Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter!
And this chapter proves the story can sometimes be light, after all.
Chapter Forty-Nine: Must You Remind Everyone That You Are a Parselmouth?
Harry was very pleased with himself when he shut his eyes that night in the third week of March. He had had another guarded conversation with Karkaroff, in which, while he hadn't promised anything, the man seemed predisposed to ally himself more closely with Harry. He was getting along with Snape, at least vaguely, and Draco. James's letters were not too awful. Dumbledore kept his distance and muttered every now and again. The amount of post had diminished, probably because there had been only one article about him in the Daily Prophet this week, and that had been mostly Skeeter digging up and rehashing old facts. Connor was doing well with Parvati, and if Hermione was avoiding Zacharias right now, it was no more than the prat deserved. The other Slytherins had mostly fallen into comfortable routines in which they ignored Harry's newfound prominence, at least to his eyes. His friends were happy. He felt he could sleep the sleep of the just.
Of course, that meant his sleep was all the more likely to be interrupted, and he really should have known that.
"Wake up."
Harry blinked his eyes open, and saw one of the Many clinging to his arm, its agitated swaying back and forth bringing him out of sleep more effectively than even Millicent's banging on the door a few weeks ago had done. This was a snake that could spit poison in his eyes if it felt that he wasn't waking up fast enough. Harry touched its back to calm it, and said, low enough that he wouldn't wake the other boys, "What is it?"
"Our eggs! They are hatching! We thought that you would like to watch the birth of a new hive." The snake curled back on itself, as though it thought Harry would really refuse an invitation like that.
Harry paused before accepting it, though. His instincts might be wrong, but in that case, the worst that would happen was that Draco would mutter about being woken up and say no. "Can I invite a friend to come witness the hatching with me?"
"As long as he does not break the eggs." The Many snake tightened its tail around Harry's left wrist. "And as long as he hurries."
Harry nodded, then dragged on his robes again, performed a warming charm—edge of spring or not, it would be cold in the Forest—and then padded over to Draco's bed. When he opened the curtains, Draco was lying there with a silly smile on his face. Harry hesitated again, but decided Draco could have pleasant dreams almost any night of the week, while the birth of a Many hive was not something that would happen often. He reached out and shook his shoulder.
"Harry," Draco muttered, coming awake. Harry wasn't sure whether he was talking to his real or his dream self, at least until Draco blinked and focused on him. "What's the matter?"
"Must something be the matter every time I'm awake in the middle of the night?" Harry asked.
"Yes, it must," said Draco, sitting up and swatting at invisible things in his hair. "It always has been so far."
Harry shook his head and gestured so that Draco could see the snake on his arm. "I've been asked to attend the hatching of their eggs. Do you want to come along?"
Draco stared at him for so long that Harry started to get worried. Should I not even have asked him? What is the matter? "Draco, if you don't want to, then you don't—"
"Thank you," Draco said, low and heartfelt, and then hurried to put his own robes on. Harry watched him in puzzlement, which only increased when Draco turned and flashed him a dazzling smile.
He is acting strange again.
"Here we are."
Draco had followed him mostly in silence, though once or twice he had commented on how cold it was, and he had complained about tripping over his feet until Harry had cast a mild light spell. Now, though, he blinked and stared at the hole in the ground. "If the nest's underground, then how can we see the hatching?"
It wasn't something Harry had thought to ask the Many snake. He hissed at it, and the cobra gave a slight wriggle of irritation. Harry suspected most of the hive's attention was on what was happening beneath them, and they resented having to spare a bit of themselves to answer him. "You will be shown."
Harry repeated that to Draco, who didn't look impressed. "What do you mean, shown—"
The dirt beneath their feet abruptly turned both green and gold. Harry gasped aloud as he watched it. This was not the clear, shining light that had poured forth from his skin the day he freed the unicorns. Instead, it was gold and green darkness, if there was such a thing, the color of the Many snakes' scales. The cobra wrapped more tightly around Harry's arm, and as he gazed into the darkness, he could make out the writhing bodies of the hive. Beneath and on and around them were the eggs, a deep green, like unbroken emeralds.
"Tell your friend to take hold of you."
Harry reached out his right hand, and Draco came over and took it without being asked. He only seemed to see the light and the nest then. Harry felt him give one incredulous shiver before he stood stock still.
Harry, for his part, watched raptly as the snakes writhed. They were hissing—not Parseltongue, because he could hear this quite clearly, and it wasn't words. It was rather like the concerted sound they'd used to frighten Tybalt and John the day Harry met them in the woods. They sang in unison to welcome their children to the world, and, well, if the song was sibilant and discordant and tuneless, at least it made for an impressive fanfare for a birth.
Then a sound as of drums answered them. Harry jumped before he realized that the hammering came from within the dark green eggs. The small snakes were writhing back to their parents, or perhaps responding to the song of the hiss, and driving their heads and bodies against the shells that imprisoned them.
Singing and drumming, the hive raised their mingled music in the Forbidden Forest on the edge of spring. Harry felt a quieter wonder that he had on the day he freed the unicorns, but it was wonder nonetheless. Draco's hand tightened its grip on his. Harry clutched him back without looking at him. He didn't think he could have removed his gaze from the Many if he tried.
The pounding became so intense that Harry was surprised the eggs had not fractured yet. As if sensing his confusion, the snake on his arm spoke words that mingled effortlessly with the communal hiss. "A hive of the Many begins their lives as one. The eggs are laid at different times, but that is the last moment they will ever be apart."
As the snake had said, the eggs burst all at once, clusters of emerald shell springing into the air and flying away, though they dropped back from the dirt roof Harry had almost forgotten was there. The tiny snakes, about a third of the size of their parents, sped out and wrapped around each other, forming a great ball. Harry could hear their greetings to each other, in voices that were probably not shriller than those of the adult Many, but sounded like it.
He smiled, watching them, and so he saw the moment when the web erupted from the dirt and tried to take them.
Harry stretched out a hand and caught the web on a wind of his magic. The bright orange thing snapped at him, splitting itself apart into jaws and talons and then running together again. Harry ignored that, and studied the construction of the damn thing. The Many had acquired a web when they came into the Forest, and he had not had the chance to see it before it took them. Now, though, he didn't intend to lose the opportunity of seeing one close at hand.
It was surprisingly simple. Of course, most wizards wouldn't want much from the Many, only that they stay far away and leave them alone. Harry could see, as the Many had specified, that the web would prevent them from using their magic or venom to defend themselves outside the Forest, unless they were also defending a wizard.
The orange web pressed forward, mindless, against his constraints, wanting the tiny new hive. Harry frowned, and made his decision. They were born free. They should remain so.
He clasped his hands together and squeezed. The web closed together into a ball as well, shrieking in agitation. Now that Harry's wandless magic was bound more closely to his body, he found it easier to use gestures to command it, and as he bore down, mashing his palms together, the web shrank into a concentrated ball of orange light and then winked out.
"Thank you."
Harry nodded absently at the snake on his arm. Draco's hand on his shook him back into awareness, and Harry glanced at him. "What did you just do?" Draco whispered. His eyes were wide, his hands shaking as if he couldn't decide whether to ask the question or not.
Harry grinned at him. "Destroyed a web." Gently, he removed his wrist from Draco's grasp and took a step forward. The music of the hissing still wove around him, calmed from its earlier height but by no means forgotten. Harry could sense the orange web around the Many. It was not so complex after all, though made to seem so by the constant motions of the snakes it bound.
"What would you do if you were free?" He spoke to the snake on his arm with confidence, knowing that the mind that listened to him was the mind of the hive itself.
The answer was a long time in coming. Harry wondered if they had to think about it that much, or if they simply wondered what he wanted to hear. He hoped it was the first and not the latter. They deserved the ability to think for themselves. Every wizard and magical creature born did.
"We would stay here in the Forest. We would hunt. We would not attack wizards unless they came along and attacked us. The Forest is more than wide enough for us, and now that we have hatched a new hive here, we have made it home as it has not been. We can bear the taste of webs a bit longer as yet. We no longer wish to return to the home where we were born. We would stay here and refrain from roaming and biting wizards."
Harry nodded. Even in Africa, Many hives usually did not roam about and bite people; they stayed in their dens in remote areas, and killed rodents, and communed with their own thoughts. "Then I shall free you."
He knelt down and laid his hands on the dirt, still glowing with that dusky green-gold light that let him see the underground nest. Most of the adult snakes had ceased dancing now, and lay where they were, looking up at him. Harry felt the regard of dozens of clear golden eyes.
Their stillness made it easier. He reached out and gathered up the corners of their web with his will. So long as he wasn't actively preventing it from doing what it was made to do, it passively let him take it.
Harry checked the positions of his fingers, took a deep breath, and then ripped his hands backwards.
He felt resistance almost at once, as if the web really bound his hands and were not down there, tied around the adult snakes. The very air screamed and fought him. The snake on his arm hissed and thrashed. The web stiffened and struggled to maintain its strands, part of an enchantment so old and strong that Harry did not know who had set it, one Lord or Lady or many wizards working in cooperation. Harry could feel sticky, slimy strands sliding across his mouth and nose. He suspected that he felt what it was like for one of the hive to dwell in the web.
No longer. I will this to crack. I will it to shred. It is no longer a necessary prohibition. They have given their word, and anyone who ventures into the Forbidden Forest and hunts them is taking the risk associated with free will.
The web went taut. It might be simple, but it was very deeply-rooted, Harry knew, if a new one could spring to life every time a lot of dangerous new creatures were born in the Forest. He was struggling with the roots of a mountain, trying to tear up a tree with his bare hands, trying to separate the clouds from the sky.
I will this to crack. I will it to shred.
His hands trembled and shook, and slowly inched towards each other. If he could just bring them together behind his back, Harry thought, he would break the web. And as he channeled his will and his magic towards that task, his belief made it so, and his hands moved towards each other with more confidence.
The web was shrieking now, and Harry could feel wind stirring the branches of the Forest. There were secondary enchantments attached to the web, ones that were supposed to alert the Headmaster of the school that it had been tampered with. But Dumbledore, Harry hoped, would know better than to interfere.
I will this to crack. I will it to shred.
His fingertips brushed each other.
Now.
The web tore with a shattering symphony of hisses. Harry's hands slammed together hard enough to make his arms ache. The web around him screamed, and screamed, and splintered apart into nothingness.
The silence that followed, though not really silence because of the Many's hissing, still felt deafening. Harry panted, more exhausted than he had thought he would be. He had fought no web before that was so much an effort of sheer will. He felt Draco's hand on his shoulder, and leaned against it willingly, unable to move his arms or stand as yet. He felt his heart bounding strongly in his chest, and concentrated on that, until he felt the snake on his arm slide down his skin.
"Thank you," said the mingled voice.
Harry opened his eyes and focused on the snake. "Of course," he murmured, and watched it slide over to the hole in the earth and downward. The green and golden darkness flared once more and showed him the sight of the old Many surrounding the new Many and welcoming them, before it dissolved. Harry and Draco stood on what was, to all appearances, an ordinary patch of earth, except for the hole in the middle of it.
"Come on," Draco whispered at last, when Harry could feel his eyes falling shut. "We can't sleep in the Forest. I'm sure it's unhealthy."
Harry laughed at that, and even his voice sounded raspy and used, though he hadn't been aware of screaming. He stood. "You're right. Let's get back to our room." He sneaked a glance at Draco, whose expression he could see well enough in the Lumos light, though sometimes with odd shadows at the corners of his mouth and jaw. "Worth coming out here to see?"
"Oh, yes." Draco smiled at him. "Even if I couldn't see half of what you did. Watching them hatch was—" He shook his head and broke off. "Thank you," he said at last, in the same tone he had used in their room.
"I didn't arrange for it to happen," said Harry, a bit bemused.
Draco faced him for a moment, though he continued walking sideways so that Harry didn't have to slow—a good thing, since he didn't know if he could convince his tired feet to start this long journey more than once. "Not for that," he said. "For asking me to come with you."
Harry smiled. "I thought you would enjoy it. Besides, I wanted you here with me."
He should have a snake. It's wrong that he doesn't.
Harry had fallen asleep almost instantly when he crawled into his bed. Draco had thought he would. The clearing had filled with the overpowering scent of roses as he worked his magic on the invisible—to Draco—webs, and then he had stumbled on his way out of the Forest, numerous times. He slept deeply now, his chest rising and falling in rhythmic breaths.
Draco lingered for a moment, though, watching him, since there was no one awake to tell him off and make him go back to bed.
He enjoys the company of snakes so much. He should have one. But what kind? Not a Locusta. I don't think he could stand to have one again, and besides, they're illegal and they can speak into his head. I don't want a snake to be closer to him than I am.
Runespoors are illegal to keep as pets, too. Are ashwinders? I'll have to check. They're hard to keep alive, though, I think. But it should be a magical snake. He'd appreciate it more.
Draco grinned as he climbed back into his own bed. It wasn't often he had an idea for a birthday gift months in advance.
But that's what I want him to get, so that's what he gets. Not to mention that it'll be good for him.
Draco was quite sure that he slept the sleep of the just that night.
Harry dropped his fork when someone prodded him in the ribs. "Ow!" he complained, rubbing his side. "Keep your elbows to yourself, Millicent." Having her poke him this early in the morning could leave him short of breath for the rest of the day.
"Look at this," she insisted, and pushed the Daily Prophet across the table at him.
Harry sighed and peered at it, wondering what Skeeter or Melinda Honeywhistle, her main rival in reporting lead stories, would say now. It would probably be something about the Tournament, or Death Eaters, since they had nothing new to report.
He stared when he realized that the lead story featured a blurred photograph of himself crouched on the ground in the Forbidden Forest with his hands clasped behind his back, and that Draco stood beside him, bending over him. A Many snake obviously encircled his arm, and the headline above the photograph read:
HARRY POTTER SAVES HOGWARTS FROM THE WRATH OF SNAKES
The byline was Skeeter's, of course. Harry shook his head, eyes narrowing. He had started thinking she must have some magical advantage to keep reporting stories like this when he would have been sure to see her normally, and it was about time he found out what it was.
He became aware of the nervous edge to the students' stares then—he'd already forced himself to ignore so many stares that he'd missed the new emotion animating most of these—and rolled his eyes at them. Most of them looked away hastily, as though they thought the supposed Parselmouth savior would set his snakes on them if they weren't careful. Others continued looking, particularly among the Durmstrang students.
"So, is it true?" Millicent persisted.
"Of course not." Harry handed the paper back to her. "I freed the Many hive from a web on them. I wasn't protecting the school from them. More like the other way round," he muttered, and dug into his food.
He got about three bites in when he became aware that most of the Slytherin table was still staring at him. He slammed the fork down. He knew he was being petulant, but Merlin, he hadn't done anything remarkable, and they knew that he hated being looked at. "What?"
"You still went out to the Forbidden Forest last night and did something with snakes," Pansy summarized. She shook her head. "What you did doesn't really matter, Harry. It's newsworthy." She folded her arms, and looked, for a moment, remarkably like Hawthorn. "Really, I think that you should be taking advantage of this publicity, not resisting it. You could do all kinds of things with it. Convince people that not all Slytherins are evil. Refute the idea that you're evil in any way." Her eyes drifted to the head table, and she lowered her voice. "Get rid of Dumbledore, or at least lessen his power."
"It's a kind of false power," said Harry impatiently. "You've already seen how fickle most people who read the articles are. They'll turn around when a better story comes along. I much prefer to rely on magic and alliances and the good opinions of people I can actually trust."
"False or no, it's still attributed to you." Pansy poked him now, and Harry wondered when she'd become so bossy. "One thing I learned from my father is that you shouldn't give up any kind of advantage that you received through your own efforts, even if you didn't know you were going to receive it."
Harry thought that Dragonsbane probably knew what he was talking about. Necromancy required so many sacrifices that only a driving passion could take a wizard very far into it, and Pansy's father had probably seen many spells and rituals that didn't work out exactly as he thought they would, thanks to the lack of common knowledge about the discipline. Some of them would have to have worked out well for him, or he wouldn't be alive. "I'll think about it," he said, one of his favorite phrases when he wanted to fob off attention.
Pansy frowned at him and started to say something else, but shrieks from the front of the Hall interrupted her.
Harry blinked and frowned in that direction, only to see a large green-golden ball rolling out from under the Hufflepuff table. It made its way directly towards him. Harry could tell it was the new Many long before they arrived.
"What would you like?" he asked them, a bit surprised that they'd come. Even some of the Slytherins jumped and gasped at his sudden use of Parseltongue. Harry rolled his eyes, stood, and stepped around the table. He could worry about what damage this was doing to his reputation later. For now, the main thing was to make sure that the hive left without biting anyone, and without any of the tiny cobras getting stepped on.
"We wish to thank you for making sure we were free." No, it wasn't his imagination; the hisses in his ears were definitely high and piping. "Our parents said thank you, but we did not."
Harry blinked. He had not imagined that the hive cobras had such a notion of manners. "Well, you've said it, and I thank you in turn," he murmured. "Now, don't you think you should be in the Forest? You will need to hunt."
"But that is not all," said the hive. "We wish to give you a gift for freeing us."
"That's quite unnecessary," said Harry, feeling the first faint stirrings of alarm. "Your thanks is more than enough."
The Many ignored him. Harry supposed each hive had a distinct temper; this one already felt different, more independent and prone to doing whatever the hell the hive mind wanted. "We can smell animosity rolling off the powerful one at the high perch. We could bite off his head and bring it to you."
Harry blinked in Dumbledore's direction. Dumbledore had a frown like a thundercloud, and he gave Harry a glance that said if he did not move the Many out of the Hall, now, there would be consequences. "That's, um, really not necessary," he said. "I don't eat heads."
"Ah!" said the Many, in a tone of happy discovery, and the small bodies that made up the top of the hive lashed. "Then we could bring you his heart." The ball started to roll towards the high table.
"No!" Harry yelped, and stumbled after them. The hive came to a halt and waited patiently for him, though some hisses were muttering about stupid snake-speaking humans who didn't know what they wanted. "Really, nothing from him. He, ah, he already gave me a gift of magic."
"Hm. Then tell us someone stupid, and we shall bite them for you."
Harry could not quite keep from glancing in the direction of the Ravenclaw table, where Gorgon and Jones sat petrified at the far end. The hive practically bounced as they rolled towards them, and their chatter now concerned the desirability of ridding the world of idiots.
"No, not them, either," said Harry wearily.
The hive pulled up, and now its collective voice was haughty. "We do wish to thank you, but you are being most ungrateful in return."
Harry looked around the Hall. Most eyes were fixed on him, though their owners had ceased to scream and sat in outraged silence. "Most people here are afraid of me," he said. "Could you do something that would reassure them?"
"Why?" The Many were most definitely sulking. "Let them be afraid. It is not our fault that they are stupid and will die if we bite them."
"Something beautiful," Harry said as persuasively as he could. "Something that will show you off, and let them see you to advantage."
The hive paused only a moment then. Then the great ball of it broke apart, and snakes raced in every direction, climbing the stone walls. Others slithered over to Harry and climbed his legs and body the way their parents had in Knockturn Alley. Two of them looped lazily around his head and hissed at those people who screamed.
Harry, his heart in his throat, hoped that the snakes were not going to make themselves the last beautiful sight most of the people here would ever see. From the height the great majority of them had climbed to on the walls, they could hit many eyes with their spray of venom.
But they did not. Instead, they paused, and then began to glow with vivid patterns of green and golden darkness, the same kind of light that had illuminated their nest last night.
Harry caught his breath in wonder. Around him, most people did the same. Where Harry's platitudes in English, and certainly the sight of the Many, would not have reassured them, the sight of the hive glowing like jeweled sculptures did. Beauty had a way of getting through to people, Harry had found.
The light varied, rippling across the room, shading from brilliant gold near the head table to deepest emerald near the back of the Slytherin one. The snakes coiled on Harry's head beamed yellow light in one direction and green in the other, crawling in circles to insure the beams varied. The ones on his body created a chaotic medley of flashes and glimmers and gleams, appearing as one color and then another whenever they wanted.
Harry heard some gasps and sighs by the time the snakes descended from the walls and him, gathered themselves into a ball, and rolled out the door again. He called a soft farewell, and received a hiss that said he was lucky to have seen the light, and that he should visit them sometime in the Forest.
The silence when the Many had left at least did not resolve into screams or yells of protest immediately. Instead, the students chattered, and gave broken sighs, and muttered among themselves as they watched Harry walk over to the bench at the Slytherin table and start eating again.
They might be frightened, Harry knew, but the fact remained that Harry had managed to get the snakes to leave without biting anyone. At least some people had to think that meant more than just the prelude to an attack, or a showing-off of his power.
At least some of them.
Since he refused to raise his eyes from the plate for the rest of the meal, however, he really didn't know what percentage of the stares were frightened, which angry, which resentful, and which hopeful.
Harry took a deep breath of the clean, cold air and folded his arms on the windowsill of the Owlery. Hedwig coasted down to him, sat on his shoulder, and nibbled at his ear.
Harry looked out over the Forbidden Forest, then closed his eyes. The pressure of the stares had got so much that he'd finally come up here to be alone, asking even Draco to stay behind. Draco had looked a bit put out, as though he'd thought ten people would wrap themselves around Harry and declare their love for him the moment his back was turned, but had let him go.
Harry had another reason for wanting to come up here. It was a year ago today, the first day of spring, that he'd met Connor up here and accidentally had the last of his phoenix web shredded by his brother's compulsion.
Hedwig demanded petting. Harry obliged her, his mind tumbling back over the last year and wondering if what he'd endured had been worth it. He thought so.
I haven't entirely kept the promise I made to myself, though, he thought, as Hedwig grabbed his hand and pulled it to the spot on her neck where she wanted to be stroked. Not to lie, or to seek out my lies if I did, to try to catch sight of all the places I could stumble and make mistakes, to see all the hidden corners of my being and expose them to the light. I have to do that to be a good vates and leader—the kind it seems I'm going to be whether I want to be or not.
I have to do better as far as that's concerned, he thought, as he watched the sunset.
Take that, you bastard!
Harry jumped. That last thought had no reason to be in his head. He turned cautiously, peering around, and wondering if Dumbledore had come up to the Owlery and inflicted him with it for some reason.
Has it been so long, the injured voice said, that you've forgotten who I am, what I sounded like, the very voice of your old comrade?
Harry swallowed, and, though he had no reason to speak aloud, felt he had to. "Regulus?" he whispered.
Yes. Merlin, did Regulus sound smug. It took me a while, but I managed to fight free of Voldemort. He thought he was so smart, tucking me in a little dark place again. But I'm used to little dark places, thanks to him. I struggled and cursed and cursed and struggled again until I was free.
Harry laughed in spite of himself, feeling his heart lift. "I heard you scream when you were torn away from my mind. I thought Voldemort must have hurt you, maybe destroyed you."
He couldn't hurt me that badly, not in that diminished state he's in. Seen him in your dreams yet? Harry felt flickers of visions teasing the edges of his consciousness, as Regulus apparently went through his memories of the last six months. No, I see you haven't. Good on you. He looks like a deformed baby.
"I haven't seen what he looks like, so you're going to tell me?" Harry protested, leaning against the windowsill. Hedwig obviously gave up on the prospect of getting properly petted, and flew back to her perch. Harry could not seem to stop grinning. "I don't want to know what he looks like."
You have to, said Regulus, voice unexpectedly soft. You'll have to fight him at some point—holy Merlin, please tell me that you did not duel Rosier again.
"That and lots of other things," said Harry wryly, clenching a hand on the back of his neck. He was overjoyed to have Regulus back, but there would be a lot of adjusting to do as he got Regulus used to some basic facts of his life. "You—missed quite a bit. And I missed you."
So I see, and so I communicate to you. More rummaging, and then Regulus paused, though Harry didn't know what memory he was seeing until he whispered, If I had a body, I would kill your mother.
Not you, too, said Harry, switching to silent speech as a Hufflepuff first-year came up the stairs and slipped over to a barn owl on a perch. She kept giving him awed glances. Harry stared out the window and did his best to look like an ordinary tormented hero until she was gone. Everybody wants to punish my mother, for some reason.
Some reason. This is lots of reasons. How dare she say—
"I don't want to hear it again," Harry whispered. "Please, Regulus, don't make me live through it. She's been punished. It's enough. Everybody else has agreed to leave it alone." Well, except for Scrimgeour. And Lucius. And Narcissa. And Hawthorn. And Adalrico. But everybody else has.
Regulus gave a gusty sigh, but gave up that tangent. Harry smiled slightly as he muttered his way through more of Harry's memories, then began laughing. I see that your little Malfoy nemesis finally gathered his courage to tell you that he loved you.
"He's not my nemesis," Harry protested. "He's quite calm when he gets his own way. And why the 'finally?'"
He's a menace to other people, said Regulus firmly. And I knew before I—left—that he loved you. I was just waiting, somewhat impatiently, for him to have both the time and the lack of self-absorption to say it.
"Believe me, I know how lucky I am," Harry muttered.
Both of you are lucky, said Regulus absently, and then went through the rest of Harry's memories, while Harry grinned out the window, and reflected that, the Many's misguided notion of a gift aside, he was enjoying this first day of spring much more than he had the corresponding day last year.
Draco had forced himself to concentrate on Defense Against the Dark Arts homework after Harry went upstairs. Karkaroff's teaching style was far different than Mulciber's, and he believed in having students read their textbooks and then copy passages out of them. Draco had sometimes managed to read five sentences without looking at the door to their room.
When he looked up as the door opened, therefore, he told himself that he really deserved to set the book aside, as a reward for being so good.
Harry came in with his head bowed for some reason, but he looked up soon enough, and Draco's breath caught at the way his eyes shone. Harry had looked harassed most of the day, but now he appeared as he had last night, with joy overflowing him.
"Guess what," he said.
"I can't guess," said Draco, bouncing a hand off his knee. He wouldn't go over to Harry, not when getting closer might change the expression on his face, but he needed to move in some way. "I'm horrible at guessing. Tell me."
Harry bounced over to Draco's bed, plopping himself down on his back. He grinned up at him from that angle, upside-down, and Draco felt a few threads of his self-control fray.
"Regulus came back!" Harry said triumphantly. "And he's all right! And I actually had some Ravenclaws stop me in the halls on the way back—" Draco wondered if Chang had been there, but couldn't bring himself to ask while Harry was smiling so brilliantly "—and apologize for being idiots like they had been! And so now I know the whole school doesn't hate me! And this is a wonderful day." Harry tilted his head back and laughed softly, closing his eyes as he did so.
Abruptly, before Draco could even react to him sounding as if he'd put exclamation marks after every single one of his sentences except possibly the last, Harry popped one eye open again and smiled at him. "And Regulus said that he knew since September that you were in love with me," he said. "So you were patient and willing to wait for a much longer time than I thought you were, even if part of that was the potion and the compulsion. I just wanted to say thank you, Draco." His smile grew wider.
He was smiling, for Merlin's sake. His eyes were shining, and he'd bounced. His emotions were all but purring.
Draco leaned over and kissed him.
He would have exploded in panic immediately afterwards if he'd allowed himself to explode in panic. As it was, he refused for a single moment to think that what he'd done was wrong. He took his time, neither too long nor too short, and then raised his head and looked serenely at Harry.
That wasn't wrong. It was begun in joy. It can't be wrong.
Harry blinked, once, twice, and then acquired a puzzled expression, as though he didn't know what had happened. Draco swallowed. Well, he might ignore it, I suppose. If that's the case, I won't push him.
Harry took a deep breath, and Draco recognized the flare of courage in his eyes that had been visible just before he leaped on his Firebolt and flew at the dragons. Then he lifted himself up into an awkward position, half on his leg and half on his elbow, and kissed Draco back.
Draco felt as if he were spinning down a golden abyss, and so great was his surprise and elation that it was hard to feel half the embarrassment he'd expected. He let Harry break the kiss and draw away, and then watched him carefully.
Harry tilted his head to the side, and studied him back. Then he grinned again.
"I liked that," he said.
Draco swallowed, and tried to think of something magnificent to say, and realized that he could think of absolutely nothing. Apologies were obviously beside the point, and he wouldn't have meant them anyway. Asking if Harry had liked it was pointless. Explanations would sound stupid.
Harry said the words instead, taking his hand and gripping it hard enough to hurt. Draco could feel the oddest mixture of emotions pressing against his empathy: the cold wind of fear, backed and countered by a warm one. Judging from the expression on Harry's face right now, the warm wind was awe.
"I'm terrified of this half the time. That doesn't mean anything, Draco, and it's certainly not occasion for you to coddle me." Harry lifted his head, and his eyes flashed. "And I'm not doing this because I think I owe you for falling in love with me, so put that out of your head if it's there. I always thought that love like the sun can't be based on people owing each other compensation for something. It wouldn't work. I just didn't think I would ever have that kind of love, or the chance at it."
He swallowed, then said, "And if that really is within my reach, then I want to strive for it. It's—it's easy to say this, right now, when the fear is being kept at bay. I'm sure there are times I'll tumble and want to hide. You've seen them already. And this will probably take a long time. But I promise that I'll keep on going. I promise you." His breath came faster, and the cold wind increased, as if he were about to say something more terrifying than all the rest. "I want this."
Draco had the sense, then, to let Harry give him a quick, nervous smile, climb into his own bed, and draw the curtains shut. It was best not to say more, anyway. It still would have sounded stupid or been pointless.
He closed his eyes, and smiled.
That was all that needed to happen right now.