Just to make it clear, this is not the last chapter. There will be two more, set at the Sanctuary.
Chapter Ninety-Eight: G.U.T.O.E.K.O.MHarry sighed and sat back against the wall as he picked at his breakfast. The letter from the MacFusty clan had finally arrived, and they'd reassured Harry that they'd seen Acies settling on a barren rock in the middle of the Hebrides, probably drawn by the presence of their Hebridean Black dragons, and going to sleep. It was the starvation sleep, as one of the handlers called it; she would be ravenous when she woke, but it was likely she wouldn't wake for a good two or three months. The MacFusty wizards had been Dragon-Keepers for so long that they retained some records that were—or purported to be—about the British Red-Gold. Harry trusted them to keep an eye on her, at least.
He glanced at his breakfast and picked at it again. It still looked as unappetizing as it ever had. He supposed he could have waited until someone else woke up so that they could provide the conversation to season the food, at least, but he hadn't wanted to. He hadn't slept last night, so it had seemed easy to go to the kitchens, ask for the necessary components to make a sandwich from the house elves, and then retreat up to the top of the North Tower.
Waiting for the MacFusty letter had been only part of the reason for his insomnia. There was also the anxiety about leaving the wizarding world for so long, now that he was on the verge of doing so.
Can I justify abandoning everything I have to do?
Harry picked up the Daily Prophet lying beside him and gave it a good shake out. The wind promptly tried to tear it from his hand. Harry snorted and leaned his back on the stones of the Tower, turning so that he could read the headlines in the fall of early sunlight. A few days past Midsummer, the days had started to shorten, but not by much as yet.
YOU-KNOW-WHO WOUNDEDThe headline led off a front-page story by Rita Skeeter. Harry was happy she had got to write it, at least. He skimmed through the story, noting with a faint smile that Skeeter declared as true and proven things that most other reporters hedged around with words like "alleged." Either she was just that confident, or Scrimgeour had contacted her as the chosen message-bearer. Or perhaps she had been a beetle inside his ward yesterday afternoon, but Harry doubted that. Scrimgeour's wards had been tight enough to identify an Animagus.
Five hundred Death Eaters dead…You-Know-Who wounded and unable to command the field…Boy-Who-Lived to undergo training during this summer…
Harry wondered for a moment if he should contact the Minister and make sure he'd told Skeeter these details, then shook his head. He'll see the article, and if he thinks she needs a talking-to, he'll be the one to give it.
He folded the paper, half with his hand and half with magic, and set it aside. As he did, he saw a shiver of movement from the Tower stairs. His hand turned over automatically, gathering magic.
"I am not welcome to sit with you?" Every tone in Argutus's voice was wounded.
Harry laughed in spite of his mood and held his left wrist out. Argutus flowed over and coiled his neck around it at once, flicking his tongue out in a contented motion. "Snakes don't sit," Harry murmured, leaning back so that the Omen snake's scales could feel the sunlight.
"Excuses," said Argutus, even though the Parseltongue word he'd used to mean "sit" translated more like "coil in a relaxed posture." "I think that you have spent too much time alone today."
Harry opened his eyes with a frown at that. "It's only six-something, Argutus." He could have cast a Tempus charm, but he was enjoying the drape of the snake around him too much to make an effort to move. Argutus had grown large enough and long enough to lap over his shoulders and arms and curl the tip of his tail around his waist. "I haven't been alone that long. Besides, no one else is awake."
"You were awake all night."
Harry remembered, then, that Argutus had taken to the convention of days starting at midnight with extraordinary enthusiasm. He thought humans were very clever to have figured out a point in the dark when a new day could begin. Harry had found him a few times during the siege studying clocks.
"That's true," he said, and let himself yawn widely, since his right arm was pinned by Argutus's shifting coils anyway. A year old now, Argutus was close to full-grown if not already there. "But I'll rest tonight, Argutus. We're going to the Sanctuary. That means that we can rest as long as we like for two months, and no one will be nagging us to get out of bed." It was what he imagined the Sanctuary to be like, at any rate. Since all he really knew of the place came from Vera's vague descriptions and his one venture into Peter's mind to remove the phoenix web, Harry didn't know if the Sanctuary was all white beds, or if that was only one room of it, or even only a representation, without any anchor in reality.
"You need to rest some more. And you need to not be alone." Argutus sounded as bright and determined about the matter as Millicent had—
Or, no, the comparison was not quite right. Reluctantly, Harry let himself turn to thoughts he'd been avoiding. Argutus sounded a lot like Pansy, when one got right down to it.
"I'll have the time to rest when we get to the Sanctuary," he argued, standing. "And I don't think the Seers will leave me alone."
"Neither will I." Argutus adjusted himself so that his head still rested on Harry's left wrist, but his tail was wrapped more securely over his waist, and the majority of his body covered Harry's chest and shoulders like some mirrored shirt. Harry could feel his delicate strength, which would suddenly become massive strength if Argutus should ever decide he wanted to crush something. "I have a surprise for you."
He said nothing more than that, even as Harry made his way down the stairs towards the hospital wing, and finally he had to ask, "What is it?"
"If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise."
Harry was startled into a laugh before he thought about it. That was a distinctly English phrase, which he had translated once for Argutus. He hadn't thought the Omen snake would remember it.
"Why are you surprised now?" Argutus asked, his tongue flickering out. "Now is not the time for surprises. Now is the time for farewells."
"You don't know how accurate you are," Harry whispered, a heavy weight settling in his chest again. Not only did he not want to say farewell to some of the people he would bid it to—most notably his brother—but he couldn't shake the feeling that some of them would be gone when he returned to the wider wizarding world. Without him here to protect them, could they survive?
"Now is not the time for sorrow, either," said Argutus sternly, as they passed through Trelawney's empty classroom and towards the ladder to climb down. "Now is the time for glad smiles and hugs and perhaps sausages, if there happen to be any lying around."
It comforted Harry sometimes to remember that, clever or not, Argutus was still a snake, and had his priorities absolutely clear.
"Would it have made a difference if I offered to come to the Sanctuary with you?"
Harry pulled back from hugging Connor and stared at him. "What?"
Connor's eyes were quiet and thoughtful as he watched Harry—a look that Harry had come to dread, though it was an improvement over the snotty blankness he had used in third year. It usually meant he was about to say something perceptive and discomforting. He had looked like that the whole time he spoke at their parents' trial, in Harry's opinion.
"If I'd said I'd go to the Sanctuary with you," Connor clarified. "Would you still have been as reluctant to go as you are now, Harry?"
"I'm not reluctant to go—"
"Harry, your hand is twitching." Connor snorted. "That means you're lying."
Harry looked down at his hand. "I've never noticed that," he muttered. "And neither have Draco or Snape."
"They're more used to watching your face." Connor shrugged. "Anyway. I want an answer. If I'd offered to go to the Sanctuary, or said that I wanted to heal there and asked you to come with me, would you still look as if it's tearing the heart out of your chest to go?"
"It would be tearing the heart out of my chest to stay behind," Harry tried to counter, "given that Draco is going, and—" I'm not going to say anything like "he's my heart." That's too ridiculous. "—And he's the only one who can make me see sense when I'm being stubborn. Even Snape doesn't help as much as he does."
Connor nodded. "But you still don't want to go. And I'm asking you if it would have made a difference if I were the one asking you to go, and not Draco."
"What are you, a terrier?" Harry muttered.
"Growl, growl," Connor said.
Harry sighed and flexed his fingers. But, in the end, he owed his brother the truth.
"I would still be reluctant," he said. "I would probably be more reluctant, because I trust you to take care of yourself now, unless it's something like healing after a battle." He met Connor's eyes directly. "That's why I'm glad that Peter's going with you to Lux Aeterna this summer, and not just so that you can learn to like each other better. I'm worried about that sword."
"It's Light," Connor said, his face changing.
"And what have we learned about Light objects and wizards who use them without questioning them?" Harry asked in his best professor's tone.
Connor shook his head. "So you've got over your dependence on me, then? You wouldn't want to go to the Sanctuary automatically, the moment I asked you to, just because you wouldn't want me to heal without your overseeing every step?"
That had been why Harry was reluctant to start this subject in the first place. He still loved Connor, he always would, but Draco had taken a place of importance to him that no one else had. Harry had known that since he'd frozen while Voldemort's dragon held Draco and threatened him. He might have been able to think if it was anyone else. He had been able to think of a plan while Snape was Voldemort's prisoner, after all. But hold Draco hostage, and his mind turned to slow-grinding ice.
"Yes, that's true," said Harry at last. "I'm sorry, Connor—"
He lost his breath, and the chance to speak the rest of that sentence, when Connor's arms wrapped around him and he squeezed. "Don't be," Connor whispered in his ear. "I'm glad, Harry. I'm so glad. I don't think I could bear it, now that I know the truth about our childhood, if something in you had been broken and would never recover. I love you, and I want you to be able to have a life apart from me."
Harry smiled faintly and hugged back, when he could get his arms into a proper position. "That's not a problem any longer. But I do hope that you'll always be a part of my life, Connor."
Connor laughed and stepped away from him. "I think I will, now that I've learned to tolerate both a Malfoy being your joined partner and a greasy git being your guardian."
"Are you quite done, Harry?"
Harry blinked when he realized Snape was standing in the doorway of the Gryffindor common room, the Fat Lady's muffled protests coming from one side of him. He had a rigid look on his face, as if he were struggling to keep from taking points from Gryffindor even though it was the summer and there were no points to take.
Connor refused to look intimidated. "Professor Snape, sir," he said, with a cheerful little nod. "Come here to escort Harry to his next farewell, just in case slime monsters jump out from around a corner and eat him on the way?"
"Slime monsters," said Snape, in a tone that combined viciousness and boredom both at once. "That is the kind of creature a limited Gryffindor brain would conceive."
Connor said nothing for a moment. Harry looked back anxiously at him, wondering if he would have to soothe genuine anger. He didn't understand it when he realized that Connor's face was stretched in a wide and almost Slytherin smile.
"Why, Professor Snape," said Connor innocently, "I thought you might have learned some admiration for Gryffindor brains. You've trained me in dueling for almost eight months, after all." Snape snorted as if that meant nothing. And it probably didn't, Harry knew. Snape tended to judge all his students by the most competent of them, which meant that unless Connor surpassed Harry in dueling, Snape would probably never respect him. "And then there was my plan to compel the Death Eaters on the flying horses to smash the sirens' tank," Connor continued innocently. "I thought you had some admiration for that."
Absolute silence from Snape's end of the room this time. Harry stared at him, at the surprise written clearly, if momentarily, on his face, and then had to fight the helpless urge to snicker.
He didn't know. Oh, he really didn't know.
Snape recovered in a moment. "That was Harry's doing, and not yours," he said coolly. "If you are quite finished insulting my intelligence, Mr. Potter, then—"
"Why should I be? You've never finished insulting mine. And it's quite strange, at least to me, that you think I would stand here in front of Harry and lie about that. My brother's not the person he once was, Professor. He would certainly protest if I tried to take credit for something he'd done. Instead, as I remember, he was rather concerned about Voldemort holding his boyfriend at the time." Connor moved forward a step, eyes wide and grin now the supposedly helpless and naïve Gryffindor one. "You should worry about insulting him, Professor, by suggesting that he'd let me take credit for that, and that he was less than perfectly concerned about Draco."
Snape said nothing. After scrutinizing him for a moment, Harry realized it was because he had nothing to say.
He turned and gasped Connor's wrist. Connor cocked an eyebrow without taking his gaze from Snape. "Shhh, Harry," he whispered. "I want to enjoy the moment. It's not like it'll happen often."
"I congratulate you on achieving something I've never done for this long," said Harry formally. "In the contest to make Professor Snape act as if the Kneazle had his tongue, Gryffindor House wins."
Connor laughed, and that seemed, at last, to snap Snape's stillness. He looked at Harry, and one glance was enough. Harry gave Connor one more quick hug, and then fell into line behind Snape. He supposed he couldn't blame Snape entirely for wanting to escort him. His lack of sleep last night and his solitary trip to the Tower this morning had not inspired confidence that he might actually go to the Sanctuary, at least in Snape and Draco, oath aside.
Connor waved to him as they departed through the portrait. Harry waved back, and let his last vestiges of worry for his brother melt away. Connor looked entirely comfortable, standing there amidst the red and gold, and if shadows still haunted his eyes from the battle, they would fade.
He and Snape moved halfway down the corridor before Snape said, in an experimental voice, "I suppose you will not tell me this was a joke."
"I know better than to prank you, sir," said Harry.
Snape glared at him for a moment with the reference to the Marauders, but there was no heat behind it. "But he really did not—"
"Yes. He did."
"He could not have—"
"Yes. He did."
Snape fell silent again. Harry could feel him thinking, though, and so he supposed, regretfully, that he couldn't enter that particular silence in the contest to make it seem as if the Kneazle had Snape's tongue. Connor was still the winner there.
"I'll be leaving for two months," Harry repeated as patiently as he could, and held out his hand to Thomas Rhangnara again. "That's why I won't be here to help you research." He studied the man for a moment. His dark hair was crowded with cobwebs, and now and then he swiped at the dust on his cheek as if he knew it was there but didn't know what to do with it. "Have you been home to visit your family at all?" Harry added, mind suddenly filled with horrible visions of Pricilla Burke and her children never knowing if Thomas had survived the battle because he was lost permanently in the Hogwarts library.
For the first time, he coaxed an expression other than wide-eyed dreaminess out of Thomas. "Of course I have," he said indignantly. "And I have been able to go back and forth. The Headmistress has said that I may investigate the library as I like. She'll leave it open for me during the summer."
Harry shook his head in amusement. "And do you remember what I just told you about my going away for the summer?" he prompted gently. Behind him, Snape shifted, but kept his mouth shut. Harry had been reluctantly impressed with his self-control over the past few days, from the confrontation with Belville until now.
"I wish you could stay," said Thomas. "You can provide us with information about centaur magic that we still don't have."
"The centaurs in the Forbidden Forest are friendlier to wizards, now that their web is broken," Harry offered. "You may be able to learn something from them, as long as you ask carefully."
Thomas came close to looking deliriously happy. "Thank you," he said. "I will ask them. And I will be polite about it."
He probably would, Harry thought. Most people, even centaurs who weren't used to the norms of wizarding society, would know that Thomas couldn't possibly mean any offense. He simply wasn't used to asking for things the way other people were.
"And I know that you have to go," Thomas continued, "but I wish you could be here to see gootokom released."
Harry frowned. "What?"
"Gootokom." Thomas caught his expression of incomprehension then. "Sorry," he said. "It's an acronym, one that we've created a pronunciation for when we're talking about it."
"Who's we?" Harry asked, and heard Snape shift again.
"Research wizards from every country with a wizarding community," said Thomas promptly, his face brightening. "We're calling what we've discovered G.U.T.O.E.K.O.M The Grand Unified Theory of Every Kind of Magic."
Harry blinked a few times. Then he said, "But if you don't understand centaur magic, then how can it be every kind of magic?"
"That's one thing we've wondered about," Thomas admitted, a tiny frown wrinkling his brows. "The magical creatures we've managed to study so far fit within the parameters, but we know precious little about so many others. And there are all the dead and extinct species that might possess magic like nothing we've ever seen and which our theory can't account for. So some members of our group think that we should change the name to the Grand Unified Theory of Every Kind of Wizarding Magic. Of course, other members of our group argue that if some magical creatures' powers behave in accordance with our theory, than every one will, and so we can get away with the name. I don't tend to think like that, myself. One example is unicorn knots. They—"
"Rhangnara," Snape said then, his voice on the edge of a growl. Harry could understand the next words, even if Thomas didn't. Do not get Harry so fascinated that he will not want to go to the Sanctuary.
Thomas blinked, and then nodded. "The theory is ready to be published in a preliminary form," he told Harry, voice full of excitement. "I've been working on this for years, but that's nothing compared to some of the decades that people have spent on this. You ought to know what some of the wizards in France with connections to the Veela Council have gone through; they've got information on veela magic for us, but only with years of wheedling."
"So you'll publish it," said Harry, happy to hear about something that didn't concern war and death and politics, for once. "And you think that I should be here to read it?"
Thomas looked straight at him, and Harry saw the haze in his eyes clear. He was reminded, then, that just because Thomas often went on dreamy flights and tangents of fancy didn't mean he couldn't think.
"I do wish you could be here, yes," said Thomas. "This theory is going to strike a blow at the very notion of pureblooded wizards, Harry."
Harry thought for a moment, and then blinked as he realized what the likely reason was. "Magic doesn't follow bloodline," he whispered.
Thomas shook his head. "It doesn't, not all the time. It interacts with bloodline, but it's nothing as simple as pureblooded wizards having magical children and the magic declining if those children marry Muggles or Squibs or Muggleborns—which was what most of the purebloods all over Europe believed for centuries. The occurrence of Squibs in their own family lines should have taught them better," Thomas added in a mutter. "It's wilder and more random than that. Pureblood is a cultural distinction. It has none of the physical merit that most of the pureblood wizards try to make it have."
Harry supposed he should find this appalling. The chaos that such a theory would cause once it got out and about was hard to contemplate. Harry knew that, while many European wizarding communities did not have purebloods completely dominating them, they had a sizable proportion of them, and fights over "blood purity" were sometimes more vicious than in Britain. Thomas and his group of research wizards were innocently proposing to overturn a good many of the beliefs that anchored politics and behavior in the British wizarding world and elsewhere.
And they anchor prejudice and pride, too.
Harry couldn't help himself; the people who detested him for it could blame it on his halfblood status, if they liked. He gave a smile of vicious delight at the thought of the people who had humiliated him at Draco's festival forced to eat their own words, or turning red with rage at the thought of Muggleborns being children of magic even as they were.
Then he thought of what Lucius's face would look like when he found out. Oh, he wished that someone he trusted could be there to snap a photograph of it.
"In fact," Thomas was babbling on, "one interesting thing we've found is that halfblood wizards are sometimes among the most powerful." He gave a nod to Harry, and then to Snape. "Not always, of course; there are lots of other factors that could interfere and make them less powerful. And those factors vary depending on the type of magic they receive, and the magic in the vicinity, and whether one parent is Muggleborn or Muggle or Squib or Muggleborn with Squib ancestors or…all kinds of things. But the strident effort to keep from interbreeding with Muggleborn wizards and witches is ridiculous." Thomas scowled. "I love my culture as much as the next wizard, and if I'd found evidence that proclaimed the bigots were right after all, I'd have to accept that. But I didn't, and they shouldn't try to argue against what we keep finding—not just in Britain, but all over the world. They just shouldn't argue against it. Otherwise, they'll be stupid." That was, obviously, his ultimate interest.
Harry had to ask one question, despite Snape's impatient shuffle from foot to foot. "And what is it that makes Muggleborns appear and some Squibs appear in pureblood lines? Can you summarize it for me quickly?"
"At core, at bottom?" Thomas smiled. "Well, that's something we still disagree a bit about, because there are a few of us arguing that the choice is completely random. I don't think it is. I think, and most of them are coming to agree with me, that it comes from free will. The magic chooses who it wants to wield it. Interacting with bloodline and place and a dozen other factors, of course. Or maybe more than a dozen. Petrovitch did identify thirteen, but I don't know if I can take—"
"That is enough," said Snape firmly. "Harry, Vera wants us to leave at noon. And you must still say farewell to others."
"That's true," said Harry, reluctantly. He nodded to Thomas. "I'm sorry. You can send me an owl detailing the matter if you like, though it will take a few weeks to reach me with all the shadows around the Seers' Sanctuary."
"I would like that," said Thomas. His face glowed gently. "This is one reason I've been so interested in your work, vates. If I'm right, then free will is the most basic component of magic, and all magic is a great deal more sentient than we ever gave it credit for. And your work as vates respects that more than a Lord who merely orders his magic, and the minds and free wills of others, around."
Harry caught his breath for a moment. Some of the gloom that had gripped him as he worried about what would happen to the wizarding world while he was gone dissipated. "Thank you, Thomas," he whispered.
"No problem at all." Thomas gazed at him with a fond smile. "I do rather like you, Harry, and your approach to magic has won my admiration."
Harry smiled at him and took his leave, with Snape's hand on his shoulder. His mind was buzzing with new ideas, though, especially given that he'd spent part of the three days before he'd promised Draco he would go to the Sanctuary draining Black artifacts of magic and giving the power to the newly-made Squibs. He had to chuckle.
"What?" Snape demanded. Harry wondered if he'd been rattled at the thought of pureblood prejudices being wrong, or something else.
"I was thinking of what would happen if I absorbed magic from something else, or an enemy, like Belville's magic," said Harry, and waited.
"And?" Snape insisted, after a moment.
"And then gave the magic to a Muggle," Harry finished innocently. "Many people get nervous because I can take their magic away, but what about making wizards? I can see why it hasn't been done often, if at all. First you'd need to be an absorbere, and then you'd need to sacrifice the magic, which most people are reluctant to do. Dumbledore certainly never envisioned me doing it, and Voldemort never would. But what would happen if I did?"
"Save the revolution for after the Sanctuary," Snape said gruffly. "Besides, the magic would likely drain away from them at once."
"Perhaps I could create a magical core—"
"Rhangnara will make you as awful as himself, before he is done," Snape muttered, and dragged Harry firmly down the hallway, while Harry busied himself in picturing Lucius's response to that.
Hawthorn had never felt so ashamed in her life as she watched Harry hold both her hands in his and stare at her. "And you'll be all right this summer?" he asked. "You won't be alone?"
"Delilah and Claudia will stay with me," said Hawthorn softly. "Do not worry about it, Harry. I leaned on you too much in the first days after the siege, and for that, I am ashamed. I can only plead the blindness and madness of grief."
Harry blinked at her. "I don't know what you mean," he said. "I was offering solace and comfort to anyone who needed it, and you needed it more than most, Mrs. Parkinson. Your husband your daughter, both gone." He drew in a breath like fishhooks. "You had a right to mourn."
Hawthorn tried to think of what she could say to get her meaning across and not have Harry reject it at once. Then she shook her head and pulled him into an embrace. Harry went along with it, though he lay stiffly against her and took a long moment to hug her back. He was still startled whenever someone did this to him, Hawthorn thought, still a bit wary.
"I will mourn," she said softly. "But I won't mourn them forever, Harry. It's why I wouldn't have made a good necromancer. I'm not ready to sacrifice life, to give up closeness to the living world as both Pansy and Dragonsbane did. I want to retreat for a short time, even as you will, and then I am ready to embrace it." She thought of the pain in her Dark Mark she had feared was infected, which had stopped the morning of the battle. She now thought it must have been the moment when Harry wounded Voldemort so badly that he was forced to go into hiding, though she had been involved in her grief and hadn't noticed. A quick check with Snape, Lucius, Adalrico, and Pettigrew had revealed that their pain had stopped as well. Whatever the Dark Lord had been trying to do with their Marks, it hadn't worked.
"That is brave of you," said Harry.
"What you did was braver." Hawthorn crouched down in front of him so that he wouldn't have to strain his neck to look up at her. "To continue the struggle even though you had people asking things of you they would have no right to ask, grief or not. Harry, one thing I hope you learn in the Sanctuary is how to know when people are taking advantage of you, and how to refuse them."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Everybody says that," he said.
"Everybody has a point." Hawthorn kissed his forehead, on the scar, and resisted the temptation to lick it. Such gestures were for the pack. "I will see you, well and healed, in the autumn."
Harry nodded, and stepped away from her, turning to look at Snape. Snape nodded, and guided him towards the hospital wing.
Hawthorn stood straight, watching them go, and then went towards her own room. She would stay in Hogwarts a few more days. She would take Wolfsbane on the nights of the full moon and run in the Forbidden Forest with Delilah and Claudia beside her. Then she could begin to think about healing.
On my own, this time, she thought as she shut her door behind her. I was tottering, but that was no reason to lean on the first shoulder that was offered, without thinking to look and see if that person needed support of his own.
Learn, Harry. Heal. Return to us stronger. That is for our sake, and the sake of the alliance, and your own. I want to see what you will become when you are healed.
Harry wrapped his arms around himself and tried to control his shivering. He thought he had everything he needed. His trunk was beside him, full of his school supplies, his clothes, his alliance gifts, and his Christmas gifts, as well as some books from the Black library, shrunken to fit. Argutus coiled lazily around his body, and the Many snake was wrapped around his neck. He'd said farewell to everyone he could think of, including Connor twice, when he'd shown up to the hospital wing and hugged Harry as if he'd sworn an oath of his own to do it for at least twenty minutes.
He was not cold. With the sun beaming down on the North Tower, where they waited for the carriage that would convey them to the Sanctuary, Harry could not be cold. And Argutus would have complained if he were.
He was shivering because he did not know if he could do this, after all, because the thought of going into a place like the Sanctuary and willingly letting other people see him hurt like mad.
"Harry."
Harry turned around. Draco, who'd said a private goodbye to Lucius and Narcissa this morning, was there, floating on an enchanted hospital bed. He watched Harry with sharp eyes, and Harry forced himself to incline his head.
"It's all right," Draco said softly. "I wouldn't ever take you to a place that would hurt you more than it would heal you, and I wouldn't ask you to go to a place like that for my sake, either. I truly believe it will be all right."
Harry walked over to him and leaned on his shoulder, letting Draco put an arm around his neck and hold him close. At least Draco would be there, he thought. He would have someone he trusted and loved, and someone who needed him, so that Harry could tend to Draco if his own healing became too much.
"Harry."
He turned. Vera had mounted the stairs, with a shrunken trunk of her own in her hand, and behind her was Snape, with his trunk and Draco's. Snape's scowl was as present as ever.
"It will be all right," Vera said, echoing Draco's words, which Harry supposed she must have heard. "We understand that the moments before healing can be just as terrifying as the moments of enduring the abuse. We know that. But you need this so badly."
Harry inclined his head in a shallow nod, and worked to keep himself from hyperventilating. He concentrated on Vera as she stood with her head back, studying the sky for a moment, and then smiled and pointed.
Harry turned, and saw a small white shape moving rapidly through the air towards them. Harry strained to see some sign of winged horses pulling it and couldn't manage. The carriage was white, carved of some material that radiated rainbow colors like mother-of-pearl, and looked just large enough and round enough for four to travel comfortably. It had no wheels. When Harry truly squinted, he thought he could see some sign of a golden rope running across the sky, on which it slid, but the rope faded away without trace when he looked for it again.
The carriage stopped with a gentle bump against the Tower, and Vera nodded to them as she opened the door. "Draco should enter first," she said, "to find a safe resting place and insure he is not jostled."
Snape floated Draco inside, and then entered himself. That left Vera, holding the door, and Harry, standing at a distance from the carriage and feeling the greatest surge of reluctance he'd felt since he first dreamed the plan to go to the Sanctuary up.
"Harry," said Vera again, and stretched out her free hand. "They will be well without you for two months."
"You can't know that," Harry said. "You can't See the future."
"No, we can't." Vera's face was infuriatingly serene. "But it is time, Harry, that they learned not to depend solely on you. The Lady Wolf knows it. Your Malfoy's parents know it. Your Headmistress knows it. The others will learn. You are vates, and Boy-Who-Lived, and many other things, but you cannot be the answer to every problem, the bandage to every wound." Her voice softened, as if she understood how much Harry hated hearing the words spoken aloud. "Especially when you have wounds of your own."
Harry closed his eyes. He would hurt if he stayed in the wizarding world, but at least he would feel that he was doing his duty.
Blood and bone and breath. You swore.
Sometimes there is a higher duty.
Slowly, he stepped forward, climbed into the carriage, and took the seat beside Draco, not looking Vera in the eye. He felt Draco's arm stretch around his shoulders again and tug him tightly against him. Argutus gave a crooning hiss.
"I can show you your surprise soon," he said. "Do not be sad. Now is not a time for sorrow."
Harry felt the carriage bobble as Vera climbed in, and then the door shut. They rose and skimmed, faster and more smoothly than would have been possible on a broomstick, towards a direction Harry thought was the east and south.
He kept his head buried in Draco's shoulder, and did not look up, and tried to ignore his terror.