Thank you for all the reviews yesterday! Writing that many different POV's was definitely fun.

Just one today, but there will be more in the future.

Chapter Thirty-Two: Mastering Himself

"Legilimens."

Harry stood as still as he could, and let down as many of his carefully trained defenses as he could. It was harder than he had thought it would be. As Snape had said would happen, his Occlumency shields were now part of the normal arrangement of his mind, and it took some work to move them, as it once would have taken work to shift the webs.

He had to know the truth, though, and he had to know it before he went to confront Dumbledore.

Snape looked long and carefully into Harry's mind, and then stepped back. The expression on his face was so inward that Harry waited for a moment before he asked.

"It's gone, isn't it?"

Snape shook his head, then said, "Yes, it is. I cannot see a trace of the phoenix web anywhere in your thoughts."

Harry closed his eyes in relief. "Thank you, sir."

"But your mind," Snape whispered. "Your mind, Harry. It's been arranged in webs for so long that I did not think it knew any other way to grow. It may have taken its cue from the phoenix web, but it had made the shape its own. And now it is changing shape." Harry opened his eyes to see his guardian looking at him as if he had done this on purpose, just to spite him.

"What is it?" Harry asked, half-wondering if he wanted to know. But he had promised himself. No more hiding—at least once he knew he was hiding—no more flinching from the hard choices. He had to know everything he could if he was going to work out the compromise he wanted to propose to Dumbledore, much less become the vates and stay allied with the purebloods and everything else he had to do.

"Your mind is becoming a forest," Snape whispered. "The webs are changing into canopies of leaves, the intersecting strands into vines, the sturdier places where you tucked your magic into trees."

Harry blinked, then laughed softly. "But that's a good thing, sir. I'd much rather have that as a symbol of life."

Snape eyed him. Then he seemed to realize that he was showing confusion in front of someone else, and that simply would not do. He straightened, and the expression vanished behind a wooden mask. "If you spend more than an hour in the Headmaster's office, Potter, I am coming in after you," he said.

"Yes, sir," said Harry happily, and stepped out of Snape's office. Draco was waiting for him. He seemed to consider it only fair that Harry was bringing him along this time, instead of Snape. Harry hadn't enlightened him to the real reason yet, but he did now as they turned in the direction of the Headmaster's office.

"I'd like you to watch, Draco, please," he said. "I know that I have to make a bargain, an alliance, with the Headmaster—"

"You could kill him," Draco suggested, his tone a bit too bloodthirsty for Harry's tastes. Harry rolled his eyes, and wondered which of his parents Draco had got this from.

"Maybe," he said. "But I don't want to."

"Why not?" Draco halted and frowned at him. Since Harry kept walking, that didn't work very well. Draco muttered under his breath and caught up with him a few strides later. "He hurt you. He betrayed you. He kept trying to get that damn web on you even when you didn't want it."

Harry shrugged. "And he's too powerful to kill, and he controls Connor a good deal more than I do right now. I still care about my brother, Draco. I just don't care about him only. I need to talk to Dumbledore. And that is the reason I need you there. If it seems at any point like I'm willing to sacrifice too much, give up things that you don't think I should, interfere."

"Oh, you can count on me for that," Draco said.

Harry gave him a small smile. "I know."

"Harry, come in," said Dumbledore as the door to his office opened. His voice was patient, calm, serene. Harry could tell it wasn't full of his usual grandfatherly good nature, though. He sounded as though he had no emotions at all, behind the serenity.

Harry nodded to the Headmaster and once again made for the left-hand chair, but Draco got in front of him and took it first. Harry gave him a curious glance only until he realized that the left-hand chair was slightly closer to Dumbledore's desk, and thus Dumbledore's wand. Rolling his eyes, Harry sat down in the right-hand chair instead. I know he cares about me, but there are times when he takes the protectiveness a bit too far.

"Headmaster," he said. "I came to talk to you about my magic and my brother."

"So you said in the note you sent me, Harry." Dumbledore inclined his head, his beard draping across most of the desk. "What I am unsure about is why you waited a week to talk to me."

"I thought I needed the time," said Harry. "I had to come up with a plan. I wanted to gain some control of my magic before I saw you again, in case I accidentally ate part of it." He watched Dumbledore wince with a malicious pleasure that was entirely new to him—well, all right, almost new. "And I wanted to do some reading."

"What is your plan, Harry?" Dumbledore might have been discussing the weather at the raising of Stonehenge. In fact, Harry thought, he probably would have showed more animation in a discussion of that. Some wizards argued that ancient weather patterns were the most important clues to ancient magic.

"To teach my brother," said Harry. "I ought to have done it before, but I didn't know how badly he needed it. Now I know. He's utterly incompetent in most of the things he ought to know, Headmaster. He had to have a friend instruct him in pureblood rituals, and then he still misused them—"

"Purebloods are not the whole of the wizarding world, Harry."

"But they're part of it," said Harry, "and I won't see them left behind." He nodded at Draco. "In some cases, they've been more welcoming to me, more understanding, than my own family."

Dumbledore contrived to look unmoved as he said, "Still, Harry, that is mostly because of your power. And power isn't everything."

"No," Harry agreed, because Draco was trying to say something unfortunate. "Learning is. And Connor has only learned how to use the compulsion ability, and then not in appropriate places. He tried to compel me in the Owlery, Headmaster." He paused, then decided to ask. Even if it were true, it was in the past now. "Did you tell him to do that, sir?"

Dumbledore's face had gone white. In the next moment, it went back to being free of all expression. "No, Harry, I did not," he said. "I suspect that was Sirius's idea. He has been spending almost all his time on the weekends with Connor and Lily, and he seems very dedicated to the idea of renewing your bonds of family."

Harry nodded. "Then that is part of my bargain. I will teach my brother the things he ought to know and hasn't learned—the pureblood rituals, history, how to control his power, how to duel, how to survive. In return, I want him taken away from Sirius."

"You know that Connor will not like this," said Dumbledore. "The boy adores your godfather."

"I know that," said Harry. "But he's not learning anything useful from Sirius, Headmaster, only how to get his way and how to hate. And the Boy-Who-Lived will need to love the whole of the wizarding world, won't he?"

Dumbledore actually jumped. Harry wondered why. But the Headmaster nodded briskly a moment later. "Yes, he will," he murmured. "If you feel that he is learning only hate, Harry, then I will remove him from Sirius's tutelage. Sirius had assured me that he was no longer teaching the boy to hate Slytherins or even Dark magic. He had said he was showing him the ethics of compulsion, when it may be used and when not. It sounds as though he lied to me." His voice had turned old, and infinitely sad.

Harry drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair for a moment. In some ways, this felt like betraying his brother. On the other hand, after what had happened in the Owlery, he was not much more inclined to show mercy to Connor than Snape and Draco had been to him at Malfoy Manor. If Connor had not torn the phoenix web and introduced him to the wonders of clear sight, which distracted him from his anger, Harry might have reacted to the compulsion violently enough to hurt him.

"Headmaster, do you know about the second prophecy?"

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "What second prophecy?"

Harry stared searchingly at him, blocking the attempt to Legilimize him instinctively. He couldn't tell if Dumbledore was sincere, because almost any emotion could be hidden behind that twinkling façade, but he seemed to be. Harry decided he would have to explain further, despite the tight hold Draco had on his arm.

"Professor Trelawney gave what sounded like a true prophecy early in February, Headmaster," he said. "I only heard the last three words, stand or fall. Ron and Connor heard the whole of it, but Connor won't tell me and Ron won't tell me, either, out of loyalty to his friend. I thought Connor had probably come and told you."

"No," said Dumbledore quietly. He sat in silence for some time. Harry waited. Draco shot him a small glare. Harry ignored him. He had done what he thought was necessary, and it hadn't been a sacrifice. He had thought that Dumbledore really did know all the things he asked about.

At last, the Headmaster looked up and nodded. "You may teach Connor, Harry, and I will inform him that his private lessons with Sirius are to cease." Dumbledore paused for a long moment, then added, "You surprise me with your willingness to enter into this. I thought that you would despise him after what happened, turn against him."

Harry smiled. He knew it wasn't a pleasant smile. "You trained me too well for that," he said. "I love him, sir. I always will. But I refuse to simply be a mindless weapon for him, turned against his enemies on his whims. I want to teach him how to recognize his own strengths, and to know the things that any wizard can learn. He is the Boy-Who-Lived, but if Voldemort returned tomorrow and Connor needed to defeat him, we would all be doomed. So I think it best that he learn how to defend himself—which he was supposed to be doing by now, anyway, if my mother's original plan had held true."

"He has defeated Voldemort three times," Dumbledore pointed out.

Harry sighed. "Twice, sir. My magic destroyed Tom Riddle in the Chamber of Secrets. I Obliviated Connor, because my magic would have done something more permanent to him otherwise, and let him think that he did it."

Draco pinched his arm. Harry glared at him. "What?" he whispered. "I would think you would be smug that I told him that."

"I am," Draco whispered. "Now tell everyone else."

Harry shook his head and turned away from Draco's further pinches, back to Dumbledore. Dumbledore once again looked old, and he was looking out his window as though wanting a glimpse of a wizarding world that had vanished long ago. Harry felt a spasm of pity as he watched him.

At last Dumbledore turned back, and said, "If this is the bargain you wish to make, Harry—teaching Connor in exchange for Sirius teaching him no longer—then I am inclined to grant it. But there is still the matter of what to do about your power." His eyes traced something invisible in the air, probably the outline of Harry's aura. That was on Harry's list to learn how to do, at least partially because he wanted to teach Connor how to do it.

"I know, sir," said Harry. "Professor Snape is helping me learn to see the edges of my compulsion and my ability to eat other wizards' magic, so that I'll know at once if I ever start exercising them."

"And what do you intend to do other than that?" Dumbledore was suddenly back to the stern old man Harry had seen him become on occasion, hardened in the matters of war, and his eyes pierced as they bore into Harry's.

"I intend to attend Hogwarts," said Harry calmly, "and teach my brother, and have more friends than my mother's plans would allow me to have. I have magic, Headmaster, and I even know more things than the average student might be expected to know. But I don't have other skills that the simplest child of four or five has. I want to build them. I want to learn how to live without my brother's shadow. And there are some things only time will teach me." He smiled slightly at the Headmaster's stunned expression. "Did you think I would run right out and become a war-leader, sir?" he asked.

"The thought had crossed my mind," Dumbledore murmured.

Harry shook his head. "I don't want to," he said. "I know there are some things I won't have a choice about because of the sheer strength of my magic, or because of the people I want to protect and free." He thought again about the webs that Dobby and Fawkes had shown him, and grimaced. He would choose to walk the vates path when he was ready, yes, but in other ways, there hadn't been a choice from the moment he realized what a vates was and did. There was no way he could forget about or ignore it. "But there are other things I can choose. I'm not the Boy-Who-Lived. I'm not the general of the Light; that's you, sir. I'm not going to become a politician of some sort just because that would make people comfortable. And the phoenix web has made me hate giving orders. I can't see myself at the head of an army. I can't see myself at the head of any sort of force, really."

Draco pinched his arm. Harry glanced at him, and saw Draco's eyes widened in something that looked like a mixture of surprise and amusement.

"Do you think most of us are going to follow anyone else?" Draco whispered to him.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Purebloods ought to get over this dependence on anyone of pure power," he whispered back. "It's what keeps them following Lords. Do they want to be swayed only by magic all their lives?"

"It's more than that, Harry—" Draco began.

"I am glad, Harry," Dumbledore interrupted then, "to know that ambition is not one of the reasons the Hat chose you for Slytherin."

Harry shrugged. "I do want to accomplish things, Headmaster. Just not in the name of myself, or only for myself. I know that Connor has to lead us, because the prophecy chose him. But he'd be a horrible leader right now." That caused only the smallest twinge of guilt in his chest, where before he would have been literally unable to say it. Harry had to smile about that. "I'm willing to help him become what he has to be. That's one of my major ambitions."

"And another?" Dumbledore was smiling too, encouraging, as though he thought he could trust Harry now.

"To become a vates."

Dumbledore's smile vanished, and he sat up. "I hope that you think on that long and hard, Harry," he intoned. "After all, the wizarding world is built on webs. I do not imagine that most of the purebloods—" for a moment, his eyes flicked to Draco "—would thank you for taking their house elves away."

Harry smiled tightly. "I'm working on it, Headmaster. I know how hard it's going to be."

"That ambition has killed wizards in the past, Harry, or driven them mad," said Dumbledore quietly, his eyes never wavering. "Why do you want to do it?"

"Because I want to," said Harry, and stood. "Is there anything else that you wanted to request of me, Headmaster?"

Dumbledore sighed. "No. I will speak to Connor. It may take me some time to persuade both him and Sirius that their lessons must cease." He leaned forward, and connected his gaze with Harry's strongly enough that Harry found it hard to look away. "I am glad that we are allies on this, Harry. I would not have wanted you as an enemy."

"He had every right to think of you like that," Draco hissed, hovering protectively at Harry's right shoulder.

"It would have been counterproductive to make you an enemy, Headmaster," said Harry. "You've hurt me, but I'm used to being a sacrifice. And other debts…" He thought of Peter, and Remus. "I can wait to collect them."

Dumbledore's face changed, but Harry didn't stay to watch how it changed. He turned towards the office door instead, and waited patiently for it to shut behind them so that Draco could shout. He'd obviously been wanting to do so for a while.

Sure enough, Draco started as they rode the moving staircase downwards.

"What was that about not wanting to give orders, Harry?" he asked, with false sweetness. "What was that about not wanting to lead?"

Harry shifted to face him. "I'm hardly going to ignore the alliances I've forged with the purebloods, Draco," he said. "That's not what I meant. But I'm not going to march out at the head of some army, either. That's absolutely ridiculous. Why should I? When former Death Eaters like Hawthorn Parkinson turn against Voldemort and ally themselves with me, it's not in the hope that they'll be able to sneak back to Voldemort when he rises again. They know that he wouldn't forgive that kind of betrayal. They are committed to my goals, and my goals are Connor's and Dumbledore's."

"No, they aren't," said Draco.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Well, not Connor's, I'll grant you," he muttered, thinking of the way that his brother had run away from him. He had apparently proclaimed, in the presence of Gryffindors, that Harry had tried to kill him. That got a few of them looking askance at Harry, but since the Gryffindors who'd heard that proclamation included the Weasley twins, they had wasted no time in creating a mask of Connor's face that floated about and wailed the same words while bursting dramatically into tears every few minutes. After that, most people were unable to take the news seriously. Harry was disgusted anyway, that his brother would think such a thing. "But they will be once I get to teaching him. And Dumbledore is finally coming around, I think. He knows it would be silly to provoke me. And he would be beyond stupid to alienate the purebloods, which he isn't. I just don't think that he thought he had any way of reaching them until now. Now he does, through me."

He stopped. Draco was staring at him. Harry waited until they were beyond the gargoyle, and then asked, "What? Are you stunned by my brilliant plan, or by my pretty face, or what?"

Draco blushed fiercely, but cleared his throat and said, "Do you really trust them, Harry? I don't. I think they'll twist back on themselves the moment they realize that you trust them, and don't want to hurt them. There were some purebloods who fought on Dumbledore's side in the last War, you know. And look at them now. The Weasleys are still poor. Black's fucked in the head. Do you think most of us want to follow their example?"

Harry groaned. "The Weasleys have been poor for a long time," he said, as he started back towards the dungeons. "And you know what happened to Sirius. You were there to hear it."

Draco sounded more normal as he followed, catching Harry up again easily. Harry wished for his growth spurt right now. At least then he would be able to storm away from Draco impressively. "Dumbledore could have helped the Weasleys, if he really wanted to. And he sure hasn't done a good job of helping Black. If that's his 'protection' for those dearest to him, then I don't think any of us want it."

Harry sighed. "Did any of the purebloods really think that I was going to turn my back on my brother and plunge wildly into some—I don't even know what it would be they would want. Leading a rogue band of outlaws on a crusade of vigilante justice?"

"Of course not," said Draco, with a sniff. "Vigilante justice is so crude. No, Harry. What we want is someone who'll speak up for us, who will lead legal fights against the Ministry, who will defend our homes and families and traditions against any kind of threat, whether that's Mu—Muggleborns trying to destroy our culture—"

"No one is out to destroy your culture, Draco—"

"Or other purebloods attacking us in the throes of war," Draco finished stubbornly, and slapped a hand on the wall that hid the Slytherin common room, preventing the door from opening. Harry turned around to face him, glaring. Draco didn't seem at all intimidated. His own face wasn't worked into a glare, but a simple stern look, as inflexible as the silver masks that Harry knew members of the Malfoy family had once worn to funerals. "We have a different view of the world than you do, Harry. You know our customs, but you don't know all the political realities. Of course, growing up as isolated as you did, that's not surprising. And we're willing to teach you, and allow you some time to learn them.

"But, sooner or later, we're going to need you for more than just sheer physical defense against the Dark Lord. We want a leader. I know that my father wouldn't have started truce-dancing with you if he wanted no more than a defender. I know what the truce-dance ultimately leads up to, and that's not the sort of connection that two soldiers forge with each other. It goes much deeper." Draco leaned closer. "You know that too, Harry, or you would never have answered him. Why did you?"

"Because it began as something I could do for my brother," Harry said through his teeth. "If the Malfoys weren't fighting him, then he had less chance of dying. I wanted to turn his enemies into friends. I intended your family to be part of his army, originally. Connor really will have to lead armies. Voldemort won't leave him alone until he does."

Draco cocked his head. "This isn't about your brother anymore, Harry. It never was, but you were too blind to see that. So see it now. I've been writing to my mother a lot, talking to her. You've read those letters. And you read those books on the Guile family and compulsion and Lords that she sent me. People aren't following you just to follow your brother by proxy or to get protection from—" Draco took a deep breath, and forced the name out. "Voldemort. They're following you for you."

Harry grunted. He supposed he would have to think about it. What he did know was that he was no more suited to be what the purebloods wanted him to be than he was suited to be vates, right now. He wouldn't give orders. He would leave decisions up to other people. He would follow the bonds of pureblood ritual and tradition, both because they were useful and because he loved them for themselves, but that was very different from leading, or governing, or ruling.

Right now. Does that mean that I could become what they want me to be, the same way I could become vates?

There was a disturbing thought, and Harry decided that he didn't want to think about it anymore. He nodded to Draco, muttered, "Thanks for telling me," and vanished into the Slytherin common room.

He couldn't think about this right now, he reasoned, as he dragged his books out from his trunk. He had Charms homework to finish.

"Good," said Snape's voice, from somewhere beyond the barriers that Harry had set up. "Now. Open your eyes, and tell me what you see." His guardian's voice had gone deep, lulling, into a softness of tone Harry would have never believed him capable of if he hadn't heard it.

Harry opened his eyes. He blinked. "A forest," he said.

"What?" Snape's voice cracked the softness, and the forest vanished. Harry shook his head and touched his temple. He was sitting on another Transfigured stretch of mattress in Snape's office, and the intense concentration needed to look for the edges of his magic was draining him. "What did you say?" Snape insisted, stepping forward from behind the desk.

"I saw a forest," said Harry, and glanced about. "The trees went just to the edge of your desk," he added, pointing. "I saw vines on the walls. There were flowers—I think they were orchids—on the ceiling. It was centered around me. I didn't have time to look behind me, but I think it might have been there, as well."

Snape was silent for long moments. Harry studied his face, but could tell no more from it than he had been able to tell from Dumbledore at the start of their meeting. He resigned himself to wait. Perhaps Snape was just considering what it meant, and didn't really have bad news to hand him.

As it turned out, it was the latter. "Harry," said Snape, "you remember that I told you last week about your mind reshaping itself as a forest, after the webs?"

Harry nodded.

"That is—not supposed to happen," said Snape carefully. "In your case, I think the magic that roars through you is taking on the challenge so as to have something to do. Also, it roots itself more firmly in you that way, and carves new channels it can travel. That makes it less likely to burst out of control."

"That sounds like a good thing," Harry ventured, hoping to make Snape smile, but his guardian only nodded absently.

"But," Snape whispered, "your magic obviously does not have enough to do. Or its strength simply overflows your mind. So it is changing a small portion of the world around you into a reflection of your thoughts."

Harry felt a chill travel down his spine. "I don't know what that means," he admitted. "Are oaks going to start sprouting through the floor?"

Snape waved a hand. "Nothing like that," he said, with the irritated tone Harry was more used to hearing from him. "It is not the physical world that it changes. It is the mental and perceptual one. People around you may begin to see the trees, the vines, the—orchids." Snape curled his lip as though he disdained the word. "It may be as mild as that. On the other hand, they may begin thinking like you, too. The magic extends your way of thinking outward, if you will. Your mind takes over from the space that other people's thoughts are more used to occupying. They may begin hearing what you think, or—" Snape halted.

"I might start compelling them," Harry finished with a sigh.

Snape shrugged. "Yes. Yet a different kind of compulsion from any you have done so far. There, other wizards, dazed by the strength of your magic, simply gave in to your desires. This makes them think that your desires are their own. In a deeper form, it might ultimately grow over their minds so as to make them part of your forest."

Harry swallowed. He wanted to panic, and that meant he was not going to. "Is there any way that I can stop that?"

"Yes," said Snape. "You may work more consciously with your magic. Assuming this is a result of its not having enough to do, concentrating it in other projects, using it more freely, might stop it from expanding your mind."

"But that might mean more of the other kind of compulsion," Harry finished.

Snape inclined his head. His eyes had never moved from Harry's face, and they had gone inscrutable again. "Yes."

"What are the other options?" Harry wished his magic was in front of him in some recognizable form, so he could glare at it. Stupid magic. Why does it have to be this strong?

"There are certain potions that will damp some of your strength for a time, so that you may grow used to controlling a certain level of it," Snape said. "I am reluctant to use them, however. I think it would be better to work on conscious control."

"Any other choices?" Harry asked.

"More Occlumency," Snape pronounced. "Tend your mind. Find another shape for it to assume. Do not permit it unchecked growth, and most especially do not let the rest of your magic combine with it and spread it."

Harry half-closed his eyes, trying to think of what he wanted his mind to look like. Perhaps he was thinking too hard about Snape's word "tend," or the fact that his thoughts apparently liked the shapes of trees and flowers, but he found only one that pleased him.

"A garden?" he asked, looking up at Snape. "Will that work?"

Snape's lip curled again. "If you think I am going to teach you to construct mental gazebos and beds of roses, Potter, you may think again."

Harry laughed, and used the laughter to ease past the moment of blinding, panicked fear, about what his magic might already have done to other people.

Yes, it might have. But this is one of those times when I recognize my mistakes and my shortcomings, and go on.

"No gazebos or beds of roses, sir, I promise," he said. "I was thinking more a hedge maze."

Snape's eyes lit in interest, and he stepped back. "Ready, Harry? Legilimens."

Harry allowed the intrusion, and settled himself to the task of making his incorrigible magic obey him.