WARNING: Gore in the last scene.

Chapter Fifty: White Wolf, White Moon

"But I don't understand why you wanted to talk to me."

Harry drew out his breath carefully, not wanting it to sound like a sigh. He had encountered unexpected difficulty in talking to Michael. The unhappy stares at the back of his neck had grown more frequent, and Harry had overheard Michael and Owen arguing more than once, with the words "duty" and "sworn companion" prominently mentioned. He had thought that Michael had grown tired of his service but was too proud, or too honorable, to break his oath. Harry had determined releasing him would be the best thing to do in those circumstances.

Instead, Michael appeared to understand none of the hints Harry had given him. Harry was doubly glad now that he had chosen the Room of Requirement to talk to Michael. It created a private place with thick walls, and wards that would twang if anyone tried to enter. Harry had not realized how long this would last, or how direct he would have to be.

Now he leaned forward and said as gently as he could, "Michael. You aren't happy, and I think I can guess why."

Michael stiffened.

"You're—entranced with Draco," Harry continued quietly. He didn't want to insult Michael by calling a deeper emotion an infatuation, but neither did he want to assume the other boy was in love if it was only a crush. "It must make you uncomfortable to be near me, since I'm his lover and often with him. I'm offering to release you from your oath so you don't have to keep suffering."

Michael looked as if he were drowning, mouth open and dark eyes blinking and flashing and fluttering with emotion after emotion. Then he shook his head, and said, "You don't understand me at all, Harry. I doubt that you ever will, as long as you continue to be blind to what's in front of you."

Harry blinked in turn. "Can you tell me what you mean, Michael?"

The Room had conjured a small table and chairs for them, complete with a tea service. Michael nearly tipped the cups over the side of the table as he stood up violently, shoving himself back and scattering the chair towards the far wall of the Room with a kick. Harry used his Levitation Charm to rescue the objects, and watched Michael's back thoughtfully as he paced up and down. I did underestimate his fascination with Draco after all, it seemed.

"I don't understand how you can just ignore him," Michael continued, in a low, intense voice. "Isn't it obvious that he wants to be admired for how beautiful he is, how he carries himself, the smile he gives when he's perfected an insult?" For a moment, he stood, staring into space, and then whirled around and glared at Harry. "And you don't give him a moment of physical admiration. You'll compliment his intelligence and his will and his bravery until the world ends, but his beauty slips right past you."

Harry thought about that. "I suppose it does," he said. "I wasn't taught to think of people in terms of beauty, and that influences the way I do think of them. On the other hand, Draco has never come begging, hat in hand, for this physical admiration that you seem to think he needs."

"He shouldn't have to beg." Michael folded his arms, wincing a bit. Harry suspected the lightning bolt scar on his left forearm was twanging at him. This was close to behavior that most Lords would frown on, even though it wasn't outright disobedience or hatred of the Lord. "You should notice. You should give him what he wants—all of what he wants. He shouldn't even have to ask. If he were my partner, I would do my best to love and spoil him."

"Those aren't the same thing," Harry pointed out.

"I know they aren't." Michael took a step forward. "And that's the whole point, Harry. I want to remain near you, under oath, because someone has to watch out for Draco's interests. If no one does, then he's too apt to tumble back into a depression, and start acting as if your own problems are the only ones that matter. They aren't, you know. His matter, too, and if you don't start paying attention to him, you might open your eyes some morning and find that he isn't there at all."

Harry wondered if he should feel jealousy over those words, or worry. Instead, he felt his lips widening in an amused smile. "That's ridiculous," he said.

"Is it?" Michael's voice was low and deep and smug. "Are you sure about that, Harry? You've never noticed half of what he needs. Are you so sure that you're what he wants out of life?"

"He was the one who chose this joining ritual to use with me," said Harry. "Three years, it lasts. Plenty of time for us to think about other potential partners. And he became the magical heir to his family simply so he could use this particular ritual. We're committed to each other, yes, Michael."

"Perhaps he wanted that time to think," Michael responded insistently. "Don't tell me you haven't thought of that, Harry. He can love you and still tire of you. You require infinitely more work than most other potential partners. Wouldn't he grow weary of healing you at some point and want more out of life?"

"I have thought sometimes that he might," said Harry. "But he hasn't told me so himself."

"And you haven't asked him." Michael was holding his head the way Harry thought the white stag at Walpurgis might have held it before the hunters. "I thought so. You're afraid of what he might tell you, aren't you?"

Harry leaned back and considered the other boy carefully. He was unsure what to feel. Draco hadn't said anything to Harry about tiring of him, or needing more admiration than Harry provided. On the other hand, that didn't mean he didn't want to. But Michael had every motive to say it was true even if it wasn't, because he might want Draco for himself.

In the silence, Michael started scratching at the lightning bolt scar on his arm, his expression one of irritation gradually deepening into pain.

"I'll talk to Draco about it," Harry said at last. "But what happens if he does want to stay with me, and the admiration that you mention isn't as important to him as other aspects of our bond?"

"Then I still want to stay close," said Michael. "He might change his mind."

Harry sighed under his breath, and stood. "Thank you for talking to me about this, at least," he said. "But I don't think he's going to change his mind."

"You don't know that."

There was nothing Harry could say to that, not when he had seen himself persist in stubborn hope long past the time when his relationship with his parents could have been mended. He nodded at Michael and left the Room of Requirement.

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"So I thought I would ask you," Harry finished, and then sat back and looked at him expectantly.

Draco stared at him. Harry had pulled him away from preparations for the Declaring ritual that he would hold on Midwinter, and Draco's head still buzzed with incantations for cold, with the smell of snow, with the thoughts of what was going to happen when he cast his wand on the ground and took that first step forward into the endless dark. By contrast, this matter was so mundane, and so obviously beyond Harry's understanding, that it was taking him some time to return to the world and deal with it.

Harry shifted in his chair, and tapped his foot on the floor. "I'll understand if you don't want to talk about it right now, Draco, or if you do need more than what I can provide," he said quietly. "I've always understood that."

"You have not," said Draco, and rubbed his forehead, dismissing thoughts of snowflakes firmly. It wasn't Midwinter yet, and he still had more than a month before it would be. "What you haven't understood is that someone could want to be with you despite your childhood and everything else. You still think of your weak points and the trouble they cause before you think of the strong ones, or the things that made me fall in love with you." He took Harry's hand as Harry gave him a little frown, and clasped it. "Do you remember the list I gave you for Christmas last year, detailing all the reasons that I love you?"

Harry nodded. This close, Draco could feel that he was shaking. So he isn't as calm as he was pretending to be. Why not? He must have known that making it seem like he didn't care wouldn't inspire me.

And then Draco had the answer to that one, too, and simultaneously wanted to kiss Harry for being so wonderful and slap him for being so oblivious. He thought that showing too much emotion about it would influence my decision, and he wanted me to make it of my own free will. Stupid vates.

"If I am ever tiring of you, or want to break off the joining ritual," Draco said softly, "it won't be an interfering sworn companion who brings the news to you. I'll let you know, Harry. I promise." He couldn't stop his other hand from rising and tugging on Harry's hair in one of the possessive gestures that he indulged in sometimes, and which Harry let him perform. "Not that I ever could," he added, and turned his head to brush his lips against Harry's cheek.

Harry leaned his head on Draco's shoulder, butting like a cat, the most vulnerable gesture Draco could remember him making in months. A few moments later, he'd pulled away and relaxed entirely, smiling at Draco. "Thank you," he murmured. "I thought so, but—I wanted to be sure."

"Of course you did," Draco said soothingly. At least it was an improvement over what Harry would have done months or a year ago, which was brooding on the idea until he'd worked himself into the conviction that he had to make Draco leave him for his own good. "Now go practice your Animagus training. Tell Peter that you are a lynx, and making you wait to be sure is just silly. You're a cat, Harry."

A faint smile, and Harry was gone. Draco sat back and folded his hands behind his head, both to stretch—he'd been hunched over a table in the library for the past five hours—and to shake his mind onto a new track. He hadn't wanted to entertain these thoughts while Harry was around, in case he caught a glimpse of one with Legilimency and objected.

Draco had a lesson to teach a certain interfering sworn companion, who evidently thought a bit of harmless flirting meant Draco was dissatisfied with the bedding and the conversations and the rituals and everything else he shared with Harry.

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Most Light families wish for a stranger to enter their house with his wand laid across his open palms. This displays the weapon in question without making him go unarmed, which usually promotes feelings of fear and distrust that are not wished for when encouraging a truce between two families.

Harry yawned and rubbed his eyes. The book Aurora had sent him on Light pureblood traditions was a tedious read, filled with passive voice and explanations for customs and rituals that Harry generally needed no explanation for, because they were either obvious from the text or similar to the Dark dances that he already knew.

And though Harry had read many sections of the book twice now, he had still not discovered an answer to several pressing questions, such as what happened if a wizard was more dangerous without a wand than with one.

He slid the book into the trunk at the foot of his bed. He could do that without waking Draco, who was sprawled in deep sleep already, his mouth open and little whistling breaths coming through his nose. Draco was sleeping better now than he had in weeks, his study during the days—regular homework taking second place to details of the Declaration ritual and his Animagus training—exhausting him to the point where he both ate and rested like a young Granian.

Argutus met Harry as he went to the loo. The Omen snake coiled around Harry's arm and his shoulders, making the odd, tingling hiss that Harry knew meant contentment, and which he could have imitated either from Draco's snores or from Mrs. Norris's purrs. "Did you know that the Ravenclaws have a spell they're working on that lets them track you?" he asked Harry.

Harry paused before the mirror. "You can't understand English," he reminded Argutus.

"But I am learning Latin," Argutus said brightly. "And now I know most of the common spell-words, and I can recognize your name. They're talking about seeing you, and the spell produces a golden spot of light that moves around the wall of their common room. They've marked the wall so that it represents most of the locations in the school." Argutus wriggled as Harry started to brush his teeth; he'd regained most of the age and growth he'd lost to the dust from the time-globe on the Hogwarts Express, and he was continually struggling for balance on Harry's shoulders. "But they can't perfect it yet. They keep using the wrong form of the verb. I tried to tell them that, but no one paid attention to me."

"Remember that none of them can understand Parseltongue, either," Harry murmured, and considered his reflection dubiously. Do I have to be worried about this? It's just a spell. But Snape would probably say that one House in the school trying to perfect a spell like that means that others are doing the same thing, but with more violent intent behind it.

"They should try. If I can learn Latin, they can learn Parseltongue." Argutus hung contemplatively from Harry's neck. "Perhaps I can learn to speak Latin?"

"I don't think that would work."

"Why not?"

Harry didn't know enough about vocal cords and translation spells to satisfy Argutus, so the snake was still wondering when they went to bed, and he coiled around both Harry and Draco, an extra, living blanket of warmth. Harry gathered Draco in his arms and closed his eyes. If he were lucky, then this sleep would be free of dreams.

He wasn't lucky.

The dream started slowly. Harry seemed to float in darkness, looking down on gleams of green from a great distance. They could be trees, he thought, but they weren't trees. He knew what they would be. He'd had this dream several times already. He waited in silent suffering for the realization, unable to verbalize it before his sleeping self knew it.

Killing Curses. They were Killing Curses. And witches and wizards were casting them at each other, moving in the middle of that great darkness on the ground, screaming in voices from which everything but terror and the desire to cause more terror had gone. Harry felt his sleeping self start and gasp in horror, but he didn't wake up. The invisible chain on which he hung began to reel more urgently, lowering him closer and closer to the chaos.

Everywhere he looked, people died. The darkness had yielded to firelight, and the light of other curses, and the white-glitter light of magic that consumed from the inside. Wizards and witches writhed on the ground, and turned on their own relatives, and put their wands into their own eyes and cast Avada Kedavra so that they could escape the nightmare the world had turned into. Harry watched as dangerous artifacts lay in the rubble of a building that might once have been the Ministry of Magic, free to anyone who wanted to come and gather them.

And he had caused this.

That was the message of the dream, available when he wanted to look at it. His insistence on casting the stability of the wizarding world to hell and gone had done this. If he persevered, many people would suffer. If he remained still and quiet, and considered how to wield his power before he wielded it, then only a few would suffer. And wasn't that to be preferred, all things considered?

Harry had had this dream over and again, and each time he had been unable to wake up before it ended or talk about it when he was awake. He had sensed the magic that ran over and under it like reins, binding the images to his mind and his mouth to silence. He had not put up any sort of trouble or rebellion, and the mind that drove it had grown careless lately, evidently thinking that the quiet meant Harry was considering his lessons like a good little boy.

Harry felt himself drift into a moment just before waking, when the reins started slipping from his mind.

He grabbed them and drew them tight, and his mind shook like a wild horse, and then full control over it returned to him. Harry heard a shocked gasp resound in his ears, and he caught a glimpse of a whirling white shape that might have been a sea eagle and might have been a maelstrom.

"Hello, Falco," he said pleasantly.

The whirling white figure turned towards him. Harry saw green eyes shining with rage. He struck hard, plunging himself into them, trying to tear them out of Falco's imagined head. On a battlefield like this, victory usually belonged to the wizard who could envision the best solutions, or understand the mental reflections of magic the best.

And Falco was no Legilimens. The magic reaching out to him was dream magic. Scrimgeour had written to Harry, detailing the information on Falco he had received from someone called the Liberator, and Harry knew this was composed of both Light and Dark. That meant Falco could most likely defend himself from other dreams, should Harry try to turn the trick back on him, but it was no guarantee that he had Occlumency shields guarding the more vulnerable parts of his mind.

Sure enough, Harry plunged past no more than the usual barriers that most wizards carried against mental attack. He found himself in a turning, twisting pattern of wind and water and light. He struck heavily left, or what was to the left in a place like this, and let a current speed him along. Now that he was within Falco's thoughts, what would draw him were memories related to him, and hopefully not just the memories of the times Falco watched him and thought him a very naughty boy.

Harry knew what he would like to find, but he had no idea if he stood any chance of finding it.

The current slammed him straight into a barrier rather like a reef, and Harry reeled back, gasping for breath. Then he saw the memory in front of him, and he reached out and grasped it greedily.

The image enveloped him completely. Harry stood on the ridge of a hill in front of a wood that gaped with incredible green. He wasn't sure if it was the Forbidden Forest or some place similar, but it sang with magic to him—and webs. Harry had to grit his teeth and turn his back on the trees so that he could concentrate on what the two wizards who occupied the ridge were saying.

One was Falco, his face a good deal more patient than it had ever been when Harry met him. The other was a young Albus Dumbledore. He didn't wear robes, but a suit that made Harry think this was the late nineteenth century. At least, it might be if Dumbledore had any realistic grasp of Muggle fashions. Harry reminded himself that he didn't know that for certain.

Falco gestured with a staff twined with flowers and vines. "Yes, I was Headmaster for only a year, Albus. And I regretted becoming the Lord of Hogwarts almost the moment I persuaded the governors to accept me."

"Why, sir?" Harry wondered if he had ever heard Dumbledore's voice sound respectful before this. Perhaps the time he had viewed another memory of Dumbledore with Falco, the time when the older wizard had explained that it was impossible to become a vates without sacrificing one's magic.

"Because I discovered that obedience was almost impossible to achieve." Falco spoke with condescending regret so thick in his voice that Harry found he would have liked to give him a right good thumping. "Sculpting a child's mind must happen young. Without that, a child reaches the age of eleven, and comes to Hogwarts, and though you might try to teach him obedience, he's already learned too much of the evil ways that his family encourages. He'll think of himself before anyone else. He'll think of goals and ambitions instead of limitations. And especially if he's magically powerful, he'll grasp at the future and try to rip off a piece for himself instead of asking if such change is really for the best."

Dumbledore nodded solemnly. "And that's why you really gave it up, sir? Because it was no good?"

"It was no good for me," Falco corrected gently. "But I didn't know as much about the ethics of sacrifice then as I do now. Perhaps if I were to go back and try again, I would find it more congenial. But I do not have the time or the inclination to try. I do encourage you to keep trying, Albus, not to let up on your ambitions. Someday, you will make a wonderful Headmaster of Hogwarts. But try not to let your charges indulge in too much rebellion. It ruins them.

"Come to think of it," Falco added musingly, "perhaps the reason I never succeeded was that Hogwarts in my time carried so many predominately pureblood students—though I know many halfbloods who slipped through pretending to be pure. With Muggleborns, you might have better luck. They're isolated in our world. When they enter, they don't know anyone, and sometimes they'll cling to anything that promises them a solid perch."

"And I should never encourage disobedience from them, sir?" Dumbledore seemed a bit doubtful. "Octavian says that sometimes a bit of slack on the lead rein is good for the soul."

"Octavian is a Malfoy," said Falco flatly. "Of course he would say that. Just remember, Albus, the Malfoys always mean to be the ones holding the rein, not the ones on the other end of it."

Dumbledore nodded. Harry studied him warily. He was not sure which was stranger, to see him alive again or to see his face without his long white beard.

"If a child disobeys you, then he disobeys the ethics of sacrifice that I am passing on to you," said Falco. "A few slips may be acceptable, if you discover them early enough and then press down the net all the harder. Such a slip must never happen twice. The mistakes must always be new and fresh. And I do hope that you don't make mistakes of your own, Albus. Unless you disbelieve in everything I'm teaching you, of course."

"Of course not, sir," Dumbledore hastened to assure him.

The force of the wind and water pulled Harry out of the memory then, but he was grinning, in spite of knowing that he'd seen the seeds of his mother's corruption planted in that memory, and his own abuse.

I thought so. The three times that my parents defied Dumbledore, and made him one of the Dark Lords to fulfill the prophecy, could also be the three times they defied Falco. Now, of course, I just have to be sure that all their disobedience actually rested on flouting the ethics of sacrifice. Peter's told me one incident that qualifies, when my parents ran away on the eve of the First War. Now—

And then magic struck him full force, and shoved him tumbling into the air.

Harry found himself landed violently back into his body. He started awake with a shout that made Argutus crawl to the other end of the bed, hissing, and Draco grab him and hold him firmly.

"Harry?"

Harry didn't answer him for a moment, scanning his own mind with a restless gaze. He couldn't sense a trace of Falco anywhere within it. Of course, he hadn't sensed a trace of him before, either. But the compulsion to keep silent on the subject of the dreams should be broken now, so he could go to Snape and ask for help in cleansing any lingering taint.

If I should. Do I want to press more troubles on him when he's struggling with his own evil dreams?

"Harry," Draco said, and shook him. "What was that nightmare about?"

The choice had been taken from him, Harry realized. He had to do what he could to explain the nightmares, or Draco would talk to Snape, and that would mean shouting and scolding. Really, Harry supposed, life was simpler when he did talk about his nightmares and other things he suffered.

But I can't seem to care about them as much as others want me to. Only yesterday, Joseph had talked to him for two hours about how Harry should have some appreciation for his own life outside of what it meant to other people. He had appeared overly excited when Harry cautiously mentioned that sometimes he liked watching sunrises. Harry had kept his pity for Joseph's excitement to himself.

"Harry!"

A fearful tone had crept into Draco's voice. Harry shook his head and forced himself to start talking about the dreams. At least they weren't as frightening as his visions of Voldemort—Falco was simply an amateur when it came to designing nightmares—and he had some hope of resisting them now.

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"Are you all right?" Draco asked, when his touch on Harry's shoulder had made Harry jump for the third time that day.

Harry nodded and stuffed his hand into his robe pocket. "Of course. Just—restless."

He knew why. Today was a typical day in late November, with perhaps a touch more of a nipping wind in the air than usual, and the first proper snowfall they'd received yet, large enough for the first-years to make balls out of and throw at one another. But tonight was the first night of November's full moon.

Harry had felt the magic boiling in him the moment he woke. It wasn't a power he'd encountered before, even when he was around his pack as they transformed. For one thing, it had a raw, brutal edge that infected him with wildness, instead of letting him merely sense and appreciate it. For another, it had the feeling of a great stretched cord about it, as though its end terminated somewhere far in the south and west. Harry remembered Thomas's theory that the werewolf curse had its origin in the ancient Americas, and had crossed to Europe sometime in the last ten thousand years, and wondered.

He had made his own choice. He would let the magic of Loki's vengeance ritual envelop him tonight, and travel with the rest of the pack to—wherever it was Loki waited. He had consulted with Camellia, and though she refused to tell him exactly what would happen, she'd reassured him it was safe. She'd even reassured Draco and Snape, who'd taken a great deal more convincing. Harry had finally managed to hush them by pointing out that this was rather like the truce-dance, or fighting the Dark at Midwinter: something wild and dangerous he didn't have a great deal of control over, but which should protect him as long as he stayed within carefully maintained boundaries.

Draco guided him across the grounds and into the courtyard, where Harry locked his legs and refused to go further. Being inside walls today only increased the restlessness. He turned his head, wondering if he would sense something different should he face in the direction where Loki stood right now. But the twanging pull remained the same no matter how he turned.

"I'll give you a Calming Draught if it'll help, Harry," Draco murmured into his ear.

Harry shook his head and rubbed his palm on his robes to dry it of sweat. "No. I—I can do this, Draco. Whatever this is." He gave Draco a smile. Draco looked as if he were reconsidering his decision to let Harry go.

If he reconsiders at this point, I doubt it'll make much difference. The pull had grown taut in Harry's nerves and spinal cord. Snape could try to hold him back, and so could McGonagall, and Draco could possess his body and try to control it. None of that would matter in such a short while.

Draco touched him again, and Harry spun, snapping his teeth. Draco retreated with his hands held up before him. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"So am I." Harry pressed his hand to his forehead. It was still hours from the full moon. He shouldn't be reacting like this. "I don't understand what I—"

The pull grew so fierce and sharp that Harry turned and took several steps forward, towards the gates of Hogwarts. Howls cascaded past his ears, and in his nostrils was the smell of snow and pine needles. The odd blessing Remus had given him when they parted was meaningful now.

"Harry!"

"It's full moon, wherever Loki is," Harry whispered, and then he took another step forward and departed.

It wasn't Apparition. He flew instead of squeezing through nothingness. Harry thought it was something like his adventure with the Time-Turner from his third year. Clashing waves of impressions swept and sang over him. He heard snatches of ancient languages, and the laughter of people long dead, and the howls of wolves that no longer walked the earth. The howls quickly became the loudest sound, and pressed against his ribs like knives, and then squeezed him after all, out and down and through.

Harry opened his eyes slowly. He stood on white snow, in the center of a dim, deep forest. He turned his head, snuffling. He was a wolf, and the fur clad his limbs like a warm robe. Harry looked at it, trying to determine what color he was, but the change, or perhaps the moonlight, had stolen his ability to distinguish between shades that fine. He only knew he was dark, perhaps black, perhaps a thick gray.

The trees were giant spruces, soaring and meshing into one another, except for wide clearings here and there like the one in which the pack stood. Harry drank the smell of needles, and of snow. That was the sharpest, most prevalent scent. The world was full of tin. He sniffed, and caught different mixtures. The snow on the ground was different from the snow on the branches of the spruces.

In fact, it was different from any smell Harry had ever caught, altogether wilder and more spirited and more intense. He didn't think he could attribute that just to his new body. He didn't think they were in England any more. He knew they weren't in the same century any more.

Around him stirred the pack, the members sniffing and rubbing cheeks and jowls and noses. Tails boiled the air, and nails scraped the ground, and streams of piss turned the snow a color Harry knew was yellow, though right now the scent was the most interesting thing about it. The scent told him age and sex and state of health and pack rank and proclivity far more clearly than a name could have. He sensed Camellia towards the front, and moved in her direction.

She made a wonderful sight, standing there, her shadow thrown long and defiant across the open ground. Harry had always thought a werewolf unnatural compared to a wolf, too long of leg and square of muzzle; in fact, Remus had claimed the same thing. But in this forest, Camellia looked as if she belonged. She surveyed them all, ears twitching, tail up, gaze so calm that Harry found himself relaxing. He might not know what was going to happen, but she did. He was certain of it.

And then the pack turned. Harry felt the currents of the packmind flowing around him, bypassing him. He yelped in mourning, and then saw who had entered the clearing, and went rapt and still himself.

Loki stood there in his wolf form, pale, white enough to fuzz into invisibility where his fur collided with the moonlight. His amber eyes were two glittering points of brightness in the midst of it all. His scent proclaimed him chosen, and marked out, and no longer a part of the pack.

And it proclaimed him something else, something Harry was trying hard to deal with at the moment.

Loki turned and surged into the forest. The pack followed him, a near-soundless rush, the impact of paws on snow a great deal more silent than Harry would have thought it could be. He found himself running with them, his nostrils full of knowledge, his ribs full of bruising brushes from larger and stronger bodies, his throat full of sorrow.

This was not a chase. This was not a following to a great clearing where Loki would dance his death dance and then die, as Harry would have said when he was human.

This was a hunt.

And Loki's scent proclaimed him prey.

He ran fast. Harry saw his shadow sweep ahead, but only for a few moments. He was gone, then, dashing across the needles like a hawk in flight, burying himself in the lees of the spruces. Had there been undergrowth in the way, Harry thought they might not have been able to follow at all.

But this forest had many wide open spaces on purpose, and a lack of undergrowth. It had been made for such hunts. Harry wondered if anyone ever used it for anything else.

Camellia howled. In moments, the pack took up the sound, baying like hounds, baying like horns, baying in full voice. Loki kept silent. Of course he did, Harry thought, even as his own timid howl mingled with the others; he'd never done this before. The stag did not speak when he was hunted. It was the wolves that did, singing salute and hail to their prey.

And farewell, farewell, farewell.

Harry dodged around trees and scrambled up slopes that would have left him tired and panting in moments as a human. Scents and sounds, more than sights, guided him, and warmth nearby let him know when one of his packmates ran close. His fur shielded him from the cold. Shadows flashed a swift death and died, judged in instants by instincts Harry hadn't known he had and regarded as neither food nor enemy nor brother, and therefore quite useless. He ran, and tasted the joy of what the werewolf transformation could be, at least under the influence of Wolfsbane. Mind and body sang the same song, without introspection, without judgment, without second-guessing.

Save that under the wolf, somewhere, struggled the mind of a very human boy who knew what would happen when they reached the end of the hunt, and was desperate to find some way to escape it.

The magic was too old, too strong, Harry realized as they topped a ridge and scrabbled down among boulders, the spruces fading around them. It had changed him into a wolf. It had brought him, and the others, here, parting time like water. He could not resist it. And Loki had chosen this fate when he embraced vengeance. The magic had given him the ability to pass through Harry's wards and resist Harry's spells.

And now it would claim its price.

Harry wondered if it was perversity, custom, or individual stubbornness that had made Loki offer him the chance to participate in this, a ritual that the pack had obviously known well and he did not.

The pack's cry burst around him again, swelling and whirling and drifting down like snow. Ahead of them, the ground broke into a deep ravine, one too wide to span by leaping. It was a place they might have cornered a stag, proud lord of the forest, whirling around to face them with stamping hooves and head lowered, antlers brought to bear.

Loki was no stag, but he was the prey. He turned, with his back to the ravine, his flanks heaving with his panting, his lolling tongue a darker slash against his pale fur. Harry saw him lift his head for all that, standing with his throat and chest bared to the teeth of the first rush.

Willing sacrifice.

The magic howled all around them, a tide heavy and thick as blood, an ancient voice that gave and then took away again. Harry felt no sentience from it, as he did from the lizard-tailed bird or the vicious power that belonged to Voldemort. This was magic that had been old when wizards were learning how to make wands, that understood only the terms of a bargain always made and always kept, a bargain that it was not possible to break once it had been enacted.

Harry knew its name then, and it was hunger.

Camellia surged forward from the edge of the pack, and whirled as she came close to Loki, her teeth shutting on the fur of his chest. Harry saw her wrench her head sideways. The white fur tore. Blood sang down his body and spattered on the snow. Loki swayed, but remained on his feet.

Camellia flung her jaws back, and chewed.

And Harry felt the sacrifice travel into her, and he understood, then, why Loki would have made a bargain like this. It was not merely to avenge the murder of his mate, though that doubtless must have been a factor.

Each bite taken would spread his blessing to the pack. Each wolf who ate of him would absorb part of his power, and since he died a willing sacrifice, the magic was doubly or triply potent. Loki had given his pack to Harry because he did not believe that he could be a good alpha to them any longer. But he had still abandoned them, in a sense, and he was making up for that abandonment now.

Harry didn't know why this should come as a shock to him. The notion of eating an enemy and gaining of his strength had been prevalent in some human cultures, too, at some points.

But he did know that he could not be part of it. If he had been fully absorbed into the magic of the ritual, then maybe…maybe. But he was still a wizard, and not a werewolf, and so he found the strength to gain control of his legs and back away, to the very edge of the pack.

He stood there with his nose buried in the snow, shielding it as best he could from the scent of blood, while wolf after wolf went forward and took his or her turn at the feast. He was not sure when Loki died. Perhaps life would linger in him until the last bite was consumed, or until the blood and flesh and organs had been eaten and only fur and bones were left.

He became aware of a pale shape crouched close beside him. Turning, Harry saw the ghostly form of Gudrun, Loki's mate, who had accompanied him to Kieran's slaying.

Harry stared at her in silence. She regarded him with enormous dark-silver eyes, and then stretched out her tongue and licked his cheek, as she had when she and Loki came for Kieran. Harry felt her saliva trickle down his fur, cold even through its protection, chill as steel or death.

He wondered if the lick was her way of trying to explain to him the grand and terrible and wonderful thing happening here, too terrible and wonderful for him to grasp.

Harry closed his eyes and lay down in the snow, folding his paws beneath him and tucking his tail around his nose. He could not stop the sacrifice. Apart from the strength of the ritual's magic, Loki had chosen this path. Harry had told Joseph that he would not prevent someone else's freely chosen suicide, and he had meant it.

He had simply not thought he would be forced to prove it so soon.

He did not know how long it lasted, only that it seemed to last forever. The moon was setting when Camellia's nose nudged at him and pulled him to his feet, but since it had risen before this time in England, Harry thought it might still be aloft at home.

Home. The word had never sounded so good to him.

He walked beside Camellia for a few stiff steps, and then—he could not help it—he turned to look back.

He did not see the small mangled pile that might be all that was left of Loki's earthly remains. He saw the ghost of Gudrun, rearing, as a silvery shape flew at her, gaining form and coherence as it moved. It was Loki, a strong-chested wolf, set free from grief and life at last, nipping his mate's shoulder to get her to play with him.

Harry watched them tumble and chase each other, a pair of pale wolves beneath the pale moon, whirling out over the ravine. When they reached the far cliff, they hovered for a moment, noses touching, tails wagging.

Then they leaped, skimming over the boulders and the sheer drop, ascending towards the stars. They faded as they rose. Harry knew he would never see them again, or know where they went.

He bowed his head and followed the push of Camellia's gently insistent muzzle, back towards the clearing where the magic would change him again into a wizard and bear him back to the world he understood.