Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!

This one is mostly full of reactions.

Chapter Forty-One: Dawn and Dusk, Sun and Shadow

Draco paced. The Minister had invited them all inside the Ministry, and had invited Draco, Snape, and Helcas into his office. Draco had refused, though, preferring to have the space of a corridor where he could move back and forth as he needed to, his hands rubbing and clenching over one another and sometimes disordering his hair.

"You're making yourself look ridiculous, Draco." Narcissa was seated on a conjured chair with her back to the wall, her eyes trained on a book that Draco could have sworn she hadn't brought with her. "Do sit down. Take a few deep breaths. The air will not hurry away from you."

"And what would you do, if Lucius was flying Merlin knows where on a dragon?" Draco snapped at her.

Narcissa glanced up at him; her eyes were calm and cold, and her face had not the slightest sign of any emotion but irritation. "I would trust that he had a good reason for doing so, and would come back," she said. "You must trust your partner, Draco darling, or what good is the joining? He trusted you to make you own decision when Lucius threatened to disown you. From what you and he have said, he never once asked you to make the decision earlier than you did."

"But that was making a choice, and this is jumping on a dragon," Draco explained, thinking his mother didn't quite understand that. He would have remained outside, staring up into the sky, the way that some of Harry's other allies and the people who had come to witness the ceremony were doing, but that just made him feel a right idiot. He hated being a right idiot in front of people. At least he and his mother were the only ones in this corridor; Snape and Helcas were shut in the Minister's office with him. "That's a bit different, Mother."

"Is it?" Narcissa carefully marked her place in her book with an embroidered scrap of cloth that Draco was also sure she hadn't had earlier, and folded her hands primly over her knees. "Is it really, Draco? He trusted you. Do you trust him? He has gone off into danger before, and always come back. Besides," she added, with a bit more censure to her tone than Draco had heard so far, "whether you are angry or not, it does not do to lose one's composure in public, my son. It shows your enemies that you have weaknesses."

"Everyone has weaknesses," Draco mumbled, and knew he was being childish. His face heated up. Grateful as he was to his mother for joining him in the rebellion and turning against Lucius to be with him, at the moment he wished she had never come at all. Not even Harry could make him feel as embarrassed and deeply ashamed as his mother did.

"But they don't always show them," said Narcissa, and the coldness in her voice had deepened. "I think you have gone too long without being reminded of that lesson." She sat up, and Draco had the uncomfortable vision of a great cat looking down its nose at him shortly before it set to eating him. "I will be the first to admit that you have strengths your father will never understand, Draco. But he has imparted wisdom to you as well, wisdom that you should make good use of. You are in a very public position as the spouse-to-be of a vates. Whether or not you wish to have it so, many eyes will be focused on you. And the son I raised would wish to have it so."

Draco sighed and tugged a hand through his hair, messing it up further, but unable to care right now. "I do want people to pay attention to me, Mother, but there's no one here right now." Even the Aurors who usually guarded the Minister's office had gone inside, perhaps because they didn't trust a goblin alone with their precious Scrimgeour; Draco wasn't sure. There were wards watching them, of course, but no passers-by.

"There is always someone watching," said Narcissa sharply. "Remember what I taught you about comportment, Draco. Why do some people practice all their lives for it and never achieve it?"

Draco could feel his flush deepening again. "Because it goes deeper than skin and bone," he muttered, letting the words be tugged from him. "Because someone who does not live grandeur in his mind will never live it in his body."

"Good," said Narcissa, with cold approval. "That is very good, Draco. You can do this. Your beloved is on a dragon riding to who-knows-where, but the last time we saw him he was still alive, and he is one of the most powerful wizards in the world. Think about those things, rather than the fact that you do not know where he is."

Draco nodded, and then began breathing with more regularity. He could feel the flush fading from his cheeks, and he drew his wand out and spelled his hair to lie flat again. He wondered what he had been thinking, as his emotions cleared from his head. They were in the Ministry, and in the Ministry, someone was always watching. It didn't matter whether his last name was Malfoy or Black, here, and it didn't matter whether Harry was on a dragon's back or gone to face Voldemort. He accomplished nothing for his own reputation or Harry's by losing his temper.

He heard footsteps around the corner just then, familiar footsteps. He looked sharply at his mother, only to find that she had heard them, too. But Narcissa didn't rise to her feet as he had expected. Instead, she sat where she was like a winter queen on her throne, ice in her hands and her eyes.

Lucius stepped around the corner and paused as if he had come on them suddenly. It was a very good performance. If he had been caught up in his ranting over Harry, Draco might even have been fooled.

Now, though, he could see how the performance was off, just a note or two. Lucius was feeling it in his skin and bone, but not his mind.

Draco drew himself up and offered a bow to his father. He was remembering lessons seared into his brain before he had ever started Hogwarts. He had not learned some of the older and less common pureblood rituals until he was thirteen, and then only thanks to Harry, but he knew the common ones. He gave Lucius the bow one would give a respected enemy, and saw his father's eyes linger on him a touch longer than they should have in response.

Then his father looked at his mother. Narcissa looked back.

And Draco saw what it was like when people of equal strength fought, and both of them knew why they were fighting.

"I have missed you in my home of late, Narcissa," Lucius said, with politeness that Draco thought more appropriate to a dinner party. "I have sometimes turned a corner and expected you to be there, or held out my arm, expecting you to feel your hand on it, and encountered nothing but air."

Narcissa did not even blink. "I have not missed your home, Lucius," she said. "I have been living in a wooden house, and sleeping in a cramped room, and helping my son and my future son-in-law prepare for the changing of the wizarding world."

Draco winced, but he had the sense to do it inwardly. Narcissa had not only refused whatever reconciliation Lucius was offering—though, knowing his father, Draco suspected it was only on his own terms that Lucius was offering one at all—but made the point that she was part of the political power structure around Harry and his father was not. She might have slapped him in public and done less damage.

"I have keen eyes," said Lucius quietly. "I can see where the flow of power tends. And I have followed that flow, instead of locking myself in fetters to the useless, crumbling stone of structures whose time has passed."

"I am happy for you, in your freedom," said Narcissa. "I have chosen not to follow power. I have followed strength instead."

Draco's eyes darted back and forth from face to face, noting every line, every twitch, every hitch in their breathing. And he realized why Narcissa was winning. She believed absolutely in what she was saying. Body and mind said the same things. She had no regrets about her decision, because she had made the right one in the first place.

Lucius was trying to say he had made the wrong one without actually doing anything that would require him to back the statement up. And so, Draco thought, he was faltering, and far more hurt by Narcissa's words than she was by his—if his hurt her at all. Draco thought they simply shattered against her stone.

Draco understood, at that moment, why hypocrisy was a bad thing. Not because the "good" people like Gryffindors claimed it was, but because saying one thing and believing another weakened one's ability to act as if one were perfectly right. The contradiction existed beneath the surface no matter how furiously it was denied. Bringing them into alignment required a single smooth belief, no matter what lies one might tell others. One had either to tell the truth to himself or lie so smoothly that one could shift between lies at need.

Draco felt that understanding come over him as an epiphany for his particular situation—if he did not act as if eyes were watching even when they probably weren't, then he would fail in front of actual eyes—and as a burst of contempt for his father.

He must have made some noise. Lucius's eyes turned on him. "And you, Draco?" he asked, with a faint tremble of amusement in his voice. "Have you followed strength? Or would you give it another name?" The slight sneer to the words implied that he thought Draco would say something about following his heart.

"I would," said Draco. "My mother, lovely as her phrasing was, missed two important words." He could see Narcissa's brows rise from the corner of his eye, but he was concentrating on Lucius, and could not spare the attention it would take to think properly about that. "I would say that I followed my own strength."

Lucius frowned. "You know that are you still disowned," he said almost pleasantly.

"I know that." Draco managed to hold his voice and face blank, and even interject a tone of boredom into the former. He saw a slight twitch around Lucius's mouth that indicated he knew he had lost.

He managed a graceful retreat, at least. "You might consider coming to Malfoy Manor for dinner," he told Narcissa. "Or even a light lunch. The house elves miss being asked to cook the delicate dishes that you so preferred."

"You may ask the house elves to prepare the dishes, of course," said Narcissa. "And then put them on one side of the table in front of an empty chair, while you sit across from them and stare at them. It would match the amount of conversation you would receive from me."

Draco did not quite mask a laugh. Lucius's gaze came to him, deadly as a scorpion's sting, but he knew when he was beaten. With another slight bow to the both of them, he retreated around the corner.

Narcissa waited until the footsteps faded, then waved her wand in a subtle gesture that Draco knew meant she was checking for listening spells. She relaxed a moment later and turned to Draco.

"That is one useful thing that our alliance with Harry has taught me, at least," she said. "That having one's will all the time is not quite a good thing. He could have so much with a small compromise, but he is unwilling to name the compromise aloud, let alone ally with someone else, as you and I have done, on equal terms to win it. His pride is a hollow ice shell."

Draco nodded slowly. The father he had once so admired was not a good guide, it seemed, in terms of either power or strength.


"I must say that it does concern me."

Rufus resisted the urge to press his hands across his brow and massage away the headache forming there. He remembered, fondly, the time when Severus Snape had been guilty of enough stupidity that Rufus could speak a few words and remind him that this was not how Slytherins behaved. Now Snape was behaving like a perfect Slytherin, ferreting out every possible suspicious term in the scroll he and Harry had signed, and suggesting ways in which they might turn to his ward's disadvantage. Rufus had assured him that no one would choose members of the monitoring board overtly hostile to Harry; they couldn't, when both Harry and Griselda Marchbanks as well as Aurora Whitestag would have to approve the choices. None of that kept Snape from twisting words back and forth and sideways to see if they held up, and pointing out if they didn't.

"The scroll clearly says that all three must make the choice," Rufus said now, in a deeply final voice. "I will not change that so that you can have a part in it, Mr. Snape." He would have used the title "Professor," but since the man was no longer teaching, he didn't deserve it.

"Did I ask you to?" Snape watched him with implacable dark eyes.

The stress must have been affecting Rufus more than he thought—that, or the impossible fact that Harry had signed their treaty and then flown off on one of the largest dragons the world had ever known. He didn't demur with courtesies or backtrack and adhere to the letter instead of the spirit of Snape's words. He didn't even care that the northern goblin Helcas, originally invited into the office so that he and Rufus could discuss the terms of the Goblin Board, was watching them argue with a highly amused expression. He found himself saying, "You did in all but name. You may be present when they make the choices, if all three of them agree. Otherwise, no. You are Harry's guardian, but Merlin knows that Mrs. Whitestag and Elder Marchbanks will treat him more like an adult."

Snape's eyes narrowed and his face paled, but he said nothing. Rufus seized the chance to turn away and nod to Helcas. "It seems only fair that there should be a member of each magical species the vates is concerned with on the board as well. What do you say, Helcas?" He had some hesitation about addressing the northern goblin by his first name instead of his clan name, but Griselda had cautioned him that the clan names were actually prized more by the goblins, and he should never call a member of a clan by one without explicit permission to do so.

The northern goblin's eyes narrowed, and his claws flexed. Rufus watched his hand as unobtrusively as he could. He wondered if northern goblins really did wear their nails longer than southern goblins, or if the fact that he knew the goblin sitting across from was free from any magical constraint made him notice them more.

"We do not wish to control our vates," said Helcas at last. "But nether do we wish anyone else to control him. Yes, I will accept a position on the monitoring board, to make sure the power is not being abused."

Rufus blinked a bit. "If all three approve you, of course," he said.

"But you said that there should be a goblin on the board," said Helcas, looking directly at him. "Obviously, you mean to have a hand in the process, Minister, if only in the selection of candidates. And those of my people who are with me now will refuse to stand for consideration. So yes, I will serve on the board."

Snape's amused gaze was all too heavy. Rufus nodded sharply, and hoped that his embarrassment wasn't obvious. "Then we should—"

"There is another clause in the treaty that I had questions about," said Snape pleasantly.

Rufus forced himself to smile.


Aurora Whitestag sat with her hands neatly folded in front of her, and listened to the others talk. She wondered that no one else around her seemed to notice that they would win as much by silence as by words.

"—can't let that change things!" Philip was saying sharply. Aurora cast him a slow glance of pity. His grief for his daughter had long since mutated into a striving after empty vengeance. In some ways, she thought the monitoring board would be a relief for him, even though he wouldn't be able to sit on it, because he would have to find something else to do with his life. "Just because he flew away today on a dragon doesn't mean he's a hero or anything like it."

"You don't see things from our point-of-view." Lisa Addlington stood with her hands on her hips, trying to smile at Philip and failing. Aurora nodded a little. Lisa was useful, but she did have little tolerance for poor Philip and his inability to understand the most basic facts of the wizarding world. "No one else could have done this. And he will be remembered for this. And what he did was an explosion of glory that not even the Ministry might be able to contain from the Muggle world." The Obliviators had been sent out, Aurora knew, but if people weren't babbling about seeing a dragon, she doubted they would find all the Muggles who had. "And he obviously didn't arrange for this—"

"Of course he did," Philip snapped.

"You can't control a dragon that way, even if you're a Dragon-Keeper." Lisa's patience was obviously cracking. "You just can't." Aurora had the feeling that she barely kept herself from adding, "Muggle." "So I believe that he accidentally summoned the dragon with his song this morning, or attracted her because he's—I don't know, attractive to dragons. There was something about it in the Daily Prophet last year, I think." She shook her head and looped a curl of her hair around her finger, as if to prevent herself from saying something she'd regret. "This wasn't a publicity stunt. It is an act of heroism that's going to make him look even better than he used to in the eyes of the wizarding world. We have to change with that, move with the times."

Lisa was probably the smartest of all of them, Aurora thought, standing. She made a good second-in-command.

Their eyes came to her at once. She was the one who had worked hard to make sure that they got at least this much from Harry. She was the one who led them. She was the one who had argued Philip into seeing that a monitoring board was better than a trial that would probably release Harry back into the world anyway, because most of the Wizengamot considered him a brave little abused boy or someone too powerful to anger.

No one was too powerful to anger, Aurora thought. That seemed to be something that wizards and witches who followed Light and Dark had trouble comprehending. Aurora was glad now that she had never Declared, though her own ideals were closer to the Light than anything else. If one saw something wrong, then one had to confront and fix that problem. One didn't cower because the wizard in question was magically powerful, or the Minister, or vates.

"Harry won't want to use the publicity," she told them with absolute certainty. "It will still exist and influence people's opinions of him, of course, but that doesn't mean he'll consider it a weapon. So we can use it to promote the monitoring board instead. These are the men and women willing to mentor and guide a young man who can ride a dragon and prevent her from destroying the city of London. He is the strength, but we are the power."

They listened to her—except Lisa. Aurora liked Lisa. She pulled and champed at the bit, and her son had died beside the lake, too, so that she had moral authority equal to Aurora's. And rebellion was good, Aurora thought. It was a sign that other people were thinking about this. "Do you really think that'll work? The Daily Prophet will just want to run stories on him. They won't ask us."

"Of course they will." Aurora lifted her eyebrows. "Why wouldn't they? We're witnesses. More to the point, we're witnesses that cane tell connected, coherent stories, with pithy and pretty phrases, about what happened."

Lisa smiled abruptly. "And we're the ones who'll remain close to him, so that we can help manage his public reputation. It's not a duty that he wants the trouble of assuming, so why shouldn't it be left up to his advisors?"

Aurora inclined her head. "Quite." It sometimes appalled her, how little Harry cared about what he appeared like to others. His reputation would have galloped quite out of control in the past few months, especially among Light wizards, if she hadn't worked to pull them all together into some kind of unified response, and sometimes given interviews to the Daily Prophet when they asked. It wasn't about telling the truth, of course, or not just that. It was about saying things that looked good in print and helped sell newspapers.

It had been quite fascinating, to read about what a vates was and how Harry could be one, and to understand what the consequences of that were going to be for the wizarding world. It sometimes seemed to Aurora that Harry's parents and Albus Dumbledore had set out to breed themselves a vates. They'd required not only a powerful wizard, or a powerful wizard in love with freedom, but a powerful wizard in love with freedom and willing to limit himself so that others could flourish when necessary.

Interesting. So interesting. Aurora was determined that Harry not be left to run wild, for the good of the wizarding world, but it would be interesting, too, where she would have thought the task might have contained inherent boredom.

And she, unlike Dumbledore and Harry's parents, would see what was in front of her. Harry had changed from the boy he was, into a young man who simply needed more of an introduction to principles of Light and restraint, and less of the guiding hand on the reins that he might have required if the monitoring board had been added last year. As he changed, those who hoped to keep up must change with him.

She could do that. She didn't understand what was so hard about it.


Hawthorn couldn't help her gaze straying up to the sky, even though it had been hours since Harry and the dragon had vanished, and twilight was creeping over the buildings of London now. She had remained in the alley outside the Ministry when most of the others went inside or departed, not having any fondness for the building where she had spent three days without Wolfsbane, magic, or freedom.

She had had no time to think when the dragon appeared. She had gaped, and then Harry had raised the Shield Charm against the flames, and then he had vanished and reappeared on the dragon's back. And then he had glowed with blue flames of his own, and his song had raised and soothed the Dark and the Light, and then the dragon had flown away.

Hawthorn clenched her hands so hard that her nails dug into her palms and the blood ran. A few of the others still waiting, Peregrine and Trumpetflower in particular, glanced over at her, sniffing as they smelled the blood. Then they caught the expression on her face and turned away.

There was no reason that this should be so hard on her personally, other than the reason it was hard for everyone: they could not be sure that Harry was alive or dead.

Except that it was, and Hawthorn grabbed it and dragged it into the sunlight—or the deepening twilight—and held it there until she figured it out. Then she wished she hadn't.

I am a maze of contradictions lately, she thought, and in the back of her mind, her wolf howled, demanding blood and vengeance for Claudia.

He didn't kill her, though he could have, and it would probably have been better for everyone in the end. He leaped onto her back and argued with her—or communed with her—and then took her away. He's probably taking her somewhere she can't interfere with the wills and freedom of others.

It didn't matter that the ceremony to end the rebellion was today, and that the monitoring board has to be established, and that we're all waiting for him. He wasn't going to kill her just because of that. He made time for her, and he's going to make time for similar things in the future. He might get impatient or angry, but he'll make time for them.

And I was going to devote my life to vengeance from now on.

Hawthorn shut her eyes until they hurt her like her clenched hands. She had said she was a pureblood witch. She had thought that, when Harry came and rescued her from Tullianum. She had said that she was going to be that when she wore silver ornaments to Draco Malfoy's festival confirming him as magical heir last year, and didn't care about the burns they left on her skin.

And her enemies mistreated her and wounded her, and she lost a packmate, and suddenly all she was, again, was a werewolf?

She had said she would not let them define her. And then she had let them do it.

A deep current of shame ran through Hawthorn. She had thought a few days ago that she did not bear Harry's burdens, and was glad of it, because if she were as busy as he was, she would have no time to work on the werewolf cure. Now she wondered why her life should revolve around the werewolf cure, or around getting vengeance for a fellow werewolf.

There is more to me than that. That is what Harry has remembered. There is more to him than sixteen-year-old boy, or Lord-level wizard, or abused child, or even vates. And there is more to me than werewolf, and more than pureblood witch, and more than someone who must seek vengeance for Claudia because no one else will.

My life didn't end when my husband died. My life didn't end when my daughter died. My life didn't end when I was bitten. And I would have ended it now, because I would have broken the Alliance oaths with Harry, and I would have broken the formal family oath—her hand traced the scar on her left arm, cutting across the Dark Mark—because I wanted to drown myself in bitterness and hatred.

She shook her head and let out a slow breath. Perhaps the time is coming when I can't recover from something like this, when I won't be able to do anything but surrender to the flow of events. But it's still not yet. I can still rise above this. I'm strong enough.

And then Harry Apparated into the alley.

The others stirred, including Camellia, whom Peregrine and Trumpetflower had snarled at until she stopped howling. But Hawthorn was the one who stepped forward and enfolded Harry in a deep embrace.

Harry blinked at her, but certainly didn't object to the hug, and even curled an arm around her neck in tentative response. "Mrs. Parkinson, are you all right?" he asked. "I'm sorry that it took so long, but I literally couldn't think of anything else to do, and then I had to recover from the flight with the MacFusty wizards, and then I had to come back by multiple Apparitions. I didn't want to try to cover the whole distance in one leap."

"Thank you, Harry," Hawthorn said softly into his ear.

"For saving your life?" Harry's puzzlement grew more pronounced. "I—of course, Mrs. Parkinson."

"Call me Hawthorn, please." Perhaps that would help anchor her, help her remember that for all the loss and sorrow she had sustained, including the loss of her family, she was still alive.

Harry might have sensed something of the reasons behind her request, because he didn't protest anything about politeness. He went still against her instead, then whispered, "Very well, Hawthorn," and put his hand on her left arm, covering oath scar and Dark Mark both.

She stepped back then, and let his packmates swirl about their alpha, muttering and licking, and Bone come up to shake his hand. Peregrine was stiffer—in some part of herself, Hawthorn thought, she still remembered that the vates had not been able to save her pack—but she nodded to him and murmured something about being glad to see him back safe.

Werewolves are not rational when they lose packmates, Hawthorn thought, watching her. And that was what I was doing. Indulging my wolf's rage, instead of my own grief. I will have to ask how an accepted werewolf mourns. Her gaze went sideways, to Camellia, who stood watching Harry with a rapturous expression. I am sure that some of them will not mind telling me.

"Harry!" a voice shouted from the telephone box.

It was Draco. Hawthorn stepped back and watched, smiling, unable to decide if she were more amused or pleased to be a witness to this.


Harry swallowed nervously as he caught a glimpse of Draco's face. It was almost-composed, now, but pulses of other emotions moved under it, and his hair was disarrayed, if only from the wind of his run as he moved through the Ministry. Harry wondered how he had known he was back, and then told himself it was probably simple coincidence. Draco had come up to see if he'd arrived, and found him here.

"Draco," he said, and then he took a deep breath and forced out the notion that he might have to accept a scolding. I cannot live in fear of them. He walked forward, so quickly that he seemed to startle Draco, and then caught him in an embrace and kissed his cheek, while Draco blinked.

He recovered quickly, of course.

"You heroic idiot," he breathed into Harry's ear. "Will you ever stop doing things like that?" His words had a certain wistful tone to them.

Harry swallowed and replied honestly. "I'm not sure, Draco. Probably not. I see what the best solution is, and I tend to do that without a lot of discussion."

"That's one reason that you need me, then." Draco's arms tightened around Harry's waist hard enough that Harry grunted as he was pulled forward and against his boyfriend's body. "To make you see why discussion is important, and help you plan ahead of time when possible." His hand ran through Harry's hair. "And to try to prevent situations like this from happening," he added waspishly.

"I know," Harry whispered. "And—I know it hasn't happened much in Woodhouse, Draco, but I hope that the next few months of my life will be at least a little quieter. And I'd like advice on how to live with the monitoring board, how to move in politics, how to make decisions without letting my emotions influence me. The last thing has happened too often."

Draco remained silent for a moment. Then he said. "I can do the first two, but what makes you think I'd be any good at the third?"

Harry had to pull away from him enough to see his face properly—a little hard to do in the falling night. "Because you are," he said. "You waited and made the decision to come to me rationally, Draco. I was pleased about it, of course, but you pleased yourself, and not me or your father. You have a strength of will that I admire. Didn't you know that? One reason I love you is that you're so strong. It's a strange strength, sometimes." He was smiling. He didn't want to, because it was such a serious subject and he didn't want Draco to think he was making fun of him, but it seemed inevitable. "It manifests in being petulant, or shrieking at me when anyone else would lower their eyes and pretend everything was fine, or sulking when most people would try to keep their emotions concealed. But it's always there, no matter how it's disguised. And when it rises purely to the surface, I don't think there's a thing in the world that can stop you or make you afraid."

Draco's voice trembled when he spoke, and so did his hand as he reached out to stroke Harry's hair. "I had no idea you thought that."

Harry felt shame squirm in his stomach. "You didn't? Merlin, Draco, I'm so sorry." He squeezed his hand and met his eyes. "I'll try to say it more often. I forget that just because I think it and it seems obvious to me doesn't mean other people know it."

Draco dragged him into a kiss without saying anything else. Harry forced himself to forget about their audience, and the fact that they still had details of the monitoring board to work out and his enemies would be waiting for him, and became an equal participant in the kiss, rather than just letting it happen.

Under his enjoyment, he had a new determination.

His strength is not always self-confidence, then. I did forget that. I want him to see how much more he means to me than he might think he does. There's no reason that he should always be the one to give attention and time and words and kisses. I can give that back just as well. Harry reinforced the determination with stubbornness. And from now on, that's what's going to happen.