Prince of the Dark Kingdom: Book 6

Mizuni-sama

Prince of the Dark Kingdom: Book 6

1. Credits

2. Rising Darkness

3. Holy Union

4. The Wall

5. Unraveling Threads

6. Warfare

7. Entanglements

8. Rebel I

9. Rebel II

10. Everything Changes I

11. Everything Changes II

12. Royal Amusements

13. The Tavern

14. Coming Together, Falling Apart

15. Learning Curve

16. Faeries

17. Tales and Wings I

18. Tales and Wings II

19. Acts of Fealty

20. Coming Together

21. Battlefields of the Mind

22. Raveling and Unraveling Plots

23. Debts

24. The Fall of a King

25. Funeral Games

26. Separation I

27. Separation II

28. Lies Within Truth, Truth Within Lies

29. The Final Battle of Hogwarts

30. Epilogue

Credits

Copyright © 2007-2014 Mizuni-sama (real name unknown)

Original publication on FanFiction.net

EPUB and MOBI edited by Brendan Long
Source code for these versions is available on GitHub

Based on the characters of J.K. Rowling, and her books:

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Rising Darkness

“You are distracted,” Snape observed, without looking up from his paperwork. It was a fascinating skill he had, the ability to appear absorbed in one thing and yet still able to pick out ‘delinquent’ behavior no matter how small. It made most of the student body hate his classes (and sometimes the man himself) and Harry wasn’t above admitting he found it rather annoying himself. Although, in this instance he was hardly being subtle.

“It’s the last day,” Harry said, forcing his eyes from the open window and towards his guardian. They were alone in the DA&D class, fulfilling their ‘debriefing’, as Harry liked to call it, just like they had every week since he had returned to Hogwarts. They were tedious and awkward most of the time, Harry hating to talk about himself especially to someone as hypercritical as Snape, but he had to admit his anxiety had stayed in manageable levels since they’d started. His depression was another matter.

“You’ve been distracted all week.”

“We had exams.”

“How did you do?”

“I didn’t fail anything.”

“Ah, the aspirations of youth. You’re final project in Arithmancy was quite impressive. Professor Vector wants to submit a paper on it to a university press.”

Harry looked away. His final project had been ridiculously simple in his opinion, involving little more than tweaking an old pagan spell using modern arithmancy theory. The idea was novel enough, however, to impress his teachers.

“Are there any university presses that haven’t been blown up yet?” he said blandly. Snape looked up.

“So that’s why you’ve been moping all week. You’re worried about London. I assure you Mr. Potter, this isn’t the first time it’s been burned down and it will not likely be the last.”

“And I feel instantly lighter having been made aware of that heart-warming fact.”

London had been attacked ten days ago, and for all intents and purposes was still under attack. It had been the first domestic attack in months. With a majority of Germany’s forces pre-occupied with trying to re-fortify against British encroachment there had been a long period of tense quiet, but recent alliances with Italy, Switzerland, and Austria had increased their enemy’s offensive capabilities and the battlefront had expanded into their backyard once again. More than one of his classmates had received word that a family member had been lost in the fighting or their home had been destroyed. More than one of his classmates had glared death at him as if it were his fault. In some twisted, convoluted way, it probably was.

“Do you need anything?”

And by ‘anything’ the man meant potions.

“No, thanks. I just got off the last of my medical potions two weeks ago. I want to try to keep it that way. Besides, it hasn’t kept me from sleeping or anything.”

Snape stared at him pointedly, looking for any sign he might go crazy again. Harry rolled his eyes.

“I’m fine.”

His guardian made a noncommittal noise, and turned back to his paperwork.

“We have an appointment for a fitting in Coventry on Tuesday, be ready to go by two. The rehearsal is on Friday.”

“Why precisely do I have to go to the rehearsal again? I’m just sitting with everyone else.”

“Because it’s your lot in life to suffer and I said so.”

Harry grinned. “You just don’t want to be left alone with your in-laws and you couldn’t convince Malfoy Sr. to go and hold your hand.”

Snape turned a nasty glare at him, and essentially confirmed his hypothesis. He honestly didn’t blame the man. Susan was the champion of inane prattle and talking to Morgan was like talking to a wall… a big scary wall with the entire domestic security force in Britain standing behind it, which left Snape in a rather awkward position.

“Don’t you have some packing you need to finish?” the man hissed in annoyance.

“Yes, I do,” he lied pleasantly, and got up to leave. “See you at dinner.”

Instead of going back to his dormitory, Harry went in search of something useful to do. His housemates, while not as openly hostile as they once might have been (even the ones who stared at him accusingly never dared say so to his face), were not comfortable in his presence. Nothing could induce a tense silence like him walking into the commons room.

He didn’t fault them their unease. The school year had been one giant shock after another, first with his defense of Luna in full werewolf form, followed by his running away, then enlistment into the army, and subsequent involvement in the largest and most notorious battle in the war so far. A living, breathing reminder of the chaos their world had fallen in to, he was met with more than a little suspicion around the castle.

He didn’t mind. His mind, body, and soul had suffered terrible blows and he needed his space more than anything else to recover. His closest friends had remained, some of them confused and uncertain, but still loyal and that was more than he had hoped for. There had even been a few surprisingly persistent supporters.

“I don’t know how we’re going to beat Rookbridge. They’ve got twenty more members than we do!” Ron whined, trying to keep his expression pensive so it didn’t look like he was. “We’ll all have to do three duels for every two they do. That’s completely unfair.”

Cedric grinned and rolled his eyes, helping Harry organize the Dueling Club supply closet for the last time. Ron had been ranting and fussing about the upcoming summer competitions since they had started, doing very little in the way of helping. The Sr. Dueling Club vice-captain was ‘supposed’ to be at the Hogwarts Herald final staff meeting and end of the year party, but he had been roped into ‘helping’ last second by Captain Johnson (Angelina had tenaciously held the title for the entire year against his relentless ambition) and been stubbornly refusing to do anything out of spite.

“It’ll be fine. Just don’t enroll the entire club in that particular competition. It’s not like everyone is going to be able to make it anyway,” Cedric pointed out, not bothering to look up from his check list to make sure all the dueling swords were accounted for.

“I won’t be able to make it. Neither will Hermione or Draco,” Harry reminded, sorting through dueling armor. They had finally gotten a standard set of robes for their club, black and red, courtesy of a generous donation by Malfoy Sr. Harry rather liked them, but they did make telling which belong to who rather difficult. “The wedding is that weekend.”

Ron was not appeased, and if anything was more furious than ever.

“Oh, that’s bloody brilliant! I lose two of my better players and my assistant. I can’t keep track of all the rookies on my own!”

Harry snorted. The ‘rookies’ were anything but after a year of intense Dueling Club training, and while he hadn’t been able to participate in a lot of hands on dueling while he was recovering from his injuries he didn’t think he had been demoted to being Ron’s ‘assistant’ at any point in the year.

“Oh, woe,” he said blandly.

The Slytherin scowled at him, but didn’t say anything further. They had both been getting along better over the recent months, in no small part do to Hermione’s insistence, and they might tentatively call themselves friends… if you can call someone who you didn’t particularly like but didn’t completely despise a friend anyway. He supposed with Slytherins it was completely possible.

“Alright, I think that’s the last of it. Thanks for coming to help, Harry,” Cedric said, straightening up. They all walked out of the supply closet, allowing Ron to lock the door behind them. While he was busy setting the wards, Cedric turned to Harry and held out his hand.

“It’s been an interesting couple of years with you around. I certainly hope this won’t be the last time we meet.”

The Gryffindor grinned and took his hand.

“Our world is a small one. I’m positive this isn’t the end of it. Congratulations, by the way. I heard you won a full scholarship.”

“Thanks. It’s better late than never. I’ll see you at dinner! See you around, Weasley.”

Ron grunted, but didn’t say anything until the older boy was gone from the room. They he turned to Harry, his expression shifting from annoyed to… something else.

“I need to talk to you about something.”

“Is this about Hermione or Dueling Club?” he asked. Really, those were the only two things they could talk to each other about… at least civilly.

“What? No. Nothing like that. This… is about something else.”

He didn’t like the sound of that, but he stood there and waited a moment for him to continue. Ron was fidgeting, his fingers clenching and unclenching, fumbling into his pockets and fiddling with his wand, but his eyes were hard and intent as they focused on Harry.

“You know ‘old’ magic, right? I mean, I’ve seen you do some pretty weird shit and all with magic. Crazy, power shit they don’t teach around here. Shit barely anyone even knows anything about anymore.”

Harry was starting to feel the urge to fidget himself now, but forced himself to remain still. He didn’t like the direction this conversation was heading. It wasn’t that he hadn’t talked about pagan magic before. He had explained it to the best of his abilities to anyone who had asked, and had demonstrated it on several occasions including for his final project in Arithmancy. There were times, however, when those questions had become extremely uncomfortable and he had a feeling this was one of those.

Ron waited for a response, but receiving none he continued.

“I want to ask your help for something.”

“…What?” he asked cautiously.

“You have to promise you’ll help first.”

“The hell I do. You’re asking me for help, not the other way around. I don’t owe you anything.”

“Shit… well, at least promise you won’t tell anyone that I asked.”

Harry considered it. It seemed a minor thing, although honestly he didn’t even want to know what the favor was.

“Fine, I promise I won’t tell.”

“In a Wizard’s Oath.”

“For Merlin’s sake, Ron!” he snapped, and turned to storm off. The Slytherin quickly grabbed him by the arm.

“Wait, wait! Jeez! Chill out, will you? I just need you to take this seriously.”

“Then stop acting like a git. I take it you want me to help you with something illegal?”

Ron nodded once.

“More illegal than what the twins and I were doing?”

He honestly wasn’t entirely sure the twin’s smuggling ring was really ‘illegal’ or not, but it was certainly more than enough to get them all suspended if they had been caught. Despite having missed most of the holiday season, their original plan to make a little extra money smuggling packages in and out of the school had been a rousing success do mostly in part to Harry’s frequent and regularly scheduled medical appointments at St. Mungo’s. The teachers hadn’t figured it out yet, or if they had they were turning a blind eye, and most of the students knew only that it involved the twins and that there would be hell to pay if any of them snitched that fact. As far as he knew, the only ones who seemed to know about it were Ron and Ginny, and Harry wasn’t certain how or when that had happened exactly.

“Yeah,” Ron said, “Definitely.”

“Okay, so what is it, then?”

Harry watched as he licked his lips and swallowed thickly, his intent gaze flickering elsewhere for a moment.

“You know about my dad?”

“…Yes. Ginny told me.”

“I saw him last summer. I was probably the last family he ever saw, and he was so far gone by then he didn’t even recognize me. He thought I was Bill. Kept telling me to look after mom and the others.”

“I’m sorry.”

Ron shook his head and looked away. “I don’t need your pity, Potter. That’s not what this is about. While my dad was rambling on about taking care of the family, he told me something else. Something I didn’t know about before. Something I don’t think anyone else knows.”

He paused for a moment, looking around the room suspiciously before casting a silencing ward so no one could overhear them. He was starting to freak Harry out.

“He told me the truth about who sent him to prison and why.”

“The truth? It was just all those muggle contraband charges, wasn’t it? A stupid and petty thing to go to Azkaban over, but…”

“Shut up, Potter! What do you know about it? It was stupid. So what? People do stupid things everyday. You’re a walking example.”

“And you’re a talking example. Just spit it out. You don’t have to be a dramatist about it.”

“The worst my dad should have got was a month tops in Azkaban, not…not twenty damn years. Everyone knows it. Everyone. Someone pulled some strings, paid to keep my dad locked up and tortured until he died a miserable forgotten failure of a man and a father. He was stupid, but he…he wasn’t that stupid. He didn’t deserve… We didn’t deserve….fuck!”

They both squirmed awkwardly in the tense silence that followed, as Ron tried to compose himself again.

“I found out who did it. I found out who threw my dad in prison and kept him there until he died.”

“Who?”

Ron turned back to him, the familiar, obnoxious smirk in place.

“Give me an Oath and I’ll tell you.”

“I’m leaving now.”

“I want to kill him.”

Harry paused. “Yeah, okay. I can see where you might, but-”

“And I want you to help me.”

“… You’re serious?”

“He’s a powerful man. I can’t just… sneak up behind him and cast a Killing Curse. It can’t ever be connected back to me. It has to be untraceable. You have to know of ways. ‘Old’ magic has, like, a million weird ways to kill someone.”

Harry just stared at him, trying to fathom what he was hearing. Ron seriously wanted him to help murder someone using pagan magic. If it weren’t so completely abhorrent he would be laughing.

“You wouldn’t have to do anything,” Ron promised, “Just point me in the right direction; maybe help me get some supplies. I tried looking myself, but anything I need would be in the Restricted section and I can’t have anyone knowing what I was doing and I can’t go to a dealer. Most of the books they hand out are pure malarkey and I don’t know enough to tell what’s real and what isn’t.”

Harry just looked at him.

“No.”

“If you’re worried about someone finding out, I’ll take an Unbreakable Vow not to tell-”

“No.”

“Is this about money?”

“No! Merlin, this isn’t about money. Are you listening to yourself? You’re asking me to help murder someone!”

“It’s justice, not murder! He imprisoned and killed my father! And if that’s not enough for you, he killed Ginny and Fred and George’s father too! He ruined our lives!”

“So you’re going to kill him? Will that make it better? Will your dad rise from the grave and everyone live happily ever after? What if you’re wrong, Ron? You said it yourself that your dad was out of your mind when you saw him last. He could have just made up someone to blame. Are you really going to go kill someone because of a paranoid delusion?”

It was a good thing Ron had remembered to put up a silencing charm because at this point they were both shouting at each other.

“Screw you, Potter! I know what happened! He killed my dad! I can’t just pretend I don’t know! I can’t ignore it! What would you do in my position? What if you knew where the guy who killed your folks was and where to find’m? You going to tell me you’d just shrug and say ‘whatever’?”

Harry hesitated. His parents’ murderer was already dead, overdosed in an alleyway months after his crime, and Harry had never had the time to truly ponder what he would have done if he had ever met the guy in person. What would he do if he knew the man were still alive and wandering free in Cologne? He was not naïve enough to think he would let the man walk away. Not even a year ago he had nearly strangled a man to death with his bare hands after the Goddess Colony Massacre.

He still couldn’t say he wouldn’t kill the German Auror if he ever saw him again. Not really an issue since he suspected he was either very dead or wishing he was by now.

At the same time, he could not bring himself to justify what Ron intended. There was nothing to guarantee that the accused wasn’t just the convenient target of a delusional man or that there were some unseen factors accounting for Mr. Weasley incarceration. What if he had justifications of his own for imprisoning Mr. Weasley? He didn’t know Mr. Weasley personally, but he did know that the man had fought on the opposite side of the war and there was no telling what he had done during those dark times. For all he knew, the unknown man had paid to keep Mr. Weasley in prison for murdering his family! The mass amnesty that had been granted after the conclusion of the war resulted in dozens of cases of murderers and thieves walking away from crimes that should have had them rightfully thrown into Azkaban. How was he to know this wasn’t one of those instances? Who was Ron intending to kill anyway? Was it someone they knew? Someone with a family of his own? Was that why he hadn’t told him already?

“Probably not,” Harry finally admitted. “But I’m not going to help you. What you’re asking for… that’s Dark Arts on a level I’m not going to go screwing around with. Not unless I know it’s worth it.”

Ron glared at him, burning red and radiating his anger and frustration. Harry inched away from him, more out of physical discomfort than fear. With his magus sensortia, the radiant magic flowing off the Slytherin felt like hot sandpaper against his skin and smelled faintly of phosphorus.

“Fine. I should have known better than to ask,” he snarled, stomping towards the door. Before he reached it, however, he couldn’t stop from turning and throwing out one last barb. “Hypocrite.”

Harry didn’t bother to refute it. It wasn’t untrue. He had messed with powerful magicks for the wrong reasons or no reason at all several times before, and it had hurt others and himself. It had also saved others. He was hoping that as he grew more experienced the ability to tell which reasons were legitimate and which weren’t would become clearer. In the meantime, yes, he was on occasion a hypocrite and he didn’t like that about himself.

That didn’t mean he was going to go pandering to Ron’s rather skewed sense of justice. That would involve something far worse than hypocrisy.

What to do now? Should he try and stop Ron? Should he tell someone?

He had promised he wouldn’t tell. If he didn’t, someone could die though. If he did… it would be a mess. Annoying prat though Ron could be, he had reason to be angry and attempted murder accusations would bring down more trouble than was probably warranted.

He would have to talk to Ron again later, hopefully after he cooled off. Perhaps he could convince him to try something less drastic, or even to drop the matter altogether. If worse came to worse, he could talk to Hermione. If anyone could convince the guy he was being unreasonable it was her.

He liked to avoid involving her if he could help it though.

He sighed. Bother. He had been looking forward to a quiet summer.

“And where might our Lord Chaos be off to? You look like you’re up to something suspicious,” George said, appearing at his right from out of no where. Harry had no sooner turned to answer him, when Fred appeared at his left.

“Can we help?”

Harry rolled his eyes.

“I’m just going to pick up Inana from the greenhouse. Professor Sprout is locking them up tonight, so I won’t be able to get in tomorrow before we leave.”

“Then it’s a good thing we spotted you!” George insisted. “It isn’t safe to go wandering the grounds without protection. Anything could just come out and snatch you away! Like German Aurors-”

“-or Italian Aurors-”

“- or Swedish Aurors-”

“- dementors-”

“- dragons-”

“- merpersons-”

“- fangirls-”

“- a pterodactyl-”

“-a… a what?”

Fred shrugged. “It could happen. It’s Harry.”

“True.”

He fought valiantly not to smile at their combined antics, but it was admittedly difficult. They continued on their way towards the main entrance, where McGonagal was already working on readjusting the wards for next morning’s exodus from the school to the train station. Several Sentinels were there as well, watching for danger and assisting where asked, but saying very little.

“Hello, Mr. Potter,” she greeted pleasantly, before turning a rueful expression to his two companions who were still listing off potential threats the grounds might hold.

“- aliens-”

“-orcs-”

“-lawyers-”

“-Jehovah’s witnesses-”

“What are they going on about now?” she asked.

“Haven’t a clue. They wanted to come down to the greenhouse with me to get Inana.”

She nodded, and gestured him along. There was enough security wandering the grounds already that she was not worried about aurors… or dragons or fangirls or aliens. The sky was warm and sunny and the grounds green with spring growth. It was a time to enjoy the outdoors, not cower inside the castle. She let them go, playing hardly any mind as they wandered away and disappeared around a corner.

Once alone in the greenhouse, however, the twins closed in on their younger friend.

“Now that we’ve got you alone…,” Fred murmured, batting his eyelashes coyly.

“Please remember you’re locked in a room with one of the most venomous snakes in the world before you try anything,” he said blandly.

They both chuckled, and handed him a black bag. He took it cautiously. It was heavy and jingled in his hands as it moved.

“What is this?”

“Your cut. We had a very profitable year. There’s just under fifty galleons in there. I’d put it somewhere the auditors can’t find it if I were you,” George explained. “It’s too bad we won’t be here for the next year. We could probably make twice that now that we’ve got a good reputation… relatively speaking. We want to hand it off to Ron and Ginny if you’re agreeable. They could use the money and the experience before they graduate.”

Harry nodded, pocketing the cash. He had no idea what he was going to do with all that money. He had some of his own from his summer jobs and also from his service pay while working as ambassador for the werewolf colonies, but that was all sent directly to his Gringotts account and he had never looked at it closely and very rarely touched it. That money, he had decided after he got back from Germany the first time, was to pay off his Hogwarts tuition and Court debt when he graduated and was not to be touched. Hogwarts and the Court provided all his living essentials, and the few extravagances he indulged in were usually gifts from friends or provided for some ulterior motive (his entire wardrobe was Voldemort commissioned and approved, and only those who didn’t know him thought they were a gifts). This wasn’t something he could just dump in his savings account and not expect someone to ask some rather uncomfortable questions. Primarily Snape, who took more interest in his bank balances than Harry did.

“I’ll help out if I can, but I don’t think we’ll be able to rely on medical appointments next year. I’m all healed up.”

“No worries, mate. You and Ron’ll figure something out. He can be quite devious when he puts his mind to it.”

Harry felt a flicker of unease. He considered telling them about his conversation with Ron only a few minutes ago, but ultimately decided to wait. There was no telling how they would respond. They might try to stop him… or they might try to help him. They were good friends to have, but pranks were not the only reason people feared to get on their bad side.

“I guess so,” he said, moving further into the greenhouse in search of Inana. “Any idea what you’ll do with your earnings?”

“We’re starting a business. This’ll cover the down payment on the mortgage. We’ve been wanting to do it for a while, but figured we might as well wait ’til we graduated. Mum would have a coronary if we dropped out early. Can’t imagine Ma and Pa Stone[1] would be too happy about it either,” Fred said, idly wandering the rows of vegetation.

“Good thing we waited too. Real estate prices are rock bottom, what with the war going on and all.”

Harry looked up. That didn’t make any sense to him. As far as he had heard, the price of real estate was actually ridiculously high with so many people being forced to move or searching for safer homes outside of…

“You’re starting a business in London?”

He didn’t know why he said London. It could just have easily been one of a dozen other cities that had all but been half abandoned in the wake of foreign attacks, but the twins had never done anything by halves and London seemed too insane a choice to pass up.

“By golly, he’s sharp!” George laughed.

“Shhh! Don’t go telling anyone. It’s a secret! We got a real bargain on this place. Normally it’d be twenty times what they’re asking for, but the owners don’t have any kids to leave it to and since they wanted to get out of town fast we got it was a steal. Only one of the walls got blown up too!”

Harry shook his head. His guardian was getting married, Ron was plotting murder, and the twins had decided to start a business in the middle of a battlefield. He was almost afraid to run into anyone else if this was going to set the tone for the day.

“Just be careful, will you?” he said tiredly, not even trying to convince them they were crazy. They knew they were already. “You’re my favorite minions after all.”

“Aaahhh! You like us! You really do!” Fred sang, and rushed forward as if to hug him, but came up just short. “Too bad your girlfriend doesn’t.”

He pointed to a spot behind Harry, and sure enough Inana was raised up until her head reached the middle of his chest, her hood flared wide. Confused by her suddenly aggressive display, Harry hissed softly to her and gently stroked her head and hood until she relaxed once again. He carefully lifted her up and wrapped her around his shoulders, taking her out into the spring sun.

As the twins made to follow, she flared her hood once again and hissed nastily, bringing them both up short again. Harry smirked over his shoulder.

“That’s what you get for feeding her a rubber mouse.”

“Oh, come on! That was funny! She squeaked like a toy for a week!”

“Yes, I remember. So does she. I’d sleep with one eye open tonight.”

Judging by the rather stunned looks on their faces, he supposed his warning had been received and he made his way back to the castle. He walked as slowly as possible, soaking up as much of the sun and fresh air as he could.

Harry made a brief attempt at finding Ron again, but gave up fairly quickly in favor of terrorizing the student body with Inana. It probably wasn’t very Gryffidnor-like (or more like it was and no Gryffidnor would admit it), but pretending to act friendly (and that meant hugging and hand shakes and generally being within a arm’s length) with a giant cobra around his neck made for some very interesting (failed) conversations, facial expressions, and escape attempts.

Not exactly his most stellar behavior, but it was the last day of school and if he was feeling a little Slytherin-like no one was going to remember it in August. Besides, Inana had a wonderful time. He finally returned to the Common Room for a shower before the End of the Year Feast, and found Hermione waiting for him with a letter.

“Uncle Severus dropped this off for you. It’s from Blackbone,” she said. Her expression was strangely pinched, and he assumed that meant she was disturbed by it, and didn’t feel right about handing it over. Harry wondered, not for the first time, if she didn’t blame Sirius to some extent for what happened to him in Germany. She had been uncharacteristically evasive on the subject of werewolves, and given his own desire to avoid discussing what had happened he had been happy enough to pretend he didn’t notice.

It seemed that was no longer an option.

After more than five months of silence, his godfather was finally reaching out to him. Harry was afraid. Sirius had made no attempts that he knew of to come and see him while he was in the hospital or when he was recovering, and there had been no letters. The silence had felt damning then, but the break of it felt like fall of a guillotine’s blade. Was his godfather going to officially break their bond here and now?

Could he blame him? For every gift that Harry had ever brought to his godfathers and their pack was soon followed by incredible tragedy.

He turned the envelope over and over in his hand, searching for some sort of clue about its contents, but there was only his name written out in Sirius’ sharp, slashing script. He considered waiting to open it until after dinner or perhaps on the train or even once he got back to the cottage. Why ruin his last day with bad news?

Except the day hadn’t been that great to begin with, and Hermione looked about ready to tear the letter out of his hand and read it herself… or set it on fire. One or the other. Cautiously, he opened the envelope and pulled out the contents. It was brief, and rather uninformative. Rather than feeling relief, Harry felt an even greater anxiety.

“What does it say?” she asked.

“It’s a summons. Sirius is requesting to see me ‘at my earliest convenience’. Whatever that means,” he said, not looking up. The tone was formal, cold even, and nothing about it suggested the Head Alpha was looking forward to a reunion anymore than Harry was.

Hermione stepped closer to read the letter as well, biting her bottom lip and generally looking unhappy. After reading it herself, she said, “I don’t think you should go.”

“I have to. It’s an official summons. I’m still, technically, Sirius’ ambassador,” he said without much enthusiasm. Harry, as far as he knew, had not been officially retired from his position and still received some sort of pay even though he had not been actively carrying out his responsibilities for some time. ‘Medical leave’ is what Draco called it.

“That’s a load of crap, Harry.”

His eyes jumped to her instantly. “Hermione, did you just swear?”

She rolled her eyes.

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. Just tell the Dark Lord. He’ll get you out of it. It’s… It’s not safe for you there.”

His first instinct was to protest, to state that he was perfectly safe and no one wanted to hurt him there, but the words died in his mouth. He had lied frequently in his life, but he had never been comfortable with it and certainly not with a lie so blatantly obvious.

“I’ll figure something out.”

“I… Yes…I wanted to ask you if I could… if you would…tell me your story. Can I be your biographer?”

Potter’s eyes were soft with sympathy, but there lingered a persistent wariness. His face was that of an ordinary fourteen year old, but his eyes… there was a story there. A thousand stories.

“No, I’m sorry. I can’t do that.”

Voldemort prodded the memory for a moment, but it lacked the oily flavor that marked Tom’s presence in McGunny’s mind. The young man in his grasp struggled weakly, clawing at his arms with carefully trimmed nails and kicking at his knees. It was pathetic and useless. Even months before inactivity and potions had stolen his strength McGunny had never had the ability to pull himself free. Ruthlessly, the Dark Lord shoved aside the memory and searched for another, looking through the shattered debris of memories the mind-healers had knocked loose since his last visit.

“Now?” the lilting, female voice asked from behind the Venetian mask. The eerie, white face almost seemed to float in the air against the night sky. Voldemort did not recognize her voice by only the one word, but he thought she might be the dark vampiress he had glimpsed once before in another memory. Tom was also wearing a mask, and with it he could easily distinguish his younger counterpart’s full control over Horace’s body.

“Midnight. Not a minute before and not a minute after. We cannot give the Aurors time to gather themselves and-”

A bell rang, deep and low, distracting all of them. They turned to the house below them, and with a few violent slashes with his wand, Tom destroyed the protective wards.

The memory faded, and the Dark lord tugged and poked at it violently, trying to force out just a few more seconds of information that refused to come loose. It took him a second to realize he was physically shaking McGunny as well, who was now squeezing his eyes shut and crying and begging for him to stop. Disgusted, he tossed the young man aside, not even bothering to watch as he crawled away to the nearest corner of his tiny room. He had seen it before.

Every few weeks, as his schedule allowed, he would come and see how much progress the mind-healers had made in unlocking his lost secrets. So far it had not been anything helpful. All he had been able to gather was that Tom had attempted to grow his own body but was forced to abandon the venture prematurely (which he already knew) and that he had been hiding in Germany for several months including the siege of Berlin and that vampires were somehow involved and underground tunnels.

He could make neither heads nor tails of it, and the more time that passed the more irrelevant it seemed. Surely, where ever Tom had disappeared to could no longer be traced? But there was still the chance, and he found he could not abandon the course he had set.

Besides, even if he could not uncover Tom’s whereabouts, he might discover what exactly had happened prior and during Durmstang’s escape. Now that he knew Tom had been acting through Horace, there was a world of possibilities he had not considered before. There was also the matter of what exactly Tom had been up to in Germany and whether those plans were still taking place.

Today wasn’t going to be the day he found out, however, and he stalked from the room and allowed the medi-nurses in. As he walked away, he could hear McGunny screaming nonsense as his caregivers descended on his with potions and bindings. Mind-healers lingered in the hall, refusing to go in to check on their patient, and instead watched him fearfully or accusingly. He smiled darkly at them as he passed, reminding them they were coconspirators in tormenting an innocent boy and their consciences were no more clean than his own.

He flooed from the hospital administration office to a secure floo in Bristol, just a block away from the Brass Cult headquarters, and walked the short distance to get there. The streets were thick with soldiers patrolling and marching in formation, so that the few civilians still left in the city moved about nervously in attempt to stay out of their way and out of their notice. A few paused to watch the Dark Lord pass, but he was not so rare a sight these days. Soldiers stopped to salute, but he was moving passed them before gestures could even be completed.

He had been in a bad mood since the attacks in London, and he would not be satisfied until he had levied a blow against his enemies that wasn’t at least three times as devastating. This would be difficult now that he had Germany’s new allies to contend with on top of the Germans themselves.

This was why he was in such a hurry to see Lucius. He needed to update his General on the latest status of their own alliances and begin making plans for their counter offenses now, before they held their next war council. He made a brief stop in his private office to check his messages with his office assistants and run through his appointments for the day, then headed out across the courtyard to track down Lucius.

He took a moment to watch the latest recruits practice in the courtyard from somewhere they wouldn’t notice him. Fresh soldiers were coming in fast and heavy now with the local attacks, Private businesses in the major cities were moving or closing down, and there were hundreds of displaced and angry witches and wizards looking for work and revenge and glory in the aftermath. With the end of the school year, he was expecting even more patriotic young men and women with intentions to join the fight. He felt no small amount of pride as he watched his army grow in size and power, but he also felt a sense of caution. The increasingly militaristic state of Britain was to his benefit, but the massive redistribution of wealth and industry that came with it was something he was going to have to watch out for. It wouldn’t do to strengthen his military only to weaken the influence of his nobility, degrading the cultural and educational development they oversaw on his behalf. He had no intention of ruling a country of brutes.

He made a mental note to schedule appointments with the Heads of the Court of Cultural Affairs and the Court of Education sometime that week, and continued on his way. Soldiers stood at every door and hallway, tense and bored, but quick to salute and get out of his way. Their over abundance was explained in part by the need to prevent any unauthorized individuals from reaching Lucius’ administration offices, because once that happened there was too much chaos to know if someone was demanding reports or launching an attack on Romania.

“No, I need another report. One’s that’s actually legible! Haven’t you heard of-”

“I put that file on your desk an hour ago; it’s probably under-”

“These statistics are over a month old!”

“I don’t know. Those aren’t a priority. What about-”

“What do you mean she’s dead? She was alive yester-”

The Dark Lord waded through the papers littering the office and shooed away paper airplanes with a flick of his wand, no one paying him any mind as he slipped into through the office’s back door and into Lucius’ private waiting room. The secretary, a new one he noted, stood as he entered and offered him refreshment.

“Coffee. No milk. No sugar,” he said without looking at her, brushing stray sticky notes from his robes. “Is the General in?”

“Yes, my Lord,” she said, pouring him cup from one of the seven different carafes lining the counter behind her. “He’s in a private meeting with his lawyer right now. I’ll announce you if you like, or I could… offer a bit of a distraction while you wait?”

He actually looked at as she approached and noticed that she was in fact a very attractive woman. Dark wavy hair, pale soft skin, and green eyes that most would consider vibrant if they hadn’t seen Potter’s up close before. There was a definite sway to her hips as she stalked towards him, and when she stopped just a little too close to hand him his cup, he noticed with some amusement that her position was such that he could accept the cup without looking down her blouse.

Subtle, she was not.

He felt himself smile just a bit in dark amusement, and she suddenly tensed. No doubt she realized she had just bitten off more than she could chew. Later, he thought. He turned away instead and simply headed for Lucius’ office, silently undoing the protection spells and letting himself inside without knocking.

Lucius sat behind his desk as always, his space the exact opposite of the administration offices. It was elegant, tidy, and not a scrap of paper or a single quill present unless he was actually using it. Voldemort often wondered how he managed it. The Malfoy patriarch did not look surprised by his sudden entrance, and simply rose respectfully. His guest, the lawyer no doubt, wasn’t as prepared and sat staring dumbly at him for several seconds.

“My Lord,” Lucius greeted. “This is Robert Reicher, he’s representing me for the suite against Crouch I told you about.”

That seemed to snap the man out of his stupor, and he immediately jumped to his feet and bowed politely.

“It’s an honor to meet you, my Lord,” he said cautiously, and Voldemort mentally applauded him for not stuttering.

“Likewise,” he said, blandly, then paused. “Reicher… that name sounds vaguely familiar…”

“Ah, yes. Your…ah, young Mr. Potter is a friend of the family’s.”

Voldemort thought about it for a moment, before recalling the context he had heard their name. Snape had mentioned them once or twice.

“You’re the one with the two little girls, yes?”

“Yes. I…yes.”

The Dark Lord nodded and dismissed the matter for later examination.

“Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Reicher, but I’m afraid I must borrow your client for an hour or so. If you don’t mind?”

Reicher wisely nodded, before turning to Lucius.

“Shall I come back later?”

“Come back tomorrow, the same time.”

Reicher nodded and left quickly, without exactly scurrying. Voldemort watched him closely until the door was closed and the Silencing spells activated.

“Is there any particular reason why you chose that particular lawyer? He seems a bit below your usual pay grade,” he noted, his eyes flicking back to Lucius who was already putting away the paperwork the man had left on his desk.

“He is adequate. I am not expecting much of a fight from Barty on this case. Besides, I thought you would be pleased. Keeping Potter’s circle of acquaintances within your own circle of acquaintances is to your benefit.”

True enough, but the Dark Lord seriously doubted this was done for his benefit. He decided to drop it for now. It was a trivial matter.

“Speaking of Barty[2] and circles of acquaintances, he just sent me the latest intel on Germany. It seems the latest alliances were only agreed upon with the formal appointment of power to an official military commander of their choosing. I’ll give you three guesses on who wormed their way into the position.”

“Dumbledore,” Lucius said, honest irritation seeping into his voice. The name had been appearing with increasing frequency in the reports that crossed his desk from the frontlines, and he was starting to see a trend of mission failures when it did. Why, oh why, hadn’t they offed the old goat in the last war?

“Afraid so. On a vaguely brighter note, the Italians hate him, so there’s no real coordination on their part. This business in London is primarily their doing. It’s always been a ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’ to those bloody Catholic nutjobs.”

“We can drive them out of London, easily enough,” Lucius insisted. “We could have done it days ago.”

Voldemort shook his head. “We’d have been fighting over rubble. We evacuated most of the museums and libraries months ago knowing this would happen eventually. Better to let them destroy a bunch of empty buildings than have them touring the entire country.”

“It doesn’t sit well with me, my Lord.”

“It doesn’t sit well with anyone, Lucius. We had nearly three hundred new recruits the day after the first attack. We’ve had nearly a thousand more since then, and I intend to march every single one of them straight down Italy’s throat and make them pay in blood and gold ten times what we’ve lost in London, but we have to be patient. Public sympathy in France grows everyday, and soon enough we’ll have enough support for Queen Ophelia to sanction an official alliance. After that we’ll have the additional support we need to launch an attack into Italy and break the stalemate in Germany. She is already preparing her soldiers for this eventuality.”

The question was how much were they will to lose while they waited for that ‘eventuality’. Lucius sighed and leaned back in his chair, running his hands through his hair. He was tired. They all were. The London attacks had been a blow to the nation’s morale, and neither of them were immune to it.

“I bow to your greater wisdom, but I still think we should find a way to give them all a plague.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“And Dumbledore?”

“Put a ridiculously high bounty on his head for now. I doubt we’ll get much response yet, but when things really start to get bad… I imagine we’ll have a few desperate fools making his life difficult. Some of his blood or a lock of hair would work as well. I can do quite a bit of damage with just that. Barty’s already got some spies working on it, but it’s too early to say whether they’ll get close enough.”

“We should hold another war council.”

“I scheduled it for Thursday.”

“So soon?”

“I believe you have rehearsal and then a wedding planned this weekend,” he reminded him, looking vaguely amused as Lucius eyes widened.

“I completely forgot,” he sighed. “Why did it have to be this weekend?”

Voldemort made a dismissive gesture. “He wanted to honeymoon in France for a month. That doesn’t leave much time before he has to return and attend to his new duties as headmaster.”

Lucius didn’t look any happier even with that legitimate reason, and instead asked, “Do you want me to bring him to the council meeting? He usually has some good ideas.”

“I doubt he’ll be in any state to be useful. Do you recall how you were the week before your wedding?”

Lucius grimaced. Not even his bachelor party had been enough to wipe those particular memories of misery away.

“No,” he said, “Will you be in attendance?”

“I will attend the ceremony and the toast if time permits. I won’t be able to stay long. With Morgan and you in attendance, someone has to stay at the office and run the country.”

1. Just a reminder, the Weasley twins were adopted by Clyde’s grandparents, the Stone family. Clyde is technically their adoptive nephew.↩

2. Yes, this is Barty Crouch Jr., alive and kicking it with a nice position as Head of Court Foreign Intelligence. He’s as crazy and loyal as ever, and he’s Lucius’ rival. If you’re wondering why you haven’t seen him until now… I honestly wanted to wait till I had a good role in the story before I brought him up. Plot wise, we’ll just say he and Lucius can’t stand each other and are never in the same room, and since Harry hasn’t met him yet he really doesn’t have much purpose showing up.↩

Holy Union

“I don’t know why you’re being difficult about this, Harry,” Hermione pleaded. Harry was resolutely looking out the compartment window at the passing scenery so he wouldn’t have to look at her. He had a feeling if he did, he would give in. Next to him, Natalie was ignoring their conversation in favor of playing with Inana. Draco had grown bored an hour ago and was reading a newspaper, looking up every so often so see if they were still stuck on the same topic. “It’s not safe. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. After what happened the last time-”

“Don’t,” he bit out, warning her against that particular subject. She had only heard one side of the story of what had happened with the Du’on nadi and the possession, and it certainly hadn’t been his. That was more his fault than hers, but he didn’t want to get into it now.

“What are you hoping to gain, Harry? What do you think you’ll accomplish?”

He didn’t say anything for a moment. He was still trying to sort that out himself. There really weren’t very many reasons why he should return to the Goddess colony, and those were rather weak reasons themselves. He didn’t know how to explain it, but it was just something he knew he needed to do.

“They’re family,” he said, leaving it open for her interpretation. She could usually find logic behind his reasons even where he couldn’t. His friend wasn’t up for playing that game this time, however, and all but sneered at that statement.

“Funny. They didn’t seem to remember that while you were in the hospital.”

He tensed. Natalie looked up from her thumb-wrestling match with the tip of Inana’s tail, and glowered at the other girl.

“That was uncalled for,” Natalie said, sharply. Hermione flinched and looked down, contrite.

“I’m sorry, it’s just… Can I talk to you for a moment in private?”

He honestly didn’t want to. He didn’t want to talk at all. She had been trying to convince him not to see his godfathers since he had shown her the letter, and the more she talked the more depressed over the matter he got.

“Please?”

“…Fine, but after this you drop it, okay?”

“Okay.”

They got up and walked out into the corridor, Natalie and Draco watching them both suspiciously but not saying a word. They had both stop being suspicious that the two Gryffindors would suddenly disappear together and elope when neither had shown any hint of jealousy at the other’s romantic affairs (such as they were) over the last two years. Hermione led him passed another passenger car and into the first baggage car, and cast a Silencing Spell on the door so they wouldn’t be hear even if they could be seen through the door’s glass window.

“Alright,” he said, leaning against a set of trunks. “What do you need to say that can’t be said in front of Draco and Natalie?”

“Listen,” she said, looking frustrated, at him and at herself. “I get it, okay? I get not wanting to give up on your godfathers. It’s like you’ve said before, they’re the last remaining family you have and I know that’s precious. I know that. I feel the same way about Draco, but…”

She stopped, her expression pained. Something in Harry’s heart twisted. They weren’t just talking about him anymore.

“… but eventually, you have to decide you’ve had enough. You have to draw a line, because… because even if they’re family… even if you love them or just want to love them… they can tear you down into smaller and smaller pieces until…”

She shook her head, and swallowed her rising tears with a hard sniffle, then continued on like she were lecturing on the importance of taking thorough notes in class. “I don’t want that for you, Harry. You’ve gone through so much already, and I don’t think you can handle dealing with this werewolf business on top of everything else. You did what you could for them and it was incredible what you managed on your own, but that doesn’t give them the right to take advantage of you like they have. You’re not a werewolf and you’re not Blackbone’s whipping boy-”

“Whoa, whoa! Hermione, come on!” he objected. “I am not and never have been Sirius’ ‘whipping boy’. I helped because I wanted to, not because he made me or tried to guilt trip me. What happened in Germany… that wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, except my own.”

“And that werewolf girl who poisoned you?” she interjected, looking furious.

“… yeah, and maybe her a little too.”

“What about when he sent you to France with a small army at your beck and call?”

“…To be fair, that was Voldemort’s idea too.”

“And when those werewolves with you didn’t try to stop you but just let you lead them into almost certain death in enemy territory?”

“Hey, they were all like… under a spell or something. Not their fault!”

She wasn’t buying it, and he felt a swell of annoyance. What did she know about it? He was there! Where did she get off acting like he was the one who didn’t know what he was talking about?

“Listen to yourself, Harry! You just keep making excuses!”

“Because you keep making accusations! Jeez, what do you want me to say? That I’m just going to cut all my ties and forget about them? It’s too late now. Damage done! I… it’s up to Sirius how things go from here on.”

He had to turn away from her as he said it, unable to look at her pity and condemnation. Meanwhile, Hermione had wrapped her hands around her arms and was squeezing them to keep herself from crossing the few feet between them and wrapping them around her friend’s throat in frustration.

She didn’t know much about what happened in Germany, but from what Severus had told her, what the newspapers and rumors hinted at, and from what Harry refused to say, she could guess it had been truly horrible. She knew about the seven different potions he had to take, despite his attempts to hide them from her, and how there were just as many to allow him to sleep an entire night through as there were to treat his damaged body. She knew from Clyde that they didn’t work all the time. She knew the sudden silences Harry fell into sometimes had nothing to do with worrying about a pop quiz in DA&D or that cute seventh year Ravenclaw who had smiled at him in the hall like he claimed.

She knew it was Sirius Blackbone and the werewolves’ fault Harry had turned into a ghost of his former self. What she didn’t know, was why he refused to escape them for good.

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” she said firmly. “You can break free.”

“It’s not that simple,” he insisted, tiredly. He had tried to explain to her already, but she hadn’t accepted what he had said and he didn’t think anything else he said at this point would make a difference. All he wanted was her to just drop it and let him deal with it. He wasn’t… scared of his godfathers or the werewolves, it was just… awkward. Uncertain. They just needed to work through it, one way or another, maybe even breaking it off altogether like Hermione was saying, but it had to be worked out between them and she had no place in it. If he said that to her, he had no doubt she’d punch him in the face.

Not exactly the best way to start the summer.

“It is if you decide it is.”

She hesitated again, as if debating with herself to tell him something or not.

“I’m… breaking free,” she said, cautiously. He looked up, confused, but now it was her turn to look at the floor.

“…What do you mean?”

Again the hesitation, but…

“I’m breaking free of Lucius… I… I really just can’t stand him any longer. It’s killing me staying under his thumb. I never know when he’s going to just bring it down and crush me completely.”

He knew about Hermione’s ‘relationship’ with Lucius, and felt she was completely justified in hating the man, but he was still confused at what she was saying.

“So… how exactly?”

“I’m going to get emancipated.”

He just blinked at her. He didn’t even know what that meant.

“Like divorcing your parents,” she explained. “Or disowning myself. I’d take care of myself and he couldn’t dictate my life anymore.”

“Oh…” he said, feeling more than a little stunned. It had never occurred to him that you could do such a thing in the wizarding world. “Oh… but… how?”

She smiled a bit sadly and shrugged.

“It’s not really that hard. Especially since I’m not his biological child. I just need to prove I can take care of myself, get a sponsor, and fill out some paperwork.”

“And can you? Take care of yourself, I mean? What’s a sponsor do? Are they like a guardian?”

“I’ve got some money,” she said. “Not a lot, but I can get a Court loan to finish my education at Hogwarts, and then I can probably get a work-study scholarship to put me through college. After that, I’m on my own, but I’m hardly the first person who had to do that. I can do it. I know I can.”

Harry knew she could too. She was the smartest and hardest working person he knew. He still felt uneasy about it.

“When?”

“As soon as I get a sponsor. I thought about asking Severus, but that just doesn’t seem fair. It would ruin his relationship with Lucius and Draco, and I don’t want start a feud between him and the Malfoy’s just when he’s started a family of his own.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. Suddenly, he felt very immature. Snape was getting married, the twins were starting a business, Ron was plotting murder (he really needed to talk to him about that soon), and now Hermione was divorcing her foster parents. Yes, certainly, he had fought in several battles and been mixed up with political intrigue since he was eleven, but that was stuff that had happened to him not stuff he had done himself. Which again, was silly, because he had done a lot of really adult things of his own accord before… months ago. In fact, the more he thought about the more he realized he had been trying his hardest not to be an adult for the last six months.

“Say something, Harry,” she pleaded, anxiety gnawing at her in his stunned silence.

“Wow,” he managed weakly. “Just… wow. Does Draco know?”

He already knew the answer to that. There was no way Draco could know and not have thrown some sort of tantrum or argument or something. It seemed inconceivable; however, that she would hide something like this.

“No,” she admitted. “He wouldn’t understand. He’d think I was trying to get rid of him, and it’s not about that. He’s the only reason I have for staying-”

“But he’s not enough.”

She looked down again, inexplicably ashamed.

“No. He’s not. If it came to a choice between me and Lucius, I know he would choose his father, and maybe that’s how it should be but…”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, even though he really didn’t. He didn’t think she was giving Draco enough credit, but then what did he know? He had only seen Draco and Lucius together maybe two or three times in the entire time he had known them. He had no idea how close they were. He knew Draco was extremely proud to call Lucius his father, but he was perhaps even more proud to be able to call himself Hermione’s ‘big’ brother. “He’s going to have to find out sooner or later. You’ll have to tell him eventually.”

“Not until there’s no way he can stop me. He might tell Lucius.”

And that obviously filled Hermione with some sort of unspoken dread. Harry felt a moment of fear himself. He had never been on the receiving end of the Malfoy patriarch’s enmity, but if he had been at the right hand of the Dark Lord for all these years it could not be something easily dismissed. Harry had a sudden feeling that before this was through, he was going to have to find a way to protect her, and he had no idea where to start. Harry had power and influence of his own, but not on the same level as Lucius, who had been playing and winning on and off the battlefield for decades.

“Is it worth it?” he asked. “I can tell you’re scared.”

She nodded, and although she still looked frightened, she also looked certain.

“There has to be a line, Harry. He’s pushed me over it one too many times. I’m not going to let him push me anymore. I’ll find a way.”

“Well, okay. I’ll help you as much as I can. I still think you should tell Draco, though.”

“Thanks, Harry. I’ll try to do as much of it on my own as I can. I don’t want you on his bad side any more than Severus. Chances are, you’ll be seeing a lot of him after you graduate.”

“Joy.”

She smiled weakly.

“You need to draw your own line too, Harry, or one day you’re going to look around and wonder how you let things get so out of control. Or, you know, you’ll be dead.”

He managed a smile a bit more firm than her own. Asking him to draw a line at this point in his life was would be like doing so in sand… in the middle of a storm. By the time the storm was over, not only would the line be gone, but everything else would be changed around, buried, or uncovered.

“I’ll try, but even if I do, I know that I still have to face Sirius. I don’t know why you seem so intent on blaming him for everything that happened to me, but he’s not some sort of devil. He’s not Lucius Malfoy. I respect him. I… I love him… as my godfather and my mentor. He has a right to say his piece, and I have a right to tell him mine.”

She looked at him sadly, but finally gave up arguing. There was no point. She had said all she could and as much as she hated the idea of leaving her friend to face this danger again, she knew he was also right. Sirius Blackbone was no Lucius Malfoy, and even though he was scary in his own right, she didn’t doubt that he had at one point loved Harry too.

“At least take Uncle Severus when you go.”

He actually had the audacity to laugh at her suggestion.

“Oh, yes, that will make things much safer!”

The bridal tent was full of strange women. The only ones Harry recognized were Victoria (who had in fact been selected as maid-of-honor) and Ira’s mother, and there were at least six others he had never seen before. One of them had asked for his autograph. He couldn’t see Ira, but then if the steady flow of women to and from behind the oriental screen were any indication, she was still in the process of getting ready. He hadn’t seen her all morning, and for all he knew she had been getting for hours.

“Er…” he said timidly, rather aware that the tent had the interior of a Persian suite and he was surrounded by several women dressed beautifully (if not all beautiful themselves) in pastel colored dresses and robes made of nothing more than elaborate lace or transparent silk. ‘Harem’ was not a word he thought anyone of them would appreciate hearing at the moment. He managed to tiptoe around the room until he finally reached Mrs. Morgan. “Can I speak to Ira?”

She looked horrified by the suggestion.

“Absolutely not! That’s horribly bad luck to see the bride before her husband!”

“Oh… I didn’t know. Sorry.”

“That’s alright, dearie,” she assured him, “No harm done. Was there something you needed to ask her?”

He shook his head.

“Just checking on her. Thought I’d ask if she needed anything, but I guess she’s got her own private army for that,” he said, indicating the other women who all seemed to be busy with something; either arranging the bouquet or making small snacks or helping the bride directly with something or other.

“She’s doing wonderfully. Can’t stop smiling or wanting to throw up. All perfectly normal.”

Harry wasn’t sure how someone could be happy and nauseous at the same time, but he had heard somewhere that women were better multi-taskers than men, so he supposed it was possible.

“Oh… Do you want me to go get some anti-nausea potions? I think they’re some in the first aid kit.”

“No, no. That will give her hiccups! Can you imagine Ira trying to say her vows like that? She’ll be fine. Now off with you! We’re almost done, and we can’t have you peeking.”

He hurried out of the tent and into the bright afternoon sun. The air was warm but not too warm and a gentle breeze out of the West brought the faintest hint of salt water under the smell of flowers. Outside of the tent, the wedding and reception preparations spread out like fair grounds. Aside from the bride’s tent, a rather grand domicile (and yet nothing compared to the interior) of white silk and laden with white and pink lilies and roses, there was also the groom’s tent, modest and masculine in light green and covered in ivy, the portkey tent where security was checking each guest as they arrived (no one knew exactly where they were except for Morgan for security reasons, concession stands that were currently only serving non-alcoholic drinks before the reception (if some actually interrupted the ceremony in a drunken stupor, Snape would be honor-bound to kill the fool and that was a bad way to start a marriage according to popular opinion), a tent for entertaining children and keeping them out of the way, another tent for smoking (doing so outside was also apparently bad luck at a wedding), a large tent where the actual wedding feast would take place, some tents designated as the restrooms, and nearly half a dozen others for various and sundry. All of them were in different and festive colors and draped in different flowers. Hundreds of butterflies, native and exotic and all transfigured, floated around the grounds, alighting on flowers and amused guests before fluttering off again.

The area where the wedding would take place was blocked off by a naturally occurring spring dividing the grounds and a wall of weeping willows. A pair of Trumpeter swans (not transfigured) lounged in the shade of the overhanging branches, adding yet another touch of natural elegance to the entire affair. A wide, wooden bridge arched over the spring, leading to a path that curved through the willow grove. Somewhere beyond the tree was the ‘chapel’, but Harry had not seen it yet, again because of security, but Hermione and Draco who had been drafted to help decorate (apparently it was good luck to have family and friends decorate and help set up the sacraments) had said it was quite spectacular. The guests were expected to start moving to their seats in another half an hour and the ceremony itself was an hour after that.

In the meantime the guests were busying themselves wandering around the grounds, admiring the decorations and the flowers and stopping to talk to each other. Several people Harry had never met had tried to stop and speak with him, but he had made a point to at least look busy to stave off conversation. At the moment, he was looking busy by heading directly for the groom’s tent.

“How exactly are you affording all of this?” he asked by way of greeting, as he stepped inside. Unlike the bride’s tent, Snape’s was modeled after the modest interior of a tailor’s fitting room and was almost empty but for the groom and Lucius, who was dressed in dark chocolate and rusty red browns. Like Harry, who was dressed in soft beige and cream, and everyone else, he was expected to dress more modestly than the groom just as the women were expected to dress more modestly than the bride. The Malfoy patriarch handled it with his usual arrogant flair, even as fitted his friend’s armor like a common page.

Armor, of all things.

Not the clunky sort that muggle knights wore nor the leather sort used in dueling matches, this armor was made of a strange black metal, lined at the seams with gold. Harry had to admit it suited his professor quite well. With his hair tied back, Snape looked several years younger, and the individual plates highlighted his masculine form in a way that robes never really could. He looked very much like a fairytale villain, off to kidnap the princess and feed her to a dragon. Harry briefly wondered if his father had also worn armor at his wedding and what he had looked like doing so.

Snape cast him an irritated look.

“Contrary to what you may have assumed, I prefer to live modestly. I am not forced to live that way. This affair, while not cheap, is not beyond me.”

Harry didn’t believe for a minute that Snape would have spent even a knut for anything as frivolous as transfigured butterflies or invited the more than two hundred people who were currently milling around outside. He didn’t think either Snape or Ira even knew two hundred people. Seeing his skeptical look, the man rolled his eyes.

“I sold tickets,” he muttered, and Harry wasn’t sure if he should laugh or be outraged. Lucius smirked.

“I supplied the buyers. It’s not everyday someone not of the Dark Lord’s inner circle can find an ear with them. There are many who are willing to pay a great deal of money for just such an opportunity. Severus turned quite a tidy little profit.”

“Does Ira know?”

“Of course. It’s an unspoken tradition,” Snape said, not even bothering to look at him now. He was staring over at Lucius’ head at the mirror, and didn’t seem particularly happy. “I look like an idiot.”

Malfoy Sr. smirked. “You look great.”

“I have absolutely no desire to laugh at you,” Harry offered. They both ignored him. Snape stepped away to grab a drink of water from the nearby table. The young Gryffindor noted that his armor didn’t make a sound and moved easily with his movements. He also noted that Snape’s hands were shaking when he took his glass. The man was actually nervous! Merlin, this had to have been a first!

“You should have let me take you out,” Lucius said, sounding more than a little put out. “You would be feeling much more lucid right now.”

“I would be feeling much more hung over as well. I am a little too old to be gallivanting around bars and brothels until four in the morning. Besides, Morgan would have heard about it.”

“True enough. Nervous?”

“Of course not,” he said, and immediately turned to Harry to keep the man from calling him on his lie. “And how is my bride?”

“I went by her tent, but her mum wouldn’t let me see her. Bad luck or something. She did say Ira felt like vomiting, but I guess that’s normal.”

Snape started to rub his temple.

“Why do people insist weddings are romantic? This is just another exercise in social torture.”

Harry very much agreed and decided if he got married he was going to elope. Before he could share this sentiment, and enjoy the likely scandalized look from Lucius (at least he hoped it was scandalized, it might just be his usual boring sneer), Morgan entered the tent. Snape stiffened.

“Is anything the matter?” he asked Morgan.

“No. Security has encountered nothing more than the usual hidden flasks and snuff boxes[1]. My people will keep an extra close eye them.”

“I leave it in your capable hands. Has our Lord arrived yet?”

“Yes. He’s being delayed by a small horde of potential sycophants at the moment. I thought I should come and fulfill one of my duties as ‘honorary’ father of the bride before he arrives.”

At Harry’s confused expression, Lucius patted him on the shoulder and explained.

“It’s tradition to threaten the groom on behalf of the bride’s honor and happiness before the wedding.”

“Oh.” Harry still had no idea what that meant. He was learning far more about wedding traditions and superstitions than he ever wanted to today. Lucius didn’t release his shoulder, but instead started leading him outside.

“He’s a professional threat maker. This probably won’t be suitable for your young ears.”

Harry swallowed his indignation, and simply nodded to the other two men as he left the tent. When he was outside, he began to move away to find Voldemort but Lucius still hadn’t let go.

“Just a moment, Harry. I wanted to speak with you. We so rarely have the opportunity, despite our mutual acquaintances.”

Turning back to the man, he pushed aside his own trepidation to look at him directly. He had resolved himself to the fact back on the Hogwarts Express that eventually he was going to have to stand toe to toe with Lucius on Hermione’s behalf, and this was probably as good a place to start practicing as any.

“I have never known you to particularly care for my company, sir, aside from the occasional negotiation.”

He was referring of course to the instance in which they had conspired to blackmail Headmistress Lestrange into leaving him alone. He didn’t know if the bargain held any influence over either of them any more now that Snape had replaced her at Hogwarts. Lucius’ amused expression didn’t waiver.

“No need to be quite so formal. You’re practically my godson at this point.”

Yeah, I’d like to introduce you to myrealgodfather, you slimy-

“For what such bonds are worth to either of us.”

His words seemed to impress the man more than discourage him. “Oh, Harry, you should know by now these bonds are the most important resources you have in the wizarding world. They’re more important than money, more important than titles. Your guardian is a perfect example of that.”

Harry didn’t have to ask what he meant. He knew already that Snape was only a half-blood and had never been particularly wealthy, which under most circumstances would have left him little more than a third class citizen. However, the man had managed to rise to a position of prestige with the support of the Dark Lord and to a lesser extent Lucius Malfoy. Their bonds were not familial, but they were just as tangible. Snape had likely shed blood for these men. Perhaps they had done the same.

“You can not expect to thrive in this world solely on the Dark Lord’s or Severus’ rather tenuous support. I believe it would be to your benefit to foster the relationship with my family you have already begun through my son.”

Harry didn’t miss that fact he hadn’t said ‘daughter’ or even ‘Hermione’.

“Severus informed me that while he and his new bride were away, the Morgans would be looking after you. Perhaps you would consider spending part of that time at Malfoy Manner. We would all be delighted to have you, and I am certain we could find ways to keep you suitably entertained.”

He fought his first instinct to automatically say no and then his second instinct to automatically say yes. Honestly, the idea of being trapped in Lucius Malfoy’s home for an indeterminate amount of time was in no way appealing, but spending said time with his friends was something he had always wanted to do. He had visited on occasion, too rarely, and had always had fun until it seemed cut short way too soon by Snape’s busy schedule. He floundered for an appropriate response, still trying to not appear manipulated or uncertain.

“I… will have to get back to you on that. I am supposed to meet with my godfather,” he said, feeling a moment of pure satisfaction at having evaded Lucius’ attempted claim to that title. “…sometime this month. Some sort of official business that needs to be sorted out.”

The Malfoy patriarch’s expression tightened. He knew he was being evaded.

“I wasn’t aware you were still on speaking terms with the Head Alpha. You have not been working in official capacity for him for quite some time.”

“For obvious reason, I was unable to. The medi-wizards cleared me for active duty just a few weeks ago, and I am looking forward to getting back to work.”

Liar, liar, liar!

“Well, it is certainly good to hear that you are so… eager… to continue your civic duties. Surely, it will not take a month to complete.”

No, and I can’t lie about it much longer. At least, he knows he can’t have me at his beck and call.

“Very unlikely,” Harry agreed. “I was just going to find Lord Voldemort and discuss it with him. As soon as I get things sort, I’ll let you know.”

He very carefully moved Lucius’ hand from his shoulder and walked away. It was an effort not to run, especially when he could feel the man’s eyes drilling in to the back of his head. Once he had moved safely out of sight, he let out the breath he was holding and grinned. All things considered, that had actually gone a lot better than he had thought it would. He hadn’t actually told the man to bugger-off, but it had been close enough.

Now he really did need to find Voldemort and ask him about seeing his godfather. He should have written to him the day he had received the summons, but he had wanted to speak with him in person and this seemed the best opportunity. He hadn’t wanted to send a reply to Sirius until he had a better idea about the situation with the werewolves. There had been very little in the newspapers about them in the last couple of months and Snape had been evasive of the topic.

Before he could find the Dark Lord, however, he found himself just behind one of the concession tents where several ladies were engaged in conversation inside to avoid the sun. He hadn’t meant to linger, and was in fact only there so he could avoid being spotted by other guests who might try to stop him for conversation, but something one of the women inside said made him pause.

“I don’t know how she managed to dupe someone a second time into marrying her,” a woman snickered, “I mean, it’s not as if she ever put that much effort into making herself attractive. She collects bugs for Merlin’s sake.”

Several other women tittered insipidly along with her. Harry wondered if they hadn’t managed to get sloshed before coming to the wedding.

“Well, it’s not like her husband is that much better. I heard he was a mudblood, and hardly a Gilderoy Lockhart himself.”

Someone snorted, rather unattractively.

“Oh, please, that’s just jealous rumor. He’s one of the Dark Lord’s inner circle and General Malfoy is his best man! There’s no way he’s anything but pure blood. Bastard pureblood, maybe, but pureblood just the same. He’s supposed to be some sort of genius too. He’s taking over the Headmaster position at Hogwarts this year, and he’s already published as some sort of potion’s expert. At least that’s what Barney says. He pays more attention to that sort of silly gossip.”

Harry rolled his eyes.

“She really bagged one this time. Poor bastard. Do you think he knows she’s barren?”

Someone gasped.

“She’s barren?”

“That’s why I heard she was divorced in the first place. I heard she tried to commit suicide afterwards. Although, who knows? She might have been trying to get him to take her back. She had to have been desperate. At least that’s what Barney says.”

“Well, Barney is apparently full of it. No one in Severus Snape’s position would bother with that sort of girl.”

“No one in Severus Snape’s position would bother with secondhand goods either, but here we are! Sitting at this tacky little wedding in the middle of a field like a bunch of peasants marrying the local goatherd and milkmai-”

Harry, who had heard far more than he was willing to tolerate, stepped out in front of the entrance of the tent. There were five women inside, although he had only heard three.

“Silencio,” he said, and with a wave of his want they were all struck instantly mute. Not that they would have said anything. They were all still quite stunned by his appearance. He tucked his wand away and gave them his nastiest smile. “In case you don’t know who I am, let me introduce myself. I am Harold James Potter of the Potter Family, ambassador and godson of the Head Alpha Sirius Blackbone, protégé to Lord Voldemort, parselmouth, and I might be a Lord of something or other, I haven’t really bothered to look it up. Anyway, I just thought I would let you know that Professor Snape is my guardian and Miss Beadle is going to become my guardian when she marries him. Miss Beadle, who you have so tackily been insulting at her own wedding, is a very nice lady who I have a great respect for and as one of my guardians, she’s practically a mother to me.”

The gossipers eyes grew wider and wider with every word he spoke, and he felt his smile grow nastier by the second.

“Now, what do you suppose a son might do to someone who called his mother ‘used goods’ and implied she was ugly, weak, and manipulative at her own wedding where anyone could overhear them? I’m honestly not certain myself. I could always go ask Voldemort, I suppose. I am sure he would have some ideas.”

One of the women got up, looking as if she was about to apologize.

“Sit.”

He thought he might have said that in parseltongue, he was so angry at the moment. Whatever he said, she obviously understood because she sat down immediately and closed her mouth.

“Well, since I haven’t found him yet, I suppose I’ll just have to wing it. Since you apparently have no sense of common decency or common sense, I think it would be appropriate that none of you say anything further for the remainder of the day. You will leave the silencing spell on until you leave. If you take them off, I’ll have to do something more drastic…like cut out your tongues. Hopefully, after today, you will have learned to speak of Miss Beadle… excuse me, after today she would Mrs. Snape… that you will have learned to speak of her in a polite and respectful manner deserving of her character and station… you nasty, useless little trollops. Bessiastus!”

With seeker-like speed, Harry made his escape as the tent collapsed down on top of the women. It did so silently, and since the gossipers couldn’t actually scream, no one noticed what had happened for several seconds, and that was plenty of time for him to disappear behind yet another set of tents.

Well, that was…annoying, he decided. He sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. A part of him wanted to go back and fill the tent the women were still struggling to crawl out of with bees. This was not the angriest he had ever been, but it was close. He couldn’t believe they would talk like that about someone as sweet and kind as Ira, and one her wedding day no less! She had told him about the divorce before, in vague terms that made him think the details were too awful for her to articulate to him, and for some strangers to come along and manipulate it into some sordid little melodrama for their own amusement was more than he could stand.

Maybe he should set the tent on fire.

But no… they weren’t worth it. They were mean and petty and stupid, but not worth more than the vicious scare he had given them. Maybe worth even less than that. It wasn’t something he wanted to make a habit of doing.

He was so distracted by the encounter (and just waiting for someone to find and scold him over the matter), it took him several minutes to notice the ladybug sitting on his sleeve. When he finally did, he very carefully pretended he hadn’t. After another minute or two, he took a deep breath and walked back out onto the grounds. He glanced briefly over at the collapsed tent, where several of Morgan’s security were helping pull the frazzled looking women out, but carefully kept himself from smirking and continued on his way to the nearby concession stand. A primly dressed young wizard handed him a champagne flute of water, and he drank it slowly and headed further away from the crowds. He could not move beyond the grounds and into the surrounding forest because of the security, but he did move off to relative privacy beside the tent that had been set up out of the way to hold the extra supplies that might be needed during the reception.

He glanced around briefly, to see if anyone had noticed him (and luckily almost everyone was distracted by the great collapsing tent event), and very casually poured out the rest of his water and placed the open mouth of the flute over the ladybug, trapping it. The little insect immediately tried to fly away, but met only unbreakable glass, banging its tiny little body against the transparent walls. While it struggled, Harry transferred his hand over the mouth of the glass quickly, so that he could take a closer look at what he had found. He tilted his head curiously.

“It seems I found myself a wedding crasher,” he said idly

The ladybug simply struggled harder than ever against the glass and his hand, trying to squeeze through, but he wouldn’t let it. Carefully, he turned the glass over in and then set it down just behind the tent where no one else could see. He stepped back. If this went badly, he wanted to remain in sight where someone might notice and raise an alarm. He pointed the wand at the upturned glass.

“Patefacio humanus!”

The glass instantly shattered, and where once there was a beetle there now laid a rather harried Rita Skeeter. Harry just stared at her.

“Of all the silly, stupid…” he started. “Do you have any idea how close I was to handing you over to Morgan directly?”

She smiled rather sheepishly up at him, righting her glasses and stumbling to her feet to right the rest of her. Wisely, she stayed behind the tent and out of sight. Her bright red robes were not going to go unnoticed amongst the crowd of neutral tones.

“H-how did you know?”

“We have like… twenty million flowers out there, of course we set up anti-pest wards. No real insects should have been able to get in. Even the butterflies are just transfigured paper.”

“Oh… well, yes. I didn’t think of that. But… but how did you know I was animagus? For that matter, how did you know the revealing charm for it?”

“Dueling Club,” he said reflexively, which was his excuse for knowing just about any spell he probably shouldn’t. “Do I even have to ask what you think you’re doing here?”

“Well, I would have thought that was obvious! This wedding is huge! The biggest names in politics are here! Voldemort, Malfoy, Morgan, Talmac, Blackwell, Dovesky, Burman… and no one from the press. There hasn’t been this much security for an event since…”

“Don’t care,” he said, sighing. “And what precisely have you learned so far that made risking life in Azkaban worth it?”

She was actually grinning excitedly, which made him wonder about her sanity. And also about his own for not calling one of Morgan’s security over immediately. There were a few looking over at him curiously already.

“I know Snape actually sold tickets to this event. Very, very naughty. It’s an unspoken tradition for a reason you know. I also know Miss Beadle is not the blushing virgin bride we all thought she was.”

“Watch it,” he said, tightening his grip on his wand and making sure she noticed. Her smile faded somewhat, and she took a step back.

“And I know you’re not entirely the prince charming you claim to be.”

“I never claimed to be a prince, charming or otherwise. That’s what you,” he said, pointing at her, “and the rest of the press decided to call me. But okay, congratulations. You’ve uncovered all these nasty little secrets. What do you think you’re going to do with them?”

She frowned. “I’m a reporter. I’ll report them of course!”

He shook his head.

“I don’t think so.”

She pouted. Literally. Her bottom lip stuck out and everything. He nearly laughed. He had caught her and they both knew it. His victory left him feeling more generous than he had with the gossipers, even though Skeeter was likely a hundred times more dangerous. Lucius was right. If he wanted to make it in the world he was going to need more than Voldemort and Snape.

From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of one of Morgan’s Sentinels heading towards him slowly. He turned back to her.

“I only have about a minute before that sentinel comes over here and sees you, so I’ll make this quick. If I wanted to, I could tell anyone here that I saw you and what you did and you would disappear off the face of the earth just for the sheer audacity of it. But, no harm, no foul. I’m willing to let this go. I’ll even ignore the fact you’re flittering about for the rest of the wedding if you want to stay. You do so at your own risk.”

She was grinning again like a mad woman, but then stopped and narrowed her eyes behind her speckled glasses.

“What’s the catch?”

“You don’t write anything that embarrasses me or my…” family? Associates? “circle of acquaintances. That includes the Snapes, the Morgans, Voldemort… if you’d even dare… and… the Malfoys…”

Because even if he didn’t like Lucius, he wasn’t going to let anyone hurt Draco or Hermione if he could help it.

“In fact, you have to write something nice about Ira. Compliment her hair or something in your article,” he said, quickly, getting more nervous as the Sentinel drew closer. Skeeter started to object, but she didn’t get the chance. “Change back now!”

Without a sound, Skeeter disappeared and a little beetle disappeared into the grass just as the Sentinel reached him. The woman was looking at him curiously, and then behind the tent.

“Is something the matter?” she said, suspiciously.

“Er… yeah, sorry. I broke my glass,” he said, pointing to the shards of the flute still littering the ground. “I’ve just been trying to remember the spell to fix it. I know it’s a really obvious one. I just feel stupid that I can’t-”

“Reparo.”

Instantly, the glass fixed itself and the woman handed it back to him. He smiled at her sheepishly.

“Thanks, that was it. I just didn’t want anyone else to see me. That would be completely embarrassing.”

She didn’t seem exactly suspicious, but she didn’t seem to be buying his story either.

“What are you doing back here to begin with?”

“Oh… uh…”

He struggled to think of a logical excuse, but before he could she smiled knowingly.

“Bathrooms full?”

He just blinked at her. His ears suddenly flushed red. Her smile widened.

“They never have enough toilets at these things. Don’t worry about it, your secret’s safe with me. You better get back though. They’re about ready to start seating people. I think you’re at the front row.”

“Yeah… thanks.”

She winked at him and moved off, signaling to someone else that everything was fine. Skeeter landed on his shoulder, and even though he couldn’t hear her, Harry was positive she was laughing at him.

“Hey, I only told you the condition for letting you stay,” he warned. “You’re just going to have to wait till I decide on the condition for not telling everyone that you’re an animagus. Probably an unregistered animagus at that.”

Apparently, Skeeter was much less amused about that than his little misunderstanding with the Sentinel, and she flew off in what he assumed was a huff. Just the same, he was feeling quite clever. Next time he saw Hermione he might tell her about what had happened, and maybe find a way to get Skeeter to help find Hermione a sponsor. Who knew, perhaps Skeeter could even be Hermione’s sponsor. He would discuss it with her later, when he went to stay with the Malfoys.

After his second brush with blackmail, Harry managed to enjoy a full thirty minutes where absolutely nothing even remotely interesting happened. This was primarily because he was stuck in a line waiting for security to double check him for dark artifacts or any other items he might use to assassinate someone. This took quite some time since everyone who was sitting towards the front, himself included, kept setting off the equipment used to detect ‘dark’ magic. No one but him noticed the tiny little bug fly over their heads and into the trees.

He entertained himself for a few minutes imagining if someone had.

Finally, he was allowed to cross the bridge and make his way through the trees. They wound around and between several large rock formation for almost a hundred or so feet before the trees gave way to yet another clearing. There were rows upon rows of red cushioned benches, a wide red carpet dividing them in half and leading to the front where platform made of unshaped stone rose up for everyone to see, and an stone altar draped in white clothe and sacraments waited. A choir stood off to the left, draped in red and white robes, and to the right a woman with a harp and man with pipes were playing a gentle, festive tune.

It could have been the interior of any church or cathedral Harry had ever been in, except there were no stone walls to house them, but rows upon rows of closely growing trees, their overarching branches acting as the vaulted ceiling, while heavy white bouquets of flowers hung down, raining flower petals from above. Beyond the platform and altar were not more trees but instead a rocky shore leading to waters of an ancient lake, and beyond those cliffs towered hundreds of feet above the water. Cloud shadows danced across the verdant cliffs and deep blue waters, making them seem some how alive.

Hermione had been right. It truly was spectacular.

“This is a sacred place to the druids, you know.”

He gave a little start, and looked up to see Voldemort had somehow snuck up behind him. Being neither a traditionalist or modest, the man had kept his usual dark robes, black with hints of blood red, and no one dared comment on it. At least not where they would be heard. Harry wondered what he would do if he hadheard someone, and if it would have been anything like what he had done to the gossipers or if he really wouldn’t have torn out their tongues. Maybe he would have just crucioed them.

The Dark Lord seemed amused by his distraction, and placed his arm around Harry’s shoulder to lead him like a lost little lamb to his seat. Or what was now his seat, because he was quite certain he was supposed to be sitting on the other side of the aisle. It was best not to complain, he decided, especially when he realized he would have been sitting next to a group of rather unfriendly looking people who were already glaring at him.

“They married many a king and noble along these shores.”

“And what shores are these?” he asked. “I suspect Wales, but I’m not sure where.”

Voldemort grinned, pleased. “You are correct. We’re just North of St. Bride’s Bay, appropriately enough. About the closest Wales and Ireland get to each other. You look well, Harry. Are you enjoying yourself?”

Strangely enough, he was. It wasn’t exactly as fun as Quidditch, but enough was happening to keep him on his toes without any real crisis breaking out. Plus, he had the strange feeling that he was winning at the moment, even if he didn’t understand all the rules.

“I think so. I’m glad you could come. I know you’ve been busy.”

The Dark Lord tilted his head curiously and when he spoke again it was in parseltongue.

“I hope you have not been feeling neglected.”

“No. I underssstand. I’ve been enjoying the quiet… while it lassstsss.”

Voldemort nodded in acknowledgement. He would not keep Harry out of the world for much longer.

“I wishhhed to ssspeak to you about Ssiriusss and the otherss,” he continued. “He ssent me a ssummonss.”

“Yesss, I know.”

“Do you know what it’ss about?”

“No. Blackbone iss… unpredictable at the moment. He hass been reorganizing the coloniess in wayss I do not fully undersstand. He iss not asss you remember him. He iss aggresssive, driven, tyrannical. As viciouss asss Greyback ever wass.”

Harry tried to imagine what Voldemort was saying, and for a few moments he thought he could see it. Blackbone could indeed be vicious and a bully, but after those few moments he couldn’t help but remembering his godfather grinning like a lunatic or bickering with Remus over the silliest things. His expression must have shown his confusion.

“If you are uncertain, I can accompany you. I would sssay you don’t have to go at all, but we both have a contract to honor.”

Harry shook his head.

“No. I don’t want him to think I’m hiding behind you. I don’t… want him to think I’m scared of him.”

Voldemort looked down at him for a long time, studying him. Harry looked back, although he didn’t know what he was looking for or what he wanted to say. He was scared, but not of Sirius. Not really. Their reunion would be painful, no matter what either of them said or did, but not knowing would be worse.

Finally, the Dark Lord let out a sigh and ruffled his hair affectionately. Harry felt his face flush in embarrassment. The entire ‘chapel’ had to be watching them.

“I will make arrangementss. Be ready in three dayss. You might not think you need me, but you will not go unprotected. You have not sseen what I have sseen.”

Having nothing more to say, he merely ducked his head and said quietly, “Thank you, my Lord.”

“You do me proud, Harry, when you are least intending to.”

He didn’t know what the Dark Lord meant by that, and he didn’t have time to question. The music suddenly changed and the choir began to sing, signaling the beginning of the ceremony. Everyone took their seats, and fell silent.

The ceremony was thankfully brief, and tastefully done. There was very little differencw from what Harry knew of muggle weddings and he was able to follow along fairly well. Hermione stood off to the right side with another girl Harry didn’t know as some sort of maid of honor. Snape stood at the left side of the alter, Lucius a little further down with Draco beside him, acting as ring bearer.

Outside of the tent, his expression severe, as if daring anyone to make one remark about his wedding armor (which Harry thought was pretty funny in a symbolic way but suited him quite well), Snape struck an even more dramatic figure.

And then there was Ira.

Harry barely even recognized her. Morgan walked proudly beside her, her arm grasped in his, his expression the fiercest Harry had ever seen it as walked his stepdaughter down the isle. He thought he might understand the man’s protectiveness.

She had never been what he thought of as beautiful or had the attention catching features of someone like Snape, but on this particular day she was nothing less than breathtakingly radiant. Her dress was the picture of elegance, bringing out the natural elegance of Ira’s own body, mirroring the gentle slope of her shoulders over soft curves of her bosom, hugging her slender waist into an ever decreasing diameter until it flared at the hips in a series of voluminous satin folds. The sleeves were long, covering her arms and extending over the back of her hands in an ironic display of modestly, because the back to her dress was open, exposing a rather risqué amount of skin by wizarding standard even with the veil she was wearing covering most of it. Harry smiled to himself when he noticed she had somehow managed to create giant butterfly out of light blue ribbons to rest at the base of her back, making it all somehow perfectly Ira.

Harry couldn’t recall much of the ceremony after that. He knew the priest talked a lot about duty and honor and love, and that they had their hands tied together in a ritual knot, but he didn’t notice when or how the ritual sacraments were used. He was much too busy studying the bride and groom in rapt fascination. Snape’s expression, which had at first been stern and foreboding, had softened at Ira’s approach. He wouldn’t call it lovesick or star struck or anything so sentimental, but it was… warm. Affectionate. Welcoming. When the man had pulled back Ira’s veil he could safely say she was at least head over heels for the man.

He found himself looking down in embarrassment when they actually kissed. It was just weird.

Later, during the reception, long after the Dark Lord had excused himself and many hours of dancing, drinking, celebrating, and a dozen strange wizarding traditions played out, Hermione would finally manage to sit him down at one of the long tables and tell him what he had missed.

“He’s completely in love with her,” she said. “You can’t kiss a woman like that and not be. I don’t think he even realized it till now.”

He found himself looking for them amongst the crowd, and found them on the dance floor of all places. The evening was winding down and the songs were mostly slow now. Ira, now officially Mrs. Ira Snape, was resting her head against Snape’s shoulder, looking tired and happy as he led her around the floor, one hand at her waist and another stroking a curly lock of hair that had managed to escape the bridal weave.

It occurred to him that he hadn’t realized Snape was in love with her until now either.

1. Yes, wizards do imbibe both booze and drugs on inappropriate occasions, such as weddings. They wouldn’t be human otherwise.↩

The Wall

Life in the cottage felt rather surreal for Harry without Snape and Ira there. It hadn’t occurred to him how…homey it was until their absence. The professor, while he spent much of his time cloistered in his potions lab, appeared at least once or twice a day to eat and make sure Harry hadn’t been kidnapped or burned down the house. He had often thought of the man as authoritarian, but there was something vaguely comforting about that. Patriarchal, if not exactly fatherly.

Ira was a constant feminine presence, even when she hadn’t technically lived at the cottage until Harry’s injury. While the domestic skills were pleasant and helpful, it was the gentle air about her that he missed the most.

She was not like his mother, not really. His mom had always been tempestuous and excitable; passionate about everything from her politics to her breakfast cereal to the point Harry had often felt baffled as a child. Ira was quiet and thoughtful, finding enjoyment where others might only find frustration. Harry sometimes felt she was oblivious to the world, but he had overheard enough evening conversations between her and Snape to know she thought about a great many things, political and esoteric both. She didn’t speak of these things to Harry, he suspected, because she wanted him to feel as safe and happy in his own home as possible and that meant the rest of the world could hang itself.

In this way, she reminded him very much of his mother.

Not that he really thought of her as his mother. It was only that he felt her absence so keenly that made him think along those lines. Ira’s mom was nice an all, but her hectic and busy manner got on his nerves rather quickly. Snape and Ira had always seemed to have things to do, but had never hurried themselves while doing them, where as Susan Morgan didn’t really seem to have anything to do and yet was always in a rush.

“Are you all packed, deary?” she clucked, hovering about in his doorway. This was third time she had asked in the last hour, so he just nodded and tried to hide his impatience. For the time being, he was simply killing time skimming through the animagus book Remus had given him last fall. He supposed it was foolish to expect to be taught that mysterious art now, but he still wanted to give the book another once over before he returned it. “Do you suppose you have time for a cup of tea? I bought these wonderful orange and cranberry scones from the market this morning, and it would be such a shame-”

It would have to be shame, because a knock sounded at the door, interrupting her and her plans. Harry practically leaped for his bag, shoving the book inside, and heading for the door. His shaman’s staff leaned against the wall beside it, his wand already placed safely inside, and he squeezed passed Susan.

“That’s my lift! I better go!”

“Are you sure you and your friend can’t stay for tea?” she called, as he disappeared down the stairs.

“Can’t be late! Diplomatic affairs and all. It would be bad form!”

The fact that he was dressed as if he were going camping rather than attending to ‘diplomatic affairs’ went completely ignored by both parties.

“Oh yes, you’re right. Send word as soon as you know when you’ll be back!”

“Yes, ma’am! Say goodbye to Mr. Morgan for me!”

Escaping to the front door, he threw it open to greet his chaperone and paused. Tall, black, and completely bald with a gold loop in his ear, the wizard at the door could easily have been mistaken for a muggle professional athlete if not for his wizarding style dress, although even that seemed geared to strenuous physical activity rather than the robes wizards typically wore. Harry had seen many great and dangerous wizards before, but none exuded the sort of physically robust health of this man with the exception of perhaps Sirius and Remus.

“Mr. Potter,” the man said, rather cautiously for a man who looked like he could pop his head like a grape. Harry blinked and mentally shook himself.

“Just Harry’s fine. You’re…?”

“Sentinel Kinglsey Shacklebolt, at your service. Kingsley is just fine for this trip, although in public…” he said, his previous tension fading somewhat. Harry nodded.

“Formalities,” he said with a grin, finding himself instantly liking the man for some reason. “Speaking of which… password?”

“‘You need a haircut’.”

“That would be it.”

“Honestly, kid, you really do.”

He rolled his eyes, and walked off the stoop and into the garden, Shacklebolt following him. The man made a cursory glance back at the cottage, clearly curious.

“Were you expecting a mansion?” Harry asked.

“Honestly, yes, I sort of was.”

That explained some of the man’s previous caution. Perhaps he thought he was going to be dealing with a rich brat who expected to be called ‘Mr. Potter’. He imagined Draco would expect that sort of respect if they were in a similar situation.

“Despite popular perception, I’m not actually rich. I’m going to Hogwarts on Court Scholarship, did you know that?”

“I did not. I assumed the Potter vaults-”

“Are not accessible to me. It doesn’t matter. I don’t need them really.”

They exited the garden gate and Harry shivered a bit as they passed through the protective wards. He always felt a moment of complete exposure after leaving them. It passed within a few seconds and they found themselves heading up the road towards the town.

“So,” Harry continued. “What did you do to get stuck guarding ‘the little rich brat’ from werewolves? Not exactly an assignment people are scrambling after, I imagine.”

The man laughed, his deep voice an earthy rumble.

“Actually, you would be surprised. You’re big name around the office. A big, scary name. Half the rookies want to be you.”

“What a horrifying thought.” He was only half joking when he said this. It really was vaguely horrifying that anyone would want him for a role model, or in any way duplicate his life experiences. “So why you?”

“The Dark Lord wanted a specialist for this. Just so happens I am that specialist.”

“You specialize in werewolves?”

“No, I specialized in kids.”

Harry did a double take, turning to Shacklebolt. The man’s expression was rather sardonic at this point.

“I work a lot with children and teenagers who are abused or mistreated. I get between them and whatever threatens them.”

“I’ve never-” he started but instantly stopped and reworded his sentence, then just had to let it die an undignified death and start anew. “Blackbone has never hurt me.”

“And the chances are he never will,” the sentinel agreed. “But that’s not entirely what I’m here to protect you from. You were traumatized in the Battle of the Berlin Underground.”

Harry stiffened. “I’m fine.”

“I can see that. I am also trained to see when you aren’t.”

The Gryffindor turned away, feeling stupid and naïve for assuming this man would be a friend. His friends didn’t treat him like frail child about ready to wet himself at the slightest provocation. He wasn’t weak. Stupid, sometimes, and perhaps more sympathetic than was strictly healthy, but not weak.

If he were, he wouldn’t be going to see his godfathers at all.

“I’m not insulting you. I’m not here to be your babysitter. I am here to be your backup,” the man insisted, catching Harry’s sudden withdrawal. “The Dark Lord told me that you had already refused his assistance and since your guardian is out of the country, he had to pick someone experienced in knowing when you, a kid, were fine and when you were in over your head. I don’t know if it’s escaped your notice, but you’re not exactly visiting a bunch of old ladies for tea and biscuits. No one should be going alone, let alone someone in such a tenuous position with the Head Alpha.”

Frankly, after three days with Ira’s mother, he would happily choose angry werewolves over old biddies, tea, and biscuits. In fact, he was choosing werewolves. He sighed.

“You know, most kids, when they’re about to do something difficult, are supposed get words of encouragement. All I’ve had so far are the implications that I’m going to die horribly or be driven insane. I’m feeling really unloved here.”

“Would you like a hug? I’m a professional hugger. They have classes to train you for this sort of thing at the Academy.”

Harry laughed, and some of the tension cleared. He wouldn’t make the same mistake of thinking of the man as his friend again, but there wasn’t any reason they had to be enemies.

“Careful, Kingsley! I’ve invaded countries for less!”

He was already turning away to head up the hill again, and missed the pained expression that crossed the Sentinel’s face. There was little time after that left for talking and joking, before they reached the village floo.

Harry followed the path to the boundary of the werewolf territory easily, though it was nearly invisible under the thick growth of a full, wet spring. At some point, he stopped and stripped down only his pants, tucking his shirt and shoes into his pack, much to Shacklebolt’s curiosity. He eyed Harry’s collection of scars and tattoos thoughtfully, but asked nothing about them. The man had been quiet since they had entered the forest, and Harry was no longer in a chatty mood.

His previous nervousness over his reunion with his godfathers was back and strong as ever. A secret need to hide his own uncertainty was the only thing that kept him moving forward, and Kingsley followed his lead, less knowledgeable about what they were to face than Harry himself. To the young wizard, the forest was bright and warm, filled with life and memories, as familiar as the cottage garden. To the Sentinel, however, the place was too silent, haunted by unseen things living and not. There was constantly a shadow or movement just out of the corner of his eye that disappeared the second he turned to look more closely.

“This place is strange.”

Harry glanced back at him and smiled mysteriously.

“It probably feels the same way about you. Come, it’s not much further.”

A few minutes later they came to the boundary, a glowing green line that seemed to come from above and below simultaneously. Harry paused at its edge, looking around briefly for a moment. He reached out timidly for the barrier and sighed in relief as his hand passed through it easily.

“Permission to bring a guest?” he called out, seemingly to no one.

Kingsley wand jumped to his hand as a man suddenly stood, covered in a blanket of grass and foliage that had rendered him all but invisible without an ounce of magic. Harry didn’t even have to turn his head. He had known he was there from the start.

“What guest then, Twilight Seeker?” the man called. “Not the Black Eel then?”

The Black Eel was the rather unfortunate name given Snape, and Harry rather hoped his guardian wasn’t aware of that fact.

“Sentinel Kingsley Shacklebolt, friend and protector! I’ll vouch for him!”

The man thought for a moment, but quickly enough gestured for him to enter. Two more figures appeared on the path, startling Shacklebolt a second time. Once again, Harry did not seem alarmed by their sudden appearance.

“Jumpy fellow, isn’t he?” one of the figures, a young woman dressed in a dark green tunic. Her sister, dressed similarly in reddish brown, just smiled. “Welcome, stranger. And welcome back, brother! It’s been too long.”

Both women hugged him tightly, and a part of Harry uncoiled in their arms. He had been afraid, so incredibly afraid that he would be rejected when he returned, treated as some sort of stranger that he had resigned and steeled himself to it. Now… at least part of him could relax.

“You both look wonderful, Winterhare, Fleetfoot. Have you both taken up archery? You’re about ready to break my ribs.”

They both giggled and let go.

“Noticed, have you?” Winterhare said, showing off the strong, lean muscle of her arms. “Blackbone’s got all the womenfolk taking it up. Says he doesn’t like how vulnerable we are to aerial attacks. Fleetfoot’s the best shot in the clan. She can shoot a running hare at fifty paces, while runningherself.”

“Come by my cabin later and I’ll give you a lesson or two. You must be completely out of practice since we last saw you.”

He smiled ruefully at them. He had not seen them since the last summer festival, during which time they were not a part of the Goddess Clan colony (lucky for them or else they would probably not be alive to tease him here). It was a bittersweet thought.

“I’ll take you up on that if I can. How are my godfathers?”

Their smiles faltered somewhat, but Winterhare plowed through the question easily enough.

“They’ll be much happier having seen you up and about. You look wonderful! Now hurry up. Blackbone will have our hides if we hold you up any longer.”

Harry nodded, and looked around for a second. “Where did Rubin go?”

“On ahead most like, to tell Blackbone you’re here. Come on. You too, handsome.”

Shacklebolt gave them a big, white smile and that sent them both giggling as they scampered off down the trail. Harry followed more sedately, giving his bodyguard time to look around and to gather his nerve. A lot had happened since he was last here, and he had no idea what or how things had changed. Sirius had still been in the infancy of his rule as Head Alpha, the shrine to Greyback and the slain had been erected, and the village had just moved North with new members before Harry had fallen under possession and led over a hundred werewolves to be slaughtered. He knew almost nothing about what had happened since then.

The first inkling that things were different came as they entered the sacred burial site and shrine. It was of course somewhat different than Harry remembered, after a healthy spring growth had settled over the burial mounds, giving the shrine a settled look. Large stone slabs, cut and polished, rested atop the graves, covering them completely. Upon each grave marker was engraved a series of names and a moon, each one at a different phase. He hadn’t realized until know that there were twenty-eight graves, one for each day of the lunar cycle. It didn’t surprise him that Greyback’s held the full moon.

The site was meticulously clean and there was a veritable garden of flowers around every grave and small offerings of food and drink and even a few handmade children’s toys, but to Harry’s pagan mind there was something off about it all. He stood staring at the graves for several minutes before he realized what it was.

“There are no weapons,” he noted. “No animal sacrifices either. Not even a hare.”

“And that’s bad?” Shacklebolt asked, very quietly, sensing this was a sacred place.

“These are a people of the hunt. There should be offerings of flesh as well as offerings of grain,” he explained, unsure what to make of it. There was nothing disrespectful in the offerings, they were neither cheap nor pithy, but it all somehow seemed incomplete. He thought to ask the other girls, but they were too far ahead and he refused to raise his voice in this place to call them back. The questions could wait.

After leaving the burial site, a slow rise in activity began to occur around them. A man cleaned and tanned hides a few yards from the trail, while a boy gathered the scrapings of fat into jars to make soap. Small groups of women and children weeded through the underbrush, weeding up mushrooms, roots, flowers, and anything else that could be harvested for food or sale. From far above they heard the whistle of look outs, marking their passage as they passed beneath them, though neither Harry nor Shacklebolt could determine where exactly they were hiding amongst the thick foliage.

None of this was strange to Harry except perhaps the tree-top lookouts, and even that was not out of character. Several people stopped or looked up as Harry passed to give him a respectful nod or a wave before returning to their work, as if nothing had changed at all since his last visit.

The illusion could not last long.

They reached the crest of the hill that flattened out into the village and Harry froze at the sight that greeted him. Beside him Shacklebolt also stopped, gaping.

“I take it this wasn’t here last time?”

“No… I should think not….”

For standing before them was not the huddle of wooden lodges and temporary huts nestled between trees like he was used to, but instead… well, he wasn’t sure what it was. At the moment, it didn’t appear to be anything but a great big mess. A great stretch of forest had been cleared away and leveled, the timber used to create several platforms around which massive stone blocks, each as long Harry was tall and several feet in height, laid out in a half completed wall. Dozens of men and women, some with wands and some without, were stripped down to the bare essentials as they hauled and magicked the stone blocks from the other side onto the wall itself and fixed it in place. Priestesses followed afterwards, painting the newly placed stone with a series of symbols in what Harry suspected was blood (or some sort of blood mixture). They appeared to do this for every block that was laid, and he had to marvel at the notion as the wall, while only about six feet tall and obviously not complete, stretched in either direction as far as Harry could see.

Cautiously, Harry made his way down the path to the small door that had been left in the wall. As he passed through it, his entire body broke out into shivers as strange magic poured over him like icy rain against naked flesh, clean and deadly cold. Shacklebolt caught him, confused by his reaction.

“They’re turning the entire wall into a keystone,” he said faintly. He had a sudden flash of insight, a question and an answer that sprung up like an epiphany. “Like Hogwarts.”

It had never occurred to him before to ask what it was that made Hogwarts so magical, even in comparison to so many other magical places in the world. He had always assumed it was simply the amount of magic that had been performed inside of it and expended on it over the centuries and to a certain extent that was the case. But there were many places where magic was performed constantly over the centuries and yet still could not compare, including schools and universities that had been around almost as long as or even longer than Hogwarts itself. What set Hogwarts apart, he now realized, was that from the very moment of construction, the castle had been designed to absorb magic. Just as the wall was designed to do now.

Harry felt dizzy at the realization, unable to determine what it might mean or even why it was being done.

“Magnificent, isn’t it?” called a familiar voice. Harry’s mind jumped quickly into focus as his gaze found Remus sitting atop a great pile of timbers, his wand in one hand and a canteen in another. He was stripped down as much as the other workers, and though he was at least ten years older than most of them, his body was still strong and powerful beneath the grim of dirt and sweat.

Harry could only blink dumbly, first at his godfather and then at the… great monstrosity that was currently cutting the forest in half. Remus smiled tiredly and climbed down from his resting place, calling out to another werewolf to keep track of the progress.

“It’ll be years before it’s completed at this rate, decades even,” he said, “but it keeps everyone busy and out of trouble. It’ll be a magical wonder if we ever finish it. How are you, Harry?”

And just like with Winterhare and Fleetfoot, Harry felt the disorientation at finding himself treated normally in a completely abnormal situation once again. If he didn’t get fix on things soon, he wasn’t going to be able to walk in a straight line let alone take care of business.

“I…I’m fine. How are you?”

He flinched at how stupid that sounded, but Remus just smiled and ruffled his hair before turning to Shacklebolt.

“Kingsley Shacklebolt, you little rascal. I though you were dead for sure.”

The wizard grinned back at him, and shook his hand in greeting.

“It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? I wouldn’t have recognized you without those scars.”

“You know each other?” Harry asked.

“Kingsley’s father was an instructor at the Academy of Aurors, and the little bugger used to think he owned the damn place. I hadn’t seen him since he was about your age.”

“Yeah, and I was still bigger than you, Mr. Twig. Looks like country living did you some good.”

Remus smiled for a moment longer, before his expression faded into something more serious.

“It is good to see you, Kingsley, but I’m going to warn you in advance, Sirius is not likely to be as happy. He’s a man with a lot of responsibilities, a lot of burdens, and that’s all but killed his sense of humor. You have a job to do, and you do it, but do it respectfully. Do not look him directly in the eyes, do not speak unless spoken to and keep your words short and to the point, do not joke or tease at any werewolf’s expense, and do not ever point your wand at him or me. Break any of these rules and I cannot guarantee he won’t kill you.”

The Sentinel’s pleasant smile faded throughout the Head Beta’s warning, until his entire expression faded into something cold and blank. Harry, who was feeling an upwelling of dread at those words, could not help but marvel at it.

Remus turned to Harry, and the young wizard tensed.

“You’re an honorary werewolf and member of our clan, so you have considerably more leeway. Just be respectful until you’ve had time to feel each other out. He’s been anxious about your arrival, so he might come off as a bit snappish, but… he’s still your godfather.”

He couldn’t help but wonder if that was true. How much had Sirius changed? How much of it was because of these awful events that Harry himself had brought about? Everyone was so anxious, especially Remus, even though he tried to hide it.

“Yeah… is he waiting now?”

“I think he’s terrorizing the alpha of the Sheppard Clan, so we might as well go and rescue him,” he said, a bit of honest humor leaking into his voice. Remus turned and lead them through the unfamiliar surroundings. On this side of the wall, the new colony could be seen, though it too was not what Harry would have expected.

The Goddess clan colony had always seemed vaguely transient, as if at any moment the entire thing could be disassembled and moved or abandoned altogether. The buildings themselves, while comfortable and functional, had been secondary to the everyday survival of the pack. Now, however, the lodge houses (more than he remembered, perhaps because extra werewolves had been brought in to build the wall) were all built on heavy stone foundations and decorated ornately in carvings of forest creatures on the heavy doors and exterior support beams. Behind each lodge there were large vegetable gardens, which Harry had never seen so close to the settlement, although know that the trees had been thinned around them there was plenty of sunlight to do so. Additionally, there appeared to be shops or rather work sheds, where various craftsmen practiced their art in the shelter of rough wooden and thatch buildings, where before they had almost always worked in the open air or not at all.

It occurred to Harry that he was seeing the development of the Goddess clan from a chieftain society to something closer to a feudal one.

“Sheppard clan? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of them,” Harry said distractedly, looking around curiously at this strange new world.

“Technically, they’re called the Ovindell Clan, but no one really calls them that. They’re new, most of them foreign. They’re in charge of some grazing land up in Northern Ireland that the Dark Lord signed over a few months ago, and they were supposed to be ready to take on some sheep by now but there have been delays.”

“Attacks?” he asked, cautiously. It was unlikely that such a thing would go unnoticed in the newspapers, but lately there had been a lot of focus on the attacks in London and the larger cities that perhaps an attack on a tiny little field in the middle of nowhere might simply be ignored.

“Only on each other. The alpha there was a farmer and has some sheep raising experience and he’s strong enough for the role, but his English is bad and the English speaking werewolves resent him. There’s been in-fighting and sabotage between the English and the German speaking werewolves almost from the beginning. Sirius will have them sorted out in no time.”

They passed through the main part of the village, bustling with activity and found their way to the natural clearing where previously summer solstice feasts and bonfire had been held. There was another wooden building, this one different from the lodges, but familiar to Harry. It was a large circular building with a thatch roof, and series of flags that he though must symbolize each of the werewolf clans. It reminded him a great deal of the structure he had built in the first year of Celtic Studies under Brennan’s tutelage. It also held that transient look that Harry thought quite curious for a something that was rather like the seat of government.

A pair of female archers was sitting on the roof, scanning the trees idly for any sign of attack, while another pair of males with spears and knives stood at the entryway. Otherwise, the field was empty, and felt strangely lonely.

As they drew nearer, Harry could make out the sounds of shouting and snarling, and his hands tightened around his staff. Remus did not seem concerned, however, and had him wait outside with Shacklebolt while he went in to announce their arrival. There was a sudden deafening silence, and then another series of angry snarling. A moment later, several men scrambled out of the round house, bruised, bloodied, and cowed.

One of the men caught sight of him and froze, causing several others to run into him. Harry was startled to recognize the man… sort of. He had been in Volpes-Wulf, a hunter of some kind. The man stared at him, horrified, before quickly hurrying away. A few others looked as well, and shied away upon recognizing him, their eyes cast downward as they scurried away.

The tension that had gradually been fading away, returned in force. No one had forgotten about Berlin. Remus and the rest of the Goddess Clan were doing a fine job of pretending they had, but it was all a ruse. Those werewolves remembered, and they were terrified.

“Come in, Harry,” Remus called, startling him.

There was no door to the round house, but the inside was dark and ominously silent. Shacklebolt went in first, and Harry followed reluctantly after.

The inside of the round house was structurally the same as the Celtic round house he remembered, with a large fire pit in the middle (currently unlit), and wooden floor circling around it. There were windows too, but they were all closed so that the only illumination came from the open doorway. In the paltry light, Harry could see the shape of low lying furniture, lounging pillows, chests, and a myriad of instruments too small or slender to make out in the deep shadows.

It wasn’t just a meeting place, Harry realized, it was a den.

“Harry.”

He jumped and then with the quickest of Seeker’s reflexes, his hand snapped out to catch Shacklebolt’s wrist before he could even lift his wand. Both wizards looked at each other, startled by his move and a deep, mirthless laugh rumbled through the darkness.

“It’s good to see you’re as quick as ever. I’m glad. I should have felt bad at killing Kingsley, even if he is a government lapdog now.”

Sirius was suddenly at Harry’s side, his movements so quiet and seamless, he may as well have been a passing shadow in the gloom. The young wizard stiffened, feeling keenly his disadvantage where he had hoped desperately that no advantage would have been needed.

“Sir-”

Fingers pressed against side of his back, and he stiffened, confused and frightened.

“This is new,” the Head Alpha said evenly, studying the scar where Oblitz’s knife had pierced with his fingertips. “Berlin?”

“Yes,” he blurted, fear rising and the hatred of himself for feeling it.

The fingers moved unerringly to Harry’s arm where the shadow wolf had bitten. The scars there were faint, imperceptible to touch, and he wondered how the other man could possibly find them so easily in the dark.

“These too. And more, I suspect. So many scars, Harry, and all of them deep.”

He pulled away sharply, stepping back, immediately defensive, but Sirius had already turned from him and was looking at his bodyguard, whose wand was out and ready even if it was still pointed at the ground. His eyes were starting to adjust to the low light, just enough to make out his godfather’s form. Sirius was dressed only in a pair of black pants riding low on his hips, his posture quietly aggressive and loose with masculine confidence. He regarded the sentinel coldly, but without anxiety, as if certain he could destroy the man without effort. Perhaps in this place he could.

To Shacklebolt’s credit, he did not flinch or fold under that dominating aura. He kept his gaze down, avoiding the werewolf’s eyes as etiquette dictated, but also watching his torso for signs of an imminent attack. Sirius assessed him silently for an uncomfortable amount of time, waiting for signs of weakness. When none presented themselves he smirked.

“I would have thought you would be locked in Azkaban by now or fighting me for my position amongst the werewolves. Your career choice borders on the ironic. Was it not the Dark Lord’s minions that killed your father?”

Harry, who generally faced fear with aggression, was quickly becoming aggravated with Sirius and ready to start his own pissing contest, but Remus had swooped in and led him away from the two, whispering in his ear.

“Stay out of it. It has nothing to do with you.”

Harry didn’t agree, but Remus seemed to have a better understanding of his Head Alpha’s craziness than he did and he would have to trust him.

“They did,” Shacklebolt agreed. “And I would gladly see them all burned at the stake for it.”

“And yet I don’t smell any burning flesh.”

“I don’t see you leading any rebellions yourself. You sold your own men to the man who imprisoned you in the first place.”

“Don’t play stupid, Kinglsey. Provoke me and I’ll tear your damn head off. What are you doing here?”

“I was assigned to protect Mr. Potter.”

“That is my job.”

“Smash up job you’re doing too.”

Two things happened simultaneously. One, Remus wrapped an arm around Harry’s chest and held fast, and two, Sirius suddenly lashed out and kicked Shacklebolt in the stomach, sending him flying across the room.

“Sirius! No!” Harry shouted, and tried to move, but Remus did not loosen his hold and he was trapped. Remus had known this was going to happen.

Shacklebolt landed on his back, the wind knocked out of him. Sirius took the opportunity to try and kick his wand out of his hand, but the Sentinel caught his foot and kicked his leg out from under him. He rolled gracefully to his feet and raised his wand.

“Stu-”

Sirius, still on the ground, rolled, knocking his opponent over again. They wrestled and rolled on the floor for a few minutes, exchanging punches and kicks after Shacklebolt had lost his wand. Shacklebolt was bigger than Sirius, but the Head Alpha was stronger, muchstronger, and it didn’t take long before he had him pin, one arm pulled painfully behind his back. Harry was having his own wrestling match with Remus, but it too was embarrassingly one sided once his staff had pulled out of his arm.

“Yield,” Sirius snarled.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, man?”

Displeased with that response, he pulled sharply on the Sentinel’s bound arm. There was a loud pop, followed by a pained grunt as the shoulder was dislocated.

“Yield.”

“Fine! Jesus, I yield! Now, get the hell off me!”

He released his captive and backed away, allowing him to struggle painfully to his feel. His right arm hung uselessly at his side, and there was a cut above his eye. He was probably injured elsewhere, but it was impossible to see. Sirius’ nose was bleeding, but aside from that he looked no more affected than if he had simply rolled out of bed. He swept back his messy tangle of hair and tied it there, seeming to ignore his defeated rival completely now.

“Welcome to the Goddess Colony, Kingsley,” he said with mocking cheer. “I hope you enjoy your stay. Ask one of my guards to get you something for your shoulder on your way out. Go.”

Shacklebolt, humiliated and in pain, was still not quite defeated. He tossed his head towards Harry, who had finally been released and seething with his own righteous indignation.

“I have orders-”

Sirius barked out a laugh, harsh and cruel.

“Yes, well, I think we’ve established that if I meant my godson any harm you would not be able to do much about it. Now get out before I rip that arm out completely and beat you with it.”

Still, the man hesitated, but Harry could see there was no winning this.

“Just go,” he insisted. “I’ll be fine.”

There was enough tension in the room that you could not only cut it with a knife, but possibly carve the Statue of David if you had the talent, but when the Sentinel looked to Harry there was no fear and nothing to justify his continued presence after such a thorough defeat. He hunted down his wand and left.

“About time,” Sirius muttered after he was gone, his voice jumping from harsh and biting to exasperated amusement like… well, a crazy person. “I thought we’d never get rid of him. He’s as bad as he ever was. Open the windows will you, Remy? It’s bloody dark in here.”

Harry stood stupidly, as his godfathers went about opening the windows, letting the morning sun filter inside. In the light, the little house was not nearly so ominous, and frankly looked rather warm and extravagant. The furniture he had seen was all in a sort of oriental style in lacquered red wood and gold fixtures, oriental rugs and overstuffed pillows, and rich tapestries between which a fiery red Irish Salamander (a sort of wingless dragon) slithered, chasing a group of harried looking hunters. There was a low writing desk where several pieces of parchment and newspapers rested haphazardly, and beside it Harry was curious to note an owl stand.

“Are you thirsty?” Sirius asked, casually. “It’s been god awful hot for this early in the summer.”

Harry just blinked at him.

“What the fuck?” he blurted.

“Watch your language, young man,” Remus admonished, but Harry didn’t hear him.

“What the bloody fuck?”

“That’s much better,” Sirius said, grinning. Harry wasn’t amused in the least.

“What was that?” he shouted, pointing at the door Shacklebolt had fled through. Both werewolves shrugged as if it were unimportant.

“A demonstration. A performance. They all think I’m a psychotic lunatic.”

“‘They’ being who? Sane people?”

“Such people exist? I have to say I had all but given up hope.”

Sirius was looking rather pleased with himself, which would normally have Harry smiling. He was starting to feel that urge now, but was thoroughly beating that impulse down before he was infected with their insanity. Instead, he scowled mutinously at the both of them. They both turned to each other and grinned.

“You look just like your mother when you do that,” Remus remarked.

“I am armed and annoyed.”

“She used to say that too.”

Sirius handed him a glass of water and hauled him over to the nearby pile of pillows. He plopped himself down, while Remus stood at the nearby window looking between them both. Sirius gestured for him to sit, which Harry ignored.

“What is going on? First the burial shrine is… off, then there’s a giant wall in the middle of the forest, and then you break my bodyguard’s arm as some kind of practical joke?”

“Harry-”

“Let’s not even mention the whole forgetting I exist for six months followed by a summons of all things, and when I do get here, after the aforementioned weirdness, you want to act like everything’s just marvelous? No, Sirius. No freak’n way.”

“Sit down, Harry,” Sirius said calmly, as if he was being the rational one in this situation. The young wizard crossed his arms and glared at him stubbornly. Sirius’ eyes hardened at his defiance. “Sit.”

And Harry immediately did, stiffly, and some distance away from the alpha. Sirius closed his eyes and sighed.

“I understand that you’re confused. These are confusing times. We are both changing. Our worlds are both changing. What happened last year… should never have happened.”

Harry looked away.

“I am ashamed of myself.”

He looked backed up, stunned, for those were his words and yet he had not been the one to speak them. Sirius was looking down at the floor, perhaps gathering his thoughts or simply waiting for Harry’s response.

“Why? You didn’t do anything to be ashamed of. You didn’t… you didn’t…”

Sirius looked back at up at him.

“You should never have been involved. I made you a diplomat and a soldier, when the most that should have been expected of you was to attend school and I deprived you of even that. I saw you as an adult, as a resource I could haggle over with the Dark Lord, when I should have thought of you as my child, in need of guidance and protection. My actions have caused both you and my werewolves great harm.”

Harry slammed down his glass of water.

“Is that what you think? That you sent a child to do a man’s job? That I was too young and stupid to know any better?” Harry bit out. “Don’t you get it? I could have done what you wanted me to. I was already doing it. I was doing just fine! You didn’t give me anything I couldn’t handle. But the Du’on nadi… that was my fault. That was completely my fault. I knew it wasn’t safe. I knew it and still I… Those people all died because… It all went to hell because I did something so unbelievably stupid! Whether I was a kid or an adult it was still incredibly-”

Remus’ arms wrapped around him from behind, this time to comfort rather than restrain, holding his tightly as Harry’s vision began to blur with unshed tears. He choked on a sob, and hid behind his hand so neither man could see them fall.

“Harry, Harry, ssshhh… It wasn’t your fault. It was a trick. We all made mistakes, and they took advantage of that. It wasn’t your fault,” he whispered softly, running a hand through Harry’s hair. Remus took his wrist to pull the hand he hid behind away, but he wouldn’t let him, refusing to look, refusing to seen Sirius’ recrimination. But the hand around his wrist was not Remus’, and it would not let any defiance persist.

“I know about the Du’on nadi,” Sirius said, staring down at him. “I know, and for that too, I am ashamed. You were grieving and you were scared. We madeyou scared. Scared to show weakness, scared of the future, scared of failing. You needed to feel safe, and I was too overwhelmed at the time to see it. Jane gave you that drug, tricked you-”

“No, she-”

“Yes, she did. I know. She did it on Greyback’s behest. She is precognitive. There was no ways she could not have seen what would come to pass.”

Harry’s eyes widened, staring up at Sirius, looking for the lie, for the attempt to alleviate the guilt of sin out of love and compassion, but found a dark, deep rage instead.

“I overlooked it. I didn’t recognize the signs,” he continued, his voice deepening with anger. “She was running her own damn little conspiracy right under my nose, and let her. I trusted her. That was a stupid mistake, Harry. The beginning of this entire fucking mess.”

Calloused fingers brushed away the tears and led him over to the pillows, setting him down again. All three adjusted themselves until they were comfortably reclined, following the routine of those days and those nights they would gather in each others company and discuss the trivial and the divine with equal irreverence. They spoke in hushed tones of the events that had led to the Battle of the Berlin Underground as they each had experienced them, of decisions made in arrogance and ignorance and forces beyond their reckoning that had pulled them into a tide some called destiny and Sirius called ‘the Divine Fuck-You’.

And then they were silent for a long time, longer than it took to tell their versions of the entire misbegotten tale. The sun rose higher and the round house grew warmer. Outside the air hung thick with humidity and constant drone of insects. Above them the support beams creaked as the archers on the roof moved about. It would have been nothing to simply drift, to neither think nor remember, and fall into the spell of summer.

But they did not fall asleep and they did not forget what they had heard. Instead, they let the words come together into meaning and meaning into knowledge, and slowly they took that knowledge into them, carefully fitting it into place so that it settled firmly into the psyche. It stirred up the dust. Anguish, anger, despair, and self-hatred lingered in the aftermath of the mental shifting, but that too would settle eventually.

“Why did you wait till now to contact me? I thought you had blamed me,” Harry finally asked softly, finally breaking the silence.

“…Strangely enough, I thought the same thing. I was quite certain you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me or the other werewolves after what had happened. Moony said I was being a coward-”

“And you were,” his beta said, irritated as he had always been with the subject.

“-and I was, so I kept making excuses. You were still in the hospital, you were too weak to travel, you were busy catching up with your classes, so on and so forth. Then I ran out of excuses.”

“And the ‘summons’? Cause, yeah, not the best way to say ‘hi’.”

“Sorry about that. I was still a bit edgy. I didn’t know how you’d respond. I hadn’t exactly received any word from you either.”

Remus kicked him in the side.

“Hey! Besides, Lord Pain-in-my-ass seems to think I’ve turned into Greyback. I find this quite amusing and somewhat beneficial, so I figured I’d keep him thinking that. If he asks, you are my reluctant minion and heir apparent. Be prepared for gross over protection followed by public antagonism.”

“I think I can handle it,” Harry said, a sardonic smile touching his expression before moving on to something more serous. “What are you doing anyway? With the wall and the breaking Shacklebolt’s arm- which was seriously uncool, by the way.”

“I didn’t break his arm. I dislocated it. He’ll be fine. Besides, I find its best to remind wizards, early and often, that they aren’t the bosses around here. Plus it gave me an excuse to talk to you in private. I don’t want anyone knowing I think of you as any more important than any other werewolf. It’s safer for us both if they don’t. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, I get it. And the wall?”

“Something I’ve had to come up with to keep everyone busy. We’ve got too many people and not enough work for all of them. It makes them restless, especially the ones who want to be out fighting. I rotate all the clans for a week every six weeks to work on it. Anyone they can spare, including the clan alpha. Helps me figure out when and where there are problems, and to iron them out without having to travel all the bloody time.”

“It’s an awfully… magical wall for just being busy work.”

“Moony’s idea.”

Harry turned to Remus who was looking rather pleased that his godson had noticed his pet project was special.

“It’s an experiment,” he said, “I’ve wanted to try it for a while now, but I never thought it would be on this scale.”

“It kind of reminds me of Hogwarts,” he said, offhandedly, hoping he had guessed right.

“In a way, yes, it’s being built with some of the same techniques, but really I’m looking more at a ‘Forbidden Forest’ sort of thing.”

“How’s that? Last I checked there weren’t any walls in the Forbidden Forest.”

“Actually, there is. Or there was. There used to be an ancient wall around the forest to keep the Fae trapped inside. The Druid priests would take the bodies of men slain in battle, drape them over the walls, and perform rituals. Hundreds of men at a time. Thousands over of the centuries, their bones all resting on the edge of the forest.”

“They never mentioned that in Hogwarts: A History.” Harry said, trying not to think too deeply about the macabre sight it must have been. “So what happened to the wall?”

“It disappeared right around the time Hogwart’s was built. I think we can both guess what happened to it.”

Harry gaped at him. “Are you serious? That’s…ghoulish!”

“It’s only a theory. Some still insist the wall was never really a physical wall, just a symbolic name. There are only two or three references to it in writing, and all of it by Romans and they could have been referring to another wall altogether. The only real evidence that it might have ever existed is the Forbidden Forest itself, which has neither grown nor shrunk from its borders in recorded history. It’s been the same size for over a thousand years. That takes a powerful sort of magic and that magic needs an anchor.”

“So I’m going to school built out of sacrificial altars. Marvelous. I hope you’re not trying the exact same thing.”

“No, of course not. The wall around the Forbidden Forest, if it did exist, would only have made up a small fraction of the castle. Perhaps only the foundation or ground up to make the mortar. The magic soaked stones, however, are probably what inspired the Founders to imbue the castle with blood magic. I’m using their technique, only to make another wall.”

“And that will make your land like the Forbidden Forest?” Harry asked doubtfully, wondering why either of them when even want to live in someplace like the Forbidden Forest. It wasn’t exactly the friendliest of environments.

“Well, not exactly. The Forbidden Forest is the way it is because there are so many Fae inside of it. I have no way of knowing exactly what our own forest will look like being run by werewolves. It might be centuries before there are any significant changes. My primary interest is to see if this wall we made will create the same sort of sanctuary as the other. Like I said before, the Forbidden Forest hasn’t grown, but it hasn’t diminished either. Witches and wizards rarely go into it, and no one ever tries, at least not successfully, to cut it down. Imagine if we could make a place like that for werewolves? A sanctuary that, no matter how bad things get with the wizards, will always be safe from them? It would be quite remarkable if we succeed..”

Harry and Remus talked a great deal more about the wall and the Forbidden Forest and Hogwarts, exchanging theories and unanswerable questions. It seemed the beta had been waiting for someone to talk to about all of this because once he started he could barely contain himself. He was grinning and excitedly moving his hands around, like Hermione when she discovered something ‘fascinating’. Harry found it strangely endearing. Sirius found it boring as hell, and took a brief nap during their entire discussion.

Finally, Harry ran out of interest and Remus ran out of steam and they kicked Sirius awake to continue their conversation on something else.

“Why isn’t there any blood sacrifices on the shrine? Or weapons?” Harry asked, because that was still bothering him for some reason. Sirius frowned, and his godson wondered if it wasn’t a sensitive subject.

“I’ve banned it. Greyback’s power is strengthened by the sacrifices, and the nature of his strength changes according to what sort of sacrifices he receives. I am not going to allow another incident like before, but I wouldn’t keep anyone from paying their respects. This was the compromise.”

“The shamans must be furious with you,” Harry said knowingly. He did not have much to do with the other shamans, but he knew a little from what Luna had told him and if he had felt even a little disturbed by what he had seen he couldn’t imagine what they were feeling.

Sirius smirked.

“That they are. But it’s just like with Kingsley. They need to know whose boss, and it isn’t the one with the most magic.”

“You have just as much magic as they do,” Harry pointed out. Sirius was a wizard as well as a werewolf, after all, although he often seemed to forget that. His position as Head Alpha also came with its own sort of magic that was less easily categorized, and Harry did not really understand.

“But less than Jane, and she’s terrified of me.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that. It seemed incredibly strange to him that his godfather would be bullying a goddess, even one trapped in the body of a little girl. Especially one trapped in the body of a little girl. Even if she was a manipulative little bitch.

“Is she here?” he asked instead.

“She’s around. I keep her close to watch for her tricks and to work on the wall, but you probably won’t see her. She’s out of favor with the packs and she knows it.”

“And Luna?” Because he hadn’t seen her, but he couldn’t imagine her abandoning her goddess.

“Her you probably will see. Just not with Kingsley around. She is aware there will be consequences if Voldemort knows you saw each other.”

Harry sat up. Once he left the round house, Shacklebolt would likely attach himself to his side once again and he had no way of knowing how or when he would be able to get away to find Luna. Sirius and Remus shared a knowing look.

“Get out of here, pup. She’ll know you’re here and find you quick enough.”

“Leave your things. I’ll take care of them,” Remus said as Harry scrambled up and towards the door. “Come back here in two hours for dinner, and then you’re turning in early for the night. You have lessons in the morning and you’ll need-.”

“Stop nagging the boy, Remy.”

“Lessons?” Harry asked.

“Don’t tell us you forgot already?” Sirius laughed. It took a moment to figure out what his godfathers were talking about. He couldn’t help but grin. As awful and exhausting as their initial conversation had been, now that it was over he was feeling light and something close to giddy. Later, he might think back on what was said and it would weigh on him again as it had over the last six months, but for now the world was… not exactly great, but a lot better than he had thought.

He would enjoy it while it lasted.

Unraveling Threads

Harry followed an old game trail deeper into the forest. He was tired from his meeting with his godfathers, but he did not want to head back to the village before speaking with Luna and she could not risk being seen by Kinglsey. The trail led into a small grotto, and he decided it was a good place to speak privately. If what his godfathers implied was true she would find him, and he had but to wait.

Or perhaps not even that. As he set his staff down in preparation to make himself comfortable in the grass, he spotted her.

She stood at the end the trail as if she had always been, and perhaps she had. He had not looked back at during his trek here, and there was no telling at what point she had joined him on the path. She seemed frailer than he remembered, not exactly thinner and not really weaker, but there was a tension in blank expression where there had once been absolute certainty that had made her seem simultaneously divine and mad. Her grief after the Goddess Clan Massacre had not shaken that, but something since he had last seen her had.

“Luna.”

“You came,” she said, as if confused.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“Yes, though I can’t remember now why I thought that. I’ve been so confused lately.”

“Yeah, me too.”

He moved towards her and for a moment he thought she was going to bolt as she tensed, but as he wrapped his arms around her she practically melted into him. It had been months since they had seen each other, bonded in their mutual grief and comfort and subsequently exiled from one another’s company. It was easy and familiar to fall back into those roles, but there was something there between them that kept them from falling completely. Some instinct brought about from a half remembered injury.

“Blackbone said you wouldn’t. He said father nearly killed you and that you wouldn’t want anything to do with us. Jane said you would come back, but she’s not as strong as she used to be. Blackbone’s all but broken her.”

Good, Harry thought bitterly, but kept his expression gentle.

“Sirius is a lot of things, but clairvoyant isn’t one of them.”

“Was it very bad?”

“Yes,” he admitted, and didn’t elaborate. He knew she would not ask him to.

She pulled away, far enough to reach between them and pressed her hand to his stomach. He felt himself flush at her touch. It felt strangely more intimate than their hug.

“What is this? It’s cold,” she said. It took Harry a moment to realize what it was she was feeling.

“Oh, that. Voldemort gave me a special seal. It’s protects my manipura…er solar plexus chakra. That’s were possession starts, so nothing can get inside me unless I deactivate the seal.”

She recoiled, withdrawing from him completely.

“A shaman should never do such a thing… your duty is to always-”

“What? Let the gods put me and take me off like a suit whenever they feel like it? No thank you. Besides, I was told I was a shaman. I never asked for it. If they want back the title they can have it. I’m never letting anything use me like Greyback did a second time.”

She stared down at this stomach for a long moment, as if she could see the invisible markings and read in them things unfathomable.

“I understand. I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“That’s not what I’m sorry about.”

Something of her former certainty returned, and he felt uneasy at the timing. Had his denial of shamanic responsibilities angered her? He knew she was in training to be a healer, and healers often went on to be shamans so perhaps he had inadvertently committed a heinous taboo amonst her profession.

“I know you must hate my father.”

He couldn’t deny it, and neither of them would stoop to placating or being placated with false sentiments.

“I know you must also hate Jane.”

Again he couldn’t deny that either.

“But they are my family. My most precious people. I’m sorry I can’t hate them for you.”

He flinched. That stung. He couldn’t tell if it stung because she actually thought he would expect that of her or if it stung because she wouldn’t do it for him. It would be hypocritical of him to judge her. Hadn’t he said similar things to Hermione on the train?

It hurt though. It felt like betrayal, even though he understood it up to a certain point. She had chosen her family, even knowing what they had done and what they could have done. Even knowing they could have killed him.

Fine. Fine. If that’s what she wanted that was her choice, but he wasn’t going to pretend he was okay with that.

“What are the lives of mortals compared to the love of gods, after all?” he said bitterly.

“They are certainly less self absorbed for one thing,” she said neutrally, and walked away.

“Luna, wait!”

He ran after her, but even though she had only been a few steps ahead of him, once she stepped into the underbrush she disappeared completely. He stumbled around for a bit, looking for her, but she was gone and clearly did not want to be found. He muttered curses under his breath, feeling like an idiot. What did he expect to do once he found her? Apologize? Compromise? And how would that work? Let her bastard of father possess him every once and a while? Pretend it was all forgiven?

And what did he expect of her? All but one of Luna’s brother’s was dead, so who did that leave to take care of her? He wasn’t so foolish to think that Sirius or Remus would be welcoming her with open arms if she had refused to renounce her father, and he was forbidden to see her by the Dark Lord. Who did that leave her? Jane, of course, and whatever sort of guidance and protection she could receive from Greyback. It sounded rather unhealthy and more than little creepy, but he was in no position to judge.

But Merlin, what would it take to question her loyalty? Over a hundred werewolves had died and who knew how many witches and wizards in the Berlin underground. He had been horrifically injured himself. What would it take for her to realize Fenrir Greyback was poison and Jane likewise untrustworthy? What was she willing to do for them in the meantime? Were they enemies now? How had that happened?

He had come back to the Goddess colony believing his relationship with his godfathers was coming to a close, and that nothing could have destroyed the bond between him and Luna, not circumstance or distance. Now everything was upside down. His relationship with Sirius was stronger than ever and it had taken so little in the end to destroy what he had with her.

He didn’t want to think about. He couldn’t. It would drive him mad.

“I don’t give a damn,” he said to himself fiercely, as if he was expecting an argument. “I don’t need her or her wonkiness.”

To prove it, he took his wand out of his staff which he then broke in two and tossed aside. I’m a wizard, not a shaman. Wizards do it their own bloody way. So screw you, Luna, and your crazy family.

With that he tucked his wand in his belt and headed back towards the village, determined to hate her or forget about her, which ever meant he didn’t have to feel as if he had just lost something.

The aviary was warm and sunny in the early afternoon, echoing with the chirps and cries of strange birds over the splash of the garden fountain. The air smelled of flowers, rotting vegetation, and water. If not for the lack of breeze, the Dark Lord might have been able to pretend it was a pleasant day in some distant tropical vista. He was enjoying a rare moment of leisure while he waited for word from his allies in Europe. Until he knew what they were going to do or not do, he was forced to put a hold on implementing any plans and that left him with very little that required his immediate attention.

“I don’t know why you insist on coming here to read,” Bobby grumbled, pecking off bits of carrot cake that his captor had graciously left for him. “One doesn’t typically go to the dungeons for peace and quiet.”

Voldemort flipped a page in his book and answered without looking up.

“I would hardly call this a dungeon. Although, if you wish to speak of unusual behavior, perhaps I should remind you that prisoners don’t usually go to their captors for conversation.”

“Hn. And who else would I talk to? You’ve left me with a bunch of featherbrains. Even the magical ones are dumb as rocks. You couldn’t have left an owl or something?”

“And have the two of you conspiring? I think not.”

“You can’t keep me here forever.”

“Are you so certain? I’ve kept you here for months without consequence. You were captured fair and square. Raecellos can’t or won’t help you, and you are not so clever that you can escape on your own.”

“This is pointless. I won’t join you.”

He closed his book and set it aside in favor of a cup of tea.

“I do not understand your reluctance. It is true that we’ve had our differences in the past, but I had always believed that was the result of jealousy more than anything. We are no longer rivals for our Master’s attention.”

Bobby bristled and hopped from the table to the back of the spare chair, tottering this way in that in an avian interpretation of pacing.

“Ha! Ha! As if an arrogant little fool like you could ever understand why I despise you. You were never whole enough to realize what parts were missing, even before you turned yourself into an abomination. I was never jealous of you. I knew eventually you would bring about Carrigan’s end. He knew it too from the very beginning, but he… he thought you were worth it…Idiot.”

The Dark Lord frowned, setting down his tea.

“I protected him as best as I could. What happened was… not of my doing. I loved him like a father.”

“Yes, and we both know how you loved your father.”

Voldemort had always been fast with his wand, but Bobby was faster still. By the time the wizard had thrown aside the table and drawn his wand, the raven had disappeared into the surrounding greenery. The sound of shattering wood and porcelain set off a wave of alarm, and the glass cage was filled with the shrieks and rustle of wings.

As quickly as his anger came, it left again, and the Dark Lord laughed, sending the birds into a higher level of terrified cries.

“Just like old times, Bobitimus, but Carrigan’s not here to save you anymore. Think about my offer. I have all the time in the world to wait for you to change your mind.”

He swept from the room, slowing only long enough snatch up his book which had been thrown in his fit of temper. Bobby watched him from the shadows, seething with anger and haughty vindictiveness.

Anger was the only thing he had left to keep the despair at bay.

His nemesis was right. He had all the time in the world, and Bobby feared if he did nothing that soon Carrigan’s history would repeat itself through Harry and a cycle of misplaced love and death would repeat itself for Voldemort’s seemingly endless reign. Already the Dark Lord, with his recently completed soul, was growing increasingly attached to the young wizard, and the war he had been fueling for the last year threatened to destroy the innocent of the two. It was all moving towards an inevitable end.

Fate, however, had given Harry a way out. A prophecy, a destiny. A way to end the cycle before repeated itself again. He had not been ready to face it before, and likely he still wasn’t, but Bobby had to let him know before it was too late.

He needed to escape, but he lacked the means. The aviary for all its supposed beauty had more in common with a prison than a bird cage despite Voldemort’s claim to the contrary. It was thick with magic that countered his own, keeping him trapped behind glass as surely as if it were stone. Only the Dark Lord and a squib servant in charge of the aviary’s upkeep ever entered. The former could not be over powered and the later lacked enough power to take him from the room. Raecellos could not raise his hand against the Dark Lord, not without some sort of justification. Imprisonment was not enough. Bobby had been caught fairly during a battle and had been neither killed nor mistreated.

There had to be a way though. Even if he didn’t know what it was, he had to believe that some way or another an opportunity would present itself or inspiration would come. He had his own role to play in this, and destiny would not keep him on the sidelines forever.

He needed patience. He needed faith. Most of all, he needed his anger.

“Let’s walk the St. Martin Canal today,” Ira said sleepily, not bothering to open her eyes. She didn’t need them open to know exactly what her husband was doing. With her body pressed to his side, she could feel his every move, no matter how miniscule.

Right now for instance, she knew his left hand was tracing up and down the curve of her back and side, his chin was resting in the tangled mess of her hair, and his arousal was stirring against her bare thigh.

“The canal is for muggles,” he said, his voice thick from sleep… and something else. Less than subtly, he tightened his arm around her, pressing her closer still. He was more than satisfied when she not only acquiesced, but reciprocated, slipping her leg between his.

“Paris is not like Britain. We cannot avoid the muggles completely. Besides, I’m not scared of them. Mother used to take me to muggle stores when I was little. I know you’re not scared of them.”

“Hhmm… alright… later though… Much later…”

She laughed as he rolled them. The bed in their hotel suite, a wedding present arranged by the Dark Lord, was more than spacious enough to accommodate. It was late morning now, and sunlight flowed through the transparent white drapes, setting the room aglow. They should have been up hours ago, but their nights and days were dictated by their passion rather than habit or decorum and they were more than satisfied with that.

Snape had hardly lived an abstinent life, but his sexual encounters had always been brief, shallow, and a means to an end. With his responsibilities to Hogwarts, the Dark Lord, and then Harry Potter he had always been forced to be discreet for the sake of his reputation. His schedule did not permit for a girlfriend, and his opportunities for socializing with eligible witches were few and far between. Affection had been a rare commodity, and love never a consideration.

He had never made love to a woman before, and hadn’t been completely confident that he could do so with Ira.

She had made it easy though. Ira made it all so damn easy it was vaguely frightening. He hadn’t known a woman (at least not a mentally stable one) could be as lusty as a man if she were so inclined, and his wedding night had been an education. A marvelous education he fully intended to expand upon during (and hopefully a long time after) their honeymoon.

Later, they found themselves walking the canal, hand in hand, with Ira leaning against him. Flowers were thick along the canal, squeezed in where ever they could conceivably fit. There were lines of trees too, close together and seeming to grow out of the concrete itself at times, providing shade from the late afternoon sun.

The canal was thick with muggles too, and they had to forego their robes for lighter fare. Snape in a summer suit, Ira in a peasant top and skirt. He felt strangely exposed, as he always did when moving amongst muggles, but Ira took them in as part of the scenery, something to be admired and enjoyed.

“You know, Jacobi told me muggles are decades ahead of wizards in reproductive medicine. Most of her research and practices are based off of techniques they’ve already established. Maybe that’s why there’s so many of them.”

“I highly doubt it. There have always been an excessive number of muggles,” he said, glaring disapprovingly at female jogger running about it what appeared to be her underwear. “Although, I doubt it’s helped matters. Did she say which of these barbaric muggle techniques she wanted to use?”

“Don’t be like that. It’s all done very magically. There are potions and spells and magical underwear and everything.”

“Magical underwear?” he asked, before he could stop himself. She was trying not to laugh, but only just managed it.

“It’s to prevent my body from rejecting the egg. The magical egg. She makes it out of human amniotic fluid[1] and some of my blood. It’ll make an egg with all my DNA, but then she’ll induce meiosis so there will be two unfertilized eggs. She can make dozens of them, and save the spares for later use. It’s sort of based off of cloning techniques only with meiosis at the end. But it’s all done magically so there’s magical underwear so my own magic won’t attack it, at least for the first two weeks.”

He only understood about half of what she had said. He knew what an egg was of course, and amniotic fluid was used in some potions (what most would consider very dark potions), but the rest of it was only so much medical jargon. What on earth was cloning?[2] It might have sounded very interesting under different circumstances, but at the moment it just sounded experimental and dangerous and not something he wanted perform on his new wife.

She seemed to sense he was disturbed by what she had told him. Lifting their intertwined hands to her lips, she kissed his thumb and smiled reassuringly.

“You don’t have to worry. The biggest concern is miscarriage, and that’s not physically dangerous until later in the pregnancy.”

“And we’re not going to end up with a baby with two heads, are we?”

“As long as we’re careful, our children will have just as much of a chance as anyone else’s, and neither of us are careless people.”

They walked for a ways in silence, sensing they were moving from casual conversation into something more meaningful to the both of them. They took a turn away from the canal and onto a walkway that led through a small park. Passing between two statues of Artemis and a hart, they passed from Muggle Paris into Wizarding Paris, leaving the park behind for a garden maze. Neatly manicured bushes rose up to their chests and stretched out before them for a hundred feet in an indiscernible zigzagging pattern. Amongst the rows were statues and fountains and floral displays, and one could spend days wandering the different pathways and discovering the maze’s secrets.

Snape and Ira were not concerned with secrets at the moment, but privacy was preferred. The bushes were too low to block them from view, but they did not block any of the other strollers either and the various turns ensured they could not only keep their distance but avoid running into anyone at all.

“Do you think you would be ready to start trying for a baby before the start of term?” he asked, uncertain how the suggestion would be received. They both wanted to have a family, he knew, but Ira might want to simply be husband and wife for a while. Their courtship had been brief and sporadic, and it was only after their marriage that they were able to indulge in each other’s company for long periods of time. Plus there was the sex. Even he was reluctant to relinquish that while she was carrying.

He was rather afraid she would think he wanted a baby more than her companionship. Which he did in a way, but she was still his wife and he acknowledged more than a little affection for her. He didn’t want to hurt her feeling. It was a rather novel idea for him.

She didn’t seem offended, luckily, but she did express her misgivings.

“I wouldn’t mind getting started, but are you sure this is the best time? You’re starting your new position at Hogwarts this fall and that’s bound to be busy and stressful, and with the war going on they’re bound to start be stricter with the rationing and everything is already started to get more expensive. There’s no telling how bad things are going to get.”

He nodded, relieved she was choosing to be pragmatic. He could do pragmatic.

“These are legitimate concerns. My responsibilities as Headmaster will indeed be time-consuming and stressful, but that is unlikely to change regardless of how long we wait. I believe it would make things simpler in the long term if we develop a lifestyle accommodating to both my professional and home life as soon as possible rather than allowing my professional life take precedent and then disrupting it again to start a family. Also, it might prove advantageous to make use of your mother’s presence in our home to assist you when I am unable. I am quite sure she will be thrilled with the opportunity.”

He would be lucky if he could throw the woman out before her grandchildren hit puberty, he thought morosely.

“As for providing for the child… I am not overly concerned. I have no intention of raising our children extravagantly, but my position is such that I have access to many resources that will ensure neither you nor our children shall ever be in want regardless of what happens.”

Ira brows knit together.

“Regardless of what happens?”

“… If something unforeseen should happen to me, I have made arrangements that you’re taken care of.”

“Please don’t say that, Severus.”

“I don’t mean to alarm you. Quite the opposite.” He didn’t tell her of the likelihood of him having to fight at some point. Potter would inevitably drag him into something, and even if he didn’t the Dark Lord would have need of his particular skill sets eventually. “I assure you I will avoid dying if at all possible.”

“But you still want to have a baby as soon as possible just incase you do?”

Clever girl.

“Yes,” he admitted. “Or in case something happens to Healer Jacobi or any number of things that could go wrong. The truth of the matter is that what we’ve been given isn’t a gift. It’s an opportunity, and opportunities have a way of quickly passing by.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” she said, and thought about it for a while. “Alright, I’ll talk to her as soon as we get back. In the meantime, do you think you could do me a favor?”

“If I am able,” he conceded.

“Let’s just be two lovers in Paris while we’re here. No talking about work or babies or politics.”

They came to a closed space in the garden with a wooden bench and white roses. Ira turned, thinking they would move on, but Snape took hold of her arms and sat her down. Sitting down, they were both all but invisible and with a flick of his wand the bushes closing them off from the rest of the maze. He smiled wickedly.

“I think I can manage that.”

“Severus, what are you- oh! Ooohhh… oh, my…”

Robert was not a deeply philosophical man. He was a lawyer after all. Higher concepts such as right and wrong were romantic sentiments at the best of times, and a matter of perspective every other time. He understood irony though. Every lawyer did. Every lawyer also understood irony wasn’t as funny as everyone else seemed to think it was.

For instance, it was ironic you sue a man for helping you. It was ironic that contracts were written on the business in and interpreted in the client’s favor. It was ironic that civil suits lawyers bad three times as much as public prosecutors and defense lawyers and yet still did a third of the work.

As a more personal example, Robert found it very ironic that his acquaintance with Harry Potter, one of the most honorable and kind people he had ever known, was what brought him under the employ of man who appeared to be channeling Satan.

And certainly there was nothing funny to be found in this situation. Nothing at all.

“So let me get this straight,” Crouch drawled, staring across the table at Malfoy like a bored cat. Bartemius Crouch Jr., Lucius Malfoy, Robert himself, and Bartemius’ lawyer whose name no one could remember (including Barty) were seated in an extravagant restaurant not far from the Court’s Bristol offices, partly obscured in a booth in the far corner. They had only water, and nothing else would come until one of them signaled a waiter to take their order. They had much to discuss “You’re willing to drop this suit if I agree to marry your little mongrel?”

“Consider it the dowry,” Lucius said evenly, unaffected by Crouch’s disinterested demeanor.

Crouch shook his head and smiled unpleasantly. It looked awkward on him. Barty Crouch Jr. was not built to be a sinister man. He was pale, gangly, with straw colored hair and freckles. There was nothing aristocratic or commanding in his posture that demanded instant respect. What he did have, however, was a reputation for being a man you did not want to cross and an inability to be intimidated by anything or anyone. He was also known for being quite mad. His lawyer, a rather flabby man with a neat mustache, was sweating profusely next to him.

Robert had seen men like this before. They often worked for the unscrupulous sort and expected at any moment to be caught in their misdeeds. He had never had much sympathy for such men before today. While nothing they were discussing was strictly illegal, it was unquestionably immoral and he was feeling rather uncomfortable himself.

“You’ll have to do better than that. My reputation is on the line here. Even if I were in the market for a bride, which I’m not, I’ve made my… preferences known. A mewling little mudblood isn’t on my list.”

Lucius rolled his eyes.

“Does it look like I care about your preferences? If she were to your preference then I wouldn’t be offering to absolve your debt. I require recompense. An exchange. You take her off of my hands and I forget the several thousand galleons plus interest you owe. I don’t care what you do with her afterwards. Keep her, divorce her, drown her in a bloody moat, whatever you like. Just as long as she’s out of my family once and for all.”

Crouch let out an annoyed huff and gestured for the waiter.

“If you want her out of your family, disown her. I know you have a perverse enjoyment for elaborate games, but you’re complicating a very simple situation. I’ll have the house Pinot Noir,” he said to the waiter as he approached, and then gestured to the other men to order.

“I’ll have the Aveleda,” Lucius said dismissively, and continued while their lawyers made their selection. “This is not a matter of tossing out an old pair of boots, Barty, this is about revenge-”

Crouch burst out laughing, and the waiter quickly scurried away.

“What did she do? Not curtsy deep enough for you? Since when do little girls merit your genteel attention?”

Lucius scowled. “It was a personal affront that I have no intention of elaborating on. Needless to say a simple disowning is not enough. For all her many short comings, stupidity isn’t one of them. If I disown her, she’ll find her own way and think herself ever so clever for it.”

“But throw her to me and she’ll really be sorry, is that it? You’re a riot, Lucius, you really are,” he said, smiling insipidly. The Malfoy patriarch didn’t rise to the bait, and gestured for him to give his response. Crouch sighed, and turned to his lawyer. “Can he do what he says?”

The portly man jumped, startled at being addressed after being ignored for so long.

“Er…I… I don’t see w-why not. Th-there’s nothing illegal about it i-if you break it d-down into it’s separate p-parts. A marriage, a dowry, an absolution of debt.”

Crouch turned to Robert. “Is this your idea then?”

“No,” he said pointedly, biting of the series of epitaph’s that sprung to mind at the suggestion.

“Is it legal?”

“As far the absolution of debt goes? Yes. I am not a marriage lawyer, however. I am not certain of the legalities for marrying off school children.”

Bloody hell, did I say that out loud? Judging by the glare Lucius sent his way, yes he had. Damn. Crouch, however, laughed.

“Why don’t you have balls like that?” Crouch asked his lawyer, who just shrunk into his chair. The waiter arrived with their wine, and each man took his glass. “He’s got a point though. How old is your thorn? Fourteen? Fifteen?”

“Technically, she’s sixteen and will be seventeen next April. Officially, however, I moved her birthday back some months so she wouldn’t be legally older than Draco. Less confusion about inheritance that way. I can probably have it changed back.”

“Hhhmm… just a baby,” he said idly. “She won’t last long. Alright, you’ve got my attention. Write up the contracts and I’ll have my other lawyers look at them.”

“Excellent. I’ll have the papers for you by Wednesday.”

The conversation switched to politics and gossip (not often distinguishable), which normally Robert would have found infinitely fascinating. How many people got to sit down next the Commander General and the Head of Foreign Intelligence after all? At the moment, however, he was more disturbed than anything. He thought of his daughters, of his two beautiful muggleborn daughters, and that some one could have done something like this to them too. In that moment, he despised the both of them and he despised himself for his role in this entire disgusting affair.

What could he do? Quit, yes. For all the good it would do. The plot would continue and he would be out of job with two mortgages and a family to feed. He would need some sort of back up plan if intended to leave Malfoy’s employ. Kyle would know what to do. Kyle was a god damn genius compared to him when it came to morality and decision making.

As he was considering how he would approach his husband on the matter, a name Robert recognized drew his attention back to the conversation.

“Kingsley got promoted again, did you hear?” Crouch said, idly. “Well, in a manner of speaking. He’s on protection duty for that Potter boy. The Dark Lord picked him personally.”

“Yes, with that Umbridge woman gone, there hasn’t been anyone capable of keeping him from rising up the ranks. I heard the entire Juvenile Justice Department threw a party when she was declared legally dead.”

“I admit I opened a bottle of Martell when I heard the news. She really was an annoying woman. Useful, but annoying.”

“Let us hope, Mr. Kinglsey outlives the late Madam Umbridge. Although, he never said it plain, Severus implied that Potter held some sort of responsibility for her death. He’s proven himself quite the Albatross to the unwary. Isn’t that right, Robert?”

“… I am afraid I know of no one he is responsible for the death of.”

“And yet death seems to follow him around.”

“That could be said of a lot of people,” he said pointedly.

Crouch laughed.

“Balls the size the mars, by god!”

“So I can pick any animal?” Harry asked, skimming through an encyclopedia of animals. He had picked a page at random, and was currently looking at kangaroos. That looked like a fun animal, he thought. You could hop away really fast or kick someone good and hard if you were so inclined. Rather conspicuous in Britain though.

It was early morning, just before sunrise, and the round house was still dim even with the windows open. Sirius was already up and had left to go hunting, unlikely to return until that afternoon, and Kingsley had taken the opportunity to take care of his own business before he got back. The wizard had recovered from his injuries the night before and was sticking close to Harry, particularly when Sirius was around. The Head Alpha, however, had held true to his warning and appeared to be resolutely ignoring his godson in favor of pack business and thus ignoring Kingsley. The deception was now thoroughly developed.

Remus took advantage of his friend’s absence to begin the particulars of his animagus lessons. He had been decidedly unimpressed with the young wizard’s grasp of the process so far.

“No, not any animal,” Remus said, sorting through a trunk (Harry suspected there was a small library fit inside of it for the amount of rummaging his godfather had been doing), and deciding which ones to send off with Harry first. “Most people find themselves limited to certain types of animals, and have to choose between them. Sirius was limited to canines and bears. It took some convincing that a Grizzly Bear wasn’t nearly as practical as a dog.”

“My dad was a stag though, right? That doesn’t seem very useful either.”

“You’d be surprised. He was the fastest runner of all of us, and if necessary he had the antlers to fight with and the strength to back him up. It was certainly better than his other options.”

“What were those?”

“Goats and sheep, for one. Boars for another. He chose a red deer in the end.”

“Huh… so how will we know which ones I can do?”

“Process of elimination.”

Harry looked up from his article on king penguins. “No way! That’ll take forever!”

Remus shrugged. “It will take a while. We’ll start at classes[3]; you know birds, reptiles, mammals, etc. I’ve never heard of anyone being able to move between classes; which will leave us with a lot of orders we’ll have to wade through.”

“Hm.”

While it certainly might have been interesting finding and picking his animagus form, he was rather impatient to start the actual transformation. He couldn’t imagine a form that he couldn’t have all sorts of fun in.

“So how do we figure all of that out? Is there a spell? A potion?”

“There’s tea.”

Harry just stared at him.

“…Tea?”

“Yes. You are aware of the practice of divination? Reading tea leaves is the traditional way to determine one’s animagus form.”

He wasn’t convinced, and was actually considering the possibility that Remus was playing a joke on him. That was more Sirius’ thing, but with him being Head Alpha perhaps he had hand off teasing Harry to his Beta. It wasn’t until the man finally found the book he was apparently looking for in his trunk, and handed it to Harry that it even seemed remotely plausible.

Babylonia’s Compendium of Practical Tassomancy; Theory, Techniques, and Recipes[4]. It was thick and heavy, and when he opened it he found the writing miniscule and compacted.

“Geh.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t have to read all of it. Just the chapter on ‘revealing your animal form’.”

Harry checked the index and flipped to the chapter he needed. It easily took up a third of the book.

“Oh, come on!”

“No pain, no gain. Now start reading. I want you to read all of the theories before you leave so that I can make sure you understand what you need to do.”

“Can’t I just do all of this here?”

“Not unless you’re extremely lucky. It will probably take weeks, maybe months of hit and miss before you find the ones you need.”

Harry grumbled about the unfairness of the universe and being forced to do this much heavy reading during the summer. Remus happily ignored him, leafing through his other books and bookmarking relevant chapters, and then placing them out of sight. When Kingsley returned, Remus excused himself to attend to his pack duties leaving his godson with instructions to do his ‘homework’. Harry sulked, but did as he was told. The sooner he got it out of the way the sooner he would be able to get to the fun stuff.

It wasn’t until several minutes later that he realized Kingsley was looking at him.

“What?” he asked, trying not to sound as irritated as he felt.

“Nothing. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You were very quiet yesterday. You never said what you talked about with Blackbone after I left.”

“It really wasn’t any of your business,” he said pointedly, and then grimaced. Yeah, he wasn’t jerk. Although, honestly, it really wasn’t Kingsley’s business. His bad mood didn’t even have anything to do with Sirius. “It was pack matters.”

Kingsley looked skeptical. “For six hours?”

“Yes.”

“Harry… if you don’t feel comfortable staying here, all you have to do is say so. Lord Voldemort made it clear to me that you had full discretion on the matter.”

“Then I say we stay for the three days we’ve been invited for. If you feel the need to go, be my guest.” Wow, he really was in a worse mood than he thought. It had been pretty crummy since his talk with Luna the day before, followed by a night of being ignored by Sirius, and waking up to the summer homework from hell.

“I have no intention of leaving you here alone,” Kingsley said shortly, showing a bit of his own impatience at Harry’s attitude.

“I have Remus.”

“Remus will side with Blackbone in almost anything, just like everyone else here. I’m the only one here who’s on your side and not his.”

Harry glared at Kingsley.

“I don’t think you know enough about werewolves or Remus to make that sort of generalization. Remus isn’t some brown-nose gofer. And neither is anyone else here. I don’t need you to protect me.”

“Do you honestly believe that?”

Harry didn’t bother to answer, merely turned back to his book. He didn’t feel like arguing with the man, especially when he knew there were no plausible arguments he could give and still keep up the façade Sirius was so carefully crafting. It might be underhanded and unfair to Kingsley, but as far as priorities went his godfathers came before a stranger, no matter how nice he seemed.

Ron counted his supplies and then recounted them again, moving them about so that they could be readily available when he needed them. He couldn’t afford to be caught off guard or to flounder. This was more dangerous than any potion he had ever brewed or any spell he had ever cast, and he knew there would be consequences if he did it wrong.

Deadly consequences.

But he was prepared. He had read the spell a hundred times, and gathered all the right ingredients. He had double checked to make sure everything was fresh and of good quality. Even the cat was fat and sleek, if more than a little anxious squirming around in its cage.

For the last week, Ron had been working to convert the basement of his foster parents’ house to his purposes. He had managed to move several boxes and chests of useless junk to the farthest end of the room to make space for his alter, and then scoured the floor clean of impurities as the book had instructed. He had even thought to burn some sage, as he had seen Potter do when ever he was to perform one of his more powerful spells.

He had also drawn a protection symbol for him to stand in during the spell. The book had said it was necessary to have protection drawn before performing the spell, but hadn’t specified whish sort to use. He had to find another book for that, and eventually decided on the sigil that looked most like the one he had also seen Potter use before.

There was a grim sort of satisfaction in knowing that the self-righteous prat had proven useful with this even though he hadn’t meant to. This old magic wasn’t nearly as complicated as the Gryffindor had made it out to be. Once he had found the right book, which admittedly had taken some serious searching in the less than reputable parts of Oxford, Coventry, and Glascow, it had all been relatively easy to find what he needed. The raggedy black book was old enough that the necessary ingredients the spells called for could all be found in the British Isles and did not require the more sophisticated harvesting and preparation that spells of the industrial age tended to lean towards. Most of the items he had needed he could find in the garden (or one of the neighbor’s gardens) or the town pharmacy.

The only real difficulty was making sure his foster parents didn’t guess what he was up to. They seemed convinced he had become some sort of hooligan since his fight with Draco and had been watching him like a hawk when ever they were around. Which fortunately didn’t include a large chunk of the day when they were both at work. He was always very cautious to seem bored and sulky when they were around, and scurrying around trying to get things done when they weren’t.

Now everything was ready.

He would perform the spell and then clean up all the evidence long before either of them got back. He had plenty of time. At least, if he started now…

The basement door was locked, the protective sigil was drawn, and everything he needed was there. His hands felt clammy and he wiped them on his trousers. Maybe he should take off his clothes?

This was bound to get messy.

It was cold down here though. His hands were already shaking. It didn’t matter, he decided. Best to get it all done with as quickly as possible and then he could take a hot shower. He’d burn the robes. No evidence.

He moved to kneel in the center of the ritual circle, and opened the spell book. He could recount the words by heart now, but he didn’t dare try this without a reference to turn to. Skimming it one more time and confirming that it had not sprouted any additional instructions while he wasn’t looking, he reached for the paring knife.

The cat let out a distressed yowl.

“Sorry, fella,” he said, grimacing in sympathy. “It’s nothing personal.”

Then he closed his eyes and began to recite.

1. Amniotic fluid contains stem cells, which in case you didn’t know, are cells that can divide to become differentiated cell types such as skin cells or blood cells or t cells or whatever. My thought here is that through magic, the stem cells in amniotic fluid would become egg cells and incorporate DNA from Ira’s white blood cells in her blood to create viable Ira egg cell so she wouldn’t have to get a donor egg and whatever child she has would genetically be hers as well as Snape’s.↩

2. Somehow I just don’t see witches and wizards studying cellular biology. Spellwork and potions don’t work on that finite a level, and most non-magical techniques would only be used if they were particularly obvious, such as checking the pulse with the fingers or checking eyes for dilation for diagnosis and rarely used for treatment except in emergency situations where the necessary potions or equipment might not be available.↩

3. By classes, I mean the classes of animals according to Linnaeus’s taxonomic classification. This includes mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects, and invertebrates (not including insects). Orders of animals would be like canines (which include all dog-like species) or equines (which include all horse-like species)↩

4. Tassomancy is the practice of reading tea leaves.↩

Warfare

Harry returned to the cottage early in the afternoon on the third day of his visit. He was tired and sore from the days spent working and studying (which included everything from his animagi lessons to archery to gardening) and the nights spent listening to Sirius tell him of the happenings at the Goddess clan and elsewhere. His sleep was short and fitful, haunted by Greyback and the shadow wolves and Luna’s disapproving eyes. He did not see her for the rest of stay, but she haunted the edge of his thoughts where ever he went.

Kingsley was in a worse state than him, if possible. He had been tense and wary for the entire three days, struggling to recognize potential danger in a situation where everything should have been considered dangerous, and Harry’s insistence to the contrary had not helped matters. Now he was just exhausted, and clearly wanted this job to be done and over with.

They had left a little earlier than intended as storm clouds had started to roll in and they decided to leave before they caught in it. It was drizzling in the village when they arrived, but they walked the rest of the way back to the cottage anyway. Harry invited Kingsley inside to clean up and have lunch, and took him around to the side door that led into the kitchen. Once there, they both got a surprise.

“Hello, Harry. You’re back earlier than I expected,” Voldemort greeted, looking up from his papers strewn across the kitchen table. Across from him, Morgan was sipping a glass of lemonade in one hand and filling out a form with another. Mrs. Morgan was puttering around the kitchen in the process of baking something or other, and reminded him to clean his boots before he walked across the nice clean floor.

Harry looked over his shoulder at Kingsley and asked him tiredly, “Is the Dark Lord really sitting at my kitchen table or do I just need to take a nap.”

The Sentinel looked over Harry’s shoulder at the scene.

“Yes, he’s there.”

“Oh, good. I was worried,” he said, and then turned back to Voldemort. “Hey. Something wrong with your office?”

“I missed you too, and you know I don’t like working at the same place everyday. Besides, I wanted to discuss how your meeting with Blackbone went.”

“Let me take a shower first and I’ll tell you all it.”

“Very well. I’ll talk to Shacklebolt first.”

Harry dropped off his things in his room and took a quick shower. When he returned to the kitchen, Kingsley was looking very stiff and official as he made his report while sitting between Voldemort and Morgan. Someone had put the kettle on for tea, and Harry slumped into the last remaining chair as he waited for it to finish.

“I can’t account for all of his decisions,” Kingsley explained, “But there was nothing impulsive or erratic about them. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Ha- Mr. Potter likely knows more than I do. Blackbone kept him at several meetings I was not privy to, even if he talked very little to him throughout our stay.”

“I see,” Voldemort said, and turned to Harry, who was resting his head in his hand and looked ready to fall asleep that way. “How was your reunion?”

“Worse than I’d hoped, but better than I expected.”

Mrs. Morgan set down a cup of tea in front of him, and smiled gratefully at her.

“He’s not happy with what happened, but he blames himself as much as he does anyone else, including me. Greyback really fucked us- er… pulled one over on us. I don’t think Sirius is up to anything sinister or insane, I just think he’s trying to re-organize so that it can’t be done again. And now that he’s the new Head Alpha he has to show everyone who’s boss, and that means making everyone jumped through hoops for a while.”

“Including you?”

Harry grimaced, or at least hoped that’s what his expression was. He hadn’t exactly been practicing in the mirror.

“I guess so. Remus seemed to think it was normal.”

“He never threatened you?”

Harry just sort of looks at him as if he’d been asked the distance between Mars and Istanbul. Voldemort didn’t pursue it. It was hypocritical to ask given their history, and obviously it wasn’t something that appeared to concern Harry overly much if Shacklebolt’s rather frustrated account of his refusal to leave until scheduled was anything to go by. Instead, he smiled mockingly.

“Did you have a good time?”

The Gryffindor chuckled into his tea.

“It was fabulous. At least my aim with a bow has improved. I know how to skin a weasel now too.”

“Useful skills, no doubt. Were you invited back?”

“Not until mid July. There was some talk about me going to the Summer Festival, but Sirius seemed to think there would probably be a lot of fighting and didn’t want me in the middle of it.”

This was partly true. Sirius was expecting a lot of fighting with the unprecedented number of werewolves coming into the Goddess Clan village and many of them high strung with the reorganizations of the packs and the war closing in on them again, but his primary concern appeared to be that Harry would get into a conflict with the healers and the shamans for having sealed himself off from communing with the gods and discarded his ceremonial staff. Sirius had been relieved by his choice to discard his position as shaman, and felt it strengthened his own position against them, but he also knew they wouldn’t take kindly to Harry’s perceived insult. He didn’t think that was Voldemort’s business, however, especially as Sirius didn’t want it to be the Dark Lord’s business. The Head Alpha suspected the wizard would attempt to take advantage somehow, and Harry didn’t doubt it.

They talked for a while longer about what was happening among the various werewolf colonies and Voldemort’s own understanding of the public’s reaction. No one seemed to even notice the new colonies, and with the greater threat of German and Italian forces moving into Britain they had all but been forgotten. There had been a few angry protest letters in the papers about foreign werewolves stealing the jobs of British witches and wizards but that was the extent of it.

Kingsley watched them both, too aware of his position to relax and too curious to look away as the most feared man in Britain made idle conversation with one of the most beloved. Morgan didn’t even look up from his paperwork and his wife treated it all as an ordinary luncheon among friends. The Dark Lord eventually grew annoyed of his gawking, however.

“Let’s move our discussion to the study,” he told Harry. “I’ll leave Shacklebolt to you Morgan.”

Morgan nodded.

“See ya, Kingsley,” Harry said, as he followed Voldemort.

In the study, the Dark Lord closed the door behind them but didn’t cast a Silencing Charm. He took the reading chair and Harry immediately moved to the loveseat by the window and reclined onto it.

“Don’t fall asleep just yet,” the man teased. “I still wanted to talk to you a little more.”

“Sure. What did you want to talk about?”

“This and that. Do you play chess?”

Harry blinked at the unexpected question. “Sort of. I almost never beaten anyone at it.”

“Then you need proper instruction and practice. Where does Severus keep his set?”

Harry stood and went to grab the chess set from its hiding spot on top of the liquor cabinet. Snape didn’t keep a wizarding chess set. He claimed all the moving pieces bashing each other to bits were distracting, noisy, and entertaining to only the most juvenile of players. Harry thought Snape just liked being a stick in the mud.

Voldemort transfigured an ottoman into a small table and set it between the loveseat and reading chair. They set up their pieces, knowing without speaking that Harry would play white and Voldemort would play black. Harry moved his first pawn. Voldemort shook his head.

“You don’t have a strategy,” he said, disapprovingly.

“How can I pick a strategy? I’ve got infinite possibilities before the game starts.”

“You can always change your strategy as the game proceeds, but you should have a goal in mind before you start. Right now you’re waiting to react to what I am going to do, and since I am a master chess player I will have executed my move before you even see it coming,” he warned. “Pick a piece of mine that you want to take, it doesn’t matter which one, and then figure out three different ways that you can take that piece. Then move one of the pawns that will help you perform one of those tactics. Wait for my move, and decide if you can or want to continue or pick a new strategy.”

Harry put his pawn back, and did as he was told, thinking of which black piece he wanted. He moved his pawn back were he had it in the first place.

“Better,” Voldemort said, with a touch of irony. He moved his own pawn. “So did anything else interesting happen at the colony?”

“Not really.” The novice kept his eyes glued to the board, and finding no opening he advanced another pawn to block the black pawn.

“I noticed you didn’t have your staff.”

“…I threw it away.”

Voldemort looked up from the board.

“Why?”

“I didn’t want it anymore. I was already being scolded for the seal on my stomach, so I just said ‘screw this’ and threw it away.”

“Blackbone wasn’t insulted?”

Harry smirked. “He just laughed. I don’t think he likes the shamans.”

The Dark Lord thought for a moment about it, and moved his bishop to take Harry’s second pawn. “You should make an offering to Rhiannon at the next full moon. Your actions may be perceived as an insult rather than a personal choice otherwise.”

“Alright. You’re not angry?”

“About the staff? No. It was a symbol of your position within the pack, not of your relationship with the gods. It is of little consequence in these times of transition. I am, however, rather upset you didn’t volunteer this information to me yourself.”

Harry looked at him steadily, particularly where he knew the Dark Lord kept his wand. The man didn’t even look up from the board.

“You don’t seem very upset,” he pointed out.

The man smirked. “Checkmate.”

“Shit!”

They reset the board and started again.

“Think we can talk about something else?” Harry asked.

“Certainly, just don’t think for a moment that my revenge is over.”

“Noted. So… Ireland.”

“A lovely country. I’m thinking about commissioning a palace there after the war is over.”

“Er… yes, it is quite nice, rampaging fairies aside. I was thinking about going there this summer. I have a friend, Natalie Cypher, whose volunteering over there and she invited me to come and see. I thought since my current job doesn’t take up a lot of time but I can’t get a second one that I could go over and help. Just for a week or two in July and August.”

“No.”

“Alright, it probably wasn’t the best idea to ask after your revenge spiel, but it would be good press. Everyone could see I’m fully recovered and bravely doing my civic duties and helping with the war effort without actually getting blown up again.”

“Two words, Harry. Rampaging fairies. Your last visit was far from uneventful, and they’ve become increasingly aggressive since then. I would rather not tempt fate. Besides, I have already arranged for press coverage at your next dueling competition in order to reassure the public you are fully recovered. Although, since you desire to do your civic duty, there are a number of charity events in England and Scotland that I believe would benefit from your presence. Checkmate.”

“God dammit!”

Harry thought about pursuing the matter. He really wanted to go to Ireland, and not just to help Natalie. While their friendship was better than ever and he greatly respected the work that she did, he wasn’t all that enthusiastic about jumping back into the war effort even for a good cause. His true motivation for going was far more selfish. In his journey through his own private limbo, he had encountered a visage claiming to be Carrigan, which should have been impossible, but it had given him the means of verifying the truth. He had spoken to Harry of a place that only he and Voldemort and Bobby knew about, and a secret hidden there, waiting to be uncovered. If he could find that place and that thing, he would know for certain whether that being was truly Carrigan or a figment of his own psyche.

If it truly were the old druid, he wanted to find him again and speak to him. Since Brennan’s death, he had very few to talk to about the pagan arts and what they meant. Voldemort, although Harry respected him a great deal, was not readily available most of the time and his lack of moral compass tended to skew his answers in rather dark directions. Besides, there were many questions he wanted to ask about Voldemort himself that he didn’t dare ask directly.

It seemed he would have to find another way. If Bobby would just come around, he was certain they could find a way to get to that secret place and back again before anyone noticed he was gone. But Bobby hadn’t come back. He had been expecting him to show up eventually but to no avail. Voldemort had told him of the ‘talking raven Greyback had summoned’, but then told him it had disappeared as soon as they reached the underground, so he must have gotten out before the fighting started.

Well, Bobby had his own things to do. He would show up when he felt like it just as he always did.

At least figuring out how to do it on his own would give him something to do. If all the adults he knew, excluding Sirius and Remus, had their way, it would prove to be an excruciatingly boring summer.

“You owe me apparating lessons.”

Harry, in an unusually insightful move, took Voldemort’s Queen with his bishop. The Dark Lord eyes actually widened, and he smiled before taking Harry’s bishop with his rook.

“I suppose I do. Although you realize you will be receiving instruction on this with your classmates this year?”

Harry shrugged.

“I want to be better at it than them.”

“A philosophy I generally approve of. I hope you don’t expect to apparate to Ireland any time soon.”

“Well, I hadn’t thought about it until you said something. I’m just sick of all your wonky travel arrangements. I think I should be able to apparate anywhere in Britain. It’s safer and more convenient.”

“Very well, I’ll arrange a tutor. Check.”

“Ha!” Harry moved his King, taking out one of Voldemort’s pawns. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Check.”

The young wizard groaned and continued his retreat. They fell into a discussion about apparition; its history, uses, and limitations. Then about other forms of magic that were traditionally wandless, including flying on brooms, potions, divination (Harry was surprised the Dark Lord practiced several very simple forms of it for very practical purposes), and animancy[1]. Then they discussed wands and how everyone came to use them and why everyone’s was different, which led to more discussions about keystones and magical elements and patronus. They theorized about the evolution of wizarding society as a reflection of the evolution in the practice of magic, and the growing distinction between wizarding folk and muggles. They talked for several hours as Voldemort navigated Harry around the intricacies of chess, and the younger wizard was increasingly impressed with his teacher’s seemingly endless supply of knowledge about such a wide variety of subjects. Hermione could be like that sometimes, but she wasn’t able to connect seemingly unrelated subjects in an interdisciplinary web of ‘truth’ the same way the Dark Lord was able to.

She talked facts.

He talked components.

Not that Harry agreed with all of the ‘truths’ Voldemort had concluded with the seemingly logical arrangements of components, especially when it came to the man’s disparaging view of muggles. He made several counter arguments that threw the Dark Lord off guard, during which Harry was careful to take advantage of his distraction to attempt particularly sneaky moves on the chessboard. Voldemort never did concede that any of his theories might be wrong, but Harry did manage to last for up to twenty minutes during one game and put his opponent in check twice.

A knock at the study door interrupted an argument on the merits of muggle science. Susan opened the door.

“Dinner is ready,” she announced pleasantly, and smiled a she saw what they had been doing the entire time. “Will you want to finish this game first?”

Voldemort looked down at the board, and moved his queen.

“Checkmate. We’re done.”

Harry grumbled something unintelligible and followed the man back to the dining room, where dinner had already been laid out for them. Kingsley was gone, and likely had been for hours. Morgan was still there, however, and Harry was happy to let the Dark Lord discuss politics and battle plans and Mrs. Morgan made the occasional token comment while he focused on actually eating. After dinner was completed both adult wizards got up to go together.

“I need to drop off some of these reports at the office. I’ll be back in an hour or two,” Morgan informed his wife.

Meanwhile, Voldemort had pulled Harry aside for a few more words before he left.

“I’ll send a list of apparition instructors tomorrow. In the mean time, send Lucius an owl. He’s been asking after you. I would rather have the two of you getting along, so play nice.”

He tried very hard not to show the Dark Lord what he thought of that idea, and simply nodded.

“And Harry, remember-”

“Muggles are evil,” he guessed.

“Well, that too. The next full moon is in ten days. Remember to make an offering.”

“I will. Thanks for coming. Be safe.”

Voldemort quirked his head at Harry’s curious turn of phrase. It wasn’t the first time Harry had ever said it, but no one aside from the Gryffindor had told him to ‘be safe’ for decades, and it was a little startling to hear some one say it with any amount of sincerity. It made him feel strangely pleased for some reason. He squeezed his protégé’s shoulder as he passed him on his way to the door.

“You as well, my friend.”

Two weeks at the manor and Hermione was already stir crazy. Narcissa had refused to let either Draco or her leave the manor without an adult escort, and while she could send Dobby out to get her anything she wanted it wasn’t the same. Natalie and Harry were both doing their own things, Ron was persona non grata on the estate and by extension everyone else in his family, and she honestly had very few friends she wanted to invite into her home.

At least Lucius hadn’t been around very much. He was always gone during the day and only came home at night intermittently, and generally they were able to avoid each other. Draco was insistent that somehow he was going to convince Uncle Severus to start up Quiditch again this year, and was boring her to tears with his endless talk about it. He must have gotten this annoying habit from Narcissa, because lately she had been equally dreadful about teaching Hermione the ‘feminine arts’. In fact, about the only time she had been let out of the house was when her foster mother was dragging her to boutiques and salons and clothing stores, changing up her style of clothes and hair and makeup (which she had never really had beyond a few tubes of lipstick she rarely used) to something decidedly more ‘sophisticated’.

Hermione liked the new style and had to admit she did look and feel more adult, but it seemed a too trivial for all the effort spent on it and very out of character for Narcissa. The woman had always behaved as if she thought Hermione would be her little girl forever, and all of a sudden she was talking about her coming into her own and attracting a husband and starting her professional career. There were vague feelings of dread that followed after these talks, followed by feelings of guilt. Narcissa did love her, after all, in her condescending sort of way and she didn’t want to hurt her, but what she wanted for Hermione wasn’t what was actually best for her.

One of her few comforts was preparing for her emancipation. She had broken down everything she needed to do into several simple lists, and was eagerly waiting to get started on them. To cheer herself up after a particularly strenuous visit to the beauty salon, she had closeted herself in her room and was reviewing her lists of places she wanted to live (Glasgow was at the top because of the university, but there were several smaller villages were the term ‘beauty salon’ would have been met with a look of confusion by the local residents). It wasn’t until around supper time that she was disturbed from her musings by Dobby popping up behind her and gave her a terrible fright.

“Oh!” she gasped. “You scared me!”

“Dobby is most sorry, kind mistress!” he cried, and she could already tell he was winding up to punish himself again if she didn’t stop him quickly.

“That’s quite alright. A little scare now and then is good for the heart,” she said, and seriously hoped he wouldn’t take that as a hint to jump out and scare her at random times. “Was there something you needed to tell me?”

“Yes, yes! Master brought a guest home and both Master and Mistress want you to meet him. They say he is very important! Oh, and Mistress says you should wear the peach dress.”

Hermione was confused by the request. Narcissa she could see wanting her to meet someone ‘important’, but not Lucius. Quite the opposite, in fact, he tended to keep her out of the way when anyone of significance visited. The ‘peach dress’ was also a puzzle. It was one of her new dresses her foster mother had bought recently, light and elegant and appropriate for an evening dinner or a garden party. It was also what Narcissa teasingly described as ‘flirty’.

Was this code that she was supposed to flirt with their ‘important’ guest?

They better not get their hopes up, she thought indignantly. She did, however, change into her peach dress and let Dobby pin up her a elegant mess of curls and flowered pins, before heading downstairs. Gigi was waiting at the bottom of the stairs to point her to the dinning room, and she was on her own after that.

The dinning room was enchanted to shrink or grow to accommodate however many or few people were expected to dine there. At the moment it was small and cozy (in cold and glittery sort of way), and the table was large enough to accommodate six. The first thing she noticed as she entered was that everyone else had arrived before her, including Draco, and they all fell silent as she entered. Never a good sign. The second thing she noticed was that their guest was someone she vaguely recognized. He was gangly and unimpressive looking, but he held some high position in the Court if she recalled. He dealt in foreign affairs of some sort, although exactly what she couldn’t remember. After a moment of silence, he stood and a smile slid across his face, sly and sickly and she hated him immediately.

“My, my, Miss Hermione, you have grown into an attractive young woman since I saw you last. It is indeed a pleasure to have your once company again.”

Well, this was awkward. She had never been praised for being an attractive ‘woman’ before, and wasn’t entirely sure how she was supposed to respond. It seemed that while Narcissa’s lessons on the ‘womanly arts’ were apparently paying off, she had skipped over a few important lessons. She struggled for a long awkward moment before she could think of something ‘sophisticated and womanly’ enough to say.

“You are most kind, sir, and I thank you for the compliment. It seems, however, that in the time we did indeed share company your name has slipped my mind.”

Okay, that didn’t sound so bad. Not that she cared if she impressed this man or not. She was not going to flirt with him. He was probably twice her age and smarmy as a carriage salesman?

“But of course, I am Lord Bartimus Crouch Jr., Court Head of Foreign Intelligence. Please call me ‘Barty’,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it.

Ah, more important than she had originally thought. She looked to the other occupants of the room for some indication on how she should treat his forward behavior. Lucius was looking smug and evil and completely unhelpful. Narcissa seemed pleased. Draco looked ready to stab the man with a fork, but that was his typical reaction to most males in his sister’s presence.

“Then a pleasure it is to meet you…again…Barty”

“Take a seat,” Lucius said evenly, “We have a very important matter we wish to discuss with you.”

Crouch pulled out a chair for her, and she slid into it. There was no food yet, but wine had been set for them. She eyed the red liquid thoughtfully, but decided against it. She needed to think clearly. Something was obviously going on.

Once they were all seated, Lucius turned to his wife.

“Would you care to do the honors, my dear?”

She nodded, and turned to Hermione.

“We have some very good news for you, darling. I’ve wanted to tell you all week, but your father wanted to make sure everything was settled before we said anything.”

Alarm bells were ringing in Hermione’s ears, and she tightened her hands on her chair as she continued to speak.

“You remember those two boys you were betrothed to?”

How could she forget? They were horrid. Egrecius Smault had been her first betrothal at eight, and he was a nasty, spoiled bully who used to throw mud and frog guts at her until Draco beat him with his toy broom and threw him in the pond. Desmond Argonstault had been the second when she was just short of ten, and he was dull beyond words and would just stand around and sulk and whine about everything. Neither of them had lasted more than a year, although dissolving them had been more political than having to do with lack of compatibility.

Something her displeasure must have shown through because Narcissa nodded sympathetically.

“Yes, they were completely unsuitable. Far beneath someone of your grace and education. After Desmond, your father and I decided to wait until you were older and your natural charms would become more obvious and attract those of more suitable breeding. It would seem our patience has finally paid off.”

Oh, Merlin, no. No, no, no…

No, wait. It was fine. She could end the betrothal as soon as she was emancipated. He couldn’t possibly marry him before then. They would have to wait until she was seventeen and she would get emancipated long before then. She just had to stay calm.

“Oh?” she managed.

“Yes,” Crouch continued, and she found herself turning to meet his languid gaze. “A stroke of good fortune on both our parts. I have been looking for a wife for some time now. A lady of beauty, intelligence, and character. Such women are so quickly snatched up these days; I thought to put my bid in a bit earlier than most. I feel most lucky to have found a witch of your quality at all.”

He’s lying, she thought. Narcissa might believe that nurture trumps nature, but few self-respecting purebloods adhered to that philosophy despite the Dark Lord’s stance on raising muggleborns in the ‘proper’ wizarding manner. It didn’t matter that she was ‘beautiful’ or the top of her class in Hogwarts or a strong personality. Few would ignore her ‘dirty blood’, and only the lowest born purebloods would chose to ignore the ridicule they would suffer for tainting their own line in favor of money or connections, such as in the case of Egrecius and Desmond.

Perhaps it had been different before the war and the pureblood regime had taken firm control over the social and political arena, but it made little difference now. Not for her.

“Words escape me. Forgive me, I am overwhelmed.”

“It is a bit much to spring on someone,” Crouch said, jovially. “Not to worry, I am certain we will get along splendidly. We have an entire year to get to know each other, and I am certain familiarity will loosen your tongue.”

“A year? Don’t you mean two years,” Draco butted in, the first thing he had said for the entire dinner and he sounded livid. She was glad, because right now she didn’t have it in her to be anything more than horrified. “She’ll only be sixteen next year, and there’s still school.”

“Draco, mind your tone,” Narcissa scolded lightly.

“No need to be so defensive son,” Lucius said, his tone holding considerably more threat than his wife’s. “Hermione’s true birth date is Sept. 19, 1979. She is in fact seven months older than is officially recorded. It was a small matter to change it back to the original date.”

She felt her heart drop into her stomach. She hadn’t known. Oh, she knew they had changed her birthday to the day she was adopted, but she hadn’t known the true date and she had never even conceived of a way they could possibly have used such a simple thing against her until now. This September she would turn seventeen and be of legal age to marry.

Oh, god.

“As for school,” Crouch continued, “Of course, I wouldn’t deprive my wife of a complete education. She’ll have the finest tutors money can buy.”

Draco clearly wasn’t satisfied with this answer, and seeing his sister seemed incapable of speaking he shoved on.

“I do not see why he can’t wait until she’s graduated from Hogwarts. It’s not fair she’ll have to miss graduating with all of our friends before being locked up in some ivory tower.”

“Young man, that is entirely uncalled for,” the Malfoy patriarch snapped. “These are adult matters and if you cannot speak as an adult you will remain silent, and respect our judgment. We know what we’re doing.”

“It’s alright, Lucius, he is simply concerned for her well-being, like any brother would be,” Crouch said, magnanimously, although from her position Hermione could see amusement tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Narcissa gave her son a disappointed look.

“Draco-dear, why can’t you be happy for Hermione? This will insure her future. I know you’re very attached to her, but you can’t keep her all to yourself forever. You’re being entirely selfish about this.”

Draco stared at her as if she had spontaneously transformed into a Dementor.

“Selfish? I’m being selfish? YOU’RE TRYING TO WHORE OUT MY SISTER!”

Hermione laughed, screamed, cried, and choked at the same time so that only thing that actually came out was soft little note that could have been mistaken for a hiccup. It didn’t matter. No one could hear her over the shouting that had erupted around the table. Narcissa and Lucius were shouting at Draco, Draco was shouting at his parents, and Crouch was half-heartedly requesting that at everyone to calm down.

She just sat there and watched the chaos; laughing, screaming, crying, and choking in perfectly silent stillness. After a minute or two, when it became clear that the fighting was not going to stop any time soon, she slipped away.

“Excuse me; all this excitement has overwhelmed me. I think I must lye down.”

She didn’t know if anyone heard, but no one stopped her as she stood up and left the dinning room. She could still hear the shouting when she reached the top of the staircase. Once in her room, she locked the door and slid down to the floor. She stared blankly ahead for a few moments, working out the tightness in her throat that was choking her until finally the first sob escaped, followed by another, then another. For several minutes, she simply sat on the floor and cried fat, messy tears of fear, frustration, hurt, and self-pity.

What was she doing? Why hadn’t she said ‘no’ while she had the chance?

Because then she would be in the same useless shouting match Draco was locked in at the moment, no doubt. Already she could think of a dozen reasons why fighting at the dinner table would have been useless. Lucius wouldn’t have cared; he obviously was doing this as some sort of revenge scheme. He had already convinced Narcissa that this was a good idea, and if Hermione objected well then obviously she was just like Draco, acting childish and selfishly clinging to childhood.

No, that was a lie. Well, no, it was true that arguing would have been pointless, but the reasons she hadn’t argued had nothing to do with logic and everything to do with the fact she had been caught off guard by Lucius’ little trap and frozen. He was probably down stairs right now feeling smug and superior over his obvious little victory. No doubt, he would mock her for her graceless retreat later and torment her with her impending nuptials.

A spark of anger rose in her. She couldn’t immediately stop the tears, but she could stop feeling sorry for herself. Rising to her feet, she wiped the tears away angrily and blew her nose.

“You have to stay calm,” she told herself. “Think this through. He changed your birth date. That means this September you’ll be seventeen, so you won’t even need to get emancipated. You’re already a legal adult…no, no that’s not right. You have to complete your schooling before you can be considered a legal adult… then how can I get married before then? Maybe you can do that with your guardians’ permission? Whatever, maybe I can just graduate early. Uncle Severus would probably help me… maybe, but he would have to go against Lucius and then Lucius might bring in Lord Voldemort and I don’t want that. Maybe I can do it on my own without Severus’ help. I can do it. I just need to take the NEWTS early, and since I don’t have any tests sixth year, I should be able get enough studying in if I quit the paper and Dueling Club. I should probably do that anyway if I’m not coming back for seventh year. It would be best to get a replacement for the paper as soon as possible. Maybe Ron… he could do it…”

Her long, brainstorming rant she was so famous continued in her head, until eventually it became obvious to her she would need help. She would be watched like a hawk now that she was to be married to ensure she did nothing to ‘mess it up’ as the little farce of a betrothal and she would someone to be her hands and feet as this was all sorted.

Harry was obvious choice. He had promised already that he would help, and right now she needed him more than ever. He was the only person she knew who could in some way stand toe to toe with Lucius. He had Lord Voldemort’s favor, perhaps even more so than Lucius himself, and if anyone could pull her out of this horrible situation it would be him.

Together, they would find a way.

“Petrificus cruce afficio!” Harry shouted, and his opponent hesitated, no doubt by the words that sounded like a cross between a body-bind and the Pain Curse, and it was long enough for the spell to hit. The girl, a seventh year student, stiffened and suddenly stuck both of her arms out like a scarecrow. She was stuck like that, unable to bend her limbs or waist, and after a moment she lost her balance and fell flat on her back.

There were several sympathetic groans and winces from the stands, as onlookers watched her go down.

“Match goes to Hogwarts!” the referee declared, and the crowd cheered or booed depending on the school they were supporting. Harry immediately canceled the spell, and helped his opponent to her feet.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” she coughed, still a bit breathless. “I’ve never heard that spell before.”

“Amanda Hexly’s Hybridization of Hexes, Curses, and Jinxes. 1932. It’s a mix of a body-bind and a crucifixion curse.”

She smiled. “Thanks. I’ll check it out.”

They shook hands and went to their separate teams. That had been his last duel, and he was feeling invigorated after six successes in a row. His wins had bolstered team morale during the lagging second and third round of duels, and now they were well on their way to winning their second competition of the season. Ginny handed him a cup of water, and directed him to go cheer up a first year who had been struggling with his last two matches and after a quick pep talk and some couching he was finally free to relax for a while.

Which he didn’t do, of course.

Instead, he went to track down Draco. Hermione was conspicuously absent, and her brother had been acting strangely, either too distracted and missing obvious attacks or too aggressive and attacking too violently. Ron was acting weird too, perhaps for the same reasons, but Harry had a sneaking suspicion that he was hung over if his the bags under his eyes and obvious headache were any indication. He had things he needed to talk about with Ron, but his immediate concern was Hermione.

“Hey,” he greeted Draco, sitting next to him on the bench. “Where’s Hermione?”

Not exactly subtle, but there you have it.

The Malfoy heir grimaced, and ran a hand through his hair.

“Mother and father made her stay home to spend some time with her fiancé.”

Harry just stared at him. He closed his eyes. He opened them. He pinched himself. No, he was awake. Dammit.

“Hermione has a fiancé?” he said, evenly, because really he wasn’t sure what sort of reaction he should be having right now.

“She does now,” was Draco’s rather unhelpful reply. They sat there in silence for a minute before Harry could think of anything remotely intelligent to say.

“Who?”

“Lord Bartimus-please call me Barty-Crouch Jr. Some stupid-looking bloke from the Court of Foreign Intelligence. Spy stuff, you know? He’s a fucking asshole. I don’t know what my parents are thinking.”

“How’s Hermione taking it?”

Draco glared at him for asking something so stupid.

“What do you think? Not very bloody well! She won’t talk about it with me and she just sort of stares off into space all the time.” Some of vinegar seemed to drain out of him, and his expression turned tired. “I’m really worried about her. I’ve never seen her like this.”

Harry put a hand on Draco’s shoulder and squeezed.

“Tell you father that I requested to visit. He’s been bugging me about it lately, so hopefully I can come over as soon as tomorrow. Don’t worry. I’m sure together we can snap her out of this funk, and then figure a way to get her out of it.”

He didn’t tell Draco that Hermione was probably already working on the problem now. In all likelihood she was planning to get emancipated before the wedding ever took place, and was just acting miserable in order to fool Lucius. If they pretended that this emancipation idea came about as a way to get out of the marriage, they might be able to pull Draco into their idea without making him feel as if she had been trying to get out of being his sister and thus save their relationship.

The sooner they could count him into their plans the better. Draco might not have the political clout Harry had, but he was better connected and might know where to find Hermione a potential sponsor.

“Yeah, okay. Thanks,” the Malfoy heir conceded glumly.

“Tell me what exactly is going on with this marriage bit,” he insisted, and soon enough Draco was recounting the events of last night’s dinner. Things were worse than Harry had originally thought. They would be working without a net if they did this, with no cushion of time at the end of sixth year to get emancipated and get out of the marriage. Hermione had been intending to have all of it taken care of by then anyway, but failure had not result in ruining her life.

He wasn’t sure of everything that could wrong, but no doubt Hermione had by now and would tell him the next time they were alone.

Draco wasn’t any happier about the situation after he was done telling Harry all the nasty details, including his own punishment for the hissy fit he had thrown (it was the first time his father had ever crucio-ed him and he didn’t know if he would ever forgive the man), but he did seem to take some comfort in the Gryffindor’s calm reassurance that they would make sure nothing bad happened to his sister.

They parted ways so Draco could finish his last match, and Harry did his rounds with the others duelists, giving encouragement where he thought it was needed and would be accepted (a few of them still feared and despised him since his return from Germany). He avoided Ron, who he was in no mental state to deal with and didn’t seem receptive to visitors at the moment.

From the stands, he could hear and see the occasional camera going off and fought the instinct to hide behind someone. He had talked briefly with some reporters before the match and was reminded again why he generally loathed them. At least they were a cowardly bunch, and his half-teasing threat to set them on fire if they distracted him or any of the other duelists during their matches had been heeded. He was starting to wonder if he was developing a mean streak.

When the competition was over, Gryffindor won 48 to 33. That made their second win of the season and everyone was feeling enthusiastic about their chances of reaching the national finals at the end of the summer. Harry went through the motions of bravado and congratulations with his teammates, then gave them the usual advice and study references to prepare for their next competition. He lingered in the dueling hall after most of them had left and spoke to some of the duelists from the other team and to people from the audience and to the reporters who lingered until the very end. One of them was the girl he had defeated from his last match, who invited him to join her and some of her girl friends for ice cream. Before he could make up an excuse to get out of it, Kingsley appeared by his side.

“We should go now if you want to make it before the library closes,” he said. The girl quelled at the sight of dark Sentinel in his full fighting regalia, who up until that moment had been an invisible shadow in the stands. He nodded politely. “Sorry to intrude, but we are on a schedule.”

“T-that’s alright,” she said nervously.

“Sorry. Maybe another time,” Harry said, and headed to the locker room to shower and change. “How did you know I didn’t want to go out with her?”

Kingsley smirked.

“I didn’t. But you looked upset by something when you talked to that Malfoy kid. Aren’t you dating his sister?”

“What? No! She’s my best friend, not my girlfriend!” he snapped defensively, but then sighed. “That’s sort of what we were talking about. It turns out she’s been betrothed to some Court jerk.”

“Yikes, sorry man.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Harry said, although he considered broaching the topic with him. Kingsley worked with children, so he had to know something about the emancipation process and sponsoring and maybe even birth date changes. He would wait to talk to Hermione first though.

He showered and changed, and headed out to the York Public Wizarding Library which was only half a block down from the Clearwater Magic Sports Center where the dueling competition had been held. Kingsley hadn’t been lying about the library. Harry really did need to pick up some materials. The walked was short, but the sidewalk was crowded. Across the street there was a small hospital, a large hotel, and several busy restaurants and shops scattered all over the place. Some of the people recognized Harry on the street, but none dared stop him or get his way with his bodyguard towering over them and they made it to the library without incident.

The library was majestically shabby; built upon the premises of grand architecture, it was temple-like with its soaring ceiling, marble columns, and arched doorways, but the wooden shelves were slowly rotting, the marble was cracked, and the glass lamps should have been replaced a century ago. It gave the entire place a solemn, cathedral like feeling that Harry found depressing. A woman behind the circulation desk, who looked disturbingly like Madam Pince, stared at them both curiously as they entered. He checked his book list for the things he wanted, mentally added some on marriage law, and got to work.

For all of the library’s size, its collection was not as extensively developed as Hogwarts, and Harry found himself distinctly dissatisfied with their potions and astronomy selections. He did, however, get a pleasant surprise when he went in search of some books on animals, and found an old friend.

“Hagrid!”

The giant man was squished uncomfortably between two rows of shelves, trying to see books without actually bending over. He looked up and his smile could be seen clearly even through his wild forest of a beard.

“’Ar-”

“Sshhh!” someone hissed.

They both smiled sheepishly at each other. Harry gestured for Kingsley to wait outside the stacks and look after his books, and went to join Hagrid. He cast a Silencing Charm and then Space-Making Charm so that at least their isle would be large enough to accommodate his large friend so that he could do more than simply shimmy along from side to side.

“’Arry, fancy meet’n ya ’ere. An excellent bit-o luck,” Hagrid said, giving the young wizard an affectionate hug.

“Most definitely. I just had a dueling competition down the street and thought I’d get some books for school. What are you doing here?”

“Ah, nothing special. Thought I’d see if they had any books on raising livestock. Meat’s been getting expensive, and Charlie’s thinks we should try raising our own at the sanctuary to save money. Smart guy, Charlie.”

Quickly enough they fell into conversation about the dragon sanctuary where Charlie ran his program to raise orphaned dragonets until they were large enough to release into the wild. With the war going on, they had lost a lot of funding, but the need was greater than ever as the black market price for authentic dragon hide had skyrocketed and many a mother dragons had been slaughtered to feed the demand. As Harry predicted, Hagrid went on a big long spiel about the injustice of it all, and how he was proud of the work he was doing and had never been happier.

“I owe you a lot for that. If you hadn’t recommended me to Charlie in the first place, none of this would have been possible.”

Harry shook his head, and just smiled. “I don’t think you owe me anything, Hagrid. This is the way it was supposed to be. I know the dragons are lucky to have you on their side.”

“Well, then both me an’ the dragon’s owe ye. If ye ever need someth’n that I can provide…”

Feeling like Hagrid needed something so he could walk away with a clear conscious, Harry struggled to find something the other man could possibly do for him. He couldn’t think of anything that would be to his personal benefit at the moment, so he decided something a bit broader in interpretation would have to do.

“If you really want to pay me back, and I honestly don’t think you need to, but if you want to, then do me this favor. If you ever find someone in trouble, help them out, even if you don’t think you know what to do. I think half the problems in the world could just be solved if we didn’t ignore each other’s problems because we didn’t think we could do anything about them. Even if you fail at it, at least that person knows you cared enough to try.”

Hagrid considered his words for a moment, rubbing his beard thoughtfully. Harry could visibly see when the giant man settled into the idea as his eyes hardened into determination.

“I see yer mean’n. An yeh be make’n a mighty big request. Bigger than I think yeh realize, but I’m a big fellow so I ain’t too worried about it.”

“Thanks, Hagrid.”

Kingsley moved into the stacks and their bubble of silence. Wizard and giant eyed each other suspiciously for a moment, before the Sentinel spoke.

“They announced the library’s closing in fifteen minutes. Better get the last of what you need and get checked out.”

Harry checked his pocket watch and sure enough it was fifteen minutes until five, and the both of them scurried around in the shelves looking for what they needed. After checking out their books, Harry and Hagrid parted ways, not realizing that the promise that had been made would come into affect that very day in the most dramatic of ways.

Once alone with his bodyguard, Harry was reluctant to return to the cottage. It was an hour before dinner, and he wanted to enjoy his brief freedom for as long as he could.

They killed some time at a pet store they had passed on the way to the library, and Harry picked up some owl treats for Elsbeth and some molting solution for Inana, who was at the beginning phase of shedding her skin and highly irritable. A quarter till six and Harry knew it was time to go. He couldn’t think of any excuse left to stick around..

Or so he thought.

As they were walking to the next floo station, Kingsley watching the crowd for potential danger and Harry thinking about his slowly rising tide of problems and projects, a sudden and unnatural silence fell. It wasn’t a spell. Sound was traveling unimpeded through the streets and buildings, but never the less all conversation suddenly ceased in a moment of unaccountable public premonition. Harry stopped walking, and instinctively looked to the sky before turning to look around him. Kingsley was doing the same, and though neither of them saw anything there was absolute certainty that something was happening.

The scars on Harry’s palms began to burn[2].

The first explosion took out a small restaurant, disintegrating it into a cloud of fire and wood. He saw the few men and women eating outside blown into the street, limbs torn from their bodies in the process and half consumed in fire. Harry stood, paralyzed, unable to comprehend what he had just seen while around him men and women and children screamed and panicked, racing to escape in every direction. Some of them managed to apparate, but most either lacked the skill or were too affected by the surrounding chaos to try. He was vaguely aware that people were running passed him, into him, pushing him backwards and threatening to topple and then crush him in their haste.

Where was Kingsley?

The second explosion occurred somewhere behind Harry, knocking him and several others down in the process. Bits and pieces of stone and wood and who knew what else rained down on them, and the air was suddenly thick with smoke. Somewhere next to him a child was screaming.

His palms felt like they were on fire.

He was one of the first to scramble to his feet, and likely the first to see the wizards flying down from the sky. He could barely make out their Dark Blue uniforms in the thickening smoke.

Italians.

He could see a dozen of them, but there had to have been more. They had abandoned destroying buildings in favor of cutting down groups of people in the street, spitting out curses on the panicking masses that had not yet even seen them. Memories of the Goddess Clan, scattered dead in the snow interposed upon the scene and he could only watch as he saw not only the gruesome end result but the even more gruesome process of slaughter play out before him.

He could not feel his limbs or tongue, and could not lift his wand to cast a spell. All he could feel was the burning in his hands, the stinging smoke in his eyes, and his lungs struggling to take in air and finding none. A panic attack at the worse possible time and his mind trying to escape the complete horror of it, and he simply stood there.

As if sensing his vulnerability, one of the flying soldiers turned towards him and aimed his wand.

Still, Harry could not move. Staring helplessly, he could almost see the spell, bending the light ever so slightly like heat rising off pavement, streaking towards him. It should have hit him, torn him to pieces, and killed him, but someone smashed into him, knocking him aside. He landed heavily with an even heavier body landing on top of him.

“Ugh, fuck, kid. Where’s your damn dueler’s instinct?” Kingsley groaned, and rolled off of him. Harry lifted his hand and saw it was soaked in blood, and turning to the Sentinel he could easily spot the source in the blooming red stain on his side.

Harry could feel his limbs now. He could feel his legs and his arms. He could feel his lips and his tongue. His breath still didn’t seem to want to catch the air, but above them he could see the wizard taking aim again. Harry didn’t even bother trying to block.

“Flumen vipereus vastatio!” he screamed, and his curse swallowed the other’s like a serpent swallowing its feebler kin and then speared onward. The wizard tried to dodge, but Harry followed his movement with his wand and the curse arched to follow him until at last it struck. The Italian shrieked as his body was consumed in lightening, his body and robes catching fire before he fell from his broom.

Harry did not watch him fall nor did he wait before he was casting his second curse. Pointing his wand at the burning rubble that had been a restaurant, he shouted his incantation and then flung his arm straight at the largest cluster of attackers. The restaurant exploded a second time, but now balls of burning rubble launched themselves at the wizards as if shot from cannon. Three of the soldiers were caught directly, shot out of the air cleanly, and as the seven remaining began to scatter, Harry shouted another spell and the flaming balls of wreckage exploded in midair tearing them to pieces with shrapnel.

People were still screaming in fright, and likely a few had been the unhappy recipients of falling debris (some of that debris being bodies), but they had started to rally and were now casting shields to protect themselves. Harry ignored them in favor of destroying the threat.

He barely managed to throw up his strongest shield in time, and even then he was thrown off his feet as several powerful curses struck it at once. He rolled to his feet, slipping on debris and blood, and cast two more shields to buy him the precious seconds he needed to find his next targets.

A hundred feet from in front of him, another spell smashed into the small hospital, collapsing half of it. From inside, people were wailing and screaming, and Harry felt himself flush with a new wave of anger and hatred.

“I’LL KILL YOU ALL!”

His palms felt on fire, pulsing with magic that was not entirely his own, but familiar and welcomed into his very core. He felt it strengthen him, feeding his magic and his rage. Curses smashed into his shields, shredding them to pieces, and while he renewed them yet again with his wand, he lifted his empty left hand towards three wizards and witches who had spread themselves into a wide arch above him.

“DOWN!” And with that, his magic seized hold of their brooms, just as he had done hundreds of times years before in his innocent days a quidditch seeker, and commanded them to obey with unrelenting force. There was no counter spell his attackers could erect against it. It was a trick unique to Harry and not one that any other had developed a defense against, and the witches and wizards could only leap or hold on until the end as their brooms plummet at breakneck speed into the ground. The result was the same no matter what they did.

Behind him he could hear Kingsley calling for him, telling him to run away and hide, but he ignored the man. He was here. He could fight. He wanted to fight. He wanted to kill them for what they had done.

The curses were becoming more complicated and more powerful the longer Harry’s shields held against them, and soon he was being forced to dodge as well as block, and his aim became worse. Harry tried to identify the leader amongst the attackers, but they were all little more than indistinguishable dark blue shadows. He considered finding an intact broom and taking them on from the air, but unless a broom actually made itself available (he was certain he smashed or burned all the Italian’s brooms) it was a moot point. It did give him an idea though.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled two of his shrunken library books at random. Unable to do what he needed to do and still avoid the attacks, he ducked into an alleyway between two restaurants, and ran to the next street over. There was another attack going on here, though not as heavy, and he shot down two unprepared soldiers as he went, then ducked down another alley until he reached a street that did not look like it had yet been touched. Sirens had started to sound across the city, and even here people were scurrying to find shelter, but in Harry’s traumatized mind he couldn’t fathom where they could possibly hide. Their attackers were unscrupulous and would burn them out of whatever sanctuary they found. They had to be destroyed completely before anyone could be safe.

With shaky hands he went to work. Amanda Hexley’s book on combining spells had more theory in it than examples, which Harry had glossed over in his reading, but which he had a vague understanding of. Right now, he was feeling powerful enough that whatever he lacked in finesse he could make up for is sheer magical brute force. His magic running wild inside of him, waiting for him to channel it into something. Anything, no matter how impossible.

He returned to the two library books to their original sizes and immediately started to transfigure them. Pages flew out of their bindings one sheet after another, too fast to count, and folded themselves into swifts with sharp w-shaped bodies. Once folded they floated in the air and pressed tightly together in an ever growing line, waiting for his command. After all the pages of each book had been transfigured he found himself with easily over seven hundred paper birds stretched out for several yards into the alleyway.

Now the difficult part.

He could have commanded the birds individually, a few at a time, or to move as one massive thing, but what he wanted required far more cunning. He needed them to act independently, while at the same time working towards a single goal. This would require the hybridization of both arimancy and the Imperius curse. Arimancy would guide the paper’s movement and behavior, and the Imperius curse would imprint the focus.

It would likely fail spectacularly, but if it succeeded he could turn the battle.

He placed his left hand on the origami bird at the front of the line, it was almost perfectly the length of his hand from its beak to the tips of its tail, and closed his eyes. His magic flowed through his body and through his palms, mingling with the familiar foreign magic that manifested there, and moved into the first paper bird, then to the second, the third, so on and so forth until it reached each and every one. In his mind he pictured real swallows, how flew fast and erratic their flight, beautiful in their unpredictability, strong and certain in all their movements. He pictured how they swarmed upon flying predators, fearless and fierce they struck and fled, struck and fled until the danger was driven from them. He felt the paper birds stir, something like desire stirring in them, to move and fly and hunt and play. Animalistic instinct only. They needed something more intelligible than Harry’s mental imagery.

He placed his wand between his spread fingers so that it rested against the paper birds’ chest. He had never used this curse outside the classroom, but he had been taught and his target was ready and waiting for instruction.

“Kill them all.”

The line of paper exploded into a flock of birds, flitting this way and that, faster than Harry could follow and yet still avoiding hitting him or each other. They burst out from the cover of the alleyway and took to the open hair in a frenzy of flapping paper wings. With in seconds the alley was empty.

Within second the enemies found his hiding place.

He completely missed the first attack, but it hit high, knocking shingles from the roof and raining them down on him. He took a few unfortunate hits to the head and shoulders, but kept his wits enough to throw up some more shields. There was no second attack, as the two soldiers who had found him were now fending off the strikes of a new set of unexpected enemy.

His paper swallows had swarmed them like bees protecting a hive, their magically strengthened bodies slashing at them with razor sharp wings. They flung spells blindly to fend them off, and though a few fell the others were too many and too fast, and finally they tried to flee.

Harry shot them both down with a Lightening Curse before they could escape.

The birds flew on to find other targets and Harry gave chase after them.

In his pocket, he could feel his watch begin to burn against his thigh, and let out a small hysterical laugh. He was late for dinner, he realized. Mrs. Morgan would be worried.

For ten minutes and twelve Italian soldiers, Harry followed his little army of birds as they hunted down and attacked the enemy. Sometimes they could kill or incapacitate a soldier all on their own, slashing them to pieces in midair or causing them to fall from their broom. Sometimes he would help them, and with increasing frequency random citizens would use the distraction the birds provided to take out the enemy themselves. Every attack cost him more birds, however, and soon they dwindled into minor nuisances and the invaders quickly found the source, and Harry was once again running and blocking again as dozens of soldiers chased him through the streets, setting fires and killing randomly as they went.

“Titubo!” he shouted, flinging his wand over his shoulder without bother with the proper movement. He heard one of his pursuers falter and crash behind him. There was cussing followed by curses, and he crashed through the side door of a random building to avoid being hit. He found himself in the backroom of a shoe store and scurried to find an exit before they attempted to bring the entire thing down on him.

A loud pop and Kingsley was suddenly in front of him. Harry was moving so fast he ran straight into the man’s arm. There was another pop and they were in front of the cottage, perfect and whole with birds singing and flowers blooming thick in the yard. Their momentum had knocked them both to the ground, but Harry rolled immediately to his feet and spun around looking for the enemy that was no longer there.

His eyes wide and unbelieving, his mind stunned as if he had just been dunked in ice water after a walk through the boiling heat of a lava field. He turned to Kingsley who was slowly struggling to his feet, gripping his injured side. The man looked terrible. He was barely able to move and it was a marvel that he had managed to not only find Harry at all but perform a side-along apparition as well. Still high on his adrenaline rush, the blood-thirsty Gryffindor felt neither awe nor concern but intense anger.

“Take me back!” he demanded. “It’s not finished yet!”

The Sentinel looked at him as if he were insane.

“They’ll burn the city to the ground if I don’t stop them! They’re monsters! They have to die!”

“No, Harry,” Kingsley wheezed. “The Culties were already starting to arrive when I finally got you. They’ll take care of it. You did enough. God almighty, you did more than enough.”

There was a hint of horror in his voice that only fueled Harry’s anger.

“You coward! Run and hide if you want, but don’t expect the same of me!”

He started to run towards the road, intent on reaching the village floo and getting back to York. He only made it a few feet, however before he stumbled. Confused, he turned back to Kingsley who was still trying to raise his wand and failing miserably.

“What did you do?” he asked.

The Sentinel just blinked at him.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“I can’t feel my hands.”

His wand slipped through his numb fingers to the ground, and he lifted his hands to look at him. The scars on his palms were blacked and the flesh around them was red and blistered and yet the only thing he felt was an icy numbness that was slowly spreading up his arms. Soon his arms lost strength and fell limp to his side.

Anger was soon replaced with fear.

“Kingsley…” he managed weakly, and then slipped into unconsciousness.

Horace stared at the large patch of blue sky where there had once been a wall for several minutes. It was a very lovely sky. Lots of bright blue and just a little bit of fluffy white cloud. A lovely summer sky that he couldn’t be entirely sure was really there or not. It wouldn’t be the first time he had fallen into a memory and not realized it until he was trying to claw his way through the walls.

The sounds were familiar too. Screaming and fire and curses being cast about. A soft breeze carried them into his little room, caressing the bare skin of his face and arms and feet.

Was he dreaming, he wondered? He had been a little while ago, he knew, but he thought the explosions might have woken him up. Maybe this was a new dream. A dream within a dream or a memory within a dream or a memory within a memory. It was all the same these days… nights…years…

As he was sitting there quietly, lost in his unreality, something that had never happened in his dreams or memories occurred. A little bird fell through the hole in the wall. It fluttered uselessly on the ground, attempting to take flight again. The poor thing must have broken its wing. He should try to help it.

Finally motivated to movement, he slowly pushed himself to his feet and moved towards it. As he got closer, he realized it was not a real bird, although it moved just like one. He knelt down and picked it up, and found it was a little bird made of folded paper. There were words printed on it and he read a few fragmented sentences, but there was very little he could make out with all the dark red and brown stains on its body. Although it moved like a real bird, it didn’t struggle in his hands like one. Instead, it sat there placidly and tilted its paper head from side to side.

Horace wondered if it could see him, because there was nothing to indicate it had any eyes. He studied it curiously, and soon found the reason for its flailing about. Its right wing had been nearly torn off.

“Poor thing,” he said, and petted it soothingly. “I’ll find someone to fix you. A little repair spell and you’ll be good as new. I would do it myself, but I don’t know where my wand is any more. I think Tom took it.”

He didn’t bother trying the door. The door hated him, and never opened when he wanted it to and never stayed shut against all the bad people who came in to hurt him. So he headed for the opening in the wall, forgetting that he thought it wasn’t real only moments ago. The bricks and mortar cut into his hands and feet as he climbed out onto the street, but he was only vaguely aware of it as he was only vaguely aware of anything. He knew he must be hurting himself, but surely the paper bird was more seriously injured than he was.

There were more paper birds outside, but they were all dead or flying around on their own. There were people too, also dead or flying, but also running and crouching and making all sorts of ghastly noises. He stopped beside one man who was hiding behind a bench.

“Can you help me?” he asked.

“Get down, you stupid fool, before they see you!” the man snarled, and peeked out of his hiding place to make sure no one had.

“Will you fix my bird? I’ve lost my wand and can’t do it myself.”

The man just looked at him like he was crazy, and then looked as his hospital clothes and then behind him at the mess that used to be the hospital, and realized he really was.

“Oh, Merlin, you’re a nutcase,” he muttered in disgust. “Go back to the hospital.”

“I don’t want to,” Horace said stubbornly, and seeing as the man wasn’t going to be any help at all, he walked off to find someone who would. He tried several different people, but they all either ignored him or ran away or yelled at him. He didn’t remember people being this rude before, but then again maybe the bad people had stolen those memories. Or maybe they had stolen all these people’s good memories and that’s why they were all cranky.

He tried the library, because librarians were always helpful, but it was locked tight.

“Don’t worry. I won’t stop until I find someone who will fix you,” he promised his little friend.

He walked for several blocks looking for help, but the once crowded streets were now deserted and it wasn’t until he reached a neighborhood of cheerily burning houses that he met anyone at all. There were a dozen or so witches and wizards busily dousing their burning rooftops, but none of them were likely to stop to help him he decided. There were also several children standing out in the street, looking morose and nervous, but they of course didn’t have wands either. There was, however, a somewhat familiar looking giant man who was helping calm several teams of horses who were moving about skittishly outside of what had probably once been the neighborhood livery. Perhaps he could help.

“Excuse me, sir.”

The man turned to him, and he had the nicest expression of anyone he had met so far today despite wild facial hair. He thought he might get lucky this time.

“Yes, lad?”

“Sir, I found this bird and its wing is torn. Will you help me?”

He showed the man the bird, and he stared at it blankly for a long time and then at Horace.

“Well…I don’t know much ’bout paper birds. If it were a real bird, I might ’ave some advice, but I can’t think of none.”

“Maybe a repair spell?”

“Sorry, lad, I don’t have a wand meself.”

Horace felt a wave of despair. Could no one help his little friend? It shouldn’t be that hard. He knew lots of people who could do it! He could do it himself if he had a wand! Why wasn’t anyone helping him? If he could only remember what had happened to his wand he was certain he would understand these things.

Hagrid looked at the young man and felt a stirring of pity. He was obviously not right in the head, and had no idea what was happening. He must have wandered out of the hospital and gotten lost in the confusion. He was skinny as a rail with dark circles under his eyes, but the tenderness with which he treated that charmed piece of paper touched the half-giant deeply.

He recalled what Harry had asked of him that day in the library. He had asked him to help someone who was in trouble, even if he didn’t know how to help and at least that person would know someone cared. It became quite obvious to him that this confused young man needed someone to care, even if it was just over his silly paper charm.

“Tell you what; as soon as I’m done helping here I’ll help you find a way to fix yer bird. My names Hagrid, by the way. Rubeus Hagrid.”

“I’m Horace McGunny.”

The young man smiled, happy and relieved, and Hagrid felt he had already accomplished something important. Harry had been right.

The battle in York was already half over, and the Italians had been dropping like flies thanks to some rather clever and nasty spell work. They had already seen some Culties flying over, which meant reinforcements were on their way to drive out the enemy completely. Once the danger had passed, he would take Horace back to the hospital and see to it that he was taken care of. Someone there would probably help fix the paper bird as well, since it was obviously comforting to him.

That was Hagrid’s plan at least, but it didn’t turn out as he had hoped. It was an hour before the all clear siren was sounded, and when he did take Horace back to the hospital it was to find the entire building had collapsed. The scene was in chaos as rescue workers magicked away piles upon endless piles of rubble, digging out the dead and the trapped, and lining up the injured in the open street for treatment with the rest of city’s injured and dead. Hagrid was loath to bother anyone as they raced to save and sooth the dying and the injured.

After fifteen minutes of lingering about uselessly, and Horace becoming increasingly distressed, the half-giant gave up.

“Tell you what, Horace,” he said, putting a comforting hand on his young friend’s shoulder. “Why don’t I take you home with me? My friend Charlie can fix up yer bird just fine, and then we can get things sorted out in the morning. How’s that?”

“Is Charlie nice?” Horace asked innocently, because he didn’t know very many nice people except for Hagrid. His parents were nice and his Charms professor was nice and the lady who sold flowers outside his dorm was nice, but those were the only ones he could think of and none of them where there right then.

“Charlie’s the nicest fellow I know. Except fer maybe ’Arry Potter. ’E’s a friend of mine too, ya know? Saw him just today,” he said proudly, but then frowned thoughtfully. “’Ope he got out before the fight’n started.”

Harry Potter was indeed a nice person, although Horace couldn’t remember how he knew that. If Hagrid thought Harry Potter was nice then this Charlie person must be too, even if not quite as much.

“Okay.”

The giant man grinned and patted him on the back, and though Horace was tired and hungry and that pat had actually hurt a little, he found himself smiling back. The bad place with the nasty door and mean people who stole his memories and put them jars next to the pickled dragon fetuses and pinned butterflies were gone, and he would never have to see that mean man who rattled his brain around to see what felt out either. Now he had a new friend who was nice and had nice friends and liked animals. Horace liked people more than animals, but lately he had been thinking about changing his mind.

“Good, lad. Say, do you happen to like dragons?”

1. Animancy is a completely made up branch of magic. It refers to the art of making non-living things behave like living things. Think of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and all that enchanted Tupperware…only without faces and less singing. Not to be confused with necromancy which is the art of making dead things behave like living things (not to be alive just to behave something like it). Zombies without the brain-eating obsession. :P↩

2. In case you forgot, after the Sword of Gryffindor was destroyed, Harry had a series of scars left on his hand. They are remnants of the sword’s magic imbedded in Harry’s own body, and can perform in similar ways to the sword as well as a warning of danger. Harry’s very own ‘spidersense’.↩

Entanglements

“Aah!” Harry cried out, bolting upright from were he lay, and for a moment he could feel the heat of the fires from his dreams follow him into the waking world, hot against his skin and yet refusing to burn him away as it had everything else in nightmares. He thrashed in his panic, kicking away his sheets away and knocking over the bedside table.

The metallic clang of a tray striking the stone floor woke him completely, ruthlessly drawing him back into reality. He froze, staring wide eyed ahead of him. The fires were gone, and what was left was the blurry but familiar layout of a hospital room. He started to shiver. A shadow moved, and he recognized it immediately.

“Professor?”

“Yes, Potter,” the Snape replied, his tone to painfully normal, Harry was simultaneously terrified and amused. “You are in a private hospital. You’ve been unconscious for two days with fever, which has finally broken.”

The potions master allowed him to absorb that bit of news while he cleaned up the mess he had made during his violent awakening. Harry took a quick inventory of his person. His feet and legs were the first to bear his scrutiny, and aside from bruised knees they looked just fine. Next he checked his hands, which were bandaged and ached, but his fingers moved easily enough. He recalled they had been burned badly, although he couldn’t remember how. The rest appeared unharmed, but he was sweating profusely and wracked with shivers. He gathered up his discarded blanket and wrapped it around himself.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in Paris?” he asked, trying to put more strength into his shaking voice than he felt.

“Hmph. And so I would be if you would avoid this bad habit of rushing off to fight hordes of Aurors all of the time,” Snape said, acidly, the effect somewhat dimmed when he put Harry’s glasses on his face for him. It took a while, but his eyes finally adjusted so that he could see the other man clearly.

The honeymoon had been doing the caustic man some good he noted. His normally sallow complexion was flush with beginnings of a tan and the shadows under his eyes had receded, leaving him looking, if not exactly handsome, at least younger..

Harry wondered how long it would last.

“They started it,” he muttered, and then hung his head when he realized how stupid that sounded. The older wizard snorted.

“Indeed, and you ended it. Do you remember what happened?”

“Yes,” he said, recalling the events that had transpired… with relative certainty. He couldn’t quite remember the order of things, but he remembered the individual parts. He remembered the first explosion and Kinglsey bleeding on the ground and paper birds and the chase or was it the escape? No, he had done both. He remembered the explosions and the Canon Fire spell and the wandless magic with the broom and the hospital collapsing. He remembered killing all those people. He remembered everything.

“Good, because no one else seems to have any clue what you did and did not do during the fifteen minutes you were engaging the invaders, and I’ve been charged with obtaining your version of the event. Do you require a calming draught?” he asked as he pulled out a quill and parchment from somewhere on his person.

“I don’t think so.”

“Tell me if you need to stop,” he said firmly, and dispassionately. Harry was grateful for his cold and clinical manner. He didn’t know what he would do if Snape suddenly started treating him as if he were broken. His sanity wouldn’t tolerate another question it. Not right now.

Harry told of what had happened in York as best he could, although he had to stop several times and re-order the events in his mind, and fell silent for minutes on end as he tried to sort through it. His guardian did not push him or rush him or criticize his lack of mental organization. It only took about half an hour total and half of that was spent explaining the transfigured bird spell, which none of the investigators had yet been able to replicate. Snape didn’t seem particularly pleased with Harry’s description of the spell either, but decided against interrogating his ward so soon after his fever had broken.

When Harry had spoken everything Snape needed to fill out his report, the man put away the parchment, leaned back in his chair, and stared at the young wizard for a long time in complete silence. Harry didn’t speak or avoid his stare, but matched his gaze in unwavering solemnity.

“You’re not scared,” he said after several minutes. “And you’re not mad. Not much, at least.”

Harry blinked, and then smiled, relieved.

“That’s good. I was worried. I think a lot of people must be thinking that this would be the final blow, and I’d just fall to pieces,” he said, a touch of self-mocking. “It’s funny though. I feel more certain of myself than I have for a long time. All that worrying, and it was over nothing.”

He ran a hand through his hair and grimaced at the greasy, wet feel of it. He turned to Snape to tell him he was going to take a shower, but hesitated at the cold, hard look the man was giving him.

“So it finally happened.”

“What finally happened?”

The dark wizard closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them.

“Do you recall, Mr. Potter, that night at your relative’s house when I brought you into the wizarding world?”

He tensed, wondering at the seeming randomness of the question, but nodded.

“I had been bullying your giant walrus of an uncle-”

Harry’s lips twitched into a smile at the memory, but he quickly clamped down on it. This was supposed to be serious.

“- and you asked me how I was able to do so. Do you remember what I told you?”

The young wizard thought for a moment, and although his thoughts were cloudy from his dissipating sickness, he could recall that moment with a strange sort of clarity. The living room had been sparkling clean and too bright for the ominous gathering, the air was hot and thick with humidity and tension and fear. Snape had towered over Harry, his eyes as dark and piercing as they were now.

“… you said… you said something about men of violence. How there were men who strived for violence and those who lived it. And they were completely different… no, they were on completely different levels.”

“Yes. It’s good to know something I taught you actually stuck in that mass of tapioca you call a brain.”

“Hey!”

“You are now a man of violence.”

Harry stared at him. He was already sick, weak, cold, and trembling, but if he hadn’t been all these things already he thought for certain Snape’s words would have made him so. There were implications he was afraid to look at. Ideas were being cemented into a harsh terminology rather than being allowed to float in the back of his mind as poorly constructed notions, felt but unnamed and therefore unreal.

“Don’t be afraid,” the man said, forcing the issue even as he saw his ward physically withdraw deeper into his blankets, like a turtle huddling in its shell. “It is not something so terrible all its own. Modern man is born into a dichotomy. He is both naturally violent and artificially afraid of violence, taught to fear it to an irrational extent from infancy and shy away through rules and laws and social integration even as he as he recognizes the weakness left in its absence. You have been freed of that dichotomy, Mr. Potter. You have killed men, many men, in fact, and while they certainly received their just desserts, it should be noted if you were not a man of violence, that the act that you have committed would surely have driven you insane.”

Harry was now fairly certain that at least some of his shaking was not because of the fever.

“I’m…evil?”

Snape glowered.

“You’re exceptionally dense, is what you are. Pay attention. I said you’re not afraid to kill someone, and I only mean that in a very limited sense. More specifically, it means that you are able to kill someone when you believe it’s necessary. That is far more than most can claim to be capable of. You would be amazed at what the average man and woman will allow to happen before they can be harassed into defending themselves, and once they do defend themselves they are traumatized afterwards. You saw it yourself in York, how all those people ran around like dumb sheep rather than defend themselves.”

Indeed, Harry had seen, and he felt a certain amount of anger that he had been the first to counterattack, and that it wasn’t until he had the enemy on the defensive that anyone had dared to come to his aid. Even if the people there hadn’t been ‘men of violence’, they should have at least had some sense of self-preservation or at least a spine. Surely, the entire city was not occupied by cowards? Even as he thought this he felt a wave of guilt. The others had been victims, and they had been caught off guard and panicked. It wasn’t their fault they weren’t as freakishly aggressive as he was.

“You can now do what needs to be done under the most dire of circumstances. You have always been a fighter. This is a natural step in your progress, albeit a premature one.”

“Merlin, there’s nothing natural about this. I killed… dozens of people. How does that make me any better than those soldiers? I’m-”

“Silencio!”

Harry was hit with the silencing charm and struck mute. He blinked confusedly for a moment and then angrily threw his pillow at Snape, who tossed it aside easily.

“As fascinating as it is to listen to your maudlin, teenage angst, I am trying to impart some worldly wisdom right now and have only so much time. Once we’re through, my godchildren are outside and will be more than happy to point out the obvious flaws in your demented logic.”

The Gryffindor glared angrily at him, and mentally estimated the possibility of getting away with flipping the bird at the man.

“I’m glad we understand each other. As I was saying, this paradigm shift in your personality is to your benefit, but there are always some inherent dangers with the removal of a psychological restraint. You will need to develop selfrestraint, to discipline yourself so that you may function within society and maintain your sanity. If you fail to do so, then what you fear will come true. You will, indeed, become ‘evil’. Finite incantatem.”

“You. Are. A. Jerk,” Harry stated, as soon as he was released.

“Well, I am pleased that your boundless conceit has prevented your mental development to the point were you feel the need to debate endlessly on the concepts of good and evil. I’m going back to France now. If you feel the urge to invade Italy while I am gone, please run it by the Dark Lord first.”

“Yes, because there’s the epitome of self-restraint and moral fiber.”

Snape smirked.

“Touché. The Malfoys have agreed to look after you for the remainder of the week. Your condition is not serious, and with Lucius’ position, he will be able to keep you apprised of the situation. Otherwise, I recommend avoiding him as much as possible.”

Anger bloomed inside of Harry at the mention of Lucius Malfoy, and it must have shown because Snape paused at the door and then added.

“I am aware of the situation with Hermione, and I will deal with it when I return. Do not complicate matters by provoking him or attempting to solve it yourself. Even with your change in status, you are not in any position to confront him head on. He is a master of his own game.”

Harry nodded, even though the concession felt bitter. He would try not to… provoke the Malfoy patriarch, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to search for a solution with Hermione. Snape might care about Hermione’s wellbeing, but he was also Lucius’ friend, and he didn’t want to risk being caught unprepared if the man’s method of dealing with the betrothal were less than satisfactory.

“Say ‘hi’ to Ira for me.”

“Mr. Potter, I have every intention of forgetting I ever saw you today as soon as I walk out that door,” the man said pointedly, smirked, and left.

“And here I thought married life might have improved him some how,” he muttered under his breath.

A few minutes later, just as he was starting to feel strong enough to try taking a shower on his own, he received a second set of visitors. Hermione appeared at the door, a tentative smile on her face that grew when he smiled back at her. Draco strode in as she was giving him a hug and grimaced.

“Eh. Stop that, Hermione. You’ll get all wet,” he grumbled, taking in Harry’s sweat soaked form.

“Draco!”

“He’s right, Hermione, I’m totally gross right now. I was about to take a shower.”

“You’ll stay in bed until the healers say otherwise! You’re weak as a kitten and shaking like a leaf!”

Thanks, Hermione. Emasculation much?

“It’s just the fever breaking,” he insisted. “I’m fine. Well, except for the hands. I don’t know what gives with those.”

He lifted his bandaged hands and wiggled his fingers at her, trying to make her laugh but she just looked at them sadly. Draco found his pillow on the floor and tossed it back to Harry.

“Fighting with Uncle Severus, again?”

“Fighting implies some sort of retaliation. He’s a bully picking on little ol’me.”

Draco snorted. “Yeah, pull the other one.”

“Are you alright, Harry?” she asked, staring earnestly into his eyes as if she were a legilimens. He smiled back, and while it was weak it wasn’t entirely fake.

“I really am okay. I’m not going to go crazy or anything. It wasn’t the same as the last time.”

And wasn’t it sad that he had been through several similar experiences before? Hermione seemed to think so if her expression was anything to go by. Draco, however, was oblivious.

“Definitely not like last time, I hope. You totally wiped the floor with them. It was in all of the papers, and even father and mother wouldn’t stop talking about it. You’re like…the greatest wizard of the generation! Do you have any idea how depressed that makes me?”

Harry laughed. They talked a bit more about York, skimming over it lightly, refusing to delve into the darker aspects of what he had seen and done, in favor of discussing what had happened after Kinglsey had apparated him to safety, and his subsequent collapse.

Hermione and Draco were not fully informed of all the consequences of Harry’s actions and much of it would likely have to discuss with either Lucius or Voldemort or Morgan, but they were fairly up to date on public reaction. There was of course the grief over the partial destruction of York, particularly the hospital which was seen as the greatest tragedy of the entire event as most of those inside had been unable to escape the building’s collapse. There were over two hundred dead, more than 2/3 the total fatalities, and it would be weeks before all the bodies were recovered.

It could have been much worse if Harry hadn’t been there, however, and already the city was hailing him as a savior and rest of the nation was following suit. The press were having a field day spouting stories left and right based on what very little information they could gather so shortly after the battle, and Harry was always the hero of the day, albeit wavering between a dark lord and a white knight depending on which paper was read. Some of the papers had even claimed Harry had been killed or critically injured in battle, and that the Court was trying to cover it up. There were several departments in Bristol flooded with inquiries and howlers demanding information on where he was and what had happened to him. It was unlikely he would be able to walk out in public for a while without being mobbed.

Not that he would be walking much. His collapse after the battle in York was the result of shock, the result of his unnaturally rapid fluctuation in magic that left his nervous and immune system shot to pieces. The healers had treated what they could and left him to sleep off the rest. They were certain there would be no long lasting side affects, but they didn’t want him exposing himself to large crowds for at least a week while he was vulnerable to further infection.

The burns on his hands were another matter altogether. They were saturated with magic, but traditional measures had been unsuccessful in draining it from his wounds. The healers had given up on it when it became apparent that tampering with them only worsened his condition, and they finally just bandaged them and let them be.

It was going to make letter writing a misery, Harry lamented. He was going to have to write to friends and family to let them know he was okay regardless, especially if newspapers were trying to pass him off as dead. Sirius and Remus, of course, the twins and Ginny, Natalie, Hagrid (he hoped his friend had gotten out before the fighting), the Reichers, Clyde, maybe a few others. He would have to make a press appearance now too, of course, although he didn’t know what he was going to say and resented that he was going to have to explain himself. Why didn’t anyone else have to explain? He would have liked and explanation himself of why the other witches and wizards hadn’t tried to defend themselves. Snape’s interpretation wasn’t going to cut it.

“Mother is talking with the healers right now about getting you out of here,” Draco said. “With all the craziness out there, it’s only a matter of time before someone leaks your whereabouts to the press. I’ll go see if she’s made any progress.”

Once alone, the two remaining Gryffindors fell into an awkward silence.

“Er…so… I heard about the… thing… with that Crouch guy…” Harry started awkwardly. He considered offering to kill the man, but that joke probably wasn’t in good taste at the moment. She might think he was serious.

“Don’t worry about that, right now. It will hold for a while.”

“Have you told Draco about your plan to get emancipated, yet?”

“No, I wasn’t…” she paused, considering what he just said and then rolled her eyes. “Oh, I’m so stupid.”

“If that’s the case there’s not much hope for the rest of us.”

“I didn’t even think about… He’d really side with me on this now, wouldn’t he?”

Harry smiled at her. “Yes, he would. So would Snape, maybe, sort of. If he thought he can get away with it, which you know he might be able to do. He’s quite clever in an amoral sort of way.”

She shook her head.

“I don’t want to involve him if I can help it. He just got married, and promoted, and wants to start a family… now’s really not the time to get on Lucius’ bad side. Just, don’t worry about it right now, Harry. We’ve got time to figure something out later. You just need to worry about getting better and making it through the week.”

This was true enough. He didn’t know if he could handle Hermione’s drama on top of his own at the moment, and she looked as if she could use the distraction his own ill fortune had brought. She looked tired, although she was trying valiantly not to show it. Her eyes were red, and her hands were cool where she touched him… or maybe that was just his fever.

She was still beautiful, however. Tall, proud, and righteous in a manner that was simultaneously grating and comforting, she was certain of herself in ways he never had been. She thought in facts, and facts alone were not necessarily good or evil, but they could be transfigured into such after some mysterious arithmetic equation was performed on them. He thought in feelings, and that was unfortunate because he was horrible with feelings, his and everyone else’s. He had done incredible things driven on anger, terror, hope, love, and madness, but the quieter feelings were where he had trouble. Guilt, pride, curiosity, affection, depression… these things led him to strange places and he was often lost on what to do with them. He didn’t trust them and he didn’t trust himself.

“Hey, Hermione,” he said after a moment, uncertain of his question and if it should be spoken or buried.

“Yes, Harry?”

“Do you think…”

He paused to moisten his lips, his mouth felt suddenly dry.

“Do you think what happened in York… was it okay to do what I did?”

“What do you mean?”

“I killed people.”

She flinched. Not a good sign.

“I killed a lot of people,” he continued. “Over thirty. Intentionally. I think I would have done it again too, only quicker… Might have been able to save the hospital then.”

“Harry…”

“But I know it’s wrong. To kill people. It sounds really obvious, but it isn’t sometimes. I know you’re not supposed to want people dead even if you hate them, and I really did…do hate them. They killed all those people for no reason and were going to kill more, and they were just sheep, just like Snape said. They just ran around like stupid sheep waiting to get cut down and I was the only one doing anything and I don’t know why. Why didn’t they defend themselves? Why’d I have to do it? I’m not even sixteen yet and I killed all those aurors, because they were too goddamn scared or stupid or something and I hate them for it too. But I didn’t what them to die. But I did want those aurors to and I don’t understand the difference, but there is one or at least I think there’s one, but I don’t know what it is. Maybe Snape was wrong and I really am crazy and I can’t tell what’s real anymore. God, Merlin, Jesus… it should be so obvious, but I don’t get it at all.”

She was hugging him again, like he knew she would, and it was as wet and gross as the first time, but he was happy too. You didn’t hug a crazy person. You avoided touching them like their insanity was contagious, and talked soothingly to them at a safe distance across the room.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she insisted, holding him tightly as if he were physically about ready to fall to pieces. “I don’t know why they didn’t fight back themselves. There was probably some sort of group psychosis or something. I bet I could find entire books on the subject. Maybe some of them did fight back and you just never really saw them. You did the right thing though. You were brave and strong, and you did the right thing. I’m proud of you.”

And that’s all he really needed to hear.

Bobby made it a point to hide when Voldemort walked into the aviary. This was not cowardice on his part, but at a rather childish act of rebellion. If the Dark Lord wanted his company he would have to work for it. He sat amongst the shadows of the vegetation and watched as the man-like creature entered and pulled from his sleeve what appeared to be folded pieces of paper. Within moments the folded paper suddenly started to fly, not like the charmed parchments that float around the Court offices but like real birds, flapping their wings and diving this way and that around the aviary.

He counted six of them, but there may have been five or seven, it was hard to count with them moving about so quickly. Curiosity got the better of him, and he sailed through the tiny flock to get a better look. They moved out of his way, then circled as if curious themselves. This close he could see they truly were paper and they had no eyes, even though he could sense they saw somehow.

He can also see that several of them were stained with blood.

“What are they?” he found himself asking, despite his initial conviction to ignore the wizard. He sensed the magic around them, and it was familiar and yet not. He knew they are not of the Dark Lord’s design. It only took him half a minute to figure out who they belong to and it filled him with an unspeakable dread.

“Surely you recognize them?” the Dark Lord said, smug at having drawn his captive in so easily. “Admittedly, they are not quite the same as Carrigan’s animus[1], but the similarities are there. Very organic movements, pseudo-conscious behavior, unusually curious and friendly towards people… when they’re not tearing them to pieces. I think our old teacher would have been quite impressed. Harry’s magical development is far more advanced than I realized.”

Bobby said nothing, turning back to watch the birds, fixating now on the blood splattered across their white and text-dappled bodies. He did not like the implications.

“Did you see it yourself? When you started following our young friend’s magical career? Raecellos is a god after all, and he must have whispered things to you.”

The raven had known of course. He had learned of Harry’s existence within days of his entrance into Hogwarts and his first encounter with the Dark Lord, and he had listened closely until he felt the time was right to approach him. Since then he had been privy to many of the boy’s magical acts that Voldemort had not been, and he felt a sort of pleasure that was simultaneously proud and vindictive at knowing more of Harry than his would-be mentor. He had also known an absurd amount of jealousy over the fact the young Gryffindor was still closer to the dark wizard.

“Or did he remind you of Carrigan, I wonder?”

Bobby stiffened.

“He must have reminded Brennan, for the man to teach him that spell. Perhaps the two of you even conspired on it.”

This false assumption should have relieved the raven somewhat, but instead he felt a swelling anger. He had never been particularly close to Brennan, but the man had been a loyal student and had carried on their master’s teachings as best he could. His murder was not something he would forget or forgive, and evidence of Harry’s possible corruption flitting overhead was already fraying at his last nerve.

“It is a pity. If Carrigan had half the killer’s instinct Harry does, perhaps he would have lived long enough to see it himself.”

Even as Bobby transfigured, he knew what he was doing was stupid. It was magically wasteful, pointless, and exactly what the bastard wanted. It didn’t stop him from smashing his fist into the Dark Lord’s face and feel a bone deep satisfaction as it connected. Voldemort stumbled, and Bobby hit again, this time with the other fist, knocking his enemy to the floor. The third and fourth punch contacted as well, and for one savagely happy moment the raven thought he might just be able to kill him. He was not a heavily built man, but his lean arms were pure muscle from endless flights around the world even after months spent in captivity, and he had seen humans capable of smashing another’s skull to pieces if properly motivated.

He felt motivated enough to smash an ogre to pieces.

The Dark Lord, however, wasn’t an ogre. He was far worse.

Bobby’s fifth attempted blow was halted by Voldemort’s hand catching his fist, mid-swing, and he pulled the transfigured raven downward as he surged up, smashing his forehead into the other’s. Bobby fell back, stunned, and the Dark Lord followed the movement until he had him pinned beneath him. Instantly, the dark wizard’s hands were wrapped tightly around his throat.

Voldemort, his mouth and nose smeared with blood, looked down on him in obvious surprise. Bobby took the opportunity to spit in his face.

“You fucking monster,” he snarls in ways he can’t as a raven. “You fucking stupid monster. You can’t just repeat history you have to mutate it into something as twisted and deformed as you are! He could have been Carrigan! He could have been every god damn thing that made him remarkable, but you had to ruin it! I hope he kills you! I hope he takes these stupid birds and cuts you into a bloody fucking pulp!”

Voldemort held the strength of ten men when he put his mind to it. It was not a spell so much as a byproduct of the magical tampering he’d done on his no-longer-human body, and it takes very little effort to hold Bobby down, even with his fists and legs smashing at him with every intention of causing harm. It would have taken even less to crush his captive’s neck in his hand for both the insult and the injury he’d attempted.

He could taste his own blood in his mouth, and it tasted more like phosphorous than copper. He should be enraged, but instead all he feels is enthralled. A similar scene flashed back in his memory of his murder of Tom and the subsequent consumption of magic poisoned flesh, but the imagery was more ironic than anything.

He felt less inclined to kill Bobby than ever before.

“Well, aren’t you just full of surprises?” he said between shaking breaths. “I didn’t know you could do this without our master’s help. A reverse animagus. How deliciously clever. Is this how you looked before you died or is his face the only human face you can hold clearly in your head[2]?”

The man that struggled beneath him was far younger than Voldemort had ever had the opportunity to see Carrigan in life, but it was clearly recognizable as his old mentor. In his thirties with thick, wavy brown hair, sharp blue-green eyes, and a strong jaw that belied his smaller frame; he was noticeably handsome. Or would have been if he weren’t baring his teeth like a mad dog.

“Go ahead and rage,” he laughed. “Blame me for all the ills and woes of this world if it makes you feel better, but you said it yourself last time. Carrigan believed I was worth risking his life for. Remarkable as he was, and yes even I will admit that, he knew I was more suited for this world than he ever would be. That my will and my power would bring our kind back to our magical roots as all his kindness and his craft never could. And Harry, kind, remarkable, and angry child that he is, will be his legacy and his evolution, a perfect blend of spirit and strength, compassion and violence. A blend of the best of both of us, a metaphorical son. In this brave new world, he will thrive.”

Beneath him Bobby’s struggles took on a new violence as he began aiming his blows at joints and unprotected flesh and any vulnerable place he could reach.

“I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you!”

And Voldemort just laughed, because he’s had a victory and until this moment he’d had no one to gloat to over it. He felt as if he had defeated destiny, wrestled it down so that he could take all that he desired from it and thrown the rest away.

“It wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference.”

He isn’t alone, and he knows he should be. Men at his level of power were always alone, but no man had ever had the love of the Earth as he did. He was gifted. He was blessed. Harry was bound to him now, irrevocably, their mutual strength would ensure they could never be free of the other, could never ignore or forget or put aside. Who else could possibly understand the violent grandness of their existence like they did?

No one could take this away from him.

It didn’t take long for Narcissa to negotiate for Harry’s release from the hospital, and within a few hours of waking he was showered, changed, lectured extensively about taking care of himself and watching out for medical complications, and checked out. They made a brief stop at the cottage, and while Mrs. Morgan entertained Lady Malfoy, Harry, Draco, and Hermione quickly gathered his things from his room. Forty minutes later he was standing in the parlor of Malfoy Manor, ready to sleep for another two days and wondering what to do with himself.

It would have been a simple enough matter of asking Hermione or Draco, but both had been sent away so that he was left alone with family matriarch, a woman he knew only in passing. She seemed in no hurry to start the conversation either, and studied him quietly for some time in complete silence. It was uncomfortable, but he didn’t fidget. He had lessons on not doing so, and here was the moment they would prove their worth.

Eventually, her visual assessment was completed, and she smiled pleasantly.

“I can see now why our Lord is so fond of you. I admit I didn’t understand it at first, but you really aren’t afraid of anything, are you?”

“If I were,” he said, “I would at least know better than to tell you so.”

“Ha! You’re going to make my husband’s hair turn gray,” she said, amused and snapped her fingers. Immediately, a house elf appeared and bowed so low its large ears brushed the floor. “Tell my husband Mr. Potter is here.”

“Yes, Mistress!” it said obediently, and disappeared again.

She turned back to her guest.

“The house elves are at your disposal. Use them as you see fit. When you’re done here, they will take you to your room to rest if you would like or anywhere else to your preference. Dinner is at seven. I hope you’ll enjoy your stay with us.”

With that, she swept from the room in with royal grace, leaving Harry more than a little confused on whether their encounter had gone well or not.

He was not allowed to ponder the matter for long, as moments later, Lord Malfoy swung open the door and stepped inside. He was as sinister as ever with his black uniform and cold, hawk-like gaze. Harry was struck by a surge of hatred for the man, and wondered very quickly what his chances were of killing him in a duel. He knew himself to be the more powerful of the two (he might be sheltered or even deluded but he suspected his involvement with pagan magic had left him among the magically strongest in the world next to Voldemort and Dumbledore), but he also knew the other man was far more experienced, and technique more than strength was what won duels.

His thoughts on the matter were cut short when a familiar figure followed Malfoy into the parlor.

“Robert?”

The man froze, his eyes widened, and then he seemed to fight with himself to either smile or shout.

“Harry! You’re okay!” he said, and surged forward to take his hand, as if confirming he wasn’t a ghost. “We’ve all been terribly worried about you. The girls have been frantic!”

“I just got out of the hospital a little while ago, but I’m quite alright. Robert, what are you doing here?”

The lawyer’s expression tightened, and he glanced nervously back at Lucius.

“I…”

“Mr. Reicher is currently in my employ,” the aristocrat volunteered, smugly. “He just came by to pick up some paperwork to change Hermione’s official birth date. Lots of paperwork and legalese to wade through with her betrothal, after all. You’ve heard of her impending nuptials? I do hope you will be able to attend. As her best friend, we’d welcome you as family.”

Robert suddenly went pale[3]. Harry himself couldn’t stop himself from suddenly pulling his hand free, his eyes revealing the betrayal he felt. Robert opened his mouth, to explain or to deny, but was interrupted yet again by Lucius.

“Why don’t you go to my office and get the paperwork yourself? It’s in the red file on top of my desk. I would like to speak with Harry for a little while.”

“Of course, Mr. Malfoy,” he said, and moved to the door, casting apologetic glances at his young friend as he went.

Once alone, Lucius moved closer, and Harry nearly backed away, but caught himself. The man stared down at him, his smugness made demeaning by his considerable height advantage. His body wanted to retreat a safe distance, overwhelmed by an instinct of an impending attack, but Harry held his ground and stared up at the other, hoping to convey with his eyes alone what would happen if he moved any closer.

“My what a look. If one didn’t know any better, they might think you wanted to kill me. In my very own home no less.”

“Perish the thought.”

The man’s smile only broadened.

“You truly are not afraid of me, are you? Not even here, where all the magic of my ancestor’s is at my fingertips.”

“I have delved into the magic of gods, Lord Malfoy. Your ancestors mean nothing to me.”

Lucius’ smiled faded just a little and he took a more respectful step backwards, and adopted an impressed expression that Harry didn’t believe for a moment.

“I would call you a fool not to appreciate the power within these walls, if I had not seen for myself how little it must truly mean to you. I saw what you did in York. If you were a member of the British military, you would hold the record for the most enemy killed in a single battle during this war so far. You must be very proud of your achievement.”

Harry couldn’t stop the involuntary grimace, even knowing the words were designed to hurt him… or maybe not hurt him. Perhaps he truly believed his attacks had been worthy of praise. The Malfoy patriarch would likely have been gloating if he had achieved a similar feat.

“In fact, there’s been a movement within the ranks to award you a Merlin’s Medal of Valor. The highest honor that can be awarded, but again, it’s only awarded to members of the military. I don’t suppose you have any ambition to join?”

“And have you as my boss? No thank you,” he said, pointedly. He didn’t give a damn about medals.

“It would be no worse than having Severus as your guardian. We are both men of ambition, beholden to the same master. Besides, we have been allies in the past.”

He was referring to the time Harry willingly informed him of Headmistress Lestrange’s illegal attempt to legilimens him and made an alliance to blackmail her so that she would never try again. That had been years ago, however. Lestrange was gone, and that alliance had dissolved without mention with her disappearance.

“That was before you lobbed my best friend off onto Crouch, and used another personal friend to help you do it. I don’t believe for a second that your use of Robert Reicher was in any way coincidental.”

Lucius tilted his head in acknowledgment.

“I admit his association with you was what brought him to my attention. There are few you are attached to and of those, half are beyond my reach. At the same time, the other half is readily available to me. To help or to… harm as I see fit.”

“So what, this is all just some big, power play?”

“Exactly.”

“What’s the point? What are you punishing me for, Lord Malfoy? Why drag Hermione into it?”

Lucius chuckled, and walked across the room to the liquor cabinet.

“Do not let your newly explored power delude you. Hermione’s marriage has nothing to do with you. It is a private matter between us. Nor am I punishing you. I am merely making a point. In case you’ve missed it, I’ll spell it out. Your friends and acquaintances are vulnerable to me. You may think yourself very powerful, but standing here before me do you believe there is anything you could do to stop me if I decided to oh, I don’t know… have Mr. Reicher investigated for tax fraud? Remove Severus from his position as headmaster? Bankrupt the Weasley twins business venture before it even started?”

Harry could say nothing to that. He had no idea what Malfoy Sr. could or could not do, but many considered him the most powerful man in Britain after the Dark Lord. There was no doubt that he would do such petty things if he believed it was to his advantage, regardless of whom or how badly he hurt others in the process.

Lucius appeared pleased by his silence, taking it for acknowledgment. He took two glasses from the liquor cabinet and poured some brandy into each, then joined his guest back in the center of the room and handed one over to him. Harry accepted the glass reflexively, although once he had it, he wasn’t certain what to do with it. Alcohol was not new to him, but nor was it familiar.

“I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, Harry. I have no intention of making you my enemy. You have a great deal of potential, but at the moment it is unrefined. Your magic is great, no one doubts it, but until you know when and how to use it to its greatest effect, it is little more than the tool of a brute trying to smash his way to desired ends. Meanwhile, your level of celebrity grows and you neglect to utilize it properly. So many missed opportunities, and I am sure you never even realized when they passed.”

“So you’re trying to threaten me into reaching my full potential? Offer your hand and bear your teeth at the same time? If this is your ‘level of play’ I want nothing to do with it.” He set his drink down on a nearby table and made for the door, knowing if he stayed much longer there was going to be a real fight and nothing good would come from it. He wanted nothing to do with this man, and the sooner he could get Hermione free of him the better. What he said next, however, froze him in his tracts.

“Not even to save your precious little mudblood?”

The derogatory term was almost enough to have him spinning around and sending a curse at the aristocrat, but it was the implication of all his words together that stayed his hand. Very slowly he turned back around.

“I understand that you cannot accept my offer as things stand,” Lucius said. “You have that ridiculous unspoken code of a Gryffindor to put your friends before yourselves, and you hold closer to it than most. You can’t accept anything I have to offer until I release your dear friend from her undesired nuptials. Am I correct?”

Cautiously, Harry nodded. He had an idea where this was going, and while he didn’t want to follow along he had to at least listen.

“In the spirit of cooperation, I am willing to make a compromise with you. I will release her from her obligation, disinherit her completely if that is to your preference, and call off the marriage, if you will agree to be heir to my military career, to be obedient and respectful to me as you would your own father, and carry on my legacy after my death.”

Harry stared at him blankly for a long moment, trying to process what was being said to him.

“Draco-”

Lucius broke in.

“-Is heir to the Malfoy family legacy. The estates, the ancestry, the titles, and responsibilities. I have no intention of allowing him to pursue a military career and risk his life in the field. His obligation is to uphold our family name by marrying well and siring the next generation.”

“And I am little just cannon fodder.”

“Yes, and judging by your past behavior, you seem to agree. Severus laments on the matter often enough.”

Touché.

“Why would I risk putting myself under your command? Why would you even want me there? We have never gotten along.”

Lucius snorted.

“Gryffindors. As if I needed to be your friend to understand your value. You hold a position of respect with the Dark Lord, you are popular with the proletariat and the aristocracy alike, and you have a knack for battle. My position is not so secure that I can risk missing opportunities, nor allow potential threats to go unsupervised. At the same time, while I can take advantage, I can not destroy the protection these things provide you. Our Master would not allow it.”

“What makes you think Voldemort would even allow me to join the military? I am not his heir, but that doesn’t mean he likes me getting into trouble all of the time.”

Although, he probably thought it was pretty damn funny by now.

Lucius wasn’t deterred, and if anything seemed more confident knowing that Harry was taking his words into consideration. He moved towards his prey, picking up the Gryffindor’s abandoned glass as he went and handing it back to him. Harry reluctantly took it.

“We’ve discussed it on occasion. He believed it was too early to determine if you would be suited to this sort of career, but after what happened in York I doubt it will take much to convince him. Think of it merely as a transition, maturation from Severus’ rough tutelage of a school boy to my own instruction of a young man. You need more than he can now provide, and the Dark Lord’s mentorship is sporadic at best.”

Harry was starting to feel increasingly uncomfortable. He had never entertained the possibility of joining the Sentinels or the Culties, despite his strong inclination to protect his homeland and protect it, and he was feeling trapped by the idea. He didn’t want to have anything to do with it, but nor could he ignore it.

“And you’ll just let Hermione go? Scott free?” he asked skeptically, looking for a way out.

“I wouldn’t say Hermione would walk away from this untouched. After all, she would have to live with the knowledge that her closest friend sold himself into my service in order to rescue her. It is a far milder punishment, I think than what Crouch has in store for her if you should choose to refuse, but-”

The glass in Lucius’ hand suddenly burst, startling him from his dialogue. Most of the glass fell to the floor, along with the amber liquid it had been holding, but tiny shards had splintered and imbedded themselves into his hand. He looked down stunned as tiny rivulets of blood welled up in his palm. Looking up, he found Harry’s toxic green eyes burning into him and felt a momentary fear.

“If anything happens to Hermione, I will kill you both.”

Fear was replaced by anger, and suddenly Lucius had his bleeding palm wrapped around Harry’s neck. Shards of glass dug deeper into his hand, but also into his captive’s throat, tearing away the veneer of confident hostility from his youthful continence. Harry dropped his own glass, and clutched at Lucius’ arm, but his position was bad and he was weak from sickness.

“Don’t even think to threaten me, little boy. I am not some random schoolyard bully or plebian soldier on a broom. I will make you bleed in ways that defy explanation.”

He removed his hand, and Harry fell to his knees, coughing and sputtering. A ring of blood and forming bruises curved around his neck where he had been held. They stared at each other hatefully for several long seconds before Lucius straightened.

“Think on what we have discussed here, Harry. It would be to your benefit. Find me when you have made up your mind.”

His message delivered, the Malfoy patriarch strode from the room, leaving the recipient to decide for himself.

Harry did not see Malfoy Sr. after the scene in the parlor for several days after, but the man’s presence was inescapable within the manor. His portrait hung in several hallways, sneering whenever he walked passed, and the house elves went about their daily task in trembling fear of his brutal reprisal. The very brick and mortar of the estate hummed his magic, and it grated on his every nerve. Desperate to buck the memory of their last meeting, he turned to Hermione to begin making plans for her emancipation, but she explained to him bluntly why it would have to wait.

“This is Lucius’ house. It is his eyes, his ears, and his will. Nothing but our thoughts are private here,” she said pointedly, as they made their way down to breakfast the first morning of his stay. He did not like having to wait. The Malfoy patriarch’s offer cum threat was at the forefront of his thoughts, and the longer it was left unchallenged the more insistent it became.

Not that he had any intention of discussing Lucius offer with Hermione. As far as he was concerned, it was a private matter that he would not burden her with. Conceited, he acknowledged, but it was a decision he did not want her to influence one way or the other. She had a sort of self-righteousness he didn’t want to crush, but he had lived through many decisions done for the right reasons that turned out badly. He knew that ‘right’ decisions could not only turn out badly but did not always absolve one of guilt either, regardless of the morality behind it.

However, he was loathe to let the old dragon win. His Gryffindor side chaffed at the idea of being frightened into servitude. The servitude itself made him want to gag. If the Dark Lord had not managed it, there was no way he could stomach one of his minions doing so.

For now, he had resolved not to accept the deal, but it still hovered in his brain and would not be brushed aside no matter how much he tried to distract himself. And there was much to distract himself with. Lady Malfoy, for all of her faults (marrying Lucius being the biggest in his opinion), put forth a genuine effort to keep him occupied.

He attended tutoring lessons with both Hermione and Draco (about the only time he got to see the other boy who was still grounded for his ‘outrageous’ behavior during the announcement of Hermione’s betrothal), mingled at a garden party, went horseback riding, was provided plenty of materials to sketch and paint with, and was introduced to several important people he had never even heard of at every meal and tea time she could squeeze into a day. There had even been a brief interview with a handful of reporters on the third day of his stay, long overdo in his estimation, but they had barely a half dozen questions between them before Lady Malfoy was escorted them from the manor again as if they were merely a horde of smelly children.

It made him very much want to be back in his own little cottage, holed up in his bedroom studying animagi, tending the garden, or bickering with Snape over breakfast. As much as he enjoyed Hermione’s company, they were given little time together and never left alone so they were left playing meaningless, proprietary roles that left them feeling lonelier than ever. If that was what it meant for him to accept Lucius’ offer and adopt a life of shallow relationships and frivolous pastimes, he was more resolved than ever to avoid such a fate.

For nearly a week, he lived restlessly; going through the motions of a polite house guest during the day and struggling to sleep at night. His dreams were short, and his awakenings violent. He had been offered sleeping draughts, but he didn’t trust his hosts enough to take any. He was irritable, but left little opportunity to express it, and the thought of all the other things he wanted to be doing at the moment only served to aggravate him more. He was ready to strangle Lady Malfoy and her menagerie of politicians and socialites when the Dark Lord finally arrived.

Harry was in the parlor reading a book on animancy (he had been asked several times by visitors about his peculiar bird spell and had found himself embarrassingly inadequate at explaining it in the academic terminology they seemed to expect), having successfully managed to beg off a meeting with the Court Minister of Education’s wife and some well-to-do land owner from Wales. Hermione was also studying, but in her own room (now that she was affianced, they weren’t allowed to be alone together for an extended amount of time), and Draco was at a fencing lesson. The Dark Lord walked straight into the room with two very terrified house elves floundering after him

“Please, Sirs…” one of them tried, but then couldn’t seem to force out whatever it was trying to ask. The second one was even more useless, running in circles and occasionally stopping to bang its head into a door frame. Luckily Harry had given up his studying or else it would have been very distracting.

“Thank Merlin you’re here,” Harry burst out, jumping to his feet. “I’m bored out of my mind!”

Voldemort looked pleased by this reception, although a little taken back.

“It’s good to know I offer you some form of entertainment value,” he greeted, smirking. “Has the esteemed Lady Malfoy not been keeping you busy? Most unlike her.”

“Busy, yes, but shaking hands and smiling vapidly at people who think they’re so terrible important and clever is not my idea of fun. At least living with Snape, the conversations were brief and mildly dangerous. These other people are just tedious. I don’t know how you put up with them!”

The Dark Lord was even more amused then before. He had been somewhat worried that he would find Harry in a depressed slump, like he had been during his recovery after the Battle of Berlin. Instead he found him lively, albeit agitated, and eager to engage in a rather colorful rant.

“I don’t. People learn to speak very briefly, very plainly, and as little as possible when they reach a point where they must interact with me. If I weren’t so terribly impressive I should think I would be extremely unpopular,” he said, immodestly, and with a touch of irony. Harry, caught in his own annoyance, barely heard him.

“And Draco’s grounded and they won’t leave me alone with Hermione, so we can’t talk or do anything interesting. You heard about Hermione’s betrothal?”

The way he said ‘betrothal’ made Voldemort feel as if he were being accused of something, which was delightfully novel. Most people just assumed he was guilty and didn’t bother (or dare) accuse him of anything.

“Lucius informed me, yes. I’m assuming it’s a scheme of his. The union makes no sense otherwise.”

Harry looked at him intently, as if weighing his options.

“I don’t agree with it,” he said. “It’s bad for Hermione. It’s just petty revenge.”

Voldemort wasn’t the least bit surprised.

“And you want me to put a stop to it?”

His protégé hesitated. Good. It wouldn’t do for the young man to develop brat-like tendencies and assume he was going to give him whatever he asked for. He hadn’t yet, and had no intention of starting.

“I don’t know what I could give you to do so. I don’t know if it would be any better than what Lord Malfoy asked for.”

“Aaahhh… so you’ve tried making bargains with Lucius? You really are getting deep into the game,” he said, and took a chair. He turned to the two house elves who were now fidgeting helplessly in place. “Inform Lady Malfoy of my arrival. I will require privacy and a room of my own for the night. Go.”

They seemed happy enough to go and do something, and disappeared quickly, leaving them alone. Once they were gone, Voldemort muttered another spell. The room shifted, or so it seemed, though nothing moved and Harry felt a momentarily motion sickness, like ascending too quickly on a broom.

“What was that?” he muttered, and found a chair before he fell over.

“A privacy spell. A very powerful one. There useful in these old family estates, particularly, when you wish to discuss something you don’t want the head of the family to know about. Tell me about your bargain with Lucius? What did you offer?”

Harry wanted to ask more about the spell, which if he could learn he might be able to speak with Hermione more openly, but it would have to wait.

“I didn’t offer him anything. He came up with the deal. He said if I joined the Culties after I graduate and worked under him, he’d let Hermione out of the betrothal.”

Voldemort nodded. “A fair enough deal. It is not as if you would not benefit from his patronage. There is much he could teach you that I can not.”

Anger and helplessness flitted across the young man’s face, and a touch of betrayal just to keep things interesting. He hoped Harry never learned to hide his emotions as effectively as his other Slytherins had, it was much too fascinating to watch even if it did take away some of the challenge.

“You think I should take the deal,” his protégé said, without question.

“I could not care less one way or another. I am more interested in how you handle Lucius than on how Lucius handles you. There is nothing here I cannot undo if I eventually find it’s displeasing to me.”

“Even Hermione’s betrothal?” he asked, leaping from hopeless to hopeful instantly.

“I could care less about your Hermione as well. She is your ally and thus your responsibility. I have no intention of meddling in my most trusted general’s familial affairs on her behalf. And before you ask, there is nothing I want from you at this moment that would make it worth my while to do so.”

Harry looked down, and ran his hands through his hair, neither hopeless nor hopeful now, but weighted with the responsibility of it all. It was a cold attitude to take, but not unfair or unexpected. The Gryffindor made no attempt to argue the point.

Voldemort decided to grant him a small boon.

“I have no intention of helping you directly,” he said, “I think this is too good of an opportunity to test yourself in a battle of wits and wills against a master player, but nor will I’ll help Lucius. If you wish to speak to me on the matter, you may do so in complete confidence and as long as you do not stray from acceptable boundaries I will not interfere.”

“… acceptable boundaries?”

“You cannot attempt to kill him. I am rather fond of him, and more importantly Britain cannot afford to have her most talented general removed from the field at this critical juncture. The same goes for Crouch.”

Harry snorted and shook his head.

“Then you better hope I win, because I think they mean to hurt Hermione, and if they do I am going to kill them both. I know I am capable of it now.”

Had he a heart, Voldemort was certain, it might have clenched in that moment. Not because of the words, they were only words and he heard men speak of things both nobler and more tragic, but because of the tone. Firm and touched with sorrow. Carrigan had spoken like that, and he tried to brush the thought aside. He had visited Bobby recently, and in the course of his taunting, he stirred up memories. He was simply being nostalgic.

Best of both them, he had told the raven. He hoped that was true.

“You must love this girl a great deal to make such a bloodthirsty promise,” he said idly to cover the discomfort of his own thoughts. Harry blushed.

“Not like that. She’s like a sister to me. You know there’s very little I wouldn’t do for family.”

Which was just fine so long as it remained that way, Voldemort thought, pushing aside his melancholy in favor of pragmatics. He didn’t mind Harry maintaining a friendship with a muggleborn, he knew she had plenty of useful attributes he could benefit from, but a romantic liaison was out of the question. If he saw such a thing developing, he’d marry the girl off himself. Yet another reason to monitor this game closely. It wouldn’t do for either of them to get carried away in the highly emotional atmosphere.

“Then you have plenty of motivation to succeed. No doubt Severus will be of some assistance, if you feel you can trust him. I would be cautious, however, he will not be so emotionally adverse to you allying yourself to Lucius. I believe he thinks you have grown beyond his ability to handle, and if he can hand that responsibility off to his old friend and spare his goddaughter at the same time, he may work to those ends regardless of your intentions. Especially now, when he can benefit so heavily from being in Lucius’ good graces.”

Harry remembered Malfoy Sr.’s threat against those close to him, among them Snape, and Hermione’s own insistence to keep her godfather uninvolved.

“Best to keep him out of the situation altogether if possible,” he said, mostly to himself. “He might figure something out on his own anyway. He’s not exactly happy about this either.”

“Severus may believe his responsibilities as a godfather more important than his friendship with Lucius. Ironic since it was that very friendship that had Lucius allot that title to begin with. He’s always been a bit fanatical in his traditionalist views of family. Not that different from you I imagine in some respects. It’s probably a result of his lousy childhood. Or maybe he’s just tired of parents not raising their children properly before dumping them at Hogwarts. Hard to say with that man.”

Harry never thought of Snape as having a childhood. In his mind, Snape had come fully formed from the dark abyss of ambiguous attitude that existed between nightmares, cleverness, and the Room of Requirement on the seventh floor of Hogwarts. Although, now that he did think of it, he couldn’t imagine it had been very good. The potions master did seem like the kind of person who hadn’t been hugged nearly enough growing up.

Alright, not something he really wanted to think about at the moment.

“You’re staying the day?” he asked, switching rails. Now that he had discussed Lucius’ offer with someone else, and had been provided a certain level of encouragement and support in his defiance of it, he was now ready to put it in the back of his mind for a while. He had been obsessing on it for too long already.

“I am. I wanted to see how you were doing, and make sure you were taking proper care of yourself before I leave. I have to leave for Warsaw tomorrow.”

Harry nodded.

“Negotiating with the Polish Minister of Magic?” he asked, tiredly, as if even he were bored of that particularly song and dance.

“Negotiations are over. We’re signing a treaty. The spread of the attacks in England have given me the leverage to push my agenda there. The public is sympathetic to us. They have no love for the Italians and their Catholic-state. Their attempts to turn the conflict into a religious war and discard the basic ethics of warfare by doing so are deeply offensive to them, and too many others. The Germans were desperate when they allied themselves to them, and it may prove to be their undoing.”

“Good,” Harry said sharply. Voldemort smiled at his vehemence. It was best not to linger on it too long, however. His young friend was certainly harder than he had been before, but he was not unflappable, and he didn’t want to push him into dark thoughts at the moment. He wanted to enjoy his stay and would prefer that Harry did too. They had so few opportunities to see each other, and when they did Harry was usually not in the best of conditions.

They talked a little more about the fight in Europe and the movement of Britain’s troops (he was calling back two battalions to secure England once again) and his relations with Queen Ophelia. Harry had a general idea about all of these things based off of what he had read in the paper, discussed with various Court officials over the last few days, and his own experience, but was eager to delve deeper, not just into immediate actions but what they would mean in the future both during and after the fighting.

At least in one aspect, Harry had not changed. Hardened he might be, but a warmonger he was not. He still looked forward to the end of the war more than anything, and the chance to rebuild was his primary concern. Voldemort was careful to avoid mentioning to him that it would like be many years, maybe even decades, before the war was over and that the rebuilding may prove just as violent in its own way. He was no fool; he knew his protégé would not approve of his plans to install his own regime within Europe, uniting it into one glorious empire.

Not yet, anyway. Once the truly serious fighting broke out and the nations turned on each other like starved wolves, desperation for peace would trump the abhorrence of its source. When the final pieces fell, history would look back on him as the savior of Western Wizarding Civilization. Ha. Ha.

Eventually, however, Voldemort moved into a more pressing matter.

“Are you ready for tonight?” he asked.

Harry just looked at him. The Dark Lord sighed, fighting a smile.

“I had a feeling this would happen. Do you know what today is?”

“…Your birthday?”

“No.”

“…Lord Malfoy’s birthday?”

The battle against smiling was lost soon there after.

“It’s nobody’s birthday… that I know of, at least. It’s not even a holiday.”

“It did seem a little early for the solstice- oh! Oh, crap!”

“We really need to work on your language. You never used to swear before.”

“Oh my Goddess, she’s going to kill me. She’s going to induce insanity and make me eat poisonous spiders. I’ll be torn apart by angry horses[4].”

“I would have gone with werewolves, but it’s your fatalistic fantasy.”

“Uuuugggg…” he moaned, and buried his head in his hands.

Voldemort laughed and climbed to his feet, pushing Harry up as well.

“Come on, we still have time. It’s an hour until moonrise.”

Over the next hour the Dark Lord exercised his sadistic love of authority by ordering everyone in the estate around like they were servants, including Lady Malfoy herself, who tolerated it with a resigned sort of good humor born of familiarity with the man’s eccentric behavior. Draco was just happy to be out of his room, even if it was to participate in an hour’s worth of Dark Lord directed craziness, and dragged Hermione off with him to set up the sacrificial altar in the back lawn. The estate’s house elves busied themselves gathering supplies, and Lady Malfoy evacuated the few wizarding staff and house guests, skillfully implying it had to do with a top-secret meetings between Lord Voldemort and foreign ambassadors (it really wouldn’t do for them to start spreading rumors about strange rituals performed in her home during the full moon).

Meanwhile, Harry showered (as close to a ritual purification as he was going to get on such short notice) and changed into a clean pair of pants, memorized the short prayer Voldemort gave him (the man seemed awfully prepared for all of this), and then followed him to the armory. The Malfoy armory was a truly frightening collection of weapons spanning from contemporary to medieval; Highland Claymores and Roman gladius, war hammers and quarterstaffs, halberds and crossbows, lances, axes, shields and armor. He was mildly impressed when upon closer inspection almost all of it appeared to have the Malfoy family crest, in some form, imbedded into it. It would seem that the Malfoy family had a history as warriors as well as refined aristocrats.

Out of all of it, Voldemort selected for them some of the few items that didn’t have the crests or any obvious significance to the family; a recurve bow with arrows for Harry and a pair of hunting knives for himself. When all was ready, they met with Lady Malfoy, Draco, and Hermione in the foyer.

“I am beholden to you, Narcissa. You keep your home in excellent order and Harry might have found himself in a bad way if you did not,” Voldemort said, generously ignoring the wide-eyed look the hostess was giving them. The Dark Lord did not look so strange, having merely discarded his outer robes which was perfectly acceptable in a friend’s home, but Harry only had his pants on and in his half naked state his scars and markings and weapons made him look like a heathen come to burn the house down and carry off the womenfolk.

“Yes, thank you. I’m sorry about springing this on you last second,” Harry said, with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. He could tell right at this moment that the woman was questioning her sanity in letting him inside her house, bizarre creature that he appeared to be. Draco and Hermione took his strange appearance in turn; having grown used to it over the years, and were even somewhat impressed with it.

“That is quite alright. Harry’s a friend of the family,” she said at last, smiling tightly. “The Malfoys always take good care of their friends.”

“…”

He quickly walked towards the door before he let her know exactly what he thought of that statement. Voldemort followed at a more sedate place, informing them that it was unlikely that either of them would be back until late and that no one should wait up for them. Outside, the sun had just set and the full moon still hung low in the sky. A horse was waiting, and they led it along quietly towards the woodland a quarter of a mile from the Malfoy estate. There were several acres of woodland at the southern side reserved for hunting, although the sport was not currently fashionable, and they would make use of it that night.

When they had not quite reached the forest, but were far enough from the manor they stopped and faced each other. Voldemort drew his hunting knife.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Are you sure about this? Shouldn’t I make the sacrifice first? What if Greyback tries to take me again?”

“You are not so vulnerable to Greyback without the Du’on nadi. Even if he tried, he would not be able to exert the same sort of control as before. Even Rhiannon cannot make you do anything you do not truly wish to do, even if she does lower your inhibitions and removes your fear of doing so. Conversely, what self-control you do lose is part of your sacrifice to her, not merely whatever creature falls to you. It is a matter of trust and a matter of lust, passion without modesty or fear of consequence.”

If anything, Harry looked more concerned than reassured by his words. He placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Trust me? You are under my protection tonight.”

His protégé met his gaze uncertainly, but nodded and reached behind him. He pulled out his wand from his back pocket and handed it the Dark Lord. Voldemort stared at it, surprised. It was no small thing for a wizard to willingly hand their wand to another, and no one had ever offered him theirs without him prompting it first.

“It’s not you I’m worried about. Just don’t give it back to me until this is all over. I might burn the entire place to the ground otherwise,” he said, smiling ruefully, and then handed over his glasses as well.

Once the he had carefully stored Harry’s wand and glasses in an inner pocket, he approached his protégé yet again. The young man was shivering now, his bare flesh goose pimpled from the cool evening air. He placed his hand on Harry’s side to keep him from flinching away as he brought the tip of his blade to his navel and very lightly drew it downward until slipped just below the hem of his pants. Harry hissed but didn’t flinch away, and after a moment the cut began to well with blood.

For just a moment, the ward that rested on his lower abdomen became visible as a series of ancient symbols in brilliant red ink, the meaning of which was known only to the most powerful sect of Shinto priests. Just as quickly the symbols faded, leaving only the thin line of blood.

Harry slid out of his grasp and fell backwards onto the ground, looking up at the sky as if stunned. After a minute, he lifted his head to look at the Dark Lord with a pair of faintly glowing green eyes.

“What a rush.”

Voldemort tilted his head curiously.

“What did it feel like?”

“Like coming up to breath after being under water for a long time. Only tingly.”

He grinned up at the man hovering over him.

“Wanna try?”

“Another night perhaps,” he offered. “Are you ready to hunt?”

Harry’s reply was to jump to his feet and run towards the trees, quickly disappearing. The Dark Lord quickly mounted his horse and gave chase. He didn’t have to go in far before he found Harry, now in a tree and looking out into the shadows of the quickly darkening forest.

“There’s a lot here to choose from,” he said. The Dark Lord could make out nothing in the oncoming gloom, but he believed him. “What should we hunt?”

“It is your choice. What do you think would please the Moon the most?”

“The most?” There was smirk that he could just hear there. “That would be you. You would be most worthy prey, GodEater.”

“I’m flattered,” he said, adopting the same ironic tone, although he kept track of Harry’s hold on his bow.

“But I bet you taste awful.”

Voldemort stifled a laugh so as not to scare away the game, and led his mount deeper into the trees while Harry followed after. They passed the night as neither of them had before. Both had known the role of hunter in their lives, Harry amongst the werewolves and Voldemort amongst his Death Eaters, but never with each other. Theirs was a dynamic that had no precedent, and yet formed into a natural harmony the same way their magic had over time. They did not speak and aside from a few basic hand gestures, required little else to communicate their intentions.

With his superior night vision, Harry climbed the trees or scouted ahead in search of prey, and once spotted, pointed it out to Voldemort who moved into position as silently as possible (which was very silently after a few simple spells on his horse) and then herded it back towards Harry, who would then shoot at it when it came in range. They tried this maneuver three times, adjusting their technique each attempt, before succeeded in killing a young buck on the third try.

Successful at last, they gloated; each claiming themselves the better hunter of the two, and Voldemort laughed until he cried when Harry narrated the entire hunt in ballad form and sang it to the Moon. Already, the Dark Lord knew Rhiannon was pleased with her wayward son, for nothing short of divine inspiration could have created such song, no matter how nonsensical, so promptly. Yet form still needed to be upheld, and they took their offering to the altar that had been prepared and paid their respects in blood and prayer.

It was only a few hours until dawn, and though the night had been long and they were both sweaty and covered in blood, neither felt like ending it. They wandered the grounds, Harry running and climbing everywhere he could like a mad child, tossing riddles and poetic madness back at his companion, as he followed leisurely behind on horseback. It was only a few hours until dawn, and the moon was hovering just above the horizon when they finally came to rest at a large oak tree not far from the road leading to the front entrance of the estate. The moon-maddened young wizard still had a bit of energy left, and climbed part of the way up, slithering about like a snake or a faerie might around each limb.

“This is a wonderful tree,” he sighed, resting his cheek to the roughened bark. “They used to make love under her and their children played amongst her branches. The plague took them all and now they play amongst her roots, and she loves them like a mother. Her name is Pasephola. She’s scared of you.”

“Dryads usually are,” the Dark Lord agreed. “Tell her I mean no harm.”

“Are you telling the truth? I’ve seen you take dryads captive before,” he pointed out, recalling in a distant foggy memory when he had been small and still frightened of this man…devil… god.

“If you she stops seducing you, yes. I understand you’re a teenager, but you really should set standards somewhere closer to your own species, Harry.”

“You’re just jealous,” he chuckled, but sat up so that his faced no longer rested against the tree. He thought he heard a sigh if disappointment, but maybe it was the wind.

From his vantage point, he suddenly caught sight of a light on the road. He called down to Voldemort about it.

“It’s probably Lucius,” he said. “He must be returning home early so that he can speak with me before I leave tomorrow.”

An elegant black car passed by them on the way to the mansion, the beam of its headlights falling short of their position in the oak tree.

“Do you think he saw us?”

“The moon is low and we are shaded beneath the tree. It is unlikely.”

“Let’s go give him a scare!”

“Shall I write that as your epitaph?”

Harry ignored him and jumped down from the tree, landing like a cat and slinking off into the shadows. Voldemort shook his head, and moved his horse towards the front entrance without attempting to conceal himself. It was best if he reached Lucius before Harry, or else there really might be an accident.

He canceled the silencing charms he had placed on his horse for the hunt, so that his general could hear him as he approached. Even without being subtle, it wasn’t until Lucius stepped out of his car that he noticed him and gave a sudden start.

“My Lord?” he said, nervously, no double baffled and unnerved to see the man riding alone in the darkness. Chances are he looked quite sinister, Voldemort realized, trying not to be amused at the thought.

“Yes, Lucius?”

“Why are you out riding in the dark?” It was a somewhat impertinent question, but he would let it slide because it was very late and his friend was likely tired.

“Keeping Harry company,” he explained.

“Harry?”

“Yes?”

Lucius spun around again to find a pair of glowing green eyes and a leering grin standing a handful of inches from his face. He gave a frightened yelp and stumbled backwards. If the car hadn’t been to his back, he likely would have stumbled into an undignified heap. His wand was in his hand a split instant later, but Harry had already fallen to the ground, howling with laughter.

“Oh, you should have seen your face!”

The Malfoy patriarch stared down at the little demon who had dared to sneak up on him, shocked and mortified and still a little shaken. Even from here he could see the boy’s naked limbs writhing about and his eyes glowing like lanterns, making his rather inappropriate good humor unsettling. Suddenly, the boy leaped to his feet, making him flinch back a second time before he caught himself and straightened. It made no difference. Harry had already lost interest in him.

“That was hilarious! I’m going to go scare Draco!”

Lucius could only watch helplessly as the little monster ran inside of his home to track down and terrorize his son. While he was standing there, Voldemort dismounted and came to stand beside him.

“Don’t worry, he’s harmless. Like a very happy, somewhat obnoxious drunk,” Voldemort lied, easily. There was no point in trying to explain his protégé’s lunacy was both divine and potentially dangerous. “Come morning he won’t even remember any of this.”

Lucius was aware of Harry’s ‘moon madness’ of course. Draco had given him a rather simple explanation of it and Severus had expounded upon it as a great aggravation (which applied to just about everything when it came to his ward), but neither had mentioned how… eerie it was.

“Is it always like that?” he found himself asking.

“No,” Voldemort admitted, but didn’t elaborate. “I hope he didn’t frighten you too badly. I’m told others find his appearance quite unnerving during the full moon.”

“No, of course not. He just… startled me.”

“He does have a habit of doing that. It is fortunate you stayed your hand from cursing him out of ‘surprise’. I know you have a finely tuned killer’s instinct, and I should hate to have been forced to punish you for it.”

Lucius was looking uncertain yet again. Good. The Dark Lord rarely had a need to frighten his right-hand man, but this seemed as good a time as any to set some boundaries that had not been so clearly laid before.

“Harry told me about your offer.”

“… You object?”

“No, my friend, I do not, but I do not endorse it either. If you wish to play this game with Harry, so be it, but understand I will not assist you and if it becomes blatantly detrimental to either of you, I will call it off and settle the matter as I see fit. Is that understood?”

Lucius nodded respectfully, although Voldemort could see his displeasure. He must have believed he would side with him with moving Harry into the general’s sphere of influence, and that wasn’t unreasonable. They had discussed the idea of shifting the young Gryffindor into a military career after he graduated Hogwarts, and he had been supportive of his man’s interest in pursuing Harry’s company. Much of their talk about this had been waylaid after the traumatic events in Germany and the discovery of Harry’s potentially crippling anxiety and stress issues, but with the display of confidence and skill at York no doubt he thought Voldemort would once again be as receptive to the idea as he had been before.

In a way he was, but more significantly, he thought allowing Harry find his own path might be even more rewarding. He was coming to accept he could not truly control where his protégé went in life, fate had its own plans for him, but he could learn to appreciate the outcome as he had this night. The Mother Goddess had not allowed anything to happen that he could not find benefit from. Even Harry’s infuriating reconstruction of his soul was something he was slowly coming to acknowledge as beneficial.

He couldn’t remember a day were he’d had as much fun as he had tonight. He didn’t know if such a day existed, or if it had, whether he had been whole enough to treasure it properly.

He was roused from his thoughts, by a blood curdling scream issuing from inside the mansion.

“It would seem Harry found Draco,” he noted idly, trying not to smile as Lucius’ darkening expression.

Oh, yes, this was definitely a night to treasure.

1. An ‘animus’ is the product of animancy. In this case, the paper birds are the animus, but there are wide variety of different animus that can be created through different animancy spells and applications.↩

2. Carrigan and Bobby look very much alike. They may or may not be twins, I haven’t decided. It’s not really relevant to the plot either way. For those who forgot, yes I did mention that Bobby is Carrigan’s reincarnated brother.↩

3. Robert didn’t know that Hermione was Harry’s best friend until this point. He has really no idea how much Harry’s life intersects with the Malfoy family.↩

4. Horses are one of the symbolic representations of Rhiannon.↩

Rebel I

Albus stared down at the map of Europe, watching the movement of little colored dots shuffle around and fighting back the awed horror of what their movements represented. On a purely intellectual level, he could not help but admire the Tom’s strategies and the unwavering discipline he exhibited in carrying them out. Tom had come a very long way from his days as an underworld tyrant.

“There’s rumors the Dark Lord is coming to Poland in person to sign the treaty,” one of the commanders said softly to another in the shadowed corners of the room. His hands were fidgeting around a cigarette he couldn’t light. No one smoked or talked very loudly when their head general was obviously thinking.

“He’d be mad. We have spies and assassins all over Poland,” another hissed, obviously irritated and wanting a cigarette himself.

“He is mad. He led the battle straight into Berlin surrounded by aurors. He does not fear death, he invites it to tea on Wednesdays,” the commander laughed nervously.

The influx of yellow dots from Italy into England did not have the disruptive effect either Dumbledoreor Italy’s forces had hoped for, and on the frontlines in Germany there was barely a twitch in the movement of the green pegs. They were not falling for the bait, though it must have cost them dearly. He tried to imagine for a few moments the damage the Italians inflicted and if he would recognize the cities they claimed to have laid waste to. The religious zeal of the Italian aurors was vaguely nauseating to think about, and he wondered if this war would not finally stamp the delusion of divine providence the government had been fostering since their successful defiance of Grindelwald. Certainly, their complete defeat in York shook their confidence, and while the Italian Minister of Magic claimed it was the work of the devil, it was hard to stare at the news photographs of Harry Potter and find the supposed evil lurking behind his tired eyes.

“You know they started school again in Dresden and Chemnitz? The citizen resistance’s almost stopped there. I wonder if it’s the attempt at normalcy that did it or if the kids are hostages.”

“Depends if it’s mandatory or not. The kids are the only ones left with wands, so keeping an eye on them and keeping them obedient has to be a priority.”

“It’d make my father sick to see kids getting intentionally dragged into this. Whole thing started with the tournament thing. Never should have gone down like that. This war might have been inevitable, but it never should have started that way.”

Dumbledore kept a photograph of Harry where ever he went, whatever secret safe house the German Aurors can find and move him to on short notice. Whenever he feels particularly tired and depressed, he took it out and staref at it for a few minutes and it made him feel better. It didn’t make much sense to anyone else, and more than likely some of them thought it was down right creepy, but the image of Lily and James’ child staring back at him set his mind whirling with possibilities. He tought of the prophecy, and knows it can’t apply to Harry but the connections won’t break free, and his thoughts circled constantly around a single thought.

This boy has affected the course of the war more than any other individual save Voldemort himself.

“You hear about York?”

“Who hasn’t heard about York?”

“Some professor in Stuttgart says he figured out how to replicate the Potter Bird Spell. He says its ‘old’ magic.”

“Old magic. Dark magic. I don’t care. I don’t want it in our schools. It’s unnatural,” the commander muttered, and stuck the cigarette in his mouth and chewed at the end.

“That boy is unnatural.”

The prophecy didn’t fit at first, second, or third glance, but perhaps he just wasn’t seeing all the pieces. Maybe he’s interpreting it all wrong. He can’t make it fit, but he’s positive it relates to Harry some how and that gives him hope.

And he needs hope. He just received word Romania and Transylvania had ratified a treaty with the Dark Lord and Poland was very close to doing the same. Germany’s own potential allies in Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria were hesitant to be associated with the Italians and their murderous policy against civilians and Dumbledore couldn’t blame them. He couldn’t afford their stalling either though.

He’s running out of time and he knew it. This was not like the previous war, fought in the shadows with intelligence and cunning and discretion. This war was public, political, and brutally explicit with heavy arms and heavy losses. Dumbledore knew he was wasting his energy beating the shell of a great viperous beast with no hope of breaking it open and no way to get inside. There was no fighting for victory as things stood now, only for time.

“Gentlemen,” he said at last, looking up from the study of his map to the two aurors. They looked unduly nervous at being addressed directly. He didn’t think he was a very scary looking man, but who knew these days? “It would be safe to assume the Dark Lord is going to use his new allies to strengthen his hold on the Eastern front and push his way west. I will need to speak with the other commanders about preparing for their advance. Please arrange a meeting as quickly as possible.”

The commanders each gave him a sharp salute and went to do his bidding. Once they were out of sight, he summoned Tonks who appeared within moments dressed in civilian robes. Her expression was fierce, but she waited patiently for her instructions.

“I want you in France. A treaty is almost inevitable there now, and I want our people there to stall their involvement in the fighting for as long as possible. Try to be subtle for as long as you can.”

She nodded sharply and turned to leave.

“And Nymphadora…”

She paused, reluctantly.

“Be safe.”

Her reply was the sharp snap of the door behind her as she left.

“Harry, it’s wonderful to see you! Your timing is perfect,” Ira greeted as he entered the cottage. They had apparently arrived at approximately the same time, and Snape glanced back at him blandly as he started carrying their luggage up the stairs to their bedroom. Harry gave him an equally unimpressed look, but secretly he was glad to see him again. In small doses, he was tolerable company.

If Snape had gained a little color since the Gryffindor had last seen him, Ira looked like a completely different person. Her skin was several shades darker, her hair several shades lighter and she had clearly been shopping in Parisian boutiques. She didn’t have the foxy flair Vesper Larousse had had, but there was a definite Parisian chic to her new hair style and she smelled sweetly of fine perfume. She was radiating enough positive magic he was amazed flowers weren’t springing up beneath her feet as she walked. Ira gave him an enormous hug, which was sort of nice and really embarrassing at the same time. He was glad Snape was upstairs at least.

“I’ve got souvenirs for later. I know you’ve been to Paris already, but I don’t think you’ve ever brought anything back.”

“I rarely got off of the palace grounds, and they generally frown on visitors wandering off with all their shiny baubles,” he admitted. “Let me put my stuff away and you can tell me about Paris.”

By the time he was done putting his things away and sorting through his list of things he was going to have to start working on, Ira was in the process of making dinner, insisting that both Severus and she were stuck in Parisian time and starving. His souvenir turned out to be a tea set of all things, made elegantly of black porcelain and trimmed in gold.

“The pot is charmed to heat the water automatically, so you don’t have bother heating the kettle. I noticed you’ve developed a fondness for making your own tea,” she said, and he very nearly choked. He seriously hoped Snape didn’t suspect anything suspicious from his new ‘hobby’. It wouldn’t take much for the potions master to figure out what he was doing if he put his mind to it.

His paranoia proved unfounded and an hour later Snape was sitting at the dinner table with them, discussing nothing more interesting than their schedule. The new headmaster would be in and out throughout the summer preparing the castle for the upcoming school year and Ira had a few projects of her own to help keep her busy. Harry kept his own plans to himself, aside from the occasional mention of Dueling tournaments and visits to the werewolf colony, which he would have had to inform them of eventually anyway.

Dinner passed in quiet, domestic tranquility.

Ira yawned.

“Why don’t you take a nap, my dear,” Snape suggested. “We’ll clean up here.”

Harry refrained from pointing out that ‘we’ meant him.

“Thank you, Severus. I am a bit tired.”

Once she had retired to her room, something in the atmosphere shifted and the young Gryffidnor stiffened before the man even turned to look at him. Snape regarded him with cool expectation, tapping his long spidery fingers on the table. Harry was instantly on guard.

“There are going to be a few new house rules, Potter. An acknowledgment of our change of status if you will. Me as a husband and you as… homicidal fiend in the making.”

Harry gave a bland look at his new ‘status’.

“Ira is now the lady of the house, and you will respect her as you would me. If you don’t, I will take it very personally,” he said, his even tone laced with warning. “This is particularly true when out in public. I know you think yourself very important, but even you have those you must answer to and she is one of them. If she asks you to do something, do it. None of your sarcasm or backtalk.”

“I respect her just fine without your input,” he snapped, but Snape ignored him and continued.

“For safety reasons, all of your spell books are to be placed in the study, including your school and library books, unless you are using them. You are at a level where experimentation with magic is common, and I refuse to be caught unaware, particularly with your propensity towards more powerful spells.”

Harry instantly bristled at the idea. It was an incredible breach of privacy and one he had never had to suffer through before. It certainly didn’t help that there was a great deal he didn’t want to share with the man, particularly his plans to help get Hermione out of her betrothal and his animagus lessons.

“Finally, you are to inform either Ira or myself of your comings and going over the summer. I don’t care if you’re going to visit the Malfoy estate or stepping out to grab the post, you will tell us of where you’re going and when we should expect you back. Don’t even think about arguing with me about this,” he snapped when he saw his charge rallying a protest.

Harry snapped his mouth shut, anger and frustration burning in his eyes.

“That is all I have… for the moment. How was your visit with the Malfoys?” he asked idly, as if he hadn’t just turned the Gryffindor’s home into a prison in which he was the warden.

“It was fantastic,” he hissed, and almost went off into a rant but stopped himself. He wasn’t exactly pleased with his visit for a lot of reasons but he was even less pleased with Snape and had no intention of forgetting one source of anger for another. Instead, he stood up and stalked towards the door. “I am going for a walk.”

He grabbed the knob, but it stuck. He fiddled with the lock, but still it wouldn’t open. Frustrated, he drew his wand, only to have Snape sigh in an irritating, put upon fashion.

“You haven’t told me when you intend to be back. It won’t open until you do.”

“Aaargh! God, you’re annoying!” he shouted. “I’ll be back when I don’t feel like throttling you!”

Amazingly, the knob twisted under his grip and he stumbled through as it opened. Seriously, he thought in disbelief, that counts? Of course, it wasn’t the end of it and Snape called after him.

“Oh, and curfew is at eight. If you come back after that you won’t be able to get inside unless I let you in myself, and don’t think I won’t let you sleep out in the garden.”

“You suck!” he called back as he stomped away, knowing it was one of the worst dramatic exits ever and feeling like an idiot. He didn’t look back as the door swung shut behind him, but he could imagine Snape smiling smugly over the entire thing. At least he had gotten out of doing the dishes he tried to console himself, rather unsuccessfully.

He had somewhat more success consoling himself by thinking up insults to lob at his guardian the next time he saw him, and then further distracting himself by trying to think of ways to get around putting all his books in the study. Maybe if he kept the books outside the house? Perhaps he could find the counter charm. His thoughts busily plotting against Snape, he failed to notice he was not alone on the road until someone called out to him. He gave a terrible start and spun around with his wand drawn.

Robert and Kyle both jumped back, equally as surprised as he had been.

“Merlin, you’re fast!” Kyle blurted out, looking from the wand to Harry’s stunned expression. “I knew you had a reputation as a duelist, but my goodness!”

“What are you doing here?” he asked sharply. Robert looked down in embarrassment. As well he should, Harry thought darkly.

“Looking for you, obviously,” Kyle said, unperturbed, and dragged his husband after Harry. “We knew you were coming home today, so we were hoping to catch you on the road. This works just as well. How are you, Harry?”

“Not that great to be quite honest.”

He considered walking back into the garden and ignoring them both, but honestly he was mad at Robert, not Kyle, and if they were both here he didn’t know how to be rude to one and not the other.

“Yes, we heard about York… and your friend, Hermione. That’s actually why I’m here. Can we buy you a butter beer?”

Again, he considered declining. He was hard pressed at the moment not to punch Robert in the nose. After a dark look at the man, however, he finally nodded and they changed directions and headed back towards town.

It was Sunday, and everyone around the town was still dressed in their church robes and dresses. Harry was rather plainly dressed in comparison, but villagers tipped their hats or curtsied with a respectful ‘good day, Mr. Potter’ or ‘welcome back, sir’ as they passed. The pub owner greeted them himself at the door and ushered him to a private booth immediately, then got them each with a round of butter beer.

“I’ve got a sister and nephew in York, lad. This ones on the house,” the man said with a wink.

Harry smiled and nodded politely, smothering his foul mood long enough for him to disappear before his expression soured.

“Oh, don’t give us that look, Harry,” Kyle chided, playfully. “We’ve come to make amends. Robert isn’t any happier about this situation with Ms. Granger than you are. It’s absolutely distasteful.”

Soothed somewhat, the Gryffidnor allowed his expression to become more neutral.

“First, I want an explanation. From you,” he said, staring pointedly at Robert, who was fidgeting with his wedding ring. “Why in the world did you get involved with this in the first place? I thought better of you, especially as a father of two girls of your own.”

The man grimaced, but managed to look him in the eye.

“That isn’t fair. I didn’t intend to get sucked into this… unpleasant business. I was hired to settle a civil suit. I can’t talk about it, since its client privilege, but it certainly hadn’t started out as … this! I never would have taken the case if I had known.”

“Why not quit?”

Robert snorted and rolled his eyes.

“Quit? On Lucius Malfoy? That’s career suicide, and I can’t afford to be a righteous martyr these days. I’ve got two mortgages and a family to feed, and times aren’t cheap. Besides, it wouldn’t make a wit of difference. He would just hire another lawyer, one even less scrupulous then I.”

Harry’s ire towards the man settled. He supposed he could understand. Lucius had backed him into a corner, and Robert had more to worry about than just himself. That bastard. Of course, it also meant that whatever he did to help Hermione, he would have to be careful to make sure the Reichers were not caught in the backlash. He sighed and leaned back in seat. Kyle reached across the table and patted his hand sympathetically.

“Don’t be glum, lad. We didn’t come empty handed.”

Robert nodded, and moved out of the booth. “I’m going to go buy the Sunday post. I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes.”

Confused, Harry watched him disappear out the door… right past the pile of news papers stacked beside the door. Kyle just smiled.

“Don’t worry. He can’t involve himself in this conversation because of his position as Malfoy’s lawyer, but I… well, let’s just say legal aids have considerably more leeway.”

Immediately, Harry perked up. Had Kyle found some legal maneuver that could help Hermione?

“Now, I want you to know I’ll help you in any legal way I can. That’s somewhat limiting, but you’re clever and you have resources that neither of us do, so perhaps that will be enough. Right now, the only I can offer you is options, and once you and your friend decide on which one you want, we’ll see what I can do.”

Harry nodded. “Any help we could get right now would be appreciated.”

“Alright, as I figure it you have four ways of getting your friend out of this wedding. The first, and least likely, is to have Lord Malfoy call it off himself. Fat chance.”

Not as fat as Kyle thought. Harry did have that bargain with the wizard after all, but he wanted that to remain a last resort.

“What about Lady Malfoy? Could she call it off?”

There was a slightly better chance he could convince Hermione’s foster mother. The woman didn’t really like him much, but she did seem to have an honest affection for her foster daughter. The fact that she had agreed to the wedding in the first place, however, suggested something wasn’t quite right with her.

“No, she couldn’t. If Hermione were her biological daughter, she would have more say, but adoptions fall under the authority of the head of the family. The whole issue is a bit convoluted, but that’s law. The second option, of course, is to have Crouch call of the wedding, but the only way I can see that happening is if the debt he has with Lord Malfoy were to suddenly absolve itself. Highly unlikely. The third option is for Hermione to be legally emancipated and then call off the engagement herself more than thirty days prior to the wedding date. Any time after that, and she’ll be financially responsible for expenses rendered unless he’s caught in violation of the betrothal… cheating or assault are the most common examples.”

“What if he’s caught cheating or assaults her before she’s emancipated?”

He thought he (or rather the twins) might be able to set something up to that effect if necessary, preferably the cheating over the assault.

“Entirely up to Malfoy Sr., unless it is proven that she is in imminent danger from her fiancée and he demonstrates reckless disregard for this fact. That’s hard to prove unless Crouch leaves evidence. He has a reputation for violence, but since he’s never been convicted so I doubt he’s that careless. Still something to keep in mind, however.”

“And the fourth option?”

“Well… honestly, the fourth option is the riskiest, and I wouldn’t even suggest it except the situation already seems… dire,” Kyle said, looking vaguely disturbed. “According to wizarding law, a marriage requires a magical ritual to establish the union as legitimate so both parties and a licensed marriage practitioner, usually the priest, has to be present. If she’s not at the ceremony, she can’t legally be married in absentee.”

Well, that was definitely a noteworthy option, despite what Kyle seemed to think. Not exactly subtle, but they weren’t Slytherins. They could live with that.

“So what’s the problem there?” he asked.

“For one, she’ll have a lot of very angry people after her. Running away would be an insult not only to Crouch and all his relatives, but the Malfoys as well. She’s already betrothed, so that’s a contract unto itself, meaning she could potentially be sued or even jailed for fraud, especially if it’s obvious she ran off against her family patriarch’s will. Then there is the simple fact that if she is caught, she could still be forced to marry Crouch anyway if he doesn’t call it off. The only way Hermione could win in this scenario is if she disappeared completely and forever. Or was pardoned by Lord Voldemort, of course. I suppose that actually makes him a fifth option. He can do pretty much anything he damn well pleases, including call off the marriage.”

“I tried that already,” he admitted. “He won’t interfere with Malfoy’s familial affairs, but he promised not to get in my way either.”

Kyle just blinked at him.

“I am trying to imagine all these conversations you have with that man, and I just… can’t. It’s like trying to imagine a conversation between Jesus and Merlin.”

“That’s probably sacrilegious in at least a dozen different religions so I think you should stop now.”

“Stopping.”

Robert returned shortly after, grumbling that Wizarding Weekly hadn’t been the since their London office shut down, and they continued their visit on a much more congenial note. Soon, however, they both had to head home to the girls, and after setting up a day for Harry to come and visit them, they parted ways. It was still a few hours before eight, so Harry walked the surrounding fields of the village, thinking of what Kyle had told him, about his godfathers and the animagus lessons, and about his latest battle of wits and wills with Snape.

When it was finally time to head home, he had thought all he wanted to about those issues and moved on to others, like what if anything he should do with his growing celebrity status, the next Dueling competition in Kent, the war, and what Voldemort was doing at the moment.

There was no parade or cheers from an adoring crowd to greet Tom as he stepped off the train and on to the platform, but he nevertheless felt triumphant in his return to England. Bristol was transformed from a minor wizarding city into a military metropolis, witches and wizards were the picture of industrious dignity, moving purposefully through the streets in immaculate uniforms and stern expressions. Even those personnel who were obviously on break, maintained an air of pride and grace that the uniform commanded.

It was certainly an improvement over the frontlines, where you were lucky if you had the time to change your uniform after a week let alone get it cleaned, and everyone was running and shouting at one another in semi-hysterical military precision. Most of his squad was still back in Chemnitz, brutally wiping out resistance and restoring the city with a veneer of order. He had been the first commander to reopen the local schools as a tactical maneuver, and the resulting decrease in local resistance had pushed the name ‘Stratus’ through the ranks.

Which was why he was back in England, preparing to participate in the campaign to retake London and thoroughly humiliate the Italians in the process. He suspected he would thoroughly enjoy himself.

Headquarters was a hive of activity as Intelligence officers, aids, administrators, bureaucrats, and soldiers gathered, sorted, and moved information and orders through the military chain of command and back again in the daily shuffle of war behind the battle lines. He made it a point not to duck and dodge everyone else, but forced them to move around him, to acknowledge him, to remember him even if it was only as an obstacle.

Recognition was the lynchpin of ambition after all.

He made his way to the top floor without asking for direction, stopping only where security check points demanded, until he found himself in a small lounge with the military aid sitting behind the desk and screening incoming documents. The aid acknowledged him with a curt salute, and tossed a red marble and a green and white marble into what looked like a fish bowl. The red marble turned orange and the other black.

“It should only be about ten minutes,” the aid said politely, and then hurriedly when back to work. Sure enough, ten minutes later, a Sentinel marched out of the office with an expression that promised murder and went straight passed him and into the hall. The aid didn’t even look up. “He’ll see you now.”

Now came the important part. He could impress the peons and pawns all he liked, but if he could not impress this wizard he wasn’t going to be able to move his plans forward within the time frame he had set. He spared a glance over his robe, making sure it was spotless and the medals were all perfectly aligned. Straightening, he marched straight into the office and up to the desk of the man whose command he would be ‘serving’ under directly for the duration of the London operation.

He saluted the man smartly.

“General Malfoy, Commander Stratus reporting for duty, sir.”

“Ugh! That just makes me want to scream!”

“I think you already are, luv. People are starting to stare,” Clyde warned Natalie, gesturing for her to quiet down. Indeed, the entire book store seemed to be turned to their little group, practically leaning in to catch what they were saying.

“That’s just because Harry’s here.” She wrapped an arm around the Gryffidnor’s shoulder, and turned gestured to the occupants of the store. “This one’s ours, get your own!”

“Natalie! Honestly!” Hermione protested, but Harry was already laughing. A year ago this might have had him ducking his head in embarrassment, but his confidence had grown considerably. He supposed after fighting and winning an entire battle almost completely on his own, a little public scrutiny wasn’t anything to be nervous about. Draco on the other hand was trying to hide behind his sister from the brazenness that was Natalie.

“Don’t honestly me, Hermione. I’m not doing anything shameful. It’s your foster parents who should be ashamed. This whole marriage business. I mean you’re not even graduated yet and they want you going off to pop out some kids with a guy whose like what… twenty, twenty-five years older than you? It’s completely disgusting, and don’t you dare try to defend them, Draco. You’ll be barfing slugs for a month!”

Wisely, the Malfoy heir shut his mouth, and pretended to go back to scanning the shelves for his books and Ginny bit her lip to keep from laughing. It was late July now, earlier than they usually went school shopping, but Snape had warned them that school supplies were going to be harder to come by with the major printing presses in London having shut down and basic potion supplies being snatched up by charities and hospitals. Ginny’s mother visited several different markets across England to sell her farm’s produce and knew where they could find just about anything.

They had been to Oxford, Kent, and Dragons Bow (a wizarding village in Southern Scotland) under the watchful eye of Kingsley, whose rather conspicuous uniform served to keep the overly curious away as well as the potentially dangerous. At the moment, the Sentinel was at the front of the store scanning the street for potential danger, and not paying much attention to them. Harry, for one, was very glad for the man’s presence, because if it wasn’t him then one of their parents would have had to escort them and more than likely would have paid closer attention to what they were doing rather than what everyone else was.

“I agree with you,” Hermione sighed, “You know I do, and I’m not going to take it lying down.” She shook her head. “If I could just make Narcissa understand that… I don’t know. Maybe it wouldn’t even make a difference, but I’d feel better if she did. I honestly thinks she believes this is all for the best.”

Ginny patted her on the shoulder comfortingly. “I know. Moms can be really weird like that. They love you, but they don’t really understand you most of the time.”

“Well, maybe if you all weren’t so half-assed about it, she’d take you seriously,” Natalie said, unsympathetic. “If fact, I think we should make it clear tonight exactly how much you’re against this wedding. Do it right, and Crouch might just call it off himself.”

Immediately, she had all of their attention. Hermione, ever pragmatic, threw up a small silencing charm so no one else around them could hear their conversation, even Kingsley who had actually glanced over at them.

“What did you have in mind?” he asked.

“My first suggestion is that Hermione get a lover.” Once everyone looked suitably scandalized by the suggestion, she offered her real suggestion. “But since you’re a prude, I think a sullied reputation will work just as well. I’ll help. It’ll be fun!”

She looked disturbingly pleased with the idea. She was the only one. Harry, however, was used to her quirky humor and her subtle mind and decided to hear her out.

“And what would this involve exactly?”

Seeing she had at least one bite, she grinned. “It’s simple. We’ll all go out to a bar or some clubs or some kickass party, get down with our bad selves, take some incriminating photos of Hermione, send them off to Crouch anonymously, and *snap* he’ll call of the wedding himself. Works every time.”

“Every time?” Hermione asked, skeptical.

“Alright, it worked for mummy. And that girl in The Witching Hour, although she technically didn’t-”

“Okay.”

They all turned to Hermione. Her expression was fierce, resolved, and perhaps even a little bit excited.

“I doubt it will work,” she said, “But I’m willing to try. Even if it fails, at least Narcissa will know I’m being serious.”

Natalie actually clapped and threw her arms around Hermione, perhaps the very first genuine and enthusiastically friendly gesture she had ever given the other girl in their lives. No one else looked as certain, but Harry thought as far as scheming went this was fairly tame. Like Hermione, he didn’t think it would work either, not with Lucius holding that lawsuit over Crouch’s head, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t aggravate their enemies and have a little fun in the mean time.

“I’m in. Someone has to watch your backs if we’re going to do this.”

“Very true,” Natalie said, looking pointedly at Draco. “We’re going to need protection. Unless you think you’re not up to it?”

Immediately, the young Malfoy’s uncertainty transformed into haughtiness.

“I’m game, if you are. Yeilson bragged himself blue in the face last year about these supposed ‘raves’ he snuck into. If that simpleton can manage it, I’m certain we can exceed at it.”

Natalie was practically vibrating with maniacal glee. She turned to Ginny and Clyde, and lifted a single brow as if in challenge. Clyde looked more than eager, but their redheaded friend didn’t look so enthused.

“My mum would kill me…” she said.

“Of course she would,” Natalie agreed, “If she found out. Which is why you’re going to tell her you’re spending the night at my house. Which you are, since we’ll both probably be too drunk too.”

“Oh my god, we’re drinking?”

“Absolutely! We’re all going to crazy town! Aren’t we, Harry?”

He grinned.

“I’ve partied with werewolves. I don’t know if wizards could come up with anything to compare.”

“I’ll take that as a challenge!”

They hurried through the rest of their shopping, conspiring on their plans for that night. Ginny had rather reluctantly been pulled in, but when Harry offered her an out, she stubbornly refused. This was, after all, an adventure that they were all sharing together and she wanted to be a part of that. Harry too wanted a bit of adventure… the normal kind that teenagers were supposed to have, and if that involved a little rebellion against Snape’s Gestapo routine then all the better.

They each separated and returned home to make their subsequent stories to their parents and guardians, each explaining they were going to spend the night at a friend’s (thank Merlin Snape was in his lab and Harry only had to lie to Ira or else the whole plan would have been over before it began). Kingsley had already left, but since he had said he was flooing directly to Clyde’s house, there hadn’t really been any need for an escort, and after grabbing a few things to make his ruse convincing he left without obstacle. He met up with everyone at Natalie’s, the last to arrive.

“Alright,” Natalie began, addressing everyone now gathered in her living room. It was a far cry from what Harry was expecting, having become used to Natalie’s complete ease in the most luxuriant of environments, but the eclectic collection of Bohemian art and exotic furniture was somehow indescribably Natalie, mysterious, colorful, and bold. “My mums are off on a couples retreat for the weekend, so we won’t be bothered. My friend Mary is part of band and knows all the best party scenes and she’s going to show us the ropes in exchange for free cover charge and drinks. You all remembered your dosh?”

They all nodded, except for Ginny who looked rather embarrassed. Harry leaned in next to her.

“Don’t worry about it. I need some new clothes, so we’ll call this an advance, okay?”

She sighed in relief and nodded. He wasn’t lying, he did want her to make him some more clothes, but even if he hadn’t he would have covered for her. While he was by no means rich, he was making an adult’s salary as an ambassador and with neither rent or food expenses he had plenty to spare.

“Good,” their host continued. “She’ll be here in a few minutes. We’ll pick out where we want to go first, then we’ll get some clothes, come back here to get ready, then head out. When we’re done, we’ll all crash here. Any questions?”

Everyone had a hundred questions, but they had to wait for Mary to answer them. Mary was a twenty year old university student, taking the summer off to tour with her band Baskerville Coven, to raise money for refugees in Ireland, and had met Natalie while volunteering at Dunnan Hill. They had hit it off immediately, and kept in touch.

“Hey, lil’ sista,” Mary greeted, hugging the smaller blond, careful not to get her any of her dozen rings or over sized hoop earrings stuck in her hair. She was like no one Harry had ever seen, with luscious violet robes cut above her knees and leather boots that laced up even higher than that. Her black and violet streaked hair was a study in designed chaos, spiked into tuffs that flew in every direction and yet somehow remained aesthetically appealing. When she smiled at all of them, her top lip black and the bottom a wine red, she radiated dark sexuality. “So this is them. I’ve got my work cut out for me then, but I think I can swing it…”

“Don’t let the little school boy and school girl expressions fool you. They’re a wild bunch,” Natalie assured.

Mary’s eyes quickly settled on Harry. She smirked. He smirked back.

“I bet.”

“Stop fidgeting, you look great!” Harry laughed as Ginny tried to pull her skirt down another inch for the thousandth time.

“My mom is going to send me to a convent if she find out about this!” she whined, her cherry painted lips sticking out in a pout. He just grinned and stuck his arm around her shoulder. She turned bright red at his closeness, but did stop fidgeting. It was nine and just entering true night, the air still warm and inviting, and Harry couldn’t deny he was feeling good. For the first time in a month, Hermione was laughing and smiling, and everyone was giddy as they had been for their first day at Hogwarts.

Only sexier.

Yes, there was definitely a air of sexual confidence about them that wasn’t present in their eleven year old selves. Harry blamed it on the leather, which Mary had insured there was copious amounts of, and the firm press of it against the contours of their bodies. He had in fact, worn leather occasionally at the werewolf colony, but out in the ‘civilized’ world it felt like the mark of a predator. Certainly, they didn’t look or feel like ‘school boys and school girls’.

“You all look great!” Mary assured them, “But remember it’s not just about looks. It’s about attitude. You got to think and act like you belong here. It don’t matter if you’re twelve, twenty-one, or two-hundred and one, if you got the confidence then you’re in. Got that?”

“Loud and clear, luv,” Draco drawled in an accent no one had ever heard him use, with a wicked grin to match. It startled a laugh right out of Natalie and Hermione.

“Yes, yes! Just like that! Alright, the club is just around the corner. Get your game faces on, and what ever you do, don’t look desperate. Blood in the water, it is.”

“I think I’m going to vomit,” Ginny muttered under breath.

“Well, at least you don’t look desperate, except perhaps to get away,” he offered as they brought up the back of their party. Immediately upon turning the corner, they found the line to their club,Djinn, and it stretched back for almost another block. A large crowd of young witches and wizards idled on the sidewalk, smoking cigarettes and making conversation. Harry immediately felt his enthusiasm wane. Lines were the very opposite of fun in his opinion.

“Don’t fret, I know the bouncer,” Mary assured them, “But I’m still going to need your help, Harry, Draco.”

The two boys glanced at each other uncertainly, but she had quickly grabbed hold of both their sleeves and dragged straight to the entrance, earning her some very nasty looks from those still waiting. There were two bouncers at the door, one of them a large man who reminded Harry a bit of Kingsley only not as smart and a smaller, shrewd man with lazy dark eyes.

“Looky, looky what I brought you Johnny-boy! The finest young meat in Britain, and as fresh as it comes!” Mary said, wrapping her arms around either boy’s necks and grinning like a loon. The shrewd man, ‘Johnny-boy’, took a step closer.

“Well, if it ain’t Contrary Mary, herself. What you on about? Ain’t these boys a bit young….” his admonishment trailed off as he got a better look at them. Draco managed to collect himself enough to smirk coolly back him. Harry just stared back evenly, somewhat warily. “…Aren’t these…”

“Yep. Celebrity status a solid 9.8 between the two of them. And they’re both single.”

The man seemed to consider for a moment, and Harry was certain they were going to be turned away. If they were recognized, then it should have been obvious that they were way too young to there. Surprisingly, however, Johnny-boy simply nodded and gestured to the large bouncer to let them inside.

“Alright, haul your asses in here. Your drinks are free if you stay for more than two hours. I’ll let the boss know you’re here,” he said.

Mary waved to the others to follow and together they hurried on inside to a dark hallway. Harry shook his head.

“What just happened?” he asked.

“Oh, luv, you’re so naïve it’s adorable,” she laughed and kissed him on the cheek. “That was good advertising. The heir of General Malfoy and the infamous Harold James Potter? You’re both bloody famous! Of course they’re going to let you and the entourage in.”

“Entourage, eh?” Clyde said, not sounding particularly impressed with the position, but wasn’t given time to complain as they reached the end of the hallway and set of large wooden doors opened.

Harry had never been in a wizarding dance club before, and part of him had always assumed it would be something like those clubs he saw on television when he was young; dark and seedy with scantily clad girls, a bar, and really loud music. About the only think he had right was the really loud music. Djinn was like walking into a Persian palace built into a fairy hill, a mix of the most beautiful of both words, the familiar and the alien.

Chandeliers hung from the ceiling, containing not candles but brilliant bouquets of glowing yellow and white flowers interspersed with Chinese lamps. White tigers roamed between the tapestries of ancient forests and distant mountains, startling white peacocks into the upper balcony. Incense pots had been lit, and in the fragrant haze of smoke, figures danced in time to the throbbing beat of drums, guitars, and violins.

Along the walls were the large branches of trees growing straight from the carpet, piled with pillows and cushions for witches and wizards to lounge upon and tiny one legged tables stood holding their drinks in strangely shaped glasses and little bowls of alcohol soaked pieces of fruit. At the center, the crowds danced to the music, alone, in pairs, in groups, however, they wanted and with whomever they wanted. There was kissing and touching and flirting, entire conversation spoken in the language of the body. All of it in the warm, ambient glow of the flowering chandeliers.

For several long moments, all they could do was stare.

“We’re definitely going to have get ourselves some drinks first!” Mary said knowingly, taking in their rather flabbergasted expressions. “Come on, ducklings!”

They found themselves a booth of tree limbs and had barely sat down for a moment when a waitress, dressed entirely in gold from her skimpy robes to her lipstick, presented them with a round of drinks in dark blue glasses shaped like sea shells.

“Compliments of the owner,” she tittered, and scampered away with a flirtatious wink. Natalie just rolled her eyes at her, and picked up a blue glass.

“To your night of rebellion,” she toasted, and tossed it back. Her eyes shut tight for a moment and she gave a little shiver. “Ooohhh… you have to try that.”

With a bit more caution, they did. At first it burned like acid, but a moment later it was as cold and refreshing as a snow fed stream. Harry could feel the magic buzz sliding down his thrown and into his stomach were it settled into a calming pool. He definitely liked it.

For the first hour all they did was drink and laugh and try to get each other to finally brave the dance floor. The little glasses appeared and disappeared, always in different colors and shapes and always with something different. Harry settled into something a little stronger Mary called a Dragon’s Bite, that quickly burned away the happy like pool from his first shot, while everyone else tried a variety of the smaller mixed drinks. Ginny, in particular, seemed to taken a shine to the fruity drinks and her earlier anxiety had soon melted away.

The resulting conversations were hilarious, or at least they certainly seemed that way to them.

“You’re a god damn cunt, Natalie,” Ginny accused, pointing her find at Clyde, who just laughed and pushed her finger over enough so that it was actually pointing at the right person. Natalie joined the game and moved her finger so it was pointing at Draco.

“Do you even know what that means?” Hermione asked, least drunk of them all but still tipsy enough not to be as scandalized as she normally would.

“Yes,” she said resolutely, then frowned. “No. Yes…”

“Well, as long as you’re sure,” Harry said, and then slowly got to his feet.

“Where are you going?” Natalie whined.

“I…” he paused to let the moment of disorientation pass, “… am going to go dance. You’re all welcome to join me… except for Clyde. He dances like a troll.”

“Hey!”

He wandered away onto the dance floor and into a crowd, his body falling into the rhythm of the music. Dancing here was not unlike the dancing done at the werewolf colony, close and intimate and frenzied, more about energy than finesse. He wasn’t in the group for long before he found himself pulled away by a giggling brunette, several years older than him.

“Are you really Harold Potter?” she asked, her dancing slightly off kilter form his own. “I wouldn’t have figured you for a dancer. You always look so serious.”

He just smiled, and when she put her hands on his shoulders he put his hands on her hips and just went with it. And before he knew it they were pulled apart and he found himself dancing with another girl, this one dark skinned with eyes like a wild cat. After that, he lost track. Sometimes he was dancing with one girl, sometimes with two, sometimes he wasn’t sure his partner was a girl at all, and other times he found himself moving through the crowd looking for someone specific. All around him he could feel the magic of the crowd thrumming in time with the band, and that mixed with the alcohol left him feeling like he was caught in the mad throws of the full moon.

Mary was right. It was all about confidence, and he had hunted among those infinitely more savage and dangerous.

Eventually, he happened upon Ginny dancing with a group of girls, her flaming orange hair flying this way and that as she swung her head to the music. He pulled her away for a private dance, and she wrapped her arms around him and laughed.

“This is great! I’m never going to a convent.”

“Of course not! You’re going to grow up to take the fashion world my storm and go to wild parties every night!”

“Damn straight!”

Natalie found him next, slinking up to him and pulling him away from a curly haired blond with all the skill of a hunting panther. She didn’t bother speaking, just kept him close so that he could feel the heat of her straight through his clothes. For almost half and hour they remained close, and no attempt to pull them apart succeeded, until they were both sweaty and breathing hard and decided to stop and get something to drink. They returned to their table where Clyde and Draco who now entertaining three girls he didn’t recognize and Mary was touching up Ginny’s makeup.

“Hey, where’s Hermione?” he asked, forgoing his spicy Dragon’s Bite for Mary’s cool mint Leprechaun.

“Easy, luv!” she laughed and pointed out to the dance floor. “Princess finally found her dancing legs.”

Sure enough, Hermione was dancing… sort of. She was clearly very drunk, and happy to be that way thank you very much, and flailing around the dance floor with a rather bemused wizard in lime green. Natalie was practically crying she laughed so hard, and dug around her pockets.

“Oh, oh, I have to get a picture of this!”

“Weren’t you supposed to do that anyway?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Oops.”

He rolled his eyes. Frankly, he didn’t think a picture of Hermione at the moment would be very incriminating. Embarrassing yes, but hardly evidence of licentious behavior. That was okay, though. They had all night.

Or rather they would have, if the balcony doors hadn’t swung wide to reveal a dozen Sentinels.

“This is a Court ordered-”

What ever it was, Court ordered or not, Harry never got to hear because suddenly the club broke out into screams.

“IT’S THE UNCLES[1]!”

The music died and suddenly people were running. Harry froze, faced with a moment of displacement to another time and place. It was only for a moment, and then Natalie was grabbing him and shaking him hard.

“Snap out of it, Harry! We’ve got to get out of here! If we’re arrested for underage drinking we’ll be expelled!” she snapped at him, pulling him towards where the rest of people were attempting to escape. He pulled back suddenly, grabbing her arm and taking her in the opposite direction, his mind racing.

“Not that way. We’d never make it,” he said. “Where’s Hermione?”

“Draco’s handling her.”

“Okay. Where’s Mary?”

“Here! Shit! They’re coming.”

“Where’s the kitchen?” he asked.

“What?”

“There has to be a kitchen, a service entrance, something the employees use. Where is it?”

“There’s one under the balcony and behind the stage.”

“Perfect, come on! Don’t run, just walk, eyes down.”

It was one of the hardest things Harry had ever done, not drawing his wand. The Sentinels had started throwing out Stunning Hexes at the crowd that was trampling itself in an attempt to squeeze hundreds of bodies through one small door, and his hands itched to throw back a curse or two that would really make a difference. But this wasn’t a battlefield, this was just Sentinels doing their job and Harry and his friends acting stupidly and getting on the wrong side of it. He held onto Natalie and Ginny’s hands tightly, forcing them not to bolt, even though he could feel their desperate need to escape but knowing sudden movement would attract fire from above. Draco had found Hermione, who was looking dazed and frightened. One of her shoes was missing and he had to half carry her. The Malfoy heir locked eyes with Harry long enough to for him to point out their escape route. The only thing keeping him from running was Hermione, who obviously couldn’t.

Finally, they slipped into the Sentinel’s blind spot underneath the balcony and sped up into a brightly lit kitchen. It was completely empty, the service staff having wisely fled, if they could just figure out where.

“Shit, what now?” Draco swore, Hermione still clinging to him tightly.

“Excludo hostis!” Harry shouted at the door, locking it and hopefully buying them some time. “Now we get out of here. Mary, where’s the exit?”

“I don’t know!” she shouted, her entire body shaking with nerves. “I don’t know if there’s even one back here!”

“There has to be. They have to take out the trash and they’re not going to drag it through the entire club to do it. Look for-”

“Found it!” Clyde shouted, appearing from seemingly no where and pointing. “Hurry up!”

“Don’t run out yet, there could be Sentinels out there!” he warned, even as he herded everyone after him. Behind him, he could hear banging on the door. He cursed under his breath. Clyde hadn’t listened to his advice and ran straight into the alleyway, and everyone panicked and followed after including Harry himself, who threw up another spell to seal the door behind them.

The alley was empty. They were lucky or the Sentinels were not very bright or both. They hurried as fast as they could down the back and out into the neighboring street. Here there were several restaurants but only the pubs were still open. With no where to go, they simply kept moving, trying to look simultaneously inconspicuous and still move as quickly as possible and failed at both. Ginny cried softly, drunk and thoroughly frightened. Harry stuck his arm around her and held her tight.

He wasn’t scared. Far from it.

He was angry. Angry Natalie for her idea. Angry at Hermione for agreeing. Angry at Mary for picking the wrong club on the wrong night. Angry at the Sentinels for ruining everything. Mostly, however, he was angry at himself for not realizing how stupid they were all behaving and how much trouble they could have been in.

They hadn’t gotten far, however, when Hermione suddenly started to laugh. It started softly at first, nothing more than a little giggle, but soon enough she was laughing loud and hard, almost hysterical.

“Shit, Hermione, be quiet!” Draco hissed, looking around desperately for any sign of danger. She wouldn’t stop though, and if anything she only got louder. Then Natalie started in, quieter, but just persistent. Moments later, so was Clyde, although he tried to hide it. Draco looked to Harry, desperately, but he was as lost as the other. Mary turned to them, grinning, and pointed to a pub with red shutters and a Chudley Champions emblem hanging in the wind.

“Come on, let’s duck in here for a while. Ben’ll let us sit in the back for a while.”

Draco looked at her as if she’d spouted a second head.

“Are you kidding? After what just happened at the last booze joint you brought us to?”

“Would you prefer to wait out here for the next patrolling officer? Cause I warn you they come by here every thirty minutes or so, and we’re not exactly the sort they let by without a second glance.”

Mary’s friend Ben did let them in and sat them in a quiet corner booth, but refused to serve them anything other than butter beer, water, or lemonade. This suited Harry just fine, because he was in survival mode at the moment and not ‘lets be stupid and have fun’ mode. Ginny had settled down and remained tucked safely under his arm, staring morosely into a glass of water.

“It was fun while it lasted,” she said, softly. Hermione choked on a laugh and fought it back down; knowing if she started it would be hard to stop again. Natalie grinned.

“It was. A little bit more exciting than I had anticipated, but… yeah. Overall, I think it was a raving success. Thanks in large part to our two rather sour looking heroes. Lighten up, boys, you saved the damsels-”

“Hey! I found the exit!” Clyde protested. “And I’m not a damsel.”

“-and we all had a great time there for a while. Don’t say you didn’t.”

Mary clapped Natalie on the back.

“Girl after my own heart. Sorry about all of that nonsense with Sentinels. Djinn doesn’t usually have to worry about that sort of thing, but they do have a reputation for letting minors in sometimes and… well… other stuff. The local Court has to keep up appearances by hosing down the club every once in a while. Just a bit of bad luck it was tonight, is all.”

Harry disagreed. They had been lucky. Very, very lucky and that was it. It could have easily gone the other way. They could have been caught by the Sentinels. Hermione or anyone else for that matter could have been trampled by the panicking crowd. He could have gotten too drunk and had a psychotic episode in the middle of all that screaming and running. If Natalie hadn’t snapped him out of it, he could have-

But Hermione was smiling. Hermione who was always so serious and pragmatic and insightful was giggling into her butter beer, looking happier than he had ever seen before or after the betrothal. It occurred to him that he didn’t understand Hermione as well as he thought he did. He had always simply assumed she was just naturally driven and thoughtful, but what if that wasn’t the case? What if she was that way because she felt she needed to be?

Lucius Malfoy terrified her, her foster mother treated her like a well loved poodle, and she was surrounded at all times by pureblood men and women who did and likely always would look down on her for being a muggleborn. He could never doubt her intelligence, that wasn’t something a person could fake (at least not for very long), but the rest of it…? Growing up on the defensive at all times, constantly fearing that somehow she would prove everyone right about muggleborns, about her…

Merlin, he couldn’t even imagine growing up like that. It would be a nerve-wracking nightmare.

Which was perhaps why she could laugh now, after behaving as she had never dared to before. Abandoning the caging pretense of sophisticated young lady in one of the most respected families in Britain, if only for one night, to just be a silly teenager must have been an incredible relief.

So, even though he didn’t feel particularly happy, he managed to bury his anger and fear and smile for her.

It was ten in the morning, when Harry stumbled into the cottage, hung over and cursing the already sweltering summer heat. His head throbbed with every step he took and his stomach rolled as if filled with bile. These things he expected, but not the dry, wrung out feeling that left him feeling skeletal even if he didn’t look it. In any event, he had been banking on Snape being suitably distracted in his lab this late in the morning and hoping Ira would assume he’d just stayed up late (or perhaps wouldn’t mention his condition to her husband if he appeared suitably contrite).

Which meant he was in no way prepared when his guardian glared death at him the moment he walked in the door.

“I see you enjoyed yourself in the usual reckless manner adolescents prefer. Is it too much to hope that you didn’t set something on fire in your inebriated state? It’s rather more cliché than I had come to expect of you.”

Harry bit back a snappish remark, and immediately went to the cupboard for some tea. He wouldn’t put it passed Snape to make the duration of his hangover both longer and more miserable.

“No, there was no fire involved. I met some people when I went shopping and they invited me to a party. I’d drunk a little before… as you well know, but… it got a little out of hand.”

As he predicted, his guardian looked neither impressed or like he believed him.

“Magnus salvus.”

The kitchen was suddenly filled with a riot of banging and crashing and shrieking and whistling; all of it slamming into his brain like nails and a hammer. He doubled over and fell to his knees, covering his ears desperately with both hands and still trying to keep his balance as he dry heaved onto the floor.

“Stop, god and Merlin, stop!”

With a flick of Snape’s wand, the quiet once again descended, leaving Harry shaking on the floor.

“Are you ready to tell me the truth now?”

Frankly, he wasn’t. If he told him the truth he would have to tell him about the others, and while he was rather frightened of what would happen if the man found out his godchildren had been involved, he was even more worried about Natalie, Ginny, and Clyde who did not have the sort of protection that would keep them from getting expelled if Hogwart’s headmaster discovered what they had been doing.

“Why do you even care?” he grumbled instead. “I’m not dead or injured, so you’re off the hook.”

“Don’t be a jackass, Potter. You are not an adult, despite what you’ve convinced yourself, and your lack of good judgment reflects it. I give you rules for your own benefit-”

“The hell you do! Every thing you’ve ever done for me was either because you had to or because you got something out of it. You’re my guardian, not my father. You suck at ‘for your own good’,” he snarled, frustration and physical agony lacing every word with poison.

Snape was momentarily stunned by his outburst, as much by what was said as how it was said, and didn’t recover until Harry was already halfway to his room. Flustered, he barely managed a retort.

“You’re grounded till you’re dead!”

Somewhere upstairs a door slammed shut.

“Little prick. If only you knew exactly what I’ve done for you,” he muttered, and tried to figure out what to do with himself. He hadn’t been down to the lab that morning, and frankly he didn’t feel like brewing after his run in with his wayward charge. Good God, if this was Potter’s ‘rebellious phase’, he didn’t think he or the cottage would survive it for another month. He already knew the young man was hiding things from him. His collection of books, while impressive, seemed somehow incomplete in the study, and Harry’s frequent sojourn’s to town made him suspect he was hiding things either there in the surrounding countryside. Much of his copious free time was spent in his room studying and drinking tea, and yet he was always evasive about what exactly he had been studying when either he or Ira asked. Additionally, his silence in regards to Hermione’s betrothal was suspicious all its own.

If Harry were any other wayward teen he would have legilimens him for answers and doled out a suitable punishment, likely involving something tedious and necessary that he didn’t feel like doing himself. Punishment was still an option. Legilimens was not. He had grown too powerful for him to risk it.

And frankly, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.

What if Harry was already starting to plot against the Dark Lord? Was he witnessing the seed of the boy’s rebellion or were his own fears clouding his judgment?

“Are you done shouting at each other already?”

Snape gave a violent start.

“Woman!” he snapped in annoyance, but Ira just smiled knowingly and sat across the table from him.

“So he wasn’t at Clyde’s house?”

“Who knows? He might have been, and they both managed to scrounge up a bottle of something. Or the Weasley twins might have been involved. Honestly, he could have been up to anything. All I could determine was that he was extremely hung over, before he flounced out of here like a drama queen.”

“No doubt he went to lick his wounds. You’re painfully direct with your accusations, dear. The Noise Charm was a bit cruel.”

He didn’t like her coming to Harry’s defense, particularly since Snape felt as if he was wronged party in this instance.

“He lied to me, straight to my face, and he lied to you yesterday, as well. He deserved more than just a headache.”

“Can you blame him?” she asked.

“Well, obviously, I can,” he said shortly. She just smiled at his defensiveness.

“I’m not saying what he did was okay, and yes, he deserves to be grounded, but you can hardly blame him for his reaction. You have a very nasty habit of treating him like an adult and then punishing him like a child whenever it’s most convenient.”

He almost protested. Almost. Before he could even mount a plausible defense against the gentle accusation, he realized it was true. He did treat Harry like an adult and then like a child. Everybody did. He had adult jobs, he fought adult battles, and had very adult interests in magic, the war, and werewolf politics and no one who knew him seemed to find this particularly strange until something went wrong or he failed in someway to meet expectations. Then they stopped treating him like an adult and resorted to scolding and disciplining or coddling him like a child. It was hypocritical and wishy-washy, and he despised the notion that he had been playing into it like everyone else.

But honestly, what else could be done?

For all his maturity, Harry wasn’t an adult. He didn’t have the necessary experiences nor was he allowed many of the necessary mistakes that he needed to take of himself. He was floundering towards adulthood, and didn’t trust anyone (not unreasonable) to guide him due to the bizarre circumstances that defined his life that no one except perhaps the Dark Lord could relate to in any way.

It made Harry frustrating for him to deal with, and he doubted the boy enjoyed it any more than he did.

“I don’t know what to do with him. I’m responsible for him, but he doesn’t trust me,” he finally said, more than a little resentful at being made to say it. Ira nodded, sympathetically.

“I know. I wondered how to treat him too, at first. It’s too late to treat him like a child though. He’s too old, and would resent it. I found treating him like a roommate in a dormitory works best for me. We respect each other’s privacy, but we still talk and help each other out in the more neutral areas of the house, like the kitchen or the garden.”

“He lied to you too,” he pointed out. “And I have no intention of living in a dormitory. Especially, when he doesn’t even pay rent.”

“I think he lied because he cares what I think of him and he didn’t want me to be ashamed of him. That, and he didn’t want me to tattle to you. Otherwise, he’s always been very polite and respectful, and not because you’ve threatened him to be. Anyway, I don’t expect you to treat him the same way. I think you have to find something that works naturally for the both of you. Believe it or not, he’s closer to you than he is to me. In fact, you might be the person he’s closest to in the entire world[2].”

That was perhaps the most ludicrous and vaguely terrifying thing a woman had ever uttered to him. Her obvious amusement at his stricken expression did not help matters. She stood up from the table and kissed him on the cheek.

“Food for thought. Remember to stop by the school sometime today and pick up your paperwork. We have our appointment with Healer Jacobi this Saturday, and you won’t have time to do it this weekend. If you go now, I’ll have lunch ready for you by the time you get back.”

He nodded, distractedly. He liked it better when he was only concerned his ward was plotting treason.

McGunny scanned his notes, debating whether he should file them under the chapter for the ‘courtship behavior’ or for the ‘diet’ of dragons. Perhaps he should put it under courtship and leave a note to reference diet for more information. Or perhaps the other way around.

After trying to muddle through to the most logical solution, he decided to take a break and come back to it after lunch. He stood up from the heavy wooden table, and started rummaging through Hagrid’s cupboards for some cooking oil to fry up some vegetables and some left over lamb from last night. It was almost one now and his friend still had not returned, which meant he had likely forgotten about eating lunch again and he should go out to the rookery to feed him.

He was just finishing dicing up some eggplant, when a knock at the door drew his attention. Underneath the table, Fang lifted his monstrous head and let out a booming bark. Blizzard fluttered around in the rafters, startled out of its resting place, before settling again, looking rather annoyed and indignant. Quite an achievement since paper did not ruffle nearly as well as feathers did.

“Come in,” he called, and a moment later, a young man with brilliant orange hair strode in wearing a plucky grin. Fang lumbered over him, and the man rubbed the mastiff’s[3] head with a familiar affection. McGunny relaxed. No stranger would have been at ease with a giant of dog like Fang, no matter that he was really just a big teddy bear.

“Eh, lad, he’s got you doing the cooking now?”

“You ever tried to eat what he cooks?” McGunny remarked, and then paused, frowning a bit. “I’m sorry, but I forgot your name again. It begins with a ‘W’, does it?”

“Charlie Weasley. And don’t worry about it; it’ll stick one of these days. How’s the book coming?”

“Steadily. Hagrid’s been busy with the new hatchlings, so I haven’t had a lot of time to review my research with him.” He paused, looking down at his cutting board and quickly browning eggplant slices. “What was I doing again?”

“I think you were making lunch. Don’t ask me what exactly. Mum never cooked an eggplant in her life,” Charlie said easily, keeping his tone light. It was important not to react negatively around McGunny. He was sensitive and even the slightest rebuke tended to send him into a fit of nerves. After a brief investigation around the kitchen, the confused young man seemed to remember or at least figured out what he had been doing and lit the stove with a match.

He didn’t have a wand, which was perhaps one of the few things he had in common with Hagrid, and it definitely simplified their living arrangement. Charlie had known his large friend had a soft spot for strays, but he hadn’t known that extended to people too. Hagrid didn’t tell him where or how he had picked the forgetful fellow up, but it wasn’t hard to figure out when they had come to his door one night with the little origami bird and McGunny crying to ‘make it better’. He wasn’t a bad guy as he figured it, really almost as gentle as Hagrid, he was just really confused a lot of the time because of the memory thing.

Hagrid said things were so bad in York, he didn’t want to take the young man back until it had calmed down enough where he knew he would be properly taken care of. That had been two weeks ago, and what ever memory affliction he had seemed to have spread to the half giant, because he still hadn’t taken him in. When Charlie finally confronted him about it, he simply said that ‘Horace’ liked it better with Hagrid than at the hospital and that he had been steadily improving. He was even helping Hagrid write a book on caring for dragons, and they were both very excited about it.

After that, there really wasn’t any talking to the man about it. He was certain the hospital was making his new friend sicker, and what he needed more than anything was a peaceful place to rest and something interesting to do to exercise his mind and his memory, which was gradually improving, albeit in bits and pieces. His attempts at multitasking were a completely different matter.

“Would you like some lunch too?” he asked, looking up from the prying pan.

“No thanks, I’ve already eaten. I just wanted to check to see how you two were doing. Remember anything important lately?”

McGunny paused to consider for a moment, then blinked.

“What was I doing again?”

“Frying vegetables,” Charlie offered helpfully.

“And what’s your name again?”

He sighed. It might be doing McGunny some good living with Hagrid, but he couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be before a moment of distraction eventually resulted in his guest burning down his hutt.

1. Uncles’ is a nickname for Sentinels. Like ‘cops’ or ‘the fuzz’.↩

2. Please don’t rant at me about Voldemort being the person Harry’s closest to in the entire world. Believe me, no one knows this better than me, I wrote their relationship for Pete’s sake. This is just Ira’s impression, and honestly, it’s not that unreasonable. Snape has been with Harry since he first discovered he was a wizard and has practically raised him since then, albeit in a rather cool and calculated way. He’s saved Harry’s life on multiple occasions, given him meaningful advice, known and followed him through many of his adventures, and even shared a home with him. Their relationship isn’t typical or easy, often it’s antagonistic but they still have a strong bond that neither is entirely comfortable admitting to. Ira, who lives with them and observes the subtle fondness in their unique dynamic, can see it more readily than most. Voldemort, however, just freaks her out and Harry’s relationship with him is just baffling (and probably unhealthy).↩

3. Factoid. Fang is called a boarhound in the HP books, which is not a true breed but a term often used for Great Danes, but sometimes other large hunting breeds, including the Neopolitan Mastiff, which is the breed used in the HP movies.↩

Rebel II

For three days the Snape household was a place of silence. Snape sequestered himself in his lab, hardly unusual, and Harry hid in his room, also fairly common. Mealtimes, however, normally a time of congenial mocking that passed as conversation, now consisted of the clinking of dinnerware and the scrape of chair legs against the floor. The two male residents said not a word, nor did they look at each other, or acknowledge each other in any way except when Harry collected the dishes after dinner, long after the elder wizard had left for his study or the lab.

Ira held her peace through all of this, smiling in amusement at their childish behavior. She didn’t try to make conversation with either of them, but her cheery disposition seemed to make them both all the more sullen.

The fourth day started a pessimistically as the other three, but Snape came up from the lab early and found Harry making tea… with basil of all things. He couldn’t let it go without comment.

“I think you’ve confused tea with soup, Mr. Potter.”

The Gryffindor stiffened at the jibe.

“I’m experimenting. It’s actually quite good when I get the right combination, which is more than I can say for potions.”

“I’ll have you know there are several potions that taste quite good. Most of them are poisons, however, so I would thank you not to become too familiar with them. Besides, the purpose of potions is decidedly different than tea.”

“I don’t know. Different types of teas aren’t unlike potions. They have their own sort of magic.”

Snape watched him for several seconds, as he carefully measured out tea leaves, seasoning, dried flower petals, and sugar on the little kitchen scale with all the precision he had seen in his potion’s class. Harry’s strange hobby suddenly took on a new perspective.

“I trust this isn’t your latest attempt at pharmacology?”

Harry gave him an annoyed look.

“Shall I start an inventory of the ingredients I use? Just so you have an idea of what kind of mischief I’m getting into?”

Touché.

“As long as it doesn’t involve my potion’s cabinet, or my liquor cabinet for that matter, I am willing to overlook it.”

Harry snorted. “As if you don’t add a little nip now and then.”

“Only when you drive me to it, Mr. Potter,” he said, grabbing a wine glass from cabinet and headed for the study.

And with that, the universe fell into alignment, and Harry and Snape resumed their relationship as verbal antagonists when dinner rolled around. Ira said nothing of the sudden renewal of conversation at the kitchen table, but she bit her lip several times throughout the meal to keep herself from giggling.

“This is truly ghastly,” the potions master said, glaring down into his tea cup and then at Harry.

“No one asked you to try it,” the young man replied, and pointed took a sip from his cup. His cheek twitched a bit, but he managed not to grimace. It really was awful tea. Not that he would admit it to Snape. The taste wasn’t the purpose of it in any event. He had made a great deal of progress over the last week in narrowing down his animagus form, and with any luck this last cup meant he would be able to actually start learning to transmogrify with Sirius when he visited for the weekend. Also something he didn’t want Snape finding out about.

“Did Ron Weasley ever write back to you?” he asked, changing the subject. “We have a tournament on Thursday, and its bad form for the vice captain to miss three in a row.”

Snape looked mildly irritated. He too, was growing impatient with the duelist irresponsible behavior.

“No, but I informed him if he did not attend or at least provide a valid excuse for his absence, he would be cut from the team. His behavior sets an unacceptable precedent. You seem to be holding things together well enough in his absence.”

Harry snorted.

“Sure, for as long as I’m allowed to come. Mr. Flintus on the gaming board has been receiving complaint letters about me participating. Parents think I’m too advanced a duelist to participate on an amateur level.”

“Imagine that,” the man said, vaguely amused.

“I get the part with me not participating in the duels themselves, but I don’t see were they can tell me not to help the other duelists with training and advising. They don’t have the right to bar me from the sport altogether. Merlin, I miss Quidditch. No one gave me nearly this much grief.”

“Memory of a goldfish,” Snape muttered under his breath. “Lucius wished to have a meeting with you some time next week about a PR campaign. It’ll keep until Wednesday, at least. The Dark Lord is still in France, so I recommend playing nice.”

Saturday afternoon found Harry sequestered in Sirius’ hut, pouring over animal encyclopedias to narrow down his selection of animagus forms. Or at least that’s what he should have been doing. The fact of the matter was, however, his mind was flitting between a half dozen other things.

Lucius had apparently gotten bored of waiting for his answer or perhaps he had discovered something of Hermione’s night of rebellion, and was now going to demand Harry make a decision. His first and strongest impulse was to refuse an alliance. It made him feel anxious and unclean to even wonder what such relationship would entail and what it would ultimately lead him to surrendering.

But the more time that passed, the more anxious he became about the consequences of refusing. What if Hermione was unable to escape her marriage to Crouch? What if Lucius decided to punish Harry’s defiance by harming those he cared about? The Reichers? His school friends? Maybe even Snape and Ira, although he couldn’t be certain.

He wasn’t as worried about himself. Voldemort’s favor afforded him a certain level of protection, but even that had its limitations. The Dark Lord was a powerful guardian, but he wasn’t an indulgent one. He had proven he would allow Harry to flap in the wind for a while before coming to rescue him if he thought he could get away with it. Normally, this worked to Harry’s favor, as he preferred getting himself out of his own messes and leaving himself beholden to no one afterwards.

That was fine. He could handle that. It was everyone else that he was worried about. The best way to resolve the situation was to get Hermione out of her betrothal without any hint that he had been involved, directly or otherwise. Perhaps he could make a deal with Crouch, but seeing as he didn’t know the man he didn’t know what to offer or if it would be any better than a deal with Lucius. Plus, even if that marriage got called off, there was no know that the Malfoy patriarch wouldn’t throw his foster daughter at some other maniacal Pureblood asshole. Hermione’s emancipation was the best bet, but it was time sensitive and risky if word leaked back to Lucius, and didn’t get her completely out of danger. He didn’t doubt the dark wizard wouldn’t want his revenge for being thwarted by a couple of adolescents.

His musing were knocked from his mind by a slap to the back of the head.

“Ow! What was that for?” he protested, ducking away from his irritated godfather.

“Have you been listening to a thing I’ve said or have I been talking to myself like an ass for the last fifteen minutes?” Sirius snarled.

Outside, Harry could imagine the guards cringing as their Head Alpha’s irritated tone reached them. The day was muggy and gray, with storm clouds threatening to open at any moment, adding to the tense atmosphere. It was a well known ‘fact’ that Blackbone and his godson had a falling out, that the former shaman’s defiant attitude grated on the alpha’s nerves. Harry and his godfathers were careful to foster this illusion, and they were so successful that the other residences of Goddess Clan gossiped about it constantly. The young wizard couldn’t walk a hundred paces without three or four men or women offering him a comforting pat on the back or a scolding to be more respectful.

“Sorry,” he grumbled, rubbing his head. “I’m just a little distracted. Some stuff happened since we last talked.”

Sirius’ annoyed expression melted into honest curiosity.

“Like what?”

“Maybe we should wait for Remus so I can tell you both…”

“He won’t be back until evening meal, and you’re just wasting time until you at least vent. Come on, I’ll tell him when he gets back if I can’t help you sort it out.”

Harry hesitated. He loved Sirius, he really did, but delicate and subtle were not his forte. Then again, this might be one of those circumstances where his godfather’s forthrightness was what was called for.

“Alright, so it’s like this…”

Despite how complicated it seemed to Harry, it only took him about ten minutes to explain the situation to Sirius, who listened intently, neither asking questions nor making comments. When Harry was done speaking, his godfather remained silent and considered for several minutes.

“Send her to France.”

Harry just looked at him.

“Um…okay. Maybe. That’s sort of a last resort, but if we have to…”

Sirius shook his head.

“It’s your only viable option. If Malfoy can’t win this little game he’s got going, he’ll make sure the both of you can’t either. Meaning, he’ll marry her off or he’ll kill her. You need to move her off the board altogether, and then start playing offensively.”

“If she runs, she’ll always be running.”

“She’ll only be running until Lucius is dead. If she’s lucky he’ll get his comeuppance soon enough.”

“And if she’s not?”

“What has she got to lose? Nothing you weren’t willing to, when you escaped to Germany.”

Harry shifted uncomfortably at the reminder of his time in Germany. It had all been so confusing and lonely and frightening, and he could not see himself knowingly sending Hermione to that same fate. Sirius could tell the idea disturbed Harry, so he revised his plan a bit.

“If you don’t want to hide her, then move her to France legitimately. Get her emancipated, and have her legally transfer to Beauxbaton’s. You are good friends with Delacour, who has an in with both the school and Queen Ophelia. If you can convince the queen to put her under her personal protection, the Dark Lord will prevent Lucius from doing anything to her that would jeopardize their diplomatic relations.”

Harry ran the idea over in his head, looking at it from several different angles. He saw a lot of potential. Outside of Britain and under Queen Ophelia’s patronage (if he could actually swing it), Hermione might not have Malfoy’s vast resources but she would have the connections she needed to make a life for herself that she could be proud of, and Lucius would have no way to retaliate. She would be safe. She could be happy.

“Sirius, that’s very politically savvy of you.”

The alpha just rolled his eyes.

“No need to get insulting.”

“I’ll have to run it by Hermione at the next time I see her, and see how she’s coming along with that whole emancipation thing. Maybe, I can even get Snape in on this…no, probably not. I want him to have plausible deniability…”

“Why?” he asked, sounding genuinely confused on why that would be important. Harry tossed him an annoyed look.

“Despite being a general prick, he has been a good guardian and saved my life a couple of times, so I owe him that much consideration at least. Besides, I like Ira, and don’t want to see her dragged into this if it can be avoided.”

“Which you might not be able to do. You’re going to need an adult to make some of these arrangements. One you can trust not to rat you out to Lucius… which now that I think about, is just another reason not to tell him. The buggers were tight as thieves last I checked. I don’t suppose you know anyone willing to run your errands? Discreetly?”

Harry thought for a moment. He couldn’t involve anyone particularly close to him. His teachers, the twins, the Reichers, Snape, Voldemort… all of them had conflicting interests or vulnerabilities. Otherwise, he didn’t know of any adult who had the resources or the trust necessary for… wait a minute.

“I think I know just the person.”

“Great, now stick your nose back in the book and don’t pull it out again until you know which one you want to be.”

Tom strived to keep his face blank as he handed off the latest reports to General Malfoy. Even with a face a bland as Lt. Stratus’, he was hard pressed not to smirk as evidence of his handiwork had finally started to manifest itself. The blond wizard didn’t bother looking from his paperwork, hardly uncommon, but where normally this would have been a sign he didn’t acknowledge his visitor as important, he was muttering out loud rather vicious things that suggested he didn’t even realize he had an audience. In one hand he held a quill and in the other his forehead, massaging gently to relieve some sort of headache that had been bothering him for at least a week.

Nothing overt. Nothing anyone couldn’t or wouldn’t attribute to perfectly innocent sources. Stress, no doubt. The result of too little sleep, too much work, a poor diet, and a great deal of responsibility during highly volatile times. Lord Voldemort was finishing his treaty in France, leaving his general to hold down the fort while he carried out a political seduction on the opposite side of the channel. In addition to coordinating his own troops and their foreign allies in Germany, he was also busy organizing the operation to oust the Italians from London, something Tom was eagerly assisting him in.

No one suspected anything.

In this instance, it helped that Lucius was such a heartless, temperamental bastard. Everyone who did notice that their head general seemed to be unwell refrained from commenting or else was viciously rebuffed. The dark wizard hadn’t been home in a week due to his busy schedule. No one was there to notice him getting sicker and sicker.

At least, no one who cared enough to do something about it.

Which was why he was now enjoying the angry mutterings of a man, slowly but surely, going insane.

“Bloody Italians couldn’t leave well enough alone… had to bring God and garlic bread and their stupid haircuts into London. Take their damnable Hail Maries and drown themselves, the lot of them. Should have sent the dementors to wipe the whole place instead of just leaving them to make fishing lousy in the Northern channel. But does he think of that? No, he’s too busy humping that French whale. Come back and play house with that Potter wretch… son of a mudblooded whore and that man-bitch Black. God, what’s the matter with this country?”

Don’t worry, Lucius, I’ll fix it up for you, Tom thought. Too bad you won’t be around to enjoy it.

And he did intend to sort out this nightmarish mess the Dark Lord had been creating over the last several years. The werewolves had been given entirely too much independence, the Italians should never have been allowed to enter England, and their relationship with France was that of a lovesick panderer rather than an equal… no… superior, and this nonsense with Harry… Merlin, the boy was growing into something truly magnificent, but he was being handled far too carelessly. When he took his rightful place, he would ensure his dear friend received the proper education, respect, and protection that he deserved.

And have that interfering fool Snape and his entire family torn to pieces and fed to pigs. And possibly that stupid Hermione girl. Or maybe he could convince Lucius to kill her. It shouldn’t be hard, not if his current string of murderous ramblings was anything to go by. Two birds with one stone.

The time for his own ascension was drawing nearer as Malfoy slowly succumbed to the toxic magic woven into the paper reports he handed to the man everyday, multiple times a day. Individual papers held too little to set off the dark arts sensing wards, already set high due to Lucius’ naturally dark signature, but over time they were successfully being absorbed a little bit at a time.

Tom knew he should be thanking someone. It was all far too convenient to be the turn of an ambiguous fortune. His too easily acquired position in such close and consistent contact with his target, the ease of slipping the cursed papers into one of the most heavily fortified buildings in the world, his target’s distraction, the absence of the Dark Lord or anyone else who might take note of Lucius’ condition… too many ways that it all could have gone wrong, too many contingencies he had not been forced to engage. He could feel the pull of another’s interference. A curse on a much older, much more powerful scale than modern wizards practiced today.

I wonder if Harry might not have a grudge against General Malfoy, Tom mused, finally slipping out of the office. It would be rather amusing and ironically appropriate if his friend weren’t helping him yet again to reach his goals without even realizing it

“Maybe we should wait another day or two,” Ira said, fidgeting with her wedding ring. Her husband’s potion lab was dark and cool, but she could feel herself sweating from nerves. Beside her, Severus looked as calm and collected as always. No, he looked even more collected, which was a dead give away that he was anxious too.

“This potion is very accurate to within thirty-six hours of conception. There’s no point in waiting. We can retest in a week if it would make you feel better, but I would like to know as soon as possible.”

“If I am… you know… will it be able to tell if it’s a girl or a boy?”

Severus smiled very faintly.

“That is a different potion that requires forty-two days after conception to be accurate. You’ll be able to cling to your anticipation for a bit longer, as you seem to enjoy it.”

“I’m nervous. Can you blame me? Healer Jacobi said our chances were just a little above half…”

“You’re right,” Severus suddenly agreed, setting the last ingredient- an eye dropper of Ira’s blood- back into its little storage wrack. “We should wait until we’re both calm. You’re much too excitable right now. It can’t be good for you.”

She looked startled, her eyes flickering to the cauldron, the eye dropper, and her husband in quick succession. Then again. And again.

“I’m better now.”

He smirked. Her eyes narrowed.

“This is because I teased you about Harry, isn’t it?”

“Not at all, I’m merely concerned over your wellbeing.”

“And I am concerned over your wellbeing as well… if you don’t finish the potion in the next five seconds.”

“Then for the sake of our mutual wellbeing,” he agreed, and added the two drops of blood to the potion.

They both leaned over the cauldron, and held their breath. The red droplets gradually dissolved into the shimmering grey solution, before suddenly turning black, then a transparent dark purple. Ira looked to her husband hopefully. He continued to stare at the potion intently until it finally changed to clear dark red.

He looked up.

He smiled.

The Dark Lord was in a rare good mood when he returned to Bristol. Not that the war really put him in a particularly bad mood, but the victories were rarely meaningful enough for him to feel truly satisfied. This was one of those rare occasions. He had his treaty with France, at last, and the support of the local parliament. He would need both to secure his foothold on the mainland, and more importantly if he ever wanted to be acknowledged as a royal sovereign in Europe.

It didn’t hurt that the sex was fantastic.

If he did land himself in Unholy Matrimony with her Majesty, he entertained the notion of not killing her for at least a few decades.

Well, no need to commit to a plan of action just yet. Wedding bells were a long ways off if they ever happened, and he had more immediate concerns. Soldiers and aides saluted and got out of his way as he passed, a few of the more bold tossing out a compliment over his success in France, as he made his way to his private office. He listened with half an ear as one of his personal aides gave him a run down of what had happened in the last two weeks and what needed his attention.

The London operation was progressing according to plan, with minor skirmishes along the edge of the city used to lull the Italians into a attitude of overconfidence while their positions within in the city were being ascertained for true attack. Morgan had unearthed a plot by German spies to assassinate him that weekend, and wanted to know if they should be executed immediately or put on public trial. That might actually be a bit of fun. Ireland was complaining of food shortages in the North, and Scotland was complaining about the dementors off the coast. A riot had broken out in Summerset, Wales, possibly due to political unrest but more likely due to a canceled Quidditch match. Oh, and Headmaster Snape had sent him an invitation for a little get together that Wednesday.

He took the invitation from his aid and reviewed it personally; quite curious as to what would inspire an avid recluse like his surly potions master to host a soiree. His new wife’s idea, perhaps?

He looked at the small mountain of missives piled on his desk and the aid’s appointment book peppered with meetings and conferences, and calculated his choices. There was no particular reason for him to be social while in the middle of several delicate military operations, but at the same time he did want to speak with both the new Headmaster of Hogwarts and his young protégé for personal and professional reasons. He could do that at a later time in private, however, when it was more convenient. Chances are he had been invited as a courtesy rather than with the expectation of actually appearing.

He sorted through more of his mail to get a better idea of what needed his personal attention and what could be given to someone else, when he came across a short memo from a Lt. Stratus. The name was vaguely familiar, although he couldn’t say why, and he scanned the contents then frowned. The memo was painfully formal and correct, but the essence of the message was vaguely seditious or perhaps that was just his inner Slytherin talking. Lt. Stratus was expressing some vague concern over General Malfoy’s health. These sorts of letters were fairly common, and usually indicative of officer attempting to gain favor by undermining a superior. However, the memo gave no indication that Malfoy’s work or judgment had suffered any, and the lieutenant was too far down in rank to benefit directly from undermining a general. Perhaps this was a legitimate concern?

Unlikely, but it would only take a few minutes to confirm one way or another.

Lucius’ office occupied the neighboring wing across from his own, and he was strolling through his door within moments of passing through his own.

“Knock damn you, can’t-!” the office’s occupantl snarled at the unexpected interruption, then abruptly broke off when he saw who had disturbed him. “My Lord, I-I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

“It’s fine, Lucius. I would be quite irate if some rank soldier strutted into my office unannounced, as well,” he said, dismissively, eyeing the wizard critically. The general’s face was pale and swallow, his eyes deeply shadowed. He looked tired and thin, and stressed. Lucius hadn’t exactly been bright and shinning when he left, but clearly things had deteriorated far quicker than he had anticipated.

At least it didn’t appear to have gotten too severe. A few days of rest or at least of lighter duties would likely do him a world of good.

“You look terrible, my friend. Have you been sleeping alright?”

The man waved the question away, as if insignificant.

“I’m fine. I heard things went well in France.”

“Yes. We’ll be able to start moving into their fortresses along the border within the week. I’ve assigned Sharpe to hand it.”

“My Lord, I am-”

“You’re over extended enough as it is. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how to delegate since I left?”

Lucius started at him witlessly. That was mildly concerning.

“You really do look awful. I’m ordering you to take a few days off. Finish what you need to and hand the rest to someone else to do.”

“My Lord, London-” he protested.

“Won’t be ready for a final attack until at least Saturday. Let the other officers handle the scuffles in the mean time. I mean it, Lucius. I want you out of here by 7:00pm tonight and not to comeback until 7:00am on Thursday. Get some sleep, eat a full meal, make love to your wife. Oh, and come to Severus’ house on Wednesday night. Drinking his brandy always puts you in a congenial mood.”

“My Lord-”

“That’s an order, General,” the Dark Lord threw over his shoulder as he made his way back to his office, shutting the door on any protests the other might have made. The man would thank him later. Honestly, he thought he knew better than to run himself ragged. He wasn’t a young man anymore, and should understand the value of pacing oneself.

Good deed done for the decade, he entertained the notion of heading to the aviary and tormenting Bobby for a while. The raven had to be terribly bored at this point. While busy weighing the pros and cons of procrastinating on his reports, he passed a soldier in the hall who stopped and saluted him. There was nothing remarkable about the man, but something about him suddenly made him stop and turn to him.

A glance at his uniform revealed the wizard to be a decorated lieutenant, and none other than the questionable Stratus who had alerted him to his general’s fatigue. After a second, it clicked. He had awarded this man a medal at some point. The second siege of Berlin if he remembered correctly.

He mentally shrugged off the sense of familiarity and moved on without comment. He’d send a memo commending him for bringing the matter to his attention. There was no point in creating a sense of personal interest in the hallway for such a trivial matter.

As he turned a corner, as if on instinct, he tilted his head to catch one more glance of the soldier, but the hall was already empty.

For a ‘small gathering’, Harry didn’t much see the purpose in dressing up, especially when he knew everyone there, but Snape had insisted and he didn’t feel like disrupting their current peace over something so trivial. Didn’t mean he was going to pretend he liked it though.

“Will you stop fiddling with your collar? It’s not choking you,” Hermione scolded gently. Harry, Draco, and she were loitering in the hall for as long as possible. Once they went to the parlor the ‘children should be seen and not heard’ stigma would rear its ugly head and they’d have to sit around and be bored while the adults made conversation.

“It itches. Silk always feels itchy to me when it’s warm,” he whined. He glanced over his shoulder, and into the parlor to make sure no one was paying them any attention. Malfoy Sr. seemed to be suffering from a headache; effectively distracting him from what otherwise might have seemed highly suspicious. Snape and Ira were acting like newly weds again, paying little mind to anything but each other, and Narcissa and Susan were gossiping with them about something. The only one who seemed to notice them at all was Morgan, but then very little escaped his notice.

“Let’s go to the study,” he suggested. “I think one or two more people should be showing up, so we won’t have to hang around until then.”

“What is this all about, anyway? Uncle Severus never hosts parties,” Draco asked, as they entered the sheltered seclusion of Snape’s private office. He took the chair behind the desk, while Hermione claimed the one nearest the Southern window. Harry remained standing, pacing slowly around the room.

“He’s making some sort of announcement.”

“About what?”

“They haven’t told me, but I can make a few guesses. Never mind that, I wanted to talk to you both about the emancipation. Are you making any progress?”

Hermione let out an irritated sigh.

“I’ve got the paperwork just fine, but I haven’t had a lot of luck finding a sponsor. I don’t even know where to start.”

“Not that it would matter anyway, since administration is so far backed up I’d be a legal adult before she ever got approval,” Draco sneered in disgust.

“That might be a good thing. Doesn’t a betrothal contract need to be approved?”

“Father pushed that through weeks ago. It’s not that these things aren’t getting done; it’s just there’s a lot of backlog and confusion since they evacuated London. Higher ups get precedent. Anyway, we need to time this just right or father will hear about it and find some way to throw a wrench in the works.”

Harry nodded.

“I think I know someone who can help. Did I ever tell you about Skeeter?”

Both of them gave each other a confused look.

“The reporter?” asked Hermione.

“Yes, her. Anyway, she might have some connections we need to push the paperwork through. She’s a big shot reporter, she’s got to have friends in the Court and she might know someone willing to stick it to Lucius by sponsoring Hermione.”

“Are you mad?” Draco all but shouted at him. “She’s a reporter! She’ll report this! It’ll be a circus!”

Harry waved him off.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got something on her. She won’t dare say anything or else I’ll air her own dirty secret.”

“What? When did this happen?”

“A tale for another time. I don’t know when we’re going to have to go back to the parlor, so I want to run this by you first.”

He told them about what he had discussed with Sirius that weekend with the possibility of Hermione moving to France to finish her education and find a career. Draco didn’t like it. The idea of his sister being so far away and fleeing the country like those British refugees in the last war did was in no way appealing. Harry suspected he didn’t understand or just couldn’t accept the level of danger his father represented, and was becoming very cross with his denial but kept his voice down incase someone came to check on them.

Hermione didn’t say anything. She sat in her chair, hands in her lap, and face pinched in intense concentration. She was considering it, but there was no way of telling if she would jump on the idea or dismiss it. Draco could see she was thinking about it and tried to convince her it was a bad idea, but they were interrupted before he could get very far. The door to the study opened.

“Harry, dear?” Susan queried, as she poked her head inside. When she saw them there, she smiled. “Oh, good, you’re here. Lord Voldemort and Miss Victoria have arrived. You all need to come to the parlor now.”

She hurried all off to join the party, and they all moved to follow with a bit more reluctance. Draco was the first out the door and threw back, “It’s a stupid idea.”

Yes, well, he wasn’t the one who got to decide that. He turned to his friend who still held her considering expression.

“Hermione?”

“I don’t know, Harry. A part of me is screaming ‘yes’, but it’s so loud I can’t think. It just seems too good to be true. I can’t plan my life around a daydream.”

“But you can plan to live a happy life,” he insisted. Her eyes widened, part wonder and part fear, at the possibilities she had never dared entertain. “Just think about it. You don’t need to decide right this minute. We can talk about it more, later.”

They had no choice but to talk about it later, because they had reached the parlor. They were a rather motley party. A Dark Lord, a pureblood Aristocrat and family, their defiant muggleborn foster child, a master sentinel, a housewife, a headmaster, an entomologist, a squib servant (except he rather suspected Vicky wasn’t really), and himself. The interactions weren’t altogether smooth or easy. Vicky hugged him rather audaciously, and Harry was surprised Lady Malfoy didn’t faint on the spot. Hermione was maintaining her distance from General Malfoy and as a result was stuck on the otherside of Voldemort, who couldn’t seem to figure out what she was doing there, and Susan was puttering around Draco like he were four years old and the cutest thing in the world. Despite the seriousness of the conversation he had just been having only a minute before, he was struggling not to laugh.

Unfortunately, Snape had far less tolerance for his guests’ absurdity and drew their attention after only a few minutes of their social floundering.

“If I might have your attention for a moment, please. I have an announcement to make,” the dark man said, drawing their attention. He placed his hand on Ira’s shoulder, and she smiled up at him encouragingly. “I am not generally a social individual.”

There were a few tittering laughs at this confession.

“I generally find social gatherings tedious and frivolous. However, I… we find ourselves the recipients of unusually good fortune, which we wish to share with those whom we are closest to. Ira and I are going to have a child.”

Susan cry of absolute delight probably woke babies in the neighboring village, and she rushed to envelop her daughter in a hug before anyone else had managed to absorb the news. After a moment, the shock wore off, and the soon-to-be parents became the recipients of a volley of congratulations and questions and parental advice.

Harry stood on the outside of it, uncertain. He had suspected all along that this was what they had been so excited about. Although they never talked about it in front of him, he knew Ira had been going to a healer routinely for several weeks now, and since she always seemed cheerful after these visits he knew she wasn’t sick. To have it all confirmed, however, left him somewhat disoriented.

There was going to be a baby in the house. Snape and Ira’s baby.

The idea left him uneasy, and he couldn’t think why. It wasn’t jealousy. He had never had that sort of relationship with either of them, and honestly, he would only be around the baby for a summer before he finished school and started making his own way in the world, out from under Snape’s domineering glower.

It might even be fun to have a baby in the house. He liked kids. At least, he liked Morgana and Alyssa, and this shouldn’t be too terribly different, right?

He wasn’t so sure. He managed a smile for Ira, and a half joke about knowing all along, but spent the evening on the sidelines of the conversation, trying to sort out his own feelings. It wasn’t until Lucius suddenly stormed out of the room that he realized he hadn’t been following along with what was happening. He turned to listen to the angry tread of the man’s retreat and flinched when the door suddenly slammed. Looking back to the gathered crowds, he could see everyone looking either confused or else angry. Among the angry was Snape, which did not bode well for the rest of the evening.

“I’m sorry, Severus,” Narcissa apologized. “He’s been short tempered for weeks now. Migraines.”

Snape smiled tightly at her, but did not pursue the matter and after a few awkward starts the conversation resumed. Harry looked to Hermione, whose unforgiving glare was still transfixed on where her foster father had just exited. He would have to ask her what had happened later then. While it was sort of selfish to think it, if Lucius and Snape’s relationship was already souring, he might be able to enlist the man’s help with Hermione after all.

An hour passed, and eventually the men grew tired of baby talk and moved on to other things. Voldemort was curious as to what Snape’s short and long term plans for Hogwarts were and encouraged him to be ambitious, even during these financially tight times. Everyone was curious about Voldemort’s work in France and his plans now that he had secured an alliance with such a powerful nation. Morgan was not much of a conversationalist, but he did manage to carry on fairly interesting discussion about an upcoming trial against a crew of German assassins.

Harry still didn’t have much to say, his mind was too full with too many things, and he allowed Draco to handle most of the talking when it came to their impression of children’s lives during this time of war. Draco’s life was a bit more sheltered than most, but he managed to convey the sense of self-determination that seemed to permeate their generation that even Harry had been conscious of. They were all anxious about fighting and attacks, but they were ready to do what they needed to for their country and were certain of their eventual victory. Perhaps they were both a bit optimistic, given that a majority of their experience with other young people involved dueling club or their own houses, all of which were known for having competitive go-getters to begin with. Their replies seemed to confirm what the other men already knew, but were nevertheless pleased to hear.

Eventually, the evening began to wind down. The Morgans and Narcissa left. Victoria helped Ira take the wine and liquor glasses to the kitchen. Snape took his godchildren to his study to talk with them in private. And Harry found himself sitting alone with Voldemort.

“You’ve been unusually quiet this evening,” the Dark Lord commented. Harry smiled sheepishly at him.

“Sorry. I have a lot on my mind.”

“Were you surprised about the baby?”

“Not really,” he said, but didn’t elaborate. He didn’t know if he could without rambling nonsensically.

“Any progress with your friend’s betrothal?”

“I… yes. I think we’ve established that she’s going to be emancipated. There are some problems with getting a sponsor and pushing the paperwork through. I don’t suppose you know any heavy hitters willing to take a poke at Lucius by helping me out?”

Voldemort smirked.

“None that wouldn’t turn the entire thing into a media circus. It only benefits them if they use it to publically humiliate Lucius. Something I am not entirely sure I would approve of. He is the lead commander of my armies after all.”

“Could you at least push the paperwork through?”

“No, that would be direct interference.”

Harry gave an irritated huff.

“Can I at least use your name to push the paperwork through?”

Voldemort grinned.

“Now you’re catching on. You could do so, but only at your own risk. I would deny any involvement if asked to verify the request. Besides, why would you need my name? Your own should suffice.”

“I don’t want Lucius to be able to blame me for this. I’d prefer it appear that Hermione got herself out of this mess all by herself.”

“Self preservation? Harry, I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

“Hey! I’m plenty self-preserved… er…or something. Although, that’s not what I meant. I can handle Lucius one-on-one, but he’s threatened people I know and I don’t know if I can protect them, so yeah… I’d rather he have a singular target that had nothing to do with me or mine.”

“And Hermione does not fall under this category?”

“If she accepts my plan, I’m hoping I’ll have her moved from out of his shadow of influence forever.”

Voldemort considered his words, staring at him thoughtfully.

“Very ambitious, the best sort of plan. Care to elaborate?”

“Care to push through the paperwork?”

“Are you trying to bargain with me?”

“I’m fairly certain ‘James’ means ‘ambitious’ somewhere.”

“It does not, you little wretch. Forget it. Surprise me. It should be fun. Any other requests I can preemptively shoot down?”

Harry glared at him. “You’re a lot more fun when I’m crazy, you know that?”

“It works both ways, my friend.”

“I’d like to visit Queen Ophelia.”

Now that did take Voldemort off guard. He quickly tried to analyze the feasibility of such a request, and what such a visit might pertain to.

“Another part of your plot?”

“Maybe, maybe not. I have other things going on besides my personal campaign against the blond menace.”

That was very true. He knew Harry was still visiting his godfathers, and that he was still maintaining at least some of his duties to Blackbone. A friendship with France assured the continued expansion of his werewolf colonies both within and outside of Britain, and Harry still played an important role there. The attack in Berlin by the rebellious werewolves had shaken the public confidence of the French, and only Harry’s popularity and loyalty to his cause kept the colonization programs from being disbanded in parliament. Whether it was simply to maintain his reputation or a new program he wanted to run by the queen on Blackbone’s behalf, it was to his benefit to visit every so often. Truthfully, it benefitted Voldemort, as well, since Harry’s good reputation tended to lend itself to the Dark Lord, at least to a certain extent. His personal rescue of Harry from the Berlin Underground had done wonders for improving their opinion of him there.

Or perhaps it was something less political. Harry had friends in France, including the queen herself, Miss Delacour, and probably few others he wasn’t aware of. Snape had just returned from there, and it wasn’t completely without reason that Harry might be a bit jealous about the vacation.

Honestly, when it came to Harry, it was probably something he couldn’t even think of.

“… Oh, and can I wander around Ireland aimlessly for a week or so without supervision?” Harry tossed in.

“What?”

“Just thought I’d ask. You know, make the first request seem more reasonable. Although, if you want to go for the second one, there are some things I wanted to do there.”

“I’m sure the fairies would be more than welcoming,” he pointed out. “If you want to go to France in some official capacity, I can arrange it, but if this is something more personal there will be time constraints.”

“Oh… well, I guess it’s personal, so what are the constraints?”

“The queen is a very busy woman. She only schedules a few days out of every month to entertain socially. Additionally, school starts in another four and half weeks, and I have no intention of pulling you from your studies, so it will have to be on either a weekend or holiday. Then of course, you’ll need an appropriate guardian.”

“Would you like to come to France with me?”

“While I am charmed that I would be the first person to pop into your head, I too have my own time constraints that are not so easily foreseen this far in advance. It is still a possibility. Then, of course, you would have to convince your guardian.”

Harry grimaced, but nodded. If things were going badly with Lucius, Snape might very happily assist him in his plan to go France. Assuming he wasn’t too busy running the school or preparing for the new baby. Ugh.

“Do you still want to try it?”

“Yes. I should make time to visit her anyway, even if I didn’t have another reason. I can probably get Snape to agree.”

“Very well, it might be a month or two before something can be arranged. Even her Highnesses social calendar is quite full.”

Harry nodded.

“Thank you.”

“Hhmm… consider it your birthday present… somewhat delayed.”

He managed a smile at that. “It’s the thought the counts, you know.”

The Dark Lord rolled his eyes.

“What a perfectly muggle notion.”

“Here ye, here ye. I declare this the second annual meeting of the Anti-Betrothal Society. Has the president made any progress with the current project?”

“Do shut up, Natalie,” Hermione groused, flicking a chocolate frog leg at her. The other girl simply caught it in midflight popped it into her mouth, smiling smugly. Harry, Draco, Clyde, Ginny, Natalie, and Hermione, co-conspirators all, had not seen each other for several weeks since the brief get together on his birthday, which had been more of a planning session than an actual celebration, but they were definitely making headway.

Hermione had decided to give Sirius’ idea a try, and agreed studying abroad would probably be the best thing. Draco was still adamantly against the idea of her being so far away, especially in a time of war where no one would be able to help her or even know if something had happened to her and he was not at all happy with Harry for giving her the idea in the first place. She wasn’t going to change her mind now that she had made a decision, and he was left to sulk over the matter and make a general pessimistic nuisance of himself.

Meanwhile, Natalie had been looking for sponsors for Hermione through the rather long list of feminist friends her mothers knew, hoping to find someone genuinely sympathetic to the girl’s situation rather than hoping to take advantage of it.

“Honestly, is that anyway to treat a friend? I’ve spent a great deal of my own time working to fix yourproblem, I hope you know.” All she received for her effort was an impatient glare. “Alright, fine! I think I’ve found three likely candidates,” she explained. “All from well established families with big hearts and bigger bank accounts. John Carrobs lost two daughters during the war and has had a soft spot for muggleborn girls ever since. Lots of scholarships and job placements, that sort of thing. Delamora Flitch, tried for killing her husband in ’68, but got off on self defense. Remarried in ’73, widowed in ’89, and likes to spend her time raising rare birds and promoting divorce. Charming woman. And finally, my personal favorite, Andoria Smythe, sued her father for child abuse when she was seventeen, won, and used the money to start several women run music stores.”

“Where do you meet these people?” Draco wondered.

“Outside the manor grounds, darling. You should try wandering around a bit for something other than shopping.”

“Enough,” Harry interceded, before they started bickering. “Those all sound promising. I’ll contact Skeeter to make sure there’s nothing that isn’t going to come up and bite us in the ass, and then have her look into pushing the paperwork through discretely. I’ve got an invite to attend a masquerade in Paris in mid October. That should give us eight months to work it all out or come up with a new plan.”

“This is so exciting. I hope they make a play about it one day.”

“Well, I’m glad at least someone is enjoying all of this,” Hermione bit off bitterly, but Natalie, as usual, was ignoring her sour mood.

The door to their compartment slid open and a bespectacled third year popped his head inside, only to find himself greeted by several wands pointed at him.

“Oi! What I’d do?”

“Ever hear of knocking?” Draco snapped.

“I did!”

“The Silencing Charm was up,” Hermione reminded him, and everyone tucked their wands away. “Sorry about that. What did you want then?”

“Eh. I’m looking for somewhere else to sit. This guy in my compartment looks like he’s ready hurl at any moment.”

“What, is he sick? Cursed?”

The boy shrugged. Hermione rolled her eyes.

“For Merlin’s sake. Take me to him.”

“Fine,” he grumbled, “Don’t know what you expect to do about it.”

“More than you obviously can be bothered with. The rest of you stay here, he probably just needs and anti-motion sickness charm. It should only take a minute.”

“Yes, Nurse Hermione,” Natalie jibed.

“You do know I’m a prefect, don’t you?”

“You do know I’m one too?”

She rolled her eyes and left, leaving them to fill the void her abrupt departure created. Inevitably, it turned to quidditch and the national cup victory by the underdog team, the Derbanshire Devils, followed by a rousing debate over who was going to replace Snape as the supervisor in dueling club. They hadn’t gotten very far, when Hermione returned to their compartment, white as a sheet.

“Harry, I need you for a minute.”

She grabbed his arm and hauled him out into the hallway before he could even ask what was happening, and hurriedly marched into another car. Several students had stuck their heads out of their compartment, listening to what Harry thought was some of the most horrific coughing he had ever heard. It was loud, harsh, and disturbingly wet.

“Hermione, what is-”

“He said you’d know what to do.”

“He who? I don’t know how to stop a cough! I never got to take First Aide remember? I got blown up that semester.”

She wasn’t amused, and pretty much ignored him until they reached the door the coughing was originating from. She threw it open, and pulled Harry inside after her. Hunched over in his seat, Ron Weasley was struggling to take on air, his lungs rattling with every labored breath. He was white as a sheet and soaking wet.

“Oh god, he’s even worse than before,” she said. “It has to be a curse or a poison. Nothing else would work this fast. Do you recognize it?”

Harry could honestly say he didn’t. He had seen truly horrific curses in his life, but nothing quite like this. He couldn’t even begin to guess how to start helping him. What he did know, however, was that he didn’t want Hermione to be in here if it all somehow proved… lethal.

“Go find the conductor and tell him what’s happening. He might be able to get a healer for us,” he ordered.

“Can you help him?” she begged.

“Maybe,” he lied. “Hurry up, I’ll stay with him.”

She nodded and hurried out to find help. He closed the door behind her and threw up a silencing charm. Ron stared at him blearily through one eye, still hunched over as if he expected to start heaving at any moment.

“Why did you tell her to get me? What do you think I can do that no one else on the train can?” he demanded, taking a threatening step forward.

Needles, hot tar, and stagnant water washed over him, stabbing and pulling at his senses, tearing off little pieces of him and filling it with mud. He leapt away, staggering as far back as the compartment would allow. His magus sensatia was going crazy, telling him in a hundred different ways that this wasn’t right. It was wrong and terrible and unclean.

“Fuck, ugh… fuck. Who did this to you?”

Ron closed his eyes tiredly, and Harry understood.

“You idiot. YOU GODDAMN IDIOT!You did it to yourself, didn’t you? You tried to fucking kill someone, but it blew up in your face! Shit! How could you be so stupid?”

“Please…,” Ron begged weakly, his voice like sandpaper. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I need your help. I thought…” he broke off into several body wrenching gasps, until finally he managed to regain control of himself. “I thought… I’d have more t-time t-to fix th-this… but… it’s getting… worse… faster… P-please.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Please…”

By now Ron was all but in tears, terrified and exhausted. Harry’s own magic recoiled and shifted unpleasantly as he watched the effects of the curse slowly tearing the other boy to pieces from the inside out. He tried closing his eyes, to block it out, but even without seeing he could still feel it.

What could he do though? He wasn’t a healer, and this wasn’t a curse he knew how to handle. He didn’t know its source or its method, and even if he did he wasn’t sure how to undo it. It was contaminating the very air around him, and he didn’t….

“I’ll be right back. I think I know something that might help.”

He stormed out of the compartment and down the hall, sending other passengers ducking out of his way as made his way back to his car. His friends looked up from a game of cards as he stepped inside, but he didn’t give them time to say anything before he summoned down his trunk from the overhead compartment, and dropped it on the floor.

“Hey, watcher!” Clyde protested, barely moving his foot in time from receiving a nasty stomping.

“Sorry, no time to explain,” he blurted, opening the trunk and digging through its contents as quickly as he could. He found the sealed wooden box at the bottom right corner where he had left it, pulled it out, and ran for the door without bothering to close his trunk.

“What’s going on?” Ginny called after him, but he didn’t reply. Back inside with Ron, he closed the door once again and sealed it shut. He didn’t want anyone seeing what he was doing and attempting to stop him. The redhead was struggling harder than ever for air, watching with growing desperation as Harry worked to save him.

“Scarlet pimpernel,” Harry whispered and the box opened, revealing his ritual dagger, small jars of ink, brushes, chalk, charcoal, and a thick bundle of dried, leafy stalks. He took the bundled herbs and closed the box. He glanced at Ron, and told him bluntly. “I have no idea if this is going to work or not, or how well. I should just let you choke on your own blood, but we actually share some mutual friends in common who might give a damn.”

Taking his wand, he lit the bundle on fire. Within seconds, a strong, fragrant smoke filled the small room. Ron started to wheeze again, to panic as the air grew thinner and the smoke grew thicker. He threw his hand out to knock the burning herbs from Harry’s hand and when that failed, he struggled to his feet to take them. He was weak as a kitten, but Harry was struggling to breathe himself and his eyes were watering. He was starting to think this had been the mother of all stupid ideas, when Ron fell on top of him.

The dirty feeling of the curse lingered and rubbed again his magic in the same filthy way, but it was no longer as all powering as it had been before. He wasn’t sure what affect it had on Ron’s internal magic, but at least the air around him and been partially cleansed. He struggled to push Ron off of him, and made his way to the window, which he opened to let out the smoky air.

“What-” Ron wheezed, but already his lungs sounded clearer. “- was that?”

“Sage. It’s used to purify an area of negative energies. And guess what you are, you dumb pillock?”

The Slytherin blinked at him.

“I’m cured?” he asked hopefully.

“No. It’s in too deep, whatever it is. It’ll come back.”

“But the sage helps?”

“Apparently.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know! I didn’t even know if it would work! You figure it out,” he snapped, and threw open the door. Hermione, the conductor, and several attendants stood there and gave him a startled look.

“What happened? Why did you lock the door?” the conductor demanded.

“Er…”

“Ron, are you alright?” Hermione called, worriedly.

“I’m fine,” he replied, his voice stronger even if it was still a bit raspy. “I was just having an allergic reaction. Potter sorted me out.”

“Why does it smell like smoke in here?” the conductor persisted, turning redder by the moment. “Are you boys smoking something?”

Harry spent the entire ride back to Hogwarts trying to convince the conductor that no, they had not been doing drugs or engaging in any other sort of illegal activity. Ron had a slow allergic reaction from one of the Bernie Botts every flavor beans, and he knew Harry had ways of treating it which involved burning special herbs because of a previous experience. Harry had locked the door so no one would open it and disperse the medicinal smoke before it took affect. The silencing charm was just habit. Honest.

The conductor didn’t believe them for a minute, but since he had no evidence of anything other than Harry saving Ron’s life, he didn’t have the authority to hold them once the train had reached its destination. Frustrated, annoyed, and just plain angry with the entire situation, he had stalked away from Ron as soon as the first opportunity presented itself.

The youngest Weasley son wasn’t quite ready to let him go yet, however, and caught up to him before he had a chance to climb into a waiting carriage and pulled him off to the side.

“Wait! Potter, hold on!”

“Go away, Weasley.”

“Oh, come on. Can’t I at least say ‘thank you’? You saved my life! I haven’t felt this good in weeks!”

“You’re welcome. Goodbye.”

“Whoa, whoa, what’s your hurry? Off to save orphans from a fire?” the Slytherin laughed. Harry wasn’t buying his good cheer, and his glare pointedly told him so. Ron sobered, his smile melting from his face.

“I screwed up.”

“No shit. What happened?”

Ron fidgeted. “It was going well enough for the most part, it was just at the end see. There was this cat. I was suppose to… you know. Bleed it. I thought it would be easy, but… it struggled… and the knife slipped and I cut myself instead, and the cat got away. Then it all pretty much exploded in my face.”

Harry found himself thinking of the sianach he had killed, how easily the knife had slipped in and out, but the blood hadn’t been as controllable. It ahd been on his face and his clothes before he could finish. Voldemort had been there to show him how to do it, to understand the meaning behind what he had done, the horrifying beauty of it.

And here was Ron, ignorant and arrogant, thinking he could control what he couldn’t even begin to understand. He had tried to use the death of an innocent animal to beget the murder of another man without any respect for what he was doing, and the gods had given him a metaphorical slap to the face for it. It was infuriating and pitiful, and he didn’t want to deal with it.

“I’m not going to help you fix this. I bought you time. Use it to find a solution yourself.”

“Potter, give me a break! I’ve been trying since it happened. The book I used had counter curses for this sort of thing, but the thing burned during the accident! Without that book, I have no clue what I’m doing. You figured out in half a minute what I couldn’t figure out in two months! Please! I’ve never begged for a thing in my life, until today. I need your help.”

Harry spun around, ready to punch the other in the face, but Ron stumbled and fell before it landed.

“Just like you needed my help to murder?” he snarled like a cornered animal. “You brought this on yourself. Talk to Snape, talk to the Celtic studies teacher, hell, talk to Madam Pomfrey, but don’t talk to me. I wash my hands of you.”

And with that, he stalked away, leaving the other sitting stupefied in the dirt.

Everything Changes I

Auror Commander Mandalari was a man of moderation. Too much of anything, good or bad, always led to disaster as far as he was concerned. Which was why after almost three months stationed in London, pillaging the heathen city with barely so much as a wrist slap from the Dark Lord’s supposedly formidable army, he was feeling anxious and his fellow soldiers were like-wise uneasy. The battle of York had been more than bad luck. The ease with which their forces had been dispatched, by a single wizard no less (albeit one of the servants of the Dark One), had brought a sudden and stark realization to him and his comrades.

They had taken London, and they remained there, because that was exactly where the Dark Lord wanted them. Even discounting York, their handful of attempts to attack other cities had gone poorly, and they had been unable to do more than cause some property damage and kill a handful of civilians and soldiers, and always at a price. A price their captured city had not been able to pay.

London had been a strategically sound attack point for a number of reasons. It was the center of government, art, education, etc. and its loss should have thrown the country into chaos and destroyed British morale. The overwhelming wealth of the city should also have financed the invasion and the continuing battles for decades. Their attack, however, had been pre-empted, and much of the wealth and governmental infrastructure had been moved from the city. The universities had been closed that spring, the museums and libraries emptied or else made impenetrable, the government offices spread to different cities across the country. What wealth remained was found in the private dwellings of the city’s more affluent neighborhoods, but extracting valuables from these places required specialized training and time, making their earnings moderate at best. They had been so pleased with ease of their victory at the beginning that it had taken them several weeks to realize their great triumph was only a mediocre one.

It was painful to accept, and some still had not. Mandalari had accepted it as a devil’s trick, and fortified his spirit against what was to come. He was a veteran, old enough to remember Grindelwald and the sacrifices that had been made to keep him from gaining a foothold in the motherland. Raised in this place, this new, stronger, subtler evil stretched its hand across Europe to continue where his predecessor had failed. Britain would have to be destroyed; the pagan taint that permeated it wiped clean with prayer, fire, and iron will. If they did not, the ungodly magics and teachings would spread and corrupt the people.

It had been a long time coming. England, Scotland, and Wales had always been resistant to the spread of Catholicism, and the quickest to throw it off with their heretical Church of England. The Irish remained stubbornly steadfast in their faith, but they were surrounded on all sides and at all times by the fiendish fairy folk and always on the cusp of falling, having neither the strength nor will to do away with their eldritch neighbors altogether. It was no surprise to Mandalari or anyone else that the wellspring of this evil should spring from these ancient shores. They had been the final hiding place for Old Ways after all[1].

This was their final great battle against the Old Ways, and nothing less than their souls were at stake here. While Germany, France, and all the others worried about borders and sovereignty, the wizards and witches of Italy saw the greater scheme. Germany had kicked the hornet’s nest, but it was merely an excuse the Dark Lord had been waiting for. Any fool could see the creature had been prepared, had been biding his time and building his strength, while Europe buried its head in the sand and waited for it all to just go away. Already the corruption was spreading across the Continent, the people quivering in fear or adoration and all of it feeding the power of the foulest conjurer of their age.

London had been a baited trap, a diversion, but Mandalari was not stupid. They could not linger for much longer. Any true progress had to be made outside the capitol city, in places of legitimate strategy and of magical corruption. They would find the ancient places, the places of power that the Dark Lord coveted, and that tainted the world, and they would destroy them and with them the source of his strength.

Mandalari moved through the rubble to the former Ministry building. The structure had been sealed after the destruction of the former Ministry of Magic, and the Italian Aurors had been making use of it, finding it a fitting new base of operation. There were ghosts in the building, spirits of former office workers and Aurors, who welcomed them there with a ghostly spite against their mutual enemies or else kept their distance and their silence. The entire building was gradually falling into a grandiose dilapidation, the magic used to support it neglected for fifteen years, and the elements very slowly making their way into the walls. The portraits hanging throughout were faded, and the subjects were sluggish and bleary eyed, rarely moving from their respective frame. The charmed windows in the levels below overlooked a sunny harbor somewhere in Cornwall, everyday, twenty four hours a day and played havoc with everyone’s sense of time. The architecture was still sound though, and the columns and arches and marble stairwells and gilded lamps still maintained their splendor, albeit under a fine layer of dust. One of the other soldiers had managed to get the fountain in the courtyard working, and the soft sound of splashing water made the place seem almost lively at times. Someone else had placed crucifixes around the necks of the witch and the wizard statues, and something about that cheered Mandalari up whenever he saw it.

God was on their side. Of that, he was absolutely certain.

He passed through the courtyard and into the building’s internal offices. There were several that had built in anti-spying wards and he was happy to make use of them. Mandalari was the last to arrive, but no one dared scold his tardiness. He was a busy man and a respected man. It didn’t matter that he was late to a meeting he himself had called.

“Gentlemen,” he said, addressing the dozen witches and wizards gathered within the large oval shaped conference room. Many of them, he had handpicked himself, and he was pleased to see the resolve in their hard expressions and pitiless eyes. “… I believe I have found our next target.”

Tonks gripped tightly to her partner’s hand, reminding him, sometimes painfully, that they were not running away. She had told him before their mission that they were absolutely not to run or fidget or look around nervously. There wasn’t much she could do about the later two, except hiss angrily at him every so often, but she could keep him from running.

“People remember runners,” she said crossly, as they made their way towards Rue du Manquant, the last completely wizarding street this side of Paris before they hit the muggle parts of the city. “And for God’s sake, Elton, stop fidgeting. Here, hold the umbrella.”

“Well, excuse me. I don’t have a lot of practice with this sort of thing,” the man beside her grumbled in English, but took the umbrella nonetheless. He was a little younger than her and handsome enough when he wasn’t being mulish. She was already quite sick of him and his seemingly unending incompetence. His only contribution thus far was his ability to get them inside the office building where he worked as a janitor, and since then had been pestering her with questions or drawing unwanted attention or just generally being a rank amateur. Her own short temper wasn’t helping matters, but it had been cold and raining for days, her contacts in Paris had been unreliable, and her sleep had been poor so it was unlikely to improve anytime soon.

“If you can’t handle it, then you shouldn’t-”

Her chastisement was cut off by a loud rumble and a slight tremor beneath their feet. Around them, Parisians cried out in alarm, and there was a loud crash of breaking glass and china from the nearby cafes as people dropped or knocked over their dishes. It only lasted a moment, and then stopped. Witches and wizards swarmed out into the street with their wands drawn, looking for the source of the explosion, while families with children remained in the relative safety of the stores and restaurants, looking out curiously through the windows. Tonks and her companion stopped and stared as well, as irresistibly drawn to the sight of chaos as everyone else.

“Where is the Chambre les Affaires étrangères? We should be able to see the turrets from here?” a woman shouted in French.

“Mon dieu! Mon dieu!”

“Was there anyone inside?”

“I think it’s closed on Sunday, but who knows?”

“Where are the Aurors? They should be-”

A loud siren rang through the city, briefly cutting off the crowd’s growing agitation. It was not the high wailing sound typical of muggle sirens, which seemed to provoke an immediate sense of panic. The wizarding alarm was a low bellow that rattled the windows and seemed to freeze the people in their tracks. Unlike muggles, it was an alarm meant to summon fighters rather than scare away potential victims.

Within moments, several individuals separated themselves from the crowd and began running towards the summons, and less than a minute later Aurors and Musketeers were zipping overhead, flying low along the streets to keep from being seen by muggles.

“It’s time to go,” Tonks finally said, and moved her companion quietly away towards the muggle side of town. He was pale and unresisting as she led him through an empty alleyway, at the end of which they would go their separate ways. Before they could reach the end, however, they found their way blocked by two Aurors. Elton stiffened beside her, instinctively dropped the umbrella and tried for his wand, but she held fast to his arm and picked up the dropped item.

“Ah! You scared us!” she said, attempting to cover up the mistake, lifting the umbrella back over their heads and smiling apologetically.

One of the Aurors, a middle aged women with a severe mouth, seemed to notice but did not immediately react. Her partner, young and with a rather contrite expression lifted his empty hand in a halting motion.

“I am sorry madam, monsieur, but I must ask you to go back. The inner section of the city is cordoned off for safety reasons.”

Tonks adopted her best, wide-eyed and frightened look.

“Safety? But surely it is not safe here? Are we under attack? What if another building blows up? Please, monsieur let us go home! We left the children with my mother and they will be terribly frightened!” she begged in French.

The young Auror looked sympathetic, but his senior partner remained unmoved, and more importantly her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“You are married?” the Auror asked.

“Oui,” she said, daring a glance at her ‘husband’ who looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

“Then where are your rings?”

Tonks faltered for a moment, and it was all the justification the Auror needed to draw her wand. Beside her Elton spooked, and foolishly pulled his arm free of her to go for his own wand. The stunning hex hit him before he could even pull his hand from his robe. Tonks’ reflexes were faster. She grabbed Elton before he fell completely and shoved him into the Auror, knocking her down.

“Petrificus totalus!” she snapped out, catching the younger Auror before he could overcome his shock, and then bolted for the other end of the alley and back out into wizarding Paris. She just managed to turn the corner before a hex flew passed her, and she didn’t bother stopping to throw one back. The city was sealed and she needed to find a way out as quickly as possible.

But Paris was not her city. It was an old city, but too progressive for her to make much sense of it. Witches and wizards here drove cars and rode bicycles rather than walked and flooed and apparated, and it changed how the streets and buildings were laid out in ways she had never considered. Once she had lost her pursuers in a lucky turn into a crowd of people and quickly changed her hair from straight black to honey blond curls, she forced herself to stop running. She had no place prepared to hide in except the crowd, and for that she couldn’t run unless they did so as well.

Within a few minutes, a public announcement was ringing through the streets.

“At approximately 6:37pm an explosion at the Chambre les Affaires étrangères has occurred. No casualties are being reported at this time, and a suspect has been apprehended by city Aurors. The inner city has been temporarily sealed to search for additional suspects. Please move to Rue du Manquent, Rue du Araignée, or Rue du Rogét in a calm and orderly fashion, where Aurors will be present to escort you out of the city. Please have identification ready for examination. More announcements will be issued as necessary. Thank you for your cooperation.”

Tonks winced internally. Her French wasn’t nearly as good as her German, but she knew she was in trouble. She had not expected security to be so tight or well organized. It was a sloppy mistake on her part. One she was likely going to have to pay for. Around her, the crowd buzzed with excited speculation, but moved steadily towards the evacuation points. They were not going in a direction Tonks wanted to follow, but if she tried to move against the crowd she would soon be noticed and already she could see Aurors moving into position on street corners. Her description had likely been circulated along with news of Elton’s arrest already.

Gradually, she moved out of the crowd and into a café where patrons were still gathering, waiting out the crowds or else gathering more news about what was happening. She did her best to seem inconspicuous, ordering a cup of coffee while she tried to figure out what she was going to do. She had few options. She could hide, but she didn’t know the city well enough to find a place that an Auror couldn’t. She could make a run for it, and would almost certainly be caught. She could try to sneak through the check points. The last one was risky for a variety of reasons, not so much because she was worried about being recognized (her natural shapeshifting abilities would take care of that), but because she had no papers and her wand was traceable from the spell she had used on the Auror.

Ah hell, she had charmed her way through check points before.

The bad weather that had dogged her throughout her stay in Paris proved itself a boon. The rain began to fall harder, bringing on a premature night and a convenient excuse to hide behind the high collar of her rain-proof robes and the plain black umbrella she purchased at the café. Aurors and civilians alike were wet and impatient, eager to be done and gone. By eight, it was completely dark and skirmishes were erupting in the crowd, as Tonks made her way slowly up the Rue du Araignée. She started a few of them herself with a silent, well placed pushing hex, distracting an Auror who took a second glance too long at her as she passed.

Ahead of her she could see the crowd divided into three lines, each line passing through two or three Aurors who were checking identification and asking the people questions. She chose the line on the furthest left, where the Aurors were looking the most harried and impatient and the civilians were meeting their attitude with some of their own, further aggravating the situation. As she drew nearer the checkpoint, so that only three or four people were in front of her, she cast a very light shoving charm on the wizard ahead of the one in front of her.

The wizard, a heavy set man with a thick white beard, spun around to face a tall, thin young wizard.

“You insolent cub! I ought to backhand you into next Thursday!”

The thin man sneered, albeit with some uncertainty. “What are you talking about? I haven’t done anything.”

“You have been whining like a baby ever since you started standing behind me, thinking I can’t hear you muttering! And now you shove me, and think I won’t notice that either?”

“I didn’t touch you!”

By now the Aurors were done with the people ahead and calling the elder man forward, but the man was ignoring them in favor of taking his frustration out on the other. The thin wizard wasn’t rising to the bait, but he wasn’t calming things down either as he continued to deny his guilt and further incite his accuser. Predictably, a scuffle broke out, and the Aurors had to rush in to pull them apart. During the distraction, Tonks slipped behind them and slipped by.

She let out a sigh of relief as she walked away, still caught in the crowd. A little smile managed to find its way onto her face and for the first time that day things seemed to be looking up for her.

“Excuse me, madame,” someone called. Tonks didn’t pay much attention. There were several people outside the check points waiting for friends and family to come out, despite the heavy rain. “Madame! You in the dark green robes.”

Tonks froze. She was wearing dark green robes. Hesitantly, she turned around. A girl, perhaps only a year or two out of school, and dressed in the blue and silver robes of a Musketeer was moving towards her. Something about her pretty pale face seemed familiar, but Tonk’s couldn’t immediately think of from where. Keeping a cool head, she smiled a bit nervously at her.

“Yes, is something wrong?”

Despite being so young, the girl had a very confident expression, completely different from young Auror she had stunned earlier that day. Musketeers were said to be the elite, a step above even the finest Aurors, and she wasn’t entirely sure what she was facing now. The young witch’s stare was very serious and focused, her eyes flitting over her quickly to assess where she was keeping her wand and what she was carrying or potentially hiding. Tonks felt her luck had run out.

“I am going to have to check your identification, please.”

“But I just-” she tried to protest.

“No you did not,” the girl said sharply, daring her to lie.

Tonks went for sheepish.

“You saw that did you? Sorry. It’s just been a really long day, and I didn’t want to have to wait there another ten minutes because some idiot caused trouble. Umm, let me see… would you mind holding my umbrella for a second while I get it out?”

The girl hesitated for the first time, but reached for the umbrella with the hand opposite her wand. Tonks went for her wand. The Musketeer immediately kicked her in the stomach, knocking her onto her back. She threw the open umbrella at her, knocking the girl’s arm movement out of synch with her spell, before throwing up one of her own.

“Expelliarmus!”

The Musketeer flew back several meters into a handful of civilians, but clutched stubbornly to her wand. It only took a few seconds for her to clear her head and climb shakily to her feet, but Tonks was already sprinting down the street, dodging in between pedestrians as she went. She dared a glance behind her to see several Aurors and another musketeer giving chase behind her. She tried to apparate, but soon felt the resistance of anti-apparation wards and didn’t try again.

Turning down an alley filled with junk, she ran and leaped and dodged about as she went. Behind her, she could hear spells being shouted at her and the sound of smashing wood and breaking glass where they struck creates and bottles. Out of the mouth of the alley, she ran towards the street, only to leap back as a sleek silver car swerved to avoid running her over. Atop its hood a glowing sign read ‘Taxi Parisien’.

She was in muggle Paris!

From the alley, her pursuers began to pour out, heedless of their surroundings as they raised their wands to attack. Throwing off her green robe, she bolted into the street traffic, ignoring the blaring of horns as she went. A loud ‘wump’ behind her meant someone else hadn’t managed to make it across the same way. Across the street, she ducked into a shop and ran straight through, splattering postcards and nicnacs with her rain soaked clothes, and kept going straight on into the back of the store with the cashier behind the counter screaming obscenities at her. The back door was locked, but she blasted it open with a spell. Into another alley, and then blasting in through another backdoor into what appeared to be a tailors and then out into another street, turning left towards the busiest street she could find. She tried to hail a taxi, but they seemed to swerve out of her way. Chances were she looked ten kinds of crazy running around in the rain in combat boots and a knitted dress. Not her best fashion choice, but it seemed to matter when she was wearing her robes.

Or perhaps it was the ten or so other crazies in robes running after her that made her such an undesirable fare. The sidewalks were all but deserted, even though the streets themselves were packed with commuters, and she had to duck into traffic twice to dodge a hex. As fast as she ran and as many trick turns as she tried to take, there was always someone behind her, slowly closing in, and she still had no idea where she was going. A wrong turn led her onto a street of storefronts with no alleys to duck into, and she was running out of breath. She made an attempt to run through a dinner, but as she flung the door open a curse caught her head on in the chest, and sent her flying. She landed roughly on the pavement and rolled into the gutter between two cars parked along the street, loosing her wand in an open drain.

“Don’t move! Don’t move or I’ll blow your damn head off!”

Tonks, barely clinging to consciousness, her body going into shock from the spell and the cold, glanced up blearily at her attacker. It was the girl from before. Her pretty face was twisted into something not quite human, her blond locks flying around her as if caught in a gale. Delacour, she thought, finally remembering where she had seen the girl before, and realized it was a fairly useless tidbit of information now.

She calculated the odds of managing to roll into the street and surviving to tell the tale, and found them very poor. Her wand was lost, probably washed away, and a part of her mourned its loss more than her own capture.

“Let me see your hands!” Delacour commanded, just as a second Musketeer and several Aurors caught up with her.

“Good work. I wish I still had your stamina,” the elder Musketeer said, breathing heavily from the running. He trained his wand on Tonks now as well, but turned to speak to the Aurors. “Take care of any muggle witnesses. We’ll wrap up here.”

Delacour still had not moved her eyes from where they were trained on Tonks, her barely contained rage was not the least bit sated as her prey placed her empty hands in front of her on the sidewalk. The metamorphmagus glared death right back at her, the affect she felt was somewhat dimmed given that she was not using her true eyes to deliver it.

“Well, Miss Guttersnipe, perhaps you wouldn’t mind climbing out of there? Preferably, with your hands where we can see them,” the older Musketeer said smugly.

Slowly, Tonks pushed herself up, the metal grate digging into her knees. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Once she was standing, that was it. She was done. Her mission was over and all she could do was fight to hold onto her secrets for as long as possible, waiting for death or imprisonment or both.

But that was the way of it. She had known from the beginning when she had joined the Order of the Phoenix that the end of her story wasn’t going to be a pleasant one. There was nothing to regret. She was leaving no one behind. Her husband was dead, her parents were dead, most of her friends too, and those few that remained understood this was to be their own sacrifice eventually.

She hoped it wasn’t for nothing. That her mission wasn’t a frivolous as it first appeared and that her efforts would mean more than a side note in history. She hoped Viktor forgave her when she saw him again. The time seemed to becoming soon.

She opened her eyes, preparing to stand.

And stopped.

Ten long, pale fingers rose up from between the metal grate beneath her, curling around the thick metal on either side of her knees. She blinked once, and then the grate was pulled clean out from under her. Screaming, she fell through the darkened hole and into the sewer below. Icy cold water sprung up to meet her, swallowing her down into a rapid current. Frantically, she struggle to swim, but the water was filled with debris; trash, branches, dead and not so dead things.

Then something grabbed her, hard and powerful and too cold to be truly alive. It pulled her up and out of the water, and into its arms, and then they were moving. The movement was too fast, too intense and inside her stomach filthy water sloshed nauseatingly. She struggled on instinct; against sickness, against panic, against the incredible strength of the arms around her.

“Stop!” she found herself saying, first in English, then in French.

But her captor didn’t stop, and the movement around them became more jarring as it seemed to be leaping now, up and down and over, water from the streets above raining down on them at some point along with the noise of traffic. A particularly long fall downwards, and the sudden stop was all it took before she started gagging, and at last she was set shakily on her feet, vomiting into the water that reached up to her elbows.

“I do apologize,” a voice; male, German, and somewhat mocking said, echoing against the wet stone walls around them. It was pitch black in the sewer, but obviously it didn’t seem to bother the man… creature… whatever it was. “I thought we needed to make a certain amount of distance from our spell-happy friends. We’re almost two and half miles now. That should be sufficient, if you wish to apparate. If you dare, in your current condition anyway.”

“Who- who are you?” she asked, and then added after a moment. “What are you?”

“You can’t guess? I don’t blame you for being a bit slow on the uptake. That Musketeer gave you quite a nasty blow. My name is irrelevant. I don’t think we’ll meet again.”

She remained silent, absorbing that information. It was difficult to think. She was cold, and she probably did have a concussion.

“Are you going to kill me?”

“No. I assure you there was far easier prey walking about if that was what I wanted. Besides, you probably taste like sewer now.”

“Shut up. That’s hardly my fault. Why did you help me then?”

“I was told to.”

“By who?”

The creature chuckled softly.

“By the only one who can order a vampire to do anything. Hold out your hand. I have a treat for you.”

“No. I don’t trust you.”

Another laugh.

“Very good, but you’ll want this. Every witch and wizard does,” he goaded.

Honestly, there wasn’t much she could do if he chose to hurt her, and since he obviously had some incentive not to, she did as she was told. Her wand settled back into her hand, a familiar weight that warmed her fingers by its mere presence.

“Lumos!”

Light did nothing to improve her setting. The sewer was ancient, part of the old city; the brick walls were shiny and black, even as they crumbled into the brackish water from invading roots and passing vermin. She spun her wand around, searching for her rescuer, but there was only empty tunnels disappearing into the darkness beyond her wand glow.

“Hey! Are you there? Who are you?” she called, but there was no reply. She was alone or at least meant to think she was. She waited for a minute, collecting her wits and searching in vain for her rescuer. Finally, she could no longer tolerate the cold, cramped darkness of the underground and apparated away with a loud pop.

Further down the tunnel, the vampire waited and watched for the witch to disappear. When she was gone, he made his way back home, moving through the sewers and then higher up into the catacombs after he crossed the beneath the river on the other side of Paris, where the famous crypts and graveyards of the city stood. Paris’ underground city was not like Berlin’s in layout or texture or smell, but there was something comforting about it nonetheless. His master had chosen their coven’s new home well.

He exited the catacombs in Montmartre Cemetery as a shadow, slipping passed the night watchman with no more than few raised hairs on the back of the mortal’s neck to mark his passing. A block south of the cemetery, an abandoned paper mill had been converted into loft apartments that suited his coven’s needs just fine. The rent was exorbitant, but it had the benefit of being run by muggles who didn’t ask questions. His keycard allowed him access to the first level, entering immediately into a lounge where a majority of the coven was gathered. The decadent luxury of Katarina’s style was absent here, replaced by an aesthetic of simplicity and open space, not unlike a martial arts dojo or a Bhuddist temple. Quiet and open, it was a place of reflection and unconstrained movement.

It suited his master very well.

“The woman escaped,” he announced brazenly, causing several vampires to look up. Viktor was not one of them. He simply turned the page of a large tome in his lap, unmoving from his chair beside the fireplace.

“Good. Did anyone see you?”

“No, not even the woman herself. I don’t know if she even understood what I was. She was disoriented from the fight.”

“She will work it out eventually.”

“Oh? You are familiar with her then? An old friend perhaps?”

“An old acquaintance. She owes us a favor now, and I might call to collect upon it one of these days.”

Goethe snickered. His master really was adorable when he played the cold Machiavellian prince.

“Of course, a favor. I do enjoy these games you play. So much more interesting than Katarina’s, bless her undead soul.”

“This is not a game.”

“If there is a winner and a loser, then it is a game,” the elder vampire replied teasingly, and headed for the stairs. He needed to wash and change his clothes. While he enjoyed playing with mortals, particularly witches and wizards, running around a sewer during a rainstorm was not his idea of fun. Distracted by the thought of a hot shower, he failed to notice that his last barb had struck home, and Viktor’s sharp black gaze was torn from the pages of his book to follow his irascible minion up the stairs.

Harry liked Hogwarts. Honestly, he did. Even when it had giant killer snakes in the basement and madmen plotting to kill him and some seriously questionable teaching staff, he generally enjoyed living and studying there. There was something that never grew old about waking up in a the magnificent castle to learn magic. It didn’t hurt that he was good at magic, either through natural talent or Voldemort’s special brand of tutelage, and that he had a certain set of skills that made learning more magic quite simple. He wouldn’t say classes were easy, but aside from the occasional rough patch, he was a good student and enjoyed the leeway that bought him with most of his teachers.

So at the start of sixth year, a wonderful year as far as classes went because there were plenty of interesting electives and no NEWTS or OWLS to worry about at the end of term, Harry was happy enough with his class choices. In addition to the standard Herbology, Advanced Potions, Transfiguration, History of Magic, and Astronomy, he had tested high enough to get out of Charms and DA&D, and into Magical Theory & Spell Design, which left him a free period to take Magical Art again, as well as his semester electives; Magical First Aid (he kept missing that class due to hospitalization it seemed) and Introduction to Military Training. The last one was taught by Lockhart, and not something Harry wanted to associate himself with, but Snape had insisted he take it.

Harry expected it was revenge for existing.

Classes were routine, controlled, and tedious with the occasional educational gem thrown in from time to time. Lately, Harry had even found studying to be a fairly relaxing activity, even if he still didn’t enjoy it with the same enthusiasm as Hermione.

It was outside of classes that he found himself struggling with. Harry was popular. Extremely popular, and it was not nearly as enjoyable as people seemed to think it was. It seemed he couldn’t find a spare moment where someone didn’t want him for something. The Dueling Club had elected him Sr. Dueling Club Vice Captain after Ron’s expulsion for missing too many tournaments, and while he enjoyed the club he didn’t enjoy his teammates constantly interrupting his meals, study time, commute between classes, or what was supposed to be his leisure time to ask for advice or favors or excuses. This also applied to the inexplicably large number of girls at school who suddenly seemed to want to go out with him. Go out where, he hadn’t a clue, because everyone was still pretty much locked in the castle twenty-four seven these days, but he could honestly say he wasn’t interested.

Well, he was, but in a purely physical way that all teenage boys are. Honestly, he had bigger things on his plate without worrying about a girlfriend.

At least other students he could deal with. Teachers were a completely different matter. He didn’t have Lockhart until second semester (he was secretly hoping he would be hospitalized again to get out of it), but the man kept popping up at random times to offer him ‘advice’ about this and that and being more popular or something. It was extremely annoying, but he was developing methods of avoiding the man, primarily taking his meals in the tower and changing the routes he traveled to classes everyday. He actually had Slughorn for class and couldn’t escape him, however, and while the man wasn’t nearly as obnoxious, he was pushy about getting Harry to come to some of his dinner parties. Something Harry didn’t want to waste his preciously little free time doing. Professor Vector had even cornered him twice in the hall trying to convince him to drop Astronomy in favor of Arithmancy, and try some additional projects similar to the one he had done for his final semester the year before.

The most he could do with these teachers was make vague, noncommittal statements and wait for them to go away.

Somewhere in all of this he apparently had made enemies. He honestly didn’t notice them as busy as he was, but his friends assured him they were around. Gary St. James, Ginny’s ex-boyfriend, apparently had a whole little club of Harry-Haters, which was sort of funny and sort of sad. Draco informed him they were an unpopular minority, but he couldn’t care less one way or another. As long as they weren’t plotting his murder, they were free to do what they wanted. He had been shunned by the student body before, and frankly he was finding he preferred it these days

He would have preferred the free time and space that being socially ostracized afforded him to work on his several private projects. His animagus studies had all but ground to a stand still once term had started, and his paganism studies were not faring any better. Most of the time he spent with his friends was eating meals, studying, or their Anti-Betrothal Society meetings (Natalie’s title eventually stuck).

“So that’s my life this week,” Harry finished, setting down his tea cup. Thankfully, it wasn’t that god-awful animagus tea, but a simple Earl Grey Snape had provided for their first weekly meeting. Snape was one of the very few people he hadn’t seen since the start of term, and the only other person who seemed even busier then himself.

“Mm…” the headmaster said, not looking up from some document or another. Harry knew better than to think the man hadn’t heard him. He had this terrible habit of hearing and remembering everything Harry ever said, and then bringing it up at inopportune moments.

“How’s Ira?” he said, conversationally.

“The same as she was last week.”

“And you?”

“Busy.”

“So I should go?”

“I wish you would. Will you need anything?” I.e. potions to let you sleep, combat pain from previous injuries, or from having a nervous breakdown.

“No. Life is wonderful.”

“I will look out for signs of an impending plague.”

“I always enjoy our enlivening conversations, sir. Good day.”

He set his tea aside and made for the door. As far as weekly meetings went, this one had been unusually brief and pain free. The corridor to the Headmaster’s office was blessedly empty of people, and he took a moment to enjoy the silence of it. Now which way should he go? If he went left and took the stairs passed the owlry, he was less likely to run into a teacher but more likely to be cornered alone by a girl. If he went right and took the corridor passed the Transfigurations classroom he ran a greater risk of being spotted by a teacher but held more escape routes to get away from everyone else.

Decisions, decisions. It was times like these that he wished he carried his invisibility cloak with him.

He decided to risk heading by the owlry. He would visit Elsbeth who was likely feeling neglected after a week to herself. With mail being restricted to Thursdays, and no packages allowed without advanced permission, few students visited except on the allotted day. Luckily, there were no admirers hiding behind suits of armor, and he managed to enter the owlry without incident, only to find he wasn’t the only one with the same idea.

“Oh, Harry!” Ginny said, somewhat flustered at being caught off guard.

“Potter,” Ron said with a forced sort of congeniality. “Come on in we were just talking business.”

Reluctantly, he did so, moving towards Elsbeth so that he could direct his attention on something other than his homicidal idiot of a ‘business partner’.

“So,” the other boy continued. “I’ve already gotten some orders in from my house. It’s ridiculous what people forget to bring back from summer vacation. If we shake down the other three houses, I bet we could make 50 galleons easy for the first delivery if it’s within a month.”

Ginny shook her head.

“You mean if I shook down the other three houses. I don’t see why you can’t talk to the Ravenclaws yourself.”

“They don’t like me.”

“They don’t trust you,” Harry couldn’t help but correct. “And not surprising after you swindled half the House at cards.”

Ron had the gall to look indignant.

“Not my fault they didn’t apply their big brains to more practical pursuits.”

“Cards?” Ginny asked, skeptically.

“Cheating,” Harry corrected.

“Ron!”

Her brother merely shrugged.

“Well, then talk to the Hufflepuffs.”

“Meh.”

The youngest Weasley’s eyes narrowed.

“Then don’t. I’m not wasting my time doing your half of the work. We’ll just make less money.”

“Fine. Merlin, don’t have a troll. I’ll talk to the Powderpuffs, alright?”

“Good. And don’t try cheating them either. We’re sticking to Fred and George’s rate, and not a knut higher.”

“Oh, come on. Inflation! Everything’s more expensive now!”

“Not a knut more!” she insisted adamantly. Ron looked to Harry for support, but he kept his eyes firmly on Elsbeth, stroking her feathers affectionately. The Weasley siblings argued for a bit longer, but Slytherin guile had nothing on Gryffindor stubbornness, and eventually Ron gave up. There was more discussion about other aspects of the business, who knew what and how much and what to do if a teacher caught them. Harry listened with half an ear. Most of it didn’t concern him. His part was simple and straightforward, however critical, and he trusted Ginny to look after his profits at the end of their little venture. Over all it took about twenty minutes for them to iron out the details, at which point Elsbeth had grown tired of Harry’s attention and was nipping his fingers in annoyance.

Ginny was in a short temper and left quickly, stomping down the stairs. Harry followed afterwards, but was halted by Ron’s hand on his shoulder. He paused reluctantly, and glanced over his shoulder.

“Are you still mad?” the redhead asked.

“It doesn’t concern me anymore,” he replied emotionlessly. Honestly, he hadn’t had the time or the inclination to worry about the curse since classes started. He preferred to keep it that way. Ron looked around the owlry, awkwardly avoid his gaze.

“I don’t know where to start looking.”

“Where you got the first book, I imagine.”

“The shopkeeper didn’t have any other copies. He didn’t know if there were any others.”

“Try a professional book dealer, then.”

“I don’t have that sort of money.”

“I should think fifty galleons worth of your profits would be plenty,” he said, although honestly he didn’t know. He didn’t know the rates of book dealers, but it probably depended on what they were asked to find. Ron looked ready to protest, but he held up his hand to silence him.

“I don’t care. Ask Hermione, she probably knows how to find rare books. Figure it out.”

He shoved Ron’s hand from his shoulder and left him standing there, looking frustrated, alone, and a bit frightened. It wasn’t his concern, he reminded himself. The Slytherin wasn’t one of his friends or family, and he certainly hadn’t been responsible for the mess he had gotten himself into. Eventually, he would figure it out. He had already bought him some time.

He had his own problems to sort out.

Viktor made it a point to wander wizarding Paris at least once a week. While he had an established network of spies and observers amongst his minions, he found going out into the world encouraged them to be more thorough in their own investigations. No one wanted to have to explain why they had told their Master one thing and he had found out it was another. On a more personal note, he liked gauging the local atmosphere himself every once in a while.

It was nearly a weak after the explosion of Chambre les Affaires étrangères, and he wanted to get a feel for the city after that, no doubt nerve-wracking, ordeal. Unsurprisingly, the atmosphere was tense. At the royal palace, witches and wizards protested against the recent treaty with Britain, many of them British refugees themselves, while native Parisians complained about their pretentious, cowardly behavior in newspapers and street side conversations. While there was general agreement that the response of the city defenses had been prompt and thorough, there was a continuing scandal over the escape of one of the suspects which had occurred outside the security check points.

Viktor got a strange feeling whenever he looked at a newspaper and saw Fleur’s pretty face glaring fiercely out at him. A combination of respect and smugness that reminded him of simpler, if not more innocent, days as competitors in the triwizard tournament.

If there is a winner and a loser, then it is a game.

Goethe’s words were still bothering him a week later. He had never thought of his resistance against the Dark Lord’s encroachment on the free world as a game, but the more time he was left to reflect (and he found time was something he had in abundance) the more he realized he had been treating it like one. It was all about who won and who lost, and not what he hoped to achieve by winning or what would be destroyed by losing. He had a vague sense that important things would be lost by the Dark Lord’s invasion of Europe, but until he could pinpoint exactly what those things were he felt uneasy and restless.

There was a letter in the study of the loft addressed to Dumbledore. He hadn’t gotten two sentences through it, and despite several attempts to complete it, he had made no progress. Something inside him recoiled at the thought of placing himself under the thumb of that wise wizard a second time, and if he revealed himself alive he had no doubt that was exactly what would happen. He and his coven would become pawns, and as much as he despised his own kind they were his and he would not sell them as cannon fodder for anyone’s morality other than his own.

“Master Viktor?” a timid voice called from the shadows of an alleyway as he passed. He didn’t turn to look or act in anyway surprised, and it wasn’t until the vampiress left the confines of her hiding place to follow him that he acknowledged her presence. She was a tall, beautiful woman with reddish brown hair and red lipstick that spoke of a blatant confidence in her self and her sexuality, yet following behind him she seemed somehow shy and reserved.

“What do you want, child?” he asked.

The chances were she was decades, perhaps even centuries older than him, but as minion she would always be a child to him. Small, helpless, dependent. If only in spirit.

“M-my master would like…ah…a moment of your time,” she said, beseechingly.

He made an annoyed grunt.

“My time is precious to me. What is he going to offer me for it?” he challenged.

The vampiress was taken back, and unreasonably flustered. While not all minions were completely spineless, this one clearly didn’t have experience as a go between for two Masters. Or else Viktor was making a vampiric social faux pas she didn’t know how to deal with. He’d have to ask Goethe later. No doubt he would get a titter or two out of it.

“Never mind. Take me to him.”

She scurried to comply but ended up having to stop several times when he didn’t speed up his own pace to follow her. Taking his time to observe the other pedestrians, glancing at newspapers laying by newsstands or abandoned on the street, listening to the radios of cars (still something he had not gotten used to seeing in a wizarding city), and counting the Aurors patrolling the streets or peeking out of windows, Viktor made it clear he had no intention of jumping at her Master’s beck and call. He had dealings with the elder vampire when he had first arrived in the city, and had made it clear from the beginning he was not afraid of the other.

Master Clarión lived firmly inside the boundaries of wizarding Paris, and as a result was a prisoner in his own home. There were always Aurors posted outside his town house, watching the comings and goings of his coven with suspicious eyes and twitching wands. Viktor flicked up the hood of his cape well before coming into sight of the house. Let the Aurors be suspicious. As long as they didn’t identify him, it was not his concern. His guide led him inside, offering to take his cloak, but he shooed her away. He had no intention of staying long.

Clarión was not as extravagant as Katarina had been, but he was a creature of comfort and his home reflected that. There were a great number of overstuffed sofas and chairs throughout the house, and pieces of art and large vases overflowing with flowers at every corner to tempt one to sit and admire their surroundings for a while. Altogether distracting, and not to Viktor’s rather utilitarian tastes.

He didn’t need to follow his guide any further, and moved purposefully to the second floor and the third door down the hallway, entering without waiting to be announced. Clarión looked up from the mortal he had been suckling, and dropped her back onto the bed with something close to exasperation.

“Lessons in manners would do you some good. Knocking would be one of the first,” he sneered, standing up. The elder vampire was taller than Viktor, leaner and smoother in his movements, but he was not stronger and that was made clear by the fact he didn’t offer to teach Viktor manners himself. His ‘victim’, a sultry little muggle laughed stupidly into the bedding beneath her and curled where she lay. They both ignored her.

“What do you want?” he said without preamble. He didn’t come to make social niceties with the undead, even from the residing Master of Paris.

“I summoned you a week ago.”

“If you had bothered to step outside of your little cage, I might have actually received the message. Again, what do you want?”

For a moment, Clarión’s handsome features pinched as if he had just bitten into a lemon, but then instantly fell smooth and calm.

“What was your involvement with the explosion of the Chambre les Affaires étrangères?”

“I had no involvement.”

“And yet it was one from your coven who helped a suspect escape.”

It seemed Viktor was going to have to punish someone back home for gossiping.

“I was uninvolved there as well,” he said, without missing a beat.

“And yet she escaped through your tunnels. Yours and the rats”

Viktor actually rolled his eyes at that.

“My coven and I make use of the underground, that doesn’t mean we hold exclusive rights to it. If the terrorist was clever enough to make use of them, then she’s cleverer than some,” he couldn’t help slipping in the barb after the ‘rats’ comment. “Or else desperate. She probably drowned. It would be foolish to send my people into a sewer during a rainstorm.”

Unless it was a Master of even greater strength that his own. And who would have such a creature counted amongst his minions?

Clarión looked decided sour at that piece of irrefutable logic. He had no proof, just a strong suspicion, and that was not enough to move against the arrogant cub standing impatiently in the doorway. If he had the power, or rather the confidence, to kill Viktor himself he would have the night he had first stepped foot into his city. There was something decidedly off about the master, more than his young age and unflappable calm. He had killed his Mistress on the first night of his resurrection and taken her coven as his own, moving from the destruction of Berlin and straight to Paris, spreading like a sort of disease. From the beginning, Viktor had not behaved as visiting master nor as a potential rival should have behaved. He was uninterested in vampire decorum and lived and moved with a flagrant disregard of both wizards and Clarión himself. To this day, he still did not know where Viktor lived or how many made up his coven, and the hand full of times he had managed to pull the young master into his house he had been evasively silent in all things.

He did not know much about his guest, but he did know this: the boy had plans, plans that should not concern a vampire, and that put everyone at risk. He had voiced his suspicions in letters to other masters in neighboring cities, but no one had taken him seriously. To them, it was another power struggle between two rival covens, and none of their concern. He suspected they would soon regret their dismissal.

“If you are done wasting both our time,” Viktor said, sharply and turned to leave. Clarión nearly stopped him, but then realized he no more wanted him in his house than the other wished to be there. Better to hold off this battle of wills for another night. Viktor was resourceful, but Paris was not his city. Not yet. Given time the elder master would find the proof he needed to destroy Viktor without recrimination from the rest of their community, but until then…

He turned to the woman curled up into the duvet and smirked.

Despite the halt in construction at Hogwarts and the delayed plans to convert the castle into a private preparatory college, Hogsmeade’s real estate was in higher demand than ever. The evacuation of several wizarding cities and the over abundance of young people in need of cheap housing in absence of university dormitories, meant the little village was growing rapidly into a small city.

Severus idly wondered what that would mean for Hogsmeade weekends once things were peaceful enough again for them to resume. It was far easier to supervise two dozen shops and businesses than the nearly sixty buildings that had sprung up since the Triwizard tournament. If he were lucky, the return to peace time would mean the village would once again shrink to a more manageable size, but somehow he doubted it.

“Does it look so terribly different?” Ira asked him as they rode down the cobble stone street (a new addition) in the Hogwart’s carriage, towards the row of townhouses at the edge of the village. The townhouses had been constructed during the Triwizard tournament to house visiting diplomats, but had sense been rented out to Hogsmeade’s more affluent new residents.

“I can recognize certain shops… but the village itself is unrecognizable,” he admitted. Something like nostalgia threatened to turn into melancholy, and he ruthlessly squashed it. He was not a sentimental man and had no intention of becoming one. “All things change in time.”

She tightened her grip on his arm slightly, a gesture of comfort for what he did not say as well as what he did, but tactfully said nothing more about it. All things change, and sometimes it was for the better. She was living proof of that.

They exited the carriage at the end of the road and were met by a middle-aged witch in a trendy grey robes and oversized heals. She grinned like a salesperson and shook both their hands firmly upon introduction.

“I’ve got two excellent houses to show you today,” she said pleasantly, immediately leading the way to the nearest townhouse. Snape noted critically, that the wooden steps creaked. A sign of poor workmanship and spellcraft after only a few years of construction. “This one is three stories and a cellar, three bedrooms, two baths, a full kitchen, sitting area, lots of storage space.”

“It would have to since it doesn’t have much floor space,” the potions master muttered as they entered. While he didn’t mind living in a small home, he didn’t honestly want to live in a crowded home. And something about the place seemed distinctly claustrophobic. Probably the lack of windows on the walls they shared with their neighbors.

“It’s not that different from my mom’s flat in London,” Ira pointed out. “Lets look around a bit.”

The rest of the house was not as bad as Snape had first thought from the foyer. The kitchen was small but functional, as was the dining room and parlor, all on the first floor. The second floor held two bedrooms, also small, but the master had its own bath and view that looked out from the edge of town to the Scottish countryside and even Hogwarts was just visible at the far corner of the window. Top floor was a completed attic and largest room in the house and had two small round windows on either side overlooking both the town and the village.

“It would make an excellent nursery. A crib on one side and a play area on the other,” Ira pointed out. The realtor jumped to expound upon that virtue.

“If you throw up a few more spells you won’t have to worry about leaving toys all over the house, and it’s far enough out of the way that everyone can get a little space.”

He considered carefully.

“There are a lot of narrow stairs,” he pointed out, “And I doubt there are anti-slipping spells on them either. They creak badly.”

“The better to keep track of the children, dear. I can do the anti-slipping spells myself. The house will have to be prepared for a new baby regardless of what we chose.”

“Let’s look at the other place first, and see how they compare,” he said noncommittally. As they made their way out of the house and further down the row, Snape had a sudden sense of unreality. He was married. He was going to be a father. He was shopping for a flat to rent to keep both near Hogwarts, where he himself was in charge.

He had been domesticated.

Good bloody hell, how had that happen? Hadn’t he been fighting violent battles and navigating political intrigue only a few months ago? Was he still doing that? It seemed like it had been years since he had lifted his wand or brewed a potion for anything more serious than his own research and tormenting his troublesome ward. Surely, it all didn’t stop just like that? It was far too convenient.

Irrationally, he found himself looking up and down the street for any sign of dementers or a passing army of orcs. The only thing out of place that he noticed was Ira had a light sheen of sweat on her forehead.

“Are you are right? You seem flushed.”

She smiled ruefully.

“You were right about the stairs. There were a lot of them.”

The second place was at the end of the row, which meant three of the four walls had windows, but was otherwise very similar to the first house. The attic had been converted into the master suite complete with a bath, but Snape found the sloping ceiling irritating. And of course, there was the stairs problem again. Which Ira did not seem to be enjoying.

“Would you mind if I used the loo? I need to freshen up for a moment,” she told the realtor. She was even more flushed then before, not surprising perhaps given the additional stairs they had been climbing, but now she was also breathing more rapidly and Snape was starting to become concerned. Maybe it was horomones? Did women get hot flashes when they were pregnant? Or maybe morning sickness? No, it was too soon for that.

He listened with half an ear to the realtor’s glowing praise of the neighborhood with young families, the new primary school that was being built a few blocks over, and a great deal of local history he already knew while they waited for Ira to finish up in the nearby bathroom. It was taking her a while, but he didn’t want to rush her if she wasn’t feeling well. Ten minutes later, even the realtor was looking towards the closed bathroom door with some concern, and Snape had decided to check on her.

“Ira,” he called softly through the door, uncomfortably aware of the other woman’s close scrutiny. “Are you alright?”

There was no reply for several moments, and then the door opened. She was deathly pale, far more than could be accounted for in the brief time they had been separated, and her eyes were very wide. He could see her pupils were dilated

“Ira-”

“I need you to take me to a medi-wizard,” she said, her voice completely without inflection. “Now.”

He stared at her. She stared straight ahead for a moment, and then slowly looked down. He followed her gaze.

A drop of blood landed on the wood floor between her feet.

Then another.

And another.

“I’m taking you to Madam Pomfrey,” he said, bursting into action. A couple of quick spells to reduce her weight, and he lifted her into his arms and towards the stairs. The realtor jumped out of his way and didn’t dare try to stop to ask questions as he fled from the house. Within a minute he was gently depositing his wife in the carriage, and signaling it to return to the castle with a harsh thump on the roof. The vehicle lurched into motion, and as if sensing his haste the thestral broke out into a gallop.

Turning back to his wife, he checked her vitals. She was feverish, her pulse rapid, and she seemed unable to focus. She was going into shock. Was it because she was sick or because she was just horrified that-

“Ira! Ira, can you hear me? Ira, answer me… it will be okay. You’re going to be okay, but you have to remain calm.”

She didn’t respond. Didn’t even look at him. He contemplated turning around and going to the village doctor. There was a new one with a clinic within the village proper. He dismissed the idea almost immediately. He didn’t need a waiting room and a young pup floundering around his potion’s cabinet. He needed a healer with a cool head, a quick mind, and experience with this… sort of thing. Because while Hogwarts was a school, it was school of healthy young people a little too eager to play grown-up games, and… accidents happened. Accidents that Pomfrey had always handled discreetly, one way or another, through whatever complications arose.

The carriage ride to the castle seemed to stretch on for eternity.

Harry heard about Ira’s admittance to the school infirmary during lunch. Apparently, she had some sort of carriage accident and broke her foot. The injury wasn’t in anyway spectacular, but the headmaster carrying his wife all the way to the infirmary had sent a large female portion of the school into fits of giggles. While taking ones spouse to the school medi-witch was probably not allowed according to the Hogwart’s Professor Handbook, Harry wasn’t the least bit surprised that Snape had bent the rules in his favor, and likewise wasn’t feeling the least bit sympathetic about the gossip mill that had arisen from his chivalrous deed.

He was feeling a bit of sympathy for Ira, however. A broken foot wasn’t any fun. He should know, he had shattered the bones in two of them. So during his first free period of the day, he forewent his normal study session and went to the infirmary to see if she was still there and needed some cheering up.

Within the first few seconds of stepping into the infirmary, he knew Ira had not broken her foot. The large, open room was filled with bright sunlight but the atmosphere was deathly silent and painfully heavy, like a slow acting curse might feel to his magus hypersentia. Snape was sitting in a chair just outside a screened off area, behind which Harry could hear Madam Pomfrey moving about, probably attending to Ira. Cold, black eyes slide over him as he entered, and he immediately froze.

While he would never say that Snape was exactly welcoming towards him, he had never been subjected to such a look of absolute unwelcome either. His guardian’s expression was closed, so devoid of anything that he had to have been hiding something immense and terrible. Harry eyes darted to the closed off screen and a sinking feeling filled him.

“She will live,” Snape said, his voice as empty as his expression and in no way reassuring.

The Gryffindor said nothing. He didn’t dare. Instead, he kept staring at the screen, as if it might somehow provide the answers he could bring himself to ask. Snape continued to regard him for another minute or two, his unceasing scrutiny making him uncomfortable yet not enough to make him leave.

“She miscarried,” the man said finally, and turned away.

1. Mandalari’s understanding of ‘Old Ways’ is rather ignorant, in addition to being religiously skewed. ‘Old Ways’ permeate even the most modern of magic, it is simply that most modern witches and wizards look at it in a ‘New Way’. A sort of ‘the glass is half empty, the glass is half full’ kind of thing. It’s all the same glass and same amount of water, just understood differently and thus used differently. Additionally, even if the ‘Old Way’ of looking at things were wiped out in Britain and the rest of Europe somehow, it would still persist almost everywhere else on the globe, including the Americas and Asia.↩

Everything Changes II

Harry did not see Snape for the rest of September, except during the occasional dinner in the Great Hall or in passing through corridors. Ira was even scarcer, although she was rumored to be staying in her husband’s quarters. Not a word passed between them, and he was torn between relief and guilt as the silence continued into early October.

My child is dead. Are you happy now?

Those were the words that haunted him when ever his thoughts turned to them; so he spent as much of his time finding ways of not thinking about the Snape-family-that-wasn’t. That was easy enough during the day, when his schedule was packed and everyone was vying for a bit of his time and attention, but at night it only made things worse. He was painfully aware that he still didn’t care about the baby. The baby wasn’t and never had been real. It was only an idea, a phantasm at best, driving two of the few people he cared for into a deep despair. Sometimes he hated it, wished it had never existed in the first place, and knew he could never look Snape or Ira in the eye with that feeling in his heart.

“You should visit Ira sometime this weekend,” Hermione said during Saturday breakfast, looking at him with some disapproval as he kept his eyes trained on his plate.

She didn’t understand his reluctance, although she tried, but in the end she had too much empathy for Ira to understand why Harry, who was closer to the woman than she was, couldn’t bring himself to see her. He made a noncommittal sound, and pushed his eggs around on his plate. A heavy sigh informed him that she wad disappointed, but not surprised, and was leaving it alone… for now. And only because the weekly post had arrived.

Packages were still forbidden in the school without a special request, but Snape had setup a system that would allow letters (all very carefully screened before being passed on) to be received. It was a hassle, usually took almost two weeks longer than normal, but it was better then nothing. Harry hadn’t received anything yet, but then his mail had considerably more security on it than most and there were few who would or could send him anything at all. It didn’t mean he was any less eager than everyone else to see if anyone had sent him something.

Pansy Parkinson was in charge of handing out the mail that morning, and was displaying a rather ridiculous amount of glee in calling out (and occasionally butchering) names and forcing everyone to get out of their seats and come to her. Harry also noticed that sometimes she would find a name and surreptitiously shuffle it to the bottom of the stack. Several students were getting angry, but the teachers were seemingly oblivious.

Harry considered chucking a muffin at her.

Then she called his name. Perhaps a little more surprised than he ought to be, he hurried to retrieve the letter, notable in that the parchment was finest white with inlaid vines and seal in dark purple wax. It was markedly different from the usual wizarding parchment, which was naturally tallow and stiff and looked ancient no matter how fresh. He knew its source immediately, and judging by the whispering that followed him back to his seat, he imagined the school would soon figure it out as well.

Hermione, who had been pointedly not gawking, turned to look when he finally sat down and gave a small gasping sound.

“Is that from..?”

“Queen Ophelia? Yes, or at least from someone in her court.”

The seal to the letter was royal purple wax with Her Majesty’s private crest, a lion above set of crossed swords encircled in vicious thorns. A very fierce crest, Harry thought, for such a refined woman. He pressed his thumb over the seal, winced as he felt the magic prick him and droplets of his blood filled the indented surfaces. The wax turned red, and then burned away to allow the contents of the letter to unfold. For one slightly panicky moment, he was afraid it would be in French, but luckily Her Majesty was as fine at writing English as she was at speaking it. He read the contents quickly, Hermione looking at him anxiously.

After minute or two, he refolded it.

“She’s invited me to a costume ball later this month,” he explained.

Her brow puckered in confusion.

“She says she’s looking forward to talking to me. Don’t worry, it’s a subtle way of saying she’ll hear me out. Don’t tell me Lucius doesn’t disguise business as pleasure sometimes?”

“Oh, when you say it like that, it makes more sense. For a moment, I really thought she had confused your visit as social.”

He smiled at her.

“Who says it isn’t? I’m sure she’ll have me playing nice with all the court dandies while I’m there.”

“Court dandies?” she said, clearly amused at the description.

“That’s what Snape calls them, anyway.”

“You’ll have to talk to him about going as soon as possible. He’ll need to plan to clear his schedule. While you’re at it, you should go see Ira.”

He grimaced. Asking Snape for a favor, one that took him away from his many responsibilities and would force them to be in close contact for a long period of time, was the very last thing he wanted to do. There had to be an alternative.

“No, he’s way too busy. I’ll tell him, of course, but I’ll ask for one of the teachers or something to accompany me.”

“You’re dodging.”

“Shamelessly, but it doesn’t make it untrue. He wouldn’t want to go and he is needed at the school. McGonagall might do it.”

Hermione shook her head.

“She’s Deputy Headmistress, Head of Gryffindor House, and full-time teacher. You think she’s any less busy?”

Harry smiled. “Well, I’ll just have to find out. If anything, she might know one of the other teachers who would be available.”

She continued to give him disappointed stares throughout the morning, but did not try to force the issue any further. He was under enough stress without her pestering him about his pseudo-familial relationships. She even helped him track down McGonagall, who Hermione knew from her duties as prefect was always to be found in the teacher’s private study on Saturday mornings. The private study, like the staff break room, was off limits to student use and dedicated solely for teacher’s private research. It was not heavily used, but there were still a handful of staff that pursued a private self education and/or participated in scholarly research that they submitted in high end magical research journals. McGonagall was one of these teachers.

The study entrance was a large oaken door guarded by a pair of miniature stone dragons that snapped at them as they drew near. Hermione boldly leaned forward and spoke directly into the open mouth of one of the hissing serpents.

“Granger and Potter to see Professor McGonagall please.”

For almost a minute the dragons just continued to hiss and snap at them, but finally they settled back, and the door opened a little of its own accord. They moved inside. The study reminded Harry of a cross between the Headmaster’s office, the school library, and the Dueling Hall. The room was circular, with a high ceiling and books filling every nook and cranny not occupied by a window, the large fire place, or the occasional chart or diagram. A fire was burning cheerily, casting a warm glow against the polished oak and maple woodwork; ivy engraved bookshelves, four round tables with the constellations of each season, and the floorboards that glowed red wherever you stepped for just a second or two. There was an alcove to the left of the fire place, lined in glittering black stone, and all but empty except for a very battered looking practice dummy. It must have been where the teachers experimented.

Harry instantly loved the room. Not only was it infused with magic, but the feelings of those who had come searching for answers. It was filled with the emotions of frustration, frenzy, terror, hope, elation, awe, and pure joy. Those who used this room had loved magic for magic’s sake.

“It’s magnificent, isn’t it?” Hermione whispered to him, smiling knowingly as he ogled every detail of the room. “It feels like the answers to the universe are hidden somewhere inside of it.”

“If only,” McGonagall said. She was sitting at one of the circular tables, a small pile of books with note cards sticking out of them resting beside her. Harry could clearly see Pegasus, Andromeda, and Pisces so she must have been sitting at the autumn table. “Now what can I do for you? Mr. Potter being here, I’ll assume it is not related to your prefect duties.”

Hermione shook her head and nudge her friend forward. He felt suddenly and uncharacteristically shy facing the formidable witch. His relationship with her was very different than that of other Gryffindors. Despite being sorted into her house, she had never been his ultimate authority. Even before he was headmaster, Snape had been his overseer and academic confidant, and between him and the Dark Lord pulling him out of school regularly and his many outrageous stunts he had always felt a little guilty around her. Certainly, she never would have tolerated even half of the things that he had done if she had any say in the matter. He worked extra hard in her class to show how much he respected her and that he took his schooling seriously, but he didn’t know if she picked up on it.

“Er…ah… I…” he stammered. McGonagall’s expression became concerned.

“Heavens, child, are you alright? Has something happened?”

He shook his head, and tried to recollect himself. He was being stupid. She was a teacher, not the commander of the German army.

“No, I… just… I wanted to ask a favor of you, and I don’t know quite were to start.”

McGonagall looked skeptical.

“What kind of a favor? You know I can’t show you any preferential treatment. I don’t condone blatant favoritism by teachers for students.”

Harry wondered if this actually counted as preferential or not. Snape hadn’t seemed to think so, but that man was… well…Snape.

“I don’t think it is. I…uh… I’m going… I mean I’ve been invited to Paris. By her Majesty. It’s a sort of diplomacy thing. Lord Voldemort helped set it up. Um… anyway, I’m supposed to go in the third week of October, but I need a chaperone so… I was wondering if… um… you could take me?”

McGonagall just stared at him.

“… or if you could recommend someone else if you’d rather not.”

She frowned slightly.

“… or I could find someone else myself.”

“Calm down, Mr. Potter. You just caught me off guard,” she said, taking off her glasses and setting them atop her pile of books. “I would have thought Headmaster Snape would be the one to escort you, however, I can see why under the circumstances you would not want to take him so far from home.”

Harry tensed. Did McGonagall know about Ira and the baby? So far the matter had been kept very ‘hush, hush’, with no one outside of Harry, Snape’s godchildren, and Madam Pomfrey knew what had happened. They were, after all, the only ones who knew Ira had been pregnant in the first place. Or so he had thought. Had Snape told McGonagall or had she found out by some other means? He didn’t think they were that close, but then he couldn’t say he knew much of what either did outside of the classroom and potion’s lab.

Or maybe she was just referring to his new job taking up so much of his time and his guilty conscience was playing tricks on him.

“Er… yeah. He’s really busy, so I thought I should ask someone else first.”

She nodded.

“I’m flattered that you thought of me as your first alternative,” she said with a touch of irony.

“Well, you are my Head of House.”

“I am? I’m surprised you remember.”

He looked away. Hermione, however, wasn’t so cowed.

“Professor, that’s not fair and you know it.”

McGonagall sighed. “You are correct, Miss Granger. I apologize, Mr. Potter. Your situation is unique and I have no right to criticize you for it. Antagonism is a far worse offense than favoritism. However, in this case, I really can’t help you. The former Headmistress,” and here there was a very obvious sneer neither of them had seen on her before, “was not known for her organizational skills. I have been busy, and will continue to be busy for some time yet helping the Headmaster put everything in order.”

“Oh, okay. I understand. Er… if there is anything I can do…”

“You can help Professor Vector with one of her research projects.”

“Huh? I don’t… how did you…”

McGonagall favored him with a cat-like smile.

“You know she isn’t just asking you to build up her own reputation. Her teaching contract requires she publish something at least once a year if she hopes to obtain tenure. So do all of the full-time teaching staff, even though things have been lax since Lestrange” sneer #2 was even more prominent than the first “took over. Now we’re at risk of losing some of our Court funding if we don’t start meeting our publishing quota, especially with funding being so tight because of the war. Hence, why I’m stuck in here making up for papers other professors should have done on top of everything else. Two or three papers from her end would be truly helpful.”

Well, damn it. Him and his big mouth.

“Er… yeah, okay. I’ll see what I can do,” he said, reluctantly.

“I’ll help too,” Hermione said with genuine enthusiasm. Sometimes he wanted to slap his best friend. He really, really did.

“Very good. As for going to Paris… I would recommend Professor Slughorn. He’s quite fluent in French and would love the opportunity.”

Harry tried to hide his disappointment, and thanked her accordingly. He talked with Hermione about other options as they made their way to the library, but every suggestion was quickly shot down. Professor Flitwick was notoriously busy all the time arranging intellectual and academic activities to keep Ravenclaw suitably stimulated, Professor Sprout didn’t speak French and would look like a turnip in a rose garden at a ball, Professor Toure was too defensive and would demand a duel at the first perceived insult to Britain or Lord Voldemort, Sinistra was a notorious flirt, Vector was too high strung, and Lockhart…no, just…no. That left Slughorn as the most reasonable alternative, and really there wasn’t any particular reason Harry should have been reluctant to take him along. He got along with the man well enough, even if he was trying to avoid being ‘collected’ like so many others of his acquaintance.

As predicted, when Harry went to see him that afternoon, he was delighted by the invitation. Only his foresight in keeping Hermione firmly between them at all times kept him from being hugged. Even so, he was forced to spend nearly an hour explaining everything he knew and guessing a great deal that he didn’t about the party, the Queen, the other guests, and his general reputation amongst the French court. Then anotherhour being lectured on court decorum, the art of talking about politics, intellectualism, and small talk, how to politely accept and refuse invitations, and rather embarrassingly how to flirt and be flirted with in an acceptable manner (apparently it was expected that he flirt with absolutely every woman there since he was young and single or they’d be insulted if he didn’t, but he could only take it so far depending on whether they were married, engaged/betrothed, single, and/or he was seriously pursuing them ). It was far more invasive a process than he really wanted to go through, but if nothing else he could at least count on Slughorn to keep him from committing a social faux pas.

With the potions professor’s enthusiastic participation assured, Harry was left with one more less than enviable task. He needed to talk to Snape.

“We should go now before dinner,” Hermione said, impatiently. They had study plans for this weekend, and so far those had flown out the window and she wasn’t happy about it. She wanted the travel arrangements out of the way so they could relax and look to something that wasn’t related to her own marital woes.

“No, I should request a meeting first. He always gets annoyed when I just show up. You know, I could probably just make my request in a note. It would save time for the both of us.”

Hermione spun him around so they were looking face to face..

“What is with you lately, Harry? I know you’ve been anxious since… you know, but you can’t keep treating your guardians like they’ve got the plague. Don’t you remember how upset you were when your godfathers didn’t visit when you were sick? How do you think Ira must feel after what happened and now you won’t even go see her?”

Her words stung. More so because he knew she was right. He was being selfish and cowardly, and the longer he waited the worse things seemed to get. But he didn’t know what to say to either them. More than anything, he was afraid he would make it worse. Probably had made it worse by not visiting sooner like Hermione insisted, and done irreparable damage to his relationship with Ira. He still wasn’t sure what his standing with Snape was, but the man obviously hadn’t wanted to see him. He hadn’t gone to their weekly meeting since ‘it’ happened, and hadn’t been called in either. Whether it was antipathy or apathy that spurred this negligence, he didn’t know and didn’t want to find out.

“I… I’m scared, okay?” he said finally. “They’re… they’re like… parents.” Like family. “If they’re broken… what am I supposed to do?” Who will look after me?

Her expression softened as she took in his genuine uncertainty.

“Oh, Harry… is that what you’re worried about? That you have to fix this?”

No. Yes. Maybe. The situation was way beyond his skill and understanding, and Snape probably wouldn’t have appreciated his interference to begin with. But at the same time, he didn’t know how to approach them without knowing how he could possible help or at the very least not make things worse. Would his sympathy be a comfort or an aggravation? If they made a request of him, would be able to fulfill it? Could he deny them anything right now?

“It’s not your job to fix everything, Harry. You’re a friend, not a miracle worker. Come on, you’ve put this off too long already. Let’s go see, Ira.”

She took his hand and started towards another section of the dungeons. He resisted for a moment, still afraid on some level that this was going to be painful, but eventually he surrendered. This was something that needed to be done, and it seemed he was only going to be able to do so with her help. That was oddly appropriate.

Snape’s position afforded him the headmaster’s suite closer to his office, but the man hadn’t wanted to abandon his private potion’s lab and had kept his quarters in the dungeons. Not exactly the most accessible location, but the man didn’t seem to care whether sociability marked his career as Headmaster or not. Although they lived in the dungeons, most Slytherins did not spend their free time there and the corridors were all but deserted this late in the afternoon. A good thing, because favor or no, he really didn’t want anyone seeing Hermione leading him around by the hand like an errant child.

They reached the tapestry that marked Snape’s rooms. There was a bell beside the tapestry that had not been there previously, and Harry cautiously pulled the rope beside it. It gave a cheery little ring that seemed incongruous to the shadowy hallway.

After a moment, a thin hand reached out to pull the tapestry aside. Ira stood in the door, looking pale and thin and tired, but otherwise just as he remembered her. She looked startled to see them, but after a moment she smiled. It was as tired as the rest of her, but genuine. He felt some of his anxiety dissipate.

“Harry, Hermione, come inside. It’s good to see you both.”

She moved aside to let them through, and they stepped into the living room. It was very similar to how Harry remembered it, masculine and den-like, but there were a few feminine touches now. Several dozen decorative sconces of amber colored glass lined the bare walls; a pair of overstuffed violet throw pillows lay on the sofa, and an elegant lamp Harry recognized as a souvenir from France graced the end table beside the reading chair. A gramophone stood just outside the kitchen nook playing some sort of opera. Ira turned it off as she led them into the kitchen.

“I’m afraid you missed Serverus, and he won’t be back until after dinner. He’s so busy these days. I hope you’ll stay for a cup of tea, though,” she said, a touch of desperation in her voice.

“Uh, yeah, that would be great,” he rushed to assure her. “We came to see you, actually.”

She looked genuinely surprised, and he felt like a complete slug.

“Really?”

“Absolutely,” Hermione said. “We meant to visit much sooner, but…”

She shot Harry a pointed look. Less than a slug. He was slug slime trail. Ira smiled in understanding and turned back to her cupboard to find a kettle.

“I understand. No one really seems to know how to respond. It’s okay, though. It was a… shock, but… Madam Pomfrey says these sorts of things happen all the time, especially when the mother is older. The infection could have happened regardless of my age[1]. It was just bad luck.”

Her tone was light, but Harry couldn’t help but notice that she didn’t turn to face them as she spoke and her movements seemed oddly jerky.

“Oh,” Hermione said. “That’s…unfortunate. But you’re okay?”

Ira turned and sat her self at the table, still smiling but it was strained.

“I’m fine. Madam Pomfrey says I should be able to try again at anytime, but… we decided to put it off for a while. Severus is so busy and this house hunting we’ve been doing has caused us both so much stress. We’re just going to take it easy for a while. Maybe in the spring when things have settled a bit.”

“Yeah, you guys shouldn’t rush it. You’re health is important,” Harry offered, lamely. “Um… so are you going to stay at the castle until then? It’s a neat place, but it starts to feel claustrophobic after a while. Especially, down here in the dungeons.”

Ira’s smile became a bit more genuine.

“I like it down here. It feels very safe. There’s an enchanted window in the bedroom that lets me look out into the lake. I can spend all day just sitting there and watching the fish swim around. I’ve even seen the giant squid a couple of times.”

“Really?” Hermione said. “What about merpeople?”

“And Grindylows?” he asked.

“Only at a distance. They don’t seem to like to come too close to the castle. Maybe it’s just too close to the shore. But there are a lot of other things you wouldn’t think of. Otters, diving winnows[2], eels, fresh water hydras[3], turtles, some beavers… all sorts of things. I’m thinking about doing a survey of the lake wildlife. Severus says there hasn’t been one done in over two hundred years. Who knows what’s come and gone since then? It would give me something to do.”

“I haven’t seen you around-”

The kettle on the stove began to whistle, cutting of Harry’s response.

“I hope you still like Earl Grey. I’m afraid it’s all we have right now.”

“Earl Grey’s fine.”

In fact, if he never drank anything other than Earl Grey tea for the rest of his life, he would be perfectly fine with that after what he went through with the animagus tea. She went about preparing it for them, and Harry continued.

“I haven’t seen you around the castle. I don’t think anyone else even knows you’re here.”

“Ah. Well, I admit I haven’t felt like going out much. I like it down here in Severus’ quarters, but everywhere else? I feel out of place. Everybody stares at me, wondering what I’m doing there. Even the portraits and the ghosts. Although, Sir Nicholas was very charming.”

Hermione smiled.

“Well, you are being very mysterious. Of course, they’re wondering about you.”

“Mysterious?” she asked, confused.

Hermione shot a quick glance at Harry, before nodding at Ira. It took a moment, but he caught on.

“Oh, yes. Very mysterious. I mean, there are all sorts of silly rumors about the mysterious Ira Snape floating around the castle. Half the school is convinced you don’t really exist and the other half that you’re actually a vampire or a …a… banshee. Oh, don’t look so alarmed. The first years have the same rumors about Snape. I was described as several unfortunate things during my first year.”

Ira was looking distinctly alarmed. Hermione kicked him under the chair.

“Ow! Um…I mean… it’s just a Hogwarts tradition. Everyone makes up all sorts of stories until they get to know you. Honestly, there’s no harm in it.”

Until the local boys try to sacrifice you to werewolves in an abandoned field that is. Seriously, though, who would do that twice?

“What an odd tradition,” Ira said, somewhat skeptical.

“You should come out with us sometime,” Hermione offered. “We could show you around, introduce you to some people. I think you’d really like a lot of the professors and even some of the students. It would be a lot easier without the headmaster standing over your shoulder.”

She still looked uncertain, and he felt Hermione nudge his foot to help her out.

“Why don’t you come to the Dueling Club placement tryouts Friday evening? Everyone except the First Year will be competing for their new rank. We’ve gotten really popular, so half the school is likely to show up. It’s something of a circus, but a lot of fun. Hermione, Draco, and I will all be there so you won’t be alone. Please?”

The ‘please’ seemed to be what did her in.

“Alright.”

The continued to talk for sometime, keeping the conversation light and simple, and slowly Ira seemed to unwind. Harry could see she had been terribly lonely, and she was still suffering from an insecurity that he could not find the source of. The matter of the unborn child hung over their every word and both parties avoided the topic very carefully, but he wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

What did Ira really need right now? Did she need to be distracted or to vent? Did she think they didn’t care because they refused to talk about it? Would she become upset with them if they did?

He didn’t know, so all he did was follow Hermione’s lead. If nothing else, at least they were having some success in getting her out of the dungeons. Perhaps the elephant in the room could be addressed after the rift of Harry’s absence had healed. He wasn’t looking forward to it, but it was the way thing needed… should be.

It was nearing dinner time, and Hermione was trying to convince Ira to come up to the great hall to eat, when the siren went off. Caught off guard, Hermione dropped her tea cup and Harry’s followed after when he jumped to his feet. The low, booming call echoed through the castle muffled the shattering of porcelain before settling into a softer, but no less persistent drone.

“Are we having a drill?” Hermione shouted over the siren.

Harry turned to Ira, who even in the dim lighting he could clearly see the telltale widening of her eyes and the hitch in her breathing.

“It’s not a drill,” he said with certainty. “Come on, Hermione, we need to get to our posts. Ira, do you know your post? Ira? IRA!”

She jumped, and then shook her head.

“N-no, I… we never…”

“Alright, then here’s what I want you to do. Follow us out to the stairwell. I want you to supervise the younger students as they come down the stairs. Make sure they don’t panic and start pushing each other down the steps, okay? They know where they need to go. Slughorn will follow after they’re all down and you can help him look after them from there. Come on, we need to hurry.”

Ira floundered for a moment, but soon followed after them as they moved swiftly out of the rooms and into the hallway. It took less than half a minute to reach the stairwell, and already young students were starting to hurry down the steps while older students rushed upwards. They left Ira half way up the stairs to oversee that everyone go up and down safely, then continued on. The older students moved easily and purposefully, having not only the two drills last September but several of the drills the year before, but the first years were panicky and Harry snarled at several of them to stop pushing each other as they passed them.

Slughorn was at the top of the stairs, speedily counting and reciting the name of every child (he had a definite skill for remembering names and faces that made him ideal for this job) that passed him on the way down. Somewhere the names were being checked off a list and would be reviewed to account for all of the first year students.

That was not Harry and Hermione’s concern for the moment. As sixth year students, and members of the Senior Dueling Club, they were station in secondary defense positions around the school. Primary defense involved the Sentinels and teachers stationed at the most vulnerable entry points of the school or else supervising the movement of their defenses and the enemy. They found the main level of the castle a well organized chaos. Over the drone of the sirens, came Snape’s clipped, dulcet voice reciting the familiar instructions to take their positions, to remain calm, what to do if they encountered the enemy, all delivered with a icy determination.

Harry didn’t even attempt to look for him. He knew he would be at the front entrance, the most vulnerable entry point into the castle, and that was not his station. He hurried towards the astronomy tower, the third most vulnerable point into the castle after the courtyard, passing small teams of increasingly older students posted at various points in the corridors and hallways. Hermione disappeared at some point, but she had her own section to guard on the second floor, and he could only spare a moment to worry about her before continuing on. He just made it to the foot of the main stairwell when an explosion shook the castle, sending down dust from above and rattling the portraits on the wall.

A group of fourth years he recognized from dueling club were stationed at the bottom of the stairs, looking upwards with growing anxiety. One of them spotted Harry.

“You’re late, Potter! Hurry it up so we can rig the stairs!” Eliza Merryton demanded anxiously.

“Calm yourself, madam. The enemy has not breeched the primary defenses,” a sailor in a bicorne hat said stoically from a nearby painting. Harry the portrait’s knowledge of the matter. The school portraits were intimately linked to the defense of the castle, and knew what they were talking about.

“Thank you, captain,” Harry called as he rushed the stairs, taking them three at a time. The staircases were blessedly still, but soon they would be rigged to move so that they would lead absolutely nowhere in order to stall the enemy. The students stuck on the upper floors would be trapped or else left dependent on the secret passageways.

He was sweating heavily and near out of break by the time he reached the fourth floor, but not about ready to stop. It was only a little further to his post and sure enough there were half a dozen sixth and seventh year Duel Club members lingering anxiously at the entrance to the astronomy tower.

Angelina Johnson scowled at him as he hurried up.

“You’re late.”

“I was in the dungeon when the alarm went off. What’s happening?”

“The attack started at the gatehouse. I think they may have taken out the Sentinels, but one of them was able to raise the alarm and the portcullis was already shut for the evening, so luckily nobody got through. We could hear it all from the Great Hall, and the next thing we knew the sirens were going off.”

“Who’s attacking?”

“Does it matter? All them bastards want us dead.”

True enough.

“How many?”

“Don’t know. You want to stick your head out a window and find out?”

Perhaps it was the adrenaline, but Harry found himself laughing at that. Everyone looked at him as if he were crazy.

“Don’t look so serious,” he said. “We’re ready for them. They’re not taking this castle unless we let them. Are Flitwick and Vector already up in the tower?”

His confidence seemed to ease the others, although Angelina seemed even more annoyed than before.

“Yeah, they’re there. I haven’t heard anything from them yet,” she replied reluctantly.

Harry nodded.

“Good, that means the castle defenses are holding without their help. So, what was for dinner?” he asked cheerily, although he kept one eye on the doorway to the tower and his wand in hand.

“Potter, this really isn’t the time.”

“Why not? I want to know what I have to look forward to. We’re all going to be starved when this is all over.”

There a tense silence for a moment, and then one of the sixth year boys answered softly.

“Liver and onions.”

“Egh. I guess I’m not missing anything after all.”

A few of them chuckled, and Angelina rolled her eyes.

“Honestly, Potter, can’t you take this a little more seriously? I would have thought you, of all people, would understand the gravity of the situation!”

He grinned at her, but it wasn’t in anyway pleasant or friendly. His tone was light and teasing, but his eyes seemed to glow with a tightly controlled rage.

“I am taking this situation seriously. Deadly serious. I know a dozen lethal curses off the top of my head, and if anyone comes through that door who isn’t Flitwick or Vector, you’ll get to see them. Until then, however, you all need to calm down or you’re likely to cause an accident.”

She graced him with an irritated scowl, but turned her attention back to the door. He was right. Out of everyone there he was the one she should least be concerned about. His wand was steady in his hand, and for all his odd humor he always kept at least one eye or ear on the entryway. Potter had been in real battles. Bloody, vicious, deadly battles. He had killed. He had won.

For all her nervous agitation, Angelina couldn’t think of anyone else she would rather have at her side in this moment.

The attack had been a mixed success, which to Mandalari meant it had also been a failure. A salvageable failure, but a failure nonetheless. The village had been a ridiculously easy target. Most of the buildings there were new and held little of the magical protection that came from generations of protective wards and blood magic associated with ancestral homes and businesses. Within minutes it was burning like a bonfire, and the people were fleeing in terror. Mandalari did not allow his troops to linger.

Hogsmeade was not their primary target, and as defenseless as it was, it would be simple enough to return and finish up later. He quickly turned their sights to the distant castle on the hill, silhouetted by rapidly fading sunlight. It was truly something to behold, even he had to admit that. A monument to more savage times, it stood apart and yet a part of the rocky Scottish hills, a thousand torches and glowing windows lending it the illusion of aliveness. The walls were thick and gray, but the mottled stones and the slope and curve of the design was distinctly organic. It reminded Mandalari of an enormous dragon, curled asleep around a mountain.

He moved his soldiers in fast and low, hoping to catch the guards at the gate by surprise, but they had already been alerted by the rising smoke in the village below and were raising the draw bridge, sealing the primary entrance. His men managed to take out the two Sentinels at the gatehouse, but were too late to prevent the activation of the castle defenses.

It all went down hill from there.

Mandalari had expected more difficulty with the castle than with the village. It was a castle after all, and it had a reputation for being well protected. It was still a school, however, and he had not anticipated the level of resistance his troops had encountered. He had nearly a hundred men, and yet even attacking simultaneously, they had could not breech it. The doors were all sealed and glass windows would not break. Within in moments, the castle’s exterior defenses came alive.

Stone gargoyles leapt from their perches to fly after the Aurors, a single swipe from their massive claws enough to knock any of them out of the air. Luckily, they were slow and clumsy, and their brooms were more than capable of outmaneuvering them, but it made it impossible to stay in any one spot for a coordinated attack. They wasted several precious minutes blasting the creatures into dust, before they could renew their assault and in the interim the castle occupants had taken up offensive positions.

Hexes and curses whizzed through the air, catching the unwary and the reckless, forcing them to pull back where ever they had begun to make progress. There was no one to aim their retaliation against, as most of the curses came through the arrowslits[4] in the sides walls. Mandalari ordered his men to scattered, to draw their fire power and exhaust them, while he circled and looked for weaknesses. Nothing immediately came to his attention, and everywhere he looked the defenses, whether they were from the witches and wizards inside or the castle itself, were solid and unyielding. Flying low as he passed over the lake nearly spelled his end when several enormous tentacles shot out of the air, nearly knocking him from his broom and dragging him into the brackish waters below.

There was no way inside, and having encountered more resistance than he had anticipated at the exterior, he wasn’t sure they were at all prepared to face the defenses that lay within. As things stood, they could not, and would not take the castle this night. Angry and frustrated, Mandalari order one last volley of blasting curses against whatever even remotely vulnerable structure they could find, and then ordered the retreat.

Clay roof tiles, exposed blocks, decorative plaster, banners, and wooden hoardings[5] shattered, raining down debris into the empty stone walkways and courtyard, but the main structures held without so much as a quiver, the damage completely superficial.

From start to finish, it took less than thirty minutes and cost him nearly twenty men.

They pulled back to Hogsmeade, but the village was little more than cinders and the people already fled. By now Voldemort’s army had been alerted to the attack and had mobilized, meaning if they stayed there would be more intense fighting with little more accomplished than they already had. He ordered their final retreat for London, and apparated out of there.

When they all reappeared Mandalari knew something was wrong. They were not in their intended drop zone, but what looked like a long lake or wide river surrounded by a large park[6]. In the distance, he could identify several distinctive pieces of London’s modern muggle architecture, but he did not recognize his location or its position in relation to wizarding London. He turned to shout orders to his men-

“Def-”

And gave away his rank to the enemy descending on all sides. The curse caught him cleanly in the arm, knocking him from his broom and into one of his soldiers. They tumbled down into the cold dark waters beneath. The first casualties of this newest battle, they were soon joined by their comrades, falling one after the other as two hundred the thirty-six Culties, lead by Lt. Commander Stratus descended upon them like wolves and slaughtered them down to the last man.

From start to finish, it took less than four minutes and cost every Italian witch and wizard there their lives.

All except one.

Voldemort came to Hogwarts at first light the day after the attack, but already the castle was swarming with activity. Sentinels and Culties scoured the surrounding countryside and the nearby lake for the dead and wounded enemy. Lucius oversaw the process from a position atop a small hill, tired and fierce and stoically silent. Several teachers were out as well, inspecting the damage to the castle structure and defenses. Along the open walkways, groups of students were working diligently to remove the debris, levitating stones, wood, and mortar into large self-propelled carts to be hauled away.

The banners that normally decorated the castle exterior were all gone, burned or torn away by enemy fire, but atop the Astronomy tower someone had hung the Flag of Britain and below that the school flag. The boiling rage that had plagued him throughout the night when he learned of the attack eased somewhat at the sight.

Hogwarts was still here. She was stronger than her enemies.

The castle drawbridge had been damaged in during the fighting, but someone had scrounged up a temporary replacement made out of a partially transfigured wrought iron gate. The new bridge was narrow, and creaked in protest with every step, but held both his weight and that of the other witches and wizard carefully moving around him in the course of their duties. Already, he could see the castle starting to absorb the new structure into its base framework, healing a wound from the previous night’s skirmish. He ran his hands over the stones at the entryway, and mentally sighed in relief as he felt the vibrant hum of the magic beneath his fingertips.

“Lord Voldemort?”

He turned to see a young Sentinel fidgeting nervously at the doorway.

“What?”

“Headmaster Snape said that you might show up, and that I should take you to him.”

The Dark Lord squashed his irritation at the perceived summons. Snape was busy, not playing power games, and taking his frustrations out on the man would not help the situation.

“Take me to him. Where is Potter?”

The Sentinel hesitated.

“Harold Potter, my Lord?”

“Yes,” he replied, impatiently. How many Potters did this fool think he would ask after?

“Er… I am afraid I do not know, sir.”

“Once you are done, I want you to find him and bring him to me. Bring General Malfoy, as well.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

That was about the only smart thing the boy had said yet. The rest of the walk was blessedly silent. They made their way to the Great Hall, the traffic gradually getting thicker as students with their arms full of sleeping bags and overnight kits ambled by in their night clothes or dressed and ready for day of work putting their home back in order. The closer they drew to the Great Hall the quieter the conversation got, until at last they entered what was clearly the temporary dormitory for the students. The tables had been removed, and in a scene easily similar to four years ago, replaced with mats and sleeping bags pushed tightly together. Most of the children were up and preparing to leave, but a few of the older students were still fast asleep in their sleeping bags, and those around them were careful not to disturb them. Voldemort scanned the sleeping faces, but none of them was Harry or even one of his close associates.

At the front of the room, the teachers’ table was still present, and Snape was seated in his reserved position, hurriedly scribbling instructions onto parchment, which he then passed on to a student or teacher or Sentinel. Beside him, Ira talked softly to students and staff, taking down what they were saying and occasionally directing them elsewhere or moving them on to talk to her husband. Neither looked as if they had slept.

“Severus,” he said softly, even he not immune to the subdued atmosphere that seemed to demand that one only speak in whispers. Snape immediately stood, and turned briefly to his wife.

“Send for McGonagall to cover for me.”

She nodded, and he moved around the table to lead Lord Voldemort to a small room directly behind the teacher’s table for the sake of privacy. He snapped his fingers twice, and the house elves popped into the room just long enough to light the sconces, activate the privacy wards, and set a small coffee set on the plain rectangular table before disappearing again. Snape sat himself down, but the Dark Lord felt in no hurry to follow his example.

“How extensive is the damage?” Voldemort began, knowing neither of them wanted to waste the other’s time.

“Mostly superficial. I’m having the staff evaluate what they can now that it’s light enough, but mostly it just seems to be minor damage. Roof tiles, plaster work… one of the wooden expansions off Gryffindor tower. I’ll have professionals come in and evaluate everything before we allow students into any of the towers, but I doubt they’ll find anything. The wards will need to be boosted again, but they held for the attack.”

The Dark Lord nodded, satisfied with the assessment.

“Was anyone killed?”

“The two Sentinels at the gatehouse lost their lives, but otherwise no one inside the castle was hurt. Everyone performed their roles admirably.”

“And the enemy?”

“Last I heard they found fourteen bodies, but Lucius would have the most current tally.”

Voldemort nodded. Lt. Commander Stratus was still fighting in London, but he had sent word that he was certain he had wiped out what remained of the Italian raiding party. He said as much to Snape, who mustered enough energy to look suitably pleased with this report. They talked for a little longer, mostly with the headmaster answering straightforward facts about the events of the attack, the response of security, staff, and students, and plans for the future. Snape was quick with an answer or else quick with an estimation on how and when he was likely to have an answer, and Voldemort felt his anxiety over the failed attack ease as he continued to be reassured by the man’s competence. For perhaps the first time, he was absolutely convinced that having him replace Lestrange had been an excellent decision.

They were eventually joined by Lucius, who poured himself a cup of coffee and made himself comfortable. There were dark shadows across his face and he looked overdrawn, but his eyes danced with a malicious delight as he updated them on what he knew.

“We’ve found eighteen bodies, although if there are any that fell in the lake there’s a good chance we’ll not find anything. Nevertheless, I’ve sent men to search the shoreline for ten miles, just in case. Witnesses put the first attack as starting at Hogsmeade around 6:20pm and lasting roughly ten minutes, before they moved onto Hogwarts. The attack lasted roughly thirty minutes before the Italians retreated back to Hogsmeade for another five to ten minutes, and then attempted to apparate back to wizarding London. My plan to have them relayed into Hyde Park worked perfectly. They might have thought themselves very brave and cunning fighting civilians and invalids, but against trained fighters they were nothing short of pathetic. They were all dead within five minutes.”

“Well done, Lucius,” Snape commended, because even he had to admit his scheme to catch the raiders as they attempted to return to their stronghold was remarkably clever. “And London?”

“I have Stratus seeing to it. You haven’t met him, I don’t think. A humble man, but very reliable. If things go according to schedule, he’ll have ousted the invaders by this afternoon. Tomorrow evening, at the-”

There was a soft knock on the door, and Harry entered the room. He wasn’t wearing his robes, his sleeves were rolled up, and there was flour smudges on his hands and face. His eyes scanned the room and quickly settled on the Dark Lord. Color aside, the elder wizard thought the boy’s eyes must be very similar to his own at the moment. Fierce. Proud. Resolved.

Murderous.

“You summoned me, my Lord?”

“Those who attacked this castle are all dead,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact.

Harry blinked, but otherwise his expression remained unchanged. After a moment, he replied.

“Good.”

The Dark Lord found himself smiling despite himself.

“Thank you for tell me,” the boy continued. “Was that all you wanted me for?”

“No. What were you doing before I summoned you?”

“Making pancakes. The house elves are too busy to do it, so I got kitchen duty.”

“I’m sure no one will starve without you. Find a seat.”

Harry looked uncertainly at the other two men in the room, who did not look enthused by his presence but otherwise said nothing. He set himself at the table on the one side left unoccupied. Voldemort couldn’t help but notice he looked unusually uncomfortable, but likely that had to do with Lucius and their private skirmish over the Granger girl.

“How do you feel things went during the attack, Harry?”

The Gryffindor thought a moment. “Like clockwork. Everyone knew their place and purpose.”

“Were you ever afraid of the outcome?”

“No. I was too angry to be afraid.”

“And the other students?”

He hesitated.

“They were scared, I think, but they would have done what needed to be done.”

“Do you think anything could have been improved?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t get to see the entire plan come together. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the plan itself… maybe student response. I don’t think the younger years were ready for what was happening. They were panicky.”

Voldemort turned to Severus.

“Do you agree with this assessment?”

“As far as it goes,” the headmaster replied, unconcerned. “It was to be expected. That is why I have the younger students placed further into the castle’s defenses. Less chance of seeing actual combat. Having faced the actual possibility of combat, however, they may be more open to psychological preparedness training. I’m not sure their parents would approve, given the techniques involved.”

Lucius smirked. “As a parent, I won’t object.”

Snape rolled his eyes.

“Do you believe this sort of training to be necessary, after the current level of security seems to have been proven sufficient?” Voldemort asked.

“Yes, but then I believe it should have been a standard of DA&D curriculum from the beginning.”

The conversation continued along the vein of curriculum alteration, drills and defense exercises, increased security measures, student involvement, parental response, how the press should be handled, fiscal adjustments, various and sundry matters that would have to be dealt with over the coming hours, days, and weeks. Harry remained quiet, but attentive, not understanding half of it but willing enough to give an opinion when the Dark Lord asked him for one. It was half war council, half school board meeting and he wasn’t sure where one ended and the other began.

They went on undisturbed for some time, and the house elves replaced the coffee carafe twice before they were finally interrupted by a knock at the door. Ira peeked her head inside.

“Belsifer Pitwick is here to see you, Severus. He insists it’s urgent.”

“Who?”

“The mayor of Hogsmeade.”

Severus was about to point out that Juliana Hobsmack was mayor of Hogsmeade, then realized the woman was probably dead. He looked to Voldemort to see if he was interested or if he should put the man off until they were done. The Dark Lord answered for him.

“Send him in. It will save me a trip to see him later.”

She moved out of the way to let the visitor in.

Belsifer Pitwick was an interesting sort of fellow, who was a little bit of everything and therefore nothing in particular. He was dressed very gentlemanly, but mud spattered yellow boots sort of ruined the effect. His face, which had a friendly sort of composition, was compromised by his bloodshot eyes and an unlit pipe that hung from the corner of his mouth. If he was surprised to find the Headmaster of Hogwarts sitting in with Britain’s ruler and second in command of her armed forces, the only indication he gave was to twist his mouth in such a way that his pipe moved from one side of his mouth to the other without him having to touch it.

He bowed politely.

“Gentleman.”

“Welcome, Mayor Pitwick,” Voldemort greeted evenly, neither truly welcoming nor intimidating. “I hope you don’t mind if we sit in with your meeting. We all have a vested interest in the wellbeing of this school, and have been working collaboratively to get through this latest crisis.”

Pitwick glanced at Harry briefly, as if unsure. The Gryffindor simply stood and indicated the man should take his chair, while he moved to stand off in the corner. This was more for his own benefit than the mayor’s, as he was starting to get jittery after his third cup of coffee and didn’t want to sit anymore.

“Not at all,” he said, “If nothing else, perhaps you can give me some ideas on my next course of action. You see, I find myself in something of a predicament. I am the mayor of a village that no longer exists.”

In his corner, Harry closed his eyes, and took a long deep breathe.

“My condolences,” Voldemort said, in the same cautious tone as before, “The Court will, of course, do everything it can to help you and the villagers rebuild and resettle as quickly as possible.”

A diplomatic answer. Especially, since everyone there knew the Court was inundated with similar projects, and with limited resources it might be over a year before they were able to lend any meaningful assistance. The heavy response Hogwarts was receiving was, frankly, unbelievable and completely unfair but not unexpected given its status as both national treasure and Voldemort’s private pet project.

Pitwick didn’t seem surprised or bothered by the maneuver.

“I am not overly concerned with that. The village was well insured. It’s part of the county ordinances in order to build or own property. About the only act of foresight Hobsmack ever had, may she rest in peace. We have, or will have soon, the money to rebuild, and we’ll do it smarter this time around, with better defenses and building codes. Maybe a keystone like they have in those Irish towns, I don’t know… I’ll have to talk to professionals about-”

“You should bury the dead along the border of the village.”

For the first time, Pitwick was caught off guard. He turned to the boy standing in the corner, whose reputation preceded him but not the unnerving quality of his unflinching gaze. The other men in the room also turned to him as well, although they did not seem alarmed by his suggestion.

“Burial sites can act as a sort of keystone. Particularly when the victims died by violence,” Harry explained. He was thinking of the long disappeared wall around the Forbidden Forest, the burial shrine at the werewolf colony, and the many marked and unmarked graves that littered the Malfoy Estates.

Voldemort looked intrigued.

“He is correct. In ancient times, it was standard practice to place cemeteries and crypts in pentagonal formation around towns and villages. The original Hogsmeade, likely had such a layout, but the cemeteries have been built over or moved throughout the centuries. I would highly recommend finding some older maps, and reestablish these gravesites. They will strengthen the village’s defenses and act as a natural barrier against some malevolent magical influences.”

Pitwick relaxed a little, having been given a practical explanation for an otherwise macabre suggestion.

“I will look into it. More important than the dead, however, are the living. I have eight hundred men, women, and children who have no idea where they’re going to stay tonight or get their next meal. Most of them moved to Hogsmeade escaping from London or sold their homes in the big cities and have no where else to go.”

Snape’s expression was becoming increasingly rigid as he began to see the direction this conversation was taking. Lucius too seemed to have it figured it out, and smirked at his friend’s growing unease.

“Even if temporary dwellings were available, it is not reasonable to ask the villagers to leave themselves exposed after what has just occurred.”

“The Italians are dead and gone, Mayor Pitwick,” Snape interrupted. “The raiding party was destroyed after their retreat and their main force is being ousted from London as we speak. They are no longer a threat to you or the villagers.”

The mayor paused to consider this newest information, reworking his pitch quickly.

“The Italians are no longer a threat… or at least they won’t be for a while. There are also the Germans to consider, the approaching winter, the Forbidden Forest… simple logistical concerns such as sanitation and food. None of which the government has the time or the resources to provide at the moment.”

Snape sighed, accepting the inevitable request.

“I would like to have a portion of the remaining village relocated to the castle while we work to rebuild and better secure against further attacks.”

The Headmaster looked to Voldemort to see his position before answering, but all he found was an open sort of curiosity. The Dark Lord wanted to know what his response would be. That put him in a tricky position. The man likely already knew what he wanted done and this was more of a test than anything.

“I doubt the castle could handle another eight-hundred-”

“Closer to five hundred. Some of them do have relatives who can take them in or alternative arrangements.”

“Financially, we couldn’t afford to feed, cloth, or bed-”

“The insurance covers rent and lost property. This wouldn’t be charity. Not entirely, at least.”

“Security would be a nightmare-”

Here, Lucius was happy to provide the answer Pitwick couldn’t.

“I think I can spare some men to handle that. We already agreed there should be increased military presence around the castle. If you register the villagers as staff or students, the castle will accept them.”

“Thank you, Lucius,” he bit off sourly. He turned to Harry who was now fidgeting in the corner, and glared. “Anything you’d like to add? Do you think you could live in the castle with double the occupants?”

The Gryffindor blinked.

“I can’t say I’d want to,” Harry admitted, “But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t. It’s not really up to us, anyway. Aren’t we like… required to do it? That’s one of the reasons the castle was built, to offer sanctuary to the village during war. I think it’s even in the school charter.”

Snape tried to recall if that was true, and it became readily apparent when he did.

“Bugger.”

Voldemort’s curious expression morphed into one of amusement.

“Don’t concern yourself overly much, Severus. You have my full approval to cancel classes and make use of the students during this transition period. I’ll handle the school board and any financial hindrances you might face with the insurance companies. I’ll have my public relations liaison come by later with a list of contacts you’ll find useful. Adjustments will be made to your responsibilities, authority, and subsequent pay and benefits. Handle this right, and you’ll come out of this with far more than you had going in.”

That, of course, seemed to ease some of Snape’s aggravation, although he still did not looked pleased with this newest turn of events. He had been expecting to have his hands full simply handling students and teachers, now he found himself looking after five hundred something traumatized villagers. He honestly had no idea where to start, and having not slept for nearly thirty-six hours after a highly stressful event, he didn’t feel up to figuring it out.

He should make Potter do it, just for the hell of it.

“I will take care of it.”

“I know you will, Severus,” Voldemort said, part reassurance and part unspoken threat. “When the press shows up, try to act appropriately humble and sympathetic.”

The remainder of the meeting did not last much longer, and afterwards Harry accompanied Voldemort to his office.

“I want you to help Severus as much as possible, Harry. You are a figurehead to both your classmates and the villagers, and making the effort to help both sides adjust will be critical over the next few months,” the Dark Lord said as they made their way through the congested halls. Part of him was eager and happy to do whatever he could to help both the villagers and school get through this, but another part dreaded the experience. The school had seemed so crowded During the Triwizard tournament, and there had been less than hundred additional people then and all prepared for well in advance. How were they going to handle five hundred or more refugees?

“How long do you think they’ll be here?” he asked instead.

“The rest of the school year, at least, although I suspect the numbers will begin to lessen well before then. I’ll grease the wheels for the insurance companies to begin clean up and sorting through claims to speed things along, but it will be winter before they are able to start rebuilding, and there will be frequent setback due to weather and security threats. You will all have to take pains to adjust.”

Harry nodded, and decided to drop the subject for now. He would be dealing with it soon enough.

“So the Italians really are all dead?”

“Yes. At least the ones who participated in the attack. How many we will take out in London is anyone’s guess. Depends how fiercely they dig in, I suppose. Regardless, their strong hold in England is over.”

“Do you think that will be the end of it? Of the attacks in Britain, anyway?”

Voldemort snorted.

“Not if they have any common sense. I’ve already demonstrated what happens when you attack Britain and then try to run home. We come after you.”

Harry suddenly stopped.

“You’re going to invade Italy now?”

The Dark Lord glanced over his shoulder at him, but kept walking.

“Absolutely. They’re far too dangerous to leave unpunished. After we’ve subdued Germany and secured our alliances in Europe, we’ll finish in Italy. They’re strong, but not stronger than Britain and France combined, and no one will come to their aid.”

Harry was hurried to catch up to the Dark Lord, his thoughts dizzy with the meaning of those words. He couldn’t say he was surprised by the man’s decision, and he didn’t hold any sympathy for the Italians either, but the idea of extended the war even further had absolutely no appeal to him whatsoever.

“You disapprove?” Voldemort asked, catching his expression.

“I understand it, I just wish there were another way.”

“Hhhmmm… and here I thought you would be pleased. You were about the demise of the attackers.”

“‘It is one thing to remove a thorn in your foot and another to go out and burn down the briar patch’.”

“An interesting analogy.”

“Professor Sprout.”

“Hufflepuff. It figures.”

“I don’t like the idea of sending out people to die if they don’t have to.”

“Luckily, that it is not your decision to make. I assure you, Harry, I don’t enjoy it either. I’d much rather have Britain’s sons and daughter at home, raising families and contributing to the advancement of society than defending what little we have from ravenous dogs. Unfortunately, we must first address the later before we can obtain the former.”

They walked the rest of the way in silence, and at some point the flood of busy witches and wizards in the halls had slowed to a trickle until they stood at the entrance to Voldemort’s office without another soul in sight. He turned to Harry and looked down into his earnest eyes.

“I know this is difficult for you. Your life has been intimately intertwined with the conflicts Britain now faces, and you cannot bring yourself to disassociate yourself from it the way your classmates can. You feel you cannot know peace until the country is at peace. For that, I am sorry.”

Harry looked away, embarrassed. His feelings weren’t something he really liked to discuss, especially with Voldemort. The Dark Lord, however, wasn’t about ready to let him avoid it that easily, and caught his chin so that he was once again looking directly up at the man.

“I need you have to faith, Harry. And patience. These trials and triumphs are not the work of vanity or wounded pride. We are clearing the debris of our troubled past to set the foundations of a glorious future. Already, we begin to see our efforts take shape. The civil war left Britain in chaos, but we have achieved a capable and competent government structure and our people are united in a common cause. We have grown socially and economically, ready to re-enter the global community as a super power unto ourselves. One day, these troubled times will be nothing more than distant memory.”

Despite his words, Harry did not look reassured.

“One day, yes,” he agreed. “But will I live long enough to see it?”

Harry managed to catch a two hour nap (despite the coffee that morning) in Voldemort’s office, while the man performed administrative magic with an endless supply of paper and the absolute obedience of the resident house elves. When he awoke, he lingered for only a few minutes while fighting off drowsiness, before heading out to do his apparent duty as Snape’s little helper.

He headed down to the Great Hall, expecting to find Snape at the teacher’s table, but instead found himself being herded into one of six long lines by Clyde.

“Where have you been, Harry? We’ve been looking all over for you! Come on, let’s stick in this line. I think Natalie is heading this one.”

“What are you talking about? I was asleep. I don’t know what’s going on.”

All around them, students were lining up or leaving, talking excitedly or looking for friends, the morning lethargy evaporating with this newest event. Clyde was as jittery and excited as everyone else, looking around curiously and standing on his toes every so often to see over the crowd.

“Okay, sorry. I guess I assumed you’d know what was happening what with being in on that meeting and everything. What was that all about, anyway?”

Harry sighed in exasperation.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on here first, and I’ll tell you about the meeting?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” the other boy agreed, still busy looking around at everyone else. “Okay, so about an hour ago we get this announcement that Hogsmeade’s an ashy cinder, and we’re going to be like a refugee camp or something.”

Nothing Harry hadn’t known about, but still didn’t quite explain what was going on now.

“Then we get told that classes are canceled for the week so that we can all help reorganize the school or something. So right now, we’re all getting arm bands and applying for job responsibilities and stuff. But get this, we’re getting paid.”

“What, the school?”

Clyde grinned. “Nope. Us. The students. How brilliant is that?”

Harry had to admit that was impressive. He hadn’t anticipated being paid for helping out, but he could see why it would be a good idea especially when it came to getting the other students on board with what was happening. Treating this all like a job, rather than a chore, was likely to go over better in the long run.

“How much do we get paid?” he asked, curiously.

“It depends on what your job is. I don’t think anyone really knows how to tell yet, but the color of your security band is supposed to match your type of job, so you might be able to figure out that way.”

“I heard administration get the best pay,” someone in a neighboring line said. “They’ve got the green arm bands. Guess who keep getting them? Slytherins. They were quick to snatch up the cushy, high paying jobs.”

A girl further up voiced her disagreement.

“Nuh-uh. My friend Marcy got an admin job and she’s a Hufflepuff.”

“Probably a Slytherin’s secretary!”

“Nuh-uh!”

“Ya-huh!”

“Nuh-uh!”

“Both of you shut up already! Neither of you knows anything,” Clyde snapped in annoyance, then turned to Harry. “So what was the meeting about?”

Harry shrugged.

“Lots of stuff. Mostly plans for fixing up the school and improving security. Didn’t know we were taking in Hogsmeade until the mayor showed up. Snape was pissed.” He thought of telling Clyde about the Italians being wiped out, but decided against it. It would probably be better to wait until London was officially cleaned out in case something went wrong.

The other boy laughed. “I’ll bet!”

They putzed around in line for a while, sharing gossip and conjecture with their neighboring classmates about the night before and the week ahead. Most of the students seemed to have faired well, and were greeting the new day with a giddy sort of high that follows a moment of terror quickly averted. After half an hour they finally made it to the front of the line, where Natalie was waiting for them. She was dressed in her casual clothes, but she tied up her hair in a French knot and was proudly sporting a light green armband with the words ‘ADMIN II’ printed in black letters.

“Hello, Harry,” she greeted cheerfully, and then a little less cheerfully added, “Hello, Houghtson.”

“Good to you too, luv,” Clyde muttered. Harry smiled at her.

“Hey, Natalie. So what have you got for us?”

“You, I’ve got this!” She had a little rolodex situated in front of her, from which she pulled a plain white card with his name printed on it. She tapped it twice on the table and it grew into a full sized folder. She flipped it open. “Ah, excellent! They’ve got you pre-assigned. Most of us just get a type of job assigned based on aptitude and then have to apply for a position, but you’re already Student/Civilian Liaison; Security Level I. I think you’re the only student with that level of clearance.”

She pulled out a black armband with ‘SECURITY I’ in white letters. He slipped it over his arm, and despite being loose it didn’t fall down. Clyde looked suitably impressed.

“Bloody brilliant! I bet you could order everyone else in the school around. What about me?”

With somewhat less enthusiasm, Natalie turned back to her rolodex and pulled out his card. She enlarged it, and looked inside his folder. Mirth immediately spread across her features.

“Oh my… it’s… hhhmm…”

“What? What is it? It can’t be that bad!” He snatched the folder out of her hand. A light purple armband fell out, and Harry picked it up and read it.

“Dom services?”

“Domestic services, like kitchen duty or laundry,” Natalie offered up, trying to smother a smile. Clyde looked as if someone had killed his dog. “It’s not that bad. Three fourths of the students are domestic services or general labor. That’s what you get for never having a summer job or volunteer work on your student record. Take your folder, fill out your paperwork, and report to the Charms classroom. If you hurry, you might get a position as a supervisor somewhere.”

The mortified Gryffindor didn’t have to be told twice, and immediately rushed off without looking back. Harry and Natalie shared a look, and burst out laughing.

Security Liaison turned out to be a position uniquely suited to Harry. He was easily recognized by military personnel, students, and civilians alike, and most of them seemed to like him well enough. His reputation was such that no one attempted to mess with him despite his age and relatively small stature. It helped that he had a dynamic face that could be both inviting and intimidating depending upon what the situation called for.

When working, he wore the same ‘uniform’ as all the other ‘security’ students; black school robe, black cloak, all terrain boots, arm guards, white shirt, black tie, name badge, and armband. Aside from the black tie, the entire ensemble came from his private wardrobe and could mostly be found in any other student’s as well. The over all effect though was enough that he and his fellows could easily be identified at a distance even without their arm bands, and always had the appearance of being ready to jump into a fight at a moment’s notice.

Of the thirty-four students assigned to security, thirty were Level IV who generally did whatever menial, low-risk task was assigned to them, three were Level III in charge of supervising Level IV, and Harry, whose job was pretty much to be sociable with everyone and scary as hell at the same time. If Sentinel Seitler, the only person he was required to take orders from or salute, found any ironic humor in this, he had the good grace not to show it.

Harry’s first assignment was to oversee the villagers as they arrived at the gatehouse to be registered as castle residents (which student security was handling) and be checked by security (handled by Lucius’ new regiment of Culties). He walked amongst the growing lines of tired, anxious families and individuals, speaking to as many of them as he could, reassuring them of their safety and welcome at the castle, answering questions, offering an encouraging word, or talking down the frustrated (during which his more sinister reputation came in handy). Children, for whatever reason, seemed to adore him, and frequently abandoned their parents’ sides to ask him questions or request a magic trick, which he would perform only on the condition that stopped getting out of line.

It was gratifying, yet heartbreaking work. Many of the people who came to the gate were still in shock; some had lost family, friends, and neighbors. A handful were orphans. The castle offered them refuge, but there was no guarantee it would grant them solace, and their future was uncertain. If nothing else, he was at least convinced of the rightness of bringing them into the castle whatever the inconvenience.

Whether Headmaster Snape would agree with this assessment, Harry wasn’t at all certain. He saw the man regularly over the next week, perhaps more so than anyone else except Seitler, to inform the man of the refugees’ behavior or relay the details of some incident or another. Their conversations, however, were brief, to the point, and without the usual verbal swordplay. Harry wasn’t sure if he should take it personally or not. The man was obviously stressed and his time was valuable, and if he wasn’t in the mood for banter he didn’t blame him.

He didn’t know if he could keep his own tone civil, especially about how the refugees were being handled. The man seemed almost obsessed with keeping the villagers separate from the students, rearranging classrooms and closing off corridors to prevent either parties from meeting accidentally and restricting student movement into the ‘Hogsmeade Hall’ unless on work related business. Whatever assigned duties could be turned over to villagers, were done so quickly, further distancing them from each other. Harry didn’t understand it, but it seemed cold and vaguely cruel to be so blatantly unwelcoming to people who had just lost so much.

Everyone else, however, seemed to be embracing their guests and their own roles in helping them get their lives back together. Although off duty fraternization was discouraged, there was nothing that could be done to stop students (or staff for that matter) from hanging around while they were on duty, and a inordinate amount of time was spent slacking off with conversations and playing games and whatever else they could get away with. In a lot of ways, visiting Hogsmeade Hall was like visiting the village itself and a way to escape the confining drudgery of student life.

For Harry, it was a precarious adventure of endless dangers.

“Tell us another story!” a six year old demanded, as Harry moved to stand up from the circular rug, around which some dozen young children had been avidly listening to him retell of his marvelous escape from Germany (after careful editing and a great deal of artistic license). He had dropped by Hogsmeade Hall to visit the make-shift primary school and give a brief lecture about safety inside the castle (don’t worry, the ghosts are harmless; never wander around alone; if you get lost, find the nearest student or uniformed wizard to help you; no the headmaster is not a vampire and there aren’t any dragons in the dungeons, etc.), and had been roped into a story time. He now knew this was a skill innate to all children, and not just a special gift of Morgana and Alyssa Reicher.

“I’m afraid I don’t have another story right now. You’ll have to wait until I think of another.”

The students let out a long ‘aaahhhh’, and he had to fight back a smile.

“Sorry, that’s the way it is. I better get back to work. My boss will turn me into a pink flamingo if he catches me.”

Predictably, they all found the idea of Harry as pink bird ridiculously funny and he ducked out of the classroom quickly while they were busy laughing at his expense. Natalie was waiting for him outside, looking even more amused.

“A white knight and good with children. Why did we break up?”

“Because, you don’t like white knights or children?” he offered.

“Oh yeah.”

“Not that I’m not happy to see you, but what are doing down here? I thought you were still on duty?”

Natalie’s job was as supervisor of General Inventory, which kept track of all of the supplies needed in Hogsmeade Hall. This job was technically supposed to be in the hands of one of the villagers by now, but she was so good at it that no one wanted to replace her until they absolutely had to. She had apparently done similar jobs while volunteering in Ireland and discovered she had a head for it. She was exceptionally proud of herself, and there was little anyone could do to drag her away from her private office or the backrooms that defined her territory.

“I was just dropping off some baby food at the daycare, when I overheard you telling your story. Very exciting.”

Harry pretended not to be embarrassed, but he couldn’t do much to stop his ears from flushing at her gentle teasing.

“And I thought I should let you know that Rita Skeeter is in the castle and she’s looking for you.”

“Skeeter?”

“No one should have to face her without at least a heads up. That woman’s wardrobe shouldn’t exist outside a burlesque.”

Harry grinned, and kissed her on the cheek. Her ears suddenly matched his.

“Thanks, Natalie. I better find her before she gives up and leaves.”

“Yes, well… I think she’s in the courtyard, signaling aliens in outer space with her fluorescent yellow hair.”

He jogged off to find the reporter, easing his way around the crowded halls with practiced agility. It didn’t take him long to find Skeeter, although she had moved from the courtyard towards the Gryffindor dorms. Her bright green jacket and sparkling red heels made her somewhat hard to miss in the sea of black robes. He jogged passed her on the stairs as if he didn’t see her, not wanting anyone else to think he looking for publicity, and painted on a look of mock horror when she noticed him.

“Mr. Potter!” she practically shrieked, and ran after him.

“Er…”

“Just a moment of your time, dear!” she said happily, and quickly latched onto his arm like hawk snatching up a mouse.

“Uh…”

“Now, Mr. Potter, I hear you have had a most exciting couple of days here at Hogwarts. Do you think you could spare a minute to talk about it? It’s been months since we heard anything from you! Here, let’s talk somewhere more private!”

Feigning horror-struck silence, he allowed her to pull him off the stairs and into one of the corridors. A quick search (she was amazingly fast for a woman in heels) revealed an empty classroom, and she quickly pulled him inside. She spun him around and wrapped her arms around him in a surprise hug.

“Harry! How is my favorite little blackmailer?” she squealed in delight.

He choked out a laugh at her over the top behavior and carefully extracted himself.

“I’m… well. How are you… crazy, ladybug woman.”

“Oh, Harry, you needn’t be so coy. I know you’re happy to see me.”

He gave her a thoughtful look.

“Perhaps. Depending on what you brought me.”

Far from being put off, she actually looked even happier to show him the results of the errand he had sent her on. She pulled a file from inside her jacket and handed it to him.

“So, I did a little research on the names you gave, and boy, I think we’re both going to be happy that you did. Darling, blue-eyed Johnny Carrobs with his fondness for little muggleborn girls… several of them who seem to have gone on to be single mothers with even more darling little blue-eyed children. Naughty, naughty.”

Harry glanced through the file of John Carrobs, and grimaced. Skeeter hadn’t bothered to edit out the full extent of her findings or her more sordid theories. Just the same, she was right that he had no intention of putting Hermione in this man’s debt, even if Skeeter’s findings were mostly conjecture.

“And the others?”

“Delamora Smith bought her way out of a prison sentence in ’92 when her rare Mongolian Trypas bird killed and ate her butler. She might have kept herself out of the bird cage, but she’ll never be approved as a guardian. Not while she’s still breeding Trypas in any event.”

Harry sighed. Why were so many wizards and witches weirdos?

“Andoria Smythe?”

“She’s dating Merton Graves[7] and tours with his band, the Weird Sisters. Fascinating woman. Very active in the feminist movement, but she’s not a lesbian. Go figure.”

“Do you think she’d help Hermione?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. She’s adopted six kids already.”

Harry gave her a funny look and turned to the file for clarification. Sure enough, Andoria Smythe had adopted six children, all of them over the age of twelve, all girls. It seemed she made a hobby of taking in older orphans girls to keep them off the street and out of the underground brothel houses. It looked as if she would be the ideal for what they wanted.

“Thank you, Skeeter. You did excellent work.”

She gave him a smugly satisfied look.

“Yes, well, it pays to keep a woman with my skills around.”

Funny, hadn’t Natalie said the exact same thing recently? Feeling generous, he smiled back at her.

“Yes, I can see that now.”

1. Ira’s miscarriage was the result of minor infection unrelated to her pregnancy causing complication in her pregnancy, primarily a fever and a hormonal imbalance.↩

2. A diving winnow is a swallow-like bird that dives for its dinner in Scottish lakes. Once it hits the water is swells with water to the size of a small penguin (and acts much like one) and can’t fly again until its feather dry out- forty minutes to six hours later depending on the weather. They have long legs and sharp claws, however, and can run or climb trees if faced with predators.↩

3. Fresh water hydras are related to jellyfish, not the multi-headed dragon thing.↩

4. Arrowslits are real castle features, and as the name implies they were used for shooting arrows out at the enemy while minimizing exposure to the archer. I thought the same feature would work well for wizards.↩

5. Hoardings were wooden constructs that projected beyond the wall, allowing defenders to shoot at, or drop objects on attackers at the base of the wall without having to lean perilously over the crenellations, thereby exposing themselves to retaliatory fire. (Wikipedia; “castle”)↩

6. The Italians apparated over the Serpentine in Hyde Park, London.↩

7. Merton Graves is an actual member of the canon Weird Sisters.↩

Royal Amusements

“I need your help,” Ron said, and Harry contemplated turning around and stabbing him through the eye with his wand. It was not so much the Slytherin’s request as his request on top of everything else over the last two weeks. He was heading to the library for a much needed study session, after a two hour mediation between Sentinel Seitler and Mayor Pitwick about the mobility of villagers in and out of the castle and the ability to bring in supplies themselves. Harry thought it was a sad state of affairs when two grown men needed a sixteen year old present to keep things civil and fair, but that seemed to be the flavor of things these days.

In addition to his job as liaison, Harry was also working with Vector to design a research project, under a lot of pressure to go for the Captain’s position in Dueling Club that year by the student body, trying to catch up on his studies, and preparing for a trip to France. He did not need Ron making requests on time and energy he didn’t have. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“With what?” he asked, not turning around or slowing down.

“I found the book.”

Harry looked around the hall to make sure no one was listening. They were in the buffer zone between Hogsmeade Hall and the rest of the school, so there was no one in sight.

“You need me to help perform a ritual, then?”

“No… well, yes, but I need help getting the book first.”

“I thought you said-”

“I found the book, but I don’t have it. It’s at the National Public Library of Wizardry in London.”

“Huh. Lucky the Culties took control of the city then.”

“Yeah, well, the library isn’t open yet. It won’t be for months. I have no way to request it be sent here.”

Harry considered the dilemma for a moment. He finally stopped and looked back at Ron, who was sort of grimacing.

“You can’t wait till Christmas break or even until they are open again? You haven’t been coughing …”

The Weasley boy shook his head.

“No, the sage has been helping with that… but… I haven’t eaten in two days.”

Harry studied him for a long moment. Ron was looked tired, perhaps more so than could be explained by student life. His eyes were shadowed and red rimmed, his skin pale and chapped, and if he looked closely enough he thought the other might have lost some weight.

“I can’t keep anything down. I vomited an anti-vomting potion. How the hell does that work?” Ron said, grimacing at the memory. “And there’s more.”

He pulled up the sleeve of his robe to show Harry his forearm, which was now mottled with yellow and green bruises.

“I’ve got some on by back and legs too. I don’t know what it’s from.”

Harry felt his mouth go dry. Cautiously, he reached out to the exposed skin, letting his fingers hover over it. His magus hypersentia interpreted it as an oily, clammy sensation and if he were to touch it directly he felt certain it would be like touching maggoty meat. He quickly withdrew his hand. Ron was rotting from the inside out. He schooled his expression before he spoke.

“I’ll see what I can do about the book. In the meantime, you need to see if the school library has anything on purification rituals. It worked for your lungs; it might help with the rest of your body for a while at least.”

Ron nodded eagerly.

“Yeah, okay, I can do that. Thanks…um… I owe you one.”

“I think you owe me more than one,” Harry pointed out blandly, and started walking away. He just barely caught the look of annoyance and frustration out of the corner of his eye, but it was enough. It wasn’t particularly nice of him to be pushing the other’s buttons, particularly not when his life depended upon his clemency, but he couldn’t help deriving a sense of satisfaction from aggravating the other even as he lent his assistance. He may have changed his mind about helping Ron, but that didn’t make them friends and it certainly didn’t mean Harry had to like him.

It wasn’t until a few days later that Harry came up with a possible method of obtaining the necessary book for Ron. The Slytherin must have found something in his research of purification rituals, because he was eating by dinnertime. Only fruit and crackers, but still eating.

He was talking with Vector about pagan rituals and what he knew of the significance of the geometric patterns and shapes (which was considerably less than he thought after she grilled him on the subject), when it became clear there was going to be some preliminary research required. That was when Harry got an idea.

“You know, Professor, I haven’t found much in the Hogwarts library about this sort of thing, but the National Library in London has an extensive collection of rare and ancient texts. I am sure they have a lot of what we’re looking for.”

“You may be right, Mr. Potter, but I don’t know if they’re up and running yet. I hear the university won’t be open until next semester, and they are part of the same consortium,” Vector said, looking thoughtful.

“I might be able to pull a few strings. I have travel arrangements for next weekend. I doubt it would take much to detour through London on my way back.”

At this, the arithmancy teacher gave him an appraising stare.

“They could probably benefit from the publicity. I can get the contact information of the library director for you if you like.”

“That would be very helpful, thank you.”

“No, Mr. Potter. Thank you.”

After running his intentions by Professor Slughorn, who had nothing but praise for Harry’s initiative, the arrangements were made and Harry was feeling rather pleased with himself. His plans all seemed to be coming together, despite the chaos of his day to day life. The universe seemed to be oddly in step with him lately, and in a turn of good fortune he received two letters the following Thursday from not only his godfathers but also the Weasley twins.

The letter from his godfathers was written in its usual humorous duality of two men with very different personalities vying for attention, and despite a few vague references to skirmishes with the local wizards at some of the colonies, everything seemed to be going well. The Weasley twins had a similar style of writing, but unlike his godfathers were nothing but butterflies and rainbows it seemed. Their pub, one of only two that had remained open for the entirety of the London siege (and how this was possible Harry couldn’t even fathom) was now bursting at the seams with new customers. They were something like local legends and had appeared twice in the papers, and it seemed no one could come back into London without visiting at least once for a pint and the latest news around town. Harry hoped he would somehow find the opportunity to swing by to see them while he was in London.

Despite the relatively optimistic future that was presenting itself, Harry knew his luck couldn’t hold out for much longer, and when the Sr. Dueling Club competition rolled around Thursday evening (it was supposed to have been the previous Friday but had to be postponed) he was proven correct.

The entire school seemed to have shown up, crowded into the bleachers along the wall or else crowding the floor in battle gear. Before the match, Harry was clustered with Angelina, Draco, and the other members who still held some sort of rank.

“I swear to God if you throw the match to me intentionally,” Angelina growled, “I will find ways to make you suffer.”

Harry fought the distinct urge to pout. He was faced with a conundrum. He didn’t want to be Dueling Club Captain, but he certainly didn’t want to quit, piss off Angelina, or make it obvious he lost intentionally to a weaker opponent in front of the entire school. Draco was quick to make an offer.

“I on the other hand, wouldn’t mind in the slightest. I’ll even let you pick the spell you want me to use.”

Harry considered. Angelina slapped him upside the head.

“What is wrong with you?”

“I don’t want to be captain,” he whined like a five-year old.

“Merlin, you’re pretentious. You honestly think you winning is a sure thing?”

He smirked. Someone snickered. She rolled her eyes.

“I never thought I would wish Ronald Weasley was back on the team, but at least you took him seriously. Where the hell is he, anyway? I though his suspension was over.”

Recalling Ron brought to mind bruised skin and rotting. Not something Harry wanted to linger on.

“He’s been sick.”

A pause. Draco frowned.

“He’s been acting wonky for a while now. You think he’s on something?”

Angelina gave him an exasperated look.

“He’s your dorm mate. Shouldn’t you know?”

“Why? If he’s taking illegal potions he’d have the good sense not to show off. You’d be surprised how often that sort of thing slips anyone’s notice.”

Harry, through intense will, did not squirm.

Soon enough, the matches began and he did not have the time or the focus to decide exactly what he was going to do, be it lose to Draco or just win and accept another time consuming position. His matches were all predictably easy to win in one to three spells. Most of his opponents seemed resigned to losing to him from the start, and he equally resigned to win.

And then, a sort of miracle occurred.

Michael Allbright[1], a slip of a boy in Hufflepuff whom Harry had mentored during his first painful year in Jr. Dueling Club, took the platform. He wasn’t particularly powerful and when he had first started he had a tendency to freeze up under intimidation, but he had stuck it out and Harry could honestly say he liked him.

Which was why, when he found himself staring up at the ceiling after a blasting hex knocked him clean off the platform, he managed a laugh. A painful, breathless laugh, but an honest laugh just the same.

“Harry!” Allbright’s terrified face was suddenly hovering over him. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry! Don’t kill me!”

He just smiled, and that seemed to frighten the fourth year even more. Angelina popped into view, smirking down at him.

“You fly beautifully, Potter. Pity you weren’t on a broom this time.”

“Heh, heh… that didn’t go quite as expected. I didn’t know you knew that spell, Allbright.” He raised both his hands and let them pull him to his feet. He swayed a little, but managed to keep upright. There was applause from the crowd, and Allbright blushed.

“Er… it was… you know… my secret weapon.”

“And I’m honored to have been on the receiving end of it.”

He gave him a pat on the back, which only served to stun him further.

“You’re not mad?”

“Absolutely not. I’m relieved. I hope you have another ‘secret weapon’ though, because now you have a match with Angelina, and she won’t be caught off guard like I was.”

And of course, Angelina did wipe the floor with Allbright and Draco, holding onto her position as captain for another year. Harry’s good humor over his defeat by a fourth year was currently freaking out his teammates, and they were speculating on how long it would take before Allbright met with an unfortunate ‘accident’ when no one was looking. Even Hermione was looking at him worriedly, and checking him for signs of a concussion.

It was late by the time the competition was over, and a brief ceremony was held to inform the winners of their new positions. Harry had lost his rank as Vice Captain to Draco, but he doubted it would mean much in the long run. If he were lucky, people might actually avoid him for a while, but they’d be back soon enough. His loss was more of a fluke than anything, and pretty soon others would realize that as well.

“I’m sorry you didn’t make captain,” Ira said afterwards, as he walked her back to the dungeons. Snape and she had both been to the competition, watching with everyone else just as they would if it had been a Quidditch match, but only Ira had stayed long enough to speak with him. Snape not sticking around to tease him over his defeat gave Harry an uneasy feeling he was trying very hard to ignore.

“Don’t worry about it. I don’t have the time for that sort of thing these days anyway. It’ll be nice to get away from the responsibility for a while. How are you doing? I’ve seen you around the castle a lot more these days, but we don’t get a lot of opportunities to talk.”

She smiled a little, but it still held that melancholy from his first visit.

“Severus has been really busy, so I’ve been trying to help… I don’t know how much good I’m doing though.”

Harry offered her a reassuring smile.

“You mean you don’t know how much he appreciates it. Trust me. Even if he’s being a short tempered jerk sometimes, he needs someone to look after him. And house elves don’t count. They’re terrified of him.”

Her smile became a little more genuine at that.

“Apparently they’re not the only ones. You’ve been avoiding him lately.”

“Er… more like we’ve been avoiding each other.”

“Why is that? Did you have a fight?”

“No, nothing like that. I just cause him a lot of stress most of the time. I doubt he wants to handle me on top of everything else.”

They walked along quietly for a while longer. It was obvious Ira had something else to say, but she was struggling with it and by the time they reached the tapestry leading to her rooms, she had given up and let it go.

The school was buzzing over the Dueling competition results the next day, and not a little of that buzzing was around Harry’s own defeat by the wand of a virtual unknown. The ‘Harry-Hater’ Club finally made itself obnoxious enough to reach his attention by posting flyers around the school of his ignominious defeat. He wasn’t finding it nearly as amusing as he had last night. Gritting his teeth and smiling through it, however, was the best defense he had at the moment.

The teachers were indignant for the most part of this rather mean spirited prank. Harry didn’t appreciate their sympathy towards him. It only served as fuel for the unsympathetic student body to mock and ridicule. All Harry could do was keep smiling, smiling, smiling.

“It’s interesting, isn’t it?” Draco said as they made their way to lunch, his voice carrying loud and clear over the whispers and snickers. “How the only ones who seem to think this is at all funny, are those too pathetic to actually cut it in dueling club themselves?”

The embarrassed silence that followed lasted almost through the entire lunch period, and despite not having scored the hit himself Harry found his smile a little more genuine. This lasted until the last class of the day, when he learned from an inappropriately amused Draco, that his little comment during lunch had launched the beginnings of a school wide civil war between Dueling Club and the ‘loser’ population of the school.

Because now, if you weren’t in Dueling Club, that was what you were.

Dinner that night was held in murderous silence as three quarters of the school glared death at the ‘winners’, and quietly began to prepare for war. The teachers looked on from the head table with a nervous sort of tension. Headmaster Snape glared damnation at Harry as he read prophecy in the unspoken. It was a rather unfortunate way of regaining the headmaster’s attention.

The pranks started Saturday morning.

“Sneezing powder? Honestly, you would have thought we had been invaded by eight year olds!” Hermione muttered, gathering up the sparkly blue powder at the end of her wand into an ever growing sphere. Someone had tossed a sneezing powder bomb into a corner of the library used primarily for duelists and upper level DA&D students. The recipients of said attack, along with Ms. Pince, were currently in the infirmary getting wiped down and dosed with an antidote, while prefects worked to clean up and contain the mess.

Harry tagged along out of curiosity… and honest sense of self preservation. He had avoided a number of the nastier pranks by the skin of his teeth, and had made a habit of being in the company of a prefect whenever possible. Between the stairs being charmed to go absolutely nowhere, his disappearing textbooks, the breakfast that tasted like sand, the small horde of Cornish pixies let loose in the Gryffindor common room at two in the morning (people where still scratching their heads trying to figure out where they came from in the first place) and the unfortunate hex floating around that made everyone shout at the top of their lungs when they spoke, Harry was starting to feel a bit paranoid.

He wished the twins were around, if only because they would have appreciated the chaos. Probably made it worse too, but he liked to think he wouldn’t have been in that path of destruction.

Fortunately, he was leaving for France in an hour and would have a few days reprieve, although what he was going to find when he returned he was afraid to even speculate.

“Sorry about all this, Hermione,” he said, guiltily. She just shook her head.

“You didn’t do anything to warrant this. Merlin, even Draco’s comment didn’t warrant this. It’s just… I don’t know. Everyone’s been so tense since the attack and this is their way of letting off steam and retaking control.”

Harry nodded in agreement. This all did seem a bit over the top for a snide comment, particularly since Draco didn’t seem to be on the receiving end of anymore pranks than anyone else.

“Are you done packing?” she asked offhandedly.

“Almost. I should probably go finish. Make sure no ones cursed my toothbrush.”

“Good luck in Paris. Stay safe,” she said, hugging him tightly before letting him go. It was fortunate he left when he did, because his toothbrush did have a curse on it but more importantly he had goodbyes to give, packages that needed to be sent, contact information he needed to gather, security matters to discuss with Seitler, an itinerary to review, and a number of other things that made him feel like he was a politician about to go on a campaign. A really shady politician.

Voldemort would have been proud.

“God never intended us to use magic, you know,” Lucius slurred, leaning over the map of Italy. “If He did, He never would have made potions taste so awful. He really wants us all to be alcoholics. That’s why liquor tastes so fucking good.”

To prove he was a pious man, he took another gulp of whisky. He wasn’t normally a whisky drinker, but as of late it was the only thing that seemed to help with the headaches. Stratus nodded dutifully, but didn’t look up from the pile of intelligence reports he was sorting through. Lucius clamped down on his irritation. He had told the man to do it, after all, because while whisky helped with his headaches, it didn’t help with his paperwork.

“God hates me,” he said melodramatically, knowing how stupid that sounded even as he said it. It didn’t matter. Only Stratus was there and he wouldn’t tell anyone else about it. He was a loyal Hufflepuff if ever he met one, and while that was somewhat sickening to him he could at least acknowledge the usefulness of his discretion. “I should become a pagan. It looks like a bloody riot. And pagan’s don’t die. God hates them, but He can’t do squat to them. Look at Voldemort. Ch’. Look at Potter. Could throw him in a bloody volcano and he’d still come back.”

Stratus actually looked up, a curious expression on his face.

“You don’t care for Mr. Potter?”

“I despise him.”

“And yet, you’ve been trying to recruit him, as well. What would you do if you had him under your thumb?”

“I’d despise him a little less. I could tolerate him well enough if his cheekiness were directed at the Italians instead of me. He hates me you know. He’s jealous.”

“Jealous, sir?”

“Of my life. You think he’s got his act together? He’s a bloody mess. He wishes he were me. Had my position, my wealth, my control. I’m in complete control,” he sneered, and took another swallow. The burning sensation down his throat and into his stomach was a delicious sort of pain, and in the moment of vague disorientation that followed he felt the throbbing pain behind his eyes ease into a dull pressure.

He needed to eat. He was going to be sick later if he didn’t, but he wasn’t inclined to move from behind his desk. He would send Stratus for something as soon as he could think of what he could possibly stomach at the moment. Food didn’t sound particularly appealing, and hadn’t for some time. It was his secretary’s fault. Every time he had her pick up a meal for him, he always ended up getting sick off whatever she brought back. He was having her investigated for possibly attempting to poison him, but so far no one had turned up anything.

He still didn’t trust her, however, and had been relying more heavily on Stratus because of it. Well, that and he was so tired lately. Physically and mentally. He didn’t have the energy to deal with his staff and their general incompetence, and their cringing was even more blatant and annoying than usual over the last month. Despite his success in London, barely anyone had congratulated him. They took him for granted.

“He’ll learn his place soon enough. If he’d stop being such a brat, he might even enjoy himself. I’d let him fight in Italy. He could kill them to his murderous heart’s content for all I care.”

“He seems a bit young for that,” Stratus said cautiously, watching his superior closely.

“Well, obviously he’s not. If he could do it in Germany, he could do it in Italy.”

Lucius let out a little laugh as he imagined it. Italians running around screaming about the devil and Potter cackling like a loon as he rampaged through the streets. Ah to be young again.

“Ah… yes, sir, I suppose you are right. I finished these if you want to sign off on them,” the soldier said, walking across the office to hand him a stack of forms. Almost immediately, the general felt even more exhausted. He hated paperwork, even if all he had to do was write his signature. He poured himself another glass, and settled in to get some actual work done.

Stratus retreated to his end of the room to work through the remaining pile of reports. He kept his expression neutral, although a sliver of a smile escaped as he glanced at the general. Lucius’ physical and mental deterioration was becoming increasingly apparent. The rambling, the inability to focus, the headaches, and lack of appetite were all signs. Nothing dramatic enough to draw much attention even from Malfoy himself, but enough where he was forced to rely on his new, oh-so-very-helpful assistant to get things done. The more his body and mind failed him the more reliant on ‘Stratus’ he became, and the more Tom learned of the Dark Lord’s plans.

Slowly, but surely, it was all coming together.

The trip to France was one of Harry’s better travel experiences, if a bit dull. Professor Slughorn and he were two of a handful of passengers in the first class coach, which looked rather like a miniature luxury hotel lobby and restaurant, complete with obscenely comfortable seating and a five star waiting staff to indulge their every whim. Seitler prowled the car once, then promptly left to search for potential threats elsewhere on the train. Slughorn went off to engage the few other passengers in conversation, while Harry contented himself by making sketches for art class projects and studying his animagi guide. Things were so busy at school he hadn’t been able to do much in either subject, and fully intended to make productive use of his time away. When he sent Sirius and Remus his next letter, he wanted to be able to say he was taking their lessons seriously and was making progress.

“You really ought to have mingled a little, Harry,” Slughorn scolded gently as they exited the train at the end of their journey. “They were wealthy entrepreneurs hoping to expand their business into France. You all would have done well to have known each other.”

“Mm,” Harry hummed noncommittally, looking through the crowded station for Seitler and who ever the queen had sent to pick them up. He spotted his name hovering in the air in brilliant green, and following it downward he spotted Seitler and another familiar face. Grinning, he hurried forward, leaving Slughorn still nattering on about the importance of networking.

Fleur met him half way, her arms reaching up to encircle him tightly. He returned the hug enthusiastically. Somewhere in the crowd he heard cameras flashing. Flushing in embarrassment, he pulled away to a more respectable distance.

“Hey,” he greeted. Her laugh was in the curve of her lips as she smiled back at him. She was wearing civilian clothes, but still managed to look official. She wore a dark grey business suit with skirt and a maroon robe left open acting as a sort of jacket. Her shoes were black lace and velvet heels that inevitably drew attention to her shapely calves peeking out from the hem of her skirt. He tried very hard not to stare at those calves. “You look fantastic. Don’t tell me these are standard regulation?”

She gave him a little wink for the compliment.

“Non, ’Arry, today I am not a musketeer. I am your date,” she said.

“Date?”

“And liaizon… and bodyguard, alzo no one iz zuppozed to know, oui?”

He nodded as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, although the situation felt more surreal than anything. Fleur’s master, Balthus, made a comment in French that made Slughorn laugh and Fleur blush and refuse to translate, and they left the train station. The car waiting for them was definitively muggle and no more than five years old, glossy and white of all things with the royal crest emblazoned where the hood ornament should have been. Some of their luggage (at least Slughorn’s) had to be shrunk to fit into the little trunk, but once inside it was obviously a high luxury vehicle. Harry watched enviously from the back seat as Fleur climbed behind the wheel and pulled them out into traffic.

“When did you learn to drive?” he asked, curiously.

“Zey teach us at Beauxbaton’s during zicth’s year. Don’t zey at ’Ogwarts?”

“Why would they? Only muggles have the roads for it. Sometimes I ride in a car, but it’s not a common practice.”

Fleur made a curious little sound, as if she didn’t know if what he said was funny or sad or just a little odd. She drove him on a brief tour of the city, passing both muggle attractions and wizarding all so perfectly mingled together it was dizzying trying to distinguish them. The sun was low in the sky, but the city seemed to be just waking up. Cars and people and millions upon millions of lights filled the open spaces of Paris, giving a sense of flurried activity on a scale Harry never saw in wizarding Britain.

It felt distinctly disconcerting to see muggles. Which was strange, because he had spent over half his life thinking he was one, and even moved amongst them fairly comfortably during his summer on the lam in Germany, France, and Britain.

It felt like it had been decades ago.

He knew he was going to see them during his trip to Paris, but he realized now he had been expecting to see something different than what was there. Muggles really were just like wizarding folk. Not in their way of dressing perhaps, but the way they moved about on their business or held their lover’s hand or carried their child on their shoulders. In Britain, the word ‘muggle’ had been tossed about not so much as an insult as a term for ‘other’, like veela or goblins. It was a startling, almost sickening realization that he had been socialized to think of muggles as not really human.

The car fell into a stark and sudden silence, and Harry realized belatedly that his disturbing realization had caused a fluctuation in his magical signature. One significant enough that Balthus actually drew his wand in alarm.

“Ah, sorry,” he said, but didn’t even try to offer an excuse.

“Are you alright, ’Arry?” she called back.

“Yes, I’m fine. It is just a bit… jarring.”

Again, he did not elaborate, and tactfully, no one else asked him to. Slughorn cleared his throat, and began asking about various pieces of architecture that made up the Parisian skyline. Balthus answered him in French while Fleur translated into English. Harry accepted it as the distraction it was, and paid attention even though the descriptions were somewhat baffling to him. There were ministry offices dedicated solely to flowers? The Department of Education was on the top floor of a muggle insurance company office building? The Arc de Triomphe was the busiest floo station in Europe?

The French were crazy, Harry decided. Loveable, but crazy.

Gradually, they moved from the tourist and business district into a more residential area, lined with three story townhouses crushed together, tiny pharmacies at the corner, and streets lined with walnut and hazel trees in their fall colors. Then, almost without him realizing it, there were no more buildings, just trees and a gravel road that stretched far into the distance ahead of them. Even as they went, Japanese-style stone lanterns sudden lit themselves on either side of the road, marking the curves of the path in the quasi-darkness of the rapidly ascending night. Another turn and trees fell away to reveal an enormous chateau that would have put the Malfoy estate to shame. The sun was gone, but the sky directly behind the chateau was still brilliantly orange and pink, the building itself looking dull grey and blue in comparison. Even in the poor lighting, Harry could see the extravagant detail heaped upon every nook and cranny, from the wide arched staircase to the gilded window frames. The road circled around a large fountain and straight up to the front steps, where four hotel employees dressed with military crispness stood at attention.

The doors to the car were opened for them, and each was greeted by name and title.

“Welcome to the Hotel de Sanctuaire, Lord Potter,” the head concierge greeted congenially with only the slightest accent. “My staff and I are at your service, and endeavor to make your stay here as pleasant as possible. Please do not hesitate to make a request, not matter how small or seemingly extravagant. Please follow me. The staff will get your bags.”

He glanced at Fleur, who just nodded and fell into place directly behind him. Balthus was ahead, scanning for potential danger, while Slughorn just sort of ambled about like a tourist in a museum, admiring this or that.

“Your tailor has been scheduled at eight thirty, which should give you plenty of time to settle in and have a light meal. The gardens, library, kitchen, and gymnasium are open until ten. The pool, sauna, smoking room, bar, and billiard room are open until one. Any of these facilities are available to you upon special request, and anything we do not readily have available can be retrieved at any time,” the concierge recited easily as he led them inside. Witches and wizards in stately evening wear were scattered around the lobby or peaking out from the adjacent barroom. No one really turned their heads to watch, but Harry could easily make out their eyes following them with a curiosity that belied their haughty dismissal. He struggled not to shy away from their scrutiny. This wasn’t the first time he had been around such rich and powerful people, but almost always he had been in the company of the Dark Lord, whose presence always made them seem silly and meek in comparison.

They moved up a large staircase that split halfway up to the next floor and then a another staircase that did the same until they reached the top floor and moved into a side hallway. The interior was not as opulent as the Queen’s palace, but Harry could see it was clearly based on the same decorating scheme with too much art and decoration crammed into too little space. The portraits stared out at them with the same haughtiness of the guests, and little golden cherubs clinging to the upper most buttresses giggled mischievously down at them.

It seemed like they walked a mile before they reached their rooms, and it was at the farthest end of the corridor. There was no doorknob, only a gold plaque with the inlay of six pointed star, into which the concierge pushed a pendant he pulled from his pocket. The doors immediately swung open.

The inside was more of an apartment than a hotel room, with a large living room and six doors leading to various bedrooms, bathrooms, studies, etc. Reneire briefly explained the various features, including the servant’s bell, the private floo, etc, etc. Harry nodded politely and pretended it wasn’t the most exquisitely beautiful place he had ever seen let alone slept in.

“This is her Majesty’s private suite. She specifically requested it be made available to you, and that you be extended the utmost courtesy. Is there anything you require?”

I trip back to the planet Earth, Harry thought.

“No, I think I can handle it from here.”

“Very good, sir. Here is your key. If you will excuse me.”

Once the concierge had handed off the pendant that allowed access to the room and disappeared, Balthus let out an impressed whistle. Harry grinned.

“You’re welcome to spend the night,” he offered, making his way over to what was apparently his private suite. “I might need one of you to find me, in case I get lost in here.”

He looked inside. It was as fantastic as the rest of the apartment, if bit more feminine with the dressing table and violet satin bed sheets. His luggage, a black leather gym bag, looked like a mongrel curled up in front of the fire place. Merlin, there was a fireplace in the bedroom and the living room.

“I will ’ave to take you up on zat. I am your liaison, after all,” she said a bit mockingly, as if it were a terrible burden to be trapped in this place with him. Balthus said something sarcastic, and she laughed. There was a master bath connected to his suite, and he slipped inside to look around. White tiles, blue marble, and gold trim from floor to ceiling. A large, clawfoot bathtub sat filled to the brim with steaming hot water, toiletries set off to the side, and thick white towels beside those.

A bath suddenly seemed very appealing. Certainly, the tailor he was supposedly meeting in an hour would appreciate the courtesy. Fleur checked the bathroom for potential dangers (‘Arry, did I ever tell you about ze politician ’oo was boiled alive in ze bathtub?’), left him alone to check the rest of the suite with her master and to order dinner. Once she had left, he stripped and settled himself into the steaming water.

Only for Fleur to march herself right back into the bathroom fifteen minutes later.

While he was still in the tub.

For a moment, he stared at her in absolute shock. She smirked. He curled up in the bath like soldier in the trenches during an air raid.

“Do you mind?”

“Zuch a question! You should know better. You English. Zo shy with your bodies,” she said dismissively. “Your dinner is ’ere. Profezor Zlug’orn went down to dinner with ze ozer guestz and Balthus iz checking in with headquarters. It iz just you and me.”

Harry knew he was red. In fact, he was positive he could keep the bath water piping hot all night by the heat of his embarrassment alone. Fortunately, she took pity on him.

“I zet out zome of your clothes on ze bed. ’Urry and finish up, and ’ave dinner with me. We ’aven’t zeen each ozer in ages.” She backed out of the bathroom, but not before throwing out over her shoulder. “Still zo cute!”

He joined her a few minutes later, still an embarrassed red, but blessedly dressed.

Dinner was some sort of fish, which Harry wasn’t particularly fond of, but the hotel’s definition of fish was of course different from most British citizenry and he was surprised to find it was really very good. Fleur laughed at his surprised expression and listed off the ingredients, which were either in French or he just plain never heard of.

“’Ogwart’s food was awful. It was a lovely castle in its way, but the food…ich,” she lamented.

“The food was fine. Actually it’s very good food. It’s just… not French.”

“Ich,” she repeated, and he just laughed. “Well, ze food iz no good, but ze boyz? Very nice. Bill Weazley iz coming to Paris, did you know? ’E iz guest speaker at international convention zis year. British curzes all ze rage! I even get to zee im talk! It took me a month of begging Balthus. I zink he would of zaid yes anyway, but ’e likes iz ego stroking.”

Harry choked on some fish when she said ‘stroking’ and then very forcefully pulled his mind out of the gutter.

“That’s great. I knew you both really hit it off, and I know they other Weasley’s really hoped you two would work out. They were all quite fond of you.”

Except for Ron, but Harry sometimes doubted his parentage. She dimpled at the compliment. He decided now was as good a time as any to broach another subject he had been hoping to discuss with her.

“Do you know why I am here?” he asked her. She looked amused by the question.

“Because you were invited? It iz not my place to know zuch things. Zat iz ’er Majesty’z business. Zat iz Lord Voldemort’z business. Not zoldier business.”
“Not quite.”

He told her about his intention to ask the queen for asylum for Hermione during the costume ball. Fleur looked genuinely surprised. Then she smiled and let a long, wistful sigh.

“You British are much more romantic zen we give you credit for.”

Harry frowned at her. Which was difficult, because her sigh had him blushing all over again. Lousy veela charm. It hadn’t affect him at all when he was fourteen. What gives?

“It is not romantic. It’s very serious. Hermione is in very real danger.”

“It iz very, very romantic. Young woman forced to flee from an unwanted marriage to foreign landz with ze ’elp of ’a dashing young adventurer. Oui, very romantic. Are you in love with ’er?”

“No. She’s like a sister to me. My best friend.”

“She iz in love with you zen.”

“Of course not!”

“Of course zo! Or she will be. ’Arry, you are adorable, but a bit dense zometimes. If she iz not in love with you now, she will be.”

“No. She…no. She was in love with Viktor.”

She did not look impressed with his reasoning. Or maybe she was just annoyed at him using Viktor’s name. They did not talk of him, but he occupied the silences in between their spoken words and the empty spaces of their letters.

“Oui, Viktor waz ’er beloved. ’E waz ’er ’ero. But ’e betrayed ’er. You are friend. You are ’ero. She will fall in love with you. Very zad. She’ll never be with you like that. That iz not how ze world works. Maybe in Paris, she will fall in love. Very romantic.”

“It’s not going to be like that. I know Hermione. She’ll be too busy studying to be dating. Once things die down she’ll come back home.”

Fleur shook her head.

“No, no. She spend enough time in Paris, it will become her home. It iz Paris. Better zan any man. She will fall in love with ze city.”

Harry didn’t know how he could refute her assertion. Fleur didn’t know Hermione. Hermione was one of the reasons he loved his country so much to start with. Her earnest demeanor, her gentle heart, and almost severe practicality. She wasn’t French. It didn’t make sense for her to stay in France forever. It was just a necessary evil.

He didn’t know how to explain that to Fleur without either a) insulting France, b) making her think he was actually in love with Hermione, or c) realizing he was deluding himself and there was a very real possibility that his inquisitive and confident friend would probably love Paris.

“I think she’s more of a London, girl,” he said, instead.

After almost three weeks of running a school of young militants and a refugee camp all under the same roof, Snape did not think it was unreasonable to want to spend a night with his wife, doing what healthy, relatively young married couples do to unwind from stress. Everyone had started to settle into a routine, the Court advisor the Dark Lord had recommended had set up an internal infrastructure that relieved much of the burden of daily responsibilities from him and the insurance money was just starting to come in and relieve the financial burden as well. The sudden prank wars that had broken out were annoying, but the sort of the thing the rest of the teaching staff was trained to handle. Potter had left for France that afternoon, which meant he had anywhere from ten to forty-eight hours before he received word of a diplomatic incident he was going to have to help mop up after.

That meant he had a small window of opportunity before the universe righted itself and everything went to hell again.

He had left McGonagal in charge of the school.

He had left Seitler in charge of Hogsmeade Hall.

He had left the Slytherin prefects in charge of Slytherin House.

Each had received a vague warning of severe consequences if he was unduly disturbed that night. They had all nodded like good minions and shuffled off to do his bidding. Alright, that last part was a bit of a stretch, but they wouldn’t be bothering him. Of that he was almost certain.

Now if only his wife were as cooperative.

“Severus, wait, stop… I’m not… I can’t…Please, stop…” she begged softly between kisses. They were in the living room. They had just eaten private meal together and were unwinding with a glass of red wine. They had gone through this routine a dozen times before… ‘It’ happened.

“You’re beautiful,” he said softly, like a promise and kissed her again, moving his hands from her shoulders to her sides of her face, cupping them gently. She liked it when he touched her face. From her lips to her eyelids to her flushed cheeks, all of it seemed to be one great erogenous zone. Already her eyes were dilated, her lips firming with a stroke of his thumb. He could see and feel her desire.

She reached up quickly and snatched his hands away.

“No… not yet…”

He let out a frustrated sigh.

“When?”

“I don’t know. It’s not… it’s a psychological thing not a biological one. I’m sorry. I just don’t know,” she said sharply. She stood up from the couch and stalked towards the fire place. He remained where he was, stunned by the frustration and resentment behind the words. “Do you think I want to be this way? Melancholy? Useless? Frigid?”

“What are you talking about? I think we established early on you’re not frigid,” he snapped back.

“But melancholy and useless, you won’t deny?”

“Don’t put words into my mouth!”

“What else am I supposed to do? You never talk to me!”

“I talk to you everyday! We were just talking over dinner!”

By now they were shouting at each other, feeding off the raw, volatile emotions that had been festering after weeks of tragedy and crisis. Snape got to his feet, his hands clenched. He made a step towards her, then quickly changed his mind and stood behind the coach, creating a physical and figurative barrier between them. His wand was in the kitchen beside the wine rack, along with Ira’s by the sink. A careless thing to do, but at the moment he was glad for the mistake. He didn’t entirely trust himself at the moment, and certainly didn’t trust his increasingly hysterical wife.

“About work! About whatever chores you expect me to do tomorrow to keep busy while you’re playing lord of the castle!”

“What is that supposed to mean? You think I’m having fun? You think it’s easy? The board of governors, the students, the staff, the whole bloody country and the Dark Lord himself, breathing down my neck twenty-four seven? Do you even realize what I have to go through to keep this place running?”

“I know exactly what you go through everyday, Severus. I’m right there! Every single day, I’m right there, at your beck and call!”

“You said you wanted to help! Did you change your mind when you realized it was actually going to be hard work?”

“SCREW YOU!” she screamed. In the dark enclave of their private rooms, her words were deafening even after all their shouting. For a moment, she looked startled, and glanced guiltily around the shadows of the room as if expecting to hear irritated neighbors banging on floor above them. When she spoke again, it was in a quieter, yet equally venomous tone.

“I wanted to help because I’m your wife! I’m not a house elf, and I expect some acknowledgement of that. I went through that with my first marriage and I’m not going to go through it again.”

“What are you talking about? I do not treat you like a house elf!”

“You never say thank you!”

“I say thank you all the time!”

“You never look at me when you do! You say it like you’re saying ‘hello’ or ‘good night’. Like a reflex. A meaningless pleasantry, while you’re focused on something else entirely.”

“I…”

That was actually quite possible. But damn it, he was busy! He might have been distracted, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t sincere.

“And you never introduce me. To anyone. Half the teaching staff didn’t know I was your wife until Harry introduced me. Half the people you brought in to fix the castle or run security don’t even know I’m more than your secretary!”

That… that may have been a legitimate blunder on his part. He had just sort of assumed… Merlin, the entire castle knew when a ghost farted in the astronomy within half a day and they really couldn’t figure out that Ira was his wife? And it was not half the staff. More than half the staff had actually been at his wedding.

“But who can blame them? It’s not like we act like a married couple! You don’t kiss me, or hold my hand, or talk to me about anything other than work in public.”

“And when I try to do those things in private, you don’t want to do them!” he reminded her. “I may not do those things in public- I frankly despise people who inflict that sort of thing on innocent bystanders- but don’t you dare say I’ve neglected you in private. I’ve broken half a dozen regulations to keep you near. To make sure you had everything you wanted. I’ve tried to be what you needed, patient and understanding, and I thought I was doing a pretty good job under the circumstances until about ten minutes ago! I’m trying to be patient and understanding now, because I… I know… It was hard. God dammit, I know how hard it was… It was my child too!”

And as if the word ‘child’ were the hidden tap to their souls, the anger and fight drained out of both of them. Snape covered his face with his hand. He did not cry, hadn’t for decades, but he knew his expression was open and painful like a deep wound that needed to be hidden from even the gentlest prodding. Across from him, Ira mirrored the gesture, but she had tears enough for the both of them and neither the will nor the desire to hold them back. It had been two weeks since she had last cried, and she thought she would never cry again after that, but now it was too easy, too natural.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

The apology encompassed more than their lover’s spat. Snape wasn’t entirely sure of what all it entailed. He could no longer arrogantly claim to know his wife that thoroughly after that emotional blitzkrieg. He could guess some of it. The baby… it hadn’t been her fault, but he had known from the beginning that she was almost obsessively attached to it. Guilt wasn’t reasonable, but it was understandable.

However, he suspected there was more to it that even that.

The moment of grief stretched on for several minutes, Snape standing completely motionless and Ira sobbing into her hands. Predictably, he recovered first with a deep, cleansing breath and a straightening of his shoulders. He looked at his wife. He felt unpleasantly awkward and useless just standing there, watching her fall to pieces. He wanted to storm off, to tell her to stop her blubbering, to be unaffected and superior as he had been when faced countless weeping widows and mothers before.

But he couldn’t.

He loved her. He didn’t want to. It complicated otherwise very simple situations. He wished he could kill the fool who first convinced the world there was anything good about being in love. Moron. Bastard. Liar.

He wanted to make this better and he didn’t know how. He was a Slytherin, not a damn… Hufflepuff. Yes. Sentimental saps, true, but also the most psychologically stable and healthy group of young people in the school. What would a Hufflepuff do in this situation?

It took an embarrassingly long time to put himself in the mindset of someone who wasn’t inherently self-centered. When he finally managed, the answer was even more embarrassingly obvious.

He moved around the couch, closing the distance between them, and took her into his arms. He was terrified. His biggest fear was that she would reject his touch again, reject the physical comfort he had withheld under the misguided respect for her grief, and he would be left with a soul deep sense of betrayal.

He had only ever truly loved one other person in his life and her rejection over a few hurtful words spoken after the moment of his deepest shame and anger had nearly destroyed him.

He did not know what he would do if it happened a second time.

She didn’t pull away.

She buried her head into his shoulder, arms to his back and sides, melting into the curves of his body like liquid metal into a mold. She didn’t stop crying. If anything, she only got louder, but he felt supremely relieved. The distance that had been growing between them since early September was finally starting to close.

“S-severus?”

“Yes, Ira?”

“Why…Why…” A sniffled, followed by a deep breath to help steady her tongue. “Why don’t we talk about the nursery, anymore?”

“The nursery?”

“You didn’t want to let mother decorate it. I said you couldn’t paint it green.”

He suddenly felt very clueless. He had no idea what she was talking about. Well, yes, he remembered the conversation about Susan Morgan’s offer to decorate the nursery at their cottage, but it seemed rather non sequitur at the moment.

“Or the names you wanted if our first were a boy or a girl. Or what we need to baby proof the house. Or what they might look like. We used to be able to talk about those things for hours. We don’t talk about them anymore. Why don’t we talk about them? Is it… is it over? Is this as far as got?”

And suddenly, everything that just happened made a lot more sense to him. Her irrational behavior was rooted in rational fears.

Her previous husband had inflicted psychological wounds surrounding her sense of self, skewing the boundaries between womanhood, desirability, and reproduction irrevocably. She had told him herself that her ex-husband had been physically and emotionally abusive, emphasizing her only desirable quality as the ability to reproduce, and the same ability he deprived her of before discarding her. Her father’s siding against her had reinforced this belief. She had fallen into a deep depression, never dated despite the occasional offer, and gradually reinventing herself into a sort of asexual scholar.

Then he had come along. He was the first man she said who made her feel desirable, and then he became the first person to offer the hope of marrying and starting a family of her own. Inadvertently, he had reinforced the beliefs instill by her abusive husband and neglectful father.

And then their first hope had ended, so easily and so quickly it was offensive.

Legally or just emotionally, she thought he would leave her, just as every other male family member had. What he had interpreted as grief was insecurity.

At least, partially. Probably it was both grief and insecurity, and trying to deal with both at the same time was going to be damn difficult. Suddenly, sleep seemed a lot more enjoyable than psychologically compromised sex at the moment.

“No,” he said at last, hoping his long pause hadn’t once again been misinterpreted. “We’ll try again. And if it doesn’t work then we’ll try it again. And again and again and again, until somethingworks. But not right now. We’re both too stressed and too exhausted. When we’re both ready, and personally I’m not ready yet,” he threw in, hoping to ease some of that insecurity he had finally identified, “then we’ll see Healer Jacobi and we’ll talk about nurseries and names. Until then, I need you to keep doing what you’ve been doing… helping me get through the days and keeping me company during the nights. I was… pleased… when you came to help me without me having to ask. You are… a wonderful assistant. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Ira sudden choked beneath him and at he thought it was another sob, but when she spoke he realized she was laughing.

“Now, you’re just laying it on thick. I know you appreciated it. I know you didn’t mean anything by not introducing me. You just assumed everyone already knew who I was the same way they all seemed to know who you were. I was just being stupid. Crazy. I’m sorry. Let’s just blame it on PMS, and forget it.”

Ah, the PMS theory. He hadn’t considered that.

He chuckled softly, more out of relief than anything else. She laughed too, and for a while they just stood there and laughed softly. He wouldn’t forget, but he wouldn’t compromise the tangible relief they were both feeling as their uncharacteristically dramatic behavior finally broke, and they settled back into the warm, comfortable affection they both preferred.

Ira pulled away first, sniffling and awkwardly rubbing her eyes.

“Ugh, I feel positively disgusting. I probably got snot all over your robes.”

Snape grimaced, knowing that was very likely. Ah, well, he was a Slytherin. He could find an opportunity almost anywhere.

“Perhaps then, Mrs. Snape,” he said in mock formality, “I might interest you in a long, hot bath. I could use one myself.”

She suddenly looked more cautious.

“Together?”

“No point in wasting water.”

“It’s not that big of a tub.”.

“I admit, it may be a bit snug, but I am a gentleman, madam. I would never dream of taking advantage.”

She gave him a skeptical look. Her eyes and the edge of her nostrils were bright red from rubbing, her cheeks streaked from tears, but the corner of her mouth twitched just a little. It was first time in a long time they had played like this.

“Well, since it is my snot you’re covered in, I don’t suppose I’m in any position to refuse.”

He gave her a sardonic smile.

“Very gracious of you.”

“Serverus?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

“That’s a common misunderstanding,” Harry explained to the small dinner party gathered around the dinning table. He was feeling decidedly relaxed after a day to himself, enjoying the various amenities the hotel had to offer. Now he was enjoying a light meal before the masquerade, and found himself the center of attention for a dozen or so distinguished witches and wizards, whose names he could only half pronounce. “The werewolf colonies are not government run. The werewolves have their own sovereignty on their assigned lands. It was part of the original treaty between Lord Voldemort and Fenrir Greyback after the war. It seems to work well for all parties invovled.”

“Exzept fur ze prizners oo are zent to live zere,” a plump woman in deep purple robes quipped. He was feeling relaxed enough, possibly due to the wine he had been drinking, not to snap at her.

“I’ve never met a prisoner yet who preferred Azkaban over a colony.”

Not that he had ever asked the question directly and knew their preference hadn’t been asked before they were exiled, but even the surliest werewolves he knew seemed to have some appreciation for the chance at the life they had been given. He didn’t think he had ever heard anyone complain about it.

The woman’s husband laughed softly into his wine glass, earning him an annoyed swat with her fan. Another man across the table gave Slughorn a disapproving look. The potions teacher had taken advantage of his charge’s popularity to insinuate himself into their company. He had not said much except to explain a question or clarify an answer that became garbled in translation, however. Harry suspected the man was using the opportunity to gage his political savvy.

“I can see Lord Potter has an ’onest sentiment for these people, but it seems utterly irresponsible to me that someone so young should be placed in such a physically and politically precarious position among a group of felons with a ’ighly contagious and debilitating condition. The fact that ’e ’as not contracted lycanthrosis or worse already, is nothing short of a miracle.”

“’ere, ’ere,” the plump woman agreed.

Slughorn did not apologize or look the least contrite. He simply turned to Harry.

“Should I explain or would you like to?”

Harry smiled at the other guests. It was more than a little condescending, but they had been looking at him similarly throughout dinner.

“I am immune to lycanthrosis. That, and for various other reasons, means I am likely the least vulnerable to infection. Besides, they like me there.”

This earned him several disbelieving looks. He stared back with unwavering confidence. Another wizard, only a few years older than Harry, grinned and lifted his glass to him. Before the others could recover and ask him to either explain or renounce his claim, the concierge entered the dining room and leaned over the young English wizard.

“Lord Potter, your costumes have just arrived from the tailor’s. I sent them to your room with Mademoiselle Delacour.”

Harry pulled out his pocket watch to check the time. It was quarter after six. He had one hour before he had to leave for the masquerade.

“Just in time. Thank you, Reneire. If you will excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, I am afraid I have a previous engagement.”

He stood from the table, bowed politely, and left for his rooms with Slughorn at his heels. He was glad now for all those lessons in manners Voldemort had inflicted upon his younger self. They had been occasionally useful in Britain, but in France they were practically a survival skill amongst the aristocracy.

“You did quite well for yourself, Mr. Potter,” Slughorn said as they made their long trek back to the suite. “It might be impertinent of me to say, but you seem to handle yourself best when a certain level of antagonism is involved.”

“Oh? I didn’t think they were that bad.”

“No, not that bad. Your socio-economic status is somewhat of a mystery so they were testing your confidence level instead to see where you rank. Rather foolish of them, given you are obviously in high standing with both Lord Voldemort and Queen Ophelia. Ah, well…”

“Ah, well,” Harry agreed with a shrug.

Fleur had their costumes laid out on the chaise longue in the living room, their masks sitting on top. She was already half changed, her black petticoats sticking out of the bottom of a full length red silk corset. Slughorn coughed and looked pointedly elsewhere. Harry, for his part, couldn’t look away.

“Um…”

She just smiled and rolled her eyes.

“I keep forgetting you are Britsh.”

“No you don’t. You’re just shameless. Absolutely shameless,” he scolded.

She laughed.

“Maybe. But ’urry and get ready, we do not ’ave much time.”

She grabbed Slughorn’s costume and mask, an artistic interpretation of a laconic basset hound, shoved them into the man’s arms and hurried him towards his room. He was still too embarrassed to look directly at her. By the time she turned around, Harry had already snatched up his things and escaped to his bedroom. He took a moment to study it all.

The mask was a half mask of red fox; the pointy black nose, the sharp slant of the eyes, and pert little triangle ears gave it a rather devilish appearance. The rest of his costume, ironically, was fox hunting attire. It was not the traditional attire, but again an artful interpretation. The coat was velvet with a thorny briar motif pressed into it, and a row of elaborate brass buttons engraved with pagan symbols he doubted their creators understood the significance of were sown down the front. The white breeches were leather and snug, the black English dress boots reached almost to his thigh rather than below his knee, and his black leather gloves were more suited to a piano player than a hunter.

It did not take long for him to change, and when he finally looked himself in the mirror, he didn’t know if he was supposed look like he was going hunting or clubbing. Curious, he put on his mask and to see what it looked like.

He immediately took it off again.

It was creepy.

Very, very creepy.

He spent another ten minutes grooming himself and trying fruitlessly to tame his hair into some semblance of order, then went out into the living room to wait for the others. Slughorn joined him a few minutes later; his own costume was that of a navy sea captain.

“Ah, you got the fox! Lucky you,” he said, making himself comfortable on the chaise lounge.

“What do you mean?”

“The fox has great significance to the French. They are symbols of intellect, daring, and…er… virility. It’s usually the most sought after mask amongst young men.”

“Sought after? You mean they aren’t assigned randomly?”

“Of course not! The masks all have significance. They represent certain virtues and vices, status, and popularity. Duels and vendettas have occurred over the assigning of masks. There was a famous case twenty something years ago, where a count murdered a visiting Belgium because he received the lion mask the count had wanted.”

“What? That’s stupid!”

“Absolutely, but the lion mask is traditionally assigned to the most decorated soldiers and warriors, which the count was at the time, and giving it to a middle ranking foreigner was a grave insult. It was later learned that the visiting count had only received the mask because he paid an exorbitant sum for the honor. That is and was a perfectly common practice, but no one felt the least bit of sympathy for him, especially among the nobles. The count got off Scott free.”

“Not free. ’E ended up paying ’alf ’is estate in legal fees before ze end,” Fleur said, opening the door to her own bedroom to enter. She would have fit in perfectly at the court of Mary Antoinette in her scarlet silk sack-back gown, except for the lack of a ridiculous wig. Although the large white bunny ears were certainly something to look at.

“You’re a rabbit?” he asked, because of all the things he had imagined Fleur’s costume to be, rabbit seemed one of the least suited to her personality.

“Oui. I am lucky you are ze fox or else I would probably be a fish.”

“What? Why? I thought you were nobility and popular and… stuff.”

She waved it off, not the least bit bothered.

“I am ze young, unmarried daughter of a rich, but minor noble and a disinherited duchess, with little to my name but ze triwizard tournament fiasco and an apprenticeship under a well liked Musketeer. I am nobody to them.”

That sounded utterly ridiculous to Harry. Fleur was one of the most remarkable people he had ever met, and certainly a good deal more interesting than most of the nobles, French and British alike. He said as much.

She kissed him on the cheek.

“I ’ope you always stay zis cute,” she said. “’Ere, let me ’elp you with your scarf. You’ve managed to butcher it zome ’ow.”

They fussed about the suite for a while, fixing their clothes, their hair, make-up in Fleur’s case, and a clean shave in Slughorn’s. Reneire knocked on their door to announce that Balthus was waiting for them with the car. They went downstairs. There were three or four other wizards and witches in costume waiting for their rides in the front entrance as well. They stared jealously at the fox’s mask in Harry’s hand or else at the buxom young rabbit wrapped around his arm.

Slughorn held the door open for Fleur as she climbed into the back seat. There was no way to negotiate her hoop skirt and panniers into the front, and Harry following in after her had to gather up her voluminous dress as he went to keep from stepping on it.

“I hope we don’t run into any trouble. I don’t know how you could do much of anything in this getup,” he joked lightly as he settled in beside her.

“Don’t worry. Zere iz a zecret cache I can touch and ze whole zing just falls right off. I can fight in my underwear just fine.”

“That would certainly make for an interesting party,” Harry laughed. Balthus was not as conservative a driver as Fleur, which meant that aside from several brushes with death (and the occasional pedestrian) they also managed to make it to palace with time to spare. There was a line of cars, carriages, and even levitating palanquins leading up to the palace, most of which were handed off to valet’s or moved off on their own accord. Witches and wizards in a variety of costumes and animal masks made their way up the wide stone steps, a menagerie of creatures that would have left Noah scratching his head.

“It iz customary to put your mask on before arriving,” Fleur said, slipping on her own disguise. Her blue eyes shown clearly through the wide eye holes, the faux diamond (at least he hope they weren’t real diamonds) sprinkled across her mask reflected the surrounding light and made her eyes glitter rather spectacularly. Slughorn slipped on his mask as well, and despite its rather doleful expression, the cheerful sociability that comprised his character managed to shine through in a way that was almost dog-like in itself. Balthus’ mask was not that of an animal at all, but of a troll-like creature of all things with an exceptionally long nose and ears and mustard yellow skin. His costume was that of a Persian sheik. A type of djinn perhaps?

With some reluctance, Harry slipped off his glasses and set the mask in place. A few more spells and he could see clearly through the eye slits and had secured his disguise to his head. He was momentarily startled when he felt some sort of magic activate inside of the mask. His first instinct was to rip it off again, but when he touched it, the feel of his own fingertips through plaster gave him pause. He blinked, and felt the mask blink as well. He wiggled his nose. The mask wiggled its nose in time.

“Huh. Weird.”

Fleur laughed, and her little pink nose shivered up and down. They moved further up in the line of vehicles, and a valet made his way towards them. Balthus, who maintained an air of amused detachment, suddenly turned to his apprentice and said something strict Harry didn’t follow.

Fleur snapped something back just as sharply then turn to Harry.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Despite her words, once they left the car, she was all business. She might have been holding his arm as he escorted her up the steps, but her eyes were darting this way and that and her rabbit ears swiveled about like antennae looking for a signal. He gave an internal sigh. It was just as well. He had his own job to perform and it was imperative that he succeed.

Inside, the palace was just as overwhelming in its opulence as Harry remembered. The walk to the ballroom was a short one, but somewhat delayed by other party goers lingering out in the corridors to hold conversations.

“Zey are trying to figure out ’oo iz ’oo,” Fleur said, somewhat disapproving. “You are not zupposed to know ’oo anyone iz during a masquerade, zat iz zort of ze point., but zome people are always trying to be clever.”

“Does anyone know I am here? That I am the fox?”

“Oui. Everyone knows you are ’ere zomewhere, and I doubt it would not take much to guess you are ze fox. You are ze only Englishman ’ere. But it iz not polite to point it out.”

Fleur managed to maneuver him through the corridor without being snatched up by one of the many curious people lingering in the halls, but once they were in the ballroom she may as well have been fighting off an army of orcs with a beget. A small symphony was playing, although he did not recognize any of the songs, and the still energized crowd had filled the center of the floor to dance. As the fox, albeit an unusually short one, it seemed it was every unmarried young witches incentive to bag him for at least one dance and every concerned parent and jealous suitors prerogative to interrogate him. Fleur could only shield him so much.

He really really needed to learn French.

So he danced(luckily the dances were all pretty much the same here as in Britain even if the music wasn’t) and made nice (which was difficult, because supposedly he was supposed be simultaneously flirtatious and respectful, and he wasn’t very good at either) for some indeterminable length of time that left him almost desperate to escape. Finally, finally, Her Majesty, Queen Ophelia IV made her appearance.

The music stopped, the herald called out with a magically amplified voice, and everyone turned towards the entrance. She stood at the top of the stairs for a moment, surveying those below with the sort of regal affection Harry had never seen adequately replicated in another. Draped in a silk wedding gown studded with pearls and diamonds, she wore no mask, just a pair of white wings behind her ears to pin up her elaborately corded hair. It seemed no matter how many times he saw her, it always felt like love at first sight.

As she reached the bottom, the gathered guests all bowed and curtsied low. Harry followed their example, but never tore his eyes away. He started when the queen’s gaze suddenly found his, and she smiled just so.

She made a brisk gesture. The music began where it had left off, the menagerie straightened to begin follow their example. In the brief moment of re-orientation, he found himself snatched away from his dance partner, a tigress in a Chinese cheongsam, by Fleur. She led the dance, moving them just slightly out of step so that they made their way to the other side of the dance floor.

There was a small alcove off the main ballroom with a thick curtain that could be drawn for privacy if need be, in which the queen was sitting comfortably in a chair. Musketeers in their uniforms, each with wolf masks, stood guard just outside, while a sole lady-in-waiting stood at attendance just behind her. Harry realized belatedly, that Fleur was moving him straight towards them.

“Wait! What are you…?”

“You wished to speak to ’er Majesty, yes?” she said, leading him rather precariously through the whirling maze of dancers. “She looked at you as she entered. Zat means she iz ready to speak.”

That was the entire purpose of his visit, and yet now that the moment arrived he found himself wholly unprepared to handle it. He had never spoken to Queen Ophelia alone before, and those few times he had even spoken to her directly he had bumbled through it like a fool. His liaison, date, and somewhat questionable friend ignored his flustered state and moved him off the dance floor and towards the curtain. She even had the audacity to nick his wand out of his sleeve while he was distracted, and hand it over to one of the wolf guards. She entered first and practically dragged him in behind her.

“Your Grace,” she said, curtsying respectfully. “May I present Lord Potter.”

He bowed for the second time that night, this time feeling rather too timid to look at her while doing so. He hadn’t even straightened completely before Fleur was hurrying back out the entry way. It was then that he noticed that while the curtain appeared opaque from the outside, it was transparent on their side and the ballroom and its occupants were clearly visible. He didn’t have time to wonder at the magical mechanics behind it, however.

He was alone with the queen of France.

“Er… Good evening, Your Majesty.”

“Good evening, Harry. Are you enjoying your visit so far?” she asked, lifting her hand to gesture him closer.

His eyes were shy, but his body moved forward with a confidence that belied that fact and boldly took her outstretched to kiss, “I can not recall a time or place I have been more hospitably received. You have been more than gracious.”

It had taken him twenty minutes of thought and another ten of practice in front of the bathroom mirror to figure out how to thank her without sounded like a socially awkward teenager. Fleur had recommended the kiss if he could manage it without slobbering all over her or tripping over his feet. He thought he mostly succeeded. He was glad for the mask, however.

She seemed to take his initiative positively, tilting her head in acknowledgment.

“Then I am pleased. It is my hope that your return to France might assuage some of the unpleasantness of your last visit.”

“I don’t know what you-” he began, but then stopped as he realized what she was talking about. The last time he had been in France was during his hospital stay, recovering from the disastrous results of Fenrir’s possession and impromptu war against Berlin, which had itself begun within the borders of France. “Your Majesty, I do not know how much you have been told about what happened last winter, but I assure you I have never blamed you or anyone else in France for it.”

“You must think you are either being very honest or very gracious, young man, but in truth you are being rather conceited.”

He stiffened in alarm, but her expression didn’t change. She did not even look annoyed.

“The belief that my people were incapable of affecting the outcome of what occurred or rather, that no one outside of you yourself or your own people could have done anything to stop it is quite conceited, wouldn’t you agree?”

Having it explained to him like, it certainly seemed that way. Reluctantly, he nodded.

“Do not worry. I know it is a common trait of the British, particularly those of English decent and I do not take it personally. It did not even occur to your mentor that he might in some way hold me responsible, and given the political advantage it would have provided him at the time, it is indeed remarkable that he did not seize the opportunity.”

He felt himself bristle a bit at her assumption that Voldemort had made a mistake. Perhaps it was English conceit or arrogance, but he didn’t like the dig, no matter how gently delivered.

“I imagine he found greater advantage in stirring public sympathy. Demanding you take responsibility would have only made everyone defensive or resentful in the long run.”

Something in her eyes warmed.

“Ah, very good, Harry. Did he tell you that himself?”

“That he preferred long term public sympathy over a short term political maneuver? No. I just know he prefers public sympathy. He calls it ‘orphan-hugging’.”

She laughed, startling him. He had never heard her laugh like that before. It was not particularly elegant, but it was warm and filled up the room, just like her personality.

“Does he really? That is terrible. What a terrible, wonderful creature he is.”

That pretty much summed up Harry’s assessment of him, as well.

“Or he may just like you. He can be surprisingly forgiving to those he likes.”

He knew this very well from past experiences, including the debacle that forced him to flee to Germany for his life and the bungled invasion of Berlin via possession of a werewolf god. It used to keep him up at night, wondering if it was all a trick and when the other shoe would drop.

Sometimes it still did.

“Would that not be lovely?” she said, whimsically. “Two monarch with genuine affection for each other. I suppose if there were ever an age when it were possible, it would be this one. But come, you did not cross the channel and get all dressed up just to exchange gossip, and I am afraid there is something of a line waiting outside. Your letter said you wished to speak to me of a private matter?”

“I… yes.”

“How private of a matter? Does your mentor know of it?”

“Yes.”

“And does he know you are coming to see me about it?”

“I am not hiding it from him, necessarily.”

“Why, Harry, you are not trying to get me into trouble, now are you?”

He quickly shook his head.

“N-no, of course not. I don’t…er… if you want to tell him, I don’t mind. I doubt he’d try to stop me.”

“Very well, what is it?”

“Ah, well, you see… I have this friend.”

He gave her a general outline of the situation. Of his friendship with Hermione, her adopted status, her contentious relationship with her foster father, the betrothal that potentially threatened her life, his promise to protect her, and the attempted manipulation by Lord Malfoy to place Harry under his thumb. She listened raptly, at first with a degree of skepticism, but gradually her eyes grew ever wider in wonderment.

Then he told her of his plan to smuggle her into France.

“I will grant you this, young man, when you make a promise you take it very seriously,” she said. She gestured to her lady-in-waiting, a pheasant dressed in a gown composed entirely of multicolored feathers, who promptly moved to stand outside. “It is not my habit to interfere with familial affairs of this nature. The nobility and merchant class both find such personal interference in private lives overbearing and inequitable. In this instance, it presents the very real possibility of agitating relations with both Britain and France.”

He felt his insides sink. She was right. He had been thinking of this all as a private matter between Lucius, Hermione, and him, with perhaps a few referees on the side in the form of Lord Voldemort and Queen Ophelia, just to make sure no one died. That couldn’t really be the case, however. The Malfoys were one of the richest, most powerful families in Britain. Harry had been moving up the political hierarchy since he was eleven, and had become a national figurehead in the process. Behind both was the Dark Lord, and who ever he chose to side with depended on a logic he did not fully understand. Adding the ruler of France to the mix was only asking for more trouble.

But this was the only chance both Hermione and he had of pulling themselves out from Lucius’ long reach.

“No one needs to know of your involvement. You do not, in fact, have to be overtly involved. I can have everything set up through third parties. By the time she comes to France, she will already be emancipated and legally independent. Lucius Malfoy would have no authority to try and have her brought back to Britain. All I want is to have the freedom of movement to set it up for her and to make sure that she has the protection she needs while she’s here. If I can get her into France, I can almost guarantee Voldemort will not allow General Malfoy to make a big fuss out of it.”

“Perhaps there will not be a ‘big fuss’ in Britain, but you forget that France has a free press. I have very little authority on what is or is not reported here. When it becomes public that a British National, the foster daughter of a very prominent military figure and your very close friend, has sought asylum within our borders, they will be like wolves. Ah, perhaps that was not the best analogy.”

Another thing Harry had not considered. As annoying as the press could be, he had stopped worrying about them long ago. In Britain, there was very little they could say that could truly hurt him or those he cared about while he remained under Voldemort’s protective wing.

He floundered. This was not Skeeter or an Italian soldier or even Lucius bloody Malfoy. He could not trap, trick, bully, or fight the queen. She could not be cajoled, flattered, sympathized, or entreated. Magically, she wasn’t Harry’s equal. Intellectually and politically, however, she surpassed him in every way. She was much closer to the Dark Lord in that regard, but neither her ambitions nor her philosophies were known to Harry and he could not work in ignorance.

He had no idea what to do.

“Harry, don’t make that face. Everyone will think I am being terribly cruel to you.”

“They can’t see my face,” he said. He felt immediately embarrassed when he realized how petulantly childish that sounded.

“Your ears are drooping.”

Oh. He had forgotten about those silly things.

“You won’t help me?” he asked, resigned to a denial.

“I did not say that.”

Ears that had apparently been drooping suddenly perked.

“While it is not my habit to create trouble for myself, neither is it practical to be too timid. I have been accused over the last few years of being England’s lap dog, unable or unwilling to defy the Dark Lord even at the expense of France’s wellbeing. I find it is within my best interest to make a display of independence, while at the same time insuring my relationship with Lord Voldemort is not unduly harmed. It would seem you have provided me an opportunity to do this.”

If he had a tail, he was certain that it would be wagging at this point.

“Choosing to take Ms. Granger under my wing, against General Malfoy’s and potentially Lord Voldemort’s will, on moral grounds and on behalf of yourself, a popular and less powerful individual, would do much to improve my reputation.”

“That sounds like a wonderful plan to me,” he agreed.

“However, if she causes me undo trouble, I expect you to take responsibility.”

“Yes, yes, absolutely. I mean, I doubt she will. She’s not a troublemaker.”

“I also expect a favor in return.”

“Okay.”

“The speed with which you agreed is worrying to me.”

“Nothing is for free. I knew you would probably ask for something.”

Voldemort would have.

“He has you well trained.”

“He hasn’t managed to teach me ‘stay’ yet, so that is arguable.”

That earned him another laugh. She gestured for him to stand beside her. He did so, and she directed his gaze with an elegantly pointed finger towards a small gathering of young men and women. The young men seemed to be busy vying for the attention of one of the girls standing in the middle of the others. They were not succeeding. The young woman… girl… whatever she was, was stubbornly refusing their advances. In fact, she was looking furtively in the direction of the alcove. She was a swan, and Harry suspected that was a highly prized mask amongst the witches present.

“Do you see the swan? That is my niece, Serafina. She is fourteen and an avid fan of yours.”

He suddenly felt very awkward.

“I promised her a dance with you tonight, and I dare say she is intent on you being her first dance of the evening. If you would be so kind as to do so and put her and her suitors out of their misery, I would be grateful.”

“A small enough price to pay,” he said, although he wasn’t entirely sure of that. As found as he was of pretty girls, he had a healthy fear of them as well..

The queen must have noticed his trepidation, for she added.

“Do not feel obligated to kiss her. Even if she pouts. Especially if she stomps her foot.”

“I shall remain firmly English. No kissing masked strangers.”

“An excellent policy. Now, if you do not mind? I am afraid our conversation has run rather longer than intended.”

“Of course, Your Majesty. You have my thanks.”

He bowed one more time, and made his way to back to the main ballroom. Fleur was at his side instantly, slipping his wand back into his sleeve with the same ease with which she had removed it. Another figure, this one adorned with the notorious lion’s mask, moved passed to take his place, brushing his shoulder ever so slightly. Harry felt his nerves tingle as the other’s magic lapped against his. By instinct, he tried to turn and identify the source of the familiar feeling, but Fleur’s position on his arm made it awkward and he had a more immediate goal before him.

Hidden behind the magic curtain, the masked man knelt before the queen, took her hand, and boldly kissed the inside of her wrist. He grinned up at her, pure predator, and she indulged him with an amused smile.

“Perhaps you and young Harry should have traded masks,” she suggested. “You are incorrigible.”

“A Gryffindor in a lion’s mask? That would be entirely too cliché.”

“I have no idea what a Gryffindor is.”

“It is a house.”

“I am assuming you are not referring to architecture. Never mind. Have you come to ask for a favor, as well?”

“Is that what he was doing? What did he ask you for?”

“Perhaps it is a secret.”

“There are no secrets between my protégé and me. At least, none that I do not allow him to keep. I have him on a short leash.”

“At yet, you have not taught him how to ‘stay’ yet.”

He grinned.

“Well, I suppose he is somewhat like a sight hound in that regard. No matter how well you train them, once they have their sights set on something there is no stopping them from running off. Now tell me, what did he ask for?”

“Do you think I am so meek that I will tell you just because you ask?”

“Shall I use my bedroom voice instead?” he offered.

“I want to ask your opinion on something.”

“Is my opinion worth the revealing of secrets? I should wonder what you have been telling your attendants about me.”

“Attendants are there to feed my vanity. Advisers see only what they want to see. You, on the other hand, I believe would give me an honest reply.”

He personally found it very funny that she thought he would be honest with her in any capacity, but nodded anyway. She gestured over to Harry, who was now insinuating himself between several young suitors to gain the attention of a swan princess. He did not bother attempting conversing, he had no idea if the girl even spoke English, and simply smiled at her impishly, his pointed ears flickering at her like a wink. The girl giggled behind her hand, and allowed him to lead her towards the floor.

“Do you think they make a cute couple?”

He glanced at her briefly to make sure she wasn’t joking.

“I… I suppose they make an attractive pair. As much as we can tell under the circumstances.”

“They appear to get along rather well.”

Considering they had only been in each other’s company for two minutes, he thought she was being overly generous.

“Harry’s at that age where he gets along with any pretty girl, I am afraid,” he said, voicing his skepticism.

“You needn’t look so put out. I am quite aware that they are not an equal match. Serafina is a ninny with hero worship. Harry will overshadow her in everything he does.”

Here, she caught him by surprise. He was not expecting her to be so openly disparaging of her own flesh and blood. Additionally, while he knew she was fond of Harry, he hadn’t realized she held so much respect for him as well.

“Nevertheless, she is next in line fore the throne, and should that day come I want her to have a strong and trustworthy husband standing beside her, someone capable of compensating for her weaknesses.”

If he had been startled before, he was completely floored now. In all the time he had known her, she had never so much as hinted at a possible union between her niece and his protégé. In some ways, it made a great deal of sense. Britain did not have an official monarchy, but unofficially, he was king and Harry was prince. It was not recorded anywhere, not even said directly in the press except humorously or even sarcastically, but ask any child in Britain who the prince of Britain was and ‘Harold Potter’ would be the instant and natural answer.

Voldemort had been entertaining the ideal of creating an official monarchy for some time, and he had intended for it to come about through marriage. Ideally, he wished it to be marriage to Queen Ophelia whose royal bloodline was ancient and well respected. He had even entertained the idea of Harry marrying into a royal family to the same affect, but had gradually lost interest in the idea.

Past experience had taught him he did not like the boy outside of Britain. His visit with the queen that night had been a result of this anxiety, a ‘just in case’ his protégé decided to run off on a fool’s errand or get abducted or face an attacking army. Additionally, he did not like Harry left to his own devices, outside of his influence, for long periods of time. His young friend was precocious, and he was entering an age of growing independence and self-confidence that would soon lead them into conflict if not readily curbed.

Give Harry a country of his own, a weak willed queen, and public zeal and Voldemort would find himself facing someone potentially as scary as himself, if entirely different reasons.

Which while theoretically intriguing, was probably a logistical nightmare to deal with.

“It is far too early for decisions such as that to be made,” he suggested. “They are both young, war time politics are different from peace time politics, and more importantly, you are still quite young. The chances of you producing an heir are still high.”

She gave him a knowing look.

“I am starting to think you are reluctant to let the boy go.”

“Absolutely,” he agreed. “Have you seen what happens when no one is watching him? Have you seen what happens even when they do? It is all marvelously entertaining when you are not the one dragged into it.”

“You love it, though, don’t you? It all must be terribly exciting compared to being an evil Overlord.”

He smiled at that.

“One does need to keep entertained. Now, I have given you my opinion. Will you tell me what you both talked about?”

She told him. He sighed.

“Again, with the Granger girl. He needs a new hobby.”

“You do not object?”

She sounded genuinely surprised.

“Do you want me to?”

“It would be helpful,” she admitted. “At least a little.”

“I will make the effort, but only because you asked.”

“You are too kind.”

“I try. Would you like to dance?”

“I would love to, but I have other business to attend to first. Can you keep yourself entertained in the meantime?”

“That is Harry’s job. I will let him know he is being remiss in his duties.”

Her hand, which he had not let go of and had in fact been rubbing sensuous circles over with his thumb, found its way once again to his mouth as he kissed it. He pulled away, and slipped out of the alcove with her guards and lady-in-waiting glaring bloody murder into his back. Honestly, he thought, she is a grown woman. She doesn’t need anyone to guard her virtue.

Harry danced two dances with Princess Serafina. He could not say they were particularly memorable. She did not speak English and he did not speak French, which she didn’t seem to notice as she nattered at him about something or other without waiting for him to reply. Despite his propensity for being attracted any female between the ages of fourteen and forty and her own fey attractiveness, he found himself very quickly bored with her. He was so used to the company of strong and unique women, that it did not take him long to realize his partner was not among them. It became obvious that she was depending on him to do or say something, rather than making it happen for herself. He did not know what she was expecting and he did not much care.

Making the excuse that he needed to find his chaperone (he doubted she understood a word he said and look very near devastated when he handed her off to an eager young man), he left the dance floor once again and begged off any who approached him. He managed to find the professor entertaining a small crowd of men and women. Slughorn seemed to be enjoying himself, and not wanting to get drawn into his social scheming, he decided to look for Fleur.

Turning around, he found her standing right behind him.

“Merlin, don’t do that!”

“It iz not my fault you are oblivious,” she pointed out, leading him back out to the relative privacy of the dance floor. “’Ow did your dance go with Zerafina?”

He shrugged, taking her into his arms and falling into step. He felt the immediate chemistry that had been absent with Serafina spring up between them.

“She iz ze ’eir to ze throne. Did you know?”

“No,” he said. He suspected he would be seeing a lot of her over the years, and perhaps should have made more of an effort to get along with her. Maybe Hermione and she could be friends? Somehow, he doubted it.

“You are ’ard to impress,” she said.

“I am impressed with accomplishments, not circumstances. ‘Merit over inherit’, I guess you could say.”

“That’s very bourgeoisie of you.”

He had no idea what that meant, but before he could ask, he suddenly found his arms empty. Disoriented, he stood there stupidly for a moment, blinking at the empty space that had previously been occupied by an audacious white rabbit. He looked around.

It didn’t take long to spot her. The long white ears were hard to miss. She was now in the arms of the man who brushed passed him as he left the queen’s antechamber. The lion, dressed in medieval wizarding battle gear, was leading her off the dance floor. Harry stood there, wondering what exactly was happening and perhaps more importantly why. He had never had anyone steal a dancing partner right out from under him. At least, not at a formal party.

Additionally, why wasn’t Fleur breaking away?

Finally, he had to move if only to avoid the other dancers, and began his chase. He followed them off the dance floor and into the crowds, then through the crowds and up the stairs, the menagerie behind them murmuring in speculation over what was happening. In the hallway, the escaping duo was moving even more quickly and Harry found himself having to jog just to keep them in sight.

No one attempted to stop them, and again Fleur made no attempt to escape from her abductor. Harry was becoming simultaneously irritated and concerned. He checked his wand to make sure it slipped in and out of his sleeve easily, and broke out into a run. The halls seemed endless, stretching on to infinity, guards or attendants standing outside doorways acted as the only solid proof that he wasn’t stuck in some sort of infinity spell or running in circles.

The music of the ballroom soon faded away to the sound of their thrumming footsteps and Fleur’s gasping laughter. Clearly this was a joke of some kind. Had Bill Weasley managed to sneak into the event? If he had, how had he gotten the lion’s mask and audience with the Queen?

And suddenly, it clicked.

Finally, the corridors ended and he followed his query through what appeared to be a music room and through a set of French doors into the palace gardens. It was passed eight in the evening, and the sky was dark, but the gardens were brilliantly lit with lanterns and fairy lights. The autumn air was cool and slightly damp, but after his run it felt marvelous.

His run, it seemed, was over, but not the chase. The palace gardens had a maze.

“Oh, very mature!” he shouted.

The only response he got was the sound of Fleur giggling from somewhere behind the well manicured hedges of the maze. Rolling his eyes, he moved to follow. He wondered what Queen Ophelia would think of them running around her home like naughty children in a game of tag.

“This isn’t funny!” he insisted, stalking down the path, then turned around again when he realized it was a dead end, and again when he reached another dead end. This happened several times, and in his haste he knew he had become hopelessly turned around. He didn’t bother worrying about it.

“Oh, lighten up! Titillo!” a masculine voice called out behind him.

“Protego!” Bringing up the Shield Charm, he blocked the Tickling Hex just in time, and charged in the direction of the attack. A Laughing Hex and Slipping Jinx were both easily blocked in the narrow confines of the maze, and when he finally managed to catch up to his attacker, he physically tackled him into ground.

“Oompf!”

Harry couldn’t reply any more articulately. He was breathing heavily after the chase and mock-fight, and couldn’t get an adequate breathe to gloat. In fact, he was having a hard time climbing to his feet. Partially underneath him, the Dark Lord was laughing, his lion’s teeth bared in a snarl. Harry pushed himself up just enough to punch him in the stomach, earning him another ‘oompf’. It wasn’t until he flopped onto his back to catch his breath that he noticed Fleur seated on a bench, clutching her sides as she laughed mutely behind a Silencing Charm.

“Did you have fun?” he finally huffed out. “Or shall we go up to the roof and toss water bombs[2] at passersby?”

“Well, if I had my personal preference…” Voldemort began, still chuckling as he finally climbed to his feet. He helped Harry to do the same. He cast a cleaning charm on himself, and tried to do the same to his protégé, but his wand was push aside distrustfully. “I don’t remember you being this uptight.”

“I don’t remember you being this… silly. Everyone must think Britain is filled with loons,” the Gryffindor replied indignantly.

“When did you figure out it was me?”

“About half way down the hall. Who else could have had a meeting with the queen and then felt the need to steal my date? Don’t you have one of your own?”

“Of course. Queen Ophelia is my partner for the evening.”

Harry was honestly taken back. Voldemort grinned at him. He had enjoyed himself greatly. It was nice to have the boy running after him for once.

“She was busy, so she let me loose on the flock.”

He crossed his arms, looking skeptical, but he was already feeling his agitation thaw under the Dark Lord’s strange humor. Across from them, Fleur had stopped laughing and was watching their interaction with rapt attention. He flicked his wand at her and instantly rendered her deaf. She gave him an annoyed scowl. Chances were, she could undo it at any time, but it would be fairly obvious when she did.

“What are you doing here?”

“Boredom.”

“Are you drunk?”

“I don’t drink to relieve boredom. It doesn’t work on me. Besides, occasional spontaneity is important in any relationship.”

“I think our relationship is pretty much defined by its spontaneity, my Lord.”

“Who says I was talking about our relationship?”

“Then who…”

His eyes widened.

“The queen? You’re in a relationship with the Queen of France?”

The elder wizard looked entirely too smug suddenly.

“You knew I was courting her,” he reminded.

“Through letters. Maybe some flirting during private meetings, but… really? How far… no, wait, I don’t want to know.”

“I never do anything half way.”

“I don’t want to know!”

“She thinks I am a very generous lover.”

“Stop!”

“There is this one spot, just between the shoulder blades that drives her absolutely crazy.”

“Enough!”

“Have you ever seen the night dress of a French witch? Miraculous.”

Harry pointed his wand at his tormentor.

“Die!”

Fleur watched all of this from her perch on the bench, mute and having no idea what they were saying, she was, nevertheless, laughing to the point of tears.

1. Remember Allbright? Probably not, but he was a rookie duelist in books III and IV.↩

2. If the banter with the queen seem a bit excessive and/or quirky, I blame it on Fletch novels I’ve been reading the last three weeks. They’re 90% quirky banter.

Water bombs are essentially water balloons, except they’re magical so they hold about ten times as much water as water balloon of the same size.↩

The Tavern

Returning to the ruins of London after the splendid otherworldliness of Paris was psychologically jarring. Crooked, tidy streets Harry had once wandered in a childish daze of excitement and curiosity, every corner and back alley bustling with activity, were now ghostly from the burnt out ruins of shops and homes to the near empty streets. Despite having cleared the city weeks ago of enemy forces, few London natives had returned yet. Homes had been systematically destroyed during the siege, and with the weather turning cold and competition for magical constructionists high, few families had returned and it was mostly the men folk and younger couples without children that were braving hardships to come back and rebuild by hand (and wand) themselves.

Out of the entire city, Knockturn Alley appeared to have weathered the invasion the best, with most of the shops still standing and some of them seemingly untouched. Harry asked Slughorn if it were luck.

“No,” the professor said, eyeing the gloomy lane with some trepidation. Despite being the most intact area in the city, it was no more inviting then it had ever been, and specters that loomed in the windows or shadowed through alleyways seemed somehow more sinister and more powerful than ever before. “It’s not luck. Knockturn Alley is the oldest surviving section of wizarding London. It’s built on top of an old graveyard, and that graveyard’s descendents continue to live on there after more than a millennium. It has survived fires, wars, plagues, dragons… and no one really knows how or why. There are a lot of theories about it and a lot of superstitions. Most people agree that Dark Arts are involved.”

Harry didn’t say anything more until they were well out of sight of the ominous neighborhood. There were forces in the world known to appear by merely speaking their name at night or standing in from of a mirror or at a crossroads, and standing in the shadows of Knockturn Alley seemed as likely a place to summon something malevolent as any of those things.

“I would have thought it’d be in better shape if it were under some sort of protection. I mean… it always seems on the verge of ruin.”

“Yes, I imagine whatever keeps Knockturn alive also keeps it from thriving. The Dark Arts are like that. You have to sacrifice something of equal or greater value to achieve an ends, so there’s no real way to get ahead with that sort of magic.”

Harry looked at him curiously. He had been in DA&D for five years now, and while the concept of ‘sacrifice’ was a standard definition of a Dark Art, none of his teachers had suggested that you couldn’t get ahead because of it. In fact, most suggested just the opposite.

“I don’t understand. You think it’s bad?”

“Bad? Not necessarily. It’s naturally destructive, but destruction has its uses. There is always a sacrifice though, be it physical or psychological or spiritual. Every. Single. Time. If you don’t gage the value of those sacrifices properly, Dark Arts can destroy you and those dearest to you.”

That was also a familiar anthem of the Dark Arts; that a majority of those who destroyed themselves through the Dark Arts were delusional, addicts, narcissists, and fools who could not accurately determine what they were sacrificing and gave more than they intended or else not nearly enough. If you were careful and responsible, then you should be fine. He was starting to get confused about what Slughorn was trying to say or if the man even knew what he was talking about. The professor seemed to sense his trepidation and explained.

“I simply mean you should never rely too heavily on the Dark Arts if you want to accomplish something other than destruction. Even the Dark Lord doesn’t rely very heavily on Dark Arts for his day-to-day affairs… not like he used to during the war in any event. But you still see wizards and witches who do… you’ll soon notice there is something inherently wrong with them. Sickness, paranoia, inability to focus, sadism… all signs of an over use of Dark Arts.”

Harry thought back on McNair, who seemed so fundamentally flawed as a human being, and then on Lestrange, who showed similar signs of derangement. Even Snape didn’t seem quite right at times, nearly incapable of sympathy and never completely happy. All of them had been Death Eaters, renown for their use of Dark Arts during the war, and to some extent even after it was over. He thought about Ron, whose dabbling in a form of Old Magic that was clearly Dark Arts, was slowly killing him.

But had that been the Dark Arts or a fallacy in their own character that made them apt to abusing it? It was a ‘the chicken and the egg’ sort of question, and one he did not have the answer to.

He thought about the Solstice rituals and sacrifices he had performed with the Dark Lord, and wondered if they could be considered Dark Arts or not. They had required sacrifices of goods and life, and yet the rewards had been great. He wondered about the hidden cost, and if some of the most painful events of his life hadn’t been a result of what he had done. How was he to know one way or the other? And would he… could he stop even if it turned out to be the case?

He was suddenly filled with questions. Questions he couldn’t expect Slughorn to answer or Snape to listen to or Hermione to understand. He needed to speak with Voldemort.

But not right now.

He had other responsibilities he needed to attend to. They continued on for several blocks, the clear blue autumn sky about the only cheerful thing amid the ruined city, until they found their destination.

The Stranded Selkie was a small tavern slightly less devastated (or else more quickly repaired) than her surrounding neighbors, with most of her roof in tact and enough debris free area to allow patrons entrance. Inside, the tavern was a contradiction of fire blackened walls, shiny new photographs and paintings, and piecemeal furniture. Two young men moved around the tavern scrubbing the ash from the walls and partially destroyed ceiling and floor with limited success, while a girl little more than fourteen wandered about tables taking orders or bringing drinks. She gave them a cheerful, tired smile as they entered and directed them to a half square half circular table (it seemed to have been two tables transfigured into one) where a gentleman was already seated and eating a large plate of fish. They were immediately graced with a mulish glare.

Harry instantly felt a familiar sense of trepidation and loathing he had felt around his muggle relatives and the currently jobless MacNair. Chancy Truberville was the Director of the National Public Wizarding Library of London, the largest and most prestigious library in Britain and one of the top five wizarding libraries in the world. He was a thick man with a small head and even smaller eyes, made smaller by thick blond eyebrows. He had a weak chin and a ruddy complexion which he had unsuccessfully tried to hide with a thick beard and mustache. He was perhaps in his late fifties (which looked about the late forties for muggles), but his expression reminded Harry very much of a petulant First Year.

Or rather, of his Uncle Vernon, may the abusive bastard have a heart attack and die.

“Mr. Truberville?” Slughorn said, when Harry didn’t immediately step forward.

“Doctor Truberville,” the man snapped, startling the professor.

“Er…yes, terribly sorry. I am Professor Slughorn, and this is Mr. Potter, who wished to arrange this meeting.” He offered his hand to Truberville, who completely ignored it.

The man took a bite of his fish, and chewed it slowly as he stared at the both of them. Harry kept his expression bland, although he was finding himself increasingly irritated. Slughorn smiled nervously, and after a long awkward moment, sat himself down. Harry remained standing for a moment, his expression unchanging, before he joined them with an obvious display of reluctance.

“I was told this would be a private meeting between Potter and myself,” he said at last, after chewing his fish into a fine puree.

“It is. I am merely Mr. Potter’s chaperone, as his safety is the responsibility of Hogwarts.”

“Aren’t you a little old for a chaperone, boy?” he sneered, turning to Harry.

“Aren’t you a little boorish for a doctor?”

There was a sudden and deafening silence, and the Gryffindor suddenly realized he had spoken out loud. Oops.

The young waitress who had been approaching their table with some water glasses, abruptly stopped and hurried back in the direction she had come from. A table of young Constructionists, tilted their heads and leaned over to get a better view of what they probably assumed was going to erupt into a tavern fight. The two young men cleaning off the ash stopped what they were doing to watch as well, but with considerably more trepidation.

“Excuse me?”

The words were deceptively soft, just as Vernon’s had been before he flew into one of his rages. Subtly, Harry pretended to look contrite, but flicked his wand out into his hand under the table.

“I apologize,” he said, “We’ve been traveling all morning from France and fatigue has put me in a poor disposition. Shall we start over? Good day, Dr. Truberville. I am Harry Potter, thank you for taking the time to meet with me.”

For a moment, Truberville hesitated. He was obviously used to dealing with only two types of people. His superiors and those he viewed as his inferiors, and while he had approached this meeting with belief that Harry fell into the later category, he was not cooperating. Potter was not at first glance very intimidating. He was shorter than most boys his age, somewhat on the thin side, a friendly face, and with the glasses he looked more like a naïve, young scholar than the dangerous fighter the papers had made him out to be.

The eyes though. Something about them was off.

The ‘chaperone’ was looking distressed, his eyes flickering nervously between the two of them, the category he fell into perfectly obvious.

“Very well. I will over look your transgression this time. What is so important that you had to drag me out to this hovel on my day off?”

There was a myriad of flaws in what he had just said, not the least of which was that the man had chosen the place to begin with, but Harry knew he had to remain focused on his goal. A life hung in the balance, and even though it was only Ron’s, it was still more significant than poking holes in this blowhard’s ego.

For now, at least.

“Since your time is so precious to you, I will keep things brief and to the point. I am currently working on a research project on mathematical principles of Old Magic-”

“Old Magic? They’re treating that superstitious nonsense like real magic up there?”

Harry continued as if he hadn’t heard him.

“-rituals and diagrams with Professor Vector, the Arithmancy professor, and we have come to a point where we cannot continue without the necessary research materials. Considering the subject matter, I am sure you can imagine how rare and hard to come by these materials are. According to your catalogue, your library has several texts that would be of use to us.”

“So what? You want to use the library when everyone else has to wait until January? You can’t wait two months?”

“For various reasons, our research needs to be concluded by the end of the school year, so no we cannot spare two and half months, particularly when we both have limited free time to devote to it.”

“I don’t see how that’s my problem. You should have chosen to study something else. Something useful. You are wasting time, mine and yours with that nonsense,” he sneered.

“The Dark Lord doesn’t see it that way.”

The sneer vanished.

“Lord Voldemort is an avid practitioner of Old Magics,” Harry continued, trying not to smile as the man suddenly lost color, “He is very interested in the research Professor Vector and I are conducting, and it is his hope to promote further research of this type. I imagine those who prove themselves helpful in this would receive… what’s the word I’m looking for?”

“Recognition?” Slughorn offered.

“That too, but I was thinking of something else.”

“Compensation? Financial endorsement?”

“Yes, that second one! You are a public library, after all. Your funding is entirely reliant on the Court’s indulgence and private donation. You’re going to be short on both until the war with Germany and Italy is over and the economy recovers.”

Money, it seemed, was what earned the most respect from this man, because he was finally starting to look at Harry as something more than an insect. Unfortunately, now he was starting to look at him like the goose that laid the golden eggs. He pulled at the edges of his mustache thoughtfully, as he considered.

“Are you offering financial incentive for me to help you?”

Harry blinked. Uh oh. He may have overplayed his Voldemort hand. As far as he was concerned, the Dark Lord need never know about his research, or at least not the books he wanted, one of which he would instantly recognize as having no value to arithmancy whatsoever.

Luckily, Slughorn jumped in before the hesitation was noticeable.

“You mean, like a bribe?”

Truberville grimaced, and glanced at the other patrons, who were still watching them, now because they found themselves in the presence of Harold Potter, Prince of Britain and were curious.

“Of course not. I wouldn’t be taking the money personally.”

Harry suspected he would have if Slughorn hadn’t clumsily outed him.

“I simply want proof of this so called interest Lord Voldemort has in this project. It is all well and good to claim such a thing, but I have no intention of investing valuable time and effort on an errand without something to back it up.”

An errand that would only have cost an hour or two at most, and not even the man’s own time, the Gryffindor wanted to point out but knew that wasn’t really the point and if he pretended it was he would only make the man irate.

“And what would you consider proof, Dr. Truberville? Lord Voldemort knocking on your door?” he asked.

“I’d settle for a letter and a certificary[1]”

The negotiation stalled as Harry considered his next step. Could he get what the director wanted? Probably. Just as likely he could get the Dark Lord to threaten the man into cooperation, especially after the ‘Old Magic is nonsense’ comments, which would be infinitely more satisfying. Did he really want to do either? No. That would be complicating an already delicate situation. So what now?

He was going to have to take a different approach altogether.

“I am sure you would. I’ll see what I can do.”

The man smirked, believing he had won. Harry refrained from smirking back. He didn’t want him… or Slughorn for that matter, suspecting him. Although he loathed remaining in the man’s company for any long, he and his chaperone ordered lunch. He still managed a parting shot, however, when Truberville got up to leave and offered his hand. Harry glanced at it blandly and kept eating his fish.

“That was rather rude,” Slughorn pointed out afterwards.

“Sorry.”

“It was strange though. I suspect you handled the situation better by being rude than you would have being completely polite.”

“I’m familiar with the type. If you’re not as nasty as they are, they think you’re weak.”

“Oh?”

Harry considered telling him about his uncle, but decided against it. By all accounts, he shouldn’t even remember his uncle after leaving WYRA. If Slughorn were curious and asked around, he would probably end up assuming he was referring to MacNair or Lestrange for that matter, who were both a whole different sort of nasty.

“Do you mind if we make one more stop before we get back to the castle? I have some friends in London I wanted to see.”

“I suppose we can spare a few hours, supposing Sentinel Seitler agrees. Anyone I know?”

“Undoubtedly. It’s the Weasley twins.”

“Er… I see. Um… is there any particular reason?”

“I haven’t seen Fred and George in a while, and they’ve been inviting me down since they opened shop. They might have some advice on how too cool down this prank war going on at Hogwarts.”

“As I remember it, they were more known for instigating pranks than stopping them, but I suppose… ‘to catch a thief’ as the saying goes.”

They asked the waitress for directions, which she was able to rattle off by heart. She appeared very familiar with the tavern and the Weasley twins themselves, who she knowingly called ‘Minions of Chaos’. So did the table of constructionists, who after overhearing their conversation, launched into several stories about the mischief the infamous Fred and George had gotten into on any given day before and after the Italian occupation. The more Harry heard, the more he was convinced that his friends were in fact doing well financially and personally.

Finally, they went to see the infamous ‘Red Weasel’.

They nearly passed it completely the first time, so completely blended it was with the row of ruined shops and pubs surrounding it. It was only the sign board propped against the half collapsed doorway that signaled they really were in the right place. Uncertainly he crouched and squeezed under a half fallen beam to get through. Once inside, however, he knew instantly he was in the right place.

Even on a Sunday afternoon, the tavern was packed with patrons, filled with laughter and music. An Irish fiddler was sawing away in a corner, adults clapping and stomping their feet along, while children squealed underfoot as they raced between tables chasing after a toy snitch. The walls were warm, bare oak and were decorated with display cases of strange artifacts, funny pictures, Quidditch memorabilia, small animals, Weasley Wizarding Wheezlies prank toys and candy, and one even had a collection of Italian insignia and plaque that read ‘Strangers in a Foreign Land, Met Their Ends at the Strangest of Hands’[2]. The furniture here was piecemeal as well, but this was obviously by design, especially the tables and chairs hanging from the ceiling (along with an elderly witch who seemed to appreciate being out of the way of the chaos beneath her). Waitresses in red dresses and white aprons bustled around taking and giving orders and stopping to talk or laugh or give a little pinch at every table.

“Harry, bless my soul!” a waitress cried happily as he entered, and after a moment he realized who it was.

“Madam Rosemerta?”

Her cheeks dimpled as she smiled, and she hugged him with her one free arm, her ample bosom still managing to near knock the breath out of him.

“Just Rosie here, dear. I’m helping the boys out until my own tavern is up and running. No point in letting my skills get rusty, and I never did care for lousing around and feeling sorry for myself. What brings you by, dear? Aren’t you supposed to be at the school?”

“I had some business to take care of in London, and thought I would drop by to see how Fred and George are doing… obviously they’ve to be doing well,” he noted. By all accounts, this seemed to be the only cheerful place in all of London, and perhaps that was the secret to the twin’s success. The twins had always had a gift for lightening a mood, and no where was the need perhaps greater and therefore most appreciated than here.

“Ah, they’re up in their laboratory right now, but I’ll tell them you’re here.”

“Laboratory?”

But she was already bustling off, setting down pints of butterbeer and ale as she headed for the bar. Behind the bar she picked up what looked like a can hanging on a string from the ceiling. She shouted something into the can then held it to her ear to listen. He wanted to believe it was really an enchanted can and string, but knowing the Weasley twins, it might very well have been exactly what it looked like.

Rosmerta seemed to have gotten her reply, because she gestured towards a corner where a narrow elevator was slowly descending from the ceiling.

“Er… Professor, do you mind if I speak with the twins in private? I promise I won’t take long.”

Slughorn, who was looking about in curious fascination, smiled at him.

“Of course not. I think I’ll sit and have a butterbeer. If it’s anything like the Three Broomsticks, it’s bound to be good.”

The elevator played ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ as it went up, clearly audible even over the din of the tavern noise, which had Harry smiling even before he stepped off of it. His mood might have instantly been lightened, but his quick reflexes were not so easily lulled into complacency. His wand was up and he snapped out a protego before he even fully realized something was hurtling towards his head. What ever it was immediately exploded into a flurry of feathers.

“Bugger! It wasn’t even close!”

As the curtain of feathers fell, Harry was able to make out the ‘laboratory’. Which despite his initial skepticism, was exactly what it was. There were beakers, flasks, cauldrons, goggles, potions ingredients, and scientific looking equipment resting in cabinets and along potion proof tables that would have been perfectly at home in Snape’s potion lab. There were also schematics covering the far wall, notebooks and files flooding out of a filing cabinet, glass jars filled with the half melted remains of failed experiments, and others such laboratory-like things. Except instead of potions or medicine or dark arts, the twins were experimenting with pranks.

Which meant the mad scientist routine was somewhat ruined by the fact that it looked as if someone had exploded a giant toy chest in the middle of the room.

“I don’t know, I thought that went pretty well, George. I mean, look at that size of that explosion. A good eight or ten feet in every direction and barely any visibility!”

“We can’t count that as a viable test. The Shield Charm clearly lent some energy to the explosion. Plus, lack of visibility only last about two seconds. We’re on the right track, but I think we could do a lot better.”

Harry blinked at the twins, who were standing in lab robes and goggles, and holding clipboards on which they where jotting down notes.

“Um… did you both just experiment on me?” he asked.

They both smiled cheerfully.

“Not on you, Harry. Just at you. There’s an important difference,” George said.

“And what difference is that?”

“You didn’t explode.”

“Good point. What did you just experiment at me then?”

“Exploding Bludgers. They act just like regular bludgers, except when they hit you they explode into feathers. We’re thinking of other things they’ll explode…”

“Slime,” Fred offered.

“Spiders.”

“Candy.”

“Joke Candy, of course.”

“Flowers on Valentine’s day.”

“Or weddings.”

“Or funerals, but maybe ashes would be more appropriate.”

“Or bones.”

“Or grave dirt.”

“Maybe you should just let the prankster decide what to fill it with,” Harry suggested. “Then it could be customized to every victim and circumstance.”

They both blinked.

“My God! Why didn’t we think of that? We are still novices before you, oh great anarchist! All Hail Lord Chaos!”

“Hail Chaos!”

“Hail Chaos!”

Something in the lab broke out into thunderous applause. Fred picked up a stuffed bear and hurled it at the wall. It let out a terrified shriek and then fell silent.

“Er… sorry about that. We’re still working on how to turn it off. So what brings you here, Harry? The castle still stands?”

“As if the Lord Chaos would tear down his own castle,” the younger boy admonished. “I was actually hoping you could help me with something… well, something probably illegal.”

“Oh, I love the ‘probably’ illegal requests,” George said. “They’re almost as good as the ‘slightly’ illegal ones.”

When Harry told them what he wanted, they seemed almost disappointed. It did not seem that exciting a mission as they had originally hoped, but they were certainly game for it. Apparently, they had spent a majority of their time doing ‘probably’ and ‘definitely’ illegal things during the invasion, and now that things were quiet they had focused primarily on their private line of wizarding pranks.

“Diversification, Harry, is the key to good business. Always have something to fall back on for when you grow mind-numbingly bored.”

They negotiated for services, because that was also good business and apparently part of the fun. Harry had to spend either Christmas Eve (and since Harry wasn’t a Christian he didn’t see any reason why he would have to be somewhere else) or New Years at the Red Weasel and have his picture taken with the twins. They had already selected a perfect spot behind the bar for their Shrine to the Lord Chaos, which happened to be directly above the Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes storage space. They felt it would bring them luck.

Business completed, they got down to talking about what was going on in each others lives and those of their mutual acquaintances. Harry gave them details of Hogsmeade’s destruction and the hall set up to house the refuges, of the attack on the castle and everyone pulling together, of the prank wars, about Ginny and Ron’s trouble agreeing on how to run the smuggling business, about Snape’s marriage, Hermione’s betrothal, and Fleur’s eagerness to see Bill. They told him about the long days and nights during the invasion, of exhausted refugees stumbling in for a bit of cheer or a sign of a lost family member or friend, births and birthdays and marriages even when things seemed at their worst, singing all through the night while knowing they would not have a home or a job or a loved one to go back to the next day, raiding the remains of the city or the Italian’s supply houses to stock the tavern’s larder, of people too stubborn to leave and too frightened to stay, and vengeance dealt out in the night on unwary soldiers. They tell him they never felt more proud of anything they had ever done, but that the tears their mum had cried for them had never left them feeling more ashamed.

“She won’t even come to see the tavern. Even now that it’s safe, she won’t come. I don’t think she’s forgiven us yet. We can’t really blame her,” Fred said at length, his perpetual good humor dimming somewhat.

“Have you tried to go and see her?” Harry asked. George shrugged.

“Can’t really leave the tavern unsupervised for long. We’re understaffed right now, and it’s hard finding people who won’t rob you blind when you’re not looking these days. Once we get things where we want them, we’ll take a day to go grovel to her. Maybe if you sent her a letter for us?”

“Er… I wouldn’t even know what to say.”

“Something about orphans. She’s a sucker for orphans.”

Bobby could feel his sanity slipping. It eroded by tiny fraction each day in the acidic monotony that defined his captivity, an existence that never changed and accomplished nothing. The aviary was self sustaining, and it had been weeks since Voldemort last deigned to taunt him, meaning his sole company was that of the menagerie of birds that shared his prison. He knew all of them by sight now and had named each in its turn, but for all his efforts to be sociable they were still only birds and neither understood nor were interested in his plight. He prayed often to Raecellos, who could theoretically both understand and care, but had yet to answer him either.

The only conversations he had anymore are in his head and with the increasingly absent Dark Lord. The only reason he even knew he was loosing his grip was because he’d actually started to miss the arrogant bastard. Perhaps ‘miss’ wasn’t quite the word. It was not the man… creature… his tormentor that he truly wished for, but the anger and resolve that always rose up when ever Bobby was in his presence.

Despair was the enemy now, and while Voldemort was its face, it lingered even in his nemesis’ absence.

It had been nearly two weeks since he had seen the Dark Lord, which in addition to leaving him bored to tears it also left him uneasy. This was not the longest he had gone without seeing the other, but lately they had been bothering him more and his moods seemed to darken with the weather.

The sky outside was his only indication of the passing seasons, and on this particular day it was gloomy and wet, leaving the aviary lit in the muted tones of a faded photograph. Inside, the temperature was constant regardless of the light, just this side of warm, despite the mood that seemed to demand it somehow be chilled. Bobby flew laps around the room like he did every day, keeping his wings and heart strong for when he would at last fly the open skies again. It was harder today than usual. The light and the warmth made him want to sit somewhere and sleep, but if he broke the routine he knew something else inside him would break as well.

On days like this, he was reminded of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. He had seen the play once at a muggle festival in Cantebury, performed in a local park. At the time, he hadn’t cared for it, finding it unbearably depressing. Despite that, the play remained rooted in his memory nearly twenty years later. The words always jumbled in his head, but the impressions lingered like a familiar song whose lyrics had been forgotten.

His melancholy thoughts were suddenly broken by the tell tale squeak of the door opening. Instinctively, Bobby halted his flights and dived for cover in the thickly growing vegetation. There was a momentary wave of noise as the resident birds warned each other of the encroaching company, but it fell away soon enough. While not all of the birds were or could ever be called ‘tame’, they had all become used to their captivity and adjusted to the point of domestication. All except Bobby, who cautiously hopped and fluttered within the shadows of the foliage, until he was able to see the visitor.

It wasn’t who he was expecting.

Lucius Malfoy stalked into their prison radiating disgust, anger, and frustration like the reek of alcohol that wafted off of him with equal strength. In one hand he held his wand and in the other a bottle of… something. Bobby could probably guess, but he was far more interested in why the man was there in the first place.

No one ever came there except for the Dark Lord. As far as he knew, it wasn’t even possible. But obviously it was, because there was no way this arrogant wizard could have simply stumbled in. Bobby felt hope swell up inside of him at this sudden, unexpected deviation. He was half a breath away from breaking cover and rushing towards the wizard, when the man pointed his wand at the small table and summarily melted it into a puddle of molten iron.

Bobby immediately came back to himself, his euphoria broken by the harsh, bitter reality of his situation. Lucius Malfoy was the Dark Lord’s right hand. One of the original Death Eaters and now general to the largest wizarding army the world had ever known, it was unlikely the wizard would be moved or motivated to free the imprisoned raven out of the kindness of his heart or a sense of justice. In fact, if his current behavior was any indication, he would need to be careful not to simply be blown to pieces by Malfoy in a drunken fit.

Nevertheless, this had to be a sign. Or at least an opportunity, and Bobby couldn’t let it pass without at least trying to take advantage of it. So he hung back cautiously, moving among the branches slowly to assess the situation and try to devise a plan. It didn’t take him long to realize Malfoy was exceptionally drunk. This was… strange. He couldn’t claim to know the pureblood very well or of having any real desire to do so, but from what he did know the man wasn’t an alcoholic or prone to reckless behavior. Self-possessed and motivated would be the kinder words he would use to describe him, so the fact that he was behaving so strangely was a sign of something.

He felt a tingling rush of excitement.

Perhaps something have happened to Voldemort? Something that would drive his second-in-command to imbibe heavily and storm into one of the Dark Lord’s private spaces? It was too much to hope for, and not enough to act on.

So what should he do?

Gather more information.

Lucius had taken a deep swallow from his bottle and was aiming his wand haphazardly at the chair, when Bobby gathered his nerve to speak.

“I always did hate that thing. It looks about as inviting as an electric chair.”

Lucius swung around, his wand following belatedly.

“Who’s there? Show yourself! That’s an order,” he said, slurring through the ‘s’s and ’f’s. Not wanting to land on the chair that was about to be obliterated and yet knowing he would be entirely missed if he remained in the trees, Bobby fluttered down to land on the ground a few yards from Lucius’ feet. It was not the ideal position, but if necessary he thought he could duck for cover in time if he had to.

The wizard barely glanced at him, his eyes instead flitting nervously to the shadowy greenery beyond.

“Down here.”

Lucius glanced down, then up, and then back down again.

“Yes, the short, but devilishly handsome fellow in the front row.”

A wand was instantly trained on him.

“Oi! That’s extraordinarily rude, you know!”

“Change back,” the man demanded.

“Change back? Change back into what?”

“Into a wizard, you fool! I refuse to have this conversation with a bird.”

“I’m not an animagus. I can’t change back into anything.”

Lucius looked skeptical. Well, bleary and skeptical.

“Bollocks.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, you are in a bird cage.”

He looked around, stumbling a bit as his eyes traveled upwards. Seemingly without thought, he took another swig from his bottle. He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead against the glass. Bobby watched, missing nothing.

Something was wrong with the wizard, more than simply being inebriated. His eyes were shadowed, and his face held the signs of prolonged exhaustion and pain. Was he ill? Cursed? In either case, he shouldn’t be here. Wizarding kind had a terrible sense of social justice and a severe lack of common sense by Bobby’s estimation, but one of the things they did do well was take care of their sick and injured. Plagues had nearly wiped out the entire wizarding race in Europe almost a millennium before, and in the centuries that followed medical arts and social norms had been honed to razor sharp precision. If Lucius was suffering from any kind of ailment, and clearly he was, he should have been home or hospitalized while undergoing treatment. Not wandering around unsupervised while he ‘self-medicated’.

Curious.

This might be the window of opportunity he was looking for.

“You are ill,” he pointed out to the other man.

“I’ve a headache,” Lucius replied dismissively.

“Hangover?”

Lucius hissed at him like a cat, then came back to himself and straightened.

“No, I am much too drunk for that.”

“So you are ill then?” Bobby persisted.

“I have a headache,” he insisted. “And who wouldn’t under these circumstances? Jesus. I can’t work like this. It’s ridiculous. I’m talking to a bird. Jesus H. Christ.”

“I shall choose not to take that comment personally. What are these ridiculous circumstances?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“Why shouldn’t you? Who would I tell? The pidgeons?”

Lucius seemed to consider a moment, then decided he had nothing to lose.

“Voldemort is shacking up with the queen of France, leaving me to handle the army and clean up the fucking mess the Italians left behind. Meanwhile, he has Lestrange and Crouch frolicking in Germany with their Polish neophytes holding up the train of their skirts as they go. It’s a plot, I tell you. A goddamn plot to ruin me. He’s scared of me. They’re all scared of me. They left me to be run ragged cleaning up their messes so they could get together and figure out how to get rid of me. Jesus, fuck. They’re idiots. Every god damn one of them… But… Jesus, Jesus… it makes my head hurt.”

The rant continued for several more minutes, waxing and waning between intense paranoia and outlandish claims. Bobby stood motionless, hoping he didn’t look as surprised as he was.

Wow.

This was one sick puppy, and not just in the way Bobby had originally thought. He was clearly delusional. How had no one noticed yet? Well, obviously Voldemort was out of the country and therefore couldn’t notice, but surely there were others around, just waiting to jump at the first sign of weakness Lucius displayed so that they might usurp his position? Then again, who was to say others hadn’t noticed, possibly even orchestrated Lucius degeneration, and were simply waiting until the man was completely and irrevocably insane or dead before they made their grab for power?

Bobby certainly wasn’t above using it to his advantage.

“You’re probably right. That is just the sort of thing the Dark Lord would do. He’s not exactly known for his gratitude towards his supporters. I should know.”

Lucius gave him a look; part curiosity and part skepticism.

“What did he do to you?”

“He locked me in a fucking bird cage!” Bobby said, as if it were obvious. “This is not my idea of a grand resort, you know?”

Recognition broke through the glazed insanity for a moment.

“Ah. I think I recognize you now. You were there at the battle in the Berlin Underground. He was carrying you around in a little cage for a few days afterward.”

“Yes, that was me. The entire plan would have fallen through completely if it hadn’t been for me, and did I ever get a thank you for it? No. All I got for my troubles was a room with no exits.”

The wizard was definitely interested now, and Bobby was starting to form the framework for a plan. All he needed to do was convince Lucius that he could help him if he agreed to set him free.

“He never did explain exactly what happened. I thought that Potter had just gone crazy, but the entire thing was just… odd. What did you do exactly?”

“What I always do. I brought everyone together to exactly the right place at exactly the right time. Even then the dunderhead nearly moxied it all up. I practically handed him the battle on a silver platter and he barely scraped by.”

Lucius fell into a silent consideration, which seemed to be exceptionally painful, because he took a particularly long gulp from his bottle. Bobby did his best to act as if he had done nothing more scandalous than take a sip of tea, and given crow body language didn’t readily translate into human body language, he thought he did a pretty good job.

“Why?” the wizard finally asked.

“Why what? Why lock me up?”

“Yes.”

In his mind, Bobby was practically dancing at the question. It was too perfectly set up.

“That should be obvious. If I could make things come together for the Dark Lord, then obviously I could do the same for someone else. I am a very valuable asset, and not one he wishes to fall into the wrong hands.”

Lucius snorted.

“If you’re so smart, then why haven’t you escaped yet?”

Well, crap. He needed to think fast.

“Why should I tell you that?”

“Why would you tell me any of this?”

“You can’t figure it out?”

The wizard frowned, not liking the raven’s taunting tone. He didn’t come there to be insulted by a bird. He came to vent. He had received a missive that morning that Voldemort was remaining in France to organize the fortresses along the French border and plan several key battles in southern Germany, leaving Lucius behind to handle not only Britain’s defense but several other projects he had neither the time nor the energy to see to personally. His wife was sending him notes every day demanding he make time to see her, going so far as to threaten to send a Howler at him. Likewise, he had been hearing whispers in the corridors about his appearance, his supposed failure to perform, parroting Crouch or Lestrange or else sending these messages onto them in ‘secret’ reports. Some even had the audacity to suggest he go see a medi-wizard. Why? So they could leak to the press that he was unfit for duty?

Scavengers, all of them. Just waiting for him to fall so they could tear him to pieces, looking for the first sign of weakness. Even Stratus was giving him odd looks these days, as if he were just supposed to smile and let all the lies and plotting simply roll off his back. Little idiot. He had been in this game before Stratus was old enough to hold a wand, who was he to judge the severity of the situation?

And the headaches were only getting worse.

All he had wanted was a little time to himself to vent, preferably not in his own office where he would then be left stewing in the aftermath and feeding yet more rumors about his mental state. So he had found one of the Dark Lord’s private rooms, where there would be plenty of time to pick up the mess or else pass the blame without anyone able to point any fingers. Yet even this simple endeavor had been compromised by one of the Dark Lord’s stranger pets.

He had had enough. He had no intention of putting up with an uppity feather duster on top of everything else.

Sneering, he turned on his heel to leave, and managed to do so with only a slight stumble. Behind him he could hear the raven fluttering after him.

“Where are you going?”

“I have better things to do than listen to your sob story,” he said.

Bobby wanted very much to point out he waited patiently enough while Lucius ranted his own lunacy, but wisely held back. He needed a way to stop the wizard, who was likely his first and only opportunity to escape his prison. Failing that, he at least needed to create the opportunity for the man to come back.

“You’re dying, you know.”

Lucius paused.

“They’re killing you. I can see it, clear as day. They’re killing you slowly. If you don’t do something soon, you’re going to be dead and one of the Dark Lord’s cronies is going to be sitting on top of all your accomplishments. I can help you prevent that.”

There was a long silence that followed, during which neither of them moved or spoke. Bobby held his breath and let loose a prayer to Raecellos.

Please, my Lord, let him fall for it.

Without turning, Lucius spoke, his voice still slurred and thick with aristocratic condescension. “I don’t need help from the likes of you to prevent that. I was born to play this game.”

And then he left, reactivating the wards and leaving Bobby standing alone in the middle of the floor, mute and devastated as his one last chance at freedom stumbled out the door.

“Do you actually intend to write anything this semester or have you just decided to start working on your penmanship?”

Ron gritted his teeth in irritation as Hermione’s sarcasm needled at his concentration. He was working on an article right now, and he knew she knew that, so he thought it particularly stupid of her to ask him that. It seemed she was looking to start a fight. In fact, lately, it seemed they couldn’t be within a hundred feet of each other without getting into a spat, often over absolutely nothing. Ron would be the first to admit, he tended to have that affect on certain people… most people in fact, but Hermione had been the exception to the rule for some time now. It used to be she was the only person he really looked forward to seeing during the school day.

Now she was just a constant nag.

“I’m writing now,” he bit out.

“About what?”

“When I’m done, I’ll show you.”

“Like the last article?”

“Yes, just like that one.”

“And if I don’t like this one either?”

“Then you can pull another snit-fit and not print it,” he snapped. He was still sore about the last article. It had been a quality piece, but this current incarnation of his editor had nothing but complaints about it.

“Or you could just tell me what it is about and we can save each other both some wasted time.” He could tell she was losing her temper, and part of him was satisfied about that, but another wondered what the hell was wrong with the both of them.

“Save you some wasted time, perhaps. But since I already went through all the interviews and paperwork already, it doesn’t save me much of anything. I’ll give it to you when I’m done.”

He hadn’t looked up from his parchment for the entirety of the conversation, but it was easy enough to imagine what she looked like. Her tone, her pauses, her deep calming breaths, and aggravated sighs played out as clearly as those radio dramas he had listened to as a kid.

“Ron, just tell me.”

“Hermione, just wait until I’m done. It’ll take half an hour, tops.”

“Not in half an hour, now.”

He slammed his hands on his desk and stood, knocking his chair over.

“Jesus Christ, Hermione what is your problem? What scruple or moral sensibility did I shit on this month that’s got you all up in my face? Did I laugh when someone tripped in the hallway or something? Or is this just some sort of adolescent histrionic phase you’re going through?”

Now that he was looking at her directly, he was amazed to find it wasn’t anger or indignation that was staring back at him. It was hurt. Jesus. Had she really not expected him to snap at her when she was harping on him? Only now that he had snapped at her, and she was hurt, he felt guilty about it. Maybe that was her intention.

Or maybe this was her way of turning the rest of the office against him. More than half the staff was present, working on their next edition, but the room was deafeningly quiet and all eyes riveted to the fight playing out between them. He couldn’t help but notice that a number of them were glaring at him accusingly, as if he had some how started this.

Oh, she was a wily one.

“Forget it,” he said, tossing the draft in the air and letting tumble to the floor. “I give up.”

He stormed passed her, ignoring her when she called after him. He wasn’t her dog, and he wouldn’t be ordered around or manipulated by her. Not when she was this crazy, and not when he had his own issues to deal with. If that meant he had to quit the paper, on top of Dueling Club, then that was what he would have to do. When he was well again, he could worry about extracurricular activities.

And solving the mystery that was Hermione Granger.

Maybe she had been fooling around with Dark Arts when no one was looking too.

Maybe Potter would know. Thinking of the Gryffindor brought about another wave of frustration. They had never been friends, and likely never would, but Ron knew he owed the other. A ‘Life Debt’ if he other boy ever asked for it, but he doubted he ever would. It didn’t mean he wouldn’t owe him, it just meant he was left to his own discretion on how to pay him back.

Assuming Potter was able to keep up on his end of their plan.

Homework was unappealing and having already delivered the latest round of smuggled packages that morning, he decided to hunt down his business partner and co-conspirator. He checked the library, the Gryffindor dorms, and the greenhouse, but came up empty. No one else seemed to know where he was either, which might mean he was in Yugoslavia for all he knew. Locating charms didn’t work on Harry either. He was either charmed against him, no where near, or in a warded room.

He decided to assume he was in a warded room and work from there. There were over twenty in Hogwarts, but Ron only knew where four of them were and only one Potter would have any business going to.

The Hogwart’s Art Studio was warded against thieves and vandals. Professor Rollings was an eccentric and known for being somewhat paranoid about her students and their pieces regardless of their quality or lack there of. For years she had banned anyone who wasn’t an art student from the studio, including other professors, but eventually she had been forced to open her doors to the rest of the school body and left to rely on more conservative protection. Ron had done an article on her last year, and Hermione had forced him to re-write it three times until the woman hadn’t sounded like a complete and utter quack.

His investigative instincts proved to be spot on, and sure enough he found Potter alone in the art room. He was seated towards the center of the room with a large sketchpad and charcoal pencil, drawing sketches of a falcon seated on a perch. The falcon was wearing a hood to keep it calm, but it still fidgeted on its post anxiously, eager to spread its wings.

“How did you find me?” Potter said, not bothering to look towards him.

“I’m a reporter. Nowhere is safe.”

That actually earned him something resembling a smile. The world must have gone mad, Ron decided. He was fighting with Hermione and making jokes with Potter. Maybe the curse was starting to affect his mind.

“What is it you wanted? I told you before it would be a few days before the book should arrive. We won’t be able to finish this until Friday or Saturday at best.”

Friday or Saturday, this could all be over, and he felt a distinct thrill at the prospect. He had been living on borrowed time for so long it felt almost novel to own it again.

“It’s not about that. I wanted to ask you something.”

“Fine. I can’t promise I’ll answer though.”

“Why is Hermione crazy?”

Harry paused, and looked back at him as if he were the crazy one and therefore couldn’t be trusted to stand behind him.

“I’m serious. Is there something going on with her? Is she on any kind of potions I should know about?”

“Why are you asking?”

“I don’t know, because she’s gone crazy?”

“I haven’t noticed anything odd.”

“Well, you’re not the one she’s harping on all the time. She’s been nagging me about stupid shit for weeks, and I finally just snapped at her today and she acts all hurt or something. I mean, what the hell?”

“Perhaps you’re the crazy one, especially if you expect me to side with you on this.”

“Fine, don’t side with me, but at least explain it in non-crazy terms that I can understand.”

Harry rolled his eyes and returned to his sketch.

“You’re an idiot.”

Ron had gotten over the Gryffindor calling him that a while ago. He said it almost every time they spoke, so it had gradually become a standard segment of their conversations that fell somewhere between the greeting and goodbye.

“Then explain it in idiot terms.”

Potter let out a sigh of long suffering.

“What did you expect her to act like? I mean, she’s under a lot of stress, and it doesn’t help that you- a guy she’s actually gone on a date with and who has shown some interest in her- doesn’t seem to give a damn one way or another. I mean, if I didn’t know about the curse… and remember she doesn’t… I would have come to the conclusion that you threw her away as soon as you found out she was betrothed.”

There was a long silence after this, which Harry used to add some finishing details to his sketch. The silence stretched, however, until it became unusually long and he turned around to see if Ron was even still there.

He was.

And he looked like he had been hit with a stunner.

“Weasley?”

“Hermione’s betrothed?”

Harry just looked at him.

“You are such an idiot.”

1. A certificary is the wizarding equivalent of a check, but is typically only used when dealing with large sums of money no one would carry around on their person and only with official business since it leaves a clear record of the transaction. Unlike money, it can’t be stolen before it is cashed, although they can be faked (just not when being cashed since goblins can spot fakes a mile off).↩

2. If you’re wondering if that display case of Italian insignia means what you think it does, then, yes, the Weasley brothers did assassinate Italians. They were fighters in canon despite their playfulness, so they’re definitely fighters here too.↩

Coming Together, Falling Apart

Looking up at the domed fortress of magical wards, two foot thick stone walls, and gargoyles patrolling the eaves and awnings, Fred and George realized they may have underestimated the extent of the challenge Harry had handed to them. The British National Library of Wizardry was a national treasure, but unlike many of the other national treasures in London this one was still standing and mostly whole, and not just as a result of Italian disinterest. Scorch marks and bits of chipped stone where curses had struck and rebounded were scattered around the enormous oak and iron doors and around the tall, thin glass windows, but nothing significant had given against the assault. Indeed, given the way the lion doorknockers snarled savagely as they drew near, they both suspected no one had entered since the wards had been activated. At least not through the main entrance.

“What do you think the chances are of someone still hiding inside? I mean… this might be the safest place in London,” Fred remarked with growing respect.

George didn’t have an answer, although a quip or two was at the tip of his tongue. Someone with a real answer, however, chimed in before he had an opportunity.

“Not a chance in hell. The Director hermetically sealed it after it was closed, so if anyone were unfortunate enough to be left behind they would have suffocated,” the young woman beside them said knowingly, shifting her glasses up the bridge of her nose in a nervous gesture. If anyone would know this, it would have Mary McGulligan, who was one of the innumerable and under paid pages charged with the day to day trivialities that real librarians had neither the time nor inclination to handle. Mary had the additional knowledge that came from being seen as Director Truberville’s personal assistant. Knowledge was about the only benefit to the position, as she could attest.

“There’s no air inside?” George asked.

“There’s no oxygen inside. Oxygen and moisture causes books to rot if no one is there to care for them.”

“Then how are we supposed to walk around?”

“I know a spell… Just don’t sneeze or you’ll be in real trouble.”

She led them around to the back of the building, where the stately columns and decorative stone masonry gave way to the less than majestic loading dock and service entrances. The damage there was more obvious, but there had been no more success breaking in from there than anywhere else. The twins helped Mary climb a pile of rubble that used to be a set of stairs. Perched above this rubble was a narrow door that may have once been green but had since faded and pealed to an ugly gray.

The page pulled out a ring of iron keys from her black cloak, but didn’t yet open the door. She glanced nervously between them.

“You promise I’ll get the books back? You absolutely swear?”

“On our poor mother’s grave,” Fred promised. George nodded in solemn agreement.

She didn’t look like she believed them. Their attempts to look innocent had not improved any since they had graduated. Letting out a resigned sigh, she slipped one of the key’s into the door. There was no key hole to be seen, but the key slid in smoothly. Turning it was another matter altogether.

“Aargh… stupid… rusty… piece of….” She grumbled, attempting to twist it this way and that.

The door let out a terrible shriek, like metal grating against metal, and then opened with a rusty sigh. All of them looked around quickly to see if anyone had heard them. The loading dock was open only to the loading docks of other offices and warehouses, none of which were open. The only people who might have noticed them sneaking into the library were the dozens of patrolling Sentinels who stalked the city, night and day, protecting the abandoned houses and businesses from looters and odd magical beasties that had quietly invaded when the dead began to outnumber the living. Looters and beasts were treated equally in the eyes of the law, and the three didn’t liked their odds if they were stopped and asked what precisely they were doing just then. Cloaked from head to foot in black hooded cloaks, they weren’t exactly the picture of innocent intent.

They stayed silent and still for a long moment, all of them holding their breathes and listening. There was only the chill silence of the October night and the sound of muggle traffic in the far distance. Mary spoke first.

“Okay…before you go in, there are a few rules-”

“Despite what you may have been led to believe, we have been in a library before,” Fred objected lightly.

“We have the arrest records to prove it,” George said helpfully.

She didn’t look amused.

“Rule 1: Don’t touch anything. We’ll probably have to go to restricted sections of the library for some of these books, and that means a lot of highly volatile protection spells or else very rare and very fragile pieces. Sometimes they’re both. So don’t mess about them or you’ll be found just in time to be buried next to your mother for Christmas.”

This might have actually been a bit intimidating, if it weren’t such a funny thing to say. They bit the insides of their cheeks to keep from giving the joke away.

“Rule 2: Don’t wander around. Some of the rooms have motion activated spells on them, and will turn on lights and equipment if you move into them. Plus it’s easy to get lost.”

That sounded like a great deal of fun, except for the fact that they would be working under the threat of imminent asphyxiation and they couldn’t risk getting separated. Additionally, even they had to admit it was not in their best interest to draw the attention of a Sentinel.

“Rule 3… do whatever I tell you.”

Fred grinned at her. “That sounds a bit dubious as far as rules go.”

“Well… you have rather dubious reputations.”

“Point. Shall we go? I don’t fancy getting caught standing out here like this. We’re as likely to ruin your reputation as a virtuous lady as we are to get arrested for trespassing.”

She let out an indignant huff, but quickly tapped them each on the head with her wand and muttered a spell. Fred and George could not feel any difference, and followed her inside with a fair bit of caution. They were able to breathe, but whatever they were breathing definitely wasn’t the air they were used to. It didn’t have an odor or even a taste, and that certainly made the difference noticeable all its own, but it was the strange weightiness of each inhalation that was the real proof that there was something off about it.

After closing the door behind them, they lit their wands and moved inside. The service entrance opened to the interior loading dock which was filled with unopened crates, loading equipment, and heaps of dead insects and spiders. The floor crunched as they walked, and Mary cringed with every step.

“They must have…” she stopped when her voice came out in a masculine baritone.

The twins burst out into giggles, which came out as rumbling laughter.

“It’s the heavier air,” she said, sounding very much like thirty year old man rather than a teenage girl. “It makes our voices lower. Like breathing helium, only in reverse.”

“Helium makes your voice high? How do you know that?” George asked curiously.

“Haven’t you ever sucked at the end of a balloon?”

“What’s a balloon?”

She gave him an odd look, but then just shook her head.

“It’s a muggle thing. My father used to give them to me on my birthday.”

They stopped grinning, and shifted in embarrassment. Half bloods were envied even less than muggleborns among wizarding society. At least with muggleborns, they could forget their birth parents and move on, but half bloods were rarely allowed that opportunity. They were stuck with the unenviable position of having half a family, and knowing the other parent was either dead or else oblivious to their existence.

“Anyway…” she continued, trying to dissipate the awkwardness her admission had left. “The lack of oxygen must have killed all the insects and vermin. And without oxygen or humidity, nothing rots. It’s a tomb of bugs.”

“I just had a wicked idea for an exploding bludger,” George murmured softly to himself.

Mary shuddered.

They moved out of the docking bay and into the back offices, which were also filled with crates, but these were open and seemed to have been in the process of being loaded onto book carts when they were abandoned. Further in, there were special rooms dedicated to the care, restoration, and preservation of deteriorating books and still more rooms dedicating to removing protective spells and curses, and still others for cataloging. One room was filled with glass cases, behind which books flew about like manic birds trying to escape. Another held books written by the faerie races, which held some of which were no larger than a finger nail and others made entirely of black obsidian or silver.

The twins longed to explore, but Mary was not to be distracted from their purpose. She had seen the wonders of the library many times before, and while they still held an intense fascination for her, she knew she would return again later to explore at her leisure. Right now, she had a job to do. One that would help her and her family rebuild their London flat, which had been partially destroyed during the seige.

They moved into the public section of the library. In comparison to the back rooms, the collection here was actually surprisingly small. It was only about three times the size of Hogwart’s library, which while certainly impressive for a school, was by no means comprehensive. Much of the space was consumed not by books, but rows upon rows of large study tables and overstuffed reading chairs, all looking nearly a thousand years old.

“I thought there would be more,” Fred said.

Mary shook her head.

“Of course there is more. We have vaults the size of warehouses in the basement for most of it. It has to be requested though. Everything else you see here is just the eighty-five to ninety percent the public actually uses fairly regularly.”

They blinked in surprise.

“That sound like a huge waste.”

“It is. Funny thing is that in twenty years most of the books you see here will be thrown out. They won’t even bother archiving them. It’s all just common commercial publishing. Universities and some of the more esoteric magical practitioners are the only ones who seem to bother with the really good stuff.”

They wandered around the public area for nearly twenty minutes, gathering some of the books from the list they had provided her with. It would have taken considerably less, but by now they had fallen into a conversation about ‘the good stuff’, which the twins were eager to hear about and she was flattered enough by their attention to give them.

It turned out that there were some items on the list that were qualified to fall into this category. To get to the basement required not one but three different keys to three different doors, several more spells neither of them recognized, and a trip down an oversized elevator. The were three vaults in the basement. The South vault, the North vault, and the West vault; each of them protected by thick steel doors that required a special combination to open. By this time, the twins were convinced that even if the Italians had some how managed to get inside the library and not suffocated, they never would have managed find the valuable items, let alone get past the myriad of defenses and subterfuges that littered the building. It seemed who ever built the national library regarded the knowledge stored there with the same vicious covetousness of goblins and their gold. Fred and George practically held their breath in anticipation to see what was behind the thick iron doors, expected to see something that would somehow rival Solomon’s tomb in grandeur.

The reality was much less glamorous.

It was actually quite depressing. There wasn’t a book in sight. In fact, there was nothing to see at all except a seemingly endless number of cardboard boxes, stretching out for nearly a quarter mile in either direction on rows of twenty foot shelves.

“Where are the books?” George asked.

“In the boxes of course,” she replied.

“How do you find them?”

“Magic. And the catalog. And practice. Lots of practice.”

Mary apparently needed more practice, because it took over thirty minutes to find just one book, and then another fifteen to find the second. The twins grew bored, and inevitably started looking for ways to entertain themselves. Which led them to breaking Rule 1.

Despite Mary’s dire warnings, the only things of even mild interest they managed to find was a manual on head shrinking and a dissertation on the magical benefits of cannibalism. They didn’t dare to open the second book, as it appeared to be bound in the hide of an animal of questionable origin.

“Found it,” Mary called out, appearing from behind a row of shelves, and making her way towards them. She wasn’t looking at where she was going, but at the book she held instead. It wasn’t a particularly fanciful looking book or event that old, bound in clean, red leather with bronze fitting to protect the corners. She had it open at random in the middle and was perusing the contents curiously. “What on earth would you use something like this for?”

The twins shared a look and pounced to see what had her so intrigued. The page she had opened to was written in both English and what they assumed was some form of Gaelic. The pictures depicted strange images of dryads lured out of trees, swans half transfigured into children (or vice versa), and gods and goddesses of every shape and nature inked by hand against every page as if illustrating a tale from Beadle the Bard or some ancient Gaelic legend. There were also images of runes, diagrams, ritual wards, and any number of highly specific demonstrations that suggested the fantastical images before them could be achieved through practical application of a strange, highly specialized art. They followed along as she flipped page after page, revealing one strange image after another, the contents steadily growing darker as it progressed.

Benign and ambiguous spell craft gave way to Dark Arts which gave way to Dark Curses with such cruel and insidious natures that they grew pale to imagine them practiced on anything more than just ink and paper. Craft that summoned creatures of the netherworld, of the Unseelie Court, and the dark potential found within the human soul. Curses that aligned one’s fate to misery and death, that deformed the body, the mind, and the spirit, and some that granted immortality by shattering the soul.

They stood there a long time, Mary flipping one page after another, unable to linger on the pages and yet unable to stop herself from looking at the next. The swish-swish of paper was the only sound, growing out of the deepening silence like waves breaking against a beach. The light around their wands seemed to shrink or perhaps the darkness to squeeze in.

She turned one more page, this one holding an image of a dementor-like creature transformed into the body of a child. She slammed the book shut. The twins nearly jumped clean out of their skin.

“What are doing with this?” she shouted at them in accusation.

Jumpy from what they had seen and her sudden accusation, they could only look at each other helplessly. What should they tell her? Harry’s secrets were his own, but they did not want themselves to be associated with what they had seen in anyway. What was he doing with this book? The craft was clearly pagan, and aside from Lord Voldemort, Harry was the only other person they knew who practiced that form of magic.

“Er… it’s for a friend,” Fred said.

“What kind of friends do you have?”

“Um…”

“I’m putting it back,” she said pointedly, turning to do just that.

“Wait!” George said, a thought quickly coming into head. “It’s not what you think. It’s… our friend is a Curse Breaker. He’s… run up against a particularly nasty curse and thinks it might be some sort of Old Magic. He thought this book might hold some clues.”

She hesitated.

“Please,” Fred said, picking up on his brother’s ruse. “He’s really a good guy. I can’t imagine him using this for anything other to help someone.”

And for the most part, this was true. Harry was a kind soul, even if circumstances didn’t always let him be kind. Their friend had a steel constitution, but his heart was pure gold. They had to believe, because it was impossible to conceive otherwise, that Harry either didn’t know the entire contents of the book, was only interested in the benign material, or he was only using it as reference material for his research project.

This made lying to her much easier, because if they weren’t convinced themselves of the Chaos Lord’s good intentions they would have struggled selling the lie even to someone as trusting as Mary. As it was, they cajoled and reassured her relentlessly for several minutes until she finally, reluctantly relented.

“Thank you, dear heart. You’ve probably saved someone’s life,” Fred said.

“Or damned someone’s soul. If you’re going to use this…”

“We frankly have no intention of touching it after tonight,” he promised.

After that, it was a simple matter of checking the books out, which even Mary could not figure out how to get around and still take the books out of the building, though it still managed to work using pseudonyms. They shrunk the books down and slipped them into a little pouch Fred tied to his waste. It was past midnight by the time they were done, and the library was beginning to feel as inviting as a cemetery. They headed back towards the loading dock, barely glancing at the wondrous spectacles that had so intrigued them when they had first entered. Their thoughts were held by darker mysteries of what they had found and in doing so what they had made themselves a part of.

They were so distracted by their thoughts; they forgot to look around before stepping out into the back alley. Unfortunately, they were also very jumpy, so when someone shouted ‘STOP!’, Mary screamed and the twins spun around and shouted out a blasting hex without even realizing who they were blasting at. In the flashing light of their spells, the glimmer of silver of a Sentinel’s emblem and the tell-tale cut of the uniform cloak stood clearly for only an instant.

It less than an instant for them to realize their blunder.

One of the Sentinel’s was struck and flew backwards from the blast, but the second had thrown up a shield in time to spare himself. The standing Sentinel sent out a stunning hex that luckily missed them entirely and hit the door behind them. The light of the spells, diminished their ability to see for a moment, but already the twins had seized their companion’s hands and started to run half blind through the back street.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” she chanted as they ran. “You kill him. You killed a Sentinel!”

“Hardly, my sweet,” George said laughingly, but even his voice was touched with a hint of hysteria. This was bad. Terribly, horribly bad. It was one thing to pick a fight with Italians; them you could fight seriously and not feel bad about, but a Sentinel? It just wasn’t done, and the consequences weren’t something either of them wanted to face. They had to escape. They couldn’t have been identified with their cloaks up. There was still a chance they could get away with this.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.”

“Pray if you mush, but please do so quietly,” Fred requested, trying for nonchalant. “We’re escaping. Stealth is key.”

“Oh god, they’re going to know it was me. They’re going to report a robbery to Truberville and then he’ll see someone with a key had to have opened the library and then he’ll figure it out that it was me and…oh my god, oh my god… I don’t want to go to Azkaban!”

“Don’t worry, luv. I know someone who can put in a good word for you with the werewolves instead,” Fred laughed. Mary started to cry.

“Shit! He’s still there!” George muttered, as the Sentinel turned a corner behind them. They ducked down another street, and he threw up a blocking charm to buy some time. They didn’t stay out in the open long enough to see if it worked before they ducked into to the remains of a half collapsed house. Not daring to light their wands lest they be seen again, they stumbled blindly over broken timbres and bricks, feeling their way with their free hands. As they exited out the back of the house and into a tiny brick littered garden, the sky above suddenly bloomed red. George sighed heavily.

“A flare. He’s called for backup.”

“Should we hit the sewers?” Fred asked.

“It rained hard this afternoon. If we don’t drown down there, we’ll freeze. Besides, our best bet is to get back to the tavern and I don’t know how to get there from the sewers.”

“Yeah, you’re right. We’ll just have to risk it.”

The frightened page shook her head.

“W-wait… shouldn’t we… maybe if we just surrender. I mean… we didn’t… it was an accident. We could explain…”

“Too late for that. All or nothing now. Come on.”

Placing Mary between them, George led the way and Fred guarded the back, each of them casting Silencing charms and Notice-me-nots and what ever spell was needed as they moved through the rubble and shadows of London. Several times they heard the sound of shouts and running feet, saw the hazy light of lumos charms beyond collapsed walls and from around the corners of shops, but no one crossed their paths directly.

The terrain proved to be in their favor. There was a never ending supply of hiding places in the street and among the rubble, and too few Sentinels to look through it all effectively. Twice they had to duck behind a wall or a bush, and wait, crowded so tightly and so tensely together they could feel every heaving breath and fluttering heart beat in each others body as a Sentinel hunted for them mere feet from where they hid. Then the danger passed, and they still didn’t move until the embarrassment of their intimate position gave them the courage to move on.

Gradually, the shadows and the wand lights faded away, and they reached the familiar street leading to the Red Weasel. More cautious than ever, the twins took Mary around the rear of the tavern, slipping through the back door. The kitchen was closed this late at night, so no one saw them enter and no one heard them slip up the narrow stairway to their private rooms, Mary still safely between them. It wasn’t until they were all seated in the private office that they managed to breathe a sigh of relief.

At least the twins did.

“They’re going to catch us. All of us. It won’t take them long to figure it out.”

Fred shrugged.

“If they bother looking into it. No one was really hurt, and its not like they have any idea who we are or what we did.”

“Truberville will figure it out. He’ll know it was me-”

George shook his head.

“No he won’t. He might figure out it was an employee, but you specifically? Where’s the proof? Where’s the motive? There has to be nearly a hundred people who have keys to that place, and there’s no way they’ll know we went into the basement. Anyway, we’ll provide you with an alibi just in case. We’ll say we had you cleaning the kitchen for some extra money all night. No one else here will contradict us.”

“And where are your alibis?” she pointed out.

“Why, we were here, of course,” Fred said, smiling confidently. “Like he said, no one here will contradict us. Not for Sentinels, anyway.”

This was very true, and even Mary could see the logic behind it. There was a fair bit of resentment among Londoners over the Sentinel’s lack of response during the Italian invasion. Culties had a sort of excuse, being stretched thin in both Europe and at home, but Sentinels were assigned to localities, which they should have been protecting at all costs. Their absence during the siege had severely damaged their relationship with the city’s citizens, and the chance of anyone giving up local heroes to them over a little bit of harmless mischief was slim to none.

Slowly, Mary managed to calm down as she realized they had, in fact, gotten away with it. A smile suddenly spread across her face that almost rivaled the twins in its impishness.

“Oh, I wish I could see Truberville’s expression when he finds out.”

By Thursday, the entire school knew Harry had been in France over the weekend, and that he had been a big hit with France’s crown princess and there were rumors of romantic interest. The Gryffindor would gladly have dismissed these rumors as nonsense, but he really didn’t have any proof to the contrary. He had knowingly and willingly danced with the princess, she did like him, and he had the approval of both the Queen and Lord Voldemort. The possibility of something between them happening proved stronger than the reality of it.

Natalie hadn’t spoken to him since he got back.

Ginny kept asking if he was positive he hadn’t been even a little interested.

Otherwise, it was business as usual. He went to class, he studied with Hermione in the library, he fulfilled his liaison duties in Hogsmeade Hall, practiced for Dueling club, and spent his free time either working art projects or hanging out with his friends. His schedule tended to lean towards the frantic side, so he had had little opportunity to worry about anything other than what was immediately important. In his distraction, he had failed to notice the signs of an impending confrontation, until he found himself suddenly surrounded while walking to breakfast on Thursday.

Three students had stopped him in the hall, two of them blocking his movement forward and a third the chance of retreat. Normally, he would already have his wand out and maneuvered himself so his back was facing a wall, but they had caught him at a vulnerable moment. His arms were full of books, and his wand stuck up his sleeve. Putting his back to the wall now would only leave himself cornered, and the only way to get his wand was to the drop the books which were heavy and not in the sturdiest of conditions. He wasn’t afraid yet. He was annoyed.

“What do you want?” he asked shortly.

Gerry St. James smiled at him haughtily, his arms crossed and his wand resting clearly in view. Trudy Sabbat mirrored him. Harry didn’t recognize the stooge at his back, but he assumed the ratty-looking boy was mimicking them.

“What have you got here, Potter?” St. James asked innocently enough, snagging a book from the top of the pile in Harry’s arms. “Runic Traditions of Ireland? Well, that’s… suitably freakish. Sacrifice any chickens lately?”

Sabbat tittered insipidly.

“Why? Are you volunteering?” the harassed Gryffindor said smartly. The amusement on the boy’s face evaporated. Maliciously, he threw the book in his hand to the ground, where it burst and the pages scattered across the floor. Harry’s mind blanked for a moment, stunned by the pointless destruction of school property.

“What are you doing?” he snapped.

“What’s the matter? Aren’t you going to run to Snape to come and punish us? Or can’t you? I can’t help but notice you’re not exactly the Headmaster’s favorite person anymore. You’ve been on the outs for months. That’s why he didn’t stop the pranks when they first started. He’s left you to fend for yourself.”

To prove his point, he reached out to snatch another book, but Harry was faster and twisted away. The goon at his back blocked his retreat, and before he knew it his arms were pulled behind his back. His books fell to the floor, but he wasn’t concerned about them anymore.

He threw his head back, smashing the goon in the nose. There was a yelp and the hold on him loosened. St. James and Sabbat’s wands were up and already shouting out Stunners. Still not quite free of the hold on him, Harry twisted so that he and the goon were turned around. The Stunners hit his captor straight in the back, and they were both thrown forward. He was not hit directly, but he was so close some of it managed to seep into him so that when he was thrown his arms and legs were too numb to catch him. He rolled across the floor from the momentum of the spell, before slowing enough to scramble to his half numb feet.

He flicked his wand into his hand, but it fell out of his numb fingers. He summoned it back into his hand with a wordless commander, just in time to throw up a Shield Charm. The force of the spells as they struck shook him, and he stumbled but kept to his feet. He tried a medium Blasting Hex, but the wand gesture was too complicated and he fumbled his wand, but recovered fast enough to spit out yet another spell.

“Expecto patronum!”

The white, ghostly stag leaped from his wand gracefully, knocking aside two spells with a wave of his ethereal antlers. St. James and Sabbat were forced to duck as the their own spellwork ricocheted back at them.

“What the bloody hell is that?” Trudy shrieked

“It’s just a patronos! It can only hurt dementors!” her cohort snapped back at her.

“Screw this! I’m not messing around with it!”

She turned and fled without looking back. Meanwhile, Harry staggered towards his patronus, slipping his arm over its back for support. Warm magic lapped against his body, dispelling the residual effects of the Stunner. The numbness receded from his body, and as it did, his anger took to the foreground. His venomous green eyes turned to St James, promising bloody, painful murder.

Or at least that what the other boy interpreted it as. If it really had been Harry’s murderous gaze, than he would have been frozen in place and pissed himself. What he was actually seeing was the ‘I’m going to curse you naked and then throw you in the lake’ look. Which was still plenty scary enough to have Gerry turning tail to follow after Sabbat.

“Confringo!”

St. James was blasted off his feet and into the air, where he spun around like a top before crashing back to the ground. Harry stared at him dumbly, then at his wand. It hadn’t been him.

“You alright, Harry?” a voice floated towards him

“Draco?”

The Malfoy heir appeared from around the corner, his wand drawn and looking arrogantly pleased with himself. He spared Harry a glance before strutting towards his fallen target.

“Come to save the day,” Draco said in wry humor, kicking the groaning body beneath him lightly.

Harry rolled his eyes.

“I had him on the run already.”

His friend did not seem fazed by this in the least.

“Then I am merely fashionably late. I don’t suppose you’ve hammered in the lesson before you sent him scurrying back into his hole?”

“Lesson?”

Draco’s responding eye roll was epic. Harry was certain that it had tilted the Earth’s axis by a fraction of a centimeter with the power of its centripetal motion.

“Yes, the lesson. The most important part of a power demonstration. The one that teaches them that they are merely insects who must scurry out from under your foot if they do not wished to be trod.”

“You need therapy, Draco. Years and years of therapy.”

“Says the sixteen year old cuddling Santa’s reindeer in the middle of the hall.”

“You’re just jealous because yours is a flamingo.”

“It’s an ibis, not a flamingo!”

“Mmhmm.”

“Oh, be silent, you ignoramus. I’m teaching him a lesson, so you might as well learn something too.”

Harry felt some trepidation at letting Draco proceed, but not enough to stop him. Gerry was a nuisance he had been willing enough to ignore, but this blatant attack against him had dissolved his tolerance. As long as his friend didn’t do anything permanent or dangerous, he was willing to sit back and watch. He ran a caressing hand down his patronus’ back, silently communicating his thanks before dismissing him back to his own plane of existence. When he turned his attention back to the Slytherin, he was straddling Gerry’s chest.

“Innervate.”

Instantly, Gerry started to struggle violently, kicking his feet and wiggling his trapped arms. He was getting nowhere fast. Draco’s position was perfectly stable and perfectly immobilizing. He smiled down at is victim with perfect white teeth.

“What’s your name again? Never mind, I’ll only forget it again by the time we’re done. The important question I suppose is whether you know who I am. Do you?”

Gerry glared at him hatefully.

“Yeah. You’re Potter’s bitch.”

Harry was renown for his speed as both a quidditch player and as a duelist, but even he didn’t think he could have moved as quickly as a Malfoy whose honor had been insulted. He barely even saw the boy’s hand as he smashed it straight down onto Gerry’s nose. He did hear the crack, however.

“AAAaaahhh!”

Harry jumped, startled.

“Merlin, Draco! Silencio encumbante!”

A dome of silence rose up around them, holding Gerry’s scream, which was now becoming gurgled as blood surged into his nostrils. Draco gave Harry an apologetic shrug.

“Sorry.”

“Thuck, you bwoke my noes!” Gerry gurgled, struggling to breath as blood flowed down his nasal cavity and into his throat. Draco’s wand reappeared from up his sleeve, and with a flick of his wand, there was another sharp snapping sound and another scream of pain. This time, however, Gerry’s nose was straightened and the blood had disappeared.

“Prove it,” the Malfoy heir said, cheerfully.

Gerry eyed him fearfully. His eyes flickered towards Harry, as if asking to be saved, but he found nothing but annoyance there. It would take more than that to inspire a rescue attempt. Harry rather suspected that if he hadn’t been able to defend himself, St James and his minions would have done at least as bad and probably worse.

Draco’s wand disappeared again. A moment later, a long, slender dagger took its place. Gerry’s eyes widened. So did Harry’s.

“Uncle Severus gave me this knife as a birthday present. He says magic is all well and good, but sometimes something more… visceral… is needed. I have come to see the wisdom behind these words, so I carry this with me everywhere I go. Just in case. I haven’t had a lot of opportunity to make use of it, which is why I am actually quite pleased to have found you today.”

“W-what are you going to do?”

Draco made a show of giving it some thought, tapping the blade gently against his lip.

“I don’t know. How much time do we have, Harry?”

The Gryffindor just stared at him. Draco turned and winked at him with the eye Gerry couldn’t see. Harry blinked, then scrambled for his pocket watch.

“We only have twenty-three minutes until our next class.”

His friend sighed, and turned back to his victim.

“Bother. I haven’t even eaten yet. Well, I’ll just have to assume you have something vaguely resembling intelligence then, and give you the lesson summary.”

Again, his hand lashed out in lightening speed, slashing open Gerry’s cheek. The captive boy’s scream was more out of fear than real pain, the wound too shallow to have done any real harm. Even so, Harry was already moving to put a stop to it. Draco speared him with a look that made him pull up short. Beneath him, Gerry was now shaking and crying, tears and snot running down his face.

“Mess with any of my friends again, and I’ll cut you into teeny tiny pieces and feed you to the owls. Mess with me, and I’ll ruin you; mind, body, and soul. Do you understand?”

“Yes, yes! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

Draco grinned.

“Good thing I’m such a nice guy. I forgive you,” he said, and jumped to his feet, startling Harry yet again. “Come on, I’m starving. There’s no way I can sit through one of Toure’s lecture on an empty stomach.”

Harry spared a glance at Gerry, who was still cowering on the floor and the other boy who remained in a stunned heap on the floor. He looked back to Draco.

“Er… me neither.”

After a few minutes spent collecting and repairing the books he had dropped, they left. They wandered away from the scene of the crime at an amiable pace, both of them pretending absolutely nothing of interest had just happened until they were at the bottom of the stairs.

“Therapy Draco… therapy and calming draughts.”

“Pssh, like you didn’t enjoy that.”

“I did not. That was freaky. Impressive in a twisted sort of way, but freaky.”

Draco was only looking more and more smug.

“You’re welcome.”

“You didn’t save me. I told you I had him on the run already.”

“Yes, but I prevented him from trying again. That’s one less idiot you have to worry about. I’ll have Parkinson have a talk with that Sabbat girl later.”

“What? And miss another opportunity to show off your knife?”

“Don’t be daft. I don’t threaten girls. I’m not a barbarian.”

He sounded genuinely insulted by Harry’s insinuation, which was mind boggling to the Gryffindor after what had just happened.

“How did you know I was being threatened?”

“I didn’t. I came to find you, and just wandered in on the scene. Lucky you.”

Harry closed his eyes and counted to five, then opened them again. They were both just two friends heading to breakfast together. Nothing strange had happened. It had all just been a weird dream best forgotten.

“So what did you want to talk about?”

“Have you heard anything more about Hermione’s sponsor?”

“Nothing since the last time you asked. Don’t worry. Skeeter’s reliable when it comes to getting things done. She’ll pull through for us.”

“If you say so,” he said, but there was no reassurance in his expression. Harry gave him a friendly nudge.

“What is it? Something happen you’re not telling me about?”

Draco shook his head.

“It’s nothing. Just… I got a letter from my dad. It was… off… somehow. He asked about Hermione. He never asks about her. He asked about you too. It could be coincidence, but… I don’t know. I don’t like it.”

The Malfoy’s unease was contagious, and no sooner than he had finished speaking than Harry was infected with it as well. He was suddenly aware that he was juggling several problems at once, and it wouldn’t take much for it all to come tumbling down around him. He felt his heart rate begin to quicken, and his palms began to sweat. He closed his eyes and counted backwards from one hundred. The panic attack receded as quickly as it had reared, but he could feel it lingering around the periphery of his senses. He would need to go back to his room for his anti-anxiety potion. He didn’t like to take it if he could help it, but he wasn’t going risk it when the signs were this obvious.

“You okay?” Draco asked, catching the sudden quickening of his breathing. “You didn’t get hit during the fight did you?”

“I’m fine. Don’t take this personally, but thinking about your dad and Hermione at the same time just pisses me off.”

The Slytherin chuckled at that.

“Yeah, I get that. He’s an asshole, but he’s still my dad.”

“Better you than me.”

“Mr. Potter!”

Harry jumped, nearly dropping his letter. Mentally, he let out a sigh. He had hoped to escape the Great Hall so that he could return to the dormitory to get his potion and read his letter in peace before he had to go to class. It seemed it was not to be, and he plastered on a patient smile as he turned to greet Vector.

“Professor.”

“Good news! Those books you requested just arrived! We should have plenty of research material now to get started!”

Harry’s smile turned a bit more genuine. The twins had managed to pull off another miracle. That meant he would soon be able to cure Ron, and wash his hands of the fool with a clear conscious. Similarly, perhaps he would soon be able to get Vector off his case as well. She was nice enough as far as teachers go, but her stalkerish tendencies were starting to grate on his nerves.

“That is good news. I’ll try to take a look at them after class, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to do anything tonight.”

Vector looked startled. As a teacher, she wasn’t used to her students refusing her anything directly. She didn’t immediately know how to react.

“Oh? You have plans tonight?” she tried, her expression stuck somewhere between benign interest and annoyance. Harry pretended not to notice and smiled pleasantly.

“It’s the full moon tonight, Professor.”

“Oh. Oh! Of course, how silly of me. Tomorrow night then?”

“After dinner?”

“An early dinner?”

“Sure. I’ll see you tomorrow night then,” he agreed. Not exactly how he wanted to spend a Friday night, but these days there weren’t really many ways to entertain oneself.

“Excellent. The books are in my office if you to take a peak. The password is ‘Fibonacci’.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Ah, and before I forget, there was a letter addressed to you among them.”

She handed him a envelope, plain except for the his name painted in overzealous calligraphy. He took it.

“Thank you.”

“Good day, Potter.” With that, the Arithmancy teacher exited, practically skipping out of the Great Hall. He sighed, and turned to leave but nearly ran face first into Hermione. She had snuck up behind him without him having even noticed. He really was off his game that day.

“What was that all about?” she asked in benign curiosity. There were a lot of things these days she didn’t ask Harry about, either because she didn’t expect him to tell her or because she wouldn’t have known what to say if he did, but when it came to anything school related she was unrepentantly nosy. He tolerated it was a sort of resigned good humor and accepted it as a strange form of affection.

“The same thing as always. Research project.”

Hermione looked plainly annoyed.

“I hope she gives you credit for all the work you’re putting into it. It would look really good on your college application.”

He just laughed.

“Don’t laugh it off! You might think you can get into any school you wanted with your reputation alone, but you’re going to need to prove your academic ability if you want to impress your teachers.”

“Okay, okay. I get it. I’ll make sure I get a byline.”

“Make sure you do. What else do you have there?” she asked, pointing to his other letters.

“Follow me to the dorm and I’ll tell you.”

“We’re going to be late!”

“It’s just History of Magic!”

“Which you shouldn’t be skipping. You’re way behind as it is.”

He shrugged. He had his priorities in order, so attempted to use logic against him was useless. Letters and his anti-anxiety potions trumped History of Magic essays any day. Despite her misgivings, Hermione’s priorities were also in order as well, and she followed after him.

He opens the letter Vector gave him on the way. As he guessed, its from the twins, but it was not the humorous exaltation he was used to. There was no humor in it in fact, and the words are written with such careful politeness he never would have believed the twins had written it except no one else could have known the things in the letter.

Harry

We got the books like you asked. We need to know what you are using them for. Especially the red one. And don’t say it’s for research. That’s not going to cut it this time. We expect an answer soon or we’re going to come looking for one.

F&G

P.S. If you hear we’ve been arrested, we expect you to make bail for us.

Okay, so maybe that last part was a little funny. Maybe. Unless they were serious. He wondered what it was that had them so upset? Ron’s book, most likely, but then what could have been so bad about it? Well, he supposed books that used Old Magic to kill people might be found as offensive to some people, including the twins. He’d sort it out with them soon enough, but in the meantime he might want to sneak off with ‘the red book’ before Vector decided to take a gander at it. Good thing Snape hand’t managed to catch the letter, or he was positive he would never even have seen the book let alone made use of it.

Thinking of Snape brought on a moment angst he had been happily avoiding for the last couple of days. They hadn’t spoken in weeks now, and while that wasn’t something he would have considered a bad thing, it left him feeling anxious that the man might be intentionally avoiding him. They had had no weekly visits since Hogwarts had been attacked, and what little contact they had had during the tumultuous days after had been cool and distant and had eventually tapered off into nonexistence as they both busied themselves with their own responsibilities.

He didn’t like the distance, but he didn’t know what to do about it or if there was anything to do. They weren’t friends. They certainly weren’t family. Most of the time they were barely civil towards each other, and if it weren’t for Voldemort forcing them together they probably wouldn’t have given each other the time of day. And yet…

And yet nothing.

It didn’t matter. Whatever it was that stuck them together in the first place wasn’t going to last forever. They both had their own lives and inevitably those would go in separate directions. If not now, then soon. It was only natural.

No point thinking about it now anyway.

“Is something wrong, Harry?” Hermione asked, reaching for the letter that seemed to have bothered him so much. He quickly tucked it into his robes.

“For the sake of plausible deniability, I don’t think you should look at that.”

“What?”

“I don’t want you to be an accomplice to a felony.”

“What? What did you do?”

“Ididn’t do anything. Well, I might have commissioned a crime. I don’t know what they call that in legal terms. I didn’t pay anyone money though, so maybe it doesn’t count.”

She gave him a horrified look. He wondered what her response would have been if she had seen Draco half an hour ago.

“Um… what’s the penalty for stealing from the National Library?”

“Merlin, you didn’t!”

“Hypothetically speaking then.”

“Oh god.”

“I promise it was for a good cause.”

“Oh really? And what cause is that?”

“Er… can’t tell you that either, since it also involves a possible felony.”

“Harry… are you involved in organized crime?”

“… organized isn’t the word I would use for it…”

“What are you thinking? Seriously, what are you getting yourself involved in? Do you think there won’t be any consequences just because you’re in Voldemort’s favor?”

“Um… no… strangely enough, most of my crimes are committed trying to keep him from finding out about things. And Snape. And all those University application committees of course.”

“Harry!”

Harry opened the second letter by himself in the dormitory. Hermione had fled in a frustrated huff, possibly to research rehabilitation methods for juvenile delinquents. This was for the best, as the letter was from his godfathers, and if his criminal behavior bothered her it was nothing compared to her icy disapproval over his continued relations with Britain’s Head Alpha.

This was Harry’s first letter since the beginning of term, and he felt a mixture of elation and dread to hold it in his hands. He loved his godfathers dearly and was always eager to receive news about happenings in the colony, but that didn’t keep him from acknowledging that happenings there tended to have negative consequences for him. Sirius and Remus had been adamant about keeping his involvement with pack politics and intrigue to a minimum recently, but he doubted those feelings would mean much if circumstances didn’t cooperate with them.

Chances were, he wouldn’t cooperate either, if he felt circumstances required his participation.

He wasn’t even half way through the letter before he was certain that his intervention would prove necessary. There had been an attack recently on one of the new colonies in Ireland. Sirius was pointedly vague on the details and intentionally overbearing in his assistance that Harry’s involvement was not necessary. He had only been informed so that he wouldn’t overreact if he saw some outrageous story in the paper or Snape decided to torment him over it. Snape would never do that of course, as provoking Harry to misplacement himself had never been one of his hobbies. His was correct, however, in assuming Harry would have potentially tried to run off if this story had caught him off guard. At the very least, he would have been severely pissed off.

Sirius went on to say that it was being investigated and would eventually be resolved without his interference. Which was an odd thing for him say. Why would there need to be an investigation? Hadn’t the attack been by Italians or Germans? Neither was mentioned, but who else would…

Harry suddenly remembered his discussion with Draco. The boy had been disturbed by Lucius’ letter, and the inquiry about Hermione and Harry seemed… strangely coincidental.

Had Lucius known about the attack?

Well, of course he did. That was stupid to ask even in his own head, but had he been asking Draco about Harry’s reaction to the news? Was he testing the waters for his next proposal, demand, threat? He had been so wrapped up in fighting the circumstances around Hermione’s betrothal and his myriad of other problems that he had nearly forgotten there was a very real villain lurking in the wings. A man both willing and eager to manipulate him until he was securely under his thumb.

Willing and eager to stage an attack on a werewolf colony to do so?

Unease from his talk with Draco returned, this time with the strength of a mountain troll and an even worse temper. He could feel his heart quicken, pounding against his lungs, making hard to breathe. Oh God, had Lucius arranged an attack on the colony just to gain Harry’s attention? He had said himself that he had the means to make life not only difficult but down right precarious for everyone Harry held dear. Had anyone in the colony been hurt? Had anyone died? For what? Because Harry was dragging his feet in getting back to that pompous ass?

He clambered off his bed and stumbled towards his trunk, throwing it open. Half a dozen protective spells activated instantly, sizzling against his skin like a low grade acid, but he even in his frantic carelessness he managed to keep himself from triggering anything. Pulling a small vial of purple liquid from a hidden nook in the lid of the trunk, he uncorked it with his teeth and downed the contents in one gulp. It tasted predictably dreadful, but sharp kick to his senses was invigorating. His heart jumped twice, painfully, then settled and the world seemed suddenly quiet and peaceful.

He had to give Snape credit. He knew how to make a potion, and his anti-anxiety potion was its own miracle. There was neither fatigue nor numbness, indeed, everything seemed strangely clear and focused and there was a novel idea that he could understand the world completely if he just took a moment to really think about it. Which was just a side affect. Snape had warned him that he would think himself terrible clever for about twenty minutes after taking the potion, and it was best to keep his mouth shut and not attempt any potentially dangerous spell craft until the feeling past.

He climbed back onto his bed and laid down. He was already fifteen minutes late for History of Magic, and it seemed silly to go now. Professor Toure would expect an explanation and if Snape were to be believed it was probably best he didn’t offer her one until he was more himself. Besides, it would be considerably more productive to stay where he was for a bit and consider this latest situation.

Stopping to think about it, it seemed silly now to think Lucius would attack a werewolf colony. Voldemort would crucio him until Christmas, if nothing else.

Then again, the Dark Lord was in France now… or possibly leading an advance in the south of Germany and organizing their new allies into a usable fighting force. But still…

Something about the entire situation seemed off. Why would the Germans or Italians attack a colony? Admittedly, there was the whole anti-werewolf sentiment going on, but strategically it was a waste of resources and, more importantly, counterproductive. The werewolves were removed from the fighting, but that wouldn’t last if the Germans decided to provoke them personally.

If the attack had even been that serious. Perhaps the ‘attack’ hadn’t been anything more than harassment, vandalism, or something like that. Something Lucius might stage and possibly manage without earning Voldemort’s ire.

His thoughts chased themselves in circles, until he let out an annoyed sigh. He needed more information before he decided what to do. He needed to know more about the attack on the colony; how serious it was and who was behind it.

This was easier said than done.

Snape might tell him, if he even knew or if he weren’t avoiding him lately. It was unlikely his godfathers would cooperate, as hell bent as they were in keeping him out of it. Additionally, it would take weeks for him to get a letter out to them and then receive a response. This was true of everyone he knew outside the castle, and no one inside would be much help. He didn’t have weeks to waste.

That left him with only one option left.

Unconsciously, his right hand rubbed against the invisible mark over his stomach.

Harry never made it to History of Magic. He did not make it to Herbology either. He did make it to Potions, but only so he could ask Slughorn for some ingredients from his stores. When asked, he told the professor it was part of his research project with Professor Vector. He wasn’t worried about him asking the Arithmany teacher about it. Vector had a bad habit of talking incessantly about her research until everyone grew mentally numb from listening. Now no one knew what she was really doing and no one wanted to.

No one questioned Harry either, although it wasn’t because they didn’t want to know. Quite the opposite, in fact. Through the entire day, people had been watching him curiously and yet remained deliberately out of his way. Maybe they had heard something from Gerry, maybe they were nervous around him because of the full moon, or perhaps something about his eyes screamed of an intentness that would not be distracted, waylaid, or defied.

He was on a mission.

Hermione was not impressed.

“What are doing Harry? You missed two classes and barely did a thing in Potions! Are you trying to get into trouble?” she demanded as they left Potions together. Draco trailed behind them, more curious than concerned and like everyone else unwilling to ask directly.

“Of course not. I just have something more important going on. I can make up those classes this weekend.”

“Does this have something to do with the letter from your godfathers? I thought they weren’t going to involve you in their problems anymore!”

He felt himself bristle at the accusation in her voice.

“It has to do with Lucius,” he said pointedly.

Her anger instantly fled, and she visibly wilted into contrition and guilt. Her adoptive father had always been a plague to her existence, and it didn’t sit well with her that she had dragged Harry into his line of sight. Or rather, that he had thrown himself between the two of them.

“What about my father?” Draco asked, finally motivated enough to ask.

“He’s issued me a challenge. At least, I believe he has. I’m going to find out.”

“You’re not sneaking out of the castle again, are you?” she asked.

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m just going to gather some information using a spell. Don’t worry so much.”

“A spell? What kind of spell?”

“A very old one.”

Which was pretty much Harry’s way of telling her to stop asking. Hermione admired the magic he did, but part of her feared it too. It was one of the few things she refused to learn for herself. That was just as well, as part of Harry feared teaching her. It wasn’t something that he could simply hand her a book on and expect her to learn on her own. It required an introduction by someone already more familiar, and the intimacy and trust that was required from that sharing was both terribly enticing and frightening.

It was difficult enough handling his relationship with Voldemort, he didn’t think he could handle another relationship of that intensity with someone else and survive it.

The conversation ended there. Harry still had preparations to make in the green house and Hermione and Draco had their own plans to study in the library. The siblings watched with unresolved tension as their friend left to do those strange, mysterious, dangerous things he was renown for.

Harry spares them only a moment’s thought before his focus was once again on his plans. He has spent most of the morning and afternoon gathering supplies, skipping not only classes by lunch as well. He would skip dinner as well, because for what he intended a ritual purification was necessary and that meant only water for the rest of the day. For the few remaining hours of daylight, he cloistered himself in his private greenhouse, tracing runes onto an empty space between plant boxes and a collection of empty pots.

Inana sunned herself on top of the pots, the rusty orange terracotta far warmer than the cool gray stones around them. The greenhouse was always warm, but even here the Queen of the Nile could feel the changing seasons, and she prepared for her upcoming winter hibernation by sighing listlessly and complaining to Harry about him never visiting.

The sun set and the greenhouse became dark. He didn’t want to perform the spell until after curfew, when the halls would be mostly empty so he left for a time to continue purification rituals in the prefects bathroom. Technically, Harry wasn’t allowed to use it, and normally he didn’t feel any desire to do so, but he always knew the password to get inside and tonight he felt the need for privacy. He showered in lukewarm water, then then filled the ridiculously large tub with cold water and submerged himself.

He didn’t dare close his eyes. Every time he did there was a memory of drowning. Instead, he kept his eyes open and trained on the tall, narrow windows, tracking the fat orange moon as She rose slowly into the sky. Even through the distortion of the water he could follow Her easily.

Eventually, he climbed out and took another shower, this one scolding hot to driving the icy ache from his bones. He felt purer in body if not soul afterward.

Back to the greenhouse, passing by the few remaining stragglers as they made their way back to their dorms before curfew. The prefects eyed him suspiciously but didm’t stop him. At some point, Sentinel Seitler started to follow him.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Waiting out the moon. It’s full tonight.”

“I thought you got that fixed.”

Harry spared him a glance, but didn’t answer. Seitler didn’t ask again, but followed him to the greenhouse where Harry pointedly shut the door in face. He’ll pay for it later, but for what he intended he didn’t want an audience.

Inside, he burned fragrant herbs in tiny terracotta pots, filling the air with autumn smells of apples, cinnamon, pumpkin, wet leaves, and smokey wood. He breathed deep. He exhaled slowly.

Inana watched him motionlessly, without so much as a flicker of her forked tongue.

Carefully, he removed his school robes, folded them and set them aside. He took off his shoes and socks, unbuttoned his shirt and rolled up his sleeves. The greenhouse was warm and the light shining through the skylight was the color of burning coals, but his hands trembled as he reached for charm he had spent the better half of the afternoon making.

It wa not pretty by any stretch of the imagination. It was an amalgamation of leather, wool threads, bits of bone, silver coins, dried monkshood, tiny vials with drops of Inana’s venom and honey, and other things he himself didn’t know the name of. It’ was a frightening mess of things and made his wrist itch as he secured it around his left arm, but he didn’t dare do this without some form of protection.

The runes scattered around the room began to glow faintly. There was no pattern to their disbursement. For this particular ritual, there was no need for ritual wards. His charm would provide him the necessary protection, at least for next few hours. The runes were only there to set a mood, to offer a enticement to Rhiannon to turn his way. He would need to seduce Her to get what he wanted.

Finally, he reached for the small box he has set aside for last. He ran his hands over the wood, fingers tracing the intricate carvings etched there, before opening it. Inside was his ritual dagger, slim and deceptively delicate. He had not touched it since that summer, but still he could feel the currents of his own magic at its most intense throbbing against skin.

He took another deep breath of the fragrant air. Held it. Released it slowly. Then reached for the blade.

Snape sent Ira back to their quarters early that night. There had been small happenings all day, and the rise of a harvest moon left him with a premonition of danger. He was not typically a superstitious man, but when it came to the castle he had learned to trust his instincts. The day he had officially accepted the title of headmaster, a magical connection had been formed between him and the school; one that grew stronger with every passing day. It was nothing overt, merely a mild pressure on his subconscious, but enough that he had a general sense of where problems might arise.

Three students had turned up in the infirmary that day with injuries and refused to explain the cause.

Professor Vector had received a delivery of books from the National Library, which should have been impossible according to Slughorn’s account of ‘Doctor’ Truberville.

Harry had been behaving like a juvenile delinquent all day and the teachers had been less than useless in handling the matter. If McGonagall hadn’t been put up with the flu, the situation would never have been tolerated.

None of these incidents were particularly alarming on their own, but all of it happening in one day made him nervous. So he stayed in his office late, reviewing the latest list of complaints filtering up from Hogsmeade Hall, and trying to ignore the low hum in the back of his brain that warned him something was happening. He was so absorbed in notthinking about it that he failed to notice when he was no longer alone.

“Headmaster-”

Snape leaped up from his chair, his wand jumping into his hand. The chair fell over, his papers scattered, and his scotch glass tipped and spilled its contents over a pile of supply inquisitions. Harry tilted his head, smiling in bemusement at the chaos he had inadvertently caused and Snape’s ruined composure. The headmaster spared him a withering glare, but it quickly receded as he took in his intruder’s appearance.

If Snape’s desk were a mess it was nothing compared to Harry himself. He was half naked, with only a pair of trousers and a truly hideous bracelet on his wrist to cover him. Blood was splattered and smeared randomly across his body, although the greatest quantity seemed to originate directly below his naval. Most alarming of all were the absence of his glasses, and a familiar, eerie glow to his eyes.

“Potter, what have you done?” he demanded, fighting down the wave of panic. He had dealt with a moon crazed Harry plenty of times before, but he could not help but be shaken at having been caught off his guard, especially since even at his craziest he had never seen the boy in such a state.

“Don’t worry, it’s all mine,” he said, referring to the blood.

It honestly hadn’t occurred to Snape that it could have been someone else’s, although it really should have.

“What did you do? How did you get in here?”

Harry shrugged and stepped further into the room. Snape fought the urge to take a step back.

“I did magic.” He laughed softly, like it was a joke, and therefore didn’t warrant any further explanation. The headmaster scowled.

“I can see that. Where is Seitler?”

Because the man should have been watching Harry and prevented this from ever happening, or at the very least warned the headmaster that it was. The maddened youth was as uninterested in this question as the ones before it. He changed the subject.

“I’ve missed you, you know.”

“What?”

“I’ve missed you. You’re a right pain in the ass, but you’re the closest thing I have to a father. It’s not fair for you to ignore me.”

“Christ, Potter, just stop talking.”

It was as much a plea as a demand. He didn’t want to hear this. Harry moved slowly closer.

“I am sorry about the baby.”

Closer.

“Shut up.”

“Do you blame me for that too? Like Larousse?”

Closer. Closer. He was standing right in front of his desk now.

“Shut up!”

“If you want me to, I’ll make it up to you. Ira would never miscarry again.”

An unnameable, unspeakable dread came over Snape at the thought of this mad creature laying so much as a finger one his wife. He didn’t understand the forces that governed Harry and the Dark Lord’s lives, but he wanted no part of it for himself or his family. Their fates would be their own to decide.

“There is nothing I want from you.”

The boy fell silent, his expression disappeared and he merely stared at Snape for a long moment. The moment passed, and emotion once again flickered across his face. Unfortunately, it was anger.

“I need to speak with Lucius Malfoy.”

“Absolutely not.”

There were a hundred reasons to keep Lucius and Harry as far away from each other as possible. Thirty of those reasons were for Lucius’ sake. Another thirty were for Harry’s. The rest were either for everyone else’s benefit, including his own.

“He allowed one of my brothers to be killed.”

Snape felt a moment of confusion, before he realized the boy was referring to a werewolf. His mind began to race. He could recall looking through the letter from Sirius Black, and finding his evasive wording suspicious but nothing to indicate that Lucuis was somehow involved. But then again, Black had not really given a clue as to who really had been responsible and that meant he was worried about Harry trying to hunt the culprit or culprits down.

The question after ‘who’ was ‘why’. What could he gain from killing a werewolf? A message? To whom? The Head Alpha? His own followers?

Harry?

That was ridiculous. Voldemort would never had allowed… except Voldemort was across the channel and unlikely to return any time soon, leaving the werewolves vulnerable. But it still didn’t answer ‘why’? If it were Lucius, it made no sense to him.

“How do you know this?”

Harry flung his arm out sharply, pointing to the window. Outside, the yellow moon leered at them. Snape rolled his eyes.

“I hardly think the moon counts as a reliable source. If you recall, it rather convinced you to go to war with Germany.”

“That was Greyback. Rhiannon played no part in that.”

“Potter, look at me. This is me not caring.”

Green eyes flashed with anger. Snape’s hand tightened around his wand, but he did not move to use it. Potter had no wand, a small blessing, and he would rather not use his own if he didn’t have to.

“Well, that’s just typical of you, isn’t it?” he sneered, and on his face it was not so different from a werewolf’s snarl. “I don’t suppose I should be surprised. You have a tendency to ‘not care’ whenever it involves Lucius.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You don’t give a damn about the werewolves. It probably makes you smile to think about them cut down one by one. You’d keep me here just to see if it would happen more often. Damn you, I won’t just wait around while he threatens my family. I am not you.”

“What are you accusing me of? Helping Lucius, who you still haven’t convinced me is guilty of anything, to kill werewolves? I have enough to deal with without involving myself in recreational lycanicide.”

“I am accusing you of not keeping your promise because of Lucius. Have you done anything for Hermione since you learned of her betrothal?”

Snape was struck mute. Hermione. He had every intention of helping her, but he honestly did not know where to start. Lucius was avoiding him completely. Narcissa was caught up in the fantasy that marrying Hermione to a pureblood would secure her future, and if he tried to disillusion her and failed, he would have succeeded in nothing but alienating both his old friends which would not help his goddaughter in the slightest. If he could only find the time and energy to spare, he was positive he could have found a solution already, but neither were in abundant supply as of late.

He had no intention of making excuses to Harry, however.

“I will do my part,” he snarled back. “I always do.”

“Then do it, already! And allow me to do the same.”

“Potter, I know it escapes your notice from time to time but you are not an adult. You are my ward-”

One moment the boy was standing there perfectly still and the next he was atop Snape’s desk, crouched on all fours and baring his teeth. He threw his wand out in front of him to cast a Stunner, but Harry knocked his arm aside with one hand and then swung it back around to smash it into the man’s face. Snape stumbled back, tripping over this chair and falling heavily onto his back. He barely had time to inhale some of the air that had knocked out of him, when the crazed youth leaped at him to resume the attack.

Snape caught him his foot, kicking him in the chest. Harry flew back across the desk and over the other side. It bought him the time he needed to climb back to his feet. His wand was still in his hand.

“Potter, you crazy son of b-”

“You don’t get to do that!”

The voice drifted up from behind the desk, but the boy didn’t stand. He was using his position to avoid Snape’s wand.

“Do what? What is wrong with you?”

“You don’t get to tell me I’m a man and then treat me like a child when its convenient for you. You don’t get to ignore me for over a month and then pretend like you care! Be my enemy, be my friend, or be my father. Be one thing or the other.I am sick of you trying to be all three.”

Ira had told him that he was guilty of being to Potter whatever was most convenient to him at the moment, but it hadn’t occurred to him that the boy would also be aware of this. He never figured Harry to be more observant than himself.

He never figured him to be faster either, but when that skinny little body moved it was damn near inhuman. His shot off the stunner instantly, but Harry had anticipated it and thrown file of papers snatched up from the desk. The file and spell collided, exploding into a cloud of confetti. Harry burst through it to continue his attack. Knocking aside Snape’s wand hand again, he tried for another punch. Never one to be caught by the same trick twice, the elder fighter caught the fist and jerk it forward to land a blow of his own. Harry flew backwards again, rolled, and fell into a crouch.

Blood streamed down his forehead where Snape had smashed him with his elbow, but his mouth curved to bare his teeth in a vicious smile. He coughed out a laughed, wretched and mad, mad, mad.

“I always wondered… how good of a fighter you were. I only ever saw you fight Moody, and I was really too distracted to see much.”

Snape fought to remain in control of his anger. He wanted nothing more at that moment than to give the boy a real demonstration of what he was capable of, but he had more self control than that. He did not truly want to hurt Harry, and the chances were that Harry didn’t truly want to hurt him either. He was just crazy. Moon mad. He would find a way to stun Harry and then dole out a suitable punishment when he came back to his senses.

“What do you expect to accomplish by all of this? Do you think I will let you see Lucius if you beat me up? Even you are not so asinine.”

The mad child laughed. Listening closer, Snape could now make out a hint of desperation.

“I don’t know, I don’t know. I made protection for myself so Rhiannon couldn’t control me completely. And it worked… all of it, just like I planned it, but… I… I… Merlin, it’s all wrong. I feel… I feel what she wants me to feel, but my thoughts are my own and I can’t… I can think clearly, but I can’t control myself. I feel strongly, but my mind won’t tell me what I’m feeling strongly for.”

Sane enough to know you are crazy, but too mad to stop yourself, Snape interpreted. He aimed his wand.

“Just hold still, Potter. I’ll put you under until you come out of it.”

“No!”

He was on his feet and charging again with his incredible speed, and the headmaster didn’t even try to get off another spell. He braced himself, and caught his smaller attack as he careened into him, spinning and twisting so that he was thrown off his feet. Harry, however, seized his upper arms as he threw him and didn’t let go, pulling Snape along with him so that they were both thrown to the floor, knocking over a display case as they went. They rolled over shards of glass, tearing skin and cloth as they went. They stopped rolling, and Harry landed on top and resumed his attack, clawing at the man below him. Snape clung stubbornly to his wand with one hand, and held his attacker up off of him with the other.

Snarling in frustration, Harry drew back enough to pull free of his hold, before diving in again to sink his teeth into his hand. For Snape there was a single moment of absolute terror. Harry was biting him. Harry whose madness was the result of some strange new type of lycanthrosis was biting him.

Infecting him.

“Confringo!”

The blasting hex threw Harry off of him. His flight was almost comical, all flailing limbs and gracelessness, but the deafening crack he made when he hit the bookshelf was anything back. He landed in a mangled heap, books raining down after him.

Snape lay still on the floor, gasping for breathe, still caught in his moment of absolute terror. He lay there for a long time, before reason slowly began to return to him.

Potter’s bite wasn’t contagious. There had never been anything medical professionals could identify as lycanthrosis-like, and if there had been then surely one of Harry’s random girlfriends would have displayed symptoms of it. He was not and never would be a werewolf or go mad at the full moon. He was fine. He was sane.

He had just killed Harry Potter for no damn reason.

Scrambling upright, he stumbled towards where the boy had fallen. His knees were like rubber, but luckily he didn’t have for go. He knelt back down, throwing aside books that obscured his way. Beneath him, Harry lay motionless and unnaturally pale. He could not see him breathing.

No.

He reached out to check for a pulse.

Harry shuttered and flinched away at the touch, his eyes fluttered opened and he gasped for a breath. His eyes were still glowing, but the madness had been replaced by confusion and fear.

“Oh…” he gasped. “I mean… ow.”

Snape blinked down at him in disbelief. That spell at so close a range in so confined a space should have killed him. Crushed his ribs, broken his neck, his back, and smashed his skull in. He couldn’t be alive. He shouldn’t be.

“Ow…” Harry repeated, and took a shaky breath. He tried to push himself up, but flinched and laid back down. He took another breath, then tried rolling over and climbing to his hands and knees. He had more success with this. From there, he managed to climb to his feet with the help of the book case. He swayed precariously, but managed to stay upright.

“I think… I should go to the infirmary.”

Slowly, but completely under his own power, Harry made his way towards the exit. Snape could only sit there dumbly as he watched his ward’s bruised and bloody back disappear down the stairs. Snape heard the entrance grind open and release him out into the halls.

Once alone, he looked around to survey the damage that had been done. His desk was in shambles, most of the paperwork scattered around the floor or else blown into shreds. One of the legs of his chair was broken. The floors was littered with glass, the display case completely ruined as well as a number of the incomprehensible curios it had contained. Several books, some of them quite rare, had been thrown from the shelves and a marble bookend had fallen and broken in half. His face and back ached from the fight.

He should be angry, he thought. Harry had just attacked him without cause.

He should be scared. Voldemort would punish him if he found out about his carelessness.

He wasn’t either. Harry had been foolish, which was hardly new, and had done no permanent harm. It would only take fifteen or twenty minutes to clean up the damage done. It had all been a spell or a ritual that got out of hand, something he should have seen coming himself and he only had himself to blame for not fulfilling his responsibilities by watching him more closely.

He was not afraid Harry would tell Voldemort. Harry rarely told Voldemort much of anything about his private life, and somehow he couldn’t imagine this situation would be any different. If his ward felt the need for vengeance over what had happened, which was doubtful, he would dole it out himself.

No, staring at the shambled mess that was his office, Snape felt neither anger nor fear.

He felt shame.

“Mr. Potter? Are you awake dear?”

“Hmm…no…”

“Well, when you are the pain relieving potion is on your side table.”

Harry opened his eyes. He made a half attempt to sit up, but immediately gave up when pain flared in his back and ribs. Oh, Merlin, he was in the infirmary. Again.

“What?”

“Oh good, you are awake,” Madam Pomfrey said, shuffling to his side. Weak sunlight was shining in through the windows, which meant it was already mid-morning. There was a chair at his bedside, but it was empty now. “Your friends already came by earlier this morning. I dare say you will have your hands full explaining yourself to Miss Granger.”

“Ugh.”

“None of that now. You were in quite a state when you came in last night. You gave my other patient a terrible fright.”

“Who?”

“Miss Sabbat. I don’t know if you know her. She’s a Ravenclaw.”

Well, wasn’t that just wonderful?

“I know her.”

“Well, she left early this morning. How are you feeling?”

“Sore, but I’ll live.”

“And so you survive yet again.” There was a touch of disapproval in her tone, as if she disappointed in his luck. Perhaps she found it frustrating as a professional to have to keep seeing him so often. If he were so intent on hurting himself in dangerous situations, then he should just go ahead and finish it already. “You had some internal injuries so I’ve had to rely on potions to treat you. They’ll make you feel whoozy, so I want you to stay here until lunch, and then I’m restricting you to light work for the rest of the weekend.”

He did feel whoozy and bit hazy too. He was having difficulty remembering what he had done to get there. He remembered performing the spell, lightly cutting his skin over the ward to allow for partial possession that would allow him to communicate with the moon goddess. He still had a vague memory of what he had learned, but it was hard to focus. How had he gotten hurt?

“Don’t look so disappointed. I’ve probably saved you from some very nasty detentions. Sentinel Seitler said you attacked the headmaster.”

Oh… OH!

“Oh no,” he groaned, flinging his arm over his face. “He’s going to kill me.”

“Yes, well, if he’s the one responsible for your condition I would say he came very close. A Blasting Spell on someone of your stature, honestly.”

While checking him over, she tutted and scoffed about the entire situation, which she didn’t have a clue about. Harry wasn’t listening to her. He was thinking about the night before, and the bits and pieces of memory that were starting to come back to him. He had gone to Snape, but his intentions weren’t clear even to himself. He had asked to see Lucius, but that hadn’t been the reason why he had gone. He had wanted to see Snape, needed to in fact, to make sense of what was happening. His emotions were fluctuating between violent anger and loneliness and hysteria, and none of them matched his thoughts which had been solely focused on learning what had happened at the attack of the colony. Had he gone to Snape for answers or to get the man to stop him?

He didn’t know anymore and it hadn’t gone as he had intended either way. His anger had made him lash out, his loneliness had made him desperate, and his hysteria had only exacerbated an already volatile situation. Merlin, the things he had said. Had he meant any of them? Had it been the hysteria that made him speak nonsense or had it made him speak the truth he never would have admitted even to himself? He didn’t think he could look Snape in the eye again after this.

He had attack the man, his guardian for the better part of six years, and drawn blood. The same man had nearly killed him in self-defense.

Where could they go from here?

Pomfrey continued to cluck like a little chicken in his ear, completely oblivious to his obliviousness.

“And if you absolutely must go to Bristol, please refrain from using the floo. You are likely to knock something loose, and I’d rather not have you dropping dead in the street for no seemingly apparent reason.”

He turned to her, flinching as he felt something pulled in his neck.

“What? What about Bristol?”

“Oh, the headmaster brought you a note earlier. Something about an appointment with General Malfoy. Where did I put that thing?”

He watched her owlishly as she went to her desk and started shifting things around. She returned few minutes later with a small yellow note. On it was Snape’s familiar sharp, elegant script.

‘Potter. A meeting has been arranged for Saturday, 10:00am. Remember that General Malfoy is even harder to kill than myself before you do anything stupid. Kinglsey will escort you.- S.S.’

Huh.

That was… unexpected. Why was he…?

He closed his eyes. It didn’t matter. The man was still avoiding him, and would likely continue to do so for rest of their mutual lives. It seemed unlikely that this note was an apologetic gesture. More than likely it was short term exile or like St. James had suggested, Snape leaving him to his own devices and letting him reap the consequences.

The thought left him with a lonely feeling.

Or maybe it was just the potions.

Voldemort had almost forgotten how much he loved battles. He had been through a few in recent years, but he hadn’t enjoyed them as much then when he had a personal stake in the outcome. Battling across a foreign country, surrounded by veritable strangers who would nevertheless throw themselves off a cliff at his command, however, was a great deal of fun. The fact that there were an inordinate number of dead and living bodies available to practice some of his more intense pagan magics and more traditional dark arts was just icing on the cake.

At the moment, he was inspecting a row of prisoners his Romanian allies had captured during a raid near Freiburg. They were scruffy from too many days spent hiding in the surrounding forests, but otherwise in good condition. He stopped before each one, looking for those traits he found most suitable in a sacrifice. They cringed away when he reached out to turn their face or inspect the texture of their hair. They knew what he was doing and why. He had made it a point for every German resistor to know what would happen if he ever caught them.

It helped to whittle down their numbers, even if it did mean the remaining men and women fought twice as hard to keep from being taken.

He stopped in front of a tawny haired witch. She didn’t look up at him, but he could feel her anger radiating out. She had some resistance left in her yet.

“This one,” he said to a Romanian soldier.

A prisoner further down the line shouted something, but a soldier immediately kicked him to the ground. Voldemort glanced at him curiously, then turned back to the witch. She wasn’t particularly pretty, but she was young and her eyes fierce, which he found to be an attractive characteristic.

“Your lover?” he asked.

Her reply to was spit at his feet. Oh well, it wasn’t important. His selection made, he thanked the Romanians for their effort and gave them the night off. They really couldn’t go anywhere while in enemy territory, but they would be ridiculously grateful for the empty gesture. He returned to his tent, and found Bellatrix laying on his cot, waiting for him.

She was dressed in her uniform, and as always, he found it suited her perfectly. Sharp lines, perfect folds, and an almost sinister quality. The black cloth made the auburn highlights of her hair and the stark redness of her lipstick stand out more vividly. Her lips curved up in the corners when she spotted him, reminding him of younger days when Rudolphus Lestrange had still been alive, and she and her husband would pass a night with him in his bed or in theirs, carving love notes into each others skin with his favorite pen knife.

He had buried the pen knife with Rudolphus, and with it his carnal relations with his wife. It had seemed disrespectful to continue in his absence.

But Bella had been widowed for over a decade now, and as of late he had found himself growing attracted to her again. The fast paced, day-by-day existence of a soldier suited her far more than the bureaucratic shuffle of a politician or the endless drudgery of a headmistress. Every day her senses sharpened, her speed increased, her joy for life and for death grew. Every day she grew more and more into the Valkyrie he had known and lusted after in his younger days.

Maybe later.

There was so much to do. The Romanians required his attention for the time being. They were not on good terms with the Polish and required a little reassurance that they would not be neglected in favor of the more powerful army. As much as the idea of seducing Bella appealed to him, he would be busy enough seducing the Romanian commanders to fall under his leadership. It would not be difficult, but it would require time and care. Their armies commanders were primarily young men of standing with long pureblood lineages, eager to prove themselves significant in an occupation their fellow countrymen viewed as ineffectual and obsolete.

If he could grant them the pride and purpose their own Minister of Magic was unable to provide, they would become his men and he would welcome them with open arms.

“How did the raid go?” she asked, showing no interest in raising herself from the cot.

“The usual. We should move again tomorrow. I don’t like leaving so much distance between us and the border.”

She nodded.

“As you wish. You received a message. It was in your scrying bowl.”

The scrying bowl was actually a Mariander’s Scrying Bowl, which unlike other scrying bowls that only allowed the viewer to look up current or passed events, it allowed for communication between a select number sister bowls. Only half a dozen people held the sister bowls to his own, and all of them were people he trusted with sensitive information.

“Oh? Who is it from?”

“Snape,” she said, dismissively, and then preceded to ignore the eager gleam in her master’s eyes as he went to his work table. The scrying bowl was a dull bronze on the exterior, but the inside gleamed like the nacreous insides of a clam shell. The message was written out in black ink, brief and to the point. He frowned.

“Something interesting?” his succubus queried, skeptically.

“Lucius might be plotting something against the werewolves. Or Harry. Or both. Snape’s being unusually vague. And Harry’s moon madness is back.”

“As if the full moon was the only time he went mad.”

“Don’t be jealous, poppet, you’ll always be my favorite girl.”

She sighed. If only that were true.

“So what are you going to do?”

“I’ll have Crouch look into it. I can’t afford to leave the Romanians unsupervised just to chase down a rumor, and there doesn’t appear to be an immediate threat.”

She looked genuinely surprised. Had she really thought he would drop everything just to go and coddle Harry? If that was the case, she really needed to work on her insecurity.

Though to be honest, he would have liked to do just that.

The return of the moon madness was curious to him, and how it might tie into plots against the werewolves was doubly so. It would have to keep for another three weeks. It would take at least that long to completely enamor his allies with his fighting prowess and unnerve the Germans enough to start making mistakes.

It was all a matter of priorities, and for today those required he remained where he was.

What those priorities would be tomorrow, however…

Learning Curve

He left the infirmary with the intent to escape his thoughts, but outside of it he found no sanctuary. Trudy Sabbat had worked quickly. Everyone knew or thought they knew what had happened between Harry and the Headmaster, and it was just like after he demonstrated his parseltongue ability and the day after he held a werewolf on the castle drawbridge. There was awe, curiosity, and disbelief but most of all there was suspicion. A fear that he was dangerous, mad, and different in ways they could only fear.

In the past it made him feel lonely.

It still did, but now he felt resentment too. Resentment from the fact that he really might be dangerous, mad, and different in ways that were to be feared and unlike them he couldn’t avoid himself. He came to believe that resentment was a very adult emotion, for he could sense it from several of the teaching staff throughout the day. McGonagall, wane and pale after her recovery from the flu, was down right frosty with him in class, on the verge of saying something scathing, unfair, and completely true at ever turn. When he went to the dining hall for dinner, the teacher’s table was divided by emotion towards him. One was anger and the other was pity.

He preferred the anger. Anger never really frightened him, but pity was something that often came too close to breaking him.

Snape wasn’t there that night, but that wasn’t uncommon so he couldn’t have claimed responsibility for it one way or another. He wondered, somewhat reprovingly, what the man’s expression would have been.

His table was excessively quiet when he sat down. Yet at the other tables, the talk was excessively loud, and he could hear clearly his name mentioned several times. The eyes he felt on him were like fingers poking at him, rude and irritating, fanning his resentment and frustration. Stubbornness and extreme hunger root him in his seat, though he wanted nothing more than to just leave and find some place to sleep.

“Harry.”

He looked up at Hermione. He had forgotten she was there. She had apparently visited him in the infirmary that morning, but when he saw her that afternoon she hadn’t spoken to him at all. He hadn’t noticed before, but he was feeling too vulnerable to be anything but self absorbed.

“Yes, Hermione?”

“Are you okay?”

The poking sensation he felt from the stares he was receiving became so intense he found himself cringing. It took him a moment to realize it was his magus hypersentia; that all that concentration was purposelessly directing magic at him and the sensation was less than pleasant.

“Can we talk about this later?”

She glanced around them, and Harry could feel the stares lighten immediately.

“Sure. The library?”

“I have an appointment with Vector,” he said, almost happy to speak of something that didn’t center around his screw up.

“I’ll walk you there. You’re not in any condition to do intense research right now.”

He felt a stab of annoyance.

“I’m not broken.”

She met his irritation with a bit of her own, her eyes flashing.

“Madam Pomfrey might disagree.”

He looked down at his plate and they didn’t speak a word until they are both done. They stood and made their way out of the Great Hall. Ginny grabbed his hand as he passed, squeezing it in unspoken support. Across the table, Clyde gave him a wane smile. He tried smiling back, but it was weak and unconvincing and he knew it.

When they were relatively alone in the corridors, Hermione cast a Silencing charm around them.

“Can you tell me if you are alright, now?” she asked.

He thought for a moment.

“I guess that depends on your definition of ‘alright’.”

She let out an impatient sigh.

“Just tell me what happened.”

“…I made a mistake during the ritual I was doing. It went very bad. I wasn’t… completely in control. I went to Snape to get some answers and… we fought. And then… then we really fought. I don’t really remember all that much. I think I took myself to the infirmary afterward.”

Her eyes widened.

“You walked there yourself?”

“Yeah… why?”

“Merlin, Harry, you were half dead! You shouldn’t have been able to stand, let alone walk. Are you sure Severus didn’t take you?”

“…I guess he must have then. I don’t remember that clearly.”

Hermione had been wearing her hair down lately, the loose mane of curls making a perfect target for her frustration as she ran her hands through it, pulling and tugging at the locks harshly as she did so. Taking deep breathes did nothing to calm her, if anything it only seemed to fan the flames of her anger.

“Why did you do it in the first place, Harry? Why do you always do this?”

He frowned at her.

“Do what? I didn’t ask for this to happen! It was an accident!”

“Oh, please! It was an accident? Like the werewolf possession was an accident? Like being kidnapped by Durmstang was an accident? Like being trapped in the castle with that psycho Moody was an accident? The acrumantula? The duel with McNair? The bloody fucking dragon? God, Harry! How many accidents can you have before you start realizing there is something you are doing that causes these things to happen?”

Harry stood there, completely stunned. He eyes widened, his jaw dropped. Slowly, his hand lifted to point a finger at her. His voice was tight, almost shrill as he spoke.

“You think all of that was my fault? That I did it on purpose? That I’m some sort of crazy attention-seeker?”

It was her turn to look stunned.

“No! That’s not what I said and not what I-”

“FUCK YOU!” he screamed.

The magic around him suddenly fluctuated violently, shattering the silencing charm around them. His words echoed up and down the corridor and then back again, over and over until they finally faded. Hermione gasped as she felt it push against her, felt it like boiling water against her skin. She gave soft, frightened whimper and he recoiled as violently as he had lashed out, and with him his magic receded and disappeared.

He turned and strode away, nearly running. She didn’t dare follow him.

Harry fled to Vector’s office, practically shouted the password and ducted inside. Vector wasn’t there; just a pile of books on the edge of her desk baring familiar titles. Harry hadn’t meant to scare her. He hadn’t. It had been an accid- He felt his hands clench in anger. She would think he had done it on purpose. Because apparently Harry Potter didn’t have accidents. Everything that ever went wrong in his life was his own fault, something he had done or never learned or did intentionally.

Well, maybe that was true. Maybe he had wanted to scare her and part of him was crowing victoriously that he had. How dare she say that to him? Was that what she really thought? Had she thought that way about him all along?

His anger was deliciously invigorating. The guilty, anxious malaise that had followed him from the infirmary was burned to cinders under the heat of his righteous indignation at a seemingly limitless persecution. He was sick of it. He was sick of being vulnerable to those who caused his grief and being under the scrutiny of witless gawkers, especially if they weren’t going do anything about it except make asinine comments and ignorant theories.

He had never wanted to be Voldemort, and honestly he still didn’t, but he couldn’t help but think longingly of the Dark Lord’s independent self-assurance. For all his moral shortcomings, who could boast a clearer conscience? He regretted nothing he did, he was fearless in the wake of others’ judgment, and psychologically immune to criticism. Harry longed to know what that felt like.

There was a knock on the door.

He jumped, his wand flicking into his hand instantly. He put it back just as quickly. There was no threat. It was probably just a student wanting to ask Vector questions about some Arithmancy homework. He didn’t know where she was at the moment, so he didn’t answer the door and resolved to ignore it in favor of stewing in his own anger.

“I know you’re in there, Potter. I can feel your angst through the door,” came Ron’s smug voice.

The Gryffindor let out an annoyed sigh. Oh, lovely. The universe decided his day wasn’t shitty enough so they had to through in one of the biggest shits of all. Well, at least he could verbally abuse Ron with a clear conscious. He opened the door.

“How did you know I was here?” he asked shortly.

“I followed the screaming echoes. I think Snape heard you from his office.”

“Snape can drop dead.”

The made the youngest Weasley son grin.

“I find myself thinking the same thing from time to time. Did you at least get in a few good hits before he creamed you?”

“Of course,” he snapped shortly. He felt some how dirty saying it, but it was better than feeling as useless and stupid as he had before. Ron’s grin turned to a smirk, and he checked the hall one more time before slipping inside. He moved around Harry and went straight to the desk, his hand finding the red book instantly. The triumph in his eyes made the other boy want to punch him.

“Bloody hell, you really did it. You really got it. How?”

Harry waved the question away as irrelevant. Ron was the first person who seemed to be completely unaffected by his fight with Snape, and if the Slytherin was willing to ignore it then he decided he was willing enough to waste some time in his company. He had decided before that he was going to help Ron, and there still wasn’t any reason why he should change his mind.

“It doesn’t matter. Just show me which spell you used.”

Quickly skimming the contents, Ron found what he was looking for and handed the open book to Harry, who read through it quickly. He snapped the book shut and slapped Ron in the back of the head sharply with it.

“Ow! Merlin, what was that for?”

“You bloody moron! What were you thinking using a spell like that?”

“Sshhh! Are you stupid? Stop shouting!” He threw up a silencing charm. “I was thinking it was powerful, untraceable, and barely detectable. Oh, and that it was a miserable way to die.”

The cold vitriol in Ron’s voice was humbling. Harry’s own anger felt paltry in comparison. He shook his head.

“Do you have any idea the level of skill this type of spell requires? What made you think you could pull this off?”

Ron blinked.

“Could you do it?”

“No. Frankly, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. It’s a wretched spell. It screws around with lei lines, so you’re not only messing with the victim but everyone else around him including yourself.”

The vengeful boy’s face suddenly lost its smugness, and with it a lot of its color.

“Can you undo it? There’s a counter spell.”

Harry stared at him for a long moment and then down at the book. He opened it to the counter curse.

“The counter curse is only intended to undo the spell after it’s been properly performed. I don’t know if it will work if the spell is messed up. It might make things worse or change the outcome of the spell. I honestly don’t know enough about lei lines… Maybe if we remove the curse’s influence, the lei lines will right themselves.”

“Maybe?”

“Yes! MAYBE! I don’t know. If you know someone else you want to ask be my guest!”

Ron fell silent then finally shook his head.

“I guess… we should try removing the curse then. I mean, that’s the big thing. That’s what is killing me. If it does something else, we can figure it out later.”

Harry decided not to point out that ‘we’ would not find out anything. He had no intention of devoting his life to solving Ron’s screw up. Saving his life was causing him enough of a headache as it was.

“Fine. Then take this,” he handed Ron the book, “And make a list of supplies we’ll need, and get it to me before breakfast. I’m going to Bristol tomorrow and this might be the only opportunity we have to pick up supplies for a while.”

“You’re going to Bristol? Why?”

“None of your damn business.”

“Geez, sorry I asked! You’re in a pissier mood than usual. I guess Pomfrey ain’t giving you the good stuff.”

“Ron. Stop. Talking.”

The boy saluted him obediently. Harry felt his hand twitching for his wand.

“After you’ve made that list, I want you to do some research on lei lines. There should be plenty of books about them under magical theory in the library. Try to get an idea of what they might do when they’re messed around with.”

Ron remained standing at attention in a salute. The Gryffindor rolled his eyes.

“Alright, dismissed.”

The hand came down, and the Slytherin marched skillfully out of the office with the book slipped into the folds of his robes. Harry tried to tell himself that he was not amused by his antics, and he was not and never had been funny to even the tinniest degree. He was a stupid, conceited, murderous bastard who just happened to be related to some of his favorite people, and therefore he would try to save.

He wasn’t that desperate for friends.

Even if he seemed to have fewer and fewer with each passing day.

Harry armed himself like he was preparing for battle before he went to Bristol. He donned his neglected black and silver uniform, thankful the weather had turned cool enough to make it a comfortable and practical choice. He wore his armor as well, and slipped a spare wand into his left sleeve and a knife in his back pocket. His glasses were left behind, and he relied on a potion to keep his eyesight clear. He carried a bottle of anxiety potion and another dose of potion for his eyes in unbreakable vials on the interior of his boots and Ron’s list of supplies and silver sickles to buy them with in his pocket.

Kingsley and Seitler eyed him warily when he stepped outside of the castle to meet his escort. His reputation for trouble was well established, but the fact that he was obviously expecting it in some capacity was in no way comforting. They could do nothing to stop him, however. He had Headmaster Snape’s permission if not his blessing.

The journey to Bristol was silent. They took the Hogwarts Express, which had been re-routed from London to the nation’s military capitol, without saying a word to each other. Harry had wrapped himself in a cloak of anger and Kingsley had sensed it immediately and resolved not to provoke it.

The boy frightened him sometimes.

As they stepped off the train in Bristol, Harry schooled his face into something less fierce. People on the street recognized him immediately, and watched him pass with stunned disbelief as he strode briskly by. Soldiers stopped in their tracks and saluted him, despite the fact that he technically wasn’t active military anymore. He didn’t waste energy trying to correct them. It made his arrival at headquarters that much simpler as he passed security check point after security check point without pausing, setting off alarms as he went but with no one there willing to pull rank to stop him.

Kingsley knew exactly where Lucius’ office was, which struck Harry as suspicious but helpful in this instance as he did not have to stop to inquire for directions. He only vaguely recognized the secretary behind the desk. She was thinner and more harried-looking than he remembered, and she jumped up in her chair when he entered the outer office.

“Ambassador Potter!” she said in alarm. “You’re early! Ah, just a minute pl-”

He ignored her, threw up a shield charm, and threw open Lucius’ door. It slammed open with a horrible racket, and predictably a curse bounced off his shield the moment he stepped inside. Kingsley shouted in alarm.

“Are you mad, Potter?”

“Undoubtedly!” the boy shouted back, and slammed the door shut behind, locking the man out.

Lucius was behind his desk, and if his secretary looked harried it was nothing compared to her boss who looked down right haggard. Harry found himself stunned by his appearance. He was gaunt, and shadowed, and there was a skeletal quality to him that was not helped by the paleness of his features. His eyes, however, were the same sharp gray, and they tore into Harry the second he stepped into his domain and pulled him up short.

“I don’t suppose lessons in manners are a Hogwarts requirement these days. I will have to have a word with the Education Board later,” he said smoothly. His wand was not drawn, and it took Harry a second to realize there was another man in the room who must have cast the spell.

The second man wore a lieutenant’s insignia and had an indistinct chin. His wand work was impressive at least, although he looked about ready to fall over dead for having sent a curse at him. Lucius gave the man an annoyed look.

“Relax, Stratus, no one gives a damn. Go make us some tea or something.”

The man ‘Stratus’ looked between them uncertainly for a moment, but finding no welcome from either of them, finally nodded and moved out of the room quickly. Harry kept his eyes glued to his adversary. Seeing his enemy was as energetically mean-spirited as ever drained what ever inkling of pity and shock that might have first occurred.

“So you finally managed to make some time for me in your ever so busy schedule,” the Malfoy patriarch said sarcastically. “To what do I owe the honor?”

Harry glared at him.

“Maybe your time would be better served convincing yourself that I’m not stupid, and I will make the effort to return the favor. I know about the attack on the werewolf colony in Aoinwig.”

Lucius did not seem the least bit impressed with this.

“Oh, and what do you know about the attack in Aoinwig?”

“I know you had nothing to do with it, but you are going to try to convince me that you did.”

The man stiffened. Bull’s-eye.

“It seems I have underestimated you yet again. How did you come to know this? What little bird has been whispering in your ear?”

“One you would be hard-pressed to throw in Azkaban or toss a cruciatus at, I assure you. My question is why you would even try? Why make an enemy of me, Malfoy?”

The aristocrat’s expression turned condescending.

“I have no intention of making an enemy of you, Potter. Quite the opposite. But if there is one thing I can’t stand, it’s to be ignored. I don’t have the patience for it, and frankly, I don’t have the time for it either. We should have resolved this months ago.”

“Resolved what? You wanting to turn me into your lap poodle?”

“You didn’t seem to mind being the Dark Lord’s.”

If Lucius thought that would provoke the boy he was soon disappointed when Harry let out a harsh, barking laugh instead.

“Yes, look at what an obedient and well trained little pup I am. I come, sit, stay, roll over, and play dead at just a snap of his fingers,” he laughed.

Lucius had to admit, he had him there. Whatever relationship was shared between his Master and Potter was not like the one between his Master and himself. Obedience was preferred, but had never been a prerequisite between those two. Affection was a word he didn’t like to use, but it hung in the air nonetheless.

“You don’t have even the slightest inkling of what that man is capable of.”

Harry’s amusement died instantly.

“I know enough about him not to confuse him with a man at all.”

Lucius almost smiled. He thought he could almost like this Gryffindor, if he could get over this intense desire to throttle him. For the time being, however, he needed him, and knowing that made what he was attempting that much harder. He didn’t have time to win him over. That he could try later. Right now, he needed Potter’s cooperation; willing or unwilling was unimportant.

“Will you fight me forever?”

“Will you make me?”

“Always a quipy little come back, but I am asking you seriously. Will you fight me? For what? What do you fear will happen if we should become allies?”

Harry looked at him solidly for a long moment, not saying a word.

“Allies? I am not afraid to be your ally, but that’s not what you want. You want a dog or a puppet, or just about anything that all you have to do is pull a string and it leaps to your command. The first sign of disobedience and you’ll strangle me with that string, and I’ll only have myself to blame for handing it to you in the first place.”

The headache that was forever present in Lucius’ life was slowly degrading into a full out migraine. The light in the office was too intense and his stomach rolled in protest. He had resolved not to take a drink today, anticipating Potter’s arrival and sobriety was making him that much more aware of his own rapidly deteriorating condition. His normally rapid mind felt sluggish, and the idea that he was being outwitted by a Gryffindor teenager was almost beyond endurance.

“Don’t be melodramatic. It serves no purpose for me to hurt you or even to subjugate you. Lord Voldemort would never allow it for one thing. Has he not promised to protect you from me? And I from you? We are contemporaries, and while I am loathe to say it, there is much more we could accomplish together than we could apart.”

“Like what?”

“Like recruitment for the army for one. The number of applicants has started to wane. Their enthusiasm for the war effort is diminishing.”

“My enthusiasm for the war effort is diminishing too.”

Lucius ignored him.

“We may not have the numbers we need to maintain our hold on to Germany after they are defeated and continue our offense on the Italian front. I have done what I can, but my influence is limited to the upper crust of our society. You have an appeal to the general masses that the Dark Lord and I need for our plans to take fruit.”

“Well, bully for you two. How am I supposed to benefit from encouraging some poor gullible saps to join the Culties and get blown to bits?”

“Simple enough. You use your influence with the plebeians on my behalf and I will use my influence with the aristocracy on your behalf. Think of it Potter. The full restoration of the House of Potter, full rights to your family vault, to your position on the Wizengamot, to the ancestral estates that are your birthright. Now imagine all of that wealth and privilege doubled… tripled… before you ever reach the age of thirty. You and your descendents will have the means to protect your precious werewolves from the vagaries of societal opinion indefinitely. All whom you love and care for will want for nothing. You will have the power to lead nations to glory and your enemies to ruin without ever having to lift your wand. Together, the Houses of Malfoy and Potter can become the greatest powerhouse Britain has ever seen short of the Dark Lord himself.”

As he spoke, Harry seemed to listen for once. He listened and followed along, neither speaking nor expressing resistance with his body language. It was as if he were falling under a spell, a spell Lucius had weaved many times in the past and now at his most desperate had to stoop to doing once again. Then Harry blinked and leaned back into his chair.

“If what you’re saying is true… then call off Hermione’s engagement.”

Lucius blinked.

“What?”

“Call. Off. The. Engagement.”

“No. What does that have to do with anything?”

“Because according to you, ‘all whom I love and care for will want for nothing’. I rather thought that might include the want to not marry an abusive, racist bastard. Don’t tell me you didn’t think we wouldn’t be negotiating this point.”

Why did the term ‘migraine’ and ‘Hermione’ seem to go together so well?

“I honestly don’t know why you care so much. You’re not in love with her.”

“And you don’t lover her, which is why I don’t expect you to understand. What do you care if I ask for this? What do you lose by calling it off? It’s still over six months to the set date, so it’s not like you can be sued or anything.”

Lucius was startled. What did Potter know about the arrangements he had made? It didn’t matter. It wasn’t something he was going to forget about. Hermione had been a thorn in his side for too long, and her ungrateful defiance would be met with the punishment it deserved. The sooner she was separated from Draco, and from Potter too, the sooner he would be able to gain their good will. If she stayed, she would only serve to inspire distrust and resentment against him.

He couldn’t say that to Potter of course.

He needed something else to tempt the boy with.

He thought about it for a minute, and came up totally blank. Which was impossible. He was never short of ideas or manipulations or games. His mind was a constant churning machine. It never stopped and it never stalled.

But God it was hard to think right now.

He needed time to think. The soft tap at his door was almost too good to be true.

“Enter.” Lt. Stratus opened the door cautiously, carrying a tea set. The imbecile had actually taken him seriously and done as he was told. He could work with this. “I need a moment to think about this,” he told Harry. “Wait here. Have some tea. I will be back shortly with an answer for you.”

Potter looked predictably suspicious, but nodded. Good, let the boy think he was willing to seriously consider his demand. It would help establish the illusion that they were equals. He turned to his assistant.

“Stay here and keep Lord Potter company, Lt. Stratus.”

Which was polite talk for ‘keep him from snooping around my office’. He stepped out, passing his secretary and the Sentinel whose name escaped him without a glance. He had twenty minutes, thirty if he pushed it, but either way he needed to come up with ideas and possibly get rid of his migraine.

Strong liquor was usually effective, but that wasn’t a source he could trust. According to his private physician, the alcohol might serve to alleviate some of the pain, but it also sped up his physical and mental deterioration. His physician had told him a lot of things, except why he was dying.

Oh, he had theories.

Accumulated magical poisoning from too many Dark Arts rituals or proximity to Dark Artifacts. A genetic defect. A esoteric spell cast on him from his youth left untreated for too long. All of it rubbish. The only useful bit of information that he had received was that what ever it was it was killing him, it was the result of dark arts, and it had been in affect for a long time; months at least, maybe even years.

And if he had not spoken to that mysterious raven, he never would have known to look for anything until it was too late. That the raven had also said it was the Dark Lord who was killing him was not something he could afford to ignore.

Which meant the raven might be his only reliable ally at the moment.

Bobby didn’t fly that day. He hadn’t flown the day before either or the day before that. Aside from a little fluttering to move from branch to branch to bird feeder, he hadn’t moved much at all over the last several days. His daily exercises had stopped, and he had finally resigned himself to the fact that he wasn’t ever going to leave his prison unless the Dark Lord released him from it.

He had not yet descended into madness, at least he didn’t think so, but he was getting very close to cursing the gods, which was one of the first signs. Cursing gods was good way to go insane. They didn’t appreciate criticism from their subjects, and Raecellos and Madris were no exception.

What he had descended into was a deep, dark depression. Whatever intentions he had had of saving the soul of his brother a second time had been squandered, and he had potentially ruined himself in the process. How long before the Dark Lord tired of having him as his prisoner? How long before he was just another sacrifice or something to be traded to the fairies who prized him so in exchange for some magical bauble? He almost found himself looking forward to it; anything to end his ceaseless boredom.

As it turned out, he did not have to leave his prison or wait for the Dark Lord to drive him out of his funk. Relief came unexpectedly in the form of Lucius Malfoy charging into his domain.

For a moment, Bobby thought he was dreaming. He plucked a feather from his wing to feel the twinge of pain that assured him was indeed awake. Quickly, he flew down to where the man was looking about for him in obvious anxiety. He landed heavily on the tea table (a replacement since Lucius had destroyed the last one), his body not yet able to shake the full extent of his days of inactivity. He cursed himself for having so little faith. Raecellos had always been a generous god, and he had given him a second chance to earn his freedom.

He would not mess it up a second time.

“You are back. Have you come to realize the truth, then?” he said, affecting a knowing voice that belied his own uncertainty.

Lucius did not look much worse than the last time he had seen him, but he didn’t look any better either. About the only improvement he could find was the man wasn’t drunk as a pickle at this point. He was obviously suffering from pain of some sort however, judging by the way he flinched at the mere sound of his voice. The aristocrat leveled a resentful glare at the raven.

“Yes… I… yes. You were right.”

“And what are you doing about it now?”

And how does it involve me?

“I am… working on it. In fact, I am need of some advice.”

The man grimaced, but whether it was from pain or his distaste at asking for help, Bobby couldn’t be certain.

“Perhaps I can be of assistance, although nothing is free.”

“I cannot free you. Lord Voldemort would kill me.”

“Lord Voldemort is already killing you.”

“And he is taking his time, which means he may not be totally committed to the plan. I… if I can give him proper incentive to let me live…”

“What incentive? You don’t even know why he’s killing you in the first place.”

“Do you?” the man asked, obviously curious. Bobby remained silent. Let him interpret it how he wanted. When no answer was forthcoming, he continued. “I have a plan, but it requires an alliance with Potter. Something I am having some difficulty acquiring.”

Bobby found himself momentarily caught off guard. Harry? What did Harry have to do with all of this? Was he here? Now? If he was here, if he could speak with him, let him know he was being held prisoner… what? He didn’t know, but it seemed imperative that he find him immediately.

“Hhhmmm… an alliance with Potter? Against the Dark Lord? Are they fighting already?”

“Don’t be daft. They are as smitten with each other as ever. Which is why an alliance with Potter may be just what I need to dissuade the Dark Lord from his present course.”

A wonderful idea popped into raven’s head, one that might not only free Bobby but bring him back to Harry once again.

“Ah. Yes, very clever. And apropos, as Potter may be the only one aside from the Dark Lord who can break the curse.”

Lucius’s eyes, which had been clouded with pain, suddenly sharpened on him.

“What? I thought you said you could break the curse?”

“I can… with a bit of help. I know the spell, but I am no wizard. Potter, however, has the skills necessary to perform it… under my instruction… which is somewhat difficult from my current vantage point.”

The man began to pace, fidgeting in a frantic way that made the raven suspect his lucidity was beginning to slip away from him. He couldn’t afford that. If Lucius couldn’t keep his wits about him, all of this would be for nothing.

“I can do something for you now… as a show of good faith.”

Lucius paused, and gave him and uncertain look.

“What?”

“I can ease some of your symptoms. I haven’t the ability to cure you without help, but I can alleviate some of your suffering.”

“How?”

Carefully, Bobby plucked a feather from each wing and one from his tail. It hurt, but it was a small price to pay if it would gain his freedom.

“Take these feathers and hold him in your fist tightly.”

If he had been in the right state of mind, Lucius would not have been so quick to pick up the feathers or at the very least he would have cast detection spells to make sure they were not somehow harmful. At the moment, however, his mind was in agony and rusting away by inches.

He snatched up the feathers instantly and gripped them tightly.

Immediately, the feathers began to dissolve like paper left smoldering at the edges until they were nothing more than ash. Lucius let out a small gasp.

The pain was gone. His mind felt clear and sharp again. He was immediately suspicious.

“What did you do?”

“I absorbed some of the magic killing you. It will come back eventually, but for a while you should feel quite good.”

“And you say you are no wizard?”

“Not in this life at least.”

Lucius considered this for a moment, then turned his thoughts to more immediate concerns. If the raven spoke truth, and it seemed he had so far, then Potter could cure him and he would not need to hope the Dark Lord would simply change his mind. However, that wouldn’t solve the problem of his Master wanting him dead. For that, he would still need his alliance with Potter. A barrier between him and the other man. Perhaps he could pretend he knew nothing of Lord Voldemort’s intentions, and that an alliance had sprung up between him and Potter when the boy saved him. Could he convince Harry to save him? Absolutely, he thought,I just wish I knew how.

He asked the raven.

The raven thought a moment and gave him an answer.

“Potter is a very predictable creature in a lot of ways. If you show him your teeth, he will show you his and fight you to the death. If you show him your belly, he will feel inclined to rub it.”

“I am not following you.”

“You are man who is constantly showing his teeth, Malfoy. He fights you because you are aggressive and dangerous. Show him your vulnerability, show him you are dying, and he will take pity on you.”

“I do not need his pity,” Lucius snarled.

Bobby laughed.

“Yes, you do. You need it, because you need him and that is the only way you will have him.”

The man sneered but didn’t deny. He paced the room a few times as he considered it, then stopped.

“He has a demand. He wants to call off my foster daughter’s betrothal.”

“Then call it off.”

“NO!”

Startled by the savagery of the denial, Bobby leaped away and flew for the sanctuary of the surrounding foliage. By the time he had reached it, Lucius had already composed himself again.

“Why not?”

“She…. She will only turn him against me. Just as she has turned my son against me.”

“You do that by proving every foul thing she holds against you to be true. Release the girl. Without her, he may be less defensive. Are there any other reasons he would be so solidly against you?”

“… Not that I can think of, but then he is a Gryffindor. He may hold a grudge for perceived wrongs.”

“Yes, because that is a wholly Gryffindor trait,” the raven muttered under his breath. Out loud he said, “Consider it a trade then. If he will save your life, you will free the girl.”

“That will not secure an alliance between us.”

“You cannot force an alliance with Potter. If he doesn’t want to do something he won’t. Make a friend of him, however reluctant, and he is yours. That is how the Dark Lord keeps him.”

Lucius considered that. Was that the secret to his Master’s relationship with Potter? Friendship? If it was a friendship, then it wasn’t like any Lucius had ever known before. They seemed quite near killing each other on several occasions and close as brothers on others; fighting and laughing and manipulating each other in equal measure. It was borderline deranged, and yet made a strange sort of sense.

Could he mimic such a thing? How would it even work?

Sloppily, he thought, but maybe there was a strength to the inherent flexibility of it. It was a relationship that changed according to circumstance, but always fell back into its original shape eventually. It was would require a quick mind and convincing wit, but he could do it. He could beguile Potter if he had to.

It might actually be sort of fun. Could he perhaps turn the boy against Hermione? Against Severus, who had proven himself a poor friend indeed as of late? Maybe against the Dark Lord himself?

The possibilities tickled at his brain.

They had been at odds for a while now, but there was nothing that couldn’t be undone. He had years ahead of him to lure Potter into companionable compliance. What he had told the boy was not altogether false. He could definitely use him at his side, and in strengthening him he could strengthen himself and his family.

“We will see. I will test your theory, and if it holds true… then perhaps something can be worked out between us as well.”

Ravens couldn’t smile, but had Lucius been able to see Bobby at that moment, he would have seen one supremely satisfied bird.

Harry had expected to spend the next however many minutes in awkward silence or stilted conversation with the lieutenant, but the man turned out to be an excellent conversationalist. It had only taken him one failed attempt and a little probing to find a topic of mutual interest.

The campaign in Germany was a subject Harry often found himself distracted by, but there was little information to be gathered at Hogwarts and while he had more opportunities than most to gather information, he never felt adequately up to date. Stratus had been on the fighting lines from the invasion of Berlin and on up until he was transferred to headquarters that summer, and new not only what battles and operations were going on at any given moment but what the soldiers themselves were experiencing out in the field. He even had a few bits of information about Voldemort’s movements in Germany and his recent successes there.

Harry thought he could listen to Stratus talk all day about the war, but Lucius Malfoy had other plans. He had only been gone for about half a hour, but whatever he had been doing had been to his benefit. He was still much too thin, but his skin was no longer overly pale and there was more energy to his step than when he had left before.

“Leave us, Stratus.”

The lieutenant stared at his commanding officer, more taken back than Harry himself by the sudden change. Lucius gave him an irritated glare, and the man scrambled to his feet.

“It was good speaking with you, Ambassador,” he said politely, his gaze flitting nervously between them.

“Likewise,” Harry said. “Perhaps we’ll have a chance to continue later.”

“I-”

“Out Stratus.” Malfoy said shortly. The man left.

Harry looked at him and waited. The general stood beside his desk and stared back, assessing him for several moments. Then he turned away and started to roll up his left sleeve. At first, Harry thought he was going to show him his Dark Mark, something he had only seen in books, but there was nothing but some old battle scars on his forearm.

He held out his arm to Harry.

“I am told you have advanced magus hypersentia. I want you to touch my arm and tell me what it feels like to you.”

Harry just stared at him.

“What are you playing at?”

“I want us to have an understanding, Potter, because after everything I’ve tried I think that is the only way to get what I want… what I need from you. My arm, if you would.”

He looked back to the man’s arm. It seemed a perfectly normal arm to him, but then why…? Only one way to find out. He reached out to touch it, and immediately withdrew his hand and the rest of his body at the disgusting feeling rolled over him, moving to the other side of the room.

Maggoty meat. He knew that sensation. He had felt it on one other before.

He was going to kill Ron.

“Yes, it is quite unpleasant, isn’t it? I am told by my physician I only have two or three months left to live and only half of that with my sanity intact.”

Harry wanted to wash his hands, but all he could do was rub them against the sides of his trousers, trying to remove the dirty feeling that had nothing to do with germs. His mind raced in circles of ’why’s and ’how’s and ’what now’s.

“Why are you telling me this? Why now?”

“I told you already… I need you. The medi-wizards are useless. You are perhaps the only one I know who has the ability to undo this.”

Harry shook his head.

“Voldemort could easily…” He stopped. “You think Voldemort did this to you, don’t you?”

Lucius said nothing, but his silence was answer enough.

Well, that was unexpected. Lucius thought the Dark Lord was trying to kill him? Why? He supposed that didn’t matter. What did matter was that he had Malfoy on something, something he couldn’t or wouldn’t go to their unofficial referee over. But why would he reveal such an obvious weakness when he had gone to such lengths to gain Harry’s services by other means?

“So you want me to save your life,” he said slowly, “I think that is at least worth calling off Hermione’s betrothal.”

There was really no reason for him to tell Lucius that his problem would likely be cleared up soon anyway. Once he performed the counter curse for Ron, then the man would likely recover as well. No harm, no foul, and Hermione got off scot free. Except for the fact that he was still pissed off at her.

Lucius grimaced, and made an annoyed motion Harry interpreted as ‘fine’.

The Gryffindor wanted to laugh and shout with glee, but something told him it wasn’t going to be that simple. Not with Malfoy.

“What’s the catch?”

Rolling down his sleeve, the man moved to the other side of the desk, the gesture an unspoken reestablishment of boundaries and rank. He took a deep breathe. The worst of it was over now. He had shown his belly, and Potter hadn’t kicked it yet.

“There is no point in saving my life if the Dark Lord wishes to take it. I need you to convince him that you want to keep me around, perhaps find out why he is displeased with me to begin with.”

Considering Harry didn’t think Voldemort was trying to kill him, that made his job exceptionally easy. That didn’t mean he was going to do it for free, however.

“I can do that, I think, but I want you to take care of the colony in Aoinwig. The culprits were never arrested.”

Lucius shrugged.

“Not my fault. The werewolves were uncooperative. They do not trust my people, and refused to give testimony.”

“Then allow me to go to Ireland and speak with them. They will speak to me.”

“Are you so sure? I heard you were out of favor at the moment.”

“Out of favor, but I never lost my rank. They will answer to me unless Sirius has told them not to.”

“Perhaps, but you are not allowed in Ireland.”

Harry blinked.

“What?”

“Didn’t you know? The Dark Lord has forbade that you enter Ireland except in his company. Something about faeries.”

Harry recalled his last visit to Ireland and the remains of the little village of Dunnan Hill, where he had rescued the little girl from the creature that had tried to drag her into its own realm within a hill. Snape had warned him that the fae there would be targeting him now, and it seemed Voldemort took this concern seriously even if Harry hadn’t.

And still didn’t.

“I won’t tell him if you don’t.”

Lucius looked at him as if he were insane.

“What?”

“You do love running into danger don’t you?”

How many accidents can you have before you start realizing there is something you are doing that causes these things to happen?

Oh. Perhaps that was what Hermione had meant. In retrospect, he had probably overreacted. Which meant…ugh… apologizing.

“If you want to send some help along with me, I won’t object. A single squadron for a little half a day mission?”

Lucius considered. He did not like the idea of going against Voldemort’s orders. If the Dark Lord found out he could use it as an excuse to… Then again, Voldemort was in Germany and unlikely to return any time soon. Doing this mission for Harry… with Harry behind the Dark Lord’s back might be the first step in forging that ‘friendship’ Bobby had been referring to.

What, honestly, was the risk?

Despite local fears, faeries were not known for being particularly brave. Their modus operandi typically involved mortals that were alone and in some way vulnerable. A lost traveler in an unfamiliar wood. A child who wandered too far afield. A maiden who was too trusting of a handsome stranger in the dead of night. Attacking a group of armed witches and wizards was almost unheard of.

“Very well, I will assign some of my men to escort and guard you. You seem to like Stratus well enough, so he’ll be in charge. Do as he says at all times or… I’ll cruciatus him.”

Harry gave him a startled look.

“Why would you punish him for me acting up?”

“Because you’re a Gryffindor. Threatening you is pointless. Threatening innocent bystanders is much more effective.”

Harry had to admit he had him there. He was a sick and twisted bastard, but he knew what he was talking about. There was no point in arguing over it though. He didn’t have any intention of disobeying Stratus. The man would be there to protect him after all.

“Alright, then, General Malfoy. You can have your bloody alliance.”

Once a course of action had been decided, it only took about forty minutes for Lt. Stratus to select his soldiers and prepare the necessary paperwork. Harry followed him about from place to place, eager to be away from Lucius, and peppered him and Kingsley with questions. Bureaucracy wasn’t something he had to deal with often, so to watch it play out before him in such explicit detail was simultaneously educational and daunting. Visits from one filing cabinet to another, from office to office, department to department, building to building, and always a never ending kaleidoscope of colored forms marching across Stratus’ line of sight where ever they went. Harry couldn’t imagine how it could possibly be efficient and why all the papers and offices were even necessary.

“It’s so everything is known,” Kingsley said with a tired expression, as they made their way to the barracks. “And so no one knows everything.”

“I don’t understand,” Harry said.

“Well, pretty much everything that is done in the Culties or the Sentinels is written down somewhere. And once its written down it all gets sorted into levels of clearance. The higher your rank, the higher your clearance, and the more papers you can look at so the more you know. Even then, no one really has clearance to everything. There are some things even General Malfoy isn’t allowed to look at.”

“Really? What about Lord Voldemort?”

“Theoretically, I guess he can look at whatever he wants.”

“Theoretically?”

“I doubt it very much that everything the Dark Lord would like to know about ever reaches his desk. A lot of careers, and a lot of lives for that matter, rely on making sure he never finds out what monumental screw ups are occurring right under his nose.”

Harry frowned. Did that mean there were things going on amongst Britain’s fighting forces that the Dark Lord would disapprove of? It would be ridiculous to expect perfection, but what mistakes were grave enough to cost someone their life if Lord Voldemort ever found out about them?

“Now, now, Sentinel Kingsley,” Stratus chided, “You are giving the Ambassador a very poor image of our leadership. I assure you, all things considered, we have some of the finest men and women serving on the country’s behalf.”

There was a teasing quality to man’s voice that made Harry think he was being ironic, but he couldn’t for life of him think of what the joke could be.

The barracks was the last part of their journey and the shortest. It consisted only of Stratus handing the squadron commander a slip of paper containing his orders and then waiting the minute and half for the rest of the squad to grab whatever they needed and to fall into formation. Then it was back to the train depot.

Harry had ridden in military transport trains before, but the train they filed into was not one he was familiar with. It was shiny, glittering black mass of iron plating and black smoke, with one massive engine and only three equally heavy armored black cars. He estimated that it easily weighed twice as much as regular train, and as he stepped inside the first car he could feel the protective magic curl around him. The inside was almost completely bare, with only a handful of crates set about for seating.

“She isn’t completed yet,” Stratus explained, looking about with some pride. “The Minotaur is a military prototype. She is exclusively designed for war zone transportation. The enemy can tear up the tracks or put a mountain in front of her or cast a thousand blasting spells and you’ll barely feel a bump. She is a true monster.”

Harry ran his hands along the edge of a window and let himself feel it. The magic was both ancient and modern, and bordered on sentient. Blood had been spilled in her creation, but it was by a creator both proud and benevolent. She was no monster; she was a guardian to all who stepped inside of her from all that stood outside. He felt strangely at ease.

“She’s brilliant.”

When everyone was loaded onto the train, twelve Culties plus Harry and Kingsley altogether, they secured the doors and the train began to move. Despite The Minotaur’s enormous bulk, it was faster than a normal train and they were outside the station in only few seconds and rapidly gaining speed. The other soldiers loitered anxiously about the empty car for a moment, but finding nothing of interest inside and that the higher ranking individuals in the car were ignoring them they finally settled down on the floor of the car or on one of the few available crates.

Harry remained standing at a nearby window, which consisted of an empty square over which a heavy iron plate could be slid over or off. The lack of glass was probably for defense purposes, but he enjoyed the feel of the cool autumn wind in his face and cityscape zipping by. Wizarding Bristol gave way to the muggle part of the city in a blink of the eye, men and women in business suits and little cars and bicycles springing up around them as they leaped the track and entered the street. Completely ignoring the laws of traffic and physics, they hurled through the city, somehow avoiding collision or notice by anything or anyone. It made the Night Bus look outdated and ridiculous in comparison. Harry found himself grinning. It was almost like flying.

Then he noticed the harbor was coming up ahead of them, and it occurred to him he didn’t know how they were going to get to Ireland without crossing water. He ducked back inside.

“Um…”

“Yes, Ambassador?” Stratus asked.

“We’re nearing water.”

“No worries, sir. She’s seaworthy.”

Harry stared at him, then back at the window. Could he apparate while inside the train, he wondered. He didn’t fancy getting splinched, but he didn’t fancy drowning either. Then again, anything was possible with magic. There could easily be as many spells to keep the The Minotaurbuoyant as there were to keep her secure. In any event, it was too late to stop the train now.

He gripped the edge of the window tightly, and braced himself.

It was just as Stratus had said, however. There wasn’t so much as ‘bump’, only a cold spray of water and a moment of weightlessness that reminded him of falling. He stood frozen for a long moment, his senses and sensibilities at war with his phobia of drowning. It could only have been in his imagination, but he thought he felt the magic of the train warring with the ever deepening water; wet, shapeless hands grasping at it to pull into down into its depth and take Harry into the final darkness once and for all. The only thing to spare him a full blown panic attack was the dose of anti-anxiety potion he had taken that morning.

Shakily, he moved away from the window and took a seat on a crate beside Stratus. He took several long, deep breaths to calm himself. The lieutenant gave him a curious look.

“You are afraid of water? I thought that was your element.”

“It is. Unfortunately, after my third drowning-” Harry stopped and turned the man sharply. “How did you know water was my element?”

The man’s eyes widened for just a split second, before resuming a completely innocent expression.

“Everyone knows that.”

“I didn’t know that,” Kingsley said pointedly from his position across the car. He was standing near an open window as well, just as Harry had, but had not been bothered by the sudden change of terrain. Stratus gave him a look that suggested he wished him underneath the train at the moment.

“Try again,”said Harry.

The man sighed. With an annoyed look at Kingsley, he threw up a silencing charm in order to keep their conversation private.

“It was in your file. One of your files.”

“I have more than one file?”

“I am sure you have dozens of files floating around the various Court offices. The general’s are probably the thickest, however.”

Harry wasn’t so sure of that. He thought it very likely that the school records maintained by first Bellatrix and then Snape were about the size of a twelve volume library at this point. He couldn’t say he was particularly pleased with people having files on him, especially people he had never heard of, but he couldn’t say he was surprised. And despite how conceited it might have been, he couldn’t help but be curious about what was in them. He asked Stratus.

“Lots of things. Mostly official reports, but there are few personal notes the general kept.”

“Like what?”

“Like the time you broke the Dark Lord’s nose. I found that notation particularly memorable.”

“Pfft. That was hardly the worst thing I’ve done.”

Stratus grinned, a mischievous light glowing in his eyes that didn’t seem to match his rather bland face.

“Oh, do tell, Ambassador,” he invited.

“Need some more material for yourfiles? And stop calling me ‘ambassador’. It’s just Harry, or Potter if that’s too informal.”

“Reginald Mordio Stratus,” he said, holding out his hand. “But you may call me Reggy.”

Harry rolled his eyes, but took his hand and shook. An intense feeling of dejá vu settled over him, and it took him moment to realize what had caused it.

“Is something the matter?”

“What? Oh, no, sorry. You just reminded me of someone I knew for a moment.”

Stratus looked strangely pleased about that for moment, before his expression shifted again to friendly openness. Harry took a moment to ponder it. His introduction to the man had hardly been congenial and circumstances were hardly conducive to starting up a friendship, but they had gotten along almost instantly and it only seemed to be getting easier, as if they had been friends for years instead of just minutes. It was a bit odd for Harry, whose friendships were highly guarded and extremely selective, especially in recent years as his popularity grew.

The lieutenant was obviously a very capable man. He was a decorated officer who had fought in Germany, and situated himself well as Malfoy Sr’s underling, while still taking advantage of the resources his position made available to him. He hadn’t spent more than a few seconds with Harry before accurately determining his interest and personality.

Harry knew he would have to be cautious not to trust him too much or to allow himself to become too attached, but it was difficult to look at the man and feel anything from him other than beneficent curiosity.

They arrived near Aoiwig, within three hours of leaving Bristol. It was early afternoon, and being in the southwestern end of Ireland the weather was cool but mild. The train had stopped in the wizarding hamlet of Traleefore, attracting the attention of the villagers, who came out of the pubs and workshops to watch anxiously as the soldiers disembarked the ominous train. Harry, who had been maintaining an easy conversation with ‘Reggy’, adopted a reserved demeanor as they exited.

His eyes scanned the crowd, looking amongst the onlookers for enemies but none became immediately apparent. The village elder, an energetic man with a noticeable limp, came out to greet them, but did not seem pleased with what he was told.

“Aoinwig? What ya wanna to go there fer?”

Stratus turned to Harry for an answer.

“A friend of mine was killed there,” the Gryffindor said evenly. “I am going there to pay my respects.”

A nervous murmur ran through the crowd. The village elder fidgeted uncomfortably for a bit, but left and returned a few minutes later with a map.

“This will show you the way. I’d be recommend’n you stay the nigh’ here an’ be goin’ tomorrow or else hurry there and stay the night. It’s not wise to be out and about the woods this late in the day. ’Specially not fer you, if you don’t mind my say’in.”

Harry acknowledged the warning with a nod, and felt a bit of his coolness towards the villagers thaw. He had been expected more reticence, even resentment, based upon what he knew of the attacks, but his fears appeared unfounded.

“We’ll go there on foot and apparate back if necessary. Please warn your tavern owner he’s likely to have some hungry guests this evening.”

“Very well. Heed my words though. If ya find yerself following the edge of a spring, turn back the way ye came. Best of luck to you then, lad.”

Harry wasn’t sure what to make of the advice, but kept them in mind. They took the wide dirt road out of the hamlet, the soldiers falling into a protective formation around Harry as they went. Aoinwig and Traleefore’s industry revolved heavily around wool and mutton, leaving most of the land a patchwork of pastureland knitted together with low stone walls, but between the two villages was a long strip of forest half a mile wide and thick with moss covered yew and fat, gnarled oaks. Harry felt distinctly uneasy as he stepped into it, and he was not the only one.

The trees and underbrush stretched out around and over them, creating a claustrophobic tunnel effect. The leaves had begun to fall there already, and every step they took rustled and crackled loudly while all else remained unnervingly silent. Even the light didn’t seem quite right, a shade too low and tinted faintly green. Three-fourth’s of the way through they passed a large pillar engraved with the antlered forest god Cernunnos surrounded by animals. Harry recognized him as the benign god of animals and fertility, but something about his smiling effigy made him shiver.

The feeling of being watched was prevalent.

“I don’t like this,” Kingsley muttered.

Harry didn’t like it either, but wasn’t about ready to turn back.

“We’re over half way through already.”

Despite the village elder’s warning there was no spring that followed the road, only a narrow stone bridge. Almost as soon as they crossed it the oppressive feeling around them lightened, the trees thinned until at last opening out into pastureland. Aoinwig was clearly visible, a collection of six small stone buildings and a wooden round house, surrounded by vegetable gardens. A short distance away a flock of sheep grazed serenely, and a large black stallion looked up at them from its paddock. The colony looked peaceful, but for the collapsed roof on one of the buildings and a pile of broken timbers they may have once been a cart piled up beside it.

The figures of men could be seen sitting on a nearby wall, and one of them hurried into a building upon their approach while another moved cautiously forward to meet them. Harry moved from the protective circle to the front of the group, and the werewolf froze at the sight of him.

“You are not supposed to be here!” the man shouted in dismay.

Well… that wasn’t how he wanted this meeting to start. A moment later, several more men appeared, amongst them a large man with a thick black beard Harry identified as the alpha. He looked neither concerned nor surprised by his appearance.

“Hello, Harry,” he said.

“Hello, Lysander. Will you speak with me?”

The alpha snorted. “I don’t see as I have much choice. Does Blackbone know you are here?”

“No. He told me not to come.”

“It is not your place to disobey him.”

“I will accept the consequences of doing so. Please, I wish to keep my visit brief.”

“I guess you better. It’s not long till night fall.”

Lysander wasn’t exactly what you would call a friend, but Harry knew him from the days when Greyback was still Head Alpha. He was even tempered and deceptively mellow, but if pushed and he pushed back three times as hard. Being nearly two hundred and fifteen pounds of muscle, not a lot of people pushed him. Harry didn’t intend to push him either, but he did expect their discussion to be taken seriously. They moved into what looked to be the communal kitchen, leaving Stratus and Kinglsey at the door and everyone else outside. Lysander poured him a tankard of ale, and Harry sipped it politely until the man was settled across the wooden table from him.

“Do you know why I am here?” Harry asked.

“Quiet frankly, no, I don’t. Blackbone made it clear you’re to stay out of this.”

“I would, but for the fact that no one else seems to be doing anything about it. Including yourself.”

Lysander stiffened, his expression disappearing. Harry continued.

“You know who attacked the village.”

“It was dark. They came in on broomsticks and disappeared quickly.”

“But you know who it was.”

The man remained silent.

“You lied to Blackbone. You lied to the Sentinels who came to investigate. He knows you did. He may kill you the next time he sees you. With Samhain coming, I imagine that will be soon. My question is… why? Why protect them? They killed our brother.”

“Our brother?” the man sneered, “You are no brother to the werewolves. You broke your ties with us when you broke your staff-”

“I broke my ties with Greyback! I broke my ties to that role amongst the werewolves. I never turned away from them. Would I be here otherwise?”

Lysander settled back, considering. Finally, he shrugged.

“I guess not. What do you want?”

“I want your testimony. I want you to cooperate when the Sentinels come back and ask for you to tell them who killed Rusofoe.”

The werewolf shook his head.

“It’s useless. They will do nothing. They will call us liars, and turn away and then those village brats will know they can get away with it and it will happen again. We must handle it ourselves. The next time it happens, we will tear them to pieces.”

Harry took a deep breath, and tried to calm himself. To remind himself that the man didn’t know the things he knew, and his distrust in wizards was not unfounded.

“If you kill them all the villagers will despise you. Let the law handle it. I promise you I will see justice done.”

“Whose justice? Your Dark Lord’s justice?” he laughed.

“Do you think it any better or worse than your own?” the Gryffindor pointed out. “Besides, what is the harm? If I am wrong, then you will be free to tear them apart the next time it happens. If I am right, then the villagers will know there are consequences for messing with you, and are less likely to try again.”

Lysander rubbed his beard and considered.

“They may hate you for it,” he pointed out. “They will know it was your idea to have those boys arrested.”

“They are not my responsibility. I can live with their hatred if it means you and the others are safe.”

“Ack! Why do you put it like that? Makes me feel guilty already.”

Harry grinned at him.

“You’ll do it then?”

“Yes. Now get out of here. This place isn’t safe for you.”

“I would like to pay my respects to Rusofoe before I go.”

The man stood, and Harry stood as well on instinct. He soon found himself being herded towards the exit.

“You honor him just by coming here. Go.”

“Wait! What is the hurry? It’s hours still sunset and we can apparate to the village now that we’ve seen where we’re going. There is still plenty of time!”

Lysander shook his head.

“You cannot apparate from here. You must go a ways into the woods first. Once you have passed the pillar of the forest god, then you can apparate. They will likely try to delay you.”

“‘They’?” Kingley asked, as they all moved outside.

“The fae. The forest dwellers here are notorious tricksters. They must all know you are here by now.”

Harry felt a slow blooming trepidation. His experience with fae, aside from the monster at Dunnan Hill, had always been enjoyable or at least harmless, but he was starting to become truly worried. Something about all the local’s warning made him suspect that he was in particular danger from these mysterious beings.

“We’re going, we’re going!” Harry let out an exasperated huff, annoyed with himself. There was no danger… yet. They were just being cautious.

“We’ll follow you as far as we can,” the alpha said, ignoring his outburst. “The paths change around sometimes, if you’re not paying attention.”

“Lovely,” Stratus muttered under his breath, then snapped out orders to the Culties to hurry up and fall into formation. Harry moved briskly, never feeling more protected and more uncomfortably confined in his life. Kingsley walked ahead, Stratus behind, the soldiers in a circle around him, and the werewolves scattered around them. They moved into the forest, and immediately Harry knew something was wrong.

He froze. Everyone else stopped and turned to him.

“What is it?” Kingsley asked.

Harry turned around.

The road behind them was gone.

Faeries

“How many times do I have to say I’m sorry about the betrothal? I am sorry. Do you think I’m not being sincere?” Ron insisted, following Hermione through the halls towards Gryffindor tower. It was late, only a few minutes to curfew and he knew he would be in trouble should Cypher catch him on the way back, but getting Hermione alone had proven problematic. He had her in half a dozen classes and saw her frequently in the Hogwart’s Herald staff offices, but since he was reduced to the point of groveling privacy was essential.

“I believe you,” Hermione said coolly, without looking at him, “And I accept your apology. Now if you’ll excuse me…”

He let out a frustrated sigh.

“Why are you so impossible?”

Without altering her expression or tone she replied.

“I fear I haven’t the slightest idea.”

He quickly lost all patience with her, and his beseeching look turned mutinous.

“You are incredibly self-centered, you know that?”

“Excuse me?”

“Self-centered. Egotistical. Selfish.”

“I know the meaning of the word, Weasley. I don’t see the reasoning behind your statement.”

Ron felt a sense of progress. She was actually looking at him now, and it bolstered his confidence.

“Don’t you think it is incredibly conceited of you to expect me to have just automatically known something was going on with you, when it completely escaped your notice that something was going on with me at the same time?”

She stopped, her expression breaking into something more lively than callous disregard. Definitely progress.

“You mean you being sick?” she asked, though uncertain.

“No, not about me being sick. Although what was going on was the reason I was sick.”

“… Why didn’t you say…” and she cut herself off, looking suddenly embarrassed. It seemed to finally occur to her how ridiculous she was really being about the whole thing.

“Why didn’t I say anything? Because if I wanted you to know, I would have told you about it, instead of making assumptions or expecting you to read my mind. I don’t know what classes you’ve been taking but legilimency isn’t taught in any of mine!”

Oops. He had gone too far with that bit of self-righteousness. Her expression darkened considerably, morphing into real anger.

“So you’re holding onto your secrets as tight as you can, and I’m just suppose to shout them out to you? No one ever tells me anything! Why do I have to be the one always guessing?” she shouted.

“I’m not Potter, so don’t blame me for his Mr. Mysterious routine!”

“Don’t point to Harry every time you’re feeling inadequate!”

“Ugh!” he shouted, throwing up his arms in disgust. “Impossible harpy!”

“Obstinate imbecile!”

They both stormed away from each other in opposite directions. Tomorrow, Ron expected there would be whispers about their little spat at the breakfast table. The hallways echoed terribly and with everyone trapped inside, the students were desperate for a little drama to entertain themselves. Draco would probably start making his life difficult. His former ‘friend’ was frankly growing more and more similar to his father every day, and it made him uneasy while he was still recovering from his illness. He had always prided himself on being self-sufficient, but he was entering a stage of his education where all his fellow Slytherins were learning the art of alliances and he had neither the skill nor the patience for the game.

He was no follower. He had little in the way of influence or finances to entice others to follow him either, and he knew his personality wasn’t exactly endearing if Hermione attitude towards him were any indication. He had a tendency to inspire annoyance more often then not if he were honest with himself. Even so, he had little inclination to change.

“Why Weasley, your romantic prowess leaves me green with envy… or perhaps it’s just this evening’s attempt at flounder,” a familiar and loathed voice interrupted his thoughts from somewhere ahead of him, the cadence almost musical in its mockery. She appeared from the shadows of an alcove a scant few feet from the stairwell leading to the dungeons with the silence and grace of a night wraith, and he felt just about as happy to meet one as he was the other.

“Cypher,” he said blandly, expecting some ridiculous scolding followed by an over inflated punishment. Her smile was full of venom.

“Oh, Weasley, there’s no need to be so cold. I’m not here to get you in trouble,” she said with a saccharine tone. “Not if you talk to me for a little bit. I can hardly report you for being out during curfew when I’m the one holding you up, now can I?”

“It’s never stopped you in the past. What do you want?”

“Just a little conversation. You know, seeing how you are doing. You’ve been keeping to yourself so often these days, I can’t help be a little curious as to what you have been up to.”

He rolled his eyes.

“I’ve been sick. That’s as interesting as it gets,” he said, and moved towards the stairs. She stepped in front of him before he could.

“Oh, I am very sure you were sick, but like you said to Hermione, there was something else going on. Still going on, perhaps? Something you’ve been conspiring with Harry about?”

He felt a swell of embarrassment at realizing she had overheard his fight with Hermione, had possibly been tailing behind them like a demented voyeur. Embarrassment didn’t suit him however, so he hid it under a veil of exasperation and disgust.

“You’re coming to me about Potter? Seriously? How desperate are you?”

Her expression didn’t change even the slightest.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that? My relationship with Harry is straight froward and simple-”

Yes, he agreed mentally, in the alien universe where women make sense it probably was.

“But, you aren’t Harry’s friend. In fact, you have always been more like an enemy, feeble in that capacity though you may be, which begs the question of why you have been spending so much time with him. And why he lets you for that matter.”

“Why don’t you ask him? Since you both are so buddy buddy, and I am calculating the odds of getting away with pushing you backwards down the stairs.”

“Well, for one, Harry’s run off to save the world again. For another, he’s a better liar than you.”

“Oi! He is not!”

“Alright, then he’s just better at keeping secrets. Which means he’s just a really good liar-by-omission.”

He rolled his eyes and maneuvered himself around her with a nimble little spinning turn, making it to the steps and scot free.

“If you say so. I honestly don’t care. We’re not friends, we’ve just been stuck together for some school assignments. There’s nothing going on. Goodnight and good riddance.”

“For instance,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken, her slightly raised voice the only indication that she recognized that he wasn’t standing in front of her with his complete attention. “He seems to have been very successful at keeping the secret about Hermione from you, despite all the time you’ve been spending together.”

Ron paused. Mentally kicking himself, he looked back at her.

“Oh, really, and what secret is that?”

“Hhmm… it’s quite a doozy. Even I’m impressed with it.”

“Uh-huh? And again, what secret?”

“What secret?”

“Yes, what secret?”

“Well, it’s a secret so of course I can’t just tell you. Not unless, of course, we were the sort of friends that could share secrets.”

Oh, she was good. Horrible, nasty little girl, but a fantastic Slytherin. If it weren’t for her inferior bloodline, Voldemort probably would have been happy to marrying Harry off to her to create the perfect race of Slytherins with impossible good luck and a propensity for simultaneously pissing off and charming large numbers of people. Ron was secretly glad that nature had created a barrier from such a generation of terrifying predators from ever entering the general population.

But a disinterested admiration aside, he didn’t like the idea of playing into her game. He did want to know what secret she was referring to, as he hadn’t had an inkling of it, but he was hardly about ready to hand over his own to someone he shared only mutual animosity with. It could easily be a trick. Also, now that he knew to ask, there might be others who knew about it who would be easier to pry it from.

“I’ll think about it,” he said, because it wouldn’t due to turn her down immediately. She might get testy if she lost the game before it started, and he was still hoping to get out of a detention.

She smiled, and waved him off.

“You do that.”

For a brief moment, no one spoke but merely stared at the collection of trees and undergrowth standing there as if it had been there for a hundred years when in fact it had sprung up in the course of half a minute. Just as the reality of this unreality was starting to sink in, a single long note bellowed through the forest, shoving them forcefully back to their senses. Lysander expressed the moment aptly with a softly muttered ‘oh bugger’.

“Can we turn back?” Stratus said sharply, his militant tones snapping his soldiers back into military attention.

“Go back to what? Even if it’s right beyond that patch of forest, our colony doesn’t have any protection against faeries. They’ve never been interested in werewolves, and wards would only have provoked them. You’ll have to get to the idol and apparate from there.”

“Can we make it?” Kinglsey asked.

“Not if we stand around here asking questions,” Harry said unprompted, knowing they were just wasting time. They needed to move. “We can talk while we run.”

And he then he started running, and everyone in their party immediately followed. They had no choice, he was their responsibility and their purpose for being there. Stratus had the authority to counter his command, but he saw the wisdom in it. It was unlikely they would make it to the idol before they were attacked, but if they could shorten the distance between their inevitable conflict and their moment of safety they would have to risk it. They knew neither the enemies numbers nor their nature, which among the hundreds of faerie tribes they were facing; be they the Daoine Sidhe, the Tuatha de Dannan, the Seelie, the Unseelie, the Milesians, or some branch they had no scholarship of. They were as likely to face a pack of savage orcs as they were a couple of harmless if somewhat mischievous goodfellows, and Stratus frankly didn’t intend to wait around to find out.

As Tom Riddle, he had only spent two summers under the tutelage of Carrigan before his fragment of soul had been sheered off and placed in the journal, but faerie visitors had been frequent and what he had gleaned from that brief time was that they were not to be trifled with in groups. Looking to Harry, who he was intentionally keeping abreast of, he could tell by the boy’s expression that he wasn’t intending to take any chances either.

The hunting horn they had heard earlier did not sound again, but rather than reassure them it only made them more anxious. They had no idea how fast their enemy was moving or how close they were. The horn had sounded from the south, but Stratus warned them to look out in all directions, as the horn may only have signaled others that the hunt was on and not the point at which the hunt had started. Harry, being stuck in the middle, took the responsibility of watching above them. He was not as familiar with the fae as he probably should be, but he knew there were several arboreal breeds that were known for swooping down from above or dropping snares down on unsuspecting victims as they sped by beneath them.

He was the first to spot the merlin, a tiny hawk he could identify easily from his animagus studies, swooping above them. Once, twice, three time and then it turned and disappeared back towards the south. He turned to Stratus to remark on this, but was distracted by a sharp yelp. Behind them, one of the werewolves, a gangly young thing with stooping shoulders and evasive eyes, had tripped and fallen. Lysander fell back a moment to pull him to his feet and they hurried after to catch up.

No one thought anything of it, until the squadron leader, Titanhorn, took a tumble a moment later, followed by another foot soldier called Kern. Then Stratus grabbed his arm and jerked him to the side.

“Look out!” he said sharply, and Harry looked down just in time to see a tree root arching up out of the ground and managed to hop over it. “Watch your feet everyone!”

Their feet weren’t the only thing they needed to watch. Kingsley was watching the surrounding forest and his feet so diligently, he missed the low hanging branch that suddenly dipped an extra few inches to bean him over the head. Harry half caught him and heaved him upright again before he fell completely. Almost immediately, everyone’s paced slowed considerably even as their desire to run faster intensified.

Trees which had been standing docilely one moment, now appeared to be slowly sliding their way onto the road, subject to some unseen gravity. Autumn vines slithered between them, rustling leaves into a serpentine hiss they went and cringing away at the feet threatening to trample them. Stones and broken tree branches rose up from the damp earth like bubbles rising from a swamp.

Within a few minutes the road was gone completely, and with it their tight formation. It was impossible to hold a straight line or hold a position while moving around and between oak trees nearly three feet thick and over tiny ditches and large stones, even when they weren’t moving. They did the best they could to hold a rough circle around Harry, but every member of their group was now disappearing out of sight for several seconds at a time and that was just asking for trouble. The only one who remained visible to Harry at all times was Stratus and Kingsley. Kingsley led the way and Harry obediently followed, while Stratus either ran beside him or directly behind when their path made that impossible. Their sense of direction was likewise skewed and although he hated to, Stratus called them to a halt for a moment to regain sense of their surroundings and take stock of their situation.

Everyone who had started the course was still with them except for the werewolf who had tripped earlier.

“I sent him back,” Lysander explained. “He twisted his ankle running and he’s not good in a fight anyway.”

“Is that safe?” Harry said, breathing heavily. He was rather embarrassed about his lack of endurance, but Dueling Club really wasn’t a replacement for Quidditch or hard exercise when it came to maintaining stamina.

“I doubt they’ll bother with him. Faeries aren’t interested in werewolves. Not unless its a full moon at least.”

“If they won’t bother you, then you should all go back. You’re not armed. You’ll be nothing more than fodder if we get into a fight.”

Stratus looked about ready to protest, but Lysander shook his head.

“We’ll escort you as far as we can. You’ll need all the eyes you can get.”

So instead the lieutenant turned to Kingsley.

“Cast a locating charm,” he ordered. “We’re becoming disoriented.”

The Sentinel frowned, but did as he was told, while the soldiers kept an eye out for danger. His wand balanced on the top of his hand, spinning this way and that like the needle of a compass. After a moment, it stopped and series of numbers glowed on top of it. Kinglsey looked up at them in alarm.

“What?” Harry demanded.

“We’re running away from it! It’s back there!”

He pointed behind them and off to their far right, where the trees were moving closer and closer together and the slithering vines were snaking between them to form a living barricade. Stratus frowned at it, but merely said.

“How much further?”

“A hundred yards at least.”

“Hey!” a slender Cultie witch called Guppy said suddenly, “Did anyone hear that? I thought I heard something moving!”

“Revelo!” Kern cast, but the spell fluttered around uselessly and died.

“That only works on magical objects, genius,”someone muttered.

“Well, you think of-”

“Stay focused!” Stratus snapped, then turned towards the green barricade. “Aresco mordicus.”

Before his wand, the earth died. Leaves withered and fell and withered still further into brown, half curled little corpses of themselves, turning to dust at the faintest disturbance. Vines shriveled into desiccated veins and dying trees groaned like aged giants.

Harry felt his insides crawl as he took his first steps forward, and flinch when Stratus cast it a second time. He did not have to cast it a third, the forest itself withdrew from them as silently and eerily as it had closed in. What was left was an impromptu road of death nearly ten feet across and stretching out before them. It was Dark Arts, not the most insidious kind, but it had to be flaking away pieces of its caster’s soul with every incantation.

“Wicked,” someone said, and Harry agreed although not in the same context.

“Focus,” was Stratus’ only reply. “We’re not-”

And then the first attack started.

It came not in the form of steel or arrows or curses. It came on four legs, silent as ghosts and fast as lightening. It came with teeth and relentless training right down its very DNA.

It came in the form of dogs.

Harry caught sight of them first out of the corner of his Quidditch Seeker’s eye as a flash of white spiriting between the trees. There was four of them total, all of them with the tall, powerful build of wolfhounds but with silky white coats but for the orange patches encircling their ears. He knew them as a faerie breed, but their names and characteristics escaped him. He had neither the time nor the inclination to wonder about it just then. Their rapid dash towards them told Harry all he needed to know, and he threw out a curse before he even bothered with a warning.

“Celoxis!”

The Cutting Curse sailed between two Culties and straight for the line of dogs, but they scattered intuitively. The curse sailed on until it struck a tree already dead under Stratus’ curse and shattered it into a explosion of splintering wood. The others spotting the danger, began to cast their own spells to bring down the creatures that had broken their lines in order to encircle them like wolves around a flock of sheep. Then just as silently as they appeared they disappeared into the underbrush.

“What was that?” Kingsley asked. “Are they gone?”

“No,” Harry and Lysander said simultaneously, glanced at each other, and the young wizard let the alpha explain. “Typical pack hunting behavior. They wanted to panic us and make us run, break up our defensive positions, then take down the weakest or the slowest of the group. Now they’ve gone back to stalking. They’ll rush us again later or simply slow us down enough for their masters to catch up to us.”

“So what now?”

“We keep going,” Stratus said, calmly, “As quickly as we can without breaking formation.”

Everyone silently agreed to this, although the instinct to bolt was running high. But they were more than dumb animals, and wouldn’t be outsmarted by them. Or that was the idea, until they came came to natural hill, nearly thirty feet up and eroded half away by the elements. There was no way around it without tripling their time, and they set about scaling it with a equal shares of trepidation.

Guppy went first, being the smallest and the most nimble, and made it most of the way up on two feet by grabbing hold of the numerous tree roots jutting out from the exposed soil, before being forced to drop to all fours to scale over the top. When she was safely over the edge, she looked about and gave them the all clear.

Kingsley and Titanhorn went up, followed by Harry and Stratus, and then the rest of the Culties with the werewolves waiting at the bottom to bring up the rear. Harry was almost to the top, when he heard the sound of hooves. He paused where he was climbing, and so did everyone else, catching what he was hearing. The distance of the houses was hard to determine in the forest, but it was getting steadily closer. Stratus touched his arm, drawing his attention.

“Hurry up, we don’t want to be caught with our backs to them when they arrive.”

Harry nodded and went back to his climbing, but a terrified shriek alerted him that something was happening above him. He jumped to the side, barely avoiding being knocked into as Guppy fell, but not avoiding the panicked grasp of her hand on his cloak. He was torn from his perch and thrown backward, landing heavily on his back several feet down and then continued to roll several more feet as loosened soil crumbled and gave way beneath him.

He slid the last few feet to the bottom, the breath knocked out of him and dizzy but unhurt, his wand remained in his hand and amazingly wasn’t unbroken. A few feet away Guppy was still screaming, and he turned to see that her fall had apparently been assisted by a white hound that was now struggling to drag her away into the forest. He aimed his wand to cast a spell, but had to divert his aim when Stratus yelled out a warning above him.

A second hound was bolting down the hill, dodging effortlessly between the wizards and witches and heading straight for him. He had only enough time to throw up his arms to shield his neck from its fangs, and miscalculated by putting his wand arm out first. Power jaws clamped down, and he grunted at the painful pressure, but his arm guards held and he kept his grip on his wand. The hound pressed its attack, shaking his arm savagely as if trying to disarm him, but he refused to let go.

Behind him he herd a yelp, this time not of Guppy but of the hound, and he dared a glance back in time to see Lysander wrenching the beast off of the witch by the scruff of its neck, and with a display of great strength he lifted the ninety-pounds of writhing, snarling flesh over his head and brought it down sharply over his knee. There was a horribly snap and the hound went limp.

The alpha let out a triumphant snarl and turned his attention to Harry now, but the Gryffindor had already found his own solution. Drawing his knife, a gift from Draco he had ironically brought as an extra defense against his friend’s father, from his boot, he stabbed it into the hound’s side. The hound took the wound to the neck, but amazingly it missed anything vital and it released him in order to scamper away with little more than a whimper.

“Harry! Harry!”

Stratus was leaning over him a moment later, looking pale and anxious as he checked him over frantically for injuries. Harry would have batted his hands away if he didn’t have a wand and knife in either of them.

“I’m fine. It didn’t get through the arm guard. What about Guppy?”

“Who?”

Harry rolled over and climbed shakily to his feet. He could see now that the Culties were now all at the bottom of the hill again, encircling him in a defensive position. Only Kingsley was still at the top, looking about. Lysander was now carrying the wounded Cultie, who was weeping softly and cradling her broken, bleeding arm.

“We’ve got incoming, people!” Kingsley shouted before he could think to do anything for her. “At least fifteen on horseback and at least twice that many on foot!”

“What are they?” Stratus called back.

“Elves! Bloody mean-looking elves!”

“Well, shit,” Stratus grumbled, then commanded his people, “Cast some shields and hurry to the top!”

He seized Harry by the arm and pulled him forward, ignoring his stumbling and swaying and practically hurling up the first slippery steps of the hill. The youth scrambled to comply, shoving his knife into the belt of his pants, so that he could move on three limbs instead of two while Stratus maintained his hold on his wand arm and pulled him upwards at a ruthless pace.

An arrow struck their shield magic and shattered into so much dust. This was followed by several more, all of them having about as much effect as wet noodles thrown in a fire. Harry didn’t turn around, he couldn’t while being dragged upwards, but it seemed a terrible waste of arrows.

“What are they doing?” he panted.

Stratus wasn’t looking at them either, only at the top where their position would offer them an advantage to their pursuers below.

“They’re testing the range of the shields.”

They reached the top, and Harry felt himself finally coming back to his full senses as Kingsley took his free arm and pulled him up over the edge. He rolled to his feet and turned to face their enemy… only to find to his infinite frustration that they were hidden in a dense cloud of fog.

“What the… what is that?”

“This is worse than I thought,” Stratus said, “They have some sort of conjurer in their party.”

“Conjurer?”

“All fae have their own innate magic unique to their species, but only a few are true conjurers… able to use and manipulate magic the same way a wizard would. They’re typically female. Enchantresses. Aim for any women in their party if you have the opportunity.”

Looking down at the wall of featureless gray he didn’t see such an opportunity arising and wasn’t sure if he would have taken it even if he had.

“Absolutely,” he said anyway.

“Good. Fuegoriserpens !”

From Stratus’ wand a line of fire appeared, racing down the hill, then snaking its way across the forest floor, around trees and stones and debris, setting withered earth below alight. The fire spread rapidly in the dry kindling, fanning out behind the slithering line of flames, driving back the fog with the intensity of its heat.

As the cover retreated, a number of their enemy suddenly became visible. They were indeed elves. Not the pitiful decrepit slaves of the Wizarding World, or the fey, graceful creatures Harry had familiarized himself with in the Black Forest. These were something else entirely. Their mounts were horse-like, but not true horses; their limbs slender like a deer’s, their necks too long and flexible, and a pair of short, sharp antlers perched atop their heads. Their legs were swaddled in protective bindings, their backs, chests, necks, and head covered in flexible, multi-plated armor of gold or silver. They were built for speed and maneuverability, but had more than enough strength to carry their riders, who were no less alien to look upon.

The elves were also armored in silver or gold, but only with breastplates which they wore over rich scarlet or royal blue, and the occasional gauntlet. The mounted elves were all the same species, yet they varied greatly from one to another, some with skin so black it almost appeared blue, and others so white they shimmered in the rainbow hues of the nacreous side of a clam shell. Some had small antlers like their horses, some eyes with nothing but red, others still with golden scale patterned across their forehead and cheeks.

The only thing that bound them together as a single race was the almost identical structure of their bodies. They all had the same hyper-lithe musculature, small, pointed ears, dagger sharp cheek bones and large eyes set in long, narrow faces. They were all the same height. They were all the same build. The only definitive distinction between the males and females were the slight curve in the women’s breastplates and the occasional appearance of facial hair amongst the men. All of them were armed with crossbows and swords, more ready for a war than a hunt.

They were not the only beings either.

There were others on foot, but they were not elves, and in fact Harry could not readily identify them. Their arms were skeletal thin with fingers containing an extra joint, bulging thighs and cloven hooves, and appeared to be covered with short layer of thick green and brown moss except for a neat strip of naked gray flesh from their eyebrows to their unclothed sex. Their black eyes were enormous in proportion to their head and their noses were tiny.

They had no mouths. None that Harry could see from his perch, but it gave them a sinister quality. Creatures without mouths required special means to sustain themselves, and these means were often the things of nightmares. More than the eager, calculating gaze of the elves, the primitive hunger in those soulful black eyes frightened him.

He made a note to himself that they fled quickly in the presence of Stratus’ fire spell.

Indeed, they scampered away rapidly in a panic, but the elves maintained their positions even as the their mounts danced away from the flames under foot. Amongst them, only a single rider actually moved forward, clothed in scarlet and without armor, the enchantress stood out as unusual even amongst her varied kin.

She was an elf… or maybe she wasn’t. She was not the same breed as the others in any case. She looked almost human, if not for the rainbow sheen in her raven hair and the solid black line that ran from her bottom lip to the underside of chin and down her neck where it disappeared into the rim of her breastplate. She was fairy-tale beautiful. Perfectly pale skin, perfectly large electric blue eyes, a cupid’s bow mouth with naturally red lips, and a body that… well…a very nice body.

Harry couldn’t help but stare. She caught his gaze for a moment, and smiled at him with warm affection rather than the murderous intent she had been displaying up to this point.

Definitely, the Enchantress, he thought.

Stratus let his curse fly the moment he identified her. It flew straight and true, and Harry cried out in alarm and nearly threw himself at the man. Irrationally, he did not want her to be hurt. He needn’t have worried. With a wave of her wand, which was made of silver rather than wood, she destroyed the curse causing the air to shimmer for a moment in a red haze. In the same moment, the blazing fire around them extinguished and the mist lunged forward to conceal the hunters once again.

The soldiers stood at the edge of the cliff, searching for some clue as to what they would do next or discern where they were intending to move. Harry searched for another sign of the enchantress.

His sign came as an arrow, and this time he obeyed his instinct to throw himself at Stratus. He took the man completely by surprise and succeeded in knocking him to the ground. The arrow missed them both by a hair, but continued straight on, nicking Kern in the arm as it passed.

“What the hell!” Kern swore.

“Put up the damn shield!” Kinglsey shouted.

“It is up! It’s up, it’s up, I swear!” a Cultie shouted back.

Harry rolled off of Stratus, who blinked owlishly at him.

“You saved my life.”

“Yep,” was all Harry said, and cast a shield charm. A second arrow sailed right through it, barely missing Kingsley. Everyone quickly moved away from the edge of the cliff, including Lysander who had just cleared the top with the injured Guppy slung over his shoulder. “Running would probably be a good idea now.”

Again they were running, faster now than was safe or reasonable. They only had a little further to go and they could leave this nightmare before anything worse happened. They had bought a little time, as the faeries would either have to climb the hill themselves or go around, but it wouldn’t be much.

“How are they shooting through our shields?” Kinglsey demanded.

“It’s mistletoe,” Stratus said, “The arrows are made out of mistletoe. They can fly right through most magical shields.[1]”

“Seriously? How the hell didn’t I know that?”

“How many witches and wizard still use bows and arrows while fighting? Even faeries rarely use them. Holly is poisonous to them. The Enchantress is the probably the only one carrying, and she’s plenty enough to deal with.”

Harry mentally cataloged this information away. He was trained with a bow and arrow, although by no means a master, and this was something he might use in the future. If he survived this encounter, of course. Just as he was thinking of possible applications for it, Kern suddenly stopped running. Immediately, he fell behind, and Lysander’s second werewolf drew back to check him. A moment later there was a shout for help.

Harry tried to stop, but Stratus grabbed his arm and pulled him along.

“He’s hurt!”

“He’s dead,” Stratus stated clinically. “That arrow that cut him was poisoned.”

“What?”

There was a moment of horrible realization. That arrow had been meant for Stratus, and while Harry’s move had saved the lieutenant, it had doomed Kern in the process. He tried to stop again to jerk free of the man’s grip, but he wouldn’t let go and Kingsley took his other arm as soon as he realized what he was trying to do.

“There is nothing you can do for him, and you’ll only put the rest of us in danger if you try,”
the Sentinel insisted. “You can feel bad about it later, but right now-”

From above, Harry spotted the merlin from before swooping by overhead.

“Incoming!” he shouted, and ground beneath them surged, knocking their party off its feet. One of the Culties thrown several feet and smashed against a tree, and collapsed in a heap at its base. Harry was pulled out of both his guardians’ grip and tossed aside, the others similarly scattered and unbalanced. He tried to right himself, but the earth was still moving beneath him, and he watched with horror as an enormous hand appeared from the tossed soil. It reached for him, easily five times larger than a normal hand, and he pulled his legs away quickly. Unable to reach him yet, the arm swung around in search of another victim, and snagged Titanhorn by his cloak. The squadron leader shouted and struggled to remove the cloak, but a second arm broke through and seized him by the leg. Then there was one last subterranean surge and their attacker emerged in a monolith of flesh and dirt.

It was easily as tall as a troll, but it form was less hulking, more muscle than fat, with dirt encrusted skin drawn tight over it. Standing, it was at least least twelve feet tall, and if that wasn’t intimidating enough its head was completely concealed by a black helm without a single hole for seeing or breathing, only a pair of ram-shaped horns spiraling out of it.

“What the devil…” some one swore.

The helm immediately swiveled to the speaker, and it lurched forward to grab at him with his free left hand while carrying Titanhorn along like a doll in the other. Curses were immediately fired; fire and freezing and cutting and bludgeoning curses but the giant only roared beneath its encasement and swung his massive fist in a one great sweep. Two Culties were hit in the swing, one of them a glancing blow that never the less sent her spinning the other directly, the force and speed of it enough kill the second wizard instantly. Harry had already been crouched behind a tree, and felt splinters raining down on him where the fist had smashed smashed into the wood.

Meanwhile, Titanhorn still hanging from the monster’s grip, cast a spell, not on the giant but on his leg causing the limb to become slick. Immediately, he slid out of its grip, and tried to flee, but the giant reach for and caught him a second time. He cast the Slicking Charm again on his chest this time and fell out of his grip again. Frustrated, the giant made several more tries for him, but always he slipped free until he escaped completely by jumping through the split trunk of a large elm.

Enraged, it bellowed furiously at the ensemble, which was now scattered in a loose circle around it, trying to find some weakness. Harry kept his place hidden behind the tree, trying to figure out how any of them where going to get away from it. Every time anyone spoke or move it lunged for them, and only their numbers had kept it’s attention scattered enough for them to avoid being taken.

It was like the dogs, Harry realized. It was meant only to break their defensive position and slow them down until the true hunters arrived. Already, he could here the pounding of hooves, the concealing wall of fog closing in on them from a distance. He looked around the group for Kingsley and Stratus, but only Kingsley spotted him from his hiding position. He signaled him with urgent gestures that they needed to move, which only earned him a ‘well, duh’ look in return. He tried to gesture that they needed a distraction, but it only confused the man, and while they were busy trying signal their communications the giant was starting to move again.

It strode back to the disturbed mound of earth he had first appeared from, and shoved a fist into the ground, then with a massive heave he pulled loose a weapon even taller than he was. It was a sword, but shaped strangely like am elongated meat cleaver. Although it had to have weighed over two hundred pounds at least, the giant gave it a practice swing with only one hand and cleaved the tree Harry was hiding behind in half. The aim was high, but it startled him badly and he couldn’t stop the shout of surprise as the blade passed a scant few inches above his head. Immediately, a great hand reached for him. He jerked away even as the tree began to fall, aided by a nudge of the giant’s shoulder.

He looked up to see the tree tilt and then rapidly descend in a deafening crash, and he was forced to leap back closer to the giant to avoid behind crushed. The noise seemed to have disoriented the behemoth, and rather than take Harry instantly, it felt around the ground blindly for several seconds. Harry realized it was completely blind, and relied on hearing and touch alone.

Not that it would do him any good now that it was practically on top of him.

A rock the size of bludger suddenly smashed into the giant’s head, and bounced off with a clang.It straightened, turning to the source of the attack. The trapped Gryffindor dared a peek over the fallen tree to see Stratus levitating another rock with his wand, a moment later hurling it towards the giant, this time striking it in the chest. It grunted at the impact, then roared, charging towards his enemy.

“Get out of here, Harry! I can handle this one on my own!” he shouted before dashing into the trees with the giant hot on his immediately ran towards the closest fallen soldier, and found him dead. He went to another, this one who had been thrown into a tree. Unconscious, and bleeding profusely from his ears and nose, he felt little hope for him. The third who had caught a glancing blow was curled on the ground, struggling to breathe.

“Arespheare has broken ribs,” Kingsley said, “He can’t be moved.”

“Well, we can’t leave him here!” another Cultie snapped, then quickly looked over her shoulder to make sure the giant hadn’t heard them and decided to turn around. Harry watched for a moment, but the giant soon disappeared in the encroaching mist, and he could only mark its progress by the sudden fall of a tree. Already, he felt a sense of grief for the man who had saved his life.

It was only a matter of time before it caught its prey.

Tom was feeling decidedly stupid and aggravated with himself, as he dove to clear a falling tree. He landed roughly on his chest and stomach, felt a distinct ache in his ribs were a small stone had jabbed him, but rose quickly to his feet again. The fallen tree bought him a moment as the helmet giant climbed over it, but it was already far too close for comfort. It was a stupid thing, and Tom had tricked it twice by casting spells that caused distracting sounds away from him, but it was starting to catch on. Even so he felt he should have figured out some weakness in it by now, aside for its general dimness, but had been too pressed to avoid being cut in half or crushed in a massive fist to think of anything useful.

What had he been thinking drawing the creature away himself? He could have easily cast an Imperius Curse on one of the soldiers and had them distract the creature. It hadn’t occurred to him at the time, honestly, although now he could think of nothing else. When it happened his only thought was ‘it’s going to kill Harry’ and that was as far as his intelligence had extended itself. Now he was alone and left to fight off the seemingly impervious behemoth and he had only himself (and perhaps Harry to a certain extent) to blame for it. The enchanted mist had closed in around him, causing beads of moisture to form over him and dampen his clothes in an unpleasant chill. It also reduced his visibility to only about fifteen feet ahead or behind him, making strategical planning difficult when he had no way of knowing what to expect ahead of him and where the giant was behind him (except during those rather panic inducing moments where he couldsee it and that meant it was too damn close). To make matters worse, he knew the elves were somewhere close, even if he could not see or hear them yet. Hopefully, they couldn’t see him either, although they were making enough noise he didn’t see how they couldn’t find him easy enough.

He was not particularly attached to his current body, but the positioned he obtained while in it was something he did not wished to abandon. It had been incredible good fortune, and he had abandoned too many plans already just as they seemed to be making progress. He could… he would keep this body. The dumb brute was not going to be his undoing.

“Silencio!”

Immediately, the world went on mute. The helmet giant hesitated mid-swing only few yards away from him. Tom sighed in relief, took a moment to catch his breath, and really think for a moment. The monster seemed impervious to spells cast directly on it. In fact, although he doubted anyone else had noticed, they seemed to be actively absorbed by it, making it stronger. This is the only reason Tom had hesitated with using the Killing Curse. Faeries were not like wizards, seeing as they were already half spirit, and life and death had completely different meanings to them. It was like comparing sleep and waking and the hundred states of consciousness between. There was no telling what state the creature was in and if the Killing Curse didn’t kill it, then it very well might have made it unstoppable.

What did that leave him then, if he could not cast spells on it?

Perhaps he could just slip away under the Silencing charm? Did he dare let it out of his sight. What if it left the sphere of the charm to hunt him down and he was unable to see it coming in the mist? It was a risk he-

The giant swung pulled back and made another swing with his sword, and Tom was forced to duck yet again. The charm shattered under an unseen magical force, and the area was flooded with the sound of bird song and distant sound of pounding hooves. What the bloody-

Snap!

The helmet swiveled towards him, and he looked down to see the twig broken beneath his heel. Well, that was just typical. There was another bellowing roar and the monster charge him again, eating up the distance between them in two massive strides. Muttering a spell, Tom jumped, flying several meters in the air before landing sideways half way up the trunk of a large, gnarled oak. His feet stuck to the side, and he back up into the branches several feet to get out of range. The giant’s brilliant response, rather than cutting down the tree, was to put the sword down, wrap its arms around it, and shake it vigorously. This only succeeded in shaking free a number of acorns and making Tom vaguely nauseous.

In a change of fortune, the oak, which was very large but suffering maladies that were not improved by shaking, shed one of its limbs. Tom managed to avoid the branch, and watched with a great deal of satisfaction when it landed on the giant’s head. There was loud clang,the giant lurched, the branch was tossed aside by a clumsy arm, but it left behind a sizable dent and the creature weaved dizzily. Tom’s eyes widened in realization.

Of course! The giant might have been impervious to magic cast against it, but that didn’t mean he was impervious to physical objects. He quickly cast a transfiguration spell on several limbs of the tree, transforming the half rotten branches into sleek, heavy javelins. Meanwhile, the behemoth had over come its disorientation, and sensing his prey was up to something, it let out an angry bellow and reached for its sword.

Tom broke the javelins free the of the trunk and let them fly.

The result was… satisfying. The wooden spears caught the giant cleanly, throwing it down and pinning it to the earth like a mounted butterfly. It made no sound but spasmed in its death throes, which lingered long enough for Tom to climb back down the tree, and continued when he carefully pulled the giant sword free of its hand. He danced aside as the enormous blade fell over, nearly crushing him as it went. He calculated the possibility of keeping it as a war trophy, a shrinking charm and feather lite charm would make it transportable, but honestly he wasn’t sure where he could keep it. Maybe Harry could find a place for it in Hogwarts.

Harry.

“Tabula locusHarry Potter.”

His wand spun atop his hand three times before stopping to point due North, and a series of floating numbers indicated the boy was moving but still much too close to have successfully apparated away yet. He still might have been close enough to see if it weren’t for the cursed fog. He cast a feather lite charm on the sword and hefted it over his shoulder. He would keep it at its full size for the moment, he decided, just in case he ran into some other magic resistant species. Besides, it would look damn impressive when he caught up with his group, and wasn’t above showing off a little.

He was taken by surprise when a masculine voice carried through the fog.

“Almes ne natur, mishas skure.”

“Celoxis!”he shouted, aiming his curse at the shadow in the mist. The mist parted for a moment under the force of the spell, revealing no one, before rolling back into a concealing sheet.

“Oohh… sushu ri ne nasis!”

“Celoxis!”

The curse missed, and the shadow retreated. It laughed, but Tom didn’t waste another spell.

“Show yourself,” he demanded. “Unless you fear me?”

It was an obvious ruse, but there were faeries whose pride would not let them overlook the insult. The laughter stopped, and after a moment the voice returned, this time speaking in English.

“Indeed. You have proven yourself quite formidable. No wizard has slain a fermedi in nearly six hundred years. I hope our fight proves entertaining.”

This time when Tom turned towards the voice, its owner’s visage made itself known, the mist slowly shying away from him. It was an elf, of the same breed as the ones he had seen in the forest, but strange in that he appeared almost devoid of any eccentric features. Raven black hair, bright blue eyes, and pale skin. Not a scale or an antler to be seen at all, and the affect some how made him look almost child-like in comparison to his extravagant kinsmen. Though if you took the comparison away, there was nothing child-like about him. He was tall, almost handsome except his elven cheekbones made his features a touch too sharp, with eyes that knew murder and a mouth that had smiled while committing it.

He was touched by the same regal grace of the others, but even here it was somehow corrupted by a predator’s coiled tension. His hunting attire was black, unarmored except for the arm guards, which shone silvery and nacreaus, the tell-tale sign of mithral, and a helm of the same material, which he was now holding under his arm. The black clothing marked him has a person of rank within his court. The mithral marked him as the king.

He knew this elf.

“Gulandri?” Tom said, taken off guard.

The elf tilted his head curiously.

“Have we met?”

Tom mentally slapped himself. Of course the elf wouldn’t recognize him, not in this body. He doubted it would serve him any better if he had.

“In another life, perhaps,” he said.

Gulandri continued to stare at him curiously for a moment, trying to figure out where they might have known each other. Nothing came to him, and he slipped his hand into a fold in his clothes to remove an object roughly the size of a Snitch. Tom recognized this too, and felt an instant swell of greed for it.

It was a stone; black, triangular, polished smoothed by a millennium of fast running water, and a perfectly round hole at its center that should have been completely impossible in nature. It was known to be the powerful, naturally occurring object known in any faerie or human realm combined.

The elves called it frrykshimini.Wizard’s called it the ‘All Seeing Eye’.

Gulandri lifted the stone to peer at him through the hole. Tom stiffened, knowing his secrets were being stripped from him instantly. The elf pulled the stone away and looked at him with recognition.

“Ah. You.”

“If you say so. Celoxis!”

If there was one thing that elves had going for them, and in fact they had many things, the most useful to them was likely their quickness. Not only was Gulandri able to avoid his curse, he was able to draw his weapon, a short curved blade sharpened on both sides, and was nearly on top of him before the wizard was able to cast another. Tom managed to lift the enormous sword he had taken from the fermedi to block a lethal strike. The elven blade sunk nearly half way through the crude metal before it became stuck. The half-second it bought him, Tom used to cast another spell, which the elf dodged again but at the expense of leaving his blade lodged in Tom’s.

“Well played, wicked child,” he said, once again disappearing into the mists, his voice ringing out in every direction. “You have disarmed me.”

There was a mocking humor to the tone that made Tom think he was being ironic.

“Ordoro lumus Gulandri Le’ Espirriur.” he cast, a small red sphere of light appearing from his wand, and zipping into the mist to his left.

“Oh good, you remember my full name. Erisshkyr nimish!”

What the hell? A conjurer? Since when?

The elven spell rebounded off Tom’s hastily thrown up shield charm, but threw him off balance. Gulandri followed up his attack by charging forward, the tracking orb trailing behind as it struggled to keep up with its target. The kick to the gut sent Tom sprawling, winded, to the ground. The second kick to his side left him curled about his bruised ribs. The third kick he caught, held, and let loose a Killing Curse.

The elf threw up his arms instinctively to block, but it was useless. Elves were more ‘alive’ than spirit amongst the fae. The spell would destroy him. Inwardly, Tom crowed at his victory already assured. A giant and an elven king, all in one day. They were going to throw him a fucking parade when he got home.

He had let go of Gulandri to keep from absorbing any residual feedback from the curse, and the elf stumbled back several paces before stopping. Before stopping, and lowering his arms to stare down at him with an amused smirk. Tom’s eyes widened horror.

Merlin, the mithral. I didn’t factor in the mirthral.

Mithral absorbed magic. It was a major magical component in the Sword of Gryffindor, allowing it to absorb only that which made it stronger. Even in that great sword, there had only been a small amount. Gulandri’s arm guards and helmet, however, could be very near pure. But to absorb the Killing Curse… how…?

“That,” the elf said, his voice thick with pleasure, “was very, very naughty.”

He made a show of moving forward slowly, as if to make himself a more tempting target. Tom was still too transfixed by his survival to do anything other than stare. The elf stopped only when he was once again standing over him.

“Do it again.”

Harry took stock of their situation. Kern was dead, along with the second Cultie whose name escaped him, Stratus was chased into the wilderness, Guppy was wounded and unable to fight, Lysander wasn’t able to do much while carrying her, another werewolf had already been sent away, Aresphere couldn’t even be moved, and they had another who was unconscious and unlikely to survive. The mist was closing in swiftly, and with it their clever enemy. That left ten fighters, and some very tough decisions to make.

“How far to the idol?” he asked.

“Twenty yards.”

“Can we levitate our wounded?”

“Yes, but even if we get to the idol they can’t apparate.”

“How many here can do side-along apparation?”

Only Kingsley and Titanhorn raised their hands. It was something.

“Okay then, secure the wounded and fall back into formation. You have thirty seconds.”

Without Stratus there, no one questioned this new shift in command, even if did happen to fall on the shoulders of a sixteen year old boy. It wasn’t a time for questions. They just wanted to get out of there, with as many of them alive as possible. Kingsley took care of Aresphere, levitating her into the center of their formation with the unconscious wizard and Lysander still carrying Guppy. Harry took up a side position, while Kinsgley led, being their unofficial navigator for their retreat.

The mist was now only twenty feet on either side of them, and they could make out the half formed shadows moving inside, and soon the soft clumpf-clumpf of hooves against the soft forest floor and the shuffle of bare feet over leaves. Their party moved as silently as they were followed, their wands drawn and their eyes riveted to the mist. Harry’s breath quickened with every step closer to the idol. Did the enemy know that their escape was near? If they did, would they allow them to escape or make one last attack?

Why were they even attacking them? Lysander had said the fae might come after him specifically, but this battle felt far from personal. And why kill them? Were they inherently against Harry’s group or just wizards in general? Didn’t fae prefer to take their victims alive to bring them into their fold? None of this made sense to him.

He could only wonder these things for a short time, before they drew so close to the idol that all Harry could think of was how many thing could go wrong. The mist hovered in a ring around them, leaving him feeling trapped. The feeling of eyes upon him made him sweat. His palms were slick, but he didn’t dare lower his wand to rubbed them dry on his cloak. No sign of weakness, not even for a split second. Not when they were so close.

“We’re here,” Kingsley whispered, and they all tensed, as if expecting his declaration to trigger an attack. Nothing happened, and after a moment, he spoke again. “We should go altogether.”

“This doesn’t feel right,” Harry said.

No one said anything for a moment, too afraid to stay or attempt to leave.

“Yeah,” Titanhorn said at last, “This does kind of feel like a trap.”

And then the mist began to retreat rapidly, the clear circle around them dilating into a wider one. Harry had known they were being followed and he hadn’t even attempted to guess the numbers, but what ever number he might have come up with it would not have been the one he saw before them. The fifteen odd mounted elves had tripled, and they were joined by still more elf or elf-like peoples mounted on horses or deer, or in one case a unnaturally large wolf. The mouthless fiends had been joined by a number of other creatures; goat-headed phookas, saw-toothed bogles, goodfellows and pucks leering at them between the legs of the mounts, and scattered about them were the more civilized young elves dressed in the heraldry of their masters or holding back a eager white hound with a touch of its hand.

Fear. Harry had known it intimately since becoming a wizard, and it would be a lie to say he hadn’t felt this particular type before. He had known it when facing the dragon. He had known it when facing the basilisk and the grindylows. He had even known it in the presence of the Dark Lord. But he had never faced any of those things with such an absolute certainty of death before.

Harry stared out at the sea of faces, and they stared back with the full range of emotion from pity to amusement to pure loathing. He did not move. They did not move. The moment stretched and still no attack and no retreat.

What were they waiting for?

Then by some cue, which Harry was not privy to, Titanhorn apparated away with Aresphere and an audible pop. There was a collective start amongst Harry’s group and momentary panic, but from the crowd there was no reaction at all.

“Don’t apparate,” Kingsley said quickly. “There’s something wrong.”

“Then what the bloody hell do we do?” Lysander growled.

There was another pop and Titanhorn was there again… most of him at least. Harry only dared the briefest glance towards him, but what he saw left him swallowing back his own vomit. Of Aresphere there was noting to be seen, but of the squadron leader there was only segments of a whole fallen motionless to the ground; large, bloodless pieces of himself missing. Harry had heard of splinching, everyone who learned to apparate did, but the splinching while practicing in an open field and splinching while attempting to apparate while under a powerful anti-apparation ward were two totally different things. As horrible as it was to think, Harry hoped the man the dead and that it wasn’t shock that sustained his wretched silence.

Tittering laughter ran through the crowd of fae on the ground, scattered amongst the perpetually and often cruelly amused goodfellows and puck. Harry leveled a glare at one, and it let out a little eep and hid behind a satyr. The elves which had been sitting stoically on their mounts, suddenly stirred, turning their attention to a certain point in their crowd. Reluctantly, he followed their line of sight.

The Enchantress moved forward, stepping out of the mist that lingered at the party’s edge, and everyone before her moved respectfully out of her way. He noticed for the first time that she wore a quiver of arrows and a short bow over her shoulder, and that she was not in fact an elf. Her pale skin held the faintest pattern of scales to it, that could only be seen when the light caught it just right, and there was no pointed tip to her ears.

She was a naga.

“Welcome, wayward adventurers,” she greeted warmly, her voice musical and soft, like a gently pluck harp. “To this Twilight Court, you have proven your noble character in the eyes of my people, and I invite you to dine at my Master’s table with a banquet in your honor. Please lower your wands, and you will have nothing more to fear from us.”

No one said anything. She looked around expectantly.

“Have you no reply?”

Again, no one spoke. What could they say? She had just tried to kill them and was now inviting them to dinner. She was either crazy or this was a trick. Maybe both.

After another silent moment, she seemed to think of something.

“Who among you is the leader?”

Harry reflexively turn to Kinglsey, only to find the man looking at him… as well as the werewolves and the rest of the squadron. Well, that was just fantastic. He took a deep breath and let it out, then turned towards her. He took a few steps forward, placing himself between her and his people.

“I suppose I am… since you seem to have killed the last two.”

“One.”

Harry just looked at her.

“We only killed the one, and technically speaking he killed himself when he tried to escape. He would have been perfectly fine if he hadn’t attempted to abandon you while you were surrounded.”

He was seriously tempted to point out that Titanhorn had tried to save Aresphere, not himself, and that he had no reason to think they couldn’t escape just as easily as he could… or thought he could. However, something else she said was more important to him than defending the honor of dead man he barely knew.

“Stratus is alive?”

“The man who cast the fire spell? I do believe so. My Master was most impressed with him, and went out to meet him in person. I suspect he will survive this night and join us at the banquet table. Will you not put up your weapons? You have been tested to the extent that is necessary, and anything more would only be cruelty on our part.”

She was definitely crazy. The question now remained if this was or wasn’t a trick. There was a good chance she was being perfectly honest, and if that were the case this might be the only opportunity they had to walk out there alive. Whether alive or dead was the better option was another question altogether.

“And then you will bring us to your Master’s table and we will eat your faerie food and drink your faerie wine, and we will never be able to leave your Twilight Court again.”

She nodded in agreement.

“Indeed, that is the gentlest Introduction we can offer you. This trial must have seemed harsh to you, but we are not brutes who delight in your misery. Your nobility does you credit, especially for one so young, and I would not see you suffer any more.”

Harry felt something stir inside him when she said ‘I’ instead of ‘we’, and he crushed it ruthlessly. She was called an enchantress for a reason, and he forced himself to remain on his guard and truly think clearly about what she was saying. The offer into this ‘Twilight Court’ was genuine, it had to be, but if it were accepted there was no telling what the about the end result. Perhaps they would become faeries themselves, a rainbow selection of the ethereal and the monstrous, or perhaps they might only become slaves, immortal and bound to the service of her ladyship’s master and his court, or kept as a tithe, a sacrifice to the Earth itself to secure their own immortality. There were endless possibilities, endless wonders they might experience and behold and equally endless horrors. The faerie realms, innumerable and vast, were not known for making the distinction.

Harry’s soul had been forfeit to the Earth the moment he bartered it for his godfather’s life and wore the blessings of at least two goddesses already, so for him the consequences were already limited to what they would or could do. Kingsley and the others, however, were not so bound. Their souls could be torn from them, twisted by magics, or sold to dark forces.

The Enchantress appeared kind and sympathetic, but already she demonstrated an inability to comprehend human suffering or reasoning, and what she might view as a kindness or a reasonable action could easily lead to an endless hell. So what could he do? His options were either to fight to the death now or gamble their very souls by playing along and hoping to be presented with an opportunity to escape later.

He considered his options for several minutes. She did not rush him, and the fae waited just as patiently. They had all the time in the world. He looked back at the others, who were not waiting patiently but bound anxiously in place as they waited for him to decide their fate. He should ask them what they wanted, he knew, it was only fair, but how could he expect them to answer a question they didn’t fully understand the consequences of? None but Stratus and Lysander (who was in the same position as Harry)had seemed to demonstrate any knowledge of the fae or of the Old Ways. What did they know in this moment aside from an overwhelming fear for their life and the vague and distant warnings of childhood faerie tales? His scarred hand began to burn with the anticipation of battle.

He turned back to the Enchantress, to tell her they would play along for now, while fully intending to find some means of escape en route. She was not so easily fooled, however.

“I can see in your eyes you have already made a decision,” she said, her smile fading sadly from her face. “I wish it had not been so.”

She lifted her silver wand.

Harry was faster.

“Coliginus obscuro!”

Inspired by her spell, he summoned a thick fog to surround not only himself but his people and their enemy, blinding them all, extending it outward until it reached the faeries’ own enchanted mist.

“Scatter!” he shouted, “Run and scatter and fight like hell!”

And then the true battle began. Lightening flashes of magic burst through the fog, signaling curses and shields. The fae, which had been standing so calmly when they thought the battle already won, were now being thrown into chaos. Flying spells and fleeing prey were forcing them to move, but they could not see, not the little creatures at their feet or the large ones bearing down on them. They were as much a danger to each other as to their intended victims, and Harry hoped his comrades would take the fullest advantage of that, because he could do no more for them. Their alliance was at an end and they were responsible for their own survival now.

He bolted in the direction he judged there were the greatest number of mounts and least number of smaller fae on the ground, but almost immediately ran into resistance. A bogle came screaming out at him, swing his cudgel violently. He met it with a blasting hex that destroyed the cudgel and sent the creature flying into one of its brothers. A moment later two more bogles and a phooka similarly armed with sticks and clubs, and gave them a quick and nasty Shocking Hex, before turning directions sharply into another part of the crowd. There were several puck and small hobgoblins here, but they fled with an angry hiss as much of a fight as they were willing to risk . He continued his blind rush, bumping unexpectedly into one of the mouthless horrors, but just kept running rather than stop. It clicked its multi-jointed fingers and gave chase, but was soon lost as everyone else in the confusion.

Twice he was nearly run over by a mounted rider, six times he was forced to defend himself with magic, twice he bumped into something and never learned what it was, three times a spell from a wizard’s wand flew within inches of him, and once he ran into a tree but luckily no one was around to notice. All around him he could hear screaming and shouting and panicked animals, and he wondered at how he could have been the source of it all, but more than that was primal animal fear of being caught.

He almost didn’t notice the steady rhythm of hoof steps charging up behind him time, and only just managed to duck to the side before being run down, and then ducked again when the horse-like creature’s elven rider took a swing at him with his sword. The third strike was speared down at him where he lay prone on the ground. Harry caught it instinctively with his left hand, and felt the magic lingering there repel the cut of the blade[2]. The elf jerked it back and ended pulling Harry back up to his feet, his almond shaped eyes widening when he didn’t take off a few fingers at the same time. The elf, male with a collection of gnarled twig-like growths for hair, kicked him in the chest. Harry took the blow with a pained grunt, but lunged again, catching the sword again his left hand while pointing his wand with this right.

“Stupefy,” he snarled, and elf let go of his hold on the sword and his mount, and fell in a graceless heap on the ground. The horse panicked, reared, and Harry dropped the weapon into order to grab hold of its reigns. It whinnied and bucked in protest, but he managed to climb into the saddle. He picked a direction at random and kicked the mount into a quick trot. Fae appeared rapidly, diving out of the way or making desperate leaps at him, forcing him to cast a spell or a well placed boot to dislodge them.

On and on it went, a seemingly endless journey through the thick ranks of creatures, clinging to the possibility of escape when at every turn there was another and another. He had cuts on his legs were claws and knives had glanced him and bruises on his arms and shoulder from running blindly into objects and people. His head ached and his hands burned. Adrenaline kept him alert, but exhaustion was quickly creeping in.

Finally, the ranks began to thin, imperceptibly at first, but then seeming all at once. The mist suddenly receded or rather Harry found himself passing some invisible barrier that it would not or could not cross. He felt relief at having regained his sense of sight an distance, but his sense of location was more disoriented than ever. He was not where he was supposed to be.

He was in a forest, that was certain, and it was both autumn and the lighter side of twilight, which seemed the proper hour, but that was where the consistency of where he was and where he had been ended. The forest he left, while small, was ancient and its trees and its stones and the very air itself was weighted with age, cluttered with the debris of centuries passed and swallowing the sky with skeletal grasping limbs. This forest was young, the trees foreign with small, silvery trunks and leaves shaped like golden hearts or exploding red fireworks. The sky was dark blue on one end and brilliant pink and orange clouds on the other. The air was crisp, but the ground was thick with summer grass and hardy white and yellow flowers defiant of the autumn frosts grew up between the disbursed shadows There were birds singing, and it wasn’t normally something he would notice except for its strangeness. Bird song was for spring and summer, and even if it was early autumn in this place it struck him as in congruent.

Where ever he was, it wasn’t Ireland. At least not Ireland, as he knew it. The air, the plants, and even the smell was different. He did not know this place at all. Logic dictated that he go back in the direction he had come and hope when he emerged next it would be to something familiar. Looking back at the floating mass of undulating gray shadows however was like looking into a raging sea under a silencing charm. Nothing but death awaited him there, or possibly something worse.

He was left unsure of what to do next. He was alone. There was no enemy, no friend, no battle to fight, no direction preferred so long as it was not back, no landmarks, no food, no shelter, no night, no day, no injury that needed his immediate attention, no energy to do so anyway, and no idea of what to do or if he even had the option of deciding. For many minutes, he simply sat trying to think of what heshould be doing, unable to take action without a goal to obtain or a consequence to avoid, except to avoid capture or death and there was little enough he could do intelligently without knowing where he was or where the fae were.

Were they still looking for him, hunting him? Were they satisfied to have him in this place where they could pursue him at their leisure? Was this a faerie realm or somewhere in his own by which the Enchantress’ mist had somehow transported him through? Had anyone else escaped or had he condemned them all with look in the naga’s knowing gaze? Had he given himself away subconsciously? What resentment or what rebellion had she seen when she looked at him? If Kingsley had been elected, would things have played out this way?

“What should I do?” he asked aloud, submitting his inquiry to the universe. The universe was apparently busy however and ignored him. He repeated the question to his horse, who wasn’t busy but wasn’t interested enough to answer either. “Fine. What would Voldemort do?”

Probably go back into the mist and capture a fae and torture it until he was led to freedom. Or actually succeed in playing along with the Enchantress until he got back to their strong hold and then slaughter everyone. Or call upon some esoteric magic Harry had never heard of himself. Or…

He pulled out his watch, which had remained his constant and dutiful companion through every adventure he had ever had as a wizard (except for the one where he was naked at the werewolf spirit possession ceremony) and proved itself to be as tenaciously durable as Harry himself. He flipped it open and carefully removed the gold ring from its inconspicuous hold along the interior rim of the top cover. It was perhaps the only true gift the Dark Lord had ever given him. ‘To help keep you from misplacing yourself’ he had said. Never was there a situation where Harry felt more displaced than now. He placed it over the watch face.

He didn’t understand exactly how the location ring worked, but it was not like a locating charm, which only worked for locating a particular thing or place within a certain distance. The locating ring worked anywhere and regardless of distance or at least it had in his own realm. He would find out now just how far its magical ability extended.

“Traleefore.”

The short hand swung about three times and paused between the 3 and 4 and settled. This was the north hand. Harry checked the sunset and confirmed that where ever he was it had a north that was in the same position as it was at home. The long hand, the locating hand, jiggled back and forth for several more seconds before finally settling firmly on the 5. Harry was both confused and relieved that it wasn’t pointing at the fog but a few degrees from parallel to it.

“Kingsley,” he said.

The second hand swung immediately in the direction of the fog. His protector was alive then, but in what condition? Injured? Captured? There was little Harry could do against the fae army, where both terrain and numbers favored them, but still he needed to do something,anything, no matter how trivial or futile.

“Expecto patronum!”

The patronus appeared in a burst of dazzling light from his wand, startling his mount so he had to struggle to remain seated. The ghostly stag lingered only long enough to glance at its summoner before bounding into the mist. The guilt eased a little as he watched the ethereal glow fade. At the very least, if Kingsley or the other Culties lived and remained free they could follow his patronus out of the mists and follow Harry’s path to where ever it was he found himself riding. It was a slim chance, but it was something. Harry could not wait around to see if worked. The fae were just as likely to follow the beacon of light to him as his comrades. More so even, and staying where he was wasn’t a good idea anyway.

This was a logical stand point, but not one he felt emotionally. Something about the half lighted world invoked a mood and mindset of stillness, inviting him to simply stay exactly where he was and stare at the brilliantly painted sky and listen to the surrounding birdsong, to think or not think about anything and everything. He didn’t know if this was a natural response to the fatigue and the illusion of safety the place provided or another form of enchantment to keep mortals who wandered in from attempting to run out again. He overcompensated the mental lull by kicking his mount into a run. The ground was unusually clear of hazards and with no trees suddenly lifting a root or gliding into their path or any sign of pursuit by the fae ,their speed was impressive. Harry was no expert on horses and this creature was completley foreign to him, but he knew that what he was riding was of excellent breeding by the smooth, powerful movements beneath him and the unlabored breathing as it ate up miles with its unflagging pace.

When the mount finally did slow it was not due to fatigue. They reached a small creek, or a large spring, and stopped. ’Heed my words though. If ya find yerself following the edge of a spring, turn back the way ye came,’the village elder had said. A moment of nerves reminded him he was due to take another dose of his anti-anxiety potion, but he he held off. If there was ever a place to feel nervous this was it. Should he go back the way he had come as the old man suggested, or had he been referring to some other spring as Harry couldn’t imagine how he would have known of this one and even if it was the same spring he had been forewarned about were the circumstances dire enough to disregard the advice? He couldn’t judge objectively at this point. His own hydrophobia was practically screaming at him to stay as far away from the water’s edge as possible.

He checked his watch, which pointed mercilessly across the spring without wavering.

“It is what it is,” he said to himself, and turned his mount upstream to look for a likely crossing point or even a bridge. It wasn’t until a few minutes later that Harry became aware that the sun still hadn’t set yet. In fact, after nearly an hour, it did not appear to have moved at all. Strange.

He did not have long to ponder on the phenomenon when he came to a likely crossing point. The spring widened, becoming shallower, and either side of its banks was lined with shallow slope of rocky sand that would make entering and exiting the water easy. About the only potential hazard he could see was the over abundance of cattails and reeds springing up on either side that they might get tangled in. He steered towards the crossing point, but the animal became reluctant as they came close to the water, and drew back.

“Ssshhh, hey now, what’s this? You’re a spoiled thing,” he said soothingly, rubbing its long, flexible neck gently. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid to get your hooves wet?”

“You do not seem any more eager than she does to brave the water.”

Harry reeled back sharply with one hand and brought out his wand with the other, spinning them both around to face the voice’s source. Seated upon her own horse-like mount not twenty feet away, was the Enchantress. Despite the chaos he had caused before, she appeared completely unaffected by the event, staring at him with that same serene expression. Her bow and arrows were at her back, but she still held her wand in the open, held lightly in the hand she had folded elegantly over her the horn of her saddle. Standing against a backdrop of sunset, she looked even more beautiful than he remembered, and if he wasn’t in very real fear of his life he thought he could stay there and just admire her for hours. Instead, he prepared himself to do battle.

“My friends?” he demanded with more confidence than he felt.

“They are in our custody. Your efforts were admirable, but in vain.”

Guilt and dread sunk their claws into his psyche at her words, but he forced himself to remain focused on the here and now.

“Admirable?” he scoffed. “Did I not attempt to abandon my friends while they were surrounded? That seemed to be a crime worthy of death last time we spoke.”

“You made the effort to save them as well as yourself. The opportunity and risk you took was equal to theirs, and when you saw that you had escaped and they had not, you sent back help. Your spirit familiar is beautiful, by the way.”

He mouth felt suddenly dry. She looked at him steadily and read his thoughts like a book.

“He is untouched. He disappeared when there was nothing that could be done for your people.”

He quickly turned his eyes away. He felt none of the strange pressure against his mind that signaled an legilimens, but her uncanny ability to read him was unsettling.

“So what now?” he asked. “I won’t simply let you take me. I can’t.”

“Yes, and I cannot let you go without one last entreaty,” she said, all gentle compassion. “Please do not fight us. It breaks my heart to see you fear me.”

And he felt his heart break for her, because he could tell that she meant it. She did not want to do this to him, but some duty bound her to this calling. He pitied her and hated himself for the weakness.

“Do not draw on me, my lady,” he said, the old fashioned endearment strange and yet apt somehow, “And I will not fear you or attempt to harm you.”

“But you will run?”

“I must. There are people I care about waiting for me.”

“A lover?” she asked, and still managed to sound innocent while doing so.

“I am a little young for that,” he said, and found himself smiling, before he caught himself doing it and twisted it back into a scowl. “You are delaying me intentionally. I am leaving.”

“I will not draw upon you,” she said, as he began to back his horse away from her. “If you give me a kiss.”

He froze. What trickery was this? He looked around quickly to see if someone was pointing a bow at him. There was no one he could see, but that meant very little in this place.

“What? Why would you want that?”

“My name is Selufiare, and as you may have deduced I am an enchantress of the realm of Hausteheim[3]. A kiss is a very powerful thing to my kind. I can divine your past and your future with only a kiss or learn your deepest desire.”

“Or become my deepest desire? How am I to know what sort of spell I will fall under?” he asked, carefully withdrawing closer to the water’s edge. He didn’t know how he would cross it without turning his back to her, but the longer he stayed in her presence the more dangerous things seemed to become.

“My kiss would also allow you safe passage through Hausteheim.”

He just stared at her.

“You are trying to trick me.”

“I do not lie.”

“You can trick someone without lying to them. I am going. For both our sakes, don’t draw your wand.”

The look she gave him was heartbreaking, and she looked away and wiped a tear away. Harry, despite saying he would go, stopped to watched her, mesmerized.

“I will not fight you. That is not my my purpose. Please remember I tried to spare you this.”

She turned her mount and as she did, whatever enchantment she had held over him fell away and he could see they had not been alone. A short distance behind her was an elf… or something. He held the same build and facial structure of the elves he had seen previously, but lacked any unusual physiology. His hair was black and tied back from pale face and eyes an intense electric blue. The more Harry looked, the more similar the elf resembled Selufiare, and though they were a different species he suspected there was some form of kinship between them.

Whatever relation they were to each other, their similarities ended at their physical appearance. There was nothing resembling compassion in his eyes, only a cruel amusement that he had seen on the face of another a thousand times before. Harry kicked his mount and turned it towards the spring, only to have it rear up beneath him. Caught off guard, he was thrown and landed heavily on his back and side. The horse nearly trampled him a moment later as it ran past him and back into the forest. Winded and disoriented, he rolled onto all fours, and immediately started looking for his wand.

His hand closed on something long, thin, and radiating magic but it wasn’t his wand. It was a hand or some equivalent of one, composed of what looked to be reeds, and it was attached to a an equally thin and brittle arm and that arm was attached to the body of a very naked, pale green tinted woman. Her enormous black eyes blinked guilelessly at him for a moment, her pretty pointed face seemingly perplexed. Then she smiled wide with her razor sharp teeth, and grabbed his hand. A shellycoat[4], one of the innumerable breeds of water faeries that made drowning humans their habit. He jerked back, but her hold was unbreakable and she dragged him towards the thick cluster of reeds that must have been her hiding spot.

As he thrashed and struggled to pull back, he felt the magic of Gryffidnor’s sword surge into his palm, and brought it around to swipe at her like an angry cat. The shellycoat screamed in pain, a croaky, inhuman sound, and released him or rather withdrew from him as her severed hand was still gripping firmly to his. He shook it free violently and then made another swipe at her with his hand, but she was already disappearing into the water and was swimming further down stream. Seeing she was gone, he tried searching for his wand again, and found the distraction had allowed the mysterious elf from before to close in. He was now standing only a few feet away, and holding Harry’s wand.

“That was… interesting…” the elf said, his voice vaguely mocking. His elven features were somewhat more muted up close, making him look more exotic than alien to his human eyes, but there was something… off about him. The young wizard was reminded inexplicably of the Dark Lord yet again, and that wasn’t in anyway comforting. “I have not seen a magical ability such as that before. I should like to test it.”

From a sheath at his back, the elf drew his blade and swung it down. Harry blocked it with his ‘sword hand’ instinctively, but his position was bad, and he was knocked off balance. He rolled to avoid the second strike, and threw a handful of pebbles at his attacker’s face to buy the two seconds he needed to get to his feet. The third strike missed, and it caught him across the left arm. The stumbled backwards, and the elf let him, watching him with that same amused expression as the pain eventually registered. It had all happened so quickly, but even so the elf seemed to be holding back. To be testing him or just mocking him.

“Ugh…” Harry moaned, then grit his teeth as pain flared in his arm. His eyes suddenly widened, recalling Kern’s unenviable fate. “Have you poisoned me?”

The elf gave him an annoyed look.

“Poisoning is a woman’s sport.”

Faeries were weird, the Gryffindor decided.

“And who are you, if you don’t mind my asking?” he said, trying to hide his agony with a light tone but only managed to sound sarcastic instead. This didn’t bother the elf in the slightest.

“Oh, travelers these days, they really should know a little more about the places they are going to. I am Gulandri Le’ Espirriur, the Twilight King, master of Hausteheim, and father to the fair lady you have become so enamored of,” he introduced, making a courtly gesture towards his daughter, who was carefully looking away from them both. “And you are the irascible little devil who has been causing my people a great deal of strife. I shall enjoy breaking you.”

Finally on his feet, Harry managed to dodge the next swing by ducking behind a tree and attempted a strike of his own, but Gulandri proved faster and was on him again in a two step move, nicking him on the cheek this time. Harry made a run towards the river, but only made it the edge before another blow caught him across the back. He fell forward into a collection of reeds and wrist deep water. The shock of it left him half collapsed and staring down at his own blood staining the water red.

“If you are done then,” the elf said, sounding disappointed. “Then simply hold still. I will end this quickly.”

Cold steel pressed against Harry’s neck, the new shock bringing him back to reality. His sword hand closed around an unbroken cattail, and he swung around. Magic surged through his hand an into the frail plant, stiffening and strengthening it instantly. He caught the elf across the chest, causing the seed head to explode into a mass of billowing cotton splashed with red. A thin line of blue fire marked the wound from bottom rib to sternum.

Gulandri took a surprised stepped backwards, then looked down at the wound curiously. He swiped his hand over it as if wiping off a bit of dirt, and to Harry’s amazement not only did the magical blue flames disappear, so do the wound itself so that only a bit of pale flesh appeared through the torn clothing. The elf looked at him and grinned.

“My daughter inherited her gifts from my side of the family.”

And then he speared his blade into Harry’s body and the boy knew no more.

Tom had suffered a fair number of humiliations in his life at the hands of others, particularly during his youth when his indeterminate lineage justified enough cause for scorn and jealousies ran unchecked and ill hidden, but none had been as public as the one he suffered now. Stripped of his wand, his weapons, his cloak, and his shoes, he was secured in what looked like a modified oxbow, his hands secured parallel to his head. Further, he was chained to four of his fellow prisoners in a line, as they all struggled to keep up and their pace with the heavy wooden yokes throwing off their balance and preventing them from catching themselves if they started to tilt. The situation was made worse by the number of hideous little creatures that amused themselves by poking and prodding at them as they passed, and climbed under their feet and between their legs, while their larger cousins shoved them forward at a relentless pace. Several times the entire line of prisoners was thrown off balance by a careless shove, causing them all to fall, and several minutes had to be spent pulling them all upright again before forcing them back to marching. The mounted elves regarded this with a superior disdain but did nothing to help or hinder it.

The dead had been slung over the mounts of the riding elves like killed game, while the injured had been tossed into a little wooden cart and hauled along by several goat-headed fae. He had taken count of all of the prisoners when they had been dragged into the temporary camp he had been held at, but none of them had been Harry or the werewolves. He hoped that meant the boy had somehow managed to escape with their help, but attempting to ask the fae had only resulted in painful blow across his face. Attempting to speak to Kingsley or anyone else had a similar outcome. He marked that elf in particular and fantasized for several minutes about forcing him to eat his own entrails.

After a brief time, they were bound up and made to march, and he was forced to keep his focus on the trail ahead of him and planning his escape. Soon after the concealing fog began to dissipate and the faerie realm they had been brought to began to reveal itself, a realm of infinite autumn and twilight, always burning in color and swallowed in shadows. The ground was cold beneath their bare feet, but the exertion of their forced trek left them sweaty and hot in the chill air. The native fae revealed themselves as well, an amalgamation of the ethereally beautiful and the hideously disfigured, prideful elegance and animal brutishness. He only recognized about half of them from his studies, and even those he held some uncertainty about. All he did know was that he hated them, and would not tolerate being their captive indefinitely.

Tom plotted his vengeance with every step he took.

There was a brief moment he though he caught a glimpse of a white deer out of the corner of his eyes and feared his young friend had foolishly returned to rescue them, but when he turned his head to look he lost his balance and dragged everyone else into his fall. By the time they had been straightened out again, the deer, if it had ever been there, was gone.

After what seemed an entire day, although there was no way to judge it without a moving sun or a watch, and many miles of walking without rest, they came to a fortress. At least, Tom thought it was a fortress. All he could see of it was a massive stone battlement with archers standing upon the wall and glaring down at them distrustfully. There was no moat, but a portcullis was raised to allow them entry, and if Tom had thought they were in a large crowd before it was nothing compared to what they faced when stepping into the stronghold. There were thousands more inside, a larger portion of them the highly developed elves and a number of dwarves and gnomes of more modest garb, were moving about the various stalls and shops that were pressed against the battlement walls, representing the thriving economy of the community. At the sight of the returning hunting party a cheer rose up among the crowd, and they closed in to greet the hunters and catch a glimpse of their quarry. They were speaking in their native tongue now, and he didn’t understand much of what was said, but he thought many of them were attempting to throw in bids to purchase either the living or the dead amongst the prisoners which were steadfastly ignored or turned aside. A particularly bold young elf slipped through the gathered throng to touch the exposed wound Gulandri had left in his side from the remainder of their fight, and Tom repaid the sudden flare of agony with a kick to the child’s face.

That earned a few nasty strikes with a riding crop from a mounted elf, but it was worth it to hear the brat scream. Let it be a portent of things to come, he thought to himself.

Further in the settlement did not build upwards, but downinto a enormous circular pit nearly three hundred feet deep and lined with homes and business and entrances to tunnels that lead even further underground. The interiors were stone, but the exterior of these places was covered in adornments of wood carvings and metalwork, painted and polished in a kaleidoscope of cheerful colors and shapes, illuminated by hundreds of colored glass lanterns strung crisscross from top to bottom of the pit. At the bottom of the pit was a large pool of water that had been converted into a sort of public garden, with small islands of potted plants and wooden bridges floating around it. Water fae of varying breeds swam or perched themselves along the stone platforms along its edge, displaying their naked forms shamelessly as they stared up with hungry eyes at the mortal men and women descending towards their domain. A narrow road spiraled downwards at a steady incline, which brought them about halfway from the bottom, before their handlers turned them into the entrance of a large tunnel.

The tunnels lost the colorful facade and fell to using colorless stone murals and statues as the main form of decoration, depicting histories and battles and stories of the culture Tom could not interpret. The tunnel they followed was tall enough to accommodate even a troll, but a majority of the tunnels that branched off were much smaller, suggesting the place had not only been originally built by dwarves but also built with their needs in mind and not that of elves or larger races. It was likely the strong hold had not originally belonged the elves that now ran it.

At last they stopped at a collection of cells. They were manacled by their ankles in groups of three inside each, before being freed from their yokes. They were given water which they all drank greedily, and then left alone in their cells. Kingsley was not among his cellmates as he would have preferred, but he turned to a female comrade to ask how their battle had gone down. For a while she would not speak, exhaustion having made her apathetic, but a slap to the face brought her out of it quickly enough. She spoke haltingly at first, explaining the events immediately after he had been separated from them, and their desperate attempt to save not only themselves but the injured as well and how it had all fallen apart.

“I know he tried,” she said, sniffling a bit, “Potter, I mean. I know he tried to give us a chance, but it only made things worse. They’d have taken us civil-like if he hadn’t have given them an excuse. Then that trick he pulled with the Fog Charm… well that put them in a real temper afterward. In the end, he’s the only one that got away, and we were left dealing with a bunch of pissed of faeries.”

He ignored her after that, feeling little more than contempt for her or the rest of his fellow prisoners after she had finished. Potter had not messed up anything. He had given them the opportunity to get away and they blew it. How he had managed to escape was something Tom hoped he would be able to ask him about one day. It seemed quite a miraculous feat all its own. He quickly banished the thoughts, to consider his next move. If Harry had managed to escape and tell Malfoy of what happened, there was no telling how long before help came for them or if it would come at all. No one there was particularly essential, and risking a raid against the fae could ignite another war Britain could not afford. Tom had to prepare himself to abandon his current body yet again, but did not wish to do so unless absolutely necessary. If he could, in fact, escape with his own wits then surely he would be commended and some advancement in position would be offered even as Lord Malfoy sunk lower in the Dark Lord’s esteem for defying his orders and nearly killing Potter as a result.

He pondered his options for the next few hours he had to himself. He was proficient enough in wandless magic that he could have escaped his chains, enchanted though they were, and the prison cell easily enough, but beyond that he wasn’t so sure. The structure of the fairy den was hive-like and crowded, and while concealment charms were likely to work on many of the denizens it was just as likely to attract the attention of others. Even if he were to abandon his mortal body, his spirit would then be vulnerable to the number of spirit predators that haunted such places, snatching up wandering souls of mortals killed by faeries.

Then there was the matter of Gulandri.

Tom did not fear much, but one of the few things he did was that cunning elf. They had met before, long ago when Tom still had a majority of his soul intact and was still under the apprenticeship of Carrigan. He had not been a king then, only the king’s attendant, but one already feared by wizard and fae alike. Only Carrigan had not been afraid of him, just as he had not been afraid of Tom himself, even knowing his true nature. Every so often when Venus was bright enough to see even before the sun had fully set, Gulandri would appear at Carrigan’s door with some dumb creature he had slain in a hunt and have the druid prepare a meal for him. The few times Tom had been present for these appearances, he had not said a word and merely watched or did some chore at his teacher’s request.

One day the elf had turned to him suddenly and said.

“Speak your mind, you wicked child.”

He was caught off guard, but when those dark eyes refused to turn away from him until he said something he finally asked, “You are a very dangerous man. I have heard whispers of your name in these parts, that none who see you walk away alive, but you come here frequently and eat with my master and then leave without harming either of us. Why?”

The elf smiled.

“Because I was invited in.”

He said nothing else and it wasn’t until he had gone that Tom went and told Carrigan what was said.

“He speaks only half a truth. Faeries are bound by rules of hospitality. Inviting him into my home means he can do me no harm while inside it, but he could very easily have harmed you or else waited for me to leave my home. His pacifism serves a different purpose. Mortal hospitality has its own benefits to him. I prepare all my meals with the help of magic, which means when he eats what I cook him he is consuming some of it himself. This is the true reason behind his visitations. He leaves me unharmed because it increases his power.”

“And that does not bother you? He may be using that power against wizards.”

“Should it bother me how you yourself use what I teach you, my apprentice? Do you not use some of what you learn against wizards, as well?”

Tom had said nothing, caught off guard for the second time that evening. It always threw him that he could hide nothing from Carrigan, but unlike Dumbledore the druid neither feared it nor attempted to change him, despite him being even more soft-hearted than that senile old fool in many ways.

“What is he doing with all that power?” he had asked instead.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t care?”

“I do, but not in a personal way. I care the same way I care about floods and blizzards and all other sorts of natural forces. It is not my place to attempt to influence these things. They happen for a reason and in their due course. Gulandri has power because it is in his nature to gather it and because nature intended him to have it.”

“And what is my nature?”

Carrigan had smiled, and chuckled softly.

“Your nature is ephemeral. It is changeable and changing. That is the difference between humans and faeries. They can’t change what they are. Humans can. For better or worse.”

Carrigan’s words rang true now. Gulandri was unchanged, still the charming brute, half mad and half genius, and completely unpredictable. Kingship had not changed him nor what ever circumstances that had resulted in him attaining that position as it had the Dark Lord, although they were in many ways cut from the same cloth. Yes, in his own realm, Tom considered Gulandri a Dark Lord of the fairies.

The only noticeable difference was the dark elf’s ability to use magic, which he had not thought him capable of. It could have been a more recent development, perhaps having consumed enough magic of wizards, he had attained some magical ability of his own or perhaps he had always the ability and never bothered to demonstrate it in front of him before. Regardless, he was confident he could defeat him with proper preparation and planning, but he didn’t have proper anything at the moment and he could not afford to confront him a second time.

He would need to be cautious, which had never come easily to him.

His cellmates had both fallen into a exhausted sleep, and where not stirred when their cell door opened. A pair of burly dwarves entered, and in short order had Tom’s hands tied behind his back and a noose looped around his neck. The indignity of the situation was amplified by the fact that he was alone and worsened when he was forced to crouch and hobble through a series low tunnels, pinched and poked by every mischievous passerby they encountered. He fully expected things to only get worse, for him to be brought before a gaping crowd as some sport for their base amusement.

He was surprised when he wasn’t brought to some public spectacle, but a small, lavishly decorated house and lead straight to a private bedroom where he was promptly cut free and left. In a lady’s bedroom no less, although ‘den’ might have been more accurate. It was all oversized pillows and gold embroidered silks, glittering in the light of dozens of colored glass lanterns shaped like moons and stars and other celestial bodies. There was no mirror or wardrobe or writing desk in sight. It was a room dedicated solely to sleep and thoughtful repose.

Of the four occupants in the room, only two were using it for its intended purpose, and only one of those of his own free will. Tom felt his heart plummet as his eyes fell on Harry’s pale, fevered form laid out across the nearby bed. He had been stripped down and wrapped in a blanket for modesty’s sake, but was slowly squirming out of it in the throes of nightmare that wouldn’t release him. Nursing the boy’s fading blotches of black and red bruises was the Enchantress, who upon closer inspection bore an uncanny resemblance to Gulandri. The room smelled of incense, but beneath that he detected Essence of Dittany and other herbs he was unfamiliar with. It made Tom suspect Harry’s condition was either considerably worse than he thought or had been before he had arrived.

Almost against his will, he found himself leveling an accusatory glare at the fourth occupant of the room. Gulandri returned the look with one of his own, bemusement and arrogance in equal measure, as he reclined elegantly over his chair. In his hand was the frrykshimini, but he was not using it at the moment. He had seen all he needed to already.

“Wicked child,” he greeted, “What games you have been playing. I do not think your master would have approved.”

Tom sneered, matching his arrogance with a touch of his own. He might not have been equal to the dark elf in his own lair, but that did not mean he’d play the role of inferior either.

“I think he might have surprised you.”

“He did manage from time to time,” he offered beneficently. “It is unfortunate he had slipped his mortal coil before I had the opportunity to bring him here. I haven’t had a decently prepared velorisp[5] since. Perhaps he can re-learn the gift.”

“Oh, yes, his greatest achievement,” Tom sneered, missing the last sentence in his eagerness to change the subject. “Why have you attacked us? You have always kept yourself appraised of the wizarding world, so you know of Lord Voldemort and you know attacking us could start a war.”

Gulandri tilted his head, as if the spirit had performed an amusing little trick.

“For you? I hardly think so. For him?” Indicating the bedridden boy. “I am counting on it.”

Surprise and dread welled up in Tom, as he stared at the elf. What was he intending by all of this? He had assumed Harry had been targeted as both an active pagan and for his heroic exploits at Dunnan Hill, not as a pawn in some larger plot. His eyes quickly scanned the rooms for potential weapons.

“Why? He’ll destroy you. He’ll destroy your entire court.”

The elf smiled and pushed himself out of his chair with a languid grace.

“You truly are an arrogant creature. Do I or my court appear so fragile, so terrified of your ‘Dark Magic’? We are not the idle Tuatha de Danann or the broken Mag Morians. We are Milesians[6]. We were made for war. Our numbers have never been greater nor our strength. We will not be undone by the Dark Lord or his puny army. We will be made stronger by them.”

“You’re mad.”

The elf approached leisurely, eying him curiously from head to toe.

“What is that saying? It is a muggle one. Something about a pot and a kettle?”

He reached up and poked Tom lightly on the cheek, as if seeing if he were actually real. The action was casual, but Tom’s reaction was far from it. He felt his soul’s grip on Stratus’ body slip, and he was nearly thrown out of it completely. The eyes rolled to the back of head and it fell, twitching on the ground until the spirit could claw its way back and regain control of itself. Even so, he found himself laying on the ground and trembling uncontrollably for several minutes. Gulandri stared down at him with the closest thing to pity he could muster.

“You poor wicked child. You’ve shattered yourself on your own ambition, and to what ends? What future did you see for yourself?”

“The ssame future I sssee now… only with you dead at my feet,” he cursed in parseltongue.

“Wicked child indeed,” the naga hissed softly, and he turned sharply to her. He had forgotten her, and forgotten that nagas were serpents with human-ish forms. His surprise was compounded when Harry stopped squirming for a moment and spoke softly in the same hissing tones.

“My lord? Is that you?”

Tom felt an immediate sense of unreality. Three parselmouths in one room and none of them a fellow horcrux? It sent involuntary shiver of delight down his spine.

“What is this?” Gulandri asked, curious. “Another parselmouth? I did not believe he had that ability the last time we met. Your doing or your counterpart’s?”

Reluctantly, Tom drew his attention back to the dark elf. Cautiously, he climbed back to his feet. His soul felt strangely loose, as if a sharp wind was all that it would take to knock him free. He leveled a defiant glare at Gulandri.

“You’re senile. He was born with the gift. He’s always had it.”

The elf stared at him blankly for a moment. Hairs standing up on the back of his neck told him the naga was also staring at him now. It lasted for several uncomfortable seconds, then Gulandri broke out into laughter. Strong, ringing laughter, and if Tom were not the subject of the joke he might have mistaken it for a wholesome, pleasant sound. He would have to figure out what was so amusing to the elf about what he had said later, though. There were more immediate dangers.

“Oh, that is too precious,” he laughed. “You all are going to be so much fun.”

“What are you going to do to us?”

The laughter died away, although the amusement remained.

“What do you think? I will make use of you,. You… you I will find a form well suited to your wretched state, and then I will send you back to the mortal realm to collect the humans and muggles I need to maintain the tentative hold my kind has there. I believe you shall find the occupation… fulfilling.”

Tom shuddered. Whatever form Gulandri had selected for him, it would not be humanish. The spirit did not think of himself as particularly vain, although he had enjoyed the benefits of being handsome in his mortal years, but to be some… creature… no matter how powerful. He could not imagine it. To be Gulandri’s retrieving mongrel was inconceivable.

Then the elf moved around him, to stand behind the enchantress, placing his hands on her shoulders in an expression of familiarity. They both stared at the boy before them, the naga with concern, the elf with a touch of curiosity.

“This one has proven himself to be brave and honorable, even if he’s an embarrassment with a sword, and I respect that. My daughter has expressed a fondness for him, and as he is capable of speaking her native tongue, I think I will let him remain her companion. Choose his form wisely, my flower.”

He kissed her gently on the head, and she graced him with a grateful smile. Tom fought the urge to vomit. Gulandri straightened, and turned back to him.

“We are getting away from ourselves. I did not bring you here to reminisce or to gloat. I brought you here to ask you a question.”

“Why should I tell you anything?”

“Use your imagination,” he replied, unperturbed by his defiance. “Where is the one you called Voldemort now?”

“…Why?”

The elf sighed.

“How is he to rescue his… apprentice… or what ever the boy is… if I don’t tell him where to find him?”

Tom just looked at him, the words ‘You’re mad’ on the tip of his tongue, but after the last demonstration of the power the elf held over him, he holds it back.

“You… you truly wish to provoke him?”

“That is the whole point of this venture. Surely, you did not think it was for the young one? For you? You are middling fare in the scheme of things.”

Tom considered. This dark elf wished to draw his elder counterpart into a battle, possibly, hopefully, to the death. He felt torn at the prospect. Having his two enemies face each other was something to be encouraged, as no matter who lost and if he were lucky it would be both, he would still be short one enemy. However, the prospect of Voldemort losing his life to anyone other than himself invoked a strange jealousy in him. Helping the arrogant fae king to lure his rival here felt strangely like a betrayal, if only of principle. What did you call someone who sold his fellow wizard to a fae? Who betrayed his own species for another?

A sigh drew his attention to the bed. Harry was settling into a deeper sleep under the Enchantress’ hand on his bare chest, and as his face relaxed he looked truly small and frail and young. He was only sixteen but already covered in a network of magical scars and brands, his body strangely thin from years of abuse and injury. He was helpless now, completely and utterly. He needed Tom to save him, and Tom didn’t know how he could rescue them both. Not alone.

He needed Voldemort.

Even if it was only to buy time.

“Saarland, the west side of Bostalsee Lake last I heard, but he may have moved on.”

Gulandri nodded.

“Thank you,” he said, with all the gravity of having been passed a roll at the dinner table. “Gugis fen!”

The gnomes from before entered the room yet again, carrying a new length of rope with them. Gulandri gave them further instructions in Milesian, and they fell upon Tom with the same rough efficiency as they had before. In less than a minute he was secured and lead out of the room with the same lack of ceremony he had upon entering it.

Once the prisoner had been led away, Gulandri’s previous mirth returned and he found himself laughing again, longer and harder than he had previously allowed himself. He laughed and laughed, and it wasn’t until Selufiare coughed politely to draw his attention that he reigned himself in. She didn’t understand the joke, but then she had not known Carrigan.

“I apologize. It is simply that he does not recognize the boy, and if he does not, it is unlikely that Voldemort does either.”

“I don’t understand. Do you mean his previous incarnation? Or his present one?”

“Both. I thought it a cruel irony that the only person they seemed capable of caring for, is the very one most likely to undo them. The fact that they do not realize he is either of these things is… farcical. Really, I am doing them a favor.”

She glanced down at the boy in her bed. He was handsome, or rather had the potential of being so. Time would strengthen his jaw line and wean the awkward tilting in his mouth into something more masculine and assertive, catching up to the fierce resolve of his eyes and body that she had seen briefly beside the spring. His magic surged and rolled like a hurricane, his spirit equally conflicted and impassioned. Behind all of that was the faint spiritual impressions of his past lives, like stained glass windows lain one on top of the other, the images gradually lost or distorted. Gulandri could see each of these lives more clearly than she with the help of frrykshimini, but she saw enough if she concentrated to know his previous incarnation had been a considerably more peaceful and peaceable soul. She wondered at the circumstances that had made him what he was today, and if it had anything to do with the one called ‘wicked child’.

“So this boy was once the one called Carrigan, his master? And now he calls the other ’my lord?”

“For going around in circles, they’ve made considerable progress, don’t you think? Maybe when the prophecy plays out, the child will kill his master and raise him like a son in his next incarnation. Maybe they’ve been doing this forever.”

Again she was lost, and getting a touch annoyed with her father. As far as fathers went, she was more fortunate than most, but his tendency to assume she knew every secret and mystery he had gathered and cultivated in the course of his thousand years could be a bit aggravating. There was a prophecy now, however, and those were always concerning.

“And what is the prophecy?”

“Oh, the usual. They are destined to kill or be killed by each other. Or something along those lines.”

“Won’t that interfere in your plans?”

“Not if we kill the boy first.”

She looked down at their captive. He was still so sickly from his injuries, that to kill him now would mean his resurrection would result in a weaker form and that would be a waste. Her father seemed to know her concerns, however and waylaid them.

“We needn’t do so yet. It will be many hours, maybe days, before the true prey is set to arrive. You have sufficient skill to restore him before then.”

There was a command hidden within the compliment which she acknowledged with a reserved nod and a ‘it shall be so’. Satisfied, he left to summon a messenger.

He had a dark lord to taunt after all.

“What do you mean ‘he’s been taken’?” Lucius said, calmly. Very, very calmly. He was the picture of calm. He was not going to going to cast an evisceration curse on the werewolf standing in his office, delivering his death sentence without so much as a blink. He was that calm.

The mangy rogue had been brought direct from Ireland from the village of Traleefore, where he had scared the locals near to death before reporting that there had been an attack on Potter’s party. The locals had dutifully brought the creature to London via floo, apparation, and a Knightbus in about forty-five minutes. The bureaucrats had taken nearly two hours sending him up the chain of command, from one department to another, filling out paperwork, and asking questions about a mission they couldn’t find the right file on, and basically signing their own death warrants when he found out which of the nitwits had bungled things so badly.

“I mean,” Lysander said, also very calmly. “exactly what I said. Ambassador Potter and his protectors have been taken… by fae, the Milesian tribe to be precise. I do not know if they are alive or dead, human or… something else by now.”

“I see… thank you for telling me.”

And with that he walked out of his office, leaving the werewolf unattended and perplexed, and went straight to the aviary. The raven was perched on the back of chair, staring at the door as if he had anticipated his reappearance. Lucius felt a surge of overwhelming resentment for the creature, which had so expertly taken advantage of his momentary weakness. His wand hand twitchef, anxious to cast something painful and debilitating, but he merely clenched his hands to his sides. It was his own fault, he acknowledges, to have been so reckless and trusting. Such Gryffindor traits had no place in his line of work.

“You tricked me!”

The raven tilted its head, but without lips or eyes the wizard can’t tell if its from curiosity or amusement.

“Did I now?” he says, his tone too bland to read. “How so?”

“You’re a fae of some sort! You tricked me into letting Potter go to Ireland, knowing he would be attacked!”

Nothing was said for a moment, and if Lucius didn’t know any better he thought he might have surprised the creature.

“The boy was taken? By fairies? Huh…” another moment of thoughtful consideration. “When? By whom?”

Lucius hesitated. Was this yet another game? He used to be able to tell so easily, but now he wasn’t certain. His mind was clearer that it had been in a long time, and looking back over the last several weeks he balked at the realization that he has been running the military as a drunken lunatic and no one had noticed. Even his personal aide, who he thought a rather sensitive fellow, hadn’t seemed the least bit concerned with either his drinking or his ranting. Or else he had been very good at hiding any concern. Looking back on his decision from earlier, he was starting to question whether his judgment was still compromised.

He had never been one to doubt himself, and that was part of the reason he suspected things had gotten so far out of hand without his notice. Now he had nothing but doubts. But something had to be done. If he did not fix this and quickly, the Dark Lord would not be so subtle about destroying him. So he might have to at pretend he believed the raven sincere, but he would not trust him a second time.

“About three hours ago, and I am told they were Milesians.”

Another silent consideration.

“…Milesians… they’re dangerous. They’re not scared of wizards. Not since Gulandri Le’ Espirriur took the thrown, and the realm descended into a constant twilight. They fear neither the light nor the dark any longer.”

“Save your riddles, you transfigured vulture. Is the boy still alive?”

“Hmph… I can’t know for certain, but… I suspect he is. If he survived their first trial, then they will hold him prisoner for a time. They are cautious about their ‘introductions’ as they call it. They won’t turn him into a fae until they’ve picked something suitable. Time and Astronomy moves differently in fairy realms however. A few hours here may mean a few days there or a few minutes, depending upon the season and the position of the stars. If he is be saved… and you by extension, it must be done immediately.”

It was all so perfectly in tune to what Lucius himself desired, it all but confirmed the pureblood’s suspicions that this had all been planned in advanced. The question was if he could twists those plans to make them work in his favor or at the very least insured that the fiend suffered for his arrogant manipulation.

“My thoughts exactly,” he tried for agreeable, to play along, but the resentment and suspicion seeped through, and he had already compromised his position by his previous accusation. Bobby has choose to ignore it, or else honestly forgotten it in his distraction.

“I can find him. I know where he would have been taken. I have been there before. Release me, and I shall bring him back.”

Of course, you do, Lucius thinks, you traitorous thief.

“Then we shall depart as soon as I have gathered the necessary soldiers.”

The raven shakes his head immediately.

“No, I must go alone. This must be done covertly. If you draw attention to the fact that you sent Potter to Ireland intentionally, you are dead regardless of the outcome. Besides, to march on Hausteheim is to declare a war, and will only provoke them to kill their prisoners more quickly.”

Lucius considered. The raven sounded sincere, and he was not incorrect. Whether the creature were himself a Milesian spy would not change that, and more importantly if he were a spy then Lucius might be leading his people (and himself) into a trap. A trap the raven needn’t have warned him about. Unless he wished to gain his trust again. He gave himself a mental shake. He could not afford to keep second guessing himself. Time was essential now. He would need to find some way of insuring the raven did as it said it would.

“Hhmm… give me your leg.”

The raven tilted his head curiously.

“Sir?”

“If you wish me to release you, give me your leg.”

“…I’m sorry, sir, but I am rather attached to it.”

Lucius gave him a look that seemed capable of melting iron on the spot. Reluctantly, the raven held out its leg. The pureblood slipped his ring, emerald and white gold emblazoned with his family crest, off his finger and cast a spell wordlessly. The ring grew enough to slip over the raven’s foot and then immediately shrunk again until it became snug about the ankle and could not be moved up or down.

Bobby instinctively tried to kick the cold, metal band from his foot but it wouldn’t be moved by physics or magic.

“What is it?”

“It’s a contract,” the Malfoy heir explained. “One to guarantee you will not betray me a second time.”

“I never betrayed you a first time,” he insisted. “What does it do?”

“It kills you, painfully and slowly, if you do not bring Potter back to me by sunrise.”

“What? But.. how am I… damn you! What if he’s already dead or a fae himself?”

“Then I guess we’re both out of luck aren’t we?” he said with malicious glee.

The raven for once looks flustered and annoyed and everything Lucius wants him to be. It was yet another sign that he had been correct before, and that he was turning the tables in Bobby’s little game. If he could keep his opponent on the defensive, perhaps he would walk away from this… if not better off, at least not beyond recovery. The raven had been right before. Very few people actually knew of Potter’s mission to Ireland, and with the Dark Lord gone, he might have the time he needed to cover up the mistake.

He just needed to get the boy back.

“Fine! Fine!” the raven practically hissed. “Now let me out! Enough time has been wasted!”

It would have been amusing to stall, to further aggravate the trickster, but that would be counterproductive. All of their lives now depend upon his success. So he opened the aviary door and lowered the wards. The raven waited no longer, swooping past him and down the hall, knowing by some sort of native magic how to leave the heavily protected compound unnoticed. Lucius stood anxiously for a moment, expecting to hear the shrill call of sirens but after several minutes it became apparent nothing of the sort was going to occur, and he returned to his office.

The werewolf was gone. He didn’t know where and he didn’t rightly care for the time being.

Already, he started to question his decision to release the raven. The dark lord had kept it confined for a reason, and he had no way of knowing its true nature and if he hadn’t just unleashed some unspeakable danger upon his homeland. Likewise, he had no way of knowing if the raven might not some how make things worse for him. If such a thing were possible.

His mind felt full and ravenous for more, spinning and unable to move. Fears and questions and theories and anger cluttered his mind, tripping his logical thoughts and replacing them with horror. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. He needed to be calm, rational, and objective. At the moment, he was incapable of any of these things.

That meant he had to go to someone he trusted to be calm, rational, and objective for him.

Voldemort lay in his bed, wide awake and counting the breaths Lestrange sighed softly into his bare chest. He did not sleep often, although in recent years he had noticed he dreamed now when he did, and now was no exception although the day had fatigued him. A cold front had moved into the area, and being at a higher elevation it had brought a heavy snow with it. The scheduled hunt for resistance fighters had been canceled in favor of staying warm.

Snowfall in the alps could be dangerous even for wizards, and with the mist rising off Bostalsee Lake it only made the chances of being lost or having an accident that much more likely. Voldemort had taken the opportunity to spend a little more time with his Romanian associates. They already respected him as a powerful leader, he had earned it with his willingness to go out in the field and by proving his competence in leading them to one success after another, and was now working to gain their loyalty.

They had drunk a great deal of wine, and he had impressed them with his knowledge of several Romanian drinking songs, aided by his legilimens ability, and their present woes over their current standing in international Quidditch. They had told him about their girlfriends and wives and little ones waiting for them back home. He told them about Harry and his penchant for getting in over his head, and gave Lestrange a few suggestive looks over his shoulder when he knew they were watching.

He backed up these looks later that evening by taking her to his tent. The men would approve of this, he knew, as Lestrange was a beautiful woman in her own right and in their primitive minds they felt a leader should always aim for the best female available. Bedding his loyal minion was no hardship, in any event. She was as sultry and devilish as he remembered, magic and activity having kept her body firm and supple to his touch. Her adoration for him was evident in every gaspy breath and heaving endearment, and even as she goaded him into near savagery it only seemed to please her more. As he ravaged her, he couldn’t help but wonder with a perverse satisfaction if she would have been so vocal if she knew he had foregone the silencing charm and that most of the camp had been made intimately aware of their nocturnal activities.

She was doing wonders for dispelling rumors of his impotence, and he hoped she would take some pride in that one day.

But that had all been hours ago, and now his thoughts had turned to other things less trivial. He thought of the war in Germany almost done with, and how he would maintain power there once the fighting was done, whether he should allow the British refugees from the previous war to return to Britain or not, what spoils of war he should take and what he should leave behind as a sign of magnanimity, and who should be publicly executed and who silenced in secret. He thought about Dumbledore, Ophelia, and Lucius. He thought about Harry and whether he might want to spend the summer in Germany with him, helping to organize the peace. He thought about the Earth and whether She would be pleased with his efforts, or think them a mere distraction.

Voldemort.

He looked down at Lestrange, thinking she had whispered his name but she showed no signs of stirring. And when did she ever call him anything other than ‘my Lord’? Even in passion she never lost that one quirk of decorum.

Dark Lord.

Soft, a whisper but not a whisper, and something not entirely natural about the vibration. It had come from outside. He lifted his head, listening more closely.

Tom.

Slowly, so as not to disturb his companion, he pulled loose form her hold and climbed from the bed.

Marvolo.

The warming charms had faded some time in the night, leaving the magically expanded tent bitterly cold. His breath misted as he breathed, like a miniature ghost in the darkness.

Riddle.

He stood a moment to listen, unbothered by the cold, but there was nothing else. He dressed quickly using spells, then grabbed his sword and exited the tent.

A heavy mist had descended on the camp, and he was immediately damp with it. He could have banished the cloud with a wave of his hand, but hesitated. The air was thick with an anxious energy that had not been there only moments before, and something told him it would be unwise to attempt to expose the mystery. He stood a moment, and waited.

Here.

He immediately turned and walked out of the camp, following the voice towards the lake. He made no sound, and even if he had he met no one along the way to give his presence away to. The surrounding forest became a army of shadowy sentinels, unmoving but tracking his progress with their invisible eyes. It would have frightened a lesser man, but Voldemort knew this feeling and understanding negated the fear.

When he reached the lake, he was not surprised to see there was a boat waiting for him at the shore. It was beautiful craft, long and almost too slender not to tip over, and painted in dark red and black lacquer. It reminded Voldemort of a Venetian gondola, and in its elegant couch the gondolier leaned at the bow and leered at him.

“Harry?” he asks, although he knew better even before the name had left his mouth. The face was a collection of familiar features in an unfamiliar combination. Harry’s glowing eyes gleamed in malevolent amusement, his mouth twisted unnaturally in to an awkward grin. Even his slender form seems ill-suited to the slinky, hulking movements he made towards the man. Voldemort lifts his wand, prepared to blast the apparition into pieces for the offense he feels at the sight of it.

“Eh-yo,” it says, his voice like a rusty pipe. “Eyes wundrin when yid be gettering on. ‘Avent got the night, yeah? Huck, huck, I menz you ain’t be haven the night. Todd-a-Lone ’as nights to spar an’ waste an’ gamble, don’t e? Nah tha’ you woods notice, I suppose…”

Voldemort took a moment to try to figure out whether he was speaking a foreign language or pure gibberish. It took him a while to discern it was some butchered cockney dialect.

“What are you? What do you want?” he said, shortly.

“Eh? Wos the matter? Ain’t yu got a ’ug fer yer dear friend, ’Arry?” the creature laughed, throwing open his arms as if to welcome an embrace. Voldemort cast a hex at the ground, causing a small explosion at the stranger’s feet and showering him with pebbles. The creature shrieked in surprise and quickly backed away. “I wos just kid’n, yeah? Wers yer funny side?”

Voldemort cast another hex, showering him with pebbles and peppering the boat besides.

“Oi, oi! Not de boat! You sink’r en ’ows we to get back, yeah?”

“What. Do. You. Want?” he repeated, emphasizing in his tone his lost patience.

The creature shuffled sulkily at his ill-humored audience.

“Eye come on Masteer’s biznurse, yeah? Eyes got a message fer yers. Yeah? Yeah? Now stop blast’n at us!”

“State your message then, and be gone, wretch.”

“Eyes getting on it! Just a mo, will ya? Yeah?”

The shapeshifter made another show of straightening up and brushing off its clothes. He coughed into its hand to clear his throat, and when he spoke it wasn’t in his voice. It wasn’t in Harry’s voice either, but it was one he recognized from his youth.

“Greetings, wicked child now a wicked man. Gulandri Le’ Espirriurm, King of Hausteheim and Lord of the Twilight Court extends this invitation to you. A banquet is to be held in the honor of a mutual friend, whose guise this creature currently presents. It would be a pleasure and privilege to mark you in attendance of the ceremony. No doubt our mutual friend would be most appreciative. If you are agreeable, the messenger here presented shall ferry you to my home, where you are extended all rights and courtesies of hospitality. Until next we meet, farewell and safe travels.”

The creature gave another cough, and fell back into his hunched, leering state. A state that Voldemort quickly knocked to the ground with a savage backhand and a foot to its chest. It shrieked and kicked frantically but against the wizard it was little more than a angry child throwing a tantrum. He pointed his wand at it.

“You lying wretch, you filthy vermin, you think your tricks will work on me. That I will rush blindly into the abyss at the mere mention of that boy?”

The creature started to wail pathetically, only aggravating the dark lord further, but he waited to listen as it started to babble more freely in its terrified state than it otherwise would have dared.

“Todd-a-Lone don’t know nofing! Nofing! Nofing! Masteer give’me a message and eyes gives it to yoos caus’n ‘e told me too! Jus a message an’ a stick!”

Voldemort holds back the curse at the tip of his tongue.

“A stick?”

“Yeah, yeah, a stick. Yeah!”

With the momentary pause in his beating, the shifter reached into his robe and pulled out a wand.

Voldemort stared at it fixedly. He recognizes it immediately.

Oh, no.

“What have you done to the boy?” he demanded, kicking it sharply in the side. It yelped at the blow, but was quick to flash him the same leer it’d been wearing when he first arrived. His expression suddenly changed, slack, white and terrified as he reached down with his wand hand to touch his side. When he pulled it away it is covered with blood. Wide, green eyes stared up at him in blank terror, until the imp could not hold the expression any longer and broke out into a maddening grin.

Voldemort remained motionless throughout the theatrics. The eerie silence was all consuming around them, and somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that they should have been heard by now. That Lestrange and the other wizards should have come charging out to investigate the disturbance, but there was nothing. Just the sound of his own breath heaving in and out as his blood boils beneath his skin and that of the creature’s wretched laughter. It caught his look and frowned.

“Oi, now,” it says, “Don be gett’n no ideas. If ye kill me ows ya gonna get there, yeah?”

“True,” the dark lord says icily, “but what’s to stop me from killing you once we arrive?”

“Er…”

“Take off that face, before I remove it myself,” he snapped.

The wretch scurried out from under his foot and shook itself like a dog, shedding his illusion like water. He was a hobgoblin, a goodfellow, with slanty eyes and a crocodile mouth. He shook again, throwing of Harry’s clothes from his small, withered bodied, before he climbed back onto the boat. Voldemort snatched up Harry’s wand from the pile and climbed aboard, settling stiffly into his seat.

What he was doing was unwise. Even with Gulandri’s extension of faerie hospitality, which would spare him from both attack and poisoning, it would not spare him from trickery. The dark elf, whose exploits he had followed distantly, until his own affairs drew his attention to matters closer to home, had tricked and murdered his way into his kingship. He was like himself in many ways, and like himself if he had leverage he would use it ruthlessly.

Why he would do so, Voldemort didn’t know. They had never been enemies. In many ways, they were allies in a greater cause. His reign was designed to return wizarding kind into the Old Ways, practices that would strengthen relations with the faeries themselves over time and hold the doorways between their realms open. Perhaps this was itself just an expression of Gulandri’s impatience, of which he had been infamously prone, and token reassurances from his quarter would solve the matter.

Maybe it was something more insidious.

Either way, he had to retrieve Harry, whether it was a trap or not. It was, at this point, he mused humorlessly, a matter of habit.

1. Okay, so I’ve been a bit inspired by Norse mythology since the Thor movie came out, even though I haven’t seen it yet, and it just occurred to me as I was researching it… gee, this would make a sort of sense if the Aesir were just a sort of faerie race. So yeah, in my universe that’s what they are. In Norse Mythology, the god Balder is made nearly indestructible through sorcery in order to save him from his prophesied death, but he still kicks the bucket when Loki (who would be a sort of conjurer in this case), tricks Balder’s blind brother into shooting him with a arrow made of mistletoe and killing him. This inspired the idea of mistletoe arrows having the capability of penetrating shield charms, since that is essentially what it did in Balder’s case. So ha! That idea was not pulled out of a plot hole!↩

2. Remember, when the Sword of Gryffindor shattered in Harry’s hand, it’s magic was transferred to Harry. His hand is very much like the sword, and to a certain extent he has mithral running in his blood.↩

3. Literally means ‘Autumn Realm’ in Norse. I wanted to do Twilight or Sunset realm, but I couldn’t find the translation.↩

4. This is an actual type of fairie known for living in Scottish marshes. I took some liberty with her appearance.↩

5. A velorisp is a type of bird similar to a cassowary, and twice as mean. Typically only found in fairy realms, or forests where fairies are in high numbers.↩

6. A velorisp is a type of bird similar to a cassowary, and twice as mean. Typically only found in fairy realms, or forests where fairies are in high numbers.↩

Tales and Wings I

“Fikysher sisk.”

Enerviate had nothing on the spell that coursed through Harry, pulling him from the disjointed dreams he had presumed was his afterlife with all the magical gravity of necromancy. Panic and the memory of pain had him flinging out his arms and his magic wildly to defend against the assailant hovering above him. Gulandri drew back quickly, surprised by his sudden quickening. He was no sooner distanced, than Harry began feeling for his wand or some other weapon, searching the folds of the bedding and the nightstand nearby but coming up empty. The fight undermined, he tried for flight. Throwing aside the sheets covering him, he clamored free only to have his legs immediately fail him and send him tumbling to the floor.

“Careful. You have been sleeping a long time.”

Selufiare was suddenly beside him, and he flinched away as she reached for him, only to calm again as her warm hand touched his. His panic eased, his thoughts began to organize themselves, and after a moment he realized she was using a spell and hastily withdrew his hand. Less disoriented, he looked around cautiously but only recognized the two fae and was not particularly happy about the discovery. He tried to stand again, more carefully, and found he could keep his feet even if his head swam with the effort.

“Where am I?” he asked, his voice hoarse from disuse. “How long…?”

Selufiare made to speak, but Gulandri beat her to it.

“You are in my home… as a guest.”

“As your prisoner?” Harry bit out, fear and anger warring in the presence of the elf that had so quickly and soundly defeated him.

“It is all the same to me.”

Harry just stared at him for a moment trying to determine his intent in bring hing him here after nearly killing him. It was impossible, however. Gulandri’s mind was too alien for him to interpret with so little information. He would need a little more.

“I’m still human,” he noted.

Gulandri tilted his head, a touch of amusement in his voice when he spoke.

“Are you sure? We could have done anything to you as you laid there.”

“Father…” his daughter scolded.

“I can barely see you. If you have turned me, by eyesight would have gotten better…”

The elf snorted.

“I see you are more of a fighter than a thinker, but in this case you are correct. Now get up. There is something I want to show you.”

“My Lord, he is still weak.”

“That is fortuitous, else I would have had to bleed him to make him so. I have no intention of granting this defiant creature his strength.”

Harry felt a shiver run down his spine. He believed him, despite his almost playful tone. More pressing then his own weakness was how Gulandri intended to take advantage of it. Where was he taking him? What did he intend to do and why not do it while he lay helpless? Why had he been saved or rather spared, not only from death but from an Introduction? And how long could he rely on that mercy? What had become of the others? Had they too been spared for some later event or was all hope lost for them?

Too many questions and while he felt a desperate need to know, he could not bring himself to ask. If he had been alone with Selufiare, he would have asked freely, but trapped in a room with the fearsome elven lord left him strangely shy. The scar on his abdomen throbbed in a painful reminder that he was not someone he wanted to provoke.

Gulandri said something sharply in elvish, and a wooden door at the far end of the chamber opened to reveal what Harry thought was a pair of brownies carrying bundles. Brownies were the ancestors of house elves, and were approximately the same shape and size, but to call them similar was to suggest a basset hound was like a wolf. They were sharper in feature, particularly their almond-shaped eyes that looked everywhere with an intense curiosity rather than the perpetually wounded look of their artificial kin. The pair that entered wore the livery of servants, dressed in red and yellow, but there was nothing servile about the way they shoved their bundles into his arms and quickly marched out.

The bundles turned out to be his boots, his cloak, and gray woolen shirt he had never seen before. Looking down at himself, he realized he was not dressed in his own clothes, but simple pair of woolen pants and an undershirt. Having no reason to disobey, and not wishing to provoke his ‘host’, he put on the rest of the clothes. It soon occurred to him that he was being prepared to go outside, and Gulandri had not wanted him to be strong for the outing, which meant there might be opportunities to escape if he could keep his wits about it him.

Which was not going to be an easy task, he realized as he spotted the odd fingerless glove on his left hand. It was black leather and there were tiny little white beads sown on in patterns he did not recognize. He suspected it was some sort of ward to bind the sword magic that had accumulated there. They had thoroughly disarmed him.

“What happened to my other clothes?” he asked idlely, as he slipped on his boots, surreptitiously searching for any weapons or potions he had hidden there previously. He found none.

“They were soaked in blood, so I had them auctioned. Wizard’s blood is a valuable commodity here.”

Harry’s mind blanked at the thought. Whether Gulandri’s statement was amusingly ironic or intrinsically horrifying, he could not rightly say, but either way there was a hidden threat in it. Now wasn’t the time to understand it. He finished dressing, using the silence afforded him to to try and think how he wanted to handle the current situation. It was difficult. His body felt stiff and unwieldy and his mind doubly so. He was overwhelmed and his brain sluggish and unprepared.

“How long was I…” ‘Asleep’ was too soft. ‘Unconscious’ too accusatory. “…Out of it?”

The elf made a dismissive gesture and headed for the door.

“Even if I told you, it would be meaningless to you. Follow me.”

“Where are we going?” he asked, making to follow. He noticed that Selufiare did not join them, but watched anxiously from her position beside the bed.

“Are you nothing but questions?”

“How else would I learn?”

Gulandri turned sharply, and Harry drew back swiftly, expecting a blow.

“You will find ‘silent observation’ to be a superior learning method in Hausteheim.”

Here too was a threat, and even more so the look in the elven lord’s eyes. The Gryffindor in him longed to rise to the challenge, to say something scathing and provocative. This was not Voldemort, however, and even there he knew to use his insolence sparingly. He bit his tongue and looked away, though his pride refused to let him look down. Gulandri glared at him for a moment, perhaps waiting for some additional sign of defiance, perhaps even hoping for it, but when nothing came he turned and gestured once again for Harry to follow him. He did so, but was stopped by Selufiare touching his arm.

“Do not provoke him,” she said beseechingly. “If you must defy him, do so with stoicism. Anger… hatred… fear… they only encourage him. Give him nothing and he will have nothing to use against you.”

He looked up at her (she was several inches taller than him much to his chagrin) and her electric blue eyes, and felt the familiar stirrings of attraction. He was terribly familiar with this feeling. He knew so many extraordinary girls and women that seemed to demand nothing less than that from him, but here he knew he could not trust it. ‘Enchantress’ held connotations he would be a fool to ignore, particularly in this place. Nevertheless, he nodded in acknowledgment and tucked her advice away before turning to follow after her father.

Outside of the chamber, Harry found himself in a long, narrow corridor that stretched out in either direction. Faerie lights hovered about the ceiling in unequal distances, as if floating untethered in an invisible stream of air. The corridor was neatly carved with stone murals and statues as fine as any wizarding castle, but something about the confining space and the smell of damp gave him the impression that he was underground. In a faerie hill, perhaps?

Gulandri moved ahead of him, not looking back, but he needed no reassurance that Harry would follow him. There were a number of faeries moving about the hall, primarily servant but also a few guards, watching him with a hungry suspicion as he passed. It was extremely uncomfortable, and despite himself, he forced his weakened legs to keep only a few paces behind the elven lord’s long strides. They moved into another corridor, this one somewhat larger, but now also more crowded with elves and higher bred fae, possibly having left the boundaries of Gulandri’s private quarters into more public areas. Curious eyes followed him and more than once he found himself shying away from hands reaching to touch him. They moved on still further and the number of fae increased, until the hall grew crowded, and suddenly Harry could barely move let alone avoid the crush of alien forms around him. The temperature increased, and with it the smell of strange spices and earth and wet, rotting leaves. Breathing became difficult, his heart rate quickened, and he stopped and closed his eyes tightly for a moment to fight of the waves of dizziness and panic.

Not here, he prayed,not here. I can’t do this here. Go away. Go away. Go away.

The crush of warm bodies suddenly retreated, and when he took his next breath it was deliciously cool and clean. He opened his eyes and found himself leaning against a wall, and several startled-looking fae staring at him. A good several feet away.

A hand grabbed his arm, and he jumped.

“Not as weak as assumed,” Gulandri said, suspiciously. Harry didn’t know what he meant. Had he done something? They eyed each other for a moment, but whatever it was the elf was looking for he must not have found. He turned away. “Follow.”

Harry did so, and a after a few minutes he stepped out into a street and could look up and see the sky once again bathed in the brilliant pinks and oranges of twilight. The city… castle… whatever it was was sunk into the earth in a neat little tube with a road spiraling upwards and downwards. He had never even imagined a place like it could exist, and he found himself gaping foolishly at his surroundings, looking this way and that.

Wait till I tell Hermione about this…

Thinking of his friend, he immediately came back to his senses. He needed to think of a way out of this, but unless he suddenly perfected his animagus form in the next few minutes and flew away, he didn’t see any obvious opportunities. They were still moving. Upwards. Up and out? Out where? He wanted to ask, but he didn’t dare. If the elf disliked defiance in private it was doubtful he would tolerate it in public. So he followed quietly behind, struggling to keep up as their path tiled upwards and he began to feel the beginnings of fatigue and hunger. When was the last time he ate? How long had he been asleep?

At last they did make it to the top, and there found two mounts waiting for them. The first was one of the horse-like creatures, now unarmored, and Gulandri immediately claimed it for himself. The second was a mule, clearly bred more for carrying than for riding and its reigns were already tied to the other mount’s saddle. There would be no feasible way to escape on such a creature. He struggled over its back, and then sighed in relief. His legs were near giving out on him already. He needed the rest.

Gulandri lead them out of the city walls and into the forest, which was the first familiar thing Harry had seen. They were then completely alone. What did the elf intend? Not even now did he dare to ask. He kept his curiosity to himself, and rested, waiting for the first tangible opportunity to escape. The opportunity did not present itself for several hours.

Despite the increasing distance from the faerie settlement, Harry was unable to construct a plan to get passed Gulandri. He had no weapons, he was physically weak and half starved, but even if he hadn’t been he was still no match for his captor in hand to hand combat. Running away wasn’t much of an option either, although he wasn’t too prideful to attempt to do so. Even just riding he felt himself tiring, and occasionally he even found himself nodding off and nearly fell from his saddle twice. And eventually, he did nod off. He must have because when he opened his eyes he found the forest had changed.

The sky above was now a clear, starlit sky and the air cold enough to turn his breath to mist. The young, foreign trees had given way to familiar oaks and elms and the inherent magic was more muted and of a different flavor. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and looked around. He couldn’t see far without his glasses and with it being so dark, but he was almost certain he was back in Ireland. Was he being taken home?

“You may ask a question now,” Gulandri said, causing Harry to jump. They had not spoken since they left the faerie city.

“Where…

“You may ask one question. Make it count.”

“… Why are we here?”

“There is something I wish to explain to you, and I believe you will be better able to understand it if I brought you here. Get down, we must walk the rest of the way.”

Sleeping while sitting up was not exactly restful, but Harry did feel a little less stiff and more clear headed. Carefully, he dismounted and followed the elf into a grove of willow trees, their bare branches creating a natural curtain against what lay within. He hesitated a moment, looking back. If he were quick enough, he could run back and take Gulandri’s mount and ride it away. They were in Ireland, not a faerie realm now. Eventually, he would come across some form of civilization, be it muggle or wizarding, and then he would be safe.

“Don’t even think it or I’ll kill you.”

Harry flinched at Gulandri’s voice. He believed him. There was no way he could outrun the elf. Slipping through the curtain of weedy branches, he found Gulandri creating orbs of faerie lights in his hand and letting them float around the grove’s enclosure. It turned out to be not as naturally occurring as Harry had assumed. There was a series of stones, ranging from the size of Harry’s fist to as tall as his shoulders, arranged in a rough circle, each engraved with a rune. The willow trees themselves were planted in a circle around that. At one end, a low altar of naturally flat stones stood. At one time it must have been a place of worship, but it had been abandoned for some time. Moss and weeds and the accumulative detritus had half buried it and in another hundred years it would likely disappear altogether.

“Do you recognize this place? Does it feel familiar?” Gulandri asked.

Should it? And that’s two questions you hypocrite. Harry looked around for a moment. It struck him as vaguely familiar, but only in a secondary way. It reminded him of some of the protections circles he had built with Voldemort and by himself, but he was certain he had never been there before.

“No. I-”

His eyes spotted something and the words immediately died. Inside the circle of gray and blackish stones was yet another stone, but this one was completely different from the others. It was pink for one. Pink, glittering, and striated with lines of white. It had no business being there. He doubted there was a single stone native to Ireland that resembled it, and seeing it drew a memory into his mind he had half forgotten.

You’ll find a stone that has no business being there.

“The Numanti Ring,” he said, somehow absolutely certain of it.

“So you do recognize it?” the elf asked, looking pleased.

“No… I mean. I’ve never been here, but someone told me about it once. Probably Voldemort.”

“Or Carrigan?”

Harry stiffened.

“Carrigan is dead. He died before I was ever born.”

Gulandri made a humming sound, seemingly unconvinced but he did not contradict him. Harry turned away and moved to the pink stone, pushing it aside. It was perhaps a bad idea to do this while the elf was present. He might stop him or take away whatever he found, but now that the young wizard was there he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to confirm whether the Carrigan he had seen in his limbo was a figment of his imagination or truly a spirit.

He dug his fingers into the earth and began clawing it aside. After only a few inches, his fingers touched something metal. Quickly, he dug deeper, hearing his fingernails scraping against something hollow. It was a tin box, undecorated and partially rusted. He attempted to open it, but as mundane as it appeared there was enough magic running through it to keep it sealed.

“My, my…”

He looked up to see Gulandri looking down at the box through a strange stone with a circle through it. Frrykshimini.He had read of it in various places, including for a Charms assignment. A surge of resentment welled up in him, knowing the elf was seeing what was inside before Harry himself, its rightful owner per its master’s decree. He held it protectively to his chest.

“I doubt a treasure hunt is the reason you brought me here,” he said, hoping to distract him from his scrutiny. Perhaps the elf would let him keep it. It couldn’t open it after all, so there was no way he could use it again him. Except perhaps to bludgeon him over the head with it. There was a thought.

Gulandri tucked the stone away.

“No. Do you still claim to have no memory of this place?”

“I have never been here. I was told about the stone.”

“And about what is inside the box?”

Harry said nothing. He fought the urge to shake the box and see if he could guess.

“Since we seem to be ignoring the ‘no questions’ rule, I would ask you the same thing. How do you know of this place?”

Gulandri shrugged.

“It is no secret. Carrigan’s home was but half a mile from here, and I was his guest more than once.”

“You knew him?” he asked, taken completely by surprise. It had never occurred to him that any human could be safe in the other’s company.

“I continue to know him. In fact, I am looking right at him.”

Harry automatically looked around, looking for a gravestone perhaps, but once what was said sunk in he froze. Gulandri was not looking around. He was looking directly at him.

“No.”

“Yes. You are his reincarnation. Do not tell me you did not suspect?”

Harry felt suddenly hollow. No, he had never suspected. Whenever he had heard the name Carrigan, he had only thought of his association with Voldemort, Bobby, and to a lesser extent Dumbledore. In his mind, the druid priest was someone he had wished to have known only because he had been important to others he did know and respect. That he had seen him in his soul space had been an honor, but it had never occurred to him that rather than being haunted he was merely looking into a mirror.

He was such a fool.

“Does Lord Voldemort know?”

Was that why he had attached himself to Harry? Was that the source of their strange affection? Some preexisting affection for the man he had once been?

“No. He is as ignorant of it as you apparently were. Which is fortunate for you.”

“What do you mean?”

Gulandri’s expression turned thoughtful, although Harry detected something mocking in it.

“Well, if he had known he might have simply killed you yet again.”

Harry blinked.

“Voldemort did not kill Carrigan. One of his followers did so accidentally. He loved him… probably like a father.”

“Considering he killed his father, that really doesn’t say much in his favor. However, I know what you are trying to say. Regardless of his feelings for Carrigan, he did in fact kill him. He had little choice in matter. If he didn’t kill the man than he would have been killed himself. It was a matter of self-preservation. I am sure he felt just terrible about it at the time.”

Harry was starting to feel dizzy. Voldemort… had killed his own father? He had killed Carrigan? Had killed Harry himself in a past life? How was he supposed to feel about that? Should he feel anything at all? How could he be certain Gulandri was telling him the truth?

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Again with the questions. If you would be silent, I would have told you.”

“I am listening now,” he said shortly, too emotionally compromised to tread cautiously. Gulandri’s eyes flashed with anger, and his hand slid to his sword. Harry glared back at him. Let him draw his sword, he thought recklessly, he baited me in the first place. Mentally, he recoiled. Maybe that was all this was about, simply the elf attempting to bait Harry into a fight or to trick him. Hadn’t Selufiare warned him? If he reacted with emotion, he would only be giving the elf an excuse to hurt him or a means to manipulate him. He had to be emotionless or at least appear to be. He couldn’t let himself be provoked.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“Please,” he said, fighting to hide the anger and distrust in his voice and face. “Explain what it is you want from me.”

Gulandri regarded him coolly for a moment, his fingers flexing around the pommel of his sword as he calculated whether he should draw it or not. Eventually, he removed his hand and settled it at his side.

“I want you to kill Lord Voldemort.”

Harry felt himself tense, but then relax once again. Of course. It was just a trick. More clever than Dumbledore’s had been, which had at least seemed somewhat honest of intention, but essentially along the same line. Convince Harry that the Dark Lord would turn on him and turn away from him before that happened. Well, it hadn’t worked on him when he was fourteen and it certainly wasn’t going to work on him now.

“You took that more calmly than I expected.”

“I am just waiting silently for you to elaborate.”

“How that man can tolerate your cheek…” Gulandri took a breath, and then continued. “It is in your best interest to help me kill the Dark Lord. You will never have an opportunity more to your favor than when he comes here to retrieve you.”

“You assume that I want to kill the Dark Lord because he killed me in a past life.” According toyou.“That’s poor motivation. He’s been good to me in my present one.” Sort of.

“He will kill you in this present life just as he did in your previous one and for exactly the same reason. What do you know of prophecies?”

Harry’s experience with prophecies was limited to Fleur’s odd Christmas present[1] and some some uncomfortable assertions by Madam Longbottom during his brief visit to Dunnan Hill. Such things had never seemed particularly important to him.

“A little.”

“Do you know the Trelawny Prophecy?”

“No.”

“Then listen very, very carefully. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies… and the Dark Lord will know him in war and mark him as his equal… and one must kill the other… and rule for a thousand years.[2] Now then, does that seem to hit a little too close to home?”

Harry looked away quickly.

He had to or else he was going to laugh in the elf’s face and that wouldn’t help his situation at all. He had to play this right, play along, pretend he believed it. If he could convince Gulandri that they were in fact allies, that he trusted him and was therefore trustworthy, then he could find a way out of this mess. He could save himself, and perhaps the others if they were still alive.

“So you’re saying… we’re destined to kill each other? That all this time, destiny’s been moving us into position to… murder?”

“Over and over and over again it would seem. Reincarnation does have its downside.”

“Then why hasn’t he killed me yet?”

“Because he hasn’t realized it’s about you. It’s the date, you see. The prophesied child is set to be born on July 31st. You were born on Aug. 1st… supposedly. There is really no one left to confirm that one way or another.He’ll figure it out eventually, and when he does… whatever he may feel for you, he won’t die for you.”

“I don’t see how that should matter to you one way or another. You seem willing enough to kill me yourself.”

“Absolutely. You are are utterly irrelevant to me… except in your ability to kill the Dark Lord.”

“Again, I don’t see how that should matter to you either.”

There was another moment of silence, and Harry wondered if he hadn’t pushed too far and if something in his voice hadn’t revealed his complete skepticism in the other.

“Because…” Gulandri said, his tone oddly reluctant. “I need him to die. I need him… to take my place.”

Harry looked up. The wry humor and the quicksilver temper had both receded to something more… intent. Something that reminded him strangely of Voldemort during his more thoughtful periods.

“Faeries… and gods… we are all bound to cycles. Cycles of life and death and rebirth. These cycles manifest themselves in rather… interesting ways, however. In the case of the Milesians, it presents itself in seasonal cycles of rulership. A Dawn King to lead in Spring, a Noon King to bring Summer, a Twilight King for Autumn, and… a Midnight King for winter. Each ruler is overthrown by a usurper, leading to the next season. I overthrew the previous Noon King to become the Twilight King, and when the time comes I too must be overthrown by a Winter King.”

“By Voldemort.”

“Yes. He is the only one worthy of it.”

Harry thought it over. If Gulandri was telling the truth, and there was no reason to believe he was after all the previous lies he had been spewing forth, he could see now why the Dark Lord would first need to be killed.

“He’s not fae… so you have to kill him and resurrect him as one.”

“Precisely. I have no intention of living indefinitely. When the winter season is due, he will set me free of this life and send me on to a new one. See how much you learn when you just stop and listen?”

Alright, the game was now set. “… Give me a reason to help you.”

Gulandri just looked at him.

“I will cut you in half if you do not.”

“And Voldemort will do a hundred times worse if I try and fail. Give me a reason to risk it.”

That brought a vague smile to the other’s face.

“Huh. Very well, I will let you go back to your own realm unharmed and unchanged. You may even take three of your people with you. They can be your alibis when the wizarding world starts asking questions. Do we have a deal, Lord Potter?”

“I don’t see how I have much of a choice. We have a deal, Lord Gulandri.”

The elf smiled without warmth.

“Then take my hand and let us shake on it like gentleman.”

Harry stiffened. He looked into Gulandri’s eyes and knew immediately he had failed. The elf no more believed Harry than Harry believed him. He jumped to his feet and made a run for it, knowing he was doomed already, but unwilling to face defeat standing still. The tin box still clutched in his hands, he made for the mounts.

“Tupiash je’te!” the elf called, casting his spell just as he reached the willows. Limp branches suddenly snapped forward, snaring Harry around the arms, neck, and chest and lifting him off the ground. He kicked and struggled and tried to call on his magic to tear free but he remained dangling helplessly as Gulandri followed after him leisurely.

“Going somewhere, Lord Potter?”

Harry spat out several unflattering things in parseltongue.

“Don’t tell me you weren’t enjoying our game? I thought you were really getting into it for a moment there.”

“The hell you did! As if I would ever believe that heaping shit pile you tried to unload on me!”

“A lovely colloquialism, however, inaccurate. Almost everything I said to you was true, except that part where I want you to kill the Dark Lord. I am perfectly capable of managing that on my own.”

“So what? This is your idea of aman’s sport?”

The elf favored his sarcasm with a sharp backhand, leaving the young wizard seeing stars.

“More like a test. I wanted to see how much you knew about Carrigan and about the prophecy. I’ll take your obvious disbelief as a sign of ignorance. A pity. I should have liked to know the depth of your devotion, but there is time yet to test it. The Dark Lord is on his way to Hausteheim now. What would you give me to spare his life?”

“What will you give me to spare yours? He’s going to kill you and turn your city into a tomb!” he sneered. It earned him another backhand to the other cheek, and this time he spat blood.

“You are no fun at all. If you won’t cooperate, we’ll just have to play another game.”

Gulandri reach out for him, taking hold of Harry’s right rist, just as he would have if they actually shaken hands. Harry cried out in shock and pain as foreign magic surged into his body, sinking deeply into the core of his magic and pulled at something.

“I saw through frrykshiminithat you are a practitioner of the changeling arts,” he said conversationally, as the mortal boy thrashed and screamed in agony beneath his grip. “That makes what I am about to do that much simpler… if not necessarily less painful.”

Harry was beyond hearing him. His magic curled and twisted unnaturally in Gulandri’s touch, his own innate defenses rising to compensate yet finding no outlet except to turn inward against his own body. He writhed and twisted helplessly as his innate form began to shift, reconfiguring into a new form he had barely begun to experiment with. Bones became hollow and light, joints suddenly bent the wrong way, fingernails curved into black talons, feathers replaced skin, green eyes turned gold.

When Gulandri was done, the human boy had disappeared completely and a peregrine falcon hung limply in his place.

It was nearly two in the morning and Snape was still awake, although he had climbed into bed beside his wife hours ago. Ira was curled peaceably at his side, her lips and nose lightly touching the edge of his shoulder, so that he could count her breaths by the rhythmic bursts of warmth against his bare skin. It was a supremely peaceful feeling, and he envied her the innocence that allowed her to sleep undisturbed. His own anxieties would not allow him the same.

Potter had not returned and he had received no word as to his prolonged absence. A part of him wanted to get out of bed, and head to Bristol to track down his ward. Another part of him knew the silence was more than likely a power play on Lucius’ part to leave him dangling in ignorance, his own form of petty revenge for the perceived slight Snape had made against him in siding with his goddaughter’s welfare rather than his old friend’s machinations. If he did go to Bristol and tracked down Harry, he was likely to find him sound asleep in one of Lucius’ townhouses or a local hotel suite, and his presence would only make for an extremely awkward and likely terse conversation.

It would be better simply to wait. If he did not return by tomorrow morning, he would send out Seitler to retrieve him. For now, things were too strained for them to be left alone in each other’s company. Harry was likely still humiliated by his behavior the night before, and Snape wasn’t feeling any better about his own reaction. His relationship with Harry was complicated. He had come to accept that a long time ago, when he had been unable to kill the boy in the tunnel under Berlin. Harry’s own feelings towards him were also complicated, even if Harry himself was rather a simple person. They had trusted each other, however. Snape trusted in his odd affection and need for an adult mentor a little more restrained than the Dark Lord’s. Harry trusted in Snape’s experience and self- control

And then Snape had to go and screw it up by panicking and nearly killing the boy with a blasting hex. He could recall clearly his stunned expression, the complete and utter disbelief. He had looked so betrayed, and Snape knew that his feeling was justified. He had never used a spell against his ward before. Oh, he had cast spells on him, but never in heat of anger or during an argument. Their fights had always been verbal and physical. Even half-crazed, he should have known Harry would never have harmed him seriously. It wasn’t until later that he remembered whatever Harry’s condition it was not lycanthrosis and not communicable by bite.

So why had he panicked? Had he been that frightened of the boy?

The terrible truth of the matter was that, yes, he was afraid of him. Not just in the throes of his moon-madness but every day and in every moment he feared him. It was a fear that had haunted him since he first realized he could never willingly free himself of Harry. At the moment in the Berlin Undeground, when he had his ward’s life in his hands and had chosen not to take it. It had grown as Harry had grown and become stronger, and more dangerous to Snape himself and just as invincible to his enmity. How many nights had he lain awake, just like this night, and wondered if when the moment came, and surely the moment would come, if he would choose his own life or Harry’s?

He had made a promise to himself that when it happened he would chose himself. He kept that promise, and as he had feared, he hated himself for it. How would he feel if next time he were forced to actually kill him?

A bell rung, echoing through his quarters, startling him and rousing Ira from sleep.

“Mmm… whose that?” she said sleepily.

“Probably Seitler informing me Potter’s back. Go back to sleep. I’ll take care of it,” he said, a bit of relief seeping into his voice as he climbed out of bed. He kissed the top of her head, earning him a sleepy smile before she settled back into her pillow. He slipped on his sleeping robe and headed into the living room. He checked the wards out of habit before opening his door, and frowned when a familiar but still unexpected name appeared. He opened it.

“Lucius, what are you doing here?”

And where is Harry?

The aristocrat was in the company of one of Seitler’s men, but quickly moved into his quarters and shut the door in the Sentinel’s face. Lucius looked… awful. Worse than Snape had ever seen him outside of the battlefield or a hospital. He was gaunt, shadowed, and paler than usual. His normally negligent grace was stilted and sharp. He barely recognized his old friend.

“I need your help, Severus.”

Snape was immediately filled with a terrible dread. Lucius never asked for his help. He had minions for that. Whatever had happened was too much for him to trust to just anyone. What have you done, Lucius? Where is Harry?

He looked towards his bedroom door where his wife had hopefully drifted off to sleep already, but cast a silencing charm towards it just in case. There was no way he was going to drag his wife into what was happening. He went into the kitchen, and returned a moment later with a vial of calming drought.

“Drink this, and then explain yourself.”

Lucius took the vial and downed it, and Snape becoming even more alarmed. He hadn’t even asked what it was he was drinking. It could have been veritaserum for all he knew.

“I am in trouble. I made a mistake. A miscalculation. I need your help to fix it. I can’t do it alone. I don’t trust myself enough to do it.”

“What have you done? Where is Potter? Have you done something to him?”

Lucius let out a strained little laugh, looking at Snape with his overly wide eyes.

“I haven’t killed him and stuffed into my office desk, if that is what you’re concerned about.”

As a matter of fact…Snape sneered mentally, but kept his expression calm and serious. After a moment, Lucius buried his face in his hands.

“I’m sorry, Severus,” he said, startling the headmaster once again. Lucius apologized as frequently as he asked for help, which was almost never. “I know I haven’t been fair to you over the last several months. I… I haven’t been myself lately… If I had been thinking clearly, this never would have happened…”

“Lucius, you are not being clear now. What exactly has happened?”

It took a moment, as his old acquaintance seemed to be having trouble organizing his thoughts. He started by explaining about his intention to trick Potter into thinking he had ordered the attack on the werewolf colony, but how the boy had seen right through it. Then he jumped back, explaining that he believed he was suffering under the affects of a curse that was driving him mad (which Snape was all too willing to believe at this point), and had been tricked by a raven into believing that only Harry could save him so he needed his alliance. Somewhere in there was a convoluted explanation about why precisely he had allowed Harry to go to Ireland against the Dark Lord’s orders and the boy had since disappeared only to be reported by a werewolf that he had been kidnapped by faeries.

By the end of it, Snape was feeling a touch of madness himself. One that demanded he wrap his hands around Lucius’ neck and wring the life out of him. He held himself back, however. If what Lucius said was true, he was mad and could not be held accountable for his unending stupidity.

At least, not until the Dark Lord got a hold of him.

“Have you sent word to Voldemort about this yet?”

The aristocrat jumped to his feet, his alarm at the suggestion overriding the mental lull of the calming drought.

“NO! No, absolutely not! If he has to fix this, he will kill me for sure. If I can get Potter back-”

“If you can get Potter back… if you do not, he will do more than just kill you Lucius, he will… I don’t know what he’ll do to your family.”

The Dark Lord might spare Draco and Hermione out of memory of Harry’s affection for them, but Narcissa would have no such protection. Snape was becoming increasingly worried about his own wife and himself. He had been the one to send Harry to Lucius. Part of this was his fault.

Lucius fell silent for a long moment.

“I… I don’t know, Severus. I can’t trust myself to think this through rationally. My thoughts seemed sensible a while ago, but then whatever that raven did started to wear off. I need… I need you to tell me what to do.”

Snape could see it killed Lucius to say that, and he felt a part of himself soften at the admission. As long as he had known the Malfoy patriarch, he had admired and despised his absolute confidence in himself; his seemingly effortless competence in all situations. It had brought the man through a war and landed him at Voldemort’s right hand, and in a way it had also helped to pull Snape himself up through the ranks. Lucius had always had confidence in himself and that inspired confidence in others. He had also had confidence in Snape and the result had had a similar if more mild affect. Much of what the headmaster had planned for his own family was modeled after what he had observed of Malfoy’s; the pride, prestige, and dignity they wore about themselves at all times, separating themselves from the mundane and baseness of society was something that he wanted for himself and his offspring. If not for the many instances of hypocrisy he had witnessed in his friend, he would have been driven mad with jealousy.

“Very well,” Snape said, “I will see if I can’t figure out something to save both you and Potter. We will need to send word to the Dark Lord.”

“But-”

“If he finds out you hid this from him, there will be no saving you Lucius. If… if enough people know you only acted as a result of being under the influence of a curse, than the blame can be waylaid onto another. I can’t promise you won’t be punished Lucius, you’ve made too many mistakes already, but we may be able to save your life and your dignity.”

Although not necessarily your influence.

“But if he’s the source of the curse…”

“Highly unlikely, Lucius,” he said sharply, “And even if he were you must never let on that you think so. Let him find a scapegoat, so long as it is not yourself.”

After a moment, the aristocrat nodded.

“What about Potter?”

“We should make an attempt to find him, at least. There is no telling how long it will take for word to reach Lord Voldemort, and if we do nothing he would be even angrier. Do you have anyway of finding Potter?”

“Yes. Maybe. I sent the raven to rescue the boy… maybe he will succeed, but just in case I put a tracking spell on the ring I gave him. If he did go to the faerie realm, we will be able to follow him.”

That was perhaps the first evidence of clear thinking Lucius had displayed, with the exception of coming to Snape of course.

“Good. Let me get some supplies and we’ll go.”

“What about the faeries? They took out an entire squad, including a Sentinel and Potter himself.”

“Don’t concern yourself, Lucius. I have my ways of dealing with fae.”

He left his friend in the living room and went to the bedroom to get dressed, and think out his plan. Ira was asleep. As he garbed his battle robes, he watched her and felt not for the first time how much loved her. He loved her so much, and yet he couldn’t stay with her, crawl back into their bed and let Lucius and Harry find their way out of this themselves. Second to Ira, they were the closest things to friends he had ever had.

He wrote her a brief note explaining he had gone out to resolve and argument between Potter and Malfoy and would be back by Sunday afternoon and left it on his pillow, then made a brief stop to his private potions lab before leaving the castle with Lucius. As they traveled, Severus pried as much information out of Lucius as he could, unraveling a tale of conspiracy and self-destruction, but a part of his mind remained fixed on thoughts of Harry himself.

Was the boy alive? Was he still human? Would the prophecy, if it had any credence to begin with, hold true in the faerie realms? Would this careless, unforeseen act be the impetus that set the prophecy in motion? Or would this be yet another strange adventure in the life of Harry Potter, one he would walk out of a little stronger and a little stranger than when he had walked in? If he did so, what would be the outcome for Lucius and himself, untouched and unprotected by destiny’s hand?

There was only one way to find out.

The world had shrunk into a sphere of black water , damp silvery air, a boat, a hobgoblin, and the Dark Lord himself. And mermaids. Most of Voldemort’s attention appeared to be spared for the mermaids, their golden fins and flowing yellow hair undulating gracefully just beneath the water made for a calming sight even if their constant circling around the fragile craft hinted at a sinister intent. The mermaids were a fairer breed than those found in the lake below Hogwarts, whom nature had gifted with a sort of ugliness to avoid the attention of the wizarding folk they lived in proximity to. These mermaids, however, were ocean faring sirens whose song and beauty lured unwary sailors to their death and then would disappear not to be seen for decades or even centuries in the same place.

Every so often one would dare lift her head to the surface and let out a few crooning notes, attempting to gain his attention, but drawing no nearer than a few feet from the edge of the boat. Part of this Voldemort knew was some magical protection placed on the craft, but a larger part was no doubt do to the wretched creature that was acted as his guide through gloom.

“Eehehe!” Todd-All-Alone crowed in delight when his long narrow pole tapped against a mermaid that had inadvertently drifted too near. She let out an agonized shriek and flailed violently, bringing up foaming white water streaked with red, before disappearing completely into the depths. “Eehehe! Thata one wasa wiggla!”

Several of the ichthyied females hissed angrily, furthering his cackling amusement. The Dark Lord did not speak or move. Not even his expression changed, though his crimson eyes turned their indifferent gaze from the empty water to Harry’s wand laying in his hand. Another mermaid rose up from the depths, this one older than the others, although still lovely with black hair and black eyes focused intently on the Dark Lord’s ungloved hand resting over the edge of the boat.

“Oi! Wotcher there! Go’ins to lose a couple of spare parts, yeah?” Todd warned. Voldemort’s gaze glided from the wand to the black eyed mermaid, who was now mere inches from his hand. They regarded each other for a moment, and then Voldemort turned his attention back to his wand, not bothering to move.

Todd did not consider himself a very proud fellow, and most who knew him felt that was good because there was little for the noxious creature to be proud of. However, if there was one place he felt he deserved some modicum of respect it was on the water. Who knew these water ways better than he? Who knew its dangers like the back of their hand? Certainly not this child tyrant, so arrogant in his ignorance, so apathetic to his own approaching demise. He was just like any other mortal fool, following after yet another fool to his death, like little duckies all in a row. Quack, quack, quack.

“I am not going to die.”

Todd gave a start, nearly dropping his pole. Had he said that aloud?

“Did Gulandri himself not promise me the full extent of his hospitality? Or has faerie decorum failed completely during his reign?”he said, without looking away from the sliver of polished wood in his hand.

The fae let out an angry hiss at the implied insult. A faerie’s word was sacred, and to have a species so renown for their ability to lie boldfaced and shameless furthered his annoyance. This was the first human he had encountered up close andconscious, and he had believed it would be a novel amusement but it was quickly descending into a test of patience he didn’t have.

“Whadda ya know ’bout it? Whadda ya know bout nothing? Ya ain’t nothing but a ignerent, baby-faced rascal. Looky ’ere, climb’n into my boat, bold as ya please. Think you go’n to market? Yeah? Think ya I be yer servant? I’m yer ferryman, mortal. I’m ferrying ya ta the underworld. Whatcha thing of that?”

Voldemort’s crimson eyes finally turned to him. Todd drew back slightly, caught off guard. He hadn’t expected the mortal’s gaze to be quite so unsettling. He’s had banshees glare at him with more warmth.

“And were you my protege’s ‘ferryman’? Did you row him to his death?”

Todd puffed his chest, putting on a display of bravado that wasn’t fooling anyone, not even the mermaids whose frustrated expressions had smoothed into one of vindictive enjoyment. They might not understand the words spoken, but they knew something was happening.

“What if I did? Whatcha gonna do ’bout it? Kill me? Then wot? Ya think’n you canz find yer way on yer own? Ha! Yer be going in circles til the magic fails and the pretty fishes come and eat ya! You ain’t in your kingdom no more, yer Highness! This ’ere is Todd-All-Alone’s castle. Ya do what I say or else! Yeah?”

Voldemort fell very quiet, looking away from Todd and back out at the water. The black-eyed mermaid had reached his hand, and staring directly at him, kissed the very tips of his fingers. The silence dragged on, the Dark Lord still refusing to look at the other creature, and Todd felt a swell of pride at having bested the man and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to gloat.

“Oi! Wot this? Ya gunna cry now? Pop a few salties? Go riighta head!” he laughed.

Voldemort’s grip on Harry’s wand suddenly tightened and he pointed it at the changeling.

“Levi corpus.”

The changeling shrieked as he suddenly found himself pulled from his feet to dangle helplessly in the air by his ankle. He dropped his pole and it fell in the water and quickly drifted away. The mermaids, almost half a dozen all rose to the surface to point and laugh and clap their hands in childish glee.

“OI OI OI! Put me down!”

Voldemort’s expression hadn’t changed, and still remained aloof as he slowly moved Harry’s wand so that Todd was suddenly hovering over the water rather than the boat. The mermaids swam beneath him, and reached up for him like children after a toy held just out of reach. All except the black-eyed female, who continued to nuzzle the Dark Lord’s hand and watched him intently.

“Are you sure you want me to put you down?” Voldemort asked. “They look hungry.”

“Wait! No, don’t put me down! No! Please, please!”

“You know, Harry’s wand shares a similar core to my own, and that makes it a little easier for me to use, but is by no means natural. If find I am starting to tire keeping you like this. I don’t believe it is worth the effort to do so.”

He let him dip a little lower, just enough for a set of fingernails to graze his fuzzy head and tear several strands free. The changeling wailed and screamed as if he were already being torn apart. Voldemort lifted him a few inches higher.

“Unless of course you have something to say to make it worth my effort.”

“ANYTHING! ANYTHING!”

“Is Harry Potter still alive? Is he still human?”

“YA! YA! Definitely! Er… maybe.”

He let him dip again.

“AH! ’E WAS WHEN I LAST SAW ’IM!”

Lift.

“So Gulandri does intend to wait for me before he Introduces him? What was his condition when you saw him?”

“Sleeping! ’E was sleeping… ’eeling I thunk. They kept ’im in the lady’s room! I dunno why. All da others were in da Cellar.”

“Others? What others?”

Todd told him, blubbering heavily, about the other witches and wizards that had been brought in from the hunt and placed in dungeons. This left Voldemort rather confused. He had assumed Harry had some how been lured out of Hogwarts, possibly a result of the strange happening Snape had hinted at in his last message, and taken from the Forbidden Forest. However, if what changeling was saying were true, Harry hadn’t wandered off again but been under the escort of at least a dozen trained soldiers. He could not even begin to imagine how this had come to pass, but someone was going to suffer dearly for it. Certainly the soldiers themselves, those who survived anyway, would face the consequences of failing so spectacularly at protecting his protege.

“What does Gulandri intend to do once I arrive? What is his game? His trick?”

“Eyes dunno! ’Ow could I know? ’E is king and eyes just a ferryman!”

“But you were sent to escort me. Where? What was to happen once I arrived?”

Todd fell very quiet, and his eyes grew exceptionally wide. Voldemort could, theoretically, legilimens a fae, but in this instance it seemed wholly unnecessary. It was obvious there had been some sort of ambush or trap waiting for him, guised perhaps as a welcoming party or something equally harmless so as not to break the promise of hospitality, but with the intent of disarming and ensnaring him. He leaned back in his boat and considered his options.

He could not allow himself to be taken by surprise or allow himself to be called into the dance Gulandri was setting him up to perform. He would need to keep the elf and all his people unbalanced and off guard if he intended to thwart their plans. Easier said than done. Todd had been planted with the sole purpose of delivering him into some sort of trap, the first step to throwing off the Dark Elf’s game was evading it. The changeling had been right though, he was the ferryman and the only one who knew where they were going and how to get there. He needed him. Threatening him with a painful demise might be enough to make him lead Voldemort to some safe harbor near where he needed to be, but it might not either. As cowardly a creature as it was, he was bound by magic to fealty towards his king and that wasn’t something easily over-ridden.

A sharp nip to his thumb drew him from his thoughts to the strangely affectionate creature swimming beside him. Frustrated and short tempered, he nearly back-handed her for the minor infraction, but when he caught her dark gaze he stopped. They stared at each for a long moment. Then they smiled.

She stuck her thumb in her mouth and bit, and pulled the now bloodied digit out and pressed it to Voldemort’s own, mixing their blood.

“A promise then,” he said. She nodded. He turned to Todd. “And a rather unfortunate one for you, I am afraid.

“Wot? Whadda ya- AAAHHH!”

Voldemort let him drop, falling straight into the savage hands of the mermaids who quickly dragged him below the water and disappeared. The silence was a balm to his twisted soul. He breathed the cold, wet air deeply, let it burn inside his lungs, and released it. That was one small battle won. He looked back at his new ally. Unlike Todd, she was not of Gulandri’s court and held no fealty to him. She held no real affection for Voldemort himself either, but she did owe him a boon for helping her avenge her wounded kin.

“What is your name?”

She just smiled and shook her head. He probably would have been unable to pronounce it anyway. The only reason they had been able to understand each other at all was that legilimency did not truly involve language. It involved understanding the other, because they understood themselves and their own meaning. A useful tool for diplomacy in delicate situations he had found.

Using Harry’s wand, because there was something strangely enigmatic about using a wand so similar to his own and yet simultaneously resistant, he summoned a length of rope, securing one end to the bow of the boat and tossing the other end to the mermaid, who took it and began pulling the boat along behind her at a far more impressive speed than the ferryman’s sedate pace.

Todd had been mistaken in his belief that he was the most knowledgeable of the faes to navigate the waters between the innumerable realms. Mermaids were more knowledgeable by far, and infinitely more cunning. She would find him a safe shore to deposit him, more quickly and secretively than the changeling could have done even if he had tried. He would use this to the greatest advantage possible.

Until then, however, he was stuck doing exactly what he had been doing before he had disposed of his previous guide. Trying to figure out what the hell had happened and what did it mean?

Although Todd had insisted that Harry was alive and human when he left, he hadn’t seemed as certain that was still the case. Voldemort was not as concerned about Harry’s survival (the gods must have had a future in mind for him given his continued survival thus far) as he was about his humanity, which was not as valued by the cosmic forces that organized the universe. What if he arrived too late to save Harry from being turned as Gulandri intended? Wasn’t it possible that the Dark Elf intended to make him break their hospitality agreement by enraging Voldemort to the point of recklessness? It was a widely known fact, even to himself, that he was unhealthily possessive of his protege and would tear apart any enemy that threatened to take him away.

Somehow he doubted the fates would protect Harry from exchanging one pagan form to another, not even to satisfy the Dark Lord. What would he do then?

Kill Gulandri, of course, although he intended to do so regardless of the circumstances.

But what of Harry? What form would he take? Would he remember Voldemort at all? Did it even matter? He would take the boy with him, but then what? His mind presented a thousand different scenarios; ones where he continued to pass Harry off as human to continue the role Voldemort had intended for him, ones where he hid the boy away from the public eye in some private sanctuary for the rest of his seemingly endless days, others were he set the boy on Gulandri’s throne, his own puppet king. He quickly had to dismiss them all completely. There was no telling what state he would find Harry in and there was no point in planning for the future until he could assess the boy’s condition.

There was nothing to look at with the dense fog around them, and now even the mermaids had seemingly disappeared. He busied his thoughts by taking an inventory of his mental armory; spells and battle techniques he might need in the coming confrontation. When he felt sufficiently prepared, he spared a thought to Bellatrix and the soldiers he had left without so much as a word along the shores of Bostalsee.

Bobby flew hard and he flew high, ignoring the burn on his wing muscles after such long periods of relative disuse. When he passed over fields and forests the sky glittered with stars. When he passed over cities, the streets created their own beautiful constellations. Magic flowed over and through him, his own and that of a world he had been too long parted from. He felt it tugging at him, luring him to travel to strange and distant places, realms that lay between and below and beyond the present one.

Freedom.

He had just given up hope and then BAM! There it was, and if he weren’t so elated he would have felt resentful of the trick. But it was hard to hold a grudge at the moment. The only thing tempering his enthusiasm was the understanding that Harry had once again gotten himself into trouble and he himself had Lucius’ ring weighted around his ankle. Both were driving him towards Hausteheim, a faeries realm he had crossed enough times to be knowledgeable of and not enough to be comfortable with.

Getting there had been simple enough. Flying between two halves of an elm split by lightening, crossing under a stone bridge three times, and a somewhat awkward shuffled through a badger’s hole had brought him out into an ancient faerie graveyard, overgrown with red leaved vines and intangible spirits that hid in the long shadows left by the perpetually setting sun. Crows cawed at him jealously as he made his appearance and joined them for a moment in one of the nearby trees, gathering his sense of direction.

Hausteheim had three major settlements; Algor Sur, built from a dwarven Mithral quary, Messetel, made of hundreds of tiny island set on a shallow lake, and Ruknocuranti, composed of special trees that grew into naturally occurring shelters. It was possible Harry had been taken to any of these places, but his gut told him he would be taken to Algor Sur, the current capitol and home of the realm’s young Autumn King. Aside from that, he couldn’t be certain what he would find. Who had the boy? What state was he in?

“Excuse me,” he said, addressing the crows glaring at him. “Have any of you heard of a young wizard brought here recently?”

He received no response. He had hoped perhaps there was a changeling among them willing to gossip, but it would seem he would have to look elsewhere. Taking to the air, he headed west towards Algor Sur. Hopefully, he would be able to gather a little more information before he arrived, but he would have to be cautious. He was not a true faerie himself, which made him just as valuable of a commodity as any wizard and just as likely to be taken against his will.

He did not meet any fae along the way, but when he finally reached the settlement he found information he needed without have to ask. Harry and his protectors had only been brought in a few days before and the peoples in the market place where still gossiping heavily about it. Bobby perched himself amongst a number of other ravens and pigeons along the edge of roofs and along the ropes and rigging that held up the tents and stalls, listening intently and piecing together what had happened and learned about what was being planned for his troublesome friend. The most helpful conversation he stumbled upon by far was one between two dwarven sisters and a goblin cloth merchant.

“I need blue cloth, not red. Red won’t suit her at all!” a dwarven wench demanded, shaking her large fist at the cloth merchant, a goblin of some kind, who regarded her coolly over the edge of his large nose.

“I don’t know how you can say so. There’s no telling what she will look like…after.Red might suit her just fine,”he pointed out. Her sister rolled her eyes.

“You can’t even know if you’ll get any of them, let alone the one you want. You’ve never managed to get one before. You’ve always been outbid.”

“Oh, hush! There were never as many before. The competition won’t be nearly as fierce, just you watch. I’ll get the dark haired lass, you mark me, and she make the prettiest dwarf in town once I put a little meat on her.”

“As far as that goes,” the goblin muttered, his view of dwarven aestheticism rather dim.

“How do you even know there’s going to be an auction for them? The king seemed more interested in using them as bait for the God Eater than turning a profit.”

“Pish-posh. He only needs the little one for that! A pretty face, even if he’s little more than a walking skeleton,” she giggled a bit, her fleshy cheek dimpling in amusement. “But I guess humans and elves like that sort of thing. I heard he already promised the boy to his daughter.”

“She’s a naga, not an elf,” the goblin corrected.

“Half-elf,” she snapped right back.

“Promised? As in he’s going to marry them?” the second dwarf gasped.

“Of course not, you ninny! He gave him to her as a gift. My Murkwort said that his best friend’s sister’s fiance heard from one of the kitchen boys that he can speak the snake tongue.”

“No? Really?” came yet another scandalized reply. “If I was that girl’s parent I would think a little harder about leaving her alone with someone who can say anything to without you knowing. He’s handsome enough by human standards, isn’t he?”

“Get your mind out of the cesspit! Princes Selufiare is a lady! She don’t deserve any of that sort of talk.”

Bobby flew away, gliding further down into the city towards the royal quarters. If what the woman had said were true, then Harry was likely being held in either the dungeons or in one of the private quarters near the princess. This was problematic. One, because that increased security, and two, because if he happened upon Gulandri, he would be recognized immediately and his chances of success would drop considerably. To make matters worse, Voldemort was theoretically on this way there, and when he arrived whatever trap had been set for him would be sprung. There would be fighting, and Harry would more than likely be caught somewhere in the crossfire, and history may repeat his brother’s fate a second time.

He would have to diffuse the situation quickly and subtly.

On the bright side, if he was in Selufiare’s care Bobby had a much better chance of doing just that. She did not know him, and although he knew little about her, he knew she favored her naga ancestry and they tended to be sensitive and less prone to suspicion. He thought for several moments on how he might be able to take advantage of that, with minimal risk to himself.

It occurred to him quickly that there was nothing he could do that wouldn’t be risky for himself, and he flew towards the entrance of the royal quarters. He was spotted almost immediately.

“You! Halt right there!” a elven guard demanded, drawing the attention of the dozens of other creatures in the tunnel with them. Bobby obediently stopped and landed himself on the shoulder of a statue along the wall.

“Yes? Is something the matter?” he asked the elf innocently. The elf, white as snow except for the blue in his lips and eyes, marched towards him, forcing servants and visitors to leap out of his way.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“Oh, excuse me. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Bobbitimus Carrigan the III, messenger and herald of the divine Raecellos. I come bearing a gift to her majesty, Princess Selufiare, congratulating the acquisition of her own convert,” he said, ingratiatingly, waving his ringed foot to show off the supposed ‘gift’ he was bringing. “These things are milestones in a woman’s life, you know.”

This was very true. Acquiring a human inducted into the life of a fae was very much like adoption for faeries. For some, they would be the only children they would ever have for themselves. The elf guard frowned, uncertain.

“What would a god care for such a thing?”

“Oh, no! No, no, no! I didn’t mean Raecellos had sent me. I am merely doing a favor for another of his followers who happens to be an admirer of her ladyship.”

“Who?”

Here Bobby tried to look sheepish.

“Oh…ah… I am afraid I can’t say. It is… a private matter between her ladyship and the prince… ah! I mean gentleman.”

Now it was the elf’s turn to look uncomfortable. It was not a guard’s place to interfere with the clandestine affairs of their employers, particularly when those employers were royalty. Their romantic partners had the tendency to create serious problems, but even more so were the attempts of outsiders to disrupt them. Wars and suicides were unfortunately common among the various faerie clans for just this sort of thing. At the same time, it was their responsibility to make sure their masters were safe, and it was just as common for an enemy to take advantage of the relaxation of security measures to cause all sorts of mischief.

“How can I know your intentions?”

“Oh, let him through, Veneri! The princess can handle herself!” a brownie laughed as he ran by carrying a basket of laundry.

“Mind your own business, Caskel!” he hissed, but the creature had already disappeared. Bobby acted as if there hadn’t been interrupted.

“Your diligence to your duty does you credit, sir. I swear on my magic and my life that I have not come to bring any harm to Princess Selufiare or her family.”

“You are not a faerie, your oath does not bind you,” the elf observed, and now that he had said it, he stare turned suddenly covetous. The raven had to think quickly or he was going to find himself a prisoner yet again.

“Very true. Very well, I swear upon Raecellos’ favor that I have not come to bring any harm to Princess Selufiare or her family. There. If I break my word I shall be cursed by my patron god, insuring a fate worse than death!”

The guard nodded, finding such an oath sufficient. It never occurred to him that the raven might have been lying about Raecellos being his patron god. Claiming the favor of a god falsely was a terrible sin, and just as likely to result in a curse as Bobby’s oath had been if broken.

“Very well. Wait here, and I will ask the princess if she will see you or no.”

So Bobby waited, pretending to be confident and carefree, even as he felt many eyes upon him and was keenly aware that inside the tunneled city he had very little space to maneuver. Luckily, he did not have to wait long before Veneri returned.

“She will see you. Come with me,” he said, extending his arm towards the raven. Bobby took advantage of the offered protection and hopped down onto it. He was led deeper into the tunnels, where the number of fae quickly diminished, and he was able to concentrate on the feeling of the place and the lay out of its tunnels. Most importantly, he was became aware of the fresh air circulating even this deeply and how the candles flickered from a draft that did not originate from the direction they had come from. That meant there were ventilation shafts nearby. These probably wouldn’t prove useful to Harry as a means of escape, but for Bobby they might prove invaluable.

He was brought to an ornately carved door, which the guard knocked upon and was bade to enter. Inside, he found a lavish chamber fit for a faerie princess and a faerie princess fit for such a lavish chamber. He was momentarily struck by her loveliness, particularly her electric blue eyes which rested on him with gentle compassion. His attention, however, was soon drawn to the other denizen of the room. A young falcon, not quite grown into its full adult feathers, was tethered a stand and looking miserable and exhausted. It did not immediately look towards him when he was brought into the room, but once he spoke it turned and gazed at him intently. Bobby wondered if perhaps it was hungry.

“Your highness,” Bobby said, making an elegant bow with his wings extended. “Thank you for agreeing to see me. I understand these are busy days for you and your family.”

“It is kind of you to say so, but my days are for my own leisure. My father’s amusements are of differing tastes than my own. Make yourself comfortable, stranger. Would you care for some refreshment?”

“A bowl of untouched water would be lovely. I have traveled far.”

“Of course.” She gestured for Veneri to go, and he bowed respectfully as he left to have some other servant fetch some water. “Now tell me, Sir Raven, what business brings you to my door at such risk to yourself? Surely not some other man’s amorous attentions as you told the guard.”

Bobby blinked in surprise. Her expression turned from compassionate to condescension with a mere tilt of her head.

“I know the word ‘princess’ conjures the image of a beautiful, kind, and naïve girl in the mortal realm, but please do me the courtesy of not assuming I am a complete fool. Raecellos is the patron of adventuring youth; not timid, lovesick princes, and your presence so close to the Introduction Ceremony means you traveled from either the mortal world or our neighboring kingdom, Vandeheim, which has no unwed princes to speak of. Now tell me, did Lord Voldemort send you?”

Bobby just stared at her in wide-eyed shock. Well, wasn’t this a surprise? He should have known better than to underestimate a woman he had never even met, but he had not anticipated his ruse being torn apart so easily and so quickly. He was a little lost about what to do now. He was trapped in the room with her, and while he had some innate magic, she was a fully trained enchantress with a wand.

The falcon on its perch let out a distressed cry, and flapped its wings weakly trying to pull himself free. Selufiare rose and went to him, murmuring softly in parseltongue. Bobby gave another start. That was Harry? Oh Goddess.

The naga spoke in comforting tones, stroking the falcon’s breast gently until at last he seemed to calm.

“What have you done to him?” Bobby demanded, horrified.

She gave him a sad glance.

“A poor jest on my father’s part. It is not permanent, and if the young man had more practice and more strength, he could doubtlessly return to his true form. It is, perhaps, better that he conserve his strength for his escape.”

“Escape? I don’t understand. You want him to escape?”

“Does that surprise you so much? It is the instinct of faeries to take mortals, particularly those who have lost their love of the Earth and all her many forms, but Harry is no lost soul and I am not bound by base instinct. Even I can understand what is being done to him is wrong.”

A thrill of excitement ran through the raven’s body. If this formidable lady was on their side, than they were nearly free already. If in fact she was on their side. This could be a trick.

“So you are going to help us because you pity him?” he let a touch of skepticism touch his voice. “Pity seems a poor reason to risk your father’s wraith.”

She nodded.

“Indeed, it would seem a very poor reason indeed. But my reasoning has both personal and practical aspects. Do you know the story of my mother, Lady Lorelai?”

“Only that she was originally a muggle, before the naga took her.”

“Indeed, they took her and then gave her as a gift to my father. She was unique in that even though she had only been a non-magical human, she still remembered her life perfectly and she regretted its loss to her dying day. She made me promise when I was very small that I would never force my own desires for companionship on another the way my father and the naga did upon her.”

Bobby tilted his head respectfully.

“She sounds like she was a remarkable woman, but you said you had a practical reason as well?”

“Yes. The other reason why I will help you both, is that I have no desire to share this realm with Lord Voldemort. My father seems convinced that he is the only suitable rival for his thrown. I do not agree.”

“You know of another who may prove a suitable challenge?”

“I can think of one who may surpass him when the proper season falls, yes.”

He looked at her for a long moment, and it suddenly occurred to him what she was really saying.

“A Winter Queenperhaps, rather than another King?”

She gave him a dark look. “I would thank you not speculate that out loud in my father’s house.”

“Of course. I apologize. So if I take Harry away, then there will be nothing here to lure in the Dark Lord.” Except for revenge.“I’ll go with that. If you are offering your assistance, than I am more than grateful to accept it. Perhaps you might start by taking this accursed ring off of me?”

He offered his leg from which Malfoy’s ring dangled. He had intended to ask Harry to take it off, but the boy was in no condition to do so. She checked the ring, turning it round and round his leg and rubbing her thumb over the emerald and the family crest thoughtfully.

“A very pretty thing. Good for holding enchantments,” she noted. “How did you get this?”

“It was forced upon me. You see, I am very much a prisoner, just as Harry is.”

“So the Dark Lord is not above such debasement.”

“Frankly, he seems to enjoy them rather too much,” Bobby said flatly. Harry made a protesting squawk they both ignored. “One of his servants sent me here, not realizing I would have come anyway.”

“Filial attachments?” she guessed, catching him by surprise yet again.

“How- how did you…?”

“Father told me of Harry’s preincarnation. When you introduced yourself to my guard as a Carrigan, it was yet another clue that you were here for him and not myself. You really must learn to be more cautious, sir.”

“I am starting to see that.” He looked at Harry, who was looking back at him steadily. He was well suited to a falcon, Bobby acknowledged, the intensity of his stare did not fade in the slightest between the transformation. He turned back to the princess. “You may keep the ring if you can take it off.”

“How generous.”

“Aren’t I though?”

There was a knock on the door that made him jump, but it was only a brownie bringing in the promised bowl of water. She set it on bed and quickly left without a word. Bobby watched her nervously until she disappeared, and when he turned back to Selufiare he found her holding the ring in her hand.

“My Lady, you are remarkable. I should caution you there is yet another curse on it. It will kill the wearer come dawn.”

She slipped the ring upon her finger, and admired it.

“That is of little concern in a realm where the sun never sets.”

“Just in case you feel the need to go traveling.”

She acknowledged his consideration with a nod, and turned to the bowl of water which she took and set down in the center of the room. She went to one of the side rooms and returned with a bundle of dried herbs, which she crushed in her hand and sprinkled into the bowl. Tapping the edge of the bowl with her silver wand, she cast a spell and waited until the water turned translucent violet and then cleared again. She went to Harry and untethered him.

“Both of you drink. It will give you strength.”

Both birds hesitated. She waited. Bobby moved first, settling himself on the floor and looked down into it. Everything up until now could have been a trick on her part, an elaborate game like the ones Gulandri was notorious for. The water was already enchanted, but whether it was the sort of enchantment that would in fact provide them strength or some herb that would transform them into fae…? This was the real test of trust right here. At this point, however, it made no difference. If she were truly their enemy, she had caught them long before.

Slowly, he dipped his head down and took a sip.

It tasted vaguely sweet, but also a little sour, like unripened apples. Not faerie wine by any stretch of the imagination.

“It’s fine,” he told Harry. “Come on.”

Harry’s flight down was rather clumsy, as he was unaccustomed to controlling not only arms but also a tail, but he demonstrated a strong instinct for it. This was good, because Bobby didn’t think he had the time to teach him the various techniques of flight. He hobbled over to the bowl, his talons making the walk awkward, and settled next to him. Once he had decided to drink, he went about it with gusto, swallowed down mouthful after mouthful.

“Easy, Harry,” the enchantress warned. “Even this can make you sick if you overindulge.”

Harry lifted his head, and looked at her for a long moment, as if seeing her for the first time. He resumed at a more sedate pace, until both he and Bobby were satisfied and then pulled away. He flapped his wings experimentally and found they no longer ached with fatigue. He flapped harder and managed the short flight to the bird stand, and then again to Selufiare’s outstretched arm, which she had wrap in a throw. She laughed in delight.

“Very good, Harry. Very, very good.”

“A natural born flier,” Bobby agreed, also impressed. He, himself, had been reborn a bird and had to go through the natural progress of growth and practice before he had managed to grasp flight. He had seen enough changelings and animagi in his lifetimes, as well, to know it was an exacting art that not all were suited to.

She stroked the falcon’s feathers admiringly, hissing softly in her native tongue.

“I hope this kindness will instill some genuine affection in place of faerie charms and trickery.” she said, and Harry bobbed his head eagerly, making her smile. “One day I will come for that kiss you denied. Will you give it to me then?”

Harry tilted his head in a birdy curiosity or possible consideration, but after a moment bobbed again with a touch more solemnity. Her smile widened.

“Come then. I will show you a way out.”

She did not take him out to the hall, but instead led them to the side chamber she had retrieved the herbs. It turned out to be a potions cupboard, very similar to the one back at Hogwarts, only with more strange plants and less spider legs and salamander eyes. Moving a jar of glittering pink sand from one spot on a shelf to another, triggered some hidden mechanism, and caused the entire shelf to swing forewards, to reveal a crawl space.

“This is my private escape tunnel. Not even father knows of it. It will take you further underground for half a league, and then you’ll see some light coming from above. It’s an old well, and if you go straight up, you’ll find yourself out of the city walls.”

“Thank you,” Bobby said sincerely. “We won’t forget this.”

“You may thank me by keeping Lord Voldemort away from this place. Now go, I must be elsewhere when they discover you are missing. Lisirrlis.”

A small orb of light appeared from her wand and entered the secret passageway, illuminating roughly carved limestone walls. Bobby dove into the passage first, and was followed closely behind by Harry. The passageway closed behind, so that the only light was the little orb they continued to follow deeper and deeper. They said nothing as they went, concentrating on flying in the confined space, forced to drop to the ground several times when the tunnel dipped too low or the slight draft that kept them alight suddenly failed or fluttered. The raven could sense Harry’s anxiety and hesitation, perhaps caught up in the guilt of leaving the others behind or the possibility of facing the Dark Lord after once again getting himself into danger.

If Bobby had his way, he would never see the Dark Lord again, but he had made a promise to Selufiare and he would keep it if at all possible. If that meant, temporarily, delivering Harry back to the Dark Lord, then so be it. Now that he was free again, he could always return for him later. Perhaps Harry’s latest disobedience would be enough to form the rift Bobby needed to separate them for good.

As for himself, Harry was indeed thinking about the men he was leaving behind and also about the Dark Lord he was to face. What he was also thinking of, however, was the fact that he had a brother. He had had a brother his entire life and never known about it. He had had an entire life and known about it. Why hadn’t Bobby told him? He had to have known. There had been hints, although he never could have guest it before today.

And if Gulandri had told the true about him being Carrigan, had anything else he said been true? Had the prophecy been true? Did Bobby know? Would he tell Harry if he did?.

Oh, Goddess, was Voldemort was going to try and kill him?

The last time he had gotten himself on the wizard’s bad side had resulted in the most miserable year of his life, living in exile and guilt. Could he survive if the Dark Lord actively started hunting him? What sanctuary could he possibly flee to? Germany was a war zone and would happily kill him as they would any other enemy soldier. And what about his friends? What about Hermione, who may or may not yet be free of the engagement, but would find no protection from a vengeful Dark Lord regardless. None of his friends would be safe if he tried to run for it. Did that mean he would have to fight? If the prophecy was true, did that mean he would become the Dark Lord’s enemy? And if, by some miracle, he were the victor he would rule the wizarding world for a thousand years? That sounded even less appealing than killing the elder wizard. He had a hard enough time dealing with his life as it was now, how could he cope with the responsibility of entire nations on his shoulders?

But, no, he was getting way too far ahead of himself. Even if the prophecy did exist, and hinted at some uncomfortable similarities to himself, it did not fit entirely. Gulandri himself had pointed out it referred to one born on July 31st not August 1st. There would be no reason for his parents to change his date of birth. Unless theyknow of the prophecy, but then why would they only change his birth date by one day? They could have pretended it was an entirely different month, and who would have been the wiser?

Of course it had nothing to do with him. As if he would ever start a fight… er, a serious fight… with Lord Voldemort? Harry had never thought of killing the Dark Lord, not even at his most angry or frightened had he ever entertained the idea of harming the other seriously.

Aargh! Stupid, bloody faeries! As if his life wasn’t weird enough without them screwing around with his head. He would be happy to get out of this nuthouse once and for all, even if he had to face his angry mentor to do so. He’d take his punishment, go home, apologize to Hermione, hold a memorial for all the soldiers lost to his arrogance, cure Ron (and Lucius by extension), figure out what the hell Snape’s deal was, show off his new animagus form to his godfathers (as soon as he figures out how to turn the damn thing off), and then dedicate the rest of his life to never being where he wasn’t supposed to be again.

Ever.

At last they saw light that was not from their own magic orb. Once they reached it, however, they found their task would not be as simple as flying up and out. The well was narrow and made enough more so by tendrils of roots and dead vines that had dug deep in search of water and died as the well had dried up. They were forced to climb nearly thirty feet through the bramble, squeezing through tiny spaces, snapping bits of ropy vines with their sharp beaks, using as much strength as their small bodies could manage to break through as got tangled, and scraped and clung with their taloned feet as they inched their way up the shaft. By the time they finally reached the top, they were both exhausted despite Selufiare’s potion.

Bobby, however, refused to let them rest until they were reached safety. The nearest portal back to the mortal world was several miles away, straight through the passage Harry and his party had likely been herded through on their way here. Chances were, they would find the Dark Lord along the way, and if they were lucky they would meet up with him before the Dark Lord did and fulfill the princess’ request, leaving Hausteheim without further incident.

Harry followed as best he could, helped along by the fact that although he wasn’t yet as skilled a flier as the raven, he was naturally built to be faster and more agile. They kept high above the trees, looking down through the bare limbs in search of any sign of Gulandri’s people or the Dark Lord. As they drew nearer to the border and no sign of friend or ally appeared, Bobby became increasingly anxious. Surely they should have run into someone by now?

No one appeared, however, and as they crossed over a small stream they were suddenly surrounded by darkness. Harry reeled in surprise, taken off guard by the sudden change form twilight to a few hours past midnight. Bobby circled him twice and led him back towards the ground, finding a wide dirt road.

“Calm down. We’re back in the human realm. We should be safe now.”

The falcon landed beside him, but continued to search the surrounding trees. His vision was not intended for night, but the moon was only a few days past full and he could see enough. And the more he saw the more panicked he became. Where was Voldemort? Could they possibly have missed him along the way? Did that mean he was still on his way to the faerie stronghold? Could he have not even set off for the journey? It had been days in Hasteheim but how long had it been here? Hours? Days? Years?

In his frantic distraction, he failed to notice someone coming up behind him, until he felt a pair of human-shaped hands grab hold of him, pinning his wings to his side. He let out a panicked cry and started to struggle.

“Hold still! I’m not going to hurt you!” the man said, Bobby’s voice unmistakable, shocking him into stillness. “There you go, just relax. I’m going to see if I can undo this spell on you. You can’t stay like this or you might get stuck.”

While his raven-now-human guide manhandled him, looking for who knew what, Harry stared at him fixedly. It was still dark, even with the moon, but he got a general idea of the shape and contours of the man’s face and was surprised on how similar it was to the Carrigan he had seen in his limbo. In fact, more than brothers, they could have been twins except that Bobby appeared younger and his eyes didn’t have quite the same shape to them. He couldn’t see what color his eyes were or the tone of his skin, but he could guess.

“Ah, I think I found it. Hold on, this probably won’t feel very nice.”

It was Gulandri’s spell all over again, and felt exactly the same, agonizing and unnatural in its force but over much more quickly. When it was done he found himself screaming in Bobby’s arms, the sound muffled in the man’s black sweater. He let himself relax, to catch his breath.

This is my brother, Harry thought. I wondered what it was like.

“Are you alright?”

He nodded, and after a few more deep breaths spoke.

“It’s not going to be like that every time I change, is it?”

Bobby grinned. “I should think not. It shouldn’t hurt at all once you’ve figured out how to do it yourself. Like tightening or relaxing a muscle you’ve never used before.”

“Oh… good. Where’s Voldemort?”

“I don’t know. I thought he would have come this way, but perhaps he went in somewhere else. I guess he would have had to. There’s no way to get there from here until tomorrow. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“What do you mean? How did we even get here?”

“Faerie realms have a lot of doorways into other realms, including this one, but those in this realm tend to be time sensitive or must meet a lot of special requirements. In order to cross into Hausteheim from here, it has to be sunset.”

“Then how did you…?”

“I came in through Wales.”

“How much time passed here since I was taken?”

“Less than half a day. Two hours here is about a day… what passes for a day over there.”

“Oh! Good. Maybe we can stop the Dark Lord before he tries to come after me or sends someone after me. You don’t think he went through already, do you?”

Bobby would have been very surprised if the evil bastard hadn’t, but he didn’t say so.

“I couldn’t say with any certainty. There should be a village nearby. You can make a fire call to find out.”

“Yeah, okay. Just give me a minute. You don’t think we’ll be followed, do you?”

“I doubt the Milesians will risk being caught in the mortal realm for an entire day just to follow us. They can’t exactly track us even if they wanted to.”

Harry smiled at that. Yeah, imagine that. They had just escaped a faerie realm. How many people could put that on their next job application? He started to pick himself up. They needed to hurry. If Voldemort hadn’t left yet, it was still unlikely they had much time before he did. Bobby helped him to his feet, and they made their way towards Aoiwig. Harry didn’t have his cloak after he became human, so Bobby wrapped his arm around his shoulder to help keep him warm.

“Hey, Bobby…”

“Yes, Harry?”

The young wizard was going to ask if he really was his brother, but felt a sudden moment of shyness. It would be rather awkward if he had somehow misinterpreted things.

“Where have you been all this time?” he asked instead.

“Oh, you know. Held prisoner by-”

The transfigured man jerk in his arms, stiffening for a moment, before succumbing to spell that had struck him. Harry managed to catch him before he fell, and found himself holding a raven once again. He clutched his fallen companion to his chest, and bolted behind a tree with him. His heart began racing with fear. Had the faeries followed them after all? He didn’t have his wand, and the binding glove was still covering his sword hand. Bobby lay limp in his arms, and he could not tell if he was alive or dead.

All he could do was run and hide, but the spell had come from in front of them which meant the attacker(s?) were standing between him and Aoiwig. All around them were brittle, fallen leaves making stealth impossible.

How was he going to get past without being seen?

Had he escaped only to be taken once again?

1. Fleur gave Harry a book of Prophetic practices of Centaurs during his summer in Germany, which was actually given to her by a third party.↩

2. There is that nasty prophecy. I tweaked it a bit for the purposes of this story, but it is quite similar, and will likely prove just as troublesome for poor Harry and friends. Just to be clear, however, Voldemort did not in fact kill Carrigan or have any intention of killing him. That’s pure Gulandri B.S.↩

Tales and Wings II

After what Tom estimated to be three days without food and at least one without water, he became decidedly sick of the body he could no longer discard at will. Faeries were wiser in the ways of spirits, being largely spirits themselves, so binding him to his current vessel had been as simple as a few magic words and the green wood of young holly branches woven snugly around his neck. It also had the unfortunate side affect of binding his magic, making his physical deterioration as rapid and unpleasant as it would have a mere muggle. His cellmates were similarly fitted, and he supposed Kingsley and the others were as well, although he had neither seen nor heard anything from them beyond his own space.

Adding to the ignominy and his general disgust was that despite Gulandri’s knowledge of his identity and the risk he took in keeping him alive, he had made no special accommodations. He was kept with two other common soldiers, Beckly and Slaunderhouse, and received no extra precaution or privileges. By all accounts, the guards that did on occasion enter the cell or peek in at them did not seem informed of the danger he represented.

And to his own mortification, he had not found any way to make the dark elf regret his arrogance.

He was hungry, thirsty, sore, and very near strangling Beckly (she whined for several minutes about how hungry she was every couple of hours and then asked incessantly when the rescue party would arrive) and still no closer to figuring out how he would escape. He had never been so thoroughly cut off from his own magic before, and smooth talking the guards was proving in impossible. He suspected they didn’t speak English.

On the estimated third day, when the cell door opened, he was embarrassingly unprepared when they were dragged from their enclosure by a pair of orcs. Their hands, which had already been bound behind them in cumbersome wooden cuffs, were linked together by a length of rope and once outside their cells they were faced with the other prisoners and tied to them as well. He made a note of Kingsley, his most likely ally in a future fight, and could tell he must have attempted escape at some point judging by the abundant swelling on the side of his face and limp that had not been present before their imprisonment.

They were led through the maze of corridors to a large open chamber that reminded him of Hogwart’s Great Hall, but for the complete absence of iron of any kind and the red and blue heraldry that hung on the walls. Along the left wall there was a large empty space, but for a series of wooden stockades nestled low to the ground. The prisoners were made to kneel while their ankles were secured. Then one by one their hands were cut free.

Kinglsey, who had seemed too battered to see straight let alone resist, suddenly smashed his fist into the orc’s face and snatched his sword out of the scabbard at its waist. An orc that had just been about to cut Beckly’s hands free turned towards the commotion, and Tom slid his short blade free too smoothly and quickly for him to even notice, and quickly hid it under his legs and covered the protruding hilt with his hands.

Kingsley fought off the orcs for a short while, but ultimately only received another knock to his head and some more bruises for his trouble. That and Gulandri’s mocking applause as he strode into the room. Even without his hunting gear on and no weapon in sight he looked every inch a predator.

“It is good to see some of you have maintained your fighting spirit,” the elf said, as he moved before them. His eyes flickered briefly to Tom and then down at his hands resting unnaturally in front of his knees. He only smirked, however, and looked away. “You must all be hungry and thirsty. I have been terribly remiss in my duties as your host.”

Some of the orcs snickered, and moved away to watch from the corner of the room. Gulandri made a gesture, and by some unspoken cue several servants, human-ish but for the small curling horns protruding the sides of their hair and golden eyes, came in from a narrow opening at the far corner of the room, carrying trays of food and goblets of wine. Very cautiously and very quickly, they unloaded their trays of food and drink within reaching distance of the prisoners and moved away. The smells of cooked meat and sweet spices made Tom’s mouth water and his stomach twist, and on either side of him he could see the others reacting similarly. The only thing keeping them from jumping for the plates was surprise and a healthy dose of suspicion.

Gulandri gave them a devil’s smile and gestured for their meal.

“Are you not as hungry as I thought?” he asked with cruel geniality.

Beckly reached out timidly to take a fat, green grape from the plate.

“It’s poisoned,” Tom said.

She snatched her hand back as if bitten.

“‘Poisoned’ is such a strong word,” Gulandri said, still amused. “But there are indeed consequences for eating it. This is faerie fare, after all. To eat it, to drink it, is to make a contract with your host… with your very soul.”

“You may or may not become faeries,” Tom translated. “But you will belong to this… king… and his court. Forever.”

“Succinctly put, but really… what have you to lose at this point? You will never leave this court, be it dead or alive. You already belong to me. Isn’t that right, Salaki’alyne, Trabli?”

Two of the servants urned to Gulandri, and nodded. Someone gasped.

“Oh Merlin, he’s Titanhorn!” one of the prisoners gasped, pointing to the male servant.

Sure enough, as Tom looked closer he could suddenly recognize the basic features of the late squadron commander, the square jaw and the shape of his nose. He looked to the female servant, and recognized Guppy’s large round eyes and the tiny star-shaped birthmark on her right cheek. These familiar features now blended seamlessly with foreign ones, and nothing about their movements or unmoved expressions suggested they had ever been anything other than faeries in this life or ones past. The only hint of their pre-incarnations were their names. Tom wasn’t fluent in Elvish, but ‘trabli’ he knew was the name for ‘tiny fish’ and ‘alyne’ translated to ‘horn’.

“Once upon a time, perhaps,” Gulandri said, making his way to the front of the banquet hall where a large chair that could not quite be categorized as a throne stood, and threw himself into it. He was now lounging with the same negligent grace he displayed in Selufiare’s room. Guppy… Trabli handed him a goblet of wine.“They hardly seem any worse for wear now, do they?”

That was true. Despite one having been seriously injured and the other being… well, dead, they both now seemed the picture of health, even attractive in a weird, faerie way. Tom couldn’t help but be fascinated by the skill of the transformation. He had never seen it occur to anyone he knew.

“Eat. Drink,” the king invited, “Or do not. It’s all the same to me. And all the same for you in the end.”

And after that, nothing else was said. The servants all left, including their two former comrades, and Gulandri and the orcs watched them unwavering from their own roosts, killing any conversation that might have sprung up amidst the prisoners. There was no distraction to be had from the tantalizing mound of roasted meat, fresh bread, and ripe fruit seated within their reach or the goblets filled with thirst quenching wine. Tom heard more than one stomach growl. His might have been among them, but he prided himself on his own self-discipline. Rather than look at the food and wine, he gave his attention to the lock of the stockade currently securing him to the floor and calculating the quickest and surest way to break it with the sword he was hiding. There was no telling when the orcs would realize it was missing.

He knew that some of his soldiers would break and eat. His only surprise in that regard was that it was not Beckly who was the first to loose it. Jetterman, already a skinny fellow, lasted only about ten minutes before he reached for his plate.

“Don’t!” Kingsley hissed, but there were two soldiers between them, and they only watched with horrified fascination as he grabbed a rib of meat took an enormous bite. Then another and another. He finished it and then moved on to take wine, swallowing the goblet’s entire contents in one swig. Then some bread and another piece of meat.

Nothing seemed to happen.

There was no sudden transformation or signs of pain. If anything, he only seemed more desperate to eat, loosing all semblance of decorum to shove food into his mouth. Predictably, another two soldiers, one of them Beckly, began to eat as well. Within the hour, another started on it, leaving only Tom, Kingsley, and a stolid witch, whose name he had forgotten, untainted. From his chair, Gulandri just smiled and took a sip of his wine.

Gulandri watches the humans break one after the other until only three of the seven remain steadfast. The food and drink will not transform them. It contains only those ingredients that will bind them magically to his lands and his court. It is not a proper Introduction. That would come later, when he is done testing them, threshing out the chaff to pick those, if any, he deems worthy of his household. Tom he is not surprised remains defiant. It’s more to due with pride than any sort of virtue, but pride of his kind requires its own sort of strength.

The black man is not particularly bright but there is a sort of integrity to be found in his defiance. Depending on how much longer he lasts, he may take him into his counsel as a knight. He hasn’t had a real knight since Ferenderil married a princess from a visiting court, and he feels nostalgic for one. The woman’s defiance remains a mystery to him, but he finds it a enjoyable trait in a woman even if he prefers it to be more subtle. Perhaps some innate skill will present itself, and he can commission her education in one of the city guilds.

The rest he would auction. It would help to keep the household coffers full (faeries did not practice taxation) and appease his subjects their own need for new blood. It made his hunts a national custom rather than a private sport. His scribes would be at the banquet later and give him an estimate of the profit he could expect.

While he was speculating all of this and watching his prisoners struggle and fail themselves, one of his guards entered. Gulandri felt his heart suddenly quicken. Had Voldemort been spotted? He should not have come ashore for another three hours at least.

“Veneri,” he acknowledged, trying to hide his eagerness. “You have some news for me?”

“Yes, My King. News that requires some discretion.”

The elf looked distrustfully at the orcs lingering in the corner, who looked back with equal distaste. Gulandri, who had merely been tolerating their loitering, waved them out of the hall. The humans would not understand, as they spoke in Elvish. Once alone, Veneri spoke again.

“My King, Lady Selufiare has received a messenger. A raven, unbound to the fae, who speaks and conveys a message on behalf of a prince he would not name.”

Gulandri frowned.

“A raven who speaks? Did he give his name?”

“Yes… its was something ridiculously pretentious. Bostimilus or Beramas something the III…”

The king suddenly straightened.

“Bobbitimus?”

Across the room, Tom suddenly turned his full attention to them.

“Ah, yes. That was-”

Gulandri suddenly stood.

“Where is he now?”

“I… I left him with the princess in her quarters.”

If he had had his sword on him, he would have slain the guard where he stood. How could this fool choose to lower his guard when so much was at stake? Had he no instinct? But he had no sword, so instead he ordered him to remain and watch the prisoners in his absence and headed for his daughter’s room. It was unlikely someone of Bobbitimus’… limitations… could harm someone of his daughter’s skill, but he did not dare rule out the possibility of trickery. Those of the changeling arts were infamous for them.

He arrived at her door and entered with out knocking. The room was empty. No Selufiare. No Bobbitimus. No Harry. No sign of a struggle. Only a bowl of water set on the floor and an empty bird stand to hint at the room’s previous occupants.

“Daughter,” he called, but there was no reply. He checked her powder room and storage closet to be sure, but found nothing amiss. He turned to the guard at her door, who was looking at him anxiously. “Where is she?”

“Her Ladyship went down to the armory. She wished to bespell some weapons for the guards before your honored guest arrived.”

“And the hawk and raven?”

The guard merely looked at him in confusion and then at the doorway to the princess’ bedroom. Gulandri did not bother waiting to hear his excuses, and moved on yet again. Surely, his daughter had not left the two shapeshifters alone together? But even if she had, how had they escaped her room unnoticed? Could she have taken them with her to the armory?

Deeper into the stronghold, the corridors became little more than the raw tunnels left by their dwarven creators; winding, narrow, and maze-like. Natural chambers sprung up randomly and without warning, and he made use of them to store his more valuable assets, including his armory. The chamber was twice the size of the banquet hall and covered floor to ceiling with armor and weaponry. Aside from leveling most of the floor, the architects who had designed the room had kept its natural features;the uneven walls were lined in uneven rows of shelving and stands to hold weapons and armor. He found Selufiare just where the guard had said she would be, industriously enchanting shields against magical attacks. Normally, he would applaud her foresight, but his soul focus then was on the conspicuous absence of both the hawk and the raven.

“Father? Is something wrong?” she asked as he stormed into the chamber.

“Where are they?” he demanded.

“Who?”

“Bobbitimus and the boy!” he snarled. To her credit, she did not flinch away, merely looked at him levelly.

“I left them resting in my chambers. Are they not there?”

The silence that followed was murderous. Gulandri felt his heart beat venom. This was impossible! Not in his house! That child would not make a fool of him in his own house! He would not ruin his carefully laid plans and undo all the effort he had sunk into this.

He stalked to the west wall. It was lined with swords, but he ignored them in favor of the small table that stood nearby. A long, narrow chest rested there and he opened to reveal his favorite sword. Light and sleek, and reflected like a mirror. The very edge of the blade was forged mithral.

It was not the sword he had used on his hunt, which was as common a faerie blade as any. This piece he had intended to save for when his honored guest arrived, but for this latest act of defiance he was willing to use it against a lesser enemy.

“Get me twelve of my finest hunters and have them mount up. We hunt.”

The mermaids brought the gondola to shore just as they promised, although the landing sight was not ideal. Voldemort scanned the marshy banks for fae. The fog had almost completely disappeared by now, but while he couldn’t see anyone, there could be any number of faerie-bred predators hiding amongst the mud and cattails. He turned to the mermaid matriarch who had dropped her rope to swim back to him. She smiled, but their was nothing coy or warm being whispered through her eyes.

Their bargain was complete. She had led him to Gulandri’s land where he would not be seen landing, several hours sooner than if they had traveled the route of Tom-All-Alone. She would allow him to reach the shore safely, but the next time they met they would be natural enemies once again.

“Goodbye, my dear,” he said, smiling back just the same. She slipped beneath the brackish waters and disappeared without so much as a ripple.

He cast a spell to create a path of ice from his boat, through the reeds, and to the shore. Once safely there, he cast a locating spell for Harry. His wand spun uselessly in circles.

“Fantastic,” he muttered. He scanned the area for signs of a road or trail, but it was all young virgin forest, unusually flat and stretching out into forever. He had intended to sneak up on his enemies, but had stupidly gotten himself lost. Harry would have been proud.

And as if summoned by the thought of its master, a ghostly apparition appeared from between two trees. Harry’s patronus was a magnificent specimen, and in the semi-spiritual realm of the faeries it should have glowed brighter and seemed more solid than ever. Instead, it was pale and nearly transparent, the strain of its continued existed even on this plane draining its strength… draining its master’s strength. Had Harry sent it for help? For him?

“Take me to him.”

He had raced the stag once before at the height of its strength, bounding over hills and through trees as if though flying, but now the patronus could only saunter steadily towards the North. Biting down on his impatience, the Dark Lord followed.

It was not as far as he had assumed. Although the forest seemed to stretch out endlessly in every direction, there as a point at which it suddenly sloped downward and half a hour later he found himself looking down that slope at a strange city carved into what looked like an enormous sinkhole. It was a walled city, and even at his distance he could make out guards patrolling. While sneaking in undetected might be possible, it would require time and planning he currently didn’t have the patience for.

“Harry is in there?”

The stag didn’t answer, of course, but its gaze remained fixed on the city.

“I will handle it. Go. Your task is complete.”

And like that, the apparition dissolved into diamond dust and disappeared.

He calculated his options for some minutes, and decided the direct approach would be the best one.

“Alach jaunef e ir?” an goblin guard called out from the gate entrance, as Voldemort stepped out of the trees and onto the road leading towards him. The Dark Lord said nothing at first, and moved closer. More guards appeared atop the walls and then more at the entrance. They were primarily orcs and goblins, but it was clear that the handful of elves that appeared where the ones in charge.

“Alach juanef e ir?” another guard repeated, this one an elf and a commander by the look of it.

“Dekliar nab hai le’hia nies ne’ar.”

I have your master’s hospitality.

Decades ago, Gulandri had spoken these words to him and he felt a delicious sense of irony at being able to use them now. The affect was immediate. He wouldn’t say they lowered their guard, but all of them conspicuously moved their hands away from their swords or pointed their crossbows down. A small argument broke out between the commanding elf and two goblin sub-commanders, but Voldemort did not slacken his pace to give them time to sort it out. He was walking past them through the gates, sending the lower minions scrambling out of his path.

“De nis le’hia Voldemort?”

“De nisi,” he agreed, not bothering to slacked his pace. He honestly didn’t know where he was going, but the city only seemed to have one main road and that seemed as likely to bring him to Gulandri’s hall as anywhere else. And judging my the guard commander’s increasingly distress expression and goblin’s deepening scowls he was accomplishing his goal of throwing them all off balance.

“Lysak siri e ir nefrete,” the elf said, as if trying to placate him, “Usur-”

Voldemort had no idea what he just said. His Elvish was limited to the most basic of travel phrases and a few random pieces he had picked up throughout his life. Not wanting to give away this exploitable weakness, he interrupted the elf.

“De na’urut hai le’hia?”

Where is your master?

The elf grew quiet. Around him, the city inhabitants looked confused and anxious by his unrestrained movements through their streets. He let his gaze fall quickly on them and away, pulling out random bits of thoughts. He had to swallow a grin at what he found there.

The master was away.

Why? It seemed rather a reckless thing to do, even if he wasn’t expecting Voldemort for a while longer yet. Well, he intended to take advantage of it.

De na’urut is le’iamsfer?

Where is my apprentice?

Again there was no immediate answer, but this was far less surprising. Reuniting two powerful wizards was probably the last thing any one of them wanted, regardless of their master’s presence or absence.

“I will take you to the Mistress,” was the closest he got to an answer. The commander lead the way now, and Voldemort strolled leisurely behind him and looked around idly, as if though he were merely a tourist passing through. Whispers followed him as he went, fear and confusion thick in their voices. It seemed at home or abroad, some things remained constant.

Gulandri’s… castle wasn’t the right word… stronghold, perhaps?… was as alien as the rest of the city and equally as curious. He devoted half a mind to it while the rest plotted to find his protege and leave. When at last, he was brought to the apparent destination, a large dining hall currently in the process of being prepared for a banquet. Probably meant for himself.

How thoughtful.

The first thing he really made note of was the seven humans chained to the left wall. He scanned their faces quickly. He saw Kingsley and Lucius’ assistant, but no Harry. The second thing he noticed was the ‘Mistress’. He could clearly see the familial resemblance to Gulandri, for all that she was not herself an elf. She did not look the least bit surprised to see him.

She made a gesture for the guard to leave. This apparently hadn’t been a part of his plans, because he looked momentarily panicked. Her expression darkened, her father’s features suddenly becoming more prominent, and she said something he did not understand that sent the commander scurrying. Then she turned to him. He met her gaze evenly, and was disappointed when he could pull nothing from her mind. If breeding held true, she too would be gifted in sorcery.

“He is gone,” she said in English.

“Who?”

“The boy.”

Voldemort blinked, then burst out laughing. In the banquet hall, the sound was booming and the two dozen gathered servants froze at the terrifying sound.

“When?” he asked. Perhaps he could catch up to him yet.

“Not long. There is nothing for you here. You should go before my father returns.”

He gave her a curious look. “A treasonous suggestion.”

“Less than you might think,” someone said.

He turned a cool eye to one of the prisoners bound to the floor. It was Lucius’ assistant. He knew little about him except that the general found him reliable. Clearly Lucius’ judge of character was slipping given present circumstances. He listened anyway. Failure or not, the man had been present here longer than he had, and probably knew more about what as going on.

“Gulandri is chasing after Har- Lord Potter as we speak. If he catches him, he will kill him. And when you meet him again… and you’ll likely have to in order to get back… you’ll end up fighting to the death. Which is exactly what he wanted in the first place.”

“Why should he want to kill me?”

“Because he’s crazy.”

The Mistress let out an angry hiss, and stormed towards him. She raised her hand as if to strike him, but then seem to find the act beneath her.

“His madness is genius compared to your lacking wit.”

“He was outsmarted by a child!”

He would hardly be the first, Voldemort noted mentally. I really don’t have time for this.

He turned to leave.

“Wait! Don’t leave us!” a witch cried, struggling to rise but still restrained.

“I have no interest in fools who cannot accomplish the same things as a mere child,” he said coldly.

Lucius’ assistant let out a dark chuckle that drew his attention despite his resolution to leave. The look in his eyes was a savage glee, unbent and unyielding to his own obvious defeat. He watched, transfixed as a sword was drawn seemingly out of thin air.

“Justly so,” the lieutenant said, and brought the blade to his neck. At first, Voldemort thought he meant to slit his own throat, a final act of defiance against his captors, but the blade slid not into flesh but between skin and the faerie collar encircling his neck. With a harsh tug, the binding snapped, and there was a surge of magic in the chamber. The stockades binding them, jumped and shattered.

Servants shouted in alarm, dropping what they were doing and ran away while guards who had been standing outside the chamber suddenly threw the doors open to rush inside. Gulandri’s daughter was as surprised as everyone else for once, and only made to pull out her wand when the human sprinted for her. The wand was drawn, but too late. He was too close, and had grabbed her wrist, jerking her around harshly. The move twisted her arm behind her back, and she let out a cry of pain and dropped her weapon. His blade was to her neck before the guards could draw any closer.

They immediately froze, the threat obvious.

“Now Princess,” he said with cheerful venom, “Where is my wand?”

“We destroyed it. We destroyed all of them.”

“I don’t believe you.” He pulled her wrist back further, eliciting a hiss of pain.

“Then kill me! You won’t have it either way!”

“Don’t tempt me. Kingsley, you awake over there?”

“I’m still kicking.”

“Get the others, we’re leaving through the servant’s entrance.”

“What about…” the man gestured towards the Dark Lord who was just standing there watching them curiously.

“I don’t think he needs our help or that we should expect it from him. Is that not right, my Lord?”

“I did intend to kill you myself when I found you,” Voldemort said honestly. “But if you make it out of this stronghold on your own, I will let you live. I hate to waste talent.”

Kingsley and the witch who had called out for him looked at him as if he were mad, but the lieutenant only nodded as if made perfect sense. Seeing no other course of action, they followed the man’s lead and gathered up the soldiers who seemed a bit dazed and reluctant to leave their meal but willing enough to be herded towards the servant’s entrance. Stratus brought up the rear, dragging the still struggling princess with him, keeping the armed guards between them. And then they were gone.

Voldemort immediately found himself surrounded with several weapons pointed at him. He held out his empty hands, and blinking innocently.

“It was not me,” he said in Elvish.

They didn’t look convinced. It would almost have been funny except he really didn’t have time for this. He pointed to the servant’s door.

“They are going.”

There was a long moment of hesitation, then the commander snapped something and guards split into two groups. Sixteen, including the commander, pursued the escaping prisoners. Four remained to glare at him uselessly. He let out a mental sigh. There was no helping it. He turned to leave. Predictably, a guard moved to stand in his way. His solution to this was to draw his wand with a flick of the wrist and cut him to pieces. The guard had not even fallen yet before his comrades where on top of him, slashing at him with their swords. If they had been elves, he would have been in serious trouble, but they were merely goblins and an orc, little more than ugly muggles with bad overbites when it came down it. Their magic lay in their resilience to the elements and injury, not to the devastating affects of the Dark Arts.

Their attach was well-coordinated, striking at him from three different directions, but their blades bounced uselessly off his bespelled cloak. They were so close to him he barely had the space to maneuver his wand for his incantation, but also being so closed two of the three attackers were caught in the magic at the same time. Their necks snapped and they tumbled to the floor, dead. Snarling, the remaining orc guard leaped onto his back and bit savagely into his shoulder.

He should have aimed for the neck.

The orc’s teeth were no more successful in piercing the cloak’s protection than the blades had been, and he only succeeded in unbalancing the Dark Lord for a moment. Pointing his wand over his shoulder, Voldemort blasted his brains through the back of his skull without uttering a word.

It lasted no more than a minute, and there had barely been a sound. He didn’t bother to look back and admire his work. He closed the doors behind him as he left, and made his way out of the stronghold. The corridors were filled with panicking faeries, running everywhere to find out what was happening or to find a safe place to hide or searching for the flee prisoners. Voldemort waded through it unimpeded. There were no guards and no one else he came across seemed brave enough to attempt to stop him. It still took longer than he would have liked, as halls that had been open were now being blocked with locked gates he was forced to destroy. This contributed to the overall panic of the denizens who seemed to think he was attacking them… and admittedly he wasn’t considering their safety while he started blasting away their defenses.

The streets outside the stronghold were no less chaotic. It seemed the escaping prisoners had managed to make it out with their hostage and were headed for the city gates. There were more guards now, more civilians armed and ready to fight as well. He cast a notice-me-not spell on himself, but it was mostly useless against the fae and there were no side streets or back alleys for him to take. He used the chaos to the best of his ability as well as the phrase ‘I have your master’s hospitality’, but it was painfully slow going.

When he reached the rim of the city, he found the prisoners trapped against the closed city gates and the fighting forces of the fae now numbering at least two hundred from the original sixteen. He kept his distance. He had told them he would let them live only if they managed to save themselves, and he meant that. Instead, he moved off a ways to one of the guard towers which held an exposed staircase on the city side, and climbed up. He slew the Elven guard at the top who was distracted by the events at the gate. Once at the tower, he quietly levitated himself down the other side and slipped into the woods.

Now free of the city and free to chase down Gulandri before he reached his protege, he became aware of a significant flaw in his plan.

He had no idea which direction they had gone.

Mentally cursing, he made his way back towards the city gates. To his surprise, the prisoners were already outside of it, and were gathered just outside of a stable stationed outside the walls. The lieutenant still had his hostage, who clearly hadn’t been making things easy for him. There was a rather nasty scratch over the man’s cheek that looked suspiciously like claw marks, and the princess’ neck was bleed from several shallow cuts from struggled against the blade. Kingsley and the witch from before appeared from the stable, leading out two skittish mares each.

“So you made it after all,” he said, by way of greeting, giving them all a start.

“My Lord!” Kingsley said, looking amazed at the sight of him. Did he think he had been killed? Fool.

“I suppose you’ve made it far enough,” the Dark Lord said, looking past them towards the city. The walls were now crowded with bowman , and the gateway packed with angry fae waiting for them to make the slightest error, to expose the smallest weakness that would allow them to free their princess and tear these mortals apart. He could see several crossbows aimed directly at him, the only one amongst the wizards standing clearly out in the open. He graced them with a little wave.

And then another wave.

With his wand.

The wall, composed almost entirely of wood, exploded in a blaze of sickly green fire. The front section of the wall that was hit directly shattered and crumbled immediately, while the rest of blaze raced a long edges. The wind that blew back at them from the force brought with it stinging heat and the screams of the dying. They could only stand and stare in horror and awe as it burned.

“NO! NO!”

The princess, now completely heedless of the blade at her throat, turned with an insensate rage, slashing and clawing at her captor as she struggled to break free. The lieutenant shoved her away savagely, throwing her the ground and raising his sword to strike her dead.

“Wait.”

The soldier turned his venomous glare at him.

“Why? We have no use for her now.”

“We will need her to find Gulandri.”

“Never!” she screamed, scrambling to her feet. “I’d rather die than help you now!”

“No doubt. But if I have to wait around here for Gulandri to reappear, I have no intention of being idle. I will go back into your city and flood every tunnel, chamber, and crevice with the blood of your people. I have already destroyed your defenses with one blow. Imagine what I can do if I should put some real effort into it.”

The horror in her expression was truly gratifying, as was the moment she looked away and nodded.

“Good. You’ll ride with me.”

Harry crouched behind a tree, Bobby nestled in his arms, unmoving. In the darkness he could not tell if he was breathing or not. He had no access to his magic without his wand, and the binding on his hand. Perhaps wandless… but no. Even that seemed blocked from him, otherwise he would have been able to turn back into a human at will without Bobby’s assistance. He would have to escape without magic.

A treacherous thing to do in an unfamiliar forest while being pursued by unknown assailants.

But he couldn’t just wait around and-

“Potter!”

His heart skipped a beat. He knew that voice.

“Potter, get out here now or I’ll-”

Harry peeked his head out from around the tree.

“Professor? I mean Head-”

“Front and center, Potter.”

He rushed to comply, stumbling out of his hiding place and moving forward. He never thought he would ever be so happy to hear Snape’s voice in his life. Stepping back onto the road, he could see his guardian illuminated in the blue-white glow of a lumos charm and he was not alone. Lucius stood beside him, looking even crazier than when he had left him.

The happy feeling was starting to dissipate.

“How did you find me?” he asked, moving forward a little more hesitantly.

Snape did not immediately answer, instead looking him over from head to toe. No doubt he was wondering about his strange clothes and the raven he was currently carrying. Bobby.

“What did you hit him with?”

“Him?”

“The raven… the man who was standing next to me.”

“It is a shapeshifter?” Lucius said, looking scandalized at the thought.

“He is, yes. Of a sort. What did you hit him with?” he repeated, more insistently.

“A simple stunning spell. I did not see a reason to be hasty with something more… permanent,” Snape said. Lucius stared down at Bobby with unconcealed loathing, and when he reached for him Harry moved quickly away from him and to the other side of Snape.

“Don’t!”

“That creature is dangerous,” Lucius snarled.

“He’s my bro- my friend! I won’t let you hurt him!”

They both looked at him like he had grown a second head. Snape closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache. “We can’t afford to stay out here in the open. Lets get somewhere more secure.”

“Yes, sir,” he agreed readily, glancing behind him. They might be in the mortal realm again but he couldn’t say he felt that much safer. “Where is Lord Voldemort?”

“Still in Germany last I heard. You’ve only been gone half a day here. How long was it for you there?”

“At least three days, but it’s hard to say. I was unconscious for part of it, and they don’t have days the same way we do. The sun never fully sets there.”

“And your escorts?” Lucius interrupted. “Stratus? Kingsley?”

They were the two he would have the hardest time explaining away. They were higher ranking individuals, well known by their colleagues and the press. Harry’s expression turned pained, and he shook his head.

“We were captured together, but then separated. I don’t know what happened to them. How did you know where to find me?”

“The ring I placed on the changeling. It had a tracking spell on it. I am going to want that back.”

Harry almost told him he was tough out of luck, but held his tongue for a while longer. There would be time enough for stories and arguments once they were safely behind the wards of Treelafore. There was still much to be done. Voldemort had to be warned. If so little time had passed here, perhaps the Dark Lord had not gone to Hausteheim yet as he had originally been told. That had to have been why they hadn’t seen him when they left. If Lucius could get a message to him in time, they might avert yet another disaster.

Kingsley was gone. As was his almost friend Lt. Stratus, Reggy, and the nearly dozen others who he had barely known but had fought with their lives to protect him. How could he explain their loss? Would he be allowed to go to their funerals? Would their families even want him there? The phantoms of parents and wives crossed his mental eye and he withdrew his thoughts quickly as he felt his heart begin to race. He hadn’t had a Calming Draught in days and did not want to tempt fate. He needed to focus on things he could do remain useful. A message to Voldemort was-

Beside him, Snape suddenly stopped, and turned around, looking into the darkness beyond.

Harry felt a spike of fear.

Had he been followed?

“Potter, get behind that tree and hide.”

“You hear something?” Lucius asked.

“Riders. Potter. Hide.”

“What are you going to do?” Harry asked even as he edged towards the hiding place. The faeries he had faced had wiped out an entire squadron. He didn’t like the odds of just two wizards, no matter their impressive skill set. They didn’t know what they were getting into.

“They will not see us. Now hide!” Snape hissed, and extinguished his wand. Lucius immediately followed his example so that only the pale light of the moon remained. Harry fumbled half blind off the road and behind a large old oak, making his way most by feeling with one outstretched arm while the other held Bobby protectively to his chest. There was a natural nook at the base that he curled himself into it and waited.

He prayed Snape knew what he was doing.

“You do know what you are doing, don’t you?” Lucius asked his friend skeptically.

“It’s a little too late to be questioning my judgment now.”

“Do you?”

“The potion works. I’ve used it in the Forbidden Forest for years. I’ve stood in a crowd of orcs and they’ve been none the wiser.”

An exaggeration. It had been hobgoblins and only two at that, but he wasn’t about to let honesty feed his paranoid friend’s skepticism. The Caecus Fae Potion was one of his proudest achievements, and potentially most profitable. He had developed the potion to go undetected by faeries in places like the Forbidden Forest, where potion ingredients were abundant, free, and usually guarded over by dangerous creatures. The patent he held on it made it almost guaranteed he would make a fortune off of it as soon as it completed testing by the Potion Safety and Standards Commission (a process that would likely take years unless he bribed someone). He had complete faith in it.

As much faith as he had in anything at least.

The pounding of hooves grew louder and suddenly they could see the glow of torches flickering amidst the trees. They stood completely still and watched as the lights multiplied and grew closer, until they counted about a dozen riders. They could barely make them out, but their movements held a sort of military precision that was worrisome. And then they broke out of the trees and onto the road and…

Stopped.

Their horses… where those horses?… halted on the road, turning in place and rearing up as their riders pulled back sharply on their reins. There were a few brief seconds of artless movement and then they were all back in formation. They were still too far away to see clearly, but they were gathering around something.

“I think they found Potter’s tracks.”

Lucius hissed something colorful but otherwise unhelpful.

“Go get him and make a run for the train. You should both be adequately protected.”

“We’ll apparate.”

“No!” he hissed, catching his friend off guard. “You’re in no state of mind to attempt it and if the boy were capable of it, he would have done so already. Just take him and hurry. I will attempt to slow them down.”

The general glowered at him for a moment, a haughty defiance clear on his face even in the weak light of the moon, but after a moment he simply turned and stalked off towards Harry’s hiding spot. Snape let out a silent sigh and started wordlessly casting anti-tracking spells on the road to erase their trail, and moved cautiously towards the group of hunters. He had only made it a couple of yards before the hunting party began moving towards him at a clipped but controlled pace. Cautiously, he moved to the side of the ride but continued to cast his spells. As they drew closer together, Snape saw something that put true fear in him.

Set at the head of the hunting party were two furry, white forms, their noses hovering only a few inches above the dirt. Dogs. His potion would not work against dogs, even faerie-bred ones.

And as if sensing his thoughts, one of the creatures suddenly lifted its head and looked right at him and stopped. The fae stopped right behind it, and followed its gaze out into the darkened road. The creature began to growl, and then sprang forward. Snape hurled a curse at it, but it leaped aside. The spell sailed on until it hit one of the mounted fae’s horses, causing it to rear up and throw off its rider before falling down dead. One of the riders, now close enough for him to identify as an elf dressed in crimson and likely the band’s leader, pointed towards him.

A tree a short distance behind him suddenly burst into flames.

Of course Potter would be pursued by an elven sorcerer, he mentally grumbled as he turned to start running. Some distance ahead of him, he could just barely make out Potter and Lucius’ shadowy forms also running. He would have to do a side-along apparation, one after the other, to get them to safety, despite the innumerable dangers of apparating in and out of an unfamiliar combat zone in the middle of the night. Just as he prepared himself to apparate directly ahead of them, Lucius suddenly grabbed Harry’s arm and pulled him completely off the road.

“What is he- oomf.”

He was thrown to the ground, the wind knocked out of him. Stunned, the first thought that crossed his mind was that he had been hit by a spell. This thought was quickly driven out of his mind by a sharp pain in his right leg a it was savagely shaken in a set of powerful jaws. He kicked and struggled, managing to turn himself over to see one of the hunting dogs latched onto his leg. This close he realized the beast was larger than he had thought, its brilliant red ears and large black eyes the only touch of color on its phantom form. He kicked it in the head twice, but the angle was bad and it only tightened its hold and let out a threatening growl for its efforts.

Lifting his wand, he was about to curse the beast, but then he saw riders speeding towards them. Amongst them was the sorcerer, his hand once again pointed towards him. This time Snape doubted he would miss. He closed his eyes tight, sucked in a deep breath, and apparated.

He landed hard on the ground, his hasty exit preventing him from factoring in his supine position and dropping him several feet. This had the benefit of knocking of the dog who was even more surprised than he at the sudden displacement.

“Gylikitus.”

The dog yelped in surprise, then fell dead. Snape climbed to his feet cautiously, testing his weight on his injured leg. It hurt, but his boots had done their job and he could limp on it well enough. He took a quick assessment of the situation. He was halfway between were he had been and the village of Treelafore, just out of sight of both. Lucius, who was somewhat crazy, and Harry, who had never been sane, were running around blindly somewhere in the forest, unable to apparate, one of them visible and one of them not, at least one tracking dog and a dozen faerie hunters, including one sorcerer, chasing after them.

And it was up to him to save the day.

When did he turn into such a Gryffindor?

Somewhere in the forest he heard Harry screaming.

Harry’s sole focus had been reaching Treelafore before Gulandri or his minions reached them. That was the biggest threat, and therefore the only one worth worrying about. So despite the warning signs, he was caught completely off guard when Lucius grabbed hold of him suddenly and pulled him back off the road an into the woods. He stumbled over a branch, and barely caught himself with his one free arm on the trunk of tree. Before he could regain his balance, the elder wizard had him pinned with his wand pointed at his chest.

“What are doing?”

“Did you cast the curse on me?” he demanded.

“Curse? What-”

“Yes, the curse, you nimrod. The one you used so conveniently to dissolve Hermione’s betrothal and force an alliance so clearly in your favor. That curse!”

Harry just gaped at him. The man thought he had…? He shook his head.

“We don’t have time for this! They’re going to kill us all if we-”

“Crucio!”

The pain came over him instantly, overwhelming to the point of senselessness. Lucius seemed to have mastered I perfectly. When it stopped, he found himself on the ground, his throat raw from screaming and his arms empty. Bobby…

“You are right that we don’t have time for this.”

His eyes seemed to have trouble moving properly and swam about in his sockets for a moment before settling on the dark wizard standing over him. Standing over him with the raven tucked underneath his arms. Fear had been a constant companion this day and night, but this newest layer left him nearly frozen with it.

“Tell me the truth now, or I’ll snap its little neck right here.”

“No! No, no, no! I didn’t do it! I swear! I’ll make a wizarding oath out of it if you want, but please don’t hurt him!”

Lucius was taken back, but quickly recovered.

“You would say anything to save him, wouldn’t you?” he said in disgust. “What is he- Protego!”

The shield charm was thrown up around them, and through its invisible barrier Harry saw the world catch fire. Flames rolled over their sphere of protection, swallowing trees and leaves and the very air itself. He rolled and crawled closer to Lucius, driven more by the burning heat than common sense, and pushed himself into a crouch at his feet. Recovering somewhat from the curse, he could see they were now submerged in a sea of fire, and yet his attention inexplicably went directly to Bobby. Too distracted preventing their eminent immolation, Lucius barely registered when the boy reached up and pulled the limp raven out from under his arm.

The spell seemed to last forever, forcing the dark wizard to recast the protection spell over and over, reinforcing it against the killing heat that seemed to seep through more with every passing second, He found himself sweating, trembling, and not all of it from exertion. How long could he keep this up? His thoughts turned to apparation. Snape said he wasn’t in any fit state to do it, but he was more than willing to risk it if it kept him from being burned alive. At his feet, Harry was shaking like a leaf, the after affects of the pain curse still strong, and showing no sign he was capable of casting a spell to defend or apparate himself.

If he left, the boy would die.

He didn’t know if thought was a deterrent or an incentive.

Nearly six minutes of maintaining the shield charm and no sign of the flames subsiding, Lucius felt himself begin to tire and began making plans for his escape. He had perhaps ten minutes more he could spare before he lacked enough magic to maintain the shield, maybe less if wanted to have enough magic to defend himself after apparating. Turning down, he saw Harry look up at him, and it didn’t take a legilimens to see that he knew what he intended.

There was the slightest twinge of regret. As much as he had wanted to hurt Harry, he hadn’t wanted to destroy him completely. He had been a worthy opponent, and to have their game end at the hands of another was more than just dissatisfying.

“I didn’t cast the curse on you, Malfoy,” the boy said, and nothing else. He closed his eyes, and curled himself protectively around the raven, attempting to summon whatever innate magic he could to protect them both.

It wouldn’t be enough.

The brilliant golden white hue in their sphere suddenly flickered. Lucius looked around as much as he dared, hoping against hope that the enemy spell was finally beginning to fail. He nudged the boy with his foot to draw his attention. But as they both watched they began realize the flames themselves were not dying, but changing. Ribbons of sickly green, a shade both were all too familiar with, wound their way amidst the gold, mere glimpses at first and then growing more numerous. Within half a minute from when it first appeared the green flames had suddenly swallowed the gold, and Lucius’ spell suddenly shrank under the unprecedented force of this newest attack.

He gasped and without thought reinforced the spell again and then again, feeling his strength flowing rapidly away from him. He needed to apparate. That was the only salvation here, but he didn’t dare drop his guard for the two seconds it would require to leave. In two seconds the flames would render him completely to ash.

And then the pressure reversed unexpected, retreating back so rapidly it forced his barrier to expand and expand until like a balloon it popped. The curtain of flames dissolved into thin air. At first, Harry could see nothing, the sudden change of light from near blinding, meant his eyes needed a moment to adjust. A moment he didn’t think he had, and he jumped to his feet with the idea of running. He hadn’t managed two steps before a distinct pop sounded next to him and a pair of arms was suddenly wrapping around him. Another nauseating moment of disorientation, as he pulled into a side-along apparation. He struggled instinctively.

“Calm down, Harry,” a familiar voice said soothingly. “You’re safe now.”

“Reggy?”

He craned his neck around, and his vision began to adjust. The forest around them was on fire. Not the magical blaze that had nearly killed him, but the remainder of dry leaves and seeping resins having sparked in the aftermath, creating natural burning heaps and torches around them. He could see Stratus features clearly, his face scratched and bleeding but grinning like a devil. There was another pop and he twisted around to see Kinglsey now holding Lucius.

A feeling of a joy and relief swelled up inside of him. Harry didn’t consider himself a cynic, but he’d never believed in miracles until this moment. As he looked around, taking it all in, the miracle seemed to grow into something almost absurdly fantastical. There were other survivors there as well, almost seven of them, looking mostly perplexed but otherwise fine. Some of them were sitting atop horses, while others were on the ground looking about dazedly.

“How did you…”

“Without your help,” Kingsley said shortly. Harry’s bit of joy dimmed considerably into something closer to surrealism.

“Shut it, Kingsley,” Stratus snapped, then softened his tone for Harry, as if though he were a skittish animal ready to bolt. “We’re not completely incompetent. We managed mostly on our own.”

“Mostly?”

Before Stratus could provide him with an answer, an arrow whizzed over their heads, and they immediately jumped behind the smoldering remains of a tree. The others there found their own places behind rocks and natural mounts. None of them had their wands or any any weapons. How had they managed to escape? How had they defeated the fire spell without them?

“Snape!” he gasped.

“Not even close,” came an amused reply.

Stupidly, Harry stuck his head out from his hiding spot. Further ahead, a short distance form the circle untouched earth surrounded by smoldering debris where Lucius and he must have been standing, was still another familiar sight.

“My Lord?”

Voldemort stood in all his dark glory before Gulandri and his forces. He was dressed for battle, but as always did not appear as if he had been fighting one. He was free of blood and dirt and any mark of struggle, as clean and deadly as a freshly drawn sword. A few yards ahead of him, Gulandri stood in a sort of dark symmetry, equally armored and untouched. Behind him a dozen elven warriors sat motionless on their mounts, awaiting their master’s orders.

That explained the green fire. It was a trade mark of the Dark Lord, and had to have been his counter attack to Gulandri’s. Voldemort had to have timed it perfectly so that Stratus and Kingsley could rescue Lucius and him without putting them back in the dark elf’s line of fire.

What it didn’t explain was why Selufiare, whom he had last seen safely in the faerie stronghold, was currently being held against the Dark Lord’s chest, his free hand wrapped around her throat. A hostage. An effective one, apparently, because Gulandri hadn’t made a single move to attack the man he had professed to be so eager to kill.

She did not look frightened. In fact, she looked angry enough to spit nails, although she held herself perfectly still. Angry or not, Harry did not like her odds of walking away. He swallowed thickly.

“Are you alright?” Voldemort asked.

“I’m fine.” Relatively speaking. “Um… I’d really just like to leave… now.”

“Of course. No one here is going to stop you.”

There was a touch of challenge there, directed at Gulandri, who did not even bother to glance in his direction. Harry didn’t move. As much as he really did want to leave and put an end to his part in this madness, he couldn’t just abandon Selufiare after she what she had done for him. Stratus touched his shoulder, drawing his attention.

“Come. I’ll take you back to the train if you want.”

But Harry just shook his head. He would stay and watch. Perhaps Voldemort would negotiate their peaceable withdraw and then let her go. Harry was safe now, and to harm the princess would only provoke yet another full scale war neither side needed. Hopefully, the Dark Lord would remember that before he did anything… regrettable.

“So…” Voldemort began, conversationally. “You look to have done well for yourself. Started your very own family, I see. Very pretty. Her mother must be, as well.”

The princess let out an angry hiss, but her father said something sharply and she went still yet again. Then he turned his electric blue eyes to Voldemort.

“What do you want for her?”

“Some answers to start with. Why did you attempt to take my protege, and do not claim ignorance of who he is. All the realms know him by now, and you were always more informed than most.”

Gulandri smiled at that, but there was no warmth to it.

“Yes. I knew of him. They speak of his bravery, but not how incredibly arrogant he is. Coming to this place, knowing the risk. Hn… he made himself a tempting target.”

“He lies,” Stratus said.

The elf turned to him sharply, catching his eye. The lieutenant shrank back from his gaze. He looked away and said nothing more.

“Now, now. I know you can’t lie. Not directly. Not so boldly. But half-truths are your specialty. Tell me, Gulandri, what you intended when you took him?”

The elf said nothing, and the silence stretched and with in the sense that whatever the dark elf had intended he dared not say it aloud. Harry swallowed thickly. He had known Gulandri’s intentions, and honestly, if it were only the elf’s life on the line he would eagerly offer up the answer and let them fight it out. But it wasn’t just Gulandri, and more likely than not it was Selufiare who would suffer the consequences of her father’s vainglorious scheming.

“No answer?” the dark lord mocked, seemingly more amused than anything now that the victory was clearly in his favor. “Then I suppose I will just have to take her with us until you can come up with something.”

He began to back away slowly.

“Follow us, and I will leave pieces of her scattered across the countryside. Attack us, or any of my citizens again, and I will cast her to the dementors.”

Harry could not see the full intensity of either Gulandri’s or Voldemort’s deadly glares, but he could feel it in the air, like watching clouds from two different storms rushing to meet each other. He felt himself beginning to shake, knowing this wasn’t going to go as smoothly as the Dark Lord seemed to think it would. That Gulandri had set forth a task for himself, one that he took as perverse sort of duty, that he had to fulfill even to the point of his own destruction. Perhaps even to the point of his daughter’s.

So he wasn’t surprised when the words that came out of Gulandri’s mouth where not a affirmation or a concession or even an answer. He was already edging further back behind his hiding space when the dark elf said;

“Giris.”

Three things happened at once. Gulandri drew his sword. The hunters, which had been sitting perfectly still behind him, pulled their bows from their backs and notched their arrows in one swift movement. Selufiare smashed the back of her head into Voldemort’s face, causing him to stumble slightly. She used the subsequent slack of the hold on her neck to grab his arm, and sink her teeth into the exposed flesh of his hand.

Voldemort cried out in surprised pain, and turned his wand towards her.

She released him, and with a preternatural speed, she turned and disappeared into the forest.

The hunters let their arrows fly.

Acts of Fealty

As the arrows were aimed, Voldemort threw up his arm instinctively to protect his head. There really there was no time to think up a better strategy. Luckily, preparation was still the better part of valor even in the magical world, and as those arrows struck they bounced harmlessly off the repelling spell on his cloak just as the goblin’s swords had. It was enough, however, for the princess to buy those few precious seconds she needed to disappear into the dark sanctuary of the forest, the burning pain in his mauled hand the only evidence she had ever been there.

Behind the safety of his cloak, he prepared his counterattack, but had not time to utter it as a blade seared through the magical cloth as if it were paper. He barely managed to save his arm from being severed along with the cloak, and stumbled back gracelessly but kept to his feet. Mithral, he realized. Nothing else could have cut through the spell so easily. He spared no more thought to it, as Gulandri, who was charging forward with that unnatural elven grace attempted a counter swing aimed to take his neck. Voldemort apparated. Only a few feet behind the murderous elf, but enough distance to cast his spell.

“Devero terras viperas,”he cursed, anger driving his voice into a parseltongue hiss.

Beneath Gulandri’s feet, the earth began to writhe and slither into enormous coils of soil and detritus. He danced backwards, leaping into a half fallen tree. Earthen serpents, a half a dozen, surged from ground after him, coiling up the trunk and tearing it down with their combined weight. The soldier elves that had held their formation where forced to scatter as the tree crashed down over them. Gulandri himself managed to hold his footing even then and with vicious speed loped off three serpentine heads, causing them to instantly dissolve into clouds of dust that temporarily blocked him from view. Voldemort tried for a second spell, but there was nothing to aim at, and already he could perceive the remaining earth serpents being destroyed by the elf’s blade.

The soldier elves were starting to regroup and notch their arrows for a second strike. The Dark Lord turned his wand to them, sparing them only enough attention as he dared in order to destroy them before they became a nuisance.

“Desuri flueh hey miasfithr. Suris fumatis sati’e ei’et.” Gulandri’s voice sounded from the concealing cloud, drawing back his opponent’s attention. The voice was soon joined by a silhouette, and then by the man himself. The elven king was coated in a fine layer of dust and his cheek was streaked with mud, but already he appeared to have regain his malicious good humor. He was grinning as he approached the Dark Lord, and Voldemort spared him a cruel smile of his own.

He barely spared a thought to the elves that quickly scattered at their king’s command and disappeared into the forest just a mysteriously as Selufiare had. Whatever their intentions, it was not his concern. He did not know the meaning of Gulandri’s words, but clearly he intended the rest of this fight to between themselves alone.

He wouldn’t have had it any other way.

When the arrows flew, they weren’t all aimed in Voldemort’s direction and Harry and the others quickly found themselves ducking behind anything that resembled cover. Except for Lucius, who was standing most conspicuously out in the open and yet no one seemed to bother targeting. This was a pity, Harry thought uncharitably, because he thought the man deserved an arrow to the head. Or at least a leg.

Stratus and he ducked behind some trees, then moved a little further away to an old log laying partially upright against a tree and Harry barely avoided getting hit twice. The log wasn’t the best cover, but from behind it offered them some protection and a good view of the battle that was unfolding between Voldemort and Gulandri.

He still cradled Bobby protectively in his arms, terrified he would drop him and yet also worried all this violent moment and his firm grip were hurting his frail avian form. What if he were accidentally smothering him? What if he turned too sharply and broke his neck? Cautiously, he loosened his hold so that he was merely laying in his arms. There was nothing else he could do or check for until they were somewhere safe with better lighting.

Tom gave Bobby a curious look Harry didn’t know how to decipher, but said nothing about him or his strange behavior towards the raven. They were soon joined by Kingsley and a Cultie he wasn’t familiar with, and neither seemed to notice.

“Think he’ll win?” Kingsley asked without preamble as the Dark Lord barely managed to avoid Gulandri’s first attack. Harry would have glared at him, but that would have meant tearing his eyes away from the battle.

“Normally, I would say absolutely,” Stratus said, not looking away either, “But the Enchantress is a naga, and their bites are notoriously deadly. If he were a normal wizard, he would be dead already.”

Harry’s breath caught in his throat. Naga venom… Merlin. It was known to dissolve iron and could even kill a vampire. What would it do to someone like Voldemort, whose potentially immortal body was composed of unknown frailties in accumulation of seemingly endless strengths? It was possible that the venom would have no affect at all or that it could kill him in minutes. There was no way to know.

And if the venom did not kill him, Gulandri would certainly do it himself.

Nothing else was said as they watched the first of Voldemort’s counterattacks, caught in the amazing power of it cast so casually. Harry felt himself relax slightly. If the Dark Lord were capable of that, then the bite probably wasn’t going to suddenly strike him dead.

“What are they doing?” Stratus asked, reluctantly drawing Harry’s attention. He followed the lieutenant’s line of sight to the elves which were suddenly retreating into the forest.

“Gulandri must have ordered them not to interfere,” Harry said. It seemed the arrogant sort of thing the elf would do.

“I think he told them more than that.”

“Think they’re coming after us?” Kingsley asked.

“They don’t have anything better to do. They’ll want revenge after what happened to their city.”

Harry wondered what they meant by that, but now wasn’t the time to ask.

“We should head back to Treelafore,” Stratus continued. “We’re not going to be any use-”

“Stratus, look out!” someone yelled from behind a tree.

The lieutenant jumped to the side just barely avoiding being bludgeoned with a large tree branch. The Cultie that attacked them, let out a savage scream and swung again, her eyes wide and crazed.

“Bentley? What the bloody hell is wrong with you?” Kingsley shouted, moving to intercept her, but received a heavy blow to his chest for his trouble.

“Don’t! She’s tainted! She ate and drank their food. She’s under Gulandri’s control now,” Stratus shouted, warning all the untainted of this newest threat even as he scrambled underneath the log to get out of range of her next attack. Harry was still closest to her, but with her back to him. Quickly, he set Bobby into a rotted opening in the log, unwilling to put him on the ground where he might be unwittingly trample. In the dark, little nook, he was all but invisible, and Harry made a quick and silent prayer that he would be safe as he turned to face this newest threat. If he could knock her down or hold her, Kingsley would be able to take her weapon away. He didn’t stop to think of what they could possibly do with her after that.

He started for her, but was pulled up short when a pair of heavily muscled arms reached out and pulled him out of midair. One arm wrapped around his chest, pulling him clean off the ground while the other encircled his neck, catching him in a headlock. He tried to shout, a scream of anger more than anything, but he could no longer draw the air for it. So he kicked at the legs behind him and tried to punch and scratch. It was useless. The man holding him was not as big as Kingsley, but he easily had fifty even seventy-five pounds on Harry, and the military training to back it up. Not only was the man able to hold onto his captive, he was quickly carrying him away from the others as well. Harry couldn’t even drag his feet to slow him down.

Dammit, why the hell was he so bloody short?

Defiantly, he continued to struggle, clawing behind him in hopes of blinding his captor, but catching nothing but the occasional stubbled cheek. The lack of oxygen began taking affect, his vision (already miserable without his glasses) began to dim and his hearing faded into the hot thumping of his own pounding heart. He started to panic, his arms now flinging outwards, attempting to grab hold of something, anything, to pull himself out of the suffocating grasp.

He wasn’t sure how far from the others he had already been taken or if they were being followed, but his hands were brushing against dozens of objects. Branches, rocks, rotten wood that crumbled when he tried to hold it. Then something he thought was a branch. It came free of what ever it had been protruding from. It was blind luck that it was actually an arrow that lodged itself in a nearby tree.

It was a miracle that during all his gracelessly purposeless thrashing he managed to stab his attacker in the leg and not himself. There was a cry of pain and Harry was suddenly free, and collapsed to the ground gasping for air. For a second, he couldn’t move, but the panic had’t left him and soon he was crawling to get away. First on his arms, then on his hands and knees, until he breathed enough that his vision cleared and he’s regained enough equilibrium to climb to his feet.

He finally managed to turn around and look at the enemy and he was half surprised to find it was one of the Culties and not an orc or large goblin that’s been carrying him off. The look in the man’s eyes was crazed, and even though he still clearly registers the pain Harry has inflicted on him, he was already stumbling towards him.

Harry ran up to him and smashed his foot into his face, sending him flying backwards. He felt a twinge of guilt when the man landed with a heavy ‘oomf’ and laid still. It wasn’t his fault he was acting this way, but he wasn’t going to let the man get a hold of him a second time. He turned back in the direction he assumed they came from.

“That was entertaining.”

“GEAHH! Dammit, Malfoy! Don’t do that!”

The blond aristocrat stood as if he had been there the whole time, and Harry wondered if this weren’t the case and he had been taking enjoyment out of watching him nearly get killed. Son of a-

“Harry? Where-” Stratus’s panicked voice, was soon followed by the man himself stumbling out of a hedge and into the small clearing they’d found themselves in. The lieutenant was visibly relieved when he spotted him, and Harry felt strangely touched by his genuine concern.

“I’m okay. What about Kingsley?”

The man in question appeared behind Stratus.

“I’m fine. Can’t say the same for Bentley, though,” he said accusingly, and for once it doesn’t seem aimed at Harry but at Stratus, who met the accusation coolly.

“She gave herself to the enemy. There was nothing left of her that could have been saved.”

Kingsley was clearly about ready to disagree but was interrupted by Lucius.

“Save it for later. The elves are circling around and there are still more tainted Culties out there. We’re sitting ducks here.”

“We should go back to Treelafore. We’ll be safe behind the wards or at least in the Minotaur,” Stratus said.

“I will not leave until I am certain of my Lord’s victory, and neither shall you. We will split into two groups. You and Kingsley go out and distract the enemy. Potter and I will find a new position to observe the battle from.”

If Lucius hadn’t had his wand or perhaps if the others had had theirs, Harry was almost certain Kingsley and Stratus would both have thrown the aristocrat at the nearest elf and told him to distract them himself. Or maybe they wouldn’t have. He was still their commanding officer and he was right in this instance. Voldemort’s safety was still their responsibility. They couldn’t leave without him.

Kingsley gave them all a mutinous look and stalked off without another word. He would do as he was told, but he wasn’t going to pretend he was okay with it. Stratus lingered a moment longer, and to Harry’s surprise grabbed his hand. He flushed with embarrassment, but it quickly faded when he realized what the lieutenant was doing. The scrap of cloth and leather cord encircling his hand and binding the magic there was suddenly cut free.

The suddenly swell of magic inside of him left him tingling and light headed, and Stratus stepped back in surprise. Harry stood there stunned for a moment, then blinked. The lieutenant was already gone by the time he regained enough sense to thank him. It wasn’t until he and Lucius moved from the clearing and circled around from where they had last seen Voldemort and Gulandri that he thought to wonder why Stratus hadn’t removed the ward earlier.

Fire and pain and snakes were Voldemort’s weapons of choice. Each contained a sort of sensual horror that he had always been drawn to since his youth, and which he had a natural talent for handling both for himself and against others. He used them liberally and enthusiastically against Gulandri whose weapons were speed and fear and blades. The Dark Elf’s movements were quicksilver fast, always outmaneuvered whatever Voldemort threw at him and never left him enough time to properly strategize anything more effective before he was forced to evade or block an attack on himself.

The patch of forest where they had begun their fight was now a clearing, the trees overturned, the ground scoured by fire and spellcraft. Voldemort remained at its center, aware that left him open to attack from all sides, but it also left him plenty of space to spot Gulandri coming and the time necessary to get off a spell. The elf stuck close to the edge, where the shadows cast by the still burning fires swallow him up as if he were a shadow himself.

The Dark Lord had shed his ruined cloak for the sake of maneuverability, and without it his wounded hand was visible. It had already turned black, and was now slowly withering into a mummified claw. It was also as painful as looked. No. It was far worse. Like it was being burned in fire and acid at the same time and stabbed repeated with a dozens of barbed hooks until it seemed his arm shouldn’t have been there at all, but merely a shredded, burned, and melted muscles left hanging from his desiccated bones.

It was distracting to say the least.

“I have to admit, I am impressed,” Gulandri said, his voice seeming to come from every direction. “Naga venom is not something to take lightly, and I suspect my daughter did not hold back when she filled you with it. I was afraid she had ruined our fight before it had even began.”

Poisons were not something Voldemort typically feared. In fact, he enjoyed several sorts of teas and delicacies that were deadly to wizarding kind. He had lost a number of kitchen staff because of it, but had never suffered more than a mild headache himself. It wasn’t something he experimented with extensively, but he had known innately that most poisons were ineffectual. It seemed he had found one of the few exceptions.

“My blood is venom itself, Gulandri. What is a little naga spittle compared to that?”

There was an approving chuckle, even though they both knew it was pure bravado on Voldemort’s part. He could no longer move his left arm where Selufiare had bitten him, and the venom was slowly but steadily seeping into the rest of his body as well. He had broken out into a sweat and his right hand developed a fine but noticeable tremor. He was finding it harder to remain focused, to keep his eyes and his brain moving, prepare his next attack or to ward of Gulandri’s. The pain was… he was a master of pain so that didn’t matter. The gradual loss of control over his own body was the true danger here.

A shadow moved out of the corner of his eye, and he cast his next attack. There was a flash of bluish-green light that briefly scattered the shadows and illuminated the space in a stark, unforgiving light before it struck boulder and promptly melted it, sending up an burning, acrid blue smoke in its wake.

No Gulandri though. Just his voice, taunting him from nowhere and everywhere at once.

“How long do you think you can keep this up? You’re getting weaker. What do you think will happen once the venom reaches your heart? What do you suppose it will feel like when it shrivels up like your hand? Or perhaps it will reach your brain first and you’ll have a fit, pissing yourself and choking on your own vomit like all those muggles you liked to torment so much. There would be a sort of ironic justice in that.”

Fear is Gulandri’s weapon, and though Voldemort expression never changes he still feels the bite of it. It steals a breath and a thought, before he crushes it down savagely. If he is to die, it will not be by Gulandri’s hand or his daughter’s poison. He was the harbinger of the Earth, and while in her realm She would not allow him to fall so ignominiously before his destiny had played itself out. She had given him this monstrous body, and he had faith in it just as She had faith in him.

But faith meant nothing if it were not tested.

Harry and Lucius settled themselves some distance away from the fight on a stony outcropping that offered them some elevation. An old oak grew there, and Harry had quickly moved up into its branches to hide as well as watch. Lucius did not bother, once again remaining out in the open and taking advantage of the view their position afforded him. At first the young Gryffindor thought the man crazy, but recalling Snape’s words earlier about neither being seen and then how Lucius had not been targeted once during their evasion of the archers, he decided Snape must have done something to protect him.

He hoped that what ever it was the Headmaster had done was working on the man as well. He hadn’t seen his guardian for some time and was starting to worry about him. As much as he could afford to worry about him. At the moment, he was worrying about almost everyone. Stratus and Kingsley and any other untainted Culties were running around without their wands to distract elves who had thoroughly kicked their asses during their last encounter. Bobby was unconscious and defenseless where he had left him- hopefully where he left him. There was no telling who or what could have found the raven, but he was still likely safer where he was than being totted around by a walking target like Harry. He was definitely worried about himself, and not just because of the elves. He couldn’t help but notice Lucius glancing up at from the ground every so often, clearly contemplating something. Possibly the resumption of his previous torture session to extract the truth of his curse from him.

Most worrisome of all was Voldemort. He was far more used to be worried about the Dark Lord than being worried for the Dark Lord. Time and again the dark wizard had proven himself seemingly indestructible, and yet before his eyes he could see him struggling and slowly failing as his body continued to weaken. It wasn’t noticeable at first, the spells seemed as fast and savage as ever, but gradually his reaction time slowed. His tall confident form began to slump and move awkwardly.

Inside his own body, Harry felt his magic broiling inside. It had only been sealed for a day, but already he could feel in struggling to break free, fed on the intensity of his own physical and emotional struggles, rising up to defend and attack any and all that came before him. Without his wand, he could not properly channel it, and while his sword hand yielded a certain level of control he had little practice with it.

All of that was irrelevant however.

If the Dark Lord stumbled, he would go to him. He knew so many of his misadventures, this one included, had resulted from him recklessly rushing into situations he didn’t understand and couldn’t control. He knew to do so now would be the stupidest decision he had ever made and would likely get him killed. And still, even knowing this, he was already preparing himself to apparate himself into the thick of things. Some critical, broken part him wouldn’t let him turn away, and to do so would surely result in a different sort of madness. Even just keeping his distance now, was driving Harry into fit of anxiety and guilt.

“Don’t even think about it,” Lucius warned, and Harry was suddenly certain the general had his wand pointed directly at him. He didn’t even pretend he didn’t know what he was talking about. It had to be written all over his face what he intended to do.

And his expression wasn’t changing any time soon.

The venom was nothing if not fast. Within minutes his vision began to blur… or maybe it was his mind that was deteriorating, melting away under its corrosive touch. He couldn’t feel his tongue anymore and was now forced to rely solely on wordless casting or else risk blowing himself up with a mispronunciation. One of these spells he cast, caught Gulandri as he made another attempt to sweep in behind him. The elf was thrown off his feet and smashed into a nearby tree before falling into some shrubbery beneath it. Voldemort set the shrubs on fire, pain and necessity taking away the desire for creativity.

There was no screaming.

He knew better than to assume he had managed to kill the Dark Elf with that meager spellwork.

Suddenly, his entire wand arm spasmed, and for a second he thought perhaps Gulandri prediction was coming true. That he was going to have a seizure and lose any semblance of control over his body. His wand was shaken free from his weakened, trembling grasp and fell to the ground. And just as suddenly as the spasms started, they stopped. He was shaking still, but it was because of weakness now more than anything. It took all his will power to remain standing and more than he thought he had to reach out for his wand.

An sharp pinch struck his right shoulder, and it bloomed into a hot, wet pain. His whole body jerked against it and his mind seemed shaken loose from the sensation. What just happened? Then another pain, this time a burning slash to his arm. He saw the blade this time. Bits of mirror shining through the coating of blood. His blood.

He snarled like a beast, and spun around, animalistic anger and desperation flooding his failing body with murderous intent. Gulandri didn’t dance away this time or attempt to evade. His electric eyes with were wide with a terrible glee, a horrifying triumph. As the Dark Lord leaped for him, he positioned his blade and leaped forward to meet him.

The blade slid into the Dark Lord’s chest, slipped easily between his ribs and through his lung to the heart that pounding beneath and then clean through the other side. Voldemort gasped, blood welling up and spilling out over his slackened lips. Gulandri smiled.

“That was exciting,” the elf half laughed. “Perhaps we’ll have the opportunity to do it again some day.”

There was no response from the Dark Lord, whose body had gone rigid and then suddenly went limp. Gulandri caught him as he fell forward. It gave him another moment or two to mock his defeated opponent before he was gone completely. He was about to do just that, but someone in the distance was shouting something. ‘No’ he thought, and it made him smile.

Was that the boy? If he was still here, he might yet have the opportunity to-

Voldemort’s wand, which had been laying a short distance away, suddenly flew from the ground. Gulandri’s amusement turned immediately to alarm and he dropped his prey to dodge the inevitable attack.

Only Voldemort didn’t fall.

The right hand that had been lying bonelessly at the Dark Lord’s side jumped up to seize him in a vice-like grip before he could pull away. Voldemort’s lifted his head to look up at him, the crimson eyes burning into his own. Gulandri eyes widened. It made them an even better target when his enemy spat a mouthful of blood into his face.

The elf shrieked in pain and tore free. He pulled the blade free of the Dark Lord in the process, and it was the only thing that saved him when Harry’s curse hit him squarely.

“Sectumsempra!”

From the ground, Voldemort felt blood splatter across his face and hands. He felt it through the myriad of tortures afflicting his torn and poisoned body, and he smiled despite himself. There was a moment where he must have blacked out, because when he regains some sense of himself and his surroundings he was not lying directly on the ground.

Potter had pushed him partially upright so that he could lean him against his own body, and his free hand pressed some sort of cloth over the open wound of his chest. There was a tingle of magic there that wasn’t unpleasant, but if it was meant to heal his wound it wasn’t doing so quickly. His vision was still blurred, but he looked from the corner of his eye up at Harry’s face. It was a strange mixture of pain, anger, and fear, but mostly determination. His vision swam for a moment, before partially focusing on Harry’s wand hand and his own wand clutched tightly there.

Funny, hadn’t he used Harry’s wand just today? Did his protege find it as unnaturally natural as he had? They had brother wands after all. Perhaps they knew when their kin’s master was yielding them.

He followed the line of the wand, but here his vision failed. There were vague shapes and movements, but nothing he could distinguish. An enemy, obviously. Who else was left after Gulandri? It took him a moment to remember his enemy had brought his own minions.

“Is the elf dead?” he asked, his voice wet with his own blood.

Harry started at the sound of his voice, but his position didn’t change. He didn’t allow himself to be distracted from the enemy.

“No, my lord,” he replied. His voice cracked and he stopped. Voldemort could feel him swallow thickly, regaining his control. When he spoke, his tone was deceptively light. “It seems he’s almost as stubborn to die as you are. His people got to him before I could finish him off.”

That was disappointing, but not really surprising. Serpensortia was a nasty spell, but was rarely an instant kill. It certainly wasn’t going to be a pleasant experience recovering from.

“They’re retreating now. Carrying him off. Please hold on for a bit longer.”

Voldemort smirked at the bit of pleading he heard there. Potter could almost cute sometimes in his sincerity.

“I’m not going anywhere. Where are the others?”

“Malfoy’s following the elves, making sure they don’t try anything. Kingsley and Lt. Stratus are… somewhere… hopefully. I don’t know where Professor Snape-”

“I am here.”

Voldemort lets out an uncomfortable grunt as Harry jerks in surprise. It would seem his servant had lost none of his stealth over the years. He follows the potion master’s movements more by sound and feel than sight. He doesn’t want to waste the energy attempting to move his head.

“Move your hand, Potter, so I can work.”

The tingling sensation over his chest retreats and he realizes it was definitely doing more than he had originally thought. The pain, which he had thought considerably before, swelled again. His breathing became labored, filling his lungs with blood rapidly.

“Professor!”

“I know, Potter! Purus pulmo!” And then he could breathe again, painfully but easily. “Corsigno!” His heart stopped completely for a moment then resumed, this time without the tearing sensation of before. “Sisto sanguis. That should stop the worst of the bleeding for now.”

“Professor, his arm. He’s been bitten by a naga.”

There’s a moment of complete silence, then the frantic shuffling of clothing. It’s curious enough and he was now feeling somewhat strong enough, to tilt his head towards Severus.

The man appeared to be undressing.

But no, he was just taking off his belt, which made into a loop and slipped over Voldemort’s withered arm and tightened into a tourniquet.

“Are there no spells for that?”

“Naga venom eats through magic the same way Nagini’s venom does. This is crude, but should hopefully slow the spread of the venom. I don’t know how you’re still alive.”

“Yes, you do, Severus. You just don’t like to think on it.”

Lucius’ voice appeared before any type of reply could be made.

“The fae are all gone now. We should go. There should be at least one Healer in the village.”

“Don’t be insipid, Lucius,” Voldemort hissed, his strength very slowly returning. It wouldn’t last indefinitely, but it would be enough for him to do what needed to be done. “No one can know about this. Our enemies will swarm on us at the slightest sign of weakness. Besides, no one knows more about this body than myself. Take me somewhere quiet and secure.”

“The Minotaur,”Harry suggested, and it took Voldemort to realize what he was talking about. The Minotaur was here? So it had completed the first half of its first mission.

“Yes, that would work perfectly. Severus, you’ll treat me on the way back to Bristol. I have safe houses there where I can recover. Now get me up.”

“My Lord, you shouldn’t-”

“But I’m going to. Potter, give me back my damn wand.”

“Er… sorry.” Harry handed it to him. He felt the magic inside practically purr, and was reassured that despite its obedience to his protege, it still knew who its true master was. He slipped it into sleeve, and made his first attempt to stand. He made it too, although it required him to hold onto first Harry and then Severus and to pause twice before he was upright. He didn’t dare let go of Severus’ arm else he’d surely have fallen flat on his face. No point in letting anyone else know that.

“You’ll have to apparate us both, Severus. My focus is a bit…Hhmm…”

“Understandle, my Lord. Just say when.”

“Wait. Before I forget. Potter, your wand is in my other sleeve. Take it out.”

Harry looked down at his blackened arm, and while the Dark Lord could appreciate the reason behind the look of revulsion there he really didn’t have the patience for it right then.

“Take it out!” he hissed in parseltongue, and the boy jumped to obey. He grabbed his arm as gently as he could (not that he could feel it at this point anyway), and carefully slide his thumb and finger between his skin and sleeve and pulled out the wand there. The boy stared at it for a long moment, as if unable to believe he was seeing it.

“How did you…?”

Under normal circumstances, he would have found some way to either gloat or else regale Harry with his intellectual and magical prowess, but these were not normal circumstances and despite his returning strength he was running out of time.

“Later. Take me to the train, Severus.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

And then they were gone, and Harry was left disoriented and filled with questions. Later, Voldemort had said, and that wasn’t unreasonable. Except now still felt so urgent. There was still so much to do, and it needed to be done quickly.

“You should go,” Lucius said, coldly. “He will expect you to follow him.”

There was a bitterness to his tone that Harry recognizes as jealousy, but didn’t really understand the cause. Was he mad that Voldemort called him insipid?

“Soon. We need to find Lt. Stratus and Kingsley.”

“We don’t have time for that. They could be dead already. If not, they’re in no immediate danger and will find their own way back eventually,” he said, as if explaining something to an imbecile. Harry’s clever reply was to ignore him completely, which was more insulting than any retort he could have thought up.

“Expecto patronum.”

His patronus appeared, its ghostly visage even more eery in the surrounding devastation. It regarded him with some curiosity, as if surprised to see him and Harry felt a smile tug at his lips. You and me both, my friend.

“Find Kingsley and Lt. Stratus and bring them back to Treelafore.”

It turned and bound off into the forest. As it went, Harry caught a flash of reflecting light in the embers nearby. Lucius would have seen it too, except that his gaze was drawn to the patronus. He had never seen Harry’s before. The young Gryffinder took the opportunity to investigate, and found Gulandri’s sword half buried in ash and leaves. He picked it up with his sword hand.

His magic surged into the blade readily, traveling along the mithral lining, before circling back into his hand. It felt familiar, almost like holding the sword of Gryffindor.

“Where did you find that?” Lucius demanded once his attention was drawn back to him.

“It was on the ground. Gulandri must have dropped it when I hit him with the curse.”

“The Dark Lord will want it.”

“Then he can have it,” he said without hesitation. He liked the sword. He really, really liked it, but if Voldemort asked for it then he would give it to him. He owed him more than a shiny bauble right now, and he knew it. “You can go if you want. I just need to check something and I’ll apparate back.”

Lucius regarded him for a long moment. He could persist, but already he was feeling more like a nagging housewife than a menacing presence. Now that Harry was armed and the Dark Lord was so close, it was too risky to attempt to resume his interrogation and they both knew it. He wasn’t going to give up, but right now he had to focus on absolving himself of wrong-doing to his master. Despite Severus warning against apparating, Lucius’ pride had taken too many blows already that day. He disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Harry let out a breath of relief when he was gone. One less thing to worry about. Alone again, he lit his wand with a lumos charm and jogged out of the clearing and to the fallen log where he and the others had first hidden themselves. It took him several tries to find it, there were so many more fallen trees now, but when he did he found Bobby safe and sound where he left him.

“Bobby? Bobby? Enervate,” he cast. The raven gave a jolt and flopped around in a panic for a moment, nearly causing Harry to drop him. “Bobby, calm down! You’re okay! You’re safe!”

The raven froze.

“What happened?”

“You got hit with a stunner. Actually, its all kind of complicated and I don’t have the time to get into it now. Can you fly?”

“I… I think I can. Yes, I should be able to. At least to the village. There are safe places to hide until dawn there.”

“Good, then go. I don’t trust Lucius not to try something.”

“General Malfoy is here? Is he the one who stunned me?”

“No, that was Snape.”

“Oh… what? What’s Snape doing here?”

“He’s…” Harry sighed. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have the time to explain it right now. Go to the village and find a place to hide. When it’s safe, find me at Hogwarts and we’ll sort this all out. Can you do that?”

“I… yes, I suppose. Are you alright?”

Harry grimaced. He didn’t know what he was right now, but alright wasn’t it.

“I’ll be okay. Hurry.”

He didn’t give Bobby time to say anything more, but tossed him into the air, forcing him to fly or else crash to the ground. The raven gave an indignant caw but soon disappeared into the night. Then he too disappeared, and then reappeared outside of Treelafore.

The Minotaur stood as a shadow just outside the low stone wall around the village, nearly invisible in the darkness except for where light from a nearby lamp post made lines of gold shine along her shiny black body. The village was quiet, its inhabitant tucked sound asleep in their beds. Not even a barking dog or an owl to break the silence. It was like walking into a place where time had suddenly stopped.

This disturbing illusion was soon shattered by Snape appearing from between a row of houses, carrying a large sack under one arm and stool under the other. He was soon followed by Lucius carrying a bundle of sheets and what could have been firewood. He watched curiously as they carried their loads to the Minotaur, and watched as one of the side loading doors slid open, allowing them to deposit their load and climb inside. Harry followed after, slipping in behind them before the door closed.

“Potter, where have you been?” Snape snapped. The answer, however, seemed less important to him than his current task, and he quickly ignore him in favor of it.

Inside, Voldemort had been laid rather ignominiously on the floor of the compartment. This was a necessity, since the compartment was a empty now as it had been when Harry had come in it. The crates that had been there previously had been transfigured into some sort of frame and Lucius was busying himself completing it. Snape was now sorting through his bag, pulling out items that had clearly been filched from the local apothecary.

Harry stood there helplessly for a moment.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked.

“Take off his shirt,” Snape said, not looking up from his task. “Clean him up if you can.”

He hesitated, but then did as he was told. Voldemort was still conscious when he went kneel beside him. He regarded Harry rather blandly, and if he was in pain he was doing a masterful job of hiding it.

“Where did you get that?” the Dark Lord asked, referring to the sword that Harry was very carefully using to cut away his shirt. Everything the blade touched seemed to fall apart as if it were nothing more substantial than water.

“Gulandri dropped it. The other elves must have forgotten to pick it up.”

“Careless of them. He’ll punish someone for that blunder.”

“He didn’t seem in any condition to punish anyone last I saw him.”

A faint smirk broke the blandness of the man’s expression.

“You think so? He is too much like me. Even in his current condition, he will find some means to punish them.”

Harry paused, catching some meaning in what he was saying. No, he refused to be sidetracked. He set the sword aside, removing the shredded remains remains of his shirt. It was suddenly difficult to breathe. He knew about the withering arm and the stab to the chest, but now that it was completely exposed he could see the true extent of the damage even through the layer of blood and gore. The blackening of his arm was only few inches from his shoulder and still spreading, the flesh below that little more than mummified flesh and brittle bone. Then there was the wound to the chest. Harry had assumed it was close to the heart, but looking directly at it he knew there was no way the blade had missed. The wound was still open, although bloodless, and through the slivered opening Harry could see the white of his ribs and below that the faint movement of the beating heart beneath.

He had to stop for a moment, pull back and breathe. His insides rolled, and though he hadn’t eaten in days his gag reflex tried to force something out of nothing from inside him. He closed his eyes, counted to ten and went back to the Dark Lord. Taking out his wand, he carefully began cleaning and sterilizing the exposed skin, being as gentle as possible around the open wounds of his chest, shoulder, and arm. When he got to the Dark Lord’s face, he found the man watching him curiously.

“Do you think I couldn’t punish you as I am now?” he asked, as if bemused.

“I would hope you’d wait until I was done before you tried.”

That earned him a grin.

“Maybe that is the punishment? It hurts you to have to do this, doesn’t it?”

“… Yes.”

“But you deserve it, don’t you? This is your fault, after all.”

Harry grimaces, but nods. He carefully cleans the rest of man’s face. The absence of blood gives him a semblance of normalcy, but somehow makes the intensity of his stare that much more disconcerting. Maybe it’s the pain talking or a side affect of Snape’s spells, but the cruelty of his words coupled with the softness of his expression was unbearable.

“Everything is ready, My Lord,” Snape said, chasing Harry away from the Dark Lord’s side. There was a feather-lite charm on him already, so lifting the Dark Lord onto the transfigured gurney was simple enough. Voldemort closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It was the only sign he gave that he felt anything at all. Snape finished cleaning and sterilizing his back before laying him down completely. He turned to the others.

“You should both go.”

Lucius didn’t question it, and Harry was ashamed to admit he didn’t want to have to see what he had already guessed was going to happen either.

“Harry stays.”

Everyone froze.

“He stays. There is something he must do for me.”

They all share a look, but there were no words to argue. What the Dark Lord wanted the Dark Lord got.

“Wait ten minutes,” he continued, directing his orders towards Lucius. “If Stratus and Kingsley are not back by then, start the train. If they’re alive, they can find their own way back.”

“As you command, my Lord.”

“Close the door behind you.”

The train door slid shut smoothly, sealing them safely inside so that the only danger were those they presented to each other. Harry moved himself to the farthest corner he could, hoping to stay out of Snape’s way and if miracles existed, be completely forgotten. If they did exist, he had apparently used up his quota.

“We need to remove the arm first,” Snape said. “I’ve manage to stop the venom from spreading any further but it’s only a temporary. It will eat through the magic shortly.”

“I know. I want Harry to do it. With the sword. I think that would be appropriate.”

Snape didn’t know what to say to that except perhaps ‘you’re crazy’ and that wouldn’t have been helpful to anyone. He turned to Harry who looked healthily horrified. It seemed there were some things he wouldn’t jump into without thinking after all.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” he said instead. After a beat, he added. “He might miss.”

“I don’t expect him to have to swing. The sword is lined in mithral. He need only press lightly and it will cut clean through.”

“I could-”

“But he must. Stop questioning me, Severus. It’s unhealthy.”

There was nothing more to say then. The potions master looked back to Harry who was now white as a sheet, and felt something akin to pity and also an understanding behind the Dark Lord’s logic. This was perhaps the worst punishment Voldemort could give to Harry, the one thing that might actually force him to learnfrom his mistakes. They could make him do a thousand unpleasant takes, ground him until he was ninety, and cast cruciatus on his for hours and none of it would have the impact of forcing the boy to hurt someone he cared about. It was brilliant like so many of Voldemort’s customized tortures were.

“Potter,” he said, making his tone sharp and commanding. “Get over here.”

Harry shook his head. He wasn’t going to do this. They couldn’t make him do it. Voldemort lifted his head, glaring at his stubborn protege.

“If you don’t get over here and cut off this useless lump immediately, I am going to kill both Stratus and Kingsley when they get back, justto relieve stress.”

Harry felt like he was going to be sick. Like he should have been sick already, but somehow he didn’t think that would stop Voldemort from making good on his promise. Clearly, he was a lot angrier with him that he had originally made out or perhaps now that he was losing an arm he was regretting his decision to attempt to rescue Harry at all. So he forced himself to move forward, knowing whatever happened next, the Dark Lord was right. He deserved this.

“… I don’t know how to…” he started, but stopped. He couldn’t even say it.

“I will position the sword,” Snape said briskly. “You only need to push down sharply. I will take care of things after that. As long as you can manage to not cut off your own leg, it should be fine.”

“Yeah… okay.”

He dried his sweaty palms on his shirt and readjusted his grip on the handle. The sword was lighter than the average sword, even lighter than the Sword of Gryffindor, being Elven crafted but it felt incredibly heavy as he lifted it. Snape moved the withered arm out perpendicular from Voldemort’s body and rested it on a partially transfigured stool, now curved in a slight ‘U’ shape so that the arm wouldn’t just roll away when it came free. Snape unstrapped the belt tourniquet and used it to strap the limb down, just in case.

By now the blade was shaking in Harry’s hands, and the impromptu surgeon was even more skeptical than before.

“Are you absolutely sure about this,” he asked the Dark Lord. Their patient wasn’t even looking at the sword or his own arm. He was looking at Harry’s face and committing it to memory.

“Absolutely.”

Snape took a deep breath. Harry didn’t think he could breathe at all. He watched as the headmaster carefully grabs the sides of the blade between his thumb and forefinger and pushed it down towards the arm, letting it hover just above the line of reddish-purple between the blackened limb and the fleshy body. The moment he let go, Harry’s shaking hands caused the blade to dance back and forth, and Snape caught it again.

“Potter, we really don’ t have time for this. I need you to calm down.”

“I know. I know.I’m trying. It’s.. it’s really heavy.”

“If you can’t keep it still, you’re going to miss the mark and either cut too high or too low. Cut to high and he’s going to bleed out in seconds. Cut too low and you’ll have to do it again. Do you understand?”

“I… yes…I… Merlin, I can’t breathe.”

“Can I give him a calming draught, at least? He’s about to have an attack,” Snape asked the Dark Lord.

“There’s no time. I can feel it starting to spread.”

Harry and Snape looked down, and sure enough the line of bruised purple moved ever so slightly upwards.

“Shit, shit,” Harry cursed. Doing nothing was making things worse. What if he wasted too much time and it spread into his chest cavity? That wasn’t something they could just hack off! “Okay, okay, I’m ready, just…”

Snape repositioned the blade, pushing it down further this time so that it cut through the first fragile layers of skin.

“Push, Potter! Push it down now!”

He started, and then in a panic shoved down hard. Snape’s inappropriate joke about not cutting off his own leg turned out not to be a joke at all. As the blade cut through, smoother than anything he’d ever seen, it kept going and he fell forward, nearly hitting himself. He threw himself backwards to stop himself, over compensated and nearly vivisected Snape in the process. He landed on his back, and the sword skittered out of his hand and across the compartment. There was no attempt to go after it. He was liking it a lot less then he originally thought.

There wasn’t any time to think after that. He could only lay there, listening as the Dark Lord who had been so composed and docile a moment before was now spitting out the vilest of curses into the universe in that tell-tale sibilant hiss of parseltongue. Snape was struggling to keep him still and treat the bleed wound, which looked something like a man trying to hold down small dragon and juggle at the same time. For an instant, Harry thought he had cut too high or at a wrong angle, but the blood wasn’t gushing out in the wild burst the potions master described but a sporadic splatter that was quickly painting the floor and the Dark Lord himself.

“My Lord!” Severus cried, still trying to hold him down by his shoulder with only minimal success. The wound on his chest and shoulder had reopened and were gushing more than his arm, soaking the man and the gurney beneath him within seconds. “You must be still! Please! Hold still! Potter, get over here!”

Harry stumbled to his feet. He was shaking and light-headed, but here was something that needed to done and that he could focus on, and nothing fought off his panic attacks like a goal. His first thought was to try and hold down Voldemort’s shoulders like Snape was doing, but that was ridiculous. If a man of Snape’s side could barely manage it, then he certainly couldn’t. So he climbed up on top of the gurney, straddling the Dark Lord and using his weight rather than his muscles to hold him down. It was fortunate he had excellent balance, because it seemed the Dark Lord was trying to throw him off. All the while, he kept spitting out the vilest words a forked tongue had ever spoken.

“What’s he saying, Potter?”

“Er… basically… ow ow ow and then you know… swearing.”

“Fantastic. Try to keep him still.”

Harry didn’t know how to keep him still. He was having a hard enough time just staying on top of him. He could feel the Dark Lord’s magic radiating outwards in cold, dark tendrils and making his blood feel like acid to the touch. It was becoming hard to breath again, not because he was panicking but because the air itself seemed to be flowing out of the room as Voldemort’s magic rose to defend itself.

There was suddenly blow to the side of his head that sent him flying. When Harry opened his again, it was to silence and Snape’s face staring dourly down at him. And a serious headache.

“Ugh… what happened? Is he okay?”

“He is stable and conscious. His magic knocked you clear across the compartment. Fortunately, we’ve already determined that you have high tolerance for that sort of abuse. Can you stand?”

“Do I have to?” he groaned, because he would be perfectly happy to go back to unconsciousness.

“Yes. He’s asking for you.”

“Yeah, okay. Give me hand up?”

Snape did help him, which was fortunate because if he hadn’t known he suffered a blow to the head before he could certainly tell now. His vision swam and settled then swam again as he took his first step. After the third step, he was mostly sorted and manage to let go of Snape to walk the remaining half dozen steps to the gurney. The white sheets were coated with blood, but the man laying on top of them was clean once again with pristine whine gauze encircling his chest and the small stump that remained of his left arm. He was also looking back at Harry with that same cool, slightly bemused expression he had had before.

“I trust I didn’t damage you too badly?” Voldemort asked, eying him from head to foot and not quite certain of his conclusion.

“I’ll survive. How about you?”

“I’ll survive, as well. Most of me at least.”

“Is there nothing that can be done to get it back?” he asked, looking pointedly to the limb that someone seemed to have shriveled even more during the minutes he had been knocked unconscious. It did not even look real or at least not human. The Dark Lord spare it a disinterested glance. Harry couldn’t seem to turn away from it.

“Nothing worth the effort. I have other options. Do not concern yourself over it.”

“I’m sorry.”

God, that sounded like such a stupid, useless thing to say after what had happened. It always sounded so useless, but some how essential. He felt Voldemort’s hand on his arm, drawing his attention back to him.

“I know. Your punishment is over. I forgive you.”

A hitch caught in Harry’s throat and he couldn’t speak, was coming dangerously close to crying which was completely absurd. After everything that had happened, he wanted to cry once the worst was over? He tried to wipe his eyes but stopped when he realized his hands were covered in blood. And they felt oddly numb.

“You need to wash that off,” Voldemort said, suddenly more earnest. “My blood is toxic enough on its own, I can’t imagine having naga venom added to the mix has lessened the dangers.”

“Ah, shit.”

“Aptly put. Have one of the others take care of it. Your hands are shaking.”

“Did Kingsley and Stratus make it back?”

“I can’t say I’ve been up to check,” he replied.

“Er… right. I’ll go… figure something out.”

“Try one compartment down,” Snape said. He was already focused on grinding ingredients for some sort of potion, and not looking at either of them. “There should be a lavatory there to wash off the blood if you don’t find anyone.”

“Thanks.”

He moved away and as he did, the room swayed a bit but now that his senses were a little clearer he realized it was because they were moving. The train had taken off without him realizing it and was now on its way to Bristol. He was going home. He felt the urge to cry again, and he understood now it was out relief and laughed a little at himself. Merlin, he was so incredibly tired.

But he had to get clean first.

Snape did look up from his work when he heard Harry move into the next car. His work was far from over for the night, and he couldn’t afford to be idle. He wasn’t such a novice however, that he couldn’t speak and prepare ingredients at the same time.

“I suppose you had your reasons,” he said, “But that seemed rather pointless. There are far less painful and dramatic ways to take off an arm.”

Voldemort chuckled softly.

“Indeed. There are countless curses and spells that could have achieved the same affect, but then you must have realized I did not do it just to remove the limb.”

“Yes. I just don’t know what motivated you, except to torment Potter, which while fun, again there are a lot less painful ways of achieving.”

“Quite, but there are far fewer ways to maintain his dependence on me.”

“Dependence? This was about curving his independent streak?”

“I know we’ve discussed if before. He’s only becoming as he gets older. He is already more self-reliant than most wizards twice his age. More self-motivated than most wizards will ever be in their entire lives. It makes him very difficult to control.”

“So this about control?”

“No. There is no controlling Harry. I don’t particularly want to control him. What I do want, however, is to keep him focused. All that independence and self-motivation I want directed towards… me. Towards my goals and my ideas and my well-being.”

Snape nearly dropped his pestle.

“I don’t mean like that,Severus. It would be so easy for him to get distracted and find some cause to follow. Something that would lead him away from his true potential or even to bring him into conflict with myself. This… this was all about reasserting exactly how much he owes me, and how much he will always owe me.”

“That sounds an awful lot like trying to control him.”

“Control implies I would have some means of determining his actions. That’s not the case. He always has and always will surprise me with how he fulfills his sense of obligation. The fiasco with the werewolves was a perfect example of that. There are some things I will always be able to make him do, but it is the actions he takes under his own initiative that have the most dramatic affect.”

“It certainly had a dramatic affect tonight,” Snape said with a touch more irony than was probably appropriate.

“Loosing my arm was my own fault. I should have known better than to handle a naga so carelessly. If it hadn’t been for that, I would have been able to defeat Gulandri easily and this all would have been an amusing tale to tell at the next Christmas party.”

“And yet, you never would have had to deal with either the naga or the elf if Potter hadn’t disobeyed your orders to never enter Ireland without your supervision.”

“A matter I am still rather confused about. How did he get here in the first place with Minotaur and his own squardron?”

Shit,Snape mentally cursed. He hadn’t meant to bring that up yet.

“That… is a very good question.”

“And one you do not wish to tell me.”

“It is… complicated.”

“Hhhmm… I am going to have to punish you after this, aren’t I?”

“… That’s entirely up to your discretion. I would ask that you wait until the full explanation is given… And you’ve recovered.”

Voldemort chuckled. It should have been reassuring, but having just witness the Dark Lord smiling away while he psychologically tormented his protege he did not find it encouraging.

“I am sure you would.”

Tom watched the streaks of red and black swirl and mix before disappearing down into the darkness of the sink drain. It was hypnotizing or perhaps he was too close to physical and psychological exhaustion. Sleep sounded magnificent. Food sounded even better. Being clean would have been a minor comfort, but he would take what he could get. Stratus’ wand was gone, probably forever, and he wasn’t going to ask Lucius for help. His ‘superior’ was currently pacing a line into the floor, and wasn’t in any state to help anyone. So that left good old fashion soap and water. Not as good as magic, but not a bad method for attaining cleanliness. Or at least it wouldn’t be if he had an actual tub or shower and a change of clothes.

He supposed he would get those soon enough. Bristol was only a short trip from here, and whether he went back to headquarters or his own quarters, there would be all the necessities. Assuming he wasn’t immediately thrown in prison. He thought he might have dodged the bullet on that one. The Dark Lord might not have said it, but he thought he had impressed him when he organized their escape. He wasn’t expecting accolades by any means, having failed his primary mission of protecting Harry, but Voldemort would remember him from now on and not entirely with negativity.

And of course, now Harry knew him too.

Well, he knew ‘Reggy’. Definitely a start in the right direction.

There was a light tap at the lavatory door. He bit down his irritation. He was no where near getting clean, but there wasn’t much more he could do.

“Just a moment,” he said, and slid the door open.

Harry stood there covered in blood from the splatters across his face, to his soak shirt front, and gore coated hands.

“Merlin! What the hell happened to you?”

The boy blinked at him owlishly.

“It’s not mine.”

Well, that was a relief. Whose then? Oh… oh. It seemed Voldemort hadn’t fared as well as Lucius had implied.

“It’s good to see you made it back in time. Can I use the sink? There’s naga venom mixed in this and I’m starting to loose feeling in my fingers.”

Tom quickly moved out of his way letting Harry slip inside. Lucius was no longer in the compartment, so he was probably checking on Voldemort. Kinglsey and the untainted witch, he now knew as Fiona McDier, were already asleep, leaning against each other on the far wall. He and Harry were essentially alone.

“Thank you for sending the patronus. We were all lost in the woods by the time it found us.”

“I’m glad it helped,” he said, politely. There was an extreme tiredness to his friend’s voice and body language, as if he were mere moments from falling asleep on his feet. Tom could sympathize, but he couldn’t let this chance to speak with him pass.

“How are you Harry?”

The boy had managed to turn on the tap but was struggling through handling the slippery soap with his mostly useless fingers. Tom wanted to offer to help, but Harry had his pride and he wouldn’t make him compromise it.

“I should be asking you that,” he said, not turning around. “You just survived being held prisoner by the fae for… however many days it was and then lost all but one of your soldiers.”

“Like you said, Harry, we’re soldiers. Death is a risk we accepted when we took the job. I regret the loss of my people, but this is hardly the first time I’ve lost men to a battle. When I was just a foot soldier, most of my squad was killed during the invasion of Berlin.”

“Except that your men aren’t really dead in this case.”

“Dead. Lost. However you want to look at it, there’s no helping them.”

“You sound like you don’t care.”

“I can’t afford to care about the dead or the lost, Harry. I have to care about the living first, the ones you can actually do something for. It’s something you learn out on the battlefield. It’s something you’re going to have to learn too.”

Harry had finally managed to get a grip on the soap and was rubbing vigorously over his hands and arms, like a surgeon prepping for an operation. The scrubbed his face with his soapy hands as well, before rinsing all of it off again.

“So I should just forget about what happened? Dead and gone, after all,” he asked, a tightness in his voice that was quickly falling into anger. Tom had to tread carefully.

“Not all of us are dead and gone.”

The soap fell with a clatter to the floor. Harry’s previously numb fingers were now clutched tightly to rim of the basin, and his entire body taught as a cord even as his head hung down. Tom couldn’t see Harry’s face in the mirror anymore, but he could almost imagine it.

“Goddess… how can you not hate me?”

“Why would I hate you?”

The boy turned to him, and if Tom had a heart it would surely break at the haunted look in his eyes. He tried to shout but the only thing that came out was a strangled;

“This is my fault!”

Tom tilted his head. He understood Harry’s logic and he vaguely understood that guilt under these circumstances was probably normal, but honestly it seemed irrelevant who or how it all started. It had happened. Nevertheless, it seemed to bother him, so he would try his best to alleviate some his torment.

“This was inevitable,” Tom said, catching him off guard. “I don’t know what Gulandri told you while you were under his… care, as it were, but when he spoke to me just after our capture, he made it pretty clear he had intended something like this all along. He wanted to kill Lord Voldemort and he would have eventually found a way to lure him into Hausteheim, with or without you. In fact, if it hadn’t been for you ruining all his plans, he might have actually succeeded.”

Unlikely, but still possible.

Harry clearly hadn’t considered this, or perhaps he had never known Gulandri’s plans were not merely an exploitable opportunity Harry had given him. He was frowning, but now it seemed more thoughtful. Another exploitable opportunity Harry was providing, and Tom wasn’t going to pass it up.

“Listen, Harry. I’m happy that I was here for what happened. I’m happy I got to help stop a plot against the leader of Britain. I’m proud I got to fight beside you, and see all those stories about your resourcefulness and bravery were true. I’d do it all again if I had to.”

He might have gone a bit overboard there, because now Harry looked overwhelmed and if though he might tip over at any moment. But even as he started to reach for him, the boy reoriented himself and straightened.

“Goddess, you deserve a promotion.”

Tom smiled at that.

“I wouldn’t object to a good word here or there. I wouldn’t worry about it though. The general needs me where I am.”

There was another flash of guilt there, although he couldn’t determine the source. It was gone as quickly as it appeared, and Harry was smiling again. Weakly, but it was a start.

“Thank you. I- I’m way too tired to do it properly, but thank you.”

“You’re welcome. You should dry off,” he said, and handed him a towel hanging by the door. Harry accepted it, burying his wet face into it before moving to his hands. The smile was gone now, and he seemed distracted once again.

“Thanks, again. I should check back with Lord Voldemort. He’ll have questions.”

“You should sleep,” Tom said. “I’m sure he’ll understand.”

“Maybe, but no point in taking chances. Besides, I owe it to him.”

Tom would have happily told him he didn’t owe the man shit, but held it back. It was clear from Harry’s expression that he wasn’t saying this solely because he felt obligated. He wanted to do it. A spike of jealousy shot through him as Harry slid past him and headed towards the next compartment. He had just managed to undo most of the guilt Harry felt over the circumstances, and here the boy was running back to the man who had made him feel guilty in the first place! It was unfair and ridiculous. Why did Voldemort get Harry’s undivided attention? Why did he get the respect and affection?

Alright, he had to admit Voldemort going into a faerie land to rescue the boy deserved some consideration, but hadn’t Tom himself done the same? Not really, now that he thought about it. Honestly, he had nothing to complain about and given the circumstances Harry’s fealty wasn’t something he should be angry about.

But he was. He hatedit. Or rather hated that it wasn’t his. He had done so many things to protect Harry that the boy never knew about and all Voldemort seemed capable of was using him shamelessly, and still he was preferred! To Harry he was nothing but a kind stranger. He didn’t know that the man standing before him was Tom, the dear friend he had admitted to worrying about even after years had passed. Would Harry be so quick to run back to his precious Dark Lord if he knew the man was responsible for the murder of his friend? If he knew all his terrible secrets?

But then, why ruin it, when he planned to take the Dark Lord’s place himself? One day the connection that Voldemort and Harry shared would his, just like everything else.

It was only a matter of time now.

Coming Together

“Severus, you look exhausted,” McGonagall said. She kept her tone somewhat accusatory, knowing he’d chafe under a display of sympathy. He spared her an annoyed look across the small table, but took another sip of tea rather than reply. Generally pale to begin with, he looked deathly in the pale autumn light peeking through the window. It had snowed the night before, but turned to a freezing rain with the dawn and covered the world in a cold, wet gloom. A bad omen for the approaching winter.

Then again, there had been stronger portents of danger than rainy days long before this.

“Perhaps you should assign some additional duties to the staff at the meeting tomorrow,” she suggested. “We can’t afford to have you falling ill because you are being stretched too thin.”

He snorted.

“And what duties would you propose I unload upon them? They are busy enough as it is completing their dissertations and wrangling the miscreants they call students into submission at every waking moment. And if they’re not, they’re busy ‘volunteering’ in Hogsmeade Hall.”

“Lockhart seems to have plenty of free time.”

The look he gave her would have petrified a basilisk.

“And which of my responsibilities do you think I could possibly give to that imbecile?”

“Darling, he’s not that bad,” Ira said, looking up from the detention roster she taken over for her overwhelmed husband. There was an inordinate amount of mischief making amongst the students lately, resulting in a skyrocketing number of detentions. Teachers were having a hard time finding appropriate punishments with so many offenders and even less time to supervise them, and had subsequently been handing them off to Snape. The headmaster, in turn, found ways of making the miscreants useful as unpaid labor around the castle they seemed so intent on tearing down around their ears. Ira had taken over when it became clear her husband was driven to a nearly epileptic state after being regaled continuously with tales of his students’ gross stupidity and selfishness.

“He’s a ninny,” he stated as if it were an absolute fact. Which it was.

“True,” Ira said, “but he’s good with the students.”

“Only the stupid ones. Which, I suppose, covers just about everyone.”

“Severus,” she chided gently. “I think he would be a good choice to supervise the concert. He has experience with those sort of things, I’m told.”

He set down his teacup, else he risk throwing it across the room.

“I am turning down the offer,” he insisted. “I have no intention of riling up the students any more than they already are with a rock concert. I don’t intend to reward them for their behavior either. You know what happened during Halloween.”

There was a collective shudder around the table.

McGonagall shook her head.

“You’re approaching this from the entirely wrong perspective,” the transfiguration professor said. “The students are misbehaving because they are bored and restless.”

“I don’t know how they can be either of those things. They should be much too busy with their lessons and other responsibilities.”

“Yes, but those are routine things. They cause stress and fatigue, which results in all the trouble we’re seeing now. This concert could be something to distract them, to look forward to, and to relieve stress. You should use it as an incentive to make the students behave. Tell them anyone who gets a detention from now on will not be allowed to go. I think you’ll be amazed at how quickly they’ll straighten up.”

He turned thoughtful, but his thoughtfulness ran longer than McGonagall thought was characteristic. He was typically more decisive when it came to practicalities. Ira was looking at him curiously as well.

“Do you have some other reason to be reluctant?” McGonagall asked.

“Hhmmm…” He picked up his tea and took a distracted sip. “It seems a bit… suspicious is all. We’ve never been offered a free concert. Given the Wicked Sisters-”

“Weird Sisters,” Ira corrected.

“Whoever they are, I was led to believe they are very popular. They must have received many offers, many well paying offers to play elsewhere.”

“True, but this is hardly the first free concert they’ve thrown. They’ve done dozens of benefit concerts for good causes over the years, and Hogwarts has had many difficulties this year. I don’t think it odd that they would want to show some good will to students going through a rough time.”

He still did not look convinced, but seemed to be either reluctant or unable to articulate the source of his disquiet.

“What precisely do you think their intentions might be?” McGonagall said at last. “A vendetta against the school seems unlikely.”

He could have pointed out several unlikely vendettas against the school that had occurred but didn’t have the energy.

“That’s not what I’m worried about. I’m just wondering if this isn’t one of Potter’s little schemes.”

That made Ira smile. “Harry? You think he’s behind this?”

“I was rather under the impression that Mr. Malfoy was a more likely suspect. He was boasting about it to Miss Cypher earlier. Besides, Mr. Potter hardly seems in any condition to plot anything.”

Snape could see her point. Harry had spent the last week as if operating under the Imperius Curse. He moved and ate and went to classes and even spoke occasionally, but there was no sign of self-motivation behind any of it. He wasn’t watching the boy per se, as he had very little time to do so between running the school and traveling to Bristol to run errands for the recovering Dark Lord, but the teaching staff was as bad as the student body when it came to gossip and any time he had dinner at the staff table he was bound to hear how Potter hadn’t turned in his assignments this week or skipped Dueling Club practice or was avoiding all of his friends.

Most of the staff thought he was just depressed over the Dark Lord. The Court was reporting that their great and terrible leader had returned unexpectedly to handle some sort of crisis that had emerged from General Malfoy’s sudden turn of ill health (something Severus cringed at the mere thought). No one really believed this, and the press had been unusually defiant in expressing their skepticism of the ‘official story’. Most of the world seemed to suspect Lord Voldemort had suffered some sort of injury in Germany and had returned to recover, but the extent and nature of this injury varied from a nasty cold to a life-ending curse depending upon the individual’s level of naivety or morbidity. Many of his own staff had looked at him expectantly when broaching the subject at mealtimes, but Severus had nothing to say except that he was more concerned for General Malfoy than the Dark Lord.

The staff’s assessment of the cause of Harry’s depression was only partially correct, as it almost always was. Snape could only imagine the demons his ward was wrestling with at the moment, and even then he was certain he only knew a small part of what had happened. He had believed he knew the boy better than anyone, including the Dark Lord, but now he wasn’t so sure. Harry, he knew, was capable of killing a man if pushed to it, but Lucius’ suspicion that he was responsible for the curse he suffered niggled at his psyche. Was he capable of plotting murder against the father of one of his close friends? In a moment of rage or self-defense, he didn’t doubt it, but to actually craft a plan so cruel and discreet required a cold-blooded viciousness he had not thought Harry capable of.

And chances were he had nothing to do with it.

At least not directly.

Probably.

He mentally shook himself. It was ridiculous to suspect his ward of attempting to murder Lucius. If the boy was so clearly despondent over having merely cut off the Dark Lord’s arm, something that he had been reassured was fixable, he would be completely incapable of the necessary malice to poison a man he might strongly dislike but had little enough reason to truly hate. Harry still maintained a friendship with Lord Voldemort for Merlin’s sake, a man who had used and abused him in a far more terrible and terrifying manner than the general could have ever managed.

“I’ll bring up the matter in the staff meeting,” he said, pulling his thoughts back to the matter at hand. “They’ll be the ones giving their time to help organize it. I haven’t the time to deal with it personally.”

McGonagall coughed into her hand something that sounded suspiciously like ‘Lockhart’ and then let the matter drop. Severus had almost finished his tea, and when he did he would go back to his office or private quarters to continue working. She was content to let him, having several essays waiting for her to grade, but she wanted to say one more thing before they parted.

“I think you should speak with Harry sometime this weekend. The sooner the better.”

He choked on his tea.

“I beg your pardon?”

She leveled the same look she gave students who hadn’t done their homework at him.

“Because he’s obviously upset about Lord Voldemort, and has avoided discussing it with his friends.”

“How would talking to me make him feel better?” he asked as though she had suggested mangoes would ward off dementors.

“Because he can’t talk about it with anyone else.”

“I…” he started, but stopped.

She was right. Harry couldn’t talk about what was wrong with him to anyone other Snape himself. The world had no idea he had been kidnapped by faeries or cut off the Dark Lord’s arm. Both situations would have spurred public outcry and even created a certain level of suspicion against Harry. No one who went to a faerie realm and returned was ever completely trusted afterward.

There were other reasons he needed to speak with his ward as well. Dozens of reasons, most of them regarding subjects he should have discussed with him months ago but had avoided due to one excuse or another.

“I don’t expect you to be sympathetic with him,” McGonagall said, “But I think he needs a little direction. He respects you, and given your trips to Bristol, I would say he would trust you if you explained that the Dark Lord is going to be fine.”

“Madam, I have no idea-”

“Oh, zip it, Severus. I know you can’t talk to me about it, but don’t think I’m falling for that nonsense about Lord Malfoy being sick. If he were sick, Draco wouldn’t be so nonchalant about it.”

Let it never be said that McGonagall wasn’t astute, but she wasn’t privy to all the facts that Snape was. Draco wouldn’t be nonchalant if he knew his father was sick and recovering from a myriad of torture curses inflicted upon him by a very angry Dark Lord, but like everyone else he hadn’t believed the official story and neither his godfather nor his parents had any desire for to worry him needlessly by telling him the truth. Apparently, neither had Harry, or perhaps the boy was too caught up in his own self-centered angst to even consider what might have happened to the man after they had parted ways in Bristol.

“If I can find the time,” he said noncommittally, and then just to be difficult, added, “And if I can pull him away from his busy schedule.”

It was cold in the Astronomy Tower. Icy cold and yet still too wet for snow, and all the more miserable for it. She slipped past the magical barrier, mentally chiding the teaching staff for using something that wouldn’t have kept out a determined Third Year, and immediately started to shiver. The tower had been damaged during the battle and, while it had been secured from falling, the spellwork to keep out the elements it had not yet been replaced. The stairs were starting to rot from water damage and creak terribly as she ascended to the top.

“What are you doing here, Hermione?” Harry asked as she reached the top of the stairs. The observation platform was empty. All of the equipment had been moved to storage. Harry sat himself on the ledge of the balcony wrapped in a cloak, his feet dangling over the edge between the rails. Even in the pale gloom, she could see the green of his eyes from where she stood and knew they were not even attempting to meet hers.

“It’s too cold out here for what you’re wearing.”

He was right. She was freezing. She had thought about going to get her cloak before coming after him but was afraid she would lose her nerve. Muttering a warming charm, she continued forward out onto the balcony. Pointedly not looking down, she sat down beside him. He was already looking outward again, towards the Forbidden Forest where a shimmer of moonlight glowed behind the wall of shimmering clouds.

“Sentinel Seitler said you volunteered for guard duty up here,” she said.

“Yeah.” He couldn’t seem to think of anything else to say. She couldn’t either. It wasn’t entirely uncomfortable. Something about the cold darkness seemed to lend itself to silence, to swallow words and plant thoughts.

They sat for several minutes and said nothing at all.

“I’m sorry, Harry.”

He stiffened.

“I’m sorry I said what I did before you left. It wasn’t true and it wasn’t fair.”

“Hermione… I think it was true enough.”

She shook her head.

“No. I mean… I know you tend to rush into danger, but… that wasn’t why I was really mad at you. That’s actually something I’ve always really admired you for.”

“Hermione-” he started to protest, but she held up her hand.

“Just let me finish, Harry. I… it took a week for me work up the nerve to say this.”

He grimaced, but held his tongue.

“I was really just frustrated that day… or rather, I’ve been really frustrated for a while now. This whole marriage business… God, I hate it. I haven’t felt this helpless… this victimized since I was at WYRA. I never thought… even when things were bad at home with Lucius, I always felt like I could handle it. I was smart enough to figure things out for myself and strong enough not to let others keep me down. I got so used to being the perfect little pseudo-Pure Blood, after a while I tricked myself into believing it didn’t even matter. That I’d won. That I had my friends and my education on my own merits and nothing he did could hurt me anymore.”

She took a long deep breath.

“And then… then he proved me wrong. He got me. I haven’t been able to think clearly since he announced the betrothal. I’ve been too afraid to do anything for myself. And then you came in like a white knight to save the day, and I thought that things would be okay, except I don’t know how to be rescued, Harry. I never wanted anyone to do that for me before. I never wanted to be so weak that I needed it.”

She was close to tears now, the honesty painful to hear even though she had known the truth for weeks… months even. He started to protest but she held up her hand.

“Let me finish before I lose my nerve. Anyway… I… I felt really vulnerable. I really wanted to talk to someone about it. I really wanted to talk to you about it, but… you seemed to close yourself off. You were hurting… are hurting, but you don’t talk about it. You try to hide it… badly, by the way.. and I… I was just really frustrated. I thought if you opened up to me, I wouldn’t feel so vulnerable about what was happening to me. How disgusting is that? Wanting your best friend to tell you how awful they feel so you don’t feel so awful about yourself? And then expecting you to open up first when I kept pretending everything was fine myself? I was completely hypocritical.”

He was looking at her with something close to horror, but perhaps it was just because she was crying. He always looked horrified when girls cried in front of him. But even if he was as disgusted with her as she was with herself, she couldn’t stop now. She had sworn to herself that she wouldn’t stop until she had said everything she needed to.

“So I’m sorry I said what I did. I don’t think that way about you. I understand that you don’t feel like you can tell me about everything that happens to you or how you feel a lot of the time. It wasn’t fair of me to try to force you to. So… even though I know something happened this weekend, something that really bothers you, I won’t ask you what it was. Just… if you do want to talk about it… whatever you can talk about… and if it will make you feel better… I’m here.”

She sniffed and wiped away her tears roughly.

“Okay, I’m done.”

He half laughed, half choked at her less than eloquent conclusion, then continued to just stare at her. The horrified look was gone, replaced now with something more akin to lost. It was her turn to avoid his gaze, now staring down at her hands wringing her robes into a wrinkled mess. She hoped she had done the right thing. Things had been so tense between them, their friendship slowly unraveling from the things they didn’t speak of. There was a time when she thought she could tell him anything, and he would have trusted her enough with his secrets. Neither of them were that naive anymore, but she wasn’t prepared to give up on them just yet. He was still her best friend and that meant something.

“Hermione…” he said at last, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Despite what she had said, she felt hurt. Incredibly hurt. If he didn’t want to talk about it now… the chances were slim he ever would again. She had blown it or maybe he was already too damaged or-

She stood up to leave, because if he didn’t want to talk he surely didn’t want to see her cry, but he grabbed her wrist before she could turn away. She looked down at him in surprise. He still wouldn’t look up.

“I don’t want to talk about it… but I don’t want you to go either.”

Oh…oh. She sat down again, this time a little closer. He didn’t move away and he didn’t let go of her wrist. After a moment, she pulled it out of his grip so she could take his hand in hers and squeeze it gently. He seemed a little embarrassed, but he squeezed back.

“You know, when I was younger,” he said, “I used to be terrified that I would lose you by lying all the time. Now I’m more terrified of losing you to the truth.”

“Harry…”

“I still can’t tell you much of anything. It’s too dangerous. And complicated. I wouldn’t even know where to start if I could. But I’ll tell you something. Something I’ve never told anyone.”

“I promise I won’t tell.”

“You said you were scared of relying on others to save you. I’m not scared of that. I’m scared that no one is going to try. That I’m finally going to go too far and all of you will just… just give up on me. Then I’m afraid you will try and you’ll die trying.”

His hand tightened around hers. His eyes were looking out to some distant place she’ll never see.

“I’m afraid to be alone.”

Her heart broke and soared at the same time. She wanted to cry. She wanted to hug him and promise it would be okay.

She would have if not for the fact that he might have shattered to pieces in her arms, or worse, he might have believed her. So she didn’t say a word. Not making promises the world would never let her keep. All she could do was lean over just a little, so that her shoulder pressed gently against his and said without words that she was there now, and she’d be there as long as possible.

They said nothing else after that. Minutes passed. Maybe hours.

Harry leaned back against her and let his head rest against her shoulder, closing his eyes. She smiled despite the chill that had started seeping through her warming charm and the numbness in the hand he was holding just a little too tightly.

Neither noticed as Ron moved back down the stairs, his footsteps muffled under a silencing charm nor the slam of the door behind him.

McGunny went down to the visitor center to work on the dragon book. After so many months, he was able to walk the half mile without getting lost or forgetting which direction he was going without either Hagrid or Charlie to escort him. He still had a tendency to get distracted by little things, like an unusual flower or a dragon flying off in the distance, but most of the time he could figure out where he was going afterward. It had been cold and wet that afternoon, and little was curious enough to keep him from the warmth of the indoors, so he made it inside without distraction.

The visitor center was barely more than a large cabin with a number of pictures and diagrams and small display cases of teeth and claws and fetal skeletons for decoration. There were two long tables running through the center of the room, with more dragon artifacts under the glass surface, that McGunny liked to use when writing. The bits and pieces of his subject matter scattered around him helped to keep him focused, and unlike Hagrid’s cabin, the subject matter was less likely to crawl out of its rookery and set his papers on fire.

From his breast pocket he let out his paper bird, letting it fly about the open space, safe from dragonets and the rain, and then went about unloading his materials from his satchel. He kept everything in exact order and was able to position everything with precise geometrical precision within only seconds. This obsessive orderliness was helpful with his short term memory although it tended to drive Hagrid up the wall.

Prepared to spend the remainder of the day hard at work, it was unfortunate that he let his eyes wander around the familiar confines of the cabin and spotted something unfamiliar. Predictably, he found himself distracted and wandered over to examine the newest novelty. Covering the north wall, where a large diagram of different dragon species had been hanging previously, was now nearly a hundred or so children’s drawings. As he started to examine them, he found them to be mostly of dragons themselves, but a number of them also had childish interpretations of Hagrid or sometimes of themselves (also with dragons). It seemed there had been a number of field trips to the dragon sanctuary and in typical elementary gratitude, the children had drawn pictures to commemorate the event. He had heard about them from Hagrid, but he had always been cloistered safely in his cabin whenever they were passing through.

After several minutes of curious examination, one picture in particular caught his attention. It had a castle in it and a rather impressive depiction of a Norwegian Ridgeback. Standing on the castle were a series of little figures that seemed to lack joints of any kind, but were bravely fighting off the dragon. One of the figures had glasses.

He knew who it was immediately.

Harry Potter.

He felt a violent mental start at the name. Harry Potter? How did he know that name? But he did know it. And surrounding that name was a series of memories, memories he hadn’t know he had but apparently had always been there. Harry Potter staring up at him from the cold, dark waters of the lake. Harry Potter sitting in front of a canvas and steadily working out a picture of an owl in charcoal and chalk. Harry Potter hyperventilating into his hands in the corridors of a castle. The castle was called Hogwarts. He had gone to school there with that boy and interviewed him a couple of times for school paper he ran. Colin Creevey had been the photographer. Hermione Granger was supposed to take over for him when he left.

His mind raced, flitting through new avenues he had not known were there. Memories came, not in a flood, but like the limbs of a tree slowly branching outwards. Branches of places and people emerged slowly, and when he followed them he found himself discovering newer limbs and so on and so forth.

Had his curse broken? Had whatever destroyed his memories been removed or repaired?

He took a deep breath and tried to remember the hospital.

Sensations and impressions squirmed and boiled inside him, and he felt himself shying away before something more definitive and horrifying formed.

Perhaps it had been too traumatic?

He tried to remember his house.

Nothing.

His thoughts skittered to a halt, and once again he felt as lost and unfettered as he ever had once again.

His father’s name?

Nothing but an empty space in his psyche that left him feeling equally hollow.

His mother’s face? His favorite book? His first kiss? His hometown?

Nothing presented itself, and it seemed as mysterious and unknown as it had since he was self -conscious enough to wonder about himself the same way Hagrid and Charlie did.

Carefully, he turned his thoughts back to Harry Potter, and once again his mind bloomed with memories. Some of them of the boy himself, but more often they were memories that branched off from their previous encounters. He tried to remember classes he’d at Hogwarts, but they came only sporadically, and oftentimes involved a conversation about Potter or someone connected to him, like Cedric Diggory’s discussion of the next Quidditch match or an argument with Granger about Harry’s involvement in the Acromantula incident.

Why?

He found himself once again looking at the picture on the wall. Studying it intently, searching for some sort of clue. He looked to the bottom right corner where the artist had scrawled her name. Alyssa. Age 7. The name was unfamiliar. More than likely, she was just another young Potter fan. He was a prince after all.

A prince and something else. Something that held his thoughts where all else had failed. Why were his memories centered around this person in particular? Did he have something to do with his memory loss? Could he somehow hold the cure?

Hours later, he returned to his and Hagrid’s cabin.

His large friend was busy stoking the fire under the nesting box of the newest litter of dragonets but looked up to smile at him as he entered. The smile disappeared almost immediately.

“What’s wrong, lad? Yeh look pale.”

“I remembered something,” he said.

Hagrid frowned thoughtfully.

“Somethin’ bad?”

“No. I don’t think so. It’s just… odd. I remember Harry Potter.”

The half giant’s eyebrows shot upward in surprise.

“What do yeh remember ’bout him?”

“A lot. We went to school together. I was going to write his biography.”

The last part made the man chuckle a bit, but Horace’s next words sobered him up quickly.

“I know more about his life than I do my own.”

“… Well, that’s still somethin’. Maybe yer memories are recoverin’ on their own. Yeh’ve come a long way from where yeh were.”

“Yes, that’s probably true. But I don’t know why it started with him. I just remembered today that you worked at Hogwarts during the Triwizard Tournament, but only because I remember seeing you talk with Harry. Why couldn’t I remember that before? We’ve been living together for months. You should have been one of the first things I remembered.”

Hagrid oscillated between surprised and disturbed at this bit of information for several moments, before frowning a bit.

“I’m afraid I don’t know much about memories. I tried to read up on it when yeh first got here but I couldn’ make heads or tails of all that psychological mumbo-jumbo. Maybe it’s natural for yer memories to start off tha way. Just picks up somethin’ random and runs with it.”

Horace had considered this, but after several hours of consideration he wasn’t convinced of it. He had instincts. Instincts he trusted and Hagrid had trusted, when they came to the mutual understanding that he would not return to the hospital. That they would not attempt to search for his family and continued to let the world believe he was dead and gone. Right now, his instincts were telling him that he was remembering Harry Potter for a reason.

The precocious young man had been involved in so many weird incidents, was it such a stretch that he might somehow be involved with his memory loss? Or perhaps that he might know a cure for it? Perhaps his memories had been taken intentionally by someone else trying to protect Potter. Certainly, he had plenty of protectors who had the skills and resources to have him committed to a hospital. And given his general improvement after falling into Hagrid’s care, hardly someone qualified as a mental health professional, perhaps his stay in the hospital had been orchestrated to remove his memories rather than restore them.

“I think I need to speak with Harry Potter.”

“Oh… I guess that might help bring up some more of yer memories. I write to him every now and then, so I wouldna mind slipping something in from yeh. I doubt I could manage a visit until holiday break though. Hogwarts ain’t exactly know for letting its students out for the weekends, especially not-”

Horace shook his head, cutting him off.

“No. I don’t want anyone to know about my staying with you. Not until I know it’s safe. We never talked about it, but we both suspect something fishy was going on at that hospital. And if that’s the case, it had to have been arranged by someone with power and influence.”

This seemed to disturb Hagrid considerably.

“Yeh think Harry had something to do with what happened to you?”

“… I don’t know. I think he’s involved if not responsible. And even if he isn’t, he might have the ability to find out.”

“Now see ’ere. Harry’s a good guy. He’s always been the decent sort. He wouldn’ve done this on purpose.”

“Yes, I remember him being a ‘good guy’. He always impressed me that way. But he has a lot of associates who wouldn’t be considered ‘good guys’. If one of them did this to me, he might know about it.”

That disturbed Hagrid a great deal, and he paced the little cabin for a while trying to work out the anxiety he felt about it. It didn’t seem to work, but eventually he stopped to continue the conversation.

“So how do you expect to talk to him? He told me before that his mail is looked through. Hogwarts ain’t receivin’ visitors these days either.”

This wasn’t anything Horace hadn’t thought of. He just hadn’t found a solution yet.

“I’ll think of something.”

The sixth night on the Astronomy Tower was the coldest by far, with a harsh north wind causing a series of tuneless whistles as it sped through the castle’s many nooks and crannies. The sound reminded him of Durmstrang, and something about that kept his mind shying away from the desire to sleep. He didn’t mind the cold. A part of him actually preferred it, although he couldn’t say why. Most of his worst memories were staged in the depths of winter, after all, but then again those were also the moments he had felt most alive.

He could use that feeling again these days.

Since waking after his return from Ireland, he had felt strangely removed from the world around him. Food was tasteless, music was tuneless, and all the myriad of activities and worries of his day to day life seemed strangely insignificant. His attention had been turned inward since leaving Voldemort at the Sianach Lodge, pale and restless and inescapable even now with half the country in between them. His mind was now focused on those things he had learned in Hausteheim that he’d had no time to contemplate in the frenzy that had defined his time there and the night after having escaped.

Foremost on his mind was the prophecy that Gulandri had spoken of. He could no longer remember the exact words, but the gist of it had been that Voldemort and he were destined to fight to the death and one of them rule for a thousand years. Assuming the prophecy was referring to him at all, and his certainty of his role in it changed from hour to hour. Also assuming the prophecy was even real and not one of Gulandri’s games designed to torment him.

Voldemort sometimes talked as if they were destined to stand side by side, and history had shown that their bond was not easily severed even by their own gross mistakes, abuses, and complete lack of moral compatibility. If anything, the worse things got the closer they became. What could possibly drive them to kill each other? Except perhaps the prophecy itself, which seemed to dictate an all-or-nothing end scenario of which Voldemort was not the sort to overlook. Even after learning of the prophecy, in the those moments of the day where he believed it, Harry felt no desire to harm the Dark Lord and even less desire to rule. Yet, he could not himself predict what he would be willing to do if Voldemort did attempt to kill him.

The patriotic thing to do was simply let the man kill him.

The human thing to do was fight with everything he had.

The Harry thing to do was run off and complicate a situation until the problem was solved or else forgotten in favor of some other crisis.

Predictably, he found himself favoring the ‘Harry thing’, except he didn’t know if he should be physically running away or just mentally- ignoring the danger that exists only in words and only if the Dark Lord ever learned of them. Sometimes he wondered if he shouldn’t just tell Voldemort himself what Gulandri had said. He wanted to believe that his friend would be reasonable, and perhaps together they could find the loophole or reinterpretation that proved the lynchpin of every prophecy. He wanted to believe that, but he wasn’t that naive.

Voldemort cared about him. He knew that without a doubt. But he also knew that he cared about his destiny more. It had been the will of the Earth that he usher in the second age of paganism and the ancient magics, and even his soul hadn’t been spared in the effort to achieve that goal. Harry was a sacrifice he could live with, just as he had lived and continued on after the death of Carrigan.

And there was another matter all its own that sent his head spinning. He was the reincarnation of Carrigan, the only other person Voldemort seemed to have loved in life. He didn’t know if that was ironic or just appropriate. He supposed it all depended on whether the reason they were so drawn together was because something in their souls recognized each other or else influenced their personalities into some sort of compatibility. It seemed too much to be serendipity.

It also seemed exceptionally cruel that if the prophecy were true, their betrayal was as inevitable as their bond. Yet, the prophecy being true did not disturb him as much as the possibility of being reincarnated. The prophecy he could ignore or work around, but his soul was something else entirely.

The idea that he had ever been someone other than himself, particularly someone like Carrigan was hard to accept. Nothing in the Dark Lord’s or anyone else’s description of the druid or in their meeting in limbo had suggested anything of similarity between them. Carrigan had always seemed laid back, benevolent, and almost all-knowing; while Harry tended to be all over the place, prone to anger and pride, quick to rush into a fight, and secretive. But then, he had only heard of Carrigan in his later years, when he had settled into a presumably quiet life of teaching and study. Perhaps he had been more adventurous and more uncertain in his youth. Bobby might tell him.

Bobby being the only one aside from Gulandri who had known who Harry had been, and the only reason Harry knew it now.

Bobby also being the reason he had volunteered for the night watch up in the tower for the entire week. His days lacked anything resembling privacy, and nights in the dormitory were no better. With the grounds now off limits, the Astronomy Tower was the only place he could hope to meet the raven in privacy and get the answers he so desperately needed.

Except Bobby hadn’t shown up. The first two nights had been a disappointment, but he had consoled himself with the fact that the raven had to fly from Ireland to Scotland, and that was not a short journey. By the third day he had started to grow anxious, and by the fourth he had become seriously worried. Bobby was a follower of Raecellos and an expert navigator between all the secret ways between realms and over continents. If he had truly wanted to, he probably could have beaten Harry back to Hogwarts.

Had he been captured again? Killed? By whom?

Gulandri’s people? Lucius’? Some random misfortune wild birds were susceptible to?

For a moment, he wished Hermione was with him again as she had been the night before. Although he could tell her nothing, or perhaps he simply hadn’t known where to start, she had been a greater comfort to him than she would ever know. They had been drifting apart for weeks now, Harry to his own distractions and she to her growing fears, and the fight, silly as it was, seemed to be the beginning of the end. Except Hermione had proven herself the better person and the better friend, and reached out even as he was pulling further away.

Goddess, he loved her. He loved her the same way he loved her during their first year together, two lost and frightened souls whose only faith seemed to be in one another. Their lives were no longer as simple, and their circle of friends and loved ones had grown considerably, but she was still his best friend and he was still hers. She was the person he most trusted with his secrets, but she was also the one he most wanted to protect from them. That she seemed to understand this was a cause for both relief and guilt.

He promised himself that he would make it up to her. He had spent all day with her and his friends, who were relieved to see he was finally coming out of his funk, catching up on schoolwork and making plans for Hermione’s emancipation. He was glad he hadn’t tried to stall her plans when it seemed he had reached an accord with Lucius, as their situation was even more precarious now that he suspected Harry knew far more than he should about the general’s curse (another matter he couldn’t afford to procrastinate on). More than that, this segment of the plan depended on Hermione far more than it did Harry, and he was glad she could once again play a proactive role in her own rescue.

Hermione had come up with the idea for Hogwarts to host a concert by the Weird Sisters and have the opportunity to meet with Andoria Smythe, her potential sponsor, in person. She had been working mostly with Draco, who had worked with Narcissa to see about arranging something. It had gone better than planned when the band up and offered to perform for free. Perhaps Smythe had seen the opportunity for what it was, and taken the initiative. If so, it was a good sign that their meeting would prove helpful Draco was attempting to draw credit for the idea although it somehow ended up being attributed to Harry, probably because anything interesting that happened at Hogwarts seemed to be his fault whether it was good or bad. He had felt a moment of genuine happiness watching her spitting out questions and ideas with her usual frantic enthusiasm that afternoon, and for a little while he was able to forget about his own troubles and concerns.

But after dinner, it was back to the tower and the cold silence that did nothing to deafen his screaming thoughts or ease his growing worries. Back to wondering if the one he already thought of as ‘brother’ was dead, and if it was his destiny to follow after him shortly. He curled up inside his Baluvian cloak to keep warm, but his thoughts were as chilling as the wind and he ouldn’t seem to get any warmer.

At a quarter to midnight, his shift nearly done for the night and his thoughts at their darkest, a raven alighted on the rail. As if forming from out of the night itself, he appeared out of nowhere, and Harry blinked at him for several seconds. He couldn’t tell if he was dreaming or not.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” Bobby said, sounding genuinely aggrieved. “I went to your dorm room first, but you weren’t there. I waited for an hour.”

Harry’s grin practically broke every muscle in his face it was so wide.

“You’re alive! Thank the Goddess, I thought something had happened to you!” he cried, and jumped to his feet. He would have hugged Bobby as well, but was afraid he would have crushed him in his enthusiasm. The raven looked taken back by his earnestness, and then somewhat contrite.

“Oh. Ah… yes, sorry about that. I had to spend some time recovering after you left. Spent nearly two days sleeping it off in a chicken coop. Then getting here… what a mess. I didn’t dare try any routes through the faerie realms and didn’t know if Voldemort was looking for me… anyway, I’m here now.”

“I’m glad you are safe, brother.”

There was nothing else to be said for several moments. Harry gently stroked Bobby’s feathers with the back of his knuckles, the closest thing to squeezing his shoulder as he could come. The raven looked a little lost.

“Why did you never tell me?” Harry asked at last. “You always talked of Carrigan as if he were…” Dead. Gone. Not me. He didn’t know what to say exactly.

“I don’t want you to get confused, Harry. I didn’t want you to try to be Carrigan. You’re not him. He had his life and it ended. You are… you are Harry, and that is more than most can handle.”

“But you still wanted me to be,” he said, thinking back over all the times he had spent in Bobby’s company and always wondering why the raven had chosen him in the first place. “That’s why you chose to help me in the Black Forest. That’s why you remained my friend even though I am Voldemort’s protégé”

Bobby didn’t answer for a moment, merely stared up at him as if judging how much was safe to say.

“I admit, I was curious. Reincarnation is a funny thing. The soul remains the same, but everything else is different. Body, personality, beliefs… those are unique to each new life. Sometimes, however, something of the soul shines through regardless of form. I wanted to see if I could recognize anything of Seamus in you.”

“And did you? Is there something of him left behind that you still recognize?” Harry asked, unsure if he really wanted the answer. It was different than with Voldemort. At least with the Dark Lord, he knew even if he only liked Harry because he was Carrigan’s reincarnation, it was because they shared some innate trait between their carnations that drew them together and not because of an attempt to reforge a friendship with a man long dead. Bobby, he couldn’t be so sure about.

“I didn’t at first,” Bobby said. “I liked you well enough, but it became obvious very quickly that your personalities were different. You were a lot more stubborn for one. He had more patience. But, you know, after a while I realized you had at least one trait in common.”

“What trait is that?”

“You both seemed to like difficult relationships.”

“You mean Voldemort?”

“No, well yes, but I mean difficult people in general. Your closest relationships seem to involve people whose lives are too complicated or personalities too off-putting for most people.”

Harry wasn’t sure if he was being complimented or chastised or most likely Bobby was just stating a fact. He had never really thought of himself as being drawn to difficult relationships, but looking at his life since he came to the wizarding world he could see where Bobby got that impression. All of his friends and family held a lot of personal baggage, but then again they had also been the most understanding of Harry’s.

“What sorts of people was Carrigan friends with?” he asked, wondering at the comparison.

“All sorts. Miniature Dark Lords aside, he had several friends and students who weren’t entirely human, and you should have seen some of his girlfriends. Then of course, there was me.”

“You? But you were his brother.”

“I was a lousy brother. A difficult brother.”

“Oh.” Harry wanted to ask what he meant, but it seemed too delicate a situation to broach. Instead, he said, “I suppose some things haven’t changed between your incarnations either.”

“Hey!”

Harry just smiled and Bobby gave an annoyed huff. They talked a little more about what happened to them since they last saw each other. Their congenial mood quickly withered as they told of their misadventures. In its place was guilt. Harry had not even thought to look for Bobby, and if he had then he would have been able to end his captivity. Bobby knew he was at least partly responsible for the terrible injuries Harry had suffered in the Berlin Underground and the consequences he was still living with to that day. There were still other factors that further complicated their feelings about what had happened, not least of which was Voldemort.

“Did he hurt you?” Harry asked once they had fallen into silence. He didn’t know what he would do if the Dark Lord had hurt Bobby. The raven would not have deserved it and if his mentor had tormented him out of callousness, he didn’t know if he would be able to forgive him for it. He didn’t know if he could easily hate him either.

He suddenly had new sympathy for Luna.

“Not really,” Bobby said, his voice taking on a haughty tone. “He would have regretted it if he tried. I’m Bobbitimus IV, after all.”

It was false bravado, but Harry appreciated it. Bobby didn’t like Voldemort. In fact, he absolutely loathed the Dark Lord, but he didn’t want Harry to feel bad that he didn’t feel the same way. He must have gleaned from Harry’s story that the bond they shared was too complicated to turn to hate easily. Anger, sure, but not hate.

“So what will you do now?” Harry asked. “You’re free again. You could go anywhere.”

“Ah, that’s quite tempting. Perhaps you would like to come with me.”

Harry just smiled.

“I couldn’t do that. I’ve got too much to do here.”

There was no reply to this, and he felt suddenly uneasy.

“Bobby?”

“You know, when I started to believe I wasn’t going to escape, I started having regrets. The ones that bothered me the most were the ones where I didn’t tell you something. Something I should have told you years ago.”

“What is it?”

Despite his regrets, the raven still seemed to struggle with what he needed to tell him. He fidgeted on the rail, looking around nervously, maybe even looking for eavesdroppers. Harry waited for him, even looked around himself. There was nothing but the soft whistling of the wind.

“Have you…” Bobby began, hesitantly, “ever heard of the Trelawny Prophecy?”

Harry just blinked at him.

No freaking way.

“You ass!” he snapped, before he could stop himself. The raven jumped back in surprise, fluttered gracelessly for a moment in the air before landing back on the rail. His surprise didn’t lessen any more than Harry’s anger as he continued. “You knew about that? You knew about that this entire time? Why the hell didn’t you say something?”

“Um… I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.”

“When were you going to tell me?”

“Well, that’s actually a good question. I mean, I did intend to tell you. It just never seemed the right time.”

“When, exactly, would have been a good time, Bobby? After Voldemort found out? Oh Merlin, does he know already?”

“About the prophecy? Yes. That it’s you? No. He believes he’s already completed the prophecy. It’s probably the only reason he hasn’t figured it out yet. When did you figure-”

“Gulandri told me. And isn’t that a wonderful source to receive momentously bad news from? I didn’t believe him at first…but afterward I wasn’t so sure. Wait, what do you mean Voldemort thinks he fulfilled the prophecy already?”

“He killed someone he thought fit the prophecy. He killed several someones more than likely.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. A baby. Babies. Depending on whether you believe the rumors or not.”

Harry fell silent. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He couldn’t picture it in his mind. He had seen the Dark Lord kill. He had seen dead children after the Goddess Colony massacre. But in his mind he could not combine those two images, although he knew intellectually that his mentor was capable of infanticide. It seemed somehow abstract and not entirely real.

Did he even want to know whether it was real or not? He knew Voldemort was a monster, but he was more than that.

How much of his darkness could he stand to see before he could see nothing else?

“You okay?” Bobby asked. “You’re not going to implode are you?”

Harry snorted, and rubbed a hand through his hair.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“That offer to travel is still open. You look old enough now; no one would question you traveling on your own if you had the right papers. Which I can get.”

Harry was tempted. Right now, it seemed the sanest thing he could possibly do was pack his things and disappear. It would be different from before. He wouldn’t feel so alone. He would have his brother, and they would take care of each other.

Except even with the new family member he had found, he could not bring himself to abandon the family he had made for himself. Hermione needed him now. His godfathers needed him. Snape… could probably get along without him, but he’d grow terribly bored after a while. Voldemort… had minions and sycophants and loyalists, but Harry was his only real friend. Even if he was the greatest threat to him as well.

“I’ll have to put a rain check on that. Voldemort doesn’t know, so I’m safe. I’ve been fine for as long as he hasn’t known, and I don’t see any reason for that to change. We’ll just go on as normal, until I can figure something out.”

“There are so many things wrong with what you just said I can’t even begin to point them out.”

“You have a better idea?”

“We could go kill the bastard before he’s recovered his full strength.”

Harry glared at him. Bobby gave an avian shrug.

“You asked.”

Voldemort took a deep breath of acrid green smoke and held it, let it burn his throat and tongue on its passage into his lungs. The miasma filled the tiny vesicles there, then seeped through the thin membrane into his blood. Within moments he could feel the vaporized potion take effect, not unlike taking a hit of strong whiskey.

He exhaled.

There was a moment of slight disorientation, where everything suddenly took on a dreamlike quality. Had someone spoken?

“No,” Morgan said. His disorientation increased for a moment- Morgan neversaid ‘no’ to him- but then it subsided so that his mind was once again clear even if his body did not feel like it was entirely his own. Of course, no one had spoken. At least, no one mortal. The only ones there, nestled amongst the hedges of his maze garden on his private estate, were himself and Morgan, who knew better than to distract him. His minions of various rank and occupation were sequestered in the main house of the Sianach Lodge and would not risk his wrath by coming down to spy. His mood had not been forgiving as of late.

The section of the maze they occupied was not the same as where he performed his solstice rites or his usual sacrifices. Those places had taken a certain air of divine mysticism he did not wish to sully with the more mundane, if sometimes more practical, modern dark arts. The magic he was performing was not traditional and required no god’s blessing to perform, so he thought it best to move it to a small space in the furthest corner of the garden maze where he was less likely to offend some god or goddess with his apparent willful independence.

The magic he was performing was not one he was entirely familiar with, but had come at Severus’ suggestion. It was a strange combination of alchemy and potions, biology and engineering. He was currently intoxicating himself with a potion entirely of the potion master’s invention, the vapors steaming up as he boiled its contents in a cauldron over a simple wood fire. It was not something that could be done indoors, even if the heavens threatened to break open and ruin his efforts with a sudden downpour at any moment. Today, his luck seemed to have turned in his favor, and he was able to complete this phase of the spell without incident.

He climbed unsteadily to his feet. Even after a week, it was difficult to balance himself without his other arm, especially since his body seemed to have convinced itself that the limb was still there. It had been itching terribly for days.

Morgan kept his distance at the entrance of the hedge, not offering to assist, although he tightened his grip on his wand in case he had to cast a spell to save his prideful master from falling into the fire. He had only been allowed to follow the Dark Lord into the maze because two hands were needed to prepare everything. He also seemed to be the only one available who could keep their hands steady enough to do the task while under their lord’s venomous glare.

“Get the arlaghit,” Voldemort commanded, his voice surprisingly strong even as he swayed heavily passing by him. Morgan obediently moved out of his way,and picked up the set of tongs that had been left beside the hedge. Holding his breath, he stepped towards the still boiling cauldron and used the tongs to reach inside and pull out a strange contraption. The arlaghit consisted of two silver bands, one slightly larger than the other, held together by a series of hooks and clasps that could be released or secured in order to adjust the position of each band. Morgan did not examine it too closely. It was still dripping and steaming the putrid potion that was already stinging his eyes, and he had no desire to hold it any nearer to his face.

“Do not tarry, my friend,” the Dark Lord said impatiently, weaving his way towards the exit. His minion followed closely, having no idea how to get out of the maze himself. “I have a press conference in an hour, and I still must make myself presentable after we’re done.”

Morgan hardly needed to be reminded. He had been the one to stress the importance to Lord Voldemort of reassuring not only his countrymen but also the world that he was in perfect health. The general confusion of his early return from Germany had quickly given way to panic when their fearless leader had failed to show himself for nearly a week despite the quickly spreading rumors that he had been fatally injured. The Polish Ministry was seething over the Dark Lord’s sudden abandonment of their troops in Germany, and any good will he had intended to foster there had been ruined. He would have to provide them with some explanation soon, but it would not be until any perceived weakness could be corrected. The Germans had sensed blood in the water, and there were already reports coming in of potential attacks planned for both Germany and Britain. His Culties had lost ground for the first time in months and been pushed outside the region of Hesse, while fighting had lapsed into a stalemate along the border between Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt, halting his advance both north and west. He was being continuously peppered with inquiries over his health and how soon he would be able to enter the fight and resolve this disturbing trend.

After a week of anxiety, discomfort, and impatience, his preparations to reappear were almost complete, but it would be months before he could repair all the damage his sudden absence had caused. Not to mention the large number of staff he was going to have to replace. He was half tempted to call on Harry just to harangue him some more on how all of this was entirely his fault. Severus had convinced him that less was more in this case, and his protégé was perfectly capable of blaming himself without the Dark Lord making him feel resentful by accusing him directly. It didn’t help that in the long sleepless hours he paced his study, his mind had begun to circle around the unasked and unanswered questions of what precisely had happened in Hausteheim had begun to wheedle their way into his psyche. He caught a general understanding from Lucius, but at the time of his questioning he had been more interested in venting his anger than anything and knew now he had overlooked far more than was wise.

Lucius had been cursed, and that would have to be dealt with shortly although whether by himself or by Harry, he had not decided. Favoring Harry and putting the general into his protégé’s debt was not how he had wished their game to play out, but Lucius bore the greater burden of responsibility in this situation. Harry knew he was defying his lord in going to Ireland, but he had at least gone through the appropriate channels and taken precautions rather than simply run off on his own like he usually did. It was Lucius who had approved Harry’s visit and provided inadequate protection, and to add insult to injury he had somehow freed Bobby in the process. And Bobby might have said some things to Harry that Voldemort wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to explain.

He would need to make plans to recapture the raven. His interest in Harry was concerning.

Thoughts of the feathered fiend eventually had him turning his thoughts towards Tom, who was never far from his thoughts but rarely at the forefront either. The frail sliver of himself had not shown itself again, and after the death of McGunny at the Battle of Kent, he had lost all leads. He knew better than to leave him to his own devices indefinitely, but he believed he had some time yet. Whatever his horcrux’s intentions, and they were no doubt centered around his demise, he would reveal himself long before he had gathered the necessary resources and supporters to usurp his position and then Voldemort would destroy him for good. He would have to keep his eyes open for malcontent in the coming days. As he recalled, his death eaters had been gathered at a time when the ministry had proven itself to be vulnerable. Now might be the rare and brief period of uncertainty in the Dark Lord’s reign that Tom had been waiting for.

He had no intention of letting present circumstances continue long enough for such a rebellion to take root.

As they approached the house, the arlaghit had cooled sufficiently for Morgan to hide it within the folds of his robes. No one knew what they had been doing out in the maze, and as far as Voldemort and his chief of security were concerned, no one ever would. Victoria was waiting for them in the hall as they entered through the back gate. She was once again playing the role of a squib maid in order to discreetly monitor the conversations and behaviors of the higher ranking Court and Cultie officials attending to their Lord’s demands, but she was no more aware of the situation than they. Which was the only reason he let it go when she offered to take his cloak.

His cloak hadn’t been removed in front of anyone since his return to England, and it was the only reason no one knew he had lost his arm. Certainly many of his subjects, particularly those who had seen him in person, must have suspected, but no one knewsave those who had been there to see him lose it (and he was keeping them closely watched) and Morgan. After today, even those who had suspected would assume they had been wrong.

“Have the prisoners been prepared?” he asked, making his way towards the kitchen. The estate was not built with a dungeon, but the wine cellar was easy enough to convert for their purposes. Two Culties were dutifully standing guard at the door. One saluted.

“Sir, yes, sir!”

“You needn’t shout.”

“Er… sorry, sir.”

“Open the door.”

“Yes, sir.”

The soldier scrambled for his keys, feeding the Dark Lord’s impatience after several failed attempts at locating the right one. Eventually, his fellow guard sensed the developing disaster and unlocked the door with a simple ’alohamora’.

“Thank you. Now crucio your incompetent friend. I don’t have time to do it myself.”

Morgan shut the door behind them, cutting off the agonized scream before it reached its full pitch, and then locked the door. The wine cellar was little more than an earthen room dug out of the foundation, and no effort had been made to pave the floor or install lighting. The cavern-like room was illuminated by a single lantern that had been left at the bottom of the stairs. From its light alone, Voldemort could make out the three prisoners that had been selected for his purposes.

Two of them were German rebels captured and brought to Bristol for interrogation and the third was a convicted criminal of the British Court system. No one whose disappearance would be questioned. They were each in their mid twenties, too new to their internment to have been badly damaged, and dressed in gray prison garb except for the sleeves which had been removed. He paid little attention to their faces and instead focused on their bare arms, which were being held out straight in front of them by petrificus totalus as they stood at attention along the far wall.

He peered closely at the left arm of each prisoner, judging their lengths and shapes and even their coloring as best he could in the dim light. Morgan had chosen well. They were all satisfactory.

He removed his cloak, revealing his truncated arm. There was no reaction from the prisoners. Even if they were not under the paralysis spell, he’d had them blinded. He only had need of one of them today and did not wish to leave the others with something to gossip to their jailors about after he left. He continued undressing, unfastening his cloak and then carefully unbuttoning his shirt with his one good hand, a feat he had practiced to perfection over the last week. Morgan took the articles of clothing as they came off and carefully folded them over a closed water barrel left in the corner. Once he was bare from the waist up, he addressed his underling.

“I am ready.”

Morgan removed the arlaghit from his robes. He unhooked various latches, twisted a tiny dial, and thumbed a button or two until the arlaghit split apart into two separate bands. The slightly smaller band he secured to the very edge of Voldemort’s severed limb. There was more thumbing of buttons and twisting of dials as he adjusted the band to conform to the irregular shape of the nub of flesh. The Dark Lord let out a hiss of discomfort as the arlaghit activated, Latin words suddenly illuminated in burning red against the smooth stretches of silver. The second band still in Morgan’s hand activated as well, growing uncomfortably hot in his hand. He moved to the first prisoner, one of the Germans, and slid the second band over his left arm.

The prisoner didn’t move, that was impossible, but his entire body stiffened. Morgan slid the band slowly up his arm, until it neared the top where it suddenly shrank of its own accord, conforming to the limb. The silver turned red hot, and he was forced to let go completely. A second later the arm fell to the ground.

“Careful with that!” the Dark Lord hissed. “Now bring it here.”

His servant collected the arm, pausing momentarily to look at the prisoner. There was no blood. The severed limb had been cauterized, but the blackened meat and bone left behind was a grisly sight just the same. The prisoner himself wasn’t just stiff now, but shaking all over. He must have felt everything.

Morgan did not linger. Torture was something he was familiar with and this was not even close to the worst he had witnessed or participated in. This, at least, served a valuable purpose. He returned to Voldemort and aligned the two arlaghit bands, and again magic took over the rest, hooks and clasps coming together of their own accord until they were sealed together and became an illusion of wholeness.

The Dark Lord let out another hiss, then took a deep breath. He turned his attention to the fingertips of his new hand, and after a moment of concentration the limp fingers curled into a fist. He exhaled and the fingers unclenched and wiggled experimentally.

“Excellent. It will have to be adjusted every week or so, and replaced in another month, but it will prove sufficient for now,” he said, and moved to redress. Now that this particular chore was over, he needed to shower and change for the interview and catch up on a million other things he had let lapse during his self-imposed exile. His scratched his new limb and felt his mood immediately lighten when the itch that had been plaguing him for days immediately subsided.

“Dispose of him,” Voldemort continued, gesturing offhandedly to the maimed prisoner. When Morgan did not immediately obey, the Dark Lord paused long enough to look directly at him. He looked decidedly unhappy. “You have something to say?”

He was feeling pleased enough at the moment to allow it. He probably wouldn’t even punish the man for it.

“You seem to be taking this all very lightly,” his security chief said, blandly. “You never used to be this reckless.”

“Reckless?”

“Chasing after Lord Potter into a faerie realm without telling anyone…”

“Circumstances did not allow for it.”

“Circumstances rarely do where he is involved. You’ve changed a great deal since you met him.”

Voldemort supposed this was true, but he was not one for past examination and couldn’t specify exactly howthis was true. Aside from the soul thing… and he still wasn’t entirely sure of the long term effects of that.

“Do you think that is a bad thing?” he asked, because he had no more desire to change who he was now than he did before having met the boy. It had seemed like such a natural progression, although there was nothing natural about the reparation of his soul or the myriad of trials he had experienced with and for Harry.

“It does not seem to have turned out very well for you,” Morgan pointed out.

Voldemort actually laughed at this, because it was amazing to him how insightful this particular minion could be and yet how blind.

“Oh, Morgan. I have sacrificed far more than this,” he said, wiggling the fingers of his new hand, “… to get where I am today. Things I thought I would never get back. Some things I never will. I have not regretted those sacrifices, and I will not regret this one.”

His Chief of Security said nothing to this, but then there was nothing more to say or ask, and it would have wasted both of their time to try. What was done was done, and while Morgan may not entirely understand the ‘why’ of it, he did understand that it had not been done without a reason or reasoning. There was still a method behind his master’s madness that Britain relied upon to guide them from the stagnant and cloistered little world they had been to the glorious empire they were becoming.

Voldemort did not linger to reassure him. Just as his minion had faith in his master’s purpose, so too did the Dark Lord have faith in his servant’s obedience. Fully dressed except for his cloak now draped over his new arm, he climbed the stairs to face the world, leaving Morgan in the cellar to erase his sins from existence.

“Huh. I wonder how he did it,” Harry asked, skimming through the newspaper article. The Astronomy tower was as cold and dark as ever, but a few levitating orbs of fire scattered throughout the interior added a touch of comfort and just enough light to read by. Included in the article was a rather large picture of Lord Voldemort standing in what looked like a parlor, one hand resting on the mantle of a fire place and his previously missing hand wrapped around a glass of water. The contents of the article were not particularly interesting to him as not a thing of it was true, except perhaps the reassurance that the Dark Lord was fit and would be returning to the German front within the week. Lucius Malfoy was still conspicuously absent, but Harry would turn his thoughts to that particular thorn later.

“At someone else’s expense, no doubt,” Bobby said, blandly.

“Maybe, maybe not. He said it would grow back on its own eventually. Maybe he found a way to accelerate it,” he suggested. The raven didn’t attempt to argue the point. Voldemort’s recovery seemed to release a certain level of tension from Harry, and as tightly as wound as he was, Bobby knew it was a good thing. Even if it left a sour taste in his mouth.

“I suppose it’s possible,” he said, reluctantly. “Anyway, how are things going with your friend? Any success?”

Harry’s other friends were something of a genuine curiosity to him. He had been observing them from behind windows and through Harry’s conversations about them for the better part of two days. They were… innocent. Not exactly naïve, but still fundamentally uncorrupted. Perhaps it was simply their age, but their company seemed so incredibly wholesome in comparison to the Gryffindor’s other associates, Bobby felt inclined to encourage the friendship even if led to such a truly strange situation as the one with Hermione Granger. The fact that their little plan would doubtlessly piss off Lucius Malfoy was just icing on the cake.

Harry had not introduced him to them yet. Neither of them were sure how to approach the matter or even if they should. Telling them he was the reincarnated brother of Harry’s preincarnation was out of the question and Bobby’s fugitive status was a little awkward to explain. It would keep for the time being. There was no reason to rush into anything.

“Snape announced this morning the Weird Sisters are coming in two weeks, and Hermione’s going to do an interview for the school paper with Smythe. That should give them plenty of time to talk and fill out paperwork. I have a friend familiar with legal circles who’s going to try to get things pushed through, but we won’t know for sure if it’s approved until March at the earliest and that’s pushing things quite a bit as it is. It’s going to be tight, if the wedding is still on. I’ll need to speak with Lucius here soon, and I’m not looking forward to it.”

“You could always let him croak and speak with his widow instead,” he suggested.

“That’s rather passive aggressive of you.”

“I prefer to think of it as ‘fraternally protective’. I don’t want you anywhere near the scoundrel.”

“Maybe he’ll be more reasonable when his brain isn’t rotting inside of his skull.”

“Probably not. He’ll just be more subtle about it.”

Harry sighed.

“He’s still Draco’s father. I can’t just let him die. Besides, Britain needs him. He’s good at what he does.”

“I am relieved to hear you say so.”

Harry leaped to his feet, spinning around and drawing his wand. Bobby disappeared into the rafters above. A familiar shadow detached itself from the Darkness, but the Gryffindor already knew who it was. His voice was unmistakable.

“Snape? What are you…? Uh… how long have you been standing there?”

The headmaster was the very picture of sinister intent. He looked tired, and yet somehow indestructible, dressed in pristine black and gray robes and an expression that could freeze water at a glance. Harry was getting the full brunt of that look now, and already he could feel his insides turning to ice. What had he heard? What would he do?

“Long enough to bring down your Silencing Spell and overhear your latest conspiracy,” Snape said with an unreadable calm. “Follow me.”

He turned and disappeared down the stairs, not even bothering to look back to see if Harry would follow. The Gryffindor looked up to rafters in search of Bobby. He still could not see him, but he heard him clearly enough.

“In case you’ve changed your mind about traveling, Egypt is lovely this time of year.”

Battlefields of the Mind

They stood before each other as they always had: antagonists, compatriots, and unsolvable mysteries. Six years of shared domiciles and secrets and they still seemed no closer to understanding each other than they ever had, merely bound more tightly in an inescapable gravity of responsibility and necessity, locked in an orbit that neither increased nor decreased in distance. Harry, still too young, too inexperienced, too… Gryffindorish to play the game Snape had taught him, had gotten by on mostly ignoring the rules and bluffing his way through the rest. His guardian… he could not even guess his motivations at this point. Part obligation he supposed, part fear of the Dark Lord’s wrath, and perhaps even a bit of ambition somewhere in there. Harry wouldn’t kid himself into believing there was fondness… at least not at the moment. If he’d ever glimpsed it, now was not the time to put his faith in it.

Not with Snape sitting behind his ridiculously large desk, silent and vampiric, his black gaze staring at him with unwavering scrutiny. Harry consciously avoided the chair on the other side of the desk, opting instead for the long narrow window flanking it. When they spoke it would not be as headmaster and student, and although this terrified Harry, he had learned enough under the man’s tutelage to understand that knowingly putting himself at a disadvantage was stupid and probably a little insulting to the other.

“What do you know of General Malfoy’s curse?” Snape asked after several minutes of silence. Harry flinched but covered it up quickly with an air of unconcern.

“A bit. His condition has made it somewhat hard to miss.”

There was another moment of silence, and Harry knew he had made a mistake. He tilted his head towards the man, careful to avoid meeting his eyes while still catching his expression. It hadn’t changed in the slightest, but something had. He felt it in the air, something like magic, but more likely it was the lizard part of his brain warning him of impending danger.

“Do not lie to me.”

Harry began to protest but stopped himself. He was a bad liar at the best of times, omission and diversion being his best forms of deceit, and against his guardian they would be entirely ineffective. So he withdrew and turned his gaze back towards the window and waited to see how far Snape would push.

“How long did you know about the curse?”

“I only learned he was cursed when he told me about it.”

“You recognized it.”

It was not a question. How much did Snape know? He hadn’t said anything particularly incriminating to Bobby in the Tower, but there might have been enough there that any suggestions Malfoy might have made as to Harry’s involvement in the curse could have been at least partially confirmed.

“I’ve read about it.” True, even if it was after the fact.

“Have you cast it?”

And there it was. The accusation. He had been expecting it but felt a surge of anger just the same.

“No.”

“Do not-”

“I SAID ‘NO’!” he snarled.

It was Snape’s turn to tense, his fingers curling around the ends of his chair and his eyes narrowing. He said nothing for a moment, and Harry wondered what he was thinking and if his fit of temper had made him seem more innocent or less.

“Do you know who did?”

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. His throat had suddenly tightened to the point of suffocation. Snape was going to learn the truth. It was inevitable. Even if he said absolutely nothing, somehow the man would figure it out. May have already figured it out. What would happen now? He felt a sudden swell of fear for Ronald Weasley. He didn’t even like the boy, but it felt like he had betrayed a friend somehow. Or maybe he had merely betrayed the family that had been so kind to him. Could Fred and George and Ginny ever forgive him? He had been the one to introduce Ron to the Old Magics in the first place, and he would be the one to expose his crime and all the dark consequences that would follow. His sense of dread deepened at the thought that his friends should suffer the scorn and legal retribution as the family of the one who had placed a personal vendetta above the well-being of the nation. Would Ginny be expelled? The twins lose their bar? What of Mrs. Weasley? It would break the poor woman’s heart.

His distress must have shown, because Snape quickly jumped to a conclusion.

“Was it Hermione?”

And if the thought of Ronald Weasley getting caught horrified him, it was nothing compared to the thought of Hermione being blamed for it.

“Of course not! How could you even think that? That’s… it’s… She’s Hermione!”

Snape rolled his eyes, and the gesture completely threw Harry for a moment.

“Don’t be asinine. She’s an intelligent, ambitious girl’ and she’s been backed into a corner. If you think something like this is beyond her ability, you’re either a fool or willfully blind.”

“She’s not a murderer.”

“And I’m not a pastry chef, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t be. Potential and reality are two entirely different things, Potter. But never mind. Tell me who cursed General Malfoy.”

“It wasn’t Hermione.”

Snape made a frustrated sound, and his neutral gaze was suddenly extremely annoyed.

“Yes, you established that already. I hope you don’t expect to answer my question by listing off all of our mutual acquaintances it isn’t?” he snapped, then added under his breath, “And Ira wonders why I don’t talk to you anymore. You’re impossible.”

“You’re not exactly Mr. Congeniality yourself, sir.”

“Who cursed Lucius? It must be someone you know for you to be this willfully evasive.”

Harry turned back to the window and said nothing. The farce he had been playing through was coming to an end, and nothing he did could stop it. What would Voldemort do? He had told the Dark Lord that he knew Lucius was cursed but didn’t know by whom. When his mentor discovered he had lied to him what would he do? Snape rose from his chair and moved towards him, growing closer until he could see the man’s reflection loom over his shoulder. His expression was inscrutable. Was he angry with Harry’s continued defiance? Eager to discover the culprit? Pleased to finally have one over his troublesome ward?

“If you tell me who it is, I will tell no one else.”

Harry spun around, his eyes widening. Surely, he hadn’t heard that right? His thoughts scattered for a moment, only to freeze completely as he realized he was now looking the man directly in the eye, and he quickly turned away and prayed his thoughts were still his own.

“Wh-” He coughed to clear his suddenly dry throat. “What?”

“You heard what I said.”

“Yeah… okay. I guess… ‘why’ is the better question? I mean, Malfoy’s your friend, and… isn’t this the sort of thing you… I don’t know, get house points from the Dark Lord for?”

Snape snorted.

“Potter… Lucius and I have a complicated relationship. In my own way, I suppose you could say I am fond of the man. In a completely different and equally accurate way, I can tell you I would not be terribly aggrieved over his death. Neither is a factor in the offer I am making to you. Also, while it would indeed garner ‘house points’ with the Dark Lord, it would not gain nearly as many as I believe the information is worth given his current dissatisfaction with the aforementioned. Of greater worth to me is the re-establishment of something that for various reasons has been lost to us.”

Harry knew what he was talking about. He had felt the other man’s absence in his life more and more keenly as he was left to handle his own increasingly complicated affairs without the harsh, sardonic candor he had relied so heavily upon when he was younger. Snape knew so much more than he did about so many things, and while his view of the world was more cynical than Harry’s, the Gryffindor missed being able to share a confidence and receive some insight or perspective he could not have come to on his own or through one of his friends.

And yet…

“You don’t expect me to believe you would allow Malfoy’s attempted murderer walk free just so we could be… friends?” he said, lacing his words with as much scorn as he could muster to bury the terrible eagerness he felt to accept the offer on blind faith alone. This was Snape after all. As much as he reluctantly admired the man, he was equally terrified of him.

He wasn’t looking at his guardian directly, but in the reflection of the window pane he could see the man was smirking.

“I don’t recall us ever being ‘friends’, Mr. Potter, but as with Lucius, you and I shared a rather special rapport. A confidence. There was a time when you would come to me whenever you were in need of guidance. I kept your secrets. I keep them still.”

Harry shook his head.

“Those weren’t secrets I gave you. Those were secrets we shared. Things you knew about already or figured out on your own. Mostly anyway. Besides, you only kept those because the Dark Lord wanted them kept or it suited you or you just didn’t care. The same reasons behind everything you’ve done up to this point.”

“Is that what you think?”

There wasn’t hurt in man’s voice or even surprise, but rather a sort of curious skepticism. It irritated Harry.

“I think the only reason you tolerate me or ‘keep my secrets’ is because of the Dark Lord. I think you’d betray me for exactly the same reason. Probably with considerably more enthusiasm.”

“Hm.”

Harry felt him move away, and while that should have left him feeling relieved, he simply felt cold. There was no adamant denials of his accusation, no evidence presented to the contrary, nothing but a slow retreat back to his desk were he sat himself once again.

“I can see why you would draw this conclusion. It is the foundation upon which our relationship was initially built. You are an obligation.”

Just like the Dursleys, Harry thought bitterly. It was not the first time he had made the comparison.

“But then, the same can be said of my godchildren. Lucius gave me a responsibility to them, just as the Dark Lord gave me a responsibility to you. The obligations are very similar.”

The young wizard frowned thoughtfully. What had Voldemort said about Snape’s role as godfather? Something about defying Lucius for the role he had given his dour friend in the first place. Was his guardian saying he would defy the Dark Lord for Harry’s sake? That seemed… unrealistic.

“It has unfortunately been more difficult to fulfill those obligations with you, given your unique circumstances and the ambiguity surrounding your ‘best interests’. And the fact that you’re an impossible little deviant half of the time.”

Harry shrugged. That wasn’t an unfair assessment.

“If I have made mistakes, it was not from lack trying and certainly not because of indifference. You have become too significant a part of my life for that to be the case. While it was not my intention, somewhere along the way I grew rather attached to you.”

“Stop.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“I don’t. I can’t.”

“Because it would be too dangerous to accept wouldn’t it?” Snape said knowingly. “You can’t afford to be wrong.”

“… I’m not going to tell you who cursed Lucius. I’ll fix him like I said I would, and I’ll make sure it never happens again, but I won’t say who it is. That’s the best I can do.”

Harry turned from the window and headed for the door. He needed to get out of there. Snape… gods and goddesses, what was the man trying to achieve? Every word he spoke could be a lie or a truth, and he was too terrified of the possibility of either. Their relationship through both good and bad had always held a veil of uncertainty to it, neither stating explicitly how much the other cared or hated the other. It had spared them from having to lie to each other and to themselves. Harry had been left to intuit exactly how things stood between them, and as frustrating as that was he wasn’t prepared to have it defined into explicit terms. Especially if it all turned out to be a lie.

He reached for the door handle but snatched back his hand as an electric shock zipped up his arm. The entire limb went numb. Alarms began screaming in his head. That was his wand hand! He spun around to face Snape, half-expecting him to already have his wand pointed at him, but he wasn’t even looking at Harry. Instead, he was looking at where Harry had been standing and seemingly preoccupied.

“That was a rather curious turn of phrase you used,” the dark wizard said after a moment, still not looking him.

“Let me out.”

“You said I kept your secrets because of the Dark Lord, and that I would betray you because of him. That is an odd thing to say. Did you mean you thought the Dark Lord would ask me to betray you? That doesn’t make much sense. Not under present circumstances, at least.”

“I meant you would betray me if it were to the Dark Lord’s benefit. Like telling him who cursed the leader of his armed forces,” Harry snapped. “Just open the door.”

“Mmm… I don’t think that’s what you meant. We were talking about secrets in general not about Lucius’ curse specifically.”

Harry attempted to wiggle his arm. It moved, but he could not feel it.

“Now you’re just reading into it too much. Listen, I’m really tired. I’m sure you’re really tired. Can’t we just continue this tomorrow?”

“The Dark Lord’s benefit… I wonder…”

Snape suddenly looked directly at him, and Harry’s eyes darted around the room to look for a place to duck and cover.

“The Trelawney Prophecy.”

Petrificus Totalus would not have had a stronger effect on Harry than those three words. He froze; limbs, lungs, and brain caught in a perfect paralysis. No, no, nononononono… wait… what? What did Snape know about it? His guardian had seen his reaction and was now massaging his temples like he did whenever Harry did something completely absurd.

“How long have you known it was you?”

Even if he had wanted to, he couldn’t have answered. He needed air to form those words.

“It couldn’t have been too terribly long. You never would have been able to… Potter, stop gawping like a fish and sit down before you keel over.”

Somehow, he managed to do just that, half stumbling to the chair he had so carefully avoided across from the headmaster. His guardian did not look surprised. Concerned, perhaps, but not surprised. Snape couldn’t have known, however. If he had known the truth, he would have told the Dark Lord… or the Dark Lord would have known already. And seeing as he was still alive, the Dark Lord definitely did not know.

“Potter, do you need a calming draught?”

Probably. He could feel his left hand trembling against his thigh, and he was starting to feel dizzy from lack of air. He was going to have a panic attack he thought, except this time it would kill him. Or maybe Snape would kill him. Maybe the calming draught was a poison.

“I’m not going to poison you,” Snape snapped then muttered something under his breath. Harry couldn’t be certain but it might have been ‘I tried that already’. Snape stood and retrieved a vial from a cupboard, then looked back to Harry, frowned thoughtfully, and put it back and pulled out a decanter and two small glasses instead. He poured them both half a glass and set one in front of Harry.

“What is it?”

“Whiskey,” he said and took a sip. Harry took the glass with his one good hand, and though it shook, he managed a sip without spilling any. The flavor was different than brandy and so was the burn as it slid down his throat. A little less refined, a bit earthier. He took a second sip and wasn’t surprised it tasted a little better than the first.

“Better?” Snape asked. He ignored the question.

“How long have you known?”

“I believe I asked you that question first.”

“Gulandri told me. I didn’t believe him at first. Not until Bobby confirmed it.”

“And you have reason to believe the creature because…?”

“He’s my brother.”

Snape looked at him blankly for a moment, then added a little more whiskey to his glass.

“I don’t see the resemblance.”

“He’s the reincarnation of my previous incarnation’s brother.”

“Which makes things so much clearer.”

“He used to be a man once. You saw his previous form walking with me that night in Ireland.”

He could see Snape thinking, trying to recall the details. There probably hadn’t been much to see. It had been dark, and his guardian hadn’t moved in very close before he had stunned Bobby back into raven form.

“Interesting. Does the Dark Lord know?”

“No. It’s complicated, but I’d rather he didn’t.”

Harry looked at him expectantly. Snape didn’t say anything else, merely pondered this newest bit of curiousness. He quickly grew sick of waiting and broke the silence.

“So how long did you know about the prophecy?”

“The prophecy? I knew about that from the beginning. I was the one to witness it and the one who gave it to the Dark Lord in the first place. How long did I know it was referring to you? Almost a year now. Shortly before you were possessed by Greyback.”

Now it was Harry’s turn to think. Snape had only really known about his secret for a short time and yet plenty long enough to have reported him to the Dark Lord. Merlin, he had to have known when he had gone into the Berlin Underground and saved his life and even more recently when he headed for Hausteheim to rescue him. He had known and never told Harry of the danger he was in. Before he could stop himself, he looked up in search of Snape’s eyes, hoping to find some sort of explanation there. The elder wizard met his gaze coolly, and as unreadable as only an occlumens can manage.

“I have always kept your secrets, Potter,” he said by way of explanation. “Even from yourself.”

“Why?”

That earned him an amused snort.

“Because you are a terrible liar. If I hadn’t believed you were upset over the Dark Lord’s dismemberment, I would have known something was wrong after coming back from Bristol.”

Harry felt a swell of embarrassment. Why shouldn’t he be upset that he’s been told he’s going to kill his mentor and ruler of wizarding Britain or else by murdered himself? It was horribly sad! Hermione would agree with him now that they weren’t fighting and he had no intention of running off unannounced to kill the man or to avoid being killed or… when had he finished his glass? What had they been talking about?

“Why haven’t you told Voldemort?” he asked once he had regained enough sense to think of something worth saying.

Snape poured him another glass. Not subtle of him in the least, but Harry accepted it anyway. He didn’t think he could survive this conversation without it.

“Initially, it was out of self-preservation. You are familiar with the phrase ’don’t shoot the messenger?”

Harry nodded.

“The Dark Lord does not adhere to that particular philosophy. I had no intention of suffering the fallout of informing him that the boy he had taken under his wing and perhaps the only person he has demonstrated any genuine affection for would in fact grow up to attempt to usurp him. Men have died for far less. Men have faced worse than death for less.”

“So you ignored it?”

Snape smirked, and it wasn’t a pleasant expression.

“Not precisely. I did try to remedy the situation myself.”

Harry gave him a confused looked.

“I tried to kill you.”

He stared at the man for a long moment, then took a long swig from his glass. He swallowed, squeezed his eyes shut as the burn brought tears to his eyes, and then managed to get out a raspy “when?”

“In the Berlin Underground. I had been looking for an opportunity to kill you without raising suspicions, and you presented the perfect opportunity. After the explosion, I was the one who found you. You were unconscious, nearly dead already. No one would have been the wiser had I slipped the poison down your throat then and there, and the Dark Lord’s ire would have been directed at our enemies.”

Merlin, he had survived not one but two attempts on his life that night, one of them he had been completely unaware of. A shiver ran up Harry’s spine. Or was he starting to shake again? Feeling was slowly starting to return to his wand hand even as his thoughts grew more numb. He took another sip.

“So why didn’t you? Kill me, I mean. You said you had the perfect opportunity.”

“Yes. The perfect opportunity, but not the perfect will. I had the poison in my hand, your life in my hand, and I couldn’t do it. I had spent so much time and energy on preserving your life, I couldn’t bring myself to end it.”

“… You were different after Germany. I thought you were angry with me then, but you kept getting more and more distant. Was that why?”

“One of many reasons, I suppose. You were becoming more distant yourself.”

“Was I? I guess so. Hermione said something to that effect. So now what?”

“Firstly, you’re going to tell me who cursed Lucius Malfoy.”

“Why would-”

Snape leveled a glare at him.

“You owe it to me.”

Harry grimaced. He emptied his glass and put it on the table. This time Snape didn’t refill it.

“You promise not to tell anyone?”

“You have my word.”

“Ronald Weasley.”

The silence that followed was predictable. The sudden, gasping laughter that came after was not. The Gryffindor stared wide-eyed and slack-jawed as the headmaster burst out into peals of laughter. After a while, he felt his own amusement bubbling up from inside him as well, and pretty soon, they were both laughing long and hard over the absurdity of it.

They were so drunk.

Eventually, it died off, and after wiping tears from their eyes and regaining something of their composure they settled back down with just an occasional lip twitch and a hiccup or two on Harry’s part.

“That,” Snape began, “is strangely appropriate.”

“Did you know Malfoy had Ron’s father imprisoned? At least, he thinks he did. That’s what his dad told him anyway, but the man was mad by then.”

“Mad perhaps, but not wrong. Lucius despised Arthur. He tried to wipe out his entire family during the war, and when he failed at that he made him into an example after it.”

“Why did he hate him?”

“He felt Arthur had betrayed the Pureblood credo. Which technically he had, but you know, after we won the war we all ended up betraying that credo anyway. The war was all about preserving the wizarding way of life, but no one really factored in how much of that struggle was a part of the very foundation of our society. After we became fully segregated from muggles and WYRA was founded, the defensive fanaticism with which Purebloods upheld the old traditions became redundant. Pureblood, half-blood, muggleborn… what was the difference when we were all brought up in the same traditions and life-styles? I’m a half-blood. I was raised as a muggle in my youth, just as you were. I should be peeling potatoes or making candles somewhere according to the Old Thought. Same for the Dark Lord as it were.”

Harry blinked.

“Voldemort’s not a Pureblood?”

Ah, that was right. Dumbledore had told him that, but like so much of what the old wizard had told he had shoved all to the back of his mind.

Snape blinked.

“That whiskey was stronger than I had anticipated. Hold that thought, Potter.”

The headmaster picked up the decanter and put it back in his cabinet and pulled out a blue bottle. He brought it back and poured a small amount in each of their glasses. It glowed neon green in the lamplight. They both downed the Sobriety Draught in one hard shot. Snape grimaced so dramatically Harry would have laughed except he was bent over in a coughing fit. By far, it had a stronger kick than the whiskey.

“So, Ronald Weasley tried to killed Lucius Malfoy,” Snape said once the potion had taken hold and he was once again sober.

“Ugh. Yes. Can you blame him?”

“I blame him completely, but I do understand him as well. What I don’t understand is why you went to such efforts to protect him. He’s never been a friend to you. In fact, I believed you had something of a rivalry going on.”

Harry shrugged.

“It wasn’t so much about him. I mean, we’ve gotten along better recently, but really it was about his family. Ginny and Fred and George are some of my best friends, and their family has been good to me. I didn’t want them to be caught up in his mistake. It’s not their fault he’s an idiot.”

Snape acknowledged this with a tilt of his head.

“You won’t tell, will you?”

“I said I wouldn’t.”

“So what will you do?”

“Firstly, I am going to schedule some time for you to complete Lucius’ cure. You did say you had one?”

“Yes. I was using it as a bargaining chip. Lucius was going to call off Hermione’s betrothal for it. I don’t know what’s going to happen now that he thinks I’m the one who cursed him.”

Snape looked intrigued. It was smart move on Harry’s part, even if it seemed to have backfired on him. Perhaps Snape could figure a way to work this to similar ends. He hadn’t had any time recently to resolve Hermione’s problem, and time was running out.

“What are you going to do about Ron?”

“Mr. Weasley? At the moment, nothing. But do not think I will let him off the hook without compensation. His need for petty revenge put our entire nation at risk during a time of war.”

“Don’t be too hard on him?” Harry asked. “He’s been suffering for it already. You’ve seen how sick he’s been?”

Snape couldn’t say he had seen it, but he had overheard Pomfrey’s concerns over the boy often enough at the dinner table or in staff meetings. He nodded anyway. Harry explained how the curse had backfired on Ron, and how that was the only reason Harry had been looking for a cure even if he hadn’t known the intended victim was Lucius until recently. The headmaster considered.

“I’ll take that into account while designing an appropriate punishment. Does anyone else know about this?”

“Bobby, but he won’t tell anyone.”

“And where is he, precisely?”

“I don’t know.”

“Potter-”

“I really don’t know. I told him not to follow me here, but he probably hasn’t left the castle.”

“Does anyone else know about him? Hermione?”

“No, I… I thought about introducing them. Not as my brother, mind. I don’t think anyone would know how to handle that. Not without a little help.” He nodded towards the cabinet where the whiskey was safely tucked away. “Anyway, leave him alone. He’s harmless.”

Snape gave him a skeptical look but didn’t press it further. He would keep track of the raven. If he was anything like his ‘brother’ it was a reasonable precaution. There were other, more pressing concerns at the moment, however.

“Now that it is settled, we’ll need to deal with the prophecy.”

“I’m not going to kill Voldemort.”

“… That shortens the discussion considerably, then. I don’t suppose you’re going to commit suicide by any chance?”

“…”

“I thought not. Then for the time being, it’s all a matter of self-preservation. I understand this is not a subject you are particularly strong in, but I’m sure you understand the basics. No running with sharp objects, no sampling potions out of unmarked vials, and my personal favorite… do not let the Dark Lord know anything he might have reason to kill you over.”

“That is sounding vaguely familiar,” Harry said, going along with some amusement now that the soul-crushing terror had receded. He was feeling strangely giddy, and wondered if it was an aftereffect of the Sobriety Draught.

“To that end, we’re going to have to erase your memory.”

“… Um… huh? How does… why?”

“For the same reason I didn’t tell you when I found out you were the child of prophecy… and had resolved not to kill you myself, of course.”

He really should be more freaked out by that than he was, except there were so many more immediate and terrifying threats that the ones that had passed or never been realized were hardly worth the effort.

“Of course. And what was that reason again?”

“You’re a horrible liar. And a worse occlumens. You’d best just get rid of the memory before you blurt it out or some legilimens finds it without you noticing.”

“…Er… sir, no offense, but… it’s kind of important. I don’t think I should just be forgetting about that sort of thing. I mean, how can I stop it if I don’t know about it?”

“How could you stop it if you did? Potter, you idiot, when has anyone ever defeated a prophecy by trying to defeat it? Anyone who ever tried to defeat a prophecy ended up fulfilling it in a roundabout way.”

“Well, then what should I do? I won’t kill Voldemort and I don’t want to die. There has to be a way.”

“I am certain there is a way, but you running off on some crusade isn’t it. For now, you can only stall for time. Ensuring that no one else learns of this is the first step. To do that, we will need to remove the memory and keep it somewhere safe.”

Harry wasn’t so sure, but he did believe Snape was looking out for him, and he owed him a bit of faith. If he weren’t, the Gryffindor would have been dead long before now. His guardian had taken a risk in shielding him from the Dark Lord, a risk Harry knew he only partly understood. He felt strangely nostalgic at being able to rely on him again, even as another part of him feared involving him in his own precarious affairs. He looked to Snape, displaying more trust than was wise, but meeting his eyes directly nonetheless.

“What did you have in mind?”

Ron Weasley hated Harry Potter. He had hated the other boy the moment they had met, but that had been the irrational prejudice against muggleborns he had since abandoned in favor of the more reasonable dislike of everyone in general. Now, his reasons for hating him had crystallized into three simple facts. Firstly, Potter seem to have completely forgotten about Ron or the fact that he was SAVING HIS LIFE since he had come back from Bristol and turned into an angsty, self-centered berk. Secondly, Potter was an angsty, self-centered berk. And thirdly, Hermione seemed to be attracted to angsty, self-centered berks. (He had thought she was smart enough to avoid the lot after Krum, but girls were strange when it came to love).

Certainly there were plenty of other reasons to hate Potter, but those seemed to be the primary ones and really he had only ever needed one.

However many reasons he had to hate the Gryffindork, the simple fact remained there was nothing he could do about it. Not now anyway. He needed him to fix the curse and once that was done, he would owe him a Life Debt. Not something he could pay off by shoving him off the Astronomy Tower and running away with the girl.

Not that he would have shoved Potter off the Astronomy Tower anyway. He might hate Potter, but he wasn’t a complete psycho. Lucius Malfoy had been a very special case, and that hadn’t worked out liked he had hoped. It wasn’t even like he hated Potter all that much. When he wasn’t being an angsty, self-centered berk he was okay. A little weird… alright, really weird, but okay.

“Mr. Weasley,” Slughorn’s obsequious voice called, drawing his attention from his internal musings and back to the potions lab. “I would recommend stirring your potion before it starts to burn. The resulting aroma is less than pleasant. There’s a good lad! Ah, Mr. Malfoy, that’s just the right hue! If anyone wants to reference it to know when their potion is ready, just look there. Do you have a question, Ms. Whitrow?”

Ron sighed as Slughorn moved off again and idly stirred his potion. Potions class was by far the most tedious class he had, and despite being a Slytherin, its professor was his least favorite. He glanced behind him, expecting to see Potter and Hermione leaning over their cauldrons, heads bent together, and talking too quietly for anyone else to hear.

Hermione was leaning over her cauldron and talking softly so that only Potter could hear, but to Ron’s surprise the boy wasn’t looking at his potion at all. He was staring back at Ron with an expression that suggested he was pissed off at him. This was strange for two reasons. One because Potter had been veritable zombie for the last week and hadn’t so much has glanced in his direction, and the other because Ron couldn’t think of anything he had done to deserve such a look. At least not recently. Maybe he knew about him peeking in on his little cuddle session with Hermione in the Astronomy Tower.

That was hardly his fault. Ron had almost completed gathering the necessary supplies to break the curse and had gone up to finalize plans with Harry. It’s not like he had wanted to see them being absolute ninnies. He had been half tempted to call up Draco to find them.

Maybe he would have thrown Potter off the tower.

He turned away from the Gryffindor and let that particular thought amuse him for the remainder of the class period. Now that he was aware of it, he could feel the other boy’s glare on the back of his neck. It made him feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Once class was over, he wasn’t at all surprised when Potter stopped him in the hall.

“Weasley, I need to speak with you.”

Ron was tempted to smirk. All this time he had been trying to get Potter’s attention and now he needed to speak with him? He didn’t of course. He couldn’t afford to piss the other boy off, even if it seemed he had done so already.

“Okay,” he said, blandly.

“Not here.”

Potter turned and walked towards the stairs, and Ron rolled his eyes behind his back but followed dutifully after him. They headed toward the greenhouses, but rather than shuffle into Greenhouse number seven for Herbology, they turned into what had been unofficially dubbed ‘Inana’s Greenhouse’ where Potter’s pet cobra made its home, and no one else would dare bother them. Now Ron’s curiosity was peaked. What was this all about?

The greenhouse was hot and humid after being in the cold potions lab and immediately uncomfortable. Even more so was Potter’s toxic green eyes leveled at him with the definitive air of accusation.

“What?” Ron asked innocently… or some Slytherin equivalent.

“You absolute bastard.”

“Eh?”

“You complete fucking moron!”

“What I’d do?”

“Lucius bloody Malfoy.”

“Oh… heh.”

Okay, this was definitely bad. He hadn’t ever intended Harry to know, and really the other hadn’t seemed to want to know. So how had he…?

“What the fuck were you thinking? Do you… You would have killed Draco’s father?”

The Slytherin let out a disgusted snort and rolled his eyes.

“Of course I would have! I’d happily spit on the grave of my father’s murderer. I would have thought you’d be happy to have let me! Come on, Potter, don’t tell me you haven’t wished the man would just… disappear. Everyone would be better off with him dead. Hermione not least among them.”

Suddenly, Ron found himself grabbed by his cloak and pulled right off the floor. He could only stare wide-eyed as Potter held him inches above the ground, his face twisted in rage. It shouldn’t have been possible, not without some sort of spell or potion. Potter was not only shorter than him but several pounds lighter (even after Ron has lost all that weight from being so sick). He shouldn’t have had the strength to be able to do what he was doing.

“You fool!” he shouted at him, giving him a harsh shake. “It could have cost us the war!”

Ron was suddenly flying backwards and landing heavily in a pile of clay pots. They shattered underneath him, and he felt something wet bloom against his back followed by a wave of pain. Merlin, was Potter trying to kill him? He was already weak from the curse. He couldn’t battle Potter full out and hope to win. In fact, he didn’t know if he could get himself back up again.

“He’s the leader of our armed forces, Weasley!” Potter was shouting at him. “And you were driving him insane! Do have any idea how much damage you could have done? How much damage you actually did?”

He blinked up at him. Oh. He hadn’t actually thought about that. Or rather, he had thought Malfoy would simply have died sooner and been quickly replaced. It was government after all. Everyone was replaceable.

“How did you find out?” Ron asked instead, hoping to distract him from the fact that he had no good excuse to offer. It seemed to work because Potter started to pace and in doing so was ignoring his potential victim’s prone form.

“General Malfoy knows he’s dying, and he knows he’s going insane. He came to me for a cure.”

“Wait… what? Why would he…why wouldn’t he go to Voldemort?”

“He thought Voldemort was the one who cursed him.”

Ron couldn’t help himself. He burst out laughing. And then had to stop and roll as Potter hurled a trowel at him.

“I said he thought it was Voldemort,” he snarled. “Now he thinks I did it.”

That sobered Ron up considerably. If Lucius suspected Potter, than he was getting a little too close to home, and there was no reason to think the Gryffindor wouldn’t throw Ron to Lucius with the same vigor he had thrown him to the pots. He cleared his throat anxiously.

“So… um… what are you going to do?”

Potter spared him a glare.

“I’m going to fix your fuck up like I said I would, if only to protect Ginny and your brothers. Snape is working out the rest.”

“Snape? You told Snape?”

“He thought I cursed Malfoy too. The general I can handle, but Snape? You’re on your own.”

Ron just gaped at him.

“He’s going to report me!”

“He’s not going to report you.”

“Of course he is! Why wouldn’t he?”

“Because he’d rather punish you himself,” Potter said, a hint of amusement flitting across his features before he turned his hardened gaze back to him. Ron had always known Potter was crazy, but he hadn’t realized howcrazy until now. He was starting to fear for his life. The mad boy smirked down at him. “Don’t look so alarmed. I doubt he’ll cause any permanent damage. After all, as stupid and selfish as what you did was, you did it for family. We both understand the importance of something like that.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Like a fox.”

“What?”

“… I guess that’s not a wizarding saying, is it? Anyway, like I said, I’m going to help you, but you’re going to have to do something first.”

Ron regarded him warily. He was still lying on the ground and was frankly afraid to get up and spook the mad wizard in any way. Unfortunately, he could also hear a slithering sound moving towards him from the other end of the greenhouse, and if it was what he thought it was, he didn’t want to be eye-level with it when it reached him.

“Okay… uh… what do you want?”

“You’re going to give me a wizarding oath never to attempt to harm Lucius Malfoy… or any of his family again.”

“What? But…”

“Don’t say anything that will make me think you too stupid to be allowed to live.”

“… can we add a self-defense clause to that?”

Potter considered it for a moment.

“I guess,” he said reluctantly.

“Okay. I guess I don’t have much of a choice.”

“I guess not. How are you coming with the supplies?”

“I have everything now. I’ve been trying to tell you that for days, but you’ve been all… ‘woe is me’ or whatever. What was that all about?”

“None of your business,” he snapped, then turned thoughtful and started looking around the greenhouse. Ron had gotten up and moved to the other side to avoid exactly what the other boy seemed to be looking for. Inana slithered out from some withered foliage and onto Potter’s open hand, up his arm, and settled herself around his neck while he curled her body loosely around his arm. The Slytherin shuddered slightly at the eerie sight. Snakes might be his house’s totem, but it would be a lie to say he had ever been entirely comfortable with them.

“Meet me here Friday morning at nine o’clock. We’ll finish it then.”

“I have class. You have class for that matter.”

“Snape will grant us permission. He wants this taken care of as quickly as possible.”

“Then why not do it tomorrow?”

Harry gave him an irritated look.

“Did you even read the counter spell?”

“Er…”

“Moron.”

“How did it go?” Snape asked without looking up from the letter he was composing as Harry slipped into his office. He noted to himself that there seemed a little more pep to his ward’s stride than there had been previously.

“Have I ever mentioned Ron is a moron?”

“I think you may have implied it from time to time.”

“We should be able to complete the counter curse by Friday night. I’ll need Ron with me for that, if you wouldn’t mind writing us a note.”

“Will you need me to supervise in case something goes wrong?”

“If something goes wrong, you’re not going to want to be there when it happens. You might check in every once in a while.”

Snape nodded, still not looking up.

“Have you seen your ‘brother’?”

“I’ve glimpsed him here and there. I think he’s having fun exploring the castle.”

“And he hasn’t set off any of the castle’s defenses?”

He found that somewhat worrisome. Harry didn’t.

“He specializes in magics that let him get in and out of places. It must have taken some very powerful or very special wards for Lord Voldemort to have held him as long as he did. You should have seen him in Hausteheim. He was brilliant. Well, brilliant and lucky.”

Snape said nothing to this but filed it away for future consideration. If Bobby was going to continue to keep Harry’s company, his skills and weaknesses needed to be understood and planned for. He set down his quill and set his letter aside to dry. He looked to Harry. Harry looked at his hands, his previous openness slipping away.

“Have you prepared yourself?” he asked.

The Gryffindor nodded without much enthusiasm. He didn’t want to do this, even if he understood why it had to be done. He hated to make himself vulnerable, even to those he trusted. And his trust in Snape was not absolute. The potions master stood and went to one of his cabinets and pulled out a pensieve and an earthen jar. Harry was starting to wonder what the man kept in there.

“You may find yourself somewhat disoriented for the rest of the day,” Snape said as he prepared the pensieve. “I can arrange for you to sleep it off here if you like.”

“No thanks,” he said. After they were done, he would probably want nothing but a lot of distance between them. Assuming Snape wasn’t busy ringing his neck.

“It’s ready.”

Harry had never placed a memory in a pensieve before, and after Snape showed him how, he found he didn’t much care for it. Removing the memories of Gulandri’s revelation of the cursed prophecy and Bobby’s confirmation was extremely disorienting, and he failed twice before he could keep himself calm enough to simply let the memories go. Even afterward, he knew what memories he had lost, but could not recall the details of the memories themselves, and his mind kept running around in circles looking for memories he knew should be there.

“Ugh,” he groaned. “This isn’t going to work. It’s like having a song stuck in my head and not knowing the words. It’s going to drive me crazy.”

“Hmm,” Snape replied, noncommittally. He was busy observing the memories playing out in the pensieve. There was a great deal more in that memory than Harry had warned him of. When he was done, he pulled back to glower at his ward.

“Carrigan?” he said. Harry looked at him, thought for a moment (it took longer to figure it out without his most relevant memory to reference), then ducked his head.

“Did you know him?”

“He called me a ‘gloomy little brat’ once.”

Harry almost smiled but caught himself.

“Must have been a different Carrigan.”

“No doubt.” Snape wasn’t quite sure what to make of this newest revelation, except that it added a curious new dimension to the Dark Lord and Harry’s relationship. “Do you have any of his memories?”

“No. Nothing. I’m told I don’t resemble his character very much either, except for my ability to get along with Voldemort.”

“And who made this astute observation?”

“Bobby. Or rather Bobbitimus Carrigan IV, Seamus Carrigan’s brother.”

Snape began rubbing his temple. “Playwrights could not write a plot this absurd. Very well, I don’t suppose it really matters.”

“You don’t think I would be in danger if Voldemort found out?”

“You may be in less danger than anything. Gulandri was a liar or perhaps simply ignorant. The Dark Lord never would have harmed Carrigan… you…Hhhmm…”

Harry gave him a stern look.

“Carrigan. We’re not the same person even if we share a soul.”

“Hhmm…”

“If it’s any consolation, I don’t think you’re a ‘gloomy little brat’.”

Snape’s glare told him it wasn’t any consolation. The elder wizard pointed him to a stool, where Harry reluctantly sat himself and took a deep breath. This was the part he had been dreading, for the pensieve was the simplest and least invasive part of a plan Snape had concocted to safeguard ‘The Secret’. The initial revelation was tucked in an inconspicuously sealed vial identical to any of the anti-anxiety draughts he carried for his panic attacks, but there were any number of memories and thoughts that had occurred afterward that would reveal the contents of ‘the Secret’. They could not all be removed without taking his memory of the entire week as well, and that simply wasn’t going to work.

To solve the problem, Snape was going to have to put his considerable legilimency skills to use and perform what he called a ‘Trigger-Tuck’. Legilimency could not be used to alter or erase memories, that required different sorts of spell crafts, but a skilled legilimens could hide memories, ‘tucking’ them away so that they could not be readily accessed. Harry would know he had forgotten something, but he wouldn’t know precisely what. In order to remember clearly, he would have to be exposed to the ‘trigger’ memory. In this case, the memory so carefully stored in the potion’s vial on Snape’s desk.

Snape would have to rummage around in his mind for memories of the past week or so since Hausteheim. Harry would have to let him.

He would have no control over what Snape learned while he was inside his head. There were innumerable secrets and intimacies he had never intended to share except with those parties already involved, embarrassments he preferred forgotten, hopes he had abandoned, and vulnerabilities he had carefully hidden. Snape would have access, if not time or inclination, to examine any of them and inevitably he would see some Harry preferred he did not during his search.

But he didn’t have much of a choice. His guardian had been right about Harry’s life being at risk. How many times had he brushed death immediately after the return from Ireland, his mind vulnerable at the briefest meeting of eyes with either Voldemort or even more dangerously, Lucius Malfoy, who was already suspicious and looking for answers? Eventually, Harry’s unease over the Prophecy would become apparent to one or both of them. Snape had proven already that he froze or folded when confronted with his own deceptions. It would take Voldemort considerably less effort to render his protégé a tongue-tied, blathering fool or guilt-ridden, silent penitent, and Malfoy; savage, persistent, cunning; could not be resisted indefinitely.

Then there were the unknown dangers. Legilimens were rare, but they tended to accumulate in the upper crust of business and politics, where cutthroat competition had those of talent seeking any means possible to find advantage. Harry had met plenty of witches and wizards of this character, although he could not readily identify the legilimens and occlumens amongst them. Fortunately, he had already cultivated the practice of avoiding prolonged, direct eye contact (this was both to prevent someone from reading his mind and to keep from making others uncomfortable as he was well aware his eyes were unnerving to most) and he was rarely in unfamiliar company for extended periods of time. As he grew older and became increasingly active in both politics and society, he had been spending more and more time with those potentially dangerous individuals. Once he left the sanctuary of Hogwarts, the danger would increase exponentially.

Voldemort had already been toying with the idea of occlumency lessons, but given the sensitive nature of his mind’s contents, not least amongst it his peculiar intimacies with the Dark Lord himself, an appropriate teacher (Snape too busy and perhaps too short tempered to do it himself) had been hard to come by. How long before the Dark Lord took it upon himself to teach Harry the necessary skill and in doing so uncovered the truth?

“One day, I suspect you will have obtained the necessary skills in occlumency and lying to maintain your secret yourself,” Snape had said, after Harry had finally been convinced but still sullen after the agreement. “Until then, you must continue to rely on me.”

And rely he would, even if he wasn’t in the least bit happy about it.

Harry sat stiffly on the stool as Snape approached him. Despite the acquiescence to his logic, he could see the young man struggling to meet his eyes. Habit and anxiety were working against them, and Snape had to remain patient as the green orbs turned first to the ceiling then to the window and eventually to his chin. There was no rush. A mountain of paperwork was threatening to collapse off his desk, his wife was due to walk through the door at any moment, and he was already ten minutes late for a meeting with Seitler, but none of that really mattered.

The world was chaos and calamity and stress, but his mind was still and calm and untouchable. If it did not matter within his own mind, it did not matter at all. This was the essential truth all legilimens and occlumens had to master.

Eventually, Harry’s eyes finally settled on his own, and Snape slipped in without so much as blinking. Most legilimens never found reason to move beyond the surface thoughts and memories of their victims- the effort, skill, and risk of going deeper beyond them. Snape was not most legilimens, and like with potions he had sought to become a master of the art and the rewards of doing so had proven themselves time and time again.

Harry’s mind was different from most others he had explored, as he had known it would have to be, but even he was little thrown by what he found. Snape had begun practicing legilimency while still at Hogwarts, hoping to learn a skill that would provide forewarning to the Marauders incessant pranking and eventually yield the ultimate humiliation and revenge against them. He had not gotten far enough along for it to be used in such a way until after they had graduated, but by the time he was twenty-six he had delved deeply into the minds of no less than fifty-five witches and wizards, often multiple times when given the opportunity. Each mind had been a little different, but most followed a certain schema whenever he delved beyond the shallow surface thoughts to the more interesting, long-term memories. Doors were the most common theme, as with Hermione, libraries were a close second, and followed distantly by galleries. Occasionally, something more unusual came along.

One of his early landladies had her memories stored as threads interwoven in a magnificent loom. His university guidance counselor’s had been flowers and trees in a vast greenhouse.

Harry’s memories were light bulbs.

Lamp bulbs, blacklight bulbs, Christmas light bulbs, flood lights, fluorescent lights, nightlights, electric lanterns, spherical bulbs, oblong bulbs, skinny bulbs, fat bulbs, bulbs that were blinding in their brightness and others flickering on and off erratically, bulbs of every color, bulbs that changed color, and some bulbs that could not have existed except through magic or in the imagination of a particularly strange child. The floor upon which he stood was mirrored, so that the radiant splendor shone from below just as it did from above. Snape took a moment to admire it all, for the lights stretched out in an endless sea of darkness to form constellations and galaxies of glittering reds and greens and teal blues that no man had seen the likes of while staring up at the stars from Earth. All of them hung from long black cords attached to a ceiling that despite the abundance of light, remained too high for Snape to make out himself. The cords themselves were unremarkable, except that while some seemed to hang straight down and unfettered, others were tangled together.

The significance of this, Snape didn’t figure out until later.

The first memory bulb he examined was an innocuous white bulb any wizard or muggle might find hanging in their attic or basement. The bulb was warm, but no memory presented itself at first. He examined it but found no switch or string to activate it. After a moment, he unscrewed it.

The bulb dimmed for a moment but then lit again, this time revealing not a galaxy of light, but a small, cramped space. It would have been too small to accommodate a man of Snape’s size, let alone a roommate, but the memory bent itself to allow him to observe the memory play itself out. Harry was there, younger than Snape has ever seen him, screaming bloody murder in German and kicking at the door viciously with his bare foot. Tears were running down his round little face, and despite how furiously as he was screaming it was clear to him that the child was more afraid than anything. What was this place, he wondered? Had Harry’s large cousin perhaps locked him in a crawl space or cupboard as a prank?

Snape continued to watch for a while, strangely fascinated despite himself. It seemed Harry had had a penchant for trouble even before he had learned he was a wizard. He was curious to see if he might somehow find a way to sneak his way out of this one.

He didn’t have to wait long before the door was suddenly thrown open to reveal Vernon Dursley’s red face. Snape sighed. It seemed the adventure was over. His uncle had come to call off the prank and let Harry out.

Except that he didn’t.

“Listen, you little ingrate,” Vernon growled, pointing a pudgy finger at him. “If you don’t stop that racket this instant, you’re going to be sorry. Do you understand me? I’ve got an early morning tomorrow and I am sick of your caterwauling. Go to sleep!”[1]

Harry said nothing, merely glowered back as tears continued to fall. The door was slammed shut, a latch clicked into place, and Snape listened as heavy footsteps trod away down the hall and then overhead. He felt a swell of disgust for the muggle. What sort of punishment was this? Forcing a child to sleep in a cupboard like a boggart?

Snape continued to watch. Little Harry burst out into sobs, not the brattish temper-throwing crocodile tears he had familiarized himself with throughout his time as a professor, but true heartbroken tears of grief and misery and despair. Snape wondered how long it had been since his parents’ death. It couldn’t have been more than year. His disgust for Vernon solidified into hatred.

Yet something of his ward’s notorious resilience surfaced, and soon he was screaming and kicking at the door even louder than before. When Vernon appeared a second time, it was with a belt. Snape would have killed the man if he were able.

Harry cried more after this but only briefly, and Vernon had not even made it up the stairs before the child was at it again, screaming and beating the walls with his little fists as well as his feet now. On and on and on…

When Vernon came a third time, Snape thought irrationally that he meant to kill Harry. Indeed, he looked very much like he wanted to, his face nearly purple and a vein pulsing on his forehead. Instead, he merely shouted, “Fine! You can sleep on the couch!” then trudged off, leaving the door open this time.

Harry did not immediately move. He stared wide-eyed and shaking at the open hatch, as if its existence was incomprehensible. Perhaps he too had thought Vernon Dursley would kill him this time. Certainly, he couldn’t have thought he would win. Finally, the child, still sniffling and rubbing his wet eyes, gathered up his blanket and pillow and crawled out. Snape attempted to follow but found only an infinite darkness beyond the little space.

The memory was over.

After some time wasted fumbling back inside the cupboard looking for a means of returning to the entry point, he screwed the light bulb back into the empty socket which hung from the low ceiling. The bulb dimmed and then re-lit.

Snape was back at the bulb galaxy.

The entire memory had probably lasted thirty minutes. It didn’t matter. Time moved differently in the mind, particularly within memories.

He continued peeking into memories after this, but forced himself not to linger in any as long as he had the first. Normally, Snape would not have found this difficult, as memory searches were usually rather tedious in his experience, composed mostly of things mundane or meaningful only to the person involved. Harry’s were not unlike that, as many things he came across were insignificant.

A quidditch match. An argument with that Cypher girl. A Durmstrang teacher briskly shearing his wild raven hair into scalp-hugging buzz cut. Hermione giving him his pocket watch. The full moon rising over the lake.

There were other memories, however, that involved himself or in some way were related to him and revealed things about Harry or his seemingly irrational behavior Snape had not understood at the time. Even more things that didn’t involve him in any way and yet he felt drawn to watch.

Biting Voldemort on the hand in the midst of being smothered. A conversation between them over what to plant in their garden before they left for Hogwarts. Black lying on the ground, Harry holding his guts inside his body with his bare hands and Greyback and Voldemort hovering over them both. Snape, completely unaware of being observed, kissing the back of Ira’s neck before slipping on a necklace. Lily reciting the capitols of Europe over the dinner table, a radio playing in the background. Vesper’s lifeless body slipping from Harry’s fingers and falling… falling… falling…

Snape looked in on far more memories than he should have, but it took longer for him to determine the logic behind Harry’s memory schema than any other he had wandered through before. Most people had a sort of order to their memories, part chronology and part subject matter, but Harry’s seemed to fall randomly across time and space. It wasn’t until Snape started paying attention to the cords, rather than the bulbs, that some sense of order began to form.

The bulbs that hung from unfettered cords were generally unimportant; events or impressions that for one reason or another, his brain had recorded without much in the way of context. Merely random facts or impressions waiting to be applied to more complicated thoughts or decisions. The tangled cords, however, contained related memories, some of them even overlapping, but all related to each other.

In one tangle he followed Harry’s most recent trip to France, from the tedious train ride, to the request of Queen Ophelia, and to his brazen, childish game with the Dark Lord through the palace gardens. In another tangle, he watched as Harry met Luna, was courted by Luna, held her ravaged lupine form in his arms, grieved the death of their clan members, fell in love, was betrayed by thought if not deed, and then parted.

Most tangles led to other tangles, the triumphs and tragedies of Harry’s life intertwining, sometimes to the point Snape could not tell where one cord started and another ended. It was fascinating, and if he hadn’t such an important purpose already in place he might have taken additional liberties and explored further into his oftentimes perplexing ward’s mind. However, when he finally stumbled upon an already empty socket, he knew he had found the memory they had removed, and from here he would find all the other memories he would need to ‘tuck’.

‘Tucking’ was not difficult but not something Snape did very often. There was nothing subtle about it, and the ‘victim’ could easily discover such tampering. He had only ever done it twice before and both times at the Dark Lord’s behest. He examined each memory, more than fifty altogether, judged each one’s relevance to the Prophecy, and ‘made adjustments’. Harry’s memories proved quite simple to handle. Being in the mind, he merely had to imagine some form of appropriate concealment and exert his will, however briefly, over the memory itself.

Whenever he came across a memory, or a segment of a memory relating to that taboo subject, he would concentrate deeply for a moment, and the bulb would dim until barely anything could be seen and sound faded away with the light. Thus, the memory was ‘tucked’. ‘Triggering’ was even simpler, and merely involved tying the cords of the tucked memories directly to the cord with the empty socket. If or when the trigger memory was reinserted, all of the dimmed memories would be illuminated once again.

Once he was done, he did another thorough examination of each memory and several surrounding memories, just to be certain. Exhausted but satisfied, he released his hold on Harry’s mind and slipped back into his own.

Green eyes greeted him with some consternation.

“I forgot something,” Harry said, frowning. “Am I supposed to know I forgot something?”

Snape blinked and pulled away, rubbing his forehead. His head ached from the undivided concentration he had been forced to exert for what had seemed like hours, although in reality it could only have been a few minutes. He moved to his desk and settled himself back into his chair.

“Yes,” Snape said, at last. “I wanted to make you safe, not ignorant. Now, even if you don’t know why you had to remove the memory, you will know it was important and you’ll eventually want it back.”

Harry nodded but still didn’t seem satisfied.

“Merlin, this is going to bug me,” he said.

Snape wasn’t impressed or particularly interested. The boy suddenly turned shy, fidgeting with his robes and looking everywhere else in the room except at his guardian.

“So… um… am I in trouble?” he asked, after a moment.

Snape regarded him blandly.

“Should you be?”

“Er… well, that’s a matter of opinion.”

“Mmm… I don’t suppose you thought to mention that you are now an animagus? An unregistered animagus?”

“Well… ah… Technically, I haven’t figured out how to control the transformation yet, so I don’t think that qualifies.”

“And how about smuggling my goddaughter to France?”

“Hey! I’m not smuggling her to France!” he protested, then thought a moment. “Unless absolutely necessary.”

“Only if your attempt to blackmail Lucius backfires?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“The likelihood of which has increased considerably since he now believes you are the one who cursed him in the first place,” he said, a touch of frustration seeping into his voice. “If you wanted to have her emancipated, you should have come to me first.”

“You might have said no.”

“Of course I would have said ‘no’! And then I would have given you ten good reasons why not and then ten other better ideas.”

Harry’s expression turned mutinous.

“That’s funny, since I didn’t hear you coming up with anything in the last five months!”

Snape had no comeback to that.

“I… am not going to get into a pointless argument with you. I frankly don’t have the time right now. I expect you, Hermione, and Draco this Saturday for afternoon tea.”

“You mean for an afternoon inquisition?”

“It’s a little late to try and be clever, Potter. Now get out of my office, I’m late for a meeting.”

Despite the magnitude of what had just transpired, the Gryffindor still had the gall to act the wronged teenager and stalked out of the office in a huff, slamming the door behind him. Snape smirked to himself. It seemed Harry and he were now locked once again in eternal frustration with one another.

All was now right with the world.

A moment later, the door opened again and Harry popped his head in.

“Er… Thanks… you know, for whatever you did.”

Snape sighed. So much for the world.

“Please go away.”

The door shut, quietly this time.

Lucius reclined on the sofa in his study, reading a letter he had received that afternoon from Severus by the light of the burning fireplace. A small bundle of dried herbs that had been included in the envelope rested on the mantel. He had been forced to delay opening it until that evening, Narcissa being unusually bothersome that day. His recovery from the Dark Lord’s ire had been unusually slow, and she was adamant that he follow the instructions of the medi-witches and wizards who insisted he refrain from anything stressful or strenuous. He had been banned from his office, official and unofficial visitors alike had been turned away, and she had him spied upon by his own house elves to ensure he did not attempt anything other sitting or lying somewhere gathering dust. The only reason he had been allowed Severus’ letter was because he had threatened the elves with clothes if they didn’t hand anything by him or Lord Voldemort over immediately, and even then he had been forced to wait or else risk his devoted and harping wife’s wrath if she caught him with it.

The letter was brief and written in a polite, vague way that no one else would be able to accurately decipher.

Lucius,

I hope this letter finds you in recovery, though I know good health will elude you for some time yet. I bear news that may at least put you in better spirits. A solution has been found for the problem you apprised me of in October. Our young friend has proved instrumental in this and despite your concerns, was not a contributor to the problem itself. The matter shall be resolved by this Friday.

However, there is still the matter of compensation. Although our young friend is under my supervision, there are certain matters I lack the authority to command him. Charity being one such matter, and one I neither encourage nor expect that you would accept. The price he has demanded I believe is one he has already made known to you, and given the circumstances, not an unfair one.

I await your reply.

Sincerely,

S.S.

P.S. The sage will help assist in your recovery. Burn 6oz every three hours.

Lucius crumpled the letter in his fist and threw it in the fire. His hands were shaking, and for once it was not from shock or pain. He mentally cursed Severus and Potter to the devil and entertained several colorful methods of death upon them both. Eventually, however, this grew tiresome and only served to feed the headache he had been sporting all day.

“Ebbi!”

A house elf popped into existence before him, kowtowing before him in worshipful reverence.

“I am here, Master!” she squeaked.

He snatched the bundle of sage from the mantle and tossed it at her. It bounced off her head and landed on the floor, where she quickly gathered it back up.

“Find an incense burner and place six oz of that inside.”

Regardless of his anger, he was not going to ignore Severus’s remedies when presented. The house elf left and returned with the necessary items a moment later and placed the elaborately gilded dish beside his chair. A fragrant smoke rose up from the grated slots. True to Severus’ word, Lucius felt his headache recede immediately and some small portion of his strength return to him. With this renewed vigor, some of his venom left him.

At least in regards to Severus. The man had been more than generous, he finally acknowledged to himself, even if the ‘solution’ he had so far presented had been difficult to swallow. The pain and degradation he had suffered at the Dark Lord’s hands were not his fault, and if not for his friend’s assistance it could have been far worse than it was. The matter with Hermione’s betrothal…well, that was hardly surprising. Severus had never liked the idea of Crouch marrying his goddaughter, but even if he had he likely would have upheld Potter’s price being worth the cost. Lucius had done so already.

If he had anything to be angry with Severus over, it was his belief that Potter was not a ‘contributor’. Was the man a fool? Or had he merely been blinded by the child’s seeming naiveté? Had he not witnessed for himself the depths of his manipulations, the extent of his ambition? Would the boy not be satisfied until they were all either in his debt or under his spell?

If Potter was not somehow the cause of the curse, then he was, at the very least, using it to further his own ends. Saving Hermione could not be his only intention despite what he claimed. He had made a fool of Lucius, and he had lowered his position in the Dark Lord’s eyes. The fact that Potter had walked away from this incident he had been a more than equal ‘contributor’ to without punishment from the Dark Lord or at least nothing nearing the severity of his own punishment was something that inspired no little amount of bitterness.

Potter could not be allowed to win. If left unchecked, he would continue to manipulate everyone around him, including the Dark Lord himself, and play all the country like a fiddle. He needed to be taught some humility. He needed to be controlled.

Unfortunately, he could not do so by continuing the betrothal to Crouch. That was a battle he had lost, and to continue it would put his life at risk and alienate Snape from any further alliances. In the future, he wanted the potions master firmly in his corner. While his friend might be fooled to some extent by Potter, he was not enamored of him in the same way the Dark Lord was and could be relied upon to see reason. If he could find some means of earning Severus’s support while antagonizing his ward at the same time, a wedge could be driven between them that Lucius could take advantage of.

Then there was Crouch. This might serve him in making Crouch an enemy of Potter, who would now have reason to turn his neutral regard into animosity for once again reviving the financial debt he owed to Lucius at the dissolution of the betrothal. Crouch was a devious bastard. If he decided to take revenge on Potter, the boy would not walk away unscathed.

He smiled to himself. Plans were already starting to form, and with his thoughts clearing with every breath of smoky air he was feeling increasingly confident of them. When the curse was lifted on Saturday and his mind and body freed from its corruption, he would decide which of the plans held the most merit.

For now, however, he could only let his dark imaginings wrap around him like a warm blanket and comfort his black heart.

1. Vernon Dursley does not know that Harry can understand English. He’s like someone who rants at a dog for pissing on the rug or their computer for getting a glitch, too angry and irrational to accept that they can’t understand what he’s saying.↩

Raveling and Unraveling Plots

“What do you means he knows?” Draco yelled, causing Harry to bank his shot on the pool table and send his eight ball (which was ‘in fact’ magic for the purposes of wizarding pool) to leap over the side of the table. The ball smacked the ground with a harsh clatter and burst into eight exact replicas that proceeded to roll away in every direction. Natalie, Clyde, and Ginny, who had all been waiting their turn off to the side, hurried to collect them before they ran into something else and multiplied yet again. Hermione stood stock still, her jaw hanging open in stunned speechlessness.

Harry himself was attempting to hide his sheepish expression by pretending to look for balls under the table. He had put off telling his friends about Snape knowing their little scheme for the last two days, but they had pulled him down into the Hogsmeade Hall Rec room for some much needed down-time, and with Saturday’s tea time appointment drawing nearer he couldn’t justify keeping them in the dark any longer.

The Rec Room was luckily deserted. The residents had reduced to a quarter of their initial population; having either constructed shelters back in Hogsmeade or else left the area in search of work. With fewer and fewer villagers residing in the Hall, students had taken to visiting the various rooms that had served for entertainment and leisure. This was technically against current school policy, but since it presented a preferable alternative to mischief-making, no one had enforced the rule.

“Well,” Harry began, his eyes glued to the floor, pretending to search for the escaped balls as well, “he sort of… found out about it a few days ago.”

“How the hell did that happen?” Draco shouted. He was getting louder and more accusatory by the second.

“Hmmm…” Harry tried to think how to explain what had happened but couldn’t decide what he should tell and what he should leave out. “Hmmm… OW! OW! HERMIONE, STOP THAT!”

He ducked behind the table and out of the line of fire of Hermione’s Stinging Hex. She looked utterly furious.

“Hey, now,” Clyde protested weakly. “Let him explain at least.”

“What kind of explanation could he give for not telling us for days?”

“Er…”

Harry dared to show enough of his head in search of possible allies. Draco. Nope. Clyde. Already surrendered. Ginny. Not exactly a sympathetic look on her face. Natalie! Surely, Natalie would…

“That’s kind of funny,” the Slytherin girl said, looking entirely too amused for anyone’s liking. “Didn’t your mood improve considerably just a ‘few days ago’?”

He really should have known better.

“Thank you!” Harry muttered, and ducked down again to avoid another hex. “Will you stop that, Hermione? It wasn’t my fault! I was legilimized!”

“What?”

“Whoa! No way!” Clyde said.

“Oh, Harry, are you alright?” Ginny asked, suddenly all sympathy when he no longer needed it.

Natalie rolled her eyes. “Still doesn’t explain you going from Mr. Mopey to Mr. Sunshine.”

“What happened, Harry?” Hermione demanded. “And stop trying to think up some sort of story. I can tell when you’re hiding something.”

“Fine, fine, just stop throwing hexes at me. It really wasn’t my fault.”

“Perish the thought,” Natalie laughed.

Despite Hermione’s insistence that she knew when he was hiding something, he was able to conjure a story close enough to the truth that even she seemed satisfied. He told her that while in Bristol he had seen the Dark Lord come back from Germany and that his wounds had been so horrific and the things said to him during the Dark Lord’s moments of agony had been so hurtful, he had been feeling extremely depressed. Snape had taken notice and tried to figure out what was wrong with him… with unexpected results. So now Snape knew about Hermione’s emancipation plot, and while he didn’t seemed particularly enthused about it, he hadn’t decided to put an end to it either. He did, however, want to speak with them that Saturday.

Draco groaned. Hermione refrained, but her expression looked decidedly pinched.

“This isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” Harry tried to assure them. “If we can convince him that this is a good plan, then maybe he’ll go along with it. He might be Lucius’ friend, but he takes his responsibility as your godfather very seriously and we already know he was against the betrothal. It would be good to have someone on our side who is able to think on the same level as the General.”

There were mixed feelings about this. Clyde readily agreed, and Ginny was tentatively optimistic. Draco was noncommittal. Hermione was too busy trying to think of all the pros and cons to do more than pace back and forth anxiously. Natalie, unfortunately, decided she was his arch-nemesis that day.

“I don’t like it,” she said bluntly. “When it was just us, we could change our minds and our plans however we liked. Hermione got to decide for herself what was in her best interest, and we got to decide how far or what actions we would take to uphold her decision. But now? Now it’s in an adult’s hands. A very strong-willed, opinionated adult. What are we going to do if he decides he doesn’t like our plan?”

Harry’s heart sank. He hadn’t thought of that. All he had been preoccupied with was the fact that he and Snape were once again on relatively good terms and that they had a strong alliance once again. He hadn’t considered the consequences of the fickleness of Snape’s indulgences or how easily and often they struggled with each other over matters of mutual importance. And now he had pulled his friends into their battle of wills, and there was no telling how it would all turn out in the end.

“… I’m sorry,” he said. “I really didn’t mean for him to find out, but I didn’t think it was a bad thing for him to know since he seemed willing to go along with the plan. If Snape thinks it’s a workable plan, then I have that much more confidence in it. I hadn’t thought about… I mean… I’m sorry.”

Hermione stopped pacing for a moment to spare him a kind and somewhat exasperated look.

“Harry, I don’t blame you for Uncle Severus finding out. That was an accident. But why didn’t you tell us that he knew sooner? I can’t understand your logic there at all.”

“Oh… that,” he said. He felt suddenly embarrassed. “Well, you know how you thought I seemed so much happier the last couple of days?”

Ginny giggled. Harry had indeed been strangely cheerful recently. While he wasn’t particularly moody by nature, his recent bout of depression notwithstanding, as a rule he wasn’t prone towards general silliness either. And lately, he had been bordering on nonsensical. All the school work and activities he had been neglecting over the last week, he suddenly threw himself into with more zeal than sense. He had been turning in homework assignments to the wrong instructors, reading the wrong chapters, pairing up duelists in Dueling Club in rather terrifying combinations, and Charms and Transfiguration practicals had been… curious. For nearly a day, he hadn’t even been able to locate his wand. The entire time he had treated it all like one big joke.

The school was now floating with rumors that Snape had him on anti-depressant potions, and Ginny had almost been willing to believe it herself except that he had steadily leveled off in his strange behavior until he was as close to normal as he had ever been.

He laughed a little himself, although with some embarrassment. He hadn’t been entirely unaware to his own weirdness either.

“Okay, so… I told you that Snape was worried about my depression, right? He didn’t exactly get distracted even after he found out about the emancipation. He still went ahead and… sort of ‘tweaked’ my brain a bit.”

There was a stunned silence. Clyde dropped all the balls he had picked up, causing them explode yet again into several multiples of eight.

“Shit.”

“Oh my God,” Natalie gasped. “You let Snape tweak your brain? Ugh!”

“It was just a memory suppression!” he protested, “It’s not like he rearranged things!”

“That you know of.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Anyway, I was a little… weird afterward. I didn’t want to have to explain what had happened when I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“You are sure he didn’t rearrange anything?” Natalie asked.

“Legilimency doesn’t work that way. If he’d rearranged something, I would know. I can tell already he suppressed a memory, even if I don’t know exactly what it was.”

It had something to do with his time in Hausteheim, but he knew nothing more than that. He had driven himself half-crazy trying to distract himself from the niggling feeling that he was forgetting something, hence his earlier erratic behavior. The only thing it had achieved was making him exhausted and delaying a conversation he should have had a lot sooner.

Natalie made a show of shuddering.

“It’s just as well Snape knows,” Harry said, partly just to annoy her and partly because there was something that had been bothering him for a while now. “I’ve gotten over my head with Lucius. He seems to think I’ve been trying to kill him.”

“Ha!” Draco laughed. Harry frowned at him. Draco’s eyes widened. “You’re serious?”

Harry nodded.

“I can’t go into details, but he has accused me of it.”

“Harry…” Hermione started but bit her lip. She didn’t know what to say. If her foster father truly believed her friend had tried to harm him, she feared for him. More so than Harry seemed to have the sense to fear for himself. Even Natalie couldn’t seem to find any humor in it.

“Well, bother,” Draco muttered. “And we’re going to be getting Christmas Ball invitations soon. We’re hosting this year. I guess you’ll just have to fake the flu or something.”

Harry shrugged.

“That won’t be necessary.”

Hermione scowled at his nonchalance.

“Harry, don’t be reckless. The Manor is his home turf and if he suspects you of something, then the whole property could be set against you at his whim!”

“Listen, I’m not looking forward to it, but running away isn’t going to convince him of my innocence. We’ll face each other. We’ll have it out. We’ll move on. It’s not like he can seriously harm me during a party and with the Dark Lord around. I’d rather get it over with than wait for him to sneak up behind me when I’m not ready for him.”

“Hey!” Draco objected, “My father does not sneak… Well, except for that one time, but-”

“Harry,” Hermione interrupted, “Think about this logically. If Lucius thinks you are trying to kill him, really believes it, then you are not safe from him. Even if he can’t kill you or seriously hurt you, he’s not going let you go until he’s absolutely sure you can’t hurt him anymore. Do you have any idea how easy it would be for him to separate you from the party in Malfoy Manor without anyone realizing you are gone? Or what he could do to you that wouldn’t leave any obvious signs?”

“She’s right,” Draco said, his expression unusually solemn. “Facing him, facing any wizard, in his ancestral home is never a good idea.”

Harry looked between them both, reading their genuine concern. He wasn’t exactly expecting a walk in the park either, but he was starting to get the idea that walking into Malfoy Manor held as many sinister possibilities as walking into Hausteheim. Perhaps he should rethink his strategy.

“Okay,” he relinquished. “I’ll try to sort this out with him before the party. Any ideas?”

“Why does he think you’re trying to kill him anyway?” Ginny asked.

“Because…” He stopped. He couldn’t actually explain that to them. It was a huge convoluted mess, and in order for it to make sense he would have to reveal far more than Snape or the Dark Lord would be pleased with. Not to mention Ron’s involvement. “Never mind. I’ll ask Snape.”

“And that wasn’t insulting at all,” Natalie muttered.

“It’s complicated,” he objected.

“So of course we wouldn’t understand. Just keep digging that hole deeper, Harry.”

“Give him a break. I still get a headache just thinking about the last time he tried to explain an entire situation,” Clyde objected, referring to Harry’s possession by a dead man and his subsequent rampage through Germany with his werewolf horde. “And then Snape gave me the Evil Eye for a month.”

Draco wasn’t as lenient regarding explanations, even though he too had been similarly baffled.

“Well, Istill want to know why my father thinks you have it in for him. More importantly, I think I have a right to know, especially if you expect me to continue conspiring behind his back.”

Harry frowned but acknowledged the point. He just wasn’t certain how much he should say. Whatever he told Draco, the Slytherin was likely to be angry with him afterward. His father had been deathly sick and Harry hadn’t been able to bring himself around to telling him about it. At least, not until he was certain he could save the troublesome man first. The weight of Draco’s expectations would have been more than he could have handled during an already stressful time.

Now he could save Lucius and that spared him a lot of worry over his friend’s reaction, but he didn’t wish to reveal his intention to cure his father before he had done so. There was still a chance of failure, but a more serious risk was Draco insistence to either participate or at least observe the breaking of the curse. If he did that, he would know about Ron, which would give rise to questions Harry wasn’t prepared to answer. It would be better if he waited until after the curse was broken.

“Okay, but I think we should wait until afternoon tea with your godfather. I have a general idea of why he thinks I have it in for him, but Snape is the one who knows the facts behind his reasoning. I don’t know how serious of a threat Lucius actually considers me or if it’s just a suspicion.”

There, that gave him a legitimate excuse to delay the discussion, although it would no doubt make Draco even angrier at him later. He was looking more than a little peeved already, but a look from Hermione made him drop the discussion for now. Like Harry, they too needed to gather their thoughts so that when the time for answers came they would know what questions to ask.

Thursday morning, Draco and Hermione were still annoyed with him, but that was to be expected. At least they weren’t tossing hexes at him. The giddiness that had plagued him had dissipated completely even if the aggravating feeling of having forgotten something had not. He was learning to live with it. For the first time in a long time, things felt… normal. Manageable. Once he sorted things out with Lucius Malfoy, all his major problems would be settled and he could once again start looking ahead to the future rather than trying to keep the present from falling down around him.

And despite his friends’ concern, he didn’t think it would be difficult to work things out with Lucius. Once his curse was lifted, he would be thinking more clearly and realize Harry had no real reason to want him dead.

But that was something that he would start worrying about on Friday, after the curse was broken. For now, he was happy to just wallow in this feeling of… well… happiness. And today, the universe was accommodating him, irritated best friends aside.

“You are such a geek,” Natalie accused as she followed him up to the Astronomy Tower from the Great Hall. No doubt there were would whispers around the school of a secret tryst by lunch.

“How am I a geek?” he asked. He couldn’t help but smile even though he could practically feel her scowling at him.

“No one should be this happy about receiving mail from five-year-olds.”

“For your information, Alyssa is ten and Morgana is eight. Besides, something from their fathers is probably included as well.”

“And that’s a reason to be happy, why?”

“It’s like getting a letter from relatives. Ones I actually like, and who like me back.”

She remained silent for a moment.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re still a geek.”

He didn’t bother arguing with her. They reached the Astronomy Tower and ducked inside. There was a sentry stationed there like always but the Sentinel was happy enough to give them privacy so that she could warm up in the castle interior. The tower was still cold, but most of the glass had been replaced and blocked out the worst of the wind. He cast a warming charm on Natalie and then himself. She looked startled, then pleased at his consideration. Her tone was less antagonistic afterward.

“So what did they say? And why did it warrant a trip all the way up here? The Great Hall is warmer.”

“I don’t open my mail in there anymore. People are always trying to read over my shoulder or pestering me about what I received. It’s really annoying.” Not to mention risky.

“Ah… should I go then?” she asked neutrally. He smiled at her.

“You’re not ‘people’, Natalie. You’re much too clever to be lumped with the masses,” he replied with a wicked smile. One she returned.

“I don’t know what Snape did exactly, but perhaps it wasn’t as bad as I had thought.”

“Why do all your compliments have to be double-edged?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just ambiguous.”

Harry snorted. Aside from Lord Voldemort, Natalie was the most self-certain person he knew. More than her soft, blond hair or her full Cupid’s bow lips, it was what had made her so attractive to him in the first place. Whoever had gotten the idea that Slytherins were cowardly had never met a Slytherin like her. Before he had panicked and pushed her away, he had believed she was the one person who would never be afraid of him or the life he lived. She had never shied away from him, never judged him for his misadventures and eccentricities. Even now, the more intense and strange his life became the less inclined she seemed to be to walk away.

The realization that he was alone with her suddenly struck him. She was standing next to him, smiling at him, almost touching. He could kiss her, he realized, and she would let him. He suspected she wanted him to. She had never had a boyfriend after him and had never shown interest in anyone else. She had turned him down when he had attempted to make up the first time, but even he had to admit he hadn’t been ready to open up to her the way she deserved.

Was he any more prepared now? He didn’t know, but he wanted to. He wanted to if only so he could kiss her lips and stroke the soft skin of her arms, her hips, her…

He quickly turned his attention back to his letter. He prayed to Madris that she hadn’t caught him ogling her, or if she had she would the decency not to call him on it. She wasn’t usually the type to cut him any slack regardless of teenage hormones.

It took him a few moments of blankly staring at the letter in front of him before anything resembling comprehension seeped in, but when it did he was pleased amusement quickly replaced arousal. Alyssa and Morgana were excited to tell him about a school trip to a dragon sanctuary and the meeting of Hagrid, who had said they were friends. They were very taken with the half-giant and thought Harry had some of the coolest friends in the world. On the back of the letter was a rather impressive picture of Hagrid throwing dead chickens at a juvenile Chinese Red, while Alyssa and Morgana stood smiling nearby and the rest of their class ran away in terror. Harry could very easily imagine just such a scene playing out where the dragon-loving man was concerned.

Natalie moved to look over his shoulder, her hand pressing lightly against him. She let out a laugh, and he felt himself flush at her proximity. She was making it very difficult to concentrate.

As he had suspected, included in the envelope was a letter from the girls’ fathers. Or at least Kyle, the one who wasn’t bound under attorney-client privilege. It was considerably longer than his daughters’ letter, and went into several different subjects; the trials and benefits of country living, how the girls were doing in school, holiday plans, hopes that he was doing well and would come visit soon, and congratulations for somehow outwitting Lucius Malfoy, and a request for a detailed explanation of how he did so.

Harry smiled. So Malfoy had already called off the proposal, even before he had been cured. That was a good sign. Perhaps he was already reconsidering Harry’s involvement in the curse, or else hadn’t been as convinced as he had let on. He told Natalie the betrothal was already broken.

“So it would seem all this planning was for nothing,” she said, sounding genuinely disappointed.

“I wouldn’t say that. Just because this betrothal’s broken, doesn’t mean Hermione’s going to want to stick around waiting for his next attempt to ruin her life. She might still want to be emancipated.”

“But Snape probably won’t go for it if there isn’t an immediate threat.”

“Well, then, Snape doesn’t have to know we’re going to go ahead with it anyway,” he pointed out. That thought made him feel rather guilty, but he no more thought Snape had no more right to rule Hermione’s life than Lucius did. Hermione’s life was Hermione’s life. She was smart and capable. Left to her own devices, she could turn herself into something truly great.

Thoughts of Hermione were quickly banished when Natalie suddenly leaned forward and kissed his cheek. His ears were instantly burning, and the confused and embarrassed look he gave the girl was met with one of devious glee.

“I loveit when you’re conniving.”

She hurried towards the door, while Harry remained rooted to the spot.

“Aren’t you coming? We should tell Hermione immediately. You know how she feels about procrastination,” she said, her tone touched with irony.

“Er… yeah, you go on ahead and tell her. I’m going to write a reply to the letter.”

“You’re going to be late for class.”

“I have art next. The teacher doesn’t care if I’m late as long as I get my assignments completed.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Alright, suit yourself.”

She closed the doors, and he let out the breath he had been holding. That girl was going to be the death of him one day.

“You know, if she didn’t frighten me so much, I might actually like that girl.”

Harry looked up into the support beams to see Bobby looking down at him. He felt another flush of embarrassment. Oh, Merlin, he had nearly started snogging with Natalie in front of his brother. Ugh.

“Hey,” he greeted, trying nonchalant. “Where have you been?”

“Exploring, of course. It’s in my nature, and this is one of the most magical places in all the mortal realms.”

“And did you find anything interesting?”

“Absolutely, but perhaps nothing you don’t know about yourself.”

“Just try to avoid the Chamber of Secrets. There’s a basilisk in there.”

“Not to mention the killer tree on the lawn.”

“The Whomping Willow? Pfft. We used to play around with it when the weather was good. Back when they let out on the grounds, that is.”

“It’s a wonder any of the students survive to graduation here.”

“It’s wonderful preparation for the real world. How are you feeling? You look… healthier than when I last saw you.”

He fluffed his feathers and started to preen.

“Much better, thank you. You look to be in better spirits as well. Did something happen after I left you with the headmaster?” Although he had been keeping a close eye on his reincarnated brother, he could detect nothing amiss.

Harry told him what he could remember of his visit with Snape, how he had already known some great secret and how to protect him, Snape had hidden the secret so that Harry himself could not remember it, yet could still draw it up with the use of the pensieve. Bobby didn’t know whether to be horrified or relieved. It seemed they had an ally in the formidable Severus Snape and for now he thought it best to go along with his plan. And yet, could the headmaster be entirely trusted? He was protecting Harry’s secret, but for what reason? And how far would such loyalty extend?

He would have to keep a close watch on the man.

In the meantime, however, he saw no reason to ruin the young wizard’s good humor with these foreboding thoughts. He had been so depressed before, and that sort of malaise could rob one of their quick thinking and motivation. Neither of which someone in Harry’s position could afford to. Letting the young wizard stumble around in ignorance wasn’t ideal, but it was definitely safer.

For now.

Viktor scanned the headlines of the papers resting inside the newspaper stand, heedless of the cold rain seeping into the thick wool of his cloak as he read one cover after another. Despite boasting over twenty titles, three in different languages and half originating from somewhere other than Paris, a majority of them involved the same story: Voldemort’s sudden public reappearance in Britain after his disappearance from Germany and voluntary isolation on his estate, appearing none the worse for wear. There were a hundred theories regarding his withdrawal from the fighting, the possible consequences of this ill-timed retreat, and what it meant for him to suddenly reappear. Some said he had been savagely injured, others that he had chickened out, and still others agreed with the official story that General Malfoy had fallen gravely ill and his duties required the Dark Lord’s attention. There were stories circulating that the Dark Lord was either dead or still very ill and the man seen in public was an imposter using Polyjuice, that the Polish mercenaries had somehow offended him or were so incompetent that he had abandoned them, and even that he left to foil an attempted coup d’état by Malfoy himself. There were even rumors that Harry Potter had gone to visit Voldemort on his sick bed, the possibility of death had been so narrowly avoided.

Whatever the reason, it was clear to Viktor that the people of France were unhealthily obsessed with a leader of a nation not their own. Obsessed enough that, even as a vampire standing so boldly out in the open, customers still braved his dangerous scrutiny to purchase print after print of the rubbish from a rather harried-looking vendor. Not to mention the rain.

“Looking for some light reading?”

Viktor didn’t even turn to acknowledge Goethe as he sidled up behind. The rain above him suddenly ceased, and he knew his insufferable companion carried an umbrella. He glanced up and wasn’t surprised to find it was blue with yellow duckies on it. He really hated Goethe.

“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” the other vampire continued, ignoring his Master’s silence. “These mortal curiosities? So tedious and petty. Almost morbid.”

“Are vampire concerns so much better? We are entirely selfish,” Viktor pointed out. Goethe chuckled.

“Absolutely. Vampires are only concerned with things that affect them. But doesn’t such selfishness speak of a lack of pretentiousness?”

“I fail to see how one vice exchanged for another makes us in anyway superior.”

“Even if you feel it does.”

Viktor closed his eyes and took a breath he didn’t need. Trust this savage clown to lay open his carefully hidden vulnerabilities with a twisted joke. He did feel superior to humans, wizarding and muggle alike. Ever since he had been turned, he had felt a slowly descending contempt for the mortals that surrounded him and the man that he had been. It all seemed so stupid to him now, his life wasted following the guidance of an old man at war with yet another old man over things that had always been and always would be.

But it was a delusion. An innate psychology all vampires were born into. They were convinced of their own superiority, because to kill an equal in their need for sustenance would inevitably lead to guilt, insanity, or sociopathy. It was a daily struggle to remind himself that he, even as he was now more than he had been, was also less. There were things in his life he would get to see and do and understand that his mortal self never would have, but a terrible price had been exacted for it.

A thousand sensual and spiritual pleasures and knowledge lost. Food, drink, and sunlight were only the most obvious, but not necessarily enough to lure most away from immortality. Magic was lost to him as well, a million doors now closed to him. All the various pleasures and cruelties of aging and the curious rituals that marked the passage of time; birthdays and Christmases and family vacations. A thousand others things, small and sublime and now unreachable. Gone and gone, and he didn’t even have enough of his soul left to miss them.

“You did not come to ramble philosophy at me, Goethe. What do you want?”

“I came to warn you. Several of your minions have been followed recently. I’ve observed it myself.”

Viktor turned his attention back to the newspapers, searching for anything in the sea of words not having to do with the Dark Lord.

“The Master of the City is just making himself a nuisance. Tell them to be cautious but ignore them.”

“The Masteris making himself a nuisance, but it is not simply his people he has sent out to follow us.”

Reluctantly, he drew his attention back to the other vampire.

“They were French Aurors,” Goethe clarified once he knew he had the other’s attention. “Perhaps even a Musketeer, I am not certain. It seems you’ve become a threat he can’t ignore and he has sought out allies against you.”

Viktor sighed. He had figured something like this would happen, but he hadn’t anticipated the Master of the City involving mortals.

“Have they found our lair?”

“I don’t believe so, but there’s no way to be certain.”

“We will move tonight then. Tomorrow, I’ll see what I can do about the aurors.”

“As you wish, Master.”

Goethe turned to go, but when Viktor didn’t follow he paused and looked back. His young Master was once again looking at the newspapers, or rather at the various witches and wizards purchasing them and their eager, intent faces as they perused their contents. He touched his shoulder.

“It’s no longer your responsibility to save them, Viktor.”

The body under his hand tensed, and Goethe wondered if he wasn’t about to be struck. It wouldn’t be the first time his masters had taken their frustration out on him, but Viktor was exceptional in his self-control. It had become a game of his over the centuries to see how close to the edge he could push things with his masters before stepping back. But he never knew when he was approaching the line that was not to be crossed with Viktor until he had already stepped over it. It made things deliciously exciting.

His master did not strike him, however. He merely turned around and walked past his elder minion. After a moment of curious study, Goethe grinned and followed, abandoning his ridiculous umbrella in the gutter.

Friday morning, Harry and Ron were in the greenhouse working to tidy the space. They had skipped dinner the night before and breakfast that morning, the spell requiring a brief fast. Ron, who was not used to fasting, however briefly, had not taken to it well.

“God, I’m starving,” he whined for the thirtieth time in the last hour.

Harry was unsympathetic. He was also hungry, but he had learned not to be overly distressed by the sensation.

“Less complaining, more working.”

“Can’t I have just a little-”

“No. You can drink sugar-water for energy and to keep hydrated, but that’s it. The sooner we get done, the sooner we can eat.”

“Do we really have to clean the entire greenhouse before we do this? And why are you planting those anyway? What does that have to do with curse-breaking?”

“Ron, just SHUT UP! You fucked up your spell, and I’m fixing it. So stop whining, asking questions, and generally pissing me off.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do that? My existence pisses you off!”

“That’s a question! Go over there and clean the cobwebs out of the corners.”

The petulant Slytherin grumbled but did as he was told. Harry turned away to hide a grin. Truthfully, cleaning the greenhouse had absolutely nothing to do with the ritual. They could have done it in a landfill with equal effectiveness. However, Harry had seen the benefit of squeezing some extra work out of Ron. Since no one really used the greenhouse except Harry himself and occasionally Professor Sprout, it had been steadily falling into neglect. Inana was becoming temperamental about it, and Professor Sprout had insinuated responsibility in the upkeep of the enclosure she had rather generously offered him also belonged to him. So the greenhouse got cleaned, Harry only had to do half the work and he got to torment Ron a little in the process. Not exactly a Gryffindor way of handling things, but hardly unfair under the circumstances.

They worked quietly for a few more minutes. Inana slithered by, gracing him with a few words of approval and a ‘you missed a spot’, before moving imperiously towards her freshly dusted basket where she could oversee their progress with regal disinterest.

“So…” Ron started. Harry sighed audibly but let him continue. “How is Hermione’s betrothal thing working out? You manage to get it called off yet?”

He paused midway through covering a young mulberry sprout with fresh potting soil and considered if he should answer. He decided he shouldn’t discourage Ron’s very few moments of unselfishness.

“We managed to get it called off, but I wouldn’t call the situation settled. Actually, it was the curse that made it possible. I exchanged the cure for her release from the contract.”

“Really?” Ron sounded rather pleased. “So it wasn’t for nothing after all.”

Harry’s knee-jerk response was to yell at him again, but then realized in a twisted way the words displayed a genuine concern for Hermione. Perhaps the Slytherin deviant didn’t value her happiness as much as his revenge, but he did value it enough for it to be considered a consolation prize. He still had no intention of telling Ron about Hermione’s emancipation. He honestly didn’t want the other boy involved, even if it were as an ally, but more importantly he didn’t want to make the decision without Hermione’s approval. He had decided that from here on out, it would be her decisions that determined who was involved and what was done about the emancipation and anything relating to her life thereafter.

“I guess not.”

“So… do you think it’s enough to make her forgive me?”

Harry snorted.

“And reveal that you’re a would-be murderer? Hardly your most attractive feature, Weasley. Not to mention Draco would consider it a point of honor to throw you from a tower window.”

“He’d try you mean, but fine, so that won’t work. So what should I do?”

“I believe I’ve already suggested public self-humiliation.”

“…”

“Or you could just grovel. Eventually she may become annoyed enough to forgive you just to make you stop.”

“… I could probably do that.”

Harry didn’t comment, and continued to finish up his chore. Ron wasn’t all bad, but he certainly wasn’t up to the standard of what Hermione deserved. If his best friend wanted to forgive the idiot then that was her business, but he hoped she had seen what everyone else had known all along and given up on him.

“Alright,” he said, changing the subject, “I think that will do it. Let’s move that table out of the way and I can start with the ward.”

After that, not much more was said. Harry needed to concentrate on the ritual, and Ron wasn’t about to sabotage his own self-interests. And really, it was interesting enough to watch that the need to ask questions or complain all but vanished. Ron had believed his attempt at the curse had been very impressive, and it was only the fatal error of letting the sacrificial cat escape that had ruined the spell. Now, watching Potter, he knew he had been completely and utterly inept from beginning to end. Where his ritual diagram had taken nearly an hour and still only been a close approximation to the illustration in the book, Harry knew magical and mundane techniques to draw extremely complicated images perfectly and in only a few minutes so that they appeared beautiful works of art. Where Ron had followed each step exactly, reading one instruction after another as if from a potion’s book, Harry knew the spell by heart and did not stop to reference the book even once. In fact, he knew so much about the ritual, he was able to alter it somewhat to better suit his intention. He knew exactly what words to speak, in what cadence, and with perfect pronunciation.

The more Ron watched, the more like a fool he felt. How could have he thought himself equal to this? How had Harry learned it so quickly? Surely it wasn’t something mastered in just a few short years, with irregular study and only one inconsistent teacher? Could what he was seeing, what impressed him so much, be the work of an apprentice, as far from the skill and the competence of a master as his own attempts had been from Harry’s?

“Take off your shirt, Ron, and lay down in the circle, your head towards me and your arms pointing towards the blood root.”

He did as he was told, but a sense of uneasiness overcame him. He had read the ritual a few times, and though he couldn’t say he had memorized it, he knew this wasn’t part of the process.

“Er… what are you doing?” he couldn’t help but ask, even as he obeyed. The lines of chalk and charcoal that composed the ward were hot again his skin, and the air was thickening with fragrant smoke as the herbs smoldered in their earthen bowls. He felt himself start to sweat and shiver at the same time.

“You know the breaking of this ritual requires another sacrifice?” Harry explained, his face completely blank and unyielding. Ron immediately tried to sit up, but found he couldn’t. He tried to scream, but Harry’s hand covered his mouth, muffling his cries. “If you had performed the ritual properly, the curse would be anchored in the cat you intended to use. Once the curse had been fully executed, the cat would have died. To break the curse early, you merely would have had to kill the cat and the curse… it just would have gone with the cat. However, since the curse is now anchored in you,that creates something of a dilemma. Stop screaming, I’m not going to kill you. Idiot.”

The familiar endearment silenced Ron.

“We’ll just have to untether the curse from you. A little more complicated, and a lot more painful for you, I’m afraid. Sorry. Don’t panic. There shouldn’t be any permanent damage… at least, I don’t think so.”

Harry removed his hand, and Ron gasped for air.

“Jesus, Mary, and Merlin, Potter, what are you going to do?”

The insane young wizard began checking his pockets, searching for something. A minute later he seemed to have found it, and pulled out a pendulum. The silver cone dangled from a delicate silver chain, swinging from side to side. Ron had seen them before, even used a few in Curse Breaking. They were used to detect strong concentrations of magical energy.

“First? I need to find where in your body the curse is anchored. It’s probably spread because of how long it’s been left unattended, but it should still be concentrated around one chakra point in particular.”

“Chakra point? What the hell is a chakra point?”

“Now is not the time for lessons in magic. Quiet please, I need to concentrate. Trust me when I tell you, you’re not going to want me to have to do this twice.”

Ron gulped but did as instructed. His shaking was becoming worse.

Harry moved up and down his body, dangling the pendulum. Ron could not see it from his prone position but eventually Harry settled back towards his head.

“It seems to be concentrated in the Vishuddha, the throat chakra point.”

“Okay, is that good?”

“Considering I thought it would be in the Swadhisthana[1], then yes, I suppose you could call it ‘good’. At least, it’s a lot less awkward.”

“Fuck, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Just get it over with!”

“Yes,” he agreed, although suddenly he looked hesitant. “Yes,” he repeated, as if to convince himself. He stood and retrieved two of the bowls of burning herbs, snuffing out the flames by pressing the bowls together so that their contents mixed and quickly smothered each other. Ron watched as he poured the herbs into a mortar resting on the table they had moved, and then crushed the remaining brittle timbers into ash with a pestle. He returned to him, sticking his thumb into the ashes and rubbing them over Ron’s throat. There was a strange tingling sensation, and he began to shake so harshly it seemed as if he were having convulsions.

“Merlin, Potter, hurry up.”

He didn’t know how much more of this he could take.

He regretted his haste, however, when the next item Harry pulled out the knife. A long, slender blade he had seen Harry use once before. A sacrificial blade.

“W-what are you go-going to do with th-that?”

He received no reply. Harry wasn’t listening anymore. He had begun chanting softly, in a language that seemed almost familiar and yet not. Whatever it was, it wasn’t Latin. Ron didn’t know how long it all lasted, but he could feel something happening around him. The ward was scorching against his skull, and the tingling in his throat had spread. Words, even screams, suddenly became impossible as his trembling turned into true seizures and he lost control of his body. Harry left for a moment, only to return with a stick to place between his teeth so Ron didn’t bite off his own tongue, but then continued chanting.

By now, even Harry was starting to tremble and sweat and the fear Ron had been feeling was becoming a full blown terror. What was happening? Was it going right or wrong? What was he going to do? He’d been promised pain.

Harry’s left hand went to his throat and holding it firmly, he leveled the blade directly above his spread fingers. Oh, God, he was going to stab him in the neck!

He had barely a moment to contemplate his own bloody, meaningless death when the blade suddenly slid home.

There was an instant feeling of pain, but it was not the pain of being stabbed. It was as if his skin had suddenly dried out and shrank around him, crushing his insides until they threaten to tear him open from the inside and push themselves out. It lasted for only seconds, although it could have been hours for all Ron would have known, and then it all changed and he felt as if someone had thrown ice water over him. The shock alone sent him into unconsciousness.

When he woke next, he was still in the greenhouse, although he had been laid out on a table and his school robe draped over him for warmth. There was a sense of disorientation, and yet he could tell something was different. Something important. He took a deep breath and realized what it was.

He felt clean. Not well, as he was exhausted and sore and his eyes stung, but still somehow better than he had been in months. The burning sage had nothing on this. He took another deep breath, savored it, and let it go.

The curse was broken.

He opened his eyes and flinched against the sunlight streaming down from above, then closing them again. He opted instead to listen, and once he tried he could make out voices. One of them was Harry and other was… Snape.

Shit.

“So it’s over?” the headmaster was asking. “General Malfoy will recover?”

“Yes, he should be fine,” Harry said, his voice hoarse and laced with exhaustion. “It may take a while for the lei lines around him to return to normal. I should probably run a few tests during the holiday break to make sure they’re progressing as they should, but he shouldn’t be in danger of dying anymore. The worst of his symptoms should be gone by tonight.”

“Hhmmm… I will bring him a tonic. It would be best if he didn’t question the method behind your curse-breaking too closely.”

“What if he tests the potion and finds out it’s bogus?”

“I will simply instruct him to drink it immediately, as the active ingredients become inert after a short period of time. He will not have the time to summon someone and test its contents. Nor would he risk insulting me by doing so in my presence.”

There was a long silence after that. One Ron had no intention of breaking. He rather hoped Snape would leave now rather than force an awkward confrontation between them.

“Do you need medical assistance?” the headmaster asked after a moment.

“No, I’m okay. Ron too. Just tired. If you could have one of the house elves bring us something to eat and a pepper-up potion, we should be fine.”

“I doubt pepper-up is going to cut it in this case, Mr. Potter.”

“No, but it’ll be enough to get us to our dormitories, through a quick shower, and into bed, I think. We need rest more than anything.”

“Very well, I will see you are not disturbed.”

“Thank you, sir.” There was silence, and then Harry spoke again. “You can open your eyes now. He’s gone.”

Ron did so, turning his head towards the other boy. He looked almost as bad as Ron felt. Pale, sweaty, and wilted. Ron tried to sit up, but quickly found it took too much effort and caused too much pain to do so. How was he supposed to get back to his dorm like this?

“You stabbed me in the neck,” he said.

“You’re welcome.”

“In the neck! What the fuck, Potter?”

Despite his exhaustion, Harry actually laughed a little at that.

“Have you always been such a crybaby?”

Ron laughed too, although it wasn’t really that funny, but once they had started neither of them could stop. It was over. Finally, it was over.

Tom pored over file after file, leaning comfortably against Lucius Malfoy’s chair. With the general ‘indispose’, he had taken over many of the man’s responsibilities (not that he hadn’t been doing his job for him long before now) and he didn’t think it inappropriate to borrow the man’s work station too. Currently, he was sorting through a personnel shortage in managing a small but troublesome wizarding village twenty miles south of Hanover. It seemed rebels had managed to kill the Culties’ captain and his lieutenants, leaving the ranks in chaos and the threat of losing control of the village a palpable threat. He would need to find replacements from elsewhere in the ranks, people with talent and the necessary ruthlessness to quash the persistent insurrection. And that was only item #116 he had to deal with today.

He sighed, but it was not a sound of displeasure. Indeed, he was rather enjoying himself. While this was all a bit more bureaucratic of a method of controlling life and death, it nevertheless held its own sort of charm. From this office, and with only pen and paper, he could alter the course of thousands of lives. If he so chose, he could order an entire legion to its death or burn an entire city to the ground.

Not that he would. That would be wasteful. But it was nice to know he could if he really wanted to. There were other benefits as well. Without the general occupying the office, he now had full access to scores of files hitherto inaccessible and was making full use of the opportunity.

Sitting on the corner of his desk was a small mountain of dossiers of enemies and potential allies. Lucius, it seemed, had adhered to the philosophy of ‘know your enemy’ and then promptly assumed that included everyone in existence, living and dead, and it was proving very convenient for Tom. Lord Voldemort, Severus Snape, Seamus Morgan, Albus Dumbledore… their lives, their ambitions, failures and vulnerabilities laid out in neatly typed black and white. And Harry Potter’s too, although his file was disappointingly incomplete, even more so than Lord Voldemort’s spotty record.

Well, it was better he learned about the boy first hand than from Lucius’ ignorant and biased little spies anyway.

As he started narrowing down the list of applicants to replace the deceased captain, a disturbance started outside his door. The receptionist was protesting loudly, and there sounded like a scuffle. Tom quickly banished the files he took personal interest in from the desk. He doubted he would have enough time to clear off everything and move back to his own work space, but using his superior officer’s desk was merely an impertinent indulgence where as looking through files he had no business with could easily be viewed as treason.

He half expected Lucius to come storming through the door in one of his mad rampages, possibly drunk and insensible. That was impossible, of course. His poisonings, on top of Voldemort’s curses, should have ensured Lucius never left his sick bed alive. What he got, however, was a tall, skinny gentleman with straw-colored hair and eyes simultaneously playful and cruel.

“Lord Crouch,” Tom greeted cautiously, scanning the room quickly to make sure he had not left out anything valuable that could be filched. Bartemius Crouch was head of the Court of Foreign Intelligence Department. Despite its name, the CoFID spent most of its time and resources gathering information on domestic threats rather than foreign ones, and Crouch wasn’t above getting his hands dirty to do so. Malfoy and he had been playing games of intelligence and counter-intelligence, sabotage, and one-upmanship against each other for years.

His presence here, in the heart of his rival’s stronghold, did not bode well. He must have sensed blood in the water.

“Lt. Stratus. No need to get up on my account, Old Boy,” the wizard said pleasantly. “You looked so comfortable sitting there.”

“Is there something I can do for you, sir?” he asked. He did not sit down, despite Crouch quickly making himself comfortable in a guest chair across from him. “I am afraid General Malfoy is on sick leave, and I don’t know when he will be back.”

“I imagine he’ll be back in the next thirty minutes or so,” he replied pleasantly, practically grinning, in fact. Tom stiffened. What did he mean by that?

“Then by all means, you are welcome to wait for him. I can have the receptionist fetch you some tea if you like,” he offered and very carefully began to clean off his desk. Perhaps Crouch was teasing him, but he would rather be safe than sorry.

Crouch chuckled, a grating, high-pitched sound. “That’s very considerate of you, but your receptionist is enjoying some fresh air and I did not come here to speak with Lucius. You see, I just spoke with him a few minutes ago.”

Tom frowned. How was that possible? Had Lucius somehow discovered his condition and counteracted it? No, that was impossible. He had been subtle, and even if he hadn’t had time to dose the general recently, he had already been declining rapidly. He shouldn’t have needed to do anything further. Not unless Voldemort had noticed and chosen to interfere, which seemed unlikely given recent events.

“Does that disturb you for some reason?” Crouch asked innocently. Tom looked at him cautiously, keeping his mind carefully shielded. He was clearly up to something.

“Of course I am disturbed. General Malfoy should be recovering at home. He was still very ill last time I saw him,” he said shortly, intending his annoyance to be taken for genuine concern.

Crouch’s grin grew even wider and he gave him a little applause.

“Encore, encore! A masterful performance. You could have had a career in theatre… or the CoFID for that matter. Although, if you had tried to kill me I would have had you skinned alive and drowned in lemon juice.”

“E-excuse me?”

This was not good. Of all the possible people to discover the truth, Bartemius Crouch was the one he least wanted to know, just after Lord Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy himself of course. But no, it was too early to be sure. He might just suspect it, and was trying to trick him into a confession. It was a common enough trick.

“Now, now, no need to be coy. I can hardly blame you for wanting the man dead. He must be an absolute bear to work for.”

“I am afraid I have no idea what you are referring to, and I resent the insinuation. Please leave.”

“You know, I can almostsee how he would have overlooked you. You’re very convincing. Very earnest. But you know what your mistake was? You didn’t let him suspect you. Not even a little. I mean, he knew he was sick. He saw plenty of doctors. He knew he was being poisoned. He dismissed half a dozen receptionists and accused everyone from the lunch lady to the Dark Lord for having a hand in it. But not you. Why was that? I mean, you had access and opportunity. He barely knows you, why so much trust?”

So he didn’t have evidence. It was just the deductive reasoning of a sharp and twisted mind. That, and a legion of spies to feed his paranoia.

“I believe the thing missing would be motive, sir. And to my knowledge, General Malfoy has been under a lot of stress, but I would hardly call that the equivalent of poisoning. If you know something to the contrary you are obligated to report what you know immediately.”

“Yes, yes. Very good. Don’t worry; I have no intention of telling Lucius your little secret. Kill the bastard if you have your little black heart set on it. No one will be sorry to see the pompous ass go, but I would consider it a personal favor if you would make certain considerations before sending him to his untimely demise.”

Tom took a deep breath, adopting an attitude of long suffering.

“I am not poisoning General Malfoy and he is not going to die. Retire maybe, but not die.”

“Ah, so that is your objective? That’s… rather disappointing to be honest, but no matter. In the next few minutes, General Malfoy is going to walk in here and make you an offer. An offer I would be most appreciative if you accepted.”

“And what offer is that?” he asked disinterestedly. In truth, he was starting to become intrigued. He was going to have to kill Crouch regardless of what he said or did after this point, but it was not something he could do here and now. No doubt Crouch had told someone of his hypothesis in case something should happen to him. It might prove worthwhile to humor him for the time being.

“He’s going to ask you to marry his foster daughter, Hermione Granger of Malfoy. You know, the mudblood.”

Tom’s eyes widened. He didn’t even have to fake his surprise.

“I don’t… I am sorry, but… isn’t she your fiancé?”

“Not anymore, thank Merlin. Like I said, Lucius came to speak to me just a short while ago. He’s called off the engagement. Wouldn’t give a reason, but he hasn’t given up on the idea of marriage for her. He seemed to think you were somehow the more appropriate choice. I was almost offended.”

“… I am sorry, but you must be mistaken. You seem to be mistaken about a lot today, in fact. I’ve never even been introduced to Miss Granger, and I’ve expressed no interest to the General in seeking out a bride this early in my career.”

“My good man, don’t sell yourself short. You come from a long, somewhat spotted pureblood line. Respectable, if not necessarily wealthy or ambitious. You’re a rising star in the Culties but you can only go so far on such limited income and influence. Allying yourself with the Malfoys could certainly prove beneficial to you. Lucius might not care for the girl, but his wife and heir are quite fond of her, and then of course there is her friendship with Ambassador Potter. If you can stomach to marry the witch and keep her reasonably satisfied, you could find yourself in a very enviable position indeed.”

“And of course, you’d be most appreciative.”

“You catch on quickly. Very impressive for a Hufflepuff.”

“And what do you get out of this?”

“The satisfaction of knowing I helped talent find its way into the world.”

“You have wasted enough of my time as it is, sir, please do not waste anymore.”

He just grinned.

“I’m afraid we haven’t the time to discuss that now. Lucius will arrive at any moment and it’s best he not see us together. He might get the wrong impression.”

Or the right one, which is likely worse, Tom mused.

“We will talk again soon. After you’ve seen I have been honest with you. The Malfoy Christmas party perhaps?”

Tom acknowledged he would be there with a nod, but didn’t agree to speak with him. He would have to see how much of what Crouch said was true and how much a ruse to reveal his guilt before he would consider indulging him any further. While it was perfectly possible that Crouch would let him kill Lucius to further his own ambitions, it was equally possible would attempt to extract a life debt from the general by saving him from his would-be murderer. Even if Crouch knew for certain Stratus was guilty and still intended to let him get away with it, it would be for a price. Extortion in the form of money, knowledge from within the Culties, or any number of distasteful errands. Perhaps all of these things.

Without demonstrating any proof of the master spy’s suspicions, however, Tom suspected he was relatively safe for the time being.

“It’s been a delight speaking with you, Lieutenant. We should really do it more often. You have a nice afternoon,” Crouch said pleasantly, making his way towards the door. Tom walked him there, opening the door for him politely.

“Likewise,” he said blandly. “Good day.”

He barely gave the obnoxious man time enough to cross the threshold before he slammed the door behind him. He smirked. Despite not caring much for surprises, he had to admit that was interesting. Not interesting enough for him not to kill Crouch, but interesting enough to see how it would play out.

For the next couple of minutes, he spent his time moving files back to his work station and settling Malfoy’s desk back into order. He had just finished putting the borrowed dossiers back into their filing cabinet when the general came striding into the office.

“Where is that blasted receptionist, Stratus? Anyone could have walked in here,” he demanded.

“Cigarette break, sir,” he offered and put on a face of surprised pleasure. “It is good to see you back, General. I had not expected you to recover so quickly.”

This last part was entirely true, but he certainly wasn’t entirely pleased. The general still looked pale and wane, but his eyes were sharp and clear, blazing with a fierce energy he had exhibited before he had been subjected to dark magic. It seemed somehow and in some way, Malfoy had broken its hold on him. He would have to tread very carefully around the man from now on.

“I am not here for long, Stratus,” the man said, ignoring his pleasantries. “I have not been cleared for active duty yet, but there is something of a more… private nature I need to discuss with you.”

Tom blinked, feigning yet more surprise.

It would seem Bartemius Crouch had been honest about one thing at least.

Dumbledore remained silent as witches and wizards moved about, dishing out reports, theories, accusations, predictions, and rumors in a tumultuous chaos that these ‘tactical meetings’ had gradually spiraled into over the last month or so. The terse, military discipline and ambiguous jargon had given way to civilian passions and colloquialisms just as their military ranks had given way to the rough and rowdy civilian militias that had quickly become the major fighting forces across Germany.

Aurors, stretched too thin and pushed too far during the beginnings of the invasion, were dwindling now. Many were dead, but most abandoned their rank and its suicidally strict adherence to following orders and either disappeared completely or left to form the innumerable guerrilla factions scattered throughout Germany. Now the majority of the nation’s defense depended upon civilian volunteers. Uncoordinated, undisciplined, and often fighting with different end goals in mind, they were not as strong as was needed, but unlike their previous national defenders, they were not nearly as easily routed either.

Aurors were easy to spot. They were registered for Merlin’s sake, and since the invasion of Berlin their names and faces had been plastered across wanted posters and printed in military hit lists. Their tactics were known, predictable, and limited. Civilian rebels were harder to distinguish from the subdued civilians, and in fact these roles were often reversed in a single witch or wizard several times, sometimes multiple times a day. They spent their days running businesses, raising children, and going to school and their nights raiding enemy supply warehouses and ambushing patrols.

Dumbledore had done his best to bring the more productive of these rebel factions into these meetings, hoping to create a more unified defense against the enemy. They were nowhere near where they needed to be, but gradually leaders had begun to emerge with the will and ambition to see the war out to its conclusion and face the consequences, whatever they might be. His own role in these planning sessions had evolved from ringmaster to mediator and coordinator, ensuring cool heads prevailed where tempers were short and the pressure was high, but even here his interference was becoming less and less necessary.

“The Snake Bastard is gone for now, but he’ll be back!” a witch snarled. Her name was Stottenger, he recalled. She had been an auror-in-training before the war broke out and her mentor was killed in action. “There’s uncertainty in the British ranks and the Poles are still angry for the lack of explanation. We need to make some progress now before he can return to rally his forces again. Look how much damaged he did in the few weeks he was here! And he wasn’t even leading his own people! Just a bunch of stupid gypsies!”

“What do you want us to do, then?” another witched named Mencken asked sharply, her matronly features pinched and haughty. She had been a teacher at a finishing school of all places. Sometimes it showed at the most inopportune moments. “Where would you have us strike? We’ve got a line going from one end of the country to the other. Supposing we could gather the necessary numbers for a major offensive, we would essentially have to abandon the defense of the line and then what? They would simply push through where we’re most weakened.”

A burly, red-faced wizard interjected.

“We cannot stay as we are. The longer that line you speak of holds, the stronger the enemy defenses become and the harder it will be to oust them. Let them push the line! Stretch them as thin as we can, and then go back and tear them apart. Push them even further back than from where they progressed!”

“And let them raze every village and slaughter every muggleborn and halfblood they find in the meantime?” Mencken practically screeched in indignation.

Albus refrained from pointing out that there had been relatively little village burning (with a few notable exceptions) and little evidence that the Culties were targeting muggleborns and halfbloods. At least, they were not systematically butchering them as many assumed. It was true that this particular group had suffered the most during the invasion, but he suspected it had far more to do with their unfortunate tendency to live along the borders dividing wizarding and muggle parts of cities and towns, the first place the Culties set up their defenses to keep their battles and their enemies sequestered within. That, and their eagerness to escape occupied territories and to seek sanctuary within the homes of muggle relatives and friends often put them directly in the line of fire in their desperation to flee. It seemed an insignificant detail. He doubted the victims cared about the particulars behind their murders.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please settle down,” he finally interjected before things got out of hand. While there was not nearly as much hex-tossing as there had been a few months ago, he still had to keep on his toes. There was some grumbling, but the witches and wizards settled back to listen to him. He had lost some traction with the military for his inability to miraculously turn the tide of the war, but he maintained a modicum of respect for rallying Germany’s defenses when the Dark Lord and his Culties had seemed unstoppable in their relentless march across the country. “We all want to take advantage of this brief turn of fortune. It cannot last for long. Already, the Dark Lord has returned to the public eye, and whatever drew him away in the first place seems to have passed.”

He was not the only one deeply intrigued with the possible reasons behind said disappearance.

“Your plans and observations each have merit. Your eagerness and your caution respectively do you all credit. Every action we take leaves us in some way vulnerable, and yet we cannot avoid taking action without losing something in the process. We are faced with terrible questions. What are we willing to sacrifice for victory? And how great of a victory must we attain for that sacrifice to be worth the cost?”

“Enough with your sentiment, Dumbledore,” the wizard said impatiently. “If you have an idea about what to do, just say it already.”

Rather than get defensive, the elder wizard merely nodded and gesture to a guard at the door, who moved to open it.

“If you will pardon my presumption, I’ve taken the liberty of inviting a guest. Someone who has firsthand understanding of what I intend.”

There were murmurs of confusions, which soon fell into a stunned silence as his ‘guest’ limped through the door, leaning heavily on a cane. He was uniformed, this in and of itself an oddity since they had all foregone the use of such things from nearly the beginning, but more significantly was that it was readily recognizable as Italian. The wizard himself, a middle-aged man, bore a proud and regal posture despite his heavy limp and monstrous scar running the entire left side of his body and face. The scar had clearly been left as the result of a curse, and not one of the garden-variety hexes either but something truly diabolical. It was a cluster of hideous, red varicose veins that seemed to pulse in time to an unheard heartbeat and the longer one looked at it the more one got the impression that it was somehow growing. Mencken turned away with a shudder.

“This is Captain Mandrani. I am sure you are all familiar with the name.”

The silence suddenly burst into cries of excitement, confusion, and outrage. The Italian captain had stopped just short of the entrance and stood patiently and without expression at the chaos his presence had created. It was not unexpected. His name had become infamous, as had his spectacular failure in losing not only the Battle of Hogwarts but then London shortly after. Italy had retreated almost completely from the war because of it, ashamed for having their righteousness proven little more than foolish arrogance. Captain Mandrani had not been welcomed back to his homeland, and truthfully he had no intention of hiding behind his country’s borders while they built up their defenses in order to lock themselves into cages they built for themselves. He had made a mistake, some sort of wrongful assumption, and God had punished him for his arrogance.

But He had not killed him.

All his men, his soldiers, had been taken to the Kingdom, for despite their misunderstanding, they were true children of God. Of this, he had no doubt. Mandrani had been left behind, the sole survivor, and he knew there had to be a reason for this.

In the months it had taken him to recover… as much as he would ever recover, he had wondered what that reason was. Why he had been both punished and spared. He had prayed on it endlessly. He had written trusted colleagues and teachers, but none could offer him an explanation worth entertaining. It had not been until Dumbledore, a man he had been taught to regard as an only slightly lesser evil than the Dark Lord himself, had visited his hospital room and given his own theory that he had been able to see any sort of purpose to the continuation of his scarred and painful existence.

“Please allow me to explain.” Dumbledore’s voice broke through the ruckus, although he made no effort to raise his voice. The gathered witches and wizards settled back again, reluctantly, distrustfully. Italy had turned his back on Germany even as it had waged its war against Britain, and it was not a slight easily forgiven or forgotten. “Captain Mandrani is here upon my request. We have been in contact over the last several weeks and spoken extensively of his campaign in London and at Hogwarts. Despite having been forced out from London, it cannot be ignored that he and his people managed to take control and maintain their hold on the city for nearly three months. Something none of us here have had the ability to do ourselves.”

All settled back to listen. It was true. They were all so focused on ousting their enemies from their homeland, they had never attempted to use the same tactics against them. They had neither the resources nor the manpower to sustain such an effort. It was baffling to them how Britain, with its smaller population and fewer resources, had been so successful in doing so thus far.

Once Dumbledore was certain he had everyone’s attention, he gestured for Mandrani to speak.

“London was meaningless,” Mandrani stated plainly, startling his audience. “It was a meatless bone thrown to distract the wolves. We razed the city to the ground and the Dark Lord didn’t even blink. He knew it was a target from the beginning and had already been prepared to sacrifice it. He had emptied the city of its treasures and dispersed the government across the country… no, even before then it had ceased to be the true capital.”

There were was considerable skepticism in several faces at this, but others didn’t seem so certain.

“To be blunt, there is no long-term advantage of occupying any city in Britain. Its infrastructure is too dispersed, its resources too evenly distributed, and the population… unpredictable, to speak nothing of the proximity of the Dark Lord himself. Even the military headquarters in Bristol can be sacrificed if necessary, although the price would make it a Stygian victory at best. There is, in fact, only one target in all of Britain that might give the Dark Lord and his people pause.”

“You’re speaking of Hogwarts,” Mencken said evenly. “A target you failed to secure.”

“And the only target that truly motivated the Dark Lord to drive us out of Britain once and for all.”

Silence reigned for several minutes with the announcement of this singularly simple yet profound statement.

1. The Swadhisthana is ‘the Sacral Chakra’ point, which is located around the genitals. Harry thought this is where the curse would be concentrated because it is generally thought to be the area that governs, among various other things, violence.↩

Debts

Saturday morning tea was a predictably awkward and tense affair. Hermione and Draco were at their Malfoy best, theirexpressions bland with just a hint of aristocratic arrogance as they sat across the table from Snape and his icy stare. Harry and Ira weren’t as well-versed in the subtle art of ‘combat by silence’ and spent several minutes after the initial pleasantries (and he used that word lightly since Slytherins tended to make such a term ironic) fidgeting awkwardly and giving each other concerned looks.

No one had spoken in over five minutes. Only Harry had the nerve to actually take a sip of his tea. If nothing happened in another five minutes, he resolved to invite Ira to a game of cards.

Snape broke the silence first, closing his eyes and letting out a sigh. Harry wasn’t sure if this qualified as defeat in some sort of battle or if he had simple finished assessing the enemy’s strength… and wow he was being overdramatic.

“While I can appreciate your efforts to maintain some sort of control over the current situation,” Snape began, “and I agree emancipation is not without its merits, did you really believe that the singer of a rock band was the most appropriate choice of sponsorship?”

“Of course not,” Hermione said. If she felt in any way insulted she kept it carefully hidden. “You would have been the most appropriate choice, Uncle Severus, and I would have gladly come to you except that if I did and you had accepted there would have been a feud between Lucius and you. You already had enough to worry about.”

That was an understatement. Between trying to repair and keep Hogwarts running on limited resources, half-managing a town in the West wing of the castle, a new bride who was only now starting to pull herself out of a crippling depression, dealing with a half-crazed Lucius, and, of course, Harry’s inevitable misadventures, there was hardly enough time to sleep (and even here he was learning to function on a very minimal amount) let alone sort out someone else’s problems. Although he could have tried. He should have tried.

“And what about the feud you were creating between Lucius and yourself? Not to mention Narcissa. Could you not foresee the problems you were creating for yourself?” were creating for yourself, he said, because Snape didn’t know they still intended to go through with the emancipation. It wasn’t an error any of them intended to correct. “You are an extremely talented witch, but your brilliance lies in your intelligence and discipline towards your studies. In raw magical ability, you tested only a little above average, and if not for the Malfoy’s insistence to the contrary you would have been sent to Rookbridge. Narcissa is on the school board. If you offend her, she may request you be removed, and if that happens there isn’t going to be a school in all of Britain willing to risk the Malfoys’ wrath to take you in. Even if they do not insist on your removal from Hogwarts or I were in some way able to prevent it, there is still the matter of school supplies and boarding expenses. Have you thought about how you were going to pay for all of this? Scholarships are not plentiful these days.”

Hermione let out a sigh herself and took a sip of her tea. At her left, Draco gave her a reassuring look and squeezed her hand comfortingly. She spared him a smile before turning back to Snape.

“I understood from the beginning that I was going to create problems for myself. I knew I was risking my education here at Hogwarts and my chances of getting into a university here in Britain, but those were risks I was willing to take. If I were married to Crouch I would have been pulled from school anyway, and I doubt I would ever have been given the chance to finish my education or even to work. You are aware of his reputation?”

The grimace Snape let slip through suggested that he did, in fact, know Crouch’s reputation and probably a great deal more than was public knowledge.

“Then you know it would have been unsafe for me to marry him. Besides, I had considered what I would do. Scholarships are not plentiful, but they are still out there, and I think I have written applications for every single one currently in existence. If I had to switch schools, I was willing to do that. If I had to finish my schooling through independent study, my sponsor had agreed to let me stay at her London flat. I would have access to the library there, and there are tutors and correspondence courses. I would have made it work. They might keep me out of school, but they can’t stop me from taking the Newts.”

Snape could argue that. If Lucius felt vexed enough, he could find ways of preventing it. Or, more to his style, ruin her reputation by accusing her of cheating or bribing someone to alter her test results. It didn’t really matter. She had made her point with Crouch. Anything would have been better than being forced to put her future in his hands.

He had another point to make, however.

“And Narcissa? She wouldn’t understand why you had done this. Have you even tried to make her understand? She loves you, my dear. She would not have allowed you to be miserable.”

Hermione’s neutral expression suddenly twisted into anger.

“She’s done nothing to stop it in the last twelve years.”

“Hermione!” Draco objected, “What is that supposed to mean?”

“What do you think it means? Do you really think she loves me? Sure, I suppose she does, but its not the same way she loves you. She loves you like a son. She loves me like a pet poodle.”

Snape and Draco were looking at her now with something akin to genuine horror. Hadn’t they realized? Even the few times he had seen Narcissa and Hermione together, he had caught on that the Malfoy matriarch’s affection was of a condescending kind. She cared about Hermione, just not about what her adopted daughter thought or felt.

“That, young lady, was entirely uncalled for. Narcissa has never been anything but generous with you.”

“Except when she thought to marry me off to a known muggleborn hater?”

“Whatever her faulty reason for that, there was no malice-”

“Was I supposed to just smile and nod my way into the Crouch marriage bed just so I didn’t hurt her feelings?” she practically shouted. Things were getting out of hand. They had come here to give explanations and come to an understanding, not to open up Hermione’s emotional wounds and insecurities. Not to offend Draco, who had never seen anything in his mother’s behavior beyond the same expressions of affection and attachment he felt himself. Not to anger Snape and his belief that parents should be respected and appreciated for the guidance they provided a child rather than the depth of their affections. Guidance which he felt Narcissa had done a masterful job of until her most recent lapse in judgment.

“You ungrateful-” Snape began. Already Harry felt his own anger rising to meet his and he prepared himself to defend Hermione from a completely unfair chastisement. He was just about to rise from his chair, but Ira surprised them all by beating them to it. She rose and moved around the table, away from Snape and around Draco, and finally knelt beside Hermione’s chair.

Hermione looked as shocked as anyone to see her there with tears in her eyes.

“It’s okay,” Ira said. “I know what it’s like. God, I know what it’s like more than anyone to have to go through what you did. That feeling of betrayal, as if all the love you thought was there was a ruse, just a scheme to placate you until their real plans for you came through. They made you feel less than human. They made you doubt yourself and your feelings about everything and everyone. It was terrifying, wasn’t it?”

Hermione made a choked sound but didn’t answer. Didn’t have to answer because Ira stood and pulled her into her arms, hugging her tightly. Without hesitating, Hermione hugged her back. She didn’t cry, not as far as anyone could see with her face buried in Ira’s bosom, but her grip on the other woman was so fierce, Harry was certain Ira would have bruises later. She didn’t seem to mind in the least. She just held her and stroked her hair, making soothing sounds and shot her husband a warning look over her shoulder.

Harry was rather embarrassed. Not so much for himself, but rather for Snape and Draco who looked genuinely mortified and, dare he say it, a bit ashamed? Certainly, Snape couldn’t go through with his intention to scold Hermione. Not unless he wanted to scold his own wife by proxy and over something she had far more understanding than he could ever claim to, and Harry didn’t see that going over well. Draco… well, Draco had always deemed the responsibility of comforting his adopted sister hisand his alone, despite her willingness to find reassurance elsewhere when necessary. That a relative stranger had so quickly and easily taken his post was rather shameful. Even if he were still smarting from the perceived insult to his mother.

“But you’re such a lucky girl,” Ira continued. “You had something I didn’t. You had friends and family who genuinely care about you and wanted you to be happy. You had the confidence to demand more than what was being offered you. You poor, brave creature. I don’t know if what you did was the right thing and I don’t know if it’s fair for you to judge Lady Malfoy so harshly, but I can say I genuinely admire you standing up for yourself. I believe, whatever happens now, you’ll be okay.”

Harry had always liked Ira. It was hard not to like someone so gentle and sweet, if overly timid and too easily impressed. After he learned more about her, he had admired her ability to quietly persevere against terrible circumstances without letting bitterness touch her. But it wasn’t until that day, with her ignoring every sense of propriety and her formidable husband’s personal opinion in order to comfort a girl she barely knew, that Harry felt such swell of deep affection for her.

Snape’s gentle cough interrupted the moment. Sort of. Hermione’s hold loosened and she lifted her head to look at her godfather over the woman’s shoulder but didn’t actually let go.

“I do not believe we will get any further on the subject tonight. It’s rather a moot point now and not worth arguing over. There’s no urgency. We will continue at another time.”

Draco objected. “Wait! What about my father thinking Harry’s trying to kill him? We haven’t talked about that!”

Ah, hell. For a moment, Harry had thought he had managed to dodge that hex.

“A change of subject then,” Snape agreed. “Your father’s paranoia is likely the result of the curse’s affect upon the mind and the curse’s unusually esoteric nature of which he assumed Harry was knowledgeable. However, the curse has been lifted and he is recovering swiftly. Now that he’s thinking rationally, I am sure he will see the error in logic of Mr. Potter attempting to kill him, particularly when his own efforts provided the cure.”

Draco gave his schoolmate a surprised looked. “Your efforts? What did you do?”

“Er…”

Snape smirked.

“You mean Mr. Potter has refrained from gloating? It was entirely through his own efforts that the cure was found. Although, I will confess my own hand in the actual brewing of the cure itself.”

“Potter, what is he talking about? How would you know…? You bastard! Why didn’t you tell me my father was cursed? What was he cursed with?”

“Er… Sorry. I didn’t want you to worry, especially since I didn’t know if the cure would work or not.”

For a moment, Harry was afraid Draco was going to pick up the tea pot and hurl it at his head.

“How long have you known? How did you find out?”

“Ah… when I went to Bristol to confront him about that attack on the werewolf village. He accused me of trying to kill him and told me about the curse.”

“And you didn’t think this was something you should have mentioned to me?”

“Um…”

“Potter, we’re going straight to the dueling platform after this.”

“Huh?”

“Shut up!”

That was pretty much how the rest of tea went. Snape providing well-scripted lies to all of Draco’s questions which served to reassure him of his father’s good health (relatively speaking) while stoking the flames of his ire towards Harry and resulting in several reiterations of ‘shut up, Potter’. This was just as well, because Harry’s usual cleverness had completely deserted him. Plus, as always, he was a terrible liar. He suspected his required muteness had somehow been planned by Snape. He wasn’t entirely sure whether he should thank him for it later or not.

Ira and Hermione moved off to a settee near the window, less interested in the conversation than they were in each other’s sympathy. It seemed Hermione had found a mentor in a completely unexpected place.

Harry suffered Draco’s annoyance for the better part of a week. He could not recall a time he had been so tense for so long within the school premises since the basilisk incident nor so paranoid about the possibility of attack. He had avoided several minor hexes in the corridors and a cursed plate in the Great Hall, not to mention a rather savage rivalry in the classroom that had him fearing for his chances of passing History of Magic and Arithmancy. While he didn’t think Draco would seriously hurt him intentionally, he had been around the Slytherin long enough to know that he could be rather careless with his magic when he was angry and accidents happened.

Hermione was not proving to be very helpful in deterring him either. While her annoyance with Harry for his secret-keeping had cooled somewhat, she was treating his situation as a learning experience and keeping well out of it. Harry could honestly state he had learned his lesson. He would be a much more considerate friend in the future and, of course, avoid letting Snape lie on his behalf in the future.

At the end of the week, Draco’s feud with him hadn’t ended so much as it was delayed. Christmas break had arrived. Harry said his goodbyes the night before and slept through the chaos and security nightmare that resulted from hundreds of students and their subsequent luggage being loaded onto Knight Buses- the Hogwarts Express had been forced to make its stopping point fifteen miles south in Wittenbiddy while the platform and tracks around Hogsmeade underwent repairs.

He woke up to Lord Voldemort hovering over him.

“Are you still sleeping, you lazy thing?” he asked, his crimson eyes bright with sinister amusement. Harry wondered for a split second if he had just let Nagini loose under his covers. Nothing slithered around his legs though so he simply yawned, stretched, and sat up.

“I wasn’t expecting company. You look well, my Lord.”

And he did. Voldemort looked completely recovered, in fact, and in surprisingly good spirits. He was dressed in a black woolen cloak with a green scarf and a black fedora. Clothes for traveling, and not all of it inside one of his heated cars or through his private floo into the headmaster’s office. His clothes were still lightly sprinkled with snow and his normally pale cheeks slightly flushed from the winter wind. Harry’s gaze inevitably found its way to Voldemort’s arm.

The one that shouldn’t have been there.

Voldemort caught his look and removed a glove in order to better lend itself to Harry’s inspection. Embarrassed and yet incredibly curious, he took the hand and studied it curiously. Then he quickly dropped it.

“It’s not your hand!”

“You spotted the difference that quickly? Very good. How could you tell? The magus hypersentia?”

Harry shook his head and unconsciously rubbed his hands against his blankets as if to wipe them clean.

“No. The magic is yours, but… it’s definitely not your hand. Yours are…”

Prettier? More elegant?

“Better taken care of,” he finished lamely.

“I’m flattered you noticed,” he replied mercilessly, chuckling at his protégé’s obvious embarrassment.

“Where did it come from?” he asked, because clearly it had belonged to someone.

“A prisoner. A dead prisoner,” he said, refraining from pointing out that said prisoner was dead after he had cut off his arm. One could never be certain where Harry’s sensitivities lay. “Anyway, I didn’t come here to regale you with this minor parlor trick. Get dressed. We’re going out.”

Harry stretched and climbed out of bed. He checked the wall clock. It read a quarter to ten. He felt smugly satisfied about that for some reason. When was the last time he had slept in while not horribly injured?

“Where are we going?” he asked as he searched through his drawers for something clean and relatively unwrinkled.

“London for shopping and lunch- a gesture of support for the community, you understand. Coventry to visit the military hospital. Maybe the history museum if there is time. Bristol for a press conference and to finish some unofficial business. Then to the lodge.”

The lodge could only mean the Sianach Lodge. The winter solstice was only three days away. He wondered what his mentor had in mind this year.

Harry spent the next three days running at Voldemort’s heels and trying to keep up. The first day, they had indeed gone to London, Bristol, and Coventry, but they had also stopped in Kent and Edinburgh and two small wizarding villages called Lotis Gringe and Pellisbery both in Wales. The next day it had been seven wizarding villages, back to Kent, Cardill in Wales, later Bristol again, then Aberdeen and Liverpool, and a very, very brief visit to Belfast. The third day had been spent in Bristol, but seemingly through the entirety of Bristol, from the military facilities to the textile mills to the community theater house.

This broad range of visitation was trumped by an even broader range of activities the Dark Lord had set out to accomplish.

There was shopping in London like he had said, but also in Coventry, Kent, and Cardill and they were followed doggedly (but at a respectful distance) by the press at every turn. Harry would have had no idea where to go in these places where there were innumerable shops but also innumerable ‘closed’ or ‘closed for repair’ signs, the economy having suffered after raids by the only recently ousted Italian army. Voldemort obviously knew where he was going, leading Harry purposefully from one shop to another, rarely stopping more than ten minutes while Harry could have spent hours in fruitless exploration. There were bookstores Voldemort practically ransacked (he had recently bought a new house and was working to fill the currently empty library), clothing stores that specialized in fur or leathers or the color black, art stores for moving portraits and statues, a clock and watch store that made him incredibly depressed about having left his pocket watch in Hausteheim, an art supply store he practically went mad in, furniture stores, candy stores, herbalists and apothecaries, an armory where he was fitted for new dueling protective gear and where Voldemort had the mithral sword taken from Hausteheim assessed for value by a goblin literally salivating over it. Then there were the restaurants and cafés. Harry was happy to discover at least one Chinese restaurant in Wizarding Great Britain.

The most interesting place they shopped was ‘The Shadow Store’, a book store dedicated solely to selling Books of Shadows, books filled with spells created and coveted by a single witch, wizard, or wizarding family and never passed on to any other. The dark little shop practically hummed with magic, and he ran his fingers over the glass cases and felt them tingle pleasantly. Voldemort took him to the back of the store first and showed him an enormous tapestry three stories high and nearly as wide. It contained the largest and most comprehensive family tree of wizarding kind going back three hundred years before Merlin himself. They spent nearly an hour there, locating and tracking their own family tree and finding where they had eventually intersected with Phillip Marie Potter, son to one Lord Balthazar Mendel Potter and one Lady Solenacia Marie Gaunt, two hundred and twenty years and eight generations removed. Eight generations of Potters carrying the parseltongue ability off and on before falling to Harry.

The tapestry was for more than mere show, however, and amongst the names listed there occasionally appeared one or more little red stars. Voldemort explained these stars indicated a Books of Shadows written by this person was located in the store. There were no stars along the Slytherin line or even the major branches of that line, nor were there any amongst the various Potters. They were too coveted by their respected pureblood families to be given up easily. and those that had been were quickly snatched up by the richest of purebloods who could afford to collect such things. Most of what was in store belonged to family lines that had ended abruptly or those desperate enough to sell. After considerable searching, Harry found the Prince line and two Books of Shadows from the Prince family. He asked the anxious and hopeful store owner to look at them.

“I think I want to give this one to Snape,” he had said, selecting the smaller and cheaper of two, which was nevertheless seventy galleons. He flinched a little to think about it. Nevertheless, the idea of it belonging to anyone other than Snape somehow made him feel uneasy inside.

“These books are worthy of being more than mere Christmaspresents,” Voldemort chastised, encompassing his hatred of both gifts and Christmas in one sentence. Harry smiled at him.

“You should give him that one,” he said, pointing to the larger volume. The Dark Lord looked as if he had been asked to eat a worm. “As a reward. He’s been working his arse off for you, you know.”

“I can think of better rewards than a book.”

“It’s more than a book,” Harry pointed out. “It’s his heritage. There aren’t a lot of things he values more than that.” Voldemort had turned thoughtful. After a little more needling, he gave in and bought it, much to the delight of the store owner.

Shopping, despite how much of it they did, did not constitute a majority of their errands. They did go to the museum in Coventry where a new exhibit on pre-historic and early wizarding tribes had just opened, and he wanted to personally provide publicity and compliment the director and his staff in person. The displays unnerved Harry. The primitive weaponry and magical artifacts, the almost pack-like structure, and their savage rituals reminded him in many ways of Greyback. The moving paintings of shamans calling on their gods to speak through them left him faintly ill. Voldemort did not force him to linger longer than necessary before moving on.

They visited nearly a dozen villages to pay their respects to historical sites, industrious business owners, schools (the primary schools served the village children and therefore were closed later since extensive travel was unnecessary), and persons of renown and scholarly accomplishments.

They visited the military hospital and spoke with the injured soldiers and the medical staff. Harry finally found a talent he exceeded the Dark Lord in and that was making people feel at ease. He had to interrupt a comment or series of questions by the Dark Lord with a ‘You are not helping!’ more than once.

This proved especially true when they visited the Children’s Hospital in Edinburgh.

There was a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a factory in Kent. A memorial ceremony there a few hours later. A press release in Bristol about the course of the war, another release about current trade possibilities with France in Liverpool, and still another (albeit very brief) talk in Belfast about financial support for restorations of those villages attacked by Germans months before. There was a charity dinner for what Harry stilldidn’t know, where the courses were tiny, numerous, and not at all appetizing.

There was a tour of eight different government buildings around Bristol, with the Dark Lord making sure his personnel hadn’t neglected their responsibilities in their eagerness to begin their holiday plans. Several hours in between the chaos was spent writing Christmas Cards that never technically used the word ‘Christmas’ to an endless number of people who had voluntarily (more or less) given money or time or expertise to various government (Dark Lord) sanctioned projects.

During and between all this there was endless amount of handshaking and formal introductions and elbow rubbing with people he had never met but occasionally recognized from the newspaper. There were conversations he only half understood and conversations he had quickly taken over within moments. There was entirely too much flattery, followed by sudden, disorienting moments of brutal honesty. There was handholding and shoulder patting. There were fake smiles, fake laughter, and fake sympathy. There was just as much of it genuine. There were cameras flashing and reporters shouting questions and people clapping in the crowds and pointing in the streets. There was desperate hunger and being entirely too full.

Harry felt like a foot soldier following his commander into battle.

Harry had followed Voldemort through whirlwind tours of publicity before, but he had never been so much a part of his campaign. When he was younger he had neither the experience nor the celebrity he did now and his presence was more a curiosity than anything. He knew he was technically the Dark Lord’s protégé, but he had always thought of that in more of a personal sense. Their bond existed primarily through practices of paganism and genuine enjoyment of each other’s company. Now, however, it had taken on a new dimension. He could see the future Voldemort was grooming him for. More than being the ambassador to the werewolves, he was being educated to act as a representative of the Dark Lord himself in those times and situations he could not be present.

This should have disturbed Harry. Voldemort had essentially decided Harry’s future career, perhaps even his whole way of life. It didn’t though. Not yet at least. It seemed perfectly natural. He had no desire to rule, but more than anything he wanted to make his country a prosperous and happy one and there was no better place to do that from than at the Dark Lord’s side. The Courts were full of Lucius Malfoys and Bartemius Crouches, full of power-seekers and the selfishly ambitious, focusing only on their present satisfactions at the expense of the country’s long-term well-being. Voldemort was an amoral tyrant much of the time, but that wasn’t all he was. He promoted education, art, appreciation of nature, and the pursuit of knowledge. He genuinely wanted Britain to reach her greatest potential by embracing the past and striving for a better future. The same thing Harry wanted.

If that meant his life would be forever bound to the Dark Lord’s, well… so be it. It was inevitable anyway and, while it was a dangerous sort of life, it did have its rewards.

“And I thought trying to escape Hausteheim was difficult,” Harry said as he collapsed onto the sofa. “It was nothing compared to getting away from Lord and Lady Pinchkin.”

The Dark Lord chuckled and settled himself behind his desk. Despite all they had accomplished that day, he was still intent on squeezing in just a little bit more before they retired for the evening. They were back at the lodge for the rest of the night and all through the solstice the next day. Out of honor for the occasion, he had cleared their schedule so that their full attention would be spent honoring their respective gods.

“Yes, I was very close to gnawing off my arm again in an attempt to flee.”

Harry flinched despite the cheerful tone. This hadn’t been the first time he had nearly forgotten about the sacrificed appendage and been quickly reminded. He knew it was deliberate, but he could not determine why the matter was being kept in a sort of limbo, neither a subject worth lengthy discussion nor something that could be overlooked.

“They seemed rather adamant in their belief you would like their granddaughter. Rather impertinent of them to attempt to invite her as your date to the Malfoy Christmas Ball,” Voldemort continued as if nothing were amiss.

“They might have done a better job of it if they hadn’t suggested her pursuit of the humane treatment of familiars was somehow in the same line as my work with werewolves,” he said, letting a little of his remembered anger seep into his voice. Protecting animal rights were important, he agreed, but to suggest they were in any way similar to defending werewolf rights wasn’t only ignorant, it was insulting.

“And if they hadn’t made that particular gaffe, would you have agreed to bring the so far unknown Miss Bertula Pinchkin?”

Voldemort seemed genuinely curious here.

“If it would have loosened their pocket strings a little more for the hospital fund, I suppose so. I still would have preferred to invite Natalie or Ginny.”

“You have no lady fair in particular to hold your attentions these days?”

“I think my problem is I have too many ’lady fair’s at the moment.”

“Ah. It is always better to have options.”

Harry let out a tired little laugh at that and closed his eyes. He really was exhausted. If left where he was, he was certain he would fall asleep in a matter of minutes and wake up the next morning in a truly uncomfortable position.

“You should get some sleep. I will be waking you before dawn tomorrow,” Voldemort cautioned. Reluctantly, Harry sat up, stretched, and made his way towards the door.

“Mmm… yeah, okay. You should get some sleep too.”

“I rarely sleep,” he reminded Harry.

“You should tonight,” his protégé insisted. “It’s the eve of the Solstice. You might get a Visitation.”

Voldemort gave him a surprised look. He hadn’t thought of that. He could not recall ever having a dream that seemed particularly prophetic or conversed directly with the divine visage of his patron gods in the past, but since his ascension into near-immortality he had little need for sleep and had never thought to indulge based on a schedule of astronomical significance or felicity.

And it had only been recently that he had regained a mostly complete soul and the ability to dream at all.

“Perhaps in a little while. There are still one or two things I must finish before I retire.”

Harry didn’t push any further, merely yawned and wished him a goodnight.

A few hours later, he made his way to his own bed. He passed Harry’s bedroom on the way just as Victoria was slipping out. He gave her a rather nasty start.

“Is everything alright?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, everything is fine. Just making sure he hadn’t fallen asleep in his clothes before I go out to finish my rounds.”

“And did he make it to bed in the appropriate nightly attire?”

“Yes, My Lord.”

“Did he appear to be dreaming?”

Because now that Harry had suggested the possibility of a Visitation, he couldn’t help but wonder if the boy had previous experience with such things. True Visitations almost always involved speaking in one’s sleep, being so much closer to consciousness than dreaming. A one-sided conversation he was not the least bit ashamed to eavesdrop on.

“He sleeps like the dead, my Lord.”

“Oh, well,” he said slightly disappointed and earned himself a slightly confused look from the young witch.

Voldemort did not receive a Visitation that night, but he did dream. He dreamed that all the witches and wizards in the world turned into faeries, that he became their king, and he went to war with Gulandri. In the dream, he challenged Gulandri to single armed combat with the winner becoming king of both their realms, but he was not sure of his own victory. He cut out his own heart and gave it to Harry to hide where no one else could find it, so that he would not die even if he were cut down. He won the duel, but when he asked for his heart back, Harry refused to tell him where it was hidden.

So he cut out Harry’s heart and ate it.

It didn’t seem to have bothered the boy so much in the dream.

It did seem to bother him considerably when he told Harry about it over the breakfast table.

“That’s… ugh. I don’t even want to try to untangle the symbolism in all of that.”

Voldemort suspected it had something to do with horcruxes, but wasn’t about to mention that to Harry.

“That’s reassuring. What did you dream of?”

“I dreamed I was walking with you around Hogwarts, but after a while I started to realize I was walking on one side of a mirror and you were on the other, and I couldn’t cross over. There were a lot of other people, and I kept asking them how to get to the other side but nobody knew. Until I met Moody, and he said I would have to drown myself. Then he threw me off the tower and into the moat.”

“And did you reach me on the other side of the mirror?”

“I don’t know. I woke up.”

“Then Moody was right. For here we are, having breakfast together.”

Harry found this observation rather clever.

After eating a modest breakfast, they dressed in their warmest clothes and went outside. In the pre-dawn light the sky was painted blues and greens and golds, but clouds hung in the north and a harsh wind was blowing them in their direction. It was cold. Colder than Harry could ever remember it being in December, and he dreaded the possibility of spending even hour let alone most of the day out in it.

They went to the barn and there gathered milk, eggs, blood, and clay bowls to make offerings then went out into the maze. They cast charms to keep the wind from destroying their altars, perform the necessary rites, and moved on, one after the other. Further into the maze new statues had been created so that Harry’s own patron gods might be given their proper respects. Blood, milk, mead, wine, honey, grain, vegetables, meat, eggs, dried flowers, sprigs of evergreens, silver coins, arrowheads, obsidian knives, and polished stones. All of it laid out, given freely, given gratefully. And they didn’t rush, not for a single one, even as their fingers and toes grew numb and their prayers came through cracked, bleeding lips.

When at last they were done, Voldemort led Harry out of the maze and the younger wizard thought they were going to head to the house to warm up before they completed whatever ritual the Dark Lord had been so tight-lipped about for the last three days. Instead, the Dark Lord turned towards the woods.

“Where are we going?” he asked, trying very hard not to sound like he was whining. He was cold, tired, hungry, and wanted nothing more than to sit by the fire and drink something hot.

“We are going up to the conservatory.”

“The conservatory? In the woods?”

“Through the woods. I wanted it to be as secluded as possible and still be on the property.”

“You never told me you had a conservatory.”

“I didn’t until about two months ago. It has just been completed. I think you’ll like it.”

Harry couldn’t muster the enthusiasm the Dark Lord seemed to expect. Despite how frequently he visited the Astronomy tower, he couldn’t say he particularly cared for astronomy as a subject all that much. He could admire a sky full of stars as much as the next fellow, but to look off at those flecks of light his muggle upbringing had taught him were billions of miles away and believe they somehow held sway over human affairs? Unlikely. Anything beyond the Earth’s sun and moon seemed rather superfluous to him.

And he didn’t feel like hiking unknown miles to look at something superfluous. Especially since it was the daytime and clouds had started to roll in with the damnable wind and nothing would be visible anyway.

“Don’t look so miserable, Harry. There will be a hot meal waiting for us when we get there.”

“We can’t apparate?”

“Protective wards. To prevent thieves.”

“The car? Horses?”

“No road and no place to shelter the horses. It’s going to snow soon.”

“We could be trapped there.”

“You’re whining.”

“Mmphf… What about sianach?”

The man-eating deer should not be underestimated, especially in winter when they were most hungry for meat.

“I’ll protect you,” the Dark Lord said condescendingly. Harry sighed. There was no point questioning further. They were now inside the woods following a narrow footpath lined with dark, circular stones on either side. In the forest, the wind wasn’t as bad and the warming charms on his clothes had a greater effect. He was still tired and hungry but those things he could push through on stubbornness.

And it took a lot of stubbornness to follow after Voldemort for three miles through an eerie, silent wood on a path at times only distinguished by the little black stones and under a sky that was growing darker by the minute. He was beginning to become uneasy. If it stormed, how would they get back? Why were they going somewhere so remote to begin with?

“Snow’s coming. How much further?” he asked. It had been nearly an hour since they had left the maze, and he finally felt he had waited long enough that it was safe to speak without being considered a nag.

“We’re almost there.”

The last quarter mile was the hardest on Harry’s nerves. The ground rose up in an ever increasing incline and became slippery with leaves and moss. The trees became thinner and the wind became stronger, and with it came the first fat flakes of snow.

They passed the carcass of a boar along the way, its half-frozen body feeding a murder of crows. A grim reminder they were not the only predators out there.

But the journey did end, and so abruptly Harry could hardly believe it. In the blink of an eye, the conservatory was just there,looming over them from its perch at the top of the hill. He didn’t have long to study it from the outside before Voldemort was ushering him in through a pair of black doors decorated with a golden sun. Inside, the sudden change of temperature left him dizzy, and he scrambled out of his outer layers in search of relief.

“We should have everything we need for the night in the residence quarters. You’re welcome to take a nap until I have finished preparations,” the Dark Lord offered with just a touch of superiority that Harry chose to ignore.

“We’re staying the night?”

“Not much choice now.”

The residence quarters were directly off the entryway and was a simultaneously small and lavish little apartment. A fire burned in a sandstone fireplace, providing the only illumination for the furniture and art, a play of shadows and flickering gold. From what Harry could make out, the little shoebox of a space held a distinctly Middle Eastern style from the rugs, to the vases, to the motif of the tiles along the walls. All of it beautiful and all of it undoubtedly genuine and expensive. He just barely remembered to take off his boots before climbing under the covers.

He woke up not only warm but over-heated and threw off the blankets. He still felt sleepy, but no longer exhausted and a genuine curiosity about the conservatory was starting to manifest. Not bothering with his boots, he went out to explore. The hallway, he now noticed, had a Middle Eastern feel as well. Tall, curved ceilings and doorways, graceful columns, brightly colored decorative tiles in geometric patterns everywhere. Suns, moons, and six-pointed stars featured prominently. There was a palace-like elegance to the place and a sense of displacement in time and space.

He opened a set of double doors and found himself in a large, open room. Harry’s first instinct was to call a ballroom due to its clean marble flooring and then a solarium because of the domed glass ceiling. His third instinct was to baulk at any attempt at classifying the room at all. It had to be the conservatory’s observation room, but there was no telescope. In fact, there wasn’t any sort of equipment or furniture at all that he could see. The marble floor was so dark and clean it was mirror-like, but for the curving, patternless golden lines that arched and circled and wound themselves in a seeming randomness that, nevertheless, held a sort of beauty. The walls were divided into twelve sections and decorated in star charts behind glass cases. As he studied the charts he could see the stars themselves were very slowly moving across their pages. The dome was supported by twelve arches, also gilded in gold but otherwise unadorned. At the moment, he could only see a darkening sky and snow coming down and sliding off the sides.

“What do you think?” Voldemort asked once Harry had a chance to peruse the room. He had been there when Harry walked in and was pouring out lines of salt in a Star of David in the center of the room. At each point was a wide, shallow bowl of water and a floating candle moving lazily about its confines. Harry had never seen a ritual that used a Star of David. Perhaps it was a ritual from the Book of Solomon?

“It’s beautiful.” It was beautiful. Beautiful and cold and not a place he would feel comfortable alone in for a long period of time.

“It’s far more than that, Harry. Let me show you.”

He was led to one of the star charts, which on closer inspection proved not to be a star chart at all but a sort of control panel. The glass case was grooved with a series of circular indentations, and some of the stars could be moved along sliders and portions of the sky turned in complete circles. Voldemort turned one of these portions and room suddenly darkened and brightened simultaneously, the sky in the dome having turned from a blanket of clouds into a perfectly clear night sky blanketed in stars. Harry couldn’t help the startled gasp that escaped him as Voldemort slid two star switches and suddenly the universe closed in on them, and scattered amongst the billion burning suns he could now make out the distinct shape of spiral galaxies, comets, and even the planets Venus and Jupiter with its painted rings.

“By the Goddess.”

Voldemort gave a satisfied smile. It seemed he finally got the response he had been looking for and launched into an explanation.

“Magnificent, isn’t it? This is the only conservatory in the world of its kind. No telescopes, no waiting for the right weather or the right time of year or even for night. Just a series of coordinates and you can see the sky as it would appear anywhere in the world. Watch this.”

Voldemort did another series of adjustments, and the sky above them was suddenly filled, not with stars but with massive ribbons of light undulating across the sky. Brilliant green edged with red slithered about, cloud-like one moment then river-like the next.

“Aurora borealis…”

“Aurora australis, actually,” the Dark Lord corrected. “Along the coast of New Zealand, June 28th, 1938.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. I purchased the design for this conservatory from the family of a great Iranian astronomer and magi. The design was genius, but astronomy has lost favor since the fall of the Persian Empire and no one was willing to commission it. I got it for a steal. The construction… considerably less so. I can manage the controls, but the magic behind it? Quite beyond me. I intend to hire a full-time astronomer to conduct research here soon.”

“It’s brilliant. I’m sorry I doubted you.”

“Hhmmm…”

The aurora disappeared and returned back a more familiar sky of celestial bodies he now understood as more than just stars but could no longer differentiate.

“This is the sky above us right now,” Voldemort explained. “The stars are in a very favorable position for what I want to try.”

“And what do you want to try? Why the big secret?”

“I didn’t want to scare you.”

“… I’m feeling rather alarmed now.”

“It’s perfectly safe. Not painful in the least.”

“Still not feeling any better.”

“I just need you to drink something.”

“I just need you to tell me what you’re doing.”

“An experiment.”

“I am not drinking anything experimental.”

“The potion is not the experiment. The potion is a means to an end.”

“What end?”

“I wish to see if I have a ‘soul space’ or limbo, Harry. With the soul you so foolishly inflicted on me, I might now have one.”

“Oh…” He came up completely blank on how to respond to that. “Um… how?”

“There is a ritual that allows one to purposely enter one’s own soul space, which is itself a manifestation of one’s soul. By this means I can examine the extent to which I am able to compare how similar or different from a mortal soul it has become.”

“Okay, I guess that makes sense, but what do you need me for?”

“I don’t know for certain that I have a soul space. My soul is not natural. I cannot know which characteristics it maintains and which it does not. If I attempt to enter a limbo that does not exist, my consciousness could be lost forever. That is why I need you. I can link our souls temporarily and bring you into my soul space with me, or if I do not have one then we will fall safely back into yours. You have already proven to have one.”

“I don’t… I’m not comfortable with this.”

“Nevertheless,” Voldemort said, his expression darkening. “You owe it to me.”

Harry turned away. It suddenly became clear why the Dark Lord had not let him forget the debt … the debts he had acquired to his patron. He felt scared, angry, guilty, and vaguely sick. He didn’t know what to do. What could he do? He was trapped here. Voldemort had planned it. He would not let him simply walk away.

“This is dangerous,” he said sharply.

“Less than you might think. We cannot disrupt a soul space nor can we be trapped there indefinitely. We will observe and then we will leave.”

Rather than reassure Harry, it made him even more reluctant to go. He had been in a limbo before, and he knew pain and dangers could exist there. Voldemort didn’t understand that their magic would be useless and that put him at a considerable disadvantage. Harry doubted he would appreciate this pointed out to him and hedged the subject.

“And you’re okay with that? Me seeing your soul?”

“You’ve seen far more than that. Or don’t you remember?”

How could he possibly forget?

That first Solstice ritual, the potency of the magic, the mind-altering revelations. He had seen Voldemort then, from the shredded corruption of his mutilated spirit to the mesmerizing beauty of the Earth’s love and the Dark Lord’s own unbending will. Whatever he would see now, it could not be any more terrifying or personal than what he had seen then.

He must have sensed Harry’s resistance was wavering, because Voldemort moved closer and slipped an arm around his shoulder to lead him towards the star.

“Don’t be so nervous. I am hardly likely to risk either of us or do something unforgivable. You have trusted me with your life; certainly you can trust me with this.”

Harry wasn’t so sure of that either, but he did not resist or say anything further. He sensed he could not win this argument and to persist would cause more harm than good. He did not know how far Voldemort would go to get his way. So he let himself be settled on a cushion, his legs folded underneath him, and accepted the tiny porcelain cup when it was handed to him.

It looked like water. It tasted like water, albeit unpleasantly warm.

It made him instantly dizzy, and he was only halfway through the cup before he felt the Dark Lord catch him as he fell over and then the strange warmth of floor beneath him as he was laid down.

Harry did not wake up. He did not open his eyes. He did not blink. There was simply a moment where he was in the conservatory and another where he was not. What there was, however, was a moment of disorientation as if he had apparated a great distance to a place with different elevation and weather. Darkness and the dull roar and sudden snap of fire dominated his senses, but these were not the only things that drew his awareness. There was the sound and smell of water, the creak of wood, and the feel of a balmy breezy against his skin.

His first thought was that he was on a ship, but as he sat up he realized he was on a pier of some kind. At least, something like a pier. A walkway about five feet across and made of heavy wood timbers stretched out before him and behind him, but how far he couldn’t say. It was dark, the sky empty or perhaps not even there, and a haze surrounded everything, but lay particularly thick beneath the walkway where the sound of water lapping against the support columns could be heard. The only light was a series of torches every eight feet or so that faded behind the thickening haze and disappeared in the distance. The air was thick with humidity and the dull droning of insects, broken by the cry of some strange animal call or a splash of water from down below.

Harry thought of places he had read about in story books and watched on television as a child. Pirate coves and swamps and exotic places where the snakes and crocodiles were as great a danger as murderers and bandits.

Not that he expected to be attacked by a pirate or even a crocodile. If this place were anything like his own soul space, it was not intended to alarm or frighten. The danger came from falling into a sense of complacency.

“It’s dark.”

Harry spun around. The Dark Lord stood behind him as if he had been there the entire time. Harry didn’t question it.

“You are most comfortable in dark places,” Harry said knowingly, although Voldemort had never said or implied such a thing. Voldemort turned from surveying what little could be made out in the gloom to Harry.

“Why do you say that?”

“This place is intended to make you comfortable. It’s a waiting place.”

“Ah, that is true,” Voldemort acknowledged and went back to looking around. Harry climbed to his feet and felt a swell of unease as the wood creaked loudly under his weight.

“I shouldn’t be here,” he said with certainty. “How do I leave?”

“Why in such a hurry? Are you afraid of what you might find?”

Harry ignored the suggestion of his cowardice.

“You know you have a soul space now. You don’t need me here. Just let me out.”

“You will go when I say you may go and not before. I wish to explore this place. Come.”

The Dark Lord moved away and within moments became little more than a vague shadow against the gloom and then disappeared altogether. Harry hurried after him and nearly ran into his back, his appearance even more sudden than his disappearance. Voldemort gave him an amused smile which was met with nothing but an intensely irritated look. They walked along quietly for a long time, exploring the walkway which proved to branch out in different routes in different places, turning their path into a labyrinth. Sometimes the paths lead to dead ends, sometimes to open platforms, sometimes in loops, and others just kept going on indefinitely until they narrowed unexpectedly or started to rot beneath their feet and they were forced to turn around. Shapes formed and disintegrated against the fog, never quite close enough to be distinguished before fading away again. The insect drone was joined by bird calls and the growls of unseen beasts, the balmy wind rustling unseen vegetation and the water below.

The Dark Lord seemed to find the atmosphere soothing.

Harry did not.

The longer they stayed, the further they went and the more uneasy he became. The muggy air left him unable to determine if he felt too hot or too cold, and his eyes began to ache from trying to make out shapes and dangers in the gloom. Although they intended to go nowhere in particular, he couldn’t help but feel they were getting increasingly lost. The world, dark and alive, seemed to be closing in around him in a claustrophobic collapse.

“Please, can we go now?” he asked. His voice sounded strangely breathless, as if he had been running and was exhausted and he realized he was exhausted, but he didn’t know why.

“Go? We’ve barely looked around.”

“We could spend eternity ‘looking around’ and never be done. Please, I shouldn’t be here.”

“Being where you’re not supposed to be seems to be a common enough occurrence that I should not think you would be bothered by it overly much,” Voldemort said idly.

“Don’t even go there. Those were accidents.”

The Dark Lord snorted.

“Your ‘accidents’ tend to come down on my head. I think you can tough it out yourself for a while.”

Normally, Harry would have taken these comments in stride and perhaps even laughed a little, but circumstances were not normal and the pervading sense of ‘wrongness’ had made him edgy. It didn’t help that he had begun to realize that Voldemort had manipulated him into his current situation. He had played on Harry’s trust and his guilt in order to get him here, and now that he had him where he wanted, the Dark Lord was bullying him shamelessly. Harry had caused a lot of problems, but those problems had almost all stemmed from his relationship with the Dark Lord and the baggage that inevitably followed such an association. He had suffered just as much, no… He had suffered more than the Dark Lord as a direct result of their association, and he didn’t appreciate it being dismissed or forgotten as some sort of triviality.

“Fuck you!”

Voldemort’s blinked. It seemed to take a moment for Harry’s words to sink in.

“What… did you just say?”

There was still more shock there than anger, but the anger was coming. Harry could feel it, but he didn’t care. He was scared, sick, and Voldemort had run slipshod over him one too many times today. He was tired of being the only one who was sorry about anything and everything.

“I said ‘fuck’ and ‘you’. As in ‘fuck you, you selfish prick’. What will it take for you to be satisfied? Do you truly believe I owe you something or is it just a convenient excuse to get your way?”

Voldemort’s hand twitched, and Harry saw it. Let him know he saw it and smirked with a level of vitriol he’d rarely ever directed at his mentor. There were no wands here, no magic except in the place itself. If it came down to a fight, they were not too unevenly matched.

“You little brat… after everything I’ve given you.”

Harry barked out a laugh without humor.

“Given me? You don’t give me anything I don’t have to pay for one way or another. You don’t give gifts, remember?”

The Dark Lord stared at him, his anger disappearing into an unreadable blankness. Harry had either caught him off guard or else his anger had deepened into something truly dangerous, hidden until the moment of attack. The younger wizard felt his uneasiness growing, the claustrophobic darkness closing in even tighter now that his mentor was firmly on the other side of a battle Harry had started. Battles, however, were something he knew and understood and rather than back down or clam up he found his own anger and defiance merely growing.

“Gifts,” Voldemort began, his tone cold, “are for friends and family, of which we are neither, but do not assume there are no debts owed between us. How have you been tallying them so that you believe them settled?”

Harry felt his anger grow but under that anger was a fierce and piercing pain at the Dark Lord’s words. Not friends? Not family? Perhaps not in the strictest sense, but there was a kinship there that had come close. Something that bordered on both.

But apparently he had been deluding himself. Or the Dark Lord had misled him. Probably both.

“Sorry,” Harry said, matching his tone even if his face revealed everything. “I never did anything because I thought I owed it to you. Keeping track just seemed… trivial. My mistake.”

He turned on his heels and started to walk away. It was stupid and reckless, but he didn’t want… no, he couldn’t stand to be near Voldemort at the moment. He felt himself unraveling. This place, this awful place was making him sick. Irrational. He would rather suffer it alone though. The Dark Lord was making it worse.

“Where are you going?” the elder wizard asked. His voice was still cold, but was that a touch of concern he heard? No. It was just another delusion or a trick. He didn’t turn around.

“To find a way out of here. It’ll be one less debt I owe you,” he snarled, quickening his pace now that he felt the other was following him.

“Harry, stop! We can’t separate here. You’ll be stuck.”

Harry laughed, continuing to walk… stumble. Was it getting darker? The torches running low? The distance between the two wizards was increasing and a glance over his shoulder revealed the Dark Lord was little more than a shadow against the gloom and fading fast. “Not too much fun from the other end of things, is it? What will you give me to turn around? Will we be even yet? Or will-”

The walkway disappeared beneath his feet. He did not have time to decide if it was merely his own inattention or whether the wooden beams simply decided not exist from one moment to the next. He fell into the wet darkness beneath him or perhaps it rose up to ensnare him and for a moment he wondered if he would fall straight through the fog and just keep going, falling and falling for all of eternity. The wondering moment ended with him slamming face-first into water. The impact was jarring. His back and neck felt as if they’d shattered, but he didn’t have time to find out if it they had.

Water had already lodged itself up his nose and into his lungs, and he was drowning almost immediately. He flailed to the surface instinctively and coughed up a vile broth of swamp muck and struggled to keep his head atop the water. Panic filled him.

He was hydrophobic. A not unreasonable fear of drowning had developed after several close calls both in the real world and in his own soul space, and now he was surrounded by the element which seemed most intent on destroying him and in the darkness he could see nothing but the glow of torches against the fog nearly thirty feet above him. He could not see land or the support beams of the walkway (if there even were any) or a boat or anything he might use to escape drowning.

“Harry?” he heard from somewhere above him. Voldemort. He was still looking for him. Of course he was, he couldn’t leave without him, now could he? Who knew what damage he could do wandering around this place?

This depressing and somewhat aggravating thought was met with a considerably more heartening discovery as his foot brushed something solid beneath him. He felt around a bit more, and feeling like an idiot, stood up. The water only reached about midway up his chest.

It was something. He couldn’t say he was happy yet, but at least drowning didn’t seem imminent.

That left whatever delightful beasties that roamed the Dark Lord’s inner world to worry about.

“Harry? Where are you?”

“I’m down here!” he shouted back. The words echoed heavily, and Harry wasn’t entirely certain where exactly they came from and where exactly they went. Was the Dark Lord right above him or had he moved further off, not realizing where exactly Harry had fallen or that he had fallen at all? Merlin, he felt like a fool. He was going to have to ask for help. Another thing he would owe the Dark Lord for.

“Where? Harry?”

The voice was getting further away, and Harry shouted after him again. He waited for a reply. Nothing. He tried again. Still nothing. It was official.

Harry had misplaced himself yet again.

He felt another swell of irrational anger. Anger at his situation, anger at himself for not paying attention, anger at Voldemort for bringing him here in the first place. He let out a scream of frustration and listened to it shatter into a hundred echoes and scatter into the balmy night, sending birds flying and little animals scurrying in fright.

He hoped Voldemort heard it. He hoped he heard it and it scared him.

Not that he thought it would.

There was no point to waiting around to find out. Waiting wasn’t in his nature. He started to walk, sticking his arms out around him. It was difficult. He was blind, the water was relatively warm but dragged at his clothes and body, and the ground beneath his feet was sandy and shifting. He continued anyway, fed by anger and his intense desire to escape the water somehow.

Eventually he found a support beam and from then on it was fairly easy to move from one beam to another, and while he didn’t know where he was going he at least knew wasn’t wandering away into an abyss. Every so often he would call out. If the Dark Lord did hear him, Harry didn’t hear him shout back.

Harry wasn’t sure how long he wandered blindly. It could have been minutes or hours or an entire day. The nature of the place made it difficult to grasp time. It was a place meant for waiting without feeling as if you were waiting. A supposedly safe place, but not for Harry. He thought about it long and hard, and even as irrational as he knew he was, he felt at least part of it was because of this place and that there might be reasons for that. He was not supposed to be here. No one but Voldemort was ever supposed to be here.

Time passed and Harry kept moving. He began to feel more tired than angry and his mind started to wander to random things. He wondered what had become of his watch back in Hausteheim and the little box of Carrigan’s unseen treasures. He wondered about Hermione and how she was managing her time back at Malfoy Manor, locked in with the man she most hated and a mother she felt so betrayed by. He thought about the friends he had made and hadn’t seen in forever. Fleur, Hagrid, Alyssa and Morgana, Tom, McGunny…

His foot suddenly caught on something, causing him to trip and come up sputtering. Once he had regained his balance, he felt around with his foot to see what was responsible. He found a root firmly planted in the ground on one end and wandering off in another direction. He considered for a few moments and then followed it. Following the walkway had led him nowhere. If he found a tree, perhaps he would at least be able to climb out of the water and rest.

The root was longer than he had anticipated. It seemed to go on and on and on, growing gradually thicker but never really reaching its source. And then the darkness around him seemed to lessen, first becoming a dark gray fog, then slightly less dark gray fog so that he could make out the shape of his hand in front of his face. Then the air around him began to take on an amber hue and in the distance he could make out the familiar warm glow of fire.

Closer and closer he came to the blaze which was growing larger and larger before his eyes until the heat of it had burned away the fog entirely and left him looking up in stunned awe.

Before him stood a tree, but not a tree like any he had seen before. Its trunk and branches were massive and black as pitch as they stretched up into the sky and down into the swamp like a thousand gnarled, skeletal hands. The leaves, if they could, in fact, be called leaves, were shaped like maple’s and burned like hot coals, glowing brilliant orange in the darkness and then bright yellow whenever a breeze stroked the embers. And yet the tree was not consumed. It did not dissolve into ash or snap into kindling.

It was made of fire itself.

It was beautiful.

Very carefully, Harry reached out to touch it. It was hot against his hand, but it did not burn him. He climbed out of the water, and once out he found the branches seemed to be made for climbing, and he went even further up into his new sanctuary. He tested the heat of the leaves, and while they were even hotter than the trunk and branches, they didn’t burn him either.

He stripped down to his underclothes and left them to dry and found himself a comfortable place in a natural niche against the trunk to rest. He sighed and prepared himself to sleep. He was so tired, and for the first time since he had arrived in this strange place, he felt safe. The animal sounds were distant here, the water safely below, and even the fog seemed to have fled from this sanctuary. For a while, he stared up into the canopy, admired the lines of black against the burning glow, and listened to the mixture of lapping water and rustling leaves in the breeze.

He was so tired…

He couldn’t say that he slept. If he had, there had been no dream, and from one waking moment to the next he had seen only the slow dance of fire leaves above him and heard a monotonous ‘ssshhh’ around him. He thought of nothing and no one. His mind was comfortably blank. Time was meaningless here, whether he was moving or resting.

But when a hand touched his face and a voice whispered his name, he knew he had been there a long time. Longer than he should have been.

“Harry, wake up.”

“I’m not asleep,” he murmured and tried to look from the mesmerizing dance of light and darkness above him to the man he knew was in front of him. However, the only thing he could move was his eyes, and they landed on Voldemort, whose expression was such that he knew something had gone very wrong. “I can’t move.”

“It’s the tree. It’s grown up around you.”

The Dark Lord was kneeling in front of him, braced between the thick branches but looking vaguely distressed. Harry tried to move again, this time more vigorously. He met with slightly more success, but there was a stabbing sensation for every centimeter he managed followed by the feeling of his own blood spilling free.

“Don’t move,” Voldemort warned belatedly.

“Get me out of here… please,” he begged, panic rising even as he felt himself growing even more tired.

“Just don’t move. I don’t think it’s intentionally trying to hurt you.”

Even as he said this, Harry could feel his mentor’s hands clawing the wooden tendrils encasing him, splintering them beneath his hands. But there was so much of it and it seemed to keep growing around him.

“Not hurt me? It’s trying to fucking eat me,” he said desperately, even as his eyes started to slip shut. “I can’t stay awake.”

“You have to. Just a little while longer and I’ll have you out of there.”

There was a touch of desperation in Voldemort’s voice that Harry had never heard before, and he opened his eyes again to look at the other curiously.

“Why do you even care? We’re not family. Not even friends.”

The man grimaced.

“A misleading choice of words on my part.”

Harry felt himself nodding off again.

“So we are friends?”

“No. Whatever we are, we could never be friends.”

He fell silent, the previous hurt and disappointment returning. He closed his eyes. He was so tired and he didn’t want to feel that way anymore. There was a sharp slap to his cheek, snapping him awake.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“Stay awake. It grows faster when you surrender your will to it.”

“Again, why do you even care?”

Voldemort leveled a glare at him that Harry had once seen make a grown wizard piss himself. Harry found it interesting enough to muster up the will to glare back.

“Stupid child. We are not family and we are not friends,” the Dark Lord said curtly. “Whatever we are, only the gods might have a word for. What we’ve done to one another, for each other, against each other… the most passionate of lovers and the most viscious of enemies would not have conceived of attempting. We are beyond mortal understanding or sentiment. We are beyond their pale and paltry labels.”

Harry could only stare back at him, a lump forming in his throat. He was suddenly terrified and relieved and overwhelmed.

But he was no longer tired.

Slowly but steadily the Dark Lord tore the wood away, until eventually Harry could move his arms and help him. Their hands became bloodied with splinters and their sweat stung their own wounds, but they did not stop, and with Harry’s rebellious spirit fanned once again the fire tree finally gave way and released him. Voldemort neatly caught him as he fell free and settled him safely beside him. They sat there for a moment, heaving from exertion.

“Can we go yet?” Harry panted.

Voldemort nodded. He too seemed to have seen enough. From his boot, the Dark Lord pulled out a large hunting knife. Harry gave it a curious look and started to ask what it was for, when he suddenly found it plunged into his chest.

Harry woke with a gasp and a choke and found himself staring up at Voldemort’s face, framed by the starry sky of the conservatory’s ceiling. The man’s crimson eyes were open, but they were empty and unseeing. He sat up, displacing the hands that had been holding his head steady. He had barely righted himself when Voldemort gave a jerk, blinked once, and looked around.

Harry gave him an annoyed look and rubbed the soreness in his chest. A memory of being stabbed lingered.

“What was that with the knife?”

The Dark Lord smirked.

“Didn’t you know killing yourself in a soul space is the only way to force yourself out of it?”

Harry had been to his own limbo once and had managed to find a way to escape. By drowning, unfortunately. He hadn’t realized the metaphorical death had been a necessity, but now he could sort of understand it.

“You might have mentioned it before.”

“I am fortunate you did not break your neck falling off the pier. It would have made my own return extremely difficult.”

“Not a part of your grand master plan?” Harry said. He was going for sardonic, but it came off as petulant.

“A great deal of what happened did not go according to plan. I hadn’t realized taking you into my soul space would have such a negative effect on you. I hadn’t even realized anything was wrong until you became so hostile and stormed off.”

This answer did not impress Harry but he decided to let it go. It wasn’t as if he had any right to judge. He had made his own colossal mistakes with magic, spiritually based magic in particular. He tried to climb to his feet but found he could barely move. Looking to Voldemort, he expected to see the same weakness, but the man got to his feet easily, even energetically.

The discrepancy became even more obvious when the Dark Lord attempted to help him to his feet and Harry’s magus hypersentia went crazy, tingling along his skin like electricity.

“What the hell?”

Voldemort carefully laid him back down and Harry had to let him. He didn’t know if he could even sit up now.

“Ugh, what’s wrong with me?”

For a while, the Dark Lord did not answer him. He drew out his wand and cast several spells Harry didn’t recognize and cautiously prodded at him with one of his fingers. The younger wizard was getting increasingly worried. Then, in an alarming turn, Voldemort took the glove from his false arm and examined it as well. Harry couldn’t see it all from where he was laying, but he knew whatever the other man saw disturbed him.

“It seems… there was another side affect I had not anticipated. I appear to have drained your magic.”

Voldemort let his fake arm hover over Harry’s face so he could see. The limb, previously rough and miscolored from the Dark Lord’s natural one, now appeared elegant and perfectly matched.

Harry, near-paralyzed from magic deprivation shock, glared at him.

“You so owe me for this.”

“Do not allow yourself to be discouraged, Commander Mandalari. They do not doubt your plan so much as they doubt their own strength to execute it,” Dumbledore said, pouring his guest a glass of amber liquor and sliding it across the table. Mandalari accepted the offering with a nod, but did not appear appeased. He had been quartered in a private tent and had waited there patiently as the leaders of the rebellion gathered to discuss his plan, only leaving occasionally to answer questions or smoke a cigarette. Finally, the rebellion leaders had come to a decision.

And Mandalari hadn’t cared for it one little bit.

“If we can recruit more fighters or even if we land a few more decisive victories, I do not doubt that they will wish to hear your plan again,” Dumbledore reassured him. The Italian scowled into his drink.

“There will be no more fighters and there will be no decisive victories. The Dark Lord is too strong. Too smart. If they don’t do it soon, they will not have another chance.”

“Even Voldemort-”

Mandalari flinched. He had not used to flinch at that name. He had not known it was the true name of the devil before.

“- cannot plan for everything. His sudden withdrawal to Britain is proof of that.”

“We do not know what caused that.”

“I have a few suspicions,” he said, with a touch of humor. He suspected Harry, even though there was not a shred of proof to support the idea and he had even less understanding of what the boy might have done. The Italian gave him an expectant look, but he did not elaborate. He doubted the man would appreciate him bringing Harry into the conversation.

“I don’t have the influence I once had,” Dumbledore said instead. “I cannot force their hands. I wouldn’t want to in this case. They must believe they can succeed before going through with it. For now, we must do what we can in Germany. Grow the resistance, destabilize the invaders, and wait for the opportunity to present itself again.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

Dumbledore merely chuckled.

“My dear friend, I thought you were a man of faith?”

Fleur stumbled into Bill’s apartment at a quarter to one, cold and tired and desperate not to be alone. Bill, because he was somehow perfect in all the ways she needed him to be, was still up and waiting for her. He took one look at her and ushered her into his tiny bathroom for a hot shower. When she got out, he dressed her in his ugliest Weasley sweater and gave her a sugar cookie and a glass of red wine. It was all so ridiculously mismatched, she couldn’t help but smile a little in spite of everything.

They cuddled on his bed, sitting up against a pile of cushions and looking out the adjacent window to the city glimmering outside. Finally, she allowed herself to relax and enjoy her cookie and her wine (it had to have been a gift because it was actually decent) and softness of the over-sized sweater wrapped around her and Bill’s warm body pressed against her. She could almost be happy right then. She could almost be happy if she could only stop thinking.

“What happened?” he asked finally.

“It was just… a really bad day.”

“How bad?” He knew her ‘bad days’ were not like his bad days or an average person’s bad day. Her line of work put ‘bad days’ on a completely different level.

“We lost two of our own today. Well, not musketeers, but Aurors. Good guys. I ’ad met zem once before.”

He kissed her hair and squeezed her tighter. She squeezed him back, and being not entirely human, bruised a few ribs in the process.

“God, Avers ’ad a wife. We ’ad to go and deliver ze news. Nearly Christmas and we’ve got to go and tell ’er ’e wasn’t coming ’ome. I zought she was going to die right zere on ze doorstep. It was awful.”

He nodded but didn’t say he understood even though he did. He had thought the same thing would happen to his mother when his father had been sentenced to Azkaban, a death sentence that lingered for years. He had seen more than his fair share of widows and widowers in England, but this was France and these things were a rarity.

“What happened to them?” he asked, because talking about the dead was always somehow easier than talking about those left behind.

“I saw ze crime scene, but I don’t know ze details. Zey were… torn to pieces, but I don’t zink it was a spell. Whatever did zat to zem was not ’uman.”

That did not narrow things down particularly. Paris was a hotspot for various races and mix-bloods. Fleur, herself, was part veela and strong enough to kill a man with her bare hands if necessary. There were a host of other beings capable of the same thing.

“Do you have any ideas?” he asked.

“I don’t know, but I doubt it was random. Balthus is trying to track down zer supervisor to find out what zer assignment was. The necrotists[1] haven’t even touched the bodies yet. I’ll find out tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow or today? It’s Christmas Eve now.”

She blinked and smiled but there were tears in her eyes.

“Merry Christmas.”

He hugged her tightly and let her bury her face into his neck.

“Ssshhhh… it’s okay. It’s okay. It doesn’t last. Tonight, cry it all out, sleep, and when the sun comes up we’ll go spend the morning with your family, and then you will go out with Balthus and you’ll catch the son-of-a-bitch who did this.”

She nodded against his shoulder.

“Oui, zat is ze plan.”

“It’s a great plan.”

Snape agreed to meet Lucius a few days before Christmas, but only on the condition that they not do so at the manor. There were a variety of reasons for this, and he wasn’t afraid to let Lucius know them either but didn’t have to because they understood each other very well. So they had opted for a shopping excursion in Coventry. This was the first Christmas in a long time that Snape had anyone to shop for, and he wasn’t above taking advantage of his friend’s expertise on finding a suitable gift for one’s wife while they discussed whatever it was the general wanted to discuss.

“Mr. Potter decided not to join us?” Lucius asked idly, as they perused a small jewelry store beneath Lucius’ interest but within range for his more modest friend. Ira did not have a lot of jewelry, but she wore the butterfly broach Snape had given her almost every day, and he thought she might appreciate a little variety. His friend had agreed to his logic. “I do hope he will be available for the Christmas Party. Hermione would be so disappointed if he did not come.”

“Hermione or yourself? Looking for an opportunity to drown him in the punchbowl?”

Lucius put on a look of mock insult. Snape felt amused despite himself. The Malfoy patriarch had been in surprisingly good humor, perhaps a result of his return to good health if not good standing. Optimism was for idiots, but Snape thought things might turn out alright just this once.

“I’m terribly offended you would think so ill of me,” Lucius said, continuing his charade of hurt. “I merely wanted to thank the boy properly. It seems I owe him a debt of gratitude.”

“Or rather a life debt.”

Snape didn’t like to ruin the congenial mood, but he had a greater responsibility to both his ward and his friend than pandering to their good graces. He needed to keep the peace, even if it was only a stalemate. Lucius grimaced a bit but continued as if unaffected.

“A minor disparity in rank that I am sure will be quickly resolved. These are dangerous times we live in, after all, and he’s so talented at getting himself into situations. We may yet start our association anew now that the primary cause of contention between us is dissolved.”

“The betrothal?” Snape asked rhetorically. “How did Crouch take it?”

“With his usual venom, I would say. Do not worry; his anger is directled entirely at me. I doubt he will even glance at the girl again.”

This was good. Crouch was from a very proud family with a long history of vendettas and a very short list of grudges left unsatisfied. Hermione was a bright girl, but she would not have been prepared if he had directed his revenge at her. It was a piece of information Lucius would not have been required to give and that could easily have created unnecessary worry for Snape. He decided to return the gesture.

“Harry is still with the Dark Lord, but has expressed that he will be attending either with myself or in our master’s company.”

“He is still with the Dark Lord? I had not heard he was seen with him since Tuesday.”

“Mmmm, yes, it seems there was some sort of… accident. He has not been up to traveling as extensively as our master requires.”

“An accident? He was not hurt?”

Snape tried to detect any trace of eagerness in his friend’s tone, but there was only general curiosity. He didn’t even try to fake sympathy.

“Only his pride. His letter was rather terse. I imagine the Dark Lord bested him in some way. What about that one?”

Lucius looked at the necklace Snape had pointed out and shook his head.

“Not with her hair color. You might try a cameo. They are a few over there,” he suggested, and they moved to another corner of the store. Once there, Lucius continued. “Despite what you may think, I did not invite you here to talk about Harry. There’s something I needed to discuss with you before the party so that we don’t have any sort of misunderstanding.”

Snape abandoned the cameos and turned his attention fully to Lucius.

“I have found another fiancé for Hermione. Don’t give me that look, Severus! It wasn’t my idea!”

He was still giving Lucius ‘that look’ which was commonly interpreted as ‘oh, really’ but really meant ‘you’re full of shit’.

“Do you have any idea of the grief Narcissa gave me after I called off the betrothal with Crouch? I haven’t had a minute’s peace since I told her.”

Alright, he had not considered that, but he could definitely believe it. The esteemed Lady Malfoy was more than a match for her husband, and she had been the only enthusiastic supporter of his little scheme. He doubted she would have been satisfied with any answer he gave her for suddenly changing it.

“So you decided to start the same scheme over again?”

“Of course not. This fellow isn’t anything like Crouch. You might even like him.”

“Hardly indicative of good character, Lucius.”

“Fine, Hermione might even like him, if you somehow interpret that as a good indicator. Harry seemed to like him well enough.”

Now Snape was curious. He was not an opponent to betrothals in general, and he believed they had many good qualities as long as the match was suitable. If Narcissa had approved his choice, the gentleman had to be of good social standing, and if Harry had approved, he was probably of agreeable temperament. Not that he fully trusted either of their judgments on the matter of suitable husband material for his goddaughter.

“Have I met him?” he asked.

“Sort of. Briefly. His name is Reginald Stratus. He was in charge of protecting Harry during his visit to Ireland. He’s also my personal assistant.”

Snape thought back on the day. There had been very few survivors, but none of them had particularly stood out to him at the time. He had been more concerned about Harry and then the Dark Lord after his amputation. He thought he might remember Harry discussing the man briefly as he explained what had happened. He seemed to think Stratus had been very brave. This would normally count against him in Snape’s estimation, but since the man had managed to survive the faerie attack and the Dark Lord’s anger at his initial failure to protect his protégé, he was clearly more resourceful than foolish. That he was Lucius’ personal assistant was a bit concerning, but that also suggested that the man was at least competent.

“I would like to meet him,” Snape asked.

“Of course. He’ll be at the Christmas Ball. You can grill him there.”

Snape nodded in acknowledgment. He fully intended to do just that.

“Do you still intend to cut Hermione’s schooling short?”

Lucius sighed.

“No. Stratus expressed the desire to have a fully educated wife. Secondary and University. It’s going to be a long engagement.”

The headmaster was already starting to like the man. Hermione would not be happy to learn she was once again betrothed, but perhaps the long engagement would allow her to warm up to the idea. She was not a silly romantic after all. Even if this Stratus were not the love of her life, she might be willing to settle down with him if he offered her the respect and the freedom she deserved.

“Have you told her yet?”

“Not yet. Narcissa thought it might be a good idea for Stratus to strike up a courtship with her first before suggesting marriage. She seemed to think Hermione was somehow prejudiced against Crouch because of how they were introduced.”

They both shared a look. Snape let out a snort. However, Narcissa did have a good idea. It would perhaps be best to see how they got along before he decided to offer his own stamp of approval. It would also give him the opportunity to do a thorough background check.

“And what does Stratus get out of this?”

“A dowry of course,” Lucius said bluntly. “And a rather large number of influential people to count amongst his acquaintances, myself and the Dark Lord’s protégé not least among them. He’s a pureblood and from a respectable family, but he’s a third son. His marriage prospects were slim so he joined the military and focused on building his career. He’s done quite well for himself considering.”

A self-made man then. Another point in his favor, but Lucius was hardly going to point out the negatives. He seemed to want Snape’s approval for this. Perhaps it was his way of mending fences between them. It would be nice if it were true, but he was not an optimist any more than he was a fool.

“Very well, I will meet this man and try to keep an open mind.”

“Thank you, Severus. That is all I ask.”

“I believe I figured it out,” Voldemort said as he entered the study. Harry was right where he had left him that morning, curled up on the sofa and glaring death as he entered. “The tree is an aspect of my soul and was absorbing your magic and filtering it, allowing my own body to safely take it into itself and use that extra magic to heal itself. The soul is the source of magic, after all, so it makes sense that it might have the ability to do something with magic that the body cannot.”

Harry gave him an odd look.

“If the soul is the source of magic, then why are most magic users born into magical families? If it was merely a magical soul wandering around in search of a body, shouldn’t it be a lot more random?”

“Not necessarily. Magic is attracted to magic. Would it be that strange if a soul, capable of magic, was attracted to a fetus within a magical parent? Muggleborns and squibs are merely a sort of accident.”

“But if magical inheritance isn’t involved, what about magical traits that only run in families? Like Parseltongue?”

Voldemort stopped to consider.

“That’s a good question. Perhaps the soul is a source of magic, but the body might define certain limitations and potentials on how that magic is expressed.”

Harry wasn’t sure what to make of that and frankly was too tired to care very much.

“I don’t suppose you could give my magic back? Since you were able to absorb it,” Harry asked peevishly. Magic deprivation was unpleasant enough as it was, but having the cause of that deprivation practically skipping around him with excess energy was exceptionally aggravating. It didn’t help that Voldemort seemed to find his surliness hilarious.

“No,” Voldemort said. “It’s already been converted into something I can use. If I could somehow give you my excess magic, it would kill you. Probably. Although… Where did you put the book?”

Harry pulled a small journal out from the cushions and hurled it at the man, who caught it easily.

“Careful, Harry, this belongs to you as much as it does to me,” he said and went to his desk for a pen. He had been carefully documenting ‘the experiment’ and had even let Harry read through his notes and add comments of his own. He briefly skimmed some of the comments and found they were not very flattering. Oh well, it was only a rough draft.

“What are you writing now?”

“Possible future experiments.”

“Count me out.”

Voldemort just smiled to himself. Harry would feel better soon enough, and then he might be more open-minded. After finishing his notation, he closed the book and set it on the shelf for later. He would rather Harry not read it just yet.

“I dropped by Hogwarts and got something for you,” he said to his protégé. “I think it will make you feel better.”

He pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to Harry. The boy blinked, then relaxed, his irritated expression melting away.

“I hadn’t thought about this,” he said, holding his keystone tightly in his hands. He had left the keystone at Hogwarts, safely tucked under his pillow, afraid he would forget it or lose it in the house. He brought it to rest against his chest. It felt cool against his skin, but left him feeling warm as his magic flowed back into him. He felt immediately stronger, if not fully recovered.

“Better?” Voldemort asked.

“Much.”

“Good. You have an appointment with a tailor today, and then Lucius’ party tomorrow.”

Harry let out an exhausted huff. He had forgotten about the party. While he was recovering he had a legitimate reason not to go, and even now he wasn’t certain he was up to facing the general, but he had little choice in the matter, it seemed. He would just have to find a reason to stick close to Voldemort or perhaps Snape. He could fake a dizzy spell if necessary and cut out early.

Nevertheless, after three days cooped up with nothing to do, Harry was looking forward to going out and doing something. Anything.

It turned out that his appointment with the tailor did not include the Dark Lord, who had engagements elsewhere and left him in Victoria’s capable hands. Harry was glad of this, for in addition to catching up with her he was able to set his own pace rather than try to keep up with his mentor’s. The tailor was one he had visited a few times before and already knew his preferences but insisted on another round of measurements.

“Young men are so elastic,” the tailor had laughed. “I never know what shape they’ll come in from one week to the next.” Victoria was sent to look at materials in the shop while Harry stripped down to his skivvies to be measured and was shortly left alone altogether while the tailor went out to gather some samples.

“Well, haven’t you grown up.”

Harry nearly jumped out of skin and spun around to see who or what had somehow snuck into a room with only one door. A door he happened to be facing almost the entire time.

“Skeeter!” he hissed, feeling himself flush with embarrassment. Of all the people he didn’t want to be caught with in only his underwear, Rita Skeeter ranked second in the world, right after Lestrange. “What are you doing in here?”

She had the audacity to leer at him, and if he hadn’t left his wand with Victoria he would have cast a blinding curse the reporter on principle alone.

“Oh, Harry-dear, there’s no need to be shy. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

He could feel himself turn redder by the second and that was no doubt her intention. She thrived on making people uncomfortable, and she was very good at it. However, he didn’t believe she had transfigured herself and followed him just to ogle his teenage body. At least, he hoped not.

“What do you want?”

Her smile was all shiny red plastic and hard to look at directly without thinking of poisonous things.

“I heard you were going to Malfoy’s Christmas Ball again this year.”

His discomfort took on a sharper edge of wariness.

“Yeah? And?”

“Weeellll… I was wondering if I could ask a teeny tiny, itsy bitsy little favor…”

1. Necrotist: a wizarding medical examiner/mortician.↩

The Fall of a King

Harry entered Malfoy Manor a few steps behind the Dark Lord, who was stalking about the premises like a wolf on the prowl and nearly flattened the terrified little house elf (already terrified of clothing simply on principle) at the door when he hurled his cloak and hat at it. Harry politely refrained from assaulting their coat checkers with textiles, but the care he took in surrendering his outer garb had more to do with the tiny passenger he was smuggling within the folds of his cloak than out of consideration for the servants.

He couldn’t quite reason with himself on why he had agreed to sneak Skeeter inside the party. They were not friends, and she had no real power over him. Quite the opposite, in fact. All he would have to do was whisper in the right ear that Rita Skeeter, a source of infinite scandal and embarrassment for Court officials everywhere, was herself an unregistered animagus. Even supposing she managed to avoid a trip to Azkaban, her career would be over. If anyone asked why he had relented to her request, he would say it was a moment of weakness; he would have done anything to stop her leering at him in the fitting room at the tailor’s. Of course, if anyone ever asked it would likely be during an interrogation and he would disavow her and any prior knowledge of her actions. Whatever mischief-maker’s camaraderie existed between them, it did not extend to his protection, and he had made it clear that once inside she was on her own.

Distracted and delayed, by the time Harry turned around Voldemort had already disappeared, no doubt on the war path and intent on terrorizing someone. He hoped it wasn’t Lucius. He had requested the Dark Lord refrain from antagonizing the general before Harry had the opportunity to determine where they stood. Harry didn’t think the Dark Lord paid him any heed. Voldemort’s annoyance with Lucius’ recent bumbling, despite the cause behind it, had not dissipated. By the dark wizard’s standards, he was exceptionally indulgent towards Harry but never- well, very rarely- to the point where his protégé could be considered a restraining influence.

“Can you tell me where Lord Malfoy is?” he asked the house elf handling his cloak and gloves.

“M-master is in-in-indisposed,” he stuttered nervously, perhaps expecting to be punished for being unhelpful.

However, he had answered Harry’s question well enough. If Malfoy Sr. was ‘indisposef’ then he was busy elsewhere and Harry had the time and room to find Hermione and maybe Snape to gather intel before his battle of wills with Lucius.

“And Lady Granger?”

“Y-young mis-mistress is in th-the ballroom, S-sir.”

“Thank you,” he said offhandedly. The poor house elf nearly fainted.

Voldemort had brought them late, either to spite Lucius or simply because he could, so the party was already in full swing by the time he entered the ballroom. Harry paused at the doorway to admire the spectacle that met his eyes. The Malfoys had outdone themselves this year. The ballroom, normally a cavern of gold and marble, had been transformed into an ice palace. The floor was layered in a sheet of opaque white ice and the walls lined with silver mirrors and crystalline tiles. Above them the ceiling was an arching, asymmetrical whirl of white and blue, like the hollow interior of an ice cave worn by a river. Icicle chandeliers refracted light into rainbow shards and frosted glass lamps emitted a light that softened the edges, granting a dream-like quality to everything it touched. The orchestra was dressed in blues and silvers, their instruments bewitched to appear as if carved of glass. Guests danced a Viennese waltz to the music, twirling about the floor, their reflections caught in the mirrored walls to become spinning kaleidoscopes.

Harry felt an instinctive need to shiver at the sight of so much ice, but it was actually quite warm. He shook himself for good measure anyway and plunged into the crowd. Immediately, he found himself the center of a great deal of attention. Witches and wizards he had met throughout his time shadowing the Dark Lord or else complete strangers cornered him at every turn to make conversation, attempting to draw him into their little cliques or needle information out of him in the guise of casual banter. It was honestly rather awkward. Harry was used to attention, but typically he had another adult, Voldemort or Snape usually, between him and the crowd for when they became too invasive and a part of him that was still a child twisted uncomfortably at brushing off full-grown men and women directly when they were only showing harmless interest. He did his best to pretending to be on an errand of some importance that he could not afford to be sidetracked from, stalking through crowds rather than rambling and looking around but never making direct eye contact with anyone lest they interpret it as an invitation.

Luckily, his search turned up Hermione rather quickly. She was dancing with a slightly chubby young man with a ruddy complexion and giving him a rather pained smile. He suspected her partner, who wasn’t exactly the most graceful dancer, was stepping on her toes, so he waded in to rescue her.

“Pardon me, sir,” he said, tapping the man on the shoulder. The wizard turned slightly and froze, as if shocked to see Harry standing there. “Would you mind terribly if I cut in? Thank you.”

He snatched Hermione up and spun her away before the man had time to protest. Hermione’s smile became instantly more genuine, and she looked ready to laugh at his audacity.

“Thank Merlin, you’re here. He was talking to me about the weather for the last ten minutes.”

“Egad, the scoundrel!”

“And stepping on my toes. Not that I could feel it anyway in these ridiculous shoes!”

He glanced down at her feet to look at the offending heels and flinched sympathetically. He wondered if they had to cut off one of her toes to fit her into them.

“Do you want to take a break then? We could go somewhere so you can sit down and take off your shoes for a while.” Somewhere private where they could also talk about Lucius.

“Soon. Lord Voldemort is here with you, I presume? We’ll wait until he’s dragged everyone off to the parlor and she won’t know I’ve slipped away.”

“Narcissa? She’s watching you? Where?”

“Up on the balcony.”

He looked around and found the balcony that he had missed during his initial observation. It was right above the entrance he had entered through, an elegant palisade that appeared to be carved out of snow. The space could easily have held forty people, but at the moment it was occupied by their hosts, General and Lady Malfoy, his guardians; Snape and Ira, and one whom he thought might be Lt. Stratus but couldn’t be sure. They were standing by the balcony railing, talking and watching the crowd below.

Harry looked away quickly before Lucius caught his eye. He wasn’t ready for their confrontation just yet.

“So what is that all about? She never seemed to watch you very closely before.”

Hermione sighed.

“She took the end of the engagement pretty hard. She was furious with Lucius, but he seems to have wormed his way back into her good graces again and now she’s throwing all her frustration into more husband-hunting. She’s had me dancing with every available bachelor she could throw me at.”

It wasn’t actually funny, but her words brought up some pretty funny mental pictures, and he could help grinning. She rolled her eyes.

“You’re awful.”

“The very worst. Does she blame me?”

“I don’t think Lucius ever told her about your involvement, but she might suspect. Not that she would accuse you. I think you might be on her ‘eligible bachelors’ list.”

“Heaven and Earth, that woman needs a new hobby.”

That earned him a smile and a laugh, but soon enough her mind started to wander, and he didn’t think it was friendly paths it was taking. Her expression became distant, and despite her mockery of her previous dance partner’s clumsiness, she stepped on Harry’s toes more than once.

“You know what this reminds me of?” he said, attempting to draw her out of her melancholy.

“Hmm?”

“The first time you taught me to dance. Do you remember? We were right outside those doors, and you tried to teach me the waltz. I kept stepping on your toes and Draco and Natalie laughed at me.”

“And then Dobby banished you into a snow bank. I remember that,” she said, smiling sweetly. “We were so young then. Isn’t it amazing how far we’ve come since then?”

“I know my dancing has certainly improved. Yours, not so much.”

She gave him a friendly swat on the shoulder. He grinned.

“Alright, we can blame it on the tiny shoes.”

“Is that Lord Potter?” Tom found himself asking, looking down at the swirl of bodies below. He had missed Harry’s entrance, not expecting the young wizard to attend the ball that night, but his attention had been focused on his fiancé enough that he could hardly overlook him when he stole the little mudblood away from her partner. He feigned mild curiosity to cover the swell of irritation at the sight the young witch and wizard made. Laughing and smiling, they looked decidedly in love. The little trollop had clearly been taking advantage of Tom’s absence.

The rest of his party, the Malfoys and the Snapes, moved towards the edge of the balcony and looked to confirm for themselves. Ira smiled down at the pair fondly, but hers was not a sentiment shared by others. Her husband gave an exasperated sigh and rolled his eyes before seeming to lose interest entirely. Narcissa gave an annoyed huff. Tom could imagine what she was thinking. Whatever Harry’s intentions, he held too much of Granger’s attention and affections to let her seek them in others who might actually be attainable. As long as her Gryffindor cohort kept her company, she was perfectly content to ignore any other possible suitor.

Lucius…

Tom could not even imagine what Lucius was thinking at the moment. His gaze was decidedly fixed on Harry, but his expression was completely unreadable. Was he angry? Curious? Eager?

Afraid?

If he had half a knut’s worth of sense, the pompous bastard should be terrified. Harry had all but taken him apart and, with a little help from Tom, he could do so again. Another time though. Right now, Tom was working to ingratiate himself to Snape, a man he fully planned to destroy in the near future.

“My, my,” he said, keeping his tone light as he studied Hermione and Harry dancing together. “Will I be competing with the ambassador for the dear lady’s affections?”

It was only partly in jest on his part. He had barely seen Harry since the boy’s second year at Hogwarts, and he had no idea if the friendship he shared with the wretched girl had changed as their bodies had changed from children to young adults. From where he stood, he could see they were comfortable with each other, even dancing together, but whether there was an undercurrent of attraction, he couldn’t ascertain.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lady Malfoy chided gently. “They are friends and nothing more. Practically siblings.”

There was a touch of uncertainty in her tone that Tom didn’t miss. Was it possible she didn’t know where her own foster daughter’s heart lay? He cast a quick glance to Lucius. The man caught his gaze and smiled blandly.

“Lord Potter’s tastes,” he said idly, “tend to run towards more… unconventional fare than our dear Hermione. If she has any feelings of her own towards him, she is smart enough to know better than to entertain them.”

Snape gave an inelegant snort.

“Why, Stratus? Are you not up to competing with a schoolboy?”

Tom felt a twinge of annoyance but brushed it aside. Snape’s taunt was a feeble one. Harry could hardly be considered a mere ‘school boy’. He took the suggestion for what it was. A distraction. Out of everyone there, Snape might have the best idea of what existed between his ward and his goddaughter and the reason why it was not a relationship to be examined too closely.

Or perhaps he was merely testing him for weaknesses. Tom would show him none but those he chose for the other man to see.

“He does have the benefit of proximity,” he said idly, testing to see how much the headmaster’s words were distraction and how much provocation.

“Lockhart could use an assistant, if you believe it would improve your odds of success.”

Provocation then. He met Snape’s dour glare with a roguish smirk.

“I don’t know. An air of mystery about myself might prove more effective.”

“Only if you’re actually clumsy and obnoxious with women in person.”

“Severus,” Ira chided.

“Whatever my inexperience with the fairer sex,” he said without rising to the bait, “I do know how to treat a lady of Miss Granger’s position properly.”

Snape didn’t appear impressed but at least he didn’t appear disgusted at this point either. He took a sip of his wine and let his dark eyes slide over to Narcissa.

“So much for your hopes for grandchildren then. Perhaps you’ll have better luck with Draco.”

Everyone looked ready to shout at Snape to just ‘shut up’, but the unpleasant man was spared the rebuke by the balcony doors swinging open. Voldemort strode into their sanctuary with all the crazed tension of a caged tiger. His stride was long and purposeful, carrying him directly to them even as his eyes danced around the room and swallowed in everything at once. They tensed at his approach. There had been some uncertainty as to whether the Dark Lord would show at all, and despite the weakness it would have exposed to Lucius’ enemies and rivals, it was still debatable if the man’s presence was actually a good thing. In his current state, Voldemort might start casting curses just to release stress.

His crimson eyes danced from one face to the other, before settling, oddly enough, on Ira. He strode towards her and grinned like the devil.

“If it isn’t the enchanting Mrs. Ira Snape. It has been some time since we saw one another, has it not? You’re looking exceptionally lovely this evening.”

The Dark Lord might as well have cast a stunning hex on the poor woman. She stood absolutely still, wide-eyed, and mute. They had met before and were on congenial terms for the most part, but his overly enthusiastic compliments and attention before everyone else in their assembled party had not only caught her off guard but also terrified her with the possibility that he was about to pull an exceptionally cruel joke of which she was the principle recipient. Voldemort’s grin only widened at her reaction, and he boldly reached out and took her hand to pat it affectionately. She let out a slightly choked sound but didn’t move.

“It’s always good to see you. How is married life treating you? I was expected a little one by now. I could always use a few extra Snapes laying around. Speaking of which!”

He turned his attention swiftly from Ira to her husband, who met his bright gaze with reserved annoyance. He didn’t appreciate the Dark Lord toying with his wife, even if the man had been ignorant of how sensitive the subject of babies was for her at the moment, but he wasn’t so foolish as to think he could in any way stop it. He happily accepted his master’s somewhat manic regard in his wife’s place. Now under mutual scrutiny, Snape realized something significant.

Voldemort had taken off his gloves. Since the amputation of his left arm and its subsequent reappearance, the Dark Lord had never been seen without a pair of sleek, black leather gloves. Whether traversing his domain by horseback or taking tea in his office, the gloves were never absent. Until now. Now the smooth, unmarred flesh of his hands was visible for all to see. Snape knew there had been reasons to hide them, but whatever it had been there was no longer any visible evidence. Had he performed some sort of ceremonial magic that had restored him completely? Was that the source of Harry’s ‘minor accident’? If so, it seemed both his master and his ward had walked away none the worse for wear.

“Severus!” Voldemort greeted, his smile all teeth. “I can tell you’ve caught on already. Is my condition not much improved?”

“I have never found your condition to be faulty, my Lord. You do, however, seem to be enjoying a minor alteration.”

Voldemort chuckled darkly.

“Always quick with the diplomatic answer, my friend, even when it tastes like ash in your mouth. Never mind. I will pick your mind later, but for now I have more official matters with which to amuse myself.”

At last, he turned his attention to Lucius, who was looking uncomfortable but doing his best not to show it. He was only too aware that Voldemort had snubbed both him and his wife intentionally by speaking with Ira and then Snape first. It was too much to hope that his previous errors had been forgotten so soon. His only consolation was that the Dark Lord was unlikely to torture him tonight. He had guests, important guests, that neither of them wanted privy to dissension within the governmental hierarchy. Not yet anyway. Not unless or until there was someone else set up to replace him.

Good God, he couldn’t have found a replacement so quickly, could he?

“How are you, Lucius? You’re looking… less pathetic at the moment. Harry does good work, doesn’t he? Oh, but you both aren’t getting along at the moment, are you? What is it now? He’s planning to elope with that Granger girl, or you tried to put Veritaserum in his tea? I do have trouble keeping up with all of your little spats.”

Lucius kept his expression featureless. There wasn’t much else he could do. To object was to contradict the Dark Lord, to offer explanations was to try to justify mistakes, which was even worse, and to laugh it off would suggest he didn’t take the matter seriously. And it was a serious matter. Despite his master’s backhanded remarks, they were all taking this seriously. Voldemort regarded him, his shark’s smile gradually fading away to blatant anger as the silence continued.

The general could say nothing. He could do nothing.

If the Dark Lord wanted to punish him, he had decided to do so before he had even seen Lucius, and there was nothing he could do to stop him.

“Whatever the matter, consider it settled. Harry has won this battle, and you have more important things you will need to be doing than prolonging it. Am I understood?”

Lucius acknowledged his orders with a tilt of his head and an ‘of course, my Lord’, but inside he was seething. Won? Harry? The fight had barely begun. What had been done to him was not some prank gone wrong It had been a deliberate intent to hurt him, to kill him, and the Dark Lord refused to acknowledge the possibility of Potter’s involvement. It was unacceptable, and even if his master was choosing to ignore it, he couldn’t afford to himself. What if Harry or Harry’s accomplice tried again?

He would have to wait or perhaps approach the situation more subtly, but he couldn’t accept defeat just yet. Certainly not to a sixteen-year-old boy.He cleared his mind, placing up the finest occlumency shields he could to protect these thoughts, but it was unnecessary.

The Dark Lord had already looked away to scan the crowds of people below, looking down at them with a sort of covetous pleasure. Lucius knew the feeling. The feeling that all those people down there belong to him, were subject to his every whim and mood, was an addictive feeling. Now that his master was fully recovered from his injuries, he was feeling powerful enough to indulge in the sentiment.

“Good,” the Dark Lord said, no longer bothering to even look at him. “I will need you to make arrangements for me to return to the continent. I will need to speak with the Polish minister. Tomorrow if it is possible.”

“It will be done,” Lucius agreed.

It was always important to state one’s compliance before voicing anything that might be interpreted as an objection. Equally important was not sending the Dark Lord into a situation in which he might be caught by surprise. Voldemort hated surprises in politics and battles.

“But you should be made aware the Polish press has been misconstruing your departure from their troops as a sort of abandonment and insult, and the Minister of Magic has been conceding to their insinuations rather than standing up to them. He will be reluctant to switch his position so easily again in your favor.”

“The Minister is a coward. Arrange a meeting, Lucius. I will give him something worse than public opinion to fear.”

“No doubt, my Lord. I will also need to call in several court officials from holiday leave.”

Voldemort’s expression twisted in irritation.

“Christmas morning,” he said. It sounded strangely like ‘plague of boils’ coming out of his mouth. “Fine. Move up the deadline to the day after tomorrow, but I had better be back in the field before the new year.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

Voldemort turned back to the general, probably to make another threat, but his eyes landed on Stratus and he was momentarily distracted. He remembered Stratus. He had seen him on various occasions and his signature on several documents that had come to his attention, particularly during the last month or so as Lucius struggled first with his curse and then with Voldemort’s punishment. Then there was the rather disastrous incursion into Hausteheim.

Despite his frequent presence, Voldemort had never paid much attention to him. He was a very minor official with no real political influence or significant family alliances. Additionally, Stratus had little presence unto himself. He was not particularly handsome or ugly, fierce or congenial. Averageness seemed to be his defining feature, and yet now that the Dark Lord studied him directly, he got the strangest feeling of… something.

“Lieutenant,” he acknowledged. “It is good to see you again. I understand you have been taking care of matters while General Malfoy has been- hn- recovering.”

“As much as one of my limited abilities is able, my Lord,” the man said modestly. Voldemort continued to regard him intently, taking in the suddenly nervous body language. Nothing odd about that. People were often nervous around him, but still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. He offered his hand to the man, a gesture he rarely practiced but that was occasionally appropriate and possibly insightful.

“A fine performance just the same. I commend your efforts on Britain’s behalf.”

Stratus hesitated for a moment. Then another moment longer than was strictly polite before tentatively reaching out to grasp Voldemort’s hand. Despite the soldier’s reluctance, the handshake itself was firm. The Dark Lord felt through his magus hypersentia, never quite as sensitive as Harry’s but still formidable, the stir of magic beneath his hands but was coiled tightly and hard to identify. Quickly, he turned his attention to the man’s eyes.

Legilimency. He nudged at mental barriers as subtly as he knew how, but they did not yield as he expected. In fact, Stratus seemed to know what was happening immediately and physically retreated. He looked rather affronted, and Voldemort couldn’t help but laugh at his indignation.

“An occlumens? My, but you are a man of hidden talents. You need to work on controlling your expressions. It’s not very useful to hide your thoughts in your mind while wearing them on your face at the same time.”

Tom was too stunned to bristle at his counterpart’s comment. Voldemort hadn’t recognized him. How could henothave recognized him? Their last encounters had been brief and inattentive, and Tom had been careful to avoid the Dark Lord’s presence as much possible to prevent recognition. He had been absolutely convinced that if they touched, there would be no way of hiding the truth. There should have been some sort of reaction. Some magical friction, a physical sensation, something.

And there had been something, but not what he had been expecting. There had been no familiar spark of fire. There had been no sudden feeling of absolute recognition. Rather, there had been sense of… someone else. He had sensed Harry.

But how? He could feel Voldemort’s barely constrained magic lapping against his own, but it did not intertwine or react upon contact as he had expected. He could feel Harry’s magic as a cold sliver of ice caught in the fire, small but impossible to ignore. It was what Tom imagined his own magic had felt like just after his emergence from the diary, when Harry’s magic had still been strong inside him before his own finally took over. But surely Voldemort had not gone through such a rebirth himself?

It begged the question of what he had done to take Harry’s magic. Particularly, how he had done so without killing the boy.

What did it mean?

He felt suddenly and intensely jealous. Voldemort had shared… no, stolen magic from Harry. It was an intimacy only Tom had been privy to and one he used to frequently used to justify the sense of familial affection he held for Harry. That his counterpart had mimicked that defining characteristic of his and Harry’s bond was unforgivable.

It was something to deal with later. He needed no additional excuses for revenge, but perhaps an extra layer to the suffering was appropriate. At the moment, he was lucky to have made it through this encounter undetected. He had been planning to curse the Dark Lord and make a run for it while his counterpart was still surprised. He couldn’t hope to kill him. It would take more than simple wand magic to destroy Voldemort, and he hadn’t had time to prepare. He hadn’t honestly expected the Dark Lord to show up at all tonight. Now that he knew he had remained undetected, he had to play his part in this farce.

As briefly as possible. It wouldn’t do to tempt fate.

“I shall work to improve, my Lord,” he said shakily, only partly acting.

“You do that. I am afraid I must leave you now. I have some entertaining to do in the parlor. I would gladly invite a man of your talents, but I think you will have a little more practice first. Severus, Narcissa… Lucius, if you wouldn’t mind gathering the others? Ira, my dear, we will be talking mostly business, and I am afraid it will be terribly dull for you. If you would prefer to stay and enjoy the festivities, I shall not think any less of you. And if you would do me the favor of watching out for Harry? He has only just recovered from that little accident I told you about, and I would prefer he didn’t overexert himself.”

There was acquiescence around the room along with a general sense of relief. No one had died or gotten cursed, and now the Dark Lord’s attention seemed to be directed towards a particular task rather than a particular person. There was only a great deal of wounded pride and awkwardness, and that was survivable.

Tom offered to keep Ira company in the absence of her husband, which earned him a rather unpleasant glare from Snape, but Ira herself looked relieved. She knew almost no one there, and the thought of being left alone with so many rich and somewhat snobbish purebloods was almost panic-inducing. For Tom’s part, he hoped Ira’s responsibility of looking after Harry might yield an opportunity to speak with his dear friend, and he was willing to put up with the woman’s tepid personality for such a chance.

Before that, however, he had to assist his ‘superior’ in rounding up the former Death Eaters for their annual parlor room chat. He spoke briefly to one after another, at least those he recognized, and trusted them to pass on the message as he went. He was almost done and prepared to meet up with Ira when he spotted Crouch moving towards Lucius.

A sudden sense of dread came over him.

“Lucius, why so glum? Don’t tell me you’ve lost your Christmas spirit,” Crouch greeted his longtime rival cheerfully. He had been watching the confrontation on the balcony, and while he hadn’t been able to see some of it or hear any of it, it was obvious that things still hadn’t warmed between the Dark Lord and the general.

Such a pity, that.

Lucius turned to cast an imperious glare over his shoulder at him. Crouch noted that his jaw was clenched and he was working a little harder than usual school his features. Mentally, Crouch purred at the signs of weakness. It would make what he was about to do all the more enjoyable.

“The Dark Lord wishes for our presence in the parlor. If you see anyone who should attend, please let them know,” the general said, ignoring his comment in favor of reciting the words he had said to a dozen other witches and wizards already. He was already turning away, but Crouch caught his arm to stop him. The man looked at him in surprise.

“Before all that, there’s something I need to show you. Somewhere private.”

Lucius gave him a skeptical look, but not a nervous one. No one could harm him in his own house, except perhaps the Dark Lord, but even he was reluctant to test the defenses of the formidable Malfoy Manor. If the Malfoys were in any way threatened within the manor, the defensive magic would rise up to their defense just as it would in Hogwarts, only the magic tended to be more insidious if not more powerful. Additionally, only the Lord of Malfoy Manor could deactivate the defenses once they were activated. Crouch might have the gall or the insanity necessary to attack Malfoy, but he wasn’t stupid enough to attempt it at the manor.

So Crouch wasn’t surprised when Lucius agreed by leading him out of the ballroom and into an empty corridor. He threw up a silencing charm before turning back to his unwanted companion. Crouch put on a vaguely concerned looked despite his desire to grin like a madman. Not that Lucius couldn’t see right through it, but one must observe propriety.

“What do you want?” Lucius asked impatiently.

Crouch pulled open his formal robes and slipped a piece of paper from his breast pocket. He regarded the document with something like fondness.

“Like I said, to show you something.”

He handed it to Lucius, who snatched it out of his hand and skimmed it briefly. Crouch could tell immediately when the other wizard recognized what he was holding.

“Where did you get this?” he demanded.

“Oh, you know, the Court of Familial Affairs. I have a few of my people in there to monitor for things like this. Well, not things precisely like this, but you never know when a family tiff might threaten national security.”

Lucius took a deep breath.

“How do I know this is real?”

“Darling, I couldn’t make something like this up.”

“Yes, you could.”

“Okay true, but the fact that someone else had done it on their own is absolutely delicious.”

“And what do you expect me to do about it?”

Crouch shrugged.

“That’s entirely up to you. After all, she’s your…daughter,” he snickered.

Lucius fixed him with a look that made Crouch wonder if the man intended to kill him. He almost hoped he tried. That would be interesting indeed and, assuming he failed, something he could hold over his head for years. If Voldemort didn’t kill him first.

But Lucius didn’t draw his wand. Instead, his attention turned back towards the ballroom, and he knew all that barely concealed rage was being directed at someone else entirely. Without another word, the man stalked away, letting the document he had been holding fall to the ground. Once gone, Crouch let out a laugh, trusting the silencing charm to swallow it, before reaching down to collect the paper.

The words ‘Declaration of Intention to Emancipate: Form 228C’ stared up at him, and his laughter escalated until he was practically doubling over.

“What have you done?”

The madman grinned at Stratus, finding the man had already breached the sphere of silence and looked nearly as livid as Lucius had. Everyone really was being overly sensitive tonight, weren’t they?

“Just securing our investment. Speaking of which, you shouldn’t be speaking with me. People will become suspicious,” he said with a smile, but there was now a touch of steel in his voice.

He might enjoy a little spat with Lucius, that was expected and could hardly be used against them, but this little fool was an investment of time and effort that could easily be compromised this early in the game.

“Tell me what you said to him!” the man demanded.

Whatever amusement Crouch held instantly fell away, and his face twisted into a snarl.

“Don’t you take that tone with me, you insignificant little pissant. Know who you are addressing.”

The soldier had the sense to look taken back for a moment, but it didn’t last long.

“I know who I’m talking to. Now tell me what you’ve done.”

Crouch sneered at him.

“You’ll find out soon enough. It’s better if it catches you off guard. You’re shit at acting.”

Stratus didn’t grace him with a reply. He scurried away, probably to find Malfoy and stop whatever disaster the conspirator had stirred up. It was too late for that. The soldier had no power over the general, and whatever happened next, ruination and salvation, depended entirely on Lucius’ ability to control himself and the situation. Even Crouch could not be certain how it might turn out, except that Hermione Granger wasn’t going to walk away from it unscathed.

He idled on his way back towards the ballroom. He had been called to the parlor, but he figured he had a few minutes before he was missed and wanted to see if the inevitable confrontation would occur right there on the dance floor.

Intent as he was on the possible drama about to unfurl, he failed to notice the little beetle hovering a few feet above him and was none the wiser when it disappeared in a quiet buzz up the nearby stairs.

“Oh, thank God they left finally,” Hermione sighed, lying back in her bed, a bare foot being massaged carefully by Dobby, who was staring at the aggrieved limb as if it had the answer to the meaning of life. “Another ten minutes and there would have been blood, I know it.”

Harry and Draco shared a sympathetic look, quite happy that men’s footwear sided on the less painful end of the fashion spectrum. Harry stood by the window, looking out onto the manor grounds. There was no snow yet this year and the moon was only a small sliver, but even so there was still a sort of dismal majesty to the rolling hills and the proud, skeletal oak trees that spotted the surrounding land. He felt a distinct urge to explore the half wildness of it, remembering his brief jaunt over the grounds at night during one of his spells of moon madness. There would be no madness tonight, but he thought a bit of mischief in the form of exploration while in their formal robes might be a bit fun in and of itself. Could he convince Hermione and Draco? Draco would be scandalized, but then he liked to do scandalous things every once in a while. He thought it made him more interesting. It certainly made him more fun. Hermione might wave it off as a ridiculous notion, but then she surprised him often enough. Ridiculous or not, she had an adventurer’s spirit hidden under all those etiquette lessons and fancy dresses.

But no, there was still the matter of Lucius. He couldn’t very well expect the general to appreciate him running off with his son and foster daughter in the middle of the night and bringing them back covered in dirt and brambles. For tonight at least, he would try to behave.

Next year, he wasn’t making any promises.

“How long do you think you need?” Draco asked, pacing restlessly up back and forth across the room. Unlike his sister, he wasn’t the least bit tired. He had been enjoying himself with several different dancing partners, finding himself the center of a great deal of fawning by pretty little pureblood ladies eager for his attention. Natalie’s presence and scathing commentary tended to scare them away whenever she kept his company, but she had decided not to come this year after hearing Harry probably wouldn’t be there and opted instead to spend the holiday with her mothers. Hermione rolled her eyes at him. She was not impressed with his Don Juan routine, but Harry preferred Draco distracted from the fact that he had been nursing a feud against him less than a week ago.

“I need just a few more minutes, but I’m going to stay here as long as possible. How long do you think the Dark Lord will keep them in the parlor?” she asked, directing her question to Harry.

“Who knows? I don’t think it will be as long as usual. He didn’t seem to be in the mood for reminiscing about the good old days. He’s trying to organize his return to Germany before the New Year.”

That caught both Draco and Hermione’s attention.

“So soon? He has recovered from… whatever it was?” Draco asked.

“At my expense, yes,” Harry said ruefully. He still hadn’t quite forgiven his mentor for that. Looking at their confused expressions, he clarified. “He took a bit of my magic and healed himself. It was sort of an accident and sort of… well, not. Please don’t ask me to do much magic for awhile. I’d probably embarrass myself.”

“Harry, that’s not… that’s not possible. You can’t take someone’s magic directly… well, not without hurting them really badly or even more likely yourself. That’s basic magical theory.”

Considering they didn’t teach that concept until they were at least fifth years at Hogwarts, he didn’t think it qualified as ‘basic’ magical theory, but then she had probably known all about it before her first Welcoming Feast.

“You can if you filter it through the soul and not the body.”

Draco looked at him blankly. Hermione’s eyes were wide.

“Oh… OH! That’s… that’s rather brilliant. And dangerous! What were you thinking?”

“Funnily enough, I was thinking it was a really bad idea too. This time, it’s entirely the Dark Lord’s fault. Feel free to scold him thoroughly. He doesn’t listen to me.”

“You should feel some sympathy for everyone else then,” Draco said. “You don’t listen to anybody else either.”

Harry just grinned at them. This was fun. He had missed this. He enjoyed the Dark Lord’s company, but it wasn’t the same as hanging out with his friends. Voldemort and he shared a strange, complicated, and undefinable relationship that kept him constantly on his toes and constantly guessing, measuring his defiances and acquiescences, his feelings always falling into extremes in any direction. It was exciting but exhausting. This was… this was easy. Well, not always easy, but certainly easier. Simpler, comfortable. Harry went off to have adventures with Voldemort, but he came home to his friends.

A frantic knock on the door kept him from responding with something teasing. Hermione let out a groan.

“It seems someone noticed we were gone. Alright, Dobby you can stop now. You did a marvelous job. I feel much better.”

The house elf grinned and bowed and thanked his mistress for her kindness before disappearing. House elves were not to be seen if it could at all be helped, and while this rule didn’t apply to immediate family and close family friends, it would apply to whoever had come looking for them in Hermione’s bedroom.

“Who is it?” she called. It would be nice to know in advance if she would have to hide Harry in the closet or not. Having an unrelated boy in her bedroom was not a rumor she wanted circulating.

“It’s Skeeter, open up!”

While Hermione’s expression turned confused, Draco’s became pure panic. He practically leaped across the room to grab Harry and throw their friend into her wardrobe. It seemed she wasn’t the only one worried about her reputation. She went to the door.

“Skeeter? How did you get here? You’re not on the guest list.”

She opened the door to see Skeeter grinning at her like a Cheshire cat and wasn’t given the opportunity to close the door in her face before a foot was thrust inside, followed by the woman herself. She was not dressed for the ball, or maybe she was, and the evergreen business dress with the white feather lining was her idea of what passed for formal wear according to her deranged sense of fashion. Her pointed, candy apple red shoes made Hermione’s look like loafers in comparison. She cast a disinterested look around the bedroom, shamelessly seeking out any secrets it might yield up. Her gaze finally settled, and she stalked towards Draco.

“What are you doing here, Skeeter? Get out!” he snarled.

“Tut-tut, Mr. Malfoy, I’m not here for you,” she said and strode right by him to the wardrobe, which she threw open. Harry looked out at her with some embarrassment from a curtain of lavender skirts and silk blouses. “Never hide in the wardrobe, Harry, darling, it’s the first place anyone is likely to look. Well, that and under the bed. Up and out.”

She grabbed him by his lapel and with surprising strength, pulled him out. Once free, they found Draco pointing a wand at her. She rolled her eyes.

“For heaven’s sake, I’m here to warn you. We don’t have time for the big brother routine. I don’t care if the three of you were having a ménage à trois in here or not.”

Three faces immediately turned red.

“Skeeter,” Harry growled out to cover up his embarrassment. “What are you doing?”

She rolled her eyes.

“I already told you. I’m warning you. Lord Malfoy is on his way, and he is very, very angry.”

He rolled his eyes right back at her.

“I can handle Lord Malfoy, thank you very much.”

“No, Harry, he’s not coming for you. He’s coming for her.”

All eyes turned to Hermione.

“What do you mean he’s coming for me? What did I do?”

“He found out about the emancipation.”

There was a collective gasp, except from the reporter who let out a snort.

“What? How?”

“Crouch.”

Draco hissed. “That bastard. That fucking bastard.”

“Do you mind if I quote you on that?” Skeeter tittered, enjoying this entirely too much.

“Oh God, oh God, he’s going to kill me!”

This wasn’t an exaggeration. If he didn’t do it now, then he might after the guests left. They would have to do something.

“No, he won’t,” Harry said, gathering his resolve. It seemed his intention to placate the general would have to be set aside for the night in favor of continuing their little war against each other. He almost felt guilty about the relief he felt. He had always made war with Lucius better than he made peace. “Hermione, I want you to start packing. Enough for a week. You have ten minutes. Draco, you need to go back to the party. Whatever happens, don’t interfere. Go.”

“But Harry-” Draco started.

“Draco, we can’t let your father know you helped us in any way. We need him to trust you or we won’t know for sure when it’s safe for Hermione to come back.”

“Come back? Where is she-”

“Don’t ask, go!”

The other boy threw up his hands in frustration, but hurried towards the door just the same. He grabbed Hermione as she scurried past him gathering up her things and hugged her. She seemed startled but then fiercely hugged him back.

“Be safe,” he said and let her go.

Once he was out the door, Harry turned to Skeeter.

“Skeeter, you’re taking Hermione to London. Find some place safe for her to hole up for a while. Someplace Malfoy won’t be able to find her.”

“I’m what? Oh, no, no, no. I came here and warned you because you did me a favor by bringing me to the party-”

“Harry!” Hermione cried. He gave her an apologetic shrug.

“-and I got this great scoop.” The fact that Crouch had agents spying on the legal and private family matters of the British citizenry was going to be the scandal of the New Year. Lucius Malfoy’s family debacle would be a page three article at best. “But that doesn’t mean I intend to be a part of your little conspiracy. You’re on your own, kids.”

“Too late, Skeeter, you’ve already interfered. Now you’re a part of it whether you like it or not. It’s the price you pay for sticking your nose in other people’s business.”

“Oh really? And what are you going to do? Tell them I broke in? All I have to do is tell everyone that you invited me. We’ll both go do down together, but you’re going to fall from a much higher height.”

“Don’t push me. You might be able to walk away from a Court inquiry, but what do you think will happen if I let slip your own role in Hermione’s emancipation? I won’t have to destroy you, Skeeter. Lucius Malfoy will do that for me.”

For a moment, no one spoke. No one moved. Two sets of wide eyes stared at him.

“Fine,” Skeeter said at last, letting out a huff of annoyance. “You’re damn lucky I like you so much.”

After that, there was nothing really left to discuss. Hermione kept her school trunk mostly packed already, and she only required a few odds and ends before she was ready to go. She didn’t bother to change yet. She didn’t want to waste the time and risk another minute in the manor. It wouldn’t take long for the house elves to realize something was going on and report her to Lucius. She shrunk and lightened her trunk, changed into some walking shoes, and followed Harry quickly out into the hall. Skeeter had already changed forms and hidden herself in the elaborate weave of Hermione’s hair, while she and Harry pretended nothing was out of the ordinary and they were enjoying a harmless if somewhat brisk walk towards the manor entryway. Harry went ahead briefly to look for signs of Lucius, and he was glad he did, because he spotted the man heading for the stairs.

“He’s coming,” Harry said as he hurried back down the hall towards her. “Is there another way downstairs?”

“The servant stairs behind the painting. It splits into a little hall that goes to either the kitchen or the cloak room.”

“Go to the cloak room,” he said, digging out his paper ticket the elf had given him. “Take my cloak and pull up the hood. If you’re lucky, no one will recognize you until after you’ve left.”

“Where are you going?”

“I have to slow him down.”

“Harry, that’s not-”

“He won’t hurt me. He won’t dare with the Dark Lord here. Don’t worry. Skeeter will make sure nothing happens to you. Hurry, we don’t have a lot of time.”

As with Draco, she hugged him briefly but fiercely before running back down the hall. He watched her go, taking a deep breath to steady himself. He could do this. He would do this. They had anticipated a scenario very similar to this when they had first started planning for Hermione’s freedom, when things were even more desperate than they were now. They hadn’t gone over the details again, there wasn’t time, and he had no intention of letting Skeeter know them.

London was still something of a wreck, even now, but that made it perfect for hiding in. A lot of hotels that weren’t going to look too closely at anyone willing to pay the price for a room, and not even a quarter the number of Sentinels needed to conduct a search were available if one were ordered. If Hermione found herself in trouble, Harry had told her to seek out Fred and George at the Red Weasel. He knew that they would help her, and more importantly, he knew they would know how to help her. She could hide in London until he managed to get word to her or until the school year started and she could hide safely in Hogwarts. Snape might not agree with what she had done, but he wouldn’t leave her to Lucius’ mercies either. If things got bad enough, he still had that open invitation for Hermione in France, where she could be safe behind the walls of Beauxbatons until she was old enough to make her own way in the world. Hopefully some sort of solution could be found before that became necessary, but it was comforting to know they had options and contingency plans if they needed them.

None of it would mean anything, however, if he couldn’t get Hermione safely out of the manor before Lucius found her.

Taking another calming breath, he headed towards the stairs. He stopped at the top when he spotted his enemy climbing towards him. Lucius hesitated at the sight of him, but there was no surprise. Only suspicion. Harry regarded him coolly and leaned against the wall at the top of the rail. They said nothing for a moment, simply assessed one another, determining the state of mind and threat the other posed. Harry couldn’t decipher much. At least, not much of what he didn’t know already. Lucius was angry, his hands were shaking from it, but it wasn’t directed at Harry, not yet, and soon enough the elder wizard continued on his course. Harry hadn’t spoken or moved to stop him. He took a gamble and held his breath, tense but motionless until Lucius passed by the servant’s secret door without pausing.

Harry let out a breath and waited, praying to any god or goddess that would listen that his gambit would pay off. That when Lucius didn’t find Hermione in her room, he wouldn’t summon the house elves to find her but instead…

“Potter!”

Would come looking for him. Minutes Lucius wasted were minutes bought for Hermione.

“Yes, Lord Malfoy?” he asked, still leaning against the wall.

“Where is she?”

“Where is who?”

“That wretched little mudblood I call my daughter.”

Harry gave him a perplexed look.

“I am afraid I don’t know anyone who matches that description.”

“Hermione, you fool!”

“Oh, her. I wasn’t aware you ever called her your daughter, wretched or otherwise. Haven’t seen her.”

“Don’t play games with me, boy, I am not in the mood. Where is she?”

“How would I know? Does it look like I have her in my back pocket?” he sniped and moved away from the wall to make his way downstairs. Lucius would follow him now, he knew. He hoped. How much time had passed? He didn’t have his watch anymore. Had she made it to the cloak room yet? She had to have. Would there be any house elves there? Would they question her? Of course not, they wouldn’t dare question the actions of a witch, no matter how odd.

A hand snagged his arm, and he mentally crowed his success until the grip tightened into something painful, and all he could do was grimace. He would bruise tomorrow, but that was fine. Tomorrow, Hermione would be safely out of reach.

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know. I’m not her keeper.”

“I asked around. They said you left with her a few minutes ago.”

“She said her feet hurt so I escorted her out so no one else would ask her to dance. I don’t know where she went after that. Maybe she went to soak her feet. Maybe she went to find new shoes.”

Go check the spa, Lucius, he silently willed. Go check your wife’s shoe closet. Give Hermione the time and space she needs to get outside the manor. She had probably found his cloak by now and may have already slipped outside, but it would take her ten minutes alone to run to the gate. He needed more time.

“You’re lying.”

“Hah.” Harry didn’t even attempt to deny it. “Okay, maybe I really do keep her in my back pocket.”

He knew Lucius Malfoy was dangerous and for a variety of reasons, but he had underestimated just how daring the Slytherin could actually be. They were not a hundred feet away from the ballroom doors and in clear view of anyone who might happen to look up at them, and somewhere in that mass of people was a highly temperamental Dark Lord with an unpredictable protective streak. It would only take one concerned witness to bring down Voldemort’s unholy wrath.

But it didn’t stop Lucius from twisting Harry’s arm sharply back and up, causing the smaller wizard to cry out in surprise and pain. Too late Harry realized it was his right arm, the one with his wand hidden up the sleeve.

“I’ve had enough of you, Potter. I won’t tolerate your impertinence in my own house. Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

He was shaken roughly, making him grit his teeth against a fresh wave of pain. Would Lucius really break his arm? Dislocate his shoulder? He could probably do it and fix it before anyone was the wiser. He didn’t dare take the risk. He had already miscalculated the return of the Malfoy patriarch’s sanity. Clearly, he wasn’t all there.

He forced himself to turn back and glower up at the man. Lucius glared back at him.

And then Harry felt the tell-tale pressure of a legilimens’ mind pressing against his.

He slammed his eyes shut and turned away again. No! He couldn’t let him see! If he did, he would find Hermione, whether she had escaped from the manor or not. He would find out about Ron. He would find out about Bobby and Carrigan.

There was another twist of his arm, and he let out a cry of pain, unable to hold it.

“Look at me! Look at me!”

But Harry wouldn’t. He’d take the broken arm and the pain. He would protect his friends. It hurts, it hurts!His body protested and his mind flailed, but he kept his eyes squeezed shut.

From below he could hear voices, low but frantic. Had someone found them? He squinted his eyes open to see Ira standing horrified at the bottom of the stairs and just beyond her was Lt. Stratus- Reggy. He was the one talking, trying to talk Lucius down and to release Harry before things got out of hand. Too late for that, Harry thought.

No one else had spotted them yet, and frantic house elves were quickly but quietly closing the ballroom doors before anyone else did. The noise from the orchestra had drowned out his cries and Reggy’s pleas. Who knew how much Lucius could get away with? Reggy was a direct subordinate of Lucius and Ira didn’t have the skill set to face Lucius in combat. Would either of them be able to stop him?

There was a shuffling behind him and Harry became aware of Lucius switching out the hand holding his arm so that he could draw his wand. Harry’s eyes widened. He couldn’t let Lucius use his magic on him. With his own magic so low, he might not have the ability to fight off an Imperius, and a stunner or body-bind would leave him absolutely helpless.

He shoved himself backwards hard, ramming into Lucius, and smashed the back of his head into the man’s face. Lucius was taller but not so tall that the top of Harry’s head didn’t reach his nose. The move stunned the man, and he loosened his grip enough for Harry to twist out of it and shove him away roughly. The force of the shove knocked Lucius over, but also sent Harry back a step.

Between the first gush of blood from Lord Malfoy’s broken nose and the half step backwards of his attacker, the manor’s wards activated. Harry didn’t have the time to register the sudden burning tingle of defensive magic through his magus hypersentia. His first sense of something wrong came when he reached back his foot, expecting to find a step there and only found open air.

By then it was too late.

He was falling. He was falling and for a heart-stopping moment it almost like flying, weightless with a rush of moving air, and then it was very much like falling again as first his left arm then his back stuck the rounded marble edges of the stairs. There was immediate pain, but it was too brief again for him to analyze before gravity and momentum rolled him even further and his head struck the stairs with a ominous crack.

He didn’t remember anything that happened after that.

Ira was not given the benefit of blacking out, although it amazed her that she didn’t faint then and there. Amazed that rather than standing there like a frozen rabbit, she sprinted for the stairs. She wasn’t fast enough to stop Harry’s fall nor the first strike of his head against the stairs. She couldn’t stop him from rolling, but she did manage to catch him before he was more than halfway down and just barely managed to keep herself from being knocked the rest of the way with him.

“HARRY? HARRY?” she screamed. She couldn’t stop herself from screaming, even though he was right there in her arms. Bleeding all over her arms. Panic seized her. He hit his head, she thought, and even in her own mind she was screaming. What about his neck? His back?

Any of these fragile pieces could have shattered against the marble and killed him instantly. He was not moving, but his eyes are just slightly open. Did they flutter? Did they blink? She couldn’t see. Her eyes were flooded with tears and panic. She fought the urge to shake him, as if she could shake him awake and force him to speak, to reassure her that he was alive and he was going to be okay.

She could force herself not to shake him, but she couldn’t stop herself from screaming.

“SEVERUS, SEVERUS! HELP ME!”

But Severus wasn’t there, and even if he heard her, he was far away, and Harry was still bleeding, and she didn’t know where. Moving him as carefully and gently as she could with her shaking hands, she moved his head to her lap and took out her wand. She knew what she was supposed to do. She’d been trained for this. Years ago, but it was her favorite class. Her favorite teacher. She’d only had to use her first aid training for minor things like second degree burns and a sprained wrist so far. She’d never had to use the emergency first aid training. Prayed she would never have to, but never dared let herself forget it completely.

“Rigidus spina,” she invoked, managing a few decibels below a deafening screech.

Nothing happened. She panicked and tried again, and this time she could feel Harry’s neck and back straighten and stiffen. His spinal column now secured, she reached for his pulse. She didn’t think she would be able to feel anything beneath her trembling hands, but the pulse was there when she searched for it under the softness of his jaw.

Then, incredibly, he blinked and he let out a soft gasp. His eyes remained unfocused and dull, but he was alive! She could have laughed she was so relieved.

But he was still bleeding, and she didn’t know where it was coming from.

“SEVERUS!”

Tom knew exactly when Harry got himself into real trouble, and it wasn’t when Lucius grabbed his arm nor when the elder wizard reached for his wand. Tom could easily have rescued him from both these situations, either through reason or a few simple, harmless spells. The moment everything went to hell was when Harry broke Lucius’ nose. After that, it wasn’t Lucius who became the enemy, it was the entire goddamn manor. For a moment, he was frozen in fear of this.

The moment was long enough for him to fail.

Harry’s fall was abrupt and hard, and he didn’t have the chance to get a spell off before Ira had rushed up the stairs to stop it with her own body like a panicking muggle rather than with a spell. She was still faster than him though. Faster to catch Harry, and faster to scream before he could stop her. In moments, the doors behind him were pushed open and people came streaming out to find out what all the noise was about.

What greeted them surely must have been something to see. A woman in modest gray satin covered in blood, the body of a boy, the unmistakable Harold James Potter, in her red stained hands, and Lucius Malfoy peering down at the carnage like the specter of death. No, not death. He looked far too surprised to be death. Surprised and bloody, with a handkerchief pressed to his face to stifle the blood flow.

People moved further into the entryway, although no one dared move closer to Harry’s still form. By now, Ira was beginning to blunder her way through magical first aid, still crying out for her husband when she should have been crying out for a medi-wizard, but he couldn’t criticize her. She was a panicky mess of flailing limbs, stammered spells, and shrieking, but at least she was doing something. He hadn’t moved at all. He hadn’t said a word.

He couldn’t remember how.

A soft chuckle in his ear made him wince.

“This just gets better and better, doesn’t it?” Crouch said softly in his ear, low enough that no one else around them could hear.

And like a flipped switch or a spell that had been lifted, his mind returned to his body and he turned slowly to look the other man in the eye. Crouch blinked once, taken off guard. Stratus blinked back, confused, then looked around. The confusion didn’t lift. The certainty of purpose and intention was no longer with him, but with Crouch who moved carefully through the crowd until he stood at the bottom of the steps.

Ira didn’t see him. Her sight was only for the boy whose life now rested in delicate, trembling fingers. Crouch watched them silently for a moment, taking in Harry’s half-lidded, unseeing eyes and his blood-soaked hair. If not for the faint movement of his lips and a barely discernible whisper he would have believed him already dead. It was too soon to know if he could be saved.

Unforgivable.

He turned his hateful gaze up to Lucius, his eyes flashed crimson. A questioning look entered the general’s gaze but then he fumbled for his wand as Crouch raised his own to point it directly at him.

“Avada Kedavra.”

The man that was once Lucius Malfoy crumbled to the ground with barely a sound. A puppet whose strings were cut. Several screams and outraged cries erupted from the surrounding crowd, and wands were drawn.

Then the entire manor let loose a tremor, rattling windows and chandeliers. Doors suddenly slammed themselves shut, knocking over startled guests or trapping them inside or outside of the ballroom. Locks and latches slid into place. Lamp bulbs burst and candles snuffed themselves out, casting the rooms into darkness. There was more screaming now, this time from fear rather than outrage, and panicked witches and wizards tried for the doors but found them sealed against escape. A terrified wizard tried shoving open a window but found his hands severely burned for his efforts.

Lighting charms were cast, but they only lit the rooms in blinding light and madly dancing shadows, adding to the chaos rather than banishing it. Ira was just as confused and terrified as any of them, but she didn’t move from her post, half curled over Harry’s helpless body and still desperately trying to find out where all the blood was coming from. At the bottom of the stairs, Crouch continued to stare at Harry’s unmoving form, watching the flickering of light and darkness against his features.

He stared and he stared and kept on staring until the chandelier above him dropped free from its mooring and plummeted down on top of him, killing him instantly.

Stratus was more confused and frightened than anyone else, remembering neither how he had gotten there and nor what was happening, and stood frozen, moving only when some panicked witch or wizard ran into him or shouldered past. If not for the pain of those careless knocks and bruises, he might have thought he was having a nightmare. He had been having so many nightmares lately, it seemed.

He suddenly stiffened, feeling a familiar, terrible presence within him. He closed his eyes and shoved back at the presence, trying to push it out again, but he was not strong enough and it hurt to go near it so he fled into the darkness again where at least the horrors were painless. Tom opened his eyes and admired his handiwork. Lucius was dead. Crouch was dead. The sheep were panicking and hadn’t noticed a damn thing.

Revenge was sweet, but he didn’t have time to enjoy it. He needed to help Harry, if help could still be had for him. He made his way towards his incapacitated friend, wary of any other falling furniture or magical traps, but before he got there one of the side doors exploded. The force of the blast knocked him and several others nearby to the ground. When he regained his senses and sat up, he could make out the Dark Lord striding into the chaos.

“What is going on here?” he demanded, his voice magically amplified to drown out the panicked crying and wailing. A mirror nearby shattered and hurled its glassy knives at him, but he waved his wand and banished them with barely a sideways glance. “Where is Lucius? Why has he activated the wards?”

Death Eaters began flowing in from behind him, positioning themselves around the area in a defensive circle. The angry but fearless presence of the Dark Lord seemed to call order back into the room, and everyone quickly stopped flinging themselves about pointlessly in favor of letting him fix the situation.

“Lord Malfoy is dead!” a witch cried out and pointed towards the top of the stairs. “He was killed by Bartimius Crouch!”

Voldemort’s gaze rose up the stairs but stopped halfway on Harry and Ira. Ira, blood smeared from her chin all the way down the front of her dress, looked to him with pleading eyes. He didn’t need legilimency to know what she was begging for, but he used it anyway to find out why this had happened. In the blink of an eye, he saw it all. Lucius’ attack, Harry’s panicked counterattack, and the near-fatal result. What he didn’t see was how Lucius had died. She had not been watching anything but Harry at that point.

Her gaze broke away as it landed on Snape, who was rushing towards her. He took over Harry’s care quickly and efficiently, going through the limited number of steps of diagnosis and treatment available to him with only his wand and Ira’s shaky explanations. He forced himself to look away after that. Snape would do more than he could ever hope to do himself until they could get Harry to trained medi-wizards. And he wouldn’t be able to get Harry that much-needed medical care until he deactivated the manor’s damn wards.

He turned his attention to the top of the stairs where the witch had pointed. There was Lucius. Fallen bonelessly onto his side and staring out at nothing, his white blond hair half fallen onto his face. Dead.

The Dark Lord felt a stirring inside of him but wasn’t sure what to identify it as. Grief? Regret? He couldn’t define it explicitly, but mostly it seemed to him to be frustration at the complete waste of it. Whatever his ire towards his general, it was not enough to erase the years of dedicated and competent servitude. Lucius was as selfishly ambitious as they came, but he had been a part of Voldemort’s dream. A part of the vision of Britain’s future he had been building and a symbol of Pureblood heritage and culture. And now he was gone, and Voldemort wasn’t certain how he could ever possibly replace him.

“Where is Crouch?”

“Dead!” the witch cried again and pointed to the chandelier. Voldemort looked down and spotted a few odd limbs sticking out of the debris. His feelings towards Crouch were considerably less complicated.

Mostly, he was just extremely annoyed.

It seemed he was running out of people to blame for this mess.

There were loud thudding and clacking sounds from up upstairs, signaling the manor’s collection of enchanted armor had taken up arms and was now marching towards them. It was another of a hundred minor waves of retaliation that would continue until the wards were deactivated, the possible enemies were all dead or close to it, or the manor tore itself apart.

“Where is Narcissa?” he demanded. She had followed them out of the parlor, but now he could not see her anywhere. No, she couldn’t do anything about this anyway. She was a Malfoy by marriage, not blood. “Where is Draco Malfoy?”

From within the ballroom there came a cacophony of screaming followed by several loud crashes. Voldemort rolled his eyes. Why was everyone so bloody helpless? He waved his wand at the doors and melted them from their hinges. Icy water poured out from the doors in a miniature wave, rushing over over his feet and ankles and flooding the entryway. From his position, the Dark Lord could see the ice cavern melting rapidly, causing ice sculptures and the overhanging balcony to collapse in slushy avalanches onto the guests below them. Some of the more level-headed witches and wizards had started casting spells to protect themselves, but there was no way to stop the collapse itself.

Voldemort turned back to his minions, who were waiting for his orders.

“You and you,” he said, pointing to two of his more able servants. “Find me Draco Malfoy.”

One disappeared through the ballroom doors while the second braved the cloak room and backrooms beyond it. The sound of thudding and clanking grew louder, and from the top of the stairs appeared four suited pieces of armor, armed with halberds and swords, beginning their loud, cumbersome descent down the stairs and towards Harry and his guardians. Voldemort was momentarily distracted by a panicked scream when an elderly wizard suddenly caught fire for no apparent reason (warming charm gone wrong perhaps?), and missed Snape blasting the enchanted soldiers to pieces.

His victory was rather short-lived when the stair beneath him suddenly transfigured into a smooth, steep decline and deposited him, his wife, and the barely conscious Harry into a half foot of freezing water below.

“Bloody son of a-” Snape cursed, hissing as he was instantly soaked. Ira was too stunned to do more than gasp at the sudden shock but quickly lifted Harry’s head out of the water before he choked. Harry himself couldn’t move, but his eyes had widened and began rambling faintly ‘not again, not again’. The water around him quickly turned red. Voldemort was quickly losing his patience, his crimson eyes flashing with rage and magic as evidence of his lost control. He was quickly coming to the conclusion that tearing down the manor was the most practical thing he could do.

“I found him, my Lord!”

From the ballroom, one of his minions reappeared, dragging Draco Malfoy behind him. The young Slytherin’s confusion quickly turned to fear as the Dark Lord turned his attention on him and waded towards him. Voldemort seized him by the shoulders, his fingers fisted into claws. Draco winced but didn’t try to pull away.

“Deactivate the wards!”

“I-I can’t! Only father-”

“You are the Lord of Malfoy Manor now.”

Grey eyes widened, so like his father’s and yet so different. Lumps of dull coal waiting to be hardened into diamonds by pressure and fire. They skittered wildly around the entry, searching for escape, searching for help, searching for his father, but all he could find in any direction was inexplicable chaos.

Until he found one of the things he was looking for.

And wished he hadn’t.

“Father?”

Voldemort, at the end of his patience, struck him across the face and to the ground.

“Deactivate the wards, you little fool!”

Draco gasped and scrambled away, water splashing everywhere. The manor gave another harsh tremor, gearing for another wave of attacks as its newest master was assaulted. Men and women were starting to scream and cry again. Voldemort pointed his wand at the ceiling.

“Deactivate the wards, Draco, or I will tear this place down around us.”

“N-no, w-wait,” the young Slytherin stuttered, shock and cold causing him to tremble. “En-enough! ENOUGH! Placidus praedium!”

There was one more violent shudder, and then the house settled. The doors and windows unlatched themselves, the water around them receded, and house elves were suddenly everywhere, frantically trying to put everything and everyone to rights. Draco remained where he was, half crouched on the floor, staring up the stairs and the end of his childhood.

Everything was instantly, overwhelmingly silent.

Silent, except for Harry’s dazed, half-whisper.

“Where’s ’Mione?”

Funeral Games

Harry started his morning by rolling over and vomiting over the edge of the bed. Everything went pretty much downhill after that. Under the revolting taste of bile was the only slightly less revolting taste of potions. His first coherent thought was that Snape must not have brewed said potions, because otherwise he wouldn’t have vomited and his head wouldn’t feel like someone had been hammering it for the last hour. His second thought was maybe Snape had brewed the potions and Harry had done something to irritate him.

“Harry, are you alright? Can you hear me?”

He turned his head and blinked blearily at the fuzzy figure leaning close to him. It took him a moment, but he recognized her.

“Ira?” he said, his voice raspy from abuse.

“I’m here. Just a moment, let me get the medi-wizard.”

Ira shifted out of his line of sight, and he closed his eyes. Merlin, he felt awful. Awful in a way he couldn’t remember ever feeling before. What had happened? Was he sick? Injured? Poisoned? The sound of footsteps boomed in his ears like drums and cannon fire, and he groaned and covered his head with his pillow. There was the muffled rumble of voices, what sounded like a spell (probably to clean up the mess he had made), then a gentle hand on his shoulder. Reluctantly, he pulled the pillow away.

“Water, Harry,” Ira said, bringing a glass and straw to his lips.

He drank it down eagerly, washing away the awful taste and soothing his parched mouth and throat. She pulled it away before he was satisfied and consequently before he was sick all over again. As she moved away, he spotted the medi-wizard she had gone to get and a nurse. He could not make out many details without his glasses, but the healer seemed to be a short, pudgy gentleman with a neat little mustache and the nurse a dour, emaciated-looking thing.

He attempted to give them a cheeky little grin and ask if he was dying, but it came out as a grimace and a despairing ‘I’m dying’ instead. The medi-wizard chuckled anyway.

“No need to be dramatic, Lord Potter. You’re well out of danger now. It’s all uphill from here,” he said congenially, gently positioning his patient onto his back again. “I’m Medi-wizard Pappanoski, this is Nurse Peele. We’ll be seeing to your care.”

“I wish I could say it was a pleasure, but… well, you know,” Harry grumbled. At the moment, he was sorely tempted to ignore everyone, close his eyes, and go back to sleep, but Ira’s nervous hovering got the better of him. He would attempt to stay awake long enough to soothe whatever fears she had.

“No offense taken. Now, I am going to ask you some questions and performs some tests. Please be patient with me. I know you’re tired and in pain, but this is all necessary.”

Harry sighed and nodded. Ira’s hand slipped into his left and squeezed gently. When he tried to return the gesture it felt numb, probably from sleeping on it wrong. There was a bit of shuffling around, rearranging equipment and bedding, and gathering paperwork. Harry found himself propped mostly upright in his bed, his glasses once again perched on his nose, and Ira at his side. Now able to see properly, he realized he was not in a hospital room like he had originally thought. The room was just as sterile and cold, but clearly a guest suite in either a prominent pureblood manor house or a grandiose hotel. The bed, a king, was a monstrosity of decadent wealth, and there was an extravagant set of drawers and chairs to match. The thick fur of some unidentifiable beast rested as a rug in front of the fireplace which was burning intensely. It wasn’t until he glanced out the set of large windows that he realized where he was.

“Why am I at Malfoy Manor?” he asked. The healer settled into a chair beside the bed and sank quite comfortably into it. He rested a clipboard on his lap while his pudgy little fingers scribbled an illegible scrawl with his quill.

“Oh excellent, you recognize your surroundings. That’s a good sign. To answer your question, you were originally taken to St. Hockley’s in Durbinshire for emergency care, but due to overcrowding it was felt your recovery would best be served somewhere less… chaotic. Lord Malfoy graciously offered a room.”

Harry somehow doubted Lucius had been anything but gracious about it. The Dark Lord had probably bullied the man into it, or else Lucius had offered his home as a means of holding something over his head.

“What happened?” he asked, looking first to the medi-wizard and then to Ira. Ira’s eyes were bloodshot from crying, and he noted the clothes she was wearing did not seem to be her own. Why was Ira borrowing clothes from Lady Malfoy?

“Well… what do you remember last?”

Harry tried to think back. What day was today? Was it Christmas time yet? Had it passed? His head hurt, and the harder he tried to think the worse it got, until he started to feel nauseous again.

“I don’t… I don’t know. Merlin, my head hurts. Can you give me something for it?”

He reached up to massage the back of his head, but when his hand brushed bare skin he gave a surprised squawk. He tried to pull his hand from Ira’s, but it wouldn’t move, so he was left feeling about for the hair that was no longer there with his right. He was not actually hairless he soon realized. He could still feel a sort of fuzzy growth just starting to come in, but it was a near thing. Amongst the sparse fuzz where his spine met his skull, he felt a jagged line of puckered skin and a sharp, stabbing pain when he brushed it.

“Harry, it’s alright,” Ira hushed. “It’ll grow back by tomorrow. They had to shave it all off to see where you were bleeding.”

“Someone hit me in the head?” he asked.

“Only if you count gravity as ‘someone’. You fell down a flight of stairs. You are terribly lucky you didn’t break your neck. I take it you do not remember the events surrounding the incident, then?”

“No… no. So… it was an accident?”

Somehow he didn’t think it could be that simple.

Pappanoski and Ira shared a look. Nurse Peele glowered at him balefully without expression.

“That, I think, we can discuss later. If you wouldn’t mind answering a few of my questions and letting me examine you, I’ll see if I can’t scrounge up a potion for that headache of yours. Deal?”

Harry looked at him long and hard for a moment, then at Ira who was staring down at her hands. He might be able to bully some answers out of her, but he didn’t want to resort to it. She was obviously upset already, and he was too tired to care much about what the answer would be at the moment anyway.

“Okay.”

For the next forty-five minutes, Medi-wizard Pappanoski performed a variety of tests. Some of the questions were basic memory questions, like what was his full name and where did he go to school and what did he last remember? Others were to test his mental acuity. What words rhymed with ‘cat’? Can you count back from one hundred? Look at this card, Harold. What is out of place? Which of these objects looks closer to you? Can you name three charms beginning with the same letter?

It wasn’t until the physical examination that Harry became truly alarmed when he found what he thought was weakness in his left hand was, in fact, partial paralysis of the entire left side of his body.

“Don’t panic, Lord Potter!” the medi-wizard said cheerfully. “You bled into your brain quite a bit, so a little nerve damage is to be expected. Not to worry. Mediwizardry has made great leaps in neurological potions and therapies. Physical paralysis is the easiest thing to treat. I am more concerned about your amnesia. Amnesia as the result of physical trauma isn’t something we have a firm grasp on yet. It may be that you’ll never remember what happened.”

Harry couldn’t say that he particularly wanted to remember what happen. If he had fallen down a flight of stairs it was probably embarrassing. On the other hand, their reluctance to discuss the circumstances made him suspect something more than his own clumsiness had been at work at the time. Perhaps something to account for Lucius’ generosity in offering him this room and what was probably his private physician?

A spectacularly painful throbbing in his head derailed any further thoughts on it or attempts to gain answers. He closed his eyes and rested listlessly as the medi-wizard scratched notes onto his clipboard and then rummaged through his medical bag for something or other. Ira had not released his hand, although he could barely feel it, and he tried to squeeze it back with no better results. It remained stubbornly unresponsive.

“Ah, I think this will do it!” Pappanoski said enthusiastically, scuttling back to his bedside.

Harry, enjoying consciousness less and less, forced himself to open an eye to look at him. The medi-wizard was holding three vials in one hand and two vials in the other. One of them was a rather unsavory shade of brown. The invalid young wizard groaned.

Despite his lack of enthusiasm and the five new flavors Harry would have happily gone his whole life never knowing, the potions did their job well. His nausea went away and his headache dulled to something tolerable. His left arm and leg began to tingle with pins and needles, but Pappanoski explained he would need more doses every six hours over the next two or three days before he was up to his full strength.

With most of his discomfort in retreat, Harry took considerably more interest in his circumstances and how he came to be there in the first place. He asked his healer and Ira once again what had happened, but they evaded his inquiries clumsily but effectively.

“If you won’t tell me, then take me to someone who will,” he demanded testily, then caught himself. “Please.”

He was more than a little surprised when they did as he said. He was wrapped in a hooded green bathrobe and loaded into a wheelchair. The wheelchair was self-propelled, but Nurse Peele made a show of pushing him along while Ira and Pappanoski led the way. Out in the hall, which Harry identified as the south wing, he was glad for the extra layer. The hall was strangely cold and his breath misted in the air. The squeak of his wheelchair as it rolled along echoed loudly and seemingly into forever.

Where was everyone? Where was Hermione? She would have been nearby if she were able. Did that mean she had also been hurt? Or perhaps someone else in her foster family required her attention?

His concern for his absent friend increased as they crossed into the north wing of the manor, passing the main entryway as they went and a truly alarming amount of destruction therein. House elves were scurrying about collecting water-soaked tapestries, removing damaged woodwork and chipped marble, collecting bits of debris which included everything from broken bits of a now absent chandelier to a shoe.

“What happened here? Were we attacked? Is Hermione alright?”

“I’m sure Hermione is just fine, Harry,” Ira tried to assure him.

“You’re ‘sure’? You mean you don’t know? Where is she?”

“That is something we were hoping to ask you.”

Harry turned to see Snape standing in the doorway of the parlor. He moved out of the way to allow the wheelchair through but tugged down Harry’s hood rather rudely as the boy went past. The Gryffindor flushed with embarrassment at his exposed scalp and slapped his guardian’s probing fingers away with his good hand.

“Do you mind?” he snapped, pulling his hood back up.

“You have another scar,” Snape stated.

“Yes. What does it look like?”

“Ugly and unremarkable.”

Unremarkable was good. He had too many semi-mystical scars as it was.

He looked around the room. Draco was there, sitting next to Lady Malfoy, looking down at his hand and twisting a ring around his finger distractedly. There was also someone he had never seen before. He was a tall, slender man in his late forties with neatly trimmed mutton chops. He wore a gray suit, a black robe and bowler, and a silver badge that identified him as some sort of law enforcement. Harry noted two rather obvious absences. Lucius wasn’t there, for which he was thankful. Neither was Hermione, for which he was not.

Where was she?

The stranger turned towards him the moment he entered the room, and a few long strides forward brought him directly in front of Harry. He removed his hat and offered his hand.

“Sentinel-Inquisitor Amelon, it’s an honor to meet you,” he said quickly, shaking Harry’s hand. “I thank you for coming to speak with me so quickly. I was given to understanding that you might not be up to it today. I would say you surprised us, but it seems I am the only one not acquainted well enough with you to be caught off-guard by this minor miracle.”

All of this was spoken rapidly and was accompanied by an even more rapid shifting of the man’s eyes as he took in every detail of Harry’s appearance, that of his caregivers, everyone in the room, the clock by the door, the tea tray, and the sulky little house elf stoking the fire in the mantle. His entire demeanor was one of constant motion and rapid thought. Harry felt tired just looking at him.

“Nice to meet you. Now where is Hermione?”

“An excellent question. Apparently, you were the last person to see her. At least, the last person alive.”

“She’s missing? Wait… someone died?”

“General Malfoy and Lord Crouch to be precise.”

Harry’s heart leaped into his throat. Lucius Malfoy was dead? Hermione was missing? But… that… how? He looked around the room, searching for answers, but he wasn’t a legilimens and the eyes that looked back at him held no answers. The beginnings of a panic attack were creeping their way into his awareness, starting with a sudden difficulty in breathing.

“Please say no more!” Healer Pappanoski pleaded. “Lord Potter is suffering from a form of acute amnesia regarding the events surrounding the injury. A very common occurrence with head trauma cases. He cannot be considered a witness. I am taking him back to bed to rest. I should never have brought him down!”

The wheelchair began to roll backwards, and Harry flung his good arm out to catch door jamb to make it stop, nearly pulling himself onto the floor.

“Wait! No, you can’t do that. You can’t just… you can’t just tell me something like that and not explain! What the hell happened last night?”

He was shouting by now, and his struggling had made his partial paralysis obvious. If he didn’t feel like he was going to die from unsubstantiated terror, he would have been mortified. Pappanoski was starting to panic himself and was searching his pockets for his wand or possibly a sedative while Nurse Peele pushed him back into the room so that she could re-settle him securely back into his chair. Ira looked ready to rush in to help, but Snape held her back. Amelon’s eyes were the only part of him that moved, and they were turning round and round the room.

“Dammit! Dammit, dammit, dammit! Just tell me!”

“Harry.”

Draco’s voice was a whisper. So soft it should have been missed entirely, but Harry heard it so clearly he almost thought it magic.

“Calm down. Please.”

Harry stopped struggling, allowing himself to collapse back into his chair. Panic was suddenly overwhelmed by guilt. Draco. Goddess above, that ring on Draco’s hand was his father’s.

“Draco… I’m so sorry.”

And he was. His feelings towards Lucius often skirted the edge of absolute loathing, but Draco, his proud, boastful, shameless friend, had loved his father. And now that father was dead, and Draco was the heir of a vast and perilous kingdom.

Draco continued as if he had not heard him, never looking up from his ring.

“I’ve already told the inquisitor what I know. You had found out Lucius knew about the emancipation attempt. We hadn’t had time to withdraw it, did we? We were worried how father would react. Does any of this sound familiar?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“You told Hermione that you wanted her to leave the manor. You said you knew a safe place to hide. You never told me where it was.”

Harry felt himself relax a little. They were looking for Hermione. That meant she was okay. She had left before anything had happened. He tried to recall where he would have sent her. Draco continued.

“Father confronted you. I wasn’t there. Mrs. Snape and Lt. Stratus said you had an argument and things got physical. You drew blood. The manor’s wards activated, and you were tripped down the stairs. You were hurt pretty badly.”

‘Hurt pretty badly’ was a rather feeble description of what had happened to him, but Harry wasn’t going to call him on it.

“Crouch… went crazy or something. He used the Killing Curse on father. Naturally, the house killed him after that.”

There were some major holes in the story. Crouch’s ‘or something’ meant no one was really sure what happened, not even Ira and Reggy both of whom had apparently been there. He looked to Ira, but she had her head buried in Snape’s shoulder, the memory of what happened still too intense even with Draco’s lackluster delivery. He looked to Snape, who looked back with tired, unreadable eyes but no answers.

Amelon cleared his throat, taking over the story-telling from there.

“Yes, well, that’s the gist of it. Miss Granger hasn’t turned up. She probably hasn’t heard what happened yet. Do you think you know where you might have sent her?”

Harry looked to Draco, but when he received no response he assumed that meant it was okay to answer honestly.

“London, I think. There are a lot of places to hide there. Fred and George would have found a place for her if she couldn’t find one herself.”

Narcissa sprung to her feet and rushed towards him, her wand drawn. Harry jumped in surprise, but Snape jumped straight into her path, blocking her and her wand. But he couldn’t block her words, which she was hissing out in a savage rage.

“You little mudblood piece of shit! This is your fault! You were always planning to destroy my husband. First you turned my Hermione against him, then the Dark Lord. You planned for this to happen! This is all your fault!”

“Mother!” Draco shouted, finally shaken from his apathy. He scrambled to his feet to stop her, but Snape had already grabbed her wrists, keeping her from aiming her wand or her clawed fingernails as she struggled against him.

“Somnibus,” Amelon said, flicking his wand with all the flare of turning off a light switch. Narcissa collapsed into Snape’s arms. Everyone looked at the inquisitor, startled. “Poor woman, she’s obviously overtired. It’s been a long, terrible night. Headmaster, Lord Malfoy, perhaps you should see the lady to her room? I’m sure when she wakes up in a few hours she’ll be much calmer. There you go.”

Nurse Peele quickly moved Harry out of the way to allow Snape to carry the woman away while Draco followed nervously behind. Harry felt a pang of guilt as Draco turned to offer him an apologetic shrug. It wasn’t right. Draco didn’t owe him anything. Narcissa… Harry couldn’t say she was right, but she wasn’t being unreasonable under the circumstances. Her husband had just been murdered, for Merlin’s sake, and her foster daughter was missing. She was entitled to a little hysteria.

“Was that entirely necessary?” Ira demanded indignantly from the other side of the room.

“It was as good an excuse as any to send her to bed. Now young Lord Draco will have the opportunity to rest as well. They will need their rest for the coming days. As will Mr. Potter.”

Harry studied the inquisitor closely, trying to understand how much of what he had done was sadism and how much altruism. He couldn’t say the man’s expression was kind precisely, but there was a knowing look that would have been called sympathetic on anyone else. He wasn’t sure what to call it on this man.

“Yes, yes, absolutely!” Pappanoski chimed in, spurred by the other man. “I shouldn’t have brought him down into all of this. He cannot help you, and the stress is not good for him.”

He gave Amelon an accusing look, but the inquisitor just smiled a bit.

“No help? I wouldn’t say that. I know to have my men start looking for Miss Granger in London. That’s a big help right there. But I know what you’re saying. Good day, Lord Potter. It was an interesting first meeting.”

The inquisitor disappeared with the same hurry and abruptness he had displayed during their brief interview, and Harry was left staring after him unsure of what to make of him. Ira, however, shared none of his uncertainty.

“I do not like that man.”

Snape slipped back into the room, having already deposited Narcissa with the house elves.

“A man of his profession cannot concern himself with social niceties,” Snape said neutrally.

“Maybe not, but he doesn’t have to enjoy everyone else’s misery either.”

“I doubt it’s the misery he enjoys. It’s the drama. He has something of a reputation for being a theater enthusiast.”

“Hmph.”

Harry didn’t get to hear what else they said. Nurse Peele and Pappanoski were already taking him back to his room. He hoped it was to rest. The headache was returning and he longed for the shallow oblivion of sleep.

Maybe when he woke up, Hermione would be back.

Skeeter entered the Daily Prophet Headquarters like a queen overseeing her court. The clickity-clack of her high heels was her drumroll and trumpet, her black and purple plaid robes and matching feathered cap were her banners, and the trail of envious and terrified news staff that followed her every move was her unwilling entourage. Let them love her. Let them loathe her. They could not turn her away.

The newsroom was busier than usual, she noted. Not surprising. The ‘fluff’ articles that padded the paper leading up to Christmas were done, and the staff had to scurry to find real news. Well, she had a little something that might just brighten their day. She headed straight for the editor’s office, ignoring the secretary who trembled in her chair at Skeeter’s passing. Without knocking, she entered.

“What now, Skeeter?”

Humphrey Penney glared up at her from his desk with bitter resignation. She couldn’t help but grin. She and Humphrey had something of a love-hate relationship. He absolutely hated her, and she loved that he did. They had known each other pretty much from the moment she had first entered the business, when she had brought him her request for a job, and he had promptly escorted her out with a laugh and pinch to the behind. By the end of the year, she was a freelance and he was eating his hat when he found himself forever stuck in a bidding war with Wizarding Weekly and The Quibbler for her articles.

Whenever she thought he might be forgetting his epic blunder, she pinched his cheek teasingly to remind him and it was back to loathing as usual.

“Oh Humphrey, did someone leave coal in your stocking this year? Perhaps I can cheer you up.”

“Cut the crap, Skeeter. You have anything on the Malfoy Massacre or not?”

The only sign she had been thrown by the question was a sudden blink, which she quickly covered by grinning even wider.

“I think I might,” she said teasingly, fishing for more. “But then again, maybe one of your own reporters beat me to it.”

It was a bad joke between them. She had been running circles around the rest of Penney’s reporters for years now and wasn’t slowing down any time soon. He sneered at her in response, but knew better than to try and defend them.

“Can you at least confirm Potter is dead?”

This time she couldn’t hide her startled expression, and Penney suddenly went red.

“You cheeky minx! You didn’t even know about it, did you?”

She didn’t even bother to pretend to be apologetic. Honestly, she couldn’t be bothered to do much more than try to wrap her mind around what she had just been told. Harold James Potter was dead? But… she had just seen him last night! Just before…oh. Oh! How could she have been so stupid? She had left to babysit the Granger girl while Harry went alone to face off with Lucius Malfoy, and she hadn’t stopped to think that something like this might happen?

“I should have known Lucius was going to lose it,” she said, mostly to herself. “He’s been a loose cannon for weeks.”

Penney gaped in surprise.

“How did you know Lucius attacked Potter?”

“Oh, I know more than that. I might not have seen the fight, but I know what it was about.”

“How… when… HOW?”

“Darling, you should know better than to ask.”

She sighed. So Harry was dead. That was… too bad. She had liked him. He was absolutely crazy in the most wonderful way. She had wanted to take him and his secrets to pieces, expose all the broken, glittering shards of his life to the light for all to see, and see how many times he would cut her in the process. It would have been fun. A lifelong adventure of goading and manipulating and trading favors.

But there was no use crying over spilled potions.

Harry had a short but good go. His had been a remarkable life, and she was just the girl to make sure everyone knew exactly how remarkable it had been. She took a deep breath.

“Well, that’s it then. I’ll write his obituary.”

Penney looked ready to hurl his chair at her.

“Who asked you?”

“I should have the initial article in by tomorrow evening. I’m assuming there hasn’t been an official release yet? Can’t publish anything until they give confirmation, but that will give me the time I need to put everything together. We’ll make a week long run of it. I couldn’t fit it all in one article, even if it took half the bloody paper.”

“Now look here, Skeeter! There’s more than just Potter we need to worry about! Lucius Malfoy is dead! So is Bartemius Crouch! And who knows who else was killed or maimed!”

She felt a shiver run up her spine at the mention of multiple deaths. It left her feeling light-headed and giddy.

“No! Malfoy? Really?”

Probably killed by the Dark Lord in a rage over Harry, or maybe Harry and Lucius killed each other? But then how had Crouch died? And what was this about others getting hurt? Her head was spinning with possibilities. Harry and his obituary were still prominent in her thoughts, but if she could weave it in with this latest tale of intrigue and woe then she would be very pleased indeed.

Oh, how she wished she hadn’t let Harry bully her into leaving. If she had stayed, she could have seen it all for herself. The only member of the press there to witness it! She could have spent her night writing up her articles and then roll them up in order to beat Penney around the office with them in the morning. But no, she had been roped into leading a frantic teenager through London and ruined a perfectly good pair of shoes in the process.

If Harry weren’t already dead, she might have killed him herself for that.

If Skeeter had any consolation it was that she was the only person in the world who knew that Hermione Granger was staying in a dingy little hotel on the east end of Wizarding London, and she would get to be there to witness the no doubt fantastic reaction to the news that her best friend and doomed love interest was dead.

And it was entirely her fault.

Voldemort had been at his office for thirty-six hours straight before he took his first break. And by break, he meant he took every letter, form, token, card, and parchment that did not warrant his response or consideration to the dueling hall and proceeded to set it all on fire. It did little to ease his temper or frustration, but setting fire to the innumerable aides and secretaries he had acquisitioned from various departments to help sort out said useless items would not have improved his situation any. Sixteen hours and he was already swimming in folders stamped ‘top-secret’ and mail marked ‘urgent’ and a parade of government officials who never seemed to have any answers but always plenty of questions.

He still hadn’t figured out who he was going to replace Lucius and Bartemius with.

Tomorrow morning he would make an announcement to the press, at which point he was going to have to name someone. The public and their enemies could not know the true state of crisis they were in right now. They would undoubtedly suspect, but they could never know. Voldemort wasn’t overly concerned about the reaction of the citizenry. Malfoy was a well-respected but not particularly well-liked commander, and Crouch had intentionally been left largely unknown to the public, so there would be very little outcry. The major concern was that they would lose confidence in their military campaign in Germany while matters at home were obviously so chaotic and begin withdrawing their support and even actively calling for the abandonment of the war. The Germans, of course, would take advantage of the chaos, redouble their efforts, gather more followers, and push the Dark Lord’s people out of the country, and it would be years before he could find another excuse to try again, and then they would be ready for him.

So now he was stuck trying to find replacements, if only in name, and then figure out who and how the roles of his two most devious minions would be occupied. Morgan would be the likeliest candidate to fill Crouch’s role. He had a reputation for being stolid and unshakeable, and he played the political game by refusing to play it. He made his rivals nervous, but his underlings were quick to trust him, to give him their all because they knew he was willing to do the same. However, he was reluctant to hand over these new responsibilities to a man who had been working diligently towards his own retirement, setting up an office that would not crumble the moment he walked out the door, a slew of competent, ready replacements scattered through the national security court division. Perhaps if he consolidated the offices of National Security and Foreign Intelligence into one? Morgan had complained frequently of Crouch’s interference into matters that were clearly domestic.

It wouldn’t make the job easier, but placing Foreign Intelligence under the jurisdiction of another department would certainly simplify matters of authority, and Morgan could reshuffle the new staff and assign trusted officials as he saw fit. It would also give Morgan the opportunity to assign some of those potential replacements to supervise a division and test their mettle. Foreign Intelligence officers were notoriously difficult to deal with.

He would discuss it with Morgan later.

“My Lord.”

Or perhaps sooner.

Voldemort turned from the pile of smoldering ash to the man striding into the hall. He looked awful. As unceasingly as Voldemort had been working, so too had Morgan, but unlike his master, the wizard was not gifted with near-immortality or dispensation from sleep. He was pale with blood-shot eyes and had neither changed nor shaved. Voldemort wished he could reward his efforts with rest and the comfort of his own home, but the time for rewards would have to wait just a bit longer.

“What have you to tell me?” he asked instead. “How are things at the Court of Foreign Intelligence?”

Morgan’s bland expression didn’t change, but there was a definite souring in his mood.

“‘Intelligence’ should not be used in their name in any way.”

“Are they giving you a hard time? Do you need me to go down there and kill someone?”

“Killing them wouldn’t solve anything. No one knows anything. Crouch kept everyone on a need-to-know basis which meant no one knew what the hell they were doing except Crouch, and everyone was too scared to try and figure it out. I’ve got every curse-breaker I can get my hands on tearing down the wards in his office, but it’ll be weeks before they can clear everything, and there’s no telling what’s going to get destroyed in the process.”

Voldemort told him of his intention of integrating Crouch’s people with National Security.

“In that case, they’re all fired,” Morgan said without missing a beat.

Despite his rotten mood, Voldemort couldn’t help but smile a bit at that. It seemed his taciturn friend had finally developed a pet peeve.

“I leave it to your discretion. I’ll send out the necessary paperwork with you, but there won’t be a formal announcement until tomorrow morning.”

“Have you decided what you are going to do with the General’s position?”

“I was thinking Lestrange.”

“…”

“I know it’s not ideal, but she’ll be primarily a figurehead. I had intended to take on greater control at this stage of the invasion anyway. I will position some other political factions higher up the chain to act as moderators.”

Like Morgan, Lestrange was unquestionably loyal and a dedicated worker, but, unlike Morgan, no one liked her or trusted her entirely, regardless of rank or intentions. Morgan’s political position had been attained through his complete unbiased, whereas Lestrange was unbias against everyone in seemingly equal measure. She was unlikely to unbalance the various competing political factions within the military intentionally, having no real faction of her own, but that didn’t mean she might not accidentally tip the scales and unbalance the uneasy harmony Lucius had established during his tenure. A few minders here and there, in addition to his own supervision, would help reduce that possibility.

That matter settled, there was one more he wished to discuss before he was once again shackled to his desk and bureaucratic drudgery.

“Any word on Harry, yet?”

“Potter woke up about an hour ago. He’ll be a complete mess for the next two or three days but should make a full recovery. He doesn’t remember what happened.”

Voldemort let out a sigh, but whether it was one of frustration or relief, he wasn’t certain. He had left Harry at Malfoy Manor in stable condition, but with no way of knowing when or if he would wake up and what state he would be in when he did. The medi-wizard had been cautiously optimistic. He had said Harry had some of the strongest self-protecting magic he had seen in years, and if it hadn’t been so low at the time of the accident, he suspected the boy would have walked away from it relatively unharmed. It spoke well of the possibility of recovery, but also reminded Voldemort rather harshly that his own recklessness had left his protégé vulnerable.

He should have merely left the boy at home that night.

Then he wouldn’t have been hurt. Then, neither would Lucius and Bartemius. And he still didn’t understand what had happened there, and now that Harry had seemingly forgotten the matter he might never know.

“That is unfortunate. Has Inquisitor Amelon’s investigation made any progress?”

“He currently has several theories, but none he’s willing to share just yet. He’s certainly been asking some interesting questions.”

“Does he think something aside from the obvious was going on?”

“Don’t you?”

“I’ve known both Bartemius and Lucius for a long time. I can see Lucius losing his temper, but Bartemius’ reaction was completely out of character. I don’t know how I am going to explain this to the public. It’s so ridiculously stupid of both them, and I can’t afford to let my administration look foolish at this time. They are relying on us to look after their best interests in a time of war. Their current acquiescence can only be maintained by their confidence in our judgment.”

“You want to find someone to blame this on?”

It was almost redundant of Morgan to ask. It was standard operating procedure to find a scapegoat when an upper echelon bungled something unforgivably. Then, after the scapegoat had garnered the necessary negative attention, Voldemort would go on to punish the responsible parties appropriately. It wasn’t a perfect justice, but it worked.

“I was thinking Stratus. He’s already under suspicion, isn’t he?”

“Amelon didn’t say. Did he have a motive?”

“Who knows? It would be easy enough to generate something. A war hero turned resentful after being assigned the inglorious and undistinguished position of secretary to a wizard known for his arrogance and temper. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to make it believable. Perhaps he can be a spy under polyjuice? He was in Germany after all. It wouldn’t be too amazing for Dumbledore to arrange a bait-and-switch.”

This was all ridiculous, of course, but the public loved ridiculous stories like that. Harry’s immense popularity hinged on them. It was irrelevant that in Harry’s case, they were mostly true.

“It’ll make a lot of people nervous to think someone in his position was reporting to the enemy.”

“True. It might also stir some passion back into the game. Assassination on this magnitude will infuriate just as many.”

“It’s your decision.”

“Have you seen Narcissa? If I can get her to speak out on the matter, it would have greater effect. Grieving widows and all.”

“I think a grieving son will work better. He’s taking it all a lot better than she is at the moment. Could be the shock though.”

“Good idea. Miss Granger too. Her tearful statements will appeal to the lower classes more than a pureblood’s will.”

“She’s still missing.”

“No one’s found her yet?”

“Amelon sent some people to London to look for her. He’s not certain they’ll find her, though.”

Voldemort wondered at that. Why would Granger run away to London? For that matter, why had she run away at all? After leaving Harry to recover at Malfoy Manor, he hadn’t lingered to ask questions. There was so much that needed to be done, the ‘why?’ hadn’t mattered so much as the ‘what now?’. It was suspicious, whatever the reason. London wasn’t a place people would automatically run away to nowadays. It was still mostly a war-demolished heap of rubble in most places, and not the ideal place to go for someone unfamiliar with the area. That suggested she had planned her escape in advance, but why?

He felt a sudden wave of suspicion, and it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps Stratus was not the most ideal scapegoat after all.

“Please excuse the mess, good sir,” the house elf begged softly as she led Robert through the front hall, the area clear of debris but still bearing the scars of the battle that had occurred there. “We is not quite done with repairs. It is a disgrace to Master, but there is so much to do. Poor Master.”

The little elf, who had clearly been crying previously, burst out into several retching sobs. Robert fidgeted nervously as he followed behind her. He wasn’t terribly comfortable with house elves. He was never certain how he was supposed to treat them and they were always so emotionally unstable. Did he try to offer her comfort? Did he scold her emotionalism? Praise her loyalty? Was it even his place as a mere visitor to offer any of these things?

“Uh… think nothing of it. It’s quite understandable… under the circumstances,” he tried. The elf started wailing.

Robert sighed. It wasn’t like it mattered anyway. He had received a summons that morning from Malfoy Manor informing him of the circumstances of Lord Malfoy’s passing the night before and with a request to bring all the files pertaining to business dealings he had had with the recently deceased with him. It could only mean that Malfoy’s heir, Lord Draco Malfoy, wasn’t wasting any time consolidating his father’s affairs, and Robert was very shortly going to find himself out of a job.

This was unfortunate for a number of reasons, although none of them relating to any remorse over the loss of his former employer’s company. Lucius Malfoy had been a right bastard, but at least he had paid well and on time.

The elf’s wailing gradually waned into some rather ridiculous sniffling as she led him towards the study. Chairs had been placed just outside, and in them were perched about half a dozen witches and wizards in professional business robes. Some chairs were empty, suggesting there had been others there previously. Some of those present were clearly lawyers like Robert himself, judging by their attaché cases, which meant the rest were probably financial advisers and investors.

No one spoke to another. No one there was an acquaintance or associate. At best, they were uninterested third parties, at worst, bitter rivals for those positions the new Lord Malfoy saw fit to retain. Robert had already resigned himself to the fact that he could not even consider himself competition. Everyone there was clearly the top in their profession. Their suits alone could have paid a half a year’s mortgage on his London flat and the condescending sneer from those who deigned to look at him could only have been acquired through years of ruthless self-advancement. He had only gained his current position as a means to harass a mutual acquaintance of the late Lord’s by the name of Harry Potter.

So he waited as patiently as he could for the inevitable, trying to plan what his next move would be. He was out of clients, his previous ones having settled their affairs (although not their bills) and while his financial circumstances would hold for another month or two, he would need to find work again soon. Perhaps Harry was in need of a lawyer? He was nearing the age of majority soon, which meant he might be coming into the inheritance his parents left him, and he would need professional help when that happened. Maybe he could get another job? Manage an office or a factory somewhere? Kyle would prefer the more regular hours.

While he pondered this, the lawyers and investors and who knew what else filed into the office in varying degrees of confidence and left either furious, smug, or horrified, until only Robert was left. After nearly an hour and a half of waiting, he was finally given his turn.

As he entered the office, the first thing he noticed was that Draco Malfoy was the only other person in the room. He looked around curiously, expecting to see Lady Malfoy or perhaps the godfather, the notorious Headmaster Snape, or some other relative. No one. They were alone.

“Please have a seat, Mr. Reicher,” the young lord said, gesturing towards the chair set across from him. The second thing Robert noticed was that Draco Malfoy was a lot younger than he had previously thought. He had never met the boy in person, but in his mind he had assumed him to be in college, but he clearly couldn’t have been much older than Harry. His father’s massive desk dwarfed the young wizard, making his slender form seem that much smaller, while the tired, haunted look in his eyes made him look frail. Those gray eyes were shadowed by an intense grief, but they were not red. He had not cried, but clearly he had wanted to.

For the first time since he had arrived, Robert considered the possibility that the death of Lucius Malfoy might mean more than a simple inconvenience to himself.

“Lord Malfoy,” Robert greeted somewhat belatedly. “Is Lady Malfoy not going to be joining us?”

An irritated expression crossed the boy’s face, but it quickly smoothed into neutrality.

“My mother was in attendance earlier, but she has since retired to rest. Neither of us believe that her supervision at this point is necessary.”

“Forgive my impertinence, sir, but you appear to have need of some rest yourself.”

The irritated expression returned, but this time Lord Malfoy didn’t bother to hide it.

“You are impertinent, indeed, Mr. Reicher, but since it appears to be the first sincere thing anyone has said to me all morning, I shall let it slide. You are my last appointment for the day, and the sooner we complete our business the sooner I might do precisely as you suggest. You are, of course, aware of my father’s passing?”

“Of course.”

“Are you aware of the circumstances?”

“I… not really. Some sort of… accident?”

“Murder, Mr. Reicher. My father was murdered.”

“…Yes.”

“No condolences?” the young lord asked with a touch of bitterness.

“It would sound insincere.”

“Sound insincere or be insincere?”

“What would you have me say? Your father was a great man… but he was not a good man.”

Robert mentally kicked himself. He had not meant to say that out loud, particularly not to Draco Malfoy. While he had a bone or two to pick with Malfoy Sr., it was cruel to denounce his character so bluntly to his only child. Cruel and unprofessional and potentially dangerous. He usually knew better than to poke at the wounds of grieving relatives.

But the young lord did not fly into a rage or break down into tears. He simply regarded him expressionlessly until his scrutiny became distinctly awkward. It was only then that Robert recognized a bit of the former lord in his son. Despite the boy’s seeming frailty in his father’s chair, there was steel in his eyes.

“What projects were you working on with my father?”

It was not the question Robert thought he wanted to ask, but he could be nothing but relieved about it. Business was a subject he was comfortable with, and this was something he had come into the room prepared to discuss. He opened his attaché case and pulled out the necessary files.

“I worked three cases for your father, but two of them he withdrew before their completion. Amongst them was the lawsuit against Bartemius Crouch, which was shortly afterward withdrawn as a stipulation of your foster sister’s betrothal, and also a contract I wrote up on your father’s behalf.”

Malfoy’s expression became stricken, and Robert mentally cursed. He was really bungling things today. The boy had been fond of Miss Granger. Lucius had lamented this fact quite frequently in his company. It seemed that he had kept the specifics of her betrothal a secret from his son, which must have made his announcement quite a shock.

“My father arranged for my sister to get married by blackmailing Crouch with a lawsuit?”

Robert swallowed thickly.

“Ah… yes, he did. Then he called off the betrothal.”

“I know that!” young wizard snapped, hurling himself away from his desk so that he could stand and pace. “I helped call it off!”

Oh. Wait…what?

“So… you probably know about the second betrothal?”

The boy froze mid-step. Apparently he hadn’t known.

“Your father had arranged for me to write a new betrothal contract with Lt. Reginald Stratus. If it’s any consolation, I don’t think there was any coercion involved.”

Malfoy unfroze one limb at time, and Robert watched in fascination as the boy seemed to melt in mid-stance and pour himself back into his chair. He leaned to one side, his head resting in one hand while the other rubbed his temple. He did this for a few moments, his expression hidden behind his hands, and then startled Robert once again by chuckling softly. Soon the chuckles turned to laughter and from there into hysterics, arms clutching at his sides and tears pouring down his face. The elder wizard sat frozen, but not overly concerned. It was hardly the first time he had seen grieved relatives behave as such after they had received an unexpected shock.

“Oh,” Malfoy laughed, “Oh god, he really… he really was a bastard, wasn’t he? I…I didn’t… I didn’t understand how… how she could hate him so much… but… I get it… I get it now.”

As Robert knew it would, the laughter faded away, leaving the boy looking even more exhausted and frail than before. He didn’t speak, didn’t push or attempt to offer comfort. He simply waited until the other had the time to collect himself. Malfoy eventually did, staring off into some unseen distance for several minutes,before his gaze slid back to the lawyer.

“He couldn’t stand the thought of her winning,” the boy explained. “Making her miserable was a game to him. She literally had to fight him for even the possibility of happiness.”

Robert nodded.

“You’re not surprised?” Malfoy asked, a touch of resentment in his voice. “Did he seem like such an awful person when you worked for him? If he did, why did you help him? Surely you knew what he was doing.”

“I did not ‘help’ your father. I worked for him. And you’re right. I did know what he was doing. I hated what he was doing, but… I have a family of my own I need to take care of. A family in a rather desperate situation when your father came knocking on my door. He had to have known my situation. He knew and took advantage of it.”

“Why bother? No offense, but you’re hardly… He could have done better.”

“I’m not sure how I could not take offense to that, but I’ll try. To put it simply, he wanted to use me against Harry Potter.”

“Harry? What does… oh. You’re his lawyer friend. The one with the little girls.”

Robert was startled. Harry had talked about him to others. Harry had talked about his little girls as people worth mentioning. He felt strangely grateful for the consideration.

“Yes. I know Miss Granger is his good friend. I assume you are also acquainted with him?”

“I suppose you could say he’s a friend of mine too.”

Draco seemed a bit uncertain when he said this, almost guilty. Robert didn’t know the entire situation, but he knew Lucius and Harry had been bitter enemies even as Hermione and Harry had been the best of friends. It probably wasn’t surprising the young Lord was feeling a bit ambiguous about their relationship at the moment. He continued before Draco became distracted by this revelation.

“Your father had many admirable qualities, Lord Malfoy. He could not have achieved his position and influence otherwise. Unfortunately, during my service to him, I was not made privy to any of them. I respected your father, but I never liked him. However, I am genuinely sorry that you have lost your father. I am especially sorry that you will have to face these trying times without his guidance.”

Robert waited tensely for the other’s response. It was beyond presumptuous for him to criticize Lucius Malfoy to his son so soon after his death, and he wouldn’t be the least bit surprised or unsympathetic if he was tossed out of the house on his tail with a curse or two for good measure. On the other hand, his answer had been honest. For whatever that was worth.

What it was worth, apparently, was tears. Draco Malfoy’s expression didn’t change at first as his eyes welled up with tears and overflowed, racing down over his cheeks and along his chin until they fell in fat droplets onto his hand and the documents beneath it. His expression was so extraordinarily blank that he may as well have been standing under a leaky faucet rather crying. To Robert’s growing horror, even this stubborn stoicism began to break down, and the fatherless child slowly broke down into a mask of pained anguish and shaking limbs.

“Merlin…” Draco grit out, quickly losing control over his voice along with everything else. “Why… shit.”

“I’m sorry,” Robert said quickly, not entirely sure what he was apologizing for. It didn’t really matter. The boy had been at the tipping point, and it could have been anything that pushed him over. He had seen it enough times to know.

“Oh, shut up, you didn’t- hic- you didn’t- hicGod, now I’ve hiccups!”

And that caused the boy to break out laughing, the absurdity and the stress bubbling out with the tears into a hysterical fit. The lawyer let him have it out and tried not to squirm. Grief was a strange, ugly creature, but it was natural. There was no point in being afraid of it.

“Would you like some water?” he asked.

This only caused more laughter and more tears.

It couldn’t last forever. Minutes later- ten? Twenty? One hundred?- and the tears gradually stopped and laughter subsided, and the afflicted wizard sagged into his chair, completely exhausted.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he sighed, looking terribly young. “I don’t know what to do next. I’m not technically a legal adult so I can’t get anything done through the court offices without my mother’s consent, but our bloodline property only acknowledges me as the rightful lord. Did you know she was locked out of her own bedroom? The doors wouldn’t open to the Master suite until I forced them too. They still tend to stick for her. As if things weren’t bad enough, she has to deal with the house rejecting her too.”

Robert nodded at this. While he had never worked with anyone with property quite as old or extensive as the Malfoys’, he seen more than one client struggle with shift in power and position within a magical home caused by the death of a family member. A death within the immediate family was always hard, but the home’s persistent adherence to the new order of things made it doubly harsh to deal with.

“And it’s only a matter of time before everyone else finds out about what happened. The press is going to turn this into a circus, my cousins are going to be scrambling to dig their claws into the family coffers, my father’s enemies will malign our family’s name and take advantage wherever they can, while a sea of sympathetic friends and admirers will be trying to weasel their way into my good graces. Oh, and did I mention my sister is missing? Who do I trust, Mr. Reicher? Where do I start?”

The questions were likely rhetorical, but Robert took a moment to think them over just the same. Draco Malfoy needed help, and for whatever reason, he had asked Robert for it, even if he wasn’t truly expecting it. He felt strangely compelled to do just that, despite the fact that he didn’t think he would ever return to this place or see the young heir again.

“Lord Malfoy,” he said after a moment, “I don’t know if you know this, but my specialty is in both civil suits and inheritance law. I’ve worked with many families adjusting to the loss of a parent or both parents, many of whom felt as you do now. Overwhelmed, unprepared, grieving, angry, and… exhausted. I hope you will consider this past experience before dismissing my suggestions out of hand.”

The young wizard eyed him warily, but said nothing.

“To your first concern regarding Lady Granger, I would recommend as little thought to be given to it as possible. Assuming she was not kidnapped, she will more than likely return on her own. You express a genuine concern for her, and I can only assume it is reciprocal. She will return, if not to honor your late father, then to comfort her grieving brother.

“In regards to whom you should trust… I would recommend trusting those who were close to you and to your father prior to his death. Your mother, obviously, your sister, any friends or relatives who have earned your confidence. Your godparents, perhaps? Then your father’s closest associates; those he entrusted to both personal and highly sensitive work. I am not overly familiar with his business, but I believe Lt. Stratus would be a good start.”

“Lt. Stratus? The man… the second man my father tried to sell my sister to?”

“I know it might be difficult to see past that, but there’s nothing to suggest that Lt. Stratus’ intentions were anything less than honorable. He expressed a desire for Lady Granger to not only complete her Hogwarts’ education but also a university career. He must have held a genuine respect for her, if not affection. Additionally, as your father’s personal aide he would probably know more about your father’s dealings than anyone else and was trusted to keep them to himself.

“And to your third concern, it is my personal recommendation that you prepare yourself to sacrifice the empire your father built.”

The boy stiffened noticeably.

“You haven’t the connections, experience, or position to maintain it as you are now. The best you can hope to do is consolidate the wealth and inheritable titles your father managed to acquire throughout his career, ruffle as few feathers as you can along the way, and then bide your time to rebuild again as you are able.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Romans, Lord Malfoy. They sacrificed everything to try to keep what they couldn’t maintain and ended up with nothing in the end. And you have to ask yourself if you really want to try and live your father’s legacy or if you wouldn’t rather build your own.”

Silence fell over the office. Robert wasn’t optimistic enough to think that it was the young lord considering his words that caused it. In point of fact, the boy was looking positively mutinous at him. Robert sighed. A little too much honesty then. Ah well, he had tried.

He stood up and stretched. Malfoy blinked at him in surprise.

“Where are you going?”

“Home. Unless you need me for anything else? I believe you have enough lawyers to sort out the paperwork I gave you.”

“You… you’re quitting?”

Robert blinked.

“Aren’t you firing me?”

“I… well, I sort of intended to.”

“I figured as much.”

“Then why say all that to me?”

“Why wouldn’t I? Come to think of it, if I thought you were going to keep me on, I don’t think I would have had the gall to say it. I think you’ll find lawyers are the most honest to people they don’t actually work for.”

“I believe that’s true of everyone.”

He chuckled at that.

“I guess so.”

“Any other honest advice then?”

“Sleep. A lot. Exercise even if you don’t feel up to it. It’ll help with the stress and the fatigue. Oh, and if you don’t have one already, get a lawyer that specializes in inheritance law.”

“Sounds reasonable. I understand you just quit your previous position. I don’t suppose you’re looking for another?”

The elder wizard blinked.

“I… Are you having me on?”

“My mother fired our inheritance lawyer this morning. In fact, she fired pretty much everyone we had a meeting with. If she hadn’t… taken a nap, I dare say we would have consolidated my father’s assets even more than you would have recommended.”

Robert liked to consider himself a professional, but that didn’t keep him from gaping like a fool at the completely unexpected offer. The young lord, for the first time since their meeting had began, actually smiled. Well, smirked and somewhat grimly at that, but still…

“Shall I take that as a ‘yes’, Mr. Reicher?”

Harry limped out of the Court floo station in Bristol shortly after six that evening, leaning heavily on one of the more austere canes Draco had provided from among his father’s collection. It was black with a silver wolf head handle that appealed to him aesthetically, even if its necessity was galling. He had regained most of the feeling on the left side of his body since that morning, but the strength in his leg seemed to come and go sporadically. At least he didn’t have to bother with the wheelchair or his nursemaids anymore. Although Ira looked ready to cry again when he insisted he would be fine to answer the Dark Lord’s summons by himself. He had been promised an escort after all, so he would hardly be in danger of passing out in a ditch somewhere.

Medi-wizard Pappanoski had insisted that his rate of recovery was remarkable, but it still wasn’t quick enough for Harry’s preference. He had been lying in bed all day, pained and exhausted but his mind too full to sleep. Hermione had still not returned, and his only visitor had been Ira, who hadn’t been willing to discuss what was going on under the misguided notion that it would somehow ‘upset’ him.

Only now he was on his way to see the Dark Lord and had absolutely no idea of what was going on.

“Ambassador Potter?”

Harry turned a bit to see Lt. Stratus waiting for him in the corner of the floo station. The station was mostly quiet but for the few lone court workers headed home and the maintenance staff coming in. They all turned to stare at him as he ambled by with varying degrees of surprise and curiosity. They didn’t whisper though, which struck Harry as odd. He had expected quite a bit of whispering after word of Lucius’ death got out.

“Reggy,” Harry said, offering him a tired smile as he limped over. Stratus gave him a worried look in response. “It’s not as bad as it looks. The limp will be gone by tomorrow.”

“Anything… more permanent?”

Harry shrugged.

“A scar probably, but my hair is already starting to cover it up.”

He ran his hands over his head, now carpeted with a short, thick crop of hair rather than the thin layer of peach fuzz that morning. It wasn’t back to its usual length, but at least it looked normal.

“So you’re my escort, then?”

“The visible one.”

Harry made a quick glance around. There was no one to see of course, but that hardly meant no one was there.

“You should still be resting,” the lieutenant said with some disapproval, although not directed at him. Harry’s smile became a bit more genuine at the show of concern.

“No rest for the wicked, Reggy, especially not today. I bet Lord Voldemort has been running you around in circles. Have you slept at all since last night?”

Stratus shook his head and sighed, leading Harry out of the floo station and into the street.

“I couldn’t have slept even if the option had been available to me. There’s so much that needs to be done before tomorrow.”

“What happens tomorrow?”

“The Dark Lord will make the official announcement of yesterday’s events to the press.”

“You mean no one knows yet?”

That earned Harry a startled look.

“No one told you?”

“No one is telling me anything,” he said, letting a bit of bitterness seep into his voice. They strolled on in thoughtful silence along the walkways, their cheeks and noses turning red in the cold and gusty wind. Eventually Harry started to shiver. Without a word, Stratus cast a warming charm on him.

“Thank you.”

“Did your wand break?” Stratus asked in concern. “I noticed you weren’t carrying it as you got off the floo.”

“No, it didn’t break, but I’m not allowed to practice magic for a while. Medi-wizard’s orders. Honestly, you don’t have to look so worried. I’m not going to keel over on the sidewalk.”

“I cannot help but worry. I don’t know if you remember, but I was there yesterday when you fell. I saw what happened and how badly you were injured,” he explained, a touch of anger in his voice now. “You very nearly died, and now I have to escort you to a Dark Lord in a temper. without so much as your wand to defend yourself with.”

“A bit testy today, is he?”

“Harry, be serious!”

“Then take me seriously, lieutenant,” he snapped. “Worrying at me isn’t going to help me. Just… tell me what’s happening right now. I need to know what I’m dealing with if I’m going to have to face him.”

Stratus gave him an appraising look and must have approved of what he saw, because after a moment he nodded.

“Very well.”

The lieutenant gave him a general run down of what had happened since yesterday. The press was being pressured into silence until the official announcement tomorrow, an announcement which would provide the official version of the events of the Christmas Ball as well as the actions being taken now. The integration of the Court of Foreign Affairs into the Court of National Security under Morgan, and Lestrange being called in from Germany as Lucius’ official replacement even as others were being reassigned to curtail her actions. War councils had been held to discuss the how their enemies would respond to the news and what their own troops would need to be prepared for. There was a small army of curse-breakers stripping down the security in Crouch’s and Malfoy’s offices, and another small army monitoring them to make sure they weren’t sneaking off with national secrets. Court workers were being brought in early from their Christmas breaks to slave their way through the growing mountain of paperwork and informational backlash that was flooding between offices. People were getting panicky but forced to keep themselves in check as the Dark Lord stalked their progress like a raging beast, shouting out orders and reprimands and curses left and right. Office politics were already starting to rear their ugly head, aggravating an already dangerous situation, and rumors were flying. Meanwhile, Sentinel-Inquisitor Amelon was making a nuisance of himself with his own investigation, gathering his secrets with a grating nonchalance, giving away nothing, and unsettling everyone he spoke to.

It was all a barely contained madness, and it was only going to get worse.

The more Stratus talked the more withdrawn Harry became, his already pale skin getting paler by the second as the enormity of the situation began to set in. What had he done? How much of this was his fault? He hadn’t killed Lucius or Crouch, but had his actions somehow set in motion these deadly consequences? What did this mean for him? For Hermione and Draco? For Britain?

Why had Voldemort summoned him?

“Are you alright, Harry?”

“Yeah.”

“If you need to see a medi-wizard, I’ll make excuses to Lord Voldemort.”

“My, but you really are a brave man.”

The offer of escape was a bit touching and a bit annoying. Harry wasn’t looking forward to his meeting, but he didn’t need coddling. He’d accept his part in this mess and do what he could to fix it.

“I’ll be okay. Best to get this over and done with.”

“Just be careful, okay? He’s in a dangerous mood.”

There was never a mood in which Voldemort wasn’t dangerous, but Harry didn’t bother pointing this out. He didn’t really have time to. They entered the Cultie Headquarters, went through the usual security protocols, and from there were escorted by a young recruit towards the indoor training hall. They heard Voldemort well before they saw him. The angry, sibilant hiss of parseltongue followed by the sound of small explosions was unmistakable. They turned into a hall where a line of about a dozen wizards and witches filed along the wall just outside the doorway, many of them trembling and flinching visibly. A gray-haired, podgy little witch standing nearest the door looked as if she had been spared from execution at the sight of Harry.

Harry swallowed thickly and gave a weak smile.

“I guess he really is testy today, isn’t he?” he asked them. They smiled weakly back but said nothing.

“Do you want me to stay?” Stratus offered.

“You’ve got your own things to take care of. I’ll see you later.”

He left his escort out in the hall and did his best to hobble inside with some semblance of dignity.

The training hall was, predictably, a wreck. It seemed Voldemort had spent at least an hour systematically destroying the innumerable practice dummies with a variety of curses. Dummies and remnants of what had once been dummies were scattered across the room in heaps of charred, splintered, dismembered, melted, mangled, maimed, and twisted wood and cloth. The air tingled with Dark Magic, and even in his depreciated state, Harry could feel it tingling against his skin unpleasantly.

The Dark Lord himself stood amongst the carnage, slightly disheveled, his entire body coiled with tension. His wand work was sharp and harsh, his eyes doubly so, and as he turned his attention to Harry, the young wizard froze instinctively.

Crimson eyes stared into his for just a moment before flitting towards the cane Harry rested so heavily on. To his surprise, the Dark Lord’s fierce expression softened just a little. The elder wizard made a motion towards the door and it closed with a loud bang, sealing them both inside.

“How’s the head?” Voldemort asked without preamble.

“Still there.”

“Obviously. Any improvement in your memory?”

“Only up to you giving me my keystone in the study.”

“Hhhmm…”

There was a silence as Voldemort considered, and Harry felt a growing tension coiling inside him with each passing second. Recklessly, he pushed ahead without waiting for the Dark Lord to finish his contemplation.

“How much of what happened is my fault?”

Voldemort, however, wouldn’t be rushed and only became more thoughtful and turned away to begin pacing the room. His wand flicked idly back and forth, wordlessly reassembling those dummies that could be salvaged. Harry waited this time, hand clenching around the handle of his cane. After a minute or two, the elder wizard answered.

“I don’t know. Maybe all of it. Maybe none of it. More than likely, you played some part, although I’m not entirely sure in what way. Your injury was obviously accidental, but your provocation of Lucius? Then there was Crouch. He killed Malfoy outright, but we still don’t know why. Had he done so believing he was protecting you? Had he been in his right mind? Did your accident instigate the attack or provide an excuse, however feeble, for it? It’s a strange situation, and I already have people working to unravel it.”

“Inquisitor Amelon.”

“Yes. What did you think of him?”

“I don’t know. Everything was so disorienting when we…”

Harry shook himself.

“What will happen now?”

Voldemort glanced back at him, but didn’t stray from his self-assigned task.

“That is a good question. Britain is in a very vulnerable position. Lucius and Bartemius were very difficult men to lose while we are at war. Inevitably, Germany will try to take advantage of the situation. We were already at a standstill with them, hence my intentions to go there in person. Now I am stuck here sorting out this mess, leaving even that tenuous balance in question. Depending how quickly things can be resolved and how the Germans react, we may simply delay our progress by a few months or we could lose the country altogether.”

That was bad, but not the biggest concern Harry had. He had been losing his enthusiasm for the war for some time, and lately he had begun to wonder what they would actually do with Germany if they succeeded in overthrowing it. They couldn’t hold it as a British territory, could they? Force the people to surrender all their cultural and financial wealth as punishment before returning control to its people? Set up a puppet government to rule on Voldemort’s behalf?

“What about here?”

“Here? There won’t be rioting in the streets ,if that is what concerns you. However, a negative turn in the war could destabilize the economy. We’ve had growth in certain industries to meet our need for war-time supplies that has offset the decline elsewhere as well as several investments tied up in the potential victory over Germany. We will have to reduce the number of active-duty Culties, which will overstress the job market and likely increase crime in certain areas. Then there’s the lingering sense of insecurity from leaving our enemies the time to recoup and plot yet another attack against Britain, this time on their own terms. A not unreasonable fear. Plus the complication of our re-emergence in the international economy from the unresolved tension between our allies and Germany’s.”

Harry’s head was starting to ache even more than before. It was all so complicated, so large and interconnected that he couldn’t hope to understand half of what the Dark Lord was saying. He held up his hand in a silent plea for him to stop. It was just too much.

Voldemort nodded.

“It’s nothing unmanageable, Harry, but it definitely complicates things.”

“What can I do?”

The Dark Lord didn’t actually smile, but the question obviously pleased him to some extent. He seemed to relax somewhat.

“Our biggest concern at the moment is damage control. The press has been frothing at the mouth to release news of what has happened, and given the number of witnesses, it will be impossible to silence them indefinitely even with the media blackout. What we need right now is to reassure the public that we have everything under control on the government and military side of things, and to distract them with a sensationalist story on the more celebrity side of things.”

Harry frowned a bit, not understanding.

“You want me to tell them about the anti-betrothal plot?”

Because that truth was about as sensational as things got.

“No. I don’t want you to tell anybody anything. As far as the world is concerned, you are just an innocent victim in this. The one lucky enough to have survived it. Given your memory loss, it should spare you the necessity of press conferences.”

“I don’t understand. If all you wanted was to keep me out of the way, why did you call me here?”

Voldemort stopped pacing and turned to face him directly, a few feet away.

“I thought I should give you advanced warning. I am issuing a warrant for Hermione Granger’s arrest.”

Harry didn’t understand at first. Arrest Hermione? For what? She hadn’t done- His eyes widened in horror.

“No.”

“Yes. The people cannot be made to think their government is being run by fools who kill each other over petty feuds or lost tempers. Lucius and Bartemius must remain the noble patriots they were in the eyes of the public. I need a villain, Harry.”

“You need a therapist!”

“Kettle meet cauldron.”

Harry’s headache bloomed into a full-blown migraine until he felt nauseous with pain. It did nothing to distract him from what was happening. Hermione, blamed for murder? The press would crucify her and then what? Azkaban?

“Why? Why her? She hasn’t done anything!” he asked desperately.

“She disappeared after her foster father and former fiancé were killed and her supposed best friend was grievously injured.”

“She was gone before that!”

“But no one else knows that, and even if they did it would still be highly suspicious. It doesn’t help she had a grudge to ear against both of them.”

“Along with half of bloody England, no doubt.”

“Shall I randomly assign blame to someone else then?” Voldemort asked tersely, resuming his pacing.

“Yes!” Harry snapped back impulsively, but balked almost immediately after. “I mean no. I mean… why can’t we just find the person responsible?”

“I fully intend to, and if it is convenient, I may even charge them this crime and Miss Granger will go free. If it is convenient, and that is a very big ‘if’. Do you-”

There was a knock on the door. Voldemort let out a snarl of annoyance. With a flick of his hand the doors burst nearly off their hinges. Stratus stood in the entryway, startled.

“What is it?” the Dark Lord snarled.

A lesser man would have cringed in fear or run away, but Stratus merely fidgeted, glanced quickly at Harry, and marched directly up to Voldemort. The Gryffindor, vexed by his headache, Hermione’s potential demise, and the inconvenient interruption, glared daggers at the both of them when Stratus whispered something to the source of his grievance too quietly for Harry to hear. A curious look crossed the Dark Lord’s features. He glanced at his protégé.

An unspeakable dread filled Harry. Goddess, had they found Hermione?

“Let them in,” Voldemort said.

He felt dizzy with relief. It hadn’t been about his friend.

Stratus didn’t look pleased with the order, but saluted and marched out again with another glance at Harry. The man worried over him entirely too much. But that wasn’t important right now.

“Please,” Harry begged. “Don’t do this. I… I’ll do whatever you want, just… Don’t ruin her life over my mistakes. I’ll take responsibility for it. I’ll…”

Even as he spoke he knew it was useless. If Voldemort wanted him to take the blame, then he would have said so outright. But the Dark Lord wouldn’t sacrifice Harry just to pacify the press. It had nothing to do with liking or caring for him, but the simple fact of the matter was the man had too much invested in him.

“Harry,” Voldemort said, his tone surprisingly gentle. “I know this seems cruel, but it isn’t personal. The fact that she is your friend is unfortunate but doesn’t change that she is the most suitable choice for this. Lives and fortunes depend on the distraction she will provide.”

“This feels very personal to me,” he bit out angrily.

“If it’s any consolation, she’s too young to be sentenced to Azkaban or to death.”

“So an asylum, then? That’s loads better!”

“I can have her killed during the attempted capture if you think it more humane,” was the cutting reply. The Dark Lord was starting to lose his patience again. Harry had already lost his. He wanted his wand. He wanted his wand badly,but all he had for a possible weapon was his cane, and he actually needed that.

Violence not being an option left to him, he had to try and think his way out of this situation. What could Harry say or do that would save Hermione? What could he possibly bribe with or exchange for her continued safety and freedom? He tried to sort it out, because surely there was something. There was always something. Perhaps Voldemort even wanted him to find what it was. Find the solution on his own, another learning experience, or some other option that would put him back in the Dark Lord’s debt. Why else would Voldemort have bothered to warn him in advance and in person?

Questions filled his mind, but the pain stalled any answers from generating and only exacerbated his condition. He covered his eyes with his free hand, trying to block it all out. He was starting to shake, he realized, and his palms felt sweaty and slick.

“I can’t… I can’t think… Just… Just tell me what I need to do to save her.”

Voldemort said nothing.

“TELL ME!”

There was sharp, swishing sound and then a rush of heat and noise. Then an even more intense wave of heat and a burning wind. Harry dropped his cane and curled on instinct, thinking he had been cursed and expecting the agony to set in at any moment. But there was no pain, none that wasn’t already there, and when he dared to open his eyes he could see it was the dummies burning in ghostly green flames and not himself.

The heat and the vision of writhing bodies brought another swell of nausea. He gagged, but nothing would come up. He tried to climb to his feet, but his left leg wouldn’t cooperate and his right didn’t feel strong enough to lift him. There was no escaping it. He could only sit there and endure. Closing his eyes and rocking slowly, he tried to keep himself from passing out.

For several moments, he was blind and deaf to everything, too caught up in his own physical and psychological misery. Then the sound of footsteps seeped in. The slow tap of shoes against hardwood moving closer. Harry didn’t even have enough energy in him to be afraid.

“Harry, I am trying to keep my temper with you, but you make it very difficult.”

Despite his words, the Dark Lord didn’t sound angry at all. Maybe it had been spent on the curse that had demolished a small legion of practice dummies. Perhaps Harry just didn’t have the presence of mind to notice it.

“I am not doing this to punish you, Harry, or manipulate you. I know this situation is as much my fault as it is yours. Had I called off this feud between Lucius and you, or if I hadn’t brought you to that party in your weakened state, how much of this could have been avoided?”

He felt the Dark Lord touch his hair and paused in his rocking.

“But even I cannot undo what has happened. We must both pay a heavy price for our mistakes. You’ve never been a coward. You must accept the inevitable.”

Harry took a deep breath, not looking up.

“I hate you.”

He meant it. He meant it, and it felt like a betrayal, which only made him hate him more.

“It changes nothing.”

The hand tightened in his hair. Harry could feel the magic and rage coiled within the palm of the Dark Lord’s hand, and he wanted nothing more than to lash out at it. To slap it away, to crush it, to bite it. He opened his eyes and finally brought his eyes to meet Voldemort’s, daring him to legilimens him and see within Harry’s mind all the loathing he felt for him in that moment. Crimson eyes stared back at him without blinking, unflinching.

Harry looked away first. Not because he was intimidated, but because the sound of surprised shouts and banging doors drew his attention away.

“Perfect timing,” Voldemort said, moving his hand from his protégé’s head to his arm. Harry barely managed to grab his cane before he was forcibly lifted off the floor. His legs still refused to cooperate with him, and he weaved and stumbled dangerously trying to keep to his feet even with the help of the cane.

He had just managed to steady himself when the door swung open violently again, this time aided by a furious Sirius Blackbone’s foot rather than Voldemort’s magic. The werewolf stalked into the room, radiating the savage nature hidden beneath his human form, no doubt terrorizing every witch and wizard he had come across along the way. Remus followed a few steps behind, barely noticeable in the wake of his alpha’s presence and looking to keep it that way. His eyes darted about cautiously, looking out for the dangers Sirius was choosing to completely ignore.

Both werewolves froze, however, when they saw Harry. They seemed even more surprised to see him than he was to see them.

“Sirius? Remus? What are you doing here?”

The Dark Lord chuckled nastily.

“They have been rather misinformed that you were killed last night.”

Oh dear.

“Um… no?” he said stupidly.

“Fuck me,” Sirius swore, studying Harry from head to toe. He looked torn between relief, disbelief, and horror. Remus looked ready to run over and snatch him right out of the Dark Lord’s hands, but he kept looking towards his alpha for some sort of cue. It turned out neither Remus nor Sirius had to make a move. Voldemort was more than happy to go to them, dragging his unstable protégé behind him.

He practically threw Harry at Sirius, and the werewolf caught him easily and tucked his godson under his arm without ever looking away from the Dark Lord. Harry found it easier to stand with the support of the werewolf’s strong arm, but a lot less easy to move. Sirius’ protective grasp was unfortunately a bit constricting.

He didn’t dare protest. He felt too guilty for frightening his godfathers as he had.

“You may keep him back at your colony until the beginning of the new term,” the Dark Lord said coldly. “If you take him to see his doctor first. He seems to have suffered a relapse.”

Sirius snarled like a beast.

“What did you-”

“Sirius,” Harry begged. “He didn’t do anything. Let’s just go… please.”

His godfather didn’t look away from the Dark Lord, but his hold on Harry tightened just a bit more. Slowly and without saying another word, Sirius gradually relaxed and half-carried his wounded charge out of the dueling hall, having never taken his eyes off the Dark Lord now silhouetted in the green flames of his own magic.

Sirius did not look away, but Harry refused to look back.

Separation I

Harry vomited in an alleyway between two stores, and unlike that morning felt better for it. Remus rubbed his back soothingly until he was done while Sirius paced anxiously and looked about as if expecting to be followed. Not an unreasonable expectation, as Reggy had to sneak them out of a low window to keep a small mob of reporters from cornering them at either exit doors. They couldn’t be certain they hadn’t been spotted, and Harry wondered if there weren’t going to be some rather embarrassing photos of Sirius literally tucking him under his arm and running off with him. It was a bad enough memory all its own without photographic evidence.

He took a deep breath, grimaced at the bitter taste of bile and potions, and then took another. He was having a hard time catching his breath. Exhaustion or the beginnings of another panic attack? This wasn’t the time or the place to indulge in either. Hermione was danger. She was in danger, and he was the one who had put her there. He had to find her .. . no, he couldn’t. They would be expecting that. Wasn’t that just what he had always done? Run off at the first hint that someone he cared about was in trouble? Someone might follow him right to her … if he had any idea where she was exactly. By the Goddess, he had told them she was probably in London. How could he have been so stupid?

Still bent over and heaving to catch his breath, he felt the faintest touch to the back of his head. He froze as he felt fingers trace the raised line of his newest scar through his too short hair, then grimaced at the dull throb that followed. He turned to look over his shoulder.

Sirius stood there, the trademark manic fury suddenly absent and only a terrible stillness remained. Harry could not recall ever seeing the look his godfather was giving him now.

“They said you were dead …”

Harry’s throat tightened. Thoughts of Hermione and whatever danger she might be in suddenly vanished, and the there and then suddenly became painfully real. Coal black eyes swallowed him in, trying to take in a truth he hadn’t dared believe possible.

“I prayed …” Sirius said. “I never believed the gods answered prayers, but I did it anyway and … and here you are.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry whispered, his eyes suddenly wet. “I’m sorry.”

He hadn’t meant to scare them. He hadn’t meant to make them grieve for him. But his intentions had always had a way of twisting in on themselves and hurting rather than helping. Hermione, Vesper Larousse, the Goddess Colony, Stephen, even Voldemort, and now Sirius and Remus . .. all had suffered at his attempts to help them or others. Why? Why did this happen? Was he cursed?

Sirius pulled him closer and rested his forehead on Harry’s.

“You’re the closest thing I’ll ever have to a son, Harry. After James…”

Sirius trailed off, not knowing what to say after that. Harry didn’t know what to say either so he tried another ‘I’m sorry’.

“It wasn’t your fault. If Lucius Malfoy weren’t dead already, I would have killed him,” he said, the familiar anger returning, hardening his features once again.

And Harry was reminded of Hermione.

“We have to go to Malfoy Manor.”

Sirius pulled back and gave him a grim look.

“There is no need to speak to the healer there. We have healers of our own.”

“No, it’s not that. I have to warn Draco about Hermione.”

He gave Sirius and Remus a brief explanation of what had happened with Voldemort before they had walked in. Sirius listened and didn’t interrupt, but he looked skeptical. Remus nodded thoughtfully but wasn’t any more convinced than his alpha.

“You’re weak as a kitten and your magic is shot to hell. We need to get you home as soon as possible.”

Remus wasn’t wrong. Harry still felt nauseous after his confrontation with Voldemort, weak and feverish now as well. Pappanoski hadn’t wanted him to go and certainly not alone, but the summons had come after Snape had taken Ira back to Hogwarts, and Draco and Lady Malfoy were busy trying to handle Lucius’ final affairs. His excursion had taxed him more than he had anticipated, and he knew he was going to be paying for it soon. The wisest course was simply to let Remus and Sirius take him back to the colony, put him to bed, and let the healers ply him with their bitter medicinal brews.

Harry was many things, but no one had ever mistaken him for wise.

“Please, just for a few minutes? If Draco can warn Hermione, maybe even hide her, it could save her life.”

“No,” Sirius said. “The sooner you are home the better. I can already smell the sickness settling into you.”

Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. How to make them understand the importance of what he needed to do? Remus might understand, but he wouldn’t defy Sirius unless it was absolutely necessary, and Sirius could be as pig-headed as the Dark Lord when it came to caring for his godson. There wasn’t a lot that would override his possessive protectiveness. Except … except perhaps one thing…

“Sirius, please … She’s … Hermione . . . she’s what my father was to you. She was the first person I could look to and think ‘family’ after my parents died. And now she’s in trouble, and it’s myfault, and I … If there’s even the slightest chance I can save her … Please, just give me ten minutes. I just need ten minutes.”

His godfather was momentarily taken aback by the comparison, but as Harry continued to speak his expression darkened with every word. The young wizard was soon convinced that not only was Sirius not going to grant his request, but he was about to be grounded until graduation. He glanced at Remus, hoping for a little help, but Remus’ attention was back to watching the mouth of alley for any potential eavesdroppers.

After an intense, but brief silence, Sirius finally spoke.

“If we do this … help you do this, you will return to the Goddess Colony without another argument, is that clear?”

Harry nodded quickly. Anything, he’d do anything.

“And once you are there, you will not defy me on a single matter. You will sleep when I tell you to, eat when I tell you to, take your medicines, and not try to run off even when you start to feel stronger. Do you agree?”

Harry swallowed thickly. It would mean that, aside from warning Draco and hoping for the best, there would be nothing else he could do for Hermione until he left Sirius’ care. If he didn’t agree, however, not only would he not be able to warn Draco, but Sirius would keep him under constant surveillance, and he wouldn’t be able to do anything at all.

“Okay,” he said. “I promise.”

Sirius nodded and placed a hand on his shoulder as he led him back out to the street. Harry wished he could delude himself into believing the hand was just Sirius reassuring himself that his godson was alright, but Harry knew deep down the alpha was just making sure he didn’t try to make a run for it.

Ron had a smile that made babies cry and old women cross themselves. It was an unnatural, lopsided thing, and it ached within a minute, but for the last half hour Ron couldn’t wipe it off his face. The Red Weasel was a tavern not even half a year into business, but it already had a set of well known practices that made it wildly popular. One such practice was the exchange of a free drink for a good tale or an interesting bit of news. That afternoon it had brought in a wizard from the Court of Public Affairs with word that Lucius Malfoy was dead.

Ron, who had been working as a kitchen boy and occasional server for the holiday break, had brought out the mug of Brimsley’s Meade himself and a free plate of Walapple pie and hadn’t stopped smiling since.

Not even George’s threat to banish him to the kitchen if he didn’t stop it had worked to deter his manic glee. For the first time since the holidays had started, he was looking forward to going back to Hogwarts. The Court wizard hadn’t had much in the way of details except that there had been some sort of confrontation between Harry, Bartemius Crouch, and Lucius Malfoy at the winter ball that had left two of the three wizards dead. Harry had been injured in some way, but Ron wasn’t particularly concerned. Harry seemed to be made for walking away from injuries. He was almost certain the Gryffindork would be up and about by the time school started again, and Ron would be able to prod all the terrible details out of him that the papers would omit. By then he should also have his smiling under control, because he wasn’t fool enough to think Draco Malfoy wasn’t going to notice and find something overly dramatic (and awful) to do to him. Besides, Hermione would probably think it was tacky of him.

Ah well, he had another week to get it together.

Ron made his way back towards the kitchen hauling a load of dirty dishes, practically dancing out the way of patrons and servers as he went, humming along with the fiddler in the corner. The tavern was packed, as it usually was by mid-afternoon, and noisy with music and conversation, and pleasantly warm after coming in from the cold. He was so distracted by his own pleasant musings, his work, and the busyness of the place he would have completely missed what was happening if not for the fiddler suddenly stopping halfway through the tune.

Ron turned to see what the matter was. A short distance away from the stage, George was having an argument with several Sentinels. Even without the fiddle, it was far too loud, and he was too far away to hear what was being said, but George’s expression was worrying. There was very little that could upset either of his brothers enough to abandon their mischievous grins. The man George was speaking to, a slender gentleman with neatly trimmed lambchops and an air of curious amusement about him, was showing his brother a photograph which was being pointedly ignored. The man made a gesture and the four other sentinels he had brought with him scattered themselves around the tavern, causing George’s expression to turn livid.

Ron felt a sudden moment of dread as he saw one of the Sentinels head towards the narrow stairs that would lead to his brother’s laboratory above the tavern. Was this a raid? Were his brothers being arrested? Fred and George were eclectic businessmen, whose rebellious and fearless nature had led them to pursue some less than legal activities, and they were very good at it. Was it too much to think the authorities hadn’t found out?

His father had been thrown into Azkaban for the pithiest of reasons. Would the same happen to his brothers? Lucius Malfoy might be dead, so there was no archnemesis working from the shadows to destroy their family, but that didn’t mean they were safe from the arbitrary malice of the Court.

Even as Ron stood there, frozen, matters began to deteriorate further. The Sentinel who had taken the stairs to the laboratory had returned, hauling an indignant Fred behind him, and George was likewise being seized by still another man. Lambchop’s expression of amused curiosity didn’t change as his men led the twins forcibly out of their own pub.

They were being arrested!

Ron abandoned his dishes on the nearest table, ignoring the indignant protests of the family sitting there, and hurried over to the fiddler who was still staring dumbfounded at the door his employers had disappeared through.

“Patrick, what happened? What did that man say?” Ron demanded.

The fiddler turned to him in confusion.

“Ther looking for someone,” he said, “And they think your brothers might know where to find her. They took’em to be questioned.”

Ron felt his throat tighten. Even before the war, ‘interrogations’ were a thing to be feared, and after Voldemort came to power they hadn’t gotten any gentler.

“Her?” he tried. He didn’t know if he could manage anything more without stuttering.

“Aye. A girl, probably not any older than you by the looks of her. They called her ‘Granger’. Sound like anyone you know?”

“Granger?” he said in surprise and quickly tried to cover it up. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Are you—”

“Never heard of her!” he snapped, and stalked away before Patrick could ask anything else. Hermione, he wondered, what kind of trouble had she gotten herself into? What had she gotten his brothers into? He went back to gather up his dishes again, absently muttered an apology to the patrons, and headed towards the kitchen. He couldn’t help but notice at least one of the Sentinels had been left behind and was now skulking in a dark corner, hiding the tell tale uniform under a plain, black cloak.

Ron dumped his load into the sink, breaking several dishes with his carelessness. His hands were shaking badly.

Why were they looking for Hermione? How would they know she would come here? What would happen if she did? What would happen to Fred and George even if she didn’t? Was this history repeating itself?

He took a deep, calming breath. Now was not the time to fall to pieces. His brothers weren’t his father. They were smart, they had connections, and they weren’t the sort to be bullied. They’d get lawyers, the press, Harry bloody Potter even to come to their aid, and sooner or later they’d be let go.

The only thing he could do to help them was keep things together here until that happened and make sure Hermione Granger never set foot in the Red Weasel.

Remus had never been to Malfoy Manor, and Sirius only vaguely remembered visiting once or twice when he was still young enough that his parents could makehim go somewhere, so they flooed to Molston Vale and hired a carriage to take them out to Malfoy Manor. Sirius grew increasingly agitated the longer they remained out in the open and away from the safety of his territory. Harry was too tired to do much about it, and if Sirius’ belligerent and intimidating behavior frightened a few people here and there, at least it kept snoopy reporters at a respectable distance too.

A guard stood inside the gate as they drove up, and Harry could tell he wanted to quit the moment he saw them. Harry had a standing invitation to be there, but his godfathers, his obviously werewolf godfathers, were a different matter altogether. Sirius snarling at the man from the other side of the gates didn’t help the situation, and the ten minutes it took to get permission to let them inside did nothing for Sirius’ temper. Remus was starting to look embarrassed by his friend’s behavior.

Draco wasn’t particularly impressed either when Sirius kicked open his office door and snarled out, “Ten minutes.”

“Because I’m sure your schedule is just packed,” the young pureblood quipped.

“Draco,” Robert Reicher half warned and half pleaded. He was seated behind Malfoy’s desk, sorting through documents when they had been interrupted. Harry wasn’t sure who was more surprised. He to see Robert or Robert to see the werewolves.

He didn’t honestly have the time to hear the story. There wasn’t a lot of time, and he needed to make it count.

“Ten minutes. Why don’t you go get my wand from the mediwizard? He should be upstairs, sixth door on the right.”

Because if anyone was likely to make the healer relinquish his wand, Sirius would be it. He shut the door quickly before the alpha could protest.

“Oh my,” the Slytherin drawled. “And here I thought women were bad during their time of the month.”

There was a surprising amount of bite in that statement. When Harry had left, his friend had barely been holding it together, emotionally and mentally shutting down under the strain, but now he seemed to have regained something of his old attitude and a hint of steel resolve in his eyes that had never been there before. The Gryffindor didn’t know if this was a good or a bad thing. Probably a bit of both. Good for Hermione. Bad for Harry.

There wasn’t enough time for Harry to soften the blow, and he mentally prepared himself for the backlash.

“The Dark Lord is issuing a warrant for Hermione’s arrest on suspicion of murdering your father.”

Draco stared at him.

“He’s using her as a scapegoat. He doesn’t … he doesn’t want anyone thinking that his people don’t know what happened or that—”

Harry ducked as a teacup was hurled in his direction. It shattered on the door, spraying the back of his cloak with porcelain and tea. That wasn’t entirely unexpected. In fact, Harry was more surprised Draco hadn’t attempted a hex instead. The Malfoy heir was already reaching for his next projectile, a paperweight, but Robert quickly wrestled it out of his hand, and Draco gave it up in favor of hurling abuse instead.

“You stupid halfblood mongrel bastard! Lord Voldemort is punishing you through Hermione for what happened to my father! God, what the hell were you thinking? Have you fucked up your own life so badly, you felt the need to move on to your friend’s? Is that it?” Draco screamed at him.

Harry, even exhausted and weak as he was, felt his anger swell at the accusation.

“Screw you, Draco! You think I intended for this to happen? I would diefor Hermione. I nearly did! You want to blame me for everything that happened her? Okay, fine, go ahead, but at least I fucking did something. You couldn’t have fucked anything up, Draco, because you didn’t even bother to try and do anything yourself in the first place!”

As soon as he said it, Harry regretted it. Draco looked as if he had been simultaneously struck and betrayed, shocked at first and then righteously furious. He reached for his wand, and Robert called a warning to Harry.

Before Harry could duck, however, the door behind opened and smacked him in the head.

“Ouch!” he cried as it bumped the sensitive scar.

“Oh! Sorry, Harry,” a feminine voice apologized, and a moment later Natalie stuck her head through the door. “What on earth are you two shouting about?”

They were all too surprised by her sudden arrival to offer an explanation, and she didn’t wait for one before striding across the room to Draco. She ignored the wand still in his outstretched hand and pulled him into a hug.

“I’m so sorry, Draco, I came as soon as I heard, but security wouldn’t let me through the gate until Dobby came to vouch for me,” she said, sounding sincere and regretful and completely unlike herself. “How are you holding up?”

The Malfoy heir was caught completely off guard. By all logic, she should have gone to Harry first, hugged him first, asked over his well being first. He was the one she was not so secretly in love with after all. Even Harry looked a bit surprised … and maybe a little put out. Draco’s anger suddenly evaporated into nothing, leaving him feeling like a fool.

“I’ll manage. I’ll have to. The bad news just keeps coming.”

He gestured towards Harry, who took the hint and explained what had happened, adding a few extra details for everyone else’s benefit.

“… I’m being sent to the werewolf colonies to be kept out of the way. There’s not much I’ll be able to do for Hermione—”

“You’ve done enough,” Draco said, trying for cold but it only came out tired.

“As much as you could,” Natalie corrected. “We’ll have to handle things as best we can on our own. I think we’ll surprise you, Harry.”

Harry smiled a bit sadly.

“I wouldn’t dare to underestimate you.”

Robert, who was pretending to be oblivious to the conversation as he tidied up the mess left by Draco’s tantrum, suddenly cleared his throat.

“I can’t say that I understand what is going on,” he began, “Or that I even want to know what is going on, but if there is some assistance I might provide you, I willing offer it you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Reicher,” Draco said. “For now, I believe we only require your silence.”

“As you are my employer, I am obligated to keep your confidence without question.”

“Even from Kyle?” Harry couldn’t help but ask.

“There are some things I keep even from Kyle, despite what he thinks … I’d thank you not to tell him I said so. I don’t believe this is a matter that requires his attention, regardless.”

Harry reached instinctively for his watch to check the time, but of course it wasn’t there. He looked around the room for a clock to no avail.

“I don’t have much time. You have to find Hermione and get her somewhere safe. The Weasley twins will be able to help with that but be careful that you’re not followed. Particularly you, Draco. They’ll be expecting you to go look for her.”

Draco simply glared into the fireplace in reply.

“The Weasley twins?” Robert asked curiously. “You mean those boys that run the Red Weasel?”

“Yes, you know them?” Harry asked.

“Everyone in London knows them. I’ve eaten at the pub a few times. It wouldn’t be at all out of the ordinary if I dropped by for dinner on my way home, on the off chance anyone would even bother to follow me. I’m willing to leave instructions with them if you have any, but I would prefer not meet with Lady Granger in person if it can be helped. I have a family of my own to consider.”

“That’s a good idea. We can write a letter—”

A heavy knock on the door caused them all to jump. Conspiracy, it seemed, was making them nervous. Sirius snarling through the door didn’t help either.

“Harry, you’ve had your ten minutes.”

The Gryffindor thought to argue for a split second for just a minute more, then thought better of it. He had made a promise. Sirius would make sure he kept it one way or another.

“Coming,” he said before turning back to them. “Send me an owl when you can. Send Elsbeth if you can manage it.”

“Goodbye, Harry. I’ll tell the girls you said hello,” Robert offered.

“Go lay down before you keel over,” Natalie said.

Draco didn’t bother to turn around. The worst of his anger was gone, but some resentment still lingered. Harry was pulling out just when they needed him the most. The resentment itself left him feeling ashamed of himself. The sharp words they had traded only a moments ago still stung. Harry hadn’t been wrong. Draco had let Harry and Hermione do most of the planning and the legwork, and had gone along willingly enough even on those parts of their plans he was skeptical of. When had he become so reliant on Harry Potter to fix the problem? Why had he thought the Gryffindor was capable of it?

It was Draco’s turn now. He was Lord Malfoy. He followed no one.

After Harry left, the study fell once again into a tense silence. What now? Natalie broke the silence first.

“Mr. Reicher, would you mind if I had a private word with Draco?”

“Of course not. I’ll take some paperwork into the library with me. Let me know when you’re done with the letter.”

Once he was out of the room, Natalie turned to Draco.

“I’ll follow him after he leaves to make sure he delivers the letter. He may just turn it over to the first Sentinel he comes across.”

Draco sighed and nodded. Her concern was legitimate, but he wasn’t honestly concerned Robert would betray him. There was another source aside from the Weasley twins he knew they would have better luck with, but one he was reluctant to expose either Natalie or Robert to. Rita Skeeter knew exactly where Hermione was. They had sent his sister off with her in search of refuge, after all. But if he, Natalie, or Robert went to her, what would the reporter do? Expose their scandalous intentions in Wizarding Weekly? Sell them out to the Dark Lord for some journalistic tit for tat?

Harry had seemed to have something over her head, but he was a fool if he thought he could control her. Now Harry was in proverbial exile, and Draco and his comrades had nothing to work with. Skeeter had probably already betrayed Hermione. It was just a question of whether it was to the Sentinels or the papers.

His only hope was that Hermione caught on before the trap closed around her. She was usually rather clever that way.

Whatever the case, they were running out of time.

He reached for a sheaf of paper and a quill. He would send Robert and Natalie to the Red Weasel and hope against hope that they got lucky. Then he would hunt down Skeeter. He wasn’t entirely sure what he would do, but he was a Slytherin and, more significantly, a Malfoy.

Family was everything.

The Persnickety Inn had been a hovel well before the Italians ever came to London, which was probably why they hadn’t bothered touching it during their stay. It was a narrow, gray building that seemed strangely emaciated with concave walls and a sharply pointed roof that leaned heavily to one side. Bits and pieces were missing from it; roof tiles, window panes, and a step leading up to the front door.

Inside wasn’t any better. Just as narrow, slanted, and gray with missing things like door knobs and light bulbs and floorboards. The owner was likewise a rickety old witch in ratty gray robes, missing most of her teeth and one of her socks. She was almost completely blind and deaf, and if that didn’t make her job of keeping up the place hard enough, she also didn’t give a damn. It made her a lousy innkeeper, but a perfect host for hiding runaway little girls as far as Skeeter was concerned.

The reporter let herself in and headed up the stairs without bothering to wake the old witch snoozing behind the counter. The stairs practically wailed as she made her ascent, but stealth wasn’t her intention. She had spent the better part of an hour prodding her fellow reporters for information about the party and felt it had been something of a waste. No one seemed certain of anything except that Lucius Malfoy and Bartemius Crouch were dead, and most seemed fairly certain that Harry Potter had died as well, although it seemed his death had been painfully drawn out where the others had been swift. How it all had happened was anyone’s guess. Some said murder, some said accident, and others a duel gone wrong.

There was supposed to be a press conference in an hour, but Skeeter doubted it would be worth going to. It wasn’t as if the Court would explain anything. They’d spout some sugar-coated nonsense and wax on about how they had everything under control.

She was still going to go, of course. There was bound to be a good quote or two floating around.

But first, she needed to see Hermione and break her little heart.

She reached door number two (it was actually door number twelve but the one had gone missing), took a deep breath, muttered a very light crying curse on herself, and knocked on the door. The sound of footsteps and rustling clothes emanated from inside.

A moment later, Hermione Granger opened the door in her cloak and wool scarf, her school trunk resting behind her. She looked positively ghastly. Pale and puffy-eyed, she clearly hadn’t slept the night before but obviously had no intention of finding rest there. The reporter had caught her on her way out, but where had she been intending to go? The girl gave her a confused, vaguely annoyed look.

“Skeeter? What are—”

Before Hermione could finish, the reporter threw her arms around her and started bawling.

“Oh! Oh! It’s awful,” she cried, her spell-induced tears dribbling down her cheeks. The girl stiffened in her grasp.

“What is awful?” she asked warily.

Skeeter indulged in a brief grin, hidden as it was in their position, but quickly tucked it away again as she pulled away to look Hermione in the face. This was it! This was where she saw for herself just what precisely had been between the most famous boy in Britain and the little muggleborn princess.

“It’s Harry! Oh god, Harry is dead!”

The look of absolute shock on the girl’s face was sadly predictable and would doubtlessly be followed by a brief stint of disbelief. Once the reality sunk in, however, things would doubtlessly get interesting.

Sadly, the shock didn’t dissipate. Quite the contrary, it completely overwhelmed the girl until her eyes rolled to the back of her head, and she fainted. Skeeter barely managed to catch her and lost her balance for her trouble, landing them both in a graceless heap on the floor.

“Bugger,” Skeeter muttered. Not exactly what she had hoped for, although she supposed it was a rather interesting response. Not very good for a quote though. She hauled Hermione’s dead weight up and over to the cot in the corner of the room and dropped her on it. The girl didn’t even stir. Nor did she stir when Skeeter slapped her lightly on the cheek … and then not so lightly. The rennervate charm worked a little better.

“Ooohhh …” she moaned.

“Hermione? Hermione, can you hear me? Tell me what you’re feeling.”

“Nnn …”

“How does Harry’s death make you feel?” she said more loudly.

“Uhnnn …”

Entirely useless. Her rennervate wasn’t the best, and unfortunately she didn’t know anything stronger. Perhaps that old crone downstairs had some pepper-up or something lying around?

“Hermione-darling, I’ll be right back. I’m going to go get you something to make you feel better. Then we can have a little chat,” she said, then scampered away. As she made her way downstairs she considered possible headlines for the obituary she was going to write.

National Hero Murdered by Father of Secret Lover!

Potter’s Beloved Faints from Grief!

Unrequited Love Ends in Tragedy!

Malfoy Heiress Left Mentally Unsound by Death of ‘Her Prince’.

She was practically cackling in delight by the time she found the old crone, who did in fact have Pepper-up potion, along with a myriad of rather interesting concoctions in her medicine cabinet. She gave the crone a sickle for her trouble and hurried back to the room. When she got there, however, she let out a shriek of indignation.

There was no trunk.

There was noHermione Granger!

Voldemort studied Severus as the man studied the view outside the window. Under normal circumstances, Severus Snape would never let his gaze wander from the Dark Lord like he was doing now. It was only this uncharacteristic distraction that hinted to Voldemort that the events of last night affected his minion at all. Severus had been a hard and angry youth when he had met him, and he had grown into a hard and bitter man. His grief was a cold and distant thing. Assuming what the man felt was actually grief. It was difficult to tell with Severus.

Lucius and he had an unusual relationship. They had been co-conspirators but never confidants, rivals of nothing the other wanted, and respected and reviled each other in equal measure. They had been each others’ closest friends, but only because they were the only ones who shared enough wit and will to thrive in each others’ company. How did Severus actually feel about Lucius’ demise? And how much of that feeling was wrapped in his own selfish concerns? He was now the godfather to the Malfoy heir and a wanted fugitive on top of his responsibilities to his ward and an entire school that was half falling down around his ears these days.

Not that Voldemort could or would judge him for that. All he felt about the matter himself was selfish concerns. Even with his shiny new soul and all those curious new feelings that had been wiggling their way to the surface, he could not describe anything resembling sadness regarding Lucius Malfoy’s passing. There was frustration and annoyance about the inconvenience of his passing, but no more than Bartemius Crouch, whose services he appreciated far more than his company. He felt vaguely disappointed, but not surprised. Even before he had torn his soul to bits and pieces, it was unlikely he would have grieved much for a minion, however loyal or useful it had been. Perhaps when the worst of his aggravation had subsided, he might spare some more tender emotion; wistfulness or a touch of melancholy maybe.

“You’re very quiet, Severus. Have you nothing you would like to say? Some request you would like to make?”

Snape turned from the window to the Dark Lord. His expression was blank, his eyes a legilimens’ nightmare.

“My Lord … do you mean to spite every Death Eater that’s ever served you?”

Voldemort was too surprised for a moment to speak.

“You had already thrown half of the surviving members to the dogs by the end of the war and rebuffed or punished half of those that remained in your service after that. You’ve managed to spite everyone left after that on a more personal level since then … Lestrange and her removal from Hogwarts, MacNair and Umbridge, whatever happened to them, Lucius and that silly rivalry with Potter, and now … now you mean to turn your attention on me, then?”

Voldemort let out a huff of disbelief and threw up his hands in disgust.

“Is this about the Granger girl? Merlin, Severus, I gave you Harry because I thought you would be a good influence. I had no idea it would get all turned around and he’d end up turning you into an angsty and self-absorbed teenager! And don’t think I’ll tolerate it from you the same way I do Harry.”

Snape’s withering glare seemed strangely adolescent to him at the moment.

“I’ll excuse you this once, this once, because you’re obviously tired and stressed,” he continued. “But don’t make the mistake again. All those who have received my spite earned it first. Had I indulged every Death Eater their infantile whims, where would we be know? Still butchering our way through the shreds of our society that remained and deluding ourselves into thinking an enemy must still exist because we had managed nothing but ruin. Is it my fault that those who were most suited to war, were so ill-suited to peace? I gave them a chance! I gave everyone plenty of chances! You chief among them! So don’t you dare sit there, spit in my face, and then have the gallto call yourself a victim.”

As he spoke, the Dark Lord let a bit of the anger that still lingered even after his blow up at Harry earlier that day seeped into his voice and into his magic, letting it linger in the air like poisonous miasma. Snape, already pale and stiff, shifted back in his chair and swallowed thickly.

“Forgive my impertinence, My Lord, I spoke out of turn.”

Satisfied, Voldemort drew back his magic and reigned in his temper.

“Yes. Your goddaughter’s situation is unfortunate, but I know you understand the necessity of it. If you have an alternative solution, I will be more than happy to hear it. If the true culprit is found, I have left enough leeway to allow for her pardon.”

“You are most generous,” Snape said, refusing to look him in the eye when he said it.

“Don’t be sulky, Severus. It doesn’t suit,” he chided. “There are other matters I need to discuss with you or else I would have simply sent a letter. I wish to offer you a job.”

“Has someone failed to inform me I was fired from my headmaster’s position?” he asked. There was a touch of his sardonic wit in his voice this time, and the Dark Lord felt strangely relieved.

“You might consider it a promotion, albeit more of a sideways one. I’ve decided to put Lestrange in Lucius’ position.”

Snape didn’t bother to hide his grimace.

“That is … unfortunate.”

Voldemort smirked.

“I am aware of Bella’s shortcomings. She is no Lucius Malfoy, but she has a head for tactics and enthusiasm for the cause. So long as she attends those duties Lucius should have been solely focused on she should do well.”

“Which she won’t do. She never could accept her leadership skills as being less than Lucius’.”

“Just so. That is why I am assigning her minders to keep her authority limited to the war. Lucius and Barty had their spoons in too many cauldrons, and without them there to stir, the Court is going to stall. It could take years to put things back in order. I will not let this mistake be repeated. No one should be as indispensable as they made themselves.”

Except for myself, of course.

“And you wish me to be one of her minders? What would you have me do precisely?”

“I was thinking Chief Financial Administrator of the Culties. Money is the best stopgap there is.”

“True, but counting sickles is not how I pictured my career going. And the politics … I have never enjoyed it.”

“But you were very good at it during those first few years you helped to rebuild. The hours are shorter and the income is better than what you receive as Headmaster. Something I am sure your new wife would appreciate.”

“My wife appreciates purpose over purse strings, My Lord. As do I. Hogwarts shall be my legacy. I cannot leave her in her current state. There is too much that needs to be done.”

Voldemort sighed, but did not look particularly surprised.

“I thought you might say something to that effect. A pity, but I have no intention of foisting the position onto you if you truly don’t want it. The school does need looking after during these days of war.”

Snape settled a little more easily into his chair. That could have gone very differently, and if the Dark Lord had the mind to make him take the position there would have been very little he could have done about it. In fact, he could have suffered severely for simply having the audacity to refuse his master’s generosity. As it was, he could barely believe he had dared to refuse it at all. Some of Potter’s madness truly must have been rubbing off on him.

Or maybe he was just too damn tired to care.

“That leaves one final matter to discuss,” Voldemort said. “Do you wish to surrender guardianship of Harry?”

“… I’m not sure I understand.”

“Your friend is dead. Your goddaughter is a wanted fugitive. Harry Potter is at least partially at fault. If you believe yourself to be incapable of fulfilling your duties as his guardian under these circumstances, then I can transfer custody to someone else.”

“You didn’t offer this after Vesper died,” he pointed out, revealing his skepticism.

“It hadn’t occurred to me at the time.”

This was perfectly true. He hadn’t had a complete soul at the time and hadn’t cared particularly if Harry and Severus got along or not. He still didn’t particularly care, but after Lucius’ death and another near death experience for Harry, he wasn’t about to tempt fate again.

Snape remained silent for a moment, considering, but did not for long.

“I will keep custody of him.”

“Forgiven him already?”

The headmaster gave him a look of dark amusement, but when he spoke there was a touch of bitter poison in his honey tones.

“What choice do I have? He did nothing that we ourselves did not allow him to do.”

The winter air burned her lungs and froze her skin as she ran through the narrow, twisting streets of Knockturn Alley. A cat snarled at her as she passed. A gnarled figure of a man watched her speculatively from behind a dirty window. Somewhere overhead a plane flew by. She was oblivious to all of it. Her panic was of the odd variety that made her reckless where she should have been cautious and stole her breath away even as it sent her flying.

She couldn’t believeit.

She couldn’t accept it.

Harry, dead?

She had believed herself to be resigned to the probability of Harry’s premature death, and yet once the predicted event was presented to her she couldn’t bring herself to fathom it. He could survive anything. Had survived nearly everything the magical world could throw at someone: werewolves, faeries, murderous wizards, poisons, curses, duels, Dark Magic, Old Magic, lunatics, and the Dark Lord himself! How could he possibly be dead now? She had seen him just last night, his eyes flaring green as he steeled himself to face yet another danger, this time on Hermione’s behalf.

She turned a corner too quickly and caught her foot on an empty crate, lost her balance, and landed heavily on the cobblestone ground. She gasped from the shock of pain and from breathlessness. Something wet trickled between her eyes, and for a second she thought it was blood, but it was only dirty snow that had stuck after she knock her head on the ground. Lying sprawled there, she burst out into tears and told herself it was because of the pain.

Shaking and gasping for air, she slowly climbed back to her feet. Her toe, knees, hands, and head hurt from her fall. Her clothes were filthy down the front. She wiped her eyes and her nose with her dirty mittens, tightened her cloak around herself, and pulled up the hood. More than likely, she looked a fright and one thing she didn’t want at the moment was strangers stopping to ask her if she was alright. Taking a deep, shaky breath, she continued on more slowly. Running was no longer an option. She was limping heavily.

The panic was still there, lingering under the surface and making it hard to breathe, but the worst of it had been knocked out of her by her fall. Her more sedate pace left her mind more time to wonder at the situation and become increasingly aware of how little she actually knew.

Skeeter, the horrible, wretched creature, had said Harry was dead, but how did she know? She had left the party with Hermione and certainly couldn’t have made it back inside. She might have learned of it from someone else. It would certainly have been newsworthy, but if that were the case why had she come to Hermione to tell her and not gone in search of actual witnesses of the event? Why bother to tell Hermione at all? It obviously wasn’t an act of compassion.

She felt a shiver run through her as she remembered the look in that woman’s eyes as she told her Harry was dead. Why had she looked like that? So twisted and hungry, even as she had been weeping her crocodile tears.

Skeeter might have had a talent for weaseling out a story (and then turning into a bawdy piece of tripe), but acting definitely wasn’t her forte. At least, she hadn’t been as good as Hermione, whose damsel-in-distress was spot-on. She hadn’t used it since the school plays of her early childhood, but it seemed she still had the knack for it. The fact that her legs actually had fallen out from under her had helped with the realism.

If that had failed to get Skeeter away from her, she would have resorted to a stunning hex. She would have started off with one in the first place if she could have remembered one at that moment.

In a clearer state of mind, she might have done a lot of things differently. Most significantly, she would have gotten more details. Like how had Harry died in the first place.

Oh God, had she sent Harry to die?

It had to have been Lucius. Somehow and in some way, either out of anger or by accident or some combination, he had killed her friend. He had killed Harry for trying to protect her, for standing in the place she should have been when he had discovered her plan to be free of him. It had been bothering her all night, stealing her sleep, the idea that she had run away when she could have stayed to face Lucius Malfoy once and for all. Once out of the manor, she had felt like a complete coward. What could he have done to her, really? Curse her, maybe, probably disown her, hurl verbal abuse upon her, most definitely. The cursing would have hurt, but he wouldn’t dare go too far with so many people in the manor, and once over she might have been free of him at last. She might have saved her friend if she had displayed half his nerve.

But now Harry could be dead, and rather than being free she had to go back to see what nightmare had unfolded in her absence and face the consequences of her cowardice. Certainly, Harry’s death, awful as it was to think about, would not be the end of it. There was the Dark Lord to consider and his reaction to the whole affair. Would he kill Lucius? No, not immediately anyway. They were in the middle of a war, after all. He was essential, but he would probably be punished. That didn’t concern her much, except for the possibility of him taking it out on her later. Her more immediate concern was Draco and Narcissa. Even if they weren’t involved, there was no guarantee that they would be safe from the Dark Lord’s wrath. And if she went home now, could she expect more of the same?

Maybe there would be something in the paper that would give her a better idea of what she was walking into. There was a newsstand at the floo station. There had to be something about last night there.

The thought made her walk more briskly. It also made her limp more obviously.

Knockturn Alley was several blocks away from the only remaining floo station in Wizarding London. As she left the row of dingy shops and crooked townhouses, she began to pass shops and homes that looked considerably more inviting, but no newspaper stands. Somewhere up Podwaddle Street was the Red Weasel, which would have a paper, and the Weasley twins might have spared her some news and a cup of something hot to help her frazzled nerves, but that would have taken her out of the way, and if she moved from her decided course she might lose her nerve yet again. She couldn’t stand the thought of breaking down into tears in the middle of a pub.

After what seemed like forever, the street she was on suddenly opened onto Dinaden Square. Dinaden held the only floo station that hadn’t been destroyed during the Italian invasion, and subsequently, most of the rebuilding had started there. It was tidy and clean, without a broken window or pile of rubble in sight, and a steady stream of witches and wizards moving or milling about. She found the newsstand she was looking for quickly, but the copy of Wizard’s Weekly had nothing in it about Harry or the Christmas Ball.

Hope flared in her chest.

Could Skeeter have been lying? Could it have been some sort of cruel trick to make her reveal something she wouldn’t have in a clearer frame of mind?

The more she thought of it, the more possible it seemed. Yet she didn’t dare let herself believe it completely. It was just as possible that the papers simply hadn’t heard about it yet or maybe not in time to make the morning edition.

There was only one way to be certain.

She had to go home.

“H-hermione?”

She half-stumbled at the sound of her name and turned to her right to see a familiar face looking back at her.

“Natalie? What are—”

She didn’t have time to finish her sentence before the other girl was beside her, grabbing hold of her arm and forcing her back in the direction she had been coming from. She grimaced at the force of Natalie’s grip and the strain of their pace on her aching knees, but was too surprised to attempt to pull away. What was she doing here? Had Draco sent her? No, Draco wouldn’t have known where she was. He didn’t even know she was in London, did he?

“Don’t say anything,” Natalie said sharply, “and don’t pull down your hood. Has anyone seen you?”

“I don’t think so. What’s going on, Natalie? Why are—”

She stiffened. There was a man standing across the square looking directly at them with a surprised expression on his face. Natalie cursed when she spotted him and changed directions so they were heading towards one of the side streets.

“Who is that?” Hermione asked anxiously.

“His name is Reicher. He works for your brother.”

“Works for Draco?” Since when did Draco have people working for him, aside from his school cronies? “Then why are we running away from him?”

“Just because he works for Draco doesn’t mean he can be trusted. He might turn you in if the reward is high enough.”

Reward? Reward for what?

“What are you talking about? What’s going on? Is this about Harry? Is he … is he …”

She didn’t want to say it out loud. Not if she didn’t have to. Natalie suddenly stopped and just looked at couldn’t even begin to describe her expression or what it could possibly have meant. Just as suddenly as they had stopped, they started again. Natalie said nothing more, and Hermione didn’t dare to ask until they were far away from prying eyes and ears, alone in a burnt out husk of a building.

“What have you heard?” Natalie asked first.

“Only … Harry …”

She bit her lip.

“Harry’s fine.”

Hermione looked at her. Something in the girl’s expression softened.

“He’s fine,” she promised. “I saw him less than an hour ago. He’s weak and in pain, but he’ll be okay.”

“Oh …” She tried to say something else. There was so much to say, so much to ask, but as hard as she tried all she could manage was another little ‘oh’ and a little laugh and another round of tears, this time from relief. She didn’t think she had ever cried so much in her life. Natalie took a step forward, and she looked as if she might try to hug her, but after a moment’s hesitation she just put her hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. They had never been friends enough to hug, and honestly, until just recently Hermione hadn’t been sure they had ever really qualified as friends at all.

It took a little time, but eventually Hermione regained her ability to speak again.

“And Draco? And Narcissa?”

“Both fine … well, as fine as they can be under the circumstances.”

“And what are the circumstances? I don’t know what’s happened. I was about ready to go home and then Skeeter just showed up and told me Harry was dead!”

She could say it now, at last, knowing it wasn’t true and Harry’s seeming invincibility was once again proven.

“And you believed her? And here I thought you were supposed to be the smart one,” Natalie said, falling back into her familiar persona of tactless bitch. “Parkinson wrote me a letter to the same effect, but I knew better. I mean, it’s Harry. As if a tumble down the stairs could have done him in.”

“He fell down the stairs?”

She didn’t know if she should have felt relieved or not. Obviously it hadn’t been a fun experience for Harry, but if it had only been an accident then …

“Or Lucius pushed him, depending on who you talk too. I don’t think we’ll ever really know. Harry’s doesn’t remember it, and Lucius obviously can’t tell us anymore.”

“Why? What happened to Lucius?”

Natalie gave her a sideways look, then looked off into the distance.

“He’s dead.”

Hermione closed her eyes. She waited for the pain, for the happiness, for anything to fill her in some way like it had for Harry, but she felt nothing.

“Crouch is dead too,” Natalie continued.

That was actually almost funny, in an ironic sort of way, but she couldn’t bring herself to laugh. Not yet.

“I think you should start from the beginning.”

It didn’t take long. Natalie didn’t know much of what had happened, herself at the party, not having been there, but she was very knowledgeable of the consequences. She explained the situation as best she could about the warrant for her arrest, Harry’s exile to the werewolf colonies, Draco’s plan to find her with the lawyer and the Weasley twin’s help, and her own intention to make sure Reicher was trustworthy. The more Natalie spoke, the less real it all seemed to Hermione.

Lucius and Crouch dead? A warrant for her arrest? Draco now Lord Malfoy and hiring lawyers? She didn’t know if it was truly too absurd to contemplate or if she was just in shock. Whatever it was she knew she couldn’t go home now. It was one thing to face her foster father’s fiery temper and quite another to face the Dark Lord’s cold machinations.

When Natalie was done, Hermione asked, “So now what?”

“Now? Now we get you out of Britain.”

Robert was feeling ten times a fool, but that hadn’t stopped him from going to the Red Weasel. He had told Malfoy that he would, and even if the little bastard had lied to him and sent his little friend to follow him, he intended to complete his instructions just as he said he would. What did he care if they hadn’t trusted him with the fact that they already knew where Hermione was? That Natalie had intended to meet up with her at the floo station while Robert went off on his little goose chase? It wasn’t the first time a client had played silly little games like this. Why shouldn’t he expect it from a bunch of children?

He was being more bitter than he really had a right to be, he knew. Yes, that Natalie girl had followed him, and yes, the fact that Hermione Granger showed up in Dinaden Square at the same time was highly suspicious, but he couldn’t say he honestly knew what any of them had been thinking. So what if they didn’t trust him? Why should they?

Logic didn’t ease the sting of it, but the glass of ale helped, if only a little. The Red Weasel wasn’t stingy with their tap, he would give them that. He hadn’t been able to deliver his letter, Fred and George Weasley having just left on errands according to the barmaid, so he had sat himself down to enjoy a drink. Maybe they would show up in an hour or two and he could give them the letter then. Maybe they had already left to help the Granger girl and he was just being redundant. He would do it anyway, and hope Draco Malfoy felt arse afterward.

He was so caught up in his own annoyance that he didn’t notice the hooded figure that walked through the door and straight to the bar. Hardly anyone noticed in fact. But a handful of people did, and when the girl leaned across the bar to whisper something to the barmaid, one of them thundered up behind her and seized her by the arm.

“Got you, Granger! You’re under arrest!” the wizard shouted dramatically, flashing his Sentinel’s badge to the surrounding tavern that had fallen into a stunned silence at the outburst. Robert dropped his mug in surprise and horror.

“Unhand me, you stupid oaf!” the girl screamed, throwing back her hood.

It was not, in fact, Granger. It was Natalie.

The Sentinel realized his mistake and flushed. He glanced around the room quickly, aware that the entire tavern was now looking at him expectantly, and he quickly tried to cover his mistake with bluster.

“So you think a little polyjuice is going to trick a Sentinel? Hah! Hand over your wand or I’ll be forced to stun you.”

Natalie’s indignation turned to fury as the larger wizard continued to manhandle her.

“I’ll hand you my wand! I’ll make you eat the damn thing. Now, let go of me! Someone help!”

No one moved.

“Resisting arrest, are you? Fine, if that’s how—”

“What is your name, officer?”

The Sentinel turned to see Robert now standing behind him. Natalie’s eyes widened and narrowed suspiciously in turn.

“What’s my name? What’s your name?” the man said defensively. “You tryin to interfere with a Sentinel doing his duty?”

“My name is Robert Reicher, professional lawyer, and if your duty is abusing school girls then I am afraid I must interfere. Now, what is your name and the name of your supervising officer?”

The Sentinel’s eyes widened, and he looked around nervously.

“I … I don’t have to tell you that!”

“Technically, Flaske, you do, you great idiot,” a new voice interrupted from the stairway at the corner of the tavern. It was yet another Sentinel, shedding a notice-me-not charm as she descended the stairs and made her way towards them. She turned towards Robert and gave him a suspicious look. “I’m Sentinel Harper, this is Sentinel Flaske. Sentinel-Inspector Amelon is our supervisor. We are here looking for a sixteen-year old girl suspected of murder.”

Harper turned an intent look at Natalie, who scowled right back at her.

Robert raised an eyebrow at the suspected murderer, then turned back to the female Sentinel.

“Really? And sixteen and female is your only search criteria?”

“She is also wearing a Hogwarts cloak, the school the suspect attends.”

“Well, that explains things. And is she the girl you’re looking for?”

“Probably not,” Harper said without inflection, glaring at Flaske before turning a bland expression to Natalie. “I’ll need to see your papers before I can let you go.”

The young witch gave them all a disgruntled look but presented her identification papers that any witch or wizard old enough to wield a wand was required to carry. Harper barely glanced at them.

“You don’t live in London,” she remarked.

“My mother is an art dealer. She’s been storing some items for a client who lives here in London. She said I could wait here while she meets with them,” Natalie said. It was only half a lie. Her mother really did have London clients she was storing items for if the Sentinels decided to check it out. Harper shrugged and handed back her identification.

“Sorry about the mix up.”

Natalie didn’t deign to reply and stalked off to the other end of the bar. The conversation that had died during their little drama picked up again, people joking and speculating on the failed arrest and who the sixteen-year old murderer could possibly be. Harper slapped Flaske upside the head and dragged him off to a corner to resume their post. Robert wandered down to join Natalie, who was being served a pint of butterbeer by someone who clearly wasn’t the barmaid.

At first, Robert thought the redhead was one of the owners, but as he drew closer he realized he was too young, only about Natalie’s age. A school friend? The boy looked at him without expression as he approached and left altogether when he sat down. Robert was starting to wonder if he needed a shower or something with the way people were treating him today.

“Thanks,” Natalie muttered, not looking up from her drink.

“Oh, gratitude! I like that. Do you think you could throw in an apology somewhere in there?”

The young witch said nothing.

“Right. Since my presence seems to be rather superfluous, I’ll just leave it to you then.”

He tossed the letter Draco had given to him onto the bar and walked away. She watched him go out of the corner of her eye, but didn’t follow. Whether or not she could actually trust him, she wasn’t absolutely certain. This could all have been a trap set by him, and now he was luring her into a false sense of security so she would lead others back to Hermione. Oh, Merlin, who was she kidding? If Reicher had betrayed them, all he would have had to do was tell them he saw Natalie with Hermione earlier and they would have Hermione’s location out of her quick enough whether she willed it or no. She … maybe … owed him an apology, but it wasn’t going to be given in a pub surrounded by Sentinels and eavesdropping customers. Not after what had just happened.

Even Ron had the sense not to talk to her.

At least, not out loud.

She looked down once again at her butter beer, watching the tiny little bubbles floating to the surface to spell out a series of letters until the message became visible.

Baggins Alley. 8:00 PM.

She took a moment to memorize it, then swallowed the message down with a long draw from her tankard. Conspiracy was a thirsty business.

Hermione was starting to think she would never be warm again. She had been outside for hours, unable to risk returning to her hotel room or ducking inside to get warm, and she had grown exhausted just maintaining the warming charms on her clothes, which never seemed to hold up well to either wet or wind. Natalie had brought her a cup of hot chocolate to help keep up her strength, but that had been hours ago.

Now London was dark and colder still, and they had curled up next to each other on some crates in an alley to get out of the wind. They didn’t dare light their wands or speak too loudly. Sentinels still patrolled the city, and even if curfew wasn’t in affect for another hour or so there was still a risk of being pulled aside for identification.

“What time is it?” she asked quietly.

“Fifteen til. We’ll leave in a minute here,” Natalie replied, sounding relieved. She wasn’t enjoying their outdoor excursion any more than Hermione, even if she had more opportunities to warm up.

“Aren’t your mums going to be wondering where you are?”

“I told them I might spend that night with you and Draco.”

“Why would you spend the night?”

Natalie hadn’t spent the night at Malfoy Manor since she was ten, before puberty had reared its ugly head and deemed childhood over and propriety an unofficial law.

“Draco’s dad is dead, remember? He might want a friendly face after something like that.”

Hermione ducked her head guiltily. Of course Draco would want comfort, deserved comfort, and if circumstances were different she would probably be giving it to him herself right now.

“It still doesn’t feel real. It’s just … I don’t know. I should feel scared or sad or angry … something, but I don’t. I can’t. It didn’t even occur to me that Draco would feel sad about Lucius. God, what’s going to happen to Draco?”

Her brother had never been on his own before. Not at school, not at home, not anywhere. Hermione had always been his companion in those matters his parents had been unable to follow or understand. She had always been his best friend.

“He’ll be okay,” Natalie said softly. “He’s stronger than you give him credit for, but I’ll take care of him when he needs it.”

Hermione nodded.

“I suppose you’ve been doing a better job of it than I have lately.”

“You had your own things to deal with.”

Natalie stood up and stretched.

“Enough of this maudlin shite. Let’s go.”

The walk was short and uneventful, except for a brief scare when they startled up a flock of pigeons. Baggins Alley was a little dead end street that had once opened up to Muggle London. It had been sealed off after the war, like most other streets, but it still warranted a place on most city maps if only for those wizarding folk separated from their muggle loved ones to leave tokens and pictures of remembrance. The brick wall at the end of the alley was still covered in photographs, moving and unmoving alike and letters that would never be read, rustling like leaves whenever the wind blew. It was a sad place, Hermione thought, not unlike a cemetery or some other memorial.

A figure stood at the entrance, looking about anxiously until he spotted them and retreated further into the alley. They took a precautionary look around themselves before following after.

“Ron?” Hermione whispered.

“Sshhh. Don’t talk until we’re on the other side. Here, take off your cloaks and put these on,” he said, and shoved something into their arms. Confused and becoming increasingly nervous, she did as he said, carefully transferring her miniaturized trunk and wand from her cloak to the unfamiliar coats. The parkas were silly looking things, puffy and inelegant, but they were warmer than cloaks and with the hood up it was like being enveloped in warmth all over. It was muggle clothing she realized with a jolt.

They were going into Muggle London.

They hadn’t been sure exactly what Ron had wanted to meet them for, but apparently he had known about his brothers’ plans to help her sneak out of London. It was a stroke of luck. She had thought it would take at least another day explain their need.

Ron paid them no mind as they floundered their way into their new clothing and turned his attention to the alley wall. Whatever magic had been undone on it had just as readily been redone, and a few taps with his wand had the wall folding in on itself and tucking bits of paper and celluloid harmlessly away as it did so. Ron went through first, looked around, and gestured for them to follow. They did so, and the wall sealed itself behind them once again.

The alley on one side of the wall wasn’t very different from the other by appearance, but there was definitely a difference in the air. Noise was filtering into the alley, loud and alien and unceasing, and it was with considerable trepidation that Hermione and Natalie followed Ron out onto the pavement.

Muggle London was like nothing either of them had ever imagined. They had been so young when they were taken, their memories stolen, until whatever remained was nothing more than an old dream that grew dimmer with every passing year. They had never imagined there would be so many people in one place. They were crowded on the pavement in ones and twos and small groups, talking into little objects in their hands like crazy people, smoking cigarettes, and stalking about in impossible looking shoes and tiny skirts. Muggles crowded the streets in cars that looked not only strangely different from the few automobiles they had seen but also completely different from each other. They crowded the windows of shops, restaurants, private gyms, and shop apartments. So full of people and all of them seeming to be on their way somewhere or doing something, until Hermione and Natalie felt dizzy just trying to keep from running into anyone.

The lights didn’t help matters. There were so many lights and of so many sizes, colors, and shades and some of them moving or blinking or spinning about. The noise was baffling in and of itself, car horns, clacking shoes on wet pavement, beeping and buzzing sounds from coat pockets, strange music drifting out of open doors, one-sided conversations, catcalls, and whistles.

Even the busiest cities and largest events in Wizarding Britain had nothing on this sensory nightmare.

“Oh god,” Natalie moaned. “I think I’m going to puke.”

“Don’t worry about it. It happens to everyone the first time,” Ron said nonchalantly, not even slowing his pace. “Do it in the gutter if really have to.”

“Ron, where are we going?”

“There’s a bus stop just up ahead. We’ll take it down to the river, then get you a ticket on the ferry.”

Hermione started to shake. This was really happening, she realized. It was finally starting to become real.

They managed to make it to the bus stop without anyone puking. While Natalie took a moment to lean on a lamppost and close her eyes in an attempt to regain her equilibrium, Ron killed time by playing tour guide and pointing out the various sights London had to offer.

“That’s the London Eye,” he said, pointing to the giant Ferris Wheel spinning about in the distance. “Fred and George took me up there last year. You can see all of muggle London. Gives you kind of a queer feeling, looking down on it. Makes you feel small and kinda stupid. I mean, there’s this whole giant world down there, out here, thirteen million people in this city alone, and we try to pretend it ain’t even there. How dumb is that?”

Thirteen million people, Hermione marveled. A number both awe inspiring and terrifying. There were more muggles in this city alone than there were wizards and witches across the world. She had come from this place or some place like it, but like Ron had said, she had gotten so good at pretending it wasn’t there that she had forgotten about it.

“I wonder if my parents are out here,” she said. “I could have walked by them and I would never know.”

Ron gave her a startled look, then looked away.

“I could probably find out,” he said. “I mean … they keep everybody’s name in giant books where anybody can find them. It couldn’t be that hard to look them up.”

Hermione smiled a bit sadly.

“That’s sweet of you, but I don’t think it would do any good. They wouldn’t know who I am.”

The bus they were apparently waiting for pulled to the corner, and Ron led them on, slipping the fare into the coin box as he went. The bus was almost empty but for a young man listening to his headphones an elderly woman dozing against her husband’s shoulder. The bus lurched into movement, and Natalie groaned unhappily.

“Alright, here are your papers and some light reading,” he told Hermione, pulling out a thick envelope and opening it. “This is your passport, this is your photo ID, and this is your oyster card. Don’t ask me about the last one, I have no idea what it does but supposedly every adult muggle has one. Fred and George tweaked the age a bit so no one would bother you for traveling alone. This is about fifty galleons worth of Francs. They use muggle money even in the wizarding parts of France. This is Fred and George’s little instruction manual for traveling around muggles. You’ll have two and a half hours to read through that. Explains things like money, transport, muggle customs, things like that …”

“Where did you get all this? How do you even know about it?”

“Where do you think? My brothers have been sneaking into the muggle world for years. I’d say they got the itch from Dad, but they’re way smarter about it. You didn’t think they got all that money to buy a pub from smuggling Christmas presents into Hogwarts, did you? That was just the tip of the iceberg. The real money’s in smuggling muggle contraband and tourism.”

“Tourism?”

“Sure. There’s lots of things to see and do out here. The old timers miss being able to do it, and the younger folks like the thrill of doing something novel and illegal. It’s not like it hurts anybody.”

“Unless you get caught.”

“Yeah …” he agreed, his smile fading. Hermione frowned thoughtfully. “Anyway, Harry had them put a kit together for you a while back, just in case. So when Natalie showed up at the tavern, I knew what she was there for.”

Hermione frowned thoughtfully.

“How did you know what she was there for, Ron?” she asked, because it was rather a leap in logic for him to have assumed Natalie showing up at the Red Weasel meant Hermione had to leave the country. He didn’t answer.

“Ron … how come Fred and George aren’t here?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “They’ll be okay. It’s probably best I got this out of their office, or they really might have gotten in trouble.”

Natalie pulled herself out of her misery long enough to turn to Ron.

“They were arrested. That’s why there were all those Sentinels there. They thought Hermione might show up in person to ask for help.”

He shrugged.

“They won’t keep them. They didn’t know anything about Lucius, and they never saw Hermione after the fact, so they can’t charge them with anything. Most they got them on is muggle contraband, and I doubt they’ll get more than a fine for that.”

He sounded as though he was trying to convince himself, and Hermione couldn’t even begin to think what he must be feeling. His father had died in prison, and now his brothers were looking at a similar fate. All because of her.

“I’m sorry, Ron.”

“It’s fine,” he said. “Way I figure it, me helping you out means Draco owes me a favor. Might work out better to have a Malfoy on the Weasley side of things for once.”

She wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but she could tell he didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

“So where am I going in France, precisely?”

“Paris.”

She took a sharp breath.

“Are you sure that’s safe?”

“Lot of English refugees in Paris. It’ll be easy enough to disappear. Won’t be able to use your wand though. Not until you find a way to get it registered without getting arrested. You’ll probably want to unshrink your trunk before you get on the ferry.”

They talked more about the practicalities of Hermione’s emergency excursion into a foreign country. On such short notice, there hadn’t been time to make arrangements for her arrival, so she would essentially be on her own once she got off the ferry. She spoke a little French, she had a little money, and her school trunk had plenty of items she could use, trade, or sell. For the short-term, she would be fine so long as she stayed below notice. What she was going to do long term was a trickier matter. The Weasley brothers might be master criminals, but she wasn’t and didn’t know how she was supposed to live if she were forced into hiding for months or even years.

She tried not to let her misgivings show.

She could do this. She would do this.

She didn’t have a choice.

The bus had been nearly empty, but the port was full of people on their way home from visiting family and holiday retreats. Hermione felt self-conscious in the crowd, wondering if anyone would notice anything off about her. Her clothes, her behaviors, some unknown quality that separated a witch from every other woman there. But no one seemed to notice, not even when she went into the public loo empty handed and came out carrying a trunk. She wondered, hopefully, if muggles weren’t perhaps naturally oblivious to magic.

Ron bought her ticket for the ferry and pointed the ship out to her on the pier. It seemed monstrously huge to her and strangely unreal with its gleaming white hull and fluorescent lights gleaming out from the interior, but so much of London seemed strange to her. She thought it might have been terribly exciting under normal circumstances, but at the moment it just made her feel uneasy and vaguely homesick.

They settled on a bench outside overlooking the Thames so Natalie could look out across the river rather than around her, and it seemed to help settle some of her queasiness. Hermione thought she was already starting to get used to it, but she didn’t want to be left alone in it either.

“You’ll be okay,” Ron said.

“You don’t know that,” she said.

“You survived Lucius bloody Malfoy. I doubt Paris is going to be much of a challenge.”

Her mouth twitched a bit, but settled again.

“Better the danger you know …” she said. “Besides, I had Draco and my friends then.”

He snorted. “Yeah, I think you might have done better on your own.”

She looked away, annoyed. He was hardly in a position to criticize, but she didn’t want to start an argument. Not now.

“I wish they were here.”

“Why?” Natalie muttered. “It would only make things harder.”

“I would have liked to say goodbye. I don’t know when I’ll see them again.”

“Probably this summer. Draco will be seventeen and travel to France is permitted now, and Harry’s always coming and going. God, even the Weaslette was talking about going. Bill Weasley and her little friend from the tourney are there.”

“She’s right,” Ron agreed reluctantly. “They’ll find you sooner or later.”

Hermione smiled at them gratefully. When they said it like that, it wasn’t so scary. She had always wanted to see Paris, even before Harry had described what a beautiful and strange city it really was. Sometimes, when she was depressed, she would imagine what it would have been like to run to Beauxbatons, hide away in the catacomb libraries, wander the museums and galleries, steal into the lectures at the city universities … just any number of little things. When Harry and Draco came or she could finally come home, she would have so much to tell them. Her own little adventure.

“Thank you.”

A voice boomed from somewhere above them in English and then in French, calling for passengers to begin loading. Suddenly, Hermione’s tentative happiness fled her, but she forced herself to keep smiling. Natalie and Ron walked her down to the boarding gate.

“Is there anything you want me to tell them?” Natalie asked.

“A thousand things,” she said sadly, “But I can only think of the obvious ones right now. Take care of yourself. I’ll miss you. I love you. That sort of thing.”

“Would you mind terribly if I slipped in a ‘And Natalie can borrow anything she likes from my closet’ somewhere in there?”

Hermione rolled her eyes.

“Just be careful around the bunny slippers. They’ve been known to nibble.”

She turned to Ron to thank him for what he and his brothers had done to help her.

He leaned in and kissed her. Her cheeks were suddenly burning, but she didn’t pull away until he did. She slapped him, mostly by instinct, and then turned even redder. He gave her an embarrassed little half smile.

“Sorry. Just in case, you know.”

She nodded dumbly. She hadn’t actually minded really.

Somewhere behind her, Natalie made gagging noises.

Ron glared at her for a half second, then turned back Hermione, and she thought he might try and kiss her again when he leaned in a second time. But all he did was whisper in her ear.

“I know I should have been better to you, and I’m sorry that I wasn’t.”

Separation II

“Harry.”

He opened his eyes, but the cabin was dark. The moon was outside the window somewhere, a waning gibbous behind the clouds. The fire in the iron stove had burned down to dark red embers.

On either side of him, he felt and heard the steady breathing of several people pressed around him. The icy air within the cabin pressed against his eyelids and nipped at his cheeks, but in his little cocoon of blankets and bedfellows he felt decidedly comfortable. He felt no desire to move, and he doubted Sirius would have wanted him to either, if he were awake to protest. Fatigued from his ordeal, a mild fever had fallen over him shortly after his arrival at the colony, and Sirius had predictably overreacted. His godfather had ordered him to bed, and he had barely left it in the last three days.

Harry spent his waking hours staring at the ceiling and wondering about Hermione and Voldemort and Draco, and his sleeping hours in fitful dreams he didn’t remember upon waking. He didn’t see Sirius for the most part until he came to bed, but he was never left alone. If Remus wasn’t there, then one of the healers would be or some other guardian was there to watch him and ensure he wasn’t disturbed. Or didn’t run off.

Who had woken him now?

Had it only been a dream?

He closed his eyes and settled back again. Weight suddenly pressed down on his legs, and he sat up with a start. Groaning and shuffling ensued as he disturbed the bed, but no one woke. He made to shout, but a hand quickly covered his mouth. A small hand, rough and callused though it was.

“Harry.”

This time he recognized the voice. He relaxed and gently pulled the other’s hand from his mouth.

“Luna, what are you doing here?” he whispered.

As far as he knew she wasn’t even supposed to be in the Goddess Colony, but at another colony further north.

“Someone has come to see you,” she whispered, and he could feel her warm breath brush against his face. She was very close.

“In the middle of the night?” he asked suspiciously. A part of him had forgiven her for her loyalty to Greyback, but that didn’t mean he completely trusted her yet.

“She risked much to find you. Come.”

Suddenly, her weight disappeared, and he felt her presence move away, even though there was no sound until the door to the cabin groaned slightly as it opened and closed. A draft of cold air struck his bare arms and face, making him shiver. It smelled of snow.

Briefly, he entertained the idea of lying back down, going back to sleep, and opting out of whatever little game Luna was playing. But only briefly. Luna hadn’t named his guest, but it sounded as if Hermione herself may have come to find him. That wasn’t something he could ignore. Reluctantly and cautiously, he climbed out from under the blankets and towards the end of the bed while trying not to wake anyone in the process.

As soon as he was free of the bed he began to shiver in earnest. He had only a sleeveless wool nightshirt and his trousers, and the floor felt like ice against his bare feet. He fumbled blindly about the room for a bit until he found the fur cloaks hanging on the wall and several pairs of leather boots beneath them. He slipped into the warmest he could find by touch alone. It wasn’t ideal. The boots and cloak were both too big, but he didn’t dare delay by looking for his own clothes. If Sirius caught him, he’d be stuck in bed once again and there was no telling how long Luna would bother to wait for him.

Wrapping the borrowed cloak tightly around himself, he braced himself against the cold and slipped out the door. It wasn’t snowing like he had thought, but there was a thin layer of it on the ground.

He spotted Luna immediately. At least, he assumed it was Luna. He had forgotten to grab his glasses, and in the flickering light of the torch it was difficult to make out the figure holding it. White against white, Luna was barely distinguishable from the surrounding snow in her white furs. Carefully, he moved to meet her, but she was already turning to lead the way.

“Luna, wait,” he called softly. Sirius would be furious if he woke and saw him missing. Whether Luna heard him or not, she didn’t stop or turn around. He could not run to catch up, and he didn’t dare allow her to get too far ahead that he couldn’t follow. Nervously, he trudged after her.

It didn’t take him long to figure out she was taking him towards the wall, which further convinced him of the possibility of Hermione visiting. If it had been another werewolf, there would have been no reason to travel that far. Within minutes they reached the wall, now spread three times the length it had been last time he had seen it, and fire cisterns had been lit along the walkway while archers patrolled between them. Harry hesitated at the sight of those shadowy figures, but Luna continued forward without hesitation and finally he followed after her.

One of the figures on the wall stopped as he spotted Luna’s approach and climbed down a nearby ladder to greet her. They spoke for a moment, and the guard turned to Harry and then nodded before climbing back up the wall. Harry couldn’t help but wonder at it. How was it she could convince the guards to go against Sirius orders of keeping him within the colony? It made him decidedly nervous.

This time Luna waited for Harry until he had reached her.

“What are we doing out here?”

“One of the guards came to me when she arrived. They didn’t dare let her in, but they were afraid to send her away. They are afraid of her. But I’m not, and you will not be.”

That didn’t sound like Hermione.

“Why didn’t they go to Sirius?”

Luna smiled a bit at that.

“Have you ever woken him up when he doesn’t want to be? He is like a bear in winter.”

The was true, but not a wholly satisfying answer. He started to ask her why they came to her then instead of someone else, but she was already slipping away through a narrow door and out the other side. He hesitated a moment longer, knowing what he was doing was reckless and foolish, and yet still he needed to know. It still could possibly be Hermione.

He followed.

Luna waited for him by the door, and as he exited she suddenly leaned forward and kissed his eyelids. Her lips and her magic felt warm against his skin, and as he opened his eyes he could see her clearly again. The light from her torch cast everything in a yellow and orange glow, but her pupils were blown wide and encircled with the thinnest band of shinning silver. It made him think of deep wells and lunar eclipses. Snow had caught in her hair, turning it almost as white as her furs. She could have been the moon Herself come down in human form, he felt for just a moment before he remembered he couldn’t afford to fall in love with her and turned away.

His attention was caught almost immediately by another. This one was pale with raven hair and eyes that glowed icy blue. He knew her at once.

If Luna were the moon, then Selufiare was the winter night. Simultaneously dark and pale, cold and fierce, beautiful and deadly. She was cloaked in black, and one pale hand stroked the narrow head of her black faerie mount so that the darkness all around her framed the stark paleness of her face and hands. She had a very lovely face and hands.

Bobby had said she may be the next Midnight Queen, the Winter Goddess, and looking at her now he could easily believe it.

He felt his heart suddenly pounding. He felt suddenly flush. She was an Enchantress he reminded himself. The only reason he was reacting so strongly was because his magic was too depleted to help him resist her natural charms. Yes, he told himself, that is the only reason. Don’t get carried away.

It helped to think of how ridiculous he probably looked right now; bed-tossed hair, oversized fur cloak, pale skinny legs sticking out the bottom, and boots nearly falling off. But it didn’t help much. She wasn’t any less lovely for his own ridiculousness.

“My lady,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

Her cool expression softened and warmed, thawing the impression of winter about her.

“Unexpected, no doubt, but a pleasure? I wonder.”

“You helped Bobby and me escape. I am grateful to you for that.”

She seemed pleased by his words, but her expression was touched with sadness.

“And a dear price was paid. Did your God Eater tell you what he did to our city? Did he gloat?”

Harry wouldn’t necessarily call it gloating, but the Dark Lord certainly hadn’t been ashamed to go into the details of his own little adventure into Hausteheim. He hadn’t known what to think of it at the time, and eventually he hadn’t bothered to stop and think about it at all. There had been so many other things to occupy his thoughts.

“He told me, my Lady.”

“I suppose I have no right to complain. We received what we asked for in the end. That’s not why I am here, however.”

“I admit I am a little confused,” Harry said. “How did you find me? Does your father know where you are? Where I am?”

“While Lord Gulandri would indeed be interested in your whereabouts, he is currently too preoccupied to concern himself with either of us. As for how I found you…”

She slipped her hand into her cloak, and Harry found himself suddenly tensing. He mentally applauded himself for not turning completely into a love-sick fool. When she pulled her hand free something shiny was dangling by a chain in her hand. At first he thought it was a medallion, but a closer look revealed it to be a watch.

His watch.

“Oh.”

“Yes,” she said. “Your bond with this object is very strong. I can feel its longing for you whenever I hold it. Have you missed it too?”

He stared, mesmerized, as the watch twirled and gleamed faintly in the torchlight. His hands twitched. Had he missed it? Every single day. Out of everything he owned, he probably only would have missed his wand more.

And suddenly, it was gone again, disappearing into Selufiare’s cloak. He looked away quickly to hide the sudden flare of anguish caused by its absence, his eyes roving in search of some possible threat that might have snuck up during his distraction. All he saw was empty woods and Luna, watching intently. He flushed, this time in embarrassment. He had forgotten she was there.

“It led me here,” the naga continued. “But I cannot stay long. Days are passing in Hausteheim for the hours I spend here, and eventually Lord Gulandri will begin to wonder.”

“Then why come? This place isn’t safe. If my godfather found you or some random wizard…”

“Then it is best I not linger. I have come to make a bargain with you, Harry Potter, Twilight Seeker, Ghihalmelan.”

A chill ran down his spine. Bargains with faeries were dangerous. Bargains with anyone were dangerous but especially with faeries. Still, Selufiare had never been anything less than generous and kind to him, and she deserved to be heard.

“I am listening.”

“In Hausteheim I asked for a kiss, but I had nothing worth trading to you. I have something now.”

Harry could feel his ears burning and was very aware of Luna’s eyes on his back. He coughed uncomfortably in his hand.

“Ah… that’s… Do the same rules apply? You will not try to enchant me or bind me to you?”

“As tempting as that would be… I swear I shall not cast my magic over you.”

“It doesn’t seem like much of a trade,” Harry pointed out.

She gave him an ironic smile.

“I may not take you, gentle sir, but I assure you I will not leave empty handed.”

That didn’t sound good. He looked to Luna. Luna looked at Harry.

“If you like, I’ll kill her if she tries anything,” she offered.

Harry stared at her. How messed up was he that he found her offer endearing? More importantly, even with the backup, was it worth the risk? For all its sentimental value, it was just a watch. If he wanted he could transfigure one just like it or have Hermione… No, he couldn’t ask Hermione to make him another. He couldn’t ask Hermione for anything. One way or another, she might be gone from his life forever.

It was the first gift Hermione had ever given him. It was the first thing he ever felt truly belonged to him. It was the only thing to have followed him and survived his every adventure and mishap aside from his wand (had actually followed him more faithfully than his wand). At some point, the watch had become his talisman, his lucky charm, and he felt anxious and depressed whenever he reached for it only to find it wasn’t there. Selufiare said there was a bond between him and it. That bond could not be replaced any more than his bond with Hermione could be.

He needed it back.

What was the harm in a little kiss?

He came to stand before her. He felt his ears burning as he drew near, her loveliness growing with every approaching step. She was so pale, and yet there was just a touch of rosy pink to her cheeks and the tip of her nose from the cold, and it complimented the soft pink of her full lips. Closer still he could make out the faintest diamond pattern of her skin, which served to remind him she was a naga and not a human, but her exoticism did nothing to detract from her beauty.

However, reminding himself that beneath those pretty lips was a set of fangs filled with the same poison that had withered the Dark Lord’s arm into a blackened husk within minutes helped him keep his reserve. Mostly.

“I accept.”

There was no time given for him to wonder about Selufiare’s diamond-patterned skin or her fangs or the terrible danger he had just put himself in. He had no sooner spoken the words, then she reached out to take his face in her hands and guide him to her lips. Her touch was icy cold against his feverish skin but soft, like her magic that lapped up against his senses the moment they connected.

The kiss itself was chaste, no more than two pairs of lips touching gently, but her magic made it intimate. He could feel it prodding and measuring his mind and body and soul, not invading or corrupting as a true spell would, but rather taking mold of all that he was, had ever been, and, possibly, what he might yet become.

It wasn’t the deepest kiss he had ever had, but it was the longest, over a minute without moving, and when he pulled away he found Selufiare was crying.

Harry felt as if he had been crying too, empty and tired, but his eyes were dry. Maybe it was just the fever?

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She blinked and took a shaky breath, taking a step back.

“Yours is such a sad story. Sad, but beautiful.” She forced herself to smile weakly. “And a bit odd.”

That made him smile despite how obviously he had distressed her. So even the faeries thought he was a bit odd? He couldn’t say he was surprised. He had stopped looking too closely at the absurdity of his own existence years ago. That way laid madness.

He held out his hand, and she laid his watch in it.

A bitter sweet pleasure filled him. He had missed his watch terribly, but even so it was a poor substitute for the friend that had given it to him. It would be a great comfort and a sad reminder in the days to come.

A hand touched his arm, too warm to be Selufiare’s, and he felt suddenly embarrassed.

“Yes, Luna?” he asked without looking away from his watch.

“Let’s go.”

He didn’t recognize her tone. Anger, maybe? Resignation? He turned to her, but she was already moving away. He turned to Selufiare who was already climbing onto her mount.

“Before you go,” he said. “Will you tell me what happened to Carrigan’s box? Did Gulandri ever get it open?”

Selufiare smiled, a touch of genuine amusement in her eyes at his question though they still remained shiny with tears.

“As a matter of fact, he hasn’t. His magic does not lean towards uncovering mysteries, nor is he particularly curious by nature. By now, he has probably forgotten about it.”

This pleased Harry, although at this point he didn’t know why. While the contents of the box had been important to Carrigan, his past incarnation, they had also been things related to Lord Voldemort, whom Harry was deeply inclined to take a cricket bat to these days. Still, Gulandri was no friend of his. There was no telling what was in that box or how its contents might be used against him.

“I don’t suppose you would be willing to trade…”

A snowball collided with the back of his head, icy flakes slid down his neck and into the back of his cloak. Luna was losing her patience with him.

Selufiare, however, looked intrigued.

“And what would you be willing to give for it?”

“What does my Lady desire?”

She smiled.

“A secret.”

“I have given you all of mine with that kiss.”

“Another’s secret, then.”

“What sort of secret?”

“An important one. One only you know. One that might destroy them.”

Harry’s first thought was of Ron and his attempted murder, but then he remembered Snape knew of that too. He thought of Hermione, but he would never betray her like that. Voldemort came to mind quickly, but while it was true he knew many secrets about the Dark Lord only he was privy to, he didn’t know any he thought would destroy the other wizard. Even if he did, he wasn’t so sure he should give it to Selufiare. She had a score to settle with the Dark Lord, and while Harry did too, death wasn’t his end game. As much as he hated Voldemort these days, they shared a history that could not be forgotten. Hermione’s fate was not yet sealed, and until it was he thought he might still be able to forgive the other wizard.

Maybe.

“I have no such secret,” he admitted.

“Fortunately, I don’t have the box with me either. By the time you have the one, I shall have the other,” she said, turned, and rode away.

She disappeared within moments, and he began making the trek back to the cabin and his warm bed. He could no longer feel his toes or fingers, and the wetness seeping down his head and back were a small torture. Luna waited for him at the wall and let him warm his fingers over her torch for a bit.

“Am I dreaming, Luna?” he asked. “This doesn’t seem quite real.”

She stared across the torchlight at him for a moment, and he stared back into the black depths of her eyes and wondered what lay at the bottom. Once there had been a goddess there, but now there were a hundred other things that made Luna who and what she was.

“You are not sleeping,” she said finally. “But you may yet be dreaming. Do you dream of me often?”

Heat rose to his face that had nothing to do with the fire.

“I would not call it an unusual occurrence.”

Her smile was a bit sad.

“I wish you would dream of me more often. I miss you terribly, Harry.”

When he woke again, the sun was shining and the bed was empty. The stove fire had been rebuilt at some point so that Harry felt stifled under the pile of furs. Beneath his pillow he felt something metal and round gripped in his hand. He pulled out the watch and stared at it for several minutes.

It hadn’t been a dream.

A rustle of feathers drew his attention upwards. Elsbeth and Bobby stared down at him intently from their perch on a support beam. He let out small gasp and, after considerable effort, managed to push the furs off of him so that he could sit up.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Afternoon, actually,” Bobby corrected and fluttered down. Elsbeth tilted her head this way and that, looking at him curiously before joining the raven on the bed. There was a package tied to her leg.

“It’s good to see you. Have you heard about what happened?”

“Some of it. Snape wasn’t feeling particularly chatty.”

“You spoke to Snape?”

“He wanted me to deliver a message. One he didn’t want to risk writing down in case it was intercepted.”

“And the message?”

“‘She’s in France.’”

Harry let out a raspy little laugh which quickly turned to coughing, but he couldn’t stop smiling. Hermione had escaped! Draco must have found some way to warn her. Who cared how, really? She was safe. For now, she was safe.

“Praise the Goddess,” he sighed in relief.

“Raecellos deserves a bit of praise there too, if you don’t mind. He is the god of travelers, after all.”

Harry smiled at him gratefully.

“Absolutely. I’ll make an offering as soon as I can.”

“Don’t push yourself. You look a fright.”

“I’ll rest easier now. Thank you, Bobby.”

The raven puffed and preened under his praise. Elsbeth turned up her beak and ignored him. Harry offered her a few gentle strokes down her breast and a promise of some fresh mice (the granary always had full traps in the mornings) and untied the package. Inside was a newspaper, a letter, and a book. The newspaper was spouting the rather obnoxious headline ‘Honor Student Prime Suspect in Christmas Massacre!’ and a picture of Hermione that must have been taken at a Dueling Competition, her dark uniform and scowl making her look uncharacteristically fierce. He eyed it dubiously before setting it aside. He would read it eventually, if only to find out what the public was going to be led to believe, but he knew once he read it his good mood would turn sour.

He picked up the letter and opened it. Bobby hopped up onto his shoulder so that he could read it as well.

Potter

The situation will keep until you return to Hogwarts. Don’t do anything stupid. Read a book or something.

S.S.

“Loquacious he is not,” Bobby quipped. “Do you believe him?”

“Yeah, I suppose so. He’s definitely taking extra care that no one finds out about her being in France. If he’s telling me not to try anything, maybe he’s already got something in works to keep her safe or find the real culprit and doesn’t want me messing with it.”

“Or maybe he just wants to keep you out of the way.”

Harry sighed.

“He doesn’t have to worry much about that. I’m not going anywhere any time soon.”

He looked at the book Snape had supposedly sent him to read. It was his potions textbook. Typical.

He let out a sigh.

“I don’t suppose you would be able to find Hermione in France?”

“Am I capable of it? Certainly. Will I? No.”

“Why not?”

“For one thing, I’m not your owl.”

Elsbeth let out an indignant hoot at that.

“For another, you can’t be left unsupervised.”

Harry scowled at him.

“I’m plenty supervised, thank you very much. In fact, I’ve got more supervision than I can stand at the moment.”

“And yet… where did you get the watch, Harry?”

The Hotel Raoulin was not the sort of place Hermione would have ever considered staying in of her own volition back home, but her brief stint at the Persnickety Inn had given her some perspective that she was grateful for now. The hotel was old and a bit run down, but clean and vermin-free. The little white vase on her bedside table had a chip in it, but the five daisies were fresh, and though her bed was narrow and squeaked, the sheets were pristine white, the comforter was thick, and the pillows smelled pleasantly of hops. A second bed stood on the other side of the room from hers, a basket of folded laundry on top of it waiting to be put away and a little book of poetry on the pillow.

The other bed belonged to her roommate, Enid, who had a sweet smile despite a missing tooth and kept a tidy space. Hermione thought they would get along just fine, and she admitted she wasn’t opposed to the company. The last three days had been the loneliest she had ever known.

The ferry ride to France had been nerve-wracking, but uneventful. There had been a moment of panic when a uniformed muggle had asked to see her ID before letting her off the dock, but he had barely glanced at it before letting her through, trunk and all.

After that, things got complicated.

She spent three days walking around the city trying to find the wizarding sections, trying to find a place to stay, and trying to find work. Four pickpocket attempts (that she knew about), a near miss with a automobile, a not-miss with a bicycle (for which the cyclist refused to apologize), more time spent lost than she would ever admit to anyone, eight job postings she was turned down outright for because her French wasn’t good enough or she didn’t have a wand she could use, and a terrifying moment when she spotted her own face staring back at her from a newspaper. Three nights spent in a hostel with complete strangers, one spent dying her hair black and styling it to the local fashion by a muggle girl with five facial piercings and fangs, another avoiding the amorous attentions of a traveling American student, and one foiled attempt to steal her trunk while she was sleeping.

It had all been so exhausting, and she had little to show for it but a new hair cut she sort of liked and a painful education about the hazards of pedestrian traffic in the muggle world. She had tried to take some time every day just to stop and look around her and appreciate the fact that she was in Paris, one of the most beautiful and historically significant cities in the world, muggle and wizarding alike. Sometimes it helped. Usually, it didn’t.

But on the fourth day, this day, she had found a job and a place to stay all in one, and she felt happy. Relieved and happy. Madam Prewitt was a French-born witch who had married a British wizard and spent many happy years together. She was widowed during the war when her husband returned to Britain to find his siblings and never returned. She kept a hotel and had staffed it entirely with British refugees, mostly young women who were at risk of falling into prostitution. The pay was miserable, but Madam Prewitt offered free room and discounted board for those who wanted it. She was a hard, stubborn woman who liked things done her way, but her heart was in the right place. Hermione’s position as maid and Thursday night receptionist wasn’t particularly glamorous or even interesting, but she wasn’t in a position to be choosey.

Hermione took a deep breath and let it out. This was home for now. She would make it work.

She set her trunk at the end of the bed, pulled out a few items for later, put away her extra money in the hidden side compartment, and went downstairs.

“Heloise!” Mrs. Prewitt barked as she came into view, hands on her plump hips. “Ztop dallying about, girl, and get your cloak! You will go with Enid to pick up groceries. She will show you ’round.”

“Yes, Madam,” she said, and hurried to obey.

Enid was already waiting for her with her cloak and offered her another smile as she led her out onto the street. Enid was English born and spoke fluently, but with a slight French accent that would probably only get worse with time.

“She doesn’t normally send us out at night,” the girl said as they exited the backdoor of the hotel, “But the cook, Andrew, gave Lorelei a pinch for making fun of him and she dropped an entire batch of eggs that he needs for cake and then there’s the breakfast crowd tomorrow… Anyway, she normally doesn’t like us going out at night. I think she’s afraid someone is going to just up and run off with us.”

Enid laughed at this, but it was a nervous sort of laugh and her eyes flitted to the dark corners of the street.

“Does that happen?” Hermione asked, looking around. The street had an abundance of light, but also an abundance of dark nooks and alleys, and while the street was busy it seemed to be inhabited mostly by bar hoppers and young couples.

“Well… not really run off with, but, you know… You hear about things happening sometimes. Not a lot, mind, but enough that you shouldn’t ever come out here alone at night. Mrs. Prewitt is right about that. But during the day, it’s alright.”

Hermione considered. This neighborhood wasn’t the safest or prettiest, but she couldn’t afford either and as long as she kept her wits about her, she should be fine. It wasn’t like she had many reasons to go wandering around alone at night.

“I’ll remember. Thank you, Enid.”

The girl gave her a bashful grin and shook her head.

“Oh, don’t think noth’n of it miss. Us girls got to look out for each other. Ruby did it for me when I started working here, and now I’ll be doing it for you. It’s the right way of doing things.”

“Yes, that’s the right way,” Hermione agreed, smiling back.

Viktor turned his head sharply and paused mid-step. Goethe followed a moment later, only turning back to look directly at his Master.

“Something wrong?”

Viktor blinked, then continued walking as if nothing had happened.

“I thought I recognized someone. All English girls sound alike, I suppose.”

“An English girl? Is that your type, then?”

“My type of vot?”

Goethe just grinned.

“I’ll ask you about your English wench later, but right now I think we should be more concerned about the fools following us rather than the fool that let you slip away.”

“My friend, if you value your tongue I suggest you use it more visely. I knew ve vere being followed since the Rue du St. Claire.”

“And what do you intend to do with him?”

“Da same thing I did vith da last two.”

“I wish you would reconsider. The last two murders have set the Aurors against us.”

“Da Aurors are set against no one. Dey do not know who is to blame.”

“They will if you kill this one. Let him follow for a while and then lose him. No doubt there are a dozen like him wandering around following the Master’s people, as well.”

“Assuming he did not set this one on our scent himself.”

“Or perhaps despite that fact. Aurors do not trust vampires. It is a sad fact. We really are quite loveable creatures.”

“Hurting you becomes increasingly tempting, my friend.”

“If that is the case, please take it out on the fool.”

“Perhaps ve should go pay da Master a visit and take it out on him.”

“Like I said, ‘the fool’.”

Viktor smiled grimly.

It had been nearly a week since Bobby and Elsbeth’s arrival, and he had started to go a little stir crazy. Sirius had confined him to the cabin, and no amount of pleading or reasoning would let him relent, despite the gradual return of both his strength and his magic. Not that there was much time to argue his case. Sirius was Head Alpha, and while winter was a quiet season, there were still responsibilities that required his attention throughout the day so that Harry often saw him only when he came to sleep or occasionally shared lunch or dinner with him. Remus was sympathetic but unmoved.

“We love you, Harry, and in many ways you are the most honorable and trustworthy person I know. But when it comes to doing what is best for yourself, well…”

“I promised I wouldn’t run off. I promised.”

Remus looked at him fondly and ruffled his hair.

“I know. I believe you, but… Luna is here.”

Harry’s hand twitched.

“So?”

“So if she offered you the means to protect your friend, what would you being willing to do for it?”

He frowned, ready to argue that Luna wouldn’t do that. That she hadn’t done that, but he couldn’t say that without revealing that he had snuck out that night, and that he had done just the sort of stupid thing Remus was afraid of. His godfather used his temporary speechlessness to continue his animagus lessons, which wouldn’t have been so bad except his magic was still too weak for practice (and he was almost certain Gulandri forced transformation would make it much easier to do it purposefully if he only had the magic) and was left to learn theory. Tedious though the lessons could be, he still missed Remus when he had to leave to assist Sirius or attend his own duties.

Elsbeth came and went almost every day, bearing letters and newspapers. The idea was to keep Harry informed of what was happening in the wizarding world and with Hermione in particular, but the newspapers were unhelpfully sensationalist and the letters were usually as vague and uninformative as Snape’s first letter. The only comfort he derived from them was the knowledge that Hermione was still free and a few minutes’ distraction. Bobby was good company when he showed himself, but like Sirius he was absent more frequently than not, patrolling the woods for fae and exploring its mysteries. Harry imagined what it would be like when he mastered his animagus form and would be able to accompany his brother in his travels and explorations. Such thoughts only served to make him more anxious to do something.

When left alone with his thoughts, he was left in constant and exhausting battle with his own anxiety. His mind twisted in on itself. Not just about Hermione, though she made the bulk of his fears, but about Voldemort and what this all meant for them, Draco who was now a Lord and whose friendship he was now uncertain of, Snape whose allegiance had always been tenuous, Inspector Amelon who seemed to take the entire investigation as a game, and Ron who may once again be exposed to danger and endangering his family by proxy. Then there was Britain itself. Her general was dead while they were at war. Every day he opened the paper and expected to hear news of some sort of raid in England or massive counterattack in Germany. Even with the battlefields silent, the reorganization of Culties and Court of Foreign Intelligence made him nervous, Lestrange’s promotion not the least among his concerns. What was the Dark Lord thinking?

One afternoon he spent three hours composing a letter to that effect, which eventually turned into a treatise, and then into kindling for the stove when he reminded himself that he was feuding with Voldemort and therefore in no position to advise him in anything and likewise wasn’t speaking at all to him if he could help it. Not yet, anyway.

The day the school owl arrived, Harry was contemplating the advantages and disadvantages of knocking himself unconscious. Sirius brought the bird himself, looking none to pleased when it shrieked at him any time he tried to reach for the package around its leg. Remus appeared behind him and slapped him upside the head.

“You know better.”

Sirius reluctantly handed the strange owl to Harry, who fed it a mouse (he always made sure he had some on hand for Elsbeth in the absence of owl treats) and removed the package while its sharp beak was thus occupied. Inside was a change of school clothes, an overnight kit, a note, and his wand. He slid his fingers over his wand reverently for moment before turning to the note.

Potter,

I have enclosed the necessary items for your return to civilization. I will retrieve you at 9:00 AM, tomorrow. Prepare yourself.

S.S.

Harry stared, then turned to his godfathers.

“What day is it?”

“Second semester starts the day after tomorrow,” Remus said by way of answer. Sirius just crossed his arms and scowled.

“The Hogwarts Express,” Harry murmured.

He had almost forgotten about school. The train would leave tomorrow, carrying the students back for the new semester. Snape was going to have him ride the train with everyone else rather than simply go directly back from the colony to the school. Why? And why so early? The train didn’t leave until 11:00. A press conference perhaps? Voldemort? Maybe he had something he needed to say to Harry himself.

Prepare yourself.

Well, thanks a lot for the bloody warning. Might help if you told me what I needed to prepare myself for.

That night, Sirius bundled him up in warm clothes and took him out to the memorial. The sky was clear so that the stones seemed to glow a bluish white in the moonlight, a few shades darker than the patches of unmelted snow. So many stones for so many lives lost. It seemed a lifetime ago, but Harry could still feel that special sort of agony only grief could cause when he stared at them. For a long time, they stood side by side without speaking.

“Don’t make me bury you here,” Sirius said at last. “I won’t forgive you if you do.”

Finally, they made to leave, but just as they were about to move over a small hill and out of sight of the memorial, Harry turned for one last look. His breath caught.

Luna stood just where they had been standing a moment before, staring at the stones in just the same way. The white of her fur cloak and her natural paleness made her glow like the stones, like she were one of them; beautiful, unmoving, and sad. A new grief, a new agony welled up inside of him as he stared at her. She was alone. She was more alone than Harry had ever been or ever likely would be. His decision that he would never love her because he could never trust her now seemed so selfish and petty.

From out of the darkness, another form appeared, also pale and clothed in white. Jane. The Daughter of the Moon. Her gaze settled briefly on Luna or perhaps the stones, but then slowly she turned her gaze to Harry. Her expression was blank, but he felt recrimination in her heavy stare. For what, he wondered. For the massacre of the colony? For Luna? For denying his role as shaman and divine puppet? For some other, unnamed sin?

He didn’t know and didn’t want to. He turned away and quickened his pace to catch up with Sirius.

That night he could not sleep. His mind raced with what he had seen that night and what was to come in the morning. He stared up into the darkness of the cabin’s ceiling, trying to catch Bobby’s silhouette and follow the soft rustle of feathers. Beside him, he could feel and hear Sirius’ breathing and knew if he turned his head he might catch the faint glitter of his eyes watching him in an equally sleepless fashion. He wanted to speak, to offer some words of reassurance and comfort, but he didn’t think he would be believed and there were others curled warmly around them who would wake at the first whispered syllable.

So he said nothing, and they shared their sleeplessness and worry in silence.

Harry must have fallen asleep at some point, because he was woken early the next morning by the werewolves stirring from their sleep. He let himself be rolled and jostled about as they climbed out of the bed, then settled himself back to doze like he had every morning since his arrival. Today, however, Remus shook him back to wakefulness.

“Up and at’em, Prongslet. No sleeping in today.”

Reluctantly, he pulled himself out of the nice warm bed and dressed with everyone else in the chilly cabin before stumbling half-asleep out into the predawn morning. Breakfast at the Goddess Colony, like most things, was communal and therefore everyone played their part in its preparation. The women did most of the actual baking, while children gathered things like milk and eggs, and the men began the day’s chores by cutting wood and stoking the fires. Harry, still of questionable health, was kept out of the kitchen and sent to the communal bathhouse to light the furnace and pump up fresh water. He could have used his wand, but it felt like cheating when no one else did, even those who could.

By the time he was done, breakfast was already started, and he slipped into place beside Sirius. Sirius spared him a glance, but gave no other indication that he was there. They were still maintaining the ruse that Harry’s position was an honor given out of necessity rather than preference, and what protectiveness and affection the alpha allowed himself to demonstrate could easily be misinterpreted purely as possessiveness and dominance displays. Harry was okay with that. He understood well the need to keep up appearances.

He took a moment to look for Luna along the breakfast tables, but she was nowhere to be seen.

After a short and quiet breakfast, Harry was sent out to help others with their chores, reestablishing the bonds of community that had been weakened during his absence. He helped mend the roof of the smokehouse, harvested branches for arrows in the woods, and helped slaughter sheep. All the while he made conversation with his pack, gossiping about new marriages, how well or badly the other colonies were doing, who was making trouble for Blackbone, and who Blackbone was making trouble for.

No one asked how he had gotten hurt or about his life outside the colony, and he did not offer an explanation. The one thing Sirius and Fenrir had in common was their distinct lack of interest in wizarding affairs, and it was a disinterest they encouraged in their pack. Harry was left to figure out how to live with the dichotomy of his life by himself. Usually, he thought he did fairly well. Other times, it just made him feel lonely.

Dawn came and shortly after so did Remus, who hurried him along to the bathhouse to enjoy the fruits of his own labor. He was simultaneously sweaty and chilled from his chores outside, and the baths (three monstrously large wooden tubs lined in waterproof canvas) were hot and heavenly. Remus scrubbed his now fully grown hair like it was a recalcitrant bit of laundry and poured bucket after bucket of water over him.

“Your hair holds our scent the most,” Remus explained.

“I am not ashamed of you. I’m not ashamed to smell like you either” he said. He actually found their unique scent to be rather comforting. It was vaguely musky with other earthy scents mixed in, like woodsmoke and hay.

“That’s because you’re a remarkable young man. It makes others nervous how comfortable you are with your own uniqueness. If you wish to help your friend, it’s best not to remind others how different you are. They may underestimate you.”

Harry felt both flattered and embarrassed by this and let his godfather practically scrub his hair free of his scalp without another word of protest. Once clean and dried, he changed into his school clothes and felt immediately alien. The sense of wrongness only grew as he made his way out of the colony, earning the uneasy looks of the werewolves. Were they uneasy of him or for him? Did they worry what he would bring down on them or what he was being sent away to face without his pack? Sirius’ thoughts on the matter were clear enough, however.

“They make you look like a little school boy,” Sirius grumbled, looking him up and down.

“Well, technically speaking, I am a school boy.”

The alpha just snorted as if he’d said something ridiculous. It made Harry want to smile, and now that they were near the border of their territory and alone, he allowed himself to indulge. The corner of Sirius’ lip twitched upwards, but he managed to smother it with a deeper frown. Remus laughed into his hand behind his back.

Snape came into sight as they neared the edge of the territory. He was on the other side of the barrier, more symbolic than anything these days given the ease with which Sirius and Remus were both able to cross it, waiting impassively. His eyes narrowed at the sight of Harry’s godfathers, but he didn’t move forward or away.

“I should go the rest of the way alone. You’ll all just start sniping at each other,” Harry said.

Sirius grunted but didn’t disagree. Remus squeezed his shoulder and handed him the bundle of items he had accumulated during his stay; the clothes he had arrived in, his potions book, the various letters and papers Elsbeth had brought, and hidden deep within its folds was his watch, carefully tucked away so no one could find it. He longed to carry it in his pocket, to run his fingers over of the cool metal cover, but he didn’t dare. He didn’t want to have to explain its sudden reappearance.

They said their goodbyes with silent nods and intent stares, conveying what needed to be said without needing the words to say them. Then, he moved away from them and their world of werewolves to join Snape back in the world of wizardry.

Bobby appeared suddenly and alighted on his shoulder along the way.

“See anything while you were out there?” he asked the raven.

“This and that. Nothing to concern yourself with now that you’re leaving.”

Harry gave him a curious look. “And if I had stayed?”

“I would have highly recommended to your godfathers not to let you out of that cabin. Ever.”

“Fae? Are the others in danger?”

“Fae do not concern themselves with werewolves… so long as werewolves don’t concern themselves with fae. I can’t say I’d want to be between them if they ever found a bone to fight over.”

“Gulandri?”

That might make return visits more complicated.

“Not in person. Might have been anyone. They may have only been curious. You keep making yourself known to them, Harry. They’re bound to take an interest.”

“I’ll try to make myself more boring from now on,” he said gloomily. By then, Snape had come into hearing range and offered him a sardonic smile and a remark.

“A worthwhile ambition in your case, to be sure.”

“How are you, Headmaster? And Ira?”

“Tired, Mr. Potter. We’re both very tired.”

He turned and began walking the trail towards the edge of the forest and Harry fell into step beside him.

“I am sorry,” he said, and he meant it.

“It is the nature of these circumstances. Funerals are always exhausting to plan, and a Malfoy funeral is even more so.”

“How is Draco taking it?”

“Draco does the Malfoy name and Slytherin House credit, but he is clearly out of his depth at the moment. I am not certain he will be returning to Hogwarts this semester, or if he does, that he will complete the term.”

Harry gave him an alarmed look.

“Are things really that bad?”

“They are. I won’t go into detail with you. That will be up to Draco.”

Harry nodded, even though he was disappointed. He was still Draco’s friend, although he was no longer certain the sentiment was returned, and he wanted to know what was going on in his life. Perhaps Natalie would be more forthcoming.

“So what now?”

“Now? Now we go to breakfast, we run some errands, and I leave you at the Hogwarts Express.”

“I already had breakfast.”

“I haven’t and neither has the twenty some odd reporters who will soon be following us.”

Harry mentally groaned. So that was what Snape had meant by ‘prepare yourself’. Bobby quickly excused himself, not wanting any pictures of Harry including him to appear in the papers, and promised to meet up with him again later.

It didn’t take long for the press to find him. When they finally reached the road, there were already reporters and photographers waiting for them, or rather for Harry. He was rather glad for Remus’ extra attention that morning, ensuring that he looked properly shined and polished before sending him out. Left to his own devices, he was certain the photos that would be appearing in the next edition of the Daily Prophet would have featured himself looking as if he had rolled straight out of his sick bed on his way to the nearest open grave. Now he was tired, but tidy and very clearly not dead.

“Is it true your heart stopped after you were thrown down the stairs?!”

“What did you argue about with Lord Malfoy before the accident!”

“Do you have anything you’d like to say to Lord Malfoy’s and Bartemius Crouch’s family?!”

“Why were you not at the funeral?”

“Is it true you conspired to run away and elope with Hermione Granger?”

Harry grit his teeth and kept his expression set and unmovable. He had done this plenty of times before, but it was exceptionally difficult today. There were things he wanted to say and accusations he wanted to deny, but he knew better. Voldemort, Snape, Hermione, and Draco had all told him it was useless to try to explain anything to the press. They would twist whatever he said to suit themselves, and do him more harm than good. Eventually, he might release an official statement or allow for a one-to-one interview with someone a bit more trustworthy, but it wasn’t going to happen today, and it wasn’t going to be while standing in the middle of the road.

As per Snape’s instructions, they apparated to Diagon Alley.

The press followed them, of course, but not into the Leaky Cauldron itself. They seemed distinctly frightened of Tom, the owner of the tavern who Harry strongly suspected of being a vampire, but no one else seemed to notice or else just didn’t mind. He welcomed Snape by his first name and Harry with a polite nod and let them seat themselves. Their table was unfortunately next to one of the few windows with open shutters in the grubby-looking tavern. A dozen faces were instantly pressed against the glass and ogling them like fish in a bowl.

“It’s not much to look at,” Snape said, “But the owner is discreet and food isn’t bad.”

“How’s the tea?”

“Better than anything you’ve made that I have tried.”

Harry bit his lip to keep from smiling. Most of the tea Snape had tried of his making had been Animagus tea and not the sort of thing he would ever recommend drinking for its flavor. A woman with stringy hair and ruddy cheeks, likely the maid, came and took their order before disappearing. They talked off and on of errands and school year expectations to kill the time and create the pretense to their watchers that everything was fine. The maid brought him tea and Snape breakfast. Feeling sufficiently observed, Snape abruptly closed the shutters to eat.

“Any word on Hermione?” Harry asked softly.

“Nothing that I haven’t told you before. No one has heard from her.”

Which meant she was in France, but they weren’t sure where. Harry wondered if that made Snape as nervous as it did him. The muggle world had its own sort of dangers, and Hermione hadn’t been brought up to recognize what precisely those were. She was very clever, but she couldn’t know what she didn’t know, and trial by error had never been her preferred method of learning. However, there was nothing either of them could do about that now.

“The press?”

“Wizarding Weekly is presenting her as some sort of desperate woman driven to extremes, and The Daily Prophet has her as some sort of sociopathic seductress plotting to inherit the Malfoy family estates and manipulate you into marriage. Rita Skeeter is having a grand old time painting it both ways. According to her, Hermione is a poor, abused little girl who fell desperately in love with you, and after years of infatuation her feelings were finally returned, only for her to learn that she was not free to love anyone because of an arranged marriage with Bartemius Crouch, who in this fairytale is an innocently infatuated little sod blind to his betrothed’s love for another man.”

“I’m rather glad I decided not to eat anything else.”

“You both conspired to run away together during the night of the Christmas Ball, but Lucius found out and tried to stop you. Lucius confronted you on the stairs and you fell. Meanwhile, Hermione, hiding behind a curtain or something, sees and cast the Imperius Curse on Crouch, who is helpless in his misbegotten love for her, and exacts revenge under her control and consequently dies. Then she fled into the night, never to be heard from again… unless she washes up on the shore of Thames or something equally Harlequin.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Not entirely. She did guess the Imperius Curse correctly. The Necrotists found traces of it on Crouch’s body.”

“Really?”

“Really. And unfortunately, her lucky guess will give rather more credence to her theory than it deserves. They’ll be announcement about the curse this afternoon.”

Harry hated it. Skeeter was turning what had happened into some sort of cheap romance novel. Harry loved Hermione, but it had never been that kind of love. It had been steadier than that, deeper. Their friendship had made him a better person, grounded and more thoughtful, not inspired him to selfishness and lust. He liked to think he had made her more confident in herself and more adventurous, not turned her into a lovesick damsel in need of saving. He hated the idea of others seeing it that way and mocking it. He didn’t know how to stop it or even if he could.

“What do I do?”

“You could try dating a boy. That might dispel the rumors for a while. Just not Draco. That would make everything worse.”

“Ha ha.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late for any real sort of damage control. Adults generally lack the time and imagination so they rely on the press to think for them. Your classmates, however, suffer from an overabundance of free time and imagination and will likely turn this whole sordid affair into something even more frightful, but entertaining. You know how they are.”

He did, indeed, know how they were.

“So I just ignore it, try not to punch anyone in the face, and wait for it to blow over.”

“Essentially.”

“I don’t suppose Draco would be willing let me hide at his house for the rest of the semester?”

“I refer to the previous statement against dating Draco. Shacking up with him isn’t going to improve the situation.”

Harry wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or cry. He also wasn’t sure if Snape was actually worried about Draco’s reputation or if he wanted to distance both boys from each other.

“And what about the Dark Lord? Is he satisfied that everyone is suitably distracted?” He doesn’t bother to hide the touch of bitterness in his voice. Snape doesn’t bother to hide his either.

“As far as I can tell, he has forgotten about her. He is busy dealing with more pressing matters at the moment.”

Harry’s hands tightened around his teacup. He should have known. Hermione was precious to him, but she was only fodder to Voldemort. Why should he care one way or the other whether she was caught so long as she fulfilled the purpose he had assigned to her? This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, he knew. So long as Voldemort didn’t hold an active dislike for Hermione, he might still be open to negotiating if an alternative to her persecution presented itself. That was good, but it didn’t make the Dark Lord’s disinterest any less demeaning.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and sipped his tea. It was no use getting angry at Voldemort. There were others who required his more immediate attention.

Snape left Harry at Platform 9 ¾ with a crowd of eager reporters and curious onlookers, as well as instructions to visit Ira before the welcoming feast. He was fortunate not to have anything with him other than the package under his arm, because he didn’t like the odds of him navigating through the throng with his trunk and Elsbeth’s cage. At least, not until he found himself suddenly surrounded by several Culties.

“This way, Ambassador Potter,” came a familiar voice, and the press of hand against his back, guiding him towards the train that had not yet started admitting passengers.

“Reggy!” Harry said, recognizing the man. He gave him a once over. “You’ve been promoted,” he noted, staring at the extra bangle on his uniform.

“Thank you for noticing. It’s Captain Stratus now, for all the good it does me,” he said, grinning despite the words. “General Lestrange is busting my chops regardless.”

Harry grimaced at the mention of the unpleasant woman.

“She sent you?”

“Ordered me, of course. I’m supposed to boss you around the train and stick your nose in the corner somewhere like a naughty child. Remind you who’s boss. Which is funny, because whoever that is, it isn’t me. You outrank me.” Which didn’t keep Stratus from escorting him onto the empty train and to an equally empty compartment. There were no noses in corners, however, and Reggy made himself comfortable sitting across from him.

“I out rank her too, outside of combat situations,” Harry pointed out.

“A point I highly recommend bringing to her attention next time you see her, preferably while I’m there to witness.”

Harry chuckled softly. Stratus smiled back, but his expression sobered.

“It is good to see you. I was worried about you.”

“Thank you, but I’m okay. The same can’t be said of others.”

“It’s an ugly affair all around,” Stratus agreed with a sigh. “Harry, there’s something I feel the need to tell you. I don’t know that it makes any difference now, but I didn’t want you to find out about it and think I was keeping secrets from you.”

Harry wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He had plenty on his plate already without adding something else, but the other wizard didn’t seem particularly disturbed and hadn’t bothered to close the compartment door so it couldn’t have been much of a secret to begin with.

“Okay.”

“At the time of his death, Bartemius Crouch wasn’t Hermione’s betrothed.”

“Oh, that. Yes, I know.”

“I was.”

Harry stared at him.

“What?”

Stratus explained about Lucius’ intention to betroth Hermione to him, and his own acceptance.

“You… why?”

Stratus smiled ruefully.

“A number of reasons. The fact that I found Miss Granger to be a most formidable young woman not least among them. She would have had to have been to have inspired both your loyalty and affection.”

Harry frowned at him.

“You liked her because I liked her?”

“Essentially, but there were other factors involved. I won’t lie, some of them were political. I got on with the late Lord Malfoy well enough, but I wasn’t in any position to advance my career that way. My best chances of advancement, particularly while under his command, were through nepotism.”

“That is bluntly honest.”

But not particularly flattering towards the man’s character. Stratus shook his head.

“I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I was taking advantage of your friend’s unfortunate circumstances for the sake of my career. I assure you I had no such intentions, but it seemed the best way to protect the both of us from General Malfoy’s anger. I was very careful to ensure Miss Granger had the time and the opportunity to remove herself from any commitment to me. I made it a part of the betrothal contract that she be allowed to complete her education, both at Hogwarts and University if she chose to do so. This would have placed her well into legal age where she may annul a marriage contract. You could ask your friend, Draco Malfoy, if you like. I’m sure he’s been made aware of the contract by now.”

“And General Malfoy allowed that?”

“I don’t think it ever occurred to him that she would emancipate herself. She would, after all, not only lose her dowry but the protection of the Malfoy family and her status.”

“You know about the emancipation?”

“Just about everyone involved knows about the emancipation. That Skeeter woman swears up and down the documentation exists, but Lord Malfoy refuses to reveal its existence to the public. Unless there’s a trial, I doubt it will ever see the light of day.”

Harry rubbed his forehead.

“Thank you, Reggy, for being honest with me. I appreciate that.”

“I am sorry, Harry. I never intended her any harm. I did actually hope that we would develop a genuine affection for each other.”

“I believe you.”

Mostly. He wanted to believe the other wizard. He seemed like a nice guy, and he had proven himself very brave in Hausteheim, but he could never be entirely sure. He worked for Lucius after all. He couldn’t have been entirely without guile.

“Thank you. I also wanted you to know, I believe Miss Granger to be completely innocent of the crimes she’s been accused of,” he said earnestly. Harry looked up at him. “If there is anything I can do to help prove that, I am at your service.”

“I… Thank you,” he said, and this time he meant it. Stratus had been Lucius’ personal assistant, and if anyone knew Lucius’ enemies and their motivations it would be him. On top of that, he seemed to be following the investigation closely and might know things that neither Harry nor his friends would have access to. “I don’t suppose you have any suspects?”

“A number of them. Lucius was loved by his troops, but headquarters was another matter. He fostered a lot of rivalries and stepped on a lot of toes, and his erratic behavior over the last couple of months didn’t improve matters. With rumors of a falling out with the Dark Lord, they must have smelt blood in the water.”

“But to kill the man under his own roof?”

“A crime of opportunity, most likely. Reckless. Sloppy. They might still get away with it if Amelon keeps handling the case like some sort of board game and doesn’t start taking it seriously.”

“You don’t think Amelon will find them?”

“I don’t think he’s trying to. Why should he bother? The Dark Lord doesn’t care, and he gets to poke his nose into everybody’s business in the meantime.”

Harry sagged in his seat.

“Merlin, this is a mess.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t bring you better news.”

“It’s alright. I’d know how I’d like things to stand, but knowing how they really stand is more useful.”

“Just the same, I-”

“Sir!”

A Cultie interrupted, looking nervous at doing so. Stratus gave him an annoyed look.

“Yes?”

“They’ve started loading the other passengers, sir.”

Stratus let out an exasperated huff.

“That, unfortunately, is my cue to leave.”

“You’re not escorting me to Hogwarts?”

“Unfortunately, my orders are to make a nuisance of myself and then shove off before there are any witnesses. General Lestrange’s position is still tenuous at best. She can’t afford to have rumors of her abusing her new position so soon.”

“Do you think she will last?”

“She might manage it, but she’ll never be General Malfoy no matter how hard she tries.”

“Thank the gods for small favors.”

Stratus laughed. It was more than a little hypocritical, but Harry thought less of him for it. Lucius Malfoy, not only his boss but his potential in-law, hadn’t been a likeable man, but the new captain seemed entirely cavalier about his death for all that he claimed to care for Hermione, a girl he must have only known in passing and word of mouth. It touched him as vaguely suspicious or at the very least callous. He was careful not to let his misgivings show. He didn’t know Stratus very well and certainly not enough to judge his character, and his own sensibilities were a touch raw at the moment.

Fortunately, Stratus decided not to linger.

“There will be a Sentinel stationed in the car once I’m gone. He’s here to guard the entire car, but he’ll stay at this end to make sure no one you don’t want here bothers you.”

The gesture brought a flash of guilt for his own ungenerous thoughts, and Harry stood to shake his hand before he left.

“Thank you, Reggy.”

Reggy smiled and shook it firmly.

“It’s my pleasure, Harry. I’ll be in touch.”

“I look forward to it.”

As promised, a Sentinel stood guard outside his door and though Harry kept his door open to keep an eye out for his friends, no one tried to stick their head in or call out to him. In fact, everyone who came into his car seemed to fall into a subdued silence, and some turned right around and went the other way. It made Harry uneasy to think what things would be like back at Hogwarts, where he would be forced to share space with hundreds of people who didn’t seem to know quite what to do with him. He wondered if Draco had the same worries.

He found out soon enough. The train was nearly full when the subdued atmosphere of the car suddenly plummeted into a tense and awkward silence. Harry stuck his head out the compartment door to see what had happened and spotted Draco stalking down the aisle towards him. Harry swallowed thickly. The Slytherin boy looked terrible and yet somehow impeccable at the same time. His clothes and hair were stylish and neat, but their clean perfection only made the gauntness of Draco’s expression and the shadows under his eyes stand out more vividly, like a walking corpse still in its funeral attire. Following behind him was Natalie, haughty as ever but clearly tired, and Ronald Weasley of all people looking his typical constipated self. Harry told the Sentinel to let them through, and once they filed into the compartment, Ron slammed the door shut and threw up several privacy spells.

“Draco-” he started, but the other boy held up his hand to silence him until he had settled himself across from him and closest to the window. Natalie sat beside her housemate, and Ron merely leaned against the door, too agitated to sit. An awkward silence fell, during which time Draco maintained an unreadable look Harry had only ever seen on Snape.

He waited for Draco to speak first. After a moment, the Slytherin turned from Harry to stare out the window and spoke.

“We will not discuss her. Not here. Not at Hogwarts. Not to our teachers. Not to our friends. Not to defend her honor. Not to reminisce. Not anywhere and not to anyone. Ever. Is that clear?”

For a moment, Harry was stunned. This only lasted a moment before his emotions ran the gamut of confusion, hurt, and anger until finally settling on fear. His eyes scanned the compartment anxiously. By the goddess, he had not chosen this compartment. Stratus had chosen it for him in advance. Stratus who worked for Lestrange and Voldemort and whom Harry had thought was trying just a touch too hard to be friends with him.

“Okay,” he agreed, and Draco nodded without looking at him.

“Draco…”

Natalie looked directly at him and shook her head.

“Let him be for awhile, Harry. He needs a little time to unwind.”

“… Okay. So… is there anything we can actually talk about?”

“Sure,” Ron said, his expression darkening. “Fred and George were arrested.”

Harry straightened.

“What? Why?”

“They were looking for that person we’re never discussing and thought for some reason she’d stop into The Red Weasel for a pint.”

“Are they still…?”

“They had to let them go. They’ve got nothing on them. Fined them through the roof though. They lost whatever holiday profits they pulled for the year. George’s got himself a shiner he won’t talk about.”

“Shit. Does your mum know?”

“No, and neither does Ginny, and it’s going to stay that way. You leave her alone from now on, got it? You’re not dragging her into this mess.”

“She won’t understand-”

“She understands just fine. I made sure of it before I ever let her get on the bloody train.”

Harry wondered how precisely that conversation had gone, and if it was really as effective as Ron seemed to think it was. Ginny came off as mild-mannered and sweet, but she was still a Gryffindor.

By the time Ron and Natalie had caught Harry up on the various rumors floating about, however, he was starting to think Ron was right to want to keep his sister as far away from him as possible.

The press had been on the hunt, trying to track down whatever dirt they could on Hermione and the Malfoys and Crouch, and at the head of the pack was Skeeter. Rivals and well-meaning friends alike had been providing enough speculation and gossip to fill entire books regarding the supposed scandal surrounding Lucius’ death and Hermione’s disappearance. Draco had suffered the worst of it; the matter of his sudden inheritance was the fodder for conspiracy theorists and his own struggle to manage an estate now under siege by greedy relatives and business rivals was itself topic of growing scandal. He couldn’t step foot off the manor without being mobbed by reporters and anyone found in his company was soon caught in the cross fire. Not even Natalie had escaped unscathed. She had moved into Malfoy Manor for the remainder of the holiday, and the papers had printed several snide insinuations about her for just being a descent friend.

Harry knew his turn was coming. He had only read a couple of articles from the Daily Prophet, and those had been bad enough. He was no longer sheltered by the isolation of the Goddess Colony, and he doubted Voldemort was going to shield him this time around. Whatever shelter Hogwarts offered from the world would be negated by their own peers, eager to believe anything to relieve the monotony of school life.

He was prepared for that. Or at least, he hoped he was. It would hardly be the first time he had been the subject of controversy. More than what was being said (and what would be said by everyone else), it was what was being left unsaid that worried Harry.

Draco had not said a word since declaring Hermione’s name a proverbial taboo. Caution or exhaustion had rendered the pale boy quiet and distant, when all Harry wanted him to do was speak. Why was Draco returning to Hogwarts, when Snape had said he had too much to concern himself with at home? What was happening at Malfoy Manor that required so much of his attention and had left him so worn? Was it merely grief? Stress? What about Lady Malfoy? Wasn’t she supposed to be handling things?

It was possible that Draco had no intention of remaining quiet about Hermione and was merely waiting until he could find somewhere more secure to discuss some sort of plan he had or information he had uncovered. Involving Harry or even Snape in some sort of plot was the only justification that Harry could think of, but he didn’t dare ask. For now, Draco’s intentions were his own.

Harry and Ron apparated to the boundary of Hogwart’s wards from the Hogsmeade Station. Draco had been in no fit state to attempt it himself, and Natalie had remained behind with him. There were reporters waiting in Hogsmeade, and while it wasn’t terribly difficult to avoid them it was easier to do it without them all huddled together, so they had gone on ahead. Climbing the hill towards the castle, they could look back and see the black carriages by the light of the hanging lanterns as they slowly drifting out from the little village and made their way up the road.

“Are your brothers alright?” Harry asked Ron now that they were alone. Ron was always reticent to discuss his family, and even more so in front other Slytherins.

“Yeah. Hermione’s fine too, last I saw her. She got away safe.”

“So the twins did manage to help her?”

“No, they were arrested before she ever got to the Red Weasel. It was a good bit of luck, that.” He went on to explain how Natalie had come to the tavern, and from there how Ron had involved himself in Hermione’s rescue. They had definitely been lucky. By the end of the tale, Harry let out a sigh of relief, even though he had known how it would end.

There was still another matter he wanted to ask Ron about though.

“Did you kill Lucius?” he asked.

“Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing,” Ron said, smiling grimly. “Besides, you know I couldn’t have. I took that oath, remember? And I wasn’t even there.”

That was true. Ron had taken a Wizardign Oath not to attempt harm to Lucius again in exchange for Harry breaking the curse, for all the good it had done in the end. They didn’t say anything more as they made their way to the castle in the dark.

They were the first students to arrive. The house elves, still scurrying to sort out the student luggage, were sent into a frenzy at their early arrival until Harry handed one of them his small bundle of possession to take care of and gave another a list of items he would be needing as quickly as possible. Ron gave him an odd look at his request, but said nothing further as they parted ways. The Slytherin went to the Great Hall and Harry headed for the Astronomy Tower. There was something he needed to do, and he wanted to do it before dinner ended and anyone might come looking for him.

He took his time on the way to the tower, taking the hidden passageways to avoid any students who might have lingered during the holiday or the odd professor or ghost, and by the time he reached the tower the things he had asked for had been placed in a neat little pile on the floor.

“What are you up to?” came a familiar voice, and Harry looked up to find Bobby sitting atop the giant astrolabe just recently replaced.

“I’m making offerings,” Harry said and went to work.

It took the better part of an hour to create the floating lanterns. He was very careful not to use any sort of magic and had been left constructing them solely with fire-resistant vellum, twine, and various odds and ends. The two lanterns came out a bit lop-sided and awkward, but he thought they would work. In one basket he placed a candle, a lock of his hair, three silver sickles with runes carved in the back, and small bundle of dried lavender. In the other basket, he placed a candle, a handful of owl feathers, five knuts with runes carved in the back, and a handful of rice. He took the lanterns out onto the crows nest and lit the candles.

The paper lanterns inflated and slowly they rose, taking the baskets and his offerings into the sky. Harry watched them go, warm red orbs rising higher and higher until a wind caught them and pushed them out towards the west, over the Forbidden Forest. For a little while, Harry feared the candles would be snuffed out in the open air, but they did not did not even flicker.

Watching them float gracefully in the air, unfettered and unhurried, Harry felt a sort of peace. Silently, he sent out his words of gratitude to Raecellos and Madris.

Beside him, Bobby nodded his approval. It had been a lovely offering, if a bit unconventional.

A soft creak behind him threw Harry from his diligent prayers, and he spun around with his wand snapping into his hand. Bobby let out a startled caw and dove from his perch to take flight. Inside the tower, all was dark, but he could make out the still darker silhouette of a man frozen in place near the entrance door. It was difficult to see, but he thought he might have caught the man by surprise.

“Who are you? Identify yourself! Lumos!”

Light swelled and sprung from the tip of his wand, bursting into the room and illuminating everything in a blue-white glow that made his eyes water slightly from its intensity. The man was now clearly visible, and Harry felt a jolt of surprise.

“Inquisitor Amelon?”

“Lord Potter,” the detective greeted sheepishly. “Good evening.”

Harry just stared at him for a moment. He had not seen Amelon since the day he had awoken at Malfoy Manor, and he hadn’t honestly expected to see the man again either, although he couldn’t say why he had thought he wouldn’t. An uneasiness came over him. The Inquisitor was not among his allies. His purpose was to find Lucius’ killer true, but unless or until he did it was also his responsibility to supervise the manhunt for Hermione.

Nevertheless, he put his wand away.

“What are you doing here?” he asked instead.

“I might ask you the same thing. You’re a very difficult person to get a hold of. First you were holed up with the werewolves, then you disappeared from Hogsmeade Station, and again you were absent from the Great Hall and your dormitory. I am starting see where your reputation for not being where you are supposed to be has come about.”

Amelon smiled at this, as if it was a joke, but Harry didn’t return it. He doubted the man had come simply to enjoy some pleasant conversation. Silently, he waited for the older man to get to the point.

“Those balloons just now, they were most curious. I am quite surprised at how easily they floated right past the wards,” Amelon said pleasantly, but Harry was already aware that he was being interrogated.

“They’re just a muggle toy. My mother showed me how to make them when I was small. There’s nothing inherently magical about them that the wards would fight against. No more than it would a gust of wind or falling rain.”

“Really? Just a muggle toy? Well, isn’t that something. Whatever people might say about muggles, they aren’t without their own brand of cleverness. You know, I had an aunt by marriage who was a muggle. She passed away before the war, bless her soul, but I remember her always knowing the most wonderful little tricks. There’s one in particular I have found particularly useful in my line of work. Why don’t you come inside out of the cold, and I’ll show it to you.”

Reluctantly, Harry did so. He was tired, mentally and physically, and he wasn’t prepared for whatever battle of wits Amelon intended. Inside, the tower wasn’t much warmer than outside, although sheltered from the wind. His footsteps echoed loudly beneath his feet, and he became increasingly certain Amelon had been sneaking up behind him intentionally. Just another attempt to catch him off guard or were his intentions more sinister? He moved to stand just inside from the outside platform. It was possible, if necessary, that he could transfigure himself into hawk and fly away. Unlikely, but possible. Danger had always made his magic work better and faster.

Amelon did not seem either put off or pleased by his uneasiness or the tension building in the tower. When the Inquisitor reached inside his robe, Harry’s hands twitched. The man did not reach for his wand, however, or any other odd magical device. Instead, he pulled out a book. A red book.

Harry took a sharp breath and froze.

Amelon cocked his head to the side when he saw him do it.

“Do you recognize this?”

Harry said nothing.

“No? Are you sure?” the man asked as if he had. “Well, I imagine you see a lot of books, being still in school and ever so studious. I imagine content makes more of an impression than the cover, and really what’s inside this rather unremarkable looking bit of text could have possibly attracted your attention? Which brings us back to my aunt’s little trick.”

Amelon held out the book to him. Harry just stared at it and didn’t move. The other wizard sighed.

“Lord Potter, please. I promise it won’t hurt.”

Stiffly, Harry moved forward to take the book. What else could he do? But before his fingers could brush the red cover, Amelon smirked and deliberately dropped it. The book landed on its spine and fell open with an echoing wabang in the empty tower, causing Harry to flinch. Harry turned to glare at Amelon for the pettiness of the gesture, but the man just smiled back.

“The trick, Lord Potter,” he said and pointed down.

Harry looked down at the book that had fallen open to a very specific page. A page Harry knew very well, as he had spent nights studying it and could almost recite its entire contents word for word.

The Curse.

“Tell me,” Amelon said, “do you recognize it now?”

Lies Within Truth, Truth Within Lies

Harry stared at Inquisitor Amelon for a moment, his expression blank. Then he tilted his head to the side and shrugged.

“It looks vaguely familiar.”

Amelon chuckled, the cut of his beard making his grin appear to stretch across the width of his face.

“And the curse? Do you recognize that?”

“I know it,” he admitted as if it didn’t mean a thing.

There was still a chance it wouldn’t. Voldemort already knew about the curse. Sort of. Harry had told the Dark Lord there was a curse on Malfoy and had never been asked to go into detail. No one had, except for Snape, who kept the secret for reasons of his own. “How do you?”

He asked it both out of genuine curiosity and as a distraction.

“A pair of mutual acquaintances mentioned it in passing,” Amelon explained.

“Ah… you interrogated the Weasley twins then.”

Ron had told him about them being arrested for potentially hiding Hermione, so it was only natural that Amelon would have asked them questions about Harry. How had it come around to the matter of the stolen book? Was it happenstance or had the book they had previously questioned in their last letter still left them suspicious, particularly after the death of a known and formidable foe not long after?

“They were very reticent to discuss anything about you at first. A couple of my boys wanted to have a go at them to see who could make them talk first, but I’ve always preferred a good Truth Potion. More efficient. More humane.”

“You’ve obviously never studied how a truth potion is made, sir,” he snapped irritably. The truth was he didn’t really care about the rather unpleasant methodology involved in brewing that particular potion, but he felt indignant on the Weasley twins’ behalf. The thought of anyone dosing him with Veritaserum and interrogating him was too horrifying to contemplate for a variety of reasons. If he didn’t handle this situation properly, however, he had a feeling that was exactly what Amelon would try to do to him.

“We removed the memory of the interrogation itself,” Amelon continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “Couldn’t have them running off to warn you of the secrets they spilled. Not that it would have made a difference. I doubt they would have been able to find you or get to you even if they had. Not even I could do that, and I have to tell you that’s a first for me.”

Harry rolled his eyes and clapped.

“Bravo! Well done! You’ve caught your man at last. I had Fred and George steal the book from the library. I cast that curse on Lucius Malfoy. I’m sure a clever man like you can guess why.”

Amelon did not seem the least bit put off by the mockery.

“To blackmail General Malfoy into calling off Miss Granger’s betrothal, I assume.”

“Exactly. You’ve figured it all out. The only problem is that it has absolutely nothing to do with your case. I broke that curse weeks before the Christmas ball, as soon as I got what I wanted. I even told the Dark Lord what I intended to do. And Snape. And Draco Malfoy found out about it later. Merlin, I can’t even call it a secret given how many people know about it. General Malfoy knew about it, even if he couldn’t prove it. It was all just a game. A dangerous, twisted game. Lord Voldemort would be so proud.”

The Inquisitor shook his head and wagged his finger at Harry as if he were a naughty child.

“Mmm… no, I don’t think so. I talked to the Dark Lord already about this. He knew you intended to blackmail Malfoy and break the spell, but he didn’t say anything about knowing you cast the curse.”

Harry turned away and started to pace the room in agitation.

“Do you think he would ever admit to such a thing? It would have been admitting he helped to nearly destroy Malfoy, his right hand. Not the sort of gossip you want floating around the office. It makes the employees nervous about pursuing a promotion.”

“True, but whatever the level of the Dark Lord’s involvement, I seriously doubt he would have allowed you to cast a curse that deteriorated Malfoy’s mind as well as his body. His good judgment was rather essential, given his position.”

“And you think I would? You think I forgot what it was precisely he did for a living? I despised the man, but I knew the importance of what he did. The spell… it was supposed to make him sick in the body, not the head. I… It was an unexpected side effect. Lord Voldemort didn’t know either… at least, I don’t think so. You can go back and ask him yourself, if you dare. I’ll do it for you if you like.”

He would too. Not because he cared about the answer, but because the numbing despair that had plagued him was receding with this newest battle. It was battle of wits, true, not his specialty, but it was a dangerous game just the same. One that might cost him dearly. Might cost others dear to him even more, and while it didn’t make him feel happy precisely, he felt distinctly alive. Alive and angry and reckless and wanting a fight, a battle, a target to unleash those barbed emotions that had been tearing him up inside the longer he kept them to himself. Amelon was a start, but he couldn’t be the final triumph. Even if somehow he managed to walk away having convinced the Inquisitor of his lies and that his current line of investigation was fruitless, he couldn’t imagine it as any sort of victory. This little verbal spar was nothing more than the beating of war drums, something to stir the blood in preparation for something more. Something dangerous. Something worse.

Amelon’s eyes stared at him, wide and unblinking, but it was not fear Harry saw there. It was anticipation. It suddenly occurred to him this man wanted the same thing Harry did, only as an observer rather than a participant. He wondered what it was the man hoped he would see. Was it a sadistic need to watch curses inflicted and pain dealt out or was it something else? A need to see the veneer of societal tranquility and politeness fall away to reveal… what? Harry didn’t know the name of it or the words to describe it. Perhaps it was simply ‘insanity’.

He resented it being reduced to a sideshow for a gawker, whatever it was.

“I may take you up on that, Lord Potter, but I would like to ask you a few more questions before involving a third party.”

Harry sighed in frustration and started to pace again.

“Ask then.”

“Where is the original book?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The book you used originally to cast the curse, of course. This book here is the second copy you used to break the curse.”

Harry’s steps slowed.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“There’s no point in being evasive now, young man. You’ve been proudly open about your roguish behavior up to this point.”

The younger wizard said nothing. Amelon sighed.

“I know this was not the original book you used. You already admitted that you cast the curse as a means of manipulating General Malfoy into breaking off Miss Granger’s betrothal, which you could not have been made aware of until this previous summer. At that time, London was still being occupied by the Italians. Despite your reputation, I still find it highly unlikely that you planned a trip to the library in the middle of a war zone, broke through the building’s defenses, and navigated your way to the archives to browse through several hundred thousand volumes in search of a spell you had no prior knowledge of existing.”

Harry thought to argue, but quickly realized how easily his own explanations would fail. He could not say he had gone himself. Amelon would question how he had done it, and Harry couldn’t bluff something that required so much detail. If he said he sent someone else, he would have to say who and explain again why he hadn’t sent the same person a second time instead of enlisting Fred and George. And how would he explain knowing about the book in the first place?

“It was destroyed,” Harry said instead.

“I figured as much. It was an accident, I assume, rather than an attempt to destroy evidence. You did intend to end the curse, after all, so it would have been more practical to keep it than attempt to find another copy. It is very rare. Only three known copies, in fact.”

Harry knew that. He had been incredibly lucky to find even one intact, and that one had been something of a nightmare to obtain. It made Amelon’s next question rather obvious, but still uncomfortable.

“Which begs the question of where you found the first copy. I’m having some of my people track down the other two, but perhaps you might spare them the tedium by just telling me? Was it amongst one of the Dark Lord’s private libraries, perhaps? A curious piece of literature brought to you by a classmate familiar with your studies in the Old Magics?”

Harry stopped pacing. Amelon waited. Harry waited. Amelon broke first.

“Ah, you have no benign explanation to give me, do you? It was not something you merely stumbled upon. Someone showed it to you. Someone with very bad intentions.”

Harry shook his head and started to pace again.

“This is pointless. Whatever or whoever was involved with that book, it had nothing to do with Lucius’ death.”

“You don’t think so? Or you don’t want it to? After all, most of my suspects are friends and close associates of yours. Headmaster Snape, your guardian and mentor. A former Death Eater and with a complex relationship with the general, he certainly has the capability and the cunning. Your missing friend, Hermione Granger, a known bibliophile and scholar, she may have stumbled upon the book any number of places, and she certainly has plenty of reasons to see her foster father dead. Lord Draco Malfoy, also a friend, who stands to inherit his father’s wealth and titles and simultaneously relieve himself of his father’s overbearing supervision and censure regarding his… affections… for his muggleborn foster sister.”

“None of them showed me the book in the first place. They never even knew of the spell’s existence. If you keep following this it’s going to lead you absolutely nowhere, and if you waste Lord Voldemort’s time with it, he’ll kill you.”

“Hhmm…” Amelon looked speculative but not convinced. “That’s very gentlemanly of you to warn me, under the circumstances. Expelliarmus.”

Harry’s arm jerked sharply as his wand flew from his sleeve and into the Inquisitor’s hand. He sprung after it but had to pull back when Amelon’s wand pointed itself squarely at his chest.

“What are you doing?!” he demanded.

“No worries, Lord Potter,” the elder wizard said amicably. “I have every intention of returning it to you. I imagine at the end of things you’ll walk away from all this one murderous friend fewer, but otherwise unscathed. It is only that I intend to lock you in this tower- I know it’s a terrible cliché- while I go to the Dark Lord to get my warrant.”

“You’re arresting me?”

“No, but I am going to interrogate you. Unfortunately, for someone of your rank and association with the Dark Lord, his permission is required before I can administer Veritaserum.”

Harry recoiled as if Amelon had suddenly burst into oozing pustules.

“Yes, that tends to be most people’s reactions. Hence, I am borrowing your wand. It wouldn’t do for you to run away or attempt to warn one of your little conspirators or something equally inconvenient. Sentinel Burrows! Sentinel Underhill!”

The door to the tower swung open, and two wizards marched into the room. They were both tall and rangy, and if not for the last names Harry would have thought they were brothers. Though it was Amelon who had summoned them, their eyes remained fixed on the unarmed wizard in the tower instead, looking him over from head to toe without giving away what they had concluded.

“Sentinel Burrows and Sentinel Underhill will remain here to make sure you’re comfortable,” Amelon said. “I might be gone for a while. Try to keep out of trouble.”

Harry made a rude gesture in response, which only made the Inquisitor smile as he ambled out of the room. Once the man was gone, he started to pace again, his fingers twitching at his side for want of a wand, a weapon, a broom, anything that would get him out of his current predicament. His guards did not move or speak, but their eyes followed his every movement and gesture. Harry found he hated them for no reason at all.

“I don’t suppose either of you would mind if I pop off to the loo for a minute?”

In an eerie synchronization, both men crossed their arms. Neither said a word.

Harry let out a sigh and stalked out onto the balcony. He intentionally stood in view of the doorway, not wanting them to follow him outside. Leaning over the side of the balcony, he took a deep breath and tried to think. He was hours, maybe only minutes away from being interrogated under Veritaserum which would not only reveal Ron’s involvement with the curse, but also Snape’s complicity, the knowledge that Hermione was somewhere in France, and any number of other secrets that might slip out. He had no wand and was surrounded by guards. Competent guards at that.

He was just contemplating the chances of successfully achieving an animagus transformation now that his exhaustion seemed to have been replaced with anger and whether he could achieve it quickly enough to escape his guards before they stopped him, when he spotted Bobby fluttering up and down trying to catch his attention. Harry glanced back behind him quickly to see if the guards had noticed him, but their attention seemed firmly planted on him so that when he turned back around he made it a point to only look at the raven out of the corner of his eye.

He whispered a name, and no sooner was it said than Bobby disappeared, his inky black body fading into the shadows of the castle.

Predictably, the Headmaster Office’s windows were locked, and even a magical practitioner of Bobby’s skill would have been hard pressed to open them. So he went down the chimney. This was not in any way ideal, since in addition to having to put out the fire burning in the hearth, there was also an unfortunate amount of soot and ash that followed him as he burst into the little room.

His unexpected entrance was greeted with the expected results. Snape, previously working diligently at his desk, jumped to his feet in surprise and started tossing out curses and colorful invectives every which way, half blinded by the black cloud that had enveloped him. Bobby dipped and dived to avoid being blasted to pieces, until he found the opportunity to speak.

“Stop, stop, you madman! It’s just me!” he cawed indignantly and swooped to avoid a spell that melted one of the frames on the wall into purplish goo. The portrait previously occupying the frame had luckily ducked into his neighbor’s frame but had a few invectives of his own to share with Snape.

“What do you think you’re doing bursting in here like that? Look what you did to my office!” Snape snarled.

“It was just a little soot! I’m not the one who started flinging around curses.”

Snape raised his wand, this time with perfect aim, and Bobby knew he would be in trouble if he didn’t talk fast.

“Amelon locked Harry in the tower!”

The headmaster paused, blinked, scowled, and lowered his wand.

“Explain.”

Bobby hurriedly told him what he had overheard in the Astronomy tower and that Amelon would be returning shortly with a warrant. The more the raven said the less expression Snape seemed to have until the messenger might as well have been speaking to a wall. When Bobby was done, the headmaster moved to sit back in his chair and tap the ends of his fingertips together thoughtfully. Bobby hopped about anxiously on his desk, waiting for the man to do something. When Snape’s thoughts finally seemed to reach their conclusion, he set his hands on the armrests and let out a shout that nearly startled him out of his feathers.

“HINKY!”

A moment later, a house elf ‘popped’ into existence in the middle of the room. She was a dainty little thing with exceptionally long hands and feet so that she rather resembled a tailless wallaby. Her large eyes scanned the room with the nervous quickness of a bird.

“Oh, Headmaster, sir, your office! It’s in such a state! Oh! A bird’s gotten in! Poor thing, poor thing! Hinky will set it out, sir, right away!”

“Never mind the bird, Hinky!” Snape said sharply, derailing her from her helpful intentions. “I need you to find Ronald Weasley and bring him here immediately. Then get my potions case from my quarters. The black and silver one in the linen closet. It’s imperative it be done quickly.”

“Yes, Headmaster, sir. Hinky will get it done, sir. Might I just-”

She made vague gesture towards the raven on his desk, which puffed indignantly. Snape’s bland expression hardened.

“I have given you your task, Hinky. Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“Yes, sir! I mean no, sir! Hinky goes, sir!”

She disappeared as quickly as she appeared. Bobby asked Snape what he had planned and how he was going to help Harry, but the headmaster ignored him in favor of thinking silently to himself. Minutes seemed to crawl by as Bobby waited for Snape to speak, for Ronald Weasley to appear, for Amelon and his warrant, for anything to happen. He thought about Snape’s possible plan, as he clearly had one, if it would save Harry or doom him, and what sort of scenario might unfold for either to occur. He wondered if Harry was waiting as anxiously as he was or if he had done something rash. He hadn’t missed the speculative look the young wizard had given the distance between the tower balcony and the ground.

Finally, finally, there was a knock on the door and Snape bid entrance. Ronald Weasley shuffled in with a sulky, cautious look that only worsened when he took in the state of the headmaster’s office.

“I had absolutely nothing to do with it,” he said defensively.

“If you are referring to the soot, then I assure you there is no need to convince me of your innocence, but as for the reason I summoned you, I am afraid you are unquestionably complicit. Unfortunately for you, the latyer is a graver matter than the former. Sit down, Mr. Weasley.”

Ron did so and found himself staring face-to-face with the raven. He inched his chair away from it.

“Potter’s familiar,” Snape explained.

“I thought he had the snake.”

“And an owl. And a raven as well now. But I did not call you here to discuss Potter’s growing menagerie. Inquisitor Amelon has become aware of the curse you cast on Lucius Malfoy.”

Ron went rigid in his chair. His eyes darted around the room, as if expecting the man to suddenly appear from a shadowy corner.

“He is not yet aware it is you who cast it, but he has deduced that Mr. Potter was in some way involved. He has gone to retrieve a warrant to interrogate him under Veritaserum. I suspect he will have his warrant and that the Dark Lord will come to witness the interrogation himself. Do I need to tell you how badly this could turn out for you?”

Ron said nothing, but the suddenly vivid contrast of his freckles against white skin made an answer redundant.

“What are you going to do?” the boy asked instead.

Snape steepled his fingers and looked at him steadily for a moment.

“I am going to save you, Mr. Weasley, and then you are going to owe me a life debt. Something I have always found useful to have.”

Ron stared back at him for a long time, then seemed to realize how stupid that was to do with a Legilimens and looked down. He nodded. What other choice did he have?

A sudden pop made everyone flinch, but it was only Hinky with Snape’s potion case. Once she had deposited it on Snape’s desk as instructed, she looked once more to the raven still perched there. He cawed at her in annoyance.

“You may return in ten minutes to clean the room, Hinky,” the Headmaster said.

“And, er… the bird, sir?”

“Ten minutes, Hinky, and if it is still here you may fry it up and eat it for all I care.”

“Oh, sir, yes! I mean, not that I would eat it, sir. I mean… ten minutes!”

She disappeared yet again.

Snape wasted no time and opened the case. Neither Ron nor Bobby was in any position to see what was inside, but they could hear the distinct sound of glass clinking together. Finally, the elder wizard pulled out a vial of transparent blue liquid and another, smaller vial that appeared to be empty. He poured some of the blue liquid into the smaller vial, then capped it.

“Come here,” he said, holding out an empty hand to the raven. Reluctantly, Bobby climbed onto it, and Snape took him to the nearest window. Softly, so that Ron wouldn’t hear, he whispered his instructions to the raven and handed it a vial, which it clutched tightly to its own body so that it was left to stand on only one leg. Snape opened the window, letting in a gust of cold winter air and letting out his avian messenger.

He shut the window again and turned to Ron.

“This is what we’re going to do.”

Viktor found himself at the newsstand once again, where he often seemed to find himself these days, looking for some glimmer of a feeling he had once held for humanity. Most nights he felt little more than disappointment. Goethe had told him this apathy was to be expected. Eventually, he would cease to identify himself with humans at all, muggle or wizard, and then life… un-life would finally feel like it was moving forward again.

The idea made him uneasy. It made him feel disloyal, but to what or whom he couldn’t say.

Tonight, however, he was not feeling his usual apathy. In fact, he thought he might have just fallen in love.

Again.

“Hhhmm, she is a pretty little thing, isn’t she?” Goethe chuckled in his ear, his chin coming to rest on his shoulder. “With a taste for blood it would seem. We should invite her around for a cup of tea.”

Viktor shoved him off and approached the stand. The crowd of customers parted for him like a school of fish from a shark. The owner of the stand merely looked at him curiously, having long become used to his brooding visitor.

“How old is this paper?” he asked in French roughened by his native accent.

“It is six days since it was published in England, Monsieur. That is the soonest we can get them through customs,” the owner said.

“Do you have any others?”

“Other English papers?”

“Yes.”

“I have the Daily Prophetas well, but it always arrives eight days after print. Customs always hacks it to pieces before they send it through.”

Krum gave a disappointed sigh, but the owner spoke again.

“You are following the investigation of that double murder in England? I have French articles too!”

There were indeed several newspapers carrying articles similar to the British paper,but none of them carried a photograph of the girl that had caught his attention in the first place. Nevertheless, he bought them along with the Wizards Weekly.

Goethe needled and teased him for the rest of the night, but Viktor tolerated it. He deserved to be taunted after all. It was foolish to still love her. Foolish and a little bit wonderful too to realize he was still capable of it.

It was after eight by the time Amelon reached the military headquarters in Bristol, but the offices were still full and chaotic. No one had kept banking hours since Malfoy and Crouch’s deaths had led to a major reorganization across several departments and a major counter offensive strike by the Germans was expected at any moment. Amelon kept that in mind as he was shuffled from department to department, office to office, bureaucratic peon to officious idiot over the course of an hour and a half in pursuit of his warrant. It could have been worse, he reminded himself. The Dark Lord might have been gone for the night, and he would have had to wait until morning.

Eventually, he was brought to the Dark Lord’s office and only had to wait another thirty minutes in the reception area before he was shown inside. Voldemort greeted him with a blood-red glare that gave him pause, but he decided it was fortuitous to have his attention so quickly. Normally, he had to work much harder.

“Lord Potter just confessed to casting dark magic against General Malfoy and blackmail.”

Voldemort smirked.

“Oh, really? A confession makes the need for a Truth Potion seem rather redundant,” the Dark Lord said, tapping the request for the warrant with his finger. Amelon was momentarily taken back then delighted.

“He said you knew he had cast the curse.”

“He lied. He denied ever knowing the curse’s origin, and I believed him. He’s typically more direct about his intentions. Gryffindor, you know. Is that the curse?”

His red eyes flickered to the red book tucked beneath the Inquisitor’s arm. Amelon looked for recognition but saw only curiosity. He handed it to the Dark Lord to see if he would open it to the correct page, but he checked the index first and thumbed through it until he found a likely selection.

“This one, yes?” he said, not bothering to look up. “Oh, this is lovely. Very artful, even for the Old Magics.”

“Lord Potter lied about the book as well. There was another copy, but it was destroyed. I believe someone else cast the spell or else tricked him into casting it for them.”

“I doubt Harry could have been tricked into casting this. It is in every way a curse requiring will. He would have had to will Lucius dead. To be honest I don’t think he had it in him to cast this spell at all. To break it certainly, just as he said he did, but to cast it? He didn’t like Lucius, but he didn’t know him well enough to hate him.”

“Not even for Miss Granger’s sake?”

“If Lucius had actually harmed her rather than simply threatened her, then maybe. But he didn’t… An accomplice is highly likely. Hhhmm… have you read this?”

“I have. I am afraid it didn’t make much sense to me.”

“It’s just very curious. Lucius was diagnosed with a sort of wasting sickness caused by excessive exposure to dark magic. It is what caused his deterioration both physically and mentally months previously, but this spell doesn’t cause these things. Not directly, in any event.”

“Then how does it work?”

“I am not entirely sure. Let’s go ask Harry.”

Although it had taken nearly two hours to reach the Dark Lord, it had barely taken two minutes for the man to secure his office, inform his secretary to rearrange his schedule, and secure a private floo into Hogsmeade. When Amelon pointed out that they hadn’t retrieved any Veritaserum, the Dark Lord pointed out that the school always had a supply on hand.

“For educational purposes,” he clarified. “Although I suppose the headmasters have found use for it from time to time. I am not certain it will be necessary to use it.”

Amelon actually hesitated for a moment. Voldemort rolled his eyes.

“I’m not going to torture the boy.”

“I would never imply such a thing, my Lord.”

“Why not? I’ve done it plenty of times before.”

The Inquisitor had no response to that and Voldemort felt no need to tease him. In truth, he was hoping that neither Veritaserum nor torture would be necessary. He was well aware his relationship with Harry had suffered upon Malfoy and Crouch’s death. While he maintained the certainty that sacrificing Miss Granger to the press was still the right decision, he also understood Harry’s anger regarding the matter.

Harry’s anger was a formidable thing. Not something he was afraid of, per se, but it could make things difficult in the future, especially since he still had plans for Harry that required cooperation. Then there was of course the number of his secrets his protégé currently possessed. Civic duty might stay his tongue for a while, but Voldemort knew if he didn’t curb some of his resentment there was no telling what Harry would say eventually and to whom.

Amelon may have just provided the opportunity he needed to push Harry back to his side. If the boy’s accomplice turned out to be someone close to the boy, then Voldemort thought he would be sufficiently motivated to negotiate their pardon. There would be a punishment, for both Harry and his accomplice, there was no way either could walk away from this unscathed, but it needn’t be devastating. The accomplice would know he owed Voldemort his life and his freedom. Harry would be understandably conflicted between gratitude, resentment, and admiration… which was pretty much how things had been before. If he were lucky, Harry might come to understand Granger’s sacrifice wasn’t meant as a punishment against Harry and take a moment to look at the bigger picture.

He didn’t hold out much hope for that, but there would always be other opportunities.

If all of this eventually revealed Lucius and Bartemius’ killer, than so much the better. If Harry’s accomplice turned out to be the killer, then Harry would have some other party to feel betrayed by and to blame the Granger girl’s disgrace on. If it wasn’t the accomplice, then perhaps there was still the possibility of tracking down the true killer. If it led to the girl’s pardon, then so be it. If it didn’t, the Dark Lord would still have his own revenge to look forward to.

Hagrid’s cabin was sweltering even on the coldest winter nights, courtesy of an oversized furnace that doubled as a dragon egg incubator. For once Charlie was thankful for this as he tramped through the door, frozen stiff from traveling between his mother and aunt’s house to the remote wilds of the dragon reserve. Hot air enveloped him like a blanket as he entered, and he stripped off his coat and gloves quickly to enjoy it.

“Charlie,” Hagrid boomed in greeting. “Welcome back! ’Ow was the visit with the family?”

“Mum only cried once and no one was seriously injured, so I count it a success,” he said with a laugh. “Something smells good.”

“I’m making lamb stew,” McGunny said, bent over the stove in concentration. Their amnesic guest had been with them half a year now, and if Charlie had any misgivings about taking him in they had disappeared completely by now. McGunny had greatly improved under Hagrid’s gentle, patient, and somewhat bumbling care. His memory was still spotty, but he now had some sense of who he had been, and as long as he wasn’t distracted he could complete tasks given to him, although he often forgot he had done them later in the day. He had even taken to cooking regularly, without prompting, from whatever Hagrid had available.

Charlie thought it was unfortunate that McGunny couldn’t have spent the holidays with his family. By now they must have thought him dead, and if learning he was alive wouldn’t have been a blessing enough then learning he was so much improved from the condition he had been found in certainly would have. However, no one was certain revealing his survival and location was a good idea, so they hadn’t gone looking for his kin. Charlie consoled himself by remembering that Hagrid was McGunny’s closest friend and family these days, and Hagrid didn’t deserve to spend his holidays alone.

“Sounds wonderful. So how was your holiday?” Charlie asked them both.

“Much like any oth’r day, which lately ’ave all been pretty good,” Hagrid answered. He grinned and tilted his head towards McGunny. “Horace got some good news though.”

“Oh? What sort of good news?” he asked.

McGunny continued to stare intently at the stew pot, making sure it wasn’t about ready to burn on the old wood stove. They waited a minute to see if he would stop to pick up the conversation, but he refused to be distracted. They shared a look and Hagrid just smiled.

“Gotta lett’r back from a publishing company down in Oxford. They’re interested in ’Orace’s book.”

“That’s wonderful!”

And it was. The Dragon Sanctuary was small and funded by government tax dollars, tax dollars that had become harder and harder to justify with the war with Germany draining so much of their resources for their military and national security. There was a lot of competition nowadays with other organizations for the funds that remained, and Charlie could certainly benefit from having two ‘scholars’ on staff contributing to the scientific and educational communities with published work. Charlie had a few papers of his own published from time to time, but no books and certainly nothing as comprehensive as McGunny had been working on.

“I’m so proud of you both. You’ve been working so hard at the sanctuary and then to write the book on top of it. It’s really a wonder.”

Hagrid tried to hide his proud grin, but it was plain enough to see even beneath his mad beard.

“Thanks, Charlie. Tha’ means the world com’n from ya. I was wonder’n if you’d be will’n to do us a fav’r.”

“Certainly, what is it?”

“Well, the publishers want to meet. Negotiate, I think. I ain’t got the ’ead for that sort of thing, and ’Orace… well, I wouldn’a send ’im out alone. Do you suppose you could go with ’im?”

While it was true Hagrid had no experience with negotiating, Charlie thought, sadly, that wasn’t the real reason he didn’t want to go. Despite the half-giant’s tendency towards obliviousness of social decorum, he was very aware that he didn’t fit in most circles and certainly not with a bunch of professional eggheads. He thought if he went to meet the publishers they would change their minds about printing anything contributed by him, and the sad truth of the matter was that he was probably right.

“Sure, I can do that for you,” he said pleasantly, not even hinting that he knew the real reason. Hagrid had his pride, after all, and Charlie wasn’t going to prick it.

“Great! I’ll let ya write’m back with a date an’ time. ‘Ow do ya like tha’ ’Orace?”

McGunny, who hadn’t said a word through any of this, suddenly looked up in confusion.

“About what?”

“Meet’n the publishers? In Oxford?”

“Oh… Do you still need to get some Christmas shopping done?”

Hagrid sighed affectionately and shook his head, not bothering to mention Christmas had passed over a week ago.

“’E’s excited to go, as ya can see.”

“Did I already add lamb?”

“Yes, Horace, you added the lamb,” Charlie confirmed, although he had no way of knowing. It didn’t matter, because McGunny was already concentrating on dinner again and didn’t appear to have heard him anyway. Or rather, it appeared that McGunny was concentrating on dinner. While it was true he was not what one might call a multi-tasker, and even routine tasks up a great deal of his concentration, he had improved enough over the last couple of months that he was now able to hold two thoughts in his head rather than one, and the one he was most preoccupied with had nothing to do with the stew and only a very little to do with the Oxford publishers. His primary thought was that there was probably an owlery in Oxford and that he should write a letter.

He wasn’t precisely sure who that letter should be addressed to, but he thought it was probably Harry Potter. What it should say, he hadn’t even that slight notion. Merry Christmas, maybe? That sounded daft even to him. Wasn’t Potter a pagan? Or was that the Dark Lord? At least he knew he wasn’t supposed to send a letter to the Dark Lord.

For the time being, his questions weren’t urgent. Most things at the sanctuary very rarely were. Eventually, he would figure it out. He had been figuring out so many things these days. An overwhelming number of things, even if at the end of the day he still felt like he knew very little. Hagrid didn’t mind though, and Charlie didn’t either (at least not now that he could remember the man’s name was Charlie, although he still had no idea what the man actually did at the sanctuary except visit Hagrid occasionally), so that was fine too.

Tomorrow he would concentrate on his letter. Tonight, he would concentrate on stew.

Hogwarts was silent as Voldemort and Amelon entered. Curfew was about to start, and after a long day of travel and a heavy meal at dinner, no one was lingering in the halls to challenge it. The doors to the Great Hall were closed, the lanterns in the hall burned low, and their footsteps echoed loudly in the corridors. Sentinels posted at various points around the castle stood at attention as they passed, saluted, and offered a muted ‘My Lord’. That had not been nearly so welcoming when Amelon had visited alone, and a part of the Inquisitor was reassured by that. It wouldn’t do for the guardians of the nation’s most talented and valuable children to be lax in their duties. It was why he wasn’t surprised that within five minutes of their arrival, the headmaster made an appearance.

He appeared at the end of a corridor, slipping through a secret passageway, coming into being like a shadow cast by the sudden movement of a candle. He was dressed as austerely elegant as usual, no hint that he had been in the process of retiring for the evening when the news arrived. He spared Amelon an irritated glare before settling his attention on Voldemort.

“My Lord.”

“Severus,” Voldemort greeted, as unsurprised to see the headmaster as the headmaster appeared to be to see them. “Do you know why I am here?”

“I imagine it has something to do with why Mr. Potter is currently under guard in the Astronomy Tower.”

Amelon felt slightly disappointed. He had known it was unlikely that Snape wouldn’t have discovered Harry’s confinement before they returned, but he had hoped to catch the man off guard. Still, they had a few more opportunities left to surprise the man.

“Yes, he has just confessed to cursing Lucius,” the Inquisitor said.

“Oh… that.”

For a moment, the hall was so silent Amelon fancied someone cast a Silencing Charm. Voldemort stared at Snape. Snape stared back. The Dark Lord refused to ask something so obvious as ‘you knew?’, but for a moment not even he was certain what he should say. Finally, however, he spoke.

“You will explain yourself.”

“Of course, My Lord. Perhaps it would be best to take this conversation to the privacy of my office?”

That was precisely what they did. Amelon would have preferred to retrieve Lord Potter first, but no one was asking his opinion. From this point on, he knew he was little more than an observer to what happened next. When they reached the office, Voldemort moved to the headmaster’s chair and took a seat, while the other two wizards were left to take the chairs across the desk. The significance was lost on no one.

“When did you discover that Harry had cast a curse on General Malfoy?” Voldemort asked without preamble. The headmaster settled himself in the chair and steepled his fingers so that the tips of his fingers tapped lightly against his mouth as he considered the question.

“I was aware of it from the beginning. It was my idea.”

Amelon marveled.

“This seems to be a night of quick confessions. For someone who seems so unaffected by the truth, you were not so bold to admit it prior to this,” the Inquisitor said.

Snape gave him a contemptuous glance out of the corner of his eye before turning back to the Dark Lord, who was waiting for an elaboration.

“It was never my intention to have my involvement in the curse known, for the sake of my relationship with the Malfoy family. After his death, I saw no reason to bring it up.”

“Why, Severus? Tell me why,” Voldemort demanded.

“For the same reason as Mr. Potter. I wished to protect Miss Granger. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

Amelon leaned towards him, eying his expressions intently.

“But why curse General Malfoy? Weren’t you two friends? He was the best man at your wedding. You are the godfather to his children.”

“If you have to ask,” Snape said without looking away from Voldemort, “then you haven’t been as thorough in your investigations as you seem to believe. We were always as much enemies as we were friends. Ever since we went to Hogwarts together, Lucius has worked to make me dependent upon him. He sabotaged relationships, experiments, employment opportunities, civil ventures, anything and everything that would have allowed me to regain my rights and titles as the last living descendent of the Prince family and establish a professional reputation separate from him.”

“Really, Severus, are you still bitter about all of that?” Voldemort asked with a touch of mocking. “He protected you, as well. You were never well liked amongst the other Death Eaters, Bella in particular, and you never would have come this far without his support. I rather thought he had stopped being so overbearing in the last two or three years.”

Snape nodded.

“I acknowledge this. I no more intended him true harm than he ever intended it for me. The curse was just a means to an end.”

Amelon didn’t believe him, or at least he didn’t believe that was the whole story. His answers felt strangely rehearsed, his demeanor too relaxed to be natural.

“And how did you discover the curse? Or even the book for that matter?”

“In point of fact, I did not discover it myself. Nor did Mr. Potter. Neither of us could afford to have it known we were in possession of such a book when Lucius’ symptoms first started to appear. I sent Mr. Ronald Weasley, a student here, to search for a book of Old Magic curses. He has some familiarity with the Old Magics through his association with Mr. Potter, so he knew what to look for.”

“And why, precisely, would Mr. Weasley have done this errand for you? And how could you be certain he would keep his task a secret?” Amelon asked.

Snape smiled, but there was nothing pleasant about it.

“Mr. Weasley could not afford to do anything else. He is currently the leader of a smuggling ring within the school, importing and exporting materials that haven’t gone through the proper security checks. I could have expelled him, but I decided to make use of him instead.”

“And why Old Magics? Why not something more… conventional?”

“Old Magics are harder to recognize, harder still to trace, and impossible to counteract unless one knows what they’re doing. I wanted Lucius to suspect both Harry and the Dark Lord, but unable to prove anything either way, and likewise he would need to be dependent on Harry for a cure. He had to be willing to negotiate.”

Amelon asked him where the book had come from and Snape gave him an address in Coventry. He would double check to make sure that Snape’s story checked out and the time lines matched, but he suspected that at least that part of the man’s story was true. And yet, still, he couldn’t help but think that Snape was hiding something. Voldemort seemed to sense it as well.

“Why didn’t you tell me this part of your plan?” Voldemort asked, a touch of warning in his voice. “I would have been particularly interested in the part where the general of my armies became suspicious that I meant to kill him.”

“Forgive me, my Lord, if either I or Mr. Potter has overstepped our bounds, but you had given us the impression that you suspected this already and simply weren’t interested in having it confirmed.”

“I had also made it clear that neither Lucius nor Harry could seriously harm the other in their rivalry. This curse was designed to kill, Severus. Not hurt, not itch, not bother, not embarrass. Kill. Not to mention that rather unpleasant side-effect of driving him insane. Don’t tell me you misunderstood?”

“My Lord, we did not misunderstand, nor did we intend to overstep our boundaries. According to the book, the curse was intended to wear down the cursed through a series of circumstances over a long period of time, which gave us the breathing room necessary to complete the negotiations and negate the curse before permanent harm was done. There was no mention of insanity. When we became aware of the… miscalculation, I urged Lucius to take up herbal remedies, burning sage to be precise, which seemed particularly effective. Eventually, our plans played out. Lucius called off Hermione’s betrothal. Harry called off the curse. All of this being rather a moot point, given what happened shortly thereafter.”

“So you do not believe the two events are related?” Amelon asked.

“Is that the polite way of asking whether I killed Lucius and Bartemius? I did not kill them.”

“You said before that the curse killed by setting off a series of events that would weaken and destroy the victim. Is it possible that Harry had not removed the curse like he said he did, and the curse did in fact eventually kill General Malfoy?”

For the first time, Snape looked caught off guard and actually turned away from the Dark Lord to stare at the Inquisitor.

“I… I do not believe that was the case. Lucius was making a strong recovery rather than deteriorating like he had been previously. And that wouldn’t explain Crouch’s death.”

“But you don’t truly understand the curse, do you? You are not a practitioner of the Old Magics yourself. The curse surprised you more than once. Isn’t it possible that it may have gone dormant briefly to throw off suspicion or simply been delayed rather than canceled completely?”

Snape said nothing, his expression hardening into a blank mask.

“I believe the curse was canceled completely prior to Lucius Malfoy’s death. I do not believe the curse caused his death in any way, except indirectly by the series of events that followed it.”

“Are you willing to verify all of this under Veritaserum?”

“If necessary,” he said without inflection.

“And Mr. Potter?”

“Mr. Potter is perfectly capable of answering for himself.”

Amelon turned to Voldemort, who was staring at Snape with an expression that could have been surprise and could have been disgust, but was most likely something else completely. Snape stared back stoically. It seemed dangerously defiant to the Inquisitor, but it was difficult to say for sure. The man had surprised him several times already, and Death Eaters had always seemed to have a dangerous and somewhat insane methodology for dealing with confrontation. He supposed they had to given the way Lord Voldemort had run the War.

“Severus,” Voldemort said finally, “you have betrayed me.”

“My Lord, I-”

“Crucio!”

Amelon jumped up and out of his chair, stumbling back as the headmaster stiffened in his chair before falling to the floor and writhing in unconstrained agony. This was not the first time Amelon had seen the Pain Cursed used, it was considered a necessary skill in his profession in fact, but that made it no less terrible to witness. Most people lacked the ability to focus enough to resist the curse once it had been cast, but Amelon could tell Snape was resisting it now. He was screaming, but it was a half-strangled sound like he was trying to swallow the noise so no one else could hear it. He was writhing on the floor, but his hands had found the legs of a chair and were gripping them tightly so that he didn’t flop around gracelessly.

The curse lasted for over a minute. Amelon didn’t blink until it was over. He didn’t dare.

When it finally stopped, Snape sagged on the ground and gasped for breath, his entire body trembling in the aftereffects of the curse. Voldemort walked from around the desk to stand over his disobedient servant.

“You’ve deceived me, Severus. You deceived me repeatedly. I suspect even now you are deceiving me.”

He knelt down, crouching over Snape, who managed to squint open one eye to look up at him. The headmaster still hadn’t caught his breath enough to speak.

“Amelon is right, you have no real concept of this spell, and you are not so much of a fool that you would use magic that you did not fully understand. Who cast the curse, Severus? It wasn’t Harry. I doubt it was you. Why lie? Who are you protecting? Crucio.”

Snape let out another strangled cry, but it only lasted a few seconds before it stopped. Nevertheless, he started to shake even more violently than before.

“Have you forgotten, Severus?” the Dark Lord continued. He seized Snape’s arm and thrust up the sleeve, revealing the Dark Mark beneath. “Your first loyalty is always to me. Not to Harry, not to your mudblood goddaughter, not anyone else but me. And yet, here you are. Lying to my face. As if I wouldn’t know. As if I didn’t know you enough to tell.”

He dropped Snape’s arm and let out a long-suffering sigh.

“I suppose I only have myself to blame. I forgot how willful you could be. I suppose I thought you had grown out of it. We’ll just have to fall back on the old ways, won’t we? Back to your Death Eater days.”

Snape made a muffled sound and tried to push himself up, but Voldemort stood and kicked him over again before he could manage.

“It used to be, when one of you lied to me, I took something from you as compensation. An eye. A tongue. Something you didn’t really need but would certainly miss. I think I’ll take your fingers, Severus. One for every lie. But no, you need your fingers to write. It’s an important part of your job. Ah, I know. I’ll take your wife’s fingers, but don’t worry. I’ll let her keep the ring finger.”

Snape began struggling in earnest, shoving himself upright even as he winced from the residual pain of the forced movement. Voldemort let him this time.

“NO! My Lord, please-”

“The time for platitudes has passed, Severus. I have invested great faith in you. Entrusted you with those things I value most in this world, and this is how you repay me?”

“Please, my Lord, Ira is innocent. She has no idea-”

“Crucio!”

Snape fell to the floor yet again, smashing his head against the side of the desk as he went, so that when he landed, blood splattered across the floor and smeared along his face. This time the curse lasted for nearly two minutes, and when the Dark Lord finally stopped, Snape rolled over and vomited on floor before collapsing back.

“You’ve gone soft, Severus,” Voldemort said coldly. “There was a time nothing could have moved you, nothing could-”

DOOOOIIIINNGGG…

The Dark Lord looked up and around, looking for the source of the noise that had startled him.

DOOOOIIIINNGGG…

Amelon tensed, recognizing the sound immediately.

DOOOOIIIINNGGG…

Snape took a gasping breath, “That’s… that’s the alarm. The school… it’s under attack.”

Harry waited as patiently as he was able out on the tower balcony, his legs dangling between the slates. It was strangely reminiscent of the night Hermione had come up to apologize to him, and he wasn’t entirely sure it was his mind playing tricks on him when his watch grew warm in the hand she had reached for. Thinking of her helped to keep him calm and focused, preventing a panic attack from sneaking up on him or from revealing his agitation to the guards watching him. Bobby helped too by huddling in his lap, keeping him company while he kept himself warm. The raven had appeared hours ago, whispering Snape’s plan and delivering the vial of anti-Veritaserum. Now there was nothing left to do but wait and hope his guardian’s plan worked.

It was straightforward enough. Snape would take responsibility for giving Harry the original book and the idea to blackmail Lucius after Harry came to the man looking for advice on how to help Hermione. Snape would then explain it was never his intention to harm Lucius permanently, nor to drive him crazy, and they had been quick to help relieve the symptoms once they became dangerous. There had been some unexpected hiccups in the plan, but ultimately it had worked. It had nothing to do with Lucius and Bartemius dying, and the events were entirely unrelated. Which was true. They were to swear to it all under the Veritaserum Amelon intended to bring along to their interrogation… Neither the Inquisitor nor Voldemort would be aware that Snape, Harry, and even Ron had dosed themselves with anti-Veritaserum in advance, rendering the potion useless. Voldemort would likely be irritated but satisfied, and Amelon would have to move his investigation elsewhere.

All nice and tidy.

Harry had a bad feeling about it. Snape was an accomplished liar, but it would be easy enough to poke holes in his story if he were interrogated thoroughly, particularly if Harry were questioned afterward. There had been no way to match up their stories in advance, and Harry wasn’t sure he could manage to lie convincingly if any inconsistencies were spotted. Then there was Ron. That he was part of the story was a necessity, since it was doubtless someone of Amelon’s tenacity would double check everything they said and finding the purchase records of the original book would be the obvious first step. There was no telling how well Ron could lie or if he would buckle under the pressure of both the Dark Lord and an Inquisitor questioning him. There was no guarantee that Snape wouldn’t throw the boy to the wolves to save his own skin if it became necessary.

As time went on, Harry started to wonder if that wasn’t Snape’s intention to begin with. The man had very little sympathy for Weasley or much fondness for his numerous kin, and even if he had he was hardly the self-sacrificing sort. It was possible that the plan Snape had passed on to Bobby was a ruse to keep Harry from doing something reckless until he had settled things to his own satisfaction.

And yet…

He had spared Ron in the first place. Why had he done that? He had said turning in Ron wouldn’t have benefited anyone, and that keeping the secret put the boy firmly in their debt. This was probably at least partly true, but not entirely true. He could very easily have turned Ron over and had Lucius in his debt, a far more valuable prize to be sure. A prize he could use to make Lucius call off Hermione’s betrothal.

He had to believe there was something more going on. Whether it was something selfish or selfless he couldn’t begin to guess, but he would have to keep a little faith and hoped whatever it was that stayed his hand in the first place had carried over to tonight. It wasn’t like he had any better plan himself.

A sharp wind drew him from his thoughts, and he tightened his robes around himself. He didn’t normally mind the cold, but tonight it was particularly harsh. Still, he made no move to go inside. The only thing waiting for him there was the cool, suspicious stares of his guards and a lot of pacing. At least outside, he had a beautiful view and Bobby warmly nestled up against him.

Below him he could see the lights and shadows that formed an approximate shape and character of Hogwarts, beautiful and mysterious in ways it couldn’t be in the daylight. Aside from the sconces lighting the outside, he could see several windows still aglow, the shadows of the occupants passing by though there were fewer and fewer of these with every passing hour. Still further down he could see the black, glittering waters of the moat, stretching into the lake, and beside those the dark rolling hills surrounding the castle until both lake and hills suddenly fell to a wall of such utter blackness Harry could not have defined as forest if he hadn’t known what it was previously. Above him the sky was a blanket of gray, black, and deep purple clouds floating over the obscure, distant light of the quarter moon. The wind that bit so deeply into him now had begun to drive the clouds away so that with every passing minute the moon seemed to glow just a little bit brighter, the shape just slightly more distinct.

It made him think of Sirius and Remus and Luna and wonder if they could see the moon clearly from wherever they were. He wondered if Hermione saw the same thing from France and was wondering about him in return.

Transfixed as he was upon the moon, he was immediately made aware when a small spot in the distance passed over it, only to disappear a moment later. Harry blinked and wondered for a moment if it had been an owl. Then another shadow and another and still another passed over it, and Harry suddenly sat up straight. Bobby lifted his head to look at him.

“What is it?” Bobby whispered.

“I saw something.”

“Was it Amelon coming back?”

“No. They were flying.”

“They?”

Harry suddenly realized the heat he was feeling in his hand wasn’t from his watch, but from the scars left by the Sword of Gryffindor.

“You have to go now, Bobby. Sorry.”

He climbed to his feet, pitching the raven off his lap and over the side of the balcony. Bobby flapped gracelessly for a moment before catching the air in his open wings and righting himself. Harry didn’t stay to watch but moved inside. The guards tensed as he entered, but he ignored them in favor of moving to one of the Astronomy Tower’s smaller telescopes. He aimed it haphazardly to a spot just beneath the moon and adjusted the knobs at the side for focus and light sensitivity.

He looked through the eyepiece.

The little dots stood out clearly now, revealing a shape he would recognize anywhere and in numbers that made his heart begin pounding in his chest.

“No,” he breathed. “Oh, please, no.”

He stood up straight and turned to the guards.

“Sound the alarm. We have visitors.”

The guards did not move to sound the alarm or do anything other than stare at him skeptically. They didn’t believe him.

“Look for yourself, if you don’t believe me! There’s hundreds of them! Maybe a thousand!” he snapped at them.

“A thousand?” Burrows said blandly. “Why not just say a million?”

Underhill just snorted.

For a moment, Harry could only stand there and stare at them in horror. They weren’t going to do anything. Bearing down on them at that moment was a force ten times what Hogwarts had faced before, when it had been fully intact. Now the castle still hadn’t completed its repairs, the stone guardians were half their usual number, the great ward around the castle could not withstand a force of that number, and the students were exhausted from traveling from London and mostly asleep. They needed as much forewarning as they could get, but the guards wouldn’t do it. They wouldn’t believe him. They wouldn’t even look.

He mentally revised his estimation of them as competent.

Taking a deep breath, he turned and walked back outside to the balcony. If they wouldn’t do anything, he would have to find a way to warn them himself. He climbed onto the railing of the balcony and spread his arms.

“You can do this, Harry,” he told himself and took two deep calming breathes. He closed his eyes and flinched as he felt himself start to lose his balance. Not yet. He couldn’t fall yet until he…

Animancy did not require a wand. It was a sort of magic that had existed before wands, before there was even a word for what it was. It was the sort of magic Harry loved best, raw and pure in a way wand magic and spoken magic never could be. It was something that had to be understood and mastered at the very core of one’s magic.

He searched for that core now, feeling out those pathways of energy that flowed through his body like blood in his veins and searched out the source of it. It was familiar to him now. He had felt it the first time he had held his wand, but had only truly understood what it was when Voldemort had showed it to him that Solstice day in the garden. It was not a power he liked to focus on directly. It scared him in some ways, knowing how powerful it was and how badly he could hurt himself if he handled it carelessly.

But his need was urgent. The castle needed him. He needed to fly.

The core of his magic surged as he focused on it, not increasing in power so much as extending what it had outward, feeling out what it was he needed and wanted from it. He took two more deep breaths and brought up the image of the falcon, recalled the feeling of that form Gulandri had first forced upon him, and urging his magic to take that form once again willingly.

His fingers started to tingle and felt himself growing warm. Excitement swelled in him. It was working! He was going to fly! He was going to-

The Stunning Hex caught him square in the back, shattering his concentration and his magic. The only sensation he was aware of was a sudden moment of panic as he felt himself fall forward, but then there was nothing but a swirling mass of sensory confusion that left him unable to regain control of his body or his magic. He didn’t even feel it when the Levicorpus spell caught him and pulled him back into the safety of the tower, and he didn’t understand the curious mix of sounds hovering above him was voices and the odd prodding feeling was the Sentinels checking him over for injuries and possible weapons.

“Merlin, what was that?” Burrows said, his voice raised in alarm. “What was he trying to do?”

“You don’t think he’s suicidal, do you?” Underhill asked uncertainly.

“I wouldn’t have thought it, but you know, if he’s guilty… He might have seen it as the only way out.”

“Maybe he can fly.”

Burrows gave him a look that stated clearly how stupid he thought that statement was.

“You never know! He probably can do some wandless magic.”

They looked down at the limp form splayed out between them. Unfortunately, Harry had nothing to contribute to this conversation except to groan and loll his head slightly to the left. They gave each other a worried look.

“Do you think we’ll get in trouble for this?” Underhill asked.

Burrows shrugged.

“Let’s wake him up and see what-”

A high-pitched whistling sound cut him off, like the sound of a firework lifting off. Instinct and training had them both throwing up blocking spells without thought, covering the three of them in a cocoon of magic. Above them the roof suddenly exploded, raining down stone and wood and more trouble than any of them were prepared to face.

The Final Battle of Hogwarts

“They wouldn’t dare try the same thing twice …” Voldemort said, marveling at the very notion. At his feet, Snape was struggling to get up, and this time the Dark Lord let him and moved to the nearest window. He had better night vision than most, but his eyes weren’t adjusted, and he could see nothing. Nevertheless something was making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

He turned back towards Snape who had managed to right himself with Amelon’s help and leaned heavily against the wall where an ancient schematic of the castle was hung behind a pane of glass, hundreds of little colored dots scurrying across it. The Headmaster was tracing invisible runes across the map, activating the castle’s additional defenses and setting off the alarms for the rest of the castle. Bloody fingerprints trailed wherever he touched.

“How many this time?” Voldemort asked.

“I don’t know … they won’t show up until they’re within at least a hundred feet of the castle,” Snape said breathlessly and closed his eyes tightly for a moment to clear his thoughts. Amelon, who was already studying the map, continued for him.

“If the black dots are the attackers … we already have some in the high towers. A little less than a dozen.”

“The towers will all seal against intruders once the wards are activated, except for the dormitories, which won’t let anyone not of the proper house in regardless,” Snape said without opening his eyes. “All the entrances are sealed, along with any window large enough for a person to fit through.”

Amelon sucked in a sharp breath, his own fingers suddenly hovering over the schematic as if searching for something. Or someone. They stopped abruptly.

“What is it, Amelon?” Voldemort demanded distractedly, half his attention already formulating the potential threat and how to deal with it.

“Lord Potter is still in the Astronomy Tower.”

Voldemort stiffened and stalked towards them. He followed Amelon’s finger to the little red dot with ‘Potter’ hovering beneath it surrounded by six nameless black dots and two orange dots. One of the orange dots suddenly disappeared, and the Dark Lord clenched his fists. He watched for several more seconds, and to his surprise the black dots moved away, congregating around what was the doorway that led from the Astronomy Tower and into the main building. Neither Harry’s red dot nor the remaining orange dot moved. Had they been stunned? But then at least one person should have stood guard over them or tried to take them somewhere more secure. Did they think Harry was already dead? What was going on?

He turned to Snape, who had lurched away to order the portraits to gather information about the castle.

“There are no portraits in the Astronomy Tower,” Snape said before the Dark Lord could ask.

“Is there any way in or out of there without deactivating the wards?”

“No … but—”

“There’s another dozen coming through the portcullis. They’ve already torn down the wards there,” Amelon interrupted. For the first time, his excitement had taken on a nervous edge. “More inside … no, they’re on the roof of the South Wing. The courtyard … another tower on the east end … more crossing the moat … they just keep coming!”

“Where are the staff and students?” the Headmaster demanded, stumbling back towards the map. The little red, green, yellow, blue, and orange dots that had been relatively still only a few moments before were now swarming across the map, like bees in a hive. There were too many to keep track of individually, but the flowing swirl of color they made as they moved through the castle gave Snape a general impression of what was happening.

“Good … they’re moving into position to defend the castle.”

“Severus,” Voldemort said, calling back his attention. “The Astronomy Tower … ?”

The Headmaster nodded without looking away from the map.

“There’s no way in or out from there now for Harry, but the castle elves should be able to get to him. Hinky!”

The house elf appeared in the room in a frantic flailing of gangly limbs.

“M-m-master! The c-castle! It’s-it’s-it’s … Eeekk! Headmaster, sir, you’s is bleeding!”

“I am aware of the situation, Hinky. Mr. Potter is in the Astronomy Tower. Do what you can for him. That is your mission.”

The house elf’s eyes grew enormous, and she started to tremble, but she nodded her head just the same.

“Wait!” Amelon said, hurrying over to her. She flinched away as if expecting to be hit, but he only took out a wand from his pocket and handed it to her. “This is Lord Potter’s. He will need it.”

Hinky looked vaguely horrified at touching something as important as a wand, but sensing the urgency of the situation, she snatched it from his hand and disappeared. Amelon turned to Voldemort for some sort of instructions, the situation far beyond anything he was prepared for, but the Dark Lord was looking at Snape. The two wizards, only moments before caught in their own private game of betrayal and pain, sought a resolution without words and a truce without conditions. There was no time for them to negotiate. Eventually, Snape nodded.

“Where am I needed most?” Voldemort asked.

“The main entrance.”

The Dark Lord nodded and made his way to the door, leaving Amelon alone with the headmaster. As he left, he heard Snape telling the Inquisitor to secure the door. He glanced back briefly, watching the staircase to the office turn and seal itself. Voldemort had a general idea of what the response to this sort of attack entailed. If things went according to plan, then Sentinel Seitler should appear shortly with reinforcements to protect the headmaster and the security wards that he controlled. Elsewhere in the castle, the students, staff, and other Sentinels were arranging themselves at the intersection of every hallway and staircase in the school, blocking off entrances without boxing themselves in, while the castle itself let its defenses pick off, disorient, and scatter the attackers. Alarms were sounding across Britain in Court offices and Culties headquarters, alerting the nation’s defenses to Hogwarts’ plight. In ten to twenty minutes, reinforcements would arrive to fend off the attack, and more would continue to arrive until the enemy was driven back or destroyed.

It had worked well during the first battle, but Voldemort knew things wouldn’t go as smoothly this time around. He could sense the enemy was more formidable and better prepared. Already the enemy had breached some of the towers, something the Italians had not managed to achieve.

He took a deep breath, calling upon his magic and clearing his mind for the spells he would need. He reached out one hand to touch the cool stone, while the other drew his wand. Immediately, he felt the magic of the castle reach back to him. The magic seemed to shiver beneath his palm, in fear and rage and excitement. He knew this feeling. It was the same feeling he had known the day of the Solstice ritual, when he had returned to the castle to hunt the madman, Moody, his mind and body blazing with magic. It felt strangely muted now, without the extra power singing through him, but it was still recognizable. The castle still turned to him as a defender.

Softly, he began to murmur the beginnings of a spell.

Halfway down the corridor a row of windows exploded in a flash of glass and orange sparks, and a witch sprang through the opening. Behind her the wall of ancient stones suddenly seemed to boil, rolling into one another, the windows that had been there moments before swallowed up so that the hallway became a tunnel with only the wall sconces to see by.

She had just enough time to look around and spot him a few yards from her, her dark eyes fiercely seeking out an enemy, before the candles suddenly went out. He didn’t know if she had seen him clearly enough to recognize him, but he was almost certain she knew who it was that killed her when his spell caught her, her blood and organs spilling out onto the stones at her feet.

An offering, he chanted, an offering of blood and magic.

Beneath his hand, the castle trembled, the fear from before replaced by hunger.

The alarm went off in Bristol just as Tom was pouring his second cup of coffee for the night and flirting with one of the mail room censors in the break room. Lestrange had gone home for the evening, leaving him behind to ‘tidy up’ the office. He’d handed the job off to one of the secretaries and used the opportunity to … make friends, as it were.

Tonight, it was Mindy the mail room censor, who was just bursting with gossip she wasn’t allowed to talk about except of course to those of sufficient security clearance. Later, he would make a run to the barracks and play a few rounds of cards with Lestrange’s personal guards to insure they continued to despise her.

Or at least, that had been his plan until the telltale gong of the alarm shook the entire complex, and he spilled hot coffee on his hand. He swore, dropped the pot, and ran for the door. In the hallway, witches and wizards stood frozen, looking upwards as if the sound were descending from heaven itself. Tom mentally sneered at them and hurried out of the offices towards the barracks. As he had predicted, Lestrange’s personal guard, some thirty-odd men and women, were still awake and killing time with a game of cards or reading, only now their pursuits had been abandoned at the peculiar alarm sounding throughout the compound. They were familiar with most alarms, but they had been fighting in Germany when this sound had first been heard and didn’t know its meaning.

“We getting an earthquake or something, Captain?” a soldier joked nervously as Tom burst through the door.

“No. You all have three minutes to get dressed and get your gear. That’s an order!” he snarled.

They jumped at the command, abandoning their game and books to scurry into the rest of their uniforms and gather up their fighting gear. Tom waited impatiently form the doorway for them to be ready, eying the other barracks anxiously as lights were turned on and he could make out movement in the windows. Others were finally starting to catch on. He needed to get his troops ready and to the floo before any of the others.

The alarm was an opportunity, he knew it, but it could just as easily turn into someone else’ opportunity if he didn’t get his people out to the battlefield quickly.

In three minutes, the Culties were dressed and ready for battle, mentally and physically. It hadn’t taken much for them to realize that they were going into a fight, and they were more than willing to get down to it. They had been frontline fighters in Germany before they had been pulled for the tedious and unappreciated role of General Lestrange’s flunkies. Captain Stratus had been promising them for weeks that they had a greater chance of rising up the ranks by showing off their abilities at home than in some foreign field. The big wigs rarely left Bristol after all. It seemed it was finally time to find out if Stratus had been telling them the truth or not.

“That alarm you hear right now,” Stratus explained as they made their way to the floo station between the barracks and the messhall, “is the alarm for an attack on Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

Someone in their column froze mid-step, earning a fierce slap upside the head when it caused the line to kink.

“This is the second time this has happened this year. First was by the Italians, as you probably remember, but the chances are this time it’s the Germans. We do not know their intentions, and we do not know their numbers.”

“Doesn’t that just paint a cheery fucking picture?” someone muttered down the column.

“We’re going to be the first in. We’re going to take stock of the situation, and then I’m going to have five of you turn around and report to the five main branches what to expect. The rest of us are going to stay and make some noise.”

A cheer went up. Making noise was something they were good at.

“Grab your brooms and move out. Our entry point is floo Station number nineteen.”

They entered the floo station, a long narrow building empty but for the storage lockers filled with brooms on one side and the row of twenty or so large chimneys along the other. Despite the number available, they were restricted to only two floos at a time, making progress slower than Tom would have liked, but even so it took only ten or so minutes to get everyone through. He stopped the last Cultie in the line before he could enter.

“I want you to report to Lestrange,” the captain said. “She should be informed of what is happening.”

The Cultie grimaced.

“Someone’s probably already told her by now.”

“Nevertheless, Yavern, I want to make certain she knows where we went and why. I am making a judgment call in her absence, and I won’t have us accused of insubordination later.”

He doubted Lestrange would do any such thing, as she would be eager to claim credit for the quick action, but letting her own soldiers believe she would, and that he wanted to protect them from her supposed pettiness could only work in his favor. Yavern’s brow lifted at the thought, then lowered, and he nodded sullenly. Tom patted him on the shoulder and turned to the floo himself.

“Floo Station Nineteen!” he shouted, and the sickening feeling of being pulled through too little space much too quickly washed over him. After a nearly half a minute, his feet hit the ground heavily and the momentum carried him forward so that he half stumbled out of the fireplace. The fireplace opened up into a large, one room shack. The place was dark except for the candle someone had lit near the door, but there was little to illuminate. A moldering cot was wedged in a corner, a work bench beside it. Ancient herbs and animal pelts hung on the walls, unrecognizable beneath cocoons of cobwebs and dust. A harsh, bitter wind blew through the empty windows.

Tom glanced about, but there was no one else there so he went outside. The Forbidden Forest lay to the right and back and the Shrieking Shack stood ahead of him. Trapped between these two ominous places, the little shack was almost guaranteed privacy, and on the other side of the shack was a little path leading down to the village of Hogsmeade and a good view of the castle little over half a mile in the distance. The Culties were waiting for him outside, rubbing their hands together and muttering spells to keep themselves warm. It was colder up there in the Northern Highlands than what they were used to down in Bristol. The eerie atmosphere didn’t help much either.

“Helden went to scout ahead,” a witch, Kettersby, said as he stepped out. Tom nodded and tried not to let his impatience show. He told them why Yavern wasn’t coming.

“Poor bastard, I wouldn’t want to be him when he gives that woman the news,” the witch said pityingly. He merely nodded and left to make rounds with the others, making sure they were ready for a fight. Finally, Helden returned, running out from behind the Shrieking Shack as if he were being chased.

“Ah, hell! Ah bloody hell,” he gasped as he came up to them. “It’s bad, sir! It’s really, really bad!”

“Calm down, Private. What did you see? Do you have an estimate on their numbers? Are there any in the village? Are they on brooms?” Tom demanded.

“There has to be at least two thousand, sir! Maybe more!”

Silence followed this statement. Even Tom was taken aback by the number given. He had to be mistaken.

“Get a hold of yourself, Helden. Where are they? How did you count them?”

“They’re out over the castle, sir! I think … I think half are on brooms and half are on the ground. They … they’re … They’re trying to storm the place! You can see the lights when their spells go off!”

Tom tossed the wizard away and stalked around the shack to see for himself. Behind him, the Culties followed. He was barely around the corner when he saw the first tell-tale flashes of spellwork. Pinks and whites and violets reflected against the clouds above, followed by low rumbling like distant thunder. Once past the shack and standing on the edge of the hill, he could see the castle in full and barely managed to swallow a gasp. If anything, Helden’s estimate was low.

Tiny black shapes swarmed around the castle like flies around a corpse, visible against the glow of the castle’s torches and flashing lights of curses and charms. On the ground, the attackers were even more visible, crowding around the edge of the moat to cast blasting and fire spells at the castle walls and windows while others tried to force their way through the drawbridge and portcullis. They did not appear to have gotten in yet, at least not in any great number, but even a fortress like Hogwarts could not hold against a persistent enemy of that number for long.

“Shit,” he muttered and took a deep breath.This was more than he had been expecting to find, but he couldn’t turn back now. Hogwarts could not fall. He turned to the Culties. They were staring at the force before them with unabashed horror, their earlier enthusiasm for action dissolving.

“Mount up,” he ordered.

“Captain, you can’t be serious! We’ll be slaughtered!” someone cried.

“Shut up! Do you want us to just let them take Hogwarts?” Kettersby snarled back. “There are over six hundred children in there fighting for their lives!”

“I’ve a little sister up there,” a young wizard said.

“I’ve got cousins,” said another.

“Shouldn’t we at least wait for reinforcements? Getting killed won’t help anyone.”

“Enough!” Tom snarled. “This isn’t a discussion. Get on your damn brooms. I have a plan.”

Harry regained awareness with a shock and a hand over his mouth. He was lying on his side, cold stone beneath him and the creak of wood above. It was dark but for the slivers of light that slipped down from between the floorboards, and in that fractured light Harry could just make out the glimmer of silver fastenings of a Sentinel. But that form was just out of reach, so who had their hand over his mouth? It was large, rough, and smelled heavily of flour and onions.

There was a moment of confusion. What had happened? He remembered that he was about to attempt an animagus transformation, and now he appeared to be in some sort of crawl space with a Sentinel. He tried to reason out what had happened, but the only conclusion he could reach was that they were apparently hiding and if it was from whom he had seen in the telescope, then he was in a lot of trouble.

He lied there stiff and still, listening to the creak of footsteps above them and the familiar grumbling lilt of frustrated German being tossed about. When his captor was satisfied he would not try to speak out, they removed their hand and Harry took several deep shaky breaths and turned to see who it was. It wasn’t the second Sentinel like he had half suspected. Even in the darkness, he could see the diminutive form of a house elf and the shine of its large eyes.

It crept over his prone body and sought out his hand in the darkness, its long fingers wrapping around his fingers gently before slipping something into his palm. Magic, familiar and warm, surged up his arm. It was his wand.

Quietly, he cast a Silencing Spell around their hiding space and the sounds from above died. He sat up as much as he could in the little space.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

“It’s a privilege to help a great wizard such as yourself, Lord Potter, sir,” the elf gushed happily, revealing ‘it’ to be a ‘she’. Despite her apparent pleasure at being of use to him, she still kept looking up nervously as if she expected discovery at any moment. He felt a little nervous about that himself. He crawled his way over to the Sentinel, and before he even reached out to touch him he could make out the coppery smell of blood.

“Hey, are you awake?” he asked, nudging a leg then quickly pulling away when it came back wet.

“He’s in a bad way, sir,” the elf said sadly. “The other one was already gone before Hinky arrived. You’s was very lucky, sir. You was nearly crushed like them, but you was already lying down between them when the roof come down.”

A shiver ran down Harry’s spine. So he had yet another brush with death? Hinky hadn’t said as much, but his survival seemed to have only been because of his smaller size and because the Sentinels’ bodies had propped up the heaviest of the debris. He touched his exposed skin and tested all his limbs. Everything seemed to be fine. He couldn’t find so much as a splinter.

“Bloody hell … how bad is he?”

At this, Hinky fell very quiet. It was as good an answer as any.

“What’s going on? Have they gotten in the castle?”

“Hinky don’t know, sir, but they ain’t gotten in from here. The tower’s done sealed itself. They’s trying, but they ain’t getting in that way. Not yet anyway.”

“That’s good,” he sighed.

Hinky shook her head.

“That’s not good?”

The house elf made a distressed little sound and nibbled nervously at her fingernails.

“The towers is all sealed, sir, so they can’t get in, but we can’t either. We is trapped here.”

Harry swore under his breath. That was very much not good. They might hide there for a while, but for how long? Did anyone even know he was here? Someone must know if Hinky had his wand. Hadn’t Amelon taken it? Did that mean Amelon had reached the castle before the attack? Was Voldemort with him?

“Is Lord Voldemort here?”

“Oh! Yes, sir! He is. He is sure to scare them away and rescue us!”

Harry felt a stirring of conflicted feelings. Voldemort being here was certainly better than him not being here, from a purely defensive point of view, but he doubted it would discourage the attackers. If anything, they might become more determined. No one could make a more worthwhile target than the Dark Lord. His destruction would almost guarantee victory for the Germans. Then there were his own personal feelings in regards to the other wizard. It went without saying that he would rather not be rescued by the man and once again be placed in his debt.

But thinking like that was stupid and selfish. There was more at stake now than his wounded feelings.

The Germans were going to take Hogwarts unless something was done, and his friends, classmates, and teachers were all in serious danger. There was no telling how far they would go. People would inevitably be killed in the fighting, but what would happen afterward? Would they execute all of the adults? Snape and the Sentinels at the very least. What about the students? Would they kill the more rebellious ones to make a point? Harry couldn’t help but think of his fellow Gryffindors. Their reckless and defiant natures would make them prime targets. Then there were the Dueling Club members with their special skill sets and trained agression. What would happen to those who lived? Would the Germans try to hold them as hostages in the castle or try to take them back to Germany where they could be held for ransom?

Thinking of it all terrified and infuriated him.

Right now everyone was fighting for their lives, possibly dying, and what was he doing? He couldn’t hide forever. He wasn’t at all certain what he could do, but nothing wasn’t an option. Even now, right above him, the enemy was trying to break into the castle, and not even Hinky seemed to think the defenses would hold up for long.

“Hinky, listen to me,” he said, and of course the house elf immediately obeyed. “I need you to be very quiet. I’m going to take down the Silencing Charm. When I do that, I want you to watch after him.” He pointed to the unconscious Sentinel. “No matter what happens, I need you to stay quiet and not interfere, understand?”

In the darkness, he could just make out the elf chewing her fingers again anxiously.

“Oh, sir, please don’t—”

“Sshh!”

He removed the Silencing Charm with a flick of his wand, forcing Hinky to silence her protestations. Her hands were now clamped over her mouth as if to keep herself from screaming. Harry felt sorry for her but not enough to stop what he intended to do. Above him the sound of several Germans talking at once immediately filtered down.

“This is taking too long!”

“I’m working on it. Your griping isn’t helping my concentrating.”

“What’s the problem? You were taught the spell!”

“Well, the old codger was wrong about it! There’s another spell here. I’ve got to get through it before I can get to other! So shut up!”

Amelon had locked the door with magic when he left, Harry remembered. It was ironic that it should prove helpful in such a completely unrelated situation. Carefully, he sat up and twisted himself so that he could look up through a crack in the floor board. A Lumos Charm had been cast, and from his limited viewpoint Harry could see three people crowded together directly over where the Sentinel lay unconscious. There had been a fourth voice, but he could not see where that person might be standing.

Carefully, he lied down on the stone floor, and gripping his wand with both hands, he aimed it through the crack. The scars on his palm began to grow hot.

“CONFRINGO!”

Magic surged through his scar and into his wand, adding more magical force than he had thought he could manage and more than he had wanted. The force of the Blasting Curse tore up the floor above him completely, smashed into the unsuspecting Germans, and through the wall of the castle. Harry found himself chocking on a rain of sawdust and splinters, and hurled himself upright. The Astronomy Tower was unrecognizable. Half the roof had collapsed inward, burying the furniture and telescopes in rubble and revealing an open sky with an army of witches and wizards flitting by on broomsticks. The giant astrolabe seemed to be the only thing that had kept the rest of the roof from coming down as well, and even that was now starting to tilt from the force of Harry’s spell. The spell had also had the unintended consequence of shattering both Amelon’s spell and the castle’s defensive spell, tearing open a hole in the wall large enough to fit a small dragon through. The upside was that none of the Germans seemed to be alive to take advantage of it, and the wall itself was starting to close up on itself.

“Shit, shit, shit … Hinky! Get him inside!” Harry yelled, struggling to climb out of the hole. The tower shook, throwing him off balance and back into the crawl space. A flash of bright green light flared above him, and he felt the sharp burn of dark magic brush against his skin.

The Killing Curse.

The fourth voice.

The tower shuddered again and lurched sideways. It was coming down, and it was coming down now.

He threw himself to his feet, throwing out a Cutting Hex as he did. Again his scar flared hot and the magic surged stronger than he had intended. The Cutting Hex gave no light like some spells, but Harry could still see when the curse, which was useful for its wide arching sweep when aiming was difficult, struck the wizard by the sparks that flew as the curse tore through the astrolabe he had taken cover behind and through his body. For the briefest moment, Harry could see the stunned expression of the wizard as his head flew from his body.

Horror flitted through Harry and then left just as quickly. His mind and his body refused to stop and think of what he had just done. Survival was what mattered now.

“POTTER, SIR!” came Hinky’s terrified cry as the tower started to tilt still further. He turned towards the opening and could see her standing just inside the opening with her hand held out to him, the Sentinel unconscious at her feet, and the wall closing quickly around them. He threw himself out of the hole and stumbled towards the opening, but the roof was starting to come down as the tower tilted and the astrolabe began to roll away.

He would never make it.

He turned again and rushed for the only escape available for him.

The sky and open air greeted him with a blast of icy wind and the terrifying thrill of falling. Behind him the tower was falling too, falling towards him, coming down on top of him. He thought of feathers and talons and his magical core, the world slowing down around him, but still moving too fast. He couldn’t spare the concentration to fear whether he would be fast enough.

His magic was boiling beneath his skin, in his scarred hands, and the air around him. He reached and pulled and prayed and—

A hand seized his arm, jerking him around and onto the back of a broom. His concentration was shattered, and for a second time that night the animagus spell dissolved into nothing.

“I’ve got you!” the witch that had caught him crowed in German. “Hold on tight! I don’t think I can manage that a second time.”

Harry could only sit there, stunned. Had he just been saved? By a German? The broom swerved sharply to the left, startling him into grabbing hold of her so he didn’t fall off. A ball of fire fell behind them, and he watched as it hit the ground and exploded, taking out several ground troops in the process. He looked upwards to see where it had come from.

The sky above was not the sky he had seen before. The moon was gone, and in its place was thick, roiling blanket of clouds rolling downwards. As he watched he could see flashes of spells and fire burst through the cloud cover and fall to the earth, where the magic exploded in fire or glass or some other nasty surprise.

“Bastards,” the witch he held snarled. “Hiding like cowards! Mind casting a few curses up there while I steer? It’s hard to dodge and cast spells at the same time.”

Harry wondered if the woman was utterly starkers. Then he realized she thought he was one of her comrades. A quick look around revealed why. Everyone was dressed in black robes. So was he, the lighting was bad, and she hadn’t had time to look at him closely before catching him in mid-air.

Well, that was … lucky?

“Are you awake back there? Now is not the time to space off, buddy.”

Before he could think of a reply, she turned to see what was the matter. This time she was close and even in the flickering light, the trademark green glow in his eyes was unmistakable. She stiffened and then swung around to point her wand. He caught her arm and threw his weight to the side. Momentum and weight did the rest of the work, throwing them both from the broom. Screaming, she fell away, and Harry let her go, throwing up his hand to the sky.

“Come!”

He had not flown a broom in nearly two years and had not uttered that spell in even longer, but the broom came to him with a familiar slap to his palm and found its way beneath him as if it had always been there. His descent immediately stopped and instead he shot upwards, instinctively seeking out the higher vantage point just as he had in his Quidditch Seeker days. His eyes scanned the skies, now for curses rather than snitches, but the only danger came from the falling curses above which he avoided nimbly with only half a thought. It seemed, even now, no one had recognized him.

Now what?

Above him someone was doing what they could to fight against so many. Should he go up there and see if he could help? He decided against it almost immediately. If the Germans couldn’t tell the difference between him and they, then the chances were whoever was up there wouldn’t be able to either. Should he sneak back into the castle? There was a secret entrance into Slytherin’s lair in the Forbidden Forest he could sneak back in through. But that would mean stumbling around at night in the Forbidden Forest to look for the entrance, which he wasn’t entirely certain he could find nor did he know if it would have sealed itself off like the rest of the castle had.

The towers, he realized. The invaders had nearly gotten through the Astronomy Tower’s seal and only Amelon’s additional spell had probably stopped them. They had said they knew the spell to get inside. That meant the towers were vulnerable, and at least some of them had been breached already. He could find a tower, get inside through there, and then seal it off again behind him. After that, he could tell Voldemort or Snape what he had seen and then work with everyone to drive out the invaders for good.

It sounded like a ridiculous plan even to him, but it was the only plan he had.

He pulled up his hood and began to circle the castle, hoping no one would recognize him if he kept moving. The hood wasn’t going to do him much good against curses or the cold, but it might help him get close enough to follow through with his plan. Already he could see the Astronomy Tower was not the only one to have collapsed. The Arithmancy Tower and the Owlery (thank Merlin Elsbeth had remained at the werewolf colony) had also been destroyed, as if the castle itself were excising its vulnerable places away from itself. Gryffindor Tower still stood, and Harry could see spellwork not only being aimed at it but also spells being cast out from it. That meant it was still being held by the students. He looked for the old Divination Tower, long abandoned, and the West Tower where the Beauxbaton students had lived during the Triwizard tournament, but neither seemed to have been breached yet.

It wasn’t until he circled around to the southeast end of the castle that he spotted the entry point. Unlike Gryffindor Tower with its spire roof, Ravenclaw Tower was designed as a watchtower with a large flat platform roof and only a hatch to lock out the intruders. As Harry watched, half a dozen Germans were casting spells on the hatch, while three times that number hovered around them in a defensive circle, and still more were trading curses through the narrow wandslits[1] in the tower wall with the students trapped inside. Despite the defensive position, the students couldn’t aim at the main threat trying to smash in the roof above them, and the gargoyles that had previously guarded the tower had been obliterated already.

Harry began to circle the tower, careful not to appear too obvious or lose track of the curses still falling down from the cloud cover above. No one paid him any mind, but his heart was pounding in his chest. Hundreds, maybe thousands of witches and wizards willing and wanting to kill him were flying around him, oblivious. He might have laughed at the absurdity of it, but at the moment he was too sickened by what was happening.

Minutes stretched, and the battle continued on with a great deal of noise and movement, but not much change. The castle’s natural and magical fortifications held most of the invaders at bay, while a few brave souls from within cast out curses from wandslits and broken windows, only to have a dozen counterattacks flung back. Curses continued to fall from the sky above, but there was no way to aim through the cloud cover, and the spells did little more than cause a little confusion below and take out the odd flying witch or wizard. The invaders congregated at the perceived weak points, as many as could fit in each nook and cranny and batted at the castle defenses, while those who could not find a particular target flew or ran back and forth to defend those who did.

Harry knew that he would be horrified later by the damage they were inflicting. Parts of the castle had already fallen into piles of rubble, and the Germans seemed intent on tearing it down to the very foundations. But grief was for off the battlefield. For now, he would need to rely on his anger and fear, and yes, his exhilaration.

The hatch into Ravenclaw Tower finally gave way, exploding upward and outward so that the spell casters were tossed partially aside. Harry didn’t hesitate. Throwing himself forward, he aimed his broom for the now gaping hole in the tower. He drew his wand from his sleeve, mentally preparing himself for the maneuver that would spin him around to cast the Web Hex[2] at the open hatch and keep him from breaking his neck in the process. Curses cast from the castle defenders flew past him like a blast of heat in the icy air, tingling against his senses but never connecting as he flashed passed the invaders who seemed to be floating still around him.

Faster and faster, though there was little distance to go. He had to be the first through to close the entryway behind him.

From inside the dark opening in the hatch there appeared a red glow, and the scar in Harry’s hand suddenly burned hot. Instinctively, he tried to pull up at the last moment but only managed to turn his body so the fire struck his side rather than his face. His broom and wand were torn from his grip by the blast and his body would have been thrown from the tower completely, if he hadn’t hit the crenellations around its rim first. For a moment, Harry was too stunned to move. Shock quickly gave way to panic.

He let out a shout of pain and started to roll on the ground, struggling with his cloak until the burning material was finally torn off. Harry’s face and hands stung, but didn’t think he had been burned too badly. He crawled towards the edge of the tower and propped himself against the crenellations to catch his breath and gather his senses. Looking towards the hatch door, he could see flames still billowing out of it, and there was a sort of roaring noise to be heard through the ringing of his ears.

It seemed he had survived his second bungled plan for the night, and the Ravenclaws hadn’t needed his help to protect their tower after all. He would have been proud of them if it weren’t for the unfair resentment of being set on fire.

For a minute or two after the blast, which had stunned more than just Harry when it had gone off, no one paid the boy huddled atop the tower any mind. They were much too busy checking their people for injuries and trying to quell the magical fire to pay him much mind. But eventually, someone did notice him.

“Hey!”

Harry turned reflexively. Three wizards standing at the edge of the tower stared back at him, their eyes widening in disbelief. Harry was suddenly reminded that he had just thrown off his cloak, and if his school robes weren’t hard enough to miss, his face was damn near impossible.

Luckily, he was quicker to get over his surprise than they were.

“Accio wand!” he summoned even as he leaped to his feet. His body screamed in protest and his head swam, but he kept moving forward. The wizards who had spotted him lifted their wands hastily, but they were still recovering from surprise, and when they didn’t let out a spell fast enough Harry rammed bodily straight through the middle of them, knocking all four of them over the edge of the tower. Harry’s free hand was already wrapped around a broom as they went over, and he was flying away before anyone could think to stop him. There were shouts of protest over the terrified screams of the falling wizards, and Harry knew his ruse was over.

His makeshift disguise was lost. His attempt to enter the castle had failed. He had already been recognized and as soon as everyone else realized what was going on, it would be hopeless.

The only option left to him was escape, and it would be a miracle if he managed that.

He tried to rise higher, hoping to make a break for the cloud cover above, but he was already being pursued, and although he was a faster, better flier, he wasn’t good enough to outfly half a dozen hexes at once. He had to fly lower to seek protection amongst the enemy, dodging around them to keep his pursuers from getting a clear shot. Witches and wizards swerved and dived around him, hexes shooting in every direction, not all of them aimed at him even if felt as if they were. His heart was pounding in his ears, and he was half deaf to the noise of the battlefield.

A wizard appeared just ahead of him, his wand thrown up as soon as Harry was in his line of sight, forcing him to turn sharply back towards the castle. Mentally, he swore. They had begun circling around to cut him off and there was no telling which wizards were targeting him and which were still oblivious. He was tempted to start throwing curses at everyone, seriously tempted, but there were too many, and it would only have made his situation worse.

He dove lower, turned sharper, flew faster, and tried to find an opening to break away. No matter what he did, he couldn’t veer away to escape. Whenever he tried, the crowd thinned and the curses came raining down from every direction. He had to do something and quick. He had almost circled the castle, and the lake was coming up. There was no one on the water and barely anyone flying above it. He’d be an easy target.

He needed a distraction.

His eyes danced around the field looking for incoming curses and inspiration. They inevitably found their way to the castle entrance where hundreds of the enemy had amassed in their attempt to break through. He made a sharp turn and headed straight for it.

There were nearly a dozen wizards after him now, coming from every direction, trying to box him in, but he still had the instincts of a Quidditch Seeker, and twisted away or feinted or dodged everything they threw at him. There were too many close calls. Two curses thrown at him from either side forced him to duck dangerously low, his feet skimming the ground and bowling over an unsuspecting witch. An attack from directly to his left made him throw up a counter-curse and threw him off balance so that he nearly ran into the Whomping Willow.

But he reached the castle and turned to follow closely along the wall over the moat. He was exposed there, but there was no good place to aim at him except from directly to his right where he threw up the strongest blocking charms he knew. He raced towards the drawbridge, his wand up and ready. Curses and hexes pounded against his shields, wind bit against his exposed hands, but the scars on his hand burned hotter the closer death crept towards him.

He rounded the bend of the castle, and the drawbridge was in his line of sight, witches and wizards crowded tightly onto it. If he could have, he would have used the Old Magic. Something magnificent and terrible and awe-inspiring. The Old Magic was good for that. If you weren’t in its path of destruction, and therefore dead, it would demand the attention of anyone there to witness it. It would have been a marvelous distraction as well as an attack.

But he didn’t have the time nor the concentration to spare for it. He had to settle for an amplified Burning Hex instead.

And that was why he failed.

No sooner then he had released the hex, the witches and wizards on the bridge threw up a wall of shields. None of them would have been able to block Harry’s spell on their own, but there were dozens, and as his curse struck the wall of magic it rebounded back towards him. Another wall of firewas speeding towards him.

His momentum was too great to stop or avoid the fire barreling towards him, so he threw himself off his broom and fell. When he landed, he thought for an instant he had hit the ground and been smashed to pieces, the violence of the impact was so jarring, but then it was the cold, wet rush of water that stunned him. His eyes were wide open as he stared above him at the fire burning above him through the distorted haze of lake water. He continued to stare as hesaml quickly to the bottom until his back and head touched the muddy bottom below.

He nearly gasped in lake water when he realized he might drown … again. He floundered for a moment to pull himself upright and struggle back towards the surface. He stuck his wand, amazingly still clutched in a death grip in his hand, in his mouth and swam as hard as he could for the surface. He could not swim directly upwards. Fire still burned at the surface of the water, and he was forced to swim much further to the nearest dark space he could see.

The water was freezing, a reminder of other, unpleasant memories and fears. The exhilaration of battle was washed away instantly, and in its absence the cold rushed in, stealing his strength and his senses. But he was still alive, so he struggled on, struggled to keep the darkness creeping in, from taking him completely, struggled to move leaden limbs, and struggled to keep from gasping lake water to drench the burning in his lungs.

He broke the surface, gasping air hot with fire and magic and swallowed a scream.

Above him it was dark, but loud and echoing with voices and the thud of feet against wood. He was directly beneath the drawbridge. The moat was fortunately shallow, and the gentle flow had pushed him to the only safe place for him to come up for air. The bridge was low and wide, meaning he was shielded from view from both those on the bridge and those on the shore. One side of the bridge was still burning hotly from Harry’s spell, which meant no one was going to try looking in on his hiding space on that side, at least.

His senses dulled by cold and panic, it took him a ridiculously long time to figure this out. He still wasn’t safe. He needed out of the water. It was killing him. Weakening him, pulling him back down to smother him. But he couldn’t get out.

One side of the bridge was burning; the other left him exposed to the Germans. He had no broom. He couldn’t apparate this close to the castle. If he tried to blow up the bridge above him as he had in the Astronomy Tower, he would be trapped under the debris and drowned. If he did nothing and just hid, he would either freeze, drown, or be found and killed.

It looked like it was going to be one of those nights.

“They have inside help,” Amelon noted, his eyes flitting over the map, trying to take it all in. The number of the enemy was only half the problem. “They’ve found all the weakest points.”

“I know,” Snape said without inflection. He was still bleeding and hadn’t been able to keep steady on his feet, but if he was concussed the Inquisitor couldn’t tell. The Headmaster was currently seated at his desk, staring up at the gallery of paintings all around him. Most of the frames were empty, but occasionally a headmaster, red and puffing, would appear and tell him something about the progress of the battle and the condition of the students and staff. Amelon relayed what he could from the map. It was difficult. The castle was large, the occupants were numerous, and he was unfamiliar with both. Still, he could see things were going badly.

Snape took at deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Would you locate my wife, Inquisitor Amelon? She will be a violet dot like the staff. She should have been in the dungeons before the attack.”

“Headmaster, this really isn’t—”

“Inquisitor Amelon,” Snape interrupted, turning his black eyes towards the other. Amelon could see murder in his eyes, and he suddenly remembered he had stood there while the Dark Lord had threatened to mutilate the other’s wife. “There are six wizards currently headed in our direction with every intention of breaking down the door and killing me. I likely will not have the opportunity to ask again. You likely will not have the opportunity to look.”

“… I don’t know whether you’re being a pessimist or a romantic.”

Snape didn’t reply, but Amelon was already looking. Fortunately, there were only a few violet dots to sort through.

“She appears to be going towards the infirmary. There are students with her.”

“Collecting the wounded,” Snape murmured to himself, then frowned. “Where is the Dark Lord?”

“He’s only on the second floor.”

Given the time that had passed since he left, he could easily have made his way to the main entrance and back again, but he was only halfway there. Amelon couldn’t account for it, but Snape didn’t seem concerned.

“What about—”

There was a sudden ‘whoosh’ sound, followed by a rapid drop in pressure that threatened to rupture their eardrums, and immediately followed by the office trembling. Dust rained down from the ceiling, and frames fell from the wall, smashing to splinters. Snape closed his eyes again and leaned back in his chair.

“They’re here. Flip the map and hide if you can.”

Amelon did as he was ordered and hid himself inside of an alcove off to the side of the desk, casting a spell to make the wall on either side of him appear smooth and continuous. It wouldn’t stand up to a serious search, but if he were lucky they would never even think to look for him. Snape remained seated behind his desk, turned away from the portraits now in favor of the door across the room. Amelon watched transfixed as the Headmaster lifted his wand and slowly started to tap it against his desk, slow and even, like the ticking of a clock. Blood ran down the length of his face, dripping of the tip of his long nose and sharp chin, his expression frozen in a cold anger. He closed his eyes.

There was another ‘whoosh’, pressure drop, and shudder. Fifteen seconds later, it happened again only this time something gave. The magic broke and door burst inward, sending shards of stone and wood flying across the room. Dust and splinters rained down on the seated wizard, catching in his sticky blood and sweat.

“Surrender now or ve’ll kill you,” someone shouted in accented English from the other side of the gaping doorway.

Snape continued to tap his wand and said nothing. There was a drawn out silence where no one spoke on either side of the door, and only the shuffle of robes and the tapping wand could be heard. Finally, however, a figure appeared at the doorway, moving through the haze of dust into the room. Snape opened his eyes and stopped tapping.

Black eyes stared at the intruder, slightly older with dark hair and an aquiline noise more generous in proportion than his own. Blue eyes stared back. Their wands remained trained on each other.

“Do you surrender?” the wizard asked in a thick Italian accent, challenging him to decline. Snape was a Slytherin, however, and uninterested in games of bravado.

“And just who would I be surrendering to?”

The captain hesitated, caught off guard by the seemingly quick capitulation.

“Captain Mandalari—”

“And do you actually have the authority negotiate the terms of surrender?” the Headmaster asked skeptically.

“I do.”

“Then what are your terms?”

“You will surrender your wand—”

“For the school, you nitwit.”

Mandalari scowled and his hand tightened around his wand, but he answered.

“You will order the students and staff to surrender, relinquish their wands, and gather peaceably in the dining hall. You will deactivate the castle defenses. Do this and you’ll save lives.”

“Whose lives? The student’s lives? Or your lives?”

“You can’t win this, but there is no reason more people need to die than necessary.”

Snape let out a snort.

“You’re dead, Mandalari. All of your people are dead, just like the last time you tried to take this school.”

“… Obstringo!”

“Nigerimortus vitis!”

The Captain’s binding spell hit dead center, trapping Snape rigidly to his chair and causing his wand to fall from his hand. He wasn’t, however, fast enough to stop the Headmaster’s spell. Rather than strike the captain though, the magic hit the desk, and from the center rose a black shadowy stain that radiated outwards. Within seconds the shadows had condensed into black tendrils that continued to creep their way off the desk and around the room. The tendrils slithered down to the ground, crept across the floor, up the furniture and walls, over the portraits and wall hangings, and beneath the rugs. The Captain stumbled away from the encroaching vines until he was backed all the way to the door.

“Enfeugo!” he snarled and waved his wand. The tendrils burned and writhed, turning to ash readily, but only on a small patch, and within moments more tendrils had grown to cover the empty patch again. Worse, the new growth immediately sprouted two inch long thorns that glowed faintly violet at the tips.

“Careful,” Snape warned, frozen to his chair but looking unaffected by his defenselessness. “The thorns are filled with poison.”

From outside the door there came a string of German, fast and angry, followed by another voice, and then there quickly drew an argument that reminded Snape like nothing so much as a flock of angry geese bickering at each other. Mandalari’s expression darkened, and he snarled something that had all of them falling silent.

Snape smiled coldly.

“They sound rather high strung. Are they worried the Dark Lord will come back? It’s a pity, you just missed him.”

Mandalari froze, while beyond the wall several Germans broke out into excited conversation. It seemed at least one of them knew what he had said.

“Do you understand now?” Snape continued as if speaking to particularly dim students. “He’s here in the castle. That’s why you’re all dead.”

“You’re lying,” Mandalari said.

“Would I be this calm if I were?”

“… Why are you bleeding?”

Snape just continued to smile, the answer a secret he would gladly torment him with until his dying breath. Mandalari lifted his wand threateningly.

“Where is he?”

“Where he can kill as many of you as possible, of course.”

The Captain turned on his heel and retreated the rest of the way out of the office and into the hall, where four German witches and wizards waited anxiously for him.

“I’m going to find him,” he stated plainly in German.

“What about the rest of us?” a witch protested.

“The four of you will stay here and do what you can to deactivate the wards. I’m sure you’ll manage to figure out something.”

“You can’t take the Dark Lord on your own!”

“I’m never alone …” he said, his free hand finding the crucifix and squeezing it gently. The witched wasn’t impressed, but didn’t bother arguing. There was no point arguing with fanatics.

“What about the Headmaster?” she asked instead.

“If you can’t make him cooperate … kill him.”

Harry could feel himself dying. The cold and weakness seeping into him was too familiar for him not to recognize it. He might have already drowned if not for the slight embankment of stones and debris against the castle wall, which had gave him something to stand on rather than swim. He was shivering so badly he had to holster his wand back up his sleeve or risk dropping it. A mere half foot above him, the bridge rumbled with footsteps and voices over the ringing in his ears.

If his own situation was bad, the castle’s wasn’t much better. He could feel the walls trembling just as his hands did, and it made his heart ache to think that they might fall together that day. On the bridge, the Germans cast spell after spell in unison, while those on brooms standing guard over them cheered and shouted encouragement.

Harry hated them.

Harry hated that he could do nothing about it.

Exhausted, freezing, and surrounded by the enemy, he could think of nothing to get out of his situation. His palm burned, ready to cast a spell, but he could think of nothing to cast. If he blew up the bridge above him it would collapse on top of him. If he tried to move from his hiding spot, he would become the target of hundreds of curses at once. His animagus form would drown if he attempted it here. Even warming charms were useless while submerged in water.

Merlin, he was tired.

He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the stones of the castle.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. I’m sorry …”

Beneath his hands the castle suddenly felt warm.

Oh … oh! The castle was alive. The castle had always been alive. He knew this. He had known this for years, had sensed it from the day he first saw it. It had been alive, but he had never felt it stirringlike this before. He could feel its magic beating like heart, filled with so many emotions. Like a restless spirit.

Or god.

“Please,” he prayed. “Help me protect you. Tell me how.”

The stones beneath his hand began to tingle with magic, but he received no answer. Perhaps there was no answer to give. Perhaps it didn’t know. A violent shiver ran through him, and he felt his vision darkening. He tried again.

“Madris, please help me protect my home,” he prayed, calling upon the older, wiser goddess. “I will make this castle your temple if you will only help me save it.”

Water surged up from beneath, submerging him and pushing him upwards so that he knocked his head on the bridge above him. The water receded again, leaving Harry sputtering and floundering, and with a nasty bruise forming on the back of his head. On the right side of the bridge, the water was rising up from the mysterious surge, and above him he could hear shouts of panic. Even as he floundered frantically trying to keep his head above water, he suddenly knew what he had to do.

Harry’s element was water, especially cold water. He knew one day it would probably lead to his death, but that had done nothing to diminish its affinity to him. Indeed, it had probably only strengthened it. It would serve him now.

Taking a deep, calming breath, Harry let himself sink below the icy waters. The water was no warmer than it had been before, and the burning of his scarred hand was the only heat to be found. He accepted it. Accepted the cold and the darkness and the crushing pressure. Accepted it and let it embrace him and let his magic reach out to embrace it in return. A current began to flow, circling him like the center of a whirlpool. Slowly at first, then faster and faster.

Harry reached deeply inside himself for his own magic, the scars’ magic, Madris’ magic, any source of magic he could draw upon. Even the castle’s magic seemed to be flowing into him and then out of him into the frigid waters, making them boil and churn.

There were spells that controlled water, both ancient and modern, but he didn’t know them. He didn’t even know the names of the gods he might call upon for the answer, and wouldn’t have dared try to summon yet another when his first prayer had just been answered. So in his usual, reckless fashion, he made a gamble that could save or destroy everything he was trying to achieve.

“Magic, do thy will.”

The whirlpool collapsed, the water surged sideways, and Harry was swept away. Immediately, he lost all sense of direction as he went tumbling into the violent current. The water was boiling with magic around him, but still so cold and now threatening to smash into something and shatter him to pieces.

If he didn’t drown first.

He could do nothing more except curl up, cover his head, pray, and try not gasp in a lungful of moat water in a panic. His head ached, everythingached, his lungs burned, his stomach churned, and there seemed to be no end to it. ‘Live or die,’ he thought wildly, but the thought would go no further. ‘Live or die’. His choice or the gods?

Then it stopped as abruptly as it had started, the waters throwing him roughly to smooth stone and then withdrawing like ocean waves receding from the shore. The force of it made him gasp and choke on the mixture of air and water. He struggled to breathe in the air and cough out the water simultaneously, until he started to retch. When at last his struggles to breathe had been won, he rolled over onto his back and opened his eyes.

Above him he could make out a very blurry stone ceiling and large timber beams lit by torchlight.

He was in the castle.

How?

He tried to move, to get up and look around, but all he managed to do was uncurl himself so that he lay prone on his back. His wet clothes felt like lead weighing him down. It was a struggle just to keep his eyes open, and there wasn’t much to see. He had lost his glasses in the water. Despite all this, he felt rather pleasantly numb or partially drunk, and even the cold seemed somehow more bearable while lying inside Hogwarts.

He wanted to sleep. He had done enough, hadn’t he? Everything he could, for better or ill. He didn’t think he had anything else left to give.

Something grabbed his ankle and spun him around, then dragged him swiftly across the floor. Water Harry hadn’t even realized he was lying in sloshed around him as he went. He turned his head just enough to see a dazed and wet German wizard attempting to climb to his feet as he passed by. At least, he thought it was a German. It might have been a Sentinel, it was hard to tell with them all wearing black. With a sense of detachment, he continued to watch from the corner of his eye as the same wizard was hit by a Cutting Hex and collapsed yet again. He hoped that was a German. He turned his attention to the foot he was being dragged by, but there was nothing to see. It dangled in midair by some sort of magic.

“Merlin, Potter, where the hell did you come from?” Angelina’s voice demanded in exasperation.

His foot was dropped, and suddenly there were hands pulling him upright and faces hovering close enough that even with his miserable eyesight he was able to recognize some of them.

“H-hey,” he greeted through chattering teeth. “D-did I m-miss any-anything?”

“We should be asking you that. How the hell did you get outside?” a boy asked.

With a bit of squinting and concentration, Harry managed to recognize Gerald St James, Ginny’s jealous ex-boyfriend.

“There will be time for that later,” Angelina interrupted, drawing back his attention. Now that he was concentrating, he could see she looked terribly pale and there was a dark smear of blood across her cheek and forehead. Her mouth formed into a hard line as she looked him up and down.

She muttered a spell and Harry was suddenly dry. Another spell and his clothes few warm, almost unbearable so, as if they had been left near a fire before he put them on. It felt wonderful, but it made him want to curl up on the floor and sleep more than ever.

“Angelina, slap me,” he requested sleepily.

She blinked, and did as he said. The sting helped wake him a little.

“I’m here if you want another one,” Gerald offered.

Harry forced himself to support his own weight and look around. Two other classmates had been holding him up, but retreated as soon as he proved he could stand on his own. He swayed slightly, but managed to keep his feet. He looked around to get an idea of what had happened.

They were in a large hallway just off the main entrance hall, which was currently flooded with several inches of water and littered with sopping wet witches and wizards, some struggling to orient themselves and others dead or unconscious on the floor. Students, many of them soaking wet themselves, partially hid themselves in adjoining corridors and took shots from behind pillars and statues at the Germans left vulnerable in the open space of the hall. Gargoyles and statues waded through the water, crushing and bashing the invaders with their paws and hooves, killing them remorselessly. Somewhere, someone was laughing hysterically.

A few feet away, he recognized the unmistakable stature of Professor Flitwick and another witch in a large brim hat that had to be McGonagall. There were other forms in dark uniforms around them that were probably Sentinels. Although it was difficult to tell, it seemed that Flitwick and McGonagall were casting some sort of spell that was draining the water out of the hall and using it to create an enormous ice dam in front of the gaping entrance, while the Sentinels protected them from enemy attack. As far as Harry could tell, his wild magic had caused the moat to leap its confines and flow straight into the castle, knocking down the remaining defenses and sweeping Harry and a number of hapless Germans inside in the process.

He was horrified to realize what he had done, accomplishing the very thing the Germans had been striving for. Fortunately, the teachers and students had been faster to recover from Harry’s flood than the Germans and were already sealing up the opening once again. He took a step towards the professors, but was immediately overcome with dizziness. Angelina caught him, and to his surprise so did Gerald. He supposed their disagreements were too petty to bother with under the circumstances. The two put his arms around their necks and half carried him towards the professors. It was slow and awkward, and by the time they managed to cross the mere twenty feet, the professors had moved on from building the ice dam to fortifying with various charms and curses. Harry recognized only a few of them.

“I suppose we have you to thank for this?” McGonagall said by way of greeting. To his surprise, there was little accusation and more a grim sort of approval.

“Yes. I’m sorry,” he said sincerely.

“Don’t be. You’ve bought us some time despite yourself. I’m afraid it won’t do us much good unless reinforcements arrive soon.”

“Any sign of Lord Voldemort?” he asked. It was possible she didn’t even know the Dark Lord was in the castle. Sentinel Seitler, however, answered for her.

“The portraits say he’s coming in from the Headmaster’s office, but he’s taking his sweet time. It’ll be over by the time he gets here.”

Harry tried to think what could be taking the dark wizard so long. Could he have run into trouble on the way? Was he even heading this way? He might have some other scheme to oust the invaders that had nothing to do with holding the front entrance.

“We’ve held on well so far, but we can’t hold out for much longer,” Flitwick agreed solemnly. “There’s just too many of them, and they know what they’re doing. We’re trapped here. There’s no … Wait! Harry?!”

The dwarfish professor abandoned his charms in order to turn to Harry, seizing him by his robes and practically pulling him down to his level on his knees.

“Y-yes?”

“How did you get out of the castle that day Lestrange locked it down?”

“Um … I …” He felt a natural reluctance to discuss the Chamber of Secrets, which as its name implied seemed best left just that. A secret. However, when Harry realized what Flitwick was getting at, his eyes widened and he felt some of his former energy returning. “There is a way out through the dungeons. There is a tunnel that leads into the Forbidden Forest.”

Flitwick and McGonagall shared a look, briefly, before the Transfiguration professor went back to casting spells on the ice dam.

“Do you think you could lead the castle residents out?” Flitwick asked.

“I … yes. I think so.” Yet even as he said it, something felt wrong. The entrance to the chamber might be reluctant to allow so many people inside, and the basilisk inside might not be too pleased either. She had grown significantly between his visits, and after all the time that had passed since he last saw her, she might well be bigger than him now and considerably more lethal. But what else could he do? This might be their only chance to get everyone out safely. They had to give it a try.

“Everyone is scattered around the castle … and then there’s the injured,” Flitwick said, mostly to himself. “We can probably get most of them out, but not all. There isn’t enough time.”

“Patronus,” Angelina interrupted. “We can send out patronae to let everyone know to retreat to the dungeons. The portraits and the house elves can help guide them to the fastest, safest routes.”

“Good thinking,” Flitwick said, looking a little less grim. “We will try to hold them off for as long as we can. Ms. Johnson, gather the students you know who can cast a Patronus and have them carry the evacuation order. Mr. St. James, please inform the portraits and see if you can’t summon some elves to assist.

“Sentinel Seitler, if you would be so good as to escort Mr. Potter to the dungeons to await the others. It’s imperative that he get there safely to lead everyone out.”

Harry almost protested to insist that he could stay and help with the ice dam, but realized that would have been stupid. He was magically and physically spent, and if he were killed or captured there would be no one to open the secret passage, send the away the basilisk, or show them the tunnel that led into the forest. Solemnly, he nodded and accepted Seitler’s hold as Gerald and Angelina left to fulfill their own roles. Even as he did so a feeling of wrongness niggled at him.

Harry was too weak to do much more than hobble along with the Sentinel’s support. If Seitler thought his role was less than he was qualified for, he was professional enough not to voice his opinion. They made their way towards the dungeons in silence, and despite their circumstances Harry found himself dozing off.

He was startled into wakefulness again when Seitler suddenly went slack and fell out from under his arm. The sudden shift in support and weight caused Harry to lose his balance and fall over on top of the wizard. He struggled to push himself up and off the man. Beneath him, Seitler didn’t so much as flinch when Harry’s elbows jabbed him in ribs or stomach. Before Harry could figure out what had happened, a hand appeared from behind him, seizing the collar of his shirt and pulling him up and away from his intended protector. Harry panicked and flailed, trying to pull free but only managed to tear his collar and pop a few buttons for his efforts. The hand released his collar only to grab his hair and yank painfully, forcing Harry to arch backwards and fall to his knees. He stared up blearily at the figure hovering above him.

“I know you,” the man said in an Italian accent. “You’re the devil’s apprentice.”

Harry grimaced and clawed at the hand with his blunt fingernails. The man hissed as he drew blood, but he didn’t let go. Instead he shook his captive sharply, tearing loose tufts of hair as he did so.

“Where is your master?” the man demanded.

“Voldemort?” Harry scoffed defiantly. “Haven’t seen him.”

“Don’t lie to me. I will hurt you.”

“If I knew where he was, I would happily tell you, so you could go off to get yourself horribly killed. But I don’t so I can’t.”

He was pulled roughly to his feet, his wand hand seized and pulled harshly behind his back. Harry grunted in pain, which only worsened as he pulled the tendons of his shoulder trying to keep upright and moving as the Italian wizard pushed and pulled him along.

“We will find him together then.”

“Vere are de vards?” the witch snarled, leaning over the headmaster with obvious menace. Snape regarded her impassively from his fixed position in his chair.

“I’m sorry, but was that English? I can’t tell.”

She hissed in frustration and cast a Choking Hex. Snape stiffened but could do nothing else as he felt an invisible force squeezing his throat. He was only just starting to turn red from oxygen deprivation when another wizard who had been busy freezing the black vines, turned and cast the counter-spell. Snape made an effort not to gasp and merely took several deep breaths. The witch and wizard argued fiercely to each other in German for a moment, before the witch gave up and left the Headmaster to her colleague.

“Silly girl,” said the wizard, a young blond man with a large scar across his nose. “You should never use that spell during an interrogation. She might have crushed your vindpipe and den how vould ve get our answers?” he asked congenially.

Snape knew he was in real trouble now. The witch wasn’t particularly clever or inherently cruel, but this wizard was a different matter. He had worked with enough sadists during the last war to recognize one on sight. He had done well enough on stalling up to now. It took a ridiculous amount of time for the Germans to realize Freezing Charms worked better than Fire Charms on the enchanted vines, but even then disposing of the vines was still proving beyond them. With the vines in place there was no way to search the office properly. Drawers and cabinets were held shut, wall hangings were obscured, and furniture was fixed to the floor. The only real progress they had made was that while the Freezing Charms were in place they could walk through and the over the vines without being overwhelmed by them. Even then, it had taken two people at a time to keep the Freezing Charms going, while one wizard guarded the hallway, and the last was left alone to interrogate their prisoner. All Snape had to do was sit there and say nothing. It wasn’t as if he had much choice in the matter.

“I prefer de eyes myself,” the wizard continued. “Nothing induces a panic like de feeling of vuns eyeball bursting in its socket. People vill do or say almost anything to de save de other.”

A thumb came up to press against his eyelid and pushedlightly. Snape reminded himself that eyes were easily replaceable and fell back on his training as an occlumens. He might not be in control of what happened to his body, but he could still control his mind enough not to panic. He would not break so easily.

The thumb pulled away. Snape opened his eye to see the wizard staring back at him with admiration.

“Not doing it for you, is it? Vell, dere’s always my second favorite. De hands.”

Hands were not nearly as easy to replace as eyes. It was why Voldemort had chosen them as the object of torment during his visit. Snape continued to keep his expression blank, but when the tip of a wand pressed into the top of his hand, the limb twitched against his consent. The interrogator smiled triumphantly.

“Yes, de hands den. Now, where—”

“Aahh!”

The scarred wizard spun around, expecting an attack but saw no one else. He demanded to know what had happened in German, and the witch replied rather frantically. Snape spoke French, not German, but he could follow the conversation enough to realize that the other wizard in the room had carelessly scratched himself on one of the poisoned thorns. The injured wizard couldn’t explain this himself, because he was already on the ground, eyes rolling in the back of his head and his veins bulging in the same toxic hue of the violet poison. Seeing an opportunity, Snape spoke up.

“The antidote is in the cupboard in the black potions bag. He’ll be dead in two minutes without it.”

His interrogator looked startled, then suspicious.

“Vhat is de counter-spell for de vines? Dey’re blocking de cabinet.”

“Even if I told you, it wouldn’t work for you. The spell is tied to me. Only I can cast the counter-spell. If you’d like to give me my wand—no? Well, then the clock is ticking for your friend …”

The wizard’s expression twisted from its previous congeniality into a hateful sneer. He bit out a Punching Hex that left Snape’s jaw aching and his nose broken. Yet more blood gushed down his face, and he wondered if he wasn’t going to die of blood loss before he was forced to give anything up. It seemed too optimistic of a possibility to entertain.

For a minute or two, however, the two remaining Germans busied themselves with breaking into the cabinet. During this momentary distraction, Amelon finally decided to make himself useful, and cast the counter-spell on the Binding Charm, freeing the Headmaster. Snape threw himself to the ground behind his desk, and shoved his hands into the mass of writhing black vines. They yielded to him obediently, releasing his wand that had been dropped in the fight and hidden. Pointing his wand through the narrow opening beneath his desk, he didn’t waste time with anything clever.

“Avada Kedavra.”

The curse struck the nearest set of legs, killing the target instantly. The witch fell dead. The remaining wizard shouted out a spell, and Snape threw himself away from the desk just as it was crushed into kindling from above. Snape wasn’t quite fast enough. The curse caught his right leg before he could get away. For an instant he felt nothing, and then his vision went white with agony, and he cried out from the shock of it.

When he finally became coherent, a foot was on his wand wrist and the German wizard was staring down at him in absolute fury. Snape resigned himself to death, his mind settling on the only comforting thought thing he could think of. Voldemort would have no reason to harm Ira now, and Harry, reckless fool though he was, would make sure she was taken care of. He looked up at his death and glared back defiantly.

“Sectumsempra.”

Blood sprayed, soaking him. He flinched, expecting yet more pain, but it wasn’t his blood. His captor stumbled back, blood gushing from the open gash across his neck and chest. He hit the wall and would have fallen to the floor, but the black vines were already mover over him. They latched onto him and twined their way into ever available nook. The wizard let out a burbling scream as the vines found his open wound and slithered inside. Then he was dead.

Snape let his eyes close in relief. It was over. He had been rescued after all, albeit a little later than he would have preferred.

“Severus!”

“Draco?” he coughed.

A presence came to kneel beside him, and when he opened his eyes again it was his godson staring back at him, paler than ever.

“Draco, hand me my wand,” he said weakly. There was something he needed to do before he passed out from pain and blood loss. Draco did as he asked, although with some difficulty, as the vines were no more fond of him than they were the invaders. Eventually, however, he managed to free Snape’s wand and shove it into his hand.

“Defloresco!”

The vines writhed and withered, drying into fragile husks until they finally disintegrated into dust.

“Severus,” Draco said, his voice steady even as his hands shook. “I’m going to get you out of here. The school is evacuating through the dungeons.”

The dungeons are a very long ways away, Snape thought to himself.

“I’m sorry, Draco,” Snape said, his vision starting to go. “I’m so sorry.”

“Severus, don’t … you can apologize later … when I know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“He’s going into shock, Draco,” another voice came, female this time. It must be Natalie. She was the only witch outside of the family who was afforded the privilege of using his godson’s first name. “Move over, and I’ll see what I can—”

Whatever it was she intended to do, Snape faded into the darkness before he could find out.

Harry wasn’t sure how much more he could take. He was magically and physically depleted, ached everywhere, was still mildly hypothermic, and currently being held captive by the enemy. On top of that, Seitler was probably dead, and there was no one left to report his abduction or that evacuating to the dungeons would no longer work. He had never wanted a nap more in his life.

Oh, look, now there were stairs.

“No way,” he said tiredly.

His captor tightened his grip on his arm and tugged it harshly at his refusal. Harry grit his teeth and rode out the pain.

“I can barely stand!” he protested. “How am I supposed to get up there?”

Not to mention it was the moving staircase, which in addition to its steep steps that wouldn’t cooperate with their trying to move up while the castle’s defensive wards were activated. It might very well collapse under their feet if they tried, just as the castle towers had.

“Why don’t you ask your gods for strength?” the Italian asked contemptuously. Harry would very much have liked to have told him all the things his gods had done to help him slaughter his soldiers up to this point, but that was likely to earn him a dislocated shoulder or a spell right in the back.

“He wouldn’t be up there anyway,” Harry said instead. “He’s not hiding from you. He’ll take the main corridors and stairways.”

“And you think I would trust you?” the man snarled in his ear.

Harry took advantage of his proximity to stomp on his foot. His captor let out a yelp of pain and lost his grip on Harry’s hair but not his arm. Harry twisted around to face him and pull free, but the man still wouldn’t let go. Snarling, the younger wizard tried to leap on him and knock him to the ground. The Italian, however, was larger and in better condition, and he fended off the clumsy attacks with a fist to Harry’s gut. The Gryffindor collapsed and hung limp by one arm, gasping for breath and trying not hurl.

From up the stairs there came a shout of outrage, and Harry feared some young students had stumbled onto them. But it wasn’t students. It was house elves. A male and a female, as best Harry could tell. The female was trying fruitlessly to hold her companion back.

“What the devil are thosesupposed to be?” the Italian snarled and dropped Harry in favor of pulling out his wand. As soon as he was released, the male elf snapped his fingers. A knight’s helmet from one of the castle’s many suits of armor appeared from thin air and rammed itself down on the wizard’s head and spun around. The Italian wizard swung out both his arms blindly in surprise, and Harry rolled into his feet, causing him to trip and fall. Harry made a grab for the Italian’s wand, but clumsy and weak from the gut punch, he couldn’t get to it before the wizard started shouting out curses. Harry could barely recognize the words, muffled and distorted as they were by the helmet, but he scrambled away as quickly as he could.

Rough, brown elven hands pushed him to his feet and pulled him away towards the nook beneath the stairs. There was a secret passage under there, Harry remembered, but not where it led. Before he could be dragged away, he pulled his wand and tried one last curse.

“Torpeo!”

The Numbing Jinx was not a very harmful spell, but it required little magic and left the target relatively harmless until something more powerful could be tried. Even this little bit of magic was beyond Harry at that point, and it sputtered and died at the tip of his wand. Unfortunately, the Italian spun towards his voice with his wand. The house elves let out shrieks of alarm and half hurled Harry into the passage under the stairs.

Something hissed unpleasantly behind them where the curse hit the floor.

The passage was dark, but the elves summoned lanterns, illuminating a narrow, twisting passageway draped in cobwebs. Harry followed the elves, who seemed to have some notion of where they needed to go.

“Thank you,” he said. “You’re the second and third house elves to save my life tonight. I don’t know how I managed without you before this.”

As predicted, the little bit of flattery pleased the elves to the point of embarrassment and made them more eager to help than ever. Their names were Moxy and Maggy, and they had been gathering up students for the evacuation when they came upon Harry and his assailant.

“Lord Potter, sir, is supposed to be in the dungeons. The Professors will be most worried,” Maggy chided gently. “Maggy and Moxy will bring you safe and sound.”

She patted his hand comfortingly, which amused Harry.

“I have no doubt, but can we stop for just a moment? My legs feel like rubber.”

The elves looked nervous about stopping, but relented. He didn’t have long to rest. The sound of running echoed loudly down the passage, and Harry surged to his feet and stumbled as fast as his legs could carry him. There were no forks in the passageway and no nooks to hide in. He wasn’t fast enough to get away.

“Can we collapse the passage behind us?” he suggested.

Moxy spun on his heel and rushed back the way they had come. Harry could see he had been aptly named.

“Be careful, my friend!” Maggy called after him, her voice quivering. Harry made a small prayer for him. Surely if house elves had a patron goddess, it would be Madris, Goddess of the Hearth.

A moment later, there was an explosion, and the passage shook, raining down dust and dead spiders. Maggy whimpered nervously, but didn’t stop.

They hadn’t gotten far when there was another explosion.

“That wasn’t Moxy,” she fretted.

“I’m sure he’s fine. He’s a very brave, clever elf.”

“Maggy isn’t brave or clever. Maggy doesn’t know what to do.”

“Just keep running.”

Yet no matter how much they ran it seemed the passage just kept going on and on, twisting so many times Harry was half convinced they were going in circles. Breathing became difficult and Harry slowed even more, and no matter how much Maggy tried to pull or push he couldn’t go any faster.

“We’re almost there!” she cried, only to let out a terrified shriek as she looked back towards him. Harry didnt need to look back to know what she saw. With one last burst of strength, he stumbled into a jog, reaching the end of the passage and flinging himself through the tapestry and out into a corridor. His legs gave out, and he fell and couldn’t get back up again.

He was done for. Maggy cried and begged, but when that failed she hooked her hands under his arms and dragged him for all her worth. She made it a good twenty feet before their pursuer burst out from the tapestry after them, his expression murderous.

“Run, Maggy, get away from here,” Harry gasped, but she ignored him and continued to drag him despite the futility.

“It’s quite alright. I can take care of Harry from here.”

Maggy froze. The Italian wizard froze. Harry blinked and choked out a laugh. He could hear the familiar rhythm of boots striding over stone, leisurely but powerful. Maggy very slowly and cautiously laid him down, and from his new position he could watch upside-down as the Dark Lord headed towards them. He was covered from head to toe in a layer of blood. The Italian had called Voldemort the devil, and he certainly looked the part now.

Harry had never been so happy to see him.

“Harry, it’s good to see that for once in your life you’ve managed to notmisplace yourself.”

Harry just grinned and closed his eyes. Now seemed as good a time as any for a nap.

“And you … I know you, don’t I?”

“Exsanguinus!”

“Nulta neuro calmea!An Italian? Ah, I remember now. You’re Mandalari, the leader of those Catholic vermin we drowned in the lake. Still alive? I suppose your god isn’t entirely useless then. One out of two hundred was it? Not a bad score … for Him, at least.”

Mandalari screamed in rage and let out a stream of curses, each more vicious than the last. Maggy trembled next to Harry, and despite his desire to escape into a rejuvenating sleep, it was impossible with so many deadly spells flying over his head. Voldemort cast shield after shield, counter-curse after counter-curse, over and over again until Mandalari finally seemed to catch on that this wasn’t a fight he could win. The Italian made a rush for the secret passage. The Dark Lord finally grew bored of the game and made his move.

“Crucifixatus.”

Harry’s eyes flew open at the sound of screaming. He held his breath, but the screaming didn’t stop. He didn’t want to look. He didn’t want to know, but his imagination was already painting the images in his mind.

“Tell me, Mandalari,” he heard Voldemort say conversationally over the agonized screams. “Does this make you feel closer to God? To suffer as His Son suffered? I personally never understood the fascination, the reverence Christians put into His supposed sacrifice. After all, thousands suffered the same fate or worse before him, and thousands more after him. What made Him so much better than the rest of the demi-gods walking the Earth? Maybe, given your unique perspective, you’ll be able to tell me when I get back. House elf, bring his wand. Harry, this is no time for a nap.”

Harry made a distressed sound. He didn’t think he could move. And he wanted to. He really wanted to get away from the screaming.

“I’ve got nothing left.”

“Ennervate lasca!”

Harry’s body spasmed uncomfortably, waking him physically and mentally from the sensory shock. Shaking, he rolled over onto his hands and knees. He was very careful not to look in Mandalari’s direction. Voldemort looked down at him smugly beneath his sheen of blood like a mischievous red devil.

“Do you need another?”

Harry managed to get to his feet, swaying heavily like a new born foal taking its first steps. He still wanted nothing more than to sleep, but he no longer felt he would die if he didn’t get it immediately. The pain wasn’t exactly making him happy with his choice.

“Good. Now come along. We have an army to massacre.”

As they made their way to the main entrance, Voldemort made a point not to mention Harry leaning heavily against his shoulder or his shaking hands, and Harry made a point not to mention that he positively reeked or ask where the blood had all come from. They made their way there, occasionally passing students running or limping in the other direction, occasionally carrying or levitating the wounded behind them.

“Where are they all going?” the Dark Lord queried.

“The dungeons. I’m supposed to be leading them out through the Chamber of Secrets.”

Voldemort gave him a half confused, half exasperated look.

“You know it’s called the Chamber of Secrets for a reason.”

“Desperate times and all that.”

“You wouldn’t have been able to lead them out regardless. You do remember that magical contract you signed?”

So that was what had been bothering him before. He had completely forgotten.

“They’ll be trapped down there.”

“They’ll be safe down there until I retrieve them. There’s really no telling what’s going to happen once the spell is released. It is imperative that you don’t pass out.”

The last part sounded vaguely accusatory. Harry glared back at him in resentment. It was hardly his fault that he was tired.

When they reached the main entrance, only Professor Flitwick and McGonagall were still there, even the Sentinels had gone. McGonagall spun around, aborting one spell in favor of another at the sound of approach. Voldemort raised his own wand in greeting, and she froze.

“M-my Lord!”

The way she said it made it unclear whether she was greeting the Dark Lord or letting out an exclamation. Harry realized seeing the Dark Lord covered in blood might not be as common of a sight as he was used to.

“Professors,” Voldemort returned. “Leave.”

McGonagall looked to Harry expectantly.

“That wasn’t a request,” the Dark Lord bit out.

“It’s alright, Professor. We’ll be along in a minute,” the Gryffindor said, smiling weakly.

Her lips thinned into a grimace, but she nodded and gave his shoulder an encouraging squeeze as she passed. Flitwick toddled along after her, looking nervously over his shoulder until they were both out of sight. Harry turned his attention to the ice dam. For all the attention the professors had been giving it, it was already showing signs of strain. Lights danced from the inside, auroras of greens and reds and yellows, and it groaned ominously.

“Do you think it will hold long enough?”

Voldemort wandered into the center of the room where nearly a dozen bodies lay against the now bone dry floor. He picked a German who still appeared to be breathing and made a slashing movement with his wand. Blood flew out from the enemy in a great spray of red, soaking the Dark Lord anew and everything in a ten foot radius. Harry turned away and gagged. He didn’t consider himself squeamish, but that was just too much. Even looking away he could hear when Voldemort repeated the process twice more.

“It should hold now.”

Harry took three deep, settling breaths and turned back around. His heart leaped into his throat as he looked down to see the pools of blood disappearing into the creases of the stone floor, the castle itself greedily drinking it down. The ice dam was now a disturbing shade of pink. He shuddered at the sight.

“What are we going to do?” he asked, not wanting to linger too long on what had just happened.

“I have been feeding the castle the blood of its enemies since the attack. Twenty-four so far and there may be still more deaths upon the grounds. It has been absorbing the magic of the slain.”

“Like the wall along the Forbidden Forest.”

“Just so. We are renewing the castle’s magic. Recharging it for one great spell to destroy its enemies, and once destroyed to make their strength its own.”

Harry felt himself grow cold. This was magic of the darkest kind, and it was being brought into the closest thing he had to a home. And yet, if they didn’t do it, he wouldn’t have a home and almost everyone he knew would be at the mercy of the enemy.

“What spell?”

“That, Harry, is entirely up to you. I will only be summoning the magic. You will be the one to form it into a spell.”

Harry looked at him as if he were mad. The Dark Lord’s bloody grin confirmed it.

“You don’t expect me to do all the work, do you?”

“If by ‘do all the work’, you mean, ‘kill everyone’, then yes, yes I do,” Harry said.

“I can’t summon the magic and cast the spell simultaneously, nor can I gather the magic and cast the spell afterward. There’s simply too much of it. This body, resilient though it may be, cannot hold that much magic all at once. I need you to shape it and release it as it comes.”

The back of Harry’s head where he had struck it against the bridge began to throb, a migraine building on top of everything else. All he wanted was to sleep. But he couldn’t. He had made a promise to Madris, and he couldn’t back away from it. More than that, the Dark Lord was relying on him. He was surprised to realize that still meant so much to him, after all the fighting and the resentment, it still felt like one of the most important things to him in the world. He let out a frustrated sigh.

“What should I cast?”

“Whatever feels most natural and can do the most damage to the enemy. I’m quite fond of fire—”

“No.”

Harry hated the Germans for what they were doing to his home, but he didn’t hate them quite that much.

“—But I understand water is rather more your element. Given the majority of the enemy is outside, I would recommend a weather spell.”

“We have some of our own out there,” he said, recalling the spells that had been falling from the sky. Maybe he could keep the spell low?

“They’re soldiers. They know the risk.”

Somehow, Harry doubted anyone would imagine a risk like this. But they couldn’t afford to wait to be saved.

“What do I do?”

“There’s a bench over there. Let’s sit down.”

The wooden bench was positioned at the far end of the entryway, directly across from the entrance, where a person might watch the comings and goings of the castle occupants. It felt very surreal to be sitting there with Voldemort to his left, staring at the ice dam with its pinkish hue and flashing colors, the dead spread out at their feet. He started to wonder if he actually had fallen asleep somewhere and simply not noticed.

“Your hand,” Voldemort requested, and Harry offered his left hand to him without looking. He grimaced but didn’t pull away as he felt the Dark Lord run a knife-sharp nail down his palm, opening the skin. Then he pressed their palms together, and Harry closed his eyes tightly and shuddered. Magic, his magic, flowed back into him, and with it blood that wasn’t his.

“Ah… nn … uh, this is unpleasant,” Harry gritted, his veins burning at the touch of the foreign something. “Bloody hell … are you sure this is safe?”

“If it were anyone other than you, they would already be dead. Since the solstice, however, your magic has saturated my blood. Your body should be able to tolerate it. I think.”

“You think?”

“Medi-wizardry isn’t my specialty. Hush, I need to concentrate.”

Harry tried to relax, to concentrate on the almost hypnotic swirl of colors across the ice dam, to think of the only two weather spells he knew that he should use, anything except the toxic feeling radiating up his arm. The most distracting thought he could come up with was to wonder if he was going to die from the Dark Lord’s faulty understanding of magical blood sharing, but at some point Harry had given up on the idea that he was actually going to survive the night, and it was a fleeting thought at best. Voldemort didn’t offer anything else by way of conversation, merely fidgeted about and muttered something that sounded vaguely Gaelic.

Then the burning sensation in his hand exploded up his arm straight to his heart. He jerked and jumped away, but Voldemort refused to release him, no matter how hard he struggled.

“You’re killing me. Let go. LET GO!” he screamed,

“Cast it out, Harry. You have to cast it out or it will kill you.”

Harry’s mind had flown to pieces with the pain and the panic. Now he frantically tried to pick out the pieces, looking for a spell, any spell to get rid of the magic threatening to tear him apart.

“Reparo.”

The magic went out like a wave, not through Harry’s wand, but through his feet and back into the castle, and Harry suddenly felt himself expanding into the stones, the portraits, the near thousand souls, wizard and house elf and ghost alike, scattered throughout the building. He felt parts of himself missing, lost with the fallen towers and spires, its statues and armors shattered, the windows cracked, the dormitories burning. The spell released, pushing broken doors back into places, smothering the fires, putting back the fallen stone and mortar, mending up the torn tapestries, fixing itself … healing.

“Wrong spell, Harry,”Voldemort hissed angrily in parseltongue, drawing him back into his body. It was more bearable now that the magic was flowing throughhim and not collecting inside, but his heart still felt like it was trying to escape his ribs. What spell had he needed to cast? A weather spell … he knew two. What were they?

“Concentrate.”

The Rain Spell. Sprout taught them in Herbology. So convenient for watering the garden. She would be absolutely horrified with him later, he thought vaguely.

“Nimbosio et nimbosio et nimbosio …”

His mind flowed back into the castle, back into the stones, and out again through the chimneys and the broken windows and rain spouts as a mist, quickly thickening into fog, then a cloud, soaking the air in icy droplets. He thickened and condensed until the air became too full and too heavy, and he fell. A thousand times he fell and then million and billion and then so much he could not be called rain but a waterfall.

“And thunder. Tonitrio … ,” Voldemort goaded, his hissing tones echoing through him.

“Et tonirtio et nimbosio et tonitrio et nimbosio et …”

Hundreds of the wizards and witches, not of himself, enemies, pierced him, magic flung to cast him off, to shield themselves, to dry him up, to destroy him. Angrily, he threw his magic back with a roar and a crack and a flash of light that swallowed their spells and threw them from the air like children’s toys.

“And hail. Grandonio.”

“Et tonirtio et grandonio et nimbosio et grandonio et tonitrio et nimbosio et …”

From the ground, the witches and wizards threw up more shields, more counter-curses, more magic and desperation that struck him, scattering him into tinier pieces but never destroying him. Never stopping him. He gathered himself into an army and armored himself in ice, flinging himself in marbles and snitches and bludgers, and shattered them as they had tried to shatter him.

“And wind. Flabraborio.”

“Et flabraborio et grandonio et nimbosio et flabraborio et tonirtio et nimbosio ….”

The wind blew up, but he had no control of it. Wind was a part of him and yet outside himself, shapeless and restless and everywhere. It came from between the rain and the thunder and hail. He could not hold it together like the rain or break it with the thunder or beat it back with the hail. It pushed him and threw him and spun him around. It smashed him through windows, tore up his shingles, and shook him like it wished to tear him apart.

“More, Harry. More.”

There was screaming now, pain and terror, and the wind swallowed it and laughed.

“Too much.”

“Too late. Let it go.”

And Harry fell one last time.

Harry could hear again before he could see. There was deep breathing in his ear, and the sound of twigs snapping and snow crunching. He listened for a long time without understanding, but when his arm started to ache he let himself drift back into sleep.

He woke a second time when he felt himself being shifted, not roughly, but noticeably enough to make him aware that he was being carried piggy-back. Squinting his eyes open, he could make out trees, bare and black against the royal blue of the pre-dawn sky. A raven cawed, and Harry smiled. His brother lived.

“Hey, you awake?” someone asked, but he had already closed his eyes and drifted away.

Minutes, maybe hours later, the sound of crying drew him back to consciousness. The broad back he was resting against began to tremble.

“Sshhh … keep moving. It’s alright, just keep going. It isn’t much further,” McGonagall urged, her voice drifting closer and then further away. He opened his eyes and peered blearily over the shoulder of the one carrying him.

“What’s going on?” he mumbled. “Why does my arm hurt?”

“Don’t try and move it,” Goyle grunted. The Slytherin appeared to have been drafted to carry him. Harry decided he didn’t want to know.

“Is it over? Did we win?” he asked tiredly, already feeling himself drift off.

“I guess so,” Goyle replied noncommittally, and Harry fell back to sleep. For now, that was all that mattered.

1. Traditionally, castles had ‘arrowslits’ built into them so archers could fire out on the enemy with minimal exposure. The idea was adapted to Hogwarts.↩

2. A non-lethal Hex that creates a rather large sticky web when cast in a door or window. Notoriously difficult to tear down physically and magically. Potions are typically required.↩

Epilogue

Hermione was helping Enid fold laundry in preparation for the morning housekeeping when she learned about the battle at Hogwarts. The work was tedious and the small basement room warm from the dried laundry, and she was already half asleep and looking forward to bed when the soundof feet scurrying down the stairs above filled the room. Enid sighed and yawned sleepily into her hand, just as drowsy as her roommate.

“Sounds like Lorelei’s coming to tell us something important. I’m think’n she’s made up with Miguel…again.”

Hermione hadn’t been at the Hotel Raoulin for very long, but she had already been made privy to the joke ‘Lorelei broke up with Miguel. It must be Wednesday.’ Their fellow maid’s overly dramatic nature invited a good deal of teasing from the rest of the staff, but since the other girl seemed to thrive on the attention Hermione didn’t see the harm in it. It certainly helped break up the monotony of their daily routines.

The laundry room door burst open, admitting Lorelei in all her freckled glory. She was three years older than Hermione, but was so petite and excitable she could have easily been mistaken for someone three years younger. She was flushed and grinning as she hurried into the room.

“Enid, Heloise! I have wonderful, wonderful, wonderful news!” she cried.

Enid rolled her eyes, but smiled indulgently.

“How is Miguel?”

“Miguel? Miguel is an idiot! Who cares about him?! This is much better!”

“Oh? What happened?” Hermione asked, now curious herself. She mentally chided herself. It wouldn’t do to get excited over Lorelei’s little dramas, which occurred several times throughout the day.

“The war! It’s over! Germany has surrendered!” she squealed and jumped up and down before turning on her heel to rush back up the stairs. “I have to tell Andrew! He probably fell asleep in the pantry again.”

The girl was gone before Hermione could gather her senses to call her back, a flood of questions filling her mind. What did she mean Germany surrendered? How was that possible? Hadn’t the fighting turned in Germany’s favor after Lord Voldemort was forced to return to England in the wake of Lucius’ death? Had they opted to use the lull in fighting to negotiate for terms of surrender rather than attempt to retaliate? Had there been a battle? Another assassination? Who had told Lorelei the war was over, and why did she believe them?

Of course, Lorelei could be mistaken. If the story was good enough, she didn’t seem to be too interested in the facts.

“We should ask Mrs. Prewitt,” Hermione said, setting aside her armful of towels.

“Maybe we should finish first,” Enid suggested. “She won’t be so cross if we ask after we’ve done what she told us.”

“I’ll ask her myself if you want, but I don’t think I can sit here doing laundry until I know if it’s true.”

Reluctantly, Enid agreed and followed her out of the basement and up the stairs into the kitchen. Andrew was not sleeping in the pantry, but he definitely looked like he wished he were as Lorelei nattered at him. They entered the hotel lobby and could already see there were people on the stairs and along the hall gossiping.

“Something’s definitely happened,” she said to Enid.

“Do you think it’s true, then? They say once the war is over, Britain will open its borders and we can go back home. I’ve relatives in the Cotswolds I haven’t seen since I was little.”

Hermione didn’t offer an opinion. It could all be a misunderstanding or rumor gone wild, and her own thoughts and feelings were so tangled up at the notion, she didn’t dare speculate what it might mean for her.

“Let’s ask Mrs. Prewitt first.”

They headed to their employer’s office, but when they arrived they found she was not alone. Merle, the night receptionist, Mrs. Rumpall from the apothecary next door, and the elderly couple from Room 2A were all there and huddled around Mrs. Prewitt’s radio. There was a man on the radio speaking in a serious, news-anchor tone. It was in French, and Hermione had to struggle to understand it through the crackle of radio static.

She made out the words ‘surrender’ and ‘failed attack’ and ‘Lord Voldemort’ repeatedly, but it was when she made out the word ‘Hogwarts’ that her heart suddenly began racing in her chest.

“What did he say?”

Merle ’ssshh’d her sharply and turned her attention back to the announcement. Hermione tried to listen in as well. Hogwarts was mentioned again, and after intense concentration and several minutes of reporting, she figured out the school suffered some sort of attack and that there had been casualties. After that, she couldn’t make out what the man was saying. She didn’t even try, her thoughts flying six hundred miles north to a castle and the brother and friends and godparents she had left there.

A hand touched her shoulder, drawing her back to herself.

“Heloise?” Enid whispered. “Are you okay? You’ve gone all white,”

Hermione blinked at her stupidly for a moment, then nodded.

“Yes… I…”

She tried to think of some excuse, but was spared by Mrs. Prewitt, who had bustled over to them from behind her desk.

“’Eloise, Enid, ’ave you finished ze laundry yet? Well, never mind. ’ere, take zome money and go to Bayard’s. Buy a bundle. Ze guests will not want to wait until morning!”

She shoved a few silvery coins into Enid’s hand and hurried both girls out of the office.

“And don’t let ze old crook swindle you like last time!”

Hermione didn’t want to go, but she didn’t have much choice. She followed her co-worker to a storage closet to retrieve their winter coats.

“Who is Bayard?” Hermione asked absentmindedly. She actually wanted to ask what Enid, whose French was considerably better than her own, had gleaned from the news broadcast but didn’t dare risk showing any unusual interest in a school that shouldn’t have had anything to do with ‘Heloise’.

“He runs a newspaper stand a few blocks from here. Mrs. Prewitt buys newspapers and magazines from him when the guests ask for something special.”

She felt her anxiety ease somewhat. She was much better at reading French than she was at listening to it, and a newspaper wouldn’t be suspicious about the answers she sought from it. With considerably more interest, she hurried out of the hotel. Outside, the weather was cold and damp, and Enid slipped her arm into Hermione’s and huddled close to keep warm as they made their way up the street and turned left towards the Parc Lutetia, a cozy little wizarding neighborhood with an ancient cemetery on one side and an open-air market on the other.

At first, the neighborhood seemed the same as usual. Couples and tipsy weekend revelers crowded the streets, interspersed with the occasional late shift worker. No one looked or behaved as if anything important had happened, but when they neared Bayard’s newspaper stand they could see that the local citizenry wasn’t as disinterested as it first appeared. There was a crowd gathered around the stand, not exactly a mob, but the man behind the stand was clearly harried by the number of people demanding their papers all at once.

“We better hurry or he might run out,” Hermione said, pulling her anxious friend forward. They moved in as close as they could while they waited for a space to open at the stall so they could make their purchase. Hermione found herself standing next to a tall, broad figure in a black hood and coat. She wouldn’t have looked twice at him, anxious as she was for news about Hogwarts and her family, but in the moment she was forced to wait idly her ever curious gaze wandered the crowd until it happened to land on the man’s hand.

The first thing she noticed was that he wasn’t wearing any gloves, nor had he stuck his hands in his pockets despite the below freezing temperatures. The second thing she noticed was how terribly pale it was.

She stiffened instinctively, identifying him immediately for what he was.

Enid, still gripping her arm, felt her sudden tension and turned to follow her gaze to the man beside them. The girl let out a startled squeak as she too realized what exactly they were standing next to. The vampire heard her and titled his head slightly towards them, dark eyes peeking out from the hood. He blinked once and stiffened too.

The girls both took an instinctive step backwards.

“Er, excuse us,” Hermione apologized awkwardly. She had to remind herself not to run away. Vampires, after all, were technically legal citizens and hardly committing mass murder in the streets. Not in this century at least. She didn’t want to come off as a rude and ignorant bumpkin by running away. Beside her Enid didn’t seem nearly as concerned about appearances and was tugging persistently at her coat sleeve.

Dark eyes blinked at her, and she realized she had spoken in English. Perhaps he didn’t speak it.

“Excusez-moi,” she tried again.

He turned towards her fully, pulling down his hood as he did so to expose his face. It was Hermione’s turn to gasp.

“Viktor…”

“Her-”

Her hand flew up of its own accord, covering his mouth before he spoke her name. Before he exposed her in the middle of this crowd, to Enid, to anyone who would think to look twice at her. He blinked at her in surprise.

“Um… Heloise… maybe you shouldn’t… uh… you know… Vampire?” her roommate stammered. “Teeth.”

She was suddenly aware of his lips. His very cold lips she could feel smiling even through her gloves. She jerked her hand back. He barked out a laugh as she pulled away, his dark eyes as warm as she remembered even against the unfamiliar, deathly whiteness of his face.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “I thought you were dead.”

He cocked his head in amusement, and she blushed.

“I meant really dead.”

“Ah, dat… is a complicated story.”

“You know him?” Enid whispered anxiously, still trying to tug her friend away. Hermione wasn’t quite sure how to answer that.

“In another life,” Viktor offered with that same teasing smile, his fangs just peeking out behind his lips. He reached out, and she forced herself not to flinch as he touched a lock of her straight, black hair. “You were always lovely, but dis new look especially suits you.”

She felt herself blushing even harder. Turning to Enid, she asked her to get what they came for, promising to leave as soon as she did. The other girl needed no further encouragement and put forth extra effort into squeezing into the crowd. Hermione turned back to the vampire and crossed her arms.

She had no idea what to say to him. He seemed quite content to just stare at her, studying her with childlike wonder. He had looked at her like that before, back at Hogwarts when she said something he found so utterly peculiar and yet charming. Before he had betrayed her.

Suddenly, without thinking, she slapped him.

He flinched even though she was certain her hand was smarting more than his face.

“I deserve dat,” he said.

“Yes,” she agreed.

“I amsorry.”

“I don’t care.”

Except that she did. She cared that he was sorry, that he had regretted leaving her like he had and kidnapping her best friend on top of it. She wanted him to feel positively awful about it, because it had damn near killed her. And then he had gone off and supposedly died before she could ask him why. Only he apparently hadn’t. Except he still sort of had. She didn’t have a clue on how she was supposed to feel right then. Should she be happy? Angry? Indifferent?

She didn’t know, but the slap had felt pretty damn good so that was probably a step in the right direction.

“Dere is much I would say to you,” he continued. “Much I would apologize for, but I cannot do dat here. Can we speak in private?”

She glared at him.

“Viktor, I wouldn’t have trusted you enough to go somewhere alone before you became a vampire. What makes you think I would trust you now? Anyway, I don’t care anymore.”

A lie, an obvious one at that, but she was done dancing to his tune. Let him be sorry or not sorry as he chose. It didn’t change anything. They could never have what they had before. They were no longer those children anymore.

“Ah…” Viktor sighed. “I made it quite impossible for us, didn’t I? Dese mortal affairs dat mean nothing to me now.”

Hermione looked away. The way he looked as he spoke made it apparent he didn’t consider her one of those ‘mortal affairs’ he was now indifferent to.

“Did you know about the attack at Hogwarts?” she asked. It might have been a little reckless to say so near the crowd, but she wasn’t going off alone with him to ask it.

“No. I haven’t followed de war since I died.”

She wondered if she should believe him.

“Then why are you here at a newspaper stand?”

“The war isn’t the only thing they print in the newspaper…”

He reached into his pocket, and Hermione instinctively reached for her own wand that wasn’t there. She berated herself afterward. Viktor was a vampire, and vampires couldn’t cast spells. Rather than a wand, he pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to her. She carefully unfolded it. It was a newspaper article. About her. There was a photograph of her in her dueling robes and a headline ‘Sentinels Still Searching for Murdered General’s Daughter’.

It suddenly became difficult to breathe, and she hastily folded the paper again and handed it to him. He brushed her gloved hand with his fingers as he took it back, quite deliberately she thought, and placed the article back in his pocket.

“You can’t… You can’t be in love with me,” she said sternly, not looking at him.

“I don’t really have much choice in de matter. It would be much more convenient if I were not.”

“I don’t love you.”

A truth. A wonderfully reassuring truth. She didn’t love him anymore. She had hated him for a long time, and then simply forgotten about him.

He smiled at her sadly.

“I know. It doesn’t help.”

Hermione couldn’t think of what to say. Was she supposed to comfort him? Commiserate? Spurn him still further? She was spared having to reply by Enid grabbing hold of her arm and her attention.

“I have the papers. Let’s go,” she said anxiously, her eyes flitting nervously to Viktor.

“Okay,” Hermione agreed. To Viktor she said, “Don’t follow us.”

He didn’t move from his spot as Enid hurriedly pulled Hermione away,and once they were out of sight of the vampire her roommate questioned her.

“Who was that, Heloise? How do you know a vampire?”

“I didn’t know a vampire,” she said. “But I knew him when he was human. A wizard. We dated for a while… sort of.”

Enid seemed to relax a little. Obviously, she felt better about rooming with a girl who hadn’t had a romantic affair with a vampire. Those sort of girls were known for coming to a sticky end.

“So what happened?”

Hermione hesitated.

“He ran off with my best friend.”

“Oh! That’s awful!”

“Yes, it was,” she agreed. “And I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone else about it. Lorelei would be insufferable if she knew, and Mrs. Prewitt would try to lecture me and never let me out after sunset again.”

“I promise. Just… be careful, okay? He still seemed interested in you,” Enid warned and looked around nervously as if expecting to be followed. There was no one to be seen, and as they reached the Hotel Raoulin, the other girl finally seemed to relax. Hermione did not look around once. She didn’t need to.

She could feel Viktor’s eyes on the back of her neck all the way home.

Queen Ophelia read the letter in her late father’s study by firelight, wrapped in warm shadows and secrets. She had her own study of course, one she had decorated herself to a more modern and less overtly masculine style, but she liked to read Lord Voldemort’s letters here. When she had been just a girl and her father had been grooming her to take his thrown, he cosseted her away here and talked to her of secrets by the firelight. She had ever since associated her father’s space with secrets, and if given a choice she preferred to read all the Dark Lord’s correspondence there, particularly the private letters.

This letter was both private and official, talking of personal matters and politics with equal intimacy. It was secrets layered upon secrets, a conspiracy by style rather than necessity. There was nothing there she could not or would not have shared with her advisers, but he worded it all in such a way that she was sure would have made them blush and huff indignantly at his presumption.

But she wouldn’t read the letter to them. She would answer the letter, and he would send more letters back in a tone her advisers would find more acceptable, although they would always huff indignantly at the presumption of a governmental usurper addressing a queen. No, this letter was for her, and for Serafina, who was now old enough to begin learning secrets herself.

“Germany has surrendered, as you know,” she said to her niece when she finished reading the letter to herself. Serafina was kneeling at her feet, staring up at her like a child being told a story. “The battle at Hogwarts destroyed two thirds of their fighting forces. They sent word they wished to surrender within hours of their defeat. A wise move under the circumstances. The Dark Lord’s retaliation if they continued would have been… thorough, I imagine.”

Serafina nodded, but Ophelia could tell the girl didn’t really understand what she meant. All her niece really knew about the Dark Lord was that he was a handsome rogue and semi-king, exceptionally charming and highly respected by both his people and their own. Hers was a child’s understanding, because Serafina herself was still a child. She was shiny curls, bright eyes, glowing smiles, and dresses of ruffles and lace. Gently, she reached out and ran her fingers through her niece’s curls and decided it was time to straighten them. Serafina was almost a woman now and would one day be a queen. She could not continue to look like a child’s doll.

“He intends to submit the terms of their surrender very shortly and has offered to take our own terms into consideration in recompense of the assistance France has given him. What do you think we should ask for, my dear?”

Serafina frowned thoughtfully, but she was distracted.

“I don’t know. Did he say whether Prince Harry is alright? Do you suppose we’ll see him soon for the negotiations?”

The queen sighed.

“Lord Potter is not a prince, my dear.”

The incorrect title was a matter Serafina had been scolded on by both the queen and her tutors on several occasions, but which showed no signs of disappearing. It was an annoying, but relatively harmless quirk.

“I’m sorry, but is he alright?”

Ophelia considered not answering the question until they had completed their discussion on more official matters but decided it would be petty. A queen must be patient above all else.

“Lord Potter was seriously injured during the attack. It seems he was maimed by the enemy, and it is feared he will lose his left arm.”

Serafina gasped softly, eyes widening.

“Lord Voldemort has requested our best healers to attend to him, and I will, of course, send them, but nothing can be guaranteed. It may already be too late.”

“Oh, my poor prince.”

Ophelia’s expression hardened.

“I mean Lord Potter.”

“Why do you say so?” the queen demanded. “Lord Potter was injured in service to others. He has known battle and been injured before. He knew the risks, and he made the sacrifice; for his country, his ruler, and his classmates. Do you suppose if he had known the consequences, he would have chosen differently? For all your supposed admiration of ‘your prince’, you do not seem to grasp his character. Do not pity him, child. Admire him and learn from his example. Now, what should we ask for?”

Chastised, Serafina looked down in embarrassment. She was a princess, a witch born from a mighty lineage. Her heart ached at the thought of her brave, darling prince being so savagely injured, but Queen Ophelia was right. Harry was to be admired, and loss of an arm would not sway her affections for him. He deserved a love that would not waiver from mere injured vanity. He was a great prince. He deserved a great princess.

She tried to turn her thoughts to the Queen’s question, to see to her duties just Harry had seen to his.

“Hhhmmm… we should have the Germans pay for all the damage caused by German terrorists,” she said after some consideration. “And to compensate those who were injured or killed.”

Ophelia nodded.

“Yes, very good. What else?”

“Umm…”

She tried to think of something else, but all she could think of was Harry, somewhere in England, writhing in agony on a hospital bed. The queen eventually answered for her.

“First and foremost, we will demand the release of French citizens detained in Germany. We have over fifty of our people who were imprisoned illegally after we officially declared ourselves allies of Britain. They too must be compensated for any injury to themselves or their property. Then we must have the names of those saboteurs released. Terrorism is still an executable offense, particularly since we were not in open war with Germany itself. We may also ask for compensation for the expense of both the creation of the new werewolf colonies, which were made necessary as a result of Germany’s abhorrent abuse of werewolves, and for the military defenses we built along the Rhine.”

Serafina nodded, feeling foolish for not having figured at least some of that herself.

“Do you suppose,” she asked after another moment of thought, “that Harry will come back to France soon for the negotiations?”

Queen Ophelia sighed in exasperation.

Four days after the Great Battle of Hogwarts, as it was now being called, Harry found himself sitting across from Giles Loughty, a reporter from Wizarding Weekly at a hotel in Bristol. The man was in his late forties and dressed in a brown suit and a dark green robe, his tiny glasses perpetually threatening to slide off his large round nose. Harry was dressed in white. His robes were white. His shirt was white. His pants, his shoes, his right glove all white. The bandages wrapped up the length of his left arm and hand were white, but that was usually a given. Even his skin seemed strangely white.

Except for his left arm.

That was the darkest shade of black, and most of it was carefully hidden from view but for the tips of his fingers peeking out through the bandages. His healers had said he shouldn’t wear his glove over it, but their reasoning had been vague and unsatisfactory. Harry suspected it was Voldemort’s doing. He wanted the world to know his protégé had been injured without appearing as if he were flaunting it or showing weakness. The thought made Harry curl his hand into a fist and hide the blackened digits in the palm of his hand. It hurt to bend his fingers, but he didn’t mind. His healers said the pain was good. At least he could still feel his fingers.

“Lord Potter,” Loughty began, “I would like to first thank you for taking the time to speak with me. I understand you are still recovering from a very harrowing experience and that you have many other matters you must attend to.”

“You are welcome, but I ask you keep this interview short. I do have other matters to attend to. A funeral, as you may have guessed,” he said, gesturing towards the white robes with his good hand.

“Of course, of course. Let me ask, how are you? There are rumors that you had been seriously injured during the attack.”

“I took a curse to the arm, as well as some bumps and bruises… magical exhaustion.”

“Anything permanent?”

Harry’s left arm twitched involuntarily.

“It’s too early to say. I suspect I’ll have another scar or two to tell my children about. I got off lightly, considering…”

Loughty nodded sympathetically.

“You lost friends during the attack.”

There was no question, so Harry didn’t answer. Of course he had lost friends, but even if he hadn’t been close to those who had died, he couldn’t be expected not to grieve. They had all been growing up together in Hogwarts.

“There were fourteen deaths that occurred inside the castle itself that night,” the reporter continued. “Nine of them were students, three teachers, and two Sentinels. Any you were particularly close to?”

“All of those who died at Hogwarts… all of those deaths hurt, but yes, one in particular I feel… more keenly than the rest.”

He did not say the name. It felt disrespectful to the others to elevate one death among the many, and he doubted it would have comforted the boy’s family any to have known it. Allbright… Timothy Allbright, who had lived up to his surname in all his luminosity of spirit, had died in western corridor while covering the retreat of his classmates. Harry had mentored him in Dueling Club, watched him grow from a timid first year barely able to cast a Shield Charm to a confident, competent duelist in the span of three years. Out of all the Duelists, Allbright had been the one he was most proud of. There was talk that the boy was going to be a Prefect next year.

But he was gone now. Gone like Larousse. Like Brennan. Like Lucius. Like thirteen other witches and wizards who Fate had not favored that night. Professor Slughorn, who had still spoken to him sometimes of his mother with genuine fondness, and Professor Vector, who would never get to finish that paper they had worked on together. Burrows and Underhill, honorable men both, gone before he could either hate them or forgive them. Amanda Tott, Hufflepuff prefect, who led Harry’s study group in Herbology but couldn’t grow weeds herself.

So many lost.

Loughty cleared his throat, drawing back his attention.

“I understand your foster father and the school headmaster, Severus Snape, was critically injured during the battle as well. How is he?”

Harry didn’t bother to correct the man. Snape was his guardian, not his foster father, but it seemed a petty distinction under the circumstances.

“He is lucky to be alive. I am extremely grateful to Draco… Draco Malfoy, that is, for coming to his aid. The Headmaster was… tortured to be blunt, and he refused to betray the school. If it weren’t for Draco and his friends, I don’t think he would be here now.”

“Draco Malfoy… he is the late General Malfoy’s son, yes?”

“Yes, and Headmaster Snape’s godson.”

“A friend of yours?”

“Yes.”

“You seem to have many very brave friends.”

“Everyone who was there that day was very brave. Not all of those brave people walked away unscathed, I’m afraid.”

“There are many who are saying it is you who was very brave. They’re calling you a hero.”

Harry shook his head.

“Nothing I did would have saved the school or the other students on its own. It’s Lord Voldemort who deserves to be called a hero. I would have been killed if he had not arrived when he did, and it was his spell that defeated the Germans-”

“A spell you helped cast.”

“A spell I didn’t know or understand and couldn’t have done myself.”

He hated to say it. He hated to give Voldemort that particular accolade, but it was deserved. None of them would have made it without the Dark Lord having been there. The reporter leaned forward a bit, his expression changing from politely sympathetic to concerned.

“There are those who have accused the Dark Lord of using magic of the Darkest kind. What would you say to that, having been witness to it directly?”

Harry stared at him for a long moment. Up until now the interview had been almost entirely choreographed. Loughty’s questions and Harry’s answers had been written on little cards he had thumbed through that morning over a breakfast of truly abominable hospital food. He had agreed to do it. There hadn’t been much point in fighting it, and the Dark Lord had explained these tedious rituals were all necessary for the nation to walk through its own stages of grief and mourning. Children had died. Many more had been seriously injured and psychologically scarred by the experience. Hogwarts was in ruins. Harry had gone along with it, because he didn’t know how else to grieve himself.

But Loughty’s question stirred something in him. He knew what his answer was supposed to be. He was supposed to say that a powerful spell was not necessarily a dark spell, and under the circumstances, it had been all that stood between Hogwarts and absolute destruction, and he dared anyone to criticize the Dark Lord’s actions who hadn’t been there themselves. That’s what he should have said.

“I would say that they were absolutely right.”

Loughty gave him a surprised look, which quickly turned nervous. Clearly, he had expected him to deny the truth.

“Um… hah-ha,” the reporter laughed nervously, “I suppose, given the circumstances it wasn’t unreasonable-”

“He used blood magic,” Harry continued. “There were Germans who had gotten into the castle, so he went about slaughtering them and then exsanguinating them. A very messy process. You should have seen him afterward. He was covered in blood, head to toe.”

“Ah, ha ha, Lord Potter-”

“But it was essential, you understand. The stones of Hogwarts are already soaked in blood. That’s where all the magic comes from. That’s why it keeps absorbing more from all the witches and wizards who live there. It’s all Blood Magic. He just needed more. So… he took it. And then he used it. I helped him.”

He uncurled his left hand, showing Loughty his black tipped fingers.

“I paid a price for it.”

The reporter stared at him for a long moment.

“Do you regret it?”

Harry smiled at him sadly. It was perhaps the only question Loughty had asked him that wasn’t scripted.

“Not yet.”

“Lord Potter.”

They both turned to the door where Reggy loomed, his expression sternly disapproving. Harry wasn’t sure if it was directed at him or at Loughty.

“Yes, Captain?”

“Your ride is here,” he said, his expression softening somewhat. Ah, so the reporter it was then.

“Thank you, I’ll be right there. Mr. Loughty, I am afraid that’s all I have time for today.”

Loughty stood and bowed politely, rather than shake his hand. It was a gesture that Harry wasn’t entirely comfortable with, but one that seemed to becoming increasingly common the last couple of days. He wondered how much of it was respect and how much was a desire not to touch him. He stood, paused a moment when he felt slightly light-headed, then strode out of the room. His personal aid (why the hell did he need a personal aid?), Rebecca, had his cloak, also white, ready for him and slipped it over his shoulders as he entered the hallway. Reggy hovered. He was always hovering it seemed, but at least he didn’t try to make him speak when he didn’t want to.

“You look pale. Is your arm still bothering you?” the elder wizard asked. “I could make your excuses. No one would think less of you under the circumstances.”

Yes, they would, Harry thought without resentment. He would have thought less of himself too.

“I’m fine. Despite what Lord Voldemort insists I tell the press and anyone who asks, my arm is not about ready to fall off, and I’m not going to keel over dead. You needn’t coddle me.”

Harry could tolerate the hovering, but not coddling. In some ways he was glad to have someone he could be bluntly honest with regarding what had happened. Reggy had been at the battle, he had lost men there, and he was clever enough to figure out most of what really happened on his own. Out of everyone that had been attending to him, an endless stream of healers and aids and guards and court officials, Reggy seemed to be the only one who truly understood what he had been through.

“If anyone has a right to be sore about this media circus, it’s you. You have the right to heal and grieve in privacy. He shouldn’t be making you play brave martyr on top of everything else,” the Captain insisted.

‘He’ being Voldemort. Another point in Reggy’s favor, he didn’t seem the least concerned about pointing out the Dark Lord’s amoral and oftentimes selfish behavior. At least not in private. But right now, Harry didn’t want to talk about Voldemort. It was too confusing to sort through how much resentment his mentor did or did not deserve. He was a selfish bastard, but he had his own sort of honor. He believed the dead deserved remembrance.

“Maybe not, but I still want to go. This funeral… They were my friends, Reggy. My classmates, my teachers. They deserve to be honored and remembered.”

Reggy nodded reluctantly, clearly unsatisfied with the answer.

“Fine, but if you start to feel dizzy, tell me. You’re not going to honor anybody by fainting from exhaustion into someone’s funeral pyre.”

Ira sat beside Snape’s hospital bed, her left hand holding a book in her lap and her right entwined with his. He was quiet, like he was most of the time these days, and his thoughts wandered around meaningless things. He brushed his thumb over hers, feeling her smooth, thin skin beneath his calloused fingertips. She was reading quietly a book Snape himself had been in the process of reading before the battle on the history of the potion master’s profession. It was a rather grisly book to be honest, filled with anecdotes of potion’s experiments gone horribly wrong and poisonous rivalries and muggle persecutions (potions master, which had been mostly women before the Renaissance, were unfortunately vulnerable to witch hunts).

Someone entered the room, and he tensed. Ira stopped reading and looked up. It was Healer Brently, a gaunt, gray man who always looked like he was glaring even when he wasn’t.

“How are you feeling, Professor Snape?” the man asked blandly. “Is the dosage of your potions proving adequate?”

Snape blinked at the man slowly, then said, “Less.”

Brently stared at him for a moment then nodded.

“I’ll have the nurses reduce the pain potion to three-fourths the current dose. We’ll see how you feel tomorrow before I approve anything less than that. There’s no need to be proud about these sorts of things and suffer if you don’t have to.”

“I don’t believe it is a matter of pride,” Ira protested. “The potions affect his ability to think clearly. It makes him uneasy.”

Snape had not told her this, but somehow she had figured it out. He felt a swell of affection for her, his attentive, conscientious wife, and with it a swell of guilt. He had put her in danger, failed his duty as her husband to protect her, and even now couldn’t bring himself to confess it. To warn her that she still wasn’t safe so long as she remained by his side while the Dark Lord waited to collect the debt his lies had cost him. He was glad she wasn’t looking at him. He didn’t know what she would have been able to read in his face if she had been watching him instead of the healer.

“Hhhmmm… If it’s merely a matter of mental acuity then I’ll see if we don’t have some local anesthetic in stock that should help. Now then, let’s see the progress on the leg,” Brently said.

The healer moved to the foot of the bed, pulling away the sheet that had been draped over the injury. Snape’s eyes, which had been following the healer closely until now, moved to stare up at the ceiling. He felt uncomfortable looking at the limb encased in a torturous-looking cage of pins. Ira tightened her grip on his hand in sympathy. He had seen the leg once already that morning. It was swollen, purplish, and didn’t look entirely straight from the angle he was lying at. Every time he saw it he wondered if it would be that way forever.

Brently frowned at the leg as if it had insulted him.

“It’s healing. Slower than I would like, but at least everything looks straight. No infection.”

“Potter would have been up by now,” Snape said in annoyance. This was a rather common complaint as of late. Harry had a similar injury in both legs and treatment after the Battle of the Berlin Underground. His injuries had been egregious, and it had taken weeks to recover fully, but his broken legs had been repaired within a week. He had been able to walk on his own only a few days later.

“Unfortunately, you’re not a teenage boy any longer, Professor Snape,” Brently scolded. “They’re a lot more… springy at that age.”

“How long then?”

“Until the pins come out? Tomorrow should prove sufficient. Until you can walk on it? Another… six days, perhaps? You’ll need a cane for a couple of weeks.”

Snape nodded. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but he had accepted that nothing about his recovery would be pleasant. A part of him was glad that it wouldn’t. Penitence had always seemed like a pretentious sentiment to him, but it was the sort of pretentious sentiment the Dark Lord approved of. Perhaps he would consider at least some of his punishment meted out already. It was difficult to gauge what would appease the Dark Lord, even now, when time and his soul had mellowed him… relatively speaking.

The healer left, Ira settled back, and Snape waited for her to start reading again, but she didn’t immediately.

“I probably should wait until they reduce your pain potions,” she said. “But I… there’s something I wanted to talk to you about, and it just gets harder to do the longer I put it off.”

He turned towards her, taking in her expression. He was struck by how pleasing she was to look upon. Not really beautiful, she was too plain to be little more than mildly pretty most days, and her eyes were too shadowed and her skin too pallid right then to be even that generous. But, nevertheless, she was pleasing. She had a very earnest expression, held in check by a very feminine sort of English dignity that he thought would only make her features more refined with age rather than withered.

His fingers traced along hers, twisting the wedding ring on her finger round and round absently. He thought about her fingers, and how delicate they were in his hands. He thought about the Dark Lord and his threat to cut them all off. All but the ring finger, so she would understand that it had been entirely his fault. He thought about fear. He thought about guilt. He thought how pleasant it would be when they reduced his pain potions so he wouldn’t be so stupidly sentimental.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It’s just… after all of this. Well, not just this, but you know, the entire year…”

The baby. Their baby. Lost. A dream so large and buried in a jewelry box.

“I’ve been thinking… that we should try again.”

He blinked at her. He wondered if he had drifted off to sleep without realizing and was dreaming this conversation.

“I’ve been a coward, Severus, and selfish. I’ve been so worried about losing what I already have, I stopped thinking about what I was already losing by giving up. We wanted a family so badly, and we were doing it. We were so close, and then… and then we… and then there was a disappointment, and I lost myself to it. I gave up. We had barely really gotten started, and I just… couldn’t anymore. But I was wrong. Or maybe I just wasn’t ready. I don’t know, but after what’s happened… I nearly lost you. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t… Am I making any sense?”

Frankly, Snape wasn’t entirely sure that she was, but he thought she had made herself pretty clear in the beginning. She wanted a baby. He was a half-dead cripple, and she still wanted to have his baby. He wasn’t sure if he should want to kiss her or throttle her at the moment.

“I was thinking,” she continued, “that Hogwarts is going to be closed for the rest of the term at the very least, and you’ll need time off to heal too. We can try again in the fall, so if it works this time, then I’ll have the baby next summer. The war is over now, so it will be safe to try and buy a place down in Hogsmeade again or even have one built while the market price is still low. Harry will be off to university next year, so we’ll have the extra room at the cottage if that plan falls through…”

His mind started to wander. Not off subject, he was still quite attuned to the idea that another attempt at children was going to be made and preparations were in order. Her idea of preparation and his just happened to follow different tangents. Most notably, he needed make amends with Voldemort and very soon. The attack on Hogwarts and the subsequent surrender by Germany (and it was not a surrender he entirely trusted) had bought them both time, but there was no way the Dark Lord had forgotten about his punishment. After several days of worrying over the matter, albeit in a half-drugged stupor, he was of the opinion that cutting off Ira’s fingers had probably been a ruse. She was, after all, not only Snape’s wife but also Harry’s friend and Morgan’s stepdaughter, one the elder wizard was actually quite fond of.

Voldemort had intended to scare him, and it had worked. That his punishment would stop at scaring seemed unlikely, however. He needed to find a way to make peace with his Master once again. He needed to keep his family safe.

He could give up Ron Weasley, but somehow he didn’t think it would be enough, and he had his own reasons for wanting the boy to remain in his debt. Weasley had potential, if he could be taught to curb his more petty and impulsive behaviors, and Snape felt a debt held over his head would one day prove quite useful. That he was not in fact responsible for Lucius’ death meant he would not satisfy Voldemort by way of compensation, only prove to be a waste of time and effort for everyone involved in the investigation.

He would, of course, still give Weasley up if necessary, but only if necessary.

Something else would have to serve as compensation to Voldemort.

He closed his eyes, trying to think of what would work, but Ira was still talking. A soothing hum in the background of his mind, and before knew it, he drifted to sleep.

Harry slept on the train. He dreamed he was awake, riding through a moor, the water black and air gray with mist. Sometimes the train would stop at rickety wooden platforms that rose straight out of the muck, and ghosts would separate themselves from the mist and board. Voldemort sat across from him in his dream, but said nothing until Harry thought to ask where the train was going.

To the Styx,he said.

And the train crashed into the ocean, and he drowned quietly in black water.

He opened his eyes to Reggy sitting across from him, staring out the window thoughtfully just as the Dark Lord had been. The symmetry disoriented Harry for a moment.

“Where are we going?”

Reggy gave him a curious look.

“To Hogsmeade, remember? The funerals?”

The Hogwarts Express had been utilized to carry the funeral procession and the dead to Hogsmeade, a symbolic gesture Harry didn’t much appreciate. He had always felt this particular train was meant for the beginning of a journey, not the end. No one had bothered to ask his opinion on the matter.

“Oh yeah, I meant, how long till we get there?” he said, yawning into his hand.

“Not long. Ten, fifteen minutes?”

It took thirty minutes, but not because his escort had miscalculated the distance. About two miles outside of Hogsmeade, a crowd began to form on either side of the tracks. Just a few people at first, but the numbers quickly began to multiply the closer they got to the village until the train was forced to slow to a crawl as hundreds of witches and wizards squeezed in as close as they dared. They were all dressed in white of varying shades, and Harry thought of the ghosts from his dream and shivered.

In Hogsmeade itself the crowd had gathered by the thousands. It was an official day of mourning, and all the schools and government offices and many private businesses had all closed, and its citizens flocked to the little village to pay their respects. The wizarding world was small and close-nit. Families, friends, neighbors of the victims gathered. People who knew the victims’ families, friends, and neighbors gathered to support them. Old and present students alike gathered to comfort their teachers and each other and remember their fallen housemates, friends, and rivals. Even complete strangers came, marking the tragedy as both personal and national, mourning what was lost even as it finally led to peace.

The world outside the train flowed in rivers of white. Witches and wizards in white robes meandering to white tents and white stalls, where charitable businesses handed out free hot tea and cocoa in white mugs or white candles or Clothes Whitening Charms (not everyone owned white robes after all), and then pooled towards the center of the village where an enormous bonfire had been lit. It seemed even some of the village shops, normally their own kaleidoscope of colors, had been painted white or were draped in white cloth. The only non-white thing to be seen were the Culties in their crisp black uniforms and dress cloaks, a deep rusty red patrolling the crowds for lost children and troublemakers. The crowd seemed quiet though. Grim, grieved, and quiet.

The gathered mourners began to stir with the arrival of the train into the station and slowly made their way towards the platform. Culties cleared a path while an officious-looking Court Official spoke over the crowd for a few minutes. Harry didn’t know what he said, but the people in the crowd seemed to shuffle with a little more purpose after he had spoken.

Harry watched it all from the window of his compartment, then turned to Reggy. The elder wizard stared back.

“You can still back out, you know.”

It was tempting. The crowd seemed so vast, and inside the train compartment seemed so safe and warm. What would he be greeted with when he exited the train? Would they stare at him with pity for his blackened arm, his dead friends? Would there be acquisitions? Why didn’t you cast the spell sooner? Why didn’t you save them? Admiration? There goes the boy who helped win the war! He wasn’t sure what he would find more nauseating. He wished, more than anything at the moment, that they had been instructed to put up the hoods to their white cloaks during the procession.

There was a knock on the compartment door, and someone said it was time to start lining up.

Harry opened the door and stepped out into the hall. Other students were already crowding into the aisle, and he felt instantly better surrounded by familiar faces dressed just like him. There was no particular order to the procession of students that would be escorting their departed teachers and classmates up to the cremation site, and Harry was grateful for this. He took a sort of comfort that he wouldn’t be intentionally singled out, that he might pass a majority of the crowd without being recognized.

In the line itself, several other students regarded him with some surprise.

“Hey, Potter,” a girl a few years behind him greeted him shyly. “Glad you could make it. I didn’t think they’d let you out of the hospital yet.”

Technically, Harry hadn’t been in the hospital for the last three days. Once it became obvious the healers could do nothing about his arm and he wasn’t in any danger of dying, he had been moved to a hotel in Bristol, right across the hall from the Dark Lord, although he had seen very little of him.

“Sshhh… I escaped. Don’t tell anyone,” he said, smiling weakly.

She smiled back just as feebly. “You would.”

Conversation flowed up and down the aisles, subdued without the giggling and exuberant shouting they were all used to, but still familiar and vaguely comforting. Harry spotted Clyde and Ginny further up line, but it was too crowded to try and squeeze up to them. He didn’t see Natalie or Draco, but the Slytherins had mostly gathered at the back of the train. None of their classmates had died during the attack, and many of them were only there reluctantly. When he had seen Draco the day before, a brief, tense visit, his friend had counted himself among the reluctant. He wasn’t inclined to play the grieving friend to people he frankly didn’t give a damn about while his father was barely cold in the ground. Harry hadn’t said anything. It was a selfish thing for Draco stay home, but it would have been equally selfish for someone to demand he come. His friend had taken his silence as censure and stormed out of the room. Harry hadn’t been in any state to chase after him.

They waited for what seemed like an eternity in the cramped aisle before the mourning wail of bagpipes echoed through the train, signaling the beginning of the funeral procession. Slowly, the procession shuffled through the narrow aisles of the train and out onto the platform. The sky was sunny and blue, but a sharp wind bit at his nose and ears, making Harry wish they had been instructed to put up their hoods for an entirely different reason.

Ahead of them, Harry could see the bodies of the dead, laid out on gurneys and wrapped in gauzy white cloth, their faces left exposed to reveal their peacefully sleeping expressions. Harry quickly looked elsewhere and took several deep, calming breaths. He had come to honor the dead, but he couldn’t stand the idea of looking at them. Couldn’t stand the idea of never seeing them again except as they were in that moment, empty vessels soon to be nothing more than ash. He was certain he would cry or vomit or do something irrational and embarrassing, and it would be in all the newspapers in the morning.

“Snap out of it,” someone hissed in his ear.

Harry startled and stiffened. Very carefully, he glanced behind him. Draco glowered back at him reproachfully. Harry thought for a moment he was hallucinating. The other boy gave him an exasperated look and shoved him forward, and he had to turn back around and hurry to catch up to person ahead of him. They filed down the platform steps in single file, but once they touched the ground they formed up into columns and were handed candles that lit themselves when held. With some quick and careful maneuvering, Harry positioned himself beside Draco, who was now ignoring him.

He found that strangely comforting.

For the most part, everyone ignored him. Despite his earlier fears, most of the crowd did not seem to recognize him amidst the other students. Their focus was on the twelve students and teachers they were there to honor, and they were nearly a hundred feet ahead of them, laid out on levitating sleds covered almost entirely in white roses and pulled by white horses. People in the crowd were weeping, some quietly, some loudly, but the sound was drowned out by the wailing of the bagpipes.

The procession walked and walked, the crowd remaining thick around them, following slowly after them. The mournful wail of bagpipes gave way to drums and flutes and then to a violin. Hogsmeade gave way to an open pasture, and the road curved towards Hogwarts, but the procession turned to move off the road and up a hill. The wind blew harder and colder as they climbed. Harry’s candle grew heavy in his hands and his legs began to ache. Halfway up the hill, Draco reached out to touch his candle and muttered a Levitating Charm on it so that it could hold up Harry’s hand rather than the other way around, then pulled away. Neither said a word, but the kindness of the gesture gave Harry the encouragement he needed to make it the rest of the way.

The top of the hill leveled out into a wide, round plateau, and it was there the pyres had been erected. Three white granite monoliths, about ten or so feet high, stood at equal distance from each other. Around each stone were four pyre platforms spread out like the points of a compass. The pyres reminded Harry of brick molds more than anything, with solid granite walls and a hollow, rectangular space inside. At the center of it all stood Lord Voldemort, waiting patiently for their arrival. Harry tried to summon some sort of anger at the man for his presumption. Why had he not been a part of the funeral procession?

But the anger wouldn’t come. Deep down, he knew the reason why. Someone had to prepare the way.

Once at the top of the hill, the students all dispersed into the surrounding crowd, leaving a wide space around the pyres. Harry followed Draco into the crowd, pulling up the hood of his cloak as he did so. Within moments, he felt completely anonymous, surrounded by hundreds of other witches and wizards, their hoods similarly pulled up to protect against the wind.

Pallbearers unloaded the twelve carriages (Underhill and Burrows, the two sentinels who had died in the castle were to be honored in the military fashion at a separate service) and carried the dead to their pyres. Voldemort, stately and almost priest-like himself in his white robes, circled each the great monoliths, stopping before the dead to lay a silver coin over each eye. Harry thought of his dream, of the River Styx, where the dead went to forget and where Charon, the ferryman, would only take those across who could pay their way. His eyes felt suddenly hot. His head ached. He wished Hermione was there, crying on his shoulder so he could cry into her hair.

When the Dark Lord had completed his offerings, he moved towards Harry without even having to search the crowd for him. Rather than stop to stand and watch the rest of the proceedings, he grabbed his protégé by his arm and pulled him away from Draco and into the crowd. The people scurried quickly to move out of their way, and Harry was mortified to make a spectacle during such an event.

“What are you doing?” he hissed angrily.

“This part isn’t for the like of us,” Voldemort replied, continuing to pull him along until they reached the edge of the plateau. The hill was crowded, but on the side where they stood it was steeper and there were less people. Those that were there quickly make space for them with a wary, sometimes confused, glance. Voldemort let go of him, and Harry turned back towards the funeral.

He paused when he realized what Voldemort meant.

Priests had moved in and were speaking now, making some sort of sermon or prayer to a God neither of them could call their own. He turned back around and sighed. Ahead of them, off in the distance, Hogwarts stood in ruins. He had seen the pictures in the papers of course. The images were splashed across the front page of every paper since it had happened, but it hadn’t prepared him for the reality of it. Her towers were broken, her roofs torn up or burned, windows empty of glass, and all around her lay ice. Ice thrown up from the ground like spears, ice blown up into glacial walls, ice hanging down from the roofs and trees and the archways in razor sharp daggers, ice in glassy sheets over every smooth surface, ice in opaque white mountains where fountains and statues once stood. The lake and moat reflected the clear sky like a mirror. All of it glittered in the sun, savage and clean, terrible and beautiful all at once.

I did this, he thought, feeling a mixture of awe, pride, and horror. As if hearing his thoughts, Voldemort’s hand came to rest on his shoulder. No.Wedid this.

They didn’t speak. Harry had nothing to say, and Voldemort, for all his blithe disregard for life, has a genuine respect for honoringit. This went on for nearly an hour as the priests performed their rites and people wept, prayed, sang a hymnal Harry didn’t recognize, and shuffled to keep warm. Then it was over, and the people lined up to lay down their offerings of flowers, photographs, letters, and whatever flammable sentiment they could offer. Harry had nothing to offer, but it didn’t really matter. With over five thousand mourners, there was plenty to pile over the dead and plenty more to fill the empty space in the pyre platforms too. He followed the Dark Lord in a snaking circuit around each pyre, willing himself to look, really look, at his fallen classmates and teachers for the last time.

Some of them he barely recognized. Vector looked twenty years younger with her glasses gone and her hair lain loose. Gerald St. James looked ten years older with his military haircut and sans his usual pouty glower. But some looked just the same. Allbright looked just as he always did. Small, pale, and yet somehow vibrant. Peaceful now, like he were having a pleasant dream. But Allbright wasn’t sleeping. He was gone, and all that was left of him was so much flesh and bone, no more truly Allbright than a statue of clay or stone would have been.

Harry said his goodbyes in silence and moved on. At some point, he lost track of Voldemort and his mentor disappeared. He was not particularly concerned. He filed along with the crowd, Reggy eventually coming once again to stand beside him as if he had always been there. Harry intended to search the crowd for familiar faces, but his plans were ruined by a sudden wave of dizziness that caused him to drop his candle. He staggered and was caught by his escort.

“Sorry, I-”

“You pushed yourself too hard. Come on, I’ll bring you somewhere to rest.”

Harry insisted he only needed to sit down somewhere for a moment, maybe warm up by the bonfire, but Reggy wasn’t listening. He took him to Madame Puddifoot’s of all places, which had been requisitioned by Culties as a security station for the event. The gaudy little tea shop was known as a sort of romantic hangout by the students, and there were several private booths with comfortable couches. Reggy deposited him in the most secluded one he could find and cast a Muffling Charm to keep out the sharp military tones and pounding of heavy boots on wood floors as the Culties went about their business. He was left alone for a moment while his escort went to get him some tea, but suddenly immersed in a dark, warm, comfortable booth and already exhausted, he fell asleep before he got back.

Harry was woken hours later by someone sliding his glasses back onto his face. He hadn’t remembered taking them off to begin with, so the sensation was sufficiently strange that he reached up to swat the helpful hand away and nearly fell off the couch in the process.

“It’s time to wake up, Harry,” someone said, sinister and familiar.

He opened his eyes, blinking blearily through his lopsided glasses at Voldemort seated across from him, drinking from a truly hideous yellow and pink tea cup. He righted his glasses. The tea cup still didn’t look any better. Reggy, who must have been the one to replace his glasses, handed him a cup of tea. The cup was even more hideous, if possible.

As he reached to take it, he felt a twinge in his left arm and knew the pain potions had started to wear off.

“I put some of your potions in your tea,” Reggy said.

“Thank you,” he said, although he would have preferred he hadn’t. The pain wasn’t unbearable, and he would have liked all his senses about him when speaking to the Dark Lord.

“Yes, thank you,” Voldemort interrupted impatiently. “I can handle things from here.”

The Captain saluted and left, but not without a cautious glance back as he went.

“What time is it?” Harry asked, noting the tea shop was looking especially dim.

“The sun has just set a little while ago, so about a quarter after four.”

That meant he had slept for nearly four hours. He was thirsty, hungry, his back ached, and his left leg had gone numb. He yawned and drank his tea. Voldemort watched him intently.

“How is your hand?”

“It’s still there.”

“May I see it?”

“Now?” he asked, surprised.

“I suppose later would be better. You should finish your tea if you want see them light the pyres.”

Harry swallowed down the rest of his drink, and carefully climbed off the sofa. He stretched his back and shook his tingling leg, and once reasonably sure he could walk with relative dignity, gestured to Voldemort he was ready. They left the shop and entered the village. The wind had died down, but it was even colder now. There was a faint purple and pink glow in the west where the sun had set only a few minutes before, but stars were appearing rapidly in the deepening blackness of the sky. Charmed orbs of blue-white lights had been suspended above to light the streets, making the white robed people seem to glow ghost-like in the darkness. The crowd had thinned considerably, only a third of the previous number but still plenty to stop and stare at them as they made their way out of the village. They were still on the road when the pyres were lit, and they stopped for a few minutes to watch the fires burning at the top of the hill. Harry couldn’t see the pyres themselves from their angle, but he could see shadows dancing against the rising smoke. Some of the shadows looked like people, some like birds and beasts, and some that looked like a combination of them.

Eventually, Voldemort placed his hand on his shoulder and led him forward. They didn’t go off the road towards the burning hill, but kept on it, turning east back towards Hogwarts. As they made their way up the road, the hill fell out of sight and Voldemort murmured a spell. Harry stiffened, but it was only a Blackening Spell, their pristine white robes darkening into mere shadows. They continued on in silence.

Ahead of them, Hogwarts was dark, her torches left unlit, but the surrounding ice fields glowed very faintly in the weak light of the waning moon, creating a clear silhouette of the castle itself. Entering the ice field itself was not as harrowing an experience as Harry thought it would be either. At a distance the razor sheets of ice, some shards rising several feet above their heads, looked impenetrable by foot, but up close it was apparent that there had been paths made by melting and refreezing. Voldemort, his night vision superior to his protégé’s, led them through a twisting curving path.

“What happened to the dead?” Harry asked. There must have been hundreds upon hundreds of dead after the battle, buried beneath the ice and snow, but in the dim light Harry couldn’t see any of them. Surely they wouldn’t have been left there?

“I believe most of them have already been found and… put away somewhere. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if some were missed. I don’t suppose we’ll find out until spring.”

Harry shuddered.

“Do you suppose any of them will come back as ghosts?”

“If they do, they will be immediately exorcised. They don’t belong in this place.”

The drawbridge that led into the castle was still standing, though just barely, and once they had crossed over it, they were met by several Culties, who gave Harry a terrible start when they stepped out from behind the portcullis. Voldemort dismissed them, then took a moment to show him something. He lit his wand and held it high. Harry was startled once again, but this time the sense of alarm seemed to grow and sink deep into the core of him. He could feel himself starting to tremble.

Above them, where previously there had only been brick and mortar, there now hung a relief. It was of a woman, her hair in braids and wild curling tresses, her bare arms open in welcome, a look of gentle welcome on her face.

“It’s Her,” Harry whispered. “It’s Madris.”

Voldemort looked back up at her, and smiled himself.

“I thought as much. Now, this is your patron goddess, if I recall. What did you do to summon her?”

Harry’s thoughts were suddenly bouncing around in his head like a nest of Cornish Pixies. He had made a point not to think back on the battle or his several brushes with death during it, but he couldn’t ignore it now. He had a made a promise. A promise he wouldn’t be able to keep without the Dark Lord’s approval.

“I promised to make Hogwarts her temple,” he said with a grimace. Voldemort stiffened, the hand that hadn’t left his protégé’s shoulder tightened painfully for a moment. Then the dark wizard sighed, and his grip loosened.

“Not precisely the god I would have chosen myself, but then I can’t criticize under the circumstances. She’s powerful in any event.”

“She’s a queen among gods, you know,” Harry pointed out, feeling defensive of Her despite his earlier reluctance.

“I know,” Voldemort sighed, and moved them forward. Inside the castle was like the inside of a cave, dark, hollow, and echoing. It was cold too, and ice layered the floor and formed icicles off the furniture. Harry pulled away from the Dark Lord to place his hand against a stone pillar. His magus hypersentia sensed life and magic still there, but dormant, resting, gathering strength. A sleeping dragon.

“I’ve never felt Hogwarts this quiet before,” Harry said, feeling melancholy even as he said it.

“It could have been worse, Harry. It could have been so much worse.”

“Why did they do it? The Germans, I mean. Why attack a school? Did they think slaughtering a bunch of children would have won them the war? That’s stupid. It only would have made everyone angrier.”

Voldemort made a gesture with his wand, dispelling his illumination charm and lighting the surrounding wall sconces. The entryway was still terribly cold, but the room felt different all at once. The firelight gave the room a warmer glow, illuminating the castle in a light that made the abandoned castle feel more familiar and welcoming.

Voldemort explained, “It wasn’t their intention to kill the students, but rather to take them hostage. As hostages, you all would have been considerably more valuable. Our population is relatively small, our children are precious, and the children attending this school particularly so. Seventy percent of the students here come from Pureblood families or have talented witches and wizards in Court positions as their parents or grandparents, and many of those are the sole heirs within their respective families. Then of course, there was you, a national symbol unto yourself. If you have been captured or killed, it would have been a severe blow to the country’s morale. Had they succeeded in taking the students back to Germany, then they probably would have been able to get a cease-fire and our troops withdrawn. Even I would not have been able to justify such a sacrifice.”

“But you wouldn’t have surrendered, would you?”

The Dark Lord turned to him, light and shadow making his smile sinister.

“No.”

Harry wondered what he would have done instead, but didn’t ask. He knew he wouldn’t like the answer, and he had enough inspiration for his nightmares already. Voldemort’s smile widened as if he were reading his thoughts. He turned from his protégé and started up the nearby stairs. Harry followed after him.

Into the belly of the beast,he thought to himself.

“Why are we here?”

“A number of reasons. Queen Ophelia will be hosting the negotiations for Germany’s surrender at her palace in Bourges, and I will be leaving soon to oversee the preparations. I wanted to speak with you before I left, and thought we might visit Hogwarts at the same time.”

“I would like to come to France too. I want to see the war ended once and for all with my own eyes,” he said. It was partly true. With the school closed indefinitely, his friends scattered to the winds, and only his own long, dull recovery to look forward to he would gladly have done some traveling in the meantime, even if much of it would be spent sitting in a corner and listening to grown men squabble. Mostly, however, he saw it as an opportunity to find Hermione. She was in France somewhere, and while he might not have been able to find her himself, it wasn’t unreasonable for someone as clever as her to find him and secretly arrange a meeting.

“Perhaps for the official ceremonies,” Voldemort conceded, “but for now you will remain in Britain while your magic recovers. It would be too much a risk to take you while you are this vulnerable. Besides, Blackbone has been demanding to see you.”

Harry conceded with a nod. Hermione was important, but so was family. They would be anxious for him despite the letters he had sent, and he missed them something awful these days. They walked the western corridors with its partially collapsed roof and missing windows, a room of splinters and shattered glass that had once been the Transfiguration classroom, countless statues reduced to rubble and tapestries burnt or torn. Much of what had been salvageable had already been taken away for storage or repair. The portraits were all gone, as were the suits of armor, the display cases empty. Even the greenhouses, mostly untouched, had been cleared. Natalie had Inana, had smuggled her out during the evacuation and was keeping her for Harry (so she said, but he suspected his friend just really liked having a pet cobra). As they were exploring, Voldemort went over his plans for renovating the school.

“The destruction caused by the attack was a tragedy, but it presents a unique opportunity to improve the school,” the Dark Lord said. “We had to postpone the construction of the Preparatory College wing of the school because of the war, but we’ll have the extra income to finish that up soon. The school chapel will be reconstructed as a temple to Madris, but we’ll just tell everyone it’s the new Celtic Culture classroom. Eventually it’ll be the Old Magics classroom, but I haven’t been able to locate a practitioner sufficiently skilled or tempered to be a teacher yet. The Astronomy Tower… that was unfortunate, but perhaps something can now be constructed more in line with my conservatory near the Sianach Lodge. The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets will have to be moved.”

“Or you could just rename it the Chamber of the Basilisk. I think that would be enough discouragement.”

“Harry, you’re assuming everyone has a shred of common sense. I assure you that isn’t the case.”

And Voldemort went on and on. The moat would be deepened and widened. The boathouse would be expanded so it could accommodate classes on water-based spells and transfigurations. The ruined artwork would be replaced with more modern pieces. There would be skylights on the southern corridors, and open walkways and mezzanines around the expanded courtyard. Ravenclaws’ dormitory would need to be completely remodeled, and if so, Slytherin House would be demanding the same even if there hadn’t been any damage to it, meaning the other dorms would be following shortly after. They would need more space. Britain’s population was growing, slowly, and Hogwarts would need to grow to accommodate it. That would mean new classes and new classrooms, more teachers needing private chambers. More study places. A larger a library. Even the owlery, destroyed along with almost all its owls, would be moved and remodeled as a brattice off the castle’s exterior wall over the lake rather than a small tower.

The more Voldemort talked the more excited he seemed to become about the prospects for the future. Harry tried to feel his enthusiasm, but he couldn’t help thinking about what had been lost. A sort of innocence, he supposed. Had it been the castle’s innocence or merely Harry’s own perception of it? Since the day he had first seen it, Harry had loved Hogwarts. Its grandeur, its warmth, its mystery. But time and circumstance had made him slowly aware that the castle held as many grim secrets as it did curiosities, and there were places as dangerous and dark as the Forbidden Forest itself nestled within the stones. He felt it had balanced out, or even that the good parts outnumbered the bad. Now he wasn’t so sure. There was blood in the walls, death and suffering. There had not been enough time to numb the horror of it, for new generations to forget about it, and for continued life to steadily wear away the sharp corners.

Hogwarts would never be what she was, either to his perception or those who came after. He mourned that, just as he mourned Allbright and Slughorn.

Eventually, Voldemort seemed to catch on to his distraction.

“Where are your thoughts?” Voldemort asked curiously.

“Here and there. You talk a lot about what will be or could be, but… I will miss Hogwarts the way she was.”

“All things must change, Harry. Even if she were rebuilt exactly as she was before, she would not be the same. You saw to that when you summoned a Goddess, and when I soaked the stones in new blood. In saving Hogwarts, we have destroyed and rebuilt her. We are now as much her creators as the original founders were.”

Harry thought on that for a long time, and the Dark Lord left him to his thoughts. Their wanderings had led them to Ravenclaw Tower, now a burnt-out shell, but the stones still stood firm. The stained glass windows had been blown out by the magical fire, and from their vantage point they could see the pyres burning in the distance. It occurred to him that those monoliths and stone pyres could stand as long as the castle itself, reminders of what was lost and won with the castle’s rebirth. Perhaps others who died in sacrifice or service to the school would be similarly honored there.

Perhaps he would be too when his time came.

He ran his blackened hand along the cold stones, felt the magic resting there. Could he really be called a Founder? The magic was his magic, and not his magic. Shaped by him, but not of him. But then, the magic had not all been of the original founders either. They had taken much of the magic from the sacrifices made on the wall guarding the Forbidden Forest, and used it as they needed. Just as Voldemort and he had. If he could go back in time, would he have made the same choices?

His left hand caught a sliver of glass from the edge of the window, cutting open his palm. He grimaced and stared at the wound, two inches long and welling up blood as black as the surrounding flesh. He stared at the wound for a moment, before smearing the blood across the stones. It seemed he would have made the same choices. He wasn’t opposed to making the same choice now.

The idea gave him a sense of satisfaction, and he understood now where Voldemort’s enthusiasm stemmed from. Hogwarts was no longer just a refuge, but now also a canvass. The future had endless potential, and he had played a part in its creation. Perhaps he would have other parts to play. He turned to the Dark Lord who regarded him smugly, taking Harry’ bloody offering as the acceptance it was. Harry felt a swell of irritation. Why did it seem Voldemort always got his way in the end?

“I want you to pardon, Hermione, or I suppose I should say, I want you to stop trying to convince the public she’s guilty of something she’s not,” he said. It hadn’t been his intention to bring her up, but he couldn’t think of anything else that would irk the Dark Lord as quickly as this reminder of Harry’s defiant trickery. It worked. Voldemort’s expression quickly darkened. “As a reward?” Harry suggested.

“You cheeky little…”

The Dark Lord let out a huff.

“You know there used to be a time when people were afraid of me? They wouldn’t have daredplay these games. Now I can’t turn around without someone pulling a stunt. You, Blackbone, Greyback, the Germans, Lucius, now Severus. For Merlin’s sake, Severusof all people,” he lamented.

“I don’t know why that surprises you as much as it does. He’s actually quite good at making others pull stunts for him. Besides, what are you talking about?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten? I haven’t. Lucius’ curse. He withheld the identity of the perpetrator.”

“Oh that,” Harry said, as if it had all the significance of a lost scarf.

Apparently fed up with his protégé’s ‘cheek’, he hit him with a Shocking Jinx. It was hardly the worst he could do, but stung something awful and left Harry pitifully weak-legged. He fell over with a squawk in an undignified heap.

“Hey!”

“You’re lucky you’re injured or I would have made that a full Cruciatus,” Voldemort said coldly. Harry glared back.

“You’re lucky I’m injured or I would have given it right back to you,” he snapped back.

The Dark Lord looked momentarily taken aback. Then his expression twitched and twisted, as if he was having trouble maintaining control over his face. It was Harry’s turn to look alarmed. The Dark Lord burst out laughing. Harry scowled at him, but it only made the man laugh harder. He realized suddenly how ridiculous he truly was, already sat on his ass by the most childish of jinxes and still starting fights with the most powerful and probably evil wizard in the world.

Before he could stop himself, he burst out laughing too, and they continued to laugh for several minutes. They laughed until it hurt and they couldn’t anymore. Then spent another minute or two trying to catch their breath. Voldemort leaned against the wall and slid down to sit next Harry, his right arm just brushing Harry’s left. They fell into an easy silence, smiling to themselves.

“You’re a ridiculous man, Harry,” Voldemort said.

Harry chuckled.

“It takes a ridiculous man to like you, my Lord, even if he only likes you half the time.”

“I can’t argue that.”

“You still owe me something,” Harry said, holding up his arm damaged arm.

“I saved your life,” Voldemort pointed out. Harry shook his head.

“If we tried to keep score based on how often we saved each other’s lives, it’s going to get endlessly confusing. Especially since every so often, we try to kill each other. I helped save the castle… again.”

“Using magic I summoned.”

“Yeah, and nearly killing me in the process. Don’t tell me you knew this was going to happen,” he said, lifting his wounded arm.

“A minor miscalculation on my part. I overestimated your body’s ability to adapt to my blood. It was probably because your magic was already so low, your natural healing-”

“Don’t care. Still bloody hurts, and who knows if it will ever go back to normal.”

“Well… we could always cut it off and grow you a new one,” Voldemort suggested. Harry wasn’t sure if he was joking or not.

“Let’s not. Anyway, I still think you owe me a favor, and with everyone caught up with the end of the war business, I doubt they’ll notice if you turn the investigation elsewhere and she just slips in. With Hogwarts closed, there’s no reason for anyone to know she came back for some time.”

Now was probably the best opportunity he was going to get for negotiating Hermione’s return. Voldemort seemed to be in a relatively congenial mood at the moment, he did owe Harry a favor or two, and like he said, there was still an opportunity to withdraw the warrant without much public embarrassment. Everyone could get their happily ever after. Maybe.

“She’s still a suspect.”

“Then investigate her. Give her Veritaserum if you must. I know she’s innocent.”

“Because you know who really killed Lucius?” Voldemort asked, eying Harry expectantly.

“No, but it wasn’t her.”

“Has anyone told you how grating your absolute faith in others is?”

Funny enough, Hermione had made a similar complaint. Although, it had been directed towards Sirius. And Sirius had complained of his trust in Voldemort. Apparently, everyone thought Harry was an awful judge of character.

“You’re pushing your luck, regardless,” the Dark Lord continued. “There’s still the matter of the curse, the origin of which you knew and did not tell me. You told Severus and not me.”

Harry gave him a level stare.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you have a tendency to overreact.”

Voldemort glared back but couldn’t refute it.

“You still should have told me. You should tell me now.”

Harry sighed. “And then what would you do?”

Voldemort didn’t answer.

“And that’s why I won’t tell you.”

“I could make you.”

“Yes,” Harry acknowledged.

“But you don’t think I will.”

“I think I could find a way to make you regret it afterward.”

Voldemort chuckled.

“I imagine you could. You are the closest thing I have to an equal in this world,” he said with a touch of melancholy. Harry looked at him curiously. Voldemort was a being unto himself, neither human nor demon nor god, just… Voldemort. There was no one and nothing like him, and Harry wondered for the first time if he wasn’t a bit lonely. “We’ve shared almost all that can be shared. Dreams, magic, purpose, and now blood. Loathe me or love me, hurt me or heal me, you’ll never be free of me. Would you even want to be now?”

Would he? Harry wondered. Sometimes he did, when the fear and pressure of living in the Dark Lord’s shadow seemed to drive him to the brink of sanity. Yet challenge after challenge that had been presented, he had risen to, and for every moment of terror and pain there had been twice as many moments of wonder. The world was a place of infinite possibility, and he knew he would not have realized it without Voldemort leading him, sometimes kicking and screaming, through it.

“I suppose not.”

Voldemort smiled another of his self-satisfied smiles that Harry found so obnoxious.

“I suppose I shall have to be the bigger man then and make the compromise. I’ll give you two options. One, I will pardon your Hermione and allow her to return without fear of the law or myself, but you will give me the name of the one who cursed Lucius. Or, I will pardon the one who cursed Lucius, and continue to let the girl take the blame. One or the other.”

Harry thought about it for a moment. It seemed almost fair at first glance, but then Hermione shouldn’t have been persecuted in the first place and Ron, jerk though he was, probably didn’t deserve what Voldemort had in mind for him.

“What about Snape?” he asked.

“What about him?”

“If I pardon Hermione, are you just going to threaten Snape to get the name of the curser?”

Voldemort chuckled. “Very good. You’re getting better at this.”

“So if I pardon the curser, will you leave Snape alone?”

He received no reply. Harry sighed.

“I’ll pardon Snape then.”

“That wasn’t an option.”

“I’m still picking Snape. Leave him alone. You owe him anyway for the whole… torture thing.”

Voldemort stayed silent for a long time, thinking. Around them, Ravenclaw Tower, a darkened ruin, closed in around them in a strangely comforting intimacy. Torches flickered as the wind blew through the empty windows, making their shadows dance across the room. Harry closed his eyes and waited, listening and feeling his companion’s breathing against his aching arm. Cosetted in darkness and ruin, it felt like they were the last two people left at the end of the world.

“Very well,” Voldemort said at last. “Consider Snape forgiven, but not forgotten and Granger forgotten, but not forgiven.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Harry said.

“And I have no inclination to explain, but we’re essentially right where we started before… this.”

He made a vague gesture at the ruined tower. He climbed to his feet, and helped Harry to his. By now the worst of the Shocking Jinx had worn off and he could walk normally again. So that was it. Another battle of wits and wills, and they were right back where they started. Maybe. Probably not. Somehow or another Harry suspected Voldemort had tipped the scales in his favor, or at least thought he had. On the other hand, Harry was feeling more optimistic than he had since the battle. Hogwarts was closed, but she had a future, and in the meantime Harry now had the time and space he needed to pursue his private interests as well as public ones.

And there was still so much that needed to be done.