A/N: Thanks once more to Procyon Black, for the quick and speedy beta, and more importantly for her words of encouragement.
Chapter 19: Things Fall Apart
The cold stone floor was utterly still. He felt his cheek slowly numbing, as though it were pressed against a slab of ice. Then he heard the snake moving slowly towards him, and felt the forked tongue tickling his ear.
"Arglwydd?" it said quietly, with more hesitation than Harry had ever heard it use. "I am sorry."
Harry sat up. The ground was painful under him, and as he shifted his leg, his foot hit part of the fragmented suit of armor, and it skittered noisily over the ground. "Don't be," he said.
"Sometimes I lose sight of the heart of the matter," the snake continued with a grave moroseness in its tone. "I forget that even the largest tapestry of fate is made of many single strands."
"You've nothing to be sorry for," Harry said, wrapping his arms around his chest, hiding his hands within his sleeves. He didn't want to feel the faint tickling of the snake's tongue over his fingers. "After all, there will never be an answer—there will never be a resolution." He added, after a pause, "Nothing truly matters at all. We just go on."
"Ah," muttered the snake, coiling itself at Harry's feet. "You make me wish I could eat my words. Again, I apologize, arglwydd. I am sorry."
But you are not saying you had been lying, that there is an answer and a resolution and a meaning to this all, thought Harry as he rocked himself. You only say you wish you hadn't told me the truth. And what are apologies to the truth?Harry let out a breath of despair and felt as though the entire world were pressing against him, binding him down until he could hardly breathe. If only apologies came so easily with me, he thought idly, and rubbed his face with his hands until he stopped thinking about it. "I've told you already," he mumbled into his hands, "you've nothing to be sorry for."
"But I do; will you forgive me, master?"
No, thought Harry. "Yes," he said dully. He put his hands behind him, feeling them press into the cracks of the walls, and pushed himself into a standing position. "I've always wondered," he said, "if you've got a name of your own. Not just 'snake.'"
"A name?" said the snake, sounding rather perplexed. "I don't think so. We snakes just are."
"Someone's coming," said Harry, tense. Then he relaxed. The footsteps were not his father's. "Let's go." He stepped forward—and his foot came in contact with yet another piece of armor. It hit the wall with a deafening clank.
The snake darted up the length of his arm and around his shoulders. "Arglwydd—" it hissed as the footsteps drew near; but Harry darted forward almost by instinct, and the world remained a canvas of white. He waited to trip over yet another piece of armor or crash headlong into a wall, but he was already very near Gryffindor Tower by the time he stopped, and he had touched nothing. It's like floating, he thought, feeling a bit lighter and a bit freer as he uttered the password to the Fat Lady.
He was accosted moments after he clambered over the threshold.
"Harry!" exclaimed Hermione, jumping to her feet. "You're back really late today, I though you had—er—got lost, or something."
"No, Snape just kept me unusually long," said Harry. He felt the snake rub its head almost imploringly against his chin, and, with a hint of resignation, let his mind seep back into the snake's mind. The room came into focus: the pairs and groups of students studying in silence or chatting happily, and Hermione looking at him with an expression that was half concern and half anxiousness.
"Well—how were your lessons?"
"Fine," he said again, his tone too stiffly neutral to escape her notice.
"Harry, if something happened…" She looked him up and down and frowned at his hands. She snatched them up, and Harry drew in a sharp breath as she ran her fingers over his knuckles. "Harry—you're hurt!"
Harry pulled his hands away and held them briefly in the snake's line of sight. "It's not much," he said dismissively. "Anyway—" He tried to think of some other thing to say, but Hermione snatched his hands back up again.
"How did this happen?" she demanded. "Snape didn't force you to punch a wall and then heal yourself, did he?"
Harry shoved his hands behind his back. "Of course not!" he snapped. People were staring at them now. "Can you please not ask me anymore questions, Hermione?"
"Harry—"
"I really don't want to talk right now," he snarled. Hermione said nothing, and he added, his words miserably inadequate, "I'm sorry." Then he turned away and mounted the staircase up to the boys' dormitory, one hand trailing over the walls as he moved. Touch grounded him, even as the whirl of colors and movements and shadows tried to lift him into a white emptiness. I'll think about Hermione later, he thought. I can't think of it now. Not now.
He entered the sixth year dorm, and as he did so, he heard a rustling movement. The snake arched its head. Sitting in only pajamas, looking as frightened and pale as a little boy staring down at the tip of a Death Eater's wand, was Neville Longbottom.
The name was half on Harry's lips, but it expired like a half-formed wind. Something that was half pity and half cold anger bloomed in his heart, and he broke the pause and walked silently to his bed, lying on it carefully with movements as deliberate as an old man's. He had to wait only a few moments before Neville stood, his movements fraught with hesitation, and left, treading as though he were in the wake of the dead.
"He's the one whose grandmother wants him to take your rightful place," hissed the snake, letting some of the old hauteur creep back in.
"Yes," Harry whispered. The darkness felt familiar, and he realized that he wanted it: sometimes, the white mist made him feel too vulnerable, as though he were alone on a vast open plain. At least in the dark he could pretend he was enclosed in a cocoon of warmth.
"He heard it, didn't he?" Harry muttered, slipping into Parseltongue. "He heard it, and then went to the dungeons."
"Your father?"
Harry nodded, a bit hesitantly, as though not acknowledging the name or relation could somehow make it less unbearable.
"Well, you shouted most of it in English, so I expect he did," said the snake, carefully.
Harry shut his eyes and curled himself into a ball, pressing his face into the soft covers the way he had done to the floor to hear the footsteps recede. But he took a deep breath and stretched himself out until he was like a corpse, rigid as a board. He opened his eyes and let the white mist return.
qpqpqp
Hermione looked impatient for the entirety of breakfast, and even the lesson with McGonagall on the finer details of animate transfiguration did nothing to lessen the look of determination on herface. Harry was reminded vaguely of her SPEW crusade. A bit strange, he thought with an inkling of dread as he avoided meeting Hermione's gaze, that he was to become one of her 'projects.' No wonder Draco disliked any sort of charitable feeling.
By sitting in close proximity to a few Gryffindor fourth years, Harry managed to procrastinate the inquisition through lunch. The looks of fear and suspicion he received made the mashed potatoes seem somewhat indelible, but a part of him was desperate not to be asked the questions, to be made to trudge through the agonizing ritual of mutual frustration, to be forced to think of the colossal specter of shame and pain.
Hermione caught him in an empty corridor outside the Great Hall right after lunch.
"Well?" she said, standing in the middle of the hall with her feet somewhat apart. She gave him a questioning look, and her brows were drawn in a frown.
"Well what?" Harry said, his voice managing to stay calm and dark. "We're going to be late for Charms."
"Don't pretend to be stupid," Hermione replied shortly. "You come back last night with bloody knuckles and looking as though you'd been to Azkaban and back, and then you stagger upstairs and Neville comes down looking as though he'd seen a ghost."
Harry shrugged tightly. "Well, why don't you ask Neville?"
"What?"
"Nevermind," Harry said, crossing his arms over his chest. "We'll be late for—"
"That's too bad then," Hermione snapped. "Professor Flitwick will just have to understand. And we've still got time. Plenty of time."
They stood facing each other like contestants in a ring, or two silent glaciated peaks, or two mortal enemies. Harry could feel his heart beating against his ribcage, beating against the insides of his arms as he hugged himself tightly.
Footsteps approached, and Harry relaxed himself rigidly. Then he realized it was Draco, and really relaxed.
"What's going on here?" asked Draco, walking so that he was a third way between Harry and Hermione.
"Harry here got back to Gryffindor last night after a lesson with Professor Snape with bleeding knuckles and looking very—upset," said Hermione testily.
Draco glanced at Harry with narrowed eyes. "Why?"
"He won't tell me," Hermione said curtly.
"Why should it matter if I keep it to myself?" Harry demanded. He raised his gaze so that he was staring Draco straight in the eye. "Why should I—why should I disembowel myself before you? You understand secrets." He tried to fathom anything out of the grey eyes. "You do."
"It's not about secrets or disemboweling you!" Hermione said, trying unsuccessfully to keep her tone reasonable and calm. "I'm just concerned, Harry, and I really think you should get it off your chest. It's not healthy keeping it all in like that, isn't it, Draco?"
Draco leaned slightly back so that his weight was resting half on one foot and half against the wall. "It's his secret, Granger," he said, and shrugged. "You're not his keeper of secrets."
Harry felt his heart rise like a balloon, filling with relief and gratitude, but Hermione snapped,
"Take his side, then! But it's not good, Harry—even Dumbledore's concerned. Lately he's constantly been glancing from you to Snape and back again; and all through dinner last night, he was looking more concerned than ever before, and did you see him this morning and at lunch? He looked like an old man."
"He is an old man," Draco retorted, but Harry felt as though he'd been struck by a blow. Dumbledore was an old man, and an old man with more troubles than anyone Harry knew—himself included. But at the same time, Dumbledore's request had been—impossible; it had— He couldn't. Harry pushed away the thought and straightened his arms.
"Hermione, we'll be late for Charms," he said tightly, "and Draco, I think you'll be late for your next class, too."
Draco grimaced. "True, that. Vector will be in a fix." He nodded to Harry and Hermione. "I'll see you later, then."
"Let's go," said Harry, moving swiftly down the corridor in case Hermione decided to waylay him once more. Fortunately, she kept silent all the way to the entrance of Flitwick's classroom, and Harry felt a small measure of relief tentatively beginning to form within him. But then he glanced at Hermione as they entered ("Almost late," Flitwick chirped) and saw the gleam of determination in her eyes.
"Well, tomorrow, you'll have lessons with your father again," said Hermione, settling down in her seat with the look of one who had lost a battle but was determined to win the campaign.
Harry sank down next to her, feeling a heavy mantle of dread fall on him like the reading of a death sentence.
"Yes," he said heavily. "I do."
The dread grew within him, writhing like a dragon in a troubled slumber. It preoccupied him enough that he messed up on the Deciphering Charm when Flitwick came by; and by the time he and Hermione trooped down to the Great Hall for dinner, the shepherd's pie might as well have been made of toad innards.
"Aren't you hungry?" asked Hermione, shoveling some peas and carrots onto his plate. "These are good, really, and healthy."
Harry shook his head and made a small dune of peas with his fork. "I don't feel like eating, for some reason," he said in a tight, controlled voice.
"You're not that worried about your lessons with Snape tomorrow, are you?"
Harry's forkful of peas scattered over the table. He scowled. "Of course not!" he snapped. "Why would I?"
Hermione gave him a wordless look before silently sipping her pumpkin juice and taking another helping of vegetables. Harry glowered and turned some peas to mush with his fork. Why was he being so strung-up about the lessons tomorrow? There was no reason to be; it was ridiculous, he told himself: irrational, stupid, weak…
Hermione looked up, and Harry followed her gaze to find Snape striding into the Great Hall, his cloak billowing angrily behind him as he stalked to the head table and took his usual seat at the end. Harry glanced away quickly.
There was no escaping the fact that Snape had heard—everything. Perhaps even seen it. Surely Snape had heard him break down and scream like a self-centered, immature brat, like a typical teenager in a temper tantrum; surely Snape had heard him crash into the suits of armor and wail out his agony for everyone to hear…
He shuddered and peeled the memory from his mind like a layer of ice from his skin. How could he have lost control? If someone had happened on him, everyone in the Hall would know it by now. But perhaps it would be better that way. Snape wouldn't be the only one who knew, and those who hated him for loving his father would, perhaps, not hate him anymore…
But at the same time, he felt a deep aching in his throat. He couldn't help the terrible hope from forming in his heart and blooming through his body with the same intensity as his shame. His father knew everything now. His heart was laid bare—bare, spread-eagled on a snow-capped peak, open to the sky and sun and wind and rain. There was no hiding anymore, and perhaps his father might—perhaps he just might—
He made an involuntary noise.
"What?" said Hermione, looking puzzled. "Did you say something, Harry?"
Harry cleared his throat. "N-no, nothing," he said, and stuffed a spoonful of mush into his mouth. The back of his eyes throbbed. He set down the fork and looked at the mess on his plate. "I think I've a headache."
"Do you need to see Madam Pomfrey?" asked Hermione, looking concerned.
Harry shook his head. "I'm fine. I just—I think I should review tomorrow's Potion." He stood without noticing the troubled look Hermione sent him; and as he walked quickly down the corridor and to the stairwell, his stomach feeling as though it were filled with lead, he thought he felt a piercing dark gaze on his back, but he didn't turn around to see.
qpqpqp
The entrance to the hospital wing looked as it always did, but Harry paused outside its doors and stared up at the simple decorations and designs. It was several moments before the image even began to register in his mind.
"Arglwydd?" murmured the snake.
"I'm fine," Harry said automatically. There was still time. But this was it. Potions had been a whirl of brewing and concocting, and Snape had been too preoccupied chewing out a hapless Ravenclaw who had blown up her cauldron to pay much attention to anyone else. So Harry had began lunch with a shadow of an appetite, but after Snape failed to show up at the head table, he felt sick down to the pits of his stomach. Hermione had been concerned, and had said comforting things—none of which entered his brain—but now, after walking like a condemned man to the gallows, through the same corridor in which he had collapsed the day before (the suits of armor were back in place, he managed to notice)—
He swallowed hard and began to move down the long row of cots. It felt vaguely as though someone else were controlling his arms and legs, for his mind was numb, except to the inexorable pounding of his heart. He was dimly aware of part of him squealing like a piglet, hyperventilating with panic and dread: don't go, I don't want to go, I want to leave, I'm scared, terrified—
Unsteadily, he put a hand on the doorknob, leaving shaky marks of moisture where his fingertips touched the metal. Then he turned the knob and stepped inside.
The snake peered around, rotating its head and glancing up at the ceiling and the floor. "It's empty," it hissed.
Harry moved next to the metal table in the center of the room, keenly aware of his thudding heart. "He's probably late," Harry said, keeping his gaze on the door. "Maybe he's finishing a difficult potion…"
"The puffskeins aren't here either," observed the snake. "He's usually very well prepared, isn't he? I can't remember him ever being here after you arrived—"
The door swung open and Madam Pomfrey entered briskly. "Hello, Harry," she said. She flicked her wand and a crate of puffskeins came sailing in behind her. "Professor Snape is busy today with making a very complicated potion, so I'll be doing lessons with you instead."
Without waiting for a response, she took out a roll of parchment and peered at it. "I see Professor Snape has gone over most of the basics of elementary healing with you… Simple cuts, lacerations, scrapes… Even muscle injuries. That's further than I'd expected." Her eyes wandered down the list and her eyebrows climbed up her forehead. "Much further that I'd expected." She put away the parchment and looked at Harry with a frown. "Healing injuries inflicted to the skeletal system?" she said in an incredulous voice.
"Y—es," said Harry.
"Well, if you don't mind, Harry, I'd like you to show me," she said, lifting a puffskein gently out of the crate. "Stupefy," she said, tapping it with her wand. "Did he use the Bone-Shattering Hex?"
"I'm… not sure," he lied, watching Madam Pomfrey frown and prod one of the puffskein's legs with her wand. He felt unsettled, as though someone had ripped a rug from under his feet, and he was falling, still wondering whether he would land on his head or his feet.
"Heal this," said Pomfrey, handing him the puffskein.
Harry took the unconscious body in his hand, and involuntarily he glanced up—only to stop himself before the snake could follow his gaze and look at the door that was still closed and unmoving.
Focus, he told himself irritably. What's it to you that he's not here? Why should it matter at all? He prodded the leg of the puffskein. "Excosso," he muttered, slowly moving his wand away and watching with a sense of detachment the white mist curl until nothing more emerged.
"Good, very good," said Madam Pomfrey, her voice coming unexpectedly. He paused, for a moment annoyed that she had spoken, but returned to stroking the limp leg with his wand.
"Medicor," he said, and bent his mind on guiding the growth of the bone. The sense of injury faded, and the flush of well-being returned, and Harry laid the puffskein gently down on the metallic surface.
"Remarkable," said Madam Pomfrey, sounding duly impressed. "I daresay you've got a gift of healing in you, Mr. Potter."
Harry said nothing, though he managed to force a semblance of a smile to his face. I'm not a Potter anymore, he thought. Don't think that I still am, and only in another skin.
"I think we might move on to some of the much more complicated aspects of healing, such as the effects of time delay on healing magic," said Pomfrey, still sounding rather incredulous.
"All right," said Harry reluctantly. He felt somehow that he was embarking on doing something wrong, something that he shouldn't be doing at all. Where was Snape? His father's absence couldn't be a coincidence, could it? Why wasn't he here—why? Was it because of—? He axed the thought and snarled at himself viciously: it doesn't matter, you fool. He has every reason to avoid you now. Why would he want to see you trembling and twitching like a coward? He probably told Dumbledore everything he heard (Harry could picture the sneer of satisfaction, the vindictive twist in the voice), and Dumbledore (resignedly, with a weary sigh that twisted Harry's soul with guilt) probably relieved Snape of his unpleasant duties. And Harry could almost see the triumphant smirk on the sallow face and feel the wind of black robes billowing like the banners of a nightmare…
He pulled himself out of his reverie and tried to pay attention to what Madam Pomfrey was saying. But the words slid through his mind like dead twigs over an icy lake, scattering aimlessly over the vast expanse of nothingness. What was the point? he wondered vaguely. He could see Hermione asking him how lessons were, see himself answering in the same tight voice, picture the ensuing argument after which he'd hide in his dormitory, or in some abandoned classroom, or in the secret room where he had first seen Draco; it was like a vicious cycle, and he was tired, weary of living it, sick of fighting and arguing and feeling rotten afterwards—
Fortunately Madam Pomfrey didn't ask him to do any practical work. After she went on about the magical workings of healing after a delay of time and continued with the ethical issues involved, she performed a demonstration and then assigned Harry some background reading to do.
"It's a bit on how the problem of time-delayed healing was solved by Midilus Miggleby," said Pomfrey, levitating the crate of puffskeins with a spell. "It's always good to know the history of a thing, and not just how to do it or solve it…"
"Yes," said Harry, cutting her off short. "Do you know if Professor Snape will be back next Tuesday?"
The nurse seemed unfazed. "I can't say," said Pomfrey, tidying the room. "Who knows what potion Professor Dumbledore will have him brew next?"
Feeling strangely irritable, Harry trudged out the hospital wing and glanced around before continuing down the corridor.
"I don't think she knows that I like puffskeins," said the snake. It nudged Harry's chin. "Mice are difficult to catch nowadays."
"Then eat rats," Harry said shortly.
The snake said nothing more, only lowering its head and remaining motionless as Harry passed the many suits of armor. A moment passed, and then another, and Harry began to feel guilt worm uncomfortably in his heart. But right after the feeling formed, a part within him hissed: so what if acting angry and snappish wasn't what he should do? All that mattered was that he killed Voldemort. And the snake was bound to him as a servant anyhow; what did it matter that he was impolite to this reptile, his slave?
He heard the brisk footsteps before he saw their source, and he stiffened as Professor McGonagall walked up to him, her lips pressed rather tightly, "There you are, Potter. The headmaster wants to see you right away."
Harry bit back an angry remark. "Yes, professor," he said and changed his course so that he was heading to the headmaster's office.
Why does he want to see me again? he thought, the anger still bubbling in his mind. Does he think I want to see him? He saw again the weary blue eyes and felt a flash of irritation, irritation that masked the unhappy tendril of guilt. The snake hissed and the gargoyle stepped aside. Does he have anything to say to me besides his usual useless mutterings, which are always about me and—
Snape. He felt his breath catch in his throat, and his hands became clammy in an instant. That was it. Dumbledore was calling him up for a 'reconciliation.' Dear God. Snape was going to tear him apart. He stopped in midstep up the moving staircase and wished desperately that he didn't have to go, that he could hide—anywhere, in the Chamber, the secret room, in a field of white mist—
The door was before him now. He swallowed hard. He took a deep breath and reached out a hand—
"Ah, Harry," said Dumbledore, smiling warmly, as the door opened by itself. "Do sit."
Harry entered and looked around bewilderedly. Snape wasn't there. Snape was… not there. Then he quickly sat down before Dumbledore could notice.
"Sherbet lemons?" said Dumbledore, eyes twinkling. "Or maybe a few of these Reese's Cups? They're quite good, you know."
"No, thank you," Harry said guardedly.
Dumbledore sighed and let the grandfatherly mask decay. "You are well aware, I trust, of the implications of the last Order meeting?"
Harry thought back to Pettigrew's bloody head and the look of loathing that appeared for an infinitesimally brief moment on Caius Cinna's face. He wondered if the stain was still on the desk, but at the moment he was staring over Dumbledore's shoulder at the empty bird perch. "Yes."
"Voldemort is planning a ritual of sorts most likely involving the blood sacrifice of the eleven orphans he kidnapped. We now know the exact date of this ritual. Voldemort will attempt it on the next full moon."
"Oh," said Harry. He lowered his gaze and looked at the tabletop of Dumbledore's desk and saw a set of dizzily spinning silver pinwheels. "And we must stop it."
"Yes," said Dumbledore.
Harry looked closer, though he remained motionless. The shadow from the pinwheels obscured the place where the stain of blood had been, and—it seemed a darker hue, but—
The door opened and the impatient footsteps froze almost immediately.
"Professor Dumbledore," said Snape after a long pause in a slow, sneering sort of voice. "I thought it was understood that my meeting with you would not involve any eavesdroppers?"
"Nonsense!" chuckled Dumbledore, pointing his wand at the space next to Harry. A chair appeared. Harry stiffened. "Harry here is no eavesdropper—at least, not right now." He winked, but Harry felt only a spike of panicked anger in return. "I was informing him about the preparations of the operation."
Snape was silent for another moment. "Don't think you can fool any of us, Professor Dumbledore," he said softly, but pronouncing the last two words with venom.
"Severus," Dumbledore said. He looked meaningfully at the chair next to Harry. "It would behoove you to join us."
The ensuing silence hammered at Harry's skull like a rain of curses. Then, just as he thought he heard the faint noise of Snape's approach, he stood abruptly.
"I think it would be the best for us all if Professor Snape conducted his meeting with you in private," said Harry, taking a step back.
Dumbledore's face suddenly looked tired, like that of an ancient man who had crawled out of his deathbed to do a final deed. "Harry—"
"I'll just be outside," said Harry, turning around without looking once in his father's direction and walking swiftly to the door with purposeful steps and an unmoving gaze—and finding the door locked. He tried turning the knob again, just to be sure, but it stayed firm and unmoving.
"I'm sorry, Harry," said Dumbledore. His voice was very small. "Please, will you sit?"
Harry lifted his fingers slowly and touched the blank slab of wood before him. He was reminded briefly of the rough bark of the scraping tree, and as he traced a trembling line down the swirling grain, he thought he could feel the phantom pain.
There was a sound, and Harry knew it was his father, stepping slowly up to the headmaster's desk and lowering himself into the chair.
"Harry? Please."
Harry took a shuddering breath. Part of him was willing him to go—the part that saw the act of staring at a door as childish and foolish, the part that whispered that it would soon be over anyway, and there was still a space of two wood bars and a slice of air between him and his father—
But that part floundered and died. "What do you want from me, sir?"
"Only for you to sit—"
"Sit?" Suddenly he was angry—beyond that. Furious. "You don't want me to sit. You want me to forgive." He turned around and the world was an expanse of empty white. "You want me to say that everything is fine now, and that I love my dear father." He spat out the last few words, twisting them with disdain and derision until they were utterly unrecognizable. "That's what you want, isn't it?"
Silence replied. He waited, without knowing that he was waiting, for his father to say something—anything—for even the lightest touch of that lazily scornful voice to cut him down and leave him a wretched ruin of misery; but only silence replied.
"Harry," said Dumbledore, and his voice was pained, "I understand that what you've gone through is—too terrible for me to truly comprehend, but please, please know that others have been wounded too, that others carry deep scars as well—"
"DO YOU THINK I DIDN'T KNOW THAT?" Harry shouted. "Do you think I'm still some wide-eyed kid you could trick with your long white beard and twinkling blue eyes?" He couldn't tell if he was facing the door or facing an elderly man with defeated blue eyes. "I'll let you know, sir, that frankly I don't care anymore. I am sick of forgiving, sick of being your good little boy with a heart full of love and kindness. I took on that part for two whole months, and all it gave me was—" He looked down at his hands, because he thought he could feel them aching again, but it was just his imagination. "—pain." He looked up and sneered. "Ask Neville to be your protégé, if you need to find someone else's life to ruin—his grandmother would be thrilled, you know. Now, if you'll excuse me—" He reached out, and tried the doorknob again. It turned, and he stumbled out, the door thudding shut behind him before he could recover his balance.
Harry stood for a moment, unmoving, as though he had emerged into the blazing sunlight from a dim room. Then he began his way down the stairs, holding tight to the rails and moving more jerkily than since his lessons in the ways of being blind.
"Well," he hissed belligerently, breaking the silence. "Aren't you going to say anything?"
He strode past the gargoyle and held up his hands; he walked into a wall, and haltingly felt his way down its length.
"No," said the snake, simply.
"And why not?" Harry could feel his jaw working, pushing the sibilant words out like poisonous vapors of a basilisk's breath. "You always have something terribly insightful to say about my bad behavior." The snake stayed silent. "Go on! Say it!"
"I have nothing to say."
Harry laughed harshly as he continued stumbling down the hall. "You're a lying little serpent, aren't you? What if I commanded you to say something—as master to servant, as master to slave? Would you say anything then?" His voice resonated through the empty corridor. "Answer me! Why aren't you answering me?"
Silence replied. He grabbed the snake's tail, roughly pulled it from around his neck, and flung it like a rag doll to the ground. "ANSWER ME!"
Then he stopped. There was someone close by. He whirled around and felt a sharp coldness at his fingertips that only moments later did he remember were the silver needles.
"Who's there?" he demanded to the misty whiteness, taking a step back.
"Harry?"
Harry relaxed, but he felt shaky and unbalanced, acutely aware of the nakedness of his bare neck. "Hermione," he said. "I thought it was—nevermind." He paused. The silence felt strained. "Is Draco with you?"
The familiar footsteps sounded. "Yes," said the Slytherin, but Harry frowned at the tone. There was something about it that he could remember having heard before. And they were silent again.
"Well, Hermione," said Harry, trying to sound casual and unconcerned, "you're… unusually quiet." He decided immediately that that wasn't a very good idea: though he didn't want this deafening stillness, he didn't want to be bombarded with questions either. "Is something the matter?"
Hermione was silent—again. Harry wished suddenly, fiercely, that he could see, that he could tell whether or not Hermione and Draco were exchanging a hesitant glance, that he could know if Hermione's face was touched by worry, or marred by dread and suspicion.
"Harry," said Hermione, and Harry felt his heart sink at her tone, "a few weeks ago, Neville told me something that I thought I'd never have to worry about."
Neville? thought Harry, his dread making way for disbelief and an anger that was laced with a sense of betrayal. Neville? Harry snorted. "I'm not sure about you, but I wouldn't exactly trust some fellow whose grandmother thinks I'm a blood traitor and wants her grandson to commit a glorified murder."
"It's not like that," said Hermione, sounding cross. "He told me something about what happened at the end of last year at the Ministry of Magic—and I hadn't believed it, or thought that it was—it was a fluke, or something, but after you returned and returned so changed—"
"Wait," Harry interrupted, "what did he tell you? What lies did he say about me?" His mind went back, going feverishly over what had happened in the Department of Secrets—Hermione being knocked out, Sirius fighting, Sirius falling, the terrible, blinding grief—
"That you put the Cruciatus on my aunt, Bellatrix Lestrange," said Draco.
Harry's mind froze. He remembered everything in the flash, from the heat of his rage to the teetering sense of guilt and horrifying disbelief to the taunting leer on her unkempt face, but that was secondary: he heard too well the emotionless note of accusation in Draco's tone—almost as though Draco were addressing an utter stranger from behind bars.
"It didn't work," Harry said harshly, "did Neville tell you that? Did he tell you that Bellatrix said I couldn't do it, because I didn't enjoy hurting people enough?"
"You asked her about it?" said Hermione, faintly, after a moment's pause.
"Oh, yes," Harry snarled, almost reeling from the sheer idiocy of her question. "Of course I asked her about it—over a cup of tea, too, at the Fountain of Magical Brethren, where Voldemort happened to be waiting with his finest batch of crumpets." He was breathing deeply, panting, the sound of his breathing the only noise in the corridor. "Why aren't you saying anything?" he shouted. "Do you seriously believe—did you—"
Draco was moving, pulling Hermione along. "Let him alone a bit," he muttered, as Hermione dragged her feet in silent reluctance. "They get into rages, sometimes—Father would, every so often, I remember…"
Harry listened to them go. His mind was blank. He was almost unable to believe what he had just heard, for it was impossible—ludicrous—ridiculous— How could they think that he was secretly turning into some deranged Death Eater? How could they be so stupid? He was immobilized by disbelief and anger and utter helplessness: a tongue of hysterical laughter was running up his lungs and choking his throat, but it somehow it transformed into a maddened urge to scream—
But he did neither and merely slumped against the wall. It was strangely difficult to breathe. He slid down, rubbing his back painfully against the hard stone and leaned his head back. He heard the snake slowly slither to his side.
"Excellent situation, this, isn't it?" Harry muttered, almost slurring his words. "They think I'm going to turn into a bloody Death Eater. A bloody Death Eater." The snake said nothing, only coiled next to Harry's ankles and rubbed its head consolingly against Harry's leg. Harry, his blank eyes still staring off into space, convulsed with a brief jerk of laughter. "You know, they've almost managed to convince me that I'm about to be a bloody Death Eater. After all, I might be able to cast a proper Cruciatus now."
"Don't, arglwydd," whispered the snake.
Harry inched down his hand and hesitantly touched the snake's head. Before he could say anything, the snake muttered, "You needn't apologize, arglwydd."
Harry's hand stilled. "What makes you think I was going to?"
"You were, weren't you?"
Harry was silent for a moment, his thumb now running back and forth over the snake's scaly head. "Yes," he said at last. "I was going to. And I still am. I'm sorry, snake. I—really am. But not for everything."
"Not for everything," the snake agreed. "Never for everything. The world doesn't know how lucky it is to have you."
Harry laughed. "They can stink in their ignorance for all I care," he sneered, but even he could hear the bitter note in it. "Hatred is much easier to deal with than adoration. You haven't any great expectations to meet."
"They'll come around, I'm sure," said the snake, sounding as though it couldn't possibly be otherwise. "The girl isn't quite that stupid. And the boy would be lost without you."
"Right," muttered Harry. But he thought of the future, of the lost and lonely feeling that would come whenever Hermione or Draco moved away just like the rest of the whispering crowd, of the lessons with his father that he would have to endure rigidly and in solitude; and the pressure of his thumb against the snake's head increased until the snake nudged him in his calf. "Right," Harry muttered, forcing away some of the darkness and dread. "They can wander with their faulty conclusions for as long as they want." Harry got up, the snake slithering up his body as he did so. "It doesn't matter to me. Voldemort still must die."
He wondered dimly, at the back of his mind, how much of that he was really trying to believe.