Um. Yeah. This chapter is entirely new. It was not in the original outline. I hope it works, since it's just ripped the story in the direction of Harry being more disturbed than I ever thought possible. Here we go.
Chapter Five: Like a Gryffindor"How could you let him do that to you?"
Harry shook his head and closed his eyes as he leaned on the wall of the common room. There were two seventh-years asleep on one of the couches, drooling on each other. He hoped they didn't wake up. He didn't think he could explain the broom in his hand, nor the snake hissing questions from his shoulder, nor the swimming confusion in his own head.
How had Snape caught him? Why hadn't Harry come up with some way to resist Snape's insinuations?
"I know," Sylarana announced, making Harry jump.
"How?" he asked, once again checking the seventh-years. They didn't look any closer to waking up. Harry relaxed a bit. He preferred the moments when he didn't have to worry about whether he was speaking English or Parseltongue.
"You aren't sleeping well enough."
Harry blinked at nothing, then shook his head and made for his bedroom, despite the fact that he would have to stop talking to Sylarana aloud when he reached it. Blaise was a light sleeper, and Draco would probably attempt to ask him where he'd been, unless he gave up in disgust as he had the last few nights. Harry knew his friendship with the Malfoy heir was dissolving. He was pleased.
I am pleased, he thought. Just not happy. And I don't want to have this conversation with Sylarana.
"Think about it," she said, poking her head out from under his sleeve to look up at him. Her eyes actually shone in the dim light of the common room, which Harry found unnerving. "You spend your dreams staring at dark figures who do nothing interesting, or talking to the equally boring Tom Riddle. Then you wake up and you fly, or you practice spells, or you talk to me."
"I'd be happy to stop talking to you," Harry muttered as he reached his door. He touched it lightly with his fingertips, but didn't open it yet. He did want to say these next words aloud, for emphasis. "And I need the flying. It's the only thing that's keeping me—grounded for right now." He pushed the door open.
An interesting way of putting it, Sylarana said, her voice retreating into his mind as she sank into his skin. I know you're happy when you fly. And that is why you will join the Quidditch team. Then you will be happier, and you will sleep better, and I will not have to spend all my time talking you away from a precipice. And there will be flying. I like flying, but not when you are so tired that you are like this.
"I'm not tired," Harry whispered as he made his way between the beds, ignoring the risk of waking someone up. Vince and Greg's rumbling snores said they weren't going to wake, and Blaise and Draco had the curtains on their beds drawn. "I'll be fine. These weeks are hard, but I knew they would be. I just have to keep going until I can—"
"Until you can what, Harry?"
Harry nearly leaped out of his robes. Draco's curtains were open after all, just on the side next to Harry's bed instead of Blaise's. He had his wand out, with a Lumos spell glowing steadily on the end, and he was staring at Harry.
Harry shrugged at him and shrank the broom with a tap of his wand. Then he reached for his trunk. He would put on his pyjamas, and lie on the bed, and close his eyes. Eventually, he would sleep. If Tom Riddle was there, he would deal with him. Sylarana was silly to worry.
If you're going to be all stupid and silly, then you should have let me bite him, Sylarana sulked. Then he couldn't tell anyone that you speak to serpents. Though I don't understand why you wouldn't want to tell anyone. They would all be charmed to find out that such a beautiful snake deigns to talk to you.
"No, Harry."
Harry looked up. Draco had gripped his arm where it rested on the trunk. His face was slightly flushed, his hair mussed. Harry supposed he'd been sleeping before he heard the door open.
As he had for the past three weeks whenever Draco tried to cajole a response out of him, Harry fixed his eyes on a point past Draco's left shoulder and waited with a bored expression for him to give up.
The force of Draco's punch sent him reeling back, crashing through his curtains and sitting down on his own bed. Sylarana hissed in agitation, and Harry put one hand down on his arm, hoping to calm her.
It's not that bad, he said, lifting his other hand to feel his face. And it wasn't. One cheek was bruised, and he'd probably have a faint black eye, but the hexes had been worse. He could bear far worse pain. It only took an effort of will.
You are only saying that because you are stupid and silly with lack of sleep, Sylarana said, but at least she wasn't slithering down his arm anymore.
"We're having this out now, Harry," said Draco, and climbed into the bed beside him. Before Harry could object, he drew the curtains, then cast a Silencing Charm and another one Harry didn't know, but which caused a pink tracing of light in the air that he recognized from Malfoy Manor. Some kind of ward, then, he surmised as Draco turned to face him.
"No one is going to bother us," said Draco. "And you're not going to sleep until you answer me."
Harry shrugged and stared at the curtains. He could wait.
No, you can't, said Sylarana sharply. Answer him, so you can go to sleep, and I can go to sleep, and we can stop all this nonsense. It is making my scales dull. She paused suggestively. Biting an annoying pureblood wizard might put the shine back on them.
Harry sighed and met Draco's eyes. Snape had ordered him to make up his friendships, after all. The trick would be doing it on the outside while leaving the core hollow. "What do you want, Draco?" he asked.
"I want to know what the fuck is going on," said Draco, his voice all the more impressive for being low, level, almost conversational. He moved his wand so that Harry could see only his face, all piercing gray eyes and set jaw. "I want to know why the fuck you're ignoring me and acting like a—like a Gryffindor. I was your friend all last year, Harry. We spent Christmas together." He paused, then said, wielding the words like a whip, "You accepted a life debt from me. That creates a bond between wizards. I deserve an answer."
Harry winced. He had hoped that Draco would not bring that up. He hadn't, so far. It was considered bad manners to mention a life debt once the one under it had fulfilled his obligations.
And then, as if borne on the singing of a phoenix, the answer came to him.
Here was a way out of Snape's blackmail, and to grow closer to Connor at the same time. He had been deceiving Draco about the real causes of his sudden uninterest in him—which was something a Slytherin would do, and something he had sworn he would stop doing. And he had concealed his Parseltongue talent, too, and that would give Snape something else to hold over him.
He thinks I'm like a Gryffindor? Harry smiled, and saw from the blink and the sudden mild falter in Draco's face that said he didn't know what was happening. That didn't matter, as Harry was about to explain it to him. Then I'll behave like one. I should have from the beginning. I said that I would, and I didn't. I fell right back into Slytherin lying, Slytherin deception, Slytherin manipulation.
Time to show who I really am.
"You're right, Draco," Harry said calmly. "I should have told you from the beginning what I'm doing and why I'm doing it." He met Draco's eyes. He could do it more easily now that the wand, and thus the Lumos spell, had drifted a bit away from Draco's face in his befuddlement. "I'm sorry. Will you accept my apology?" He held out his hand.
Draco clasped it, still staring at him. Harry shrugged, feeling innocent and free of burdens, almost ready to laugh. Was this how Gryffindors felt all the time, when they acted with clean consciences? He envied them more than he ever had, if so.
That's the lack of sleep talking, Sylarana informed him haughtily. Their mascot is not a snake. Therefore, they are deprived, not blessed.
"So. Why?" Draco asked.
Harry realized he had sat in silence for a moment, and Draco might think he was going back on his resolve to tell him. He hastened ahead. "I want to be closer to Connor. I don't really want to be a Slytherin. I'm tired of having my brother think that I'm a Dark wizard, that I don't support him or that I'm going to wake up one morning and say Avada Kedavra to him. My duty is to protect him, Draco. It always was." That last was a risk, since he had promised their mother to keep that secret—there were too many people outside the family who wouldn't understand the importance of Harry's mission and might try to stop him from doing it—but Draco knew that, or could guess it, from having seen what Harry had done last year.
Draco's face went ashen, and then pink with anger. Harry nodded. He had expected this. It would be much easier, and in the end much less painful for the both of them, if he let Draco's rage sever their friendship.
"If Connor thinks you're Dark, that's his bloody problem," Draco said, leaning close enough that Harry felt spittle hit his cheek. Sylarana made a prim comment from under his jumper that Harry didn't bother paying attention to. "I know you're not, Harry. And I know that you're a Slytherin. And I don't care that you want to protect him more than you want anything else. You're not losing me as a friend, Harry."
Harry blinked. Somehow, acting like a Gryffindor wasn't going the way he had planned.
"But, Draco," he said, "it's not fair to you. Don't you see? You shouldn't have a friend who thinks of you as second best to his brother. You should have an equal friendship. Besides," he added gently, stirring in a truth he had learned last year, "I know that you're mostly fascinated with my magic, for whatever reason, and maybe with how a Potter ended up in Slytherin. You'll get bored of that someday. It's not enough to build a friendship on. I'm surprised you haven't got tired of me already, that this matters to you so much."
Draco sat there for a moment, chest heaving. Harry had the impression he was trying to speak, and that anger was stifling his words.
"Has it occurred to you," he finally said, sounding the most like his father that Harry had ever heard him, "that your two statements there are contradictory?"
Harry shook his head. "No, they aren't—"
"Yes, they are." Draco was holding Harry's arm, luckily not the one that cradled Sylarana, hard enough to hurt. Now he shook it, sending vibrations all the way up to Harry's shoulder. "If you think I'm only fascinated with you, that I don't like you at all, you shouldn't care about my feelings. They'd be only the rantings of a spoiled child who's had his favorite toy taken away. And you do care how I feel. You care that your tie to Connor might put me second best." He tilted his head like a hawk, or his eagle-owl, and made Harry feel transparent with the way he stared at him. "That means I matter to you, Harry. That was all I wanted to know. I'm staying your friend."
Harry shifted his hand to intertwine his fingers with Draco's. "It's not fair to you," he said.
"I'll choose what's fair," said Draco. "And I think fair is your apologizing to the rest of our House, and—and doing whatever you have to do to prove that you're some kind of bloody Gryffindor-Slytherin hybrid, whatever you are. It doesn't matter. I know you're Slytherin, so your little missteps along the path to reality don't concern me." He smiled. It wasn't quite like any smile Harry had seen from him before. "You're being honest with me, telling me that Connor matters more to you than I do. I know that. I accept that. I'm still here. And Connor means more to you than the whole bloody world does, so I'm hardly in a unique position." He leaned back, smiling easily, not letting go of Harry's hand. "Besides," he added, "I want to be there when you wake up to the fact that you're a Slytherin, and that Connor might not be the most important thing in the world after all. Should cause a big fucking bang, shouldn't it?" Now he looked like a child anticipating sweets for Christmas.
Harry stared steadily at him. "That's never going to happen, Draco."
"Yes, it will."
"No, it won't."
"Yes, it will."
"No, it w—" Harry cut himself off. He was acting like a child, in Merlin's name. He sighed. "I'm tired," he admitted.
"I know," said Draco, and didn't let go of his hand. "You're always creeping about at night. What do you do?"
Harry started to tell him, but ended up yawning. Draco let go of his hand at once, and nodded to him. "I'll let you sleep. But I expect some answers in the morning, Harry Bloody Potter."
He released his ward and his Charm on the curtains, and slipped off to his own bed, leaving Harry to blink at the ceiling of the four-poster. Then he shook his head, and went to slip into his pyjamas.
I can sense what you're going to do tomorrow, said Sylarana. I heartily approve. It is time that you stopped letting these silly children with their even sillier fears control you.
Snape's not a child, Harry felt compelled to point out.
He's an idiot. Let me bite him.
No.
Harry kept up that steady argument until he managed to reach his bed and fall asleep. He felt Sylarana's presence slithering into his mind. He waited, in that brief half-moment of consciousness, for the nightmare dark figures, or Tom Riddle.
Neither came. For once, he slept soundly.
Harry leaned in through the doors of the Great Hall and checked the House tables one more time. He nodded to himself. He didn't think every student was there yet, since it was only halfway through breakfast, but the tables hummed with noise and there were few empty places. Conscientious students and early risers would be leaving soon. Even better, all the professors were there, including Sirius. This was the best chance he'd have.
He strode in, and made his way towards the middle of the room instead of towards the Slytherin table. More and more people turned to watch him as he went, and the buzz of conversation died a bit, then altered. Most of the people who were talking about him seemed puzzled.
You don't have long to wait, Harry promised them, and halted in the dead center of the Great Hall, between the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables. He turned to face Connor, who was staring at him with his mouth half-open, full of food. Harry smiled despite himself. His brother was being disgusting.
His brother was a twelve-year-old boy.
His brother was the Boy-Who-Lived, and he deserved to know some things about Harry now.
"Good morning," Harry started. His voice hushed most of the conversations in an instant, and now everyone was staring at him goggle-eyed. Harry stiffened his muscles against the pressure of a thousand eyes and carried on. "I'm glad that you're all here, since I would have hated to make this announcement to just one person."
He looked straight at Connor and extended his arm. Are you ready, Sylarana?
They are all going to get to admire me? she asked, with a languorous slide to the last few words.
They are.
Then I am ready.
She slithered out of his sleeve and coiled about his wrist, showing herself off to dazzling advantage; the Great Hall's ceiling mimicked the sunny day outside, and beamed off her scales. There came gasps from the people nearest Harry. He couldn't tell if they were gasps of wonder or fear. Most likely both, though he thought the latter emotion would come from Sylarana being a snake. He doubted that many of the students knew what a Locusta was.
He darted a glance at the staff table, and saw from the dropped jaws and staring eyes that most of the professors did indeed recognize a Locusta, and had no idea what was happening.
Harry couldn't take the chance that one of them would interrupt him, but he did manage to savor Snape's thunderstruck expression for a moment before he turned back to his brother. He was breathing slightly faster now, a consequence of all the people staring at him, but he knew he could bear it. He would have to. This was for Connor.
"Connor," he said softly, deliberately not looking at Sylarana so that he could speak in English, "I'm a Parselmouth. I only found out a few months ago. I kept it from you because I thought you would think I was a Dark wizard, and I didn't want to hurt you that way. Now I'm admitting it. I'm sorry. Keeping that from you wasn't really Gryffindor."
He sank to one knee on the floor and bowed his head, the old gesture of surrender to a power greater than one's own. Sylarana, obviously concerned that people couldn't see her now, twined up until she crowned his head, her tongue flicking out and tasting the air. A low murmur of fear was rising from the students.
Harry glanced at the tip of her tail, which hung past his nose. "Sylarana, don't attack," he said.
The gasps increased tenfold, and Harry knew he'd said the words in Parseltongue. He closed his eyes and waited.
He'd chosen this. He couldn't let Snape have control over him. He couldn't run anymore from what he really was. He had to be brave, to face consequences, to do what he did for other people and not for himself. That was what Gryffindors did.
It would be easier if they weren't staring so hard. Harry clenched his fists and fought to stay calm. The long-repeated words of his vows were pushing against him, insistent now.
To never compete with him, never show him up, and never let anyone else know that I'm so close to him. To be ordinary, so that he can be extraordinary.
He was in the middle of the Great Hall, with all the students standing on tiptoe to get a better look at him. He'd just revealed that he carried a dangerous Dark gift, one that Voldemort had had most famously. He'd addressed his words to his twin, but drawn attention to himself.
There was a maelstrom of shrieking voices in his head, blending with the faster and faster beat of his heart and his breath, until he was close to hyperventilating.
You can't draw attention to yourself. You're doing it. Why are you doing it?
Harry fought with his training. He'd already broken the letter of his vows to preserve their spirit when he told Draco about protecting Connor. He could do this, because it was temporary, and only in the service of a higher good, and it would be over soon. He could do this. He could do this.
You're not a real Gryffindor, not if you feel afraid.
He held still. No, he answered that particular claim. You're a Gryffindor if you feel afraid and still don't run away, and do what needs to be done.
He heard a wild hiss, and felt the hex coming at Sylarana. He threw up a hand and called Protego around him, wandless, his lips barely shaping the word. The Shield Charm deflected whatever spell it had been. Someone cried out, and then the rest of the Great Hall was in motion, its tableau broken.
Harry looked up. The students were shoving back from their tables, some running to the door, some drawing wands—most especially the sixth- and seventh-year students—and some standing frozen as if they thought Sylarana couldn't see them if they were motionless. The professors were coming around the staff table, walking hastily towards them. Snape had his wand out, and Sirius's teeth were fixed in a snarl, and Professor McGonagall was shouting something stern about foolish boys who brought dangerous snakes into Hogwarts.
Harry glanced back at his twin, the only one who mattered. Connor looked frozen.
"Stop."
The voice spread out over the Great Hall like a sea of calm, powerful, lapping them all in its embrace. Harry found himself breathing more easily. The pressure of the stares no longer seemed as disorienting as before.
"What is he doing in your head?" Sylarana said. "I don't like him there." There was the feeling of a scuffle, as though someone had bounced a stone off the inside of his skull, and Harry winced.
Then the calm faded, and he threw himself to his feet, gasping, wanting nothing so much as to get out of everybody's sight and hide in the shadows—
"Harry."
Harry glanced up, eyes wide, to see Headmaster Dumbledore in front of him. Dumbledore had one hand extended, touching but not beaching the Shielding Charm. His eyes were calm, and wise, and very blue. Harry realized then who the source of the powerful voice had been.
He didn't understand why the tranquility had left him, though. He tried to put his hands behind his back so that the Headmaster wouldn't see them shaking, but they betrayed him. Dumbledore gave him a keen glance and seemed to understand.
"Everyone, calm down," he said, and the noise in the Great Hall diminished by half. "I will take young Mr. Potter to my office and discuss this matter with him further." He turned and nodded to Connor. "And you, Mr. Potter, please come along as well."
Harry sagged, relief washing over him like the tide. Connor stood up and hurried forward, as though Dumbledore's statement were the final answer he was waiting for. He enveloped Harry in a tight hug, and Harry let the Protego fade, his arms shaking as he clutched Connor back.
"You may do that, since everyone has admired me," said Sylarana. "And I threw the other one out of your head." She twined through his hair in a small victory dance.
Harry swallowed. The mere thought that Sylarana was so deeply embedded in his thoughts that she could throw off Dumbledore's influence—
"Boys?"
Harry looked up. Dumbledore stood near the entrance of the Great Hall now, motioning them along. He did look back at the staff table, though, and the professors standing frozen near it.
"Severus, if you would excuse the boys from your Potions class this morning?" he asked. There was a strength to his tone that Harry knew made it an order, and not a request.
Snape nodded. "Of course, Headmaster." He turned away, but not before giving Harry a quite vicious final glance.
Harry didn't care. Connor's arms were around him. Connor was whispering into his ear.
"I don't care that you're a Parselmouth. I don't care. It took courage for you to do that. Oh, Harry, you're a Gryffindor after all!"
No, I'm not, Harry wanted to say. I manipulated this. I set this all up. I would have just found you and told you alone, except that I wanted everyone to know so that they couldn't hate me if they found out later. I made myself the center of attention. Why do I never notice that I'm acting like a Slytherin until it's too late?
He didn't say that aloud, though. That, he was too much of a coward to do. He let Connor escort him with an arm around his shoulders, and they followed the Headmaster to his office.
"Sit down, boys. Would you like a sweet?"
Connor accepted eagerly, though without taking his arm from around Harry's shoulders. Harry shook his head in numb negation. He was still staring straight ahead, trying to reconcile what he'd done to what he'd thought he was doing.
Sylarana was no help, hissing on his arm and commenting on her own appearance and how she couldn't go back to sleep yet, Connor had his lump of an arm on her favorite resting place. She wouldn't bite anyone for the next little while, though. Harry knew that.
Dumbledore sat down behind his desk, after conducting an odd argument entirely in whistles with one of the small silver instruments he kept on the wall. He folded his hands and beamed at them. Harry lowered his head, unsure if he should meet the Headmaster's eyes. He didn't need to distract himself by looking around the office. He'd been here before, at the end of last year, after Connor defeated Voldemort. He knew what it looked like.
"Well, young Harry," Dumbledore said cheerfully, "you've caused quite a stir."
Harry winced. "I know, sir. I'm sorry, sir."
"Nothing to be sorry for," said Connor fiercely, and gave him a one-armed hug. "I'm glad you told me. I'm glad you told all of them. They can think you're a Dark wizard, but I can say that my twin never lies to me!"
Harry swallowed.
"There is the matter, of course," said Dumbledore in a considering voice, "of your being a Parselmouth. And having a Locusta on school property, Harry. She is quite a dangerous pet, my boy. I would not advise keeping her."
"I know," Harry whispered. "But she keeps threatening to bite people if I don't keep her. And—well, sir, she was on school property last year, too. She told me that she came from the Forbidden Forest."
"Really?" Dumbledore chuckled. "I am amazed that Hagrid never discovered her, then. He would admire you," he added to Sylarana, in an aside. "He has a deep admiration for the dangerous and beautiful magical creatures of our world."
I like him, Sylarana hissed sleepily. Sometimes. But he still should not have been in your head. It's mine. She curled up and dropped off to sleep.
"So you will keep her, then," said Dumbledore, nodding. "I really see no way to part her from you without killing her, and I am told that a Parselmouth can control a Locusta better than anyone alive." He reached out and tapped another of the small silver instruments hanging on the wall. Harry felt a faint buzzing start in his teeth. "Nevertheless, I will ask you to submit to a ward-setting, Harry. This insures that your little snake can never get too far from you without an alarm sounding in my office, which will alert me at once, and a cage coming down on her. That will be all right?"
Harry nodded. "Of course, sir. But won't the parents of the other students complain?"
"Undoubtedly," said Dumbledore. He chortled. "But they have been complaining about various things as long as I have been Headmaster. I am sure they will keep complaining when I am in my grave and another Headmaster sits in Hogwarts. It is a reality of our lives" He popped a sweet into his mouth and chewed it gravely. Harry wondered if he ever really stopped smiling.
He turned abruptly to Connor. "Mr. Potter, had you truly suspected your brother of being a Dark wizard?"
Connor flushed. Harry glared at Dumbledore. Why does he have to put him on the spot like that?
"I—well, ah, I don't know," Connor hedged, looking sideways at Harry. "He's in Slytherin, and he has a temper, and he's powerful, and Sirius said—"
Dumbledore closed his eyes and sighed. "Unfortunately, Sirius Black is no more willing to let childhood grudges go than—various other members of our staff," he murmured. "A fine man, an even finer Gryffindor, but he does have his limitations."
He leaned forward, his eyes open once more. Harry felt Connor wince, and wished he knew of a way to distract Dumbledore's attention, short of suggesting that Sylarana attack him.
"It is important that you understand this, Mr. Potter," Dumbledore said, his words grave and slow. "The survival of the wizarding world depends on unity. It was our fragmentation that allowed Lord Voldemort to attack us in the last war, the distrust that set pureblood against Muggleborn, the Ministry against its own Aurors, and—" He paused for only a moment. "Peter Pettigrew against your parents."
Connor flinched again. Harry had to stifle a growl. Must he bring up Connor's most painful memories?
Dumbledore touched a hand to his temple as though it hurt, briefly, then pulled it away. "In our school," he said, "unity is represented by the Houses. Most students think in terms of their own House. Few look outside them. And, in some cases, the rivalries linger even when one has left Hogwarts.
"It will be up to you to change that, Mr. Potter."
"Me?" Connor squeaked. He sounded terrified.
Dumbledore nodded. "Yes. You must learn to see the good in Slytherins, in Ravenclaws, and in Hufflepuffs as well as Gryffindors."
Connor bit his lip and plucked at his robes with his free hand. "But—some of them are Dark wizards, Headmaster."
"Yes," Dumbledore acknowledged. "That is very true, Mr. Potter. But your own twin is a Slytherin who acts like a Gryffindor. He has had you as an example all his life, and that may be—I think it is—why he is so different." His gaze slid sideways to Harry again, who felt pinned in turn. "Imagine," Dumbledore said softly, "what could be, Mr. Potter, once you take your rightful position in the fight against Voldemort. Imagine whom you might inspire to turn to the Light."
Connor was silent for a long time. Harry waited, no longer sure what to feel. Maybe it was for the best that Dumbledore had done this, since neither Harry nor their mother would have had the heart to slam the truth so fiercely at Connor.
Finally, Connor said, in a heavy, reluctant tone, "I'll think about it, Headmaster. But I don't know how to inspire anyone yet."
"Young Harry can show you," said Dumbledore, and smiled again. "He knows well your influence in his life, don't you, Harry?"
"I do," Harry said, and turned to Connor. "You gave me the courage to do what I did today. You're the most important thing in the world to me, Connor. I love you, and I promise you, you can do this."
Connor just stared at him for a moment. Then his eyes filled with tears, and he grabbed Harry and crushed him into a hug, stirring a protest from Sylarana.
"That is all I wanted to talk to you boys about," said Dumbledore, and this time he had a smile for both of them. "From here, you must find your own paths forward at least a short part of the time. But remember: do not hesitate to come to me for advice." He nodded to Connor. "You are in a unique position, Mr. Potter. It is understandable that you will have troubles. But you are never alone." He cast Harry a single oblique glance.
"Thank you, Headmaster," Connor whispered. "I'll remember that."
He steered Harry gently from the room then. Harry, in love and in pride and in relief that this had turned out so much better than it could have, went with him.
Dumbledore sighed and sank back in his seat, putting one hand over his face. Fawkes, the phoenix, gave a questioning trill from his perch, then flew over and landed on his friend's shoulder when Dumbledore said nothing. He rubbed his warm head on the old wizard's cheek until a hand rose to stroke him.
Sacrifices, Dumbledore was thinking as he gazed at the closed door of his office. We all make sacrifices, for the sake of lifting the burden from those who cannot bear it.
He was thinking of a young Gryffindor marked with a heart-shaped scar, and a young Slytherin with the Dark Mark branded on his arm swearing that he would turn against Voldemort and be loyal to the Light, and a young Slytherin with the heart of a Gryffindor.
And another Gryffindor, whom Dumbledore had watched, and pondered upon, and finally, against his will, chosen and explained a problem to. And that Gryffindor had made a sacrifice that still echoed down the years and troubled his mind to think of.
It was willing, Dumbledore thought, gently caressing Fawkes's glorious plumage. It was made with eyes open, with clear heart, with full knowledge of the choices.
That was the only thing that let him sleep at night.
Harry's sacrifice is the same way.
But when he'd seen the boy kneeling in the center of the Great Hall, a snake twined around his head, it hadn't felt that way. He was only twelve years old.
With a heavy heart and a heavier conscience, Albus Dumbledore turned back to his work of making decisions that no one else was prepared to. There was another wizard he must speak to, about choices and sacrifices and how he could help the Light, given that he was in a unique position to do so.