Thank you for the reviews on the last chapters! The story's moving in the direction of actual answers now, I can hope, even though some mysteries have to remain until the end.
Like this one, for instance. It's largely an answer chapter. It is also an Ugly Thing.
Chapter Fifteen: Soldier In a Silent War"The phoenix web is returning," Harry warned Peter as he sat down on the grass in front of him. "I'm not sure how much I'll be able to hear before it burns my thoughts up again."
Peter's eyes narrowed, but he didn't waste time speaking against Dumbledore. He simply nodded. Then he said, "Harry, I mentioned Regulus Black the last time we had a proper conversation."
Harry blinked. "I remember."
Peter leaned forward. "Regulus Black was Sirius's younger brother," he said. "Not much younger. A year between them. They were close friends before Hogwarts."
Harry tightened his hands in front of him. "I'll repeat what I said then," he said, as calmly as he could. "Why would they keep something like that concealed from me? Sirius could have forged a closer bond with me by telling me he was an elder brother like I was, or that he had been. And—and from the way I understand them now, they wouldn't have let an opportunity like that pass. They wanted to control me, bind me close to them, and that would have been a great chance."
"They are your parents and godfather, Harry," said Peter. "Does it make it easier to talk about them, and the wrong they've done you, when you don't acknowledge that?"
Harry clenched his hands again, and felt his hands begin to bleed like his scar. "It makes it possible for me not to wish death on them," he said.
Peter's eyes sharpened, and he nodded again. "Then we'll talk about them as 'they,' Harry," he said. "And I'll tell you why they wouldn't admit that Regulus existed.
"As I said, he and Sirius were close friends before Hogwarts. But then Sirius came to Hogwarts and was Sorted into Gryffindor. Suddenly he'd broken all the traditions that his family was supposed to keep. The Blacks had been Slytherins for as long as the family existed. All Sirius's cousins had gone into that House. And Sirius was the elder son of the major branch of the family. I know that doesn't matter to a line like the Potters, but to a pureblood family like the Blacks, it did matter. A great deal."
Harry nodded. "But Sirius told me that he was an only child, and that was why his parents were so angry with him," he whispered. "They had no heirs after he rejected their ideals."
"They had Regulus," said Peter quietly. His eyes were staring past Harry, seeing into a time that Harry now suspected he didn't know the tiniest shard of truth about. "But he was the younger son. He couldn't quite ever make up for the loss of Sirius, no matter what he did, even though he was Sorted into Slytherin and believed in the same ideals that they did."
Harry felt himself give a shudder of revulsion. Imagine if our parents had favored me just because I'm the elder and ignored or devalued Connor because he was born fifteen minutes after me. What an idiocy!
Then he remembered that they had, seemingly, ignored and devalued him for not being the Boy-Who-Lived.
Harry swallowed and caged the grief and pain. There has to be a reason for that. I don't know everything yet.
"All right," he said, harshly, because he needed to get his mind off those disturbing thoughts somehow. "Say I believe you. Say that Regulus did exist, and that Sirius lost him to his parents just like his parents lost Sirius to the wizarding world. Then what happened?"
"Regulus became a Death Eater," said Peter quietly, and met Harry's eyes again. "But—and I'm only reporting this secondhand, understand, because Sirius never told all the details to anyone—something went wrong. Something…changed his mind, I guess. Or he just decided that he was tired of being ordered around. He stole something very important to the Dark Lord and ran. I never knew what it was. I was never that close to the Dark Lord. My importance was all borrowed from Sirius." He glanced away, but not before Harry saw many complicated emotions twisting in his face, hatred and love and bitterness and weariness.
"And he got away?" Harry asked. "Or he died?"
"Voldemort," said Peter, visibly forcing himself to say the name, "caught him. And then he bound Sirius's mind to his brother's. He could do that, because of the blood connection. He forced Sirius to witness the way Regulus suffered while he tortured him."
Harry buried his head in his hands, breathing hard. The mere thought of watching Connor suffer in his mind made him want to kill something.
"Sirius was going crazy," said Peter, his voice as distant as the moon. "None of the Blacks…well, none of them were ever very stable, except Andromeda and Narcissa. Sirius was struggling between his impulse to stay loyal to his friends and his impulse to go and rescue his brother. He knew that the moment he went to Regulus's rescue, V—Voldemort would take him, and then Sirius would be tortured until he gave up your parents' location."
"Because of the prophecy," Harry guessed.
Peter glanced at him sharply, then relaxed. "I had thought you didn't know much about that," he murmured. "Yes. Because of that. And Dumbledore wanted to spare Sirius that."
"I don't understand why," said Harry. "The first time we met, you said that you had betrayed my parents on Dumbledore's orders. If he was going to betray us anyway, why did it matter if you or Sirius did it?"
Peter's mouth curved into a cruel grin, but Harry knew from the tone in his voice that the cruelty was all directed against himself. "Dumbledore didn't want Sirius to have to make that choice, to decide between his friends and his brother. He explained everything to me and asked me to take Sirius's place as Secret-Keeper. He performed a spell that—"
Harry cried out as the phoenix web flared across his vision. Peter reached out and caught his shoulder, holding him steady until the spasm passed.
"Never mind about the spell, then," said Peter softly. "Some other time. He asked me to take Sirius's place as Secret-Keeper, and told your parents the reason for the switch. They were horrified, of course." The emotion in Peter's voice now wasn't like anything that Harry had ever heard. "No one should ever have to make a decision like that, they told me. Poor dear Sirius should never be subjected to such a loss of innocence as choosing between his friends and his brother."
Harry heard the echo of other words behind the ones Peter spoke. After a moment, he drew them out.
Connor should remain innocent until the time he can face Voldemort…
With a gasp, Harry flushed the words from his mind. No. They aren't the same, not really. They did offer me a choice.
But he'd seen that choice in Dumbledore's Pensieve. A shudder of remembered anger racked Harry again, and he suffered a brief moment of despair. How did ordinary people cope with these emotions? How was he going to be normal when he hadn't dealt with them for the first twelve years of his life?
"I was already a spy among the Death Eaters," said Peter. "The Dark Lord would accept my betrayal of my friends for the same reason he accepted me as a credible Death Eater, Dumbledore assured me. He thought I was jealous of my friends for being more powerful and talented than I was. Aren't wizards of lesser power always afraid of those with greater, and jealous of them?
"He was right. Once your parents made me the Secret-Keeper, the Dark Lord ceased torturing Regulus and killed him. He concentrated all his efforts on me. I held out for a week, then cracked when Dumbledore said to, and betrayed the house at Godric's Hollow. I told your parents that V—Voldemort had kidnapped the two of you and taken you to one of the last battlefields, to sacrifice you there in a dark blood rite. Off they rushed. Voldemort came into the house that night, and I was right behind him when he struck." Peter closed his eyes tightly.
Harry's heart had sped up. The sound of it filled his whole world. He fought wildly to calm it down, because it was just as wildly important that he be able to hear Peter's answer to his next question.
"They knew we would be betrayed? They risked our lives on purpose?"
Peter turned his head and fixed Harry with a careful eye. "Of course. You said you knew the prophecy. They knew what would happen when I led Voldemort into the house of a child born at the precise moment the prophecy said he should be born. And of course there are other clues in the prophecy that let them suspect your house was the right one." Peter closed his eyes again.
"After that, it was rather simple," he said, his voice gone strained and thin. "I ran, of course, when the Dark Lord fell. Your parents came back and found you wounded but alive, and the Dark Lord a pile of ash on the floor. They knew who must have betrayed them. The Aurors arrested me, and questioned me under Veritaserum, but the phoenix web was in my mind by then, already sinking deep. It filled me with a different kind of soul that gave me the appearance of truth. I was able to stare at them, and laugh, and proclaim my hatred and jealousy of James and Lily Potter. That was the same web that was going to give me the appearance of insanity in Azkaban, just in case anyone ever questioned me about that night. Dumbledore could say truthfully that he visited me several times, and I only appeared to grow more mad over the years. But Sirius was with me during the trial anyway, just to make sure that I didn't place one foot wrong. He was determined that no one should ever discover that I'd been a sacrifice for him, because he didn't want to be thought a coward or too weak to choose between his friends and his brother."
Unbidden—like all his thoughts lately—Harry recalled what James had said to him when he'd told the story of cracking and using Crucio on Bellatrix Lestrange. And Peter's betrayal hit Sirius hardest of all. He was in the Ministry when they interrogated Peter. I don't think he slept for three more days after that. He had to hear every last detail, every last confession.
Sirius hadn't been trying desperately to learn why one of his beloved friends would commit a crime. He had been trying desperately to make sure that said beloved friend, a shield, a sacrifice, didn't reveal that he was either shield or sacrifice.
Harry swallowed several more times. Now was not the moment to get sick.
"And so you went to Azkaban for twelve years," he said.
"Almost twelve years," said Peter, his eyes distant. "Yes. That is what I did. If I had revealed what I had done under Veritaserum, I might have stayed out of Azkaban, but I would have revealed that Dumbledore had knowingly placed two small children in danger, and that was not permissible. Nor was it permissible to reveal that Sirius had suffered for so long."
"Not only Dumbledore," Harry whispered. "Our parents. Why? Why is that, Peter? Why would they do that?"
"The prophecy," said Peter.
Harry was starting to hate that word. He picked up a blade of grass and rubbed it between his fingers until the urge to tear the explanation out of Peter was gone. "But surely there must have been a greater justification than that," he said.
Peter blinked. "Of course there was. There was concealing Sirius's weakness, and bringing Voldemort down." He hugged his arms around himself and stared into the Forest. "You cannot understand what the First War was like, Harry. Everyone was tired, and certain they were going to lose, after eleven years of fighting. We'd grown up in Hogwarts in the knowledge that we'd be soldiers going to war. Everyone wanted an end. That was the cause of the hysterical celebration after Voldemort fell. No one really thought to question that, to ask how and why a baby could have defeated him without something like the prophecy, which was never made public. They didn't want to. They had their hero, they had their villain, and that was it. That was all."
"They put Connor in danger," said Harry again. He could not get past that. He had always trusted his parents to know what was best, to save and protect his brother—if not as well as he could—and they had put Connor in danger when he was only a year old.
"And you, Harry," said Peter, looking strangely at him.
Harry swallowed. "Yes," he said, and then dodged the uncomfortable truth staring him in the face. "But why aren't you still in Azkaban? You stayed there twelve years. Why not the lifetime you were meant to stay?" His voice wavered into hesitancy on the last words.
"You are right," said Peter. "Dumbledore meant me to stay a lifetime. But I was left alone in Azkaban, without the constant reinforcement that I think you've had, if they've really tied your web—"
Harry shouted as his sight darkened with pain. Peter held his arm this time until it subsided, and then spoke carefully, watching Harry for the least sign of agony.
"Without reinforcement. And my web was tied to two things. One of them was my sense of friendship. That withered when none of my friends came to see me, when I realized they'd all been pitifully eager to sacrifice me just so that Sirius could sleep with an untroubled conscience."
"What about Remus?" Harry asked.
Peter looked hard at him. "Remus knew about it, too, Harry. He was too afraid of losing his friends ever to go against them." He laughed, harshly. "Remus is very good at ignoring things that he doesn't want to see."
The revelation hit Harry with the force of a hammer blow. He'd thought Remus was just another one of Dumbledore's victims. Instead, he, too, had conspired to hurt and maybe even kill Connor.
And you.
Harry gave the thought a vicious kick and focused back on Peter.
"And what was the second thing?" he asked, his own voice unexpectedly hoarse.
"A sense of duty," said Peter simply. "Dumbledore impressed it on me that this was my duty to the future, my duty as a Gryffindor, my duty to a world without the Dark Lord. And—well, he was right, I thought. So I gave up my personality and my freedom and the good will of the wizarding community for it.
"But the more I thought about it, the more resentful I became. As I said, the loss of my friends did that. I became convinced that it wasn't fair that I was sitting in that cell when Sirius was free to walk around, and the phoenix web might have controlled that." A feral smile spread over Peter's face. "But then I found another duty instead."
"What?" Harry whispered.
Peter locked eyes with him. "Protecting you. I promise you that I am not going to let the same thing happen to you that happened to me, Harry. I promised myself that, too, and I even got through the wards on the school that permitted the passage of Animagi until Dumbledore adjusted them to bar me specifically. I'm confined to the outside of Hogwarts now, but that doesn't mean I won't protect you. I was a sacrifice, and I lost so much because of it. I've been a sacrifice exactly as long as you have. Both of our trials began the same night. I broke free of my prison. I'm going to help you break free of yours by shattering that damn web. If you find another duty to substitute for the one the web originally attached to, then you're free. The web can't cope with that great a shift in priorities. The moment that I chose you over Sirius and James and Remus, then I was free."
"But that would mean I have to do something other than protect Connor," said Harry.
"Yes." Peter was immovable.
Harry shook his head at him, frantic. "I can't. Then he'll be left undefended when he goes forth to face Voldemort."
"Sirius is training him, I thought," said Peter. "He'll have that training. And he'll have the protection of other people, the adults and his friends and anyone else who fights the Second War. And I assure you that this is everyone's war, Harry. Not even most of the Death Eaters stood by Voldemort when they thought he'd fallen. I've been prying and sniffing around my old haunts. They like their lives now, free and prosperous. They're not eager to go back into slavery to a madman. They might be called by Voldemort's magic, but they'll seize any other option that seems at all viable."
"Dumbledore—"
"He's not viable," Peter said sharply. "Not for them. Do you think someone who did what he did to me would hesitate to sacrifice Dark wizards whom he already despises?"
"Connor—"
"Maybe," said Peter. "But he'll have to grow in strength and training first. And that could be your duty, you know, Harry."
"Training him?" Harry sat up straight. It was only a minor variation of the duties he had now, he thought. "I could do that."
"Protecting the wizarding world," said Peter. "Uniting it. Leading it. Providing an option for the Death Eaters and the purebloods and the others who would ordinarily rally to Voldemort's side. You know their rituals. You have the magic that could shelter and protect them. Think about it, Harry."
Harry closed his eyes and began to shake. The mere thought of taking his brother's role as the Boy-Who-Lived was enough to activate the phoenix web. He felt burning pain begin to concentrate behind his eyes.
"I've said too much," Peter whispered. "I'm sorry. But think about it, please, Harry. And now I must go. I can feel the Dementors coming." His voice was threaded with old fear. "Be safe."
Harry heard the inrush of air as Peter transformed, and then the soft rustle of grass as he scurried away. A moment later, the phoenix web let him go enough that he could feel the cold approach of the Dementors on his back. They curved into the Forbidden Forest after Peter. Harry shivered.
His mind was in chaos, screaming and shouting at him.
They knew. They left us in danger.
Remus knew.
You don't have to live for Connor.
Dumbledore sacrificed Peter to spare Sirius.
He stood up, heavily, and made his way towards the school. He needed, badly, to speak with Dumbledore.
Harry had just slipped past the doors into the entrance hall when a piece of darkness unfolded from the wall and swept towards him. Harry winced. It was Snape, and unlike the conversation they'd had the day Harry first confronted Dumbledore, Harry wasn't in the mood to talk with him.
Snape, of course, gave him no choice. "What was that explosion of magic earlier, Mr. Potter?" he asked. His face was mostly in shadow, but Harry could see his eyes glittering with some intense emotion.
Harry sighed. "Dumbledore tried to trick me. There was a set of Pensieves he'd charmed to reinforce the phoenix web in my mind." He heard Snape's sucked-in breath, but forced himself to keep his eyes on the floor. He knew that Snape would probably have something to say about this, but he didn't think that he had the ability to deal with it right now, what with his thoughts stirred into chaos. "Draco helped me get rid of them, but then Dumbledore tried to hurt Draco. So I called my magic to fight his, and sucked some of his power away."
"And you did not come to me?" Snape's voice sounded nearly dead. Harry winced again. That didn't mean hurt. That meant anger so intense that not even his normal cold whisper was sufficient to express it. "You did not think that perhaps your guardian should know that the Headmaster is threatening his ward?"
Harry raised his head and stared at Snape. Well, I didn't expect that. "But we already knew that," he pointed out. "Dumbledore was threatening me before this. Why would you want me to come and report it to you again?"
Snape moved a step forward. Harry took a step back, watching him warily. He was not afraid, not exactly. He trusted Snape not to hurt him. But it was hard not to feel—well, cautious, especially with the way that he could feel Snape's magic boiling under his shields. Snape was not as strong as Harry or Dumbledore, but his power had a sharp, cruel edge to it that made it a finely balanced blade on the occasions when he chose to wield it outside the confines of wand and spell.
"Guardian does not mean only guardian in a legal sense," Snape said. His voice was strangled. Harry wondered if he was choking on rage or something else. "It means guardian in a protective sense as well. I could have helped you fend off Dumbledore, Harry. I could have spoken to him in place of the parents who will never stand up to him again." Harry clenched his fists again; he feared that after what Peter had said, that was no more than the truth. "And I could have provided you with the protection and shelter that you need so badly," and Snape's voice twisted, with kindness more cruel than cruelty, "and which you will never convince yourself to seek."
Harry held his breath, then forced it out his nose and mouth in regular, calm patterns. He couldn't afford to get upset over this. He had a Headmaster to speak to about his sacrifice of Peter and his endangering of Connor. He couldn't yell at Snape and shatter his mask.
"I'll remember that the next time, sir," he said. "May I please pass now? I'm going to speak to the Headmaster on another matter."
Snape looked startled for perhaps a tenth of a second. Even as Harry tried to slip around him, however, his hand darted out and seized his shoulder. Harry kept his stance relaxed and his gaze on the ground, so that Snape couldn't try wandless Legilimency on him.
"I do not want you alone with him," said Snape. "I'll go with you."
"No!" Harry tried to back away without looking up or really dislodging Snape's hand. He didn't want Snape to think he was really rejecting his guardianship. It was complicated. It started being complicated the moment you started having allegiances other than to Connor, whispered a part of his mind that might or might not be the phoenix web. "Please. I have to handle this on my own. Can I handle this on my own?"
"Why?" Snape was merciless, even as he knelt in front of Harry and spoke gently. "Why do you want to?"
"I—I don't want you hurt," said Harry, twisting his head away again. He couldn't tell Snape what Peter had said. Snape would only see it as more evidence that Sirius was dangerous or weak, and would seek to keep Harry away from him. Perhaps talking about that in the abstract would work. "And I'm going to say things to the Headmaster that concern Sirius. I don't know if you can control yourself around him if you know what those things are."
There was a tense, breathing silence. Then Snape said, "I have always told myself I was more concerned about the future than the past. That was what I told myself when I spied among the Death Eaters for Dumbledore. And it was perhaps the only time in my life when that has been true." He reached out and gripped Harry's chin, tilting it so that Harry's eyes met his. He did not try Legilimency, though. "These other years, I have brooded more on schoolboy grudges than the possibility of saving someone or healing someone or the future. That is true. And now it need not be. This is my chance to prove that, as much to myself as to you, Harry. I will come with you, and whatever I learn about Black, I will hold silent, because you matter more to me than he does."
Harry closed his eyes to cover the emotions he was feeling, and nodded once. "Thank you, sir."
"Come." Snape swept to his feet like a great bird hovering over Harry. His hand never moved from its grip on Harry's shoulder, warm and intensely comforting. "Let us go see the Headmaster."
Albus told himself that he had expected the visit. Of course, that did not mean it did his old heart any good to see Harry walk in, laden with power and with eyes in which he could see the broken remnants of the phoenix web, and with Severus following closely behind him, his eyes wild. Albus winced. Severus has given himself entirely over to protection of this child. What happened to his knowledge of the greater cause? What happened to the man who was prepared to torture, to kill, to act the Death Eater for the sake of the wizarding world?
Harry Potter had happened, Albus answered himself, and sighed. Matters would have been a great deal simpler if Lily Potter had only ever borne one child, and if that child was Connor Potter.
"Professor Dumbledore," said Harry, his eyes pierced with half a dozen emotions. "I met Peter Pettigrew this evening. He told me why you sacrificed him."
Albus clamped down on his emotions. He would not show terror in front of either of them. Harry might miss it at this moment, but Severus's piercing eyes were fixed on his face and hadn't moved.
"He said that he went to Azkaban so that Sirius could live free," Harry whispered. "Why him, Professor?"
Albus felt his heart begin to beat again, slowly. So Harry knew part of the truth. He did not know the whole of it, the most vital part of it. Perhaps he never would. It all depended on how well Albus answered him. "I felt sorry for Sirius," he answered freely. "He had come from a Dark family, and been abused as a child. The moment he went into Gryffindor, his family began to turn their backs on him. Not even his relationship with his brother could save him in their eyes, not once his brother went to Slytherin. But Sirius still remembered his brother fondly. That childhood experience of friendship with him was the seed that had formed the noble man we knew, that made it possible for Sirius to escape the shadow of Slytherin in the first place." He heard Severus snort, but he made no move to meet the other man's eyes, keeping his earnest gaze on Harry. "When that same brother was in danger, how could I ask Sirius to choose between betraying him and betraying his friends? True, he would have died when he went to Voldemort, but more than that, his soul would have been destroyed. I wanted to spare him that."
"Why didn't you want to spare Peter?" Harry's voice was flat and unforgiving.
Albus spread his hands. Yes, I knew I could count on Peter's selfishness. He must have escaped and shattered his web because he was so concerned that someone else know the truth. He could not stand to be a true sacrifice. Now that he has convinced Harry he was some abused innocent, he should leave him alone, because his vanity is satisfied. "Peter had already had a different life than Sirius," he said simply. "One full of life and love and laughter as a child, and a friendship with the Marauders. The first sacrifice I ever asked him to make was as a spy among the Death Eaters, before Severus came to our side—"
"What?"
But Severus clamped his mouth shut in the next instant, even though his eyes glittered angrily. Albus watched him with an intense sadness etching his heart. I have already lost you, Severus. I know it. But I may not have lost Harry. Not yet.
"And then to become your parents' Secret-Keeper in Sirius's place," Albus finished. "That spared Regulus, whom Voldemort killed at once when he had no more use for him, and it spared Sirius from making a decision that would have torn his soul apart."
"But it didn't spare Peter," Harry whispered.
"Peter chose this," said Albus. "I told you once, Harry, that the phoenix web only works when someone accepts it willingly. That is what Peter did. He agreed to spend the rest of his life in Azkaban with the rest of the world thinking him a traitor. I honored him for his sacrifice. I do not honor him for what he has done since he escaped."
"You ordered him to betray us," said Harry. "You ordered him to put Connor's life in danger." There was a long silence, and then he breathed out, "Why?"
Albus could have fallen to his knees and prayed in thanks, did he think anyone or anything would have accepted this prayer. Despite the shattering of the phoenix web, despite Peter's words, he had not lost Harry, not yet. Harry believed that Connor's life was still more important than his own.
And, because of that, the wizarding world may be spared the intense revolution that Harry would otherwise bring upon it, the tearing and the ripping and the bloodshed.
Albus replied with all his heart. Harry could have this part of the truth, and welcome to it. "Because of the prophecy," he said. "It spoke of someone born to defy the Dark Lord at the end of July—a younger twin. You were the only pair who qualified. If the Dark Lord did not attack you, then the prophecy would never have come true. The dying would have continued. The First War would have ended with Voldemort's victory."
Harry wavered for a long moment. Then he said, "But you put a child in danger. There are those who would argue that if you had to sacrifice children, then you didn't deserve to win the War."
"Those people were not the ones who fought Voldemort," said Albus, his mind full of Plague-devastated battlefields, of the thunderstorm that Voldemort had turned to acid and set upon Hogsmeade, of the Children's Massacre with its crucifixions and the Eagleton house with its Muggleborn family made to rape and murder each other. "They are the ones who still have the luxury of ethics even in wartime."
"But what if you put him in danger again?" Harry whispered. "What if you put him in danger now?"
"That is why he is getting training from Sirius," said Albus, and then leaned forward. He had to impress this on the boy, now that Harry was turning aside from the role the prophecy had destined him for. "And why you must support him, Harry, not rip him in two. I understand that I have hurt you. I understand that your parents have hurt you. But what do you gain by drawing away from us, by choosing Severus as a guardian or listening to Peter? You will tear your twin apart, put him in danger of his concentration wavering even as he learns to fight Voldemort."
Harry swallowed.
"Harry," said Severus sharply, "that is not true. He also put your life in danger that night." He raised his head, and Albus flinched at the hatred in his eyes. I must watch him. I forgot how dangerous he was when angered. "He has asked unacceptable sacrifices of you. Is Connor's peace of mind worth so much more than your freedom?"
Harry only shook his head and said, "Truce, from now on. I won't hurt you if you don't hurt me." Then he turned away from the room, barely waiting for Albus's nod. Severus stayed a moment, his eyes locked on Albus's. Albus knew better than to try Legilimency. He remained silent.
"You are a bloody fool, Albus," said Severus. "You know what he could become." He shook his head twice, and then hurried after Harry. Albus could hear him speaking to the boy, trying to soothe him, trying to turn him from his loyalty to his brother.
Albus did not think it would work, not now. They had avoided disaster by the skin of their teeth, but they had avoided it. He had a truce with the boy, and he had seen for himself that Harry still cared more about Connor than about simply turning his magic loose to do what it would. He still had some hope for the future.
Perhaps it would have been better to leave him free, in danger of becoming a Dark Lord, than to bind him. He has a hatred of bindings now. He will not understand that the wizarding world is built on them, that I cannot let him loosen them.
But he could be far more devastating than he is now. If he were free of all the bindings, if he knew all the truth, then he would wield a power that is stronger than he now has. Imagine the world then.
Albus could imagine the world then. He would not be able to prevent the bindings from being loosened if Harry knew everything, and then there would be civil war and bloody revolution and the death of everything he had worked so hard to build and protect and love.
And Sirius…
What the boy did not know about his godfather would not hurt him.
The situation now was not ideal, Albus knew, but he could maintain it. He could stay in a truce with the boy, defending what he still had rather than mourning what was lost. He was sure Harry would do the same, rather than risk losing his brother. He did not think himself that important. He would not challenge or confront his parents unless someone pushed him. And Severus cared too much for the boy to push him.
It had been, Albus decided as he stood and made for bed, a good day after all, and the only thing that would have made it better was the presence of Fawkes on his perch. Phoenixes, however, never seemed to know when they were wanted.