Harry stepped rapidly across the Ministry atrium and stopped before the lifts. Everyone else waiting turned to stare at him. He gave them an uncomfortable smile and tried to stay focused on the day ahead. His nerves were bothering him much more than expected. His previous confidence seemed to have deserted him between home and here.

After one wrong turn, Harry was brought to the correct check-in person at the department of Magical Law Enforcement. He had been here before with Mr. Weasley and recognized some of the corridors. He was then led to the testing room which had been arranged in a corner of a larger room that looked as though it may be used for athletic workouts and, given the scorch marks on the walls and ceiling, spell practice. The desks were nearly all full which equalled fifteen applicants. Tonks had said there were rarely more than six. Eyes found his and went wide. He ignored them and took one of the remaining seats on the far side in the second-to-last row.

The young man next to him was Indian with shiny black hair that covered his collar. His gaze at Harry didn’t waver.

“You are Harry Potter,” the man stated in a heavy accent.

After a glance to confirm that the middle-aged wizard at the front was still waiting for something before starting, Harry held out his hand.

With deliberate movement the man shook it. “Vineet Abhayananda,” he said.

“Pleased to meet you,” Harry said automatically. He pulled a quill and inkwell from his bag and set them out, noting that Vineet’s dark eyes tracked him doing this.

“You and I are the only two not availing ourselves of a never-quill,” Vineet said.

It took Harry a moment to get that. He glanced around. Everyone else did have a never-out quill. Harry preferred a normal one—dipping in the inkwell forced him to take time to think.

The middle-aged, thin-haired wizard with a small chin overseen by a thick but neatly trimmed light brown mustache introduced himself as Reginald Rodgers, Senior Trainer. He handed out the examination parchments by walking the narrow aisles, touching each quill with his wand as he passed, presumably with an anti-cheating spell. The exam roll was thick and heavy.

Rodgers stepped back to the front of the room and said, “Time.” Harry unwrapped a foot of the roll, tucked the bulk of the roll under the lower edge of the desk, pinned it there with his chest, and glanced at the first three questions. The fourth one looked easier, so he tackled that one first.

By the time he had answered the last question at the end of the parchment, hours later, Harry was stretching his neck frequently. Vineet beside him sat in the same straight-backed pose, calmly dipping and writing. A glance at the clock showed that there was still half an hour of the original four hours remaining. Harry went backward through the questions, editing his answers and trying to write something for the ones he had left blank. Of the row in front of him, one test taker had left early, one with very short hair had her head on her arm for a nap, and the other two slouched low in their seats, tiredly perusing their parchments.

Harry closed his eyes and thought about the first question. It asked what seven spells Marvin the Magnificent had used to destroy the Breakwater Banshee. Harry had heard of Marvin—a statue of him as a stooped old man graced the fifth floor corridor at Hogwarts—but he didn’t know anything about Marvin fighting a banshee. The second question was a Potions one. It gave a formula and six variations and asked what effect the original potion and the variants would have. It wasn’t a recipe he had ever encountered. Rather than leave the space blank, he made notes about each step and what the result would be. At the end it seemed like the whole thing would be inert. He wrote that the potion would do nothing, even though he strongly resisted that answer. Only the fifth variant would leave anything active. He wrote that down and thought that it would be a long, complicated way to end up with a mild oxidizer. He noted this conclusion too and hoped it wasn’t too flippant.

Five minutes left, and only the first question was blank. Harry imagined facing a banshee. He would definitely start with a Silencing Charm. He wrote down that he did not know what Marvin had done, but that he may have begun with that. Since Banshees have poisonous teeth, he wrote down two suggestions for that, then added three more ideas to disable the claws, including a Treacle Trap. That was only six. He mulled over what a seventh might have been until Rodgers called for a halt. Harry wished he had just known the answer. With a sigh he rolled it up and handed it to the head trainer as he came by for them.

Everyone was standing to stretch and Harry did as well. Vineet sat staring ahead, looking relaxed and out of place as a result.

“There will be a break for forty-five minutes and then the physical testing will begin,” stated Rodgers. It was one o’clock. Some of the test-takers took lunches from their bags. Harry’s stomach gurgled. Mr. Weasley had suggested Harry join him. Thinking that he would like that, Harry took his leave.

“Mr. Weasley?” Harry said, sticking his head inside his office door after a fast walk through the Burrowish Ministry corridors.

“Harry! How did it go?”

Harry shrugged. “I probably got some of the questions right. More than that…” he finished with another shrug. “You said there was a tearoom? We’re on a break and I’m famished.”

“Of course, of course.” Arthur stood up and hustled him down to the end of the hallway. A cart with sandwiches sat in the break room with a can for money. Harry took a cheese sandwich and put in four sickles for it. He spotted a jar of pumpkin juice on the second shelf and paid a sickle for that. The tearoom was empty so they took the middle table.

Halfway through a quiet meal, Mr. Weasley said, “They didn’t just give you a free ride on the entrance exams?”

“I didn’t want one,” Harry said in a difficult tone.

“Ah. I see. You are too honorable, my boy,” Arthur stated sagely. “You make the rest of us look bad.”

Harry gave him a doubtful face then jumped up as he saw the clock. “Gotta run. Thanks for lunch, Mr. Weasley.”

“Anytime, Harry,” he said with affection.

Back in the testing room, the desks were gone and the applicants, fourteen of them now, were pairing up on mats in rows on the floor. Harry spotted Vineet standing alone and stepped over to him. “Do you mind?” Harry asked.

“By no imagination could I,” the man responded.

Many of the other applicants were doing warm ups. Harry stretched his legs the way Neville had taught him for running, just to do something. Vineet did a series of moves, kicked out and turned gracefully. Harry stepped back automatically to get clear. “What is that?” he asked.

“It is an Eastern Art of defense. I will demonstrate?”

Harry shrugged and stepped onto the mat as indicated. Vineet bowed and Harry watched his hands, which was a mistake, as a dark skinned foot kicked around and took his legs out from under him. Surprised more than anything, Harry got back to his feet. The landing on the mat had not jarred him. The whole room stopped to look at them.

“Can you show me that?” Harry asked.

Vineet grinned, which Harry had not yet seen him do. He patiently explained and demonstrated the kick. Harry tried it a few times in the air—he needed his arms to counterbalance a lot more than Vineet appeared to.

“You may try it,” Vineet said, stepping on the mat before him.

“Sure,” Harry said. He gauged the distance to the other man’s legs and rehearsed the move in his mind then twisted and swung his foot. His foot did not connect. Instead, Harry was airborne, rolling over Vineet back-to-back. He landed on the other side of the mat. With a challenging look at the Indian, Harry stood up again and hoped Eastern Arts were not a requirement of the Auror’s program.

“Should I have expected that?” Harry asked him, while trying to gauge the man’s intent through his calm visage. The entrance of the training wizard cut off any reply Harry may have received.

Harry made it through the timed laps, the push-ups, the weights. None of it was really hard, although several of the applicants were like Vineet, in very good condition.

A set of basic spell drills came next. Harry breezed through his set and Vineet stepped up to follow. With great concentration the Indian completed his set as well. When he stepped beside Harry, Vineet’s face was sparkling with sweat as though he had exerted himself greatly. Harry wondered at that. The other applicants all finished with varying degrees of ease.

Rodgers called them to order when the last applicant completed her drills. “Each of you, step up into the marked area in front of me. You will receive five spells, Radian, Figuresempre, Dragonian, Quiotidus, and Polaria Diarama. The spells will be in a random order. You are to block each one. Potter, why don’t you go first?”

Harry adjusted his wand grip, making sure it was firm but flexible, and stepped into the area marked with yellow paint.

Rodgers said, “You are expected to stay in that painted area.” He paused as though to be sure that was understood. “Ready?”

Harry nodded, mentally flipping through the blocks he would need. Rodgers spelled him with a Dragonian first. Harry managed a basic dome block to meet it, but the force of it made him step back anyway. He resisted glancing down after the spell faded, just stepped forward to approximately where he had started as the second spell came at him. A Chrysanthemum block handled the Radian and the Quiotidus that followed immediately after. Harry was breathing hard. Rodgers put more power into his spells than he was used to. The air was staticky with magic afterward.

Rodgers paused before the last one. “Ready? Since you know what it is, it is going to be loaded.”

Harry blinked at that, wondering what the man thought the previous ones were. The Figuresempre that hit his Titan block almost collapsed it. Rodgers, seeing this, re-incanted it. Harry, adrenaline pumping, poured more into the block to counter it. The orange field around him solidified, thankfully, and Rodgers canceled the attacking spell.

Harry let out a breath as his arms dropped limp. Rodgers tipped his head to the side to indicate he could step out. Harry, relieved, did so. The rest of the applicants looked wary now as Harry stepped over to them where they were clustered in the middle of the room. Glad that was out of the way, Harry watched, relaxed, while one-by-one the others were tested. Eight were not able to stay in the box. One needed to be hovered out of the room to the Healer. Vineet, despite what seemed to be poor spell power, kept himself upright and in the box by sheer will and physical strength. He bowed deeply to Rodgers after the fifth spell was finished and stepped over to Harry.

“You made it look too easy, I think,” he said, sweating hard again.

“Didn’t mean to,” Harry said in an apologetic tone.

After the testing Harry used the stairs down to the atrium. It was mid-afternoon and he felt as though it should be ten at night. That morning he had planned to make an afternoon trip to Diagon Alley for a few things, but they seemed much less important now. He took his time walking across the large open space as he tried to decide what to do. He was down to his last handful of Floo powder, so if he did go shopping, he would have to remember to get more.

Deciding he would later regret not taking care of things, Harry shucked his robe by the lift and stuffed it into his bag. Up on the surface of Muggle London, he started walking. He came upon Vineet standing at a bus stop at the end of the first block. Happy just to see a familiar face where he least expected it, Harry gave him a nod and a smile. The Indian stepped smoothly out of the crowd and came aside.

“May I ask you something?” he said.

Harry stopped and shrugged.

The man hesitated as a group of Muggles went by, then hesitated further. Finally he said, “I have read everything I could find about what you did to the Unnamed One. It is mostly supposition, however.” Harry looked away from the man’s dark brown eyes and watched a red bus trundle slowly away from the stop. Vineet went on, “I am not wishing to impose, just exceptionally curious. I do not expect to make it to the apprenticeship, and I am thinking this is my only chance to talk to you. Kismet if you will.” He smiled uncertainly.

“Why don’t you think you’re going to make it?” Harry asked.

“Ah.” Vineet sighed. “My magic is not so strong. That is why I am working so hard on my martial skills in vain hope it will be a difference. You were convenient for a demonstration, I am forced to be confessing.”

“Ah, I get it now,” Harry said. “But I asked you to partner.”

Vineet bowed slightly at that. “Kismet, my grandfather would say. His mother was a witch—it is my only inheritance of magic unless one looks back five more generations or one includes the entire village in the accounting.”

Harry looked him over. He thought that if he had even half this man’s poise, he would be all set in everything.

Vineet went on, “But you have not shared with others, so I cannot hope to have you share with me. It seemed to me from the vague retellings that you used very little magic. I have taken much from that. It is what has led me here.”

Harry stared at him in surprise. Relenting in the face of that, he said, “I was told I was using old magic, but I think my headmaster was using the term ‘magic’ a little broadly.” Vineet’s eyes became very hungry as Harry spoke. Harry could not help but give in farther. A year was a long time and the story felt much less weighty. “I forced Voldemort to feel everything positive and moving that he was incapable of feeling. He couldn’t handle that. It impaired him enough he couldn’t fight back right away.”

“How did you reach him to do this?”

Harry frowned. “I didn’t have to reach him. I’d got part of him when he marked me.” He gestured vaguely at his scar. “It got worse after he used my blood to give himself human form again.”

Vineet’s eyes remained intense. “I am not hearing that story.”

“It was published in a pretty obscure place.”

Vineet thought a moment. “Can you give an example, give me an example of what you made him feel? I am not understanding.”

Harry waited for more Muggles to pass. “Voldemort never felt anything good. Love, for example. Need for…” Harry paused to try to name the emotion he had felt at the abandoned manor. “Need for caring, I guess.”

“That is all that was required?”

Harry thought about that. “I suppose. I did have to catch him off guard, to trick him actually, to really get an opening for a spell attack. But that all is too complicated to explain. Then I had to manage an Avada Kedavra with no hate in it after only reading a description in a book. Funny, they don’t teach that one at my school,” he added, attempting lightness. Thinking he should give Vineet some encouragement, he went on, “You’re right that I didn’t use much magic. I relied on my friends’ magic, which was better than mine in some cases. Voldemort had many of his followers with him and they were not in a very good mood.”

Vineet gave him a weak smile in apparent acknowledgment of his joke.

Harry continued, “You have to understand, and maybe this is something you will, that I was destined to destroy him, so some things just happened. He moved against me with too much haste. Got into my school when he shouldn’t have, but at exactly the right moment for me to defeat him.”

Vineet nodded at this thoughtfully. After a moment, he said, “My number of bus is approaching.” He held out his hand and Harry shook it. “I am hopeful for seeing you again,” he said calmly without any hint of hopefulness.

“Good luck,” Harry said sincerely.

“Worth a thousand blessings of Shiva, I think,” he said with a hint of amiability. Harry watched him step on the bus just before as it pulled away with a smoggy roar.

Harry gratefully stepped out of the Floo at home and found Snape in the drawing room. “How did it go?” Snape asked.

Harry tilted his head to the side. “I have no idea.” He told him the formula of the second question.

“You would get mud if you mixed those things together under those conditions, unless you are reciting it incorrectly.”

“I think I got that one right then. The first three questions were really odd.”

“To make the test takers panic, I should think. Did you?”

“I skipped them and tried to fill something in when I was done with the rest.” He shrugged. “They are going to owl if I made the first cut with the schedule for my second day of testing.” Snape gave him an odd look, forcing Harry to comment, “You don’t think I won’t get in. I shouldn’t be in it if I don’t deserve to be.”

Snape’s expression did not change. Harry huffed and walked away.

Feeling like he deserved to, Harry relaxed over the next few days. He sat in the dining room before lunch, rereading Penelope’s last letter and writing out a reply. He found himself expressing more of his hopes for this apprenticeship than he suspected she wanted to hear, but could not think of anything else to write about since it was all that was on his mind. Snape came down as Harry released her owl out the window.

While they ate, an owl with an official leg band from the Auror’s office arrived. Harry tore open the envelope with some impatience and read the message quickly. “I am scheduled to go back in on Thursday, eight AM.”

“Congratulations, Harry,” Snape intoned as he buttered a second slice of bread and began making a sandwich out of the cold joint on the platter in the middle of the table. “Still feel you have been passed through unfairly?” he asked levelly.

“Um, no. It says I got the second highest score on the written examination. And the highest on the spell drills.”

“I am glad that leaves no question in your mind. Or anyone else’s, for that matter.” He ate a bite. “It also bodes well for your N.E.W.T. results, which should be coming soon as well.”

“Oh right, those,” Harry said, as though he were trying to think about too many things at once.

“Worrying about Thursday already?”

Harry rearranged his sandwich which kept falling apart. “Suppose so. They said that it’s a kind of personality and character test. They want to make sure you won’t crumple when faced with personal stress and danger.”

Snape put down his silverware a little loudly and looked at him. “You certainly have been well-prepared for that,” he said dryly. “You would do best to worry less and conserve your resilience, I should think.”

On Sunday, Harry stepped into the drawing room where Snape was buried again in parchments. They looked a bit like Hogwarts acceptance letters, which made Harry curious, so he approached and tried to read one of them upside-down. It was the familiar form letter all right. Snape looked up, prompting Harry to say, “Mr. Weasley said he would give Ron and myself Apparition lessons today, so I’m going to the Burrow.”

Snape sat back and surveyed the piles before him. “I have not had much time, have I?”

Harry shook his head. “It’s all right. Ron said his dad wanted to do it. And you need a break from teaching.”

“Do be careful,” Snape muttered, returning to the pile before him. To Harry’s eye it looked as though he was signing the letters in McGonagall’s name. He supposed it didn’t matter, really, since the new students wouldn’t know the difference.

Harry stepped out of the Weasley hearth a few minutes later. Ron and Ginny were playing wizard chess on the couch with Ron leaning far forward looking more intent on the game than expected, making Harry wonder if he was losing.

“Hi, Harry,” Ron greeted him without looking up.

Grinning, Ginny said, “Did you hear?” When Harry shrugged, she went on, “Draco’s hearing was on Friday.”

Harry paused, he had not heard that it had been scheduled, despite being at the Ministry last week. He felt a twinge at the realization that people still didn’t tell him things. Trying not to appear angry, he sat down beside Ron and said casually, “So what happened?”

Ginny hesitated, gauging him, before she replied, “He got eight months counseling.”

Harry frowned. “He could use it, I suppose.” He thought a little more as Ron aborted ordering one of his pieces to move. “He’d probably be killed in Azakaban.”

Quietly, Ginny said, “That’s what Dad said. The stated reason was for extenuating circumstances, given that he participated at his father’s urging…that he wouldn’t have for anyone else.”

Harry felt that was probably true and as well that if Malfoy the younger stepped out of line again Harry himself might be in a position to haul him back into it, which he would enjoy doing. They waited for Ron as he looked over the board with a frown. Ginny glanced into the kitchen before saying quietly, “Dad was really angry at Percy because he argued at the hearing that if Malfoy or one of the other Death Eaters did something to Draco in prison, that he’d deserve it.”

Ron finally made a move, then hit himself on the head. “I didn’t see that. Dang.”

“Check again,” Ginny said, clearly enjoying every syllable of it.

“Ron,” Harry prodded. “I can’t believe you are losing.”

“Neither can I.”

Mr. Weasley came down the rickety staircase. “Well, Harry, how are you? Ready for some Apparating?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We HAVE to finish this game, Dad,” Ginny insisted.

“Later,” Ron said, standing up. “We don’t want to make Harry wait.”

Pointing at her brother accusingly, Ginny said, “Your chess set rearranges the board if left alone. Finish or concede. I’m not giving in on my best game ever.”

Ron glared at his sister. “All right, I’ll give it to you,” he huffed, disgusted.

On the lawn outside the ever-sagging Weasley house, Mr. Weasley gave them a long lecture about Apparition safety. “No Apparating or Disapparating in view of a Muggle. No Apparating or Disapparating within the hearing of a Muggle, unless it is an emergency.”

Ron grabbed a biscuit from a chipped, gaudily flower-patterned plate Ginny had brought out. It sat on the heavy wooden table beside them where Ginny sat munching and listening in.

Mr. Weasley continued, “No Apparating after alcohol until you have had at least a year of practice at it and then only if it is an emergency.” Ron nudged Harry with his elbow, prompting Mr. Weasley to huff at them. “Now,” Mr. Weasley went on, “The first thing you need to learn—”

“Arthur?” Mrs. Weasley’s voice rang out from kitchen window. “I need you to help get the gnome traps down from the hall cupboard.”

“Back in a flash,” Mr. Weasley said and headed around the house to the door.

“So, Harry,” Ginny said, chopping through a tiny red apple with a rusty knife. “Where’s your dad today?”

“Busy.”

When Ginny popped a small slice of apple in her mouth, Ron said, “You’ll get sick eating those.”

“What are they?” Harry asked.

Ginny pointed at a scraggly apple tree at the edge of the lawn. “I used a spell to ripen them.”

“They’re going to make you sick,” Ron repeated.

“They’re going to make you sick,” Ginny mocked. “Not if you do the spell right,” she countered and ate another piece. What’s Professor Snape do during the summer?”

“Today he’s preparing the Hogwarts acceptance letters,” Harry explained, helping himself to a biscuit.

“This year’s letters will be signed by Professor Snape?” Ron asked, sounding distressed.

“He’s signing McGonagall’s name to them.”

“Oy, I still treasure my letter from Dumbledore,” Ron commented bleakly. “Wonder who signed it?”

They fell silent in thought until Harry asked, “Where’s Hermione?”

“Said she was busy,” Ron said.

Ginny said, “She’s getting private Apparition lessons next week. At the end they get a test and a license all in one day.”

“Sounds expensive,” Harry commented.

“She said it was her end-of-school present,” Ginny explained.

Mr. Weasley came back out, brushing off his hands. “All right, where were we?”

“No putting radishes in your ears while Apparating,” Ron supplied sounding bored.

Mr. Weasley put his hands on his hips. “I don’t have to take time off on my free day to do this, Ronald.”

“Sorry, Mr. Weasley,” Harry said and hit Ron on the arm.

Even though he didn’t hit it hard, Ron rubbed that spot anyway. Harry was not keen on showing up for his apprenticeship, should he get in, unable to Apparate. He was hoping to at least be able to say he had applied for his license. They should have done this last summer, but with spending most of the holiday stuck at school where it was impossible, there had not been a good opportunity. Ron had held off because he wanted to learn with Harry and it annoyed his brothers that they had to take him places. Also, that way Ron never had to go anywhere without company. In Hermione’s case, Harry suspected she already had her license and just hadn’t told him so he wouldn’t feel badly.

“Now, most important,” Mr. Weasley was saying, “is to concentrate completely on the spell. And nothing else. It is the best way to avoid Splinching yourself. Don’t be distracted by anything while you’re doing it. Stop, center yourself and…” He reappeared ten feet away with a pop! “It is that easy. Ron you first,” he commanded.

Ron stepped over to his father and turned to face Harry with a bit of a slouch. Mr. Weasley became serious. “Imagine yourself shrinking away into something the size of a marble…”

Ginny interrupted, “Mum says imagine yourself folding up like a paper airplane.”

“If the marble doesn’t work, we’ll go with that next,” Mr. Weasley. “Now, close your eyes and give it a try.”

“Do I always have to have them closed?” Ron asked in concern. “I want see where I’m going.”

“Not always, but it helps when you’re learning,” Mr. Weasley said impatiently. “Cuts the distraction.”

“I could plug my ears, then I wouldn’t have to listen to Ginny,” Ron volunteered.

“I’ve seen people learn that way.” Mr. Weasley said. “All bundled up like a mummy and starting from a dark cupboard. Bad way to learn, really. Your cousin used to have to Apparate into the attic when she came to visit because she never learned better. Scared the bats. Anyway, we are getting distracted ourselves. Close your eyes.” Ron did so. “Imagine yourself shrinking up into a marble-sized ball.”

Ron opened his eyes, looked around doubtfully, then closed them again and silence descended. Nothing happened. Harry thought of eating another biscuit but didn’t want to distract his friend with the noise of it. “Paper airplane,” Ginny said.

“Can I try that?” Ron asked without opening his eyes.

“Go ahead,” said Mr. Weasley.

After another half minute, Ron’s arms disappeared, then reappeared as he made a noise of surprise. He patted his arms in a panic. “Oh. Good. For a moment there I thought I’d lost them.” When Ginny giggled into her hand, Ron angrily said, “Let’s see you try it.”

Ginny immediately disappeared and reappeared just to his right.

“You’ve been practicing. Dad, she’s not old enough,” he complained.

“Just another month,” Ginny said, strutting back to the table and starting to chop up another tiny apple.

“I think the twins taught her, although we never caught them at it. Now back to you and your wayward arms.”

It took an hour for Ron to get through getting all of himself to go ten feet, then came the problem of explaining exactly how one knew where one was going. By the time Mr. Weasley did a roundabout explanation of how to imagine where you wanted to end up, it was time for dinner. As they went inside, Mr. Weasley said, just realizing, “We didn’t get to you, Harry.”

“That’s all right, Mr. Weasley. I appreciate the lesson.”

Harry woke early for his second examination. He had cheated a little: he had gone to bed very early and used a sip of potion to sleep soundly. After a reasonable breakfast he bade goodbye to his parent and took the Floo to the Ministry. Fewer people were around this morning, both in the Atrium and in the Auror offices.

Rodgers came out of a doorway as Harry stood at the first bend in the corridor from the lifts wondering which door to knock on. “Ready?” he asked.

“Sure,” Harry said, trying to sound confident. The other applicants had whispered odd things to each other about this test during the previous session. Harry wished he had listened more closely.

“Give me your wand.” Harry handed it over and the wizard said, “Follow me.”

Rodgers led the way down to the end and around another corner. He pulled a black silk scarf out of his pocket casually and told Harry to turn around. He put it over Harry’s eyes and guided him, so blinded, down the corridor and into a room. Harry knew this because could hear their footsteps echoing in a small space.

“Count to ten and remove the blindfold after I have gone. I will give you one piece of advice that a trainer gave me when I had this test.” Rodgers sounded as though he repeated this frequently and that it was not something he was doing just for Harry. “Nothing in here will harm you. If anything will defeat you, it will be your own demons.”

Harry stood blinded and didn’t hear anything at all after that, not even a scuff of a shoe on stone. After a minute he supposed that Rodgers must be gone. He counted to ten anyway and pulled the blindfold off. The room was only fifteen feet square with rough stone walls and floor. The one fairy light did not add much illumination. He could not make out the ceiling in the paltry light, so he supposed that it was quite high.

Time passed. Harry lost complete track of it. Bored, he took a seat in the center of the floor with his legs crossed. After another long gap of silence, the fairy light went out. Despite believing he had been starting to anxiously hope for anything to break the monotony, the sudden darkness still startled him.

Feeling too vulnerable where he was, Harry got to his feet and felt his way to one of the walls. The darkness was absolute and explosions of light behind his eyes made it disorienting. Harry ran his hand over the stones and mortar just to sense something of his environment. He heard something then, like a small door opening, then a sliding sound resembling a cape being drawn across the floor. Another similar noise joined with it in concert and Harry realized what it must be.

Harry imagined himself before the cage at the zoo and said, “Are you here?”

The sliding paused and a long silence ensued. The fairy light reappeared, brighter this time. A very large snake faced Harry, positioned for maximum effect when the lights came back.

“Nagini?”

“Master?”

“I am not your master,” Harry said. Nagini lowered her head and slowly coiled up with a cacophony of low rasping. Harry stepped away from the wall and took a look around for the door she must have used. There was no sign of it. “Been busy?” Harry asked her.

“Many scared humans these last days.”

Harry laughed lightly.

Back in the Auror’s meeting room, Rodgers commented wryly, “We don’t ask on the application about Parseltongue, do we?” He sat at a small table where five other Aurors and older apprentices also sat watching the large crystal ball on the table. In it, Harry was taking a seat in the center of the floor, making long hissing noises.

Tonks entered. “Harry’s in?” She leaned over one of the other women and stared at the ball. “Why did you bother with Nagini? He captured her.” She shook her head.

“They said no exceptions for him,” Rodgers said.

The snake coiled beside Harry. It seemed to be showing him her teeth.

“My poison has been taken,” she said.

Harry peered into her mouth. “Your new fangs actually look longer.”

“They are.”

They chatted for a while, until the fairy light went out again. A bell sounded. “I must go,” she hissed. Harry heard the sliding fade and the small door close. He imagined that if one didn’t know Nagini, that spending that much time with her might be unnerving.

The fairy light brightened again slowly. Harry remained on the floor, waiting. Expecting another long pause, he relaxed. After a few minutes, something shiny in the mortar of the floor caught his eye. He turned and saw that liquid was running in across the floor. Standing quickly, he stepped over to where it poured in from the join of the floor to the wall. It was dark and a little thick. Soon, it was lapping at his trainers as though the room itself were being submerged. He stepped back with a jerk when it coated his shoe in slippery red. There was no place to go, though, and soon blood had filled his shoes and lapped at the hem of his robe.

Harry had never imagined that much blood. It kept rising. When it reached his knees, he started looking above him for anything to grab, or to test if the gaps in the mortar would allow him to climb the walls, but it wasn’t possible. He leaned into the corner and forced himself to stay calm and breathe slowly.

When it reached mid-thigh it halted, to Harry’s relief. Then it drained quickly, leaving him soaked in it. He thought about taking off his robe, but as he shook it out, the remaining blood disappeared, leaving his robe light and normal. Even his pooled shoes dried instantly.

The next break had to go on a long time again before Harry thought sitting on the floor to be a good idea. Eventually, when his legs ached, he relented and again sat in the center of the room. When a deep grinding sound started, Harry came alert again. Stone ran on stone mysteriously until Harry realized the walls were tightening in. They moved inexorably inward, barely detectable but unceasing based on the noise of it. Then the ceiling came down in a surge, making him duck to lie on the floor. Then the walls came in faster and Harry curled up as they pressed close.

The fairy light stayed with him, which at first he was glad for, but when it showed him only his feet, shoulders and knees pressed against unyielding square flint, he realized it was making it worse. Everything stopped for long minutes. Harry squirmed a little to get in a better position to breathe. Then he waited. When the wall at his feet moved in suddenly another inch, he jumped severely, bruising his knees. He again calmed himself. It moved in again, and again he successfully fought instinctive panic, but it felt like a tenuous win.

Five shallow breaths later, the walls pulled gently away. Harry’s hand shook a little as he put in on the floor to keep from falling over. He let out a few harsh breaths and returned to waiting, thinking that those three tests were about as unrelated as he could imagine and left him more uncertain what to expect next.

The wait was shorter this time. A clang sounded. Harry spun around and scrambled to his feet to face an ogre that had appeared behind him. After reaching for his empty wand pocket, he forced his hands to his sides. The ogre clomped over to him. It wore only a wrap around its green belly. Muscles rippled on its hefty arms. Harry had not realized he was backing up until his spine met the wall. He chastised himself, thinking that Vineet would have stood his ground if not gone straight at the invader, bodily.

The ogre pulled metal rings from his belt. With immovable force he took Harry’s wrist and locked the ring around it, then did the same to the other. He then grabbed the chain running between them and yanked Harry into the center of the room. Harry, knocked off balance, fell. He got back to his knees and watched as the ogre pulled something else from his belt. It was a whip. Harry could not prevent himself from jumping nervously at the first loud crack of it within a foot of him.

Harry stared at the ogre as calmly as possible as the whip snapped closer and closer. The whip was finally stashed away and Harry could not avoid releasing his next breath audibly. The last strike had touched his hair.

The ogre shuffled his warty, oversized feet closer and grabbed the chain again and locked it to a ring that had appeared in the center of the floor. Rings were added to Harry’s ankles, but not without a struggle that he just could not hold back on. The chain between his feet was fed through a large ring to the chain between his hands. The ogre gave it a tug, pulling Harry into a curled position. With a grunt the ogre stood straight and the lights went out.

Harry, surrounded by total darkness, forced the chain to yield its slack so he could sit more comfortably. This he could think of as some kind of game, though he imagined that someone who had previously been a prisoner would find this difficult to endure. Again he was left in long dark contemplation. In an odd way the weight of the chains became an anchor in the darkness. Harry had no place to go anyway.

The small door opened again and Harry scooted around on the floor to face the direction of the sound of it. The fairy lights came up to reveal a dozen or so perfectly ordinary-sized tarantulas. Harry relaxed. They scuttled around him, one taking a shortcut over his exposed shin. The feel of its pointed legs made him shiver. After a few minutes of pausing and dashing about they exited and the small door closed.

Time passed again. Harry blinked to clear his eyes and with a loud shuffle of chain, rubbed them under his glasses. The room was filling with an aqua fog. Tendrils of it curled out across the floor, issuing forth a disturbing light. When Harry smelled its sickly sweet scent, he tried to stand, but the chains were ungainly. He passed out, forced by the exertion to take a gasp of tainted air.

When Harry next awoke, his first thought was that his arm was cold and the floor was too rough. He blinked and sat up part way. His clothes were gone and he was still chained. He huffed in annoyance and sat up the rest of the way. There were three fairy lights now. Harry looked around at them and realized with a bad start that someone stood in the corner of the room.

Harry composed himself, put his knees up to rest his arms on and considered the dark form as it stirred and moved into the light. The blue lights revealed a wizard with severely styled, grey-streaked dark hair, wearing a cloak with a turned-up collar edged in scarlet. He walked with a gold-tipped cane that reminded Harry too much of Lucius Malfoy’s silver one. Malfoy, however, never had the opportunity to push Harry over with it, which is what this man did as he passed. Rubbing the spot on his chest where the cane had pressed, Harry sat back up, feeling slightly woozy as he did so. He shook off his unbalance and looked the wizard over as he circled, cane tapping on the stones. Harry did not recognize him but supposed that he represented the ideal of a dark wizard. Harry tried not to scoff internally. Fake dark wizard or not, he really wished he weren’t naked.

The wizard finally spoke. “Presumptuous one, aren’t you?” he asked in a sneering tone.

“I don’t think so,” Harry replied easily.

The wizard gave him a derisive look. He circled some more. Harry stopped watching him since turning his head was making him dizzier. He looked up when the cane tapped him on the shoulder. “What would your mother think of seeing you like this?”

“I don’t know,” Harry said. “I never knew her.”

“She would be appalled.” The wizard caught the chain with his cane and jerked it, pulling Harry to his side. Harry was starting to really hate being restrained so. “She would wail and wonder where your pride was,” the stranger went on mockingly.

“I doubt that.”

“Do you miss her?” The wizard asked suddenly, leaning in close.

“Yes,” Harry replied instantly, then wondered why he was catering to this bloke.

“How can you miss someone you do not remember?” the wizard sneered.

“I just miss having a mum. I see other mothers—I know what they do,” Harry heard his voice coming out sounding hurt and really thought he should rein in his answers.

The wizard circled more. Harry tried to hunch over to prevent access to his chain. The man laughed. “I can do anything to you that I like. How does that make you feel?”

“I don’t like it,” Harry answered. “Though it is somewhat more interesting than being in here alone.”

The cane lifted his chin. “How touching,” the wizard sneered. He circled some more. “Did you enjoy taking revenge on Voldemort?”

“Revenge would have killed me,” Harry said, listening to himself prattle on with some alarm. “Any negative emotion and he would have taken me over. I didn’t want to show him everything, but I had to—he had control of me. He used my hate against me.”

“Have you ever taken revenge?”

“I tried once. I tried to take it against Pettigrew. Wormtail, what an appropriate name…he was a rat and I didn’t see anything wrong with him dying like one. Severus stopped me before I could go after him, pleaded with me not to do it.” Again Harry was startled by how much he was saying. He wondered if being naked and chained had brought his sense of self down that far.

“Was fighting Voldemort the worst moment of your life?”

Harry immediately shook his head.

“What was?”

Harry thought about that, feeling strangely desperate for a good answer. “Maybe one of the times I thought I was being expelled or…” Harry stopped for a long time, not wanting to think about an answer.

Turning suddenly the man shouted, “Tell me!” in his face.

“I don’t know!” Harry shouted back. “I have to think about it,” he pleaded with him, frightened irrationally by the disapproval. “When Voldemort took me over, in the Atrium upstairs, and taunted Dumbledore to kill us both. It was awful beyond words. I was pleading in my mind for him to kill me too, I so badly wanted it to stop.” Harry breathed heavily in the wake of this.

“Name another time,” the man demanded.

Harry’s mind was racing. “What was in that vapor?” he asked, heart thumping as he considered that something was wrong with him.

“It was merely sleeping gas,” the wizard stated reassuringly. “Tell me another time.”

Harry face immediately crumpled. “Helplessly watching my Sirius have his soul sucked out of him...I couldn’t…but I did…but then finding the mirror,” he whispered and shook his head in remorse. “That was all my fault.”

Sharply he was asked, “What mirror?”

“The mirror Sirius gave me. I would have known where he was,” Harry’s voice cracked as he spoke this. “I was such a fool. I believed Voldemort when he gave me visions that he had Sirius captive. So stupid. There wasn’t anyone to help. I didn’t trust Professor Snape. Sirius came to my rescue instead and died for it.” A tear traced out of Harry’s eye at this. His chains rattled as he put his hands up to dab at his eye.

Harry pulled off his glasses when the tears didn’t stop. “He wanted me to live with him,” he felt compelled to explain in an empty voice. He sniffled as he pressed his forearm against his eyes.

“Tell me another,” the voice said after a few more circling steps.

Harry shook his head as he felt a liberating surge of defiance. “No,” he said firmly. The wizard scuffed to a halt before him. A crystal goblet appeared in his hand and he poured something into it from a silver flask in his pocket. He held this out to Harry.

“Drink it.”

“What is it?” Harry asked, suspicious.

“Veritaserum and two other complementary potions.”

Harry glared at the man. Heat filled his face with blood. “You’ve already given me some,” he said.

The man nodded once and continued to hold the goblet out. “You have two clear choices and this juncture: leave and quit, or drink it.”

Harry closed his eyes to force control through himself. He opened them and accepted the cold goblet, half thinking to throw it, to hear it clatter with finality. The liquid in it shimmered in the fairy lights. He asked himself if he really wanted this badly enough. After a long hesitation, and letting his core determination wipe out his thoughts, he drank it down. It was nearly tasteless. The goblet disappeared when he tried to hand it back. The wizard resumed circling. Harry wanted to shout at him to stop but clamped his mouth down on it.

Tonks exhaled audibly. Everyone around the table leaned in close to the crystal ball now.

“Was he talking about Sirius Black?” One asked in disbelief.

“Yes,” Tonks said. “His godfather.”

“He’s still going,” another commented, impressed, while the first shook his head in confusion.

After a few minutes of circling hypnotically around Harry, the dark wizard said levelly, as though he were in total control, “Tell me another.”

Harry tiredly thought about it. “The Dementors maybe, the way… No.” He could feel the potion changing his control, loosening his will. That alone made his eyes burn again. “The tea—the bark tea Severus blew across to cool.” In his mind he saw the firelight, felt Snape’s arm around him, felt that queer resonance to some deep memory. “It was like it was my mother,” Harry heard himself try to explain. He shook his head and felt that awful yearning again, although he could shift his view and allow it to be muted by time.

“Doesn’t sound very bad,” the wizard mocked him.

Harry felt his shoulders relaxing. “He adopted me,” he explained, relieved to find so much less pain attached to the memory now. “Took me home.”

Tonks rubbed the back of her neck, uncomfortable with hearing this.

“They always get incomprehensible after the second dose,” one of the older apprentices complained.

Tonks stood straight and walked out. She stretched her legs by walking the length of the corridor. “Severus,” she said upon seeing him loitering near the lifts on the Auror’s Office side of them. She had owled him that morning when Harry had arrived to be certain he came to get him.

“Someone said he wasn’t finished,” Snape explained.

“He is still in,” she confirmed, trying to sound as calm about that as possible. This was the first time she had understood why he and Harry had ended up in the arrangement they did and she felt like an interloper.

“It has been three hours,” Snape observed. “More.”

“He’s most of the way. But he’s going to be wiped out when he’s done.”

This news made Snape look at her sharply. “Severus,” she admonished his attempt to Legilimize her.

“My apologies. I am…concerned about him.”

Tonks gave him a soft smile. “I see that.” She pointed at his feet. “I also see that the bypass for core Order members is still in place on our floor.” She gave a small shrug.

Snape looked behind him, at how he had crossed onto the complex tiles of the floor from the metal landing around the lifts without setting off an alarm.

“Harry’ll be glad you came,” Tonks said.

After a space, Snape said, “It is strange. I had long considered parental instinct to be purely genetic. I have found it to be circumstantial instead.”

She gave him a more reassuring smile than she felt. “The first task was a bit of a joke for him. We utilized Nagini to test for fear of snakes. We’ve lost two applicants to her already.” She laughed lightly. “This, without announcing she was Voldemort’s. Imagine if we had. Harry had a nice ten minute conversation with her.” She threw up her hands. “No one has the slightest clue what they talked about.” At Snape’s relaxed and almost amused look, she said, “I’ll bring him out here as soon as he’s finished,” before she took her leave.

Back in the room, the dark wizard demanded, “What else do you regret?”

Fishing for an answer, Harry replied, “I regret losing my parents.”

“That wasn’t your fault, was it?” his tormenter asked sarcastically.

“They were trying to protect me.” Harry fell silent. “Born as the seventh month dies,” he finally murmured.

“What?”

“Born to those who thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies. They had to run, to hide, because of the prophecy,” Harry said sadly. “Either must die at the hands of the other for neither shall live while the other survives. They died because of me. Because of what I had to do.” The weight of that felt much heavier than any of the other things he’d admitted and was the least expected.

The meeting room had fallen silent again. “Blimey, he knows more of it. It was supposedly lost,” Rodgers said.

“Dumbledore knew it,” Tonks explained. “I expect he told Harry.”

Bleakly, Harry said, “I always said it the other way ’round for some reason. That they died for me.”

The crawling aqua mist had returned. Harry glanced around for the dark wizard, not finding him. The first whiff of the gas knocked him out again.

When he next awoke he was clothed and the chains were gone. With relief he sat up and rubbed the grit out of his eyes. He hoped the whole thing would be over soon. He felt as raw as he had after defeating Voldemort—a state he had hoped to never descend to again.

The room went dark again. Gradually light returned but the room was gone. Instead, Harry sat upon a small pedestal overlooking infinity. Wisps like clouds or space dust drifted slowly past. He glanced down over the edge and found his spindly pedestal stretching downward into the mist like a needle. It made him a little dizzy, so he sat back straight and peered at what looked like a pterodactyl flying in the distance. He supposed that if he fell over the edge of the pedestal that there really wasn’t any place to go except the testing room floor beside him.

Long minutes later the scene faded and darkness returned. Time passed. Harry grew eager to go. He stood up and discovered his wand was back in his pocket. He took it out and cast a Lumos charm. With more light the room looked smaller. Harry paced around it once. He was familiar enough with the stones making up the floor to remember that when the ogre had appeared, it had come from that direction, there, while his back was turned.

Feeling re-energized, Harry stepped over to that wall and looked at it closely, but it didn’t seem to have any seams. He stepped back and said, “Alohomora,” to no effect. He then began to run through all the unlock spells he knew. The eleventh one made a jagged crack of light, corresponding to the mortar joins, form in the wall. Harry grabbed it with his fingertips and tugged on it.

Rodgers stood in the corridor. “I actually was going to come get you. The last quiet time is to give you a chance to recover.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“No problem. You know a lot of unlock spells…two I’ve never heard. Follow me.” He led Harry into the meeting room. Five people were collected there now. Rogers explained the setup.

Harry flushed. “Everyone was watching?” he asked, dismayed.

“All current Aurors and apprentices are allowed input on applicants,” the trainer explained. “Eventually everyone needs to know everyone else’s weaknesses or things are far more dangerous on duty. We find this speeds up that process without losing lives.”

Harry dropped his eyes and tried unsuccessfully to accept that.

“You made it all the way through. You should be proud of that, whatever else happens.” Rodgers urged Harry out of the room. “The afternoon applicant will be here soon,” he explained as he gestured for him to follow. Tonks met them at the end of that corridor and led him away.

The first thing Snape thought when he saw Harry turn the corner was that his eyes looked far too much like they did on the chocolate frog card. Harry’s gaze found him waiting there and the strained look faded almost to a normal one, startling Snape.

“How did it go?” he asked when Harry reached him and received a shrug in reply.

Tonks replied instead, “He made it through. That is most of the way to being accepted to the program.” She patted Harry on the back. “Go have a nice quiet evening, big meal, maybe a glass of mead, or two.”

“Thanks, Tonks,” Harry said tiredly and felt a surge of affection for her attention.

They rode in silence in the lift. The atrium was bustling now, grating painfully. Snape put a hand around Harry’s arm to get him to step out of the lift and into the atrium. They waited in line at the first hearth. When their turn arrived, Snape held out the Floo powder and gestured for Harry to lead.

Harry had rarely been so happy to be anywhere as when he stepped out into the dining room. In a flash of green flame, Snape appeared behind him. “Perhaps I should inform Winky to prepare an early dinner.”

“That sounds good. I could use some tea too—”

Winky appeared in the doorway right then with a tray. Atop the tray was a steaming pot and a bowl of chocolates. Harry smiled at the elf and sat at the table. Snape sat across from him after going to hang his cloak up.

“An early dinner, if you will, Winky,” Snape said.

“Yes, Master.” She finished pouring tea, arranged things, then left.

Snape sipped his tea. The haunted look appeared and faded from Harry’s eyes several times.

“Are you allowed to tell me what happened?” Snape asked conversationally.

“Only in general.” He ate a chocolate. “They make sure you don’t have any common phobias for one, by making you face them all. Then they make you face some other things that probably occur in the course of being an Auror.”

“Such as?”

“Such as being interrogated with Veritaserum.” At Snape’s dismay Harry pointed out, “I seem to recall you threatening me with that at one point.”

“I do apologize,” Snape breathed in pained sincerity.

Harry thought of saying that he had not been naked and chained to the floor that time so it was okay, then he decided that he did not want Snape to know about that. He stared into his tea and Occluded his mind, just in case.

After a long while Snape asked, “Worth it?”

“I hope so,” Harry replied wryly. He put his cup down. “I should go message my friends that I finished okay.”

In the drawing room, Snape finished sorting the journals that had gathered into a stack high enough to qualify as an additional side table. In the main hall he found Harry curled up on one end of the settee, chin on his outstretched arm, reading a heavily folded up copy of the Prophet.

Snape considered his charge, the tired bend to his neck, the way he had his legs pulled up to his body. He approached and sat beside him.

Harry said, “I think I need to pay more attention to what’s happening in the news…” He flipped the paper over. “…if I am to work with the wizarding public.”

Snape rested a hand on Harry’s back. Harry sighed and dropped the paper to the floor, ducked his head to rest his eyes on his arm.

After a gap his voice muffled by his sleeve, Harry asked, “I wonder if I caused everything?”

“To what are you referring?”

Harry lifted his head. “Well. What if once there’s a prophecy, it’s all over.” He held a hand out to gesture to the open room. “If you try to change the prophecy you’ll just make it true that way, instead. Maybe that was the way it was supposed to be true, anyway. It’s like time travel.”

Snape shook his head. “I— Perhaps, but I doubt it.”

Harry slumped more, which didn’t look possible before he did it. “I just wonder now. Did I cause my parents to die? Because of the prophecy that’s how it was going to work out given they were going to stand in the way. Like it started with that. With me. Not the other way around.”

“That is an unproductive way of thinking about it.” Snape frowned. “Did this somehow come up in your testing?”

“Veritaserum. You know…makes one yammer on about whatever.” Harry used his free hand to pull his legs tighter to himself.

Snape observed this. “Can you straighten out?”

“I like sitting this way.”

“Hence my concern. Did you write your messages?”

Harry gestured to his lap desk on the floor. “Yep. Wrote a bunch. Ran out of owls.” He huffed. “You wish I wasn’t doing any of this.”

“That does continue to be true. You have perfectly functional magic that would get you perfectly well through a wizarding life if you gained no more. Instead you will gain a great deal more.”

Harry sighed. “I want to, though.”

Snape’s voice fell quieter. “You risk becoming what you least wish to be.”

Harry twisted his head to look at Snape. “What do you mean?”

“A powerful wizard. Mucking about.”

“What if…I become one that doesn’t muck about?”

“There is no such thing. For a great wizard, any action, no matter how small, has the potential to have far reaching impacts they do not intend.”

Harry kept looking at his parent, but he laid his head down, tucked into his folded arm. “And that’s why Dumbledore never did anything,” Harry said.

“Likely. He certainly intimated as much enough times.”

“So, dark wizards do whatever they want and good wizards do nothing?”

“That has been my experience.” Snape tilted his head. “Also…succinctly put.”

Harry gestured with his other arm. “But if I work within a structure, like the Aurors. Maybe that won’t be a problem.”

Snape didn’t have a reply to that. Harry shifted his gaze to the cold hearth at the end of the hall.

“I’m not trying to be difficult,” Harry said with another sigh.

“And I do not mean to imply that you are being so. You have earned the right to choose to pursue this,” Snape stated firmly, patting Harry’s back and retracting his hand. “But I also do not wish to see you cowering in a fetal position every time you return from the Ministry.”

Harry shuffled his legs looser. “This was only this one time. They want to make sure everyone is strong enough.” He patted himself on the chest. “I want to know everyone I’m working with is equally strong. So I have to go through the same.”

“I see.”

Harry let go of his legs to gesture again. “You know what I really like about the Aurors?” He paused. “I’m just like everyone else.” He let that hang there, eyes a little shiny. With a grunt Harry sat up and leaned against his parent. They sat like that for a half a minute. “That is better,” he mumbled.

Harry sat straight and said, “If we go sit at the table, will food appear?”

“Possibly. Perhaps we should go and try it.”

They sat in quiet conversation until dinner sparkled in on the table. A large bowl of spaghetti with a cream and seafood sauce surprised them both. It smelled wonderful, so Harry served himself a large pile.

Snape stood and returned with a bottle of honey wine, which he opened. He poured a large glass and placed it beside Harry’s plate. “I am assuming Ms. Tonks knows of which she speaks.”

By the time Harry finished his plate and half of the glass of wine, his eyes were failing to stay open. Snape stood and came around to pull Harry’s chair out as he stood up with the help of the table and then made his way upstairs.

“I’m all right,” Harry insisted as he sat on the edge of his bed after being followed up to his room. “Just really tired all of a sudden.”

Snape backed up. “If you need anything, Harry. Even if it is just someone to talk to. Please fetch me…no matter the time.”

Harry closed his eyes. The twisted up feelings inside him were tugging at the past when he had always felt this way. Painfully grateful that things had changed so much, he said, “Thank you, Severus,” as he opened his eyes.

Snape considered him before nodding sideways and leaving him alone. Harry changed clumsily into his pyjamas and fell asleep even as he adjusted the covers over himself.

Harry awoke from an agitated dream about being chained, perhaps because that had been something new, rather than because it had bothered him. He fell easily back to sleep.

The next time he awoke, with a dream of revealing too much to McGonagall about some rule his friends kept breaking, a shadow was beside the bed. Harry turned his head to look at his parent and realized that, in the darkness of the room, he could see Snape better in his mind.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Snape intoned. The edge of the bed shifted as he sat down.

“I was having a bad dream anyway.”

“Is there anything you need?”

“No. The dreams aren’t really so bad,” Harry mumbled and rolled onto his stomach. “Just strange.”

As Harry drifted back off to sleep, he could see Snape moving away, closing the door, and stepping along the balcony.

Harry dreamed vividly of a cold stone floor, unyielding and cruelly bruising. Without the strength to lift himself, he lay upon it for a very long time, until his bare shoulder hardened to it with numbness. Having no strength to free himself, he might have lain there forever, aching and exposed to the damp draft and gritty rock. But he did not. Someone approached on silent feet and bent to lift him up. Standing was possible then and he could even sustain the heavy cloak that had been draped around him as he departed that cruel place.