Thank you for the reviews yesterday!
Well, this chapter turned out rather differently than I planned. All to the good, I hope.
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Becoming Conscious
Harry went up on his broom early the next morning, long before anyone else awoke, long before Draco would have a reason to expound on revenge plans against Margaret that Harry was determined not to honor.
He had to think, and the sky was the best place for it. Harry rose steadily, his hand and legs locked around the Firebolt. His magic hovered around him. If he slipped due to his lack of a left hand, it would be ready to aid him, but Harry didn't think he would slip. He wasn't chasing a Snitch, after all, and had no reason to stretch out his right hand to grasp at the air.
He soared until he was gasping, the thin, cold air cutting at his cheeks. Then he turned and glanced down at the bulk of the castle, the Forbidden Forest—an undifferentiated dark mass at this point—and the Quidditch Pitch. Several thousand feet below him, Harry thought, dizzily. The problems in Hogwarts still existed, of course, but their presence in his mind felt diminished, as though the size of the sky were eating them, even as distance ate the buildings that loomed over him when Harry walked among them.
He had to think. Here, where he was alone and the sky sang around him and the muted exhilaration that always came with flying gripped him, was the best place.
Harry closed his eyes, leaned out along his broom, and began to circle. He murmured a warming charm to protect himself from the cold air when that got to be distracting, forcing his thoughts to turn to inner and not outer discomfort.
What did he have to do?
Well, one thing was fairly obvious. Something about Margaret. Remus had taken one hundred fifty points from Ravenclaw for fighting, tormenting another student's pet, insulting a professor, and acting irresponsibly in a room where Dark Arts curses were being used. Harry thought that might restrain Margaret for a short while, but in the end, it wouldn't be enough—not if fear of Harry's magic hadn't held her back so far. And her Housemates had laughed with her yesterday, not stood up to her, so they were unlikely to be much help, either.
A short, sharp shock, Acies said.
Harry sighed. And the shock would most likely have to be magical, he knew—both because of the permission for him to use magic in his own defense that Acies would get McGonagall to announce today and because he doubted that Draco and some of the other Slytherins would be satisfied with less than a magical revenge. He'd heard Millicent and Blaise discussing it last night when he finally returned to the common room, though of course they shut up immediately when they saw him. They would defend him unless he showed that he was capable of defending himself.
What kind of spell would make her back off instead of just find some other way of getting at me? I can't shield everyone. If she can't go after Argutus or Draco, she'll just go after another of my friends, and there's no way to predict who she'll choose beforehand.
A progressive spell was the best course to take, Harry decided at last, one that would advance in stages as Margaret failed to restrain herself. If she hurt him once, only one thing would happen; if she hurt him twice, then the second thing would, and so on. And it had to be something that would embarrass her, rather than physically hurt her. The mere thought of using pain curses or Transfiguring her into a stone statue the way Voldemort might have made Harry squirm as though his stomach were on fire.
What, then?
And then it occurred to him, and Harry blinked and smiled a bit. Well, yes, that would be very hard to hide or disguise as anything other than what it is. And I'll only need to use it if she attacks me. If she's learned her lesson, or all her Housemates pile on her and keep her still, then it can stay safely in my head.
That decided, Harry moved his mind reluctantly on to the next topic he thought he had to deal with—Snape.
After several minutes of uphill struggle against his instincts, Harry had to admit that the man might have a point. Could he learn anything more from the scar connection? Harry didn't know. Since the battle, he'd had nothing but visions too brief and blurred to be useful, or ordinary dreams—most of them repeats of the Hogwarts where he was happy. Voldemort almost certainly didn't want Harry able to find and follow him while he was as severely wounded as he was. Harry could perhaps delve further into the link, but he didn't know how to do that without dragging Draco along.
A one-sided barrier would be the best solution, then, one that I can take down if I need it but which he can't get through.
Harry grimaced and opened his eyes, to watch a gull making its way through the air far below. His greatest strength in Occlumency lay in shielding his own emotions, calming himself and letting his rational thinking take over—probably a legacy of the box. He had never tried something like Voldemort's snake, a trap that would block a hostile mind with a permanent link to his from entering. He would have to have Snape's help if he was going to do this.
Do I want that help?
It didn't matter if he wanted it. He would have to get it. Harry twitched his head irritably. And that meant he had to come to some kind of understanding with Snape.
Perhaps I did mistake him. Maybe. I thought he was saying I was worth more as a human being than Connor is, which is so ridiculous it doesn't deserve a rational argument. But maybe he did mean that I was more important to him and the war effort. I can see that. It would fit with what he was saying when I brewed the Wolfsbane. And if Connor is going to be the one to defeat Voldemort—well, I hold that as a possibility, but Snape probably doesn't. He knows more about my skills and my readiness to fight the Dark Lord than he does about Connor's.
Perhaps I should ask him to give Connor lessons?
Harry snorted, but kept the thought in mind. Snape was still the professor at school who knew the most about Dark Arts—well, perhaps Acies knew more, but she so far was concentrating more on the philosophy of them, the internal defense against falling into temptation, than the outer defense against specific spells. And for all Harry knew, she'd refuse to tutor Connor, because Acies was like that.
He won't like it. I'll have to persuade him, maybe, or offer to do something for him. But I think I at least need to ask. Connor felt so useless in the battle. Harry winced at the thought of the expression on his brother' s face when he'd first seen him last weekend. Connor had smiled stiffly and thanked him for jumping in front of the curse, but the deep sense of helplessness in his eyes was one that Harry could empathize with. I'll ask Snape.
Well, he meant to make many requests that weekend, including that any of his allies who had useful information about a possible Death Eater location tell him what that information was, so that they could plan an offensive attack on Voldemort. This could be part of the general deluge of requests.
And that left the crawling problem that he'd been trying not to think about, the thing that should not have been a problem but was. That was the weighty sense of outrage and anger he'd felt about the Daily Prophet article yesterday, and Margaret's insults, and the murmurs in the corridors, and all the other little things he shouldn't have let bother him, but which did bother him.
He knew what Snape would say, could hear the dry suggestion echoing in his head. Go talk to someone.
Harry shook his head impatiently. Who was there to talk to? Remus and Snape and McGonagall knew everything; it wasn't like Harry could say anything new to them, and McGonagall was doubly restricted by the fact that she was Headmistress of the school and couldn't be seen as favoring just one student. Nor did he want to make them relive what his parents had done to him, or subject Remus to more ugly reminiscences of two of his best friends.
Use Occlumency to help in that too, then. I think I'm only being affected the way I am because of that abrading I took from Voldemort's mental venom. Heal myself, get myself under control again, and the pools should swallow my emotions. I'll get through this alive. I've taken worse. And I'm sick of thinking about myself all the time. If I can concentrate on planning an offensive attack and getting Snape to train Connor, it will be better.
He closed his eyes and gently expanded his Occlumency pools, overwhelming the boiling chaos in his mind under a cool tide. He had to wrestle for perhaps twenty minutes, since emotions kept popping up and poking through the surfaces of the pools, but finally, he opened his eyes, calm and as near relaxed as he'd get.
A thought came to him. Harry indulged himself in it.
Why not? There's no one there to see.
He pointed his Firebolt at the ground and dived straight down.
The wind rushing past him built to a roar with his speed, and the warmth steadily increased as he came lower and lower, into the air stroked by the rising sun's rays. The sky tumbled past him, blue and gray and polished to a sharp sheen with the rain that had fallen yesterday. Harry heard himself laughing. The joy surged through him, a light mist floating on top of the Occlumency pools, not one of those emotions he needed to restrain.
Only when he pulled out of the dive and circled lazily a few feet above the ground did he realize that someone had been watching him after all. Hawthorn Parkinson stood near the school's front doors, her hood pulled back and her eyes fixed on him. Harry could feel himself tense, but he shoved the worry back under the surface of the Occlumency pools as well. He nodded at her as if he did death-defying dives all the time, and then pulled his Firebolt to a stop and hopped off it.
"Hello, Mrs. Parkinson," he said quietly. "Is there something I can do for you?"
Hawthorn opened her mouth, then visibly changed what she was about to say. "Yes, Harry. I have information that you'll be interested in—the probable location of one of the camps where the Dark Lord is keeping his captive Muggles. And I brought some people with me whom I think you should meet." She gave a nervous little flick of her shoulders. Harry cocked his head. I don't look that intimidating with my cheeks flushed from diving and my hair tousled, do I?
"I'd be very interested in that, yes," he contented himself with saying. "I was about to contact you and the others and tell you that I think it's time we took this war on the offensive instead of the defensive. A raid of that kind would be perfect." He looked around, but he didn't think that the others were standing at Hawthorn's side under Disillusionment Charms, or he would already have seen them. "Where are these people you want me to meet?"
Hawthorn lifted her head and gave an odd sound, half-yelp and half-howl. Shadows stirred towards the edge of the Forbidden Forest a moment later, and six people emerged.
Harry knew three of them, he realized after a quick glance: Tybalt Starrise, his joined partner John, and Laura Gloryflower. The other three, two women and a man, were strangers.
But all three of them, Harry saw as they came closer, were werewolves. Their eyes, darkened almost to the color of amber, proclaimed it, as did their half-flared nostrils. And then, of course, he knew who they must be: the three children of Light families whom Fenrir Greyback had bitten, the three werewolves he'd been brewing Wolfsbane for.
Harry bowed slightly to the male stranger. "Fergus Opalline?" he asked.
The man nodded, a faint smile curling the edges of his mouth. He had a wild shyness that reminded Harry of Remus, or at least Remus as he had been before the Sanctuary. His hair was pale, a white-blond color that reminded Harry of the Malfoys'. Harry decided to keep any remarks on that resemblance to himself, and glanced at the two women.
One looked too similar to Laura not to be related to her. Her hair was a cloud of golden curls, and she had bells braided in and among them that marked her as a trained war witch. Harry stared in open curiosity, certain there was a story there; she was only in her early twenties, and training like that normally took more than a decade. "Delilah Gloryflower?" he asked.
She bared her teeth at him as she sniffed, thoroughly, and Harry wondered for a moment who led their little impromptu pack, her or Hawthorn. Probably Hawthorn, since she'd been a werewolf longer, but Harry could see Delilah challenging her for the position someday—if werewolves were anything like normal wolves, which Harry had to admit they might not be. "I am," she said. "It is a pleasure to meet you at last, Mr. Potter." She cocked her head to the side and relaxed suddenly, as if his scent or the power of his magic had reassured her somehow.
Harry turned and nodded at the final woman. She had her head down, but she looked up at him with a jerk. Harry winced as he saw the marks of the bite that tore across her face from the right side of her head. Her right ear was missing, and Greyback's fangs had obviously stopped just a few inches short from her eye. She had a cast of features that marked her as related to Tybalt, but the ripping scar and her dark hair separated her entirely. "I am Claudia Griffinsnest," she said. "And you might as well stare. I owe you a debt I can never repay, and I've lost things I can never recover."
"I am sorry," Harry offered quietly. He hesitated, then decided he had to take the risk, and flipped his left sleeve back from the stump of his left wrist.
Claudia relaxed almost at once. "Thank you," she said. "It is good for me to remember that others have made sacrifices, as well, so that I do not sink into despair."
"I'll say," Tybalt murmured. "You ought to hear her moaning on sometimes, Harry. Utterly insufferable, really."
Claudia snapped at Tybalt. Harry couldn't tell how serious it was. The bite, or perhaps just her control over her emotions, made her face very hard to read. Delilah put a hand on Claudia's shoulder, though, and Fergus cast Tybalt a harsh glance, edging towards the two women.
"It is good to see you again, child," Laura Gloryflower said, and the whole focus of the company seemed to shift and reorient on her. Harry braced himself. He wasn't about to yield control to her the way he had when they first met in the Ministry. He kept his face cool as he inclined his head back.
"Thank you, Mrs. Gloryflower," he said. "Is there something specific that you came to see me for?"
"Partly, I came because Delilah is my niece," said Laura briskly. "But I also plan to join in the attack. I should have been there when you went after Voldemort on the equinox. Alas, a few members of my family still did not see sense about allying with you. Now they have." Her tranquil face gave no sign of how fierce the arguments must have been, though Harry couldn't help scanning for it. "I gave them a good scolding," Laura elaborated. "And I've also talked to a few members of Fergus's family. They'll be along as soon as Paton Opalline gets over this little fit of sulks he's having about allying with someone he thinks is a Dark wizard." She nodded to Harry. "I told him that you were a Dark wizard, of course, but also that you were a Light wizard. He had to think about that."
Harry smiled in spite of himself. "Do you think they'll join in the next attack that we plan on making?" he asked.
"I think not," said Laura. "Not unless they somehow manage to get themselves together in the next week, and it always did take Paton longer than that to make up his mind."
Harry blinked, but his mind had already made the connection. "The full moon is in a week," he breathed to Hawthorn.
Hawthorn bared her teeth in a joyous snarl. "Even so," she said. "That's why we came, Harry. We want to fight on your side in werewolf form. Narcissa pulled the location of Woodhouse from her sister when she tortured her." Harry noticed that the Light werewolves frowned at the mention of torture, and Laura pursed her lips. Hawthorn ignored that. "I know where Woodhouse is, what it looks like. The Dark Lord used it as a base during the First War. And this should show the Ministry, I hope, that not all werewolves are evil." Hawthorn snapped her teeth shut on air. "They're pushing to make the laws against us even stricter, Harry."
Harry frowned. He wondered if that was why he hadn't heard anything from Scrimgeour lately. He'd assumed it was due to the Minister not wanting to seem too personally involved in the abuse case in a way that might prejudice the evidence. Well, I will have to write him a letter about that.
"We should summon the others, then," he told Hawthorn. "It's Saturday, so I can meet with you all day. I want to create a plan that will maximize everyone's strengths, or at least maximize the strengths of everyone who's available to attack that night."
Hawthorn smiled. "I was hoping you'd say that."
It was afternoon before everyone who could respond had managed to gather in the Room of Requirement. Somewhat to Harry's amusement, McGonagall had not only permitted many Dark and Light wizards on Hogwarts grounds, but insisted on attending the meeting herself. Of course, she'd attended the last one, but that was perforce, since it was in her office. Harry wondered if she did actually mean to be a part of the attack.
Probably not. She knows her responsibilities, and it would be disastrous for Hogwarts if she died. She just wants to make sure that we're not casting damaging spells on school grounds, I think.
The Room had chosen to present them with a large circle of chairs, couches, and divans, rather like the setup when Harry had met with his Dark allies here last Halloween. Harry had appreciated the encouraging message of unity that sent—
A message of unity that lasted only until his Dark allies arrived. They took one look at Laura Gloryflower, Tybalt, John, and the Light werewolves, and sat on the opposite side of the circle. Harry ground his teeth, in particular, at the way Arabella Zabini kept a hand on her wand, eyes shaded and wary, and how Adalrico stared openly at Laura, as if he could not imagine what she was doing here. Laura simply nodded at everyone, inflexibly polite, and went back to talking with her niece. Mortimer sneered when he came in. Burke made a strangled sound. They might not have existed as far as Laura was concerned.
But Harry saw the snarl that wrinkled Claudia's lips, and the way Henrietta's eyes lit up at the sight of her scar, and he could just imagine what was about to happen next.
Then Honoria came in and saved the day.
"Tybalt!" she exclaimed, as if she had been dying for the sight of him, and rushed across the room to throw her arms around him. Tybalt stood up and kissed her on the cheeks with loud smacking sounds. Harry knew that most of the people in the room were staring. He couldn't help it. He was staring himself.
Honoria looked around the room from the shelter of Tybalt's arms, her eyes wide and innocent, illusions of house elves dancing around her. "This is the perfect place to announce our affair," she said. "I'm really a man, you see, and Tybalt's really a woman, and we've been secretly in love since we were nine. Sorry to disappoint you." She nodded at John. "You especially, John, but really, you should have suspected something when Tybalt started wearing skirts."
John reached up and smacked his partner on the arm. "That's why you've refused to come to bed with me since we joined," he said. "Horrendous pimples all over your body, right."
Honoria and Tybalt burst into simultaneous giggles, and released each other. Honoria sat down in the chair next to them, whispering furiously. The silence that remained behind them was gobsmacked, but less tense than it had been. No one was going to do anything for a while, Harry suspected, on grounds of being thought absolutely ridiculous. What did you follow a performance like that with?
More entrances, it turned out. Ignifer eyed the Light contingent sourly and sat on the far side of the circle from them, but at least Harry could be sure that she wouldn't cause trouble; she seemed more intent, after that initial look, on pretending that they didn't exist. Snape and Regulus at least contented themselves with no more than a few stern looks at Harry, and suspicious gazes for absolutely everyone else in the room. Thomas came in with a book and attempted to engage Harry in a conversation about something called the Grand Unified Theory of Every Kind of Magic, but luckily his wife had come with him, and managed to steer him to a seat without seeming impolite. The Malfoys entered with a nod from Lucius and a kiss on the cheek for Harry from Narcissa. Narcissa took stock of the situation in a glance and sat down beside Laura Gloryflower, pointedly putting out her hand to be shaken.
The real surprises were the last two people to enter. Remus ambled in as though someone had invited him, and immediately sat down beside Claudia. Harry raised an eyebrow, but relaxed when he saw the other werewolves, even Hawthorn, had smiled at the sight and scent of Remus. Remus was, in fact, talking animatedly to Fergus, who began cautiously to answer back.
And then Charles showed up. His gaze snapped around the room at a laugh from Laura, and locked onto her face. A smile Harry had never seen before, deep and wistful, curved his lips.
"Madam," he said. Laura turned her head at the sound. Harry saw her face fire with a look of joy.
"Charles Rosier-Henlin," she said, and rose, and walked across the room to give him a kiss on the cheek, the head of a Light family greeting the head of a Dark family in a way that left no doubt they considered each other friends. She drew back and curtsied to him. "You can still smile like you used to. You have no idea how glad I am to see it."
"Dark Arts don't corrupt that, Laura, no matter what else they may take away." Charles clasped her hand and leaned nearer. Harry saw actual adoration softening his face, and knew, as if they had confessed it aloud, that Charles had probably once seriously considered marrying the witch in front of him. "And the Light hasn't taken away your grace and beauty."
Laura smiled. "Did you truly think it would?"
"No," said Charles. "You were too strong for your allegiance to crush you."
Laura brushed another kiss across his cheek, and then patted his shoulder and walked back towards her own chair. Charles followed her, sitting down in the single empty seat that had been left as a kind of boundary marker between the Light and Dark sections—binding them together in a true circle. Harry smiled at him, and received a slight smile in return.
He stepped into the center of the ring, then, feeling their eyes track and try to swallow him. Draco, sitting on the edge of the circle near Lucius, was looking at him with particular sharpness. Harry reached into himself, drew furiously on that strength that had allowed him to keep going after his mother's visit at Christmas last year, and didn't break down in front of their gazes. He looked from face to face, arresting some people in mid-whisper or mid-frown.
"I know what Woodhouse looks like," he said quietly. "Mrs. Parkinson has put the image into my mind. She said that Voldemort often used it during the first War as a base. It's entirely likely that he's using it now as a storage camp for Muggles. If not, then he'll have it fortified with Death Eaters. I want to take them down on the night of the October full moon."
"You're taking werewolves along with us?" Mortimer's voice soared incredulously. "How do we know that they won't turn on us and consume us alive?"
"They'll be taking Wolfsbane, of course," said Harry. If it wasn't for the formal promise I've made him, I would dismiss him from the alliance immediately. Narcissa claimed he would bring his family in, but so far none of them have made a move to contact me. I think Mortimer may be so much dead weight. I'll have to study the unbinding rituals to get out of a formal alliance promise. "That allows them to retain their human minds, though not their human forms. We can count on—" He glanced at Remus. "Five werewolves?"
Remus nodded, his eyes glinting. Harry smiled. Remus had changed. Before the Sanctuary, Harry didn't think he would have dared to attack someone in his lupine form. Now, he trusted not only the Wolfsbane, but his own temper in a werewolf body. It was an enormous step forward.
"Five werewolves," Harry repeated firmly. "A witch trained in fire magic." He inclined his head to Ignifer, who nodded back at him. So far, she hadn't said anything about claiming a life debt from him for saving his life during the battle on the equinox. Harry wondered why, but in case she wanted it to remain a private matter, he wouldn't bring it up now. "Four former Death Eaters in human form, one of them a Potions Master. Several skilled Dark witches and wizards. An illusionist, and one still able to pass swiftly from point to point?" He cocked his head at Honoria, who bounced up and down slightly in her seat as she nodded. "Two Light wizards. And, I hope, a lioness." He glanced at Laura Gloryflower.
"I consider most of the world as my children," said Laura. "It is what a puellaris witch must do, to survive a role in public. It will be no trouble to transform once we are within range of the battle, Mr. Potter."
Harry nodded, then turned to Priscilla Burke. "And what about you, madam? Can you allow yourself to join us?"
"Not without Auror Mallory's permission, Mr. Potter," said Priscilla reluctantly. "I will not inform the Ministry of this attack, because they would insist on supervising it, and, I can see, getting in the way by insisting that you not use Dark Arts. On the other hand, I can't fight without betraying the oaths I've made as an Auror."
"This is why you should Declare, my dear," Thomas told her. "Declare for the Dark, and then Auror Mallory would sack you, and then you could fight at our side. See? It's very simple."
Priscilla smiled down at her husband. "Tempting," she said lightly. "But I think not. What I can do, Mr. Potter," she went on, moving her gaze back to Harry, "is inform the Ministry of the attack when it's over. If you have captured Death Eaters who require imprisonment in Tullianum, then we can come in and clean them up."
Harry smiled. "Excellent." He hesitated for a moment, then reminded himself that he need not be afraid to use his magic in front of his allies. This would provide good exercise for it, of the kind that Acies had recommended, and it would probably impress them, anyway. He snapped his fingers, and the sheet of parchment he had prepared rose from the corner, skimmed over Lucius's head, and settled, floating, in front of him.
Harry fixed his eyes on the sheet and narrowed them. Hawthorn had let him use Legilimency on her, and he had a very good image of Woodhouse in his head. The trick was transferring that image to parchment, to make a usable map.
"Pingo Woodhouse," he said, and concentrated intently. The parchment rippled, wavered as if it would tear in half, and then straightened itself out with a jerk. Harry nodded as the image Hawthorn had described to him appeared in outline: a great hollow valley in the mountains of Wales, bordered on three sides by high walls of stone. The fourth side swept down in a gentle curve that provided the main entrance to the valley, and was covered with thick trees. Harry could see why Voldemort valued the place. It was thick with natural magic—it must be, or Muggles would have found and used it—and eminently defensible from the ground. Anti-Apparition wards in all but a few places would restrict entrance nicely by that method. The buildings that filled the valley, all but one made of stone and covered, as Hawthorn had shown him, with thick wards, stood in a quadrangle that would allow those within them to see attack coming from virtually any direction. The central, wooden building, Woodhouse itself, was worked over with dozens of anti-fire spells. There, Voldemort conducted rituals that the presence of stone walls would have adversely affected.
"I recognize the place," said Henrietta, her voice startled. "How exactly are we going to attack it, Potter?"
Harry smiled grimly. "By a combination of distraction and air," he said. He swung around, meeting each gaze in turn. "I need to know here and now who the best flyers among you are."
"I'm pretty damn good," said John quietly.
Harry nodded to him, and continued turning around the circle. Draco, of course, was leaning forward, staring at him, and Harry rolled his eyes and nodded. Draco sat back, satisfied. Regulus grinned at him. And raising her hand, as if she could not quite believe what she was doing, was Henrietta.
Harry locked eyes with Henrietta. He did not trust her. On the other hand, it would be stupid of her to claim she was good on a broom if she wasn't. "And you really want to join me in the air?" he asked her.
Henrietta let out a sharp breath. "I want this attack to succeed," she said, and then looked surprised that she'd said it. But she went on. "I saw what the Dark Lord—no, Voldemort, was during the attack on the beach. He won't be good for my family or my ambitions if he wins. And I'd rather be a vital part of the attack than just one more Dark witch in the background, Potter."
That, Harry could believe. Besides, he was utterly confident that he was better in the sky than Henrietta was. He nodded, and turned back to the map.
"Mrs. Parkinson has shown me that there aren't spells preventing the approach of brooms," he said. "Brooms are made of wood, and spells aimed at them would disrupt the workings of Woodhouse itself. But there'll be guards watching out for us, that's for certain. We're going to need a distraction, so that we can ride above them without being noticed. That's where the werewolves come in, and our lioness." He nodded to Hawthorn, who bared her teeth in what was not a grin. "She knows the country around Woodhouse, and can show the others where to Apparate in before the moon rises. Then they'll transform and strike in through the forest, distracting the guards from me and the rest of us on our brooms. Since Voldemort's won't be there, I can concentrate on destroying the anti-Apparition wards. When they're down, I want the rest of you to Apparate in immediately."
"I can carry the message!" Honoria proclaimed, all but vibrating.
Harry smiled at her. "Thank you, but I need you on the ground with your illusions. We have a spell that Charles invented which will let me tell you the moment the wards fall; I'll teach it to you before you leave today." He glanced at the others. "What do you think so far?"
"I think that not all of us know Woodhouse," Burke grumbled. "How are we going to find and free the prisoners?"
"This is why we have former Death Eaters with us," said Harry. "You'll split into three groups—one guided by Mr. Malfoy, one by Mr. Bulstrode, and one by Professor Snape." He shot a quick glance at Snape, whose face had turned pale, but who merely nodded when Harry locked eyes with him. He's being practical, for once, Harry thought. He knows that he's not good enough on a broom to guard me. "They'll be able to show you the likely places where prisoners are hidden, and what traps to expect."
"You don't think that You-Know-Who will have set new traps for us?" Tybalt asked, his voice worried. Harry saw him glancing at his partner, and guessed that he didn't like the thought of being separated from John. "After all, why should he leave them the same as they were, since he knows that some of his followers have turned traitor?"
"The unique nature of Woodhouse restricts the defensive spells able to be used there," said Lucius smoothly. "The Dark Lord will assuredly have changed some of the traps, but I was frequently at Woodhouse in the last years before he fell. There are few of the traps that I will not have seen." His eyes flashed as he smiled, and Harry saw just how much he was looking forward to striking back at Voldemort. Of course, Voldemort had sent Evan Rosier to kill him, branded him for life, and done other things to him. "I'll brief you on those this afternoon."
Harry snapped his fingers, remembering something he'd forgotten to ask Hawthorn. "Mrs. Parkinson," he said, recalling her attention from a quiet argument with Delilah. "Can Madam Apollonis use fire at all, or do the spells at Woodhouse prevent any kind of flame from springing up there?"
"No," Hawthorn said. "She would not be able to destroy Woodhouse itself—and I would advise you not to try," she said, with a little bow to Ignifer, "but she can use her flame in other ways."
"Good." Harry turned back to Ignifer. "I'll rely on you to provide us light for the attack, once it gets going and there's no need to hide any more. The moon will be full, yes, but I don't want to take the chance of any of us hitting each other by mistake."
Ignifer looked as though someone had just handed her the best birthday present ever. "That will be no problem."
"How do you know that the Dark Lord won't be there?" Burke asked then. From the tone of his voice, he wanted to make Harry's life difficult, but Harry was grateful for the question, and that it was Burke who had asked it. That man was also irritating, for all that he'd fought when called, and it might impress him to realize exactly what had happened in the battle on the beach.
"I hurt him too badly," said Harry. "I ripped into his magical core, not just the power that he'd managed to acquire from draining other people. He'll be furious, yes, but he won't risk just charging into battle against me—and there's no particular reason for him to be at Woodhouse rather than any other stronghold." He glanced at Lucius, who nodded. Lucius had told him in private that he thought it extremely probable Voldemort had retreated to one of his lairs to lick his wounds, where no Death Eaters, no matter how trusted, were permitted to enter. "It's going to take him at least a month to recover completely. If he's there, he can cause trouble, but it won't be on the scale that it was, and I can use my magic for other things."
"A month?" Henrietta's voice was lively with curiosity. "How do you know that?"
Harry shrugged. "I do. We both have the ability to drain magic. I felt what I took from him. It's like estimating the amount of water in a glass. I know how to do it by sight, but I couldn't tell you in terms of inches from just a glance."
Henrietta frowned, and then her eyes widened, as though she had just thought of something. But she said nothing, and Harry turned to the other problems that were left—minor problems, since no one else provided a major challenge to his plans. Then it was a matter of making sure that everyone learned the communication spell, memorized the geography of Woodhouse, and did what else they could to insure the attack was a success.
Harry could not believe how much better he felt, now that he was doing something that should result in a substantial loss on Voldemort's part. He was definitely meant to fight in an offensive war, he thought.
And that was strange, really, considering how long and hard he'd trained in defensive magic to protect Connor.
He shrugged, because thinking about it too much would mean thinking about himself again, which he was tired of doing, and returned to making exact plans for guiding the Muggles out once they'd rescued them.
Henrietta felt as though someone had torn her broom out from under her. She stared at Potter, this time giving special attention to the lightning bolt scar under his fringe. It made sense, really. And this second coincidence was too great. She felt like a fool for not seeing it before.
Both Parselmouths. Both with the ability to drain magic. And yes, that could be a curse scar from surviving Avada Kedavra. It's not as though enough people have them for it to be a rule that one of them must be heart-shaped.
Potter is Voldemort's magical heir. And almost certainly the one who actually bounced the Killing Curse back at him.
That…put rather a different spin on things.
Henrietta tapped her fingers on her knee, only coming out of her thoughts when she needed to learn a spell, contribute a comment that no one else was thinking of, or answer a question. In the meantime, her thoughts spun and eddied around a different picture of the future than she'd had just an hour before.
There was the slightest, smallest chance that Potter might be like the Lords and Ladies she'd heard of in the ancient days, the ones who had treated their companions as actual companions, not expendable bodyguards or arrow fodder. Voldemort did not treat his Death Eaters that way, Merlin knew, and that was one of the reasons Henrietta had never wanted to join them. She was too smart, too skilled, too valuable, to be a pet.
When she'd heard that Potter refused to declare himself a Lord, and then met him, she had assumed that he was also too emotionally weak to be the kind of wizard who could stand up to his powerful followers as an equal, never mind be an actual leader.
But now, if that was not true—
Henrietta whipped her thoughts back into line. She knew what the world was like. She had lived in it and thrived, survived, flourished, because she adapted herself much more easily to disappointed hopes and dashed expectations than other people did. While her yearmates still gaped and mourned that Slytherins were treated badly by the other Houses, Henrietta had accepted it and was turning it into a weapon. And while she had listened to the tales of true Lords and Ladies with a yearning heart when she was younger, she knew before she was seven that no one in the wizarding world was really like that, not Grindelwald and not Albus Dumbledore and not Voldemort.
It was stupid to think that Potter would be the exception, particularly when he refused the title. And she was an idiot to be thinking that there was even the chance that he would be different.
But, still…
She had time to think, didn't she? No one knew she had Potter's hair. She had set the Polyjuice to brewing, but it would take another three weeks to be ready. And her plan was not the sort that required immediate confrontation.
She had time to test Potter, to ride beside him in this attack, and see if he was a true Lord.
You know he is not.
But she wanted to see.
Henrietta Bulstrode had never blinded herself to reality. And if reality had decided to take a sharp turn for the sublime, then she might as well ride beside Potter with sincerity in her heart, for once, and see what happened.
She made the decision with considerable force, if only to stop the struggle in her mind that wanted her to decide against Potter. That was annoying, she thought. Sometimes lately she felt as if her thoughts were not her own, as if someone were guiding, steering, directing them.
She settled the conflict with a sharp shake of her head—she would follow Potter with a true heart for now—and turned back to the battle plans.