Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter!
This is Not a Nice Chapter, which I'd planned on, but it is considerably Not Nicer than I'd anticipated.
Chapter Forty-Five: A Man's Soul May Waver
Harry wondered what he should be feeling as he followed Snape, who was levitating Rabastan, into the Great Hall, and as Draco tagged anxiously after them. He supposed it was almost anything but what he actually was feeling at the moment: a mixture of outrage, irritation, anxiety over Connor, and low-simmering resentment that it took him a moment to identify.
This has happened enough. What else could I do but what I've done? I can't keep Death Eaters out of the school if the wards aren't watched. And if Dumbledore is not watching the wards…
He wanted answers so badly he could smell them. But they had to deal with Rabastan first.
At least Snape was making it public, Harry mused, as Snape bound Rabastan to the surface of the Hufflepuff table with the ropes that Harry had brought up from the lake. His guardian's face was almost calm, but Harry didn't think that would last for long. Snape stepped back when he was done and glanced once at Harry.
"You have his wand?"
Harry nodded and patted his robe pocket, where Rabastan's wand lay. It had sparked at him when he picked it up, perhaps reflecting its owner's anger, but as long as it was actually separate from Rabastan's hand, it could not harm anyone else. Harry would keep a hold on it just in case Rabastan had the ability to summon it to him.
"Good," said Snape, and then aimed his own wand at Rabastan. "Ennervate!"
Rabastan twitched, once, and then woke up. Harry could see the moment when he realized he was captive. His eyes widened once, and then he turned his head and met Snape's gaze with the calmness of someone who expected torture and was bracing himself to resist it.
"Severus," he said. "I haven't seen you in a while. Still defending children, I take it? And enjoying it? I suppose such a life would content someone who had the smallness of soul that enabled him to turn from our Lord."
Snape showed no reaction to the taunts, but watched Rabastan with a still face. Harry heard a slight murmur behind them, and glanced over his shoulder. Most of the Tournament crowd had filed in. Harry could make out Krum and Fleur and their former hostages near the front. Zacharias Smith had found Hermione and was expostulating at her. Hermione ignored him entirely, eyes on Rabastan. Harry wondered if she was fascinated by the chance to see a real live Death Eater up close, or if she wanted to see the person who had nearly murdered Connor face justice.
Draco peered into his face, and Harry gave him a half-smile and touched his arm before turning back to the interrogation.
"I want to ask you this only once, Rabastan," said Snape. "How did you get into the school?"
Rabastan snorted at him. "And what makes you think that I'm going to answer, Severus?" He appeared a bit bolder now. Maybe the lack of thumbscrews comforts him, Harry thought. "The secrets of our Lord are his secrets alone, and I would rather go to jail than betray them. I've done it before."
"You faced Ministry interrogators then," said Snape. "Aurors. Perhaps Unspeakables." He spun his wand through a few lazy revolutions. "The difference, Rabastan, is that this time you're facing me."
Rabastan tilted his head, eyes glinting. "I'm not going to tell you anything. I said that already."
Snape stood still. Harry could sense the coiled strength gathering in him, though, and wasn't surprised at all when he said only, "Pity."
He performed a spell then. Harry supposed that it must have been nonverbal, which was its own pity, since he didn't recognize the effects. Rabastan's mouth went slack. He stared at the air in front of his own face, and then whimpered, an astonishing sound. Harry could see his eyes dilating with the force of his terror. He trembled, and tried to lift a hand to shield his eyes, but the ropes had done their work, and he could only spasm a bit.
"I will give you to them," Snape said. "You know they don't eat enough, Rabastan. Tell me. How did you get into the school? That is twice that I have had to ask that question. I shall not ask a third time." He moved his wand a bit, and Rabastan let out a pitiful scream.
Harry searched inside himself for some compassion for Rabastan. He found none. This was the man who had tried to kill Connor, who had probably come to kill Connor, who had almost succeeded.
I don't want him dead, but I want him to suffer.
And there was the dark rage he had despised in himself, rising again. Harry took a deep breath, and trampled it down, and took several steps forward until he stood beside his guardian. Rabastan didn't look at him, though Harry had thought he would at least merit a glare.
"Professor Snape," he said softly. "Please stop, sir. This isn't the best way to get answers out of him."
Snape looked at him, and said nothing. Rabastan was gasping now, sobbing some words out and choking others. Harry listened, but could make out nothing more than "wards." This wasn't helping them, and now he suspected that Snape had wanted to use whatever spell this was partly because he was angry.
He thought Finite Incantatem as strongly as he could.
Rabastan gave one more great jerk and then relaxed against his bonds. Snape continued watching Harry. Harry ignored him. Let the watchers think Snape had given in to mercy and ended the spell of his own free will. He leaned forward and said, in a voice that he at least managed to make soft if not friendly, "What was that? How did you get into the school?"
"Don't ask a third time," whispered Rabastan. "I told you. One of the Dark Lord's servants helped me find a way through the wards. They were weak already."
"Weak already." Snape's voice was flat. "What does that mean?"
"I think that you should let me take over the interrogation now, Severus."
Harry could feel Dumbledore's power filling the room as he spoke, as if he carried a cloak of light about him that he had spread and shaken. The air seemed sweeter, and Harry heard some of the watchers let out a rising and falling murmur that complemented the subtle song of his magic. Everything would be all right, said the voice of that magic, as long as everyone trusted in the Headmaster and let him handle things. More than just an edge of compulsion was wed to it, and Harry wondered for a moment how many of Dumbledore's famous speeches, the ones where he managed to reassure everyone and coax them into facing Voldemort one more time, came from his magical strength and not his oratory.
Snape wavered. He would be fighting the blow in his head, Harry knew, but the suddenness of it and the sheer strength made it impossible for him to oppose Dumbledore immediately. He stood in silence, and made it look as if he were acquiescing. Dumbledore nodded and turned to Rabastan.
Harry raised his own power.
At once, the Headmaster turned to look at him. His eyes were narrowed, his face still deceptively kind.
"Would you make this the kind of contest you spoke of wanting to avoid, Harry?" he murmured. His lips barely moved. "The kind that would destroy half of Britain if we began it?"
"No, sir," said Harry. He stared hard at Dumbledore's eyes, and wondered what was behind them. Had Dumbledore lost the brilliance once attributed to him, or had he misplaced it, or had most of it not been more than trickery in the first place? Of course, that did not matter, because this was most assuredly trickery now. It was only Harry's curiosity that made him want to know.
"Then, please, step back and let me handle this." Strips of steel undergirded Dumbledore's voice.
"You didn't care until Rabastan spoke of a weakness in the wards." Harry turned back to face the Death Eater. "What did you mean by that?"
Dumbledore's magic rose and slid across the room in a silently rolling wave. Harry could feel his head reeling, as though he were beneath the lake again, this time without a breathing charm. Compliance suggested itself in every heartbeat, in every passing moment. It would feel so wonderful, so right, to yield to Dumbledore's greater power. Everyone who met him did, save the wild ones like Voldemort, who were madmen anyway. There was no shame in it. No one would blame Harry. He was following a wizard older and stronger than himself, and that meant that whatever happened wasn't his fault.
Harry could feel the sweetness in such yielding. He'd found it a lot during the first eleven years of his life, when doing something wrong would have been hard even if he dared to think about it much, and to go along with the orders his mother gave made the world so simple.
He was too used to fighting now, though. He braced himself, and shook off the magic, plunging his head back into the clean air.
The strips of compulsion uncurled from his mind. Once again, he could see Dumbledore as he was: an immensely powerful wizard, with his own store of wisdom and experience and knowledge of the ways of war and sacrifice, but not the benevolent god that his magic had presented him as. Harry folded his arms in towards his body, his panting deep and strident.
"Don't try that again, sir," he said.
Dumbledore merely looked at him in silence, and then said, when some moments had passed and the loudest sound near Harry was Rabastan's harsh breathing, "Try what, Harry?"
Harry closed his eyes. The dark rage was rising again. He really wanted to hurt someone. At this point, though, he wasn't sure if the impulse came as much from a desire to revel in pain as because he thought it might finally get things accomplished.
"You are being stupid, and we do not have time for this," he said, his voice clipped. He turned to Rabastan. "You had help from a servant of the Dark Lord's. What servant of the Dark Lord's?"
Rabastan stopped breathing for a moment. Then he shook his head. "That you will have to tear from me," he murmured. "If you do not already know this, then you shall not learn it from—"
"Legilimens."
Harry didn't tear into Rabastan's mind. He didn't need to. He skimmed in through Rabastan's eyes, and into a thick, clinging mist that he suspected was not a protection, but the natural state of the man's thoughts. Rabastan was an unlikely candidate to be a practicing Occlumens.
The fog around him writhed for a moment, then blew aside, and the image that Rabastan was thinking about most strongly whirled up behind his eyes. Harry saw Moody with the silver collar around his neck, one hand extended as though he were grasping someone's arm.
Harry rode the wind back out again, and dropped Rabastan back on the table. The man didn't seem to know quite what had happened. Harry spun, and intently scanned the crowd, still standing tame and docile under Dumbledore's power. He could see Professor McGonagall, Professor Sprout, Professor Flitwick, Professor Sinistra craning her neck to see from the back…
No Professor Moody.
Harry's mind locked on to the obvious. Rabastan's strike failed. So he's going after Connor instead.
"Moody," he snarled at Snape, and crouched, pressing against the anti-Apparition wards. In a way, he didn't want to do this, since he would be shaking when he got to the hospital wing, but Merlin knew what might happen to Connor in the time it would take him to run up the stairs.
He felt someone grip his shoulder just as he jumped, and Harry grabbed the hand back, managing to Side-Along Apparate the person with him. Unsurprisingly, when he dropped out of the tight-squeezing leap and rolled on the floor of the hospital wing, it was Snape who fell to one knee beside him.
"I told you so that you could stay behind and inform the others!" Harry snarled, forcing himself up again. "Now what's going to happen if we both die up here, and no one else except Rabastan knows—"
"Imperio."
The calmly-spoken Curse soared past Harry, though he felt the wind of its cruel passage. Harry saw Snape's face become incredibly calm. There was a brief flicker, as though he were fighting against the spell with all his Occlumency, but it subsided in a few moments.
Just as the dragons did. It would take someone with an Imperius Curse of incredible power to do that, and to capture Snape—
Mulciber. I should have known.
Harry turned in time to see Mulciber, no longer Polyjuiced or Transfigured into Moody, rise from behind the nearest hospital bed. "Wretched, to crouch like that," he remarked, swatting dust from his robes. He stepped forward. He was wearing a robe fitted for a smaller man, as Moody was, and the bared Dark Mark on his left arm was enough to make Harry's scar glow in dull pain. The silver collar still encircled his neck. "But I had to be sure that you wouldn't see me immediately and do something that you would regret."
"You bastard—" Harry said.
Mulciber, his eyes fixed on him, didn't speak aloud, but the next moment Harry heard a dull thunk from his side. He turned to find that Snape had picked up a knife sitting on a table, no doubt to cut clothes or tight bindings away from a patient if a spell wouldn't do any good, and stuck it into his own hand. Blood flowed from the wound, which was deep enough to cause permanent damage if not treated, but Snape's expression didn't change.
Harry tried to think of Snape with damaged hands, missing hands, and felt his stomach rebel.
"I can have him remove his fingers," said Mulciber, his voice low. "I thought Rabastan would betray me. I have no options left, Potter. You're talking to a desperate man here. I have nothing to lose. Do not push me."
He paused, then added in a lighter tone, "And even if you were willing to kill your guardian, I don't think you're willing to let me kill him." He gestured at the seemingly empty bed, and the Disillusionment Charm rolled away, revealing Connor. He was bound in bandages, but Harry could see that his open, glazed eyes also bore the look of Imperius.
Mulciber turned back to Harry. His face was calm, but there was an underlying excitement that told Harry he was on the edge, soothing expression or not. "I rather think," said Mulciber, "that we should come to an understanding."
Harry watched him, breathing hard. He could probably blast Mulciber before he could order either Connor or Snape to do permanent harm to themselves.
Probably.
But he had heard stories of what Mulciber was capable of doing during Voldemort's War, including commanding victims to drop dead of heart attacks. His control of the Imperius Curse was very fine. Harry could not be absolutely sure that Mulciber would die or fall unconscious before he sent an order like that at Snape or Connor, and that was an unacceptable level of risk.
"All right," he said. "Talk to me. What kind of arrangement are you talking about?"
Mulciber stared at him intently, then said, "I think you can put the knife down now, Severus. Stand beside the table where you put it, just so that Potter here doesn't forget what I could have you do."
Harry watched as Snape obeyed the order with a perfectly blank face. Oh, Merlin, you must be fighting so hard inside your head right now. I'm so sorry, sir.
"Now, Potter, I suggest you cast a locking charm on the door," said Mulciber, his eyes hard. "I have Madam Pomfrey sitting comfortably in her office, but it won't be long before someone else comes here, and I would rather not be interrupted. Your magic is more powerful than mine."
Hating himself, Harry looked at the doors to the hospital wing and poured out a flood of pure will, as he had when he made Rabastan go to sleep. The doors gave a deep shudder and then ground together in a way that said they wouldn't be opening for a while. Harry felt sick fear swirling just beneath his stomach nonetheless. Dumbledore would be able to command the doors to open if he really tried, as the ultimate master of Hogwarts in times of danger.
"That will do," said Mulciber. "Now, Mr. Potter, do you realize that you have given me the hardest time in making my decision?" His voice was quite cheerful.
Harry turned back towards him, and told himself to ignore whatever he might think of the encounter's surreality. This was quite real, and someone was going to die if he forgot it. "I don't know what you mean."
Mulciber moved back near the head of Connor's bed. One hand reached out, and Harry had to watch as Mulciber stroked his brother's hair. "I mean that for some time now, I have been doubting whether the Dark Lord's service is really what I want to do with my life," the Death Eater said. "Granted, I went to Azkaban for him, but since my release, I've had to watch every plan that I was told would work thwarted at every turn. Even my coming here in disguise as Moody didn't do much good, not when Bellatrix's first attack on you failed and then I realized you would sense almost any use of the Imperius Curse the moment I made it. I tried talking to you, seeing if there was anything in you that we could use, and of course the crowd at the First Task made the Curse safer than usual. But you foiled all my tests. You've convinced me that you can resist my greatest weapon. More, I'm convinced that you can resist the Dark Lord. I don't want to be on the losing side. I've had enough of that—thirteen years too much of that. I want to strike a bargain with you."
"A damn strange way you've got of doing it," Harry whispered. "I can trust nothing you say, you realize that?"
"Of course you can," said Mulciber. "Understand, I was meant to make much more progress here than I have. But I haven't made much, and it's only partly because my Lord told me it would be easier to get control of you than it is. I wanted to avoid your notice if I could, but I was also trying to limit my crimes, so that they wouldn't tell against me too much when I made my final appeal to you. I had to cast the Curse at the First Task, and I had to test it on you, and I had to let Rabastan through the wards, only because my Lord commanded me to, and disobeying those orders would have revealed my wavering loyalty to him. But, otherwise, I have caused you far less damage than I could have, Potter."
Harry turned and stared at his brother.
"Rabastan was assigned to kill him," said Moody, without a trace of apology in his voice. "Not me. I did try to persuade him out of it, but he was adamant that our Lord wanted it done perfectly. He's a coward, anyway, under pressure. I could never have trusted him. Nor should you, even if tries to claim that he'll give you evidence willingly."
"You were here," Harry whispered.
"Only because I knew what the consequences would be when you brought in Rabastan alive, with you a Legilimens, and I wanted to be sure that I could make you listen to me." Mulciber gave Connor's hair another stroke. Harry choked on his rising gorge. There were other stories about Mulciber, too, stories that made Harry flinch when he wondered if any of the younger children were missing memories. "I'm only trying to secure my position, Potter, my position and my life. I've seen what you are. The tests taught me that. I was trying to cast the Curse on you during that little duel we had, without you noticing under the cover of my simpler spells, and it didn't even work. Your mind's too well-trained for my subtler efforts, and I think you remember the one overt effort I made, don't you?"
Harry nodded. His eyes were fastened on Connor. He had an idea now, but the time it would take, the time… It made him despair.
It's an unacceptable risk.
"Yes, I thought so. Damn Memory Charms won't work on a damn Legilimens most of the time," muttered Mulciber. He tilted his head, and his eyes glinted coldly at Harry. "But, I assure you, let me turn, and I'd be loyal enough to you. You're going to win the War. You're strong in a way that the Dark Lord could not be, because he can't inspire enough loyalty, and Dumbledore's blinded himself. You've accepted other former Death Eaters. Why not me?"
Harry could have listed the differences between someone like Hawthorn Parkinson and someone like Mulciber for minutes on end, but he preferred to say, "You didn't say anything about Dumbledore noticing your use of the Imperius Curse. Why was that?"
Mulciber snorted. "Oh, I'm certain that he must know something. I enchanted Professor McGonagall and told her to put your name in the Goblet of Fire, back when I thought this waiting game the Dark Lord's playing had a chance in hell of working. It would have bound you to compete in the Tournament; it should have, since you're the strongest wizard here. But Dumbledore interfered. He would have known that your name went into the Goblet, though, when he examined it."
Harry swallowed, twice, before he could say, "So he knew that someone here had put my name in the Goblet?"
"He would have known, yes," said Mulciber blandly. "Of course, he would have seen that it was McGonagall if he looked, and I Obliviated her after she'd done it, but he would have been able to find me if he'd looked hard enough." He tapped the silver collar. "Would this have kept a Legilimens as skilled as he is out? Who knows?"
Harry tried to tamp down the bubble of rage. Dumbledore hadn't been letting a Death Eater run around the school knowingly. The silver collar was a factor. The ones on the Hounds the Ministry had interrogated had almost killed them when they came off. Dumbledore might well have sensed that the collar was linked to Moody's—Mulciber's—life and backed off from killing one of his professors. Besides, Mulciber was trying to flatter Harry into accepting him. He was going to say anything he could to make himself sound wise, knowledgeable, attractive.
But Dumbledore had known someone had put Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire, and he had never mentioned it.
Headmaster, you and I will have much to talk about when this is done.
"I want to know about the wards," said Harry, carefully letting no animosity color his tone. "How did you let Rabastan in? How did Bellatrix attack, for that matter? I know you must have been the one who sent her wand back to her," he added.
Mulciber smiled. "Very good, Potter. Well, the wards have been weakened by a number of things." He leaned against Connor's bed, as though he were in for a long storytelling session. Harry clamped his lips down on the growl he wanted to give when Mulciber's hand wandered to Connor's shoulder. "I've been keyed to the wards as most of the professors are, and I used that to let Bellatrix through. Of course, I've been casting Imperius when I thought you wouldn't notice, or when you were absent from the school, and getting some of the professors to weaken the wards—small holes that no one would notice without a close inspection. But part of it was caused by Dumbledore's incompetence. That will not have surprised you, of course. He's been paying attention to the wards in the school, which he can use to spy on people, and that draws his attention and energy away from the ones on the outside. The wards of Hogwarts are linked to its Headmaster in ways that go back to the Founders' times, and which I certainly don't completely understand. They draw on his strength. Usually, of course, that wouldn't be a problem, since Dumbledore's so powerful. But in this case, he overlooked the holes I had the professors create, and he may have made them bigger, since he was diverting strength normally used outside to the inside. He's not used to using all these wards in the windows and the walls. He's overtaxing himself." Mulciber gave a nonchalant little shrug, watching Harry closely.
The rage was choking Harry, sticking strong claws through his skin. He felt as if he were bristling with thorns. His desires had shifted, and at the moment, it wasn't just anyone he wanted to see bleeding, it was Dumbledore.
So he's been spying on us, too. Or on me, I suppose it's safe to say.
Harry closed his eyes and mastered his rage. Just in time, too, as someone knocked on the doors.
Harry looked back at Mulciber, and saw his eyes flick in the doors' direction. "Well, Potter?" His voice was light, but tense. "What's it going to be? Are you going to accept me, or do your mentor and your brother die? Or worse, you know," he added, softly. "Some of those people they think are mad from the Cruciatus in St. Mungo's are those I commanded to act as if they were suffering intense pain."
Harry stared into his eyes. There could be no question of accepting someone who did this and showed not the slightest bit of remorse as an ally. On the other hand, the one plan he had thought of, being able to enter Connor's and Snape's minds and pick the Imperius apart as he would a web, was simply not going to work. He wasn't familiar enough with the Curse. The one time he'd destroyed a mental web without study—the web of Remus's Obliviate—it had nearly been a disaster. And Mulciber might sense him moving in their thoughts, too, and that would be the end as soon as he began it.
Mulciber's eyes darkened as he watched. "Choose, Potter," he said quietly, as steady pounding began on the door. "I told you, I have nothing to lose. I'll still have the pleasure of making you suffer if you don't see sense." His hand tightened on Connor's shoulder in silent warning.
Harry shuddered a bit. He could not use Legilimency on Mulciber, or the same silent command that had made Rabastan sleep, since he could not get through the barrier of the silver collar. There was really only one plan he could think of, and he would have liked some extra time to nerve himself up to doing it.
No time.
"Choose, Potter."
Harry gulped and nodded. "I have," he said. "I—I'll accept you. I can't not do it." He paused, and tilted his head at an arrogant angle. "Just make sure that you've told me the truth, that's all."
Mulciber's face melted into a smile. "I assure you," he said, "you won't be able to catch me lying." He glanced between Snape and Connor. "Of course, I don't think I'll take the Imperius off them just yet. I want some guarantee from you first, such as an oath."
"An Unbreakable Vow?" Harry asked.
Mulciber blinked, startled, but then nodded. "That will work," he said. "Severus can act as our Bonder."
Harry knew he would get no better chance, with Mulciber turning towards Snape to call him closer. He had hoped to win his brother and Snape free of the Curse first, just in case, but there was no time.
I am the one who will have to live with myself afterwards.
Harry fixed his eyes on the silver collar around Mulciber's neck and pushed his wandless magic outwards, hard and fast, giving no warning of his actions, not changing his expression. Break.
The silver collar shattered into a thousand ringing shards, and Mulciber dropped to his knees with a scream of pain. Harry had already moved, had already willed it.
He had willed it, and so the silver shards turned, arrested in their flight, and cut straight into Mulciber's throat.
The scream cut off into a choking gurgle, and then Mulciber's life poured out of him in a red flood. He landed hard on the floor. Harry knew the moment when he died; it came within a moment after the shards pierced him.
He shut his eyes, shaking.
He couldn't just have thrown up Shield Charms in front of his brother and Snape. That wouldn't protect them from the monster lurking in their heads. And Mulciber might have been able to concentrate through the pain of the collar's breaking and reach out at any time, faster than Harry could get him to go to sleep. Even this plan wasn't without risk; maybe Mulciber would use that split second to make his enemies suffer rather than suffering himself.
But he hadn't been able to, as great pain was followed with greater pain, and then death on its heels.
Harry swallowed, and wondered if it was a good thing or a condemnation of himself that his eyes were dry. He turned to face Snape, and saw sense and awareness returning to his face, along with burning fury. He obviously knew something of what had happened to him, and hated it.
Harry nodded, walked up to him, and clasped his wounded hand. "You should get Madam Pomfrey to look at this, sir."
Snape reached out with the unwounded hand and held Harry's chin tightly for a moment, staring into his eyes. Harry stared back steadily, until he thought Snape might have seen what he wanted to see, and then wrenched away and looked at Connor.
His brother had fallen back into unconsciousness. Harry relaxed. I'll tell him eventually, but better if he doesn't remember anything of this while his pain is so great.
"Mr. Potter, what—"
Pomfrey's speech died as she saw the body on the floor next to Connor's bed. She blinked, then turned to Snape, apparently operating on instinct as she cast a spell to heal his hand.
The pounding on the doors was intense now. Harry wearily willed them into letting go of each other. They sank back into the natural shape of the stone, and then opened at once as an excited flood of professors and spectators poured through.
Harry closed his eyes. I killed someone else. Someone is dead because of me.
But now I know I would do it again. He was threatening them. He needed to die. There was no other plan I could think of so quickly.
"Harry. It was not your fault."
Harry opened his eyes at his guardian's voice, but didn't turn to look at him. "I know," he said quietly. "I did what needed to be done. Maybe that's one lesson I've learned now, not to leave my enemies alive behind me."
He caught a glimpse of a white beard through the crowd, and his rage spiked.
"Excuse me, Madam Pomfrey," he murmured. "Is Professor Snape fit to come with me?"
"I am perfectly capable—" Snape began.
"Shut up, Severus," said Madam Pomfrey. "Yes, Mr. Potter, he will do. But don't ask him to hold his wand in his right hand for some hours yet."
Harry nodded, his eyes still fixed on Dumbledore. This has gone on long enough. Dumbledore is going to listen to me this time. And I know what punishment I'm going to exact on him, once I've determined exactly what the state of the wards is.
There are a lot of things I should have done before and didn't do. Well. Now I know to do them.
"It is most unusual of you to wait for someone else, Harry," Snape muttered, as he stepped up beside him.
"I need you with me," said Harry simply. "I want you to restrain me from killing the Headmaster, if it comes to that. And with the mood I'm in, it might."
He set off through the crowd with a determined stride. Dumbledore had backed out of the room, but he would not go far, and Harry would find him even if he did.
It is time to make it clear where we stand.