AN: I do not own Harry Potter.

To Make A Choice

There was a change in the air. It wasn't what people were expecting, but many saw it as good change.

Malfoy and Potter weren't fighting as much anymore.

Not to say that there were no fights anymore, as that would have been impossible with the high energy that the six children had put into maintaining the whole thing. However, it did mean that they made up within the day.

It also meant that information was crossing lines.

The main contenders started sharing information. Worse, as they were the main antagonists of their year, besides the general gossip and paper, their classmates were also getting into it. At first people thought that Potter had switched sides, but when the rest of the Weasleys and Longbottom as well as Zabini and both Greengrass girls joined in, doubts started on that assumption. After all, weren't Weasleys aggressively light supporting and the Greengrass family aggressively neutral? Maybe the Malfoy family was taking a more neutral stand now? Either way, it opened the way for more interactions when there was nothing of significant gossip worthy content able to be shared for people to start associating.

There was a new defense professor, the Senior Undersecretary of Minister Fudge. As it seemed that all the excitement of each year happened around the DADA professor, Harry and his close friends were already keeping an eye on her. Besides making a threatening sounding speech about making the school experience more bland, "what else do you call 'pruning practices that should be pruned'?", she seemed to be giving the other teachers headaches by interfering in their classes. She also handed out lots of detentions. Hermione suggested that the only way that she could be doing that was to be using a time turner in order to have the time to mark, unless she was giving each person the same grade all the time. Either way, she was already on their radar for trouble.

Severus Snape decided that this year was going to be horrible. It seemed the most reasonable teachers since Harry Potter started caused the most problem. Remus Lupin, who was a well trained teacher that taught well, ended up almost biting him if not worse at the end of the year, and almost lost his soul to dementors as well. Mad-Eye Moody, who was an ex-Auror and friend of the Headmaster, ended up being a hidden Death Eater that was trying to kill Potter, so he was once again forced to step in to save Potter's life, and also succeeded in getting Potter to portkey to the location of the Dark Lord. Quirinus Quirrel, who was the former Muggle Studies teacher but had gone on a personal leave and come back to teach DADA, had ended up being the host of the Dark Lord and trying to kill Potter multiple times that year; Severus also realized it was the year he ended up threatening the Dark Lord multiple times and aggressively keeping him away from the Stone, though he did end up failing eventually. The one fop who ended up teaching, Lockheart, only ended up being part of the mess of the year as an aside that quickly neutralized himself as a threat. With a Ministry employee who had managed to get into some sort of higher status, there was no way that this was not going to end up worse with him and the DADA teacher in the thick of it.

At first, he thought that the lack of fighting between the two trios in Harry's year was good news. He had come across them leaving their little get-togethers, and hadn't really wanted to bother with it. However, with Potter's ability to end up in the thick of it as well, he decided that meant that he should try to see what was going on, since his Snakes were there as well. It was worse than he thought.

"So Draco, going onto the former topic, has your Dad talked ever about what was going on in the end with Voldemort? From what I've seen, he's not quite sane, but some of his targets that we've heard of were all strategically sound. What are your thoughts about that?"

"Yeah, he's got to have done some really bad stuff if none of the former crowd are still unwilling to talk about him. However, did you know that the, you know, set up of the Dark Side was around before Voldemort was around? He just led them, but most of the organizational structure of the Dark families stayed the same."

Ron spoke up, "So he was utilizing others' strategies then. If he had any idea that he was going around the bend, that would have been smart."

Hermione nodded, "I mean, he avoided the pitfall in fairy tales where the Evil Queen orders the Huntsman to kill the Princess, but the Huntsman has the Princess hide and hides the fact that she isn't dead to the Evil Queen, or in some stories, raises her himself. Harry wasn't raised by you guys, so he avoided that., but ended up blown up again."

Astoria thought out loud, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Oedipus both have that, and there's got to be others that I'm not thinking of right now."

Hermione added, "Oh, and the story of Krishna! I heard some of it from the Patel twins."

"So we've got international context with the idea, so if he traveled at all, it would become a well known theme in moral tales so he would know not to do that."

"Well, I think I know why Voldemort went after my family himself. He's got to have found my family a personal threat. I mean, the other ones I know of are the Bones family, Ron's uncles, and Neville's parents."

Draco made a face, "Yeah, there were others, but those were some of the big ones. One I have no idea why was Mom's cousin. Regulus just disappeared one day, and all we're sure of is that it was connected to the Dark Lord somehow. I think that is why Mom has never really liked him as long as I've known."

"I can see that affecting someone's loyalty. Hey, so your family member was just murdered by the leader that you're both following."

Faces were made all around the circle.

"Well, you know our old club was very much in the front lines, but from what we've learned, is that our group leaned heavily into Fidelius charms. That, and this time round we're fixing the mistake of everyone living in separately. We had a lot of people die alone last time. We haven't the man power to field large battles, but from what went down, your side isn't either."

"Yeah, but our side is still living in Azkaban, while your side is dead."

"Why do we have to have sides?"

"What?"

"Harry..."

"Potter."

"You can't just..."

"No."

"What are you getting at, Potter?" asked Draco Malfoy above the confusion.

"Well, you see, we're here, and we're not fighting anymore, at least for now."

"And?"

"So, do you all know how the Dark Lord and I both died at the end of last year?"

"No?"

"Wait, that happened?"

"Please keep going."

"Well, Malfoy, you know how your Dad took Cedric and I to St. Mungo's-"

"And had to be treated himself..."

"Well, that happened because we fought and we had managed to hunker down with sufficient covering, but since there was so many of us, we took your Dad as hostage, which is how he got injured, and as we were leaving with your Dad, Voldemort got me with the killing curse again, and somehow I lit us both on fire, but because of how dry it was, it caught the rest on fire rather quickly. Your dad woke up, offered to take us to St. Mungo's, and had to promise us that he wasn't just going to take us hostage himself before we gave him his wand back, and I think you know the rest."

"So you guys are the reason he wore high collars for such a long time this summer."

"Yep, and I'm not really sorry about it."

Draco grimaced, "I guess that's alright. I mean, you were fighting."

"Yeah," answered Harry, who had decided that this was so awkward he had to fiddle with his shoe laces.

This awkwardness was picked up by Hermione, who said, "Now the point that we were discussing was...?"

"Well, this time, I once again came back in my body and the Dark Lord burned to death. Since it was ten years last time before he came back, we'll all be adults if it takes the same amount of time again. I'll be twenty-five. Your dad will be in his late fourties if not older, and he's one of the younger ones. Theoretically, we can keep Voldemort dead until all the Death Eaters die of old age."

Ron spoke up, "Yeah, but mate, Voldemort wasn't in Great Britain until the year you started at Hogwarts. What's the likelihood of him staying out of the country that long this time when you're here? I'm guessing not likely."

Severus Snape had come across that conversation. He had not listened to the whole thing, and Draco had asked him some questions later with providing him this conversation and others as context, but he had come to some startling knowledge and conclusions. He had scolded the young man, and also given him a muffling spell to use when having those types of conversations so that nobody heard who wasn't supposed to. Either way, he had to do something with that knowledge.

Snape was loyal to both sides. In a war, with at least one leader performing legilimency on his followers, he could not show less than loyalty and survive. His first loyalty had been to the Dark, after breaking the friendship with Lily. It made him very lonely, but that hadn't kept him from not reaching out to at least one person on both sides towards the end. On the light side, it was Albus Dumbledore. On the dark side, it was Lucius Malfoy, the unheralded tactician of the Dark Army. Of those that survived without going into Azkaban, only three did so without following what he designed, and he was one of them. One had recently died, and the other was once again in hiding across the globe. It was because of this loyalty that he went to tell Lord Malfoy what his son was doing with his friends, as well as debating to tell him of the other information he had come across, as well as what information to tell the Headmaster.

They sat in his office, with cups of Earl Grey sitting on the desk between them on saucers.

"So, your son has been sharing secrets with Potter, who has been sharing secrets with your son."

"Personal secrets, or other secrets?"

"Do you think I would be here if your son was confessing to be sleeping under a quilt that Narcissa sewed and that he still has a favorite toy from when he was a toddler? No, of course, it's the secrets of each side."

Lucius Malfoy sighed.

"And what are they planning?"

"Apparently, Potter has decided that if they can keep the Dark Lord from returning for ten years, your son and the others won't really have to choose sides because by then they'll be adults, and we'll be that much closer to being senile seniors."

"Aside from the fact that older Nott is still very active in his old age, so I don't think that will be an option, but I guess they're being optimistic."

"Ah, I think they're hoping that the ones like the older Nott will be out of the fight by then," grumbled Snape. He gave a sigh, "There is also the fact that the death of Regulus has also put a damper on Draco's enthusiasm to follow the Dark Lord."

Lucius snorted, "It put a damper of mine, not to mention the extreme hatred Narcissa has, and look where I was. Didn't it put a damper on yours?"

"...Yes..."

"That works. I know that I've thought you a friend, and I think there's some the other way around, other wise you wouldn't have come here, but now..."

Lucius had his wand close to hand and didn't doubt that the other man's wand was in a similar location, if not in hand with the conversation change.

"Severus there is something that I want to share with you, but I have to be sure of your loyalty to the Dark Side as a whole, even if you are against the Dark Lord."

"How can I prove this loyalty?"

"I have learned that though you hate Potter, you have interrupted attempts on his life multiple times. Why is that?"

"Lucius, as friend to friend? Can you hold your tongue?"

"Severus, you know that I can hold my tongue; I've done it multiple times. However, I take it that this is not to be shared?"

"Yes. Can you promise me that?"

"Severus, I just shared that my loyalty to the Dark Lord has not all been there since Regulus died, even if I believed both sides of what we were fighting for. You can get me killed with that. I know what was in the papers, and I was there in the cells with you when we were rounded up, and I heard what the guards and the others said. It goes both ways. We're neither of us that loyal to the Dark Lord, now what is going on?"

"I have an unbreakable vow to at least do the minimum to keep the Potter boy protected. I was trying to save Lily's life for our former friendship's sake, and that was when I started spying."

"I can imagine not really trusting the Dark Lord to keep her alive after Regulus."

"That, and she was the mother of one of the boys who could have been subject to the prophecy. But yes, half of my loyalty is to the Dark Side. If there was a way to keep with the Dark Side as well as stay loyal without crossing the death zone to protect the boy, it would be my only chance of survival. From what Draco has told me, it is no longer looking impossible."

"The Dark Lord Voldemort is insane, and we have to act now if we are not to be killed when he dies for the last time."

"What?"

"The Dark Lord has horcruxes. Potter was one before he died and resurrected, and he went into shock shortly after leaving the graveyard and blabbered about it. Death told him. This was the fourth time that he had killed him. So I did a bunch of research this summer. If he manages to kill the Dark Lord seven times, all of us that have the Dark Mark will die then and the Dark Lord will die permanently then too."

Both men took a deep breath at that.

"There is a way out, but it isn't what I would consider the greatest idea ever, and I haven't found anything else. As Potter has killed the Dark Lord three times intentionally, besides bouncing the spell once as a baby, he is eligible to claim right-of-conquest, and claim us instead."

"No. Way."

"Severus..."

"No. Way. There is no way for me to be able to bow down to Potter."

"You will have to find a way unless you want your conflicted loyalty to kill you eventually."

"Are you serious? This is not you being an idiot?"

"Indeed not."

"I thought... Potter... Oh, his mother would be laughing at me. His father would be yelling at me for daring to think of his son as a Dark Lord, let alone a dark wizard."

"This is the same choice all of us will have to make who took the mark."

"This is too big for me to come to terms with all the complications right now."

"It is huge. For this to work, we would have to teach Potter to be a dark wizard and all the social things being part of wizarding high status requires."

"He has no refinements such as that."

"You didn't."

"Yes, but you brought me to something of a standard starting from my first year. This is Potter's fifth."

"At least Potter and my son are already talking, or else this would be harder than it could be."