A/N: Kudos once again to Procyon Black, who betaed this not once,
but twice. Yes, it's 'fy' and not some random thing I made up in China.
Chapter 14: The Leave-Taking
"The White Hawk was a murderer."
They were in their room, the late afternoon rays drifting in through the windows. Harry ran his hands over the cool sheets of the bed he was sitting on, and he turned towards Draco.
"He was a murderer," said Harry, "I won't deny that. But that's only half of it. His victims were also murderers, and
there was blood in the air, blood hot and steaming in the cold morning air and the red blood was on the black gargoyle and the gargoyle was unflinching and unmoving as the blood splattered its face
"Killed whom?"
Silence stretched for a long moment. Harry relaxed his grip on the sheets and continued slowly, hesitantly, the flash of red on black still fresh in his mind. "Muggleborns. Wizards and witches with Muggle ancestry. Muggles who dared to mingle with wizard-folk."
"Oh. Well, it's not real witches and wizards then."
Harry frowned. "What do you mean 'real' witches and wizards? I know you mean pureblood," he continued when Draco began to interrupt, "but that's an invalid definition. A hybrid dog doesn't mean it's 'unreal.'"
"Magic flows in blood," Draco replied immediately. Harry could hear the sneer slipping into the Malfoy heir's voice. "Take rare magical talents like Animagi or Metamorphmagi They occur more often when the bloodlines are kept pure."
"A witch or wizard doesn't need to be an Animagus or a Metamorphmagusto be real. And you get weird—problems when you keep interbreeding the pureblood lines. Like Belarius the Blue, who had a strange obsession with goblins and
the blue eyes took in the blood gushing from the slashed throat and running in rivulets along the cracks of the flagstone floor. Let Dumbledore have a nice surprise, the blue eyes glinted, for the seeds have been sown, and what needed to be done has been done, and soon it will be a time to reap
"That's not often."
The sound of his heartbeat seemed thunderous, and he had to swallow the taste of fear before he could force out his voice. "What?"
"I said that it's not often that—mistakes occur, like Belarius the Blue."
"Animagi and Metamorphmagi aren't often either."
"Still."
Harry paused a moment, trying to summon the right words. He reminded himself that Draco was still the heir to an ancient pureblood family, that Draco was still—and would always be—a Malfoy. "I don't agree with you. I believe that Muggleborns are just as much a witch or wizard as purebloods, and Muggles are just as much a human as a wizard or a witch. But I'm not going to force you to change your mind."
"Fine then," Draco muttered.
They were silent for a moment, their conversation dried.
"Draco," Harry said at last, haltingly. "Can you—do something for me?"
Draco was quiet for a moment: a pause of Slytherin calculation, thought Harry. "What?"
"Can you make sure nobody goes into the corridor outside the headmaster's office? You know, the corridor with the gargoyle." Harry added, when Draco was still silent: "Just for tonight. Please?"
"Why?"
"I can't say—I don't even know, for sure," Harry said. It was half-lie, half-truth. "Can you manage it?"
Harrywas aware of a shuffling of cloth, and he wondered for a terrible moment if Draco was just going to get up and leave. But then, with solemnity: "You have my word, Gwalchgwyn."
Harry smiled quickly, uneasily, relief flashing and disappearing in a murky haze of turbid emotions. "Thank you. And don't go there yourself," he added hurriedly. "If you can only manage by staying in the corridor—"
"I'll manage. Don't worry about it."
"Thank you," Harry said again. He hesitated. "You have grey eyes, don't you?"
"Yes, I do," Draco replied after a bemused pause. "Why do you ask?"
Harry shook his head. "Nothing. As long as your eyes aren't blue—"
"Dumbledore has blue eyes," Draco said. "Goyle does too."
And Ron, thought Harry. There were others, but he had to think hard: the memory of the color blue was fading; he had to remember sky, Ravenclaw, one of Trelawney's favorite shawls, eyes
the blue eyes followed the trickle of blood down the stairs and up the walls like the cracks of a mosaic, tracing his Mark on the wall of Dumbledore's front door
Harry swallowed.
"I'll see you sometime tomorrow, then," said Draco.
Harry nodded. "Bye." Steps receding, and Harry heard the concerned hesitation in them. He was grateful for it in the space of those few seconds, but then the door closed and it was silent. Silent as a snowscape of a dead earth.
He stood. Turning, he slipped into an adjacent painting, making sure that Draco had gone the other way. Harry didn't know where his feet were carrying him, but it didn't matter. His mind was awhirl with thoughts that gnawed his sanity like rats.
Someone, someone was going to die. Tonight, in the hall outside Dumbledore's office, and there was going to be blood splashing over the motionless head of the gargoyle, so much blood moving like a living thing over the barren walls and tracing a skull and a serpent, and the killer had blue eyes watching.
Harry stopped. His body was as tense as a drawn bow, and his heart was heavy—heavy with the weight of knowledge and responsibility that he couldn't embrace. It was a shameful kind of guilt: the guilt of a coward who knew a disaster was going to strike, but was too frightened to say a thing.
A little breeze shivered over his face. He lifted a hand and felt the rough bark of the tree. A phantom moment, and he felt each thorny ridge and knot burning and tearing and eating the flesh of his palm. He wished for a brief moment that he could see, to see if there was any blood on the tree. There probably wasn't. There was none on his hands—none that he could feel, or smell, or taste. Even the snake hadn't noticed. When it had come a day ago, Harry had felt his heart paralyzed with fear: fear that the snake would somehow be able to detect the blood that should be there. But the snake had only remarked on how different the toilets were from the ones it remembered before slithering off again.
He took his hand away. It was a coward's way out, he told himself. Only selfish, cowardly people found relief through—things like this. He held his hands to his sides. Perhaps Draco would succeed. Perhaps nobody would die, and hispremonitions were warnings for a future that would be avoided.
He stepped back. Visions weren't always real—that he knew too well. Perhaps this one was a fake as well, just a little something the Dark Lord had sent to frighten him. Yes. That was it.
He turned. Telling himself that nobody would die blood ran down the stairs, he took a deep breath the corpse lay still and left.
qpqpqp
He woke up and knew something was wrong.
He sat up in his bed. Sunlight fell across his face: the warm sunlight of a golden morning, but he hardly felt it. He held himself as still as possible, not daring to breathe. The stillness was like a moment of perfection, glinting in the morning glow, and moving even a hair's breadth would destroy it. He searched for that sense that told him something was wrong, searching and holding his breath as long as he could—
Then, like a ghost, he was gone, hurrying through the portraits as quietly as he could. All too soon he was there, in one of the portraits overlooking the corridor to the entrance into Dumbledore's office.
Nothing. Harry didn't know what he had expected: something, anything, but not this, the murmured breathing of sleeping portraits, as though nothing had happened.
Damn it, thought Harry. Where's the snake when I need it? He moved into a different painting, wishing the stupid portraits would stop snoring so that he might listen properly—
A scream shattered the air. Then: books dropping to the ground, and stumbling footsteps. More voices drawing near, others, curious at first, and then choked by terror and disgust. Around him, portraits awakening. Disgruntled, mumbling, and then gasps: a muffled shriek.
Who is it? Harry thought, fear and dread springing to life. Oh God. Don't let it be my father, or Dumbledore or Ron or Hermione or Draco or— He swallowed: no matter what, someone, somewhere, would feel a cloud of sorrow deeper and darker than the heaviest of nights.
"Look!" a girl shrieked. "The Dark Mark! In blood!" Harry felt his stomach turn to lead as images from his visions slammed through his mind. He knew, with terrible clarity, what it was that the students saw.
"It's You-Know-Who," a boy whispered, his voice like an autumn leaf.
They're second-years at most, thought Harry. He wanted suddenly to cover their eyes so that they wouldn't have to see all the blood that he knew was there, that they wouldn't need to remember the corpse's face, frozen in fear and agony.
"Now what is the matter here?" McGonagall demanded, her harsh voice and footsteps echoing loudly in the hall. "You have class in five minutes, and you shouldn't be—" She stopped, her voice cut off as though by an executioner's axe. Harry heard a strange sound, and then something splashing on the floor, and realized that it was vomit.
"Sonorus Totalis," McGonagall muttered after a shaky breath. "ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS!" Her voice boomed through the castle, and Harry was reminded of the time in second year when Hermione had been petrified. But this time, he was all too aware of the quiver in the Transfiguration professor's voice. "RETURN TO YOUR DORMITORIES IMMEDIATELY. ANYONE FOUND LOITERING IN THE HALLS WILL LOSE FIFTY POINTS. THIS INCLUDES PREFECTS. Quietus. Now listen, all of you." Her voice became as hard as flint, all shakiness gone. "If you breathe a word of this to any of your classmates, I will make sure you will be heavily punished. What has happened will not be concealed, but we do not want a panic. Do you understand?"
There was a chorus of 'Yes, Professor' in tiny, fragile voices. First and second-years only, Harry thought again, and some part of him wrenched with sorrow.
"Good. Now go on, and remember what I said."
The shuffling footsteps echoed down the corridor and faded. Harry heard more footsteps, hurrying closer from far away, and he felt a part of him melt with relief just as another part of him tensed with apprehension. He knew those footsteps.
"What is it, Minerva?" Snape demanded sharply.
McGonagall didn't reply. The footsteps continued until Harry heard them stop right in front of him. He held his breath and slipped behind the portrait frame.
"The students—found him," McGonagall managed.
"I see," said Snape. His voice was flat. Harry could hear no emotion in it at all. "Go and get Albus, Minerva."
So it's not Dumbledore, Harry thought, relieved, and a small voice chided him for the foolish notion. Even Voldemort was afraid of Dumbledore.
"Yes, I'll—"
"There's no need. I'm here."
Footsteps—Harry counted three people—hurried down the corridor. One was Flitwick, with his unmistakable trot, and another was Dumbledore's quiet stride, so subtle that he would have missed it if he hadn't been listening for it. But there was a third set, similar to Dumbledore's, but quieter still.
"Merlin," Flitwick gasped. "And look! The Dark Mark—"
"Yes, we see it, Filius," Snape snapped. "None of us are blind."
A different voice spoke up, and Harry recognized it as that of the DefenceAgainst the Dark Arts professor, Caius Cinna. "Did any of you see it?"
A chorus of murmurs arose, and Harry realized that Cinna had been addressing the portraits. Harry shifted deeper into the shadow of the portrait frame, and he thought he could feel his father's gaze cutting the air in front of him.
"We were sleeping," a portrait, evidently a woman, sobbed and hiccupped. "Poor, poor man. To be killed—hic—so ignobly!"
"Would you have preferred him to die some other way?" Snape sneered.
The portrait made a sputtering sound.
"Enough," Dumbledore said shortly. Silence reigned. "Minerva, cast the charms of preservation. I must make a fire call to the Minister."
"Of course," McGonagall said, reluctance clear in her voice.
"And Filius, if you would go and confer with Sibyland Veronica and the others? They're waiting in the Hall."
"Yes, immediately," Flitwick replied.
A fire call to the Minister… Once Fudge finds out what happened— Harry swallowed as he listened to the sound of Dumbledore's fading footsteps. There was no Lucius Malfoy this time, and Fudge had probably returned to idolizing the headmaster, but there was no telling what might happen, not just to Dumbledore, but to Hogwarts. Hogwarts simply couldn't be closed—it was a haven, a symbol, a sanctuary. It was his home.
Suddenly, the weight of what had happened crashed down onto him. He had known this would happen—he had seen the blood, the rushing rivulets of red—and he might have prevented this, if he had stepped into the world of the living. But he had succumbed to his fear, to his cowardice—and now—this.
He sank to the ground, burying his face in his knees.
"Conservare," McGonagall intoned. "Intaminato." She took a deep breath. "What ever will we tell the students?"
"Nothing," Snape replied immediately. "If they don't know, their parents won't know either. Fudge will want to cover this up, now that the killings have started again."
"Ah, but you forget," said an almost unnaturally high voice. Caius Cinna, thought Harry. "Some of the students did see. And they will tell. A murder in Hogwarts will be impossible to hush up, Severus."
Harry frowned. There was a way Cinna said that name, Severus, that was cruel in some unnamable way.
"Fortunately it wasn't a student who died," Cinna continued. "If it had been a student, Dumbledore would have hell to pay. But it is only the Squib, and he will not be sorely missed."
Filch, thought Harry, remembering briefly the slashed throat and fountain of blood, and now, out of the shadows, the vision gave him the face: lined and wrinkled and twisted in pain. So it's Argus Filch. He waited for some sort of feeling, but only a vague sense of pity appeared.
"He had a brother," McGonagall snapped, and Harry could hear the anger burning in her voice. "Would you like to write a letter to inform him of this tragedy?"
"I'll leave you the honors, Minerva," Cinna replied smoothly.
"Argus wasn't very popular with the students, but he was loved by his loved ones. Last year, he received a Christmas present from his nephew."
"How touching," Cinna murmured disdainfully. Harry wondered at the voice: it was unnaturally high yet unmistakably old, and as changing and shifting as a blowing strand of spider silk. "What was it? A tissue?"
"It was a stuffed cat," Snape answered coldly.
Cinna paused. "I see," he said, and it seemed to Harry he was savoring a moment of triumph. "Filch wasn't the tissue. It was the Potter boy, wasn't it? Wasn't it, Minerva?"
"Yes, it was Harry Potter," McGonagall said slowly, warily. "His relatives are absolute brutes. They gave him a tissue paper for Christmas—it was his fourthyear, I think."
"How extraordinary," Cinna said. "Was it his fourth year, Severus?"
"I wouldn't know," Snape snarled. "I never paid attention to the brat."
Harry flinched.
"Why, I'm surprised you failed to even notice Lily Potter's son."
"It was very difficult to ignore Harry Potter," McGonagall interrupted frostily. Harry heard her take a step forward, moving between Cinna and Snape. "I'm sure Severus tried his best, Lily Potter or no. Alastor!"
There was a medley of footsteps—Cinna stepping back, McGonagall striding forward, and Moody's wooden leg thumping as he approached.
"Minerva," Moody growled. "A murder in Hogwarts, eh?"
"I'm afraid so," said McGonagall. "Argus Filch, the caretaker. He came after old Mr. Macavity retired to Brussels. Albus, what did Fudge say?"
Harry strained his ears and heard, underneath all the other sounds, Dumbledore coming closer, his strides even and measured and tired. Today was the first time he had been in Dumbledore's presence since entering the Chamber, Harry realized, and there was so much weariness—in each rustle of the headmaster's robes, in each nuance of his voice—that Harry had never thought he would hear.
"Remind me to tell Filius that the Floo powder in his office is running low," said Dumbledore as Moody began fumbling with something made of glass. "What did Fudge say? Well, what anyone would expect him to say. He is coming around later today, though he's sent Alastor. I expect formal investigators to come around soon from the Department of Magical Law."
Moody snorted. "A pack of aurors, more like. Greenhorns, all of them. Fresh recruits. Wouldn't be able to tell a Dark Wizard from a barmaid."
"I'm afraid the press will be here when the Minister comes," Dumbledore continued. "Fudge and the press are rather like Siamese twins. But we must concern ourselves first with the most important thing: the perpetrator of this murder."
Blue eyes, thought Harry immediately. "Someone in connection with You-Know-Who, judging from what he left for us on the wall," McGonagall said dryly.
"It could be a red herring, using Voldemort as a scapegoat," Moody muttered, "though personally I find that highly unlikely." It's no red herring, thought Harry, remembering the terrible purpose willing the blood to move over the walls. "This entire corridor stinks of the Dark Arts." Moody paused for a moment. "And not just the living people either."
"Alastor," McGonagall snapped, "this is no time for your grudges—"
"I'm just saying, I wish Albus would let me give his 'old friend' a little background check," Moody growled. "I've never heard Albus make any mention of this Caius Cinna, and over the summer, out pops this old 'schoolmate.' Sounds fishy to me."
Old schoolmate? Harry thought, astonished. Was Caius Cinna Dumbledore's classmate, from all those years ago—?
"Alastor!" Dumbledore said sternly, but even as he spoke, Harry heard a loud crack!, and Moody hissed as though struck by some terrible blow.
"Alastor!" McGonagall gasped. The sound was of something snapping in two, like bone or wood. Cinna wouldn't have broken one of Moody's bones—would he? Harry wondered. Under Dumbledore's nose, and Moody himself a formidable auror… "Are you—is your—"
"I'm all right," the old auror muttered gruffly. There was the sound of something being picked up from the ground. "My wooden leg's been broken a few times, though not so often by wandless and wordless magic."
"Caius, that was unwarranted," Dumbledore said softly. Harry shivered. There was so much power in those few words: it was like the feeling of the riverbank as the river-ice broke.
A shuffle-step, then silence. Harry realized, a moment later, that those were Caius Cinna's footsteps, sounding a retreat.
"We are at war," said Dumbledore. His voice was still soft, the power still there. "Voldemort has made this first thrust. But our greatest weapon is our greatest shield: it is our camaraderie, which ties us inexorably together. He will try to divide us, to knot us or to cut us loose. But we must hold. We will hold."
Harry couldn't help shivering a bit. There was power in Dumbledore's voice, a power that rumbled like the waves of the ocean. But the words clanged harshly in Harry's mind. Hold? We will hold? He thought of Ron, of Hermione, of how things had changed immutably. He thought of Draco, who knew only a lie. He thought of his father.
"Have courage, my friends," said Dumbledore, not unkindly, and the spell was broken: everyone seemed to breathe at once, and the sound of air to Harry was like a river of wind.
But those last words were like a death knell. Have courage, Dumbledore had said Have courage. Was this his courage? To be nothing more than a ghost in the walls? He had tried—tried to gain his father's love, tried to leave the portrait world as he knew he should. Tried, and failed.
He clutched the portrait frame. The tingling of magic in front of his face was electric. He couldn't help remembering the panic. The fear. The pain.
"Alastor, I'll let you take charge of the investigators as well as the Ministry inspectors when they arrive," said Dumbledore. "Severus, please prepare some mild truth potions. I'm quite sure the Ministry's investigations will require them. And Minerva, after you notify Argus's relatives, I would like you to summon all the students to the Great Hall. They deserve to know. And right now, I believe the Ministry investigators are at our front door…"
Footsteps moved in all directions, echoing down the corridor with the swish of robes. Harry slipped away, hurrying down the row of portraits. Dumbledore's words had been spoken softly yet firmly, with the confidence of a general and the kindness of an old grandfather, but the reality was almost unpalatable. An innocent had died. The murderer walked the halls freely.
You could have prevented this, Harry thought. He might still be alive if you had stepped out, if you hadn't been such a coward…
He paused. Sharp footsteps approached, and he recognized them with dread. But even as he wished to dart away, another part of him shouted at him to stay, to overcome his cowardice, to bear what pain might come—
"Severus," whispered a voice in the shadows.
Harry started, and Snape's footsteps stopped.
"Cinna," Snape greeted evenly.
Harry heard it then, the quiet patter of feet—bare feet?—on the ground. Harry felt perturbed. How had Cinna come so quickly and quietly? Had he—Cinna, Dumbledore's old schoolmate—run on bare feet, like some kind of white-haired ape over desolate snows?
"I don't think our friend Minerva knows what you did to Lily," Cinna said quietly. "You've kept your secrets very well."
Harry heard his father take a step back.
"What do you want?" Snape demanded. Harry felt a wave of coldness wash over him: there was fear in that voice, fear and dread of the sort Harry had never heard before.
"You know, I might once have suspected you of having done such a murder," Cinna said. His voice was smooth, gliding like a cobra. "I might have suspected, long ago. But now I know you don't have the guts to do it. Or, should I say, the balls?"
"What do you want, Caius Cinna?" Snape shouted, stepping back. Harry heard a muffled thud—the sound of a back pressed against a wall.
"You have nothing I want," Cinna hissed, "but I think there are things you want to tell me. More secrets. Secrets about Harry Potter."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Snape growled through gritted teeth. Harry swallowed hard and moved closer, his heart pounding so loudly it was hard to hear some of the words. "Go away. Leave me alone. Or I'll tell Dumbledore."
"You won't tell Dumbledore," Cinna whispered. "He will ask you, Severus, do you have anything to tell me? What did he do? Did he hurt you? You will look down and say, in your irritable tone, no. I'm fine, Albus. And he won't ask you anymore. Am I right?"
"Leave me alone," Snape muttered, and his voice was suddenly dull and flat, as lifeless as a soulless shell. "Leave me alone. I'm not a Death Eater anymore."
"Indeed he is not," said another voice, an angry voice: Dumbledore's voice. Harry started and swallowed, even though he knew that the anger was not directed at him. "Caius, did you have something you wanted to tell Severus?"
"No, Albus," Cinna said with surprising meekness.
"Then you can leave and not bother him again," said Dumbledore curtly. "You remember what I told you."
Harry heard again the curious shuffling sounds and recognized them as Cinna's footsteps, moving away until they disappeared.
"Severus," Dumbledore said gently, "do you have anything to tell me?"
"No," Snape said, sounding a bit more like his cold and disdainful self.
"Come now," said Dumbledore. "What about a spot of tea? To your quarters, then?"
"Don't you have aurors to greet?" Snape demanded in his most disdainful tone.
"Alastor can serve them tea," Dumbledore said. "Tell me, what did Cinna do?"
"Nothing!" Snape snarled, shouted, pleaded, and moved swiftly away. After a moment of indecision, Harry hurried after them. He hoped they would continue talking about Cinna, hoped that some of his curiosity would be assuaged. Dumbledore was powerful, everyone knew that, but Cinna had been so—submissive when it came to the aging headmaster. There was a secret there, and with his father, with Snape. What hold did Cinna have over him?
They stopped, and Harry stilled, listening carefully to the sounds before him. He knew where he was: before the grandfather's clock that guarded the entrance to Snape's quarters. From outside the portrait world, he heard a scraping sound, and footsteps.
"Severus," Dumbledore said, just as the scraping sound came again. "Did he hurt you?"
There was the slight thud, and then silence.
Harry took a deep breath and tottered towards the grandfather clock, reaching out until he felt the wooden sides. He could hear the rhythmic tick-tock of the pendulum, feel the movement through the air as it rose and fell. He hesitated. There was a sign on the wood behind the pendulum, he knew: the ash and the snake. But he felt sudden qualms in eavesdropping, in peering behind the cold mask of his father, of the man who had—
He stopped.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock. He lifted his hand and waited until the pendulum passed his face, and thrust out his palm, pressing onto the wood and feeling the faint lines of the emblem. There was the elusive brush of air, more pronounced than last time, though perhaps it was because he was expecting it with baited breath, and then he was—
"—that brat is gone!"
"Your fault?" Dumbledore said gently. "It was not your fault at all, Severus."
"Don't play games with me, Albus," Snape hissed, his voice as raw and angry as a festering wound. "You know as well as I that I feel no responsibility at all—" He stopped abruptly. Harry was frozen in place, his heart pounding painfully loud in his ears.
"We've had this conversation many times before," Snape said coldly. "I have to brew a few potions for Poppy. You have had your tea. So please excuse me."
"You can try to lie to yourself, but I know you too well," Dumbledore continued, unperturbed. "It is not your fault Harry is gone. He was in a very vulnerable state at the time, and he looked at you for love and reassurance at a time—"
"I knew he was vulnerable!" Snape shouted. "And if it was anyone's fault, it was his!"
Harry felt his stomach turn to lead in one horrible instant.
"Severus—"
Snape cut Dumbledore off with a fierce snarl. "Your beloved brat was too self-centered to understand his importance as a figurehead to the milling crowds of idiots! And so when I told him what he didn't want to hear, he fled!" His voice twisted with bitter contempt. "Now he's probably wallowing in his selfish angst, too afraid or too mired in self-pity to come out, just like his—"
Snape stopped, breathing heavily.
Just like his father, James Potter, Harry thought calmly. His heart was slamming a hole in his chest, but he felt strangely calm, like the surface of a vast, frozen lake. What he said isn't anything you shouldn't have found unexpected, Harry thought coldly. He stepped back and with even footsteps walked to the clock. He touched the sign, felt the soft brush of airHe's always hated you, he thought. And now… He moved, at first as slowly as a mourner, and then as a wind over the moor— Now he hates you for all the right reasons.
His lungs ached and his breaths came in jerky gasps as he ran. He slowed himself abruptly until he was no longer running, until he was only walking—walking stiffly, like some creature that had just broken out of an encasement of ice.
He had never quite given up hope. There had been a part of him, a part he had managed to persuade himself that he'd extinguished, that burned cheerfully with hope and dreams, with fantasies that he'd walk out one day—as the Heir of Slytherin, with a Snape-nose and Snape-face, and say, Look, I am not the brat you thought I was,I am Harry, your son. And in his fantasy, his father would look at him and say that there hadn't been any hatred, that it had all been an act, a hurtful masquerade, that he was so proud of his son, and the caustic voice would turn gentle and glow with pride and love, pride and love for the returned son—
He stopped. He hates you, he thought again, for all the right reasons.
He reached out his hands with all the solemnity of an ancient ritual. The bark received his touch. He bowed his head, resting his cheek against the trunk and shuddering as if the touch of harsh wood brushed across his body, his soul. His hands clenched, he gritted his teeth like a martyr in his rack, and pulled, feeling with trembling breath the ripping of skin and letting of blood; he paused momentarily, letting the waves of pain wash and recede, before he steeled himself and—
"Arglwydd!"
Harry pulled his hands back, flinching at the brief burst of pain as they left the trunk.
"What have you done?" the snake hissed. Harry felt it winding up around his legs as quickly as a rippling breeze, and he held his hands away from his body, out of the snake's reach. "Let me heal you. Now!"
Harry obeyed mutely, dropping his hands to his sides and letting the snake's tongue run over the wounds.
"Tell me, arglwydd," the snake hissed angrily, still securely winded around Harry's legs. "Tell me why you are doing this. Tell me!"
"I—I don't know," Harry muttered. The pain in his hands had almost faded, but he resisted the urge to run his fingers over his palms, to see if they had all healed.
"I should have expected this," the snake continued, "and I did think this might happen, but I thought I would catch it. I thought you would have more sense! Of all trees, why did you choose this one? This one would drink your tears and blood until you had none left!"
Harry stayed silent.
"Well? Answer me, oh Heir of Slytherin!"
"Don't call me that," Harry hissed angrily. He didn't know why he was suddenly so angry, didn't know that he had the strength to be angry: only that he was, in a vague, irritable way. "I told you already. I don't know."
"Go ahead and tell yourself that. Tell all the lies you want!" the snake spat. "Did you think you could escape your fate, that a little bit of pain here would balance things out? You are a fool! A selfish brat!" It made an angry scraping sound and tightened its coils around Harry's legs. "You are the Child of the Prophecy—you are the Heir of Slytherin—you are Harry Potter—you are your father's son—you—"
"SHUT UP!" Harry hissed with a fury he didn't know he possessed. He lashed out a foot and found himself inextricably tangled; he tottered and fell, and on the ground he grappled and clawed the snake's scaled body, kicking frantically and slamming his feet on the ground between grunts of rage and madness—
He finally found a grip and flung his arm out with all his strength. "LEAVE ME ALONE!" he screamed as the snake whipped through the air. "Go away! Leave me alone! Do you think I don't know what I am, what I have to be? DO YOU THINK IT'S EASY, THAT IT DOESN'T HURT?"
He was panting, and his throat was hoarse, his tongue sore. Sweat soaked his brow, and he felt one of the tree's roots digging into his thigh. His lungs ached. He took several more deep, hard breaths, before he got onto his knees. There was another root digging into his shin. His breath gradually slowed, and he swallowed.
"Snake?" he called. The hiss came out rough, like tree bark. "Snake?"
Harry got onto his feet, and felt a moment of dizziness—a sudden fear seized him that somehow he had hurt it or killed it—and he staggered forward, feeling through the grass.
"Snake, are you there?" he hissed, still breathing hard. "I'm sorry, snake. I am, I really am. Snake?"
He made a circle around the tree, and leaned against it, recovering his breath. But he couldn't rest. He couldn't.
"Snake?" he called as he flitted from painting to painting. He burst into his room—the one with the portrait of the living world. Sunlight flowed in from the window like a golden cascade, and the stones were warm under his feet. "Snake?"
"Gwalchgwyn!"
Harry froze. He swallowed and moved to the separation between the worlds. "Draco?" he murmured hoarsely.
"Yeah, it's me," said Draco. "You've heard, haven't you, about what happened to Filch?"
Harry nodded mutely.
Draco paused for a moment. "I'm sorry, then," he said, a hint contritely. "Even though I said I'd manage. I set off a bunch of dungbombs in that corridor so nobody would go there, but I forgot that Filch would have to clean it up."
"It's not your fault," Harry said dully. "You did your best. And it shouldn't have been your burden."
Another pause. "Who do you think did it?"
"How much did Dumbledore tell you?" Harry asked.
"Only that there was a tragedy and Filch had been murdered by someone in the castle," Draco said.
"Then he didn't say there was a Dark Mark on the wall?"
"Dark Mark?"
"In blood. On the wall. Filch's blood."
They were silent, the silence somber and grave.
"What would you do," Harry asked suddenly, "if Harry Potter returned?" He stared straight ahead with his sightless eyes and waited, wondering if Draco was looking at him, or looking at his own hands, or looking out the window at the sun-drenched grounds. The silence stretched so long that Harry wondered if he should repeat his question.
"I hate Harry Potter," Draco said with quiet vehemence. "He may not be a spoiled brat or an arrogant prick, but he put my father in Azkaban. And I hate him for it."
"You would hate him," Harry repeated slowly.
"Why do you ask?"
Harry was silent for a moment. "Because I want to know."
Draco shifted. His voice was carefully neutral. "Is he going to come back soon from wherever Dumbledore's hiding him?"
"He'll have to," Harry replied dully, voice as lifeless as a tomb. "He must. I'm sorry, Draco. But could you let me alone for now? Please?"
"If you wish," Draco said, a touch sulky, a touch annoyed. "I'll see you later—tomorrow, perhaps?"
"Tomorrow, perhaps," Harry echoed. Draco did not move for a moment, and then he left, his footsteps dying in the distance.
Harry stepped back, one, two, three, four, and sat on the bed, feeling the warmed sheets under his fingers. He bent his head and felt his hair, to his shoulders now, swing past his face like a curtain. Light filtered through, touching his eyes.
He wandered out. He avoided the scraping tree and moved behind the chattering portraits like a falling leaf through the forest. It was not a matter of if. It was a mater of when.
"It is time, isn't it, bachgen?"
Harry turned to face the voice. There was the sound of pine trees, of needles rustling like the sea and branches murmuring in the wind. He could smell the pines, the aroma and the song borne on a gentle breeze.
"Lady," Harry said. He lowered his head.
"You have come a long way," she said. "I hope you have used wisely your gift of time."
Harry stayed silent. What was there to say? Words, tears, emotions, fears—it seemed to him that none of them mattered, that all of them withered and died when it came to the task he had to face.
"Come here, bachgen," the Lady said imperiously.
Harry obeyed, stepping forward between the pines until he knew he was at arm's length away from the Lady. He felt hands on his face: cool hands, cupping his cheeks and moving gently over his sharp cheekbones and down the length of his nose. He held himself still.
"Salazar gave you his face," the Lady murmured. "There's little of me here, except your eyes. And now they're blind."
Harry lifted a hand and absently touched an eyelid. "Enid?" he said in uncertain disbelief, pulling the name from a myriad of memories.
"Fy bachgen," the Lady murmured, and pulled him close. Harry let her fold him into her breast, thinking that this was his ancestress: this woman—a Muggle—who had saved Salazar Slytherin's life on the Welsh hills. He remembered a time when he would have frozen in fear, his legs clamping together and arms crossing his thin chest, his mind a paralyzed blank; and still he could feel the echoes of that time, but now—now he could feel the encirclement of arms and let a whisper escape his lips:
"I'm afraid."
He was bent awkwardly, his head lowered and knees slightly bent so that his face was in her shoulder. But she was gently patting his back, and she was rocking back and forth, and Harry felt his throat twist painfully.
"My poor boy," Enid murmured. "Things would be so much easier if he dared to love you, wouldn't it?"
Harry nodded in her shoulder.
"And sometimes you wonder: why do I long for a father's love? Why am I so haunted by the shadow of his hate? Others at my age cannot wait to be free."
"It's because I'm weak," Harry said hesitantly. Enid stilled. "It's because I'm afraid."
"If you weren't afraid, you'd never have courage," Enid chided. She resumed rocking. "If you weren't weak, you'd never be strong. It's like a goat I once had. I named him Ymdrechydd because he was always struggling. The other kids were healthy from the start, and proud and strutting as they all became. But Ymdrechydd wasn't like that at all. He was sickly and a bit of a loner. In the end, though, I loved him best, and he lived longer than any other."
Harry listened silently, and wondered. He wondered what Dumbledore would have him do—return to a semblance of normality, taking classes and doing homework like the other students, or hiding him away to be trained and tempered like a half-formed sword? Isolation among others, or isolation alone. Potions would be interesting, if Dumbledore decided to return him to student life. He could already hear Snape's cutting words, removing pieces of his heart slice by slice, while Ron sniggered behind him. Then there would be a thousand other difficulties simply because he was Harry Potter, and more because he was blind, and even more because of his nose and hair and face and blood: they were more than his. They were his father's—Snape's.
Only he'd never be able to breach that barrier of hate and bitterness and hear it said in return. This claim would be his alone, a candle that refused to go out.
He thought of all of this and wondered what cosmic joke had decided to make him the Childe of the Prophey—and not Neville, who now seemed the perfect candidate—but it didn't matter, did it? He was still who he was. And this was his leave-taking.
Enid let go and he pulled away, though she kept a hand on the side of his neck.
"You will find strength, fy bachgen," Enid said. "We couldn't find it for you, Salazar or I. He could only give you his silly magic tricks, and I could only give you time. You're my Ymdrechydd."
Harry smiled weakly, feeling a rush of affection so intense it brought an aching to the back of his eyes. He could hear the pride in Enid's voice, the pride and the love. It was enough to make his heart sing.
"Go well, my boy," Enid said softly, stepping back. Her hand left his neck. "Do not be afraid to love. You will need it, and the memory of it as well." Her voice had become sad. "Go well, fy bachgen."
"Farewell," Harry called, but he knew she was already gone.
The pines murmured again, as though washing away what lingered of her presence. Harry took a deep breath and turned around. He would go Dumbledore's office. There were plenty of portraits there, and he'd step out of any one of them without trouble. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to pop out in the middle of the halls.
The corridors were mostly empty as made his way up through the castle. A few students were hurrying in clusters, whispering quietly, no doubt about the recent death. I owe this to Mrs. Norris, at least, Harry thought.
He thought about Mrs. Norris, wandering the halls as he had, solitary in her grief. What did mourning cats do anyway? He wondered if she stalked Filch's office, keeping faithful guard until a new caretaker moved in. He wondered, then, where she would go, who would take her in. Perhaps that nephew, who gave Filch a stuffed cat, thought Harry.
He was near the headmaster's office before he let himself think about his father and about Draco.
He took a deep breath. He realized that he was in the headmaster's office itself. He heard the faint ticking of the silver contraptions on Dumbledore's table and shelves; there was the flickering of fire in the warm fireplace. Harry wondered if Fawkes was there, but there was no sound from the phoenix.
I wish the snake were here, thought Harry.
"Arglwydd," came a hiss.
Harry turned in surprise and felt the snake hesitantly wrap itself around his legs.
"Snake," Harry said with relief. "You're here. I was afraid I'd hurt you somehow. I'm sorry for back then. I shouldn't have done that."
"It was as much my fault as yours," the snake dismissed. "None of my memories instructed me on guiding trauma victims."
Harry frowned. "Trauma victim? Me?"
"Aren't you?"
Harry shrugged his shoulders reluctantly. "I suppose I am." There was a silence. "I'm going out now."
"So you are," said the snake in an agreeable voice.
There was another pause, and Harry asked, "Aren't you going to tell me how?"
"I have no memory of stepping out of a portrait," the snake answered, sounding somewhat miffed. "I had never been in the world of paintings in the first place. I
blue eyes narrowed, watching the assembled reporters and cameramen, flanking the silly fool they called Minister: the time has come, what has been sown shall now be reaped, enjoy the show, Dumbledore
"Arglwydd?"
Harry felt the world spinning. The colors seemed to echo in the blinding whiteness of his vision, the shades leering like dark imaginings.
"Something's happening," Harry croaked. "I
let them prepare their cameras, their notepads, the students are there too, ah, good, there is nothing like a panicked crowd of brats
"What is it?"
"I must leave," Harry hissed urgently. "Now." He hurried forward and thrust his hands at the barrier between the worlds. Magic buzzed around his fingers and tingled his forearms, but as he took another step forward, the barrier tightened with a disgruntled moan and pushed him back.
He pulled back in frustration. He could feel panic rising like a blood-dimmed tide. "Why can't I get out? I need
now! can you feel it traitor? can you feel my power? ah, you flinch, I see that you can feel it a little stronger, yes, now they notice you, the minister has stopped his blabbering, Dumbledore is looking at you with concern, but it is too late, you will go mad with pain
Harry lunged forward, throwing every fiber of his being into breaking the barrier, clawing with his hands and biting with his teeth as his mind screamed father! FATHERhe was sobbing with exertion, but the barrier still held—
die, you will die, traitor, you will
The air exploded, and silence fell like a terrible weight.
He got up onto his hands and knees, dimly aware that the snake was coiled around his arm. The plush carpet of the headmaster's office felt strange against his hands and knees, feeling almost too real. The air tasted vibrantly alive; his lungs ached with a strange pain; the wetness of his forehead seemed breathtakingly different.
He clambered to his feet and dashed forward and slammed his knee into something big.
"Look through my eyes," the snake hissed, and Harry thrust his mind into the snake. Colors blossomed through his sight: the staggering red of the carpet; the enthralling movement of the silver contraptions swinging to-and-fro, to-and-fro; a wash of familiarity and unfamiliarity as he stared at the great oak
now they see it! my Mark, as black as death, for all to see! my power
Harry darted down the stairs, running as swiftly as a hawk's shadow. Air whistled through his lungs—an almost alien sensation—but it filled him with life, with terrible urgency. His body seemed to lighten, to be made of the stuff of unseen imaginings, and then he was in the entrance of the Great Hall.
The four great tables were filled with students, and at the other end there was a crowd, somewhat shrouded by purple smoke. The tables seemed to meet at the far end of the hall, and there—there, writhing in the floor in the middle of a ring of onlookers, with Dumbledore clutching his shoulders—was Snape.
His father.
Harry felt the air rushing past his face as he raced down the hall, felt the rising murmur from the crowd like the feel of cold air on a wintry day, of the blur of shocked faces and bursts of purple smoke—
He was kneeling at Snape's side and staring through the snake's eyes at the ugly thing on his father's forearm. The mark throbbed and pulsed like a living thing, and with each movement, his father twisted like an instrument, played by a cruel hand.
"Father," he croaked, so quietly he himself did not hear it. For a moment he was lost, stricken with fear and helplessness, watching his father writhe in maddening pain. There was nothing he could do—no way that he could fight—no way he could win—
No! he cried in anger. He had fought Voldemort before, fought and won, even if it had been by luck alone, and this time he was no longer simply Harry Potter. He was more—he was Slytherin's Heir—he was his father's son, and nothing, nothing would change it: not the memory of hate, nor the pain, nor the fear. He turned his face to the seething crowd, and suddenly, he felt it.
what is this? is it some trick of Dumbledore's? he is powerful, I can feel it, he is dangerous, what is he doing
—the blue eyes, he could feel them
he has his hand on the traitor's arm, on my mark, ah!
"Voldemort!" Harry shouted. He felt an answering challenge pulse in the Mark under his hand. He heard the crowd shiver and gasp, falling to a trembling hush. "I challenge your claim on this man: this man who is no longer your servant."
There was a moment's silence, and then a voice answered: deep, hissing, as dry as sun-bleached bones and as bitterly hateful as the howling winter storm. Name your claim, nameless one.
"I am the Heir of Slytherin," Harry shouted back. His voice was hoarse now, and the ground was hard and painful under his knees. But none of it touched his mind: his entire being was caught up in the rush of power through the air and under his hand. "I claim him." His voice was hoarse now, hoarse but unyielding and deafening in the utter quiet of the Hall. "I claim him as Slytherin's heir."
The air waited.
He remembered his father's words. He remembered the pain, the snarling voice saying things that cut him like barbed hooks, saying them only—only minutes ago. He remembered that his claim would be his alone, that his father would never look upon it as anything besides a cumbersome debt to pay to the Potter brat. He remembered, and for a moment, he was paralyzed with the memories. But the moment passed with a shuddering breath.
"And I claim him as my father." The words, spoken with more strength than he knew he possessed, seemed to echo in his ears like the sounds in Slytherin's Chamber, like chains breaking and the wings of a bird tasting freedom. He added, perhaps for no reason but to hear it said: "I claim him—as his son."