Thank you for the reviews yesterday!

I suppose I could have called this a regular chapter, but then I wouldn't have an excuse to have it consist of several broken scenes.

Intermission: Breathing In the Moments Between

Harry stood in front of the grass that Occluded his scar link to Voldemort, and felt the pain streaming from beyond it.

Voldemort was doing—something. Harry could feel him exulting sometimes, or growing angry, or weaving magic in dense spells that seemed to center on the sort of elaborate preparations a ritual might require. But he felt all those sensations only in the first moments they occurred. They all wound up ebbing into pain.

He could see what was happening, if he removed the grass.

Harry closed his eyes and clenched down on the temptation to do so. He could feel Fawkes's warm bond pulsing in the back of his mind, but the phoenix was asleep, and not sharing this—this odd thing, whatever it was, this mixture of dream and vision. Fawkes couldn't stop him if he did choose to go down the scar link and look at the thoughts currently occupying Voldemort's mind.

But if he did that, he stood a good chance of pulling Draco along with him.

And if he didn't, there was the chance that Voldemort might go right on draining Muggleborn children of their magic, or torturing his victims, or preparing a Dark spell to make himself immortal. Harry didn't think any of those things beyond Voldemort. He rubbed his hand over his left wrist.

He had to stop Voldemort. It was his duty to stop Voldemort.

But in doing so, he would endanger Draco. And he was sure that Draco and Snape and the others would say that he was endangering himself, and the war effort.

He shifted back and forth in front of the grass, restlessly. All his rage couldn't help him now. It just urged him to charge forward, damn and forget the consequences. He stood there, irresolute, and the irresolution tore and tugged at him, shredding his guts and going straight for his heart. It wasn't quite as painful as the Entrail-Expelling Curse, but now that he'd felt that, Harry had something to compare this to.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, shaking him. Surprised, Harry blinked and woke. His vision hadn't been intense enough to disturb Draco's sleep, had it? Now, that he really wouldn't forgive himself for.

He called his glasses to him with a wandless, wordless spell, and slid them on his face, peering up. Yes, it was Draco who woke him, but his face was anxious, worried, not angry. Harry frowned. Did something happen while I was asleep?

"Draco?" he asked. "Your parents? Are they all right?"

Draco's face flickered into confusion, and he shook his head. "Yes, of course, they're fine," he said. Then his eyes widened, and he said, "Ah. Yes. You thought I woke you up because I had bad news?" He pushed at Harry's shoulder until he moved over, and then sat down on the bed.

"Well, yes," said Harry. "If you were angry, I thought you would have started scolding me, but the worry—"

"Is for you, you prat," said Draco softly, and kissed him on the temple. "I woke up to get a glass of water and heard you whimpering. Are you all right?"

Harry considered not discussing it. But this had nothing to do with his feelings for his parents, which he did still prefer to keep to himself, and he didn't want to lie to Draco about it. He couldn't pretend that he'd been sleeping peacefully, so he told the truth.

"I can feel Voldemort moving. Doing—something. I knew I could get more details if I just removed the barrier Snape helped me put over the connection we have. But I knew I might also hurt you if I did that." Harry gave a helpless little hiss, his rage coming to mean more now that he was out of the dream. "I hate being indecisive."

"I'm glad you didn't remove the barrier," said Draco. His arm snaked around Harry's shoulders, and he tugged him close against his side.

"Yes, I knew you'd say that," said Harry, his words muffled by the cloth of Draco's shirt. "My life is more important to you than seeing Voldemort defeated."

"Yes. It is." Draco's voice made that not a banal fact, but a whole new truth. "You are more important to me than this war, Harry, and your life is more important than any knowledge. Without you, we fall." He gently touched Harry's hair. Harry couldn't even tell with what, his lips or his fingers, so light was the gesture. "You need to stay alive for the rest of us, if you won't stay alive for your own sake."

Harry gave another uncomfortable wriggle. Normally, he could have tolerated more contact than this, but Draco's intent focus on him made it unnerving. Draco let him pull away, but gripped his face and held it still as he looked into his eyes.

"Do you believe me?"

"I believe you," said Harry. It was impossible to doubt Draco believing it, and that was really what was at stake here. How Harry valued his own life wasn't that important.

"Good. Now lie down and go to sleep, and don't worry about this any more. You have so many people who love you, Harry, who are willing to stand behind you." Draco curled up on the bed in a clear sign that he didn't intend to leave and go back to his own.

Harry lay down a short distance from him to soothe his own jangled nerves, just barely able to tolerate Draco's arm as it draped over his shoulder. Now, though, he had something else to worry about, his mind singing Draco's words.

Do my allies really follow me, and not my ideals? If I died, would the alliance dissolve and no one try to follow Connor or anyone else who might carry on the fight against Voldemort?

I don't want that to be true. It was true for Dumbledore. I don't want it to be true for me. One person shouldn't be more important than the whole of this battle. If I die, they have to keep fighting.

How do I make them see that?

The way to make them see that was not, manifestly, to be the goal of a hive of the Many the next morning, as they rolled into the Great Hall in their usual writhing mass and made straight for the Slytherin table.

Some of the Slytherins, who should know better, were looking nervous. Harry rolled his eyes and stooped, holding out his right arm. Luckily, Fawkes had decided to stay in the bedroom this morning, and Argutus was out exploring the school, so there was no one to object as the Many traveled smoothly up the offered limb and over his body. Harry felt a sense of relaxation pervade him that he hadn't experienced in a month, since the battle on the beach and the last time he'd had the Many swarming and draped on him. With so many small snakes around him, snakes who were formally allied to him and whose poison could kill or permanently blind someone else, he felt safe. None of the Ravenclaws, or anyone else, would dare attack him now.

"We want to give you one of our children," said the hive.

Harry frowned. By the tone of their voices and the fact that they hadn't cared about the staring eyes and screams they got as they roamed through the Great Hall, this was the younger hive, the one he'd actually seen hatched in the Forbidden Forest and freed from their web. He hadn't thought they were old enough to lay eggs and have children of their own yet. Granted, the life cycle of South African hive cobras was one of the expanse of things he was no expert in. "You have young already?"

"No. Children is what we call a member of the hive who is eyes and fangs and nothing else," said the ebbing voices. One of the cobras draped around Harry's arm moved, and then slithered up his body to his face, the others rolling smoothly back to make room for it. No, her, Harry supposed, noting the subtle waver in the golden ripples that supposedly indicated that this snake could lay eggs. "She cannot hold the collective mind. She will serve as eyes for us when we must see you, though. And she will attack at any moment you command her."

"Bite someone to death," said Harry flatly, "or blind them." The small snake was locked around his neck. She didn't sway like the others. She simply remained tucked down, under his chin, and held him in a tight clutch that didn't feel tight. Harry reached up, and could barely tell where her scales left off and his skin began.

"Yes. You are in danger. We do not want to lose our benefactor. And our child does not need to eat or sleep. She will guard you day and night."

Harry ran a finger over her tail. "And I can't refuse the gift?"

"You would die," said the Many simply. "There are enemies everywhere. We have met with our little brother, the snake you gave the name in the tongue of wizards. He told you about the attacks on you, on him, on everything and everyone dear to you. The vates may die of age or in breaking a web or in fighting the mighty wizards, but he will not die because of a shot spell from an enemy he should not care about. She is here to defend you from those you trust too much, those who creep up on you."

Harry nodded in resignation. With the constant attacks from the Ravenclaws, he could hardly say that he had no need for such a gift, though he was still somewhat disturbed by it. He had assumed that all members of a hive of the Many were equal, that there weren't empty vessels. It seemed that he'd been wrong, and would just have to accept that.

In a way, it's good. There is more wonder in them than I ever guessed. They're not bound by human ideals, and why should they be?

"Thank you," he said.

The Many writhed, doing a graceful dance to accept the gratitude, for all Harry knew, and then slid down and away, tumbling across the Great Hall and towards the door.

Harry just shook his head when Draco arched an eyebrow, and sat down between him and George Weasley, his guards for the moment. "The magical creatures have decided I should be guarded, too," he muttered. "I'm going to have no privacy."

"Why, Harry." George leaned towards him and leered. "Why would you want to have some privacy? Got some things to do that you don't want to show anyone, do you?" His eyes flicked towards Draco.

Harry rolled his eyes and ignored Draco's glare and his own threatening blush. "Shut it," he said, and stood, testing the slight weight of the snake around his throat. It was very light, to tell the truth. She either wasn't wrapped tightly enough to constrict his breathing, or knew how to shift when she might have done so. "Let's get to class."

"Miss Turtledove."

Remus wondered what he had to thank for the way Lucy Turtledove froze and squeaked when she heard his voice—his being a werewolf, or the fact that he'd assigned the Ravenclaw girl two weeks of detention with Filch the last time she threatened Harry. Probably the first, from the way she turned and stared at his teeth. Besides, if the punishment had made that much of an impact on her, she wouldn't have been creeping along behind Harry and his guards on their way to Defense Against the Dark Arts, trying to take an opportunity for a good hexing.

"I wasn't doing anything." Turtledove folded her arms and frowned at him, tossing her long dark hair over one shoulder. "You can't assign me detention or take points. I wasn't doing anything."

Remus held her eyes for a moment, only to see her blanche and glance away. Old anger made his nostrils flare. He smoothed it down without much effort, though. At the Sanctuary, he had at last come to terms with his extreme rage, a result of enduring the bite so young, and learned not to be afraid of it. There were many socially acceptable ways to vent it.

Like taking points, for instance.

"Fifteen points from Ravenclaw for insolence to a professor," he said mildly, and saw Turtledove's eyes widen. Ravenclaw was already almost in negative points, though Trelawney still awarded points, unaffected by what was happening in the school, and Sinistra took pity where she could. "Now, I want to know what you were doing following Harry. Didn't that teach you anything?" He nodded at her reddened face. None of the professors had been able to remove the curse, though everyone but Remus, Acies, and Severus had tried. They'd concluded that the end of the sunburn would have to wait for the end of Harry's anger at her.

"He can't—" said Turtledove, and ducked her head. Her voice came out muffled. Remus sniffed delicately, and then raised an eyebrow. She was on the verge of tears. "He can't get away with everything he's done," she said. "Having a s-snake in the school. Two snakes, even. Accusing the Headmaster of child abuse. Casting spells on us." She lifted her head and stared helplessly at Remus. "He's becoming a Dark Lord, and we're the only ones smart enough to see and stop him. Why doesn't anyone believe us?"

Remus studied her in silence. He didn't think he could correct all her misconceptions about Harry, and he didn't want to try; the prejudice against Parselmouths, for instance, was at least as old as the prejudice against snakes themselves. But he could, and he would, try to correct the most dangerous mistake she was engaged in.

"Miss Turtledove," he said, "I can assure you that the accusations against Albus Dumbledore are true."

"That's impossible."

Remus shrugged. "I discovered the truth about Harry's home life in his second year. His parents would do nothing. I went to the Headmaster, thinking he could help, that surely he couldn't know about what Lily and James—two of my dearest friends—were doing to their own son. He Obliviated me. I didn't fully know what had happened until Harry restored my memories. Now, does that sound like the kind of wizard who would protect children?"

Turtledove had shrunk away from him as if he were threatening her, and she shook her head now, spasmodically. "That's not true," she said. "Albus Dumbledore is a great and noble wizard. My parents told me so."

"I believe he once was a great and noble wizard," said Remus, thinking of the way he and his friends had fought in the First War, about what kind of leader Dumbledore had been then. Never faltering, perfectly suited to facing and battling a Dark Lord. Perhaps it was the decisions he'd had to make afterwards, in a time of nominal peace, that had started him down the long path to his fall.

"But he's just—he's the Light Lord," Turtledove tried. "Can't you see? If we don't follow him, we'll have no chance at all. The Light will lose to the Dark. We'll all become slaves of You-Know-Who. He's our only savior, and they've imprisoned him on the word of another Dark Lord!"

Her eyes were wide, white with the fear that had eaten her reason. Remus supposed that Dumbledore's spell might have increased it, and perhaps lingering traces of the web were hurting her even now. But it had been there when she came into the school. Her parents had pumped poison into her ears, and he had no idea how to purge it.

But he could, perhaps, frighten her off from attacking Harry.

"Miss Turtledove," he said, "in addition to the permission he's received to use his magic, Harry has magical creatures defending him. The phoenix would rather weep for you than burn you, I believe, and the Omen snake could at best break your wrist. But the Many cobra would kill you."

"And you let him walk around with that thing around his neck?" Turtledove exclaimed.

Remus inclined his head, and let his lips lift from his teeth, just slightly. Turtledove immediately pulled back.

"We must," said Remus, "because we can guarantee him no safety otherwise, and because we would prefer not to irritate the Many hive cobras. They have accepted him as their vates, Miss Turtledove. Do you know what that word means?"

"A singer," she whispered. "A seer."

Remus nodded encouragingly. "Harry is trying to see paths clear to freedom for the magical creatures which won't endanger them, or wizards, or other kinds of magical creatures. He's freed a few species, but there are many, many species still to go, and other groups of the same species. That means that he's committed to a duty and task that might take longer than his life. And the magical creatures know that, and will protect him. Even if we tried, we don't have the right to dictate their wills any longer, since Harry won't let us have that. So we can't restrain the Many snake if you attack Harry and it bites you. Stay away from him."

Turtledove frowned at him. "Is that the reason you like him so much? Protect him? Because you're a werewolf, and he's vates to you, too?"

Remus smiled. He wasn't about to tell her that his wolf was itself a web, a disease, that spent its time hating and longing for blood, and especially hated Harry. He did have hope that Harry might be vates for them someday, breaking the webs, and so her statement was, in a sense, true.

"Yes," he said, and let his teeth flash at her again.

"I could tell," she whispered. "I could tell that you threatened me."

"And the Headmistress would ask why, and then I would tell her why, and you would, perhaps, be expelled," said Remus pleasantly. He had been witness to an amusing little scene on Saturday of Minerva swearing that she would expel half of Ravenclaw, if that was what it took to get the truth through the little brats' heads. "And I think, for that threat, that you've earned yourself another week of detention, Miss Turtledove."

She turned away from him with a sulky mutter of, "Yes, Professor."

Remus let her go. He was not entirely sure that she would obey him. She might attack Harry again, there was always the chance, and this time she would end up blind or dead.

Remus found it hard to worry too much about that possible outcome. Another thing he'd learned in the Sanctuary was to fully embrace and use the few good things that being a werewolf gave him. His keener senses were one of those things, and another was a greater sense of what it meant to be free, instead of wild. Sooner or later, one had to give up on warnings. If another person was determined to run headlong off a cliff, and you'd tried yelling and threatening and persuasion and everything short of force…

Well, she had to be free to make the choice that would shatter her head.

Remus knew better than any fully human witch or wizard exactly what Harry was, what he represented. His muttering and snarling wolf wouldn't let him forget. That meant he valued Harry's life more highly than that of a random Ravenclaw who seemed determined to jump. Remus would lie in the sun and watch her take a run at it, at this point.

He turned and went back to his office, where he had letters waiting for him from Claudia Griffinsnest, Delilah Gloryflower, and Hawthorn Parkinson. They were interested in trying to build a pack, though they didn't know how as yet. They also didn't know why they missed Fergus Opalline so much, and had turned to him for help on that.

Remus wasn't a wandering werewolf, but he had contacts among those who were. He knew some of the refugees, and he knew some of the odd accommodations they'd made to live with their wolf natures and their utterly unexpected demands. The wolves were dark and sang of blood and hatred and sweet flesh on every day that didn't contain a full moon, but they also approved of other werewolves, and had a kinship with them. It was best that their human hosts obey those impulses, where they weren't destructive, and build the packs, and allow themselves to mourn when one of them died—not for a brother, not for a friend, but for a packmate.

He would share those secrets with other werewolves, because they needed them. No human but Harry was welcome to them. And that meant that no human but Harry—and only Harry if he asked—would know that there was a fourth letter currently on Remus's desk, too, from a werewolf who had managed to secure a job in the Ministry and keep it, undetected.

"—Bell scores! Ten points to Gryffindor!"

Harry wheeled on his Firebolt and peered over his shoulder, just in time to see Katie Bell rise triumphantly, dodging around an attack by one of the Slytherin Beaters as if she didn't even notice him. A moment later, the Weasley twins united in an attack on the Slytherin Chasers, forcing the Beaters to pay attention to them instead. Harry shook his head. The Gryffindor team was playing brilliantly, while the Slytherin team seemed completely disorganized today. Probably all the lost sleep from guarding me, he thought sardonically.

He lifted his head, scanning restlessly for the Snitch, forcing himself to ignore Zacharias's announcement of another ten points to Gryffindor. If he could catch the Snitch now, he could still win Slytherin the game. Gryffindor wasn't yet that far ahead.

He saw Connor looping lazy patterns a short distance from him, head turning from side to side. Then he abruptly jerked in the direction of one of his glances, stared a short time more, and began to fall.

Harry knew his brother's tactics, though. This was a feint. Connor just wanted to trick Harry into diving after him, in the hopes that he would be caught near the ground and a further distance from the Snitch when it did show up.

The little golden ball was still nowhere in sight, and it could still be anyone's game.

Harry heard a Slytherin goal being announced from below with more panache than it probably deserved. He heard the slight whistle that he knew was Connor returning from the ground, disgruntled that he hadn't managed to fool Harry. And then he saw the Snitch blazing above his head.

Harry leaned forward, legs and hand locking around the broom handle. His mind was very clear, less urgent than it had ever been while he was playing Quidditch. He had figured out the probable end of this game before he entered the air.

The speed of his Firebolt would get him to the Snitch faster than Connor could reach it. But Harry had an enormous disadvantage now: the loss of one hand, which meant that he would have to hold onto the broom with his knees alone in order to capture the damn thing. It was a dangerous maneuver. A gust of wind could send him to the ground. A sudden dodge from the Snitch could lose it for him altogether.

Connor gave a small gasp behind him, and then Harry heard him flying upward, urging his broom on with short whoops. Harry locked his gaze on the Snitch and refused to look at his brother.

Dart and shimmer and shimmy; the Snitch shot across the sky, trying to lose both determined Seekers. Harry climbed rapidly, getting above it. He banished the growing specter of fear from his mind. The other three times he'd played Quidditch against Gryffindor, it had seemed as though someone were trying to kill him—or Connor—but that wouldn't happen this time.

The Snitch slowed to a joggle, as though it were taunting them, or didn't think it was in much danger.

Harry came down in a slanting dive, traveling out of the sun like a hawk attacking a rabbit. Connor would be hard put to it to see him unless he shaded his eyes with one hand, and he was unlikely to remove either from the broom until he was within catching distance.

The Snitch sped up again, but Harry was ahead of Connor on a level plane now, and he knew the Firebolt was faster.

He took a deep breath and gave his broom its head.

The wind stung tears from his eyes as he flew, and joy, wild and unrestrained as the joy he'd felt when flying outside the Malfoys' house, sang in his ears. He flew, and he flew, and he flew, and then he was even with the Snitch, and the time had come to extend his hand, do or die.

He clenched his legs down and tore his hand free, reaching out.

The Snitch smacked into his palm, and Harry closed his fingers around it. He heard Zacharias roaring from below, and the stands going mad, and Connor's disappointed yelp from behind him.

Then a gust of wind caught him.

Harry slammed his hand back onto the Firebolt, clinging tightly as the world began to spin. Sky and earth rushed together and emptied themselves, then rushed together once more. Harry closed his eyes and held on so fiercely he thought he would crush the Snitch. The flutter of small wings against his palm reassured him, but only slightly.

He had to break his spin, and he only knew one way how.

He leaned backward, straining every muscle in his arm and shoulders, and stuck his left arm out for added momentum. The Firebolt shuddered, then tipped over backwards.

Harry landed with an ommph. He hadn't realized the ground was that close. He blinked at the sky, and tenderly reached up, still clutching the Snitch, to feel the back of his head. It felt as though he had a bleeding lump there. At least he'd inflicted that on himself, he thought, rather than the Lestranges or Sirius or a Dobby-controlled Bludger.

"Slytherin wins!" Zacharias announced, just in case no one had heard him the first time.

The mad cheers began again, and Harry let his teammates lift him. He grimaced in pain when they did, of course, and Felborn, the new team captain since Montague had fled, shook his head.

"Can't even have fun without putting yourself in the hospital wing, can you, Potter?" he muttered.

Harry smiled, closed his eyes, and let them say what they would. It had been wonderful, for a few hours, to forget all about anger, and all about pain.

The anger came back a few hours later, when Harry was lying in his bed in the hospital wing, with Fred Weasley on guard and joking about whether Harry shouldn't just catch Snitches with his skull from now on, and an owl soared through the window, open to the bright November air. Fred insisted on checking the letter it bore for hexes before Harry read it. When he turned the parchment lime-green, though, Harry rolled his eyes and snatched it from him.

He stared at the first few lines, and felt his blood turn cold, and then burning hot, and then like acid, which was an interesting array of sensations. He looked sideways, and saw Fred sitting up, his eyes fixed on Harry's face.

"Something up?" Fred asked softly.

"I think so." Harry scanned the letter one more time, to be sure, and then nodded. "Yes. This is from the person who impersonated me and sent the pictures to the Daily Prophet." Only she hadn't exactly impersonated him, he found as he read further, but that was beside the point, and anyway, the truth only fueled his anger. "She wrote me intending to blackmail me, and she promises that she'll reveal Argus Veritaserum's identity, too, if I just do what she wants."

He turned and looked at Fred. "Could you fetch me two pieces of parchment and a quill, please?" he asked. "And go to the Owlery and tell Hedwig I want her. Oh, and a school owl."

Fred stood up, grinning, that smile that was a mixture of amusement and a predator's bared teeth. "You're writing two letters back to her?"

"No," said Harry, feeling his own mouth stretch in a wider line as his anger roared up to new heights. "One to her. The other goes to the Isle of Man."