"You're sure you don't want me to come back once I've got him?" Ron whispered, as they paced in front of the wall to the Room.

"I'm sure," Harry said, though he was incredibly grateful for the offer. He glanced around the dark, empty corridor, then darted out from under the safety of the cloak and through the door that had just appeared. Ron stayed under the cloak, but Harry could still hear his heartbeat and breathing, so he knew he hadn't left just yet. "You should get a good night's sleep, if you can."

"Probably best for us to be seen in the common room in the morning, too," Ron mused, "given that everyone thinks we've gone to bed there." Once Snape declared Dumbledore stable enough, they'd moved him into the Room, which was currently acting as a makeshift Hospital Wing for him and Padfoot. Everyone had agreed that it was a good idea to keep them both out of sight, hearing range, and reach of Umbridge and the Inquisitorial Squad. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny had then returned to Gryffindor for a bit—mostly to be seen by anyone who might report back to Umbridge later. "Gives me a chance to chat to Malfoy about everything, though."

"Exactly," Harry said. "I'll see you in the morning."

"Yeah," Ron said. "All right—night, mate." Something invisible—Ron's hand—clapped him on the shoulder, and then Ron's soft footsteps moved back down the seventh floor corridor. Harry pulled the door shut and headed inside.

Madam Pomfrey had dosed Padfoot with a sleeping potion just before Harry and the others headed back to Gryffindor, and she herself had left, too, but Snape was still there, hovering over Dumbledore like a very angry bat. He glanced up as Harry walked across the balcony to the couches and fireplace, but didn't say anything; Harry thought that was for the best; he wouldn't put it past Snape to take points for Harry being out of Gryffindor after curfew.

Fawkes in the fireplace where Harry had left him, but he waddled out when he saw Harry had returned, trilling and shaking ash from his feathers.

"Hi," Harry muttered, and scooped him up. He set him on the arm of the couch, where his sharp little claws immediately scuffed the leather, but Harry didn't really mind. He himself curled up beside Fawkes, yawning, in a place where he could see Padfoot and Dumbledore.

His eyelids had just started to droop when he heard Snape snarl:

"Finally."

"Severus?" Dumbledore's voice was weak, but Harry's heart leapt at the sound of it. Beside him, Fawkes stirred at the sound of his voice.

"Drink, now." Peripherally, Harry saw Snape glance in his direction, but he didn't look back or otherwise react; quiet as they were being, he wasn't sure that he was supposed to be able to hear them from this distance. He heard Snape put an empty bottle down. "You are incredibly lucky to be alive," Snape hissed. Harry could hear more bottles clinking, and imagined he was digging aggressively through his chest of potions. "I cannot fathom what could possibly compel you to touch a cursed object, other than absolute foolishness—"

"It was foolishness, I'm sure," Dumbledore said faintly. "It would seem I have, once again, greatly underestimated Lord Voldemort… or perhaps overestimated him. I was expecting, based on descriptions of previous encounters with similar objects, that the ring might try to possess me, or conjure nightmarish illusions…" Dumbledore's voice faded and he cleared his throat before continuing. "A curse was very unexpected."

"That is an understatement," Snape snapped. "Drink this."

There was silence and then Dumbledore coughed quietly.

"Most unpleasant," Dumbledore said, his voice a little louder and clearer. "Though it seems to be making you feel better."

Snape flicked his wand and suddenly Harry couldn't hear them at all. He frowned, and wasn't sure what spell Snape had used, but a lot of privacy charms worked on fixed areas…

I want to be able to hear them again, he told the Room, and it shifted almost imperceptibly. Snape's voice returned at once:

"...don't seem to be taking this seriously, allow me to make you," Snape said, and Harry didn't think he'd heard him so properly angry since before he and Padfoot put aside their animosity. "The curse on that ring was—"

"Vitalitas vorax," Dumbledore murmured. Harry knew enough Latin to know vitalitas meant 'life', but didn't know what vorax was. Nor had he come across mention of that particular curse. Snape, though, made a soft sound:

"So you did know."

"I realised once it had me," Dumbledore sighed. He sounded exhausted.

"I wondered if you had," Snape said. His tone was a little more curious now, and a little pitying. "The damage is… not as severe as it should have been. Did you resist it…?"

"In a sense," Dumbledore murmured. "As is the case with most curses that take, the best thing to do is give."

"So you gave it…what? Magic?" Dumbledore made no reply that Harry could hear, but he must have nodded because Snape made a sound of wordless fury and despair. "And I thought touching it in the first place was the stupidest thing you'd done all night."

"It was the only thing I could do; I could not apparate through Hogwarts' wards to seek help, and Fawkes— where is Fawkes?"

"With Potter," Snape said, and Dumbledore made a relieved, satisfied sort of sound. They both turned toward the balcony and Harry stared at the fire, pretending not to notice.

"Well, Fawkes could not take me himself," Dumbledore continued. "I knew Minerva would arrive for our scheduled meeting and then expected she would be able to summon you… But unless I dreamed it, Harry arrived first?"

"No dream," Snape said. "A nightmare, perhaps."

"But real?" Dumbledore asked. Snape must have nodded.

"The boy contained it," Snape said after a moment.

"Harry did?" Dumbledore asked, sounding surprised. "How?"

"His usual, inordinate luck, no doubt," Snape replied scathingly.

"I see," Dumbledore said. Harry thought he could hear a faint smile in his voice. Snape said nothing and neither did Dumbledore for a moment, then, "But I am not quite so lucky as Harry, it would seem." Still, Snape said nothing. Dumbledore lifted his blackened hand and, very gently, said, "Tell me."

"We're in uncharted territory," Snape said. "Potter's dam has completely stopped the curse's spread, and short of any disruptions, I believe it should hold." Snape's voice was grudging. "The curse remains, however. The dam is just below your shoulder. If I had been there sooner I could have contained it to a smaller area—just your hand, perhaps."

"But that would not change the fact that it's my wand hand," Dumbledore said.

"No." Snape did not sound pleased. "I have placed some additional barriers in your shoulder—enough to stop your magic from moving on its own, I hope, but I cannot do anything to stop the magic you yourself direct."

"Thank you, Severus." Snape grunted. "Truly."

"I don't think you understand," Snape bit out, "that—"

"I understand," Dumbledore said calmly. "How long, do you think?"

Harry didn't completely understand what Dumbledore was asking, but though Dumbledore's voice was soft and calm, Snape was silent for a long time which made Harry think it was a more significant question than Dumbledore had made it seem.

"If Weasley cannot devise a way to remove it properly… Perhaps a year? If you are foolish with your magic between now and then, or if Potter's dam fails, less."

Understanding dawned on Harry, who felt very cold despite his proximity to the fire and Fawkes, who was radiating a gentle heat from the arm of the couch.

Both Snape and Dumbledore were silent for a while after that, but Harry could not sleep. Snape continued to poke through his chest of potions, and Harry thought Dumbledore might have fallen asleep, until his voice broke the silence:

"Will you fetch Harry for me?" Dumbledore asked. Snape flicked his wand again, likely to cancel whatever spell he thought was blocking Harry from hearing them:

"Potter!" Snape barked, and Harry turned toward them, rather reluctantly; he wasn't sure how he was supposed to have a conversation with either of them after what he'd just heard. "The Headmaster wishes to speak with you."

Albus reached out to Fawkes at once, and the bird pressed his downy head into Albus' fingers, chirping.

"Thank you," he said to Harry, who was hovering uncertainly beside the bed. "I hope he has behaved?" Harry nodded. "Sit," Albus said. "Please." Severus, who was packing up the last of his things, scoffed. Harry frowned at him, and then glanced at Albus.

"Shouldn't you be resting?"

"Probably," Albus said, and Severus scoffed again and strode up the stairs Harry had come down only moments before. "But what should happen and what must happen are not always the same, and what must happen is that we must talk." Harry still looked unsure. Albus smiled ruefully. "I have disrupted your own rest and recovery on several occasions in the past when I should not have. Let this be your chance to settle the score." Harry snorted and he sat down in a chair that had just appeared.

"I don't care about settling the score," Harry said. His eyes tracked Severus across the balcony, and remained in that direction even after he was gone from view. Then, on some cue that Albus could not detect he seemed to relax a little, and turned his attention back to Albus; presumably Severus was gone.

"Even so," Albus said. He stroked Fawkes' beak. "My memory after touching the ring is disjointed, but based on what I do remember, and on what Severus has told me, it would seem I owe you a thank you. So: thank you." Harry's eyes flicked to Albus' cursed hand and away again and he gave a jerky nod. "And thank you for providing us with a safe place to recover." Albus gestured around the room they were in, which he was sure must be the Room of Requirement; he knew from Minerva that Harry and his friends were using it as a Headquarters, of sorts, though he himself had not had cause—or an invitation—to visit previously. Harry nodded again. "What of the ring?"

"It's here," Harry said, and pulled it from the pocket of his robes. "I had Bill look at it," he said, before Albus could voice his assumption; Harry was touching it, and quite unharmed. "—not too closely, but closely enough to remove the curse." He glanced down at it, a faint frown on his face. "It's just a horcrux now."

"It is intact, then?" Albus asked, a little surprised.

"For now," Harry replied. He glanced at Sirius, asleep in a conjured bed identical to Albus' own. "Padfoot said you didn't want to destroy it. Why?"

"I had hoped to study it," Albus said. "I thought that it might be possible to use the ring to find a way to remove or destroy the soul fragment without destroying its host." Harry looked stricken. "I do not regret my decision," Albus said gently, but firmly, before Harry could try to blame himself—or rather, his circumstances—for what had happened. "Though I do, now, question the wisdom of it. And certainly the wisdom of touching it before I had given it a more thorough examination." Albus sighed. "There is also the fact that the ring contains the Resurrection stone."

"Is that why you touched it?" Harry asked quietly. "Or is that just another thing that stopped you destroying it?"

"A little of both," Albus admitted. "My intentions for keeping the ring are what I have said—that I thought I could use it to help you. Save you, even. But…" Albus could not describe the temptation he'd felt at knowing that the spirits of Ariana, his mother and father, and so many others had been so accessible; all he'd have needed to do was turn the ring three times. "When I touched it, though, I confess I was not thinking of those things."

Harry knew enough of Albus' twisted history with the Deathly Hallows to understand; it was all over his face as he nodded.

"And the curse?" Harry asked eventually. "It's contained but not gone, right?"

"Correct," Albus said. He lifted his hand and examined it—as he had several times since waking—with morbid fascination. Harry looked at it too, an unhappy slant to his mouth. "A rather nasty curse—and I thought so even before I'd experienced it personally." Harry did not look amused. "Vitalitas vorax, it is known as. Lord Voldemort invented it early in his career—sometime during his tenure at Borgin and Burke's, I believe."

"And… what does it do? The Vitalitas vorax, or whatever it's called."

"It consumes magic," Albus said. Harry nodded slowly. "It can be fatal, but not always—if one survives the shock and pain of the loss of magic, then the curse simply resolves and the victim may survive. I know of two who have."

"Who?" Harry asked.

"Susan MacDonald," Albus said. "Her sister Mary was a friend of your mother's." Harry nodded. "The other is our very own Argus Filch."

"Filch?" Harry asked, looking genuinely shocked. "I thought he was a— well, just a squib."

"He is a squib," Albus said. "But he was not born that way."

"So Voldemort went after Filch?" Harry asked, eyes still wide. "Why? When?"

"Not so directly," Albus said. "Argus bought an item from Borgin and Burke's while Tom Riddle was there as a shopkeeper. There is no proof that Tom was responsible, of course, but there were several other incidents with cursed items during his time there—experiments, I suspect."

Harry looked grim and decidedly pitying, but unsurprised. After a moment, he spoke:

"Only two survivors?" he said.

"That I know of," Albus said. "There may be others."

"Yeah," Harry said, "but that means you're not counting yourself."

On the next bed over, Sirius snuffled in his sleep and rolled over. Harry glanced over at him, but did not appear concerned that he'd woken. He turned back to Albus, waiting.

"Most astute of you," Albus said, and could not quite manage a smile. Fawkes rubbed his beak along Albus' knuckle and Albus stroked him absentmindedly. "It is not yet an impossibility that I do," he said. Harry's expression did not change, and Albus was having trouble reading it. "But as the curse is still present—" He raised his blackened hand. "—it would be premature to say I have survived it." Still, Harry's expression did not change. It was an odd mix of patience, curiosity, and challenge. "We are not without hope, though; there is a chance that Bill's work on your Mark provides us with a solution."

"And if it doesn't?" Harry asked.

"Then the curse will drain my magic each time I use it, until I die," Albus said. It would be sooner than he had hoped—he still felt he had so much to do, and a year was perhaps not enough time to do it all in—but his would not be a tragic, premature death. He'd had a long life. A good life, for the most part.

"You couldn't just let it take over, then?" Harry asked. Something in Albus recoiled at the thought, and Harry's voice softened, as if he knew. "You'd be a squib, sure, but you'd be alive."

"It is magic that allows the average wizard to live longer than the average muggle," Albus said, shaking his head. "Already, I am older than most muggles grow to be."

"So without magic you'll die," Harry said.

"Quite probably," Albus said. He did find it in himself to smile then: "Do not look so troubled, dear boy. I do not fear death." In fact, he feared it much less than the alternative. Albus thought there'd be a certain irony to it if he, one of the greatest and most powerful wizards of the age, wound up a squib. He felt no prejudice toward squibs or muggles, but that did not mean that he was ready to become one, after over a century of having had magic. That was not what scared him most, though. No, what scared him most was what would happen to his mind if each and every one of his hundred and fourteen years were to catch up with him at once. Albus pushed those thoughts aside.

"What about Hogwarts, though?" Harry asked. "What about the Order? Without you—"

"I daresay our High Inquisitor—" Harry looked suddenly furious at the mention of Dolores. "—will have me removed from Hogwarts before the curse has a chance to. As for the Order… it will fall to someone else to lead. Alastor, perhaps, or Kingsley. Or Sirius or Remus." Perhaps even Harry himself, with support from those others. "Regardless, it will be in capable hands."

When Draco dragged his weary, aching self through the portrait hole just after midnight, he found Weasley waiting for him in the common room.

"Took you long enough," Weasley said. Draco gave him the most withering look he could manage, given his head felt like it was going to split in two. The obvious relief Weasley was hiding behind his flippancy gave way to concern. "Are you okay?"

"I will be," Draco said. He claimed the couch opposite Weasley's and lay down, draping an arm over his eyes. The darkness was nice. "What about you?"

"I'm fine," Weasley said. "And Hermione's upstairs—sleeping—and Harry's gone to the Room to keep an eye on things there." Draco wondered what exactly Weasley meant by that, but had a more pressing concern.

"Where do they think I've been?"

"Keeping an eye on Umbridge," Weasley said. Draco nodded. "Figured the truth was safest."

"Thank you," Draco said. "How was Granger?" The thought of her and what she'd gone through tonight because of the two of them still made him equally angry and miserable, but those feelings were starting to temper now that he'd dealt with Umbridge.

"Muffliato," Weasley said, despite the empty common room, then, "Angry, mostly, and a bit upset and worried, but it was all at Umbridge. She's told McGonagall, and she was furious, but there's not much she can do until we know what Umbridge is going to do. Hermione's arranged a meeting with the—I dunno, founding members, I s'pose you'd call us? Of Eihwaz. First thing tomorrow. She wants to tell the others what happened and look at the contract again. Probably add every one of us but Harry to it." Draco should have been relieved—that was the outcome he and Weasley had hoped would come from Umbridge's questioning when they'd first planned it all out—but it shouldn't have fallen to Granger. His insides gave another helpless, guilty squirm. "She'll be okay, otherwise, I think," Weasley said, as if he knew how Draco was feeling. It was possible, too, Draco supposed, that Weasley was feeling the same way, and was trying to convince himself as much as Draco. "As long as her memory charm holds, Umbridge—"

"I undid it," Draco said. It was a testament to the level of trust Weasley had in him that he did not immediately start making accusations or demanding answers. His silence, though, seemed to have a weight to it and it made Draco feel a little defensive. "I had to," he said. "Granger'd wiped every reference to Eihwaz from Umbridge's mind, and all it would take is a question from my father or Fudge to start to erode her efforts." Weasley was quiet and Draco peeked out from under his arm; Weasley's mouth was set in a grim line, but he seemed to agree.

"What does that mean for Hermione, then?" he asked, rather apprehensively.

"Nothing, hopefully," Draco said, resettling on the couch. "I tweaked Umbridge's memory; as far as she knows, Granger couldn't tell her anything about Eihwaz."

"Brilliant," Weasley said, letting out a breath he'd clearly been holding. "And the rest?" He sounded much less tense now. "Hermione told her about—"

"The Order," Draco said. "Yes. And about the prophecy. I left those there. It's new information to Umbridge and the Ministry, perhaps, but it's not anything my father couldn't share with them himself, if he wanted to."

"And it's not new information to Voldemort," Weasley murmured. Draco—face still buried under his elbow—gave a ginger nod. "Did you tweak the prophecy—?"

"To match the one I gave the Dark Lord?" Draco's mouth curled up a little. "Yes. Umbridge knows that Granger tried to Obliviate her—she thinks it failed. But Umbridge also knows that Granger knows she used an Unforgivable. I think she'll feed what she can back to Fudge about the Order and the prophecy, but I don't think she'll retaliate."

"How sure are you about that?" Weasley asked. "Because—"

"I had a look around in her mind as I was leaving," Draco said. "So, fairly sure."

"You're a bit scary, you know that?" Weasley said, but there was something in his voice now that there hadn't been there since dinner; true relief. Draco preened a little, and Weasley made a sound like a laugh, then fell silent again. Draco listened to the soft crackling of the fire. "We'll have to warn the Order, if we can. Percy, definitely. Fudge might start feeding him fake information if he thinks he's reporting back to the Order—"

"Fudge is an idiot," Draco said. "He's much more likely to just sack him. If my father got into his ear, though, or if Umbridge did…" Yes, they'd have to warn former-Prefect Weasley, though if Granger thought her Obliviation had been successful and Umbridge did not do anything obvious to make her think otherwise, then giving such a warning without giving anything away would need some finessing.

"We might be able to tip Sirius off in the morning," Weasley said thoughtfully. "Maybe tell him you overheard something while you were keeping watch tonight…"

"He's still here?" Draco asked, surprised. "Is he all right? Is that what Potter's in the Room for?"

"If you don't know, Umbridge mustn't, which is something," Weasley said, suddenly sounding very tired. He yawned, and Draco's own weariness crashed over him. He felt a sudden longing for his nice, warm four poster upstairs, but knew it would have to wait. Information was important. He couldn't afford to not know things, not when it felt like he was trying to manage the Dark Lord and his father, Umbridge, and all of his friends except for Weasley. "And yes, Sirius is part of it, but not the main part. It's actually Dumbledore…"