The Heart of Gryffindor
by SJR0301

Part III - Chapter Thirty-Five

Harry badly wanted a bath more than anything. Though they had returned to the present time not more than fifteen minutes after they had left, a precaution Harry had taken to be sure they did not meet themselves before leaving, the time elapsed since they had left that they had actually experienced was almost three days. He felt uncomfortably dirty and tired and he wanted to be sure every last smear of blood was off of him.

He had gone immediately into the bathroom to wash up, stopping only to give Lily a quick passing kiss as he ran up the stairs. Ginny was huffing a bit and he was hoping to avoid another lecture, though he supposed he really deserved one this time. In the bathroom, he stripped out of his clothes and stared at himself in the mirror before seeking the comfort of the warm shower. He stared at his forehead, seeking the place where his scar had been and saw only smooth, unmarked skin, just like anyone else's.

How strange it was to be quite ordinary. He had always felt quite ordinary. Looking in the mirror confirmed his true nature. His face was a regular face, he thought, neither ugly nor excessively handsome. His hair stood out only because it was untidy, as always, but lots of people had untidy hair. Lots of people had hair that was more unusual than his, brighter of color, like all the Weasleys, bushier and more noticeable, like Hermione's, shimmering blond, like Fleur's. As for the rest, yes, his eyes were a bright green, but he wasn't the only one with green eyes. There were plenty of other people who had more unusual colored eyes than his. No, the thing that had always marked him was his scar, and that was now gone. He tried to think if that was good or bad. It might be good, he thought, if no one else decided he was an imposter. It was one thing he had always wished: to be like everyone else; to have no scar. He grimaced at himself in the mirror and scrubbed a hand through the steam that had collected on the mirror's surface. The light shivered as he turned away and he had the odd thought that perhaps he only existed in reflection, as others saw him. Perhaps if people could really see inside his mind and thoughts, they'd know he wasn't really a great hero. He was just himself, Harry. All he'd ever done was what he'd had to do, what he'd been forced to do, what any ordinary, decent person would have done if he had been chosen, marked out by Voldemort instead.

He scrubbed the dirt and blood off of him and stood under the water until the stream ran cold. Then he dried himself off, and huddled into the warmest pajamas he owned. He made sure to flatten his fringe down on his forehead, hoping vaguely that his children would not notice his scar was gone and that he wouldn't have to talk about what had healed it. He didn't think he could talk about that, the wash of magic flooding through him, more potent even than phoenix tears, and the joy that had accompanied it, the feeling that every evil shadow had been banished forever. He knew he would have to face the dark again soon enough, but he hoped he would have one night with his family with no memories of evil to intrude.

Harry thought that Ginny must have lectured the children as not one said a thing about his missing scar or where he had been. Sirius was unusually quiet, even for him: his grey-blue eyes had a misty look to them and he carefully avoided meeting James' gaze in particular. Lily kept up a determined flow of chatter. Their trip to Diagon Alley had been loads of fun. Uncle Fred had given her a new skin cream that was guaranteed to prevent pimples and Uncle George had made them laugh and laugh with all the new jokes he'd been working on. Harry remembered that he had only himself to thank for funding their joke shop each time he thought regretfully about all the new items he'd have to give to Filch to add to the list of forbidden items.

Sirius did come out of his reverie long enough to tell Lily, "You've no need for any skin creams or magic aids." Harry had to agree. She did have quite lovely rose-petal skin, just like her Mum.

"You must be blind," Lily sputtered. "Look at that," she said, pointing to an infinitesimal spot. It's all your fault, too, Sirius, for making me worry about you."

"You just like to worry," Sirius replied. "You enjoy the drama of it."

Harry noted that James kept out of that conversation and threw a worried look at Sirius as well. He made a mental note to talk to James in the next day or two. It came to him that James must have pried everything out of Sirius. It was the only answer. He was certain of it when his son's hazel eyes strayed to his face and then looked away quickly again.

"Are we going back by Floo Powder?" James asked casually.

Harry stopped eating his treacle tart and took a long drink of his tea. "No," he said after a moment. "I think we'd better go back on the train. I don't want the other students thinking you're getting special treatment on account of me."

Ginny was, of course, waiting to confront him when Harry finally made his way upstairs to sleep. Firelight softened the dusky colors of the room, so that her vibrant red hair was the brightest shade in it. He did not even try to avoid the subject as he felt, somehow, that this was one thing he simply could not keep from her. He stood before her, feeling as though confessing everything would justify what he had done and could remove the guilt he felt for having scared her so badly and for having interfered in history a way that was certainly illegal.

He paced about on occasion and when he got to the place where he had drunk from the Goblet of Light, he stared at the fire rather than meet her eyes, because there words failed. There simply was no way to explain it, so he settled for the baldest statement. "So I drank from the Goblet. It would have been rude to refuse it, you see, and I didn't realize, I thought it might heal the small cuts I had, but ...well... I had no clue, you know, what it would do." When she did not reply immediately, he added anxiously, "You don't think everyone will start thinking I'm an imposter again? I mean, even you thought it, when you saw my scar was gone."

When he found the courage to meet her eyes again, he was surprised to see tears streaking down her face. That was nothing like Ginny. Ginny never cried.

"I'm sorry," he said helplessly.

"You are?" she answered. "I ought to be the one apologizing. How could I have mistaken you for even a minute? I even yelled at you in front of all of them."

"You ought not apologize," he answer. Relief swept through him. "Never you. Gawd knows after Barty Crouch spent almost a year teaching us and pretending to be Mad-eye Moody, we ought never to be trusting of appearances again. You'd have been stupid not to question me and demand proof."

"Are you all right, then?" she asked tentatively.

"I'm fine," he said automatically. Under her direct stare, he shrugged and said, "Well, I don't know. It's weird. I looked in the mirror and I don't believe it's me. The scar was me. I was the scar. Now it's gone and I feel like I've lost something and that's just stupid, too, because I always wished I could lose it, you know."

"Now that is just foolish," she scolded. "No one is simply his face or his appearance. This is you," she said, laying her hand over his heart. "And this," she said, pointing to his head. "Not some external scar or mark."

That night, he slept lightly, without any nightmares at all, though whether it was from the influence of the Goblet or because he was at home beside his wife, he did not know. He preferred to think it was because he was with Ginny, and when he woke in the morning to find her watching him, he said immediately, feeling that the matter had been decided in the night, "I want you to stay at Hogwarts with me. I want you close by, so I can see you every day."

He did not give her a chance to protest either, smothering her answer with a kiss that he hoped was more convincing than any argument.

* * *

James eyed his brother covertly and tried to suppress the jealousy he felt. He could not help resenting the fact that Dad had taken Sirius with him into a real fight, to face Death Eaters. More than that, he had taken Sirius with him into the past on the kind of adventure that James was better fit for. Being the younger brother usually didn't bother him. He was fond of his older brother and often felt as though he had to protect Sirius rather than the other way round. This came as much from the fact that Sirius always seemed to have his head in some book or in some fantasy as from the fact that Sirius had made himself real enemies at Hogwarts.

Sirius had come in shortly after Mum had left for the Muggle Ministry where Dad worked, looking filthy and tired and rather beat up. He had said with an almost perfect imitation of innocence when asked where he'd been and where Dad was, "We went out. Then he had to go to work for a bit so I came along home by myself. What's wrong?" he'd added when he realized how worried James and Lily were.

"Mum had a call from that Muggle Ministry. They don't know where he is and they think he might've been attacked by Death Eaters."

"He's fine," Sirius had answered. His blue-grey eyes were cool and not at all misty just then. "He wasn't attacked by Death Eaters either." He had moved past James and run up the stairs quickly, and James had only seen Sirius taking off the sword because he had followed right behind.

"What were you doing with that?" James had demanded. "Why'd you need that?"

"You can ask Dad," Sirius had said, "but I don't think he'll tell you. I don't think he wants me to say anything either." And he had stripped off his clothes and gone straight into the shower without any further answers. James had been so annoyed that he hadn't even stopped Lily from coming in and he had enjoyed Sirius' fury and horror at her presence when he was dressing.

"Too bad," James had said unsympathetically. "She's your sister. And anyway, we need to check out those marks you got off Malfoy. We got a potion off of Uncle George that'll heal them up as if they'd never been." Sirius had poked his head out at that and said sullenly, "I can put it on myself."

"Yeah, but we might not want to hand it over," Lily had said, " if you don't tell us what happened and where you went and who you and Dad were fighting with. We should've told Dad about Malfoy when it happened."

"You promised," Sirius said in the most outraged tones. He had flung a towel around himself, but that did not cover up the fact that he had quite a few new bruises and that his wrists were scraped up. Lily had growled at the sight of those and had dealt with them summarily without even asking for permission.

In the end, the story had spilled out and James had been stunned, but mostly he had wavered between shock that they, Dad, especially, could have done something so dangerous and so forbidden, and jealousy that Sirius had gotten to go along.

"He didn't plan it," Sirius said quietly. "It was more desperation and he tried to get rid of me and Johnny before he went. It's a good thing he let us go along," he added scowling just a bit. "He'd have been killed and none of us would ever have been born if he hadn't had us along to watch his back."

That had given James a fright such as he'd never felt before and he had to concentrate on being angry in order to conceal how scared he was. But when Dad had come back, looking awful and haunted and Mum had ordered them to say nothing in whispers more horrible than any yell, he had been more worried than ever. He had tried not to look at Dad's face, he had tried not to notice that his legendary scar was gone, but that was nearly impossible. He had pretended to eat and had let Lily keep up the flow of chatter about their trip to Diagon Alley, but he could not stop himself from glancing at Dad from time to time and feeling as though the man at the table was someone else entirely. How often, he wondered, would he find out that his Dad was not entirely the person James had thought he was?

On the train back to Hogwarts, he could not help feeling more gloomy than ever. He'd no doubt that Narcissus Malfoy would go after Sirius again, and with the weather breaking, he couldn't help worrying that the long postponed game between Slytherin and Gryffindor might result in serious harm to Sirius or to Lily or to both. He'd had to remind Sirius not to go back to his old dormitory in Slytherin and it had been touch and go whether Sirius would even listen to him.

"I'm a Slytherin prefect as well as Headboy," Sirius had said. "I can't just stay in Gryffindor for the rest of the year."

"Yeah, you can," James said. "Nobody will care. And at least you'll be safe from Malfoy when you sleep."

"I've dealt with him for all this time," Sirius said stubbornly. "I can handle him for a few more months. And besides," he added, "I'm the only thing that keeps him under control in the Slytherin dorms."

"Let Professor Snape control him," James had snapped. "He's Head of House and he knows about it. Course, maybe he's so evil he doesn't care."

"He doesn't believe Malfoy's that bad," Sirius had said. "I can handle it. That's why they made me Headboy."

"You just think that because you were lucky enough not to get killed yesterday," James had said nastily. "Now you'll get more reckless and foolish than ever."

"I'm not reckless," Sirius answered. "And you're not Headboy, I am."

"Oh, I know I'm not, big brother," James said angrily. "And I'm sure I won't be next year either, cause Dad'll think it's showing too much favoritism if he appoints me."

"Don't be silly," Sirius had said. "There's no one else remotely your equal in your year."

"I don't care about that," James had said, though he supposed he did.

"You don't care about what?" Lily had asked as she joined them again after a long conversation with Matilda from which both he and Sirius had been excluded. Girl stuff he supposed.

"Being Headboy," Sirius answered.

"That's not what matters," James had interrupted. "It's you being halfway sensible and staying where it's safe."

Lily had decided matters, not by argument, but by banishing Sirius's trunk and things to the empty Gryffindor room in which they'd placed him. And of course, as it was Lily, Sirius had looked annoyed but acquiesced.

I could not help feeling that I had run away unnecessarily when I allowed James and Lily to push me into moving into the Gryffindor dormitory. Mercifully, none of the Gryffindors said anything, though quite a few gave me suspicious looks. The Slytherins did not seem to know what to do about it either. Malfoy had spread a rumor that I had quit the quidditch team, something I hadn't thought of, but might have to do. The problem was that I still hadn't told Dad about Malfoy's attack or that I had moved out of the Slytherin dormitory and I was sure that no one else had either. I supposed that everyone but James and Lily assumed he knew since he was my Dad, and fortunately, he was so preoccupied with other matters that he never did notice what I had done.

In any case, I made sure that I went to meals at odd times, either very early or very late, and I still sat at the Slytherin table when Malfoy and his crowd weren't there. I could not help thinking that avoiding Malfoy was another instance of cowardliness, but I told myself that it was more a matter of common sense. I was not sure that I could spend any time with him outside the direct presence of a teacher without attacking him myself in retaliation. And I knew that I was capable of doing him serious harm after having fought in a real battle.

The real shock of the final term was finding Professor Snape in Defense Against the Dark Arts. I assumed he was merely substituting for Dad at first, but he made it clear in his first sentence that the assignment was permanent. "Professor Potter has been appointed Headmaster," Snape said, upon being questioned, "and his other ...duties will keep him occupied from now on." Somehow, Professor Snape's tone implied that Dad must be slacking if he couldn't perform as Headmaster and teach at the same time. For myself, I knew that he had been teaching, running the school and still working in the Muggle security agency ever since Professor Dumbledore had fallen ill. I wondered if Mum had put her foot down about his use of the time turner to do hours over and over again in order to do all that. It might even have been that he had just gotten too tired. I do know that he seemed different after he returned from the trip into the past, although I suspected that change in spirit had come after he had gone back to the office that evening to report and not from anything that had happened in the past.

In any case, to the relief of most of the students, Professor Snape did not continue with our sword lessons and his attitude toward me changed subtly with my move from the Slytherin dormitory, or so I thought.

"We will be reviewing non-verbal spells," Snape said, "something this class has a rather poor record in."

"That's because we haven't studied them at all," Malfoy called out. His tone implied that our previous teachers, including Dad, had been law, or even substandard. I could feel myself bristling, but as Snape's eyes were on me, I kept my mouth closed and settled for listening to his instruction.

"This is a skill which requires both power and focus." Snape continued as though Malfoy had said nothing and I was surprised that he had not corrected him for speaking out of turn. "I will demonstrate by attacking one of you, without any words, and you are to defend yourself, also without any words." His black eyes swept the room, and I guessed he was trying to surprise his target in just the fashion that one would in a true attack. It was as good a way as any of underlining how vulnerable we all could be, but I also thought it quite unfair that he didn't at least warn us who he would select. Perhaps that's because I was his target. I knew somehow that I would be, though he didn't signal his intention in any way that I could see. But I knew all the same and when his wand turned to point to me, I already had mine up and my shield spell deflected his impediment spell right back on him, knocking him down. I even managed to get the spell off without a single word. Being in a real battle breaks down barriers I supposed, or maybe nearly being killed in the bath without an opportunity to fight had had the same effect. Whichever it was that had heightened my reflexes, I was determined never to be caught off guard again. I did not apologize either when Professor Snape stood up, straightening his robes with irritation, and said merely, "Now all of you will try it." He did not, as he once might have, praise my efforts, though I had performed a non-verbal spell immediately, and without any errors. Instead, his dark gaze returned to me as everyone else broke up into pairs and the look in them was enough to give me goose bumps, assessing, knowing and almost loathing all at once. It seemed strange that my having moved from the Slytherin dormitory to Gryffindor could have turned him against me so quickly.

I paired off with anyone who would practice with me. First, Lionel, who doesn't mind butting heads with anyone, and then with my cousin Victoria, Brittany and Matilda. I did not do as well after that first try, perhaps because I was not truly apprehensive enough. These were my friends, after all, and I confess I have a hard time cursing girls, even girls I know and feel comfortable with. It was a little less comfortable practicing with Matilda, but not so bad as it had been. We had almost gotten past the awkwardness of our broken romance, and I reminded myself that I really did value her friendship. I was so busy reminding myself to be polite that she landed a particularly good Jelly-legs jinx that had me wobbling about quite absurdly. When I managed to get off a not quite silent concealment spell which changed her blond hair to vivid purple, she stopped laughing long enough to say a few really choice words I guessed her Dad would be shocked at. Fortunately, she started laughing again and I knew at that moment we would stay friends after all.

Victoria did the counter-curse for both of us, which was even more fortunate. I don't know how, but once again some instinct made me spin quite fast and once again I got off a spell without any voice at all. This one was aimed at Narcissus Malfoy, who had launched a spell quite silently. The shield spell again deflected his, which was a strange silvery one I did not recognize at all. I followed up instantly with a Stinging Hex, feeling the pure joy of revenge when he yelled quite loudly.

"That will do!" Professor Snape said in the frigid tone he reserved for the stupidest pupils.

I shrugged and did not follow up as I wanted to, but I kept my eyes on Malfoy and did not lower my wand until Snape dismissed the class and Malfoy left. The look Malfoy cast my way as he went made me believe for the first time that James had been right. I am not too falsely modest to pretend that I don't know my own abilities, or to pretend that I wasn't quite chuffed by my small victory over my enemy. But I knew at that moment that Malfoy would really try to kill me again some day, and that I would have to watch my back until my last term at Hogwarts was finished.

Snape called me aside after class and called me down for taking advantage of Malfoy. "I will report you to the Headmaster, Potter, and I will give you detention, if you use class as a cover for taking out your animosities again."

I did not bother defending myself. Instead, I said coldly, "I'd say the tally was still advantage to Malfoy, but I can assure you, Professor Snape, I will even the score." The fact was, anything to do with Narcissus Malfoy burned me up and it really did irk me that Professor Snape refused to see how evil he was.

* * *

Snape watched the Dark Lord's son stalk out of class and wondered once again what would come of the boy's antagonism toward the Malfoy boy. He could not help feeling disconcerted at how easily Sirius had anticipated his attack and how easily the boy had blocked his spell. He had struck with the speed of a snake in the grass, and he had repeated the feat just as easily when Narcissus had attacked. Snape knew, of course, that Narcissus had gone after Sirius improperly. It did not lessen his concern, though, as the boy's extraordinary responses had reminded him all to vividly of the boy's true father. The Dark Lord, too, had had uncannily quick responses. No one had ever touched him in battle except for Dumbledore and Harry Potter. And most people did not understand that Harry Potter had never been a true match for the Dark Lord. He had defeated the Dark Lord by a combination of luck and inhuman bravery - by the simple willingness to sacrifice himself, reactivating the ancient magic that had defeated the Dark Lord the first time around.

The Dark Lord's son, he thought, had many of his gifts and some of those characteristics that had made him the most feared wizard in history. The boy had a dark temper and a frightening lack of remorse when it came to punishing those that fell afoul of it. That he was not given over to evil as his father had been was no comfort at all. It might not matter if he proved a danger because of the noble illusions Potter had taught him rather than the darker reasons of the Dark Lord. There might, he thought, come a time when the Dark Lord's inheritance proved too true in his only heir. And Potter, of course, would never see it coming as he had invested all of his considerable ability to delude himself in believing that the boy was good.

Snape was still of two minds what to do about Potter's latest scheme, one which made him wonder whether the ultimate Gryffindor really would have done well in Slytherin. On the evening before class had resumed, Potter had asked Snape to stay after the pre-term staff meeting, making Snape feel oddly as if he were a student and their roles had reversed. Minerva McGonagall had been unhappy about leaving the two of them alone. No doubt her teacher's sense had told her trouble was in the wind. She had gone out with an audible sniff and both he and Potter had twitched involuntarily at her displeasure. That little twitch had put Snape back in his own shoes and he had been comfortably reminded that the man behind the desk was forever his junior, forever his former pupil, and forever the son of his hated rival, James.

"Why didn't you warn me about the London attack?" Potter had asked abruptly. His brilliant green eyes were cold gems in that disconcertingly youthful face. The cool gaze, which was merely a shallow cover for hot anger, Snape knew, put his back up instantly, and the old feelings of dislike surfaced with surprising strength.

"What London attack?" Snape asked. He drew in on himself, employing every bit of his skill at Occlumency as he did not want Potter to get even a whiff of his real feelings.

"The bus bombing," Potter said, as though the doings of Muggles were something Snape ever paid attention to.

"Why would I warn you about a Muggle attack?" Snape asked. "I warned you about what I knew."

"What about Goyle, then?" Potter asked hotly. His cool demeanor was rapidly disintegrating into open anger. Behind him, the fire in the fireplace leapt suddenly as though in sympathy with the Headmaster's mood and from his perch, the phoenix Fawkes gave an odd trill. The men and women in the portraits stopped snoring and some opened their eyes to follow the conversation openly. "He didn't tell me about any Muggle attack," Snape said, "perhaps he doesn't care about that. If it's even connected," he added.

"I'm sure he would have," Potter said, "seeing as he's dead, just the same way as Mundungus Fletcher."

"Are you accusing me?" Snape asked. "You think I killed him? You think I gave you false information?"

For a moment, Snape thought he saw the old hatred leap out of Potter's eyes. They faced each other across the desk, the older, ugly man and his younger opposite, their eyes locked as each strove to close the barriers to his mind and to plumb the truth of the other's. After an instant, the green eyes closed and then re-opened to a gaze of impenetrable serenity.

"No," Potter answered, and Snape was hardly aware that he had actually heaved a breath of relief. Potter might have defeated the Dark Lord by luck and sheer bloody mindedness, but Snape did not want to actually test the true strength of The Boy Who Lived either.

"No," Potter repeated. "I want you to find out who did."

"And how would I do that, Potter," Snape demanded, "unless I …" He stopped there, as he understood, disbelieving, what Potter wanted him to do.

"You have grown up," Snape said, "and grown up harder than I would ever have thought."

"I have to be hard," Potter had replied. "You'll do it, then?" he asked, and he had asked knowing that he was throwing Snape into the way of his greatest fear and his unacknowledged desire.

* * *

Edgar sipped his coffee and wished he was anywhere else but the conference room where they were set to have their daily briefing on the Alliance. Harry had not shown up for the briefing once since the day of the bombing and Bentley had grown more and more annoyed each day at his absence. Each day he demanded an explanation from Bones, but he had none, and neither did Carter.

Bentley waited less than five minutes that morning before asking for Harry again. From his customary corner, Bronztein muttered quietly, "Thinks he's running his own operation, he does. Thinks he's running his own agency, the way he goes off and does as he pleases."

Ordinarily, Bentley would have silenced Bronztein immediately as dissension between team members was anathema to him. However, it seemed that both men had been affected by Harry's last exploit, though Edgar was uncertain whether it was the fact that Harry had found Arthur's sword, but refused to turn it over, or whether seeing blatant magic and inside Harry's memory of confronting Riddle was the cause. In any case, this time, Bentley had asked his secretary to call Harry at home and on his mobile, but there was no answer at either number.

"Where is he?" Bentley demanded. "I don't like having one of my officers out of touch and running about un-tethered. What's he doing and why isn't he reporting in at all?"

Edgar glanced at Carter but it seemed he had no more clue what Harry was doing than Edgar did. Their lack of response pleased Bentley no more than Harry's absence. "Well," he asked, "how do you wizards contact each other?"

This was the first time Bentley had directly asked Edgar about anything magical and he felt, uncomfortably, that some line had been crossed which now marked him as less than trustworthy. He and Harry had worked for years with the Muggles and the Muggles knew what they were. In Harry's case, they had seen him do magic. But it had been years since the incident at York and Edgar suspected that Harry's care not to use magic openly in the intervening years had allowed Bentley and the other Muggles to repress the recollection of just what he had done. They knew about magic, they talked about its consequences and dangers when the Alliance struck; but until they had been faced with the active use of it again, there in their stronghold where no one ought to be able to touch them, they had been able to view Harry as a rather precocious and unusually gifted youth. Events and Harry's need to prove his identity had upset their understanding and left them prey to their prejudices and fears.

Briefly, Edgar calculated the likelihood that he would be in trouble with the Ministry for revealing any more magic. He discarded that worry though. He reminded himself that he was the head of his own separate agency, and that Harry worked for him. And, he thought, it would do the wizard world no good if someone as powerful as Bentley began to see all wizards as threats and to conclude that wizardry ought to be suppressed altogether.

"There are a couple of ways of contacting him," Edgar said cautiously.

"Well, I want to speak to him now," Bentley demanded, and such was the Head's displeasure that Edgar shrugged and complied.

Edgar drew out the small two way mirror that would allow him to contact Harry. Bentley's annoyance vanished, replaced by fascination and anticipation. Unkindly, Edgar thought that Bentley might be expecting him to wave his wand or say an incantation. With the least drama possible, as mundanely as he might speak into an intercom, Edgar said, "Harry, I need to speak with you right away."

The mirror remained blank a moment and Edgar found himself growing annoyed. He did want to speak to Harry himself.

"Why isn't he answering?" Bentley asked. It was a measure of his certainty that magic existed that he did not question whether trying to speak to someone through a mirror was a prank. Somehow, the Head had understood that using a two way mirror was the same as using a telephone.

"I don't know," Edgar replied. Feeling as though he was betraying Harry somehow, he added, "If I didn't know better, I'd think he was in a bit of a funk just now. I don't think he liked having to prove his identity to us, and I'm sure that bringing up those memories must have upset him."

"We all have bad memories," Bentley said. "Try again. Perhaps he's just ignoring you."

"Not everyone has memories as bad as Harry's," Edgar replied. "His first memory is his parents' murder. He grew up abused by his Uncle and spent his youth trying to stay alive whilst the Lord of Death kept trying to murder him. No one else would have survived that in the first place. And if they did, they wouldn't survive it whole."

"Try again," Bentley repeated. But Edgar could see that he had reached the Head as his face had softened with unspoken sympathy.

Edgar spoke into the mirror again and this time Harry's face appeared.

"What's happened? Harry asked tersely.

"You haven't been to work for two weeks," Edgar answered. "We've already started our morning briefing and Bentley wants you."

"I'm busy," Harry replied. "Unless there's been a warning? Another attack?"

"No," Edgar replied curtly. "But you're wanted now."

"I've a meeting with the ministry about NEWTS in five minutes," Harry replied, "a staff meeting at two, and another with the Heads of house about the next quidditch game at three. And I'm expecting to hear from Ron and the Minister of Magic sometime after that. I can come tomorrow," Harry said, "or maybe the day after."

The mirror started to go dark and Bentley, who had stood behind Edgar watching and listening, said loudly, "Just a minute, Potter! I want your report today."

Harry's face came back again, and he sounded rather aggravated as he answered, "I haven't time to come to London today, sir. I've a school to run."

"I thought you were just teaching," Bentley said. "and that was just an undercover job Locherman stuck you into for no good reason. I'm taking you off that as of now and I want you back here yesterday."

"Sorry," Harry answered in that too polite voice he used when he intended to be disrespectful without giving reason for retaliation, "I've been appointed Headmaster by Dumbledore and it's been confirmed by the school governors." He paused and said regretfully, "And I've given my wife my word I won't use my time turner any more so I can't be in two places at once. Sir."

"Are you resigning, then?" Bentley asked angrily.

There was another pause, this one longer, and Edgar thought with anxiety that Harry just might resign. What would Bentley do, then? And, more to the point, what would the Prime Minister do? Edgar jumped back in and said, "Of course, he isn't. He knows where he's needed."

Bentley believed that, or must have wanted to believe it. Edgar assumed he was sorry the words had ever left his mouth, for the Head said hastily, "I need to see you today."

Still Harry did not reply and the mirror started to cloud up again. Edgar was conscious of the sudden quiet in the conference room and in the cessation of speech there came to him the sounds of a nervous breath taken, a whoosh of tension emphasized by the almost silent stroke of the perpetual and ongoing tapping of computer keys.

The face in the mirror returned and Harry said, "I can see you at four, but you'll have to come here."

"Where?" Bentley asked at the same time Edgar asked, "How?"

"I dunno," Harry said with exasperation. "Fly into Hogsmeade, or take the train, or the bus." The face in the mirror disappeared, and when Bentley said in outrage, "Potter!" the face did not reappear.

Edgar did not bother explaining to Bentley that a Muggle could not use a two way mirror on his own. Once the connection had been severed, only a wizard could activate the magical link again. Instead, he said as calmly as possible, "We'll have to get going if you really do intend to speak to Harry today."

"Just where is this school, anyway?" Bentley asked.

"North," Edgar replied.

"That's a bit vague," Bronztein interrupted. "The only entry I can find for any school named Hogwarts just says: Hogwarts School is located in northern Great Britain. Interested applicants may contact the Headmaster for further information." His eyes blinked like an owl's, slowly, curiously, and he added, "No directions, either, sir. Perhaps it's a front. Perhaps it doesn't really exist."

"It exists, all right," Edgar said stiffly. "I went there myself, and there's no need for directions as I'll take you there myself, sir." He tried to conceal his annoyance at Bronztein's comments. Of course, Edgar had placed the reference to Hogwarts there himself in case any curious officer reviewing Harry's file had decided to check on the school's existence. He had no intention of explaining that the school could not be located by Muggles, that it was unplottable and concealed by Muggle repelling spells. Fortunately, Bentley was paged at that moment and went to take a call from his counterpart at Six, and by the time he returned to the conference room, Edgar had arranged for a helicopter to fly them as far as the outskirts of Hogsmeade. It was, he feared, going to be a rather bumpy ride.

The helicopter ride was indeed quite bumpy, for although the air was unseasonably balmy, an unpredictable wind seemed to follow their progress, rocking the ship from time to time and making Edgar wish he had opted for the Hogwarts Express. The thought of having to arrange with the Ministry for a Muggle to take the train and to get the Head to step through the barrier onto Platform Nine and Three Quarters had been more than he could face. And the Knight Bus was sure to be worse. Edgar was not even sure a Muggle could see the Knight Bus even if it stood still right before his eyes.

The pilot had assured them there was no town by the name of Hogsmeade right up to the moment before Edgar pointed out the village nestled at the edge of the great shadowy forest, and tucked away in a fold of land sheltered by mountains and dotted with lakes. He had the pilot land at a green some distance away from the village as he did not want the copter's operation upset by the proximity to the magic in the all wizarding village.

It was chillier up north and Edgar thought longingly of stopping in for a hot butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks, but dismissed that wish immediately. Instead, he took Bentley's arm and guided him around the lake and toward the Castle.

"I thought you said there's a school here, Bones." The Head sounded almost alarmed, though it took quite a lot to phase him.

"It's here," Edgar said reassuringly. He tried to see how it must be for a Muggle, but of course the repelling spells that made Bentley see only ruins and a sign that said, "Danger. Keep Out.", had no effect on Edgar at all.

To Bentley's mystification, Edgar knocked at the great gates, and as they stood there, the Head said, "Is this your idea of a joke? I don't take kindly to having my afternoon wasted and - "

His words were cut off as the gates opened and Edgar walked him through. His mouth hung open, though Edgar was not entirely sure if that was because Hagrid had let them in or because he had got his first un-enchanted sight of Hogwarts Castle.

"Yeh look good, Edgar," Hagrid said, "more like yer Dad did before You Know Who killed him."

Edgar smiled though the reference to his Dad would normally upset him. "You look good too, Hagrid. I'm here to see Harry," he added, "and Commander Bentley as well."

"Right," Hagrid said. "Right this way, Commander, sir. I heard a lot abou' yeh. From Harry, yeh know. Can' believe he's the Headmaster now. Never would a thought Dumbledore'd retire y'know when Harry firs' came here." He shook his shaggy head and led the way to the Castle entrance.

Bentley had got his mouth closed and he was craning his head up to look at Hagrid and at the huge edifice which dwarfed the giant man. "This is a school?" he muttered. "Looks more like a fortress than a school."

"Biggest castle in Britain," Hagrid answered proudly. "Maybe the biggest in Europe. And maybe the greatest magical stronghold in the world," he added. "Course, to us, it's home."

"Yeh remember the way to the Headmaster's office?" Hagrid asked.

Bones nodded and Hagrid turned back out of the Castle's doors. "I got some things to take care of in the Forest. Yeh go on up. Harry's expectin' yeh."

Edgar smiled nostalgically as students hurried past on their way to afternoon classes or back to their common rooms. Bentley gaped at the floating candles in the Great Hall and at the high ceiling, which, being enchanted, now showed the afternoon sky, glorious blue dotted with white clouds, through which a radiant sun shone. He jumped, however, when the staircase at the third floor changed unexpectedly, but Edgar simply guided him toward the tower where the Headmaster's office was and up the next set of staircases to the entrance. He stopped there, stumped, as he realized he did not know the password to get past the griffin statutes that guarded the moving circular staircase to the top.

The door opened smoothly without any need of a password and Harry strode out followed by Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, Professor Sprout and Snape. "Remember, I want every broom checked for jinxes," he said, "and I want each of you to let your Houses and your teams know what I expect." His tone was brisk and reminded Edgar of the one Masters used when he gave out instructions to his various departments - cool, professional, and entirely certain of his inferiors' obedience. He was in command and he knew it.

The four teachers nodded and left with hardly a glance at Edgar and Bentley, except, that is, for Snape. The thin, sallow face was pursed with some unnamed dissatisfaction, and the glance he threw Edgar was barely short of unfriendly. His gaze fell on Bentley and his dark eyes narrowed with surprise. It seemed as though he would speak, but at a glance from Harry, he moved off, though not without another thoughtful look thrown over his shoulder. Harry's green gaze was unreadable as he watched the older wizard depart and just as unreadable as he gestured for them to follow him up the moving spiral stairs.

Edgar looked around at the Headmaster's office with nearly as great a curiosity and trepidation as Bentley. He had never been summoned there in his five years at Hogwarts as the Heads of House generally dealt with all but the worst discipline problems. The only time he had been there previously had been right after Harry had defeated Riddle and Edgar had been so preoccupied with trying to balance his obligations to the Prime Minister with his wizard loyalties that he had hardly noticed anything more than the anger in Dumbledore's blue eyes and the astonishing miracle of Harry entering, frail, but undeniably alive. He recollected with a tiny jolt, that in all his time there, one of the only students ever summoned to the Headmaster's office had been James Potter, Harry's father.

The office was a beautiful circular room filled with many curious objects. Bookshelves made of age darkened wood circled the walls and ancient tapestries and portraits hung in the spaces they did not fill.

Afternoon sunlight shone brilliantly white, gleaming across the silver instruments, the brass armillary, breaking into prisms as it struck through a huge, flawless crystal ball on a golden tripod, and illuminating the heart shaped ruby clasped in the lion's paws on the Sword of Gryffindor, which stood in a glass case, all its deadly glory on display. Perhaps it was the sight of the sword that made Bentley speak more courteously than he might have otherwise.

"I would like to know when you'll be back, Potter," Bentley said. "You must understand that your absence affects the team's functioning and morale."

Harry sat down behind the wooden desk and gestured for his guests to sit on the comfortable seats in front of the desk and Edgar wondered whether Harry had deliberately chosen to make his next meeting with the Head in this place because it put Harry in the position in which Bentley normally occupied. He noted that Harry was wearing magnificent crimson wizard's robes of the kind that Dumbledore had habitually worn and not his usual jeans and Dragonhide jacket.



"I understand quite well," Harry answered quietly, "and I am sorry for it." His green gaze was direct and Edgar saw that shadows beneath them told of fatigue or sleepless nights. Thinking of the terror he had seen in the misty memories of the Pensieve, Edgar wondered that Harry slept at all without nightmares to trouble him. Harry hesitated and then said with a rush, "You must understand, too, that I may not be able to continue in the Job, at least, not on a regular basis."

"I don't think the Prime Minister is going to be very happy with that," Edgar replied. He felt quite awful being the one to remind Harry of the unpalatable truth - that the secrecy of the wizarding world depended on Harry's cooperation with the Muggles.

"I don't suppose he will," Harry answered calmly. "I will be glad to speak with him myself, if he wants. I think he knows and we all know," he added gently, "that it is in none of our interests at this moment to make an official revelation that wizards really do exist. The reaction when Locherman tried to out me was warning enough. He doesn't want a panic brought on by people finding out that terrorists are using magic against them and he doesn't want our attempts to stop them, and the Alliance especially, disturbed by no confidence votes, riots, and public hearings. Not to mention that he doesn't want to actually have to deal with a lot of angry wizards and witches either."

"Is that a threat?" Bentley asked incredulously.

"Of course not, sir," Harry replied sharply. "I am merely laying out the facts, which we all know to be true. I have not stopped working against the Alliance or for you and for the Crown; but I am only human and I can only do so much and I have got additional responsibilities that I have to fulfill."

He stood abruptly and strode over to the paned windows from which vantage one could see students dotted about on the banks of the lake, under the beech trees, and flying about the quidditch pitch. "There is my greatest responsibility," Harry said. "I have to ensure that they are safe and that they learn to use their gifts with responsibility. Bringing Hayden and the Death Eaters and the Alliance down is part of that, but you're going to have to work with me, to work around my other duties if you want me to continue to work directly with you from now on."

He faced them and Edgar saw that Harry's decision was quite final and that no bullying or blackmail would alter it. Bentley, too, knew resolution when he saw it. They were both surprised and uncomfortable, though, when Harry added, "You must know that the rest of the team is no longer comfortable with my participation. If not everyone, then enough to cause you problems, sir. You saw how everyone reacted last time ... and I don't want to be the cause of a real breakdown in our operation."

"We all know what you are, Harry," Bentley answered, "and we still want you with us. It's too bad you took our concern for you, for whether you had been harmed and replaced with an imposter, for anything other than what it was."

"I believe that is true of you, sir," Harry said gently. His green gaze had softened at the Head's words, but whether his decision might have been changed was never tested as a shadow of a man slithered across the wall and into his portrait just then and announced in a rather dry, peremptory tone, "The Minister is here to see you, Boy, and that Weasley troublemaker friend of yours as well."

Harry looked at the portrait of the man who had spoken, which had beneath it the name, Phinneas Nigellus and the dates of his service as headmaster, and said, "Thank you Phinneas," as politely as though the portrait had spoken to him with respect instead of with the sort of condescension that elderly relatives of a curmudgeonly disposition often took with their juniors.

Having given up using Dumbledore's wristwatch time turner, Harry felt more pressed for time than ever. With the confirmation of his appointment as Headmaster, he had felt obliged to pay more attention to his duties and that fobbing everything off on McGonagall and Snape would be shirking somehow. He had known that Bentley would try to pry him out sooner or later, but the day he had chosen had not been the best. And in truth, Harry wished he had more time to come to terms with what had happened at the agency as a result of the unanticipated healing of his scar. He had heard, though they all thought he had not, Bronztein calling him a monster and he found it utterly depressing that a man with whom he had worked for seventeen years could so easily change his view of Harry on account of his being a wizard. It reminded him all too vividly of his Aunt calling him a freak and of all the years he had been treated as if he were some kind of nasty insect that had to be swatted at and kept at bay.

He would have liked to send Bentley and Bones away before Ron arrived, but it appeared that would be impossible as Ron and Ernie swept through the door and blurted out, in barely suppressed excitement, that they had certain information of the Death Eaters' hiding place.

"The Death Eaters are at the old Malfoy manor in Wilshire," Ernie said. "Do you think you can join our Aurors tonight, Harry? We want to have a go at them before they move again." He shut up at the end of the sentence when he realized Bentley and Bones were there, but the damage was done.

"How do you know that?" Bentley demanded. "Who's your source?" Ernie gaped at Bentley and looked on the verge of taking offense so that Harry had to jump in and introduce the two.

"This is the Minister of Magic, Ernie Macmillan," Harry said to Bentley, "and this is Commander Bentley, Head of the Muggle Security Services."

"I wish you wouldn't call us Muggles," Bentley complained. "It doesn't sound very nice."

Fortunately, among Ernie's greatest strengths were his fairness and courtesy and he said, "Please don't take offense, Commander Bentley. It's a bad habit we wizards have." He looked at Harry and Harry saw that it was touch and go whether Ernie would say something about a Muggle being right in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts, so Harry explained. "The Commander and I were just discussing the tie-in between the Death Eaters and the Alliance bombing in London two weeks ago."

"You mean Goyle," Ron said. "How d'you think they caught on he was spying on them for us?"

Bentley frowned at Ron in recognition, and started to speak, but Ernie answered first. "He was never very smart, you know, and without Draco to make his decisions he was probably lost."

"You knew that fellow?" Bentley asked, "The last one they branded?"

Ernie winced and said, "Gregory Goyle was in our class here at Hogwarts. He was always in trouble and his father is still a Death Eater, we think."

"And he let them kill his son?" Bentley asked. "Talk about monsters."

"We don't know that," Ernie said fairly.

"The thing is," Ron added, "they have factions, the old Death Eaters. Some of them support Hayden and the Grindelwald crowd because they've provided the reason to go on and others of them would like to see the back of that lot so they can try to bring back the glory days of You Know Who all by themselves."

By his pallor and the fleeting fright on his face, Bentley did not like that at all, and Harry recollected that Bentley had been there when the Death Eaters had tried and failed seventeen years before to bring Voldemort's soul back to possess an infant with the hopes they could re-birth him once more.

"How sure are you of the location?" Harry asked quickly. "We looked there and it was empty not very long ago."

"They moved in yesterday," Ron replied. "I've had people watching all the known sites. Just watching," he added, "so we're pretty sure they don't know we know."

"We've got the plans for the place," Ernie said, waving a sheaf of parchment. "I thought we could do a quick study of them and set up the attack for this evening. I'd like them back in Azkaban before the night is out. And, of course, I hoped you'd help, Harry." He added this last awkwardly, and Harry wondered whether Ernie even knew that the Ministry technically still employed him, though there had never been any written records of it.

"How many people do we have?" Harry asked immediately, "and how many, and which of them are there?"

"Now wait a minute," Bentley objected, "if the Alliance have been located, I want a proper Security team sent in and proper procedures followed."

"I'll be there," Harry said, " and Bones." He looked for confirmation at Edgar and was relieved when he nodded. He had been afraid that Edgar's distrust might have re-awoken when Harry had stopped coming in to the Thames Street office. "That makes it a joint Ministry and Security Services operation," he added. Knowing it would be best not to let either Ernie or Bentley think too much on that, he summoned the plans for the Malfoy Manor and spread them out on his desk. They were incredibly detailed, almost as good as his own map of Hogwarts, which showed the entire Castle and the location of every person in it. "Where did you get these?"

"The Hall of Records, of course," Ernie answered. He puffed his chest out a bit, as he did when he was pleased with himself, a habit Harry had noticed years ago.

"What else is in there?" Harry asked curiously.

"Just about anything you want. Birth records, death records, magical contracts, the usual." Ernie flourished his wand, making Bentley wince, and he looked even more pleased with himself when a light grew from the parchment and the plans were converted into a three-dimensional image of the manor.

"We can't apparate directly in," Ron said, "as there appears to be an anti-disapparition jinx on it. It's supposed to be unplottable, too, but whoever put that spell on didn't know what he was doing. In any case, we'll have to get past security spells on the outside doors in order to get in."

"Who else have you got for the assault?" Harry asked.

"Dean Thomas and Tonks and Lupin," Ron answered. "And I've convinced Bill to lend a hand. Oh, and Hermione," he added scowling. "She overheard me and Ernie talking about it and demanded to come. And she wouldn't take no because Ernie's coming himself, so I can't get away with telling her it's an Auror only operation."

"I thought you had more people than that," Harry commented.

"Yeah," Ron said, "but there's always the problem of who to trust. And some of our newer people just don't have the full training yet to deal with Death Eaters. It's been a few years since we had any threats that dangerous."

* * *

Harry crouched behind the boxwood hedge that created a live wall between the Malfoy Manor and its neighbors. The house appeared in the last golden light of the day to be a quite beautiful Manor in the Jacobean style, with leaded windows and wood so old it appeared black. It sat on a gentle rise of land, carpeted with emerald grass and festooned with trailing tendrils of ivy. The wildflowers and occasional weeds together with the faded rose of its brick gave it the appearance of an aged grandmother, dressed in dusty velvets, coiffure just slightly askew.

Unhappily, he contemplated the additional forces dragged into the operation by Bentley and found himself almost hoping that no one would be there. He had enlarged the original team himself, bringing Snape along as double insurance. If all or most of the Death Eaters and Hayden were there, then the addition of the Potions Master's strength and knowledge of the Dark Arts might make the difference in subduing their enemies. And if, by chance, there were only a few, unimportant conspirators there, he had agreed with Snape that the attack would provide the ideal opportunity for Snape to begin his new infiltration of their group. Harry tried not to worry that the temptation he was placing on the dark wizard, together with Snape's never resolved loathing for him might turn him to betray Harry altogether. He had tried very hard to act as Dumbledore would have, as he had when he had reiterated his trust in Snape over and over again. As usual, complete trust in Snape was impossibility, irrationally so, perhaps, but altogether elusive nonetheless.

Harry's other worry had to do with the Muggle Security Services officers Bentley had had brought in. The head had insisted that the operation was doomed if there weren't a large support team to back them up. At first, Harry had agreed that Bentley might contact headquarters and bring in Johnny and Brittany and Mac. He had even persuaded Hermione to go and bring them back. He had not counted on Bentley deciding to use his mobile, which was working again now that they were outside of Hogwarts and not yet inside the Malfoy Manor, to summon the additional help. The extra forces had arrived by helicopter and no less than twenty armed officers had been set up as back-up. Ernie had alternated between alarm at the probability that all those Muggles would know about magic, and open disdain for their Muggle weapons. Harry had had to smooth over the mounting tension between him and Bentley, only surprisingly, Ernie himself did an abrupt about face and saying, "Perhaps it's as well they are here. You never know what might come in handy when you're fighting killers like these." After that, he and Bentley had begun to order the attackers together, leaving Harry to fume at their precipitate approach.

"Will you stop!" he said more vehemently to both of them than he had intended. "You're making enough noise to wake the world."

They glared at him with identical stares of outrage, but he cut them off before they each could assert their authority over him. "I am going in first to scout things out," he said softly. "Unless you want a load of casualties, we need to check things out before you go in."

"I know you love playing the hero, Harry," Bentley responded, to which Harry growled, "I don't care about being a hero; I care if people die!" He had then deliberately gone invisible and had moved as silently as possible around the hedge to examine the Manor more closely.





In the slightly misty light that always seemed to wrap around him when he was invisible, Harry peered at the large house looking for a suitable means of entry. Silently, he waved his wand in a detection spell, which he had adapted from the one which allowed you to identify the ingredients in a mixed potion. Only this spell allowed him to identify the various protections active within the sphere he cast. An almost invisible net of light arced over the Manor, and by the various sparks of color that flared momentarily red and green and violet and blue, he knew what they were up against. He was sure there might be other traps for the unwary, but those would be inside the Manor itself.

Swiftly, he made his way about the manor, disarming each protective spell one by one. Unfortunately, the last one had had a hidden double layer to it, and upon disarming the first one, the second one engaged. A loud gong sounded, a deep boom that shook the ground. Realizing that the moment was upon them, Harry allowed himself to become visible and simply blew in the front door, signaling to the waiting men to follow him in.

Despite the continuing reverberations- the gong, gong, gong - of whatever trap had been triggered, not a spell nor a person greeted Harry as he sped swiftly into the Manor. Behind him, Hermione cried out, "silencio!" and the sound stopped abruptly. The quiet thereafter was almost more disturbing than the alarm had been and Harry continued through the three story entryway and down the hall seeking any sign of life.

Instinctively, he turned right into a large heavily draped room, which he thought, at first, was unoccupied. Dusty moss colored curtains obscured high windows, and heavy old leather couches flanked an enormous stone fireplace. On the wall above the fireplace sat a coat of arms, whose once vivid colors were dull and chipped, a tarnished boast of antiquity and nobility, a dismal reflection of the once proud family's status.

A faint grunting snore and the reek of whiskey were tell tale signs of life remaining. Harry stalked forward, wand at the ready, thinking that even a drunk Death Eater was capable of killing, if for no other reason than that he had done so many times before.

The snore issued from an enormous man who was sprawled in a stupor on one of the couches, an upturned bottle of Old Ogden's Firewhiskey just out of reach. The room was cold as the fire had long since died to nothing and with the setting sun, but little illumination filtered in through the folds of the heavy draperies. He lit the fire and the nearly burnt out candles that remained in a dusty wrought iron chandelier and in the sudden burst of light, he saw that the lone Death Eater was Goyle- the father.

Pity seeped through cracks in his resolution and he held up a hand for the others to stay back as he said quietly, "Mr. Goyle. You need to wake up now."

Dark eyes opened and the Death Eater fumbled for his wand, making indeterminate sounds of distress or fear. Harry knocked the wand out of his reach with a silent disarming spell and said, "We've come to take you in, Mr. Goyle. Are there any others of you here?"

Goyle's eyes focused and widened in fear as he recognized Harry and then dulled again in resignation. "Going to kill me, Potter, like you did the Dark Lord?"

Harry started to shake his head, but Goyle fumbled at the bottle and tried to drink, only it was quite, quite empty. "It'd be better than what they did to my Gregory," he said. "Accusing him of being a traitor. Bloody Hayden with his bloody Muggle friends. Cursed fools, thinking he can ever be a substitute for the Dark Lord. You'd make a better Dark Lord, Potter, than that prating fool with his stupid Muggle following. At least you know how to use a wand like a proper wizard, even if you are a half-blood brat."

"I don't want to be a dark lord," Harry said, unable to suppress his disgust. "I don't want to be a lord over anyone."

" 'S waste," Goyle said. "All that bloody talent and power, enough to defeat HIM, and you've got nothing better to do than chase after us until we all die." He came off the couch and sank down to his knees and clutched at Harry's coat. "Promise me this, Boy," he said, "Promise me you'll give Hayden the same treatment you gave the Dark Lord. At least I can die in peace if he gets his for killing my son."

"I won't promise to kill him," Harry answered. "But I will promise to see he him brought to justice. That I will." He took a deep breath and asked again, "Are you alone here?"

"Oh, aye," Goyle replied mournfully. "They all ran for it the minute they heard you were coming. But me, I figured I haven't got it in me to run anymore or to fight. You want to kill me, put me in Azkaban, I don't care. I don't care. I don't care..." His voice trailed off and he slumped down as though the little bit he'd said had exhausted his last resources.

Harry sighed and shivered and wished he were back home with his wife and children and that he could escape forever from the endless duties he had been saddled with.

Later, when the wizards had returned to Hogwarts, Moody fixed him with his electric blue eye and said, "You don't really feel sorry for that worthless lump, do you? Do you know how many fathers he deprived of their children and children of their fathers? He deserves his pain. He deserves every bit of it."

"I know," Harry said. "I know. But I feel sorry for him, after all. As evil as he was, he loved his son in his fashion." He shivered and added, " I can't think of anything worse than losing a child like that. Not anything."

At eight o'clock the following morning, Harry entered the Thames Street office by the front door, in a proper Muggle suit, and signed in like any other employee. "Back in from the cold?" the desk officer asked as he stepped through the metal detector and made for the elevators.

"Ta, luv," he said smilingly. Acknowledging that his extended absence would be interpreted variously, and, not wanting to admit to what he'd really been up to, he would allow anyone who asked to believe his assumption was correct.

He stepped out into his team's office area, snagged a cup of coffee, settled into the chair behind his desk and booted up the computer. His e-mail box had over two hundred unread messages, many of which were titled, "Where are you?" and "When will you be in today?" He deleted those without opening them, and swiveled away to look out the window, wishing that Ernie and Bentley had never met.

They had developed a sudden sympathy for one another, though it had been quickly tested by the argument over who was to take charge of Goyle's detention and interrogation. Ernie had won that one, partly because, as he had pointed out quite reasonably, the wizards were better equipped to hold a Death Eater like Goyle, and partly because Ernie had not so subtly reminded Bentley that as Minister of Magic he stood equal in power and rank to the Prime Minister. But after that small power struggle, Ernie had diplomatically granted Bentley's first request, which was for Harry to return to regular duties at the Security Services. Harry had objected that as Headmaster of Hogwarts he could not possibly do that. Unfortunately, Ernie had known, or guessed Harry supposed, that Harry's assignment to the Muggle Ministry had been from the Ministry of Magic. He knew, of course, that Harry had been hired by the Ministry in those long ago days when Fudge had interviewed graduating hopefuls. Whether Fudge had actually left some record of Harry's employment was uncertain, but Harry had acquiesced in Ernie's request, partly because he understood that he could not flout the authority of the Minister of Magic to his face in front of a Muggle official like Bentley. He had also felt uncomfortably that not returning was more like running away.

The decision, though, had resulted in a heated argument with Ginny as he had concluded that he would need to use the time turner watch again in order to do what he had to do. "It's dangerous," she had argued. She had flushed right to her ears, a sure sign of fury, though he hoped it was directed more at Ernie and at Bentley than at him.

"I've done it for months," he replied, "without any real harm."

For once, she did not allow herself to be persuaded. "This is different, Harry, than going off to fight a dangerous wizard, or a monster, or anything in the moment. A wrong move could mess up time itself and you won't even know what you've done. Dumbledore wouldn't agree to you using it like this," she added, clearly seeing that as her best argument.

"He's the one who gave it to me," Harry retorted, "and for this very purpose. He used it himself like that, lots of times. Look," he continued more softly, "I won't shirk my responsibilities here at Hogwarts. I didn't ask to be appointed, but Dumbledore convinced me I'm needed here." In truth, Harry had an inkling that Dumbledore had seen Harry's appointment as being a way of protecting him from both the Muggle and the Magic ministries. With Hogwarts as a place to retreat to, neither could control Harry in the fashion they would like. What he did for them from the strength of the position as Headmaster must seem like choice on his part, not obedience. Harry also felt, in the deepest recesses of his heart, that Dumbledore had given him this as an inheritance, that Dumbledore had come to care for Harry as though he were his own. And more, that Dumbledore believed his remaining days were few and he simply wanted Harry nearby.

"But I won't give up the task of breaking the Death Eaters and the Alliance for good. And if I were willing to," he added, "they wouldn't believe it. They would seek me out here and the students ... our children ... and you would be endangered."

"Every time you go out the door," she said, "I think it might be the last. It's not that I don't believe you are one of the greatest wizards in the world; but even you can make a mistake. Eventually, your luck will run out, like it did with Voldemort."

He sighed and gathered her close and said, "I'm not afraid of dying, Ginny. I'm only afraid of being separated from you and the children, and most of all, I'm afraid of failing. Because failure means none of you have a future."



Thinking of that, he picked up the phone and punched in the number for Ashley Dursley's number at the bank. It was time, he thought, to start pulling the very ground out from beneath Hayden's feet. It had taken months to trace his finances, to find every pseudonym, every shadow company, every alter ego through which he operated. Before the day was out, every note Hayden owed would be called, every property would be repossessed, and he would be homeless, flushed out into the open. And his bankers and accountants would find themselves charged with laundering money and aiding and abetting terrorists. He smiled grimly to himself and wondered at the peculiar irony of the fact that his Muggle cousin, who he had hated and envied, should be the instrument of justice."

By eleven, the time their team briefing was to take place, the first suspect had been brought in and was waiting in the interrogation room protesting loudly.

"This is some monstrous mistake," he said. With his perfectly tailored suit and sleek, barbered silver hair, the man looked as though he were ready for a board meeting and he still managed to sound as though he thought he was in charge. "I want my solicitor," the banker complained. "You can't do this to me!"

Harry walked into the interrogation room with Bentley and Bronztein, and for some reason, the man actually relaxed. Perhaps it was the fact that the three of them wore business suits themselves. Perhaps it was the fact that Bentley dismissed the uniformed guard with a nod. "It's about time someone reasonable arrived," the banker said.

"Reasonable is all a point of view," Harry replied gently. He sat down at the table across from the banker and drew out the papers with the information Ashley had e-mailed him. Bronztein sat down as well and set up his laptop, readying it to record the interrogation. His face was quite expressionless and he had greeted Harry quite normally when Harry had walked into the briefing room to inform the rest of the team that he had a suspect in for questioning. Harry could only hope that the officer's temporary alienation had been just that - temporary and brought on by seeing real magic.

The room was cold, but the banker was sweating. A fine sheen of sweat glazed his smoothly barbered face and his pale blue eyes were full of fear behind the attitude of arrogance.

"You are George Withers of 201 Belgravia Road?" Harry asked.

Withers nodded, his gaze on Bentley, whom he seemed to have identified instantly as the most senior man there. Perhaps, Harry thought uncharitably, they even had a nodding acquaintance, perhaps Withers and Bentley had been to the same club, the same restaurants, the same schools.

"You are a director of Belgravia Bank, and you supervise international investments, is that correct?

Withers nodded. "What's this all about, then? Who are you and would you please tell me why I am here." He tugged at his silk tie and added, "I'd have been perfectly glad to talk to you if you had made an appointment at the Bank. I can't imagine what you want, but I am always glad to be of service. But this..." He made a small gesture at the closed room with its concrete windowless walls.

"To be precise," Harry said, "you will be charged with money laundering and aiding and abetting terrorism." Ignoring the man's sudden pallor, he continued remorselessly, "Nearly twenty years ago, your bank was on the verge of receivership. You received a sudden infusion of funds from an unidentified source and you developed a new market in international investments. In the last twenty years, you personally, Mr. Withers, have overseen the laundering of over a hundred billion pounds worth of drug money, facilitated the creation of thirty companies, all of which are fronts for the Anglo Aryan Alliance and which have, in the past year been used to hire employees from outside the country who are actually reserves in a terrorist army, and you have personally provided investment advice for Eric Hayden, the mastermind behind the Alliance."

"This is a load of rubbish," Withers answered. "Half the banks in London have international investment division. And I had no idea Hayden was a terrorist when I gave him investment advice. I demand that you release me now."

"You met with Hayden last month," Harry added.

"You look familiar," Withers accused. "I'm sure I've seen you before. On the telly. This is some fake news show. One of those American style shows that set people up in false situations and humiliate them thoroughly. Who are you?"

"Harry Potter," he answered, thinking his name would mean nothing to the banker. Surely, he thought, Hayden wouldn't have discussed his wizard opponents with his Muggle conspirators. Withers, however, went white and said, "You're the one that was on the news. You're the one they claimed works for MI-5. The wizard."

"That's right, Mr. Withers. You are in Security Services headquarters right now and I am security officer." "There's no such thing as magic," Withers said. "That part isn't true, though."

Harry did not reply. He studied the man's face silently thinking that evil could reside in the most ordinary and blandest of men. He wondered if Withers was a true believer or if he had blinded himself to the origins and uses of the funds had funneled simply for profit.

Withers stared at Bentley and Bronztein and then back at Harry dry washing his manicured hands. "You can't prove any of this," he said at last. "You have nothing that can stand up to a court of law."

"You won't be seeing a court for some time," Bentley replied. "You will be detained under the Security Act of 2006 pending determination of your status as either a terrorist or on some other lesser charge for the next sixty days. You have, of course, the option to declare yourself a cooperating witness, in which case we will detain you in a safe house rather than in the lock-up, and the charges against you may be reduced, depending on the information you provide."

"I'd like to know," Harry said, looking down at the papers in front of him, "what exactly Badon, Chartered does. Who are its real directors, who are its real employees and what is its real purpose?"

Withers gawped at him and actually leapt for the door. Bentley blocked his way and shoved him back down in the chair, which rocked back and nearly toppled with Withers in it. "Actions do speak louder than words," Bentley said coldly.

"I don't know what that is," Withers whispered.

"You personally transferred half a million euros into that company's newly formed account last September," Harry replied.

"You can't know that," Withers said. "You can't."

Harry raised his brows and answered, "It's obtainable from the bank's records. Any transfer of funds from a foreign source of that size has to be reported."

"It's just a business investment," Withers said. His voice had risen slightly, but his assurance was gone. "Start up funds for a biotechnology company."

"A company that employs ten men, each of whom have been connected with Hayden's organizations in Germany, Austria and France," Harry said. "The company's only assets appear to be five autos, ten computers, and some office equipment. Where's the research equipment such a company should have? What's its real purpose, Mr. Withers?"

"I don't know," Withers said hoarsely. "They don't tell me those things. I just do the money part."

"Where did you get that information?" Bronztein asked curiously in the post-interrogation briefing. "I didn't know you could use a computer for anything more than logging on to a chat site. Why didn't you bring me in on that before?"

Harry shrugged and glanced at Bentley. "I've a source in the banking industry," he said reluctantly. "I didn't find that information myself."

"It's a gold mine," Bentley said. "How much more is there?" he asked, eyeing the ream of financial Harry had in front of him.

"Enough," Harry said, "to bankrupt the Alliance. I want to cripple them every way possible."

"It won't stop them doing...magic," Bronztein said hesitantly. "No, it won't," Harry replied. "but I'm less worried about what they can do with magic than what they can do otherwise."

"I don't understand that," Bentley said. "Why wouldn't you be more worried about what they can do with magic?"

"I know how to fight that," Harry answered.

"Seems to me you're doing fine the other way, too," Bentley said dryly. "And it's not as if you haven't had the same training as every other officer here. And half of the work you've done has had nothing to do with magical threats."

Harry shrugged and rose. "I've got a couple of leads I want to follow up on," he said. "I'll see you in the morning."

"Leads from there?" Bronztein asked.

"Money leads," Harry replied with apparent sincerity. He did not explain that these leads were at Gringotts Bank in Diagon Alley where the directors and clerks were goblins and the money was solid gold and silver and bronze.

* * *

Snape entered the dark Muggle pub cautiously, his hand inside his coat firmly clutching his wand. He reminded himself to keep his face as neutral as possible, though he could not completely control the involuntary curl of a sneer at the sight of all those dumb Muggles huddled over their tables, drinking their miserable watery Muggle beer, their vacuous gazes fixed upon the television screen above the bar. Smoke from the men's cigarettes tainted the air and not a few of the men reminded him of his own father in his later days, stomachs swollen with over consumption of drink and bad food, noses veiny and red and lumpy with the tell tale signs of heart disease. Resentment boiled inside him at the need to be in this place, resentment equally divided between Potter and the Death Eaters, who had chosen to follow a pitiful incompetent who seemed half-Muggle at times as a substitute for the Dark Lord.

He slid into the high backed booth in the back and faced his old boyhood patron, Lucius Malfoy. He took note of Malfoy's once golden hair, which now straggled, white and thin around a face whose formerly handsome mien was permanently creased with bitterness and hate.

"You!" Malfoy said. "How dare you come here and show your face?"

Snape lifted a brow and said coolly, "I'm surprised at you Lucius. You would never have come to such a place as this before Potter defeated the Dark Lord. And I dare because you, like all the rest of my old friends, have lost your way completely."

"You betrayed us," Lucius said viciously. He drew his wand, disregarding the interested stare of the Muggle bartender.

Snape pushed the wand away and said, "I betrayed no one. I never had the chance. I followed the Dark Lord's orders to the very last, to the day of the final battle. I was where he told me to be, Lucius, waiting to act upon his instructions."

"You fought on their side. For Dumbledore," Lucius spat.

Snape inclined his head. "At the Dark Lord's instructions." He leaned forward. "I was to wait until the very last moment. I was his reserve, trusted by Dumbledore and the others. He held me in abeyance until the crucial moment. My instructions were explicit. I was to wait for him to slay Potter and then to take Dumbledore in his weakness and his grief."

"But you did not," Lucius whispered. "You let the old fool live and Potter, too. You left us, all of us, to rot in Azkaban, to struggle to bring the Dark Lord back, and you did nothing. Why should I believe you at all?"

"You shouldn't," Snape answered. "I will prove myself to you as I did to the Dark Lord when he returned from the grave, greater and more terrible than ever before."

He paused and kept his eyes on Malfoy, whose cold grey eyes had finally shown curiosity as well as hate.

"The Dark Lord never believed that Potter would defeat him," Snape continued. "He expected to slay the boy without any trouble as we all did. He never expected the boy to do what he did. He believed he had overcome the protection of the boy's mother's sacrifice by using his blood in his re-birthing. He was careful when he made his new body to use his own blood, which still bore the same blood as the boy's, so that his protection would be preserved. He did not expect the boy to follow in his mother's steps, to give up his life voluntarily. He did not expect the curse to backfire a second time. No one did. He did not. You did not. I did not."

He waited again for Malfoy's expression to change and when it did, it was a small thing, a matter of muscles contracting around the eyes at the recollection, a flare of the nostrils in loathing or contempt. "No one expected it," he conceded. "Not even that fool, Dumbledore."

"So you saw the Dark Lord die and chose your way, betraying us all, and keeping your comfortable little nest at Hogwarts. You betrayed his memory, and the Dark Lord knew it."

Snape breathed in and answered carefully. "I have followed the Dark Lord's instructions as none of you have. I alone have remained truly loyal. Have you not given him up altogether? Do you not follow that incompetent, Hayden? Have you not allowed him to assert himself over you? And to associate with Muggles, no less, as if their nationality were more important than any wizard heritage? You have betrayed him more completely than I ever have, Malfoy, and only if you listen to me will we get rid of this upstart Hayden and have a chance of bringing the Dark Lord back."

Malfoy's face was a study in astonishment and then in contempt. "You think we can bring the Dark Lord back? You saw him die. We tried, Bellatrix and I, to bring him back. We did the spell, we provided the vessel for his return, and Potter stopped it. Oh, yes, Potter stopped it. Where were you that time, Snape? Safely in your hidey hole at Hogwarts, weren't you? While we risked ourselves to try to bring the Dark Lord back."

"Oh, yes," Snape replied. "I heard about that. You used your own grandson for it, and you failed."

"It was Bellatrix who did that," Lucius said. "She switched the babes." His face twitched uncontrollably as he added, "She ruined it all, with her jealousy of Narcissa. She would not agree to us stealing another child, another pure blood to be sacrificed for the purpose. She grew attached to the other babe, certain it was the Dark Lord's. And she killed Draco when he tried to stop her using my grandson. She ruined it."

"The other babe?" Snape said. "The other is the Dark Lord's son, is he not?"

"He thought so," Lucius said reluctantly. "I ... I think he is mine."

Snape stared at him in astonishment. "The Dark Lord claimed him. The Dark Lord nursed her all that time, throughout her pregnancy. He had me make potions for her, to ease her, to help her carry to term, and she did."

"Narcissa was mine," Lucius said. "My wife. Did you think I never once was with her after the Dark Lord visited? And I do not think he was able to father a child after the re-birth."

Snape was so astonished he forgot to keep his face calm. "I am sorry for you, Lucius, but I fear you let your remembrance of Narcissa dull your thinking."

"The Dark Lord was great," Lucius whispered. "None greater has ever been or will be again. You know well my loyalty to him. But I tell you, the body he inhabited that last year, the one he made of a golem and the lives and spirits of murdered wizards and witches, that body could not have been fertile. I don't believe he fathered a child. I believe he - I believe he deceived himself in his desire to perpetuate his line."

"Then why did you not claim the child?" Snape asked. If you thought he was yours, why did you leave him all these years, to be raised by Potter, of all people?"

Lucius shrugged and said, "It was too difficult to get at him. He has been well protected at Potter's house and at Hogwarts. I was in Azkaban, and in hiding. He has been safe, at least, and raised to be a wizard. When the time is ripe, I will acquaint him with his true parentage."

"You might be wrong," Snape warned, "and even if you are not, the boy believes he is Potter's own son. He will reject you, if you try."

Snape looked at his old friend's ruined countenance and wondered whether Lucius could possibly be right. He thought cynically that even the cleverest men were likely to delude themselves on the most critical issues of the heart. He was thankful that he had never allowed his own heart to be so captured that he could not easily force its weakest inclinations to the strength of his mind.

He pretended to sip his drink and thought he had accomplished his immediate task. It would not do to overstay Lucius' patience, especially when he was still deeply suspicious of Snape. Before he could go, however, Crabbe came in with MacNair, holding a tall, beautiful, fair haired man between them, their wands poking into his back and neck. The lake blue eyes fell on Snape and lit up with outrage. Even held as he was, their fury was a primal force and Snape fancied he could feel the nascent stirrings of a magic that needed no wand for its use. He carefully blanked his face and said to Crabbe and MacNair in as bored a tone as he could manage, "I see neither one of you has developed any more brains or sense since the Dark Lord died. What on earth do you mean, holding a Muggle at wand point in a Muggle place like this?"

"He is a friend of The Boy Who Lived," MacNair answered. "And he's not a Muggle. He used magic on me once." Viciously, MacNair twisted Carter's arm and increased the pressure of his wand on his neck.

Snape marveled at how ripe for proper leadership his former allies were. In just that one sentence, MacNair had not only accepted Snape as one of them again and had answered to him, as an inferior to a superior. He noted, too, that even these men, who had seen Potter grow from childhood, who had seen him flounder from one danger to another, escaping by luck or by help from Dumbledore, should now use only his nickname, as though he were as fearful and great a wizard as the Dark Lord had been.



Before Snape could seize on his advantage, Lucius woke up and hissed, "Get him upstairs. We can deal with him there." He smiled at Snape and said, "It's fortunate you stopped by, Severus. You were always one of the best of us at getting information out of reluctant sources."

Snape nodded his head and followed the others up the back stairway, six flights up. He made sure neither to rush nor to go too slowly. They must see him as confident, in control, one of them, and superior enough to let others precede him without fear he would be attacked behind his back.

* * *

"Where have you been?" Ginny asked as Harry strode into the Headmaster's office. His office now. She was seated at one of the chairs in front of the desk and on the desk sat a tray with roast chicken, potatoes in gravy, treacle tart and a pot of tea. The gravy on the potatoes had congealed and all of it was undoubtedly dead cold. He could warm it up easily enough with a flick of his wand, but he wasn't at all hungry. He threw his jacket on the empty chair in front of the desk and answered at her warning look, "Work. The Job."

"It's too much," she said angrily. "They expect too much of you. You can't keep this up, working here a whole day and then going back and doing time all over again so you can work there the whole day, too. Even you can't keep this up. You'll crack up like Hermione started to when she was doing time over third year."

"I didn't know you knew about that," he said.

"She told me. She's my friend," Ginny answered impatiently. "And don't ignore me. You told me you would stop this."

Wearily, he struggled for patience. It would be all too easy to snap at her, but that kind of behavior was for children. And anyway, he needed her too badly, needed her to work with him or he'd never be able to manage half of what he had to do.

"I told you, Bentley and Ernie have me boxed in. But even if they hadn't, I'd do it. Look," he said softly, "things are heating up, coming to a crisis soon, and perhaps it will be truly finished then. Hayden's been forced out of his comfortable den. The bankers have foreclosed on every business and every property he owns. His followers are beginning to desert him, the Muggle gangs, at least, and soon the Death Eaters are going to split from him as well."

"How do you know that?" she asked sharply.

He considered telling her, but thought she'd be even more angry if she knew. Instead, he started stripping off his fatigues and said, "I need to wash," and headed for the stairs to the one place where he could be truly private, the chamber above the office.

In fact, he reeked, the thought, of gunpowder and sweat and the fury of their latest fight. He had gone into the office that morning, after a full and irritating day as headmaster, thinking that they would be questioning another of the financiers who had helped set up the business fronts and moved money and men from the Continent at Hayden's behest. The second afternoon of the day had barely started, however, before they had been called to quell a riot that had expanded from the football stadium into a nearby neighborhood. It was uncertain who had been the moving force behind it, but Harry suspected Hayden or one of the splinter groups that had formed out of the Alliance had inspired it. The initial violence, a rumble between opposing fans, had quickly spread. Cars had been set on fire, then several mosques and after that a synagogue. There had been beatings, looting, and five people had been killed, when the villains had taken a whole school hostage. Two of them had been children.

The Security Service teams had ringed the school, working together with Special Branch and the Met. Negotiations had failed and Harry could still see, if he closed his eyes, the terror on the first man's face as his captor killed him, and the way the blood and brains had sprayed out when the bullet blew through. He wasn't sure, but he thought one of the bullets that had killed the terrorist after might have been his own.

He flung himself in the shower and washed obsessively, as though simply being clean could get the stink of chemicals and blood and death out. Nothing, he knew, would wash away the new set of memories and he wished fiercely that there had been some excuse to have used magic so that he could have avoided using the loathsome Muggle weapons. But there had been no evidence of wizards mixed up in this. Just your usual human violence, he thought. And without wizard involvement, he was restricted to Muggle means of fighting. It would make no difference to the victim, though, whether he had used magic or not. Dead was dead, no matter how.

Ginny, being Ginny, simply followed him up. She handed him a warm towel when he got out and said coolly, "I can't help you, Harry, if you don't tell me what's going on."

"You are helping," he answered. "You're the one that persuaded Ragnok to confiscate the gold in the Death Eaters' vaults. You're the one that cleaned out that dodgy pub in Knockturn Alley."

"Bill and Ron did most of that," she replied. "And that's only a tiny part of everything you're trying to do. You can't go on like this, keeping everything inside and juggling all the pieces yourself."

He sat down on the bed as his knees didn't want to hold him up just then. Juggling was exactly what he felt he was doing: juggling dozens of balls, each of which was on fire and any of which, he was sure, might come crashing down to burn him at any moment. The words, when they came, seem to come from some other person.

"Children died today," he said, "two of them. And I couldn't stop it." So he told her the whole of it, the chaos and the trampling crowds, the burning buildings, the desecration of holy places, and the murders of the innocent. "I don't know," he concluded, "if the Death Eaters were behind it or the Alliance. No matter how much I fight, no matter how long, there's always more. It grows, a cancer of evil. We stop it one place and it shows up in another. Sometimes I think I should just go and confront Hayden like I did Voldemort."

"It might come to that," Ginny answered. Her face was pale, but utterly composed. "I will be there, if you do, and you're not telling me that I have stand on the sidelines like a good little wife either."

"I couldn't bear it, if I lost you." He stared at her and willed her to understand.

"You won't, Harry," she said quietly. "I'll be alright if I'm with you. I've known that since I was eleven and you were twelve."

She sank down on the bed beside him and kissed him on his brow in the way that mothers kiss their children to comfort themselves that their children will be safe; but he wasn't having any of that. Safety was an illusion he'd given up on a long time ago and what he wanted from her wasn't mothering in any case.

* * *

The sun was well up when Snape entered the Headmaster's office. The next moments, he was sure, would prove extremely unpleasant and he found himself wondering whether he would leave the office alive. That was the problem, he thought, with idealists. They might see hard cold necessity and even act upon it, but they always took the consequences quite badly, and Potter was among the worst that way.

Having nerved himself up for the coming encounter, something he would never have thought he would have to do, he was quite taken aback to find Ginny Weasley sitting behind the Headmaster's desk instead. He opened his mouth to order her out; she was, after all, a former pupil of his, and she looked as young as her own daughter in the misty morning light.

"Harry's not up yet," she said, before he could speak.

He stared at her in the way in which he quelled the most fractious students and noted that the blue robe she wore was way too long for her and almost certainly belonged to her husband.

Her vivid red hair cascaded down past her shoulders in a fiery fall, but that was nothing to the fire in her brown eyes when she tried to send him out.

"I must see him now," he demanded coldly. That she was not headmistress, or teacher and held no post at Hogwarts, that the mere fact that she was the headmaster's wife gave her no authority was on the tip of his tongue, but before he could continue she said swiftly, "Come back later."

He came near to shouting then, but as Potter himself appeared on the spiral stairs from the chamber above, he controlled his already frayed nerves and watched the Boy's swift descent with unease. It seemed clear that he had been awakened only moments earlier as he wore only an ancient pair of jeans and boots. He held a t-shirt in hand, which he shrugged into only upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, after which he strode over to place a hand on his wife's shoulder. The bright white morning light, which on any other face would cruelly expose every blemish, merely served to illumine the pure youthfulness and beauty of the face Snape loathed more than any other but the one of which the Boy's was the duplicate. It would be easy, he knew, to once again react as though the man before him was still the rash boy he had taught, but he knew better than to fall into that trap. The face might be young still, but the muscled body was not that of a teenager and the brilliant green eyes were shadowed, the thoughts behind them shuttered.





For a moment, Snape could not suppress the sudden stab of sheer envy for the man who had everything Snape would never have: grace of form and face, a beautiful wife, the Headmaster's position, fame, and something else Snape had never even remotely approached, even as a child- an innocent soul. He could not help but enjoy shattering the man's control as he had shattered the other the night before.

"I have done as you asked," Snape said. "They have accepted me back, as you wished."

The swift gleam of triumph in the green eyes, the look of the hunter whose prey is in its sight, was replaced instantly by horror and guilt when Snape continued. "You ought to be more careful who you send on what mission and when, though. Your friend Carter got caught following one of them last night."

"I didn't send him..." Potter started to say and then caught himself, shaking his head in distress. "Where is he? What have they done to him?"

"At a Muggle pub by the river," Snape answered. "And he's alive, for the moment, but I can't guarantee how long."

Something must have slipped past his carefully shielded face and mind, for Potter asked furiously, "What have you done?"

"What you wanted," Snape replied coldly. "It was necessary to prove to them they could trust me. And," he added, "I made sure they didn't kill him. They would have had I not persuaded them he would be more use alive than dead."

"If you hurry," Snape continued, "you can get him out now, while the guard is down to two and before they bring in reinforcements for the trap."

"What trap?" the woman asked. Snape stared at her briefly in astonishment. It seemed, from her expression, quite possible that she might be the one to murder him rather than Potter.

"The one for him," Snape answered. Looking at Potter, he repeated, "For you. It was the only way to persuade them not to kill him. He would serve as bait for you. The other Death Eaters, they all knew instantly that I was right. They all knew you would never leave your friend to be tortured and killed. It was Malfoy who persuaded Hayden I was right."

The look in the green eyes was exactly the one Snape had anticipated; fury combined with horror and guilt. Potter moved swiftly, not drawing his wand, and Snape thought the Boy meant to attack him with his bare hands. Instead, his leap carried him into the air and he transformed, blurring into a winged crimson marvel, which disappeared in a flash leaving behind a single feather of gold.

He drew a deep breath of relief and said unintentionally aloud, "I forgot about that. I didn't know he could do that on his own," he added in puzzlement. He could recall that Dumbledore had transformed the boy once, but not having ever seen him take that shape again.

"I didn't know you knew about that at all," Ginny replied. "That was cruel," she added abruptly, "the way you told him."

"Such news can never be anything but cruel," Snape answered.

"No," she said quietly, "but you enjoyed it, causing him pain. If the trap worked, I wonder if you'd mind?"

"Unlike your husband, madam, I am an evil man," Snape said. "He suffers because he has never yet learned to control his emotions and he has never yet subdued his arrogance. He thinks he can do what Dumbledore did; but he has not the brains, nor the talent, nor the subtlety to replace him. And Dumbledore could never see that, because he was always blinded in that one thing - his love for Harry Potter."

"It's you who are blind, Professor Snape," the woman replied. "You are so clever, so talented, so subtle and so pathetically small."

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