Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!

Plot-pivotal chapter here. This explains, in part, why the seventh story will be so dark. And it lets some of the secrets that have been hidden since the second and third stories out. I've been looking forward to writing it, in spite of everything it implies.

Chapter Fifty-Six: Horcruxes

"But he might not be the real Regulus." Draco sounded calm, but it was obvious that his voice wavered on the edge of breaking apart into shards of anger and concern.

Harry snorted and looked over his shoulder. He'd been trying to adjust his robe in such a way that the collar hid all the bite marks on his neck, and in the end, he'd had to give up. Some of them were simply too high. And now he needed to stop thinking about how he'd received them, or he was going to have a problem on his hands. He gave a little shudder and focused his mind. "I suppose that he's the unreal Regulus then?"

Draco crossed the room and put his hands on Harry's shoulders, staring into his eyes. "You don't know what he might have encountered in those paintings," he said. "You said yourself that you didn't know exactly how they worked or where they led."

"No one does, though," Harry pointed out. "None of the Blacks ever explored them completely. Regulus knows the functions of a few—the one where he originally learned of the locket, for example, and the painting where he went to be healed. He told me it was dangerous at the time. I still agreed to let him go, since his infected Dark Mark was more of a threat to his life than anything else could be at that point. And I'm sure that if there was a danger of one of them sending back a copy of him that only looked and moved and spoke and felt like the real thing, he would have told me."

"Maybe he didn't know," Draco pointed out quietly, and ran his finger over the bite mark low on the side of Harry's neck. Harry bit his tongue to keep from responding. "Did you see what painting he came out of?"

Harry shook his head. "I only felt a twitch in the wards, and woke up and went down to see what had happened. He was standing in the gallery when I turned around. What I felt was him returning."

Draco tucked his arms around Harry and put his chin on his shoulder. "I still want to sit with you when you meet with him, to learn this important information, whatever it is," he said. "Will you let me do that?"

"Of course," said Harry, and kept to himself the thought that Draco could have achieved that without all these ridiculous suspicions about Regulus.

He knew that was Regulus. Apart from anything else, he had felt the way the wards danced around him, spinning a web to welcome the Black heir back into the houses. Harry was legal heir, but Regulus had a history of blood and magic with Silver-Mirror, had spent hours of his childhood here, and knew the paintings with a bone-deep wisdom that Harry hadn't had the need to experience yet. It was inevitable that the house would rejoice to see him come back, and would reject an impostor, or at least let Harry know from its reaction that he wasn't the true Regulus.

Sometimes, Draco is simply too paranoid.

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Snape had gone very still when Harry told him that morning that Regulus had returned, and in some part of himself, he did not think the stillness had ended, even though he had stood up and moved around the room more than once since then. He had not gone down for breakfast, not that anyone would compel him to the morning after Christmas. He had spent most of his time sitting on his chair and staring out the window that gave an enchanted view of a small wood crowded with leafless trees.

Someone knocked on his door.

Snape took a deep breath, and shook his head, and stood. He had avoided Regulus because he did not want the other man to see the past written in his eyes. Snape had lived through scenes in his dreams that made him wary of how he would behave around Regulus. He had lived one life in these last few months, and Regulus had lived another. It was not fair to expect Regulus to act as Snape would inevitably expect him to act, not fair to saddle a friend with memories of the time when their friendship had been different from what it was now.

Joseph would undoubtedly say he was being cowardly. But Joseph was not here.

Snape opened the door, and nodded to Regulus. Regulus gave him a smile that lit his gray eyes as though he were the second coming of Sirius Black playing a prank. That steadied Snape, a little. If he thought of Regulus as an incarnation of his brother, he could retain an emotional distance from him.

"Severus." And then Regulus did the impossible, and hugged him.

Snape stood rigid for long moments before he realized Regulus was not going to stop the embrace until he returned it. Uncomfortable, he did so, and then slipped free of his arms as soon as he could.

"Severus?"

Snape wished he would stop using that name. It reminded him too keenly of the dreams. But he wished even more that he was not acting like such a coward, so he turned around and nodded to Regulus, and let himself smile the creaky almost-smile he had achieved in the weeks before Regulus went into the paintings. "Hello."

"You made me wait long enough for that." Regulus went sprawling into one of the room's large padded chairs. Snape could almost hear the ghosts of Slytherin Prefects gone scolding him for his inability to maintain a proper posture. "Harry's told me a little about the Midsummer battle and the Sanctuary, but he said that the parts concerning you were yours to tell. So. Talk." He fixed a demanding gaze on Snape.

Snape took a seat across from him. Perhaps he could last through this, after all. At the very least, he would make Regulus see why he was acting so strangely, and, perhaps, in common agreement, they could find their way back to a common footing.

"The Sanctuary forces healing on those who come to it," he said, and heard his sneer soak his voice. "Whether or not they want it."

"But you needed it," said Regulus.

Snape breathed through his teeth, and was reminded of why he had always found it particularly difficult to talk to Regulus in this mood. Sirius Black had a malicious edge to his amusement, not so far from what a Slytherin might achieve. Regulus was no wide-eyed innocent, but he could and did act obtuse to subtler meanings, as now, and cling to what he saw as reality.

"Whether or not I needed it is hardly the question," Snape said sharply. "I had lived without it."

"Not well."

His teeth ground down hard enough to make an audible noise, and Regulus gave a low whistle of sympathy. "It must have been hard," he said, bouncing one hand up and down on his knee, "to be with people you could neither bedazzle with your bollocks about being fine nor scare away."

Snape wished he knew the actual Evil Eye, the ancient ability to harm someone through a baleful gaze. "I had dreams," he said. "I could have taken Dreamless Sleep to avoid them. I did not. But they were hard to bear."

"Dreams?" Regulus tilted his head, eyebrows raising.

"Memories." Snape told him something he would have preferred to keep to himself, then, because he could not stand the sharply skeptical expression on Regulus's face, as though dreams should be something anyone could bear. "Memories of the time I spent as a Death Eater, in fact. Currently, I've dreamed myself to the point where you went after that damned locket and the Dark Lord tortured me because he thought I knew something about it."

Regulus sucked in a startled breath and sat back in his chair. Snape's bitter satisfaction at having made an impact on him did not last for long. This was a weakness, a crack in his façade. He should have borne it in silence. He did not want Regulus knowing of this. Joseph was the utmost audience he could tolerate for the dreams, and Joseph knew what they meant and talked through them with him. Snape turned away.

"You know why I didn't tell you anything," Regulus whispered, his voice amazingly soft. "You know, Severus. I wasn't sure of your loyalties, and I had to succeed, but it was more than that. I didn't want you to suffer death or worse torture than you did if you had known something and not been able to keep it away from his Legilimency."

"By that time," Snape said, not looking at him, "I had concealed from him that I had reported to the Order of the Phoenix for more than a year."

Regulus snorted. "Concealed it so well I had no idea." His hand made a sharp impact on something that was either the chair arm or the useless, delicate ornamental table some idiot had thought to stand beside the chair. "You were an excellent actor, Severus, remember? It's just that sometimes you chose to deploy those skills against your friends as well as your enemies, and when that happened, then no one could tell the difference. Friend or enemy."

He cut off. Snape sat in silence, staring at the floor. He could feel Regulus staring at him.

"I'm sorry for your having to relive that," Regulus offered at last, quietly. "But, believe me, Severus, I don't think you're weak for doing that, and I don't care how it influences your behavior towards me."

Snape could feel his shoulders tense.

"We're friends," said Regulus. "We were friends then, even though you never wanted to call it so. And we're friends now. I just came back from—from learning disturbing things, disturbing things that I'm about to go tell Harry." The note of sorrow slipping into his voice was so deep that Snape had no choice but to turn and look at him. His face was tired, long circles slipping under his eyes like afternoon shadows. "I want a friend. I need a friend."

"I am changed," Snape warned him, with some difficulty, and then reconsidered. "No. I am changing. I am not comfortable company—"

"When were you ever?" And Regulus had the gall to smile at him.

Snape shook his head, frustrated. "No. I was such uncomfortable company for a time that I struck at one of Harry's werewolves, Regulus. And I acted not like his guardian, but like another helpless child that Harry had to take care of. We're making steps back in the direction of father and son now, but—"

"I know you're changing," Regulus interrupted him, calm. "Everyone changes all the time, Severus. What's finally happened is that you've been forced to notice." He offered his arm. "Now. I know Draco will have insisted on hearing what I have to say to Harry. I think it's only appropriate that his father should be there with him, too, to comfort him in this time of crisis."

Snape rolled his eyes, but took Regulus's elbow. If he did not, he knew Regulus would follow him down the stairs, stubbornly offering his arm all the way and making him look absolutely ridiculous.

Then his ears caught up with his brain, and he halted. "What time of crisis?" he demanded, his eyes flitting over Regulus's face. "What exactly did you learn in those paintings?"

Regulus gave a faint, bitter smile more like his old self as a Death Eater than Severus had seen in years—at least in waking life. "Bad news," he said.

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Regulus had asked to speak to him in one of Silver-Mirror's studies, this one devoted to books on Dark applications for Light spells. Harry had largely stripped one particular shelf on healing magic, when he had thought that the Death Eaters might try to turn healing spells against them on the battlefield, but the other books were still there. Harry circled them, looking for something interesting, while Draco remained near the door, seated in a chair that faced it.

A loud gasp from him made Harry whirl around, his magic flaring. He saw Snape and Regulus paused in the doorway, staring at Draco, who had risen to his feet and aimed his wand.

At Regulus, Harry realized, in exasperation. He sighed and took a step forward. "Draco—"

"Look at the floor, Harry." Draco's voice was tight and strangled. "At his shadow."

Harry looked. He blinked when he realized that Regulus's shadow did seem thin and stretched, but that was probably the effect of the numerous lamps that lit the study. He shrugged. "What? Draco, I don't—"

Regulus took a step forward.

Harry saw it then. Regulus's shadow followed him obediently, like a good shadow should, but it did not have a human form anymore. Instead, a black dog paced him.

A Grim. Omen of death.

Harry raised his eyes to Regulus's face and stared. Regulus had stopped walking, and was gazing calmly at him, ignoring Draco's wand, ignoring the way that Snape had disengaged his arm and stepped away from him, snarling.

"I was always going to tell you about this," Regulus began. "I just didn't think last night was the appropriate time. I wanted last night to be a time of joy, Harry, for a few hours." His smile was the saddest Harry had ever seen him give. "Before the joy had to pass."

"He's lying," Draco hissed. "He's not the real Regulus. Look at him, Harry. Would the real Regulus ever sound that way? Look like that?"

Harry stood gazing into Regulus's eyes instead of answering Draco. And he still saw the light he was looking for in those gray eyes, the spark of the man he knew. He was still sure this was the real Regulus, but—

"He would if he had to grow up, Draco," Harry said softly, never breaking eye contact with Regulus. "If he met something in the paintings that changed his world as he knew it." He paused a long moment, then said, "But you should explain the dog shadow."

"I will." Regulus moved to stand in front of a triangle of chairs. "If you gentlemen will sit down?"

Snape did, but with a look of profound and personal betrayal on his face that made Harry wince and glance away. Draco remained standing. Harry stepped up behind him and put his hand on Draco's right shoulder, stroking gently and murmuring nonsense soothing words. Draco shuddered and tipped onto his heels, molding his back to Harry's chest. He didn't lower the wand, but at least Harry was sure he would no longer fire a curse at a moment's notice.

He nodded at Regulus.

Regulus took a deep breath and reached for his left sleeve, jerking it up. Then he held out his arm and turned it to face Harry.

Harry had feared to see the Dark Mark radiating with lines of infection, not cured after all, even though Regulus had told him last night it was. But the Mark wasn't radiating anything. It would have been difficult for that to happen when the Mark was gone.

Instead, the same sleek black as the snake and skull had been, a dog stalked Regulus's left forearm. The design was incredibly well-drawn, Harry had to admit. He could see individual bits of fur, and the dog's—the Grim's—eyes were dark pits it was uncomfortable to look at.

"The first painting cured me of my infection," Regulus said softly. "That was quite true, Harry. The second—" He cast a glance at Draco and Snape. "There is little I can tell you about its nature in front of people who aren't the Black heirs. I told you that it was called the execution picture."

"It killed you, then," Draco said, and started pulling against Harry's hand again, trying to get between him and Regulus. "It killed you and sent your dead body back in place of the real Regulus. I knew it."

Regulus's face registered surprise for a moment, before he barked laughter. Harry thought the echoes went on a bit too long, as if there were a dog howling somewhere, faint and far away. "You take me for an Inferius? No, Draco. I did not die. I met Death."

"What was it like?" Harry asked, unable to keep his eyes from moving back and forth between Regulus's dog shadow and dog Mark.

"As I said, I'm limited in what I can tell you with this audience," Regulus murmured. "But in this case, the appropriate word is she. She is female in that world the painting leads to, Harry. And very, very cruel."

He shuddered, and then shook his head and announced, "If neither of you is going to sit down, I will." He took the chair nearest Snape, not seeming to notice the other man's fixed stare. Draco's wand tracked him. Harry tried to step away and sit down in the other chair, but Draco's free hand tightened on his robe collar. Harry rolled his eyes and stood still. If it makes him feel better.

"She changed your shadow and your Mark?" Harry asked.

Regulus nodded. "So I couldn't forget our bargain. She made me a trade, Harry. I can't tell you all the terms. As I said, wrong audience. But she gave me the knowledge I sought, in return for this." He held up his left arm again, and the Grim seemed to writhe and bend as Harry watched. "I'm marked as Death's own, now. When I feel the call in the Mark, I have to obey it." He took a deep breath, visibly bracing himself. "When she calls me on to die, I have to go."

Harry clenched his fist, making Draco murmur and shift at the tight hold Harry had on his robe. "And is it the necromancer's gift?" he asked. "Do you know when you're going to die, and you just can't tell us?"

Regulus shook his head at once. "No, Harry. Not that. She could call me in five minutes, or a hundred years from now. I promise. I'm not lying about this." He dredged up a smile that Harry felt compelled to accept as truthful. He did not think even Regulus could look that cheerful about a death he knew would happen soon, and he had never noticed any signs that Regulus was a very good liar. Even his keeping the truth of the locket secret when he was a Death Eater had involved more lies of omission, from what Harry knew, than commission. "So it's not really all that different from what anyone else knows or feels about his or her death. This is just—a bit more personal interest in the matter than most people get handed."

Harry nodded, and tried to ignore the pulse beating in his throat. "And she gave you the knowledge you sought."

"Yes."

"What was it? Were the locket and the diary weapons of Voldemort's, or were they something else?"

Regulus bowed his head and took hold of the arms of his chair. Then he looked up and spoke in a soft, flat voice Harry thought he must have practiced.

"They're called Horcruxes, Harry. They're physical objects containing a bit of the creator's soul. Extremely Dark magic. They can only be empowered by a murder. The murder splits the creator's soul, and he takes that shard and stores it in—well, an object that he's enchanted to be indestructible, hopefully. The shards can take on an independent life of their own, and usually do. That's why you met Tom Riddle in that diary, and why a bit of Voldemort could possess my brother. Horcruxes are alive, and not just in the way that a family clock or a Foe-Glass is. They're fully as intelligent and aware as any human. They won't know everything their creator knows. Tom Riddle was sixteen when Voldemort made the diary, so sixteen he remained. But they can learn new things, and if they can commune with or possess someone new, they can try to return to independent existence by growing a body."

Harry closed his eyes. He remembered the grayish lump growing out of Sirius's side, the possession that Sirius had killed himself to prevent. He remembered Tom Riddle trying to drain Connor's magic, and Harry's, so that he could live outside the pages of the diary, or someone else's mind, again. Oh, yes, he knew all about Horcruxes needing, or wanting, a body.

"That's the way Voldemort's stayed immortal," Regulus went on, voice quiet, implacable. "The Horcruxes each contain a piece of his soul, and his body holds the last. Death showed me the number seven. That makes sense. Seven is a magically powerful number. He split his soul into seven shards—one each for six Horcruxes, and one for himself. It's impossible for him to leave his body without a piece, of course. And that's how he survived when you reflected the Killing Curse at him, Harry. You destroyed his body, and an ordinary Killing Curse would have dispersed the soul, but that particular shard remaining was too small to be affected by it. It fled and hid, and possessed Quirrell—made him into a Horcrux, almost, except that this bit of soul was more intelligent and older than the others, and always knew exactly what had happened to it. Now he's come back in full power, but still containing only a shard of a soul."

Harry opened his eyes again to see Regulus regarding him solemnly. "That's why the Avada Kedavra you tried on him in the Chamber of Secrets didn't work, Harry. He'll still live—if you can call that living—as long as one of his Horcruxes exists."

"So we have to find and destroy the others," Harry said.

Regulus nodded.

"Four more."

Regulus nodded again.

Harry shuddered a bit. The battles with Tom Riddle and the bit of Voldemort possessing Sirius had been almost unimaginably difficult. Perhaps the next four would be easier, since he was older and knew what to expect now, but he was not counting on it. Merlin help us if the other four Horcruxes start trying to grow bodies. "Do you know what they are? Where they are?"

"Death made me a bargain," said Regulus, his face disgusted now. "Not a sale. She offered me the knowledge of what they were, or where they were, but not both." He sighed. "I accepted the knowledge of where they were, Harry. I thought it would do little good if we knew their physical forms, but not where in the world Voldemort hid them. After all, if I'd only known that Slytherin's locket existed, and not the nature of the traps that protected it, there's no way I could have stolen it."

Harry nodded encouragingly. There was an odd roaring sound in his ears. He had wondered what the secret to Voldemort's immortality was, and how in Merlin's name they would ever find out. Now it was almost within their reach. Even partial knowledge was better than none.

"She cheated even there, as much as she could," said Regulus. "She gave me four images, but only two are likely to be useful. One was Hogwarts. The other was a desk in a room that looked old and Muggle and tired—probably somewhere in London, but even if I'd seen the outside of the building, I couldn't have said for certain. Most Muggle places look alike to me. The third was a dark place, a burrow of some sort, I think, but so dark I couldn't make out the details—"

"And the fourth was a dark house," Harry finished, his skin prickling. Those are the images the bird showed me. That was what it was trying to tell me.

Regulus blinked at him. "Well, almost, Harry, yes. This was a shack, actually, surrounded by trees. It stood on a hill." He shuddered. "It's the most fragile or obvious hiding place, I think, but Voldemort's protected it well. I could feel the curses just glimpsing it."

And Harry knew, then, where one of the Horcruxes must be, and cursed himself for not seeing it before. "The shack," he whispered, turning to Snape. "The little shack near the Riddle house, near Little Hangleton. Do you remember? We passed it on the way to the graveyard last Midwinter. It was so powerfully warded and cursed that I didn't dare try to break the spells. Besides, I thought it was only a minor curiosity at the time."

Snape's face went blank, then stunned. Then it hardened, and he nodded. "Dark magic," he murmured. "Powerful Dark magic, to guard a place in such shambles. And now we know why."

"Why he put the spells up, at least. Not why he chose that place. Maybe if we can learn that, we can learn where the other hiding places are, more specifically." Harry turned to Regulus. "Death didn't give you a good sense of why Voldemort chose the hiding places he did, I suppose?"

Regulus shook his head. "As I said, she gave me as little information as she could. I'm glad that you recognized that house, at least, and I recognized Hogwarts. I don't know what we're going to do about the other two."

"I might have an idea," Harry muttered, mind racing. The bird could help. Perhaps. On the other hand, if it could really help, it would have told me about the Horcruxes and where they were outright. It obviously knows. But I'll talk to it when I can. "Thank you, Regulus. I—I can't say that I like the idea of your risking your life for this, even now." He met Regulus's eyes. "But it's enormously helpful. Thank you."

"She told me one thing more," Regulus said softly.

Harry immediately went alert. Regulus's hands were gripping the sides of his chair as if it were about to ride it into a storm. Harry swallowed twice before he could get the words out. "What?" he whispered. Draco leaned back against him and turned his head so that his face rested on Harry's neck, mouthing soothing words. Harry hardly noticed. His skin was clammy, and his breath quickened as he watched Regulus.

Regulus hesitated long moments, until Harry wanted to scream at him to hurry up. And then he spoke.

"Voldemort knew he couldn't protect the Horcruxes from every form of physical destruction," he whispered. "An imaginative enemy could always come up with something he hadn't thought of. So, in addition to protection from common curses, he used a spell that's part of the Unassailable Curses—not even the caster can undo it, or take it back, or break it by any other method than the one acceptable way of breaking it." He fixed his eyes on Harry. "It might be as simple as a sneezing curse that can only be undone by Finite Incantatem, but then, you can only undo it by the Finite, not by blocking someone's nose so they can't sneeze; they'll keep on sneezing regardless. And Voldemort cast a curse that said the Horcruxes could only ultimately be destroyed if someone died, as a willing sacrifice, either with the intention of destroying the Horcrux or for love of the person who intended to destroy the Horcrux."

Harry stared at him, then shook his head. "That's not—"

Sirius. Sylarana.

Harry stopped, the words sticking in his throat, the memories blazing in his mind. Sirius had cast the Killing Curse on himself, died a willing sacrifice for the love he bore Harry and the love he bore Connor, and to stop Voldemort from coming back into the world through him. His last four words before the Avada Kedavra had been to tell them farewell.

And he could see, he could see if he closed his eyes, Sylarana uncoiling from his arm and lunging upward at the basilisk, her scream ringing in his ears. Mine! My human! I defend him from other snakes!

And then the world trembled and rushed, and he was back in Acies's Defense Against the Dark Arts class last year, with her words on willing sacrifice circling his head like birds of prey.

A life laid down, a limb cut off willingly, a privilege yielded without grumbling, forms the corner and the core of all sacrifices that most wizards trust. Without that corner and that core, sacrifice is usually seen as evil, or, at most, dubious magic. What can be done with blood and flesh and other things not given willingly? A great deal, but not as much as can be done with that yielded. The wizard's will adds its own sanction to the spell or the potion or the ritual performed with that willing sacrifice. The one the sacrifice is performed for grows more willing himself, more able, more powerful. Perhaps he will even be able to survive whatever storm comes after that yielding.

And he had even wondered if Sirius and Sylarana's sacrifices had made a difference in his battles with Voldemort that followed.

They had. They had made all the difference.

Harry shook his head. He was aware that he had withdrawn from Draco, stumbling back against the far wall, and that he'd banged his ankle on something, probably the leg of the chair. He didn't mind. He didn't care. He couldn't think of anything but trying to deny what Regulus said.

"No," he whispered.

"Yes." There came a faint creaking sound—Regulus's hands tightening on the arms of the chair, probably. "I'm sorry, Harry. There's no way around it. Death is cruel, but Voldemort is crueler. To destroy the Horcruxes, four people who love you are going to have to die."

Harry could hear his breath coming out of his mouth in a moan. The worst part, the worst part, was that he had people around him who might be willing to do that, to give their lives up for him.

It's not—it's not right. The sacrifices were supposed to fall on me. Why shouldn't they? The battle with Voldemort is my fight. I'm not alone in it, but why should I have to have company in the sacrifices? Why should anyone be required to do this?

"Or die intending to destroy the Horcrux," Snape said sharply, somewhere beyond the roaring in his ears. "You said that, Regulus."

"I did," Regulus agreed. "But, either way, Harry will almost certainly need to be there. Voldemort sowed his doom the night that he made Harry his magical heir and passed the absorbere ability to him. He can eat the magic of the Horcrux left after the sacrifice, and he can either eat the piece of the soul or destroy it by destroying the magic and the anchor it depends on. Without magic and a physical anchor of some kind, the soul shard simply dissipates."

Harry remembered the piece of Tom Riddle's soul unraveling, shrinking, shrieking, and disappearing, after the destruction of the diary.

It was—

It was unfair. It was unjust. But he would do what he could to make sure it wasn't.

"I can't believe you're talking as though this is actually the way we'll fight the war," he said, taking his arm away from his face and glaring at both Regulus and Snape. "It's not. We'll find some way around this. There has to be a way."

"There is no other way," Regulus said, his voice gentle. "I'm sorry, Harry, but this particular Unassailable Curse can only be broken by a willing sacrifice of the kind I described."

"Maybe Death was lying to you," Harry countered. "You said she was cruel."

"That's possible," said Regulus. "But then she could have been lying about the locations of the Horcruxes, too, and you seem to believe that you have independent confirmation that's not so. Besides, all the other information that my ancestors ever brought out of that painting was true."

Draco was suddenly in front of Harry, gathering him up in his arms. Harry laid his head on his shoulder, but went on glaring at Regulus and Snape past Draco's neck. "I'm not—I'm not going to have people dying just because they love me," he said harshly. "No more sacrifices like that. We'll find some way around this."

"And if there is no way?" Regulus asked softly. "We know a way to destroy Voldemort, Harry. We know it works. Twice, it worked. I would be skeptical, too, if Sylarana or my brother was the only occurrence, but we have it twice. The first time, Tom Riddle vanished after your snake died. The second time, the shard of Voldemort managed to leap into Rodolphus's body—probably because he was older and had more experience at possession than Tom Riddle—but when you destroyed that, he was gone. Do we dare ignore what that implies, Harry? Do we want Voldemort to ravage our world because we can't bear to think of giving up our lives?"

"I'll give up my life," Harry said stonily. He ignored Snape's thundercloud glare and the way Draco's arms clamped around him, almost hard enough to cut off his breath. "I'll give up my free time, and my learning of other spells that aren't Dark Arts or ways to destroy Horcruxes, and my schooling. But I'm not going to let other people die because they love me."

"Even if it's willing?" Regulus said. "Remember, Harry, it has to be willing for this to work. Utterly willing. An enemy couldn't put one of us under Imperio and demand that we kill ourselves to destroy the Horcrux. That doesn't work in other willing sacrifice situations; the magic doesn't accept it. So it would depend on our own free wills. And you wouldn't respect our choices? As vates?"

Harry became aware he was crying, but he couldn't move his hand up to wipe away the tears because Draco's arm was in the way. And Merlin, how he hated to cry, to show weakness in front of everyone. They were the ones who were talking about paying the cost, about dying.

"I'm not—I'm not worth this kind of devotion," he said. "Regulus, no one is. Can't you see that? I can't demand this of anyone."

"And demanding wouldn't work." Regulus's voice was like water wearing a hole in stone by long and patient dripping, like Joseph's. "It would always, always be choice, Harry."

No.

"I just—I want to work on some way to get around this." Harry shifted so that he could bury his face in Draco's shoulder, and wipe some of the tears off. "But I don't want to say that people have to kill themselves for the sake of defeating Voldemort and that's the end of it."

It's not true. It can't be true. Please, let it not be true. Loving me leads people to their deaths already, when they go into battle. Please, let this not be true, too.

"We'll do research, Harry," Regulus said. "I would never suggest that we start committing suicide just because Death said so. And we have to find the Horcruxes and learn how to break the spells guarding them, too. But once we find them—"

Harry shook his head wildly, stubbornly, and Regulus fell silent with a little sigh. Harry stood there for a moment more, his heart beating hard, and then gently stepped back, extricating himself from Draco's arms.

"I think I'd like to be alone for a while," he said, and walked out of the room before anyone could protest.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Five hours later, Harry stood on the small tower on top of Silver-Mirror that some long-ago Black ancestor had built as an observatory, and stared at the stars, and felt his face twist in determination.

There has to be a way around it. That's all. There are probably going to be more than four deaths of people who loved me in battle. There are not going to be four suicides.

He had spent long enough on the tower, he thought, to persuade himself against the sly little voice that whispered in the back of his head, sounding far too much like Joseph.

You said that you would have to accept their suicides if they were willing. You said you would step out of the way if you believed that Draco did want to commit suicide and he wasn't under Imperius or otherwise compelled.

Harry slammed his hand down on the balcony around the tower. It cracked straight through with the magic in his palm, and nearly fell. Harry took in a deep breath, dragged the pieces back up, and cast Reparo.

That kind of suicide is different. For them, done because they want to do it. Or done the way Loki did it, to benefit and strengthen others.

I—I don't want people dying for me. I won't accept it. There has to be some way around this. Sylarana and Sirius were willing to die for me, but Sylarana didn't plan it. So there might be something there. We can look it up.

I am not worth someone else ending their life that way. A battle situation is different, equal risk to all, but this kind of decision? No. No. I won't.

Harry closed his eyes, then whirled away from the balcony and strode back into the house.

They were going to find a way around this, a way to circumvent Voldemort's horrible spell and not have people die for him.

I can make sacrifices. I'm used to them. But it's unfair, unjust, and wrong to ask someone else to make sacrifices because they love me. Draco deserves better. Snape and Connor deserve better. Regulus deserves better. All my allies deserve better.

I am not worth that.