Thank you for the reviews yesterday!

A very cerebral chapter, because it has to be. And if you do want to yell at me about the end, feel free, but remember that another chapter is coming tomorrow.

Chapter Forty-Two: Neither Snape Nor Harry Are Best Pleased

You must tread carefully.

Snape had heard that advice many times in his life—not always in those words, but the fancier words that most Slytherins brewed in their adult lives always boiled down to that warning. Tread carefully, or he'd be caught. Tread carefully, or he would give away what he wanted and bring in some stronger rival to defend it. Tread carefully, or he'd show his enemies what he was up to, and they would block it just to spite him. Tread carefully, or the Marauders would find and catch him.

"Severus, what is that disgusted expression on your face for?"

Snape snapped his eyes around to the side. McGonagall is too perceptive for her own good. "Nothing," he said smoothly. "At least, nothing more than it is every day. Do you not become disgusted at the thought of teaching good-for-nothing brats who will never learn more than the basic rudiments of your art?"

McGonagall lifted her head. That was better, Snape thought. He preferred her when she played the part of the offended Gryffindor to that of the woman who had been almost put in his House. Gryffindors have no business seeing so clearly. "Transfiguration is a different kind of art than Potions, Severus, and you know it. Most of Potions is only following directions. But a student has to have a true passion to learn Transfiguration, and a keen eye to keep all the parts of an object or creature in mind."

"If my art has less passion involved than yours, mine must at least be precise." Snape finished the last of his juice and stood. He had never truly liked pumpkin juice, but he had become accustomed to drinking it for breakfast over the years. The last thing he wanted to do now was draw attention, and Dumbledore would notice if he stopped drinking it. "And that is the reason that so many of your little lion cubs stumble and fall when it comes to their OWL's."

McGonagall glared at him and muttered something about a snake poisoning their efforts, but Snape affected not to hear, and swept effortlessly on. Dumbledore's eyes were on his back the whole way.

Of course they were. I trod too heavily that night in his office when Harry confronted him.

That time was nearly a month ago now, with the last days of January trickling past, and still Snape had not thought of a way to use his Pensieve Potion, or to make the man pay. Without the memories from either Draco or Harry, he was effectively stuck. No one else had seen as much. No one knew as much. He would get the images from James or Lily Potter only by force, and he had good reasons for avoiding them—Lily because of his promise to Harry, James because he did not think he would be able to control his wand once he was in the same room with the fool.

It must be done, though, he thought, as he entered his classroom and heard the muffled snorts and giggles of the Gryffindors calm immediately. They knew he was never in a good mood during this double class with the Slytherins, and tried not to provoke him. They didn't seem to have learned yet that he didn't need provocation to take points from them.

He turned to face the class, and noticed Harry and Draco sitting near the front, side by side. That was a good sign, at least. Harry had worked by himself when they still regularly fought. Now he looked at Draco occasionally as if trying to guess when the other boy would come to his senses and run away, but he had at least one person to speak and listen to.

Snape had to admit that he wished that person could have been him, but he had made mistakes, and it would take Harry some time to trust him again. He was willing to wait.

You have made still other mistakes. You have not told him about the compulsion the book put on Draco yet.

Snape stilled his face, and snapped, "You will make the potion on page 53 of your text. Instructions are there. Begin."

He began stalking around the classroom, using the time to watch faces. Pansy Parkinson and Millicent Bulstrode stood at once and went to fetch their ingredients together, Pansy listening intently to something Millicent was saying. The Bulstrode girl often found herself agitated lately, Snape knew. It was only natural, with her mother due to produce another child at the end of February. Pureblood pregnancies were rare and treasured things.

Vincent Crabbe leaned towards Blaise to share the instructions with him. Then he went to get the necessary materials. Blaise took the time to watch Harry and Draco. Snape had not yet reasoned out the complex expression that came over his face at such moments. He did not think the boy was jealous of the bond the two shared—if nothing else, he had a proclaimed girlfriend in the youngest Weasley spawn—but he did believe Blaise was weighing where his opportunities lay.

Not only Slytherins did that, Snape saw, as Harry stood in turn and a few Gryffindor heads pivoted to track him, the purebloods mostly. He had returned to find his charge at the center of more and more glances lately, the sun to capture more and more planets.

Draco surged up beside Harry. Snape permitted himself a small smile. The boy had not yet told Harry of his crush, or Snape believed he would have known it, but he was not inclined to pursue the deadline he had set on the telling. It was surprising enough that Draco had persisted in these feelings, when Snape had expected them to dissipate into the atmosphere.

Let things take their course. I do not believe that I can hurry them or change them. On the other hand, I believe Draco must give over soon. Normal people do not find true love at fourteen years old.

Were Harry and Draco normal?

Draco more normal than Harry, assuredly, Snape thought, as he finished pacing to the end of the classroom and turned around, but I will not let my own personal consideration of them end with my thinking they are too extraordinary. I might start uncritically believing everything they say otherwise, and I cannot let that happen. Harry needs a parent. Draco needs someone who will not be carried away by his name and the thought of what his father once did. Both need limitations.

He paused abruptly as he began to make his way up past the Gryffindor tables. Connor Potter stared at him in silent, mute consideration, Weasley in open defiance. The Gryffindors were not entirely reconciled to having him back as their Potions teacher yet.

Two unconnected things had suddenly rolled together in Snape's mind, in a way they only had a habit of doing when he was in the middle of a potion.

"Five points from Gryffindor for having an expression unsuitable for addressing a professor on your face, Weasley," he said, to show that his pause had a point, and went on walking towards the front of the classroom.

Limitations. Yes.

It will take some work, but not so much as all that. I believe one advantage I have in this dance is that my partner is all too willing to guide my faltering steps, and believe they come only from weakness and not some overarching plan. He is too used to believing that he controls everything and everyone.

"Severus! Come in, my dear boy, come in."

Snape could hear the pleased tone in the Headmaster's voice. Dumbledore would believe that he was luring him back, since, after all, Snape had requested this interview of his own free will.

Come, Snape told himself. It won't do to be too eager. And you must meet his eyes at some points during the conversation, or he really will start suspecting that you have something to hide.

"Headmaster," he muttered, taking care to sound as though only necessity had forced him to the title, and he hated it. He darted his head up in a quick gesture, and then brought his eyes back down again as he all but slunk to a chair in front of the desk. He had some practice in radiating resentment and even hatred of his lot, and he knew Dumbledore would be drinking in those emotions, believing them all the more eagerly since he wanted to think that this was the beginning of a revolution in Snape's feelings.

"Please, dear boy, call me Albus."

Snape sat down, still keeping his head bowed. "I don't think I'm quite ready for that yet." To his secret delight, the words were indistinguishable from Connor Potter's whine when he had given the blasted boy detention for ruining his potion.

Behind his surface emotions, he was raising his Occlumency shields—the shields that had fooled the Dark Lord, a most skilled Legilimens, as to his true allegiances for more than a year. Granted, Snape believed that the Headmaster was better at reading thoughts than the Dark Lord was. On the other hand, that desire to see only what he wanted to see would help blind him.

It was a dance, as so many things in Slytherin life were. And unlike pureblood rituals, this was the kind of dance Snape understood, the kind he was instinctively good at, the kind he thrived on. Idiotic Gryffindors would never believe that Slytherins took risks. They did, though, for the sake of a greater gain that could come from it.

This was of a piece with the risk that Harry had taken for him in the Wizengamot's courtroom when he went under Veritaserum, and Snape did not believe he could answer that statement of trust and faith with anything less than a similar statement of his own.

He raised his eyes and met Dumbledore's, bracing himself against the intense rake of that gaze.

He felt the light, probing touches of Legilimency. He rolled with them, deciding from moment to moment whether to open a shield and let Dumbledore through, to pretend not to notice him but keep him out, to notice and take offense. Any choice could be the wrong one, the one that would end the charade.

None of them were. Dumbledore continued to beam at him, and said, "I hope, Severus, that you will someday be ready to call me Albus again."

Snape sat a long moment in silence, then nodded, slowly. "Perhaps I shall," he said, and let the hollowness of old conviction and old despair ring in his voice.

He could feel Dumbledore relaxing. This was the Snape he knew, the one he'd dealt with since Snape had fled the Death Eaters and come to him in hope of a last sanctuary. He knew the human weaknesses of that man, the all-too-human faults and flaws and wants of him. He knew that Snape had done his stint as a spy as an act of atonement, but that he also resented Dumbledore for making him do it, when he could have stayed in safety at Hogwarts. There were debts and obligations and duties entangled in the relationship between them, too many to ever be untangled. Dumbledore would believe that the old rope had caught Snape's neck and was drawing him in again, half-cringing and half-growling, reminding him of how much he owed the old man.

He did not know that Snape's primary allegiance had changed, and that enabled him to cut the rope without regrets.

"What did you wish to talk to me about?" Dumbledore asked.

Snape blinked, slowly, as though he had lost himself in the past. He turned his head and stared at the far wall. He swallowed. "I wish to know your ultimate intentions regarding my ward," he whispered.

"Harry Potter, Severus." Dumbledore's voice was quick and pleased. "He has a last name. He has living parents. And that is part of your answer, as I am sure you suspected it would be. I intend that Harry someday be reconciled to his parents, if that can be done. I admit that after the fiasco on Christmas—"

That is one name for it.

"—I have less hope of it than ever. But I do not intend that any family be split apart forever. Lily has given so much to the cause of the war against Voldemort, her elder son and her magic included. It was only by a miracle that Poppy managed to save her foot and keep it from joining the list of sacrifices as well. I always meant to give her back the family life she should have had when the war was done. There is every hope, now, that Harry as well as Connor will survive. I would see them living with their mother, peacefully, until they're of age, and then visiting her and kissing her with grandchildren in their arms someday."

Not while I live. In the name of Merlin and my magic, I will end the pain.

"And James?" Snape let the name sound as if it were being tugged out of him by a fishhook tangled in his guts. It wasn't difficult to summon that emotion.

"Ah, yes, James." Dumbledore sighed. "He has not been in communication with me for months, and so I do not know his mind as well as I could have claimed to, once. But he has given up much, too. You know that, Severus." Dumbledore sent him a chiding glance Snape didn't bother answering. "He gave up his position in the Aurors so that he could stay closer to and live with his family, protect them against any Death Eaters hunting them after Tom's fall."

I doubt it. From the memories Snape had sometimes encountered in Harry's mind during Occlumency training, he believed it far more likely that James Potter was a coward who had found the wide world too much to deal with. It would account for his shutting himself up in Godric's Hollow and then shutting himself up again in Lux Aeterna.

"He has not given up as much as Harry." The emotions that filled his voice were ones that Snape didn't have to feign, either. He was glad of that. A lie was always stronger when mixed with a bit of truth, the same way that iron forged into steel was stronger than when left alone.

"You continue to say that, Severus, but I do not think you mean it." Dumbledore leaned coaxingly forward. Snape felt an edge of compulsion in the old wizard's words, and bounced it with expert smoothness from his shields, winding it down to drown among the quicksilver pools. It was a method that didn't alert Dumbledore to its having failed. "After all, Harry was a child, and he could not have known what he was giving up. James and Lily were adults. They yielded the whole world to their children, and to living with them and bringing them up a very certain way."

His words have almost no effect on me, now, Snape realized. He had moved beyond Dumbledore's voice as it seemed he had moved beyond the Dark Lord's when he left him in heart. The rhetoric that had once seemed so compelling beat against the walls of his mind and rolled down as rain would.

"I have seen Harry's training, Headmaster. I cannot believe that any result was worth that."

Dumbledore's eyes and smile grew brilliant. "Oh, yes, they were. He has such skills as he has never yet needed to call upon, and, more than that, he has the drive to learn that makes sure he will acquire more as he reaches the limits of the ones he has. And now that I believe his mindset has changed and his idea of sacrifice extended to the whole of the wizarding world, I can see where I went wrong. I was attempting to force him to love, and he already does. Even if he is not the fulfillment of the prophecy, he will do great things. Surely you can see, Severus, that any sacrifice was worth it to get him to that point?"

Dumbledore bore down with the heaviest compulsion he had raised yet, a clumsy touch that he would have disdained if he didn't need to be certain of winning, Snape thought. He hovered beyond it, drowned it, and marveled at how the words did not even raise a spasm of rage within him.

I have grown beyond that now. I know they are not true, and so there is no need to waste breath or time in fighting them. They are valuable only as a portrait of what Dumbledore is thinking.

"I know that I have often praised his skill in my Potions class," Snape murmured. It was the kind of admission that Dumbledore would expect him to make, the grudging turn back around to admit the truth of another's words without actually saying that that person had been right. Dumbledore would see it as the interaction of his compulsion and Snape's essential personality. Snape did rouse himself enough to add, "That doesn't mean that he needed to learn everything that he learned."

"There are lessons I would change," Dumbledore said. "But in the main, Severus, I think you'll find that he knows everything he needs to know."

That will be enlightening, when I see it.

"Perhaps," said Snape, and then roused himself to sneer. "Do you really think that the boy will be brought near his parents again? I do not think he would stand for it. He vowed to tell his father that he did not want to speak with him again, I know."

Dumbledore winked. "Oh, but I have my sources, Severus, and I know that Harry is still writing steadily back to James. They exchange letters every few days. It is not something, but it is an open connection, and it shows that Harry would be willing to share his life with his blood family if he could be convinced they deserved it. He shall know the full story of his mother soon, I think, whenever he next wishes to contact her, and that should convince him."

Snape fought the urge to snarl. The boy did not tell me he was still writing his fool of a father!

But he was a Slytherin, and he rose beyond his immediate irritation and looked at the implications of Dumbledore's words. A source. Who? I do not believe that my Slytherins would be unaware of one of their fellows coming and going, reporting to Dumbledore about Harry without my knowledge. Someone would have hinted to let me know about it.

He had the answer in a moment, when he just bothered to exert himself.

The wards!

The Headmaster of Hogwarts could listen from the walls and doors of the building, if he wished to. It was not often that one made the effort; the knowledge obtained that way was dizzying, and required constant monitoring, and constant drain on one's magic. Dumbledore had so many hooks in so many minds that he hadn't bothered with the wards in years. But, if he chose, he could renew the ties that bound the Headmaster to the school, and no one would know when he was listening from doors or walls, windows or portraits.

Snape wondered if Dumbledore knew about his plan already, then discarded the idea. He would have to act as if it were unknown, or he was lost. He had kept much of what he plotted in his own head, as it was the best way. And the best way to avoid much more scrutiny was to do exactly what he had done: come to Dumbledore and "prove" he could be trusted.

He looked away from the Headmaster and slipped a tone into his voice that Dumbledore was the only person ever to have heard. "I do not like to think of losing the boy, Headmaster. You know that I don't often become fond of people, and—" He shook his head as though he had said too much.

"I know, Severus, I know." Dumbledore leaned across the table and patted his hand. "But family is an important and sacred thing—in Harry's case especially, when he spent so many years of his life exclusively with them. You would not like to deprive him of them if he made the choice, would you?"

Yes, I would. If he made the choice to go back to them now, he would obviously be insane, and I would take appropriate steps.

"No, Headmaster," Snape whispered.

"I know that you, yourself, had a—more delicate relationship with your mother than you usually acknowledge," Dumbledore said, with the appropriate pause. "Not that Lily is Harry's only magical parent, but there are some similarities, I believe."

Thank Merlin for Occlumency. Snape calmly bolted down his rage, his unthinking reaction. He is trying to shove me off balance. The only thing I need do is not let myself be shoved.

"I did not hand that knowledge to you so you might turn it against me as a weapon, Headmaster," he said, and he snarled as he said it.

Dumbledore raised a hand, looking apologetic, but smug, if one were looking for it, in the relaxed lines about his eyes. "I am well aware of that, Severus. I am sorry." He paused for a moment, then said, "Was there anything else that you wished to speak about concerning Harry? You know my intentions now. I would still like to find some way to reconcile him to his blood family, but I acknowledge that the methods I was using did not work, and that it will take some time to find the ones that will."

"No, Headmaster." Snape stood up, keeping his face carefully lowered. It would not do for Dumbledore to see defiance in the crook of his neck or the tilt of his head now, not when he had done so well. "You know my own intentions. And I—can admit that yours might have their place."

If the world were entirely different. If Harry's family were not the nest of vipers they are.

"Good, Severus." Dumbledore smiled at him. "I do hope that you will come back and see me again at some point, as I look forward to speaking with you and do miss you when we have long times in between our chats."

How was I to chat with you these past few months, when I was in prison? Snape thought, but said, "Goodbye, Albus." Then he scowled, as though long habit had made the name slip out when he didn't intend it to.

He felt Dumbledore's intense delight as he left. Of course the Headmaster would be delighted. Snape had apparently played into his hands. He had fulfilled his expectations perfectly, and Dumbledore trusted too much to himself to think his expectations were false. Look at how badly his expectations had failed him in the affair with Harry, and yet he thought that Harry and his parents might reconcile even now.

Snape waited until he was in the dungeons, where he knew that certain subtle spells woven into the stone somewhat discouraged the Headmaster's wards. Then he drew the glass bottle from his pocket, and tilted it to catch the light. The silvery liquid of the Pensieve Potion shimmered with captured memories. If Snape had guided the conversation aright, and he thought he had, then those would be Dumbledore's memories of Harry's training. Snape knew he had often visited Godric's Hollow when the Potter boys were children.

Or when Connor was a child and Harry a young adult.

I do not yet know what I will do with these. I will be patient. But I know they will come in useful.

Check and mate, Albus. You should be more careful when you are playing with Slytherins.

Snape slid the bottle back into his pocket, scowling for the benefit of the wards, and strode rapidly down the hall.

Harry would be the first to admit that he didn't always see things straight the first time. He had mistaken Connor's incompetence for sweet, childish naïveté for a long time. He had mistaken Sirius's growing insanity, and then his possession by Voldemort, for changing moods in the man himself. He had believed his parents when they said that Peter was guilty, that all Slytherins were evil, that having any Dark power was the sign of evil. He didn't have some inherent gift to discern truth from falsehood.

He had the impression now that it had taken him an unconsciably long time to figure out that something was odd about the way Draco treated him, different than it had been.

Draco often touched him. Draco had always done that, and Harry had just accepted it as something he needed to do, a habit, like the way Hermione tugged on her hair when she was thinking hard. He hadn't thought it meant anything. What could it mean? It just happened.

Draco often seemed irritated when people interrupted him when he was talking with Harry. Draco had always done that. It was part of him, signaling a childish desire to always have his thoughts heard first and foremost. Harry had even felt honored in that he was Draco's chosen listener. But if he had not been Draco's chosen listener, someone else would have been.

And now…now those two things, if nothing else, had altered. Draco still did them, but he did not do them in the same way. Harry couldn't see when the change had begun, but he noticed it now.

Draco touched him constantly: light brushes on the shoulder as he walked past, one hand swatting at his hair in the morning in a vain attempt to make it lie flat, a steering on the arm when Harry was about to bump into someone else in the crowded corridors. But now the touches were odd, soft, reverent, as if Draco didn't believe Harry existed in the same world that he did. Harry supposed that he could have excused that as a relic of his habit of fooling Draco with illusions—of course his friend would want to make sure he was solid—if not for the other thing.

Draco tilted his head and gave other people this look, now, when they wanted to speak with Harry. It considered them, judged them, and, most of the time, discarded them. Draco stepped aside without protest if he thought their presence important, but most of the time, he simply hovered, waiting impatiently for them to be gone so that he could claim Harry's attention again.

And now there was this thing.

Harry frowned at the glass serpent, which he had found in his trunk while he searched for a series of notes he'd taken on Dark creatures last year, to see if they would be any good in helping with the unicorns' web. It still shone blue, and while purple churned around the edges, indicating that Draco felt protective of him, the blue was predominant.

So far as Harry could remember, blue was not a color described in the spell that he had chosen to make Draco's bottle, and which Draco had imitated when making the glass serpent.

Harry shook his head and stood. They had no Divination, since Trelawney claimed to be sick today, and Draco was still in Ancient Runes. This might be one of the few times that Harry would ever have to sneak away to the library and research the blue color in peace.

Besides, I might as well look up unicorns while I'm there.

Harry settled the enormous tome, Colors of the Soul: A Look at Common Methods of Aura-Reading, carefully on the edge of the table. Madam Pince had stared hard enough at him when he carried the book off the shelf. He didn't want to drop it and prompt the fierce witch to drive him out of her library.

He flipped through the book, carefully skimming each page, looking for a mention of the spell he had used on the bottle. Other passages briefly caught his eye, but none of them seemed all that relevant.

…pale frost-blue is often believed to be an indication that somewhere a beloved is pining for his lover…

…Deep green as the color of a soul has several significant readings. One is that of a rich life about to come into its summer of plenty, as the hue is believed to reflect summer leaves. Another insists that the soul thus marked has a tendency to darkness, as that shade of green is of all of them closest to black…

…It was once believed that Seers saw souls in colors, but this is now generally believed not to be the case…

At last, Harry found the description of the spell, and shook his head when he saw it. The list of colors was considerably longer than the one he'd seen when reading a description of the spell the first time. Of course, the books in Diagon Alley wouldn't have had enough information. He settled down to read, resigned to looking for a time, since the list was enormous and split into subtle shadings, such as deep red-gold and pale lime-green.

To his shock, there was only one entry for blue in the whole of the list. The description after it made him fall deeper into shock.

Blue. Deep love; devotion.

Harry felt his throat dry out. His eyes stung with something that might or might not have been the beginning of tears. He settled the book from its slant into a flat position, a movement that didn't even make the table tremble but caused Madam Pince to scowl at him anyway, and then leaned forward. He felt disconnected from his body, and his arms shook with fine tremors.

I—

That's impossible.

Harry would have thought that it indicated the love of friendship, which Draco had already told him he felt several times, but there were other entries on the list for friendship, mostly under various shades of green.

Blue indicated romantic love.

But Draco can't love me like that, Harry thought, and raked a hand through his hair. It wouldn't make sense. I—people love each other in different ways, but they have to have a reason to fall in love with someone, even if they can't articulate them. You don't go around falling in love with every random person you meet. And Draco has absolutely no reason in the world to fall in love with me.

Harry could see why someone would love Draco; that was no problem. He was capable of fierce loyalty. His occasional fits of childishness were endearing once Harry got used to them. He could admit his mistakes, as he had after summoning Julia. He did things to change himself without bragging about it, like trying to learn pureblood rituals. He shone joy when he was happy, shone rage when he was angry, and in general acted like a living window on a marvelous land. Most people did, in Harry's experience—what he had said to Vera about finding most people wonderful was true—but Draco's soul-land was particularly vivid to Harry.

Harry could not imagine Draco giving that emotion to him, particularly because he had said, and Harry had understood too late, that he believed there was one perfect person for each witch or wizard. Harry was manifestly not perfect for Draco. He was manifestly not perfect for anybody. He grieved to think that Draco had trapped himself into thinking that he was, and wondered if he had done anything, in his ignorance, to encourage it.

He wants to love me in a moonlight sense.

Harry had learned little about pureblood marriage and joining rituals as a child, since that was not the kind of alliance he would ever make—he couldn't marry or join with someone, he wouldn't have enough time to do that and live for Connor—and not the kind of alliance his parents would ever have forced Connor into. He had read about the seven types of romantic love that ancient pureblood witches and wizards believed to exist, however, if only because they were mentioned constantly, and were one of the few beliefs that crossed the divide between Light and Dark.

There was shadow love, where one partner took care of the other. There was darkness love, where both partners were locked together in a self-destructive dance that usually ended with one or both of them dying—the great passions such as tragedies were built on. There was starlight love, where the love grew from the desire to make each other's lives easier and then traveled along in a cloudy mixture of light and darkness for all the lovers' lives long. Most arranged marriages and joinings aimed at producing starlight.

There was lightning love, where the emotion flared quickly and usually ended in elopements and whirlwind courtships, but then faded out and might leave the pair unhappily chained to each other for the rest of their lives. There was firelight love, which surged from friendship into warmth and slow, ordinary surrender to feelings, never achieving the heights of emotion that lightning or darkness love might, but also never going out or dying.

There was moonlight love—the perfect, pure, blissful kind of love that simply erupted one day and grew stronger all the time, shining forever, always there even when the moments seemed darkest, as the moon was there even when she waned.

That was the love that Draco wanted, and it was the kind of love that Harry did not truly accept. If a marriage or joining broke apart, that did not mean it was imperfect. The partners might find happiness elsewhere. They might be perfectly happy alone. They might marry or join again, and still make a mistake. Harry refused to believe that, of all the variety of souls he had seen already, the only possible choices for each of them were perfection or unhappiness.

And then there was sunlight love.

Harry picked up Colors of the Soul and carried it back to its place on the shelf, unmindful of Madam Pince's glare now. He walked down that aisle and up another until he found the book he was looking for, Light Lady and Dark Lord, and took it down. He had read part of this the other day to reassure himself that the Light Lady Adalrico's ancestor had fallen in love with and forged the knife for really could have been none other than Calypso McGonagall. She had destroyed the Eagle Lord, and yes, a Bulstrode had fought next to him. It was no wonder that Lady McGonagall had refused to accept his suit.

It wasn't that part of the story Harry was interested in now, though. He flipped until almost the end, to a passage he had read as a child, and bent over it.

Calypso McGonagall had put her power into her voice, and it was her voice that destroyed the Eagle Lord at last. She drew her enemies into one place, one battlefield in the north of Scotland. When they were gathered into that place, all those Dark witches and wizards, she drove her voice downward, into the earth, singing.

And it answered her, with the Deepest of All Songs, and destroyed the Eagle Lord and his followers in a quake that harmed no one else.

The Lady went to walk the battlefield afterwards, with a Seer close beside her. She wished to see if anything lived in any of her wounded enemies' souls that could be salvaged.

Harry had not understood that part as a child, not seeing why Lady McGonagall would want to have a prophetess with her, but now he comprehended. This would have been a Seer like Vera, capable of telling whether someone was worth the effort to redeem.

Among the wounded and half-destroyed, they came upon Achernar Black. Now, this witch was the greatest of the Eagle Lord's followers—not the most powerful, but the most feared, his great torturer and his second-in-command. Her own power was also in her voice. She needed no whips, no Unforgivable Curses, to break someone else. She need only speak to them, and that person would be screaming before the end. She was badly hurt when they found her, but alive.

The Lady of Light looked upon her Seer, and she waited.

"She might be saved, still," said the Seer, after reading Achernar Black's soul.

Calypso McGonagall waited to hear no more. She picked up the wounded witch in her arms and took her herself from the battlefield, nursed her back to health, and kept her in her own house, striving to rekindle that elusive spark of light and kindness and humanity that the Seer had seen in the midst of all her great darkness.

It took seven years before Achernar would stop attempting to escape or kill herself, and as for what she and the Lady spoke about in their private conversations, no one will ever know. However, it is certain that the two witches joined ten years to the day after the battle against the Eagle Lord, and through the finding of a girl who became Lady Calypso's magical heir, and thus heir to the McGonagall line, their joining became a marriage.

They are the prime example of sunlight love, the love that is equal and fierce and burning always, the love of two so joined that they seem as one brilliant star. All these components are important, or it is not sunlight love. Equal: that the lovers might never know unconquerable uncertainty in each other, even in moments of weakness. Fierce: that it might never yield or stop burning. Burning: that it sheds light and heat upon all comers.

The world is richer for sunlight love, and whether it burns between two of Light or two of Dark or one of each, it is valued wherever it shines.

Harry put down the book and closed his eyes. That is the kind of love I would want to have, could I dream of such a thing as attracting someone else. That's the kind of love I would want for Draco, did he not so obviously want something different. He's deceived himself in me. There is nothing I can offer him, not like he deserves, and not if he wants moonlight love—or any other kind, for that matter.

So I have to tell him that. I know that he's going to hurt because of it, and so will I, but I can't lie to him like this. However he's convinced himself that I'm perfect for him, whatever mask of me he's seeing, he has to be unconvinced.

Harry gently put Light Lady and Dark Lord back into its place, and then strode from the library towards the Ancient Runes classroom.