Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!

Chapter Twenty-Four: Called Woodhouse, Called the Ancient Vale

Minerva sipped her tea. It made her look dignified. There was no one around to see, but that didn't matter. Her parents had once told her that she should be dignified even if she was nothing else, and at the moment, Minerva feared she was dangerously close to being nothing else. She sipped. The teacup trembled in her hand, and threatened to send hot tea sliding over her fingers.

She set the cup down at once, and stared at it grimly.

"He will do the best he can."

Minerva was glad that she wasn't holding the cup now, or she would have surely spilled the drink all over herself when Godric appeared, the Founder's shade looking both stern and hopeful. "I know that," she snapped. "That's not what I was worried about. His best still might not be good enough, and he will not be going to war in the same way he went to war all the other times. He'll be fighting defensively, not offensively. The last time he had to withstand a siege, he did not do it well."

"He will not be withering under a pitched grief this time," Godric murmured. "Nor with people who blame him for what has happened."

Minerva frowned, remembering the expression she had seen on Harry's face when she had told him about Hawthorn. For a moment, it had been frighteningly empty, like looking down a mine shaft, or into Voldemort's eyes. Then she had seen guilt and self-loathing of the kind she was familiar with from last term climb into the expression. And then it had all changed, with a speed that was equally frightening, into determination.

"I think he has transformed his grief," she told Godric quietly. "He will use it to drive himself forward."

The Founder blinked, then spread his hands. "But that is a good thing, surely?"

Minerva couldn't explain why she thought it was a bad thing. It was certainly something she would have been proud of one of her Gryffindors for doing. And it was a far more healthy tactic than Harry had used to cope the last time he blamed himself for something.

Yet the unease remained.

And so did the bitter realization she had suffered as she looked into Harry's face: she could do nothing to help him without jeopardizing her school and the position of responsibility she had chosen, but if he had asked, she would have tried to do—something. She did not know what it would have been, but it would still have been done.

She scowled into her tea.

It was not pleasant to know that, after Albus and after her knowledge that she had to care for the students of Hogwarts when no one else would, she had found a leader who could have commanded her to follow him with a word.


Harry was impressed with the speed that the southern goblins used to get him into a room alone, especially since he hadn't come to see the hanarz or to discuss goblin politics, just to open a new account. He assumed that they had something they wanted him to do, however, so he inclined his head politely when the hanarz appeared. She had not changed since he had seen her last, still with dark gray skin, direct eyes, and the silver chain around her neck. Harry kept an eye on the metal. He had seen her work magic with the shackles set into her skin last time. If she had something to accuse him of, something to hurt him for, the chains were the means by which she would do it.

"Harry."

Startled, Harry met her gaze. He had never heard her call him that—but, of course, he hadn't seen her since he renounced his last name. He nodded. "Yes?"

The hanarz leaned forward across the carved stone table that separated them. The guards behind her carried quivers of arrows and bows and wore heavy ornaments at their throats, but didn't react as their leader neared him. Harry supposed they must consider him safe, perhaps because he had freed the southern goblins with the help of several other wizards in a cooperative ritual. "We know what it will mean, that you are fighting the Ministry and freeing the werewolves," she said.

Harry stared before he could help himself. He wondered if they had figured that out from reading about the hunting season in the newspaper and the fact that he had come to them when he was supposed to be in Hogwarts, or through a more magical means. "It means full-out rebellion," he said, nodding. "I didn't come here today to involve you in it, hanarz. I mean only to insure that they cannot freeze the Black accounts, so I'm transferring money into another one."

"We have gifts for you," said the goblin, as if she had not heard him. She removed one corner of the robe that covered her, and the dark iron chain that curled out of the side of her throat and into her right shoulder rose. Harry watched it twitch and throb and hum. Then it lashed towards him, and a wave of sound shot over his head, causing him to duck. Harry turned, but could see nothing visible as the wave of sound hit the stone, and, apparently, traveled through it and on.

"What was that?" he asked, turning back.

"A call," said the hanarz, "to let those who hear it know that the vates is fighting for the rights of magical creatures and needs help. Those who wish to answer it will. It is not audible to human ears," she added, "no matter what they use to listen." Harry, his mouth open, closed it again, nodding. He had been afraid the Unspeakables might use some artifact to intercept the call and ambush any allies on their way to him.

"The second gift is one we were asked to keep in trust for you," the hanarz said, "by someone who approached us with awe and humility. We honored her request." She snapped her fingers, a sound like breaking twigs, and one of the guards stepped forward with a tiny chest. Harry knew the chests of Gringotts, thought, and suspected this one was linked to a vault, transporting the money from it into the chest until the owner said to stop. The guard opened it, and Harry blinked. Inside lay jewels instead of the coins he had expected—small diamonds, tiny rubies, silver and golden ornamented bracelets that he could tell at once weren't magical but would fetch hefty prices. Harry blinked again, this time to clear some of the dazzle from his eyes.

"Henrietta Bulstrode left this for us," said the hanarz. "In accordance with the Unbreakable Vow that you asked of her, she donated half her money to begin an Augurey sanctuary. But she converted other money for you, since her daughter wanted nothing that came from her."

"Why jewels?" Harry whispered.

"We will sell them for you," said the hanarz. "The money will return to a new account, linked to neither her nor you—a goblin vault. Thus we will make sure the Ministry cannot get to you even if they do manage to freeze most of the human monies here." Her lip curled. "We will take particular pleasure in offering the jewels for sale to Ministry officials."

Harry let out his breath. "I thank you, hanarz. This is too much—"

"And not done yet."

The hanarz nodded to the goblin who had escorted Harry here, and whom he was vaguely aware had remained standing just behind his shoulder. He hurried out of the room, and returned in a few moments, his feet flapping gently on the stone floor. Harry examined what he held. The dark, curving object was not one he saw every day, and he finally realized it was a horn, carved of a black tusk of some kind, and banded with silver.

"What is it?" he whispered, lifting the horn. The grasp the goblin had used to hold it was only reverent, he saw. The horn was marvelously light, and moved like a dancer's hand in his.

"A horn to call our aid," said the hanarz. "It will send a summons through rock and stone. We would prefer not to move yet, as we prepare to reveal our freedom to the world of wizards, but you are vates, and you have freed us, and that makes you ours as much as it makes you anyone's." She nodded to the horn. "This is carved of karkadann alicorn, from the beasts we hunted in the days when we ranged further afield than Gringotts. No wizard has had it since Salazar Slytherin bound us." Her intense yellow eyes fixed on his.

Harry ducked his head, embarrassed. For over a thousand years, then. He, Draco, Snape, and others had been the ones who freed the southern goblins from Slytherin's binding. "You're certain you wish to give me this?" he asked.

"We are more than certain," said the hanarz. "By gold and iron, by steel and stone, by silver and bronze, you have kept your promises."

Harry nodded, and slipped the horn into his pocket. "I'd like to set up the new vault, please."

"Of course, Harry." The hanarz bowed to him with a sound of clinking chains. "Vates."


Draco sat in Defense Against the Dark Arts and tried to pay attention; he really did. But the decision he had to make seemed to sit beside him, in the place where Harry should have been, and poke him with a long bony finger, and whisper words that Draco did not want to listen to.

What happens if you decide against your family? Harry would still accept you without the Malfoy name and money, of course, but you would not be what you have always been. You would be a penniless wizard, with only your possession gift and your pure blood to be proud of—and since Harry supports the Grand Unified Theory, you would not be allowed to be proud of your pure blood.

What happens if you decide against Harry? He will accept the decision, of course, but someone else might get close to him. Look at that Syrinx. Draco stared at the Gloryflower girl, sitting calmly on the other side of the classroom. You know that she's going to go to him the moment he summons her. It's not impossible that they could share things that you won't get to experience, that Harry would become more and more like her the more time he spent around her. It's happened before. Snape and I managed to influence him against his family.

"Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco almost flinched. Someone calling him by that name just then was unfortunate timing. He looked up and met Pettigrew's eyes. "Yes, sir?" he said quietly.

Pettigrew nodded. "Can you demonstrate Ventus for us?"

It was a wind spell, one they had practiced half a hundred times in the dueling club. Draco did it without thought, from his seat, and a wind blew across the room and snatched a pile of scrolls off Pettigrew's desk, sending them tumbling all over.

The professor simply raised an eyebrow, though several students giggled. One of the things that made him such a good teacher, Draco thought, was how calm he was, and how little quarter he gave to emotions like frustration that managed to distract and destroy "teachers" like Trelawney and Hagrid.

"Not quite what I had in mind, Mr. Malfoy," said Pettigrew. "If you would leave your seat and demonstrate the wand movement for us? I will show you how to combine Ventus with other spells, but one must be sure of the wrist turn first." He stepped out of the way, and Draco stood and walked up to the desk.

He would have welcomed a chance to show off before the class, ordinarily. Now, he had to clench his hand down to keep it from trembling. His decision walked behind him, all the way up, and he was intensely aware of the watching eyes.

What will they think of you, if they make the wrong decision? The bony finger-poked his shoulder again. What will your mother think of you? The other pureblood families? None of them will look at you with disappointment as fiery as your father's, but what they will say about you will be scathing enough. "Don't be like Draco Malfoy, son. He chose his halfblood lover over family honor."

He snapped his wand down and across, performing Ventus again, and listened half-heartedly as Pettigrew explained to the rest of them that he wanted to combine a flame spell with it that would turn the wind into a wall of fire. Once, it would have made him sing with glee to learn an incantation like that. Now, he simply wanted Harry to be there again and his father to be sane and all to be well with the world.

And if I don't choose Harry, none of his allies will ever trust me again. Pettigrew will look at me with disappointment in his eyes. There goes all chance of a peaceful settlement with his brother. I should live in fear of Professor Belluspersona. And Snape… Draco shuddered. He had been the one to tell the Seer, Joseph, that Harry was gone. Shortly after Draco had returned to the Slytherin common room, there had come a spell that shook the dungeons, and a shrieking that set his hair on end.

Snape had not appeared in Potions classes today. Joseph had come in instead, with the plans for it, and managed to teach the classes competently, if not well. Draco wondered what had upset Snape more: learning that Harry was gone, or why. Harry had not even asked Snape for help with defending Morologus, since he had assumed that Snape would of course not want to be anywhere near Loki when he transformed, and he had enough of his own problems. Draco thought Harry considered Snape essentially "wounded in action" lately, a casualty, not his guardian.

And, well, that might be true, but there was nothing to say that attitude would not infuriate Snape.

"I think that's enough to go on," said Professor Pettigrew, who had just finished explaining the theory, apparently, and was now summoning another student to the front of the classroom to demonstrate the flame charm.

It took Draco three tries to master the combination of spells, much longer than it normally did. The whole time, voices murmured and collided in his head.

Did you really think that you could avoid making this choice forever? Did you think that your father and Harry would be content to work side by side forever? Did you think that neither of them would make a demand that the other would be unable to fulfill?

Yes, I bloody well did, Draco thought, savagely, to make the voices shut up. The only time they've ever been this close to open conflict, I managed to avert it by out-dancing my father. And he's tied his own fate more and more to Harry's since then. He began the truce-dance not long after he nearly killed him with Tom Riddle's diary. I had a right to think it would continue.

The voice had no answer for that, and Draco's head cleared. By the time Defense class ended and he had listened to Professor Pettigrew's assignment to write an essay on the theory of combining charms for homework, he had decided that perhaps what was most wrong was the way he was thinking about this.

Instead of thinking about what I'm going to lose, I should think about what I'm going to achieve by choosing either way. What's in it for me?

And, most importantly, what do I want?


Snape felt as though someone had taken a mallet to his mind.

He paced in circles around his quarters, from which Joseph had been banished, from which he had removed his students' essays, from which everything that could take damage was gone. It had to be that way. The spells he felt the urge to cast, and which he did not deny himself, because they rid him of the rage that threatened to cloud his head, would too easily kill someone else or destroy parchment.

The mallet blow had come in the form of a combination of news: what Harry had done the night before last, defending a hunter from a werewolf and losing the hunter, and Harry's flight from Hogwarts.

Harry had contacted Joseph to say that he was well after his adventure with the hunter, so that Joseph would pass along the news to Snape. He had not talked to him directly.

He had not asked Snape for help in defending the hunter.

He had not talked to him before he ran away to confront the Ministry and perhaps come close to losing his life. In all of those actions, he had assumed that his guardian was too weak to help, or even to tolerate hearing Harry's voice come from his left wrist.

And he had been right.

Snape could see what he had become now in relation to Harry. It maddened him. Harry had not blinked an eye once the dreams, and the decay of Snape's emotional walls, started. He had put himself in Snape's way for as long he could, insisted on his getting help, displaced Snape from his immediate presence once he attacked Camellia, talked to Snape through Joseph, written him letters, showed him the love in his eyes when Snape used Legilimency on him.

They were all steps that he might have taken for another of his wounded allies—steps that he might have taken with his own parents if they had not been hopelessly weak, and arrested by the time Harry had the strength to do so.

Harry did not consider him a guardian any more. He would not ask Snape for help, because he believed that Snape had no help to give him. So he took care of Snape instead, and turned him into a petitioner, a dependent on his good will and generosity. Harry had no parental figure any longer, and he had adapted to it with surprising speed and grace, because he had to, and because he had walked without parents for so long that it was second nature to him.

It drove Snape mad.

All those years of earning Harry's trust, of showing him that Snape could help him where no others could, of getting Harry to relax enough to let someone else protect him and be the strong one—wasted. Snape knew Harry might relax in someone else's protection while he recovered from a wound, but that did not imply trust. It implied practicality. Harry would still be thinking as a defender, and when he healed, he would take the defender's position once more.

He'd thought he could not be a good son last year, Snape remembered. But he had been wrong, hadn't he? It had been Snape who was not a good parent.

He turned and cast a crumbling curse at a table he'd Transfigured from a feather. It showed down in shards of wood, and helped keep Snape from the whispering pain that tried to enter the back of his head.

I have no son. And through my own actions, because I transformed, and Harry changed to meet me—took the position of healer. Why shouldn't he? He is used to being that for everyone else.

Snape did not know if he would have the strength to push beyond the circle of his self-justifications and hazy rationalizations and double binds if it was only for his own sake that he was doing it. After all, it was so much easier to lie in the middle of the mud and bewail his fate. And Harry would not mind him doing it, would simply keep up being the parent for however long he had to.

But for Harry's sake, he could plunge through the disgust and the hatred and the pain.

He could not join Harry yet. He was wise enough to know that. But when he had healed enough of his bleeding wounds that he could be an asset, then he would go, and tell Minerva to hire Slughorn in his place for however long it took.

He summoned again the will that had kept him alive and spying for that year among the Death Eaters, when it would have been so much easier to surrender to the darkness, or lie down and die. He wanted his son back.

Then he shouted for Joseph.


"I did try to tell you." Camellia's voice was strung-out, worn out, defeated. "No one can stop a werewolf on the vengeance-path for his mate, Harry. Not even you."

"I could have Apparated away," Harry whispered. He sat in a room in the main building of Woodhouse, the wooden one in the center of the stone quadrangle, watching the sun rise. He had slept well enough last night, casting Consopio on himself so that he wouldn't lie awake and worry about things, but he'd asked Tonks to shake him near dawn, since he didn't know how to modify the sleeping charm so it would end at a specific time yet. Getting the right amount of sleep was very important. "I could have taken Kieran somewhere else."

"It wouldn't have mattered," said Camellia quietly. "How do you think Loki found Wayhouse in the first place? No one told him, Harry. The presence of the prey a werewolf takes vengeance on pulls him along. You could have Apparated anywhere you liked. He could have followed."

"If we kept Apparating—"

"Eventually, you would have lost strength," said Camellia. "Eventually, you would have had to sleep. And then he would have caught up. I did try to warn you. I told you that he couldn't be stopped or turned aside."

Harry rubbed his scar. He would get angry if he spent too long thinking about this, and that would mean another headache. "I wanted to tell you that the pack should be ready to come to Woodhouse by the end of today. The Black estates won't be safe for long, and they're no place to hide forty-one more werewolves."

"And you think Woodhouse will be?" The sarcasm, and skepticism, was clear in Camellia's voice. "What makes it any safer? As soon as you free those werewolves, you'll be an outlaw in truth, Wild."

"And you would rather have me not free them?" Harry raised his eyebrows, and wished again that Charles had managed to modify the spell to make someone's face visible. He wanted to see what Camellia looked like right now. "I have to, Camellia. I have a formal family oath pulling at me as well as the wider one I swore to help werewolves. But I thought you would be glad. They are your own kind."

"I want you safe, Wild," Camellia whispered. "And if that is selfish, so be it."

Harry smiled tolerantly. "Ah. That I can understand. But yes, I do plan to make Woodhouse safe." He stood up. "I have to go now, Camellia. Get the pack ready. I'll contact you near evening with detailed Apparition instructions for those that can Apparate."

He waited only for her assent before he cut off the communication spell. Then he strode from the study through the halls to the kitchen.

Woodhouse had narrower rooms than any place he'd ever been. The walls seemed to arrange themselves in cramped corridors and hidden nooks behind staircases on purpose. And, of course, everything was made of wood. Harry thought it might actually be perfect for werewolves; there were many small "territories" they could doze in if they wanted to be alone, the study and kitchen and a few other large rooms for piles, and the intense, comforting smell of trees everywhere.

Tonks was waiting in the kitchen, looking through the Daily Prophet and idly munching on a piece of burned toast that she'd made out of bread delivered that morning. Harry had contacted a few Squib-run shops in wizarding London, which were grateful for the custom and didn't mind sending the owls up early to fly with bread and orange juice and other things to Woodhouse. Harry made a mental note to himself to switch other deliveries from Grimmauld Place and Cobley-by-the-Sea to Woodhouse. With eighty people here, or more than eighty, food would otherwise be a problem.

"What are they saying?" he asked, when Tonks peeked around the paper to wish him good morning for the second time.

"The usual nonsense," said Tonks. "I don't think anyone really knows what you're doing yet, but they can speculate on it. They know you've left Hogwarts. They think that you've decided to go into seclusion and, I quote Honeywhistle quoting someone else, 'brood on what he thinks is injustice.'"

Harry snorted and spread marmalade across another piece of the bread. "Well, then, I ought to take them by surprise."

Tonks nodded. "Moody said that he would come around noon?"

"Yes. I hope that's enough time to accomplish what I need to do." Harry bit into his bread and stared out the window. Beyond lay Woodhouse's valley, more than half brown now that autumn had begun, but with some grass still growing green and luxuriant from the constant rain. "If not, then you and he start planning the best route for our attack on Tullianum."

"Remind me again what you're doing."

Harry looked at Tonks. Her face was serious, and he was startled to see a resemblance to Narcissa there, which he didn't think he'd ever noted before. Her hair was flat black, and hung in close curls around her face. She had retained the same lightning-blue eyes from yesterday, though.

"A technique called entering the dream," Harry said, swallowing a bite of his bread. "We can't use a lot of magic here in Woodhouse, and defensive wards will only hold for so long. What will make this a true sanctuary is to convince the place that we're part of it, and to use its magic to defend us."

"And you think you can do this." Tonks's voice was flat, and a match for Camellia's in its skepticism.

Harry nodded. "Hermione found me some notes on the subject. Mostly, wizards and witches don't do it because they don't want to make the effort required, or pay the price."

"Price?" Tonks's voice had sharpened, as had her gaze. Harry wondered if she thought him suicidal.

He wasn't. He couldn't afford to be. He had read Hermione's notes until he nearly went blind yesterday, in between arranging for the establishment of a separate vault and food deliveries. "Yes. You have to stay bound to a place for a certain period of time after you enter its dream and get it to notice you. Witches and wizards prefer not to do that. I can, now." He finished his breakfast. "I'll leave for small journeys like freeing the werewolves from Tullianum, but otherwise I'll stay in Woodhouse for at least a month. It'll make a fine base."

"What else is involved?"

"Humility," said Harry quietly, standing. "Being able to set aside thoughts of oneself and focus on something larger. Getting used to an alien mind." He smiled. "I think that being vates has prepared me for that if anything can."

Tonks reached out and clasped the stump of his left wrist. "Be careful."

"Of course." Harry stifled the odd thought for a moment that no one else should touch him there, because that was Draco's place to touch. Then he shook his head and stepped out of the wooden house into the sunlight of Woodhouse.

It would be a clear, calm day, he thought. There were clouds passing across the sky, but they were underlit, and only served to make the blue appear brighter. The woods blocking one end of the valley shone, since they were mostly evergreens. Puddles lay here and there among the browned grass, making Harry blink in surprise as they caught the sun with unexpected dazzle, like the jewels that Henrietta had arranged for him.

He sat down in a patch of grass not far from the stone quadrangle, beneath a lone oak. He could feel the steady current of the place magic circling the valley, attending to its stones and hills and trees, the long-lived, non-moving things, loving them, paying no attention to small moving wizards and witches who rushed about.

Harry took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Consopio," he whispered.

And he fell into his own dreams, seizing control of them with Legilimency even as he fell, remembering what Hermione's notes had said.

Entering the dream means blending one's own dreams with the place. Most wizards and witches, not having conscious control of their dreams, cannot do this. A Legilimens, or someone using the Lucid Dream charm, may manage it.

Harry dreamed of himself sitting in a place much like the one he had actually chosen to sit in, his mind reaching outward. The current of place magic was visible here, because he wanted it to be, a rushing white tide that crested against the stones on one side of the valley, then washed over the trees, then turned and danced over the buildings that had been here so long the magic no longer objected to them. Patrolling, ignoring, dreaming, it continued along its busy way.

Harry reached out and slid his dream flawlessly into the dream of the current, matching it, trying to see what it did.

And Woodhouse noticed him.

The first touch of its awareness nearly paralyzed Harry, so alien was it. Woodhouse had no conception of distance or direction. It was itself, forest and trees and houses and stone and the sky above, and every point on its body was equally distant from every other point. The only thing Harry could compare it to was a tapestry, or the way a tapestry might think of itself if it were sentient. Every thread connected to every other thread, and there was no center, so it might be said to be all of a piece.

No notion of separateness was tolerated. The moving creatures that rushed about in Woodhouse were separate, but of them it was not obliged to take any notice. They tried to move it around and make parts of it be alone, and it took away those parts and put them back. It was itself, and it dreamed.

Harry felt the urge to struggle madly back to the surface, into his own head and his own dreams. But Hermione's notes had words to say on that, too.

The wizard who cannot give up his own individuality, even for a few moments, cannot enter the dream. He must trust to the place magic. He must submit himself to a greater purpose. The place magic is no more malicious than the ocean. As a swimmer is at the mercy of the waves and not in command of them, so the wizard must become—but even more like a piece of driftwood than a swimmer, knowing himself borne to a place he does not choose, and not contesting it.

Harry took a deep breath and submerged himself. Old notions helped. The idea that he was important and separate from his duty was the new one, the idea he had come to late in life, not the other way around. He imagined Woodhouse as the world, the place he had to save, the thing infinitely more precious and beautiful and important than one small wizard. He slid away.

He drowned.

Woodhouse was aware that a new thing had entered it. It examined the new thing. It was a seed that might someday become a tree, blown in from elsewhere. The seed had buried itself in strange soil for a tree, but the soil was just as important as the ordinary ground. Sunlight warmed it, and water fed its lips, and it grew upward just as the other seeds would. But it was a tree that grew like a flower, dying in a short time.

Woodhouse turned it over and over. The small thing turned with the turning. It had branches, branches with bare twigs; it must have dropped its leaves early. It walked on stone, but did not stay rooted there. Trees did not stay rooted when a storm came and blew them over, either. It did not want to be separate. Nothing wanted to be separate that was part of itself. The dream blended with its dream, and the thing was not a small rushing thing anymore; it was part of Woodhouse. It could still move, of course, because every point in Woodhouse was part of itself.

It might go away, but it would arrive again. It might move stones from the valley's walls, but they were its own stones, as much a part of Woodhouse as its own limbs were. It might bring other small rushing things. For its sake, Woodhouse would tolerate them. It tolerated the migrating birds that came in and rested for a day and departed again. They would be part of it for as long as they stayed.

Woodhouse noticed it, and liked it, and made the small rushing thing part of itself, and put its dream back into its head, because the small rushing thing could not stay asleep all the time, any more than the sky could stay light all the time. But it would always be part of the dream.

Harry blinked and sat up, slowly. He still felt as if his head had cracked open and let in the sea; that was the only experience he had had, before now, of such vastness. His hand trembled as he stroked his own hair, and he looked at the valley with new eyes. In its own way, it was as vast as the ocean. Take the world of every blade of grass and tie it together with the world in every nook and cranny of each tree and the thoughts of every bird and the gleam of the dissipating puddles…

Harry shook his head, dazed. The sun stood near noon now, and he thought that Moody must have arrived. He stood, shakily, and made his way back towards the quadrangle of buildings.

The current of place magic circled past him, and tugged at him as if he stood in water. Harry smiled in spite of himself. He was part of it now.

And if half of Hermione's notes, or a quarter of what else Harry had read on place magic, were true, then Woodhouse would protect him, when his enemies tried to attack, as if it were defending itself, because he was part of it. Power slept in stone and tree and soil and earth. He could not ask for a safer haven for the werewolves.


Draco was so deep in thought, considering what he would gain by choosing Harry or choosing his family—and the advantages were considerable, on either side—that he didn't hear Potter until the other boy came up behind him and actually shouted his name into his ear.

Draco turned around, one hand on his wand, and arched his eyebrow. "Potter? What do you want?"

"I wanted to know what you'd decided about Harry, of course," said Potter flatly, as if he had a perfect right to the knowledge. "Are you going to abandon him like so many other people are, or are you going to stand beside him?"

"I'm thinking about it," said Draco, and made sure that his voice was the one his father used for dealing with idiots. Potter's face turned red, predictably.

"You know that Harry would choose you in an instant," he accused, voice gone tight.

If I was so mad as to ask him to choose between you and me, the way you've been doing? Draco stared into Potter's eyes, and reminded himself that Harry wouldn't want him to curse his brother. Besides, they were in the middle of a corridor between classes, where any professor could see and stop them. "I don't think you understand my choice," he said. "There are factors you aren't aware of." And which I won't tell you about, because you'd be stupid enough to bleat, and then my father would become aware of it, and force my hand. This is my choice.

"Well, tell me what they are." Potter folded his arms and gave him a challenging glance.

"No."

Potter started to answer, but the voice of his bitch of a girlfriend interrupted him. "Don't worry, Connor. If he won't tell, then he won't tell, and there's nothing we can say to make him change his mind. Besides, this is just more evidence that Malfoy doesn't really care about Harry."

Potter, to his very small credit, looked uneasy as Patil wrapped her arm around his shoulders and led him away, but he didn't object. Draco snorted at both their backs.

The idea that people would think him unsupportive of Harry because he hadn't said anything about Harry's disappearance or the werewolf situation so far entered his mind. He dismissed it. He was not going to let other make people make him afraid, or influence his decision. He would not.

He thought he knew what his choice would be, how the scales were tipping, but he wanted it to be true. Neither Lucius nor Harry would welcome him if he made his decision and then regretted and whined about it later.

The way I whined about Potter and Patil?

Draco could feel his face flushing a dull red, and was glad that almost everyone else was in Arithmancy already, so that no one could see. He did pause to lean against a wall and take a deep breath before he entered the classroom, as much to come to terms with this new and disturbing realization as to hope that his face cooled down.

I was acting like a child. Father would have been disappointed in me. Harry probably was, but said nothing about it. That decision was as much mine as anyone else's, and I was making the wrong one.

That only increased his determination not to make the wrong one this time.


Connor blinked. Of all the things he had expected Peter to say when he sought him out and told him that he wanted to help Harry, this wasn't one of them. "You think I ought to just stay at Hogwarts?"

Peter raised a hand, then cast a locking ward on the door. It was one he had used a few times at Cobley-by-the-Sea to insure that no one would interrupt their Animagus lessons. Connor sat down in a chair beneath a banner that depicted the Pied Piper of Hamelin legend and waited for Peter to take the chair across from him. Peter had arranged his quarters to be smaller and warmer than the ones either Sirius or Remus had had when they taught here. Connor still felt a jolt of homesickness when he looked around. He would have liked it if either Sirius or Remus's quarters had looked like this. He would have loved it if James had been a good father, and had been able to become Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

"Connor."

He looked back at Peter. Peter had that serious, stern, thoughtful look on his face, the one he only got when he was about to say something really important. Connor clasped his hands and leaned forward.

"Your support is essential to Harry," Peter told him. "You can speak out against the anti-werewolf laws, and against Mrs. Parkinson's arrest. You can do whatever you think you need to do so that other people will understand that you think these laws are a horrible, horrible thing. But would you be willing to leave Hogwarts and go to where Harry is now?"

Connor blinked. He hadn't thought that far ahead. He had pictured himself fighting at Harry's side in battle, comforting him when Malfoy made the choice to do nothing that he seemed closer and closer to making, and standing with him when he won, as he inevitably would. Someone, he hadn't thought about the day-to-day business of life with Harry in the meantime.

"And would Parvati want to come with you?" Peter asked.

That was something he hadn't thought of. Connor huffed out a breath. "I suppose not," he said. "She doesn't—like Harry all that much. I mean, she knows that he's important to me because he's my brother, and she wants him to pay more attention to me because of that, but that doesn't mean that she would want to run away from Hogwarts and fight battles at his side."

Peter was nodding. "And Harry wouldn't want you to make the choice to abandon her," he said. "Besides, he's going to need someone here at Hogwarts who can watch what the students are thinking, and report it to him. Professor Belluspersona and I can only do so much, since professors don't hear all the gossip among the students. McGonagall has to think about what's best for the school first and foremost. Snape…" Peter grimaced as if he'd bitten into a wormy apple and shook his head. "Harry needs someone who can know what direction the students' thoughts are turning, and what gossip they're reporting from their parents."

"Ah." Connor nodded his head. "And you know that Malfoy won't do it, because he's not loyal to Harry."

Peter made a choking noise. Connor squinted suspiciously at him. If he didn't know better, he would say Peter was holding back a laugh. But why should he be? He was clever, quick, observant. He had to know what Malfoy's current behavior was like, and what it meant. Connor felt far less pleasure than he had thought he would about being right. Malfoy was faithless, it was the last day of the full moon and he was doing nothing, and that would hurt Harry.

"Something like that," said Peter. "But in any case, he's not trusted by as many people as you are. He's too conspicuous, and people will be watching him more than the other way around."

"Won't they do the same thing to me, once I declare my support of Harry?" Connor asked.

"They'll expect it of you, I think," said Peter, smiling. "Show them Gryffindor honesty, and listen with Slytherin deviousness."

"I can do that," Connor muttered. "I think it's Gryffindor deviousness, though."

Peter nodded. "The other Houses tend to underestimate us and our skills in sneaking around." He clasped Connor's shoulder. "Let's do what we can to support Harry and not hinder him, the way that going to him when you're only half-trained in battle and worried about Parvati probably would."

The words were so gentle that Connor couldn't flinch from them. He nodded, newly determined on the best probable course. "Right."


Harry nodded. "And I highly doubt they've managed to change the corridors of Tullianum in two days' time," he said. "I would be more worried about the traps the Department of Mysteries might have set up along the way."

Moody snorted, his real eye shining with excitement. His magical eye was fastened on the rough map that he, Tonks, and Harry had worked out of Tullianum. Since both Moody and Tonks had been Aurors, they had both patrolled the new prison and stood guard on the cells, and knew it fairly well. "If you're really worried about them, boy…"

He trailed off. Harry looked up. He didn't think he'd ever seen Moody looking shifty before—except for when he'd truly been Mulciber, and probably couldn't help it. "What?" he asked.

"I have some—contacts who would help." Both Moody's eyes looked at the map now, as if he wanted to avoid showing his real emotions. "People I came to know during my years as an Auror. People not entirely on the wrong side of the law, but not in good graces with the Ministry either."

Harry nodded. He had once heard Moody described as the wildest of the Aurors. It made sense that he would have friends who existed on both sides of the fence, so long as those friends weren't Death Eaters or other criminals who had done things that Moody considered wrong. The old man's sense of justice was infinitely more personal than Harry had thought when he first met him. He had made his peace with Harry using Dark magic, after all, as long as he did the right thing with it. "If you think they can be helpful, then invite them along. Or ask for information from them. Which were you planning on?"

"Both," said Moody blandly, and then gestured at the map with his hip, a gesture Harry thought he might have developed over the years since he'd earned his wooden leg. "When are you planning to attack?"

"In a few days," said Harry. "I wanted to wait for the full moon to pass, of course, and then I wanted to give some time for my allies to catch their breaths and think rationally about what they want to do."

Moody narrowed his eyes as if sniffing out a rat. "If they're loyal to you, they should have been here already, boy."

Harry stared at him calmly. "I'm not forcing anyone," he said, "except those who declare themselves in support of the anti-werewolf laws. Then I'll force them aside. But Mr. Malfoy, for example, has decided not to aid me unless I renounce the Grand Unified Theory."

"And the others?" Moody's voice was a growl.

"Some have responsibilities they can't abandon," said Harry, thinking of McGonagall and Henrietta and Peter. "Some are already doing other tasks, and it's essential that they remain in place." He'd asked Rose and a few other werewolves from his pack whom he trusted to go to London and ask the alphas if they wanted to bring their people to shelter under him. Depending on how many of them came, there might be a need for fewer guards on the London packs when October's full moon rose. Honoria was going to come with them when they attacked Tullianum to lend the expertise of her illusions, but then she would return to the Maenad Press, where Harry thought she could do the most good. "And some are dealing with problems of their own." Snape, and Narcissa Malfoy, who would surely choose to side with her husband.

"And some of them you simply haven't called," Moody finished, sounding disgusted.

Harry met his eyes and nodded. "I'm asking for full commitment. I didn't want anyone to grant that and feel bad later."

He expected another sarcastic comment; instead, Moody watched him and murmured, "So different from Albus."

Harry gave an uneasy shrug. Then he turned sharply as his left wrist rang with phoenix song. Touching it, he asked, "What is it?"

"Strangers," said Camellia's tense voice. Harry had asked her to be one of the watchers on the valley's outer edge, since she'd refused to go to London without him. "They're—" She paused, and then her voice said, soft with wonder, "They're not human."

Harry blinked, said, "I'll be there," and slipped out of the wooden house, Moody right behind him. He couldn't see anything until they managed to make their way around the stone buildings, though.

Camellia and the other sentries stood in a ring around a group of perhaps thirty goblins. When he drew near, however, Harry could see that they weren't a delegation of southern goblins come to visit. They were northern, tall, with much longer claws and teeth, and six fingers on either hand. Bronze and gold sparked from heavy bracelets and anklets. Harry knew their leader, and tilted his head down in deference as he approached them.

"Helcas Seadampin," he said. "Welcome."

Helcas, the goblin Harry had first contacted when they began to talk about removing the web that contained the linchpins, swept a full and fluid bow. He seemed to move more easily than the last time Harry had seen him. Harry wondered if that was the effect of the web being gone, or simple happiness. Certainly there was wild joy in his face as he held out his hand, carefully closing his jagged claws around Harry's wrist.

"Harry vates." Helcas nodded over his shoulder. "There are goblins with us from all four clans, Seadampin and Stonecantor and Waterrune and Ternretten." Harry wasn't surprised to notice that there weren't thirty goblins there after all, but thirty-two. Some carried spears, some bows and quivers, some lengths of what Harry thought was chain, but which shone so brilliantly he couldn't be sure. "We are ready to go to war beside you," Helcas continued, and that got Harry's attention.

"You're sure?" The northern goblins had waited to reveal their freedom. Harry had assumed, without a real reason to now that he'd thought about, that they would wait as long as their southern cousins. But, of course, it was stupid to assume so. The Gringotts goblins had much more to do with humans now. They would cause more chaos when they moved. The northern ones would mostly show off just how powerful they were.

"Of course we are," said Helcas, and there was a softness in his tone that Harry hadn't known he was capable of, since his voice was like a gull's shriek. "Vates. You are ours, as much as you are anyone's. You will not stand alone." He grinned then, a girding wall of so many fangs there was barely room for his tongue. "And it is time that wizards learned what goblins are capable of. We have not been to war in centuries."

Harry nodded, overwhelmed. "The hanarz's call summoned you?"

"We heard of your need that way," said Helcas. "That does not mean she is the only reason we are here."

Harry nodded again and started to say something else, but the ground shook with a familiar thunder then, and he turned instinctively towards the forest entrance of the valley, since that was where they had entered during the spring alliance meeting. And, sure enough, the centaurs appeared, their hides glinting palomino and bay and chestnut and black in the high sun. Harry recognized the one who led them, the powerful male called Bone.

He started to call out a greeting, but they didn't return it. Harry tensed. Bone had a set expression on his face that might mean trouble. Harry didn't know why the centaurs would have cause to be angry at him, but he prepared to defend himself, his pack, and the northern goblins anyway.

Bone halted with a crash about twenty feet away from him. Then he shouted, "Ave!" and reared. When he came down, it was in a kneel, his front legs tucked underneath him. The other centaurs followed suit, kneeling in a wave, and Harry wondered if it was possible to die from embarrassment.

He cleared his throat. "Bone, thank you, but—you can rise."

Bone looked up at him. "We come to you as soldiers," he said. "That is how centaurs greet their commander."

"Oh." Harry blinked. "I—of course." He realized they would have to amend the attack on the Ministry to include the centaurs. "And you don't mind the wizarding world finding out about your freedom, either?" he asked faintly.

"Of course not," said Bone. "The stars spoke. It is time."

Harry nodded. Then Camellia cried out again, almost a howl, and Harry turned sharply. Something was coming through the wards, something for which they parted like water, and something so big that even Woodhouse took notice, because of the way the feet made its earth shake.

He saw the horn first, black and corkscrew. It nudged aside two trees, and then the creature emerged fully into view, shaking out its coat, which was the creamy-white color of a polar bear's. Its feet ended in multiple hooves each, and it stood the size of a rhino. Harry found it hard to meet the eyes, which were as deep as oil wells. When it stepped into the open and he could see every inch of it, he realized the tail was a lion's, whippy and crowned with a puff of white hair, not a horse's.

A unicorn, but what a unicorn. Harry knew the creature, though he had only seen it once, in a vision Fawkes had shown him. Fawkes had flown around the world, singing to the magical creatures of their vates, and this unicorn had heard him in Africa. A karkadann; its name meant "lord of the desert." It was as vicious and violent as the unicorns Harry had freed from the Forbidden Forest were gentle. Harry knew ancient Muggles had seen karkadanns battling with elephants, before wizards had decided to lock them away for their own protection.

"How did one get free?" he whispered.

Bone started to answer, but the karkadann bugled at the sound of his voice, and the sound was a shrill trumpet that set Harry's heart on fire, a true battle-call. He held out his hand, and the unicorn trotted towards him, each foot coming down with a thump that jolted everyone except the centaurs. It halted next to him and tilted its head down to stare.

Harry met its gaze as best he could. The karkadann stared at him for long moments, then blew out its breath. Harry gasped. The breath was sweet and hot and sandy, and smelled of corpses rotting in the sun. And it affected Harry more profoundly than even the trumpet had, filling him with visions of fighting and defending and killing those who would try to kill him.

His magic soared up in answer. The karkadann shook its—no, Harry realized, her—horn in satisfaction, and snorted. Then she turned away to begin a patrol of the valley, following the general direction of the current of magic.

"That is one piece of news we carry," Bone said, after each of them had spent several breathless moments watching her. "The webs are beginning to melt, vates, just a little."

Harry turned to stare at him. "What?"

Bone nodded, eyes large and serious. "Yes. The stars sang of it as a sign of a true vates existing in the world. Unicorns run where they will; there are reports of a ki-lin abroad in China again, for the first time in centuries. The nundus are straining at their webs in Africa. Dragons are hatching in greater clutches, and more of them are surviving. And now and then, if they intend to join in a battle for more than just food or territory, a single member of a species may slip free of its web altogether." Bone led his gaze to the karkadann. She was grazing now, though every few moments she ripped her head up and stared around self-importantly, to foil any enemies that might be sneaking up on her.

"I've never heard of that," Harry said. "I—all the books I read on vates said nothing about this."

"It is true," said Bone. "It has not happened in centuries, and when it did, it was probably at a time when the wizarding communities were not interconnected and could not know that the various, scattered rebellions added up to one great pattern. And, of course, the knowledge of what a vates is has retreated and been kept alive mostly by the magical creatures."

Harry shivered. "So it doesn't matter that I'm only in one country in the world?"

"It would not if you were only a Lord-level wizard," said Bone. "But you are a vates. So the freedom you spread encourages freedom. Many of the ancient webs were tied to each other for reinforcement, and almost surely, as some of them begin to fall, that unravels the edges of others. And the unicorns." For a moment, he smiled. "The stars say the unicorns are running, and where a truly free being of Light is, compulsions cannot hold. For every unicorn who chooses to run through Australia, a bunyip stirs, and for every one who chooses southern America, the old sleeping jaguars hear. Surely you did not think they would have no effect?"

"I suppose I thought they would keep to themselves," said Harry, overwhelmed. "They seemed to want to when I set them free."

"They go where they will," said Bone. "The world is awakening again, vates. Not all as a result of you, not all as a result of your choice, but as a result of choices on choices, the unending building of them."

Harry struggled to regulate his breathing. "It's going to cross over into the Muggle world eventually, isn't it?"

Bone simply inclined his head.

Harry closed his eyes. For a moment, he caught a glimpse of what he'd started, of what it might mean for Muggles to live in a world where unicorns were a reality, of how dangerous it might be, of what wars it would start—

And of the fact that he couldn't stop this now without putting the unicorns back under a web, which he was not going to do.

He opened his eyes and nodded, the vision fading. "Whatever comes, I am ready to face it," he said.

The karkadann reared abruptly, towering against the morning, and bugled again. Harry wondered who heard it, and what it made them think of.


Draco closed his eyes. He was leaning against a pillow in the bed he and Harry had shared as little as three days ago. It felt too empty, too big.

He was in the bed with the curtains drawn around him, hiding him, the only Slytherin sixth-year boy left. No one was here to see him. The door was locked. He did not have to feel alone if he did not want to.

But he did.

And at the same time, he was once again standing on the mountaintop, exposed unforgivably to all eyes. The moment he made his decision and moved, then people would know. He could not remain in this comfortable limbo forever.

Draco snorted. Comfortable? It's been anything but comfortable. I didn't ever wish to know that much about myself.

But he'd investigated, and made the lists in his head, and thought about what he would lose and what he would gain with either side, and confronted the fact that he wasn't ready—yet—to give up the belief that purebloods were superior, and thought about how it would affect his mother, and still there was only one decision he could make.

This isn't about what my parents think, or what my peers will. They'll think whatever they wish. I can affect it, but I can't control it.

This is about what I want.

And what I want, more than anything else, is to be myself. Strong, dignified, proud, powerful. I won't be that if I continue to let my father think he controls me. I'll only be waiting for some day of proving that never comes, like Harry's brother, or his father.

I want respect. I want love. I want people to gaze at me and envy, not what I have, but what I am.

I want Harry, not least because he's the one who can help me achieve all that.

Draco opened his eyes and nodded, then tapped his left wrist. Phoenix song warbled for long moments before Harry's distracted, sleepy voice said, "Hmm? What is it? Connor?"

Perhaps he thought only his brother would have been rude enough to speak to him near midnight. Draco didn't care about the rudeness, though. "Harry," he said.

He could hear Harry waking up, the pause between his reply and Harry's answer enough time to consider implications. Then Harry said, poised and strained and tense, "Draco."

"I'm coming to you," Draco said. "Tell me where you are."

"You've made the decision on your own?" Harry asked carefully. So carefully, trying not to step on anyone else's will. Draco was glad that he was not a vates.

"Yes."

"You know that it might mean—Draco, your father and I quarreled," said Harry bluntly. "I don't know for sure if he'd want you to stay away from me, but I think he probably will."

"He told me to stay away," said Draco. "I told him I understood. He took that to mean I'd agreed. Sometimes, he forgets I'm a Slytherin, too."

"Draco—" Harry's voice was on the edge of upset, now.

"I chose," said Draco. "This is about what I want, Harry. Tell me where you are. Now."

"I'm dropping the wards," Harry whispered. "We're in Woodhouse. If you touch the Portkey bracelet, it should take you to me."

Nodding, Draco climbed out of bed and scooped up his packed trunk. Argutus, lying on top of it, stirred sleepily. Draco was sure that Harry hadn't meant to leave him behind, but that was what had happened. Draco intended to correct that mistake. Really, he reflected as he gazed at the packed trunk, his decision had been made even before he got into bed. "Now?"

"Now," Harry confirmed, and there was a crack in his voice through which Draco heard joy.

Draco touched the bracelet of magic on his wrist that would transport him to Harry's side, unless there were powerful wards in the way. Since so many of the locations where Harry stayed were powerfully warded, it was often less than useful, but this time it worked, tugging him and the trunk and Argutus through a whirl of colors and landing them all in a bedroom. Argutus crawled out of the way, probably uttering complaints Draco couldn't understand.

Harry waited on the other side of the room, near the bed, his eyes wide. He was still dressed in robes, crumpled though they were from sleeping in them. He stared straight into Draco's face, and Draco waited.

Then Harry let out a loud sound neither sob nor cheer, and crossed the distance between them faster than Draco thought physically possible. His hand latched in Draco's hair, his handless arm wrapping fiercely around his waist, and then he tilted Draco's head back and kissed him as if he'd been starving for it.

Yes, Draco thought, smugness settling in his belly as he kissed back. This is what I want. This is what I deserve.