In Which Certain Truths Come To Light.

Madam Pomfrey clucked over his wrist as she turned it first to the left and then to the right. 'Any pain, Mr Potter?' she asked him.

'No, Miss.'

'Stiffness? Do me a full rotation.' They both listened for the click, but it had gone finally, and Harry sighed in relief. 'Excellent,' Pomfrey said, and released him with a little pat to his palm. 'I was a bit worried by the amount of Skelegrow we had to do you. Your tolerance to magical potions abhors predictibility.'

'Madam?'

'I mean I'm never quite sure how you'll react, physically.' She tapped the bone-topped bottle of Skelegrow Potion that sat on the tray beside his bed. 'I suspect you may have a magical allergy, but deducing the wherefore of it would involve a fair amount of unpleasant experimentation, and I fear I'd never tempt you to drink another potion again if I put you through that.'

Harry was already shuddering. 'Please no.'

Pomfrey smiled tolerantly, but went on tapping the bottle thoughtfully. 'It could be important, one day. Inevitably these sorts of things pop up when least expected- and least helpful.' She eyed Harry. 'I might bring it up with Professor Snape, if you'd allow me to discuss your medical history with him. Magical allergies can be deadly, Mr Potter. It would distress me to unwittingly expose you to danger, especially as it seems you'll be a frequent guest here.'

'No,' Harry said, and couldn't face the little frown that appeared on Madam Pomfrey's face at his flat tone. He picked at his quilt. 'It's only... I, I don't want him to... please, don't.'

'I know Professor Snape can be a bit intimidating,' she said delicately, 'but he is an excellent Potions Master. For all his youth he's made quite the name for himself.'

It was weird to think of any of the professors as young, exactly. And anyway Harry couldn't exactly explain why he didn't want Snape to have the opportunity to dose him with things- and, anyway, as soon as he'd said it he'd thought back on it, and wondered if maybe it wasn't the perfect opportunity after all. Snape couldn't dose him with anything too bad with Madam Pomfrey watching to see how it affected him, and that would be more time for Harry to watch Snape and try to figure out what he knew about Quirrell.

Harry chewed his lip, and said, 'I wonder if that's why the headaches never really go away?'

Pomfrey nodded immediately. 'Healing is art as much as science, in some ways, and there are chronic conditions it cannot alleviate, but I admit it disturbs me that I can't put these headaches of yours to rest, Harry. There's a double handful of possible reasons and we simply don't have enough clues to eliminate anything. An allergy to some specific ingredient in potions is possible, as I said, but there are other kinds of reactions. It may be that the build-up of magical energy in Hogwarts is overwhelming to you after years of being raised in a magic-less environment.'

'But then wouldn't other Muggleborns have the same problem? Hermione never has headaches and her parents are dentists.'

'It's also possible that it wouldn't be the same for every child. It's also possible...' Pomfrey hesitated, but right when Harry was going to demand she just tell him anyway- because he wasn't a child, or at least not as much of a child as everyone was always pretending he was- she did just tell him outright. 'The curse that was performed on you when you were an infant may have long-lasting consequences. You are the only known survivor.'

That brought Harry up short. 'You mean the killing curse?'

'I do, Mr Potter.'

Harry chewed at his lip til Madam Pomfrey gently tapped it. 'You can talk to Professor Snape, I guess.'

'Thank you,' she said solemnly. 'I wish I could promise we will quickly find an answer, but I have to warn you it may come to nothing. But I do believe it's important that we try.' She checked the little fob watch that hung on her apron and rose from her seat at his bed. 'It's past bedtime, young man. You'd be fine to go back to your own bed, but not so late. You'll sleep here and I'll have one of the elves fetch you a change of clothes for the morning.'

'There's wards on my trunk now,' Harry reminded her, but his eyes felt heavy and he slid under the quilt without protest. 'I can go before breakfast.'

She dimmed the lamps with her wand and left one burning bright inside the loo, angling the door almost shut so that he could see it even after he removed his glasses. He slid his wand under his pillow, wrapping his fingers around it. They tingled just slightly against the smooth wood, but it wasn't a pinched nerve or even the aftereffects of Skelegrow. It had been happening since he'd slipped that hand in spilled unicorn blood in the Forbidden Forest, and he wondered anew at it, and wondered, too, if he ought to tell, with all this talk of magical allergies. Well. He'd bring it up if and when they started examining him. There was no saying Snape would agree to help him, even if he was making a show of being nice to Harry.

He fell asleep thinking about trolls in the dungeons, and wondering about caverns.

Dreaming about caverns. Deep caverns, some carved by magic, some by ancient forces that were a kind of magic unto themselves. Stalacites and stalagmites sheened with dripping water a thousand years removed from the flood that had hollowed out the stone; crystal embedded in the high arched walls would have gleamed, had there been any light to catch on it. Bat colonies had made their homes in depths no other creature could reach, and there was life of other kinds, too, blind fish, crabs, even amphibians with pale bodies that had never and would never see the sun, and insects that lived their short frantic lives untouched by anything on the earth's surface far away. Formations of exotic bacteriae and poisonous acids made some of the caves impassable, and in others spiders and scorpion-like creatures crawled over each other in a pulsating carpet of venom-filled claws. There was an alien, austere beauty in it, both dangerous and self-contained, uninterested in the world above. And viciously, violently repulsed when the world above intruded its quietude.

He walked along paths that few humans had ever known existed, the dim glow of his wand blinding in a world utterly without light. Seeking. Seeking. These depths were unplumbed, these magicks undisturbed, and he would be the first, the only, to touch these wonders. To use them. Weaponise them.

There. Gleaming like a star in the reflected light of his wand. He drew closer, boots splashing in a river that flowed from who knew where, a soft hissing accompaniment to the singing triumph in his breast. He touched a gloved finger to the cave wall and spoke a single word, and magic carved into the rock, sundering it with a resounding crack. The small oblong stone he held in his hand pulsed with power. It was perfect.

'My dear Poppy, I cannot fathom what you mean.'

Harry woke abruptly. Time had passed, he sensed that much, but other than an awareness of the late hour he felt only confusion. Hadn't he been somewhere else? Somewhere very far down. He rubbed his cheek along the pillow but it wasn't his pillow, in his dorm- this one smelled a bit like antiseptic. He blinked his eyes reluctantly open, and saw not his room with the other boys' beds, but Dumbledore, standing in the centre of the infirmary speaking softly with Madam Pomfrey. Harry let his heavy lids fall closed, but some still part of himself knew to keep breathing as if he slept, to lay limp as if he still slept, to listen only with the tiniest awakened part of his mind.

'Cannot fathom?' Pomfrey repeated, in a small tense voice. 'Shall I show you the records again? He's far and away the most frequently logged. The headaches, the small injuries-'

'He cannot be blamed for accidents.'

'I'm not blaming him, Albus, as you very well know. What I am trying to do is point out the pattern. You have been at this long enough to recognise the signs, Albus, and I beg you not to turn away because of a well-known family name.'

'You think very little of me, Madam,' Dumbledore replied heavily.

'I think I have some understanding of the difficulty of making an accusation against a Pureblood family of unquestionable Light allegiance.'

'Allegations that will be difficult to prove, and intent that may be genuinely well-meant.'

'This nonsense about him being practically a Squib?' Pomfrey tsked. 'More like forcing him to use a wand that ought better to still be in his father's hand.'

The knot of growing anxiety in Harry's belly abruptly released; then in worsened. They weren't talking about Harry after all. In fact, he thought he knew who they did mean.

'I cannot intervene in the matter of the wand.'

'You can write yourself asking them to accede to reality. You think Augusta Longbottom would deny you without a second thought?'

'Even with a third or fourth thought, Poppy, she may yet deny me. You know she believes her grandson should, must, follow his father's footsteps.'

'I know she believes Neville is Frank's second coming, oh, yes. I'm surprised she hasn't changed his name yet. The labels inside his shirts all read Frank's name, you know.' Pomfrey's voice took on a bitter tinge. 'And I know she refused him treatment for that failed Oblivation he endured as an infant. Damn those Aurors again for even attempting it, I don't know what they were thinking.'

'They were thinking that a child who'd watched his parents tortured to madness should not bear the burden of remembering it.'

Harry clenched his hand on his mother's wand. He thought unwillingly of the green light, her scream. He hated that nightmare- memory- but he thought, too, he would have hated anyone who took it away from him. It was all he really had of her.

A brittle silence took hold of the infirmary. Then Pomfrey shifted, and a rustle of paper accompanied the click of her heel on the clean marble tile. 'The files. Read them, Albus, swear to me that much. If you can still tell me then you believe you should do nothing, then I suppose I am defeated.'

'Poppy.'

'Anxiety. Self-injury. Scratching and biting themselves. Impulse and risk-seeking behaviours. Albus. This is not a situation which can rest for years waiting for something big to happen. Something big will happen, and by then it will be too late.'

'I am properly chastened, Madam.'

'Properly warned, Albus.' Footsteps came toward Harry's bed, then, and he felt a cool hand touching his forehead, checking his temperature. 'There's too much at stake.'

They were gone not much long after, and Harry burrowed his nose into the pillow and let sleep take him again. He would think about everything he'd heard in the morning.

Bill Weasley was waiting for him in the Gryffindor common room when Harry, running rather late, emerged from a rapid shower and a hasty dress. He stood chatting with his brother Percy, one arm propped on the mantel over the large fireplace. He smiled at Harry as Harry came clattering down the stairs, and Percy hefted his Hermione-sized load of books and pushed his glasses up on his nose, which made Harry check his own specs. Bill's smile widened at that.

'Morning, Harry,' Bill said.

'Yes, good morning, Harry,' repeated Percy. 'You haven't eaten yet?'

'I'm just off to do,' Harry replied. 'Something wrong?'

The brothers exchanged a glance. Bill kept smiling; Percy did not. Percy generally didn't. 'You're for the Headmaster,' Percy said. 'He specifically said you're not in trouble.'

Harry had alread tensed up. 'Oh,' he said uncertainly. 'Then, why...'

'That a letter?' Bill interrupted brightly. 'I can post that for you.'

Harry shoved the letter he'd just scribbled out for Lupin into his robe's pocket. 'No, it's all right. No- er, no rush.'

He gained himself a bright-eyed look of curiosity for that. 'Normally it's you who'd have the secret admirer,' Bill said slyly. 'Who're you sending love letters to, eh?'

Harry flushed. 'No-one!'

'Not even Tonks?'

Harry's face was flaming so hotly he had to press his hands to his cheeks. 'No!'

Percy nudged Bill. 'Have mercy,' he said, and Bill chuckled. 'I just wanted to be sure you were all right, Harry? I heard you were in hospital last night?'

Harry showed his wrist, rotating it obediently. 'Just had a fall. Draco and Tonks helped. I'm all right.'

'Glad to hear it.' Bill clapped him on the shoulder. 'Come on, then, I'm to take you up. You can post your love letter after.'

Harry had his suspicions about what he was being called in to discuss. Being out alone last night, he was pretty sure Tonks would have tattled on him for that, or Madam Pomfrey since he'd had a broken bone from it. Or maybe they'd want to talk to him about Neville, if they suspected he'd heard anything last night- Harry hadn't even seen Neville yet this morning, but he knew he couldn't hear what he'd heard and do nothing for Neville. Maybe it was something as simple as Dumbledore keeping his promise that he would teach Harry how to talk with Fawkes, but Harry didn't really expect the Headmaster to keep his word on that. Adults said a lot of things in the moment and forgot about them after.

But Harry hadn't expected what awaited him as they climbed the spiral stairs and emerged into Dumbledore's office. There were people all sitting before Dumbledore's desk, and one of them was Professor McGonagall, looking both anxious and as if she were trying not to be anxious, and there was a boy he'd never met before, a big whale of a boy spilling over the arms of his chair and staring about him in fascination, and there was a tall woman with a thin pinched face who wore a pink overcoat tied very tightly about her waist and who kept touching the scarf at her throat as if she wanted to wrap her entire head in it and disappear.

But she was the first one to greet him, shooting up out of her chair and coming straight for him. Harry found himself ripped out of Bill's grip and yanked into an embrace, smooshed to the woman's bosom and smothered against the folds of her coat. 'Harry, darling,' she cried.

Oh, God. Harry knew who she was, after all. She was his Aunt.

Harry had thought many times over the years what his relatives might be like. What little he remembered of them wasn't good, and he'd known of course how they'd abandoned him. Other children, he'd learnt, had been taught from an early age to know things like their name, and their parents' names, and to memorise their address and telephone number and secret passwords that only family would know in case a stranger tried to trick you and kidnap you from the store or something. Harry had known none of those things, not even his own surname. He hadn't been able to read, he hadn't been able to say where he lived, he hadn't known if it were a house or a flat or a town or the country or any of those things; when the police had asked him, all Harry had known about himself had fit on the small card pinned to his shirt.

He understood now, of course, why the police had never been able to find the Dursleys. There had been no legal adoption, not in the Muggle way of things. Dumbledore had left him wrapped in a blanket on the Dursley's front step in the middle of the night- his Aunt was telling that story even now, in sugared tones, as Dumbledore smiled at her. But Harry's mind went tripping on through the rest of it. His parents had been a witch and a wizard and when they'd died the Muggles wouldn't know about it, of course, so no-one knew there was a baby to be taken care of. The Dursleys had the money for Harry's upkeep, but the money didn't come from a real bank, so far as they were concerned- it didn't advertise in bus shelters, it didn't have locations in participating regions, it didn't publish flyers or send statements. And they'd had Harry for three years without a single magical person coming to check on him, because only Dumbledore had known where Harry was. So the police had gone through birth records and the national registry and the phone book and all manner of things and there had been no Potters to find. It was as if Harry had come from nowhere, and so there was nowhere to send him back to.

But the strangest thing was that his Aunt didn't seem to remember it the way Harry did. She was a very accomplished liar. Her whole face lit up when she told a story about Harry vanishing one day from school and re-appearing on the roof- and that had really happened, but the school had been Crowhill and Harry had been thrashed so hard he couldn't sit for a day, not treated to ice cream the way his Aunt Petunia was saying now. How did she know the story? And she talked about how interesting it was in Diagon Alley, but she hadn't ever been there, because Lupin had gone with Harry, and it had been Lupin who'd taken him to King's Cross Station, not his uncle Vernon. She chattered on, and she kept one hand latched on Harry's wrist, her thin fingers overlaying the healed break from Sirius Black and grinding down on him nearly as hard as Black had, so tight her knuckles were white and Harry was losing feeling in his hand, but that only matched the strange feeling inside his head. Harry stared at his lap, unable to look up.

Dumbledore chuckled at Petunia describing the funny little goblin who had taken them to Harry's vault, as if she'd actually met Griphook in Gringott's. 'Charming,' the Headmaster said indulgently. 'Mrs Dursley, I am very glad you have grown to enjoy some aspects of our world. I see my worry about any lingering animosity was misplaced.'

'Animosity?' Aunt Petunia gave a sparkling little laugh with edges so sharp it could have cut. Harry flinched from her, and she redoubled her hold on his wrist. 'How could I hold this sweet child accountable for anything?' she said. 'After the suffering my sister endured in your world, I admit, I had doubts. But for dear Harry's sake I knew I must be absolutely supportive.'

'And I do assure you that Harry's safety is my primary concern. Harry must thrive in the Wizarding World.' Harry could feel the weight of every gaze on him, and it made him feel faint and unwell. He squeezed his eyes shut. 'You may not be aware, Mrs Dursley, but Harry has made quite a splash in our society. He has acquitted himself very well in a short time. You have every reason to be proud of your nephew.'

Aunt Petunia simpered at this. 'I am proud of both my boys, Headmaster, both my boys.'

'Yes, Mr Dursley. How do you like our school? And where do you attend?'

'Smeltings,' said the whale of a boy. Harry sneaked a look at his cousin. Dudley, that was his name, and he had the same glazed incurious contentment that Crabbe and Goyle did, unconcerned with what went on around them so long as they had chocolate frogs and the teachers didn't pay them too much attention. Dudley had even been given a plate of sweets, just like them, specially prepared by the house elves, who had been rudely poked when they arrived to deliver it. Harry had whispered an agonised apology to Teensy and Wheedle when Dudley pulled their long ears, and was too ashamed to eat his pumpkin scone. Dudley had made short work of it for him, and there were crumbs in the corners of his mouth still, as if it were too much effort to wipe them away. 'We don't got none of this, though,' Dudley said with appreciation, gazing about Dumbledore's office acquisitively. 'What do all those toys do?'

'Many are for measuring the movement of the stars,' Dumbledore answered. 'Our ancestors called the heavens "the planes of mystery". Rather poetic, isn't it. I have a great fascination with mysteries.'

Harry hadn't known that. It burned that Dumbledore would tell that to Dudley, not Harry, who had been here several times now and never heard that about Dumbledore before.

'Mum, can I play?' Dudley demanded immediately.

Only the sharp pain in his wrist told Harry how much the idea disgusted his Aunt. She ground his bones together. 'Oh, darling,' she said, 'don't touch, dearest. We wouldn't want to... disturb... any of these... things.'

'Speaking of disturbances,' said Professor McGonagall, and Dumbledore picked up on her lead and sobered greatly.

'Speaking of disturbances,' repeated the Headmaster. 'I believe by now you must be aware, Mrs Dursley, that a petition of adoption has been filed with the Ministry of Magic.'

Harry's head shot up so quickly his neck cracked. 'Adoption?'

It must be Lupin, he was thinking. Lupin had sworn to him he wouldn't have to go back to the Dursleys. And hadn't he said something about paperwork?

'Unfortunately,' said Dumbledore, 'this petition falls into an obscure and little-used loophole of Wizarding law. The Potters, as many ancient Wizarding families do, had a long-standing relationship with the goblin tribe which controls Gringotts, and one of the services that may be performed for families of good standing is the sealing of a testament of entail.'

Petunia's frown drew attention to the powder caked into the lines on either side of her mouth. 'Entail,' she faltered. 'Goblins seal... seal testaments of-'

'Entail,' McGonagall supplied, mostly to Harry, who stared desperately at her. 'Much of Wizarding law was laid down in the mediaeval era, Mr Potter, Mrs Dursley, and entail is one such concept. Entail restricts the sale of inheritance except to an heir pre-determined by deed or statement.'

'But I don't understand what this has to do with adoption.'

'It was more common in past times for Wizarding families to have many branches, enabled by many offspring per generation,' Dumbledore replied, folding his hands before him on his desk. His eyes flicked to Harry, who dropped his back to his lap. 'In recent centuries our families have grown smaller. The Potters are not the only ancient family now represented by a single heir. In the event that an heir is underage, entail may require an intermediary who is of maturity, which is why many Wizarding families also adopted the tradition of binding a godparent to distinct legal responsibilities on behalf of the child. Mr Potter's godfather was denied the execution of these responsibilities by virtue, or by lack of virtue, more accurately, of his life imprisonment in Azkaban. Wizarding prison,' he added, for Aunt Petunia, whose face gave a spasm of contempt before she smoothed it self-consciously. 'However, goblin law is adjudicated without consideration for the fitness of the individual, only the exact terms of the contract. Because the Potters did not live to remove Sirius Black from his legal rights as Harry's godfather, he has standing in goblin law to fulfil the rule of entail. The Potter estates, including real property as well as their Gringotts vault and various magical possessions, fall to Mr Black's administration. And now a claim has been filed, under goblin law. Who, I have not been able to discover. The claimant has filed under the strictest secrecy allowed, so that even the existence of the claim has gone some months unnoticed. If successful, it would allow the claimant to adopt the Potter name.'

'Adopt- adopt my name?' Harry asked, as Aunt Petunia yanked at his hand and said, jarringly loud, 'But not adopt the boy?'

'As of this time,' said Dumbledore. 'It is entirely possible this is only the first gambit in a longer-reaching strategy. If successful, a Potter, even by name, would have a stronger claim on Harry himself.'

Something fell into place for Harry. 'You think it's Sirius Black,' he said, inadvertantly meeting Dumbledore's eyes, and then something very strange happened.

He felt as if he were tumbling. Falling. Falling into a deep well, and at the bottom of the well there was a terrible eddy of thoughts and feelings and memories, a maelstrom of chatter and hurts and excitement and Harry thought of the car-crash-that-wasn't-really-a-car-crash and his mother's scream and his mother's wand in the box in Gringott's and Hagrid's flying motorbike and then into a small dark space that smellt of chemicals and dust and a small line of broken toy soldiers lined the little shelf, beside a bottle that had once held milk and was now very dry, and there sat Harry, small and hungry and too tired even to cry, pressing his hand hopelessly against the door and already knowing it was latched tightly shut.

Harry was trembling when Dumbledore looked away at last. Dumbledore's hands clasped tightly about themselves, his knuckles standing out white in his soft wrinkled skin. He smiled at Aunt Petunia.

'Yes, I think it is likely Sirius Black,' he replied, as if Harry's vision had never happened. 'He has the most motive.'

Harry wiped at sweat dripping down his forehead. His head was beginning to throb. McGonagall looked at him sharply, and poured him a glass of water. Harry tried to reach for it, and without looking at him Aunt Petunia yanked his hand back to his lap and held it there.

'So what do we do to stop this?' Aunt Petunia demanded.

'At the moment, there is very little that can be done,' the Headmaster said. 'At least in terms of disputing the claim. However, I think it would be wise to begin protecting Harry's assets by removing them beyond attack.'

Harry rubbed at his aching eye beneath the lense of his glasses with his free hand. 'But you already have my vault key,' he said.

Dumbledore paused ever so minutely. Harry mightn't even have noticed it, but for the way Bill Weasley shifted on his feet and McGonagall's head came up with keen attention.

'Black would be granted a copy if he were successful in his petition for entail,' Dumbledore said, but then Dudley Dursley gave off a yelp and Aunt Petunia screamed, a shrill little yell like a teapot whistling on the boil, and Harry leant forward in his chair to see what the fuss was about.

The fuss was about Fawkes the Phoenix bursting into flame.

'Ah,' Dumbledore said brightly. 'And about time. He was in quite a state this week, very grudging.'

Harry joined his relatives in gaping. 'Will he be all right?' he asked distressedly.

'Oh, yes. This is a necessary process for him. If you would like to check on him, Harry, you will find him reborn amongst the ashes.'

Aunt Petunia didn't want to let him go. Harry pulled, and clenched his jaws as she grated his bones together. Then suddenly he was free- McGonagall was watching them like a hawk. Harry was out of his seat and across the room as soon as he could be, to discover himself sweating in more than just his headache. He was wet beneath the arms and under his shirt and his heart was pounding. He hurried up the steps to the raised area where Fawkes's perch stood beneath the window, gripping the edge of the podium to steady his shaking legs. There was a thick layer of ash coating the bowl, and Harry extended clammy fingers to rake through it. He feared he might turn up bones or charred feathers, but it crumbled in furrows at his touch, soft and cooling already. He jumped when he found something warm in it, and dug both hands into the ash to dig up a tiny fragile body- a chick's body, ugly and naked of the glorious scarlet feathers Fawkes was meant to have, his tiny beak poking black and weak against Harry's palm. Harry cradled Fawkes to his shirt, and Fawkes buried his small head against Harry's chest, croaking a sad imitation of his usual beautiful song.

Harry turned, to find Aunt Petunia staring at him with undisguised loathing. And Dumbledore was watching her watch him. Dumbledore swallowed as if he'd tasted something very unpleasant, and took off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose.

'He'll like to be warm for a few days as he recovers,' McGonagall told Harry gently. She joined him by the perch, resting her hands on his shoulders, which put her body between him and his relatives. She didn't quite hold him, but for a moment, just a moment, Harry was close enough to lean on her, and it was a mighty temptation. McGonagall gazed down at him gravely. 'It is the weekend,' McGonagall said softly. 'Perhaps you'd like to stay and observe his progress? I'd be willing to put up a few points of extra credit if you'd write a short essay for your Muggle Integration group.'

Hermione would be desperately jealous. Harry nodded, and McGonagall smiled her stern little smile.

'Well, since you're here,' Bill Weasley said, and Harry peered past McGonagall's tartan robe to see him facing off Petunia and Dudley Dursley with determined courtesy. 'I'd be pleased to give you a tour of the school. No classes to disturb, on a Saturday, but you'd get a sense of the place.'

'No, no, we wouldn't want to put you out.' Aunt Petunia shot to her feet. 'Dudders, lovey, stay with Mummy. Just- stay very close to Mummy.' As if steeling herself to thrust her arms into fire, she put out her hands toward Harry. 'Give us a hug, Harry dear.'

He didn't want to. He didn't want to, he didn't want to touch her ever. He cast a look of acute misery at his Head of House, and knew without being told she wouldn't make him. But her hold on his shoulder reminded him of something important: he was a Gryffindor, and he had chosen this lie for a purpose. It was only a small thing, and then it would be over and he would go on living the life he wanted, his life at Hogwarts where he had magic to replace the family they would have been.

He shuffled uneasily into Aunt Petunia's arms, shielding Fawkes against his chest as she embraced him gingerly. She let him go quickly enough, and raked his fringe down over his scar. She simpered at him without meeting his eyes.

'We'll be getting on,' she said, letting him go and catching herself before she wiped her hands on her coat. 'Don't want Daddy getting lonely at home waiting for us.'

Somehow Harry found himself alone, then. Bill was escorting the Dursleys to the gate, and McGonagall had seized Dumbledore with an imperiously furious gaze, and the last strength in Harry's legs vanished. He sank onto the floor right where he stood and bent over his lap, light-headed. 'Fawkes,' he whispered.

Fawkes crooned at him- or tried to, maybe. It came out a sort of squeak and squawk. Harry smiled tremulously. 'Yeah,' he murmured. 'I know what you mean.'

He wiped his face. His headache had eased a little, and the queasy bad feeling, too, though he wanted nothing so much as another shower. He lurched to his feet, and opened his robes to tuck Fawkes into his front shirt pocket. From the pocket at his hip he removed his letter to Lupin, now somewhat crumpled, and unsealed the wax stamp. He hunted across Dumbledore's desk for a quill, and found a long gold-edged eagle feather poking out of a little inkpot. Harry dipped it and added a few scribbled lines at the bottom of his letter.

The Dursleys came to Hogwarts. I don't know why but Aunt Pentunia pretended to have always had me, maybe it was about keeping the money? I don't know why and she also brought my cousin Dudley, he's a horrid lump I think. And there's something about entale, I don't know what that is but Dumbledore says he thinks Sirius Black is asking the goblins to give him entale on my propepropperty propertie(?) and my vault but I wonder why would Sirius do that if he already owns my vault, isn't that what Griphook said the day we were at Gringotts? And also I think he would have to

Harry stopped writing with a scratch. He thought Sirius would have told him if he'd done something that important, yes, but he couldn't very well tell Lupin that without explaining that he'd been talking to Sirius, and begun believing what he had to say.

Harry set the nib of the quill back to the parchment, and wrote, Please I need to see you I think we must talk, there is a lot to talk about now.

He signed it, Yours, Harry, and used the red wax sealer on Dumbledore's desk to stamp a Hogwarts seal on it. Well, that couldn't be helped, even if it would make Lupin wonder if Harry had really written it or if it had been tampered with by someone else. He added a foolish 'From me, really' beneath the stamp, and rubbed his temples. It was all enough to make his head swirl.

'Mr Weasley mentioned you had a letter you would like to mail,' Dumbledore said softly behind him, and Harry whirled about to see the Headmaster standing by the door, hands folded before him. He didn't look angry, but Harry tensed all the same.

'It's private,' Harry said.

'So I assumed,' Dumbledore assured him. He walked slowly to the desk, but didn't take his usual seat behind it. Instead he sat in the chair that had most recently held Aunt Petunia, propping one leg over the other knee and stroking his beard. 'You don't have an owl, Harry?'

'No, sir.'

'You don't find it inconvenient, to await your turn with the school owls?'

'Sometimes I have to wait, but it's not bad.'

'And your aunt and uncle, they don't mind receiving owl post? It is a rather arcane mode of communication, compared to Muggle advances.' Dumbledore stroked his beard, waiting out Harry's nonresponse. 'I have considered installing a telephone, you know. I think it might be a great convenience to our Muggleborn students. And, indeed, to our staff, who must communicate with Muggle parents.'

'I reckon getting rung up to be told your kid's a witch would be a little off,' Harry said. 'Like a prank call or something. And I liked getting my letter. It was... real.'

'Very wise, Harry.' After a moment, Dumbledore extended a hand. 'Fawkes?'

'Oh.' Harry fetched him out of his pocket. Fawkes grumbled a bit at being disturbed and tried to burrow his puny beak between Harry's fingers. He tried to give Fawkes to Dumbledore, but the Headmaster only checked on him, stroked him once down the spindly black stumps of feathers riding his spine, and sat back again.

'Have you by any chance read anything on phoenices?' Dumbledore asked.

'Phoenes-sees?'

'The plural form,' Dumbledore said, his lips twitching up.

'Oh. I thought I was- pronouncing it wrong, maybe. I'm not great with English.'

'You express yourself very clearly, Mr Potter.'

Harry couldn't reply to that. His throat had gone tight. Maybe he was great at English after all, because he knew that had two meanings at least, and none of them had to do with speaking and spelling rightly.

Suddenly it seemed Dumbledore had other things to look at. His desk, the portraits of the old Headmasters, the windows, the clouds outside. It was getting grey, the threat of snow hanging heavy in the air. Harry was meant to have Quidditch practise out in that, and check his cauldron, and observe Fawkes now, and still mail his letter and worry over Draco's dad and Neville and apolosing to Hermione and magical allergies and Snape and Quirrell and his head- just- hurt, and he sat down again, because the weight of everything in his head made it too hard to stand.

It seemed a long time later when Dumbledore spoke. When he did, it was in a slow considering way, almost as if he spoke to himself, as if he'd forgot Harry was there, but he said Harry's name, and then: 'I find myself confronted with evidence of something I have ignored too many times before. To the detriment of students in my care. I can tell you a great many reasons why; not least that I am not a man who can easily stand in judgment over the mistakes made by others, and not least that I believe even those who make dreadful mistakes must have every opportunity to change, and grow into the fullness of their potential. I must believe that, Harry. But intellectual honesty compels me to examine my assumptions. Is it possible that my personal beliefs interfere with the pursuit of truth? Is it possible that I omit facts and information which are obvious to others in my desire to see only the conclusions I already believe? Have I some unacknowledged incentive to believe deception where it supports my existing bias?'

Fawkes waddled up Harry's wrist to bundle into his sleeve. His soft claws scrabbled against Harry's skin. He cawed, and it was a little more musical, maybe, if sleepy. He settled in for a nap, his nubby little wings laying flat on his heaving ribcage and his scrawny neck coming to rest on the cuff of Harry's shirt.

'Harry,' Dumbledore said, and let his name hover there in the air like the aura of a charm or a curse. 'Harry,' he said, 'please tell me about the cupboard under the stairs.'

Intellectual honesty, Dumbledore had called it. Harry didn't know what that meant, really, but he knew honesty, and longed for it. Harry closed his eyes. 'I don't recall the cupboard, sir.'

'Perhaps not consciously.'

'Did they... I... lived in there?'

'You were not overly panicked to find yourself locked in.' Dumbledore stroked his beard to the tip and folded his hands over his belly. 'Do you understand the means by which I saw the cupboard? There is a magical practise called Legilimency. It is both a spell and a skill which, if sufficiently honed, allows a witch or wizard to slip into the mind of anyone unwary. A truly skilled Legilimens can do so without a single trace left of their passage. I flatter myself I am one such. But you are aware of my skill, are you not? You have developed the habit of avoiding my gaze in recent months, and you were aware, not twenty minutes ago, of what I saw in your mind.'

Harry wet his lips. 'Yes, sir.'

'Your aunt was not. It can be helpful, with Legilimency, to have a subject already thinking of the things one wishes to review. Your aunt's stories about your childhood accidental magic, for instance. Her recitation bears an almost uncanny resemblance to her memories of your mother. And the visit to Gringott's- Petunia recalled her own journey through Diagon Alley with her sister and parents. Setting off to King's Cross to see off the Express. The Evanses were quite proud of their little witch.'

Harry's mouth was horrid dry. His eyes were horrid wet.

'Harry,' Dumbledore said, and then stopped himself and put his head in his hand. 'There are four files on my desk,' he said, somewhat muffled by his slumped posture, but Harry understood him all too well. 'The only balm to my sanity is that some years there are no files. Your name appears on one, Harry, and I think you might guess its contents.'

'I thought that was-' He almost admitted he'd overheard Pomfrey and the Headmaster. But then he checked himself, thought it through, and said it deliberately. 'I thought that was about Neville, sir. Neville Longbottom. They're really awful to him, aren't they, because they think he ought to be a great wizard.'

'The weight of expectations can drag down many a good heart that ought to know better. Harry, your hands, please.'

Harry gave them over. Dumbledore looked not at his knuckles, with the old scars, or his palms, with the callouses. He looked at Harry's fingernails, all bitten to the quick, and the sore skin surrounding the nails, picked and bloody.

'You didn't have these small injuries when you came to Hogwarts,' Dumbledore murmured.

'No, sir.'

'But I think I am right to guess you had others. Better hidden, perhaps.' Dumbledore petted Fawkes again, and let Harry go. 'Go fly, Harry. Be free from all concerns for a brief while. Leave the mysteries to those with reason to worry at them.'

'It seems like there's lots of mysteries at Hogwarts, sir. More than just you can solve.'

'There always have been, dear boy. Lo these many long years.'

Harry deposited Fawkes on his perch- well, in the bowl of ashes beneath the perch, since Fawkes hadn't any feathers to keep himself warm as he napped. He left a cracker in the bowl beside Fawkes, in case he got hungry, and took a wide path around the desk on his way to the door. But he couldn't help a glance back as he opened it to leave. Dumbledore still sat slouched low in the chair, his hand over his eyes.