Thank you for the responses to the Interlude!
And this chapter tonight, since I won't be able to post tomorrow. Um...well, I know the story is called Freedom and Not Peace, but Harry needed to get a bit of a break, or he would have collapsed. And, look, it advances the plot, even!
Chapter Thirty: Decus
Harry let out a long, shivering breath, and closed his eyes.
I will not destroy half of Hogwarts, I will not destroy half of Hogwarts…
He stood there until his shaking and his magic ebbed. He finally had to resort to tucking some of his rage behind Occlumency shields, but it worked. He opened his eyes and breathed deeply.
He gave Dumbledore's gargoyle one last look, and could have sworn it cowered. Then he set off back to the dungeons, hoping no one would accost him. His strides were long and angry, but his magic was only surging around him like a brushfire part of the time. That meant someone might try to talk.
And Harry was really, really in no mood for any conversation not conducted at a shout.
He'd confronted Dumbledore just a few minutes ago, trying to claim that the terms of the truce they'd sworn meant Dumbledore could not have put Connor in the Tournament and kept his agreement with Harry, so he should withdraw him at once. And Dumbledore had had the nerve to smile at him, and say, "Why, Harry, do you not remember that you also agreed to train Connor? This is part of that. I am not endangering him. Not with you here. I know that you would prevent any permanent harm from coming to him."
And since Dumbledore believed that, and Harry knew he would die before he let one of the Tasks destroy his brother, and nothing in the truce said that Harry could not risk his own life—freely and willingly—there the matter lay. Under the terms of the truce, this was not a threat, because it was not something Harry could not protect Connor from, and it fulfilled one of the conditions that Harry himself had offered in exchange for Dumbledore's help.
On a technicality, it does, Harry thought, aiming a savage kick at the wall, and then wincing when he saw the patch of stone he'd aimed his foot for frost over. But then, the bloody bastard thrives on technicalities—technicalities of consent and webs and laws and Light magic.
He ran a hand through his hair. He knew that part of the reason he was upset came from his mother's letter, and part of the reason from his nightmares, which refused to leave him alone whenever he slept, and another part from the newly added stress of helping Connor to train for the Tournament. None of that meant he had any excuse to go around kicking walls.
Hush. Hush. Be at peace. Relax. You have to meet Connor in the library in an hour to talk with him about what the First Task might be. He said he might have some clues from listening to the older students talk.
And he couldn't shout then.
What he really wanted, Harry had to admit as he growled the password to the door of the Slytherin common room, barely waiting until it opened, was someone to shout at, someone who fully deserved it and wouldn't just smile and deflect him with talk of legal technicalities like Dumbledore.
He climbed the stairs to the fourth-year boys' room, only grunting when Millicent called up to him.
"Harry. I mean it."
Harry blinked and turned his head to regard her. He hadn't been aware that she'd said anything more than his name. "What?"
Millicent tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at him. "Some more food at dinner tonight, I think," she said. "You still haven't been eating enough. You haven't since the announcement of the Tournament."
"That's because it's rather hard to force things down past clenched teeth and a throat filled with bile."
Millicent shrugged at him. "Whatever, Potter. You'll eat tonight. And I meant what I said. That bedroom has sounded like a war zone for the last ten minutes. On your head be it if you go in there. I'm not nursing you back to health if you get caught in an Unforgivable." She turned back to a thick book that Harry recognized as her History of Magic text.
Harry looked up the stairs. Now that he was listening, Millicent was right: He could hear crashing sounds, quickly muffled spells, and what sounded like thumps and yelps coming from their room.
He almost snarled with anticipation as he sped up the stairs and opened the door. Perfect.
He was just in time to see Draco duck a hex from Blaise's wand, pop up again, and croon, "Oh, does Blaise-Waisy love someone from Gryffindor? That would explain the little lions you've been drawing on your homework."
"I do not draw lions on my homework, you insufferable prat!" Blaise was more flustered than Harry had ever seen him; the very fact that he'd drawn his wand testified to that. He flung a Jelly-Legs Jinx, which Draco also rolled under. He was moving close to the table beside his bed, Harry saw, and in a moment he had his wand in his hand and could scramble up to face Blaise on equal footing. Neither one of them had even noticed Harry come in, seemingly.
"You do so," said Draco, who was beaming and smug in the way that only certain knowledge made him. He's used his knowledge of Blaise's emotions, Harry realized. He really was brooding over a crush. "Or, wait, perhaps not. Perhaps I mistook the little hearts for them."
Blaise let out a shriek that ended with, "Abicio!" Draco cast a Shield Charm in front of him to take the edge off the Flinging Hex, and looked proud as Blaise's spell dissipated into nothingness.
"Shut your bloody mouth, Malfoy," Blaise said next, his voice deepening. Harry studied his face, and saw his mother there, one of the few times he ever had. Blaise was dangerously angry, and it really was about time to intervene. "It's none of your bloody business who I crush on."
"But you do admit to crushing on someone!" Draco performed an impromptu little dance. Harry was Draco's friend, he really was, but just about then, he understood why Ron might want to strangle him.
"At least I admit it," Blaise spat. "That's more than you do, huh, Draco? Not that you could admit it. You'll probably pine yourself to death before you do something about it, because you're afraid, aren't you? You don't realize that you—"
"Petrificus Total—" Draco began, a look of transcendent rage on his face.
"Expelliarmus!" Harry cut in, shaking his head at himself for waiting so long to intervene. He caught both wands as they soared towards him, and raised his eyebrows when Draco and Blaise spun around as one to scowl at him. "That will be quite enough from both of you," he said. He gave Draco a warning glare as he opened his mouth. "Now. Why don't you apologize to each other? Then I'll return your wands." He had to admit that he was hoping they wouldn't apologize. He wanted to yell at someone.
"I won't," said Draco predictably. "Merlin, Harry, did you hear him? He was mocking me!"
Harry narrowed his eyes as his anger chose a target. "Draco," he said. "You have an unfair advantage." Can I not leave him alone for an hour without him starting to poke people? He should know better than to use his empathy like that. Draco was much better than he had been the last few months, Harry had to admit, but he was far from perfect, and this fight showed how far.
"I don't care!" said Draco. "He mocked me." He waited and looked at Harry, and after a moment, Harry realized he was waiting for a sign that his suffering was shared, that his best friend was on his side.
Harry wasn't, not this time. He shook his head at Draco, and then turned to Blaise. "Look, I'm sorry," he said. "You're right. It's none of our business who you crush on." He tossed Blaise's wand back. "Just don't curse him, all right? He'll be impossible to live with if you do."
Blaise gave Harry a hard glance, but nodded and slipped his wand into his robe pocket. "Always the peacemaker, aren't you, Potter?" he asked.
Harry shrugged. "Not always. Draco and I are about to have a little chat that should prove quite spirited." Especially, Harry noted, looking at Draco out of the corner of his eye, since he shows no sign of admitting he was wrong. "Do you mind leaving, Blaise?"
Blaise shook his head. "It beats me how you put up with him," he muttered, as he grabbed his Defense Against the Dark Arts homework and took his leave. "Or how you're ever going to put up with him later."
Harry blinked, wondering what that meant, then let it slide with another shrug. He tipped the door shut behind Blaise with his foot, then faced Draco.
"It wasn't my fault," Draco said immediately, before Harry could start. "He was lying there sighing, and I could feel all his bloody emotions! What else was I supposed to do?"
"Not pick at him?" Harry suggested between clenched teeth.
"He wouldn't stop," said Draco, and sulked at him.
"I don't care," said Harry. "You promised me that you would work on this, Draco, that you'd try to learn how to use your empathy, and not just take advantage of how it allows you to view other people's emotions. What possessed you? You've been doing—rather well so far." He had been. No, it wasn't perfect, but he'd managed to resist picking on Blaise for almost two weeks.
Draco muttered something Harry couldn't make out.
Harry raised his eyebrows. "Louder, Draco. I don't think the ghosts of Malfoys past would like their descendant to mumble."
That pointed reference to Julia brought Draco's eyes, and his temper, up. "I said that I was lonely," he said harshly. "And tired. And that my forehead hurt. Your scar's bleeding even when you're awake now, isn't it?"
Harry narrowed his eyes. No, he isn't going to do this to me, not tip the ground from beneath my feet. "Yes, as a matter of fact, it has been," he said coolly. "That doesn't mean that you need to—"
"When were you planning to tell me this?"
Harry hissed. "Sometime. I honestly didn't think of telling you, Draco. I wasn't holding back on purpose. And we were talking about you and the misuse of your magic."
"We were talking about you, too," said Draco. "Don't you get it, Harry? I'm better when you're around, at least when you're being honest with me, because then I can concentrate on your emotions. But when you're not, then I get bored. And Blaise was emoting all over the place. Did you really expect me to pass up an opportunity like that?"
"Not yet," Harry admitted grudgingly. "But having me around as a means of controlling your empathy is a crutch, Draco, one that we've got to wean you of."
"Now you're using mixed metaphors."
Harry let magic shimmer out of his shields, run up and down his shoulders. "And that's a sign of impossible ill breeding, I suppose?"
Draco, to Harry's astonishment, closed his eyes and released a huffy little breath. Then he opened his eyes and said, as calmly as he could, "Look, if you want me to get used to using this empathy alone, I think you'd better adjust the shields. They're thinning, or something. I'm getting more emotions than I used to, but they're only the negative ones, irritation and annoyance and anger and so on. And right now I'm feeling your rage, and growing defensive about it, and that just makes me angrier, and that will feed you. Now that I'm an empath, I can't afford to argue about everything under the sun."
Harry winced, and let his magic relax, guilty for forgetting that.
"Stop feeling guilt, will you?" Draco muttered, sitting down on his bed and staring expectantly at Harry. "And get inside my head. Bloody shields. Bloody empathy. Bloody Blaise with his bloody crush."
"Does your mother know you kiss her with that mouth?" Harry answered, but took a seat on the bed in front of Draco. Inexplicably, he was feeling better than he had been when he came from Dumbledore's office, for all that he hadn't yelled at Draco until he spent the anger. Just the fact of being able to argue normally with his best friend relaxed him, he thought. He'd missed that the most in the last few months, more than being touched or the inane conversations that he and Draco used to have about Quidditch and homework. He'd missed the idea that he could say almost anything to Draco and have it answered somehow, that here was someone with whom he could be honest and whom it would be very, very hard to drive away.
Draco raised an eyebrow, and Harry realized he'd just been sitting there, hands on the sides of Draco's face, looking at him and not doing anything. He gave a small, embarrassed cough, and then murmured, "Legilimens."
He passed into Draco's head again, and found it more ordered than it had been the last time he'd done this, Halloween night, when the constant chaos of emotions had barely made him able to distinguish the forms of the rooms that housed Draco's thoughts. Now he could see the grand and graceful home again, and he relaxed further. This was somewhat like the Sanctuary of Peter's imagining, but more calming by far to Harry. No one was looking at him with Seer's eyes here. Of course, he was never going to visit the Sanctuary and have people look at him anyway. No, he could feel Draco in every corner, and that was what soothed him.
Carefully, he checked the shields on the empathy. Some of them were indeed wearing thin. Harry adjusted them, smoothing out the rents and moving them so that some of the more pleasant emotions could get through to Draco, too. At last he nodded and backed away, cautiously pleased to note that a few threads of white had mingled with the quicksilver. His shields were quicksilver from Snape's teaching, but the white was new. Draco was gaining control of the shields—spinning himself into them, at least a bit.
He turned around again, and frowned when he realized a barrier of carved wood blocked his way back out of Draco's mind. Then he shrugged. He supposed it was something Draco really wanted him to feel, just as he'd wanted Harry to feel how sorry and angry at himself he was on Halloween. Harry stepped forward and put his hand on the barrier, gently pushing it out of the way and passing his fingers through it at the same time, so that he could identify it.
Intense, lazy warmth, the kind that came on a good morning in late spring when all one had to do was lie in bed and not rise for hours yet, while the sunlight crept in through the window…
Harry was past it in a moment, stunned, but coherent enough to think, So Blaise was right. Draco does have a crush.
He shook his head and popped out of Draco's mind back into his own, smiling gently at his friend. "Congratulations," he said. "Who's your crush?"
"That wasn't a crush," said Draco, his eyes narrowing at once. "That was love, you idiot."
Harry grinned, not letting himself pause to think of how long it had been since he smiled like that. Of course he'd think so. He's a Malfoy. Crushes are for other people. "Of course it is," he said solemnly. "So, tell me. Who's it focused on? Lucky girl? Or lucky boy?"
Draco just stared at him with his mouth open. Then he said, "I can't believe you," and stalked over to his school trunk, all offended dignity.
Harry shrugged. Guess he doesn't want to talk about it after all. And I've got to meet Connor in the library, anyway.
He stood and left. Draco ignored him the entire time. Apparently, it would be a while before he forgave Harry for bringing up a crush that he didn't want to talk about, or perhaps for assuming it was a crush.
That's all right. I don't think our disagreements will last forever, any more. That's one thing that's gone right, at least, in the midst of everything else going wrong.
Harry opened one eye, and waited in silence for a time, until he was sure that snores were coming from Blaise's and Vince's and Draco's beds, and not the tense silence that had lain between them for the past hour. He sat up and rubbed a hand over his forehead, cursing softly as he came away with a palmful of blood.
He needed to do something. The peace he'd got from Draco had lasted a shorter time than he thought, once he got to the library and found Connor sporting a black eye. Harry strongly suspected it was from someone still reluctant to believe that Connor really hadn't put his name in the Goblet—or perhaps someone who did think that Connor hadn't done that, and was furious over his being chosen anyway.
He'd questioned his brother, tossed references to other students into the conversation and waited to see if Connor would flinch, done everything but use Legilimency to get the answer as to who they were. Connor had steadfastly remained tight-lipped about the whole thing, saying something about "wanting to fight his own battles."
Harry supposed, since a Gryffindor-fifth year named Cormac McLaggen had come into dinner sporting a target on his buttocks to which a flying donkey tail constantly tried to attach itself, courtesy of the Weasley twins, that his question was somewhat answered and the offender punished.
But that didn't lessen his sense of helplessness, and the helplessness—muted, so that Draco couldn't sense it and wake up—was not letting him sleep.
Harry stilled abruptly as an idea came to him. I could do that, he decided. I have enough research on it now.
"Dobby!" he called softly. Since Lucius had agreed to let his house elf go free, he shouldn't mind if Dobby answered a call to Hogwarts instead of Malfoy Manor.
A crack, and Dobby appeared beside his bed, peering up with big eyes. Harry was grateful he hadn't immediately started chattering. Of course, given the other times he had appeared in the room and not awakened anybody, perhaps house elves had the ability to cast silencing charms around themselves before they began to speak.
"I think I've learned enough to free you," Harry said quietly.
Dobby's expression changed. If Harry wasn't used to watching house elf faces by now, he would not have seen it. But a burning light that hadn't been there before appeared in the big eyes.
"Dobby would like that very much," the little elf said.
"Good," said Harry. "Could you take me to the Forbidden Forest, though? I don't think I'd better do it here, with all the other house elf webs in Hogwarts. I only think I know how to unbind a frayed one. I wouldn't want to untie theirs by mistake." Not to mention that I don't have the least idea of how to convince Dumbledore to let the Hogwarts house elves go.
Dobby nodded, took a step forward, and clasped a hand around Harry's wrist. Harry endured being squeezed through Apparition with resignation, and found himself in a surprisingly dry and sheltered spot in the Forbidden Forest. He did conjure a Lumos to see Dobby by, and also saw they were in a small cave made of several trees bent and hanging together.
He faced Dobby and let out a little nervous breath, squinting. Dobby's webs at once sprang into being. Now that Harry was looking exclusively at them, he could make out how they wound on and around each other. Yes, there was the web to bind the house elves, and another to insure that they liked slavery. Harry curled his lip in spite of himself.
Then he said, to distract himself from the magic he was building up, "Who was the wizard who partially unbound you, Dobby?"
Dobby blinked his large eyes, finally making Harry realize he hadn't blinked once before that. "Dobby's master's name was Decus," he said.
Harry tilted his head. He recognized the Latin word for "honor" or "glory." "Do you remember what his last name was?"
"Lestrange."
Harry nearly let his magic go in his surprise, but then shook his head and went on gathering it. He had to weave exact replicas of the webs in front of him, and so he fixed his eyes on them again. Strand to the left, knot just below, strand to the right… "Do you remember why he wanted to unbind your webs?"
"Master Decus wanted to be free," Dobby whispered, his voice yearning. He had transferred his stare to the model of the webs that Harry was building in midair now. "Master Decus was not like other wizards. He had something else inside him, something that was wild and wanted to be free. Dobby does not remember what it was."
"A dragon?" Harry asked softly.
Dobby blinked, and then his eyes sparked. "That was it! Dobby remembers!" He clapped his hands and bobbed his head, his ears flapping against his scalp. "Yes, a dragon. Master Decus said to Dobby, he said, 'Dragons are long-sighted. Dragons cannot be tamed. Dragons are the wildest of all Dark creatures. Remember that, Dobby. Someone someday will need to know it.'"
Harry shivered in spite of himself. Well, Acies was certainly strange enough that Decus could have been a relative of hers. "Do you remember what happened to him?"
Dobby glanced up at Harry solemnly. "Master Decus started to lose his mind. The dragon inside him was too wild. It made him do things that Master Decus did not want to do, oh, such wicked terrible things!" Dobby abruptly covered his mouth with one hand and mumbled indistinct words around it.
"What?" Harry asked, glancing back and forth from the webs he was building to the webs he was imitating. "It's all right, Dobby, you can tell me. I'm hardly about to tell anyone else."
"Dobby is a bad house elf," Dobby said, taking his hand away. "One must never speak ill of one's master!"
Harry ground his back teeth together and let his breath come through his mouth and nose both at once. "In a few minutes, Dobby," he whispered, "you aren't going to have to worry about that ever again."
The webs were complete. Harry knew that the fact that his own created webs were perfect copies of the ones that had so long endured on Dobby was not the result of extraordinary skill on his part. The magic had taken over halfway through, creating small intricate knots where Harry would have blinked and peered through his glasses, and fraying the edges in flawless mirror image replica. His sight of the other webs had faded. There were only Dobby's to worry about now, and what he meant to do with them.
Harry had expected to feel anxious or excited about now, since this was the first time he'd ever removed a web from just one magical creature, instead of tearing it away, as he had from the Dementors. Instead, he felt focused, calm, as though he were walking a path already set out for him.
"Vates," Dobby breathed.
The word felt like a signal. Harry leaned forward and touched his hands to the webs. He had known what he would have to do from his research, but he hadn't thought it. His body moved without the guidance of his mind, or before his thoughts.
His hands touched the fraying strands of the webs, and then he vanished inside them.
He no longer stood in the sheltered little cave of trees in the Forbidden Forest, but skimmed down the endless traceries of the web, seeing a clear roof overhead, clear walls racing past him without end, and an indistinct floor sliding under his feet. As if he rode a knife, he sliced the web cleanly down the middle.
When he looked to the sides, he could see other Harrys riding other knives. He was not sure what web he was actually in, the original or the copy, and it did not seem to matter. What mattered was that he was breaking it.
He came to the first knot, and for a moment, he felt panic. What was he supposed to do with knots, which served as anchors for the web on the free will of the creature they enslaved, and would he be able to remember it in time? He was moving awfully fast.
But his body was already leaping, turning, moving, and then he remembered.
The knots had endured long enough. He could not untie them, as such. And they were too tangled and complicated to find the best thread and simply pull to loosen them.
The best decision was to cut.
Harry pulled up his magic and sent it before him, riding an intense outpouring of will and free will. He was remembering the moment when his own phoenix web had dissolved—the good part of it, the moment in the Owlery when he had fully committed to the vates path, not the moment in the Chamber when Sylarana had died and ripped a good portion of his mind to shreds.
The knot slit apart, and Harry went on sliding through it, bounding up a clear ramp now, slicing through another glassy knot, slipping down a different strand. He became aware that he was laughing. The laughter was not joyous, exactly, but high and hard and proud.
He reached the end of that web, and turned to attack the other one, the one that kept Dobby thinking he liked slavery—
And then he found that that one was gone. He blinked and shook his head, but understood in a moment what had happened. Thinking that no house elf should ever manage to free his magic first, the wizards who wove the original webs had put the net binding free will under and inside the web on their powers. The house elves went on thinking that they wanted to serve wizards, and so of course they would never use magic against them.
Dobby was free.
Harry caught his breath and dropped back into his own body. He watched Dobby stretch his hands, and shake his head, and flash glances here and there, as though his eyes were truly seeing for the very first time.
Then he looked up at Harry.
Harry gazed back at him. He had expected to feel a little touch or thrill of fear, as he had once when he saw a vision of what Dobby might be, fierce and feral. Instead, he felt only a rush of what he knew was joy this time.
He bowed to Dobby, and moved a few steps backward. If Dobby wanted to vanish right now, then Harry was hardly going to stop him.
Dobby extended his long fingers, instead, and snapped them twice. At once, a cloud of colored lights rose from the ground, formed into bubbles, and drifted around Harry. Harry blinked and focused on them, and blinked again when he realized that each contained a small, intricate scene, each one showing a happy family of some different kind of magical creature. It was magic that a wizard would have been hard-pressed to create in the first place, never mind maintain.
"I thank you, Harry Potter." Dobby's voice was deeper, and had entirely lost the cringing tone. "I am free now. I can hear the songs of the Forest. And I know what is coming."
Harry tore his gaze away from the bubbles, and looked at Dobby. "What is coming?"
Dobby tilted his head back. His ears were shrinking as Harry watched, coming to rest closer to his head, elegant and sharply pointed. "Decus Lestrange committed suicide because he could not control the dragon within himself," he whispered. "Dragons are the wildest of us all. And dragons are coming to Hogwarts. The very night sings of their presence, of their near arrival."
He opened his eyes and looked at Harry again. Already those eyes were different, too, larger and greener and possessed of a cat-like glow. "Dragons cannot be tamed," he said, as if it were a proverb, or a prayer.
Harry felt his breath catch. That's the First Task. Dragons. It must be.
"Even dragons will need their vates," Dobby whispered to him. "They are wild, but they are not free. Beware, though, Harry Potter. Wildness can consume even as it exalts." He looked abruptly past Harry. "And you attract both the consuming and the exalting kind more than most," he added.
Harry turned around.
A thestral stood behind him, long draconic neck extended and nostrils flaring as it sniffed at him. Harry stood still as the creature walked forward, hooves nearly silent even in the deep leaves, and spread its wings around him. Then it licked at his forehead, with a tongue as cool as grave dirt.
Harry started, and then realized that the thestral must have smelled the blood from his scar. He remained still, and let it take what it wanted. Then it stepped back from him, snorted, and extended a wing.
"The thestral wishes Harry Potter to ride," Dobby said.
Harry blinked and glanced at him. "Why? I haven't broken their web yet."
Dobby laughed. His voice was changing, too, becoming deeper and richer with promise, like the neigh of a unicorn or the song of a phoenix. "Some magical creatures respect you for what you are, Harry Potter," he said. "Some do not need you to break their web to prove yourself worthy of their attention."
The thestral snorted at him and stamped a hoof, which Harry didn't need Dobby to translate. Carefully, he hauled himself onto the thin dark back, clasping the ribs tightly with his legs so he didn't slide off.
The thestral reared. Harry wasn't quite sure how it managed things, but the leaves of the trees above them parted, and Harry was gazing straight up at the stars, and especially the black spaces between them, which he hadn't noticed since Walpurgis Night.
The thestral took off with a powerful kick of its hind legs, and the leaves rushed away, and the earth, and Dobby's laughter.
What came up to take their place was wind, and darkness, and music.
Harry found himself surrounded by song as they arose. He thought part of it came from the stars themselves, as if the act of freeing Dobby gave them voices he could hear. And surely some was the same deep music that he had heard the night he had run in the Forest, the cheerful voice booming from glen to glade, and some was the wind and the exaltation he always felt in the sky.
And some of it was the same song he had heard in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, from the wards and the creature caged behind the closet door.
Let me out.
Harry extended his hands. He was laughing, because he didn't have any choice. The symphony reached right into him and ripped the laughter out. He threw his head back, and felt the wind pass through his hair and soothe—the first time anything had in days—the pain in his scar. As if in answer, it built to a gale, and roared back at him.
The music grew more and more frenzied, and the thestral dipped its wings and swept in a wide circle. Harry could see Hogwarts beneath them, dark and slumbering, and its grounds, and its lake, and the Forest stretching on, and the curve of the brilliant world rolling beneath.
You might leave, said a voice that did not seem distinguishable from the voice of the music, or the Dark creature in his memory. You might wander the world, setting the magical creatures free and unbinding webs. What obligations have you to lesser wizards? Your power sets you above them. Listen to our song. You might claim us, and we might claim you.
Harry sighed and closed his eyes. His enchantment had not faded, but other impulses were rising to hedge it in.
"I have the same obligations I always did," he whispered. "I could fight Dumbledore, and perhaps win, since he'd not looking for an attack to come from my direction. I could attack and kill my enemies. But I can't. I won't step on their wills, and I don't think of myself as better than they are just because I have more magic."
But you want to, said the eager voice. Some part of you wants to.
Harry shrugged. "It would be simpler," he muttered. "That doesn't mean I'm going to declare myself for the Dark."
The wind went skipping away from him again, and the chorus of singing voices rose from all directions.
For a moment, Harry let himself bathe in the song, and imagine what it could be like if he did become a fully Dark wizard. He wouldn't have to torture and kill anyone, not like Voldemort. He could simply move without restraint, righting the wrongs that everyone less intelligent than he was had put in motion. He could free Snape, and free Connor from this stupid Tournament, and unbind the magical creatures. He could free Muggles from their fear and ignorance of wizards, and free wizards from their fear of Muggles .He had enough magic to set the world going the way he wanted it.
It would be simpler.
Nothing is simple.
Harry felt pain catch at his heart again, and the song lost all attraction for him. He stroked the thestral's neck and murmured, "Down again? Please?"
The winged horse dipped without protest, and landed Harry on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Harry slid off its back and stood for a moment, leaning against it, taking deep breaths.
It hurt to think of his mother, and what she had written in her letter, and what she would think when she received his back.
But the training she had given him had saved him yet again.
I cannot declare myself for the Dark. That would be too simple.
He allowed himself a few heartbeats more to glory in that vast music, then gave the thestral a pat on the shoulder, let it lick more blood from his scar, and set off, back to the castle and the world of limitations he had chosen.