Thank you for the reviews on the chapter yesterday! They contained good constructive criticism.
Chapter Sixteen is different now, and better for it, I think.
Chapter Sixteen: Comes a DementorHarry felt the thoughts ganging up on him again, that night when he lay in his bed in Slytherin and had no distractions but the soft breathing of the other four boys around him—which was too familiar to be a true distraction.
Harry closed his eyes, but sleep was the furthest thing from his mind. He felt Starborn's letter, which he'd hidden under the sheets, burning like a hot coal. He felt the questions that Peter had made him ask stirring in his head and looking at him with sharp eyes.
They've risked so much, in reaching out to me. Well, at least Peter has. I have no idea how much danger Starborn's in. But Peter is here, and keeps being here in spite of everything. Harry let out a long, slow breath. He lost his friends, his freedom, control of his own mind for twelve years. And he still would have been safer if he remained in Azkaban. At least then things wouldn't have changed. He could have had the comforts of routine, and Dumbledore's good will.
Instead, he left, and came for me, first to Godric's Hollow and then to Hogwarts. He didn't even know if I would listen to him. But he came anyway. He risked his newfound freedom.
And all he wants me to do is try to think without the phoenix web, to think about things a little differently than I've done so far.
Harry wrestled with the thought a while longer, but the conclusion he came to was always the same.
He risked too much for me. He made another sacrifice. The least I can do is try to honor that sacrifice, and ask his questions.
Harry opened his eyes and stared at the canopy of his bed. He missed Sylarana now as he had not in days. She could have helped him straighten out his thoughts and decide which one he should tackle first.
Well, when in doubt, work backwards. Sylarana had said that to him once, though she had been referring to the way that one ate a Chocolate Frog. She did not seem concerned about the wisdom that said snakes always swallowed prey headfirst, and preferred to start with the legs.
Harry started with the Headmaster, therefore. When he settled the truce with Dumbledore, he had regretted, for a moment, the gift he'd sent to Lucius Malfoy, a mirror tuned to the silvery instruments in Dumbledore's office, and enabling Lucius to see what happened there. Harry had explained in his note that he felt compelled to answer the gift of great trust Lucius had given him—allowing him to spy on possible enemies—with a gift as great, to allow Lucius to spy on his greatest possible enemy. Such a mirror would be worth more than one linked to Godric's Hollow, the home of a pair of frightened wizards on the edge of a Muggle village.
Now, he did not regret it, because he was thinking about things the way that Peter would have wanted him to. He was thinking that the truce with Dumbledore could not hold. How could it? Dumbledore didn't just want Harry not actively opposing him. He wanted Snape away from Harry, and Harry was not about to let that happen. He wanted Harry's magic bound, and Harry was not about to let that happen, either.
He paused, startled at himself.
You aren't?
If someone else had asked him, he would have said that of course he would allow his magic to be bound, if Connor wished it. Connor had made the point that Harry's magic could hurt and frighten other people. Harry didn't want that to happen. Surely it would be better to cage his power.
But how would that work? It was only a temporary solution. And given what had happened the last time his magic had been fully under the control of the phoenix web, that "temporary solution" was as likely to get people killed as having the magic free. Harry wondered whether other wizards would rather be dead, or alive and afraid.
No, his magic would have to stay free.
Harry shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. His head throbbed in an odd, pleasant way that had nothing to do with the pain he got in his scar along with his dreams. He had the feeling that he should have seen this revelation long since, but better late than never.
So. Fight your way back. Now Snape.
Snape's refusal to indulge his hatred towards Sirius was another sacrifice, another change. How could Harry refuse to honor it? He had demanded peace from Snape on the matter of his godfather, and got it. Snape was trying. The least Harry could do was trust Snape in the matter of his legal guardianship, and that meant thinking about things the way Peter had asked him to, so that he could tell Snape when something went wrong or was bothering him.
This is simpler than I thought it would be, Harry realized in confusion, and moved his thoughts to Peter.
The phoenix web flared when he tried to consider betraying Connor, so Harry concentrated on the story about Regulus, and the fact that their parents, Dumbledore, Sirius, and Remus had left them alone to face Voldemort's attack. Harry wondered what would have happened if things had gone wrong, if the prophecy hadn't meant his brother to be victor over Voldemort. Would Dumbledore have shrugged at Lily and James and said that he was sorry? Would he have Obliviated them the way he did Remus?
Anger hissed through Harry, honest anger. It was still hard to feel angry on his own behalf, but he could and would feel enraged over Connor. The phoenix web even liked that, and retreated from paining him.
There have been too many sacrifices, Harry thought, as he remembered Peter's distant eyes when he spoke of the First War. That was the way they fought then. We can fight the Second War a different way. I don't need anything to be different, because I was raised and trained to be a soldier, but someone like Peter shouldn't be asked to do the same in the middle of his life. I want to fight in some way that won't involve anyone but me having to sacrifice anything.
He waited for pain from the phoenix web, or pain from his own conscience. And there was nothing. There was only darkness in his mind, bright darkness lit with the shine of possibilities like stars. Harry shivered, and now there was gooseflesh running up and down his arms, and his breath was coming short, and he remembered the sentences in Starborn's letter that had most caught his attention.
Imagine that he was conscious, every moment, of what his power could do and what it might be used for, and weighed the hopes of those who came to him, and rejected the ones he deemed wrong instead of mindlessly obeying every wizard's wish. Imagine such power bent to defend, to protect and serve.
And Harry thought, for the first time, I really could do that. I really could be that. But to do that, I have to be conscious of my power, not caging it, not ignoring it, not hoping that everyone else will ignore it.
The possibility, tasting of morning, lasted for all of a moment. Then the ordinary, regular thoughts crowded in again.
Doing that would frighten other people. There's no doubt of it. And do I want to call attention to myself just now, when I've just got Snape as a guardian, and have Aurors investigating my parents? And Peter could still be lying. And Starborn could be lying. It's even likelier with Starborn. He admitted to being a pureblood who uses the word Mudblood. I can't trust them. This is all just an aberration. There's a reasonable explanation for all of it. Come summer, I'll be back with my parents and Connor, and all of this will seem like a nightmare.
This time, it was the ordinary, regular thoughts that felt false and strained, and it was his own voice and not the voice of his magic or rage that answered his last statement, quiet and confident. It will only seem like that if you let it.
Harry lay awake, trembling, for some time after that.
"Nervous, Harry?"
Harry snorted at Millicent and bit into his sausage. "Hardly," he said around the food, ignoring Pansy's grimace of disgust at the way bits of sausage flew out of his mouth. "It's just a Quidditch game."
"It's against your brother," said Millicent, leaning forward, her eyes shining with the Slytherin instinct for scenting a weak point, or blood in the water. "I'd think that would throw you. After all, you've gone to great lengths before not to win that game, and you seemed quite distressed last year when you did win."
"That was last year," said Harry, and bit into another sausage without quite finishing the first one. Pansy pointedly edged away from him.
Millicent lifted her head. "You've changed your mind, then?" she whispered.
"Did I say that?" Harry turned back to his breakfast, ignoring her growl of frustration. Let her see how it felt, to be tormented and teased and played with.
Draco, of course, leaned over and whispered, "Do you really mean to win this game, Harry, or not?" Draco always considered that he had a right to know truths like that, and he probably had more of a right than most people, Harry conceded. As it happened, though, he knew why Draco was asking this now. He'd been listening the night before when Draco bet Blaise ten Galleons that Harry would win. Blaise was betting that Harry would deliberately throw the game again. It irritated Harry slightly that neither of them was betting on Connor to win, but he was fairly sure he would get blank looks if he asked them why, so he didn't bother.
"I don't know," he answered Draco honestly, and went back to his sausages.
"You should," Draco whispered, stealing one of the sausages. Harry didn't know why, since his own plate had been loaded with them, but he couldn't do much more than growl a protest; he'd bitten into too much food for even him to talk through without spilling crumbs to the table. It's too bad that the game today isn't a contest in that skill, he thought. I could best Connor at that and not feel awkward about doing it. He'd probably be disgusted. He snorted at the mental picture of what his brother's expression would be as Harry crammed food into his mouth, and so almost missed Draco's next words. "Real talent deserves some recognition."
"You're not being subtle, you know, Draco," Harry pointed out as he finally got his mouth free. "I might have wondered what you meant first year, but now I know."
Draco frowned at him. "Don't you want to win?"
"Yes," said Harry, and ate one more bite before Flint's bellow rang out across the Great Hall, summoning the members of the Slytherin Quidditch team for one final lecture and yelling session. He sighed and stood. "And no."
"You're bloody confusing," Draco whined at him.
"I'm being honest with you," said Harry, as he eased around the table and towards the entrance to the Great Hall. "The inside of my mind is bloody confusing."
He had just started to hurry, not daring to look towards the Gryffindor table, when the shadow of wings swept across his head. He paused and looked up, blinking. An owl circled around him, then dropped a letter into his hand and hurtled back towards the window out of the Great Hall, as if it were too busy to wait for a reply or even a Knut or treat.
Harry turned the letter over. He had suspected from the creamy paper what it was, and the Ministry seal confirmed it. He swallowed once and eased a finger beneath the seal, breaking it open.
"Hurry it up, Potter!" Flint shouted.
"Just a minute, Flint!" Harry yelled back, and then drew out and unfolded the letter.
Dear Mr. Potter:
It has come to our attention that your appointment of Severus Snape as your guardian is irregular in at least one respect. There is evidence that Professor Snape was once a Death Eater, and though he was spared Azkaban by the good word of Headmaster Dumbledore and indeed was not reported reliably at the scene of any Death Eater activity, his reputation is hardly pristine. He would hardly seem the first choice of guardian for the brother of the Boy-Who-Lived, who might himself be a target of Death Eaters seeking to use him against Connor Potter.
We must therefore be sure that you are not under any outside coercion. Enclosed with this letter is a charmed parchment that will check you for the Imperius and other forms of compulsive magic. When it is touched and has completed its listing of any relevant spells you may be under, it will return to us. We also plan at least one visit from the following Aurors, so that they may interview you personally:
Auror: Kingsley ShackleboltAuror-in-training: Aidan Feverfew
If our Aurors see any irregularity, they will not hesitate to recommend removing Professor Snape as your guardian. In that case, we are minded to appoint either Professor Dumbledore, as was our original intention, or your godfather, Sirius Black, whom Auror Shacklebolt has done us the convenience of pointing out lives at Hogwarts. Please prepare for the visit on the second Saturday of this month.
Sincerely,
Amelia Bones
Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
Harry let out a little sigh. Well, he had known something like this would probably happen. He had not expected the visit from the Aurors specifically, and he wondered what it would take to fool them. A good deal, he suspected. Shacklebolt was Dumbledore's, part of the Order of the Phoenix, and if he trusted this Auror-in-training, he would either also be part of the Order or a neutral who could do no harm—certainly not an enemy of Dumbledore's.
Harry never doubted that he would need to fool them. Going back, falling into Dumbledore's pocket, was simply not an option.
He swallowed. You are thinking the way Peter wanted you to think again, he accused himself.
And is that a bad thing?
Harry shook his head and straightened his spine. Flint was glaring at him from across the Hall now.
"Any day that you see fit to join us, Potter," he sniped.
Harry strode out of the Great Hall. He could feel thoughtful gazes fixed on his back, but he had no inclination to turn and meet them. He had a lecture to attend, a match to play, and a decision to make, probably in mid-air.
Harry kicked into the air. He could feel eyes on him. The rest of the Slytherin Quidditch team would be watching, because Flint had managed to convince the rest of them that Harry was the reason their practices went so well. Harry wished he wouldn't. Taking credit for his own Captaincy would be a good start, even if said Captaincy did consist mostly of yelling.
He could feel the Slytherins who'd bet on him to win or throw the game watching. They'd probably debate every move he made, Harry thought as he swerved around the first Bludger batted at him by one of the Weasley twins, because they would want to be absolutely sure if he'd flown in such a way as to hand the game over to Connor, or just had a piece of bad luck.
The Gryffindors were watching him, and especially Connor, whose eyes had gone wary. He no longer expected to win, automatically, when he played Harry. Harry told himself he was glad. His brother needed to experience real competition in order to grow. It was as simple as that. Harry should have seen it last year and done something about it then, though he'd been a bit too busy fending off an enchanted Bludger to think about it.
He knew his parents, who had come for the game, wouldn't be watching him. He wondered idly if the Fugitivus Animus would blur his shape in their eyes, or just convince them that he was someone else.
"And Gryffindor secures the Quaffle!" Lee Jordan roared triumphantly. "Chaser Angelina Johnson carries it—"
Abruptly he squeaked, and the Gryffindor stands roared in outrage. Harry briefly turned from his search for the Snitch to see Flint cutting Angelina off, turning his broom in such a way that she nearly fell from the sky. She had to clutch at her own broom, and the Quaffle bounced from her arms. Flint grabbed it and sped towards the hovering Gryffindor Keeper, Oliver Wood.
Harry shuddered at the look on Flint's face. He obviously wanted to win this game, badly enough to risk fouling an opposing player, and the expression on Wood's face wasn't much better. Mad for Quidditch, the both of them.
"And the Snitch has been sighted!" Jordan shouted, recovering from how massively unfair life was. "There goes Connor Potter, surely the most magnificent Seeker on the field, after it!"
Harry glanced once at his diving brother, then shook his head. That would be a feint; he'd played Quidditch with his brother too long not to recognize the way he bent over his broom, prepared to spin off in one direction or another. The Slytherin Beaters were falling for it, chasing him, but Harry preferred to rise and hover above the chaos, still looking for that flash of gold.
"Fall off your broom."
Harry clutched at his broom handle in shock. He darted a quick glance around, but he could not see who might have spoken. It certainly wasn't another Quidditch player; they were all below him. And the stands were full of staring eyes and screaming mouths. It had sounded like none of them, actually. It had sounded like a voice half in his head, the way that Sylarana used to speak to him.
"Fall off your broom. Leave this match to your brother."
Harry, now that he was watching for it, felt the slithering of a cold wind around his thoughts. This was the compulsion gift, he realized. Someone was trying to make him fall by compelling him to do it.
He thought of Connor and discarded him in the same instant. Connor would want to win the game fairly, and he was a bit busy at the moment, skimming along just above the grass to escape the Beaters and their Bludgers. But it was still compulsion.
That left Dumbledore, but Harry didn't think Dumbledore wanted him harmed in the way that a fall from his broom would leave him harmed.
Sirius.
Harry caught his breath as a shock of betrayal tore through him. Of course, it would be that way, he thought a moment later. Sirius had made no secret of his allegiances this year, even as he helped all four Quidditch teams prepare for the matches. He wanted Gryffindor to win. He expected to see the Quidditch Cup adorning Gryffindor House at the end of the year. Harry had prevented that from happening the last two years, and Sirius might well have decided to remove him as a threat.
But does he really want me dead? Harry looked down at the boil of green and red robes beneath him. That's what could happen if I fell from this height.
Now that he knew what was happening, he became filled with a reckless desire to test if Sirius really meant it. He aimed his broom at the sky and soared upward, ignoring Jordan's amused commentary about how the Slytherin Seeker seemed to have decided to chase birds instead of Snitches. Harry was two hundred feet above the Pitch, then three hundred. He waited.
"Fall off your broom."
Yes, he means it, Harry thought in a daze as he bounced the compulsion off his Occlumency shields. Oh, Sirius. Are House rivalries really that important to you, still? Or are you just not thinking?
He lowered his gaze, sweeping the stands until he saw Sirius's untidy black hair. Sirius was sitting beneath a colorfully decorated Gryffindor banner with their parents and Remus, of course. He would be concentrating intensely to summon the compulsion gift from that far below. Harry had no doubt he could do it, though. Connor had had to meet his eyes when he demonstrated it, but Connor's gift had been new then. Sirius had been well-trained in it for a long time.
"Fall off your broom."
"No," Harry snapped back aloud, irritated, and then looked down to see Sirius's head tilt back. Harry couldn't read his expression, being too high up, but he could make out the pale smear of his face, and that was enough to confirm that, yes, Sirius had been talking him into a fall, and Sirius could hear him back.
Harry resisted the urge to stick out his tongue, and looked around for the Snitch. He still didn't know for sure what he would do when he saw it, but his desire to catch it was a bit stronger than before. If Sirius wants to see Slytherin lose so very badly, I am disinclined to oblige him.
Then he saw it, a golden flutter dancing and looping ahead of him, as though it were taking a small stroll alone in this empty expanse of sky. Harry tensed, but didn't move, listening instead to Jordan's commentary for a moment.
"Slytherin scores," he said, sounding displeased, "40-20."
Harry nodded slightly to himself, and felt his mind open up in front of him again, the way it had Sunday night. He was making another decision that would change things, and he wasn't sure he would like all the consequences.
But it wasn't his fault that the Snitch was up here, and Connor was down there. Nor was it his fault that Gryffindor was trailing Slytherin right now, and Harry's snatch of the Snitch would let them win conclusively.
It was much easier not to think, Harry found as he pushed himself forward. He'd win the match, and then see what happened.
Of course, the moment he began flying after it, the Snitch began exhibiting evasive behavior, darting back down towards the players and cutting from side to side. Harry gave himself over to a Seeker's instincts, and none of the evasive maneuvers mattered. He was not behind the Snitch, but slightly in front of it, his hand poised to the right by the time it fluttered there, his body leaning forward when the Snitch stopped flying backwards.
"Fall off your broom."
Sirius's command simply rolled over him and vanished when he was in this mental state, and then Harry's hand closed around the Snitch. He'd planned to let out a howl of triumph, to mark the moment, but when he felt the frantic beat of the tiny wings against his palm, he could do nothing but swallow. He held up the Snitch in his closed hand and flew back closer to the players, hoping someone would notice soon.
Lee Jordan did. "Potter's caught the Snitch," he said, in a dazed voice. "Slytherin wins, 190-20."
Harry heard the cheer erupt from the throats below him, at least the throats clad in green or sitting in the Slytherin green-draped stands. He smiled as he saw the gleams of pale and dark hair that would be Draco and Blaise, the one taunting the other into paying up. Harry thought he might be in shock. His breath rushed through his lungs, and he was shuddering slightly, and the air around him was very clear and bright.
"Fall off your broom."
Harry shook his head and turned to glare down at Sirius. The match is over. Slytherin won. Why does he have to keep doing this?
He was just in time to see Sirius rise to his feet, his eyes apparently intent on where Harry hovered, and Peter hit him like a whirlwind. Harry felt his jaw gape, and did not care. Peter appeared to leap up from between the slats of the stands—maybe he'd come as close as he could in rat form, or actually transformed as he was making his way through the gaps in the boards—and bear Sirius down onto the stands as he tackled him. The compulsion ceased at once, but now people in the Gryffindor stands were screaming for a different reason.
Harry narrowed his eyes and hurtled towards them, letting his Nimbus 2001 fly as fast as it could. The rest of the Pitch flashed by in confused blurs of green and scarlet, and then he was above the fight. "Peter!" he yelled. "Sirius! Stop it!"
Sirius had already transformed, and Peter was trying to hold down, or fight back, or do something else with an enormous black dog. Harry knew at once that he was going to lose. Peter was still thin and shaky from Azkaban, and Sirius was enraged and snarling on top of being healthy.
And if Sirius wins and retakes Peter…
A cold wind blew in from the side. Harry reared back and saw the Dementors pouring onto the Pitch, aiming for Peter. Their black shapes appeared to ripple in the strengthening wind. Their eyeless faces—Harry had learned now that they were eyeless—were turned in one direction. People screamed and fainted all around them, and they didn't appear to notice.
Harry bared his teeth and sharpened his grip on the Snitch. His hand hurt from the tightness of his clutch. Good. The pain will give me something to focus on.
He flew straight at the Dementors.
They didn't stop coming, but they did ripple and part, and then Harry could see the gray one he'd met in King's Cross Station in the middle of them, walking down the suddenly empty space like a king down an aisle in his throne room. That sensation of cold eyes from the eyeless face assaulted Harry again, and that voice like an icy spike hammered in through one ear. Harry pulled up, hovering. He didn't dare fly when he was in such pain.
What are you doing? This one has escaped from Azkaban prison. He is ours to retake.
"I don't want you to retake him," said Harry, and bore down with his right hand to make his fingers cramp and tremble, and his mind come back from the threatening glimpses of the Chamber that danced on the edges of his vision. "You—you called me something, the last time we met. What does that mean?"
Vates. The gray Dementor's voice had turned colder. But though we might listen to you, vates, that does not mean we obey.
Harry had no idea what the Dementor was talking about, but he knew what it meant: the Dementors were still spreading out around him and focusing on Peter. He didn't want that to happen.
"You touched my mind last time," he said. "Why, if you don't care?"
The vates is important to us, said the gray Dementor, and reached out a shadow of a hand on which ghostly fingers flickered. But our own responsibilities are to guard the prisoners of Azkaban. We have no choice about obeying that binding, any more than you have a choice about obeying your own.
Harry took a deep breath. What he thought he had to do now was far more than just listening, or thinking. But too many people had made too many sacrifices, or might have to make them. Peter, and Snape, and Draco, and Connor.
It ends here.
"If I could free you from that binding?" he whispered.
The Dementors all froze as one. Harry could feel them trembling, and wondered if that was what they did in place of breathing.
Then the gray Dementor said, in a voice that felt as though it were leaving ice crystals frozen on his face, Only the true vates could do that. And you are very far from being a true vates yet.
"Free my magic, then." Harry lifted his head and narrowed his eyes at the gray Dementor. "You want to be free? You want to have possibilities other than guarding Azkaban?" He remembered the phrases in Starborn's letter. "I think I have power that I might bend to protect and serve, and I would refuse compulsion if I could. I've had it used against me too often to like it. But I can't get rid of this binding on my own."
The phoenix web flared behind his eyes, but Harry thought hard about doing this for Connor, getting the Dementors off the field so that he wouldn't be terrified, and the pain in his head calmed.
That is the first step, said the gray Dementor, and then it glided forward and reached out a hand towards him.
Harry calmed his fear and grasped its fingers with its left hand.
Cold sank into him and overwhelmed him, freezing his arm from the hand down, but Harry had felt the intense cold of his own magic and did not flinch. The swirl of ice bore up to his shoulder and then across to his neck and towards his head. Harry closed his eyes.
The warm flare of the phoenix web was there to greet him, and then the Dementor's power reached his mind. This time, it did not simply rip and tear at his thoughts as it had in King's Cross. Harry had invited it in, and that made the difference. Harry could feel the way the Dementor trod carefully through his thoughts, stirring up happy memories that it delicately fed on, to keep itself locked in his head while it completed its work.
And it did complete its work. Harry saw the phoenix web turn blue from gold, and then he felt it begin to crack and fray. Behind it rose a swell of power, and he panted, afraid of what it might mean.
We will not force you to free us, the gray Dementor whispered to him, the voice still painful. The vates cannot be forced, or he is the not the vates. And we can do nothing about the part of the web that is tied to your brotherly duty. But freeing your magic? Yes, we may do that. At the least, we shall enjoy it.
Harry didn't have time to question what that meant before the web dropped in shards of ice, and his magic broke completely free for the first time in his life.
The gray Dementor was borne backwards out of his mind on swelling waves of power. Harry sobbed, and then bowed his head as he felt magic spiral down his arms, warming the path of ice that breaking the phoenix web had made. Then it reached his fingertips and rose all around him, an incandescent wave of light that filled the Quidditch Pitch and struck wildly for the sky beyond.
Harry managed to slit his eyes so as to see through the radiance, and became aware that his magic was singing, in a voice far deeper and gladder than the voice of the phoenix web. The song echoed through his body, his mouth, his ears, and its cheerful booming shook the earth, reminding Harry of Hagrid's voice. That ceased after a moment, but the light continued rising from him, forming an enormous pair of white-gold wings that beat lazily from his shoulders and covered the shocked faces staring at him in brilliance.
Heated wind stroked his skin, and Harry saw the Forbidden Forest stirring, the trees bowing as if in answer to that wind. Creatures were moving at the edge of the trees, too. Harry heard the thin sound of many cries, many greetings. He lifted his head as the wings dropped from his shoulders, dissolving into sharp motes of light, and smiled in their direction.
He looked back down at the stands. Peter was gone, and, Harry had to hope, safe. The Dementors were nowhere in sight. Remus was on his feet, staring hard at him. The rest of the school was staring at him, too, but screaming in shock, and the expressions on their faces were different from the one on Remus's, which was unexpectedly yearning.
Harry didn't know what the vates was, not exactly, but he knew it had something to do with freedom and magical creatures, and he wondered if Remus had recognized him in the way a werewolf might.
He turned slowly on his broomstick, looking along the stands. Ron was furiously scratching his shoulders. Neville was staring with an open mouth and shining eyes. Percy Weasley had his hand over his face. Hermione was mouthing questions at him that Harry didn't think he could have answered even if he could hear her. McGonagall was on her feet, her hands clasped together as if to hold something precious between them, her face wildly proud.
Dumbledore was staring at him in horror.
Harry glanced at the Slytherin stands, and surprised a look of pleasure and wonder on Millicent's face. Pansy had her mouth open. Draco was standing up and applauding, while Blaise looked as though someone had smacked him in the face with a hammer. And Snape…
Snape's triumph hung around him like a roaring black fire to someone who knew him as well as Harry did, even though he'd done no more than rise to his feet and look up at Harry.
Harry read the next step in his guardian's face, and nodded. He was terrified, and he did not dare look at his brother, but he knew what had to happen next.
No hiding. No going back. We face what comes from this. We must.
He started to fly towards Snape, and then paused as another voice rang out over the field. This one was very familiar, but it didn't come from inside his head. Instead, singing, Fawkes soared over the field and came to settle on Harry's shoulder. Harry adjusted himself to carry the weight and raised a trembling hand to stroke the phoenix's feathers. He only realized he still held the Snitch when he realized that he couldn't unclench his fingers from around it.
Fawkes fit his head into the curve of Harry's neck, and gave a low, glad croon.
Harry took a deep breath, accepted the heat seeping into him like courage, and flew towards Snape.