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Chapter Twelve: Harry's Festival
This time, Harry didn't get much more warning than a soft, gleeful laugh.
The talons that raked down his left shoulder sent him to his knees, gasping in pain. He turned about, his balance jolting as his weight transferred from his hand to his stump, and stared. The bird was hovering overhead, its clawed wings clapping steadily and its talons opening and closing.
You should know what I am now, it told him. And you should not have forgotten, you should never have forgotten, no. You are involved in too many battles, but one lies behind them all, and that is the battle that must be faced at the end, the true war, with your true enemy.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Harry growled, forcing the words out past the pain in his shoulder. The cold that crept across the cuts hurt, but in a few moments, they had gone numb. Harry glanced down, and restrained a grimace. At least the cuts weren't nearly as deep or severe as the ones the bird had inflicted on him in the Sanctuary.
Look in the mirror, the bird said, and laughed, and then lifted straight up towards the ceiling of the loo. It vanished through a spray of warm water, confirming Harry's idea further that it was a creature of pure magic. If it wasn't, then the warm water should have done some damage to a creature of ice.
Harry spent some time staring after it, then shook his head and stood, walking over to the mirror. Since he was in the loo, he should check.
The ice was already melting from the cut, defeated by the warm atmosphere of the shower. Harry stared, and for a long moment could make out no pattern. Then he twisted to the right, and realized that the wound could be seen as a lightning bolt made up of three separate lines.
And has every wound it's given me been a lightning bolt?
Mind preoccupied, he tried a healing spell, but of course it didn't work. None of his healing spells ever seemed to work on the wounds that the bird gave him, unless it was a minor effect like warming them or stopping the blood flow. He wrapped his towel around his waist and stepped back out into the bedroom.
Draco was awake, and watching him.
Harry told himself that it was ridiculous that his focus shifted almost at once from the cut on his shoulder to the fact that he was nearly naked in front of his boyfriend. Draco would probably like him to think that way, but he had the wound to deal with, and then the festival, which was today, required arrangements and preparation.
You're afraid, a voice that sounded far too much like Sylarana's told him.
Harry told it to shut up, and shifted so that his shoulder was to Draco. "That damn bird showed up in the loo again," he said.
Draco jumped up and came to his side at once, exclaiming softly as he tried to heal the cuts. He said nothing about their shape. Harry thought one had to be in the right position for that, and he was already thinking there was nothing to it. He knew some of his other cuts hadn't been shaped like lightning bolts, and why should he believe anything the bird said?
"And you don't know what this bird is, Harry, or why it's doing this?" Draco's fingers pressed into the skin under the wound, making Harry hiss. Draco murmured an apology, and tried Integro. This time, Harry could feel the skin closing over the cuts, and relaxed with a little sigh. They really were small compared to the massive amount of shredded skin and blood and pain the bird had seen fit to inflict on him last.
"No. My best guess is that there's a wizard imprisoned somewhere who's really angry at me, and his magic's grown a personality of its own and come to mark me. It would fit with the 'he' the bird talks about, and the fact that its personality reminds me of my magic's after it first escaped the phoenix web." Harry squinted at his shoulder. The last traces of pain, from both ice and blood, were leaving now. He nodded his approval. "But without knowing who the wizard is, and with the bird appearing so suddenly and without warning, I don't know how to stop this."
"I don't like that Vera had no idea what it was, either," Draco muttered, running his hands down Harry's sides until they stopped at the towel, toying with it. Harry felt gooseflesh break out along his spine, but steadfastly ignored the touch, shrugging instead.
"Neither do I. But that's why I don't think I'll find the answer anytime soon. If the Seers in a magic-filled Sanctuary don't know what it is, then why should anyone else? At least I know that bird isn't the product of something broken or rotten in my own soul. I think they would have been able to See that."
Draco nodded. His mind appeared to be on something else now that the cuts were healed, and Harry suspected he knew what that something was. Determinedly concealing a shiver, he turned towards his trunk.
"Harry?"
He glanced over his shoulder. "What?"
"Why are you so nervous with my seeing you nearly naked?" Draco's face was calm, as though he were asking about an obscure point of plant lore, but the look in his eyes was anything but casual. Harry suppressed another shiver.
"Because I feel frightened," Harry said, deciding to be blunt. Draco blinked, his face losing some of the calm mask, and Harry nodded, never taking his eyes away. "It's not just the fact that I'm not clothed and you are—"
"In pyjamas," Draco murmured.
"That doesn't help," Harry said. "It also isn't just the fact that I know you wouldn't hurt me. It…" He shook his head, wondering if he knew how to say it. Or, rather, if he could bear to tell Draco the details. He was so tired of everything leading back to his training, and the thought of talking about what he believed to be true of bedding made his cheeks heat up.
I do so much better when I know that I'm giving my time or attention to someone else, and don't demand anything in return, he thought miserably.
"Harry," Draco said. "We have to speak about this sooner or later. You're not nearly as uncomfortable with touching me as you used to be. Is this something new? Or an outgrowth of the same thing?"
"An outgrowth of the same thing." Harry decided that he had to explain, or he would probably never be able to get dressed. "Draco, I—I never expected to have a lover. At all. My mother told me that lovers are supposed to be equals and partners, and the most important people in the world to each other. It wouldn't be fair for me to take a lover or spouse when the most important person in my life was Connor, because it wouldn't be fair to them. They would be expecting, and deserving, my full attention, and it would go elsewhere. And I suppose I still believe that, at some level. Not about Connor, but about the war effort and the revolution effort." He folded his arms and leaned against his trunk, trying to ignore the fact that Draco was now looking at his chest as if he were—as if he were someone special and physically beautiful. Harry had to ignore this, or not only would he never get dressed, his explanation would never go anywhere. "I'm going to be vates. I will be all my life. I don't see how I can ever stop, and the task is going to take longer than my lifetime."
He met and held Draco's eyes. "And—I suppose I'm still worrying that if we become lovers, I won't be able to give you all the attention and time you deserve. I love you, Draco. You don't deserve scraps of attention, spare moments thrown your way whenever I'm not doing anything else."
Draco listened in silence. Harry thought he was thinking about it deeply, until he said, "Are you done?"
Harry blinked. "Yes."
"Good." Draco moved a step forward, his expression calm and determined. "Harry. Listen to me. You never need to worry about this again. Your mother painted a picture of a lover who would never complain, I think, someone who would just leave without a word the moment he thought your attention was going elsewhere." He nodded, as though in response to Harry's expression. "You're understanding now. I'm not like that. I'm not made for silent stoicism. I told you, I'm going to push. I'll let you know, believe me, if I think that you're neglecting me."
"But—"
"Yes?"
"You deserve someone who can pay attention just to you." Harry ran his hand through his hair. "I don't understand why you don't want that."
"Because I'm not in competition with another person," Draco said. "I'm confident that I'm more important to you than anyone else, Harry. As for being in competition with ideas—you're not in love with them. And frankly, someone who only pays attention to me each and every moment of the day, and to nothing else, strikes me as madly obsessive, not as in love."
Harry cocked his head. "So I'm worrying for nothing?"
"Yes." Draco nodded at the cuts on his shoulder. "Just as I think I could have reassured you earlier if you had actually told me what the bird was and what it was doing. You still have a problem with keeping secrets, Harry. But this isn't a problem." His voice and face were both unearthly and calm. "Bedding each other isn't going to change anything so fundamentally that you have to start paying attention to me and only me."
Harry nodded slowly. He supposed he should have started questioning this earlier, in retrospect, but Lily had made the dream of lovers absolutely focused on each other sound so wonderful. She had made it sound as if she expected Connor's future marriage or joining to be like that, and she had said that it was the relationship she and James would have had if she hadn't needed to rear one son to save the world and the other to guard him.
"I should warn you," Draco went on, the tone in his voice signaling an obvious shift in subject, "that if you don't put on some clothes soon, I won't be responsible for what happens next."
Harry laughed and opened his trunk, the nervousness he'd felt around Draco for the last several days dissipating. So bedding would change some things, but not everything, and he could still love Draco that way and be vates.
He hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. Draco did say that I should ask questions I was wondering about, instead of always keeping them to myself.
"Can I know one thing?" he asked, as he pulled out a shirt and tugged it over his head.
"Of course," Draco said, his voice a little more normal now.
Harry peered at him over the collar of the shirt. "You keep looking at me with—" Come on, Harry, you can say this, you aren't a ten-year-old and you aren't just the boy your mother raised. "—desire in your eyes," he finished determinedly. "Does that mean something?"
"Besides the fact that I desire you and really want to fuck you when we're both ready?" Draco grinned at him. "Not really."
Harry did end up flushing after all, and turned to find pants and trousers. Draco laughed at him, and then went to the loo himself.
"So I should register everyone's wand as they come through the door?" Erica was patting at her dark blue robes, which one of the werewolves had lent her. She'd been frightened to go back to her flat once she saw the memories in Snape's Pensieve, convinced she would find it haunted by Unspeakables. Harry had read her mind with Legilimency, but found the Obliviate web there far different from the one he'd faced when he freed Remus's memory. He didn't want to dare try and touch it until he knew more about the artifact that had caused it.
"Right," Harry told her. They stood near the front door of Silver-Mirror. Harry had chosen it as the most impressive of the Black houses, given all its treasures, including the sun-pool and the wind-pool and the pictures by Neptune Black, though he'd heavily warded the pools and the portraits beforehand so that no one could actually touch them without his permission. "When the guests begin arriving, just ask them for their wands. Everyone except some of the werewolves who were born Muggles should have one."
Erica bobbed her head several times. Harry squeezed her hand, reassured her that she should do fine, and then moved away from the front door himself, through the hall lit by the gleaming fire-pool overhead. Golden drops crept down from the ceiling along lengthy chains that led to lamps, filled the lamps with rich light, and then departed back to the fire-pool overhead. Harry could see some of the werewolves who'd just arrived from Cobley-by-the-Sea, including Camellia, gaping at it. He smiled to himself, wondering what the rest of his guests would make of it.
He tripped over the hem of his robe then, and scowled. He'd ordered the robes from Madam Malkin's with all the appropriate symbols proclaiming him heir of the House of Black, because if he was going to do this, then he was going to do this right. But, for whatever reason—maybe it was actually in the specifications for festival robes—Madam Malkin's had made them incredibly thick. They swirled around in his feet in such heavy folds that they barely lifted out of the way in time when he tried to walk, and as for trying to stride, forget it.
Someone intoned a quick charm behind him, and his robes began floating gently around him, just enough not to be noticeable. Harry craned his neck back and saw Snape, in black robes slightly richer than what he normally wore, tucking his wand away.
"Thank you," said Harry. "I needed that."
Snape smiled thinly. Then his eyes darted to the door, and his mouth firmed into a thin line. Turning, Harry saw Remus just entering, surrounded by other werewolves formerly of Loki's pack. He had the urge to tense up himself, but this was going to be a festival with guests in the low hundreds. He didn't have to talk to Remus if he didn't want to.
"Play nicely," he murmured to Snape.
"I play cleverly," Snape said, and then turned and swirled away into the mass of guests already there. Harry sighed and went to greet the rest of the pack.
Remus tried to catch his eye several times. Harry ignored him politely each time, and then Peter showed up to share tales that Regulus had told him about the house, and Harry excused himself gratefully.
More guests arrived. There were those who had already taken the oath to become part of the Alliance of Sun and Shadow, of course, but there were also people who had spoken to him at the meeting on the spring equinox, and pureblood families Harry had invited because it was traditional and whom he suspected had accepted the invitations out of curiosity.
And there were the werewolf packs.
Harry found that he could tell the alphas at once, and he didn't think it was because Loki had given him the magical ability to do so; he had simply been around werewolves now, and he knew more about how the packs interacted. In a group of three or twenty of people with amber eyes and elongated teeth, he watched the way their heads swiveled, and the person they looked to, if only for a flickering moment, before they spoke, and how they tipped their bodies relative to that person. That usually let him locate the alpha.
Some of them were to be expected: a huge man taller than Loki had been and with a more commanding presence, a man with a torn face and a missing eye that said he'd often been involved in status fights, a witch with prematurely white hair who looked as if she never laughed. But others Harry would not have suspected if he hadn't learned to read the signs. A frankly tiny woman with very dark skin and hands so soft that they felt as if she hadn't done a day's work in her life sniffed Harry's ears and then nodded to him.
"My name is Peregrine," she said, and Harry recognized the name of an alpha Camellia had told him he'd been lucky to get, since she violently distrusted most wizards and had escaped from Ministry officials trying to track down unregistered werewolves more than once.
"Welcome, Peregrine," Harry said, and the alpha seemed appeased by the respect in his voice. She showed her teeth in a half-smile, at least, before she led the pack members swirling around her over to one of the refreshment tables set up along the wall. Harry had taken care to send Rose and her mate after a good amount of meat as well as fruit and vegetables, bread and tea and cheese and wine.
There were so many guests there that Harry found he didn't have time for long, drawn-out conversations. He swirled among them, exchanging snippets of personal concerns with those he knew well, and finding a variety of polite topics to talk about with those he didn't. He knew eyes were on him. He wasn't worried. Narcissa herself had looked him over and pronounced him a Black heir her line would be proud of. Harry didn't think he had to take anyone else's opinion about that seriously.
Gradually, he did turn his steps towards the back of the room. He had a surprise waiting for many of his guests, in the form of a certain Pensieve and a Black artifact that reflected images.
Snape didn't try to prevent the pull of the crowd from leading him where it wanted him to go, but, on the other hand, when he did catch a glimpse of his prey, he moved in that direction. So, not long after the second half of Loki's pack arrived, he found himself standing behind him as he filled his plate from one of the refreshment tables. He appeared entirely unaware of any watchers. Snape savored that for a long moment, nursing his tea, before he spoke.
"Hello, Lupin."
Lupin started violently, and Snape had the pleasure of watching him struggle not to drop his plate. In the end, he set it down on the edge of the table and then turned around, his eyes so wary that Snape could almost forget they were amber.
"Hello, Severus," Lupin said, his voice formal and correct. "Did Harry send you to speak with me?" Hope tainted his voice, but Snape sneered, and the corresponding expression died off his face.
"No," Snape said. "Why should Harry want to talk to you, Lupin? He said all he had to say to you the other day. He loves you still—" the words burned his tongue and lips like acid "—but he will never trust you again until you prove to him that you can be trusted."
"And I don't know to do that!" Lupin's eyes shone with a gratifying desperation. "I know that he's the alpha of the pack now, and I thought I could teach him about the ways of werewolves. But he's kept his distance from me, and now I've found out that he thinks I've betrayed him."
Snape had another pleasure then, that of being surprised into a laugh. "And you think you did not?" he asked, when he managed to recover. "Of course you did, Lupin. You never let him know that your allegiance had changed, that you considered yourself a werewolf to the exclusion of all else, even his surrogate godfather." He watched Lupin wince under that accusation. "You abandoned him when you were his father's friend, his brother's godfather, the last of those who had both seen him grow up and whom he thought he could trust. You know so much about him. He is vulnerable to you. And you turned around and sold the information to Loki."
"There was never any question of payment," said Lupin stiffly. "It was a question of pack loyalty."
"And you did not tell him about that, either." Snape paused, watching Lupin through narrowed eyes. This was the reason that he did not quite believe Camellia when she said that, because Harry was their alpha, the pack loved him and would bite off the hands of anyone who looked at him sideways. Lupin was showing no sign of either kind of love he was supposed to bear Harry. "Why not, Lupin?"
"I knew that he would not understand."
"So quick to judge," Snape mused. "In a life where you should have learned the folly of that."
Lupin flushed. Snape lifted his cup of tea to his lips to hide a smile. Really, Lupin was proving to be quite the entertainment. Delicately torturing the only living, free, traitorous Marauder was something Snape had known he would enjoy, but he had not foreseen how much.
"I understand now," Lupin said suddenly. "It's because of you, isn't it? He's been keeping his distance from me for your sake."
"And thus," Snape said, "we have the first evidence that lycanthropy can and will rot one's brain when one bears the curse for longer than thirty years."
"You bastard," Lupin breathed. Snape couldn't tell whether or not he'd heard him. "That's it. You're not afraid of werewolves, you're afraid of me, and Harry thinks that he can't listen to me because of that. When I joined the pack, you encouraged him to see it as a betrayal, because you've always thought of me that way, as a treacherous animal. Otherwise, he would have regarded it as a separation over principles. But you poisoned him against me."
"I assure you, Lupin," Snape said, his hand dropping so that it brushed the pocket where both his wand and a certain vial rested, "that whatever feelings I may harbor for your loathsome kind, I would not act against Harry in that way. As in so many things, I fear you are confusing me with yourself."
Lupin showed his teeth. Snape controlled a shiver, but his scent must have changed, because Lupin's eyes flared with triumph.
"You are afraid," he said. "Of me. And you're going to go and tell Harry that, that I didn't betray him, but you encouraged him to think I did."
"Lycanthropy rots the brain indeed," said Snape. His hand slipped into his robe pocket and closed over the wand. "Harry made the decision on his own. He came back from the Sanctuary no longer as inclined to forgive slights and insults and betrayals as he once was. You have not learned to deal with him in this new form, Lupin, so you blame me. But you have forgotten that ordinary wizards are shapeshifters in their minds and souls, when the impetus is great enough."
Having delivered that dignified line, Snape turned to leave, but felt a hand close on his shoulder. He knew it was Lupin's hand, and instinctively jerked away, spilling his tea. Though there was no evidence that a werewolf's nails could spread infection in human form, the thought of one of the beasts touching him brought back too many memories.
Lupin spun him around, using that more-than-human strength Snape hated so much, and nudged him back a few steps until he hit the wall near one of the lamps. His mouth was open, just enough to give Snape a glimpse of fangs and gullet, and he was growling softly, under his breath.
"You are going to tell Harry the truth," he said. "I want you to tell him the truth. You did something. There's no reason that he would stay away from me otherwise. There's no reason that I would find it so hard to accept him as alpha—"
"Let him go, Remus."
The voice was cold, and steady, and so firm that Snape could not at once place it. He slid his eyes to the side, and saw Peter Pettigrew standing there, his wand poking unobtrusively out of the corner of his sleeve so as not to attract attention, his blue eyes fastened on his former friend.
Snape remembered Peter from the Death Eaters as well as his school days, of course, but he had had little contact with the man since his escape from Azkaban, and this Peter was neither the fat companion to bullies nor the cringing man who had fawned over Voldemort—and who, Snape reminded himself, had only been a shadow in any case, an act to convince Voldemort that Peter had joined him out of jealousy. Peter had had the courage and strength to do what none of his friends did. Snape himself had not dreamed at the time that Peter's actions were other than what he saw they were.
Three of us, Snape thought now, Peter and Regulus and I, all working against Voldemort in secret for our own reasons, and we could not trust each other enough to tell the truth.
"Peter, you don't understand—" Lupin breathed.
"I understand that you haven't made any attempt to change at all," said Peter. "If you're having trouble accepting Harry as alpha, that's a matter to take up with him and the pack. If you're going to change your mind and come back to us, then you'll have to act like that, not just claim it's going to happen. You waver and waver, Remus, and your convictions are few." His lip curled, and he moved a step closer. "No wonder you and James got along so well."
Lupin let Snape go as if burned. "I never cooperated in Harry's abuse," he said defiantly. "I never knew about it, and then I found out, and then Dumbledore Obliviated me, and I feared my own anger, so I—"
"Excuses," Peter said, pacing up beside Snape as Lupin backed further away. He never took his eyes or his wand off the werewolf, but he nodded to Snape. "Are you all right, Severus?"
"I am," said Snape. He slid a sideways glance at Peter, wondering if it was only his words that had intimidated Lupin so.
Peter kept on watching, not moving, until Lupin dropped his eyes and moved away. Peter huffed out, a deep breath, and then shook his head. "He never truly apologizes," he remarked, as he tucked his wand back into his sleeve. "Excuses his own behavior, yes, and explains his convictions and his reasoning at length, but he hasn't said sorry. I think that's the first thing he has to do with Harry, and he just won't accept it. He's convinced himself that he's wronged for being a werewolf, and that all werewolves are wronged, and that apologies are for other people."
Snape cocked his head thoughtfully. If he had heard a better description of Lupin's behavior, he couldn't remember it. He thought Harry might have said the same thing, if he were clear-eyed enough to see Lupin for what he really was.
"What was the spell you were going to cast?" he asked.
Peter laughed softly. "The Flea Incantation."
Snape raised an eyebrow. "And that works even on a werewolf in human form?"
"Of course," said Peter. "The fleas can still sense that a werewolf's blood is richer and more to their liking than the average human's. And they're hard to get rid of, because they can't be spelled away." He blinked innocently. "Especially if one casts the spell every few days, so that they come back just as the victim thinks they're gone."
"I suppose that one could not learn this incantation?" Snape murmured.
Peter cocked his head. "An offer might be open, as long as there is a counter-offer of not using it enough to seriously annoy Harry."
Snape smirked, and moved off to a corner to practice. There may be something to be said for pranking.
"And I thought you should get to know each other."
Harry concealed a sigh. He really couldn't blame Connor. He hadn't spent as much time with his brother as he'd planned to do since Connor came to stay with him, and none at all with the person his brother wanted him to meet. But he could have wished that Connor had chosen to introduce his girlfriend to Harry after Harry had shown his allies the memory of the Unspeakables' attack.
As it was, Harry had to hold a polite expression on his face as he nodded to Parvati. "I'm glad to hear that you're dating Connor, Parvati." Though they didn't know each other that well, he thought "Miss Patil" would have sounded even more awkward, and "Patil" rude. "He needs an anchor at his side, Merlin knows."
Connor laughed. Parvati, who was wearing a heavy dark gown that showed off her long black hair and delicately pretty features, didn't.
Connor glanced back and forth between them for a moment, and then smiled. "Things are probably strained with me here," he said, shaking his head. "I'll go get something to eat, and let you two talk in private." He nodded, and bounded off through the crowd before Harry could stop him.
"I did have something that I wanted to say to you without him here, actually," Parvati said, the moment he was gone.
Harry blinked, and took a moment to respond. He had assumed neither of them would say anything, other than perhaps, "So." And that was all he managed after his moment was done. "So?"
Parvati folded her arms and nodded. Harry had rarely seen her when she wasn't laughing, or fawning on Professor Trelawney in Divination. This way, though, she almost looked like a grown woman. "I don't like the way that you've tended to take Connor's help and give him nothing in return," she told him.
"Help?" Harry hated to sound like an idiot, but he had no idea what she was talking about.
"I know it was his idea to tell everyone that you were the Boy-Who-Lived," said Parvati seriously. "I'm not blaming you for that. And it's true, anyway, so I can't object." She put her hands on her hips. "But you haven't paid attention to him the way that you should pay attention to a brother. You barely spend any time with him. You ask for his help when it suits you, like changing the way he's linked to Lux Aeterna, but you didn't give him help. He's only gone into battle while you fought once, and then he didn't get to ride the second iron thestral with you. That was Malfoy." Her curled lip told Harry what she thought of Draco. Well, there it was hard to blame her. She was Gryffindor, and from a Light pureblood family. "I know you aren't a Lord, you keep proclaiming it, but there are ways that you act like it, by having sworn companions. Why aren't you keeping Connor that close to your side? You act like he's not your brother at all, until it's convenient for you to remember."
"Connor's never asked me for that," said Harry. "I assumed he didn't want to cut a lightning bolt scar in his arm and swear himself to me."
"You assume too much," said Parvati softly. "He talks about you all the time. He loves you. And you don't seem to love him as much."
"I may not spend as much time with him, but we're in different Houses," said Harry, aware he sounded defensive. He didn't care. The suggestion that he didn't love Connor was too ridiculous for words. "Rival Houses, too. And he had no reason to go to the Sanctuary. And I do try to help him with dueling training and all that, and I—"
"It's just gone from one extreme to the other," said Parvati blithely, ignoring the way Harry stared at her. "You were obsessed with him until third year, and since then you've ignored him. You didn't even know we were dating. You were surprised he asked me to the Yule Ball. You didn't realize how nervous he was about the Tasks in the Triwizard Tournament. You barely talked to him at all last year, except when you wanted something. He loves you like a brother, and you treat him like a—an acquaintance." Parvati cocked her head. "He deserves more than that. He deserves better than that."
Harry heard Lily's words echoing in hers for a moment. Someone whom you love deserves all your time and attention, Harry.
"I've been a bit busy," Harry said stiffly.
"So busy you can't make time for your brother at all?" Parvati arched her eyebrows. "I find that hard to believe. Padma and I are in different Houses, too, and we make time for each other. We're twins. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that you and Connor are. He loves you more than you love him."
Harry felt a shard of doubt lodge in his heart and grow.
Is that true? I know that Draco and Snape are both more important to me than Connor is. But what if I'm the most important person in the world to him?
"I don't like seeing the boy I love being used," said Parvati. "If you keep doing it, then I'll do what I have to do. He'll get what he deserves. You might be a vates and a Lord and all the rest of it, but he's your brother. Make time for him. He wants it." She nodded firmly and turned away, just in time to welcome Connor as he came back through the crowd with a plate of food.
Harry watched for a moment, heart aching, but had to shake his head when Connor invited him to stay for just a little longer and talk to him and Parvati. Connor looked disappointed. Parvati shot Harry a look which said, clearer than any words could have, Do you see what I mean?
Harry turned away and went to the table with the Pensieve, brooding. It took him a moment before he could touch the Black artifact, a prism, and coax it into life. It shone with several rainbows, and made people all over the room turn their heads. By the time Harry cast the spell that would carry his voice to the ears of every guest, most of those people were paying attention to him.
"Good evening, and welcome to my festival to celebrate my sixteenth birthday and my becoming the legal heir of the Black line," Harry said formally. He could hear most of the conversations dying down. "I know it's traditional to receive gifts at such a time, but I prefer giving to receiving. Thus, I give you the gift of a warning. I do not ask that you act on this warning, only that you hear, and see, and remember."
He turned the prism so that it aimed at the Pensieve, and then moved the heavy silver bracelet around his wrist, the one that carried the Black crest and which he had to wear to make this artifact function, to the side of the prism. The rainbows narrowed into an intense cone of white light, and sprang into the Pensieve's silver liquid. Harry saw the figures in the memories dragged storming to the top of the basin, and then up, bursting into being over the heads of the watchers.
Numerous necks craned backward. If Harry's own experience was any indication, however, the angle didn't really matter. He was in the memory, watching as he appeared before the Unspeakable who'd tried trap him in the lift. Everyone who looked could see that it was a collar the Unspeakable was holding, and Harry could hear astonished murmurs.
The memory-Harry called for help, and Erica came running. From there, the fight proceeded as Harry had known it would. He heard gasps when he erased the hand of the Unspeakable reaching for Erica, and again when he used fire to consume the Still-Beetle shell and drained the magic from the globe the Unspeakable had thrown at him. By contrast, everyone was silent after the calm "Obliviate!" and Erica's complaint that she'd lost her memory.
Harry let the images fade, and the light from the prism flicker and die as well, before he spoke.
"I don't know what the Department of Mysteries wants," he told them bluntly. "I can tell you that it has something to do with werewolves. I was informed, by a source I trust, that they were the ones behind the new laws that werewolves must wear collars and carry identification wherever they go.
"They tried to capture me. In doing so, they declared themselves my enemies. I wonder now how many times they've done something like this, but Obliviated the witnesses and used their artifacts to cause chaos that blended into the stories they told their victims. What else do they have in their arsenal, beyond collars they think can hold a Lord-level wizard, glass globes imbued with the magic of time, and basins that can cast spells from a distance?
"I don't know. But I do know they operate in the shadows and within the guard of fear. The Ministry employees I talked to were terrified to speak their names.
"I have sworn not to let fear rule me. Those who try to make it rule other people are those I will try to stop. Be wary, but not afraid. Their greatest weapon is secrecy and hiding and the unknown. If we expose them, they will have nowhere to hide. If we bring their artifacts up into the light of day and learn to understand them, then they are no longer unknown.
"My alliance is the Alliance of Sun and Shadow, but the Shadow part of the name only expresses our welcome to those who practice Dark magic. It has nothing to do with the shadows the Unspeakables cast. Those shadows, I will tear down, and make fade before the Light."
He inclined his head in a bow, then moved away from the table and back into the crowd. Instantly, there was a stir of people wanting to speak to him. Harry wasn't surprised, and waited patiently for the first to approach him.
Strangely, it was a wizard Harry didn't think he'd met yet, clad in robes so rich that Harry suspected he was a pureblood. His hair was long and silver, and his eyes vivid dark green. He carried a feather in one hand, and Harry eyed it, wondering if someone had decided to give him gifts for his festival after all.
"Harry vates," the wizard said, in a deep voice that made Harry want to hear him sing. "I came to offer you this feather, as a token of myself." Solemnly, he held it out. Harry took it. His power had already told him that it had no magic, that it really was a mere token. "My Animagus form, you see, is a sea eagle."
Harry blinked. He had studied the list of registered Animagi in Great Britain, and none of them was a sea eagle. But why would an unregistered Animagus reveal himself like this? "Who are you, sir?"
"My name is Falco Parkinson."
Harry's eyes narrowed. "I read about you," he said. "You were Albus Dumbledore's tutor, the one who told him he couldn't be vates without sacrificing his magic. Then you were Hogwarts Headmaster for a year, and then you died."
Falco smiled mildly, his eyes growing sharper. "So many people believed that," he murmured. "But when one walks between Light and Dark, one may fool people with competent illusions and glamours, and playing to what they want to believe."
He must have removed a barrier on his magic, though it wasn't one that Harry had felt. In an instant, his power blazed throughout Silver-Mirror. Harry stared at him. It was Lord-level, and reminded Harry of a wind come from the sea, bearing a scent of flowers.
"I was Albus Dumbledore's tutor," Falco agreed. "I was the one who taught him about balance and sacrifice, although I did not foresee the warped way he would pass those ethics onto you. Then I left the world for fifty years to wander the paths of Dark and Light, because I thought Albus had matters well in hand." Harry shivered for a moment; he remembered those paths, or half-remembered them. The wild Dark had shown them to him for a moment on Midwinter. They were not something a mortal wizard had any business knowing. "When I came back, I learned what had happened, and I studied you and Voldemort in silence for a time. Now I am convinced that you will destroy the wizarding world in your flailing, unless someone does manage to show you a proper balance." Falco stared at him calmly. "You would be best-advised to Declare. Then I can be your mentor, and not your enemy."
Harry wanted to laugh. He wanted to. That Falco could have observed him and yet come to the conclusion that Harry would Declare just to avoid conflict with him was absurd.
But he was remembering a prophecy that might come true three times, and that concerned a Dark Lord each time, and had so far only felled one.
"What is your allegiance?" he demanded.
Falco nodded, as though he approved of the question. "I have none. I have spent a long time between Light and Dark, convincing them both that I might someday Declare for one of them if they could show me enough magic to convince me. Neither has, as yet. I have remained alive for centuries in the same way. They preserve my life in hopes that I might Declare."
"Then why do you think I need to Declare?" Harry asked. "You haven't done it yourself."
Falco looked mildly startled. "My power grew with my age, and by the time I arrived at its full extent, I knew the nature of the wizarding world," he said. "The growth of yours is unnatural, and you are just a child. A Declaration would give you a path to follow, oaths to obey. At the moment, you do little but strike at the foundation of our world while giving nothing back."
Harry thought it was an argument he could have believed, as recently as two years ago. But he had done his own share of thinking about ethics and sacrifices since then, and if there was one thing he had learned, it was that making the same choice and sticking to it in every situation was not for him. It had been the right choice to go with Evan Rosier due to his "persuasion" and try to save the children of Durmstrang. It would have been the wrong decision to give in to Voldemort and sacrifice his life to doom all the children in Hogwarts.
Besides, nothing is that simple. I am not meant for the easy path.
"I live day by day," he told Falco. "I live while other things are going on. It sounds as if you want me to become a Dark Lord or Light Lord first and foremost."
"That is what Declaring means." Falco looked impatient now. "Will you Declare or not? You should. Those with Lord-level power must not go unchecked. Your magic is the most important thing about you." He nodded to the feather in Harry's hand. "I give you that as a gift, so that you can set wards against me spying on you in my sea eagle form. But I will be also helping Voldemort if you do not Declare, to preserve the balance of Light and Dark. Would you rather have me as mentor or enemy?"
"Neither," said Harry coolly. "I walked that path once, with Dumbledore, and I know how it ends." He curled his hand around the feather. "I will not Declare."
"Enemy, then," said Falco, and his arms melted into wings, and he rose, and swirled out of the room while people were still gasping and staring. No one had tried to approach them, Harry noticed. Falco had probably set a ward to insure that they couldn't. Now Draco came running towards him, his wand drawn and his face pale save for two bright spots of color on his cheeks.
"Was that Dumbledore's ghost?" he demanded, as he curled his arm around Harry's waist and pulled him towards him.
"No," said Harry, leaning against him. "Falco Parkinson. A man I thought was dead, but a living Lord-level wizard who's going to oppose me."
"Why did he reveal himself to you, if you had no idea he was still living?" Draco asked in bewilderment.
"Something to do with balance, likely." Harry looked again at the sea eagle feather, but still it didn't grow any magic or change form in his hand. He shook his head. "Just another enemy for me to fight."
Draco snarled low in his throat. "For us to fight," he said. "And this was supposed to be more dramatic and take place later, but for now, I don't care." He tugged Harry's head back and kissed him fiercely.
Harry kissed back, hearing more gasps and several low, interested comments. He fought for and won control of the kiss for a moment, but Draco put up a good struggle. Harry drew away before his head could cloud too much, and gave a grim smile at the staring crowd.
"For those who don't know, we are going to be joined," he said. "This is my future partner, Draco Malfoy."
Draco lifted his head haughtily, letting everyone get a good long look at him. Harry smiled at him, knowing his lips were swollen and not caring. He knew that some of the strangers in the room were staring at him, and he didn't care. He knew that Snape was rapidly making his way to his side, snarling threats under his breath, and he didn't care.
Two years ago, Falco might have convinced him. A year ago, he would have driven Harry frantic with worry. Now, all he did was get his blood up.
When are my enemies going to learn that they can't make me afraid?
