Harry was sleepy at breakfast the next morning. He had been out late with Ron and Hermione, mapping a wide strip of the grounds -- between the castle and the tunnel to the Shrieking Shack -- under the cover of darkness.

Despite the late night, Harry had woken early and been unable to get back to sleep. Eventually, he had given up trying and gone down to breakfast. While pushing scrambled eggs listlessly around on his plate, he was disturbed by a strong sense of being watched. He looked up, and saw Draco staring at him from the Slytherin table. Draco stood, looked intently at him, and left. Harry abandoned his breakfast and followed.

Draco was waiting in the hallway. As soon as Harry was in sight, he started to walk. Harry followed him down the corridor, until he entered a room. A minute later, wand in hand, Harry opened the same door. The Slytherin was leaning beside a dusty window, waiting; his wand was not visible. With a nod of acknowledgement, Harry closed and warded the door, then pocketed his own wand. He crossed the room.

"Well?"

Draco evaluated him for a moment. "I don't trust you," he said.

"Oh."

"No offense, but you lied too well on Saturday." He stared through the window a moment. "Oddly, this leads me to believe you actually are Potter, and Potter has more depth than I expected."

Harry shrugged. "I never said I wasn't."

"No, I suppose you didn't." Draco sent him an unexpected smile. "Though I was hoping that if you were, you would at least flinch when I called you a prat."

Harry shrugged. "That was hardly a surprise, was it?"

"You're still not!" Draco said incredulously.

"Not what?"

"Not letting on!"

"Oh." Harry replayed the conversation, and realized what Draco meant. "Yes," he said. "I am Harry Potter. Happy?"

Draco looked exasperated. "Not really. What about everything else? The way you look? The transfiguration?"

"You don't ask."

"Oh. Right." Draco sighed. "I do hope you are not doing something idiotic."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Snape doesn't think so."

"Are you really Potter? I thought you might be some nephew of his that he'd snuck into the spot."

"Anyone Snape brought it would do a better job."

Draco laughed. "Likely. Was I good, Saturday? Excepting my little faux pas?"

"You were wonderful. I don't think I would have survived it without you."

"Well, you certainly seemed capable of it! Didn't think you'd go along with someone putting down your werewolf patron like that."

"I didn't like it." Harry felt himself heat. "Still, I need the time. If that's the way to get it...."

"Right." Draco looked sharply at him. "Perhaps you will win."

"I will."

"Let's go, then. We can be early for Potions."

"And Snape will be pleased with you."

Draco smirked. "Not you, though. Snape is never pleased with you."

In Defense Against the Dark Arts, they learned a new spell for combining with hexes, Genio, the 'By Class' spell. Using Genio, a hex could be sent to multiple targets in close proximity.

"All the targets," Professor Lupin explained, "must be not only similar, but biologically or essentially similar. That is, you can disperse the hex or charm to all the girls, but not to everyone wearing a gown; to all the rats, but not all the familiars; to everyone with blue eyes, but not everyone who likes blue eyes."

"Can you disperse among all purebloods?" Draco asked.

Lupin's face tightened. "As much as this may disappoint you, Draco, there is nothing essentially unique about purebloods. Genio can distinguish between people with magic and those without, but Hermione is not distinct from you, in this regard."

"But there are magical ways to tell."

"Yes, but they are spells of ancestry, and those are far too slow and complex to combine with other hexes, even in the fairly rigid structure of a formal duel." Lupin scanned across the faces in the classroom. "Next week, we will learn about marker spells, but for this week, we are dealing with the By Class spell only."

They were divided into groups of five, and each person, in turn, cast the Glow Charm on a subset of the other four. Harry found himself with Draco, Justin, Padma, and Terry. Justin and Draco kept as far from each other as possible. Harry was amused by how both expressed tension as aloofness, and he worked on being casually friendly with both of them.

Harry went first and chose a simple class, casting the Glow Charm on all the people with brown eyes. Next, Padma tried the boys. At his turn, Draco whispered his criterion. Padma and Harry glowed. Draco frowned deeply, but refused to say what he had tried. The time after that, Harry (hoping to work out what he had in common with Padma) asked everyone their birthdays and tried to do the two older students, but that didn't work.

"Probably because it's comparative," Justin said wisely. "Try something else."

Harry tried people taller than five foot six, and that worked. This confused him, but Draco, their sole Arithmancer, observed that success demonstrated only that a comparative criterion worked if the comparison was to a fixed quantity, not if it was to a variable. Harry needed a moment to work this out, but Terry brightened immediately and tried people over sixteen years three months, which worked as well. Justin tried to do all the people with short hair, which failed.

"Not an essential difference," Draco pointed out.

"But it's physical!"

Harry shook his head. "Terry could grow his hair. Padma could cut hers. That wouldn't essentially change them."

"It's like to trying to hex everyone with painted nails," Padma agreed.

"Speaking of which, Harry...." Draco teased. Everyone, including Harry, looked at Harry's hands.

"Potions accident," Harry said quickly.

Padma squealed and grabbed at his right hand. "Harry! How did you do that?"

"I told you, it was a potions accident!" Harry scowled. "Very pretty, I'm sure, but hardly worth spending the night in the Hospital Wing."

"Oh, I don't know," Padma said thoughtfully. "Terry, what do you think? Worth an overnight?"

Harry growled. "I think I am going to kill Draco."

Draco lifted his eyebrows in mock astonishment. "For winning a round? How unsporting of you, Potter."

By the end of class, everyone had an adequate grasp of which distinctions worked, and Justin and Draco had almost forgotten to avoid each other. Professor Lupin dismissed them all with a twelve inch essay assignment and the promise that next class they would combine the technique with a more taxing hex.

Harry went on through his day, never quite feeling that he had completely woken up. After a lackluster Quidditch practice, he lingered in the shower, letting his mind wander.

"You coming to dinner, Harry?" Ron called.

"Go on. I'll catch you up."

Harry heard Ron and Jack, the last of his teammates, leave the changing room. His first feeling of freedom changed quickly to one of vulnerability, and he found himself hurrying to dry and dress, rather than enjoying the privacy. He had just finished drawing on his boots when the room dimmed. Looking up, he saw a slight figure standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the dying afternoon light.

"Pardon the intrusion."

The context was so wrong that it took Harry a moment to place the voice and build.

"Remus?" For a moment, Harry was just perplexed. Then he jumped to his feet. "You can't be here, Remus! He'll kill you!"

Remus took one step forward, then another, his features resolving as he came further into the room. "Not if you don't tell him."

Harry stood still. Another three steps and the werewolf's hands reached his shoulders, and rested there with a firm pressure. His eyes focused intently. Harry stopped breathing.

"Harry, please." With the back of his hand, Remus brushed the damp fringe over Harry's scar in a gentle, almost reverential, touch. "Believe that I love you." He released Harry and took a step back. Harry struggled to keep the release of his breath from being audible.

"But?" Harry asked wryly.

"You have been chosen as this month's target."

Harry's stomach lurched. The room swam slightly. "Oh," he muttered.

"Sit, Harry." Remus urged. Harry shook his head and wished he hadn't.

"They tried to get me to do it last moon. I told them I hadn't had an opportunity. This moon, they are more insistent. They have given me plans for various contingencies. They have declared they will kill me if I do not deliver you, and that they will, if possible, try to do it in combination with infecting you, so that it looks like I died in the process."

"Wouldn't I know?"

"They could find an attacker whose wolf-form looked enough like mine to fool you, I think." Remus swallowed. "So, I have a series of requests --"

"Let you?" Harry suggested wryly.

"No!"

"But we could spy together."

"Harry, no! You are never to consider such a thing." Remus had gone pale. He shuddered, but then continued, his voice calm and his words ordered.

"Stay with people all through the night of the full moon. I want a witness. If they manage it, somehow, and present you with a dead wolf, or my dead human body, and ask if this was the one, insist on tests. They cannot be done in the first month, but after the first change there are ways to conclusively link a werewolf with the one that infected it. It is ... a bond, like kinship. Finally...." Remus's steady voice wavered. He looked ill. "If Severus rejects you, bite him. He deserves it."

Harry sat. Standing suddenly seemed like an unnecessary use of needed energy. The bench was cold beneath him. "What can I do to protect you?"

"I've told you --"

"No. You've told me how to protect your honor. How do I protect you?"

Remus shook his head. "That is Dumbledore's problem, not yours. It's likely they won't manage to kill me, but I will never be able to leave here again." His face tightened with anxiety. "It's just ... if they do manage it, I want you to know I would never betray you. I know how it is to live with that, and I won't let them do that to you."

"So I can trust you?"

"Trust me, yes." Remus hesitated. "But pretend not to."

Harry's head swam. He hid his face in his hands.

"They will be less angry if they think I tried and failed." Remus's voice had regained its calm, reasonable tone, as if he were listing the particulars of an assignment. "Don't be alone with me again. Refuse gifts from me, even in the guise of schoolwork. Selena will visit again; I will warn you via Hermione. Be visibly suspicious of me in her presence."

Harry was suddenly angry. "Why don't you just turn her in?" he demanded. It's her fault! We can get rid of her --

Remus sank to the bench beside him, his eyes closing. "Harry ...."

"You should! You know she's in it! You've said you don't agree with what they're doing! Help stop them."

"Selena believes she's doing the right thing, Harry. She's naive, not evil --"

"She's a terrorist! She's helping Voldemort! She's justifying Fudge's crackdown --"

"I KNOW!" Color flooded back into Remus's pale face. "God, Harry, don't you think I know all of that? But I'm not going to betray my own... my ...."

We're back to that, Harry thought in disgust. My kind. From someone who should know better. "Your what, Remus?" he snarled.

"There's not a word for it."

"Tell me!"

"She ... she was thirteen when she was bitten. Her family threw her out. They said she could live with her own kind." Remus shuddered. His eyes closed again. "There's a ... a network for that. I took her in. I'd done it before for new werewolves, but they had been adults; they stayed for a few moons and then left. Selena lived with me until she was seventeen, and we still have Christmas together, when we can." His eyes, wolf-gold, flashed open. "She is my foster-child, as best I can explain. She is family, wolf-family. She has brought this on me trying to find a way to protect me from Randolph's anger. Even if she has done wrong, I will protect her."

The pain in Remus's eyes brought Harry's anger to fury. That it no longer had a clear target changed nothing in his voice. "But you should tell!"

"Fine, Harry." Remus closed his eyes in resignation. He slumped forward, face in hands, elbows on knees. "I should. Would you do it?"

"Yes!"

"Then go ahead." The eyes flicked open as the face lifted. Remus's tired expression hardened. "Tell on me."

"But you haven't-- You're not...."

"I'm aiding a criminal, Harry. Go on. Tell." Remus's tawny eyes glittered in the fading light. "Call the Department for Control of Magical Creatures. They can do anything to me -- I have no rights. Eventually, I'll tell them everything, under Veritaserum or worse, they'll apprehend her, and you'll be fractionally safer for another few weeks. Randolph will even have the inconvenience of replacing a messenger."

Harry couldn't say anything.

"Well?" Remus mocked. "Don't you want to rush out to prove your moral superiority? Your ability to do the right thing despite personal anguish? I do hope it will cause you personal anguish -- it's comforting to think I matter to someone."

"Remus...."

"Get out."

Harry left, feeling queasy with uncertainty. His relationship with Remus seemed to be dissolving, even as it continued to strain his relationship with Severus, just like his relationship with Hermione did, and as Severus and Draco caused him problems with Ron and Hermione. He was tempted to go straight to bed, preferably without speaking to anyone.

He went to dinner.

"What's wrong, Harry?"

Harry looked up from the impromptu artwork he had absently made of his food.

"Just tired," he said. With the tines of his fork, he adjusted the placement of two peas. He found himself longing for Sirius more strongly than he had in the last month. Of course, he thought, he would actually make things worse, not better. He and Severus would be attacking each other constantly, and I'd have another pair of enemies to manage. The thought was, in itself, depressing.

"Dreams?" Hermione pressed.

"No. Really -- just lack of sleep. No exploring tonight, I think." He wondered what Remus had been like with James. Despite the way James had treated Severus in the vision, he found himself thinking of James with affection again. Perhaps it was watching his infant self being tossed in the air and cuddled and fiercely claimed. Perhaps it was the sense that James's arrogant behavior had no malice to it -- it was simply what James was. Thinking that, he could begin to understand the way Sirius and Remus had smiled about the Snitch -- the way he might, perhaps, years from now, smile about Hermione reporting his new Firebolt, or Ron's insecurity about money. Oh yes -- she was just like that, he was just like that -- and I loved them. He dropped his fork; it clattered loudly against his plate. I'm imagining them dead!

"Harry? Are you okay?

"Fine." The reply was automatic and he regretted it immediately. A small excuse might have headed her off, but now Hermione was reaching for his hand.

"I know that kind of fine," she said wryly. "Come on. Let's go for a walk."

They went outside in the cool October evening, and into the walled rose garden. The last flowers of summer clung doggedly on to the canes, browning slightly, but preserved by the cold that had halted their growth. It was too chilly for any remnants of their scent to carry. Hermione led him down several paths, to a sheltered arbor covered in the still-green leaves of some hardy vine.

She pulled him close for a kiss. For a moment, Harry was lost in the softness of her lips. He set his arms around her and felt her tremble against him. He wondered if she was as warm as her breath under her night-cooled robes, and if he dared find out. He wondered if this would work just as well with someone else -- someone less complicated.

Hermione pulled away, and Harry belatedly realized that he had stopped paying any attention to the kiss.

"What?" she asked, concerned.

Harry looked at her anxiously. "Have you ever thought of...." He swallowed and started over. "Do you ever have problems that don't have solutions? There are things that look like solutions, that might please someone, but they're all wrong and stupid and wouldn't really fix anything?"

She looked upset immediately. Harry thought this was rather unfair, as he hadn't actually said anything, yet. He couldn't think what to say. If he wasn't with her, things might be simpler with Severus, and perhaps even Draco, but they wouldn't be simpler altogether, and he wouldn't be any happier.

"This doesn't have to go anywhere," she said. "If it was just an impulse --"

"No!" Harry caught her hands in his own. "No. That's ... not what I meant." He took a deep breath. "I... You're right for me. I know it. But... Severus would be happier if I was with a pureblood girl."

The words came out in a nervous rush. Harry had thought he had known how much that statement would hurt her. He could see now that he hadn't even come close. He continued desperately:

"I don't want to break up with you, or anything. That would be just the stupidest thing to lose you over. He doesn't even want me to break up with you; it's not like that, it's just that he'd be more comfortable if I happened to be interested in someone else, but I'm not."

Hermione nodded. She seemed to be unable to speak. Harry had the terrible feeling that he had started this all wrong and had no way out of it.

"He's worried about grandchildren -- that's the only part that actually makes sense. I mean, I'm already only a half-blood, and maybe you could raise a squib, but I... I'm not actually at all competent in the Muggle world; it's hardly real to me. I've been kept there, but I didn't participate in it. I wasn't allowed."

Harry willed himself to stop babbling. Hermione was twisting her hands out of his grip, and he was holding on fiercely, desperate to keep her in front of him.

"I love you," he said. "I'll shut up about it, okay?"

She shook her head. Tears were spilling out of her eyes, now. He tried to lean forward to kiss them away, but with a final twist she broke loose of his grasp, and stumbled away, breaking into a run when she was on the path.

"Hermione!" Harry yelled after her. "Hermione, no! At least talk to me!"

He ran to the gate, but couldn't see her anywhere. He punched his fist back into the wall hard enough to leave him gasping from the pain. "Damn it."