Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter! Review responses up in LJ later.

Well, damn.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Over Easter Holidays

Draco was fussing and whining about Harry not coming to Malfoy Manor for Easter, and he'd been doing it since yesterday, so Harry was paying more attention to his breakfast than Draco when the other boy abruptly gripped his arm. "Look," he breathed. "What's he doing here?"

Harry looked up, blinking, but saw no one looming in front of their table; he'd assumed Connor had come over to visit, from Draco's incredulity. Then he realized Draco was looking upwards. Harry followed his gaze.

A great horned owl had swept in majestically through the windows, circling over the tables as though it didn't know its ultimate destination. The post owls had come and gone, so everyone's eyes were on it. Harry shook his head slightly. "You recognize that owl?" he whispered to Draco.

"It's Julius," Draco said, which wasn't an answer. He still hadn't looked away from the bird.

"What?" Harry attempted to convey in that one word that he had no idea what Draco meant.

"My father's—formal owl," said Draco, as though he had looked for a better way to phrase it and hadn't found one. "I've only seen him send Julius with a message once, when he'd argued with Pansy's father and wanted to talk to him about it. I don't know what it means that he sent him now."

Harry watched in silence, and wasn't surprised when Julius swept one more circle and then alighted on the Slytherin table in front of him. This close, the bird's size was even more impressive. Harry met the immense golden eyes under the swept-back tufted horns, and waited.

Julius, never looking away from Harry, extended one talon. Harry took the small bundle from him and unwrapped it. It was folded in a silken mesh, woven to be both delicate and strong. Harry had heard of it, though he'd never actually seen it before. It would have acromantula silk somewhere in the weaving.

Inside, as he had half-expected—but really, no more than half—were a piece of parchment, folded in half, and a small green stone. Harry turned the stone over. It was carved in the shape of a fingernail, and it wasn't an emerald, though it had the color of one.

He glanced at the parchment, more a note than a letter.

For Harry Potter, on this first day of spring. May our truce in the future grow as bright and green as the stone that binds us.

Lucius Malfoy.

Harry smiled thinly and looked at the stone again. Yes, today was the vernal equinox, the first day of spring. Lucius was following the very oldest of traditions in sending his truce gifts near the turn of the seasons; the first had probably even arrived on the winter solstice, though Harry had still been unconscious in the hospital wing at the time. By linking the truce gifts to the natural cycle of the solstices and equinoxes, Lucius demonstrated his sincerity and his earnestness to make the truce as long-lasting and permanent as the seasons themselves were.

Supposedly. Harry still did not trust the elder Malfoy to do anything that was not for his own benefit. This was a game. He was intrigued that Lucius had gone this far, and he knew he could afford to respond. He would send the next gift in plenty of time to let Lucius send the fifth gift on Midsummer. He really did not think it would happen, however. Sooner or later, practicality and prudence would overcome whatever perverse enjoyment Lucius was getting out of this.

"What does that mean?" Draco asked, his attention caught. He took the green stone from Harry and stared at it. "It's pretty. But what does it mean?"

"Tell you later," said Harry, and scooped the stone back into his own hand, and then into a pocket.

"Harry," Draco whined. "Tell me what it means."

"If I do," said Harry, standing up from the table to make his way to Charms, "does that mean that you'll stop pestering me to go home with you over Easter?"

Draco pouted. "Can't I have both?"

"No," Harry pointed out.

Draco shut up.

Behind him, Harry heard Julius's wings unfold as he took to the air. It was an insult to feed or pay a formal owl, so Harry hadn't tried. He watched as the great bird skimmed to the window and rose out of sight.

"Come on, Harry!" Connor yelled from the bottom of the stairs. He'd been permitted into the Slytherin common room, though not actually into the room covered with clutter from five busily packing Slytherin boys. "Sirius said he'd meet us out in front of the school with his motorbike in five minutes, and that was five minutes ago!"

Harry scooped the last of his clothes into his trunk and hugged Draco one-armed. Sylarana was on the other arm, sleeping so deeply that Harry didn't want to disturb her. Draco turned his head sulkily away.

"I'll see you when the summer term begins," Harry reminded him. "It's not as if it's that long, Draco. You know it isn't."

"But you could have come to the Manor," said Draco. "You could have spent time with me outside of school. And you didn't."

Harry huffed out a little sigh. This has gone on long enough, he thought. I've tried to be patient, but there's only so much I can take. "I spent Christmas with you," he said. "And last Christmas with you. And now I want to know what my parents have been keeping from me, why they didn't come to visit me at Christmas, and what they'll say to Connor. I've no doubt that I'm due some scolding, too." He shook his head. "I need to see my family, Draco."

Draco closed his eyes. "I know," he said in a small voice. "But every time I lose sight of you, I'm afraid that you might not come back."

Harry stared at him for a moment. He had not realized Draco was that far gone down the road of his strange obsession with him.

He reached out, clasped Draco's hand, and said, "Draco, the enchantment on the bottle—it's permanent, you know, unless the bottle is broken or unless something happens to me."

Draco opened his eyes and fixed them on him.

"If I die, you'll know," Harry whispered. "I promise. The colors will stop shifting and shining, because there will be no one there to feel them any more. I know it's not much, but it's knowledge."

Draco swallowed once, then said, "All right." He looked as if he would have said more, but Connor yelled from the bottom of the stairs again.

"Harry! Come on!"

Harry smiled slightly at Draco and levitated his trunk behind him. He had to hurry back, though, for the small object and letter he'd hidden behind the books on his shelf. It would not have been a disaster if he had forgotten to send them now, but he didn't want to concern himself with it while he was home.

Connor perked up at the sight of him and gestured Harry grandly towards the entrance to the common room. "Come on," he said. "I've been shouting for you for ages already."

"I know," said Harry, his mind on the object in his hands and on Draco. He really should have been thinking more about his family, he knew, and about Connor. Here was the chance to find out the answers to the questions he'd thought of over the last few weeks and grown steadily more frustrated about. One way or another, when he returned to school, he expected to know more than he did now. Even his parents' refusal to answer the questions would tell him something.

But he thought instead of what Draco had said, and the object in his hand burned like a hot coal.

But every time I lose sight of you, I'm afraid that you might not come back.

It made sense on one level, Harry acknowledged. He had faced Tom Riddle this year, and helped Connor battle Voldemort last year, and his life would be in more danger as the War mounted. But he was worried about what it might indicate for Draco. How far was he willing to go? What was he willing to risk, in the impossible—well, impossible at least for someone with the name of Malfoy—attempt to float between the two sides of the struggle?

He would have to have a serious talk with Draco when he came back, Harry thought. He would have to convince him that easing off on their friendship was the best thing for him. He had been willing to let it play out for as long as he had because he enjoyed Draco's company, and enjoyed him for what he was, for being so pure an example of his particular personality. But it was selfish. He had made another mistake, just as he had when trying to press Connor's friendships too fast, but now he would correct it.

Yet he's not going to take it well, is he?

Harry sighed. He would still hurt Draco less if he told him now than the War would.

"Mr. Potter."

Harry blinked and glanced up. He hadn't realized that Connor had been talking until he hushed, nor that they were almost out the front doors of Hogwarts. Snape had stopped them, standing in front of them like a wall of shadow. A quick sideways glance showed Connor scowling. Harry wasn't sure if Snape had been speaking to him, but he spoke quickly just in case.

"Yes, sir?"

Snape nodded at him and extended two slim books. Harry took them gingerly. They sparkled and crackled with wards that fell still when they felt the touch of his fingers.

Harry turned them so he could look at their spines, since neither bore a title on the covers. There were no titles there, either. He lifted questioning eyes to Snape.

"These are the only books I was able to uncover with information on the odd phenomenon in your mind," said Snape curtly. "I have sorted through them myself, but since I have only secondhand information and not your firsthand experience, it is up to you to make sense of them."

Harry nodded, dazed. He was amazed that Snape had been this much help to him. He had assumed the professor would either find nothing or not report it to him if he did. It was not as though Harry trusted Snape to be anything other than a bastard out for himself.

Snape's lips tightened, and Harry was reminded that Snape could read his thoughts.

He dropped his gaze and shifted his grip on the books, so that he was holding them firmly under his left arm. Sylarana still slept on, thankfully. "Thank you, sir," he said quietly. "I will study them. I should have something to report to you after the holidays."

"See that you do," said Snape, and swept away.

Harry continued walking, and Connor had no choice but to follow. He waited until Snape was probably out of earshot before asking his question, at least. "Why did you accept the books from him, Harry? And why take so long in the Slytherin dorms? I thought you couldn't wait to be home and rid of all this Slytherin nonsense." He gave a dramatic shudder, as though someone had enchanted serpents to crawl up his legs. Then he hurriedly patted his robe pockets. Harry hid an exasperated smile. Connor had developed a nervous habit of that every time he had a potentially frightening thought, as though he believed the twins would read his mind and come up with another pebble that did what he'd imagined.

Of course, not all his exasperation came from that. "Connor," he said quietly, as they emerged into the sunshine and saw Sirius waiting for them with the motorbike and Hedwig and Godric in their cages, "you should know that I can't forget about this 'Slytherin nonsense.' Wherever I go, I'm Slytherin, at least until I'm out of school."

Connor gave him an odd look. "But you don't have to act the same way you do when you aren't around Malfoy and Snape and all the rest of them. Why would you keep acting the same way?"

"Do you consider yourself less a Gryffindor because you're out of the Tower?" Harry shifted the small object and the letter he held to his right hand. It was becoming tricky, juggling those things and the books while trying not to wake Sylarana, but he would be rid of the stone and the letter in a moment.

"Well—no," said Connor. "But I'm not acting a particular way because that's my House and that's how people expect me to act. I really am Gryffindor, Harry." He gave his brother a winning smile.

Harry could see where this was going, and that it would all end in tears, and he decided he needed to say it anyway. He had been mistaken in trying to direct how Connor related to everyone else in the school. But he could refuse to live up to his brother's misconceptions. "And this is how I am, Connor," he said. "I am Slytherin."

Connor froze and turned to stare at him. Harry met his gaze as steadily as he could. Of course, after a moment, shame overcame him, and he looked down and away. He could feel Sirius's grin dying as he watched them, though they were still too far away for his godfather to hear what Connor said next.

"I thought—then there's something wrong, Harry," Connor began slowly. "I thought all Slytherins were false and fake and only cared about money and blood status. I thought most of them were evil." He bit his lip. "So either I was right in what I thought earlier this year and you're evil, or I was wrong about Slytherins. And how can either be true?"

Harry breathed carefully, his eyes never moving from his brother's. He had a chance to make this right, as long as he didn't screw it up. "Connor," he whispered. "Which do you think is true? If one thing or the other has to be true, which do you choose?"

Connor stared back at him, his eyes widening. Then he said, "But I can't be wrong about Slytherins, Harry! How can I be? Dad and Sirius always told me how evil they were!"

Harry closed his eyes and was conscious of his heart beating rapidly in his ears, over and over again, like the sound of velvet being crushed. Connor had passed the test. He was on the road that would lead him to the right conclusions in the end. Harry could hardly speak, he was so dizzy with relief and joy, but he tried.

"Maybe they were wrong, too," he whispered. "Adults can be wrong, you know."

Connor drew breath as if he were about to respond, but Sirius called out, "Hey! What's up with the two of you?"

"Coming, Sirius!" Connor called, and started running. Harry followed behind him, more slowly. The morning shone around him, and he was no longer as delicately balanced as he had been. He smiled oddly, knowing that Sirius and Connor were staring at him, and largely indifferent to it. He thought he could grow used to feeling his emotions more freely, if they would always be emotions like these.

He was so distracted that he almost forgot to take Hedwig from her cage, bind the stone and the letter to her talon, and whisper, "Take this to Lucius Malfoy, Hedwig."

She hooted at him obediently, nipped at his hair, and then jumped into the air, wings spread wide. Harry watched her vanish, and then climbed onto the bike as Sirius shrank their trunks.

"What was all that about?" Connor asked.

Harry smiled mysteriously. He didn't care if it was a smirk. Connor would have to get used to them sooner or later, now that he had a Slytherin for a brother.

His mind had wandered back to the package now winging its way to the Manor, the small red stone, and the simple note:

If you mean to bind yourself to me in green, then you must first overcome the blood that has been spilled between our families. I await your bridge, and send this stone to remind you what you must build it over.

Harry Potter.

"Harry!"

Harry looked up with a smile of pleasure. Remus had finally joined them; the full moon, and traveling to the safe stronghold that he kept for it, had kept him away since the boys arrived, but now he was here. Harry dropped the book on phoenixes that Snape had given him to read, and hurtled across the room, wrapping his arms around Remus's waist.

He could feel the werewolf's surprise. Harry was usually much more reserved than that, especially since Remus was Connor's godfather and not around as often as Sirius. His hand lingered hesitantly on Harry's hair for a moment, then smoothed down his back.

"Harry? Are you all right?" he asked.

"Of course," said Harry firmly. "I just wanted to thank you for whatever it was that you wrote in your letter to Sirius. It was brilliant. Thank you. He's been treating me a lot better since he got it."

Remus growled slightly. "And so he should be. If it was anyone else, then I might have been able to believe the way he was treating you at first, but Sirius, of all people! I'm very glad that he changed his mind." He embraced Harry, actually managing to lift him from the ground. Harry hid his surprise. He always forgot how strong Remus was until he actually saw him demonstrate it. "He told me that he was doing better, in his letters," Remus whispered in his ear, "but I didn't know if I could trust him to tell the truth."

"He was," said Harry, and waited patiently to be set back on the floor. "And Connor and I have made up."

"I noticed," said Remus, tilting his head slightly. Harry supposed he was catching the scent of happy camaraderie in the air instead of the scent of tension and stress and fear, assuming that such things had scents. "But what about you and your parents?"

Harry blinked. "We didn't argue, Remus."

"You didn't have the chance." Remus steered him towards the chair he'd jumped out of, one of a large number in the Potters' comfortable central room. When he sat down across from him, Harry realized Remus had wanted to talk to him privately. He kept his head up, refusing to look down as he wanted to. He didn't have to hide everything; surely not. If he could be honest with his mother and Sirius, and now his father, then he could be honest with Remus, too. The intent stare did make him breathe a little faster, though. "I want to know," said Remus quietly, "what they said about—about what they've done in the past."

"How much do you know?" Harry asked bluntly. This conversation was going to be impossible unless he knew where he had to tread carefully.

"Almost nothing," Remus admitted. "Lily told me some of it, but then she kept backing off and saying it wasn't the right time. She promised to tell me the next time you were home." He closed his eyes and sighed, and Harry saw dark circles under his eyes and a pallor on his cheeks that he had excused as the effects of the latest transformation. Now, he wasn't so sure. "I've been patient, Harry, because you don't just come out and accuse one of your oldest friends of abusing her elder son—"

"Abusing?" Harry spluttered. He should have asked their mother to tell Remus at once, he realized. Then he would not have had ridiculous ideas like this. "That's not true at all, Remus! She's given me extra training. Taught me wandless magic and pureblood customs and so on. It was all things I wanted to learn."

Remus opened his eyes, and though his gaze was mild, it still felt as if it cut right through Harry, which he didn't consider fair. "Why?"

"Why, what?" Harry rubbed his head. It hurt. "Why did I want to learn them? I've always wanted to learn things, Remus, you know that. I'm kind of surprised that I didn't end up in Ravenclaw, come to think of it—"

"Not that," said Remus. "Why was she training you in it? It would have made more sense to train Connor, if she really wanted him ready to face You-Know-Who." Then he shuddered. "Not that I think she should have done that, either. Connor has time to learn as he grows. It would be a horrible thing to do to any child, to dedicate his entire life to learning like that because you fear that—"

Abruptly, he cut himself off and made a strangled noise in his throat. "Oh, Harry," he whispered.

Harry could barely hear him. His head was pounding fiercely, and he closed his eyes. Behind them, flares and flashes of fire rampaged across his mind. He felt Sylarana, who had been watching the box closely, turn with a sudden hiss. She could not stop the agony that grew fiercer and fiercer, though, or the phoenix song that rang in Harry's ears until he felt as if all his thoughts were vibrating in sympathy.

"Remus."

Harry opened his eyes and turned his head, with difficulty. Lily stood in the doorway between the central room and the entrance hall, her eyes wide with horror. She shook her head and rushed to Harry's side.

Harry closed his eyes and let himself slip into darkness. It hurt too much for him to stay awake any longer. Faintly, he heard Sylarana calling him, but he couldn't respond. The fire was loose, and burning every corner of him, and over all of it rode the ringing phoenix song.

"Harry."

He heard the voice, but he didn't want to answer it. He huddled in the center of his bed instead, and sometimes quivered. His head felt hot, as though fever had hit him with a bludgeon.

"Harry," the voice said again. Their mother's voice. "I've come with medicine and food for you, but I can't get past until you ask your Locusta to stop hissing at me."

Harry forced his eyes open then. Sylarana was on the floor between his bed and Lily, he saw at once, her head swaying back and forth as she watched Lily. Her hissing was a steady threat, a stream of words that Harry could understand. He shivered, because there was none of her usual teasing tone in them. "Come near him and I will kill you. I don't want to, because you are precious to him, for reasons I cannot fathom, but touch him and I will bite you. The venom will cause convulsions at first. Then you begin to lose the ability to breathe. Then it dissolves your stomach and sets free the acid there. Come near him, and that will happen to you. Come near him, and I will kill you."

"Sylarana," Harry called out weakly. He knew from his mother's flinch that he'd spoken in Parseltongue. But it was the one thing that might calm the Locusta and move her, so he continued speaking in it. "Please let her by. I promise that she's not going to harm me."

"She will. She already has. If I had known where you were, I would have come here and poisoned her years ago. You are my human. I defend you against other snakes. She is one."

"Please," Harry whispered. "I want you to."

He knew that he couldn't force Sylarana to do it, and he didn't want to try. He simply concentrated, opening all his thoughts to her, letting her see that he really didn't want Lily dead. He might be more confused than before, less sure of his purpose, but he knew that he didn't want to see what would happen if the Locusta bit her.

"You could look away," Sylarana suggested, but her resolve was weakening.

"Please," Harry whispered.

Sylarana turned and slithered onto his bed, wrapping herself around his arm again. But she remained present and in sight, tongue flickering angrily, as Lily approached and set the tray of food carefully down beside the bed. Lily, in turn, never took her eyes from the snake. She dipped a cloth in a basin of water, and then held it out to Harry. He took it and placed it on his forehead. He closed his eyes and sighed. The coolness soothed the hot ache of the fever somewhat.

"Harry," his mother whispered. "Harry, you must listen to me. I have medicine for the ache in your head, but first, you need to tell me what it looks like. What do you see when you close your eyes?"

That, at least, was not a hard question, and Harry was glad to be able to answer it. "Flashes of fire," he said. "And sometimes brighter flashes than others. They were especially bright when Remus was trying to talk to me." He could barely remember what Remus had been talking about, but he managed to open his eyes, curious to see how Lily would react. "And there's a song over all of it. I think it's a phoenix singing, like Fawkes."

For the first time in his life, Harry saw Lily panic.

Her body slammed stiff, and her green eyes turned glassy. Then she closed her eyes and bowed her head. Harry realized a moment later that she was crying. He would have sat up and tried to comfort her, but the warm weight of Sylarana on his arm and the agony in his head warned him not to move.

"Oh, Harry," Lily said at last, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. She ignored Sylarana's warning hiss. Harry wasn't sure that she even heard it, so desperately were her eyes fixed on him. "This should never have happened. It wouldn't have, if not for Tom Riddle's attack. That's torn your mind so badly that the spell contamination is showing up, climbing to the surface. This is a thing better left buried." She reached out and held his hands. "I know how to make the pain go away. Do you trust me?"

Harry nodded without hesitation, then stopped with a soft moan as that stirred up the pain in his head again.

"Good," Lily whispered. "Harry, do you believe that Connor's innocence and purity are essential to defeating Voldemort?"

"Yes."

A good portion of the headache suddenly ceased to bother him. Harry touched his temple with trembling fingers, but remembered to listen to his mother. Lily leaned closer to him, and her eyes were the whole world.

"Do you believe that you would give up everything else if he asked you to?" Lily asked.

"Of course." Harry was puzzled as to why she was having him repeat the essence of his vows, but he would do it if it pleased her. Besides, it was nothing but the truth. "I not only believe it, I would do it."

"Even your friendships?" Lily's fingers traced the bones of his wrist.

"Yes."

"Even your life?"

"Yes."

"Even your snake?"

Sylarana hissed angrily, but Harry knew the truth. She had to have known it, too, if she could see inside his mind and examine his thoughts. "Yes," he whispered. He didn't want to, no more than he really wanted to give up his friendship with Draco, but Connor came first. That was still immutable truth. And, when he was with Lily, all the complications of life outside Godric's Hollow and the excuses he made to himself about being part of Slytherin House and wanting to stay friends with Draco and wanting Connor to grow up and all the rest of it melted away. Here was only simplicity. Here was only faith.

His fever melted.

Lily let out a short, sharp breath. Then she said, "Good, Harry. That is good. And now—now I think I need to tell you some things." Her hand skimmed the surface of his forehead, stroking over his scar and disturbing the cloth. That was all right, Harry thought, never looking away from her face. He didn't need it any more. He needed far more to see the truth that made her eyes flare with passion and deep-held belief. "There was—there was a prophecy, Harry. A prophecy about Connor. That's how we know for certain that his goodness and purity are so essential to defeating Voldemort."

Harry nodded slowly. He had sometimes suspected something like that, though never known for certain.

"But prophecies are the wildest form of Divination magic," Lily whispered. "There's a chance that it might mean different things. It would still come true, but it could turn out meaning something different from what it seemed to say the night it was made. In this case, we knew, from other things in the prophecy itself, that it had to be Connor. And you're in the prophecy, too, Harry. It's essential that you play your own role, that of guardian to Connor. Otherwise, he'd pass through darkness that would destroy the goodness and love in him, and we would be doomed. And we had to do everything we could to lock you into that role, to sculpt you that way, so that the prophecy couldn't possibly wander off and mean someone else, someone we wouldn't know in time to protect, someone that Voldemort could perhaps kill. Everything in the prophecy had to come true. You had to love Connor, and before everything else. We couldn't take the chance that it would be otherwise. Do you understand?" Her eyes grew brilliant with tears now. "I am so sorry, my son."

Harry shook his head slightly. The last of the pain had vanished. He felt calm, and sleepy, and not really inclined to understand what his mother was apologizing for. "Of course," he said drowsily. "I understand. It's what I would have chosen, anyway. I like the way I am." He yawned. "You could have told me about the prophecy."

More tears fell from her eyes, then, but Harry didn't understand why, and in another moment he was asleep, anyway.

Lily drew her hands slowly back from her son's face and settled them in her lap. She was shaking. That had been closer than either of them knew—than anyone had known. The light and the song in Harry's mind were weapons of last resort. That they had come so near the surface…

It was Voldemort's fault, she reminded herself. He is the cause of every evil thing that has happened in this family.

She opened her eyes to find the Locusta watching her. Its green eyes were disconcerting. It hissed at her, and sounded angry. Lily stood and carefully drew back from the bed.

Overwhelming sadness and weariness weighed her down, and she wanted nothing so much as to leave the room and seek James's comfort. He knew, now, even as she did. And after long months of argument, during which she'd had to keep him away from Harry in case the sight of him reversed James's fragile, necessary decision, she'd finally got him to agree that matters were best as they stood.

There was Remus to confront, too.

But she could not take her eyes from Harry, she found, and after a moment she came back to him and placed a kiss on the lightning bolt scar. It was only a scar from a bit of rubble, she reassured herself. It could not mean anything else. They would not let it mean anything else

She touched the pocket of her robe, and the letter that had come from Dumbledore. He had spoken of the phoenix song in Harry's mind, and the fact that he had offered the Sword of Gryffindor to Harry. Perhaps they had been wrong. Perhaps one last test was needed.

And the Sword had burned Harry. The message in that was unmistakable.

No, Lily thought, as she left the room to seek her husband and her friend, it does not mean anything else. We chose rightly how to raise both Harry and Connor.