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"It sounds like he wants you to die."

Potter flinched a little as he looked up at Blaise. They'd been practicing with the kind of speech that Potter might have to make if the Prophet's insistent requests for an interview were granted. Potter was staring at Blaise with wide eyes, his mouth relaxing.

"You think so?"

"He doesn't want you practicing dueling spells," Blaise said, ticking off the points on his fingers as he roamed around the version of the Room of Requirement where they met a few times a week now. "He doesn't think you need to worry about politics. He doesn't even want you trying your best for the sake of people who might be alive after you die."

"Well, yeah, but—" Potter rubbed his face. Blaise narrowed his eyes and decided he would have something else to bring up in a minute. "If he wants me dead, then he wouldn't have any reason to discourage the last one, right?"

"He would have plenty of reason if he thinks that it might help you avoid death. Or make you so attached to life that you don't want to sacrifice yourself."

Potter considered for a bit, his head bowed. Then he nodded slowly. "I suppose—I can see that."

"And you're not shouting or full of rage?" That was the part that baffled Blaise. Potter was taking this calmly?

Potter sighed and ran a hand down his face. "Last year, Professor Dumbledore spent months not looking me in the eye in case the Former Wraith looked out of my eyes and at him. And he wasn't even wrong about that. He—he cares about me, but would he sacrifice caring about me to the greater political game? Oh, yes, in a heartbeat."

Blaise just sat there and had no idea how to feel. Of course, he had a mother who would keep husbands for a certain period of time while her magic drained them and kill them when they were useless, but she would never harm Blaise. You weren't supposed to harm the people you cared for, no matter what you did to the rest of the world.

"And you're going to let him?"

"Just let him persuade me to sacrifice myself without any explanation or idea of why it would benefit people? No. But I told you before that I expect to die in battle with the Scaly-Pigmented One. I wouldn't try to avoid that if it meant that I would hurt someone I cared for, just so I could live a little longer."

"Oh." Blaise was shaking. He clenched his fists and forced himself to say in a voice as steady as Potter's, "And what the people left behind would feel doesn't matter, does it?"

Potter blinked. Then he said gently, "Zabini, you're one of the people I would do it for."

Blaise put his face in his hands. He didn't like this. How had he become so close to Potter, so fast? Political alliances and teaching him some basic facts and helping him with a few dueling spells wasn't supposed to result in this—this storm of feeling racing through him.

"What if I would rather that you live for me instead?" he whispered, unable to look at Potter while he said it.

"I'd have to make a choice depending on what the greatest benefit to you was at the moment."

Blaise tore his hands away and glared at Potter. Potter looked back at him, half-smile weary and sad. "We're still putting in the training to make you as good a politician as you can be in a limited amount of time," Blaise snapped.

Potter blinked. "Of course. I never thought otherwise."

"And you're going to contact the Prophet tomorrow and tell them to send someone other than Skeeter to interview you. Understand?"

"But why? We agreed that waiting until someone approached me was better, because otherwise it might look like I thought a lot of myself and I was attempting to control who talked to me—"

"You have the right to control who talks to you. And the Prophet will be dying to get an interview. No one is going to think you're stuck-up if you ask them to run something for you when they've been talking about the Chosen One shit for weeks."

"Okay," Potter said quietly. "I do trust your assessment of what I can use my fame for more than I trust my own."

And that's another thing he does, Blaise thought in irritation. Trusts me, and then I can't do anything that—that violates that—shit. This is annoying.

But he had the opening now to say something that he wanted to say. "Do you trust me when I say you should be getting more sleep?"

Potter flushed. "Uh, well—"

"You don't benefit anyone if you collapse face-first in the corridor, Potter."

"Yeah, but staying up to do my homework is—"

"Ridiculous and unnecessary. You know as well as I do that the things you've told me you need to learn are more important."

Potter grimaced. "You don't know Hermione like I do. She'll be a lot more upset and spend a lot more time trying to watch over what I do if I'm not getting my homework done. She thinks classes come first."

"Tell her they don't."

Potter blinked. "You—think I could without losing my friendship with her?"

Blaise closed his eyes in a slow blink of his own. That one sentence told him a lot more about Potter's Muggle childhood than Potter would probably have wanted him to know.

He's so frightened of losing his friends that he'll sneak around and keep secrets from them and risk his own health so that he doesn't have to confront them.

"Yes, I think you could," Blaise said. "Granger and Weasley are real friends to you, Potter. And I know you've had arguments in the past. You made them up, didn't you?"

Potter nodded. He seemed to be thinking. "You're right. And being honest with them would mean less sneaking around." He gave Blaise a sudden, brilliant, blinding smile that made Blaise feel as if he was staring at the flash of light off someone's Potions knife. "Thank you, Blaise."

And Blaise didn't even know if Potter realized that he had called Blaise by his first name. The next instant, he was drawing out a sheet of parchment with notes scribbled on it. "What do you think about starting the interview with this line?"

"But Professor Dumbledore doesn't think you need politics," Hermione said for the third time.

"Yeah, mate, and you've got along fine without using your fame for the last few years." Ron's voice was more muted.

Harry sighed and leaned back to kick his feet up on the small stool in front of him. They were in a different version of the Room of Requirement than the one he and Blaise used, one just big enough for three chairs and a small smoky fire. Why the fire needed to be smoky Harry didn't understand, but somehow the Room thought it was best. "What was giving the interview to the Quibbler last year, if not using my fame? What is the Prophet doing now, if not using it? This would just be me using it for more productive purposes than selling newspapers."

"But you don't need to," Ron and Hermione said at the same time, and then eyed each other. It was the most agreement they'd shown each other about anything in months, Harry knew. Ron dating Lavender had really destroyed the way they'd used to get along.

"Well, I think I do," Harry said quietly.

"Professor Dumbledore doesn't think—"

"I know," Harry said. "But he also thought it was the best idea to avoid me last year, and that didn't work well. I understand why he did it," he added, seeing Hermione open her mouth. "It still didn't work well. Neither did Occlumency lessons with Snape, or not telling me the prophecy. So he makes mistakes sometimes. There's no reason that I can't make some of my own decisions and do what I think makes sense for the situation and can help people."

"But what if that gets in the way of some plan he has?" Hermione's eyes were wide and nervous.

"Then he can tell me that, can't he?"

Hermione glanced down and nodded slowly. Harry knew it bothered her, too, when Professor Dumbledore refused to admit anything but the most basic information.

"And you can go on making people think you're a pompous, puffed-up prick?" Ron muttered. "Is that the plan?"

Harry snorted. "You think the Prophet calling me the Chosen One and running wild with rumors while I never say a thing is going to make people think better of me? It doesn't, Ron." He had started paying attention to the rumors around him while sorting them from fact, the way Blaise had taught him to do, and had noticed the amount of people at Hogwarts who thought Harry was content to sit back and let the Prophet run his publicity. They'd never once appeared to consider that it was Harry trying to be modest.

"But for you to do that—"

"What?"

"I don't like it!"

Harry looked his best friend in the eye. Ron was still his best friend and always would be. Harry had to take a chance that they could work past this. "I'm still going to do it."

Ron stared at him for a long moment. Then he said, "If you turn into a pompous, puffed-up prick like Percy, I'm going to puncture you."

Harry laughed. "If I turn into someone like Percy, I'd deserve it."

Blaise didn't know to feel about the fact that he was the only one with Harry when they met with the Prophet reporter, not Granger or Weasley.

Well, yes, he did know how he felt, which was surprised and gleeful and possessive as he watched Harry sit down at a table opposite the reporter and Blaise in the Three Broomsticks.

"Ron and Hermione both probably would have jumped in at the wrong time," Harry explained in an undertone as the reporter, a Tamsin Honeycomb, fussed with her camera and quill. "Ron because he just can't help himself, Hermione because she would think she had a better idea or wanted to clarify something I said."

"And you think I won't feel that way?"

"Yeah, you would, but you'd just kick me under the table."

Blaise sat there and thought about trust again while Honeycomb cleared her throat and patted her hair. It was as red as any Weasley's, but much curlier. "Thank you for meeting with me, Mr. Potter," she said, voice throbbing with an undertone of excitement. "Is it true that this is the first real interview you've done?"

"No," Harry said, and smiled at her, a smile that invited her to join him in a laugh. "I did an interview last year with the Quibbler."

"Of course." Honeycomb shook her head and laughed. "I should have been more specific; my apologies. The first real interview you've done with us."

"Yes," Harry leaned a little in his chair and put an arm on the back of it. His smile was reassuring and warm now. Blaise had to say that Harry could learn his lessons well, when he wanted to. Maybe it was because body language was a practical, physical thing, like Quidditch. "Unfortunately, Ms. Skeeter had too much tendency to concentrate on her own interests in past interviews. In this one, I'd like to concentrate on mine."

"And what are yours, Mr. Potter?"

"Safety is a huge one."

"Really! And yet, the Ministry's emphasis on safety in the past few months is something that I'm not sure you'd support?"

Harry half-ducked his head and shook it. "No." A deep breath, a look at Honeycomb from under his eyelashes, and Blaise could practically see her melting. Blaise himself wasn't faring much better. "Of course, the Ministry is doing the best they can, and I support that," Harry said earnestly. "Everyone should be doing the best they can. But they're encouraging ordinary people to rely on the Aurors and report scenes with the Dark Mark and do nothing else. I'm here to encourage people to save themselves."

"How, though, Mr. Potter? You'd agree that the Aurors are the best-trained Ministry workers when it comes to dealing with Death Eaters?"

Honeycomb had the voice of someone who wanted to be convinced otherwise, and luckily Harry noticed it without Blaise having to signal him. "Well, in terms of pure training, of course. But the Aurors can't be everywhere at once, and once the war begins in earnest, I expect their numbers to be reduced. And we all know that it takes three years to get through Auror training. It'll help the Aurors enormously if ordinary people can start taking their safety seriously."

"How, though?" Honeycomb's quill scribbled busily away.

"Brush up on Stunners, the Shield Charm, and the Disarming Charm," Harry said instantly. "And learn at least five or six minor pain hexes."

"Pain hexes?"

"Yes." Harry reacted as Blaise had coached him, not getting upset that Honeycomb sounded upset, simply looking at her with those deep, sincere green eyes that could convince a Dementor it was meant to take care of Kneazle kittens. "It'll be disabling and earn you a bit of time to keep the enemy away. And because they're hexes, not curses, the damage is reversible."

Honeycomb was blinking at him. "I had no—I thought the distinction between hexes and curses was mostly an academic one," she said, and scribbled busily on her parchment.

"That's a common misconception," Harry said, and gave her yet another grin that invited her into the joke. "In reality, hexes are the kind of spells that wear off quickly and aren't as regulated by the Ministry. Curses are regulated, last a long time, and need a specific countercurse to stop them from hurting someone."

"So if you used a hex—"

"Or a jinx, yes."

"Then it would wear off, but it might buy you the time to get away?"

"Yes. And of course, you can also make common cause with your neighbors and raise wards together."

Blaise stiffened. This was not in the script he and Harry had discussed. Harry caught Blaise's eye and gave him a wink. Blaise knew what he would say as clearly as if he was hearing them with Legilimency.

I trust you. Trust me.

Honeycomb was staring at Harry with her mouth slightly open. "A—forgive me, Mr. Potter, but collective wards are a lost art. They haven't been raised in centuries. Well, by people in Britain, at least. I heard once that some of the witches and wizards on the Continent still know how to do it."

"Well, and why can't we reach out to ask them how to do it?" Harry waved an expansive hand and lounged back in his chair for a moment. "You-Know-Who isn't going to stay Britain's problem. He'll never be satisfied with just one island or just one group of people to control. That means that we need to start looking out for each other, and seeking allies elsewhere. As it is," he said, and cast a glance sideways at Blaise, "I have a friend here from a prominent family in Italy who just happens to know something about collective wards."

Blaise took a long breath. Yes, this wasn't something they'd planned on. And he'd worried that taking a more prominent role in Harry's interview might mean danger for him.

But his mother could take care of herself. And Blaise hadn't really thought that Honeycomb would leave him out of the interview or let him be anonymous. Even if she had, a description would have identified Blaise for anyone who knew him.

"Do you, Mr.…?" Honeycomb was studying him with keen interest.

"My name is Blaise Zabini," Blaise said, and ignored the little flinch she couldn't hide at the sound of his last name. "Yes, as it happens, I do know something about collective wards."

Harry took his hand under the table.

That, out of everything, was what made it hard for Blaise to answer Honeycomb's excited questions.

"Going to be giving out signed photos next, Potty?"

Harry just leaned back in his chair and shook his head at Malfoy. Malfoy was spending a lot of time on the seventh floor and had been obviously irritated during some of the times that Harry and Blaise were in the Room of Requirement and came out of it, but that wasn't Harry's problem. He'd told Professor Dumbledore about Malfoy, and the man had smiled and said not to worry about it. So Harry wouldn't. "You haven't changed your insults since second year, Malfoy. Going to be giving out new ones any time soon?"

Malfoy turned bright red. Harry just watched him, and Malfoy turned away with a splutter a moment later and went back to the Slytherin table.

"Why were you doing an interview with Blaise Zabini?" Hermione demanded in a low voice. The school was buzzing over the Prophet, and sneaking glances at both Harry and Blaise the entire time. Blaise, at least, was serenely eating his breakfast. Harry envied him.

"Actually, the interviewer's name was Tamsin Honeycomb."

"Harry."

"Because he's been helping me," Harry said, with a shrug. "He's taught me a lot about history, and politics, and making alliances, and—"

"But he's a Slytherin," Ron broke in. "You can't trust him! You know that rumor about his mum and her husbands!"

"Which aren't reasons to distrust Blaise," Harry snapped back. "That would make me exactly like Snape, judging me for the actions of my father. I don't judge Blaise that way."

"I don't know why you decided to talk to him, though," Hermione said, and wound a piece of hair around her finger, frowning distractedly at the paper. "If you needed that kind of thing, you could have gone to Professor Dumbledore—"

"He was one of the people who told me that I didn't need this, Hermione."

"Has he told you any more for sure about what he does want you to do?" Ron interrupted.

Harry shook his head. "No." Professor Dumbledore had asked him not to mention Horcruxes to Ron and Hermione, so he wouldn't, but also, some of the memories didn't seem to have much to do with Horcruxes. Like the memory of Tom Riddle in the orphanage. Unless Professor Dumbledore thought Riddle had hidden a Horcrux in the orphanage? But the building had probably been knocked down long ago.

Hermione sighed and glanced at the newspaper. "I suppose it can't hurt to encourage people to learn defensive spells and accept help from abroad…"

Harry concealed a smile behind his teacup.

"Can I call you Harry?"

Harry blinked and glanced up from the book in front of him, this one on the history of Grindelwald's war. "Of course, Blaise." His smile was genuine and warm and seemed to reach straight into Blaise's chest.

Blaise took a deep breath. The last few months had been a whirlwind. His mother had been more than happy to help him and Harry bring magic-users who knew how to cast collective wards to Britain, even amused in a way that suggested to Blaise she thought he had chosen his side for reasons other than pure altruism.

Which was true, of course.

Harry had given speeches now, other interviews, and appearances at public places to encourage people to defend themselves. Blaise was the one who had come up with the idea for him to appear at Quality Quidditch Supplies and sign brooms, proceeds to be donated to raising collective wards for Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley and other areas with a large magical population. But Harry was the one who had visited the sites of the Dark Lord's attacks and spoken with the survivors personally.

Blaise knew which side he was on. Whom he wanted to work with.

"Why did you wait so long to ask?" Harry added. "I've been calling you Blaise for months."

"I've been calling you Harry in my head for months," Blaise said, and reached out. Harry caught his hand halfway across the library table. Always halfway, Blaise thought. Harry was right there when he needed to be, and Draco's jealous sneering just made Blaise smugger about it. "But I wanted to wait, to see if—you would regret it."

"Allying with you?"

"Yes." Blaise half-ducked his head and watched Harry in his own heavy-lidded way. "Do you?"

"Not at all," Harry said, and Blaise knew what he looked like when he lied, when he did little dances around the truth for the papers, and there was none of that here.

"Then," Blaise said, while his heartbeat choked him, "there is something else I would very much like to do." And the next second, he scolded himself for being so nervous. Even if Harry didn't want him back, he would never be angry or mocking about rejecting Blaise.

"What's that?"

Harry had a husky voice when he wanted. Blaise stood and moved forwards, sitting down smoothly in the chair beside Harry on the other side of the table. Harry's eyes were enormous, and he wasn't smiling now, but he also wasn't laughing.

Blaise reached slowly out and put a hand over the pulse pounding in Harry's throat. It pounded harder.

Harry exhaled shakily.

Blaise leaned as slowly forwards. It was an exquisite slowness, one that he knew could seduce and persuade, having seen his mother use it. But Harry didn't pull away. His eyes flickered downwards to Blaise's lips, and then back up. He seemed so utterly enthralled that Blaise was flattered at the compliment.

He kissed Harry, slow and deep. Harry made a noise as though he was surprised after all, and grabbed fistfuls of Blaise's hair.

It hurt, a little. But it was also a reminder that Harry was here, and alive. The way Blaise intended to make sure he stayed.

He might have got a little too enthusiastic about making sure of that, given that Madam Pince came and kicked them out of the library for "unseemly activities." But all Harry did when they were gathering up their books and notes was grin, and Blaise's heartbeat nearly choked him again with his own happiness.

"You do know, my dear boy," Professor Dumbledore, said looking at Harry over his glasses, "when you suggested reaching out to the Slytherins, I didn't think you meant it so literally."

Harry laughed. He and Blaise had been caught kissing in an alcove outside the Great Hall, which they'd planned on, or they would have chosen some place more private. Snape still looked as if someone had cast a spell that had forcibly shoved the sight into his eyes, and had immediately dragged Blaise away for a "talk." And Harry had been summoned to the Headmaster's office a day earlier than their next scheduled lesson. But nothing could touch the joy that beat like a second heart in Harry's chest.

"Why did you do it?" Professor Dumbledore asked.

Harry leaned back in his chair. "Blaise is the one who's been helping me with things like preparation for the interviews," he said. "And I like him. And he makes me feel alive and helps me take on a new perspective." It was the kind of thing he couldn't really say to Ron and Hermione yet. He hadn't even said it to Blaise.

Then again, Harry was pretty sure that Blaise already knew.

Professor Dumbledore sighed patiently. "And did you think that he could prove a distraction?"

"A distraction from what, sir?"

"The kind of life that you would be living otherwise. A distraction from our lessons."

Harry took a breath. Okay. He and Blaise had already talked about what would happen when the Headmaster started making noises about Harry pursuing his own path, and he knew what to do. "Sir, with all respect, so far, we've talked about memories from Tom Riddle's childhood and we've talked about Horcruxes. If you have ideas about where things like Hufflepuff's cup are now, you haven't shared them with me. If you have some kind of larger message you want me to take away from this, except that we have to find and destroy the Horcruxes, you haven't told me what it is. So I'm doing what seems best to me."

Professor Dumbledore nodded slowly. "Acting on that information, I can see why it would make sense to you. But I must ask you to desist, Harry. There is information I cannot tell you at the present that makes your relationship with young Mr. Zabini dangerous."

Well, he and Blaise really hadn't planned for this. But despite how useful politicking and the like had proved itself in the recent past, Harry also knew that he didn't want to just let this moment go.

And sometimes you had to jump in with both feet and hope something worked.

"Does that mean you want me to die, sir?"

Professor Dumbledore made a harsh movement with one hand. But Harry thought it was because he was startled, not because he was upset. "What?"

"The only thing I could come up with," Harry said, "why you were keeping information from me and didn't even want me to try and help people who could continue on after my death, is that you thought I had to die, and didn't want me to develop bonds that could tie me back to life." He felt a little bad depriving Blaise of credit, but like hell was he explaining the truth, in case Professor Dumbledore thought he could "change" things by "encouraging" Blaise to forget about Harry. "And now I have a boyfriend, and you're more upset still. If you think I need to sacrifice myself, I really would prefer that you spit it out, sir. No matter how much it hurts you, you're still not the person it primarily affects."

Professor Dumbledore blinked, and blinked again. Then he took off his glasses and rubbed his fingers across his forehead for a long moment.

"How I wish it was not true, Harry," he whispered.

Harry felt a long lurch in his stomach that ended with a jolt, but, well, he had anticipated this, hadn't he? Blaise had anticipated this.

Harry swallowed. "Please tell me why."

"Because I have a fucking Horcrux in my scar."

That had been the only thing Harry had whispered when he had found Blaise after he'd escaped from the Headmaster's office. Blaise stood holding him while his mind whirled. They were in their version of the Room of Requirement, and no one would find them. They had all the time they needed to think.

Because I have a fucking Horcrux in my scar.

Blaise smoothed a hand down Harry's back, and asked the first question that came to mind. "Does that mean you will be finding some way to end your life?"

Harry shook his head. He had been leaning with his face tucked against Blaise's shoulder, but he stood up now and swallowed air. Blaise had to smile at the grim look Harry wore. That was the way he had looked when he'd told Blaise that he didn't anticipate surviving the Dark Lord.

So not as much has changed as I was afraid of.

"No," Harry said. "And Professor Dumbledore doesn't think it would work, either. It's why he hasn't killed me yet." His hand trembled for a second on Blaise's shoulder, then steadied. "He thinks it has to be under special circumstances. Probably the same ones that led to the Horcrux's creation. A Killing Curse fired at me from the wand held by the Snaky One himself."

Blaise let out a sigh. "Okay. Then we'll find a different way to remove it."

"How, though? Professor Dumbledore can't find any way."

"Did he tell you how long he's known about the Horcruxes?"

"Yes. A year and a half ago is when he started to suspect, after he did a bunch of research on the connection I had with him and couldn't come up with anything else it could be. Then Professor Dumbledore looked at this diary that I fought in second year, and he was pretty sure it was a Horcrux. And he destroyed one over the summer, too. Basilisk venom will take care of one. He doesn't know for sure what else would."

"Then he hasn't had that much time to do research," Blaise said fiercely. "We'll do some more. We'll find a way, Harry. My mother will join us."

Harry blinked at him. "She will? But why would she care about me?"

Blaise placed his palm under Harry's chin and leaned in to kiss him. Harry closed his eyes and opened his mouth, and Blaise kissed him thoroughly, then stepped back with a small, smug smile as Harry leaned after more. Harry started, his eyes flying open.

"Because you're my chosen," Blaise said simply. "Harry, no one knows more about poisons than she does. She can help us find a way to poison that Horcrux, or for you to survive drinking basilisk venom and make sure the venom hits the Horcrux instead of you. We'll do it. We will. Come home with me for the summer. We'll find a way to do this. I promise."

Harry blinked, slow and unsure. Blaise could understand that. He'd already had one enormous revelation today, and now another one was probably making him feel like the ice was cracking under his feet.

"All right," Harry whispered. "I—I do want to live, Blaise. I'm prepared to die if I have to, but I want to live. For my friends and to keep my work going. And most of all, for you."

Blaise felt the soaring sensation in his chest that it seemed Harry Potter endlessly inspired in him. He smiled and slid his fingers gently down Harry's neck to his arm.

"Then come with me," he said. "And we'll take them by storm."

He could see part of the future as Harry smiled at him, and it was filled with the death of a Dark Lord.

I've chosen my side. I've chosen him. I've chosen.

The End.