Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter!

This chapter ends with a plot twist. Stupid plot twists.

Chapter Eighteen: Hogwarts Again

Harry could feel his face turning red. He stepped back behind the corner of the hallway and blinked at nothingness.

Well. Of all the ways he had expected to come upon his brother, that hadn't been one of them.

He and Draco had arranged to come through one of the Malfoy fireplaces into the Headmistress's office. Harry had thought, probably with too much innocence, that they would be riding the Hogwarts Express to school. But Draco had given him a patient look, and Narcissa had explained that going to London just to ride the train was too dangerous for Harry, that of course it was much better to have him go into the school this way, where he could be protected. Lucius had said nothing at all. The expression, or rather non-expression, on his face proclaimed too clearly that Harry should have known better.

Harry had the feeling that he wouldn't be bored with the Malfoys, whatever else he might feel while he was with them. They simply changed too often to keep him other than occupied.

McGonagall had told him, smiling when he asked, that yes, Connor was already here. He'd been taken shopping in Diagon Alley yesterday under a glamour, and then come through a fireplace from his hiding spot, escorted by a veritable army of Weasleys. He'd met Remus already, and seemed happy enough about it. No, she didn't know where he was now, only that he'd taken his things up to Gryffindor Tower. Harry should seek him there, but hurry, because they really didn't have that much time before the Sorting Feast began.

Harry had asked Draco, with a smile that he knew usually made Draco do things for him, to take his things down to the dungeons. Draco had agreed before he realized what he was doing. Then he glared, but Harry was gone, hurrying towards the Tower. He didn't know the password, but he didn't have to. He'd wait outside the Fat Lady's portrait for Connor to come out if he had to, and knowing what she was like, he might even be able to charm her into letting him in.

Instead, he'd found Connor already outside the Tower, waiting in the corridor.

Well. Not waiting so much as snogging Parvati Patil.

Harry waited until he thought the wet sounds had stopped, and then casually put his head around the corner again. Connor was standing with his hands on Parvati's shoulders and his forehead resting against hers; at least Parvati was shorter than both of them, to Harry's intense delight. He whispered something to her. Parvati said something back, which, miraculously, did not seem to end in a giggle.

Harry decided that he could show himself now. He coughed and stepped into plain sight.

Connor jumped, and then he smiled, even as he flushed bright red. Parvati only laughed at the sight of Connor's face, at least until she turned around and saw who it was. Harry noticed that her eyes narrowed immediately and she turned on her heel, walking towards the portrait with a sharp shake of her head.

His brother hurried towards him, and Harry decided that questions could wait. Connor hugged him, and Harry hugged him back, hard. They hadn't parted under the best of circumstances last time. Letters were no substitute for the apologies that Harry wanted to make.

"Connor," he murmured. "I know I already wrote this, but I was wrong to say the things that I did to you at the Weasleys'." He pulled back, studying Connor's hazel eyes and wondering if he was forgiven.

Connor just rolled his eyes indulgently. "Of course you were wrong, Harry. You were so ridiculous that it was easy to forgive you. At least, well, it was once I got over being angry at you for doing something else stupid. Only you would go home and try to rebuild yourself entirely."

Harry sighed, and some part of him relaxed for the first time since the battle with Voldemort. He felt able to nod after Parvati now. "What is she doing here already?" he asked. "I thought she was going to ride the Hogwarts Express?"

Connor laughed. "She was, but she got her parents to fly her down on their brooms instead. She knew that I was going to be here early, and she wanted to see me." He lowered his head, and the flush grew fiercer. "She wasn't, ah, very happy that I couldn't see her all summer."

"I think I missed something," said Harry. He paused as Argutus wriggled out on his shoulder, but Connor just nodded at the Omen snake; thanks to the letters Harry had written him, he needed no introduction. Harry cocked his head at his brother. "I had no idea that you, well, fancied her that much. I thought you went with her to the Yule Ball and snogged her a few other times, and that was all."

"Um."

Harry wasn't about to let this go. It was the first time in months he'd had some sort of advantage over his brother, moral or otherwise, and he pressed down. "Perhaps there was some more snogging that I missed, then. Or even more than that. Perhaps there was a romantic proposal of marriage?"

"Shut up," Connor informed him. "No, there wasn't. I fancy her, sure, Harry, but I'm not going that far yet."

Harry just nodded, and tried to think up another good dig. Before he could, Connor added, "Besides which, I don't think that you have much room to talk. You might not want to write about it, but I knew that Malfoy fancied you last year before you did, and I didn't think he'd let it go. How has that been going, Harry?"

"I think the Feast is starting," said Harry, and walked away while he still had some dignity intact.

He hadn't realized it would be so hard.

Oh, yes, there were the newspaper articles, and there had been that embarrassing scene with so many people coming up to him in Diagon Alley. But since the start of summer—no, before that, since he had come back from the graveyard—Harry had only been around people who had done as much as they could to avoid staring at him, even when they pushed him to face harsh truths. He had forgotten that most of the students and professors in the Great Hall would have been devouring the news of the child abuse charges for two months now, that, to some of them, he was the main reason that Headmaster Dumbledore was now in prison.

He had even managed to forget that most of them still thought he had a left hand.

Heads turned to orient on him as he hurried in through the doors of the Great Hall and over to the Slytherin table, only a short distance behind the returning students from his House. Harry met pair after pair of eyes, and saw intense wonder, or intense pity, or, sometimes, disgust—usually on the faces of children from Light pureblood wizarding families. They had been Dumbledore's allies, he knew, and they had grown up revering him. Child abuse charges were horrific things, but they were also more distant to children than to parents. Some of them would understand only that the Headmaster, a hero of their youth, was gone.

Harry shook his head as he slid into his seat next to Draco. It's like Parvati's reaction. I suppose that she's upset and thinks I kept her from seeing Connor, but really, why did she have to glare and stamp off? And why are so many people looking at me that way? Surely they have lives. Things to do that don't involve me.

The Sorting began, amid extremes of emotion greater than usual. Each House clapped frantically when a new student joined it—except Slytherin, who, Harry thought as he imitated them, seemed to have decided on decorum by silent unanimous vote even before he arrived—as if they wanted to emphasize that they still existed in the midst of war. In between the time when one House name and another was called, though, people went on staring at and buzzing about Harry.

Harry tried to ignore the sensation of ants crawling on his skin, and slapped his hand politely on the table for each new Slytherin—three new girls and two new boys, so far. He wished they were allowed to eat before the Sorting ended. He would have had something to occupy him, and let him pretend as if those eyes didn't exist.

Especially the eyes from one particular direction. He knew McGonagall and Remus were only watching him with concern, but that made no difference to his hatred of attention.

And if Snape would look at someone else this century, Harry would be glad to be civil to him for the rest of the year.

The last first-year, Muggleborn Joshua Zinosi, went to Hufflepuff, and the applause died. Gratefully, Harry watched as Hagrid came forward and took the stool and the Sorting Hat away, and eyes turned to McGonagall as she rose to her feet.

This was her first speech as Headmistress, Harry realized with a start. Of course people would be looking to her, wondering what she would say. He wondered if she was as nervous as he would be in that situation.

Probably not, he had to think. Why the hell would she be nervous? She's been preparing for this all summer. She plans her lessons down to the minute. I'd think she'd do rather well with a speech.

But maybe not, Harry had to concede, as he caught just the faintest signs of strain on McGonagall's face. After all, she did have to follow a revered Headmaster, and she would be struggling to pull both Hogwarts and Gryffindor House out of the shame of ignominy. Harry winced at the thought of how hard it must have been for her to come to terms with knowing that a leader and friend and someone who shared her House had done all this. He wondered if there was some way he could help her.

"Students," said McGonagall then, her voice stern and loud. Harry didn't think she was using a Sonorus charm, but she calmed all traces of conversation in the Great Hall anyway. What Dumbledore did with reputation and majesty and perhaps just the slightest hint of compulsion, the Headmistress did with sheer unflinching reluctance to back down. Harry saw her eyes get fiercer and fiercer as they studied each House table. "Welcome back to another year at Hogwarts. As most of you know, I am now Headmistress of the school, following the disgrace and imprisonment of Albus Dumbledore."

There was some mumbling at that. Of course there would be. Harry caught a glimpse of movement at the Hufflepuff table, and glanced over to see Hannah Abbott and a few of the other Muggleborn students debating intensely with the pureblood Ernie Macmillan. Zacharias Smith was listening to them, looking bored. As if feeling Harry's eyes, he looked up and nodded once. Harry nodded back. However pompous his means of expressing it, Zacharias's offer of alliance was not one to be turned down. Harry had written back taking him up on it, and they'd exchanged a few other stiff letters over the summer.

"I promise," said McGonagall, "that Hogwarts will never again become a place where anyone tolerates child abuse, or the consequences of it."

A few people gasped. Harry himself started back on the bench, and felt Draco put a comforting hand on his shoulder and squeeze. Millicent, who sat on his other side, whispered, "Didn't know she was going to do that, either, Harry, but it'll be all right. We won't let you down."

Harry nodded his thanks, and kept his gaze fixed on McGonagall.

"I will pull Gryffindor House out of its shame," said McGonagall. "I will pull the school and all the Houses out of the muck and mire they have been splashing themselves in, and insure that we are ready to meet this war. From now on, rather than having them with only one other House, your classes will be mixed, including students from all four, though there will be still be two groups for each year." She completely ignored the rising tide of outright suspicion and panic at that. "As well, since I am now Headmistress, I will be fulfilling my duties as Transfiguration teacher with the help of several of my NEWT students. And Remus Lupin, a Gryffindor himself, has returned to take my place as Head of Gryffindor House, so that I do not neglect any of my responsibilities."

Remus rose to his feet with a small smile and nod to most of the students. Harry saw gaping mouths and stares from most of them in return. He winced, and wondered how many letters the Ministry or the newspapers or their parents would receive in the next week.

Well, it's as it must be. The Headmistress did say that she was ready to face this, or she would never have hired Remus to come here in the first place. And since she's not providing him with money, they can't legally complain.

"We have a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor as well," McGonagall was saying, as Remus sat back down. "Her name is Acies Merryweather, and she should be—"

A loud song burst from the door of the Great Hall at that moment. Harry turned his eyes in that direction, and found himself staring. Acies was standing there, but she looked as different as possible from the cloaked figure he had briefly met in McGonagall's office, whose hair and eyes, if one looked closely enough, proclaimed her resemblance to Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange.

She wore no cloak at all, and flowing light green robes that were only an inch or two from a gown. Her hair was still black, but her eyes large and a blue so clear that Harry could see them from here, the color of lightning. She had a white bird of some kind on her hand. Harry thought it looked like a dove, but no dove sang that loudly, or that sweetly.

Acies lifted her hand, and let the dove soar towards the ceiling. Then she walked up the middle of the Great Hall towards the head table, as if she were unconscious of all the stares on her. Harry wondered how she could do that, and if she would manage to teach him to do it.

"Thank you, Headmistress," she said, when she reached the head table and could sink into a graceful curtsey, with her robes puddling around her. "That is quite a welcome, and more than I should think I would have, coming back to Hogwarts." Her voice had the same loud sweetness as the dove's cry. Without looking anyone in the eye for long, without saying it, Harry thought, she was proclaiming that she was a Light witch with every move she made.

He shook his head in amusement. If anything, parents would be writing to express their approval of McGonagall making sure she had hired a pureblood woman from a good family right after they'd had a traitor, a fool, a werewolf, and two Death Eaters in the position.

"You are quite welcome, Professor Merryweather." McGonagall herself appeared caught between pleasure in the deceit and disgust that it was necessary. "Please sit down, and then the Feast can begin."

There was a loud cheer from several of the students at that. Acies rose and took her seat. Harry rolled his eyes when he noticed that some of the students continued staring at her and dug into the food that appeared in front of him. Really, they would get to see her most of the weeks between now and June. What was the point of looking at her when there was something to eat?

"Guess what, Potter." Millicent elbowed him in the ribs, making him grunt.

"What?" Harry took a moment to recover his breath. Millicent, he was annoyed to see, was still taller than he was, and having her elbow him was no small matter.

"I've been made Prefect." Millicent showed off the badge clinging to her robe with undeniable smugness.

"So have I," said Blaise Zabini, leaning around her to show off his own. "And I notice that among the three boys left in our year, Professor Snape chose neither his ward nor his ward's boyfriend." He clucked his tongue. "I suppose that just proves that Professor Snape can recognize talent when he sees it."

"Careful, Blaise," said Harry, turning back to his plate. "You're going to stink like Snape's shit if you go on kissing his arse like that."

Millicent let out a shocked laugh, half-gasp and half-snicker. Blaise turned the color of tomatoes, but couldn't seem to get his breath back for a moment, and then couldn't think of a reply when he did. Harry raised his eyebrows in response to the older students smirking at him, and went on eating.

Draco's hand on his shoulder made him look to the side. Draco leaned close enough that someone else would probably think that he was kissing Harry. Harry tensed, then let himself remember it was all right if other people thought that.

"You would never make a crack like that about Snape ordinarily," Draco whispered. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine where he's concerned," said Harry. "The Headmistress said that I had to be, so I am. I've put my emotions in the Occlumency pools. Doesn't mean I can't crack a joke when Blaise's being obnoxious, does it?"

Draco winced. "Harry," he said. "My empathy is declining, but I felt as if I were standing in the middle of a snowstorm when you said that. If that's putting your anger into the Occlumency pools, I'd hate to see what it was like before you did that."

Shit, he's right. Harry concentrated as hard as he could, stamping down on his emotions and drowning them in quicksilver. It didn't quite work. There was still the anger, and the confusion over the fact that Snape wasn't glaring at him. If he would just show anger and hurt in return, this would be so much easier.

And there was the growing, nagging consciousness that he wanted to forgive Snape, or at least have a private shouting session with his guardian, in which he made Snape understand, from beginning to end, exactly why Harry was so furious and why nothing like that would ever, ever happen again.

But that was impossible. Harry was aware of what he would admit, if he went through that shouting session and that forgiveness. He would be saying, at some level, that what Snape had done was the right thing to do, and that he accepted Snape's authority over him as a guardian.

And, well, it hadn't been right, and he didn't accept that Snape had any authority over him. Not now. Not ever again. He would keep the promises he made to adults, he would listen to their suggestions when they were good ones, and he would ask them for help.

But, he had decided after long consideration in the last days of the summer, he would not take any adult as a parent. It only resulted in bad things happening. He had no idea how to be a son. They either tried to control him when they thought of themselves as parents, or thought they had to look out for him by hurting other people. And until he figured out how to manage a new relationship with Snape that would tell the man in no uncertain terms that Harry wouldn't accept his authority as guardian back, then he would have to maintain the coldly polite, calm, rational manner that the Headmistress had asked as his least effort.

Like that, he got through dinner, and was just standing up to leave when Zacharias Smith came up to the Slytherin table and nodded at him. Harry had been vaguely aware that he'd gone to the Gryffindor table and talked with Hermione, who now stood beside Zacharias. She looked half-exasperated, half-fond. Harry imagined that he often wore the same expression when he was with Draco, such as when he and Narcissa arrived back from Hogwarts the other day to find Draco trapped and sheepish in his rune circle.

"Harry," said Zacharias.

"Zacharias," said Harry back, feeling a bit stupid, and hating that eyes were focused on him once more. Look, stare when I get on a broom and fly at dragons if you like, but this is just two friends talking. Odd as it might seem to you, I am not extraordinary all the fucking time. Go away. Stop looking at me.

"I wanted to ask you if you would train us in serious dueling this year," said Zacharias. "The history has been useful, particularly for Hermione here—"

"Who managed to stump you with a list of pureblood rituals that you didn't know?" Hermione said, not quite low enough to escape Harry's notice. Several of the Slytherins chuckled. Zacharias flushed, but continued on after just a small pause.

"And the other small spells served their purpose, too. But I'm talking about major dueling." He leaned forward and held Harry's eyes. "Offensive spells. The kind that Voldemort—"

This time, Hermione did look at him in admiration, and the attention of the Slytherins had become as intense as focused sunlight. Harry lifted his head and continued listening.

"—and his Death Eaters use," Zacharias went on. He seemed to swell and gain under the attention, rather than look ridiculous from or despise it. "This is war, after all. I want to live through it."

Harry felt some of the attention turn and reorient on him in a new way. Though he had never spoken openly with anyone but his yearmates about it, Harry knew that some of the people he shared a House with had Death Eater ties. The same thing would be true in other Houses, but a deeper secret. Crabbe and Goyle were gone, and their absences were as clear as an open wound. Others would follow, and the majority would come from Slytherin. Some of them were almost challenging him to make an open declaration of his allegiance now.

The only puzzle to Harry was why they might think that he feared to declare his allegiance.

"So do I," he said quietly. "And I would welcome people I could trust fighting at my back, though I hope the War ends and the bastard dies before it comes to that. Of course, Zacharias. Now that I know these lessons are something people want, I'll both continue and step them up."

Zacharias inclined his head. The motion was grave, and in some ways extremely condescending, but Harry could see the grandeur in it, the kind of emotion that would have made Light pureblood wizards look imposing when they performed it.

"Good, Harry," he said. "Or should I say Mr. Potter, my ally?" He lifted his eyebrows and looked around the Great Hall, raising his voice as he said that part, and Harry had no doubt that the announcement of their alliance was one of the reasons he had asked Harry about their little dueling club in public.

That brought more focused attention than ever, but Harry just shook his head and turned for the dungeons. There was at least one more confrontation waiting for him there, one person who had been conspicuously absent from dinner.

Someone bumped into him as he was leaving the Hall. Harry felt Draco's shoulder catch him, and he nodded his thanks before he turned and confronted the person who had jostled him.

"Watch where you're going, Potter," Montague said, curling his lip at Harry. His face was hard, and he certainly seemed to be paying more attention to Harry than he ever had. "We wouldn't want you to trip and break your little neck."

Harry narrowed his eyes. Montague's antagonism had at least a few probable causes. Of course, he could be getting ready to become a Death Eater himself, but he had also shown some interest, last year, in a person Harry had deeply hurt.

He chose the obvious route first. "Want to show me your left arm, Montague?" he asked, pitching his voice low enough not to carry.

Montague jerked as if stung, and then leaned nearer, every sense obviously on high alert. "You just keep telling yourself that you'll survive this war, Potter," he breathed, and hurried off.

Harry calmly watched him go. Nothing had been proven, after all, and it would be stupid of Voldemort to mark students still in Hogwarts as Death Eaters, especially Quidditch players, who would spend time changing into and out of their clothing in front of other people. He put Montague into the Unknown, possibly a threat category in his mind, and walked in the direction of the dungeons.

Draco walked at his side. He kept shaking his head. Harry finally glanced at him. "What?"

"I don't know how you can just shrug that off," Draco muttered. "He practically threatened you, and you threatened him back."

Only then did Harry realize that, for all his joking tone, Draco's lips were pale, and his teeth caused a faint but audible grinding when he pushed them together. Harry reached out to gently grip his hand. That would get more stares. He didn't care. Reassuring Draco was more important.

"Draco," he said quietly. "I've trained all my life to survive situations exactly like this. Evaluating people who might be either threats or allies is as easy as breathing, and so is retorting when they issue vague threats against my life." He sighed when Draco just looked at him in silent misery. "This is going to be harder for you than it is for me, isn't it?" he added, letting his hand brush Draco's cheek.

Draco turned his head into the touch, and then uttered a little desperate mutter. Harry could make it out when he strained his ears. "I hate seeing you in danger."

"I know," said Harry, and waited until Draco stepped in front of him to begin walking to the dungeons again. Then he put a hand on the small of his back, ignoring Draco's half-startled, half-indignant look, and ushered him along. "Don't worry, I'll protect you."

Draco obviously did not know which expression he ought to wear in response to that. Harry hummed in pleasure to himself, and thought he was doing quite well at fulfilling Madam Shiverwood's prescriptions, even though he hadn't written down that he liked reassuring Draco on the list she'd forced him to make.

"Potter."

Harry sighed as he put down the book he'd just been pretending to read. Draco had gone upstairs already, to give him some privacy when this confrontation came. Of course he didn't deserve any more familiarity than she was going to give him with the cold pronunciation of his surname, but he'd been hoping for it anyway. "Parkinson," he said, meeting her on equal ground.

Pansy folded her arms and stared at him. She was wearing robes that enveloped her more completely than the usual school ones, leaving only her face and hands visible. Eventually, Harry knew, she would go about so that her face was entirely hidden, and only show it to her spouse and children. She wouldn't speak, either, save as such quick motions of her hands might speak, except on Halloween and Walpurgis Night.

She'd gone further down the road towards becoming a necromancer than Harry had thought she would, if she was wearing these robes now. Looking at her set, pale face, Harry thought she might just make it.

"I am choosing you to be one of my Speakers," said Pansy abruptly. "That means that you'll be one of the people who talks to those outside Slytherin House for me, the person who gives excuses to professors if I'm sick or studying, one of those I can choose to pass along messages once I stop speaking to most people and I absolutely need them to know something."

Harry caught his breath. He'd read about Speakers, but he would never have thought that Pansy would choose him to be one, not when he'd killed her father in the first place.

"I don't deserve this honor," he said quietly.

"No, you don't." Pansy folded her arms more tightly. "But each young necromancer chooses three Speakers, Potter—one whom she absolutely trusts, one whom she can vaguely trust, and one whom she hates. That allows her three degrees of distance from the world, to represent the distance she'll eventually have from almost everybody. Millicent and Montague are the others."

So, Montague might have been upset with me for hurting Pansy after all. Harry added that to his mental impression of the other boy, and nodded.

"All right then," he said. He had to do all he could to make things up to her and to support her in this path that was her own free choice, and Merlin knew, this was little enough.

"Because you're a Speaker, I can talk to you honestly," said Pansy, without seeming to notice his acceptance. "I want you to know that I hate you, Potter. The more I study, the more I see what D—Dragonsbane gave up, and the more I see what he attained. You took that all away in a single stroke. And yes, my mother's talked to me and told me not to hate you, that I don't understand. I don't care. I don't care if she's allies with you. She can be allies with you all she wants. But you'll never be anything to me now but the person who took my father away. Do you understand?"

Harry winced, but nodded. He was glad that Pansy could feel honest anger towards him, that her vacillating emotions had hardened over the summer into this rage and determination. It was better, healthier for her, than the sort of regret that he had felt when Sirius died, as if he hadn't said enough to make clear his emotions while his godfather was alive. If he couldn't do anything else for her, couldn't open freedom to her in any other way, then Harry would be her Speaker and help her along the path that would let her become what she wished to be.

"I want to hear you say it," said Pansy.

"I understand."

Pansy tossed her hair inside her cowl, and then turned away from him. Harry sighed and sat back down on the couch. He'd lost his appetite for even the pretense of reading.

He didn't know how long he'd sat there before an owl fluttered through the door of the common room, just opening at that moment to let some of the students out, and up to him. Harry eyed her in confusion as he accepted the letter. He didn't know the owl, though of course that didn't mean anything.

The letter was brief, but the handwriting told him at once who it was from.

My dear, dear Potter:

I hope that you do not find yourself too devastated with not hearing from me. Until now, however, I have had no news of great importance to send you, and one should always refrain from wearying owls when one has nothing to say. Then they bite one, and one must strike them dead with an Avada Kedavra, and that is a waste of a perfectly good owl.

You should know that my late unlamented colleague Mulciber did manage to cause some minor trouble last year, in between casting increasingly ineffective Imperius Curses at you. He gained access to the parchment book that contains the names of magical children destined for Hogwarts, by the simple expedient of asking to see it (I believe he had some tale of lessening the prejudice of purebloods against Muggleborns, but not wanting to ask the students outright if they were likely to hold those prejudices). He copied down some of the names of those not yet at the school, and passed them on to my Lord.

Some of my—call them friends—now insinuate that my Lord is attacking Muggleborn children younger than eleven, and draining them of their magic in order to strengthen himself. He used to not do such a thing, because eating one person's magic weakened him for days afterward. Since his return from the cauldron, however, he has been able to do this with much greater ease, which may be attributed to the bit of flesh and blood that he took from you. Good show, Potter, really, increasing that particular ability of his.

Why did I not tell you this before now? Because I did not feel like it. Now I do. Also, I have been a little too good to you, I think, and now deserve to watch you suffer and squirm.

Your dear, dear self-interested friend, who now needs to Apparate as his older friends are closing in,

Evan Rosier.

Harry crumpled the letter in his fist, and closed his eyes. He forced himself to do nothing but breathe for moments, and shove away as much of the guilt as he could. He had seen nothing in his visions that had let him guess Voldemort was doing this.

You've not exactly gone seeking the visions either, though. You wanted a quiet night's sleep more than you wanted the information.

Harry bowed his head. In fact, his major emotion, despite what he had done to make this possible for Voldemort, was not guilt, but a tight, tearless rage.

He had some interesting ideas now that he hadn't had at the beginning of the summer. They coalesced and slammed into him, growing in power and fury like a storm.

If there is ever going to be a time to turn that dream link into a weapon, that time is now.

Harry decided it was time to go to bed.

And hope like hell he dreamed.