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Chapter Ten—New Questions and Discarded Answers

"Um, Harry. What's that?"

Ron's voice had the kind of intense calm that it did when he was trying not to freak out. Harry followed his gaze and blinked. Standing in the middle of the Great Hall was a tall—entity with spikes all over its back. It looked like a troll, but slimmer and a more bright blue-grey and less smelly and, well, spikes all over its back.

"Did you have something to do with this?"

Harry just nodded to Hermione—honestly, she could probably figure that out on her own, anyway—and strode across the twenty or so meters that separated him from the being to bow. It cocked its head at him, spikes moving gently with its breath.

"Did you need help?" Harry asked. He hoped that the Blood of Avalon wouldn't be stupid enough to send someone who didn't understand English. "Why are you here?"

The creature opened its hands, which had long webs between the fingers, and something floated out and towards Harry. It was a large blue-green bubble, and he had a long moment to decide whether h wanted to let it wrap around its head the way it was clearly aiming to. He did, for all that he held his breath and heard Hermione's cry of alarm.

The bubble was filled with water, but it burst as soon as it reached Harry, and the water dissipated without even touching his clothes. A voice in his ears spoke in a high, ringing note. I am the emissary sent to negotiate for room in your Forbidden Forest.

"I don't know if you should be negotiating with me, exactly," Harry said cautiously. "The unicorns and the centaurs and the others who live there will have to have the final say."

The troll released another bubble, which said when it burst, That negotiation is done.

"Oh. So now you want to speak with humans?"

With you. The leader of the humans.

Harry took a long, deep breath. "Right." He could just imagine the faces of people at the Ministry—he didn't think they had a proper Minister right now—if they heard Harry was supposedly the leader of the humans. But he didn't see that anything would be gained by backing off right now and shouting for Shacklebolt or similar.

He inclined his head to the troll, or whatever it truly was. "We can do that. May I have a name to call you?"

The bubble that arrived this time was distilled amusement along with the water. You could not pronounce my name; it includes sounds too high for your hearing. But you may call me Galahad. I fought a human who called himself that once, and he was brave and mighty. I keep some of his bones in my cave to honor him.

Non-human, right, Harry reminded himself, and swallowed. "All right, Galahad. Do you want to go somewhere else, or—"

The bubble this time was so fast that it darted across the room and interrupted him. It should happen here. It is your largest place in the castle, and it will allow all the humans that need to to come here and see and honor the agreement we are making. I have found that humans distrust things they have not seen with their own eyes.

Harry grimaced and nodded, remembering how long Fudge had denied that Voldemort was back. "All right." He turned around to Ron and Hermione—and Theo and Snape, who were standing in the doorway of the Great Hall and staring at him. "Galahad wants to negotiate here."

"And—in front of everybody?" Ron's voice was a squeak.

"Yes. It matters to—Galahad." Harry didn't know if the troll was male or female, or if that mattered to them. "And I think we should invite a whole bunch of people to watch. People from the Ministry and some of the shops in Diagon Alley and the professors at Hogwarts. Even if they're not here right now."

"Why?"

"The Blood of Avalon are coming back to the world," Harry admitted. "I opened a place that they can also go if they want to, a place that's not a prison but also not the human world. But that won't stop some of them from wanting to be here so they can explore this world again and marry humans."

Galahad breathed out another bubble that said, You put it delicately, human leader, but it is the truth. We have children with our own kind, but they are not like the children we have with humans.

"You like those better?"

We like those different.

Harry gave up on trying to understand all the subtleties and turned to Hermione. "How many owls do you think we need to send out?"

"Probably not that many." Hermione sounded a little hoarse, staring at him with concern in her eyes. "Oh, Harry. You know they're not going be happy with you."

"Blame Voldemort, he's the one who linked the Dark Marks to the kind of network that meant I needed to take it over to keep people from getting sick. And blame the ancient wizards and witches who imprisoned the Blood in Avalon."

"Imprisoned?"

Harry blinked, then smiled a little. Trust that to have riled Hermione up. He nodded. "They were thought to have retreated, but they wanted to continue to flow back and forth between Avalon and the human world. Instead, humans forced them through the door and slammed it shut."

"We should help them, then." Hermione was calm and unshakeable, not the kind of upset that she'd been when it came to discussing the enslavement of house-elves. She bowed to Galahad. "It'll take some time to get everyone together. Can you make him understand that?"

You are the only one I choose to communicate with, not the only one I can understand, said Galahad's next bubble.

"It's fine," Harry said, and Hermione tore out of the Great Hall, probably to send owls and a Patronus. "I—what do you eat, Galahad? Can we offer you something?"

Theo hissed softly under his breath. He had made his way across the Great Hall to stand beside Harry, and Harry hadn't even noticed. He supposed that said something about how comfortable he was with Theo. He leaned back into Theo's embrace, and Theo's eyes flashed gold as he looked at Galahad.

Peace, horned one, said Galahad, their next bubble big enough to wrap around Harry and Theo both. I would not eat either of you. You are neither of you human. Leader of the humans, but not human.

Galahad seemed to give Harry a knowing glance as he said that. Harry swallowed and ignored what felt like a stir of blood and light beneath the surface of his skin. "All right. I—suppose we can't offer you anything."

If you had a prisoner you wanted devoured…

"Uh, no," Harry said, intensely glad at the moment that Galahad didn't want to talk to anyone but him and Theo.

I have heard that you feed the souls of some of your criminals to our corrupted distant-kin. I would only take the flesh. Why do you not give me one?

Harry just shrugged. "A lot of us don't agree with that, either," he said. "I think we'll be trying to reform—"

"Potter!"

Harry spun to face the doors of the Great Hall, startled. Malfoy was standing there, wings shimmering in and out around his shoulders. He gave Harry an outraged look and marched further into the hall, pointing at Galahad with a single finger.

"Why did you bring that here?"

"I didn't bring them specifically," Harry snapped, feeling Theo's arm tighten around his waist. Maybe it was to keep himself from flying at Malfoy's throat instead of holding Harry back. "They just came because—"

"You shouldn't have brought them!"

"I'm trying to make sure the situation doesn't devolve into—"

"They're my mate!"

Malfoy's tone made it the most tragic pronouncement in the history of the world. Harry blinked and stared at him, and then blinked and stared at Galahad, who was holding very still and watching Malfoy. Maybe it wasn't in a hungry way, Harry decided doubtfully. Or maybe it wasn't the kind of hungry that he'd assumed.

He shuddered a little and buried the thought. No, he was not going to think of Malfoy and an extremely powerful superhuman being that way.

"Then you've achieved the lifelong dream of many a Veela," Theo said in a surprisingly mild voice. His arm around Harry's waist shuddered a little. Harry glanced at Theo and realized that he was working incredibly hard to hold in rocking gales of laughter. "Those humans born without enough blood to awaken their Veela halves wandered all their lives and never knew what they longed for. Congratulations, Draco."

"Don't congratulations me, you—you satyr!"

Theo laughed a little. "Did you think speaking the truth would put me off?"

The Veela is my mate, Galahad told Harry and Theo with a bubble that encompassed them both. Harry wondered why they didn't reach out to Malfoy, but maybe they were communicating somehow, silently. Malfoy was certainly turning pale and folding his arms hard enough for that. I will grant you some of my help for free because you have introduced us.

Theo's elbow crashed hard into Harry's side. Harry knew that was because Theo was afraid that Harry would say something about how Galahad didn't owe them anything.

But Harry had learned a little about dealing with the Blood of Avalon. He nodded. "Thank you, Galahad."

Shall we negotiate for room in your Fobidden Forest now?

"Not everyone is here yet."

Galahad shifted in place, the spikes on their back fluttering back and forth. Then you should gather them.

Harry nodded and turned to the other people pouring into the Great Hall. That included Snape, who seemed to have his arms permanently folded the way a permanent scowl was creasing his face, and Professor McGonagall, who was trying to decide who to glare at. "Um, Galahad is here to negotiate a place for the Blood of Avalon in the Forbidden Forest."

"Why?" Professor McGonagall asked quietly.

"I, uh, might have cracked the borders of Avalon and freed the Blood our human ancestors imprisoned there."

There was a long moment that reminded Harry a little of the momentary silence that had followed his name coming out of the Goblet of Fire, and then everyone screamed at once.

"This is highly irregular, Mr. Potter. Highly irregular."

The Minister seemed to have appointed Kingsley Shacklebolt interim Minster. Or he had volunteered, or had his name pulled out of a pointy hat. Honestly, nothing about how they found a new Minister would surprise Harry at this point.

At least Kingsley couldn't be worse than the previous two holders of the office.

"I know," Harry said. Galahad was standing behind him, still making eyes or something at Malfoy. Malfoy was staring tragically into midair, but hadn't left the Great Hall. Theo had decided to stand at Harry's right hand and be as satyr as physically possible. Everyone else seemed to be there to watch the drama unfold, including students Harry knew hadn't been helping rebuild Hogwarts. "But the borders are broken, sir. That means that we have to deal with the Blood."

"Did you know that this was a possibility when you awakened the Dark Marks?"

"I thought that something similar might happen, sir."

There. No one could prove that was a lie, although from the way Theo shifted at Harry's side, he was a moment or two away from laughter.

"And yet you did it?"

Harry straightened. This time, Theo was lowering his horns next to him, and as much as Harry wanted to prevent the kind of confrontation that ended with Theo charging, he had to speak his mind. "I couldn't just let people die, sir."

Kingsley gave him one piercing look, as though to say that he could have, and then shook his head and turned away. "I think all the Ministry officials who can be gathered are," he said, after studying the people standing behind him, chattering like a flock of sparrows, and gaping at Galahad. "All the ones who aren't currently under arrest for being collaborators, at any rate."

Harry thought they probably should have arrested more of the ones here, but he nodded and turned to Galahad. Theo had given him a few pieces of advice when they were able to be by themselves earlier that afternoon, and Harry began, "Thank you for coming and for endangering your hide in the mortal realm, Galahad."

Nothing here could endanger me, fey-blooded one.

Harry hoped that he kept the expression that wanted to cross his face off his face, and just nodded. "You are here to ask for room in our Forbidden Forest. What do you offer in exchange?"

That the Blood of Avalon in the Forest will defend the Forest from invasion and link it to the realm that you have established beneath the trees.

Harry nodded again. "What do you expect the humans to do?"

Refrain from entering the boundaries of our territory, although of course our children or the ones who are connected to us in other ways—Galahad sent a flirtatious look at Malfoy, standing near the wall and looking horrified—would be welcome.

Harry swallowed down his laughter. "All right. What would that mean for humans who don't have the Blood of Avalon but want to collect ingredients in the Forest or bring wood out?"

Stay out of our territory.

Galahad sounded puzzled. Harry held back the shake of his head he wanted to give and turned around to face Kingsley and the Ministry officials, who leaned forwards like hounds straining against the leash. "He said that the people from Avalon who want to move into the Forest would defend their territory and welcome humans who have the Blood into it. They'd prevent anyone else from coming in, like the colony of Acromantulas." He was a little gratified to see some of the Aurors' eyes widen at that. "They would want humans who did go into the Forest to collect Potions ingredients and the like to stay out of their territory."

Several people started shouting questions all at once. Harry sighed a little and looked at Kingsley, who gestured with his wand. A stream of fire burst out of it and rose to the ceiling of the Great Hall to circle just beneath it.

"Good attention-getter," Theo breathed, beside Harry.

Harry nodded, watching Kingsley in interest as he lowered his wand. He didn't know the incantation for that particular spell, since Kingsley hadn't spoken it aloud, but it looked like one that would be useful to remember.

You could do similar things, or more impressive ones, if you accepted your Sidhe blood.

Harry ignored that thought, since he wasn't sure the voice was his own, and faced the Ministry officials again. "One at a time."

The first woman Kingsley pointed to leaned forwards in agitation. "What does that mean for the centaurs and other beings who already live in the Forest?"

Harry nodded. "The Blood of Avalon has already negotiated with the centaurs and others.."

That seemed to satisfy the woman who had originally asked the question, but immediately someone else broke in with, "It sounds like you're setting up independent enclaves in the middle of magical Britain!"

"Well, yeah," Harry said. "In a sense."

"You can't do that!"

Harry looked straight into the eyes of the man asking the question, and the man took a step back in return, his mouth gaping a little. "You can't stop us," Harry said, as gently as he could. "You put all the pressure on me to kill Voldemort—" gasp, flinch, wail, or start from most of the crowd "—and then left me to deal with the network of the Dark Marks and the Death Eaters' illness and waking the Blood of Avalon on my own. So the consequences of that are ones that we're going to handle, and you can step back and make ineffectual noises the way you always do."

"Harry," Kingsley began.

"Would they actually help?" Harry asked, turning to Kingsley. Then he changed the question. "Would you actually help? Or would people just want to wait and mutter and wait and mutter until something happened that I would need to handle on my own, as always?"

You are the human leader, Galahad said, their bubble bursting briefly across Harry's face and making Kingsley's anguished expression waver. You are the one who makes the decisions, and they obey.

Harry wished he had a private means to communicate back and say that they blamed him for making those decisions. But he didn't. He just kept looking at Kingsley, and Kingsley gave a sigh that seemed to come from the bottoms of his dragonhide boots before he nodded, slowly.

"What you describe is generally what happens. But I am committed to welcoming our neighbors from Avalon back to Earth, Harry."

"Minister, what about—"

"You can't mean—"

"Some creatures—"

"Don't talk about them like that!" Harry snapped, spinning around and glaring at the man who—it was Lucius Malfoy, of course it was. He blinked and stared haughtily at Harry, who glared back at him. "Just because you didn't manifest any of the Blood doesn't mean your son is free of it! Or people you know, people you were on the same side as! Don't stand there and say creatures in that sneering tone, you son of a bitch."

People gasped all over the room, but Lucius himself didn't seem to know what to do or say. He just stood spluttering silently.

"Is it your way to insult all your political opponents so blatantly, Mr. Potter?" asked someone who stood comfortably near the back of the group of Ministry employees.

"I don't know, I don't think I have anything on the people who decided to call a fifteen-year-old a liar and mentally disturbed in the papers."

Theo convulsed with laughter next to him. Harry smiled at his lover, and Theo shook his head and stepped up, clicking his claws. Harry noticed people reluctantly shifting as though they had mentally edited Theo's horns and other satyr features out of their image of the Great Hall, and rolled his eyes.

"Things have changed," Theo said simply. "The Blood is returning from Avalon, and you cannot prevent that. Harry Potter saved my life and the lives of numerous others you refused to stop or imprison, and you cannot prevent that. It is best to life with the lives you have and not get in the way of my lord. He does what he wants, in any case."

He clicked his claws harder, and then said, "And to reveal a little deception…"

He snorted, and the cloud of vapor from his nostrils swelled into a crystalline fog and blew over Lucius. Lucius let out a gasp and drew his wand, but the fog faded, and took with it what must have been a complicated illusion. Harry stared at Lucius's revealed wings and shining silvery hair.

"Hypocrite," Theo said, with a depth of contempt in his voice Harry never could have achieved.

And then he took Harry's arm and led him out of the room. Harry was more than happy to go.