I must appoligise for the long wait for this chapter. My only excuse is that my summer is very busy with my family! But now that school is back in I will have more time to post chapters so I hope to post 2 a week for the next little while!

As usual I do not own Harry Potter I have just borrowed him and the gang for a little while! So without further ado...

Chapter Eighteen

A Brother's Anger

"I need someplace to talk to Harry in private. I need someplace to talk to Harry in private. I need someplace to talk to Harry in private." Taylor said as she walked back and forth in front of the blank wall.

A wooden door materialized in the wall. Taylor opened it and stepped into the room, wand in hand. Harry followed her into the room, wondering why Taylor had brought him all the way to the Room of Requirements to have a talk. The door closed behind him.

"Petrificus Totalus!"

Harry's arms snapped against his body, his legs slammed together and his whole body went rigid. He swayed for a moment then toppled to the floor. All that he could move were his eyes. Surprise, then anger quickly took its place, as he lay on the floor totally helpless. What the hell was Taylor playing at anyway?

Taylor came over to peer down at him, "Sorry about that Harry but I think this is the best way for me to tell you what I have to." She waved her wand at him, stood him up and leaned him against the wall so he could see her. She took her school bag off of her shoulder and placed it on the small table that was against the other wall. She took out a picture frame, pulled the picture of her Aunt and Uncle out of it and leaned it against the wall. "Engorgio" she said as she flicked her wand at the picture frame and enlarged it to almost a meter high. The canvas was empty except for a wooden rocking chair. She glanced over at Harry and was sure that if looks could kill she would be dead.

"Professor Dumbledore! Professor!" she called into the picture frame hoping he would be able to come. He had said last night that he wanted to talk to Harry and her this evening, if possible.

"Well hello, Miss Porter," the painting said as he looked at Taylor, then past her to where Harry was leaning up against the wall. "Are you expecting some trouble?" and there was a twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes.

Taylor looked over her shoulder at Harry again. Her stomach was all in knots. She wasn't sure if she could tell him after all.

"I think that anyone with the courage to freeze their brother has enough courage to tell him what has happened these last few days," the painting of Dumbledore said encouragingly.

Taylor took a deep breath and turned to face Harry. She could see anger, but also curiosity and some concern in his green eyes. She told Harry what had happened at Grimmauld Place after Snape had cursed him. As she talked she relived in her minds eye the way she felt when she cast the Dark Magic spell, how she had been terrified when she had seen all the blood on Harry, about bringing him to Hogwarts and Hagrid carrying him in to Madame Pomfrey. The trip up to the headmistress' office, the long wait while Moody, Lupin and Shacklebolt had gone to get Snape and take him to Order headquarters. The interrogation by Moody after they got back, the trip to the hospital wing to see Harry before Lupin had taken her to Gryffindor's common room. Then finding Ron, Hermione and Ginny still awake in the common room waiting for her and telling them mostly everything. Then she stopped for a moment. The next part was the hardest, but she went on. She told Harry about meeting Moody and Lupin, for her "detention" and going with them to Order headquarters. How she seen Snape with the snake wrapped around him, then about reversing the spell and saving Snape from having his soul eaten by the snake. She also told him about the talk she had had with Moody, Lupin and Mr. Weasley that night, about talking with Snape the following morning and arriving back at the school early yesterday morning and telling Ron, Hermione and Ginny everything again.

When Taylor was done talking she felt wrung out, as if it had taken everything she had to tell Harry all of this. She dragged her eyes up from the floor and looked into his green eyes. She wasn't sure what she expected to see but it wasn't hatred. Taylor gasped at the look in Harry's eyes and she felt her insides crumble. She hadn't been able to make him see that she had no choice but to save Snape. She closed her eyes and hung her head. She wasn't sure how long she stood there like that, probably only a few seconds.

"Taylor I think it is time to release your brother," Dumbledore's painting said softly.

Taylor nodded her head and took another deep breath trying to steel herself for the onslaught that she was sure to come. She raised her wand and with a flick released Harry. She wasn't disappointed.

"How could you! How could you save that piece of filth? You should have let him die! That would have served him right! He almost killed me! Porter! He would have killed me! And you saved him!" Harry bellowed, his wand out pointing at Taylor as if he was going to attack at any moment.

"Harry, I..." Taylor began.

"Get away from me! I don't want to talk to you again!" Harry bellowed at her. He was shaking he was so mad and before he used several curses that he might later regret, he yanked the door to the Room of Requirements open and stormed out.

Taylor backed up a couple of steps and slid down the wall. She too, was shaking, but for a different reason.

She sat there. A numbness came over her and she just wanted to not feel anymore the feelings of hurt and rejection. It hadn't mattered to Harry that she had only wanted to put a binding spell on Snape in Grimmauld Place and somehow she had performed a Dark Magic spell. She just couldn't make him see…

"Taylor, I think you had better get up and go back to your common room and to bed. There's nothing else you can do tonight by sitting there and beating yourself up. Harry will come to realize in time that you did the right thing saving Severus Snape," Dumbledore's voice was gentle but firm.

Taylor did as Dumbledore said and got up. She returned the picture frame to its original size, put the picture of her Aunt and Uncle over Dumbledore's and put it back into her bag. Then she walked out the door of the Room of Requirement. She wondered briefly where Harry had gone, but with this thought came pain so she pushed it out of her mind and walked back to the common room. She glanced at her watch. It was almost eleven o'clock, well past curfew, but she didn't meet anyone and when she got to the Fat Lady, she was awake and swung open as soon as Taylor said the password.

The first thing that Taylor saw when she entered the Gryffindor common room was the silhouettes of four heads sitting in front on the fireplace. Hermione and Ginny even turned towards her and were almost standing when Taylor shook her head at them and turned and went up the stairs to her dorm room. She needed to be alone. Ron, Hermione and Ginny needed to stay with Harry for now, to calm him down. Taylor was worried that Harry might do something rash, he had been so mad at her. She needed them to stay with Harry. She pushed the door to her room open. Tears that she had held off began to fall in earnest. She hurried to get ready for bed and pull the coverings closed, so that she could curl up in a ball and cry without the thought of being disturbed. A well placed silencing charm and a sticking charm on her hangings all but guaranteed her privacy.

Harry had found his friends waiting in the almost deserted common room when he got back from his little 'talk' with Porter. Hermione had tried to talk reasonably with him about what he had just heard from Taylor, but he had told her to keep quiet, in not so nice a words. How could Taylor save that slime ball? To think he had been worried about her when he had seen the fear in her eyes when she had started to tell him the tale that she had. At least Ron had been angry when he had told them that Porter had petrified him. Hermione and Ginny had both seemed to think that it had been a reasonable act, but he supposed girls did stick together. After Porter had entered the common room, he was going to tell her to go to hell if she had come over near him. Then the talk had turned back to his 'research paper' with Professor Shacklebolt. The four of them had talked in length about the spells that he was probably going to learn from Shacklebolt, and by the time he and Ron headed up to bed he was considerably calmer but he wasn't sure if he could ever forgive Porter for her act of treason, as he saw it.

Taylor was on her way back from the shower when she saw Hermione getting dressed. "Morning," was all that she could seem to push through her suddenly restricted throat.

"Taylor, I don't think I've ever seen Harry this angry before," Hermione said immediately without any preamble.

"Yeah, thanks Hermione, I don't think I noticed," Taylor said sarcastically.

"He does have reason to be angry you know," Ginny said as she came into the other girl's dorm room.

Taylor looked at her two friends and sighed, "Yeah, I know he has reason but I'm not sure he is angry about the right reason, yet."

"You mean, the Dark Magic you used on Snape?" Hermione said right away.

"Yeah, when he gets over being angry about Snape, he'll be twice as angry about me using that Magic, especially after… he told me not to use it again," Taylor finished just catching herself in time from saying, that it had been Dumbledore who told her not to use her Dark Magic again. She ran her hand through her damp hair in frustration.

"Maybe you should try talking to him again, but without the petrifying charm this time," Ginny said her eyes dancing with mischief.

"That is something I'm NOT going to attempt for at least a day or two," Taylor said as the three of them headed out of the dorm, but Taylor stopped them on the stairs with her hand. "I need you guys to keep an eye on Harry for me. I'm going to give him some room to cool off, but I need to know that at least one of you, and Ron too, is always with him." Taylor finished looking from one to the other.

"We won't let him out of our sight, you can be sure of that Taylor!" Hermione said with a smile, to try to make some of the hurt ease in Taylor's eyes. Hermione knew that Harry wasn't about to forgive Taylor anytime soon if past experiences were any indicator. The fight between Harry and Ron in fourth year came to mind.

The next couple of weeks were the loneliest Taylor had ever endured. She had done as she said she would and given Harry some space. She still looked to make sure he was in the Great hall at meal times, and of course she seen him in all her classes, but he would repeatedly turn his back on her and they were never at the same table to do their work. The fact that Harry Potter was no longer talking to Taylor had stirred quite a bit of talk in the student body at Hogwarts. The students who desperately wanted something to talk about, other than the depressing facts of the war going on outside of the school, latched onto this little bit of gossip and the reasons behind the broken friendship were greatly exaggerated. The general consensus though was that Taylor had done something horrible to Harry Potter and most of the students backed him. He was the Chosen One, after all.

The hardest to endure though were the private lessons with Professor Shacklebolt. Taylor had cringed the first time she had stood opposite Harry and he had looked at her. She had been so shocked by the look of loathing in Harry's eyes that she had forgotten to cast a reflecting shield until it was too late. She had mumbled something about not being ready when Shacklebolt had revived her from the spell that Harry had cast. The force of the spells Harry was casting was really amazing, if you weren't on the receiving end of them. He was improving very rapidly and it was all Taylor could do to keep up with him. The bruises from their duels never seemed to fade. There were no longer shouted spells, or widely slashing movements with their wands, and the severity of their spells was escalating just as rapidly. If anyone had been watching they would see, not a sparring match but something a lot more serious.

Taylor sat in the Room of Requirements. The painting of Dumbledore sat on a table. Sweat ran down her face and into her eyes. The room looked like a bomb had just gone off in it.

"Very good, Miss Porter. I can see the lessons with Professor Shacklebolt are definitely helping with your dueling skills," the painting said with a twinkle in his eye as he surveyed the wreckage in the room. "Am I to assume that Mr. Potter is also improving?"

Taylor came to her feet and aimed at the three floating pillows that were supposed to be her attackers. The air was full of feathers as she conjured a shielding charm and worked to hold it in place. She was trying to increase her magical stamina at holding a shielding charm. A shielding charm was very draining to a witch and she was attempting to see if she could build up her ability to hold the shield in place like an athlete would work out to build up muscle.

"Yeah, you might say Potter is improving," Taylor said after her shielding charm collapsed and she was again breathing hard from the effort to keep it in place. It was two and a half weeks since she had told Harry about Snape.

"So I am also to assume that Mr. Potter is still angry about what you had to tell him?" the painting asked quietly, watching Taylor closely.

Taylor snorted, "You might say that, but I have come to realize that Potter is as thick as they get! I mean instead of being concerned about me using Dark Magic, he can't seem to get his head around Snape!" Taylor growled as she started pacing. She had been up one side of this and down the other and she couldn't see any way to make Harry see reason, as long as he was hung up on Snape and not the bigger issue.

"This is not good Taylor. Voldemort will use this to his advantage if you do not settle this 'disagreement' soon," said Dumbledore's painting in an irritatingly reasonable voice.

"And what do you want me to do? Petrify Potter again? That's the only way I'm going to get him to listen to me. He won't even speak to me or look at me for that matter. It's everything I can do in our private lessons, with Professor Shacklebolt, to keep him from jinxing me into the hospital wing!" Taylor ranted to the painting.

"Taylor," Dumbledore's voice was firm and concern filled his blue eyes as he gazed at her above his half moon spectacles. "If this rift between you and your brother is allowed to remain, I am afraid that Voldemort will use it to his advantage in some way."

Taylor wiped the sweat off of her face with her sleeve and put her glasses back on. She knew what Dumbledore said was the truth, but she wasn't sure how she could make Harry see it too. She looked at the painting and nodded her head and said, "I'll try to talk to him tomorrow, Professor."

Taylor knew that planning to talk to Harry was going to be difficult. It seemed that not just Ron, Hermione and Ginny had taken up being with Harry at all times, most of the Gryffindor's had also taken to being with him at all times. The few times that Taylor had been able to talk with Hermione in the last few weeks, hadn't led Taylor to believe that Harry was any closer to wanting to put this behind them.

She had taken the painting of Dumbledore with her last night because she had heard a familiar voice from an empty painting say that an old friend needed to speak with her. She felt bad about not talking to Dumbledore since the night she had told Harry but she hadn't really wanted to face him without some good news about Harry. Plus, she had buried her nose in her schoolbooks and tried to study through the hurt she felt when she thought of Harry. And as seventh year students they had lots of homework to keep them busy.

She decided that maybe on the way back from Herbology would be the best time to talk with Harry. She couldn't have been more wrong, as she silently put up the silencing charm and moved up right behind him and Ron.

"Potter, I need to have a word with you," Taylor said softly.

Ron glanced at Taylor over his shoulder and slowed, but Harry didn't. Ron shrugged his shoulders.

"Potter, if you don't turn and talk to me, so help me I'll jinx you into next Sunday!" Taylor said forcefully, stopping and pulling her wand out, ready if he decided to attack.

Harry stopped and turned to face her, his eyes cold and his wand out also, "What could you possibly want to say to me? I suppose you have gone off and saved Voldemort this time? Or was it Wormtail? As far as jinxing me, you've already shown that you are quite capable of jinxing my back but you haven't got what it takes to face me and do it!"

Taylor felt the anger rise in her as she looked into those angry green eyes. He was goading her! It took a great effort to not rise to his clear challenge. "Potter, you have no idea what I am capable of but I have a message from an 'old friend' and he said that we need to get past this stupidity."

"Oh, so now I'm stupid am I?" Harry called out, his wand hand twitching.

"I did not say you were stupid, I said we need to get 'over' this difference and," Taylor said slowly, trying desperately to calm her anger and talk this through with Harry, but a new voice broke in on their conversation.

"Oh, a lover's spat, just imagine, the Chosen One and a Mudblood having their quarrel on the way to the school. How sweet," a sickeningly sweet voice said, as the owner walked out from behind a near by tree. It belonged to Pansy Parkinson, flanked by a bunch of other Slytherin's.

Taylor knew that she wasn't going to get Harry to see reason now, not with the Slytherin's there., With a flick of her wand she took the silencing charm off, so she could address Parkinson. "Parkinson, speaking of lover's spat, I heard that Malfoy's been snogging every skirt that he sees." Taylor turned the anger and frustration she felt at Harry onto the Slytherin girl and her friends. She noticed Harry turn and stalk off, out of the corner of her eye.

Two hours later she was once again coming out of the Headmistress' office with a detention, but the fight that she'd had with the Slytherin's had been worth it! Three of them were in the hospital wing; only one would have to stay the night, but it had felt good for a short while to let her anger take over and strike at something that could strike back. She had easily bested them. It had been four against one. Professor McGonagall had said she wouldn't suspend her this time, but if it happened again… Taylor sighed. She had no desire to go to the Great Hall for supper and all the pointing and talking that would go with it. So instead she headed for the common room. She still had to try to talk to Harry and an idea was forming in her mind.

When she reached the common room it was as she had expected, empty. Without pausing she set off up the stairs, but it was into the seventh year boys' dorm that she stepped when she opened the door. A quick scan of the room showed that it too, was empty. She spotted Harry's trunk right away and went and got out of it what she had come after. He would be really pissed off when he found out what she took, but she would cross that bridge when she came to it. She went back down to the deserted common room and carefully spread the piece of parchment on a table. Then she took out her wand and pointing it at the paper said. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good!" A smile spread across her face as the lines spread across the Marauders Map. She located Harry with some difficulty in the Great Hall. After a couple of minutes of thought she again pointed her wand at the map and closed her eyes. When she opened them again she said, "Show me Harry Potter." And the minuscule dot that was Harry suddenly turned bright red and it was easy to see as he moved with a number of other dots out of the Great Hall. Taylor nodded in satisfaction and headed out through the portal to meet Harry half way up to the common room.

Using the map she wound her way down through the castle so that she would meet Harry halfway up and hopefully get him into a deserted classroom to have their talk. Taylor was so intent on watching where Harry was headed that she almost missed the strange hidden passageway that she had just walked by. Her eyes grew wide though when she looked at the hidden passageway closer. It was right behind her and it seemed to lead almost straight down through the castle. Taylor's heart was pounding as realization of what this might mean came to her and she made a split second decision. Instead of facing Harry, she slipped behind a tapestry and hid until the throng of students on their way from the Great Hall had passed.

Carefully looking at the map to make sure that no one was around, Taylor went over and stood in front of the stretch of bare wall, behind which she could see the hidden passageway. "How do I get in?" Taylor whispered to herself. Beside the small dot that was labled Taylor Porter a little bubble appeared and read, "I am Lord Voldemort" Taylor was amazed when a door folded out of the stone wall and a dark passageway opened up before her.

A/N Ohhhhhh a cliff-hanger! :) So what did you think? I know maybe Harry's reaction is a bit over the top... but then again maybe not if you remember how he reacted with Ron in the fourth book. Poor Taylor... making her brother angry just because she told him the truth. I can see their relationship being fairly rocky as they struggle to be not only friends but brother and sister. Plus I love to write about conflict not only in the physical sense but the emotional as well! So hope you are holding on! ;) I will update again soon, and I don't write too many nasty cliff-hangers!

As usual I would love to hear from you! I would like to thank those of you who have reviewed and added this stroy to your favorites! Plus if you have read this far then I want to thank you as well! Hope you continue to enjoy this story!

Thank you to my bata barbc! Until next time, cytpotter