A/N: Many thanks for the reviews! To those concerned about the pace: It does slow down a bit now (and Severus' chapter will be way slower), but this is a fairly minimalist story. That's just how it turned out, I'm afraid.

2 - Minerva - Learning to Soar

It was a huge castle, but Minerva was finding it stifling. She wished she could leave, even if only for a weekend, and get far away. Get away from the students who smiled at her with innocent faces and didn't realise that their lives were hanging by a thread, get away from Albus who was slipping further and further into shadows that she had no desire to enter. Kept inside by the blizzard lamenting its way around the castle walls, she strode into the depths of the castle, into the places students couldn't go, into the corridors where no one but the house elves went, wanting to try to forget that there were other people. To forget that there was a war that she was no longer sure was worth fighting because neither side deserved to win. To forget that people were dying - again.

For a while she amused herself by looking into the rooms, many of which held strange old collections, swords or crockery or exotic feathers. She particularly liked the collection of lucky rabbit feet, Albus would have approved - and then the mood was broken, because she didn't want to think about Albus. She moved on, and was walking down a doorless piece of corridor when there was a quiet click behind her. She spun, instantly alert and wand in hand, to see a door that had not been there before. It was a plain, unassuming door, open the slightest, most inviting crack. Curious, she stepped forward, cat-silent, and quietly put her head inside (her mother had always said her curiosity would get her killed). It was a large, low-ceilinged room, part of the original building, and had a home-like, lived-in feel, as though someone had loved this room very much and made it all he wanted. At the other end of the room a black-haired figure stood before a large mirror.

Potter? How had he gotten into this part of the castle?

Frowning, she watched unnoticed as the boy held out a hand toward the mirror and, his voice low and carrying, said, "Crucio." She gasped softly, her limbs freezing in place in shock as the red spell bounced off the mirror and slammed into him. But he didn't react! She had seen the strength of that spell, he should be falling to the ground in agony - but he just stood there with his hand outstretched while she watched, stunned, and then he said, "Finite incantatum." As if he was taking off a jelly-legs curse, not one of the most feared curses in the history of magic!

He tilted his head to one side as if listening to someone she couldn't see, then laughed. "Habit," he told the unheard speaker. "All right, I'll try it."

In the blink of an eye he had become a beautiful winged snake. There was a flash of red again, another Cruciatus bouncing off the mirror into him. The snake shook its wings in reaction, but nothing more. It tilted its head, listening again, then the sleek head swung around to look at her. There was no malice in the black eyes, only curiosity. The snake slithered swiftly over to her and stood before her, lifting itself up a little higher so that it could look her in the eyes.

Abruptly Potter reappeared, laughing. "Hello, Professor," he said, with that open guilelessness she knew Severus abhorred but she hoped he would never have to lose. He didn't seem at all worried that he had just been caught with a presumably illegal animagus form and casting an Unforgivable curse. He looked up at her, green eyes cheerful. "I never thought I'd see anyone here." His gaze darted to the side, and he rolled his eyes at someone invisible. He looked back to her. "I'm going to trust you," he said simply. "The castle trusts you, or it wouldn't have let you come here, at least not without warning me."

Minerva felt as though she'd been cut adrift. There were just too many surprises here. "Warning you?" she asked in disbelief, knowing the castle only "spoke" to the Headmaster. "How did you get here? How are you an animagus? And why did you use-"

He sobered a little, though a smile still gently curved his lips. "You saw that?" She nodded. He shrugged, not really concerned. "I've... learnt how to work through pain. Did you know that the Cruciatus isn't the most painful curse?" She just stared at him. He grinned at her. "Don't worry, I'm not depressed or suicidal. I just don't want to be unable to move the next time a Death Eater decides to Crucio me."

That made sense, Minerva thought reluctantly. It was just hard to get past the image of a sixteen-year-old boy calmly casting the Cruciatus on himself. A child shouldn't have to worry about what to do when in the presence of a Death Eater.

"I wouldn't have chosen you," he said contemplatively. "I would have thought you were too close to Him." Who?"But I trust the castle to know what it's doing." He looked up at her with a bright, childish smile. "Shall I show you who I am?"

The guileless child dropped away as though he had removed a mask. His green eyes were suddenly impossible to read, the soft curves of his face seemed sharper and more angular, and he even seemed to grow taller. This was no child, this was an adult, a soldier, someone she hadn't known existed. And he talked. He told her about being able to speak with magic, about being able to talk to the castle. He showed her his collection of stolen books, his ability to do wandless magic (even a Patronus and more difficult magics with no wand!). He told her about becoming an animagus, and confessed that it was he who had jumped from the Astronomy Tower.

"The magic chose the form for me when I first did magic," he said, lean and hard-faced, sitting cross-legged on empty air. The casualness of a feat even Albus couldn't achieve took her breath away. "My mother was eight months pregnant, and she slipped on the stairs. She didn't realise that her unborn child levitated her down the stairs and kept her from harm. At that moment the magic knew I would fly."

He could talk to magic! It was like learning that the sky had a voice. "It's not quite human," he confided, "so it can't quite translate some things so I can understand them. It's not allowed to interfere with us, because... well, I'm not too clear on that point, but basically because it's magic, not human. So it's allowed to be my friend, but it's not allowed to do anything against Voldemort." He smirked briefly. "Nothing direct, anyway."

He gave her all his secrets except for himself, his eyes giving away nothing, his face neutral, his voice calm.

And then he looked at her, not judging, not demanding, just curious. "Will you tell Dumbledore?" Nothing about him told her whether he approved or disapproved of the idea.

"I should," she said softly, still overawed by this stranger who wore a familiar face. "He needs to know."

"But?" he pressed gently.

"But you don't want him to know, or you would have told him."

He smiled. "Do you trust him?"

"Of cour-" But she stopped. She didn't, did she? That was why she had been walking the castle, longing to get away. "Once," she said quietly, "I trusted him without reservation."

"But not anymore." It wasn't a question. "What happened to him? He inspires loyalty, I've seen it. But I no longer understand why; he plays us as puppets, nothing more."

She thought about it: that was the question that had been eluding her, the question she had been struggling to find so that she could answer it. "A brief history lesson, Mr Potter," she said with dry humour. "Many years ago, Albus defeated Grindelwald, the greatest Dark Wizard in a very long time. This made him a hero and he deserved to be a hero, for he was strong and brave and ready to help. He was the one people asked for aid, the person who was expected to fix everything. And he did it, without asking anything in return. You're right, he inspired loyalty, simply by being who he was. I was an auror, I loved my job. But he asked me to become a teacher, and even though I had no experience and no real affection for children, I came. You must understand, that was the kind of loyalty he inspired. People would have fought for the privilege to die for him."

"I would have been one of them once," Potter said softly.

"I have worked beside him for many years; we were best friends. In fact, I was in love with him." She had never told anyone that before, but Potter didn't judge or pity, just looked at her quietly. "How could I not be? He was without a doubt the greatest wizard, the greatest person I had even known. But... I think he has spent too long solving other people's problems for them. He has forgotten how to sit back and let them handle their own lives. And then Tom Riddle returned in his new form, and by the time you defeated him Albus had changed. He has forgotten that he needs to protect the hearts as well as the bodies. He sent you to the Dursleys despite my protests, because that would keep you alive. He had forgotten that there is more to life than simply being alive. Sometimes," she said sadly, "I think he has played too much chess. He has forgotten that we are people, not pieces, and we need more than just existence."

Potter nodded thoughtfully. "He still inspires loyalty in those who don't see so deep."

"Yes. It could be dangerous." She could never have dared to say those words to anyone else.

"I think..." He looked at her, considering, as if wondering whether she could be trusted with his true thoughts. His eyes were sharp, piercing, not muted by his glasses; it was a look that seemed to take in her very soul. Albus could look at a person like that, but Albus had never made her feel this naked and vulnerable, and at the same time so safe. "I wonder sometimes if maybe it isn't only Riddle I'm supposed to defeat. But I can't be the hero, I can't save everyone. I'm not a hero. I'm just a boy who's never really fitted in anywhere and has friends no one else has." A breeze ruffled his hair despite the fact there was no breeze. "I don't want to solve everybody's problems, I think people should solve their own problems. Dudley would have been better off if he'd had to." He gave her a stern look, full of things she couldn't understand. "Don't expect me to save the world. I'll kill Riddle because no one else can, and then we'll see. But I'm not a hero, and I won't be Dumbledore's puppet."

She held his gaze and wondered what he wasn't saying. "If I had wanted to tell Albus, would you have Obliviated me?"

He shook his head immediately. "I would have run. By the time you reached his office I would have been far away from here. Dumbledore would never have found me."

"Why wouldn't you just take my memories?"

"They're not mine to take." His eyes were old, his voice was quiet and firm. Strength in weakness: he was strong enough to face the consequences and allow her to betray him.

She stared at him, and if she hadn't been so awed she would have laughed. He was only sixteen years old, yet she would fight for the privilege to die for him. "Will you let me help you?"

Had he always been like this? Had Potter always been this intelligent, this quick, this observant, this amazing? How had they missed that he had the potential to become this amazing adult?

He laughed as he dodged out of the way of Minerva's spell and sent back one of his own that she barely blocked. Two things seemed to make him particularly happy: flying and doing magic. Then a wandless Body Bind caught her unawares and she could fight no more, flat on her back. Potter's face appeared in her field of view, grinning broadly. Not at her, just for general happiness. The spell lifted, and he held out his hand to pull her to her feet. She took it, wondering if she wouldn't pull him over, he was so small and skinny, but he pulled her up easily. That wiry strength that threaded through his mind apparently extended to his body as well.

"That," he said with satisfaction, "was much better than fighting my mirror. Thank you."

Their first duel, and she had lost to a sixteen-year-old. But his pleasure was contagious, and she allowed herself to smile back. "You're welcome, Mr Potter."

"So what do you think?" he asked, suddenly nervous. It sat oddly on his now grown-up face. "Would you teach me?"

"It will be my pleasure," she said honestly. "But don't expect me to go easy on you." She was rewarded by his face lighting up. It reminded her of how Albus had once been, so grown-up and controlled but still a child at heart. She couldn't prevent her lips curling in a light smirk. "And the first thing I will teach you is how to dance."

"Dance?" She'd expected disgust - after all, he was still a teenage boy - but he just looked surprised and curious. "How will that help me fight Voldemort?"

Albus' tedious repetition was paying off: she didn't flinch. Potter gave her an approving look, and she felt almost ashamed at how much his approval warmed her even as her heart clenched at how this boy's life revolved around protecting himself from a Dark Lord.

"You took that much better than I expected, Mr Potter," she told him. "I still remember informing you about the Yule Ball in your fourth year-"

He laughed, not quite freely, not quite openly, but with genuine amusement. "I was very young, wasn't I?"

She wanted to retort that he was still very young, but his eyes were shadowed even in his amusement, and she couldn't say it because it wasn't true. "We were all young once, Mr Potter," she said, trying to regain some equilibrium. "When we were told in auror training that we would have to learn to dance, we all reacted with disbelief. You seem to be taking it very well."

He looked at her, lips curved in an easy smile that was as much a mask as "naive Harry". "I trust you, at least in this." The qualification hurt, but she accepted it. It would take more than a few days to earn the trust of this young man. "I assuming that there's a reason for dancing lessons?"

She nodded. "I'm not talking about a simple waltz, I'm talking about complicated dances that require a lot of swift and precise footwork."

"Ah," he said, green eyes glowing. "Practice at moving."

"Exactly. Dancing with another person also means that you grow accustomed to how they move, and learn how to read each other. If you're going to be fighting alongside one another that can have its uses."

"No." The flat pronouncement startled her. "You are not going to fight with me." It was an order, and she rebelled.

"You can't-"

"I will not let you get hurt. I appreciate the offer, really I do, but too many people have died already. This is my fight, and I won't let anyone else die because of me."

She wouldn't have taken it from anyone else, but from him, strong and young and determined and sad, she accepted it.

So Potter learned to dance, swift dances with flickering footwork. And they duelled, they talked, debated, argued, laughed. And as Albus drew further and further away from her, she grew closer to the stranger who lurked behind the face of one of her students. Minerva usually took care not to get close to her students. Once she had had no qualms about it, but then Voldemort had come and they had all died, and she had drawn away to protect herself. Hermione Granger had managed to break through to some extent, because she had reminded Minerva of herself and pleased her with her enthusiasm. But Hermione was growing up now, growing away, and they no longer interacted more than a normal student and teacher. Harry, though, was succeeding where even Hermione had failed.

And every time he cast the Cruciatus on himself, she winced.

"Must you do that?" she asked for what was probably the six hundredth time, entering his room. He smiled at her with genuine warmth, despite the fact he hadn't taken the curse off himself yet.

"I have to keep in practise," he said as though it were self-evident. She folded her arms, and he laughed, taking it off with the accompaniment of an unnecessary handwave. That was one of the things that amazed her, how he had come through so much and not grown bitter, how he remained so cheerful.

"Practise something else, please."

"Okay." And she knew that he agreed because it was her asking, and it warmed her. "Anything new for me to learn?"

She rolled her eyes, scarcely able to believe that the young man before her was the same person as the average student who had sat in her classes last year. "You can't have gotten that spell already," she complained, already thinking what to show him next.

"But it's not that hard." He looked apologetic. "And I did spend half the night practising."

"Oh."

"Yes."

Oh, Harry. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked, half hoping he didn't.

He smiled at her as though he knew what she was thinking, and leaned casually against the wall, showing no sign of the pain she knew he was feeling. "What's there to say? Voldemort did some horrible things, as he always does." His voice didn't falter. She didn't ask for details, and he offered none. "He still doesn't know that I can use the link, and I-" His face hardened. "I think I helped them, just a little."

"How many?" A whisper, not really wanting to know but needing to.

"Three. A man and his son and daughter. He's searching for something, though I don't know what Muggles could possibly possess that he would be searching for." Three more deaths, three more deaths that Harry had watched.

"Why do you do it, Harry? You can block the visions, you don't have to watch them..." But her voice trailed off, because she knew the answer; she knew it had been a foolish thing to say, because he was Harry and maybe she didn't know him (no one knew him), but she knew him enough.

He answered anyway; maybe, she thought, he needed to hear the words again. Or maybe she needed to hear them - he had an uncanny ability to know what people needed. "They are dying because I cannot save them. The least I can do is watch over them, hold their hands, ease their passing." His eyes blazed suddenly. "I have to remember that I am fighting for people. I'm not fighting for a world, or for an ideal, but for people. I'm not going to turn into Him. I'm not going to forget that there are people dying."

She wanted to reassure him, to tell him that he would never turn into Albus, but she had never imagined Albus would become what he had. "I wish I could help you," she said softly.

He smiled at her, a real smile, tinged with pain and anger and fear. A real smile. "But don't you know? You do."

And in that moment, she loved him.

They continued on, in the eyes of others no more than a student and a teacher. No one else noticed that they disappeared at the same times, no one else knew that they were friends, that they swapped the roles of student and teacher at whim, that her best friend was now a boy with messy hair and his best friends were a force of nature, a castle, and a stern teacher. He was still close to his peers, to the friends who had stood by him all these years, but he couldn't relate to them in the ways he needed to. He didn't want to taint them, he told her, didn't want to take their innocence. But since he couldn't protect her as he could them (too tainted, too uninnocent herself), he allowed himself to befriend her. She was more grateful for that gift than any other she had ever received.

There was no interaction outside of Harry's room. Harry wasn't the only one who could wear a mask that covered completely - Albus, for all his Legilimency, hadn't yet discovered her disillusionment - and so there were no secret looks, no covert messages, no private smiles, nothing that could provide a clue to anyone.

And while she grieved over the losses Voldemort was inflicting and the pain it caused a boy who never complained, she was glad to have this time with him, this time to learn about a remarkable person who had no idea how remarkable he was.

"You could ask Severus for help," she suggested ruefully as they looked at the bubbling cauldron and wondered why the potion was light blue instead of navy.

"No," Harry said, frowning at the mixture. "Not yet." He picked up the book and looked over the instructions again. He was stretching Minerva's potions skills; she'd done Potions up to seventh year, but it had never been her best subject and she'd used it as little as possible since.

"Why not?" she asked absently, reaching out and stirring the potion clockwise. It didn't help.

"He's too bound to Him," Harry said, running his finger down the page. His frown deepened, but his eyes were hooded. "Since He saved him, Snape's got a blind spot for Him. He'll see past his gratitude eventually." He closed the book with a snap. "I feel sorry for him."

"Severus?" She'd never imagined hearing that from a student.

Harry met her eyes, though she could read nothing from him. It should have been disturbing to see such control on someone she knew to be sixteen, but he looked older without his "naive Harry" mask. "He's stuck in the past, nursing old wounds, feeling guilty for old mistakes, trying to atone for old sins. He's not really in the present at all." He stared into the botched potion. "I wish I could help him." Then with a wave of his hand the potion was gone. "Can we duel?"

And they did.

Minerva was amazed by this new Harry, not so much his new skills (which admittedly were amazing), but who he was. He'd confessed that Hermione had accused him of having a "saving-people thing", but it was even more than that now. He was so desperate to help people, even the teacher who had done nothing but deride him since his first day at Hogwarts, simply because he could. Within him was a confidence in himself and his abilities that had never been there before, and yet at the same time he had no confidence - he couldn't understand why people loved him. But they did. She watched him, and even though they didn't know the real Harry, the people around him loved him; you couldn't know him, even the masked him, and not feel the brilliant, kind strength that ran through him and love him for it. Through the stories he told her she knew that the magic and the castle loved him too. She loved him, not in love with him, or as a son, just loved him because he was Harry and she couldn't not love him. He was so strong and fragile and alive and determined not to fail, for the sake of those who needed him.

He was a leader, like Albus. But where Albus cajoled and manipulated, Harry simply asked. And though he would willingly accept no for an answer and not ask again, Minerva didn't think there were many who would say no. Not to this boy-who-was-not-a-boy, with his piercing eyes and infinite compassion, who gave everything and asked nothing in return.

She won this duel, though she didn't know if she would be able to continue her sporadic wins much longer. While she was no slouch, he was born to duel. Panting and sweating, they collapsed into chairs at one of the tables. Minerva rested her head on her arms, while Harry, with that wonderful resilience of youth, was already regaining his stamina. She looked up at him as her breathing slowed, to see him watching her thoughtfully.

"Magdalen is in the hospital wing," he said.

She closed her eyes, remembering the girl's white face and laboured breathing and wishing she didn't. "Yes."

"They say it's a flu."

"Yes."

"It was another attack, wasn't it?"

She forced herself to open her eyes and meet his gaze. "Yes. Her life-force was drained too. No one's died yet, but it's only a matter of time. And I'm positive Albus knows who it is, but is holding back for some reason."

"Wheels within wheels," Harry said in disgust.

And meanwhile her students were hurting. She closed her eyes again and forced herself not to let her tears fall. Too far. Albus had gone too far.

"We'll stop them," Harry said quietly, laying a hand on her arm. "If only I could find them. They only attack in crowds, and the castle can't see who it is and the magic isn't allowed to help here any more than against Voldemort."

She opened her eyes and sat up, knowing Harry blamed himself. Putting her hand on his, she forced all of the conviction she held for him into her voice. "You'll stop them, Harry. None of this is your fault. You'll stop them."

"Thank you." He smiled at her. "I'm glad you're my friend."

Yes, she loved him.

She was walking down a corridor when the as yet unfound drainer attacked her. Her knees collapsed beneath her as the vicious, surreptitious spell slammed through her system, burning up her life-force and driving her towards death. Suddenly there were startled green eyes above her, and through the pain she applauded Harry on his mask, it really was quite good. And then his hand was in hers, helping her to her feet as the spell was ruthlessly exterminated and energy shoved into her. "Sorry, Professor!" he said hastily, but she could feel his fury. "I didn't mean to trip you up!"

"Quite all right, Mr Potter," she said, brushing off her robes. "Just watch where you're going, please."

"Yes, Professor!" he said earnestly, and hurried off with his friends.

She scolded Harry for the energy transfer - transferences of life-forces weren't things to be taken lightly - but he only looked at her, lean and intent, and said quietly, "I know how to kill Voldemort."

(To be concluded)