral grin.

"The next few years should be \emph{interesting}," he muttered, as he
stood.

Harry gave him what he knew was a faint smile. He hoped Peter would
understand that the faintness came from his weariness, and not his lack
of sincere emotion. ``Goodbye, Peter. I hope that you have a safe
journey. Write to me to let me know you're safe.''

Peter nodded once. ``I am sure I will, Harry. I do not want to lose
contact with you. You have done so much for me.''

Tired or no, Harry couldn't let that one pass. ``You did a lot for me,
too,'' he protested.

``Not as much, I think.'' Peter only shook his head when Harry would
have argued, and held out a hand. Harry clasped it.

Peter turned and looked hesitantly at Connor. Connor stared back at him.
Harry could read nothing on his brother's face at all.

``Goodbye, Connor,'' said Peter. ``I am sorry about Sirius. He was my
friend, once.''

``I know,'' said Connor softly. ``It wasn't your fault.'' He hesitated,
then added, ``Goodbye.''

Peter nodded, and made the nod into part of the motion that carried him
into his Animagus form. He scurried towards the Forbidden Forest, barely
a movement in the thick grass, and quickly vanished. Harry found himself
hoping absently that none of the rat-eating creatures in the Forest
would be abroad tonight.

``What are we going to do now?'' Connor asked, when a few moments had
passed in silence.

Harry blinked, and came back to himself. He really was stupefied, he
thought, if he'd just stood there and stared at nothing. ``We go
inside,'' he said firmly. ``We find Snape. We get him to
do\ldots{}things with Sirius's body, and Voldemort's Pensieve, and that
damn knife.'' Peter had retrieved his wand as they left the Shrieking
Shack, a fact for which Harry was profoundly grateful. ``And then we get
Madam Pomfrey to check us both over.'' He glanced at his brother,
searching for the signs of blood for the first time. ``Did Voldemort
hurt you?''

``A few cuts, that's all,'' said Connor. ``Nothing like as bad as you
got.'' But he seemed distracted, glancing around. ``Harry,'' he said
slowly. ``That heaviness is still in the air.''

Harry rubbed his cheek. ``What heaviness?'' Merlin, he was slow tonight.
He knew, vaguely, that he had changed the world by freeing the
Dementors, but he could not seem to care.

``The one that means a prophecy is coming true,'' said Connor. ``It's
still here.'' He turned to Harry, his eyes appealing. ``I thought it was
supposed to be done with? I thought freeing the Dementors was what the
lines about the gray one and the decision were about?''

``What about the second half of the second half?'' Harry found himself
dropping to one knee in the grass. It would be soft enough to rest in,
wouldn't it? Connor could run and fetch Snape by himself, couldn't he?
Snape could get the information from Connor's mind himself, with
Legilimency, if Connor couldn't tell him. That sounded like a
\emph{wonderful} idea, since it would allow Harry to \emph{rest.}

Connor drew breath to answer, but his words were drowned by a furious
voice.

"\emph{Harry!}"

Harry lifted his head, and blinked drowsily as a black-clad figure swept
towards them. ``Oh, good,'' he said. ``Snape's here. We don't have to
find him.''

Connor made a small squeaking sound of distress, but didn't get a chance
to run away before Snape was upon them. Snape speared Connor with a
glance, then turned to Harry and said, ``I see that you have once again
come back exhausted and half-dead from a mission to rescue your brother
that you should have left up to older and more experienced wizards.''

``Shut it, Snape,'' Harry muttered, hardly registering what he was
saying. ``Sirius is dead, and it wasn't Peter, and we defeated Voldemort
again. I think I deserve a nap before you start yelling at me.'' He
curled up on his side and closed his eyes.

Of course, he hadn't even fallen properly asleep before the vision of a
circle of dark figures closing flashed behind his eyes, and he jerked
himself up, gasping as a sharp pain cut into his side. Snape crouched
down beside him, running his fingers over his ribs and hissing under his
breath.

``You've sustained several nasty injuries, Harry,'' he murmured.
``What---''

Harry turned his head blindly back and forth, closing his eyes, until
the vision of the circle of shadows aligned with a particular direction.
When he opened his eyes again, he was staring straight across the lake.

He breathed, ``There,'' at the same moment as Snape swung his head and
snarled, ``The anti-Apparition wards are down!''

``And only the members of the Order of the Phoenix know how to disable
them,'' said Harry. He was barely conscious again, but he knew this was
important. ``And Voldemort controlled Sirius's mind for the past several
months, and had his memories. He could have passed the knowledge on to
the Death Eaters.''

As if in answer, a mad, cackling laugh that he knew well rode the wind.
Harry pushed his eyes open, and saw Bellatrix Lestrange hurrying
forward, her cloak billowing. Behind her came four other Death Eaters,
all men from the way they were walking. Harry shuddered. One of them
flared with such foul Dark magic that he could feel it from here. He
thought it quite as bad as the power that his magic-eating snake had
swallowed.

He looked at Snape, his tired mind jolted into motion again. ``You could
pretend that you're loyal to Voldemort, and that you've captured me---''
he suggested.

``I have chosen my side,'' said Snape, his voice deliberate, and rose to
his feet, moving behind Harry as he drew his wand. ``I choose again, and
again, and that side is yours, Harry.''

Bellatrix laughed again, and increased her stride. ``Come to offer
yourself and the babies up on a platter, Severus?'' she asked shrilly.
"Our Lord told us all about you, and I must say, I look forward to
having you in a nice quiet room, with nothing but \emph{Crucios} between
us."

``You always did have a stunning lack of imagination, Bellatrix,'' Snape
answered coolly, and aimed his wand. "\emph{Sectumsempra!}"

Bellatrix sang out a defensive spell as the curse aimed at her, and then
fired back a hex whose pronunciation Harry missed under the sudden
roaring in his ears. The four male Death Eaters were spreading out next
to Bellatrix, one of them nearly in the lake, and the magic was
overcoming his senses.

Two of them were preparing complicated spells. One wore an intricate
glamour, so deep and old that Harry wasn't sure what it could possibly
be hiding. And the one who flared with foul magic went on flaring with
it, the scent growing into the stink of raw sewage until Harry saw the
Death Eater's face.

It was Rodolphus Lestrange, from all the descriptions he had heard, but
he had faced the man before, and knew him to be slow and rather stupid
next to his brilliant, insane wife. Now, his eyes were wide, his mouth
distended in a smile that Harry had last seen on Sirius's face.

``No,'' Harry whispered.

``You did not destroy all of me, Harry,'' said Voldemort's voice, calm
and patient, through Rodolphus's lips. ``The locket, but not the bit of
my soul within it. It fled, and sought out my loyal Death Eaters. That
is what comes of playing with your food.'' He smiled more widely, a
grotesque gesture, animated by rage and hatred. Harry wondered then how
much Voldemort must hate him, given that he would have known all along
that Harry was the one who had bounced back the Killing Curse at him.
``This arrangement does have its disadvantages, of course, namely the
lack of power and the time it will take to grow a new body, but I am
fresh, and I have magic that I know how to use. Unlike you, Harry.'' He
clucked his tongue.

Then he aimed his wand. "\emph{Caeco}!"

Harry heard Connor's wild cry from beside him, and whirled, even though
he already knew what he would see; he knew the effects of \emph{Caeco.}
His brother was groping at his face, his eyes wide and staring. He was
blind.

Harry turned back. His tiredness was still present, and his limbs felt
like bags of sand. He knew that his rage would stop fueling him in a
moment, but for now he could speak. ``Blind me instead, you bastard!''

``Why should I?'' Voldemort asked, smiling through Rodolphus's lips. ``I
want you to see what will happen to your brother, Harry.'' He nodded to
one of the Death Eaters who stood beside him, one of the two who did not
wear the glamour. ``Your turn, Mulciber.''

Harry shivered. Mulciber was an Imperius Curse specialist, renowned for
his control of the mind, and he was aiming his wand at Connor now. Harry
gave Snape a hopeless look, but Snape was locked in a duel with
Bellatrix and did not even have time to look away from the spells he was
firing.

"\emph{Imperio}!"

Harry saw his brother stiffen, and knew what he would be feeling, the
soft and coaxing voice that would be invading his mind, whispering to
him what to do. Connor grasped his left hand with his right and began to
bend his middle finger towards the back of his hand.

Harry sobbed. He didn't think he could do anything about it. If he
unleashed a wash of magic right now, it would simply strike out at
everyone in sight, so tired was he and so weak was his control.

He didn't think he could do that. How could he? He would prefer to just
use defensive magic and get everyone out of here alive, shield Snape and
Connor from the Death Eaters, deliver some stinging blows but no more
than that.

His eyes locked on Rodolphus's face, Voldemort's cruel gaze and crueler
smile. \emph{If I let them go, I'm letting Voldemort go.}

\emph{There are some times I can't do what I want to do.}

He heard the \emph{snap} as Connor's finger broke, and the silence of
someone under \emph{Imperio} that was even more painful than a shriek
would have been.

Sobbing, Harry lashed out, not using his magic as a snake this time, but
simply draining, pulling, sucking all the magic away from the Death
Eaters. He took their spells. He saw the glamour on the Death Eater on
the far left shimmer and fade, revealing a different face and features,
but he didn't care. He felt the magic of their bodies struggle for a
moment and then remain intact---he wasn't pulling enough to drain their
inner strength, only that floating loose around them---but he didn't
care. He heard Snape shout in anger as his own dueling spells vanished,
but he didn't care.

He let the magic flood away like high tide, and then brought it back
around in a wave, directing all the force at Rodolphus-Voldemort, not
trying to be coordinated, not trying to be controlled, all the desires
of his mind focused on one thought: \emph{I want it to} stop. \emph{I
want him to} go away.

The magic hit Rodolphus, and sent him flying. For a moment, Harry saw a
slight dark shape in flight over the lake, like a moth.

Then he burst into flame, inside and out, fire that consumed him. Harry
felt the bit of Voldemort's soul struggling madly, trying to fly free,
and then felt it wither. Rodolphus's magic departed in the same moment.

He was dying. Ashes fell into the water.

He was dead. Bones and skin and flesh followed the ashes in an obscene
rain.

Harry dropped his face into his hands and wept, collapsing as exhaustion
and grief and the wash of the magic fell onto him. His body was entirely
free of the magic he had swallowed in the Shrieking Shack now.

He heard Bellatrix give a long, descending wail, with no hint of sanity
anywhere in it. Harry was open even to her pain just then, raw and
bleeding, with no defenses. She had lost her husband and her risen lord
in the same moment. Harry didn't know which one she might have loved
more, but he wasn't surprised to roll over and see her staring at him
with hatred in her eyes, the desire for vengeance written on her face.

``Wait, baby,'' she breathed. ``Wait, and I'll come for you.''

Then she turned and began to run, back around the lake and in the
direction they had come from. The other Death Eaters followed her,
Mulciber and a man who was probably Rabastan.

The last man, the one who had worn the glamour, lingered a moment to
stare at Harry, as though he knew that no magic was left in the area to
strike at him. His true face was heavy-featured, his eyes large and dark
and intelligent behind the madness that Azkaban had induced. He cocked
his head as Snape knelt behind Harry and put a hand on his shoulder.

``Chosen a good one, Severus,'' he said, sounding almost cheerful.

``Rosier,'' Snape snarled back, his anger not quite hiding his surprise.
``Didn't die after all, did you?''

``No, Dolohov did,'' said the man Harry knew must be Evan Rosier,
sounding quite unconcerned. ``But everyone thought they saw me die, and,
well, it seemed prudent to keep it that way.'' His face wore a smile so
sudden it seemed to have simply appeared there from somewhere else, and
he nodded to Harry. ``That your future Lord?''

``My magic is returning, Rosier,'' Snape said, softly, dangerously, and
aimed his wand.

``Can't stay, I'm afraid,'' said Rosier. ``For I have promises to keep,
and miles to go before I sleep.'' He chuckled when he finished, and then
turned and began to speed around the lake.

Harry turned to Connor. His brother blinked, one hand feeling at his
eyes. He could see again, from the way he stared at Harry. Then he
looked down at his broken finger, blinked again, and fainted.

Harry felt like doing the same thing, but he had things to do first. He
turned to Snape.

``Read the memory of what happened from my mind,'' he said.

``I saw it, Harry.''

Snape's voice was desperate with pity, which Harry didn't want. He
reached out, bracing himself with one hand on his guardian's shoulder,
and whispered, ``No, not that. Before.''

He dropped his barriers, and felt Snape slip in, fast and easy, so used
to working with his mind that he found the memory of Sirius's death and
what had happened in the Shrieking Shack the moment Harry willed him to
see it. Harry felt Snape draw in a sharp breath, felt him shudder, and
nodded wearily.

``Yes,'' he muttered. ``Take care of his body and the Pensieve and the
knife, won't you?''

``I will.'' Snape sounded shaken for the first time that Harry could
remember. ``Get some rest.'' He paused, and then added, "It was not your
fault, Harry, you realize. You \emph{had} to kill him."

``Rest sounds good,'' said Harry, and dropped away into a blackness that
was far less confusing than the world he had just made for himself.

\chapter{*Chapter 49*: Starborn}\label{chapter-49-starborn}

Thank you for the reviews yesterday and the day before for the chapter!

And here comes the longest chapter I have ever written. Damn
denouements.

\textbf{Chapter Forty-Three: Starborn}

Snape looked down at Harry in his bed in the hospital wing and shook his
head. No. It had been three days, and still his fury---that Harry had
been so badly hurt, that Harry had felt compelled to go after Voldemort
and Black alone, that Harry had had to fight and kill a Death
Eater---had not eased. All the Houses except Slytherin had lost nearly a
hundred points in Potions, and McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout were
giving him significant looks. Snape did not care.

His ward had almost died for the fifth and sixth times this year, even
if one counted only the werewolf, his journey home, the spiders, and the
bout of pain that had knocked him unconscious for a week. Voldemort had
nearly killed him, and then Voldemort had nearly killed him
\emph{again.} Snape had been too far away to help the first time, and
useless the next, locked in a duel with Bellatrix as he had been.

He had been \emph{helpless}. In a sense, he still was, as Harry hadn't
awakened in the last three days.

It made him \emph{furious}.

And Harry had done it all for the sake of Black and his brother, who had
spent two days asleep in the hospital wing, his broken finger healed
almost at once by Madam Pomfrey, before he was awakened and sent back to
Gryffindor Tower. He had come and sat by Harry's bedside in silence
several times in the day since, his eyes haunted and his face pale.
Snape supposed he was facing his own demons.

He did not \emph{care}. Things could have turned out so much darker, and
he, Severus Snape, Potions Master and Head of Slytherin and former Death
Eater, had not made one damn bit of difference.

The door of the hospital wing creaked open. Snape turned sharply. It was
the Potter brat, who came over and sat in a chair at Harry's bedside
without a word.

Snape glared at him. Potter turned his head away and concentrated on
Harry.

For this \emph{boy}, Harry had nearly given up everything.

\emph{And for Black,} Snape reminded himself, but he almost instantly
turned his mind away from that unpleasant subject. He did not like
thinking about Black. He had cast several preservation spells on the
body and moved it to a quiet, unused classroom, until whatever funeral
arrangements that Dumbledore---presumably---would make. The werewolf had
no money, and certainly neither Pettigrew nor James Potter had shown any
sign of wanting to come forward and claim their dead friend.

Snape had envied the peaceful expression on Black's face. In the end, he
had died doing what he knew was right, just like any other
self-righteous, boneheaded Gryffindor.

And if his mind had been kept further unbalanced by Snape's empathy
potions, making him easier prey for Voldemort and Voldemort more able to
go after Harry, so that Snape had endangered his own ward, there was no
way to know.

Snape wondered if he should discuss that with Harry. He wondered if he
was capable of having a discussion with Harry about Black and not making
some disparaging remark. He hadn't been able to keep the sarcasm out of
his voice when he had clashed with Dumbledore. Of course, Dumbledore had
ordered Snape to turn over the Dark Lord's Pensieve and the Black family
knife he had used as well as Sirius's body. Snape had refused. There had
been\ldots{}some words.

\emph{But for you,} Snape thought, his eyes lingering on Harry, his mind
oddly mingling the vision of the sleeping boy with the memory of the
crying baby from the Pensieve and the exhausted child-adult who had let
him peer into his mind before collapsing, \emph{I will try.}

\emph{As long as you wake up. Wake up, Harry.}


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\newpage


Harry came awake slowly.

He had the feeling that he should hurt more than he did. Instead, he
blinked and put a hand over his face, and though his hand trembled with
weakness and did not quite manage to block out the sunshine, it was only
weakness, and not pain. Harry felt his chest hitch with the depth of his
sigh. \emph{Good}. He'd had quite enough pain to last him a while.

``Harry.''

Harry lowered his hand and met Snape's eyes. The professor was the only
one in the hospital wing, which comforted Harry. \emph{Let me take these
confrontations one at a time. I don't think I can face them more
populated than that.}

``Professor?'' he whispered, and blinked. His voice actually sounded
halfway normal.

``You have been asleep since Saturday evening, and today is Thursday
morning, Harry,'' said Snape, correctly anticipating his next question.
``And Poppy has kept you regularly supplied with water.'' He waved his
wand and charmed a glass of it to float towards Harry, anyway, then
helped him sit up so he could drink it. Harry obliged, carefully sipping
so that the cold liquid would help settle his stomach instead of disturb
it. The longer he drank, the longer he thought he could avoid the
probing questions that Snape was likely to ask.

\emph{Not for long,} said the voice in the back of his head, in admiring
tones. \emph{He's a hard one, he is.}

And sure enough, Snape said, in the soft whisper that indicated his true
anger, ``When are you planning to put down the cup and face me, Harry?''

Harry sighed and tried to stretch to put the cup back on the table
beside the bed. Snape's magic seized control of it and floated it away
instead. Harry settled back on his pillows and gave Snape a look. ``You
won't even let me reach that far?'' he asked.

``You suffered enormous damage,'' said Snape. ``Magical exhaustion,
scratches from the house elf on your throat and shoulders, injuries from
where the justice ritual held you in place, and mental and emotional
scars.'' He leaned forward. "This time, Harry, your mind is not in
imminent danger of collapse, as it was after the debacle in the Chamber
of Secrets. And this time, you actively \emph{refused} help."

Harry braced himself for a yelling session, for all that he'd never
heard Snape raise his voice.

Snape watched him in silence for a long moment, then shook his head.
``What do you believe would have happened if you died?'' he asked.

``Uh.'' Harry blinked. This wasn't the way he had expected the
interrogation to go. ``Well, Voldemort would have tortured you and
Hermione and Draco, and taken Connor with him. He told me so, and I
don't believe he had any reason to lie. He knew the truth would cause me
more despair.'' Harry shuddered. Now that he was out of it, he had time
to think about his terror, and how much he had feared that what
Voldemort predicted would come true.

``And what else?'' Snape's voice had descended an inch or two towards
ice.

``Voldemort would have killed Sirius, too,'' said Harry, trying to think
of what else. ``And the Death Eaters would probably have inflicted a lot
of damage on Hogwarts before anyone could stop them. And the Dementors
would probably have killed Peter.''

``And what else?'' Snape urged him.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. ``I know what you want
me to say, sir, and it's impossible.''

``Why?''

``Because,'' said Harry, opening his eyes and focusing on Snape with a
frown, ``you wouldn't have had time to mourn me, or be angry with me.
Voldemort would be too busy torturing you. You'd feel pain instead.''

Snape briefly raked a hand down his face. Harry wasn't sure what the
gesture indicated, anger or weariness. Perhaps both.

``Harry,'' Snape whispered, ``we would have helped you.'' He fixed his
gaze on Harry's face. "Has it occurred to you that the Dark Lord took
Black and your brother to lure \emph{you} into a trap? That \emph{you}
were the one he wanted to destroy? I have seen the memory in the
Pensieve. I understand why."

Harry glanced away from him. Once again, as when he had been in Draco's
mind, as when he had first come to suspect that he might be the
Boy-Who-Lived, he could feel a gulf yawning beneath him. He did not want
to step into it. ``But it didn't happen,'' he said. ``And if it had,
then you would have been busy suffering.''

Snape gave a mutter that Harry couldn't quite make out, except for the
words ``blunt'' and ``utterly serious.'' Then he said, "Harry, your life
matters to me beyond what would have happened to me, or anyone else, if
you had not lived. Your life matters \emph{for itself.} You are not a
sacrifice, not to me. In fact, I would prefer that you stopped regarding
yourself that way, and associating with your brother altogether." His
voice sharpened. ``If you had taken me along as help, then you might not
have suffered quite so much.''

Harry winced, and regret briefly flooded him, before he shook his head.
``And you probably would not have lived, sir,'' he said. ``I barely did,
and I think Connor only did because Voldemort wasn't really
concentrating on him.''

``That was the wrong tack, then,'' said Snape. "Harry---\emph{look at
me.}"

Harry did, reluctantly. Snape met his eyes fiercely.

"You \emph{matter,}" he said. "You \emph{do.} You are not only a weapon,
not only a shield or defense or sacrifice. You told me once to stop
treating you as a child, and it is true that I should not do so.
However, you are also my ward." He took a deep breath, as though he were
dredging up courage from under a dark lake. ``I would appreciate it if
you stopped thinking I was lying when I told you these things. And if
you have no more need of me as a guardian, then perhaps it is time that
we owled the Ministry and turned you back over to your father, who has
expressed an interest in visiting you in a few weeks, when you are fully
recovered, and he is out of the maze he is in.''

Harry experienced an immediate flash of panic. \emph{No! I don't want
Snape to stop being my guardian---}

And he blinked, and sat there staring at nothing, as the fact that he
had felt those things broke over him like a storm.

He did like mattering to Snape. He wanted the guardianship to be deeper
than a mere legal pretense to fool the Ministry. He liked the thought
that Snape had tried to come after him, had tried to stop him from
facing Voldemort alone, had come to him at Christmas and badgered him
into accepting the guardianship again, had done all he could to protect
and train Harry in Occlumency and Legilimency and Potions and other arts
he thought Harry might need.

And if he liked mattering to Snape, he could hardly let Snape think he
did not matter to Harry.

He met Snape's eyes. ``My life matters to you,'' he said, testing.

Snape nodded, a tense little motion that hardly bent his neck. His eyes
never left Harry's.

``You would have been upset if I died, and not just because of the
consequences to you or the wizarding world.''

Snape bared his teeth, as if to say that one didn't deserve an answer.

``You like being my guardian, and not just to spite my father or the
Ministry or Dumbledore.''

``If that was all I wanted,'' Snape snarled, ``I could have thought of
many, many other ways to obtain it, ways that are less likely to make me
die of rage and terror.''

Harry closed his eyes. Damn it, he was going to cry, and he didn't want
to. He wasn't run-down any more, he wasn't exhausted any more, he wasn't
fragile and shaky any more, he shouldn't cry, crying was something
babies or children did, it was all right when Connor did it, \emph{oh
shit no here came the tears}---

Snape reached out and put a hand gently on his shoulder. Harry leaned
into the touch, and then scooted closer and snaked out an arm around
Snape's waist. Snape returned the embrace fiercely.

Somewhere in the middle of the tears, it occurred to Harry that Snape
had never intended to stop being his guardian, and had used a sneaky,
underhanded, Slytherin tactic to force this epiphany on him.

He didn't much care.

His life \emph{mattered} to someone. He, himself, mattered to Snape
because he was Harry, and not because of what he could do. He finally
believed it.

\emph{As if I won't seize that with both hands.}


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\newpage


Draco came prepared. He knew what Harry's confrontation with Snape had
been like, because Snape had told him. He knew that it was going to be
different with him. Harry had been forced to see that Snape's affection
for him was genuine. He had, however, heard Connor compel Draco, and
been in his mind, and tried to believe---Draco had felt him trying to
believe---that all those emotions were only the result of compulsion.

It was an easy excuse. It was a way out for Harry, if he thought that
only one person liked him for who he was. He could let Snape in, but go
right back to treating Draco as if he were someone who needed to be left
behind in safety.

\emph{Fuck that,} Draco decided, and strolled in and sat down in the
chair beside Harry's bed. Snape was occupying Harry's prat of a brother
with a detention. No one would disturb them.

Draco had a very simple plan.

He was not going to \emph{let} Harry ignore him. And before he left
tonight, he was going to extract some promises that Harry would never do
certain stupid things again.

Harry welcomed him with a reserved smile. He had a bowl of porridge in
his lap, and was scooping spoonfuls of it into his mouth. Draco sniffed.
Porridge was nothing compared to what they'd had in the Great Hall the
last two days. He would be glad when Harry was up and about and could
eat proper meals again. They were bland and boring without him. No one
appreciated his wit when he tried to use it.

``Hello, Draco,'' said Harry softly, and put the spoon back in the bowl.
``Come to have your say about me running off into danger?''

"I don't think I need to \emph{say} a lot," said Draco, adopting the
posture his mother always used when they were visiting people she
considered their social inferiors. ``A few very simple words. The
affection you saw in my mind when you thought Connor compelled me? That
was real.''

Harry blinked at him, then shook his head, a faint smile appearing in
the place of the reserved one. ``No, Draco,'' he said, in the patient
tone that normally made Draco want to scream. "I \emph{felt} it. It was
preventing the passage of normal thoughts into your mind. It was---"

``It was a barrier made of what was already there,'' Draco said. It was
simple after all, this clear, direct, Gryffindor-like honesty. ``What
was always there.''

Harry licked his lips, then shook his head. ``It can't---''

``Yes, it can,'' said Draco. Another part of the plan was not to let
Harry talk what was clearly nonsense. ``You're my friend, Harry. That's
it.''

``But what I felt there wasn't the kind of friendship that Connor has
for Ron,'' Harry argued.

Draco curled his lip before he could stop himself. "I would thank you
not to compare me to \emph{Weasley,}" he said, and played his trump
card. Perhaps it was a bit too soon, but clearly, if he was going about
comparing Draco to Weasley, Harry needed the help. ``Malfoys have always
done things better than Weasleys. We outfly them, we're better than they
are at Quidditch, we're better wizards, we're not a disgrace to the name
of pureblood and they are. And we outlove them, too.''

Harry's smile froze. ``Draco,'' he said, voice gone small and helpless.

Draco snorted. ``Come off it, Harry. I was conscious most of the time
you were in my mind, you know. I know what you felt. I love you. Not
enough to keep from hexing you if you deny it, either.''

Harry shook his head desperately, his hair falling over his scar. The
scar had gone back to being a normal pale lightning bolt, Draco was
pleased to see, without the bloody color that had limned it while Harry
lay unconscious. ``But, Draco---compulsion played some part in it, it
had to---''

"It did \emph{not}," said Draco. ``It only dragged what was there to the
surface, and kept it there long enough that you had to see it.'' He met
Harry's eyes. "You can cast \emph{Legilimens} on me now if you like, and
it will still be there."

``You can't love me like that!'' Harry yelped.

Draco laughed. Harry actually looked indignant. ``Why not? I know that
you love me as protectively, and your brother, and probably Snape,
too.''

"But---that's what I do, that's what I was \emph{raised} to do," said
Harry, his voice nearly a wail. ``That strength of love has to be
unnatural, doesn't it, if it comes from my training? And anyway,'' he
added, "how could it apply to \emph{me}?"

``Because it does,'' said Draco.

``It has to be the result of compulsion.''

``It isn't.''

``Then it's the result of---''

``No.''

``Then you must only imagine---''

"\emph{No.}" Draco leaned forward and clasped Harry's hand. ``I've given
you sight of this before, Harry. What do you think your serpent shows?
You should look at it more often,'' he couldn't help adding. While the
bottle Harry had given him showing his emotions was important to
\emph{him}, the glass serpent Draco had bonded with the same enchantment
for Harry's birthday didn't seem all that important to Harry, and that
did hurt. "I told you that I didn't like you going away. I would have
been perfectly happy to have you at Malfoy Manor for the entire holiday
last summer. I tried to keep you from going after your brother and
godfather, because I didn't care that you loved them, too. I was
practically shouting it from the \emph{rooftops}, undignified as that
would be for a Malfoy. I've tried and tried and tried to make you see
it, and you wouldn't, you stubborn prat. So now you don't have a
choice," he finished severely.

Harry simply stared at him, then turned his head away. Draco grabbed his
chin and turned his face back.

Draco didn't have to be a Legilimens himself to see the stunned
disbelief in those eyes slowly melting into acceptance. Harry knew that
Draco wasn't lying. He had probably had ground for the revelation
prepared by being forced to acknowledge that his life mattered to Snape.

\emph{Well, fuck that, too,} Draco decided. This was his victory, and he
was going to claim it as such.

``This is so strange,'' Harry whispered. "I don't think this is supposed
to be happening. I don't find out my best friend loves me a few days
after my godfather dies and Voldemort has to leave yet \emph{again}."

``When has anything around you ever been normal?'' Draco shoved his
chair closer to the bed. ``Do you believe me now?''

Harry nodded, as if hypnotized.

``Good,'' said Draco. ``This is the part where I get to be bossy and
demanding.'' He felt a vicious delight flood him as Harry simply
blinked. \emph{Merlin, I} love \emph{this part.} "First, if you start
mourning over \emph{anything} that happened to you, come and find me.
Immediately. I want to hear it."

``Why?'' Harry whispered.

Draco shook his shoulder. ``Harry,'' he said warningly. ``I don't
tolerate idiocy, not when you believe me.''

Harry swallowed. ``All right.''

``Second,'' said Draco, ``once you leave the hospital wing, you're
either with me or Snape for the rest of the school year. I know that
Snape is planning to keep you here for the summer. We'll see about
that.'' Privately, he was trying to work out a bargain wherein Harry
would stay at the Manor for four weeks. So far, Snape wasn't willing,
but Draco was determined. ``If you really feel that you have to be
alone, you have to tell us where you're going.''

Harry hesitated, then said, ``All right.''

``Third,'' said Draco, ``if you get angry at me, you tell me. If you
want an apology, demand it.''

``That's going to be hard work,'' Harry murmured. He seemed to be
somewhere between pleasure and shock.

``I know. I don't care. Do it.''

Harry nodded.

``Finally,'' said Draco, ``you stop with this nonsense about compulsion,
or whatever other excuse you find to deny that people love you. I really
will hex you if you say something about it again, or if I look up and
think you're thinking about it.''

``All right,'' said Harry.

His eyes were starting to get a little glassy. Draco gently removed the
porridge bowl from his lap and put it on the table, then arranged the
pillows so Harry could lie down. Harry stifled a yawn. ``Why am I still
here?'' he muttered. ``I know that Madam Pomfrey fixed everything
physically wrong with me.''

``Shock and magical exhaustion, Harry,'' said Draco. ``Madam Pomfrey
doesn't think you should have to deal with other students right now, and
I agree. And you could sleep for about two months and still not recover
all the rest you need. That's the fifth promise,'' he added. ``You have
to sleep a lot.''

``That one will be no trouble to keep.'' Still and all, Harry fought the
closing of his eyes. \emph{Stubborn prat,} Draco thought, brushing his
hair off his scar. ``Did Connor apologize to you yet?''

Draco frowned. ``For what?''

``Compelling you.'' Harry stared at him searchingly.

A tiny flame surged to life in Draco's heart, driving his satisfaction
even higher. \emph{Harry wants his brother to apologize to me. He thinks
of that even though he has every right to think that what happened to
them excuses Connor that duty.}

``He hasn't yet,'' he said, and watched as Harry's eyes glittered.

``I'll tell him,'' Harry muttered, closing his eyes. ``He should have
already. He's dumb not to have.''

His muttering ceased, and his brow relaxed under Draco's fingers. Draco
watched as his breathing smoothed out into sleep.

Then, and only then, did he allow himself to close his eyes and spend a
few minutes just listening to Harry breathe, reassuring himself, with
each drawn breath, that his best friend was still alive.


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``That's the last of them, I think,'' Draco said.

Harry nodded as he watched the last strand of silver squirm off his wand
and plunk into the Pensieve. He could still remember what had happened
in the Shrieking Shack, perfectly well---he hadn't wanted the wand to
take all his emotions and memories of that---but now they had a third
back-up Pensieve, in addition to the two that Snape had already hidden,
containing his vision of that night. If Dumbledore tried to
\emph{Obliviate} either him or Connor, or, for that matter, Snape, they
were safe.

He leaned back against the pillows, shrugging when Draco fluffed them
for him, but making no move to stop him. Draco still seemed to need the
reassurance that Harry was alive to have pillows fluffed, and Harry was
hardly going to deny him that.

``So,'' he said, when Draco had carefully set the Pensieve under his
chair. ``You were going to tell me what the rest of the school thinks,
now that it's been a week.''

Draco shot him an irritated look with touches of anxiety visible around
the straining eyes.

``It's been a week,'' Harry repeated softly. "I can bear this, Draco. I
\emph{can.}"

Draco nodded. ``All right,'' he said. ``It didn't take the Headmaster
long to make up a story how Voldemort kidnapped both you and your
brother with the help of Death Eaters, because he wanted to use the
magic that flows between twins to aid in his resurrection. Black fought
him and died, heroically.''

``Well, that part's true,'' said Harry. \emph{Why did Draco say it with
disdain? This is his own cousin he's talking about, and my godfather.}

Draco snorted. ``He died to make up for his mistake, Harry. That's a
better reason, and it's one that the Headmaster will never admit to.''

Harry concealed his sigh. ``And the other parts of it?''

``That the Death Eaters retreated before you, taking Voldemort's
half-resurrected body with them,'' said Draco, his voice a low drone.
Harry wondered if he was practicing to keep emotions out of his voice,
or if he'd merely heard the story so many times that he didn't care
about it any more. ``They got interrupted by the Dementors, who came
after them because they were escaped Azkaban prisoners. The Dementors
sucked out Voldemort's soul, and destroyed Rodolphus Lestrange in the
process. Then the Death Eaters fled, and the Dementors went after
them.'' He sat back and lifted his eyes to Harry's face, and Harry knew
without a doubt that Draco was not bored. He looked furious.
"\emph{Nothing} about the role you played, Harry. \emph{Nothing.}"

Harry smiled faintly. ``I didn't really expect him to say anything about
it.''

"But aren't you \emph{outraged}?" Draco demanded.

Harry shook his head. ``Dumbledore worked so hard to keep me from
finding out the truth. The least he can do now is keep others from
finding out a shred of it. And he wouldn't want anyone to know that the
one of the teachers he most favored and protected was possessed by
Voldemort. He'll give up a chance at promoting Connor's heroism to
protect Sirius's reputation.''

Draco snorted. ``He might have saved his breath. No one believes him.''

Harry blinked. \emph{That} was a surprise. The Headmaster was still the
Headmaster, after all, with the power of a Light Lord and a heroic
reputation and the ability to push his ideas by compulsion when all else
failed. ``No one?''

Draco shook his head. ``Too many people saw Snape dash out of Hogwarts
as if his cloak was on fire. Too many people know that Granger spent
some time unconscious up in the North Tower. Too many people realize
that the Dementors haven't returned to Hogwarts grounds at all, even to
hunt for Pettigrew. And too many people felt the utter explosion of
magic when you freed the justice ritual and destroyed the Dark Lord's
new body, even though they don't know what it means.''

Harry gnawed his lip. ``I'm not sure what we ought to do,'' he said
finally. ``I don't want anyone to think that Sirius was a traitor,
either, and having too many people know about the prophecy is
dangerous.''

``Don't you want the credit for what you did, though?'' Draco said, a
whine entering his voice. "You are driving me \emph{mad} with this,
Harry. How can you not want people to know who you really are?"

Harry smiled faintly. ``You told me once that I was a Slytherin in every
possible way,'' he reminded Draco. ``And I said that I wasn't, because I
lacked ambition. I still do. Or, at least, I don't care if everyone
knows about what I did.''

``I thought I'd cured you of that,'' said Draco. ``I really should have.
Perhaps I should try again.''

``Harry?''

Harry turned his head, blinking. Hermione stood at the door of the
hospital wing, one hand clenched around it. ``Madam Pomfrey said that
I'd find you here,'' she muttered. ``And that you could have visitors
now.''

``Where else would you have expected to find him, Granger?'' Draco was
sneering again. Harry shook his head. \emph{He sneers when he has no
reason, as well as when he has plenty of reason.} ``And he can have one
visitor at a time, and I'm here. Go away.''

``That's not what Madam Pomfrey said,'' Hermione countered, and came
forward even when Draco leaped to his feet. She looked directly into
Harry's eyes. ``Maybe we should ask Harry if he wants me to stay.''

Harry sighed. He suspected he was in for a scolding, thanks to knocking
Hermione unconscious and leaving her on the floor, but he couldn't avoid
it forever. ``Sit down, Hermione,'' he said, and Transfigured the table
next to the bed into a chair. His magic was growing bored with nothing
to do again, and this was a harmless use of it, no matter how Draco
glared.

``Thank you,'' said Hermione primly. She sat and smoothed her skirt over
her knees, then looked expectantly at him.

Harry waited.

"What you did was \emph{stupid,}" Hermione began. ``You put me so
thoroughly to sleep that I couldn't even wake up and inform someone else
where you'd gone. Like Professor McGonagall. She would have helped you,
Harry, you know she would.''

Harry nodded. ``I know. And I didn't want her help, and I didn't want
yours. I wanted to go into this on my own.''

``So I suppose I'm good enough to ask for help with a Time Turner, but
not anything else?'' Hermione asked, her voice rising slightly.

``That was what I needed your help for, yes,'' said Harry. ``I couldn't
have done that part of it without you. Thank you.''

``But the rest?'' Hermione leaned forward, chin set.

Harry shook his head. "I can't apologize, Hermione. I didn't take
\emph{anyone} along. I'd already stunned Draco by that point, and I
stunned Snape when he came after me again. I was as careful as I could
be, and two people still died." His voice cracked, and he blinked hard,
Sirius's death coming back to strike him unexpectedly. ``What if one of
them had been you? Or what if there'd been a third death because you
wanted to come along? I couldn't risk it.''

``It was my choice,'' said Hermione.

``She's making a lot of sense,'' said Draco, unhelpfully.

Harry glared at both of them. ``And it was my choice to leave you both
behind,'' he said. ``If we start looking at it from this angle, we can
find all sorts of choices to contradict each other's.''

``I'm willing to forgive and forget, Harry James Potter,'' said Hermione
loftily. "\emph{If} you never do that again."

Harry winced. He couldn't imagine that it wouldn't be necessary to do
that again. Hermione was clever, and even if he tried to leave her out
of things, she would find her way into them. And it was true that he'd
asked her for an awful lot of help this year, with the phoenix web if
nothing else, and might need to do it again. If he made a promise not to
leave her out of things or behind\ldots{}

Then he got an idea. Perhaps Hermione was so determined to come because
she'd heard only the Headmaster's false story and not seen the truth. He
nodded to Draco. ``Let Hermione look into the Pensieve,'' he said.
``Then she'll know what we faced.''

He saw Hermione's expression brighten. \emph{Well, she did always want
knowledge,} Harry thought, leaning back. \emph{And if the choice is
giving her a few bad dreams or risking her life\ldots{} I'll take the
bad dreams.}

He closed his eyes while Hermione put her face into the Pensieve and
watched the memories. He had several things to do, and he wanted to
arrange them carefully in his mind, so he didn't forget any of them. He
had to make sure Connor had apologized to Draco. He had to decide, with
Connor, on what they were going to say to Dumbledore. He had to think
about what sort of story they would spread to explain what had happened
that night, as well as the absence of the Dementors. He had to make it
quite, quite clear that Connor was staying with him for the summer, and
not with Lily.

He had to settle that last with Snape, who was not being rational about
the thought of Harry staying with Lupin, or some other place that was
more welcoming to Connor, but didn't want Connor with Harry, either.

The twins had spent enough time together in the last few days, private
time, that Harry knew Connor would agree (though so far he had either
not agreed to apologize to Draco, or Draco was lying when he said Connor
had not). They had talked nearly nonstop for hours, and then sat in
silence again for the same length of time. Connor was recovering slowly
from Sirius's loss, and from what he called the sickening experience of
having \emph{Imperio} in his head and being blind for a short time. He
could put on a good blank face to fool everyone else who looked at him.
It saddened Harry to realize that he was the only one who knew his
brother well enough to look beneath the surface and see how false that
mask was. At least Harry had Snape and Draco, both, to recognize the
same truths about him.

He opened his eyes and asked Draco, ``Did Connor apologize to you for
compelling you?''

``No,'' said Draco, but his eyes flickered to the right.

Harry frowned. "He did \emph{so.}"

``I don't have to talk about that if I don't want to,'' said Draco,
folding his arms. ``It's a private matter between me and Connor
Potter.''

``Draco---''

Hermione abruptly jerked her head out of the Pensieve with a gasp. Harry
glanced at her, expecting to see shock and horror in her eyes. And there
was some of each there, but there was also a Gryffindor's golden,
gleaming courage.

``How could I possibly let you face that alone?'' she asked Harry.
``Either you or Connor? I'll take that promise that you won't leave me
behind, now.''

Harry groaned and looked to Draco, but Draco only looked rather
thoroughly entertained. Sighing, Harry reached out, put his hand on
Hermione's, and gave his promise, in the name of Merlin and his magic.

\emph{Should have remembered she was a Gryffindor,} he thought darkly.
\emph{Showing them danger only makes them more eager to jump into it.}


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Harry woke slowly. He knew it was late, probably late Sunday evening,
though he was still given to sleeping long stretches without warning,
and it might be early Monday morning. There was no one else in the
hospital wing with him, by the sound. \emph{Early Monday morning, then},
Harry thought as he stretched. If it was before midnight, Madam Pomfrey
would have been bustling around.

He glanced to the side, and blinked when he saw a letter lying on the
table beside his bed. It hadn't been there when he went to sleep, and he
thought any owl would have woken him. But he picked up his glasses, cast
a small \emph{Lumos} to add to the faint light spells that had sprung
into being when he opened his eyes, and opened the letter. The paper was
slowly turning purple, he saw.

The writing was familiar, or rather, familiar in its lack of
familiarity.

\emph{Dear Harry:}

\emph{I have left a charm on this letter. If it is turning purple, it
has been an hour since I have visited you. If it is turning gold, two
hours. If it is turning orange, three hours. Past that, the parchment
will resume its normal color. It is not safe for me to linger here
longer than that.}

Harry's eyes darted around the hospital wing, but he saw no one, not
even the faint shimmer that would have marked a Disillusionment Charm or
an Invisibility Cloak. He looked back at the letter.

\emph{I have failed you.}

\emph{I have failed you in all the ways that matter. I have given you
information you already had, and not explained the import of new
information. I have promised you protection, and not fulfilled the
promise. I have tested you, trying to see how strong a leader you were,
when I should have aided you outright, and never doubted you. You killed
for the first time last Saturday. The part of me that thought you could
never kill, even to protect those dearest to you, is at peace.}

\emph{I owe you three debts now---one in the name of my first family,
one in the name of my second, and one in my own name, for failing to
protect you. I will understand if you do not wish to speak to me. If
that is so, burn this letter, and I will know, and depart.}

\emph{If you wish to know who I am, and to accept that I mean to make up
for my broken promises, despite my lack of doing so in the past, then
lay the letter on the table, face the door of the hospital wing, and ask
me to enter.}

\emph{Starborn.}

Harry let out a sharp little breath and laid the letter down. He had
considered burning it, but only for the barest moment. He \emph{did}
want to know who Starborn was. And allies were never to be disdained.
This ally had taken risks for him. Merlin knew how he had managed to
learn that Sirius was still the heir of the Black family, or how his
parents had switched Secret-Keepers. If nothing else, Harry thought he
should learn that in turn, so that Starborn couldn't be used against
him.

``Enter,'' he called.

The door of the hospital wing slowly swung open, and a slender, hooded
figure stepped through. Harry held his wand high enough that the
\emph{Lumos} glittered on the shadows under the hood.

``Show your face,'' he said. "Who \emph{are} you?"

``I thought the wording in the last letter would have let you know,
Harry,'' said a familiar voice, as a pair of hands rose and threw back
the hood. ``But perhaps not. I have never hinted clearly enough.''

Narcissa Malfoy walked calmly over to him and took the chair beside his
bed, watching him, while Harry stared at her.

\emph{Starborn. Born of the house of Black, but not} named \emph{after a
star. Of course. I should have known.}

He recovered his voice after a moment. ``Millicent said that you were a
man.''

Narcissa chuckled, a faint, polite sound. ``I wrote to Adalrico under
the name Starborn. He assumed that I was a man, and passed the
assumption on to his daughter.'' She paused for a moment. ``Hawthorn
Parkinson knew the truth.''

Harry blinked, then nodded, remembering his second conversation with
her, when he had delivered her first vial of Wolfsbane Potion. Hawthorn
had smiled a bit, oddly, when Harry spoke of Starborn as ``he,'' but had
gone along with it, apparently seeing no reason to disillusion him.

``Why?'' he asked quietly.

``Because you were not taking on the leadership duties that you would
need to,'' said Narcissa. ``You knew me already, and you would weigh any
words out of my mouth, about Lords and compulsion and those who are not
Lords, more lightly than you would weigh them from a seemingly objective
outside source. If I could tell you these things, someone who was not
the mother of your best friend, then you might accept them and become
the wizard we need, the powerful one who is not a Lord.'' Her eyes
glittered. ``You do have a problem with that, you know, Harry---deciding
that those closest to you cannot speak the truth because they are
blinded by their regard for you.''

Harry inclined his head. ``I know. But could you not have simply told me
the truth about the Dark wizards you were contacting? About Sirius?''

``I did not know the whole truth about Sirius myself,'' Narcissa said
simply. ``I took a chance sneaking into 12 Grimmauld Place, the chance
that Sirius would not have simply shut the wards against me---as he
could have, being heir, did he but think of it. There, I found the
Pensieves full of the memories he had removed from his head, presumably
so he would not have to spend his nights thinking of his brother and
Pettigrew.'' She paused. ``And it did not work.''

Harry shook his head, thinking of the nightmares of two dark figures,
Sirius and Regulus, that he had had, the nightmares Sirius had had for
\emph{years.} Harry's mind had tried to warn him, but it had done it in
no language he could understand.

``And then I saw the tapestry,'' Narcissa whispered. ``Up until then, I
had not thought of what it meant that Sirius could slip so freely into
and out of the Black estates. I had simply assumed the estate was in
legal limbo, with Sirius disowned, Regulus dead, Bellatrix in Azkaban,
Andromeda blasted off the tapestry for marrying a Muggleborn wizard, and
the inheritance never formally assigned to me. I was not the heir,
either, but I thought the wards might accept me, for I was never cast
out of the Black family. Then I realized Sirius was the heir, and
something was badly wrong. Dumbledore wanted access to my family's
treasures. And, of course, Dark artifacts of the kind that had attacked
my son could have come from our family.''

``Then you could have written to me then,'' Harry insisted. ``You could
have told me the truth. Perhaps this would have been avoided.''

Narcissa's mouth twisted as if she'd bitten into a lime. ``I let my
pride blind me,'' she said. ``I observed Sirius closely, and decided at
last that the golden ornament around his neck really had tamed his
thoughts, the way that everyone insisted that it had. I examined the
letters to Lucius, and convinced myself they were not in Sirius's
handwriting. I know now, of course,'' she added softly, ``that his
handwriting was already wavering, controlled by Voldemort in his mind.''

``How did you know about that in detail?'' Harry asked.

``I have spoken with Severus and with Draco,'' said Narcissa. "Neither
knew I was Starborn, of course.

``I examined the wards on 12 Grimmauld Place again, and found them in an
advanced state of decay. I returned to what had been my original
hypothesis, when I first advised you to watch out for Sirius---that he
had been involved, somehow, in the passage of Black heirlooms to other
hands and in the attack of the Lestranges in your first year, but that
it was probably negligence, failure to keep up the wards on the house
that had let thieves in, and failure to protect key information in his
mind from a Legilimens. I thought he might even have sold artifacts to
pay off gambling debts, and not realized whom he was selling them to.''
Narcissa closed her eyes tightly and shook her head. "I spoke with both
Fenrir Greyback and Walden Macnair, pretending to be a reclusive Dark
witch interested in the Dark Lord's service, and both of them hinted at
a strong ally inside Hogwarts, but my every glimpse of Sirius convinced
me that they could not mean \emph{him}. \emph{He} was not strong. I
trusted my own conclusions over the evidence, and this is where it led
me, with your life in danger multiple times."

She opened her eyes and fixed them on Harry. ``I owe you the debt of my
failure,'' she said. ``I owe you a debt from the family I married into,
because you have protected my son at the near-cost of your own life. And
I owe you a debt from the family I was born into. The Blacks have
wronged you very greatly, Harry---I by my negligence, and Sirius by his.
I would understand if you wished to have nothing more to do with me, or
even to claim my life.''

She was prepared to give it, Harry realized with a start. Of course, the
Blacks were one of the few families that had kept up most of the
pureblood dances, even the most extreme, and one of the dances said that
only blood could wash away the stain of breaking one's word. Narcissa
had promised to protect him, then played a dangerous game that could
have ended with him dead, and certainly had ended with his life and her
son's life in danger. The Black customs would have dictated that she die
for putting Draco in danger, even if not Harry.

Unless the one the debt was owed to chose otherwise.

Harry shook his head. ``I want you to live,'' he said.

Narcissa relaxed minutely, but inclined her head, as much to say that
she knew he was not finished and should go on.

``I need you as an ally among the Dark wizards,'' said Harry. ``I assume
that's why you became Starborn in the first place, because there are
wizards and witches who won't listen to Narcissa Malfoy?''

Narcissa nodded. ``I have information from my son, and through Lucius,
that only someone who was a Death Eater or inside Hogwarts could
apparently have. I trade it for their wary promises to consider
alliance. Many of them would turn on me in an instant if they knew who I
was, for lying to them if nothing else.''

\emph{She's just put her life in my hands again,} Harry realized.
\emph{I could write to people like Adalrico and tell them she's
Starborn, and even if he forgave her, others wouldn't.}

It was not even a temptation. Harry had much more use for Narcissa alive
than dead, and he was fond of her, both as Draco's mother and for her
own sake. If nothing else, she was different from Lily in that she was
sorry for making him a sacrifice, and willing to make up for it.

``I still need you,'' he said. ``I want you to keep making alliances
with the other purebloods, and especially the Dark wizards and former
Death Eaters who won't listen to a child. That's how you can pay the
debt that you owe me as yourself.''

Narcissa nodded, eyes intent on his face.

``I want you to promise that you won't ever put Draco's life in danger
again, for any reason,'' Harry said. ``That's the Malfoy debt.''

``Very well,'' said Narcissa. ``And done. And the debt as a Black?''

Harry fussed with his hands a moment. He knew what he wanted to ask, but
it might very well go over the line. He stalled by asking, ``What's
going to happen to 12 Grimmauld Place and the like now that Sirius is
dead? Do they pass to you?''

Narcissa's mouth tightened in exasperation. ``There is a loophole, or a
problem, in the inheritance magic,'' she murmured. ``The wards on all
the houses have sealed tight now. I visited 12 Grimmauld Place
yesterday, and it would not let me in. I have no idea why. For the
moment, all the Black treasures are locked away beyond our reach.''

Harry nodded. He was actually relieved. He didn't want to search among
Dark magical weapons, but if he had access to them, he would have felt
compelled to, just in case there was something there that could help in
the course of the war. ``Very well. Then I want you to take charge of
Sirius's body. Give him a Black funeral.''

Narcissa sat back hard in the chair, staring at him. ``He was a blood
traitor,'' she whispered. ``He used false inheritance magic to stay heir
to the family. And then he betrayed his new allegiances, too, not even
having the courage to stand by his convictions.''

``He died a hero, fighting for those convictions,'' said Harry. ``And no
one else has done anything for him. Dumbledore is too busy doing damage
control. My father is Merlin knows where. Peter Pettigrew can't for
obvious reasons, and Remus Lupin doesn't have the money---or, probably
by now, the legal standing---to be the director of a funeral for a
pureblood wizard.'' He met her eyes. ``I want you to do it.''

Narcissa watched him in calm silence, all her emotions vanished behind a
cool mask. Harry waited. He knew that what he asked was profound,
perhaps more than what the debt would grant him. He didn't care. He was
asking for it, and he intended to go on asking for it until Narcissa
either gave in or told him flat out to choose another option.

Then she nodded and stood. ``Come with me, Harry, if you can walk,'' she
said, extending a hand. ``I will help you if you cannot. I think you
should see this.''

Harry blinked. What reading he'd done on the Blacks indicated their
funerals had always been intensely private, restricted to blood or
married family. ``I was only his godson---''

``You are the one who asked for this,'' Narcissa cut in, her voice sharp
as Polaris. ``You are the reason he is having a funeral like this at
all. And it will be done now. Tonight. This is your last chance to say
farewell.''

Harry watched her face. It stayed exactly the same. He was asking for
something high and old, he realized slowly.

And she was returning something high and old---the honor to come along
and see how the funeral was done.

Harry reached for his robes.


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


It hadn't taken them long to find Sirius's body. Narcissa had walked
straight to it the moment they were out of the hospital wing. When Harry
asked her how, she said simply that she could feel it. She was a Black,
and he was a Black, and the connection was always strongest between
those who were born into the family, rather than married into it. Draco
might have felt it, too, but Draco did not know the Black funeral
customs, and would probably not have recognized the subtle tugging on
his senses.

Now they were out of the school, Narcissa pausing courteously to rest
whenever Harry needed to. The night was deeply dark, the moon hidden by
clouds, and the only true light came from the \emph{Lumos} on the end of
Narcissa's wand. Sirius's body floated behind them.

Narcissa made for the shore of the lake, and Harry wondered if the Black
funeral customs involved drowning. But it seemed Narcissa only sought a
clear, flat spot to lay Sirius down, because she nodded at last and let
his body drift to rest.

Then she drew Harry back a short distance. Harry found himself staring
at his godfather, whose black hair was cast over his face. Thanks to the
preservation spells Snape had cast, he looked as he had when he died.
His gray eyes were shut, his face still in the same peaceful expression
it had been.

Narcissa raised her head, her eyes seeking out the sky. Harry looked up,
but still saw only clouds.

Then, to his shock, the clouds rolled smoothly back as though a hand had
parted them, revealing a small expanse of stars. At the same moment,
heavy, old magic settled around them. Harry struggled to breathe. The
air reeked of dust, of bones, of the tomb. This was magic at least as
ancient as the justice ritual, and as powerful. It turned around him,
tolerating his presence, but focused on Narcissa.

``All the others,'' Narcissa said, voice gone unexpectedly high and
unexpectedly clear, ``say that they came from the earth or the sea, and
they will return to the earth or the sea when they die. Only the Blacks
have retained the core truth, the truth older than all the earths and
all the seas. It was the stars that bore us in the beginning.'' She
raised her wand. White light coursed along her arms, dazzlingly bright.
Harry had to put a hand over his eyes as he squinted.

``Accept this one,'' Narcissa said, her voice growing loud enough to
make the earth appear to shake, ``Sirius Black, elder child of Canopus
Black and Capella Black, elder brother of Regulus Black, proper heir of
the Black line.'' The white light around her twitched, but Narcissa
showed no sign of noticing. "Pureblood wizard, member of Gryffindor
House, Auror, godfather of Harry Potter, who died with the courage of
his convictions. \emph{Accept him now}."

Harry felt as if he stood next to a blazing sun---or a star. The world
around them had turned brilliant, in a way that somehow left room and
space for intense shadows.

Then the light turned flaring blue-white with a touch of silver, and
Narcissa's voice soared in triumph.

``From fire we come, to fire we return,'' she said, and gestured with
her wand. "\emph{Sirius abscondit!}"

A flash of white lightning struck down from the stars, and hit Sirius's
body. It went up with a roar, as if he had been oil-soaked tinder. Harry
took a step back, the magic around him surging forward like the tide to
join with the white lightning in a whirling flow. For a moment, Sirius
was the center of a ring of bowing, dancing flames that seemed to move
like actual, human dancers, to have feet and heads and robes.

Then the heat coalesced into whiteness in the middle, and Harry saw an
enormous dog rear there, like a mirror image of the Padfoot he
remembered, with silvery fur and eyes dark as coals.

The dog melted into Sirius's face, and then into an image that Harry
supposed must be the younger Sirius, running hard as though to escape
from an unseen enemy. Fire melted around him, dripped off like molten
metal falling into a trough, and reshaped itself into the Black coat of
arms, marked with the words \emph{Toujours pur.}

Then the white fire gathered into itself, a whirling ball of spears, and
shot back towards the stars. Harry tilted his head back to watch it go,
blinking away the burning afterimages. He staggered, his weariness
catching up with him, as all the old magic surged after it.

Narcissa's hand caught him, and she murmured, as though she wanted Harry
and no one else to overhear her, ``Named for fire, born in fire, given
to fire. Let the fire end him.''

The stars blazed brilliantly for a moment. His head tilted so far back
that his neck hurt, Harry saw the lightning dart among them for a
moment, seeming to touch each of them with extra light. Then the clouds
rolled back over them, and a loud crack announced the end of the ritual.

Harry closed his eyes. Tears were burning under his eyelids again, but
they seemed to be tears of fierce gladness as much as any sorrow.

``Thank you for allowing me to witness this,'' he murmured.

Narcissa's hand passed briefly along the back of his neck. ``You
asked,'' she murmured. ``The fire accepted him. The Blacks' debt is
repaid.'' Her voice changed, becoming more that of the witch Harry
remembered. ``And if I don't have you back to the hospital wing soon, a
number of people will kill me.'' She tugged him gently in the direction
of Hogwarts.

Harry went. His mind was still stirring with the images he had seen, of
Sirius as Padfoot and an adult and a child, and the fire, and the old
magic\ldots{}

His thoughts felt, oddly, scrubbed clean, as though the fire had
purified them, too. It was the only explanation for why he came up the
bargain he would offer Dumbledore on the walk back.

He climbed into bed, barely remembering to take his glasses off and put
them on the table next to the bed, and heard Narcissa whisper farewell.
Harry muttered something back; it must have been polite enough, because
she left.

He went to sleep smiling.

\chapter{*Chapter 50*: A Voice in the
Darkness}\label{chapter-50-a-voice-in-the-darkness}

Thank you for the reviews yesterday! This is \emph{also} a longer
chapter than normal.

And also, it's the penultimate one. There is one more chapter, which
will be posted tomorrow, and then CooDM is \emph{done}. The fourth book,
{Freedom and Not Peace}, the AU version of GoF, will start a few days
later, definitely before the New Year.

\textbf{Chapter Forty-Four: A Voice in the Darkness}

``Are you certain?'' Connor's eyes were wide, and the hand he clenched
on the edge of the bed shook slightly. ``He managed to arrange
everything in our lives so far. I don't think that he would just back
down and give in because we go to him with a plan.''

``I know,'' said Harry. He swung his legs out of bed and gingerly tested
how well he could stand. Fine, as it turned out, as long as he stretched
out a few cramps before he tried to walk. The journey outside with
Narcissa last night had been a test of his strength, and his mind still
retained the purified feeling, which did him more good than any amount
of bodily rest. ``But I'm going to offer him some poisoned bait that he
won't be able to resist taking.''

Connor shuddered. ``You frighten me when you talk like a Slytherin.''
But he stood up and followed Harry towards the door of the hospital
wing.

``Sometimes I frighten myself,'' Harry admitted. He paused at the door
and smiled at his brother. ``Ready to go see Dumbledore?''

"You \emph{were} planning to stop by the dungeons on your way, I
suppose, Harry?" a voice asked from behind him.

Startled, Harry turned, and then had to brace himself on the wall. He
lifted his chin. ``Professor Snape, sir. I thought that you were at
dinner.''

``I knew about the promise that you made Mr. Malfoy, Harry.'' Snape's
face was utterly devoid of amusement. ``Not to go anywhere without me or
him.''

``I was going with Connor---'' Harry began.

Snape's eyes pierced him. Harry lowered his head, and felt his cheeks
flush. He had already broken the promise last night when he left with
Narcissa, and not thought much about it, in truth. He had known he was
perfectly safe with Narcissa, and why should Draco or Snape object when
his companion was his brother?

He couldn't lie to himself for very long about that, though. Snape
wasn't objecting because Harry was with Connor. He would object to Harry
going to see the Headmaster without him or Draco at his side, though.

``I'm sorry,'' he murmured. "I---I \emph{did} think you were at dinner."

``If I was, then the Headmaster was likely to be at dinner also,'' Snape
reminded him. ``I am certain that he has just now returned to his
office, in fact.'' He cocked his head to the side. Harry saw his eyes
flicker over Connor with easy contempt. That bothered him. \emph{Snape
will have to get used to thinking of my brother as a probable
Boy-Who-Lived, soon. I'll need his help to train him.} ``The Headmaster
and I argued when last I saw him. I will not entrust your safety to
him.''

Harry let out his breath. \emph{Well, if he insists on coming along, the
least he could do is be a guardian to both of us.}

``Very well, sir,'' he said. ``I am grateful that you want to keep both
me and Connor safe.''

Snape frowned at him.

Harry ignored him. Sooner or later, Snape would learn that Harry came
along with his brother, and it was no use trying to separate them. Harry
glanced back at Connor, and did his best to coax back the brave smile
that Snape's presence seemed to have banished.

``Ready, Connor?'' he asked.

Connor nodded slowly. ``I think so. As ready as I can be.''

``Which isn't very,'' Snape said, just loudly enough that Harry heard
him.

Harry put his head up, but kept an eye on Snape as he marched out of the
room. \emph{If he loves me, then he won't care when I ask small things
of him. And one of those small things will be to stop disparaging
Connor's intelligence. Honestly, he's a grown man, a professor, a former
Death Eater who's seen far more of the world than Connor has. Isn't it
about time for him to get over} his \emph{grudges?}


\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
\newpage


Albus started when the knock came on the office door. He had been
expecting it, of course, ever since Severus had swept into the school
holding Harry in his arms, with Connor limping behind him, and a
terrible expression on his face. In fact, he had felt the magical auras
of the wizards in question as they rode up his moving staircase. But
nothing could quite prepare him for this confrontation, it seemed.

He dashed a hand over his beard and sighed. ``Come in.'' It was no use
trying to look like the picture of grandfatherly wisdom with these
three. Connor was the only one who might believe the pretense, and his
brother and Severus would disabuse him of the notion soon enough.

The door opened. Severus came first, his eyes and stride both sharp. He
didn't bother with anything but a cold scowl. Albus accepted that, was
resigned to it by now. Since their argument over Sirius the night he
died, he had known that any claim he might have had on the younger
wizard's loyalty was forever and irrevocably gone.

Connor Potter came next. Albus examined him as neutrally as he could.
The Boy-Who-Lived was pale, and still did not look entirely well.

Behind him came his brother.

The magic that entered the room with Harry was not to be believed.
Rationally, Albus knew he had not grown stronger; though Harry had eaten
magic the night of Voldemort's return, he had not made it part of
himself as he had last year, but thrown it all back out again before it
could become so thoroughly integrated.

But he \emph{felt} stronger, because this time, he was determined to
have his way. If not for his own power, Albus was sure that he would
have felt inclined to agree with Harry. The siren song of his magic was
incredibly attractive, and if Harry had been out of the hospital wing
before this, he would have drawn far more stares and attention than he
already had.

Albus knew he faced an incipient Lord, and more than that, a young
\emph{vates}. The Dementors were gone, and incredibly, there had come no
reports of attacks from anywhere in Britain.

Somehow, Harry had done the impossible.

Albus would have to make peace and truce with him, for the sake of the
future of the wizarding world.

``Headmaster,'' said Harry, taking the central chair in front of the
desk. Severus and Connor sat on either side of him. Albus had conjured
three chairs, all of the proper sizes. There was no use pretending that
he did not know they were coming, or playing the subtler games he might
have tried, forcing them to scramble and look awkward.

Harry, of course, still addressed him by title, but Albus had expected
no less. That was the Slytherin way, the serpent's fang folded back
until it was needed.

He met Harry's eyes steadily. ``Harry.''

Harry cocked his head to the side, and a faint smile appeared on his
face. Albus blinked before he could stop himself. He had expected a flat
list of demands, not this almost coy look.

``You haven't seen Voldemort's Pensieve, have you?'' Harry asked.

Albus kept his face blank as he said, ``Severus has not seen fit to
entrust the information in the Pensieve to me.'' Severus looked smug at
that. It was only a small gesture, but Severus never \emph{had} learned
to stop the lines around his mouth from pulling tight when he was trying
to suppress a smirk. Albus had no intention of enlightening him about
it, either. First, it hadn't been important, and now, it was one of a
few advantages that he had.

If he allowed himself to think about it, Albus knew, he would be
frightened at how few advantages he had in this situation. Not even
Harry's youth was one of them, as it would have been with any other
child.

He rose above the fear, forced it away, shut it out. He had made bad
decisions earlier in the year when he merely reacted. This time, too
much hung on what he did to surrender to emotions. He waited.

``The Pensieve shows the night Voldemort attacked our home,'' said Harry
bluntly. ``He cast two Killing Curses, as you surmised, but the first
one hit me. I reflected it back at him while he was still busy casting
the Killing Curse at Connor. The second one had time to carve my
brother's scar, but nothing more.''

Albus's eyes closed involuntarily.

He had told himself he had not hoped, not after he knew that Harry and
Connor had learned the whole truth, but he knew now that was a lie. Some
distant part of him \emph{had} hoped that the prophecy was still a
trustworthy guide, was still pursuing the path that meant the best
outcome for the wizarding world. And now he knew it was not. Harry was
the one who had defied Voldemort, the one Voldemort had marked.

\emph{Perhaps not,} his impatient thoughts whispered. \emph{There is
still the line about the heart being marked. And Harry's scar is
assuredly not a heart.}

But even if that was true, it was not the certainty that it had been
when Harry was under the influence of the phoenix web and fulfilling
multiple lines of the prophecy. It was a faint and slender thread on
which to hang the hope of the wizarding world.

\emph{Perhaps it is no more than I deserve, however, since I failed to
rid the world of Tom myself, and have always looked to a child to do
so.}

Albus forced his eyes open, and looked at Connor. ``And you saw this, as
well?'' he asked. ``You agree to this?''

He saw the flash of longing in the boy's eyes. He \emph{wanted} to deny
this, oh yes, and turn his back on the truth. It would have been easier.
It would have meant that he could go on being the Boy-Who-Lived, and not
confront what Lily and Albus had done. It would have accorded with the
interpretation of events that he had known all his life. For a moment,
Albus even held his breath. A crack between the twins now might prove
the final shattering of their relationship. It was not ideal, but if
Albus could get Connor away from his brother's influence and insure that
he spent time training in the spells that Light wizards used, then he
might yet make Connor the prophecy's lodestone.

And then Connor Potter proved why he had been Sorted into Gryffindor.

``Yes,'' he said, soft, but entirely clear. ``I know what I saw. I agree
with Harry that he---that he was the one who reflected the Killing
Curse.'' He swallowed. ``Peter told us that either of us might be the
one the prophecy meant, and I agree. It was too vague.'' He looked up at
Albus, and there was the first spark of betrayal in his gaze. ``I never
knew it was that vague. Mum always told me that it was settled. I never
knew that there were so many words that might mean two different
things.''

Albus caught Harry's eyes, and saw the pride and pleasure and triumph on
his face as he looked at his brother. He also saw the disgust on
Severus's face, but he knew better than to think of it as a weapon. For
the moment, at least, Severus was slavishly devoted to Harry, and would
do whatever the boy asked of him---including putting up with a twin in
Gryffindor.

``And you put our lives in danger,'' said Connor abruptly, leaning
forward. "How could you \emph{do} that? Powerful wizards aren't supposed
to put babies in danger. Light wizards don't \emph{do} that."

Albus blinked. He had not thought Connor would make the leap to this
level of accusation so quickly. In retrospect, he supposed, he had been
foolish not to see it. Connor had been quick to accept what was taught
him in the past by adults he trusted. Now it seemed there might be no
adults he trusted left any more, and he would accept what Harry had told
him.

``It was necessary,'' he said. ``We had to know who the prophecy would
choose. This was our best way of limiting it to only two candidates, not
three or more.'' His gaze came back to Harry, and he remembered again
what it had been like to enter that half-shattered room, and feel the
power howling around the twin with the lightning scar. ``And there are
circumstances that you do not know---''

``We do so,'' said Harry, narrowing his eyes. "Peter overheard your
conversation, later, with Mum, when you thought it was safe, and he told
us about it. I know that I took in some of Voldemort's powers, or at
least his magic-eating ability and \emph{then} some of his other powers,
and that's the reason I am the way I am. I know I'm a Parselmouth
because he was, and able to feed on other wizards because he could. I
know \emph{everything}, Headmaster. I know that you planned to raise me
as a guardian to my brother because you feared me. It was the same
reason you put the phoenix web on me, in the end. I don't think that's a
coincidence."

Terror such as he had not known in a long time flashed through Albus's
body. He had trusted in Harry's essential character, chancy as that
might have been, even after he had taken Lily's magic away with the
justice ritual. But the boy looking at him now through cold, considering
eyes might as well have been Tom Riddle come again.

He reached out with his compulsion, trying instinctively to soothe that
anger and turn it away from him.

He met shields piled on shields, raw magic and Occlumency and a series
of wards that the boy seemed to have woven into the very surface of his
skin. Then a great, sliding serpent opened one eye, and Albus felt the
boy's magic-eating ability coiling about his body. In this mood, he
knew, Harry would not simply get rid of the power he swallowed, vomiting
it back up when he had an immediate use for it. He would absorb it into
himself, the way he had done earlier in the year. Harry could become the
most powerful wizard in the world that way, if he wanted to.

"\emph{Don't} try that again," said Harry, his voice gone cold and
distant. ``I don't want to drain you, Headmaster, but try to control me
or my brother, and I will.''

There were the serpent's fangs, then, unfolded. Albus knew he could
expect no help. This was a \emph{vates}. This was a wizard come fully
into his power, and into his independence, and much too young.

\emph{This is the bane we forged,} he thought, gaze locked on Harry's
face, \emph{Lily and I.}

And he saw the same realization in Harry's eyes, mingled with no horror,
simply acceptance, and knew then why Harry had handed him the truth.
Harry was herding him, showing him the possible paths of the future and
closing them off one by one. He intended to block Albus against a cliff,
and then make him choose between jumping or alliance.

\emph{I will choose alliance,} Albus thought. \emph{If he is the
Boy-Who-Lived, I have no choice. If he is a Dark Lord, I must know him
well enough to fight him. If he is a Light Lord, I must be his mentor.
And if he is} vates\ldots{}

\emph{If he is} vates, \emph{I must be ready to ride the windstorm.}

``You have my word, Harry, in the name of Merlin, that it shall not
happen again,'' he said aloud. ``Of course, you know that your mother is
frantic for you, and wishes to have her sons back again.''

``It will not happen again.'' Harry's voice was calm and assured,
without a trace of mockery. ``Connor is going to stay with me for the
summer. He needs an education in things he should have learned long
since.''

\emph{It is rational,} Albus thought, as another gate slammed shut,
\emph{and who could object to it? We trained him so well. Of course he
is the one who can best train his brother, the one who best understands
the challenges that his brother is facing.}

``Can you be sure it will be safe?'' Albus asked, because, shutting off
paths or not, he would play this game to the bitter end. Harry was still
young, and might not have thought of everything. One deadly weakness
that many Slytherins had was the urge to demonstrate their own
cleverness, their own subtlety. Caught up in the desire to do so, Harry
might have left openings he assumed his enemy was too stupid to find.
``There could still be many dangers. The Dementors, for example, now
that they are free from the chains tying them to Azkaban---''

``The Dementors came from nightmares in the beginning,'' Harry
interrupted. ``They told me so. I sent them back into nightmares. I sent
them home.''

Albus felt his eyes close again, but this time he restrained himself to
a long, slow blink. ``They are gone?''

``They are gone,'' said Harry firmly. ``Forever. The Ministry is going
to have to find some new way of guarding Azkaban.'' He smiled at Albus,
all teeth showing, in a way that said he understood the full
consequences for the future, and did not care.

Albus reached for news he had intended to save. Now, while the game was
in motion, might be the one chance he would ever have to throw Harry
off-balance. ``The Ministry will not be happy with you, Harry,'' he
said. ``They are in a mood to crack down on Dark creatures, not see them
free. They have passed the anti-werewolf legislation, did you know? As
of summer solstice, no werewolf will be able to hold a paying job, have
custody of a child, own property, vote, or do many other things.''

Harry's balance never even wavered. ``Then I shall be working to change
that, as well,'' he said. ``But I am sure, Headmaster. The Dementors are
as gone as my mother's magic is, as irretrievable.''

Albus narrowed his eyes. \emph{Time to strike at his wording.} He
ignored his old mentor's voice in his head, the one that said attacking
an enemy's wording was the last refuge of the desperate. ``You say they
told you they came from nightmares. Could they have been lying?''

"They spoke to me as \emph{vates,}" said Harry. ``And they certainly
vanished quickly enough when I released them.''

``Released them?''

``Tore their web apart.''

\emph{He can see the webs. He can see the bindings.} Albus could hardly
breathe for fear. \emph{What web might he decide to tear apart next,
just because he can?}

Harry lifted his lips slightly, not quite a curl, but an expressive
gesture of scorn nonetheless. ``You need not worry, Headmaster,'' he
said. ``I know there are other webs in the wizarding world, but I do not
intend to simply tear them away from their owners without properly
considering the consequences. That includes the webs on house elves, on
phoenixes, on unicorns, on dragons, on all other creatures. If I could
remember to consider the consequences when I was half-dead of
exhaustion, then I can remember to consider the consequences at other
times.''

\emph{He removed the Dementors' web when he was half-dead of
exhaustion.}

And Albus turned the corner, and found the truth waiting for him, the
truth he had never been able to run from for very long.

Harry wasn't just a \emph{vates}, he was someone who had a very good
chance to be a \emph{successful vates.}

He had a chance to succeed where Albus had failed.

The light Albus had considered an inferno in the distance might well be
a sunrise.

He met Harry's eyes, and this time saw the infernal child
\emph{smiling}, as if he could read the truth out of the Headmaster's
face. For all Albus knew, that was something Severus had taught him.

And of course Harry had not left a weakness in his arguments that
depended on his own desire to show off. From the very first, Lily had
cultivated a desire in him \emph{not} to show off, and that meant Harry
had little ambition for himself. But when it came to ambition for
others, he would fling all his considerable power in the direction of
one goal---carefully.

If he had not struggled to prevent this very occurrence for so long,
Albus thought that he might even have welcomed the slender hope as a
strong one.

At any rate, he had made a mistake, the equivalent of several dozen
mistakes, in treating Harry as an enemy. That had to end now, and not
only because Albus wanted access to both boys. He had once killed a Dark
Lord for the love he bore the wizarding world. He wanted to be part of
its future, and, like it or not, Harry was going to be an enormous part
of that future.

``I am inclined to trust your judgment on this matter, Harry,'' he said,
making sure to keep his voice grave. ``What do you want from me?''

``Little that you won't want to give.'' Harry's eyes were direct, his
voice brisk. "I don't want you to tell anyone about the possible truth
of the prophecy, not yet. We don't \emph{know} yet which one of us it's
going to be. But I do want you to tell everyone that the Dementors are
assuredly not coming back. I want you to help us make peace with the
Ministry over that. I want you to tell Mum that neither of us are coming
back unless she manages to gain control of her insanity, and I want you
to stop trying to compel us or force us back under her control---legal
or mental. I want you to stop threatening Connor, and me, and Professor
Snape, and any other of our allies. I want you to take the phoenix web
you put on Peter off him. I want you to stop encouraging subtle
prejudices against Slytherin House. I want you to research why the
Voldemort we faced could have memories of the night his older self
attacked Godric's Hollow." He drew in a deep breath. ``That will do for
a start.''

Albus nodded slowly. Here was the list of demands that he had expected,
but they were more reasonable than he had thought they would be. ``And
in return?'' he asked quietly.

"I will work with you to understand the bindings on the wizarding world,
and what the consequences are of being a \emph{vates}," said Harry, his
gaze open, and calm, and clear. ``I will work to use legal means of
achieving freedom where I can, and not openly antagonize the Ministry;
we need them to win this war. I'll help train Connor. If and when Mum
ever regains control of herself, I'll try to be open to a reconciliation
with her. I won't threaten you or your allies, and will fight to defend
you. I will keep certain things that you want to stay secret---the
phoenix webs, and the truth about what happened to Sirius---silent.'' He
tilted his head. "If it comes down to it, I'll be the Boy-Who-Lived, or
the guardian of the Boy-Who-Lived, and a warrior against Voldemort, and
I'll die in the battles against him. If it comes to that. I plan to
\emph{fight.}"

Severus shifted. Albus's eyes flicked to him, and he saw the disgruntled
expression on the man's face. Harry had not talked to his guardian
before coming up with this list, then, and Severus did not like it.
Severus always had hated to be left out of anything important.

\emph{That might be a weakness I can use later, then,} Albus thought,
but for now he would commit to going ahead. ``I agree,'' he said aloud.
``And, as it happens, I can answer one of your terms immediately.''

"\emph{Can} you?" Harry sounded wary, but interested.

``Yes,'' said Albus, trying to ignore how much Harry sounded like a
classically educated pureblood wizard, and how much that disturbed him.
\emph{We made him into this, Lily and I.} ``I believe I know why
Voldemort's younger selves could draw on his memories. Tom Riddle, as I
knew him, always had much more facility with aggressive probes into
others' minds---Legilimency---than with Occlumency. It is one reason
that Severus was able to survive as a spy, because he was the better
Occlumens.'' On Harry's right side, Severus nodded grudging agreement.
``It is entirely possible that his older self, as he is right now, would
not sense his other selves reaching out to him and leaching bits of
information from his mind. They would have the mental skills to do so,
and the connection necessary to allow it.'' He leaned forward and met
Harry's eyes, because this was another thing he had to know. ``Do you
have such a connection to him with your scar, Harry?''

A brief flicker of his eyes to the right. \emph{It is good to know the
boy can still be startled,} Albus thought. ``Yes,'' said Harry.
``Prophetic dreams, mostly. Nightmares.''

Albus had the feeling Harry wasn't telling the whole truth, but decided
not to push him. He nodded. ``I am not surprised. If and when Voldemort
becomes aware of the link between you, he will use it to good effect,
but a passive draining from his mind is unlikely to be noticed for some
time to come.'' He let out a breath. ``We have a valuable weapon in the
war.''

"\emph{Harry is not a weapon.}"

Albus jumped. He had never heard Severus sound so angry. The words were
barely on the edge of hearing.

``I said I'd fight,'' Harry reminded his guardian.

``You are not a weapon,'' said Snape. His eyes had not left Albus. "You
are a fighter, a leader. There is a difference. And I know how difficult
and dangerous fighting on a mental battlefield is. \emph{I} will be the
one to make the final decision on how you use this link between yourself
and Voldemort, if at all."

Albus inclined his head. \emph{Not such a weakness. I will have to watch
out for him.} ``I quite agree, Severus,'' he said mildly. ``As you will
be watching out for Harry this summer, you may make such decisions
then.''

Severus subsided back into his chair with a viciously triumphant
expression.

``That isn't settled yet,'' Harry protested, sounding fretful for the
first time. ``And I'm a fighter, sir. Not a leader.''

Albus cursed himself for not seeing it before. \emph{There} was his
weakness.

For now, he would go along with Harry. The terms Harry set were
reasonable. He was unlikely to relinquish control of himself or his
brother, and both were necessary for the future of the wizarding world.
Albus had played a part in making him what he was, and in repentance for
that, it was only fair that he listen to Harry. There was even the hope
that Harry might be exactly what the Ministry, Hogwarts, the pureblooded
wizards, and everyone else needed.

But if he was not\ldots{}

Harry had an unusual strength in not caring if he was out in front, in
the collective gaze and worship of the wizarding world.

It was also a natural flaw. Press on it hard enough, and Albus thought
he could gain control if he ever needed it.

\emph{Better not to advertise it,} he advised himself, as Harry and he
swore vows to each other in the name of Merlin. \emph{Much better to
subtly encourage Harry back into the shadows---should I need to.}


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\newpage


Harry paused and eyed the portrait of the Fat Lady. ``I know that
Hermione forgave me,'' he said, ``but how do the rest of your Housemates
feel about me right now, Connor? I don't want to be walking into a nest
of Gryffindors convinced that all Slytherins are slimy snakes.''

Connor snorted and shook his head. ``Someone said that the other day,
and Hermione scolded them until they shut up.'' He tugged on Harry's
arm. ``Come on. Snape said I could spend some time with you.'' Connor
frowned at that, and Harry did, too. Snape was still being utterly
unreasonable, and saying that he wanted Harry to spend the summer with
him, and Draco at most, while Connor went away---where didn't matter, as
long as it wasn't Hogwarts. ``And I don't feel as comfortable in the
dungeons or the hospital wing as I do in Gryffindor Tower.''

Well, that was understandable. Harry nodded, and Connor whispered,
``Honeybee!'' to the portrait, which swung open.

It quickly became apparent, as they stepped into the middle of the
Gryffindor common room, that a lone Slytherin would be of no concern.
Instead, most of the Gryffindors were watching in fascination as the
Weasley family apparently attacked itself.

"How \emph{could} you do that, Percy!" Ron's face was as red as his
hair. "You \emph{know} that Dad tried so hard to get that position for
you, and---"

``That position isn't worth what he would have paid for it, if he
actually had money,'' Percy interrupted. Harry had never heard his voice
so cold and distant. Admittedly, he didn't know the third Weasley
brother that well, but Percy had always sounded passionate when he
scolded people for breaking the rules. This sounded as though he were
trying to imitate Draco. "Mr. Crouch has offered me a \emph{very} good
position. Testing the thickness of cauldron bottoms is \emph{very}
important."

``You're a self-important bastard for accepting it when you turned down
Dad's job!'' Ron howled, and his face turned redder yet.

It seemed as if he would lunge at Percy, but the twins got there first.
A whispered charm from the twin whom Harry thought was Fred Weasley, and
a bright purple light limned Percy's body and shrunk his robes. From the
slightly cross-eyed expression on Percy's face, they'd shrunk absolutely
\emph{everywhere.}

``I don't have time to argue with you,'' said Percy, in a lofty tone
ruined a bit by his breathlessness. ``I didn't expect you to understand,
Ron, or you either, Fred and George.'' He turned and looked across the
common room. ``I thought Ginny might.''

Harry turned to look at the youngest Weasley, who was sitting at the
bottom of the stairs that led up to the girls' rooms. She lifted her
chin at all the attention focused on her, but, surprisingly, didn't
blush.

``Family matters to me, Percy,'' she said quietly. ``I don't see how you
can turn your back on Dad.''

``That's only because no one understands the brilliance of the position
I've been offered!'' Percy's fingers were shaking as he fumbled with his
Head Boy badge. ``D'you see this? I've got the chance to do things that
no one else in the family has ever done before, climb to heights that
Dad never will, stuck in Misuse of Muggle Artifacts the rest of his
life---''

"You sound like a \emph{Slytherin}, Percy," Ginny said.

Percy's face went pale, then flushed red, and then he slammed his mouth
shut. He turned his back and stalked out of the room, shoving the
portrait open to an indignant squeal from the Fat Lady. Harry heard the
clipped sound of his footfalls up the hall for a moment before they
faded.

Harry half-closed his eyes. Percy \emph{had} sounded like a Slytherin,
but he had also sounded as if he were under strain, as if pursuing his
ambition were costing him something, which was something a Slytherin
wouldn't do.

``I'm going to go after him,'' he murmured to Connor.

``But---'' Connor protested.

Harry gestured to Ron, who looked as if he were about to put his fist
through the wall. ``I think Ron needs you right now,'' he said. ``I'll
come right back after I've talked to Percy, I promise. But something's
not right.''

Connor nodded reluctantly, and then went to comfort Ron. Harry strode
out the portrait hole, taking the time to apologize to the Fat Lady for
the rough way he'd opened it, and then looked up and down the hall.

He saw Percy's shadow vanishing around the right-hand corner, and
hurried after it. He caught up with him on a turn of the staircase.
Percy was walking rapidly, his head down and his cheeks burning, and his
hands clenched hard enough at his sides that his nails were drawing
blood from his palms.

Pitching his voice to sound loud, Harry said, ``I don't know if anyone
else will think about it, but I'm not convinced by your performance in
there.''

Percy jumped, flinched, and slowly turned around. His face was so
distraught that Harry nodded. That was a performance, nothing else. Of
course, then he had to think why a Weasley would wish to alienate his
family.

Harry knew the answer as soon as he recalled the way that Dumbledore had
trusted Percy to spy on him last year, and the way that Percy had
effortlessly brought him to the Headmaster's office the moment he
suspected Harry of wrongdoing.

``Dumbledore asked you to do this, didn't he.''

Perhaps because he didn't make it a question, Percy simply gave in. His
body sagged against the wall, and he ran his hand through his hair, a
disordered gesture that Ron was more accustomed to making, in Harry's
experience. ``Yes,'' he whispered, looking away.

Harry shook his head slightly. ``Why?''

"The Ministry's cracking down on \emph{everyone,}" Percy whispered.
``Dumbledore saw the first signs of it last year, even the summer before
last year, and started sending me post. He asked me if I would be
willing to pretend to abandon my family for the sake of a post in the
Ministry, if they offered it to me. And they did.'' He laughed
humorlessly. ``My father has a reputation there, you know, and no one
else would ever think of me as anything other than a Weasley if I didn't
detach myself from him. No one would ever trust me, ever spill secrets
around me. But a Weasley who wants to make a name for
himself\ldots{}well, of course that's understandable. My family's poor.
Of course they would think that I might want to be wealthier, and to
give up a name that doesn't mean anything but a foolish reputation for
courage and honor.'' Percy closed his eyes tightly. ``And being an
assistant to Mr. Crouch is a plausible first step for a young man who
wants to make a name for himself. He has a reputation, too, and it used
to be a good one. And it's a plausible first step for a deep-cover spy
for the Order of the Phoenix, which Dumbledore has asked me to be.''

Harry felt anger lash to life in him. \emph{Another sacrifice. Does
Dumbledore never} stop?

``You could tell your family what's really going on,'' he suggested.
``I'm sure they'd understand.''

Percy shook his head at once. ``The twins, Ron, and Ginny are too young
to understand why it's necessary,'' he whispered. "And my mum---I know
you only met her the once, Harry, but can you \emph{honestly} see her
agree to treat me coldly when it looks like I've never done anything to
hurt her? Can you see her agree to stop sending me jumpers for
Christmas, or inviting me home for the holidays?"

Harry had, reluctantly, to shake his head. It was true that he had met
Mrs. Weasley only the once, but she hadn't struck him as a good actor.

``My father is as transparent as ice,'' said Percy. "He can't keep
\emph{any} emotion off his face. It's one reason he hasn't advanced. He
wouldn't be able to stop grinning and winking at me.

``Bill and Charlie might understand, and I might be able to tell them,
but I'll have to wait and see. If nothing else, being in communication
with them too much might damage my reputation. They're still Weasleys.''
Percy sighed and rubbed at his eyes, which were marked with too many
sleepless nights. ``So, for now, I tell no one. I go deep-cover, and
seem utterly and entirely trustworthy, so that Dumbledore can have eyes
in the Ministry.''

Harry took a deep breath. He had to know. ``Percy, did Dumbledore ever
use a phoenix web on you?''

Percy shook his head at once. ``No. Only persuasion. That's why it took
me so long. I had to debate for almost two years before I could convince
myself to abandon my family for the Order's cause.'' He smiled sadly.
``That sounds terrible, doesn't it? But it's what I've decided to do.''

He looked directly at Harry. ``Don't tell them, please.''

Harry nodded. He understood why Percy had stomped out at Ginny's
Slytherin comment. He \emph{was} being a Gryffindor, choosing a lonely
path out of the courage of his convictions, but he couldn't tell his
family that.

Percy turned and started down the stairs again, then paused. ``You've
seen V-Voldemort,'' he said, forcing the name out. ``He's coming back,
isn't he?''

Harry nodded again.

Percy glanced at him over his shoulder. ``Well, then,'' he said. ``I'm
hardly some great battle wizard. My greatest skill is observing. If I
can help the Second War by being a spy, I will.''

He went down the stairs.

Harry leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes for a moment.
He was wondering what he should do with the new knowledge. On the one
hand, he had promised not to interfere with or threaten Dumbledore's
allies, and this definitely fell under that category. And Harry had no
reason to be particularly pleased with the Ministry himself, lately.

On the other hand, this was Dumbledore mucking about in the Ministry,
\emph{again}, and Harry knew someone who would be very, very interested
in that information.

And Percy was being a sacrifice, when Dumbledore could have worked out
some way to do it that was easier on Percy's mind and heart.

Harry smiled a bit, grimly, as he straightened. He would send a letter
to Scrimgeour advising him to watch Percy, and see if he might be
persuaded to try different tactics, rather than outright exposing him as
a spy or feeding him false information. Dumbledore would no doubt be
thrilled to have a spy in the Auror Office itself. Percy would believe
he was getting somewhere. Scrimgeour would know where the mucking about
was coming from and be able to act at his discretion.

\emph{Everyone wins,} Harry thought, and made his way back to the
Gryffindor Tower, and his twin.


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\newpage


``I'm so sorry, Remus.''

Remus shot Harry a faint smile as he packed up his belongings. ``There
was nothing you could have done, Harry,'' he said, sounding as if he
wanted Harry to understand that he did not blame him. ``The Ministry
shoved the legislation through overnight, using a secret meeting of
their supporters, the kind that hasn't been called in a hundred years.
Everyone forgot that law was on the books.'' He sighed. ``And now I
won't be able to teach here again.''

\emph{Or hold any other paying job,} Harry thought, and fumed silently
at the unfairness of it all. If nothing else, he was sure that
Dumbledore would try to use Remus for spy and scut work, just because he
would want to feel that he was useful to the Order.

``Remus, about Sirius---'' he began.

``I did my mourning already, Harry,'' Remus interrupted, his voice calm
but firm. ``Please. I went out under the full moon and ran myself
exhausted.'' His eyes caught Harry's, asking in silence for Harry to
drop it. Harry nodded, and Remus continued, ``I'm more worried about
you, and Connor. How are you doing with Sirius's death?''

Harry sighed. He had promised to be more open about his emotions, but
that was with Draco and Snape. On the other hand, Remus did care about
him, and he wanted to speak, for once.

``It's hard,'' he said quietly. ``I expect to turn a corner and see him
coming towards me any day. And then I find myself thinking of him as an
enemy, and wanting to destroy him.''

``Don't worry, Harry,'' Remus said. ``He would have understood. And he
did some good with his death.'' Harry had made sure that Remus
understood the full story of the Shrieking Shack, both Sirius's death
and what had happened at Godric's Hollow. ``He made it possible for you
to know the truth.'' Remus's eyes glittered. ``I think he would enjoy
what is going to happen now, with you and Connor more in accord, and
Dumbledore prevented from giving you any more of the same help that was
so ineffective with Sirius.''

Harry nodded. ``Thank you, Remus.'' And some of the pain was easing.
``How much did you know about his life?''

Remus shook his head. ``A great deal about his childhood. And Regulus,
of course. But nothing about the last few years, that he was suffering
from nightmares, or that the curse had never broken.'' Remus sighed and
closed his eyes briefly. Harry could see the marks of the strain from
the full moon two nights ago clearly etched on his face. ``I can see why
he didn't want to tell me. It took him forever to tell me the truth
about the night he ran away from home and went to James's house.''

``Why?'' Harry whispered. ``What happened?''

``His parents tried to compel him to join the Death Eaters,'' Remus
said. ``He broke free of chains and mental compulsion, both, and hurt
his mother---badly enough that she was bedridden for the rest of her
life---and ran.''

Harry winced. \emph{And in the end, he was a Death Eater, sort of, all
the same.}

He pushed the thought forcibly away. Sirius was at rest now, and that
was all that mattered.

``I want you to stay with us for the summer,'' he told Remus, to take
his mind off things.

Remus snorted as he placed an illustrated chart of the moon's phases
carefully into his trunk. ``And has anyone decided where you'll be
staying for the summer, yet?''

Harry flushed. No, they had not. He was insistent that Connor stay with
him. Snape was equally insistent that he would welcome no Potter brat
into his quarters, unless it happened to be the Potter brat he was
guardian of, and Draco had made it icily clear that his parents'
invitation extended only to Harry. It was the last day of school
tomorrow, the day that everyone would normally leave on the Hogwarts
Express, and \emph{still} nothing had been decided.

Remus chuckled. ``I didn't think so. If you do decide on somewhere,
Harry, let me know. For now, I've got some places to go in London, and
they'll serve for a few weeks.''

``What kinds of places?'' Harry asked, interested.

Remus's eyes slid away from his. ``Not my secret to tell, Harry,'' he
said. ``Werewolf places.''

Harry nodded, understanding and letting it go. He wasn't a werewolf, and
couldn't really understand what it was like, to have that
compulsion-driven beast roaring inside him. If Remus had some contacts
among werewolves that he felt he couldn't share, Harry would respect his
privacy. ``I'll let you know,'' he said, and leaped up to go through the
door.

\emph{I remember that}.

Harry blinked. The voice in the back of his head had not spoken in
several days, and he thought it had left him. But no, it was still
there, and now it was speaking in a rush, its words spilling over each
other.

\emph{There was so much shouting. There was so much pain. Then the magic
flared, and I knew that someone had been crippled. I didn't know who.}

\emph{That's it. That's what it was. I know my name now! My name is
Regulus Black.}

Harry gasped and had to lean against the wall. He heard Remus's anxious
question of, ``Harry? Harry, are you all right?'' but couldn't answer,
staring stunned as Regulus's voice whispered rapidly to itself.

\emph{I stole the Dark Lord's locket, but I didn't make it far. I only
had time to hide it in 12 Grimmauld Place, not to destroy it. He
captured me and made me suffer with the curse, and let Sirius feel it.
Oh, the} pain. Harry could feel a mental shudder, and hoped that Regulus
was not about to go mad or douse him with the pain again, but Regulus
recovered after a moment and soldiered on.

\emph{I suffered for years. I don't know where I am, but I suffered. The
Dark Lord didn't kill me, but shut me up somewhere and left me alive to
suffer. That's what Sirius felt. That's why it was so intense.}

\emph{But then the other fragment of the Dark Lord took over Sirius's
mind from the locket and threw me out, because I was a link to his older
self and he didn't need me any more. My web was broken, and I was
drifting. I was attracted to your mind, and Snape's, and Peter's, and
your brother's, and other people's, because they had a connection to the
Dark Lord, but the pain had been so intense I couldn't remember anything
for a long time.}

\emph{But now I do. Now I remember.}

Harry gulped, and managed to refocus. At least one minor mystery had
been solved, then. All the wards on 12 Grimmauld Place had slammed shut
and locked tight because Regulus, the family's chosen heir, was still
alive, and he hadn't given permission for his cousin to access the
house.

\emph{Do you know where you are?} he asked.

There was long silence, and then an embarrassed, \emph{Um. No. It's just
dark, wherever it is.}

\emph{Are you hurting right now?} Harry demanded. \emph{We have to get
you out of there. Why haven't you starved to death?}

\emph{The spells the Dark Lord cast.} Regulus sounded almost dismissive.
\emph{They keep me alive, but I can't move, and I don't know where I am,
and I'm not hurting right now. I haven't hurt since the Dark Lord threw
me out of my brother's mind.} His voice abruptly dipped. \emph{My
brother is dead.}

``We'll find you,'' Harry whispered. ``We'll do what we can to find
you.''

``Harry? Who are you talking to?''

Harry looked Remus in the eye, finally, and smiled a little.
``Regulus.''

After that came a hell of a lot of explanation, and fetching of Snape,
who yelled, and Draco, who yelled some more, and Connor, who found the
whole thing odd. But Harry had made a promise, and he meant to keep it.
He was going to find Regulus, and he was going to free him.

\emph{I promise}, he thought, and Regulus responded with a wistful,
eager note in his voice.

\emph{It would be nice to see the sun again.}


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\newpage


Harry woke slowly. Someone was shaking his shoulder, and it was the
middle of the night. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, and heard Fawkes chirp
in disgust as the bed shifted, plunging his head further beneath his
wing.

``Harry.'' Draco's face was pale, with a note of strain in his voice
that Harry didn't understand until the next words. ``Your father's here.
He says that he'd like to see you.''

\chapter{*Chapter 51*: A Conversation With
James}\label{chapter-51-a-conversation-with-james}

Thank you for the reviews yesterday!

And here we go! This is the very \emph{last} chapter of {Comes Out of
Darkness Morn}. The next story, the fourth year, will be called {Freedom
and Not Peace}, and will be posted in a few days---I'm unsure of the
exact date, but definitely before the New Year. For everyone who's read
so far, thank you for coming on the journey, and I hope to see you next
story, too!

Happy holidays!

\textbf{Chapter Forty-Five: A Conversation With James}

Harry stopped outside the hospital wing and tried to slow his beating
heart. Apparently, James had come into the hospital wing first, under
the impression that his sons were still there, and woken Madam Pomfrey,
who had woken the Headmaster, who had woken the Slytherin and Gryffindor
Prefects, who had woken Draco and Percy Weasley. Draco had explained
this to Harry as he struggled into his Slytherin robes and tried to wipe
the sleep from his eyes. Harry had reached the hospital wing first, and
was trying to figure out what he would say to his father, as well as
when Connor would get here.

``Harry?''

\emph{Too late,} Harry thought, and turned around to clasp Connor's
hand. "Dad \emph{is} here," he said, to answer the question he saw on
his twin's face. ``But I want you to remember that we don't have to go
anywhere with him, not when he hasn't made an attempt to contact us for
months.''

Connor gnawed his lip. ``The Ministry---''

``Can only use legal solutions,'' said Harry.

Connor blinked at him. ``I always thought legal solutions were pretty
powerful,'' he said quietly.

Harry leaned against his brother and let his magic rise from its bonds,
swirling around him. ``That's what the Headmaster thought, too,'' he
said. "I know someone in the Ministry who managed to resist him. And you
were there when I negotiated with Dumbledore, Connor. I meant what I
said. I won't let him hurt us. I won't let \emph{anyone} hurt us." He
met Connor's eyes and waited.

Connor swallowed. ``And that includes Dad.''

Harry nodded.

Connor took a deep breath. ``All right. If you think that he can't force
us apart or do anything, then I'll go in with you and talk to him.'' He
glanced at Harry with a faint smile. ``It's awfully nice to know that I
have someone like you at my back, instead of across the room from me.''

Harry inclined his head, and didn't say what he'd been thinking.
\emph{You've always had me at your back, brother, standing at your right
shoulder. Even when you thought you didn't, or didn't know you did, I
was here.}

He reached out and opened the door of the hospital wing.


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\newpage


James ran a hand down his face and told himself that he wasn't afraid of
his own sons, damn it, and that he was \emph{too} awake enough to handle
this confrontation.

The reality was that he'd finished the last confrontation with himself,
learned the last truth he thought he needed to know to be a good father,
and rushed to Hogwarts before sleep could dull the insights to mere
baubles of glass from the clear diamonds they were now.

A spark popped in the grate, and he whirled. Madam Pomfrey, who was on
her way back to bed, paused and eyed him sternly.

``I won't have you frightening those boys,'' she said.

James nodded, then realized how the motion would look---as if his head
were some puppet on strings---and forced himself to repeat it more
smoothly. His parents hadn't believed in most of the pureblood dances
used by Dark wizards, but they had taught him a good deal about the
importance of proper posture. He gave the nurse his Head Boy smile, the
one that had got him out of more trouble in seventh year than anyone
would ever know. ``I promise, Madam Pomfrey. I just want a little time
to speak to them, and convince them to give me a second chance if I can.
If I can't, I'll go, I promise.'' He knew how fragile this chance was,
how easily he could mess it up.

Madam Pomfrey snorted a bit, but her face softened. ``I do like to see
families reunited,'' she said. "I saw enough of them torn apart in the
War. But be \emph{careful} with them, Mr. Potter. I mean it."

James closed his eyes tightly and nodded. He would be. The
confrontations with himself he'd fired in Lux Aeterna had shown him
exactly how many chances he'd let slip through his fingers in the past,
how much care he'd needed and failed to exercise.

He heard the matron move past him and to her bedroom, shutting the door
behind her. Then he opened his eyes and looked at the door. Dumbledore
had assured him that his sons had been told of his presence, and that
his best course was to stay in the hospital wing until they could be
summoned, one from the dungeons, one from Gryffindor Tower.

\emph{Remember that,} James chided himself. \emph{One of them comes from
the dungeons. Harry is Slytherin, and you're only going to hurt him and
yourself if you forget that, or try to pretend that he can be Re-Sorted,
or any of the other nonsense you've been up to.}

The door to the hospital wing swung open.

James felt his eyes widen and a tide of nervous sweat break out on his
brow, but he waited patiently.

His sons came through.

Harry was slightly in the lead, his head up and his eyes fixed on his
father. He moved like an Auror, James thought, recalling that part of
his training. One important aspect was to look straight into the
suspect's eyes, and never reveal that one was nervous or upset or
worried. Harry was better at it than he had ever been.

Behind Harry came Connor, his hazel eyes shuttered in a way that James
had never seen them, his steps shuffling. Of course, part of that could
come from the lateness of the hour, James thought.

``Father,'' said Harry, his voice the very epitome of polite address to
a stranger. ``Thank you for coming. We were anxious to know what you
would do.'' He paused and tilted his head to the side. James wondered if
he was looking for wards, or spells, or perhaps simply the location of
his father's wand.

James nodded jerkily. ``I---I was thinking,'' he said.

``About what?'' Harry's face was blank.

James took a long, deep breath. This was not going to be simple to
explain, but his sons deserved no less, given how long he had spent
away. ``Sit down, please, boys,'' he said, and led them to two hospital
beds. Connor scrambled readily into his. Harry watched James.

``Are you going to pace?'' he asked.

James blinked at him. ``I---yes, probably.''

As if that were the answer he were waiting for, Harry nodded and
scrambled into the bed James had indicated. James stifled any suspicion
that wanted to rise. He understood almost nothing about Harry at all. At
least he \emph{knew} that, now.

James began pacing, completing two circuits in front of the beds before
he nerved himself to speak. ``Have you ever heard of Lux Aeterna?''

Connor blinked and shook his head. Harry said softly, ``I know it was a
Potter estate. But I thought it was sold when you and Mother went into
hiding with us---that you wanted to have the money ready, and not risk
having a property where Voldemort could attack us.''

James shook his head. ``That was only a ruse. In reality, the person who
bought it was an---alternative of me. Lux Aeterna can't be sold. It's
linked to the Potter bloodline. It's not the place our line was born or
gained its name, but it's the place where we became linked to the Light,
and made our major choices, and store most of our artifacts.'' He took a
long breath. ``It's a linchpin, boys.''

Connor continued to look blank. On the other hand, Harry looked as if he
didn't know whether to be impressed or frightened.

``I never knew that we had one,'' he whispered.

James nodded. It looked as though this wasn't going to be as bad as he
had feared. Connor didn't know anything and could be eased into
understanding, and Harry wasn't screaming his head off at the first
mention of linchpins, which James wouldn't have been surprised about,
considering the bindings Lily and Dumbledore had put on him. ``We do.
It's not a fact we advertise, given how easily our enemies could damage
us if they knew about it, but there you are.''

Harry nodded thoughtfully. Connor looked back and forth from his brother
to his father, and finally burst out, "What \emph{is} a linchpin?"

``An estate linked to a bloodline,'' Harry whispered. "More to the
point, linked to a---a major \emph{site} of that bloodline. It could be
a place where they won a battle, or a place where they chose to be Light
or Dark and committed their family to that allegiance, or a place where
all their children were born. It can't be sold. It can't be given away.
It anchors the family, insures they have a source of magical strength to
draw on if all is lost, but it demands things from them, too. If the
linchpin is ever attacked when the family isn't there, then it draws
strength from the family to support itself. It might drain all of us in
maintaining its wards." Harry looked up and met James's eyes. He had
settled for looking terribly, gravely impressed. ``I can see why you and
Mother didn't want to hide there. Voldemort might have had enough
strength to drain us even if we were behind the wards, or to shatter the
linchpin itself.''

James nodded, then hesitated. He had to continue the story, but there
was something he needed to know first, and he was no Slytherin, to
determine the emotions reliably from the boy's voice. Nor was he an
Auror, or at least he was one long out of practice. ``Harry,'' he said,
``how do you feel about Lily right now?''

``I don't ever want to see her again,'' said Harry equitably. ``She
damaged me too much for me to be neutral towards her, and she encouraged
Connor to get me back under control again.'' For a moment, temper flamed
in his green eyes. James refrained from mentioning how much he looked
like his mother when he did that. ``Maybe, sometime in the future, I
could be in the same house with her without wanting to destroy the
house.''

James nodded. It was about the answer he had expected, and it
effectively nixed the plan he might have tried if Harry had felt able to
see Lily again. \emph{Very well. I'll do the other.}

``I went to Lux Aeterna because I knew it was the best place for
thinking,'' said James. ``And no one could come after me there. I'm the
Potter heir, and if I want other people to stay out, they stay out.'' He
let out a long breath.

``I thought, and I thought, and I thought. The only person I wrote to
was Remus. I couldn't trust myself to be civil to Lily or Dumbledore,
not after seeing what they'd done to you, Harry.'' He met his elder
son's eyes for a moment, then looked away. "I didn't know what to do
about Sirius, and I \emph{still} feel so embarrassed about Peter that I
don't know whether he would welcome a letter from me or not. And you
boys were what I needed to make up my mind about. What had I done wrong,
and how could I prevent it from ever happening again?

``In the end, I knew it wasn't working. I'd thought, and still I found
myself getting stuck in corners. I'd hurt you by being there, but I was
hurting you further by staying away. I'd made mistakes in the past, but
I had no guarantee that I wouldn't make mistakes in the future.''

``We don't expect you to be perfect, Dad.'' It was Connor who said that,
offering him a fragile smile. ``We wanted you to be there most of all.''

James inclined his head, feeling as though someone had just breathed all
the air in his lungs. ``I don't deserve that level of confidence, son,''
he murmured. ``Or, at least, I didn't. And I knew I didn't. I could so
easily see what I'd been, a rabbit---''

Harry started at that word, for some reason. James eyed him and waited,
but when Harry said nothing, James decided it was nothing his boy wanted
to share right now and went on.

"But I could see that I'd fall right back into being that if Lily asked
me sweetly enough. She convinced me to \emph{stay away} from one of my
sons when he was hurt from being possessed by Voldemort." James shook
his head. ``And Albus is worse. Albus has the compulsion gift.''

``I thought maybe Mum did, too,'' said Connor then, and drew his knees
up to his chin. ``Where else did I get it?''

``One of my ancestors had it,'' said James gently, figuring he could
give Connor at least this much. It was one thing he wanted to give his
boys, after all: a taste of their heritage. ``It comes from the Potter
line, not your mother's.''

Connor nodded.

``No,'' said James quietly, ``all she had was her words, and the fact
that I loved her.'' He blinked. Quite suddenly, the night he'd returned
home to find his sons both bleeding from scars on their foreheads seemed
vivid before him. He shook his head. He had been tempted to say it was
the night that started this whole mess, but that wasn't true. He'd been
what he was long before that night. ``I still do,'' he added.

``So do I,'' said Harry.

James grunted, feeling as though a centaur had kicked him in the chest.
Hearing that from Harry only reminded him of how very, very hard this
all was. He wanted to sit down.

But he'd decided that he had to keep on his feet through the whole
thing. He best expressed his nervous energy when he was pacing. And he'd
be ready to leave, quickly, if Harry or Connor rejected the gift he was
going to offer them.

He resumed his story. ``I decided there was only one thing I could do,
even though it meant staying away from you boys even longer. At least I
knew, once it was done, that there was no turning back.''

``How?'' Harry asked. ``Did you make an Unbreakable Vow?''

James shook his head.

``A ritual of some kind?'' Connor added.

James shook his head again. ``I went into one of the artifacts in Lux
Aeterna,'' he said. ``I knew that when I came out of it I'd be either a
fit father, because I would have seen and confronted every one of my
faults and resolved to overcome it, or I'd be dead.''

Connor paled and stared at him. Harry frowned.

``And you thought we'd like having a dead father?'' he asked.

James flinched. He had to admit, he hadn't thought of it quite that way.
There were still ways in which he needed to work to understand Harry.
Harry went straight for weaknesses in his armor that a Gryffindor would
have ignored or considered excused by his courage.

``Not really, no,'' James admitted. ``But I could literally think of
nothing else, Harry. If I'd had someone with me, then perhaps I wouldn't
have done it. But I'd spent a few months in isolation by then, outside
of the one letter to Remus, and I think I went a bit crazy. I was sure
that my dying would cause you pain, but so would my staying alive
unchanged, and I couldn't think of a way to change. And at least, if I
died, then Lily and Dumbledore couldn't use me as leverage against you.
So I entered the Maze.''

Harry sat up abruptly. ``You must have sent one more letter, at least,''
he said. ``Snape mentioned a maze.''

James inclined his head, and stifled the irritation that squirmed inside
him at the thought of Snape anywhere near his son. That was another
thing he would have to get past, for Harry's sake, since he doubted his
son would give up his guardian. ``I did. The Maze is a long labyrinth,
which showed me something of what's going on in the outside world---but
only what would enhance my facing my mistakes, never anything that would
detract from it. I knew when you shed your phoenix web, Harry, and what
you boys faced in regards to Voldemort. That was near the end, so I was
able to send a letter saying that I'd see you soon. I sent it to Remus.
I think he must have shared it with Snape.''

Harry nodded, but not as though he knew, rather as though he were too
absorbed in the tale to doubt what James was telling him.

``The Maze was---not too bad,'' said James. That wasn't strictly true.
It had been beautiful, and horrible, but the end result was ``not too
bad.'' What he had told his sons was the bare bones of the truth. The
Maze had plopped him straight down in front of his mistakes, and refused
to let him look away, either from the mistakes themselves or the
consequences of them. He'd had to watch what happened when he loved his
wife more than either of his sons, when he loved Connor more than Harry.
He could tell them that, and would, but they would never understand
unless they entered the Maze for themselves, and James hoped to Merlin
they never would. ``It did what I was hoping for. It showed me how I had
to change.''

``How?'' Harry asked.

James paced twice across the room before he answered again. He felt as
though his heart were about to burst out of him, still alive, and hang
in the air, for his sons to reach out and crush with a touch. This was
the moment that all his plans for the last months hung on.

``It showed me that I needed to consider you boys and your welfare
before my love for Lily, or my own peace of mind,'' he said. ``Being a
parent is supposed to be difficult and painful, and I'd been avoiding
that. It showed me that I was being a coward, hiding from my own
capacity for Dark behavior.'' Harry caught his eye then, and James
nodded to him. To Harry and Harry alone, he'd revealed the tale of how
he'd snapped and tortured Bellatrix Lestrange, probably making her
insane before she ever went to Azkaban. "It showed me that I can't win
Light by hiding while others do all the work, or glancing aside from
things I don't want to see. I've lost my wife, at least for now, and my
trust in my mentor, and two of my best friends from school, because I
didn't want to \emph{see.}" He felt tears in his eyes, and wiped at them
angrily. \emph{I promised myself I wouldn't cry while I did this, Merlin
take me.} ``I'm not going to lose any more.''

``And how specifically do we figure into it?'' Harry was leaning
forward.

James faced him. ``You know a lot about the pureblood dances and the
traditions that the Dark wizards use, Harry,'' he said. "But you don't
know anything about the rituals and traditions that the Light wizards
use, and I think you should. That's your heritage, too. The Potters have
been declared Light wizards for two generations, and acted in accordance
with the Light and followed Light Lords for a lot longer than that. You
don't know \emph{anything} about that. You should." He turned and held
Connor's eyes. ``And you, too. You're both Potters. I've forgotten that
for too long.''

Harry nodded, he could see from the corner of his eye. Connor caught his
brother's eye and nodded, too.

James gnawed his lip. \emph{First Snitch caught.} ``And I know that you
both need some place to heal,'' he said. ``Sirius\ldots{}'' He didn't
know how much he could say about Sirius without babbling like a fool, so
he restricted himself to saying, "Sirius. And Voldemort, Merlin damn
him, from both last year and this one. I want you to have some time to
recover.

"Some time to \emph{play,"} he added, thinking about the house in
Godric's Hollow, shut behind isolation wards. Harry and Connor had had
only each other to play with, aside from Sirius and Remus and sometimes
James, who almost never played with Harry. Harry was always reading, and
James couldn't understand that (he'd almost thought the boy would end up
in Ravenclaw, sometimes). Now, of course, he knew why Harry had been
reading all the time, and he found himself sick at the thought of it.
``Some time to stop living in fear, as though Voldemort were everywhere
you looked, and to be normal children.''

Connor nodded, his eyes shining. Harry looked as if he might object.

``I want to take you both to Lux Aeterna for the summer,'' said James.
``You can learn about the Potters there, and your heritage. You can fly
all you want, and you can have friends come over and visit safely, the
way we couldn't at Godric's Hollow.'' \emph{Because of Lily's paranoia,}
he wanted to say, but it had been his paranoia, too. If he didn't have
to face anything Dark, then he didn't have to consider that he might be
Dark himself. ``You can be together, and safe from the Death Eaters. Lux
Aeterna's wards will see to that. And I'm going to ask Remus to come
with us.''

He met their eyes and steeled himself. This was the part he had to ask,
that he'd promised himself he'd say, but he wanted to run from the room
anyway.

``And you'll be with me,'' he said softly. ``I can be a real father to
you, for the first time in my life.''

Connor's face was lit and blazing now. James allowed himself to bask in
that for just a moment. In truth, he hadn't expected much argument from
Connor, though the Maze had shown him so bluntly how much he
misunderstood his sons that he'd wondered.

He turned and looked at Harry.

Harry's eyes were dark green, like Lily's when she worried, and he was
frowning. His lightning bolt scar stood out on his brow as he moved his
forehead so that his hair tossed aside. The Maze had told James what
that scar had meant, too, and Dumbledore had confirmed it in the brief
moment he'd spoken with him via firecall. James thought Albus had meant
the mention of it to scare him. It'd only made him more determined,
instead.

``Could Draco visit?'' Harry asked, carefully.

James gave him the truth. ``If the wards will accept him. Someone who's
drenched in too much Dark magic may not be able to pass them.''

Harry looked at him, neutral. ``I'm drenched in Dark magic.''

``But you're a Potter,'' said James. ``Your blood will permit you
through, unless you turn fully and irrevocably to the Dark and are cast
out of the family. No Malfoy has that guarantee.''

Harry nodded. ``And Professor Snape?''

``I don't know,'' James admitted. ``A linchpin can be temperamental,
Harry, if its scion is. And I don't like Snape, so Lux Aeterna might
forbid him entrance because of that.''

``I know,'' said Harry. ``I'm not asking you to guarantee that you'll
change your heart. I'm asking you if you'd agree to let him visit, and
Draco too, if he can.''

James wanted to close his eyes. Harry was an adult in everything but age
and height. \emph{What have we done to him?}

But he knew that in intimate detail, after walking the Maze, so he
didn't have to spend long on the question. The important thing was
getting to know his son now, and he would hardly be able to do that if
he simply refused entrance to Lux Aeterna to Harry's best friend and
guardian.

\emph{Snape would never have been his guardian if I hadn't ignored
Lily's insanity for so long,} James reminded himself, and opened his
eyes. ``I'll do what I can to convince the house to let him in,'' he
said.

Harry was quiet for a moment, thinking. James looked back at him. He was
aware of Connor's wide, pleading eyes, and wondered how much of a factor
his brother's gaze was in making Harry finally nod.

``I'll come,'' he said softly, and then winced, as though someone had
yelled at him. ``But there's a certain unpleasantness to be got through
first.''

James wanted to close his eyes and dance. He had a second chance, which
he had to admit, in some respects, that he hardly deserved.

``I'll come along with you,'' he said. ``They can blame me, if they
want.'' He turned and looked at Connor. ``Is there anyone who will
object to your going to Lux Aeterna for the summer, Connor?''

His younger son shook his head. ``So long as Ron can visit, and maybe
others if they want to, then I don't think so,'' he said.

James blinked, nonplused. He hadn't realized that Connor was so bereft
of friends. Of course, if his son's character was anything like James's
mistakes had formed it to be, then he would have had little to recommend
him lately.

``Of course,'' he said. ``The Weasleys are sworn to Light, too. There's
no problem with that.''

Connor cocked his head. ``Since Lux Aeterna is a pureblood place, will
it welcome Muggleborns?''

James smiled. ``Yes. It's mostly Dark magic that it rejects.''

Connor nodded. ``Then I think I'll ask Hermione if she wants to visit,''
she said. ``I---don't know if she will. I've apologized to her, but
things aren't exactly the same between us as they were.''

He sounded uncertain, but also as if his voice were growing strength
with every word. James was relieved. Connor had some resilience, then,
and was not going to crack the moment he faced his first true challenge.
Perhaps James could, after all, have a relationship with him that wasn't
based on innocence and ignorance.

``Dad?''

James turned around. Harry stood near the door of the hospital wing,
patiently awaiting his company.

``Thank you,'' Harry said, and smiled.

\emph{It's all been worth it,} James thought, \emph{to see him smile
like that.}


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\newpage


Draco was not able to understand, really, how all his neat plans for the
summer had gone so horribly wrong.

First Harry had put him off when he wanted to come to the hospital wing,
insisting that he needed to meet with his father and brother alone.
Draco had tried to argue, but Harry had pointed out that the promises he
made covered solitude as long as he explained it. Draco had grudgingly
agreed to let him go, certain that Harry would be back soon. What could
his blood traitor, cowardly father possibly have to say that was at all
interesting, or a reasonable explanation for where he had been?

And now Harry had come back, with his father in tow---awkwardly ducking
to get his head around the door---and told Draco that he was going
``home'' with his father and brother for the summer.

It was \emph{unfair.} Draco had been sure that the universe was on his
side for once, as soon as he got past Snape's stubbornness and managed
to make him see that Malfoy Manor was the best place for Harry. Instead,
it seemed that the universe was going to take Harry away again, the way
it had taken him away for every holiday except Christmas their first
year and the first month of last summer. And, Draco supposed, Christmas
of their second year, but Harry had been unconscious in the hospital
wing then, so it didn't count.

``You can't do this,'' Draco tried.

Harry gave him a patient glance. ``Of course I can. You and Snape will
know just where I am, and you can come visit.''

``Maybe,'' Draco grumbled. He'd heard stories about linchpins, and a
Light wizard's linchpin was unlikely to let someone who bore the Malfoy
name within a mile of it, no matter if he'd done any Dark magic or not,
because Light wizards were bigots. "But, Harry, \emph{why}?"

Harry gave him a curious glance as he shuffled through his trunk,
apparently looking to make sure that all his possessions were packed up.
``Can you ask? I have to train my brother, and this way, I'll be able to
do that. I want a chance to reconcile with my father, and this way, I'll
be able to do that.'' He shot James a smile that James returned, and
which made Draco seethe. It hadn't been too long since he'd been the
only one able to make Harry smile that way. \emph{Why do all the
obnoxious parts of healing have to come along with the good parts?}
Draco thought. "And we need someplace safe for the summer, so the Death
Eaters can't get us. Hogwarts would be safe, but the Death Eaters
\emph{do} know where we are. Lux Aeterna is safer, more sheltered, and
will protect anyone of Potter blood more fiercely than Hogwarts would."

Draco put a hand on Harry's arm and forced him to face him. ``All of
those are fine advantages for other people or for the war, Harry,'' he
said. "But what about \emph{you}? What do \emph{you} want?"

Harry went still, staring at him with wide eyes. Draco waited, his heart
pounding unexpectedly hard in his throat. Harry really might change his
mind and come with him, he thought in those few moments.

And then Harry smiled at him, and Draco compared that smile to the one
Harry gave his father, and found that this one outshone it.

``Thank you,'' said Harry. ``Thank you for asking that, Draco.'' His
voice turned gentle. ``I do want all the things I described to you. And,
more than that, I know that you and Snape won't forget me, or turn
against me, or anything else---that I matter to you more than that, and
I don't need to remain with you every moment to repair or strengthen my
relationships with you.''

\emph{Bloody prat,} Draco thought dully, feeling a pain slam to life in
his chest. \emph{He can't tell the truth to try and get out of this.
It's not fair.} ``Then how about remaining with us just because you like
being with us?'' he asked.

``I would, if that was the only factor,'' Harry said. "But you know what
I am, Draco---all of what I am, probably better than anyone else except
Snape. I want to help my brother, too. And he's traumatized from the
loss of Sirius, and he \emph{has} to learn." He looked at James, and
made sure the man could hear him. ``I don't trust anyone else to train
him rigorously enough, yet.''

James flinched, but inclined his head. Draco found himself revising his
initial impression of the man a bit. He was a pureblood, after all, even
if he had sworn himself to Light and stank of that.

``I want to go to Lux Aeterna,'' said Harry. ``I need to do this right
now. I can't just say that I want to repair my relationships with my
family, and then do nothing to prove it.'' He let out a little breath.
``But sooner or later, they'll be as healed as I can get them, and who
knows, in the future?'' He smiled at Draco.

Draco nodded slowly. He supposed, seen in that context, that it wasn't
so bad. He could visit Harry, and this was only one summer. There were
going to be others, and Christmases, and Easter holidays, and then all
their lives after school, when they wouldn't be responsible to parents
and annoying clingy brothers anymore.

Draco intended to see that he and Harry spent the majority of that time,
if not all of it, with him. He could surrender a present battle for the
sake of increasing his advantage in the future.

``All right,'' he said, ``but I want to know that you'll invite me over
as soon as possible.''

Harry smiled. ``Of course.'' He turned back to rooting in his trunk.
Draco glanced around, wondering what he was looking for. It really
hadn't taken Harry long to pack. He never spread his belongings out, as
though he expected any moment to have to pull up stakes and run before
enemies.

Then Harry turned around with a folded piece of parchment in his hands,
and said, ``Happy birthday, Draco.''

Draco blinked. It was true that it was his fourteenth birthday tomorrow,
the fifth of June, but he hadn't expected Harry to actually remember,
given the state he was in. He had almost forgotten himself.

Almost.

He reached out and accepted the parchment from Harry's hands, unfolding
it slowly. Their experience with the Dark Lord writing Harry from the
Shrieking Shack had made Draco less than enthusiastic about letters when
he didn't know what they said.

This one wasn't a letter, though, unless one counted the salutation of
\emph{Dear Draco} at the top. Below that was a list. Draco began to read
it, frowning.

\emph{When you made me welcome to our House at the Sorting Feast.}

\emph{When you made me see that being Sorted into Slytherin wasn't so
bad, and I might even make friends there.}

\emph{When you wanted me to stop cheating in Potions so that Connor
would stay out of trouble---I know now that you just wanted to see me
get some credit, even though I didn't know that at the time.}

Below that the list continued, all times that Draco had demonstrated
some gesture of friendship to Harry. He reached the end of the enormous
list, his mouth dry, and read,

\emph{For friendship, even when I was too blind to see it. For gestures
of affection that I thought came from jealousy of my brother. For being
a Slytherin in all the ways that matter, and still the best friend I
could ever have.}

\emph{Happy birthday, Draco. I notice it now, and I know what it means,
which I didn't then. I'm never going to forget again, and if I fail to
notice, feel free to hit me.}

\emph{Harry.}

Draco looked up, furious that a piece of parchment could make him
sniffle. He held Harry's eyes instead, and saw Harry incline his head, a
small smile playing around his mouth.

``It's not as though we'll be out of touch,'' Harry said softly. ``Even
if we didn't owl each other and didn't see each other until September
first, we never would be.''

Draco nodded, slowly, and slid the piece of parchment into his pocket.
``Are you really going to leave now?'' he whispered.

Harry glanced over to check with his father. ``Yes,'' he said, when
James nodded. ``Right after we talk to Professor Snape.'' He grimaced,
as though to say that he wasn't looking forward to that.

``You came to talk to me first, then?'' Draco asked.

``Of course,'' said Harry. ``Why wouldn't I? My trunk was in the room,
and I had to give you your birthday present, before you wrote me in
hysterics and accused me of forgetting it.''

His smile kept Draco from hitting him. He reached out instead, and
hugged Harry goodbye. ``I expect to see you in a few days at most,'' he
whispered. ``And good luck with Professor Snape.''

He felt Harry wince. ``Thanks. I'm going to need it.''


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\newpage


Snape blinked his eyes open slowly; he'd fallen asleep in his office
again, over the last of the exams for the term. Someone was knocking on
his door. There was only one person it could possibly be, at this time
of night.

The moment he thought that, he was on his feet, wand out, and striding
to open the door. If Harry was in trouble\ldots{}

Harry was not in trouble. Harry was standing in the hallway, looking
mildly startled that Snape had opened the door so fast. Behind him
floated his trunk, which looked full. And behind \emph{that} was James
Potter, his arms folded and his slouched posture as annoying as it had
ever been.

Snape understood the situation at a glance. He had to. He had known
James was coming to see his son, and he knew that Harry would not have
agreed to simply go to Malfoy Manor without telling him.

He felt something deep and ugly twist in his chest, something not so
different from what he had felt when he first realized that Sirius Black
was a danger to Harry. \emph{No. I will not permit this.}

``No,'' he snarled.

Harry sighed. ``Can I speak with you, Professor Snape? Please?''

``Yes,'' said Snape, and then stabbed James with a glance when he tried
to move forward. "\emph{Not} you."

James subsided, having the audacity to replicate his son's mildly
startled look over Snape's behavior. Snape tugged Harry into the office
and shut the door behind him.

``Dad's doing much better,'' Harry told his back earnestly. ``And he's
willing to take both me and Connor. I know that you weren't willing to
do that. I think I should go with him.''

``Has Draco heard about this ridiculous charade?'' Snape drawled,
turning around. Harry blinked at him.

``Of course,'' he said. ``He was the one who came to get me when Dad
arrived. And he can visit me in the summer, so he said yes.'' He
hesitated for the first time. ``Dad said that you might not be able to
visit, since Lux Aeterna is a linchpin. But he promised that he'd try to
get over his dislike of you and let you through the wards.''

\emph{And if he doesn't want me to see Harry,} Snape thought, \emph{it
would be the simplest thing in the world to say that the wards forbade
me entrance.}

He found it hard to breathe. His situation was different from Draco's,
even though Harry might not think it was. James had no particular reason
to hate Draco Malfoy. He did hate Snape, and Snape hated him.

The mere thought of being denied access to Harry just because his father
was back and had determined that Snape should no longer see him\ldots{}

It made Snape actively consider, for one moment, kidnapping Harry and
Flooing to Spinner's End, despite the danger being at Spinner's End
would put them in from the Death Eaters.

``I said that I wanted you to remain my guardian.''

Snape blinked, and came back to himself. Harry was watching him with
solemn green eyes that understood far too much.

``Dad knows,'' Harry went on. ``He said that you could. He's not going
to try to take you away from me, sir, or the other way around. And I
know that it must be hard for you to hear me calling him Dad,'' he
added, more quietly, ``but I think I should. I think I should reconcile
with him if at all possible.''

\emph{James is still the boy's blood father.}

There was a time when Snape would have been unable to forgive that. That
time was a year in the past.

Not for the first time, he cursed Harry's tendency to be unselfish, to
forgive.

He kept his voice patient. ``I think you should have a normal summer,
Harry. A summer without any responsibility for once, a summer where you
can simply---play, and do all the things that children do who don't have
Dark Lords after them. You could have that, here. You know that I
wouldn't let you overwork yourself, and you wouldn't have to protect
your brother if you were without him. And you could heal from your own
wounds,'' he added. ``I know better than to think that you have healed
entirely from the loss of your godfather, or from what you saw and did
that night, even though you let others think you have.''

Harry's eyes slid away from him.

``How many nightmares, now?'' Snape asked, and continued pressing when
Harry backed a step away from him. ``How many?''

``One or two each night,'' said Harry reluctantly. ``They're not visions
from Voldemort, though, just nightmares,'' he hastened to add.

``I don't care,'' said Snape pleasantly. And he didn't, he found. Next
to what might happen if Harry went home for the summer with people who
didn't understand him, who would demand things of him, who wouldn't
notice the signs when Harry was driving himself furiously into
exhaustion, he didn't care at all. ``You still need to overcome them.
And having all the weight of the world on your mind won't let you do
that.''

Harry stopped backing, and took a deep breath, and looked up at him.
``But the weight of the world doesn't go away just because of where I
am, sir,'' he said. "I know you want to protect me, but you can't. Not
from everything.

``The wounds I took that night were mild in comparison to what's coming.
I know,'' he added, when Snape tried to interrupt. "I've heard and read
the histories of the First War since I was a child, remember.
Voldemort's going to try to do all that again, and probably worse. I'll
be in the front lines, fighting, because I have to, and I'm going to
take on the brunt of some of it.

``This is the part where I'm your ward, and grateful for it, but also
not a child.'' Harry spread his hands. His magic shimmered around him, a
palpable force in the room, and Snape had to catch his breath at the
strength of it, for all that he normally didn't notice anymore. "I'm a
powerful wizard, and maybe the \emph{vates}, and a warrior." \emph{A
leader}, Snape almost said, but from the look in Harry's eyes, this was
not the time to have that argument. ``I have to get Connor ready, and to
help him heal. There's no one else who can.'' He looked at Snape
searchingly. ``And you're unwilling to have Connor here.''

``Because I want you to think of yourself for once, and not that
child!'' Snape snapped.

Harry smiled. ``I'm grateful, believe me,'' he said. ``But war doesn't
really care what we want. And this is the middle of a war, now, one that
hasn't really ended since Voldemort came to Godric's Hollow. I haven't
known what peace is.''

``Then you should know it now,'' Snape urged him. \emph{Why can't the
blasted boy see that?}

``Not right now,'' said Harry. ``When the war's done, maybe.''

``Or next summer,'' Snape said, voice light as a threat.

Harry inclined his head to him. ``Maybe then.'' He glanced at the door.
``Does this mean that you're going to let me go to Lux Aeterna?''

Snape struggled with himself for a long moment. He knew that Harry would
not hurt him if he refused, but Harry was also unlikely to stay, and
forbidding the boy to go as his legal guardian would result in
resentment from him. And then James might have more reason than ever to
take Harry from him, and if James challenged Snape in open court, he
would win.

At the same time\ldots{}

\emph{Harry forgives too easily. James was part of what happened to him,
no matter how sorry he is now.}

"You will tell me in an \emph{instant} if your father does anything to
hurt you," Snape said. ``You will Apparate here if he does it again. I
know that you can get through the anti-Apparition wards.''

Harry nodded. ``I would come to you,'' he said. ``If only because I'd be
afraid of what I would do to him if he did that and I stayed in Lux
Aeterna.'' His eyes held a fire that Snape liked, but thought should be
deeper and hotter.

``You will write to me every day,'' said Snape. ``Without fail. And you
will tell me the truth about your nightmares.''

Harry bowed his head meekly.

``And you will not drive yourself to exhaustion teaching your bloody
brother,'' Snape finished.

Harry nodded. ``Thank you, sir,'' he said, and stepped forward to hug
him, briefly. ``I know how hard this is for you. I promise, you'll see
me again, one way or another, before next term.''

Snape embraced him back, his eyes alighting on the pile of books across
the room, the ones he'd acquired from the Department of Magical Family
and Child Services.

\emph{There is that, of course. There is always that. It will take some
time to prepare, but revenge is, in any case, a dish best served
freezing.}

Snape was able, with that reminder, to agree to let Harry go, to even
open his door and give only a half-sneer at James, to watch Harry walk
away with a wave of his hand and his trunk floating behind him. Then he
shut his door and went back to marking the last exams, so that he could
begin his research.

\emph{If Harry will not take the proper steps against his father,
against Lily, against Dumbledore, I will take them for him.}


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\newpage


``Ready, boys?''

Harry glanced once around the hospital wing, then nodded. Connor had his
trunk beside him, and Godric in his cage on top of that. Harry had his
trunk, Hedwig in her cage, and Fawkes perched on his shoulder. Fawkes
had caught up with them as they were leaving the dungeons, and didn't
seem inclined to be left in the school. Remus was standing just behind
Connor, holding his own belongings, seeming a bit stunned at the change
in his fortunes. Harry hadn't heard what James said to him, but
apparently it was enough to get him to come along.

Then he turned and looked up at his father, and took a deep breath.
\emph{The rest of what we need isn't anything you can see.}

``Ready,'' he said.

James gave him a faint smile and cast the Floo powder into the fire.
``Lux Aeterna!'' he called, as the flames blazed green, and stepped into
them and was gone.

Connor followed him, tugging along a startled Godric, who beat his wings
against the bars of the cage, and then it was Remus's turn. Harry
watched him go, and then jumped as Fawkes crooned encouragingly.

``I know, I know,'' he muttered, as he picked up the Floo powder and
cast in another pinch. ``I wasn't scared. I just wanted to be sure that
everyone else got through all right, that's all.''

Fawkes chirped again, shoved his head against Harry's cheek, and then
took off in a ball of flames, flying fearlessly through the fire.

Harry drew a deep breath, and called out, ``Lux Aeterna!''

\emph{Eternal light.}

Harry hoped, as he jumped through the fire and into his future, that the
name was a good enough omen to make up for what had preceded it.

\emph{No big deal. It's just the rest of my life.}

\end{document}
