Despite Harry’s resolution to enjoy the rest of his holiday, or perhaps because of it, life didn’t seem to get any easier. Vacation passed quickly for a few days, and Harry relaxed a little, but on New Year’s Eve he felt a small twinge in his scar. He immediately began occluding, and it went away after a few minutes.

The next morning he went down to the Great Hall, half wondering if he should mention the event to Dumbledore. When he arrived, however, he saw the teachers sitting hunch-shouldered over their morning papers. Apparently Dumbledore already had his hands full.

There was a short announcement. The places that had been attacked the previous week had been hit again, and this time the damage was more serious. There were casualties now, including children. The Daily Prophet included a complete list of the magical victims.

Harry fled the Hall as soon as he could. He ran up to the Tower, put on his scarf and thickest cloak and left through the window on his broom. He flew out to the pitch and started doing laps. Harry knew he was the wizard of prophecy. Not only was the wizarding world expecting him to somehow save them again, Fate itself had decreed that Harry kill Voldemort or die trying. That was hardly the most encouraging news he had received. What most people failed to realize, including himself sometimes, was that Harry was only sixteen. He was still quite young, despite the fact that he was nearing adulthood.

Realistically, Harry thought, the only way I’m going to take out Voldemort is if all his Death Eaters turn their backs and he is sleeping. Actually, given how paranoid the heir of Slytherin was, Harry probably couldn’t even get to him if he was sleeping. The youth chuckled grimly.

He did need to do something though. He was the prophesied one, and he couldn’t just turn his back and let Voldemort go on killing innocent witches and wizards and Muggles just because they were there. There had to be something he could do. Harry pondered what that might be for several laps.

Well, let’s go through this logically, said an inner voice that sounded remarkably like Hermione. If Voldemort is a Dark Lord, the best place to start would be Defense Against the Dark Arts, right? Granted it wouldn’t be all he needed, but it would at least make a beginning, and at this point, Harry felt he was in desperate need of a beginning.

With a nod to himself, Harry flew back to the window he had left ajar and alighted in his dorm room. He might as well start with this year’s text. He could skim through it (after all, they would be studying it for the rest of the year) and then go to the library and start looking there.

----

Severus Snape was in quite a quandary. He had crawled back to Hogwarts after his meeting with the Dark Lord and patched himself back together. He knew he ought to go and talk to Dumbledore. At the very least he needed to let the older wizard know that the Dark Lord no longer trusted him much.

Yet, despite knowing his duty, Severus felt reluctant to go and fulfill it. A part of him wanted very much to ask his mentor’s advice about his new assignment, but at the same time, another part of him ridiculed that desire. After all, look what had happened the last time he had sought the old man’s advice.

Perhaps he might owl Lupin. Again. Quite a large part of Severus still wanted very much to despise the werewolf, but his rational side forced him to acknowledge the fact that Lupin had given him good advice before and would probably do his best to steer him in the right direction this time.

But Severus really didn’t want to tell him. To go before him as supplicant, again, even now that they were adults, was repugnant.

Severus sat before the fire, weighing and measuring his options as carefully as if they were ingredients for a delicate potion. Finally, he had a thought that was different, and it might just lead to success. Hadn’t his current row with Harry arisen because of secrecy? Therefore, what else was there to do but to speak with the lad about his new assignment? Severus nodded to himself. He stood up and crossed to the door.

Before he had made it halfway across the floor, however, he suddenly had a new thought. If the Dark Lord wasn’t telling him about his plans, how was the Order going to be kept informed? Severus went back to his chair and his thoughts. Perhaps someone else could be persuaded to take up the mantle of spy for the Order? Not that he would retire from the position, but maybe it was time to bring in someone else as well.

---

Severus had just reached a decision on who to contact when his stomach growled loudly. Startled, he looked over at his clock and noticed that it was time for dinner. Excellent, perhaps he could catch Harry going into the Hall or coming out afterwards. He could speak with Dumbledore after that.

Snape got up and left his quarters. He moved down the hallways and up the staircases with his usual determined air, eyes moving in hope that he would spot Harry. Severus did see the boy, but it was as he was walking into the Hall. He sighed. Perhaps he could time leaving a bit better.

Severus noted when Harry rose from the table and carefully waited a few minutes before following him. By quickening his pace just slightly after closing the door behind him, he was able to catch up with the youth on his way back to his dormitory. “Mr. Potter, a word please,” Severus called to him.

Harry froze, shoulders tightening. “Is this in regard to anything academic?” Harry asked without turning.

“Mr. Potter,” Severus protested as he drew nearer.

“Or perhaps I have broken some school rule, Professor?” Harry’s voice was so scrupulously polite that it was clearly an insult.

“I should like to speak with you.”

“I’d rather not, sir, as I believe I made clear to you before.”

“Harry, it is important,” Severus sighed softly.

Harry glanced up at him. “What?” he growled.

“Would you accompany me to my office?” Harry rolled his eyes and gave him a look that said he wouldn’t accompany him anywhere, even if Severus had offered to bring him to a place that contained all his wildest dreams.

“Very well. I merely thought that you should be made aware that the Dark Lord has a new plot against you. I do not know any of the specifics, but I have been instructed to make you as miserable as possible.”

Harry’s face twisted into the most furious and hateful scowl that Severus had seen since just after the Mutt had died. “Ah! I see you are more than willing to confide in me now! Well, I’m glad that at least this time you haven’t been given anything that you’ll find too taxing.” And with a final sneer Harry spun on his heel and marched off to Gryffindor.

“Mr. Potter!” Severus called. “Harry!” he tried again. But Harry never turned.

Several minutes later the furious Potions Master found himself in front of the gargoyle that had guarded the headmaster’s office since time immemorial. Snape absentmindedly gave the password and started up the spiraling staircase. It had not gone well with Harry.

Not that he’d expected it to, but he had hoped that the boy might appreciate the warning, and the risk he’d taken in discussing it in the hallway. Granted there was no one else there, he had checked, but that didn’t preclude the possibility that there was a spy-spell or some other way of observing that hallway that Severus hadn’t noticed. It was a slim possibility, but still, he had lived this long on taking as few chances as possible.

Perhaps, he mused as Albus invited him in, this was one of those necessary risks. He never would have done such a thing before the summer. Then again, perhaps all the crucio’ing had finally driven him round the bend.

And furthermore, what had that impertinent boy meant, nothing too taxing! Did he suppose it wasn’t difficult deceiving the Dark Lord and virtually the entirety of Slytherin House? Did he think that Snape liked the position he was in? That he enjoyed insulting someone he had come to…Severus drew himself up mentally at that even as he dropped into the chair before Dumbledore’s desk.

That was what it was really all about, wasn’t it. He, Severus Snape, had grown to care about the whelp of James Potter. What was the world coming to? Severus had thought he had made peace with his concern for the boy’s welfare before. There was no excuse for this new spasm of grief. Well, he would have to think on it later. Preferably when he was alone, although Ogden might be welcome to join him. Severus sighed and rubbed at his eyes.

“Feeling all right, Severus?” Albus inquired. He had been watching his protégé for several minutes now, and the younger man looked far older and more tired than Albus liked. This war was hard on all of them, but it seemed to be hardest on Severus and Harry and others who seemed to him far too young to even be involved. Sometimes, Albus thought, age did not feel like an advantage.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine, Albus,” Severus replied a moment later. “I’ve come to report. I seem to have lost the Dark Lord’s confidence.”

Albus looked at him sharply. “To what extent?”

“He revoked my previous assignment. I have been given a new one, but really, it isn’t particularly an assignment so much as telling me to go back to my ‘usual behavior’. He also hasn’t confided anything to me, even as part of a group; although I have the feeling that something is being planned. I really have no idea what that might be, though,” Severus concluded with a grimace.

Albus was frowning deeply. “Do you think you are in danger?”

Severus snorted. “Not much more than usual, I shouldn’t think.”

There was a glimmer of humor in the elder wizard’s eyes as he agreed, “Yes, I suppose spending significant portions of time in the company of a madman isn’t exactly devoid of danger.”

“Oh I don’t know,” Severus replied in the same tone. “You’ve never asked me to do anything more dangerous than chaperone a Hogsmeade visit. Then again, that isn’t exactly healthy for anyone…”

That elicited a chuckle from the headmaster. “I suppose you are correct, as usual. Although the students didn’t seem to come back quite as worse for the wear as you did.”

“Nonsense, Albus.”

Dumbledore smiled indulgently. “Speaking of students,” he began.

“I’d rather not speak of it,” Severus cut him off before he began.

Albus sighed. “Very well. Exercise extra caution with Tom, my boy. I don’t want to lose you, and I don’t think anyone else does either.”

Severus inclined his head. He had no intention of being caught. The consequences would be distinctly unpleasant.

-----

Draco Malfoy didn’t think he had ever been this happy to be going to Hogwarts, with perhaps the single exception of his first year. It had been a singularly tense and silent holiday. He had never before noticed how his mother tended to fade into the background whenever his father was present. He found that he missed her warmth, her acceptance of him, and her wicked sense of humor.

He was pleased that she was taking him to the train station, and even more pleased, though he carefully buried the thought, that his father would not, could not, be coming with them. He knew his mother must have wanted to spend a few moments with him as well, since they hadn’t simply taken a portkey.

Or rather, they hadn’t simply taken a portkey to platform 9 and ¾. They had taken a portkey to a wizarding pub that was a short walk from the train station. They walked in silence at first, but as soon as they were out of earshot to anyone entering the pub Draco looked carefully around to see if there were any wizards walking near them. He didn’t see any, so he decided to risk asking his mother a question that had been plaguing him since the end of summer. “Mother, what did you and Weasley’s mother speak about in Diagon Alley?”

Narcissa had looked over at her son, regretting that it wasn’t looking down at him anymore. Her boy was growing up. When she heard the rest of his question, she looked around carefully. In a way, she decided, a crowded muggle street was probably the best place to have this conversation. “Children, of course.”

“But mother, how could you speak to her?”

Narcissa looked down at her son in amusement. “I suppose the same way that you find it in yourself to speak to her son or daughter.”

Draco gave her a disbelieving look. “Do you mean to tell me that you were taunting her?”

“No, indeed, Draco, that wouldn’t be polite.” There was a pointedness to her comment, but her son let it pass unremarked upon.

“Then what did you say? And how did you dare? You know Father hates them.”

Narcissa looked over at her son with a calculating expression. “My son, you are growing up. You will find, as you do so, that things are not always as they seem, nor are they always as you have been told.”

She paused then nodded very slightly. “Molly Prewitt and I knew each other long ago, when we were but girls. It was an accidental meeting, her family didn’t spend a lot of time with my family, but we did see each other occasionally, and it was a delightfully scandalous acquaintance. In school we were obviously separated by house, but we never completely gave up speaking to each other.”

“But mother, she’s a muggle-lover and a blood-traitor!” Draco exclaimed softly.

Narcissa cast another glance at her son. “She is a mother. We do not quite see eye to eye on many things, Muggles included, but still.” She shrugged slightly and elegantly. “Mother’s have a way of speaking to each other when their children are involved.”

“So then what did you say?”

“What do you think we said?” Draco frowned slightly in thought. Perhaps his mother had been telling her off for letting her children hex him. But on the other hand, why would Mrs. Weasel take it so calmly? But what else could it have been?

Narcissa glanced over at her son, who was now deep in thought. She gave a little sigh. She wanted so badly to guide him, but it seemed it was too late. She didn’t dare come out too strongly in opposition to his father, that would have disastrous consequences, but at the same time, she couldn’t stand by and watch her son follow blindly in a path that had been laid out for him.

Narcissa Malfoy, nee Black, had thought very hard when her husband was arrested, and she had determined that her son would at least see where he was going, whichever direction he chose. And she would see that it was he who chose. As his mother, it was the least she could do for him.