Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!

And here's another in the long run-up to Midsummer.

Chapter Eighty-Three: Riddle Me This

Harry waited a week before he tried to approach Snape about the next part of his plan in the Midsummer battle. When he had visited Snape the night of Loki's attack, he'd been in a frightening rage. He'd said a few things that Harry would have thought unforgivable if this was any normal mood, and actually flung a potion that he found less than perfect across the room so that it slammed into the wall, breaking the glass vial and splattering potentially dangerous liquid everywhere. Luckily, his wandless magic had cleaned up the potion even as it fell.

Then, the next few days, Snape had come close to losing his temper when he saw Harry reading books about werewolves. Harry had quietly removed himself from his guardian's line of sight during those days. He couldn't tell if Snape was more upset over the fact that he'd felt such fear or the fact that Loki's pack had used him against Harry, but either way, more time needed to pass before he could come to terms with it, that was clear.

But a week was as long as Harry felt he could wait, and besides, he had received an important letter from Scrimgeour in the meantime. It thanked him for the information about Melissa Rosewood. She'd been arrested and questioned, which had the double effect of punishing her and keeping her safe from werewolf bites behind the thick walls of Tullianum. What Loki said seemed to have been true, beyond that. No new werewolf victims were reported after May's full moon, though of course the Ministry took credit for that, bragging that their new laws intimidated werewolves enough to stay inside on that night instead of running free.

Scrimgeour had actually denied the Wizengamot's notion of confining werewolves in Tullianum. That had caused quite a buzz in the Ministry, but the Daily Prophet was frustratingly short on details, and Scrimgeour hadn't mentioned them in his own letter to Harry, either.

He had confirmed a suspicion Harry had, though, and that was all that Harry needed for this particular plan.

"Sir?" Harry put his head around the door of Snape's offices. "Are you busy?"

Snape turned sharply away from the cauldron he was working at. Harry saw the liquid inside the cauldron; it shimmered a silvery color and had an unfamiliar smell. Harry's gut tightened with worry. He remembered how much trouble Snape's Meleager Potion had caused last year. Generally, when Snape felt inspired to invent potions, the cause was vengeance.

"Sir," he said again, this time with a different tone in his voice.

Snape closed his eyes for a long moment. Then he opened them and held Harry's gaze. "I will not send this by owl to any werewolf alive, even Lupin," he said. "You have my word on that, Harry." He waved his wand at the cauldron, casting a spell that would hold the potion in its current state. "I am merely creating it in order to make myself feel better. That is all."

Harry nodded, and forced himself to accept that. Though the potion was silver, the color of the one metal that could truly hurt werewolves, he had to believe him, because Snape had earned that much trust. Only when Harry heard about a werewolf dying of a mysterious disease or poison would he think Snape had actually done something with the potion.

"What did you wish to see me about?" Snape asked, using a forced lightness of tone to carry them past the subject.

Harry hid a grim smile. If Snape had only known, there was no need for that tone. He was going to forget all about his potion in just a moment.

"I need your help to make my mind into a trap for Voldemort," said Harry casually, and laid his book and Scrimgeour's letter carefully on the nearby table.

Snape said nothing for a long moment. When Harry looked up, he found those dark eyes pinning him, wide with disbelief. Snape seemed to realize he was showing emotions other than contempt, and the incredulity vanished in the next moment. He sneered, and said, "And you would come to me for help on this because—you are suffering from delusions and believe that I will actually permit such a thing to happen?"

"It's the best option," said Harry. "I've thought it through. I have to make Voldemort come to Hogwarts on Midsummer Day. Otherwise, he has no reason to do so. He won't try to trap the highest Light the way he did the wild Dark. It'll be watching for that, after the trick he played on it last year. I have to make the trap perfect. And to do that, I need to lure him with knowledge of the full prophecy."

"You will not actually reveal this." Snape's voice was as solid as iron.

"Not the real one, no," said Harry, with a faint smile in his direction. "I'm asking Acies to help me come up with a false one, one that includes just enough truth to make Voldemort believe that I'm the most likely candidate to defeat him, and to have that defeat—or his ultimate victory—come at Hogwarts on Midsummer Day. That'll pull him, sir. That corridor he was dreaming of, with the locked doors? The only ordinary dream of his that I ever shared? I saw a crest on one of the doors the last time I dreamed it, and wrote to Scrimgeour. He confirmed what I saw. That corridor is in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry. They have a Hall of Prophecy. That's what Voldemort is after, I think, some knowledge of the prophecy that concerns us. He wants it. And he believes in it. If he believes that the prophecy says his stand or fall will happen here, on Midsummer, he'll come."

"And you must use your mind as a trap for that?" Snape leaned back against his desk. "Let the Opalline family be useful, for once. Let them pass the information to those who might pass it on to the Dark Lord."

"I did consider that," Harry said quietly. "I also considered leaking the news around someone who doesn't like me, and who could carry the story to the Daily Prophet. But aside from telling all and sundry that something important is happening at Hogwarts on that day—and Merlin knows, we'd get idiots wanting to watch and idiots wanting to help—Voldemort wouldn't just accept it. He'd break into my mind first thing, to confirm my knowledge of it. And when he realized I didn't believe in that as the real prophecy, he wouldn't, either."

"And you believe you can fool the Dark Lord." Snape's voice was soft enough that Harry couldn't tell which emotion was most prevalent in it. "The most skilled Legilimens alive."

"With your help," said Harry. "You fooled him for a year, didn't you? So either you're the most skilled Occlumens alive, or at least in Britain, or he's just not good enough to get through your defenses. That's why I need your aid, sir. I'll need shields to make him think I believe the false prophecy and that I don't want him in my mind and am fighting furiously to get him out, and shields to defend me from taking a second tearing the way I did with Tom Riddle."

"And how do you intend to attract his attention in the first place?" Snape asked. "Understand that your response should not include the words 'venture into the Dark Lord's mind' in any combination."

Harry grinned at him. "No, sir." He lifted the book he'd laid down so that Snape could see the title. Dreaming the Dark: Potions of the Night.

Snape looked at him levelly. "I would expect some fifteen-year-old students to use that book extensively, Harry," he said. "Not you."

Harry felt his ears turn hot, but he managed to shrug. "It's the modification of the potions I'm interested in," he said.

"Is it."

"Yes." Harry forced himself to straighten and meet his guardian's eyes. "Frankly, I don't need Draco dreaming about me any more than he already does." He flipped through the book. "But I want to modify one of the most common potions in here, so that I dream obsessively enough about the false prophecy to inspire Voldemort to cross the barrier. And when he does, we'll be ready." He met Snape's eyes and waited.

Snape said nothing, and still said nothing, and still said nothing. Harry hid a smile. Snape always did seem to underestimate Harry's patience, not realizing that Harry had had all the patience drummed into him that he could ever wish for by his childhood. He waited, and at last Snape broke.

"You realize this will take an enormous amount of work," Snape said at last. "The modified potion, the Occlumency shields buried in your mind, and a link from your mind to mine, so that I can be awake and ready to bolster your shields in a moment, whenever the Dark Lord chooses to come through the connection."

"I do know that, sir," said Harry softly.

Snape paced back and forth for a moment, his robes trailing behind him, and said, "Much as I hate to admit it, you are right, Harry. I see no other way to lure the Dark Lord into this trap on Midsummer without telling everyone what we are doing." His grimace went from resigned to stern in a moment, and he shot a sharp look at Harry. "But I will prepare every step with you. There will be nothing that you do without my permission and my knowledge."

Harry bowed his head. "That's what I was hoping for, sir. I know that you're a much more accomplished Occlumens than I am, and the last time I had him running loose through my head, he hurt me badly." He shuddered to think of how his mind had felt after his battle with Tom Riddle in second year. "I am only choosing my thoughts for the battlefield because I have no other choice. And now I can tell Draco," he added, feeling himself brighten. "I didn't want to yet, because he'd try to persuade me out of it. When he hears that you've agreed, then he'll be more ready to trust me."

"Why does Draco need to be a part of it?" Snape asked, frowning.

"He doesn't need to, not in the way that you do, sir," Harry said, picking up the book and Scrimgeour's letter. "But I'd like him linked to my mind, so that he can get a closer look at Voldemort's mind and how it works. After all, he'll need to possess him come Midsummer."

"That is the part, of all in this mad plan of yours, that I am the most uneasy about," Snape murmured.

Harry laughed, though he didn't feel much like doing so. "There's a reason that we only told Narcissa about that part, and not Lucius. Draco's mother can accept that he's an adult now, and can make his own decisions like this. Lucius would think he had to protect his heir first and foremost."

"He may be right," Snape said. "Draco may not be ready."

"We won't know for certain if we don't let him practice," said Harry. "And this is the best chance that he'll ever have to practice. I don't think Voldemort will stand tamely around and respond to pleas to let Draco possess him, sir."

Snape said nothing, staring at the wall. Harry had no idea what those dark eyes were seeing; there were plenty of horrible memories that could be candidates, after all. Then Snape nodded abruptly and swirled towards him, moving in a cocoon of robes.

"I will require you to speak one more time with Draco," he said, "to make sure he understands every implication of what he is doing. Then I will aid you in shaping your mind into the kind of trap this requires."

"Thank you, sir," said Harry quietly, and took his leave.

Draco was a bit irritated Harry felt the need to ask him if he was sure, until he realized that it was Snape who'd told Harry to ask the question. Then what he mostly felt was nervous relief.

"Snape agreed to help you in this, then?" he asked. Harry, sitting on his own bed across from Draco, nodded.

"He said that you'll be in danger, and of course he's right." Harry leaned forward, staring at him intently. Draco tried not to show how giddy he felt to be the center of Harry's attention, even if Harry wasn't doing it for a romantic reason. "So he wants to make sure you understand we're facing the Dark Lord in my mind, through a series of Occlumency traps, and that you risk possession yourself, or pain from the battle, or even just his notice and enmity, which is painful enough." Harry's hand rubbed absently at the stump of his left wrist. "Do you agree?"

"Of course I do," said Draco. "It's the only reason I think your luring him into your mind is a good idea at all, Harry, because I'll be there and Snape will."

Harry nodded. "I'm grateful to you both," he said. "Snape thinks it will take a week to build up the traps in my mind to the point where they stand a good chance of fooling Voldemort. In the meantime, I'm going to brew the potions that will emphasize my dreams, and—"

"Practice etiquette lessons with me," Draco finished gleefully. "After all, the fifth of June is coming up even faster than Midsummer, Harry."

Harry blinked, opened his mouth, and then closed it again and shook his head. "Honestly, I forgot," he said.

Draco stifled irritation. Of course he forgot. Making an impression on purebloods has always been a matter of study for him, not something to take pride in. He covered his feelings with a smile and held out his arm. "There is the way we'll enter the festival, for example," he said. "It's the appropriate gesture for our ages, our sexes, the ritual we're using, and—"

And then he stopped, and realized that Harry was not the only one who stood a chance of being embarrassed at a festival like this. His embarrassments might be more private, but they would happen.

"What, Draco?" Harry had chosen now to use his hardest stare, it seemed, as if he would pry the answers out of Draco's head.

"Um," said Draco, and looked away. "The fact that you have a Muggleborn parent, and I'm pureblood."

"It implies that you're doing me a favor by joining with me, doesn't it?" Harry asked.

Draco sighed. "Yes, it does."

Harry said nothing. When Draco looked back at him, he was shrugging and leaping off the bed. "Well, then," he said, and held out his hand, fingers folded back in almost the right position. It was the one that would be standard for a younger wizard being escorted by an older wizard. "This one?"

"Not quite," said Draco, and busied himself with folding Harry's fingers into the proper position to indicate age and gender, then laying the hand on his arm in such a position that his ring would blaze and announce the ritual. He paused before he moved Harry's hand to his forearm, which would give the signal of their respective blood statuses, and eyed Harry carefully. "You really don't mind?"

Harry gave him a patient look. "I don't mind in that I know I can't change people's beliefs overnight, Draco," he said. "I mind in that I think it's stupid, and I won't act like a lapdog around other wizards just because they're pureblood and I'm not. I appreciate it in that someone else might think my adhering to tradition means that I consider myself inferior, and that I'll do whatever you say just because you're pureblood." Harry smiled, a twisted grin that Draco could get used to seeing more often. "And that will be an advantage, if anyone falls into that trap."

Draco chuckled. "You do realize that all the people at the festival but you will be pureblood?" he asked.

"I wouldn't have expected your father to invite anyone else," said Harry, eyes calm.

Draco took a deep breath. "I—some of them you haven't met before, though it includes the families of some of your allies, and the Bulstrodes and the Parkinsons, of course."

"Get to the point, Draco."

Draco paused. "They won't know what to think of you," he said bluntly. "You're powerful, but you're a halfblood. You won't Declare, but you're willingly binding yourself to a Dark family and entering a room full of Dark wizards and witches. You have a prophecy declaring that you'll defeat Voldemort, but you're crippled." He looked at Harry's lone hand. "Not everyone is as intelligent as my father, Harry. Some of them will despise you for that alone."

"And I know that," said Harry, sounding mildly impatient now. "I realized long ago that I couldn't control everything another person might think about me, Draco. I can adjust impressions and guide my own behavior, but there could be someone in the crowd with individual notions of what that means which would never even occur to me, and certainly aren't the ones I would wish to promote. The mistake people like your father make is in thinking the façade they present is what everyone else really sees and believes in. It isn't. In fact, that just lends those people who can pretend to believe in the façade an advantage over those presenting it."

Draco frowned at him.

"What?" Harry asked.

"You don't act Slytherin all that often," Draco murmured. "And yet, you're perfectly capable of it."

"I don't see a reason to," Harry said simply. "When it's necessary, then I'll do it. But the rest of the time, I would much rather act like me, and either have others accept me as I am, or conduct bargains and trades on the set of principles that everyone understands." He cocked his head. "There's a reason I haven't Declared, Draco. I'm not committing myself to just one sort of magic, true, because that would be limiting, but I'm not committing myself to one set of methods, either."

Draco felt a bit of his worry ease. Harry was going to do just fine at his festival.

"Now," he said, "when we've entered, then we'll turn to the right and make a crossing of the whole room, so everyone can see you. Be sure to smile—mysteriously. We don't want everyone able to guess what you're feeling on the night when we first appear in public as a future joined couple. And then—"

He stirred, slowly, feeling as though he were awakening from a much deeper sleep than was actually the case. He could feel the images playing in his head, stemming from Harry's mind.

The boy would not stop dreaming.

It was especially tantalizing because Lord Voldemort could feel that the dreams were about a prophecy. He could not catch the words, but he could catch glimpses of light, and the boy's nervous anxiety and excitement. He had only recently figured out the whole of the prophecy, it seemed, and was now hoarding it to himself, trusting Lord Voldemort not to figure it out in time.

But he would. Oh, he would. He was not a hunter for nothing.

He had not touched the long grass that shrouded his connection to the boy's mind since his blinding. He hated the boy too much. He would destroy him if he stepped into his mind. And that could not be, not yet. These things must be done properly. If the boy was a scooped-out hollow shell, and yet still alive, then he might manifest some strange and unknown power.

Lord Voldemort understood much, but not enough, of what had happened in Godric's Hollow the night he had gone hunting the boy. He knew he had made the boy his magical heir. He knew that the rebounded Killing Curse had come from Harry, and not his brother. He knew Harry's Avada Kedavra had struck him in the moment that he was casting his second Killing Curse at Harry's brother; a moment sooner or later, and the twin would have been either unmarked or dead.

But there had to be more to the matter, more than a magical accident, even a bizarre one. Hunters like Lord Voldemort were not taken down by magical accidents. It did not happen.

It was the turn of a prophecy, and he did not know the whole prophecy. He had not, at first, thought it important that he should. He had known that someone born at the end of July was his enemy. That was sufficient, and certain events had proven correctly that Harry was his chosen foe. But when he woke next to the cup last year after Harry had wounded him and sent him fleeing for his life from the graveyard, he realized, grimly, that there was more to it than that. A chosen foe should not have been able to wound him so badly in a situation where there were no magical accidents to save his life. He should have read the whole prophecy from Harry's mind when he had the chance.

He had not. And now Harry was thinking of the prophecy, and not attending to their connection through his scar, doubtless thinking that Lord Voldemort was too frightened of him to return.

That is not true.

He had a snake to serve as his eyes now. He had Indigena Yaxley researching Falco Parkinson and breeding plants that would dig underground and through solid stone and wards for him. He had his Death Eaters bringing in new recruits every day. He was Lord Voldemort, old and strong, strong, strong!

He parted the long grass that protected the Occlumency connection and stepped through into the maze of Harry's mind.

Snape jerked awake as the mental bond went taut like a bowstring. He closed his eyes and reached along it, and felt Harry whispering to him, under the cover of the first and strongest shield they had built, He's here, sir.

And he was. Snape knew the presence of the Dark Lord in his own mind from three years' worth of it, two of loyalty and one of spying. He had never noticed how foul it was until after he had turned to the Light, and it had only grown fouler since the Dark Lord returned—a consequence, Snape thought, of unicorn blood and the resurrection ritual he had used. He might think he was being subtle, but to one who knew what to look for, his presence was like a fist in the gut.

Dreaming? He asked that of Harry, his attention fixed on his former Lord as he stalked slowly along the pathways of Harry's mind. The dream was playing insistently, and featured triumphant images of Harry landing on sun-soaked grass, waving his hands—for in the dream he had two—and shouting to everyone that Voldemort was dead.

Yes. They had practiced this, too, Snape sliding careful, thin shields between Harry's dreaming and his conscious brain, enabling him to talk to Snape and Draco along the bonds Snape had established without making it seem as if he were awake—because he wasn't, really.

Good. Snape could feel the gathering power of Voldemort's Legilimency, and knew he would strike out in a moment, trying to rip the truth from Harry. He would see no need to disguise his presence. He would want Harry to fear, to know that his enemy knew his plans and wither in the agony of it. Is Draco ready?

Here, Professor. Draco's voice resounded in the mental "air" between them, deep and steady and determined.

Good. Snape braced himself as the first strike came down.

Draco had never seen anything like it.

Oh, he'd been in Harry's mind before, but he hadn't seen it like this, a swirling steel skeleton covered with leaves. There were no webs in sight, unless one counted the Occlumency shields Snape had created. They were everywhere, making the mental world glittering and sharp-edged—though only if one knew they existed. Draco was sure the Dark Lord didn't see the traps, or he would never have come ahead.

The view was so mixed, even so, with every glint of light a trap, every shadow a place where Harry's real thoughts hid, every "open" and "true" image a deceit for Voldemort to think he was grasping a closely-guarded secret. Draco shivered a bit, and then reminded himself that the traps were not intended for him. They were meant to snare Voldemort.

And now he could feel the Dark Lord's mind.

Draco did not think he would have felt drawn to this power, even if he were meeting Voldemort in solid form—he had felt nothing but panic and horror and rage when the Dark Lord took Harry prisoner in the graveyard on Midwinter—but he could see why some purebloods might have followed him. There was a certain edge to that magic that was missing even from Harry's. He had grown powerful again since Harry struck at him in the Chamber of Secrets, and he would do anything to his enemies, a claim Harry couldn't make. Draco supposed a certain kind of wizard might feel that kissing the hem of the Dark Lord's robes and murmuring fawning, sycophantic phrases was worth the feeling that that power could be turned on one's enemies.

It still appalled him to think that his father had once been one of those wizards, though.

The Dark Lord abruptly stopped walking; Draco's eye translated it that way, anyway, although he knew that imagination made up vision, here, and it was far more likely that Voldemort had probably just stopped spreading his Legilimency through Harry's mind. Draco heard laughter, and then a strike came out and down, a sharp blade of thought meant to scrape Harry, send him reeling in pain, and bring memories of the prophecy to the surface.

Draco took a deep breath—or so he imagined—and then jumped along the bond that tied his mind to Harry's.

There was a sense of reeling, dizzy motion from him, too, and he felt Voldemort cry out in fury as he slammed into his mind. This was not at all like possessing Dumbledore. They had both been Lord-level wizards taken by surprise.

But Voldemort had been Dark far longer, and he had no compunction against hurting his opponents. Draco screamed, he was sure he did, as the pressure came down on him and tried to tear him apart. Pain ripped him from his hold on the Dark Lord's thoughts and sent him backwards.

And then Voldemort spoke directly to him, and Draco wondered how Harry stood having that voice in his head.

You dare? You dare to possess me?

Draco felt Voldemort following him, surging along the bond, trying to gain access to his own thoughts. He couldn't allow that, and he built up what protections he could, slipping and diving and dodging as he had with Dumbledore, hoping Harry would "wake up" soon.

And then he did.

Harry waited. It was hard, feeling the foulness creep through and contaminate his mind, knowing that Voldemort would probably hurt either him or Draco, but it was necessary. This wouldn't look completely innocent to his enemy when or if he noticed the bonds that connected Snape and Draco to Harry's mind. Therefore, the second best option was to make it look like a trap that had failed—as if they had tried to keep the knowledge of the false prophecy from Tom Riddle and hadn't been able to.

He moved, though, when he felt Draco's unsuccessful possession attempt and Voldemort following him.

He concentrated, and most of the Occlumency shields in his head pivoted, revealing to Voldemort just how many dark mirrors surrounded him. Or so it would seem. It was only Harry's own shields that moved. The stronger ones, which Snape had created for him, remained immobile.

Voldemort hissed, distracted, as Harry had hoped he would be. And this is what you set to hold me, he said. To baffle me. You are weaker than I thought.

He reached out, a thick tendril of Legilimency that Harry saw as tipped with barbs, seeking to hook up specific memories. Harry hoped Snape would have the sense to keep still, hold the shields in defensive postures, and let Harry take the damage. Even he couldn't face the Dark Lord like this, and if he appeared so suddenly from his hiding place, then Voldemort might suspect the truth.

Harry screamed in pain, as Voldemort wanted, and it did hurt quite a bit as that claw dug downward. He flurried memories in front of Voldemort like butterflies, one of the earliest protective techniques Snape had taught him. They were ripped aside like curtains, of course. Harry had known they would be.

Downward and downward he rolled, luring Voldemort on, pretending to be shocked and frightened that his traps didn't work. Voldemort roared in triumph and then performed a Legilimency technique that Harry hadn't heard of before, which summoned memories of a specific event towards him.

Harry screamed and let it happen. He would have to trust Snape's shields now. They were thickest around his memories of the true prophecies, both the one that supposedly predicted him as the defeater of the Dark Lord and the one that Acies had recited to him. Harry had to hope they were weighted heavily enough not to go flying to Voldemort.

He did try to snatch at one of them, of course, the carefully constructed image of the false prophecy, and Voldemort laughed and called it with a variation of the Summoning Charm, adding insult to injury.

Harry watched as the memory sprang to life, himself leaning close to Acies, as if she were the one who had told him the truth. She nodded to him, her eyes still hidden. Harry had hoped that would make it more mysterious to Voldemort. He did not dare show him that Peter knew the true prophecy.

"What your parents recited to you was not the truth, Harry," she whispered. "There is more to the words that guide your fate."

"More? Are you certain?" Harry's voice in the memory was startled, breathy—not the way he would have really reacted, had this happened, but perfectly in tune with Voldemort's reaction, since he thought prophecies were so important.

"More," said Acies, with a firm nod. "This is the prophecy." She settled back and began to recite.

Harry had gone to some trouble with this bit of doggerel, since he wanted it to be worthy of Trelawney. There was also the fact that Voldemort knew the first few lines of the true prophecy; Snape, in his spying on Dumbledore before he turned to the Light, had carried them to him. Mix truth with impressive-sounding nonsense, and Harry hoped it might pass.

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…" Acies intoned. "Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…"

That was as much as Voldemort had heard, and what came afterwards was pure fancy, pure invention. Harry didn't think Trelawney herself could have given it the pompous tone that Acies did.

"Born whole, he yet shall become divided," Acies whispered. "In heart and in body, in magic and in soul."

Harry was startled to feel a surge of fear from Voldemort when he heard those words. What is that all about? But he had to keep his startlement buried and his outrage uppermost, to fool Voldemort into thinking it mattered that he could see this memory, so he shoved the thought away.

"He must become divided, to defeat the Dark Lord," Acies said. "And he shall face the one who first divided him and gave his permission for the second dividing on the day of longest light, when the dawns shall blaze and the gryphon shall shine forth in the sky. The divisions of heart and soul shall happen there, and with all four complete, the one with the power to defeat the Dark Lord shall come down with the weapon of the eagle and tear him apart in front of the eagle's last roosting place. O guard him, O shield him, for he must be divided ere the world be made whole—and only on that day of light and division may he be divided, or killed in his half-wholeness."

Harry in the memory bowed his head and sighed. "Wow," he whispered.

Harry, crouched under his Occlumency shields, could feel Voldemort's mind working purposefully, and knew what conclusions he would be coming to. A storm of the Light was coming, and the Light's symbol was a gryphon. Ravenclaw's House symbol was an eagle, and it was common knowledge, or at least a common legend, that Rowena Ravenclaw had come back to Hogwarts to die. Everything would point towards the fatal day being this Midsummer, in front of Hogwarts, and Harry killing Voldemort with some weapon of Ravenclaw's.

And, of course, Voldemort had split Harry's magic in making Harry his magical heir, and divided his body in giving permission for Bellatrix to cut off his hand. But the wording of the prophecy suggested there was a chance to kill Harry before the other two divisions happened—though only on Midsummer.

Harry felt the moment when the Dark Lord made his decision, and laughed aloud. You have not kept this from me, he hissed in Harry's head, his voice vibrating like a snake. You will lose.

Harry let out a cry of loss and rage, but he wanted to sob with relief, though even that emotion got tucked away beneath Snape's shields at once. It had worked.

Voldemort laughed again, and vanished from Harry's head, sealing the Occlumency connection between them so that Harry couldn't follow.

Harry swam towards the surface of his mind at once, wanting to see how Draco felt.

Draco felt bloody horrible, that was how he felt.

He'd barely opened his eyes—he was lying on his own bed, since the Dark Lord's attack had come in the middle of the night, exactly as Harry predicted it would—when Professor Snape came into the room like wrath embodied and hissed at him, "Do you have any idea what you risked, you stupid boy?"

Draco found himself responding not as a comrade-in-arms, though Snape had treated him that way when they were planning this trap, but as a Slytherin student facing his Head of House. He lowered his eyes and ventured, "Sir, I was supposed to practice—"

Snape cast a Silencing Charm before Draco could finish, blocking their conversation from a curious, sleepy Blaise, who'd poked his head out of his own curtains. "Yes, you were supposed to practice possession," Snape whisper-hissed, "while the Dark Lord was occupied with the false prophecy, you stupid boy, and not before he had even started to fall into the trap! You could have revealed my own presence. You certainly made Harry move earlier than he had planned. And you could have been killed or possessed yourself."

Draco winced and shut his eyes. His head pounded furiously, as though someone had tried squeezing his brain through a funnel. "I'm sorry, sir," he murmured, and rested his head in his hands. "Can I get a headache potion?"

"I should withhold it from you," Snape hissed, "to teach you what happens to spoiled little boys who disobey." But his hands were already moving, pulling a vial from his pocket and holding it out to Draco. Draco downed it, and was relieved to feel the pain diminish, though only by half.

"The rest of the damage is mental," said Snape, and seized his chin, holding him roughly still. "A skilled Occlumens must fix it."

He dived into Draco's mind with what didn't feel like skill, rearranging his memories in what Draco supposed was the correct order, pulling and tugging at the edge of what felt like gaping holes, and once causing images of the house elves cleaning the Manor to flash in front of Draco's eyes. Draco supposed that was analogous to taking out the foulness that contact with Voldemort must have left.

Snape let go of his chin and looked away from him, and Draco sighed. His head still hurt, but it was the memory of the pain that hurt more, and how he had reacted to the notion that Voldemort was about to hurt Harry. He had lunged into danger like a brainless Gryffindor.

"Draco?"

He turned his head, and saw Harry climbing off the bed and coming towards him. Draco assumed a pathetic expression that he wouldn't have dared try with only Snape there, and heard his Head of House stifle a growl as Harry gently stroked Draco's hair and then took his chin in a far gentler grip than Snape had managed.

"All right?" Harry whispered.

"I will be," Draco said, and then aired what had bothered him most, after the pain. "I couldn't possess him, Harry. I don't know how I can accomplish what we have to on Midsummer Day."

"We'll go on training," Harry promised. "We'll find a way, Draco. And if worst comes to worst, then I have another idea."

"Why didn't you say so?" Draco demanded. He'd been sure that everything depended on his possessing Voldemort.

"Because I don't know if it will work," said Harry, with a slight frown. "I don't know if you can possess objects, even ones that have at least a partial self-awareness. We'll practice, though." He stepped back and looked up at Snape. "How did I do, sir?"

"Look me in the eye."

Harry complied, and Draco watched Snape anxiously; Harry had planned to take some damage, of course, to convince Voldemort that he'd resisted the abduction of the prophecy memory as well as he could, but that didn't mean this was good. Snape studied Harry's eyes for a moment, then nodded, the smallest amount of relaxation appearing in his face. "The wounds are healable, Harry."

"Good," said Harry. "I'll get to healing them. If you'll end the bonds you and Draco have with me, sir?"

Snape cast a quick, efficient spell, and Draco sighed as the greater sense of connection he'd experienced to Harry in the past few days fell away. Then he lost the sigh as Harry flung his arms around him and embraced him.

"You were brilliant, Draco," Harry murmured into his shoulder. "I think you convinced him that this was a trap that failed even more than I did. Thank you."

Draco beamed, and quite carefully did not look at his Head of House, whom he was sure would not be as approving. "Thank you, Harry," he said, and leaned into the embrace, soaking up the accolades of faith and belief that he no doubt deserved.

Lord Voldemort opened his eyes—or, rather, he linked his consciousness to the mind of his snake once more. The young flesh-serpent crawled over to his throne and stared up at his face, letting him see the joy that twisted it. It was an odd experience, looking at one's own features, but he had quickly grown used to it. All attempts to bring back his own eyes had been in vain.

I have the prophecy. I know what will happen. And it is essential that it be prevented.

Even apart from the prophecy, Lord Voldemort would not permit someone else to divide his soul as he had done. That was his own sacred and protective art of immortality. But it was what would happen if he could not kill Harry in time. And he could do that on only one day and in only one place.

On Midsummer Day, I go to Hogwarts.