Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!
This is the longest chapter I've written so far, nearly 12,000 words. It also has a lot going on in it, and there's a chapter on the alliance meeting still to follow. This is where Harry starts playing politics.
Chapter Seventy-One: Not Since Merlin's Time
"I just don't see why you don't want to keep it."
Harry smiled as he turned the stone slowly over and over in his hand. Yes, he thought it would do. He had asked Hagrid, who ought to know, what the strongest kind of stone in the Forbidden Forest was, and the half-giant had brought him a sample. It was a simple gray color, egg-shaped like the rocks the centaurs valued, veined with gold and white. Harry didn't think it would break easily, which was his main requirement for a vessel to store the befouled magic in.
"Because it would corrupt my own magic, Draco," he answered Draco finally, sitting down on the bed and turning to face his boyfriend. Snape was out of the hospital wing right now, limping up and down the seventh-floor hallway to exercise his leg. He would walk with a limp for perhaps a year, Madam Pomfrey had warned him, but as long as he used the leg constantly, he ought to recover after that. Harry tossed the stone to Draco. "Here. You squeeze it, and make sure that it just doesn't feel strong to me because my hand is still weak." He looked at his arms and made a face. Madam Pomfrey had insisted that Harry stay "just a little longer" in the hospital wing, until she could make absolutely sure that the venom had done no damage to his arms. Since her magic revealed nothing, and the only symptoms of "damage" Harry had were trembling and weakness, he didn't see the point, but the matron had saved Snape's leg. He wasn't about to argue with her.
Draco tested the stone in both hands, then shook his head and tossed it back to Harry, who caught it easily. "It's an ordinary stone, Harry. Hard enough. It'll work. It won't shatter easily, which I think was the main thing you were worried about. But I say that you should keep that magic and work the foulness out of it."
"I haven't the least idea how," Harry said simply. He held the stone in his hand and closed his eyes, reaching for the magic that he'd swallowed from the Slytherin tie and from Voldemort. It had sunk into him and mingled with his own magic, but Harry still knew the difference, as easily as he could distinguish scum on the surface of a lake. The magic, hostile towards him still because of the intentions of its wielders and what they'd been doing when he swallowed it, swarmed up his arms and into the rock.
"Then find out," said Draco, somewhere beyond the flood. "I think it would be better, Harry." His voice was deep with dreams. "Imagine what you could do with magic like that. Can you imagine? Maybe not. Then I'll imagine for you. Not just defeat Voldemort, though that's a priority, of course. But force other people to listen to and respect you. Set up your own magical school if you wanted, one that would take only the best of the best students. Create new spells and artifacts that would become the stuff of legend. Breed snakes that aren't basilisks and aren't disgusting monsters like the ones Voldemort makes. Make—"
"And that's precisely why I won't keep it, Draco," said Harry, opening his eyes and peering down at the stone. He nodded with satisfaction. The Slytherin tie had had much the same feeling as the rock did now. "I have no wish to see what I would become if I did those things."
Draco stared at him. "I don't understand you," he said. "I don't understand how in the world you got into Slytherin. You have some ambition, don't you?"
Harry raised his eyebrows. "Of course I do. You know what it is. To change—"
"Yes, but—" Draco made a chopping motion with his hand in the air. "Not compulsion. Forget about compulsion, even the unconscious kind that you'd exude if you weren't holding your power so tightly under control now. The sheer respect that someone would have to pay a wizard with your magic and Dumbledore's and most of Voldemort's is so enormous that you'd get what you wanted without much trouble, Harry. They'd accord your opinions more weight than the Minister's. They'd agree to what you wanted for the chance to get what they wanted. That's how politics works, Harry, especially around powerful wizards."
"It's the way Dumbledore made it work for him," Harry retorted. "Why should he have had as much power as he did otherwise? He was only a Headmaster. His opinion would have mattered to parents and the board of governors, but no one else, really. It's his magic that made them look to him. Voldemort just takes a route of terror."
"And while Dumbledore was a bastard, some of his methods are worth adopting," Draco said in an encouraging tone. "Why not, Harry? That's the kind of politics that you'll have to work at the alliance meeting. It's the kind of politics that your allies will show up expecting. Since you're not that old and you don't have a powerful family at your back—though of course your Malfoy connections help make up for that—"
"And my being Black heir," Harry reminded him sweetly.
Draco blinked, then said, "Right," as if he'd prefer to forget about that. Harry watched in amusement as he waved a hand. "Your main political tool is your magic," he went on in determination. "And your reputation as Boy-Who-Lived, but you haven't tried to use that. It's your magic that's let you accomplish most of what you have so far. We won't mention the clever, talented, day-saving boyfriend, since that's self-evident." He wore the arrogant expression which made it impossible for Harry to tell how seriously he was taking his own words.
Harry laughed in spite of himself. "I don't disagree."
"Then why—"
"Because I don't want to intimidate people," Harry interrupted. "Of course I'm going to anyway. If someone backs down from an argument with me just because I'm a Lord-level wizard, then there's nothing I can do about that. But I won't set out to intimidate people. And I'd do that if I kept magic that wasn't mine sheerly as a political weapon. I'll use the magic that accident and Voldemort and my mother's machinations gave me."
"It was prophecy," said Draco. "Destiny. Merlin, Harry, don't start thinking of it as accident. Professor Snape," he added, turning towards the doors of the hospital wing as Snape came limping in, his face dark with pain and determination, "Harry thinks that he got his magic by accident."
Snape sank down onto his bed before he tried to respond, massaging his right leg. His eyes were closed. Concerned, Harry started to stand and go to him, but Snape replied in a voice that showed only faint strain. "It was an accident. A bizarre magical accident that no one could have predicted beforehand would fall out like that. No one had ever survived the Killing Curse."
Harry turned to Draco with a smile he knew was a bit vicious, then paused as Snape added, "That is what made it the cornerstone of a prophecy. Prophecies, by their very nature, predict things that do not happen in the world every day."
Draco could outmatch Harry in the vicious smile department, and he did so now. "You were saying, Harry?"
Harry shook his head and held up the stone that contained the befouled magic. "That I won't use this to achieve my ends until I can be sure that I know how to use it without dirtying the people around me, and I won't use my magic to force or scare people into doing what I want."
"What if it turns out to be the only way that you can free the magical creatures?" Draco had dropped the smile. He leaned forward and spoke with quiet intensity. "I think it might be, Harry. A powerful wizard can win them free, and in just a few years. Someone devoted to arguing won't win them free while he still lives."
"Then that's what happens," said Harry steadily. "I'm vates, and that means that I have to respect the free will of my enemies as well as my allies. The magical creatures know that. They wouldn't advise me to do anything in a different way, lest I fall from the path and stop being vates."
Draco sighed. "That magic is yours, Harry, if you can drain it. I think you should use it."
"If I can clean it, I will," said Harry. "To weave wards and heal hurts and defend people, not achieve my political ends. There have to be limits, Draco."
"You said something like that once before," Draco said. "That you don't want to see what you would become if you had so much magic. What does that mean, Harry?"
Harry shot an uneasy glance at Snape, but he had his eyes closed, and if he was attending to the conversation, he didn't show any sign of interfering. He turned back to Draco and answered, "I don't want to become unlimited, Draco, the way I might if I took my ability to drain magic so seriously that it was the only weapon I used. I don't want to intimidate other people with my mere existence. I want them free to argue with me, to hate me, to not fear me. And showing up to an alliance meeting blazing with power like that, most of it from other Lords, would not help me leave other people free."
Draco folded his arms, usually a sign of huffiness with him, but his voice was sure and his look steady. "I don't see why your will needs to be restrained for their sake, Harry. Surely your will is as important as theirs?"
"Yes," Harry snapped. "And I've told you, Draco, my will is to not be that powerful, to not lose myself to my magic. I'm more than the sum of my power. I do keep saying that. I don't know why you don't listen." He rose moodily to his feet and paced back and forth, but didn't storm out of the hospital wing. For one thing, he preferred not to run from his arguments with Draco; for another, Madam Pomfrey wouldn't like it.
"I suppose," Draco said after a few moments, "that I can't credit that it's your will because it's so different from what I want, from what I'd do with that level of magic."
Harry shot him a quick smile of thanks, and nodded. "I know," he said. "But it's what I'm going to do. And I promise, if I do work out some way of cleaning this—" he held up the stone "—then I can use it. Just not now." He tucked the stone into his pocket.
Draco sighed dramatically. "And you'll deprive me of my chance to appear in public as the boyfriend of an all-powerful wizard," he said. "That's just like you, Harry."
Harry was glad to change the tone of the discussion to teasing, especially when he looked over his shoulder and saw Snape watching him far too thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Minerva softly, glad that she didn't have to do this alone, that she had Godric and Rowena as well as Harry to help her. "I think that should do, Harry." She extended her hand across the desk to him. "Take my hand, hold tight to it, and follow the lines you'll see behind your eyes."
Harry leaned forward from his chair, his eyes intent, but closing as he latched onto her wrist. Minerva eyed him for a moment, then leaned back in her own chair and closed her eyes as instructed. She felt Godric's hovering presence ease closer, to lend her strength. Rowena stood on the other side of the room, to serve as anchor and guide; the Ravenclaw Founder knew the wards better than the others, and knew where the most essential, vulnerable places in Hogwarts were, the ones that had to be most protected. She would lead. Minerva would follow, with Godric linked to her through the bond that the Founders' spirits and the Headmistress shared, and Harry would come behind that, lending them magic to weave the wards as needed.
"Follow." Even now, Minerva wasn't used to Rowena's voice, high and aloof and passionate in what Minerva could only describe as an academic way. Minerva saw a shadow move across her eyelids, as though the Ravenclaw had just thrown one arm forward, and then the world opened around them. Minerva resisted the temptation to look with her physical vision, and hoped Harry had resisted it, too, even as she heard him gasp. Two conflicting sets of visual information would be too much for them, Rowena had explained. They would not go mad, but they would be confused and unable to help in the reweaving of the wards.
This world was one of transparent, glittering stone and dancing shadows—the way that Rowena saw Hogwarts, Minerva thought, rather than the clear, diamond-struck way Godric did. Rowena was a small, dark, winged shape against all the light, probably an eagle or raven. She spread her wings and soared through a tunnel that Minerva knew wasn't there in the physical Hogwarts, calling all the while. The sounds, whatever they might have been, burst in Minerva's ears as one word. Ward! Ward! Ward!
Minerva reached back to Harry and sideways to Godric, wordlessly asking for the magic to help her do this. It poured through her as more light: a flame from beside her, a sunrise from behind. She sent it reeling through the arm that pointed in the direction Rowena had gone, unable to suppress the sensation of flight even as she knew that she sat in one physical place, motionless.
Rowena's winged shape rose and dipped ahead of her, and Minerva directed the new ward to follow. It curled through the stones, supported and held upright as no ward had been since Albus's fall. Minerva guessed that had something to do with both the tide of magic behind her, and the fact that Harry could sense the Chamber of Secrets and keep the spell from draining downward.
Rowena led them a dance, flashing her wings here and here, and the ward followed, finding its anchors here and here. When the tunnel in the transparent stone was laden with the shimmering defensive magic, Rowena turned and flew towards Ravenclaw Tower. Concealing a chuckle—of course the Founder would think about defending her own House first—Minerva followed.
Rowena flew in a ring around the House common room and bedrooms, her voice ecstatic. Ward! Ward! Ward! Minerva tossed the ward, a glowing purple rope this time, after her, and it securely snared Ravenclaw Tower, guarding against Apparition, use of Portkeys, and any use of Dark Arts. Minerva was taking no chances, even though no other Death Eaters had been found in the House, or, indeed, anywhere in the school.
Rowena turned and circled slowly around Gryffindor Tower. Minerva felt confident enough to take the lead here, so many years had she spent sleeping in and climbing into and out of these rooms. The ward was red and gold this time, almost without her conscious choice. She could feel a moment of pure irritation from Rowena; she had wanted her own House wards in the Ravenclaw colors.
She said nothing about it, though, and pulsed downward, instinctively finding the weak places in the walls and showing them to Minerva: windows a Death Eater could fling Dark spells through, loosely fitted stones that could be more vulnerable than others to magic that manipulated the earth, small deserted rooms that no one knew about and might become targets of a Portkey. Minerva sealed them all. She expected to feel tired or empty at any moment—her usual reaction when she'd worked a great deal of magic—but the flow of power through her was as steady as ever. Godric's delight and Harry's stern resolve to guard the school might have been her own emotions.
Down and down and down, and they warded the Hufflepuff common room. In deference to Rowena's feelings, Minerva made these wards orange rather than yellow and black. The bird that represented the Founder did seem more at ease as she danced delicately around the bedrooms, showing the spells the way to go.
Minerva caught a flicker of another presence as they headed towards the dungeons. She hadn't yet met Helga Hufflepuff, but this certainly felt like a Founder's specter—a shy one. Minerva took a moment to glance aside from the path of light and shadow Rowena opened in front of her, and nodded gravely to the brown-haired woman she saw watching them. Helga's eyes widened, but she dipped her head, and then they flowed on towards the Slytherin common room and left her House's territory behind.
Harry took the lead, unexpectedly, as Rowena flew in slow, mournful circles around the Snake House's sanctuary. Minerva understood why a moment later. Godric had helped her guard their House, Rowena had led the guarding of hers, and Helga had probably lent unobtrusive support to the warding of Hufflepuff. But none of them were Slytherin, and all of them had reasons to hesitate concerning that House, either because of Salazar or because of their own personal history. Harry alone had positive feelings towards it. If someone didn't lend enthusiasm to its wards, then they were unlikely to hold strong.
Harry breathed life into Slytherin's wards, making them silver and green; Minerva didn't know if that was on purpose, or if those were simply the first colors he'd thought of. He tightened the wards, weaving them double-deep, when Rowena would have said that one flight was enough. Then he rose without having to be told, leading the way towards the Great Hall, the next vulnerable place to defend.
Minerva frowned as she followed. She would have said that she had overcome her prejudices towards Slytherin; certainly she felt no animosity towards Harry or Severus, and she treated her students from that House as she treated all the others. But the idea of Slytherin and what it represented, or once had, evidently lingered enough in her mind to poison this effort. She would have to be sterner, more careful still, to insure that she did not push a quarter of the school towards Voldemort simply because he claimed a right to their loyalty.
"How deep would you say that Gloriana Griffinsnest's hatred for werewolves runs, Professor?"
Snape lay on his bed in the hospital wing, absently massaging his right leg. He'd exhausted himself with walking practice yesterday—well, of course he had; it was a week since his wounding and he wanted to go back to his rooms—and Pomfrey had ordered him to stay still and rest today. Harry was pacing in front of the bed while he studied the letters he'd so far received promising attendance at the gathering on the vernal equinox. Snape was trying not to show how very much he envied his ward for being able to pace at all.
"She will never yield," Snape said now, remembering the proud, haunted girl he'd known briefly in school. She'd been five years ahead of him, but she'd already lost her parents when he arrived at Hogwarts, and her hatred for werewolves was almost all anyone knew about her, almost all anyone was allowed to know. She appeared to have no hobbies except studying lycanthropes and how to kill them. "She carried a silver knife at the meeting last month, Harry. It was a calculated insult, when she knows how close a werewolf stands at your side. She was pushing to see how much you'd allow her to get away with. What does she say in the letter?"
Harry floated it over to him. Snape scooped up the parchment, noting absently that Harry used Levitation Charms as casually as he would a second hand now. Perhaps that was good, perhaps not. Snape would at least wait a short time before suggesting some of the ideas he had for Harry to create or find a left hand.
Snape scanned the lines quickly, and nodded. "Yes. As I thought. She won't swear the oath not to use magic except in self-defense for 'personal reasons.' She'll kill Lupin if she can, Harry, and the state the laws are in would allow her to get away with it on the flimsiest of pretexts." He glanced up to see Harry standing still now, frowning. "And I trust that Mrs. Parkinson is attending the meeting as well?"
Harry nodded.
"Gloriana Griffinsnest is an expert at identifying werewolves," said Snape. "She could sense and expose Mrs. Parkinson's condition if she spent too much time with her."
Harry winced. "I can't let that happen," he murmured. "Mrs. Parkinson would lose custody of Pansy, her estate, her money, probably her freedom…"
Snape nodded again, though he was of the opinion that the witch he had fought beside in the Battle of Valerian would not meekly lie back and let the Ministry walk all over her. But the whole point of negotiation, and of Harry not simply facing Scrimgeour head on, was to achieve a resolution to the werewolf problem that both the werewolves and the Ministry could live with. "Then do not accept Mrs. Griffinsnest's response. You have a simple enough reason in her refusal to swear the oath."
Harry called the letter back to him, and then grinned at Snape as he laid it carefully in a pile of responses he'd rejected. "Planning the other meeting would have been a lot easier with you to help me," he muttered. "I can't believe how much you know about most of these people."
Snape shrugged, keeping his face relaxed and neutral. He doubted Harry would want to know most of the sources of his information. "We were both at fault there," he said. "And there are some ways in which you know the attendees better than I do." A smooth enough segue into a subject he'd meant to raise since Harry had mentioned, casually, whom among the Hogwarts students had already spoken to him about attending. "Are you sure that your brother should come?"
Harry blinked at him. "Why not? He wouldn't hurt me, you know that, and he can finish his formal Declaration to the Light in a public setting. I think he'd like that. Besides, it would help with any rumors that he resents me for being the Boy-Who-Lived when he's not." Harry rolled his eyes. "Stupid rumors, really. He was the one who told everyone at the trial that I'd bounced the Killing Curse back, and why would he have done that if he wanted to retain his prestige? But there are already a few articles muttering about Connor in the Prophet."
"It is not his motivation I am worried about, so much as his…lack of experience," Snape said smoothly. He would trust Harry in front of a crowd, and Draco, and a few of the other older Slytherins and Ravenclaws whose parents had trained them into calm, easy assurance in such situations. Even Zacharias Smith, though Snape disliked the boy for his arrogance, knew how to handle public speaking; his family would not have allowed him to assume full adult rights as heir if he didn't. But Connor Potter did not. His honesty had served at the trial. Snape could imagine dozens of ways it would hurt Harry if he stood up and spoke whatever nonsense came into his Gryffindor head on the equinox. He would be sincere—blindingly, painfully sincere. But only Harry, or someone of his power, could get away with that kind of honesty at a gathering like this. Half-truths would be the least of the political tricks on stage.
Harry shook his head. "He wants to come, Professor, and he can add valuable testimony if someone asks about Voldemort. He's faced him four times, after all, five if you count his being a baby during the first attack. He's been possessed by him, and he can tell them what that's like. And he's my brother, and heir of a Light pureblood family. Yes, I want him with me."
Snape stared into Harry's eyes, and Harry stared back, with that slight, stubborn lift of his chin that told Snape he was not going to win this one. Snape narrowed his eyes and gave what concession he could. "So long as you keep him away from any lengthy and detailed speeches."
"He did well at the trial."
This, Snape could counter. "He was speaking on a subject he knew well, in front of an audience sympathetic to his message. Do you think that will be the case here?"
Harry lowered his eyes. "No."
Is he seeing sense, or simply giving in to me? Without more proof, though, Snape could hardly accuse him of the last. "Then do not allow him to make speeches unless you are outmaneuvered and forced into doing so," he said. "Or unless the subject is Gryffindor lack of tact," he added, thoughtfully. "That, he could give an excellent example of it a hundred words or less."
Harry laughed, voice low and delighted, and Snape had to resist the urge to say something entirely inconsistent with even his new relationship with Harry about how glad he was to hear the sound. Instead, he turned to a subject he thought he might get an answer out of Harry on, now that he was relaxed. "Why do you resist having power so mightily, Harry?" he asked. "Do you truly fear that you will lose yourself to the temptation?"
Harry stiffened in surprise, then nodded. "Yes, I do," he said. "Dumbledore did."
"You are a very different person than Dumbledore ever was," said Snape, thinking, for one wistful moment, of what it would have been like if Harry had been alive fifteen years ago and leading the First War.
"But he was noble, wasn't he, professor?" Harry stared intently at him. "Once upon a time. I can't see you following him if he wasn't. I can't see Peter agreeing to become a sacrifice on compulsion alone. Even Sirius, though he owed Dumbledore more than anyone else, probably—I can't see him just giving in and following a leader who was an ignoble hypocrite from the time he met him."
Snape inclined his head stiffly. "He was noble, Harry, but he had already begun his fall by the time I turned to him for protection. That is clear, now." When he had come to Dumbledore in the summer of 1980, he had already heard the prophecy. Dumbledore must have been planning how and who to sacrifice to insure it came true. "I do not think you need to worry about the desire for power overcoming you."
Harry shrugged. "Perhaps not, but why take chances? I've felt the temptation to compel people, and I made Greyback cease to exist simply because I was angry. If something like that happened and I had still more magic than I have now—" He shook his head. "Until I can learn to control it, this way is better."
Snape raised his eyebrows, masking his surprise that Harry thought he needed more lessons in self-control. "I can help you in learning to control it. If, that is, you think the problem is one of temperament."
Harry shook his head again. "What else would it be?"
Snape did not have a satisfactory answer for that himself—except one that would consist of Harry being able to wield any amount of magic perfectly well—so he let it go for now, and nodded to the letter that Harry held. "And this one is from?"
"Compton Belville." Harry laughed again at the face Snape pulled.
"Potter—I mean, Harry?" The voice was vaguely familiar, but Harry was sure that he'd never heard it so soft and uncertain. He felt Blaise and Millicent tense up on either side of him, and turned around to face the speaker.
When he saw her, Harry was glad that Draco had become too involved in his latest argument-by-letter with his father to come to dinner early. Marietta Edgecombe, the Ravenclaw girl who had cast the Blood Whip curse at him in October, stood behind him, biting her lip.
"What is it, Edgecombe?" Harry made sure that his voice was perfectly neutral. If she wanted to flinch at it—and she did—that was her affair. She certainly wouldn't have trusted him if he'd offered her a warm smile and a congratulatory handshake, Harry thought.
"I've," said Marietta, and stopped. Then she took a deep breath and started again. "I just wanted you to know that I have no animosity towards you. None. I never knew Gilbert was a Death Eater, either. I swear I didn't."
It took Harry a moment to remember that Gilbert was the first name of Rovenan, the Death Eater boy who'd cast the Entrail-Expelling Curse at him, and that Marietta had been his girlfriend. He nodded at her. "I believe you."
Marietta paused for a moment, then added in a high, nervous tone, "And Madam Pomfrey told me when she finally managed to undo the spells on me that you'd killed Dumbledore."
Harry eyed her wearily. Am I going to have to endure another suicidal charge? "Yes. He'd been using a Dark Arts spell called Capto Horrifer on the people in the Ministry. By the time I killed him, he deserved it. Believe me."
"I do believe you!" Marietta clasped her hands before her as if she were about to fall on her knees at any moment. Harry wished she wouldn't. Gestures of humiliation made him uncomfortable in the way that stares had almost ceased to do. "I was just going to say that I'm sorry, and I hope that you'll accept my presence at the gathering you're having on the vernal equinox."
Blaise gave a sharp laugh. "Are you mad, Edgecombe? You try to kill our vates, and you think you can just count yourself as one of his allies as if nothing had ever happened?" Harry stared at him, frowning slightly. Blaise had never claimed himself as one of Harry's allies in public before; informal guard duty was one thing, and this was something else. And he'd certainly given no indication that he thought of Harry as vates.
"I didn't know what I was doing!" Marietta looked half-desperate. "I didn't, I swear. I wasn't myself during those months. Please, let me have another chance." She nodded to Harry, and her face shifted further, towards an expression that Harry had often worn himself. She'd do whatever she thought necessary to survive, and for some reason, she had decided that survival lay with him. "Look, Harry, I'll be blunt. I think you're going to win this war, and even if I didn't think that, You-Know-Who is an idiot and a madman. I've never wanted to serve him. I want to join you."
Harry raised his eyebrows. "You're still in school. Don't you need your parents' permission? And you could stay neutral, you know. I'm not Light, either."
"Harry!" Blaise hissed. "You would let her join us?"
"What's this us?" Harry asked, voice low enough that Marietta didn't hear. Blaise only frowned, as if he didn't know what Harry was talking about. Harry shook his head and faced Marietta again. "You're welcome at the alliance meeting if you think about it some more," he said. "Ask your parents' permission, or attend with them. And you'll need to swear an oath that you won't use magic against someone else except in self-defense."
"Thank you," Marietta whispered. "I promise. They'll want to come. They'll swear the oath, too. This is—you don't know what this means to us, Harry." For one horrible moment, Harry thought she was going to kiss his hand, or, even more embarrassing, stoop and kiss the hem of his robes. But instead she bobbed a curtsey, then hurried away.
Harry turned back to his food, certain his face was as red as a Weasley's.
"Would you really let someone so close to your back who once tried to slice it open?" Blaise hissed at him.
"It doesn't matter," said Millicent, in the calm, settled tone that she used when a conversation was shut. "She won't get the chance. We're going to be there, Blaise, and my father in particular has no interest in seeing his ally get hurt again." She smiled at Harry, a not particularly pleasant smile. "We'll obey the oath, Harry, but if someone casts a curse at you, we won't consider it binding. Defense of you is defense of ourselves."
Harry narrowed his eyes. "Thank you, Millicent," he chirped. "And if you cross the line and hex someone before they show lethal intent towards me, I hope you realize what it would cost your family."
Millicent grinned. "There it is," she said. "That is what we wanted to see, Harry, some indication that our vates is taking his safety as seriously as we are."
"Would you please not say the word in that tone?" Harry complained. "It sounds like a title when you say it."
Millicent hummed under her breath, and went back to eating. Unwilling to cause more of a scene than he had already, Harry joined her, but added that particular concern to the list already taking form in his mind: that his Dark pureblood allies seemed determined to serve as bodyguards. Very jumpy bodyguards.
"I must admit," Regulus murmured into Harry's ear, "this is a wonderful place to have the alliance meeting."
"Isn't it?" Harry gently removed the wards above the valley. "We'll have more than enough room for everyone, and it doesn't hurt at all that this place has such impressive natural magic."
He and Regulus nudged their brooms forward when the wards were gone, lowering themselves into the Woodhouse valley. Harry had time to be awed, in a way he hadn't been during the battle, by the sheer power brewing in the valley. It wasn't an aura, exactly, but a current, patrolling the valley's sides and the entrance in the woods that Hawthorn and the other werewolves had used during the battle, and never going beyond them. The closest analogy Harry could find for it was the pool of wind in Silver-Mirror.
He didn't know very much about place magic, he had to admit as he and Regulus touched down gently in grass still wet with rain and stiff with frost. Most wizards no longer studied it due to its inherent limitations; wands were portable, while place magic couldn't be drawn on outside of the valley or house or room in which it existed. But Harry remembered reading in the long letters of information Paton had sent him that some of the Opallines had made an attempt to recapture place magic through studying the druidic arts. Harry planned to corner some of them during the alliance gathering and ask about it if he could. Paton's latest communication had made it sound as if half the attendees would be Opallines.
Woodhouse answered to no master. Harry could feel the current of magic ignoring him entirely. When he studied it, though, he could see that it centered on the quadrangle from which the Death Eaters had conducted their ambush during the battle here on October's full moon. The giant wooden house in the middle of the stone buildings fed the current and ate the current when it circled back around again. Wards so ancient had settled there that Harry couldn't decipher which spells underlay them. The most prominent, however, would do inventively nasty things to anyone who tried to burn the house. Harry made a mental note to warn Ignifer to be careful, again.
"Impressive," Regulus murmured, picking up on the last thing Harry had said. Harry glanced at him curiously. Regulus had agreed to come with him today without pause—Draco was with his parents, Snape wasn't cleared by Madam Pomfrey to fly a broom or Apparate yet, and Remus was remonstrating with several impulsive second-year Gryffindors—but Harry had thought it was solely because he wanted to spend time in Harry's company. Now, he had a look on his face that made it clear he wanted to say something more. Harry resigned himself to waiting until such time as Regulus wanted to speak.
"Impressive," said Regulus again, and then batted irritably at a load of water that the tree they were walking under had dumped down his neck. "Yes, Harry, you'll have to appear impressive during the gathering."
Harry raised his eyebrows. "I know that."
"Remember to keep it on your own terms," Regulus continued. "If they want you to speak on a certain topic, consider it carefully before you agree. And, well, I know you want to be honest, but a little diplomatic lying never hurt anyone." He smiled, but the expression was abstracted, and his gaze was on the far side of the valley. Harry looked in that direction, but saw only the rising Welsh hills, cresting waves of brown and gray and green.
"You're talking as if you won't be there," he said, to try and lighten the mood.
"I will," said Regulus firmly. "But—after that, I'll be around for only a short time, and I want you to remember the lessons to tackle other political situations."
Harry stopped. "Why?" he asked, more sharply than he'd intended. His mind was playing over Regulus's insistence on his being Black heir in a different light now. He narrowed his eyes and stared hard at Regulus. "Are you sick?"
Regulus blanched for half a second, then laughed. The laughter sounded forced, however. "No, Harry. Of course not. Where would you get such a silly idea?" His hand briefly rubbed along his left arm.
Harry snapped his fingers, and his magic pulled up the sleeve of Regulus's robe before he could think to yank it back down. Harry stared in silence at what the disturbed garment revealed. The Dark Mark was clearer and blacker than he'd ever seen it, and was surrounded by raised, angry red-white flesh. Harry knew that Snape's Dark Mark didn't look like that.
He raised his eyes to Regulus's face, and waited for some sort of explanation.
Regulus winced. "The Dark Lord's laid traps in my Mark," he admitted, his hand hovering above the symbol as if he didn't actually dare to touch it. "We don't know what they do yet—"
"We?"
"Severus and I."
Harry scowled.
"We didn't see any reason to worry you," said Regulus defensively. "The traps won't activate unless someone tries to use my Mark to contact me. But now, this has happened." He nodded to the red flesh around the Mark. "I need to find a cure for it. I'm going into one of the portraits from Silver-Mirror. It leads me to a world where several of my ancestors discovered healing for sicknesses or wounds that were destroying them in the past." He brightened briefly. "Cousin Arcturus, who built Wayhouse, used it once for an incurable bee-sting," he added.
Harry's mind had shifted into a different path. "Do you think you can wait until the meeting is over, then?"
"Yes," said Regulus. "The redness is advancing slowly, swelling a little more each week. I can wait until the equinox. And then I'll enter the portrait. Time slows down in that world. The swelling won't advance any more once I'm inside, I think."
"You think," said Harry.
"This is the Dark Lord, Harry," said Regulus gently. "Nothing is certain with him. But yes, I think so. And I want to stay here until the alliance meeting, and you can't stop me from doing that. Not without being a hypocrite yourself." He raised his head and challenged Harry with his eyes to deny that he'd often hidden his own pain and his own wounds because he didn't want other people to worry.
Harry sighed and glanced the other way. "If you're sure—"
"I'm sure."
Harry nodded miserably. He didn't like this. He wished Regulus had told him beforehand so that he could try to heal him. On the other hand, touching or healing the Dark Mark at all might activate the traps hidden in it. Perhaps it was best that he hadn't known about it and had time to convince himself that he could do something to speed up the healing.
"Now," said Regulus, with forced lightness, "shall we readjust the wards?"
Harry nodded, and turned to face the valley, forcing lightness on himself, too. If he didn't alter the wards about the valley, then no one would be able to enter or find it except himself. Harry had to insure that anyone who'd sworn the oath could enter. A fine thing if the alliance meeting failed because people were bouncing off his defensive spells.
A week later, it was the first day of spring, the time of the balance of Dark and Light, and Harry stood on the high northern side of Woodhouse and looked down at a sight supposedly not seen since Merlin's time.
Tents crowded Woodhouse, shimmering with spells to counteract the cold and the unpleasant ground, which had less frost than during Harry's last visit, but more mud. The current of magic rushing around the valley had altered when it felt the first spells cast, but to Harry's relief, none of them had triggered a defensive reaction. Now the current was ignoring the tents again, as if wizards were not worth its time.
The tents shimmered in various colors, sometimes the hues of various family crests—Lucius had a pompous blue-gray tent that covered a lavish spread of land, and the Opallines' tent blazed with the blue and gold of the sea and the sun—but more often deep green or gold in celebration of both spring and their occupants' allegiance. All the tents flew flags depicting old family symbols, however. There were far more attendees than Harry had thought there would be at first, nearly five hundred.
Harry let his gaze travel from the Dark pureblood tents just beneath him to the brilliant golden ones clustered near the forest choking Woodhouse's one ground entrance. Those were the Irish Light pureblood families. Cupressus Apollonis, Ignifer's father, had written requesting to come, and along with him had come most of his allies. Harry hadn't yet met the Apollonis patriarch face to face, and was reserving judgment until he did. It was his unbiased opinion, however, based on the infertility curse he had cast on his daughter, that Cupressus was a bastard.
South from the golden tents was the Opalline gathering, which looked more like a refugee camp with the number of children running around and shouting in both Manx and English. Harry smiled as he watched one of them tackle another and send her sprawling with a loud, inelegant cry. Someone who might have been Calibrid herself, from the long fall of pale hair, stooped down and began untangling them.
Next to the Opallines, as if trying to prove something, the Bulstrodes had set their tent, huge and dark and imposing. Their pennant was a black stone on a white field, and the motto Duramus. The Parkinson pavilion was small next to it, a deep green streaked with gold, their pennant a flower; Harry couldn't make out the motto from here, as the letters were too small. Both Hawthorn and Pansy were attending, though Pansy had withdrawn so far from the rest of the world in the last few weeks that Harry was privately surprised she had chosen to do so.
Starrise's circle of sun and stars flapped near them, and Harry frowned a little. He'd seen Augustus already, carrying an enormous staff of white wood bound with gold that Harry remembered from the trial. The staff had sparked with magic that Harry instinctively distrusted. With him was a pale young man Harry hadn't met before—Tybalt's brother, he supposed, the heir, Pharos. And there was a gull continually wheeling over his tent, which Harry didn't like at all.
The tent next to that one made him smile. Connor had contacted the Potter solicitor, Proudfoot, and assigned him to figure out what colors the Potter tent and flag were supposed to be. As a result, there was now a garish white-gold tent standing proudly among the others, and the flag depicted a—thing. Harry hadn't figured out whether it was supposed to be a crown, or a set of antlers, or a thorn tree. It was larger than it strictly needed to be to contain Connor, but that was all right. Most of the other Gryffindor students who'd come were staying there with him, including all four of the younger Weasleys. Fred and George were the main reason that Harry wished their tent was further away from the Starrise one.
Draco and Harry and Snape had argued over a tent for him, until Harry put his foot down on any finery. Snape had grudgingly agreed that Harry could share his own small, dark, and utterly unassuming tent. Draco had carried on longer, until Harry pointed out that he couldn't use the Black colors because he didn't carry that name, and he couldn't stay in the Malfoy pavilion without everyone assuming that Lucius controlled him, and he couldn't create his own crest because he had no surname chosen and no ideas for a symbol that wouldn't look ridiculous.
Besides, along with the value of impressing people, there was the value of encouraging them to underestimate him. Harry was all for the latter. Even though he had taken Snape's advice and eliminated anyone from the gathering who seemed to want to come only to cause trouble, he knew there were people here who wished him less than well.
He took a deep breath and shook his shoulders, letting some of the tension fall away from them. Whatever happened now, this was still an achievement, to have this many Light and Dark families in the same place without a war to cause it. He could be proud of that.
He took up his Firebolt and flew down towards the valley, ready to begin.
"They look fine," said Narcissa, gently settling the dark blue robes around Draco's shoulders. "Don't they, dear?"
Lucius didn't look up from writing invitations at the table in the corner of their tent. "You chose them, Narcissa," he said. "I will know who to blame if anything goes wrong."
Draco put his shoulders back and made a face at the expression in the conjured full-length mirror. The dark blue robes weren't the best color for him, but he had little choice as to their shade. Lucius was writing invitations for a festival to be held on his sixteenth birthday, which would formally celebrate Draco's elevation as Malfoy magical heir. Between then and now, in such a public gathering as this, he couldn't wear plain robes, because he was, technically, the heir, and he couldn't wear any color that would indicate he'd been acknowledged to everyone already. That eliminated a surprising number of hues. Dark blue was the only acceptable one of those left.
Besides, Draco had to admit, the robes did fit. His mother had been very careful about that.
Narcissa bent down to kiss the back of his head. "You have grown, Draco," she said softly.
Draco nodded. He didn't entirely recognize himself, but that wasn't entirely a bad thing, either. The robes made him look paler than normal, and made his blond hair stand out like a coronet on his head. Fastening it back was a band of beaten silver, worked into the Malfoy crest and set with small blue-gray stones that Draco didn't know. He looked adult, stern, responsible.
"Draco."
He blinked and met his mother's eyes in the mirror again. Narcissa's hands were pressing on his shoulders, and her face was unusually set.
"Do not let Harry overwhelm you in this meeting," she murmured. "All eyes will be on him—that's hardly avoidable—but those in the know will be looking at you as well. Do honor to your family, your name, and your power." She stepped back, but didn't yield his gaze. "I care for Harry, but it is more difficult to appear to advantage when your consort is so much more powerful than you are."
Draco nodded, his heartbeat slowing again. He'd thought for a moment that Narcissa had a much sterner message to deliver. "I'd thought of that, Mother. Don't worry. Everyone who sees me will know that I'm a Malfoy." He lifted his head, and found his expression working into the haughty defiance he'd seen on many of his ancestors' faces in the confirmation ritual.
"Good," Narcissa murmured, smiling again. "And, Draco, that reminds me. Has Harry agreed to the courting ritual yet?"
Draco sighed. "No. He hasn't." It had been almost two months since his initial question, as this was the twentieth of March, but other than reminding Harry gently about it, he hadn't wanted to press it. Harry had had politics to deal with, and then Snape and Voldemort, and then politics again. Besides, if Harry meant to refuse, Draco was sure he would have done it by now.
It was far more likely that Harry just didn't think about it often. Draco made a rueful face, and caught his mother's eye again.
"It might not be a bad idea to ask for a commitment by the end of the gathering," said Narcissa calmly. "I do think that Harry will accept you, Draco, but the sooner you start courting him, the better it will suit your own impatience, the fortunes of our family, and Harry himself."
Draco nodded, his resolve steeling. He could do that. He'd seen Harry that morning before they flew to Woodhouse, the way his eyes were focused and his mind was racing. His determination beat off him like another form of magic. In such a mood, he thought better, and Draco was confident that he could make a clear-headed decision.
And, of course, a gathering like this would show Harry off to advantage to a great many pureblood families. It would be no bad thing to make sure that most people knew that the rumors of Harry undergoing a courting ritual were not just rumors, but had a solid basis in reality, and he was not, therefore, a suitable target for marriage or joining proposals.
And I want it, Draco admitted to himself, and that sealed the matter as far as he was concerned.
"Are you ready, Millicent?"
Millicent stepped back and critically examined herself in the mirror that her mother had conjured. Then she nodded. The formal dress robes would hang no better on her than this, and if she lingered much longer, then she might cause her family to miss the start of the meeting. She didn't want to do that. Most of the wizards and witches here were meeting Harry for the first time. It would be seen that the Bulstrode family stood at his side, and was honored with a place in his inner circle.
Millicent shook her head for a moment, amused at herself. She was capable of thinking in two modes at once—of Harry as a political leader who had the ability to influence the Bulstrode luck, for better or worse, and of Harry as the fellow Slytherin she had to scold out of wounding himself for the sake of practicing healing magic. She had tried before to catch herself in a contradiction, to find the impulse to forgive him for being an idiot or despise him when he was acting like a leader, and she couldn't do it. That pleased her. From what her father said, many of the people the Dark Lord had attended school with had not been able to pull themselves out of seeing him as one or the other. But Millicent had two more years in Hogwarts with Harry, and Merlin knew how much time as someone who followed him in politics, or war, or both .She needed that mental flexibility.
Her father swept towards her, studying her for one moment with intent dark eyes. Millicent stood straight and proud under his gaze. She was taller than most of the boys in school, and had features that kind people described as "strong." She found that she didn't really care when he looked at her like that. She was his heir, and that was all that had ever mattered.
"I have heard some rumors that disturb me, Millicent," said her father gently. "It seems that there may be at least one agent of the Dark Lord in the crowd, sent to assassinate or maim Harry. And though of course no one knows who this agent might be, I have heard it repeated too many times to make me think the gossip has no foundation." He cocked his head. "It disturbs me," he repeated, "to think that some people do not have the proper respect for the vates the Bulstrodes have allied themselves with."
Millicent's eyes widened as she caught a flicker of darkness traveling around the outside of her father's hand. It was rare that he allowed his magic to manifest like that at all, never mind in one of the abilities their family kept mostly secret. He had once told Millicent that the only people who knew what Bulstrode blackfire looked like were either of their blood or dead.
"I gave you permission once to use your gifts to defend Harry," said Adalrico, catching her gaze. "I give it to you again. And if you are closer to him than I am when the assassin moves, and it does not seem likely that he will notice it himself, then do not hesitate to wield the blackfire."
Millicent blinked and nodded. "We are losing our secrecy, then, Father?" she asked.
Her father chuckled. "Do not say that we are losing it, Millicent, but…gaining respect. Perhaps it's time to emerge from hiding beneath our stone."
Millicent bobbed a curtsey, and her father's hand briefly traced through her thick, heavy brown hair. Then she stood up, and they turned to face Elfrida.
Millicent thought her mother looked lovely. For one thing, she wore robes covered with the pale silver filigree that denoted puellaris training; for another, she held Marian in her arms, since it was only right that both the family's magical heirs attended a gathering like this. Marian was over a year old now, and she was reaching towards the blackfire around her father's hands with no sign of fear. Elfrida gave her a fierce, adoring smile which she widened a moment later to include her husband and older daughter.
"We should give them a show," she said quietly, and then turned and stepped to the entrance of the tent.
Millicent let a spark of blackfire flare on her fist in answer to her father's gaze, and then followed.
Are you certain that you wish to go through with this?
Hawthorn used her hands to ask Pansy the question. They both knew the necromancers' sign language well enough, since Dragonsbane had used it to communicate with Pansy since she was born, and with his wife before that. But Hawthorn had never really imagined using it with her daughter.
She found she was startled by the changes in Pansy, and disturbed, despite her pride in her daughter for following this path. Pansy wore robes that completely concealed her body now, except for her hands, flashing quick responses to her mother's concern. Now and then, Hawthorn saw one of her sleeves flutter in the tug of no mortal wind. And she wore a ring with an enormous red stone on her left hand, though Hawthorn knew their family had never owned such a ring, and it had not belonged to Dragonsbane, either. She was beginning to believe that the spirits of the dead spontaneously formed such jewelry for those who chose to talk with them.
I'm all right, Mother. The crowd in Hogwarts's Great Hall is smaller than this, and I've got used to seeing their deaths. The visions here will be new, but after a few hours, I'll have my balance.
Hawthorn nodded slowly. Then she sneezed. Someone was walking past the tent draped in coils of perfume that irritated her sensitive werewolf nose. She shook her head and embraced Pansy for a moment.
"Leave at any moment you need to," she whispered. "I would never think less of you for that, you know."
I know, Mother.
Pansy hid her face even from her mother, now, but she had a way of tilting her head to the side when she smiled that she still retained, and that Hawthorn could make out even under her shapeless hood. She did it now, and then turned and walked forward calmly into the world outside the tent.
Hawthorn followed, slowly. She had loved Dragonsbane since the last days of his training in necromancy, and had accepted then that she might lose him someday soon, and he wouldn't be able to tell her beforehand when that day was, though he knew it himself. She should not have such a problem becoming reconciled to the knowledge that Pansy, too, carried the date of her death in her head now, and had to have accepted it, or the dead would not have let her advance in her studies.
If Pansy had made the sacrifice willingly, and Hawthorn had already lived through the love and loss of one necromancer, why did it bother her so much to think that Pansy might die next year, or the year after that, or in a few years?
Because it has nothing to do with the path she follows. No mother should have to bury her child.
Harry strode rapidly towards the dais that he and Regulus had shifted rocks from the valley's sides to build at the southern end. There was plenty of open ground there, not crowded with tents, and people would be able to see him when he stood on it. Besides, it was almost three o'clock, the time when Harry had said he would make a welcoming speech. He did not particularly want to make a welcoming speech, but it would let him get a sense of the audience response to him, and perhaps he could get some of the sillier questions—whether he would ever consent to Declare himself a Lord, for example—out of the way at once.
His mind was rushing forward, and for a long moment he did not notice that someone was walking beside him, matching his pace, instead of flowing sluggishly towards the stage like the rest of the crowd. He looked sideways, and found Ignifer Apollonis there, her yellow eyes still. Flames leaped up through her palms and cracked briefly. Harry wondered how he had made her so angry, and then realized the real target of the flames when Ignifer inclined her head towards the man walking on her other side.
"Harry," she said, "vates, leader of my alliance and the holder of my soul, I would like to introduce my father, Cupressus Apollonis."
Harry nodded, as if he had expected the elaborate series of titles she'd given him, and then wheeled to the side so that he could see the man who'd cursed his daughter and magical heir to be infertile for as long as she remained dedicated to the Dark.
Cupressus was older than Harry had expected, definitely in his sixties; of course, Ignifer herself was in her thirties, so Harry supposed that wasn't a surprise. He had golden hair touched with so much white that it appeared almost the color of a Malfoy's or an Opalline's. His yellow eyes shone like a hawk's. Harry saw magic pulsing and shivering in the web of silver rings on his hands, each set with a different stone. His eyes narrowed briefly as he realized that there were twelve rings, twelve stones. Cupressus had six fingers on either hand.
"I am quite glad to meet you, Mr. Potter," said Cupressus, his voice deep and strong, a good singing voice. He inclined his head to Harry.
"Harry," said Ignifer, voice light and perfect with rage. "I introduced him to you as Harry for a reason, Sir Apollonis. He has forsaken his surname."
"So sorry," said Cupressus, inclining his head further. "Of course. I should not have forgotten. When such shame as your parents' has been spread far and wide, it is a dishonor to your own sacrifice to forget your disassociating yourself from it." He produced a polite smile he seemed to have hidden under a handkerchief, like a stage magician's egg.
Harry understood the reason behind Cupressus's "forgetfulness" then. He'd wanted to insult his daughter more than he'd wanted to either insult Harry or get into his good graces. He revised his earlier judgment to one closer to the truth. Cupressus Apollonis was not just a bastard, but an unmitigated bastard.
"Mr. Apollonis," he said, and inclined his head. "Ignifer has told me almost nothing about you, and now I see why. I know you already. All the best parts of yourself are reflected in your daughter."
Cupressus's face assumed a complex expression. "Is that true?" he murmured. "I would have said that you knew only a distorted reflection of me, Harry, as she is without the Light to make those characteristics shine."
"She has given her loyalty to me, and saved my life," said Harry, with an elaborate shrug. "So I see her by that light."
Cupressus sighed. "And thus I must apologize to you, Harry. She would have brought you honor had you known her fifteen years ago. Now, though she still carries the name Apollonis, she carries a taint, also, within her, given her Declaration. Any loyalty she brings you is stained, any motive she might have for saving your life an ulterior one. I feel compelled to warn you of this, since you do not seem to realize what being Declared Dark means."
"Father."
Harry could feel the heat billowing up behind him. He turned his head, and saw Ignifer wreathed with flames. She spat something in Latin, too quick for him to follow. It wasn't a spell, though, or Harry would have had to defend Cupressus. He remembered, a moment later, that the Apollonis family taught its children to speak Latin as a first language.
Cupressus responded, voice gentle and tolerant. Ignifer said something else, and this time Harry caught "magic of the Dark."
He shook his head, marveling at the spectacle of a father who hated his daughter enough to try to humiliate her and get her punished in the middle of an alliance meeting, and stepped more firmly between Ignifer and her father. "I know Ignifer," he told Cupressus. "And Light and Dark both mean less to me than how a wizard or witch acts. At the moment, sir, I hope to have better acquaintance with other Light wizards. If I allowed your actions to represent them all to me, then I would send them out of the meeting at once."
He turned his back, and grasped Ignifer's elbow. He had grown enough to make his escorting her look less than ridiculous. He wouldn't stay here or let her stay here, because Cupressus would only have another retort, and he would try to make Ignifer break her oath to use magic only in self-defense. "My lady?" he asked, purposely using a title that Ignifer's outcasting from her family said she shouldn't receive. "Will you honor me with your presence on my journey to the stage?"
Ignifer nodded stiffly, once, and walked quickly off. Harry walked more slowly, forcing her to slow as well, and she let out several harsh breaths before saying, "You see how he is. I'm sorry, but I thought you should meet him that way, rather than in the crowd before the stage. Once allow him to speak, and he won't hush. And of course all of his questions will be so reasonable that no one could forbid them without looking dangerous or outrageous." Her voice creaked and cracked and ran with poison.
Harry nodded. "Thank you for letting me know."
Ignifer glanced sideways at him. "Are you still going to let him be part of the alliance?"
Harry stared at her in turn. "Are you all right?" he asked, wondering if her father had cast a compulsion spell on her. It sounded like something Cupressus would do, and it would explain her temper—though so would hatred of her father. "Of course not, Ignifer. He insulted you."
"He's my father," Ignifer said, biting off the words. "That's what he does. I don't want you to lose a powerful ally just because of me."
"It would be because of him, not you," said Harry firmly, guiding her around the first rows of seated witches and wizards. Some had conjured chairs; others had Transfigured stones or logs or humps of grass. He could feel eyes boring into him, lingering on him, coming at him in sidelong glances. He didn't care. Reassuring Ignifer was more important. "Quite apart from any insults he offered you, he's a fanatic for the Light. I know the type," he added dryly, thinking of Marietta Edgecombe as she had been, of the Order of the Phoenix members, of Dumbledore, of his mother. "He won't get along with my Dark allies. That means that I'm going to reject his further participation in the alliance out of hand. He's already doomed himself. I hope he enjoyed the fight with you, since it cost him so much."
Ignifer's hand closed convulsively on his for a moment. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you."
Harry squeezed her hand back, then parted from her at the end of the third row of seats from the stage. Ignifer sat down next to Honoria Pemberley, whose face lit up at once when she saw her. She leaned closer to Ignifer and whispered something. Ignifer gave her a look that combined weariness and wariness. Honoria laughed and laid a gentle hand on Ignifer's arm. Harry turned away to hide his smile at Ignifer's confused look.
He climbed up the steps to the stage, piled boulders fitted close to each other with a mortar spell that Peter knew, and turned to survey the crowd. Hundreds of expectant faces stared back at him. Harry gave a small nod when he recognized someone. He couldn't restrain a smile when he saw Draco, Millicent, Pansy, and Connor, and again when he caught sight of Paton Opalline with a child on his shoulders, waving solemnly at him. He knew the smiles were being taken note of and remarked upon, but he couldn't care about that. There were certain things he saw no reason to hide.
He settled himself with a shake of his shoulders, as he had on the ridge above the valley, and then turned towards the forest at the western edge, behind the rows of seats. If he had calculated the time correctly, then a slight surprise, and one of the most blatant points he could make, was about to arrive.
Yes. He had cast a spell already to make himself sensitive to slight vibrations in the earth, and he felt them now. They were coming.
He whispered the spell he had used in the press conference in December, the one that let him sound as if he were speaking directly into the ears of each person. "Welcome," he said clearly, "to Woodhouse. I wish to give wizards and witches, purebloods and Muggleborns and halfbloods like myself, those of Dark and those of Light, my acknowledgment and my thanks for coming, but we are not quite complete. A moment—ah!"
By now, the sound of hoofbeats was audible to everyone. Harry smiled slightly as a group of centaurs, twenty strong, cantered out of the woods and towards the stage. The audience turned to stare, and murmurs rose like high tide. Harry bowed to the lead centaur, whose name was Magorian, and he slid to his knees in return. The rest of the centaurs likewise bowed in a rippling flourish, dipping and rising so quickly that one was upright again almost before the next was down, and only those wizards and witches who sat to the sides of the wide central aisle could get the full effect.
"Now," said Harry, lifting his head and letting the other wizards and witches see his wide, benign smile as the centaurs took their places near the front, "we are—"
A roar interrupted him. Harry wheeled, and saw a blazing shape looming into view behind him. The scales shone iridescent, and fractured the sun into rainbows. The dragon, an Antipodean Opaleye, flew with swift grace towards the stage, and came down beside it in a landing so neat that her wings barely raised a wind. Nor had the wizards and witches in the crowd done much stirring. Harry supposed some of them were shocked senseless, but the dragon's speed had prevented it, too.
A cloaked figure leaped from the dragon's back. Harry recognized Acies's smell of smoke and fire before she bowed to him and caught his eye for one intense, wild moment.
"The Singers greet you," she said, pitching her voice into a roar that everyone in the audience could hear, "Harry, vates."
Harry could not have asked for a more dramatic gesture. Yes, there was fear in some of the eyes that watched him, but more awe. It didn't hurt that Opaleyes were the most beautiful of the dragons, or that this one had settled down beside the stage, immovable, displaying no interest in the wizards and witches as snacks.
And he needed no lessons in how to take advantage of something like this.
"Now," he announced, turning back to the gathering with a smile more serene than before, "we are all here, and can begin."