Thanks for the reviews on Chapter 45! This is one of two chapters and an Intermission I wrote while this site was having problems, so there'll be a few updates right in a row.
The chapter title this time comes from Tennyson, from the short poem "The splendor falls on castle walls…" This is largely a transition/reaction chapter.
Chapter Forty-Six: Our Echoes Roll From Soul to SoulAugustus Starrise was on his feet and moving the moment the sentence was announced, and the elder Potters taken away. He knew that Potter's—no, Harry's, he was Harry, now, and his brother Potter—friends would try to get him away as soon as possible. He had to speak to the boy before then, since visiting Hogwarts would be far too public for the kind of private alliance offer he wanted to make.
The staff he held abruptly brightened, the band of gold on the top, the one that held a bit of Alba's magic, shining as if struck by the sun. Augustus turned his head, sighting along the top of the staff. His heart beat in a mouth that seemed all bone, without a drop of moisture. Was one of Alba's murderers here? Had her magic recognized one of her killers? For that, he would abandon the alliance offer he was about to make Potter, since, if he could find the killers, nothing would matter after that, not once he called the Caerimonia Inrevocabilis, the sternest of the justices rituals.
But the gleam faded, and Augustus shook his head. He had never entirely understood the twining of his twin sister's magic with his own; her death so soon after the creation of the band of gold had ruined the enchantments that would have enabled him to summon her after death, speak with her, and learn whom he should take vengeance upon. The staff might have reacted to nothing more than the Dark Mark on the arm of someone in the room.
The Malfoy heir was helping Harry out of his seat when Augustus focused again. He took several small, smooth steps forward, calling on the pureblood dances that let him project an air of majesty out beyond his own features. People moved out of the way without knowing quite why they did so, and Augustus found himself standing comfortably in front of Harry, who glanced up at him and blinked.
"Mr. Starrise," said Harry, his voice devoid of emotion. Even with the tear tracks on his face, he still looked impressive, Augustus had to admit. Shutters had come down inside his eyes, hiding all the possible emotional wounds behind a mask of strength, and he was tensed, as if he prepared to run or leap. His magic sang around him, a low-voiced sob of sweet music. "Is there something I can do for you?"
Augustus inclined his head. "I have never seen such a display of compassion and mercy," he said quietly, letting the truth come spilling out of his lips. It really was what he had felt when witnessing the boys' performance on behalf of his parents, imbeciles who had never loved him and had treated a child that any pureblood wizarding family would have been proud to bear poorly. "You are enough of the Light to make me honor you, Harry. May I become your ally?" He held out his hand, and waited patiently to see if the boy would accept it or not.
Harry stared searchingly into his eyes instead of accepting or rejecting the offer right away. Augustus nodded. This was a worthy person to follow, quite apart from his other allies possibly opening the way to Alba's killers. At his lowest, his most broken, he could still evaluate the political world that never stopped turning for personal causes, and ask intelligent questions.
"Why do you want to?" he asked. "It is true that I honor some ideals of the Light, Mr. Starrise, but you should know that I also practice Dark magic, and have Dark allies." The Malfoy heir's arm tightened around his waist, and he snorted, as though he could claim the highest place in the ranks of those allies. Augustus studied the boy, and was able to dismiss him in a moment. Someday, Draco Malfoy would be impressive, but that day was not yet come. "I thought you were too purely of the Light to ever want to fight beside me."
"I have changed my mind," said Augustus. "The year away from politics that the Minister forced on me gave me time to think, and You-Know-Who's rising this summer completed the change."
Harry inclined his head. 'And you would be faithful, and not object to working beside Dark wizards, then?" he asked.
A fair question, Augustus had to admit. "I would not be willing to use Dark Arts myself, but other than that, yes, I would follow your faithfully," he said. "And you gain more than just the Starrises with my hand, Mr. Pot—Harry. Where the Starrises go, the Griffinsnest family will follow, and at the very least, the minor Light families, like Owlborn and Morningsgift, will consider following. We have long been considered the most prominent of the northern Light wizarding families."
He wondered why Harry's face went still when he said the word "northern," but it seemed no more foreboding than the still eyes. Harry nodded when a moment had passed. "Very well," he said.
"Harry!" the Malfoy heir exclaimed. "You can't seriously mean that! He would have testified against you at Fudge's trial last year!"
"And he didn't," Harry pointed out, ignoring, with what Augustus thought was good tact, the fact that the ritual Scrimgeour had invoked against him hadn't let him do anything vaguely political at the time. "And now he's here, and he says he's changed his mind. I should let him do that, Draco, at the least."
The Malfoy heir grumbled low in his throat and gave Augustus a nasty look. Augustus smiled back at him. The threats of puffed-up little Dark wizards were not something he took very seriously.
He shook Harry's hand, feeling content as that outpouring of magic surged around him. He had meant what he said. He knew something of grief, and the way that Harry had been able to ride and master his own had struck him like a lightning bolt.
He also knew, from that display, that there was no way Harry would ever join him in his vengeance against Alba's murderers, or allow him to take it if he knew what Augusts was searching for. That was all right. Augustus fully intended to serve this young vates, who might be the only successful vates in history, to the best of his ability for as long as he could, and then part ways when he had to take his own justice without damaging Harry more than the loss of a murderous ally would.
Connor wrinkled his nose and rubbed a hand over his hair. He had thought he would feel complete satisfaction at seeing his parents sentenced, but a few minutes after they'd led James out of the courtroom, he had started feeling—weird.
Yes, weird was a good word for it. And so was "strange," and so was "itchy."
He scratched at his scar for a moment, and wondered if a minion of Voldemort was in the courtroom. But why would one of them come here? What could possibly be interesting about this? They could read all about the outcome of the trial in the papers. There had been loads of reporters present. Besides, Connor really, really doubted the Dark Lord who wanted to conquer Britain was interested in what one coward and one idiot had been doing to their children during their spare time.
Then he remembered that he'd told everyone that his brother was the real Boy-Who-Lived.
All right, maybe Voldemort would be interested.
But none of that explained why his hair itched, or the back of his head, or the inside of his elbow. Connor was getting tired of scratching all of them, and he was starting to think that someone would think he had fleas. He was already getting a few odd looks from people passing him by in their rush to get out of the galleries.
Then the people stopped passing him, and someone gasped. Connor didn't know why until Harry said, "Connor?"
He looked up, and did his best to smile. It was difficult. Harry—hadn't been familiar for a while. He hadn't looked anything like as fragile as he'd been yesterday. He'd gone down into the courtroom and spoken for their parents the way a phoenix would sing. Connor felt awe, and a little of the wonder he used to feel around Dumbledore, and worry, too. He would have liked to know how Harry had managed that, and at what cost to himself.
"Harry," he said, and then they both asked, at the same time, "Are you all right?"
Harry smiled. Connor was glad to see the expression. "I'm fine," Harry said. Draco snorted his own impression of that at Harry's shoulder, but Connor had learned to look at his brother when it came to questions like this, and, incredibly, it did seem as though he might really be fine—his eyes were wide, but not dark, and he seemed drained, but not worn to a thread. "But what about you? I saw you scratching."
"I itch," Connor admitted. "I don't know why. If I find out the twins put itching powder on me, I'll—" A small explosion of white light came off the back of his hair, and he cursed softly and tried to cover it with a hand.
Harry's expression altered. "Oh, Connor," he whispered. "Close your eyes for a minute, and then tell me what you see."
How can I see anything with my eyes closed? But Connor obediently closed his eyes, and concentrated. He started when a vision of a corridor appeared, lined with portraits high enough above his head that he couldn't quite make them out, and paneled with rich white wood.
"A hallway?" he asked as much as stated. "And portraits, and white wood."
"I thought so," Harry whispered. "I should have thought of it before. You just became heir to Lux Aeterna, Connor. They stripped James's magic from him—" Connor felt a fierce, brief stab of triumph that Harry wasn't calling James their father anymore "—and I renounced the Potter name, so the linchpin is linked to you now. Probably other Potter properties, too."
Connor nodded. He could feel more itches if he thought about them, just waiting to explode into visions when he looked. But, right now, he was more concerned with something else. Houses would be there when he went and looked for them. The chance to have a conversation with Harry wouldn't always be.
"Just because you renounced the Potter name doesn't mean you're not my brother anymore, right?" he asked, opening his eyes and staring at Harry.
Harry's face softened at once. "Of course I'm still your brother, Connor," he said softly, reaching out and clasping his hand. "You're the only one of them I still want to be related to. Nothing will part us, I promise you, unless you have the bad taste to paint Lux Aeterna pink with green polka dots."
It actually took Connor a moment to understand that Harry was making a joke, though he would have got it in a moment from Ron. Harry didn't make jokes, especially not in the wake of a trial like this. But it seemed that he did, and he was smiling at Connor, encouraging him to laugh along. Connor heard himself chuckle almost unwillingly, and then he stared at Harry again.
Most of the time, he wasn't jealous of Harry anymore. Yes, he got to do great things, but those things were bloody dangerous, too, and he got hit with curses that made his guts spill out of him. That was not Connor's idea of a good time, though punishing the Ravenclaw who had hurt Harry still was, if only Professor Snape hadn't got to it first. And he knew now that training was necessary before he would be up to guarding Harry's back in battle.
And he wasn't really jealous of Harry's status as Boy-Who-Lived, either. Sure, Connor would miss some of the attention and the approval, but, ultimately, that name for himself had been based on a lie. The lie had been bothering him since he and Harry and Peter had all agreed to keep it a secret. Now it was out in the open, and everyone knew the truth, and the lie would stop itching in Connor's conscience.
But he did think he could envy the—he groped for a word, and couldn't find it, though Hermione would have known. Maybe it was capability? Yes, that would do, though it didn't have as many syllables as Hermione's words. He envied the capability Harry had to survive the battles and the dangerous things, and to make speeches like the one that had made Connor cry for Lily and James. He did wish he could have something like that.
But maybe he could. Not even Harry had been born with it, after all.
"Everything I inherited is yours," he told Harry softly. "Or at least half yours. If you want it. You're older."
Harry shook his head, his face relaxed and calm. "I'm only older by fifteen minutes, and I don't want it," he said. "Or I wouldn't have renounced the name, Connor. I know I have the connection with you no matter what, but the possessions are tied to the Potter name." He shrugged. "I don't need them."
"Are you going to take another name?" Connor asked. He thought it was a good idea. He'd been getting a better idea, from talking with Ron and watching the way students in other Houses acted, how big a deal family was in the wizarding world. Since he'd been raised mostly as the Boy-Who-Lived and not as a Potter, it wasn't instinctive, but he was working on it, and Harry without a family at his back would constantly have to face small annoyances, people trying to outmaneuver or trap him.
He's got me. That thought made Connor ache with pride. But other people wouldn't see it that way, now that a name no longer connected them.
Harry shook his head. "Not right away," he said. "Not for a long time, in fact. I—" He hesitated, as though he wanted to find the right words, and then spoke carefully. "I never felt as though I belonged with anyone the way I belonged with James and Lily and you, or the way I should have belonged there. And until I can actually experience that sense of rightness somewhere else, I don't want a surname, or parents." He smiled, and Connor flinched. It was a smile that expressed all the sadness Harry had so far succeeded in keeping off his face. "Besides, I've had a lot of practice being a brother, so that's all right, but not much practice being a son. I don't think I'd be any good at it."
"Merlin, Harry, you'd be perfect for plenty of people," said Draco, apparently unable to keep his mouth shut any longer. Of course, for a Malfoy, silence is unnatural, Connor thought. "You don't know how welcome my parents would make you. And you know what Regulus is offering, and I'm sure Mrs. Bulstrode—Millicent's mother, I mean—would love to make you her son, and you know Professor Snape—"
"Don't, Draco," said Harry, all but snapping the words, and Draco hushed. Connor hid his smirk. Al least I don't have to worry about Draco walking all over him anymore. "I'm not ready to think about it, I said." He turned back to Connor, his eyes steady and soft again. "What about you? Are you going to be all right now that Lily and James are in prison?"
Connor nodded. "I talked with the Weasleys when I was with them this summer. Mr. Weasley said I was perfectly welcome to stay with them as long as I liked, and they'd apply for legal guardianship when I wanted them to." He didn't quite want them to, not yet. Lily and James deserved prison, of course they did, and Connor didn't need someone to come rushing up to him and hug him just because they were in Tullianum now. He wasn't a little boy.
Harry seemed to disagree, since he leaned forward and hugged Connor in the next moment. Connor blinked and bowed his head to his brother's shoulder, then hugged back. "I'm glad," Harry whispered into Connor's ear. "I know you would make as good a brother to Ron as you have been to me."
Connor remembered the first three years they'd been at Hogwarts, and bit his lip. But he wound up nodding. It seemed that Harry had forgiven him for those years, if he'd ever held them against him in the first place. "Thanks, Harry."
And then Draco was drawing Harry gently away, and Connor had to follow them or find Remus, since he had to get back to Hogwarts somehow, but he spent a moment gripping the balcony railing in his hands and staring at the floor of the courtroom.
It seems so strange that it might actually be over.
But the itching in his head said it was. Connor hesitated, then closed his eyes and gave in to the visions of Lux Aeterna again. He had to admit, he was curious about what was behind some of the doors locked with wards that James had never allowed them to open…
Rufus leaned back in his seat, now and then nodding to show that he was paying some attention to the pauses in Amelia's nervous chatter, and followed Harry with his eyes.
Remarkable, really, how much of the room turns around him.
Some of that, of course, came from the reporters and others who just wanted to see the trial as a spectacle. They would peer at Harry as if he were the main actor in a play. Rufus felt even more viciously satisfied with Harry's speech than he might have, on account of them. They had come expecting to see a tragedy, and Harry had brought a touch of the sacred into the room and made them confront it. A few hadn't been able to, and had taken to their heels, feigning boredom with yawns.
Their too-wide eyes gave them away, though. Rufus would be extremely surprised if many of their accounts of the end of the trial, either appearing in the papers or passed by word-of-mouth, were coherent.
Others turned around Harry as if they were planets and he the sun—or perhaps moons and the sun would be a better analogy, Rufus thought, since they were hoping to catch and shine with some of his reflected glory. "Power" traveled in hushed whispers throughout the courtroom, and there were a few too many people obviously not leaving until Harry did. Many people had heard of the young Lord-level wizard; few had ever been in the presence of his magic. Rufus was glad that he had been, before, and so had most of the members of the Wizengamot. That irresistible feeling of wanting to get closer to the source and soak up the magic, bask in it, had not influenced their decision in the sentencing of the Potter parents.
Well. Much.
There were Harry's allies, too, watching him openly, though some had already departed, as if secure that the boy was in good hands. There were more of them than Rufus had expected, and he saw another alliance made as Augustus actually went to Harry, and Harry, after a few moments of discussion, accepted his hand. Rufus shook his head. I do not think that particular set will survive, but we will see.
The world always altered when another Lord or Lady appeared. So far, though, Rufus had mostly seen only interruptions in the dance. Now people were starting to find partners, and fall into new patterns.
And pick up speed. The next few weeks would be dangerous, Rufus knew. That was to be expected. News of Dumbledore's spell was spreading. There was Digle to question. There were the revelations that had burst like dying stars in the trial, that Harry was the Boy-Who-Lived and had renounced his name. Their world was changing. Everyone who was wise and cared about his or her own position would be lifting up a head, pricking cautious ears.
Rufus could feel himself smiling, despite all the evidence that he still had changes to make in the Ministry he had thought was getting cleaner, despite the fact that half-controlled chaos in the wizarding world would make his own task harder, particularly now that Dark wizards, who'd withdrawn from the Ministry under Cornelius's paranoia, would be trying to influence his people through bribery and favors.
Good to be challenged. Let's me know I'm alive.
And it seemed that Harry was a Lord-level partner who might actually be trusted to keep his word and not muck about in the Ministry. No doubt they would clash, but Harry would not actually seek to win because of his magic.
Rufus had not thought he would live to see this day two years ago, had not thought such a day was possible. But it was, and here it was.
That was one reason he had voted for Lily Potter's life, he thought as he stood, and apparently stunned Harry to the core. Of course, he had accepted most of Harry's speech, and he had been an Auror who, while he hated abusers, also hated losing someone he'd arrested to death—it was too simple—and he had to admit a certain longing to see Lily Potter's face if and when she learned what her son really was, what he was really doing.
But he had also wanted to show Harry that he had that trust in him, that he believed in many of the same principles and could walk beside Harry on the path he trod.
Walk beside. Never follow. That is where, and how, we will clash, when it comes. He's a leader, but so am I.
But Rufus felt an eagerness for that challenge, now. It was no longer a storm to be feared, the wind that had begun blowing today, but a cleansing gale that might yet sweep most of the foulness left in their world away.
Snape shielded Harry from prying eyes and questions as he guided him and Draco out of the Ministry. Regulus, and Pettigrew, and even Lupin, shepherding the Potter boy, soon joined them.
The only Potter boy, now.
Snape allowed himself a moment to revel in that, and dismissed it. He couldn't actually enjoy Harry's renunciation of his family as much as he might have, say, a year ago, because he had felt too deep a longing the moment he heard of it—a longing to be able to fill that place in Harry's life himself.
He had known what he was giving up, what sacrifice he was making, when he revealed Harry's abuse. He told himself that for the thousandth time. He had known it would cost him the trust Harry had in him. But it had also led to this moment, this freedom, and apparently Harry's conscious choice to shut the lid on the past and continue with his life. Snape could not regret that.
But he had always been greedy, selfish, wanting more than he should want. He had seen that in himself when he brewed the potion out of Melissa Prince's book, the one that let him see his own soul. He could summon the vision if he closed his eyes, a dark flawed crystal—the ambitious impatience that had put him into Slytherin, and led him into the Death Eaters.
He wanted to be a part of Harry's life again. He wanted to see Harry take his surname, and call him by something other than a title, which Harry had never done. He wished he had at least the level of comfort with Harry that Lupin had.
It would not come without hard work; he knew that. When had anything he wanted in his life come without struggle that would kill half the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs in the world?
He wanted it now anyway.
He had been hovering behind Harry as he spoke to his brother, enough to hear Harry say that he wanted a rightness, a sense of belonging, before he took another surname. Snape was sure that he could give him that—more than sure. It would take time, but he could outwait the time, and do whatever was needed to show Harry that he would have a home if he wanted it, in the Slytherin dungeons or at Spinner's End, for the rest of his days.
But Snape did not believe that was the only reason Harry was currently refusing to take a surname. He was used to hearing a heavy tone in his ward's voice when he held something back, and he had heard it when Harry spoke to Potter about family.
What was it?
That question had to wait until they had arrived back at Hogwarts, and had an interview with the Headmistress in which Harry said very little, and then Lupin and Potter had cleared off. Regulus lingered, Pettigrew at his side, looking expressively at Harry. And Draco, of course, was there, too, but Snape did not mind that. Draco could hear every question he asked Harry, and would not breathe a word of it to anyone else.
Harry kept his head bowed, refusing to meet Regulus's eyes. Snape watched his old friend's face, and saw the moment when Regulus decided to throw caution to the winds and just ask. He sighed, but kept the sigh internal. Given what they both are like, this has to happen.
"So, Harry," said Regulus, a little too casually, "now that there's no longer two people who don't deserve you hanging around in the background—"
"No," said Harry, and jerked his head up, the motion violent. "I can't. Not yet, maybe not ever. Don't push me, Regulus," he added, when Regulus opened his mouth. "I can't do this. I—want to see you, talk to you again, this weekend, but I don't want to talk about inheritance or family or bloodlines. Please."
Regulus, like Snape, could apparently hear the wavering in Harry's voice on that last word. Ordinarily, Harry would have already withdrawn to lick his wounds and grieve in private. That he had not was a vast step forward, Snape knew, but now he had reached the limit of his tolerance.
Now, Regulus nodded, and said softly, "Of course, Harry. I'll be happy to come visit you on Saturday, Sunday, whenever you want to see me." He abruptly dropped to one knee and hugged Harry hard, surprising a squeak out of him. "Whatever you need, Harry. I want to be there for you."
Snape saw Harry freeze in shock, and narrowed his eyes. Yes, there is still something wrong, something unexpressed.
But the shock was gone in the next moment, and Harry returned the embrace. "Thank you," he murmured. He glanced at Pettigrew. "And you, too, Peter."
Pettigrew was wiser than Regulus, in some ways; he simply hugged Harry, nodded once, and turned away, wishing him a soft good-night. Then the two men left together. Snape guessed that they'd stay at Cobley-by-the-Sea, always Regulus's refuge when he'd suffered a severe disappointment.
That left the three of them, and Harry looked at both Draco and Snape as if he'd like nothing so much as to slip away. Snape could not allow it, not yet. He wanted to know what the thing gnawing at Harry was.
Harry turned his head away when Snape tried to meet his eyes. Snape realized with a little jolt that the boy was apparently afraid he'd use Legilimency on him.
This is not good. I must show him he can trust me. Does that mean that I should not ask him what is troubling him? Snape pondered that, but, in the end, felt he had to. I don't think Draco realizes there's more to this, not when he's caught up in his own hurt feelings about Harry rejecting the Malfoys as an immediate family. Draco had looked extremely disgruntled the whole time Harry spoke with his brother, but never more so than at the words about family. I want Harry healthy. I need to speak with him.
"Harry," he said quietly. Harry turned back towards him, but didn't raise his eyes. "Something more is behind your reluctance to take a surname than a sense of rightness or belonging, important as that is. What is it?"
Harry almost slumped against the wall. "I wish you didn't know me so well, sir," he whispered.
Snape tucked the pain those words gave him away in an Occlumency pool. Draco started and glanced between them, then reached out towards Harry. Harry leant towards him, trembling, and Snape realized that he was probably pushed over his limits already, and dropping fast.
Snape winced, but reminded himself that, if he didn't do this now, then Harry might tuck the pain away and simply refuse to be questioned on it again. "Will you tell Draco, if you will not tell me?" he asked quietly. "I will leave, if you wish me to."
Harry brought up his head with a gasp, as if he were drowning. He looked from once face to another, then said, in a mutter, "If I can't tell you, whom can I tell?" He waited one moment more, as though for an invisible signal, then nodded and began.
"What I said about family was true. And I know that I h-hate Lily and James now as well as love them, and I understand that other people love me. You two, for example, and Connor, and Regulus, and Peter." He took a deep breath, and Snape could almost feel him shoving through a barrier that prevented him from saying the next words. Knowing how thick Harry's resistance to talking had been in the weeks leading up to the trial, he was silently impressed.
"I know why I love you," said Harry quietly. "I'm inside my head, after all. I know my own emotions. And I know that you love me. I said that. I acknowledge it. But I don't know why some of you love me, not completely. I don't really understand why Regulus wants to make me the Black heir, instead of someone related to him by blood, or instead of his own child, if he ever gets married. I don't understand why someone else would want to adopt me into a family—me, that is, and not any powerful Lord-level wizard, or the Boy-Who-Lived. I don't understand the level of love that Draco claims the Bulstrodes have for me, or his own parents, or—" He clenched his hand. "Or you, sir, on that level." He nodded at Snape. "I trust that you care for me, because you've demonstrated it. But I don't understand why you care for me as a father, if you do, and not just a guardian. I'm not good at being a son. I don't think I can do this." His voice sank, nerveless, and then dropped away entirely.
Draco made a small, fierce noise, but didn't say anything. Snape found that he could not speak, either, but stared into Harry's eyes. Harry had lifted his head and stared back at him with emotions he needed no Legilimency to read. They were terror and incomprehension, honest and open and complete.
"Harry," he whispered, ready, at that moment, to try and explain the terms of his love, use words that would make him sound soppy, reveal his own secrets, anything that would calm the shaking boy in front of him.
Harry shook his head and closed his eyes. "I'll understand someday," he whispered. "I'll work on understanding it. But not just yet. I—I wish I could take this weekend and just calm down, come down from the trial. But I don't think I can. I have letters to write, and there'll be a circus to deal with when the papers start reporting all the outcomes of the trial."
Draco reached for him, but Harry slipped sideways. "I'm sorry," he said. "I've just taken all I can for right now." Gently, he reached out, caressed Draco's right cheek, and then turned and slid off down the hallway.
Snape thought about pursuing him, but was confident that Harry would do himself no harm. He was probably going to a place he could be alone, and recover in the best way he still knew how to heal himself. Silently, though, he promised himself that Harry would indeed have the weekend.
If there was only some way that I could insure that he takes it.
But then, as long as I'm wishing for the impossible…if only there was some way to show him how very much we all love him, and that he isn't a bad son. He simply never got the chance to try.
Harry stood on top of the Astronomy Tower, blinking as rain sluiced down over him. It had started raining shortly after they left the Ministry, but he hadn't thought the storm would chase them back to Scotland. Apparently, he'd been wrong.
He bowed his head and put his head in his arms, welcoming the touch of the cold water. At least it would explain his shivering if someone came up and saw him.
He was still feeling the aftereffects of the intense fear he'd experienced in front of Draco and Snape—the fear of revealing a vulnerability like that; the fear that they wouldn't understand him; the fear that, no, he didn't know how to be a son, how to relate to a parent, and that he never would.
He was trying. He believed them when they said someone else could adopt him. He was talking. He just didn't know why the chance for another family existed yet. It was like understanding that magic existed, but not having the slightest idea how to grasp and use it. He'd have to understand it from the inside before he could trust himself not to mess things up.
Apart from anything else, understanding why other people loved him would make him change his vision of himself even further than the Room of Requirement had. He could feel the first dawning of the revelation. It was as terrifying as it was exhilarating, and to deal with it in the presence of other people—particularly people who'd just realized how much he didn't understand—wasn't something he was up to yet.
Harry took a deep breath and wiped the hair back from his forehead. He was all right, he reassured himself. A good night's sleep would restore his balance wonderfully. Then he could continue with his course in the raging political world he'd finally realized didn't stop turning just because he had a bad few days. There were alliances to be made, as Augustus Starrise had proven to him, and other people affected by the trial to be cared for, as Connor had shown him. Harry wished he could collapse for the weekend, but he didn't see how it was possible.
Someone moved beside him. Harry turned his head, ready to tell the person to go away, if it was anyone other than one of the Slytherins, and to tell one of them that he'd come down to bed any minute now.
It was none of them. It was a woman he hadn't seen for more than a year, a calm, small, wren-like woman with brown hair and brown eyes. Harry stared at her, and felt her eyes see into his soul in return. Well, of course. She was a Seer. This time, though, he thought he could feel the operation of her gift.
Then he shook his head, and found his tongue. "I just—I thought letters wouldn't reach you for two weeks," he said weakly.
"For owls from you, we have lifted the shadows around our Sanctuary," said Vera softly. "And we have our own ways of traveling fast when we must, isolated though we are. We have waited for a summons like this, Harry." She cocked her head at him. "And you may, of course, take a few days to rest. If you wish, I will talk to anyone who objects."
Harry closed his eyes and swallowed. "I think you're talking to the only person who will," he said as lightly as he could.
"And do you have any more objections?"
Harry hesitated one moment. He supposed he didn't have to answer the latest letters from the Burkes and the Belvilles immediately. And there were not, as far as he knew, any battles to be planned for or attacks to be defended against in the next two days. And he was not the only possible source of comfort in the world. Connor had Remus, after all.
Can I do this? Do I really deserve it?
What if I assumed the answer was yes, and went from there?
"No," he whispered. "I think I'll do this."
"Good," said Vera, her voice radiant. "That is very good, Harry." Her footsteps moved towards him, and he opened his eyes to see her smiling down at him, one palm extended. "Shall we get out of the rain?"
Harry nodded, and, reaching up, clasped her hand.