Thank you for the reviews yesterday and the day before for the chapter!
And here comes the longest chapter I have ever written. Damn denouements.
Chapter Forty-Three: StarbornSnape looked down at Harry in his bed in the hospital wing and shook his head. No. It had been three days, and still his fury—that Harry had been so badly hurt, that Harry had felt compelled to go after Voldemort and Black alone, that Harry had had to fight and kill a Death Eater—had not eased. All the Houses except Slytherin had lost nearly a hundred points in Potions, and McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout were giving him significant looks. Snape did not care.
His ward had almost died for the fifth and sixth times this year, even if one counted only the werewolf, his journey home, the spiders, and the bout of pain that had knocked him unconscious for a week. Voldemort had nearly killed him, and then Voldemort had nearly killed him again. Snape had been too far away to help the first time, and useless the next, locked in a duel with Bellatrix as he had been.
He had been helpless. In a sense, he still was, as Harry hadn't awakened in the last three days.
It made him furious.
And Harry had done it all for the sake of Black and his brother, who had spent two days asleep in the hospital wing, his broken finger healed almost at once by Madam Pomfrey, before he was awakened and sent back to Gryffindor Tower. He had come and sat by Harry's bedside in silence several times in the day since, his eyes haunted and his face pale. Snape supposed he was facing his own demons.
He did not care. Things could have turned out so much darker, and he, Severus Snape, Potions Master and Head of Slytherin and former Death Eater, had not made one damn bit of difference.
The door of the hospital wing creaked open. Snape turned sharply. It was the Potter brat, who came over and sat in a chair at Harry's bedside without a word.
Snape glared at him. Potter turned his head away and concentrated on Harry.
For this boy, Harry had nearly given up everything.
And for Black, Snape reminded himself, but he almost instantly turned his mind away from that unpleasant subject. He did not like thinking about Black. He had cast several preservation spells on the body and moved it to a quiet, unused classroom, until whatever funeral arrangements that Dumbledore—presumably—would make. The werewolf had no money, and certainly neither Pettigrew nor James Potter had shown any sign of wanting to come forward and claim their dead friend.
Snape had envied the peaceful expression on Black's face. In the end, he had died doing what he knew was right, just like any other self-righteous, boneheaded Gryffindor.
And if his mind had been kept further unbalanced by Snape's empathy potions, making him easier prey for Voldemort and Voldemort more able to go after Harry, so that Snape had endangered his own ward, there was no way to know.
Snape wondered if he should discuss that with Harry. He wondered if he was capable of having a discussion with Harry about Black and not making some disparaging remark. He hadn't been able to keep the sarcasm out of his voice when he had clashed with Dumbledore. Of course, Dumbledore had ordered Snape to turn over the Dark Lord's Pensieve and the Black family knife he had used as well as Sirius's body. Snape had refused. There had been…some words.
But for you, Snape thought, his eyes lingering on Harry, his mind oddly mingling the vision of the sleeping boy with the memory of the crying baby from the Pensieve and the exhausted child-adult who had let him peer into his mind before collapsing, I will try.
As long as you wake up. Wake up, Harry.
Harry came awake slowly.
He had the feeling that he should hurt more than he did. Instead, he blinked and put a hand over his face, and though his hand trembled with weakness and did not quite manage to block out the sunshine, it was only weakness, and not pain. Harry felt his chest hitch with the depth of his sigh. Good. He'd had quite enough pain to last him a while.
"Harry."
Harry lowered his hand and met Snape's eyes. The professor was the only one in the hospital wing, which comforted Harry. Let me take these confrontations one at a time. I don't think I can face them more populated than that.
"Professor?" he whispered, and blinked. His voice actually sounded halfway normal.
"You have been asleep since Saturday evening, and today is Thursday morning, Harry," said Snape, correctly anticipating his next question. "And Poppy has kept you regularly supplied with water." He waved his wand and charmed a glass of it to float towards Harry, anyway, then helped him sit up so he could drink it. Harry obliged, carefully sipping so that the cold liquid would help settle his stomach instead of disturb it. The longer he drank, the longer he thought he could avoid the probing questions that Snape was likely to ask.
Not for long, said the voice in the back of his head, in admiring tones. He's a hard one, he is.
And sure enough, Snape said, in the soft whisper that indicated his true anger, "When are you planning to put down the cup and face me, Harry?"
Harry sighed and tried to stretch to put the cup back on the table beside the bed. Snape's magic seized control of it and floated it away instead. Harry settled back on his pillows and gave Snape a look. "You won't even let me reach that far?" he asked.
"You suffered enormous damage," said Snape. "Magical exhaustion, scratches from the house elf on your throat and shoulders, injuries from where the justice ritual held you in place, and mental and emotional scars." He leaned forward. "This time, Harry, your mind is not in imminent danger of collapse, as it was after the debacle in the Chamber of Secrets. And this time, you actively refused help."
Harry braced himself for a yelling session, for all that he'd never heard Snape raise his voice.
Snape watched him in silence for a long moment, then shook his head. "What do you believe would have happened if you died?" he asked.
"Uh." Harry blinked. This wasn't the way he had expected the interrogation to go. "Well, Voldemort would have tortured you and Hermione and Draco, and taken Connor with him. He told me so, and I don't believe he had any reason to lie. He knew the truth would cause me more despair." Harry shuddered. Now that he was out of it, he had time to think about his terror, and how much he had feared that what Voldemort predicted would come true.
"And what else?" Snape's voice had descended an inch or two towards ice.
"Voldemort would have killed Sirius, too," said Harry, trying to think of what else. "And the Death Eaters would probably have inflicted a lot of damage on Hogwarts before anyone could stop them. And the Dementors would probably have killed Peter."
"And what else?" Snape urged him.
Harry squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. "I know what you want me to say, sir, and it's impossible."
"Why?"
"Because," said Harry, opening his eyes and focusing on Snape with a frown, "you wouldn't have had time to mourn me, or be angry with me. Voldemort would be too busy torturing you. You'd feel pain instead."
Snape briefly raked a hand down his face. Harry wasn't sure what the gesture indicated, anger or weariness. Perhaps both.
"Harry," Snape whispered, "we would have helped you." He fixed his gaze on Harry's face. "Has it occurred to you that the Dark Lord took Black and your brother to lure you into a trap? That you were the one he wanted to destroy? I have seen the memory in the Pensieve. I understand why."
Harry glanced away from him. Once again, as when he had been in Draco's mind, as when he had first come to suspect that he might be the Boy-Who-Lived, he could feel a gulf yawning beneath him. He did not want to step into it. "But it didn't happen," he said. "And if it had, then you would have been busy suffering."
Snape gave a mutter that Harry couldn't quite make out, except for the words "blunt" and "utterly serious." Then he said, "Harry, your life matters to me beyond what would have happened to me, or anyone else, if you had not lived. Your life matters for itself. You are not a sacrifice, not to me. In fact, I would prefer that you stopped regarding yourself that way, and associating with your brother altogether." His voice sharpened. "If you had taken me along as help, then you might not have suffered quite so much."
Harry winced, and regret briefly flooded him, before he shook his head. "And you probably would not have lived, sir," he said. "I barely did, and I think Connor only did because Voldemort wasn't really concentrating on him."
"That was the wrong tack, then," said Snape. "Harry—look at me."
Harry did, reluctantly. Snape met his eyes fiercely.
"You matter," he said. "You do. You are not only a weapon, not only a shield or defense or sacrifice. You told me once to stop treating you as a child, and it is true that I should not do so. However, you are also my ward." He took a deep breath, as though he were dredging up courage from under a dark lake. "I would appreciate it if you stopped thinking I was lying when I told you these things. And if you have no more need of me as a guardian, then perhaps it is time that we owled the Ministry and turned you back over to your father, who has expressed an interest in visiting you in a few weeks, when you are fully recovered, and he is out of the maze he is in."
Harry experienced an immediate flash of panic. No! I don't want Snape to stop being my guardian—
And he blinked, and sat there staring at nothing, as the fact that he had felt those things broke over him like a storm.
He did like mattering to Snape. He wanted the guardianship to be deeper than a mere legal pretense to fool the Ministry. He liked the thought that Snape had tried to come after him, had tried to stop him from facing Voldemort alone, had come to him at Christmas and badgered him into accepting the guardianship again, had done all he could to protect and train Harry in Occlumency and Legilimency and Potions and other arts he thought Harry might need.
And if he liked mattering to Snape, he could hardly let Snape think he did not matter to Harry.
He met Snape's eyes. "My life matters to you," he said, testing.
Snape nodded, a tense little motion that hardly bent his neck. His eyes never left Harry's.
"You would have been upset if I died, and not just because of the consequences to you or the wizarding world."
Snape bared his teeth, as if to say that one didn't deserve an answer.
"You like being my guardian, and not just to spite my father or the Ministry or Dumbledore."
"If that was all I wanted," Snape snarled, "I could have thought of many, many other ways to obtain it, ways that are less likely to make me die of rage and terror."
Harry closed his eyes. Damn it, he was going to cry, and he didn't want to. He wasn't run-down any more, he wasn't exhausted any more, he wasn't fragile and shaky any more, he shouldn't cry, crying was something babies or children did, it was all right when Connor did it, oh shit no here came the tears—
Snape reached out and put a hand gently on his shoulder. Harry leaned into the touch, and then scooted closer and snaked out an arm around Snape's waist. Snape returned the embrace fiercely.
Somewhere in the middle of the tears, it occurred to Harry that Snape had never intended to stop being his guardian, and had used a sneaky, underhanded, Slytherin tactic to force this epiphany on him.
He didn't much care.
His life mattered to someone. He, himself, mattered to Snape because he was Harry, and not because of what he could do. He finally believed it.
As if I won't seize that with both hands.
Draco came prepared. He knew what Harry's confrontation with Snape had been like, because Snape had told him. He knew that it was going to be different with him. Harry had been forced to see that Snape's affection for him was genuine. He had, however, heard Connor compel Draco, and been in his mind, and tried to believe—Draco had felt him trying to believe—that all those emotions were only the result of compulsion.
It was an easy excuse. It was a way out for Harry, if he thought that only one person liked him for who he was. He could let Snape in, but go right back to treating Draco as if he were someone who needed to be left behind in safety.
Fuck that, Draco decided, and strolled in and sat down in the chair beside Harry's bed. Snape was occupying Harry's prat of a brother with a detention. No one would disturb them.
Draco had a very simple plan.
He was not going to let Harry ignore him. And before he left tonight, he was going to extract some promises that Harry would never do certain stupid things again.
Harry welcomed him with a reserved smile. He had a bowl of porridge in his lap, and was scooping spoonfuls of it into his mouth. Draco sniffed. Porridge was nothing compared to what they'd had in the Great Hall the last two days. He would be glad when Harry was up and about and could eat proper meals again. They were bland and boring without him. No one appreciated his wit when he tried to use it.
"Hello, Draco," said Harry softly, and put the spoon back in the bowl. "Come to have your say about me running off into danger?"
"I don't think I need to say a lot," said Draco, adopting the posture his mother always used when they were visiting people she considered their social inferiors. "A few very simple words. The affection you saw in my mind when you thought Connor compelled me? That was real."
Harry blinked at him, then shook his head, a faint smile appearing in the place of the reserved one. "No, Draco," he said, in the patient tone that normally made Draco want to scream. "I felt it. It was preventing the passage of normal thoughts into your mind. It was—"
"It was a barrier made of what was already there," Draco said. It was simple after all, this clear, direct, Gryffindor-like honesty. "What was always there."
Harry licked his lips, then shook his head. "It can't—"
"Yes, it can," said Draco. Another part of the plan was not to let Harry talk what was clearly nonsense. "You're my friend, Harry. That's it."
"But what I felt there wasn't the kind of friendship that Connor has for Ron," Harry argued.
Draco curled his lip before he could stop himself. "I would thank you not to compare me to Weasley," he said, and played his trump card. Perhaps it was a bit too soon, but clearly, if he was going about comparing Draco to Weasley, Harry needed the help. "Malfoys have always done things better than Weasleys. We outfly them, we're better than they are at Quidditch, we're better wizards, we're not a disgrace to the name of pureblood and they are. And we outlove them, too."
Harry's smile froze. "Draco," he said, voice gone small and helpless.
Draco snorted. "Come off it, Harry. I was conscious most of the time you were in my mind, you know. I know what you felt. I love you. Not enough to keep from hexing you if you deny it, either."
Harry shook his head desperately, his hair falling over his scar. The scar had gone back to being a normal pale lightning bolt, Draco was pleased to see, without the bloody color that had limned it while Harry lay unconscious. "But, Draco—compulsion played some part in it, it had to—"
"It did not," said Draco. "It only dragged what was there to the surface, and kept it there long enough that you had to see it." He met Harry's eyes. "You can cast Legilimens on me now if you like, and it will still be there."
"You can't love me like that!" Harry yelped.
Draco laughed. Harry actually looked indignant. "Why not? I know that you love me as protectively, and your brother, and probably Snape, too."
"But—that's what I do, that's what I was raised to do," said Harry, his voice nearly a wail. "That strength of love has to be unnatural, doesn't it, if it comes from my training? And anyway," he added, "how could it apply to me?"
"Because it does," said Draco.
"It has to be the result of compulsion."
"It isn't."
"Then it's the result of—"
"No."
"Then you must only imagine—"
"No." Draco leaned forward and clasped Harry's hand. "I've given you sight of this before, Harry. What do you think your serpent shows? You should look at it more often," he couldn't help adding. While the bottle Harry had given him showing his emotions was important to him, the glass serpent Draco had bonded with the same enchantment for Harry's birthday didn't seem all that important to Harry, and that did hurt. "I told you that I didn't like you going away. I would have been perfectly happy to have you at Malfoy Manor for the entire holiday last summer. I tried to keep you from going after your brother and godfather, because I didn't care that you loved them, too. I was practically shouting it from the rooftops, undignified as that would be for a Malfoy. I've tried and tried and tried to make you see it, and you wouldn't, you stubborn prat. So now you don't have a choice," he finished severely.
Harry simply stared at him, then turned his head away. Draco grabbed his chin and turned his face back.
Draco didn't have to be a Legilimens himself to see the stunned disbelief in those eyes slowly melting into acceptance. Harry knew that Draco wasn't lying. He had probably had ground for the revelation prepared by being forced to acknowledge that his life mattered to Snape.
Well, fuck that, too, Draco decided. This was his victory, and he was going to claim it as such.
"This is so strange," Harry whispered. "I don't think this is supposed to be happening. I don't find out my best friend loves me a few days after my godfather dies and Voldemort has to leave yet again."
"When has anything around you ever been normal?" Draco shoved his chair closer to the bed. "Do you believe me now?"
Harry nodded, as if hypnotized.
"Good," said Draco. "This is the part where I get to be bossy and demanding." He felt a vicious delight flood him as Harry simply blinked. Merlin, I love this part. "First, if you start mourning over anything that happened to you, come and find me. Immediately. I want to hear it."
"Why?" Harry whispered.
Draco shook his shoulder. "Harry," he said warningly. "I don't tolerate idiocy, not when you believe me."
Harry swallowed. "All right."
"Second," said Draco, "once you leave the hospital wing, you're either with me or Snape for the rest of the school year. I know that Snape is planning to keep you here for the summer. We'll see about that." Privately, he was trying to work out a bargain wherein Harry would stay at the Manor for four weeks. So far, Snape wasn't willing, but Draco was determined. "If you really feel that you have to be alone, you have to tell us where you're going."
Harry hesitated, then said, "All right."
"Third," said Draco, "if you get angry at me, you tell me. If you want an apology, demand it."
"That's going to be hard work," Harry murmured. He seemed to be somewhere between pleasure and shock.
"I know. I don't care. Do it."
Harry nodded.
"Finally," said Draco, "you stop with this nonsense about compulsion, or whatever other excuse you find to deny that people love you. I really will hex you if you say something about it again, or if I look up and think you're thinking about it."
"All right," said Harry.
His eyes were starting to get a little glassy. Draco gently removed the porridge bowl from his lap and put it on the table, then arranged the pillows so Harry could lie down. Harry stifled a yawn. "Why am I still here?" he muttered. "I know that Madam Pomfrey fixed everything physically wrong with me."
"Shock and magical exhaustion, Harry," said Draco. "Madam Pomfrey doesn't think you should have to deal with other students right now, and I agree. And you could sleep for about two months and still not recover all the rest you need. That's the fifth promise," he added. "You have to sleep a lot."
"That one will be no trouble to keep." Still and all, Harry fought the closing of his eyes. Stubborn prat, Draco thought, brushing his hair off his scar. "Did Connor apologize to you yet?"
Draco frowned. "For what?"
"Compelling you." Harry stared at him searchingly.
A tiny flame surged to life in Draco's heart, driving his satisfaction even higher. Harry wants his brother to apologize to me. He thinks of that even though he has every right to think that what happened to them excuses Connor that duty.
"He hasn't yet," he said, and watched as Harry's eyes glittered.
"I'll tell him," Harry muttered, closing his eyes. "He should have already. He's dumb not to have."
His muttering ceased, and his brow relaxed under Draco's fingers. Draco watched as his breathing smoothed out into sleep.
Then, and only then, did he allow himself to close his eyes and spend a few minutes just listening to Harry breathe, reassuring himself, with each drawn breath, that his best friend was still alive.
"That's the last of them, I think," Draco said.
Harry nodded as he watched the last strand of silver squirm off his wand and plunk into the Pensieve. He could still remember what had happened in the Shrieking Shack, perfectly well—he hadn't wanted the wand to take all his emotions and memories of that—but now they had a third back-up Pensieve, in addition to the two that Snape had already hidden, containing his vision of that night. If Dumbledore tried to Obliviate either him or Connor, or, for that matter, Snape, they were safe.
He leaned back against the pillows, shrugging when Draco fluffed them for him, but making no move to stop him. Draco still seemed to need the reassurance that Harry was alive to have pillows fluffed, and Harry was hardly going to deny him that.
"So," he said, when Draco had carefully set the Pensieve under his chair. "You were going to tell me what the rest of the school thinks, now that it's been a week."
Draco shot him an irritated look with touches of anxiety visible around the straining eyes.
"It's been a week," Harry repeated softly. "I can bear this, Draco. I can."
Draco nodded. "All right," he said. "It didn't take the Headmaster long to make up a story how Voldemort kidnapped both you and your brother with the help of Death Eaters, because he wanted to use the magic that flows between twins to aid in his resurrection. Black fought him and died, heroically."
"Well, that part's true," said Harry. Why did Draco say it with disdain? This is his own cousin he's talking about, and my godfather.
Draco snorted. "He died to make up for his mistake, Harry. That's a better reason, and it's one that the Headmaster will never admit to."
Harry concealed his sigh. "And the other parts of it?"
"That the Death Eaters retreated before you, taking Voldemort's half-resurrected body with them," said Draco, his voice a low drone. Harry wondered if he was practicing to keep emotions out of his voice, or if he'd merely heard the story so many times that he didn't care about it any more. "They got interrupted by the Dementors, who came after them because they were escaped Azkaban prisoners. The Dementors sucked out Voldemort's soul, and destroyed Rodolphus Lestrange in the process. Then the Death Eaters fled, and the Dementors went after them." He sat back and lifted his eyes to Harry's face, and Harry knew without a doubt that Draco was not bored. He looked furious. "Nothing about the role you played, Harry. Nothing."
Harry smiled faintly. "I didn't really expect him to say anything about it."
"But aren't you outraged?" Draco demanded.
Harry shook his head. "Dumbledore worked so hard to keep me from finding out the truth. The least he can do now is keep others from finding out a shred of it. And he wouldn't want anyone to know that the one of the teachers he most favored and protected was possessed by Voldemort. He'll give up a chance at promoting Connor's heroism to protect Sirius's reputation."
Draco snorted. "He might have saved his breath. No one believes him."
Harry blinked. That was a surprise. The Headmaster was still the Headmaster, after all, with the power of a Light Lord and a heroic reputation and the ability to push his ideas by compulsion when all else failed. "No one?"
Draco shook his head. "Too many people saw Snape dash out of Hogwarts as if his cloak was on fire. Too many people know that Granger spent some time unconscious up in the North Tower. Too many people realize that the Dementors haven't returned to Hogwarts grounds at all, even to hunt for Pettigrew. And too many people felt the utter explosion of magic when you freed the justice ritual and destroyed the Dark Lord's new body, even though they don't know what it means."
Harry gnawed his lip. "I'm not sure what we ought to do," he said finally. "I don't want anyone to think that Sirius was a traitor, either, and having too many people know about the prophecy is dangerous."
"Don't you want the credit for what you did, though?" Draco said, a whine entering his voice. "You are driving me mad with this, Harry. How can you not want people to know who you really are?"
Harry smiled faintly. "You told me once that I was a Slytherin in every possible way," he reminded Draco. "And I said that I wasn't, because I lacked ambition. I still do. Or, at least, I don't care if everyone knows about what I did."
"I thought I'd cured you of that," said Draco. "I really should have. Perhaps I should try again."
"Harry?"
Harry turned his head, blinking. Hermione stood at the door of the hospital wing, one hand clenched around it. "Madam Pomfrey said that I'd find you here," she muttered. "And that you could have visitors now."
"Where else would you have expected to find him, Granger?" Draco was sneering again. Harry shook his head. He sneers when he has no reason, as well as when he has plenty of reason. "And he can have one visitor at a time, and I'm here. Go away."
"That's not what Madam Pomfrey said," Hermione countered, and came forward even when Draco leaped to his feet. She looked directly into Harry's eyes. "Maybe we should ask Harry if he wants me to stay."
Harry sighed. He suspected he was in for a scolding, thanks to knocking Hermione unconscious and leaving her on the floor, but he couldn't avoid it forever. "Sit down, Hermione," he said, and Transfigured the table next to the bed into a chair. His magic was growing bored with nothing to do again, and this was a harmless use of it, no matter how Draco glared.
"Thank you," said Hermione primly. She sat and smoothed her skirt over her knees, then looked expectantly at him.
Harry waited.
"What you did was stupid," Hermione began. "You put me so thoroughly to sleep that I couldn't even wake up and inform someone else where you'd gone. Like Professor McGonagall. She would have helped you, Harry, you know she would."
Harry nodded. "I know. And I didn't want her help, and I didn't want yours. I wanted to go into this on my own."
"So I suppose I'm good enough to ask for help with a Time Turner, but not anything else?" Hermione asked, her voice rising slightly.
"That was what I needed your help for, yes," said Harry. "I couldn't have done that part of it without you. Thank you."
"But the rest?" Hermione leaned forward, chin set.
Harry shook his head. "I can't apologize, Hermione. I didn't take anyone along. I'd already stunned Draco by that point, and I stunned Snape when he came after me again. I was as careful as I could be, and two people still died." His voice cracked, and he blinked hard, Sirius's death coming back to strike him unexpectedly. "What if one of them had been you? Or what if there'd been a third death because you wanted to come along? I couldn't risk it."
"It was my choice," said Hermione.
"She's making a lot of sense," said Draco, unhelpfully.
Harry glared at both of them. "And it was my choice to leave you both behind," he said. "If we start looking at it from this angle, we can find all sorts of choices to contradict each other's."
"I'm willing to forgive and forget, Harry James Potter," said Hermione loftily. "If you never do that again."
Harry winced. He couldn't imagine that it wouldn't be necessary to do that again. Hermione was clever, and even if he tried to leave her out of things, she would find her way into them. And it was true that he'd asked her for an awful lot of help this year, with the phoenix web if nothing else, and might need to do it again. If he made a promise not to leave her out of things or behind…
Then he got an idea. Perhaps Hermione was so determined to come because she'd heard only the Headmaster's false story and not seen the truth. He nodded to Draco. "Let Hermione look into the Pensieve," he said. "Then she'll know what we faced."
He saw Hermione's expression brighten. Well, she did always want knowledge, Harry thought, leaning back. And if the choice is giving her a few bad dreams or risking her life… I'll take the bad dreams.
He closed his eyes while Hermione put her face into the Pensieve and watched the memories. He had several things to do, and he wanted to arrange them carefully in his mind, so he didn't forget any of them. He had to make sure Connor had apologized to Draco. He had to decide, with Connor, on what they were going to say to Dumbledore. He had to think about what sort of story they would spread to explain what had happened that night, as well as the absence of the Dementors. He had to make it quite, quite clear that Connor was staying with him for the summer, and not with Lily.
He had to settle that last with Snape, who was not being rational about the thought of Harry staying with Lupin, or some other place that was more welcoming to Connor, but didn't want Connor with Harry, either.
The twins had spent enough time together in the last few days, private time, that Harry knew Connor would agree (though so far he had either not agreed to apologize to Draco, or Draco was lying when he said Connor had not). They had talked nearly nonstop for hours, and then sat in silence again for the same length of time. Connor was recovering slowly from Sirius's loss, and from what he called the sickening experience of having Imperio in his head and being blind for a short time. He could put on a good blank face to fool everyone else who looked at him. It saddened Harry to realize that he was the only one who knew his brother well enough to look beneath the surface and see how false that mask was. At least Harry had Snape and Draco, both, to recognize the same truths about him.
He opened his eyes and asked Draco, "Did Connor apologize to you for compelling you?"
"No," said Draco, but his eyes flickered to the right.
Harry frowned. "He did so."
"I don't have to talk about that if I don't want to," said Draco, folding his arms. "It's a private matter between me and Connor Potter."
"Draco—"
Hermione abruptly jerked her head out of the Pensieve with a gasp. Harry glanced at her, expecting to see shock and horror in her eyes. And there was some of each there, but there was also a Gryffindor's golden, gleaming courage.
"How could I possibly let you face that alone?" she asked Harry. "Either you or Connor? I'll take that promise that you won't leave me behind, now."
Harry groaned and looked to Draco, but Draco only looked rather thoroughly entertained. Sighing, Harry reached out, put his hand on Hermione's, and gave his promise, in the name of Merlin and his magic.
Should have remembered she was a Gryffindor, he thought darkly. Showing them danger only makes them more eager to jump into it.
Harry woke slowly. He knew it was late, probably late Sunday evening, though he was still given to sleeping long stretches without warning, and it might be early Monday morning. There was no one else in the hospital wing with him, by the sound. Early Monday morning, then, Harry thought as he stretched. If it was before midnight, Madam Pomfrey would have been bustling around.
He glanced to the side, and blinked when he saw a letter lying on the table beside his bed. It hadn't been there when he went to sleep, and he thought any owl would have woken him. But he picked up his glasses, cast a small Lumos to add to the faint light spells that had sprung into being when he opened his eyes, and opened the letter. The paper was slowly turning purple, he saw.
The writing was familiar, or rather, familiar in its lack of familiarity.
Dear Harry:
I have left a charm on this letter. If it is turning purple, it has been an hour since I have visited you. If it is turning gold, two hours. If it is turning orange, three hours. Past that, the parchment will resume its normal color. It is not safe for me to linger here longer than that.
Harry's eyes darted around the hospital wing, but he saw no one, not even the faint shimmer that would have marked a Disillusionment Charm or an Invisibility Cloak. He looked back at the letter.
I have failed you.
I have failed you in all the ways that matter. I have given you information you already had, and not explained the import of new information. I have promised you protection, and not fulfilled the promise. I have tested you, trying to see how strong a leader you were, when I should have aided you outright, and never doubted you. You killed for the first time last Saturday. The part of me that thought you could never kill, even to protect those dearest to you, is at peace.
I owe you three debts now—one in the name of my first family, one in the name of my second, and one in my own name, for failing to protect you. I will understand if you do not wish to speak to me. If that is so, burn this letter, and I will know, and depart.
If you wish to know who I am, and to accept that I mean to make up for my broken promises, despite my lack of doing so in the past, then lay the letter on the table, face the door of the hospital wing, and ask me to enter.
Starborn.
Harry let out a sharp little breath and laid the letter down. He had considered burning it, but only for the barest moment. He did want to know who Starborn was. And allies were never to be disdained. This ally had taken risks for him. Merlin knew how he had managed to learn that Sirius was still the heir of the Black family, or how his parents had switched Secret-Keepers. If nothing else, Harry thought he should learn that in turn, so that Starborn couldn't be used against him.
"Enter," he called.
The door of the hospital wing slowly swung open, and a slender, hooded figure stepped through. Harry held his wand high enough that the Lumos glittered on the shadows under the hood.
"Show your face," he said. "Who are you?"
"I thought the wording in the last letter would have let you know, Harry," said a familiar voice, as a pair of hands rose and threw back the hood. "But perhaps not. I have never hinted clearly enough."
Narcissa Malfoy walked calmly over to him and took the chair beside his bed, watching him, while Harry stared at her.
Starborn. Born of the house of Black, but not named after a star. Of course. I should have known.
He recovered his voice after a moment. "Millicent said that you were a man."
Narcissa chuckled, a faint, polite sound. "I wrote to Adalrico under the name Starborn. He assumed that I was a man, and passed the assumption on to his daughter." She paused for a moment. "Hawthorn Parkinson knew the truth."
Harry blinked, then nodded, remembering his second conversation with her, when he had delivered her first vial of Wolfsbane Potion. Hawthorn had smiled a bit, oddly, when Harry spoke of Starborn as "he," but had gone along with it, apparently seeing no reason to disillusion him.
"Why?" he asked quietly.
"Because you were not taking on the leadership duties that you would need to," said Narcissa. "You knew me already, and you would weigh any words out of my mouth, about Lords and compulsion and those who are not Lords, more lightly than you would weigh them from a seemingly objective outside source. If I could tell you these things, someone who was not the mother of your best friend, then you might accept them and become the wizard we need, the powerful one who is not a Lord." Her eyes glittered. "You do have a problem with that, you know, Harry—deciding that those closest to you cannot speak the truth because they are blinded by their regard for you."
Harry inclined his head. "I know. But could you not have simply told me the truth about the Dark wizards you were contacting? About Sirius?"
"I did not know the whole truth about Sirius myself," Narcissa said simply. "I took a chance sneaking into 12 Grimmauld Place, the chance that Sirius would not have simply shut the wards against me—as he could have, being heir, did he but think of it. There, I found the Pensieves full of the memories he had removed from his head, presumably so he would not have to spend his nights thinking of his brother and Pettigrew." She paused. "And it did not work."
Harry shook his head, thinking of the nightmares of two dark figures, Sirius and Regulus, that he had had, the nightmares Sirius had had for years. Harry's mind had tried to warn him, but it had done it in no language he could understand.
"And then I saw the tapestry," Narcissa whispered. "Up until then, I had not thought of what it meant that Sirius could slip so freely into and out of the Black estates. I had simply assumed the estate was in legal limbo, with Sirius disowned, Regulus dead, Bellatrix in Azkaban, Andromeda blasted off the tapestry for marrying a Muggleborn wizard, and the inheritance never formally assigned to me. I was not the heir, either, but I thought the wards might accept me, for I was never cast out of the Black family. Then I realized Sirius was the heir, and something was badly wrong. Dumbledore wanted access to my family's treasures. And, of course, Dark artifacts of the kind that had attacked my son could have come from our family."
"Then you could have written to me then," Harry insisted. "You could have told me the truth. Perhaps this would have been avoided."
Narcissa's mouth twisted as if she'd bitten into a lime. "I let my pride blind me," she said. "I observed Sirius closely, and decided at last that the golden ornament around his neck really had tamed his thoughts, the way that everyone insisted that it had. I examined the letters to Lucius, and convinced myself they were not in Sirius's handwriting. I know now, of course," she added softly, "that his handwriting was already wavering, controlled by Voldemort in his mind."
"How did you know about that in detail?" Harry asked.
"I have spoken with Severus and with Draco," said Narcissa. "Neither knew I was Starborn, of course.
"I examined the wards on 12 Grimmauld Place again, and found them in an advanced state of decay. I returned to what had been my original hypothesis, when I first advised you to watch out for Sirius—that he had been involved, somehow, in the passage of Black heirlooms to other hands and in the attack of the Lestranges in your first year, but that it was probably negligence, failure to keep up the wards on the house that had let thieves in, and failure to protect key information in his mind from a Legilimens. I thought he might even have sold artifacts to pay off gambling debts, and not realized whom he was selling them to." Narcissa closed her eyes tightly and shook her head. "I spoke with both Fenrir Greyback and Walden Macnair, pretending to be a reclusive Dark witch interested in the Dark Lord's service, and both of them hinted at a strong ally inside Hogwarts, but my every glimpse of Sirius convinced me that they could not mean him. He was not strong. I trusted my own conclusions over the evidence, and this is where it led me, with your life in danger multiple times."
She opened her eyes and fixed them on Harry. "I owe you the debt of my failure," she said. "I owe you a debt from the family I married into, because you have protected my son at the near-cost of your own life. And I owe you a debt from the family I was born into. The Blacks have wronged you very greatly, Harry—I by my negligence, and Sirius by his. I would understand if you wished to have nothing more to do with me, or even to claim my life."
She was prepared to give it, Harry realized with a start. Of course, the Blacks were one of the few families that had kept up most of the pureblood dances, even the most extreme, and one of the dances said that only blood could wash away the stain of breaking one's word. Narcissa had promised to protect him, then played a dangerous game that could have ended with him dead, and certainly had ended with his life and her son's life in danger. The Black customs would have dictated that she die for putting Draco in danger, even if not Harry.
Unless the one the debt was owed to chose otherwise.
Harry shook his head. "I want you to live," he said.
Narcissa relaxed minutely, but inclined her head, as much to say that she knew he was not finished and should go on.
"I need you as an ally among the Dark wizards," said Harry. "I assume that's why you became Starborn in the first place, because there are wizards and witches who won't listen to Narcissa Malfoy?"
Narcissa nodded. "I have information from my son, and through Lucius, that only someone who was a Death Eater or inside Hogwarts could apparently have. I trade it for their wary promises to consider alliance. Many of them would turn on me in an instant if they knew who I was, for lying to them if nothing else."
She's just put her life in my hands again, Harry realized. I could write to people like Adalrico and tell them she's Starborn, and even if he forgave her, others wouldn't.
It was not even a temptation. Harry had much more use for Narcissa alive than dead, and he was fond of her, both as Draco's mother and for her own sake. If nothing else, she was different from Lily in that she was sorry for making him a sacrifice, and willing to make up for it.
"I still need you," he said. "I want you to keep making alliances with the other purebloods, and especially the Dark wizards and former Death Eaters who won't listen to a child. That's how you can pay the debt that you owe me as yourself."
Narcissa nodded, eyes intent on his face.
"I want you to promise that you won't ever put Draco's life in danger again, for any reason," Harry said. "That's the Malfoy debt."
"Very well," said Narcissa. "And done. And the debt as a Black?"
Harry fussed with his hands a moment. He knew what he wanted to ask, but it might very well go over the line. He stalled by asking, "What's going to happen to 12 Grimmauld Place and the like now that Sirius is dead? Do they pass to you?"
Narcissa's mouth tightened in exasperation. "There is a loophole, or a problem, in the inheritance magic," she murmured. "The wards on all the houses have sealed tight now. I visited 12 Grimmauld Place yesterday, and it would not let me in. I have no idea why. For the moment, all the Black treasures are locked away beyond our reach."
Harry nodded. He was actually relieved. He didn't want to search among Dark magical weapons, but if he had access to them, he would have felt compelled to, just in case there was something there that could help in the course of the war. "Very well. Then I want you to take charge of Sirius's body. Give him a Black funeral."
Narcissa sat back hard in the chair, staring at him. "He was a blood traitor," she whispered. "He used false inheritance magic to stay heir to the family. And then he betrayed his new allegiances, too, not even having the courage to stand by his convictions."
"He died a hero, fighting for those convictions," said Harry. "And no one else has done anything for him. Dumbledore is too busy doing damage control. My father is Merlin knows where. Peter Pettigrew can't for obvious reasons, and Remus Lupin doesn't have the money—or, probably by now, the legal standing—to be the director of a funeral for a pureblood wizard." He met her eyes. "I want you to do it."
Narcissa watched him in calm silence, all her emotions vanished behind a cool mask. Harry waited. He knew that what he asked was profound, perhaps more than what the debt would grant him. He didn't care. He was asking for it, and he intended to go on asking for it until Narcissa either gave in or told him flat out to choose another option.
Then she nodded and stood. "Come with me, Harry, if you can walk," she said, extending a hand. "I will help you if you cannot. I think you should see this."
Harry blinked. What reading he'd done on the Blacks indicated their funerals had always been intensely private, restricted to blood or married family. "I was only his godson—"
"You are the one who asked for this," Narcissa cut in, her voice sharp as Polaris. "You are the reason he is having a funeral like this at all. And it will be done now. Tonight. This is your last chance to say farewell."
Harry watched her face. It stayed exactly the same. He was asking for something high and old, he realized slowly.
And she was returning something high and old—the honor to come along and see how the funeral was done.
Harry reached for his robes.
It hadn't taken them long to find Sirius's body. Narcissa had walked straight to it the moment they were out of the hospital wing. When Harry asked her how, she said simply that she could feel it. She was a Black, and he was a Black, and the connection was always strongest between those who were born into the family, rather than married into it. Draco might have felt it, too, but Draco did not know the Black funeral customs, and would probably not have recognized the subtle tugging on his senses.
Now they were out of the school, Narcissa pausing courteously to rest whenever Harry needed to. The night was deeply dark, the moon hidden by clouds, and the only true light came from the Lumos on the end of Narcissa's wand. Sirius's body floated behind them.
Narcissa made for the shore of the lake, and Harry wondered if the Black funeral customs involved drowning. But it seemed Narcissa only sought a clear, flat spot to lay Sirius down, because she nodded at last and let his body drift to rest.
Then she drew Harry back a short distance. Harry found himself staring at his godfather, whose black hair was cast over his face. Thanks to the preservation spells Snape had cast, he looked as he had when he died. His gray eyes were shut, his face still in the same peaceful expression it had been.
Narcissa raised her head, her eyes seeking out the sky. Harry looked up, but still saw only clouds.
Then, to his shock, the clouds rolled smoothly back as though a hand had parted them, revealing a small expanse of stars. At the same moment, heavy, old magic settled around them. Harry struggled to breathe. The air reeked of dust, of bones, of the tomb. This was magic at least as ancient as the justice ritual, and as powerful. It turned around him, tolerating his presence, but focused on Narcissa.
"All the others," Narcissa said, voice gone unexpectedly high and unexpectedly clear, "say that they came from the earth or the sea, and they will return to the earth or the sea when they die. Only the Blacks have retained the core truth, the truth older than all the earths and all the seas. It was the stars that bore us in the beginning." She raised her wand. White light coursed along her arms, dazzlingly bright. Harry had to put a hand over his eyes as he squinted.
"Accept this one," Narcissa said, her voice growing loud enough to make the earth appear to shake, "Sirius Black, elder child of Canopus Black and Capella Black, elder brother of Regulus Black, proper heir of the Black line." The white light around her twitched, but Narcissa showed no sign of noticing. "Pureblood wizard, member of Gryffindor House, Auror, godfather of Harry Potter, who died with the courage of his convictions. Accept him now."
Harry felt as if he stood next to a blazing sun—or a star. The world around them had turned brilliant, in a way that somehow left room and space for intense shadows.
Then the light turned flaring blue-white with a touch of silver, and Narcissa's voice soared in triumph.
"From fire we come, to fire we return," she said, and gestured with her wand. "Sirius abscondit!"
A flash of white lightning struck down from the stars, and hit Sirius's body. It went up with a roar, as if he had been oil-soaked tinder. Harry took a step back, the magic around him surging forward like the tide to join with the white lightning in a whirling flow. For a moment, Sirius was the center of a ring of bowing, dancing flames that seemed to move like actual, human dancers, to have feet and heads and robes.
Then the heat coalesced into whiteness in the middle, and Harry saw an enormous dog rear there, like a mirror image of the Padfoot he remembered, with silvery fur and eyes dark as coals.
The dog melted into Sirius's face, and then into an image that Harry supposed must be the younger Sirius, running hard as though to escape from an unseen enemy. Fire melted around him, dripped off like molten metal falling into a trough, and reshaped itself into the Black coat of arms, marked with the words Toujours pur.
Then the white fire gathered into itself, a whirling ball of spears, and shot back towards the stars. Harry tilted his head back to watch it go, blinking away the burning afterimages. He staggered, his weariness catching up with him, as all the old magic surged after it.
Narcissa's hand caught him, and she murmured, as though she wanted Harry and no one else to overhear her, "Named for fire, born in fire, given to fire. Let the fire end him."
The stars blazed brilliantly for a moment. His head tilted so far back that his neck hurt, Harry saw the lightning dart among them for a moment, seeming to touch each of them with extra light. Then the clouds rolled back over them, and a loud crack announced the end of the ritual.
Harry closed his eyes. Tears were burning under his eyelids again, but they seemed to be tears of fierce gladness as much as any sorrow.
"Thank you for allowing me to witness this," he murmured.
Narcissa's hand passed briefly along the back of his neck. "You asked," she murmured. "The fire accepted him. The Blacks' debt is repaid." Her voice changed, becoming more that of the witch Harry remembered. "And if I don't have you back to the hospital wing soon, a number of people will kill me." She tugged him gently in the direction of Hogwarts.
Harry went. His mind was still stirring with the images he had seen, of Sirius as Padfoot and an adult and a child, and the fire, and the old magic…
His thoughts felt, oddly, scrubbed clean, as though the fire had purified them, too. It was the only explanation for why he came up the bargain he would offer Dumbledore on the walk back.
He climbed into bed, barely remembering to take his glasses off and put them on the table next to the bed, and heard Narcissa whisper farewell. Harry muttered something back; it must have been polite enough, because she left.
He went to sleep smiling.