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"No," Dumbledore murmured. "I think not. The fresh air might do both of us good, won't it?" He cast a spell without waiting for more than Harry's nod. Harry wondered idly if it was a charm to make the air fresher or keep them from being overheard, and then realized abruptly that he recognized the wand movement. He'd seen a description of it while studying Oddivarius's Charm. It was one meant to subtly increase the sense of intimidation in a wizard's aura, partly by working on the magic and partly by working on appearance, so that people speaking to him would give him more of their attention, awe, and respect.

I don't know why he feels he has to do that, Harry thought, flicking his own wand in a silent Finite Incantatem. I haven't chosen my own road in a way that's at all disrespectful to him.

Unless he thinks any separation from him is disrespectful.

Harry hadn't considered that perspective. He had thought Dumbledore would be angry and disappointed with him, but not this angry. That was reserved for Snape. He made an effort to open his eyes and ears, to pay attention to any more spells the Headmaster cast.

Dumbledore didn't appear to notice Harry's ending of his charm, or deemed it more politic to say nothing about it. He waited until they had left the entrance hall and crossed onto the frosty stones outside to speak. "You do realize that you've taken a dangerous course that could bring many enemies down upon you, don't you, Harry?" he said in a gentle voice.

Like you? But Harry kept the remark behind his teeth. "I know that some people won't like me supporting the Ministry, sir," he said, keeping his voice as cheerful as possible. "But I had a bad reputation with them already. I think a lot of wizards read the Daily Prophet and wondered how much of what happened to me was my own fault. This isn't much, and it does repay Scrimgeour for what he did for me." He touched the paper proclaiming his choice of guardianship in his pocket again, just to be sure it was still there. "As he says, seeing the Ministry and the Boy-Who-Lived united might help calm down some of the people who are panicking."

Dumbledore simply shook his head gravely, as if he knew better. "Linking oneself in debt to the Ministry is a perilous course, Harry."

"I know." Harry shrugged his shoulders. "But the way I see it, being indebted to anyone is perilous at best. Headmaster."

Dumbledore looked sharply at him.

"Snape, for example," Harry continued blandly, meeting his eyes and feeling that refined Legilimency flutter at his shields. It was the battering of a bird or a bat against a closed window, and the sense came that he could open his shields and the Legilimency would do no harm. Harry knew better. If that probe was a bird, it would have been a harpy. "He's in a dangerous position because of the ties that he allowed to bind him to Voldemort."

"Professor Snape, Harry." Dumbledore gave a delicate sigh. "There are—other reasons that I wish you had not gone to the Minister behind my back. I would have advised you on the course of choosing your own guardian. That is, if you are no longer satisfied with the care I have taken of you?"

He used so gentle, so unassuming, a tone of voice to say that. Harry almost felt bad for denying him. But he no longer believed that gentle, unassuming tone was the exact truth, and hadn't since Dumbledore admitted to keeping the prophecy from him. If nothing else, he thought his deception of Dumbledore justified because it was the last trick he would ever play on the old wizard. They would not be political foes for long.

"I know you did your best for me, sir. But I'll be of age this summer, and I don't think I'm prepared to fight Voldemort. I need to understand the laws of the wizarding world better, the way I need to understand other resources it has. And this is a way of stepping out from under your shadow and facing the blows that are coming. If I can't do this, how can I fight Death Eaters?"

"Resources, Harry?" Dumbledore raised his eyebrows in reproof. "Be careful you do not come to think of people like that, or you will follow in Voldemort's footsteps."

Harry restrained his snort. As if you've never done it! Every military commander has to. I wonder what he would say if I told him that I know exactly which ones I need to use and which ones I don't?

He put the thought aside as soon as he'd entertained it, though. His purpose today was to secure a waiting period, because time was on his side. He wanted to convince the Headmaster that, someday, he'd become part of Dumbledore's fold again. He couldn't show the determined opposition he really felt to anyone who stepped into his path. If he did, it would only make the Headmaster exert all his efforts to oppose him, and Harry didn't have time for the distraction. He'd play Snape's head-games because that was the way he could best convince the Potions Professor he'd only changed a bit. The best way to convince Dumbledore was to show traces of his old self floating beneath the confident new one he'd adopted.

The confident new one was really almost the whole of himself, of course. But Dumbledore wasn't to know that, just yet.

"I don't plan to treat other people like pawns, sir, or sacrifice them," he said. The move's already set to capture both kings. "But I need to do something now that the war's officially started and Sirius is dead." He let a bit of wistful frustration creep into his voice, and saw Dumbledore latch onto it.

"You still miss him, don't you, my boy?"

"Of course," Harry said, speaking only honest truth. Mix the truth with the lies, and they're stronger and taste sweeter. He bowed his head. "And I know that he died in the Ministry, but I don't blame the Ministry for having killed him." The temptation to say "I did that" was so strong he almost blurted it out, but that would lead Dumbledore in yet another direction Harry didn't want him to turn. "Fudge is gone now. Scrimgeour seems all right."

"He is someone who chases Dark wizards, Harry," Dumbledore warned him, "someone who has difficulty seeing the shades of gray in our world. He was angry at Professor Snape merely because he once served as a Death Eater, without considering that a man can change."

Harry gave a silent cheer, even as he nodded at Dumbledore with a small smile. "I'll keep that in mind, sir."

"Does this mean that you will act independently of the Order, or even against us?" Dumbledore asked next. They had halted with Hogwarts behind Dumbledore, and his eyes seemed as gray as the sky.

"I don't want to!" Harry cried. Time to play the emotional teenager. "I don't want to," he repeated in a whisper. "Really, Professor. I just need—some time to make up my mind. And I can't have it, because it seems that everyone's pushing me in the direction he wants me to go in, not the direction I actually want to go! I'm not going to choose a guardian right away, either. Just—just give me some time." He gasped frantically at the clear air around him, as if he couldn't get enough of it into his lungs. "I want a period of freedom where I can think, and not have people driving me in circles!"

"Have I been doing that to you, Harry?" Dumbledore's voice had softened. "I didn't know. I'm sorry."

Harry met his eyes, and decided that was the truth, as far as he could tell. Dumbledore really did want the best for him, and for him to come out all right. The problem was that, at the same time, he wanted to win the war, and for Harry to do his best to kill Voldemort. That might account for a great deal of the inconsistent behavior he'd shown Harry over the years. Next to Dumbledore, Snape, Malfoy, Ron, and Hermione were all on a level. At least Harry knew what he could expect from them.

"I don't think you meant to, sir," he responded, in softened tones of his own. "But it happened. Now, please, can I just have a few weeks alone where I can think about everything? The Ministry, and your warnings about the Minister, and having the choice of guardian in my hands, and the war?" He bowed his head and stood panting there for a moment.

Dumbledore observed him in silence. Harry longed to lift his face and see how he took this, but he thought it would be best-suited to the part of a sullen teenager if he stared at the ground, so he did that.

"I had thought," Dumbledore said, voice as mild as ever, "that you had agreed to let Professor Snape be guardian to you while you learned Occlumency."

"I did think that," Harry said honestly. Given that he had to practice the Siren Song on another strong Occlumens in preparation for trapping Voldemort, Snape was his best choice. Harry had looked at Malfoy's Occlumency again last night, but it was worthless, like scraps of tissue. "But then Minister Scrimgeour contacted me, and offered—a different option."

"Will you still accept training from Professor Snape?"

Harry snorted. "I doubt he'd let it go, sir." And I need to refine the Siren Song on him, since it's a technique I can't practice on my own, and it's absolutely imperative that I have it perfect in five weeks. If he can teach me anything else useful, then I might as well learn that, too.

"No, he won't." Dumbledore surveyed him once more, then pronounced, "I see no harm in letting you have a bit of the freedom you need for now, Harry. Just remember that this is not to be abused."

Harry looked up and grinned at him. I fooled him. He thinks my rebellion nothing deep or serious, just a flash of willfulness, and he's confident that the adults can still control me, or he wouldn't have granted me even this much. The thought that he wanted to commit suicide to kill Voldemort and repay Sirius would probably not cross Dumbledore's mind now, Harry thought; there was simply no trace of it in the disguise Harry had adopted.

"Thank you, sir," he said, and then lunged forward as if overcome by emotion and gave Dumbledore a swift hug. When he trotted back to the school, he pretended to wipe his eyes.

And that's one less person to constantly dodge on the road to the end.

Severus had had a chance to cool his emotions in deep water and think calmly about what he would do next. That was the only thing that made him able to listen to Albus with a stoic face.

"I fear Harry is plotting something drastic, Severus. I do not know what, but this break with the Order reads as too planned to me, though Harry tried to convince me it was sudden." A soft sigh, and Albus took a sip of tea from the cup that sat beside him. Fawkes trilled, an oddly neutral sound, as if the phoenix did not know what to think. "I do not know how he can think to set himself up in political independence, as he has few contacts or allies outside the school and is not yet of age, but perhaps he has resources we do not know about."

I would not doubt it.

The image of Potter's laughter and wink at him—winking , of all things—at breakfast came to mind. They had enraged him at first, which was why he had been so incautious about approaching the Minister. He had quickly been reminded that to lose one's step in the political arena was equivalent to cutting open a vein in tropical water and expecting no sharks to find it.

But he would get little done if he lost his temper. Black had escaped punishment two years ago because he could not control himself. He must not seem too eager to achieve his goal: to subordinate Potter completely, to have a web of iron drawn around the boy's chest that would dictate when and how he breathed.

Oh, yes, he might have deluded himself with fancies that Potter would actually apply effort to Occlumency without outside pressure, and become a model student and a pet of sorts. Those ideas had been dashed the moment Potter looked at him, eyes far too wild for anyone so meek. Perhaps he really hadn't planned on taking another guardian on Sunday, when Severus found him with the Medea's Draught; perhaps Scrimgeour really had offered him an unexpected chance at freedom, and he had snatched it. But it did mark Potter as different, yet again, from what Severus had thought he was. He was canny as well as cunning, able to act quickly as well as make long, slow plans.

One person rarely united the two traits. Severus prided himself on doing so. That he had not seen Potter was another like himself was—

Enraging. But he would achieve nothing in the middle of a fury. Slow, steady, calm, and when he closed the trap, it must not open against Potter's struggles, any more than a basilisk's jaws would.

"I'd like you to find out what Harry is hiding if you can, Severus."

Severus had expected that. From the moment he told Albus about Potter's Occlumency and what he intended to do to be sure the boy practiced at it, Albus had hinted that he should use the new closeness to direct "the dear boy" back to the proper way. He might have been able to do it already if he had not been so careless, so smugly confident that he'd won.

Now, he was not. Now, he knew Potter for what he was, and he would apply all his concentration to downing and controlling him.

"Of course, Albus," he said smoothly. "It must be something drastic, and therefore important to the Order, if it can involve such a change in him." It was not much of an effort to make his own self-interest sound like concern. Albus was already half-convinced that he had a soft spot for the brat since Severus had made his offer of guardianship. "One would almost call him Slytherin."

Albus chuckled.

Severus cocked an eyebrow and stared hard at the old wizard. He would have expected laughter in response to his pronouncement, given the Headmaster's deep conviction that Potter was the perfect Gryffindor, but this sounded…rueful.

"The Sorting Hat did consider your House for him at one point," Albus admitted. "Harry didn't like the idea, and he managed to argue his way into Gryffindor."

Severus felt a flash of deep regret that he'd never known that. If he had, he would have dogged Potter's steps closely from his first year, and this emergence of Slytherin traits would not have been such a surprise.

He shrugged and hid his real emotions easily, rising to his feet. "We would probably have killed each other before now," he said. "If Potter has truly matured, he can accept my instruction without hating me." The boy would have to come to him to practice the Siren Song. There was no other logical choice open to him for an Occlumens; Albus would have been an even worse selection.

And then I shall have him.

"I wish you luck, Severus."

You would not if you knew all my plans, Severus thought, as he inclined his head and left. I intend to tame the boy, oh yes, but I won't be your running dog. He insulted me, not you or the Order. In the end, he'll crouch at the end of my leash, not yours.

Of course, it would hardly do to inform Potter of this. Severus would have to grumble, but do no worse than grumble, on the surface, while he provided enough tidbits to lure the boy close. All the while, he would also have to satisfy Albus that he was truly committed to teaching Potter.

That was not such a hard task. If there was anyone in Hogwarts who had the ability to maneuver between two intelligent wizards while convincing them both he served only their interests, it was Severus Snape.