Title: The Boys Who Lived

Author: Shara Lunison

Beta: Batsutousai

Rating for this Chapter: T

Pairings: Harry/Henry (OMC), several others—none of them canon
Warnings: SLASH, eventual twincest, slightly manipulative!Dumbledore, grey Harry/Henry, OoC-ness, others as I think of them.

Summary: The Potter twins are attacked by Voldemort and somehow defeat him. Now the Dark Lord has returned and they have to choose between light and dark. SLASH, Twincest, rated M for later chapters.

Disclaim Her: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

A/N: Late, again. I had caught up to all the plot that was worked out up to this point and needed to figure things out. I think I've got some good ideas on how to continue, so here goes!

Chapter Twenty: Marked

Harry awoke to find his brother curled tightly against his chest. The newly created Dark Mark stood out like a blackened brand in his skin, though the healing ointment Abe had provided the night before had healed it.

Gently, he extracted his limbs from the tangle and crawled out of the bed. Abe had reluctantly allowed the Headmaster to stay in one of the inn rooms the night before and Harry had been in too much shock after Henry fainted to tell him much of anything about what had happened at the meeting. A quick glance at the clock showed that Abe would be serving breakfast right about now, so he changed into some clean clothes, washed his face and teeth in the bathroom, and trotted downstairs. Sure enough, there was Dumbledore sitting at the bar and nibbling slowly on a piece of toast while he conversed quietly with his brother.

He sat next to the old man and gratefully accepted the bowl of porridge that Abe handed him. After a liberal dollop of honey, some cream, and some cinnamon, he stirred the bowl briskly and asked the Headmaster, "Would you like to know what happened now?"

Dumbledore glanced at Abe and then back at the boy sitting beside him in an unspoken question.

"It's all right, Abe knows where we went anyway." Harry took a bite of his porridge to check the taste and added some more cinnamon. "Snape came for us, we sat down to talk to the Dark Lord and were immediately tied up, Voldemort asked which one of us had the connection to him and then found out it was Henry. He marked him and then Snape brought us back."

The Headmaster's eyebrows had risen further and further into his hairline with each comment. "He didn't talk to you at all? Tell you all about how clever his plan was, or why he was going to mark Henry?"

Harry shook his head in confusion. Was that supposed to be typical behavior for Dark Lords?

"Strange—I have always known Tom to be quite long-winded during any exchange with an enemy. He believes he is infallible and keeps talking and giving away his plan as a result. It's his main weakness, in fact."

"Well, he marked Henry, didn't he?" Harry pointed out. Both of the men looked at him in confusion and Harry sighed. "He only marks his followers, yeah? But only on their arms. So marking Henry on the face like that is showing anyone who sees him that he belongs to the Dark Lord, and me through him." He touched the new scar on his face to drive home his point. "As far as Voldemort is concerned, we are no longer a threat."

"I don't know about that. He might feel that there is little to fear from you if he claims you instead of fighting against you, but he is not fool enough to forget that you both have every reason to hate him," Dumbledore said.

Harry shrugged. It made little difference.

"I am…unsure how to proceed," the Headmaster admitted. "With such a visible mark, I fear what the rest of the school population will do to you next year."

"Is the school even going to be reopened?" Abe asked, reminding them that he was there still. "I mean, all that business with a giant snake was never resolved."

Dumbledore sighed heavily, fiddling with the bits of crust left on his plate. "As of yet, the Ministry declared, and the Board of Governors agree, that the school cannot be reopened until the snake is found and destroyed."

Harry swallowed a bite of his breakfast and said, "Henry and I can let you into the Chamber. There's a second entrance that goes somewhere outside the castle, and the one we know how to get to will require us to go with them to a certain point—there's a second seal inside that requires parseltongue to open."

"Perhaps I will give them that option, then," the professor said thankfully. He stood with a small groan and smoothed his robes down as he had the last time they met over a meal. "I will go and contact them now, in fact."

"Professor!" Harry said, stopping him before he got more than a couple of feet. "The prophecy…I was wondering…"

"Yes?" Dumbledore asked, glancing around the room to reassure himself that there was no one else there.

"Who did you hear it from? Are you sure it's real?"

"Oh yes, it is quite real. I heard it myself, in fact, from the Divination teacher at the school. Her name is Sybill Trelawney."

"Are prophecies common, then?"

"No…well, perhaps if you saw the room full of them in the Ministry you would think differently. But they only happen once ever decade or so, and there are very few true seers left in the world." He peered over his half-moon glasses at the boy. "Is that all?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you." Harry smiled as the Headmaster left and then returned to his breakfast. A soft clattering on the stairs alerted he and Abe to the fact that Henry was awake.

His brother entered, covered from head to toe in his cloak, the hood already pulled up to hide his face.

"What's that get-up for?" Harry asked.

Henry looked at him, a slightly fearful look in his eyes. "To hide my face. I wouldn't want to give Abe a bad reputation."

Abe laughed, trying to quell the boy's fear. "Already got one! Don't worry about it, lad. Here, eat up." He pushed another bowl of porridge into the boy's hands and turned to disappear into the kitchen. The sound of clinking dishes soon wafted out to them.

"Hen?" Harry asked hesitantly, seeing that his brother was still staring into the bowl as though he had never seen porridge in his life.

Glassy green eyes looked up at him with no curiosity. It was just a blank stare—completely empty and lifeless.

Harry quickly pulled his brother into a hug after gently removing the bowl that was being held with an iron grip. "Shh…it's okay," he murmured, beginning to rock gently from side to side as the physical closeness made the feelings coming through their bond easier to sense. He sent wave after wave of love to his brother to combat the despair and hopelessness he was feeling. Henry slowly put his hands around Harry's waist. "I'm here," Harry whispered. "I'm here and I'll never leave you."

That seemed to be the key that was missing. Harry was suddenly flooded with every nuance of emotion Henry was feeling. Hurt led to hate led to anger led to fear led to worry—on and on as the wall between them crumbled into nothing. Even as he sorted through the mess of emotions, Harry became conscious of the heart-rending sobs that Henry was making into his shoulder now. His brother who never cried, who was the strong one, who always took care of Harry when he was upset and who always put his own emotions to the side. All this, because of Voldemort and Snape and the Dark Mark that was now branded into his face.

Deep, deep beneath the seething turmoil was another feeling that was quickly growing in intensity. A self-loathing that Harry could not even imagine feeling and with it a desire to end their suffering before it escalated into unknown proportions due to the mark they both now bore.

"NO!" Harry cried, shaking his brother even as he still held him and disrupting the gentle rocking he had continued with. "No," he said firmly, pulling Henry's chin up with one hand. "I won't let you."

Henry's eyes streamed tears and his face was red and puffy from crying. Even now he was trying to stifle his sobs, but they only broke free more broken and wretched than before. Shaking his head, he tried to deny that any kind of future might exist for them now. What was there? How could anyone see past the Dark Mark and remain close to them now? Even Ron, even Hermione, couldn't possibly want to be near them lest they be tainted with the same hatred and fear that every other person would feel when they saw Henry's face.

"No," Harry murmured, gently stroking his twin's face. "You still have me, Hen. I don't care about that mark, I just care about you. Please don't leave me, you know I cannot live without you."

Henry shook his head and pulled back a little to beat his fists on Harry's chest. "Why?" he sobbed.

There were a thousand questions in that one word, but Harry focused on the one he could answer. "Because I love you." And he leaned forward and took Henry's face in both of his hands and brushed his lips ever so gently across the other boy's. It was warm and soft and left a tingling trail that traveled straight into the core of him and pushed back all of Henry's harsh feelings and left only that love and that warmth for him to cling to.

It lasted merely seconds before Henry pulled away as though burned. His hand came up to touch his lips and he was so surprised and startled by his own reaction that he forgot to cry.

A throat cleared from somewhere behind the bar and the twins' heads snapped up to stare at the somewhat embarrassed face of Abe. "Perhaps you should take this upstairs?" he suggested.

Henry immediately stood, his breakfast untouched and forgotten, and ran up the stairs and into their room, slamming the door and locking it behind him. Harry followed at a slower pace and tried to enter the room, somewhat surprised to find it locked.

"Hen?" he asked.

"Just leave me alone for a while, Har," Henry's muffled voice said tiredly.

Frowning, Harry turned to consider the small sitting room that lay outside of their bedroom. A defense book he had been reading rested on the arm of the couch and he sat, opening it to the place he had left off. For a long time he stared at it, occasionally turning the page as his eyes finished passing over each sentence, but he was not actually reading a single word. It was an hour into this that he realized that it was their birthday.

-o-0-o-

Henry sat on the edge of the bed, his cloak discarded on the blankets beside him. The feelings coursing through him now were worse, far worse, than the anger and despair that had haunted him the moment he awoke. The love was the hardest to face—he could still feel the warm embrace of his brother's feelings, and even worse was that he, at least, had no illusions about that affection being brotherly. Harry loved him. Well and truly loved him, with all of the attraction, desire, and need inherent in that emotion. And he was also utterly innocent of that fact.

But Henry knew; could feel it. Because it was the same way he felt whenever he thought of the Mirror of Erised. The same way he felt when he thought of that chaste kiss downstairs—just a fleet brushing of the lips before he had ended it. And it had felt right.

And it was so very, very wrong.

He slowly fell back onto the bed, his legs dangling over the edge, and he threw an arm over his face to block out the early morning sunlight streaming through the window behind him. What in the name of Merlin had possessed Harry to do such a thing? This changed everything between them. Most alarming was that something had changed about their bond, now. With the barest of efforts, he could now reach out and sense not only his brother's feelings, but also the lowest murmur of his very thoughts. He knew without trying that his brother was confused and worried about him, and thinking about asking Abe to magic the door open the longer Henry stayed holed up inside.

It took a monumental effort to block him out, mostly because the idea of having to do so was completely new. Before this, the bond had blocked out everything unless one of them was upset or suffering from other especially strong emotions. He envisioned a sturdy brick wall between them and sighed as he felt the last vestiges of Harry's emotions fade away.

But perhaps this didn't change everything. Harry was still ignorant of his own feelings, and hopefully had no idea that Henry felt the same way. If he could keep him blocked out, keep that connection closed, and find some way of displacing his own or Harry's feelings onto someone else, then the situation might be salvaged. Even better if both of them found a significant other to shed these terrible feelings that were growing between them.

Harry would subconsciously resist doing just that, he knew. So it was up to Henry to set up his brother with someone suitable and then let nature take its course.

And then, of course, the other half of the problem reared its ugly head. The Mark both of them now bore would preclude the chances of finding suitable matches in the coming school year. If there even was a school year. There was, as yet, no sign that the Board of Governors would allow the school to reopen until they had proof that the basilisk was gone for good. He wondered what Dumbledore was going to do about that. No one he knew had even received letters detailing the needed school supplies for the coming year.

Henry tentatively reached up a hand and fingered the Mark. It was smoother than he expected, sort of like a tattoo but pitted into the skin instead of slightly raising it. Harry's Mark was much closer in appearance to a scar and much less noticeable. Perhaps there was some way of removing it, but he sincerely doubted anyone would find out if there was. If Voldemort had a means to remove the Dark Mark, then any operatives he put into undercover positions would have been better served to have the Mark either removed or placed somewhere less obvious than their left arms. Faced with that observation, he decided to squash any hope that the Mark could be gotten rid of short of killing the man responsible for the magic.

And he was the one who was supposed to do that, apparently. That was a bit of news that had been disturbing him ever since his brother's brilliant explanation of his theory behind the horcruxes and the night they both were attacked. The prophecy rang through his head, as though the seer who had spoken it were standing in the same room and whispering it in his ear:

The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies. And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal and he will have power the Dark Lord knows not. And either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies.

He sat up as he had a sudden and violent realization. The Dark Lord will mark him as his equal! But now that he bore the Dark Mark, he was anything but Voldemort's equal. He was at best a servant and at worst a prized piece of property. Had Snape somehow circumvented Dumbledore's Oath and told the entire prophecy to the Dark Lord? Is that why he had been Marked in this way for no obvious reason?

And if that was the case, then was the prophecy now broken? Or had it turned to someone else as a means to completion?

Launching himself from the bed, Henry pulled out ink and parchment and scribbled a quick note to Dumbledore:

Headmaster,

I need to speak to you urgently.

Henry Potter

He crooned softly to Hedwig, who was napping, and she glared at him briefly before clacking her beak and taking the short missive and gliding out of the window he opened for her.

Turning to the closed and locked door, he took a deep breath and strode across the room to face his brother. It was time to lay their plans for the future.

-o-0-o-

Harry startled to his feet as he heard the bedroom door unlock and stared for several long moments at his brother before he blurted, "I didn't mean anything by it, it just…happened…"

Henry visibly gathered himself. "Never mind that, Harry. I just sent a letter to Dumbledore telling him we need to talk. I think I might have figured out why Voldemort did this." He pointed to the Mark on his face as explanation.

Harry was sure his relief was nearly palpable, but was too glad that his brother seemed to have gotten over the incident downstairs to care. "Why, then?"

But Henry shook his head. "Not here. I know we're staying under Abe's protection and all, but I haven't forgotten that little conversation he was holding with Snape last summer. It's possible that he's a Dark supporter, especially given the nature of most of his customers."

Harry opened his mouth to argue, but his brother cut him off.

"I like him too, Harry. But we don't know what his motives are. I'd like to think that it's simply safer for him to support the Dark, but he could just as easily be a true sympathizer to their cause. Especially if he's been that way since the first war when Voldemort was more sane."

Nibbling his lip, Harry refrained from pointing out that Dumbledore obviously trusted his brother to protect them. Despite the restoration of their relationship with the Headmaster, neither of them felt as though they should give him their blind faith as so many others in the wizarding world had. Finally, he nodded and Henry answered him with a smile of satisfaction.

"Good. Let's walk up to the castle and see if we can meet Dumbledore on the way here or as he's leaving."

Harry bit his lip again. "But…" he hesitated to point out the obvious flaw in this plan.

Henry cocked his head in inquiry.

Inhaling slowly, Harry pointed to his own cheek where the white scar of his Dark Mark was barely visible.

"Damn and blast," Henry cursed. "I forgot already. Yours is hardly noticeable, so I tend to forget that I have one too." With a sigh he sat down on the arm of the couch and tried to think of a solution. "I wonder if a glamour would hide it?"

"We could ask Abe to try…" Harry said unsurely.

"Or we could just wait here for Dumbledore," Henry admitted reluctantly. "I know people will find out about the Mark eventually, but I don't exactly want to rush towards all of that prejudice and hate with open arms."

Harry sat beside him on the couch with his own sigh. "I know. Word will probably get out if the Ministry allows us to guide a team into the Chamber to kill the basilisk anyway, though."

"What's this?" Henry asked, having not been there for the conversation with Dumbledore that morning.

"Oh, the Headmaster was here this morning and I told him they'd have to have our help to get into the Chamber anyway. They will probably take us up on the offer, too, otherwise no one will be able to return to school next year."

"And the new term is fast approaching," Henry observed.

A loud popping noise from downstairs was followed by Abe yelling, "By all the nine circles of Hell, Albus! Never apparate directly into my pub EVER AGAIN!"

"I'm sorry, Aberforth, but I received an urgent missive from Henry and I was worried that the Dark Lord might be involved. If you will excuse me?"

Moments later a pair of booted feet clambered quickly up the old wooden stairs and a rather flustered looking Albus Dumbledore appeared in the living room.

"You must have run all the way from the school to the edge of the wards to get here this fast," Henry said, grinning.

Puffing a bit, the Headmaster nodded instead of answering and took a seat in one of the comfortable armchairs across from the twins. "I'm glad…to see…that you're…unhurt," he gasped as he caught his breath.

"For now, anyway," Henry answered. He heard a faint creak on the stairs and narrowed his eyes in that direction. "Would you ward the room, Professor? What I have to tell you is rather sensitive information."

Dumbledore nodded his agreement and waved his knobby old wand through the air several times before stowing it in his sleeve again. "Now, what is so urgent that I had to run here at full speed?" he asked, a twinkle in his eyes.

"It's about the prophecy," Henry said. He took a few moments to rearrange his thoughts and what he needed to say before speaking. "There is one line that states "the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal", correct?"

The Headmaster nodded in confusion. "That is why I knew it was one of you, because of the scars on your faces."

"Yes, but the Dark Lord just marked us again." Henry cupped his hand over the Dark Mark marring his face. "And this mark makes us, or me if Harry's theory is correct, anything but the Dark Lord's equal."

Dumbledore paled dramatically. "Ah. I must admit that hadn't yet occurred to me."

Henry nodded. "I think that he has somehow learned the prophecy, either from Snape or otherwise, and that is why he Marked us. My real question, though, is whether this completely breaks the prophecy or if it will now latch onto someone else to fulfill it?"

The old man remained silent for several minutes, the pregnant pause filled with that unanswered question as Henry dared to hope.

Finally Dumbledore said, "Prophecies cannot be broken once they are set into motion. And marking both of you as children started this one down its current path. But, as you say, it would seem that Voldemort has found a way to take you out of the equation. It is possible that he thinks marking you like this will end the prophecy and therefore end the chance that he will be defeated. But I am afraid that is not the case. And, unfortunately, I cannot begin to tell you how the prophecy will carry out now that you are not a part of it." He laced his fingers together and rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, peering over his knuckles at them with a somewhat disappointed gaze. "It appears that everything I have been doing up until now to help you face this task has been for naught. Ironic, considering how hard I tried to give you both a normal childhood and now you can actually live it—at least as well as you can given the Dark Mark on your faces."

Henry reeled back slightly. "Normal? You think our childhood has been normal? It was you who placed us with the Dursleys in the first place, and you let us face the trials for the Philosopher's Stone alone. I even think you would have done the same with the Chamber, had we not all learned our lesson the year before." He slid down off the arm of the couch where he had been sitting, leaning over the small coffee table that separated the Headmaster from them. "And now…now you're just going to discard us because we aren't the ones who will fulfill the prophecy? You make it sound like we have to deal with these marks on our own while you try to figure out who will complete your thrice-damned predictions!"

Dumbledore gave them both a pained look and spread his hands helplessly. "There is nothing I can do. The Dark Mark cannot be removed, it cannot be hidden, and no matter what I tell the school next year you will be ostracized. What would you have me do?"

"Train us! Help us at least learn to protect ourselves from the other students if we need to, and against Voldemort if it comes to that. I am under no illusions, Professor. He will call one or both of us to him, and he will either treat us as unwilling followers or as the property he has now made us. So at least help us to survive!"

But the Headmaster was already shaking his head. "You're too young to join the Light, my boys." He sighed and visibly prepared himself to share a secret, "I am the leader of an organization known as the Order of the Phoenix. We banded together in the first war to fight the Dark Lord, and we are reassembling the remaining members even as we speak. But no one can join until they come of age at seventeen."

"Then don't let us join! Just train us!" Harry cried, jumping to his own feet as he realized that the Headmaster really had no intention of helping them with this.

The old man closed pained blue eyes. "I cannot. You are a weapon in Tom's hands now. Bad enough the things he will probably force you to learn. If I teach you anything, how am I supposed to know that he won't place the Imperious Curse on you and use you to attack the students where he cannot reach them? How am I to know that he will not use you to get to me, or to Ministry officials who have relatives and children at Hogwarts? I'm of half a mind to simply expel you both to protect the rest of the castle. As you are now, you are dangerous—whether you choose to be or not."

Harry stared at the Headmaster in shock and felt his knees give out so that he fell back into his seat with a thump. "But…"

Dumbledore shook his head once more and stood, gazing at them with a reluctant and hurt expression. "I know what I am saying is harsh, but it is my duty to protect the school from the Dark Lord, and that is what I am going to do. You will be allowed to remain as long as Voldemort does not use you to attack anyone inside the school. If I catch you doing anything of that nature, you will have to be expelled."

"For the Greater Good, right Professor?" Henry asked coldly.

The Headmaster, who had turned away and taken several steps towards the door stiffened and paused in mid-stride. "Goodbye, boys. I will notify you when the Ministry has need of your services to enter the Chamber."

And then he was gone, and his wards with him. They heard him say a brisk goodbye to Abe downstairs and then the sound of the pub door opening and closing behind him.

"Now what?" Harry asked dully.

"Now, we find our own side in this war," Henry muttered. "I just wish I knew how."

That thought was interrupted a moment later. Henry's head snapped up as he felt a vague stirring of premonition before the pain erupted through the mark on his cheek, multiplied a thousand-fold by the horcrux scar on the other side. It hurt so much for the first few moments that he couldn't even scream—couldn't get his vocal cords to do anything more than clench in agony—and then a wail of pure suffering erupted from somewhere inside of him, and he was too far gone to even recognize the voice as his own.

Merciful blackness took him within a few minutes, but Harry, screaming beside him at both the real and reflected pain, was not so lucky.

And then suddenly Henry was not there in the Hog's Head anymore, but standing alone and invisible beside the Dark Lord as he looked over a room full of black-robed and white-masked individuals, Severus Snape standing a little behind and to the right of his throne-like chair.

-o-0-o-

Voldemort surveyed his followers with blood-red eyes, some vestige of a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth as they fell to their knees one by one as they saw that he had truly returned.

Standing, he gathered his power about him like the mantle of a king, and passed his inhuman eyes across the gathering. He made sure to rest his eyes on each and every person there so that when they left him, each would feel as though he had met and held their gaze, and only theirs. Let each man think he was the favored one, let each man know that just by being here, they were more loyal than any other.

Only when he had passed his eyes over them all did Voldemort speak. "Welcome, Death Eaters. Eleven years…eleven years since we last met. Yet you answer my call as though it were yesterday." He turned sideways to the crowd of followers and paced slowly to one side of the throne and back, drawing eyes as he did so to Snape standing in the favored position beside the ornate chair. "Yet I know why you have returned to me. Not out of loyalty, but fear!"

A shiver raced through the crowd, his calm tone doing more to induce terror than if he had been screaming his anger at them.

Voldemort smiled at their terror—though much of his sanity had been returned to him, he still enjoyed this play of power; the use of emotion to rule men who might otherwise have considered him weak and easy to overthrow. "Yesss, I know," he whispered, just loud enough for them to hear. "I know your fear…" he made a soft hissing sound that darted his tongue into the air, almost but not quite parseltongue. "I can tassste it."

One man standing close to the slightly raised dais threw himself to the ground and cried out, "Forgive me! Forgive all of us, Master!"

"Crucio!" Voldemort screamed, and relished the man's agony for several long moments before he ended the curse. "Cowards, all of you! Too afraid to seek me out all these long years, too afraid of losing yourselves when you have pledged your eternal loyalty to me and me alone!"

He shot the pain curse randomly into the crowd a few more times and let the screams die down to whimpers before he spoke again, his tone still barely above a whisper. "You ask for forgiveness? I do not forgive. I do not forget. Eleven long years of suffering…I want eleven years of repayment before I forgive any of you! But Severus…my dear Severus has already begun to repay that debt that you owe me." Voldemort turned to his lover and walked a slow circle around him, allowing one hand to rise and stroke one side of his face as he turned. "He not only returned me to my body, he restored my mind. Towards the end of my first reign, I took my measures against death too far, and I fear that some of my sanity was lost to me. But no longer! And for that…he will be rewarded."

Snape fell to his knees as they had orchestrated this, and gazed devotedly into the Dark Lord's eyes. "I live to serve you, my Lord."

"Rise!" Voldemort cried, standing before the throne so that all in the room could see the dark man beside him, "No longer shall you be forced to kneel, Ssseverusss! Such devotion, even in the face of my spirit's anger, shall be rewarded the highest honor I can grant. You will be my right hand, higher in rank than any other Death Eater and master of them all. Give me your left arm!"

Snape unbuttoned the sleeve of both his frock coat and white undershirt with no hesitation and bared his Dark Mark to Voldemort's wand.

"Regis Morsmordre!" Voldemort cried, knowing that none of the Death Eaters had ever heard such a spell before.

Snape visibly gritted his teeth against the pain, and then the tip of the wand was removed and the pain with it. He studied the mark in open surprise, and then Voldemort gripped his arm and raised it into the air so that his followers could see the difference. There, perched on top of the skull on Snape's old Dark Mark, was a crown that paid a passing resemblance to the muggle Queen's. It was as black as the rest of the Mark and appeared to be made of bones.

"Kneel, Death Eaters!" Voldemort cried ecstatically, "And greet your new Lord!"

As one, the congregation fell to the hard stone floor of the room and gazed upon Snape's arm in shock. Voldemort cackled his laughter and Snape smiled triumphantly at his side.

Invisible beside the throne, Henry watched what was happening with horror and was relieved as well as frustrated when the vision began to fade away now that the Dark Lord's anger and exultation had died down.

He awoke in his bed above the pub with Harry beside him and Abe sitting worriedly in the chair beside them.

"What happened?" the auburn haired man asked as soon as he realized Henry had come to.

"A gathering," Henry whispered, "and Snape's promotion."

-o-0-o-

~Shara