I know this is the chapter a lot of people have been waiting for. Let's hope it was worth the wait.
Chapter Forty-One: October 31, 1981When he could breathe, and when he had felt, with one hand, that the wound on his throat was not about to tear open any further, the first thing Harry did was crawl over to his brother.
Connor lay on his side, one arm still wrapped around his face as he cried, though he cried without sound. Harry hesitated for a moment. He could no longer sense his brother's emotions as he once had, but other bonds were still there. He still felt as though Connor were his twin. He still felt loyalty, and he still felt love.
Relieved that Polaris had not cut all their bonds, Harry held out his arms and whispered, "Connor?"
Connor didn't hesitate, but turned around and embraced him, one arm locking around his shoulders and one around his waist. Harry bowed his head carefully onto his brother's shoulder in return and closed his eyes.
I am sorry that he had to grow up this way, he thought. At least the most painful part is done, and he got to hear Sirius say goodbye, and he knows why Sirius died. Harry thought he would have never been able to explain himself to Connor's satisfaction if he had gone alone to the Shrieking Shack and come back with a dead Sirius, or only Peter's word that he had not killed him.
Harry heard a scurry, and saw that Peter, in rat form, had come up beside them. He sat up on his haunches to touch his whiskers gently to Harry's elbow, then retreated towards his wand. Harry was grateful for the privacy, and went back to rubbing his brother's neck and spine, murmuring nonsense words that Connor could choose to take heed of if he wanted.
"Harry?" Connor whispered at last, when the sobbing had calmed enough to let him speak.
Harry murmured his attention.
"I—" Connor's voice cracked for a moment, then grew stronger. "I'm sorry."
Harry blinked. He had expected an apology, but not so soon. He sat back and tried to look into his twin's eyes, but he couldn't. Connor had pushed his face into the crook of Harry's neck and shoulder, and kept it there even as he whispered. Harry was surprised that his words were so clear, when cloth had to be muffling his mouth.
"I should have known," Connor whispered. "He acted so strangely. He didn't seem to love you at all in these last few months, as though your being put in Slytherin made him not your godfather any more. Before that, he always ranted and raved against Slytherins. These last few months, he just told me calmly all about their evil, and especially yours." He shuddered.
Harry couldn't think of anything to say to that, so he kept silent, other than the faint sound his hand made as it passed through his brother's hair.
"And I—I was so desperate to think that he would stay alive past May, and that my compulsion was good, that I listened to him," Connor whispered. "I'm sorry, Harry. I should have come to you with the prophecy."
You should have, Harry thought, but that was not the proper thing to say now, not that or any other variation of "I told you so." He had a chance to heal Connor's bleeding wound and let Connor heal his, but only if he was careful.
"I understand why you didn't," he said instead. "It seemed pretty clear when it said Sirius was going to die."
Connor nodded, a miserable motion accompanied by sniffling. He finally sat back enough for Harry to see his face. He looked half-destroyed, his eyes narrowed by the puffy red skin around them, his skin blotchy, his nose smeared with snot.
"And that's what happened," he whispered.
"It is." Harry glanced at Sirius's body, and felt the first touch of mourning for the man who had been his godfather, who had died so bravely, like a Gryffindor. He squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn't afford to cry, not right now. His headache was surging back, and the voice in his head was suspiciously silent, and he could not collapse yet, not when his brother needed him. "He died bravely."
"But he's still dead."
Harry blinked. He would have thought the reassurance of bravery would calm his brother. Perhaps Connor was not quite as far gone into the Gryffindor mentality as he thought, or perhaps he just didn't want that kind of comfort right now.
"Yes, he is," he said.
Connor closed his eyes. His lips, pressed together, trembled. Harry didn't touch him. He thought this was something his brother needed to work through on his own. And Connor didn't break down into tears, but visibly pulled himself together, with a resilience that Harry hadn't known he possessed. He opened his eyes and gave Harry a faint smile.
"You were telling the truth all along," he said.
"Well, not about Sirius being possessed," Harry said. "I didn't know about that. But about him not having your best interests at heart, and about Mum and the phoenix web, and about my intentions towards you." He took a deep breath. "Yes."
"I'm sorry," Connor whispered again.
Harry held still. Connor had that hitch in the back of his voice that said he wasn't finished speaking yet, and the last thing Harry wanted to do was interrupt him. He had to admit, part of him thought he deserved the speech that Connor was about to come out with, the one that wouldn't ever have emerged if Connor hadn't been here and watched the shattering of his childhood in front of his eyes.
Connor began speaking, hardly above a whisper and with his words all running together, but Harry had had ears mostly tuned to his voice for years. He could make out what his brother was saying, and he didn't need it to be any louder or clearer. This was about saying things, not saying them in some dramatic manner.
"I started suspecting you were telling me the truth with a letter Mum wrote me in February," Connor said to his hands. "She said that I had to keep fighting you, had to get you back under control. Why would she use that phrase? She'd always said before that she just loved you, and you were the one who turned on her. But that phrase made it sound like you were right, and she'd controlled you, and she just couldn't stand it that you'd broken the control and run away.
"And then the prophecy came, and I was so frightened that you would kill Sirius." Connor laughed unhappily, though for a moment it sounded like he would break down in tears again. "I started feeling your power. You're so strong, Harry. You could have killed Sirius at any moment you wanted to. I thought I had to protect him, and so I started fighting you more often. I thought you wouldn't want to fight and kill him if you were paying attention to me and trying to kill me."
Harry had to close his eyes. How many sacrifices are there going to be in my family?
"I was more stubborn than ever," said Connor. "Sometimes I was stupid, and sometimes I acted stupid. Sometimes I really believed everything Mum and Sirius told me, and sometimes I didn't. But when I really did, then I was comfortable in what I was doing, and when I didn't, then I thought at least you would hurt me and not Sirius.
"And by then, he must have been possessed." Connor turned his head to stare at Sirius's body. "He was telling me that compulsion had always been a Light gift, except when a Slytherin used it."
Harry bit his lip, thought about not asking, and then decided he had to. If he didn't, then it would linger between them, a poisoned fang like one from the basilisk's mouth, and corrupt everything that followed. There had to be absolute honesty between them, now. "Is that why you tried to compel me in the Owlery?"
Connor nodded. "I couldn't think of anything else to do. I thought that maybe, just maybe, you would feel sorry for what you did to Mum and reconcile with us, but you didn't, and by then it was a full month after I heard the prophecy. I was getting frantic. I thought that if I could compel you to become part of the family again, then you wouldn't have any reason to hurt anybody, not Sirius and not Mum and not me."
"What did you believe, out of what I said to you that day?" Harry asked.
Connor's eyes slid away from him.
"Connor?"
"Everything," Connor whispered. "I believed everything. And I hated it. I thought I would start to hate Mum if I listened to you. I thought I would start to think that you were right and she was wrong. Do you know what it's like to have your world shatter around you, Harry?"
"Intimately," said Harry, before he could stop himself.
Connor's gaze darted towards him, and then dropped away. He gave a small nod to acknowledge Harry's words. "So I demanded that you come back to us. I told myself I was offering you a chance. And when you refused, I told myself that compulsion was the only choice, even though I knew it wasn't, because I couldn't think of anything else to do. It was vernal equinox. The time the prophecy was talking about was just a few weeks away. If I couldn't convince you, then I thought I could bend you or break you."
"So you were willing to sacrifice me for Sirius," Harry summed up.
Connor nodded.
Harry took a deep breath, which felt as though there was anger hanging off the end of it. "I hate that," he said, finally. "I hate being sacrificed. I don't mind if I choose to give up my own life or free time, but I hate it that you tried to do it to me, Connor."
Connor nodded. "I know. I'm sorry."
Harry watched him in silence for a few moments, then said, "Go on."
"That failed," said Connor. "So I tried to spread rumors that you were going to murder me, thinking that maybe the Headmaster would have to expel you from school if you were thought to be a dangerous lunatic. But that didn't work. And then you started the lessons, and it seemed as though that was my chance to make you so mad at me that you would never think about Sirius again." He squeezed his eyes shut. "But you kept mentioning Sirius. You kept talking about him. I thought you were taunting me, that you had some plan to get rid of him, and you wanted me to know that there was nothing I could do about it."
"And when I confronted you this afternoon—"
"I thought you'd put a plan in motion," Connor admitted. "I was wrong to compel Draco. I know that now. But I'd rather compel him than lose Sirius." He looked over at Sirius's body and seemed to forget what he was going to say next.
"Draco's the one you're going to have to apologize to about that," Harry reminded him, "not me."
Connor nodded distractedly. His eyes were tearing up again, but he swatted at the corners of them to take the moisture away. "I can't believe he's really gone," he whispered.
Harry held out his arms, and his brother climbed into them again. Harry held him tightly as he cried, and wondered where his own tears had gone. Burned off by exhaustion and pain and the need to concentrate on other things, perhaps.
Connor's second bout of weeping was shorter, and he sat away from Harry, looking a bit embarrassed about it. "Thanks," he whispered. "Harry, I don't even know how to say sorry other than—well, sorry. And I hate that I was trying to protect someone who didn't deserve it, and I hate that Voldemort corrupted me again, like he did last year, and this time I didn't even know it was him. But I'll do what I can to change things." His face was set and determined.
Harry nodded. "We'll have to talk to lots of people," he said. "We'll have to talk a lot. But I think we can do it."
Connor gave him a tentative smile.
"Harry. Connor."
Harry started. He had actually forgotten that Peter was there, and he hadn't heard the sudden inrush of air that usually accompanied Peter's Animagus transformation. He turned around to see Peter sitting solemnly beside Voldemort's Pensieve. Polaris, Harry was glad to see, was nowhere in sight.
"I'm sorry," said Peter softly. He waved his wand, and Lumos took fire at the tip, lighting up the cabin better than the faint beams of afternoon light still creeping through the boards on the windows. "But there are some things we need to talk about, and we don't have much time to talk about them."
Harry frowned. "What do you mean?"
Peter smiled at him sadly. "I thought you knew the truth already, Harry," he said, "and the phoenix web was just preventing you from viewing it in the right light, or thinking it mattered. It turns out that you don't, that you must not. I saw your face when V-Voldemort said some of the things he did. You still believe the story your parents told you about that night at Godric's Hollow when he attacked. You should have reacted to the things he said differently, now that you're free of the phoenix web, if you knew the truth."
Harry blinked, and felt his heart begin to stutter. He and Snape had suspected, but not known…
"But why not much time?" he whispered.
Peter glanced at the windows of the shack. "I've stayed in one place for too long," he said. "The Dementors will be hunting me. And, more than that…" He rolled his wand gently between his fingers. "You know the Aurors have spells that will let them see the last round of spells a wand cast?"
Harry nodded, then stopped. Peter smiled gently at him. "You get it," he said.
"But you didn't cast the Avada Kedavra," Harry insisted. "Sirius did. We can tell them that."
"I'm not sure that you would be allowed to," Peter said quietly. "It's still an Unforgivable Curse, Harry, and I'm still a fugitive from Azkaban. I don't think that Dumbledore would let me tell them the truth, either. The phoenix web in my head hasn't moved on the surface in a long time. I think it's sinking deeper. Dumbledore is saving it for something other than my telling you the truth, this time, or I would never have been able to say even this much. But my talking to the Aurors and revealing everything? Yes, I think he was saving it for that. He must have decided that the possible damage to him from that was even greater than the possible damage if I told you about the attack on Godric's Hollow."
His eyes turned flinty, and flashed. "I am never going back to Azkaban. I want to make sure that the two of you know the truth, all of it, and then I'll leave."
"But where will you go?" Harry asked, feeling helpless.
"I don't know yet," said Peter, and then paused with a faint smile. "Well. There is one place I might go and be welcome, though I haven't ever taken advantage of the invitation." He shrugged. "It doesn't matter, Harry What matters is you knowing the truth. It's been kept from you for too long."
He dragged Voldemort's Pensieve forward. Harry eyed it warily. "If that contains memories of him possessing Sirius, I don't think we need to see it." He moved sideways until his shoulder bumped his twin's, and felt Connor nod in agreement.
"It doesn't," said Peter softly. "It contains memories of that night. The attack. I think even Voldemort was growing tired of you not knowing the truth, though in his case he intended to take away your magic and then make you despair of what you saw in here."
He glanced at both of them. "Ready?"
Harry knew a fine tremor was shaking Connor, and knew his brother was not ready. But it wouldn't get any easier if they waited—and if what Peter said was true, they couldn't wait. He held Connor's hand and nodded.
Peter bent down towards the silvery liquid. Harry followed, shuddering slightly as the coolness crept over him, but he didn't duck fully beneath the surface until he had made sure that Connor was following him. He wasn't going to see his brother left behind again. This time, they would face whatever shattering truths might be waiting together.
They landed in the middle of a place that it took Harry a moment to recognize as Godric's Hollow. For one thing, it was night, without a moon, thanks to the rushing clouds overhead. For another, the house looked different. And for a third, the gleam of the isolation wards that had protected their home for as long as he could remember was gone. He shivered. They must be seeing the moment in which Voldemort had breached the wards. The Fidelius Charm was already broken.
A dark-cloaked shape moved on the lawn, striding rapidly towards the doors. Harry shuddered. Even in the memory, he could feel the power that traveled with Voldemort. It was stronger than it had been when he faced Voldemort as Quirrell, or Tom Riddle, or this latest version of him. Harry shook his head. How could Dumbledore have thought a baby would survive an attack by a wizard that powerful?
"There I am," said Peter, pointing out a plump figure, low to the ground, scurrying behind the Dark Lord. "I can tell you what happens afterwards. This memory only goes to the point when Voldemort was destroyed, of course."
Harry glanced at Connor. His brother's jaw gaped open, and he shook his head slowly back and forth, as if he were trying to envision some way of dealing with this. When he saw Harry watching him, he slammed his jaw shut and tried to lift his head high, though his face was working with violent emotions. Harry took his hand, and they walked into the house behind Voldemort and Peter.
Voldemort glanced around the empty house and laughed, the same high, cold laugh Harry had learned to associate with his enemy in other incarnations. "Where are the children, Wormtail?"
"Up-upstairs, my l-lord." Harry hardly recognized Peter's voice. It was a broken, obsequious stammer. Harry wondered if it was an act, if Peter had always been this strong man who waited beside them now with a solemn expression on his face, or if his fear of Voldemort had prompted fear in truth.
Voldemort crossed to the stairs and began to climb them. Harry, Connor, and Peter followed behind, shivering. The memory-Peter scuttled even behind them, as if he did not want to witness what was about to happen.
Well, come to that, Harry thought, I don't, either. Suspicion made his heart knock heavily in his chest, and his breath came short, as if he were backing up to another cliff of the kind that Draco and Snape had shoved him off in Malfoy Manor.
They reached a bedroom door that looked substantially different from the one that Harry knew. Voldemort studied it for a moment, then laughed again and moved his wand twice. One muttered spell broke the wards on the door, and another shattered it entirely. Harry heard bedclothes rustle in the aftermath of that shattering, and then an unhappy, wailing cry.
Voldemort stepped through the door. The memory-Peter peered over his shoulder. Now-Peter motioned, and Harry and Connor stepped around Voldemort so that they could see better.
Two young boys lay in twin cots a good distance back from the door, under a high, peaked roof. Harry was startled to see how much alike they looked. Of course, we didn't have the scars then, he thought, and we're squinting so hard that you can't really see our eyes.
Voldemort was still a moment; when Harry looked at his face, he saw red eyes narrowed. "Wormtail!" he said abruptly.
Memory-Peter flinched and scurried up to his side. "My lord?"
"You are sure that you know no more of the prophecy?" Voldemort asked. "You are sure that you do not know for certain which child will defeat me?"
Memory-Peter shook his head. Harry found himself beyond impressed. Somehow, Peter had broken in just the right ways to convince Voldemort that he knew where his friends were living and was willing to betray them, but not enough to reveal that he also knew the prophecy that said the younger of the two twins would be the one to defeat him. "No, my lord. Only what S-Severus told you."
Voldemort nodded. "Best to take care of them all at once, then," he murmured. "By now, Bellatrix should have destroyed the other candidate." He held his wand high. "Avada Kedavra!"
The bolt of green light shot forth—
And towards Harry's cot.
Harry found himself staggering backward and sitting down, hard, as the light struck him in the forehead, as Voldemort turned and sent another bolt of green light at Connor—
And a deep, shattering roar filled the room, accompanied by the familiar feeling of magic boiling over, and green light inundated Harry's vision, and Voldemort screamed and screamed and screamed, and cold, powerful magic claimed a victim—
And then they were back outside the Pensieve, sprawled on the floor of the Shrieking Shack.
Harry, shaking, buried his head in his hands. Sometime along the route, he had let go of Connor's wrist. He could hear his brother's soft sobs, aching noises of disbelief and confusion.
"That was what happened," Peter whispered. "I was behind the Dark Lord, and I could see. He cast the Killing Curse at you, Harry, then turned and cast it at your brother. While the green light still bound him and Connor, your reflected Killing Curse struck him. I've never seen anything like it. I suppose that was because Voldemort had taken so many protections against losing his own life, trying to gain immortality, and the curse had to fight that as well as actually kill him. It struggled with him before it pulled him from his body, and the light that bound him and Connor flickered out. Then it reduced his body to ash. His spirit fled, of course," Peter added, a deep, bitter sound in his voice. "I know that now."
"I don't understand," Connor whispered. Harry managed to lift his head and look at his brother, whose face was not only pale, but streaming with tears. "If Harry reflected the Killing Curse back at Voldemort, does that mean he's the Boy-Who-Lived?"
Peter shook his head slowly. "He's the one who killed Voldemort with a reflected Killing Curse, yes," he said, and gestured at Harry's forehead. "That scar is a curse scar. But yours is as well, Connor. Voldemort was busy trying to kill you when Harry hit him. I think the second Avada Kedavra had a chance to leave a mark on you, but nothing else. It got interrupted in the middle."
Connor blinked and swallowed and swiped at his forehead. "But—I don't understand. Mum and Dumbledore would have been able to tell that Harry's scar was a curse scar. Why didn't they think he was the Boy-Who-Lived, too?"
Nearly numb with shock, Harry saw Peter's face harden. "Ah," he said. "That's to do with the part that I don't think even Dumbledore knows I saw.
"After I ran, I came back. I had nowhere else to go, not that night, though I was meant to be found and go to Azkaban the next morning. And I have to admit, I was curious. I didn't know what I'd expected when I went into the house at Godric's Hollow, but that wasn't it.
"I came back, and crouched outside the window. That house was half-destroyed," he added to Harry. "That's why they had to rebuild it. I saw your parents and Dumbledore come back and run to the nursery. They came down the stairs with both of you in their arms, your foreheads bleeding. You were both crying." Peter spoke with his eyes fixed on the distance, as if that would make the memory easier to bear.
"Lily used a healing spell, and I heard them gasp when the spell finished. The blood had cleared, but left behind scars.
"Understand," Peter said, "that wasn't supposed to happen. The prophecy said there would be one savior, clearly marked."
"Can you recite the prophecy?" Harry asked. His voice was flat and hoarse, and did not sound as if it belonged to him.
Peter nodded, then closed his eyes and began to chant. "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…He is the younger of two, and he shall have the power the Dark Lord knows not…For the elder is power, but the younger is power united with love…O guard him, O shield him, for the darkness through which he passes otherwise is vicious and hideous, and love has but a scant chance of surviving…The elder will stand at his right shoulder, loving him, but the younger will love the whole of the wizarding world…The Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, and in so doing mark his heart… The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born as the seventh month dies…"
His voice faded, and Harry stared at the wall, and tried to think. Thoughts chased themselves in small pieces around his whirling mind, assaulting him and then flicking away again before he could fully grasp them.
It seemed as though Dumbledore and his parents had interpreted the prophecy correctly. Connor was born at the end of July. He was the younger of the two of them. Lily had always said that Connor's power was love, and that Harry needed to guard him, because otherwise that love would perish. Harry's love for Connor was deeper and truer than any other he felt—
Or had been.
Harry shoved that thought away, and went back to concentrating.
Connor's scar was in the shape of a heart. Yes, everything fit. Or everything should have fit. Harry didn't know how to explain the memory in the Pensieve.
He shook his head, finally, and turned back to Peter, deciding that he couldn't possibly know the truth with the information he had right now. "And what did Dumbledore and our parents do?"
"I heard them speaking," said Peter softly. "I will not forget what they said, not until I die. I certainly had enough time to remember their words in Azkaban.
"Lily said, 'This wasn't supposed to happen. Albus, what happened? Why do they both have scars? And why does Harry's magic feel like—like that? It's unnatural.' She started to cry."
Peter darted a swift glance at Harry. "You'd always been a magically normal baby, Harry—strong, but well within the bounds of normality. Until Voldemort came. Lying in Lily's arms that night, you would have been a beacon, or a siren, to anyone who wanted to look or listen. I was having a hard time restraining myself from going into the house, just to be nearer the magic.
"Dumbledore sighed. It was a sigh that seemed to come from his bones. 'Lily, James,' he said. 'What I am telling you must not go beyond the walls of this house. Voldemort used the Killing Curse on both boys. He must have used it on Harry after he used it on Connor, or Harry would not be alive, but the fact remains that he used it. And the curse broke a barrier in Harry that all normal wizards have. He has access to a level of power that most wizards can't use, because calling on that much magic at once would kill them.'
"'Then why is he still alive?' It was James who asked that. I'll never forget how he looked, Harry, holding you. Small and fragile, and helpless. It was the first time I ever saw James look that way.
"'Because,' said Dumbledore, and pinched the bridge of his nose, 'he is a child, and he can grow used to using that level of power in a way that he could not if he were older. His body is still flexible enough to accept the change. Even if he were four or five, I do not believe he would have survived the breaking of his barriers.' He hesitated for a long time, looking down at you, Harry.
"Then he said, 'And Voldemort has transferred a good portion of his powers to him. That accounts for the rest of his strength, and the unnaturalness that you sense, Lily. I felt it as we climbed the stairs. There should still have been much ambient magic left in the air, enough that I could have cast a spell to see what happened in that room, what the walls remembered. Instead, there was almost none, except that which emanated from Harry himself. He has Voldemort's ability to feed on magic. Once he had the ability, he ate Voldemort's remaining power, including whatever was left of the two Killing Curses Voldemort must have used.'"
Harry bowed his head, and tried to keep his breathing deeper than it wanted to be. He felt Connor take his hand. He squeezed desperately. His brother winced, but squeezed back.
"That is why they think your magic unnatural, Harry," Peter whispered. "Not only did V-Voldemort open your barriers and give you access to more magic than you should have had, he gifted you with a good deal of Dark power. In essence, he made you his magical heir, the way some pureblood families do when they transfer powers from parents to children at the moment of death. You have abilities that he does, because he had them when he attacked you that night, not because you were born with them." Peter gave a dusty little laugh. "You know, things would have turned out differently if you or Voldemort were just a little weaker. If you were, then you couldn't have survived the Killing Curse for the moment it took to smash the barriers and let your deeper magic out. If he was, then he wouldn't have had the strength to smash the barriers at all, or leave his magic behind for you to swallow. You would simply have died, or he would have died and taken all his power with him. Instead, he made you the most formidable enemy he possibly could have."
Harry made himself breathe. Deep breaths. I am not going to panic. I am not going to panic. I will not let myself panic.
He lifted his head. "What did Dumbledore say then?"
"Nothing immediately," said Peter softly. "Your parents were crying by then. And then—well, then Sirius and Remus came in, and Dumbledore didn't trust them enough to reveal his full plan in front of them. He told Sirius and Remus that Connor had been marked by the prophecy, just as they suspected, and sent them away with him and James to try and make the curse scar stop bleeding, since it had broken open again. That left him with Lily and you, Harry.
"He told Lily, 'You must make sure that he loves his brother, that he is his guardian, that all that immense power is trained and bent to a good purpose. You know that otherwise, the prophecy may shift. We cannot afford to have the next Dark Lord, someone with unnatural magic, as our only savior from Voldemort. Harry must be the elder, and Connor must be the younger.'"
Harry tried to speak. He had no saliva left in his throat. He was grateful when Connor murmured, "I don't understand. Surely I'm the younger, and Harry the elder?"
Harry opened his eyes far enough to see the savage look on Peter's face.
"Prophecies are the wildest form of Divination magic," he breathed. "Prophecies can shift."
Harry felt the words touch a spring in his memory. His mother's words last year, just after the phoenix web had been tripped and Remus had found out about it, came back to him.
"But prophecies are the wildest form of Divination magic…There's a chance that it might mean different things. It would still come true, but it could turn out meaning something different from what it seemed to say the night it was made…And we had to do everything we could to lock you into that role, to sculpt you that way, so that the prophecy couldn't possibly wander off and mean someone else, someone we wouldn't know in time to protect, someone that Voldemort could perhaps kill. Everything in the prophecy had to come true. You had to love Connor, and before everything else. We couldn't take the chance that it would be otherwise. Do you understand?"
Harry had half-forgotten the words, but they slammed home to him now. Lily had told him the truth then, though he had been too stupefied by pain and exhaustion and his commitment to obedience to see it.
"The prophecy could have meant someone else," he whispered.
Peter nodded, slowly. "It could have, indeed. That's why Voldemort sent the Lestranges to attack the Longbottoms, because their son Neville was also born at the end of July, and it could also have been him. If Voldemort had gone along in Bellatrix's place or with her, if Voldemort had marked him…" Peter spread his hands.
"But the prophecy says that the one with the power to defy the Dark Lord is the younger of two," said Connor. "I don't understand."
"The younger of two," Peter pointed out. "It says nothing about the younger of two brothers, or the younger of two twins. It doesn't even say that both people in the prophecy need to have been born at the end of July."
Harry buried his head in his hands.
So many things in my life have been a lie.
"A prophecy always comes true," said Peter softly. "But we usually can't know how or why beforehand. It can shift in midair. It can take the likeliest person. Human choice works to influence it, though, if we understand it enough, and we can try to make the prophecy more certain. Its very wildness grants us a little more free will.
"Dumbledore knew he could convince Lily to sacrifice one of her sons. He wasn't sure about anyone else. And he wanted to be sure. More than anything in the world, Dumbledore fears uncertainty. He fears waking up one day to find that the wizarding world he's labored to save for a century has exploded around his ears. If he had control of the savior, then he had the assurance that tomorrow would be pretty much like today, that the future would be pretty much like the past.
"So he influenced Voldemort as much as he could, to try and insure that the Dark Lord would mark Connor his equal." Peter took a deep breath. "And he influenced us, too. He focused on me, played on my love of my friends, to insure that I would agree to break the Fidelius Charm and make your parents a more tempting target than the Longbottoms. He performed the Soul Strength Spell to show your parents that you were the one who had to play guardian, Harry—"
"You can't perform that on an infant," Harry cut in, his voice tight. His eyes burned. He felt as though the walls of the shack had been torn away and they stood on an open plain, under black stars.
Peter looked startled for only a moment. Then he nodded, his face tightening. "So he lied to us, then. He nudged the prophecy along. And I think he thought everything was going smoothly up until the point when he realized you had more power, Harry. If you were the savior the prophecy mentioned, the one with the power Voldemort knew not, then that meant the elder, the one who would stand at your right shoulder and love you, was still somewhere else—somewhere out of his control. He wouldn't have a clue who it was. He could not stand that.
"So he told Lily to sculpt you and train you to love Connor. If you were his guardian, if you loved only him, then you would be the best candidate for at least two lines of the prophecy—the one that said Connor needed to be shielded, and the one that said the elder would love the younger. That made the prophecy all the more unlikely to shift, and to choose Connor as its savior instead. And, of course, it made you extremely unlikely to use your power for any other purpose than protecting your brother."
Harry sat there. The dark stars were wheeling above him now, cutting across the sky in black streaks.
He heard Connor ask, his voice soft and timid, "What does that mean, then?"
"It means that we're up in the air," said Peter. "We were from the moment Harry broke his phoenix web, I think. Dumbledore could no longer trust that he would only love you. His power is free, and he might be the one the prophecy will choose. On the other hand, perhaps it will choose you, and Harry will be the elder who has to love you. Or the elder could be someone else who loves you. Or the younger will be Harry, and his elder someone else. Since you both do bear marks from the Dark Lord, then I think the choices have narrowed, and it can't really be anyone but one of the two of you. But Dumbledore's neat plans are all smashed." There was a vicious glee in Peter's voice that Harry thought he couldn't really blame him for.
Harry sat in silence for a moment. He couldn't think, couldn't breathe, was falling if he thought too much about it—
And then he grasped himself, and yanked himself forward.
What is this? Living in fear of change? What, do you want to be like Dumbledore and your mother?
This doesn't change everything. It means that you could be the Boy-Who-Lived, and you'll have to think about that. But it also means that Connor could be the Boy-Who-Lived, and he'll need your help and your training. He's not power united with love right now; he's not anything like it. The world might need him, and he would falter.
It's not over. It's not anything like over. Both of you were wronged. Both of you might be needed, or at least one. Now, stand up and do something about it.
Harry shifted towards Connor. Connor, his face pale and his eyes seemingly permanently wide, stared at him.
"I couldn't blame you if you hated me," he whispered. "They made you give up your life for me."
"They're to blame," said Harry. "Not you. I won't let you go live with Lily again, Connor."
Connor considered him, then dipped his head once. "And what else are we going to do?" he asked.
"I am going to help you learn," said Harry, startled by the steel in his own voice. "Voldemort's not going to get us. He's never going to kill either one of us. And I refuse to live in fear of what might happen. We're going to make things happen. We're going to have our own freedom, which should have happened all along. We're going to fucking fight." He held out his hand.
Connor took a deep breath, and clasped it.
Harry thought he heard Peter utter a long sigh, half of surprise, half of soul-deep relief. Harry braced himself for how his head would ache when he stood, then stood, and clasped Connor's hand more firmly.
"Let's get out of here," he said softly, and turned towards the door, and the future that waited beyond it.