Chapter 44

Harry woke up to find that strange queasiness still plaguing him. He rolled over with a groan and was surprised to see Snape already in his room.

"Apologies, I thought I had been too quiet to wake you."

"I didn't hear you, I think I just woke up." Harry rubbed his eyes. "Is it time to get up?"

"If you wish to meet with the Aurors, yes. I was going to leave you asleep if I found you like that and tell the Aurors that you were still too tired."

Harry chuckled. "Are you trying to piss of the DMLE?"

Severus gave him a deadpan look. "One does not have to try." Which made Harry laugh again.

Snape might have been willing to host Gryffindors in his quarters but he drew the line at Aurors, so, after Harry had dressed and eaten, they headed to McGonagall's office for the interview. The gargoyle must have been anticipating their arrival as it took them straight up without awaiting a password. Snape seemed to frown at this and Harry wondered if the professor was upset by this lack of security.

Harry locked down his Occlumency shields and put on his mask of confidence as they stepped into the office. He had no expectation that the meeting would be difficult, but he didn't know these Aurors and had found previously that it was better for him to own his new position of public power than to allow others to manipulate him for it. Severus felt the shift in him, the setting of his jaw and the tensing of his shoulders and raised an eyebrow at him curiously. Harry ignored it and surveyed the occupants of the room. McGonagall was there as he expected, since they were using her office, and in seats of various styles and patterns were four Aurors, their official uniform identifying them.

Harry appraised them quickly. One he actually did recognize from one of the occasions when the Order had linked up with the Aurors in their hunt for the remaining Death Eaters. Harry was relieved to see that at least one of them was firmly on their side. Not that there were sides anymore. Harry was there to explain what happened so the Death Eaters could be prosecuted, not to be interrogated himself. He hadn't had the best experience with ministry officials in the past, however, and it was sometimes difficult to shake what Severus would call his 'persecution complex'.

The other aurors were made up of two men, who were probably past their prime crime fighting age, and a woman who smiled kindly at Harry when they made eye contact.

"Here they are," McGonagall introduced. "This is Auror Whitfield," She gestured to the female Auror. "Aurors Mason and Holding," she indicated the tow gentlemen whom Harry didn't recognize. "And Auror Shanley." She smiled at the one Harry recognized from the Burrow. He was younger than the other two men, though still not particularly young. If he was on this case, he must be fairly experienced, Harry decided, or at least well regarded.

Harry shook each of their hands. "Hi, I'm Harry." He said since the headmistress hadn't actually introduced him, no one ever did.

"Well, I'll leave you all to it." McGonagall was putting on her cloak. "Feel free to use the office as long as you need, I doubt I'll be back before you're finished." She pulled a face. "I have a meeting with the governors."

When she was gone the remaining party took their seats. The older Auror, Mason, Harry remembered, turned to Snape with an air of obvious contempt. "We have your statement, Snape, you can go."

The assumed authority and rude dismissal immediately rubbed Harry up the wrong way. He looked to Snape to see him looking pointedly back at him. Snape wanted to stay, Harry knew, he wasn't comfortable with leaving Harry alone in this situation, but he would bow to Harry's wishes and leave should he desire it.

Harry tempered the tone of his voice and was able to say quite amicably, "I'm sure it would help if Professor Snape stayed." He threw in some of the charm he had learnt from Draco. "I know you've already interviewed him, but there must be gaps in each of our recollections that the other person could fill quite easily. And it will be much easier for you to hear it now than to have to piece our two stories together later."

"That won't be necess…."

"You don't mind, do you, Severus?" Harry interrupted, pointedly throwing in the professor's first name.

"Not at all."

"Perfect." Harry smiled brightly as though the decision had been made.

"Very well." Mason growled unhappily but he turned back to face Harry with something close to awe in his eyes. "Mr Potter, it's an honour to finally meet you."

Harry swallowed down the embarrassed stuttering that usually accompanied these types of interactions. It felt awkward to him to receive such praise from an experienced Auror, but he didn't want to downplay his strengths in this particular situation. Mason had already irritated him with his open hostility towards Severus, he wanted to appear confident and in control of the situation.

"Thank you." He replied with false warmth. "Shall we start?"

"Of course," the female Auror, Whitfield, smiled kindly at him. "Perhaps you could talk us through what you remember happening?"

Harry agreed and began by telling them of how he had been walking around Hogsmeade and had entered Gladrags. "I didn't know at the time of course, but Severus told me afterwards that the bag they gave me there was a portkey and I had put it in my pocket. One of the wizards who cornered me later passed me in the shop, so I'm guessing he planted it just before I got there." He told the Aurors that he had followed one of the wizards to the path that led from the village to the Shrieking Shack, but was interrupted by one of the Aurors.

"What made you suspicious?" Holding asked curiously. "You said you didn't know the man that you followed, so why did you suspect him of anything?"

Harry hesitated. Snape hadn't believed him when he told him about the strange disconcerting feeling he had, and Harry wasn't really certain that he believed it himself, even though he could still feel it. He glanced quickly at Severus sat next to him, but the professor's face remained carefully neutral.

"They were acting a bit odd." He said instead, which wasn't a lie. "Their patterns of movement didn't make sense, heading in one direction and then the opposite. After watching for a minute, I saw two of them communicating across the square and became suspicious."

"You must be very observant, Mr Potter." Holding praised and Harry could hear no skepticism in his tone.

Harry stole another glance at Severus, who still had a look of bland interest on his face. The man dropped his chin very slightly and Harry took that as approval.

He went on with his recollection and got to the point where the three wizards from Hogsmeade cornered him. He told the Aurors that he had contacted his friends but didn't mention how, keeping the DA galleons a well-contained secret.

"And you didn't recognize any of these attackers? Auror Shanley clarified.

Harry shook his head. "No, I don't think I'd come across them before. Pretty sure they weren't part of Voldemort's core Death Eater group."

"That's more your area of expertise, eh, Snape?" Mason interjected nastily.

Harry frowned, ready to jump to Severus' defense but the professor answered calmly for himself. "As I have already informed you, I recognized two of them as low-ranking supporters of Voldemort from my time as a spy within their ranks."

"Friends of yours?" Holding sneered.

Harry clenched his fist to stop himself from saying anything. Snape merely inclined his head towards the Auror who had spoken and said quietly, "I was one of the Dark Lord's most trusted followers, firmly entrenched in the most inner-circle of Death Eaters, so obviously not."

There was a tense silence where each side glared at the other. Harry flicked his eyes between Snape and the aurors. The other two aurors, Whitfield and Shanley, looked uncomfortable.

"I'm guessing they activated the portkey that had been planted on me." Harry said, breaking the tension and telling the story as he had experienced it, without the information Severus had given him since. "That's what it felt like anyway." Harry hated portkeys. Ever since the tournament he couldn't bear to travel by portkey. That awful tugging sensation always took him straight back to the graveyard. And now he had another memory of feeling powerless, threatened and out of control to add to his collection.

He looked at the Aurors but he could feel Snape's eyes on his face. He thought he had been casual enough in his tone to disguise his internal thoughts, but perhaps the professor could sense his discomfort.

"Can you tell us what you saw when you landed, Mr Potter? Auror Shanley asked next.

Harry nodded. "I threw my shield up to defend myself as soon as I could. That gave me a chance to look around. I could see all these rocks positioned around me and the magic connecting them beneath my feet. I couldn't apparate out of it. There were six attackers, three that I recognized: Dolohov, Yaxley and Lestrange. Lestrange told me that the trap I was in was draining my magic. Then they started attacking."

Shanley nodded along. "We have been to the attack site." He explained. "Professor Snape here was able to dismantle the wards which contained you within the rock formation. We have had an expert examine the magic on the rocks and confirmed it to be the spell which Professor Snape believed it to be. It must have drained much of your magic, Mr Potter, you must be a very powerful wizard."

"Well of course!" Mason exclaimed, which irritated Harry further but did mean he didn't have to think of something to say to that himself.

He told them about the rest of the attack, the spells he could remember them using and how he had begun to tire. He told them how Snape had arrived just in time and how they had battled side by side. Severus said nothing as Harry detailed the final moments of the battle, but Harry could see the professor's clenched fist resting on the arm of his chair in his peripheral vision.

"Did you think you would be able to re-shield in time?" Holding asked with a frown.

"No."

"You did not think Lestrange's curse would be so damaging then?"

Harry shrugged. "I was fairly sure it would be something deadly or otherwise maiming."

"I – but -." The Auror looked between Harry and Severus and back again bewilderedly. "I don't understand."

"You have to realize," Severus drawled sarcastically. "Mr Potter here doesn't have the basic levels of self-preservation which most of us possess."

Harry threw him a glare, ignoring the man's smirk. "It's not that unusual for someone to want to save another person's life." He mumbled.

"But for a Death Eater?" Holding questioned incredulously.

"Excuse me?" Harry voice turned cold. He was truly fed up with their condescension.

"He's admitted himself that he was a Death Eater."

"Potter." Severus murmured lowly next to him, a caution, or a warning perhaps. Harry ignored it either way.

"Severus Snape was a spy for the Light for years, he's the reason we won the war. He risked his life for years for the safety of the rest of the wizarding world and he's saved my life more times than I can count. I don't care if he was once a Death Eater, he's the bravest man I've ever known."

"Are you angry?"

His passionate defence of Snape in the interview had ended any questions of Harry's loyalty to the professor or the professor's loyalties to anyone. The rest of the meeting was awkward but civil, Whitfield and Shanley took over most of the questioning while the older Aurors remained tight-lipped and disapproving.

Harry was fine with that, but Severus hadn't spoken the whole way back to the professor's quarters.

"Why would I be angry?" He now drawled.

"You haven't spoken in twenty minutes."

"I am merely made speechless by your astounding levels of stupidity."

"Right." Harry sighed as he fell into the sofa.

"You are aware that those are the people you aspire to be working with in the not-so-distant future."

"I want to be an auror but I don't have to listen to their prejudiced…crap."

"I see your brief stint of eloquence is over."

Harry sighed again. "I didn't mean to upset you, I was trying to defend you."

"Yes, I gathered that." Severus had at last sat down in his usual armchair. "It was unnecessary."

Harry shrugged, "He was being idiotic. You like correcting people who are idiotic."

Severus gave him a pointed look. "True."

Harry had returned to the 8th Year dorms for the last few days of the holiday having been deemed sufficiently recovered. Harry was pleased to be allowed out again and to be spending time with his friends, but he was also surprised to find that he missed the peacefulness of Snape's rooms. It was quiet for studying, but not silent, as often Severus was also there, his quill scratching against essay scrolls or flicking pages as he read. Harry missed the professor's company too, their chess games and quiet conversations; the man's advice meant the world to a rudderless Harry on the brink of adult life.

But Harry was ready to throw himself back into student life for his final term, now with the additional relief of knowing that the last of the Death Eaters had been dealt with. He had found a certain peace within him and he knew it had a great deal to do with the relationship he had built with Snape. He noticed too, as classes started up again, that the slimy feeling he had been experiencing since the Death Eater attack had become a rarer occurrence, so that Harry had barely felt it in the last few days. It was another relief that he wouldn't have to worry about this other aspect of his strange biology or the causes of it.

"'Mione," He dragged his friend's attention away from her arithmancy textbook. "Can you schedule a DA meeting for this week? Tuesday night?"

"Sure, I'll send a message out on the coins. What's the plan?"

Ron smirked at his girlfriend's enthusiasm, only the thought of learning something of the curriculum could distract Hermione from her studying at the moment.

"Professor Snape gave me this book on ancient spells that have fallen out of practise. They're simple hexes but unusual enough that your opponent probably won't know the counter-charm." Harry suggested. "I thought we could try a few out and then Ron can help us strategize the best way to sequence the spells together." The red-head nodded along his approval.

Hermione's eyes had lit up at the prospect of learning old obscure spells. "Would you like to borrow the book, Hermione?"

"Yes! Are you sure? Thank you so much!"

Harry and Ron just chuckled. "Thanks for that, mate." Ron said sarcastically as Hermione stuck her nose into the dusty tome Harry passed her. "I won't see my girlfriend's face for the next 24 hours."

"You knew about my flaws before we got together, Ronald." Hermione said without looking up from the foreword.

"Yeah," Ron smiled warmly, before dripping down to peck her on the cheek. "And loved you for them."

Hermione didn't say anything else, but the tip of her ears went pink and Harry rolled his eyes at the satisfied look on Ron's face.

Harry had managed to get his book back from Hermione before the DA meeting on Tuesday so he could look over what he was going to teach. As the Room of Requirement filled up, Harry had a last flick through his notes and practiced the spells they would learn.

"Are we ready to start?" Ginny asked.

"Nearly," Hermione answered. "We're just waiting on a couple more people, Neville and Draco, I think."

"Yeah," Ron added, "Nev said he had a project to check on in the greenhouses. Not sure about Malfoy though?"

"He was finishing up some job applications," Harry offered. "But he said he would be here."

"Well, shall we start?" Hermione suggested. "Both of them will be capable of catching up quickly when they get here."

"Alright." Harry had only just agreed when the door opened and Neville came in, holding the door open for Draco who entered behind him. He gave them both a nod in welcome and suddenly felt sick to his stomach. He froze as the familiar sensation swept over him, all the more noticeable for the suddenness of its appearance.

"Harry?" Ginny touched his arm gently and he snapped his attention back to his girlfriend and friends, who were all frowning at him in confusion and concern. Apparently he had missed an earlier attempt to get his attention. "What's wrong?"

Harry shook himself and forced a smile. "Nothing." Though they all knew he was lying, no one commented. "Let's start."

The meeting commenced and Harry tried to focus on the spells he was teaching. He demonstrated a few, explaining their purposes and sharing the counter curses before setting them off to practise. He asked Hermione to go over the spells again with the younger years and the 7th and 8th Years paired up themselves.

Ron, who had also learnt the spells earlier, approached Harry at the side of the room as the group practiced. "What's up?"

"Nothing. I mean," he added before Ron could object. "I'm not sure what it is, or if it's anything."

"Judging by the look on your face, mate, it's definitely something."

Harry grimaced, "Yeah, I know. I just need to work out what it is. I need to think for a bit."

Ron nodded and gave his shoulder a pat. "Alright. I've worked out some good ways to pair up the spells so I can take the next section and Mione can keep teaching the younger years. You can take it easy for a bit, just let us know if you need us." He gave Harry a pointed look and Harry nodded, promising his friend that he would share what he worked out.

He moved around the room giving the appearance that he was checking their form as he observed, though his thoughts were in fact far more introverted. Ginny had agreed to pair with Draco since other members of the DA were sometimes wary and as Harry drew closer to their dueling space the sickly sensation grew stronger. He stopped nearby and leant back against the wall, breathing deeply as he sought out the same magical skill he had tried so hard to hide and control.

Now he allowed the magic of the room to wash over him and as he tuned in further, the more magic he could see. The light of their spells became brighter and he could see the magic of each witch and wizard in the room; the pale water colours of the younger kids to the deeper hues of the 7th and 8th Years. He could see Hermione' s royal blue and strands of golden yellow and he could see the deep red of Ron's magic as he demonstrated the ice hex to Seamus.

Harry looked to Ginny and Draco. Ginny's magic was a deep green and watching it flow around her soothed some of the uneasiness in Harry's stomach. Mingling with her forest green was a cool turquoise that emanated from Draco. Harry observed it closely, exploring how the magic felt and searching for the source of the darkness he was feeling.

When he found it, a black tendril of Dark Magic, he had to control the impulse to jump between Malfoy and Ginny. He thought back to all the times he had felt this magic, including times when Draco definitely hadn't been present. Draco wasn't the cause of this, at least, not directly, but Harry had a suspicion of what might be.

AN: Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you have a safe and content Christmas wherever you are and however you are celebrating.