"Everywhere in these days people have, in their mockery, ceased to understand that the true security is to be found in social solidarity rather than in isolated individual effort. But this terrible state of affairs must inevitably have an end, and all will suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated from one another. It will be the spirit of the time, and people will marvel that they have sat so long in darkness without seeing the light... But, until then, we must keep the banner flying. Sometimes even if he has to do it alone, and his conduct seems to be crazy, a man must set an example, and so draw other souls out of their solitude, and spur them to some act of brotherly love, that the great idea may not die."
--Fydor Dostoevsky, "The Brothers Karamozov"

~*~*~*~

Harry hunched over to obscure his face and stuffed his hands in his pockets as he wandered aimlessly through the castle halls. He didn't really want to see or talk to anyone, and he hadn't yet found a new bolt hole. He'd been walking for what seemed like forever, but he kept stumbling across other students. He felt his ears grow warm as he thought about a few of the... private goodbyes he'd accidentally spied upon.

It was Sunday. The Leaving Feast was to take place that night, and the students would all be leaving the next day. Harry had been accosted by Professor Snape and informed that he would not yet be leaving the castle, and would be moving down to the dungeons right after the rest of the students left. He wasn't looking forward to any of it.

He didn't want to attend the Leaving Feast because it meant that term was over. While it would be a little easier with the rest of the students gone, he was dreading moving in with Snape. Harry figured that if he were lucky, he'd get put in another cupboard. After all, Snape hated Harry, didn't he?

Harry didn't know. If only Sirius were there... But he knew better than to wish for the impossible. Sirius was gone, and would never be coming back. If only he'd never suggested the trap, which, as far as he could tell hadn't worked anyway, his godfather would still be alive. Sure, it had forced Fudge to admit Voldemort's return, but as far as he could see, it hadn't done much else.

After looking up and down the deserted corridor to make sure he was alone, Harry sat cross-legged on the floor. His mind wandered back to where it had been stubbornly stuck since Snape had informed him of the news—that Snape was to be his new guardian. Glumly, he wondered if it was too late to go back to Privet Drive. At least he knew what to expect there.

Echoing footsteps interrupted his musings. He looked up to see a familiar blonde figure coming towards him. She was carrying a stack of parchment under one arm. “Hello,” Luna said vaguely.

“How come you're wandering around here?” he asked.

“Well, the feast is tonight and I've lost most of my possessions,” said Luna serenely. “People take them and hide them, you know. But as it's the last night, I really do need them back, so I've been putting up signs. I'm on my way to put up another now.”

She handed him a piece of parchment. Harry glanced at it and sure enough, it was a list of all Luna's missing books and clothes, with a plea for their return.

An odd feeling rose up in Harry – an emotion quite different from the grief and worry that had filled him since Sirius's untimely demise. It was a few moments before he realized that he was feeling sorry for Luna.

“How come people hide your stuff?” he asked her, frowning.

“Oh... well...” she shrugged. “I think they think I'm a bit odd, you know. Some people call me 'Loony' Lovegood, actually.” Luna sat down next to him and arranged her signs in her lap.

The feeling of pity intensified rather painfully. “That's no reason for them to take your things,” he said flatly. “D'you want help finding them?”

“Oh, no,” she said, smiling at him. “They'll come back, they always do in the end. It was just that I wanted to pack tonight since we're leaving tomorrow. Anyway... why aren't you packing?”

Harry shrugged. “Don't know where I'm going,” he said. “Can't go back to the Dursleys.”

Luna nodded in acceptance. “That man the Death Eaters killed was your godfather, wasn't he? Ginny told me.”

Harry nodded curtly, but found that he didn't really mind hearing Luna talk about Sirius. “I was going to go live with him,” he said, a large lump rising in his throat. He had just remembered that she, too, could see thestrals.

“Why aren't you going back to your relatives?” she asked quietly.

Harry bent his head to study the floor. “It's not a big deal or anything,” he said hesitantly. “It's just that Professor Snape found out how much they hate me... and that how they treat me sort of reflects that and he turned them in.”

Luna was quiet for a few minutes. “When I was little,” she ventured, “something like that happened to a friend of mine.”

Uncomfortable, Harry changed the subject. “Have you...” he began. “I mean, who... has anyone you've known ever died?”

“Yes,” said Luna simply. “My Mother. She was a quite extraordinary witch, you know, but she did like to experiment and one of her spells when rather badly wrong one day. I was nine.”

“I'm sorry,” Harry mumbled.

“Yes, it was rather horrible,” said Luna conversationally. “I still feel very sad about it sometimes. But I've still got Dad. And anyway, it's not as though I'll never see Mum again, is it?”

“Er—isn't it?” Harry mumbled.

She shook her head in disbelief. “Dad says that the people who love us never really leave us, and that they'll be waiting for us after we die. I rather like that, so I choose to believe it.” Luna was smiling slightly.

Harry glanced over at her before studying the floor again. It was close to what Ginny had said, and even rather close to the Headmaster's words a few years before. He wasn't sure he believed it, but he did rather like the idea. “All right,” he said slowly. “Maybe you're right, it's just--”

“You miss him,” she said. “And that's all right, too. So who will you be staying with now?”

Harry bit his lip. “Professor Snape is my new guardian,” he said softly. “I guess they didn't want to chance me ending up with a Death Eater or something if I went into care.”

“The funny thing about being thought odd,” Luna began, “is that people don't notice you as much,” she smiled benignly. “I've heard that your mother and Professor Snape used to be quite close friends.”

Harry looked at her sharply. “Really?” he asked.

Luna simply blinked a little. “Oh, yes. From what I understand, he can be quite nice when he wants to be.”

Harry bit the inside of his cheek. He wanted to protest, but an irritating little voice inside his head reminded him that he didn't know who any of his professors were outside of class. For all he knew, they could have radically different personalities when not carrying out their school and Order-related duties. Part of why he was dreading the holiday was because of that fact—he didn't know what to expect from Snape anymore. The man had become even more of an enigma than when he was just the evil potions master who lived to see Harry expelled.

“Are you sure you don't want me to help you look for your stuff?” he asked, rather than talk about Snape.

“Oh no,” said Luna. “No, I think I'll just go back to my common room and wait for it all to turn up... It always does in the end. Well, have a nice holiday, Harry.”

“Yeah… yeah, you too.”

She walked away from him, and as he watched her go, he found that the terrible weight on his chest loosened slightly. Not much, but a little. Perhaps the holiday wouldn't be so bad, after all.

~*~*~*~

Harry stood beside the gargoyle outside Dumbledore's office. “Tangtastics,” he said softly, then watched as it sprang aside. Slowly, dreading what was to come, he stepped onto the moving staircase and when it reached the top, knocked on the door.

The door swung open. “Come in, Harry,” Dumbledore said.

“Have a seat, my boy.”

Harry glanced around the room, not really wanting to be there. He'd been waylaid at lunch, however, and asked to come and see the Headmaster. His stomach felt as if it had been tied into knots, and the last person he wanted to see was Professor Dumbledore. A small part of him felt that it was Dumbledore's fault that Sirius was dead. Just thinking about it made him angry—Sirius should not have been at the Ministry that night!

Yes, Harry had suggested setting the trap, but it was Dumbledore who planned it, Dumbledore's orders that had sent the Order of the Phoenix there, and Dumbledore who hadn't managed to keep Sirius safe at Grimmauld Place! He clenched his fists tightly as he made his way to a squashy armchair. Professor Snape was seated in the one next to it, and he felt oddly comforted by the older wizard's presence.

Harry sat down in the armchair with a muffled thump, his fists still clenched tight as he hung on to his anger, unable to let it go. He glanced over at Snape and the man inclined his head slightly. It was almost as if he'd come just to make sure that Harry was all right. “Professor McGonagall said you wanted to see me, Headmaster?” he said neutrally.

Harry wished he wasn't there. He desperately wished that, even if it were just for one moment, that he wasn't himself. He knew it was futile, but he wished it anyway. Startled, he almost jerked back when Snape gently laid his hand on Harry's arm, but he stopped himself. Snape kept his promises, and he had promised not to hurt Harry.

“You will be pleased to know,” Dumbledore said quietly. “That there were no other casualties on our side, Harry. The few injured have been released from St. Mungo's, and the Minister is admitting Voldemort's return.”

Harry glanced at Professor Snape for confirmation, then looked at the floor. Snape had told him the truth more often than not, and that was more than he could say for Dumbledore at the moment.

“I know how you are feeling, Harry,” said Dumbledore very quietly.

“No, you don't,” said Harry, his voice suddenly loud and strong. White-hot anger leapt inside him. Dumbledore knew nothing about how he felt; he couldn't!

Snape's hand moved up to his shoulder and gave him a brief squeeze. The slight contact almost emboldened him; he felt as if he had someone there for him for the first time ever; as much as he'd loved Sirius, his fugitive status made it hard for him to be around much. Harry shut his eyes tightly, ignoring Dumbledore to the best of his ability. His godfather was dead. Once again, he was an orphan, a burden of no real importance to anyone.

“There is no shame in what you are feeling, Harry,” said Dumbledore's voice. “On the contrary… the fact that you can feel pain like this is your greatest strength.”

Sirius's death hurt horribly, but Harry had managed to push that aside. White hot anger licked at his insides, filling up the emptiness, banishing the worry and fear that had been consuming him. It filled him with a desire to hurt someone, to lash out at the cause of his pain and the Headmaster was a convenient target.

“My greatest strength, is it?” said Harry, his voice shaking from suppressed emotion. He darted a glance back at Snape, then determinedly stared at a blank space on the wall. “You haven't got a clue… You don't know…”

“What don't I know?” said Dumbledore calmly.

It was too much. Harry clenched his fists tightly, trying to stop himself from flying off the handle and destroying the man's office. “I don't want to talk about how I feel, all right?”

“Harry, suffering like this proves that you are still a man! This pain is part of being human--”

“THEN - I – DON'T – WANT – TO – BE – HUMAN!” Harry roared, clenching his hands convulsively around the arms of the chair. Some of the silver instruments on the spindle-legged table nearby started to rattle alarmingly. One imploded, shattering into a hundred shiny pieces. Several of the pictures let out yells of anger and fright, and the portrait of Armando Dippet said, “Really!”

“I DON'T CARE!” Harry yelled at them as a lunascope joined the first instrument in imploding, the pieces flying towards the fireplace. “I'VE HAD ENOUGH, I'VE SEEN ENOUGH, I WANT OUT, I WANT IT TO END, I DON'T CARE ANYMORE --”

More devices started to break, some cracking the more fragile pieces whilst others simply pulled themselves apart. The table beside him joined them, its legs suddenly falling off.

“You do care,” Dumbledore said mildly. He made no move to try and stop the accidental magic that was currently destroying his office. “You care so much you feel as if you will bleed to death with the pain of it.”

Harry barely noticed the death glare that Snape shot at the Headmaster. “I – DON'T!” he screamed. He felt as if his throat would tear from the force of the sound, and for a moment, he wanted to hurt Dumbledore too, to tear him in half like a piece of Muggle notebook paper.

“Oh yes, you do,” said Dumbledore, still more calmly. “You have now lost your mother, your father, been abused by those who were supposed to protect you, and you have lost the closest thing to a parent you have ever known. To top it all off, your most hated professor has now become your guardian. Of course you care.”

Fury burned in Harry's heart. He tried to yell more, but the words wouldn't come. Dimly, he felt Snape's hand leave his shoulder. “With all due respect, Headmaster,” Snape's voice said, “sod off.” Snape left his chair and knelt in front of Harry.

He desperately looked away, barely containing his rage. The picture frames adorning the walls began to rattle alarmingly.

“Harry.” Long, cool fingers inserted themselves under his chin and forced him to look up. “Look at me,” Snape said gently. “I know you're angry, but I think your little magical temper tantrum has destroyed enough today.”

Part of him wanted to take offense at the professor's words, but he couldn't. Harry flushed a bit in shame as Snape continued to speak. “I'm not saying that you should apologize for being furious—it's only natural. But I do believe that you should calm down.”

Snape brought his other hand up and ran his thumb over Harry's scar. “Breathe for me,” he coaxed. “That's right,” he said approvingly as Harry complied. “Big, deep breaths.”

Slowly, Harry's anger, fear and sadness returned to a more manageable level. Black eyes studied him for a moment before Professor Snape stood up and returned to his chair. Harry took another deep breath as Dumbledore began to speak again.

“You have every right to blame me, Harry,” he said softly. “I was the one who sent you to the Dursleys. I was the one who didn't tell you what you needed to know and spent the year ignoring you in hopes that it would throw Voldemort off track. It was my decision to use Voldemort's trap against him, and I also allowed Sirius to go to the Ministry to protect you.”

“Why did you, then?” Harry asked around the lump in his throat.

“I was trying to protect you,” the Headmaster said softly. “I sent you to the Dursleys because of Petunia's blood connection to your mother—as long as you could call her house home, your mother's sacrifice would continue to protect you from Voldemort and his followers. After you came here, you only had to return there once a year to renew the protections, and you would be safe.”

Harry clenched his jaw tightly before forcing the words out. “Did you know how they treated me?” he asked.

Dumbledore shook his head sadly. “I knew that they had not treated you as well as I would have liked,” he admitted. “Five years ago when you first came here, you were neither as happy nor as well-nourished as I had hoped under the circumstances, but you were alive and healthy. With the threat of Voldemort and his supporters hanging over your head, I thought the fact that you were not a pampered little prince was perhaps the best we could do.”

“What about Sirius?” Harry whispered. “I was going to live with him.”

If anything, sorrow was more deeply etched in Dumbledore's face than before. “He loved you more than his own life,” he answered softly. “He was chafing over staying at Grimmauld Place, especially after he'd finished the surprise he'd been working on for you.”

A melancholy smile flitted over the Headmaster's face. He drew a sheaf of papers from his desk and handed them to Harry. “He had hoped to be here himself to have you sign these, my boy.”

Harry looked at the parchments and frowned a little. “Adoption papers?” he questioned.

The Headmaster nodded. “He wanted to make sure you knew you belonged with him,” he said quietly. “And he knew that he might not survive the war and wanted to make sure that when this was all over, you could disappear if you wanted to.”

Harry bit his lip. Fat lot of good that was when Voldemort was still around. “He didn't have to,” he muttered.

Dumbledore gave him a gentle smile. “Sirius has been your legal and magical guardian for a long time, Harry,” he said. “Because you were so young when your parents died, his magic helped ground your accidental magic when you were little. Magically, you are his son; an adoption simply formalizes the arrangement.”

It hurt. For a few moments, Harry was only cognizant of the pain of it all. He accepted a quill from the Headmaster and signed his name in the correct blanks on the forms. Now, if he ever truly wanted to disappear, Orion Pyxis Black could make an appearance.

“Congratulations, Mr. Potter,” Snape's voice interrupted his thoughts. “You have just prevented the Black fortune from falling into the Dark Lord's hands.”

Harry glanced over at his professor, and was surprised to see a slight smile flit over the man's face. After a moment, he decided that he must have been imagining things. He stood up and headed over to the window. Fawkes trilled softly and popped over to perch on the windowsill.

The phoenix sang quietly. Harry's throat constricted sharply, his grief surfacing with the phoenix song. The song changed slightly, almost as if the bird were singing him a lullaby. Gently, he stroked Fawkes, drawing comfort from the soft feathers and the song.

Dumbledore started to speak, but Fawkes laid his head on Harry's shoulder, seemingly stopping the Headmaster. Fawkes sang softly into Harry's ear and spread his wings over the child.

“I have never seen him behave that way with anyone other than myself,” he murmured.

Severus snorted. “You love the boy, Headmaster; everyone on the staff knows it. Obviously, your phoenix does as well.”

“And that is why I have failed him,” Dumbledore said softly.

Harry carefully gathered Fawkes up and turned around, all-but oblivious to the bird's squawk of protest. “The boy would appreciate it if you didn't talk like he wasn't here,” he said angrily. He stalked back over to his chair and sat down, careful not to further jostle Fawkes.

Fawkes rubbed his head against Harry's cheek and crooned softly to him as Dumbledore continued. “I had a glorious plan, Harry. I thought it would enable you to grow up away from fame and have a normal childhood. I couldn't fathom that your family would mistreat you. I didn't think that life would be easy there with the absence of magic, but I hoped that they would treat you as their own son.”

Harry shot a glare at the Headmaster, before turning most of his attention to petting Fawkes and gently scratching under the phoenix's beak. “Obviously, they didn't,” he said curtly. “I wouldn't want to be like Dudley, anyway.”

The expression on Dumbledore's face said that he would like to pursue that line of thought, but he continued with what he had been saying. “Five years ago,” he began. “When you arrived, you were as normal a boy as I could have hoped for, given the circumstances. Thus far, my plan was working well.

“And then... well, you will remember the events of your first year at Hogwarts quite as clearly as I do. You rose magnificently to the challenge that faced you, and sooner – much sooner – than I had anticipated, you found yourself face-to-face with Voldemort. You survived again. You did more. You delayed his return to full power and strength. You fought a man's fight. I was... prouder of you than I can say.”

Harry glanced at Professor Snape. The man was scowling. “Hogwarts was supposed to be safe,” he muttered. “That bastard-son-of-a-Muggle should never have been able to get in.”

Dumbledore waved his hand as if to silence Professor Snape, then continued. “Yet there was a flaw in this wonderful plan of mine,” said Dumbledore. “An obvious flaw that I knew, even then, might be the undoing of it all. And yet, knowing how important it was that my plan should succeed, I told myself that I would not permit this flaw to ruin it. I alone could prevent this, so I alone must be strong. And here was the first test, as you lay in the hospital wing, weak from your struggle with Voldemort.”

“I don't understand what you're trying to say,” said Harry.

“Don't you remember asking me, as you lay in the hospital wing, why Voldemort had tried to kill you as a baby?”

Harry nodded.

“Ought I have told you then?”

Harry stared into blue eyes and said nothing, but his heart was racing again.

“You do not see the flaw in the plan yet? No... perhaps not. Well, as you know, I decided not to answer you. Eleven, I told myself, was much too young to know. I had never intended to tell you when you were eleven. The knowledge would be too much at such a young age.

“I should have recognized the danger signs then. I should have asked myself why I did not feel more disturbed that you had already asked me the question to which I knew, one day, I must give a terrible answer. I should have recognized that I was too happy to think that I did not have to do it on that particular day... You were too young, much too young.

“And so we entered your second year of Hogwarts. And once again you met challenges that even grown wizards have never faced. Once again you acquitted yourself beyond your wildest dreams. You did not ask me again, however, why Voldemort had left that mark on you. We discussed your scar, oh yes... We came very, very close to the subject. Why did I not tell you everything?

“Well, it seemed to me that twelve was after all, hardly better than eleven to receive such information. I allowed you to leave my presence, bloodstained, exhausted but exhilarated, and I felt a twinge of unease that I ought, perhaps, have told you then, it was swiftly silenced. You were still so young, you see, and I could not find it in me to spoil that night of triumph....

“Do you see, Harry? Do you see the flaw in my brilliant plan now? I had fallen into the trap I had foreseen, that I had told myself I could avoid, that I must avoid.”

“I don't--”

“I cared about you too much,” said Dumbledore simply. “I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects fools who love to act.

“Is there a defense? I defy anyone who as watched you as I have – and I have watched you more closely than you have imagined -- not to want to save you more pain than you had already suffered. What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and how you were alive, and well, and happy? I never dreamed that I would have such a person on my hands.

“Your third and fourth years, I did much the same. I could not bear to spoil your triumph after the events of third year, just as I could not add more to your burden after you saw Cedric Diggory killed. Yet I knew I must tell you soon. This year was perhaps the worst yet between Voldemort's assaults on your mind, Umbridge's abuses, and the revealing of secrets long-kept. I knew that I had to tell you. My only defense is this: I have watched you struggling under more burdens than any student who has passed through this school, and I could not bring myself to add another – the greatest one of all.”

Harry waited, but Dumbledore did not speak.

“I still don't understand.”

“Voldemort tried to kill you when you were a child because of a prophecy made shortly before your birth. He knew the prophecy had been made, though he did not know the full contents. He set out to kill you as a baby, believing he was fulfilling the terms of the prophecy. He discovered, to his cost, that he was mistaken, when the curse intended to kill you backfired. And so, since his return to his body, and particularly since your extraordinary escape from him last year, he has been determined to hear that prophecy in its entirety. That was the weapon he has been seeing so assiduously since his return: the knowledge of how to destroy you.”

“He knows something of the prophecy, Headmaster,” Snape said neutrally.

Harry continued stroking Fawkes, carefully examining the phoenix's feathers so as to not have to look at either Dumbledore or Professor Snape. Weariness began to settle over him; the accidental magic he had performed earlier was taking its toll. After a few moments, he was coherent enough to answer. “I smashed it on purpose,” he said faintly. “Professor Snape said that prophecies are often indirect, anyway, and that if it was a true one, it would happen without our interference. Smashing it was better than letting him have it, any road.”

Dumbledore got to his feet and walked past Harry to the black cabinet that stood beside Fawkes’s perch. He bent down, slid back a catch, and took from the inside it the shallow stone basin, carved with runes around the edge, in which Harry had previously seen Barty Crouch Junior’s trial the previous year. “The prophecy was not lost, Harry,” Dumbledore said quietly. “It is known to the person who witnessed it.”

He walked back to the desk, placed the Pensieve upon it, and raised his wand to his own temple. From it, he withdrew silvery, gossamer-fine strands of thought clinging to the wand, and deposited them in the basin. He sat back down behind his desk and watched his thoughts swirl and drift inside the pensieve for a moment. Then, with a sigh, he raised his wand and prodded the silvery substance with its tip.

A figure rise out of it, draped in shawls, her eyes magnified to enormous size behind her glasses, and she revolved slowly, her feet in the basin. But when Sybill Trelawney spoke, it was not in her usual ethereal, mystic voice, but in the harsh, hoarse tones Harry had heard her use once before.

“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies… and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have the power the Dark Lord knows not… and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives… The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies….”

The slowly revolving Professor Trelawney sank back into the silver mass below and vanished.

The silence within the office was absolute. Neither Dumbledore, nor Harry, nor Professor Snape, nor any of the portraits made a sound. Even Fawkes had fallen silent.

“Professor Dumbledore?” Harry said very quietly, for Dumbledore, still staring into the pensieve, seemed completely lost in thought. “It… did that mean… What did that mean?” His fingers stilled as he waited for an answer.

“It meant,” said Dumbledore, “that the person who has the only chance of conquering Lord Voldemort for good was born at the end of July, nearly sixteen years ago. This boy would be born to parents who had already defied Voldemort three times.”

Harry felt as though something was closing in upon him. His breathing seemed difficult again. Fawkes trilled softly and butted his fingers in an obvious attempt to get him to scratch the base of his head.

“It means—me?”

Dumbledore surveyed him for a moment through his glasses, but before he could speak, Professor Snape interrupted. “It means,” he said dryly, “that the Dark Lord is your enemy through his own choosing, and because he’s a vindictive bastard, he won’t leave you alone until one of you is no longer around.” He paused. “That is what’s called a self-fulfilling prophecy, Harry.”

“Professor Snape is correct,” Dumbledore said wisely. “The odd thing is, Harry, that it may not have meant you at all. Sybill’s prophecy could have applied to two wizard boys, both born at the end of July that year, both of whom had parents in the Order of the Phoenix, both sets of parents having narrowly escaped Voldemort three times. One, of course, was you. The other was Neville Longbottom.”

Hope sprang in Harry’s heart. He hated being the Boy-Who-Lived in part because of the fame that went with it. “But then… but then, why was it my name on the prophecy and not Neville’s?”

“The official record was relabelled after Voldemort’s attack on you as a child,” said Dumbledore. “It seemed plain to the keeper of the Hall of Prophecy that Voldemort could only have tried to kill you because he knew you to be the one to whom Sybill was referring.”

“Then – it might not be me?” said Harry.

“I am afraid,” said Dumbledore slowly, looking as though every word cost him a great effort, “that there is no doubt that it is you.”

“But you said—Neville was born at the end of July too—and his mum and dad—“

“You are forgetting the next part of the prophecy, the final identifying feature of the boy who could vanquish Voldemort… Voldemort would ‘mark him as his equal.’ And so he did, Harry. He chose you, not Neville. He gave you the scar that has proved both a blessing and a curse.”

“But he might have chosen wrong!” said Harry. “He might have marked the wrong person!”

“He chose the boy he thought most likely to be a danger to him,” said Dumbledore. “And notice this, Harry. He chose, not the pureblood (which according to his creed is the only kind of wizard worth being or knowing), but the half-blood, like himself.”

Professor Snape snorted, interrupting Dumbledore. “Shows how little he knew, then,” he said dryly. “Lily was technically a half-blood, Headmaster. Her mother was a squib—Lily’s grandparents were progressive sorts. Instead of locking their magicless daughter away, they sent her to the best muggle schools they could.” His lips quirked up a bit. “That was why her mother was so overjoyed when she turned out to be a witch. Sometimes these things can skip a generation, you know.”

Harry looked puzzled. “Then why does everyone say that my Mum was muggleborn?” he asked.

Professor Snape shrugged. “She was raised in the muggle world, and wasn’t told about the magical one until her Hogwarts letter,” he explained. “Since your Aunt wasn’t a witch, I suppose they thought that Lily wouldn’t have inherited magic either. Once she found out, she just never bothered to correct people.”

“I--” Dumbledore seemed at a loss for words. “I was not aware of that, Severus,” he admitted.

Professor Snape shrugged again. “I knew. Cassandra knew and I believe she told Potter as well. As she was muggle-raised, Lily said that she didn’t see that it would make much of a difference.”

“Perhaps I should rephrase some of that, Harry,” Dumbledore said quietly. “He chose you because he thought you were a half-blood, like himself. He saw himself in you before he had ever seen you, and in marking you with that scar, he did not kill you, as he had intended, but gave you powers, and a future, which have fitted you to escape him not once, but four times so far—something that neither your parents, nor Neville’s parents, ever achieved.”

“Why did he do it, then?” Harry asked, who was beginning to feel numb and cold, despite the warm weight of phoenix in his lap. Fawkes trilled softly, as if to lend him comfort. “Why did he try and kill me as a baby? He should have waited to see whether Neville or I looked more dangerous when we were older and tried to kill whoever it was then--”

“The Dark Lord was impatient,” Professor Snape said. “Add to that the fact that he only knew the first few lines of the damn prophecy; as a member of his inner circle, I was privy to that much. He wanted you to retrieve it so that he could learn the rest.”

Dumbledore inclined his head. “Professor Snape is correct,” he said. “Part of the prophecy was overheard by one of his servants, but it was only the first part, foretelling the birth of a boy in July to parents who had thrice defied Voldemort. He did not know of the risk of transferring power to you—again marking you his equal. So Voldemort never knew that there might be danger in attacking you, that it might be wise to wait to learn more. He did not know that you would have ‘power the Dark Lord knows not’--”

“But I don’t!” said Harry in a strangled voice. “I haven’t any powers he hasn’t got; I couldn’t really fight him at the Ministry. I can’t possess people or—kill them--I don’t want to!” Professor Snape’s hand moved up to his shoulder, clasping it briefly. For a brief moment, Harry was grateful for the silent support, even if it was from his most confusing teacher.

“There is a room in the Department of the Mysteries,” interrupted Dumbledore, “that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects of study that reside there. It is the power held within this room that you possess in such great quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. When you threw the Dark Lord out, Harry, what were you concentrating on in the end?”

Harry thought for a moment. “It hurt a lot, and made it hard to concentrate on much of anything,” he said. “I was using Occlumency, but he broke out of my cupboard. So I, um, concentrated on the people who care about me, and I think it hurt him, because he left.”

Dumbledore nodded, a light smile playing about his lips. “It was that power that saved you from possession from Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could not completely close your mind. It was your heart that saved you.”

Harry didn’t know what to say. He sat in silence, listening as Fawkes began to sing quietly. Far away in the distance, he could hear the chatter of other students as they went about the business of packing to go home.

Professor Snape was the first to speak. “This is a lot to take in,” he said, with his voice missing the old venom. “You will most likely have to kill the bastard in the end to keep him from murdering you.”

Harry swallowed, hard. “So it’s accurate, then?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” said Dumbledore.

The room lapsed into silence again. Fawkes gave him one last trill, spread his wings over Harry, and then launched himself from Harry’s lap and flew back to his perch.

“I feel I owe you yet another explanation, Harry,” said Dumbledore hesitantly. “You may, perhaps, have wondered why I never chose you as a prefect? I must confess… that I rather thought… you had enough responsibility to be going on with.”

Harry looked up at him and saw a single tear tricking down Dumbledore’s face into his long silver beard.

~*~*~*~

With his hands stuffed into his pockets, Harry slowly made his way back to the Gryffindor common room. He wasn’t sure he was ready to see his friends yet, but they’d be leaving in the morning, and he wasn’t sure that Professor Snape would let him even send letters to them, let alone anything else.

“Venomous tentacula,” he muttered when he reached the fat lady.

“And what a nasty plant it is, too, dearie,” she said cheerfully as the portrait hole swung open.

Harry climbed through it and shuffled into the common room.

“Harry!” Hermione’s voice called.

He looked up just in time to see her coming towards him. She wrapped her arms around him in a huge hug. “You’ve been looking like you needed one of these all week,” she complained.

Harry stiffened a little, then relaxed. This was Hermione, after all. He’d gotten accustomed to receiving hugs from her over the years. She was safe; as one of his best friends, she’d never hurt him.

“We’re going to miss you, mate.”

Harry looked up, a little startled, to find Ron standing near them. Ron wrapped his long arms around both of them.

Emotions rose up in him, threatening choke him with their intensity. Here was safety. Here was peace.

He hadn’t cried in front of anyone since he was five years old, but he wanted to now. Harry fought back the tears, refusing to give in, and tried to hug his friends back.

Without letting go, Hermione kissed him on the forehead. “Keep in touch this summer,” she ordered.

“Yeah,” Ron chimed in. “Fred, George, and me rescued you from the Dursleys once—we’ll rescue you from the greasy git if you need us to.”

“Thanks, guys,” he muttered. Harry could feel the heat rising in his face, but in a way, it didn’t really matter. This one moment was a powerful reminder to him that prophecy or no prophecy, Dursleys or no Dursleys, and despite the incontrovertible fact that he was a worthless orphan, he had at least two people in the world that loved him. He knew that unlike most of the wizarding world, it wasn’t because of his status as the Boy Who Lived, nor was it because of whose son he was. As unbelievable as it was to him, Ron and Hermione loved him because he was Harry, and, at the moment, it was enough to temporarily soothe a few of the hurts on his battered heart.