The title of this chapter is Latin, and means, "Man is a wolf to other men." Also, the ending could be considered a cliffhanger.
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Homo Homini LupusRufus signed his name to the document with a flourish, then sat back and looked over it. He felt sure Harry would agree to this set of laws. They did everything that he had asked for, and they were more than he might have expected to win over two years of asking.
They insisted that werewolves had the same rights as wizards—the right to exist without being hunted, the right to fair trials if they were accused of crimes, the right to hold wands and paying jobs and property, the right to custody of their children, and the right to exist without collars and without papers and without experimentation. They included provisions for distribution of Wolfsbane to werewolves who agreed to register themselves as lycanthropes; otherwise, due to the fact that people existed who would buy Wolfsbane just to keep it out of the hands of werewolves, they would have to make their own arrangements. Since Harry had mentioned in his last letter that he thought there was a possibility that a werewolf cure might emerge someday, after months of dedicated work, Rufus had added a promise that the funds originally used to establish the Department for the Control and Suppression of Deadly Beasts would go to studying the cure instead.
In a few weeks, the new Goblin Board would begin sending its representatives out to negotiate with the northern goblins. Most of the representatives were human, but there were some southern goblins, at the hanarz's insistence. Rufus hoped they would be able to begin by the sixteenth of November.
And there were some wizards in training with the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures to contact the centaurs. Rufus was privately uncertain how effective that would be; unless Harry led every party himself, there remained a certain element of terror in venturing into the Forbidden Forest. But it was the good faith effort that Harry had asked for.
The bigger projects—in particular, reaching out to magical species all around the world, and potentially eliminating the boundaries between wizards and Muggles—would have to wait. Rufus didn't think they would be able to accomplish them anyway, given how protective other wizarding communities tended to be of their own territory, but Harry had surprised him before. If he could succeed, then Rufus had no problems lending his voice and praise to Harry's efforts.
And so, it was done.
All except for one thing, of course.
Rufus turned his head expectantly towards the door just as the knock sounded. The hardest thing to give up when the Ritual of Cincinnatus left him, he thought, would be the wards. He had adapted to using them almost as a second pair of eyes. He had caught two Aurors beating a prisoner that way the other day—they obviously hadn't realized the Minister controlled wards in Tullianum, as well—and several more employees in minor infractions that he could come in and personally inquire about. The temporary Head of the Auror Office, a young man named Bingley, was scrambling hard to keep up with everything, but Rufus had done better on his own than he expected.
And now he knew that an Unspeakable was coming to see him.
"Come in," he called.
The young man who walked in had his hood down, giving Rufus his first glimpse of an Unspeakable's face. He was handsome enough, a wizard with black hair and brown eyes and vaguely familiar features; Rufus thought he might have known this one's brother or father in Auror training once. He sat down facing Rufus and inclined his head in a shallow nod, before speaking in that same inflectionless voice they all had.
"Minister. The Stone has offered this peace treaty." He held out a parchment that Rufus knew wasn't enchanted with harmful spells. He had specifically forbidden the members of the Department of Mysteries to use any magic in their own domain. This had been written entirely by hand; they hadn't even been able to Accio the parchment or the quill to themselves.
Rufus scanned it carefully. Every term was just as he'd asked for, though, even in the language that he asked for. The Department of Mysteries agreed to stop their experiments on werewolves, to serve the good of the Ministry first and foremost instead of their own good, not to war with Harry, and to avoid pressuring the members of the Wizengamot as they had done in the recent past with Amelia Bones and others. They also agreed to reduce their spy wards throughout the Ministry to wards on Tullianum and on the eighth floor, the Atrium, only; those wards would help defend the Department.
Rufus wondered if he could really trust the Department of Mysteries. But then, he had ruined their cover of secrecy rather spectacularly. In the past few weeks, his people had called loudly and more loudly for an investigation into the Department itself, to split it open and expose its secrets to the air. Rufus had known that trying to force the Unspeakables to open their doors would be walking into a death trap, especially given the Stone's immunity to magic. But he could and would use the stalemate to reach an agreement, and now it seemed that he had.
"You know that by signing this, it commits you?" he asked, and held out the parchment towards the Unspeakable. "And if we see you disobeying anything on this list, or even suspect that you have, I will simply disband the Department and declare all Unspeakables outlaws."
The man gave him a thin smile, but his voice remained the same inflectionless wonder as before. "We do, Minister. I have the Stone's full permission to sign this, I assure you. And we do find it much easier to work within the Ministry than outside it." He picked up the quill on Rufus's desk.
Rufus shuddered. He could feel the ripple and twitch in the air, the sliding power of another mind in the room with him. He lifted his head with an effort, and met the Unspeakable's eyes, and realized the Stone was looking out at him from them.
"I am here," said the voice. It was deep now, and no longer without inflection, though the words stopped and started at odd points, and Rufus would not have said that he could identify the emotion that inhabited them. "I have approved this."
The Unspeakable bent and signed The Stone. The words blazed across the parchment to Rufus's eyes, letters of red and gold, and then the great presence departed, and he was left sitting at his desk, stunned and shaken. The young man rose to his feet, bowed, and then turned and left as well.
It is just as well that we never tried to go to war with that thing. This is inadequate as a punishment for all they have done, but it is the best we can do.
Rufus gathered up the signed documents and turned around to hand them to Percy for copying. One set would go to the Daily Prophet, which tracked all the negotiations, and one to Harry. If he approved them, then the debacle would be done and the rebellion could conclude.
Rufus rather hoped Harry would approve them, and not just because he was tired of the arguing. There was something rather poetic about a rebellion that began with September's full moon and ended with October's.
"What are you worried about, Harry?"
Harry started. He had come into the room where Joseph was waiting for him to begin one of their talks, but his thoughts had been elsewhere, and he had believed he was alone. "I'm not worried about anything new," he said, and sat down. "I think we were talking about my hand last time, sir."
"Call me Joseph," said the Seer, sitting back and cocking his head. "And, forgive me, Harry, but most people who observe you for a long period of time will note the way your forehead furrows and you bite your lip when you're worried about something. And you were doing it just now."
Harry sighed. I have to learn to control my facial features. Another set of lessons, I suppose. "The full moon is coming," he said. "The third one since Loki made his vow of vengeance. That means that he's going to attack and kill the third hunter who killed his mate, Gudrun."
"And you are worrying about finding this hunter and sparing his life?" Joseph asked.
Harry scowled. Joseph had a gentle and patient tone that made him want to hit things. It was even worse than Vera's. Vera, he hadn't met under the best circumstances, and so he was willing to forgive her almost anything once he accepted the idea that she'd spied on his soul without his consent. But Joseph was supposed to be Snape's Seer, and Harry had agreed to talk to him only under duress. "Yes, of course I am," he said shortly. "It was partly Kieran's death that made me start this rebellion in the first place, and a wish to find some other way for wizards and werewolves to live together that didn't depend upon oaths of vengeance. But I don't even know where the third hunter is, just that his family has taken him into hiding somewhere in France. And I'm sure Loki has already crossed the Channel by now."
"Have you warned his family about the consequences of standing in his way?" Joseph asked.
"I sent owls. I never received a reply."
"Then you have done all you can," said Joseph firmly. "But this is a new subject for us, and one I would like to discuss. Kieran's death."
Harry shook his head and stood, turning towards the door.
"Harry."
"I agreed to talk to you because I wanted to be a better son to Professor Snape," Harry said quietly, staring straight ahead. "And because I recognize my own healing is an important goal." Just one that takes up so much damn time, time I can't afford right now. It had ended up taking Draco and Snape together to insist that he talk to Joseph at all. He would have been willing to make another journey to the Sanctuary, but in the future, not right now. These arguments with Joseph took away from valuable time when he could have been talking over future plans with the packs, reviewing the latest laws the Minister'd sent him, peeking in on Hawthorn as she worked with the lycanthropy cure, soothing the karkadann, conversing with the northern goblins and the centaurs, envisioning his Animagus form, studying the final curse on his hand, or simply resting with Draco. "Not because I thought that I needed to heal from every single thing that had ever happened to me."
"Kieran's death had some part in the beginning of the rebellion, you said," said Joseph. "Obviously, it's recent, and it's important to you. I would like to know why."
Harry let his breath out. He could get angry, of course he could, but it was unproductive to get angry at Joseph. He simply looked at Harry, or Snape for that matter, with wise and patient eyes, and it worked as well as hitting a brick wall—more likely to break something in the one doing the hitting than move the recipient anywhere.
"It's a horrible story," he said. "I promised to protect Kieran, and I couldn't. He died. I failed." He swallowed several times, and for a moment saw Loki again, shimmering pale as he smashed through the door. He saw Kieran's blood flying, heard the flesh parting under Loki's nails and teeth. He remembered the feeling of spinning down and down as he had knelt there, the momentary impulse to kill himself and be done with it. If everything he put his hand to failed anyway, the world could more than spare him, it would be better off without him.
And he had hauled himself back from that, because he had known that the world would not really be better off without him, and he had transformed that despair into determination to see wizards and werewolves adopt some better way of living side by side. If he could have saved Kieran, he might not ever have found that stubbornness. He would still have done something when he heard Hawthorn was arrested, but it might not have been rebelling.
It's past, and I rescued what scraps of worth I could from that, and made use of them. Harry deliberately slowed his breathing. I don't need to talk about it the way Joseph imagines I need to talk about it. Snape gains value from reliving his memories because he denied they happened for so long, or he rewrote them in his mind and made them into something else. I haven't done that. I remember all my failures very well, thank you.
"I think there is more to it than that," said Joseph.
Harry blinked, and returned to the room, and remembered the last words he'd spoken to Joseph. He shook his head and gave him a grim smile. "Nothing important."
"Really." Joseph leaned forward. "I have seen how fervently you defend all those around you, Harry. I do not like to imagine what would happen if someone under your protection died. It must have been a horrible evening for you."
"I told you it was a horrible story," said Harry, with a slight shrug.
"Have you spoken with anyone about this at all?" Joseph pressed. "Draco, one of your adult allies, Severus?"
"No," said Harry. "I don't see the need to. I took all the lessons I could from it, and that's the end."
"What were the lessons?"
"That I needed to do something more than make empty promises," snapped Harry, and winced as he saw a current of wind pick up from the corner of his eye, rattling the delicate parchment maps that Joseph had hung on the walls, and which seemed to be his main form of decoration. "I'm sorry, but I don't think I'll ever be ready or willing to talk about this," he added, and then stepped out and shut the door behind him.
The bird was waiting for him in the hall. It didn't try to claw him this time. It simply clung to the wall of the corridor, not very far away given how narrow most rooms in Woodhouse were, and stared at him. The claws on its wings opened and flexed shut in peculiar ways. Its red eyes were more piercing when it wasn't laughing at him, Harry thought, not less.
"I don't know what you want," he whispered to it. "I have tried to kill Voldemort before. It didn't work. Twice, the Killing Curse didn't work."
The bird flew over and hovered in front of him. Harry braced himself for another meaningless image. The bird had taken to showing him those over the past weeks. One was a dark burrow with a golden cup inside it, and one a dark house that looked vaguely familiar, but was surrounded by trees in full leaf that Harry was sure he had never seen, and one was a view of Hogwarts, and one was a cramped, narrow desk in an unpleasantly Muggle-looking place.
Harry had tried asking questions about the images. He had tried drawing them and showing them to others, but Snape and Draco and Thomas couldn't tell him what they meant either. He had tried willing himself to Apparate to them, but other than Hogwarts, where he didn't want to go until his rebellion was officially finished and he could be readmitted as a student, they were too indistinct to permit that. He didn't know what to do with them.
But this time, the bird didn't show him a meaningless image, but one full of meaning. In fact, it was a fat leather-bound book with a title printed on the spine in letters of silver. Harry raised an eyebrow. The title was Of Lords and Their Powers, and he had brought the book with him from the Black libraries.
That image faded, and a number appeared, also glittering silver against a dark background. 453.
Harry shook his head—he still didn't understand why the bird couldn't simply speak and tell him what it wanted him to know instead of sending him images and book pages to look up—but he went to his bedroom and opened his trunk. Draco was lounging on the bed and looked up with a welcoming smile, but he stilled as the blankets near his feet shifted. Harry knew that would be the only indication Draco would have of the presence of the bird, which had followed him.
Harry opened Of Lords and Their Powers, and flipped to page 453. It began in the middle of a paragraph, which he skimmed without interest—something about the consequences of Lords gaining the protection of Light or Dark after Declaring, which he already knew. The bird had to know he would never Declare, even if it wanted him to do so.
There was a paragraph under that, though, which read:
There is one final requirement to being considered a true Lord, which I almost hesitate to mention. On the surface, it seems simple and obvious, and not only most Lords but most wizards would not be who they are without it. But at the same time, there have been some powerful wizards who abruptly lost their magic, and this was the only reason they could offer: magic loves to be used. Magic loves to be made much of, and noticed, and appreciated. Though the personalities it develops when under confinement vary, one may say the major component of them all is vanity. These few powerful Lords or almost-Lords who lost their magic did it through treating it like a shoe or a robe, only something useful, and never showing any wonder or delight or appreciation. Of course, most wizards, for whom their magic is their being, need never worry about this.
Harry lowered the book and stared at the bird. It stalked in a circle, lashing its tail, and stared back.
"I don't know what that has to do with the images you showed me," Harry whispered.
The bird lifted and flew at him, landing on his shoulder and giving him a sharp nip on the earlobe with its toothed beak. Then it flew at the wall, vanishing on the way. Harry grimaced and touched his ear, which dripped blood.
"Here." Draco was already beside him with a cloth, which Harry took gratefully to mop at the wound. "What was that all about? I notice it didn't scratch you this time, but biting isn't much better."
"It wanted me to read this." Harry tapped the paragraph; he had the book hovering in the air in front of him, cradled by his Levitation Charm. "I think I understand why. What I don't understand is how that has any connection with the burrow and the house and Hogwarts and the desk it showed me."
Draco bent down and read the paragraph, one hand on the book and one on Harry's left shoulder. Both tightened as he continued reading. Then he lifted his head and said, "I thought of this when you offered to share the absorbere gift with me, Harry, and now that I've noticed it, I can't stop noticing it. You don't appreciate your magic enough. There are times you rejoice in it, but how rare are those times? Even for magic that can't hurt anyone? For example, I don't think I've ever heard you sing like a phoenix unless you're trying to heal someone or express sorrow."
Harry felt his face flush. "And you think that's connected to why the magic won't let me give any of it back to Camellia?"
He had tried again and again since Snape deemed him healthy enough to get out of bed after the failed attempt at giving the absorbere gift to Draco. Camellia had a magical core now, just as a Squib did; Harry ought to have been able to fill it as he had the magical cores of the children turned Squibs by the Midsummer attack. He should have been able to drink magic from Black artifacts and pass it along.
His magic wouldn't let him. Every time he opened his absorbere gift, the bird appeared, settling heavy and claw-prickly onto his shoulder, and watched. As long as he only drank magic, it didn't mind. But the moment he turned that towards some goal like feeding Camellia or pouring it into the lycanthropy cure or, Merlin forbid, trying to weave a magical core for another Muggle werewolf, the bird attacked him. Harry winced, and touched his hand, still holding the cloth, to his face in remembrance. When he'd tried to create a magical core for Rose, the bird had slashed his face, and come extremely near to taking his eye. Only a spell Snape had learned from Madam Pomfrey had let Harry not have a second scar on his face.
Harry had put all that down to the vicious streak of temper the bird seemed to have developed trapped between him and Voldemort. He had assumed its fit over his giving both Camellia and Draco extra power would pass, and he would be able to use the absorbere gift for more than just digesting magic again. But now he had to wonder. Was the magic doing that because it was angry that he didn't appreciate it enough?
"Yes," said Draco, and again Harry had to struggle, as with Joseph, to remember the last thing he'd said to him. "I think that's exactly it, Harry. Maybe the magic would have been content to let you do this forever if Voldemort hadn't used that ritual to resurrect himself, because Thomas says the connection between you wasn't really a tunnel until then. But now it's aware, and it wants you to do certain things with it." He tilted Harry's chin up until he met his eyes. "Can you blame it?" he whispered. "When you know that the goblins and the house elves labored unacknowledged for centuries, and how unfair that was?"
Harry winced. "I just—Draco, I dislike using my magic for things that don't help other people."
"Why not?"
"Self-indulgence," said Harry flatly. "It's self-indulgence, and I can't afford that."
"In this case, I think it's indulgence of your magic, and nothing else." Draco ran a soothing hand down his back. Harry had noticed him picking up a habit of that since he arrived at Woodhouse. More disturbing was his own new habit to relax into the stroking and arch his back towards it. "Think about it, Harry. You respect the free wills of more people and magical creatures than I would ever be able to. Respecting the free will of your magic shouldn't be hard."
"It's not that," said Harry. "I'm not afraid of the effects on my magic, Draco. I'm afraid of the effects on myself."
Draco laughed. "You think you'll become a Lord just through allowing yourself to delight in your abilities more?" He bent over and kissed Harry. "I promise," he whispered, when he drew back enough to be able to speak, "I won't let that happen. Trust me?"
"Of course." The response was automatic, but it made Harry blink when he realized what he'd agreed to. Draco laughed again as he sighed.
"Can't hurt to go out and create pretty lights tomorrow," he said. "Or sing, Harry. I think more people would like to hear you sing than have."
"All right, all right," said Harry.
He heard a flap, and turned around. The bird clung to the wall, watching him with what Harry could have sworn was approval, before it turned and vanished through the wood again.
"This is embarrassing."
Draco ignored Harry. He had been saying some variation of that for the last ten minutes, as they walked out of the main quadrangle of buildings at Woodhouse and across the valley to find some place that wouldn't be too public for Harry, away from the sentries and the wizards practicing dueling under Adalrico Bulstrode and the karkadann, who had stopped grazing and pranced over to be petted when she saw Harry. Draco didn't care if it was embarrassing. Harry had promised that he would do it, and that meant he would do it.
Draco couldn't even describe what he'd felt since Harry's debacle with trying to give Camellia the absorbere gift. At least, he didn't think he could have described it to anyone else. He could speak the words in his own head, and they didn't sound silly or too sappy there, the way they would have if they were spoken aloud.
He felt lighter, as if he had been carrying a burden and finally been invited to lay it down. He felt more smug, more contented and surer of his place in Harry's life. He felt as if he stood a chance of being respected by other people out of Harry's shadow, whether or not he ever had magic to equal his, whether or not he managed to achieve deeds as heroic as his.
Harry had never thought of him as lesser. He had never believed that because Draco didn't have the same amount of magic, he was inferior in any way.
This changed things so much that Draco felt as if he stood on a mountaintop in the sight of the sun again, as before he made his decision to go to Harry instead of obey his father, but this time he could actually enjoy the view instead of being afraid of what others were thinking as they looked at him. Why should he be afraid of what others were thinking as they looked at him? He was better than they were, and he knew it. He was judged as he deserved in the eyes of everyone who mattered to him.
And that wouldn't change once he encouraged Harry to give his magic the freedom and joy it wanted. It would only improve. Harry might actually be able to relax, as he rarely did except when he was moving fast, on a broom or a karkadann. And that would lead to his being more relaxed with Draco, and giving Draco more of what he wanted, including more sex.
Draco did not see any way in which his life wouldn't improve, based on what would happen this morning.
At last he thought they were far away enough from everyone for Harry to be not immediately embarrassed. He turned around with a coaxing smile and held out his hand to Harry. Harry looked at it suspiciously, as if Draco might somehow charm him into piping away like a songbird at the merest touch.
"Why don't you hold my hand while you sing?" Draco asked. "Touching me seems to calm you."
"I wouldn't call last night calm," Harry muttered, but he did as Draco asked. And then he stood there. And stood there. Draco watched him. It was a day nearly as bright as spring, though the chill in the air and the polished blue shell of the sky necessarily spoke of autumn. Harry shifted from foot to foot.
"Go ahead and sing," Draco said at last.
Harry closed his eyes, and a deep flush crept up his face. Then he drew his breath in and sang.
Draco found himself smiling immediately, and didn't try to stop it. At least Harry was making an honest attempt. This wasn't the mourning dirge he'd sung when Fawkes died, nor yet the music he'd used to heal the burned people lying in their own minds at Gollrish Y Thie. It wasn't even a battle song to improve morale. It was a chorus of gladness that gathered its legs beneath it and leaped straight up.
Draco heard the deep, contented purring that Harry's magic had given when he and Harry finally bedded each other after Harry woke from his Occlumency pools, and trails of blue and purple light, in deep, jeweled colors, unwound from his shoulders and looped around them both as Draco watched. The song went on flying, and the magic chased after it, creating fan patterns of flame. The flame was cold, though, and not at all the high, solemn joy a phoenix's fire might evoke. Instead, it formed pictures of gravely stalking birds—peacocks, herons, storks—only to the next moment turn them into falling showers of stars, like fireworks, and race madly about in a mixture of light and wind.
Harry's voice rose. Draco didn't know if he was getting lost in the song, or gaining more confidence. That was primarily because he couldn't look away from the light show in front of him. The light and the wind had now formed an owl-like pattern, white and golden-eyed in imitation of Hedwig, and were rotating it in circles—upright, to the left, upside-down, and to the right. Draco wondered what the motive was, then scolded himself. The motive was to have fun, of course.
He laughed, but he didn't think the magic was making him laugh, as the phoenix song after Midwinter had made him feel sorrow. His hand tightened on Harry's, and when the snowy owl dissolved into more brilliant chaos, he was able to sneak a sideways look at Harry's face.
Harry had his eyes open and was watching the displays his magic made with a half-dazed expression. He shook his head once or twice, but didn't stop singing. The magic giggled to itself and zipped up and down, then out to the sides, forming the pattern of a crossroads.
In moments, the crossroads pattern firmed into a golden one. Draco watched as each end began to glow with a ball of light, which shimmered and added colors until he had trouble looking directly at any of them. By now, everyone in Woodhouse might be staring, but Harry didn't seem inclined to end this, either the song or the light show.
The balls raced down each arm of the crossroads, rumbling all the way like boulders dropped into narrow tunnels. When the four of them met in the center, they collided with a blaze Draco instinctively closed his eyes against, and which still flared like sunrise through his eyelids. A last, great chord of music went up, and Draco couldn't have said whether it came from the magic or Harry's throat.
Then the song dropped triumphantly back to earth, and was over.
Draco slowly opened his eyes and blinked away the afterimages. Then he looked at Harry—
Whose face was shining with wonder, who was touching his own throat as if he didn't know what to do with it, and whose magic filled his eyes and his body as if he were made of glass.
Draco took a swift step forward, seized Harry's head, and gave him a kiss that was half bite. No one could have blamed him for that, he was convinced. Hell, holding back on kissing Harry was probably a crime in most civilized countries.
Harry started to kiss back, and then became aware of their audience, the people pressing across the grass to stare at them. His cheeks flushed again, but he returned their stares and gave Draco a kiss only a bit less chaste than it would have been otherwise. Draco wished Harry had thought to Apparate them to their bedroom. Instead, Harry stepped away and nodded to those watching.
"What was that for?" Evergreen, the werewolf, asked. Draco gave him a sidelong glance. He thought Evergreen watched Harry too much. "What's the danger?"
"No danger," said Harry, even as his cheeks turned Weasley red. "I just wanted to have fun."
Draco smiled. Harry had had fun, whatever mortification he might feel now, and from the deep, contented rumbling Draco could hear if he listened, it seemed that his magic agreed.
Harry stretched his arms above his head and threw his shoulders back. They had finally brewed enough Wolfsbane for each werewolf in Woodhouse to take for all three nights they would transform, a little before the full moon actually rose on the first night. The packs had already taken their Wolfsbane for tonight, of course, but Harry had been unsure if they would finish the brewing before tomorrow.
He glanced over at Snape, who was capping the vials of potion and putting them carefully in a large cabinet fastened to the wall of the room they'd taken over as their Potions lab (it had been the room where Harry worked on the werewolf cure, first). Harry narrowed his eyes. Snape's hands had the slightest shake to them, not something anyone would have noticed unless they knew him.
"Sir?" he asked. And there was the slightest pause before Snape answered, again something most people would not have noticed—but a pause that he might have used to conceal how badly Harry's question startled him.
"Yes, Harry?" he said, in a neutral tone.
"I'm going to spend part of the evening in the valley with the packs," Harry said. "But you'll have important brewing to do in your own rooms, of course."
Silence. Harry went on watching his guardian's turned back. He wondered if Snape had not thought he would offer him an out, or had simply committed himself to accompanying Harry outside, despite his own fear and hatred.
"Important brewing must not be neglected," Snape said softly.
Harry nearly sagged with relief. He could not have forced Snape to stay behind, and would never have tried, but the thought of what could have happened if Snape had been persistent…
"Of course it must not be, sir," he said, and moved towards the door.
"Harry?"
He paused again. He'd rarely heard Snape's voice sound so uncertain. He looked over his shoulder, but Snape still had his back turned. "Yes, Professor?"
"Why have you never sought permission to call me by my first name?" Snape was now trying to mask desperate curiosity as idle curiosity. Harry could not imagine why the answer would be so important to him, but he told the truth with all appropriate gravity.
"It seemed too informal, sir. Our first years, of course, we were professor and student—"
"That almost never prevented me from addressing you as Harry, instead of Mr. Potter."
Harry blinked. "Yes, sir, but I assumed that you wanted to distinguish me from my brother. And our father," he added, thinking of the black hatred that had burned between Snape and James even after Snape officially became his guardian.
"Yes," Snape all but breathed the words. "And after I became your guardian, Harry?"
"It would have been inappropriate." Harry cocked his head, wondering what Snape wanted from him. "You were there to defend me and protect me and restrict me when it was necessary. I did tell you that I wasn't a child, sir, and you accepted that. So our relationship was as two adults most of the time. I admit there were days I behaved like a child, or a sulky adolescent, and you had to become the parent." He smiled, and tried to add the smile to his tone, but since Snape still didn't turn around, Harry wasn't sure what effect that had on him. "But since then, you've never invited a closer acquaintance. I assumed it wasn't allowable, sir, either for me or for yourself. You're an intensely private person, I know, which is one of the reasons that talking to Joseph is so hard for you."
Snape turned around then. "I consider myself your father, Harry. You know that, from the bargain we made."
Harry nodded.
"And yet."
Harry sighed. "I didn't know you wanted anything different, sir. And you know I've always been more comfortable with formality."
Snape spoke as if he were jumping off a cliff. "I would—appreciate it if you would call me Severus, Harry. For various reasons. I spent years hating the name and training myself not to think it. Severus was a weakling, and the man I became was not. But I am, I hope, eventually recovering the name from the memories I told Joseph about. Besides, you called your abusers by their first names. I would like at least that same level of intimacy."
"I assumed you wouldn't want equal standing with them in any way, sir," said Harry, his voice as careful as he could make it.
"This kind of standing? I do." Snape leaned forward, face intent. "You are my son, Harry, in ways that you were never theirs—not least of all because they never tried to claim you that way." A sneer entered his voice. Harry could see the effort it took him to force it back down. "I would not consider your treatment of me the same if you called me Severus," he finished at last, softly. "I would consider that you afforded me the same courtesy and friendliness that you show to Mrs. Malfoy and Mrs. Parkinson, in addressing them by their first names."
"Even that's new," Harry warned him. "And I stumble plenty of times."
Snape laughed, a sound half-genuine and half not. "And you believe that I am one to blast anyone for stumbling at this point, Harry?"
Harry nodded, slowly. He was still absolutely sure that this would end up cracked on the floor like an egg soon, but he could try. "Good night, s—Severus." The name felt odd on his tongue.
"Good night, Harry."
Then, he could finally leave and shut the door. Harry shook himself as he walked quickly up the narrow corridors and towards the exit from the wooden house into Woodhouse itself.
He could have understood it better if this had been something Joseph recommended Snape do, to help him recover. He would have understood if Snape really had wanted to be considered at least equal to James and Lily in importance in Harry's mind.
But instinct told Harry that the most important reason was simply that Snape had wanted this, and wanted this from him.
It's so strange to think about Snape needing anything from anybody, he thought, as he pushed open the door. It's so strange to think about anybody wanting that from me, specifically, not just any child they've adopted. And Draco. I thought he wanted his pleasure most of all. And he wants my pleasure, too. And even my magic! It wants my delight in using it, not just use.
It was so strange. Harry felt as if he'd entered a new country, one that the Sanctuary hadn't prepared him for but which everyone else knew from early on in life. He was going to stumble so often. He just knew it. How in the world was he supposed to offer people things that came from him, and not common decency and compassion? How would he tread the line between doing something natural and good, and self-indulgence?
I don't know. I only know I have to try.
He put the thoughts away as he stepped out into Woodhouse. At least, he thought, here were werewolves who wanted nothing of him. A good thing, too, since Harry's own hope that matters would be resolved before the full moon had not come to pass. When they looked over the Minister's latest set of laws for the werewolves, Hawthorn had pointed out that there was no provision to punish the Aurors and others who had attacked werewolves while the hunting was still legal. There wasn't even a blunt statement that the Department for the Control and Suppression of Deadly Beasts was going to be disbanded, only that the funds would be used for something else and that no more hunting would be allowed. Harry had written Scrimgeour that morning explaining the problem. He hadn't heard anything back yet.
He tried to put the troubles in the back of his mind as he saw the valley.
Harry was very glad that Snape had stayed inside now. The moon had already risen. Woodhouse was packed with werewolves, the members of more than a dozen packs as well as those who had become werewolves because of Loki, nudging each other with their noses and sniffing and licking, or sitting on their haunches and staring at the moon.
Harry saw a flash of silver, and a moment later made out the wolf who must be Peregrine: a black bitch with an overwhelming presence, made more dramatic still by the silver-white markings along her shoulders and spine. She stood looking at the moon herself, then threw back her head and howled.
The wolves on either side of her, the remnants of her pack, responded instantly, and then other voices joined them, and others. Harry closed his eyes and listened. He could not call it a dirge, or a song of triumph. It didn't sound human enough for that. It was hunting music, but fiercer and freer and more savage than that heard from any human horn. This was what the packs must have sounded like when direwolves still ran the world, Harry thought, half-dreaming, shaggy beasts older than any werewolf, and hunting prey they had never seen.
When he opened his eyes, the howling had stopped and Peregrine was guiding the others on a run around the rim of the valley, beginning with the entrance near the pine woods and continuing on past the hills and the houses. Harry found it hard to see them, given that the only light was that of the full moon, but that didn't matter. The moonlight was just right for seeing them, he thought, the flashes of silver on Peregrine's shoulders leading the way and the fawn and white and brindled and gray and sometimes black coats pouring after her. Sometimes a gleam marked a mouth of bared teeth or a pair of amber eyes catching the moon just right. Soon Harry stood near the side of the widening ring, and no matter how fast he turned, he couldn't keep up with them all.
He saw no werewolf as pale as Loki, and for that he was grateful. He tried not to think about what Loki was probably doing in France at the moment, and failed.
Twice the wolves made a circuit of the valley, and then gradually they slowed, panting heavily and turning the game into more individual ones, snatching at and playing with each other. Harry couldn't tell if they were splitting up by packs or not, since he found it hard to recognize most of them in wolf form. He did notice Remus tussling with Camellia, who bit him sharply on the nose and loped off to stand by herself. She still hadn't recovered completely from the loss of her magic.
Then a dirge arose.
Harry turned, the hair on the back of his neck rising. A pale fawn bitch stood by herself, head tilted back and voice rising and falling in an ululating wail. Harry wouldn't have felt so bad if he didn't know who it was. Hawthorn.
Slowly, though his skin prickled all over with sweat and shock, he moved towards her. The other werewolves made no move to follow him. Harry wondered if that was because Hawthorn was part of no pack.
He whispered her name, halting near her. She stopped her howl and stared at him with sorrowful amber eyes.
He whispered her name several more times, but of course she couldn't speak in this form, and she wouldn't consent to nuzzle his hand or take comfort from him. She moved away and lay down, curling her tail around her nose. Harry heard the other werewolves turn back to their games. He sat down next to her, talking softly.
"I do think the werewolf cure can be perfected," he said. "Perhaps some research into the origins of the curse would help. Thomas said it might have originated in America, of all places, and I wonder—"
He paused, his earlier thought about direwolves catching up to him. Direwolves had lived in America, hadn't they? And he didn't know if they had looked like werewolves, but there might still be some connection between that shape and the fact that werewolves looked so different from normal wolves.
He stood, intending to take his insight to Thomas and ask if it might help, but just then Hawthorn howled mightily and jumped to her feet, speeding past him. Harry whirled. Running to meet Hawthorn was a distinctive golden werewolf—Delilah Gloryflower, the war witch and another of Fenrir Greyback's victims. Her coat was apparently not supposed to mimic her blonde hair that closely, but someone had forgotten to tell that to her magic.
And close behind her was her aunt, Laura Gloryflower. She must have Apparated Delilah with her, Harry thought. Since they'd approached without hostile intent, Woodhouse had let them in.
He went to greet her, wondering what was wrong. Delilah and Hawthorn were nudging each other and making low whimpering sounds in their throats that he didn't like, but it might only be the relief of packmates reunited.
Laura's face told him it was not, though.
"Gloriana Griffinsnest found out that Claudia was a werewolf," she said quietly. Harry nodded; Claudia was the third member of Delilah's and Hawthorn's little pack. He wondered if Gloriana had imprisoned Claudia, and what they would have to do to get her back.
"She killed her," Laura said.
Harry froze. Then he whispered, "What?"
"You heard me," said Laura, vicious in a way that Harry had never seen her. Her face had a halo of fur around it, and fangs were growing in her mouth. Of course, she was puellaris, able to turn into a lioness to defend her children, and Delilah was her niece. "Gloriana killed Claudia. She is dead." She stopped, as if she wanted to say no more, but then pushed ahead. "And she believes that she will have no trouble from the Ministry—I heard her say this the other day—because many of the pureblood witches and wizards cannot believe they value the lives of werewolves as much as those of ordinary witches and wizards."
Harry felt as if the world were spinning around him, and he felt weirdly calm.
He met Laura's eyes. He saw her take a step back at whatever she recognized in his face.
"I suggest that we make the Ministry step up, and prove that they do," Harry said.
