Thank you for the reviews yesterday!

And, oh, look, another chapter not in the original outline. (This story keeps on growing).

Chapter Ten: Alliance and Defiance

A year since her first transformation. A year since her first full moon.

That was the substance of Hawthorn Parkinson's thoughts as she prepared herself to go to the Ministry and meet with Potter. Oh, physically she was facing a mirror and using a pale ribbon to tie her blonde hair out of her face, but mentally she was back in the storage shed where she had made her husband and daughter lock her, a beast without Wolfsbane, yelping and tearing at the walls.

A year ago this day, she had not even been certain that she wanted to live. At the moment, she could not imagine anything she wanted more.

She carefully arranged the ribbon pointing to one side, and then turned to face the welcoming room where Elfrida was waiting on the other side of the Gringotts fireplace. She halted when she saw the dark figure of her husband, Dragonsbane, in the way. Usually he would have let her go without question. Necromancers tended to avoid crowds, partly because there were still prejudices against and uneasiness around them, and partly because it was wearying for them, knowing when every witch and wizard they saw would die.

Yet here Dragonsbane was, standing determinedly still, in the way that meant he wanted to go with her.

Are you certain? Hawthorn asked him with her hands. He could not speak aloud to her except on two nights of the year, Halloween and Walpurgis.

Dragonsbane made the subtle move within his black hood that indicated a nod. He held out an arm to her.

Hawthorn smiled and took it, kissing him on the cheek, or the cloth that covered his cheek, as they proceeded into the welcoming room. She had never asked him when she would die, though she knew he saw it; she had never even felt a temptation to know. There was living dangerously, and there was living from day to day. Hawthorn preferred the latter, though she kept an eye always on the future.

Elfrida's head still hovered in the flames, that of a pale and pretty witch with ash blonde hair and too wide blue eyes. "Both of you are coming through?" she asked, gaze darting to Dragonsbane.

Hawthorn nodded.

Elfrida blinked, then shrugged. "Say Gringotts Fourth," she instructed them, and pulled her head out of the flames.

Hawthorn gathered up a pinch of Floo powder from the dish on top of the mantle, but before she could throw it into the flames, Pansy interrupted them, stepping demurely through the door on the other side of the room. "You're going to the Ministry, Mother, Father?" Her voice lilted into surprise on the second name, but by the time Hawthorn turned and looked at her, she had hidden it. Hawthorn smiled. Her daughter was well-trained, and knew all the pureblood courtesies. What some of Hawthorn's friends had called her "unusual upbringing" had added to Pansy's life and not taken away from it.

"Yes, my darling," she said, putting out a hand. Pansy came and immediately stood with her cheek next to it, not touching it. Hawthorn leaned nearer and took a deep sniff. One of the few pleasures that came with her werewolf curse was learning to smell others—both their added scents, and what they smelled like underneath. Pansy was perfume and rich, strong flesh. "There's been an incident with the Minister and Harry Potter. We may be gone some time."

Pansy nodded solemnly, but did not ask to join them. She was her mother's blood heir, but not her magical one, and formal political meetings with allies were restricted to magical ones, the more important kind. "Of course, Mother. I shall have the house elves prepare something for me."

"Not cheese," said Hawthorn at once, recognizing the look in her daughter's eyes. "It made your stomach upset the last time."

Pansy sighed, but dipped her head, murmured, "Of course, Mother," a second time, and vanished in the direction of the kitchens.

Hawthorn cast the powder into the flames, calling out, "Gringotts Fourth!" When the flames flared green, she wrapped her arms around Dragonsbane—he could not say the destination aloud and so would have to Floo along with her—and stepped into the fire.

Their destination was relatively far away, but Hawthorn had always enjoyed Flooing—the rush through the darkness, the excuse to get slightly dirty because no one would expect otherwise, the stumble at the end as the other fireplace spat them out. The speed of werewolf legs was the only thing she had found that was faster, since she didn't trust herself on a broom.

She and Dragonsbane came out in a richly appointed chamber, the walls red and gold. Hawthorn curled her lip slightly. The goblins made it a point to have red and gold everywhere, the colors of Gryffindor. It was a subtle statement back to Salazar Slytherin, who had tricked them into a bargain long ago, to favor the colors he despised. Hawthorn thought that a thousand years was quite enough time to get over an insult, however, and did not understand why the goblins kept doing it.

"Hello, Hawthorn."

Hawthorn turned and nodded to Elfrida Bulstrode, who was waiting for them, her hands clasped at her waist, her head bent down, her eyes on the floor, her voice quiet and gentle. Elfrida had been trained as one of the traditional puellaris witches, the maidenly and gentle ones, who were nothing but calm and gracious in public. They saved their ferocity for arguments in private, and for defense of their children; they were rumored to be able to turn into lionesses if someone harmed their sons and daughters. Hawthorn had never seen that happen, and hoped she never would, since she never planned to harm a Bulstrode child.

This time, though, there was something more to Elfrida than her traditional mannerisms. Hawthorn sniffed, and then sniffed again. Most women had a faint undertone of blood to their scents at all times, signaling where they would bleed from their wombs, even if they weren't menstruating right then. But Elfrida's scent was empty of blood, and had been for some time.

That meant only one thing.

"Congratulations, my dear," said Hawthorn warmly, reaching out to grip the other witch's hand. "How far along are you?"

Elfrida looked cautiously up from the floor, and when she found the permission to meet Hawthorn's gaze in her smile, she smiled back. "Three months along," she said. "I've dreamed. Adalrico and I are going to have another daughter."

Hawthorn inclined her head. "Congratulations," she repeated.

"Indeed," said a voice at Elfrida's shoulder, and Adalrico Bulstrode stalked in through another door, his formal negotiations cloak swirling behind him. Millicent, as both his blood daughter and his magical heir, followed close at his heels. "We are proud beyond proud." He moved up to his wife, seized her in his arms, and kissed her firmly, which Elfrida yielded to with her usual grace. Millicent moved around her parents, with a slightly amused glance at them, and bowed. She never curtsied, knowing, as any woman would, Hawthorn thought, that it only made her look ridiculous. She wore formal robes, too, not the gown that Hawthorn and her mother did.

"Mrs. Parkinson," said Millicent, her voice polished and polite. "I trust that you have dealt well with the Dark gift that you received last August?"

"With help," said Hawthorn, "I have indeed." She admired Millicent for a moment. Pansy had other strengths, but this girl was a perfect Slytherin snake, tall for her age, with a mind obviously able to tie itself into knots behind her calm face. And unafraid, too, which would serve her well in politics. "Now I am going to repay one source of that help."

"What happened, exactly?" Millicent asked. "I came in on the tail end of my parents' conversation."

"Harry Potter was taken captive by two gray-cloaked wizards who called themselves Hounds and claimed to be working for the Ministry," said Lucius Malfoy, as he came in through another door. Behind him was Narcissa, who met Hawthorn's eyes and nodded to her, and his son Draco, who looked half-distracted. "And we have just received another communication from Severus Snape, who is acting as his guardian. The boy has been found, but Professor Snape believes it best if we are all there to hear what happened. It concerns us, as his formal allies."

Hawthorn flicked up a brow. The day that Lucius Malfoy allies with someone on formal terms and means it is the day that I am freed of this curse. She considered Lucius a good politician, but too likely to keep playing both sides until he could no longer do so, always looking more for his own advantage than his allies'. His wife was worth ten of him, being able to actually risk her life and ideals for her ideals.

Her gaze went to Draco. The boy was Lucius's blood heir, but not yet his magical one. Of course, Lucius had insisted his son was young yet, and the talent had time to manifest.

Save that Millicent manifested when she was six, and even others younger than fourteen, I might believe that.

Hawthorn shook herself free of her preoccupation when she realized that Elfrida was announcing how they would reach the Ministry. She had to keep her mind focused on the meeting and its purpose, which was Potter and finding out how deeply this corruption in the Ministry had gone. Being Potter's formal ally was more than a convenience, and had been ever since he had given her the first vials of Wolfsbane Potion.

"The goblins keep a series of carts that travel to the Ministry," Elfrida was explaining. "They'll let me take one to the Fourth Level of the Ministry, and from there it's only a short walk to the Head Auror's office, where Professor Snape has told Mr. Malfoy that he and his charge are waiting for us."

She glanced around the room, blushing when she met the men's eyes, to see if anyone would object to that plan. No one did. Adalrico put an arm around his wife's waist and steered her towards the door he and Millicent had come in by, murmuring in her ear.

Hawthorn followed, her head up and her mind working. She didn't know what Potter's abduction meant, of course, and wouldn't until she reached the Ministry. In the meantime, she had to consider the Malfoys.

Why has Lucius bothered to come? His wife I can see, certainly, since she has risked so much to help Potter. His son, since Pansy told me that he's nigh-obsessed with the Potter boy. But what does Lucius think he can gain by attending the meeting himself?

Unless this matter is much deeper than just a simple abduction, perhaps.

Hawthorn smiled slightly, feeling a curl of pleasure uncoil and stretch in her gut. She loved politics, as long as they didn't happen the day after a full moon, and this time she'd had a few days to recover.

Millicent stepped out of the simple cart, which an enormous lizard had pulled for them, onto the wooden platform, and examined the door in front of her. It was made of steel, as though the wizards in the Ministry feared the goblins breaking through. Of course, they might, for all Millicent knew. Though she had not learned much from Binns, she had read enough books on her own to know that goblin rebellions were a large theme of wizarding history.

She glanced back, and watched her father helping her mother out of the cart. Millicent rolled her eyes. She was happy that her parents were going to have another child, of course, and she understood why her father was so proud and so anxious about it, but Elfrida ought to have been able to step out of a damn cart on her own. Not for the first time, Millicent was grateful that she hadn't been given the puellaris training. Shapeshifting was not worth giving up her mind and her freedom.

The door opened as she watched, and the Auror waiting beyond it nodded to them with awe-inspiring composure, given that she was confronting eight Dark wizards, one of them a necromancer. "My name is Auror Mallory," she said. "If you will accompany me to the second floor?"

Millicent looked around several times as Auror Mallory led them to the lifts, but saw nothing especially interesting—just desks piled with forms. Of course, if those forms were covered with laws that controlled magical creatures, she could imagine their power. But it wasn't interesting or exciting or flashy power.

Perhaps it is worth looking into anyway.

Millicent decided to remember that for later. She knew almost nothing about how the Ministry functioned on a day-to-day level; her history lessons had focused on the Wizengamot and the grand process of trials for Dark wizards. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to study the smaller things, the nitpicky details that escaped all but the most discerning eyes.

Millicent had found many useful things that way. If nothing else, it was how she had first discovered the level of Potter's power.

They reached the second floor at last, and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Millicent saw more to be proud of here, since she recognized the faint tingle of complicated wards about most of the desks. She studied them with a critical eye. Most were wanting compared to the wards of Blackstone, her home, but she could see the attraction of them for Light wizards. After all, they would never have to say that they were using magic so powerful that they were tempted to fall into corruption because of it. The most magic of this level could inspire someone to do was steal someone else's treacle tart.

They reached Rufus Scrimgeour's office, and crowded inside. Millicent studied the ring of chairs first. There were ten, enough, she supposed, for the eight of them, Harry, and Professor Snape. But when she lifted her gaze, she saw an elderly man she supposed must be the head of the Auror Office standing against a desk.

Is Harry not here?

Not in front of them, but behind them, she realized a moment later, as the familiar brewing-storm smell struck her nose. She turned her head, and saw Harry step into the room, his face pale but composed. Behind him came Professor Snape. His face was also pale, but nothing like composed. Millicent shivered. She would not have wanted to be in a Potions class with his eyes flashing that dark fury.

"Greetings, Malfoy, Parkinson, Bulstrode," said Auror Scrimgeour, his voice reflecting only a very faint distaste. He had greeted them by family names, as was proper, Millicent thought, looking back at him. "I have agreed to use my office as a place to host a formal alliance meeting between your families and Harry Potter, because Mr. Potter was attacked by Ministry officials working for the Minister himself, and I would like to know what happened as much as you did."

"But surely you must have the details by now, Auror Scrimgeour?" That was her mother, Millicent knew, her voice soft and retiring. All right, that was one good thing about the puellaris training; it encouraged other witches, and especially wizards, to underestimate Elfrida.

Auror Scrimgeour seemed to be no exception. His eyes softened as he looked at her mother. "I do not, Mrs. Bulstrode. Mr. Potter promised to explain everything when we were all assembled."

Where is Harry? Millicent thought abruptly, craning her neck. He should have made it up to the front of the room by now.

Or, no, wait, of course he had not. He was in the middle of the chairs instead, being hugged to death by Draco. Millicent's eyebrows rose as she studied the scene. It did have a single difference from a scene of the same kind she might have observed in the Slytherin common room. Harry's arms were clasped around Draco's neck and back, and hugging him as firmly as Draco usually embraced him.

"If Mr. Potter would like to start explaining?" the Auror asked, his voice now equally faint in amusement.

Harry simply turned, adjusting the placement of his arm so that it draped around one of Draco's shoulders instead of both, and led him up to the front of the room. He placed him in the chair underneath photographs of what looked like Aurors capturing criminals, squeezed his hand once, and stepped away. Draco, who already looked calmer than he had when he met them underneath Gringotts, nodded at him, then watched as Harry took his place in the very center of the circle of chairs.

Standing up, Millicent thought, as she sat down between her parents. The Parkinsons took the chairs next to them, Lucius and Narcissa the seats next to their son, and Snape and Scrimgeour the ones on the other side of Draco. He wants to present this to us in full-on formal terms, then.

Millicent leaned forward, more eager to hear what it was than ever now, especially as she noticed the faint green tinge to Harry's cheeks, and the slight staring quality of his eyes whenever they rested on anyone's face but Draco's or Snape's.

Harry told himself he was calm as he and Snape approached Scrimgeour's office. He had to be. He had just worked with Rita Skeeter to hammer out the final form of the article that she would release tomorrow in the Daily Prophet, and then Snape had found and fetched him. Harry had promised to explain everything when his allies arrived, and Snape had agreed. No one was forcing him or pressuring him, and he would strike the first blow when the article went into print. Meanwhile, it was only common courtesy to inform his allies and his guardian and his best friend of what would be in the article beforehand.

Of course, all of that was only so much confectionary sugar on the ugly truth. He was nervous because of what his allies would say about his Dark magic and the breaking of his word to the Minister, and because of what would follow if they did not reject him and Harry essentially began a war on Fudge.

There is a storm coming, either way, Harry thought as he stepped into the office and found it full of people, and I must be at the heart of it.

His eyes skimmed past the Parkinsons, the Bulstrodes, and the elder Malfoys, and came to rest on Draco. He could see his best friend's tense face melting into lines of relaxation and relief as he saw Harry. He probably would have moved forward in a moment to take Harry in a hug.

Harry forestalled that by moving first.

The expression of surprise on Draco's face was priceless, but far better was the tightness of the embrace Harry received as he tightened his arms around Draco's shoulders and buried his head in the curve of his neck. A tension he hadn't realized was there melted away. Yes, there was some concern that his allies might reject him, but at least one person wouldn't. There were two if one counted Snape, of course, but Harry had a different kind of comfort embracing Draco than he did when embracing Snape.

Draco hugged him back, fierce with delight and relief, and Harry wanted to go on standing there. But needs must, and he pulled away after too short a time and led Draco to the front of the room, placing him in a chair with the promise, given via a squeeze of his hand, that he wouldn't be far away.

Then he turned around and met his allies' gazes, one by one.

Scrimgeour was waiting. Snape was tense. Narcissa had a calm expression on her face, as if she could readily accept and forgive whatever crime Harry had to confess. Lucius was utterly blank. Harry could not see Dragonsbane's face under his hood, and was surprised that the necromancer had come at all. Hawthorn leaned forward in her chair, as thought she would spring and rend the words from Harry before long. The pale woman whom Harry vaguely remembered as Millicent's mother looked caught between fear and resignation. Millicent herself had a faint, amused smile on her face that her father's matched.

Harry nodded. Well, come tomorrow, everyone would know a part of the truth, anyway. Perhaps this could serve as practice for the wider publicity that Harry knew he would eventually receive.

"I broke one of the Ministry's laws without knowing it today," he said. "I spoke Parseltongue in Knockturn Alley, because some South African hive cobras escaped their confinement and I was afraid they would hurt others. I convinced them to come to the Forbidden Forest with me, where I set them free. Then the Hounds, gray-cloaked wizards saying they worked for the Ministry, came to and abducted me."

That part had been the easy one, Harry found, as his throat seized up. That part Snape had seen, and told other people. Now he needed to report what, so far, no one but those who had been in the interrogation rooms knew. He struggled to breathe.

Hawthorn unwittingly—or perhaps she did have some inkling, given that she could smell his emotions—helped him over the hard part. "How dare they take a child without his guardian?" she said, and her voice had a trace of a growl in it.

Harry blinked, then smiled at her without humor. "I don't think the Minister concerned himself that much with legalities, Mrs. Parkinson. I found out soon enough that he took me because he was afraid of my magic. He thought he had a Dark Lord in the making. I don't believe I was a child in his eyes any longer."

"He should never have done it," said Scrimgeour from his corner of the room, "regardless."

Harry chanced a look at the Head Auror. Scrimgeour sat very still, and his yellow eyes were so intent that Harry felt naked. He had to look away, down at the floor, and started pacing as he resumed his tale.

"The Hounds explained their purpose to me while we waited for the Minister." Breathe, breathe, and it will not be so hard. "They used to be Aurors, some of them, and others were spies and messengers for Voldemort. The Minister was using their connection to the Dark to seek out other Dark wizards. They wear collars that keep their thoughts from all Dark influences—"

Including ones that aren't that Dark, said Regulus's voice abruptly in his thoughts.

Where were you? Harry asked, losing the forward momentum of his conversation for a moment. I thought you'd gone missing.

I was testing the Hounds' collars, Regulus said, his voice resigned. There really is no way past them, at least not that I can find. Usually, I can pass from mind to mind that has a connection to Voldemort along a sort of tunnel, but this tunnel's collapsed and had rock shoved into it.

Then perhaps they didn't have a connection to Voldemort.

I think they did.

Harry shook his head, and realized his allies were still looking at him. He sighed and focused on them again. "I'm sorry," he said. "Choosing how best to arrange this experience in words has not been easy."

"Why not?" Adalrico asked, his voice low and dangerous. "What about it was so hard, Harry?"

Harry looked into Mr. Bulstrode's eyes. This was easier. He looked as if he were all ferocity, considering how this news would affect his family. Harry could deal with that better than more personal concern right now. "I found out that the Hounds are Fudge's special police," he said. "His secret police. He's been using them to track and arrest Dark wizards, at least one other before me. And he's shoved edicts through the Wizengamot about the registration of Dark wizards that the full Wizengamot didn't vote for, given the clause that allows the Minister to take control of the Ministry in times of war."

"We're not at war," said Scrimgeour crisply. "And according to Section Two of the Ministry Laws, he has to announce that we are before he can start taking such privileges as the creation of a force of war wizards."

Harry blinked. He hadn't known that. "Oh," he said intelligently.

"And then what happened, Harry?" It was Narcissa who asked, voice warm and motherly and caring. Harry focused on her face, this time. He would pretend that she was the only one in the room, and he was talking only to her, he decided. It was the best way to get through this next part.

"The Hounds brought me to the Minister when I announced that I wasn't going to stop using Parseltongue," he said. "He told me that I was indisputably a Dark Lord, and I was the main target of the new laws."

Shock bloomed on Narcissa's face, and presumably on other faces around him. Harry grimaced and kept his eyes focused forward. "I tried to argue with him, and say that I was loyal to the government of the wizarding world and didn't intend to take it over. He didn't listen. In the end, he brought out a silver sphere that would prove my loyalty, if I really had. I put my hands on it, and I did feel magic running through my body. I couldn't tell what it did, at first."

He sighed. He would say this without frill, without decoration, he decided. Dressing it up would not make it different from what it was, anyway. "The sphere wasn't to prove my loyalty. It tried to drain my magic, to make me into a Squib."

"What?"

The combined cry came from many throats around him, but the one Harry noticed the most was Snape's, because he had yet to hear his guardian raise his voice. He turned to face Snape, and winced when he found him on his feet, one hand clasped around the wand he didn't seem aware he'd drawn. "Sir," he said quietly, "please sit down."

Snape stayed on his feet. "Why did you not tell us this at once?" he said, in a flat voice that Harry knew covered a rage fit to make him commit murder.

"Because," said Harry, "of what happened next. I broke free of the sphere before it could drain my magic, and put a body-bind on the Hounds. Then I turned to face the Minister, trying to negotiate my way out of this still, and Dolores Umbridge, the Minister's Special Assistant, hit me in the back with a spell of some kind. It felt like a small, concentrated Cruciatus—"

"How do you know what that feels like, Mr. Potter?" asked Scrimgeour then.

Harry shot him an annoyed glance. Must he really ask that question right now? "Because I've felt it several times," he said. "From Voldemort and from Death Eaters, both."

He saw Millicent's mother put a hand to her mouth, tears forming in her eyes, but he didn't have time to figure out why. He had to continue before Snape could do something stupid like insist on checking his back for injury right in front of everyone. Besides, this was the moment when he would find out whether or not his allies would abandon him.

"I let my magic go," he said quietly. "I created a snake of Dark magic and sent it to fill Umbridge with cold poison that cost her control of her left side. Meanwhile, I coiled a snake around the Minister's neck that threatened to strangle him if he did anything I didn't like."

He closed his eyes and stood still. There was utter silence around him for right now. He didn't know what would happen, what the first reaction would be, and as moment after moment passed without one, he felt his muscles tighten, his teeth grind, his fingers fold into tense blooms of pain in his hands.

Then someone snickered.

Harry blinked and opened his eyes. Millicent had her hand over her mouth, and her brown eyes sparkled merrily at him above her palm.

"Wish I'd been there to see that, Harry," she drawled, as she took her hand away. "Merlin! The Minister of Magic, confronted and outdone by a fourteen-year-old boy."

Harry frowned at her. Once again, it was easier to concentrate on one person at a time, so he didn't look at the others. "Didn't you hear a word I said, Millicent? I said that I created snakes out of Dark magic."

"And didn't you hear that my family's a Dark one?" Millicent gave a lazy flap of her hand. "I can see how it might have escaped you, since after all we didn't attend Walpurgis Night and I wasn't Sorted into Slytherin." Her voice, heavy with sarcasm, rubbed his nerves all the wrong ways.

"Regardless—" Harry began.

"What happened next?"

Harry was actually grateful to turn and face Hawthorn, since Millicent was puzzling the fuck out of him. "I explained to the Minister where I stood," he said. "Then I reversed the damage to Umbridge. But it was too late. I had already discovered that I had enjoyed causing her pain."

He rubbed a hand along his robes, holding Hawthorn's eyes, which were calm and encouraging. "I made a bargain with Fudge. I would tell no one what had happened there, in return for his ceasing at once to use the Hounds, pass those ridiculous laws, or steal anyone else's magic."

"That was stupid," said Scrimgeour. "You had no right. We have a right to know what is happening in the Ministry, Harry."

Harry eyed the Auror sideways. "Why do you think I'm telling you now? Something happened to make me break the bargain. Rita Skeeter somehow saw everything, I don't know how, and told me that she was going to publish the story. I had a chance to cooperate with her, or not. I chose the cooperation. The story's coming out tomorrow in the Daily Prophet, minus some details that I thought only my allies needed to hear."

There was a faint murmur of noise at that. Harry knew what it meant. They was struck that he had trusted them, or been honest with them; Harry himself was not sure which one it would be better categorized as.

"So." He let his eyes track, one more time, around the circle of faces, playing with too many emotions to let him know for sure what would happen next. "There you have it. I used Dark magic to torture someone, and I broke my promise to someone who would have been an ally. Let that factor into your decision. If any of you want to dissolve your formal alliances with me, I would understand."

Hawthorn stood up.

Harry looked at her and swallowed. He had hoped she wouldn't want to dissolve the alliance, but he had no right to gainsay her if she did. He started to roll his sleeve up, so he could reach the scar that was the mark of their binding.

Hawthorn knelt by him in a rush, reaching out to embrace him. Harry stared at her. What is she doing?

"I was a Death Eater," Hawthorn whispered, for his ears alone. "I am a Dark witch. I am—something else that you know well enough, Harry. Did you really think that I or my family would abandon you?"

Harry sighed. "I didn't know. Mrs. Parkinson. And I don't know if you should trust me—"

"We do not plan to abduct you, steal your magic, or force you into bargains that would not have held in any case," said Hawthorn dryly. "Be content with what is, Harry. We stand at your side."

"My family does, as well," Adalrico announced, abruptly looming beyond Hawthorn's right shoulder. "You have proved that you are not intolerably of the Light, Mr. Potter. You will use Dark magic to defend yourself, and that means that you would not condemn us for using it to defend ourselves." He smiled, his teeth flashing in that same fierce expression Harry had seen in his eyes. "We stand at your side."

Harry turned slowly and looked at the Malfoys. Narcissa smiled at him, nothing but gentleness in the expression.

"I have put much work into dancing the pavane and the waltz and others, all for your sake, Harry," she said. "I would not give that up. My muscles ache right now, but my feet will be lighter because of the realization you have come to today."

Harry stared at Lucius. Lucius simply laughed softly, his eyes feral.

"I do not begin truce-dances only to stop them two steps from the end," he said. "And the Minister is a much more satisfying opponent than any you have showed me so far, Potter. I accept both the offer to continue the alliance and the opportunity to avenge myself on Cornelius for the insults he has dealt me."

Harry simply met Snape and Draco's eyes. He knew he did not have to ask about the continuation of their bonds with him. They would not abandon him.

He looked at Scrimgeour.

The Auror looked back. His yellow eyes and his lion-like mane of hair made him seem formidable even sitting down. Then he shook his head from side to side, as though waking from a dream.

"I have always known that the Ministry was not what I hoped," he mused. "I have always put up with that, and encouraged the good and discouraged the bad where I found it, and enjoyed my paperwork.

"Now I find that the Ministry is much further from what I am willing to put up with than I ever knew. A Minister who would seize wartime privileges when it is not a time of war and kidnap children who have saved lives and try to steal any wizard's magic is not one I want to follow, and not one worth keeping bargains with." Scrimgeour planted his bad leg firmly on the floor and nodded. "If nothing else, I shall enjoy seeing what shit bobs to the surface in the wake of your storm, Mr. Potter, so that I might pluck it out of the water."

Harry closed his eyes. Then he murmured, "Thank you for listening to me, everyone. I suppose we should go back to Hogwarts?"

"I'm coming with you."

Harry opened his eyes and smiled at Draco. "I know."

Draco knew that Professor Snape was giving him a disapproving glance. His mother was smiling. His father would reflect a faint tension in the lines around his jaw at the thought of Draco not even asking his permission.

Draco did not care.

He had been able to sit so silently during the meeting because he had been wrestling with the realization that had dawned on him like a personal sunrise when Harry had entered the room and come over to hug him before he did anything else.

He loved Harry, yes, and he had known that for over a year. But this time was the first he had realized that that love was not entirely that of a friend, or even a brother, which was the second comparison that came to mind.

Well, he thought, when the initial shock had passed. That isn't entirely surprising. I can live with it pretty damn easily.

He watched Harry throughout the meeting, the way he spoke the words, the way he forced himself on through confessions that Draco knew would be difficult for him, the way he accepted, with a slightly stunned expression, the offers of the pureblood families to continue their alliances. He contented himself all the while with the fact that only he really knew how hard this was for Harry. He knew Harry better than Professor Snape, better than anyone else would ever know him.

And of course it was only natural that Harry would accept his presence with equanimity, even a smile, the first genuine one he'd given since entering this meeting.

Draco didn't care that his parents hadn't given him permission to go, or that Professor Snape hadn't properly invited him. He was going back to Hogwarts a day early, because he wanted to, and Harry wanted him to. Draco couldn't imagine a pair of better reasons in the world.

Hawthorn raised her eyebrows as she watched the glances exchanged between the Potter boy and the Malfoy heir. So. Pansy was right. Well, that alliance will be a benefit to all of us, I think. At least we're unlikely to lose Potter to some Light wizarding family that might convince him to become a Light Lord.

She could feel her own heart pounding harder and harder, much as it did when the full moon rose and the transformation began. The future lay before her, much more exciting than it had been only this morning. By tomorrow, Skeeter's article would be out, and while Hawthorn knew it would not contain as much detail as Potter had given them today, it would be an attack on the Minister. Fudge might be pried from his incompetent perch at last.

And then the wizarding world would go into political chaos—chaos that a forewarned, clever, politically savvy pureblood could certainly exploit to her own betterment and her family's.

And for the benefit of allies, as well, Hawthorn thought, gaze turning back to Potter. He sang with power, radiated it, rang with it. She always forgot, when she had been away from him for a time, how strong it was. And if Narcissa is right, we shall have something much better than a Lord, something we have never had before, something entirely new.

It was all she could do not to howl.

The future was near, and it had never looked better.