Thank you for the reviews yesterday!

Well, damn. Now the story is spinning off in a new direction thanks to the things happening here, at least three quarters of which weren't supposed to happen.

Chapter Thirty-Three: Walk a Thin Line

"I just don't understand how you can do it, Potter, that's all."

Harry had a moment to be glad that Draco wasn't at this meeting of the dueling club, but doing research into his own family background for a spell that he wanted to create. He would have hexed Susan Bones by now. Of course, it was probably only because Draco wasn't here that Susan had dared to begin the subject at all.

Harry glanced around the room from the corners of his eyes. Everyone had stopped pretending to duel now, and was openly staring at the two of them. Harry stifled the urge to hiss. They needed concentration to get the expanded Shield Charm spells right. No, it wasn't Dark Arts, since Remus hadn't been able to be here this evening and supervise them, but it was still a delicate and difficult spell, and they might lose their lives to a Slicing Curse or a similar hex if they couldn't master it.

And now everybody was staring, even Connor, as though they couldn't imagine how Harry could find words to answer this accusation.

Harry sighed and turned back to Susan. "Because the son isn't the father," he said. "Families are important, Bones. I know that." He thought of his parents for a whip-quick moment, and then turned and met his twin's eyes. Connor took a step forward, one brow raised, but Harry shook his head. He appreciated Connor's offer, but he didn't need his brother to defend him. "But you won't get anywhere punishing Draco for what his father did to your uncle. Draco hasn't done anything to you. And he's firmly against Voldemort. He'd have to be, to dare be seen with me," he added, a bit sourly. Surely Draco's constant presence at Harry's side, his actions, should have proven which values he held, even if Susan and the others did distrust every word that came from both Harry's and Draco's mouths.

"But his father killed my uncle," Susan whispered. "And I know that you haven't spoken up against Lucius Malfoy either, Harry. In fact, some of the rumors say that you're working with him."

I should have known it would come to Lucius sooner or later. Harry met her eyes. "I'm sorry about your uncle and your cousins," he said. "And your grandparents, for that matter. I wish those deaths hadn't happened. I wish the First War hadn't happened. But it did, and there's nothing I can do to take it back. The very most I can do is try to help you survive this one, and defeat Voldemort. I won't abandon Draco because of his father, and I wouldn't abandon Lucius unless he tortured someone again. He has changed, Bones. Just as other people can change, you know," he added, thinking he should bring the example a bit closer to home. "Like my godfather did at the end of third year. If someone can go from Light to Dark, why can't someone go from Dark to Light?"

"This is all the same war," Susan whispered. Her eyes were bright with tears, and she could hardly hold her wand steady. Harry thought that was something she would need to get over if she was ever to make any progress in the war. Too easy for an enemy to spring and snatch the wand out of her hand while she aimed it so ineffectively. "That's what my aunt said. And she's the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, she should know. So someone can't change sides in the middle of a war without getting called a traitor. And I still have to avenge the deaths of my uncle and my cousins and my grandparents. And I can't fight on the same side as the son of the man who tortured them to death."

"It's not like he tortured them to death yesterday, Susan," said an unexpected voice behind Harry. "It's not like you even knew them. Give Harry a break, would you?"

Harry blinked and turned his head. Ron was standing there, scratching the back of his neck and wearing an expression that said, "What in the world am I doing defending a Slytherin?" But he didn't move away, even when Susan turned her teary eyes and shaking wand on him.

"You don't understand," she whispered. "My aunt made sure I knew all about Uncle Edgar, how—"

"Yeah, and my mum lost some brothers in the war, too," said Ron. "To Lucius Malfoy, or at least he was one of the Death Eaters who killed them. Took five wizards to take them down," he added, with a touch of justifiable pride. Harry nodded. Gideon and Fabian Prewett had been extremely powerful wizards, and some of the first targets of Voldemort's concerted attempts to remove Light wizards for a very good reason.

"So I've lost some uncles," said Ron. "And yet I'm right here learning beside Harry, and not trying to hex Malfoy. Much," he said, when Harry glared at him. He had done a fire hex last time that got around Draco's shields entirely, thanks to Draco's too-obsessive focus on Harry and a Light pureblood wizard's innate ability with fire and light, and then been a little too delighted with it. "We need all the allies we can get to win the war, because You-Know-Who is so powerful. I would never ask my mum to fight beside Lucius Malfoy, because she knew her brothers. I never did. They died while I was too young to remember them, or even before I was born. I don't know the exact year, because Mum doesn't like to talk about it."

"Well, my aunt does!" Susan caught her breath on a sob. "I feel like I did know my uncle Edgar, and I don't want anything to do with Death Eaters, or the children of Death Eaters, or the boyfriends of Death Eaters—" She threw Harry an accusing glance.

Harry grabbed the cold fury that wanted to roll out of him. He was glad, now, that Draco wasn't here. This was the kind of incident that he would exaggerate for more trouble than it was worth, lengthening the whole thing into insults and hexes. Harry had handled the six Ravenclaws who'd attacked him last Wednesday, and he would handle Susan Bones now.

Come to think of it, it's a good thing that Snape isn't here, either.

"Do you think Draco is Marked, Bones?" he asked quietly. "Just come out and say so, if you do."

Susan frowned. "Of course not. He couldn't hide it. I'm not saying he's Marked, just that he's a Death Eater."

"But a Death Eater would have the Dark Mark," said Harry, and took a step forward. He could feel every eye locked on him. Last chance to settle this without half of Hogwarts exploding at me. He was well-aware that any action, any word, could be the one that would set the dry grass of hearts and tempers in the school afire. "So he's not a Death Eater."

"He thinks like one," Susan muttered.

"How so?"

"I've heard him say Mudblood before."

"He hasn't for a month now," said Hermione firmly, standing up. Zacharias put an arm around her, but Hermione shrugged it off. Harry seized a sliver of amusement, like a thin beam of sunlight, from seeing how much that annoyed Hermione's boyfriend. "I know. I heard him say it in the hallway between classes, and I gave him a lecture about how it was stupid for him to have those prejudices when he was Harry's boyfriend and Harry's mother's a Muggleborn, and anyway Harry would hex him if he heard him say it. He hasn't said it since. He always substitutes Muggleborn."

Harry could feel his eyebrows climbing higher as Hermione recited that. Of course there were things that he didn't know about Draco's life, just as there were things that Draco didn't know about his, but he hadn't even imagined that something like this had occurred. So far as he knew, Draco's prejudices remained unreformed, and he just didn't think about them when he was with Harry, or put Harry in the context of them.

Come to think of it, maybe he didn't change his mind. But he's keeping his mouth shut, and that's a good first step.

"Thank you, Hermione," he said, and turned and faced Susan. "Well? Do you have any other proof he's a Death Eater?"

Susan's face had closed, and she looked away with a mulish expression. Harry relaxed. They were past the most dangerous moment, when Susan might have hexed him and other people would follow her lead or try to defend Harry, and it would all turn very dangerous. Now the atmosphere in the room was more akin to that of a sulky first-year trying to come up with an insult against snarky seventh-years than dangerous adversaries at each other's throats.

"I didn't think so," said Harry, and glanced around the room, then snapped his fingers. "The club is dismissed for today."

Groans answered him from a few throats, but most people didn't seem that upset. People who were with Susan wanted to sneak away and lick their wounds, obviously, or maybe console each other that, pretty words aside, Harry couldn't possibly be in the right. The neutral Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors just wanted to get out of there; the Ravenclaws had left about the time that Susan started speaking to Harry the way she had. The two Slytherins in the room, Blaise and a fourth-year whom Harry didn't know well, called Aidan Belby, waited with wands held loosely in their hands while Harry got ready to go.

The real surprise was when he started back to the Slytherin common room, and realized that the Weasleys were walking with him—Ron at his side and Ginny near Blaise. Harry gave them a puzzled glance.

Ron returned him a sheepish shrug and smile. "Just wanted to show you that I meant what I said," he said. "You're a Slytherin, and I still think Malfoy's a git, but you're right. And not all the Light pureblood families are mad, I promise."

Harry smiled in spite of himself, and listened to Ginny arguing amiably with Blaise about whether one's allegiance to Light or Dark really gave one better ability with a certain kind of spell, or whether it was purity of blood or individual talent or just sheer dumb luck. Blaise spoke quickly, with determination, but he didn't manage to shut Ginny up. Remembering the hex she'd fired last year, when Ron tried to object to her dating Blaise, Harry doubted there was much her boyfriend could do to manage it—other than a kiss, with lots of tongue, which was in fact what he glanced back and saw them engaged in at one point. Harry rolled his eyes and faced forward again.

That was how he saw someone coming out of one of the dungeon corridors just ahead of them, clad in a Disillusionment Charm that made it look as though part of the walls was moving, wand low and a curse coming out of its mouth. "Flagellum cruoris!"

Harry whirled, grabbed Ron, and shoved him towards the wall of the tunnel. Ron staggered, off-balance, his breath coming out in a hiss of pain as his shoulders collided with the stone. Blaise and Ginny were safe on the far side behind Harry, and Aidan was just running up behind them, shouting.

Harry continued the whirling motion, and hissed as he felt the curse take him across the shoulders, cutting a pair of crisscrossing lines. The lines were thin, but they sliced through his shirt and his skin and his muscle, and the pain was equally sharp and thin, as though ants were marching on and biting them. The Blood Whip was one of the few curses that, like Avada Kedavra, had virtually no block or shield. It was too wide for Protego, too powerful for Haurio, and reacted badly, as in causing explosions, with most of the other possible wards and barriers. Harry had trained himself with that curse in childhood, and so, though he hurt now, he was not incapacitated as he turned to face their attacker once more.

The figure had paused in shock, as though it had no idea what to do now that its most powerful weapon had failed. Harry used its distraction to snap, "Finite Incantatem!" and watched the Disillusionment Charm melt away to reveal a vaguely familiar Ravenclaw girl.

"Here, I know you," said Ron, who'd hastened back to Harry's side, wand drawn. "You're Marietta Edgecombe."

Harry remembered her now; he'd seen her dancing at the Yule Ball last year. Marietta raised her head, her face stubborn.

"You can't say anything," she warned Harry. "Anything you say could set everyone off, you know it could."

Harry nodded tightly at her. Slytherin was having enough strained relations with Ravenclaw right now. And anyway, to accuse someone of using the Blood Whip curse was not a matter for a detention and a loss of House points; it meant that McGonagall would seriously have to consider expelling Marietta. And then, too, Marietta was part of a minor Light pureblood family, and a friend of Cho Chang's. If Harry turned her in for this, he might as well declare open war in Hogwarts's halls.

"Harry!" Ron protested. "You can't not report it. Look at your back, for Merlin's sake!" Ron's temper was gaining speed and ground, and a few sparks dropped from his wand. Harry winced. When Ron was angry, then his magic became half again as powerful, or at least it did since last year when Harry had helped him break through the block that his rage had put on his spells. "I don't know what that curse was, but she hurt you—"

"She did," said Harry. "And she's not going to do it again." He cast the same spell on Marietta's wand that he had on Margaret's, binding her from using magic against him again. After a moment's thought, he added in Draco's name, Argutus's, and the names of everyone standing with him in the corridor. Marietta's eyes flashed, but she nodded.

"Probably the best choice, Potter," she said. "No hard feelings, hmmm?" She gave him a harsh-edged smile. "We both know what's going to happen, sooner or later."

Harry did. There would be a maelstrom of fire. Something would set it off, and he would be at the center of it. He let out a long, harsh breath, his eyes locked on Marietta's. "Was that curse actually aimed at me, or at Ron?"

"I think I'll let you brood on that." Marietta put her wand away with almost offensive slowness, looking far too pleased with herself. "It's going to happen," she whispered, just loud enough to reach Harry's ears. "But we both know that you won't want to push it to happen. Sometimes, Potter, you're ridiculously good-natured. You could have a lot more if you would just exert your power and your temper."

Harry said nothing. He watched Marietta go, and slowly, slowly released his tight grip on his magic. He had wanted to respond with an incantation that would turn the Blood Whip back on its caster, doubled in strength. It would have flown right at Marietta, and hit her on the front of her body. She might have had her throat sliced open.

My magic and my anger are both too dangerous. But when I don't do something permanent to them, then they get bolder. Harry let a harsh breath travel through his nose. But they can't make me do what they want me to do. They can't make me yield to temptation and use my magic without thinking of the consequences.

"That was stupid," Ron was telling him angrily, when Harry turned around from watching Marietta go. "She used a curse that ought to get her expelled. And you ought to go to Madam Pomfrey." His hand pressed gently, consideringly, against Harry's wounds for a moment, and Harry flinched, his mind suddenly recalled to the pain.

"I know a healing spell for this in one of our Defense Against the Dark Arts books," he said. "I'll be fine."

"Harry!" That came from not only Ron's throat, but Ginny's and Aidan's. Blaise was the only one who seemed to understand, slowly shaking his head.

"Everything'll come out if Potter goes to the hospital wing now," he said. "Edgecombe will be expelled."

"Good!" said Ron hotly. "She deserves to be!"

"And then what will that do to Ravenclaw? Do you want one quarter of the school turned against Potter, Weasley?" Blaise exhaled, his eyes locked with Ron's. "That's what we're looking at right now. If anything's going to happen to punish the people who are hurting Potter, it has to happen in front of other people—Professors, preferably—and the attackers have to seem like ordinary crazed people, not members of a particular House." Blaise shook his head. "That's why they've been so careful to keep their attacks small and isolated so far. Except for Parsons, but she was a special case." He ignored Ginny's mutter about what kind of "special" Margaret was. "It's Harry's word, or Harry's word and ours, against a Ravenclaw's. They're counting on House divisions to help shield them."

Ron looked murderous, but jerked his head down once. "You just better be all right," he said to Harry. "And something should happen to Edgecombe."

Harry frowned, not liking the expression on Ron's face. "If you attack her, it'll seem like a Gryffindor attacking a Ravenclaw."

"I know that," said Ron. "Don't you think I know that, now that the High and Mighty Zabini has explained it all?" He ignored Blaise's scowl. "I didn't say I was going to attack her. Just that something should happen to her."

Harry looked long and hard into Ron's eyes. Ron looked back at him with an absolutely oblique expression that Harry didn't consider fair. Ron was a Gryffindor, and a Weasley besides, famous for their tempers and their transparency. He shouldn't look as cunning as any Slytherin right now.

"Make sure you heal those cuts," he said, and then refused to say anything else until they reached the Slytherin common room, where he nodded good night while Ginny kissed Blaise again. Harry cast a glamour over his back to hide the wounds from the other Slytherins, and stared hard at both Blaise and Aidan as the Weasleys rounded the corner.

"I can count on both of you not to say anything?"

"Of course, Potter, for the reasons I explained," said Blaise. Aidan just nodded, looking a little sick.

Harry nodded back, then entered the common room. A few people glanced at him, but only with the interest that any passage of Harry's excited. They went back to their books and their games soon enough. Harry relaxed. With luck, he could find the healing spell and cast it on his back, and no one would be any wiser but the people who had been in the corridor.

His run of bad luck wasn't over yet, though. When he and Blaise entered their bedroom, Draco was there, looking up with a bright smile from his Transfiguration homework.

"Hi, Harry! What—" His voice cut off as he took in their expressions—or perhaps his empathy was allowing him to feel some of their emotions. He sat up, his own expression racing steadily towards anger. "What happened?"

Harry shot a glance at Blaise. Blaise shrugged. If Harry could cast the healing spell without dropping the glamour, the gesture seemed to say, then he wouldn't repeat anything.

But Harry knew he'd have to at least see the cuts in the mirror to do this. He only remembered that there was a healing spell, not the incantation, and the Blood Whip Curse was nothing to fool around with. Besides, Draco would probably find out that he'd lied later and be angry as hell. Harry sighed and dropped the glamour, wincing a bit as the pain seemed to increase with the revelation of the cuts.

Draco leaped off the bed and circled around behind him, obviously working out that the damage had to be there since Harry looked fine from the front. Blaise walked over to his own bed and shut the curtains, giving them what privacy he could. Harry appreciated it. He could hardly look at Draco's face as he let his hand ghost just above Harry's wounds. He didn't want to share this.

"Harry," Draco whispered into his ear. "What curse did this?"

Well, at least it isn't a promise of fiery vengeance. Harry could live with that. "The Blood Whip," he murmured. "One of those nasty curses that makes most shields explode when it touches them. I don't know for sure if it was aimed at me—it might have been aimed at someone I was walking with—but—"

"Whoever cast it probably knew that you would get in the way." Draco turned Harry towards his trunk, the direction he'd been walking when he dropped the glamour. "You remember a healing spell for it?"

"In the fourth year Defense Against the Dark Arts book," said Harry quietly, still distrusting Draco's gentleness. "That's what I was going to get."

"You can get it, then." Draco's hand trailed through his hair, snagging here and there. The gesture was almost absent, and yet so possessive that Harry gave an uncomfortable wriggle. Draco didn't appear to notice. "I want you healed as soon as possible."

Harry fetched the book, removed his shirt, and then went into the loo. With the help of the mirror, he focused on the image of the two whip-cuts, crossed like an X along his back from the top of his shoulders to his waist. Staring intently at the image, he whispered, "Integro et commoveo inresectus."

The lines of blood narrowed, then unpeeled, as though an invisible whip were taking them away in turn, moving from his waist up to his shoulders and leaving unmarked skin behind. Harry relaxed only long enough for Draco to step up in front of him. Harry watched his expression in the mirror, head still twisted to look over his shoulder, as Draco ran a hand down Harry's chest.

"Harry," Draco said, voice slow and soft, crooning and insistent. "Tell me who did this to you, Harry."

Harry swallowed. He wasn't frightened of Draco, of course he wasn't, but there was that stare again—constructed by the lines of his cheeks and his jaw as much as his eyes—that promised intolerable pain for whoever had hurt Harry. It was the same way he had looked when Margaret cursed Argutus. Harry winced at the thought of what he might do to Marietta. "I'm not going to tell you that, Draco," he said carefully.

"Harry." Draco pressed a kiss to his temple, then trailed a hand down his cheek. "You know you will." His voice had turned lulling, hypnotic.

Harry closed his eyes. He couldn't understand why his head felt stuffed with cotton and cloud, why he felt this wish to surrender. "No," he whispered, his voice so soft that it lacked conviction.

Draco kissed his other temple. The only sound in the room was their breathing, Harry's faster and louder than Draco's. He waited.

It's probably harder to resist because he's touching me, Harry thought, the sudden realization cutting through his mental haze like a sunbeam through fog. I didn't know I was that susceptible, or that I wanted so much to share everything with him.

Maybe he still could. It seemed like a good idea to his clouded brain, at least. "I'll tell you," Harry whispered. "I'll tell you, if…"

"If?" Draco's hand was moving again, skating and hovering above his cheek. It pressed itself to Harry's back next, rubbing in circles, and let Harry remember he was half-naked.

"You promise not to hurt the person who did this." He'd come awfully close to saying "her," Harry reflected, and he didn't want to eliminate half the school from Draco's guessing game. He blamed the hand on his back. It felt good, but not good enough to trigger his panic.

"I can't do that, Harry." Draco's voice was still sweet, without a trace of anger, and that just made him frighten Harry more. "You know I can't. Tell me the name." A sharp kiss to his cheek, with a hint of teeth behind it.

Slowly, successfully, Harry fought himself out of that embrace, and moved towards the door. The mist in his head was finally dissipating. He turned to face Draco, and shook his head.

"Not unless you promise."

Draco cocked his head to the side, and a faint, amused smile curved his mouth. "Harry," he said gently. "You've misunderstood something fundamental about me. You still have the impression that, at bottom, I care as much for the rest of the school as you do. I don't. Your life is more important to me than that of some random Ravenclaw. You're mine. I am going to find out that name. I won't push you now, but I will find it out, and I will punish her."

Harry had the feeling his eyes flickered, but he did his best to maintain the neutral mask. "Who said it's a female Ravenclaw?"

"Because it usually is, lately." Draco moved past him, still smiling. "Rest now. You've been wounded. You need to sleep, and I need to make sure she'll regret ever being born."

Harry folded his arms and shut his eyes. The odd atmosphere still lingered around him, made him want nothing so much as to go to Draco and tell.

And is your emotional comfort worth Marietta's life?

Harry swallowed and shook his head. He was tired after the argument at the dueling club and the pain from the curse and trying to prevent Ron from attacking Marietta and the healing spell. He could rest. He could do that.

Harry heard the first murmurs of excited conversation the next morning before he ever arrived at the Great Hall. Two of the Slytherin prefects were walking in front of him and Draco as they went to breakfast, and Harry tensed in spite of himself when he heard "Ravenclaw."

"—a foot-long tongue, and her skin turned purple with pink spots! Madam Pomfrey couldn't figure out how to remove them!"

"Is it true her arm was Transfigured into a chicken wing?" The female prefect's eyes were bright with enjoyment as she listened, and the male prefect, the one who, it seemed, had actually been in the hospital wing and seen the victim, was happy to oblige her with more details.

"Oh, yeah. And her left foot was a chicken's talon, original size and everything, so she can't walk. She's delusional and blind, and her hair's grown down the sides of her head and into her skin. I think there might even be more things wrong that I didn't get to see." The male prefect's voice rang wistfully. "But the best thing is that all the spells are interwoven together. To take one off, Madam Pomfrey will have to take them all off, and she can't figure some of them out!"

The female prefect snickered appreciatively. "What's her name?"

"Marietta Edgecombe." The boy shook his head. "I don't know what she did to annoy the Weasley twins, but I sure hope I never do it."

Harry felt his shoulders stiffen. Ron. Ron told the twins to get vengeance on Marietta, and they did. It sounded as though they'd launched several hexes or tricks or jokes in her direction all at once, but the interwoven nature of the spells suggested it was more complex and malicious than that.

The worst thing was that Harry couldn't confront Ron about it. He would be the one to expose the House feud if he did. The prefects weren't speaking as if these were the actions of a pair of Gryffindors against a Ravenclaw; these were the actions of the Weasley twins against someone who irritated them. Fred and George pranked everyone who would sit still long enough. No one was going to think that Marietta was a special case, that this was revenge for a spell she'd cast at someone else.

Very good, Ron, Harry thought grudgingly. You're hot-tempered as all hell, but you're a good strategist. Of course, Ron was a master chess player. Harry shouldn't have let himself forget that in the face of Ron's shouting.

Draco caught his arm. Harry looked sideways, and saw his eyes shining like blades in the sun.

"Marietta Edgecombe?" Draco murmured.

Harry knew the expression that flashed across his face said he was caught. Draco gave him the same slow, sweet predator's smile.

"She's the one who will regret being born, then," said Draco, with a nod. "I see."

"Don't, Draco," Harry hissed under his breath as they entered the Great Hall. "The twins got her. Hasn't she been punished enough?"

"Not nearly enough," Draco breathed. "Oh, Harry, the things I am going to curse her with."

"I don't want you to," said Harry, deciding that direct appeal was probably the most likely tactic to work right now. If Draco cared about what he wanted, then he should—

Draco just shook his head, and escorted Harry in to breakfast with a hand on his back. Harry made a few more attempts to dissuade him from whatever vengeance was floating around his brain, including arguments about the damage from the Blood Whip being easily reversed and war in the school happening if he took revenge. Draco hummed to himself and ignored him.

Harry hissed in frustration as he sat down at the far edge of the Slytherin table and started to eat. Why does he act all compliant when I do want him to assert himself, and then turn stubborn over things like this?

The post owls came skimming in through the windows, bearing the Daily Prophet. Harry already knew there would be a story about the abuse charges, or about the trial, or about "ordinary citizens" voicing "concern over the loss of Albus Dumbledore" and "false charges," if the writer was Argus Veritaserum. He made up his mind to concentrate on his food and ignore them.

Draco's humming stopped. Harry felt the tension inside him crank up another notch, but he kept on eating.

"Harry," said Draco, and his voice lacked that terrible gentleness. This was actual sympathy. He held the newspaper towards Harry. "I'm sorry, but you have to see this. It's better now than it will be later."

Harry swallowed and took the paper, staring blankly. At first, his eyes were drawn to the photograph, and he didn't quite understand what he was seeing. It looked like Auror Mallory, a triumphant smile on her face, walking between two considerably sterner Aurors down a corridor lined with cells. Harry almost didn't recognize her. What in the world could have happened to make her smile like that?

Then he saw the headline.

HEAD AUROR ARRESTED FOR CURSING POTTER PARENTS

'They deserved it' Mallory said

By: Rita Skeeter

Harry couldn't bring himself to read the story. He handed the paper back to Draco instead and shoved his chair away from the table.

"Wait a second, Harry," said Millicent, scrambling up and grabbing his right arm. Draco's hand closed around the stump of his left wrist a moment later, in that delicate gesture he used to command Harry's attention. "We're not done yet, and I think someone should go with you."

"I'm fine," Harry whispered. He tried and failed not to think of his parents writhing under the kind of battle curses a trained Auror would know. He tried and failed not to think of the rage Mallory had shown when she came to the school that summer to arrest Lily and Dumbledore. She could do wandless magic. She was nearly as strong as Snape. She would have made them suffer.

He felt his breakfast rushing back up his throat, and tore his arm and his wrist free from Draco's and Millicent's hands. As he ran towards the door of the Great Hall, he caught a glimpse of Connor's face, frozen in horror, and his heart pounded, hard, in guilt. If he had contacted Scrimgeour and asked him to make sure that Mallory wasn't let anywhere near their parents, then perhaps this wouldn't have happened.

"Intestinus erumpo!"

Harry knew he should have been able to block it. He knew he should have had a shield up. Perhaps if the person who cast the spell had been farther away from him at the time, and if pity and guilt and terror hadn't eaten his concentration, he still could have managed it.

As it was, the Entrail-Expelling Curse hit him in the back a second after it was cast. Harry cried out as he felt his belly slit open and his intestines fly out of them, tangling around his feet. The pain was unearthly, unable to stand comparisons to anything else he'd felt because he'd never felt anything like this before. He dropped to his knees, gasping, knowing even through the haze of agony that he shouldn't move. That was how many wizards reacted to the Entrail-Expelling Curse, and they wound up tangling themselves in their own guts and doing more damage.

Draco was by his side a second later, hands shaking and eyes wide. Harry leaned against him, gasping, closing his eyes as the spell pushed one more tangle of pink and white out of him. He could smell blood and shit and fouler things. He concentrated, pulling on his magic, forcing himself to think of this as a battlefield. The sheer horror of what had happened to him kept trying to push his mind away from the healing spell that might help.

"Finite Incantatem," he said first, just to make sure that he removed the last of the curse. Otherwise, it might be struggling to push his guts out of him even as he repaired his stomach. Shock was quickly descending on him, but Harry fell back into his training, in which such things as shock didn't exist, and there was only what had to be done. "Conglacio." That stilled the movement of his intestines. "Abdo intestinus."

The guts coiled back up inside him, a process that made Harry jerk in Draco's arms and draw several gasping breaths. Merlin, this hurt. But that was no reason to faint. Harry repeated the spell several times, focusing his mind on a picture of what his body would look like, healthy and normal. He knew the damage many curses caused. He just had to reverse his mental picture of the Entrail-Expelling one, and it should be perfectly reversed, everything back in its proper place.

Larger hands steadied him as the last of the pink and white coils settled into place, and then a low voice snarled an incantation that would at least staunch his blood flow and hold the wound in his stomach motionless. Harry blinked up at Snape, his eyes fluttering in time with his breaths now.

"Sleep, Harry," said Snape. His eyes were incandescent with rage, the brightest Harry had ever seen them. "Consopio."

In spite of his curiosity, in spite of his longing to tell them to go easy on the person who had done this, Harry closed his eyes and went to sleep.

Minerva was familiar with Severus Snape's bad moods. She had seen plenty of them—the temper he was usually in when he came out of one of his little chats with Dumbledore, the cold sarcastic anger in which he sometimes dragged one of her particularly mischief-making Gryffindors in front of her (it was usually a Weasley twin), the sneering contempt he used when he thought he knew something she didn't or that had flown above her head.

Until now, though, when his rage burned hot and he actually screamed at her in her office, she realized she had never seen him truly infuriated.

"Someone attacked him in the middle of the Great Hall, Minerva! The Entrail-Expelling Curse! And just because none of Flitwick's little bastards will give up their comrade does not mean that I intend to see this go unpunished!" Severus leaned forward across her desk and glared at her. "I will use Veritaserum and Legilimency with or without your permission. I will find the person who did this."

Minerva maintained the calm mask while she rapidly considered her options. On the one hand, she could hardly do as Severus asked without protests from parents that their little darlings had been forced to take a truth serum or have their minds ransacked. What Severus wanted was between dubious and outright illegal, unless the students actually volunteered.

On the other hand, she knew as well as Severus that if they let this go unpunished, then Harry would never be safe. Madam Pomfrey couldn't be on guard in the hospital wing twenty-four hours a day, and neither could young Mr. Malfoy—though from what Minerva now knew of the boy, she had no doubt that he would try. Someone would enter sooner or later and try to cast another illegal curse, or even a lethal one. Harry might be sleeping. He might not know the counter. Several people might attack at once, overcoming him because of his ethics and reluctance to hurt others.

Something had to be done.

A knock on the door interrupted her before she could tell Severus what she thought their best option was. Minerva sighed and sat up. The only people who knew the password for the gargoyle were other professors and prefects. Almost certainly, one of them would bring more bad news. "Come in," she said steadily.

The student who entered was not a prefect, but a fourth-year Ravenclaw. Minerva stared at her in wonder. It was a moment before she could recall her name, but one didn't forget those large glasses and protruding silver eyes easily.

"Miss Lovegood," she said at last, trying to control her tone. "What are you doing here?"

Luna Lovegood nodded seriously at her. "Headmistress," she said. "I asked the chairs at the Ravenclaw table about who Harry's attacker was. And I have a name now. It was Gilbert Rovenan."

Minerva could see still and terrible anger gathering in Severus's face. He would shout, at any second, that they didn't have time for Luna's nonsense right now, that she was wasting valuable moments when they could have gone hunting for the real suspect, that she must indeed be quite mad to come to the Headmistress's office.

But Minerva was thinking. She knew that Luna should not have been able to enter the moving staircase at all. And she was remembering a girl she had known when she was a Hogwarts student, one who seemed distracted half the time because of objects chattering constantly at her.

"Miss Lovegood," she said. "How did you get up here?"

Luna gave her a patient look. "The gargoyle told me, Headmistress," she said. "It's quite lonely, you know. I think you should talk to it more. I'm just me, but anyone could get up here if they just charmed it for a few moments and got it to give them the password," she added in a tone of censure.

"Ridiculous," Severus hissed.

"And yet, Severus, here she stands," Minerva told him, and saw rationality take hold in his mind for the first time since Harry was hurt. His eyes narrowed, and he gave Luna a long look.

"You are a friend of my ward, Miss Lovegood?" he asked.

"Oh, yes." Luna's face brightened. "We went to the Yule Ball together last year." Snape was nodding now, the right chord in his brain obviously pressed. "He was so kind," Luna continued, "not stepping too heavily on the floor or crushing the benches when he sat down. The furniture all likes him. So the chairs were happy to tell me that it was Gilbert who cast the Entrail-Expelling Curse."

"Why are you willing to tell us who did it, Miss Lovegood?" Minerva had to ask. The rest of the Ravenclaws, though some of them looked torn, had maintained that they didn't know who cast the curse.

Luna's face was solemn. "Because I know for certain, and I'm not Gilbert's friend," she said. "I'm Harry's. He's been very strange—Harry, I mean. The walls have tried to talk to him, but he can't hear them. So they've been talking to me instead. I know people have been casting curses at him, but Harry always wills other people to leave them alone so strongly that he blocks the walls' memories. This time, he wasn't anywhere near the chairs, and they told me about Gilbert."

Severus had started for the door at a glide, his eyes gleaming. "Severus," Minerva said sharply. He paused and glanced at her over his shoulder. "Bring him here. Alive, and unharmed," she added.

Severus studied her intently for a moment, then inclined his head in a sharp nod and left. Minerva hoped her caution would actually work, and that Severus would not pause along the way to "let drop" to his Slytherins who had done this.

"Miss Lovegood, do you know why Mr. Rovenan cast that curse?" she asked her.

Luna sat down carefully, patting the back of the chair she sat in as if stroking a cat. "Because Marietta Edgecombe is his girlfriend," she said simply. "She wound up in the hospital wing this morning, and Gilbert blames Harry for it." She shrugged. "I tried to ask the walls if that was fair, but Harry blocked their memory again."

Minerva decided that she might as well give in to her curiosity, as Severus was most likely bringing their culprit. "This is a remarkable gift you have, Miss Lovegood."

Luna looked at her in mild puzzlement. "Thank you, Headmistress, but really, everything talks. Everything is alive. But most people refuse to listen," she concluded, with a little sigh.

Minerva continued talking to her for the few minutes it took Severus to arrive again. Luna continued to gently deflect her queries. So far as she was concerned, she lived in the actual, normal world, and everyone else was blind, deaf, and dumb. At least, Minerva thought, it would explain the quiet, dreamy girl's inattention in class, if all the objects in sight were simultaneously trying to tell her stories.

Gilbert Rovenan was a burly sixth-year Ravenclaw whom Minerva remembered as an above-average Transfiguration student, though for some reason he hadn't received enough OWL levels to continue into the NEWT class. He tugged away from Snape the moment they were through the office door, and straightened his sleeve. He had blue eyes and dark hair, and wasn't bad-looking, though not much above ordinary in that department, either. He appealed to her without looking once at the silent, and tightly coiled, Head of Slytherin beside him.

"Headmistress, Professor Snape seized my arm and hauled me off," he complained. "Is that fair? He wouldn't even tell me what it was about."

"We know that you cast the Entrail-Expelling Curse at Mr. Potter," said Minerva, choosing to act as if they had certain knowledge from long years of handling Gryffindors who, while they would not lie, would keep silent unless they thought she already had evidence of their wrongdoing.

Gilbert flushed to the roots of his hair, and his face twisted with hatred that Minerva could only stare at. "He hurt my girlfriend," he said, his voice low and murderous. "I knew the curse. I thought it was only fair that he pay for hurting her."

Minerva closed her eyes. She knew Severus would wear a triumphant expression, and Luna a sorrowful one. Her decision was already made.

"Mr. Rovenan," she said, "you will be expelled. Your wand will be broken. You—"

"But you can't—I have to speak to Professor Flitwick! I want to talk to my parents!" Gilbert's voice was becoming shrill.

And so, Minerva thought, it begins. She opened her eyes and entered the first skirmish in the war that was about to break out in Hogwarts. This was her battleground now, and while it was infinitely less satisfying to intimidate a sixteen-year-old boy than it was to battle a Dark wizard and Transfigure him into a lump of shapeless flesh, she was not one to shirk her duties.

Harry came slowly back to himself. It felt as if he didn't awaken, but rather washed in to shore on a wave. First he felt the water, and then the dry sand under his palms, and then the whole scene inverted and he was lying in a hospital bed with someone holding a cup of water to his lips.

Harry drank. The arm that had gently supported his shoulders tightened fast enough to make him grunt in pain, and Draco's voice called, "Madam Pomfrey! He's awake!"

Harry opened his eyes, and then blinked as Draco slipped his glasses onto his face. He turned his head to look into at him.

"You could have died." Draco's face was pale, and his eyes had that blade-gleam, this time mingled with fear.

"But I didn't." Harry thought it was important to point that out. He wriggled and tried to sit up in the bed, but Madam Pomfrey came bustling out then and scolded him into lying still.

"Not so fast, Mr. Potter," she said. "You've suffered a great deal of shock, you know, and then you disordered things further when you attempted to put your entrails back into your gut all by yourself." She gave him a chiding look as she held her wand over his belly. "So that had to be straightened out. You've been asleep for a day. You'll be staying here at least three more days for observation. That's the minimum length of time it takes to recover from an Entrail-Expelling Curse."

Harry subsided. When he looked around, he could see that Connor, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Blaise, Millicent, Zacharias, Luna, and Neville were there, and he flushed in embarrassment to find himself the focus of so many gazes. Madam Pomfrey went into action a moment later, herding all of them but Draco and Connor out, so that one obstacle was taken care of.

"Merlin, Harry," Draco said then, and hugged him around the neck. "I thought you were dead."

I came closer than I'd like to think, Harry thought. He swallowed a healing potion that Madam Pomfrey gave him, then asked, "What's been happening?"

"They caught the one who cast the curse at you," said Connor. His eyes were furiously alight, and he was twirling his wand between his fingers, ignoring Madam Pomfrey's frowns and pointed looks at it. "His name's Gilbert Rovenan. He's going to be expelled. They've talked it over, Professor Flitwick and the Headmistress, and Professor Flitwick finally gave up pleading for him. He's going." He paused and stared over Harry's bed at Draco. "But not until tomorrow."

Harry glanced at Draco in alarm. He was just in time to see an expression that looked far too much like his brother's on his boyfriend's face.

"And what are you going to do?" Harry demanded. He tried to sit up again, but he was weak enough that Draco held him easily down with one arm.

"Who says that we're going to do anything?" Connor said innocently. "We can't get into Ravenclaw Tower, anyway." He gave a winning smile at Madam Pomfrey, who simply moved away from the bed as if she had no interest in what they were saying. The moment she was gone, Connor leaned nearer and lowered his voice. "We're going in tonight, Ron and Draco and I, with Fred and George and Ginny and Hermione. Luna'll let us in, and Cho will join us once we get there."

"But—"

"Connor, would you leave me alone with Harry, please?" Draco asked then, with unnatural politeness. Connor nodded the same way.

"Of course. I have to get to my dueling lesson with Professor Snape anyway." He tipped a wink at Draco. Harry wished they would stop that. It was unnerving. "Nine'o'clock, then?"

"As we agreed," Draco said, and Connor left.

Harry started in the moment his brother walked through the doors of the hospital wing. "You can't hurt him. If he's going to be expelled, then—"

"You're wrong, Harry," Draco said. "Things didn't fall out the way you thought they would, not when Rovenan attacked you in front of the entire school. None of the professors could ignore what happened. There's no war between Houses. Most of Ravenclaw is ashamed as hell about it, or, if they're angry, they have the good sense to shut up. Even the Hufflepuffs are shunning them. Gryffindors and Slytherins are getting along better than we ever have planning revenge for you. Don't you see, Harry?" he added. "It's practically incumbent on you not to object to this, in the name of inter-House unity."

"I don't want him hurt—"

"You don't get a choice." Draco abruptly leaned in towards him, and Harry shrank back. Draco's words were soft and fierce. "Not this time. Your safety and your well-being matters to more people than just you, Harry, and even to more people than just other Slytherins. You're not a saint, that we should just forgive whatever happens to you. We've been pushed too far, and this is the end."

Harry shut his eyes. "Nothing I can say is going to stop it?"

"Nothing," Draco confirmed. "Even if you tell one of the professors, we can get past them, since we have Ravenclaws on the inside we didn't tell you about. And you're too weak to get out of bed and go stand guard at the Tower, so unless you're actually going to compel us to stop, there's nothing you can do to prevent us. Are you going to compel us, Harry?" His chin inched up.

Harry stared at him, and saw not just the Slytherin determined to take vengeance, nor the Malfoy protecting what belonged to him, but also the boy who had nearly seen his boyfriend die in front of him. Harry remembered the surge of protective rage he'd felt when Greyback went after Draco.

He swallowed and closed his eyes, shaking his head.

"Good," said Draco softly, and kissed Harry, and then left.

Harry stared at the ceiling, absently rubbing his stomach, and wondered why the hell these things seemed to happen to him so often.