Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!

A few people have asked how long this story will be. It's planned out at 100 numbered chapters, plus a few more Intermissions and Interludes, so I should finish writing it in 21 days. It ends after the Midsummer battle.

Chapter Seventy-Nine: Violent Dawns and Renewed Wards

Harry shaded his eyes with his hand, and carefully considered the golden light making its way from the east. He stood on top of the North Tower, which gave him the best view of the sunrise in Hogwarts, to see if what he'd noticed yesterday and the day before was really true.

Yes, he decided after a moment. The gold spilled across the sky in a distinct shape, flaming in the midst of all the clouds and gentler traceries of pink and blue and orange. Harry supposed someone could have cast a spell to create the shape, but three mornings in a row seemed excessive, especially since the shape looked like it reached across half Scotland at the least.

The shape was a gryphon's wing.

Well, the wild Dark announced its presence with violent storms, Harry thought, stepping back from the edge of the Tower. I suppose it's not a surprise that the Light announces its presence with violent dawns. That comforted him, somewhat. It confirmed that there was a storm of Light coming, and Midsummer Day was, if not actually proclaimed by the prophecy, still the best guess for when it would arrive, since that was the day when the Light was mot powerful. And it would definitely come to Hogwarts; the prophecy had said so.

Harry snorted, then. Snape would have something to say about him putting so much trust in Divination.

He turned to go back below—he wouldn't want to panic Draco by having his boyfriend wake up and find him gone—and started when he realized a cloaked figure was standing behind him. "Professor Lestrange," he said with a small nod. "Is something wrong?"

Acies drifted past him and leaned on the Tower battlement, staring at the eastern sky. At least, Harry thought she was, since her head was turned in that direction. Since the hood covered her face completely, though, she could have been looking at something else and he would never have known.

Harry watched her thoughtfully. The revelation of her true identity at the spring equinox meeting hadn't caused the stir Harry thought it would. Most parents seemed to have accepted that, since she had taught their children well so far, she would go on teaching them well. Or perhaps they were simply afraid to object to a witch who could summon dragons from New Zealand.

"Harry."

Harry cocked his head. He had heard Acies sound like that only once before, when she came to tell him about the third prophecy. "Yes, ma'am?"

"Can you hear the singing?"

Harry closed his eyes and listened, focusing his magic towards the sky. He supposed there was a frenzied symphony playing on the edge of consciousness, but that was not a surprise, with Walpurgis coming up in a few weeks, and the wild Dark's music circling closer to the earth as a consequence. For the first time, though, he made an effort to push his hearing beyond that, to take in some other kind of melody, if it existed. Perhaps it was audible only to ears that were stained with dragon.

No. Wait. He thought he could hear a song so joyous and savage that it cut into his ears like shards of glass. The only one he had ever heard to resemble it was the melody playing as he'd freed the Runespoors. Dark creatures, they'd been bound with a song of Light they couldn't undo, the music that the turning of the moon and the sun and the stars played. Harry remembered that song as soothing, though, not this cascade of sapphire notes that slipped out of his head the moment he heard them.

"Yes," he breathed.

"I do not know if I can help you during the Midsummer battle," Acies whispered, her voice the most choked Harry had ever heard it. "The songs come closer. The Light will sing on Midsummer. And the Dark will be singing beyond that, to counter its ancient enemy. Both of them will focus on Hogwarts, because there are two powerful wizards here. And I—the human and dragon have equal weight in my mind now, since I summoned the Antipodean Opaleye."

Harry caught his breath. "You said that if you came too near to the great music, then you feared you'd change," he said. "That the dragon would take over, the Singer responding to the songs."

Acies nodded. "I am sorry. I had hoped to summon a dragon to aid you in the battle, but now, I fear—" She shuddered and swayed and made a small, helpless sound, and Harry found that he pitied her, for the first time. She had always seemed so inhuman before that it was hard to pity her, to feel anything but sorrow and compassion for her as grand as she was.

"I understand," said Harry. "If you summoned a dragon to aid me, that would tip the balance, and your own dragon would emerge."

"It would," said Acies softly. "And I am not ready to stop being human. Not yet."

Harry gently touched her robe. He wasn't sure if he'd made contact with her spine, though he thought he had. "Please don't trouble yourself about it, Acies," he said softly. "The help you've given me so far has been more than welcome. And I don't want anyone to sacrifice themselves to my battle, my need."

"Thank you," Acies whispered without sound, and stood still as Harry took himself off the Tower and towards the Slytherin common room. Draco was probably awake by now, and muttering about how anyone normal would use the Easter holiday to sleep in, not go watching violent dawns from the tops of towers.

Harry was halfway back to the dungeons when he heard a low, vaguely familiar voice say from the hallway ahead, "Point Me Harry vates."

Harry dropped into a crouch. He wasn't sure how someone hostile could have got in past McGonagall's reconstructed wards, but better safe than sorry—and she hadn't finished the work completely, not yet. He spun smoothly around the corner, his hand already uplifted to bring down scorching whips of magic if they were needed, or a Body-Bind if they weren't.

The person looking for him laughed and lowered his wand. "Good, Harry," he said with a brief nod. "Prepared, eh? Good, good. Constant vigilance!"

Harry blinked and dropped his hand. "Auror Moody? Is something wrong at the Ministry?" He couldn't imagine any other reason for Moody to be here. He wasn't the kind of person one would choose to send on peaceful or diplomatic missions.

"Something wrong at the Ministry?" Moody's face darkened like one of the clouds that had failed to show up in the sky this morning. "I'll say there is. Spineless cowardice, rampant corruption, use of Dark magic as if it were going out of fashion tomorrow." He shook his head. "Besides," he added, voice taking on a sly cadence, "your information's a little outdated, boy. You're calling me by a title that I don't have any more."

Harry stared at him. "You stopped being an Auror?" He supposed it wasn't much of a surprise. Moody had been retired when Mulciber captured him and used his hair to pose as the Defense teacher, and Moody might only have reentered the Ministry out of personal irritation. Since he'd been one of the original members of the Order of the Phoenix, maybe his disgust with Dumbledore had, in turn, overcome his irritation with Dark wizards. "Why?"

"Because of the Ministry," Moody grunted. "And a Minister who won't see what's in front of his face when curs bite people. And a better position waiting for me." He paused and fixed Harry with his normal eye; his magical one kept roving the corridor, looking, Harry supposed, for gaps and breaks in the stone, or traces of Dark magic. "If you'll have me, of course."

Harry blinked. "You—you came to join me." At least he managed to not make it a question.

Moody cackled. "I did," he said. "You're prepared, boy, but you could be better-prepared. I heard about a dueling club you had. It needs teaching in techniques you wouldn't know, because you've never had Auror training. And, of course, there's the lovely little fact that Dark wizards surround you all the time. Your side needs a little of the Light."

Harry laughed despite himself. "Can you get along with those Dark wizards?" he asked, remembering then that Moody had been responsible for capturing many of the Death Eaters.

"I got along with their cowardly cousins every day in the Ministry."

Harry nodded, satisfied. "And you think your teaching can make the difference for the dueling club?" he asked.

"Put it this way, boy." When Moody grinned, his face did distinctly disturbing things. "I made Evan Rosier retreat three times. Ask him about the scar down the inside of his left arm some time when he's feeling chatty."

"Welcome, then." Harry held out his hand, and Moody clasped it.

"Good," he said, and looked thoughtfully at Harry's handless arm. "There are replacements for those, you know."

Not you, too. Snape mentioned his hand at least once a day, now. Harry supposed some nagging was a small price to put up with for having both his guardian back and a new, powerful fighter joining them, though.

"I can't do that right now," he explained, as they began to walk to breakfast. "Bellatrix Lestrange used a certain ritual I don't know to enchant the knife that cut my hand off…"

Rufus, for once, felt no better even when he'd had his morning tea.

Nursing the cup, he stared down at the paperwork in front of him. All he had to do was sign it, and that was the end of it. It would confirm the Wizengamot's decision to force all registered werewolves to spend the nights of the full moon in Tullianum. The moment he signed it, the Department for the Control and Regulation of Magical Creatures would begin creating Portkeys that would take their recipients straight to cells in Tullianum on the appointed nights. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement would make sure that the Portkeys got to their destinations.

Only on the appointed nights, of course. Rufus had provoked his first shouting match with Amelia Bones in three years by asking if she was sure that the Portkeys would work then and only then, and wouldn't accidentally trap the werewolves beforehand. The fact that she couldn't look him in the eye while she reassured him was really what made him feel sick to his stomach.

Why did I ever think that being Minister in a wartime situation was easy? The history he'd read certainly made it sound as though the Ministry in Grindelwald's time had an easier time of it. It did what needed to be done, cleanly and without pause, and if it made mistakes, well, that was natural, and if it used more force than was strictly necessary, well, everyone understood; it was wartime. Rufus had always thought he was made to come into power in a time like that. He understood necessity. He should be able to swallow anything that Amelia Bones and the other Heads of Departments handed him, so long as it wasn't idiocy that would lead only to someone else's personal advancement and wouldn't benefit the war.

Why am I balking now?

Someone rapped on the door of his office. Grateful to whoever it was for the interruption—Percy was attending Auror Training at the moment, and wasn't available to serve as one—Rufus pushed aside the paperwork and looked up. "Enter."

Auror Wilmot slid inside, his head cocked and a strong sense of agitation brewing in him. Well, Rufus couldn't blame him for that. Nearly everyone had been on edge since Elder Gillyflower got bitten.

"The reports you asked for, sir," he said, laying a pile of new paperwork gently on the edge of the desk. "Everyone involved in breaking up that illegal potions-brewing ring is done with theirs now."

"Good," said Rufus, with genuine relief, reaching over and flipping through the parchment. It was more of the same, and that made it comforting, familiar. Every two years or so, someone thought he could brew potions illegal on British soil but legal in most other wizarding communities, and evade the "prudish" Ministry while he did it. Usually, the trouble came from France or Ireland, but this brewer had been Basque, and it had taken them quite a bit longer to catch him.

He paused as he caught sight of a list of ingredients on the first page. "Demiguise hair?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," said Wilmot. "Apparently he thought the time had come for Britain to get its first taste of Morning After Potion."

Rufus snorted. The Morning After Potion erased all details of embarrassing sexual encounters from one's memory. It also gave the drinkers chronic heart conditions after two uses, and frequently caused explosions when it was brewing. "More like thirtieth," he said absently, but went on staring at the list of ingredients. Demiguise hair, fairy wings, powdered bicorn horn…why do these sound familiar?

And then he knew, of course. Rufus stood up, eyes fastened on the list of ingredients. Wilmot jumped to attention, one hand on his wand.

"Sir?"

Rufus took a deep breath and studied the Auror carefully. He thought he could trust Wilmot to keep this quiet. He was, of course, part of the vast network of favors that guided the Ministry and which Rufus did his best to ignore, but he had no ties that would make blurting this secret out an irresistible temptation. At least, Rufus thought he didn't. There did seem to be some people with blackmail material on Wilmot that he'd never been able to discover.

"Edmund," he said, "I want you to move the confiscated Potions ingredients from the Auror offices to mine. Can you do that?" He could hardly stride into the Auror offices to do it himself.

Wilmot blinked. "Of course, sir." He hesitated, then added, "May I ask why?"

Rufus nodded firmly. "I have a cousin who—would be interested in them." And he did, although he hadn't seen Robert in years. Robert was an accomplished Potions brewer, always whining about the scut work he had to do to keep himself from starving. Rufus thought the problem with his cousin was more that Robert couldn't resist a challenge, and would brew complicated but inexpensive potions just to see if he could. "He's been wanting to try his hand at making—a potion that uses these ingredients for years now. And I thought, well, there's no reason that he couldn't try with these, since we know they weren't stolen, just bought on the black market."

Wilmot stared at him some more. Rufus saw the connection spring into place in his mind. Wilmot wasn't blind, or stupid. He knew that the Wolfsbane Potion used all those ingredients.

"And what would happen to the potion once he made it?" Wilmot's voice was gently strangled.

"Well, he's mostly interested in making the potion," said Rufus thoughtfully. "That's more important to him than credit, or even money. I was thinking that, once he's done with it, it could be moved away from his house and distributed to people who might need it. Quietly, of course. After all, it wouldn't do for the Minister to be seen handing it out in the street."

He nodded as he thought about it. Yes, it was the right thing to do. The main problem was that any public move he made right now could be criticized wildly, by either the British people or the werewolves—who were his people, too, at least if he followed Harry's line of reasoning. But giving Wolfsbane away without linking himself directly to its production could make a difference to the temperament of some werewolves and spare him from that criticism. He could at least act privately, if not publicly.

He scrutinized Wilmot now, wondering if he would approve or disapprove of the plan. If his disapproval was plain, then Rufus would arrange matters differently. There were other people who would help, though none as unobtrusive; Tonks, for example, was more often considered the Minister's "pet" because she guarded him so often.

But Wilmot stared at him as if he were seeing a vision of the Light. Rufus raised his eyebrows. Well. That is different from the way other people have looked at me today. He forced away the pang that came at the thought of accepting Alastor Moody's resignation, and stared back.

"Will you do this for me, Edmund?" he asked.

Wilmot gave himself a little shake. "Of course, Minister," he said. "I will do it gladly." He stared for a moment more, and then added, "You're a different man than I thought you were, sir."

He opened the door and departed, leaving Rufus to sit behind his desk and feel a little better than before. He hesitated a long moment, and then scrawled a denial on the proposal to create Portkeys for the purpose of transporting werewolves.

It would mean another shouting match with Amelia. At the moment, he felt more than equal to that.

Remus closed his eyes, and breathed.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd breathed like this—no, wait, of course he could. It had been the last time he was near the presence of so many other werewolves, which would have been the summer four years ago. The summer three years ago had been spent testing the Wolfsbane and preparing to teach at Hogwarts, the summer two years ago had been spent at Lux Aeterna grieving for Sirius and trying to learn James, and last summer had been spent at the Sanctuary. And now the summer was almost come around again, and it looked like he'd be spending it—

Here.

Remus set his trunk to drift behind him and waited patiently. He stood in the rain, on a street that looked as if it had dirt rubbed into the sides of the buildings, but he didn't care. At least there were no cars here, and no Muggles around. Muggles tended to move, slowly but surely, out of areas that werewolves inhabited. They might not even realize they were doing it, they certainly wouldn't admit to what the prickling fear running up and down their spines meant, and they often actually believed that their kind still inhabited these particular areas of London.

But they were gone from this one. It had been the home of Loki's pack for over twenty years, and the wolf was deep in every wall, every doorway, every stone. Something in the back of Muggles' brains knew what that meant, even if they didn't admit it aloud, and kept them away.

"Remus."

Remus turned with a faint smile to nod at the girl who'd found him. She'd been born Muggle, but had actually been bitten before she was a year old and managed to survive. She didn't pay any attention to his floating trunk, instead eying him minutely, sniffing for any trace of tracking spells or other magic that could hurt the pack. Remus waited until she looked up at his face, made a brief, flickering moment of eye contact that was enough to welcome and not enough to challenge him, and then said, "Hullo, Camellia."

"Hullo yourself," Camellia retorted, shaking her long dark hair as she glanced from side to side. "Loki didn't expect to see you here for another few months at least. Thought the blind wizards would wait that long before throwing you out."

"Well. They didn't." And Remus could understand why, even though he thought they were doing the wrong thing, and had even tried to explain that. Minerva had told him that she didn't trust him near children when he considered werewolves and their political agenda more important. Remus knew the truth, though. A werewolf learned early on to smell fear, and she was afraid. She feared he might bite them, and especially, that he might bite Harry, that part of Loki's plan might be having the vates become a werewolf and be more bound to help them than ever.

That was a groundless fear, but Remus couldn't explain why it was groundless without explaining pack magic, and the existence of that would startle and unnerve Minerva far more than the existence of werewolves wanting equal rights to wizards.

"Come along," Camellia told him, and started loping up the street, her baggy clothes swaying around her. "The others are waiting."

Remus followed her, continuing to breathe deeply, deeply, in. The air wasn't scented with musk, at least not in most places; after all, it was nearly five nights since the full moon, and the reek of transformed werewolves faded quickly into the rain. But it was wild, haunted with a different kind of magic, haunted with a companionship that ranged beyond bodies. The area around him was, mostly, a comfortless gray that Remus might have found depressing just a year ago. As it was, he found it cheering now, the kind of color a werewolf would see when transformed.

All of this might have been different, he thought absently, as Camellia guided him up a set of steps and into the hollowed-out space of what seemed like an abandoned house on the outside, but hummed with light and warmth and magic on the inside, if he hadn't written a letter to Loki while he was at the Sanctuary. The Seers had encouraged him to do so, as part of coming to terms with his past. Remus really hadn't expected an answer.

But Loki had given him one, a long letter full of news about the London packs and how the Ministry was pushing them to death. And Remus had written back, and Loki had written him, and gradually, Remus's startlement had melted. He'd been wary of Loki as recently as November, when the other werewolf's plans were still strange and new to him. But months of reasonable explanations had convinced him that Loki was right. Remus only wished that he'd been able to convince Harry, and that they hadn't had to part ways over this.

He stepped into the house, which was enormous, both on the ground floor and in the number of stories it had. Men and women sprawled on the rugs looked up at him lazily; Camellia's entrance had already warned them someone was coming. Remus felt his face soften further at the sight of people casually entwined, necks resting on each other's, bodies draped over each other's backs. Two children were wrestling in a corner of the room, but they were new members of the pack and probably still establishing their place in the hierarchy. Remus remembered the first time he'd entered this room when he was fourteen, the shock he'd had at meeting pair after pair of amber eyes. Now, the last of the tension he'd been harboring since Hogwarts dissipated completely.

"Remus."

Remus turned and dropped to the floor as Loki moved towards him from a corner of the room. Loki stopped in front of him and bent, too, rubbing his cheek against Remus's with a soft yip of greeting. Remus looked up at him. Loki looked the same as he ever did: white-blond hair to rival a Malfoy's, amber eyes, a seamed and laughing face. His mate, who called herself Gudrun, peered over his shoulder, and then snorted.

"What's Remus doing down there, Loki?" She punched her mate hard enough to stagger him. "Let him stand up, for Merlin's sake."

Loki moved back with a slight chuckle, and Remus gratefully stood. "Sorry," Loki murmured. "I get lost in remembering, sometimes, when I look into someone's eyes."

Remus nodded, understanding completely. The connection Loki had with other werewolves as a pack leader ran more deeply than theirs with him, allowing him to see into their minds and be enveloped in their magical auras. He did tend to be distracted when he didn't have to be sharp-eyed about a plan or an upcoming hunt.

"I have information for you," Remus told him.

"I'll fetch tea," said Gudrun, and moved away to do that. Around them, the room relaxed and went back to its quiet companionship. Loki put his hand on Remus's shoulder.

"The vates?" he asked.

"Refusing to understand," said Remus sadly. Loki hadn't assigned him to convince Harry, but he'd wanted to, wanted to make him understand that with their packs dying, they had no alternative but this. "At least, so far."

Loki cocked his head, eyes blazing wildly bright, making him look fierce and dangerous, though he continued to stand still. "Well," he murmured, "I have an idea for something that might convince him."

Eagerly, Remus followed him to a corner to make his report, to hear his plan, and to breathe in the contained power that hung around Loki like a second scent. Being around the other werewolf, more than in this place or with the pack itself, made him feel at home.

Someone was testing her wards again. And by the image that the surveillance spells on the outside of her house were sending to her mind, Henrietta Bulstrode knew exactly who it was.

She considered her options, tapping her fingers against the book she'd been reading. She could stay here and ignore the testing, and eventually he'd leave. He'd tried again and again in the past few days, and all Henrietta had to do was tighten her magic—with ordinary slowness, as if she were merely doing maintenance, affecting never to notice him—and ignore it. If she did go out, then she could only use Dark Arts to defend herself, as per the vows she'd given to Harry.

Of course, with this one, there was really never any doubt that she'd need to defend herself. And reading up on Transfiguration, repairing the holes that still gaped in her education, had little to recommend it next to such a—challenge.

Henrietta stood and Apparated along the lines of the wards, appearing just outside them. No crack sounded when she did that, and so her visitor, standing on the rainswept grass as he incanted spell after spell at her defenses, remained unaware of her presence for a moment.

Only a moment, though. Then Evan Rosier turned around and gave her a fierce, feral smile. Henrietta gave back a faint shudder, one that didn't contain fear. This is a wonderful way to get the blood moving.

"I suppose Harry warned you?" Rosier asked, swinging his wand in a lazy arc. "About needing to watch your back?"

"Of course he did," said Henrietta. "I'm surprised at you, though, Evan, seeking me out like this. I thought you'd be subtler than that."

There was no warning. One moment, Rosier stood there, relaxed as a great hunting cat in the sun, smiling at her; the next, he was swinging his wand forward, and a pain curse was erupting from the end of it, a vicious red line that would cause incurable burns if it touched her.

Henrietta arched an eyebrow as she reached out to her home. I thought he would have more imagination than that, as well as more subtlety.

She'd constructed a rune circle that ran all the way around her home, outside the wards. The runes were buried innocently in the ground, scribed on turned-over rocks or the undersides of leaves. Henrietta really wasn't surprised Rosier had missed them. He could have watched her build the whole thing, and it would only have seemed as if she were doing a particularly enthusiastic bout of gardening.

The circle came to life, and lines of light, made of images of the transcribed runes, rose from all sides of it. They collided with the red curse Rosier had chosen and turned it into a flight of diamond dust and purple butterflies. Henrietta admitted the butterflies for a moment, then turned to smile at Rosier.

"Do you remember them, Evan?" she asked, deliberately making her voice breathy. "How prettily they fluttered around us as we fucked?"

His eyes darkened. Henrietta watched him, and smiled, and smiled. She still remembered the earth under her elbows as she fucked him, all against his will, knowing he could kill her at any moment if her spells faltered and not caring. He hadn't wanted to fuck her, and he hadn't wanted to hear the extra spells she whispered as she rode him, not because she had to but just because she could. She'd raped him in the midst of a flight of purple butterflies.

His smile was gone, just as it had been that evening. He wasn't used to other people getting the better of him. He was speaking another Dark Arts curse now, probably not realizing that the rune circle would defeat anything he could dream up, even his "special" spells, and so he didn't make any move to counter Henrietta's silent Abscindo vestitus.

His robes and trousers parted neatly around the waist, and tumbled down around his ankles. Henrietta learned nearer, and laughed quietly to see the purple scar on the inside of his thigh. "Still carrying my love bite, Evan? I never realized you cared so much."

He struck then, and struck and struck, gone into the madness that always lurked behind his smile. Henrietta bounced curse after curse. His creativity was impressive, but they meant little against her rune circle, which was brute strength crushing every one of those "creative" spells. He screamed at her, too, without words, and Henrietta didn't let that move her.

He vanished at last. Henrietta Apparated back inside her house and returned to reading about Transfiguration.

She needed to know as much about it as she could, since she intended to apply for the post of Transfiguration Professor at Hogwarts next year. She would have applied for Defense Against the Dark Arts if she thought she would be accepted, but she doubted McGonagall would let her teach that, even if Lestrange was gone by then. The Transfiguration post, however, was effectively empty as the Headmistress struggled to cover it from her new office. This was the best way for Henrietta to be close so that she could protect Harry.

"I think this will do," said Harry, oblivious to how loud he sounded with the Silencing spell protecting his ears from the mysterious creature's song.

Draco winced from the volume, but had to admit Harry was right. They'd found a room on the second floor of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place that would be perfect for Draco to carve his rune circle in: a wooden floor, no pests to eat up or smudge his careful work, and traces of old preservation spells that came to life when they felt the new ones being cast and would add an extra layer of protection to the circle. Draco knelt down and began to carve the first rune, one of binding.

Harry glanced aside from him, up the stairs towards the door where Narcissa had told Draco the creature was trapped. Draco kept an eye on him, even though his mother was also here, gathering up artifacts from downstairs that might be useful, or might be nuisances if they were left in the house, and Pettigrew was standing guard by the door upstairs. Harry wouldn't really be able to let the beast out.

Except that, of course, he still wanted to. And if he decided he should, then none of the three of them were going to be able to stop him.

Draco forced the thoughts out of his mind with a sigh, and made himself concentrate on the runes. Mother had assured him that the creature's song was a subtle compulsion, but not irresistible, and Draco didn't have to worry about it anyway, since it was much more interested in Harry and the meal of his magic. His part was getting all the runes exactly right.

And, of course, sneaking one of the Black artifacts out of the house without Harry noticing in time for the Walpurgis Night ritual.

Really. Don't think about that. Carve.

Draco turned his mind into concentrated ice, and did that. The runes took shape under his knife, not twisted this time; he had practiced the ones that had gone wrong in the Room of Requirement until he could have done them standing on his head with the carving knife in his teeth. They had to be perfect, since they were part of the plan that Harry had created to trap Voldemort on Midsummer Day, and they were going to be.

How mad is this plan?

Draco forced that thought away, too, in case it disturbed his calculated serenity, and went right on cutting. Harry sat by his side the entire time, now and then swaying and casting a glance upstairs. Draco touched his arm each time, and each time Harry turned obediently back and paid attention to the circle, though since he hadn't taken Ancient Runes it didn't mean much to him.

Finally, after more than two hours of cutting and checking and double-checking, it was done. Draco sat back on his heels and looked at Harry. "What do you think?" he mouthed, in an exaggerated fashion, so that Harry could read his lips.

"It looks unbroken," said Harry, and smiled at him. Draco set himself against the force of that smile; he thought he didn't flush, only nodded and smiled back, but Harry was turning away in any case, and probably wouldn't have seen it. "I'm sure it'll work, Draco. I have faith in you."

Draco's nerve broke. He reached out and caught Harry's left wrist, turning him back. Harry arched his brows, and Draco mouthed another question. "Are you sure we need to do this?"

Harry's face softened, and he leaned nearer to touch Draco's cheek and then kiss him gently on the side of the mouth. "Yes," he said. "I know it seems complicated as hell, but it's the only way to absolutely defang him and make sure he isn't a danger for a time. I don't think we can kill him yet, but the wizarding world has other problems to deal with right now. We don't need Voldemort over the summer."

Draco felt a surge of warmth in his stomach. Though of course Harry was doing this to free the northern goblins and to defeat the Dark Lord and to defend the school and for all the other right and honorable reasons, there was still a shadow of a suspicion in there that Harry had done it to give them both a quieter summer.

And Draco liked that. He liked that rather a lot.

A movement near the door of the room caught his eye, and he looked up to see his mother standing there with a silver object in her hand. She tipped it enough so that he could see what it was, and Draco felt the warmth turn into delight. It was perfect for his courting ritual with Harry. He nodded.

Harry turned to see what he was looking at, but by then, Narcissa had vanished.

"What was that all about?" Harry asked suspiciously.

Draco shook his head innocently, smiling when Harry's glare sharpened. Then he held up both of his hands, fingers spread wide, in a signal that Harry understood perfectly well. He was the one to look away then, while Draco grinned.

Ten days until Walpurgis.

Minerva sat back, sipped at her tea for a moment, and let the peace warm its way into her bones.

From the top of the North Tower to the tunnels under Hogwarts that the Founders knew and had told her about, the school was hers. It hummed with the wards she'd woven slowly over the last two weeks of the Easter holiday, defensive spells based in strength and courage and stubbornness and determination not to be like Albus. These wards would not falter if she did. They were bound to the permanent magic of the school, much as the Room of Requirement and the Founders' anchor-stones were. They wouldn't let her spy on her students' and professors' movements even if she wanted to. They were focused on defense, on identifying hostile presences and caging them, on making sure that any student injured in an accident or a fight got immediate transportation to the hospital wing, on minimalizing the danger of magic as much as possible while increasing the wonder of it.

"Pleased with yourself?"

Minerva opened one eye. Godric stood in a corner of the office, obviously having arranged himself so he wouldn't float through the stone floor, a bright grin on his face as he watched her.

"I am." Minerva rubbed her face with one hand and yawned. "The children come back tomorrow, and they'll be safer and more secure than they've been in—decades, probably." She didn't know if Albus really had begun altering the wards the moment he became Headmaster, but it wouldn't surprise her.

"You should be proud," said Godric softly. "You are a credit to the House of Gryffindor, Minerva."

She opened both eyes at that, and frowned at him. "Is there something wrong, Godric?"

He smiled and glanced to the side. Minerva watched as a shape slowly coalesced there: brown-eyed, brown-haired, wearing a shapeless robe, and nervous as Neville Longbottom in a Potions practical. It was Helga Hufflepuff, come to meet her face-to-face at last.

"Only that you've impressed Helga," said Godric. "She distrusted Albus before the rest of us, and nearly wrenched herself free from the school rather than serve an unworthy Headmaster. But you've convinced her that not all members of my House are proud idiots unable to see beyond the ends of their lives. Congratulations." He bowed to both of them. "I'll leave you two to get acquainted."

He vanished. Helga and Minerva watched each other warily for a moment, until Minerva cleared her throat.

"I was wondering if you could come up with certain defenses for the Forbidden Forest," she said. "We have an enemy skilled in Herbology now, but the trees are full of ancient magic of their own that makes establishing wards around them difficult."

"I know," said Helga, in a low, lovely voice, and floated towards her desk. "I have some ideas."

Minerva relaxed again, and picked up her teacup. I may actually be worthy of not only Gryffindor's legacy, but the Headmistress position after all. Here is to hope.