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This chapter is Not Very Nice. None of the chapters until 7 are, really.

Chapter Four: The Potter Alliance

Harry blinked, then blinked again. Somehow, of all the arguments he'd envisioned having with Narcissa Malfoy, this hadn't ever been one of them.

"But I could Floo over," he said, trying his most charming smile. Narcissa just gave him that long, slow look that told Harry she managed to see through most of his deceptions, and put down the scroll she'd held on the table. Harry's eyes darted to it, and then away again when he recognized Snape's handwriting. He did not ever want to know what Snape had written on those scrolls. Just looking at them, being reminded they existed, brought back the sting of betrayal more keenly than ever.

"The Weasleys have likely closed off access to their Floo Network except for utmost necessities," said Narcissa. "It is not inconceivable that your brother as well as you could be in danger from Voldemort, Harry, and they would know that."

"But the Burrow's protected by wards," Harry said. He knew that; Connor had reassured him of it when he said he was staying with the Weasleys for the summer. "We're not going to be in danger. I could send them an owl, and ask them to open their Floo at eleven or so, and I could go."

Narcissa shook her head, making her unbound hair ripple over her shoulders. "That's true. We could do that. Where is my mind today?" she murmured, massaging her forehead. Harry ventured no joke, because he was afraid of the answer. "However, I will still make sure the Aurors know where you are, Harry, and when you are likely to leave the Burrow, even if you will not permit them to actually escort you there. That way, you will have extra protection while you're outside the wards of Malfoy Manor."

Harry shook his head. "With all respect, Mrs. Malfoy—"

"Please, Harry. Call me Narcissa."

Harry nodded uncertainly. "All right, Narcissa," he said. "Will all respect, I don't see why the Aurors would be interested. They've got other things to do."

A strange expression crossed Narcissa's face. Harry regarded it suspiciously. He'd managed to survive the few days he'd been at the Manor by using his familiarity with Lucius and Narcissa's expressions and movements to guide him in what he should say and do. Draco was the only person he didn't have to do that with, which made him more relaxing to be around. Now Harry wondered if he hadn't spent too much time relaxing. Not knowing what Narcissa would do next left him feeling as if his stomach was disintegrating.

"The Aurors are part of the case against your parents, Harry," said Narcissa quietly. "They are watching the Manor in rotating pairs, and they asked to be informed if you went anywhere else. They want to protect you against people who might throw themselves at you, either in accusation or in misguided sympathy. I think my niece and Auror Mallory are on duty now. They've both been here far more often than any of the others."

Harry felt himself fighting the urge to squirm. He fought it off successfully. "All right, then," he said. "I'll send the Weasleys an owl, and ask them to open their Floo at eleven. I'll come back at three. Is that acceptable, Mrs. Malfoy?"

"It's acceptable," Narcissa murmured, and this time the expression was familiar—a sad one—but Harry could see no reason for her to be wearing it. He shied away when she reached out towards him. Narcissa sighed and placed her hand gently back in her lap. "Very well, Harry. Let me fetch you parchment and ink."

"I can get it myself. Thank you, Mrs. Malfoy." Harry smiled gratefully at her and went back to his room. He had two letters to write, two for Hedwig to deliver, and he would rather not have anyone know that he was sending the second one.

Harry stepped uncertainly out of the Burrow's fireplace. He wasn't sure what to expect, but it wasn't for his first sight of the house to be Molly Weasley's shoulders as she grabbed him and hugged him firmly.

"Oh, Harry," she said, as she held him. Harry just barely managed not to kick and struggle and get away. Lately, most embraces did that to him, causing a rushing feeling of disorientation and panic. "Oh, we were so sorry to hear what happened. I still can't believe that Albus…that Lily…I knew her in the Order, and she was so different…oh, Harry!"

And so on, until finally, when Harry thought an acceptable amount of time had passed, he pushed back a bit, and Molly let him go, tears streaming down her face as she sniffled. She leaned past him to close down access to the Floo, giving Harry a moment to both steady himself and survey the kitchen of the Burrow.

The cheerful sounds of the Wizarding Wireless Network slid across the kitchen, though at the angle he stood, Harry couldn't see where they were coming from. Most of the room was taken up by a scrubbed table, with chairs shoved close around it. None of the people sitting there were talking now, instead turned towards him, with their expressions caught somewhere between solemn and hesitant, as if they didn't know what they should say to him, but knew it had to be something grand. Ginny was gnawing her lip, the twins were staring steadily at Harry, and an older Weasley brother, with slightly longer hair than normal and a fang dangling from one ear, was sipping at his tea in deliberate swallows.

Molly broke the awkward moment by turning around again and sweeping Harry further into the room. "Well, you know Ginny, of course, Harry, and Fred and George. And this is my oldest son, Bill."

Harry nodded cautiously to him. Though he hadn't seen an updated list of Order of the Phoenix members in several years, he thought he remembered Lily mentioning that Bill Weasley was one. He wondered if Bill would be angry with him for getting Dumbledore sacked and imprisoned.

"Hello, Harry," said Bill. If he was angry, there was no way of telling it. He stood and extended a hand, which Harry took. He made no attempt to turn it into a hug, and for that, Harry was extremely grateful. "Heard about what happened to you. Awful," he said simply. Harry relaxed a little further.

The twins whispered to each other, then one of them said, "We'll go fetch ickle Ronnie and Connor. They didn't think—"

"That you'd be on time," finished the other, and they slipped out of the room.

Molly patted Harry's head a few more times and shed a few more tears, then ordered Harry to sit down at the table so she could prepare some tea for him. Harry sat down and tried not to watch her. Narcissa never did her own cooking, of course, with house elves to do it for her. But Lily always had.

"Harry?"

He glanced up and met Ginny's eyes. She had stopped gnawing her lip, and looked committed to whatever she was about to say. Harry braced himself. At least, once she had made an expression of sympathy or anger, it would be over, and then he wouldn't have to listen to it anymore.

"I'm glad you came," said Ginny quietly. "I think that Connor needed to see you, and you really look like you need to see him."

Harry nodded.

"And I'm not going to say anything about your parents," said Ginny. "They're your parents, not mine." She gave Harry a strained smile, then turned and followed the twins.

Molly had just plopped down a cup of tea in front of Harry, with an injunction to "Drink the whole thing, young man!" when Connor entered the room, with Ron a few paces behind him, at his right shoulder.

Harry hastily used his magic to levitate the teacup over and apparently hold it cradled in the glamour of his left hand. Connor was advancing with a fixed expression, and had seized his right hand tightly.

"Harry," he said.

Harry found his throat closed. If he hadn't wanted to talk to his brother so badly, he would have been prepared to dismiss this as a bad idea. As it was, he would just have to keep things going.

"Connor," he said, after a cough, and glanced at Ron. Ron just gave him a look that had too much understanding in it. Harry lowered his head. "Is there some place where we can talk in private?" he asked.

"Harry!" scolded Molly. "You haven't finished your tea yet."

Harry hunched his shoulders. He didn't like all this pressing closeness. He wanted to run from it, to go someplace where no one could see him and he could hide for a time. Draco had been letting him do that at Malfoy Manor lately. Harry did not know how he was going to get through four hours here.

Abruptly, Harry's cup wavered and lurched and spilled on the table. Bill put down his wand, looking extremely surprised.

"Well, that was clumsy of me," he said. "I was trying to bring the kettle to me, but I got Harry's cup instead." He winked at Harry as his mother went on a tirade that included the words "earring" and "no sense" and many another familiar topic about which she had apparently just been waiting to scold Bill. That gave Harry and Connor an opportunity to sneak out through the door. Ron remained behind, though Harry could feel his eyes every step of the way.

In the Weasleys' garden, the shimmer of isolation wards was visible, more than familiar to Harry from the long childhood spent in Godric's Hollow. Connor sighed and stuck his hands in his pockets, closing his eyes. As was usual with him over the holidays, he wore Muggle clothes, not robes.

"I love the Weasleys, but sometimes they get to be a little much," he said. "And you looked like you were about to vomit or something." He threw Harry a cautious look. "Are you going to start, or should I?"

Harry found that he had to start, because there was one question that he needed to ask above all others. "I can understand Mum, and even Dumbledore," he said. "But why did you show that letter from Dad to Snape?"

He had expected astonishment, or hurt, or perhaps some self-righteous tirade about how much James deserved it. He had not expected Connor swinging around and gripping his arms, staring hard into his eyes, nor for his anger to be a diamond-edged rage.

"Because I'm sick and tired of the way he wavers," Connor said, every word grinding out between his teeth. "He never makes up his mind permanently. Something always happens to change it. He was perfectly content to live with Lily until he found out about the abuse—"

"Connor, don't call it that—"

"I have a perfect right to call it whatever I want." Connor's chin lifted. "I was living in that house, too, and it happened to me, too."

Harry tugged fretfully against the hold his brother had on his arms. "But he was trying to reconcile with us."

"I haven't finished yet," said Connor. "Then he couldn't even make up his own mind, even when you used the justice ritual on Lily's magic, and he knew you'd used it. He had to go through the Maze to make his decision. And then his resolve to be a good father lasted—what? A month, I think."

"Longer than that—"

"You're forgetting that he never wrote to you while you were with Snape last summer." Connor lifted his head and tossed it like an impatient horse, making his fringe fly off his scar. "Because he was childish, and wanted you to write him first. And he just had to write insulting letters to Snape, didn't he? Now, I don't think Snape's an adult either, really, but James should have known better, if he really was the kind of man he said he was after the Maze. And he didn't. And he kept on not knowing better. He tried to take you away from Snape without even asking if you wanted to be taken away, and then repaid your healing him with filing charges against Snape."

"But that's one of the things that makes this so bad," said Harry, determined to get a word in edgewise. "That it was Snape who filed the charges, I mean. Dad thinks this is just some part of a great scheme against him, that Snape did it out of revenge."

"Well, yes, he would think that," said Connor dismissively. "Because he's a self-centered prat who never grew up."

Harry stared at his brother, well aware that his mouth was hanging slightly open. "But you love Dad," he said. "And you've never liked Snape."

Connor blinked a bit, then abruptly let him go and whirled away, kicking at the ground. He managed to get a gnome who was just peering out in the head, and it uttered a thin little scream and ducked away. Harry kept still, staring at his brother's back, knowing he had done something wrong, but not sure what.

"How dare you," said Connor evenly, looking over his shoulder, "think that I can't recognize right and wrong because of that."

"I never meant to suggest that!" Harry protested. All the words out of my mouth are wrong lately, unless I'm speaking them to Draco. I can't convince Snape to drop the charges, and I can't convince Scrimgeour to do it, either, and I couldn't convince Dad that I didn't intend for this to happen. "I only meant to say that I didn't know you'd do this. And he was getting better, Connor. He really was. Remember the way he was concerned for us at Easter? And you should see some of the letters that he wrote me after the Second Task in the Triwizard Tournament—"

"And then he turned against you again," said Connor, "when you went to the Ministry the night they were arrested."

"How did you know about that?" Harry asked.

"I'm keeping in contact with Scrimgeour and the Aurors," said Connor. "I'm interested in the progress of this trial, Harry, and I want to know everything I can about the procedures. You do realize that they'll want to interview us before the trial actually begins? A few times, probably. Child abuse cases are very delicate. They'll want to know what details we can speak about in public and which we absolutely can't. I think Madam Shiverwood of the Department of Magical Family and Child Services will probably do it herself. After all, this is the family of the Boy-Who-Lived. Very high profile."

Harry nodded slightly. "I guessed that." It was the reason he'd been reading the books about interrogation techniques he'd found at Malfoy Manor. He would know what Madam Shiverwood was looking for, what signs would convince her he'd taken trauma from the abuse, and he planned to not display them. He knew he couldn't stop the trial from occurring, and he couldn't change the fact that they knew about his training now, but he could soften the blow. There weren't many people who knew how he'd been affected by that training. The memories Snape had written down were only memories, and prejudiced by his perspective besides. If Harry could show he'd come out of those memories completely untraumatized, then he might encourage the Wizengamot and anyone who advised them, like Madam Shiverwood, to leniency.

He wouldn't let them make him into a victim. He wouldn't.

"Harry?"

Harry lifted his head and blinked. He hadn't realized he'd been standing in the middle of the Weasleys' garden staring at his feet. Nor had he realized that a beetle was zipping around his head, wings fanning his face purposefully, until he saw Connor's amused gaze. The isolation wards didn't keep animals out, Harry supposed, which was how his owl had been able to get through them.

As it happened, he'd sent a letter to Rita Skeeter asking her to come to the Burrow around noon in her Animagus form.

"Connor," he said softly, "I have to do something important. Will you please go inside and leave me out here?"

Connor narrowed his eyes. "Harry—"

"I promise it doesn't involve Apparating to the Ministry and trying to free Mum and Dad and Dumbledore," said Harry, with a smile that it hurt his face to give. "Nor does it involve hypnotizing myself to forget everything that happened in the past fourteen years. I know there are Aurors watching me, and I'm not going to try to get away from them. I just want to talk with someone. Please?"

Connor sighed, and nodded at him, and then gave him an abrupt hug that ended before Harry thought to pull away from it. "I wish you would accept more comfort than you let yourself," he said, giving Harry a sad look that Harry couldn't meet. "And, in fact, just to answer your question about James, yes, I do think he was trying to reconcile with us. But then he would have just turned away again the next moment some great pressure came and sat on him. He's not dependable, Harry, and he's a party to child abuse. That's more than enough to convict him."

Harry didn't respond, though the beetle let out a shrill, high-pitched buzz that Harry could almost imagine was prurient interest. Connor didn't seem to be waiting for an answer. He just nodded at Harry and walked towards the door of the Burrow, though he paused to add, "Don't be too long, Harry. Mrs. Weasley makes the most fantastic meals." He wore a dreamy expression as he shut the door behind him.

Harry immediately paced behind one of the thick old trees, so that Skeeter could change back without revealing she was an Animagus to do it. The reporter was walking beside him a moment later, patting at her thick blonde curls as if to make sure they hadn't managed to tear themselves free. Her acid-green quill and her notebook were already hovering beside her.

"You had a story for me?" she asked Harry, staring directly into his face. "I suppose that you want to give your personal perspective on the story your brother spread around?"

"In a way," said Harry, grateful again that he'd made Skeeter's acquaintance. "I do want to give you an interview, or an article if you think that would do more good than an interview, and have you print it."

Skeeter snorted and sat down on the tangled grass that covered the bank of a large pond. "Either would do plenty of good. Everyone's going mad over this story. Honeywhistle grabbed the front page from me today, but she's not going to do that all the time. I just have to get a unique angle or something no one else knows, and we're off to the races." She looked expectantly at Harry.

Harry nodded as he dropped down opposite her. "Then the interview. You ask me some questions, and I'll give you honest answers."

He could see Skeeter's nose twitching, like the nose of a rat who scented cheese, and suspected she wanted to know why he was doing this. But, in the end, reporter's curiosity proved too much. Besides, he could almost hear her thinking, it would get her the front page. Why should she care how she got it? Her newfound commitment to truth wouldn't have limited her ambition.

"All right, then. How do you feel about the abuse being front-page news?" Skeeter asked.

Harry concealed a flinch as best he could at this evidence that Skeeter, too, was misunderstanding the situation. But that was why he'd sent his letter to her. He wanted everyone to know the real truth, and this was his best chance to do it.

I wish you wouldn't do this, Regulus whispered in his head. He wasn't often there anymore, and he sounded exhausted when he was. He said that Harry's refusal to see the truth wearied him. You know she'll refuse to print it.

No, she won't, Harry thought at him, and told Skeeter, "It's horrible. I don't like the attention. And what makes it even worse is that everyone is misunderstanding the situation."

Skeeter's eyebrows shot up eagerly as her quill dashed across the paper. "What do you mean by that, Mr. Potter?" she asked, in a soothing, professional voice.

"I wasn't abused," said Harry.

Skeeter paused. Her quill stopped scribbling. She frowned at Harry as if he were an unknown species of beetle who'd flown up and tried to communicate with her while she was in her Animagus form. "Yes, you were," she said.

Merlin, not her, too. Harry kept his face still, though. Even if Skeeter privately believed something different, he knew that she could spin the truth. They'd done it successfully after Fudge had abducted him. "No, I really wasn't," he said. "Do you know what the purpose of my training was?"

"Is that what you call it?" The quill made a note, which caused Harry to relax. They were back on track now.

"Yes," said Harry, "because that's what it was. My brother is the Boy-Who-Lived, you know—of course you know that—and my parents were worried that Voldemort might come back and kill him. So they trained me to help protect him." He winced at this betrayal of one of his old vows, but that was, essentially, one that had got broken when he was still a student in first year. "I had powerful magic, and I wasn't the Boy-Who-Lived. I could help. So that was what the training was about, and of course it was strict. After all, how do you make a child understand that life and death are at stake if you aren't strict?"

Harry was proud of himself for that. He'd got to the end of the speech without his voice wavering or breaking. He sounded as if he were fondly amused with himself, rather like a parent. He looked up to meet Skeeter's eyes.

Skeeter hadn't written anything of his speech down. She sat back, with her arms folded, and she was glaring at him through her ridiculously large glasses.

"I'm not publishing that," she said.

Harry swallowed. "But it's the truth."

"It's how you see things," Skeeter corrected him. "I've heard and seen the most awful things about your past, Potter. You were abused. Even that article you gave me to blackmail your father with showed it. I didn't know anything for certain then, or I would have gone ahead and pushed and exposed it." For a moment, a dreamy expression covered her face. "That would be something, to have discovered it all by myself," she muttered, and then shook her head. "The thing is, I do have morals, even if you don't think I do. And I can recognize child abuse, because I've covered cases of it before. True, the parents are usually slapping the children around or raping them instead of—this. But this is still abuse, Potter."

"You said that you would print an interview with me." Harry clung to the slender threads of hope he'd first spun when he summoned Skeeter here. This was one of the few chances that he might have to influence the course of the trial in public. Most of the people around him would be howling for blood and refusing to acknowledge the nuances of the situation. Even Draco didn't agree with him about those nuances, though Harry only knew that from long, slow looks that reminded him of those long, slow looks of his mother's. "And that's what I really believe. I promise you."

"It's what you believe because your parents and your Headmaster trained you to believe it," said Skeeter, and now she was looking straight at him, and there was pity in her eyes.

"No, it's what I believe because that's who I am," Harry retorted, stung. Do they really think I'm no more than a mindless puppet of my parents? That rather diminishes the heroic light they want to cast me in. "And because I was the one who lived through it. I ought to know what I went through if anyone does."

"Abused children are often among the last to recognize their situation," said Skeeter, as if she were quoting a long-established truth. "I'm sorry, Potter. I'm not going to print what you just told me. The most I could do with it would be to print that you believed it, and no one else would believe it with you."

"My parents and the Headmaster must have allies—"

Skeeter snorted. "And do you think that they're getting an airing right now, Potter? Yes, there are some people who will testify on their behalf. But this is news. The respected Headmaster and Light Lord an abuser of children! James and Lily Potter, whom everyone was sure must have been model parents to have raised the Boy-Who-Lived and the Young Hero—"

"Merlin, I'm not—"

Skeeter ignored him. "And it turns out they've been savagely abusing their children all along. No." She stood. "I suppose that you might be able to change people's minds in a short time, but not now. And I'm not going to be the one to help you change them. Your parents and Dumbledore deserve everything they get."

"Skeeter—" Harry could not believe she was doing this. Yes, he could see her point about covering child abuse cases in the past, but he had been sure that once he explained this wasn't really a child abuse case, she would be amenable to doing as he asked. It would help her, too.

"No, Potter," she said. "Talk to someone else about this. I won't prevent that." She made a disgusted noise deep in her throat. "As if I could prevent Honeywhistle and the rest from rolling dung every chance they get, anyway," she said. "But I won't join them anymore. I made myself a promise about a year ago, and I've kept my word so far. I'm not going to either make you look more like a victim than you are or like less of one. I want to print the truth, Potter, and there's plenty of that still left." She nodded at him, and then faded into her beetle form and was gone.

Harry sat in silence, staring at his hands, both false and real. A rustle of wings obscured his vision a few minutes later—at least, he thought it was a few minutes later—and Regina, Narcissa's owl, landed beside him.

Harry unfolded her note with a feeling of dread, only accented by the sharp strokes with which Narcissa had written it.

Harry—

I did the best I could to keep them off until you were recovered, but seven of the wizards and witches from the alliance list I've created are here. They're willing to wait until you return, and only one of them, Henrietta Bulstrode, insists on meeting you outside a common introduction. But they're tired of excuses, and they're going to be looking for blood.

I'm sorry. I know this is very far from the best day.

Narcissa Malfoy.

Harry nodded to Regina, said, "No response," and watched as she climbed back into the air. He stared at the sun until his eyes watered and ran from that, and that only. Then he stood and walked back into the Burrow.

He would live. He would get through this. He would bear with the trial, and the Weasleys, and his new allies, and all that they could throw at him.

And if one tactic for convincing people of the truth failed, then he would just try another.

"Mr. Potter. I'm so happy to meet you. I've been waiting a long time."

Harry held his chin up as he extended his hand. He had got through lunch with the Weasleys, as well as an impromptu game of Quidditch and "invitations" from the twins to try out their latest jokes, on sheer willpower. At least, with this woman, he could use the formal pureblood dances to bolster him. "Merlin's smile on you, lady," he murmured. "I am sure I must have been waiting a long time to meet you as well, though I did not know it."

The woman walking across the anteroom to meet him buzzed like a swam of locusts, her magic lifting around her as she smiled. Harry would have known at once that she was trouble, even if her reputation hadn't preceded her. Her magic was either as strong as Auror Mallory's or not a good deal weaker. And she moved with the graceful, easy stride of a predator, fully in tune with her magic and confident of its possibilities.

Henrietta Bulstrode, Harry remembered as she took his wrist and he lifted her hand to his lips, was Adalrico's second cousin—and thus distant enough from his immediate family that the alliance Harry had made with Adalrico, Elfrida, Millicent, and Marian didn't affect her. She was an astoundingly forceful woman, and if she didn't get her will one way, she would another. She'd never been a Death Eater because she killed three of them when they tried to recruit her.

Harry could remember being told that, but not that Henrietta was beautiful, with dark red hair on the edge of black and brown eyes like severing curses, and obviously used to using the beauty to get her own way. Or that her gaze flickered across Harry's face and read several clues there that lit her expression with a fire Harry recognized. He'd last seen that flame burning behind Dumbledore's eyes. Henrietta Bulstrode was an emotional manipulator, and would try to use any knowledge he gave her as a weapon, to better secure her own position.

No wonder Narcissa, standing politely in the far corner of the room while Henrietta introduced herself, looked so strained.

And no wonder that Henrietta began at once. "I was so sorry to hear about your parents, Mr. Potter," she murmured. "That must have been hard, to have everyone finding out about the abuse all at once."

Harry tensed, and did not let her see it. This would be shattering. After he greeted Henrietta, he had to go into the room behind her and meet his other new allies, as well as Hawthorn Parkinson, Adalrico and his family, and Arabella Zabini.

You'll survive. It's what you do best.

"The hardest thing was the betrayal," he said. "To have my guardian give them up. I don't like traitors much."

Henrietta gave a quiver like a hunting hound straining against a leash, obviously eager for this dance to begin. "I should hope that you would never have to fear them again, Mr. Potter," she said, as he let go of her hand.

Unless you're weak enough to deserve to fear them.

Harry could hear the words, and knew she knew that, and suppressed the urge to run away somewhere and hide his head in the sand. He wanted to curl up in Draco's arms and sleep for a week. He wanted to cry. He wanted to just let the gathered pieces of himself collapse to the ground and wake up from this living nightmare.

But that was not going to happen. So he twisted his mind to meet the brutal dance that was upcoming.

"I do not fear traitors," he said, giving the verb a light garnishing of emphasis that Henrietta would pick up. "Shall we meet the others, Mrs. Bulstrode?"

"In the Potter Alliance, you mean?" Henrietta had a small smile on her face. "Of course. Lead the way, Mr. Potter." She could inflect her own verbs ironically, too, Harry thought.

He nodded to her, and went towards the sitting room where his allies awaited him, prepared to dance among knives.