Sorry for the long delay in updates! Was dealing with some life events that threw off my routine. Hoping to be back on track!

Jeremiah Mondale's body still lay on the table, glasses of wine spilled and staining both the corpse and the linens. Harry had hoped Mondale would be receptive to an agreement. He hadn't needed to take the mark, but merely to pledge his support to an upcoming vote set before the Wizengamot. He had chosen the finality of death over a compromise of morals.

Morals didn't carry to the grave.

Several of the death eaters lingered, and Lucius, though haunted by Azkaban nightly, carried himself as the perfect host. Though as the afternoon dragged on, Lucius rested more weight on his cane.

Narcissa's gaze deceived her with its constant shift downwards. Her concern for her husband leached into her decorum as host.

Harry stood. The usual hush swept over the room. Harry whispered to Nagini to accompany him to the back garden, and she left her spot at Draco's feet, albeit with protest.

Together, they went outside, away from the politics. During times such as these, Harry debated the necessity of waging a political war. They spoke of making him Minister of Magic, of having him draft new laws and regulations. He heard their whispers of setting him in control of not only the country's government, but branching out, taking over ministry after ministry.

When the time was appropriate, he would refuse it. For all their worth to his efforts, Harry would rid himself of the trivialities purebloods played at. Magic was still largely a mystery. Harry intended to spend his days uncovering every secret, not sitting behind a desk signing papers.

Harry finished a lap of the garden. Nagini fussed over the chill of the ground, and left in search of Draco when they neared the door. She would not take well to his departure the next morning. In only a couple weeks, Nagini had laid a claim to him, much in the same way she had to that obscurial from so long ago.

Harry remained in the garden a while longer, drifting among the lifeless branches and twig-strewn paths. Narcissa's pride might have compelled her to keep the garden in better standing, but her mind had been caught elsewhere as of late. Since late summer, it seemed everyone's attention had been on their own endeavors.

He would leave them with more commands. Left unguided, they invented tasks to give themselves agency. They sought glory where there was none to be had. They invented tokens of false power.

When Harry reentered the manor, he found only the Malfoys and LeStranges remaining. Narcissa carried a glass of wine as though she planned to drink it, but the glass remained equally as full as it had been an hour prior.

Draco stood silently beside his father, with Nagini wound around his ankles as a shackle. Draco's posture remained tense, his gaze down, jaw tight. Whereas his mother carried her wine to occupy her hands, Draco had both hands folded in front of him, slowly toying with his ring. He wore that ring daily, even to sleep at night.

"What was done with the body?" Harry asked. He joined their circle, stepping between Draco and Lucius. He put out a hand for Nagini. She moved to meet him, and he knew she couldn't have eaten the body and remained so mobile.

"It was taken back to his estate," Bellatrix said. "Posed as though he died at supper."

"The truth will come out," Harry said. "Draco, is your hand bothering you?"

Draco dropped his hands.

"It is a pity that your father forces you to wear such a gaudy piece," Harry went on.

"My lord," Lucius said. "The family crest has been passed down for generations."

"I have no doubt. Though certainly times have changed, and you recognize what such a visible display of loyalty entails."

The silence that reigned over the room was greater than any of Lucius's protests, although that followed shortly after. Lucius stepped forwards, bowing as though respect might make a difference.

"My lord," he began again. "Certainly you can't take fault in our claiming our lineage. The Malfoy family can trace back to—"

"Perhaps rather than concerning yourself over your lineage, you should have focused on obtaining the prophecy."

"Would you ask him to bare his arm?" Lucius asked. "Truly, my lord, the ring is merely a symbol—"

"Of you claiming him as a Malfoy first. I am certain Draco understands his allegiances."

Harry turned a palm upwards, and without further prompting, Draco set the ring in his hand. The Malfoy crest faced him, etched in silver and as polished as though it were recently crafted and not a heirloom from centuries ago. Instinct told Harry to destroy it, and yet, the desire to collect it, to taint something the Malfoys held dear, overruled him.

"Come with me, Draco," Harry said, closing his fingers around the ring. "I have a new order for you."

An incessant shoving woke Harry. He slapped at the hand pushing at him, and missed Ron as he rolled back away.

"You were hissing again," Ron said, half a mumble. For having just been lucid enough to forcefully wake Harry, Ron's breaths were back to being slow and heavy before Harry could answer.

"Sorry about that."

Sleep didn't return easily. Harry stared at the slanted roof overhead, listening to the creaks of the Burrow, trying not to react to what he had just seen.

What had been the first order?

Hogwarts always felt the liveliest just after the return from holiday break. The decorations wouldn't come down until classes started back up, and everyone had new stories to share. Harry had let Ron handle the retelling of the garden gnomes' attack on the shrubberies, and listened as it grew more and more extreme with each retelling. It was only when Seamus asked if Ron truly punted a gnome halfway to the Fawcett's house that Ron stopped exaggerating.

Hermione hadn't rushed off immediately either. None of their stories from the Burrow had involved Lavender, and so long as Lavender and Parvati were distracted, Hermione rejoined the group.

Harry chose not to mention the dreams to anyone, not until he could discuss them with Dumbledore. He wished he could have seen more, even if every shred of advice he'd received about the dreams had been ordering him to shut them out. If he couldn't master occlumency, then shouldn't he make the most of the dreams?

He'd seen that Voldemort was planning something. Despite multiple dreams, Harry hadn't been able to discern what that plan might have been. He had gathered three vital, or at least, he suspected vital, pieces of information.

The first was that his plan was secret to essentially everyone.

The second was that it didn't pertain to the Ministry or to eradicating muggles.

And the third and most strange, was that it required him to keep a constant watch on Malfoy.

It proved him right about his suspicions this year, but Harry understood that without tangible proof, he'd be arguing against people's opinions. He'd heard it all, even from Ron and Hermione. It was just his rivalry with Malfoy tainting his outlook. Not one with any sort of brain would want Malfoy for anything. Malfoy wasn't capable of anything truly disastrous.

If that were the case, why would Voldemort have been monitoring him so closely?

Harry glanced to Hermione, who finally had gotten a chance to speak and share her time back at home. If he brought the question up to Hermione, he could easily imagine her answer. First dismissal, and when pressed, a hand-waving explanation about Malfoy's money. Lucius had been in Azkaban. If the Malfoys were bankrolling Voldemort, then that responsibility would eventually fall to Malfoy.

It wasn't the case. Voldemort had hardly thought of Narcissa or Lucius in any of the visions. They'd been present, but not a focal point.

Harry continued to catch up with Ron and Hermione until Lavender returned to the common room. She rushed straight into Ron's arms, more accurately his lap, and Harry and Hermione both left unnoticed. Hermione went up to the girls' dormitories, and Harry weighed his options.

He wasn't ready to hole up in his room, and he had an hour until curfew. There was little chance he would be able to recover the Marauder's Map tonight, although, thinking on it, staying in the castle over the break might have been his best chance for it. Some of the professors had certainly stayed over the holiday. Harry might've had better luck with Slughorn if he'd chosen to remain at Hogwarts. He might've found more time to meet with Dumbledore to go through the memories being strung in front of him this year. He might've been able to research prophecy, since he was beginning to think it would involve sneaking into the restricted section.

It was the first night back. The library would be open, but empty.

Harry ran upstairs to get his cloak, still grateful every time he used it that Snape hadn't confiscated it along with the map. Harry emptied his book bag over his bed, catching his inkwell right as it fell out, and then stuffed the cloak inside. If he ran, he could grab a few books, then smuggle them upstairs to read once everyone had gone to sleep.

For a moment, he wondered what his father would've thought, him using the cloak to raid the library.

Harry started down for the library. His father wouldn't have cared, not when his life was under threat. They all would have been looking into every avenue, any possible answer to how to circumvent the assumed meaning behind the prophecy.

He wouldn't have needed to sneak down to the library alone.

But he did, occasionally needing to stop for a brief catch-up with someone as he passed in the corridors. They were kind to ask after his time away, but also, stole time he could have been searching through the stacks. The chill of the corridors drove people back to their common rooms and prevented too many lingering conversations.

Harry arrived at the library and found the doors closed, but unlocked. He pushed them open to find a nearly empty library, the lighting overhead even dimmed in preparation for curfew. Madam Pince must've been at her desk, so Harry took a roundabout path to ensure he would have somewhere private to put on the cloak.

But a bright light caught his eye. It shone through the shelf nearest him, and Harry walked around to find the cause.

Malfoy had set up in one of the private study desks at the far wall, wand illuminating his workspace. He glanced up as soon as Harry rounded the stack, and he visibly deflated.

"Done throwing things at me?"

"Left all my sweets upstairs," Harry said.

Malfoy looked better. Maybe it was just the light from his wand, but he didn't seem nearly so gaunt, and the exhaustion didn't sit at the corners of his eyes.

"Should I be concerned about you seeking me out?"

"Happenstance, this time, at least." Harry approached although Malfoy's eyes narrowed at his audacity. "Was there homework assigned over the break I'm forgetting?"

He took the seat nearest Malfoy, which would have put them back to back, had Harry been there to study. But he scooted the chair back, propping it on its back legs so that they could look at each other while talking.

"Getting a head start on reading. What are you doing?"

"Hiding from Ron and Lavender," Harry said. It was half a truth, at least.

"It'd take advanced arithmancy to calculate how they could possibly both date down."

"It's his first time dating. I can hardly blame him for being invested."

"They're ridiculously loud."

"You say that like you and I haven't been shouting across the Great Hall for six years."

Malfoy ran his tongue over his teeth. "Hardly a comparison."

"So when you told me you quit Quidditch to study, you meant it?" Harry said, nodding to the book Malfoy had open. Rather than wait on a reply, Harry leaned back enough he could reach it. Malfoy didn't protest him taking it and checking the cover. Transfiguration: Cross-Species Concerns

"Not everyone has the deep comment to sport that you do."

"Suppose not. Has a Malfoy ever been anything other than...actually, what is it your father does?"

"When you're as wealthy as he is, you do some of everything."

"Except Quidditch."

"Imagine him on a broom."

Harry did, and gave Malfoy back his book. "The Gryffindor-Slytherin game isn't as much of an event without you in it."

"Only to you," Malfoy said. "You do realize the houses were rivals before you and I came to Hogwarts."

"Oh, come on. You have to admit having rivals within a rivalry game made it all the more exciting."

"Not when the outcome was essentially guaranteed."

"Don't get any closer to complimenting me. I might combust."

"If I'd known that was all it took..."

"You'd be bored if I combusted," Harry said. "Think about how quiet Hogwarts would be without me."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"So push me over," Harry said. "Look at how precariously I'm perched right now. One good shove and I'd topple. Maybe crack open my head."

"It's too thick for that," Malfoy said. "Besides, I'm not looking at being shipped to Azkaban over the likes of you."

"With all the breakouts, it doesn't seem quite as terrifying anymore."

Malfoy started to say something, and judging from the flash of anger, Harry could assume the intent of the bitten back words. Harry had seen Lucius's condition through the visions, even if he couldn't say as much. Maybe it hadn't been the most tactful thing to say, but it did segue into his next point.

"Did you have time to consider—"

"Stop," Malfoy said, sharply, biting the word. "Just stop."

"Sounds like a yes."

"Whatever your intentions, stop."

The severity of his tone couldn't mask the sincerity. Being sincere around his friends, or even around other classmates, had never been an option for Malfoy. But given the empty library, and even with the books to dampen the sound of their conversation, Malfoy finally let his guard down enough to be sincere.

"I know—"

"You don't. Whatever I did to disillusion you, I take accountability for. I haven't changed. I'm who I've always been. Leave me alone."

He ended his speech by pronouncing each word slowly, enforcing the intensity behind them. The three words had more conviction than anything Harry had seen in the dreams. Malfoy had been asking for the same thing all year—to leave him alone—but this was the first time he could be vulnerable enough to express it clearly. He didn't break his gaze from Harry's, but that freckle to the right of his eye kept drawing Harry's attention.

"Maybe I don't know everything," Harry said. "But I do know what it's like to feel hopeless. There've been plenty times I couldn't see any paths forwards. But they're always there."

"Learn when to quit."

Malfoy broke his gaze away and scanned the room behind Harry. If he planned on leaving, he'd have to push by Harry. As it was, Harry had him cornered. Malfoy couldn't very well leave with all his belongings left scattered on the desk.

"Can't," Harry said. "Tried."

"Out with it then," Malfoy said. "What do you want from me?"

Harry wished he knew. He thought back to the sight of Malfoy in hospital, to the moment of finding that pamphlet and being forced to accept the role he'd played in Malfoy's current state. Seeing Nagini wound around Malfoy constantly hadn't helped matters.

"Why don't you accept the offer?"

"Because I know you well enough, don't I? This isn't some token of goodwill. You sent me to hospital for insulting a woman you'd never met—"

"My mother," Harry interjected, heat rising in his cheeks.

"—You left me illegally mistransfigured on the train—"

"After you lot threatened me."

"—and you've loathed me since we first met. Whatever angle you're playing at, let it rest."

It was one of the first times Harry knew Malfoy was right. What was he doing? Was he solely driven by guilt? Pity? If Malfoy didn't want to be helped, why was Harry so adamant?

"I can't," Harry said, unable to express it any other way. With how they were seated, Malfoy's left arm rested between them. Harry reached for it, certain of what he would find under the sleeve.

Malfoy pulled away as Harry caught hold. Harry'd always had the better reflexes. They locked into a standstill, Harry maintaining a tight grip on Malfoy's thin wrist. Malfoy had nowhere to go.

That was the issue.

"Do you want to be your father?" Harry asked.

"I want to be left alone."

"I don't believe you."

As much as Harry couldn't voice why he wanted to help, Malfoy couldn't admit he needed it. The collision felt so apparent, but neither of them could address it.

He wasn't wearing the ring.

"I don't think you want the life he planned for you," Harry said. "You've seen where it leads."

"You don't think at all."

"So I've been told."

Malfoy tensed, subtly pulling against Harry's hold. He hadn't reached for his wand, but evidence of his frustration grew when he lacked the strength to pull away.

How could Harry convey everything he'd seen over the break while not admitting to the connection he and Voldemort shared? Although, it was odd he only had gotten dreams over the break, but none during the last term.

"Tell me now," Harry said, "After all recent events, tell me you're siding with him."

"Is this what you lot do? Force people's hand?"

"Why won't you just accept the offer?"

"I'm getting through the school year. Your interference is only complicating matters."

It wasn't a no. Malfoy had found every way to say no without actually saying so. Malfoy always chose his words as weapons. He would have made himself clear if the answer was truly siding with Voldemort.

"Do you not feel safe at Hogwarts?" Harry asked.

"Do you?"

Harry released Malfoy's arm, and Malfoy moved it out of his reach. After a momentary glare, Malfoy began packing his things.

"Nothing will happen with Dumbledore here."

Malfoy laughed derisively. "As long as one old man camps in his office?"

"He's the most powerful wizard in generations."

"No. He really isn't."

They both stood together, Harry still blocking him from leaving. At the same height, it was a wonder that Malfoy still managed to look down his nose at Harry.

"So you just side with perceived power? Despite knowing what he's like?"

"Would you be so passionate if you weren't the Chosen One?"

"Being the Chosen One doesn't change who I am."

Malfoy raised an eyebrow. "Now who's lying? Move."

Harry stepped aside. "Wouldn't you rather do something instead of living in fear?"

"Who says I'm not?"

Malfoy put his bag over his shoulder, and didn't look back as he left.

But Harry watched him until the doors closed behind him. He'd used too much time on the conversation. Harry found the cloak where he'd left it, and went to the forbidden section.

After two days of studying the books he'd nicked from the library, Harry had discovered two crucial pieces of information.

The first was that the majority of all prophetic writings came from the subjects of them. People wrote about how their life had been affected by the prophecy, about how they interpreted pieces of the visions as they came about, and about dealing with the knowledge that some aspects of the future were predestined and unchangeable.

The second was that almost nothing covered prophecy from the perspective of the tellers. People were born with what was referred to as the Sight or the Inner Eye, but they had no control over it. The visions were received and spoken, but the speaker had little recollection of the telling.

A third, unwritten notion was that no one had the information Harry wanted. Maybe there weren't answers. Maybe he had grabbed a poor choice of books.

He returned them while dinner was being served Wednesday, and Thursday, daydreamed through all his classes over what it might've meant. Why hadn't there been more conclusive studies done into the subject? Why did no one seem to understand prophecy?

By the end of his lessons on Thursday, Harry had convinced himself he was being a fool. He had the incredible advantage of living in the castle with the person who had spoken the vision about him. If he wanted to know more, then he had no excuse not to go to the source.

Harry braced himself for what was to come, and without telling anyone, went upstairs to Trelawney's office. He hadn't been to her classroom since third year, and didn't know if he was meant to call up before ascending the ladder. So he went up without warning. Trelawney was a Seer. If there was truly something wrong with him visiting unannounced, certainly she would know.

It was poor reasoning, given everything he had just read, but he chose to believe it as he pushed open the circular trapdoor. The scent soaking the air hit him instantly, the woody, yet perfumed musk rising from the fire across the room. Unlike the last time he had been here, when summer was around the corner and the fire made the class period unbearable, now it thwarted the tower's winter chill.

"Professor?" Harry called out. He finished climbing up the ladder, wincing when the trap door slammed shut behind him. He sucked through his teeth while looking for Trelawney.

"Enter," she called from her office, an adjacent room to the classroom Harry had never been inside. He hadn't exactly gone to her for homework help when the homework only involved inventing doom scenarios.

Since she couldn't see him yet, Harry waved his hand in front of his nose, trying to clear away some of the scented smoke filling the room. Nothing in the books had said that prophecy required being barely able to breathe.

"Professor? Do you have a moment?"

"Harry Potter. You avoided my class since the incident with the grim."

"Suppose maybe I shouldn't've," Harry said. He ducked under a hanging of dried elderflowers, and dipped his head to Trelawney, hoping it came across respectfully. "I've been doing some independent study, and was hoping you could help me with my research."

Professor Trelawney set down her tea cup, and Harry could see the tea grounds floating inside of it. She poured Harry a cup of tea, and peered over the table and her glasses, as if she could already make out what shape the grounds would form. Harry sipped the tea, glad it wasn't anything like Hagrid's typical brews, and settled a bit more comfortably into the armchair. This wasn't Harry sitting through a Divination class pretending he understood anything that was happening. This was hopefully the answer to his questions.

"I've been thinking a lot about the nature of prophecy," Harry began. "I'm sorry if this is something you covered during your lessons, but I can't find the information I need in books."

"How can knowledge of the future truly be written?" Trelawney said. "Just as the future ever shifts, so does prophecy and those who connect to the Sight."

"The future changes? Even once a prophecy has been given?"

"What is change?"

Harry took a sip of his tea to cover for the reminder of why he had dropped her class.

"You made a prophecy about me," Harry said.

"I did? It is true that when the Sight beckons, one must listen. Though should you wish me to recount it to you, I confess it is outside of my reach."

"I've heard it," Harry assured her. "It's just, I suppose I'm struggling to understand it. And no, I'm not here for an interpretation. I, well, I'm hoping you could tell me what it's like, when you receive a prophecy like that."

Trelawney folded her hands together, which made her knobby knuckles stand out boldly. Her bracelets jingled where they knocked against the desk, and Harry watched the firelight reflect off them for a moment. They were a mix of silver and gold, mostly tarnished and worn, and one of them had a charm of a willow hanging from it.

"The Sight blesses as it wills. It comes in as a sudden gale, sweeping over the mind, clouding it, as the Sight transfers wisdom to a witness."

"So you're just a conduit for it. You don't remember any of it?"

"There are pieces that remain, or return to me in due course, much as one smells agrimony and is transported back to memories of childhood days, lazing about in fields and drifting through the cosmos of thought."

Now invested, Harry set his cup on the desk, still half-full, and leaned forwards, elbows propped up, squaring him on Trelawney.

"When you do get those moments of recollection, does it come as words? Images? How do you experience the visions?"

"The nature of gifts from the Sight changes nothing. The words come and go, fleeting as youth."

"So they're words?" Harry said. "So, you've never really seen anything? Wouldn't that make it a prophecy from…what then, the Sound ?"

The offense on Trelawney's face almost had Harry awkwardly backing out of the room. He hadn't intended to offend her or insult whatever entity was out there sending visions her way.

"The Sight sends as it will," she said, unfolding her hands to place her palms flat to the desktop. "Your callous attitude regarding forces beyond—"

"Sorry," Harry interrupted, before she convinced herself of her own tangent. "I wasn't trying to be insulting. It's just, it's important that I get this answer. I need to know if you receive words or if you receive visions."

She pushed back from the desk, and Harry's cup rattled against the saucer. Would that disturb the settling of the tea leaves at the bottom, or was that already accounted for in the prediction? Or had tea leaves been a farce all along?

"I recall it as a vision," she said. "What words came with it, I could not say."

A vision.

Harry didn't know if it was the answer he wanted, or if that made matters more difficult. Wouldn't that mean she would have seen him or Voldemort kill the other? Or facing off? A vague prophecy about someone born around his birthday could have been anyone, but a visible image of him was essentially indisputable.

"You've given two prophecies connected to me," Harry said. "Do you remember anything of either?"

"I have dreamed of your frightened expression after having heard a vision," Trelawney said. "Something of a stout man, of red eyes, and of a full moon."

Harry fiddled with his hands, contemplating what might have gone differently if he knew the prediction had been about someone built entirely differently than Sirius. One description could have changed the night. Lupin might have been able to remain at Hogwarts. Sirius might not have had to live in hiding. Pettigrew might have been caught. Voldemort might not have returned.

But he had returned.

Did that make all prophecies inevitable?

"They call it the Sight, the Inner Eye. Why do we get the prophecies as riddles?"

"The Sight blesses who it will, Mr. Potter. We do not question how the prophecies arrive, for respect of the unknown origins."

"No one questions it?"

"The ones who questioned have divined nothing of any origins. Prophecy comes as it wills, both raining upon us as a blessing and a curse. Who are we to judge the greater magicks?"

He chewed on the inside of his lip to hold back a discussion of being the Chosen One , since as grand of a title as it was, it really didn't mean anything. From everything he had learned up until this point, he was chosen as the subject of one prophecy among a multitude of prophecies. Being chosen for this was a burden, not a subject of awe like the Daily Prophet played it out to be.

"Professor, before I was born, you made a prophecy about me. There are rumors of it floating about now. You know the one."

Trelawney nodded. "I could no sooner tell you the words I spoke than you could devise where they originated."

Harry nodded. "I know. But you said you remembered flashes of the one from third year. Do you remember anything you saw from the one before? Anything at all?"

Trelawney closed her eyes, and for the first time, Harry truly respected her for giving his question, all of the questions really, true thought before answering. Dumbledore had even played away from specifics any time Harry had broached the topic.

"Red eyes closing thrice," she said, long after Harry had asked, when he'd run out of tea to sip and fill the time. "And—"

She opened her eyes. "The prophecy came to me so long ago. The final piece is hazy."

"Hazy is better than nothing."

The set of her lips made Harry question his own statement.

"You have come to me in evident hope I can release you from the nature of this prophecy," she said. "While hazy, the remaining memory is of you. Green eyes against the vilest red."

Harry nodded again, and settled back in the chair. He had run through his questions, but the weight of them kept him still for a time. Seeing him in the vision was as certain of a confirmation as he could have hoped for. Either must die at the hand of the other. She saw him and Voldemort. If Harry didn't kill him, no one else could.

"Thank you," Harry said. "I know I haven't been—"

"Nonsense," Trelawney said. "You were touched by the Inner Eye differently to that which I teach. An open mind is all one truly could ask in a student."

When Harry stood, Trelawney reached across his desk for his mug and slid it to her. She angled her head to either side, and jutted out her chin.

"A fox. Beware of one who is beguiling you."

"I'll be on the lookout. Thanks again."

He left her to continue examining his tea leaves, muttering something about a beetle, or perhaps an umbrella. As he descended the ladder, and then the several flights of stairs, the weight of the prophecy fully settled on him. Ignoring it didn't make it inaccurate. Pretending couldn't alter the road in front of him.

For as much as people gossiped about him being the Chosen One, the one to prevent Voldemort's victory, the one to kill one of the most powerful wizards in history; Harry very well might have simply been prophesied to die.