Thanks for the review on the last chapter!

Chapter Thirty-Five: Fathers and Heirs

Indigena crouched over her Lord and closed her eyes, her hands vibrating with the convulsions of his body. "I'm sorry," she whispered, and was not sure who she was apologizing to: her Lord, or herself, or whatever was causing this and shaking her Lord like a terrier with a rag.

The convulsions had begun not long after Indigena felt Harry's magic rising in the west. Her Lord had screamed, the sound echoing in the confined space of the tunnel. Indigena had crawled to him and tried to ask him what was wrong, but he had been unable to answer, only crying out again in a great voice. Indigena had done what she could to keep him from swallowing his tongue, from vague memories that that was what one did in the middle of a seize, and she had tried to cast binding spells, but they broke. She almost considered that a hopeful sign—her Lord might be recovering his magic—but she could not tell, and after that there was only screaming and thrashing.

She murmured reassurances and stroked his face. The skin felt cold and scaly under her fingers, and the scent of earth was strong around her. But then, they were underground. Indigena shook her head. She had almost lost her sense of smell, or at least lost her ability to tell the difference between magic and ordinary soil.

She murmured to him again, and then Voldemort's back arched, and he uttered a thin whistling sound too horrible for a scream. Indigena shuddered, her eyes fastened to his face, wondering what in the world was happening, and what in the world she could do about it.

Then something moved in the upper corner of their tunnel.

Indigena looked up. The flicker of movement repeated itself, and for a moment she caught a glimpse of bright colors, fever-bright, splintering on themselves like a rainbow in a pool of water broken by a careless step.

Then the movement faded, and didn't repeat, but at least her Lord slumped down again and took a deep breath into his lungs.

Indigena shook her head and smoothed her hands down his sides. He was too thin, his ribs standing out against his pale skin like dry sticks. She knew that he could not die; he had told her as much. But the thought of suffering what he did just in order to remain alive made her feel a deep pity for him.


Rufus looked up with a faint frown as the owl came winging in through the window. He recognized her at once, of course; there couldn't be many even among snowy owls who had the obvious intelligence in their golden eyes that Harry's Hedwig did. She landed on his desk and held out her talon to him with a demanding air.

Rufus took the letter from her leg. It was in an envelope, and the seal was one he hadn't seen before: a circle of stars backed by a crescent moon and a rising sun. Of course, it had to be the seal of the Alliance of Sun and Shadow; that would fit, and who else would be using Harry's owl to send their letters?

He opened the letter.

October 10th, 1996

Dear Minister Scrimgeour:

Several things have happened at Woodhouse in the last hour, and you deserve to know all of them. First, the Unspeakables attacked us again. I believe there were twenty of them this time, and they managed to slide around the wards that I'd constructed using various weapons of their own.

The most important of those weapons was a piece of the Stone. It ate the wards and managed to deflect my own magic-eating abilities. When my mind brushed against it—I believe a temporary connection was initiated because I tried to drink magic directly from it and could not—I learned why.

The Stone is immune to magic, Minister. I am almost sure that you do not have as much control over it as you think you do.

It saw that it was losing its servants to me, and while the Stone may not care enough for its Unspeakables to avoid sacrificing them, it cared enough that it knew simply throwing them at me would cause it to lose. It retreated, and took the Unspeakables with it, by pulling on bonds in their minds. If you do not see now that the Department of Mysteries is a danger to the Ministry as a whole, with its highest loyalties to itself and not the ideals of justice and law, I am not sure what proof will convince you. I am glad that you have managed to repeal the anti-werewolf laws, but I am not sure what will take their places.

Please make sure there are laws specifically forbidding experimentation on werewolves and their magic, even by the Department of Mysteries. We have questioned an Unspeakable prisoner we captured in the attack yesterday, and he said that that is the reason they wanted werewolves caught alive and imprisoned in Tullianum: they remove them into the Department and use them. They are trying to figure out a way to impose controllable transformations—controllable by themselves, of course—on others, and to do it in such a way that the newly-transformed wizards are immune to silver and can change at times other than the full moon. Their research would almost surely enable them to control Animagi, as well, if it's completed.

They wanted to use me as a source of fuel, since I am Lord-level and yet not Declared. Apparently, Declaration carries protections against such a thing.

Also, you deserve to know what happened in the battle. Once I discovered the Stone could resist my ability to eat magic, I knew I needed help. Next to me in battle at that moment was a Muggle werewolf, one member of a pack I lead. I managed to give her a magical core and the ability to eat magic as well, passing it on from the power I'd swallowed. She helped me to drive away the Unspeakable holding the piece of the Stone. This proves, of course, that the conclusions of the Grand Unified Theory are much likelier to be close to reality than the pureblood prejudice favored for so many generations.

I hope that you can use your information usefully, Minister.

Sincerely,

Harry.

Rufus felt the world crash down around his ears.

He was almost sure that Harry did not see all the implications, if Muggles were able to have magic. There would be no justification for keeping their worlds apart anymore. The most important part of themselves, the part in which most wizards invested their identities, would be common after all, contagious as a disease. The Muggleborns had embraced the Grand Unified Theory; Rufus could not think of anyone who would embrace this. Even some Squibs would balk if they found out they could become wizards, but Muggles could, too.

And there was, of course, the question of whether people would join Harry for personal gain or loyalty, and what they would do if he was able to make them stronger than they already were. With the absorbere ability, they could become more powerful on their own. They could use that gift in ways that Rufus thought Harry never would. The wizarding world might, as a worst-case scenario, rip itself apart in an orgy of draining, and then a few strong wizards would emerge at the top. It would make the Ministry's careful work and the long cultivation of laws that could both accommodate average wizards and leave some loopholes for the Lord-levels useless.

And making a werewolf that strong! What was Harry thinking? What if she decided to take vengeance for the persecution of her people in the last few months?

And where would the magic that Harry intended to give others come from? It must be drained. He could get it from objects, but he had come to the point where he would swallow his enemies' magic without hesitation. Would becoming Harry's enemy merit an automatic descent into Squibhood? What about becoming the enemy of one of his friends?

Rufus caught his plunging thoughts and tied them back with reins. They reared and stamped and snorted, but at least he wasn't losing his head over fear, which had been his first reaction. He could think and breathe again.

He must not lose his mind to fear. That was what the Wizengamot had done, and that was the reason Rufus had found it so easy to convince them to repeal the anti-werewolf laws. Fifteen of them already thought they had voted for him to complete the Ritual of Cincinnatus, and Griselda knew she had. Sixteen, plus the seventeenth of Rufus himself, made a third of the Elders, and that was enough to swing wavering neutral parties, or those who were so susceptible to threats that the strongest, closest one could change their minds. Thirteen others had come to them because of that; they were more afraid of Rufus and his power over the magic in the Ministry than they were of the werewolves.

Rufus had grimaced as he worked on them, but he already knew they were cowardly, weak-willed enough not to resist the implementation of a little fear. The Unspeakables and Loki the pack leader had made them dance like puppets. He couldn't count on them to hold strong or listen to rational argument. He could only make use of them for what they were. And he had.

They were in seclusion until they finished considering the anti-werewolf laws. But the Minister could interrupt them.

I will have to, Rufus thought, as he gazed down at Harry's letter.

He didn't know if Harry realized it, but in one stroke, he had won his rebellion. They could not risk what would happen if Harry decided to take this particular weapon onto the battlefield. They could not risk wizards growing like toadstools. They could not risk the other countries who had agreed to the International Statute of Secrecy descending on them. The decision to reveal wizards to the Muggle world was not Britain's alone.

Harry was a breaker of boundaries, an unweaver of webs. Rufus was not sure he would care about that. And even if he did, even if he probably would, there would be others, other absorberes he could make, who would not.

He stood, gripping the letter firmly in one hand, and made his way to Courtroom Ten. He planned to share all the information in the letter with the Elders, including the parts about the Department of Mysteries. Once they found out what the Unspeakables had wanted, Rufus thought he could count on a few more of them to swing to his side. Juniper, for one, would not like to find out that he had been used by wizards interested only in experimenting with werewolf magic. He felt lycanthropy was a curse, full stop, and should be left the hell alone. He even looked on efforts to develop Wolfsbane with stolid disapproval.

Rufus could see it now. He would propose an alliance of the baffled, outraged, and newly enlightened Ministry with Harry against the Unspeakables. They had not known. Now they did. And how much of the inflamed prejudice against werewolves could be tracked to that source? The Department of Mysteries was a convenient scapegoat. They would take the blame for the hatred and the fear that other people had actually felt. Rufus already knew what lies he would spin.

It was not pretty. It was no prettier than the Unbreakable Vows he had made his allies swear in Courtroom Ten, no prettier than the lies they had to tell to safeguard what had really happened there.

But if Rufus wanted to look pretty, he would have gone into war wizardry, not politics. Let his hands get dirty. At least it meant that others' wouldn't have to.


Draco contained his outrage through the announcement Harry made of Camellia's new powers, through the frenzied celebration by her pack, through Harry happily answering all the questions everyone else had about this, and through Thomas Rhangnara's incessant chattering at Camellia.

"But what does it feel like?" Rhangnara pressed her.

Camellia, her cheeks flushed, a smile Draco thought was far too smug for some witch-come-lately on her face, simply shook her head. "You have magic yourself," she said. "You must know what it feels like."

"But not the absorbere ability." Rhangnara made a note on the scroll he was carrying nonetheless. "And what's the difference between what you were like and the way you are now? I know some research wizards say that being a Muggle or a Squib is like being deaf, dumb, and blind, but we've never been Muggles or Squibs, so how do we know?" He looked at Camellia's left ear, as if to see if it had changed shape.

"It is not," said Camellia, sounding offended. They were sitting in the kitchen, with Camellia in the place of honor at the table's head, draped by werewolves. Rhangnara sat next to her, earnestly scribbling down her every word. Harry lounged in a chair halfway down the table, smiling. Draco wanted to punch him. "My sight is a little clearer now and the world seems a bit more wonderful, that's all."

Draco would have wagered every Knut he had left to him that she was lying. Being a wizard was much better than being a Squib or a Muggle. One only had to listen to the screams of those Harry drained of their magic to know that.

Rhangnara asked a few more questions, all of them as petty and useless as the first. Snape had left long since, stepping out of the room as if he would strike someone should he stay. Draco understood perfectly how he felt. The whole world had just gone merrily tumbling downhill, and no one else in the room acted as if they knew that.

Finally, finally, he managed to snag Harry and drag him aside, when everyone was involved in listening to the battle from Camellia's perspective yet again. Draco cast a privacy ward around them.

Harry smiled at him. "Some tactics you wanted to share?"

It took Draco a moment to remember back to their conversation of this morning. He forced a smile. Harry picked up on his mood almost at once, and stood straight, his own grin vanishing. "What's the matter?"

"Why her," Draco said, the words the only ones that would emerge from his tight throat, "and not me?" He was imagining what could have been, if Harry had expanded his own magical core, or given him the absorbere gift. They would have been equals. His father would have had no trouble confirming him as magical heir. Draco would have a separate standing in the eyes of the wizards who followed Harry—not his lover, not the only one who could handle Harry when he was on the verge of explosion, but someone with unique and powerful gifts of his own.

Harry blinked. "Because you never asked," he said.

Draco gave him a little shake. "I didn't know it was possible."

Harry shrugged. "Neither did I, until today. And then Camellia was the one beside me, not anyone else. If someone else had been, I would have tried the same desperate tactic." He searched Draco's face. "Do you really think I would have refused you that magic?" he asked softly. "Why?"

Thrown on the rocks like that, Draco couldn't answer the question, couldn't say why the gesture to Camellia—a result of chance, to hear Harry tell it—felt so much like a slap in the face and a rejection of most of what they'd shared. He ground his teeth for a moment, and then said, "Because if anyone is going to receive something that special from you, it should be me."

"Of course, if you want it," said Harry. "I think I could trust you not to misuse it. I do trust Camellia, because she's loyal to me as alpha and has to know that if she abused the gift, I would take it away in an instant. And her magic is quite average otherwise; I had to use most of the power carving out her core and then making sure it wouldn't drain as soon as I poured magic into it. And I wouldn't trust Snape with this right now, nor Remus." He tilted his head at Draco. "I trust that you wouldn't drain Connor, or Parvati?"

Draco felt his hands shake. He hid it by cupping Harry's chin and tilting his face up. "No," he whispered. "Never. It would be a temptation, of course, but just having them know that I could would be enough to content me. I'd keep my drawing to objects and enemies, like you do."

His mind was reeling, but it oriented now around the concept that he might possess this same gift himself. Yes, the wizarding world in general would be upset, but he could have it. He could finally cease to feel as if he were lesser than Harry in any way. Granted, his driving ambition for some time had not been to have magic equal to Harry's, but the old longing wasn't as buried as he'd thought.

"You were never lesser to me," Harry murmured.

Draco started. "You used Legilimency?" he asked Harry, who was staring directly into his eyes.

Harry shook his head. "I didn't have to. Your thoughts were screaming out your happiness." He stroked Draco's shoulder for a moment. "You do realize that, right? My magic is what makes me able to be vates and a war-leader, but it doesn't separate us in any fundamental way. I've never felt that I was better than you because I'm more magically powerful, Draco, I swear it. It would be like—it would be like saying someone is better than someone else because they have more money or a bigger house. Magic's just a tool, Draco, just what allows me to do what matters to me, like unbinding webs and protecting others. That's all."

Draco stared at him. Twice in several moments his world had broken into pieces, but this was a revelation about Harry, not about how the wizarding world in general would react to Harry's ability to make Muggles into wizards or witches.

He really doesn't think that his magic makes him any different than the rest of us. He really doesn't.

No wonder he makes a terrible Lord. To be a good one, you have to have some sense of the gulf that kind of magic opens between you and everyone else. Voldemort has it. Dumbledore had it. But Harry just sees it like his having an extra limb, or a pair of wings, or a talent for music.

Draco wondered if he should laugh or cry. He wondered if he should try to explain it to Harry. But he was almost sure the last project was doomed to failure. Harry had seen people bow to him and thank him with tears of gratitude in their eyes, and still he thought they were comfortable with the gestures or grateful for their freedom. Draco could tell him how most people would consider him, how they thought of most Lords, but Harry would only blink and make some connection with how that encouraged people to remain under webs.

He doesn't think himself above others. I doubt he ever will. He makes mistakes, but it comes from things like not knowing how the wizarding world will react to this, not because he thinks he has the right to make decisions that others don't.

Draco decided he wouldn't explain. He just shook his head helplessly, and said, "Now I know it, Harry." He held out his hand, and added, with a tone of wistfulness in his voice he couldn't mask, "Now, can you give me the ability to eat magic, please?"

"You sound like you're asking for a sweet," said Harry in some amusement, but he reached out to clasp Draco's hand. "I'm still carrying some of the extra magic from the battle," he said. "The absorbere ability wants to digest it, but I don't need to be any stronger than I already am. And if I need to, I can drain some of the Black objects that I brought along."

Draco opened his mouth to object to this squandering of Harry's inheritance, and then closed it again. Harry saw what use those objects could be, first, and he obviously thought that sitting around and decorating rooms was not enough of a use.

He closed his eyes as he felt magic begin to move up his arm like a lance of melodic acid.


Indigena was dozing when her Lord erupted in screaming and thrashing again. She tried to catch his shoulders, but his head flew up and knocked her in the face instead. She heard the distinct crunch of her nose breaking, but the flowers and stems under her skin shifted to repair it quickly enough.

She was more concerned with Voldemort, whose convulsions brought his head dangerously close to cracking open on the hard earth wall of their retreat. She turned to the plants she had rooted in one corner of the tunnel and called for help, and they came, unfolding tendrils that erupted into soft pink flowers as they reached her. Indigena was sure that Voldemort would be horrified if he awakened and saw himself cradled on swift-roses, but at the moment she didn't really care. The petals would help pillow his head, and that was all she wanted.

As the flowers pressed themselves into position, Indigena smiled in spite of herself, in spite of her worry and fear. They obeyed her because they loved her. She did not have to carry tendrils beneath her skin or spend every waking moment with them to have a special bond with them now. Indigena thought everyone should have such love in their lives. It might teach someone like her Lord to care about more than the conquering of the next enemy.

Her attention switched back as a long cut opened on Voldemort's chest. Indigena shook her head, and lowered her right arm so that some of the aloe-like plant that grew under her fingers might heal it. The cut began to scab over as soon as she touched it, which was a common thing with magic-inflicted wounds.

Who could be magically powerful enough to reach through my barriers and hurt him from this distance, though?

The only answers that came to mind were Harry and Falco. Indigena thought she would recognize the smell of Falco's magic, and if Harry knew where her Lord was, surely he would be here already.

She gently shifted Voldemort's hands to the side as more cuts appeared on his shoulders. The hands were clasped around a golden cup with badgers for handles and would not let go. That didn't matter. What mattered was that she be able to reach and tend the wounds, wherever they appeared.

A loud hiss made her look up. For a moment, she thought it was a snake, not unreasonably drawn to her Lord, but she could see nothing. She could feel a presence, however, stirring around her Lord like a wind, prowling and snarling. Its temperament was wild and vicious.

It paid no attention to her. One more pace, one more whirl, and then it shot through a hole in the dirt roof. Indigena shrugged, waited to see if it would affect what was happening to her Lord at all, and then returned to tending him.

Not long after the strange presence had left, however, her Lord ceased to convulse. Indigena sighed in relief and reached for Odi et Amo again, keeping a careful eye on Voldemort. No more wounds appeared, and his hands were creeping like spiders along the sides of the cup again, usually a good sign. He stroked the cup and murmured to it when he was in one of his midway-moods. On the very best days, he could talk with her and tell her of his plans, but Indigena would take this over screaming and thrashing, or the deep silence that sometimes afflicted him, when she had to lean over him to hear his breath.

She stroked his shoulder absently as she read the book. The scaly, snake-like skin had ceased to feel strange to her when she was transformed so thoroughly. Now it simply felt like dry dirt against her fingers—bereft of nourishment, but not unpleasant.

She would never leave him. The debt was a constricting chain, but it meant nothing without the honor behind it, the honor that her nephew hadn't had. She would stay with the Dark Lord and make up the Yaxley pride the best way she knew how.


Harry opened his eyes slowly. He winced when pain resounded through his body like a leaping child yelling for sweets.

"What do you feel now?" an eager voice asked from the side. Harry managed to turn his head a little, and saw Thomas sitting in the chair next to his bed, leaning forward. The scroll he'd written on while questioning Camellia dangled from his hands, and he was asking questions so fast that Harry doubted he'd notice when it slipped to the floor. "Do you think that you could say why that didn't work? Would you say the transfer of magic to another feels more like giving birth, or more like handing over a gift? Could you do it to someone whose wand was broken? What about someone born magical and then drained? Could you—"

"Enough, Rhangnara."

That was Snape's voice, so tense and quiet and cold that even Thomas blinked and shut his mouth, though more in surprise than fear, Harry thought. He managed to roll his head over and look up at Snape, eyes watering. He couldn't tell if that was from the light or the pain.

"Sir," he said, trying to sit up. There were still instincts in his head that protested the thought of being flat on his back in front of Snape. Snape murmured something, however, and an invisible band formed above Harry, gripping his chest and holding him down. He frowned at Snape, and considered shouting, but with Thomas there, he didn't like to.

"You should not move far or fast," said Snape, as if that were self-evident. "When you tried to transfer your absorbere gift to Draco, something happened. You both began screaming in pain—"

"Is Draco all right?" Harry attempted to sit up again. He had assumed that Snape would have said something at once if Draco was hurt, but perhaps he wouldn't, not if he wanted Harry to remain in bed.

Snape tightened the invisible band with nothing so much as a flicker on his face. "Draco is well," he said. "Asleep, after watching by your bed until I made him rest. He experienced a short trance of pain, and then recovered from it." He leaned towards Harry. "You, however, went into convulsions."

That would explain the muscle aches, Harry had to concede. "Well, I'm not now," he said. "Let me up."

He released some anger into his voice, as a sop to Snape. His guardian went on speaking as if he hadn't heard him. "And then powerful magic surrounded you and spread away from you in a web."

Harry blinked. "A web?"

Snape held out a Pensieve towards him—his own, Harry saw after a moment. "I have preserved the memory here."

"I want to see it again, too," said Thomas, and pushed his head forward and into the silvery liquid before anyone could stop him. Harry rolled his eyes and pushed his head in beside Thomas's.

He winced to see Draco flailing and rolling on the floor, and it took him a moment to tear his eyes away and see what Snape had been talking about. A web, glittering as if made of dew and light, did extend away from his shoulders, spreading out into the air in a regular pattern.

And it led straight from him to Camellia, unless one counted a single white thread that trailed forlornly away from his back into the air.

Harry watched as Camellia also began to shake, with a sick feeling in his stomach. I acted too quickly again. I didn't consider the consequences. I can't believe that I keep doing this.

The white web contracted, rippling, as dark magic started to pass along it and through it. Harry squinted, and thought he could see the ripples as black serpents, sidewinding around the strands of the web until they reached Camellia. Then they bit her, and she screamed. It took Harry another moment to recognize the noise. It was the same one that wizards gave when they became Muggles.

The snakes turned around and rolled back to him holding something white in their mouths. They spat it like venom at the flailing Harry in the image, and his back arched so hard that Harry wondered if he hadn't cracked his spine. Then two of the snakes climbed along the white thread that extended from his back, fading as they went further and further. By the time they reached the outer wall, they had vanished entirely.

Camellia gave a strangled sob. Thomas-in-the-memory knelt down next to her, talking softly. Camellia shook her head, and Thomas assumed a sorrowful expression and put his hand on her shoulder. The memory ended then, as Snape turned towards Harry and scooped him up into his arms with ruthless precision.

Harry pulled his head out of the Pensieve, and shook it. "Camellia lost her magic," he whispered.

"Yes," Thomas confirmed, patting him on the shoulder. "She'll be all right, though. It was a shock, but lycanthrope physiology really does give then an amazing amount of strength, you know. She's sleeping right now, but we talked, and she says that she thinks she'll recover. Did you know that the werewolf curse might have started because people wanted to be stronger? There's some interesting research coming out of America, of all places, that suggests—"

"Rhangnara," said Snape, in that protective snarl again, and Thomas blinked and focused on Harry.

"Right," he said. "I think you're a unique occurrence, Harry. You could only create the magical core and transfer the absorbere gift in the first place because you're half a magical heir."

Harry blinked, and said intelligently, "What?"

"You're Voldemort's magical heir," said Thomas, genuinely not noticing Snape's reaction to the name, Harry thought. "But the transfer of gifts and power isn't complete. It began that night that he attacked you, but it didn't end, the way it should have. Most transfers between magical ancestor and heir, well, complete themselves. Either the magical ancestor dies and the gifts achieve full strength in the heir, or the ancestor makes the choice to pass along the gifts before their death. But that usually leaves him or her without magic, and they die anyway." Harry nodded, thinking of Elfrida's choice to send her power on to Marian despite the fact that it would mean her death, because her daughter's best chance to be a magical heir was right after birth. "The transfer between you and Voldemort was interrupted as it was made, because the reflected Killing Curse hit him and his spirit vanished, taking the gifts with him." Thomas spread his hands. "It stretches out between you like a tunnel. Down that tunnel comes magic. I think it can wash back and forth between you. Didn't you say once that his absorbere ability changed after the resurrection ritual?"

Snape hissed, and turned on Harry. "You told him that?" he demanded.

Harry ignored him. He had told Thomas that shortly after Thomas came to the valley, during the time when Snape couldn't seem to care whether he found another guardian or not. What Harry did during that time was his own lookout. "Yes, it did," he said. "He had it before the night when he came and attacked my brother and me, but not as strongly. He could drain someone, but it left him weak for days afterwards. When he resurrected, his ability had improved. And our dream connection changed, too," he added. "I used to be able to act in the visions. Then, I wasn't able to do so."

Thomas nodded excitedly. "The situation is unusual, but not impossible," he said. "After all, the transfer happened in the first place. The prophecy saw to that. Because the prophecy is taking so long to be fulfilled, I think that helps. The tunnel between you depends on the connection between your souls, and it depends on the prophecy. You amplified the magic and practiced with it during a time when he was still bodiless and powerless to use it. Then, when he came back to life, he could draw on that greater experience, and become a more powerful absorbere."

"But when I gave it to Camellia—" Harry said.

"I don't think you could have done that at all if Voldemort wasn't incapacitated right now," said Thomas. "He doesn't have the ability to use the absorbere gift, so it goes back to drifting in the tunnel between you. You use it when you draw on it, but you could also give part of it to someone else."

"Then why did it leave her at all?" Harry could hear Snape's teeth grinding. He ignored him. He wasn't responsible to Snape, and Thomas was the only one in Woodhouse who understood this transfer of magic and could help him right now. "We should have been able to share it."

"Because you tried to give it to Draco, as well," said Thomas quietly. "The gift resented being stretched so far. It snapped back together, and took itself away from Camellia as it did so—along with the magic that you'd transferred to her. I think she may still have her core, and so she's a Squib, technically, instead of a Muggle, but she has no magic."

"Did the magic go back to Voldemort?" Harry asked. The one thing he would not be able to forgive himself for out of this was if he had accidentally strengthened his enemy.

"I don't think so," said Thomas. "The magic's greatest desire is to be used, and he could not use it right now. I think it retreated into the tunnel between the two of you. It's very strange, though," he added, with a slight frown. "The tunnel still counts as confinement for the magic, and it remains trapped, unable to return to the magical ancestor or bind fully to the magical heir. I would have expected it to grow intelligence, as magic so often does when confined, and to be fairly upset about this."

Harry froze. "I think it may have," he said.

Thomas just frowned at him, but Snape understood, since Harry had told him about this at the Sanctuary. "The bird," he said.

"What?" Thomas asked.

"There's a bird that's appeared from time to time," said Harry, wondering why he couldn't have seen this before. The bird's crimson eyes had even been the color of Voldemort's, at least before he lost them. "It's made of pure magic, and only I can see it. It comes through all the wards in Hogwarts and Woodhouse and the Sanctuary. It talked of being bound to me and resenting it, and being bound to 'him' and resenting it. It regularly scratches me." He hesitated, then drew up his pyjama top and showed the bird's claw-marks on his chest, the most recent wounds, to Thomas.

Thomas leaned forward and stared at the wounds in fascination. "I've never heard of magic doing that," he murmured. "I can see it wanting to kill you, or kill Voldemort, so that the tunnel would end and it could go to one of you or the other. But perhaps that's impossible, given that Voldemort cannot die and you're bound to him by the prophecy unfulfilled. It's doing the best it can. I still don't know what to make of the scratches, though."

"Do you think I could still give magic to Camellia?" Harry asked. "If I tried not to pass on the absorbere ability?" He ignored Snape's scowl.

Thomas shook his head. "It would be shaky," he said. "The magic might grow bored and resentful and decide to take itself away at any moment. From the way you describe it, it hates you. It would do something like that just to spite you, I think, and that could overcome its longing to be used."

Harry nodded, mind still half on the bird. He knew he had felt the viciousness it carried before. Now, he knew where. In the graveyard on the Midsummer day he'd lost his hand, when Voldemort's magic had returned to him as he'd returned to his body. It had unfolded great wings made of blades and cried aloud, and Harry had felt how evil it was, how much hatred it had. For everything.

It's shared between us. It's confined. That would only make it more vicious.

And he was heir to that bladed magic, and it didn't like him. Harry suppressed a shudder.

"This is so much to absorb," Thomas was murmuring. "There are a few places it links into the Grand Unified Theory, but in others there are gaps." He leaned forward and fixed Harry with an earnest stare. "Would you mind if I studied you, Harry, and the connection between you and Voldemort? Perhaps waited for the bird to appear again? Perhaps—"

"You are not studying my son."

Snape said nothing more than that. He just stood at the end of Harry's bed like a rock wall, and Thomas shut his mouth again. This time, though, he gave a faint smile and climbed to his feet.

"I understand," he said. "I suppose I wouldn't want someone studying Rose, either, and deciding to prod at her magic and mine and tell me how it worked." His tone said that he was dubious about that and how much he wouldn't like it, though. He bowed to Harry. "I hope that you rest well and recover, Harry."

He turned and departed before Harry could speak again. When he could, he snapped the invisible bond that held him down by sheer force of will and sat up, glaring at Snape. "What right did you have to do that?" he asked in a hiss. "If studying this bond can help me defeat Voldemort, then I say we should try it."

"You are my son." Snape didn't move. "You deserve more than to become an experiment for a research wizard."

"Thomas didn't mean any harm—"

"I am sure Rhangnara did not." Snape sneered. "But that kind of attitude will do you no good either, Harry. He would push you to exhaustion, or into danger. Has it occurred to you that there has been danger already, from your misguided gesture of good will? This could influence the bond between you and Voldemort, strengthening him or drawing his attention."

"Thomas didn't think it would." Harry wished he could swing his feet to the floor. He was shaky with pain and remembered pain, though, and he wouldn't be as tall as Snape anyway. He tilted his head back, and tried to look as if he were unconscious of his shortness compared to Snape. "He said that the magic wouldn't go back to Voldemort, because he couldn't use it."

"Has it occurred to you that he may not be right, given that this is entirely new?" Snape's voice had a familiar sound to it, as if he'd been suppressing generations of fury. "His guesses are at best guesses."

"Has it occurred to you," said Harry, his voice as low and hard as he could make it, "that I still don't trust you in the duties of guardian?"

"Name me one who will perform them more faithfully," said Snape. "I will step aside for him at once. Or her."

"That's not the point!" Harry resisted the urge to grind his teeth together, but just barely. "I became used to not having a guardian in the past few months. I admit that you helped me with the Occlumency pools, and that was a mistake I made. Giving magic to Camellia might be another. But I don't need someone hovering over me so protectively that we miss valuable opportunities to learn new information!"

"When the information is conditional on your life and your magic," said Snape, moving no muscle except the ones in his jaw, "then I consider it part of my business, Harry."

"Why?" Harry wished words could set the bedroom on fire by themselves. He had to restrain his magic from joining in and trying to grant his wish.

"Because I care for you," said Snape. "And because whether or not you are my ward, you are my son." He reached out and smoothed Harry's hair back from his brow, baring the lightning bolt scar. "This is not all you are," he said. "I will not allow it to become all you are."

Harry dropped his eyes in defeat. He wanted to argue, but he didn't know how to do it without damaging the fragile bond between him and Snape even further. And he did want a parent, a guardian.

He just didn't know if it could be Snape, given what he had done in the past few months, given what he might do again if he didn't continue to work on his healing with Joseph.

Wait.

Harry lifted his head. Normally, he disdained making bargains like this anymore, but he and Snape had fallen back several steps. And trying to pretend everything was all right wasn't going to make it so.

"Can I ask you something?" he said. Snape nodded, and Harry continued, "Have you spoken to Joseph since you've been here?"

Snape's lips thinned, which Harry thought was as good as an admission. He nodded, his eyes not wavering from his guardian's face. "Then please do that. That way, I'll know that you're taking time for your own healing, and not just mine, and that you are serious about this. I know that I'm your son to you, sir, but during these last few months, I started seeing myself as your guardian."

"No one asked you to fill that role," Snape said harshly.

Harry blinked. "Of course not. But it was the only kind of bond with you I could have."

Snape glared at him, wordless. Harry pressed on. "I did get used to having a parent, sir. I want one again." I think. Harry thought of parents rather as he did of comrades in battle; they were pleasant and sometimes necessary to have, but depending too much on them could cripple him in those moments when he would need to move alone. "But I can't trust you until I'm sure that you're not using me as a distraction from your own problems. And if you're not healing any further, you might fall apart at any moment, and take me with you. I've already explained why that can't happen." He held Snape's eyes. "Please, sir. Continue your talks with Joseph. In return, I'll try to be as good a son as I can."

Snape thought about that. Harry waited. He could almost see the protests forming in Snape's mind, and dying one by one. Yes, they had reached a stage of their relationship where they shouldn't need bargains like this, but their relationship was no longer the same as it had been four months ago. That meant they needed this.

Or, at least, they needed the willingness to work on this from both sides.

After a few moments, Snape inclined his head. Harry sighed out. "Thank you, sir. Now, I'll go find Draco—"

"He is still asleep," Snape said. "I have set an alarm to let me know when he wakes. And you, Harry, took more damage than you know in your convulsions. You need to rest."

Harry gave him a tolerant glance, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. "It's not that bad, sir—"

He staggered. Snape lifted him with Mobilicorpus and settled him back into bed before Harry could object. Then he took his glasses.

"Sir," said Harry, with sternness that failed somewhat as the warmth of the pillows and blankets soaked into his consciousness. His legs already felt as if they were made of stone. He yawned. "You cast a sleeping spell," he accused Snape, his words coming out slurred.

"Merely one to make the bed more comfortable," Snape murmured. "It is your own exhaustion doing the work, Harry."

Harry mumbled something incoherent. Fog crept over his awareness, and despite a few thoughts of checking on Draco and Camellia, his breathing evened out. His mind staged a last, pitched battle against the darkness before sleep managed to overcome him entirely.


Snape stood gazing down at his son for a few moments. Harry breathed with his mouth open, his face curled as if to shelter under his hand. His left wrist still lay, a scarred stump, higher on the pillow. Snape shook his head. If he considered getting his own hand back one tenth as important as this rebellion, he would have a second one already.

"Watching him, you look the picture of the peaceful father."

Snape stiffened. He had not heard the door open, nor Joseph slip into the room. He did not turn. "He has just made me a bargain," he said. "That I will try to be the best father I can to him, and he will be the best son he can to me. But that means I must talk to you." He turned with a grimace to the Seer.

The man simply nodded, with one final glance at Harry. "He may benefit from talking with me, as well," he said.

Snape concealed his triumph. "He has shamefully neglected his own healing since we returned," he said. "He believes that because he overcame the guilt he carried in the Midsummer battle, for example, he has nothing more to learn from someone like you."

Joseph nodded again. "I can See that," he said. "And as for you, Snape—forgive me, this is only something I have noticed through watching the two of you interact, and hearing your stories of him. Has he ever called you Severus?" He hesitated a moment, as if afraid the next step would be a step too far, and then finished, "Or Father?"

Snape toyed with the idea of hexing the Seer, but he had asked for this kind of thing when he agreed to Harry's bargain. Seers were made to walk into fire, it seemed. "No," he said. "He calls me Professor, or Professor Snape, or sir. I have never invited a closer term of address. He has never offered one."

Joseph nodded. "Please come with me," he said. "We don't want to disturb him, of course, and it seems that we have much to talk about."

Snape said nothing as he followed the Seer out, but he looked back at Harry before he shut the door. Harry was his son.

He could not help feeling a slight smugness as he followed Joseph, for all the danger the day had promised. Two good things had come out of it. The first was that Camellia the werewolf had acquired, and then lost, her magic. She knew true pain now, and she might learn some genuine humility out of it.

The second was that, while Harry's ability to create stronger wizards was sadly temporary, the Minister did not need to know that.

"We really must see if we can cure you of smirking like that," Joseph murmured.


Rufus looked out over the congregation of wizards and witches in front of him. Only some of them were reporters. Others were Ministry employees, and some had appeared the moment the Minister had announced he would hold a press conference. They were almost certainly curious to see what a dictator looked like, Rufus knew. If no one charmed rotten fruit to fly at him, he would be surprised.

But then, he hadn't assumed the Ritual of Cincinnatus would make him popular.

He stepped up to the stage, with Frederick and Hope close beside him, and Percy further back, under a ward. Griselda Marchbanks was with him, and the hanarz, but most of the spectators only gave her odd glances and turned away. They would assume that the goblin was a personal attendant, Rufus knew, at best.

They were about to be rudely disabused.

He looked up into the flash of cameras, waited until he thought he had their attention, and began.

"As many of you know, I am currently in control of all magic in the Ministry," he said. And here came a wormy apple, right on cue, levitating at his face. Rufus flicked it lazily out of the way with his wand, hoping it had at least confirmed for whoever sent it that no, he did not control all magic outside the Ministry. They could stop murmuring about him hiding behind his walls, now. "I performed the Ritual of Cincinnatus with the help of sixteen Wizengamot members, including Elder Marchbanks." Griselda gave a little bow.

"What many of you do not know is why.

"Our society has struggled under a dark miasma of fear in the past few months. At first, we blamed it on the werewolf attacks. Then, it came to my attention that there had been attacks on Harry vates in the Ministry itself." Rufus ignored the gasps that arose, and the shouted questions about whether the Vox Populi had been right. "I pondered, but I had good information saying that the attack was not real, or at least misunderstood. I ignored it.

"And matters grew worse and worse. The fear grew stronger. Laws were passed making it impossible for werewolves to live among wizards. A jailbreak into Tullianum took place. Harry vates went into rebellion. Ministry scandals broke. Our world shook itself to the foundations, and still I did not know what to do.

"Blame me for being so pathetic and weak. Blame me for waiting so long to do what needed to be done. In times of war, the British wizarding world looks first to its Minister, and I have failed you.

"I took up the reins on the same day that important information came to me. First, the werewolf packs were betrayed by dreams—dreams that inflamed the hatred of wizards who may have mildly disliked them, and then gave away the location of their safe houses." Rufus heard the shouts cease, and a peach that had been rising above someone's head dropped back with a splat. He concealed a grim smile. So, the Liberator was right. "And then, I learned that the hatred of werewolves in the Ministry, the impulse to create laws against them, came from a specific place: one of our own Departments, the Department of Mysteries."

Everyone in the crowd looked up as owls abruptly lifted from behind the stage, soaring into the cloudy sky. They aimed in all directions, and scattered rapidly, their wings beating hard enough to cause a rain of feathers to fall.

"Those are owls bearing sealed letters containing this same information to a hundred people of my own choosing," said Rufus calmly. "Those people include various foreign Ministers of Magic. If the Department of Mysteries chooses to try and Obliviate the lot of us, they will not succeed in stifling the truth."

He saw a few people Apparate away. Rufus shrugged. They were outside the Ministry; not much he could do to stop them. And if they were frightened of the Unspeakables, then he could hardly blame them.

"They wanted werewolves to experiment on," he said. "And they wanted to use the discoveries from that magic to control people." He paused and swept the crowd with a sharp gaze. "All that hatred, all those laws, all that killing done, merely to insure that some werewolves came alive to Tullianum and their devices.

"They were the ones who attacked Harry vates. They are the ones who have spent lives, including the lives of people not connected at all with them, to insure that he is captured or taken, and brought nothing but death." He took a deep breath, and told his first deliberate lie of the speech. Well, he'd had a lot of practice, since he was also guarding the Ritual of Cincinnatus.

"They were the ones who sent the dreams."

He saw faces grow tight, and some of the looming fear in the crowd change to anger. Rufus nodded slightly. He would not say that Falco Parkinson had sent the dreams, although that was the truth, and he would certainly pass that truth along to Harry. He would not betray the Liberator that way; her family might be able to figure out from this announcement that she had helped him. And Falco would be less cautious if he did not realize that Rufus knew he existed, and that someone was spying on him and passing information along.

And besides, it made the Department of Mysteries into a perfect scapegoat. Rufus doubted that they would contradict him. To do so, they would have to break their own stated code of secrecy and silence. He expected an emissary from the Department to approach him instead, and offer a quiet peace agreement.

"We have lived in fear of shadows, and the full moon, too long," Rufus concluded. "We will do so no longer. We will make sure that all our people know the difference between honest concern and open terror, and this is the end of terror's reign." He lifted one of the pieces of parchment in front of him. "Along with the repeal of the anti-werewolf laws, the Wizengamot is now considering what peace terms should be offered to Harry vates."

"And when will your reign of terror be done, Minister?" someone bold called out.

"When it's done," said Rufus, and allowed himself a full, tooth-bared smile this time. "The Ministers in the past who did this? The Ritual of Cincinnatus killed 'em if they tried to retain power beyond the point they needed it."

More people blinked at him.

"As well," said Rufus casually, nodding to the hanarz, "matters have changed between southern goblins and wizards. Madam Marchbanks and her partner, the hanarz, will be delighted to speak to you about that."

He stepped back, to make it clear that although he lent his authority to what Griselda and the hanarz had to say, this had not been his idea, and he was not dominating their decisions.

He had done what he could, he thought. The Wizengamot had indeed seen the implications of Harry's ability to make other wizards absorberes. They had agreed without hesitation to ask for peace, and to make the werewolf laws much less restrictive. They had hemmed and hawed on Harry's other requests.

It would take work, Rufus knew. But arguments were much better than killing.

He saw a movement off to the side, and looked down. Aurora Whitestag was approaching the stage. She gazed up at him and smiled diffidently.

"Minister," she said. "I was wondering if we might talk?"