The look in Dragon’s eyes was unknown to the raven-haired child, no matter how much he attempted to discern it. There was hatred, of course, but it did not seem to be directed at the cell’s occupant. There was also the boast of smugness, but now the boy could tell it was only to hide the conflict within. There was fear, too, also directed at some third party. Finally, and most shockingly, there was blank helplessness that seemed to call out from the stormy-gray eyes as if the scrawny boy on the other side of the cage-like cell was his last and only hope… not that Dragon would ever admit it, of course.

“Scourgify!” the blonde yelled, the spell whizzing through the bars. Immediately, the unpleasant feeling of the spell coursed through the sitting boy, making him fight a groan. The spell was never pleasant, not by a long shot. Why the captor wanted him cleaned now of all times was discomforting, too. Had they seen through his attempt to hide his present abilities? Did they know what he was now capable of… more so than he, perhaps?

“Get up, Potter.” was the sharp command, though somehow, the look in those eyes stayed irreparably the same.

“Dragon-” he couldn’t help but murmur in question.

“Don’t call me that.” the blonde snapped quicker than one would think possible, “Don’t ever call me that.”

The reaction only confirmed the blonde’s agitated state… something that worried his one-time-friend to no end. Frivolous things never worried the Malfoy heir, and to do so to such an extent, could only hint at a profound problem. What it was, he could not guess… nor could he overlook it. He wished he could simply ask as he had before this warp had occurred, but seeing how his earlier attempt was nearly greeted with a curse, he didn’t think it a possibility now. Still, this was getting more and more problematic with each passing moment.

The next thing he knew, he was hit with a harsh binding spell, with thick ropes yanking his wrists behind him. Only then did the blonde open the cell door, and roughly pull him out.

“You’re going to be on your best behavior today, Potter, or you won’t live to see tomorrow.” The way Dragon said that held a tint of worry, too, though nearly impossible to hear. “I know not why my Master wishes to humor your misconception of being an Asp, but frankly, it may give me the best opportunity to be rid of you once and for all. Just take a toe out of line, Potter, and I shall be more than pleased to kill you myself.

The walk through the corridors passed in the relative calm of silence, during which the blond generally ignored him altogether. Once outside on the grounds, however, such a luxury could not be retained much longer. As soon as the two came into Voldemort’s line of sight, actually, all of the jade-eyed boy’s tranquility left him. Though he now realized Voldemort himself was quite a way from being his worst fear, the man who came damn close stood right next to the deformed snakeman, the long strands of dead straight hair falling around the pearl-white mask revealing his identity without any doubt.

“Not bowing before me anymore, Potter? I must say this turn of events disappoints me.”

“You have made it quite clear I am not one of your Asps, Voldemort.” he answered flatly, glaring strait at the man, if one could call him that. “To continue and act as such would be both useless and foolhardy.”

“Amazing. The Potter heir has seemingly had a half-logical thought.” The sneer from the man to Voldemort’s right, sending a chill running rampant down the boy’s spine. Until that very moment, truly, he had not known just how deeply the man could cut him. He had learned to fear him long before, somehow their previous bond allowed the man to affect him the way no one else (Voldemort included) could, with far less effort than others, but until that very moment, the boy had tirelessly forced himself into an unfathomable pit of denial where this man was concerned. “Or are you still maintaining that audacious claim of being mine?”

That, he didn’t even think of answering… mostly because he didn’t rightly know himself.

Both men, if one chose to term them such, laughed when it became apparent he was not going to answer at all. The monster then jerked him so he stood at his left, the claw-like nails digging into his arm.

“Bring her.”

.∞ . ∞ . ∞.

He had been staring at her for a good five minutes or more, with her staring right back at him, and everything else seeming to disappear. She had a look of resigned acceptance in her eyes, seeming to demand that he only make sure her sacrifice not be in vain. He could barely take it, seeing her like that, knowing in every fiber of his being that she had never planned on making it out, after all. ‘Why?’ he longed to ask, but could not bring himself to question her apparent sacrifice in fear of hearing the same drabble Dumbledore always spoke about him. He would break if he heard all that shit now, from her, the one woman he, at one point, honestly believed beyond Dumbledore’s realm of influence as well as Voldemort’s.

“You should not have run when Father so graciously deemed you worthy for Regulus, Abdicattera… you could have been a powerful figure on our side.” The monster broke the silence, though the boy was too wrapped up in what had happened to pay attention to which of the men had spoke.

“I’d have been dead as soon as a male child had been birthed, and you know it, Snape.” she spat, apparently unwilling to say Severus.

“Instead you shall die a Muggle, with no child to bury you or weep at your passing.” Snape countered calmly, and Voldemort’s grip on the boy tightened slightly.

It was as if he was seeing it all in slow motion; Snape raising his wand, nearly smirking, and beginning to chant in flawless Latin. He saw her eyes close with the first syllables, only to snap back open seconds later… overfilling with pain, shock, and regret; of what he could not fathom to guess. The room erupted in her screams, though Snape’s chanting was still unmistakably in the background.

“Beautiful, isssn’t it,” a voice hissed into his ear, somehow making the whisper prevail over all the other noise, “a dying woman’s screamssss?” The elated tone nearly made the boy lose what little food he had been given, but Voldemort was far from done with his little commentary. “What mosssst fail to realize, young Potter, isss that Crucio is not the most painful cursssse known to uss… not by far, actually. This, however, comesss quite clossse, if I may say ssssso myself. I’m actually quite sssurprised she hass not yet died, actually.”

She was on the ground now, convulsing frantically, her screams now hoarse and labored. The curse, like most dark curses, prevented her from fainting, her glossed-over eyes attested quite plainly to her conscience status. She would not last much longer, he knew instinctively from having seen Muggles die of the Crucatious from much the same vantage point, though at a far different location. Something in him snapped as soon as that thought was fully processed in his brain, something unfathomable changed and his previously shock-frozen body burst into action.

“Let her go!” he heard himself scream, his mind caught in a daze, though far different from the Frenzies he had to endure… the ones he remembered at least. Before he knew it he was away from Voldemort, and positioned between Snape and the now unconscious woman.

“You know not how tempting this is, Potter.” Snape growled, but thankfully didn’t act on his threat.

“I won’t let you kill her.”

“She’ssss a Muggle by now, boy, there’ss nothing you can do.” Voldemort countered, content with watching what the boy knew was an array of emotions playing over his face. Apparently, the monster saw no danger to himself or his precious Ammodytus. “Sssshe probably wantssss to die, now, come to think of it.”

As if in response or some third-party confirmation, Snape’s wand rose once more, and the magic that had been bubbling within the boy suddenly redoubled its effort to get out. As the first syllables of the killing curse left Snape’s lips, the boy saw red, then white, heard a chilling scream and felt a wand roughly jabbed between his shoulder blades.

“You’ll pay for that, Boy.” sounded in his ear, followed by a barrage of distinct ‘pop’ noises and an animalistic growl behind him. With that, the boy’s mind eased, and he knew no more.

.∞ . ∞ . ∞.

“Uh,” he groaned as the whiteness of the hospital wing overwhelmed his vision, praying to any deity he could that this was not some new ‘reality’ he’d have to tug through again. He heard unintelligible voices somewhere near him hush at his labored sigh, accompanied by some random shuffling of Merlin knew what. Someone held his glasses within easy reach, and he gratefully pushed them up onto his nose, finally able to identify the figures in the room.

“You had us worried, Harry, my boy,” Dumbledore told him honestly, placing his withered hand on the boy’s shoulder, merrily adding “Miss Granger was most worried for your person.”

A flash in his mind accompanied that comment, and suddenly he understood what the Headmaster meant… but… how? More mental flashes followed, as if a part of his mind had broken through some dam, and pushed to have itself known. Suddenly, he knew exactly why he had a faint scar on his hand, which looked as if someone had written on him with a razor. He could now tell what Umbridge’s ugly mug looked like, beyond what Hermione and Ron had supplied. He remembered going out on a date with a Ravenclaw, Cho, and how wrong it had felt… just how different from when he’d done the same with-

He shook his head slightly, as if the act would settle the bombardment of memories that he just had, all of a sudden. Did he really go out with her? Yes… yes he had, is. Is! And oh how he’d treated her! Merlin, if the others weren’t here, he’d go up and kiss her right now. The sight of her, waiting oh-so-calmly at the end of his bed, clearly concerned, made him feel better all on its own. He loved her, he realized, and knew the same was true for her.

“Mrs. Abdicattera McGonagall asked me to thank you on her behalf, Harry, you saved her life.” Dumbledore continued, as if the grand revelation he had just had had taken no time at all.

“She’s alright then, sir?” he asked, pulling himself away from the butterflies in his stomach, which seemed to stir each time he stole a glance at Hermione.

“Thanks to you, yes. And I must say, my boy, you did a fine job that day…” the old man praised, “Not only did you save her life, but you deleted the largest threat short of Voldemort himself!”

“I… I did, sir?”

“Of course, though most of the Order doubted you could use the new weapon Abby gave you so soon after attaining it. It was well worth her sacrifice.”

“Her- She’s a Squib now, then?” he questioned regretfully, feeling as if he’d betrayed her by letting them take her magic.

“She knew the odds of her escaping with her life were slim, Harry, and escaping with her magic was virtually inconceivable.”

“Then-”

“Why did she go?” the Headmaster finished for him, “Why, she would not have it any other way. Abby is a very loving soul, Harry, with a heavy grudge against the Snapes. Beyond the latter, she simply refused to sit by while she could help you, somehow. The tracking spell I had cast on her allowed Aurors to find the manor, after she sabotaged the main security spells, which is how we retrieved both of you.”

The security wards could only be altered by a member of the family line… a Snape. That’s why she didn’t leave as soon as she had woken his wandless magic. She was the only one who could crack the fortress that was Snape Manor… But-

“You said I ‘deleted a threat’?” what the hell had that been about?

“Don’t you remember, Harry?” Dumbledore asked uncertainly, “Your wandless magic exploded, all of which directed at-”

“Oh. Oh Merlin. Oh-” he was hyperventilating and he knew it. He felt Hermione spring to the other side of his bed and grab his hand, trying to calm him… he saw the slight panic rise in Dumbledore’s twinkle-less eyes, “I… Oh Merlin. I killed him. I-” he couldn’t take it.

“Harry, calm down. Please, you’re magic still has not stabilized enough and it may-”

The boy wasn’t listening. He could keep the damn magic under control. He knew he could. It wasn’t important.

“I killed him…” was all that mattered. “I murdered him. I-”

“Stop it, Harry,” Dumbledore ordered firmly, “You did not murder anyone. You saved Abby by getting rid of the man who has killed thousands and would have killed thousands more had you not. I know you knew him, but you must understand that it was not your professor out there. It was Ammodytus; a man feared during Voldemort’s first reign like no other, who was quickly returning to what he would call his former glory.”

Ammodytus. He killed Ammodytus. The man who nearly killed him many times over…

Still, his heart clenched as his brain could not deny that Ammodytus and his father are- were one and the same. He killed his father. What did that make him?

“May I be left alone, sir?” he asked, forcing himself to calm down, at least outwardly, “I’m exhausted all of a sudden.”

He wasn’t sleepy at all, and he was almost certain even a Dreamless Sleep potion would not be able to force him to bed, but he faked a yawn all the same. He needed to be alone. Now.

“Of course, Harry. I’m sure Poppy would have my head if I kept her patient from recuperation…” The Headmaster acquiesced, stroking the raven locks in a calming manner, “Just remember, you did not murder anyone that day. Neither you nor Abby could have survived any other way.”

“Yes, sir…” and for some reason, he actually half believed it.

.∞ . ∞ . ∞.

The death of his Ammodytus, as Harry’s scar told him, pissed Voldemort off more than anything else in the past. And, less than a week after Harry woke up, the bastard decided to do more than make the boy’s scar throb. At first, Dumbledore and the other members of the ‘Old Crowd’ were wary of telling him or his friends about the unusual activity. When they found out that Harry still knew more about Asps than anyone else (and that what he knew was correct and very useful), they started allowing him into their meetings. They also started training him in the abilities Abdicattera unleashed, which like the still-lingering ‘recollections’ of his Asp training, left him drained and without a moment to himself.

Those ‘recollections’, which he could now easily distinguish form his true memories, started to bother him less and less. While he seemingly retained the knowledge, the specific events became increasingly harder to piece together. Core truths that he had felt worth dying for within the recollections now seemed mostly crazed and irrefutably false. The phantom touches also stopped sometime ago, and he wasn’t quite sure what he felt about this particular deficiency. They had felt right, for some reason, and their lack seemed to leave a lingering emptiness within him.

Now, however, he would have no more time to contemplate such things, for just moments ago, only two months after he had so foolishly gone to the now destroyed Snape Manor, Dumbledore finally decided that he was ready to do what he had wanted since his true memories returned. Tonight, he would finally fulfill his predestined role as the warrior of the Light, and put a stop to the great threat the Asps had become. He would destroy those who attempted to manipulate him into being what he was not, and the flame they had helped ignite would turn on them, turning his enemies to ashes. He was the Phoenix, and the Asps would fall before him.