Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter!

I am pleased with this chapter, even though it has just blown my latest outline for the story to smithereens, and even though Henrietta is a bitch. I am not sure why.

Chapter Twenty-Four: Psychology on the Wing

Henrietta had to admit some disappointment when she finally recovered from the spell of that stupid whistle and found herself with only inexperienced Death Eaters to fight—students from Durmstrang, by the look of them. She shrugged as she gestured with her wand for them to come ahead. One thing opponents like this were good for was practicing her experimental spellwork.

"Avada Kedavra," she said, mildly enough, but she swept her wand in a long wave, left to right, as she spoke the spell, trying as hard as she could to kill two with just the one curse.

It didn't quite work. One of the boys facing her dropped dead, and the other sagged, but came back to his feet, since just the edge of the green light had hit him. Henrietta frowned. That's disappointing. She put him under Crucio to soothe her feelings, and turned to the rest of them.

She found it hard to look at the center of the battlefield, where Potter battled the Dark Lord. It was too much like looking into the heart of the sun. Magic flared there, as attractive as the light that flared from the sun, and as dazzling. Pay too much attention to it, and Henrietta would be tempted to dash forward and hurl herself into the circle, just to feel that much power blaze around her in the moments before it consumed her.

Instincts dropped her to one knee as a Cutting Curse went over her head. She turned and gestured once, speaking the spell nonverbally, and another young Durmstrang Death Eater was swimming in his own intestines. Henrietta rolled her eyes. Children these days. Did no one teach him to shield?

Someone roared in front of her. Henrietta looked up in interest as a burly Death Eater came towards her, his face nearly black with rage. Well. This looks like a more interesting opponent.

She rose and bowed her head slightly, the formal invitation to a duel. He ignored her, and just attacked. There was a lot of raw power behind the hexes he chose, but that gave him problems when Henrietta bounced them off her Shield Charm and sent them back at him. Then he backed up, and neglected to watch his footing in the shifting sand, and went down.

Henrietta sighed. Not a challenge after all. I wish Evan Rosier were here. He was a challenge. She smiled a bit. Rosier had been the only Death Eater who'd tried to "recruit" her during the First War and still managed to escape; she'd killed the others. She started off restlessly across the beach, looking for someone like that, someone who appeared experienced and competent.

Her allies, such as they were, had already taken all the best pickings. Henrietta frowned as she watched Honoria dueling a tall woman with long blonde hair. The girl sent ridiculous illusions after her, and never failed to make her enemy flinch, each time. She was playing with her. Henrietta shook her head. Of course Honoria's illusions were powerful, but she was a halfblood, and, worse in Henrietta's eyes, the daughter of a Light-inclined wizard. She didn't deserve the opponent that chance and the vagaries of battle had gifted her with.

She drew closer to the center of the battle, after all, though she kept a solid wall of fighters between her and the Dark Lord so that she wasn't tempted to rush in. As she absently killed a Death Eater or two, she studied Potter. He was kneeling there, not doing anything much on the physical plane, but obviously draining power from the Dark Lord on the magical one. Henrietta could feel immense amounts of magic sliding through him.

And yet, Potter doesn't swallow and keep it. Remarkable.

Perhaps not so much remarkable as stupid, when you get right down to it.

Then Lucius's son destroyed one of those wooden disks the Dark Lord was so fond of, and the Dark Lord just had to take a moment to pause and gloat about what he would do to the boy. Henrietta nodded slowly. Yes, it seemed that she had made the right choice to follow Potter after all. The Dark Lord could not be depended on to keep his mind on the battle.

But it would be so much better if there was a way of gaining control of Potter, if I could make him do what I told him to do.

As she watched, Lucius arrived and set the rest of the disks on fire, and then a boy who was Potter's brother, from the pictures in the papers, became the target of the Dark Lord's next curse.

And Potter stepped in the way.

Henrietta narrowed her eyes as she watched him fall. The papers were correct. He was raised, trained, to sacrifice himself for that boy gaping like a turkey with its mouth open to the rain.

The seed of a plan stirred to life in her mind. She knew the end result, and the psychology of Potter's that she would manipulate, though she did not know as yet how she would achieve it.

As she had thought would happen, the Dark Lord took the moment to fold his wounded dignity around him and flee the battlefield. Perhaps he did not believe his curse would keep Potter out for long—though Potter currently lay motionless on the sand, with his brother and Lucius's son tugging frantically at his arms and Lucius himself striding towards them, hissing at them to move away. Then the green-golden snakes added to the confusion by flooding back towards Potter, away from the dead bodies of two basilisks, and as the Death Eaters Apparated out and followed their master, the rest of Potter's minions came shoving forward to gawk.

No one was paying attention to Henrietta, even when she noiselessly slid between Honoria and Burke, and no one else saw what she saw, lying free on the sand not far from Potter's head.

She stooped and picked the objects up, thought becoming action the moment she had it, and slid them into a pocket.

She did not know if she would manage to keep her little prizes undetected throughout the aftermath of the battle, which would surely involve taking Potter back to Hogwarts and hovering over his bed like good little minions. There might be someone who had seen her take them, and then she would have to hand them over. That was all right, if it happened. She would be able to pretend she'd been looking out for Potter's safety and only his safety. In fact, she should look at them more closely anyway, before she used them. They might be worthless.

But if she could keep them, and they were worth something, then she had her plan.

Henrietta smiled, and then looked back up the beach as screams echoed through the silence. I suppose I should remove the Cruciatus Curse now.

She went back up the beach, removed the curse, and casually dispatched the silly young Death Eater. It was doing a favor to the Dark Lord, really, to reap his ranks of the untried and the witless. He ought to thank her.

Charles narrowed his eyes as he watched the others crowd in around Potter, and Snape order them away with little more than a snap of his robes as he seemed to Apparate in to Potter's side. Charles did not speak—he did not often speak in situations like this—but stood and listened to Burke and Belville converse in hushed, agitated voices.

"…give himself up for his brother, rather than one of us, what good is he?" Belville was demanding.

"Exactly my thoughts. Exactly my thoughts." Charles didn't need to look to know that Burke would be nodding fiercely, his jowls flapping. He hadn't met the man often, but in this case, that was long enough to take his measure. "He'd sacrifice himself for family. Very noble. Very admirable, in fact, if he were the head of a pureblood family and doing that for his heir. But he's a war-leader. He has to think of his body and his magic as the king on the chessboard, not as pawns."

Belville murmured some agreement that Charles did not deign to listen to. He turned to follow, instead, while Snape and Malfoy, walking side by side, carried Potter's body back to Hogwarts.

Charles hated to be shoved. He made up his mind slowly. He knew himself for a cautious man. Medusa had sometimes teased him about how cautious he was, and how often he might have accomplished more than he did, if he'd just been a bit more quick-witted and clever on his feet.

But he'd had a clear glimpse of Potter and that black curse, and he was a father of two twin boys. He'd seen the calculation in Potter's eyes, the imperceptible moment before he'd arched up and taken the brunt of the spell. Potter had known exactly what he was doing. He'd taken that curse for Connor Potter the way that Owen would have to save Michael. Owen was protective of his younger brother to a fault; Charles had known that since their first year at Durmstrang, when Headmaster Karkaroff had called him in to discuss Owen's punishment for cursing a professor who'd failed Michael's History of the Dark Arts project and yelled at him. Owen had given the professor a second head that yelled constant abuse in his ears.

Potter was being a brother in that moment, not a sacrifice, and that was an impulse that Charles would not have wanted him cured of, lest he turn into another Lord. Lords, Charles had decided long ago, were those who would put their own power and their own lives even above their own flesh and blood.

Connor Potter was not yet, perhaps, at the point of knowing when he should die for his brother. Harry Potter, though, was exactly where he should be. That was enough for Charles. He would watch their young leader's back.

And that meant watching the greatest threat to him, which in this group was Henrietta Bulstrode. She'd stooped down and picked something up. Charles found himself very much wanting to know what it was.

Lucius kept his head bowed as Severus argued with him about the curse, its causes, and its effects. He didn't need to argue back. He knew he was right. He had seen the Dark Lord use that curse before—usually on his enemies, but sometimes on his Death Eaters, for practice. Lucius had twice seen it cured. He knew what was needed, and why their Lord had sought to hit Harry's brother and not Harry himself with it. Though the procedure would be somewhat difficult considering how stubborn young Harry was, it was not impossible that someone should enter his mind and remove the curse.

And Lucius already knew it had to be him. This was the point of view that Severus hadn't quite come around to yet, even now that they'd Apparated back to the outskirts of Hogsmeade and were skirting the village, headed for the Forbidden Forest. He still thought, poor fool, that he could enter Harry's mind and pull him out of this.

Lucius spared a moment to thank Merlin that he loved only his wife and son as much as Severus loved Harry, and that neither Narcissa nor Draco would expect him to take the kind of insane risk that Severus was talking about just because of his relationship to them. Love made men foolish. Lucius knew when to step back and step aside. If that curse had hit Narcissa, and Severus could have rescued her, then he would let Severus enter her mind, and never complained in the first place.

A deliberate footstep sounded to his left a few moments after the green-and-gold snakes flooded off Potter's body and into the trees. Lucius turned and met Narcissa's eyes. A glance told him everything he needed to know. She walked with a limp that indicated a recently healed wound. Lucius raised his eyebrows.

Narcissa smiled. "Dead," she said, meaning the Death Eater who had done that to her.

Lucius nodded. "You knew him?"

Narcissa shrugged. "A student at Durmstrang. I could describe him."

"Do so," said Lucius, and set himself to listen to recollections of dark hair, unusual height, and, most importantly, a distinctive jut to the collarbone, as if it had once been broken. Easy enough to find out his family from that description, and Lucius would find out how he could hurt them, and he would.

"Lucius, are you even listening to me?"

Lucius turned and glanced at Severus. Thanks to Narcissa's description and the crunch of fallen leaves under their feet as they walked through the Forest, it had been easy enough to ignore his chatter. "No, Severus. You are repeating yourself, and that will not help our Potter. You know what has to be done. You know that you cannot do it. And no," he continued, before Severus could say anything, "nor can Hawthorn, nor Black, nor Adalrico. You care too much about him. I am the only Marked one who stands a chance of bringing him out."

Severus glared at him. Lucius returned his gaze calmly. Severus was a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield; he had all but ripped apart the three Death Eaters keeping him from Potter. But his temper had its disadvantages. Now he obviously longed, wished, yearned for, the ability to tell Lucius to go to hell.

But he had no choice save to bow his head in a single curt nod.

"Father?"

Lucius glanced over his shoulder. Draco had not said a word since they rescued Potter and the Dark Lord vanished, which was as it should be. His voice would have broken, betrayed emotion too intense, so it was right that he keep silent. But his face and his eyes spoke for him, and Lucius did not like that at all. Sooner or later, Draco will have to learn to control his emotions.

"You can save him?" Draco asked.

Several dozen different things to say sprang to Lucius's lips, among them warnings to Draco for doubting him. However, he decided that perhaps his son could be allowed this one—one—moment of doubt. He had not seen the curse before, he did not know how it worked, and since Severus and Lucius both did, it wasn't information they'd included in their argument.

"I can," he said.

Draco closed his eyes and looked away, shaking lightly. Lucius narrowed his eyes. He should trust Potter to take care of himself more. I know that he took the curse because he trusted that he could survive it. He was right.

The rest of the walk back to the school was boring enough—most of their uneasy alliance kept their mouths shut, and the people who talked, Hawthorn and Narcissa, said nothing interesting—that Lucius observed Connor Potter. He trudged nearly at the end of the line, his head down, obscuring the famous heart-shaped scar that supposedly proclaimed his defeat of the Dark Lord when a child. Lucius knew something more about that, now, and knew that Harry had been the one, not Connor, to deflect the Killing Curse.

The boy had done nothing in the battle, and now he must think that he was the reason Harry was lying pale and motionless in Severus's arms, unable to see anything other than the world the curse had constructed for him, inside his own head.

Well, good. Lucius hoped that meant the boy would grow up. So far, Connor Potter had proven a disappointment. If he could become good enough to fight at Harry's side, then he would serve a purpose. If he did not, then Lucius would do what he could to carefully, discreetly, separate Harry from his brother.

Our Potter needs to think of the future, not the past, and stop considering himself a sacrifice. Connor Potter could die, and the world would not stop turning. Harry Potter could die, and many things would become—uncomfortable.

Snape laid Harry gently in the bed in the hospital wing, only half-listening to Poppy Pomfrey's chatter as she tried to ascertain what was wrong with him. She would find magical exhaustion, of course, and more ordinary fatigue from resisting the pain that Voldemort had put him through. But the Mark Mirror Curse affected the mind, not the body, and not all of Poppy's spells would show her how to counter that. It was the Dark Lord's invention, his special plaything.

And Snape knew that Lucius was right, and he was the best candidate for bringing Harry out of it.

Snape smoothed Harry's hair away from his forehead, and stared at the angry red flare of the lightning bolt scar. He should have insisted that Harry shut that link with Occlumency long since. It was not worth it to keep it open, not when it cost him so much in pain and nightmares.

But Harry had been stubborn, and then angry with him, and Snape had not been able to insist.

Now, he would.

He thought about everything else. And in the end, he still endangered himself. Recklessly. Without caring what it would do to the rest of us. Snape felt the anger begin to burn, at least as hot as the pain that had flared through him when he saw Harry make the decision to put his body in front of his brother's once more. That will end. I will make it end. And Regulus will help me.

"How is he?"

Snape moved out of the way so that Regulus could approach the bed. He had sensed his old friend hovering in a corner of the hospital wing the moment they entered it. Regulus had felt no calling—Voldemort had obviously not thought it worthwhile to summon his still-loyal Death Eaters when he believed he had enough magic to take Harry—so he would have come to Hogwarts at the time they were supposed to set off for the tunnels and found no one there. Snape imagined him Apparating to London and racing frantically through the checkpoints, discovering them all gone. He shook his head. Harry should think about what he has done to him, as well as to the rest of us—Draco, and I, and even his more distant allies.

"He will recover," he said softly to Regulus. "You did not try to use your Mark to find and follow us. Good."

Regulus sighed and stared down at the Mark on his arm. Snape glared at it with more loathing than he reserved for his own. Regulus had revealed, as Snape had long suspected, that the Dark Lord had used it as a conduit for the pain he had suffered, before finally being Transfigured into a dog. He'd also left—traps in it, of a kind that Snape didn't understand, and which had nearly destroyed him when he tried to look at them last week. Regulus didn't dare try to use the Mark for anything, including finding Voldemort, unless he wanted to die.

Snape had had to spend some time conjuring and destroying delicate glass containers after Regulus left him last week. If those he cared for suffered pain that he could help, then he would help it. He hated, above all things, feeling helpless before a power greater than his own.

Perhaps there is something to the research Lucius has been doing after all, trying to find a way to destroy the Mark. Snape resolved to ask him later, and then looked up at the sound of a throat being politely cleared.

Lucius stood beside Harry's head, his own Dark Mark bared and gleaming. Poppy had gone—somewhere. Snape hoped in irritation that Lucius hadn't Obliviated her. Memory Charms often didn't interact well with minds tuned to medical magic. "The Dark Lord used the Mark Mirror Curse," he said. "This is a mental spell of his own devising, which constructs a reality for the victim so pleasant that he will not want to leave it. Someone who wears a Dark Mark and feels affection for the victim may pull him out. However, too much affection will lead to a desire not to smash apart that imagined reality, and the rescuer will become part of it. I believe I am the best candidate to bring Mr. Potter out of his coma without becoming trapped myself, as I will administer a short, sharp shock better than anyone in this room. Does anyone disagree?"

No one did, Snape saw, with a quick glance around. Even if Regulus had wanted to rescue Harry himself—and he could certainly argue for a superior knowledge of Harry's mind—his poisoned Mark would insure his death if he tried. Right now, he was staring at the floor and clenching his left arm as if he would like to tear it off.

Lucius nodded, pressed his Mark to Harry's left temple, and closed his eyes. His breathing halted for a moment. When it began once more, it matched Harry's. Snape felt the tickle of a mental sliding against his Occlumency shields, and knew that Lucius had passed out of his mind and into Harry's.

Narcissa came up to grasp her husband's hand. No one said anything, though Draco leaned on the edge of the bed, looking stricken, and most of Harry's allies watched with various expressions of interest. Regulus's voice seemed loud in the silence that had fallen.

"When he comes back, I am going to give him such a talking-to."

Snape gave Regulus a tight smirk. In this, as in so many other things fifteen years ago, they were in accord. Now that Snape could be sure this was the true Regulus, and not merely a sliced-off shard of Voldemort's madness floating free in Harry's head, he was fully prepared to welcome help in dealing with his recalcitrant charge.

Harry walked the halls of Hogwarts, and it was wonderful. People hurried past him on the way to class, calling to their friends and comparing notes hastily; Professor Merryweather had announced a simultaneous exam for all her Defense Against the Dark Arts classes that week, and no one felt ready. Hermione bumped into Harry and murmured an apology, not looking up from the book she read. A cloud of smoke further up the corridor indicated that Fred and George Weasley had discovered another item certain to be confiscated the moment Filch proved it existed.

Voices churned and swelled and talked about ordinary things, only slightly touched by the tension of the war. When someone did look ready to cry, they only had to glance up the hall, and then their gaze would alight on Connor Potter, calm and steady. He always had the right word to soothe fears or remind people that Voldemort wasn't so formidable, not if a baby could survive him. Right now, he ruffled the hair of a first-year Ravenclaw and said something that made her smile shyly up at him.

And no one noticed Harry.

No one stared at him as if they expected him to help them, though they didn't know how. No one glared with the disapproval that said they knew abuse charges should never have been filed against his parents and Dumbledore. No one wanted things of him that Harry didn't know how to give, normal obedience and trust and belief. When people approached him, they conducted practical transactions, running on the rituals of promises and debts and obligations. Harry had gained several Dark pureblood families as allies for Connor through those bargains. The people who mattered knew who Harry was, and what they wanted of him, Harry knew how to give.

It was a bit of a shock to turn and see Lucius Malfoy standing in the middle of corridor, observing him. People brushed past him as if he weren't there. Harry felt a frisson of unease glide up his spine. He inclined his head in a bow to Lucius, making it exactly the proper depth for a respected, if not trusted, ally. He danced well with Mr. Malfoy.

Yes, I do, he thought firmly, and beat away the memories that told him of times outside the dances, times when his life wasn't so simple. The halls of Hogwarts wavered around him for a moment, then came back, strengthened by his will and desire to believe them real. Harry let out a little breath, and said, "Welcome, Mr. Malfoy. Is there something I can do for you?"

"Mr. Potter." Lucius paused a moment, as if considering his next move, and Harry waited. Entirely proper, for a dance. "Harry."

No. That's not fair. He can't expect this of me, not when I've got everything so nicely settled, when I don't have to argue with anybody and I know I'm not failing them because they're not asking me to be just like everyone else. Harry lowered his head and tensed. His magic soared up around him. He remembered, vaguely, that it had been stronger at one point. Memories of tearing webs and eating power and so on tried to present themselves to him. He shoved them away. This was the reality. He would make it be so.

Lucius hissed, as though he didn't like the stones of Hogwarts firming under his feet. His eyes had taken on a hard sheen that Harry hated, because Lucius was letting him see that he was angry. That wasn't part of a dance. Lucius was supposed to remain emotionless. "Harry. Stop this nonsense immediately. Voldemort has enslaved your will, but you are too intelligent to think this is real, since you have two contradictory sets of memories."

"But I want this to be the real set," Harry replied, and Hogwarts became more present around him. It was easier to lock the memories up in a closet and refuse to let them out. Connor's laughter rang down the hall, and Harry could forget, if he wanted, that he'd ever heard his voice uncertain, pleading, forced to question his place and presence in the world.

Lucius leaned towards him. "So you would be a coward? You would leave my son to suffer, and your brother, and your guardian, and all those you profess to care about?"

Harry flinched and closed his eyes. "I can't give them what they want," he said. "I know that now. Everything I do is wrong. I can't love Draco the way he deserves. No one's going to believe that I made the decision to risk my life for my brother's, instead of just leaping blindly into the path of the curse. If I go back, Snape and Regulus will be disappointed in me. I keep struggling to show people that I can learn, I can change, I can be something other than an abused child, and they keep shoving me back into the mold of what they think I am. I don't believe that I'm ever going to break that mold. They'll always see me as something other than what I really am, or they'll want something from me that they deserve but that I can't give them—like Draco. And they won't trust me to lead them, and that will cost lives. At least here I know exactly what I can do."

He hadn't known he was going to say all that until it poured out. Lucius said nothing. Harry opened his eyes at last, driven by intolerable curiosity, and saw Lucius staring at him thoughtfully.

"It is no wonder that the Dark Lord's spell chose this particular reality for you to inhabit," Lucius breathed. "The curse works with your deepest desires. And your deepest desire is for your life to be simple and uncomplicated, though you know it cannot be."

Harry scowled at him. "It can be as complicated as it likes. But I'm so sick and tired of failing everybody. Here, I know that I won't fail them."

"But you are," Lucius pointed out. "You deprive us of our best chance to fight the Dark Lord while you remain here."

"I no longer believe that I can be the leader you need," Harry said quietly. "The moment I risked my life for my brother, I realized how other people would see it—as a deliberate sacrifice. It wasn't, but try convincing Snape of that." Anger and bitterness choked his voice for a moment. He swallowed, and managed to continue. "And there are other decisions I'll never make that they want me to make. Adalrico, for example. He wanted me to use the Black Plague Curse. Others will want me to look aside as they make inroads in the Ministry, or discriminate against Muggleborns, or go right on enslaving and using magical creatures—and I never would. I never could. If I can't give them what they want, what kind of leader am I?"

Lucius blinked, once or twice. Then he said, "The art of leadership is not about surrendering your own desires for the good of others, Harry. It is about learning to judge. If you believe something to be a good decision, then you make it." He cocked his head to the side, and his eyes were bright with an amusement Harry had never seen them show. "I cannot imagine you compliant. I would not want to. If you feel that we are shoving you, pushing you against your will, then shove back."

"I don't want to impose my will on others—"

"And true leadership is also a very long way from that," Lucius said calmly. He was smiling now. "Wizards have long made those with Lord-level magic leaders. You have Lord-level magic. Very well. You cannot change that. Now make yourself a leader. No one has said that you must obey everything that another person asks of you. If Severus insults your principles, insult his back. He hates that. Balance my son's desires with your own. I know Draco. He would not want you to bed him merely because he desired it." Harry felt his face heat up, but Lucius might have been talking about applied Arithmancy versus the theoretical, from the calmness of his tone. "Dance this dizzy and complicated path, and if you chose to risk your life for your brother's by calculation rather than blind instinct, then come out of this dreamworld and tell them that. No one will know it, not for certain, if you remain here."

"You could go back and tell them," said Harry, with a last feeble hope.

Lucius's smile turned to a more familiar one, all teeth. "I will most certainly back you, if you come out."

"Sometimes, I don't like you," Harry told him, even as the imaginary Hogwarts around him began to fade.

Lucius laughed, a full-throated sound that Harry would have imagined Voldemort capable of making before Lucius. "I underestimated you, Harry," he murmured. "You would have come out on your own, I think. Even you know this is not real, and these objections are only the last feeble gasp of beliefs that you have almost put aside. You were hiding, but you would have put your head out of your shell."

Harry closed his eyes reluctantly. He was tired, he thought mutinously. He'd wanted to go somewhere nobody would bother him or demand normal, impossible things of him, and his mind had obliged.

But he didn't think he could have quite escaped the second set of memories or the knowledge that this was Voldemort's curse, and that his decision to choose Connor's life over his own meant nothing if he didn't come out of the coma the curse had put him in.

That doesn't mean I have to like Lucius, though.

Henrietta had to admit to a bit of disappointment when Malfoy opened his eyes and said, with a faint smile, "He will live. He is coming out of the coma, though it might take him some time to return to full consciousness."

Malfoy's son went white in the face and put his head down on the sheets next to Potter. Henrietta curled her lip. Edith would never behave so. She did what her mother asked of her, because she was better-trained than Malfoy obviously kept his heir.

She moved quietly towards the door of the hospital wing, not hurrying, not being obvious. Her eyes marked out, meanwhile, that Belville had tightened his lips and Burke looked sullen. Henrietta smiled. She already knew whom she would ask to aid her in her plan. It was convenient that the two most dissatisfied with Potter were also the weakest of the circle surrounding him. She could control vain Mortimer and dear Edward without a problem.

"Bulstrode."

Henrietta turned around and gave a pretty little nod to Charles Rosier-Henlin. "Greetings. Aren't you glad that Potter will live? I know that I am. My future is now more secure."

"I want what you took from the beach."

Henrietta widened her eyes, and then dropped them to the floor. She sighed as she pulled the knife with the dark hilt and blade of Light from her robe pocket. "I was only keeping it for him," she said meekly, as she handed it over to Rosier-Henlin.

He did not make even a pretense of believing her, but then, Henrietta hadn't tried to be very believable. As he accepted the blade, Henrietta waited, keeping her eyes down, wondering if he would ask…

"I will tell Potter about this. He deserves to know who—rescued—his knife for him."

Henrietta nodded, knowing Rosier-Henlin meant to warn Potter about her. That was quite all right. If he just didn't ask…

Rosier-Henlin turned away.

Triumph burst into Henrietta's heart, but she kept her face blank and calm as she asked Hawthorn Parkinson to convey her best wishes to Potter, and then turned and hurried out of the room. She had training in masks of serenity. She would not betray herself.

He only saw me pick up the one object, not the other.

Before she let herself get too excited, though, she made sure to pause in a remote corner of Hogwarts and consider the small curl of dark hair in her pocket. When she was satisfied it was Potter's, she went on her way, her expression grave and her step light.

She had been no slouch at Potions when she was a student. She knew how to brew Polyjuice.

Harry opened his eyes, slowly, and blinked. When he turned his head, he saw Snape sitting in a chair on the right side of the bed, and Regulus on the other. Harry tried to speak, but had a goblet of water held to his lips before he could. He rolled his eyes and obediently drank.

"Draco?" he whispered.

"Survived unwounded," Snape said smoothly. "He's sleeping right now. It's the middle of the night."

"And Connor?" Harry asked, knowing this was the calm before the storm, but holding fast to what Lucius had told him. Lucius, of all people. I wonder if he was as surprised as I was to learn that he can actually think in moral terms?

"Likewise, survived unwounded." That was Regulus, and his voice was a snarl that would have done Sirius credit. Harry rolled his head to face him, knowing before he looked that Regulus would wear a stern expression. "We are going to have a little talk about your risk-taking, Harry, the moment you're well enough to bear it," he said.

Harry raised his eyebrows. I know my motives for what I did. They might not believe in them, but that doesn't mean they aren't valid. "I imagine we are," he said.

Regulus sat back and frowned at him, as if unable to comprehend why Harry didn't look guilty and terrified, but Harry closed his eyes before he could ask another question. The guilt was still there, of course—there never had been the terror that Regulus had imagined—but he believed he was, finally, ready to deal with it.

If I want them to treat me like an adult, I have to act like one. If I want them to have a real leader, I have to be one, and that doesn't mean selfishly hiding in my mind, or adopting plans just because they want me to. If I want them to see what I really am, I have to show them that I'll never be normal, and why.

Lucius was right, and that was the last gasp of those particular beliefs. I don't think I could have abandoned the people who love me. Say I take them on trust for once, and believe that they really do love me unconditionally. Then they can bear a few disappointments, like my arguing with them instead of just submitting.

This should be fun.