Thank you for the reviews! A lot of people don't seem to mind that Connor is apparently the vates right now, or are willing to wait to find out about it, which makes me glad.

This chapter, I hope, keeps the pot boiling.

Chapter Nine: Gifts At Autumn's Turning

"Because," said Millicent, giving him a strange look, "the rest of us had seen the way you reacted when someone told you that you had power. There was the way you reacted when you thought that we might prefer you to your brother. There was the way that you didn't want to win that race we set you up to win last year—"

"Oh, Millicent, do be fair," said Pansy, who was sprawled on one of the divans in front of the hearth in the Slytherin common room. She opened her eyes and smiled at Harry though the mess of blonde hair covering her face. "Harry won that race on his own merits, didn't you, Harry?"

"I certainly hope so," said Harry, glancing back and forth from one girl to another. "But…" He trailed off, unable to express just what he thought.

Millicent shrugged at him. "Like it or not, you do have a tradition of refusing to live up to your potential, Harry. If we'd tried to talk to you about it, or talk you through it, we thought we'd just get another speech about your brother being the powerful one and could we all shut up now and blah blah blah." She laughed, and Harry caught a glimpse of how genuinely happy she was. The laughter was without a hint of mockery, despite what she'd just said. "We didn't know that this time you might have been willing to listen because you sensed your own magic. So we just started doing the practical thing—attending to our own needs, and waiting for you to catch up or wake up."

"Those 'needs' don't really include orbiting around me, though," said Harry, leaning back on the couch at last. He was still tired, though he'd been out of the hospital wing since early Saturday, and it was Sunday evening now. Now, at least, he knew why the Slytherins hadn't told him about the power Ron had sensed, and it was a reason he believed. "There's no reason that you have to choose me as leader, or whatever other insane plan you had in mind."

Millicent shrugged. "Your magic," she said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

Harry shook his head. "Voldemort and Dumbledore have more than raw magical power, you know that. You'd be safer with one of them, if you really wanted protection from the other one." It struck him as somewhat ludicrous that he was encouraging some of his Housemates to follow the Dark Lord, but pureblood politics often ended up being like this, the same way that Lucius had been proud last year when his son had out-danced him.

"Of course we know that," said Millicent. "And we also know that they have established principles that are going to wreck and destroy the way we are."

Harry peered at her. "I thought Voldemort was all about defending pureblood ideals."

"Pureblood ideals aren't about killing Muggles," said Pansy. "They're about staying away from them, maybe. But—listen, Harry, my mother was a Death Eater. You must know that by now." She sat up and stared at him. "And you're helping her anyway."

Harry glanced away. "And don't think I haven't asked myself why I'm doing it," he muttered. How could he brew the Wolfsbane Potion for a woman who had set the blood of several witches and wizards boiling until it scalded them alive from the inside? He didn't know, so he kept his eyes on his hands when he made the Potion, and not on the mirror that Snape kept in his office for the purpose of preparing some of the more obscure brews.

"You're doing it," said Pansy. "That's the important thing. And you didn't demand some kind of sacrifice from my mother."

"I demanded some things from her," said Harry, glaring at her.

"I know," said Pansy patiently. "But they weren't sacrifices. They were an equal bargain. That's the difference, Harry. Dumbledore would sacrifice us, or want to, if we went to him. That's what he has a habit of doing." Her eyes flashed viciously. "And the Dark Lord asks for more than sacrifices. By the time he's done, there's no one left to give anything more."

"Doesn't that make it sound as though Dumbledore is the one you should be asking for help, then?" Harry pointed out.

Pansy gave him a flat stare. "No," she said.

Harry shook his head. "I can't help you," he said. "Not much. I'm thirteen. I'm still not as strong as Dumbledore. I'm going to follow and serve my brother. My magic is making everyone uneasy right now, not content."

"And do you know why?" Millicent asked, her hand plucking at a blanket someone had slung along the back of her chair.

Harry shook his head.

"Because it appeared," said Millicent. "Or so it seems. Powerful wizards don't just walk out of the broom closet every day, you know—oh, sorry, here I am, rather got lost for a while."

Harry frowned. She was mocking him again. "And so?"

"So they're rushing around like a Pegasus with a gadfly up its arse," said Millicent bluntly, "trying to figure out what to do. And sooner or later they're going to calm down, and then they're going to start asking questions. And one of those questions is going to be why they couldn't sense your magic before, why it burst out at full strength instead of building slowly for years. If it had just built naturally, if everyone knew you were powerful over time instead of suddenly, then they wouldn't panic. They'd just acknowledge that sooner or later they'd have to deal with you, and go about their lives. But this—" She shook her head. "Harry, this doesn't happen. It won't be long before you hear people whispering unnatural, and wondering if this is a side effect of your possession from last year, and all kinds of other things."

Harry closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with one hand. Another thing to thank Dumbledore for, I suppose. "Ron suggested that I make some kind of announcement to the wizarding world, telling them I don't plan to do anything evil, and outlining what I do plan to do," he said. "Would that work?"

"Trust a Gryffindor to come up with that kind of plan," said Pansy. "Of course it wouldn't work. For one thing, it'd make you seem weak, as if you were conceding to the Ministry, when you don't need to. For another, why should you have to declare all your principles and allegiances right now? Tell them to go talk to your parents, and go right on living. And brewing my mother's Wolfsbane Potion," she added.

"But I thought that I had to do something," said Harry. "Otherwise, the Ministry will start trying to take me away from my parents, and—"

"Oh, they'll make noises about it, sure," said Millicent, waving one hand. "But they can't do anything unless they find out that your parents actually abused you." She stared at him. "And they'd probably prefer to leave you right where you are. They don't want to split apart the family of the Boy-Who-Lived, after all."

Harry nodded. He'd seen the headlines in the Prophet lately, the ones that swirled around Connor's every minor doing as if it were proof that he was about to drop dead or save the world. There had been a front-page article on the fact that Connor had argued with Ron the other day. "Then all that I need to do is hide—"

He cut himself off abruptly. He sometimes forgot, in the sheer camaraderie of speaking Slytherin to Slytherin, that only Draco and Snape knew any details about his home life.

"Hide what?" Millicent asked. "Your magic? I don't think you can, not now."

Harry shook his head and glanced away from her too-sharp eyes. "Nothing."

"So long as the 'nothing' doesn't interfere with anything you need to do," said Pansy, standing up and yawning. "I'm going to bed."

Harry nodded to her and watched her go to the third-year girls' dorm, then turned to find Millicent still watching him.

"Draco's not the only Slytherin who can watch, you know," she said. "And I don't need strange books from my mother to help me notice things. I notice things, Harry. The way you forced down so many emotions last year. That almost slavish devotion you have to your brother. How you immediately leaped to thinking about consequences for your power, instead of just glorying in the fact that you have it. How you went home with the Malfoys last summer, and your parents didn't object."

"I know you notice things, Millicent," said Harry, yawning himself. "But I'm not going to tell you anything."

"I'll make you a bargain," said Millicent. "One piece of information from you, and in return I'll teach you a spell that will make sure Dumbledore can never try the trick he pulled last night."

Harry eyed her warily. "Why would you know a spell like that?"

Millicent shrugged. "My mother works with the goblins at Gringotts. She knows most of the spells they use to determine which coins are real and which are false." She smiled abruptly. "You wouldn't believe how many wizards and witches think they're the first to have the brilliant idea of counterfeiting Galleons."

Harry closed his eyes. A spell like that would presumably help with the illusion that Dumbledore had been under.

He had thought of a way to deal with Dumbledore on his own, but it wouldn't cover every instance, and it certainly wouldn't cover Dumbledore putting a glamour on someone else and sending him after Harry.

"All right," he said, opening his eyes. "I think about consequences for my power because that's the way I was raised, studying history and magic from the youngest age possible. I've read about the First War, and I've seen what happens when wizards don't watch out and just loose their power in any random direction they want to. And since I've been here, I've had the example of Dumbledore's magic to remind me every day of that."

He wondered if Millicent would demand more, but she just nodded at him and held out her wand. "The spell is Aspectus Lyncis," she said, "the Lynx Sight spell." She showed him the wand passes he had to perform, and intoned it carefully, her voice stressing the second syllable of the first word and the first syllable of the second. Harry nodded, and then performed it himself, being careful to use his wand. He was still trying to get his magic used to using that first, instead of flying all over the place.

He blinked when several wards flickered into sight, positioned around the Slytherin common room. All of them had the trace of Dumbledore's power around them. Harry frowned and decided that he would study them later as a jaw-cracking yawn nearly sent him from the couch.

"Good night, Harry," said Millicent, standing up with a faint smile. "I'll see you tomorrow. And remember—not everyone who wants to follow you or who's interested in you is only doing it because of power."

Harry just blinked at her as she went up to the girls' dorm, and then went to his own room. Vince, Blaise, and Greg were already asleep. Draco was lying on his back, reading a book by the look of the Lumos spell through the curtains, but he didn't respond when Harry softly called out to him.

Harry shook his head and put his pyjamas on. If he wants to ignore me, that's just fine. I can ignore him right back.

But, he admitted as he crawled into his own bed and drew the curtains closed, it did hurt.

Harry took a deep breath and added the final drop of sphinx blood. The potion stirred briefly, as though it would reach up out of its cauldron and bite him, and then fell back. It began to steam at once. Harry stepped back and looked at Snape.

Snape nodded, once. Harry let the breath out. One Wolfsbane Potion, correctly brewed.

"I'm going to take this to Pansy," said Harry quietly, as he began fetching vials and dipping them into the cauldron. "She'll want to owl her mother at once, I think—"

Snape shook his head. "The Red Death is waiting for you at the edge of the Forbidden Forest," he said calmly, as he turned back to the cauldron he was brewing for Remus. "She owled me this morning and told me so."

Harry stared at his back for a moment, blinking, then said, "Why did she tell you that?"

Snape spoke without looking at him. "It seems that she wanted to make peace with me, once she knew that you would be brewing the potion under my direction." He had a smile in his voice. Harry knew from the sound that it was a nasty smile. "So easy, after all, to settle a long-time grudge with a little poison in the wrong place. And this is a complicated potion, very easy to get wrong."

Harry nodded uneasily. "And she knew that this would be the day I finished the potion?"

"She apparently has people watching you," said Snape blandly, as he added another pinch of demiguise hair to his own potion and stirred it once. "I can't imagine why."

Harry cursed under his breath and continued filling and corking vials. He thought longingly of Connor's Invisibility Cloak, then shook his head. Connor was making use of it right now, sneaking outside the walls to meet Sirius in the old Shrieking Shack. Besides, he didn't think his brother would want him using the cloak to go and meet a former Death Eater specializing in blood curses.

"Harry."

Harry glanced up, startled, to find Snape watching him. He had a faint smile on his face. It could have come from anything.

"Well done," said Snape.

It took Harry a moment to realize why that sounded so familiar to him. Snape had told him the same thing at the end of first year, when he had told the story of fighting Voldemort to him under Veritaserum.

Harry shook his head, unwilling to visit the bitterness that still remained in him about that incident, and slipped out the door, holding the corked vials of potion close.

Luckily, no one was there to see him as he slipped up the dungeon stairs and across the entrance hall, though he did pause briefly to let Percy Weasley go by. The boy was hurrying along with his head bowed, muttering to himself. Harry hesitated when he heard him saying, "But how could I do anything that would hurt my family?" but decided it was none of his business. He would hardly want Percy sticking his nose into Harry's private wonderings about Connor, after all.

He cast the Disillusionment Charm on himself as he emerged from the school. It was a pleasant evening, the wind brisk but not cold, the leaves on the trees that edged the Forbidden Forest just beginning to turn. Harry briefly turned his head in the direction of the Whomping Willow that hid the Shrieking Shack, and wished that he could be there with his brother, helping him train.

Sirius does that well enough, he reminded himself, as he skirted Hagrid's hut and headed deeper into the trees. And you'd only make him uncomfortable anyway, since you're so uncomfortable yourself around compulsion magic.

That was another thing he would have to train himself out of, Harry reflected as he reached the edge of the Forest and began to scan carefully for Mrs. Parkinson. Connor was his beloved brother. No rift must ever come between them, either in reality or in appearance. Harry had been through that, and he didn't want it to happen again, but it would if Harry insisted on being uncomfortable around compulsion magic. He didn't have to be. Dumbledore had used it harmfully, but Dumbledore was not his twin. Harry was sure that Connor could do much more productive things with it.

He caught a glimpse of a dark cloak beneath one tree edged with leaves like fire, and halted. While he watched, the cloak moved again, and he caught a flash of pale hair he was sure was Hawthorn Parkinson's.

He dispelled the Charm, and heard the woman's soft exclamation before she stifled it. Then she came forward and held out her hand wordlessly, and Harry placed the vials of the Wolfsbane Potion into her palm.

Hawthorn studied him, her hazel eyes quick and bright. She looked better than the last time Harry had seen her, though he supposed that might be because it was further from the full moon. She still appeared tired, but there was a resolve, a fire, in her that Harry had seen in Pansy when her blood was up.

"Thank you," said Hawthorn at last, and then shook her head. "I wish I had something else to say. Thank you is an inadequate word for what you have done for me. The transformation was not so painful as the madness that followed, in which I lost every trace of the witch I am. I would pay much not to have to suffer it again."

"What you promised me before is all I require," said Harry fiercely. "That you stay away from Fenrir Greyback and his attempts to raise the Dark Lord, or whatever it is that he's doing."

Hawthorn nodded once. "That is all you require, but it is not enough to settle my sense of a debt," she said. "Have you heard of Starborn?"

Harry blinked. "Millicent mentioned him. She said that he's been telling you to watch me."

Hawthorn smiled. It was a strange smile. Harry wondered about it. "Indeed," she murmured. "He has had an opportunity to observe you closely, and he has liked what he had seen." She reached under her cloak, and Harry tensed, his magic rising in readiness around him, but instead of her wand, she tugged out a book, which she held towards Harry. Harry accepted it and tilted it towards the moonlight.

He caught his breath. Bindings of Magic, the title said, a book that Merlin himself was supposed to have written. He looked up at Hawthorn in wonder. "I thought this was destroyed."

Hawthorn shrugged. "Well, it is hardly an original; it is a copy of a copy, and there may be some errors in it. But, errors or not, there are many things in there that most modern wizards believe about compulsion magic, webs, and other forms of binding."

Harry frowned at her at the mention of webs, and Hawthorn winked. "As I said," she murmured, "Starborn has had the opportunity to observe you very closely." She tilted her head and laid her fingers over her lips. "And he is no friend of Dumbledore's," she added softly.

Harry took a deep breath and looked back at the book in his hands. For all that he knew Hawthorn must have ulterior motives for giving it to him, this was a priceless gift, since he knew it spoke of the many ancient kinds of magical bindings that might tie wizards together, such as life debts and sacrifices of love, and included the basis of more modern kinds of magic. It might contain the information that he needed to free himself completely from the phoenix web; in fact, if any single book in the world did, this one would.

"Thank you," he whispered. "I don't think you only did this to repay the debt, but thank you."

Hawthorn smiled faintly at him. "You are right," she said. "Pansy has been writing to me, and Starborn has been writing to me, and there is a crystal phoenix in my home which sings when great power comes into the world. It has sung since the end of last spring. It is a relief to meet you at last." She bowed her head slightly. "At the same time, you might not be the kind of leader we need. Raw power proves nothing."

"What about a lack of taste for leadership?"

Hawthorn smiled again, more fully this time. "So that part was true," she said. "Well, Starborn has written me about that, too. I do not believe you are the kind of wizard who would grasp at enslaving others."

"Tell that to the Ministry," muttered Harry, tucking Bindings of Magic into a pocket of his robes.

Hawthorn's smile widened still further. "When you do what you must for love and duty," she said, "as I believe you will, they will have no choice but to see it."

She turned and slipped back into the Forbidden Forest before Harry had the chance to ask her any more. He sighed, frowned at nothing, and slipped away himself, back to the castle.

The book rode in his pocket, calling his thoughts.

She was wrong. This book doesn't repay her debt. It makes me owe her a greater one.

"I have to know," said Millicent, as they sat at breakfast on the first day of autumn. Harry jumped a bit; he'd been thinking more about what he read in Bindings of Magic the night before than he was about the people around him. He glanced at her, only to find her motioning to the staff table. "What did you do to Dumbledore, that he hardly dares to look at you any more?"

Harry grinned and glanced in Dumbledore's direction. The Headmaster was keeping his eyes strictly on his food.

"A variation on a mirror spell," said Harry happily. "When he looks at me and thinks about casting spells on me, the spells start affecting him instead. If he was thinking about putting me in a full body-bind, for example, he would start feeling his legs go paralyzed." He happily bit into a pumpkin pasty.

He looked up to find Pansy and Millicent exchanging glances. "What?" he asked.

"That shouldn't be possible," said Pansy frankly. "A shield that bounces spells when they're active, sure. But not when he's just thinking about them."

"Well, it's not when he's just thinking about them, I told you," said Harry, talking through his pasty. He ignored the girls' looks of disgust. It was part of his cunning campaign to discourage them from thinking of him as a leader. He could be subtly Slytherin, too. Or maybe he was just hungry. I wonder if part of being Slytherin is learning to lie to yourself, too. "It's when he looks at me and thinks about them. The sight aspect is important."

"It's still incredible," said Millicent. "Not many students can invent spells like that, you know."

"It's a variation on the mirror spells," Harry insisted. "I didn't make it up." Perhaps talking with his mouth full wasn't enough to discourage them. He wondered if talking willingly to Gryffindors other than his brother and Neville would.

"Yes, but—"

A sudden ruffle of wings announced the arrival Harry had been waiting for—though he had half-wondered if Lucius had given up, now. No, he thought, as he tilted his head back and watched the great horned owl, Julius, sweeping once around the Great Hall before he descended on the Slytherin table.

Harry reached out, curious, to take the bundle from Julius's leg. There were two possible gifts that Lucius could choose for this autumnal equinox gift, since it was the last one in the year-cycle he'd chosen. The next, Yuletide gift would mark a year since he had been truce-dancing with Harry. This one was the point where he had to choose to take the truce down one of two paths: the continuation to a true pact, or the graceful backing-out, both of which would take another year. Harry was almost certain he would back out, but even then, the gift this time would be both beautiful and useful.

His breath caught when the bundle opened and a small mirror fell out. He picked it up with trembling hands, and tilted it back and forth. As he suspected, it showed not his face, but the view from a similar mirror in Malfoy Manor, which bent and skewed as he turned his own glass. When he concentrated, he could push his gaze and attention through that mirror, and out from the room it hung in, and conjure a floating, present-time vision of any corridors and rooms in Malfoy Manor.

Lucius had granted Harry license to see into his home, the private sanctum of his family. More than that, he could look at any time he wanted, and see whether plots against him were taking place.

Lucius intended to continue the truce dance.

Harry managed to breathe again, with a massive effort, and picked up the note that had come with the mirror.

Mr. Potter:

In light of the regard I bear you, on this first day of autumn, may you step past the barriers between us that are falling like leaves.

Lucius Malfoy.

Harry put the mirror down gently on the table. He swallowed once. He knew what the proper answer would be: a mirror that allowed Lucius to see into his own home.

Into Godric's Hollow.

If he chose to continue this dance. Harry would have to think about that carefully. His relationship with Narcissa and Draco—even with Draco as distant and strange as he was now—was far different than Lucius's relationship with his parents and Connor.

"That's a princely gift," said Pansy, shattering the awe.

"I know," said Harry simply, and tucked the mirror into a pocket. He watched as Julius took wing again and flew through the window.

He glanced down the table, but Draco had his nose buried in one of his mother's books again, the one with the Guile serpent on the front, and was ignoring Harry. Harry smothered his flicker of irritation. You have no right to be irritated with him. You didn't treat him very well when you had his attention.

He stood, ready to make his way to the first class of the day, History of Magic. He was looking forward to the chance to sleep while Binns droned his way through history Harry already knew by heart. He'd had the dream of the two dark figures last night—one screaming in a cramped space, one writhing on a bed and whimpering—for the first time in a long time. He'd lain awake after that, tense, waiting for an attack from Tom Riddle before he finally figured out it wasn't coming and fell asleep again. By then it'd been almost dawn, and Blaise had had to threaten to dump cold water on him to get him out of bed.

He was just about to leave the hall when he heard a loud cry and a sound of shattering glass. Eyes wide, he turned back to see Snape on his back on the Hufflepuff table, one hand on his wand.

Clutching his throat, and making it impossible for him to get his wand up and cast a spell, was Sirius.

He was snarling, yelling words that Harry couldn't make out, so choked as they were with spittle and rage. Snape replied in a much clearer voice, despite the grip on his throat. "Have you lost your mind, Black? That never happened!"

"Yes, it did," said Sirius, more clearly this time, "and you are going to apologize." He abruptly transformed, and now it was a huge black dog with its teeth near Snape's throat. There was a long moment of trembling tension, and Harry knew Sirius would bite. He might well tear Snape's throat out.

He started to call on his magic, but Snape must have managed a nonverbal, wandless curse. Padfoot abruptly went flying backwards, smashing into the wall behind the Gryffindor table and tumbling down it. Connor was on his feet, face red with fury and wand out and aimed at Snape.

"Enough."

Harry felt the wave of compulsion that attacked the Great Hall, similar to the time last year when Dumbledore had calmed the other students after Harry admitted to being a Parselmouth. He felt it worming into his mind, and closed his eyes. He didn't have Sylarana to root Dumbledore out this time, but he knew the Headmaster was there, which was an advantage he hadn't had last year, and he had his Occlumency shields and his utter hatred of the Headmaster to sustain him.

I may not be able to face you on the battlefield yet, he thought. Connor might still need any protection you can give him, and it isn't time to make you answer for endangering him yet. But it will be.

He threw off the compulsion a moment later, and he opened his eyes to see Snape looking similarly disgruntled. But everyone else was calm—

Until Sirius, who had transformed back into a man, began to sob.

Harry stared at his godfather. He looked like a trembling, broken shell, as though he and not Peter was the one who had gone to Azkaban for twelve years. He hid his face from everyone else and wept as though his heart was breaking. Connor, visibly shocked, started to step towards him.

"Severus, Sirius," said Dumbledore, his voice implacable, "please follow me to my office at once." He nodded at the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables. "I am sorry to deprive the third-years of their teacher for Potions class, but it should be for only one morning." He swept out the door.

Snape followed a moment later. Sirius picked himself up and stumbled, sobbing, along behind.

Harry stood frozen. He wanted to go after them, to figure out what the hell had happened, but Millicent was tugging on his arm.

"Come on," she whispered. "Professor Snape will tell you later."

Harry had to admit that was probably true, and anyway, he didn't think he could be in the same small room with Dumbledore safely right now. He forced his feet to move, to carry him out of the Great Hall.

He might have gone to Connor, too, but a whole horde of Gryffindors had descended on him. He had to trust that his brother would be all right.

Harry closed his eyes and breathed, carefully dealing with the anger, and the unexpected source of the anger.

I'm furious with him. I'm furious with Sirius for assaulting Snape.

Shouldn't it really be the other way around?

He wondered, gloomily, what new and disturbing discoveries about himself this portended.