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Chapter Seventy: We Change

Indigena shifted the book in the dim light falling through the mouth of the burrow, and then sighed. It was no good. Lately, her Lord's snake had been restless around light, so she would have to go above ground to read either by the radiance of the waning sun or a cast Lumos.

Standing, she glanced back once at the Dark Lord. He did not move, his hands clasped on his chest and locked around the golden cup, the flesh-snake curled asleep in the crook of his elbow. Indigena knew better than to think he was in a coma, now, as she had when she first found him. Now, she knew that he was hunting, sweeping on deadly, silent wings through the currents of thought, all the more deadly because his prey, like the owl's, did not know he was there.

She shuddered and climbed the shallow series of steps that led out of the burrow, pausing to blink in the sunlight.

The hole was high up on the slight rise that cradled the Riddle House. Indigena could see Muggle houses if she looked in the right direction, but she had never wanted to. She preferred to look down on the graveyard instead, where the ruins of her thorns that had poisoned Rosier still lay, and on an old, abandoned garden. Indigena had started to coax the garden back to life.

That might be a pleasant place to read.

She had barely moved a step forward, though, when the air in front of her shimmered, and a sea eagle dropped through and flopped gracelessly to the ground. Indigena rolled her eyes and stared over his head at the garden. Perhaps if she concentrated hard enough, he would go away.

He didn't have the grace to. He changed back into Falco instead, and climbed to his feet, coughing slowly. Indigena studied him. She could see that the sides of his face had changed, the skin peeling off and sloughing away. That pleased her. He was devoting more and more time to the study of the Dark that had once consumed her Lord, had made him less than human even before he constructed the Horcruxes. That could only mean Falco was further along the path to Declaring. The sooner that happened, the sooner everything would be over. Indigena didn't really like Falco Parkinson, nor some of the things his presence obliged her to do.

Like be polite to him, for example.

"My Lord," she said, keeping her voice empty of the warmth she used for Voldemort. "May I help you?"

Falco glanced at her once, then turned to the burrow. "Why have you not yet removed to the dwelling I prepared for you?"

Indigena choked on bile. "Why should we?" she asked at last. "You could have filled it with traps, for all I know. Did you think that my lord trusted you?"

"This one is insufficient." Falco's glare might have taken in the Muggle town and the garden—Indigena felt her thorns lash at the thought—as well as the hole in the earth that Indigena had emerged from. "He deserves a habitation more fitting of his glory, and his destiny. I have made one for him."

"He will move when he is ready," said Indigena. "You forget, Lord Parkinson. Lord Voldemort is no boy to be bullied and pushed and shoved about like Harry." And if you saw half as much as you think you do, you blind fool, then you would realize Harry is not, either. "If he wishes to stay here and do important work, then he can stay here and do important work."

"I need to speak with Tom," said Falco abruptly, and pushed past her. "Stay here."

Indigena snorted and sat down in the grass, tugging the book out to lay across her lap. It concerned means of taming wild animals, including details of the numerous unsuccessful attempts to tame dragons. Indigena doubted that she would find what she really needed in here, but she was becoming desperate. Her Lord's plan would be ready soon, and his broken experiment was still not everything it could be. Indigena hoped to find a way to bring it under control. Her Lord was doubtful that it would endanger all their plans, but Indigena had grown warier since Lazuli had joined Harry. She wanted a guarantee that they would win, not merely the likelihood that they might.

She bent over the nearest page, skimming paragraphs she'd already skimmed, and then paused. With those creatures whose wildness and danger is innate, like the dragon, there is one other method that may be tried: the golden bridle.

Intrigued—she hadn't seen this before because of a few pages stuck together—Indigena began to read.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"Tom? Tom, are you here?"

He felt him coming, by the vibrations in the earth, long before the words struck his human ears. The flesh-snake stirred, and opened its eyes. Lord Voldemort swung its head so that it was pointing at Falco.

The older wizard came down the steps of the tunnel and halted in front of him, staring at him as if he had expected him to be on his feet. But a true Lord could maintain dignity in any position. Lord Voldemort maintained his, now, lying down and patiently clutching the threads of memory in his mind. What he did now did not come naturally to him; it was a variation on a very old bit of magic he'd once performed, and it depended on certain qualities in the victims' minds that made it necessary he encourage and nurture and prune certain kinds of thoughts, not simply implant his suggestions. It was hard to hold himself back, sometimes, and refrain from commanding those who should be his because of what he was. He had to do the best he could.

"You are here," Falco said, and frowned at him. His voice was blunt, too blunt. When he had his throne back, then Lord Voldemort would let no one speak to him this way. "Why are you not in the other house?"

The snake could see Falco's tattered silver beard, and torn robes, and glazed green eyes. More to the point, it could see the changing of his aura off to the sides of his body, where it had begun to decay and crumble in the wake of his new studies. Lord Voldemort had to stifle exultation. The old fool had turned to the paths, after all, and not been willing to pay the full price for them. The Dark had embraced Lord Voldemort when he Declared because he did not hold back. He gave everything of himself but his life to reach the one goal worth reaching: immortality. Falco was trying to hunt the paths while holding back, hesitating, wishing for Light. The Dark would sense that, and it would rip him apart, for that and for trying to use it for balance, and for daring to trick it and try to pretend that he would belong to Light, too, all these years.

"Because I do not wish to be," said Lord Voldemort, when he judged the time had come. He could have been a great artist, he could have, and right now he was seeing the work of artistry on Falco's face and mourning wasted opportunities. For this was part of his wreaking, part of his working, him and Harry, oh yes, and since Harry could not be here to see their joined triumph and would not appreciate it if he could, it was up to him to take pleasure for the both of them. "I prefer this cave and the memories it holds to the memories of the other house."

Falco's face took on an unusual cast of desperation, and he took a step forward. "It began there," he said. "It has to end there." And then he stopped, as if he feared that he had said too much.

He laughed at him, Lord-Voldemort-still-a-Lord-though-lying-in-the-dirt, thick and rich laughter that boomed like the earth shaking. And he cowered away from him, did Falco of the wrong desires and foolish mind, shaking his head as if he could make it stop shaking, clamping his hands over his ears as if that would change things.

"I know it," said Lord Voldemort, when he could stop laughing. The snake swayed back and forth in response to his mirth, making his view of Falco swing and rock. "I did not know everything at first, but five years ago I discovered the last vestiges of the truth. One cannot wander bodiless in the Dark and learn nothing. A strange thing, an unusual thing, to have a magical heir bound to one at a distance, sharing magic with one, instead of dying properly and returning the magic to one, but it has happened. I know him. I know the third. I know everything that you would have told me, Falco, and nothing you can say will make me remove there until I am ready. Yes, it will end there. When the snake coils, when death comes down, when the moment swings between three of us balanced and poised, it will be there. Even if it would have ended elsewhere, I shall make a point of seeing the despair in Harry's eyes before I destroy him." He laughed, and this time the thickness was even deeper and even richer, like flesh ridden with maggots before they ripened into flies. "Or will he destroy himself? I think he will, when he learns what has happened. Oh, I think he will. Will it not half-kill him to know this? A friend once said those words, thought those words, a variation of those words. And now the end is coming. Before it does, I will take from Harry everything that he has loved. And when I reveal how deep my claws have sunk, how he and no other is responsible for the harvest I have reaped, he will kill himself, and my magic will come home to me."

Falco remained silent until his eloquence ended. Then he shook his head, and said, "You are mad, Tom. But it is your techniques that I need now." He leaned forward. "I have been to the coasts, and still I cannot convince the sirens to listen to me. What did you say to persuade them?"

It took a long moment for Lord Voldemort to subdue his amusement, to stop dreaming of the distant day when his magic would be all his again, to diminish his irritation at being called by a Muggle name. But in the end, he managed. He would tell the fool Falco how to control the sirens, how to raise them. Of course he would. Using a brilliant plan like that only worked once. Harry would rise against Falco, and destroy him, because Falco was not willing to give himself fully to the Dark.

Oh, yes, he told him, did Lord Voldemort, and all the time the snake swayed beside him and dreamed of the end.

Out of that end, there would be no morning, but only silence eternal, in an eternal night.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry shut his mouth and looked expectantly across the room. Jing-Xi sat with her head bowed, her long dark hair playing hide-and-seek around the arms of her chair, her breathing deep and peaceful. Harry hoped he hadn't said something wrong, or, worse, said something boring and sent her to sleep.

But, in a moment, she looked up and shook her head, sending her hair scattering in other directions. Harry was almost sure he heard it squeal as it bounced, but, if so, it was probably another sign of her magic, rather than a spell she had set. Why would she want her hair to squeal when it bounced?

"That is a very good expression of what it means when a Light Lord cares for his people, Harry." Her face wore the faintest edge of a smile, as if she were proud of him and trying not to show it. "That you care for the people of Britain in such a way—and other creatures as well—is a good sign for the future. The others will be more inclined to accept you into the Pact when the time comes."

Harry nodded. "Good." And then he paused.

"Whatever matter of magic concerns you, Harry," Jing-Xi said, and leaned forward, "you must feel free to speak to me of it. There are things I can tell you that no one else can, that no one else will—not from any malicious, lying intent, but simply because they do not know how we exist, at this level."

Harry nodded again. He told himself that Jing-Xi's phrasing should not make him uneasy. After all, Lord-level was a common term for someone with his might in magic.

But it still made him wary, any implication that he was above others, inherently superior to them.

"I was wondering what will happen with my vates influence spreading outside of Britain," he said, and made a nervous gesture that he hoped aimed, vaguely, in the direction of Africa. "Already a few species like karkadanns can tear loose from their webs and come to me. Won't that cause conflict in other countries? If there's a Lord in the karkadann territory who becomes annoyed at me, how does that affect the Pact?"

"Currently, we have no solution for such a thing," Jing-Xi said. "As I told you, you are the first vates since the Pact was formed, Harry, since we began to look beyond the boundaries of our own magical communities and think that we owed the world a responsibility to join together. So, yes, it might mean open conflict if that happened and you annoyed a Lord or Lady." She hummed under her breath, as though thinking. "Though, truly, I would not think it the karkadanns you should be wary of. Monika, the Dark Lady in Austria, makes it her habit to breed magical creatures—"

"I thought that was illegal," Harry said.

"Monika has never cared overmuch about legalities," said Jing-Xi, as if that should explain everything. "Excepting the Pact, of course. But she breeds them, and is inevitably dissatisfied with them, and puts them aside, bound in a web. You are her natural enemy."

Harry groaned and tilted his head back. There were times, he had to admit as he massaged his brow with his silver hand, when he did wish that he hadn't chosen such a difficult path to walk as the vates one.

But he had, it was chosen, and there was no turning back, of course. What kind of person would he be if he did? Like it or not, he was vates, and he was in the position of Lord of the British Isles, since no one else would protect them from Voldemort. The sense of intense binding and protectiveness he'd felt when he embraced Marian and saw her unafraid of his magic had not gone away. That was what his wizarding world should be like, people touching him and taking from his magic what they needed without fear.

So he would conflict with Monika someday—if he survived his war with Voldemort. That was inevitable. Harry shouldered himself to accept the burden now. At least Monika did not have a prophetic bond with him, and perhaps she would be willing to talk instead of trying to destroy Harry immediately as Voldemort would do.

"There is another thing we must talk of, Harry." Jing-Xi's voice was devoid of inflection.

Harry glanced up, and saw that she had risen from her chair. She stood over him, and looked down, eyes deep and sad. Harry sat up. He did not think Jing-Xi would hurt him, but he was prepared to defend himself if she did. His magic rose around him, buzzing, and a dark cat formed, crouched, at Jing-Xi's heels.

She smiled, then, and shook her head. "I am sorry to have frightened you, Harry," she said. "I only wanted to make you understand how serious this matter was, but of course you would already know that."

She moved back and sat down in her chair again, hands displayed all the while, shoulders held in an unnatural hunched posture that looked like a half-shrug. Harry, watching, finally realized that she was using the signal she had taught him meant no harm between Lords and Ladies. He exhaled and let his magic fade until the cat was less than a shadow wavering on the floor.

"My Lady," he said. "What is it?"

"There is a more pressing concern for the other Lords and Ladies than your vates path," she said quietly. "That has only happened in a few countries, and most of the incidents were minor—individuals tearing their webs, not whole species. Besides, most know that that would happen with any vates in the world, whether or not he was the youngest of us ever to come to power.

"But now your absorbere gift is common knowledge among them, and the way that you stand magical heir to Voldemort. You are in the mid-ranks of Lords in terms of power, Harry. But you could easily become much stronger." Jing-Xi met his eyes. "They fear that."

"Have you told them about me?" Harry asked. "How I was raised to hate and abhor that ability of mine?"

"I kept them quiet that way for some time," said Jing-Xi. "But some of them are watching, and they know that you drained Unspeakables in the British Ministry of Magic. That makes them fear that you are growing stronger, more confident, that the artificial restraints of your training are falling away." She looked at his left hand. "And the hand is another sign. You are not a wounded little boy. You are a young Lord, not Declared, but still. As they see it, you are someone who might drain them someday, if only to defend his islands."

Harry clasped his hands around the arms of his chair. "I see," he said in a neutral voice. "Would it reassure them if I pretended to go backwards? Suddenly lose my confidence in public, wear a glamour that makes it look as if I don't have the silver hand, and express concern about my absorbere gift?"

Jing-Xi shook her head. "They wouldn't believe it, not now. Most of them have an idea how far you've come."

"Then what should I do?" Harry spoke the words in a voice that he kept free of frustration, and thanked Joseph for that blessing. Dealing with the stubborn Seer was good practice for dealing with the whole of the obstinate, frustrating, resentment-causing world in general.

"You should press forward," said Jing-Xi. "But do it with an eye on the future, Harry, and an eye on the world. They have spies in or near Britain who can pass information to them about you. You should have spies on them in return."

"I do have a spy network that could span Europe, potentially," said Harry, thinking of the Opallines. At one time, they'd started to open talks in other wizarding communities for him, but most of those had come to nothing; the official reasoning was that the other wizards saw how well Harry was doing with his war and determined he didn't need their help. "If that would do."

"It would be a beginning," Jing-Xi acknowledged. "But you will need more in the end, Harry. You will need to grow."

Harry sighed. "And you think I'll be alive in a few years to care about this?"

He meant it as a joke, but it made Jing-Xi lean forward and say, "Quite honestly? You do not dare plan otherwise, Harry. On the morning that you defeat Voldemort, you will need to be ready to defend yourself again."

Harry frowned. "Why? You think that Monika would choose that moment to make her move?"

Jing-Xi shook her head. "When the tunnel between you and Voldemort collapses and the transfer of his magic to you is complete, I fully expect you to be one of the strongest wizards in the world, because Voldemort is. There may be someone who would think that he or she could catch you off guard in that moment, reeling, drunk with victory, and not yet in control of your magic."

Some of Jing-Xi's stranger training made sense then, especially the parts where she had encouraged him to visualize tasks that would strain his power, and sometimes even to perform them. "You're preparing me for that moment," Harry whispered. "You're trying to get me used to carrying more magic than I carry now."

"Yes."

Harry leaned back in his chair and stared off into space. He had not considered that before, not really. He had simply assumed that once Voldemort died, he would have control of the power that he'd had until the end of fourth year, when Voldemort had resurrected himself and established the tunnel.

But if there were more—

I don't want it.

But wanting and not wanting had very little to do with his fate, Harry had to acknowledge. He had still not found a way around the sacrifices for the Horcruxes, but he had listened, reluctantly, to Regulus's talk about the warded shack near the Riddle house which evidently contained one of them. They should secure that Horcrux, Regulus had argued, before Voldemort either guessed or decided that they knew about it and moved it to safety elsewhere. Voldemort had seemingly forgotten that Harry would need to pass close by that tumbledown house to come to the graveyard last Midwinter, but he might remember at any moment.

They were going to try for that Horcrux this weekend. Harry might have resisted, but he had other plans in motion, too, and the love and liveliness he had felt when he looked into Marian's eyes, and even Jacinth's, prompted him towards this particular action. There was nothing that said he had to kill someone to cleanse that Horcrux the moment he had it. If he could have it, if he could study it, then it might become easier to find a way around the Unassailable Curse.

"They'll have to get used to it, I suppose," he told Jing-Xi. "And so will I."

Jing-Xi smiled, and it was a proud smile, like a banner or a call to war. "Indeed."

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Connor hung upside down from his Firebolt, because he could.

Then he righted himself and continued on around the Pitch. No one else was out to see and contest him for the air. An odd mixture of rain and slush was falling, at once cold enough to get through most cloth and heavy enough to break many students' warming charms, and Katie had called the Gryffindor team's practice off early. It wasn't a particularly urgent time of year, either. They'd beat Hufflepuff handily a few weeks ago, and the match with Ravenclaw was three months away.

Connor didn't have to go inside with the rest of them if he didn't want to, though. He'd tossed the Snitch away just as Katie signaled for them to leave the Pitch, and then claimed he would find it and bring it in again. The rest had just shrugged and left him to it.

Since then, he'd seen the Snitch several times, even trailing at his heel like a lost puppy. It was there now. Connor spun the Firebolt towards it, and of course it darted away. But it didn't go far. Connor speculated idly that it didn't like the wet and the cold any more than he did.

He wondered why he'd wanted to remain outside. Surely he could think just as well inside, next to a warm fire, with Parvati curled up next to him, her hair wreathed around his neck and her head resting in the crook of his throat.

The thought made Connor smile, until a dash of rain, driven by a brisk March wind, hit him. He spluttered and shook his head, and went back to flying around, now and then hanging upside-down to see if that would drive these thoughts from his head. It didn't help, but then, Connor was slowly becoming resigned to the idea that nothing would.

He circled the middle of the Pitch in tight little rings, the Firebolt obedient beneath him, and finally admitted it to himself:

The noticing hadn't gone away.

He was still seeing things, even when he didn't look for them. He'd noticed a shy little Hufflepuff fifth-year who fancied Neville, even though she never seemed to blush or giggle when he was around. He'd noticed Luna Lovegood and Padma Patil talking more and more often, their hands brushing against each other, Luna actually seeming to notice Padma at least as often as she did the tables in the Great Hall. He'd noticed the mornings when Draco and Harry were snappish with one another, the mornings when they sported love bites, and the mornings when they both grinned like fools.

But it wasn't just noticing people falling in love and probably snogging, which would have been bad enough. Connor had turned around the other day and caught a glimpse of Millicent Bulstrode at the Slytherin table. He knew her, of course. She ate things. She was there. She was the daughter of one of Harry's allies. He knew a bit about her.

He'd never realized that she had a faint smile on her face in the mornings, when she didn't look quite awake, and was slowly eating her food instead of tearing it apart. He'd always thought it was a smirk, but it wasn't. It was a smile.

Connor dived at the grass, almost hoping to scrape through a puddle and toss muddy water into his face. It didn't happen, though, trained Seeker reflexes twitching him out of danger before he reached the ground and sending him back into the air.

He'd noticed that Ernie Macmillan, a conceited Hufflepuff boor, was actually harmless. Oh, he might brag about the purity of his family, but he didn't call anybody 'Mudblood.' He collected Chocolate Frog cards and went about his day with a small smile on his face, and he would tell anyone who asked him, at great length, about the small shop he intended to open when he left Hogwarts, mostly to make collecting Chocolate Frog cards and other small things easier. He would probably adapt to the changed world that the Grand Unified Theory created, Connor thought, and with much less fuss than other purebloods. He didn't see anything worth making a fuss about, unless it actually happened to him.

He saw the way Ron and Ginny fought, especially about her dating Dean now—one would have to be blind to miss a Weasley spat in Gryffindor Tower—but now he saw the way they crept back together, too, sometimes exchanging a smile the next day, sometimes talking to each other as if the fight had never happened. Connor wasn't sure they ever forgave each other, but they did forget. The Burrow wasn't an endless stew of boiling tempers, he had always known that, but now he knew why it wasn't.

He'd realized that Terry Boot was actually a fairly good artist. He never drew anything beautiful, but he drew useful things, like small diagrams of wand movements that were good for studying spells. He could dash off a complicated drawing of a human wrist and arm in three minutes, and then, if someone praised him, he'd look at them in polite incomprehension, as if accepting compliments on the way he breathed. Art did seem to be that instinctive to him, Connor thought.

He'd seen the dark circles beneath Peter's eyes, one day when they were alone for Animagus training, and commented on them before he could help himself. He was sure Peter was having bad dreams, and he remembered what that had meant for Sirius. Even Peter reassuring him, with some amusement, that he did not have Voldemort in his head attempting to possess him had not lessened Connor's worry.

They'd discovered his Animagus form that same day—a wild boar—but Connor's heart wasn't in his rejoicing.

And, worst of all—

Connor tried zipping very fast in several directions, on the off-chance that if he flew away from the thought, he didn't have to think it. But the thoughts were in his own head, and came with him, and slapped into the back of his head.

He was starting to think that Draco Malfoy could be a tolerable person outside of his function in making Harry happy.

He didn't know what had first given him that impression, infuriatingly. He saw the way Draco watched other people, with more observant curiosity than the malice that Connor had given him credit for. He saw the way he'd thrown himself into Animagus training; he could care about a study he had no guarantee would give him some kind of personal advantage, then. Of course, Connor was still determined to transform first, but that was beside the point.

The point was that he was starting to see all these little things, and it made life very complicated. He couldn't just believe people were good and evil any more. He saw frailties and weaknesses among people who weren't Gryffindors or Light wizards that awoke his compassion, and strengths that the people he loved best didn't have.

If I could stop noticing things, Connor thought, hanging upside-down once more in the hope that the blood rush to his brain would drown his thoughts, I could stop growing up, or whatever it is I'm doing. That would be pleasant.

"Connor Potter! You come down here this instant!"

The shout carried clearly through the storm that had now, mostly, translated to rain. Connor flipped himself back over in astonishment and blinked at the Pitch, absently thanking Merlin that he didn't wear glasses like Harry.

Parvati stood at the edge of the Pitch, arms folded as she glared up at him. Connor snatched the Snitch, skimmed down the Firebolt towards her, and opened his mouth to explain.

"What you were thinking, flying in weather like this, I'll never know," Parvati said flatly, and seized his arm. "It's a long way from the first day of spring, you realize?"

"Of course I realize—ow!"

She'd tugged him along, practically carrying him off his feet. "But maybe it's a good thing," she added, with manic cheer. "That means that you get to practice those drying charms I showed you the other day on your Quidditch gear, since the house elves won't be washing it."

"Parvatiiii," Connor whinged.

She turned and faced him, eyebrow raised. "Yes?"

Connor went silent at the look on her face, the worry behind her eyes. And a small fire that had nothing to do with imaginings of the Gryffindor common room took up residence in his belly.

If I'm noticing other people, I also get noticed.

He leaned forward and kissed her. His lips were cold and wet, but she gave only a muffled protest before kissing him back.

Connor slid his arms around her, dropping the Firebolt to the ground, and had a final thought before he became too busy for thinking.

Maybe growing up isn't so bad.