Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter!

Ugh. I do not like this chapter, for lo, it is ugly. I'll be glad when I can go back to writing battle scenes.

Chapter Twenty-Six: Survival of the Kindest

Snape now remembered why he hadn't cared much about anyone for over a decade. It was because it bloody hurt, that was why.

He stood in his lab, carefully tending an experimental healing potion that was supposed to restore lost bones without the need for Skele-Gro. Behind him, Harry worked in silence, brewing the Wolfsbane required by Lupin and the other werewolves he served with effort they didn't deserve.

It wasn't that extraordinary a scene, Snape thought. It could have happened last year. But last year Harry would have spoken to him, now and then asking about the Dark Arts or saying something about his brother or Draco or how unfulfilling he found his Defense and Charms classes. Now he remained in utter silence, not even expressing an opinion when Snape asked him a question.

It was damn annoying.

And Snape knew exactly what he could say to cure the silence. He had only to tell Harry that he hadn't meant what he said, or that what he had said wasn't what it sounded like. He didn't really believe Connor was more important than Harry. Then Harry would glance at him with a cautious look in his eyes, as if to make sure that he meant that as an apology and not a justification. And he would look a little deeper, and nod, and they would be back on the path to their tentative reconciliation—perhaps even a bit further down the road than they had been the night that Harry came back from freeing the centaurs.

The only problem with that solution was that Snape would have to lie. Harry was more important to him than Connor would ever be, and Harry was more important to the war effort than Connor ever could be. And Harry knew it was the truth. It kept the silence between them poised on a knife's edge.

Snape sliced into an ashwinder's heart, and shook his head. He knew that Harry believed what he had done—saving Connor's life—to be a calculated decision, not a sacrifice. But Snape did not believe it so, could not believe it so.

Oh, he had tried. Looking into Harry's eyes a few days ago, as he lay in his bed and explained himself patiently again and again, he had used a touch of Legilimency to read the boy's emotions and tried to convince himself of it.

It hadn't worked. Harry had traded one deep-rooted stubbornness—that he needed no healing—for another—that his healing was already complete. He skirted around any mention of his parents. He went pale when he saw the articles in the Daily Prophet that talked about the abuse, but he always read them, with a morbid fascination that reminded Snape of the way that Lucius Malfoy had looked at Muggleborn students in Hogwarts, as if they were another species. He pretended not to see the sharp glances that followed him, the frightened whispers that trailed in his wake. He had made no effort to convince anyone that they had truly battled the Dark Lord after seeing how many of the other students didn't believe him.

Snape was nearly frantic with concern for him. Harry needed to—well, to heal. Snape couldn't put it any better than that. Speak with someone who wasn't that incompetent Shiverwood, or Snape, if that would make him feel better. Stand up for himself. Stop spending so much time and effort helping the people, like the werewolves, like his allies, like the other students, like his brother, like nearly everyone else but Snape and Regulus and Draco, who took from him without giving something back.

They would consume him alive. They wouldn't mean to, but they would push their own anger and fear and need at Harry. And he, who had no barriers, no sense of keeping something for himself, would burn out his own fire trying to reassure and help them. It was a noble goal, but it was one that would destroy him, because the need would never end, but Harry's ability to help would.

Snape knew he could not forbid Harry to help. It would be immoral. And he had no notion of how to restrain the most powerful wizard in the school anyway.

That's one thing the Magical Family and Child Services books never went into, he thought, and stabbed the stem of a thorny rose so hard it split apart. Snape snarled a silent curse and reached for another one. How to raise your child when he's magically Lord-level at fifteen years old and abused and refuses to submit to any of the usual punishments intended for children.

There were always the pureblood rituals, but Snape was reluctant to use them. Yes, he could establish some kind of connection with Harry if he did so, but it would be a connection that pushed Harry further and further away from acknowledging his past and healing like a normal child. He was too used to that way of dancing. He wouldn't achieve any breakthroughs, because the patterns were so familiar, and they would tend to reinforce what he already knew.

Which seemed to leave Snape with exactly nothing, with no more way of helping Harry and keeping him alive than of removing the traps Voldemort had embedded in Regulus's Dark Mark.

It was enough to drive him quite mad.

And then he did think of something he could talk to Harry about, something not mentioned in that first disastrous conversation when Harry had simply blown away his defenses like a whirlwind. Snape grunted. It was worth a try. Anything was worth a try, when he was cornered like this.

"Harry," he said.

He felt the silence snap taut, but when he looked over his shoulder, Harry had his head cocked to one side in a listening gesture.

"Have you thought about what you are going to do concerning your scar connection with the Dark Lord?" Snape concentrated on the mixture in his cauldron. If he turned up the heat just a bit, then it should slowly combine the ashwinder's heart and the thorny rose stem, and that would alter the composition of the potion just enough—if his calculations were correct—to make it restore bones instead of vanish bruises. "I know that he used it to cause you pain during the battle. I think you should shut it."

He turned around when he heard nothing. Harry had actually put his knife down and was staring at him. Snape felt hope in his mouth like dust. At least that was a different expression than the rage backed by steely determination that Harry had shown him every day in Potions class this week.

"There isn't a way to shut it," said Harry.

Snape shrugged. "I grant you that a curse scar binding you to a powerful madman and making you his magical heir is not part of most accepted theories of the mind," he said, as if he discussed this every day. "But Occlumency might work. If nothing else, it would obscure your thoughts and make your mind harder to reach. Of course, that would alert the Dark Lord, but he is already aware of your connection." That he knew for certain, having overheard Harry and Draco discussing it one day. It infuriated him that he had to rely on such measures to learn anything about his ward's life, but he would not let the fury take him. He breathed out instead, and patiently fixed his eyes on Harry's face. "I think it worth a try."

Harry's face took on that particular contemplative expression Snape had learned to fear. He was measuring himself against the needs of others, and the others had always managed to win.

He said that he is thinking now. He said that things are different. Snape grabbed his impatience with both hands and held himself still. Perhaps he will see that shutting this link is the best course for him. It would mean better sleep at night and less danger of dragging Draco into his mind, and he must see how beneficial that would be.

"I don't know all the ramifications of how the link has changed yet," said Harry quietly. "I know that it has changed since his resurrection, at least." He rubbed the stump of his left wrist. Snape wondered if he realized he was doing it. "He sent me a vision much more like a dream than the normal ones to alert me of the attack on the Weasleys, and the same kind of vision to show me the beach. I think those are under his control. And I can't affect people or things in the visions anymore. I've tried. Once, I managed to kill Nagini, but now I can't touch anything."

"Those sound like arguments in favor of shutting the link," said Snape. "Then he cannot hurt you."

Harry shot Snape an irritated glance. "And we would lose valuable information on the war," he said. "It's true that I mistook the place of his last attack, but that was my own stupid fault. At least we did know there was going to be an attack on the autumnal equinox, and it wasn't a complete surprise. I have to have the link open."

Snape picked up his wand and waved it at the cauldron, lowering the flame to a simmer. He was going to keep his fury out of his voice, he really was, but he had to strive hard to achieve that. This was his old fury at Lily Potter, or tried to his rage at her. All Harry said now was a direct consequence of her training. "And the ill effects on your health mean nothing to you?"

Harry's gaze sharpened. "Here we go again," he said, with a disgust so deep in his voice that Snape actually flinched. "You're going to say something about my life being more important than—what this time? Being prepared for the war, maybe? The lives of my allies?" He shook his head and snorted. "I thought you would at least approve of this decision, since I'm making it out of concern for the war and not for my brother. But it would be too much to ask for your approval right now on any topic, I see." Snape could hear the pain underlying his voice as he glanced away, another emotion Harry hadn't shown much of in the past week.

"Harry." Snape used his gentlest tone, both because he needed it right now, and because Harry would find it harder to block that out. "I meant what I said. I do consider you more important than your brother, yes—important to me. I did not mean that I believe Connor—" the name felt strange on his tongue "—should have died in your place. I meant that you should find methods that would preserve both your lives. And I mean you to concentrate on offensive strategizing in this war, not defensive. I wish you to care more about yourself. You are not only a war leader, not to me. But even if I thought of you that way, then yes, I would think your health more important than any one piece of information."

Harry shut his eyes. Snape could see a fine tremor making its way through him. He could only wait. Harry would turn to him, or he would not.

Harry turned away instead.

Snape shut his eyes. Then he heard Harry say, "I've finished the Wolfsbane Potion. I'm taking the vials to the Owlery with me, to send to the werewolves who need it—and several to Remus, of course. Good night, sir."

When the door to the lab had shut, Snape opened his eyes, and sighed. So now he's decided to turn non-confrontational. But that won't solve our problems, any more than it will solve his lingering abuse.

Glancing by habit at Harry's work area, Snape paused when he realized the boy had left one vial behind. He swept over to pick it up, secretly glad to have the opportunity to pursue Harry and call him back.

He paused when he held the glass tube, however. The potion within didn't have the color or consistency of Wolfsbane. In fact, it looked much more like the most common healing potion for bruises, the kind that Madam Pomfrey was always running out of in the hospital wing.

Come to think of it, there had seemed to be several extra vials of the potion in Snape's cubby this week.

He was mystified for only a moment. Then he just barely resisted the temptation to break the vial against the worktable.

Harry was making him the healing potions—a tedious task Snape preferred not to have to do himself, for all its necessity—in return for Snape's letting him use the ingredients for Wolfsbane. He was doing it so that he wouldn't owe his guardian anything.

Harry, quite literally, seemed to want nothing from him.

Harry could feel his shoulders tense as he walked into the meeting of the dueling club, now held in one of the abandoned classrooms. It was pouring down rain outside, more than enough reason to stay in. But this classroom was full of people staring at him.

And that's different from the rest of Hogwarts, how? Harry put up his head and pasted a deliberately haughty expression on his face, taking time to meet the eyes of the students who sat in a semicircle of desks nearest the front—all of them closer friends than half the people here. Hermione gave him a small smile. Connor, hand-in-hand with Parvati, also smiled, though his girlfriend didn't. Neville, with dirt still under his fingernails from helping Professor Sprout in the greenhouses, waved. Millicent gave a single firm nod.

And then Draco was there, striding up to Harry's side with a glance that asked not, "Am I late?" but "How could you have started this early, without me?" Harry felt himself relax completely. He moved closer to Draco, asking without words, and received a gentle brush on his shoulder from one hand already outstretched to touch him.

You knew this was going to happen, Harry thought, a more rational, bracing thought than he'd been able to have when Draco wasn't there. You had to have known it from the day the negative newspaper stories began.

And he had known it, he could tell himself now. He still didn't know exactly who "Argus Veritaserum" was. But he had known the mysterious reporter had it in for him, and he had known that, at some point, he would claim that the accusations of child abuse against Harry's parents and Headmaster Dumbledore were completely made up, without foundation—that Harry had in fact turned on his loving guardians, the ones who had tried to stop him misusing his magic from such a young age, out of spite and inherent tendencies towards becoming a Dark Lord.

It was only a story, Harry reminded himself. It wasn't true. The people who believed it to be true must have their reasons for doing so, and he couldn't blame them for having those reasons. The mere thought of falsely accusing someone of child abuse made him flinch. For that matter, the thought of what could happen to Dumbledore and his parents with the accusations being true made him want to curl up into a ball a few times each day.

He had no reason to feel as though there were a lead weight pressing on his chest each time he met someone's eyes and saw questions about the truth there. He knew the truth. What did it matter? Why was he letting the stares and the whispers and the outraged hisses get to him?

Well, he didn't know why he was, but it would have to stop. He had a dueling lesson to begin, and today they were starting Dark Arts.

He waited a few more minutes, both to listen to Draco's quick recitation of an amusing incident at dinner after Harry had left and to make sure no one else would show up. He noticed that Margaret Parsons, who sat in the back of the room, was watching him with less animosity than usual. In fact, she grinned at him several times, and burst into giggles with her friends more than once. Harry shrugged it off. Perhaps she'd decided that the story in the Prophet today was funnier than anything.

At last, he decided that some of the regular attendees were either busy or hadn't got permission from their parents to be in a class where Dark Arts were practiced, and held up his hand. The door swung itself shut and locked. A few students began murmuring anxiously, but Harry silenced them with another gesture, though that one had no magical force behind it.

"I'm about to show you a few Dark curses," Harry said softly. "I don't want them to get into the corridor, either on purpose or deflected, and I certainly don't want anyone hurting anyone else." He glanced at Remus, standing casually in a corner. Remus smiled back, reassuring him he was doing all right with his introduction to the Dark Arts so far. Relieved he was there to heal anyone who did get injured, Harry returned his gaze to his students. "Remember what Professor Merryweather says about these types of curses. Some of the defense against them has to come from inside. If you take too much pleasure in them, surrender your will too completely, then it won't matter if you deflect them when an opponent hurls them at you. They'll still infect you with the desire to practice more and more."

"I'm sure you know that intimately, don't you, Potter?" Susan Bones asked, frowning at him.

Harry simply gazed back at her without answering, until Susan lowered her eyes and blushed. Harry let out a calming breath, and told himself it wasn't Susan's fault. She must be under a lot of stress now that the Second War had begun. She had lost her grandparents and her uncle and cousins to Death Eaters during the First War. And one of the Death Eaters arrested for complicity in the death of her uncle Edgar Bones—though of course, he had escaped prosecution by convincing the Wizengamot he was under the Imperius Curse at the time—had been Lucius Malfoy, whose son was standing unconcernedly at Harry's side this very moment.

It's all so very complicated, and I can't make it worse. If I want them to accept what I believe, and that it is possible for Dark wizards to actually work against the Dark Lord, I have to accept what they believe. They have their own minds, their own free wills. I can only try to convince and persuade people to follow me, not compel them.

"The first curse I'm going to show you is Ardesco," said Harry. A few of the students flinched, but Harry shook his head. "I won't cast it at any of you," he promised, and then concentrated. A wooden figure, vaguely human-shaped, appeared in the center of the classroom, well away from the desks, and then wards snapped into place around it, the locked chain of Shield Charms that Harry could now perform with barely a thought, to contain the curse in the area with the figure. "I'm only going to show you how to perform it."

He picked up his wand, and this time Margaret Parsons laughed aloud. Harry glanced at her. Margaret just looked back at him, eyes sparkling. "You're using a wand, Potter?" she asked. "You really like pretending that you're the same as all the rest of us, don't you? The rest of us who don't have to make up stories about being abused by our parents and fighting the Dark Lord to get attention?"

"Miss Parsons," said Remus, and Harry heard the werewolf in his voice. "Such language is unwarranted."

"You'd say that," said Margaret, "because you're his godfather, and a Dark creature. But—"

"Leave," Harry told her.

Margaret shook her head. "I don't want to. You locked the door."

"I can unlock it." Harry flicked a glance at the door, and willed it so, and the door stood open. "Go away. I don't think that anyone has the right to say such things to Remus."

Margaret sighed. "Potter, you can't take a joke," she said. "I'm sorry, all right? I'm not used to thinking of werewolves as people. I'm sorry, Professor Lupin," she added to Remus in a singsong.

Harry flicked a glance at Remus. He wasn't the one she'd tried to insult, after all. It was up to Remus to say if she could stay or not.

Remus bared his teeth, but nodded. He feared his own anger, Harry knew. He would control himself better than Margaret could be expected to control herself. But that was the way it had to be, Harry told himself firmly. Remus was an adult, and she was a child. He had the power to hurt her, to punish her, but that didn't give him the right to do it if she was only acting out of childish impulse.

Harry then put an arm out sideways, not even looking at Draco, and forced down his wand.

"Don't hex her, Draco," he said. "She's not worth it. And you know that she can't hurt us, and how volatile Slytherin's relationship with Ravenclaw is right now." An entirely unprovoked attack on Montague in the corridor that morning had proven that. "I don't want this to be the incident that sparks off a war between the Houses. Remus said it's all right, so it is."

"It's what she said about you. I want to hurt her."

Harry turned his head sharply at that. When he looked into Draco's eyes, he could see Lucius. And Harry had good cause to know just how vengeful Lucius Malfoy was. He shook his head frantically and leaned towards Draco.

"Draco, please," he whispered. "I'm all right, too."

"You're not," said Draco. "You're not, and she's making it worse, and I want to hurt her. She needs to suffer, Harry." He didn't speak loudly, and not even with much anger. There was simply a manic determination on his face.

The problem with having a possessive, protective, vengeful boyfriend, Harry thought, is that he finds it a little harder to forgive people for being children. "I don't want her to."

Draco snarled. Just in case, Harry added the shimmering, almost invisible line of a ward between him and Margaret, and then turned back to the figure in front of him. He locked the door again, lifted his wand, and said, "I'll say the incantation and make the wand movement slowly. Then I'll demonstrate the actual curse."

He performed the slow demonstration, hearing the scratch of a quill as Hermione scribbled down notes on the movement. Then he faced the figure, snatched up a bit of his anger to funnel through the curse, and said, "Ardesco!"

The wooden figure burst into intense flames, consuming itself from the inside out. It went even faster than it usually did. Harry blinked, realizing that his rage must have done the curse good. But then, Dark Arts usually benefited from wild emotions.

He turned and faced his audience, seeing the shaken look on Hermione's face. And Parvati's face, for that matter, and others'. They were probably thinking about what that incantation could do to a human enemy. Well, good. I don't want them using these spells casually. "The Intense Flame curse is a good one to begin with," he said, "because it can't bounce, so there's less chance of hitting a classmate with it, unless you point your wand at them. It consumes from the inside, as you saw, instead of flying in a straight line of fire." He glanced from face to face, and drove the point home, just in case they didn't get it. "It kills painfully, and almost instantly. Your enemy, if you hit them, often has no chance to resist."

They watched him in silence. Even Margaret's laughter had ceased, for the moment. Then Neville stood up.

"Can I try it, Harry?" he asked quietly.

Harry smiled despite himself. This is the reason he went into Gryffindor. Neville had more reason to hate the Dark Arts than most, since Bellatrix Lestrange had tortured his parents into insanity, but he was volunteering to show that the spells were nothing to be afraid of and reassure the others. Harry nodded encouragingly at him and conjured another wooden figure in the nest of wards, then moved aside so that Neville could take his place.

Neville stared at the wooden person for some moments. Harry watched his expression change, clouds taking over his usually pleasant face until it was an expression of absolute and utter determination. He wondered who Neville was imagining as his foe. He privately hoped it wasn't Snape.

Neville aimed his wand at the figure. "Ardesco!" he said, the first two syllables firmly, the last with a little tremble in his voice.

Fire bloomed, blue-white and consuming, from the figure's chest region. It charred only the chest and head before fading, but Harry was impressed. It was more than he had expected anyone in the class to manage tonight, except possibly Millicent, Draco, and a few others who had been around Dark magic from the time they were children.

More interestingly, he had felt Neville's power, usually burning at just about average level, soar up around him with dazzling intensity when he cast the spell. Then it fell back. Harry nodded. That's why he doesn't do well in Potions. He's a lightning wizard—quick burning strikes are his style, powered by emotion. Of course, he's good in Herbology, but there he has love to sustain his interest. If all he feels is nervousness, like he does in Potions, then he'll mess up instead, because his magic tries to help him but doesn't have enough intensity to work with.

"Very good, Neville!" he said, and Neville beamed at him shyly. "Excellent." Harry created another two figures, one off to the side and one slightly in front of the first one, and urged Neville off to stand before the second. "Why don't you practice on that, and I'll need another volunteer to try and cast Ardesco again?" He looked around inquiringly.

Hermione rose to her feet in interest, but Margaret spoke before she could say anything. "Oh, I was supposed to wait longer, but I just can't."

Harry looked at her warily. If she was finally participating, then he had to give her a chance—

And then he realized that she'd stooped down and picked up something from the floor. Harry blinked. It looked to be a box of the kind that non-volatile Potions ingredients were usually shipped in. He didn't understand until Margaret removed the box's lid and picked up something from within it.

It was Argutus, with his mouth bound to his tail in what looked to be an intensely uncomfortable position.

"I found him spying in my room," said Margaret. "I thought I'd bring him back to you, Potter." She smiled at him. "Don't worry. I didn't hurt him—not nearly as much as you hurt Headmaster Dumbledore, at any rate."

Harry choked, his rage rising in him so suddenly that he couldn't breathe. He clenched his hand in front of him. He saw Draco edge closer with a faint look of intoxication on his face, and realized his magic must be rising around him. A few people looked fearful, but Margaret was too far gone in the bliss of her little plan to be one of them.

"Give him here," said Harry softly.

"I want you to promise that you're never going to send him spying in the Ravenclaw girls' bedrooms again." Margaret dropped the box and picked up her wand, touching it to the ropes that bound Argutus. She murmured what Harry could just make out as a Constriction Spell, and the ties grew tighter. The little Omen snake couldn't even thrash. "What were you having him do, Potter? Look for dirty little secrets that you could file more false charges about?"

"Miss Parsons." Remus's voice sounded very far away through the haze of Harry's anger. "I would advise you to give his snake to Mr. Potter. Now."

"I just want a promise, that's all. I think he shouldn't even have the snake, really. It's against school rules. But, of course, Harry Potter gets to be the exception to all the rules. He even gets to attend Hogwarts after he's forced the best Headmaster in history out." Margaret gave Harry a sweet smile. "Come on, Potter, a promise, what do you say? I'd hate to have to cast a pain curse on your precious little snakeling—" She raised her wand as if she were going to do just that.

"Exsculpo," Harry snapped. "Wingardium Leviosa. Silencio. Accio Argutus."

The jet of purple light that sprang from his hand made the ropes binding Argutus cease to exist in the next moment. Then Argutus was floating, so that Margaret couldn't drop him to the floor, and Margaret's voice was silenced, and Argutus was skimming towards Harry, landing safely on his shoulder.

Harry turned his head so that he could focus on the Omen snake. "Did she hurt you?" he demanded.

"Tied me up and made me miss my meals, mostly." Argutus twisted back and forth, as though trying to get rid of the memory of the ropes. "But I am sore and hungry, and she said some of the words in the language my name is in. They hurt me."

Harry closed his eyes. He wanted so badly to wound Margaret. What she did to him didn't matter, he could survive it all, but that she had hurt Argutus, a tiny snake who wasn't even venomous—

He wanted to hurt her, he wanted her to cease to exist, and he knew that he had the power to do it, too.

And if he used that power, what was going to make him any better than Voldemort?

He could feel the press of eyes on him, sympathetic and fascinated and frightened, and he gave a little sob. The gazes, combined with the sheer force of his temper, were going to push him over the edge in a moment, and Margaret might find herself writhing under the Cruciatus, for all Harry knew. He'd cast it against Voldemort in the graveyard.

Desire and will rushed together, and formed a new spell, the one he needed at the moment—to make him safe, to make the others safe from him.

"Extabesco plene," he gasped, and felt the walls of the spell rise up around him, wrapping him in wind, making him vanish. He was still there, of course, but he was hidden—not just from sight, as an Invisibility Cloak or Disillusionment Charm would do, but from all the senses. No one could hear him or feel him, and Remus wouldn't be able to track him by scent. And his magic was under the spell with him, wrapped and turned inside out. Not even its pounding power would reveal him.

Harry brushed past Draco's reaching hand, ducked, and ran through the suddenly open door.

He aimed by instinct for the areas of the school where few people would be at this hour, after dinner on a weeknight, and finally found another abandoned classroom. He slipped inside it and leaned against the wall, his eyes closed, his head thrown back. His panting shook him.

He'd almost lost control.

He'd almost hurt another student.

He was sick with himself, and furious, and frightened—especially because the soft twining of Argutus around his neck made him dream all over again about injuring Margaret, making her feel exactly the pain that Argutus had felt, returning curse for curse.

He wished with all his heart in that moment that his dream were real, and he could just be assured that no one would come looking for him unless they actually needed help. He could vanish, for hours at a time. No one would worry. He'd slip in and out of the world, using his magic only for good things, and he would understand everything.

Harry opened his eyes and regarded the shimmer of his magic, visible since it was trapped in a small space with him, with what he knew was a look of loathing. "What good are you," he whispered, "if you can be used to hurt other people like that?"

"Sometimes a short, sharp shock can be most beneficial, Mr. Potter."

Harry whipped his head around, and his magic moved with it, solidifying into an arrow that Harry had to struggle to keep from flying. Acies Lestrange was standing in the door of the classroom, staring straight at him.

"How can you see me?" Harry demanded. He was counting on his new spell to shelter him, but it was no good if it didn't work.

"You cannot fool a dragon's eyes, Mr. Potter." Acies walked across the room and sat down on a desk. She wore a fringed cowl about her face, and did not try to meet his gaze. Harry didn't even know for certain if she was looking at him now, or at a corner of the room. She spoke absently. "And you cannot fool my family's sense of power. I know what happened."

"What I almost did?"

"Yes." Acies tilted her head. "Would it have been so terrible?"

Harry choked. "Of course it would have," he said, when he could speak. "I would have hurt her, and she—she couldn't defend herself. It wouldn't have been an equal contest." He leaned his head on his knees and closed his eyes.

"You smell of so much pain," said Argutus softly. "I don't like it when you smell of so much pain."

"She fights very well on a plane where you will not even try to defend yourself, that of insults and public opinion," said Acies. "If you had shocked her or hurt her badly enough, Mr. Potter—note that I do not advocate killing her—then she would have backed off."

"And then she would have hated me even more." Harry wondered why in the world Acies, a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, was telling him this. "I don't want to be the one who strikes the spark that starts the wildfire, Professor Merryweather."

"Something will be, if you are not." Acies's voice were pensive. "I do not know why the reaction towards you is so deep, Mr. Potter. Sometimes I think I know, and then it slides from my mind. I will keep trying to guess." Then she shook her head. "As it is, she will not remember that you held back from using pain curses on her. She will remember only that you startled and nearly hurt her. She will feel the need to prove herself, or she will grow bold from thinking that you don't dare provoke a confrontation, and she will increase her torment."

"I can't hurt her," Harry whispered. "And I can't allow Draco or Snape or anyone else who cares about me to hurt her, either."

"Why not?" Acies's voice was polite, mildly interested, as if this were a matter of academic interest to her.

"Because of the same principles that you've given us, of course, Professor." Harry frowned at her. "Because we need to understand and respect other people's sacrifices. The loss of Headmaster Dumbledore was a sacrifice for her family and for her. She's only acting like this because of that. How can I blame her for that?"

"Defending yourself and blaming her are two different things." Acies leaned forward. "It is not often used, because to do so would spark rivalries between powerful students that Hogwarts does not need, but there is a stricture in the books of the school that gives professors a certain—ability. I grant you formal permission to defend yourself with magic outside of class, Mr. Potter. What you do with that permission is up to you."

Harry closed his eyes. "You shouldn't be showing favoritism like that, Professor Merryweather."

"I am not the Head of a House," said Acies. "More, I am the Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, which already has a relaxation of rules associated with it. This is not favoritism, Potter. This is the removal of a restriction that will let you carry the battle to a field where I know you excel."

"But I should learn to be more patient—"

"There is a certain point," Acies interrupted him, "at which patience, forgiveness, mercy, forbearance, are all weaknesses, Potter—invitations to your enemies to do whatever they like, under the sure and certain knowledge that you won't strike back. I believe this permission will prevent confrontations. I will have the Headmistress announce it tomorrow. It will give students a reason to think twice before attacking you, verbally or magically. And if you ignore your own emotions and instincts long enough, the explosion, when it comes, will be more violent. You saw that today."

Harry sighed. He still didn't like it, since it was a privilege that elevated him above others, but he didn't think he had the energy to persuade Acies out of it right now. And maybe she was right, and it would prevent people from getting into confrontations, which would insure that he wouldn't hurt them.

"You are like me, Potter," Acies said, making him look up. "As much magical creature as wizard. Lords, or those with the power to become so, often are. Your magic needs to be exercised, trained, controlled, used. It is a part of you as much as your limbs and your eyes, rather than something extra, as it is for some wizards. Better to use it in constant small spells rather than dam it up and have it come out in a flood."

Harry nodded. Snape had told him something similar during the summer between his second and third year, when his magic had first begun bursting free of the phoenix web.

He was sick of thinking and talking about himself, though, and he asked, "What do you mean, like you?"

Acies cocked her head. "Why, I have the dragon within me, Mr. Potter," she said. "The wildness. It begins to burn and beg for release if I ignore it too long. And yet, each time I use it, the balance in my mind slips a little more, and the dragon becomes a little stronger." She stood up and walked towards the door.

"What happens when the balance tilts from human to dragon?" Harry asked her back.

Acies glanced over her shoulder. "Then I will not come back," she said gently, and shut the door behind her.

Harry closed his eyes. His magic hummed around him, and Argutus asked for crickets.

Like it or not, I can't just fade. The spell is a nice compromise for when I absolutely need it, but Draco will be frantic about me, and Remus and Connor will be worried. And Snape, too, I suppose.

Harry sighed, and dismissed the cocoon of spells around him. His magic at once uttered a trilling song of freedom, gliding around him so happily that Harry shook his head.

I suppose I really haven't used it enough lately. Draining Voldemort's power is passive enough not to count.

Harry took several deep breaths, then rose to his feet and turned to seek out Draco. Perhaps Acies was right, and the ability to use magic to defend himself if necessary would make larger spells unnecessary.

Harry could think of something that would be even better as far as exercising his impatient magic, though.

Time to take the battle with Voldemort on the offensive.