Harry lay on his back with his arms folded behind his head and stared at the ceiling of Dudley’s second bedroom. There was a crack in it. He had traced his eyes over every twist of that crack until he knew it better than he knew the way to Divination at Hogwarts.

             That was awful.

             He hadn’t seen Sirius or his friends since the start of the summer, or heard from them. He had no idea how the war with Voldemort was going, or what might have happened since Voldemort took his blood in the graveyard and dueled with him. Was he growing stronger? Were people doing sensible things to fight him? Were they having exciting adventures without Harry, and did they miss him at all?

             That was awful.

             Since he had come back to Privet Drive, Harry didn’t think there was a night when he didn’t wake up straight out of a sound sleep, his skin soaked with sweat and his panting loud and harsh. Sometimes it was nightmares about Cedric, but it was almost worse when he found his mind filled with this heavy darkness and dreamed that he was dead or shut away from the world somewhere and the war and real life were happening in a place he couldn’t reach.

             That was awful.

             But no matter how he listened, Harry couldn’t discover anything about Voldemort’s activities from the Muggle telly or the newspaper. He might have vanished off the face of the earth as far as the Dursleys and people like the Dursleys were concerned.

 

            Harry had to hide in the house and do chores and go without food sometimes and pretend that it was yet another summer, that nothing was wrong, that he had just come back from a school year no more dangerous or exciting or frustrating than his first three.

 

            That was the most awful thing of all.

 

            If I’m mad by the time I go back to Hogwarts, Harry thought with a fierce frown as he turned over and buried his head in the pillow, then it’s no one’s fault but theirs.

 

*

 

            Harry looked helplessly at the collection of papers, boxes, old books, and clothes that his aunt had just handed him. She had already gone to the front door, and he knew she would leave in a moment for the shops.

 

            “But what am I supposed to do with this?” he asked, raising his voice so she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t heard him.

 

            Aunt Petunia poked her head back through the door into the drawing room. She had on a hat that made her look like a horse without a mane. Harry bit his lip so hard he probably drew blood, but Aunt Petunia only frowned like usual and snapped, “Sort through them, of course. Anything valuable or relating to Dudders should go in one pile. Anything to throw out should go into another pile.”

 

            Harry opened his mouth again to ask how he was supposed to judge that, but Aunt Petunia’s head vanished, and then Harry heard the door snick open and shut.

 

            Harry stared at the pile and shook his head. His uncle was at work, and Dudley was off God knew where, probably bragging to his friends. At least he wouldn’t have people around to make the task harder, Harry thought glumly as he started to sort through things. That was about all that could be said for it.

 

            The things Aunt Petunia had given him were coated with dust, which made him sneeze at least three times as he opened every box or envelope. They were crumpled and bent, and most of them were written in tiny print, so that Harry had to squint at them to find out what they were. And then most of them turned out to be letters from people he’d never heard of, old birthday cards, boxes of broken toys, or collections of pipes and tiny metal clips that Harry didn’t recognize.

 

            He was flinging everything but the most obvious candidates—like a cluster of forgotten bank notes or a photograph of Vernon and Dudley when Dudley was a baby—into the “rubbish” pile when one letter got away from him and slipped to the floor like his fingers were made of rubber. Harry grumbled and bent over to pick it up.

 

            For my son, Harry.

 

            Harry had never seen the delicate, looped writing that covered the outside of the envelope in emerald-green ink, but he had no doubt anyway. This was a letter from his mother.

 

            Where had it come from? Harry sat down on the couch with the letter in his hands and stared at it. He couldn’t imagine that his mum had sent the letter to Aunt Petunia while she was still alive, or that his aunt would have kept it if she had. Maybe it came with the Hogwarts letters? But no, most of this stuff was more than four years old.

 

            There was another possibility, one that Harry hardly dared think about. Maybe this letter had come with him when he was left on the Dursleys’ doorstep as a baby. Maybe it had been stuck in his blanket, or under it.

 

            But Aunt Petunia still would have thrown it away, he thought.

 

            And then he thought, Not if magic hid it.

 

            He sat there for so long that he heard the front door open. Harry jumped and shoved the letter into the waistband of his jeans, then tugged his shirt over it. It felt thick, and he swallowed as he bent over and started sorting through the dusty things again, wondering if his mother had left him photographs or a diary.

 

            He hoped so. He wanted to know more about her than what she looked like and the fact that she married his dad and died for him.

 

            “There’s dust all over the floor, Potter,” said Dudley’s whiny voice. “I’m going to tell Dad on you!”

 

            “I’ll vacuum it up later,” Harry muttered, and then bowed his head so that there was no chance for Dudley to catch his eye. The last thing he wanted right now was to get into a fight with his cousin. Dudley would probably find the letter and take it away. He always did the thing Harry least wanted right when he least wanted it.

 

            Dudley started to say something else, but Piers Polkiss spoke up then. “Come on, Big D, you said that you had something up in your room that you wanted to show me!”

 

            Harry hid his laughter at his cousin’s new nickname and waited until he heard Dudley running up the stairs with Piers. Then he touched the corner of the letter and stroked the envelope. It felt smother than ordinary paper, with a raised ripple in the middle.

 

            I’ll look at it later, he decided. When I’m in my room, and there’s no chance that they can take it away.

 

*

 

            Finally it was evening, and Harry was locked up in his bedroom again, with his letter. The Dursleys had decided that he would go to bed without dinner again tonight. Uncle Vernon had said something about why, but Harry couldn’t care enough to listen. He was too grateful that they were going to leave him alone for the rest of the evening.

 

            His fingers shook so hard that he nearly ripped the envelope instead of opening it. Harry forced himself to relax and take a deep breath before he tried again.

 

            There was a set of folded sheets of paper inside, and another, sealed letter. Harry looked at that one, but there was no name on it, just two words. I’m sorry.

 

            Mystified, he unfolded the papers that were addressed to him and leaned back on his pillow to read them. His stomach grumbled, and Harry rubbed it so it would be quiet.

 

            My dear son:

 

            I have something to tell you that I would have kept concealed forever if I could. But I’m uneasy. Everyone says that we’re perfectly safe in Godric’s Hollow. I don’t think we are. I see shadows in my dreams, and a darkness that makes me think, sometimes, I won’t live much longer.

 

            Harry swallowed. Mum had dreams like me? It was a long time before he could make himself look away from that first paragraph and keep reading the letter.

 

            If you survive and I don’t—although I don’t know how that would happen, but I think it might—you deserve to know who you really are and where you really came from. There are lots of reasons for that. You might have a disease or a gift that can only be explained by knowing your heritage. It’s not fair to you to keep this secret. If I’m dead, then I’m sure that James or Sirius or Remus or one of them has talked about me like I’m a saint, and you don’t really know me at all. There’s more than one person than you who should know the secret. (That’s the person the other letter is addressed to).

 

            But maybe at the bottom, I want to confess. The secret has haunted me at night, and there’s no way that I can tell James.

 

            Harry clenched one hand down on his knee. What could she tell him and not his dad?

 

            I slept with someone else, Harry. I did it shortly after my marriage, because I was suffering from the stress of the war and I wanted to do one last wild, free thing before the Aurors made James and me retire from the field for our own good. And then, even though I denied it for as long as I could, I realized that you were the son of the man I slept with, and not James’s son.

 

            Harry couldn’t move. It was only after long moments that he realized he had stopped breathing, and started again with a cough.

 

            He’d wanted to know more about his mum, he thought as he sat staring numbly at the paper. But not like this. He’d wanted to know what her favorite color was, and what her laugh sounded like, and if she broke any bones when she was a kid, and what spell she liked best when she was at Hogwarts. But not this.

 

            For a minute, he was angry at her. How could she think he would ever want to know this? It wasn’t the kind of thing that you told a kid!

 

            Then he remembered that he didn’t know when she’d planned to give him the letter. Maybe she would have waited until he was twenty, or thirty. Or maybe she would have told him herself and not in a letter if she’d survived.

 

            Besides, he wasn’t really a kid anymore, was he? And he would have hated it if he had found out on his own.

 

            Harry spent a moment tracing a finger up and down his right arm. He could feel the scar of the knife where Wormtail had taken the blood out of him. He shivered and reluctantly forced himself to return to the letter.

 

            But the next paragraph was worse than summer at the Dursleys’.

 

            Your father is a man James and I knew at school, named Severus Snape.

 

            “No,” Harry said, but not loudly, because he couldn’t get any breath behind the word.

 

            I’m sure he doesn’t know. That’s why I left a letter for him, too, because I know that he needs to hear the truth from me in my own words. I don’t want you to be left with the burden of explaining it to him.

 

            I wish I had some better story to offer you, Harry. But the truth is that I left the house after an argument with James—we were always arguing then, because he thought I wasn’t good enough at Defense to work as a field Auror and I thought he was too reckless—and went to a small establishment that only the Order of the Phoenix knew about. It was a place we could get drunk and not worry about danger. I only meant to get drunk, Harry, I swear. Not do—anything else.

 

            But Severus was there. He was hidden under a glamour, but I recognized him. I’ve always been good at Charms. And I sat there staring at him, because I thought he must have killed Chambers—the Order member he was impersonating—and entered the safehouse to spy on us. The last thing I knew of him, he’d become a Death Eater and followed Voldemort as faithfully as anyone else.

 

            Common sense rescued me, of course. Dumbledore would have known in an instant if Chambers was dead, and made sure to warn us and change the wards so that someone with Chambers’s appearance couldn’t enter. So something else must be going on. I went over to Severus, taking my courage in both hands. We’d parted under rather bad circumstances.

 

            He hardly welcomed me, but he confirmed my guess. Yes, something else was going on. Yes, he knew things he couldn’t tell me. Yes, he regretted the way we had parted.

 

            It was the last which seemed the most important to me at the time, though later I figured out that Severus probably hadn’t chosen a side yet and was wavering back and forth, playing both sides against the middle. He’d done it well enough to convince Dumbledore, though, so I felt safe to get drunk in his presence.

 

            I won’t tell you everything we said. It was the kind of conversation that only we would understand. But it ended with us sleeping together.

 

I woke up in the morning, horrified. This wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life: deal with arguments with my husband by cheating on him. I used a Memory Charm on Severus, went back home, and made up with James. When I realized I was pregnant, I thought there was every chance that you were James’s child.

 

But I knew the truth when I cast Paternity Charms as soon as you were born.

 

Harry closed his eyes. He wanted to ask all sorts of questions. How could she do that? How could she talk about it so—so openly, just trusting that he would understand and forgive her? What was the Order of the Phoenix? What had Snape really been doing there?

 

How could she do that?

 

            Maybe there was an explanation in the rest of the letter. Harry steeled himself to read on.

 

            I want you to know, Harry, that I never loved you any less. I regretted that I cheated on my husband, not that you came into existence. And the regret for that is lessened, because you’re the child I know and love, not an imaginary child who would have been born instead if I had never slept with Severus.

 

            I’m wrapping this letter in multiple charms and enchantments so that it will survive anything that might happen to me, and always stay close by you, migrating across the distance between you if necessary. You’re the only one who can find and read it. The same isn’t true of the letter I’ve included for Severus. I’ll trust you to give it to him, Harry, because he needs to know the truth. I know you’ll probably laugh at that, but I believe it nonetheless. I stole his memories from him, so he has no idea. At the least, he deserves those back.

 

            I know that he may choose never to acknowledge you. I don’t know in what capacity you know him, if at all. Maybe I should hope that you’re strangers to each other, because think what a fracas it will cause between him and James when he finds out!

 

            Harry shuddered. “Dad died, too,” he whispered to the letter. He felt odd a moment later, but he refused to care. James was still his dad, damn it. He was the one who had loved Harry and had died for him.

 

            Snape…

 

            Harry bent his head and wrapped his arms around it, rocking slightly back and forth. It was the way he used to comfort himself in his cupboard when Uncle Vernon had yelled at him or after the time that Aunt Petunia cut all his hair off.

 

            Snape would hold this over his head. Or he would sneer and laugh. Or he would reveal it to all the Slytherins, standing in front of them and glaring implacably at Harry while they stared and snickered and called his mother names. And then he would torment him harder than ever all through school because that would give him another reason to hate Harry.

 

            He already hates me for what Dad did, Harry thought bitterly, wiping at his forehead, why not both parents?

 

            Whatever happened, it would be horrible. The one good thing about Snape was that at least he had no reason to seek Harry out all the time and try to torture him the way the Dursleys did. Harry knew the Dursleys hated him so much because they were forced to acknowledge that he was there, their cousin or their nephew, and they couldn’t escape the blood tie. Snape would make Uncle Vernon look kind and reasonable if he had to think about Harry being related to him. Harry didn’t want starvation and curses and neglect from a second “family,” thank you very much. His family was the people who loved him, like Ron and Hermione and Sirius and the Weasleys, not the people who hated him.

           

            Or if someone else, probably Dumbledore, forced Snape to say that Harry was his son and not torture him, then he would go out of his way to do worse things. Harry had seen the way that he would subtly unnerve Neville long before Neville melted a cauldron or ruined a potion. He would do the same thing to Harry. Then he could look innocent when Harry snapped and say that it wasn’t his fault, that Harry had brooded on this too much and driven himself mad.

 

            There was no way that this didn’t end in a disaster.

 

            Harry finished reading the rest of the letter, an itching behind his eyes and in his hands.

 

            I love you, Harry. I wanted you to know what I was like at my worst as well as at my best. I hope that there’ll never be a need for this letter, and that you’ll grow up under my protection, and I can tell you the truth someday when I’ve prepared you carefully for it.

 

            But I think that would be foolish, given my dreams.

 

            I hope you can forgive me.

 

Your loving mother,

            Lily Potter.

 

            Harry turned to the other letter that lay on the bed. The I’m sorry letter for Severus Snape. The longer he stared at it, the worse the itching in his hands became.

 

            Then he grabbed the letter and ripped it to shreds.

 

            It tore reluctantly. It was even thicker than the letter to Harry, and the paper was the same kind as the envelope that had enclosed his letter, so it was more resistant, and Harry hated the thought of destroying anything his mother had left behind. But he managed, and then he tore up the shreds, and then he folded the pieces that were left in half and crumbled them between his palms until they were fine, floating dust.

 

            He smoothed the letter his mother left him with trembling hands and tucked it away in the space under the floor where he kept the food Mrs. Weasley sent. He was going to keep that one. It was even more precious than the photographs Hagrid had given him, in a way. This was directly from his mum. She’d wanted him to have it.

 

            But he wasn’t ever going to think about what the letter had said again, if he could help it.

 

            He knew what Hermione would say to that. She would ask him if he was crazy. She would scold him. She would say that Snape had a right to know, and that Harry didn’t know he would be like the Dursleys, not for certain, and what if he was missing out on something wonderful by giving this up?

 

            But Hermione had lived with loving parents all her life. She had no idea what real life at Privet Drive was like. She also still thought Snape was a good teacher, somehow, just because she got high marks in his classes. She didn’t stop to think that they would have been even higher if Snape didn’t unfairly favor the Slytherins and gave Hermione the marks she had actually earned.

 

            Besides, it wasn’t like Snape suspected and would grieve for his lost son. He didn’t have any memories of it. He would hate to know. It was better to let him live out the remainder of his life in peace.

 

            Especially because that’s the only way I’ll get any peace.

 

            For once, Harry thought, he should get to make a decision that benefited him before other people, and since the secret could only matter to him, he wouldn’t hurt anyone by doing so.

 

            Slowly, his breathing calmed and his heartbeat slowed as he lay there. He made a number of promises to himself.

 

            To think about this as little as possible.

 

            To always think of James as his real dad, because that was what he had been.

 

            To not hate his mother. She had left him the letter, and Harry had nothing else, and he would rather have the letter, awful news and all, than go on having nothing.

 

            To practice his lies carefully so that he would be prepared if someone else thought he was acting strange or looking strange, or if someone ever suggested that James wasn’t his father.

 

            And to never let Snape know about this, whether or not something led him to suspect. Harry wasn’t his son. He was just—just there, someone for Snape to hate and despise because he looked like his dad.

 

            Something Harry couldn’t control. And the Dursleys hated and despised him because of his magic, something he couldn’t control, either.

 

            Harry shut his eyes with a faint smile. It was his first sincere smile all summer, however bitter and twisted it was.

 

            It’s not going to distress me that Snape’s my father and hates me, because if anyone knows what it’s like to have your relatives hate you, I do.

           

             Severus undid the bandages and tossed the smoking and ruined cloth aside. Then he poured the sticky green potion from the flask he held in his left hand over the wound and began counting under his breath.

             One, two, three—

             “I must say, Severus, you are taking excellent care of me,” Albus said in a pleased voice.

             Severus had expected the interruption, and it made no difference in his counting. He reached eleven without incident and applied the potion again. The cut made a spitting noise like a burning torch plunged into water, and Severus stepped back to get out of the way of the cloud of foul-smelling smoke that resulted, without releasing the hold that kept Albus’s arm flat on the top and the wound turned upwards. Albus had said he would not pull away. Severus watched his muscles twitch and flex and permitted himself a small, bitter smile. Vows like that were as useless as vows not to flinch under the Cruciatus. The control that the mind could exercise over the body’s automatic reflexes was so limited.

             “Will it be well now?” Albus asked as he watched the smoke clear away. “Or will you need to apply more of the dragon’s blood?”

             Severus took a moment to study the wound. Albus waited instead of demanding a reply. In that respect, he was superior to many patients Severus had had. “Do you see the lines surrounding the edges of the cut?” Severus asked at last, tracing one finger along the crescent of scaly grey skin that pointed towards the elbow. “They should be smaller than they are. I’m afraid I will have to apply more of the solution of the stinging nettle.”

             Albus sighed and shook his head, reaching for a lemon drop with his free hand. He had insisted that Severus attempt to save his arm and his life in his office rather than the infirmary. Severus was beginning to suspect he had mostly done that so he could keep his favorite sweet near. “Well, what must be borne must be borne.”

             Severus raised an eyebrow. It was a better reaction than he had a right to expect when the solution of the stinging nettle hurt twice more than walking through the flowers did. But he turned and picked up the appropriate vial, which sat on a table cleared of Albus’s silver instruments a short distance away. The paste inside was thick and an off-white that he had never liked looking at, though the smell was crisp and pleasant. Severus rolled the paste carefully between his fingers, then pressed it down onto both the grey lines of skin at once.

             An indrawn breath was Albus’s only reaction. A moment later, the crunching sound of his teeth on the lemon drop replaced that. Severus kept his gaze away from the other man’s face, because watching someone suffer who meant to him what Albus did was not conducive to his own concentration.

             “What were you trying to do?” he murmured, adding another glob of the stinging nettle solution when he realized that the battle between poison and healing magic had almost boiled the paste away already. “I swear, Albus, if this was the result of yet another stupid attempt to prove to the world that there is a thirteenth use for dragon’s blood after all—”

             Albus laughed softly. “No, my boy,” he said. “Unfortunately, Tom has powerful Dark artifacts at his disposal. I tried to destroy one of the most powerful of them without taking proper precautions.” He would have moved his arm and undone some of Severus’s careful work, but Severus luckily saw the twitch in time and kept the arm pinned. “The artifact concealed a trap. It lightly scratched my arm, and, well, this is the result.” He peered at the wound curiously, as if he were interested in seeing exactly what had happened.

             Severus bit his tongue and waited until he felt the unmistakable taste of blood before he spoke on. “You should have waited until you had the artifact at school and within the protection of the wards, Headmaster.” Hogwarts could, if necessary, lend extra magical strength to her Headmasters which had served, in the past, for everything from setting up secure potions labs to defeating rampaging dragons.

             “I had my reasons to fear what would happen if I brought this artifact back to Hogwarts,” Albus said simply, and then fell silent, watching as Severus continued to smear the solution of stinging nettle.

             It took two more hours, but at last Severus was satisfied that the poison would not spread up Albus’s arm any more than it had. He would always bear a nasty scar, but that was no less than Severus had expected when he first saw the wound. He leaned back in his chair and drank the last vial standing ready, one of his own Refreshment Draughts, which combined the awakening qualities of a Pepperup Potion with the clarity of mind introduced by a Concentration Elixir. Energy surged and tingled down his limbs, and he felt ready to open his eyes and examine the Headmaster.

             Albus had a look in his eyes that told Severus they had not finished speaking about the wound. It was the look Albus always wore when he intended to turn a weakness into an advantage.

             “I might easily have died from this, my boy,” he said. “I would have if you were not here.”

            Severus inclined his head and said nothing. That was the obvious. He saw no need to respond until Albus’s plan had grown beyond the obvious.

             “I think,” Albus murmured, turning his wrist back and forth as if he were admiring the gaping, abscess-like scar he now carried, “that we will put it about that I am.”

             Severus stilled. “Excuse me, Headmaster?” he said, when he thought that he could speak instead of croak.

             Albus gave him a faint smile. Severus knew that smile, too, though he didn’t know how many other people did. It was stripped-down and shining, in the way that a bared sword-blade would be. This was Albus the master of war, the man who would make whatever sacrifices were needed to keep the wizarding world safe. Not even in front of the Order of the Phoenix did he wear that persona.

             “Tom has been too cautious so far for my liking,” Albus said casually. “I know that he intends to move this year, my boy, but I intend to control that movement. We will put the tale about that I am dying, in the form of rumors. I have no faith that Tom will believe the story right at first, but we will ensure that he does, through continually staged ‘weakening’ and allowing some Slytherin students to see my spells misfiring.”

             Severus said nothing on the matter, because there was nothing on the matter to say, but he privately resented the fact that it was Slytherin students who would be expected to play the role of gossip-mongers, indicating that Albus thought their parents in service to the Dark Lord.

             Severus particularly resented that because he knew it was true.

             “I fail to see how the gain to our side would outweigh the loss,” he said instead. “We would panic the Order and our allies if we did that. Some of them, the fence-sitters, might even desert us and join him.”

             Albus gave him the weariest smile that Severus had ever seen out of him. He was cradling his wounded hand against his chest now, his fingers smoothing lightly up and down the skin next to the injury.

             “This is not a war that will be ended with a single final battle, my boy,” he said, “or even a spectacular duel like the one that ended the contest between me and Grindelwald. It will require something—rather different. Putting about the story will give me the time I need to hunt out the Dark magical artifacts that Tom relies on. And it will give you an excuse to remain more often in the school. Tom will need someone to try and estimate the true extent of my weakness, and why not you, who are already so close?”

             “What is to be the real reason for my remaining here?” Severus clasped his hands in front of him and regarded Albus evenly. He would do what he was told to do, of course. That had been the price of his service since he first fled from the Dark Lord. But he was not always adept at guessing what Albus’s orders would be. In some ways, it was much easier to read the Dark Lord. Take a certain knowledge of his goals, mix insanity with it, set it to simmer over a fire of passion for revenge, and one could not go far wrong.

             “You will become the Defense teacher for this year,” said Albus, and gave him a smile that was probably meant to be comforting.

             Severus did not smile back. “And you will hire Horace for Potions, I suppose,” he said, making sure that his words had no emotion.

             “I will,” Albus said. “But more to the point, my boy, you can train the students who will need the skills you can impart to them before the end of this year.” He paused, but Severus kept his face blank, because he saw no reason why he should make this easy for Albus. In the end, the Headmaster had to finish without the satisfaction of tricking Severus into speech. “Including Harry.”

             “It is not enough to be Potter’s nursemaid, then,” Severus said, his voice desperately bored. What would showing his rage accomplish? Little enough. It never did. “I must also be his mentor?”

             “I will be working closely with Harry in that capacity,” said Albus, with a sharp touch to his voice that Severus told himself he would think of and enjoy later. It was a human weakness that did not endanger their success in the war the way that Albus’s other follies did, and therefore a rare treat. “No, instead I wish you to enhance his talent for Defense. Our professors in the past have given him an…irregular education at best.”

             “Have you forgotten my efforts at teaching Occlumency to him?” Severus asked. “I do not understand your fondness for repeating and preparing disasters to happen, Albus. One might think that enough happen on their own to satisfy you.”

             “The way you teach Defense must be different from the way you teach Occlumency.” Albus rose to his feet, which was enough of a signal that the meeting was over for Severus to stand as well. “See that you change your methods in the future.”

             Severus bowed slightly and let himself out through the door that led to the moving staircase. His mind was already busy with the lies that he would need to construct so that he might convince the Dark Lord Albus was truly on the brink of perishing, and not reveal the destruction of the powerful Dark artifact, whatever it was.

             After that would come the lies necessary for establishing a teaching relationship with Potter.

             He would not allow his dislike for the imbecile or the fact that Potter was miserable in Potions to overpower him. After all, more than one member of the staff in the past had praised Potter’s skill in Defense. Severus would bide his time and give Potter every chance to show that skill forth.

             When it did not appear, then he would have more than enough evidence to destroy one more piece of precious Potter’s undeserved reputation.

 *

             “If your mother was more loyal to me, Draco, this might not have happened.”

             Draco shivered and kept his eyes on the floor. The Dark Lord had many different tones to his voice, but Draco had already discovered that the one he hated most was the gentle, solicitous one, as though the Dark Lord was really grieved that he’d had to punish Draco’s mother.

             “Luckily,” the Dark Lord said, and his shadow swayed and his voice dripped with satisfaction like venom, “your aunt is loyal.”

             Draco knew it would be wiser to go on staring at the floor, but he couldn’t help himself. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Aunt Bellatrix, who stood alongside the wall with her wand in her hand. Her eyes were wide and bright and fixed on the Dark Lord’s face.

             She could look at him without horror. Draco didn’t understand her.

             “So,” the Dark Lord said, drawing the word out and making Draco pay attention to him again, “I have punished your mother and decided to give you a task. It was to be a hard task. Your father failed me.” His voice turned to a strained screech, and Draco swallowed in relief. It was better when he wasn’t trying to sound gentle. “You must do something to prove to me that your family can be trusted, especially after Narcissa’s…indiscretion. Do you understand?”

             “Yes, my lord,” Draco whispered. He shivered as he felt the Dark Lord’s immense magical power wrap around him like a strangling hand around his throat. He stood as still as he could, because he doubted that the Dark Lord would like it if he struggled.

             “But news has come to me today that changes my perceptions of the usefulness of that first task,” the Dark Lord went on, and rose to his feet, pacing back and forth. Nagini followed him like an adoring shadow. Draco continued to stand very still. He’d already seen that snake eat five people. “So you are to have a different, minor problem to solve. I want you to find a way to let my Death Eaters into the school, at any time they require. Do you understand that?”

             Laughter followed the words. Draco knew there were a bunch of Death Eaters who thought he was stupid.

             “Yes, sir,” he whispered, and wished he could sound adoring like Aunt Bellatrix and Nagini. He put some eagerness into his voice, anyway. “What was my task to be, my lord?”

             “It does not matter,” the Dark Lord said, and Draco breathed again, as he had stopped doing a moment after he spoke the former words. The Dark Lord could have responded angrily, and then, his father’s fate, surrounded by Dementors in Azkaban, might have looked kind. “What matters now is that you accomplish this little chore no sooner than the end of the school year.”

             “Yes, my lord,” Draco said, and then he was allowed to bow himself out of the room that had once been the main drawing room of the Manor and into the entrance hall. He didn’t stand there to admire himself in the wide mirrors on the walls, but immediately took the large staircase leading up.

             His mother’s room was on the second floor. Draco stood in the doorway for some time and watched her as she lay on the bed. The Dark Lord had not used the Cruciatus on her, but an experimental pain curse that made her nerves send flares of pain through her even though nothing, outwardly, was hurt. She didn’t have any wounds now, but she still shook, hours after it.

             Draco closed his eyes. The lingering shadow behind the Dark Lord’s words lay across his mind.

             Do this, or your parents will die.

             The Dark Lord hadn’t said that. He didn’t need to.

             Draco clenched his hand into a fist and told himself that he was up to this task. There was no one else who would help his parents, and no one from Potter’s side had come to help him. He didn’t particularly want most of the students at Hogwarts to die, but he didn’t want his family to die even more. He would bear with this because he had to.

             And hope like fuck that he succeeded.

 *

             No, Harry thought, turning his head critically back and forth in front of the bathroom mirror. It wasn’t an optical illusion or a trick of his eyes. His face had started looking more and more different in the past year, and now it was really different.

             He gnawed his lip and studied himself again. Then he glanced back to the photograph in his left hand. Colin had taken it for him at the start of this last year, his fifth one, when Harry could still remember feeling something other than anger and pain and weariness.

             When Sirius had still been alive.

             Harry had thought and thought about that, though, and it seemed that no matter how much he did, he never had any new thoughts. He blamed himself and he resented Snape and he wished that Sirius was still alive and he’d learned Occlumency. The Dursleys preferred to ignore him this year rather than give him chores, so Harry had nothing to distract him from those thoughts, either.

             He was bored of his own grief, and so he might as well look at his face and figure out what he could do about it.

             The him in the photograph, who looked the way he was supposed to look, had a shorter nose than he did now, and less sharp facial features. Harry wrinkled his nose when he realized what that meant. He was getting pointy. He’d be looking like Draco bloody Malfoy next if he didn’t watch out.

             But studying the photos and the mirror carefully in the past few months had made him realize something else, too. He’d never looked as much like his dad as everyone had said he did. Harry had thought and thought about why people would say he did, and decided that it was mostly nostalgia. Everyone had thought it would a great thing if he looked like his father come back to life, and he did have messy hair and needed glasses, so they could start with some basics and go from there, imposing his dad’s face on his. Harry had finally seen some pictures of his grandparents, his mum’s mother and father, in the past year, and his grandmother’s hair was one big tangle and his grandfather had glasses. So those could have come from his mum’s side of the family, too.

             But now he was growing up and didn’t look the same any longer. Harry didn’t think someone was suddenly going to spin around in the corridor at Hogwarts, point at him, and declare him Snape-spawn, but pretty soon he was going to have people who peered at him and said that he looked different.

             That was enough. He didn’t want to look different.

             He looked carefully at the photograph, staring until he was sure that he could see his old face floating behind his eyes when he closed them. Then he pointed his hand at his face—that was the best thing about this summer, practicing wandless magic to the point where he could use a little of it and he didn’t think the Ministry would come after him since they tracked his wand—and whispered the illusion charm he’d made a point of looking up in the Hogwarts library.

             “Flecto orem meum.”

             Lines of what looked like colored spiderwebs flowed across his face, and Harry wondered for a second if this would work. But he kept repeating the spell carefully, making sure his pronunciation was the same each time. Finally, the colors wavered and disappeared, and he was looking at a copy of his old face.

             Harry sighed and reached up, exploring with his fingers while he watched in the mirror. There were probably a few differences between the way his cheeks bent and the way they seemed to bend with the charm, but not much. Someone would have to be standing really close to him and practically poking him in the eye to notice.

             Good. Harry had kept his promises to himself not to think about his stupid parentage as much as possible, and he was glad that he could put this out of his mind now. He would have to renew the charm every week or so, but that didn’t matter. It was a small price to pay to go on being himself, instead of some ugly stranger he didn’t know.

             He marched out of the bedroom and back to his room. He’d practically memorized his Defense Against the Dark Arts book by now, but it was the only book he’d been able to sneak out of the trunk before Uncle Vernon locked it up, and he wanted to study anyway. He wanted to do the very best he could this next year.

             Everything was going to be different, because everything had to be different. The Ministry had finally admitted that Voldemort was back. Harry was growing up enough to take some part in the war, and the Order had to see that. Harry was sure that he wouldn’t get high enough marks to be in NEWT Potions, so he wasn’t going to have Snape to bother him anymore.

             Sirius was dead.

             Harry took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He still felt as though someone had punched him in the gut when he thought about that, but he’d finally determined that sitting around and feeling guilty about it all the time did nothing. It would be better if he could make up for it somehow. And the only way to do that was to win the war, because when the war was over, Voldemort and Bellatrix would be dead. Or in Azkaban, maybe, for Bellatrix.

             Harry gave a small smile. Somehow, he couldn’t see Voldemort going to Azkaban.

             He picked up his book and flipped the pages open to reach the complicated shield charms. This time, though, he could only read a few sentences before his mind wandered away from the words it had already memorized and back to what he’d been thinking about a little while ago.

             His face was changing so that it resembled Snape’s. What if other things changed, too? His mum had said in the letter that he deserved to know in case he got some strange disease. What if he had a disease because he was a Snape, a disease that Potters didn’t get? Or what if his magic changed? There was still so much he didn’t know, and it made Harry worried that he might miss something that would reveal him and not defend against it.

             Harry shook his head, then, and bit his lip so hard that it made him wince and hiss in pain. He’d already come up with plans to deal with this. He just had to be careful, that was all. He had to practice his lies. He knew he wasn’t a good liar, but if he could tell them often enough, then he would sound natural if someone tried to confront him.

             One of the lies was that he would just shrug and say that lots of people changed as they grew up. That was true enough.

             He could also say that he didn’t know a lot about his parents and look sad. Most people—unless they were Malfoy or Snape—would feel sorry for him that way and not ask any more questions.

             If he got a disease, then he would go to a Healer at St. Mungo’s. Madam Pomfrey had probably treated Snape when he was a student and knew more about his diseases. Harry couldn’t take the chance that she would recognize his sickness and make some connection.

             And if worst came to worst and someone did discover the truth, Harry thought he could fight to stay free. After all, he only had a year and a month until he was seventeen. Once he was an adult, no one could force him to stay under the care of a man he despised, or with the Dursleys, either. And he would leave Hogwarts only not long after that. Any time being tormented by Snape would be horrid, but nothing compared to ten years with the Dursleys. If he could survive one, then he could survive the other.

             Of course, the best thing would be if no one else ever found out. Harry didn’t intend to let them.

             And your mind’s wandering again, the way it did when you tried to learn Occlumency.

             Harry shook his head and focused back on the book again. Yes, things were going to be different this year. For Sirius. He’d promised that.

             He’d kept one set of difficult promises for a whole year. He could do it with another one.

            Severus absently rubbed his arm, where the Dark Mark had been burning as late as last night. Then he turned and took another dose of his Refreshment Draught, which he had needed more and more often lately. He made an absent note to experiment with some less addictive ingredients than the dragongrass that currently drove it. It would not be good to have his eyes suddenly break out into blood when he was in the middle of a class because he had gone too long without a dose.

             So far, the Dark Lord appeared to accept the ridiculous rumors that Albus wanted to spread. He had smiled when Severus first explained the wound to him, and spent some time rubbing his fingers up and down his own arm as if he could feel the pain from a distance and rejoiced in the weakness of his enemy. Then he had abruptly ordered Severus back to the school so that he could speak in private with “other trusted followers.”

             When the Dark Lord trusts someone, Severus thought as he placed the empty vial with the others that the house-elves would clean that day, it will be time to leave Britain as fast as I can, because it will mean he has gone mad and will try to blow up the world next.

            But the signs were good enough right now that he was cautiously optimistic.

            On that front, at least. On the front of the other task that Albus had assigned him…

             Severus shut his eyes and let his mouth work through a final, harsh grimace of distaste. He would not, of course, demonstrate these emotions in front of anyone else. Too many of the other professors were Potter’s fans and thought his reasonable objections to the brat mere prejudice. Albus would peer at him through those half-glasses and speak a few devastating words. Severus Snape did not enjoy suffering, and he had long ago learned to choose the lesser pain of doing what Albus asked over the greater pain of insults from him.

             He did not have to like the boy. He did not have to cherish him in the way that Minerva did and which his colleagues thought him inexplicable for not eagerly employing. He simply had to train him.

             In the training, Severus would break down Potter’s bad habits and rebuild him as someone more obedient, a true student who would do as he was told and follow directions. Severus had no idea why such things were so hard for students, especially when the instructions for a potion were clearly written out on the board. Severus knew he had the clearest handwriting of any professor at Hogwarts. If the little imbeciles could reason out the sprawling tangle of Filius’s hand, they should have little trouble with his.

             He would build him, and bend him into the pattern that their survival of this war required.

             Or he would break him, and show Albus the impossibility of building something worthwhile out of the chaos of shattered pieces that resulted.

             Severus smiled tightly and turned to cast several cleaning charms on his robes. Tonight was the Sorting Feast, and he did not wish his newest Slytherins to see him with dust or drops and dibs of ingredients on him.

             Tonight was also the point at which Albus would make the announcement that Horace was taking over the Potions classes and Severus succeeding to the Defense position. Severus could at least anticipate the students’ immediate reactions with a faint smirk, if not the hard work that would follow during the year.

             Potter’s reaction in particular.

             When Severus left his quarters and strode up to the Great Hall, no one from Albus to Minerva could have faulted the cold neutrality of his face or the swiftness of his stride.

             Nor could any of them have fathomed the private, intense glee that he carried in his heart.

 *

             Draco leaned his chin on his hand as he sat at the Slytherin table and tried to relax. He knew how he was going to accomplish the task the Dark Lord had set him, though he didn’t know how long it might take. He wouldn’t allow himself to worry about that for right now. He deserved internal applause for his good idea.

             Meanwhile, he could watch the new professor at the High Table. The fat, nodding, smiling professor who would probably squeal if you poked him and who hadn’t bothered to invite Draco to the meeting of his “Slug Club,” though he had invited Potter.

             Draco smiled. He couldn’t even be irritated about that, not when he remembered how he had stepped on Potter’s face and broken his nose. He shot a glance across the Hall at the Gryffindor table and made out Potter just now stumbling in, under the guidance of Professor Vector, who’d apparently been assigned to watch for stragglers tonight—and fix broken noses. He laughed quietly, but shook his head when Blaise elbowed him. He would share his source of amusement later, when he had decided whether he wanted to tell his friends that Potter had spied on a private conversation.

             Potter gave him a single, hate-filled glance. Draco straightened his back, some of his worry washing away. There was the reason he had to succeed, right there. The “Light” side hated him and would never accept him. They were far worse than the Dark Lord, who would at least give Draco proper credit for his efforts.

             Then Potter peered more closely at him, frowned, and shook his head. Draco had no idea what he had seen, but it made his shoulders stiffen. If Potter suspected the existence of the Dark Mark he now carried, then things would become worse than insupportable.

             Luckily, Potter’s friends pulled him down into his seat then, and Headmaster Dumbledore stood up and cleared his throat. Draco reluctantly turned to face the ancient idiot, and noticed that Professor Slughorn and Professor Snape were both standing up.

             “May I introduce our new Potions professor,” Dumbledore said, “Professor Horace Slughorn. Though perhaps new isn’t quite the right adjective, as he has taught here before. Some of you might have parents whom he educated.”

             The fat man bobbed his head up and down, his mouth distended and his eyes so bright that Draco suddenly wanted to see what he would look like disappointed, just for the contrast. At least most of the Slytherin table seemed as disgusted as Draco did. The rest of the Great Hall looked relieved, of course. They probably dreamed that they had a chance at good Potions marks now. Draco sniffed. Professor Snape had performed a valuable service as long as he taught Potions. He kept people who had no business learning such a difficult subject from becoming Potions masters and killing someone.

             “And Professor Snape will be serving as our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.”

             Draco had suspected this, and managed to incline his head and look wise as gasps sounded from around him. Potter, meanwhile, was on his feet, his face red, his eyes bulging and fixed on Professor Snape.

             Draco looked eagerly at his Head of House to see how he would respond.

             Professor Snape simply inclined his head slowly so that it looked like the polite nod one duelist would give another, his eyes locked on Potter’s. Potter shook his head furiously and slumped back into his chair, staring at his plate. Dumbledore spoke more words, probably patient and blindly hopeful, but Draco didn’t listen, too busy drinking in Potter’s pain.

             Let’s see him earn those artificially inflated marks in Defense now, with a real and competent professor teaching the class.

             But thoughts of Potter could not occupy him long as his sleeve shifted and he felt the cloth rubbing against the Dark Mark. Draco grimaced and reached for a glass of pumpkin juice that had just appeared. Perhaps he should approach Professor Snape for some help of his own. Not because he wanted to let the man in on his task, of course—the Dark Lord wouldn’t like that—but because what Professor Snape knew about handling Dark magic might prove useful for Draco’s repairing of the Vanishing Cabinet.

 *

             “Can you believe that we’ll still have the greasy git for a teacher?”

             Harry shook his head in disgust at Ron’s remark. “Why couldn’t Dumbledore hire Professor Lupin again, if he couldn’t find anyone else?” he asked, and flopped back on the couch in the Gryffindor common room with his arm over his eyes.

             He hated the feelings churning up and down in his gut. He’d counted on a year that was already going to be hard enough, because he had to make so many changes and live up to so many expectations and take care that his secrets didn’t escape. And now Snape was going to teach the one class Harry had always been comfortable in and make his life that much more difficult.

             “It’s not the end of the world.” Hermione sniffed as she sat on the couch beside them. “Professor Snape probably knows a lot more about Dark magic than Professor Lupin does, to be honest. He could be a brilliant teacher.”

             “Could be, but he won’t,” Ron said. He picked up a pillow and threw it across the room, nearly hitting a first-year. “He’ll sabotage all our efforts and take points from Gryffindor, just you wait and see. And then we’ll fall further behind in learning about Dark magic. And that could be disastrous because we need to fight You-Know-Who.” He lowered his voice on those last words and glanced at Harry’s scar. Harry rolled his eyes. He wondered idly what Ron would say if Harry told him he was less worried about the scar on his forehead than the lower parts of his face, the ones the glamour was covering.

             “Oh, say the name, Ron, for God’s sake.” Hermione tapped her wand against her hand and glared at Ron.

             Ron opened his mouth, and it seemed another argument was going to start, so Harry jumped in. “We’ll have to make sure that he can’t sabotage us too badly,” he said. “What do you say to starting up Dumbledore’s Army again? Unofficially, until we find out how rubbish Snape’s teaching is.” Harry didn’t think he would mind seeing Luna and the other friends he’d made from other Houses at the meetings. Besides, it would give him more time to practice the spells that had been theory only all summer.

             “That’s a wonderful idea, mate!” Ron clapped him on the back. “But don’t worry, his teaching will be rubbish, so we won’t have to wait long.”

             Even Hermione was smiling, though she tried to hide it by hunting for dust on her already clean robes. “That is a good idea, Harry,” she said. “I’ve done some reading about how Transfiguration can be used in battling the Dark Arts, and…”

             Harry relaxed as she chattered on. He was going to survive this. It wasn’t as terrible as it had looked at first.

             Like my stupid heritage. I hate it, but I got used to hiding it, and now it doesn’t bother me as much as it did.

             Mostly, Harry wished his mum was alive so he could talk to her about the story of how she’d—slept with Snape. It made him blush to think about, but it had happened, and it seemed stupid to deny it.

             I can put up with it because no one knows about it. And I can put up with Snape teaching Defense because our real learning is going to happen outside the classroom.

             Not for the first time, Harry smiled at Ron and Hermione and thought how lucky he was to have such great friends.

 *

             Severus wore no smile as he watched his sixth-year students enter the classroom, but he had a hard time fighting one back when he saw the way Potter walked in: striding like a king, his lackeys on either side of him, his head tilted so far back that it was a wonder he could smell anything.

             As expected. His father down to the bones. Anything else is an illusion. Including that fabled skill at Defense.

             Potter took a seat towards the front of the classroom, all the while glaring at Severus without blinking. Severus took exquisite pleasure in returning the stare until such time as Potter finally shuddered and looked down at the desk. Even then, of course, the brat couldn’t admit he’d been beaten and pretended he had only turned his glance away because he needed to find his book.

             Perhaps I shall teach him humility, if nothing else, Severus decided. He looked swiftly over the class and concluded his count of the students. An unusually large number of them had managed to gain high marks on their Defense OWLS. Of course, that was because they hadn’t had a proper teacher in years, and the exam proctors themselves could stand a thorough replacement.

             I shall break them soon enough, he thought, as his gaze settled on Weasley and he watched the red-headed blunderer swallow uneasily.

             “You will learn true spells in class this year,” he announced. The persona he used when he wanted to demonstrate the nature of Potions to students was subtle, insinuating, intriguing; this one he had deliberately chosen to be blunt. He would scrape the withered dreams of several students from the sides of this classroom before the week was out, or know the reason why not. “The nature of Dark magic, and how to counteract it. The nature of Dark creatures, and how to hunt them. The minor hexes and jinxes that you have wielded so far will slide so far down the list of your priorities that you will wonder how you managed to exist knowing only them.”

             He curled his lip and glanced hard at Longbottom, who had managed to earn the necessary mark, perhaps through his grandmother’s bribery of the proctors. At least he had the sense to look intimidated, unlike Potter.

             “I have to remedy the effects of five years’ neglect of this post,” he said coldly, “and I have to do it beginning with you, who have gone through those five years and doubtless are used to thinking of this as a class without work. I would ask pity for my position if I imagined any of you capable of understanding me, and if I needed pity.”

             Longbottom now looked ready to faint. Weasley stared down at his desk, moving his quill back and forth. Granger looked half in awe. In truth, if Granger had not been in Gryffindor, Severus might not have found her so insufferable; he had dealt well enough with several Ravenclaws who expressed a proper admiration for his teaching ability.

             Potter had returned to his glare.

             Why wait? Severus thought suddenly. He had planned to hold off on his demonstration of superiority over Potter, to heighten the class’s fear. But now he saw that that would be counterproductive. Potter had enough of a swagger already, because his previous professors’ incompetence and the dazzled eyes of celebrity-worshippers had permitted him to get away with so much for so long. A delay would only increase his misplaced confidence.

             “Mister Potter,” he said. “You will asset me in a duel.”

             Potter’s glare grew more intense. He rose to his feet without a word and drew his wand. Severus sent him to the far end of the room; the tables, unlike most of those in the Hogwarts classrooms, were arranged in a circle along the walls so as to give an open space suitable for dodging and darting. At least, they were now. Severus wondered in disgust how the others had taught with the classroom as crowded as it had been. He’d had a better opinion of Lupin’s sense than that.

             Severus held his wand high and studied the class slowly. In the middle of appearing as if he would say something to them, he whipped towards Potter and cast his first spell. “Retinnio!”

             The curse whirled towards Potter like a blazing white arrowhead turning end over end. When it hit him, it would make his bones ring as if he were a gong struck with a heavy paddle. Severus knew well enough that none of the Defense books mentioned the counter to this one. He waited contentedly.

             Potter stuck his wand out in front of him like the reaching fingers of a baby and cried, “Protego!”

             Severus would have laughed aloud if his astonishment had permitted him to do so. To use the Shield Charm against the Resounding Curse when it would simply be shivered to shreds—

             The familiar silvery shield appeared in front of Potter and the arrowhead crashed into it. A heavy vibration traveled through the classroom, accompanied by a noise like three dozen cymbals that made Severus’s back teeth ache. The shield dissolved like the still surface of a shaken glass of water.

             But the Resounding Curse was gone, dealt with. And as Potter sprinted to the side and took aim again, Severus realized that that was all Potter had wanted. It didn’t matter to him that he could not create a permanent shield to shelter behind when faced with a spell like that. In fact, perhaps he had even planned on it.

             From a new position, half-crouched under a table where a terrified-looking Hufflepuff girl sat, Potter snarled, “Compes!”

             Severus didn’t see the little snake of light that ran along the floor towards him, so quickly did it move. He knew that was a trait of the spell and not the wizard who cast it, but it was still not pleasant to feel the suddenly conjured shackles appear between his ankles, the chain automatically shortening and jerking him from his feet.

             He did not fall, of course. He could not do such a thing in front of his class and expect to retain any authority. He aimed his wand at the shackles as they formed and, after a non-verbal Balancing Charm that brought him abruptly back upright, cast “Finite Incantatem” aloud, so that he might show his contempt of Potter’s supposed “mastery.”

             The shackles crumbled, but Potter had already scurried to another part of the room—Severus had never realized that he so enjoyed imitating an insect—and chanted another hex. Severus did not hear the incantation this time, but he recognized the effect as it boiled towards him, visible only as a heat shimmer. Potter meant to turn his breath against him, making it into steam that would blind Severus.

             It was a charm that was in the Defense Against the Dark Arts books that had been chosen in the past. Severus knew that. Why he should have been so surprised that Potter had studied it already, he did not know.

             Again, his quick Finite dismissed the hex, and then he moved back on the offensive with a Line of Fire Curse that made dancing flames race across the floor towards Potter. They would not hurt him badly even if they reached him—no more than the hotfoot that Granger had given him in these students’ first year—but they would force him to move constantly and disrupt his concentration.

             Potter yelled two words without pausing for breath. “Aguamenti! Corycus!”

             A blow from an invisible fist hit Severus low in the middle of the back, staggering him. The Line of Fire Curse vanished. Potter ran to a new position, his eyes bright and his hair flapping around him. Severus had seen the same enthusiastic expression before, when Lily was staring into a complicated potion that she had managed to brew right.

             He hated the sudden return of that memory as much as he did the reluctant acknowledgment rising up inside his mind.

             Potter is good at Defense after all.

             Of course, that revelation simply sparked another and more indignant one as he stepped back and said coldly aloud, “That will do for now, Mister Potter.”

             If he can apply this brilliance in one area, then he could apply it in another. Learning complicated spells is not more difficult than following complicated potions instructions. He should have been doing much better in Potions than he did. That he did not implies that he did not wish to concentrate enough.

             Severus considered that a personal insult. It was one thing for Potter to simply be miserable at Potions; it was another thing for Lily Evans’s son to have inherited her talent and refuse to exercise it because he was lazy or busy with other things he considered “more important.” Suddenly Horace’s excited comments the other night about Potter’s performance in his class, which Severus had listened to with half an ear, had taken on a new significance.

             He could do it. He did not wish to.

             He will pay for that.

             He turned away from Potter, because he did not trust his fragile hold on his temper if he had to confront the boy right now, and noticed that the other students were watching with their mouths open and their eyes round. Severus waved his wand, and the air shuddered with the sound of thunder. The watching students jumped and, in the case of Longbottom, squeaked.

             “That was a true duel,” Severus said coldly, “though less deadly than the kind you will fight if you ever deal with a Dark wizard. Now, who can tell me what spells I used in this display? You, Longbottom?”

             That moron’s cowering and spluttering were sweet honey to Severus’s taste after Potter’s confident spells and the flushed, defiant look that Potter threw him before he walked to his seat.

             As was the tiny bit of flavor to be gleaned out of all of this, the fact that he would not have to mentor an utter incompetent. Severus told himself that he could live with his bitterness at having been mistaken because it would mean being spared the worse bitterness of long evenings in the company of someone he could not teach.

 *

             “Potter. Stay behind.”

             Harry lifted his head and waved to Ron and Hermione, who were lingering behind and giving him concerned looks, to go ahead. He knew that Snape was going to assign him a detention or take points for the duel earlier in the class. That was only obvious. Harry had done brilliantly against him, had shown that he wasn’t afraid of him, and that had made Snape’s mouth twist up like he’d swallowed an earwax-flavored bean.

             Snape stood next to his desk now, watching Harry approach. Harry stared at him coolly. It was kind of exhilarating to stand here like this in front of Snape, no matter how much he’d been looking forwards to getting away from him in Potions at last, and know that he was basking in the glow of a successful defeat and hiding an even bigger secret.

             He’d probably claim it’s all down to his genes if he knew about it.

             That made Harry more determined than ever to keep the secret private. He didn’t want to give Snape any pleasure.

             Snape twisted his wand the moment the last student was out the door, and Harry heard the noises from the corridor diminish. He immediately knew it was a variation on a Silencing Charm and wanted to know how it worked, but Snape turned to him and Harry snapped his mouth shut. He was damned if he would ask.

             “You may have heard by now,” Snape said, picking his way through the words like they were shards of glass, “that the Headmaster has been wounded in the fight against the Dark Lord. He will not be able to complete some of the training in Defense that he had intended to complete with you.” His voice grated on the last words and his eyes shifted away from Harry. Probably hates to think about anyone being nice to me, Harry thought cynically. He’d get along great with Uncle Vernon. They could compare notes. “He has asked me to take over that training.”

             Harry stared at him, and waited, and waited. When it became clear this wasn’t a joke, he shook his head and snorted. “Because that worked so well with the Occlumency lessons.”

             “Are you saying that you disrespect the Headmaster’s judgment?” Snape’s voice was soft and eager.

             “When it comes to you and me and you teaching me, Dumbledore doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Harry said.

             It was the first thing that came to mind, and he knew he should have restrained himself when Snape’s mouth curdled into a smug smile. “Detention tonight at eight-o’clock, Potter,” he said. “Be sure that you bring your wand.” And he turned to gather up papers as if that simple motion could dismiss Harry from existence.

             Harry walked slowly out of the room, taking deep breaths so that he would subdue his inclination to shout and storm about the unfairness of it all.

             When I act on impulse, I get in trouble. It was true in the Department of Mysteries, and it’s true this time. It’s better to practice my lies and prepare for trouble, because that way, I can actually handle it.

             So Snape wants to “train” me? So what? It’ll take up some time, that’s all. My real training is going to come with Dumbledore’s Army. I know that. I’ll make time for that. I’ll work hard at that.

             Harry grinned, then, as a new thought struck him.

            And if he spends the detentions trying to train me instead of making me scrub cauldrons or write lines, I can really frustrate him by just not cooperating. I can show him that there’s no way I’ll accept him as a teacher, and there’s not a bloody thing he can do about it.

            He practically bounced down the corridor to join Ron and Hermione, the thought of how much Snape was going to hate him making him chuckle with glee.

            There’s another advantage, too. The more he hates me, the more he can’t stand the sight of me, the less incentive he has to ask me questions or try and pry into my secrets.

            I can’t wait for tonight.

Draco carefully made sure that he had brushed all traces of dust from his cloak and hair before he knocked on the door of Professor Snape’s office. The hidden room where he was trying to repair the Vanishing Cabinet was far dirtier than he would have thought it would be, for such a valuable place in Hogwarts.

             On the other hand, that also proved that not many people knew about the room, and he had been smart to find it and think of completing his task there. Draco smirked as he knocked. The Dark Mark didn’t seem to burn as much when he gloated.

             “Enter.”

             Draco opened the door and strode confidently into the office. He was at home here as not many students were. Professor Snape recognized talent when he saw it, and it didn’t matter that that insufferable idiot Slughorn seemed to prefer Potter to Draco. That couldn’t destroy the special treatment Draco had got from his Head of House over the years, or the special Potions knowledge that he carried in his head, or the conviction that real genius would always triumph over the shallow, flashy things that Potter did in class.

             Professor Snape sat behind his desk, marking, as usual. Draco took a curious glance around, wondering if anything had changed now that Professor Snape taught Defense instead of Potions. Other than the addition of a few complicated diagrams that Draco thought depicted battlefields on the walls, nothing had. There were still ranks of potions, bookshelves, and sets of empty, clean vials all waiting in order.

 Draco smiled. When he was eleven, he had thought paradise must look something like Professor Snape’s Potions lab.

 “What do you wish, Mr. Malfoy?” Professor Snape had lifted his head, and hadn’t changed his neutral expression when he realized who it was. His hands lay folded on the desk in front of him as if nothing interested him less than a visit like this.

 That didn’t fool Draco. Professor Snape wasn’t a demonstrative person. Draco was used to that, having grown up with his father. What mattered was that he wasn’t sneering or yelling. That meant Draco had a chance to prove himself.

             “I was wondering, sir…” he said, trailing off and lowering his eyes. He was genuinely nervous, but he also wanted to intrigue the professor enough to make him ask a few questions. Draco was low on people who were interested in his fate right now.

             “Yes?” The professor’s voice carried a sneer that made Draco speak quickly. He didn’t want to irritate him. He wasn’t Harry Potter, to think himself honored by someone casting Dark spells at him.

             “You have a wide knowledge of Dark magic,” Draco said. “More than we’re ever going to learn here. I was wondering if you would be opposed to teaching me some of it. Only the spells that wouldn’t bring the Ministry down on our heads, of course.” He tacked an apologetic smile on his face before he looked up.

             Professor Snape had an eyebrow raised and no ugly twisting of his lips. Good. That was the first step. Draco would have had to fight the urge to scurry for cover if he was smirking.

             “All of this is true,” Professor Snape said, tapping his fingertips together as if he had some caked substance on them that he wanted to get off. “But I wonder what should persuade me to help you rather than simply send you on your way with a Memory Charm.”

             Draco caught his breath, then shook his head. The professor didn’t waste words. If he had intended to really do that to Draco, he would have cast the Memory Charm already.

             “Because there are certain things that I need to know, sir,” he said. “Certain people who would like to see me learn them, and whom I want to please.” He moved a little to the left so that his arm stuck out a bit, then pulled it back to his side as if that had been an accidental motion. “And others who wouldn’t like me to learn it, and whom I’m committed to disappointing.”

             That was as close as he could come to telling the professor that he had made his choices and was an adult now. He stood still, holding the man’s eyes, and waited.

             Professor Snape sat still so long that Draco was sure he would be thrown out of the room with a Memory Charm after all. Then he stood and went to one of the bookshelves. Draco shut his eyes and tried not to sway on his feet with relief. He should have expected this. His father would have had more confidence.

             “Here.”

             Draco opened his eyes in shock. He hadn’t heard Professor Snape cross the floor back towards him.

             The book he was holding out was a heavy, dark thing, the cover feeling less like leather when Draco took it and more like petrified wood. There was no title on the spine, but one embossed on the front in glittering silver letters when Draco turned it over. Spells for the Strong of Heart.

             “Because of a shameless pretense that the Headmaster wishes me to indulge in,” Professor Snape drawled, moving back towards the desk, “I cannot spare much time to tutor you. I must tutor Potter instead, and try to ‘get along’ with him.” Those words were not much emphasized, but still, Draco had no doubt of the venom that dripped from them. “Heaven forbid that someone in the school show such aversion as I do towards Dumbledore’s pet.”

             “I can learn by studying the book, sir,” Draco said firmly, closing his hands around it. “Thank you.”

             Professor Snape flicked a finger. Draco took the signal, bowed to him, and then left, shrinking the book as he went and sliding it into a robe pocket. No need to make it easy for his enemies to catch him.

             His heartbeat calmed down as he walked back towards Slytherin, and he began to smile for real as he reached the common room door. He could do this. It wouldn’t be easy, but he could fulfill the Dark Lord’s wishes and spare his parents torture.

             In a way, the Dark Lord had even been honoring him, by giving Draco this task and assuming it was not beyond his abilities. He could easily have given it to someone else instead, someone who had much more time in his service than Draco did and would have been eager for the glory.

             Let me look at it in that light. It’s a compliment. It must be.

 *

             It did not take Albus long to come to the fireplace in his office, for which Severus was grateful. He despised talking by Floo. The soot got ground into one’s robes and knees, and he had assumed enough undignified postures in his younger days—and still must, whenever he went before the Dark Lord. He did not relish kneeling down to look into the fire.

             “We have a serious problem, Headmaster,” Severus said when he saw those sharp blue eyes looking back at him, and then described Draco’s behavior and the way he was certain the boy had received the Dark Mark.

             Albus was silent for some minutes, his fingers rubbing the scar on his arm that the Dark artifact had left. Severus examined it, since Albus was not looking up at the moment and would not catch him at it. To his satisfaction, he saw no sign of returning green or grey or any other colors that would indicate a problem. Albus’s weakness would be contained only in rumors, not in reality.

             Finally, the Headmaster looked up, by which time Severus had made his gaze blandly courteous again.

             “I wish to spare the boy,” Albus said quietly. “Because he is young and innocent, and carries something of a child’s soul in him still. I am afraid I must ask you for another expenditure of your time, Severus.”

             “To watch over him and attempt to turn him, subtly?” Severus could have laughed when Albus blinked. At times it was pleasant to surprise the Headmaster by his intelligence.

             Sourness would have followed the thought if he let it. He knew exactly why Albus was prone to underestimate his cleverness. One stupid mistake had left its mark on the Headmaster’s mind even more than it had on Severus’s.

             But he would have to brood on that later, with Potter’s detention in a few minutes and Albus nodding now. “Yes. I fear it must be subtle, because the boy seems unlikely to listen to common sense if presented to him.” His voice was weary.

             Growing up with his particular parents, it would have been a miracle to expect him to. Severus bowed his head and said, “I will keep an eye on him and report to you regularly on how this is going, along with my other—project.”

             “I wish you would not think of Harry as a mere project, Severus.” Albus’s voice was gently chiding.

            “Given my current relationship to the brat, I can do naught else,” Severus said, and then ended the Floo conversation. At least his careful choice of words had ensured that the last expression on Albus’s face was a relaxed one. He was thinking that Severus would try to change the “current” relationship into a “new” one that would reflect Albus’s wishes more closely.

             Exactly five minutes late came a knock on his door. Severus could have told that knock from Draco’s if his ears has been muffled in layers of cloth. Draco did not assume he was welcome; he tapped cautiously and respectfully, always mindful that Severus might be doing something else. Potter knocked as though he wanted to know why Severus hadn’t already opened the door.

             Severus leaned back in his chair and almost hissed the words, “Come in.” His hands were warm with excitement as he reached down to grip his wand. Oh, he was looking forwards to this.

 *

             Harry walked through the door with his shoulders slouching and his face sullen. It was the kind of look that would make Uncle Vernon yell at him. From the way that Snape’s eyes narrowed, it had the same effect on him.

             Good. Harry had come up with all sorts of plans for Dumbledore’s Army in the last few hours, since Ron and Hermione had commented that they didn’t know most of the spells he’d used in Defense Against the Dark Arts. The sooner Snape realized he couldn’t train Harry like a performing dog, the sooner Harry could start his real learning.

             “I’m here,” he said as the door swung shut behind him. He shivered in spite of himself at the clang, but when he listened hard, he didn’t hear the click of locking spells. That was all right, then. He could still get out.

             Snape took his sweet time standing up from behind his desk and coming around it. Harry tilted back his head so that he could see all of him at once. He was irritated that, even after a small growth spurt, Snape was so much taller than him and always would be.

             So much for the idea that the father shows up in the son. And Harry decided that he would do his best not to be irritated by his height again, because it was something that made him different from Snape, and that was something to be glad for.

             “You will learn discipline,” Snape said, as if they’d been talking when he saw Harry last and were continuing the conversation now. He started moving, circling around. Harry turned to face him each time. He can’t intimidate me. He thinks he can, but he can’t. “You will learn punctuality. You will learn to work with me as I struggle to make you into a fighter deserving of the Headmaster’s confidence.” He curled his lip. “An impossible task, doubtless, but one that I have agreed to take on, and, therefore, one that I will not fail at.”

             Confident, aren’t we? Harry thought, and stuck out his lip, and stood still. Snape aimed his wand at him.

             “Prepare to duel,” he said.

             It took all of Harry’s self-control to keep from bringing his wand up in response. He had to defend himself, all his instincts shrieked. But then he reminded himself that that would mean Snape had won, and these stupid “training” sessions would continue. He stood still.

             Snape’s first spell hit him in the leg and hurled him to the floor. Harry landed with a wince, but he hadn’t hit his head; his falling hands had caught him in time. He got up with a bruise and a slight limp, and then stood there and looked up into Snape’s angry face.

             “What is this, Potter?” he hissed. “Have you lost your magic?”

             “I’m sorry that I’m not any good at it,” Harry said, and Snape looked like a vampire baring his teeth.

             “You forget,” he said, his voice deepening until Harry felt it in his bones more than he heard it. “I saw what you were capable of in the Defense classroom earlier today. Skill like that does not vanish between one class and another—unless the student wills it to do so. You will show me the right responses.” He paused, then added, in a tone of disgust that sounded barely controlled, “I have no idea why you would wish to deny your talent in any case. One would think that the great Harry Potter would adore being fawned on by his teachers for something he did while he was an adolescent, rather than when he was a baby.”

             Harry gritted his teeth. That insult stung more than he wanted to, since he did often feel that many people thought his “defeat” of Voldemort when he was a baby was worth more than anything he’d done since. He might as well have stopped living when he was a year and a half old.

             You can’t let Snape get to you, he reminded himself, and then said, “Maybe I just got lucky, sir.”

             “No, you did not.” Snape moved a pace or two nearer, and his voice and his face were both full of hatred. “You will not defy me, Potter. Your skill is important to this war, and it will be honed.”

             Harry sneered at him. “No, it won’t. Not by you.”

 *

             Severus could not remember the last time he had allowed himself to feel this much rage. It surrounded him in a swirling red vortex, so near to drowning him that his limbs trembled and his heart raced.

             How dare the brat? Severus knew what he had seen. He had the orders from Albus to train Potter however he needed to in order to bring out those skills that would spell doom for the Dark Lord in the end. And the boy himself had cooperated in the Defense classroom, showing Severus that he would not be utterly wasting his time. How dare he try to inspire Severus to doubt the evidence of his senses?

             He glanced down at the way Potter held his leg. He evidently preferred being wounded to cooperation.

             That thought alone saved Severus from falling into his anger. He still could not comprehend the reasons that Potter would want to hide and subdue his skill, but he thought it probably had something to do with Potter’s hatred of him. Potter would do anything rather than gratify a request from his Potions teacher.

             No. His Defense teacher, now.

             Severus did not think merely insulting the boy would work. Nor could he assign him detentions doing ordinary tasks; Potter’s mulish expression said that he would take that over dueling. And while he could still take points, Potter probably had the support of others in his House, or he would not have begun to do this in the first place.

             So I must attack him from a direction that he will least expect, bearing the truth in my words.

             “It is a wonder to me,” Severus said, drawing himself up to his full height and letting his voice drip with disdain, “why you wish to hide your obvious intelligence and talent.”

             Potter blinked and took a step backwards, as if he thought that Severus would charge at him in a minute. There was no denying that Severus would have liked to. But achieving his goals came before all else, and frightening Potter—if it could be done—would not contribute materially to them.

             “What do you mean?” Potter asked, and his tone had changed from sulky to belligerent. Severus smiled. Excellent. It is always easier to influence Potter when he is angry. “I’m stupid. You always said so.”

             “But now I know better,” Severus said, and gave a long-suffering sigh, moving past Potter and back to his desk. The boy watched him and blinked like an owl who had been offered a letter and then sent away without it. “Now I know that you could have done well in Potions, but you squashed your abilities. I hear from Professor Slughorn that you have been achieving remarkable successes in his classes.”

             For some reason, Potter flushed, but shook his head. “Don’t say things like that,” he said, “I know you don’t believe them.”

             “And are not my lies more pleasant to listen to than my usual mode of speaking to you?” Severus murmured. The anger still lurked, waiting. Severus beat it back with stern hands. Becoming enraged would allow Potter to win.

             When he thought of that, it was much easier to hold Potter’s eyes and continue in a level, neutral tone without betraying any flicker of how distasteful it was to him to praise this shining example of student malfeasance. “You could do much better than you have. I saw it in the classroom this morning. You blazed. You will not convince me to believe again that you are simply incompetent.”

             Potter’s eyes widened, and he stood still a moment. Then he laughed. Severus clenched his fingers into his palms, glad that his hands were inside his sleeves and Potter could not see them.

             “I don’t know what kind of trick you’ve decided to play now,” Potter said, when his laughter died away and he was shaking his head in what looked like amused exasperation at Severus’s response. “But I think it’s a stupid one. You’re not going to make me believe that you want to teach me, no matter how you try. You’ve already said that it was Dumbledore’s idea that we start working together again—”

             “Professor Dumbledore,” Severus corrected sharply, but Potter continued in the cheerful tone that said he was going to ignore every caution Severus could give him.

             “Which means that you don’t want to teach me. And I don’t want to learn. And no matter how long you keep me here, that won’t change.” Potter folded his arms and gave Severus the most idiotic smirk he had ever seen, even counting the time that an eleven-year-old Draco had proudly told Severus about breaking the rules and assumed he would get away with it.

             Severus trembled, though with the kind of faint shiver that would make no motion in his robe and which Potter would therefore never notice. His wand was still in his hand. He could lift it and cast a curse without trouble. It would be so wonderful to see Potter sprawled on the floor, gasping in shock as his legs were burned or—

             Or nothing. Those were not the kinds of spells that Severus could use in school without consequences and notice, or else the Dark Lord would have demanded long ago that he assassinate Albus and there would have been no sane excuse for Severus to refuse.

             Then the perfect plan came to him, settling on his mind like a blanket of soothing mist and cooling his anger. Of course. The proper way to settle this debate that should not be a debate was to use Potter’s instincts against him, much as he had done in the Defense classroom without knowing it. Given what he realized about Potter’s intent to defy him now, Severus thought Potter would not have responded with such brilliance if given the time to think about it rationally.

             He opened his mouth as if he would reply. Potter leaned forwards.

             Severus whipped his wand up and nonverbally incanted the Icehands Curse. The white spell that blazed at the tip of his wand and then struck straight for Potter like a beam of moonlight left him no time to respond.

             Except by listening to his muscles and his mind, and raising a Fire Shield in front of himself. The fire crackled hungrily, spreading out in a circle crisscrossed by eight scarlet lines that eagerly swallowed the ice. Severus listened to the grinding shriek and clash of the magic fighting, and awaited the inevitable result. This time, he had paid more attention to the shifting power levels in the room as Potter cast, and he knew that the brat had some raw strength. The problem was that he did not have finesse.

             Finesse was what Severus would teach him, no matter how long it took.

             The fire condensed into a tiny ball of radiant yellow around the last of Severus’s curse and vanished, taking the white with it. The only sound in the room was Potter’s loud breathing. He looked as though someone had slapped him.

             “Tell me, Potter,” Severus said, as though they had all the time in the world, “do you know what curse that was?”

             Potter promptly went back to obstinacy, hardening his eyes and grinding his teeth. “How could I? I never saw it before.”

             “And yet,” Severus said, his voice soft and pleasant, “you chose the right defense. It was a curse based on ice. You chose fire to fight it.”

             “So what?” Potter’s voice had the kind of ringing challenge that Severus frequently met with from students who assumed they were smarter than he was. “Anyone could have done that.”

             “Not anyone,” Severus said. “I know seventh-year students who cannot manage the Fire Shield. I know trained Aurors who would not have been able to process the color of the curse and come to the right conclusions fast enough.” I have faced some of those Aurors on the battlefield. “Instinctive knowledge or not, you have a talent.” He moved forwards until he was mere inches from the boy and Potter had to crane his neck to look up and meet his eyes.

             “I will not see you squander it.”

             The blood drained from Potter’s face. Severus knew why. He had put all the force of his conviction in his voice, because there was more than simple obedience to Albus driving him now. Potter might have the ability to free them from the Dark Lord, with proper training. Severus needed to encourage him to use it and not hide it so that he would survive as well as Potter and Potter’s little friends.

             This had also become a means of conquering Potter’s pride. Severus now knew that it angered the brat to display his magic in front of Severus, though he still did not know exactly why. That was the kind of thing Severus could easily hold over his head. Better, he could use the very alertness that made Potter so capable of defeating threats against him and force him to assist in demonstrations in the classroom and private duels to speed up his training. Severus tasted victory merely thinking of the way Potter would fret, and fume, and complain, and yet end up working with him anyway.

             And finally, though few would know this except students like Draco who possessed a natural talent in Potions, Severus wished to teach those who had gifts. It was the dunderheads who surrounded him, with no application and no ability, that he had less patience for. He had none at all for people who were good at things but didn’t think to work at them to become even better. He had never previously thought that Potter could inhabit that category.

             Now he knew. Now he refused to give the moron any peace—not because of Albus’s orders, but because of his own deepest principles.

             Potter gave him a stare of silent, conflicted hated.

             “Detention over, Potter,” Severus said, and watched in delight as Potter opened his mouth several times to say something, then turned his back and marched out without a word, as if he were an automaton.

             Struggle against me all you like, Potter. You will lose the battle.

 *

             Harry swore softly and pressed his hands against his face as he stood in the corridor outside Snape’s office.

             That could have gone better.

             Stupid reaction times. Stupid determination that wouldn’t hold up. Stupid Snape, who would only torment him more and worse if he knew what Harry knew.

             He paused when thoughts of that secret called up others, and he realized it had been at least a week since he applied his face-concealing charm. “Shite,” he muttered, and started to aim his wand at his face.

             Cold settled on his arms. Harry shivered and glanced doubtfully at Snape’s door. Had he opened it again? Was it his presence Harry was feeling? But no, the door was firmly shut.

             Then he felt a slicing fear that cut into his stomach, and he turned to stare down towards the end of the corridor. Dark, swirling shapes moved there, which could have been the shadows of someone walking away from the Slytherin common room.

             But Harry wasn’t dumb enough to think that, not when he had also felt the fear and the cold and the despair that was trying to numb his mind now.

             Dementors. Dementors got inside the school somehow.

             Harry took off running after the shadows, fiercely lashing his mind to find a happy memory.

Draco was busy reading his book and safe behind the stone walls of the Slytherin common room, but he still heard the shout. He probably could have been upstairs in the Prefect’s bathroom and heard it there.

    “EXPECTO PATRONUM!”

    Draco stared at the wall. He remembered the spell; it was the same spell that Potter had used on him, Vince, and Greg when they played that harmless prank of dressing up like Dementors to scare him on the Quidditch field. He wondered why in the world someone would be using it in the Hogwarts dungeons.

    No, why Potter would be using it in the Hogwarts dungeons, he decided after a moment of thought. He was sure that he had recognized that shout.

    “What was that?” Vince asked. He had been deep in reading his Charms book, his forehead furrowed the way it always was when he read, and he kept a finger in place beneath the line he had reached when he looked up.

    “I don’t know,” Blaise said. He looked as if he might stand up from his comfortable sprawled position on the floor, his Astronomy notes spread out in front of him.

    “It was Potter, no doubt trying to play a prank,” Draco said, rising swiftly to his feet. Blaise’s eyes darted to him, and Draco looked warningly back. He had no idea whether Blaise was among the Death Eaters. He’d never seen him at the meetings, but he was kept out of so much that was important that that meant next to nothing.

    Resentment stirred in Draco, because he had to prove that he was the one who was worthy of the Dark Lord’s confidence. Besides, Blaise was always pushing, when he could, to take away Draco’s prominence among the sixth-year Slytherins. Draco might have an important task and his parents’ lives weighing on his mind at every waking moment, but he still had time for House politics. His father had always said that they mimicked the politics of the outer world that he would be involved in sooner or later, when he left Hogwarts and became important because he was a Malfoy.

    “I’ll go and see if it was,” he continued, shaking his arm so that his wand sprang into his hand. Pansy gasped and looked impressed. Draco gave her a narrow smile and ignored the way Blaise rolled his eyes. What did it matter if Blaise was sick of his “pretensions,” as he called them, already? So long as he fooled most of the people most of the time, Draco didn’t care about the few stubborn personalities he couldn’t influence.

    He opened the Slytherin common room door and stepped out into the dark corridor, listening intently. For some reason, he had expected to see Potter right away, but the shout must have come from around a corner. Draco started walking to the right.

    Then Potter bolted around the corner, his eyes so distended and his face so white that Draco stopped walking in sheer dread. Potter seized him and spun him into the wall, then leaned in behind him and whispered harshly, “Stay still, Malfoy. And keep quiet if you can. I don’t want the Dementors getting distracted.”

    Dementors. Draco shivered, frightened for more than one reason. What if the Dark Lord had got tired of waiting for Draco to find a way to let the Death Eaters in and ordered someone else in the school to have the Dementors clear the way? His parents would die, and Draco would never get the chance to prove himself.

    He turned his head to the side in time to see Potter take up a guard position near the corner, his wand clutched tight in one trembling hand.

*

    Harry peered ahead. He knew he was breathing too fast and that he might faint in a minute, but he couldn’t help himself. The Dementors he had faced in the corridor were—different, somehow, even though they had still scattered from the Patronus. Larger, and more white then grey, and with long fingers that had reached out and left glittering red welts covered with silver dust on Harry’s arms. Harry scrubbed them absently and hoped that Dementors couldn’t Kiss you with their hands.

    He wondered if Malfoy was creeping up behind him, and hoped that for once the git would have the sense to stay where he was.

    And then.

    The Dementors’ fear washed over him, indicating that they were just on the other side of the corner. Harry stiffened his muscles to keep himself from running away or backing down. He had the Patronus Charm. Someone would come in a minute, because people would have heard his shout. He was in Hogwarts, and there were wards and professors around.

    His imagination reminded him that the Dementors had managed to get inside Hogwarts despite all the wards and professors.

    Harry saw the shadow of a reaching hand. He thrust his wand forwards and focused as hard as he could on the memory of Sirius saying that Harry could come to live with him.

    “Expecto Patronum!” he shouted again, and his wand flared and the silvery stag bounded out.

    But instead of rushing at the Dementors, it halted in the middle of the corridor and turned its head back and forth so that its antlers pointed at the walls. Harry watched it, open-mouthed. What was going on with it? Were these special kinds of Dementors able to come through the walls the way the basilisk had slithered through the pipes in them?

    The stag stamped a hoof and glanced back at him. Then it turned to face him fully, ears twitching. It tilted its head back and forth, as if to say, Show me the enemy and I’ll charge it, but I don’t see the enemy.

    Harry glanced down at the ground. The shadow of the Dementor’s hand had gone, and he couldn’t feel them now. But he knew he had felt it. He knew he’d seen them scatter from the charge of the first stag he’d conjured. And even Dementors shouldn’t be able to just vanish out of Hogwarts like that.

    “Well, go on, find them,” he said, feeling more and more stupid as the stag just stood there and he could feel Malfoy’s stare sharpening from behind him.

    The stag tossed its head up and down and gave what looked like a disgusted snort, though of course it couldn’t make any sound. Then it stood there considering him in a doubtful way.

    Harry listened as hard as he could. Other than Malfoy’s muffled snickering, though, he couldn’t hear anything.

    “Fine, go away,” he said, and slashed his wand down to banish the stag. It went, and Harry stepped forwards and peered into the corridor. Yes, no Dementors. It was empty. Harry ran a hand over his face and cursed under his breath.

    “Potter? What are you doing?”

    Harry twisted around to glare at Malfoy. “What do you know about Dementors being in the school, Malfoy?” he demanded. “Is this another one of your stupid tricks?”

    Malfoy sneered at him and yet managed to look innocent at the same time. “Yes, Potter, because I have nothing better to do than get you in trouble…” His voice trailed off and he leaned forwards to peer at Harry. His eyes were thoughtful, and Harry thought he was getting curious, even though he didn’t know why.

    Then he remembered that he hadn’t finished casting the face-altering charm, and even though he couldn’t be sure the glamour had worn away from when he’d cast it last week, it probably had.

    Shite! Harry spun around to face the corner again. “Did you hear that?” he asked sharply.

    “No,” Malfoy snapped. “Hear what?” But Harry could hear him breathing faster and listening anyway, not quite able to dismiss Harry’s reaction.

    Harry fiercely whispered the incantation for the face-altering charm and relaxed as he felt it wash over his features in a tingling flood of cool magic. Then he turned back to Malfoy. It’s dim out here and he has other things to think about, he told himself. He’s probably not going to notice, or remember what he noticed.

    “I thought I heard something,” he said. “I want to know what you were doing out here, Malfoy. Most people don’t walk towards the sound of battle—”

    “Potter.”

    As Snape appeared from behind Malfoy, Harry fought the temptation to bury his head in his hands and groan. I am so fucked.

*

    Severus might have had to rely on Legilimency to get the truth out of Potter—the moment the boy recognized him, he had tightened his jaw and acted as though rusty hooks could drag nothing from him—but Draco was in the corridor and more than willing to tell him what spell Potter had cast, and why.

    Severus had crouched over the stone where Potter had claimed Dementors were and whispered a spell that would reveal traces of their passing as small silver marks. The light had not come. Severus cast the spell again to be sure; Potter was sensitive to Dementors, and not likely to mistake their presence.

    Nothing.

    That left three possibilities: that Potter had made up the whole thing to justify his insatiable desire to cause trouble; that the Dark Lord was sending visions to Potter again, though why he should wish to send a vision of Dementors Severus did not know; or the boy had finally gone mad and was going to bring all of them down in an apocalyptic crash because he did not have the manners or good sense to go quietly mad after the war was over.

    Severus sent Draco back to his common room with a few sharp words. The boy bowed his head and went quietly enough, but the glance he darted at Potter was sharp with curiosity. Severus was glad that most people in the school would know of Potter’s detention by now. At least Draco would not question why Potter was in the dungeons in the first place.

    He might question any number of other things, though, and Severus told Potter several of them in a low hiss as he escorted (perhaps prodded would be a better word) the boy to the Headmaster’s office.

    “Do you want Draco Malfoy to begin spreading rumors that you are mad?” he asked Potter as they rode the moving staircase up. He would ordinarily have preserved a dignified silence, but the boy’s locked jaw and refusal to look directly at him were provoking beyond endurance. Five minutes out of my presence and he must be in trouble. “What he knows, Lucius Malfoy will, and what Lucius Malfoy knows is the Dark Lord’s.”

    Potter gave him a slight, sarcastic smile and then turned to study the wall sliding past them as if it were the most fascinating thing he had ever seen. Severus’s fingers crooked, but he did not grip and shake the idiot’s shoulder. Nothing that will leave visible bruises. The one he has on his leg from the moment when he tried to resist and ignore me is bad enough.

    “You should not have lingered in the dungeons,” Severus said.

    The boy tensed at that, but still didn’t reply, not even with the defense that Severus was sure he would have come out with: that the Dementors had attacked before he could get far from Severus’s office. And then they reached the top of the staircase and Severus had to knock on Albus’s door, with no more private time for trying to fathom Potter’s stubborn silence.

    I need not worry about a death from spying, that is certain, Severus thought as he listened to Albus’s cheery call to enter. The boy will melt my brain with anxiety long before then.

    “An uncertain pleasure, but not an unexpected one,” Albus said, when he saw them. He gave his head an admonishing shake and glanced at Potter. “My dear boy, could you not at least try to stay out of trouble until the second day of classes?”

    Potter sighed and spent a moment fumbling with his fringe before he looked up. “I’m sorry, Headmaster,” he said quietly.

    Spite went through Severus like a wasp’s sting. How was it that Albus could convince the boy to respond to him within a few seconds, and Severus had to hammer on his emotional shields for minutes before they fell? Even when he tried to offer him help that the boy would need to defeat the Dark Lord, it seemed that Potter refused to see the good in such an offer.

    Then perhaps you should change your tactics.

    That was not a voice Severus heard often anymore: the voice of his own mockery, turned back on him when he made a mistake. It had spoken often in his younger years, when he had required its advice, but for the last decade, he had taken only the most effective and necessary actions, and ceased to require its presence.

    He had thought.

    He grimaced and settled back into the corner to observe Potter’s interaction with Albus, content that no one was paying him enough attention to notice such things as the grimace.

*

    “What happened, Harry?”

    Harry glanced up, measuring, but Dumbledore’s face was nothing like the cold and distant expression he had worn last year. He leaned forwards and raised a hand slightly as if he would hold Snape back from charging forwards and wrenching Harry’s arm. Not that Snape had tried to do anything like that yet, but Harry was sure that he would, if someone wasn’t there to stop him. Uncle Vernon sure wouldn’t hesitate.

    “I saw Dementors in the school, sir,” he said. “Ones in white cloaks, with longer hands than normal.” He swallowed and glanced down at his arm. He would have said something about the marks they’d left on him, but he saw now that they’d vanished. He would have been stupid to mention it. “And I sent my Patronus after them, and they scattered. Then I went around the corner, and Malfoy was there. But when I cast the Patronus again, they’d vanished.”

    Dumbledore glanced over Harry’s head at Snape. Snape must have mouthed something or rolled his eyes, because Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. Harry glared back at Snape. Snape simply sneered at him.

    “I felt no Dementors break through the wards of the school,” Dumbledore said gently. “And there is no trace of their presence in the dungeons for those who can detect such things. Is there anything else it may have been, Harry? Perhaps some Dark creature that looks similar to a Dementor?’

    “There’s no Dark creature that looks similar to a Dementor!” Dumbledore raised an eyebrow at him in turn, and Harry became abruptly aware that he was shouting and being rude. He coughed and tried to ignore the way his cheeks flushed. Snape was probably enjoying it, the bastard. “Sir,” he added. “I don’t think so.”

    “And did you react the way that you usually do when a Dementor is around?” Dumbledore asked calmly. “I am only asking these questions because I believe that your answers may help us to work out what happened,” he added.

    Harry thought about it. Then he sighed. “No, sir,” he whispered. “I didn’t hear my mother’s scream or—or anything like that.”

    Dumbledore nodded. “Then this is something else, but that does not mean it is not powerful and dangerous in its own right,” he said. “I would like you to begin Occlumency lessons again, Harry, at your own discretion. I believe that Voldemort may be reaching through your scar and trying to distract you or influence your perceptions.”

    Harry nodded. His scar didn’t burn, but maybe Voldemort had learned how to get around that.

    He wanted to say that he knew what he had seen, and that Dementors had really been in the school, but the more he thought about it, the stranger it seemed. Why would Voldemort bother sending Dementors who didn’t Kiss anyone? Not enough people could cast the Patronus Charm to keep them all away if hundreds of them came into the school. And then more people would come after them, Death Eaters and probably Voldemort himself.

    “I’ll try, sir,” he said. “I’m sure Hermione can help me find a book on Occlumency.” He heard Snape snort, and gritted his teeth as he tried to ignore him. Like I’m going to come to you again and beg you to teach me, arsehole.

    “Good.” Dumbledore reached out to a bowl of yellow sweets on the desk, and his sleeve fell away from his arm. Harry stared when he realized that a thick scar encircled his skin towards the elbow, shiny pink lines that reflected the light of his fire.

    Dumbledore followed his gaze and sighed gently. When he spoke, his voice was sad but firm. “We must all pay our tolls in this war, Harry,” he said. “I fear that your burden is heavier than I would want anyone to carry, but I must ask you to bear it for a bit longer. I have already destroyed one powerful Dark artifact that belonged to Voldemort, and this was the price. The next time I go after such a thing, I will take proper precautions.”

    He leaned forwards again, holding Harry’s eyes with his. “I promise,” he said, his voice so soft that it sounded like the words of a vow, “you will not have to bear that burden for much longer. And I will do what I can to lighten it, by taking away all the chains which might increase it.”

    Harry didn’t think a deaf person could have missed his emphasis on “chains,” and he looked to the side because Dumbledore was looking there, too. On a shelf among a few of Dumbledore’s silver instruments was a heavy golden locket on a chain. Harry thought he could see an S on the front, but maybe that was wishful thinking; it was most of the room away, and his eyes were starting to squint, he was so tired.

    As if he could sense that, Dumbledore leaned back in his chair and said, “Go back to your common room, Harry. I will trust you to keep me apprised of any future developments.” He looked straight into Harry’s eyes, and now he wasn’t smiling. “And not to take chances, and in general to conduct yourself like a rational adult. If we are going to be comrades in this war, I must insist on it.”

    Harry felt his spine straighten. That was the best thing about Dumbledore: when he was paying attention to you and speaking about his confidence in you, then you felt as if you really could do anything.

    “Yes, sir,” he said firmly, and marched away and out of the room when Dumbledore nodded to him, ignoring Snape. He wasn’t going back to the common room, of course; he had a meeting of the D.A. to attend. But at least he knew that Dumbledore trusted him again and didn’t blame him for what had happened in the Ministry last year.

*

    The moment the door shut behind Potter, Albus slumped in his chair and closed his eyes. A light sheen of sweat had broken out on his brow, and Severus moved immediately to his side, checking the scar around his arm.

    The most powerful diagnostic charms he knew did not reveal anything amiss, however, and at last he took a step back and stared at Albus in perplexity. “What is wrong?” he asked. “I thought I had removed the poison.”

    “You did.” Albus opened his eyes and gave Severus a grim smile. “It’s my most recent battle that’s weakened me, not that one.” He glanced at the golden locket he had shown Potter.

    Severus studied it warily. He could feel a residual tinge of Dark magic, the kind that might come from being stored with cursed books. “I did not realize the Dark Lord was clever enough to conceal strong weapons under weakness,” he murmured.

    Albus shook his head. “It’s harmless now.” Weariness coated every word. “It didn’t wound me this time. But I had to contain and then drain the Dark magic from it, and it was…fatiguing.”

    “Yes, it would be,” Severus said, speaking sharply to disguise his worry. “Headmaster, what are these artifacts?”

    “That is knowledge that I’m afraid I don’t trust outside my own head as yet, Severus.” Albus spoke in the same tone he’d used to inform Severus that the Marauders would not be expelled from Hogwarts for what they’d done. Severus clenched his teeth. Albus added after a moment. “I wish you to concentrate on building your bond with young Harry for the present. Did you notice anything different about him?”

    “Yes,” Severus growled. “Over the summer he seems to have concentrated all his stubbornness in his ungrateful brain.”

    Albus studied him thoughtfully, a small smile playing on his lips. Then he said, “Well. Perhaps you are right.”

    Severus shifted uneasily. He had the feeling that Albus was hiding something from him, something far worse than the nature of the artifacts that the Dark Lord had accumulated, but he had no idea what.

*

    “Harry! There you are!”

    Harry grinned and waved to Hermione as he entered the Room of Requirement. Ron stood next to her, and Harry forced himself to say casually, “Hi, you lot,” before he looked around the room to see how many people had come.

    More than last year, Harry felt his heart rise as he counted sixteen Hufflepuffs and twelve Ravenclaws—and what looked like the whole of the Gryffindor sixth, seventh, and fifth years. He took a deep breath, Dumbledore’s words running in his head. I’ll have to be strong for them. I’ll have to be a leader for them. I can’t afford to waste time worrying about my own stupid personal problems, like Snape being my bloody father.

    “Where were you?” Ron demanded, drawing his wand. “We expected you an hour ago.”

    “Sodding Snape,” Harry said, and saw Ron nod understandingly. He turned to face the rest of the crowd. “Right,” he said. “I think the first thing you need to know is how to do a proper Shield Charm.” Obscurely, he felt as though he needed to show Snape that lots of people could do Defense right if they were just taught right, and that Harry’s talent in Defense wasn’t anything extraordinary.

    “I don’t know if I can do that,” said one of the Ravenclaw girls, her eyes wide and frightened. She nibbled her lip and looked towards the door. “I mean, isn’t it very advanced magic?”

    “Everyone fourth year and above should be able to do it,” Harry said. “Watch me.” He took up a crouching stance, as though someone was trying to hurl a hex at him—because most of the time, someone would be—and moved his wand through the right motions. “Protego!”

    Several people gasped as the silvery shield popped up in front of him, and Harry thought they were watching the magic instead of his hand. But the Ravenclaw girl relaxed into a smile. “I think I can do that,” she said.

    “Good.” Harry nodded to Hermione and Ron, both of whom had showed him last night that they knew how to do perfectly good Shield Charms. “Ron, take everyone standing over to the right. Hermione, take the ones in the middle, and I’ll work with the people on the left.”

    Hermione, beaming, moved to take up her position. Ron strutted over to the group Harry had assigned to him. Harry saw Lavender Brown, who was in the group, blush and smile at Ron. Harry rolled his eyes.

    Some people just don’t have enough to think about, he decided, before he started showing the incantation and wand movements again to people who were probably never going to learn it in the Git with a Superiority Complex’s class.

*

    Draco lay awake in bed, frowning at the ceiling. His memories of the moments when Potter had pushed him into the wall and yelled at him, then stood facing imaginary Dementors, were fragmented and confused by adrenaline and fear. And then Professor Snape had come around the corner and yelled at him, which was enough to put anyone off being able to pull minute details up in front of their mind’s eye.

    But Draco was sure he had seen something different about Potter in the short time he’d been looking him in the face.

    What, though? He still had two eyes—more’s the pity—and that stupid scar and that shaggy hair that looked as if he never took care of it. So it couldn’t be anything obvious. But anything small probably wasn’t worth the time and mental effort that he was devoting to it.

    Draco shut his eyes and told himself to go to sleep, so that he could find some way to snatch time for going to the Room of Hidden Things in the morning.

    But the image of Potter’s face chased him into his dreams, and the single, unanswered question that seemed to grow more urgent the more he ignored it.

    What was different?