Um.

The story changed its mind again. Oh, this will chapter will still fit with the ones to follow it, but it does so in a radically different way.

stares at story

Chapter Forty-Four: A Moment Between Brothers

Harry sighed and shifted back until he sat on the edge of the single long table that was the only furniture in this particular abandoned classroom; apparently Professor Flitwick's third-year Charms class had managed to disintegrate most of their desks, and he'd had to appropriate furniture from the upstairs classrooms. It wasn't one of their usual meeting places, and for that reason, Harry knew that Connor was more likely to come alone.

Good.

He had things he had to speak to Connor about, and Connor had had the same idea, from the note that Godric had delivered to Harry during breakfast this morning. A private place would be best for both.

The door opened, and Connor entered. Harry could feel the old relaxation of soul that he had had around his brother since he was a small child. He was most comfortable with Connor, for all that he could feel different things for other people now. He had to step carefully with Snape, Slytherin was sometimes a mass of reaction and counter-reaction and watching, and Draco…

Draco kept frightening Harry. He was too sharp-edged, too prone to know when Harry was doubting his ability to continue along their path and slide in to reassure him. Harry hadn't been able to hide from him at all since the freeing of the unicorns nearly a week ago.

In some moments, he felt an almost giddy rejoicing about that. The rest of the time, he was terrified.

But with Connor, he only needed to think about that insofar as he had to tell him about Draco. He grinned and held out his arms, and Connor came to him, hugged him hard, and then stepped back and drew something large out of his pocket. Harry raised his eyebrows. It was the golden egg Connor had managed to acquire from the Hungarian Horntail in the First Task.

"This is the clue to the Second Task," said Connor bluntly. "I have no clue what to do with it."

Harry blinked. "Connor, the Second Task's only two days away."

Connor sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, I know. And yeah, it was stupid of me to wait this long to come to you. But I really thought I could figure it out on my own." He paused, then added softly, "And I don't like thinking about the Tournament, you know? I didn't choose this, and even with your distracting the attention from me, everyone still expects me to be Hogwarts's Champion somehow."

Harry felt a stab of guilt. He had never asked how Connor felt about his sudden presence in the First Task. He had taken the opportunity to let it slide into silence when Connor never brought it up. He had enough other things to think about that he would take quiet when it was offered.

"Do you—do you resent what I did?" he asked.

Connor stood there for some seconds, studying his trainers. Then he looked up. "Do you want the brotherly answer or the real answer?" he asked.

Harry grinned despite himself. "The brotherly answer is the one that parents would approve of, right?"

"Right. I tell you how thrilled and proud I am that you're finally getting some attention, that of course you were right to defend everybody and without you tons of people would have died, and so on." Connor waved a hand.

"Assume that's a given," said Harry. "And the real answer?"

"I was kind of jealous, yeah." Connor shifted. "I mean, Harry, it's wonderful that you finally are getting attention. But I was used to it for so long." He shrugged and tried a self-deprecating laugh that didn't come out well. "I suppose I'm not quite as resigned to being in the shadows as I thought I was. I have no idea how you stood it for so long," he added.

Harry shrugged in turn. "I was used to it. Believe me, I would transfer all the fame and glory to you in a heartbeat. I have no idea how you stand that."

Connor shook his head. "All right. So we've established that we'd like each other's respective amounts of attention, and yeah, I'm jealous, and on we go. Can you help me with this?" He reached out and flipped open the top of the golden egg.

Harry jumped as an enormous screeching sound issued from the egg, then blinked. "That's Mermish," he said, after listening to it for a moment.

Connor's mouth dropped open. "How the fuck do you know that?" he blurted. "Hermione wouldn't have known that."

"Did you ask her?" Harry was trying to make out individual words, but he knew very little of the language—how to count to ten and a few greetings, really. It was definitely Mermish, though. Nothing sounded similar.

"Well, um, no."

"There you go, then." Harry reached out and shut the top of the egg. He could just make out that the words were repeating, but that didn't help with knowing them. "It sounds like ordinary speech underwater. Take it to the Lake or a bathtub or a pool, and listen to it there."

Connor abruptly swallowed. "You think we'll have to go underwater for the Second Task?"

Harry softened. "I forgot, Connor," he said. "I'm sure it'll be fine. I can teach you a charm that'll let you see and hear and breathe down there."

"That has nothing to do with water being over my head, though." Connor's voice had risen a notch.

Harry settled for walking over to his brother and patting him on the shoulder. "I'm sure it'll be fine," was all he could say.

Connor nodded, shakily.

He'd nearly drowned in the tub when they were three. Lily had left Harry to watch him while she went to fetch their clothes, but Harry hadn't realized the tub was full of water already, and had been thinking about practicing spells. Connor had climbed up on the side to look in, slipped, and fallen. Harry had run to his side the moment he heard the splashing and gurgling, but he knew it was his duty to get his brother out of trouble, and Connor couldn't shriek for help, and Harry wasn't strong enough to lift him out. His magic had come into play at last, snatching Connor awkwardly from the water and holding his head out so he could breathe. Since then, his brother been all right around water he could stand or sit in, like a shower or a shallow pool or the ocean along the beach near Lux Aeterna, but he'd panicked whenever the water went over his head, and he was not a strong swimmer.

"Can you teach me a warming charm, too?" Connor whispered. "The lake will be cold, I think."

"Of course," said Harry quietly, focusing on standing as still as possible so that Connor wouldn't panic further. He was thinking of giving up on what he'd come here to tell his brother. Surely Connor needed help with the Second Task far more than he needed to hear Harry's secrets.

"What did you want to tell me?"

Damn. He'd remembered the note Harry had sent Hedwig with, requesting a meeting, just before the note from Connor arrived at the Slytherin table. He took a deep breath and sat down on the edge of the table again. "Well, one is that—" He paused. How did he describe what he and Draco had, or didn't have, right now in words?

"Um," he said, and then decided to go for honesty and be damned. Connor was a Gryffindor. He'd get it. "Draco loves me."

Connor stared at him.

"And I—" Harry looked away. "I don't know what my own feelings are." Merlin, I sound like some sort of eleven-year-old crying over her dead kitten. He hated being honest, because most of the time it sounded stupid. He was amazed that Draco hadn't got tired of it yet and let things slip back into their comfortable silence. He was gradually coming to realize that that wouldn't happen again, though, or at least not for long stretches, and that was another thing to terrify himself with. "But he proved a point to me the other day about my wanting to run away from what he wants, and I know I'll love him someday. Right now, I have no idea about it. I want to hide under the bed." He flushed, since he'd not meant to admit that last part out loud.

Connor was silent for a moment. Harry looked back at him, almost glad to find a new source of anxiety in wondering what Connor would say about his dating Draco. At least it would not be as deeply painful as this attempt to live like a normal person, to remember, whenever he was tempted to slide back into his old patterns of thought, that Lily was wrong.

At last, Connor said, "Well, he'd be mad not to love you, Harry, honestly."

Harry stared at him, and then said, because he had to get away from the seriousness somehow, "Is this the part where you confess the weird incestuous crush you've nursed on me for years?"

"No," said Connor, as though talking to a small child, though he flushed a deep red first. "No. I—well, damn, Harry, I've seen the way he hangs all over you. I didn't think it was a crush. I thought it was just hero-worship. But after the last year, I think he would be mad not to love you, if he can." Connor shrugged. "So there. Was that the big secret you were shaking to confess to me?"

"One more," said Harry, and then he closed his eyes, and he gave Connor the prepared speech he'd recited in his head about Christmas night.

He didn't look at his brother during the recitation, and Connor didn't interrupt. Harry found himself glad that he'd practiced the words. It drained them of most of the emotion. He could just drown himself in the patterns of light exploding behind his eyelids. They were the important things, not how he felt like he was drawing and quartering himself by telling Connor what their mother had done to him.

I hate this honesty thing, he fretted to himself. Why does it have to hurt so much?

But Connor deserved to know the truth, and it would be doubly selfish to hold something like this back from his brother—selfish in motive, and selfish because he needed it. Harry finished the recitation and bowed his head.

Connor was still quiet. Harry sneaked a look at him out of the corner of his eye, but it wasn't helpful, because he was looking at his twin's trainers and not his face, and trainers were not notoriously good reflectors of expression.

Then Connor spoke, in a simple, hard voice that Harry had never heard from him before. "I'm never going back to them."

Harry blinked. "I don't think James had anything to do with this," he ventured. He didn't think so. He'd been exchanging letters with his father for a few months now, and James was still self-aggrandizing and badgering Harry about Snape, but he had calmed down and started to ask actual questions. And Harry knew Connor had been writing letters to him all along. "You don't have to cut him out of your life."

"I want to."

Connor's face had melted into a mulishly stubborn expression that Harry was all too familiar with. He shook his head, though. "Why?"

Connor looked at him as if he were mad, then ran his hands through his hair and started pacing. Harry decided it wouldn't be politic to comment on how much he looked like James at the moment.

"All of this happened right in the same house where I was living," said Connor. "And I never noticed. I was stupid. I'm tired of being stupid, Harry. I was stupid about Tom Riddle possessing me, and I was stupid about Sirius, and I was stupid when I was a kid. I don't want to be stupid again. Living with Dad would make me stupid, I think. He never noticed, or he pretended not to notice, and maybe he could make me do the same thing."

"And Mum?" Harry asked quietly.

"You don't have to call her that just to placate me, you know."

Harry winced, and kept still. Connor would be perceptive at the oddest times.

"She—she did all that to you." Connor waved one hand, as much to say that he didn't have to speak of it. "She didn't have to. But she was willing to, from what you told me. I don't want to live in a house with someone like that, either. Unless you really think that there's a chance she'll change her mind."

Harry shook his head, and forced down the stupid, stupid tears. Talking about Lily was still hard for him, and harder since Draco wouldn't let him hide it any more. It had been simpler when Harry could just wall him out.

"All right," said Connor, and exhaled. "So I'm not going back to either one of them. And I'm going to try to make an effort to get along with Malfoy, as long as he makes an effort to get along with me. And I'll go into the Lake on Saturday." He glanced at Harry, and made an effort at a smile. It was rather ghastly. "I hope that last 'go' works out well."

Harry hugged him again, because he could, and then drew his wand. "I'll teach you those charms now, if you like."

"Good," said Connor, and managed to ignore the thought of impending lake water over his head for the next half hour, if the way he performed the spells was any indication. Harry watched him all the while, his dark hair falling into his hazel eyes, and his face reflecting his stubbornness and his determination.

I have a better brother than I could have imagined.

"Mr. Potter? Please come with me."

Harry nodded reassuringly to Draco, and slipped away from the Slytherin bench to follow McGonagall. He had noticed that Professor Dumbledore wasn't at the head table, and wondered if the Head of Gryffindor was taking Harry to see him. He hoped not. They had avoided each other quite companionably for the last two months. Harry didn't see why it should change now.

McGonagall led him into the side room where the Champions had gone after their choosing by the Goblet, though, and turned to face him. Harry shut the door behind him, and looked at her in question.

"A requirement of the Second Task," said McGonagall quietly, "is that each Champion dive under the lake to rescue the person he or she misses most. You are Connor's twin brother, Harry, and he would miss you the most. Each person must be put under a sleep spell to stay calm under the lake. I assure you that you'll be able to breathe, and you'll stay protected until your head is above the surface again. However, while the Headmaster will perform the sleep spell on Krum's and Delacour's most prized people, I know that you would not trust him to perform it on you. Will you trust me?"

Harry blinked. So that's the challenge. At least Dumbledore's being sincere about his promise not to interfere with me in any way.

"Is the charm strong enough, Professor McGonagall?" he asked. "It might just wear off me otherwise."

The professor stared at him. "Why?"

"I trained myself to resist most sleeping charms if I wanted," said Harry, with a shrug. "It was a precaution against being captured alive. And if I sense something while I'm under the charm, something I think is threatening, I might start trying to resist this one as well."

McGonagall nodded slowly, though there was an ancient sadness in her eyes. Harry wondered if he was really better off for knowing, now, that it probably came from her pity for his childhood. It had been less uncomfortable when he didn't. "I think I can assure you this one will be strong enough," she said, and raised her wand, and began to murmur an incantation.

Sleep took Harry like darkness eating the light, and he rather gratefully let himself collapse into its waiting arms. He did hope that McGonagall would find some way to reassure Draco. If not, Draco would probably seek her out and demand an explanation anyway—

He fell.

He woke with a gasp, and the sense, at once, that something was wrong. Of course, something had to be wrong, or he did not believe he would have awakened at all until he was above the lake.

He saw confused, hazy shapes wavering around him, and performed a wandless Aspectus Lyncis, which he remembered, just in time, to make nonverbal. He had no idea if the charm McGonagall had performed on him would let him speak underwater. He hesitated, then added a breathing charm, just in case his other one had shattered with the sleep spell.

The shapes around him sharpened at once. Harry turned his head, and found himself tied to a stone that curved harshly, like a fish's tail. On one side was a small girl he didn't know, but she had long silver hair that moved back and forth slowly in the currents. He supposed she must be related to Fleur. He turned his head the other way, and stared when he saw Hermione bound to the tail. Krum? Is that why he was scowling the way he was at the Ball, and not paying attention to his date?

Then the shreds of the sleeping charm uncurled, and Harry told himself to quit thinking about inane things, and concentrate on the danger that had awakened him. He stared upward. The water above him was dark, and shifted constantly in swirling patterns, but the Aspectus Lyncis let him make out the shapes of stone huts, tethered grindylows, and swimming merfolk. Harry felt his stomach tighten when one of them turned to look at him, and he saw the brilliant yellow eyes staring down through the water. He'd had no contact with merpeople so far. He wasn't sure what they might want of a vates. Perhaps they weren't bound—

As if in denial of that, the lake began to burn with a dull gray fire. Harry could make out the shape of the web now, more fluid than any he had seen so far, adjusting to the way that the currents and the waves moved, Harry supposed. The merfolk spun through its loops, but they tracked their progress, slowly and patiently, as if they were all the work of one constantly adjusting spider. Harry shuddered. Was that what had awakened him? The web was one of the more unpleasant he'd ever seen.

Then he realized the web was trembling. Something else was affecting it, something not immediately apparent, something that made Harry wonder if a second vates could possibly exist in the world and be unbinding the merfolk.

He didn't have any longer to worry about it. A most peculiar shape came slicing through the weeds towards the statue to which they were tied. It took Harry a moment to work out Krum, with his head Transfigured into a hammerhead shark's. He dodged easily past the merfolk—who didn't pay him much attention anyway—and the grasping hands of the grindylows, and used a knife stuck in his belt to saw away at the ropes holding Hermione. They parted in a moment, and Krum grabbed her hand in his and hauled her towards the surface. Harry shook his head. Connor isn't going to like losing to him, if he does. Of course, Krum is behind him in points after making the Chinese Fireball smash her eggs, but—

The web trembled again, alternating ripples of light and dark fire. Harry cried out, and a stream of bubbles rose from his mouth, though no sound did. He could feel the ripples in his own body, as though the web were inside him. Or perhaps he was inside it, by virtue of being down in the lake.

Who or what is doing that?

He closed his eyes, trying to concentrate, and at once heard a rising song. It was familiar to him. He'd last heard it in the sky where he circled on thestral-back. Before that, he'd heard it in the wards around Grimmauld Place. It was the music of the Dark, and it was calling.

But not for him, not this time, though it would gladly take him if he'd give in to it. Someone far in the distance was making it sing, making it vibrate as they did—something. Harry jerked his eyes open, and watched again as the lake filled with a haze of magic. The merfolk were swimming in a slow pattern that danced opposite the web's. None of them paid the slightest bit of attention to the gleam of silver that was Fleur's hair as she fought off grindylows, heading for the statue. None of them paid attention to Harry, either. He sensed they had something more important occupying their time.

The web gave a low shudder, and a moan. The merfolk abruptly cried out in a croaking, chattering way, like a band of hoarse squirrels, and flowed together in an opening, closing, unfolding fountain. Harry watched as individual merfolk spun away from each other, long dark green hair flowing behind them. Their skins were gray, almost the color of the web, and they waved their tridents and spears with fervor. Harry heard them take up the song, adding a bass note to the thundering tenor and soprano of it.

He reached out frantically, not sure what he could do, not wanting to break the web without understanding it. Heavy water weighted his limbs as he struggled, and he could see no sign of Connor. He didn't want to break free of the ropes and cause his brother to lose points in the Second Task, but it was looking as though it might come to that.

The gray web rang as if struck with a tuning fork. The merfolk gave a concerted scream that raced up and down the scale. Harry had the distinct impression that the entire world had taken a sharp lurch to one side.

When he could see again, he made out the web still in place, but the outer edges were raveled. Perhaps it had been attached to an anchor, and the anchor was destroyed? Harry didn't know.

His scar began to burn.

He turned his head, and saw Connor coming at last, darting under the merfolk and straight through the coils of the web, since he couldn't see it. His eyes were wide through the bubble of the charm Harry had taught him, and he was all but fighting back terror. He would use the impulsive courage to grab Harry and pull him back to the surface, Harry knew. Nothing would probably persuade him to come under again. That was all right. Harry knew that if Fleur—caught behind a wall of impressively determined grindylows—couldn't rescue the little girl, she would still be all right. McGonagall had reassured him of that much.

Then Harry saw the dark shape swimming around the edge of a stone hut behind Connor, a long wand clutched in his hand.

His scar burned more fiercely. Harry remembered his vision of Voldemort sending Rabastan to do a certain task—a month ago.

And now he was aiming his wand at Connor's back, this dark shape who might or might not be the same man, and a line of boiling water raced away from it, coming straight at Connor.

Harry made his decision. His brother's life was more precious than his winning the Tournament.

He forced his wandless magic down and into his limbs—much easier to do now that he'd learned to confine it to his body—and snapped the ropes. In an instant, he rolled under and away from the statue, repeating his breathing charm as he moved, and cast a Protego behind Connor.

He had once read that most spells worked differently underwater. So it proved now. His shield gathered material from the lake rather than forming a wall of hardened air or magic; weeds spun into it, and stones, as well as a few startled grindylows. The boiling water hit it and bounced off. Harry was sure the dark man would have cursed; he could at least see a stream of bubbles race away from his mouth. He began kicking forward, obviously desperate to come closer.

Connor was staring at him in astonishment. Harry shook his head to indicate that he didn't have time to explain, and grabbed Connor around the waist. He turned his head to the surface. The merfolk were between them and it, but they were too caught up in their own private celebration. Harry doubted they'd interfere.

He caught a glimpse of Rabastan from the corner of his eye, and yes, it had to be him, since his face was the same as it had been in the vision. That face had turned pale, but it was still calculating, and his eyes narrowed. Then he turned towards the little girl with silver hair, still bound to the rock.

Harry groaned in frustration and spun another Protego directly in front of the girl. He didn't think it would hold while he took Connor to the surface and returned, though, and Connor was already starting to struggle enthusiastically, not liking the tight hold combined with the fact that he was underwater. Harry decided the best thing to do was let his brother fight beside him.

He released Connor's waist and gestured to the little girl and the Dark wizard. Connor understood. He obviously swallowed fear, but he nodded, and then drew his wand from his waist. Given the slowness of his movements, Harry knew he wouldn't swim fast in the attack

Go first, let Connor come up from behind and catch him unawares.

Harry called on his magic again. This had to be flashy, to distract Rabastan from both Connor and the little girl. He cast off bursts of light, gold and red bursts that luckily still worked the way they were supposed to. Rabastan turned towards him.

Harry grimly swam forward, letting the starbursts whirl around him, and thinking frantically. His main disadvantage was not knowing how his spells would work underwater, and he wanted something with non-lethal force. The image of Rodolphus dying in a fall of ashes above this very same lake was still burned into his mind whenever he entered battle. Harry hated killing. It gave people no more chances to change. If he could win the battle and protect Connor and the little girl without killing Rabastan, then he would.

Use defensive magic, then.

Harry cast Haurio. The jade-green shield engulfed his hand, then unexpectedly spread further around him, enclosing him in a bright bubble of air and warmth. Harry dropped to the floor of it, and blinked. The bubble went on expanding, blanketing the little girl in its protection, and spreading towards Rabastan.

The Death Eater gestured with his wand and spat a stream of bubbles, and the shield stopped. Rabastan eyed Harry for a moment, his head lifted and his lips pinched tight in disdain. Harry stared back. Was this all he came to do? Attack who he could, hurt who he could?

Then he turned sharply, and fired another spell to the side. Harry swung his head, and saw a puff of blood explode through the water as whatever spell Rabastan had used cut deeply into Connor.

No.

The savage strength that rose up in him then wasn't the wild anger that had driven him against Umbridge and Lily; this was the old rage, the kind that had let him fight Bellatrix and Rodolphus on the Quidditch Pitch in the first year. He had been trained to protect his brother, forged to protect his brother. He reached out and drew on what was around him, as he had on the Bludger that returned both Bellatrix and Rodolphus to Azkaban for a time.

The Haurio shield bent a bit, and then exploded. Shards of deep green bubble danced in the water, formed into a school on Harry's will, and flew straight at Rabastan. Slice after slice after slice, and he began to bleed. He was already bubbling as he muttered spells that probably healed his wounds, but the shards turned and came at him again. It would be like being caught in a constant rain of falling glass, Harry knew. At least he wouldn't be able to fire another spell.

He kicked straight for Connor. He was a passable swimmer, and got there quickly. Beneath the thick red water, Connor floated, his eyes shut, the charm around his face at least letting him breathe. A long slice ran from his right shoulder down and across his chest, then turned and swirled across his abdomen. Harry could see the slick gleam of his brother's intestines.

He'll die of blood loss if I don't do something, he thought, refusing to let himself feel emotion. I have to put pressure on the wound.

He bore down with all his might, and called another Protego, this time a small one. It forced itself down onto the injury, treating the blood as the enemy, binding it inside. Harry thought he could depend on the hardened weave of weed and stones to last until he reached the surface.

He turned back around, in time to see Rabastan Vanishing the dark green shards. Then he faced the little silver-haired girl. Fleur, finally free of the grindylows, was coming up as fast as she could swim, but Harry didn't think she would be in time.

She didn't have to be. Harry was rather tired of Rabastan, though still not tired enough to kill him. The tight rage didn't permit that.

Sleep, he thought, in a combination of Legilimency and savage will. He should have done this in the first place, but he hadn't been angry enough to force his command on another person. Rabastan trembled and went limp now.

Harry swam for the surface, his arms clasped tightly around Connor. The Protego held. He would save Connor. None of the intestines had fallen out. His brother was going to be all right. He would hold to that.

He broke the surface of the lake, and his breathing charm dissipated. He could hear shouts from the stands, but they fell into a momentary breathless silence when he hauled Connor onto the shore.

Then shouts rose again, and Harry saw McGonagall coming down at a run, her face deathly pale. A dark shape intercepted her, though. Snape slid to his knees beside Connor and stared at him, then at Harry.

"Get him to Madam Pomfrey," said Harry, not recognizing his own voice. He was freezing in the crisp February air. "Slicing Curse." He turned and plunged back into the lake, renewing his breathing charm, ignoring the shout of his name in Draco's voice.

He dived down again, kicking, squirming, descending. He ignored the gray coils of the web, though they felt slimy as they slid along his skin, and the dancing merfolk, who stared straight through him. Rabastan was going to be where he left him.

He was. Harry came close enough to see the bubbles rising out of his mouth. His breathing charm still held.

This close, Harry felt himself begin to tremble. He wanted nothing so much as to use the Slicing Curse on Rabastan. That much, he thought, just that much Dark magic, and he could breathe.

Music soared in his ears.

Harry shook his head and closed his eyes, tightly. There were more important matters at stake here, including questions that Rabastan could answer only if he was alive. How had he got into the school, past the wards that Harry had thought were closed to all Death Eaters now? And what had been his mission? To kill Connor? Did Voldemort want the publicly known Boy-Who-Lived dead, so there was no chance Connor could defeat him?

No. No, I don't think so. Voldemort spoke in the vision of causing his enemies pain and worry. I think Rabastan was assigned to kill Connor so that it would affect me.

The rage was close, if he let it in.

Harry did not let it in. He looped the discarded ropes—Fleur had freed her sister, or her cousin, or whoever the little girl really was, and gone—around Rabastan's body and hauled him towards the surface. They reached it easily enough. Harry floated carefully in the water, hearing the eager shouts begin again, then swam for the shore. He let everyone get a good, long look at the floating Death Eater. If his brother wasn't safe anywhere in the school, Harry wanted everyone to know it.

"Who's that?" most people seemed to be asking, which was no help at all.

Harry liked to think that if he were going to be forced into making a dramatic display anyway, then he might as well use it for something. He pulled Rabastan out of the water and drew back his sleeve, baring the Dark Mark on his left forearm. He held it high.

The screams were instant. Harry smiled. He knew it wasn't a pretty expression, but he could imagine the ripples that would spread out from here. The Daily Prophet would be lucky if it reported the news much before most ordinary wizards and witches heard it by word of mouth. A Death Eater! A Death Eater in Hogwarts!

Harry let out a sharp breath, then, as someone collided with him. He realized a moment later that the arms wound about his waist were Draco's, and that Draco was hugging him as though he were afraid Harry would plunge back into the lake again.

"Don't do that to me," Draco whispered. "Please, don't do that to me."

This is one of the painful things about loving me, Harry thought. All he could really say, as he relaxed into the embrace and rested his arms on Draco's shoulders, was, "I'll try not to."

"Harry."

Harry glanced up at Snape. His guardian wore an expression Harry hadn't seen in months: so fiercely protective that he seemed likely to grab Harry and lock him in a secure room at a moment's notice.

"Your brother will live."

Harry closed his eyes, and wondered how many of the drops of wetness starring his eyelids were tears.

"And I think you had best bring your prisoner along for questioning," Snape added. "After relieving him of his wand, of course. We will put him in the Great Hall."

"This is to be public, then, sir?" Harry asked quietly.

"Oh, very much so."

Harry looked at Snape on that last word. Snape was staring at Dumbledore.

"I would very much like to know," breathed Snape, "how, with the Headmaster in charge of the wards, Death Eaters continue to get into Hogwarts."

Harry shook a bit, but he wasn't sure if it was with cold or anger. Dumbledore's face wore the usual calm smile, as he tried to quiet the excited shrieks around him.

"I'd like to know that, too," whispered Harry.

And why the hell the gray web in the water was wavering, and what Dumbledore knows about it.