Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!
Last chapter before the Midsummer battle proper begins.
Chapter Eighty-Nine: Tomorrow We Leave For Battle
Harry opened his eyes slowly, not realizing where he was for a long moment. Then he remembered. Snape had told him to sleep on the couch in his private quarters last night, not trusting the rest of Slytherin House to take care of him.
Harry winced at the memories of Snape's precise, cold voice as he lectured on House loyalty, and the lowered eyes of the other Slytherins. It really hadn't been their fault, any of them. Blaise, Findarin, and Tipperary had had to feed them the Draught of Living Death as well, just in case they might have tried to interfere with their kidnapping of Harry. Yes, some of them might have stood aside and let them take Harry to Voldemort, but some of them might have stopped Blaise and his friends. They would never know now.
Since he was fully awake, his mind began reciting the numbers again.
Sixty-four dead. Nineteen without magic. Three I frightened enough to try and take me to Voldemort.
He sat up, stretched, and pulled his glasses from a nearby table before he realized that Snape was sitting on the chair opposite, watching him and sipping a cup of tea. Harry jumped and stared at him. Snape waved his wand, still saying nothing, and a tray bearing tea and a bowl of cornflakes with a cup of milk close at hand floated over to him.
"Eat," he said. "I've fetched this food from the Great Hall for you. It's morning," he added, anticipating Harry's next question, "and Voldemort has already made his announcement about wanting the school to turn you over to him. This time, McGonagall countered with an announcement of her own, explaining what had happened last night. Everyone now knows that the Headmistress thinks such betrayal dishonorable, and how disappointed she is in any House that could consider it. You will be guarded today to make sure that does not happen again." Snape sipped his tea and watched until Harry poured the milk into the cornflakes and started eating just to get away from his stare.
Sixty-four, said the sound of his own chewing in his ears as he ate.
"Where's Draco?" he asked, when he'd swallowed a few mouthfuls.
"I sent him back to Slytherin after my speech," said Snape, and drank some more tea. "I knew he would wish to guard you and speak with you, but a large part of that speaking will be apologies that he did not recognize the taste of Living Death in time. It cannot help you now."
Harry stiffened for a moment, but Snape followed that with nothing more ominous, so he forced himself to eat some more cornflakes, and even drink a bit of his own tea. Nineteen, said the swish of the liquid in the cup.
"What will help me?" he asked a few minutes later.
"Being talked out of this guilt that you are carrying," said Snape. "I thought I had managed it. I thought Draco had managed it. I thought your own mind had managed it. Alas, it seems that we have not." His voice was without inflection, but Harry could hear the steel underneath.
"I don't know what you mean," said Harry. "I accept, as you said, that those who didn't face such a decision can't understand why I did as I did. And I know that Blaise and the others betrayed me out of fear for their lives, and not because of something I did." Three, said the shuffle of his shoes on the floor.
Snape made a muffled sound oddly like a chuckle. Harry laid down his spoon and stared at him. Snape stared back, and if there was amusement in his face, it was a cruel, predatory, hawk-like amusement.
"How many times have I told you, Harry," Snape said softly, "you cannot lie to a Legilimens?"
"I am not lying—"
"I heard you counting last night," Snape said unapologetically. "I believe I know the numbers. Sixty-four dead, counting Miss Whitestag. Nineteen without magic, turned into Squibs. And three members of your own House who turned on you. People who have accepted responsibility for their own decisions, Harry, do not recite numbers like that to themselves."
"I have accepted—"
"You have not." The only sign of Snape's anger, besides the force in his voice, was the way he suddenly released his teacup and pointed his hand at Harry. Wandless magic kept the teacup hovering in midair. Harry wondered if Snape was even aware of that. "You are making the dead more important than the living, the wounded more important than the whole, those who blame you more important than those who do not. You are living exclusively in their company, and by doing so you betray us."
Harry felt as if he'd been punched in the gut. He looked away from Snape and tried to explain what he meant, what he felt. "If I forget about them, then I'm betraying their memory—"
"I have no interest in listening to your tired self-justifications," said Snape, voice as cold as Harry remembered it being from first year. "You are betraying us, Harry, with every breath you take that is focused more on doom than on survival, with every glance you give that looks on the past as if that is somehow a sacred country. Tomorrow we leave for battle. We may fail because Voldemort is the stronger, or because Death Eaters kill us. I will not have us fail because our leader is distracted and dreaming of his own guilt instead of how best to protect us."
Harry shivered. The words had cut him like shards of ice or glass. "I—I can't watch anyone else die because of me," he whispered.
"Then announce that now," said Snape, his voice pitiless, "and turn the leadership of the war effort over to McGonagall. Tell your allies that you've failed them. Tell them that you are afraid, and because of that, you'd rather walk out and give yourself up to the Dark Lord, because you cannot bear to see death. You would rather commit suicide, make yourself a martyr, then endure what is a natural consequence of war. And, before you go, make sure to tell the Sorting Hat that it made a mistake. It should have put you in Gryffindor after all—save that now, not even they are squalling about martyrdom."
Harry clenched his hand. Emotions were blowing through him like winds, and he wasn't their container, but a leaf tossed about in them. He couldn't identify all of them. Fear was the predominant gale, though. "Don't you understand?" he insisted. "Bringing Voldemort here was a mistake. I should have set up a trap for him elsewhere. I had no right to endanger the life of anyone who didn't volunteer to be in the war. All those who've suffered so far were innocent. And I killed twelve of them myself—"
Snape laughed. Harry flinched again, certain he was hearing the boy who had flung devastating insults at James and the other Marauders in their sixth and seventh years.
"Be sure to tell Voldemort that," Snape mocked, his eyes on fire with darkness. "Be sure to tell him that every victim who suffers as a result of this war is your fault. Be sure to tell him that war should only be between those who have agreed to suffer in it, so that they can bid their families properly farewell, and wave their hands, and go out to die after their morning tea. This is war, Harry. The Dark Lord does not care, he has never cared, about who is innocent and who is not. He prefers the innocent as victims, in fact, because they are so much less likely to fight back. And I am sure he would rejoice to know that his greatest enemy is tearing himself apart over a dozen dead children, rather than concentrating on saving the hundreds of living children still trapped in Hogwarts."
Harry was breathing faster now. And he knew that one of the emotions howling through him was anger. But what Snape was saying was still wrong, still had to be wrong.
"I'm like Dumbledore if I use numbers," he said, "if I say that the lives in Hogwarts are worth more than the lives of those children who died on the battlefield, just because there are more of them."
"Has it occurred to you," said Snape, voice descending to a rumbling purr like that of some great hunting cat, "that even Dumbledore was right when he began? He lost himself slowly to the mantra, the idea, of sacrifice. He made decisions in the First War that led to the loss of a small number of lives to save a greater. That is true. And tell me, Harry, would you say it is right to save the lives of twelve children over nine hundred? That is approximately how many students remain in the school right now. Would you trade them for those dozen first-years and second-years, if you had the choice to make again?"
Put like that, it did sound impossible. Harry shook his head, though. "Did Dumbledore ever kill a dozen people himself?" he asked. "Did he kill a dozen children?"
Snape's mouth parted slightly, and his eyes glittered. He whispered, "What do you think had to be done with the children when the Children's Massacre was discovered?"
Harry swallowed.
"There were spells cast on them to make them remain alive," Snape continued. "The official story, of course, is that they died when their rescuers tried to take them from the crucifixes. That is not true. The truth is that Dumbledore, and the others who came with him, had to end those spells and release them to death, because their wounds were mortal. They killed them out of mercy. Ask Minerva about the Massacre, Harry. Ask her what it was like to stare into the eyes of more than a dozen children as she took them down from their crucifixes and ended their lives, that she might end their suffering. The cowards in that situation were those who stayed behind because they refused to be responsible for the death of a child, not those who took those deaths on themselves and sent them where they would hurt no longer."
Harry closed his eyes for a moment. Then he said, "You told me that that kind of courage wasn't something a Gryffindor would understand. To—have to make that kind of decision. But McGonagall made that kind of decision after the Children's Massacre?"
"Not all Gryffindors, I should have said."
Harry took a deep breath and looked at Snape again.
"Do you see what your guilt will cost us?" Snape asked. "If Minerva let herself be incapacitated by the guilt that some children died under her care, she could not lead the rest of the school and tend to the living. She feels the emotion, but the time to let it wash over her is not now. She will wait until she may indulge it. And in this, Harry, she is wiser than you are, because you are indulging your pained and aching conscience now, at the expense of the pained and aching people around you."
"But I—but I could hurt them," Harry whispered. "I have hurt them. Even if I get through the battle, shouldn't I go to Tullianum on murder charges?"
Snape lunged forward, grabbing his shoulder and shaking him fiercely. Harry squeaked in surprise and mortification. Snape was the third person in two weeks who had shaken him, and Harry was beginning to feel like a naughty child.
"Do not think that way," Snape said fiercely. "Or every wizard who fights with you tomorrow should go to Tullianum on murder charges, Harry."
Harry lowered his head. Snape caught his chin and tilted his face upward again, so that he had to face those intent black eyes.
"What is it about this that troubles you so much?" Snape whispered. "That they were children? That this was the first act of war in which you had to make a decision you did not know was right? That others blame you? That last should be no surprise. That second was something you must have known you would have to do someday. And as for the first, there are children here in Hogwarts as well, Harry, some of them younger than your victims, still alive. They are more valuable than the dead. The living are always more valuable than the dead. They matter more. They have the possibility to change, to redeem themselves—and to live after this battle is done. Will you fail them because you are too busy memorializing those who can no longer hear you?"
Harry shivered. He felt chills tearing him apart, chills from so many disparate emotions that he was no longer even prepared to say that fear and anger were among them.
"We go to battle tomorrow," Snape said again, voice a concentrated force of rage. "Will you abandon us to face Voldemort alone because you must hide your head in mourning? Will you let children die because children have already died? Will you let the Dark Lord kill us?"
"No!"
Harry's vision became sheened with blue as the phoenix fire exploded from him, and his emotions coalesced as one, righteous anger. Snape pulled back at once, though the flames had not burned him. He eyed the aura that surrounded Harry, and there was a look of grim satisfaction on his face.
Harry was breathing hard. This rage was a precious thing, and he hung onto it. He still could not be entirely sure, whatever Snape had said, that he had done the right thing. He did not understand how anyone could have that certainty about an act of war like this, and he envied McGonagall's seeming ability to go on living her life as normal after it. Perhaps he would talk to her, when this was done, and get some kind of advice about not letting a war wound define one's life.
For now, though, they did have a battle to fight.
And he could see, if he accepted Snape's stinging words as truth, the way that others must have seen him—Draco, and Connor, and the Ravenclaws who stared at him with doubt in their eyes, and the Hufflepuffs who had whispered in his wake, and the Slytherins who might have agreed with Blaise about the need to give him up. If he was this deep in mourning, if he cared about no one but the dead, then perhaps he wasn't going to save them, and then why shouldn't they take their chances with Voldemort? A weak savior offered them no options.
You were the one who told Voldemort to come to Hogwarts. You were the one who insured that a battle on Midsummer Day, and not just a storm, would happen in the first place.
So fucking act like it.
Harry almost smiled when he realized that that last sentence was in his brother's voice, and then he set about expanding his Occlumency pools to trap his guilt and sadness and fear. They could not interfere right now. They had no place on the battlefield. As Snape had said, it was anger and a desire to see everyone around him live that would get them through.
How had he so thoroughly forgotten his own lessons? Put your head down and endure. Shove forward, no matter how much it hurts.
The battle was the task for right now. Everything else, including the justified accusations that he would face when his murder of a dozen children became public knowledge, would have to wait. Voldemort was certainly not going to politely stand aside while Harry contacted the parents of his victims and told them to do whatever they liked to him.
When that moment comes that they know, his conscience whispered, it will be a harder test than this.
Harry acknowledged that, and put the realization aside. It would happen, but he could not allow it to dominate his actions for now. And if he had to lock and chain his emotions artificially with the Occlumency Snape had taught him, then he would. He had already planned to go to the Sanctuary this summer, because he had begun to wonder what unhealed mental wounds would cost him in the war. Now there was a more urgent need for healing, but it could wait.
He looked up, and caught Snape's eye. "Thank you, sir," he said.
Snape sneered at him. "You should have known better than to fall into a pattern," he said. "Or, barring that, you should have come to me at once."
"I know that now, sir."
Snape shook his head. "When this is finished, Harry, I think you should devote your summer to making sure such emotions will never incapacitate you again."
"That's why I've arranged with Vera to go to the Sanctuary, sir," said Harry, and had the supreme satisfaction of seeing Snape choke. He smiled and stood up, still blazing with the phoenix fire. "I'm going to meet with my allies now, just to make sure they all understand their part in the battle. Can I borrow some Veritaserum, so that I can make sure there are no traitors among them?"
Snape rose and fetched the vials of Veritaserum without a word, all the while staring at him as if he had become a different person. Harry smiled at him, pressed his hand—the flames wouldn't burn anyone he didn't tell them to—and then left. For the first time in days, a list of tasks was unfolding in his head, a sign that he was back to normal now, and could think of what he was supposed to be doing.
Meet with my allies and make sure they're true. Set up those older students who are going to stay in the school and protect the younger children. Pass the phoenix fire through the stone again, and purify the last of that foul magic—and make sure that Draco and Snape know what I'm doing this time. Speak with Tybalt, and insure that he does have his linchpin ready. Speak with the Malfoys, and see if they're coming to the battle tomorrow…
"You're happy."
Ignifer turned with a start. Honoria stood behind her, staring at her with such innocent eyes that Ignifer knew immediately she must have been there for a few minutes. Ignifer shook her head and tried to regain control of her face. "Why would you think so?" she asked, turning away again. "We go to battle tomorrow, and our leader has just told us that he does not expect everyone to survive. I would be happy if I were guaranteed to live, but there is no reason for joy in the face of this."
"Bollocks," said Honoria cheerfully, and shut the door of Ignifer's room. Ignifer couldn't help glancing at it. Honoria shrugged when she caught the glance. "I know counters to most of the simple unlocking spells."
"I am not surprised."
Honoria laughed at her. "But you are happy, Ignifer," she said, going over and stretching out on Ignifer's four-poster, a bed so ugly that Ignifer was not surprised it had been relegated to the dusty "guest" quarters before she came to Hogwarts. "I can tell. And I even know why you're happy."
"Do enlighten me, then," Ignifer said, turning to face the mirror she'd conjured earlier. She had to stare closely at her hair as she used spells to fix it in place on her neck. She didn't want it getting in her face during the battle. "Since you know so much more about my own emotions than I do."
"That's what a lover should do," said Honoria. She ignored the startled little jerk that Ignifer made. "And you're happy because Harry came back. He's been moping himself into a corner for the past few days, and you were wondering if we would get the chance to fight and die with honor. Now we will, because he woke up and realized that the rest of us were more important than the people who died for him. You aren't frightened of dying tomorrow. You're frightened of the way you might have died, if Harry was still grieving so much that he refused to lead or made some strange and incompetent plan. I don't really understand this focus on honor that you have, but I suppose it has something to do with your Light past."
That was actually remarkably accurate. Ignifer saw no reason why she should have given up all her honor when she Declared for the Dark. That was in and of itself the honorable thing to do, when the wild Dark had saved her life, though of course her father hadn't seen it that way. But she wasn't about to admit that Honoria had guessed right. She went on braiding her hair in silence.
"Now that we've talked about the emotions," said Honoria, her face and voice very bright, "can we shag?"
Ignifer did choke this time, and spin around to stare at her. Honoria was sitting up, and she had a faint smile on her face, but the smile was serious enough to let Ignifer know that she would—shag her, if one had to use that vulgar word, in a moment if Ignifer accepted the invitation.
"No," said Ignifer, who had the feeling it'd taken far too long for her to give a simple denial. Her voice sounded muffled. "Of course not."
Honoria pouted and rolled back over on her side, accidentally-on-purpose letting her robes ride up to reveal a length of her thigh. "And why not?" she asked.
"There is every reason why not!" Ignifer spun around. Her face was burning. She tried desperately to recall the codes of behavior that her family had drilled into her about this when she was a young girl. There weren't many of them, actually. When the time came that she should think about bearing children, then she would look for a suitable husband, pureblood and Declared to the Light, and hopefully the magical heir of his family, though the last wasn't required. It would be enough of an honor for his children to bear the Apollonis name, after all. They would do everything by formalities that Ignifer had known all her life.
One thing those codes were clear about was that no one was supposed to pursue anyone else. That was for halfbloods and others who didn't have the assurance of a marriage whether or not they loved.
Well, a halfblood woman is trying awfully hard to court me, Ignifer thought, slightly hysterical. And she's also Declared for Dark. I suppose only the magical heirship is lacking.
"I don't know why you're doing this," she told Honoria when she thought she had her breathing under control, catching her eye in the mirror. "If it's only to be funny or tease me, you can leave. I will never joke back. I have no sense of humor."
"Yes, you do," said Honoria. "It's a lover's task to know that, too. And as for why I'm doing this, I told you already. You're beautiful, and intelligent, and stubborn, and proud. I want you."
Ignifer ducked her head, feeling her cheeks burn. Pureblood prudery, perhaps, but she just wasn't used to hearing people talk like that.
"And as for why we should shag now," Honoria continued, a bit of hope entering her voice, "you know the situation. There are history-songs that talk about it. The night before we leave for battle. Couples bed each other to assert the primacy of life in the face of death."
"The history-songs I heard usually placed such—bedding after the battle," Ignifer pointed out.
"Well, that's stupid," said Honoria. "Because how did the couples know they were still going to be alive then? We're alive right now." Her hand moved in the mirror, and Ignifer saw her patting the bed. "Come here, Ignifer. Don't let some shadow of your father stop you."
Ignifer closed her eyes for a long moment. She would be doing this for a stupid reason if she gave in, she thought. No matter what Honoria might say about asserting the primacy of life, it was mostly going to be a quick fumble, without dignity, without the rules that Ignifer had known all her life.
Well, ask her about that, then. See what she says.
Ignifer opened her eyes and turned to face Honoria. The younger woman was watching her intently, holding her breath. Ignifer frowned. I wish she would not do that. It's as if she finds me too beautiful to resist, and I know that is nonsense.
"I might break the rules for you," she told Honoria, "but it would be only a few moments of passion, and that would feel tawdry to me."
Honoria gave a smile Ignifer hadn't seen before, and rose to her feet. "A few moments?" she murmured. "That's what you think. It's six in the evening now, and we have until at least six tomorrow morning."
Ignifer swallowed, her heart beating fast, as Honoria came towards her and took one of her hands, standing on tiptoe to whisper into her ear.
"We have hours," Honoria whispered. "And I intend to use a few of them near dawn for sleeping, if that." Her other hand slid coaxingly along Ignifer's arm, and she drew back to smirk at her. "If you agree, of course," she said, and repeated the sliding gesture, making Ignifer feel an inexplicable urge to squirm closer.
Ignifer shut her eyes for a few moments, and contemplated it. This obviously meant something to Honoria. It would not be quick. If they both survived the battle, it might be repeated.
And if this broke the rules she had known all her life—did that matter? Her father doubtless thought she had lain with every Dark pureblood already, because he believed that was what Dark witches and wizards did. Ignifer did not think Honoria would gossip about it. And if one of them died in the battle tomorrow, no one else would ever know.
"All right," she whispered.
Honoria immediately seized her mouth in a kiss, as if afraid she would back out if she waited a moment longer. Ignifer bowed her head, and slowly, hesitantly, kissed back. A moment later, Honoria undid the charms on her hair so that it tumbled around them.
"Don't need these right now," Honoria whispered, curved an arm around her neck, and drew her back into the kiss.
"And then the witch went home, because she had a diamond necklace and a cup on a chain, and that was all she'd asked of the world," Thomas finished. He gently set the book aside, stroking the cover. Really, the library at Hogwarts had the finest collection of old fey tales he'd ever seen, ridiculous legends that broke all the laws of magic. But he'd enjoyed reading them aloud via the communication spell to his children for the last few days.
"Father?"
Rose's voice, emerging from his left arm, pulled him back. Thomas looked towards the sound of her voice and imagined her seated in the library, just finished copying down the words he'd read. She was the one of his children most interested in preserving old knowledge, especially if it was new to her. "What is it, dear?"
"Do you think you'll die tomorrow?"
Thomas tilted his head back and regarded the ceiling with a frown. "Well, Rosie, I don't know," he murmured. "We're prepared, and we have a good plan. And I think that I know enough spells that the Death Eaters don't stand a chance of guessing them before I use them, especially when they're non-verbal. And I know that I trust Harry, and most of the people who'll go to battle with him trust him, too. The children in the school don't, or they wouldn't have tried to give him over to Voldemort yesterday, but they don't count as much. And—"
"Father!" Rose's voice was just slightly exasperated. "Do you think you'll die? That was the question I asked." Her words wavered on the end.
"I don't know," Thomas said, studying his wrist in interest now. "Have you been reading those books again that claim you can develop Divination ability without being born with it? You can't. That's one of the things we learned from the Grand Unified Theory. Divination is a useless subject to teach. There are some students who will just never be able to master it, and that means—"
"Father. No, I haven't been reading those books again. I know they're useless. But—you don't sound afraid. And we're all afraid that you'll die. Even Mother, though I know she doesn't show it." Rose's voice lowered on the last words, as if she thought Priscilla, or one of her siblings, might be listening to her.
Thomas smiled gently. He had no doubt that it was true, if Rose said it was so. She was his magical heir, and because of that, he'd treated her a bit more like an adult than the other children. And she'd reacted to the training well, seeing things that an adult would be more likely to notice most of the time.
"I would expect them to be afraid," he said, tilting his head to the side and rubbing at the back of his neck. "It's death, after all. And they're not here with me. And your mother's been overworked in the past few days, with the Ministry exploding as news of the situation at Hogwarts spreads throughout the wizarding world."
"But you're not," Rose whispered.
"No," said Thomas. "I'm not."
"Why not?"
Thomas shrugged and stood, meandering through the shelves of books to put away the one he'd borrowed to read to Rose. "I don't know. I never have been. Death is there, and it's going to happen someday, and I would prefer that it not be painful. But—it would be like being afraid of the sky. It's always there. It won't go away just because you want it to. And your life's easier when you don't ignore it."
"The sky doesn't kill you, though." Rose's voice sharpened in the way that Thomas knew meant she was getting angry with him. He was sorry for that. He never did know when he crossed the line from ordinary behavior into anger-making behavior.
But he didn't live in the same world as other people. He knew it when he tried to explain things that were simple to him, and they didn't understand. But he could get frustrated by that or he could get used to it, and he'd done the latter.
"But in other ways, it resembles death," he said. "And I think being afraid of either of them would be silly."
Rose said nothing for a moment, but the tingle of magic on Thomas's left wrist told him she hadn't ended the communication spell. He waited patiently, running his fingers along the shelf of books in front of him. He had to go to bed soon, to be ready and rested for the battle in the morning, but he wanted to choose some light reading to take with him.
"I love you, Father," Rose whispered. "I hope you don't die."
Thomas laughed gently as he pulled out a book on centaurs he hadn't seen before. It would interest him to read what implausibilities filled it. "I love you too, Rosie, and I hope the same thing. Good night."
"And take care of your mother."
"Well, of course take care of our mother," said Michael, giving him an offended look.
Charles really couldn't blame his son for doing that; it had been a stupid reminder to give the twins, that he wanted them to take care of Medusa if he died in the battle tomorrow. Some of the promises they had requested from him in return were more outlandish. For example, Owen had wanted Charles to create a guarding spell that would follow Harry around like one of the Muggle dogs that guided the blind. Michael had wanted Charles to adopt a child, one of their older cousins, if they were both gone. He didn't think his parents should be without children.
The house will feel so empty if they are both gone, Charles thought, watching his sons as they lounged back against the bed in his guest quarters. But that would be true even if only one of them died.
There was a pause in the conversation. None of them could really think of anything else to say, Charles supposed, or any other promises to make. They had pressed hands, and confessed fears, and asserted what would happen if one of them survived but the others didn't.
Charles wondered if Owen and Michael were afraid. Owen's face, in particular, was so calm that he could tell hardly anything from it.
He was not afraid.
He had known this day would come when he committed his family to Harry. In truth, this day had been coming for twenty-six years, since Voldemort had returned to Britain. This was the first time that someone who was not Dumbledore would go forth in battle against the Dark Lord with the whole world able to watch.
Charles felt a fierce, quiet gladness that he was here, and able to participate in the battle. Since his nephew had died in a failed Death Eater raid, he had known Voldemort would not benefit the Rosier-Henlins. But Harry would, and he had survived his own first great moral crisis. When Charles asked what had driven him so deep into grief, Harry had talked to him in private and told him what had happened to the children in the Life-Web.
The first of many decisions like that, Charles thought. And he will not let it callus him.
Charles mourned for those children's parents, but he rejoiced that his own family followed a leader so strong and had found a place close to him. He reached out now and clasped first Owen's hand, then Michael's.
"To death in the morning—causing it, and not experiencing it," he said. It was the salute his father had given him the first time he fought.
Owen repeated it, and then Michael, their voices strong and shining. Charles nodded, and watched as they left.
Then he invoked the communication spell to speak to Medusa. It might be the last time he would ever do so.
But he was not afraid.
Pansy sat down on the top of the Astronomy Tower. It was high enough to be cold, even though summer was coming tomorrow, and the sight of the fires beneath her was intimidating enough to scare most people away from the walls. Even the wards seemed thinner up here.
That was, in fact, the point. No one was likely to bother her.
Pansy closed her eyes, and dropped straight into the cold darkness she'd learned to carry within her about three months ago. The world around her sang like a cracked bell, but within the darkness, all the bells stopped. Pansy found herself in the midst of a deeper cold than she had known could exist. This was the darkness left when life had passed, she thought. Someone could stop speaking aloud, and still have the warmth that breathing and moving blood lent. She herself was a living example. And Lucius Malfoy, for all that he prided himself on his chillness, could not have endured a cold like this. Only the dead and the necromancers were meant to.
When she looked up into the darkness, she saw holes in the place of stars. They were always there, patiently waiting, sometimes gently tugging on the dead. Most of the dead who did not become ghosts but remained close enough to the living world to communicate with necromancers went up those holes in the end. Pansy did not know what lay beyond them, because no one ever returned to talk or tell.
"Hullo, Pansy."
She turned and nodded to the most talkative spirit she knew, who foamed towards her like mist. He created a face for a moment, then let that go and took the form of a great dog instead. He claimed to find it more natural. Pansy wondered if it was because a human body was more complicated, or if it had to do with the fact that his animal form so closely resembled a death-connected Grim.
"Hullo, Sirius." She could speak aloud here, because this was not the mortal world. She sat down and watched him for a moment as he snapped at drifting bits of his own misty body. "Looking forward to tomorrow?"
Sirius Black turned his head and stared at her for a moment. His eyes held the mad, haunted look that Pansy had grown used to when he "taught" at the school in her second and third years. Most of the time, he looked like what Pansy supposed was his younger self, rather madcap. She knew why he had changed.
"Hush," she said quietly, and reached out a hand to stroke the cold mist on the top of his head. "Tomorrow will be hard, but I knew that when I first gained the ability to see death. There will be people who perish tomorrow. But there are people who perish everywhere, every day. And since I'll be on the battlefield, you'll have the ability to come forth and help Harry."
The haunted look in Sirius's eyes eased a bit, and he licked playfully at her fingers. "That's true," he said. "But I'm still not looking forward to tomorrow."
Pansy nodded. "I know." Sirius would be able to appear only in the form of a ghostly dog. He couldn't actually rejoin the world of the living, and even if Harry saw him, which was doubtful, Pansy didn't know if he would be able to speak to him. They were part of such different worlds now. Sometimes she caught Sirius looking up at the black holes in the darkness. It had been nearly two years since he died, and other than his own guilt and remorse at the manner of his death and a wish to help make up for it, Sirius had no tie of love or vengeance to hold him here, the way most spirits did. Pansy was frankly surprised he had resisted for so long. She wondered if she would have come back in a few days, battle or no battle, and found him gone.
"I miss him," Sirius said then, which was part of their nightly rituals.
"I know," said Pansy.
"I wish I could do something more to help," said Sirius, and wagged his tail, and looked frustrated. Pansy knew what she had to do. As she progressed further in her necromancer studies, she had learned that part of her task was to help ease the dead's powerful emotions. The living had the living to do it for them, but the dead had no one if the only people able to speak to them wouldn't help.
"You can't," she said gently. "You're dead."
Sirius no longer snarled at her when she said that, the way he had when she was first able to see him. He lowered his head and put it on his paws instead, and gave a pitiful whine.
"Harry misses you," Pansy whispered, stroking his fur. "And you miss him. But you can't be part of the same world anymore. The divide is too deep. And after tomorrow—well, I don't know, Sirius. Do you think you'll be able to stay here much longer? I expect to find you gone each time I come looking for you."
"I don't know," said Sirius, and rolled over so his head was against her knee. "I still wish I'd told him. There were so many things I could have done differently, and then I might have been there, and helped him when Lily and James turned on him."
"It's over and done," said Pansy firmly. "It was inevitable. You died there because you were meant to die there. If my father had seen you alive, he would have known."
"I suppose destiny is true," Sirius grumbled back, "but it does bugger all for comfort."
Pansy laughed quietly and ruffled his fur again. "Your brother is getting help now," she said. "He broke his own silence that might have cost him everything. And Harry will win this battle. We'll help him win."
Sirius sighed and closed his eyes. "I know," he whispered.
"You'll be at peace in the end."
"I know."
Pansy said nothing else. They had discussed the ins and outs of the battle as much as possible, and Sirius knew everything about it as it related to him and Pansy. They could do no more but sit in the cold and darkness, and share silence.
"You realize that someone could see us outlined against the castle and fling a curse at us," Draco said softly, nuzzling his face into the back of Harry's neck.
Harry snorted, and said, "That would be why I have a concealing charm up, Draco, so that the Death Eaters don't take the chance to reduce us to small smears of black goo on the wall."
"Oh," said Draco, and then peered over Harry's shoulder at the campfires again.
They were up in the North Tower, because Harry had wanted to go there before he went to sleep. Draco had agreed, particularly when he found out that they could be alone there. He hadn't been alone with Harry all day; first had come Snape's shredding of Harry's guilt complex in his quarters, and then had come endless strategy meetings, sometimes with all of his allies, sometimes with just one. Draco had kept himself busy enough, speaking with his parents via the communication spell and practicing his possession abilities, slipping through the minds of the Slytherins. He was relieved to find that most of them were shocked at Blaise's treachery, and even angry. Draco knew the feeling. He was going to find Blaise when the siege was done.
But now they were alone, and standing on the North Tower, and gazing out at the camp of their enemies. Well, Draco supposed, one couldn't have everything.
"Thank you," Harry said.
Draco stiffened slightly in surprise. "For what?" he asked.
"For not pressing me today," Harry said, turning around and holding his eyes. "For not insisting that I talk to you when I wasn't ready. And for not wailing and blaming yourself for falling victim to Blaise's trick. It happened to all of us."
"I would only wail if he was beyond my reach," said Draco calmly. "As it is, he'll pay."
Harry regarded him sternly.
"He will," said Draco. "Him, and Findarin, and Tipperary, and Belville, and the two Death Eaters McGonagall captured. They all will, Harry."
"I think we should let the Ministry try them—"
"The Ministry won't consider what they did a crime," Draco interrupted. "Well, the adults maybe, but not three harmless students." He made his voice into a vicious parody of what Harry had told him the Department of Magical Family and Child Services woman, Madam Shiverwood, sounded like. "So they'll definitely leave them alone. And that's not right, Harry. You have to show that you won't let your enemies get away with something like that. If that means setting your allies on them, fine. But you can't leave them just dangling around unpunished. They were idiots."
"They were frightened," Harry corrected quietly.
"So were the rest of us!" Draco exclaimed. "But you don't see the rest of us doing something that mad, do you?"
Harry's body was tense in his arms for a moment. Then he sighed out, and leaned against Draco. "All right," he murmured. "If you can get McGonagall and Snape to agree, then I won't interfere."
Draco waited for some contradiction, some protest, some explanation of morality. But Harry said nothing, just looked at the fires.
"And that's it?" Draco asked, his voice growing edged in spite of himself. "That's all the objections you'll make?"
"I'm tired, Draco."
Draco resisted the temptation to snap that they all were, and waited. Harry was letting his weight be supported as much by the stones in front of him as he was by the arms around him, he thought.
"I'm tired," Harry continued. "And I can't afford to be, not if we're going to win this war. I always intended to send Voldemort howling so that I could take some time to heal myself and make the future progress of the war a surer thing. Now it's even more urgent. I frightened myself with how far I fell until Snape rescued me. And I'm not entirely sure, even now, that I made the right choice, and if I confront the parents of those dead children like this, I'd break."
"But you aren't going to tell them that you killed their children," said Draco, slightly incredulous.
Harry turned and looked at him, eyes calm and luminous. "Of course I am. They deserve to know what happened." He shook his head when Draco opened his mouth to argue. "No. I'll face them, and deal with what I have to deal with. But I'm going to put it off until I can actually deal with it, and that won't be until after I visit the Sanctuary."
"I thought that was a fever dream of yours," Draco murmured, burying his face against Harry's neck again.
"No," said Harry. "I'm tired, Draco, of lots of things. I'm tired of drowning in guilt that other people would overcome easily. I'm tired of extending too much forgiveness and only knowing it when someone else points it out. I'm tired of not being able to relate to you physically, and then dismissing my own attempts to overcome that, because there's always something more important going on." His hand found Draco's own and squeezed it. "This is the point, after the battle, where more important things end for a while. I'm going to the Sanctuary, and working on my own healing, so that eventually I can work towards the healing of the world with a surer heart."
Draco swallowed, decided he would choke if he tried to say anything, and settled for turning Harry and kissing him. He was not sure what affected him more: the revelation that Harry was finally, finally taking some time for himself, or the revelation that Harry was talking about his own life after the battle as something he would have, and not have to give up to Voldemort in payment for having killed those children.
Harry kissed back, firmly, and then smiled as he pulled away. "Would you like to come to the Sanctuary with me?" he asked.
"I would have followed you if you left me behind," said Draco, and wrapped an arm firmly around him. "No letting someone else teach you what pleasure is like."
Harry laughed, high above the battlefield, on the edge of death, and Draco had to close his eyes.