Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter!

This chapter has just made it necessary for me to revise my outline for the fifth story, 'Wind That Shakes the Seas and Stars.' It changed as I was writing it, which is quite an impressive accomplishment for a chapter that was supposed to do ONE specific thing, and, with the change, has now obliterated that thing completely.

Chapter Sixty-Six: Harry and Lily

"Mr. Potter."

Harry jumped. Of all the people he'd expected to catch him halfway to the hospital wing—his letters safely written and sent to his parents—McGonagall hadn't been one of them. He turned and looked up at her, checking automatically that the glamour of his left hand was still in place.

"Professor," he told her, inclining his head. "Is there something wrong?"

"Yes," said McGonagall. For some reason, Harry hadn't appreciated quite how severe she could look before this moment. Her glare was still not as icy as Snape's, but it contained a deeply personal disappointment that made Harry fight the urge to squirm. He knew he was doing the best, the only, thing he could do. That would have to content him against the disappointments of those who thought they knew a better way. "You know very well that Madam Pomfrey did not want you to leave the hospital wing before several days had passed."

Harry blinked. That hadn't been something Madam Pomfrey had said herself, though, to be fair, he might have missed it in the rush of information she muttered last night. And he was feeling rather light-headed from lack of sleep, too, which could explain it.

"I'm doing well, Professor," he said, and gave her a smile he knew he needed no glamour to disguise. He had been far more at peace since he made his decision.

"You are not," said McGonagall. "Mr. Potter, you forget I am an Animagus." Her eyes narrowed down at him. Harry wondered if she had that look in front of a rathole. "I can smell something stinking on you that should not be." She reached out, and made almost the same gesture that Snape had, prying aside his robe and shirt to study the bite wound.

Harry looked down, ready to explain the smell as something Madam Pomfrey had rubbed on him. He did have to stare when he saw the blackness creeping back around the edges of the wound, though. So far as he knew, that shouldn't have happened. The antivenin spells were supposed to take for anything short of a nundu's breath.

"Come with me, Mr. Potter," said McGonagall, and grabbed his left arm, luckily above the glamour. Harry really would have to get used to telling when other people were about to do that, he thought, and adjusting his own position accordingly. "Since you cannot be trusted to take care of yourself, I will escort you back to Madam Pomfrey."

Harry knew it would be no good protesting, so he went along quietly. Besides, the letters were sent. He had made arrangements that would allow him to recover his balance. Dealing with an irritated professor was nothing, compared either to what he had faced last night or what he would deal with once he saw Lily again.

A tremor ran through his frame, and Harry realized he was afraid.

Well, I was afraid with Voldemort, too, and I failed the tests. This time, I just have to be sure that I pass.

McGonagall was as good as her word, marching him straight back to his bed. The illusion of himself had dissipated, but there was no need for it, Harry saw; Draco hadn't awakened. He must have been too deeply asleep for his empathy to rouse him when Harry moved. Besides, the empathy would have reported only happy emotions to him, worry succeeded by calmness.

That is the way to fool him, Harry thought, as he let McGonagall arrange him on his pillows and call for Madam Pomfrey. Just show him my true emotions. He's not going to know until too late that I'm not happy about going to Malfoy Manor, but happy about going home.

Home.

The word sounded wonderful, and it had settled into his mind with indelible weight. Of course he should be happy to be going home. His mind still did give odd jerks and twitches, during which he thought himself mad, but he recognized madness from his touch of it in the duel with Voldemort, now. He was sure that he was sane. He was sure that he was taking the best steps he could. Nothing but desperate need would have induced him to summon his mother in the first place, so that must obviously mean that desperate need was working now, and he really needed her.

Madam Pomfrey came bustling out, a smile lighting her face, but it died when she saw Harry's wound. She pointed her wand at it, and let out a sharp breath when a black, swirling mist soared up from it.

"What is that?" demanded McGonagall, squinting at the cloud. Harry was grateful that she asked. He didn't want to go about drawing extra attention to himself right now. He kept his hand folded and his eyes on his hand, his breathing sonorous and as deep as he could force it to be.

"The bite's infected with a changeable venom," Madam Pomfrey said, her voice taking on an almost detached tone at first, but speeding up as she grew more and more worried. "It was poison at first, but now it's become a Dark Arts curse. And I suspect that if I counter the curse, the bite will attain another poison, a different kind this time. And with each counter, the spread of the infection becomes faster."

She looked sternly at Harry. "I've got some books on changeable venoms, but it's been a long time since I looked at them," she said. "For now, since the curse is only having the same slow effect as the original poison, I'll leave it be. I'll need at least a day to look at the books before I try to heal you permanently, and then you'll need to rest here for at least four days. In the meantime, Mr. Potter, stay in bed. Your own magic levels become prey for the curse as it advances, unless you can manage to sleep and restore them." Her eyes grew even sterner then, as though she suspected Harry had gone elsewhere that morning, but she turned and went into the back part of the hospital wing.

"I'll bring you and Mr. Malfoy food and something to drink, Harry," said McGonagall softly, bending over him. "So that you don't need to leave the hospital wing for any reason." Her glare was still worse than Madam Pomfrey's, but when Harry kept mute about any possible explanation for his being out of bed, she turned and stalked away with feline dignity.

All the noise had awakened Draco, as Harry had suspected would probably happen, though he fortunately didn't appear to have heard anything about changeable venoms. He blinked and rubbed at his eyes, then frowned at Harry. "You were out of bed this morning?"

Harry looked carefully away from him, and smoothed his emotions into serenity and happiness. Draco was not going to find out anything from his empathy, if Harry could help it, but he might be able to figure out that something was wrong from Harry's actions.

"I was," Harry admitted. "I had to think, and I had to come to some conclusions." He smiled at Draco, allowing himself to take joy in his friend's expression of cautious relief. Harry really did want Draco to be all right with where he would stay for the summer, and not angry at him any more for venturing to the Ministry. He had the five days he'd stay in the hospital wing to soften him, at least. "I came to them, and, well, I'm not as upset as I was."

"Good," Draco whispered, deliberately taking hold of his left wrist. "That's good." He hesitated a long moment, then said, "Harry, we do have to talk about what you did wrong in going to the Ministry last night."

Harry sighed. "You really did want me to come and get you, then?"

"How could you even think I was joking about that?" Draco sounded something between hurt and furious. "Of course, Harry. Always, always, always. I was hunting frantically for you, and you'd just been through hell." He paused again, then said, "You've said more than once that you feel like you're taking too much from me. Well, if you keep doing things like run off to the Ministry and endanger your life recklessly, that might be true."

Harry instinctively tried to move away from him. Draco countered the motion, leaning back in his chair and staring at Harry until Harry had no choice but to glance at him. Draco looked at least as grim and determined as he had the day he convinced Harry that he loved him, the day he freed the unicorns.

"I won't say I can't live like this," said Draco, "because that's obviously not true. I'm still alive when you get back from your mad expeditions. But I don't want to live like this. It's not fair to me, Harry, and there's no reason for it, not when you can come tell me the reason for your running off and we can figure out a plan together." He chewed on his lips, then said, "You're not the only one who worries about sounding strange. I think I sound strange. But this is the only way I know how to talk about this." He covered Harry's stump carefully with his own hand. "I haven't done anything like this so far, because I know that you don't want to be forced, but if you keep endangering your life recklessly, then I will force you to stay put, Harry."

Shit. There's no way that he would understand if I talked to him about wanting to go home for the summer. I'll have to hide.

Harry lowered his head. "You wouldn't put compulsions on me, would you?" he asked.

"No," said Draco. "And I won't break any of the promises that I made you, such as not speaking ill about your mother. But anything else is fair game, Harry. Sleeping potions, body-binds, glamours—lying to you if I have to. I won't allow this to go on. I think you should have the choice to do the right thing of your own free will, which is why I'm telling you this at all. Otherwise, I'll just hit you with Consopio or a bit of Dreamless Sleep in your food the next time I think you're doing something stupid, and when you next wake up, it'll be in Malfoy Manor." He leaned closer to Harry. "Without the glamour," he added.

Harry swallowed. I'll have to be more careful than I thought. Not only will he not let me go if I tell him the truth, but I have to make sure he doesn't even suspect that something is off.

Well, better I give him a carefully worded promise now than suffer later.

"All right, Draco," he whispered. "I—you win."

Draco raised his eyebrows. "Just like that? Somehow, Harry, I don't think that you've just sworn off all impulsive and stupid heroic action with a few words," he drawled.

Harry shook his head. "No. But I know what you want from me now, and I won't—I won't blame you if you use sleeping potions or body-binds or whatever you think you need to on me, if you really think my life is in danger." He glared sternly at Draco. "For no other reason."

The relief filling Draco's eyes was painful in its intensity. He bowed his head. Harry looked the other direction, and hoped that Draco would understand when the truth emerged. He didn't like to think he was risking his bond with Draco by lying. On the other hand, he could be risking his only true chance to heal and help other people if he told the truth now.

And my mother always taught me to think of others first.

"Thank you, Harry," Draco whispered, and then McGonagall came back with breakfast for both of them and a stern injunction for Harry to rest and Draco to go back to the Slytherin common room, and there was no more time to talk, and no more moments in which Harry had to fool Draco, either. He ate the eggs and sausage McGonagall had brought hungrily enough, remembering only now that his last meal had been with James on the beach yesterday morning. He hadn't been able to eat other meals as the day wore on and the time got nearer for Connor to brave the Third Task.

That was another thing that made him wince, the thought of his brother.

He'll just have to understand, too.

Lily slowly smoothed the letters in her hands and let out a little painful breath. She was standing in the kitchen of the house at Godric's Hollow, the same place where her life had changed forever a year and a half ago, with summer sunlight pouring in through the windows. The sun could have been a thousand times brighter, though, and its radiance could not have matched the brilliance of her mood at the moment.

Dumbledore's letter had come first, telling her that she would have good news in a short while, and to prepare for a journey to Hogwarts. And then had come the letter from Harry, in which he told her that, now that Voldemort was arisen, he thought it appropriate he should return home for a little more training. Could she come and talk to him? There were questions he wanted to ask her, first.

Sometimes, sometimes, oh how she hated to admit it, her long faith had wavered and almost cracked during the months she spent here, alone except for the house elves Albus granted her. James's letters, and Albus's, could barely reassure her, not without word from her sons. She had started thinking, sometimes, as she sat by herself in the silence, that perhaps she had done something wrong in raising Harry and Connor the way she had.

She did not want to think that way, because she had gone too far down this path to be wrong now, if she were wrong.

But now her faith was restored, glittering like a diamond in her mind, and her heart had been healed in the sunlight.

Albus was right. Harry always was going to come home at last. And if I'm alone with him, or just him and James, for eight weeks, then I can set to rights all the bad lessons he's learned in the outside world—tell him the truth about himself, and get him to acknowledge it, and help him avoid being a Dark Lord.

All my sacrifices are recompensed, all my mistakes are paid for.

Harry opened his eyes slowly. He had known for some time that there was another presence in the room, and even who it was, but he'd wanted to wait until he was sure that no one else was coming in. But no, it seemed that Draco was in the Slytherin common room, and Snape would know better than to visit him, and Madam Pomfrey was fully occupied with trying to learn something about changeable venoms in her books. Harry wasn't even sure that Connor knew about his condition yet—Draco had admitted to not being able to find him last night, and he might just think that Harry was somewhere around the school—so he didn't truly fear a visit from his brother.

Harry sat up at last and nodded to Dumbledore. "Sir," he said. "I trust that you know I've written to my mother?"

Dumbledore blinked. Harry blinked a moment later. Why did I think he knew that? He wasn't sure, but there it was, a certainty as unshakeable in his head as the idea that Lucius would turn his back on him once he saw the disfigured hand.

"Ah, yes, I do, Harry," said the Headmaster a moment later. "And as you have no doubt surmised by now, I have the hospital wing under a variation of the spell that protects Hogwarts from Muggle eyes. Anyone but your mother thinking to visit you right now will find themselves caught up in other plans instead, and they will not return to thinking about you until your interview with Lily is done."

Harry relaxed. "All right. Thank you, sir." He felt, because he could not prevent it, the tickle of uneasiness that ran through him at the thought of being alone with Dumbledore, or even with Lily, in a room where no one else could reach him, but then he told himself again that this was for the best. It was a harder road than just going back to Malfoy Manor would have been, but wasn't the harder road the right one, most of the time?

Yes, he answered himself firmly. Negotiating compromises for the magical creatures is harder than binding them with webs. Creation is harder than destruction. Forgiving someone is harder than just being angry at them all your life. And it seems that I'm born for the hard road, one way or the other.

"I will leave you alone with Lily during your interview," said Dumbledore, pulling Harry's attention back to himself. "She expressed a desire to speak to you with no one else listening."

Harry nodded. It was what he'd been hoping for, but hadn't been sure he had a right to demand. "Thank you, sir," he repeated. Then he drew in a deep breath. His mother was probably here already, or Dumbledore would not have cast the spell. Of course, since Lily lacked magic now, he couldn't distinguish her approach from that of anyone else. "I'm ready to see her now."

Dumbledore eyed him in silence for a long moment. Harry kept his face calm and his will resolute. He was ready for this, no matter the mad itching in the back of his head that said he wasn't.

"Very well, Harry," said Dumbledore at last, and went to the doors of the hospital wing. "Then I will let her in."

Harry lay back against his pillows and waited. His wound was only a bit more painful than before; what Madam Pomfrey had said about the curse spreading no differently than the poison, as long as it wasn't counteracted, was true. There was so much sunlight coming through the windows of the hospital wing. He watched it, and heard a distant song, so pure that it reminded him of Fawkes, in the moment before it faded and diminished.

"Hello, Harry."

Harry drew in his breath and faced his mother.

She looked more fragile than she had been when he saw her last. She held no light-globe this time, but only a thin sheet of parchment Harry thought was his letter. She walked with no limp from the bite his snake had taken out of her ankle, Harry was glad to see. Her eyes met his steadily as she took the chair that Draco had sat in earlier.

"You said that you wanted to ask me some questions," she whispered. "Anything, Harry. Now that you are coming home, I will give you anything that you want, with no holding back."

Harry nodded tightly. He should be glad of her declaration, given that he wanted to ask her some extremely searching and personal questions. He didn't know why his throat had swollen shut, why he had to cough to get the words out, why Lily's watching him with patient, anxious eyes only made nausea boil up in his stomach.

The song shimmered in his ears. Harry shook his head, and his throat and head were clear, and his stomach was calm, and why had he ever thought that he felt as bad as he did?

"I want to know why you agreed to sacrifice us in the first place," he said quietly. "What persuaded you that Godric's Hollow should be left open to Voldemort the night that he attacked us? Why did you become dedicated to the war effort in this particular way?"

Lily blinked at him, her mouth briefly falling open. Then she said, with a rusty chuckle, "I must admit, I didn't think that would be what you asked."

"I know the training you gave me," said Harry. "I know the philosophy behind it. Now I want to know where you got that philosophy. Why do you believe the way you do?"

Lily sat back, nodding slowly. She linked her hands together on her stomach and said, "All right, Harry. You know I've told you before that I didn't know anything about magic before my eleventh birthday. I came from a Muggleborn family, yes, but this wasn't even a family who indulged my sister Petunia and me with stories like Santa Claus. My parents were very clear-minded people who didn't hold with what they called 'superstitious nonsense.' Nevertheless, they believed in something when they could see it happen, and they had to admit that magic was real when they saw it happen. So they were happy and proud to have a witch in the family."

Lily paused to draw breath. Harry turned his head again. He didn't know why he expected the sunlight to be glaring on the windowsill, actively burning a hole in the stone, rather than just lying there tamely.

"My sister wasn't very happy," said Lily softly. "I tried not to let it bother me, but we'd been close as children, and her jealousy did hurt. She kept saying that it was like fairies stealing me away. So I came to the magical world determined to embrace the people here, since I didn't really have a sister after I found out I could do magic.

"And I found out that I was in the middle of a world where everything was polarized, and there couldn't be that kind of happy acceptance I'd craved and looked for. Voldemort was just rising then—not much more than a rumor and a name, but most people above the age of sixteen knew war was coming. Even we first-years knew there was something wrong, something dark and burning in the very air.

"And I found out that the fact I was Muggleborn still mattered, even though I was in Gryffindor. Students who wanted to show the right kind of beliefs loudly welcomed me, even when they weren't people I would have chosen as friends. Other students sneered at me, played pranks on me, called me names, all for a heritage I had no idea existed until just a few months before I entered Hogwarts. I was alone in a world I didn't understand, and even when I studied or asked questions, it didn't help. Even as they reacted to the war, most people didn't want to talk about it, as if that would somehow draw the war to them."

"You were alone," said Harry, feeling that he understood. The song was back, and he had to close his eyes for a moment. Sunlight lay on him, as heavy as a hand. "Did you start reading about pureblood history then?"

He opened his eyes to see Lily nodding. "Yes, I did. And I grew to understand my enemies better, and to realize that not every pureblood was an enemy—but also to realize that I could never be one of them. Oh, Harry, James's family was kind and welcoming to me, and so were children of other Light wizarding families, but they showed with every little speech and every little word that I wasn't, quite, their kind. They were all lordly condescension, and I was nothing but a peasant, and there were stupid beliefs about Muggleborn witches and wizards being less powerful than purebloods—never mind that pureblood families could have Squibs from inbreeding too closely. There was a stretch of time in my third year when I considered abandoning the magical world altogether."

"And then?" Harry asked. This mattered to him, he thought, of course it mattered to him. He had wanted to hear his mother's story before he went home, to understand more about what she had sacrificed and to see what effect her words would have on him. He had thought, hoped, that her words would hurt him. Then being in her presence would be a test to pass.

He hadn't expected to find himself thinking more about song and sunlight than about her words.

"And then Albus summoned me to his office, along with a small group of other Muggleborn students, and talked to me about what part I could play in the war." Lily smiled dreamily at the wall. "He told us that he'd noticed we wanted to do something, but were frustrated by our lack of knowledge of the magical world, or just our lack of ability, since we were still children. He asked us if we wanted to be more than children. And I and a few of the other students said yes."

Harry could feel his breath rushing in and out of his lungs. But he wasn't breathing hard as he had been when trying to suppress tears. There was a pressure of warmth growing in the center of his chest—far below the wound, so it couldn't be that—and an uneasy shifting and churning of thoughts in his mind.

Lily continued, obviously fully caught up in her tale. "And so we began secret training, not so much in spells—Albus didn't want us to actually take the field until we were old enough—as in the ethics of sacrifice. Albus told us what would be coming, and a lot of what he predicted came to pass, like the specific Dark Arts spells Voldemort used. He told us the future would be terrible, but we could glow like beacons to brighten it. Many of the adult wizards were caught in the same trap of fear as our fellow students, and they wanted to stay neutral in the hopes that Voldemort wouldn't notice them." Lily snorted. "Fine policy that was when he began to slaughter them. But they still tried, always thinking that it might happen to the family two linchpins away, but it wouldn't happen to them. So we were the ones who had to take up the burden of hope. Albus told us that the younger we became accustomed to carrying it, the easier a time we would have of it."

She stretched out her hands before her and pulled them in towards her chest, as if gathering an invisible child there to hug. Harry watched her in a haze. Song was burning in his ears, buzzing in his stomach, and there was a slow, faint white glare of light before his eyes, like an afterimage that was growing instead of fading.

"By the time we left school, we were ready to fight, and so were the other young Gryffindors Albus had trained. And then one day he told me of the prophecy—he always trusted me more than any of them—and then, when you boys were born, I knew there was a good chance that it could apply to you." Lily took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Harry found that he missed their clear, bright green, stained with tears though it was. It had been helping him focus beyond the light. "It was a hard struggle, but I nerved myself to leave you alone to face Voldemort in the end. Albus was the one who gave me my courage, my place in this world. And it all fell out as he said. You survived. The path to Voldemort's destruction was laid. Do you know what it means to me, Harry, that it's partially through my sacrifices that you're going to destroy the monster who made my childhood in the wizarding world so hellish?"

Harry couldn't have responded if he tried. The light was burning all around him now, and inside his head, if the song was any indication. He thought it might have something to do with the phoenix web, but he couldn't imagine why Dumbledore or Lily would be trying to put one on him now, when he'd already agreed to listen to his mother and go home for the summer.

The light drew closer to him. In panic, he lashed out with his will in a mental blow, trying to prevent any web from ever gaining a hold on his mind.

He hit a block he hadn't even known was there. It was rather like falling across a chair in a darkened room. He let out a sharp breath, and then struck once more, instinctively, trying to destroy that block.

It broke.

The compulsion fell apart, and the sunlight rushed in.

This time, he could hear the song, rich and vivid and clear. Fawkes, of course it was, and he'd been singing along their bond, sending the sunlight all phoenixes were bound to along their connection, trying to wake Harry up. Harry didn't know if he'd actually wanted to panic Harry so much he struck out or just raise him into the clarity of sight, but either way, it had worked.

Harry opened his eyes, to see everything around him bathed in the clear, merciless light, and looked straight at his mother.

He saw her as she was to him now, and fell back against his pillows in shock. It was no wonder he hadn't been affected by her words. She was…

She was…

She was small.

Everything about her was small, and not just because she had no magic. The posture she'd taken in the chair, which before he might have thought was a noble bowing of her head and neck before circumstance, was a meek cringing. There was no honor and no pride in her face, only fear and a humiliated hope that she might yet get back something of what she'd lost, power or contact with magic. The hand she put out to him did not reach, but grasp.

Harry couldn't understand. I was angry and hurt at her at Christmas. Why have I managed to change my mind about her so completely?

Because he had been happy in the months between, he realized, Fawkes's song thrilling through him and carrying the truth along his veins like blood. He hadn't reserved a spot for Lily in his life. He had no need of her, not any more. Perhaps a month, two months, ago he might have turned back to her, but since then, he'd freed the southern goblins and had the bond with Draco and realized…

Realized that Snape had betrayed him, and lost his hand, and done and seen murder.

Harry grimaced. Not every experience in those months has been happy.

But he had grown beyond her now. He would always carry the marks of her training. That was true, and that was probably what people like Millicent were thinking of when they insisted that Harry was marked by his past.

But he needed her no longer. And now he had heard her story.

And what came upon him then, a stream of warm emotion quite separate from the freedom that Fawkes had handed him, was compassion.

Lily had, in a way, been under a web of her own, though Harry doubted that Dumbledore had used compulsion on her. He couldn't have known, so long before the prophecy, that this one Muggleborn girl would become that important, and he had keener and less chancy weapons to hand. Harry had no doubt that Dumbledore had trained Lily even as she said he had and that that training was the web on Lily's mind, imprisoning her free will and making her think that she mattered only in the context of war.

She is so small. She has sacrificed her free will and foisted sacrifices on others for a false ideal. She's wasted her life. Why should I not pity her? She hurt me, yes, but I can choose to forgive that. And I do so choose.

For that matter, where did Dumbledore learn those ethics of sacrifice? Could he have been a victim of his own mentor, and that mentor a victim of his own, and so on back down the line? Harry drew in a deep breath. Then, if that's the case, what they did to me, deliberate as it was, was really only the end result of a long line of people making sacrifices. Perhaps none of them ever escaped it. But I am the lucky one, the one who can choose to end the chain here.

I am vates, and I can step away.

Even as Fawkes materialized on his arm, however, Harry had two other realizations.

I can't let on to Dumbledore that I've broken his compulsion, or that I even know about it. He would only try to imprison me again. I can't go and live with Lily for the summer—I see that now—but he'll try to force me if he thinks I'm not going. I have a grace period, those days that Madam Pomfrey says I have to stay here and heal my wound. I'll pretend to be under the compulsion for that length of time, and think about where I'm going to go instead and how I'm going to keep Dumbledore out of my mind when I do.

The second realization was more startling. Even as Harry bowed his head and said softly, "I understand, Mum, and thank you," he was reeling under the implications of it.

A vates is a vates to everyone and anyone, breaking any webs. Perhaps my greatest responsibility is to the magical creatures, but that doesn't mean that I'll only free them. I have to consult the free wills of wizards and witches, and try to unbind them where I find them tied. Doesn't that mean—doesn't that mean that I have to be vates to Dumbledore and Lily, too, and try to break them free of these webs of absurdities that imprison their minds?

It made him sick for a moment, as Lily leaned across and clasped his hand and murmured thanks to him in a broken voice, but he could see no way around it. If he started making exceptions, then he would be forever doing so—saying the northern goblins were too hard to free, for example, and must simply remain imprisoned. He would have to be vates for even Voldemort and Bellatrix, if they came to him and were sincerely repentant, unlikely as that was to happen. So he had to be vates for Dumbledore and Lily.

But that also means that I have to keep them from impinging on the free wills of others. And I have to start doing it immediately. Lily will be easy. I'll just tell her that I'm coming home for the summer, and she'll go back to Godric's Hollow contented for a little while.

Dumbledore, though…

Fawkes gave him an encouraging croon, and Harry smiled down at him and stroked his feathers.

"He must have come to you after you knew you were the Boy-Who-Lived," said Lily. "He did, didn't he? A reminder of your allegiance to the Light."

Fawkes squawked indignantly, but Lily would not know he was indignant. Harry just nodded, while his mind turned to Dumbledore.

If Fawkes will help me, I think I can manage to contain his compulsion. And my deception should help me with him, too. He's still so focused on controlling me that I don't think he'll trouble looking elsewhere. Play the good little puppet for the next few days, and that will make him complacent. Then I can think more seriously about how to set him on the road to realizing what he's done, and healing.

The thought, the plan, was like a lifeline, towing him to shore. Harry could feel himself relax completely for the first time since Karkaroff had Porkeyed him away yesterday. He had always done his best healing when he was helping other people. He could do it that way this time, too.

Of course, if I'm going to act like an unbinder, then I have to unbind all the unnecessary deceptions.

It was a necessary one, he told himself, that made him kiss his mother on the cheek and say, "I've decided to come back home with you, but I need to stay here for five days while Madam Pomfrey heals my bite wound from Voldemort." He touched his chest. "I'll see you again then?"

Lily smiled tenderly at him. "Of course, Harry." She briefly skimmed his shoulder with her hand just above the wound. "If I still had my magic, I think I could have healed this," she said softly.

Harry just bowed his head, and sat in silence until she was gone.

There have been so many sacrifices, and they haven't made her any more courageous or Dumbledore any wiser. They have to stop.

And that means that I have to go have a little talk with Draco.