Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!

Warning: not a cheerful Intermission. Well, obviously.

Intermission: Counting Up the Dead

Hawthorn didn't know how long she had sat with her head in her hands. She didn't even know how she made it to the guest quarters the Headmistress had assigned her, to tell the truth. She remembered the haze of battle, and casting blood curses that give the Death Eaters she cast them on some pain, but not enough, never enough, before the dead her daughter had summoned, or the course of battle, or a Killing Curse, swept them away from her.

She had come away from the battle when the sirens' compulsion started. She thought that, at least. She could not remember being under the compulsion. Far stronger was the urge to kill and kill and kill and keep on killing until the hunger for blood that burned in the pit of her belly was satisfied. And then she had walked away when there were no more Death Eaters to kill.

But right beside that compulsion burned another one. It was a truth that she had acknowledged when Dragonsbane became a full-fledged necromancer, and a truth that had occurred to her as she knelt over the body of her first vengeance kill, and a truth that had slammed home into her as she listened to Harry speak about vengeance a few days after the spring equinox, his eyes bright with disgust.

Death cannot bring back the dead.

She might kill. It would not end. She could not even lose herself in the quest for revenge as Augustus Starrise had done, because she knew the world was waiting, and would not cease to change, or give her her daughter back, just because she slaughtered others. Indeed, go too far in the slaughter, and the world would put her into Tullianum and forget about her.

She hated that she knew that world existed, and that she was alone in it now.

A hand fell on her shoulder, and Hawthorn turned her head to nuzzle it even before she fully recognized the scent. Delilah Gloryflower leaned her chin down on top of Hawthorn's hair in response, and from the other side, Claudia Griffinsnest rubbed her scarred face against her neck.

Remus had been teaching them how to build a pack bond before he chose to leave, Hawthorn thought. She had thought, apparently mistakenly, that it would only endure when in the presence of someone who had been a werewolf from childhood. But her sorrow had drawn her two packmates. She had not been aware they had come to Hogwarts, but here they were, and they were making noises, shared whimpers and growls and protests against the unfairness of the world and of life, low in their throats.

Hawthorn felt a thick bubble building in the back of her own throat. She lifted her hand to wipe at her mouth, thinking she would cough out another bundle of tears. Instead, she found herself howling, a soft call of misery.

Delilah tipped her head back and joined in. Claudia said nothing—Claudia was often silent—but curled herself almost around Hawthorn and watched her with large solemn eyes. A student, apparently drawn by the howling, peered around the corner, but Claudia showed her teeth, without even a snarl, and the girl squeaked and pounded back down the corridor.

Eventually, Delilah and Claudia persuaded Hawthorn to move off the step in front of her quarters and into her room. Hawthorn expected them to leave, but they didn't. Instead, away from the eyes of outsiders, they became more demonstrative; Delilah licked her cheek, and Claudia bit her chin. Hawthorn found herself touching and stroking back, as much with her neck, her cheeks, and her spine as her hands.

"You need to rest," Claudia said, when the silent soothing had gone on for a good many minutes and some of Hawthorn's grief had blended into tear-colored haze, like the shades of gray that she saw as a wolf.

Hawthorn didn't object, because it was as impossible to object to that as to the fact of hunger when it presented itself. She lay down on her bed, and Delilah lay down beside her, arm and hair flung haphazardly over her. Claudia went to watch by the door, but Hawthorn could feel her warmth and smell her scent from there.

She closed her eyes and went away for a little while. The world would still be there when she woke. It would not give her Pansy back. So she could make it wait.

Wait, she said.

George sat with his fingers wound in his twin's. Fred's breathing was shallow. Madam Pomfrey had used healing spells George didn't know on him, and ones he did, and Skele-Gro to replace the shattered bones that had to be taken entirely out of his left leg, and bits of bandage when she couldn't heal all the wounds magically and there were other patients waiting to be taken care of. Her face had been in an agony when she told George that she had done as much as she could for Fred and that all they could do was wait. Making it through this first night would be the deciding point for him. Shock was a complicating factor, and so was how much magic she'd poured into him. Sometimes, when wounded in a way that would have killed it without magic, a wizard's body simply fought back, rejecting the attempts to heal it and continuing on its course of death.

She hoped he would wake up by the morning. She hoped he would.

Only the look of anguish on the matron's face as she turned away had kept George from hexing her for using the word hope.

Now he sat by Fred's side, and watched.

Their parents had already been in earlier, and Ron, and Ginny. Percy was going to come from the Ministry tomorrow morning, Mum had said, distractedly, confusedly. They wouldn't let him leave tonight, important business for Minister Scrimgeour. Bill and Charlie were traveling in from Egypt and Romania; they'd been in Britain last week, but left when it seemed there was no way to break the siege before Midsummer. Mum had stroked and petted Fred's hair and cheek constantly when she was here.

George hadn't told her that Fred's last words had been defending her from his insult, because then he would have had to explain the context of the joke, and because he didn't want to think of them as Fred's last words.

He leaned his head nearer to his twin's chest. No one else was awake in the hospital wing—even the others watching over injured friends or relatives were asleep—but plenty of people were breathing. George sometimes wished they wouldn't. It covered up the sound of Fred's shallow, wheezy breaths, and he had found that merely watching the motion of Fred's chest wasn't enough to content him any more. He had to hear.

Someone had asked him if he felt alone. George couldn't even remember who it had been, whom he had given a withering glare until the person fled with tears running down her cheeks. Ginny? Hermione Granger? No, Hermione was in another bed somewhere behind them, with Zacharias Smith asleep clasping her hand.

Alone made about as good a description of his condition right now as bloodbath did of the battle. It gave the most general outlines to the idea possible, but it didn't tell you anything.

He felt chained to the bed, unable to move away. He felt chained in his mind, too. Before, it had always bubbled with thoughts of the future. Anything moving or not moving, spoken or living or dead, might prompt a new joke idea. And since Harry had given them the Galleons, they didn't need to entertain ridiculous ideas for robbing Gringotts or laboring for years in positions they hated just to get the necessary money for their joke shop. They could go out and start showing Zonko's who the real geniuses in the joke field were right away. They were going to leave school and go out into the real world, where NEWT's didn't matter, where their mother's worries didn't matter, where the Ministry was only something to be ignored when possible and evaded when impossible. They were just beginning.

Everything was just beginning.

And now it might be ending, and George was trying to contemplate a he instead of a they, a future that did not have Fred in it, and getting nowhere. He had to stare. He had to think about the moments passing right now, and listen to Fred's rasping breath. He closed his eyes.

"I won't tell anyone."

George sighed. Someone had awakened and was having a whispered conversation with someone else. Zacharias and Hermione, probably. Smith seemed to be a light sleeper, and he'd regularly whispered things to Hermione as the night went on, stroking her forehead. She hadn't opened her eyes yet, either. George wished he could care more.

"I won't tell anyone," the voice repeated, "that you blubbered so much that I had to come back just to shut you up."

George sighed again and leaned back in his chair, waiting for the conversation to end.

An elbow jabbed him hard in the chest. He opened his eyes, and Fred said, "Are you paying attention? I'm talking to you, you great lump. Merlin, he disturbs a man's peace and then he doesn't even have the courtesy to pay attention to him when he talks—"

That was the last sentence he got to finish on his own for a while, because George had hugged him hard enough to cause his ribs to creak, and then they had to call Madam Pomfrey, who came, gave them both an incredibly hearty scolding with the words "internal injuries" in it, and then fed them a sleeping potion. Well, she gave Fred a sleeping potion, but it didn't matter who drank it, George thought, his hand firmly clasped in his brother's, because they were a them again.

Luna solemnly piled the candles, one on top of each other, their waxy ends sticking together without magic. It was very important that they meld without magic. She'd asked the house elves for them, and they'd given them to her without questions. That was only right.

When the candles were piled, seventeen of them, a perilous, swaying stack against the outline of the window in Ravenclaw Tower, Luna stepped back and cast a spell to rid the area of Wrackspurts. There didn't seem to be any. Satisfied, she drew out several Knuts that had seen travel and travail in their day, and laid them in a circle around the candles. Then she cast Incendio on the top candle. It beamed and burned brightly, and asked her what she had lit it for.

"This is for Cho," Luna told it. "She was seventeen, you know. She just turned seventeen a few days ago. And now she's gone, and she can't light her own candles or collect her own Knuts. Well, obviously. If she's gone."

She paused reflectively for a long moment. It would have been better if she'd had something of Cho's to burn, the way she'd had something of her mother's when she died, but of course Cho's family wouldn't want her to burn her possessions, and no one had wanted to hear of Luna going out on the battlefield to get some of Cho's hair. Something about it being too dangerous. Luna had tried to tell them that it wasn't dangerous on the field, because there were Crumple-Horned Snorkacks coming to chase the spirits of the dead away, but no one had wanted to listen.

"Most people don't want to listen," she told the candle. The flame swayed and agreed. No one listened to candles, either, when they asked why they were burning. Well, no one but Luna, but then, no one listened to her, either. She thought it had made her hearing better.

"Cho was seventeen," Luna went on. "She was a Seeker. She was pretty. She had a crush on Cedric Diggory, and one of the doorways in Hogsmeade told me they kissed there one day. It was in the spring. It was a day when the sky was more white than blue, but that doesn't matter. It was still spring."

She stopped again, thinking of what else to say. She hadn't been Cho's close friend, so she didn't know all that much that the stones and walls of Ravenclaw Tower, softly chattering witnesses to this ceremony, wouldn't already know. The bit of information about Cho and Cedric kissing in Hogsmeade was the only new piece Luna could contribute.

Oh, wait. Of course. Cho's death had been on the battlefield, beyond reach of the walls' sight. So they would want to know why she was gone.

"She rode to battle because she wanted to help," said Luna. "She rode a golden horse. She owed Harry a life debt, but I don't really think that's why she went. She wanted to help." Luna let a moment more pass, and then added, "She died well."

She waved her wand again, and all the candles lit at once. And then the Knuts glowed, too, with replicas of the spells that the wizards who had last owned them had once cast. Luna smiled. She thought Cho would like the light, if she could see it.

"I hope she has fun," said Luna, and then set about blowing the candles out. It had to be done properly. And then she had other people to say goodbye for. She would do it because no one else would explain to the walls and the doors and the stones of Hogwarts where their children had gone.

Hermione did not want to wake up, even though people were asking her to, because it all hurt. She gave an irritated little wriggle and squirm, and someone called, "She's awake!"

No, I'm not, Hermione thought, and tried to hide in a corner of the bed, which must be a hospital bed, because Rosier had wounded her. I'm pretending. It's your imaginations. Go away.

But someone felt her forehead, and someone else pried her eyes open, and someone bellowed into her face, "Hermione, are you awake?"

She had to stare. There was no option, no matter how much she wanted to rest and escape the pain, because it was Zacharias, but he'd changed. He looked older, and wearier, and there was a tiny imprint high on one cheek, like a tattoo or a scar. It was a crouched badger, done in black and yellow.

She tried to reach up and touch it, and Zacharias caught her hand and kissed her knuckles. His eyes shone so bright with relief that Hermione was distracted from the image of the badger.

"You're back," he whispered. "You really are back."

"I haven't decided that yet," Hermione retorted haughtily, sitting up and wincing as tenderness flared all along her chest and her ribs and her belly and her breasts. She'd been slit open from collarbone to navel. She remembered it like a recurring nightmare. She shuddered, even as she managed a smile for Ginny and Connor, who were hovering next to her bed. "Maybe it's your imagination. Now, where did you get that?" She nodded at the badger symbol.

"I summoned Helga Hufflepuff." Zacharias's gaze ran over her, as though he thought she had somehow changed in the time between her falling to Rosier's curse and her opening her eyes. "She possessed my body and rode into battle."

Hermione spluttered. "That's dangerous!" she managed to say at last. Zacharias had told her about that particular ability of a Founder's Heir one day when they were having an argument and he was trying to impress her. It had impressed her mostly as a dangerous and ridiculous thing to do.

"And going into battle wasn't?" Zacharias held her hand again, this time hard enough to hurt, and spoke as if they were the only two people in the hospital wing.

"She could have drowned you," said Hermione, deciding to pretend that no one else was watching, too, "and then you would never have come back."

"I didn't care," said Zacharias, "not when I heard about you."

And that just wasn't fair. Hermione slapped him on the side of the head, and then nodded to the badger scar. "And that?"

"She left it for me as a sign of what she'd done." Zacharias shrugged. "Maybe it will impress someone. I think my memories are all intact. All the important ones, at least." He looked her straight in the eyes, showing what memories he regarded as important.

Hermione was almost grateful for the way Madam Pomfrey swooped down on them then, scattering Ginny and Connor and herding even Zacharias away while snapping about how she needed to run some diagnostic tests on Hermione. It made it easier to lie back and think about what the look in Zacharias's eyes meant, and especially the way he'd held her hand.

He'd said he loved her. For some reason, Hermione's usually analytical brain had accepted the words and taken them literally. She hadn't thought he'd meant he was in love with her.

She wondered if he was actually thinking about marriage. Purebloods were bound to think that way, she knew, even Light ones. Knowing Zacharias, he might be planning how best to piss off people he didn't like by emphasizing both her Muggle heritage and her knowledge of rituals and traditions.

We'll see about that, Hermione thought in determination as she swallowed the sleeping potion Madam Pomfrey wanted to give her. I want to choose at least some of the people we're going to piss off. And the wedding date, for that matter, if it actually does go that far. None of this pureblood nonsense about marrying almost the moment you're out of school, having children early, raising them, and then going on to live your life. What if I want to do something different? I'm not going to let him talk me out of it.

Owen let Michael hug Medusa. He was good at that. He was closer to their mother. Owen was—had been—closer to their father. He had been Charles's magical heir, after all.

And now he was the head of his family.

Owen looked at the far side of the kitchen while he thought about that, and listened to Medusa's soft, wordless sobs. What was best for the Rosier-Henlin family? Should he asked to be released from his oath to Harry, so that he could fight for their fortunes and their political futures, while Michael stayed to guard Harry?

But it didn't take long for Owen to conclude that he shouldn't. For one thing, Michael needed him more than their mother, or at least he would by the time they went back to school for their seventh year—at Hogwarts, Owen was sure. The fact that Medusa mourned freely now while his brother was in shock indicated that. They would have two months to spend with her. That was enough of a recovery period. Owen could look into his father's documents and set wheels spinning to draw Rosier-Henlin towards the top again in that time.

And then he would go back, because Rosier-Henlins kept their promises. And, more than that. Owen knew that he wasn't just Harry's ally, or someone who had decided to join the vates for political gain. He owed Harry his life and his sanity, and his brother's life and sanity, and he had sworn himself his companion.

Owen didn't think Harry really knew what that meant, yet. He had read histories of the ancient Lords and Ladies, but understood just enough to reject them, Owen thought. They used compulsion. They often started off with high intentions and then fell into bad ones. They manipulated other people shamelessly, using the attraction of their power and the many loopholes for strong magic built into traditional Ministry politics. They usually ended up treating even their sworn companions horribly. Owen could understand why Harry wanted to avoid that, and so would not Declare himself a Lord.

But there were exceptions. Calypso McGonagall, Light Lady though she had been, and her Sunburst Guard. Lord Windthorn Yaxley, the Dark Lord who had left none of his Sworn Brothers to die alone, and so lost none of them. The Dark Lady Genevieve, who had supposedly first brought Dementors into the world, and retained the love and loyalty of her companions through and despite that.

Their companions were protectors and protected, befriended and friends, loyal and loyally held to, when both companions and Lord were true. And Owen knew, because his father had told him, that there was no greater loyalty than that chosen with eyes open and heart laid down because it was the rational thing to do. Harry would move through the world alone if he could, never asking for things many would willingly give him. So he needed people who would both ask for him and teach him how to ask.

I will remain at his side, Owen thought, catching Michael's eye over Medusa's bowed head. We both will. Father would have wanted that.

And, for the first time since Owen had learned that Charles Rosier-Henlin was among those who had perished on the battlefield, he felt a kind of peace.

She had no choice, but that didn't mean she had to like it.

Indigena had Apparated home to Thornhall. She had screamed in agony there for many minutes, and then one of her house elves had managed to bring her some of the healing potions she kept in her laboratory. None of them had helped. Nor had any attempt to end the curses by sheer force of will, or to lessen the pain.

So Indigena had come to her largest greenhouse, and the cocoon of tendrils she'd prepared long ago, when she first thought that she might someday die with most of her breeding experiments unfinished.

She did not object to dying of old age. And she had even thought, when her Lord called in his debt of honor, that she might not object to dying in battle. The cocoon certainly hadn't been at the forefront of her thoughts.

But now she had found out she did object to it, so she crept, shaking, to her greenhouse, and she had wrapped the vines around her. She felt their roots slide through her skin, linking up with the leaves and flowers that already lay there. She felt a shiver of sap and strength run through her, and the pain of the Bloodless Curse began to ease. The others were continuing yet.

Indigena's eyelids drooped. To work their deepest healing on her, the vines had to put her to sleep. And she might sleep for months before she woke. The vines would do whatever was needed to save her life. When she did, she would be less human than ever.

Needs must, she thought sleepily, as the tendrils drew her down into the dirt and the first great wave of slumber rolled over her.

It was not as though she could not afford to sleep for a while. Her Lord would be in hiding after this serious defeat, and not require her help. The plan he'd assigned her special attention to was already in waiting; Indigena had done the required research and made the necessary arrangements through the Daily Prophet and a reporter who'd seemed delighted to get the information. She'd contacted the paper under a false name, of course, but everything had its price.

She closed her eyes and dropped into the dark sleep of winter, unaware of anything but the healing pulses of sap and the motion of the turning earth, and the very slowly growing need to rest and wake and rise.

Harry waited steadily by Draco's bed. He imagined that he should probably sleep at some point.

And he would. When he felt tired.

One night had passed. This was the morning after the battle. Harry knew that many people were eyeing him sideways, from Ginny—able to think of something now besides her possibly dying brother and possibly dying friend, because they were both awake—to some Slytherins who undoubtedly wondered what he intended to do about Blaise. But no one had actually dared approach him yet. Harry didn't know if it was respect or fear, probably springing from the rumors about what he'd done to the children at the lakeside, that kept them away. Either way, he blessed it, and he waited for Draco to wake up and look at him and listen.

He wasn't bored. He didn't feel hungry, either, and his eyes barely ever blinked. He realized, distantly, that he'd fallen into the kind of patient, motionless waiting Lily had taught him through long winter evenings at Godric's Hollow. Waiting was as much a part of battle as the fighting, she'd said; in fact, it was usually the part that more people failed at, moving too soon and letting an enemy spot them, or moving an entire army too soon and being taken in a prepared ambush by someone quicker and cleverer. Harry had learned to let the whole world run away from him and sit like a stone when necessary. The loudest thing in his ears was his breathing.

He almost regretted that his experience of war so far hadn't involved more scenarios like this. He'd had to scramble, to respond to attacks and ambushes, to rescue people in danger, to suddenly change his plans. There hadn't been many chances to bask in the stillness, to let his mind sink into the silence like a stone itself falling into a dark pool. He stared, and stared, and breathed, and breathed, and the only thing that could call him back was Draco's eyelids fluttering open, which eventually happened.

Harry reached out and stroked his hand, feeling almost unnaturally calm. Draco turned and stared at him, then murmured, "Harry? I—my head still hurts." He swallowed. "Are my parents here? Could I have some water?"

"Of course," Harry murmured, and reached over to fetch the goblet of water Madam Pomfrey had left on the bedside table for him. "Your parents aren't here, Draco. They came and watched over you for a while." Narcissa had tried to speak to him, Harry remembered dimly, but Lucius had touched her arm and shook his head when he saw the state Harry was in, and she'd refrained. "They're at home recovering right now. Your mother took a pain curse in the back that took some effort to heal. She's fine," he added as he saw the rising panic in Draco's face. "But your father was tired. They'll come back in—" he cast a quick Tempus charm as he helped Draco sit up to drink the water "—a few hours."

"Thank you," said Draco. He took a deep breath. Harry realized he was preparing himself for far worse news. "And what's wrong with me?"

Harry smiled gently at him. "Voldemort did tear some wounds in your mind, and mix some of his taint into you. Do you remember Snape closing the worst of the wounds?"

Draco shuddered, and his face turned so white Harry was momentarily worried that he might faint. "Some of it," he whispered.

Harry nodded, and gave him some more water. "He can't heal everything right away, which is why your head still hurts," he said. "We'll work on it in tandem, since we're both Legilimens, later. Snape's confident he can heal all the gaping wounds with my help, and then he'll give you potions that will help repair the rest. He doesn't think you lost memories, but you had some of your other pathways ripped up badly. So you might have physical symptoms for a while. Blurred vision, trouble walking, that kind of thing. Snape said it will all heal."

Draco relaxed a bit. "And the taint?" His voice had more fear in it this time.

"The Seers can help you with that," said Harry. "I spoke with Vera. She reassures me that there are people in the Sanctuary skilled at this. Even though it entered through your mind, it's really more of a soul-wound, like seeing too many of the horrors of war. So it's a good thing we're going to the Sanctuary."

Draco nodded. "When can we leave?" he demanded, sounding a bit more like his old self. "I don't want bits of Voldemort floating around in my soul for long." He made a face. "Did he ask before he infected me with his taint? No, he did not."

Harry felt a spontaneous smile break out on his face. He stooped and kissed Draco's forehead. "You'll leave in a few days, probably," he replied. "Maybe a week. When Snape and I have had time to heal your mental wounds, and he's started you on a regular course of the potions."

"Don't think I missed that, Harry." Draco curled insistent fingers into his jumper. "When you leave, you said. What about you?"

"I don't know." Harry met Draco's eyes, and held them, and let him see his frank uncertainty. "There are situations I need to lay to rest, first. Voldemort announced that I killed those children to the rest of the school. I'll need to talk with their parents. I have to make sure the werewolf situation doesn't explode while I'm gone. I'd like to find out where Acies went, or the dragon who was Acies, and what kind of trouble she's likely to cause. If we can track Indigena Yaxley, who Apparated away alive from the battle, I'd appreciate that, too."

Draco shook his head. "Tell them to sod off," he said. "You need to rest, Harry."

"One reason I defeated Voldemort the way I did was so that we could have a summer resoundingly free of him," said Harry firmly, and helped Draco lean back on the pillows. "I don't want to be called away from the Sanctuary a few days after I get there because of one of these problems. Just let me get them settled, Draco, and I'll follow you."

Draco sighed. "And what happens if they take longer to be settled than a few weeks?"

Harry shrugged noncommittally. "Then they do."

Draco tried to scowl at him, but he was already yawning. "Did anyone we know die?" he muttered sleepily.

Harry sighed. He couldn't keep silent on this, even though he knew it would shock Draco. He didn't want to lie to him, even by simple omission on account of his weariness. "Several people," he said. "Charles Rosier-Henlin." Draco did stare at him in shock, then. "Cho Chang. Catrina Flint-Digsby." He hesitated a moment, and then finished, "Pansy. I'm so sorry, Draco."

"That bitch."

Harry blinked. "What?"

"She knew," Draco spat. "She had to have known that her death was coming, she's a fucking necromancer, and she didn't tell us!" He made a sharp slashing gesture with one hand. "Fuck that, and fuck her!"

"They're not allowed to tell anyone about their visions of death, you know that," said Harry. People were staring, and he didn't want Draco to sound as if he were blaming Pansy for her own death, in case Hawthorn came in.

And then he realized Draco was crying, sharp sobs he was at pains to hide, and he was able to curve an arm around his shoulders and draw him against him, murmuring nonsensical, comforting words. Harry remembered he had known Pansy since they were both children together. Draco's grief would not be as keen as Hawthorn's, but it would still cut.

He murmured and almost sang until Draco went limp and soft in his arms, and Harry realized he had cried himself to sleep. Gently, he arranged his pillows, laid Draco on them, and spent a moment watching his face.

Then he went to find Snape. He was needed on battlefield cleanup—identifying the bodies, where that was possible, and arranging for disposal of the Death Eater bodies, compiling of lists of the dead, and informing the families.

No one approached him as he moved through the corridors of Hogwarts. Harry could see slitted eyes watching him, though, eyes bright with grief and rage and hatred.

It wouldn't be long.

Well. It was done.

Sirius stood in his dog form on the battlefield and looked around, slowly. It was getting to be dawn again. The second day he'd been back in the living world, and already he knew it wasn't the place for him, anymore. Everything was too hard, too substantial, and even the mud wounded his paws. And he'd been right about Connor. He'd moved on, accepted Sirius's death and gone on to live his life. There was nothing Sirius could do for Lily or James or Remus, now, and no way to make things up to Peter even if he'd been able to speak to him.

But Harry…

Sirius was waiting for one more glimpse of his godson. He faced the school and sat down, patiently, on his haunches, snapping at the ghost of a flea that thought it could hitch a ride on the dead Grim.

Harry came out of Hogwarts then, trotting over to join Snape, Trelawney, and Vector as they identified bodies. He did have a brief argument with Snape before he did, Sirius saw, an argument he almost lost. Good. Snape would probably force Harry to get some rest soon. It soothed Sirius to know that his godson was being taken care of by at least one person, even if that person had to be Snivellus.

We certainly didn't do right by him, eh, James?

But Sirius had been dead for more than two years now, and really, the sting of that wound had modulated. What was important was that Harry was living now, and going on in the world he still belonged to, and to which Sirius didn't, any more.

He satisfied himself by trotting close to Harry and watching his eyes. They were too shuttered, too grim, too old, he thought. Harry was making himself into someone who would heal and comfort and soothe other people, and face his crimes—as he saw them—but Sirius wondered if he would take time for himself.

He better, Sirius thought. Or Peter and Malfoy and Snape will yell at him until he does.

He couldn't. His part was done, now, and he was going away.

He licked Harry's hand with a ghostly tongue. He was pleased beyond words to see Harry start and glance down at his hand. He barked, and Harry lifted his head, eyes disbelieving, mouth forming the word Sirius?

Sirius barked one more time, and then the world around him faded and the darkness was back. He looked up, and there above him were the holes into somewhere else, like stars the color of rotting muscle.

The voices called from them. From one came a faint smell of starlight.

Sirius rose, and went home.