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Chapter Fifty—Like a Halo of Fire

Daphne stares down at the letter in her hand and doesn't lick her lips only because it would be too obvious. People are watching her from the corners of the common room, whether or not they care to make it clear.

"Daphne? What does it say?"

Daphne reaches an absent hand down to touch Astoria's shoulder. "It's from Mother and Father," she says.

Astoria shivers and winces and shrinks back while doing none of those things visibly. "I thought they were going to leave us alone," she breathes, soft as a wind on a spring morning. "I thought they didn't care."

"They had agreed without much discussion to leave us alone, yes," Daphne says, and flips over the letter to trace their signatures on the back. "But they worry about us being so close to Harry given the rumors of what he did."

"What did he do? You know that nobody tells the third-years anything."

Daphne has to acknowledge that. Astoria is learning some of the spells with the study group, and people leave her alone in Slytherin because she has Harry's protection as well as Daphne's. But she won't know the specifics that make Daphne look at the letter from their parents with something like disgust.

"Harry went to the Weasleys' house because the Dark Lord was burning it," she says, and Astoria shivers. But Daphne is determined to share the details, so she goes on. "The Dark Lord was using Fiendfyre. Harry turned the fire back on him and drove him out of his body. He's a wraith again right now, the way he was for years."

"You just—everybody knows that?"

Daphne feels a smile curl around her lips. Astoria might be young, but she's not a fool. "Well, true, no one has gone and interviewed the Dark Lord to make sure that he's assumed a completely incorporeal form. But Harry saw it happen, and I trust his understanding."

Astoria bows her head and sits thinking a little. Daphne glances at the letter again.

Whether or not you ever believe or trust us again, trust that we want our daughters alive, to continue the bloodline. Associating with someone like Potter makes that infinitely less likely. Either you will be targets of the Dark Lord, or Potter will turn his flames on you. Or both.

Daphne snorts. Mother and Father might have some reason to worry about Harry turning on them. She and Astoria never will.

"Do you think he can defeat him?"

Astoria's never asked a question in that manner before, as if she's not a child seeking reassurance but a young woman asking about the future. Daphne reaches out and clasps her sister's hand. Astoria watches her back with wide, bright eyes, and waits for the answer instead of nervously clamoring for it.

Another change.

"Yes, I do think that," Daphne says. "It's not going to be straightforward or easy, and those of us who surround Harry should help him as much as we can. But I think he can do it, Astoria." She smiles. "We chose the right person to follow."

Astoria shudders and leans her head against Daphne's chair arm for just a moment before she straightens up. Daphne almost tells her that no one is fooled; after all, Astoria is sitting on the floor by her sister's chair in the first place, an odd thing to do if she doesn't want reassurance. But in the end, she leaves her sitting there.

She might not have that much more time with her sister left, after all, if their luck in this conflict is poor.

"I hate that you left me behind."

"You know why I did."

"Yes, because my mind is broken and I'm a liability to you."

"No, because he could strike at you, Theo! He already did! I can't lose you. You know that."

Blaise pauses in the doorway of the fifth-year boys' bathroom, staring. He knows that neither Theo nor Harry would want him to overhear this, but that's precisely why he pauses and listens where he does. This is something rare, something no one else will have or experience, and he'll hold it close to him.

Sometimes he feels like Harry doesn't value him as much as Theo, and maybe that's understandable, given that Theo became a bloody leopard Animagus for him and is so valuable to Harry that Voldemort himself decided to destroy Theo's soul. But Blaise still wants to know, to be able to be close and think about things and offer help if Harry needs it.

He never, not once, thought he would have friends as close as he's made in Slytherin. He would do anything to keep those friends alive.

At the moment, Theo is standing with his arms folded and glaring at the wall behind the mirrors. Harry hovers behind him, looking distressed and resolved at the same time. He won't back off and let Theo do as he wants, then.

"You had better make sure that your plan works," Theo whispers at last. "If you're really going to kill Voldemort without me, then I'm not sure my sanity would survive anyway."

"It will work."

Blaise has never heard that tone of cool confidence in Harry's voice. He thinks that he would run the other way if he were Voldemort. Then again, Voldemort's probably not sane enough to be afraid.

And if Harry is right, he disembodied Voldemort a few days ago, so he's not going to run anywhere anyway.

Blaise withdraws to snicker at the joke. He doesn't really want Harry or Theo to know that he saw them talking, but he thinks it's a good thing he did.

If Harry does something stupid or suicidal, there's someone else who will know to keep an eye on Theo. Blaise might have to lose one of his best friends, but that doesn't mean he would take the loss of the other well.

You disembodied him.

"I hit him in the face with Fiendfyre. I assume that he became a wraith, yes. But I also assume that he'll start building a new body soon."

Silence. Harry sits in the chair that he usually uses for these talks with the leopard, in front of the fire in the common room, and watches the flames flicker and talk to each other.

Few other people would challenge his claim to this chair, anyway. Ever since the rumors spread around Slytherin about what he did to Voldemort—some from Harry's actual storytelling, and some from distorted forms of it—people have backed away, walked down different corridors to avoid him, turned around and pretended not to see him. Even the seventh-year Slytherins who were so intent on challenging him just a little while ago.

It's kind of heady, if Harry is honest.

You will not be able to do the same thing to me. I am beyond such things as Fiendfyre.

Harry laughs. "I would never presume to try Fiendfyre on you. Aren't you helping me with the sacrificial ritual that's going to protect Theo's mind?"

The shadow of the leopard prowls back and forth for a long moment. Harry watches it and says nothing. He doesn't think there's much to say. Lion is quiet on his shoulder, and the common room is quiet around them.

Do you intend to sacrifice your friend's father in this ritual to restore his sanity, or sacrifice Voldemort?

"I think I have to draw Voldemort to the site of the ritual, because he's so connected to me that there would be no way to avoid doing it. But it's Theo's father I'll sacrifice."

More silence. Harry sits there in the flickering light of the flames, and nearly doesn't spot it when the leopard leaps off the mantel and paces towards him, lips pulled back from its muzzle so that its teeth show clearly.

Harry sits there in the midst of the silence created by his own pounding heart, and knows what kind of magic he'll use if the leopard attacks.

But it doesn't. It halts in front of him and swishes its tail as it gazes at him. Harry stares back, and the moments pour and drip like syrup.

Then the leopard fades, and Harry leans back in the chair and closes his eyes and breathes.

Good-bye, Dad.

Ron can't speak the words. In fact, almost all words have been locked inside him since Harry came to tell him and the twins and Ginny about Dad's death. He's spoken enough to reassure Mum that he's okay.

But how can he be, when he has to stand in front of his father's grave and watch Mum lower him into it, wrapped up in thick folds of cloth? Mum said Dad was so badly burned that she didn't want any of her children to remember him like that.

Ron should have told her that he wanted to see Dad, one last time. It didn't matter what he looked like. Ron would have known Dad anywhere. And if he had to look at burns, it would only make him more determined to fight Voldemort.

Form the strained look on Mum's face, though, Ron knows she doesn't want to hear that. So he stands there, and Mum finally leaves off the Levitation and Dad's body settles into his grave, the stone standing between his father's and one older brother's, Gawain, who died in the war.

Voldemort took my dad and my uncle and Mum's brothers, Ron thinks, and the cloudy day isn't gloomier than the throb in his heart. Who else is he going to take? Why can't someone do something to stop him?

Part of Ron knows that isn't fair. After all, Harry is working harder than Fiendfyre to stop Voldemort.

But part of him also doesn't care. He wants to stop Voldemort. He wants to make Voldemort pay for what he did, for just killing and killing and never caring and never stopping. Even when everybody thought he stopped, because Harry stopped him when he was a baby, he never actually did.

Ron's hands are balls of pain from how hard he's clenching them by the time Mum steps back from the grave, her eyes weary. She turns and faces them. "Does anyone want to say anything?" she whispers.

"I'm sorry you didn't get to see me get married, Dad." Bill's voice is soft and distant. "I'm sorry you died so young."

Ginny, who has been standing silent as the headstone at Ron's side, abruptly bursts into tears and grabs him. Ron holds her. He doesn't think that he can cry the way she's doing, but at least he can offer his sister some comfort.

"You were the best, Dad." Charlie has tears in his eyes, too. "You never scolded me for going to study dragons. You were incredible…"

"You had a sense of humor," says Fred.

"A great sense of humor," says George.

"I don't…understand."

Percy's voice is halting. Ron looks at him and says nothing. Percy came back for Dad's funeral, but, well, he's been spending time with the Ministry for the last year and he sent letters doubting that Voldemort is back. The attacks could have been from Death Eaters, he argued. He supports the Minister. Ron knows that. It's not really Percy's fault that the first time he got evidence Voldemort is really back is when he burned their father to death.

Ron kind of hates him for it anyway.

"You don't understand what, dear?" Mum is trying to sound sympathetic, Ron knows, but there's an undertone of—something other than grief in her voice. There has been since Ron and the rest got to come home for the funeral.

"It's—no one is talking about You-Know-Who to the extent that I thought they would!" Percy almost wails. "There were those articles in the paper about his true name, and I know that Headmistress McGonagall got a construct owl from him, and there are all sorts of people saying that he might attack Hogwarts…"

"But life hasn't changed in the way you thought it would," Mum whispers.

Percy nods. Ron has to look away when he sees how miserable his brother is. Maybe he doesn't hate Percy after all.

"This war looks different from the one I fought in, yes." Mum reaches out and gathers Percy close, rocking him a little. Ron has to look away again. It's not that he's embarrassed, not exactly. It just feels like the sort of thing that he shouldn't see. "He has fewer Death Eaters this time. He's more recently returned from death."

"And Dad's dead."

"In the last war, it was Gideon and Fabian." Mum's voice thickens for a second, and Ron feels a pang of sadness for the uncles he never got to meet. "But yes, it's always someone."

"It's stupid. I don't want there to be a war."

Percy sounds a lot younger than Ron at the moment, but Ron doesn't make fun of him for it, and Mum just rocks him. Ron and Ginny stand staring at Dad's grave, and Ron doesn't get the urge to say a few words, even though Bill and Charlie and Fred and George all did.

His words are locked in his throat. His throat is burning, and so are his hands, which got folded into fists again after Ginny stepped away from him, wiping her face.

The next time he speaks, Ron thinks, he'll be uttering a curse that will help in some way towards defeating Voldemort. Helping Harry practice in their study group, or teaching someone else to defend themselves, if nothing else.

Ron is going to fight in this war, and maybe those are his words, after all.

I love you, Dad. I'll avenge you.

"I ask that you allow me to attend the ritual in which you will attempt to restore Mr. Nott's mind."

Harry goes as still as a wild thing and glances at Severus with the eyes of a wild thing, too. Severus folds his hands in his sleeves and stands still. They are in the middle of his office, where Harry has been practicing with the kind of healing potion that would raise too many questions if he was brewing it in the open.

Severus thinks he has to accept, at this point, that Harry has no intention of trying to pass his OWLS. Because of what has happened, Severus does not think he can blame him. The exams will still be there, if they survive this war. Harry can take them over the summer, or even when he's older.

"Why, Severus?" Severus expected Harry's voice to be hard or defensive, but instead, it's gentle in a terrible way. "I know that you would want to intervene, and you know that intervening in a ritual usually goes badly."

Severus meets Harry's eyes evenly. He can't exactly speak the truth, which is that he has ever intention of intervening if Harry tries to sacrifice himself. Severus would become the sacrifice instead, and he thinks—he hopes—that his own desire to see Harry survive and be happy would suffice to heal Mr. Nott, even though Severus is not his father.

You do not even pretend to avoid that word anymore.

"I cannot accept your going into a danger that I know about without trying to accompany you," Severus says simply, and that is also true. He didn't know that Harry would rush to the Burrow to confront Voldemort with Fiendfyre, or he would have tried to come along. "We have been dreading this moment, this ritual, for weeks now. Please let me be there."

"All right."

Severus blinks. He expected it to take much longer to convince Harry, and now it feels as if he took a last step and landed on another staircase. "You—will permit it?"

"Yes." Harry puts down the stirring rod, although Severus wants to hiss at him to keep the stirring going, or the healing potion will be ruined. Then he realizes that the potion is churning and bubbling, and was probably already ruined. "Sirius wants to be there, too."

"Can you trust him not to act rashly?"

"Can I trust you?"

Severus tightens his hold on his temper, since what he wants to say is that he is not rash, not like Black. "Yes."

"Then I can trust him."

Severus makes an irritable motion with his hand. He knows that Black is planning the same kind of intervention he is, and he can hardly tell the truth about it. "Very well."

Harry abruptly walks up to him, and Severus blinks before he can think about it. Harry is staring at him with a bright, soft, compassionate expression, and he reaches out and puts his hands on Severus's shoulders, as though Severus is the one who needs reassurance.

"It will be all right," Harry breathes. "I have more plans than you think I do. Better plans. I promise, it will be all right."

Severus has seen what Harry considers "all right." Anything, as long as the damage falls on him, and not others.

It costs Severus nothing, however, to smile and lie through his teeth. "I believe you."

And it seems to cost Harry nothing to smile at him.

Tarquinius slips out of bed. Even such an action as that was once beyond him, unless he had his mistress's permission.

Lyassa.

Tarquinius hates her, and he hates Harry Potter. He hates the Dark Lord for leaving him in this position. He hates everyone who helped Harry Potter.

But that hatred pales next to the loathing he feels for his own son, as he stands in the bathroom staring into the mirror, and feels the noose of Lyassa's compulsion tighten around his neck, calling him back.

Theodore.

I am coming.