June 30, 1997 (The Burrow)

"Question Four," Ginny intoned. "This one I remember clearly: 'Define the following, explaining their significance in the Muggle world. 1) The National Gallery; 2) Garbo's Salary; 3) Cellophane. In what way would each be considered 'The Top'?"

"The National Gallery is where they keep all the paintings of the Muggle kings," Ron pronounced, "like Henry the Eighth and, um...Henry the Ninth, and Henry the Tenth. And I don't know why they're so significant since they don't talk; it isn't as if they can give you any advice. Not that I would take any advice from any of those Henries, they were all nutters. Except maybe for Henry the Eleventh, he had his moments."

"They don't give credit for showing you can count, Ron. There haven't been any Henries after the Eighth. And that would be the National Portrait Galley in any case, which is a separate museum. And it doesn't just have portraits of kings and queens, there are other famous English men and women. The National Gallery–"

"Hold off a moment, Hermione," Ron interrupted. "What about you, Harry, you think you could have handled that one?"

"I guess it's the biggest museum in England. And it's supposed to have some of the most famous paintings in the world, by the most famous artists."

"Name three."

"Well, Ron, that would include Rembrandt, um, Rembrandt the Second, Rembrandt the Third–"

"Very good, Mr. Potter! Take a hundred points for Gryffindor. You see, Hermione, we men aren't as uncultured as you think. Oh, sorry mate, we can't call you a man for another twelve hours."

"And we can't call you a man," Ginny said to her brother, "without splitting a gut laughing. Hermione, what's the real answer?"

"Harry has the basics right. I mean, aside from the nonsense about the Rembrandts."

"OK, I think I got that one then. Now 'Garbo's salary,' she was an actress, right? In silent movies?"

"Silent movies?" Ron asked, "What's the point of that?"

"They're actually kind of... eerie," Harry said. "Sometimes I managed to see regular movies on television at Privet Drive, and... you know they're just a show. But once I saw in the paper that Phantom of the Opera would be showing late at night, so I snuck down to see it – you know, no sound, no waking the Dursleys. Like I said, it was eerie – with the flickering of the screen, and the silence, it was almost like walking through somebody's dream, or seeing something happening in another dimension–"

"That foggy, underwater feeling," Ginny said.

Harry started and looked in surprise at Ginny. He had, in fact, just been thinking of the second task of the Triwizard Tournament with its blurry vision and spooky silence, and it took a moment for him to remember that Ginny had her own experience with a kind of sleepwalking semi-conscious state. He gave her a nod of acknowledgment, which was returned.

Hermione returned to the original subject, Ginny's Muggle Studies OWL. "Garbo starred in talking pictures. Ginny, you're probably thinking of her reputation after she retired; she was very private, didn't want to talk to anyone–idol of millions, but tragically alone."

"Not that moody crap again," Ron said. "Sounds like Harry beginning of last year."

"He thought he'd catch more girls that way," Ginny added "until I set him straight."

"First of all," Harry replied "it was Hermione who said that girls go for the broody disturbed type, not me–"

"I said some girls–"

"I think you said 'a lot' of girls. Anyway, Ginny, you didn't say she was wrong."

"What did I say?" Ginny asked casually, and Harry suddenly realized this was a kind of exam itself. On the positive side, he knew the answer for certain; on the negative side, showing that he knew the answer so well might leave certain implications that he wasn't sure he wanted to leave just yet. Something pushed him to tell it as it was: perhaps Harry's general (though hardly absolute) habit of honesty with his friends, or perhaps his bullish hatred of admitting defeat to any challenge; or perhaps some third thing...

"You said, 'I like him better when he smiles,' " Harry replied quietly but firmly. "And I said, 'Well, that settles it then'."

And with that a quick series of such smiles were shuttled back and forth, first between Harry and Ginny, then among the whole quartet as if in anunorthodox doubles match where each player might volley the incoming strike towards any of the other three. Before things got too awkward and self-conscious, Ginny returned again to the lesson at hand.

"So I should get at least half-credit for the 'Garbo' answer, and of course 'cellophane' was easy–"

"How can you say 'cellophane' was easy?" asked Hermione. "Everybody who ever listens to the song gets thrown by that line!"

"Not if you were brought up in this house," Ron scoffed. "Dad used to give us weekly lectures on the wonders of cellophane. 'It's just amazing what these Muggles have done – almost like having a mild imperturbable charm and a short-term preservation charm on one thin sheet.' "

Harry and Hermione looked incredulous. "Has anybody told him about Saran Wrap?" Harry finally asked, then had to explain its miraculous properties. Ron and Ginny agreed that news of a metamorphic Muggle film with a Sticking Charm equivalent might be too much for their father to handle.

Some time later, Molly Weasley interrupted the foursome with news that Professor Dumbledore was downstairs, waiting to talk to Harry. It was an encounter Harry had been glad to put off until now; the part of him that still hissed in resentment towards the old man was mostly exorcised by now, but its remnant didn't welcome the Headmaster's presence, while the part that felt guilty over all that nursing of grievance expected more guilt to bepressed on him over his sudden abandonment of his safe haven, and all the work the Order must have done to bring him safely to the Burrow. Harry also knew, from the Weasleys, that the Order had arranged for a special ceremony upon his coming of age tomorrow, a kind of magical adoption ritual, which Harry understood would act as a kind of second-best form of protection now that the blood protection had been dismissed. To Harry's relief Professor Dumbledore did not begin with any recriminations, but with a request that Harry ask the questions he must have about this adoption.

"Actually, sir," Harry began, "I honestly don't know much about what it involves, just that Mr. and Mrs. Weasley said orphaned wizards could be magically joined to a new family. Professor, the Weasleys have been... I don't know a better family, but I don't know about becoming a Weasley myself–"

"Let me stop you there, Harry; you would not become a Weasley through this ritual. It is more complex than that. The ritual does not incorporate you into an already existing family, as Muggle adoption does. It creates a new family, which may consist of members of any numbers of families, so your new family would not consist only of Weasleys but of others who are willing to swear the oath to you and to whom you are willing to swear a reciprocal oath."

"So other people are coming tomorrow, to adopt– well, to become my–" Harry paused, unsure what term fit.

"Comes contectum is the technical term," Dumbledore said; "'bonded comrades' is perhaps the closest translation. 'Brothers and sisters' would be appropriate for the most part, with the important exception that the comes relationship does not prevent marriage or romantic attachments between 'siblings.' "

"Does everybody who's invited into the family know that?" Harry asked, hoping that if so he could probably count on one additional family member. "And do they – it seems odd, sir, that they're coming here on such short notice, and without even knowing whether they'll be accepted. Is that fair to them?"

"In answer to your first question, Harry, all those who have been raised in the wizarding world know this. Are there any Muggle-born or Muggle-raised witches whom you would see as hesitating over this question?"

"No sir."

"As to your second question, think of it this way, Harry: if Ron or Hermione, for example, said they wanted your presence tomorrow for some purpose which was vital to their future happiness, would you need to consult your calendar to determine whether you could accommodate them? Of course you wouldn't. You would drop any plans you had previously made in order to go to them. And that is one criterion by which we know that your attachment to them is a powerful one, and that you are a proper candidate for the comes contectum."

"Alright," Harry acceded. "And when you say 'brothers and sisters', you mean that even if anybody much older than me takes part in the ritual, they still are... aren't–"

"There isn't any age hierarchy in this bond, Harry; nothing like the parent-child relation, if that is what troubles you."

"Yes sir. I think I feel better knowing that nobody will be trying to, to replace them."

There was silence for a few seconds, during which Dumbledore looked at Harry keenly. "Harry," he finally asked, "are you still holding conversations in your mind with your late parents?"

Harry looked up with jaws clenched. "Yeah," he answered, "Every now and then."

"I know you do not wish to be prodded on this topic, Harry, but you must indulge me. When you were a first year, I felt obliged to warn you of the effects of the Mirror of Erised–"

"It isn't the same thing," Harry interrupted.

"Not the same," Dumbledore conceded, "but what you do when you engage in these dialogues is also a form of escape. You enter a state much like self-hypnosis. You trigger the same centers of the brain which become active under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs."

Harry bristled, and was on the verge of rebuking the Headmaster for insulting his parents – the memory of his parents – but couldn't find the words without sounding as if he were under the very delusion Dumbledore was warning him against: that the people in his mind really were James and Lily Potter. "Well," Harry finally declared, "they haven't let me down yet."

The moment the sentence was out of his mouth Harry recognized that he had – slightly but unmistakably – underlined the word "they" in speaking it. He also immediately recognized that Dumbledore's face had – slightly but unmistakably – fallen in response.

"Sir – Professor Dumbledore – that wasn't what I wanted to say. I mean, I didn't want to say it that way."

"I understand, Harry," Dumbledore said with a deprecatory gesture.

"Sir, I really want to clarify this," Harry pressed on. "We did try to clear the air between us at the end of last term. And I'm glad we did. But then, when I found out about that arrangement you had made with the Dursleys, even though I know you thought you were protecting me, it felt so horribly wrong. It was as if, my parents gave their lives to save me, and now the Order was taking that and trying to pay, to, to buy an extended warranty on that protection service. And buying it from the Dursleys: what was I to them?" By this point, Harry was starting to wave his arms and raise his voice. "I was supposed to believe the lie that I was in my home, but really to them, I was... a dangerous animal. And they were being given a keeper's fee to shelter it and feed it."

Dumbledore placed his chin in his hands for several seconds. "If you see it in that light," he at last replied, "you are, of course, justified in being furiously angry at what I have done. It seems I have in effect mocked your parents loving self-sacrifice and trifled with your own rights and dignity as a person. And I do not deny the legitimacy of that perspective. But I will ask you – no, I will beg of you, Harry – to consider that these actions may bear another interpretation when seen from another perspective. I made a desperate bargain for a desperate situation; I offered to a pair of fools the reward that fools prize above all others; and I implicitly sanctioned their abusive bigotry towards one who was always going to defy it, and throw it off." And once again, Harry felt torn between a feeling of justified resentment at the wrongs his mentor had done to him and one of warm satisfaction at the affection and pride in the Headmaster's looks and voice.

"Professor, is this a replacement for the blood protection?"

"In some measure it is," Dumbledore replied, "though the protection is not as strong, and the two are not magically compatible, so you could never have enjoyed both at the same time."

"Then was this always the plan, that the comes ritual would be performed when I came of age?"

"I must confess, Harry, that we were in the process of attempting to negotiate with the Dursleys for an additional year or years, naturally at an additional price–"

"I wouldn't have done it, sir, even if I hadn't learned about what really happened, in the fire."

"I would have attempted to persuade you that it only required a token presence each year–"

"Even then."

The two kept silent for a little while.

"Speaking of what happened, in the fire," Harry resumed, "I still haven't said – thank you, Professor. You saved my life."

"It was the very least I could do, Harry," Dumbledore replied, with a regretful smile. "Just as attempting to help bring you into a genuine family, at this late date, seems a lamentably minimal response."

"Well," Harry responded with a bit of a smirk, "at least I made you sweat for it, Professor."

"That you did, Harry, with your sudden and dramatic exit. Now, on that topic, the Order is quite willing to compensate you in part for that payment you made to the Dursleys."

"No sir. Absolutely not."

"It was certainly never our intention to deprive you both of a normal childhood and of your parents' financial legacy–"

"I really don't want to talk about this, Professor."

"It is money we were prepared to release tomorrow in any case."

"What category was it, in your budget, sir? Weapons security?"

"Harry..."

"I'm sorry, sir. But no. Use the money for, whatever the Order needs to fight Voldemort. I won't take it."

Dumbledore sighed. "Your stubbornness – wedded so closely to your rashness, Harry – does still disappoint and distress me."

Harry took some time to think about his response to this.

"Professor, I really am sorry to cause you distress, and I hope I do as little of that as possible. But," Harry continued, "I can't say the same about worrying whether what I do causes you disappointment. That just isn't something... something I feel I have to live up to anymore." He paused a moment and added, with a bit of a grin, "And I hope that my saying this hasn't distressed you too much, sir."

But Professor Dumbledore seemed to accept this with surprising equanimity. His only response was to return the smile and say, "Then Harry, if you have no further questions, let me offer you my early congratulations on your coming of age."

July 31, 1997

Harry Potter awoke the next morning from pleasant dreams and found he had been transformed into a giant canary. Camera flashes and birthday congratulations from Ron, Fred, George, Hermione and Ginny went off all around him, and he squawked his acknowledgments as best he could. Harry was soon rehumanized, and the group made their way down to the breakfast table where Molly and Arthur offered the usual hugs, words of wisdom and pancakes. Around them, the Burrow was already full of spell casting and ward reinforcing supervised by the Order of the Phoenix's security advisor, their DADA instructor of last year, Major-General Montgomery Gordon MacGregor (quickly nicknamed 'MG3'). Harry recalled his first encounter with the military wizard:

"Now I'm what you would call a Muggle-Born," MacGregor had said in introducing himself to the class, "and the first-born male MacGregor has served in the British Armed Forces for more than two hundred years now, since the Act of Union. So even when we found I was a wizard, I continued the tradition, which is how I now find myself serving both the Wizenmagot and the Queen. Yes, you have a question, Miss... Lovegood."

"Sir, have you met the Queen?" Luna asked.

"Most certainly, lass, on several occasions."

"Is she as beautiful as they say?"

The general stared at the blonde Ravenclaw, plainly deliberating whether the question was a joke or trap. "I would say, she remains a handsome woman, considering her age," he finally got out. "But her Majesty's appearance is neither here or there..."

"Excuse me, Professor, but just one more question, please: can she fly?"

Major General MacGregor exploded into an all-out, four-star military berating of Miss Lovegood (at the end of which MG3 had turned quite purple, while Luna remained blonde) for possessing either the unmitigated gall to imagine herself in a position to take the mickey out of a superior, or the unprecedented combination of practiced ignorance and natural stupidity needed to believe that wings were part of the inheritance of the Windsor family.

"Oh, dear," Luna responded, "you were talking about Queen Elizabeth. I'm sorry, Professor, I assumed you were referring to the Fairy Queen."

Despite this unpromising beginning, Sixth-Year DADA had been in many ways the most productive class Harry ever took. MacGregor treated them to a military training regimen, teaching teamwork, maneuvers, tactics and strategy: anything which might give the students an advantage over the Death Eaters in genuine combat. Ron's chess skills proved highly adaptable to the larger battlefield, and Dumbledore's Army became something more than a flippant phrase.

Now MacGregor paused fromgiving instructions to Aurors and approached Harry's group. "Captain Potter, Lieutenant R Weasley, Lieutenant Granger, Lieutenant G Weasley," he nodded to each member of the quartet, and accepted their salutes. "Let us get to the heart of the matter. Security is already excellent, but 'excellent' is not always enough. We must assume the enemy knows that Captain Potter is here, reasonably assumes that some celebration is likely on his birthday, and may reasonably suspect that any such celebration would be likely to draw any number of high-priority targets in addition to Captain Potter himself. Lieutenant R Weasley, what is your analysis?"

Ron immediately answered, "Sir, if the enemy is thinking straight, they would have to assume that those high-priority targets are also highly skilled witches and wizards – which they are, after all – so I think the, ummm, the fear-factor would more than balance out the temptation factor." Ron paused a moment. "Unless," he continued, "they were really prepared to throw everything they had into it, to make this the one decisive battle. But that really isn't the way they operate, is it?"

"I requested your analysis, Weasley, not to have you request mine."

"Sorry, sir. No, I would not expect them to launch such an attack."

"Very good, Weasley," the general said. "I agree with your assessment. However, we do need to take precautions in case we are both mistaken in our assumptions, and that's what I'll be getting back to now. So, ladies, gentlemen, carry on. And Harry–"

"Yes, sir?"

"Happy birthday, lad, and let's hope we can squeeze out at least a few more."

"Err, thank you, sir?" Harry answered.

"We're all sort of counting on it," Ginny added.

MacGregor returned to his casting and supervising.

"Well," Ginny said. "I think we can leave the security to the general and company, and take the party into our own hands. If Lieutenant R Weasley deems it strategically prudent, of course."

"Sod off, Lieutenant Gee-Wee."

----------

It was some time after noon, after the birthday cake and songs shared by Harry, Hermione and the Weasleys, and the quartet was now sitting by the pond, waiting to be called in for the adoption ceremony. Participants would be arriving by portkey and Floo indoors.

"Now have you got your wish ready?" Ron asked.

Harry considered; during the years he had believed in wishes his birthday wish had been some variant on being free of the Dursleys, and that was now accomplished. "I guess 'World Peace' is always good," he muttered–

"No, don't say it, for God's sake," Ron shouted in exasperation, "that'll break the spell!" He urged his friend to think carefully, since it was well-known that a birthday wish given during an adoption ceremony was one of the most powerful of magical combinations. Hermione tried to insist that this was a silly superstition, that wishing couldn't bring tangible results in the first place, that even if it could, there was no reason that a reference to some event should act to nullify that event in itself, and she backed this up with an explanation of the "use-mention" distinction. Ron was having none of it, and at last felt compelled to bring out his trump card:

"Hermione, you don't really believe in magic."

Hermione denied this indignantly, of course, asking, "what do you think I've been doing with a wand for the last six years, then?" but Harry felt there was something in what Ron was saying. He recalled what his mother and father had said to him about a magician's power coming from his belief and imagination, and he thought of the power of magical oaths; perhaps there was an implicit bargain here, one which did need the petitioner's silence to complete the sacred circuit.

Ron and Hermione continued arguing, though, and did not even notice when Harry turned towards Ginny and asked for her thoughts on the topic. "I'll go with your advice," he assured her.

"I don't know if it's a hard magical law or anything," Ginny answered, "but I'd say, maybe there is some power that comes from not making a show of your wishes."

----------

"Is this supposed to be like a wedding," Harry asked some time later, "where it's bad luck to see your – mates – before the service?"

"No, nothing like that," Ron replied. "We just don't want too many targets in the same place for too long."

"That makes it sound like you're expecting a crowd."

"What do you expect, Harry?" asked Hermione. "Who do you think would want to be part of this?"

Harry had been considering this for a while. "there's you three; there's," (nodding at Ron and Ginny) "your mum and dad – they wouldn't let their home be used for this if they didn't feel, you know... I think Neville and Luna, after what we've all been through together... and I would guess Hagrid. So I count eight. Could be more. Look, I'm not saying, 'nobody wants me, boo hoo,' I know there are lots more people who are friendly, but I don't expect people to commit themselves to my future."

"Yeah, yeah, boo hoo. We'll see how far off you are in a moment," Ron said. And it was soon after that Harry was called in to the magically-expanded living room, there to meet all the witches and wizards who had asked to become his magical family.

As Harry had predicted, there were Molly and Arthur, Neville and Luna, and Hagrid. There also were Fred and George and Charley and Bill. There also were almost all the founding members of Dumbledore's Army: Lavender Brown, Colin Creevey, Seamus Finnegan, Parvati Patil, and Dean Thomas of Gryffindor; Hannah Abbot, Susan Bones, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Ernie MacMillan of Hufflepuff; Terry Boot, Anthony Goldstein, Padma Patil of Ravenclaw. And those who had since left Hogwarts, like the three Gryffindor Chasers, Katie Bell, Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet, and the Ravenclaw Seeker, Cho Chang. And a dozen of those who had joined last year under Harry's open captaincy, including the only two Slytherins in the group, Jack and Eileen Belford. The Triwizard competitors, Victor Krum and Fleur Delacour. The older comrades, members of the Order of the Phoenix: Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Alastor Moody, Amos Diggory, Professor McGonnagal. They were chatting among themselves, and hadn't yet noticed Harry's entrance.

"Harry, a word with you, please."

The 17-year-old wizard came out of his stupefied condition to find Professor Dumbledore at his elbow, leading him towards an isolated corner.

"Professor, are you here to, take part–"

"No, I will only be presiding, in my capacity as head of the Wizenmagot."

To Harry's surprise, he found that this news was causing his chest to deflate and his eyes to swell with disappointment. It suddenly seemed impossible that he could be entering into a relationship of this significance and leaving Dumbledore behind. For a moment he felt it as a blow to his pride that he should feel so much at the thought of the old man's rejection, but he quickly pushed those feelingsdown.

"Sir, I hope you don't think that I wouldn't want you to stand with all the others. You've meant as much to me as anybody here, more than most, and I know we've fought, but... family does that."

Dumbledore looked at Harry, and his gaze held no trace of twinkling comedy now.

"Thank you, Harry. I will always remember that you invited me, and as far as it is at all possible, I will try to act towards you as if I had taken these oaths today. But there is one I cannot take in good conscience."

"You mean the second oath, sir?"

"Yes. As head of the Order – as the one with responsibility for guiding our side's course in this war – I cannot swear that I will never make use of any of the people I command, in a way that violates the spirit of family bonds."

"I understand, Professor."

"Harry–I am a very old man and one might think I have experienced at some time every emotion known to man. But I am sure I have never felt this mix of pride and regret."

And it came to Harry with an absurd sense of revelation that, deprived of his singular twinkle in his eyes, Dumbledore really was a very old man.

Dumbledore explained that Harry now had the opportunity to talk with any of the witches or wizards who had come, and make the final decision whether he wished them to take part in the adoption ritual – whether, to put it bluntly, he wanted to be part of a family which included them. He had no qualms about accepting any of the witches or wizards as "bonded comrades," but there were two he particularly wanted to talk to: Colin Creevey and Cho Chang.

The talk with Colin began awkwardly.

"Is this where you try to find out if I really belong with the rest of your friends?" Colin asked. "Because I would understand, I guess."

"No! That's not why I wanted to talk to you, I just wanted to say–"

He didn't want to apologize for failing to save Dennis, since he still didn't know how he could have. What he really wanted to know was why Colin had apparently changed his mind and now saw Harry as a mate once more instead of a 'gutless phony', which was one of the many things Colin had called him last year while Dennis was being held captive and Harry was "invited" by his captors to come to his rescue. Asking that question bluntly, however, might sound too much like saying, "So, you've figured out how wrong you were, have you..." So Harry just settled for the simplest true thing he could say.

"I'm glad you came, Colin. It's good to have you in."

"Oh. Well, I'm glad I came too. And I guess I owe you some explanation, even if you aren't asking for it. You were the one I looked up to for years, Harry, since the time I came to Hogwarts. And you always seemed to... have a way. To pull things out. And then when you didn't, for Dennis–"

Colin tried to gather himself. Harry debated whether to put an arm on his shoulder or whether that would be rejected as presumptuous, and the moment passed.

"–I guess I went crazy, had to get revenge on you for not being what I thought. I don't know if you understand that feeling."

"Oh yes," Harry laughed. "That's one feeling I definitely understand..."

The talk with Cho turned out to be less stressful. "So, Hermione and Ron?" were the first words out of her mouth. "That girl definitely wrong-footed me."

"Hey, I could have gotten a signed statement from anybody in Gryffindor that that's how things were heading." Harry shook a finger at Cho and the two chuckled.

"Harry, if this is about whether I've still got a grudge about the breakup, I don't. I think a year is enough time to put things in perspective. I'm still sort of fond of you, and I still owe you. For one thing you were a good teacher, which is a hard thing for a senior Ravenclaw to admit about a junior Gryffindor."

"Well... thanks."

"And I get to go into the history books as the first girl Harry Potter kissed."

"How do you know it was my first, was it that bad?"

"Yeah, good teacher lousy kisser. But I'm sure you've improved."

"Well, to be honest... as of now you're both the first and last."

"No! Well, get working on it! Oh, hell, I'll give you another half of one–" and she swiped at the right corner of his mouth, leaving a bit of lipstick behind. Cho turned to leave then stopped and turned back with a mischievous grin. Before Harry could respond she had raised her wand, incanted "Cattus Pattasatus" and made her exit. Well, thought Harry, whatever that was, it can't be too bad, or she wouldn't... unless... But he shrugged off the paranoid thoughts and wiped with his handkerchief to get the lipstick off.

When he rejoined Ron, Hermione and Ginny, he found them all (especially Ginny) staring at the right side of his face.

"What? What's on my face?"

"What do you think is on your face, Harry?" asked Ginny somewhat briskly.

"I don't know, unless I didn't... err–"

"Didn't what?" Ginny asked.

"Look, she kissed me on the cheek, and maybe I didn't wipe it all off–it was nothing!"

"Kissed you seven times, and it was nothing?" Ron followed up.

"Seven? What are you–"

"Look in the mirror, see for yourself."

Harry looked and saw seven imprints all over the right side of his face. He started instinctively to wipe at them then stopped and swore.

"Hermione," he asked, "do you know a charm called Cattus Pattasatus?"

Hermione thought for a moment and then started to laugh. "It's a charm that makes whatever you're trying to wipe away spread and duplicate itself. Try wiping again."

Harry did, and gathered from the other three's laughter that the charm was still active. The mirror confirmed it: lipstick now covered both sides of his face.

"Finite Incantatem," Hermione pronounced. "I guess we have to acquit you this time."

Now came the time for the adoption ritual. Professor Dumbledore asked all those present to raise their wands and gather facing Harry, who marveled at this vast wave coming towards him. The thought occurred to him, come to wash away the cupboard days. Dumbledore was speaking now, of the sacredness of the bond about to be created, and instructed the gathering:

"Each of you will now swear to Harry James Potter, and Harry James Potter will now swear to each of you:

"That whatever you give or receive from one another will be given and accepted freely, without calculation of future debts or obligations from this gift..."

Dozens of voices responded, "We swear."

"That you shall never use one another as tools for some aim of yours, no matter how noble or necessary you think that aim to be..."

"We swear." Harry was irresistibly reminded of his conversation with Dumbledore, and a moment's sadness went through him.

"That you shall always place the happiness of your comrade above your own comfort..."

"We swear." Harry had at first thought this, and the final oath, to be almost disappointingly modest...

"And that you shall never allow one another to slip out of sight and out of mind."

"We swear."

...but the obligation implied in that always and never, to so many people, was an almost awful thing to think about. And to think that so many had made such a pledge to him...

"These pledges having been completed, I declare this adoption magically binding. Comes contectum." The wands all now glowed a deep green. ("Green is the color of comradeship," Hermione explained. "It's also the color of Harry's eyes," Ginny noted.)

Harry was overwhelmed. Here were the people he had embarrassed himself in front of, people he had exasperated, people he had let down... people for whom he was a reminder of things which wanted no reminding. Now they were asking for the chance to take part in what they all knew would be not only a demanding relationship, but a potential deadly one. At that moment he had no difficulty thinking of what his 'birthday wish' should be:

Let me always remember this, what happened today, as clearly as if it were happening again before me.

And as the joyful grin split Harry's face, and the murmurs of congratulation began to break into a chorus of cheers, the Burrow's roof cracked open and blocks started falling on the participants. Quick spellwork from the Auror guard kept them from falling on the crowd, but then the Death Eaters came flying down on their brooms through the holes and the battle began in earnest. Harry found he could not even reach for his own wand at first, for the comrades closest to him – Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Lupin, Tonks – were all pressing their own bodies too tightly around his, Tonks and Lupin even trying to force him to the ground so they could cover him.

"No!" Harry shouted at them, "You aren't my parents, I still fight my own battles, I'm of age–" but he couldn't even tell if his words had reached, the sheer number of incantations flying all around created too thick a curtain of sound. From what Harry could see in those occasional glimpses from when he managed to get upright, the Death Eaters were forcing themselves in one at a time through every crack and being Stupefied down every time. But the cracks were getting wider and wider until the entire roof was shredded to nothing and Voldemort's servants could pour in en masse. Still (as Ron had predicted) with the cream of the Aurors present, and Dumbledore himself, it seemed a futile effort; there were now dozens of DE stunned and bound, and no spell had gotten within ten yards of Harry.

Still they kept coming, and the only spell they seemed to be trying now was Avada Kedavra. Sometimes now they got three or four of the syllables out, and one got to five before being struck down. Harry finally threw Remus off him and tried to make room for himself to fight, but the mass of witches and wizards just molded themselves around him again, like in clips he'd seen from nature programs of soldier bees protecting their queen. Your queen orders you to get the f off, he almost shouted. Amid the shouts, the warnings, the curses, the countercurses, Harry heard a set of voices far off to his left, and shuddered. At least two Death Eaters had completed the killing curse, and two or three more had followed with a curse he didn't know: "Remaneat Animus."But some of the Order clearly did know it, for Harry could hear them exclaiming in outrage as if it were darker than the Unforgivable, and the thought made Harry sick. He was too encased in humanity to be able to see what was happening, but knew that for that very reason there was no chance whatsoever of the curses reaching him. They could scarcely avoid hitting somebody, though; somebody was going to die again as "collateral damage" from an attack on him –

"Retreat, retreat – Mission accomplished! Retreat!" There was a chorus of apparating pops, and a deadly silence. Mission accom– am I –? Harry pinched himself; still there, not a ghost.

The execrations began again from those in the know about Remaneat Animus. Aurors did their work, restoring the broken wards, checking to be sure the retreat wasn't a trap. People began to move away, and Harry could finally see something of the scene around him. What drew his eye first were two gray figures floating off to his left, crying and embracing each other – the ghosts of Jack and Eileen Belford, their bodies lying beneath.

"It seems they were the target all the while," said General MacGregor. "A message to all Slytherin families: don't think of defecting."

"But General, the losses – we must have captured thirty, forty of them" Ron exclaimed.

"Cannon fodder, low-level inductees. It's a bad sign, lad. The enemy either has more men to spare than we thought, or they think they'll be able to spring this bunch somehow."

"Sir, what was that curse?" Hermione asked in a whisper, not sure whether the Belfords could hear.

"Remaneat Animus: 'let the spirit remain.' It forces the victim to continue his existence as a ghost, and forces that ghost to stay and haunt the place where it was killed. A foul, foul thing. It's aimed at your family also, Lieu– Ron, Ginny; to taunt you of the consequences of standing against them, and opening the house to Harry."

Harry felt a jolt go through him on hearing his name. He also found that the group had been making their way in a kind of sleepwalking shuffle towards the Belfords, and were now close enough to hear and see Arthur and Molly, who were speaking to the murdered siblings.

"I don't know how long it will be, dears, until you are released," Molly was saying, "But until that day, you are a part of this house. I want everybody else in this family–" and she waved her children together. Harry saw Bill, Charlie, Fred and George join Ron and Ginny in a line of Weasleys... "Harry?" she asked.

"Yes, Mrs. Weasley?"

"Come on, dear, in the line with you. All of us promise: we're all family, either by blood, or related through Harry, and you can consider yourself adopted. We will make this as much of a home as we can for you. Arthur and I will give you a tour when we get a chance, you can decide then which rooms you would prefer."

Mrs. Weasley's hospitality seemed to have shocked Jack and Eileen out of their sobs for a moment, but even as they spoke their "thank yous," their voices were so close to pure howls the words were almost incomprehensible. The brother and sister clapped their hands over their mouths in surprise, obviously having no idea that their ghost voices would sound like that. Harry wondered for a moment how long it had taken Sir Nicholas and the rest to sound as human-like as they did. In the meanwhile, Molly was assuring the Belfords they were welcome.

Harry forced himself to look at his friends and DA protégés, the first members of his new family to be lost but certainly not the last. He knew he couldn't offer anything like the parental comforting of Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, but felt he had to say something to them, and he noticed that the room full of witches and wizards, old mentors and new brothers and sisters, seemed to have stopped to look at him and await his words.

"I promise you guys... there's going to come a time in this war, when you're going to make the difference. I don't know if it'll be in person, or because we remembered you and what they did to you, but I swear it will come."

A murmur of approval ran through the crowd, and then Harry heard a voice – he thought it was Ernie MacMillan's – shouting "comes contectum: we're still bonded!" The call was echoed through the Burrow by every witch and wizard: "comrades still!" And as the shouts continued, Harry thought about his pledge, and wondered what possessed him to make it and how he could fulfill it, but felt an odd certainty that he would.

The day finally ended, and Harry fell into an exhausted sleep in his bed next to Ron's. Sometime in the early morning he sprang awake, with the phrase, "Because we remembered you," still ringing. He wondered... As if searching for a memory to invoke his patronus, Harry called upon the birthday wish of just hours ago and found the events of the day standing before him again: the solemn taking of oaths; the feeling of joy at their completion; and the crumbling roof, the panic and frustration and the crush of protection, the sight of his friends, dead and forced into spiritual captivity.

The wish worked, Harry thought bleakly. I'll remember it all, always: "as clearly as if they were really happening."