Architects of Memory (3/3)

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Part One | Part Two

Chapter Thirteen

Damnatio memoriae
Lit. damnation of memory
Removed from the remembrance


"Harry, do come in. I've something I'd like to show you."

Harry swung open the half-door and stepped inside. The printing room was much larger than when he'd seen it last, in the Lovegoods' home, but it was no less crowded. Paddles and papers flew about in what at first glance seemed a random—not to mention violent—chase across the room. As Harry watched the newsprint filled with text and pictures before diving into a vat that spewed out folded copies of the latest Quibbler. Xeno Lovegood stood amidst the melee, waving a Silencing Charm as Harry drew close. He seized a paper from atop the growing stack.

"This is our latest edition; it'll go out tomorrow. What do you think?"

The front page articles definitely lived up to the Quibbler's reputation: a sighting of Purple-Billed Tillywonks in the Scottish highlands, a rare avian-reptilian creature whose claws held magical conductive properties; hints for avoiding infestation by Squiddlypuss Yarks, especially active because of a certain alignment of stars, by coating doorways with dragon saliva; an outbreak of Wump-Mumps among teenage witches and wizards, with cleansing witch hazel washes prescribed as treatment.

"You'll need these," Xeno said, holding out a pair of psychedelic spectacles. Once Harry was wearing them, and his eyes stopped spinning, the words appeared clearly:

"POTTER RETURNS, PREPARES TO DEFEAT YOU KNOW WHO ONCE AND FOR ALL"

"Harry Potter, better known as The Boy Who Lived, resurfaced today after being missing for over eight weeks. Friends feared his demise, but after an anonymous tip revealed his whereabouts they staged a daring rescue from St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.

"According to our sources, Potter was not the only resident at St. Mungo's. Nearly one hundred others are still being held there. Many, unaffected by the Damnation Memoriae curse in May 1998, have been detained for years; others were institutionalised after the curse faded.

"Now that the Boy Hero has returned, he is expected to lead the charge against You Know Who. As we reported earlier, You Know Who has planned a tete-a-tete with his supporters for Midwinter..."

Xeno cleared his throat, obviously awaiting Harry's reaction to the article. When it wasn't forthcoming, the elder man said, "We didn't think you'd mind this news going out as soon as possible. It's sure to bring hope to a lot of people."

"I'm not a Boy Hero." Not even a single day of freedom and already he was expected to assume his position as a figurehead.

Mr Lovegood stared at him long enough that Harry began to feel uncomfortable. At last he said solemnly, "They need you, Harry."

Harry began to protest, but Xeno held up his hand. "No, listen, Harry. I've watched people coming here for weeks now, all searching for answers. They wanted to know what had happened—why they could remember when no one else could. But more than that, they wanted to know what had happened to you. 'Where's Harry Potter?' they'd say. And when they heard you were lost, it was like telling them they all were."

"Maybe they are," But Harry couldn't admit that. "Does it help to know what happened?" he asked instead. "Knowing doesn't change anything."

"It changes everything. Knowing means you aren't crazy, you've just been spelled."

Harry looked back at the article in his hand, at the strange words he'd read there. "What is this spell?"

"Damnatio Memoriae," Xeno said excitedly. "It harkens back to Ancient Rome. Emperors used it to wipe out memories of someone—usually their predecessors. I discovered it in a little spellbook from Flourish & Blotts. Don't even remember picking it up, but the blessed Parcae must have guided my hand. It was your friend Mr Zabini, though, who connected it to the horcrux."

"He's not my friend," Harry said, but frowned at a much greater problem. "And what do you know about horcruxes?"

Xeno noticed his confusion. "Don't worry, Harry. There are just a few of us in on it. Your friends worked out that you were the last of the horcruxes, and perhaps even an accidental one at that. Either that, or You Know Who didn't realise the others had been destroyed. If he had, he would not have tried to kill you."

Harry narrowed his eyes. This is what he'd suspected from the very beginning, that Voldemort's soul had saved him. It had been something he'd never mentioned to his friends—something he'd never wanted to admit to himself. But Xeno took his frustrated expression as confusion, coming to the rescue with an explanation.

"The horcrux is a portion of a soul, you know, and you can't kill your own soul. When he tried, it sprung back into his body, such that it was. Attempting soul suicide seriously weakens a wizard, though, and Damnatio Memoriae was a failsafe. The memories connected to him were wiped away, which gave him plenty of time to recover with no one suspecting a thing." He shook his head. "I shouldn't say 'no one.' There were always a few unaffected by the spell, and as it wore off there were more. But with the wards charmed to renew it, it's had some remarkable staying power."

He sounded impressed, and Harry guessed that he should be as well. It was a complex spell, and he had to ask the question that had bothered him in the ward. "Why didn't they just Obliviate everyone again when they remembered?"

"Ah, because Damnatio Memoriae isn't simply an Obliviation. It didn't just remove thoughts of You Know Who—it filled in the missing pieces around everything that disappeared. Your friends didn't remember hunting for horcruxes during your last year. They thought they'd been at Hogwarts the whole time, because that's where they would have been under other circumstances."

"So what people remember ... that's how things would have been, if he hadn't...?"

"It's not something we'll ever know for sure, Harry, but yes, that's the general idea."

Mr Lovegood was right: knowing did change things. Maybe the unambitious life he'd led hadn't been an anomaly, a sullen dénouement after a childhood of daring feats. Without Voldemort, he'd have never had any impetus to join the Aurors—or really, to do much of anything. He'd have ended up like he did, working in a dead-end job, concerned about little other than getting by. Maybe he was more like his father than he knew, when everyone wasn't insisting he be a hero. Harry wasn't at all sure that he liked that about himself.

At that moment Kreacher appeared with an explosive pop and proudly presented Harry's wand. "Kreacher has found Master's wand. It was deep in the bowels of one of the bus creatures, but Kreacher has found it."

"Well done, Kreacher!" Harry exclaimed, his melancholia dissipating. The wand warmed immediately to his touch, as if it was happy to be back, too. Harry ran his fingers along the smooth wood, thrilling at the sparks that crackled from the tip and landed on his skin with sizzling little stings. "No one saw you, did they?" The house-elf didn't answer, which earned him a stern glare. "Kreacher?"

"Stupid Muggles, tiny Muggles," the elf muttered. "They pointed at Kreacher, wanted to touch his ears." Kreacher's ears drooped, his short arms reaching up to protect them. "Then the bigger Muggles came, said Kreacher belonged to Santa Claus. Kreacher said he serves only Harry Potter. Then Muggles left him alone."

"They thought you were one of Santa's elves?" Harry stifled his amusement at the image of his house-elf surrounded by Muggle children.

The elf nodded dismally. "Do you know this wizard, Master?"

"Not personally," said Harry, "but I've heard good things about him. It's no dishonour to be mistaken for one of his ... servants."

That seemed to mollify Kreacher and his ears perked up just a bit. "Then Master is not displeased?"

"Not displeased, no," Harry reassured him, then realised that this might not be so easy to explain away when it wasn't a week before Christmas. "But you must be more careful in the future. Santa might be angry with me if he thinks I've taken one of his elves. You wouldn't want that, would you?"

"Oh, no, Master. Kreacher would never malign Harry Potter's good name."

Harry wondered at the elf's phrasing; although he couldn't detect any sarcasm, it sounded too close to something Mrs. Black might say for his comfort. Kreacher was definitely spending more time with her than was good for him. But that wasn't something Harry could deal with now. Later ... afterwards...

"Thank you, Kreacher," he said dismissively. "That will be all."

The elf Apparated away, leaving Harry alone with Mr Lovegood. The editor was busying himself straightening the corners of a stack of newsprint and Harry walked over to help.

"House-elves apparently remember everything, did you know that?" Harry remarked absently. "And I suppose portraits do as well. Funny, I never thought to ask them anything."

"You'd learned not to bring it up," he replied in a kindly tone. "We all did; we just tried to get on with our lives. Oh, there's something else I think you'll want to see." Mr Lovegood pointed his wand at a pile of newspapers that immediately began to reshuffle themselves. When the one he wanted came to the top, he whisked it to Harry. "Have a look at that—you'll see that You Know Who kept himself busy."

Harry put the spectrespecs back on. His eyes had adjusted to using them and there was almost no disorientation now, only the words he was supposed to see:

"YOU KNOW WHO BEHIND SECURITY FEARS; SQUIB TELLS ALL"

"An unofficial investigation by Aurors Neville Longbottom and Ronald Weasley has uncovered disturbing news concerning the violence of the past five years. While investigating a brutal attack on Editha Longbottom, aged 106, the Aurors apprehended Hardial Baines, a Squib aged 34, who was not only involved in the attack but identified a trail of crime and malevolence leading directly to You Know Who."

With growing trepidation, Harry read how Baines was approached by a "businessman" calling himself Tom Riddle. Riddle had assembled a force of Squibs and errant wizards to strong-arm individuals and shopkeepers. But unlike most protection rings, money—and yes, it was a profitable racket—was simply a bonus. The goal was terror. Baines referred to it as "a cloud of fear" that the article said darkened even more after the group pulled off several successful attacks on Gringotts.

Harry looked up in alarm. "So that's how he got everybody to start warding their homes. That extended the curse." And later, monitored the magic. "But how did he know it would happen like that?" The wards had come about as an accident, after all. "I started mucking about with our wards," Draco had said, "just something to keep me busy..."

"It's hardly a surprise, is it? The warding companies are all owned by Death Eaters."

"Order members all run in the same circle..."

From that perspective, the evidence was damning. But Draco hadn't known—he couldn't have known. His memories had been wiped, just like everyone else's, weren't they? And Draco had gotten him out, hadn't he? He wouldn't have done that if he'd been on their side, would he?

Harry was tying himself in knots thinking like this. It was a feeling he hadn't had since leaving Hogwarts, all the "what ifs?" and "what abouts?" colliding in his head. He'd only been able to escape them by leaving England and living amongst people who'd never heard of Voldemort and who saw The Boy Who Lived as just another wizard searching for adventure in their lands.

He couldn't escape now, there was too much at stake. But he couldn't let himself be overwhelmed with questions about Draco's loyalty either. He refocused his attention on the other wizard, watching as he skilfully levitated a stack of papers to the corner. "How long have you remembered the truth, Mr Lovegood?" he finally asked.

"Call me Xeno, please. Well, we've never had this place warded. And Luna never quite lost everything, although she did think she was being pulled between different worlds at times. That often happened to her mother so we weren't too bothered, but about three years ago my memories returned and we knew it was no coincidence. We did some checking around and discovered others. Mostly those who live outside the mainstream wizarding world: the magical folk in Ireland, all the Travellers we've ever spoken too, the ones who steer clear of Diagon..."

Harry nodded, remembering what Ron had said about the strong wards in the Ministry. "And Neville?"

"Neville, he took a leave from the Aurors after Editha was attacked. They were staying with us here. Within about a week, their minds were clear and he refused to go back." Xeno shrugged. "It's not an immediate process, remembering, and sometimes it can take longer. But if the spell's expired and no Memory Charms are keeping it active, you recover fairly quickly."

"So if the charm in the Eye was disabled, all the people with warded homes could remember?"

Xeno looked up from his work, then used the tip of his wand to scratch his head. "You'd have to take out the ones in the Ministry as well, and all over Diagon, but yes, theoretically it's conceivable. Actually getting to them is another matter entirely, though."

Harry nodded thoughtfully. This was just the kind of strategy that he needed to pull himself from his morose thoughts—and for which he had always relied on his friends. He decided that he needed to seek them out now. If he was supposed to play the part of the Boy Hero, he really should know what kinds of plans had been laid.

"Thanks, Mr ... Xeno. I'd better let you get back to work. I'll go see how the training is coming along."

"You do that, Harry," the man called, resuming his levitations. As Harry closed the door behind him, Xeno lifted the Silencing Charm and the machines once again clamoured for his attention. Harry smiled, wondering why Xeno let the noises rage on when he was alone. He must have just grown used to it.

You could grow used to anything, he supposed.

Harry started back up the path to the house, practicing wand movements with each step. While he'd missed his wand in St. Mungo's, it was only now, feeling his concentrated magic thrumming through the taut unicorn hair in the springy hawthorn wood, that he realised how much. There must have been some powerful charms in effect at the hospital that kept the vulnerable patients from demanding their wands. As much as he wanted to stop Voldemort once and for all, liberating the "mental victims" and restoring their magic and their lives seemed equally important

He needed to get reacquainted with his own magic, however, before he could even join Dumbledore's Army. "Wingardium Leviosa," he said to a water pail. It rose exactly to his eye level and stopped, waiting for Harry's next command. With a grin, he pointed to a patch of winter woodruff; the bucket followed his trajectory and upended itself over the sparkling white flowers.

Satisfied, he looked around for something else to spell, willing a happy memory to appear:

Almost-but-not-quite-too-hot water streams into his face while billowing steam fogs the shower enclosure. The door clicks open and he knows he's not alone, but he isn't frightened. Skin meets his, cool where his is warm, dry where his is wet. Sharp little teeth explore the curve of his neck, suckling flesh and dripping hair. "You were taking too long," a lazy voice drawls in his ear. "Malfoys don't like being kept waiting." Fingers drape over the bone in his hip; more slip perfectly into the grooves of his ribcage. Touch blends with cascading heat, wraps him in a blanket of water and steam and his lover's hands. Hot flesh incinerates his insides, sears his stretched skin, makes him beg for mercy, beg for release. Hands everywhere now, hands and water and his lover's voice telling him to let go. Forks of lightning course through his body as his lover climaxes. His own white heat joins it and ignites ribbons of flash fire that he doubts even the cooling water can contain. His knees crumble and he would fall if not for the strong arms that catch him. "Draco, I..." He wants to say something, can feel words forming on his scorched tongue, but like a pillar of ash he knows a single breath could scatter him into a million pieces. "I know," the voice says, arms tightening around him. "I know, I do too..."

Harry looked up to see a tall stag standing before him. Its quicksilver features were perfectly formed, and when it shook its head, mighty antlers left a trail of glittering sparks against the overcast December sky. Harry grinned as it galloped over the hill where the Lovegoods' home stood. He followed, rounding the corner just in time to see it race past two figures standing outside the training room. A man and a woman, and he had his arm around her until, startled by his Patronus, they quickly pulled apart. Harry saw that one was Hermione, but the other, clearly, was not Ron. His friend's head darted around but he was hidden in the curve of the rook. Looking panicked, she turned and fled inside the shed.

The other person stayed where he was. Harry crept closer, surprised to see that it was Blaise Zabini who'd been cuddling up with Hermione. He watched as Zabini lit a cigarette—something he'd seen few wizards do, and even those usually used their wands instead of a Muggle lighter. Harry wondered where he had picked up this habit, and why. Hermione had told him that Blaise worked with Muggles in Cairo, exploring the connections between Muggles and magic in predynastic Egypt, but Harry found it hard to believe any pure-blood Slytherin could have untainted reasons for doing that.

"Zabini," he said in greeting.

"Potter," came the reply, along with a smirk. "I see you've located your wand."

"And it works as well as it ever did." Harry's warning was barely concealed. "So what were you doing with Hermione?"

Amusement curled Zabini's lips as he took a long drag from his smoke. "Ah, that Gryffindor subtlety. It's a beautiful thing ... so utterly predictable." He studied the glowing tip of his cigarette as if it was far more interesting than the conversation. Harry schooled his impatience; if there was one thing he'd learned from Draco, it was that Slytherins were more than eager to speak—so long as you didn't admit that you wanted them to. After a second or two of silence, Zabini flicked the ash away and drawled, "I think Miss Granger just needs a break from all that ... earnestness."

"It's Ms Granger-Weasley." Harry felt his fingers clench more tightly around his wand. Only a sideways glimpse from Zabini revealed that he'd noticed.

"Oh, is it?" Blaise affected the bored tones that only the very rich can carry off convincingly. "Maybe that's what she needs a break from then."

Harry pointed his wand directly between Zabini's dark eyes. "So help me, Zabini, if you lay a finger on Hermione I'll..."

"You'll what?" the Slytherin said, his tone only slightly less mocking as he faced Harry head on. He took a step forward, closer to Harry's wand. "Hex me just because Granger can't find anyone else smart enough to keep up with her?" Another step, closing the distance between them. "Or are you going to kill me, Harry? I bet you're just itching to test some Unforgivables before you go up against the Dark Lord." With the tip of Harry's wand just inches from Blaise's forehead now, he returned to the sly, bored voice he'd used earlier. "That'd be terribly reckless, since I'm the only one who's figured out what you're up against ... but that is your middle name, isn't it, Potter?"

Harry wasn't about to utter an Unforgivable like Zabini had suggested, but he was running through his catalogue of spells that could be used at such close range, teaching the man a lesson without indelibly harming him. Hermione and Ron found them that way, and neither was impressed.

"Harry, what do you think you're doing?" Ron forcibly pulled his arm down. "You can't go attacking our allies, mate. We've got precious few to begin with." He glanced at Blaise, then back at Harry. "Everything okay here?"

Harry didn't know what to say; he shot a quick glance at Hermione, who was inexplicably silent.

It was Blaise who spoke up first. "Harry was defending the honour of Gryffindor. Old house rivalries die hard, I'm afraid. Shall we call a truce?"

He extended his hand to Harry, who stared as if it was a venomous serpent. "Go on," Ron urged, nudging his arm. "Seriously, if Neville hears there's been fighting in the ranks, you'll be looking for You Know Who to bail you out."

It was only after Harry took Blaise's hand that Hermione finally stepped forward. Harry glanced at her, but she was looking at the Slytherin with a questioning look that bordered on fear. When Harry looked at Blaise, he saw the black man smiling back smugly at her.

Ron didn't seem to notice anything amiss.

"How's the training going?" Harry asked, pulling out of Zabini's grip and turning away.

"Really well," Ron said. "Did you get a chance to meet the Hockleys? Iman has one of the strongest Stunners I've ever seen. He's showing it to the others right now. And Neville's taught them every single spell in The Dark Arts Outsmarted. I don't want to jinx us, but I think we're about as ready as we can be. And Neville's right—something needs to happen soon."

Harry cocked his eyebrow at that. "What is going to happen?"

Hermione was the one who answered. "We're still working on that. We'll have a strategy meeting after dinner. But now we've got the DA here and we really should be working with them. They'll be glad to see you've got your wand back, Harry."

He nodded; she was right. He'd corner her later and get some answers. For the moment he followed them into the training hall, watching out for the curses flying fast and furious, but keeping a careful eye on the tall Slytherin all the while.



It was the strangest strategy meeting Harry had every attended.

The Order of the Phoenix had always gathered in the Black kitchen. Maps of Britain or building interiors or spellbooks might occasionally find their way there, but the bulk of the meetings centred on the personalities around the worn table. Harry remembered heated debates, overly hopeful pep talks, and wine-soaked despondency. They were never like this. The meeting table was covered in parchments, but there was only one map—of Malfoy Manor. The rest were filled with scribbled numbers and calculations, making the Lovegood kitchen resemble the Arithmancy classes that Harry had fled in horror than any war room.

Blaise had been talking for some time now, switching back and forth between ancient scrolls on the verge of disintegration and modern Muggle textbooks. Harry had tried to follow what he was saying, but got lost in a complex explanation of the Egyptian counting system. Giving up, he glanced around around the table. Mr Lovegood was nodding thoughtfully, but his eyes seemed to be glazed. His daughter sat beside him with an idyllic expression; Harry suspected that Zabini's lecture wasn't getting through to her. It obviously wasn't reaching the Weasleys either. They sat together in a row, the subtle colour variations in their hair and hand-knit jumpers blurring together like sunset in the Painted Desert, to a man—including Molly and Ginny—wearing the same confused frown. Neville looked like he was trying the hardest to understand. He frowned a lot too, but he was at least examining the parchments with interest. Hermione ... well, Hermione was sitting up straight in her chair, glowing like she would at Hogwarts when something just clicked. That feeling came rarely enough for Harry, and hardly ever in a classroom, which is what this meeting was beginning to feel like. He almost missed Snape's contemptuous sneer and belittling comments.

Since Snape wasn't here now, and no one else was going to ask, Harry interrupted the meeting when Zabini paused. "And what does this have to do with anything?"

Hermione looked at him shocked. "Harry, have you not been listening? Blaise has figured out more about the horcruxes than even Dumbledore knew."

"Yeah, yeah, they're from some old Egyptian god. So what? It's not like that tells us how to attack him."

Zabini got that smug look that Harry wanted to wipe off. He couldn't remember Draco ever being this annoying. "That 'old Egyptian god' figured out how to preserve his soul, Potter, back in 2000 BC." He grabbed one of the many notebooks littering the table and read, "'The Eye of Horus hath delivered for me my soul' and 'the Eye of Horus hath made me holy ... I will hide myself among you, O ye stars which are imperishable'—you don't think that sounds like a horcrux?"

"Maybe it does," Harry conceded. "Doesn't really say much about destroying them, though."

"Maybe it does," Blaise parroted smoothly. "And maybe it tells you what we'll have to destroy, too."

Harry narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean, what we'll have to destroy?"

"Blaise thinks You Know Who's created another horcrux."

Harry shrugged. "No big surprise there, is it? He's had years, he's probably got them scattered all over the place. Guess we'll be tramping all over the country to track them all down again." He looked pointedly at Ron and Hermione, longing for the days when it had been just the three of them.

"No need," Zabini said. "There's only one. But there'll be another on Saturday night." The Slytherin shoved some papers to the side to unearth a wall calendar. He flipped it back to August. "Like I was saying, the Egyptian mathematical system—the one used in the eye of Horus—is based on fractions of sixty-four. August fourteenth, that's was sixty-four months from the battle of Hogwarts."

"Yeah, okay, but what happened on August fourteenth?" Harry tried and failed to remember anything happening on that date. He'd started seeing Draco around that time, he knew. He wondered if that was significant.

"Absolutely nothing," Zabini said, "but sixty-four days later, on the seventeenth of October..."

…a Friday afternoon at Critswold's Creatures … Lucius Malfoy Stupefying a snake … a note from Draco about an emergency meeting … waves of pain roiling through him … red eyes burning through to his soul...

"He made a horcrux that night." Harry swallowed hard, knowing with every bone in his body that it was a fact, not simply a guess. He looked up at Blaise with a mix of distrust and awe. "How did you know."

"It's a simple Arithmancy logarithm, Harry," answered Hermione. "The number of months and the same number of days. Sixty-four months and sixty-four days was how long it took to recover enough strength to split his soul again."

"And soul splitting takes a lot out of you," Blaise added wryly, "which means he wouldn't be able to try it again for another sixty-four days, until, oh, about now."

He tapped the calendar, right on the upcoming Saturday. Solstice.

The room was quiet, heavy with the dread of what was about to happen. For all that Neville might say he welcomed it, the reality of what was left to do weighed on all of their shoulders. It was George who finally spoke with characteristic directness. "So how do we kill the bastard?"

Now it was Hermione's turn to assume lecture duties. She flipped open a book full of symbols that Harry didn't recognise, but in the centre was the same image that Zabini had shown them earlier. It was the eye of a falcon, an eyebrow tented over the top and a tear seeping from the bottom.

"The eye of Horus isn't just a mathematical construct. Each piece also represents one of the senses: touch, taste, hearing, sight, smell, and thought." As she spoke her fingers flew to various parts of the image. "Whether magical or Muggle, this is all the sensory input that a person can handle. They're already fractioned into six pieces. We think we've found a spell—or rather, six different spells—that will fraction them further, and keep them splitting until they're no harm to anyone."

"Sorry, did you just say you want to make more pieces of You Know Who's soul?" Ginny asked incredulously. Harry applauded her silently; it was the same question he wanted to ask.

"Technically, yes. Each piece will split into sixty-four pieces, then each of those pieces will split into sixty-four pieces, then those will split, and so on. In just a few seconds they'll be too small to do anything."

"Okay, assuming you're right about that," Neville said sceptically, "exactly what happens in those first few seconds? Won't we have ..." he tried to calculate the number, and then immediately gave up, "...a lot of new horcruxes just laying around?"

"We'd potentially have 384 in just the first division, yes." Blaise didn't sound at all bothered by that number.

"And we just, what? Hope they'll go away without too much fuss?"

"The individual pieces will be drawn into the spell," answered Hermione. "They'll go toward the one who casts it. It's not going to be easy ... not to mention that, once we start, the Death Eaters will go crazy. We'll have to keep them from tracking the magic back to us."

"Don't worry about that," assured Neville. "I reckon the DA can keep them busy for as long as we need." He looked around the table and shrugged. "Well, I'm volunteering, anyway."

Luna raised her hand. "And me."

Hermione and Ron's hands were already raised. As was Blaise's. Harry gave him a steely glare, but the Slytherin didn't flinch. Finally Harry raised his own.

"I guess that's our team then. Tell us what we're going to do?"

Hermione began to explain the background of the spell in some detail—too much detail, if the yawns coming from the Weasley contingent were any indication. Their discomfort was palpable as she and Blaise described the historical connections between the pharaohs and the wizards of Egypt's Middle Kingdom. Instead of another round of Pepperup, Harry suggested they take a break before continuing with just the core team. The others would need their strength for the early morning training session, he pointed out.

George was the first one on his feet. He gave Harry a look of immense gratitude as he fled toward the door, stopping for just a second to clasp his arm. "We owe you one." he whispered, careful that Hermione didn't hear.

"My pleasure, George," he said warmly, trying not to think of who George meant when he said "we." George still talked to Fred regularly, about the business, about their weekend plans, about the latest gossip from Diagon. It had upset the Weasleys at first, but over time they'd gotten used to it, even if they never asked whether Fred talked back.

While Ron and Neville took a moment to refresh the candles in their sconces and Luna made extra-strong tea to fortify them, Blaise stepped out for a smoke. Harry saw Hermione about to follow, but intercepted her. Careful that the others were out of earshot, he said, "I'm not sure about having Zabini in on this."

Hermione looked shocked. "Harry, I told you, he's got as much to lose as any of us if You Know Who returns. You heard what he said about his research. Muggles and magical beings share the same origin. He's destroying any idea of blood purity!"

"I know, but I still don't trust him."

"Harry, you've just got to get over these old house rivalries and..."

"It's not house rivalries. I don't trust him with you."

She stopped, her mouth falling open, wavering for a second before stuttering out, "I ... I don't know what you mean."

"I saw you today, I saw his arm around you. And the way you're fawning over him ... it's just like you were with Viktor Krum!"

Hermione's eyes glittered with anger. "There's nothing going on between Blaise and me. We've been working on the spells together, but that's all..."

Harry studied her face as she talked, examining every crease for any hint of a lie. He didn't find it, but it didn't assuage his fears. "I just don't want him involved. He may be looking out for himself, I don't doubt that, but I don't trust that he has our interests at heart. You heard what Neville said about putting his life in the hands of the DA. I can't do that with Zabini."

"And none of us can do this without him," she insisted. "Harry, Blaise knows this spell better than anybody, and unless you've picked up pre-Arabic Egyptian in the time you've been away, he's the only one who can decipher the original texts. We might have to make alterations as we're casting, and we need him."

Harry looked at the table where the others were regrouping. Blaise had returned and was staring at them, his chin held high. Hermione followed his eye over to the table. "We need to get back," she murmured. "Can we talk about this later? Just please, trust me for now."

"All right," Harry reluctantly nodded. "For now."

He followed her back to the table, taking his place between Ron and Luna. Hermione settled beside Ron and finished explaining the spell. Once she got past all the history, and Zabini stopped interjecting his own thoughts on long-gone political situations, Harry found the magic quite interesting. It involved each of them learning a different spell that affected a certain aspect of the eye; in effect they planned to overload that aspect by helping it do exactly what it was intended to do. Hermione compared it to Glow-Nosed Murgles, strange burrowing animals that, several times a year, would eat so much that their two stomachs would either divide into four or they would explode. Harry mumbled "wafer-thin mint" just as he'd done the first time Hagrid had introduced them to Murgles, and she flashed him a quick smile before returning to lecture mode. Harry didn't mind though. He was actually beginning to like this plan. Neville was right, they were creating thousands—no, millions—of inert horcruxes for Voldemort, turning his own lust for immortality back on himself. The whole thing had a symmetry that Harry admired.

At last Hermione handed out copies of the actual spell. "Blaise translated these from Middle Egyptian, which is a very difficult language," she said, and Harry noticed a slight flush rise above her collar as she distributed sheets of parchment written in her neat hand. "Alone they won't do much, but in conjunction their effects will build at an exponential rate." Ron frowned, spurring Hermione to explain, "That means they'll keep going, faster and faster."

"I know that," Ron said, his defensive tone really not like him. Harry sensed that this wasn't the first time that Hermione had made him feel thick. "I'm just wondering how we'll get close enough to You Know Who to make it work."

She nodded, looking a bit apologetic, for which Harry was grateful. "We have to be close and we have to begin the spell at the same instant. It's not going to be easy."

"And will someone have to die?"

Luna's question dampened Harry's optimism. Of course. Splitting the soul required an act of violence. To split someone else's soul, well, that was surely even more violent.

But Zabini shook his head. "No. Each of us is only creating a sensory overload that will split one of the individual components. It's not like fracturing an entire soul. No one has to die."

"Yes, they do." When everyone turned to face Harry, he explained, "He's already made one horcrux. And I have a good idea where it is." Harry told them about his last day at work, when Lucius Malfoy had purchased Kalfu. The others agreed that the young cobra was the most likely home of the first horcrux, especially after Harry described the snake's malevolent temperament.

"And we still don't know how to get to it," Ron said glumly.

Neville frowned too. "I talked to Roger Davies yesterday—he's the best ward cracker in the Ministry, and he says there's no hope of breaking through the Malfoy wards. They're stronger than Gringotts' these days."

"We'll have to lure them out, then," said Hermione. "Maybe attack the Eye and grab them when they come to stop us?"

Harry shook his head. "Some of the Death Eaters might be dispatched, but He wouldn't bother showing up. Not when he's got a ceremony planned that night and all." He scratched his head. "Wait, so how do you know it's at the Manor that night?"

Ron, looking sheepish, muttered, "Malfoy. He said there was a big Solstice ceremony planned there. I asked him to help us, and that's when he said we couldn't trust him."

"But you think his information is good?"

Ron hemmed and hawed before admitting, "Well, he hasn't lied to us about anything else."

"So you're telling me that you trust that this vital information came from him because he's fed us nothing but good information before, but you don't trust that he's on our side?"

Ron shifted uncomfortably and looked away. Neville and Hermione were both staring blankly ahead, studiously avoiding Harry's gaze. Luna wore a thoughtful expression, but it could as well have been about the temperature of her tea as the question of Draco's loyalty. But Zabini wore a smug look, and Harry knew he was thinking the same thing.

"I can get us into the Manor."


Chapter Fourteen

Mus uni non fidit antro
A mouse does not rely on just one hole


In the dark room he shared with Ron and Hermione, Harry pulled the bedcovers completely over his head. He was exhausted, emotionally as well as physically, but his thoughts were spinning like a cyclone.

Their meeting had dragged on until well after midnight, and would have gone longer had Neville not reminded them that the DA would be returning in the morning. With news of the battle on their doorstep, they'd decided to forego inconsequential things like their jobs in favour of more training. Still no closer to deciding how to get near Voldemort than they'd been when they started, the six spell casters agreed to reconvene the next afternoon and stumbled off to bed.

"I can get us into the Manor."

"Harry, you can't!"

"We won't let you do that, mate."

Harry hadn't thought his suggestion would be greeted with open arms. Malfoy Manor was the nerve centre of the Death Eaters, after all, and Harry had no fond memories of his one and only visit. He well knew the risks, to himself and to the others, if Voldemort should discover the DA.

But nothing they were doing was safe—it never had been. At least Hermione should have remembered that, even if Ron didn't. They'd put themselves in the face of danger more times than he could count. Skulking in the shadows ("like Slytherins", he'd thought, although he didn't say it out loud) had never been their way.

This was just a plan, like any other. Malfoy Manor was impenetrable by ordinary means. Harry remembered its forbidding gates and the magic crackling through him as they'd crossed its wards in the Snatchers' custody. It was certainly stronger now; with Draco skilfully weaving its protective spells. A full assault by the DA was out of the question.

Still, Harry was certain he could convince Draco to lower the wards just long enough to let them sneak past. He wouldn't even have to go to the Manor. He could visit Draco at his Greenwich flat, or even at the Salus offices. He could owl him for a meeting at a public place, surrounded by the entire force of the DA, if that's what it took. It needn't be dangerous at all, he'd insisted.

But because it involved Malfoy ("Draco!" he reminded himself now; he'd heard the surname so often that night—and said so scornfully—that he'd fallen back into the habit of saying it too), the entire idea was being dismissed out of hand. "Without anyone admitting that it's the best bloody chance we've got."

"You were only together for two months. What about all the years that he was the enemy?

"Maybe you shouldn't judge loyalty by how long you've been with someone. Sometimes best friends are the ones who betray."

Harry thought Hermione had some nerve to bring that up. The others might have believed he was referring to Wormtail, but her pointed look told Harry that she'd caught the barb he intended.

Zabini, Slytherin that he was, had simply watched as Ron and Hermione—and sometimes Neville—argued against what Hermione had labelled "Harry's suicide mission." Harry was dying to know what he thought, but even when asked point-blank whether he trusted Malfoy, Zabini had merely shrugged. "I trust that Draco will do what's right for Draco."

Luna had kept her cards close to her chest as well, but of them all, she seemed the one who best understood that it might be a risk they had to take. "It might not be what we want," she'd finally said, just before they adjourned, "but it might be what we must do."

"We'll find another way."

Ron had reason for his suspicions. As Harry breathed in the close air under the covers, he questioned why he himself should trust Draco. They had only been together a few months. It wasn't even Harry's longest relationship. The nightless summer he'd spent with Kristján Leifs in Reykjavík still technically held that honour. Kristján had been no Draco, though. Harry had appreciated the comfort of the man's bed, but there'd been nothing more than that, and when he left for warmer climes Kristján had sent him away with no regrets, no recriminations.

It was nothing like Draco, who'd made it clear from their very first night that he cared if Harry stuck around. No, they'd never exchanged sappy words of love, and in truth he wasn't sure exactly what feelings he held for Draco. The man was irritating, spoiled rotten, and too clever by half. His vanity had more than once tempted Harry to rip every coiffed blond hair from his head, and his utter disdain for those he regarded as beneath him, no matter how well-founded, often left Harry stuttering out embarrassed apologies.

Still, being around Draco was intoxicating. At first curiosity had drawn him, an experiment to see where the Malfoy he'd known at Hogwarts stopped and the Draco that he increasingly wanted began. But in a remarkably short time he'd found a man who was surprisingly gentle under his bravado, who was quick to anger but almost as quick to apologise when proven wrong, who held a keen sense of right and wrong—one untainted by the prejudice of blood purity. He was a genuinely attractive person, when his loyalties to Voldemort were stripped away.

But as for love... Harry shifted uncomfortably in his narrow bed, reshuffling the covers that slipped off his shoulder. It was still be too early to be thinking that kind of thing, wasn't it, even if he hadn't had two months of his life stolen away ... even if he hadn't had doubts about Draco's allegiance?

When he was being honest with himself, though, it was the very idea of love that frightened him. For all that Dumbledore had insisted that love was his saving grace, for all that Harry would have laid down his life for his friends, he'd never before told anyone that he loved them. He snorted softly, knowing what Hermione would say about that: emotionally stunted, and perhaps he was. Those three little words held nearly as much dread as an Unforgivable.

So why was it that, when he'd been with Draco, that there were moments that he'd imagined he might say them? Oh, not anytime soon, mind you, but someday, if they'd been able to keep moving forward the way they had been...

"I think you know I like you, Harry. Quite a lot, actually."

But they hadn't kept moving forward, had they? Surely by now Draco remembered how things had been before. Chances are he'd returned to it gladly and was even now scouring his skin, erasing every memory of the weeks he'd spent with Harry.

Ron and Hermione were right. It wasn't safe to pin their future on how Draco had acted with him for two short months. It was who he was underneath that mattered. And that was why he was sure—fairly sure, in any case—that Draco could be trusted. There might be a way he could find out; he wasn't that thrilled about it, but to convince the others, he'd use every resource at hand.

Harry fisted his pillow, his cheek pressed into the cushion, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. Like it or not, tomorrow he would have to talk to Zabini.



His chance came the next afternoon. The DA was engaged in what Luna called the "Mad Robin," named after the old English folk dance. Harry had joined half of the fighters to form a ring facing out; around them another ring formed, facing in. On Luna's signal, hexes flew between the two groups. When Luna called "right" or "left," the rings would move a step in that direction, bringing each fighter in line with a new combatant. It wasn't battle conditions exactly, and of course no Unforgivables were permitted, but quickly parrying such varied fighting styles was about the closest approximation Harry could imagine.

"Left," Luna called, and Harry took one step to his left, coming face to face with Blaise. Before he could fire off a spell, a purple trail of smoke was hurtling toward him. Zabini's Revulsion Jinx knocked him backwards, crashing into Rolly Seabrook, who'd just been hit by George Weasley's Vomiting Jinx. Busy untangling his limbs from the old farmer's while trying to avoid the slick sick on the floor, Harry didn't notice Zabini advancing on him.

"AMUN OCULUSO!"

Harry felt himself engulfed in a warm puff of air, like a dragon might have wheezed on him with breath as malodorous as the most rotten-toothed Norwegian Ridgeback's. He hardly had time to register the acrid ammonia spell, however, because his eyes were burning ... not the watery sting of sand, but intense incinerating heat, like acid devouring his corneas. He clawed at his face in agony, peeling his glasses off, wanting nothing more than to rip through his skin and stop the pain. Rolly must have been caught by the curse too, for Harry heard agonised screams accompanying his own. In vain he struggled for the anti-jinx, but he couldn't remember ever learning this spell. All he wanted to do was tear shreds from his skin, opening up his veins to the cooling air outside.

"STUPEFY!"

Frozen in place, Harry peered up through fingers gnarled in pain to see Mediwitch Melissa Whitehall's wand pointing at him. Behind her other members of the DA gathered, peering curiously over her shoulder. Rolly was quiet; Harry guessed he'd been stupefied as well.

"What did you do?" Ron demanded of Zabini.

"It's an Egyptian spell calling on the power of Amun to destroy a person's sight." He paused for a moment, just long enough for Ron to take a step towards him, before adding, "Don't worry, it's easy to fix."

Zabini pointed his wand at Harry and muttered a few incomprehensible words. Relief came immediately, flooding his eyes with what felt like cool spring water. Still Stupefied, he lay on the ground, tears pouring down his cheeks, while Blaise repeated the counterspell on Rolly.

"Rennervate," Ron said, kneeling down beside him. "Are you all right, mate?"

"I think so," Harry said, wiping his face on the arm of his cloak. "I can see ... my eyes don't burn anymore, but my head ... man, that was some spell!"

"Glad you liked it, Potter," Zabini commented. "Perhaps it's one you should learn before you head to the Malfoys."

Harry nodded—it would be a useful spell—but Ron was quick to object. "If he goes to the Malfoys," he said reproachfully. "Surely that's Dark Arts, if it has that kind of effect."

"Maybe it is," Zabini replied with a nonplussed shrug. "Dark Arts means next to nothing in Egyptian magic. But I don't think it's wise to dismiss something just because it has an effect. Are we serious about winning or not?"

Harry felt Ron vibrating indignantly beside him, but fortunately Neville stepped in before the situation could escalate. "Let's talk about the spell later," he said to the clutch of wizards, then raised his voice for the whole group to hear. "Blaise has already shared some useful hexes that you're all doing a great job of incorporating. That was a fantastic Mad Robin, folks. Should we get back in line?" He reached a hand out to help Rolly to his feet. "Harry, why don't you and Rolly sit this one out, just to make sure there are no lingering effects."

To Harry's surprise, Zabini held out his own hand to help him up. He took it, mumbling an uncomfortable thanks. "Don't be such a chicken," he chided himself. "This is the perfect opportunity to talk to him." "That's a really cool spell," he admitted.

"Yeah, it is." Blaise grinned with the smug surety that reminded Harry of another Slytherin.

He turned away to join the line, but Harry put a hand on his arm. "Hey, would you mind stepping out for a minute? I wanted to ask you some questions ... about last night."

"Sure, I could use a smoke."

They went outside the practice hall, standing where Harry had seen Blaise with his arm around Hermione. Harry tried to blot that image from his head by watching Zabini light another cigarette Muggle-style.

"No, thanks, I don't smoke," he said when the pack was offered.

Zabini just shrugged and repocketed the pack. True Slytherin that he was, he offered Harry no easy opening for what he wanted to know. Harry knew he'd need to take a deep breath and plunge right in.

"I reckon you know Draco better than any of us."

Zabini arched one perfectly curved eyebrow. "Oh, I'm sure you know him in ways I never will, Potter."

Harry swallowed, trying not to blush. He hoped the redness he felt in his cheeks could be explained away as after-effects of the spell. "I want to know if you trust him."

Blaise crooked his head back, exhaling a cloud of grey smoke as he considered Harry's question. The last traces of it had dissipated before he finally said, "Trust is such an unsophisticated word. It isn't something I ever really thought about."

"Not even when we were in school? How did you live with people you couldn't trust?" The very idea was repugnant to him. Those few months in fifth year when Seamus and the other Gryffindors hadn't believed him had been some of the worst of his life.

"The notion of trust never came up. You looked out for yourself and didn't put yourself in a position where anyone would turn on you. I suppose you'd call it self-preservation."

"But didn't you have friends? Would they help you out?" The whole Slytherin system seemed so foreign.

Zabini gazed at him bemusedly, making Harry feel like a foolish little boy. "Yes, we had friends, Potter, we weren't a bunch of barbarians. And of course we'd help each other. If it was worth our while, obviously."

"It's all about what you stood to gain, then."

"Of course."

"And Draco..."

"Is quite obviously making that same calculation now."

A calculation. That's what it was ... that's all it was. Draco was weighing the certainty of being a snivelling shill for Voldemort versus some unknown future with Harry. But no, there were so many other factors to consider: the reputation of the Malfoy name, the power and status he stood to gain, the confirmation of his own conviction that Muggle-borns tainted the magical world. Not to mention other, more insidious factors: the threats to the safety of his family, the fear that Voldemort fed upon, the physical pain that Draco would endure if he challenged his rule.

So many factors falling into line, each one weighting the scale against him. But he must fall somewhere into that calculation, mustn't he? Why else would Draco have helped get him out of St. Mungo's? Why else would he have given information to Ron—surely at great risk to himself?

"So what calculation do you think you'd make, if you were in his shoes?"

"Merlin, I wish I knew," Zabini chuckled. "What you have to know about Draco is that, as much a prat as he was in school, he was as smart as they come. He was always working some angle, plans within plans ... we used to joke that he could charm the balls off a goblin and sell them back the next day with interest. And to this day, I've never known anyone with a stronger sense of self-preservation."

"More than yourself even?" Harry remembered Hermione explaining Zabini's defection to their side. He wasn't quite sure that wanting to study Muggle magic was enough reason.

Blaise regarded him coolly. "Look, I know you don't trust me, Harry, and that's all right. Your trust doesn't concern me one way or another. What does concern me is being on the winning side. For what it's worth, I've thrown in with you lot. You know as well as I that Voldemort doesn't look kindly on traitors, so hopefully that's enough to convince you I'm on the level. If it's not ..." He shrugged and blew smoke from the corner of his mouth.

Harry considered it, and realised that it made sense. "No, it ... it helps, really."

Zabini looked at him closely, that bemused look returning to his face. "You are such a Gryffindor, Potter."

"What do you mean?" Harry bristled.

"This fight's not going to be easy, and I don't think we can afford to give up any advantages we have—whether it's spells or you trying to convince Draco to help us. I don't see any other way we're going to win."

"Yeah, I don't either." Harry didn't think Blaise had answered his question, but he wasn't quite sure. He'd forgotten what it was like talking to a true Slytherin, when questions weren't answered and answers didn't illuminate. At least it kept him on his toes. Two months with Greg Goyle hadn't held the same intrigue. Rather than badger Zabini for a less obtuse answer—that had never worked with Draco—he said, "Teach me that spell, will you?"

"Amun?" The black man grinned evilly. "Are you sure you want to dabble in the Dark Arts, Potter?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Besides, didn't you say that means nothing there?"

"Looking for some wiggle room? That's not very Gryffindor-like."

"Maybe there's more to Gryffindors than you expect."

Zabini smirked. He pushed himself off the picnic bench, pitching the stub of his fag to the ground. "Incendio," he muttered, obliterating the remains. "Right. Well, in the Middle East, magic is more deeply grounded than it is here. Here, you learn the words and wave your wand a bit and you're done. The spell either happens or it doesn't. But there, the spell's more connected to its source. For instance, what did you feel with that spell? Not that it hurt—what was the first thing you remember?"

Harry tried to ignore the memory of pain and focus on the sensory effects. "It was like a puff of hot air. Like bad breath."

Zabini smiled. "Exactly. Amun-Ra was the god of the air—literally the breath of life. The spell draws on his attributes. And bad breath—did you smell cat piss?"

Harry scrunched up his face. "Yeah, it was awful. And then it felt like it was burning my eyes from the inside."

"That would be ammonia. Ammonium chloride was discovered near Amun-Ra's temple. It's not only named after him, it's part of his essence."

Harry blinked. Those weren't words he'd ever expected to hear from a pure-blood wizard. "You know about chemistry?"

"Of course, Potter. I'm an archaeologist. You don't think magic alone can preserve four thousand year old artefacts, do you?" He held his wand out the tip pointing at the tree branch above their heads. "Anyway, so the words of the spell are 'Amun oculuso,' which directs it to attack the eyes—you can send it anywhere, but that seems to be the most effective."

"The spell's in Latin?"

"I'll teach you the Arabic version if you prefer, but I doubt you'd remember it with You Know Who breathing down your neck."

Harry shook his head.

"Right. Now to cast, I say the words while focusing on the essence of Amun-Ra."

When he flicked his wand toward the branch, it shuddered as if caught in a blustery wind. Harry smelled the onslaught of ammonia and shut his eyes reflexively. He opened them to see Zabini grinning.

"Now you try. Focus on the elements, the air and the ammonia."

Harry tried to do as Blaise instructed. He did his best to imagine wind scattering leaves across a road, to smell the acrid tang of ammonia on blistered skin. All it got him was a tiny puff of air that barely tickled the low-hanging leaves.

But Blaise was inordinately pleased. "Not too shabby, Potter. Most people can't do even that without a visual image. Later I'll show you some pictures of Amun-Ra to help focus your concentration."

"Later? Couldn't you do it now?"

"A bit eager, aren't we?" Blaise mocked.

"Whatever Volde ... You Know Who's got planned is happening in five days. So yeah, I'm a bit eager to learn whatever might give us an edge."

"Well, I'd love to help you out, but I've got some business in Diagon that I need to attend to."

"What kind of business?"

"None of yours, Potter." When Zabini sneered, Harry belatedly realised that he had sounded suspicious, and that he probably should be. Part of Zabini's strategy to be on the winning side could well mean revealing everything he knew about Dumbledore's Army to Voldemort. But no, that wasn't what Harry had been thinking when he asked. He had a completely different motive.

"Will you be near the Salus offices?"

"I could be. Why?"

And then Harry did something he'd never done before—he went behind his friends' backs to plot with a Slytherin. Blaise agreed not only to visit the Malfoy company offices but, if that proved unfruitful, to pop over to Greenwich as well. If he could see Draco under the pretence of reconnecting after his time abroad, a meeting might be arranged for Harry.

When Zabini Apparated away with the promise to return by dinnertime, Harry felt giddy with excitement. Ron and Hermione would not be happy when they found out, but he was sure this was the breakthrough they needed.



Dinnertime came and went with no sign of Zabini. Harry wasn't terribly worried. In fact, the longer it took, the more certain he was that Blaise had found Draco. They were probably even now dancing around each other in those odd circles that passed for friendship in the Slytherin world.

But since Harry had been the last to see Zabini, and had foolishly let slip when the man was expected back, it was assumed that he was somehow responsible.

"He said he had business in Diagon," he told them defensively. "He wouldn't say what."

But their accusing looks didn't fade. Harry wasn't sure whether Ron blamed him more for Blaise's absence or for not being as suspicious of it as he was. Along with Neville, Bill, George, and Charlie, his friend had retreated to the upstairs sitting room after dinner to go over the strategy for engaging the Death Eaters. Harry tried to join in, but he was unfamiliar with the strengths of the new DA and felt like he was doing more harm than good. He left to look for Hermione.

He found her in the kitchen, so worried that she'd done all the dinner dishes by hand. He asked if she needed help but just got a rigid little headshake in reply.

Luna, Xeno, and Gran Longbottom sat at the kitchen table, poring over spell books. At least they didn't glare when he sat down with them. He picked up the top book on one of the stacks. It fell open to a page in the middle, to the curse that Voldemort used to safeguard his soul, and Harry began to read.

Damnation memoriae

If hearts are broken, lost, or torn,
Then seek a spell for love reborn.
If revenge is what thou most desire,
Then turn to hexes cast in fire.
But if thy wish a memory cold,
No breath to speak, no flesh to hold,
If thou wouldst have thoughts disappear
With no reminders they were here,
Then forgotten names must be invoked.
Those damned for evil acts provoked
Erasure of their very ghosts.

But heed this warning, for if thou dost
Invoke the Memoria Damnata curse,
Then thou shalt owe a heavy purse
For this deceit. So weigh it well
For thou shall be the last to tell.

The spell went on for pages in this meandering way, with more cautions interwoven into the couplets before getting to the instructions for casting—although as far as Harry could tell, the worst part about erasing the memory of your enemy appeared to be that you could no longer complain about them. Restless, he flipped to the frontispiece:

Forgotten Spelles of Treachery and Revenge by Aneurin Thropp, 1838

The pages had that crisp fragility of age; the paper was thicker than used nowadays, and so old it should have chipped if not for its Preservation Charm. Absently Harry ran his thumb along the soft edge of the endpaper. He froze when his eye lingered on the corner, where the book's former owner had inscribed his initials:

D.m.

It was a hand he knew as well as he knew his own, Hermione's, Ron's ... Draco left his initials on everything, from his owl posts to the notes he'd leave charmed onto the fogged bathroom mirror. The D was unmistakable—it had that practiced perfection that had always made Harry curious about the penmanship lessons inflicted upon him as a child. If this was Draco's book, could that mean he'd known about the spell?

But as Harry studied the initials more closely, he saw that it wasn't Draco's usual signature. The M of Malfoy was usually written in a perfect flourish of loops and curls, all capped off with a jaunty tail. This m was smaller, more constrained, definitely lower case. It was still Draco's handwriting, but as he thought about it, Harry became less convinced that it was a message of ownership and more certain that it was a clue pointing them to the spell.

"Mr Lov– Xeno, where did you find this book?" Harry asked, holding up the spine for him to see.

"Yes, yes, that was very unusual indeed, that one," said Mr Lovegood, taking off his reading glasses. "I was in Flourish & Blotts some weeks ago looking for some novels for Editha … the Sylva the Sorceress series, if I'm not mistaken." Gran nodded. "When I got home I found that little book tucked in as well. I was going to firecall Flourish & Blotts concerning my bill, but then Hermione came across the details of the spell." He scratched his head. "It's truly a mystery how it came to be there."

"Interesting," Harry mumbled, inwardly adding, "but maybe not such a mystery." After all, Lucius had secreted Tom Riddle's diary away in Ginny's bag without anyone suspecting a thing; Harry had even told Draco about that, so it wasn't too farfetched to think Draco had managed the same trick. And if Draco had gotten this book to Xeno, and even marked the spell of note, then surely he was trying to help. At the very least, he knew about the resistance movement and hadn't betrayed it.

"I do believe the Parcae must have had a hand in it. The Fates spin webs we wizards will never understand."

"That's more true than you know," Harry mused, wondering if Xeno's Parcae would have been sorted into Slytherin. "Plans within plans," Zabini had said, and Harry wondered at all of the variables factored into Draco's calculations.

He sat reading for a few minutes until Hermione cleared her throat behind him. "Harry, could I have a word?" The dishes were all dry, but she was still wringing the tea towel around her fists; from the grim look on her face, Harry feared his neck would be next.

"Um, sure," he said, wishing he sounded a little braver.

He followed her outside into the wintry night. Hermione's warming charm diminished the chill, but Harry still hugged his borrowed woollen cloak tight around his shoulders. Hermione seemed agitated enough not to notice the cold. "Do you think he's betrayed us?"

"Who, Zabini?"

She gave him the look reserved only for the very stupid. "Yes, Harry. Zabini."

"I have no idea. I didn't think he would, but I can't say for sure."

Hermione crushed her face into her hands. "Merlin, he has and it's going to screw up everything. This is all my fault."

Harry was taken aback. "Why do you say that? You're not responsible for him. If he's acting an arse, well..." Harry was about to say he wouldn't be at all surprised, but figured that was unwise. "It's not your fault," he said firmly.

"But it's my fault he's gotten so deep in the DA. Ron and Neville didn't trust him—they didn't even want to let him join. I convinced them he was trustworthy. Now he knows everything!" She threw her head back and stared up helplessly at the stars. "I can't believe I've been so stupid."

"But we don't know what's happened. He ... he had a lot of errands to run." He debated whether or not to reveal all he knew of Zabini's errands. On one hand, it might help assuage her fears. On the other, it might make matters worse. He expected explosions when the others learned of the mission he'd entrusted to the Slytherin. He'd just hoped that Zabini would be with him when he faced them.

Entangled in his own thoughts, he was surprised to hear a choked sob. Hermione was still staring up at the light, but wet streams of tears were rushing her cheeks. Feeling as discomfited as he usually did around crying people, and doubly stupid for not recognising that this outburst was coming, he awkwardly put his arm around her shoulders. "It's okay. You didn't do anything wrong."

This brought even more tears, to Harry's dismay, especially since most of them were soaking into his shoulder now. "I be– believed him, Harry," she hiccoughed. "He said nice things and ... and I acted like a ... a stupid girl."

An uncomfortable knot squeezed Harry's insides. Bracing himself for an answer he didn't want to hear, he asked, "He didn't ... you didn't ... with him ..."

He knew he was being completely incoherent, but Hermione understood enough to shook her head violently. "Merlin, no! Never! I wouldn't!" She pulled herself away to collect herself before quietly admitting, "But I didn't discourage him either."

"What do you mean?

"I liked talking to him. He was smart, interesting ... he listened to what I thought. It was ... nice."

"Well, that's okay," Harry said, feeling utterly out of his depth. Doing the only thing he could think of to help, he transfigured a leaf into a handkerchief. She took it gratefully, but eyed him uncertainly.

"You ... you don't understand, do you? I mean, I wouldn't have acted on it. I'd never do that to Ron, you've got to believe that. But Blaise ..." She sighed, hugging her arms across her chest. "I ... didn't want to admit it, Harry, but you were right. I felt the same way as I did around Viktor." She grimaced. "And if he's spying then I've doomed us all ... all because of a stupid crush."

"You have a crush on Blaise?" he repeated, trying to make the words make sense. He looked up, expecting another of Hermione's patented "keep up" looks, but she just acted downcast.

"You have no idea what it's like, do you?" He shook his head slowly, not sure what she meant, but well aware that he had no idea. "I loved my job, I really did. I know Magical Catastrophes are sometimes passed off as a joke, but you grew up with Muggles, you know how magic can confuse them. I was helping them, and I was good at it. And then, when we found out about the wards, when Neville got his memories back..." She snuffled and wiped her nose with the handkerchief. "When I knew what they were doing, I couldn't in good conscience work for the Ministry anymore. So I quit."

"I was really surprised to hear that," Harry admitted.

"Yeah, but you know, I expected Ron to quit too, but he didn't. And ... and that was okay, I guess, except that every day he goes off to work, and I stay at home..." Her shoulders sagged as she sighed again. "I never thought I'd be a housewife, but that's what I've become. No good to anybody."

"Hermione, you know that's not true. The DA would be lost without you."

"But you're just seeing how they are now, when everybody's fired up about the battle. For weeks we were meeting once a week, sometimes twice. The rest of the time, I'd be at home ... or in Maldon with Mum. Molly even tried to teach me to knit!"

"I'm sorry, Hermione."

"And Ron ... he was trying to be supportive, I know. But you know what he said, Harry? He asked if I wanted to use this time off to have a baby. And ... and I felt just awful, because I know he wants a big family, but I'm not ready. Even if the war wasn't coming, I ... I'd wanted to be department head first, and now I never will be. I'll turn into Molly, and I ... I..."

The tears were back, and this time it wasn't hard for Harry to move toward her, his thick cloak blotting up the worst of her sobs. "What if we made a mistake, Harry? We got married so young. I love Ron, but what if..."

Her words were smothered in damp wool, her narrow shoulders convulsing against his chest. Harry didn't know what he was supposed to do, so he did the only thing he could: he wrapped his arms around her and rocked her slowly, murmuring that it would be all right, that everything would be all right. It seemed to work; the sobs slowed until they were only heavy sighs, then weary gasps.

Finally she took a shuddering breath and pulled away, smiling sadly at him. "I'm sorry, Harry. I shouldn't be telling you all this, it puts you in a bad position."

He shook his head. "It's all right. You're my friend, you can talk to me. But ... don't you think you might ought to talk to Ron? Not about Zabini," he hastened to add, "but just about how you're feeling?"

She nodded miserably. "I should, I know. But what if he really wants kids now? I'm not ready."

"What Ron really wants is you, Hermione. Maybe he doesn't show it all the time, not in ways you notice, but he does. And he wants you to be happy. If you tell him you want to wait on kids, I'm sure he'll be okay with it."

"Do you think so?"

"Yeah, I do. And after all this comes out about Vol–" He stopped short when her finger flew up to his mouth. "About You Know Who, and people's memories come back, then a lot of things are going to change. You can get your job back, I reckon."

She brightened at that. "Yeah, I bet I can. Unless..." Her shoulders slumped in defeat. "What if Blaise is on their side? We'll lose any chance we have to beat You Know Who. And with another horcrux he'll be even harder to beat."

Harry shook his head. He hadn't wanted to admit this, but Hermione had shared even bigger secrets with him. He owed her the truth. "I don't think he's a spy. I trusted him, too. I asked him to talk to Draco today."

Hermione gaped in horror. "He went to the Manor?"

"No, he wouldn't do that." Zabini had drawn the line at that—even the Slytherin was unwilling to enter that snakepit. "He said he'd go to his office and to his flat." Harry knew she was about to object, but before she uttered a word he said, "Hermione, I know you don't trust Draco, but please, trust me."

"I don't like it, Harry. It's too dangerous."

"Of course it's dangerous, but I'm sure this is our best chance. It may our only chance. Zabini thinks so, too. There's no other way we can get inside the Manor grounds—we have to get him to lower the wards."

"But what if Draco's on their side?"

"That's easy," Harry grinned. "Then we convince him that our side's going to win."

Hermione pressed her lips into a tight disapproving line; Harry wondered how upset she'd be if he pointed out that it was an expression lifted straight from Professor McGonagall's repertoire. He decided to opt for another tactic instead. "Look, no matter what you think of Draco, he's not Bellatrix. He's not serving You Know Who because he wants to. He'll stake his claim with whomever he thinks will come out on top. I just have to show him it's us."

"If you're sure..." She didn't sound entirely persuaded, but Harry suspected she might be coming around.

"I am," he affirmed. "As sure as I can be. Draco's not our enemy."

"I hope he deserves your trust, Harry."

"And I hope I can deserve his."

She nodded. "I'll just feel a lot better if Blaise comes back soon."

"Me, too," Harry admitted. A blast of cold wind swept through the garden, tattering the fading warming charm and leaving them both shivering. "It's freezing out here ... we should go in."

"Yeah ... I think I need to talk to Ron."

"I think that's a good idea." They started toward the house, but as she reached for the doorknob Harry touched her elbow. "Hey, wait a second." He cast a quick freshening charm, hiding the lingering traces of Hermione's tears and making it look like she'd just enjoyed a brisk walk outdoors. "There, all better."

She smiled gratefully. "I do love him, you know."

"I know you do. Everything's going to be okay."

And as he followed her into the warm house, and saw their friends look up to greet them, piping hot mugs of tea steaming their bright faces, he could almost believe it was true.


Chapter Fifteen

Locus desperatus
A hopeless place


A blare of trumpets yanked Harry from his sound sleep. Bolting out of bed, he snatched up his wand and, still in his pyjamas, dashed down the stairs after Neville and Ron to see what had triggered the nighttime wards.

They found a thoroughly unabashed Slytherin relieving himself (much to the Snargaluff's dismay) in the Lovegood's garden.

"Merlin's eyeteeth, Zabini! What the hell do you think you're doing?" yelled Ron.

"Housh ... jush so far away ..."

He took a stumbling step; Harry and Neville lunged forward and caught him just before he landed in the soggy ground. Harry's first thought was that he'd been injured, but when he got closer he found that wasn't the case at all.

"He's pissed."

Together he and Neville levered the tall man to the house. "He needs a Sobering potion," Neville suggested. Unfortunately the Lovegoods had nothing of the sort.

"I know just the trick," Xeno said, scurrying away. By the time he'd returned, Harry and Neville had propped Blaise in one of the kitchen chairs, close enough to the table that he probably wouldn't fall off. In front of him, Mr Lovegood placed a goblet containing what looked like Pepperup Potion with a raw egg floating on top. In fact, on closer inspection, Harry realised that was exactly what it was. He stole a glance at Ron, who apparently shared his disgust. Hermione, on the other hand, looked strident. And she hadn't put her wand away.

"Drink, Blaise," she commanded.

"'mione?" he mumbled.

"Drink!"

To his credit, Zabini didn't flinch as he reached for the glass, probably too far gone to know how slimy the golden yolk looked atop the spinach-coloured potion. The Slytherin downed it in one go, smiled at them all proudly as steam whistled from his ears ... and then promptly spewed it back out. Fortunately Mr Lovegood had anticipated this, for he cast a Freezing Charm and discarded the mess before it even hit the table.

"That's it, son. Get it all out."

The others backed away to safety, although Hermione didn't go far. She kept her eye fixed as if Zabini might sprout wings at any moment and try to escape. Harry knew she wanted answers—they all did—but he almost felt an inkling of sympathy for the Slytherin.

After the worst was over and Xeno had cast more than a few Freshening Charms on Blaise, they all returned to the kitchen table. "Where have you been?" demanded Hermione.

"All over the plash," he slurred wearily, propping his drooping head on his hand. "But not wi' the Death Eatersh, if tha's wha' you're worried about."

Ron glared. "I think we've a right to be worried, Zabini. You were supposed to be back hours ago."

"Ran into an old friend," Blaise mumbled. A drowsy eyelid lifted as he turned to Harry. "Not Malfoy, though ... Pansh ..."

It took a second for Harry's mind to catch up. "Pans? Wait, you mean Pansy Parkinson?"

Zabini nodded, though he looked pained. "Spent the weekend with Draco. But she doesn't know where he is now. Offices shut tight, nobody home."

Ron didn't seem surprised to hear that the Slytherin had gone in search of Malfoy. In fact, Zabini's words seemed to click faster for him than they did for Harry. "Ferret's probably at the Manor then."

Harry glared at Ron, who at least had the decency to look contrite. "What'd Parkinson say, Zabini?"

"Huh?" Blaise blinked in confusion, tilting his head from Ron to Harry and back again.

Once more, Mr Lovegood came to the rescue. "Come now, the boy's still three sheets to the wind. He'll be no use to anyone until he's slept this off." Refusing to entertain their protests about how Zabini had brought this on himself, Xeno transfigured a row of kitchen chairs into a bed.

"You can't just leave him down here," frowned Neville. "We still don't know where he's been."

"I'll keep watch," volunteered Harry. "I'm not tired."

The others trailed off to bed while Harry transfigured a straight-backed chair into a comfortable settee. Xeno was the last to leave. "There's more Pepperup in the cupboard," he offered cheerfully, but the thought of the spicy drink coated in raw egg nearly turned Harry's stomach.

Maybe he should have reconsidered, however, because soon he was snoring along with Zabini. He was awoken hours later, as light was just beginning to creep through the window, by the horrific sound of metal clanging together. "The wards!" he thought, leaping up with his wand, but it turned out to be Zabini's shambolic putterings in the kitchen. "Merlin, you startled me!"

"Sorry," groaned Blaise. "Need tea." He reached for a mug, but in the process managed to knock another off the shelf. Harry winced as it shattered on the tile.

"Here, you sit. I'll make it."

Zabini gratefully let Harry take over. He watched as Harry cast a spell to repair the broken mug, and then sighed blissfully as two cups floated toward him, leaving faint clouds of steam in their wake. "Did you ever consider a career as a house-elf, Potter?"

Harry might have taken offence, had it not been something that Draco might have said. "You're welcome, Zabini." He looked at the clock—it was still a few minutes before seven. "I'm surprised you're up."

"Couldn't sleep," he complained, stirring in a dollop of milk. "That potion felt like a Bludger was going at my head."

Harry snickered. "Yeah? I didn't think you got any of it down."

"Ugh. Don't remind me."

They sipped their tea in silence for a few minutes. Finally, Blaise said, "You don't have to stand guard over me, you know. I meant it—I didn't defect to the other side."

"Yeah, well," Harry shrugged, not quite sure what he believed just yet. "It's easier this way. Keeps the peace." He added another sugarcube to his tea. It was early enough that he thought he deserved it. "Besides, now you can tell me where you were yesterday."

"I told you, Potter, I had errands to run. Which you should thank me for. Accio potion!" A vial emerged from Blaise's cloak and floated across the room, stopping just beside Harry. "That's for you."

"What is it?" But he already had a suspicion—only one thing had that viscous mud-like consistency.

"Polyjuice," Blaise confirmed.

"But ... what am I supposed to do with it?"

"One does not simply walk into Malfoy Manor," pronounced Blaise grandly, although a quirky grin greatly diminished the effect. "Oh, c'mon, Potter, don't tell me you don't know Lord of the Rings. It's the only time Muggles have ever gotten magic half-right!"

Harry shook his head, chuckling. "I swear, Zabini, are you sure you're really pure-blood?"

"I'm happy to bore you with the pedigree of my family going back twenty generations if you'd like, but it's probably more productive if we talk about how you'll get into the Manor. You've still got Greg's cloak, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, you're more likely to be invited in if you look like a would-be Death Eater. Unless you'd prefer to announce yourself as the Boy Who's Trying to Kill You Know Who."

"No, that's quite all right. It's actually a pretty good idea." And after all, it wouldn't be the first time Harry had polyjuiced himself into Goyle. After living with the man for two months, he could probably even pull it off more convincingly than before. "But why didn't you tell us that you were going looking for this?"

"Well, I wasn't sure I could get it. It's almost impossible to find since the Ministry made it a restricted substance. Fortunately Mr Borgin still owes me for a few unregistered trinkets that found their way to him last summer. He could only get a single dose on such short notice, so you'll have to get in and out of there pretty fast. Although I reckon Draco could fix you up with some more, if you asked nicely."

"And you're pretty certain he's at the Manor now?"

"I don't know where else he'd be. I went by his office, but it's shut tight. 'Renovations,' the sign says, but it doesn't look like anything's going on inside, and it doesn't say when they're coming back. So then I went over to Greenwich like you asked. That's where I bumped into Pans."

"You said they spent the weekend together?" Harry didn't appreciate the little tug in his gut as he said that.

"Yeah, she and Milli were at his family's villa in Spain. Oh, what are you pulling that face for, Potter. Afraid the girls are out to steal your boyfriend?" Zabini apparently found this idea hysterical. When he stopped laughing, he said, "Believe me, if Draco swung that way, Pans would have nabbed him years ago."

"It's not that," Harry said, only it was, just a little bit. Well, that, and not even knowing about the family villa in Spain.

"Whatever," shrugged Zabini, obviously not believing him. "Here's the part you'll like though, Potter. Pans said that Draco's been in the dumps for months, since—as she put it—'that bastard Potter dumped him.'" Blaise cackled at this while Harry grimaced. "But this weekend, she said he was back to his old self. Pans is sure he's got a new beau."

"Oh." Harry didn't care, he really didn't. It was only that it might affect their plan to get into the Manor grounds. That was all. Really.

Blaise groaned with irritation. "Jupiter's balls, don't you get it? This happened this past weekend."

"Yeah?"

Shaking his head, Zabini explained, "Draco knew you were breaking out. That's what put him in a good mood."

"Oh," Harry repeated, this time with a very different meaning.

"I swear, Potter, you're an incurable idiot. And you're the saviour of the wizarding world? Circe help us all!"

"Shut it, Zabini." But it was hard to be genuinely annoyed when secretly he was overjoyed. Only because he was relieved that they could still carry off the plan. Really. "So what else did Parkinson say?"

"She wants me to come out with her next Saturday. She's been invited to the Greengrass' Yule party and it promises to be a dreadful bore. They're society climbers—lots of oh so pleasant conversation about who knows who. I told her that I already had plans."

"As if I care about Parkinson's social calendar."

"You should, Potter, because after I turned her down, she complained that she'd invited Draco first, and he couldn't come either. He told her there was a family gathering at the Manor that night. She was quite put out that she couldn't wheedle her way into that." He smirked. "If she only knew."

So it was certain, then. Draco would be at the Manor. And the "family gathering" ... the thought of it made Harry grimace. "I'd think she'd be quite comfortable with all the Death Eaters."

"Oh, that's rich, Potter. Do you know absolutely nothing about Pansy?"

"I went out with her and Draco once," grumbled Harry. It hadn't been the most enjoyable night. They'd gone to a Soho club and Harry had spent the night on tenterhooks, terrified that Pansy would hex the entire dance floor if a Muggle scuffed her impossibly high heels.

"I swear, Potter, you're..." Blaise shook his head angrily. "You claim to be so bloody open-minded, but you're more prejudiced than anyone. You treat every single person from my house like they're the Dark Lord's lapdog."

"Do I?" Harry asked himself? Admittedly, he had been inordinately suspicious of Zabini, but didn't he deserve it? Yeah, he might work with Muggles now, but surely his motives for doing that in the first place had been questionable. He'd probably been looking for some way to exploit th-- "Oh Merlin, I do!" "You know," Harry said aloud, "someone once told me that there wasn't a single wizard who went bad who didn't come from Slytherin."

"Yeah, maybe so," grumbled Blaise, "but that still doesn't mean all Slytherins are Dark. That's some faulty logic there."

"I know. It's not true, either. Wormtail was a Gryffindor."

Zabini arched his brow, but didn't ask for clarification. And Harry wasn't eager to offer it. His mind was clouded, remembering Pettigrew's bulging eyes as his own demented hand strangled him. In the very manor where Harry was about to go. Blaise seemed content to let the matter drop, though, and they sat in silence, sipping their tea.

After a few moments, Zabini looked up. "Oh, yes, I remember something else. That pub you mentioned—the Greenwich Arms, was it?"

"Yeah?" The desolation he'd seen in his brief stop on Saturday night was another unsettling memory that Harry wished to forget.

"I suggested to Pans that we pop 'round for a drink, and she said it's been closed for months. The owner's wife disappeared and he's gone a bit mad."

"Oh, Merlin, not Sally!" The witch had always been so kind to him, and looked after Draco with such a sense of protectiveness. Like him, Sally had seemed to treasure a Malfoy free from malevolent ideas of superiority. "She'd kept her memories, you know. She remembered everything, but they never got her into St. Mungo's."

"Really?" Blaise looked thoughtful as he processed that piece of information. "How very interesting."

Harry could almost see the wheels churning inside the other man's head. "Interesting how?"

"Well, according to Pans—so keep in mind that this might not be completely accurate—the pub owner had a fit and attacked some Squibs in his pub. There were Muggles there and the Aurors had to do a mass Obliviation."

"Poor Ged! Why would he do that?"

"Pans claims he's convinced it was a Squib took his wife away. Which is ludicrous—a Squib could hardly overpower a witch. But a Squib paired up with a wizard, like Baines said they used to work ..."

"They might've been able to take her together," Harry concluded.

"I hadn't connected it to You Know Who before, but if her memories were intact, then maybe..."

"If they've taken her to the Manor, we have to find her."

Zabini set his empty cup in the saucer and studied Harry, frowning. "This isn't going to be easy. You know that, right, Potter?"

"I never expected it would be. But it's what I've got to do."

"Because it's the right thing?"

"Yeah."

"Bloody Gryffindor!" But it was said with amusement.

"Exactly." Harry grinned back. Perhaps he'd been wrong to distrust Zabini. Whatever the reasons for his choice, whether it was Slytherin self-interest or a Gryffindor belief in right, he stood as much to gain or lose as anyone else. And besides, hadn't Harry told Hermione that it was Slytherin self-interest that would help him win Draco to their cause? Maybe there was more he could learn from Zabini.

"So, I don't know about you, but I won't be able to get back to sleep. Want to teach me some more of your Dark Arts?"

"I could do that," said Zabini carefully, as if weighing a multitude of options. "On one condition."

Harry braced for the request. "What's that?"

"You be a good house-elf and fetch me another cup of tea."



"Give us a few more days, mate. We'll find another way."

"And if you don't?"

"We will."



"We have to come up with something better. You can't do this alone, Harry."

"But I won't be alone, will I? Not if Draco will help."

"Just give us more time."



"They had a white peacock. I think it must have eaten too many Splifflebugs—that happens sometimes. When it was dark in the cellar, I kept thinking about its long tail feathers. Will you ask Draco if it's there still?"

"Sure I will. You're not going to try to talk me out of going then?"

"Do you think I could?"

"No, not really."

"Then just check on the peacock."



"Remember, you've got one hour, Potter. Don't muck it up. Oh, and good luck."



"How can Wiltshire be so much colder than Ottery St. Catchpole?" Harry wondered as he drew Goyle's cloak more tightly around him. There wasn't a great distance between the two places, but they might well have been on different continents. The late afternoon sky was dark grey here, closer to the colour of lead, not much brighter than the wrought iron gates sealing the entrance to the Malfoy Manor. As Harry moved toward those gates they pulsed with magic. It wasn't anything a Muggle would notice, but to a wizard the reinforced wards thrummed with life strong as a beating heart. Taking a deep breath, Harry touched one of the cold iron curls, forcing his hand to remain still even when the metal began to writhe into gruesome shapes.

"State your purpose!" the hideous face demanded.

Harry battled the butterflies in his stomach—no, not butterflies, these were wasps, huge buzzing things with rough wings, tearing each other apart as they warred for space inside him. "Gregory Goyle, here to see Draco Malfoy." He hoped that he didn't sound too nervous; then, remembering that Goyle would probably be quite uneasy facing these gates as well, Harry gave his knees permission to wobble.

The gate swung open soundlessly, inviting him to enter. As he started down the path of smooth white gravel, flanked by formal hedgerows, he wondered how Draco could ever feel at home here. Everything about the place was designed to intimidate. Even the snow that began to fall as he neared the imposing marble steps hung in the air, as if the feathery flakes were as reluctant as he to touch the Malfoy grounds.

To calm himself, Harry looked for Luna's peacock as he walked down the long lane. A rustle to his left caught his eye, but what he saw did anything but calm him. Through a break in the yew hedge were light-blue robes—the uniform of the Auror Guard! Trying not to be too conspicuous, Harry edged towards that side of the path, and when the foliage thinned again he peered through. Definitely the Auror Guard, at least three of them. He couldn't tell what they were doing without drawing attention to himself, but it was all the confirmation he needed to know that the Guard—and the Eye itself—was at Voldemort's service.

The heavy oak door at the front of the manor house cracked opened just as he reached the steps. Narcissa Malfoy emerged first, her face pale as Draco's, her hair just as fine. Behind, he saw the same pale features framed in darkness on the face of her sister. Harry was surprised that both were dressed in clothing popular in the last century: stiff poplin skirts down to the ground and, in defiance of the frigid weather, white lace blouses with short frilly sleeves.

"Gregory? Is it really you?"

Narcissa moved towards him, her expression flitting between surprise and worry. Her fingers fluttered over his face, light as the snowflakes kissing his cheeks. Harry was shocked to see her wear such a tender expression.

"M– Mrs. Malfoy?"

It wasn't her tenderness that made his voice break, though; nor was it the black outline of the coiled snake and skull on her forearm. No, his concern was for the grisly scratches covering both arms. It looked as if she'd been clawed by a ruthless animal. Some of the cuts were starting to crust over, others were still surrounded with red smears of blood, and Harry wondered why she hadn't healed them. Narcissa noticed where his attention was fixed and, with a hint of embarrassment, crossed her arms to hide the most serious damage. But Bellatrix, who leered from behind her sister, was running her long cracked nails across her own skin; she bore the same wounds, but she was keeping hers open and seeping. As Harry watched, Bellatrix dragged her nail through an open gash and lifted the crusted blood to her tongue. Harry shuddered at the sight, which Narcissa interpreted as cold.

"Do come in, my dear boy. It's much warmer inside. Draco will be so surprised to see you."

Much warmer was not an understatement. The Manor was blisteringly hot, "like the fires of Hades," Harry thought. He wouldn't have been surprised to smell sulphur burning. Gratefully he surrendered his heavy cloak to an obsequious house-elf before following Narcissa down the hall. With Bellatrix just behind, Harry found it hard to recall ever being quite as terrified as he was during those few hesitant steps.

But Narcissa, acting the gracious host, had kept him moving forward into the drawing room. "Please forgive me, Gregory, but it is such a surprise to see you here," she confessed, nervousness threatening to undermine her aristocratic tone. "I was thinking of your dear mother just a few days ago. How is she?"

"She's very well, thank you," Harry offered. "She sends her regards." He hoped that would be sufficient. Zabini had coached him concerning the basics of Goyle's family, but Harry was ill-prepared to provide any details about their health or recent affairs. Especially not when he was doing his best to rein in his fear. He did not have fond memories of this room; its reconstructed chandelier and the stern Malfoy portraits on the wall were doing little for his confidence. Combined with the stifling heat under his warm winter robes, he was sweating buckets. "Is Draco here, ma'am?"

"He is working on a potion at the moment, but I sent Lubby to announce you."

"The boy should not be disturbed," Bellatrix complained, but Narcissa snapped at her.

"Nonsense! This is Gulzar's son. He's been away for many years!"

Harry's back stiffened when Narcissa put her arm around him protectively. He wasn't terribly accustomed to having anyone fawn over him, but to have this kind of attention from a Death Eater was deeply unsettling. Goyle, though, would have been eating this up—especially after five years locked up—and reminding himself of that, Harry smiled ingratiatingly at Narcissa.

"And now he's come back," she continued, smoothing a dark curl back from his sweaty forehead. "I remember when you were just a boy, Gregory. You were such a sweet child. One winter you and Draco and Vincent built the huge snow castle, do you remember that? Draco loved the snow so much, I had such a time getting the three of you to come in, even after it grew dark..."

Harry was starting to think it was more than nervousness making her babble. Her voice seemed to drift, as if she was losing herself in her old memories. It didn't impress Bellatrix. When she huffed loudly, Harry stole a glance at her; his eyes widened when he saw that her arms were streaming red. The witch had taken the stem of a black rose and, to Harry's horror, was now using the thorns to rip open her half-healed skin.

"And Vincent, poor, sweet Vincent." Narcissa's voice, rising alarmingly, regained his attention. "Not even a body for his poor parents to bury. And it could have been any one of you, even my sweet Dragon..."

As she began to weep dramatically on Harry's shoulder, he realised that the injuries to Narcissa's arms might only be the visible manifestation of her fragile state. Inside she seemed to be falling apart just like her sister.

"Why the hell was Draco taking so long?"

"Cissy, let the boy go. He doesn't need you slobbering over him like a hellhound."

Chastened, Narcissa took a step back. "Of course, I apologise." She didn't release her hold on his arm, though, and steered him in the direction of a tall spinet. "Do you still play, Gregory? I'd love to hear something."

"No, ma'am." "I'm going to kill Zabini," Harry steamed. The Slytherin had neglected to mention any penchant for music. "I ... I haven't played in years."

"Oh, but why don't you try? I'm sure it will come back to you." She nodded encouragingly. "I remember how you always used to run to the piano. It was the first thing you did when you arrived. You simply could not wait to play a song for your Aunt Cissy."

Harry's fingers twitched helplessly over the keys, haplessly tinkling one of the high notes. "I don't think so, it's been so long." He couldn't remember ever even being this close to a piano. The Dursleys didn't own one, and even if they had, they certainly wouldn't have wasted time or money on lessons for Harry.

He looked up and was surprised to see Bellatrix glaring—not at him, but at his hand. "Of course! Goyle wouldn't have played the Muggle way. Not with those cocktail sausage fingers of his!" Harry withdrew his hand and pulled out his wand, but it was just for show. He said to Narcissa apologetically, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Malfoy. I really have forgotten how to play."

She looked like a crushed child who's been told her dolly can't be found, but Harry had no chance to appease her because, just then, the door to the drawing room opened and Draco entered. Instinctively, Harry took a step towards him. Seeing Draco again felt as uplifting as it did in his dreams, but the man looked as frightful as in his nightmares. His eyes were sunken deep, making his features pointier than ever. The skull-like effect was reinforced by his hair, usually perfect, that now hung lank and lifeless. Worse, there was a patch where his scalp was bare, as if someone had yanked a fistful straight from the roots. Stiffly Malfoy moved forward, and it took every ounce of strength Harry had not to race over to discover what other horrors had been inflicted. But despite all that, Draco was staring as if his appearance was a wondrous thing. It was terribly hard to remember that those grey eyes were seeing a long lost friend, not Harry.

"Greg," he said in an unnaturally calm voice, although he looked like he wanted to hug him. Harry was actually worried about what he might do if Draco tried; he wasn't sure if he'd be able to let go. But Draco steeled his emotion and extended his hand instead. "It is good to see you."

Harry was still holding his wand; he slipped it into his pocket before clasping Draco's hand. A flicker of discomfort passed over Draco's features, but again, he clamped down before his face revealed anything. After being party to Narcissa's unrestrained emotion, Harry wondered at Draco's overly reserved behaviour. There was definitely something off here, he could feel an undercurrent of something approaching hysteria, and Draco seemed only mildly better at controlling it than his mother.

"Gregory has forgotten how to play the piano," bemoaned Narcissa. "Isn't that terrible?"

"Tragic," Draco said blandly, not taking his eyes off Harry.

A cold voice unsullied by emotion called out from the far side of the room. "And did you finish your work, Draco?"

At that, Draco broke his gaze to cast a sharp look at his aunt. "Don't worry, Aunt Bella, it's under control." He turned back to Narcissa. "What would you like to hear, Mother? Some Chopin, perhaps?"

"That would be lovely dear."

"Cantus Nocturne 66."

The keys began tinkling of their own accord, and Narcissa beamed beautifically. "Thank you, darling. Now you two run along. If you're going to play outside, be sure to take your hats. You could build a snow castle..."

"No, Mother," Draco said gently, kissing her cheek to excuse the interruption. "We'll just be up in my room. Come on, Greg."

Harry's heart raced as he followed Draco up the broad carpeted staircase. At any other time, he would have been amazed by the extravagant décor, but now, he was too preoccupied with his impending revelation. He'd imagined it so many times, even practiced it in his head, in so many different ways. Should he go for the straight confession—"the Gryffindor way" as Zabini had dubbed it? Or should he try to feel Draco out first, see where his loyalties lay? In truth, after seeing Draco downstairs he wanted nothing more than to take him into his arms and examine his wounds, perhaps spend his short time on healing charms and escape plans. He suddenly regretted the polyjuice. The thought of kissing Draco with Goyle's lips made him queasy.

At the top of the stairs a door magically opened for them; Harry followed Draco in, relieved to feel a Cooling Charm at work. His relief didn't last long. As soon as the door slammed, Draco whirled on him with an anger that Harry had never seen before.

"Great Hephaestus! Is this what passes for Gryffindor stealth? I give the Weasel one simple instruction, just one bloody thing for that ginger-infested brain of his to process, and apparently even that's too much! Keep you away! That's all he had to do! But no, you had to go and make a bollocks of it."

Draco's fury was genuine—in all the many arguments they'd had, even in all the many years they'd hated each other at Hogwarts, Harry had never seen such rage. Not sure how to react, he said the first thing that came to his mind. "You know who I am?"

"Quick on the uptake as usual, Potter. Glad to see your mind's sharp as ever." A flash of something like regret coloured his face for a moment, then he snapped out, "Of course I recognise you—you have my wand. Speaking of which..." In the blink of an eye Draco had drawn his chestnut wand.

"EXPELLIARMUS!"

The hawthorn rod flew from Harry's pocket. He made to grab it, but Goyle's body reacted more slowly than his own, resulting in a clumsy lunge that almost made him fall. Harry glared at Draco. "What are you doing?"

"Taking back what's mine," Draco said cruelly. As he ran his fingers lovingly over the length of wood, Harry recognised the same smile of possession he'd worn just a few days earlier. Harry felt the loss keenly, underscoring his vulnerability, especially in light of Draco's odd behaviour. But he wasn't here to fight over a wand. There were more important matters at stake.

"Draco, you've got to help us. We know something's planned for tomorrow night. You've got to lower the wards so we can stop it."

Malfoy released an indignant huff. "Of course you know something's happening, Potter. I'm the one who told the fucking Weasel about it. And what else did I tell him? Let's see—oh, yeah, that you weren't supposed to be here!"

Harry's presence seemed to be Draco's major concern, so Harry hastened to reassure him. "It's okay, Draco, no one suspects anything—they're convinced I'm Goyle. But I don't have much time—the polyjuice will wear off..."

"You reckless fool!" Draco's face flushed redder than ever. As thin as he'd become, the effect was truly alarming, as if the paper-thin skin covering his skull was about to burn away. "Do you think you can just walk out of here? None of us can!"

Harry shook his head. He had to convince Draco that their side could win. Without some hope of victory, the Slytherin would never turn away from the Dark Lord. "You can, Draco. You have a choice."

"Choice?" Draco's lips twisted in an ugly sneer. "You know nothing of choice, Potter." Draco wrenched up the sleeve of his robe. Underneath his skin was slashed, just like Narcissa and Bellatrix'. On Draco, the sight of the crusted blood was made even worse by deep bruises encircling his wrists, as if greenish-black fingers were still restraining him. "He did that to make sure that Father would return from Diagon yesterday. A strip of skin for every minute he was away. Do you think I chose that? Do you think Mother did?" Draco's voice had reached the same level of hysteria as Narcissa's; Harry flinched as the mutilated arm was waved in his direction. "Do you?"

Harry swallowed hard, unable to answer. His encounters with Voldemort had always been brief, in the heated moments of battle. Such persistent brutality, such manipulation of fears and familial loyalty, was something he had no idea how to combat. But it truly pained him to see the man he cared for filled with this much anger and fear. Forgetting his mission, forgetting Dumbledore's Army, forgetting even the Dark Wizard who he'd sworn to defeat, he spoke to his lover as if there were only the two of them in the world. "I know this is not what you want, Draco."

Fast as lightning, Draco moved in closer, stopping with his face just inches from Harry's. For a moment Harry thought Draco might kiss him. They were that close, sharing each other's breath, grey eyes locked to Goyle's blue ones in angry passion. Harry gasped for air, and it was then that he felt the sharp tip of the hawthorn wand pressing into his throat.

"You haven't the slightest idea what I want, Harry," Draco whispered hoarsely. "If you did, you would be far, far away from here."

Harry stared into Draco's face, searching for the man he'd known. He saw instead a cold mask with a grimly set mouth and calculating eyes that betrayed no hint of human feeling. Had he tried to read Draco's thoughts, he was sure they would be occluded too. He waited, forcing himself to breathe, letting Draco make the next move.

"Lubby!"

The house-elf appeared immediately. "Yes, Master Draco?"

"Tell my father that I have Harry Potter in my room."

"Draco, no!" Of all the things Malfoy could have done, this was the last Harry expected.

"Now, Lubby!"

"Yes, Master."

"Draco, no, you can't do this!

"Shut it, Potter." Malfoy pulled away from him, shaking his head wearily. "I'm not the one who came bounding up to the front door with all the subtlety of a Blast-Ended Skrewt. What in Nimue's name were you thinking?"

"I was thinking you'd be the same Draco..." It was just fear that choked his throat, he told himself, no other emotion.

His eyes suddenly crackling with life, Draco opened his mouth to answer. Before anything came out, however, there was a loud pop and Lucius appeared between the two young men. He frowned at his son. "What is this, Draco? If this is another of your diversions..."

"Father, it's Potter. He's polyjuiced as Greg."

Lucius stepped closer to examine Harry's face, as if proximity might help him see through the disguise. "Harry Potter?"

"I don't know what he's talking about," Harry said, trying to imitate the annoyed tone that Goyle used when he was being woken up. "I only came by because I haven't seen Draco for years."

Lucius' lips curled into an oily smile. "Yes, yes, you definitely have that half-blood earnestness. Well, I suppose there's only one way we can be sure." He waved his wand at the door, which opened for two Auror Guards. They flanked Harry, gripping his arms tightly. "Please accept our hospitality for a short while, Mr. Goyle," said Lucius. "If you are who you say you are, then I will release you with an apology. And if you are Potter," he promised, "then you will be an honoured guest of the Dark Lord. Take him to the cellar!"

The Guards pulled him toward the door; Harry tried to fight against them, but together they were too strong for him. He struggled for one last glimpse of Draco as he left, but the man's face had turned his face away. In his profile Harry could only see defeat.


Chapter Sixteen

Inter spem et metum
Between hope and fear


The cellar was pitch black, but Harry didn't need light to recognise this foul place. It stank of stale earth and stagnant air, of vermin both living and long-dead. It was a potent smell that transported him back to the last time he'd been trapped here. "Last time, when Draco wouldn't tell them who I was," Harry thought sullenly, kicking at the stone wall. At least it was cooler than the blistering heat upstairs.

He tried to call for Kreacher as soon as the Auror Guards had gone, but there was no answer. "Well, it was worth a shot," Harry consoled himself. After their lucky escape last time, Lucius—or Draco, maybe—would surely have spelled Anti-Apparition wards that even house-elves could not penetrate. He was more annoyed that the Guards had searched him, confiscating Hermione's charmed coin and Luna's Luminus ring. Only magical objects were discovered, of course, and Harry cursed himself for not packing a Muggle torch. He thought he was alone, but a bit of light would have silenced the nagging doubt that would not let him rest until he'd stumbled blindly around the entire room.

True to his word, Lucius came down after a few hours. At his first step across the threshold, a blinding light filled the room. Harry scrambled up from his cold stone seat, struggling to discern the tall wizard's pale features in the brightness.

"Well, well, Mr. Potter, so Draco was correct—it is you." Harry tried not to shrink back against the wall as he drew closer, but Lucius noticed him flinch. "Oh, you needn't be afraid, Mr. Potter, you are our guest. In fact, you might even say that you are the guest of honour."

"Funny way to treat a guest of honour," Harry grumbled, straightening up. He couldn't let Lucius see any fear. "A cellar? Really, Malfoy, you'd think in a nice place like this, you'd get yourself a decent dungeon. I'm sure you'd have plenty of call to use it."

Lucius chuckled. "Ah, your wit is still razor sharp, Mr. Potter," he oozed sarcastically. "Very refreshing. And just as audacious as ever. I admit I was surprised you were masquerading as one of your enemies, but I suppose you could not resist joining our little soiree." His voice turned suggestive as he asked, "Or perhaps it is my son you could not resist?"

Harry held the man's gaze but said nothing. He didn't know what Lucius knew about him and Draco, and he certainly didn't want to give the man any ammunition to use against either of them. But Lucius did not wait for Harry's answer. "How does it feel to know my son was using you, Potter? That when he called out your name out in the throes of passion, he was really courting our Dark Lord?"

"You don't know anything about it," Harry said darkly, hating that Lucius' questions were feeding the doubts born from Draco's betrayal, twisting Harry's insides painfully.

Like a jackal sensing a weakness in his prey, Lucius dug in. "No, I don't suppose that would fit with your notions of romantic love, would it? Imagine how I felt, then, learning that a blood traitor was buggering my only son. Not the proudest moment for a father, I admit. But I underestimated Draco. I should have known that he had plans all along."

"No, it's not true," protested Harry, fighting against the word that seeped like poison into his mind. Plans, Draco always had them, "plans within plans," like Zabini had said. Even without his memories, Draco would have been working every angle to get what was best for himself. It was all a game, just like the one that Lucius played now, taking delight in poking at the sore spots where he could hurt Harry the most.

Malfoy's cruel smile grew bolder when he saw that he'd struck pay dirt. "Oh, yes, Potter, when Draco told me he would bring you from St. Mungo's himself for the sacrifice, I knew it was just the thing to enshrine the Malfoys' rightful position at the right hand of our Lord's."

St. Mungo's? Why would Draco need to bring him from the hospital? Did Lucius think he was still there, even after Draco had helped him escape? Questions flew through his head, loose strings of thoughts that he suspected might somehow tie together. But since he wasn't sure what to make of them just yet, Harry held his tongue. Lucius took his silence as a concession.

"Of course, you saved him the trouble by coming yourself. I had no idea Draco had gained such a hold over the Boy Hero. Although I am curious as to why you came here. Did you think my son would be so foolish as to ally with you?"

Harry's first impulse was to insist that he would do exactly that—that Draco had no desire to sit at Voldemort's right hand. He wanted to tell Lucius that he was on the losing side. He wanted to proclaim that they would defeat the Dark Wizard, once and for all. But even as the words began to swell, he swallowed them down. He couldn't give that away, couldn't let Lucius think there had been any plot. And with the doubts now growing in his mind, Harry was no longer sure why he'd come. And so he said the thing he knew would wound Lucius. "Maybe I just wanted to bugger him one last time."

The curse came swift and sure, violent flashes of jagged pain that split Harry's muscles and crushed his bones. The cold stone walls echoed with his screams, filling his head until he was sure it would explode. When he could take no more, when he knew that another second of Crucio would break him utterly and he would welcome the relief that came with death, the curse was suddenly lifted. Absence of pain was hardly a relief, though; his entire body reeled with the shock, his bladder voided, and Harry was left shuddering in strangled gasps on the floor.

Lucius gazed down at him contemptuously as he sheathed his wand. In a voice only minutely less harsh than the Cruciatus Curse, he spat, "Be thankful that my Lord wants you whole or I would have you pay dearly for what you have done."

With a surprisingly sharp click of his boots even on the earthen floor, Lucius spun around and left his guest, leaving darkness and the nervous scratching of the rats as Harry's only company.



It could have been minutes that he'd been unconscious, or perhaps days. Apart from the stiffness in his bones, there was no way to tell how much time had passed. Everyone assumed the acute agony of being cruciated was the worst that could happen, but Harry knew the aftershocks were just as traumatic. Even after the pain in his body dulled, his thoughts were shaky and unsure, his nerves on edge. And his dreams ... his dreams were unspeakable.

"Come closer so I can see the Boy Who Lived one last time."

Fingers clutched at his sore body, trying to move him. In his dream they became the hurtful hands of the Death Eaters, wanting nothing more than to tear him apart as they dragged him nearer to the shining red eyes. Harry whimpered and shrank away, curling himself into a tight ball. To his surprise, the hands disappeared. He slumped back down, his nose pressed gratefully into the dirt.

Another sound broke through his sluggish consciousness, a gentle rustling that was oddly familiar. Harry pried open a single, sore eye—how could an eyelid ache?—to see a dozen faint blue lights brightening the dark room. One darted toward him and hovered just a few inches from his eye, reminding Harry of the fireflies he'd chased when he was young.

"Winged sapphires," said a whisper beside him. "They were a present from Grandmamma when I was little. Father told me I wasn't to be afraid of the dark, but I hated it—I'd stay up all night long to make sure nothing bad happened. Grandmamma gave me these to keep away the dark so I could sleep."

Harry thought he recognised the calming voice, and he longed to see if he was correct, but the effort to open his eyes had taken too much out of him. He closed them again, but this time the quiet trill of wings kept his dark thoughts away.

"Sit up, Harry. You need to drink this."

He felt hands again, but this time he didn't fight as they turned him on his back and lifted his head. A potions cup touched his lips; too weak to argue he opened his mouth. The potion tasted of Hogwarts, of the sweet holly and blackcurrent draughts that Madam Pomfrey prescribed for most any ailment, but it was mixed with other flavours he couldn't identify. It could well be poison, he realised too late, but the strong hand cradling his head did not feel like that of an enemy.

"It's a restorative with a sleeping draught," purred the voice, smooth as the warm liquid. "You'll need your strength tomorrow, Harry."

"Draco?" The man's was obscured, but his silver hair shone like glacier-blue ice as the fireflies danced around it. Harry wondered whether it might be a dream; nothing in this awful place could possibly be so beautiful. The fingers brushing softly across his cheek made him wonder even more. They should have hurt, his skin was overly sensitive for days after begin cruciated, but this felt bearable ... more than bearable, and he leaned into the reassuring touch.

"Did you know I've never killed anyone, Harry? I know what you thought, but I didn't."

Harry wanted to interject that he hadn't thought that, but his tongue were too lazy and the voice was too soothing. It was much easier to just let the voice keep talking. It was just a dream, after all.

"Never believed I could, to tell you the truth. I was a lousy Death Eater. But turns out I'm a murderer after all. Or I will be after tomorrow night. Even if I don't cast the Killing Curse, it's my charm that'll send it through the Eye to St. Mungo's."

Harry didn't know what to say. More about St. Mungo's—why did everyone keep talking about that place? Draco sounded so sad and Harry wanted to reach for him, but his limbs felt like lead. He did manage something that sounded like a whimper; Draco must've heard it, for his thumb dragged across Harry's bottom lip.

"I know what you're thinking, Harry. That I should refuse—that all those people don't deserve it. I know you wouldn't do it. You'd die first. Tell you the truth, I would too. But there are worse things than dying." The whisper dropped lower, and Harry strained to hear it above the sapphires' fluttering wings. "I'll tell you a secret ... I hoped you would win. The last time, I mean. Even all those years ago I didn't want him to have you."

"Why...?" Harry tongue felt so thick, coated with the draught that was already lulling him to sleep.

"Why did I betray you now? It was the only way, Harry. I'm sorry."

That hadn't been what Harry was going to ask, but in hindsight it was probably more important than knowing why Draco had wanted to protect him five years earlier. He closed his eyes and let his thoughts blur.

"You really messed things up, you know." The indulgent voice sounded terribly far away now, but it didn't sound angry, not even when it added, "stupid Gryffindor."

Harry tried to smile back, but he knew he was too far away for Draco to see. He was floating high above the green Wiltshire plains, following the trail of sapphire fireflies into the clouds.



When he next awoke, he was alone.

Harry sat up stiffly, wincing at the lingering effects of the curse, his bones feeling awkward and ill-fitting, his skin stretched too thin, his trousers stiff from dried urine. But one thing was certain: he should have felt much, much worse. That must be the effect of Draco's potion.

He would hardly have believed the visit was anything but a dream had it not been for the pale lights humming around him now. With the smooth hand of a seeker, Harry snatched one of the sapphires from the air. The others circled closer, as if concerned for the fate of their companion. He carefully opened his palm and peered at the captured stone. It looked like the gem of its name, not with sharp facets to sit in a ring, but smooth and about the size of a small button. Without light shining through it looked dull, easily mistaken for any small pebble, save for the translucent wings folded on its back. Harry felt a pang of regret at the thought that he might not have the magic to send it back into flight. But hadn't Draco said he'd gotten them as a boy? Perhaps it had been before he'd learned magic. "Was there ever such a time?" Harry mused as he threw the stone into the air. To his relief a new point of light appeared above him, the centre around which all of the other sapphires now orbited.

Harry propped himself up against the cold stones and watched the sapphires dance, thinking of what Draco had told him about them. "Grandmamma," he'd said, and Harry wondered which one it had been. The image of the irascible Mrs. Black going behind Lucius' back to coddle a frightened child seemed so implausible that he couldn't help but chuckle, painful as that was.

Silence descended again as he cast his mind back to the other things Malfoy had said. Harry's thoughts were terribly confused; it was feelings more than words that he remembered. Draco sounding awfully sad, regretting something he had done … or no, it was something he hadn't done yet, but was going to do … something that Harry had messed up. For some reason that he couldn't put his finger on, it seemed terribly important.

Imagining that he was relating the conversation to Hermione, Harry tried to systematically sift through his memories. "Something about the hospital," he said aloud, "about St. Mungo's. Someone there didn't deserve to die—no, 'all those people,' that's what he said. And something about the Eye and a curse ... the Killing Curse, and Draco's charm, and St. Mungo's..."

Suddenly the pieces slid into place. Draco had already put a Vigilus Charm in the Eye, revealing magical activity in warded homes. It couldn't be that much of a stretch to insert a curse. That must have been what Draco was working on, the project that Bellatrix didn't want interrupted. But St. Mungo's ... surely even Voldemort wasn't crazy enough to wipe out the hospital? Even he wouldn't be immune to the public outcry after something so blatant.

"But the Mental Victims ward..." Of course! It was the perfect place for Voldemort to test his new weapon. Eighty-eight people that no one remembered. Eighty-eight people who could be wiped out with no consequence.

Harry felt ill in a way that had nothing to do with the Cruciatus Curse. The horror was unfathomable—with this kind of power, Voldemort would be unstoppable. And what it would do to Draco ... these people might not be murdered by his hand, but he was inextricably involved. "There are worse things than dying," he'd said, and Harry ached for what he was going through.

There was something more he needed to remember about St. Mungo's, though, and Harry wrestled to bring the memory into focus. But the harder he tried, the more it danced like sundogs on the edge of his vision. He was still trying to bring them into focus when he heard voices arguing outside the door.

"My orders are to let no one in."

"Your orders come from my father. I highly doubt that he was referring to me."

Draco, with that superior tone that had made Harry's blood boil when they were in school. Now he found himself cheering it on.

The other voice said something Harry couldn't hear, but Draco's voice came through loud and clear. "Fine, if you'd like to explain to the Dark Lord why his sacrifice is too weak to perform the ceremony, be my guest."

Obviously a convincing argument, because after another murmur, a key scraped in the door's lock. Light flooded the chamber a second later; Harry squinted and lifted his hand to cover his eyes, hearing the soft thumping sounds around him as the sapphires fell to the ground. When he moved his hand, Draco stood before him, his hawthorn drawn and levitating a tea tray. Over his shoulder, Harry saw an Auror Guard glaring at them both.

"Potter," Draco sneered. Nothing about him betrayed his earlier visit. This was the Malfoy who unquestioningly did the biddings of Voldemort. Maybe it had been a dream after all.

"Malfoy," Harry replied, matching his tone as he tried to pull himself up straighter.

"I trust you slept well?" the blond man sneered. "I thought you might be more comfortable in a cupboard, but all of our cupboards have, you know, things in them."

Harry hadn't expected Draco to be decent, not with the Guard watching, but he didn't expect this kind of remark. He immediately reverted back to their Hogwarts days. "Get stuffed."

To his surprise, Draco laughed. "You're about to die, Potter, and that's the best insult you can come up with."

"Fuck you then, Malfoy. Fuck you and your family."

Draco's eyes flashed with a bright anger, the same fire Harry had always seen at school. To his surprise, it was almost reassuring. He knew how to deal with this Malfoy. "The house-elves had leftovers," Draco said contemptuously, "so I thought I might bring them down."

Draco flew the tray closer; a cup of lukewarm tea and dry toast landed by Harry's feet. He hardly glanced at it. "Your generosity astounds me."

"It's the least I could do, seeing as how you saved me the trouble of collecting you from St. Mungo's."

At Draco's bitter words, Harry suddenly remembered the thought that had eluded him earlier. "Lucius thinks I'm still at St. Mungo's!" But Draco knew he wasn't; Draco knew that someone would take his place in the sacrifice.

"St. Mungo's ... you..."

His face must have betrayed his sudden realisation, for Draco cut him off suddenly. "Sweet Hyperion, Potter, but you reek."

Harry had forgotten that he'd soiled himself after being released from Lucius' curse. He was almost glad for the disgust that he saw on Draco's face. It matched his own disgust with the man.

"You," Draco called to the Auror Guard. "Go upstairs and ask my mother to find new robes for the prisoner."

The man looked stunned at the demand. "What, do I look like a house-elf to you?"

Draco smiled cruelly. "Believe me, a house-elf would be an improvement. But since they can't Apparate here, you'll have to do." The man didn't move until Draco waved his wand toward him. "Go!"

The Guard hesitated for only another second, obviously debating the wisdom of offending Voldemort's favourite family, before turning and clumping heavily up the wooden stairs. As soon as Harry was sure he was out of earshot, he turned angrily on Draco.

"You set Seamus up!"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm to be the sacrifice, amn't I? Only it was going to be Seamus."

"Ah, Finnigan, was it?" Draco shrugged. "No, I didn't tell Weasley who to send. That was his choice."

Ron? Harry was taken aback for a second, but he recovered quickly. "Some choice it was. You didn't tell him what you were doing, did you?"

Draco shot him a warning glare. "Potter..."

But Harry was upset now, angry at all the machinations that had doomed his friends, that had doomed him. "Seamus was set up, wasn't he? You knew that whoever went in there would die, pretending they were me."

"Better than it really be you, Harry."

Draco's voice was so quiet that Harry almost didn't hear it. When he did, it took a moment for his mind to register the words. They threw a wrench into all his newfound fury. The Slytherin had been working every angle, he had no doubt, but Harry had thought that emotion had no part in his calculations. "Maybe I was wrong..."

"You said there are worse things than dying." Draco looked up sharply when Harry recited his own words. "But Draco, nobody has to die. We can stop this—Zabini and Hermione have got it all figured out."

Draco snapped his head up, his eyes widening. "Zabini?"

"Yeah, it's a complicated spell, some Egyptian thing."

Pinching his brow between his fingers, Draco groaned. "Oh Merlin, it's not one of Zabini's multi-point spells, is it? He always fucks those up."

Harry pursed his lips, his confidence wavering slightly. "It will work," he said, as firmly as possible. "Hermione checked it out," he reassured himself. "If she thought the spell was sound, it must be." He felt better until another voice countered, "If she wasn't swayed by Zabini, that is." Pushing his doubts away, Harry added, "And Dumbledore's Army is ready. All you need to do is lower the wards and let them in."

Draco stared with a look of utter disbelief. "Maybe you haven't noticed," he finally muttered, "but I'm hardly the one to be sharing your plans with. I could take this news to my father. Capturing Dumbledore's Army..." Draco made a derisive snorting sound. "What better way to prove my family's loyalty to our Lord?"

Harry swallowed hard. It was true, what he'd just said could well have sealed their death warrants. Draco's face gave little away; his features were steeled in the same mask that he'd worn the day before. But something in his grey eyes gave Harry hope that his faith wasn't displaced. "You won't, Draco. You don't want this." The image of the witch they'd both known flickered into his memory. "You remember Sally, don't you?" Draco looked stunned, then gave one sharp nod. "She once told me that there was no reason your future shouldn't be by my side instead of Voldemort's. I still think she's right."

Draco flashed him a cold look. "Sally's dead, Harry. She was the first sacrifice."

"For the first horcrux?" Harry was crushed, but when he looked at Draco he saw the other man was suffering more.

"It was at a Walpurgis meeting the night you disappeared. Father performed the spell to restore our memories—he'd had his all along. When I mentioned that Sally had kept hers too, the Dark Lord sent for her, and then he–"

A heavy step on the step above cut Draco's confession off mid-sentence, but Harry could imagine what came next. The same thing that he would endure the next night—excruciating pain as Voldemort toyed with him, followed by what would feel like blessed relief. "Draco," he whispered, "you can still stop this. Think about what you really want."

Grey eyes dark with anger turned to his. "Don't be so stupid, Potter. I've already made my choices—I've done things even you won't forgive. There's no fairytale happy ending here. Nobody's going to buy the Death Eater falling in love with the Boy Who Lived."

The last words were hissed just as the Auror Guard appeared in the doorway, and Harry had no time to respond. He wasn't sure he'd be able to in any case. He wanted to tell Draco that he was wrong, that there was nothing he couldn't forgive, but the darkness haunting his lover suggested that it might not be true. He wanted to say that choices could be unmade, that futures were never certain, but Draco's fortunes were wound so tightly with those of his family that this might no longer be the case. He wanted to know what Draco had meant about a Death Eater's love, but not even Harry's heart was brave enough to venture into that uncharted land.

He didn't have a chance in any case. Draco simply turned and left the room, pausing for one moment in the doorway. "I'll return for you tonight," he announced imperiously, and then he was gone.

Scowling, the Guard tossed a folded robe to Harry. He reached out to catch it, and winced as his sore arm was stretched. "So you're the Boy Hero," smirked the Guard, noticing his pain. "Definitely not what I expected."

"And you're just the Malfoys' flunky," Harry snapped back.

His courage was snapped by a blunt fist slamming into his stomach, sending him to his knees. The Guard grinned evilly down at him. "Maybe so, but I'll still be alive tomorrow." He pulled the door firmly shut; leaving Harry in the dizzying dark with more questions than answers.



The longer he stayed in the cellar, the more he realized the worst part wasn't the dark. It wasn't even the seclusion or not knowing what was happening outside. No, the thing that was driving him insane was not knowing how much time had passed. Aside from the occasional muffled sounds of Guards talking on the other side of the thick door, the day stretched into a single expanse of unbroken time. "Why did I never learn wandless magic?" he asked the sapphires who flickered attentively around him. "How hard could a Tempus Charm be?"

It was well after the hundredth time he wondered this that he heard movement outside his cell. The key turned, the door swung open, and Harry braced for the light that he knew would come flooding in. He expected to see Draco, but instead two Auror Guards filled his vision. Alone, they were large and intimidating, but together they looked like nothing less than a massive hulk of malice. "It's time to go," one said as they flanked him.

"Where are you taking me?" Harry asked, not really expecting an answer, and not getting anything more than a grunt as he was propelled up the stairs and dragged through corridors until at last they stood before a heavy carved door. One of the Auror Guards raised a ham-sized fist to knock, but paused when they heard yelling from within.

"I don't care what you do, just find him."

His keeper waited until he heard the distinctive sound of a house-elf Apparating away. He smirked—Harry could tell there was no love lost between the Malfoys and the Auror Guard—and then pounded on the door.

"Enter," came the luxuriant drawl, fully recovered.

Harry was shoved into what appeared to be an upscale branch of Borgin and Burkes. Dark wood cabinets lined the walls, displaying curious objects and ancient books. Above a grand marble fireplace was an enormous painting of wizards posed in ridiculously old-fashioned robes on the steps of the manor. The ancestral Malfoys, no doubt, for they sported the aristocratic features and haughty air of their current namesakes. Before the hearth stretched two drowsy wolfhounds. Lucius Malfoy stood above them, glaring at the fire.

Leave us," he commanded. Another shove jostled Harry forward and he landed just a few feet from Lucius. The wizard's wand was sheathed, but his critical gaze made Harry feel unsteady even after regaining his balance. "Well," he said cloyingly, "this day has certainly been long in coming. I cannot fathom how you have managed to escape your fate for so many years, Potter, but it does make tonight even more special, wouldn't you agree? The night the Boy Who Lived died. That has such a nice ring to it."

Harry clenched his fists. "The night's not over, Malfoy."

"Ah, that it is not, young Potter. That it is not. Come here, I want to show you something." His luxurious robes rippled as he beckoned Harry toward a low glass display case against the wall. "Before this night is through, you will have given your life for my Master's immortality. And for our part in this, my family will finally hold the honour we rightly deserve."

Harry stared at the bed of black velvet upon which lay a golden sword. He recognised it even before he saw the glittering rubies in its hilt. "The sword of Gryffindor," he whispered, pressing his fingers to the glass.

"It's taken years to locate this prize, and not a meagre financial investment to secure it," Lucius boasted. "But every Galleon will be well spent if it pleases my Lord. It's wonderfully fitting, is it not? To think that one of the few things capable of destroying a horcrux will actually become one."

"It won't work," Harry said confidently. "The sword's magic is more powerful than that. It will resist." He imagined the sword even destroying itself before being used in such a way.

"That would be true with an ordinary sacrifice, Harry. In fact, with anyone else, the sword's protective magic might very well cause the dark spell to backfire, doing irreparable damage to my Lord. But you underestimate your importance. Strong bonds tie you to our Lord—in many ways, you are closer to him than I can ever hope to be. Through you, through the bonds of blood and loyalty that tie you to Godric Gryffindor, He will live forever."

Lucius' words pounded Harry's gut like an invisible fist. It was true; he was the bridge between the heir of Slytherin and Godric Gryffindor. If Seamus had been the one sacrificed instead...

"Better than it really be you, Harry."

Now Harry understood what Draco had meant. He'd been wrong in thinking it was emotion that had swayed Draco. The Slytherin had crafted this carefully, making sure that the real Harry Potter was as far as could be from Voldemort and the sword. No wonder he had been so upset when Harry appeared at the manor. He was a stupid Gryffindor indeed!

Lucius noticed his discomfort and smiled with satisfaction. "You don't look well, Mr. Potter. I'm sure you must be overwhelmed to know what an important part you will play tonight. Perhaps you would feel better if you sat."

He flourished his wand, and immediately a hard-backed chair appeared behind Harry. Invisible hands grasped at his arms, and as much as Harry struggled against them, they were stronger. Soon they had him sitting up uncomfortably straight, his wrists pinned to the armrests.

"There, that's much better," Lucius drawled. Tapping his wand once on the mantle, he drew a potion cup out of thin air. With another wand flourish, the cup sped toward Harry. "Here's a little something to calm your nerves."

The potion was deep red, darker than blood and twice as thick. Its surface roiled like boiled molasses, lazy bubbles rising to the top and emitting a sickly sweet smell. Harry pressed his lips together tightly as the cup moved closer to his lips, but with another swish of his wand Lucius had the chair yank his head back. Harry cried out against the sudden, sharp pain, and when he did the potion tilted into his mouth. He had no choice but to swallow every drop.

For several incredible seconds, Harry felt bliss. True bliss, as if peace had taken liquid form and was washing over him, bathing every cell in warmth and joy. The temptation to let himself soak in this pleasure was overwhelming. Here he could forget that things were terribly wrong, that he was trapped in Lucius Malfoy's study, held fast to his chair like a butterfly pinned to a mounting board. Forget that his brashness had ruined what quite possibly might be the wizarding world's best hope of doing away permanently with Voldemort. Forget that he was Harry Potter and that he was supposed to do something, anything, to stop this.

"My son should be here to see this," Lucius said bitterly, "seeing as he made this concoction just for you."

Harry wondered idly where Draco was; he thought he should have liked to see him. Draco was very pretty, when he wasn't angry. It wasn't nice when Draco was angry; his forehead went all scrunchy. Harry smiled.

"Good, it seems to be working. You're feeling the effects of Papaver moriferum. Initially it will affect you much like the Muggles' opium poppy. More effective than a calming draught, and we daren't trust an Imperius Curse with you tonight. Not with your history."

Tonight. Harry forced open a sluggish eye. He knew he had to think about what was happening tonight. But it seemed so hard, and he was so comfortable in this chair, with these invisible arms holding him upright.

"But what I especially like are the side effects—the despair that will soon take you. It should be starting soon—let's see, shall we?"

A trunk slid magically across the floor and landed at Harry's feet. Harry smiled at it. It looked like a nice trunk, with well-worn wood, lovingly polished. He wondered what was in it—something special, surely, something wonderful and precious. Harry leaned forward eagerly, as much as his invisible restraints would allow, as the lid began to lift.

With less than an inch open, cold swept through his bones like gale-force winds, wiping out every trace of the warmth he'd felt. It was that irrepressible chill that Harry knew well, the one that presaged the arrival of Dementors and the loss of hope. Cowering in fear, he struggled against his magical bindings. He knew there couldn't be a Dementor in the box, but there was something there, and he had a hunch it was very bad. Worse than a Boggart; they weren't scary until they were visible, they could never radiate such ominous dread when the lid had only been cracked a few inches.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut and turned his face away. "Nononononononono," he chanted to himself. He could hear the lid crack wider, ready to release whatever horror was inside. Any second now his nightmares would attack, and he was unable to do anything but snivel helplessly.

"Continiosa!"

The lid slammed shut at the angry command. Letting out one last choked sob, Harry pried open his eyes. Draco stood beside him, his forehead scrunched in anger, but he wasn't looking at Harry. He was addressing his father. "What are you doing? He can't handle a Chimaera Chamber on top of the potion!"

"Finally, you grace us with your presence. I told Lubby I wanted to see you."

"I was finalising the spell. I didn't realise that taunting the sacrifice was more important than making sure it worked."

"I thought you were finished. Draco, we can afford no mistakes tonight..."

The air crackled as the two men sparred, not noticing as Harry winced in fear at their angry exchange. He knew that something was about to happen that was even worse than what was in the trunk. What he didn't know was whether it would happen while they were arguing or when they finally finished.

But he did know that his situation was hopeless. Tonight he would die, like he had been meant to die all those year ago. Dumbledore had known it, Snape had known it, Harry himself had accepted it as the truth. Who was he to fight against his legacy? For the past five years, he had not been the Boy Hero; without Voldemort's soul in him, he had not been a powerful wizard. He had only been Harry Potter, the most ordinary of men. And it was well past time for him to face his fate.

Draco must have had the same thought, for he broke away from his father and looked for the first time at Harry. His eyes were as hard as concrete, his jaw set stiff as iron.

"It's nearly midnight," he said, and Harry heard the determination in his voice. "We must go."


Chapter Seventeen

Quam terribilis est haec hora
How fearful is this hour


Wiltshire had always been a place of magic. Every young wizard learned of Avebury's enchantments before he dared fly his first broom over its alluring stones, and every young witch's heart beat faster when she heard of the wizard king's tragic quest to transfigure the White Horses. Even Muggles were not so oblivious as to discount the power of the ring at Stonehenge.

Tonight, all of this magic was eclipsed by the Dark Mark hanging in the sky.

Harry could sense the Dark Magic that converged under its malevolent green gaze. It pulsed through the plains of Salisbury, coursed through the veins of the wandering vales, thrummed through the lavish grounds of the Malfoy estate. From where he lay on his back, paralyzed by the potion and still dizzy from Lucius' Side-Along-Apparition, Harry felt it beat so strong and true that he knew he rested directly upon its heart.

The vision above him shifted and swayed, buffeted by the winds but never losing its hideous form. Never stopped glowering down at Harry, reminding him that there was no escape. In its cadaverous grin Harry was enthralled, and it took every ounce of his strength just to tear his gaze away.

When he finally did, he could survey the small meadow where he lay. The ring of trees around the clearing was close, and almost perfectly round, clearly the effect of generations of meticulous grooming. In its centre stood a white marble altar, built for what nefarious purpose Harry could only imagine. The stones stood about as high as a man's waist and about twice that across; around its base were carved what looked to be the faces of demons screaming in agony. Before long, Harry suspected that his screams would join theirs.

Harry searched the clearing for Voldemort, but he was nowhere to be seen. The Death Eaters were there, however—less than a dozen, fewer than Harry had expected, but still enough to fill him with dread. He tried to see who was present, but it was impossible to even find Draco's familiar form among them; their dark robes ran together like unblotted ink. Not that it mattered now. Draco had tried to stop this and Harry had botched his plans. Now the Slytherin was playing the part he must to survive. Even Draco's argument with his father, rather than giving Harry hope, had only convinced him that Voldemort's ascent was inevitable.

"Snap out of it!" Harry upbraided himself as his despondency grew. "This is the potion, that's all." His friends were still out there, Draco surely had more plans up his sleeve, and if he could find the strength he might still escape. When those thoughts proved too difficult to believe, he tried to simply imagine that tiny blue sapphires were floating above him instead of the Dark Mark. But his mind refused to even grant him that little remembrance of hope, and his limbs hung lifelessly, too weak even to crawl the few feet into the forest.

Something crawled out to meet him instead.

"Master said you would be here."

"Kalfu!" Although he'd suspected that he would see the young cobra tonight, his sudden appearance made even Harry's leaden limbs spasm. Even more shocking was the thought that the snake's coming signalled Voldemort's. "Is he here?"

"Soon He will arrive. He prepares himself even now." Kalfu slithered closer, stopping just a few inches from Harry's face, so close that Harry could feel its beady black eyes examining him. "You serve a special purpose."

"Right, so that sick bastard can make another horcrux." An invincible one this time. The despair Harry had tried so hard to fight flooded through him again. If only he hadn't come ... if only they'd found some other way to rescue Seamus ... if only he'd died the first time, when people still remembered the evil they needed to fight...

Kalfu interrupted his despondent thoughts. "You do not wish to serve my Master?" he asked, obviously confused. "But he is the most powerful wizard in the world. And you..." Harry had not thought a snake could manage disdain, but this one was pulling it off. "You are pathetic and weak."

His words were a lavish buffet feeding Harry's doubts. He was pathetic and weak, just an ordinary wizard with no hope of defeating Britain's darkest wizard. Drugged and wandless, he couldn't even take on this young snake. Giving up, Harry let his eyelids close. "Perhaps. Still, no one wants to die."

"I can't die," the snake boasted. "There is no wizard or witch who can kill me. My Master has made sure of it."

Harry could do little more than groan. Two invincible horcruxes—the world would never be free of Voldemort. "How...?" he started, but the snake didn't answer. At that moment, the air changed, suddenly feeling heavier and as laden with dread as Harry's thoughts.

"He is here," hissed Kalfu, and slithered across the dead leaves.

Harry's eyes followed, his gaze landing on the man who had just entered the clearing. The Death Eaters rushed towards him like the gaggle around the pigeon lady at Trafalgar Square. Towering over them was the face of Harry's nightmares, with a bare sloping forehead and narrow slits in place of his nose, and gleaming red eyes that made him less than human, more than a wizard. The sight of his enemy banished the last vestiges of hope from Harry's mind. Voldemort was alive and well, radiating more power than ever before.

"Tonight is a very special night," the wizard proclaimed, his high voice carrying over the pregnant air to where Harry lay. "Tonight I will harness fear and master death. At midnight, at the moment when the longest night becomes the shortest day, I will become invincible. And you, my loyal followers, for giving me your magic at the time of the breaking, you will become powerful beyond your wildest dreams."

A self-satisfied murmur rose amongst the death eaters, but it faded when Voldemort lifted a twisted finger. "You, my chosen few, are here tonight because you have proven yourself. Your loyalty will not be forgotten ... just as your betrayal will never be forgiven. What happens tonight must never be spoken of, even amongst yourselves. More, you will each foreswear to repeat this spell, under pain of death and my displeasure. I will require an unbreakable vow from each of you."

There were murmurs from the Death Eaters, and then one stepped forward immediately and bowed before the snakelike creature. "I gladly take this vow, my Lord."

Bellatrix, it must be. None else would fall over themselves to bond with Voldemort. Harry shuddered as he remembered those self-inflicted wounds in her desperation to prolong his torturous touch.

"Do you, Bellatrix Lestrange, willingly take part in this ceremony and promise to carry out what is required this night?"

"I do, my Lord, most willingly." Her words rang clearly across the wood, sounding as bright as if she was promising her hand in marriage.

"And will you keep the events of this night forever silent, never speaking the magic of the horcrux to another person?"

"I swear it, my Lord."

Lucius Malfoy was next, followed by Narcissa and then Draco. Harry listened carefully for Draco's voice to waver, but although it lacked Bellatrix' passion, it was strong and clear. The two Lestrange brothers, then the Carrows, and finally Nebediah Nott and his son Theodore were quickly foresworn. All relatives, Harry noticed. Idly he wondered if, being an orphan like himself, Tom Riddle realised the value in protecting one's family. He certainly had manipulated it where Draco was concerned.

These musings were shattered with the words he dreaded. "And now, the sacrifice." Voldemort extended his wand towards Harry. The air around him seemed to swell, and then Harry was riding on it to the centre of the clearing, landing not uncomfortably on the stone altar. The Dark Mark above him writhed; Harry wondered whether it was his imagination that it seemed closer now, and that much brighter. He lurched away from its sight, starting when he realised that there on the slab beside him was Gryffindor's sword. Its gilded handle lay just mere inches away from his face—so close he could easily take it in hand if not for his moribund arms. But even that simple movement took too great an effort, leaving him panting in exhaustion. Death Eaters moved beside him, surrounding him like in his dreams. Voldemort stood at the foot of the stone, the whistle of his voice and his wheezing breath uncomfortably close.

"My, my, Harry Potter, it is such a pleasure to see you again. I expect you missed me as much as I did you."

"Hardly," Harry croaked. He cleared his throat, determined to make his voice stronger. "It was nice when everybody had forgotten about you."

"But you were forgotten, too. How did it feel to be a nobody, Harry? I would think that you, of all people, would have found that a bitter pill to swallow."

"I liked it," Harry said, and it wasn't a lie. "I liked who I was."

"Who you were?" Voldemort scoffed. "You were merely a lackey in a pet store. You had a thoroughly meaningless life ... the great Boy Hero, living amongst Muggles!" The other Death Eaters joined in his mocking laughter. "And then you even deigned to take a pure-blood lover. Did you really believe you could command his loyalty over mine? How very foolish of you." His voice grew darker and the others' laughter faded. Doubt tugged at the hem of Harry's resolve, but it didn't start to unravel until Voldemort called, "Draco, come before me."

One of the Death Eaters moved forward, silver strands of hair spilling over the collar of his dark robe; then Kalfu glided over Harry's leg, distracting him as the man passed out of his vision. "That is your mate?" the snake hissed.

"Hush," Harry hissed back, wanting and at the same time not wanting to hear what was said to Draco.

"I have you to thank for bringing Potter to me, do I not?"

"Yes, my Lord."

"He was your lover? You cared enough for this man that you disobeyed your father's wishes for a pure-blood heir?"

"He was, my Lord, and I did."

Harry was surprised; Draco had never before mentioned this.

"But now you give him up willingly to me?"

"Yes, my Lord."

"I am afraid, Draco, that I will need you to prove this to me."

There was the briefest of pauses before Draco asked, "Of course, my Lord. What would you have me do?"

"Cruciate him."

"Cr–cruciate?" For the first time, Draco's voice broke.

"Why, Draco, you have demonstrated your skill with this spell before. Do you have a problem with it now?"

"No, my Lord," Draco quickly assured him. "But the potion ... it is extremely potent. He would not survive being cruciated."

"Do it!" Harry wanted to scream. "Kill me so he can't make the horcrux!" But the words choked in his throat, and Voldemort continued with his manipulations.

"Ah, that is a pity. Perhaps you would prefer a different target." The creature gloated as he called out, "Narcissa?"

"Yes, my Lord?" answered one of the Death Eaters standing in Harry's vision.

"Would you have your son prove that there is nothing more important than his loyalty to me?"

Narcissa drew herself up straighter. "Of course, my Lord," she said, her voice surprisingly strong even when faced with receiving an Unforgivable. "You know that my family is and has always been at your service. I am sure that Draco had nothing more in his mind when he first turned Harry Potter over to you, my Lord."

Narcissa sounded genteel and accommodating, yet reminded Voldemort of what Draco had already done. It was an eminently reasonable approach and Harry was impressed. But then, Voldemort had never been one to listen to reason.

"Yes, it is true, the Malfoys have done much to regain their place in my esteem." But then his voice turned to contempt. "It is unfortunate there was such deceit before." Even without seeing him, Harry could feel Voldemort step closer. He changed something in the very air with his presence, making it hard for Harry to breathe. "Somehow I doubt the reasons for the boy's hesitation. Is it truly because of the potion? Not because your heart is still tainted with feelings for that half-blood?"

"It is the potion, my Lord, I swear it," Draco said, his voice pitched high with nervousness. "There is an antidote—I have prepared it already, if you would have me get it..."

"Silence!" Voldemort's voice boomed through the clearing, jolting the Death Eaters as much as Harry. "We have no time for this nonsense. Draco, you will cruciate your mother. Now!"

Harry stared aghast at Narcissa, knowing that at any second Draco would cast the spell and she would writhe in agony. But that didn't happen. Instead shouts rang from the woods around him. Within a heartbeat the quiet was shattered by curses and jinxes, jags of colour and ricocheted sounds flying out of the velvety darkness. The Death Eaters were taken by complete surprise, diving for cover and firing retaliatory spells. Harry winced as a Knob-Kneed Jinx came whirling like a snowball at Narcissa; she narrowly avoided it, sending an answering Tarantallegra back into the forest. A milder curse than he would have expected of her, but in the distance, he heard other Death Eaters firing off Unforgivables.

Harry seemed forgotten for the moment, which was just as well since he could do nothing but get in the way. It also meant that he was the only one who noticed when Kreacher appeared on the slab beside him. "Master, we've come for you," gushed the house-elf in greeting, but Harry couldn't reply; he was too astonished to see his elf heft the sword of Gryffindor over his shoulder.

Kreacher leapt off the slab and ran toward Kalfu, who had slithered off the altar as soon as the battle began. "The Dark Lord will never defeat my Master," the elf proclaimed as he caught up with the snake, slashing at it with the heavy blade. Buoyed by the promise of his own invulnerability, Kalfu rose as if charmed by a flute. His hood flared wide and his tongue flickered as he swayed. Suddenly he darted swiftly at the elf; Harry winced, but his bite narrowly missed Kreacher's shoulder. The elf's face registered shock that rapidly turned to resolve. His expression as steeled as the blade in his hand, he drew back the sword and, with a single smooth slice, beheaded the grey serpent.

Harry gasped. No witch or wizard might kill Kalfu, but house-elves had obviously been overlooked. Stunned by this unexpected victory, Harry hardly heard the frantic voice calling his name. "Harry!" it repeated, and he looked up to see Draco, pale and ghostlike even without his Death Eaters' mask. "Take your wand. It's in the pocket of my robe."

"Don't do it!" hissed the last dregs of his potion-induced paranoia, sure that this was one last trick, but Harry rebuked it. "Trust Draco," he told himself, even as the voice broke through again, more insistent. "Harry, now!" And as the last of his doubt went crawling away, Harry summoned his last ounce of strength and reached for his wand.

And then the unmistakeable tug of a Portkey pulled him away from Draco.



He landed so close that he could still hear the fighting nearby, the shouts of spells and the stinging sizzle of curses ringing through the night. But here, shaded in a hidden copse of trees, all was quiet. And he was surrounded by his friends. He gazed in astonishment at the people he'd thought he'd never see again, Hermione and Ron, and Luna, Neville, even Zabini. It must be a dream ... or maybe he was dead. Either explanation seemed plausible, and made more sense than any other.

Without wasting a second, Hermione tilted his head back and poured a cold potion down his throat. "Swallow, Harry. It's the antidote." He obeyed, drinking down the liquid ice that seemed to freeze his limbs. He shuddered, hardly noticing the woollen blanket that Luna draped over his shoulders.

"You'll feel cold, Harry. That means the Wake Robin's working. You'll be disoriented too, but we need you here, Harry. Do you hear me?"

Hermione's face shifted in and out of focus as he fought to make sense of her words. It was all he could do not to just curl up and sleep for a month. But there was something more, something he needed to think about, some reason they were all here. "Hermione ... you're here ... and Ron..."

Ron gave him a wide grin. "Malfoy dropped the wards. You were right about him, mate."

"We only have a few seconds," Hermione added. "Do you think you can remember our spell? Gran learned it just in case, but we really need her and Xeno for the Protego spells."

Harry searched his memory for the incantation he'd learned just a few days earlier. It seemed like ages ago, but gradually he pulled them from the attic of his mind, dusty and tattered—the words that would splinter Voldemort's aspect of sight, and the ones to meld his spell with the others', and still more to dispel all these fragments of his consciousness into nothingness. Once certain he had them all, Harry nodded.

"Gotta get you on your feet then," said Ron with equal parts determination and encouragement. "You need to be able to see Malfoy ... um, Draco Malfoy that is, when he stands on the altar."

"Draco? I don't remember that..."

"Yeah, that was Draco's idea," explained Blaise sheepishly. "Spells like these do best with a focal point. You'll do the exact same spell, only direct it at him instead of You Know Who."

That must've been what Draco had meant when he'd said the Zabini always fucked up these kinds of spells. It was just like Draco to point out the mistake. But it wasn't like Draco to put himself in the line of fire. "No ... no, no, no." Harry's protests bubbled off his tongue before his mind even had a chance to form its objections. His only thought was that Draco was in peril, and Harry could not allow that. "I should be out there, if anyone."

"Not in the shape you're in, Harry," scolded Hermione as Ron helped him struggle to his feet. "Besides, he volunteered. He knows what he's doing."

Of course Draco knew what he was doing—he always did. But sacrificing himself like this was the most un-Slytherin thing that Harry had ever heard, and it made him feel deeply uncomfortable.

"We really need to get on with this," Zabini interrupted, his voice urgent. "Ready, Harry?"

Standing on his own two feet, Harry braced himself against his dizziness. He looked through the trees, at the hazy shadows that swirled and unblurred and became the crisp outlines of fighters. He didn't see Draco.

"Ready," he called.

Neville fired a hail of golden sparks into the air. Before they'd even begun their descent, Draco climbed onto the altar. He'd abandoned his mask; he looked nothing like a Death Eater now, more like the thin boy Harry had known in school. He raised his wand before him in the traditional duelling pose and Harry probably only imagined his determined nod.

"Now," said Neville.

"Dido dididi didtum..." they began in unison before veering off into their individual spells. Uisus, auditus, gustus, ororatus, tactus, mens mentis, each one a separate aspect of the wizard's consciousness, each one a piece they could detach and divide, fractioning it into infinity. The spell left Harry's wand as an emerald tendril that spiralled through the trees. It bisected the cobalt wisp from Ron's wand, the golden curls from Luna's. The strands of light dove and danced, catching Neville's scarlet stream and Blaise's orange, with Hermione's silver-blue strand weaving through them all. Each colour corresponded with an aspect of the eye of Horus, but Harry had paid scant attention to Hermione's explanations. Instead he'd only thought how beautiful they looked racing through the Lovegood's field. Now, lighting the dark night with their glistening hues, they were truly breathtaking.

Until they hit their target.

When the spells struck Draco with the force of six curses, he lurched forward as though he might fall. He kept his balance, however, even as the tinted trails flowed into him. Harry stared at Malfoy, who seemed to glow for just a moment as the luminescent magic pooled inside him. Then suddenly from his wand rushed a torrent of colour, a dammed rainbow that had just broken free. Their shades looked richer, more vibrant, and their girth spread as they flowed through Draco's wand towards their target.

Harry felt as much as heard Voldemort's scream. It pierced the sky with righteous indignation, completely obscuring the sounds of the surrounding battle. And then it turned to hatred as the Dark Lord attacked his attacker. Harry watched in horror as angry green sparks veered toward the altar, knowing at any moment the Killing Curse would fell Draco. But before it could hit, a rapid fire of Protego spells came from both sides. It was Xeno and Editha, Harry realised, deflecting the curse. He breathed a sigh of relief, ignoring the niggling voice that told him they'd just gotten lucky that time.

All of a sudden Draco's slim body spasmed violently. Harry panicked—had a curse gotten through after all? But when he saw the unbroken stream flowing from Draco's wand into Voldemort, he knew what was happening. Zabini had warned them that their spells would act as a two-way conduit, with backlash as pieces of the tattered senses flowed back to them. Individually it would not have had much of an effect, but Draco was taking the full blow. "No," Harry protested, for Draco could not do this. For whatever reckless reason he'd had to volunteer, he would not have wanted this.

But Neville ignored him. "Again!" he commanded.

Their voices rose up once again, and once again their spells shot forward, illuminating Draco and strengthening the river of magic flowing from his wand. "Again!" Neville shouted as soon as their spells had cleared their wands, and then, "Again!" Soon there was as solid a channel from their wands to Draco as there was between him and the Dark Lord. And it was horrific. Through this connection, Harry felt everything that Voldemort felt. It was the violent anguish of a soul being ripped apart, it was the angry grappling of claws shredding the fabric of life, it was hoary protestations against eternal death and damnation. It was the realisation of Voldemort's imminent death and his vow not to go gently into its embrace.

And Harry was only feeling a sixth of what Draco was feeling.

"Again ..."

"Again ..."

"Again ..."

Endlessly they chanted the spell, countless rounds of divisions, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64, 1/128, 1/256 ... Soon Harry lost count of the numbers, but he knew he would never forget the intense pain that bolted through him with each fraction. The others also felt the recoil of Voldemort's shattering soul, he could see it in their faces, but none were absorbing it like Draco. The man was barely standing, his limbs limp and his head slack. Like a marionette he was held up merely by the band of colour running through him, buffeted between the violent jolts of Voldemort's Unforgivables and the protection spells repelling them.

"How much longer?" called Ron. It was a question that Harry had been wondering for a while now. Zabini had assured them that Voldemort would only be dangerous in the first few moments, when his soul was strongest, but even with only a fraction of his soul left he was still strong enough to fire another Killing Curse that Xeno deflected just seconds before it struck.

"Again!" was Neville's only answer, so Harry gritted his teeth and fired. Voldemort's howl seemed to grow even louder, perhaps, he hoped, even a little more desperate. Harry wished he could see him, sure that his physical form would betray how close he was to defeat. But all he could see was Draco, looking more puppet-like than ever, and it was so very wrong that he looked that way now, when he was acting like anything but. Harry shuddered and shut his eyes against the sight.

When he reopened them, Draco was gone.

Ron yelled for him to wait, but there was no power that could have held Harry back. It was only when he Disapparated beside Draco that he realised how strange it was that he could indeed hear Ron's voice. Voldemort's screams were still ringing in his head, but it was only their artefacts; the woods were eerily quiet, the sounds of the battle had long since stilled.

Draco was still too, lying where he'd fallen after his strings were cut. Deathly pale, he reminded Harry of a wilted wildflower. Voldemort, on the other hand, looked more like a huge black crow that had just careened into a windscreen. His limbs were splayed and his arms twitched helplessly as Bill and Charlie Weasley approached him with wands drawn.

"Is he all right?"

Harry looked to see where the voice came from. The Death Eaters were gathered near where the Dark Lord lay, surrounded by members of the DA. From among them shone a head as fair as the one motionless beside him. She stepped forward, her motherly concern brokering her way through her guards. "Is my son all right?" Narcissa asked again.

Harry wished he could answer, but his hand fumbling for a pulse under his skin felt nothing. The man felt as cold as the stone altar on which they lay. "Draco," he hissed, "don't you dare die on me."

Narcissa's sob pierced the silence just as a motion caught his eye. She moved quick as lightning, escaping her guards to seize the sword of Gryffindor. Before the DA could react, she had raised it above her head and plunged it deep into Voldemort's chest. There was one violent jerk, a sickly wheeze, and then the darkest wizard ever known to Britain expired.

At that moment, Harry felt the faintest heartbeat against his fingertips. Little more than a flutter, it was enough to make Harry's own jump for joy. "St. Mungo's," he said to Hermione and Ron, who were racing towards him, before he scooped Draco into his arms and Apparated them away.



The fourth floor of St. Mungo's had only a tiny waiting area, crammed uncomfortably full with uncomfortable chairs. Most visitors spent their time in the tearoom upstairs, only passing through the dingy quarters on the way to see their loved ones. But if anyone had happened to pass through at two o'clock that Sunday morning, he would have seen a young man who had spent hours rolling his wand between his palms, staring as the patterns in the tile floor as they arranged and rearranged themselves again and again.

The door swung open, but it was the wrong door, and the young man didn't look up. Two new visitors came in, one sitting on each side of them. The woman took his hand, winding her fingers through his.

"How is he?"

"The Healers still won't tell me anything." Harry swallowed his bitterness, realising it was unfair. In a more reasonable tone, he said, "They say it'll be a while before they know anything."

Hermione nodded. "I'm sure they're doing all they can. I'm sure he'll be all right." Harry nodded too, although he didn't feel nearly as confident.

"He sure came through tonight," Ron said. Harry wondered what that admission had cost him. "I admit I was ready to murder him when he showed up after you'd gone missing. But then he said you'd told him about the DA. We figured you wouldn't have said anything about that unless he was on our side."

"That sneaky Slytherin," Harry thought, his lips itching to twitch up into a smile. That's where he'd been while Lucius fumed and taunted Harry. "And he dropped the wards so you were able to get in to the estate," he concluded.

"He dropped the wards everywhere," said Hermione. "The Eye's completely down."

"Unravelled like a holey sock," Ron chimed in. "Plus he told us about the charm on the snake—said Kreacher would have to take him out. I never thought I'd say this, but if Malfoy pulls through, he deserves an Order of Merlin."

"When he pulls through," corrected Hermione, giving Ron the evil eye.

"Yeah, that's what I meant. I'm sure he'll be fine, Harry."

But Harry's brain had already seized up, shuddering to a standstill like Uncle Vernon's sedan after its battery gave up the ghost. For several long moments he sat without a word, forcing his heart to keep beating, for oxygen to keep flowing through his body. These once-automatic functions now required every bit of his concentration; he could no longer trust them to chance.

But gradually Hermione's hand squeezing his brought him back. As he relaxed his control, he remembered the others that had fought beside them that night. "How did we do?" he asked, not sure if he was ready for the answer.

"We lost two: Elsinore Shouldice and Michael Corner," Hermione said quietly. "Rabastan Lestrange caught him in a killing curse. Bill managed to stun Lestrange, but it was too late."

Harry's heart dropped more at the news. He had not known Elsinore well, she was one of the newer recruits, but he was deeply upset by the fate of his Ravenclaw classmate. His young wife must be grieving tonight.

"Aside from that, we came out fairly well. Angelina sprained her ankle diving away from a Cutting Curse, and George got a bad burn in some crossfire. Some other scrapes and bruises, but nothing too serious."

"And the Death Eaters?"

"Four in custody," Ron informed him. "Lucius Malfoy is dead, and both Carrows, and Bellatrix. Mum used the Killing Curse on her—can you believe it?"

Harry could. He'd seen Molly's determination after Fred's death. He reckoned even Voldemort wasn't brave enough to cross her. That thought brought him back to Draco's mother. "And Narcissa? She's all right?"

"She is. Worried about Draco, I'd imagine."

"Neville's keeping her under guard at Auror HQ," Ron added. "The Ministry lock-up is full of Auror Guards at the moment."

"Auror Guards?" Harry was dumbfounded. "They're under arrest?"

"And off to Azkaban soon." Ron noticed before noticing Harry's confusion. "Merlin, Harry, did you not know about that? Half the DA was rounding them up while the other half covered us. It was Malfoy's idea to strike on both fronts so they couldn't retaliate. And they sure didn't see it coming."

"That's ... that's great," Harry said, remembering the thugs who'd manhandled him at the manor and feeling pleased that they'd gotten their comeuppance. "But what do the Aurors have on them?"

"For a while, Neville's thought they were the ones working with the Squibs on all those attacks. Didn't have any proof until Malfoy confirmed it. It explains why we could never catch anybody. A few confessions under Veritaserum and it shouldn't be hard to get sentences."

Harry nodded absently, his thoughts already drifting. He wanted to care about their lives going forward. Justice had been a long time coming, and more horrors had been committed than ever before. He wanted to be ecstatic that they'd stopped him, forever this time; the Dark Wizard would never again haunt Britain's shores. But try as he might, he couldn't ignite the passion he should have felt. His emotions were bruised from the revelations of this night, catapulting him from the certainty of his own death to the desolation and despair he felt at the prospect of Draco's.

Hermione must have read his mind, for she squeezed his hand tightly. "He will be okay, Harry."

Harry just nodded again.



His friends stayed with him, but thankfully didn't say much more. In fact, Ron's head was soon tilted over the back of his chair, his snores strangely comforting. Hermione was struggling to stay awake, too, making sudden jerking motions whenever she caught herself drifting off. Harry was beyond exhaustion, but he could not bring himself to close his eyes. Each time he did he saw a wilted wildflower, withering in the sun.

After another hour, a Healer finally emerged. He scanned the three visitors, wondering which one to address before addressing them all together. "You're waiting for news of Mr. Malfoy?"

"Yes," Harry said, lurching to his feet. "Is he all right?"

"I'm Healer Grublock, I was one of the Healer's trying to stabilise his magic. It was wildly erratic, so much so it interfered with his bodily functions—frankly, I've never seen anything like it. We've been able to ease it somewhat, although we're keeping a close eye on him to make sure that it doesn't spike again. At the moment, I'm afraid there's not much else we can do."

Harry sensed Hermione beside him, squeezing his hand, but it felt like it was happening to someone else. "Can I see him?"

"Not yet—not until we're sure another magical presence won't upset his balance. I'll let you know as soon as anything changes."

Healer Grublock returned to the ward and Harry buried his face in his hands, frustration and fear warring for control. Hermione squeezed his shoulder and guided him back to his chair. "You should rest, Harry. It could be a long night."

"I can't. Not until I see him."

She cast a Warming Charm on their half-empty teacups. "At least drink that, then."

Harry cradled the steaming cup in his hands but didn't lift it to his mouth. "I just don't understand why he'd do that."

"Do what, Harry?"

"Put himself in danger. That's not like Draco."

Hermione frowned. "But he's changed a lot since school. Maybe he wanted to be a hero."

Harry shook his head vehemently. "No, that's not the way he thinks." That wasn't Slytherin enough—the only heroes were those left standing at the end of the day; Draco found no glory in dying.

"I'm sure you'll be able to ask him yourself, soon enough," Hermione reassured him blithely.

About an hour later, the door from the emergency ward swung open again. Harry looked up in surprise to see Healer Bulstrode before him. "Millicent?"

She smiled wryly at him. "Hello, Harry. I thought you might be here."

Harry didn't know if she still believed he was a patient or if she knew he'd been gone for a week. Curious as he was, he put that all aside to ask the only questions that mattered. "Have you been with Draco? How is he?"

Her smile evaporated. "It's hard to say. He hasn't regained consciousness, but he seems to respond to Vertigizing Charms."

"Vertigizing Charms?" asked Hermione. "Aren't those for children?"

Millicent peered at Hermione as if seeing her for the first time. "Normally, yes. They're used with imbalanced magic, and we see that mostly in children. They absorb too much, like sponges. But even then," she said, returning her gaze to Harry, "I've never seen a child as unstable as Draco was when you brought him in. Could you tell me anything more about this spell?" When Harry hesitated, not sure what else he could add, the Healer misinterpreted his reasons. "I know we've had our differences," she said, "and maybe you don't think you have reason to trust me. But Draco is my friend. If I can do anything to help him, I will."

Millicent's sincerity was obvious, and at that moment Harry truly appreciated her presence. "I told the other Healers all I know, but Hermione knows the spell inside and out. She can explain it better than I ever could."

Harry took the seat beside Ron as Hermione and the Healer broke down the mechanics of the spell. Millicent seemed particularly intrigued by the feedback effect they'd created; somehow Hermione was able to explain it in precise clinical terms, while Harry could only shudder to recall Voldemort's anger roiling through him.

"Draco's a lot braver than I'd given him credit for."

Harry gaped at Ron, wondering again what these kinds of admissions were costing him. His friend just shrugged. "It took a lot for him to do that. He didn't have to."

"I still don't know why he did."

"Maybe he wanted to be on the right side for a change."

Harry shook his head. That wasn't the answer either. Draco wanted to be on the winning side. He must have thought they could win ... but they couldn't, not without his help. There was that self-sacrifice again, and Harry couldn't reconcile it with what he knew of the Slytherin.

Millicent, having finished her discussion, stood to go. "This is all very interesting," she told Hermione. "I want to talk with Healer Grublock and see if he has any more ideas." She turned to Harry. "I'll be back once I have some news."

She couldn't get away, however, because Harry had a tight grasp on her arm. "Please, let me see him."

The Healer hesitated. "I'm not sure if that's a good idea. He's still unconscious, and if you're upset it might unbalance him again. It could be dangerous."

"I promise I'll stay in control. Please," he pleaded, "I need to see him."

Millicent pursed her lips, then nodded. "Very well. Come with me."

He followed her into a small private room. It was dimly lit, with just a few candles floating behind Draco's head. In their soft light he somehow looked paler than before. Harry noticed that someone had combed his hair (Millicent, perhaps?), carefully arranging it to conceal the raw spot on his scalp. His face reflected the same peace he had while sleeping in Harry's bed, but his fine-boned features had reverted to their former sharpness, and his arms, positioned outside the bedcovers in straight parallel lines, were almost twig-like. He looked far older than his twenty-three years.

Millicent spelled a chair for him and Harry sat down. "Can ... can I touch him?"

"I don't think it would do any harm," she said gently.

Cautiously, Harry reached for his hand. "You healed his arms," he murmured gratefully.

"His arms, his chest, his back..." Her voice was hard. "I take it that wasn't part of the spell?"

"No," Harry said grimly, "that was just torture."

"By You Know Who?"

Harry looked at her in surprise. "You remember?"

Millicent sat beside him, squinting as she tried to put her thoughts into words. "I'm not sure if you'd call it a memory, exactly. It's just an idea that's appeared in my head, and I'm not sure where it came from. It's been happening all night—it's terribly confusing, to tell you the truth. I'm not sure if it's real or just what I've heard from patients..."

She stopped suddenly, realising who she was speaking to. Harry realised he'd been gripping Draco's hand too tightly, and he forced his fingers to relax. "Hermione said it was like reading two history books and knowing only one could be true," he said quietly. "But it is real."

"Then I owe you an apology. I guess I owe apologies to a lot of people."

Harry shook his head. "It was a spell, you couldn't help it. Besides, you told Draco where I was, didn't you?"

"Not exactly. He wouldn't let me say—I would have lost my job—but he knew all right. He even gave me an alibi when you escaped."

"He always has everything figured out," Harry agreed.

He and Millicent sat in silence. Harry had expected to be left alone with Draco, but strangely he didn't find the Healer's presence discomforting. Together they watched Draco's chest rise and fall, its steady rhythm lulling them both into a hopeful peace.

"He looks like he's sleeping."

"It's deeper than sleep," Millicent answered. "He hasn't responded to any rejuvenating draughts. We think his system overloaded when he intercepted so much magic." She shook her head. "Draco would have known how dangerous that was. I don't understand why he'd have put himself in that position."

Harry swallowed the lump in his throat. It was the same question he'd been struggling with all night. "Why do you think he did?" he asked, hoping that another Slytherin might have better reasons than heroism and just causes.

"I really don't know," she said, but offered no further explanation. The room descended into silence again, and Harry clenched his teeth in frustration as the question consumed him. What had changed Draco's mind? Not just about helping—he could have done that with little risk to himself—but to put himself in such danger?

Just when Harry thought that Millicent was not going to answer, she spoke again. "You told me about the things that we did to you in school. I remember enough to know that you and Draco were enemies. Maybe he thought you'd hate him when this was over ... maybe he wasn't planning to survive."

"Don't be so stupid, Potter. I've already made my choices—I've done things even you won't forgive."

Harry felt the Healer's words weave within Draco's, braiding together as tightly as their spells had earlier, and striking him with the same force that had struck Voldemort. The fragile calm he'd clung to all night shook, exposing a hairline fracture in his sanity, in his soul. Allowed to grow, it would split him, too, into halves, quarters, eighths, sixteenths...

The walls seemed to press in on him, making it suddenly hard to breathe. Harry knew he had to be alone with Draco. "Can you leave us, please?" he asked, his voice cracking.

"I shouldn't—you're not even supposed to be here."

Harry felt his anger churn with magic. He had to be with Draco, of that he was certain, and nobody was going to stay in his way. Not a request this time, he said, "You need to leave us." He hadn't used the Imperius Curse on the Healer, but the effect was the same. Millicent might have frowned when she stood up, but she left the room without a second glance. She shut the door behind her, but Harry warded it for good measure before rounding on the still figure in the bed.

"That's it, isn't it?" he asked angrily, whirling around to face the sleeping patient. "Millicent was right. Once you remembered, you thought I'd hate you, didn't you? Did you think this would be some kind of penance for letting Death Eaters into Hogwarts? Or maybe for dressing up like a Dementor and scaring me half out of my wits? Merlin, Draco, you were a fucking prat back then, but you do not get to decide whether I hate you for it or not. You do not get to decide what I won't forgive." Potions bottles rattled on their shelf as Harry's anger thickened and escaped into the room. He ignored them, pacing back and forth beside the bed. "Do you hear me? You're not supposed to be brave! You're not supposed to be a hero—not if it gets you killed!"

A bottle gave up its precarious perch and fell to the ground, shattering with a slight hiss of steam as its contents escaped. Harry stared at the spreading liquid, suddenly remembering Millicent's cautions against his anger. He dropped helplessly into the empty chair. "You listen to me, Draco. The only thing I'll hate is if you don't come back to me. If I lose you now, I won't forgive..." He shuddered and buried his head in his arms on the bed—not to cry, he was far past the point of sobbing, although that would have been a welcome relief. He felt as thin and fragile as an old teacup, ready to break along any one of a thousand cracks.

Bone tired, and beyond anger, he transfigured the bed, making it large enough for two. He toed off his shoes and gently slid between the covers. He didn't dare touch yet, not with his emotions still coursing through him. For the moment, he was content simply to watch Draco sleep. The man's face, still as marble, really did look like he was asleep. Harry could almost pretend it was an ordinary morning in Greenwich, the first morning rays creeping past the drapes and enticing Harry to watch over his lover.

Slowly, Draco's peace ebbed into him. Finally feeling in full control of his emotions, Harry reached out to him, his fingers finding the triangle of bare skin at the neck of his pyjamas. Draco felt flushed and warm, and his skin was covered in that soft golden down that Harry loved to touch, so faint it was almost invisible.

"Stupid reckless Slytherin," Harry whispered fondly, remembering how Draco had said almost the same words to him not long before. "Stars, but I've missed you. All those nights I spent in the hospital, not a single one went by I didn't wish I was lying beside you. Do you hear me?" he repeated, this time his question much gentler. "I remembered every single thing you'd done, and I always wanted to come back to you." Harry shifted closer to Draco, his cheek finding a comfortable crevice on the man's chest. With his ear pressed above his heart, Harry could feel it beat sure and strong. "There can be a fairytale happy ending, Draco. You've just got to come back to me."

It might have been his imagination that made Harry think Draco's heart sped up a little then, or it might have been real. At that moment, he was too weary to figure it out. The Boy Who Lived closed his eyes and soon drifted into a sleep so deep it rivalled that of the Death Eater he loved.


Chapter Eighteen

Memento vivere
Remember to live


When the Blood Sport first opened, it was the jewel of Diagon Alley, the place for the serious sports fan. Just five years later, its lustre had faded, much like the quidditch scarves tacked on its grease-stained ceiling, and now the Queasy Quaffle at the other end of Diagon commanded the loyalty of the trendy sports crowd.

From her table near the back of the worn-down pub, Rita Skeeter lifted her Humbug Humdinger. She smiled, watching the elegant swirls of black and white liqueur in her snifter. They never blurred into grey, but became just fuzzy enough that you always thought they might. If you were foolish enough to drink two or three, you would feel just as fuzzy. Rita hadn't ordered one in years—probably not since the last time she was in the Blood Sport—but when the bartender remembered not only her but also her drink, she couldn't bring herself to refuse.

"Another one, Rita?" he asked now.

"I really shouldn't, Harvey, I'm working." "Or I would be," she fumed to herself, "if some people had the courtesy to keep their appointments." Saviour of the wizarding world he might be, but Harry Potter had always struck her as less of a hero, more of a very lucky boy who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. "An ambulance chaser," her contact at the Sun said the Muggles called them.

Sure enough, when that old ambulance known as You Know Who raced by once more, wouldn't you know there'd be none other than Harry Potter eating its dust. And now readers were clamouring for news of the Boy Who Lived. After five years, you would have thought they'd have moved on to something else, but no, they couldn't get enough. She'd already filed "Best Friends Forever," candid interviews with former Hogwarts classmates Cho Chang, Zacharias Smith, and the Patil sisters. She'd gotten Percy Weasley, who'd grown up with Harry, to theorise about Harry's upbringing and his almost pathological obsession to protect Muggle Britain. She'd even spent two hours with that horrible little wizard at the pet shop, enduring his flirtations just for the scoop that his employee was punctual and liked snakes. Rita found that last item to be slightly newsworthy; she was finding the first harder to believe as each minute ticked by. Harry Potter was almost an hour late—if it had been anyone else, Rita would already have stormed out in a cloud of indignation. Unfortunately, returning to her editor without the promised interview was not an option. Her readers wanted their Boy Hero, and she was determined to be the one to bag him.

A flurry of activity outside the door caught her attention. From her vantage she saw her would-be interviewee amidst a crowd of fans. "Just eating it up, isn't he?" she huffed. She considered whether a covert Repelling Spell might be called for, but by the time she'd primed her Quick-Quill (" Wizarding Britain's most eligible bachelor arrived for our appointment with the bevy of nubile female admirers who accompany the Boy Who Lived wherever he goes..."), he had already blundered his way through the doors and was scanning the bar. Rita raised a finely shaped eyebrow at the scowl on his face, noting that it grew when his gaze landed on her.

"Well, Harry," she said in greeting, standing up as he approached. "I'm so glad you could make it." Unable to resist a slight dig, she added, "I do hope our appointment is not inconveniencing you. You must be very busy these days."

("This handsome catch slung his arm slung casually over the back of his chair, he looked more like a carefree teenager than the man who single-handedly orchestrated the defeat of the Dark Wizard.")

"I figure it's best to get this over with. You'll never give me or my friends any peace until I do. Did you really go to the place I used to work?"

"Chester Critswold was very accommodating," replied Rita coolly. "Now, would you like anything to drink, Harry?"

"A butterbeer, thanks."

"And a pot of tea for me, thanks, Harvey." She smiled ingratiatingly at the bartender before returning to her subject with her most cloying voice. "Now, Harry, in the past two weeks we've discovered that the world was very different than what we remembered. I'm simply fascinated to hear about your experience. Could you tell our readers what that was like, living a life without distinction after the last war?"

The man's eyes hardened. "Hermione already told you I won't answer personal questions. If you want to talk about events going forward, fine. If not, then I should be going."

("His expression grew haunted when his past came up, his emerald eyes glistening with the pain of his forgotten existence...")

"No, no, you're quite right," Rita assured him hastily. "I only thought that since you'd already granted an interview to the Quibbler, you might appreciate the opportunity to share your story with the readers of the Daily Prophet. Our paper reaches a much wider audience, you know."

Harry crossed his arms and stared at her. Rita, who'd held her own against the wizarding world's most powerful politicians and business leaders, did not wither under his gaze. Nonetheless, she did admit to a little tickle at the back of her throat as she waited for him to respond. When he didn't, she finally spoke. "Going forward, then. The trials that started this week, I assume those are fair game?" He nodded so she continued, "I must have seen you at every single one, even when you weren't called to testify. Is that purely out of personal interest?"

"Not really. I'd be happy never to attend another, but the Wizengamot requested I be present."

"I don't remember terseness being his strong suit before," Rita thought. "If this keeps up, it'll be a short interview." To Harry, she said, "Well, I'm afraid it doesn't look like they'll be finished anytime soon, not with the cases they're building against the Auror Guard. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement has been awfully thorough in rounding up all of You Know Who's supporters, wouldn't you say?"

"Voldemort." His voice didn't stumble over the name like anyone else's would have; Rita remembered how, even as a boy, Harry had said it without flinching. She had never been convinced it was brave; it seemed simply foolish. "He's dead now, it's okay to say his name. We need to start saying his name."

("Despite several encounters with He Who Must Not Be Named, Harry retains his childlike innocence...")

"Yes, well, I'm not sure our readers are ready for that quite yet. But you mentioned that You Know Who is dead. Since he's disappeared twice before, and come back each time, can you say with absolute certainty that he really is dead this time?"

"I can. I saw him die myself."

Harry rubbed the scar on his forehead. It seemed an unconscious gesture, and he jerked his hand away as soon as he noticed Rita was watching him. To cover her attention, she asked, "But you didn't kill him?"

"No..." But Harry was still frowning at her. "You already know this story, Rita. It's been in the news for weeks now."

"It has, but our readers are interested in your account of the events. You were there, you saw exactly what happened."

"It happened exactly like I testified at Madam Malfoy's trial. She asked about Draco and then..." Rita didn't miss Harry's telling scowl. "I told you, I'll answer questions about the future. But I don't want to talk about that night."

("Remembering the act of passion that moved the wife of You Know Who's most devoted follower, Lucius Malfoy, to take up a sword against the Dark Lord, the young hero grew sombre, troubled by dark memories of that fateful night...")

Rita smiled accommodatingly, concealing her frustration at the limits on their conversation. "I'm sure your testimony was instrumental in clearing Madam Malfoy. At the trial, you were asked if you would have done the same for her husband, had he'd survived..."

"And I told them I wouldn't. Lucius was involved from the beginning; his memories were restored right at the battle of Hogwarts and he helped Voldemort escape. And you were at Warrington's trial yesterday, you heard him talking about Lucius recruiting them for the attacks. Everything was set up so people would be afraid." Harry shook his head in disbelief. "And then people like Warrington, the ones who caused the problem in the first place, joined the Auror Guard."

"It sounds like you regret that Lucius Malfoy won't be brought to trial."

Harry didn't answer; for a moment Rita feared that he had clammed up again. "Just what I need, a tongue-tied hero." But then, choosing his words carefully, he said, "I do regret that in a way, because people need to hear what happened. But whether justice would be served if Lucius got the Dementor's kiss or life in Azkaban, I don't know." Harry frowned as if chiding himself for letting his thoughts wander in front of her.

("A product of Albus Dumbledore's tenure at Hogwarts, Harry is much more comfortable as an action hero, and seems sorely challenged by abstract notions of justice...")

He brought his focus back to the reporter, casting a wary eye towards the Quick-Quill scribbling maniacally away. "I'm just not sure where justice becomes revenge. Lucius is dead, and we need to remember why, and we need to make sure it doesn't happen again. Hopefully your newspaper will help with that, Rita."

Rita arched an eyebrow at Harry's shrewd smile, irked that he had the nerve to bring up journalistic responsibility. "The Prophet will report the truth, as always," she replied dismissively. "But I do think it's interesting that you hold Lucius Malfoy responsible, and yet you told the Quibbler that you would fight any attempts to recover reparations from the Malfoy estate, which conveniently happens to be in his wife's name. I think most of our readers will agree when I say that it hardly seems fair for her to get off free."

"Narcissa wasn't involved," the young man said coldly. "She was a victim too, and she's already suffered enough."

His determined tone brooked no debate, but Rita had never been known to give up so easily. In fact, she was delighted that this line of questioning was leading so handily to the answer she really wanted. The Patils had spoken openly of Harry Potter's "friendship" with the Malfoy heir, but when pressed they admitted it was only hearsay; the two men had been invited to a party together, but they hadn't attended. Try as she might, Rita could not find anyone who'd actually seen them together. Not that she couldn't let the news slip out anyway—this kind of gossip was gold, even unverified—but it would have been better if she could get independent confirmation. Especially from the Boy Hero himself. Smelling the scent of the kill, Rita suggested, "The talk around town is that your, shall we say, relationship with her son colours your opinion."

Magic crackled through the air a split second before he exploded. "I will not discuss that!" he exclaimed angrily.

Rita looked nervously at the shivering pepper pot, her hand instinctively gravitating towards her wand. But Harry regained control of his magic quickly. He stared at the ripples on the surface of his ale before saying, "I promised that Narcissa will not lose anything else in this war. She has my protection, and I'll do everything I can so she can keep her home."

His tone was final, and at last Rita surrendered that line of questioning. For several seconds she tapped her painted nail on the edge of her teacup.

("Harry declined to comment on his relationship with notorious Death Eater Draco Malfoy...")

"Speaking of victims," she asked, finally landing on a subject that they might safely discuss, "you were institutionalised at St. Mungo's for several months. I understand that you're now involved in helping the patients adjust to life outside?"

To her relief, Harry responded favourably to this new topic. "I'm doing what I can," he nodded. "But the real credit goes to a Healer there, Millicent Bulstrode, who's counselling the patients and their relations. But it's not going to be an easy transition for them."

("Pressed to recall his time as a patient in the Mental Victims wore, the shield that Harry wore slipped, revealing just how much those days had cost him.")

"So I take it the rumours about demanding restitution from the Ministry for these people is true?"

He nodded. "There were eighty-eight people imprisoned there for nothing more than remembering the truth. They have to start over from scratch. The Callandra Osgoode Foundation is being established to help, but it was a Ministry decree that put them in there, so I believe the Ministry owes them something. So the answer is yes, I'll do whatever I can to help them."

("The desire for vengeance shone in eyes hardened from the tragedies he had witnessed...")

"The new Minister for Magic seems amenable to these demands. You and Minister Shacklebolt have a long history from the last war, I recall."

"We do. He's a good man. He'll do a good job."

Rita pressed her lips into a thin line. It was true that Kingsley Shacklebolt had an almost impeccable record as head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. That, of course, only made her more certain that there was something to dig up. "Well, he's certainly been active," she admitted. "The legislation granting the Auror Guard extraordinary powers has already been repealed. But coming back to you, Harry, I must ask the question that all of Britain is wondering: will you be joining the Ministry yourself?"

"Definitely not."

("Although sorely tempted by the siren song of politics, Harry Potter's true ambition lies elsewhere...")

"Then what does the future hold for Harry Potter? Will you return to anonymity in the pet store?"

To Rita's surprise, Harry smiled at her for the first time that afternoon. "I just came from Hogwarts. The Headmistress has asked me to re-start their Defense Against the Dark Arts course."

"Really, Harry? Well then, let me be the first to congratulate you." Rita smiled a plastic smile; she hadn't heard a whisper of this from any of her informants.

("...in shaping the hearts and minds of the youngest members of our society.")

"But I have taken the liberty and done some research on your background," she continued, giving herself a mental pat on the back for her thoroughness, "and I don't believe that Hogwarts has ever taken on a professor with—pardon me for speaking the truth here—with such a weak academic record. What do you anticipate will be the parents' reaction?"

"I think they'll be happy that their children are receiving a vital part of their education that's been overlooked for four years," the young man said firmly. "And we'll be holding weekend programs, too, for recent graduates who didn't have the opportunity to sit the N.E.W.T. in that subject. Be sure you put that in your newspaper so they'll hear about it."

("Skirting the question of his qualifications, or lack thereof, Harry spoke vaguely of his plans to expand the D.A.D.A. program beyond its previous scope...")

"I hope you've gotten everything you need from me," Harry said, pushing his empty glass aside and standing to leave.

If it had been any other interviewee, Rita would have pressed them with a slew of parting questions. With Harry, though, she had a feeling he'd given her all he was willing to. That just meant she'd have to fill in the blanks in between. "Thank you, Harry. You can look forward to a profile in our weekend edition."

Rita expected him to leave then, but to her surprise he stared at his reflection in the Ogden's Old Firewhisky mirror beside them. "I saw you here once before, you know. It was about five years ago, right after the Hogwarts battle. Do you remember?"

"Here in the Blood Sport?" Rita's brow wrinkled in confusion. "I have no recollection of that. Is that why you wanted to meet here?"

The man nodded, once again making her feel uncomfortable under his piercing gaze. "You were interviewing the Catapults' keeper. I stood right in front of you and you didn't even recognise me."

"Well, you must have gotten that quite a lot in those days," she replied dismissively.

"I did." He looked like he wanted to say something more, but then changed his mind. Rita watched him leave the pub and then turned to review her Quick-Quill notes. Yes, she definitely needed to fill in some blanks in the Life and Loves of Harry Potter.



The miserable January day didn't entice Harry to linger, so after the interview he Apparated directly from the Blood Sport to the kitchen of Grimmauld Place. It was spotless, as usual; Kreacher was showing his pleasure at being back in the old Black home by being even more conscientious with housekeeping. He'd done a first-rate job of decorating, too, Harry had to admit, mixing new objects with the old in a way that somehow made both shine. But for some inexplicable reason, he'd left the mounted house-elf heads adorning the stairway. Harry passed them now on his way to his bedroom.

Befitting his stature, Harry had been moved into the master bedroom. When Harry suggested that he might be more comfortable in the room where he had stayed before, Kreacher had looked so ready to flay himself that Harry relented. Now he was glad he had. This room was lovely and large, with ample space for an enormous bed that would never have fit downstairs. A thick Persian rug warmed the floor and velvet curtains framed the fine view of the wooded square across the road. Harry sat on the unmade bed now and looked at the grey sky outside. "Draco loved the snow so much." Narcissa's words floated through his head, and on a whim, Harry lifted his wand and touched just the tip to the windowpane. "Nevarioso," he whispered.

His vision blurred as a curtain of white suddenly unfurled before his eyes. Fat, fluffy flakes tumbled down, brightening the dark sky with thousands of prisms. Gently they began to cover the grey pavement, adorning the black leafless trees and softening their hardness with a crystal-white blanket.

"You'd better watch it. Muggles won't miss a freak blizzard, and I'd prefer to stay far away from Obliviation spells for a while, if it's all the same to you."

Harry tore himself from the snowfall to smile at his lover. Draco had just emerged from the shower, draped in his thick black bathrobe, and to Harry's delight made no move towards the wardrobe for his clothes. Instead he settled on the bed beside Harry, winding their fingers together tightly. "I do like the snow, though," he admitted, watching rapt as it fell.

"I know you do." He wondered if Malfoy remembered their vicious snowball fights at Hogwarts, the ones where he was sure that the Slytherins had spelled the snowballs. Then he squeezed the hand in his, realising that he must. Draco remembered everything.

Draco looked at him, bemused, and Harry wondered not for the first time if the Slytherin could read his thoughts. He almost asked, but chickened out at the last moment. "How'd your appointment go?"

"Milli gave me a clean bill of health. Said as long as I stay away from Zabini's rubbish spells, I should be fine."

"That's fine by me," Harry laughed. He was happy to hear the Healer's verdict, although he'd expected as much. Draco was looking better today, stronger, just as he had every day since leaving St. Mungo's. He was still too thin, but Kreacher had taken it upon himself to cater to his every whim, and Harry was certain they'd each gain a half-stone before the month was out. And since Narcissa had been cleared and returned home, the deepest wrinkles in his lover's forehead had started to fade.

"And Milli insists we come out Saturday for Blaise's send-off." Draco rubbed his palms together. "It'll be my last chance to remind him that he's an idiot."

"You know, seeing that will be well worth spending an evening with your Housemates," Harry teased. "Although, I might have to invite Ron and Hermione for backup. Then again," he added, remembering Hermione's unseemly attachment to their Slytherin colleague, "maybe it's better if he just disappears back to his pyramids."

"Granger's definitely coming, Blaise insisted." His lover's eye twinkled almost maliciously. "Oh, don't look at me like that. You know the Weasel will be there, too, and Loony and Longbottom. We'll have House unity up to our eyeballs."

Harry smirked. He knew they might never be close friends, especially not Ron and Draco. The surge of their lost memories had reopened the chasms between them. But this recent acquaintance had been indelibly marked with mutual respect, and it was enough to make Harry hope that they could at least get along.

Draco seemed to be trying, for he tactfully changed the subject to ask, "And your interview? How'd that go?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Rita's just as horrible as I remembered."

"Scoop Skeeter? Horrible?" Draco snickered. "And here I always thought her the model of integrity. Still," he added, appraising Harry's appearance, "you look like you survived. The trials yesterday left you wiped."

"They're just hard, you know." Harry took a deep breath. "I know they're necessary, but everybody is looking for someone to blame. I did that for years, and it never got me anywhere."

"They feel helpless," Draco ventured. "It's the same thing I'd see warding homes. People need somebody to tell them that they're safe, that the boogiemen are gone." His lips twitched downward. "Although I guess they are now."

"I'm sorry..." Harry started, for about the hundredth time, but Draco cut him off.

"I'm not." He looked like he was about to say more, and Harry wondered if at last his lover might be ready to talk about his father's death, but then Draco took a breath and the moment slipped away. Now it was a different man looking at him expectantly. "But I wasn't asking about your interview with Skeeter. What happened at Hogwarts?"

"Oh, that interview," replied Harry coyly.

Grey eyes squinted into suspicions. "Listen, Potter, it might not be easy for an ex-Death Eater to get ahold of Veritaserum, but I swear I'll raid the Wizengamut myself if you don't spill."

Harry beamed even as he tried to contain his laughter. "You're looking at the new DADA instructor."

The wind was suddenly knocked out of him by a burst of enthusiastic Malfoy. "I knew it!" Draco exclaimed, his certainty wrapping Harry in a bone-crushing hug.

"So Professor McGonagall told me to call her Minerva..." confessed Harry.

"She did not!"

Harry laughed when Draco fell back, eyes wide and hands clutching his heart. "She certainly did. And she asked about you."

"I can hear her now: 'Mr. Malfoy, fifty House points for not being a complete twat,'" Draco joked, nailing even nuance of McGonagall's clipped brogue.

"Close, but not quite. She mentioned that Professor Slughorn's retiring at the end of the year. She said they're looking for a Potions professor. I..." Harry fixed his eyes on their joined hands, hoping against hope that he hadn't overstepped his bounds. "I told her that I might have someone in mind."

If he'd been expecting another enthusiastic response from Draco, Harry would have been disappointed. Still he didn't expect him to go completely silent. When he glanced up, he saw that the playful expression had disappeared from Draco's face.

"Fuck."

Harry had never been any good at knowing when to wait and when to rush into things—at least not where relationships were concerned. He either missed opportunities by waiting too long or blew them by pushing too fast. And with Draco ... a lifetime of animosity followed by two months of mind-blowing sex, followed by two months of forced separation, followed by a daring rescue. Not quite the standard relationship path, was it? And suddenly Harry was talking about, in essence, moving in with him. All right, not quite, that certainly hadn't been a subject he'd broached with McGonagall, but even assuming that Draco wanted to teach was taking a big liberty. They'd not talked about his future, and Harry had no idea what the other man wanted. But Draco was keen on potions, and it'd be a terrible shame if he didn't consider this opportunity just because he wasn't keen on them. And Harry rushed to assure him of that.

"You don't have to worry about me, Draco ... about us. We don't have to be together if you don't want ... friends, maybe, I'd like that, until we see how things are going ... what you want..."

Draco's grey eyes slowly focused on him, his expression so confused that Harry wondered if perhaps he'd just been babbling in another language. "What?"

"I just don't think you should turn down the position because of me, because I'm moving too fast or something. I mean, I know it's only been two months since we..."

Harry never finished, because Draco's lips crushed his words. "Not two months, Harry," he said after kissing him thoroughly. "Try twelve years."

Harry blinked. "Twelve years?"

"You twonk. You were always there, even if you were the bane of my existence. It's not normal to be that obsessed with someone—Blaise was always telling me that, and he was right."

"Really?" But Harry felt it, too. That same obsession had driven him; he'd tailed the Slytherin through endless hallways, been glued to Malfoy's dot on the Marauder's Map, and always, always craved knowing exactly where the other boy was.

"Really. And then afterwards..." Draco hand cupped Harry's chin, and his smile gradually spread as he studied his face. "Even when I didn't remember, I knew." The smile turned to a smirk—which Harry recognised as quite similar to the sneer he'd known for over a decade, without the malice behind it. "But you probably just assumed I always dropped trou that fast, didn't you."

Harry blushed. "I thought you might," he admitted.

"Well, yeah, sometimes I do. I did," Draco corrected himself.

That tiny amendment meant the world to Harry, giving him the courage to ask, "What do you think of coming to Hogwarts with me, then?"

"I don't know." He frowned, the faint lines criss-crossing his forehead marking the patterns of his thoughts. "Honestly, I'm not sure I'd be any good at it."

"Potions or teaching?"

Draco's forehead crinkled even more. "Both, really, but Potions, mostly. It's been years since I worked with them in any serious way."

"Minerva already thought of that," Harry said, emphasising her name just to see Draco wince. "She suggested that you spend the term helping Professor Slughorn. It's not a Potions Master course, by any means, but it'd get you up to speed. And she's making me re-sit my N.E.W.T.s next year; I could really use your help."

Draco was still frowning, but he seemed to be considering it. "Can you picture me giving the 'stoppering death' speech to a bunch of first years?"

"I can," Harry nodded confidently. "In fact, I think you'll be even better at it than Snape."

"You would say that. You always were atrocious in Potions."

"I'm sure you'll have superior motivational techniques than Snape."

Draco gave him a shove onto the bed. "I should bloody well hope so," he huffed, stretching himself over Harry. "And it's never too early for you to start earning extra credit."

Harry let his legs fall open, let Draco's weight settle between them. "I thought you were supposed to be taking it easy."

"Milli says I've made a full recovery. Want to see?"

"It couldn't hurt to get a jump on my studies," Harry murmured, setting his glasses aside before pulling his lover's face toward him. Playful at first, grinning between light nibbling kisses and teasing darting tongues, they kissed with their eyes wide open, indulging in the certainty that they had time to spare. But that was only until Draco sucked hard on Harry's bottom lip at the same time as he ground his hips harder. Suddenly, every bit of Harry's conscious thought went racing down between his legs. Suddenly, he needed more of this man.

Harry's hands slid under the fine cotton bathrobe, grasping at the bare skin still radiating heat from the shower. Draco's skin felt exceptionally soft, the slope of his back exquisitely formed, and the curve of his bottom ... Harry couldn't help it, he moaned as his fingers stretched out along that arse that fit so perfectly in his hand. Between his parted lips Draco's tongue plunged; the playfulness was gone, now he was openly demanding. Harry's stiffening cock was issuing similar demands as it rocked into the crease of his lover's hip, but his scratchy winter robes made for an uncomfortable prophylactic. "Clothes..." he gasped into Draco's mouth, "...hate clothes."

Harry was unsure if he'd been heard, because the tone of their kiss hardly changed, but then he felt his lover's chest shake with amusement, and after a moment he sat up. "Induviae desvestus," he whispered, with nothing more than a single touch of Harry's outer robe. Immediately their clothing disappeared, rematerializing on the wing-backed chair on the far side of the room. And now Draco was staring down possessively, like a king in a parapet surveying his lands and finding them much to his liking. Harry basked in this gaze, enjoying his own view of the stunning wizard. Draco's lips were swollen from kisses, bruised crimson staining purest porcelain. Still-damp hair caressed his long graceful neck and swung round his chin, darker where the fine strands clung together, shimmering like white gold. And those eyes, gone dusky as twilight, spun an enchantment around them, endless desire and utter fulfillment winding together eternally.

"I want you to teach me wandless magic," Harry said softly, hesitant to break the spell.

Draco frowned peevishly, although strangely Harry didn't think it diminished his beauty in the least. "You're taking this student thing a bit far, Potter."

"Not now, you git." Harry's fingertips smoothed the faint hairs on Draco's chest. "Now I want to feel you inside me."

The frown fled as Draco lowered himself onto his lover. "That I can definitely do."

Draco felt heavy, solid, his weight welcome after his recent frailty. Skin to skin they were now, a thousand times better in Harry's opinion. Spreading his legs wider, his cock slid into place flush against Malfoy's. His lover's forehead fell to Harry's shoulder as they began to grind together, slow and precise, their undulations a prelude to the wilder dance to come. Harry felt his senses swell, inundated with all things Draco. The chilled wet skin as his lover laved his throat ... the hint of salt he tasted as he sucked Draco's fingers ... the faintest scent of sandalwood shampoo ... the sharp intake of breath in Harry's ear when they thrust together harder than before. Merlin, the more he had of this man, the more he needed.

Harry ran his hand along the line of Malfoy's hip, slipping between their sweat-slicked bodies until he found Draco's sac, tight as an overripe plum. Squeezing it gently elicited another gasp and a sharp bite of his neck. Harry slid his hand up the length of Draco's cock. Like the man himself, Malfoy's erection stood long and straight; it throbbed as Harry's hand reached round his girth, and Harry moaned at the thought of how it would feel deep inside him.

When Draco started his slow crawl down Harry's body, and the friction between their bodies disappeared, Harry almost grumbled. But open-mouthed kisses pressed along the hinge of his jaw stilled his protests, and as they mapped the side of his neck, travelling west across his clavicle and dipping south to affront his nipples, Harry abandoned every complaint. Malfoy lapped at the pebbled nubs like a thirsty cat, his sharp little teeth ratcheting up the sensations when Harry's fingers tightened in his hair. Harry fisted the sheet with his other hand, holding himself together even as his body begged to explode. Malfoy's fingertips circling the sensitive head of his cock did nothing for his control, and Harry whimpered as he thrust wantonly against Draco's hand.

Wet sucking heat replaced that firm grip, sliding down Harry's length like a snug velvet glove and sending out ripples of intense pleasure all the way to Harry's toes. Harry wanted to plunge himself into that blissful heat, needed to feel himself completely enveloped in that sleek wet heaven, but he'd only begun tensing his hips when a firm hand squeezed his balls hard, a reminder of who was in charge. When Harry forced back his building climax, he was rewarded by inquisitive, insistent fingers exploring the cleft of his arse. Not caring how eager it seemed, Harry's legs sprawled wider, begging Malfoy to continue.

Stopping his exertions on Harry's cock for just a moment, Draco murmured a quiet lubrication spell before his sleek finger breached Harry's hole. Shuddering, Harry bore down on the intruder, thankful it was Malfoy's longest that slid deep into his channel. But he wanted more, was absolutely dying for more, and even a second finger did little to staunch his hunger. "Want you, Draco," he gasped out, lifting his head to look at his lover. Malfoy tortured him by sucking even harder and penetrating him with a third finger, staring at Harry all the while through eyes dark as thunderclouds. The extraordinary sight of those rosy lips around his glistening cock almost unravelled Harry. "Please, Draco, I need you to fuck me."

Malfoy's lips smiled around Harry's shaft. "Desperation's a good look for you," he teased as he sat up, tugging Harry's ankles onto his shoulders.

"Stars, how does he look mischievous and haughty and so incredibly desirable at the same time?" Harry didn't care about desperation, and he didn't care how vulnerable he was as his body folded in on itself, revealing his most hidden place to his erstwhile enemy. "Fuck, Malfoy, just fuck me already." Harry tried to glower, but he doubted it was very effective, seeing how Draco was grinning.

But at least he did as he was told, which at the moment was all that Harry cared about. Straight into Harry's channel he slid, one smooth glide that didn't stop until Draco's balls pressed flush against Harry's back. Harry felt his overstretched muscles burn, skating along the exquisite edge of pain as Draco withdrew and penetrated him again and again. And Harry wanted more, so much more. Digging his fingernails deep enough to leave half-moons in Draco's thighs, Harry urged him on, faster, harder, wanting to feel that smouldering ache, that physical proof of Draco's presence. With each thrust there was just a bit more of that delicious friction, a bit more burning heat, until pain ignited into the purest pleasure. The men moved perfectly together, energy and magic flowing between them as smoothly as blood pumping through a single body. And when they came, and he heard Draco breathe out his given name, Harry was certain that nothing else in the world existed save the two of them.

Draco collapsed without ceremony, so spent he could barely roll off Harry's stomach. Harry was just as exhausted himself, his arms so heavy he wondered whether he could reach his wand to clean their sticky bellies. Only when the room began to feel chilly against his sweaty skin did he summon the energy to do so.

As they pulled the warm bedcovers up around them, Draco rolled onto his side, his arm cradling his head as he studied Harry. He appeared deep in thought, and Harry waited for him to speak. It took several minutes before he finally said, "Do you really think I should come to Hogwarts with you?"

"I think you should do what you want. But I would like it if you decided to, very much."

Draco smiled mysteriously at Harry before rolling onto his back. "There's the answer to your question right there."

"What question is that?"

"The question you've asked me almost every day since I got out of the hospital: Why I stood with you against the Dar– against Voldemort."

Harry replayed the last part of their conversation, trying in vain to pick out any clues to Draco's nebulous reasoning. At last he admitted, "I don't understand."

Draco chuckled softly. "Of course you don't. It's so obvious to you, you don't even see it."

"So are you going to explain or are you just going to be a smug bastard?"

"I can't do both?"

Harry threw a half-hearted punch at his lover's chest, which Draco easily defused by burying his fingers inside the loose fist.

"You're right, it wasn't bravery. I told Weasley about St. Mungo's because I was terrified that He'd get ahold of you."

"You can be afraid and be brave too..."

Draco cut him off before he could finish. "Shut it, Potter. I've heard all that tripe, and I understand that it works for you, but it doesn't for me." His tone gentled. "I didn't help the Weasel because I was brave. I did it because it seemed like a relatively safe way to get the job done, that's all. And I'm fine with that."

"But what you did that night, that wasn't safe at all. You might not have survived. And Millicent said..." Harry hesitated to bring up the guilt that had gnawed at the back of his mind since talking to the Healer, but he had to know if he really was to blame for it. "She said that even might be what you wanted."

"Yeah," Draco sighed. "I was afraid she might've said something like that to you. She tried to bring that up again today—how I need to 'own the destructive impulses driven by my unbearable guilt.' Frankly, I think all those psych courses she's taken have warped her good Slytherin instincts. Granted, now that I remember everything, there are things I wish I'd done differently. But going out in a blaze of glory was hardly going to make up for making 'Potter Stinks' badges, was it? Or even for trying to kill Dumbledore."

Feeling the weight on his shoulders start to budge, Harry turned to face his lover. "Then you didn't do it because you thought I'd hate you?"

"What would have been the sense in that? I suspect I've more chance of changing your mind alive than dead." Draco flashed a lusty grin that made Harry's cheeks go warm. Then he shrugged. "Besides, what would I have gotten out of that? Sorry, Potter, but the thought of you pining over my tragic redemption doesn't do much for me."

"Fair enough," conceded Harry as casually as he could, although he felt lighter than he had in days. "And I'm glad you stuck around to change my mind. But you've only told me why you didn't do it, not why you did."

"You asked me what it was I wanted."

Draco stopped there, seeming to think that explanation was enough. But Harry was as baffled as before. He expected more, he needed more, and he squeezed Draco's hand impatiently. "Yeah? And?"

"It's so obvious to you that you don't even notice it," Draco said, chuckling with disbelief. "Harry, don't you see? Nobody ever asked me that before. Well, not anyone I trusted, anyway. Dumbledore did, I suppose, but that was to suit his own purposes. And my father..." Draco's voice faltered and his lips froze even as a flood of emotion poured across his features. They passed so rapidly that Harry couldn't begin to identify them. He wondered if they'd stolen Draco's tongue away, but after a moment the man spoke again, his voice rougher than before. "I loved my father, but it will be hard to forgive him. He made his choices, and then he made them mine. Everything was laid out for me, my classes, my career, even the position I'd play on the Quidditch team. Harry, as soon as I got home for Christmas seventh year, he congratulated me because I was going to be branded with the Mark. As if I'd applied for the privilege or something. And Voldemort..." Draco snorted, but there wasn't an ounce of humour in the sound. "The only choice he ever gave me was whether to cruciate you or my mother."

Harry didn't know what to say. It wasn't pity he felt; he knew too well what it felt like to be on an inevitable course, and he could empathise with the futility that came with wrestling against your own destiny. But he'd been able to stay that course because he believed it was the right one. Draco hadn't even had that reassurance. He'd simply followed, unquestioningly, obediently. "That's not right ... that's not you," Harry said quietly, thinking how the Draco he knew must have chafed at such an existence. He understood now. Draco had made his stand because he wanted to decide his own future, one in which he was true to himself. And for the first time he recognised that he could.

It was only after the words left his tongue that Harry realised they wouldn't make sense to anyone who wasn't privy to his thoughts. Once again, though, Draco was able to follow them, though, for his sad expression evaporated as a wide smile filled his face. "No, that's not me at all." He rolled over to face Harry, his thumb tracing the line of Harry's jaw. "I'm twenty-three years old, and it's time I finally decided for myself what I really want."

There was no need for Harry to ask if he was included in that. In the day's last light, Draco's face was completely unguarded; he didn't need any mask, not when he could be whoever he wanted to be. And the kiss he pressed to Harry's lips was more convincing than words could ever be.



It snowed all through that long January night, the deepest snow that London had seen in years. Children still home for the holidays built armies of snowmen with carrot noses and coal-black eyes, and couples strolling down the snow-covered pavement held mittened-hands as they ducked around the frosty sentries. Old folks sat before their tellies, drinking hot cocoa and watching meteorologists scratch their heads at the unforeseen blizzard. Around Grimmauld Square, where the snow seemed to be the heaviest, drifts stretched along the length of the wrought iron fences, their peaked angles corralling a sparkling white sea.

And in a townhouse high above the park slept two men who, no longer haunted by their pasts, could for the first time dream of happily ever after.

THE END
~~~~~

---

My endless thanks to sarcastic_jo, not just my beta but also my sounding board and inspiration. Also, a huge thanks to seleneheart and shellydkitty for their encouragement every single step of the way.

Note: (1) Damnatio memoriae was an actual practice of the Roman Senate. The sentence for treason or otherwise bringing discredit to the polis was the complete erasure of existence. Their names were removed from written texts, their images obliterated from statues and coins, and even speaking their names was an act of treason. (2) The quotes regarding the eye of Horus come from the Akhmim wooden tablet, an ancient Egyptian artefact from 2000BC containing the arithmetic functions of the quotients as well as their corresponding metaphysical components. An image of the eye of Horus can be seen here; the various parts are described here. (3) The Care Bear Stare comes courtesy of my lovely beta, sarcastic_jo.

Comments

[seleneheart.insanejournal.com]

Oh, this has been such a wonderful story! You've kept the twists and turns logical, and made Draco such a fully drawn character who makes choice that I don't think deny the canon Draco, but are much more what we wanted to see from him.

Beautiful love story on top of it all!!

[lilithilien.insanejournal.com]

Thank you!!! Yes, I needed to see a different Draco, I'm glad that you could see him this way too.

And thank you so much for your encouragement on this story over the last ... has it really been over four months? Sure doesn't seem like it. But really, I truly appreciate your support and comments. They kept me going!

[sdk]

Oh I'm a little teary!

This has been a beautiful and thrilling story--I'm so pleased I got to come along for the ride. I'm a bit wordless at the moment, so you'll have to excuse me!

Dude, so much love for the Rita scene to come full circle. I just love her little quotes showing her slant on everything Harry says.

And the last scene was lovely and hopeful and I totally can see that: Draco just wanted a choice and Harry was the first person to give it to him. Like seleneheart said above, it was nice to see a Draco full developed and realized as a character.

Really wonderful, hon! ♥

[lilithilien.insanejournal.com]

Hee! Glad that you liked Rita. She's such a great villain!

Thank you too for saying that about Draco as a developed and realized character. Honestly, that was what drove me to write this story, to see Draco fleshed out in a way that JKR neglected to do.

And many thanks for coming along on this ride! It was always so encouraging to get your comments and know you were interested in my little world.

[red_day_dawning.insanejournal.com]

That was marvelous - a really inventive plot, with all its developments standing on its own, without requiring reference back to canon. And all the tiny details that enriched the writing, like George referring to himself as "we".
Excellent story.

[lilithilien.insanejournal.com]

Thank you so much!!! I can't resist the little details like that, they're what make a 'verse real to me, and I'm really glad that you enjoyed it!

[(Anonymous)]

I read your story at skyehawke and did actually comment on it there (I promise I'm not stalking you!). Because I liked your story I decided to find out if you had a journal, to see if you had written anything else or had any good recs.
But the reason I'm commenting again is that I suddenly remembered from chapter 14 that you mentioned Harry's ex boyfriend, Kristján Leifs. My little, Icelandic heart always beats a little bit faster when I see someone mention my tiny, little Iceland. Thank you for that, it made the story just a bit more interesting on my behalf.

Ísafold

[lilithilien.insanejournal.com]

I'm so glad you found me here! I'm a recent convert to HP, but I've written in some other fandoms ... and I'm now working on two more HP stories so there'll definitely be more coming.

And I'm so glad you appreciated the Icelandic comment! One of the countries that's at the top of my list to visit!

[gin_tonic.insanejournal.com]

I just spent the past few hours reading this story and I must say that it was bloody fantastic!

It was incredibly frustrating for me, because I was suffering with Harry, first because no-one remembered what he remembered and then that he was locked up in St. Mungos and thought to be crazy. Not to mention Harry's love for Draco, and the anguish and doubts about Draco's real motives.

I couldn't stop reading, needed more and more. The characterisations were brilliant and I loved the plot!

[lilithilien.insanejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm so glad that you enjoyed it!

I did make poor Harry go through a lot here, I'm afraid, poor boy. But he's so pretty when he suffers.

Thanks so much for reading!

[(Anonymous)]

I've absolutely loved this story. It was so imaginative and exciting, and nicely commplicated, and I was as into what was happening, as much as the Harry and Draco relationship. Really great - thank you :)

[lilithilien.insanejournal.com]

Thank you, so much! I'm really glad that you enjoyed reading it, and I do appreciate you taking the time to comment!

[snowpuppies.insanejournal.com]

Beautiful story. I enjoyed it very much!

[lilithilien.insanejournal.com]

Thank you so much, and thanks for commenting! I'm really glad that you liked it!

:)

[casynne.insanejournal.com]

An awesome story, thanks for writing this!

I really loved everything about it, especially the plot and the suspense - I couldn't stop reading, I was so immersed - the post-war vision you created was ineffably captivating. The dismal insidiousness of that comprehensive memory spell and Harry's quandary in this nightmarish situation was very convincing.

I loved how you didn't make Harry into the all-powerful hero, choosing instead to show him as an ordinary man, trying to make the best of the situation he found himself in. He's still special, there's no doubt about that. But it's his humanity and inherent good nature, as well as his strength of character that make him stand out.

And your Draco was amazing! Stripped of his past, he really had a chance to prove himself as his own person, and make his own decisions, and he fared remarkably well.

Ok, I'll stop gushing now :) and just reiterate that I loved it! *g*

Also, do you have a Livejournal account as well?

Re: :)

[lilithilien.insanejournal.com]

Oh wow, thank you! I'm really glad that you appreciate my interpretation of Harry. I love thinking about what he might have been like if he hadn't had his destiny all laid out for him. Same with Draco. Neither of them really got a fair shake canon-wise so it was was fun to see what would happen when everything was stripped away. I'm so, so happy that you liked it!

And no, I don't have an LJ account, I'm just on IJ now, lilithilien is my regular account.

Re: :)

[lilithilien.insanejournal.com]

That is a beautiful icon, by the way!

Re: :)

[casynne.insanejournal.com]

Thanks, your icon too is nothing to sneeze at *g*

Wow

[(Anonymous)]

A story to rival JKs. It's rare to find a story with intrigue other than the pairing, but you pulled it off, nicely done.

I loved the characterisations more than anything. The depth and breadth with which you examined the characters made my little mathematical heart melt.

Although I did love 'Of Eros and of Dust' better, I did like this quite a lot too! =)


--

Iris

Re: Wow

[lilithilien.insanejournal.com]

Gah! I am so sorry, I missed this comment somehow. My apologies!

I am so happy that you enjoyed it! I love "Of Eros and of Dust" myself, I think that's the story I'm most proud of, but I did fall in love with some of the characters here that just weren't explored enough in canon. *loves Milli*

Thanks for your wonderful comment!

[meredyth_13.insanejournal.com]

This has been an epic read - but I have really enjoyed it. You've found a really new and unique consequence of the war, and managed to tie it in quite closely with canon. Very clever idea, and nicely executed. :D

[lilithilien.insanejournal.com]

Thank you so very much! It was a lot of fun to write this, and to try to make some sense out of some things that confused me in canon. I'm so glad that you liked it!

[this_girl_is.insanejournal.com]

OK, see, the problem with having promised you a well-thought-out comment at the end is that I was assuming I would be coherent, when in actual fact I am lsdhgf\dg;DSG.

*deep breath*

Your characters. They just leap off the screen and into my brain. I was just there with Harry, worrying about Draco, trying to work out what was going on. I swear I actually got adrenaline rushes along the way. Draco, with his complex motivations and limited options, was just perfect. You really got the Slytherin mentality, and how it could be both manipulative and protective, which was wonderful to see.

The magical theory was wonderful. (Look, I love good magical theory so much it might verge on being an actual kink.) It was complicated and twisty, but also logical. I love that you put so much thought into making the magic make sense. I also loved the little details like the winged sapphires, which are so original and adorable.

The mystery plot was solid. You didn't telegraph the twists, but you did give away just enough to pick up some of the key points without being able to see the whole pattern. (Without making it hopelessly obscure. "Lost", I'm looking at you.) I had to think about what was going on, and I enjoyed doing it.

Solid historical background! The Damnatio Memoriae, and Horus as the origin of the Horcruxes, and...

Shall I just shut up and offer you my hypothetical first-born now? Basically, this story is amazing and you are wonderful. I'm going to go and adkfhdgsdgd a bit more now.

[lilithilien.insanejournal.com]

*cuddles your comment tight and savours it like dark chocolate*

I'm so happy that you liked this! I especially appreciate that you liked my Slytherins so much. *cuddles them* I really fell hard for Millicent while I was writing this. And I'm SO glad to find another sucker for plotty fics. It was so much fun trying to fit all this together, and I'm thrilled that you enjoyed reading it!

Also, I apologise for taking so long to respond to your comment. I have no excuse. *waves hands at RL* But it made me immensely happy!

(And btw, I adore your icon!!)

[this_girl_is.insanejournal.com]

I love properly-done Slytherins, but they are difficult to achieve! (Just ask JKR. Not that I'm bitter.) Millicent, Blaise, Greg, Draco... Loved them all.

I am glad to have made you happy, because you have made me happy. I try to leave more constructive comments than, "That was good", but that one was epic. I may also have had to go rec it to all 10 people who read my journal.

The Myrtle icon is so unapologetic, I love it. I figure it's fair warning for everyone. :o)

[heathen_ursidae.insanejournal.com]

This was a wonderful story! The plotting was excellent and the characterizations were amazing! I really enjoyed the twists. Wonderful! *claps*

[lilithilien.insanejournal.com]

Oh honey, thank you so much! That means a lot to me -- I'm so happy that you liked it! And I really appreciate your comment!

[(Anonymous)]

So, for the second night in a row I'm up at stupid o'clock because I'm unable to stop reading your stories! In fact, having read all the AWZ ones I then moved onto these HP ones today and have been totally hooked.

The way you construct and careful create both characters and storyline just makes your writing so utterly pleasurable to read that I'm not even mad at myself for being awake at 4am again!

Loved it loved it loved it- am so thankful to those "SEXY awards" for alerting me to your fics (since I'm rubbish on LJ- I just never understand how to find stuff!!!)

Thanks again- Flippa x

[lilithilien.insanejournal.com]

Wow, thank you, losing sleep for reading is just an amazing compliment! I'm so pleased that you found all this -- I'm discovering so many new stories through the SEXY awards too, it's great.

[phoenixacid]

This is long, suspenseful and absolutely thrilling! I was just completely hooked by the story and I was chewing on my fingers, dying with the need to know why no one remembers the war and Voldemort. What an exhilarating ride!

[ddz008.livejournal.com]

Wonderful story. I found the premise fascinating. I loved how you deal with so many topics, Harry being ordinary, people changing without Voldemort's influence in their life, those that remebered being confined in a ward, the spell that vanquished Voldemort, etc. I loved the thing about the wards, how this time the deatheaters had an easier time getting control of the wizarding world without almost nobody being the wiser. And finally, I loved Draco and Harry's relation. Thanks for writing this!

[flamingolady.livejournal.com]

This was really a great take on an AU after the Battle of Hogwarts. It was totally intriguing and engaging and I loved the subtle but definite changes in everyone from the main to minor characters. This Draco was amazing and I was completely in love with him pretty much from the beginning. The budding relationship with Harry and Draco was wonderful and so perfect. They knew each other, but still had so much to learn about who they really were as adults instead of children at school. The ending was lovely and I thought that the two moms taking care of the two worst baddies was perfect justice! Two more examples following in the heroic Lilly's footsteps of protecting their sons with everything in themselves.

[flowerish]

WOW! Just... WOW! This is such a wonderful story!! Very original and beautifully written, I absolutely loved it ♥ !

[libco.livejournal.com]

Wow. What an amazing story. The dual world building you did was spectacular!