Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!

This is a multi-update day. Intermission, Interlude, chapter all in a row.

Intermission: That Which Burns Shall Rise Again

There were Aurors at her door.

Hestia Jones knew that, but it didn't stop her from penning the last line in the letter she was sending, the code that would tell the Order of the Phoenix member that she could be trusted, and that this was a true message that had the approval of Dumbledore, not a prank or a matter of minor importance. She tied the letter to the leg of the waiting owl, a small one which would attract barely any attention, especially now that dusk was falling and non-magical owls as well as magical ones were in motion.

"Go, now," she whispered to the owl, pausing to scratch its head. "You know who you have to find."

The owl hooted enthusiastically and took wing through the back window of her flat, the only one that was open. Hestia smiled. That window looked out over an alley of wizarding London, one too small for a human to get through on foot. No one would be watching there.

So. It was done, now. Her last message was gone, and she had done her part to make sure that the influence of the Light would not die, even though they had caught Kingsley Shacklebolt and Homer Digle.

"Hestia Jones!" The Auror at the door was using an impressive-sounding growl, as though he imagined that would make her surrender faster. "Undo your locking charms and surrender your wand."

Hestia, whose wand was on a table across the room, sniffed, but made no attempt to move. Her eyes were on the vanishing owl. They remained that way even when the Aurors at last blasted aside her door and stamped into the room, pulling her arms roughly behind her back as they arrested her.

None of them understood. She had known that, of course, but she confirmed their lack of comprehension when she looked into their eyes. Hestia glanced down at the floor to hide her smile.

The Order of the Phoenix was not some spreading vine they could cut down and stamp on and burn and be done with. It was a group of people with the same beliefs, people whose minds were touched with Light, who knew that no matter the unfortunate pressure of some accusations and some Dark wizards who pretended to be Light in power, the group's mission—fighting against Dark Lords—must continue. They would be the ones who weren't fooled, the ones who saw with the clear eyes of their namesake. When Harry Potter revealed himself to be the Dark Lord that Hestia knew he was, they would be ready, even if some of their members were in prison.

And she knew there was another person, his existence hinted at in whispers, who could make use of them, even if Lord Dumbledore was tried and condemned and stripped of his magic. He could have been a Light Lord, but he had preferred to let his protégé, Albus, claim the title. Now that he knew he was needed, he would come out of seclusion, and he would find the Order of the Phoenix ready and waiting to assist him.

After all, Hestia thought, as the Aurors searched her for knives or magical artifacts or extra wands, when a phoenix burns, it rises again. They really ought to have known that about us.

The serene smile remained on her face even as the Aurors shoved her out the door and Apparated with her to Tullianum.

Snape sat on one side of his private rooms and stared at Harry. The boy stared back, arms crossed over his chest as if he were cold. Draco stood beside him, his hand twitching as if he wanted to clutch Harry's shoulder in reassurance. He always drew his hand back, though, when he met Snape's eyes. Both of them knew how serious this was.

Harry had nearly died, again, the day he went to the Ministry to speak with Scrimgeour about Shacklebolt, Mallory, and Digle. And he had not told them.

Snape would have tried yelling, but he didn't think any of them could bear it. Besides, it hadn't made an impact on Harry before. Nor had scolding, or the urgent pleas to tell them when his life was in danger. Snape wasn't even entirely sure what had prompted Harry to keep silent this time. It was not as though he would want to protect Digle, since the Ministry was charging him with attempted murder anyway. That much he had confirmed before he shut down and stared at Snape and Draco both with blank green eyes.

So Snape decided to speak of the emotion that most drove him at the moment, and, judging from the expression on Draco's face when he thought no one was looking, drove him, too.

"I am sorry that you do not trust us yet, Harry," he said quietly.

Harry blinked and jerked his head up. "What are you talking about?" he asked. "I trust you. Of course I trust you." He glanced up at Draco and tried to smile. The smile withered when Draco just stared back at him.

"Then why keep silent?" Snape asked.

Harry shook his head. "I don't know if I can explain it," he said. "But—well, the Aurors were most concerned about the fact that Digle had a knife at all, not about his almost killing me. It was a pathetic attempt. I took care of it as soon as it happened. Scrimgeour is worried, of course, but he worries all the time anyway." He tried another smile, this time with slightly more success. "Why should I worry you with telling you about it?"

Snape sighed. Even to his ears, it had a weary sound. "Because I want to know, Harry," he said. "And when you do not tell me of these attempts, something so vital and important as your nearly dying, it does make me feel as though you don't trust me."

"Me, too," said Draco, crouching down beside Harry's seat so that Harry couldn't help but see him. "I'm not sure whether I think that you don't trust us not to get angry at you or don't trust us not to rush out and eviscerate the bastard responsible, but either way, I'd rather that you told us."

Harry shrank into a corner of the couch. "But I nearly die all the time," he said. "You've even seen most of those happen. Why should one more time matter?"

Draco glanced back at Snape. Snape drew in a deep breath and controlled his immediate response. That Harry could even ask such a question showed how differently he thought about this kind of thing from most people. Snape couldn't snap out that Harry's life was of course important, because he wouldn't understand.

"Because your life is important to me, Harry," he said. "To us," he amended, when Draco opened his mouth. "You cannot imagine how important."

"But I know that," said Harry. "That's the reason I don't tell you about all of the murder attempts. I don't want you to spend your lives in a constant state of fear."

"I would rather do that than have a false happiness," said Snape, arriving at the crux of the matter at last. "I would rather know that you are in danger and be ready to protect you than fondly imagine nothing is wrong and have an unexpected threat come at you from behind."

"You could also, you know, always hold back from going into danger," said Draco, with the Malfoy trick of putting the force of a yell into a whisper, which Snape had heard only Lucius master before.

Harry sighed. "That's not going to happen, Draco, not with as many times as I don't even realize that my life might hang in the balance, or with as many times as I need to experience danger to make a new ally trust me."

"You still let people have too much of you," said Draco, resting his hand on Harry's shoulder as though he thought that would make him more likely to listen. "You don't need to experience danger to make them trust you. It's just the most expedient way for that other person. But not for us, Harry. We would rather that you stayed safe."

Harry looked away, biting at his lip. Snape nodded slowly. Draco had hit on the one argument that might actually convince Harry to think before he plunged into danger. It was not as good as making him value his own life for its own sake, but it was a start.

"And you would rather have the worry, too?" Harry whispered. "I don't need to protect you from knowing?"

"No," said Snape forcefully, not intending to let this sign of sense get away. Harry's eyes returned to his face. "At the moment, all you spare us from feeling is a few days of worry. We find out in the end, and feel the worry delayed, and anger, and the helplessness that I, at least, experience, when I know that your own distrust of me prevents me from helping you."

"That's not it at all!" Harry said, squirming upright on the couch. "I don't distrust you. I just want to defend you from the helplessness you seem to experience at finding that I've nearly died again."

"Truly?" Snape considered Harry's fervent nod, and prevented himself from reacting to the statement that Harry trusted him with anything other than a sharply indrawn breath. "Well, it feels like the other."

"With me, too," said Draco, with perhaps a bit too much sadness in his voice, his eyes cast down on the floor. But if Harry thought the pouting was false, he obviously chose not to take it that way, reaching out and resting his hand and his wrist on Draco's shoulders.

"I didn't know," Harry whispered. "I did think I was defending you from knowing. And the Ministry was handling Digle, and, well, it happened so suddenly, and I didn't even get a scratch—" He cut himself off abruptly. "But that doesn't matter, I suppose," he said. "You still want to know."

"Yes, Harry," said Snape.

Draco's answer was wordless, an intense stare, but it still made Harry bow his head and nod.

The boys left for the Slytherin common room then, and left Snape to summon a house elf, request a glass of wine, and stare into the fire.

It is growing, that trust between us. Slowly, it's coming back, like a phoenix burned in its own fire.

Snape had not permitted himself to react the way he most wanted to to Harry's declaration just now, the way he had held himself back from doing anything last month when Harry spoke of admiring him. With some children, he knew, it would have been the right course, to show how much he valued those seemingly casual words, the evidence that their love for him was not totally destroyed.

But Harry had heard Snape say that it was love for him that had made Snape accuse his parents and Dumbledore. He knew how Snape felt. It was the consequences of his actions that he had become angry at and hated.

Snape would need to let Harry find his way back to him on his own, burn away his hatred like a coating of ash and burst into new flames, a rising of love and hope and trust that would renew their bond as no forced words—which Harry would probably think of as manipulation anyway—could.

That Harry had not been chased away utterly by Snape's actions on his behalf, that he did not hate him forever, was good fortune such as he had not conceived of when he sent the owl to the Ministry bearing the Pensieve Potion and the written records of Dumbledore's memories. He did have a future, a chance, with his ward. And he would not ruin it by moving too quickly.

That which burns shall rise again, he thought. It had been one of Albus's favorite sayings, but it was older than he was, and therefore no one could prevent Snape from valuing it.

We shall rise again.

He shuddered then, and stood to do some experimental brewing. His own mind was taking a far too soppy turn for his taste.