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Chapter Fifteen: He Will Have Cause to Regret

Snape gently dipped the tip of his quill into the off-white potion. In a moment, the liquid had clung to it, and he was ready to write his letter to James Potter. He nodded, and sat down to compose.

Potter:

I suppose you imagine that you can best me this way, that you will take Harry away from me in a legal battle. I would ask you to look beyond your own reflexive hatreds and childish grudges, but I suspect that would be like asking a Muggle to fly a broom. Therefore, I will come to this private meeting with you, since that will perhaps confront you with the results of your childishness in a way impossible for you to ignore.

Professor Severus Snape.

Snape finished writing and examined the tip of his quill. Yes, the ink had dried, and with it, the potion. He ran a finger down the side of the parchment and gave something that he knew was not a smile. Then he drew out a small brush waiting and ready in his pocket, dipped it into the potion, and used it to paint the sides of the parchment, watching patiently as it dried in turn. No matter where he picked up Snape's letter, Potter would absorb some of the potion through his fingers.

Then Snape turned and eyed the two other potions. The clear one was not yet ready, and would not be for some time. The potion with the candle floating on it glimmered and bubbled. Snape eyed it and nodded. Yes, it would take a few more days, but he had a few more days. The meeting with Potter and Fudge was not until the autumnal equinox, after all.

He folded his letter to Potter, slid it into an envelope, and then made for the Owlery, that he might find a bird to deliver it to Lux Aeterna. Meanwhile, his emotions exulted far beneath the surface, cold and stinging.

Potter was foolish to do this, and still more foolish to send a letter about the meeting to me before it was time. He will have cause to regret his actions.

He will have cause to regret so many things.

Harry clenched his hands in front of him and fought to control his temper. He had already had to leave breakfast because he was getting close to destroying half the dishes on the Slytherin table with his rage. At this rate, he would be late to Transfigurations before he had calmed down, but he didn't particularly care at the moment. He was so angry at his father that it was hard to breathe.

How could he do this to me?

Knowing that it was only, as James thought, in his best interests for once did nothing to improve Harry's general disposition or incline him towards leniency. His father knew that Harry didn't want this kind of legal challenge. He knew that Harry had wanted Snape to remain his guardian even when he was staying at Lux Aeterna. Why now? What had happened to make him change his mind?

Harry blinked and looked up as someone passed his hiding place, a small alcove on the second floor. It was Snape, walking back towards the dungeons. Harry could not be sure, but he thought his mentor's face was more relaxed than it had been of late, with a small sneer touching the corners of his mouth. Perhaps he had just assigned someone detention, Harry thought. In that case, Harry hated to interrupt his good mood with the letter about the meeting, but Snape was invited, too, and Harry had to make sure he went. He didn't trust himself to be alone in a room with James and only one other person, perhaps Madam Shiverwood.

"Sir," he called, stepping out into the hallway.

Snape halted and turned to face him, and the sneer vanished. Harry was left facing the same calm, cold, professorial face he'd confronted for a few weeks now. The last time Snape had seemed totally normal was when he gave Harry the lecture on using Dark spells without thinking about it. No, come to think of it, he'd been oddly quiet even then. Harry hesitated.

"What is it, Harry?"

At least he's still calling me by my first name, even if it sounds strained. Harry decided that he would go ahead. "This letter, sir," he said, brandishing it. "The Department of Magical Family and Child Services says that they're revoking your guardianship over me and transferring it to—"

"Potter," said Snape, and an old, faint, habitual sneer colored the words. "Yes, I know. Your father sent me a letter gloating about it."

Harry winced. "Did he? I'm sorry, sir. But what are we going to do about it? I don't think the Ministry will listen if I just tell them that I want to be left with you."

"I have taken care of it. Do not worry."

Harry paused. "I—don't take this the wrong way, sir, but how?" He could just imagine some of the things that Snape would do to his father if he had the chance. Compulsion was probably the least of them.

"I do not wish to tell you," said Snape. "You will know it when you see it. Suffice it to say, Harry, that you are well-protected, even if you do not realize it." He turned and started to walk towards his office again.

"Sir! Wait, sir."

Snape gave him a glance of faint impatience. "What is it? I promise you, Harry, this has been taken care of. It will provide nothing more than a faint bit of embarrassment on our equinox morning."

Harry groped for and found the words he had been missing. "I wasn't going to ask about that, sir. I meant—why have you gone cold lately?" Not the best phrasing, perhaps, but it was what Harry thought of. Snape reminded him of himself when the cold fury gripped him at the end of second year. He could not think why Snape would be indulging in it without a good reason, since Snape had always said that such icy rage was dangerous. "You're different, and I don't understand why."

Snape inclined his head. "It is an effect of the danger you have been in," he said, voice distant. "I realized that I was doing less than no good when I panicked and came too late to save you each time. That is why I wish to teach you to protect yourself, and to make sure that you are safe and guarded when a danger does threaten. The coldness is nothing more than an attempt to think rationally about the situation, instead of raging about each and every enemy."

"Oh," said Harry. He could think of nothing to say to that. He drew in his breath and forged ahead. "And do you know what's wrong with Draco? He still talks to me sometimes, but most of the time he ignores me, and we had an enormous fight in the Owlery yesterday."

Snape narrowed his eyes. "I suggest you ask young Mr. Malfoy that."

"I did," said Harry. "He said that he didn't want to tell me."

Snape shrugged. "Then I suggest you leave it alone," he said. "Sometimes, Harry, people do need time apart from each other, and the way that you and Mr. Malfoy interact has been causing me anxiety for some time. Your friendship has been not so much a friendship as an obsession on his part and a desire to protect him on your part. Perhaps this is what you need, a small series of fights and distancings that will enable both of you to become better friends to each other."

Harry blinked and swallowed. He hadn't even considered that. He had known that he and Draco were not equal in what they gave to and received from each other since yesterday, but he had been so acutely unhappy that he had never even guessed that this separation could be a good thing, or that Snape would approve.

"Oh," he said again, and then nodded to Snape. "Thank you for letting me know that, sir."

He turned and walked off, quickly, speeding up when he was sure that he was out of Snape's sight. He knew he would miss Transfigurations now, but he made his way to the Slytherin common room anyway, which would be empty of everyone. It was one missed class, and he would take any extra detentions that McGonagall assigned him. The one yesterday, alphabetizing Transfiguration books by title, hadn't been bad.

He needed, very badly, some time alone to think.

Snape watched Harry go with narrowed eyes.

The boy is bothered. I did not realize that even a temporary loss of Draco would hit him so hard.

Then Snape shook his head.

This is the only way. Draco needs a distraction, and more, he needs an interest outside of Harry, something that could lead to him having true friends and a true, driving passion that does not revolve around his crush. No one else will step in. There is no other way so guaranteed to work.

And Harry would not speak to me again if he knew that I had used compulsion. I cannot tell him the truth.

Snape began the journey to the dungeons again when he was sure that he would not run into Harry. This might be painful for the boy right now, but in the end, he would be the stronger for it. Harry had said again and again that he did not want friends whose lives revolved around him through compulsion. That Draco's state had not been the result of Harry's magic made no difference. It was like compulsion, and it was damaging and destroying Draco's freedom, something Snape did not want to see happen to any member of Slytherin House.

He sank the concerns to the cold level of his mind, and smirked. He had a class of third-year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs to terrorize.

Harry whispered, "Ventus dirus," to the stone wall, and it slid aside and admitted him to the Slytherin common room. As Harry had known it would be, it was empty. Harry hesitated, and thought about flopping down and having his think on the couch in front of the fire.

Then he shook his head and made for the fourth-year boys' room. He didn't want anyone coming in because of a forgotten book or homework and interrupting him, even if it was only for a few minutes. Above all, he didn't want to have to answer awkward questions right now.

He opened the door to his room, and gave a brief, satisfied nod. The room was cool and dark. Harry made his way to his bed, climbed in, and drew the curtains shut after him. Then he lay back and stared at the ceiling of the four-poster.

He hadn't been thinking. It was time to think, not just react.

Harry folded his hands behind his head, closed his eyes, and asked himself the first question: When had Snape and Draco begun acting strange?

He knew the answer, as long as he was counting Draco's strange behavior from his trying to wrestle Harry away from the Gryffindor table that first day of school and not just from the day he'd started reading the old Potions book. Draco had been furiously protective of him the day before, too, even though all he and Harry had done before the attack by Bellatrix Lestrange was play Exploding Snap together, fend off the post owls delivering letters to Harry, and talk about the upcoming year. And Snape had gone cold and strange the very same day, with his lecture to Harry about Bellatrix and Sectumsempra.

So, now, the second question: Why did they begin acting strange? What could Harry have done to send them into those states? How had he acted differently?

And that one, too, was easy to answer, once he thought about it.

I took them for utter granted in the meeting in Scrimgeour's office. I could have told them the truth privately before I revealed it to my allies, but I didn't. They deserved to hear it in private. They've done more for me than anybody else. And I barely even looked at them during the meeting, as though I expected them just to nod and accept whatever I said.

What other unconscious arrogance have I been manifesting? I've been acting this way, with regard to Draco, for years. I see that now. But I think I finally passed the boundary of what they were willing to tolerate. Taking them for granted finally angered them. And, as Snape pointed out, constantly putting myself in danger only heightened the feeling that I took them for granted. I didn't trust them enough to bring them along when I confronted my enemies.

Harry felt his breath speed up. The idea that he might have lost his best friend and his guardian forever, through his own actions, was making tears prickle at the corners of his eyes. And the idea of that combined with the other things he had to accomplish—the vates duties, facing his father down and somehow maintaining Snape's legal guardianship of him, this political duel with the Minister, instructing Connor in leadership, learning offensive and Dark magic, negotiating with his allies—was enough to send a tight spring of panic coiling in the center of his chest. How was he ever going to do it all? How was he going to hold up without collapsing under the weight?

You can do this. You know you can. And now that you know the problem with Draco and Snape, you know how to solve it.

Harry gave a shallow nod, for all that no one else was there to see it. He had been acting out of emotions recently: arrogance, hurt, blind anger. He knew how to see past them. He had seen past them for years, when he knew that his brother's life hung on his actions. Just because he had a different set of lives to save now, more happiness to make himself responsible for preserving and protecting, did not mean that he was going to collapse.

You can do this. You can repair the results of your own mistakes. You know the determination that kept you going, when you might have given up on learning the spells that you needed to protect Connor? Summon it back. You've shamefully neglected it during the last little while. But you can stand up under the weights hanging on your shoulders. None of them is an imposition. They're all mistakes that you made without realizing you were making them, or duties and entanglements that you chose. That ought to make you more eager to tackle them, not less.

Harry could feel his breathing ease. The tears receded from the corners of his eyes. He stared at the ceiling of his bed again and knew his face was calm.

Carefully, he gathered up all the swimming emotions that were plaguing him and making his reactions blunt and clumsy and of the kind that hurt other people, and tucked them under the surface of the quicksilver pools that Snape had taught him to use in Occlumency. This was not the same thing as the box that had caused him so much trouble in second year, and which Harry was never going to use again. These containers were fluid. They would hold the emotions without making him unaware of them; he could summon them back if he wanted them. What they did do was give him patience and clear his mind for the kind of understanding that everyone around him needed from him so desperately.

His magic stirred, and for once, it was magic without the spikes and claws it had grown in the last week. This magic was simply eager to do what he wanted it to do, to have exercise. Harry exhaled the last of his fear and doubt and anger, and then tried out a smile. It felt more natural on his face than it had in a long time.

I have to be conscious of what I'm doing. I always knew that, with regard to being vates, but I should have known it would also apply to the relationships I have with other people. Harry shook his head, but the regret was fading into self-deprecating amusement. I have caused harm, but none of it is irreversible, not if I start watching my steps right the fuck now.

And I will. I have to. I have all this power. That means that I must know what I do with it, since no one else is going to hold my shoulder and guide me through the motions. I can make people's lives better, or I can mess them up without even realizing it. I want to do the first. To defend and protect and serve, Narcissa wrote me once. That's what the not-a-lord kind of powerful wizard does.

That's what I want to do. I forgot about that for way, way too long. I'm rededicating myself to that as of now.

I know what Snape wants from me: to study offensive spells, and leave him alone to brood in peace, to stop asking for so much and just to trust him. Well, I can give him that. As long as I handle my Occlumency right, then I can even be cheerful about it.

Draco wanted my unconditional support when he wanted it and to leave him alone the rest of the time. Granted! That's where my magic comes in useful. I still won't use Legilimency on him unless he asks me to, but I can easily enough tell what he's feeling towards me. There's a spell in the book Hawthorn gave me on that. When he's angry and wants to be left alone, I'll know, and when he wants me there to ask questions or give him respectful silence or whatever else it is, then I can know and go to his side. There. It's easy. I'm glad.

And that left the situation with James.

Harry sighed. I can't do anything to make the situation worse. Snape told me that he'd handled it, and I should trust him. He's right. Writing a letter to James or yelling at him would only make him angrier, and maybe the meeting would be moved up and whatever plan Snape has wouldn't work. I'll just write a polite letter to Father telling him that I don't approve of what he did. He has his reasons, after all. I'd like to know what they are.

Harry lay still for a moment more, checking his new list of resolutions. It seemed solid enough. It made his life so much simpler, and it would give the people around him what they wanted.

Harry was rather surprised it hadn't occurred to him to do this before. After all, there was much evil in what his mother had taught him, but there was much good as well. Harry knew, now, that he didn't have to dedicate his life to his brother or wear the phoenix web that would compel him into feeling love and loyalty for his family. That meant he was free to choose where to place his love and loyalty, and what to do with his magic.

And I choose to do these things. I've wanted to be vates anyway, once I understood what the magical creatures needed from me. This is just understanding more about what other people need from me.

Time to grow up, Harry.

Draco gave a small growl and slammed the book shut. This was making no sense. I thought books weren't like people, he thought, as he leaned back, put his arms across his chest, and scowled at the book he'd just closed as well as the other tomes lying on the table, and couldn't lie.

But what he had found made no sense at all. He'd been researching Julia Malfoy, the ancestor of his who had slept with her own brother to produce an heir to the Malfoy line. He'd admired her strength and determination, and from the letter that his mother had written him about her, Draco had been sure that she must have the compulsion gift. That sounded like a good choice for an ancestor sympathetic to him. After all, Draco had inherited the Black blood, and some Blacks had been compellers.

But there was no mention of Julia Malfoy in the huge Collegium List of Registered Compellers 1299-1504, and there should have been. The Collegium, the predecessor of the Ministry in record-keeping, hadn't bothered with this nonsense of asking people to come in and register their magical gifts of their own free will. Instead, they had simply recorded anyone born with a certain kind of magic, much the same way that Hogwarts recorded the birth of magical children to be sent letters on their eleventh birthdays. It wouldn't have mattered whether Julia Malfoy told anyone about her gift or not. She should still be listed there.

And she wasn't.

Did that mean that she didn't really have the compulsion gift? Draco shifted his glare to the book that lay beside the Collegium one. But that means that this history is wrong to insist that she did. And the descriptions it gives of how she smiled at people and made them do what she wanted certainly makes it sound as if she could compel them.

Draco rubbed his face wearily. He'd been in the library, researching and neglecting his Charms essay. He didn't want to leave, though. He wanted to solve this mystery, and be able to make the potion right now. Julia Malfoy was the best candidate he had found so far, and he didn't want to abandon her now.

I wish Harry were here.

A few minutes later, as he was still sitting there and trying to work out the best way to continue his research, footsteps sounded behind him, and a soft voice said, "Draco?"

Draco turned and blinked. Harry hovered at the end of the aisle of shelves, as though he would turn and retreat in a moment if Draco didn't want him there.

Draco motioned for him to come closer.

Harry took a seat on the opposite side of the table. He didn't ask, irritatingly, for answers to questions that Draco didn't want to give and which he should already know anyway. He didn't try to connect the present situation with any one in the past. He simply sat and waited, in a calm, listening silence, into which Draco could choose to pour words or not.

Draco poured words into it.

"Look at this," he snapped, pushing the Malfoy history book towards Harry. Harry obediently picked it up and let it flop open at the beginning of the section on Julia Malfoy, which Draco had thumbed through so often in the past day that he'd weakened the book's binding. "She could compel people. I know she could. Just read the descriptions. But she should be in here." He touched the Collegium book. "And she's not. I don't understand."

Harry was quiet, reading the book for a long moment. Then he looked up, blinking. "Perhaps it's a different kind of compulsion?" he asked, his voice soft and meek.

Draco blinked in turn. "What do you mean?"

Harry turned the history book towards him and touched a particular passage. Draco bent over and read it. He'd skimmed through it a few times, since it seemed to have no particular relevance to what he was doing.

Observers often reported a dazzling aura around Lady Julia, as though she were about to burst into light like a phoenix any moment. She would smile gently when questioned about it and murmur that she had no great power, only the grace that was her due for being born a Malfoy. And, indeed, despite the many reports that spread after her death, while alive, no one ever saw her perform any feat of dazzling magical prowess.

Draco looked up and shook his head. "I don't see what you mean."

"She was hiding, I think," said Harry. "She could make other people think that she wasn't a powerful witch just by saying that she wasn't. But she couldn't hide her aura." He hesitated, and then the thick scent of roses filled the room.

Draco felt his eyes widen as the suspicion caught up with him. "She was powerful enough to be a Light Lady or a Dark Lady," he whispered. "Her magic could drug the people around her and get them following her inclinations. But it's not the same as her actually having to reach into people's minds and drive home her desires. That would explain both the incidents that look like compulsion and the fact that no one ever reported her formally as a compeller who somehow managed to escape the Collegium's list. She was just using a side-effect of her magic."

Harry nodded and smiled.

Draco whistled under his breath, thinking of what he might become if he could summon Julia's ghost and gather in her magic. First, of course, he had to make sure that her magic hadn't passed to her son, or any of the other dozen-odd children in the Malfoy line to whom she had been a surrogate mother. He thought it unlikely, however. He'd already studied the Malfoy generation after her, in cursory detail, and none of them were powerful enough to be a Lord or Lady.

And if her magic remained free, uncontained in any body, like the magic that came and haunted the dancers on Walpurgis Night, then Draco could draw it towards him. And if he were sympathetic enough to her—if his soul and hers sang the same song—then he could absorb the power and become, perhaps, a Lord, able to compel people without it being formal compulsion, himself.

He would have to make sure he and Julia were sympathetic before anything else. But Draco had the quiet, determined feeling that they would be.

He looked up and met Harry's eyes, flashing him a small smile. "Thanks." He's really not so irritating when he helps me and doesn't talk as though everything I do had a connection to him.

Harry smiled back at him, a smile that Draco found he had missed. "Of course." He hesitated a long moment, then said, "I understand that you just want some time to yourself, Draco. I'll help you however I can, and won't ask any questions that you don't want to answer. I understand that you need your own life." He met his eyes firmly. "It's nothing more than you've given me for years."

Draco blinked, stunned. Now, if only he had understood that yesterday, this whole fight could have been avoided.

"Thank you, Harry," he said. "It won't be all the time. I think we do need some separate time. I can't spend every moment running around after you." Especially when you were ignoring me anyway, his temper added, but Draco ignored it in turn. Harry was trying to make a compromise, and wasn't doing anything like talking to the Chang bitch right in front of Draco. It was almost as though he had figured out that Draco loved him and was giving him the silent support that any lover had a right to demand.

Harry nodded. "I know. Sorry for that, Draco." He rose smoothly to his feet. "I'll see you when I see you."

Draco smiled and watched him out of the library. Then he shook his head and snatched up the Malfoy history book again, this time to look for clues that he and Julia were in sympathy-song, all the while humming under his breath. His life went so much more smoothly when people just agreed with and understood him.

"Come in, Harry, come in."

Albus watched approvingly as Harry came in and shut the door behind him, taking a seat in the chair opposite his desk without waiting to be asked. Harry even met his eyes fearlessly, and only smiled at the small touch of Legilimency Albus used. Albus found calm, clear patience and determination in the forefront of his mind, and thick shields piled on shields behind them, showing the unmistakable quicksilver touch of Severus's teaching.

He could read none of Harry's emotions, but he could tell that Harry wasn't letting them interfere with his thinking. Something had obviously changed Harry's habit of reacting without consideration of the consequences lately, and that was wonderful. They could not have an overly emotional, impulsive fourteen-year-old Lord flinging his magic anywhere he liked.

"Have you considered what I told you last time, about sacrificing bits of your magic to help the magical creatures?" Albus asked him.

Harry leaned back in his chair and adopted a thoughtful frown. "I don't think it would work, sir. They would still be in prisons if I did that, not truly free. It would just be making them ignore their prisons." He met Albus's eyes. "With respect, sir, I don't think I can do it that way."

"What would you do, then?" Albus concealed his sharp stab of disappointment. And things were going so well. Well, at least he has been ignoring politics. There was no snappy letter to James, and that Skeeter woman has not done a second article about Fudge yet.

"I would make a thorough study of the webs, see what shattering them would cost people, and then try to alleviate the consequences," said Harry. "There is one magical artifact in Lux Aeterna which might help. It forces the person who enters it to be absolutely honest with himself. If I walked through it, and asked it questions about the webs, then it would help me see any consequences I was ignoring." He frowned. "But walking it took my father months. I'm not sure that I can afford the time. I think I'll ask Fawkes first. He can tell me many wise things, I'm certain, being a phoenix."

Albus lifted his eyebrows, impressed in spite of himself. The boy sounded wise, as though he had actually thought about this instead of just declaring that he would unleash chaos. And he was talking about absolute honesty, which, like free will and domestication, had always been a trait of the Light. He might turn out a Light Lord after all.

Better than all that, the slow pace at which Harry evidently intended to move would give Albus time to weave more plans which might contain him.

"I have nothing to say except that I approve of your plan entirely, Harry," Albus said. "Please let me know if there is anything else that I can tell you about being vates. I am anxious to see our world continue in Light."

Harry smiled at him as he stood. "Thank you, sir."

Albus watched him go. Have I been wrong? Is he the best chance for the wizarding world after all, and I have simply been ignoring it?

This is stupid.

Harry nearly leaped off the moving staircase in surprise. He hadn't heard from Regulus at all in the past several days, and guessed that he had been upset over Harry's demand that he stop seeking out Voldemort.

Harry winced a little. I have no right to forbid him from that. Yes, it's dangerous, but all I can do is explain the danger and hope that he listens. I don't have any right to control him, and I couldn't, anyway.

"Where have you been?" he whispered aloud, as he stepped off the bottom step and out past the gargoyle. "Are you all right? Is the connection to Voldemort still working?"

All's quiet for now. I can't read most of his thoughts. Regulus's voice became brisk. But that's not what I came to talk to you about. This is stupid, Harry, what you're doing. It's an exact variation of what you were doing to yourself before.

I don't know what you mean, said Harry in confusion, as he headed towards the dungeons. Connor had asked him for lessons in leadership in a few days, and Harry wanted to make a list of what things he considered it most important for his brother to learn. I'm trying very hard not to make any of the mistakes that I made in the past, while still aware that I'll make some. I'm giving people what they want. I'm not tamping all my emotions down; I still crack open the pools and let them out sometimes. The same with my magic. I'm trying to make up for ignoring Draco and Snape.

Regulus retreated into wordless grumbling. Harry smiled. He thought it sounded like a good argument himself.

He felt a brief stir of anxiety, since tomorrow was the autumnal equinox and the day he would see James, but the anxiety faded as he remembered Snape's plan. He had to trust in Snape. If he said he had a plan that would take care of it, then he would take care of it. Harry's instinct was still to cry and rage, but his instincts had got him in enough trouble in the past few weeks.

His mind hummed smoothly as he considered what he would do tomorrow, laying all the plans neatly in place. The meeting with James would not take most of the day, he hoped. He had so many other things to do.

He was busy, and he was happy, far happier than he had ever been while he was trying to be Connor's protector and failing at it.

I don't like failing. I was failing all over the place in the last little while. I'll undoubtedly fail in the future. But this time, at least, I can see it coming and hopefully head it off, or recover from it quickly.

There are people who need so much. It's horrible that the magical creatures have been bound in webs for so long, and that Snape and Draco felt they had to retreat from me to have any semblance of a normal life. I was leaning on them, and I didn't realize it. Well, they can lean on me for once, if they need to, and stand apart from me, if they need to. I want to show them that they're absolutely as important as everyone else in my thinking, and deserve the same consideration.

I just want them to be happy.